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

the ruin of one that I love so well.

Let me have but one word to say that I am released from my promise, and I will tell my uncle that the matter between us is over. It will be painful for us at first; those occasional meetings which must take place will distress us, but that will wear off. We shall always think well of each other, and why should we not be friends? This, doubtless, cannot be done without inward wounds; but such wounds are in God’s hands, and He can cure them.

I know what your first feelings will be on reading this letter; but do not answer it in obedience to first feelings. Think over it, think of your father, and all you owe him, of your old name, your old family, and of what the world expects from you. [Mary was forced to put her hand to her eyes, to save her paper from her falling tears, as she found herself thus repeating, nearly word for word, the arguments that had been used by Lady Arabella.] Think of these things, coolly, if you can, but, at any rate, without passion: and then let me have one word in answer. One word will suffice.

I have but to add this: do not allow yourself to think that my heart will ever reproach you. It cannot reproach you for doing that which I myself suggest. [Mary’s logic in this was very false; but she was not herself aware of it.] I will never reproach you either in word or thought; and as for all others, it seems to me that the world agrees that we have hitherto been wrong. The world, I hope, will be satisfied when we have obeyed it.

God bless you, dearest Frank! I shall never call you so again; but it would be a pretence were I to write otherwise in this letter. Think of this, and then let me have one line.

Your affectionate friend,

Mary Thorne.

P.S.⁠—Of course I cannot be at dear Beatrice’s marriage; but when they come back to the parsonage, I shall see her. I am sure they will both be happy, because they are so good. I need hardly say that I shall think of them on their wedding day.

When she had finished her letter, she addressed it plainly, in her own somewhat bold handwriting, to Francis N. Gresham, Jun., Esq., and then took it herself to the little village post-office. There should be nothing underhand about her correspondence: all the Greshamsbury world should know of it⁠—that world of which she had spoken in her letter⁠—if that world so pleased. Having put her penny label on it, she handed it, with an open brow and an unembarrassed face, to the baker’s wife, who was Her Majesty’s postmistress at Greshamsbury; and, having so finished her work, she returned to see the table prepared for her uncle’s dinner. “I will say nothing to him,” said she to herself, “till I get the answer. He will not talk to me about it, so why should I trouble him?”

XLIII The Race of Scatcherd Becomes Extinct

It will not be imagined, at any rate by feminine readers, that Mary’s letter was written off at once, without alterations and changes, or the necessity for a fair copy. Letters from one young lady to another are doubtless written in this manner, and even with them it might sometimes be better if more patience had been taken; but with Mary’s first letter to her lover⁠—her first love-letter, if love-letter it can be called⁠—much more care was used. It was copied and recopied, and when she returned from posting it, it was read and reread.

“It is very cold,” she said to herself; “he will think I have no heart, that I have never loved him!” And then she all but resolved to run down to the baker’s wife, and get back her letter, that she might alter it. “But it will be better so,” she said again. “If I touched his feelings now, he would never bring himself to leave me. It is right that I should be cold to him. I should be false to myself if I tried to move his love⁠—I, who have nothing to give him in return for it.” And so she made no further visit to the post-office, and the letter went on its way.

We will now follow its fortunes for a short while, and explain how it was that Mary received no answer for a week; a week, it may well be imagined, of terrible suspense to her. When she took it to the post-office, she doubtless thought that the baker’s wife had nothing to do but to send it up to the house at Greshamsbury, and that Frank would receive it that evening, or, at latest, early on the following morning. But this was by no means so. The epistle was posted on a Friday afternoon, and it behoved the baker’s wife to send it into Silverbridge⁠—Silverbridge being the post-town⁠—so that all due formalities, as ordered by the Queen’s Government, might there be perfected. Now, unfortunately, the post-boy had taken his departure before Mary reached the shop, and it was not, therefore, dispatched till Saturday. Sunday was always a dies non with the Greshamsbury Mercury, and, consequently, Frank’s letter was not delivered at the house till Monday morning; at which time Mary had for two long days been waiting with weary heart for the expected answer.

Now Frank had on that morning gone up to London by the early train, with his future brother-in-law, Mr. Oriel. In order to accomplish this, they had left Greshamsbury for Barchester exactly as the post-boy was leaving Silverbridge for Greshamsbury.

“I should like to wait for my letters,” Mr. Oriel had said, when the journey was being discussed.

“Nonsense,” Frank had answered. “Who ever got a letter that was worth waiting for?” and so Mary was doomed to a week of