Chapter 6 Frank Gresham’s Early Loves
It was, we have said, the first of July, and such being the time of the year, the ladies, after sitting in the drawing-room for half an hour or so, began to think that they might as well go through the drawing-room windows on to the lawn. First one slipped out a little way, and then another; and then they got on to the lawn; and then they talked of their hats; till, by degrees, the younger ones of the party, and the last of the elder also, found themselves dressed for walking.
The windows, both of the drawing-room, and the dining-room, looked out on to the lawn; and it was only natural that the girls should walk from the former to the latter. It was only natural that they, being there, should tempt their swains to come to them by the sight of their broad-brimmed hats and evening dresses; and natural, also, that the temptation should not be resisted. The squire, therefore, and the elder male guests soon found themselves alone round their wine.
‘Upon my word, we were enchanted by your eloquence, Mr Gresham, were we not?’ said Miss Oriel, turning to one of the De Courcy girls who was with her.
Miss Oriel was a very pretty girl; a little older than Frank Gresham,— perhaps a year or so. She had dark hair, large round dark eyes, a nose a little too broad, a pretty mouth, a beautiful chin, and, as we have said before, a large fortune;— that is, moderately large — let us say twenty thousand pounds, there or thereabouts. She and her brother had been living at Greshamsbury for the last two years, the living having been purchased for him — such were Mr Gresham’s necessities — during the lifetime of the last old incumbent. Miss Oriel was in every respect a nice neighbour; she was good-humoured, lady-like, lively, neither too clever nor too stupid, belonging to a good family, sufficiently fond of this world’s good things, as became a pretty young lady so endowed, and sufficiently fond, also, of the other world’s good things, as became the mistress of a clergyman’s house.
‘Indeed, yes;’ said the Lady Margaretta. ‘Frank is very eloquent. When he described our rapid journey from London, he nearly moved me to tears. But well as he talks, I think he carves better.’
‘I wish you’d had to do it, Margaretta; both the carving and the talking.’
‘Thank you, Frank; you’re very civil.’
‘But there’s one comfort, Miss Oriel; it’s over now, and done. A fellow can’t be made to come of age twice.’
‘But you’ll take your degree, Mr Gresham; and then, of course, there’ll be another speech; and then you’ll get married, and there will be two or three more.’
‘I’ll speak at your wedding, Miss Oriel, before I do at my own.’
‘I shall not have the slightest objection. It will be so kind of you to patronize my husband.’
‘But, by Jove, will he patronize me? I know you’ll marry some awful bigwig, or some terribly clever fellow; won’t she, Margaretta?’
‘Miss Oriel was saying so much in praise of you before you came out,’ said Margaretta, ‘that I began to think that her mind was intent at remaining at Greshamsbury all her life.’
Frank blushed, and Patience laughed. There was but a year’s difference in their age; but Frank, however, was still a boy, though Patience was fully a woman.
‘I am ambitious, Lady Margaretta,’ said she. ‘I own it; but I am moderate in my ambition. I do love Greshamsbury, and if Mr Gresham had a younger brother, perhaps, you know —’
‘Another just like myself, I suppose,’ said Frank.
‘Oh, yes. I could not possibly wish for any change.’
‘Just as eloquent as you are, Frank,’ said the Lady Margaretta.
‘And as good a carver,’ said Patience.
‘Miss Bateson has lost her heart to him for ever, because of his carving,’ said the Lady Margaretta.
‘But perfection never repeats itself,’ said Patience.
‘Well, you see, I have not got any brothers,’ said Frank; ‘so all I can do is to sacrifice myself.’
‘Upon my word, Mr Gresham, I am under more than ordinary obligations to you; I am indeed,’ said Miss Oriel, stood still in the path, and made a very graceful curtsy. ‘Dear me! only think, Lady Margaretta, that I should be honoured with an offer from the heir the very moment he is legally entitled to make one.’
‘And done with so much true gallantry, too,’ said the other; ‘expressing himself quite willing to postpone any views of his own for your advantage.’
‘Yes;’ said Patience; ‘that’s what I value so much: had he loved me now, there would have been no merit on his part; but a sacrifice you know —’
‘Yes, ladies are so fond of such sacrifices, Frank, upon my word, I had no idea you were so very excellent at making speeches.’
‘Well,’ said Frank, ‘I shouldn’t have said sacrifice, that was a slip; what I meant was —’
‘Oh, dear me,’ said Patience, ‘wait a minute; now we are going to have a regular declaration. Lady Margaretta, you haven’t a scent-bottle, have you? And if I should faint, where’s the garden-chair?’
‘Oh, but I’m not going to make a declaration at all,’ said Frank.
‘Are you not? Oh! Now, Lady Margaretta, I appeal to you; did you not understand him to say something very particular?’
‘Certainly, I thought nothing could be plainer,’ said the Lady Margaretta.
‘And so, Mr Gresham, I am to be told, that after all it means nothing,’ said Patience, putting her handkerchief up to her eyes.
‘It means that you are an excellent hand at quizzing a fellow like me.’
‘Quizzing! No; but you are an excellent hand at deceiving a poor girl like me. Well, remember, I have got a witness; here is Lady Margaretta, who heard it all. What a pity it is that my brother is a clergyman. You calculated on that, I know; or you would never had served me so.’
She said so just as her brother joined them, or rather just as he had joined Lady Margaretta de Courcy; for her ladyship and Mr Oriel walked on in advance by themselves. Lady Margaretta had found it rather dull work, making a third in Miss Oriel’s flirtation with her cousin; the more so as she was quite accustomed to take a principal part herself in all such transactions. She therefore not unwillingly walked on with Mr Oriel. Mr Oriel, it must be conceived, was not a common, everyday parson, but had points about him which made him quite fit to associate with an earl’s daughter. And as it was known that he was not a marrying man, having very exalted ideas on that point connected with his profession, the Lady Margaretta, of course, had the less objection to trust herself alone with him.
But directly she was gone, Miss Oriel’s tone of banter ceased. It was very well making a fool of a lad of twenty-one when others were by; but there might be danger in it when they were alone together.
‘I don’t know any position on earth more enviable than yours, Mr Gresham,’ said she, quite soberly and earnestly; ‘how happy you ought to be.’
‘What, in being laughed at by you, Miss Oriel, for pretending to be a man, when you choose to make out that I am only a boy? I can bear to be laughed at pretty well generally, but I can’t say that your laughing at me makes me feel so happy as you say I ought to be.’
Frank was evidently of an opinion totally different from that of Miss Oriel. Miss Oriel, when she found herself tete-a-tete with him, thought it was time to give over flirting; Frank, however, imagined that it was just the moment for him to begin. So he spoke and looked very languishing, and put on him quite the airs of an Orlando.
‘Oh, Mr Gresham, such good friends as you and I may laugh at each other, may we not?’
‘You may do what you like, Miss Oriel: beautiful women I believe always may; but you remember what the spider said to the fly, “That which is sport to you, may be death to me.”’ Anyone looking at Frank’s face as he said that, might well have imagined that he was breaking his very heart for love of Miss Oriel. Oh, Master Frank! Master Frank! if you act thus in the green leaf, what will you do in the dry?
While Frank Gresham was thus misbehaving himself, and going on as though to him belonged the privilege of falling in love with pretty faces, as it does to ploughboys and other ordinary people, his great interests were not forgotten by those guardian saints who were so anxious to shower down on his head all manner of temporal blessings.
Another conversation had taken place in the Greshamsbury gardens, in which nothing light had been allowed to present itself; nothing frivolous had been spoken. The countess, the Lady Arabella, and Miss Gresham had been talking over Greshamsbury affairs, and they had latterly been assisted by the Lady Amelia, than whom no De Courcy ever born was more wise, more solemn, more prudent, more proud. The ponderosity of her qualifications for nobility was sometimes too much even for her mother, and her devotion for the peerage was such, that she would certainly have declined a seat in heaven if offered to her without the promise that it should be in the upper house.
The subject first discussed had been Augusta’s prospects. Mr Moffat had been invited to Courcy Castle, and Augusta had been taken thither to meet him, with the express intention on the part of the countess, that they should be man and wife. The countess had been careful to make it intelligible to her sister-inlaw and niece, that though Mr Moffat would do excellently well for a daughter of Greshamsbury, he could not be allowed to raise his eyes to a female scion of Courcy Castle.
‘Not that we personally dislike him,’ said the Lady Amelia; ‘but rank has its drawbacks, Augusta.’ As the Lady Amelia was now somewhat nearer forty than thirty, and was still allowed to walk,
‘In maiden meditation, fancy free,’
it may be presumed that in her case rank had been found to have serious drawbacks.
To this Augusta said nothing in objection. Whether desirable by a De Courcy or not, the match was to be hers, and there was no doubt whatever as to the wealth of the man whose name she was to take; the offer had been made, not to her, but to her aunt; the acceptance had been expressed, not by her, but by her aunt. Had she thought of recapitulating in her memory all that had ever passed between Mr Moffat and herself, she would have found that it did not amount to more than the most ordinary conversation between chance partners in a ball-room. Nevertheless, she was to be Mrs Moffat. All that Mr Gresham knew of him was, that when he met the young man for the first and only time in his life, he found him extremely hard to deal with in the matter of money. He had insisted on having ten thousand pounds with his wife, and at last refused to go on with the match unless he got six thousand pounds. This latter sum the poor squire had undertaken to pay him.
Mr Moffat had been for a year or two MP for Barchester; having been assisted in his views on that ancient city by all the De Courcy interest. He was a Whig, of course. Not only had Barchester, departing from the light of other days, returned a Whig member of Parliament, but it was declared, that at the next election, now near at hand, a Radical would be sent up, an man pledged to the ballot, to economies of all sorts, one who would carry out Barchester politics in all their abrupt, obnoxious, pestilent virulence. This was one Scatcherd, a great railway contractor, a man who was a native of Barchester, who had bought property in the neighbourhood, and who had achieved a sort of popularity there and elsewhere by the violence of his democratic opposition to the aristocracy. According to this man’s political tenets, the Conservatives should be laughed at as fools, but the Whigs should be hated as knaves.
Mr Moffat was now coming down to Courcy Castle to look after his electioneering interests, and Miss Gresham was to return with her aunt to meet him. The countess was very anxious that Frank should also accompany them. Her great doctrine, that he must marry money, had been laid down with authority, and received without doubt. She now pushed it further, and said that no time should be lost; that he should not only marry money, but do so very early in life; there was always a danger in delay. The Greshams — of course she alluded only to the males of the family — were foolishly soft-hearted; no one could say what might happen. There was that Miss Thorne always at Greshamsbury.
This was more than Lady Arabella could stand. She protested that there was at least no ground for supposing that Frank would absolutely disgrace his family.
Still the countess continued: ‘Perhaps not,’ she said; ‘but when young people of perfectly different ranks were allowed to associate together, there was no saying what danger might arise. They all know that old Mr Bateson — the present Mr Bateson’s father — had gone off with the governess; and young Mr Everbeery, near Taunton, had only the other day married a cook-maid.’
‘But Mr Everbeery was always drunk, aunt,’ said Augusta, feeling called upon to say something for her brother.
‘Never mind, my dear; these things do happen, and they are very dreadful.’
‘Horrible!’ said the Lady Amelia; ‘diluting the best blood of the country, and paving the way for revolution.’ This was very grand; but, nevertheless, Augusta could not but feel that she perhaps might be about to dilute the blood of her coming children in marrying the tailor’s son. She consoled herself by trusting that, at any rate, she paved the way for no revolution.
‘When a thing is so necessary,’ said the countess, ‘it cannot be done too soon. Now, Arabella, I don’t say that anything will come of it; but it may; Miss Dunstable is coming down to us next week. Now, we all know that when old Dunstable died last year, he left over two hundred thousand to his daughter.’
‘It is a great deal of money, certainly,’ said Lady Arabella.
‘It wold pay off everything, and a great deal more,’ said the countess.
‘It was ointment, was it not, aunt?’ said Augusta.
‘I believe so, my dear; something called the ointment of Lebanon, or something of that sort: but there’s no doubt about the money.’
‘But how old is she, Robina?’ asked the anxious mother.
‘About thirty, I suppose; but I don’t think that much signifies.’
‘Thirty,’ said Lady Arabella, rather dolefully. ‘And what is she like? I think that Frank already begins to like girls that are young and pretty.’
‘But surely, aunt,’ said the Lady Amelia, ‘now that he has come to man’s discretion, he will not refuse to consider all that he owes to his family. A Mr Gresham of Greshamsbury has a position to support.’ The De Courcy scion spoke these last words in the sort of tone that a parish clergyman would use, in warning some young farmer’s son that he should not put himself on an equal footing with the ploughboys.
It was at last decided that the countess should herself convey to Frank a special invitation to Courcy Castle, and that when she got him there, she should do all that lay in her power to prevent his return to Cambridge, and to further the Dunstable marriage.
‘We did think of Miss Dunstable for Porlock, once,’ she said, naively; ‘but when we found that it wasn’t much over two hundred thousand, why that idea fell to the ground.’ The terms on which the De Courcy blood might be allowed to dilute itself were, it must be presumed, very high indeed.
Augusta was sent off to find her brother, and to send him to the countess in the small drawing-room. Here the countess was to have her tea, apart from the outer common world, and her, without interruption, she was to teach her great lesson to her nephew.
Augusta did find her brother, and found him in the worst of bad society — so at least the stern De Courcys would have thought. Old Mr Bateson and the governess, Mr Everbeery and his cook’s diluted blood, and ways paved for revolutions, all presented themselves to Augusta’s mind when she found her brother walking with no other company than Mary Thorne, and walking with her, too, in much too close proximity.
How he had contrived to be off with the old love and so soon on with the new, or rather, to be off with the new love and again on with the old, we will not stop to inquire. Had Lady Arabella, in truth, known all her son’s doings in this way, could she have guessed how very nigh he had approached the iniquity of old Mr Bateson, and to the folly of young Mr Everbeery, she would in truth have been in a hurry to send him off to Courcy Castle and Miss Dunstable. Some days before the commencement of our story, young Frank had sworn in sober earnest — in what he intended for his most sober earnest, his most earnest sobriety — that he loved Mary Thorne with a love for which words could find no sufficient expression — with a love that could never die, never grow dim, never become less, which no opposition on the part of others could extinguish, which no opposition on her part could repel; that he might, could, would, and should have her for his wife, and that if she told him she didn’t love him, he would —
‘Oh, oh! Mary; do you love me? Don’t you love me? Won’t you love me? Say you will. Oh, Mary, dearest Mary, will you? won’t you? do you? don’t you? Come now, you have a right to give a fellow an answer.’
With such eloquence had the heir of Greshamsbury, when not yet twenty-one years of age, attempted to possess himself of the affections of the doctor’s niece. And yet three days afterwards he was quite ready to flirt with Miss Oriel.
If such things are done in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?
And what had Mary said when those fervent protestations of an undying love had been thrown at her feet? Mary, it must be remembered, was very nearly of the same age as Frank; but, as I and others have so often said before, ‘Women grow on the sunny side of the wall.’ Though Frank was only a boy, it behoved Mary to be something more than a girl. Frank might be allowed, without laying himself open to much reproach, to throw all of what he believed to be his heart into a protestation of what he believed to be love; but Mary was in duty bound to be more thoughtful, more reticent, more aware of the facts of their position, more careful of her own feelings, and more careful also of his.
And yet she could not put him down as another young lady might put down another young gentleman. It is very seldom that a young man, unless he be tipsy, assumes an unwelcome familiarity in his early acquaintance with any girl; but when acquaintance has been long and intimate, familiarities must follow as a matter of course. Frank and Mary had been so much together in his holidays, had so constantly consorted together as boys and girls, that, as regarded her, he had not that innate fear of a woman which represses a young man’s tongue; and she was so used to his good-humour, his fun, and high jovial spirits, and was, withal, so fond of them and him, that it was very difficult for her to mark with accurate feeling, and stop with reserved brow, the shade of change from a boy’s liking to a man’s love.
And Beatrice, too, had done harm in this matter. With a spirit painfully unequal to that of her grand relatives, she had quizzed Mary and Frank about their early flirtations. This she had done; but had instinctively avoided doing so before her mother and sister, and had thus made a secret of it, as it were, between herself, Mary, and her brother;— had given currency, as it were, to the idea that there might be something serious between the two. Not that Beatrice had ever wished to promote a marriage between them, or had even thought of such a thing. She was girlish, thoughtless, imprudent, inartistic, and very unlike a De Courcy. Very unlike a De Courcy she was in all that; but, nevertheless, she had the De Courcy veneration for blood, and, more than that, she had the Gresham feeling joined to that of the De Courcys. The Lady Amelia would not for worlds have had the De Courcy blood defiled; but gold she thought could not defile. Now Beatrice was ashamed of her sister’s marriage, and had often declared, within her own heart, that nothing could have made her marry a Mr Moffat.
She had said so also to Mary, and Mary had told her that she was right. Mary was also proud of blood, was proud of her uncle’s blood, and the two girls talked together in all the warmth of girlish confidence, of the great glories of family traditions and family honours. Beatrice had talked in utter ignorance as to her friend’s birth; and Mary, poor Mary, she had talked, being as ignorant; but not without a strong suspicion that, at some future time, a day of sorrow would tell her some fearful truth.
On one point Mary’s mind was strongly made up. No wealth, no mere worldly advantage could make any one her superior. If she were born a gentlewoman, then was she fit to match with any gentleman. Let the most wealthy man in Europe pour all his wealth at her feet, she could, if so inclined, give him back at any rate more than that. That offered at her feet she knew she would never tempt her to yield up the fortress of her heart, the guardianship of her soul, the possession of her mind; not that alone, nor that, even, as any possible slightest fraction of a make-weight.
If she were born a gentlewoman! And then came to her mind those curious questions; what makes a gentleman? what makes a gentlewoman? What is the inner reality, the spiritualised quintessence of that privilege in the world which men call rank, which forces the thousands and hundreds of thousands to bow down before the few elect? What gives, or can give it, or should give it?’
And she answered the question. Absolute, intrinsic, acknowledged, individual merit must give it to its possessor, let him be whom, and what, and whence he might. So far the spirit of democracy was strong with her. Beyond this it could be had but by inheritance, received as it were second-hand, or twenty-second hand. And so far the spirit of aristocracy was strong within her. All this she had, as may be imagined, learnt in early years from her uncle; and all this she was at great pains to teach Beatrice Gresham, the chosen of her heart.
When Frank declared that Mary had a right to give him an answer, he meant that he had a right to expect one. Mary acknowledged this right, and gave it to him.
‘Mr Gresham,’ she said.
‘Oh, Mary; Mr Gresham!’
‘Yes, Mr Gresham. It must be Mr Gresham, after that. And, moreover, it must be Miss Thorne as well.’
‘I’ll be shot if it shall, Mary.’
‘Well; I can’t say that I shall be shot if it be not so; but if it be not so, if you do not agree that it shall be so, I shall be turned out of Greshamsbury.’
‘What! you mean my mother?’ said Frank.
‘Indeed! I mean no such thing,’ said Mary, with a flash from her eye that made Frank almost start. ‘I mean no such thing. I mean you, not your mother. I am not in the least afraid of Lady Arabella; but I am afraid of you.’
‘Afraid of me, Mary!’
‘Miss Thorne; pray, pray, remember. It must be Miss Thorne. Do not turn me out of Greshamsbury. Do not separate me from Beatrice. It is you that will drive me out; no one else. I could stand my ground against your mother — I feel I could; but I cannot stand against you if you treat me otherwise than — than —’
‘Otherwise than what? I want to treat you as the girl I have chosen from all the world as my wife.’
‘I am sorry you should so soon have found it necessary to make a choice. But, Mr Gresham, we must not joke about this at present. I am sure you would not willingly injure me; but if you speak to me, or of me, again in that way, you will injure me, injure me so much that I shall be forced to leave Greshamsbury, in my own defence. I know you are too generous to drive me to that.’
And so the interview had ended. Frank, of course, went upstairs to see if his new pocket-pistols were all ready, properly cleaned, loaded, and capped, should he find, after a few days’ experience, that prolonged existence was unendurable.
However, he managed to live through the subsequent period; doubtless with a view of preventing any appointment to his father’s guests.
Chapter 7 The Doctor’s Garden
Mary had contrived to quiet her lover with considerable propriety of demeanour. Then came on her the somewhat harder task of quieting herself. Young ladies, on the whole, are perhaps quite as susceptible of the after feelings as young gentlemen are. Now Frank Gresham, was handsome, amiable, by no means a fool in intellect, excellent in heart; and he was, moreover, a gentleman, being the son of Mr Gresham of Greshamsbury. Mary had been, as it were, brought up to love him. Had aught but good happened to him, she would have cried as for a brother. It must not therefore be supposed that when Frank Gresham told her that he loved her, she had heard it altogether unconcerned.
He had not, perhaps, made his declaration with that propriety of language in which such scenes are generally described as being carried on. Ladies may perhaps think that Mary should have been deterred, by the very boyishness of his manner, from thinking at all seriously on the subject. His ‘will you, won’t you — do you, don’t you?’ does not sound like the poetic raptures of a highly inspired lover. But, nevertheless, there had been warmth, and a reality in it not in itself repulsive; and Mary’s anger — anger? no, not anger — her objections to the declarations were probably not based on the absurdity of her lover’s language.
We are inclined to think that these matters are not always discussed by mortal lovers in the poetically passionate phraseology which is generally thought to be appropriate for their description. A man cannot well describe that which he has never seen or heard; but the absolute words and acts of one such scene did once come to the author’s knowledge. The couple were by no means plebeian, or below the proper standard of high bearing and high breeding; they were a handsome pair, living among educated people, sufficiently given to mental pursuits, and in every way what a pair of polite lovers ought to be. The all-important conversation passed in this wise. The site of the passionate scene was the sea-shore, on which they were walking, in autumn.
Gentleman. ‘Well, Miss —, the long and short of it is this: here I am; you can take me or leave me.’
Lady-scratching a gutter on the sand with her parasol, so as to allow a little salt water to run out of one hole into another. ‘Of course, I know that’s all nonsense.’
Gentleman. ‘Nonsense! By Jove, it isn’t nonsense at all: come, Jane; here I am: come, at any rate you can say something.’
Lady. ‘Yes, I suppose I can say something.’
Gentleman. ‘Well, which is it to be; take me or leave me?’
Lady — very slowly, and with a voice perhaps hardly articulate, carrying on, at the same time, her engineering works on a wider scale. ‘Well, I don’t exactly want to leave you.’
And so the matter was settled: settled with much propriety and satisfaction; and both the lady and gentleman would have thought, had they ever thought about the matter at all, that this, the sweetest moment of their lives, had been graced by all the poetry by which such moments ought to be hallowed.
When Mary had, as she thought, properly subdued young Frank, the offer of whose love she, at any rate, knew was, at such a period of his life, an utter absurdity, then she found it necessary to subdue herself. What happiness on earth could be greater than the possession of such a love, had the true possession been justly and honestly within her reach? What man could be more lovable than such a man as would grow from such a boy? And then, did she not love him — love him already, without waiting for any change? Did she not feel that there was that about him, about him and about herself, too, which might so well fit them for each other? It would be so sweet to be the sister of Beatrice, the daughter of the squire, to belong to Greshamsbury as a part and parcel of itself.
But though she could not restrain these thoughts, it never for a moment occurred to her to take Frank’s offer in earnest. Though she was a grown woman, he was still a boy. He would have to see the world before he settled in it, and would change his mind about woman half a score of times before he married. Then, too, though she did not like the Lady Arabella, she felt that she owed something, if not to her kindness, at least to her forbearance; and she knew, felt inwardly certain, that she would be doing wrong, that the world would say that she was doing wrong, that her uncle would think her wrong, if she endeavoured to take advantage of what had passed.
She had not for an instant doubted; not for a moment had she contemplated it as possible that she should ever become Mrs Gresham because Frank had offered to make her so; but, nevertheless, she could not help thinking of what had occurred — of thinking of it, most probably much more than Frank did himself.
A day or two afterwards, on the evening before Frank’s birthday, she was alone with her uncle, walking in the garden behind their house, and she then essayed to question him, with the object of learning if she were fitted by her birth to be the wife of such a one as Frank Gresham. They were in the habit of walking there together when he happened to be at home of a summer’s evening. This was not often the case, for his hours of labour extended much beyond those usual to the upper working world, the hours, namely, between breakfast and dinner; but those minutes that they did thus pass together, the doctor regarded as perhaps the pleasantest of his life.
‘Uncle,’ said she, after a while, ‘what do you think of this marriage of Miss Gresham’s?’
‘Well, Minnie’— such was his name of endearment for her —‘I can’t say I have thought much about it, and I don’t suppose anybody else has either.’
‘She must think about it, of course; and so must he, I suppose.’
‘I’m not so sure of that. Some folks would never get married if they had to trouble themselves with thinking about it.’
‘I suppose that’s why you never got married, uncle?’
‘Either that, or thinking of it too much. One is as bad as the other.’
‘Well, I have been thinking about it, at any rate, uncle.’
‘That’s very good of you; that will save me the trouble; and perhaps save Miss Gresham too. If you have thought it over thoroughly, that will do for all.’
‘I believe Mr Moffat is a man of no family.’
‘He’ll mend in that point, no doubt, when he has got a wife.’
‘Uncle, you’re a goose; and what is worse, a very provoking goose.’
‘Niece, you’re a gander; and what is worse, a very silly gander. What is Mr Moffat’s family to you, and me? Mr Moffat has that which ranks above family honours. He is a very rich man.’
‘Yes,’ said Mary, ‘I know he is rich; and a rich man I suppose can buy anything — except a woman that is worth having.’
‘A rich man can buy anything,’ said the doctor; ‘not that I meant to say that Mr Moffat has bought Miss Gresham. I have no doubt that they will suit each other very well,’ he added with an air of decisive authority, as though he had finished the subject.
But his niece was determined not to let him pass so. ‘Now, uncle,‘said she, ‘you know you are pretending to a great deal of worldly wisdom, which, after all, is not wisdom at all in your eyes.’
‘Am I?’
‘You know you are: and as for the impropriety of discussing Miss Gresham’s marriage —’
‘I did not say it was improper.’
‘Oh, yes, you did; of course such things must be discussed. How is one to have an opinion if one does not get it by looking at the things that happen around us?’
‘Now I am going to be blown up,’ said Dr Thorne.
‘Dear uncle, do be serious with me.’
‘Well, then, seriously, I hope Miss Gresham will be very happy as Mrs Moffat.’
‘Of course you do: so do I. I hope it as much as I can hope what I don’t at all see ground for expecting.’
‘People constantly hope without any such ground.’
‘Well, then, I’ll hope in this case. But, uncle —’
‘Well, my dear?’
‘I want your opinion, truly and really. If you were a girl —’
‘I am perfectly unable to give any opinion founded on so strange an hypothesis.’
‘Well; but if you were a marrying man.’
‘The hypothesis is quite as much out of my way.’
‘But, uncle, I am a girl, and perhaps I may marry;— or at any rate think of marrying some day.’
‘The latter alternative is certainly possible enough.’
‘Therefore, in seeing a friend taking such a step, I cannot but speculate on the matter as though I were myself in her place. If I were Miss Gresham, should I be right?’
‘But, Minnie, you are not Miss Gresham.’
‘No, I am Mary Thorne; it is a very different thing, I know. I suppose I might marry any one without degrading myself.’
It was almost ill-natured of her to say this; but she had not meant to say it in the sense which the sounds seemed to bear. She had failed in being able to bring her uncle to the point she wished by the road she had planned, and in seeking another road, she had abruptly fallen into unpleasant places.
‘I should be very sorry that my niece should think so,’ said he; ‘and am sorry, too, that she should say so. But, Mary, to tell the truth, I hardly know at what you are driving. You are, I think, not so clear minded — certainly, not so clear worded — as is usual with you.’
‘I will tell you, uncle;’ and, instead of looking up into his face, she turned her eyes down on to the green lawn beneath her feet.
‘Well, Minnie, what is it?’ and he took both her hands in his.
‘I think that Miss Gresham should not marry Mr Moffat. I think so because her family is high and noble, and because he is low and ignoble. When one has an opinion on such matters, one cannot but apply it to things and people around one; and having applied my opinion to her, the next step naturally is to apply it to myself. Were I Miss Gresham, I would not marry Mr Moffat though he rolled in gold. I know where to rank Miss Gresham. What I want to know is, where I ought to rank myself?’
They had been standing when she commenced he last speech; but as she finished it, the doctor moved on again, and she moved with him. He walked on very slowly without answering her; and she, out of her full mind, pursued aloud the tenor of her thoughts.
‘That does not follow,’ said the doctor quickly. ‘A man raises a woman to his own standard, but a woman must take that of her husband.’
Again they were silent, and again they walked on, Mary holding her uncle’s arm with both her hands. She was determined, however, to come to the point, and after considering for a while how best she might do it, she ceased to beat any longer about the bush, and asked him a plain question.
‘The Thornes are as good a family as the Greshams are they not?’
‘In absolute genealogy they are, my dear. That is, when I choose to be an old fool and talk of such matters in a sense different from that in which they are spoken of by the world at large, I may say that the Thornes are as good, or perhaps better, than the Greshams, but I should be sorry to say so seriously to any one. The Greshams now stand much higher in the county than the Thornes do.’
‘But they are of the same class.’
‘Yes, yes; Wilfred Thorne of Ullathorne, and our friend the squire here, are of the same class.’
‘But, uncle, I and Augusta Gresham — are we of the same class?’
‘Well, Minnie, you would hardly have me boast that I am the same class with the squire — I, a poor country doctor?’
‘You are not answering me fairly, dear uncle; dearest uncle, do you not know that you are not answering me fairly? You know what I mean. Have I a right to call the Thornes of Ullathorne my cousins?’
‘Mary, Mary, Mary!’ said he after a minute’s pause, still allowing his arm to hang loose, that she might hold it with both her hands. ‘Mary, Mary, Mary! I would that you had spared me this!’
‘I could not have spared it to you for ever, uncle.’
‘I would that you could have done so; I would that you could!’
‘It is over now, uncle: it is told now. I will grieve you no more. Dear, dear, dearest! I should love you more than ever now; I would, I would, I would if that were possible. What should I be but for you? What must I have been but for you?’ And she threw herself on his breast, and clinging with her arms round his neck, kissed his forehead, cheeks, and lips.
There was nothing more said then on the subject between them. Mary asked no further question, nor did the doctor volunteer further information. She would have been most anxious to ask about her mother’s history had she dared to do so; but she did not dare to ask; she could not bear to be told that her mother had been, perhaps was, a worthless woman. That she was truly a daughter of a brother of the doctor, that she did know. Little as she had heard of her relatives in her early youth, few as had been the words which had fallen from her uncle in her hearing as to her parentage, she did know this, that she was the daughter of Henry Thorne, a brother of the doctor, and a son of the old prebendary. Trifling little things that had occurred, accidents which could not be prevented, had told her this; but not a word had ever passed any one’s lips as to her mother. The doctor, when speaking of his youth, had spoken of her father; but no one had spoken of her mother. She had long known that she was the child of a Thorne; now she knew also that she was no cousin of the Thornes of Ullathorne; no cousin, at least, in the world’s ordinary language, no niece indeed of her uncle, unless by his special permission that she should be so.
When the interview was over, she went up alone to the drawing-room, and there she sat thinking. She had not been there long before her uncle came up to her. He did not sit down, or even take off the hat which he still wore; but coming close to her, and still standing, he spoke thus:-
‘Mary, after what has passed I should be very unjust and very cruel to you not to tell you one thing more than you have now learned. Your mother was unfortunate in much, not in everything; but the world, which is very often stern in such matters, never judged her to have disgraced herself. I tell you this, my child, in order that you may respect her memory;’ and so saying, he again left her without giving her time to speak a word.
What he then told her he had told in mercy. He felt what must be her feelings when she reflected that she had to blush for her mother; that not only could she not speak of her mother, but that she might hardly think of her with innocence; and to mitigate such sorrow as this, and also to do justice to the woman whom his brother had so wronged, he had forced himself to reveal so much as is stated above.
And then he walked slowly by himself, backwards and forwards through the garden, thinking of what he had done with reference to this girl, and doubting whether he had done wisely and well. He had resolved, when first the little infant was given over to his charge, that nothing should be known of her or by her as to her mother. He was willing to devote himself to this orphan child of his brother, this last seedling of his father’s house; but he was not willing so to do this as to bring himself in any manner into familiar contact with the Scatcherds. He had boasted to himself that he, at any rate, was a gentleman; and that she, if she were to live in his house, sit at his table, and share his hearth, must be a lady. He would tell no lie about her; he would not to any one make her out to be aught other or aught better than she was; people would talk about her of course, only let them not talk to him; he conceived of himself — and the conception was not without due ground — that should any do so, he had that within him which would silence them. He would never claim for this little creature — thus brought into the world without a legitimate position in which to stand — he would never claim for her any station that would not properly be her own. He would make for her a station as best he could. As he might sink or swim, so should she.
So he had resolved; but things had arranged themselves, as they often do, rather than been arranged by him. During ten or twelve years no one had heard of Mary Thorne; the memory of Henry Thorne and his tragic death had passed away; the knowledge that an infant had been born whose birth was connected with that tragedy, a knowledge never widely spread, had faded down into utter ignorance. At the end of these twelve years, Dr Thorne had announced, that a young niece, a child of a brother long since dead, was coming to live with him. As he had contemplated, no one spoke to him; but some people did no doubt talk among themselves. Whether or not the exact truth was surmised by any, it matters not to say; with absolute exactness, probably not; with great approach to it, probably yes. By one person, at any rate, no guess whatever was made; no thought relative to Dr Thorne’s niece ever troubled him; no idea that Mary Scatcherd had left a child in England ever occurred to him; and that person was Roger Scatcherd, Mary’s brother.
To one friend, and only one, did the doctor tell the whole truth, and that was to the old squire. ‘I have told you,’ said the doctor, ‘partly that you may know that the child has no right to mix with your children if you think much of such things. Do you, however, see to this. I would rather that no one else should be told.’
No one else had been told; and the squire had ‘seen to it,’ by accustoming himself to look at Mary Thorne running about the house with his own children as though she were of the same brood. Indeed, the squire had always been fond of Mary, had personally noticed her, and, in the affair of Mam’selle Larron, had declared that he would have her placed at once on the bench of magistrates;— much to the disgust of the Lady Arabella.
And so things had gone on and on, and had not been thought of with much downright thinking; till now, when she was one-and-twenty years of age, his niece came to him, asking as to her position, and inquiring in what rank of life she was to find a husband.
And so the doctor walked, backwards and forwards through the garden, slowly, thinking now with some earnestness what if, after all, he had been wrong about his niece? What if by endeavouring to place her in the position of a lady, he had falsely so placed her, and robbed her of her legitimate position? What if there was no rank of life in which she could now properly attach herself?
And then, how had it answered, that plan of his of keeping her all to himself? He, Dr Thorne, was still a poor man; the gift of saving money had not been his; he had ever a comfortable house for her to live in, and, in spite of Doctors Fillgrave, Century, Rerechild, and others, had made from his profession an income sufficient for their joint wants; but he had not done as others do: he had no three or four thousand pounds in the Three per Cents., on which Mary might live in some comfort when he should die. Late in life he had insured his life for eight hundred pounds; and to that, and that only, had he to trust for Mary’s future maintenance. How had it answered, then, this plan of letting her be unknown to, and undreamed of, by, those who were as near to her on her mother’s side as he was on the father’s? On that side, though there had been utter poverty, there was now absolute wealth.
But when he took her to himself, had he not rescued her from the very depths of the lowest misery: from the degradation of the workhouse; from the scorn of honest-born charity-children; from the lowest of the world’s low conditions? Was she not now the apple of his eye, his one great sovereign comfort — his pride, his happiness, his glory? Was he to make her over, to make any portion of her over to others, if, by doing so, she might be able to share the wealth, as well as the coarse manners and uncouth society of her at present unknown connexions? He, who had never worshipped wealth on his own behalf; he, who had scorned the idol of the gold, and had ever been teaching her to scorn it; was he now to show that his philosophy had all been false as soon as the temptation to do so was put in his way?
But yet, what man would marry this bastard child, without a sixpence, and bring not only poverty, but ill blood also on his own children? It might be very well for him, Dr Thorne; for him whose career was made, whose name, at any rate, was his own; for him who had a fixed standing-ground in the world; it might be well for him to indulge in large views of a philosophy antagonistic to the world’s practice; but had he a right to do it for his niece? What man would marry a girl so placed? For those among whom she might have legitimately found a level, education had now utterly unfitted her. And then, he well knew that she would never put out her hand in token of love to any one without telling all she knew and all she surmised as to her own birth.
And that question of this evening; had it not been instigated by some appeal on her part? Was there not already within her breast some cause for disquietude which had made her so pertinacious? Why else had she told him then, for the first time, that she did not know where to rank herself? If such an appeal had been made to her, it must have come from young Frank Gresham. What, in such case, would it behove him to do? Should he pack up his all, his lancet-case, pestle and mortar, and seek anew fresh ground in a new world, leaving behind a huge triumph to those learned enemies of his, Fillgrave, Century, and Rerechild? Better that than remain at Greshamsbury at the cost of the child’s heart and pride.
And so he walked slowly backwards and forwards through his garden, meditating these things painfully enough.
Chapter 8 Matrimonial Prospects
It will of course be remembered that Mary’s interview with the other girls at Greshamsbury took place some two or three days subsequently to Frank’s generous offer of his hand and heart. Mary had quite made up her mind that the whole thing was to be regarded as a folly, and that it was not to be spoken of to any one; but yet her heart was sore enough. She was full of pride, and yet she knew she must bow her neck to the pride of others. Being, as she was herself, nameless, she could not but feel a stern, unflinching antagonism, the antagonism of a democrat, to the pretensions of others who were blessed with that of which she had been deprived. She had this feeling; and yet, of all the things that she coveted, she most coveted that, for glorying in which, she was determined to heap scorn on others. She said to herself, proudly, that God’s handiwork was the inner man, the inner woman, the naked creature animated by a living soul; that all other adjuncts were but man’s clothing for the creature; all others, whether stitched by tailors or contrived by kings. Was it not within her capacity to do as nobly, to love as truly, to worship her God in heaven with as perfect a faith, and her god on earth with as leal a troth, as though blood had descended to her purely through scores of purely born progenitors? So to herself she spoke; and yet, as she said it, she knew that were she a man, such a man as the heir of Greshamsbury should be, nothing would tempt her to sully her children’s blood by mating herself with any one that was base born. She felt that were she Augusta Gresham, no Mr Moffat, let his wealth be what it might, should win her hand unless he too could tell of family honours and a line of ancestors.
And so, with a mind at war with itself, she came forth armed to do battle against the world’s prejudices, those prejudices she herself loved so well.
And was she thus to give up her old affections, her feminine loves, because she found that she was a cousin to nobody? Was she no longer to pour out her heart to Beatrice Gresham with all the girlish volubility of an equal? Was she to be severed from Patience Oriel, and banished — or rather was she to banish herself — from the free place she had maintained in the various youthful female conclaves within that parish of Greshamsbury?
Hitherto, what Mary Thorne would say, what Miss Thorne suggested in such and such a matter, was quite as frequently asked as any opinion from Augusta Gresham — quite as frequently, unless when it chanced that any of the De Courcy girls were at the house. Was this to be given up? These feelings had grown up among them since they were children, and had not hitherto been questioned among them. Now they were questioned by Mary Thorne. Was she in fact to find that her position had been a false one, and must be changed?
Such had been her feelings when she protested that she would not be Augusta Gresham’s bridesmaid, and offered to put her neck beneath Beatrice’s foot; when she drove the Lady Margaretta out of the room, and gave her own opinion as to the proper grammatical construction of the word humble; such also had been her feelings when she kept her hand so rigidly to herself while Frank held the dining-room door open for her to pass through.
‘Patience Oriel,’ said she to herself, ‘can talk to him of her father and mother: let Patience take his hand; let her talk to him;’ and then, not long afterwards, she saw that Patience did talk to him; and seeing it, she walked along silent, among some of the old people, and with much effort did prevent a tear from falling down her cheek.
But why was the tear in her eye? Had she not proudly told Frank that his love-making was nothing but a boy’s silly rhapsody? Had she not said so while she had yet reason to hope that her blood was as good as his own? Had she not seen at a glance that his love tirade was worthy of ridicule, and of no other notice? And yet there was a tear now in her eye because this boy, whom she had scolded from her, whose hand, offered in pure friendship, she had just refused, because he, so rebuffed by her, had carried his fun and gallantry to one who would be less cross to him!
She could hear as she was walking, that while Lady Margaretta was with them, their voices were loud and merry; and her sharp ear could also hear, when Lady Margaretta left them, that Frank’s voice became low and tender. So she walked on, saying nothing, looking straight before her, and by degrees separating herself from all the others.
The Greshamsbury grounds were on one side somewhat too closely hemmed in by the village. On this side was a path running the length of one of the streets of the village; and far down the path, near the extremity of the gardens, and near also to a wicket-gate which led out into the village, and which could be opened from the inside, was a seat, under a big yew-tree, from which, through a breach in the houses, might be seen the parish church, standing in the park on the other side. Hither Mary walked alone, and here she seated herself, determined to get rid of her tears and their traces before she again showed herself to the world.
‘I shall never be happy here again,’ said she to herself; ‘never. I am no longer one of them, and I cannot live among them unless I am so.’ And then an idea came across her mind that she hated Patience Oriel; and then, instantly another idea followed — quick as such thoughts are quick — that she did not hate Patience Oriel at all; that she liked her, nay, loved her; that Patience Oriel was a sweet girl; and that she hoped the time would come when she might see her the lady of Greshamsbury. And then the tear, which had been no whit controlled, which indeed had now made itself master of her, came to a head, and, bursting through the floodgates of the eye, came rolling down, and in its fall, wetted her hand as it lay on her lap. ‘What a fool! what an idiot! what an empty-headed cowardly fool I am!’ said she, springing up from the bench on her feet.
As she did so, she heard voices close to her, at the little gate. They were those of her uncle and Frank Gresham.
‘God bless you, Frank!’ said the doctor, as he passed out of the grounds. ‘You will excuse a lecture, won’t you, from so old a friend?— though you are a man now, and discreet of course, by Act of Parliament.’
‘Indeed I will, doctor,’ said Frank. ‘I will excuse a longer lecture than that from you.’
‘At any rate it won’t be tonight,’ said the doctor, as he disappeared. ‘And if you see Mary, tell her that I am obliged to go; and that I will send Janet down to fetch her.’
Now Janet was the doctor’s ancient maid-servant.
Mary could not move on, without being perceived; she therefore stood still till she heard the click of the door, and then began walking rapidly back to the house by the path which had brought her thither. The moment, however, that she did so, she found that she was followed; and in a very few moments Frank was alongside of her.
‘Oh, Mary!’ said he, calling to her, but not loudly, before he quite overtook her, ‘how odd that I should come across you just when I have a message for you! and why are you all alone?’
Mary’s first impulse was to reiterate her command to him to call her no more by her Christian name; but her second impulse told her that such an injunction at the present moment would not be prudent on her part. The traces of her tears were still there; and she well knew that a very little, the slightest show of tenderness on his part, the slightest effort on her own to appear indifferent, would bring down more than one other such intruder. It would, moreover, be better for her to drop all outward sign that she remembered what had taken place. So long, then, as he and she were at Greshamsbury together, he should call her Mary if he pleased. He would soon be gone; and while he remained, she would keep out of his way.
‘Your uncle has been obliged to go away to see an old woman at Silverbridge.’
‘At Silverbridge! why, he won’t be back all night. Why could not the old woman send for Dr Century?’
‘I suppose she thought two old women could not get on well together.’
Mary could not help smiling. She did not like her uncle going off so late on such a journey; but it was always felt a triumph when he was invited into the strongholds of the enemies.
‘And Janet is to come over for you. However, I told him it was quite unnecessary to disturb another old woman, for that I should see you home.’
‘Oh, no, Mr Gresham; indeed you’ll not do that.’
‘Indeed, and indeed, I shall.’
‘What! on this great day, when every lady is looking for you, and talking of you. I suppose you want to set the countess against me for ever. Think, too, how angry Lady Arabella will be if you are absent on such and errand as this.’
‘To hear you talk, Mary, one would think that you were going to Silverbridge yourself.’
‘Perhaps I am.’
‘If I did not go with you, some of the other fellows would. John, or George —’
‘Good gracious, Frank! Fancy either of the Mr De Courceys walking home with me!’
She had forgotten herself, and the strict propriety on which she had resolved, in the impossibility of forgoing her little joke against the De Courcy grandeur; she had forgotten herself, and had called him Frank in her old, former, eager, free tone of voice; and then, remembering she had done so, she drew herself up, but her lips, and determined to be doubly on her guard in the future.
‘Well, it shall be either one of them, or I,’ said Frank: ‘perhaps you would prefer my cousin George to me?’
‘I should prefer Janet to either, seeing that with her I should not suffer the extreme nuisance of knowing that I was a bore.’
‘A bore! Mary, to me?’
‘Yes, Mr Gresham, a bore to you. Having to walk home through the mud with village young ladies is boring. All gentlemen feel it so.’
‘There is no mud; if there were you would not be allowed to walk at all.’
‘Oh! village young ladies never care for such things, though fashionable gentlemen do.’
‘I would carry you home, Mary, if it would do you a service,’ said Frank, with considerable pathos in his voice.
‘Oh, dear me! pray do not, Mr Gresham. I should not like it at all,’ said she: ‘a wheelbarrow would be preferable to that.’
‘Of course. Anything would be preferable to my arm, I know.’
‘Certainly; anything in the way of a conveyance. If I were to act baby; and you were to act nurse, it really would not be comfortable for either of us.’
Frank Gresham felt disconcerted, though he hardly knew why. He was striving to say something tender to his lady-love; but every word that he spoke she turned into joke. Mary did not answer him coldly or unkindly; but, nevertheless, he was displeased. One does not like to have one’s little offerings of sentimental service turned into burlesque when one is in love in earnest. Mary’s jokes had appeared so easy too; they seemed to come from a heart so little troubled. This, also, was cause of vexation to Frank. If he could but have known it all, he would, perhaps, have been better pleased.
He determined not to be absolutely laughed out of his tenderness. When, three days ago, he had been repulsed, he had gone away owning to himself that he had been beaten; owning so much, but owning it with great sorrow and much shame. Since that he had come of age; since that he had made speeches, and speeches had been made to him; since that he had gained courage by flirting with Patience Oriel. No faint heart ever won a fair lady, as he was well aware; he resolved, therefore, that his heart should not be faint, and that he would see whether the fair lady might not be won by becoming audacity.
‘Mary,’ said he, stopping in the path — for they were now near the spot where it broke out upon the lawn, and they could already hear the voices of the guests —‘Mary, you are unkind to me.’
‘I am not aware of it, Mr Gresham; but if I am, do not you retaliate. I am weaker than you, and in your power; do not you, therefore, be unkind to me.’
‘You refused my hand just now,’ continued he. ‘Of all the people here at Greshamsbury, you are the only one that has not wished me joy; the only one —’
‘I do wish you joy; I will wish you joy: there is my hand,’ and she frankly put out her ungloved hand. ‘You are quite man enough to understand me: there is my hand; I trust you use it only as it is meant to be used.’
He took it in his hand and pressed it cordially, as he might have done that of any other friend in such a case; and then — did not drop it as he should have done. He was not a St Anthony, and it was most imprudent in Miss Thorne to subject him to such a temptation.
‘Mary,’ said he; ‘dear Mary! dearest Mary! if you did but know how I love you!’
As he said this, holding Miss Thorne’s hand he stood on the pathway with his back towards the lawn and house, and, therefore, did not at first see his sister Augusta, who had just at that moment come upon them. Mary blushed up to her straw hat, and, with a quick jerk, recovered her hand. Augusta saw the motion, and Mary saw that Augusta had seen it.
From my tedious way of telling it, the reader will be led to imagine that the hand-squeezing had been protracted to a duration quite incompatible with any objection to such an arrangement on the part of the lady; but the fault is mine: in no part hers. Were I possessed of a quick spasmodic style of narrative, I should have been able to include it all — Frank’s misbehaviour, Mary’s immediate anger, Augusta’s arrival, and keen, Argus-eyed inspection, and then Mary’s subsequent misery — in five words and half a dozen dashes and inverted commas. The thing would have been so told; for, to do Mary justice, she did not leave her hand in Frank’s a moment longer than she could help herself.
Frank, feeling the hand withdrawn, and hearing, when it was too late, the step on the gravel, turned sharply round. ‘Oh, it’s you, is it, Augusta? Well, what do you want?’
Augusta was not naturally very ill-natured, seeing that in her veins the high De Courcy blood was somewhat tempered by an admixture of the Gresham attributes; nor was she predisposed to make her brother her enemy by publishing to the world any of his little tender peccadilloes; but she could not but bethink herself of what her aunt had been saying as to the danger of any such encounters as that she just now had beheld; she could not but start at seeing her brother thus, on the very brink of the precipice of which the countess had specially forewarned her mother. She, Augusta, was, as she well knew, doing her duty by her family by marrying a tailor’s son for whom she did not care a chip, seeing that the tailor’s son was possessed of untold wealth. Now when one member of a household is making a struggle for a family, it is painful to see the benefit of that struggle negatived by the folly of another member. The future Mrs Moffat did feel aggrieved by the fatuity of the young heir, and, consequently, took upon herself to look as much like her Aunt De Courcy as she could do.
‘Well, what is it?’ said Frank, looking rather disgusted. ‘What makes you stick your chin up and look in that way?’ Frank had hitherto been rather a despot among his sisters, and forgot that the eldest of them was now passing altogether from under his sway to that of the tailor’s son.
‘Frank,’ said Augusta, in a tone of voice which did honour to the great lessons she had lately received. ‘Aunt De Courcy wants to see you immediately in the small drawing-room;’ and, as she said so, she resolved to say a few words of advice to Miss Thorne as soon as her brother should have left them.
‘In the small drawing-room, does she? Well, Mary, we may as well go together, for I suppose it is tea-time now.’
‘You had better go at once, Frank,’ said Augusta; ‘the countess will be angry if you keep her waiting. She has been expecting you these twenty minutes. Mary Thorne and I can return together.’
There was something in the tone in which the word, ‘Mary Thorne’, were uttered, which made Mary at once draw herself up. ‘I hope,’ said she, ‘that Mary Thorne will never be a hindrance to either of you.’
Frank’s ear had also perceived that there was something in the tone of his sister’s voice not boding comfort to Mary; he perceived that the De Courcy blood in Augusta’s veins was already rebelling against the doctor’s niece on his part, though it had condescended to submit itself to the tailor’s son on her own part.
‘Well, I am going,’ said he; ‘but look here Augusta, if you say one word of Mary —’
Oh, Frank! Frank! you boy, you very boy! you goose, you silly goose! Is that the way you make love, desiring one girl not to tell another, as though you were three children, tearing your frocks and trousers in getting through the same hedge together? Oh, Frank! Frank! you, the full-blown heir of Greshamsbury? You, a man already endowed with a man’s discretion? You, the forward rider, that did but now threaten young Harry Baker and the Honourable John to eclipse them by prowess in the field? You, of age? Why, thou canst not as yet have left thy mother’s apron-string.
‘If you say one word of Mary —’
So far had he got in his injunction to his sister, but further than that, in such a case, was he never destined to proceed. Mary’s indignation flashed upon him, striking him dumb long before the sound of her voice reached his ears; and yet she spoke as quick as the words would come to her call, and somewhat loudly too.
‘Say one word of Mary, Mr Gresham! And why should she not say as many words of Mary as she may please? I must tell you all now, Augusta! and I must also beg you not to be silent for my sake. As far as I am concerned, tell it to whom you please. This was the second time your brother —’
‘Mary, Mary,’ said Frank, deprecating her loquacity.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Gresham; you have made it necessary that I should tell your sister all. He has now twice thought it well to amuse himself by saying to me words which it was ill-natured in him to speak, and —’
‘Ill-natured, Mary!’
‘Ill-natured in him to speak,’ continued Mary, ‘and to which it would be absurd for me to listen. He probably does the same to others,’ she added, being unable in heart to forget that sharpest of her wounds, that flirtation of his with Patience Oriel; ‘but to me it is almost cruel. Another girl might laugh at him, or listen to him, as he would choose; but I can do neither. I shall now keep away from Greshamsbury, at any rate till he has left it; and, Augusta, I can only beg you to understand, that, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing which may not be told to all the world.’
And, so saying, she walked on a little in advance of them, as proud as a queen. Had Lady de Courcy herself met her at this moment, she would almost have felt herself forced to shrink out of the pathway. ‘Not say a word of me!’ she repeated to herself, but still out loud. ‘No word need be left unsaid on my account; none, none.’
Augusta followed her, dumfounded at her indignation; and Frank also followed, but not in silence. When his first surprise at Mary’s great anger was over, he felt himself called upon to say some word that might exonerate his lady-love; and some word also of protestation as to his own purpose.
‘There is nothing to be told, at least of Mary,’ he said, speaking to his sister; ‘but of me, you may tell this, if you choose to disoblige your brother — that I love Mary Thorne with all my heart; and that I will never love anyone else.’
By this time they had reached the lawn, and Mary was able to turn away from the path which led up to the house. As she left them she said in a voice, now low enough, ‘I cannot prevent him from talking nonsense, Augusta; but you will bear me witness, that I do not willingly hear it.’ And, so saying, she started off almost in a run towards the distant part of the gardens, in which she saw Beatrice.
Frank, as he walked up to the house with his sister, endeavoured to induce her to give him a promise that she would tell no tales as to what she had heard and seen.
‘Of course, Frank, it must be all nonsense,’ she had said; ‘and you shouldn’t amuse yourself in such a way.’
‘Well, but, Guss, come, we have always been friends; don’t let us quarrel just when you are going to be married.’ But Augusta would make no promise.
Frank, when he reached the house, found the countess waiting for him, sitting in the little drawing-room by herself,— somewhat impatiently. As he entered he became aware that there was some peculiar gravity attached to the coming interview. Three persons, his mother, one of his younger sisters, and the Lady Amelia, each stopped him to let him know that the countess was waiting; and he perceived that a sort of guard was kept upon the door to save her ladyship from any undesirable intrusion.
The countess frowned at the moment of his entrance, but soon smoothed her brow, and invited him to take a chair ready prepared for him opposite to the elbow of the sofa on which she was leaning. She had a small table before her, on which was her teacup, so that she was able to preach at him nearly as well as though she had been ensconced in a pulpit.
‘My dear Frank,’ said she, in a voice thoroughly suitable to the importance of the communication, ‘you have today come of age.’
Frank remarked that he understood that such was the case, and added that ‘that was the reason for all the fuss.’
‘Yes; you have today come of age. Perhaps I should have been glad to see such an occasion noticed at Greshamsbury with some more suitable signs of rejoicing.’
‘Oh, aunt! I think we did it all very well.’
‘Greshamsbury, Frank, is, or at any rate ought to be, the seat of the first commoner in Barsetshire.
‘Well; so it is. I am quite sure there isn’t a better fellow than father anywhere in the county.’
The countess sighed. Her opinion of the poor squire was very different from Frank’s. ‘It is no use now,’ said she, ‘looking back to that which cannot be cured. The first commoner in Barsetshire should hold a position — I will not of course say equal to that of a peer.’
‘Oh dear no; of course not,’ said Frank; and a bystander might have thought that there was a touch of satire in his tone.
‘No, not equal to that of a peer; but still of very paramount importance. Of course my first ambition is bound up in Porlock.’
‘Of course,’ said Frank, thinking how very weak was the staff on which his aunt’s ambition rested; for Lord Porlock’s youthful career had not been such as to give unmitigated satisfaction to his parents.
‘Is bound up in Porlock:’ and then the countess plumed herself; but the mother sighed. ‘And next to Porlock, my anxiety is about you.’
‘Upon my honour, aunt, I am very much obliged. I shall be all right, you know.’
‘Greshamsbury, my dear boy, is not now what it used to be.’
‘Isn’t it?’ asked Frank.
‘No, Frank; by no means. I do not wish to say a word against your father. It may, perhaps have been his misfortune, rather than his fault —’
‘She is always down on the governor; always,’ said Frank to himself; resolving to stick bravely to the side of the house to which he had elected to belong.
‘But there is the fact, Frank, too plain to us all; Greshamsbury is not what it was. It is your duty to restore it to its former importance.’
‘My duty!’ said Frank, rather puzzled.
‘Yes, Frank, your duty. It all depends on you now. Of course you know that your father owes a great deal of money.’
Frank muttered something. Tidings had in some shape reached his ear that his father was not comfortably circumstances as regards money.
‘And then, he has sold Boxall Hill. It cannot be expected that Boxall Hill shall be purchased, as some horrid man, a railway-maker, I believe —’
‘Yes; that’s Scatcherd.’
‘Well, he has built a house there, I’m told; so I presume that it cannot be bought back: but it will be your duty, Frank, to pay all the debts that there are on the property, and to purchase what, at any rate, will be equal to Boxall Hill.’
Frank opened his eyes wide and stared at his aunt, as though doubting much whether or no she were in her right mind. He pay off the family debts! He buy up property of four thousand pounds a year! He remained, however, quite quiet, waiting the elucidation of the mystery.
‘Frank, of course you understand me.’
Frank was obliged to declare, that just at the present moment he did not find his aunt so clear as usual.
‘You have but one line of conduct left you, Frank: your position, as heir to Greshamsbury, is a good one; but your father has unfortunately so hampered you with regard to money, that unless you set the matter right yourself, you can never enjoy that position. Of course you must marry money.’
‘Marry money!’ said he, considering for the first time that in all probability Mary Thorne’s fortune would not be extensive. ‘Marry money!’
‘Yes, Frank. I know no man whose position so imperatively demands it; and luckily for you, no man can have more facility for doing so. In the first place you are very handsome.’
Frank blushed like a girl of sixteen.
‘And then, as the matter is made plain to you at so early an age, you are not of course hampered by any indiscreet tie; by any absurd engagement.’
Frank blushed again; and then saying to himself, ‘How much the old girl knows about it!’ felt a little proud of his passion for Mary Thorne, and of the declaration he had made to her.
‘And your connexion with Courcy Castle,’ continued the countess, now carrying up the list of Frank’s advantages to its greatest climax, ‘will make the matter so easy for you, that really, you will hardly have any difficulty.’
Frank could not but say how much obliged he felt to Courcy Castle and its inmates.
‘Of course I would not wish to interfere with you in any underhand way, Frank; but I will tell you what has occurred to me. You have heard, probably, of Miss Dunstable?’
‘The daughter of the ointment of Lebanon man?’
‘And of course you know that her fortune is immense,’ continued the countess, not deigning to notice her nephew’s allusion to the ointment. ‘Quite immense when compared with the wants and any position of any commoner. Now she is coming to Courcy Castle, and I wish you to come and meet her.’
‘But, aunt, just at this moment I have to read for my degree like anything. I go up, you know, to Oxford.’
‘Degree!’ said the countess. ‘Why, Frank, I am talking to you of your prospects in life, of your future position, of that on which everything hangs, and you tell me of your degree!’
Frank, however, obstinately persisted that he must take his degree, and that he should commence reading hard at six a.m. tomorrow morning.
‘You can read just as well at Courcy Castle. Miss Dunstable will not interfere with that,’ said his aunt, who knew the expediency of yielding occasionally; ‘but I must beg you will come over and meet her. You will find her a most charming young woman, remarkably well educated I am told, and —’
‘How old is she?’ asked Frank.
‘I really cannot say exactly,’ said the countess; ‘but it is not, I imagine, a matter of much moment.’
‘Is she thirty?’ asked Frank, who looked upon an unmarried woman of that age as quite an old maid.
‘I dare say she may be about that age,’ said the countess, who regarded the subject from a very different point of view.
‘Thirty!’ said Frank out loud, but speaking, nevertheless as though to himself.
‘It is a matter of no moment,’ said his aunt, almost angrily. ‘When a subject itself is of such vital importance, objections of no real weight should not be brought into view. If you wish to hold up your head in the country; if you wish to represent your county in Parliament, as has been done by your father, your grandfather, and your great-grandfathers; if you wish to keep a house over your head, and to leave Greshamsbury to your son after you, you must marry money. What does it signify whether Miss Dunstable be twenty-eight or thirty? She has got money; and if you marry her, you may then consider that your position in life is made.’
Frank was astonished at his aunt’s eloquence; but, in spite of that eloquence, he made up his mind that he would not marry Miss Dunstable. How could he, indeed, seeing that his troth was already plighted to Mary Thorne in the presence of his sister? This circumstance, however, he did not choose to plead to his aunt, so he recapitulated any other objections that presented themselves to his mind.
In the first place, he was so anxious about his degree that he could not think of marrying at present; then he suggested that it might be better to postpone the question till the season’s hunting should be over; he declared that he could not visit Courcy Castle till he got a new suit of clothes home from the tailor; and ultimately remembered that he had a particular engagement to go fly-fishing with Mr Oriel on that day week.
None, however, of these valid reasons were sufficiently potent to turn the countess from her point.
‘Nonsense, Frank,’ said she, ‘I wonder that you can talk of fly-fishing when the property of Greshamsbury is at stake. You will go with Augusta and myself to Courcy Castle tomorrow.’
‘To-morrow, aunt!’ he said, in the tone which a condemned criminal might make his ejaculation on hearing that a very near day had been named for his execution. ‘To-morrow!’
‘Yes, we return tomorrow, and shall be happy to have your company. My friends, including Miss Dunstable, come on Thursday. I am quite sure you will like Miss Dunstable. I have settled all that with your mother, so we need say nothing further about it. And now, good-night, Frank.’
Frank, finding that there was nothing more to be said, took his departure, and went out to look for Mary. But Mary had gone home with Janet half an hour since, so he betook himself to his sister Beatrice.
‘Beatrice,’ said he, ‘I am to go to Courcy Castle tomorrow.’
‘So I heard mamma say.’
‘Well; I only came of age today, and I will not begin by running counter to them. But I tell you what, I won’t stay above a week at Courcy Castle for all the De Courcys in Barsetshire. Tell me, Beatrice, did you ever hear of a Miss Dunstable?’
Chapter 9 Sir Roger Scatcherd
Enough has been said in this narrative to explain to the reader that Roger Scatcherd, who was whilom a drunken stone-mason in Barchester, and who had been so prompt to avenge the injury done to his sister, had become a great man in the world. He had become a contractor, first for little things, such as half a mile or so of a railway embankment, or three or four canal bridges, and then a contractor for great things, such as Government hospitals, locks, docks, and quays, and had latterly had in his hands the making of whole lines of railway.
He had been occasionally in partnership with one man for one thing, and then with another for another; but had, on the whole, kept his interests to himself, and now at the time of our story, he was a very rich man.
And he had acquired more than wealth. There had been a time when the Government wanted the immediate performance of some extraordinary piece of work, and Roger Scatcherd had been the man to do it. There had been some extremely necessary bit of a railway to be made in half the time that such work would properly demand, some speculation to be incurred requiring great means and courage as well, and Roger Scatcherd had been found to be the man for the time. He was then elevated for the moment to the dizzy pinnacle of a newspaper hero, and became one of those ‘whom the king delighteth to honour’. He went up one day to kiss Her Majesty’s hand, and come down to his new grand house at Boxall Hill, Sir Roger Scatcherd, Bart.
‘And now, my lady,’ said he, when he explained to his wife the high state to which she had been called by his exertions and the Queen’s prerogative, ‘let’s have a bit of dinner, and a drop of som’at hot.’ Now the drop of som’at hot signified a dose of alcohol sufficient to send three ordinary men very drunk to bed.
While conquering the world Roger Scatcherd had not conquered his old bad habits. Indeed, he was the same man at all points that he had been when formerly seen about the streets of Barchester with his stone-mason’s apron tucked up round his waist. The apron he had abandoned, but not the heavy prominent thoughtful brow, with the wildly flashing eye beneath it. He was still the same good companion, and still also the same hard-working hero. In this only had he changed, that now he would work, and some said equally well, whether he were drunk or sober. Those who were mostly inclined to make a miracle of him — and there was a school of worshippers ready to adore him as their idea of a divine, superhuman, miracle-moving, inspired prophet — declared that his wondrous work was best done, his calculations most quickly and most truly made, that he saw with most accurate eye into the far-distant balance of profit and loss, when he was under the influence of the rosy god. To these worshippers his breakings-out, as his periods of intemperance were called in his own set, were his moments of peculiar inspiration — his divine frenzies, in which he communicated most closely with those deities who preside over trade transactions; his Eleusinian mysteries, to approach him in which was permitted only a few of the most favoured.
‘Scatcherd has been drunk this week past,’ they would say one to another, when the moment came at which it was to be decided whose offer should be accepted for constructing a harbour to hold all the commerce of Lancashire, or to make a railway from Bombay to Canton. ‘Scatcherd has been drunk this week past; I am told that he has taken over three gallons of brandy.’ And then they felt sure that none but Scatcherd would be called upon to construct the dock or make the railway.
But be this as it may, be it true or false that Sir Roger was most efficacious when in his cups, there can be no doubt that he could not wallow for a week in brandy, six or seven times every year, without in a great measure injuring, and permanently injuring, the outward man. Whatever immediate effect such symposiums might have on the inner mind-symposiums indeed they were not; posiums I will call them, if I may be allowed; for in latter life, when he drank heavily, he drank alone — however little for evil, or however much for good the working of his brain might be affected, his body suffered greatly. It was not that he became feeble or emaciated, old-looking or inactive, that his hand shook, or that his eye was watery; but that in the moments of his intemperance his life was often worth a day’s purchase. The frame which God had given to him was powerful beyond the power of ordinary men; powerful to act in spite of these violent perturbations; powerful to repress and conquer the qualms and headaches and inward sicknesses to which the votaries of Bacchus are ordinarily subject; but this power was not without its limit. If encroached on too far, it would break and fall and come asunder, and then the strong man would at once become a corpse.
Scatcherd had but one friend in the world. And, indeed, this friend was not friend in the ordinary acceptance of the word. He neither ate with him nor drank with him, nor even frequently talked with him. Their pursuits in life were wide asunder. Their tastes were all different. The society in which they moved very seldom came together. Scatcherd had nothing in unison with this solitary friend; but he trusted him, and he trusted no other living creature in God’s earth.
He trusted this man; but even him he did not trust thoroughly; not at least as one friend should trust another. He believed that this man would not rob him; would probably not lie to him; would not endeavour to make money of him; would not count him up or speculate on him, and make out a balance of profit and loss; and, therefore, he determined to use him. But he put no trust whatever in his friend’s counsel, in his modes of thought; none in his theory, and none in his practice. He disliked his friend’s counsel, and, in fact, disliked his society, for his friend was somewhat apt to speak to him in a manner approaching to severity. Now Roger Scatcherd had done many things in the world, and made much money; whereas his friend had done but few things, and made no money. It was not to be endured that the practical, efficient man should be taken to task by the man who proved himself to be neither practical nor efficient; not to be endured, certainly, by Roger Scatcherd, who looked on men of his own class as the men of the day, and on himself as by no means the least among them.
The friend was our friend Dr Thorne.
The doctor’s first acquaintance with Scatcherd has been already explained. He was necessarily thrown into communication with the man at the time of the trial, and Scatcherd then had not only sufficient sense, but sufficient feeling also to know that the doctor behaved very well. This communication had in different ways been kept up between them. Soon after the trial Scatcherd had begun to rise, and his first savings had been entrusted to the doctor’s care. This had been the beginning of a pecuniary connexion which had never wholly ceased, and which had led to the purchase of Boxall Hill, and to the loan of large sums of money to the squire.
In another way also there had been a close alliance between them, and one not always of a very pleasant description. The doctor was, and long had been, Sir Roger’s medical attendant, and, in his unceasing attempts to rescue the drunkard from the fate which was so much to be dreaded, he not unfrequently was driven to quarrel with his patient.
One thing further must be told of Sir Roger. In politics he was as violent a Radical as ever, and was very anxious to obtain a position in which he could bring his violence to bear. With this view he was about to contest his native borough of Barchester, in the hope of being returned in opposition to the De Courcy candidate; and with this object he had now come down to Boxall Hill.
Nor were his claims to sit for Barchester such as could be despised. If money were to be of no avail, he had plenty of it, and was prepared to spend it; whereas, rumour said that Mr Moffat was equally determined to do nothing so foolish. Then again, Sir Roger had a sort of rough eloquence, and was bold to address the men of Barchester in language that would come home to their hearts, in words that would endear him to one party while they made him offensively odious to the other; but Mr Moffat could make neither friends nor enemies by his eloquence. The Barchester roughs called him a dumb dog that could not bark, and sometimes sarcastically added that neither could he bite. The De Courcy interest, however, was at his back, and he had also the advantage of possession. Sir Roger, therefore, knew that the battle was not to be won without a struggle.
Dr Thorne got safely back from Silverbridge that evening, and found Mary waiting to give him his tea. He had been called there to a consultation with Dr Century, that amiable old gentleman having so far fallen away from the high Fillgrave tenets as to consent to the occasional endurance of such degradation.
The next morning he breakfasted early, and, having mounted his strong iron-grey cob, started for Boxall Hill. Not only had he there to negotiate the squire’s further loan, but also to exercise his medical skill. Sir Roger having been declared contractor for cutting a canal from sea to sea, through the isthmus of Panama, had been making a week of it; and the result was that Lady Scatcherd had written rather peremptorily to her husband’s medical friend.
The doctor consequently trotted off to Boxall Hill on his iron-grey cob. Among his other merits was that of being a good horseman, and he did much of his work on horseback. The fact that he occasionally took a day with the East Barsetshires, and that when he did so he thoroughly enjoyed it, had probably not failed to add something to the strength of the squire’s friendship.
‘Well, my lady, how is he? Not much the matter, I hope?’ said the doctor, as he shook hands with the titled mistress of Boxall Hill in a small breakfast-parlour in the rear of the house. The showrooms of Boxall Hill were furnished most magnificently, but they were set apart for company; and as the company never came — seeing that they were never invited — the grand rooms and the grand furniture were not of much material use to Lady Scatcherd.
‘Indeed then, doctor, he’s just bad enough,’ said her ladyship, not in a very happy tone of voice; ‘just bad enough. There’s been some’at the back of his head, rapping, and rapping, and rapping; and if you don’t do something, I’m thinking it will rap him too hard yet.’
‘Is he in bed?’
‘Why, yes, he is in bed; for when he was first took he couldn’t very well help hisself, so we put him to bed. And then, he don’t seem to be quite right yet about the legs, so he hasn’t got up; but he’s got that Winterbones with him to write for him, and when Winterbones is there, Scatcherd might as well be up for any good that bed’ll do him.’
Mr Winterbones was confidential clerk to Sir Roger. That is to say, he was a writing-machine of which Sir Roger made use to do certain work which could not well be adjusted without some contrivance. He was a little, withered, dissipated, broken-down man, whom gin and poverty had nearly burnt to a cinder, and dried to an ash. Mind he had none left, nor care for earthly things, except the smallest modicum of substantial food, and the largest allowance of liquid sustenance. All that he had ever known he had forgotten, except how to count up figures and to write: the results of his counting and his writing never stayed with him from one hour to another; nay, not from one folio to another. Let him, however, be adequately screwed up with gin, and adequately screwed down by the presence of his master, and then no amount of counting and writing would be too much for him. This was Mr Winterbones, confidential clerk to the great Sir Roger Scatcherd.
‘We must send Winterbones away, I take it,’ said the doctor.
‘Indeed, doctor, I wish you would. I wish you’d send him to Bath, or anywhere else out of the way. There is Scatcherd, he takes brandy; and there is Winterbones, he takes gin; and it’d puzzle a woman to say which is worst, master or man.’
It will seem from this, that Lady Scatcherd and the doctor were on very familiar terms as regarded her little domestic inconveniences.
‘Tell Sir Roger I am here, will you?’ said the doctor.
‘You’ll take a drop of sherry before you go up?’ said the lady.
‘Not a drop, thank you,’ said the doctor.
‘Or, perhaps a little cordial?’
‘Not of drop of anything, thank you; I never do, you know.’
‘Just a thimbleful of this?’ said the lady, producing from some recess under a sideboard a bottle of brandy; ‘just a thimbleful? It’s what he takes himself.’
When Lady Scatcherd found that even this argument failed, she led the way to the great man’s bedroom.
‘Well doctor! well doctor!, well, doctor!’ was the greeting with which our son of Galen was saluted some time before he entered the sick-room. His approaching step was heard, and thus the ci-devant Barchester stone-mason saluted his coming friend. The voice was loud and powerful, but not clear and sonorous. What voice that is nurtured on brandy can ever be clear? It had about it a peculiar huskiness, a dissipated guttural tone, which Thorne immediately recognized, and recognized as being more marked, more guttural, and more husky than heretofore.
‘So you’ve smelt me out, have you, and come for your fee? Ha! ha! ha! Well, I have had a sharpish bout of it, as her ladyship there no doubt has told you. Let her alone to make the worst of it. But, you see, you’re too late, man. I’ve bilked the old gentleman again without troubling you.’
‘Anyway, I’m glad you’re something better, Scatcherd.’
‘Something! I don’t know what you call something. I never was better in my life. Ask Winterbones here.’
‘Indeed, now, Scatcherd, you ain’t; you’re bad enough if you only knew it. And as for Winterbones, he has no business here up in your bedroom, which stinks of gin so, it does. Don’t you believe him, doctor; he ain’t well, nor yet nigh well.’
Winterbones, when the above ill-natured allusion was made to the aroma coming from his libations, might be seen to deposit surreptitiously beneath the little table at which he sat, the cup with which he had performed them.
The doctor, in the meantime, had taken Sir Roger’s hand on the pretext of feeling his pulse, but was drawing quite as much information from the touch of the sick man’s skin, and the look of the sick man’s eye.
‘I think Mr Winterbones had better go back to the London office,’ said he. ‘Lady Scatcherd will be your best clerk for some time, Sir Roger.’
‘Then I’ll be d —— if Mr Winterbones does anything of the kind,’ said he; ‘so there’s an end of that.’
‘Very well,’ said the doctor. ‘A man can die but once. It is my duty to suggest measures for putting off the ceremony as long as possible. Perhaps, however, you may wish to hasten it.’
‘Well, I am not anxious about it, one way or the other,’ said Scatcherd. And as he spoke there came a fierce gleam from his eye, which seemed to say —‘If that’s the bugbear with which you wish to frighten me, you will be mistaken.’
‘Now, doctor, don’t let him talk that way, don’t,’ said Lady Scatcherd, with her handkerchief to her eyes.
‘Now, my lady, do you cut it; cut at once,’ said Sir Roger, turning hastily round to his better-half; and his better-half, knowing that the province of a woman is to obey, did cut it. But as she went she gave the doctor a pull by the coat’s sleeve, so that thereby his healing faculties might be sharpened to the very utmost.
‘The best woman in the world, doctor; the very best,’ said he, as the door closed behind the wife of his bosom.
‘I’m sure of it,’ said the doctor.
‘Yes, till you find a better one,’ said Scatcherd. ‘Ha! ha! ha! but for good or bad, there are some things which a woman can’t understand, and some things which she ought not to be let to understand.’
‘It’s natural she should be anxious about your health, you know.’
‘I don’t know that,’ said the contractor. ‘She’ll be very well off. All that whining won’t keep a man alive, at any rate.’
There was a pause, during which the doctor continued his medical examination. To this the patient submitted with a bad grace; but still he did submit.
‘We must turn over a new leaf, Sir Roger; indeed we must.’
‘Bother,’ said Sir Roger.
‘Well, Scatcherd; I must do my duty to you, whether you like it or not.’
‘That is to say, I am to pay you for trying to frighten me.’
‘No human nature can stand such shocks as those much longer.’
‘Winterbones,’ said the contractor, turning to his clerk, ‘go down, go down, I say; but don’t be out of the way. If you go to the public-house, by G— you may stay there for me. When I take a drop,— that is if I ever do, it does not stand in the way of work.’ So Mr Winterbones, picking up his cup again, and concealing it in some way beneath his coat flap, retreated out of the room, and the two friends were alone.
‘Scatcherd,’ said the doctor, ‘you have been as near your God, as any man ever was who afterwards ate and drank in this world.’
‘Have I, now?’ said the railway here, apparently somewhat startled.
‘Indeed you have; indeed you have.’
‘And now I’m all right again?’
‘All right! How can you be all right, when you know that your limbs refuse to carry you? All right! why the blood is still beating round you brain with a violence that would destroy any other brain but yours.’
‘Ha! ha! ha!,’ laughed Scatcherd. He was very proud of thinking himself to be differently organized from other men. ‘Ha! ha! ha! Well and what am I to do now?’
The whole of the doctor’s prescription we will not give at length. To some of his ordinances Sir Roger promised obedience; to others he objected violently, and to one or two he flatly refused to listen. The great stumbling-block was this, that total abstinence from business for two weeks was enjoined; and that it was impossible, so Sir Roger said, that he should abstain for two days.
‘If you work,’ said the doctor, ‘in your present state, you will certainly have recourse to the stimulus of drink; and if you drink, most assuredly will die.’
‘Stimulus! Why do you think I can’t work without Dutch courage?’
‘Scatcherd, I know that there is brandy in this room at the moment, and that you have been taking it within these two hours.’
‘You smell that fellow’s gin,’ said Scatcherd.
‘I feel the alcohol working within your veins,’ said the doctor, who still had his hand on his patient’s arm.
Sir Roger turned himself roughly in the bed so as to get away from his Mentor, and then he began to threaten in his turn.
‘I’ll tell you what it is, doctor; I’ve made up my mind, and I’ll do it. I’ll send for Fillgrave.’
‘Very well,’ said he of Greshamsbury, ‘send for Fillgrave. Your case is one in which even he can hardly go wrong.’
‘You think you can hector me, and do as you like because you had me under your thumb in other days. You’re a very good fellow, Thorne, but I ain’t sure that you are the best doctor in all England.’
‘You may be sure I am not; you may take me for the worst if you will. But while I am here as your medical adviser, I can only tell you the truth to the best of my thinking. Now the truth is, that another bout of drinking will in all probability kill you; and any recourse to stimulus in your present condition may do so.’
‘I’ll send for Fillgrave —’
‘Well, send for Fillgrave, only do it at once. Believe me at any rate in this, that whatever you do, you should do at once. Oblige me in this; let Lady Scatcherd take away that brandy bottle till Dr Fillgrave comes.’
‘I’m d —— if I do. Do you think I can’t have a bottle of brandy in my room without swigging?’
‘I think you’ll be less likely to swig if you can’t get at it.’
Sir Roger made another angry turn in his bed as well as his half-paralysed limbs would let him; and then, after a few moments’ peace, renewed his threats with increased violence.
‘Yes; I’ll have Fillgrave over here. If a man be ill, really ill, he should have the best advice he can get. I’ll have Fillgrave, and I’ll have that other fellow from Silverbridge to meet him. What’s his name?— Century.’
The doctor turned his head away; for though the occasion was serious, he could not help smiling at the malicious vengeance with which his friend proposed to gratify himself.
‘I will; and Rerechild too. What’s the expense? I suppose five or six pounds apiece will do it; eh, Thorne?’
‘Oh, yes; that will be liberal I should say. But, Sir Roger, will you allow me to suggest what you ought to do? I don’t know how far you may be joking —’
‘Joking!’ shouted the baronet; ‘you tell a man he’s dying and joking in the same breath. You’ll find I’m not joking.’
‘Well I dare say not. But if you have not full confidence in me —’
‘I have no confidence in you at all.’

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