Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope [an ebook reader .TXT] 📗

if Frank did not marry money. Ruin there was, and would be, but it had been brought about by no sin of Frank’s.

“Do you remember about her birth, Frank?” he said, at last.

“Yes, sir; everything. She told me all she knew; and Dr. Thorne finished the story.”

“And what do you think of it?”

“It is a pity, and a misfortune. It might, perhaps, have been a reason why you or my mother should not have had Mary in the house many years ago; but it cannot make any difference now.”

Frank had not meant to lean so heavily on his father; but he did do so. The story had never been told to Lady Arabella; was not even known to her now, positively, and on good authority. But Mr. Gresham had always known it. If Mary’s birth was so great a stain upon her, why had he brought her into his house among his children?

“It is a misfortune, Frank; a very great misfortune. It will not do for you and me to ignore birth; too much of the value of one’s position depends upon it.”

“But what was Mr. Moffat’s birth?” said Frank, almost with scorn; “or what Miss Dunstable’s?” he would have added, had it not been that his father had not been concerned in that sin of wedding him to the oil of Lebanon.

“True, Frank. But yet, what you would mean to say is not true. We must take the world as we find it. Were you to marry a rich heiress, were her birth even as low as that of poor Mary⁠—”

“Don’t call her poor Mary, father; she is not poor. My wife will have a right to take rank in the world, however she was born.”

“Well⁠—poor in that way. But were she an heiress, the world would forgive her birth on account of her wealth.”

“The world is very complaisant, sir.”

“You must take it as you find it, Frank. I only say that such is the fact. If Porlock were to marry the daughter of a shoeblack, without a farthing, he would make a mésalliance; but if the daughter of the shoeblack had half a million of money, nobody would dream of saying so. I am stating no opinion of my own: I am only giving you the world’s opinion.”

“I don’t give a straw for the world.”

“That is a mistake, my boy; you do care for it, and would be very foolish if you did not. What you mean is, that, on this particular point, you value your love more than the world’s opinion.”

“Well, yes, that is what I mean.”

But the squire, though he had been very lucid in his definition, had got no nearer to his object; had not even yet ascertained what his own object was. This marriage would be ruinous to Greshamsbury; and yet, what was he to say against it, seeing that the ruin had been his fault, and not his son’s?

“You could let me have a farm; could you not, sir? I was thinking of about six or seven hundred acres. I suppose it could be managed somehow?”

“A farm?” said the father, abstractedly.

“Yes, sir. I must do something for my living. I should make less of a mess of that than of anything else. Besides, it would take such a time to be an attorney, or a doctor, or anything of that sort.”

Do something for his living! And was the heir of Greshamsbury come to this⁠—the heir and only son? Whereas, he, the squire, had succeeded at an earlier age than Frank’s to an unembarrassed income of fourteen thousand pounds a year! The reflection was very hard to bear.

“Yes: I dare say you could have a farm:” and then he threw himself back in his chair, closing his eyes. Then, after a while, rose again, and walked hurriedly about the room. “Frank,” he said, at last, standing opposite to his son, “I wonder what you think of me?”

“Think of you, sir?” ejaculated Frank.

“Yes; what do you think of me, for having thus ruined you. I wonder whether you hate me?”

Frank, jumping up from his chair, threw his arms round his father’s neck. “Hate you, sir? How can you speak so cruelly? You know well that I love you. And, father, do not trouble yourself about the estate for my sake. I do not care for it; I can be just as happy without it. Let the girls have what is left, and I will make my own way in the world, somehow. I will go to Australia; yes, sir, that will be best. I and Mary will both go. Nobody will care about her birth there. But, father, never say, never think, that I do not love you!”

The squire was too much moved to speak at once, so he sat down again, and covered his face with his hands. Frank went on pacing the room, till, gradually, his first idea recovered possession of his mind, and the remembrance of his father’s grief faded away. “May I tell Mary,” he said at last, “that you consent to our marriage? It will make her so happy.”

But the squire was not prepared to say this. He was pledged to his wife to do all that he could to oppose it; and he himself thought, that if anything could consummate the family ruin, it would be this marriage.

“I cannot say that, Frank; I cannot say that. What would you both live on? It would be madness.”

“We would go to Australia,” answered he, bitterly. “I have just said so.”

“Oh, no, my boy; you cannot do that. You must not throw the old place up altogether. There is no other one but you, Frank; and we have lived here now for so many, many years.”

“But if we cannot live here any longer, father?”

“But for this scheme of yours, we might do so. I will give up everything to you, the management of the estate, the park, all the land we have in hand, if you will give up this fatal scheme. For,