Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope [popular e readers txt] 📗

“I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn’t thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then.”

“Yes, they are,” said the doctor. “We don’t interfere so much nowadays.”

“I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born⁠—and, indeed, when all of them were born⁠—But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way.”

“Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger.”

“So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don’t see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron.”

“There could be no possible objection, I said.”

“Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money.”

“But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?”

“Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it⁠—though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault.”

“The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him.”

“He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?⁠—”

But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. “I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me.” All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship’s brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her.

“Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left.”

“You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella,” said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley.

As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects⁠—with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury⁠—they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other.

The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer’s daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world⁠—as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned⁠—and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor’s auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury.

Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. “Well, my lady,” he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat⁠—all the world called Lady Scatcherd “my lady,”⁠—“and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house.”

“You may well call them long, doctor. They’re long enough surely.”

“But not too long. Come, now, I won’t have you complaining. You don’t mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won’t believe you.”

“Eh; well; wretched! I don’t know as I’m wretched. It’d be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me.”

“I think it would, almost.” The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke.

“And I didn’t mean to be wicked. I’m very thankful for everything⁠—leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like.”

“Lonely! not more lonely