And then he had his own individual annoyances, and very aggravating annoyances they were. The carriage — or rather the post-chaise — of Dr Fillgrave was now frequent in Greshamsbury, passing him constantly in the street, among the lanes, and on the high roads. It seemed as though Dr Fillgrave could never get to his patients at the big house without showing himself to his beaten rival, either on is way thither or on his return. This alone would, perhaps, not have hurt the doctor much; but it did hurt him to know that Dr Fillgrave was attending the squire for a little incipient gout, and that dear Nina was in measles under those unloving hands.
And then, also, the old-fashioned phaeton, of old-fashioned old Dr Century was seen to rumble up to the big house, and it became known that Lady Arabella was not very well. ‘Not very well,’ when pronounced in a low, grave voice about Lady Arabella, always meant something serious. And, in this case, something serious was meant. Lady Arabella was not only ill, but frightened. It appeared even to her, that Dr Fillgrave hardly knew what he was about, that he was not so sure in his opinion, so confident in himself as Dr Thorne used to be. how should he be, seeing that Dr Thorne had medically had Lady Arabella in his hands for the last ten years?
If sitting with dignity in his hired carriage, and stepping with authority up the big front steps, would have done anything, Dr Fillgrave might have done much. Lady Arabella was greatly taken with his looks when he first came to her, and it was only when she by degrees that the symptoms, which she knew so well, did not yield to him that she began to doubt those looks.
After a while Dr Fillgrave himself suggested Dr Century. ‘Not that I fear anything, Lady Arabella,’ said he,— lying hugely, for he did fear; fear both for himself and for her. ‘But Dr Century has great experience, and in such a matter, when the interests are so important, one cannot be too safe.’
So Dr Century came and toddled slowly into her ladyship’s room. He did not say much; he left the talking to his learned brother, who certainly was able to do that part of the business. But Dr Century, though he said very little, looked very grave, and by no means quieted Lady Arabella’s mind. She, as she saw the two putting their heads together, already had misgivings that she had done wrong. She knew that she could not be safe without Dr Thorne at her bedside, and she already felt that she had exercised a most injudicious courage in driving him away.
‘Well, doctor?’ said she, as soon as Dr Century had toddled downstairs to see the squire.
‘Oh! we shall be all right, Lady Arabella; all right, very soon. But we must be careful, very careful; I am glad I’ve had Dr Century here, very; but there’s nothing to alter; little or nothing.’
There was but few words spoken between Dr Century and the squire; but few as they were, they frightened Mr Gresham. When Dr Fillgrave came down the grand stairs, a servant waited at the bottom to ask him also to go to the squire. Now there never had been much cordiality between the squire and Dr Fillgrave, though Mr Gresham had consented to take a preventative pill from his hands, and the little man therefore swelled himself out somewhat more than ordinarily as he followed the servant.
‘Dr Fillgrave,’ said the squire, at once beginning the conversation, ‘Lady Arabella, is I fear, in danger?’
‘Well, no; I hope not in danger, Mr Gresham. I certainly believe I may be justified in expressing a hope that she is not in danger. Her state is, no doubt, rather serious;— rather serious — as Dr Century has probably told you;’ and Dr Fillgrave made a bow to the old man, who sat quiet in one of the dining-room arm-chairs.
‘Well, doctor,’ said the squire, ‘I have not any grounds on which to doubt your judgement.’
Dr Fillgrave bowed, but with the stiffest, slightest inclination which a head could possibly make. He rather thought that Mr Gresham had no ground for doubting his judgement.
‘Nor do I.’
The doctor bowed, and a little, a very little less stiffly.
‘But, doctor, I think that something ought to be done.’
The doctor this time did his bowing merely with his eyes and mouth. The former he closed for a moment, the latter he pressed; and then decorously rubbed his hands one over the other.
‘I am afraid, Dr Fillgrave, that you and my friend Thorne are not the best friends in the world.’
‘No, Mr Gresham, no; I may go so far as to say we are not.’
‘Well, I am sorry for it —’
‘Perhaps, Mr Gresham, we need hardly discuss it; but there have been circumstances —’
‘I am not going to discuss anything, Dr Fillgrave; I say I am sorry for it, because I believe that prudence will imperatively require Lady Arabella to have Doctor Thorne back again. Now, if you would not object to meet him —’
‘Mr Gresham, I beg pardon; I beg pardon, indeed; but you must really excuse me. Doctor Thorne has, in my estimation —’
‘But, Doctor Fillgrave —’
‘Mr Gresham, you really must excuse me; you really must, indeed. Anything else that I could do for Lady Arabella, I should be most happy to do; but after what has passed, I cannot meet Doctor Thorne; I really cannot. You must not ask me to do so; Mr Gresham. And, Mr Gresham,’ continued the doctor, ‘I did understand from Lady Arabella that his — that is, Dr Thorne’s — conduct to her ladyship had been such — so very outrageous, I may say, that — that — that — of course, Mr Gresham, you know best; but I did think that Lady Arabella herself was quite unwilling to see Doctor Thorne again;’ and Dr Fillgrave looked very big, and very dignified, and very exclusive.
The squire did not ask again. He had no warrant for supposing that Lady Arabella would receive Dr Thorne if he did come; and he saw that it was useless to attempt to overcome the rancour of the man so pig-headed as the little Galen now before him. Other propositions were then broached, and it was at last decided that assistance should be sought for from London, in the person of the great Sir Omicron Pie.
Sir Omicron came, and Drs Fillgrave and Century were there to meet him. When they all assembled in Lady Arabella’s room, the poor woman’s heart almost sand within her,— as well it might, at such a sight. If she could only reconcile it with her honour, her consistency, with her high De Courcy principles, to send once more for Dr Thorne. Oh, Frank! Frank! to what misery your disobedience brought your mother!
Sir Omicron and the lesser provincial lights had their consultation, and the lesser lights went their way to Barchester and Silverbridge, leaving Sir Omicron to enjoy the hospitality of Greshamsbury.
‘You should have Thorne back here, Mr Gresham,’ said Sir Omicron, almost in a whisper, when they were quite alone. ‘Doctor Fillgrave is a very good man, and so is Dr Century; very good, I’m sure. But Thorne has known her ladyship so long.’ And then, on the following morning, Sir Omicron also went his way.
And then there was a scene between the squire and her ladyship. Lady Arabella had given herself credit for great good generalship when she found that the squire had been induced to take that pill. We have all heard of the little end of the wedge, and we have most of us an idea that the little end is the difficulty. That pill had been the little end of Lady Arabella’s wedge. Up to that period she had been struggling in vain to make a severance between her husband and her enemy. That pill should do the business. She well knew how to make the most of it; to have it published in Greshamsbury that the squire had put his gouty toe into Dr Fillgrave’s hands; how to let it be known — especially at that humble house in the corner of the street — that Fillgrave’s prescriptions now ran current through the whole establishment. Dr Thorne did hear of it, and did suffer. He had been a true friend to the squire, and he thought the squire should have stood to him more staunchly.
‘After all,’ said he himself, ‘perhaps it’s as well — perhaps it will be best that I should leave this place altogether.’ And then he thought of Sir Roger and his will, and of Mary and her lover. And then of Mary’s birth, and of his own theoretical doctrines as to pure blood. And so his troubles multiplied, and he saw no present daylight through them.
Such had been the way in which Lady Arabella had got in the little end of the wedge. And she would have triumphed joyfully had not her increased doubts and fears as to herself then come in to check her triumph and destroy her joy. She had not yet confessed to any one her secret regret for the friend she had driven away. She hardly yet acknowledged to herself that she did regret him; but she was uneasy, frightened, and in low spirits.
‘My dear,’ said the squire, sitting down by her bedside, ‘I want to tell you what Sir Omicron said as he went away.’
‘Well?’ said her ladyship, sitting up and looking frightened.
‘I don’t know how you may take it, Bell; but I think it very good news:’ the squire never called his wife Bell, except when he wanted her to be on particularly good terms with him.
‘Well?’ she said again. She was not over-anxious to be gracious, and did not reciprocate his familiarity.
‘Sir Omicron says that you should have Thorne back again, and upon my honour, I cannot but agree with him. Now, Thorne is a clever man, a very clever man; nobody denies that; and then, you know —’
‘Why did not Sir Omicron say that to me?’ said her ladyship, sharply, all her disposition in Dr Thorne’s favour becoming wonderfully damped by her husband’s advocacy.
‘I suppose he thought it better to say it to me,’ said the squire.
‘He should have spoken to myself,’ said Lady Arabella, who, though she did not absolutely doubt her husband’s word, gave him credit for having induced and led on Sir Omicron to the uttering of the opinion. ‘Doctor Thorne has behaved to me in so gross, so indecent a manner! And then, as I understand, he is absolutely encouraging that girl —’
‘Now, Bell, you are quite wrong —’
‘Of course I am; I always am quite wrong.’
‘Quite wrong in mixing up two things; Doctor Thorne as an acquaintance, and Dr Thorne as a doctor.’
‘It is dreadful to have him here, even standing in the room with me. How can one talk to one’s doctor openly and confidentially when one looks upon him as one’s worst enemy?’ And Lady Arabella, softening, almost melted with tears.
‘My dear, you cannot wonder that I should be anxious for you.’
Lady Arabella gave a little snuffle, which might be taken as a not very eloquent expression of thanks for the squire’s solicitude, or as an ironical jeer at his want of sincerity.
‘And, therefore, I have not lost a moment in telling you what Sir Omicron said. “You should have Thorne back here;” those were his very words. You can think it over, my dear. And remember this, Bell; if he is to do any good no time is to be lost.’
And then the squire left the room, and Lady Arabella remained alone, perplexed by many doubts.
Chapter 32 Mr Oriel
I must now, shortly — as shortly as it is in my power to do it — introduce a new character to my reader. Mention has been made of the rectory of Greshamsbury; but, hitherto, no opportunity has offered itself for the Rev Caleb Oriel to come upon the boards.
Mr Oriel was a man of family and fortune, who, having gone to Oxford with the usual views of such men, had become inoculated there with very High-Church principles, and had gone into orders influenced by a feeling of enthusiastic love for the priesthood. He was by no means an ascetic — such men, indeed, seldom are — nor was he a devotee. He was a man well able, and certainly willing to do the work of a parish clergyman; and when he became one, he was efficacious in his profession. But it may perhaps be said of him, without speaking slanderously, that his original calling, as a young man, was rather to the outward and visible signs of religion than to its inward and spiritual graces.
He delighted in lecterns and credence-tables, in services at dark hours of winter mornings when no one would attend, in high waistcoats and narrow white neckties, in chanted services and intoned prayers, and in all the paraphernalia of Anglican formalities which have given such offence to those of our brethren who live in daily fear of the scarlet lady. Many of his friends declared that Mr Oriel would sooner or later deliver himself over body and soul to that lady; but there was no need to fear for him: for though sufficiently enthusiastic to get out of bed at five am on winter mornings — he did so, at least, all through his first winter at Greshamsbury — he was not made of that stuff which is necessary for a staunch, burning, self-denying convert. It was not in him to change his very sleek black coat for a Capuchin’s filthy cassock, nor his pleasant parsonage for some dirty hole in Rome. And it was better so both for him and others. There are but few, very few, to whom it is given to be a Huss, a Wickliffe, or a Luther; and a man gains but little by being a false Huss, or a false Luther,— and his neighbours gain less.
But certain lengths in self-privation Mr Oriel did go; at any rate, for some time. He eschewed matrimony, imagining that it became him as a priest to do so. He fasted rigorously on Fridays; and the neighbours declared that he scourged himself.
Mr Oriel was, it has been said, a man of fortune; that is to say, when he came of age he was master of thirty thousand pounds. When he took it into his head to go into the Church, his friends bought for him the next presentation to the living at Greshamsbury; and, a year after his ordination, the living falling in, Mr Oriel brought himself and his sister to the rectory.
Mr Oriel soon became popular. He was a dark-haired, good-looking man, of polished manners, agreeable in society, not given to monkish austerities — except in the matter of Fridays — nor yet to the Low-Church severity of demeanour. He was thoroughly a gentleman, good-humoured, inoffensive, and sociable. But he had one fault: he was not a marrying man.
On this ground there was a feeling against him so strong as almost at one time to throw him into serious danger. It was not only that he should be sworn against matrimony in his individual self — he whom fate had made so able to sustain the weight of a wife and family; but what an example he was setting! If other clergymen all around should declare against wives and families, what was to become of the country? What was to be done in the rural districts? The religious observances, as regards women, of a Brigham Young were hardly so bad as this!
There were around Greshamsbury very many unmarried ladies — I believe there generally are so round must such villages. From the great house he did not receive much annoyance. Beatrice was then only just on the verge of being brought out, and was not perhaps inclined to think very much of a young clergyman; and Augusta certainly intended to fly at higher game. But there were the Miss Athelings, the daughters of a neighbouring clergyman, who were ready to go all lengths with him in High-Church matters, except as that one tremendously papal step of celibacy; and the two Miss Hesterwells, of Hesterwell Park, the younger of whom boldly declared her purpose of civilizing the savage; and Mrs Opie Green, a very pretty widow, with a very pretty jointure, who lived in a very pretty house about a mile from Greshamsbury, and who declared her opinion that Mr Oriel was quite right in his view of a clergyman’s position. How could a woman, situated as she was, have the comfort of a clergyman’s attention if he were to be regarded just as any other man? She could now know in what light to regard Mr Oriel, and would be able without scruple to avail herself of his zeal. So she did avail herself of his zeal,— and that without any scruple.
And then there was Miss Gushing,— a young thing. Miss Gushing had a great advantage over the other competitors for the civilization of Mr Oriel, namely, in this — that she was able to attend his morning services. If Mr Oriel was to be reached in any way, it was probable that he might be reached in this way. If anything could civilize him, this would do it. Therefore, the young thing, through all one long, tedious winter, tore herself from her warm bed, and was to be seen — no, not seen, but heard — entering Mr Oriel’s church at six o’clock. With indefatigable assiduity the responses were made, uttered from under a close bonnet, and out of a dark corner, in an enthusiastically feminine voice, through the whole winter.
Nor did Miss Gushing altogether fail in her object. When a clergyman’s daily audience consists of but one person, and that person is a young lady, it is hardly possible that he should not become personally intimate with her; hardly possible that he should not be in some measure grateful. Miss Gushing’s responses came from her with such fervour, and she begged for ghostly advice with such eager longing to have her scruples satisfied, that Mr Oriel had nothing for it but to give way to a certain amount of civilization.
By degrees it came to pass that Miss Gushing could never get her final prayer said, her shawl and boa adjusted, and stow away her nice new Prayer Book with the red letters inside, and the cross on the back, till Mr Oriel had been into his vestry and got rid of his surplice. And then they met at the church-porch, and naturally walked together till Mr Oriel’s cruel gateway separated them. The young thing did sometimes think that, as the parson’s civilization progressed, he might have taken the trouble to walk with her as far as Mrs Yates Umbleby’s hall door; but she had hope to sustain her, and a firm resolve to merit success, even though she might not attain it.
‘It is not ten thousand pities,’ she once said to him, ‘that none here should avail themselves of the inestimable privilege which your coming has conferred upon us? Oh, Mr Oriel, I do so wonder at it! To me it is so delightful! The morning service in the dark church is so beautiful, so touching!’
‘I suppose they think it a bore getting up so early,’ said Mr Oriel.
‘Ah, a bore!’ said Miss Gushing, in an enthusiastic tone of depreciation. ‘How insensate they must be! To me it gives a new charm to life. It quiets one for the day; makes one so fitter for one’s daily trials and daily troubles. Does it not, Mr Oriel?’
‘I look upon morning prayer as an imperative duty, certainly.’
‘Oh, certainly, a most imperative duty; but so delicious at the same time. I spoke to Mrs Umbleby about it, but she said she could not leave the children.’
‘No: I dare say not,’ said Mr Oriel.
‘And Mr Umbleby said business kept him up so late at night.’
‘Very probably. I hardly expect the attendance of men of business.’
‘But the servants might come, mightn’t they, Mr Oriel?’
‘I fear that servants seldom can have time for daily prayers in church.’
‘Oh, ah, no; perhaps not.’ And then Miss Gushing began to bethink herself of whom should be composed the congregation which it must be presumed that Mr Oriel wished to see around him. But on this matter he did not enlighten her.
Then Miss Gushing took to fasting on Fridays, and made some futile attempts to induce her priest to give her the comfort of confessional absolution. But, unfortunately, the zeal of the master waxed cool as that of the pupil waxed hot; and, at last, when the young thing returned to Greshamsbury from an autumn excursion which she made with Mrs Umbleby to Weston-super-Mare, she found that the delicious morning services had died a natural death. Miss Gushing did not on that account give up the game, but she was bound to fight with no particular advantage in her favour.
Miss Oriel, though a good Churchwoman, was by no means a convert to her brother’s extremist views, and perhaps gave but scanty credit to the Gushings, Athelings, and Opie Greens for the sincerity of their religion. But, nevertheless, she and her brother were staunch friends; and she still hoped to see the day when he might be induced to think that an English parson might get through his parish work with the assistance of a wife better than he could do without such feminine encumbrance. The girl whom she selected for his bride was not the young thing, but Beatrice Gresham.
And at last it seemed probable to Mr Oriel’s nearest friends that he was in a fair way to be overcome. Not that he had begun to make love to Beatrice, or committed himself by the utterance of any opinion as to the propriety of clerical marriages; but he daily became looser about his peculiar tenets, raved less immoderately than heretofore as to the atrocity of the Greshamsbury church pews, and was observed to take some opportunities of conversing alone with Beatrice. Beatrice had always denied the imputation — this had usually been made by Mary in their happy days — with the vehement asseverations of anger; and Miss Gushing had tittered, and expressed herself as supposing that great people’s daughters might be as barefaced as they pleased.
All this had happened previous to the great Greshamsbury feud. Mr Oriel gradually got himself into a way of sauntering up to the great house, sauntering into the drawing-room for the purpose, as I am sure he thought, of talking with Lady Arabella, and then of sauntering home again, having usually found an opportunity for saying a few words to Beatrice during the visit. This went on all through the feud up to the period of Lady Arabella’s illness; and then one morning, about a month before the date fixed for Frank’s return, Mr Oriel found himself engaged to Miss Beatrice Gresham.
From the day that Miss Gushing heard of it — which was not however for some considerable time after this — she became an Independent Methodist. She could no longer, she said at first, have any faith in any religion; and for an hour or so she was almost tempted to swear that she could no longer have any faith in any man. She had nearly completed a worked cover for a credence-table when the news reached her, as to which, in the young enthusiasm of her heart, she had not been able to remain silent; it had already been promised to Mr Oriel; that promise she swore should not be kept. He was an apostate, she said, from his principles; an utter pervert; a false, designing man, with whom she would never have trusted herself alone on dark mornings had she known that he had such grovelling, worldly inclinations. So Miss Gushing became an Independent Methodist; the credence-table covering was cut up into slippers for the preacher’s feet; and the young thing herself, more happy in this direction than she had been in the other, became the arbiter of that preacher’s domestic happiness.
But this little history of Miss Gushing’s future life is premature. Mr Oriel became engaged demurely, nay, almost silently, to Beatrice, and no one out of their own immediate families was at the time informed of the matter. It was arranged very differently from those other two matches — embryo, or not embryo, those, namely, of Augusta with Mr Moffat, and Frank with Mary Thorne. All Barsetshire had heard of them; but that of Beatrice and Mr Oriel was managed in a much more private manner.
‘I do think you are a happy girl,’ said Patience to her one morning.
‘Indeed I am.’
‘He is so good. You don’t know how good he is as yet; he never thinks of himself, and thinks so much of those he loves.’
Beatrice took her friend’s hand in her own and kissed it. She was full of joy. When a girl is about to be married, when she may lawfully talk of love, there is no music in her ears so sweet as the praises of her lover.
‘I made up my mind from the first that he should marry you.’
‘Nonsense, Patience.’
‘I did, indeed. I made up my mind that he should marry; and there were only two to choose from.’
‘Me and Miss Gushing,’ said Beatrice, laughing.
‘No; not exactly Miss Gushing. I had not many fears for Caleb there.’
‘I declare she is very pretty,’ said Beatrice, who could afford to be good-natured. Now Miss Gushing certainly was pretty; and would have been very pretty had her nose not turned up so much, and could she have parted her hair in the centre.
‘Well, I am very glad you chose me;— if it was you who chose,’ said Beatrice, modestly; having, however, in her own mind a strong opinion that Mr Oriel had chosen for himself, and had never any doubt in the matter. ‘And who was the other?’
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘I won’t guess any more; perhaps Mrs Green.’
‘Oh, no; certainly not a widow. I don’t like widows marrying. But of course you could guess if you would; of course it was Mary Thorne. But I soon saw Mary would not do, for two reasons; Caleb would never have liked her well enough nor would she have ever liked him.’
‘Not like him! oh I hope she will; I do so love Mary Thorne.’
‘So do I dearly; and so does Caleb; but he could never have loved her as he loves you.’
‘But, Patience, have you told Mary?’
‘No, I have told no one, and shall not without your leave.’
‘Ah, you must tell her. Tell it her with my best, and kindest, warmest love. Tell her how happy I am, and how I long to talk to her. Tell that I will have her for my bridesmaid. Oh! I do hope that before that all this horrid quarrel will be settled.
Patience undertook the commission, and did tell Mary; did give her also the message which Beatrice had sent. And Mary was rejoiced to hear it; for though, as Patience had said of her, she had never herself felt any inclination to fall in love with Mr Oriel, she believed him to be one in whose hands her friend’s happiness would be secure. Then, by degrees, the conversation changed from the loves of Mr Oriel and Beatrice to the troubles of Frank Gresham and herself.
‘She says that let what will happen you shall be one of her bridesmaids.’
‘Ah, yes, dear Trichy! that was settled between us in auld lang syne; but those settlements are all unsettled now, and must be broken. No, I cannot be her bridesmaid; but I shall yet hope to see her once before her marriage.’
‘And why not be her bridesmaid? Lady Arabella will hardly object to that.’
‘Lady Arabella!’ said Mary, curling up her lip with deep scorn. ‘I do not care that for Lady Arabella,’ and she let her silver thimble fall from her fingers onto the table. ‘If Beatrice invited me to her wedding, she might manage as to that; I should ask no question as to Lady Arabella.’
‘Then why not come to it?’
She remained silent for a while, and then boldly answered. ‘Though I do not care for Lady Arabella, I do care for Mr Gresham:— and I do care for his son.’
‘But the squire always loved you.’
‘Yes, and therefore I will not be there to vex his sight. I will tell you the truth, Patience. I can never be in that house again till Frank Gresham is a married man, or till I am about to be a married woman. I do not think they have treated me well, but I will not treat them ill.’
‘I am sure you will not do that,’ said Miss Oriel.
‘I will endeavour not to do so; and, therefore, will go to none of their fetes! No, Patience.’ And then she turned her head to the arm of the sofa, and silently, without audible sobs, hiding her face, she endeavoured to get rid of the tears unseen. For one moment she had all but resolved to pour out the whole truth of her love into her friend’s ears; but suddenly she changed her mind. Why should she talk of her own unhappiness? Why should she speak of her own love when she was fully determined not to speak of Frank’s promises.
‘Mary, dear Mary.’
‘Anything, but pity, Patience; anything but that,’ said she, convulsively, swallowing her sobs, and rubbing away her tears. ‘I cannot bear that. Tell Beatrice from me, that I wish her every happiness; and, with such a husband, I am sure she will be happy. I wish her every joy; give her my kindest love; but tell her that I cannot be at her marriage. Oh, I should like to see her; not there, you know, but here, in my own room, where I still have liberty to speak.’
‘But why should you decide now? She is not to be married yet, you know.’
‘Now, or this day twelvemonth, can make no difference. I will not go into that house again, unless — but never mind; I will not go into it all; never, never again. If I could forgive her for myself, I could not forgive her for my uncle. But tell me, Patience, might not Beatrice now come here? It is so dreadful to see her every Sunday in church and never to speak to her, never to kiss her. She seems to look away from me as though she too had chosen to quarrel with me.’
Miss Oriel promised to do her best. She could not imagine, she said, that such a visit could be objected to on such an occasion. She would not advise Beatrice to come without telling her mother; but she could not think that Lady Arabella would be so cruel as to make any objection, knowing, as she could not but know, that her daughter, when married, would be at liberty to choose her own friends.
‘Good-bye, Mary,’ said Patience. ‘I wish I knew how to say more to comfort you.’
‘Oh, comfort! I don’t want comfort. I want to be let alone.’
‘That’s just it: you are so ferocious in your scorn, so unbending, so determined to take all the punishment that comes in your way.’
‘What I do take, I’ll take without complaint,’ said Mary; and then they kissed each other and parted.
Chapter 33 A Morning Visit
It must be remembered that Mary, among her miseries, had to suffer this: that since Frank’s departure, now nearly twelve months ago, she had not heard a word about him; or rather, she had only heard that he was very much in love with some lady in London. This news reached her in a manner so circuitous, and from such a doubtful source; it seemed to her to savour so strongly of Lady Arabella’s precautions, that she attributed it at once to malice, and blew it to the winds. It might not improbably be the case that Frank was untrue to her; but she would not take it for granted because she was now told so. It was more than probable that he should amuse himself with some one; flirting was his prevailing sin; and if he did flirt, the most would of course be made of it.
But she found it to be very desolate to be thus left alone without a word of comfort or a word of love; without being able to speak to any one of what filled her heart; doubting, nay, more than doubting, being all but sure that her passion must terminate in misery. Why had she not obeyed her conscience and her better instinct int hat moment when the necessity for deciding had come upon her? Why had she allowed him to understand that he was master of her heart? Did she not know that there was everything against such a marriage as that which was proposed? Had she not done wrong, very wrong, even to think of it? Had she not sinned deeply, against Mr Gresham, who had ever been so kind to her? Could she hope, was it possible, that a boy like Frank should be true to his first love? And, if he were true, if he were ready to go to the altar with her tomorrow, ought she to allow him to degrade himself by such a marriage?
There was, alas! some truth about the London lady. Frank had taken his degree, as arranged, and had then gone abroad for the winter, doing the fashionable things, going up the Nile, crossing over to Mount Sinai, thence over the long desert to Jerusalem, and home by Damascus, Beyrout, and Constantinople, bringing back a long beard, a red cap, and a chibook, just as our fathers used to go through Italy and Switzerland, and our grandfathers to spend a season in Paris. He had then remained for a couple of months in London, going through all the society which the De Courcys were able to open to him. And it was true that a certain belle of the season, of that season and some others, had been captivated — for the tenth time — by the silken sheens of his long beard. Frank had probably been more demonstrative, perhaps, ever more susceptible, than he should have been; and hence the rumour, which had all too willingly been forwarded to Greshamsbury.
But young Gresham had also met another lady in London, namely Miss Dunstable. Mary would indeed have been grateful to Miss Dunstable, could she have know all that lady did for her. Frank’s love was never allowed to flag. When he spoke of the difficulties in his way, she twitted him by being overcome by straws; and told him that no one was ever worth having who was afraid of every lion he met in his path. When he spoke of money, she bade him earn it; and always ended by offering to smooth for him any real difficulty which want of means might put in his way.
‘No,’ Frank used to say to himself, when these offers were made, ‘I never intended to take her and her money together; and, therefore, I certainly will never take the money alone.’
A day or two after Miss Oriel’s visit, Mary received the following note from Beatrice.
‘DEAREST, DEAREST MARY,
‘I shall be so happy to see you, and will come tomorrow at twelve. I have asked mamma, and she says that, for once, she has no objection. You know it is not my fault that I have never been with you; don’t you? Frank comes home on the twelfth. Mr Oriel wants the wedding to be on the first of September; but that seems to be so very, very soon; doesn’t it? However, mamma and papa are all on his side. I won’t write about this, though, for we shall have such a delicious talk. Oh, Mary! I have been so unhappy without you. ‘Ever your own affectionate, TRICHY’
Though Mary was delighted at the idea of once more having her friend in her arms, there was, nevertheless, something in the letter which oppressed her. She could not put up with the idea that Beatrice should have permission given to come to her — just for once. She hardly wished to be seen by permission. Nevertheless, she did not refuse the proffered visit, and the first sight of Beatrice’s face, the first touch of the first embrace, dissipated for the moment her anger.
And then Beatrice fully enjoyed the delicious talk which she had promised herself. Mary let her have her way, and for two hours all the delights and all the duties, all the comforts and all the responsibilities of a parson’s wife were discussed with almost equal ardour on both sides. The duties and responsibilities were not exactly those which too often fall to the lot of the mistress of an English vicarage. Beatrice was not doomed to make her husband comfortable, to educate her children, dress herself like a lady, and exercise open-handed charity on an income of two hundred pounds a year. Her duties and responsibilities would have to spread themselves over seven or eight times that amount of worldly burden. Living also close to Greshamsbury, and not far from Courcy Castle, she would have the full advantage and all the privileges of county society. In fact, it was all couleur de rose, and so she chatted deliciously with her friend.
But it was impossible that they should separate without something having been said as to Mary’s own lot. It would, perhaps, have been better that they should do so; but this was hardly within the compass of human nature.
‘And Mary, you know, I shall be able to see you as often as I like;— you and Dr Thorne, too, when I have a house of my own.’
Mary said nothing, but essayed to smile. It was but a ghastly attempt.
‘You know how happy that will make me,’ continued Beatrice. ‘Of course mamma won’t expect me to be led by her then; if he likes it, there can be no objection; and he will like it, you may be sure of that.’
‘You are very kind, Trichy,’ said Mary; but she spoke in a tone very different from that she would have used eighteen months ago.
‘Why, what is the matter, Mary? Shan’t you be glad to come and see us?’
‘I do not know, dearest; that must depend on circumstances. To see you, you yourself, your own dear, sweet, loving face must always be pleasant to me.’
‘And shan’t you be glad to see him?’
‘Yes, certainly, if he loves you.’
‘Of course he loves me.’
‘All that alone would be pleasant enough, Trichy. But what if there should be circumstances which should still make us enemies; should make your friends and my friends — friend, I should say, for I have only one — should make them opposed to each other?’
‘Circumstances! What circumstances?’
‘You are going to be married, Trichy, to the man you love; are you not?’
‘Indeed I am!’
‘And it is not pleasant? is it not a happy feeling?’
‘Pleasant! happy! yes, very pleasant; very happy. But, Mary, I am not at all in such a hurry as he is,’ said Beatrice, naturally thinking of her own little affairs.
‘And, suppose I should wish to be married to the man that I love?’ Mary said this slowly and gravely, and as she spoke she looked her friend full in the face.
Beatrice was somewhat astonished, and for the moment hardly understood. ‘I am sure I hope you will some day.’
‘No, Trichy; no, you hope the other way. I love your brother; I love Frank Gresham; I love him quite as well, quite as warmly, as you love Caleb Oriel.’
‘Do you?’ said Beatrice, staring with all her eyes, and giving one long sigh, as this new subject for sorrow was so distinctly put before her.
‘It that so odd?’ said Mary. ‘You love Mr Oriel, though you have been intimate with him hardly more than two years. Is it so odd that I should love your brother, whom I have known almost all my life?’
‘But, Mary, I thought it was always understood between us that — that — I mean that you were not to care about him; not in the way of loving him, you know — I thought you always said so — I have always told mamma so as if it came from yourself.’
‘Beatrice, do not tell anything to Lady Arabella as though it came from me; I do not want anything to be told to her, either of me or from me. Say what you like to me yourself; whatever you say will not anger me. Indeed, I know what you would say — and yet I love you. Oh, I love you, Trichy — Trichy, I do love you so much! Don’t turn away from me!’
There was such a mixture in Mary’s manner of tenderness and almost ferocity, that poor Beatrice could hardly follow her. ‘Turn away from you, Mary! no never; but this does make me unhappy.’
‘It is better that you should know it all, and then you will not be led into fighting my battles again. You cannot fight them so that I should win; I do love your brother; love him truly, fondly, tenderly. I would wish to have him for my husband as you wish to have Mr Oriel.’
‘But, Mary, you cannot marry him!’
‘Why not?’ said she, in a loud voice. ‘Why can I not marry him? If the priest says a blessing over us, shall we not be married as well as you and your husband?’
‘But you know he cannot marry unless his wife shall have money.’
‘Money — money; and he is to sell himself for money? Oh, Trichy! do not you talk about money. It is horrible. But, Trichy, I will grant it — I cannot marry him; but still, I love him. He has a name, a place in the world, and fortune, family, high blood, position, everything. He has all this, and I have nothing. Of course I cannot marry him. But yet I do love him.’
‘Are you engaged to him, Mary?’
‘He is not engaged to me; but I am to him.’
‘Oh, Mary, that is impossible!’
‘It is not impossible: it is the cast — I am pledged to him; but he is not pledged to me.’
‘But, Mary, don’t look at me in that way. I do not quite understand you. What is the good of your being engaged if you cannot marry him?’
‘Good! there is no good. But can I help it, if I love him? Can I make myself not love him by just wishing it? Oh, I would do it if I could. But now you will understand why I shake my head when you talk of coming to your house. Your ways and my ways must be different.’
Beatrice was startled, and, for a time, silenced. What Mary said of the difference of their ways was quite true. Beatrice had dearly loved her friend, and had thought of her with affection through all this long period in which they had been separated; but she had given her love and her thoughts on the understanding, as it were, that they were in unison as to the impropriety of Frank’s conduct.
She had always spoken, with a grave face, of Frank and his love as of a great misfortune, even to Mary herself; and her pity for Mary had been founded on the conviction of her innocence. Now all those ideas had to be altered. Mary owned her fault, confessed herself to be guilty of all that Lady Arabella so frequently laid to her charge, and confessed herself anxious to commit every crime as to which Beatrice had been ever so ready to defend her.
Had Beatrice up to this dreamed that Mary was in love with Frank, she would doubtless have sympathized with her more or less sooner or later. As it was, is was beyond all doubt that she would soon sympathize with her. But, at the moment, the suddenness of the declaration seemed to harden her heart, and she forgot, as it were, to speak tenderly to her friend.
She was silent, therefore, and dismayed; and looked as though she thought that her ways and Mary’s ways must be different.
Mary saw all that was passing in the other’s mind: no, not all; all the hostility, the disappointment, the disapproval, the unhappiness, she did see; but not the under-current of love, which was strong enough to well up and drown all these, if only time could be allowed for it to do so.
‘I am so glad to have told you,’ said Mary, curbing herself, ‘for deceit and hypocrisy are detestable.’
‘It was a misunderstanding, not deceit,’ said Beatrice.
‘Well, now we understand each other; now you know that I have a heart within me, which like those of some others has not always been under my own control. Lady Arabella believes that I am intriguing to be the mistress of Greshamsbury. You, at any rate, will not think that of me. If it could be discovered tomorrow that Frank were not the heir, I might have some chance of happiness.’
‘But, Mary —’
‘Well?’
‘You say you love him.’
‘Yes; I do say so.’
‘But if he does not love you, will you cease to do so?’
‘If I have a fever, I will get rid of it if I can; in such a case I must do so, or die.’
‘I fear,’ continued Beatrice, ‘you hardly know, perhaps do not think, what is Frank’s real character. He is not made to settle down early in life; even now, I believe he is attached to some lady in London, whom, of course, he cannot marry.’
Beatrice had said this in perfect trueness of heart. She had heard of Frank’s new love-affair, and believing what she had heard, thought it best to tell the truth. But the information was not of a kind to quiet Mary’s spirit.
‘Very well,’ said she, ‘let it be so. I have nothing to say against it.’
‘But are you not preparing wretchedness and unhappiness for yourself?’
‘Very likely.’
‘Oh, Mary, do not be so cold with me! you know how delighted I should be to have you for a sister-inlaw, if only it were possible.’
‘Yes, Trichy; but it is impossible, is it not? Impossible that Francis Gresham of Greshamsbury should disgrace himself by marrying such a poor creature as I am. Of course I know it; of course, I am prepared for unhappiness and misery. He can amuse himself as he likes with me or others — with anybody. It is his privilege. It is quite enough to say that he is not made for settling down. I know my own position;— and yet I love him.’
‘But, Mary, has he asked you to be his wife? If so —’
‘You ask home-questions, Beatrice. Let me ask you one; has he ever told you that he has done so?’
At this moment Beatrice was not disposed to repeat all that Frank had said. A year ago, before he went away, he had told his sister a score of times that he meant to marry Mary Thorne if she would have him; but Beatrice now looked on all that as idle, boyish vapouring. The pity was, that Mary should have looked on it differently.
‘We will each keep our secret,’ said Mary. ‘Only remember this: should Frank marry tomorrow, I shall have no ground for blaming him. He is free as far I as am concerned. He can take the London lady if he likes. You may tell him so from me. But, Trichy, what else I have told you, I have told you only.’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Beatrice, sadly; ‘I shall say nothing of it to anybody. It is very sad, very, very; I was so happy when I came here, and now I am so wretched.’ This was the end of that delicious talk to which she had looked forward with so much eagerness.
‘Don’t be wretched about me, dearest; I shall get through it. I sometimes think I was born to be unhappy, and that unhappiness agrees with me best. Kiss me now, Trichy, and don’t be wretched any more. You owe it to Mr Oriel to be as happy as the day is long.’
And then they parted.
Beatrice, as she went out, saw Dr Thorne in his little shop on the right-hand side of the passage deeply engaged in some derogatory branch of an apothecary’s mechanical trade; mixing a dose, perhaps, for a little child. She would have passed him without speaking, if she could have been sure of doing so without notice, for her heart was full, and her eyes were red with tears; but it was so long since she had been in his house that she was more than ordinarily anxious not to appear uncourteous or unkind to him.
‘Good morning, doctor,’ she said, changing her countenance as best she might, and attempting a smile.
‘Ah, my fairy!’ said he, leaving his villainous compounds, and coming out to her; ‘and you, too, are about to become a steady old lady.’
‘Indeed, I am not, doctor; I don’t mean to be either steady or old, for the next ten years. But who has told you? I suppose Mary has been a traitor.’
‘Well, I will confess Mary was the traitor. But hadn’t I a right to be told, seeing how often I have brought you sugar-plums in my pocket? But I wish you joy with all my heart — with all my heart. Oriel is an excellent, good fellow.’
‘Is he not, doctor?’
‘An excellent, good fellow. I never heard but of one fault that he had.’
‘What was that one fault, Doctor Thorne?’
‘He thought that clergymen should not marry. But you have cured that, and now he’s perfect.’
‘Thank you, doctor. I declare that you say the prettiest things of all my friends.’
‘And none of your friends wish prettier things for you. I do congratulate you, Beatrice, and hope you may be happy with the man you have chosen;’ and taking both her hands in his, he pressed them warmly, and bade God bless her.
‘Oh, doctor! I do so hope the time will come when we shall all be friends again.’
‘I hope it as well, my dear. But let it come, or let it not come, my regard for you will be the same:’ and then she parted from him also, and went her way.
Nothing was spoken of that evening between Dr Thorne and his niece excepting Beatrice’s future happiness; nothing, at least, having reference to what had passed that morning. But on the following morning, circumstances led to Frank Gresham’s name being mentioned.
At the usual breakfast-hour the doctor entered the parlour with a harassed face. He had an open letter in his hand, and it was at once clear to Mary that he was going to speak on some subject that vexed him.
‘That unfortunate fellow is again in trouble. Here is a letter from Greyson.’ Greyson was a London apothecary, who had been appointed as medical attendant to Sir Louis Scatcherd, and whose real business consisted in keeping a watch on the baronet, and reporting to Dr Thorne when anything was very much amiss. ‘Here is a letter from Greyson; he has been drunk for the last three days, and is now laid up in a terribly nervous state.’
‘You won’t go up to town again; will you, uncle?’
‘I hardly know what to do. No, I think not. He talks of coming down here to Greshamsbury.’
‘Who, Sir Louis?’
‘Yes, Sir Louis. Greyson says that he will be down as soon as he can get out of his room.’
‘What! to this house?’
‘What other home can he come to?’
‘Oh, uncle! I hope not. Pray, pray do not let him come here.’
‘I cannot prevent it, dear. I cannot shut my door on him.’
They sat down to breakfast, and Mary gave him his tea in silence. ‘I am going over to Boxall Hill before dinner,’ said he. ‘Have you any message to send to Lady Scatcherd?’
‘Message! no, I have no message; not especially: give her my love, of course,’ she said listlessly. And then, as though a thought had suddenly struck her, she spoke with more energy. ‘But, couldn’t I go to Boxall Hill again? I should be so delighted.’
‘What! to run away from Sir Louis? No, dearest, we will have no more running away. He will probably also go to Boxall Hill, and he could annoy you much more there than he can here.’
‘But, uncle, Mr Gresham will be home on the twelfth,’ she said, blushing.
‘What! Frank?’
‘Yes. Beatrice said he was to be here on the twelfth.’
‘And would you run away from him too, Mary?’
‘I do not know: I do not know what to do.’
‘No; we will have no more running away: I am sorry that you ever did so. It was my fault, altogether my fault; but it was foolish.’
‘Uncle, I am not happy here.’ As she said this, she put down the cup which she had held, and, leaning her elbows on the table, rested her forehead on her hands.
‘And would you be happier at Boxall Hill? It is not the place that makes the happiness.’
‘No, I know that; it is not the place. I do not look to be happy in any place; but I should be quieter, more tranquil elsewhere than here.’
‘I also sometimes think that it would be better for us to take up our staves and walk away from Greshamsbury;— leave it altogether, and settle elsewhere; miles, miles, miles away from here. Should you like that, dearest?’
Miles, miles, miles away from Greshamsbury! There was something in the sound that fell very cold on Mary’s ears, unhappy as she was. Greshamsbury had been so dear to her; in spite of all that had passed, was still so dear to her! Was she prepared to take up her staff, as her uncle said, and walk forth from the place with the full understanding that she was to return to it no more; with a mind resolved that there should be an inseparable gulf between her and its inhabitants? Such she knew was the proposed nature of the walking away of which her uncle spoke. So she sat there, resting on her arms, and gave no answer to the question that had been put to her.
‘No, we will stay here a while yet,’ said her uncle. ‘It may come to that, but this is not the time. For one season longer let us face — I will not say our enemies; I cannot call anybody my enemy who bears the name of Gresham.’ And then he went on for a moment with his breakfast. ‘So Frank will be here on the twelfth?’
‘Yes, uncle.’
‘Well, dearest, I have no questions to ask you; no directions to give. I know how good you are, and how prudent; I am anxious only for your happiness; not at all —’
‘Happiness, uncle, is out of the question.’
‘I hope not. It is never out of the question, never can be out of the question. But, as I was saying, I am quite satisfied your conduct will be good, and, therefore, I have no questions to ask. We will remain here; and, whether good or evil come, we will not be ashamed to show our faces.’
She sat for a while again silent; collecting her courage on the subject that was nearest her heart. She would have given the world that he should ask her questions; but she could not bid him to do so; and she found it impossible to talk openly to him about Frank unless he did so. ‘Will he come here?’ at last she said, in a low-toned voice.
‘Who? He, Louis? Yes, I think that in all probability he will.’
‘No; but Frank,’ she said, in a still lower voice.
‘Ah! my darling, that I cannot tell; but will it be well that he should come here?’
‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘No, I suppose not. But, uncle, I don’t think he will come.’
She was now sitting on a sofa, away from the table, and he got up sat down beside her, and took her hands in his. ‘Mary,’ said he, ‘you must be strong now; strong to endure, not to attack. I think that you have that strength; but, if not, perhaps it will be better that we should go away.’
‘I will be strong,’ said she, rising up and going towards the door. ‘Never mind me, uncle; don’t follow me; I will be strong. It will be base, cowardly, mean to run away; very base in me to make you do so.’
‘No, dearest, not so; it will be the same to me.’
‘No,’ said she, ‘I will not run away from Lady Arabella. And, as for him — if he loves this other one, he shall hear no reproach from me. Uncle, I will be strong;’ and running back to him, she threw her arms around him and kissed him. And, still restraining her tears, she got safely to her bedroom. In what way she may there have shown her strength, it would not be well for us to inquire.
Chapter 34 A Barouche and Four Arrives at Greshamsbury
During the last twelve months Sir Louis Scatcherd had been very efficacious in bringing trouble, turmoil, and vexation upon Greshamsbury. Now that it was too late to take steps to save himself, Dr Thorne found that the will left by Sir Roger was so made as to entail upon him duties that he would find it almost impossible to perform. Sir Louis, though his father had wished to make him still a child in the eye of the law, was no child. He knew his own rights and was determined to exact them; and before Sir Roger had been dead three months, the doctor found himself in continual litigation with a low Barchester attorney, who was acting on behalf of his, the doctor’s, own ward.
And if the doctor suffered so did the squire, and so did those who had hitherto had the management of the squire’s affairs. Dr Thorne soon perceived that he was to be driven into litigation, not only with Mr Finnie, the Barchester attorney, but with the squire himself. While Finnie harassed him, he was compelled to harass Mr Gresham. He was no lawyer himself; and though he had been able to manage very well between the squire and Sir Roger, and had perhaps given himself some credit for his lawyer-like ability in so doing, he was utterly unable to manage between Sir Louis and Mr Gresham.
He had, therefore, to employ a lawyer on his own account, and it seemed probable that the whole amount of Sir Roger’s legacy to himself would by degrees be expended in this manner. And then the squire’s lawyers had to take up the matter; and they did so greatly to the detriment of poor Mr Yates Umbleby, who was found to have made a mess of the affairs entrusted to him. Mr Umbleby’s accounts were incorrect; his mind was anything but clear, and he confessed, when put to it by the very sharp gentleman that came down from London, that he was ‘bothered’; and so, after a while, he was suspended from his duties, and Mr Gazebee, the sharp gentleman from London, reigned over the diminished rent-roll of the Greshamsbury estate.
Thus everything was going wrong at Greshamsbury — with the one exception of Mr Oriel and his love-suit. Miss Gushing attributed the deposition of Mr Umbleby to the narrowness of the victory which Beatrice had won in carrying off Mr Oriel. For Miss Gushing was a relation of the Umblebys, and had been for many years one of their family. ‘If she had only chosen to exert herself as Miss Gresham had done, she could have had Mr Oriel, easily; oh, too easily! but she had despised such work,’ so she said. ‘But though she had despised it, the Greshams had not been less irritated, and, therefore, Mr Umbleby had been driven out of his house.’ We can hardly believe this, as victory generally makes men generous. Miss Gushing, however, stated it as a fact so often that it is probable she was induced to believe it herself.
Thus everything was going wrong at Greshamsbury, and the squire himself was especially a sufferer. Umbleby had at any rate been his own man, and he could do what he liked with him. He could see him when he liked, and where he liked, and now he liked; could scold him if in an ill-humour, and laugh at him when in a good humour. All this Mr Umbleby knew, and bore. But Mr Gazebee was a very different sort of gentleman; he was the junior partner in the firm of Gumption, Gazebee & Gazebee of Mount Street, a house that never defiled itself with any other business than the agency business, and that in the very highest line. They drew out leases, and managed property both for the Duke of Omnium and Lord De Courcy; and ever since her marriage, it had been one of the objects dearest to Lady Arabella’s heart that the Greshamsbury acres should be superintended by the polite skill and polished legal ability of that all but elegant firm in Mount Street.
The squire had long stood firm, and had delighted in having everything done under his own eye by poor Mr Yates Umbleby. But now, alas! he could stand it no longer. He had put off the evil day as long as he could; he had deferred the odious work of investigation till things had seemed resolved on investigating themselves; and then, when it was absolutely necessary that Mr Umbleby should go, there was nothing for him left but to fall into the ready hands of Messrs Gumption, Gazebee and Gazebee.
It must not be supposed that Messrs Gumption, Gazebee and Gazebee were in the least like the ordinary run of attorneys. They wrote no letters for six-and-eightpence each: they collected no debts, filed no bills, made no charge per folio for ‘whereases’ and ‘as aforesaids’; they did no dirty work, and probably were as ignorant of the interior of a court of law as any young lady living in their Mayfair vicinity. No; their business was to manage the property of great people, draw up leases, make legal assignments, get the family marriage settlements made, and look after wills. Occasionally, also, they had to raise money; but it was generally understood that this was done by proxy.
The firm had been going on for a hundred and fifty years, and the designation had often been altered; but it always consisted of Gumptions and Gazebees differently arranged, and no less hallowed names had ever been permitted to appear. It had been Gazebee, Gazebee and Gumption; then Gazebee and Gumption; then Gazebee, Gumption and Gumption; then Gumption, Gumption and Gazebee; and now it was Gumption, Gazebee and Gazebee.
Mr Gazebee, the junior member of this firm, was a very elegant young man. While looking at him riding in Rotten Row, you would hardly have taken him for an attorney; and had he heard that you had so taken him, he would have been very much surprised indeed. He was rather bald; not being, as people say, quite so young as he was once. His exact age was thirty-eight. But he had a really remarkable pair of jet-black whiskers, which fully made up for his deficiency as to his head; he had also dark eyes, and a beaked nose, what may be called a distinguished mouth, and was always dressed in fashionable attire. The fact was, that Mr Mortimer Gazebee, junior partner in the firm Gumption, Gazebee, and Gazebee, by no means considered himself to be made of that very disagreeable material which mortals call small beer.
When this great firm was applied to get Mr Gresham through his difficulties, and when the state of his affairs was made known to them, they at first expressed rather a disinclination for the work. But at last, moved doubtless by their respect for the De Courcy interest, they assented; and Mr Gazebee, junior, went down to Greshamsbury. The poor squire passed many a sad day after that before he again felt himself to be master even of his own domain.
Nevertheless, when Mr Mortimer Gazebee visited Greshamsbury, which he did on more than one or two occasions, he was always received en grand seigneur. To Lady Arabella he was by no means an unwelcome guest, for she found herself able, for the first time in her life, to speak confidentially on her husband’s pecuniary affairs with the man who had the management of her husband’s property. Mr Gazebee also was a pet with Lady De Courcy; and being known to be a fashionable man in London, and quite a different sort of person from poor Mr Umbleby, he was always received with smiles. He had a hundred little ways of making himself agreeable, and Augusta declared to her cousin, the Lady Amelia, after having been acquainted with him for a few months, that he would be a perfect gentleman, only, that his family had never been anything but attorneys. The Lady Amelia smiled in her own peculiarly aristocratic way, shrugged her shoulders slightly, and said, ‘that Mr Mortimer Gazebee was a very good sort of person, very.’ Poor Augusta felt herself snubbed, thinking perhaps of the tailor’s son; but as there was never any appeal against the Lady Amelia, she said nothing more at that moment in favour of Mr Mortimer Gazebee.
All these evils — Mr Mortimer Gazebee being the worst of them — had Sir Louis Scatcherd brought down on the poor squire’s head. There may be those who will say that the squire had brought them on himself, by running into debt; and so, doubtless, he had; but it was not the less true that the baronet’s interference was unnecessary, vexatious, and one might almost say, malicious. His interest would have been quite safe in the doctor’s hands, and he had, in fact, no legal right to meddle; but neither the doctor nor the squire could prevent him. Mr Finnie knew very well what he was about, if Sir Louis did not; and so the three went on, each with his own lawyer, and each of them distrustful, unhappy, and ill at ease. This was hard upon the doctor, for he was not in debt, and had borrowed no money.
There was not much reason to suppose that the visit of Sir Louis to Greshamsbury would much improve matters. It must be presumed that he was not coming with any amicable views, but with the object rather of looking after his own; a phrase which was now constantly in his mouth. He might probably find it necessary while looking after his own at Greshamsbury, to say some very disagreeable things to the squire; and the doctor, therefore, hardly expected that the visit would go off pleasantly.
When last he saw Sir Louis, now nearly twelve months since, he was intent on making a proposal of marriage to Miss Thorne. This intention he carried out about two days after Frank Gresham had done the same thing. He had delayed doing so till he had succeeded in purchasing his friend Jenkins’s Arab pony, imagining that such a present could not but go far in weaning Mary’s heart from her other lover. Poor Mary was put to the trouble of refusing both the baronet and the pony, and a very bad time she had of it while doing so. Sir Louis was a man easily angered, and not very easily pacified, and Mary had to endure a good deal of annoyance; from any other person, indeed, she would have called it impertinence. Sir Louis, however, had to bear his rejection as best he could, and, after a perseverance of three days, returned to London in disgust; and Mary had not seen him since.
Mr Greyson’s first letter was followed by a second; and the second was followed by the baronet in person. He also required to be received en grand seigneur, perhaps more imperatively than Mr Mortimer Gazebee himself. He came with four posters from the Barchester Station, and had himself rattled up to the doctor’s door in a way that took the breath away from all Greshamsbury. Why! the squire himself for a many long year had been contented to come home with a pair of horses; and four were never seen in the place, except when the De Courcys came to Greshamsbury, or Lady Arabella, with all her daughters returned from her hard-fought metropolitan campaigns.
Sir Louis, however, came with four, and very arrogant looked, leaning back in the barouche belonging to the George and Dragon, and wrapped up in fur, although it was now midsummer. And up in the dicky behind was a servant, more arrogant, if possible, than his master — the baronet’s own man, who was the object of Dr Thorne’s special detestation and disgust. He was a little fellow, chosen originally on account of his light weight on horseback; but if that may be considered a merit, it was the only one he had. His out-door show dress was a little tight frock-coat, round which a polished strap was always buckled tightly, a stiff white choker, leather breeches, top-boots, and a hat, with a cockade, stuck on one side of his head. His name was Jonah, which his master and his master’s friends shortened to Joe; none, however, but those who were very intimate with his master were allowed to do so with impunity.
This Joe was Dr Thorne’s special aversion. In his anxiety to take every possible step to keep Sir Louis from poisoning himself, he had at first attempted to enlist the baronet’s ‘own man’ in the cause. Joe had promised fairly, but had betrayed the doctor at once, and had become the worst instrument of his master’s dissipation. When, therefore, his hat and the cockade were seen, as the carriage dashed up to the door, the doctor’s contentment was by no means increased.
Sir Louis was now twenty-three years old, and was a great deal too knowing to allow himself to be kept under the doctor’s thumb. It had, indeed, become his plan to rebel against his guardian in almost everything. He had at first been decently submissive, with the view of obtaining increased supplies of ready money; but he had been sharp enough to perceive that, let his conduct be what it would, the doctor would keep him out of debt; but that the doing so took so large a sum that he could not hope for any further advances. In this respect Sir Louis was perhaps more keen-witted than Dr Thorne.
Mary, when she saw the carriage, at once ran up to her own bedroom. The doctor, who had been with her in the drawing-room, went down to meet his ward, but as soon as he saw the cockade he darted almost involuntarily into his shop and shut the door. This protection, however, lasted only for a moment; he felt that decency required him to meet his guest, and so he went forth and faced the enemy.
‘I say,’ said Joe, speaking to Janet, who stood curtsying at the gate, with Bridget, the other maid, behind her, ‘I say, are there any chaps about the place to take the things — eh? come, look sharp here.’
It so happened that the doctor’s groom was not on the spot, and ‘other chaps’ the doctor had none.
‘Take those things, Bridget,’ he said, coming forward and offering his hand to the baronet. Sir Louis, when he saw his host, roused himself slowly from the back of his carriage. ‘How do, doctor?’ said he. ‘What terrible bad roads you have here! and, upon my word, it’s as cold as winter:’ and, so saying, he slowly proceeded to descend.
Sir Louis was a year older than when we last saw him, and, in his generation, a year wiser. He had then been somewhat humble before the doctor; but now he was determined to let his guardian see that he knew how to act the baronet; that he had acquired the manners of a great man; and that he was not to be put upon. He had learnt some lessons from Jenkins in London, and other friends of the same sort, and he was about to profit by them.
The doctor showed him to his room, and then proceeded to ask after his health. ‘Oh, I’m right enough,’ said Sir Louis. ‘You mustn’t believe all that fellow Greyson tells you: he wants me to take salts and senna, opodeldoc, and all that sort of stuff; looks after his bill, you know — eh? like all the rest of you. But I won’t have it;— not at any price; and then he writes to you.’
‘I’m glad to see you are able to travel,’ said Dr Thorne, who could not force himself to tell his guest that he was glad to see him at Greshamsbury.
‘Oh, travel; yes, I can travel well enough. But I wish you had some better sort of trap down in these country parts. I’m shaken to bits. And, doctor, would you tell your people to send that fellow of mine up here with hot water.
So dismissed, the doctor went his way, and met Joe swaggering in one of the passages, while Janet and her colleague dragged along between them a heavy article of baggage.
‘Janet,’ said he, ‘go downstairs and get Sir Louis some hot water, and Joe, do you take hold of your master’s portmanteau.’
Joe sulkily did as he was bid. ‘Seems to me,’ said he, turning to the girl, and speaking before the doctor was out of hearing, ‘seems to me, my dear, you be rather short-handed here; lots of work and nothing to get; that’s about the ticket, ain’t it?’ Bridget was too demurely modest to make any answer upon so short an acquaintance; so, putting her end of the burden down at the strange gentleman’s door, she retreated into the kitchen.
Sir Louis in answer to the doctor’s inquiries, had declared himself to be all right; but his appearance was anything but all right. Twelve months since, a life of dissipation, or rather, perhaps, a life of drinking, had not had upon him so strong an effect but that some of the salt of youth was still left; some of the freshness of young years might still be seen in his face. But this was now all gone; his eyes were sunken and watery, his cheeks were hollow and wan, his mouth was drawn and his lips dry; his back was even bent, and his legs were unsteady under him, so that he had been forced to step down from his carriage as an old man would do. Alas, alas! he had no further chance now of ever being all right again.
Mary had secluded herself in her bedroom as soon as the carriage had driven up to the door, and there she remained till dinner-time. But she could not shut herself up altogether. It would be necessary that she should appear at dinner; and, therefore, a few minutes before the hour, she crept out into the drawing-room. As she opened the door, she looked in timidly, expecting Sir Louis to be there; but when she saw that her uncle was the only occupant of the room, her brow cleared, and she entered with a quick step.
‘He’ll come down to dinner; won’t he, uncle?’
‘Oh, I suppose so.’
‘What’s he doing now?’
‘Dressing, I suppose; he’s been at this hour.’
‘But, uncle —’
‘Well?’
‘Will he come up after dinner, do you think?’
Mary spoke of him as though he were some wild beast, whom her uncle insisted on having in his house.
‘Goodness knows what he will do! Come up? Yes. He will not stay in the dining-room all night.’
‘But, dear uncle, do be serious.’
‘Serious!’
‘Yes; serious. Don’t you think that I might go to bed, instead of waiting?’
The doctor was saved the trouble of answering by the entrance of the baronet. He was dressed in what he considered the most fashionable style of the day. He had on a new dress-coat lined with satin, new dress-trousers, a silk waistcoat covered with chains, a white cravat, polished pumps, and silk stockings, and he carried a scented handkerchief in his hand; he had rings on his fingers, and carbuncle studs in his shirt, and he smelt as sweet as patchouli could make him. But he could hardly do more than shuffle into the room, and seemed almost to drag one of his legs behind him.
Mary, in spite of her aversion, was shocked and distressed when she saw him. He, however, seemed to think himself perfect, and was no whit abashed by the unfavourable reception which twelve months since had been paid to his suit. Mary came up and shook hands with him, and he received her with a compliment which no doubt he thought must be acceptable. ‘Upon my word, Miss Thorne, every place seems to agree with you; one better than another. You were looking charming at Boxall Hill; but, upon my word, charming isn’t half strong enough now.’
Mary sat down quietly, and the doctor assumed a face of unutterable disgust. This was the creature for whom all his sympathies had been demanded, all his best energies put in requisition; on whose behalf he was to quarrel with his oldest friends, lose his peace and quietness of life, and exercise all the functions of a loving friend! This was his self-invited guest, whom he was bound to foster, and whom he could not turn from his door.
The dinner came, and Mary had to put her hand upon his arm. She certainly did not lean upon him, and once or twice felt inclined to give him some support. They reached the dining-room, however, the doctor following them, and then sat down, Janet waiting in the room, as was usual.
‘I say, doctor,’ said the baronet, ‘hadn’t my man better come in and help? He’s got nothing to do, you know. We should be more cosy, shouldn’t we?’
‘Janet will manage pretty well,’ said the doctor.
‘Oh, you’d better have Joe; there’s nothing like a good servant at table. I say, Janet, just send that fellow in, will you?’
‘We shall do very well without him,’ said the doctor, becoming rather red about the cheek-bones, and with a slight gleam of determination about the eye. Janet, who saw how matters stood, made no attempt to obey the baronet’s order.
‘Oh, nonsense, doctor; you think he’s an uppish sort of fellow, I know, and you don’t like to trouble him; but when I’m near him, he’s all right; just send him in, will you?’
‘Sir Louis,’ said the doctor, ‘I’m accustomed to none but my own old woman here in my own house, and if you will allow me, I’ll keep my old ways. I shall be sorry if you are not comfortable.’ The baronet said nothing more, and the dinner passed off slowly and wearily enough.
When Mary had eaten her fruit and escaped, the doctor got into one arm-chair and the baronet into another, and the latter began the only work of existence of which he knew anything.
‘That’s good port,’ said he; ‘very fair port.’
The doctor loved his port wine, and thawed a little in his manner. He loved it not as a toper, but as a collector loves his pet pictures. He liked to talk about it, and think about it; to praise it, and hear it praised; to look at it turned towards the light, and to count over the years it had lain in his cellar.
‘Yes,’ said he, ‘it’s pretty fair wine. It was, at least, when I got it, twenty years ago, and I don’t suppose time has hurt it;’ and he held the glass up to the window, and looked at the evening light through the rosy tint of the liquid. ‘Ah, dear, there’s not much of it left; more’s the pity.’
‘A good thing won’t last for ever. I’ll tell you what now; I wish I had brought down a dozen or two of claret. I’ve some prime stuff in London; got it from Muzzle and Drug, at ninety-six shillings; it was a great favour, though. I’ll tell you what now, I’ll send up for a couple of dozen tomorrow. I mustn’t drink you out of the house, high and dry; must I, doctor?’
The doctor froze immediately.
‘I don’t think I need trouble you,’ said he; ‘I never drink claret, at least not here; and there’s enough of the old bin left to last some little time longer yet.’
Sir Louis drank two or three glasses of wine very quickly after each other, and they immediately began to tell upon his weak stomach. But before he was tipsy, he became more impudent and more disagreeable.
‘Doctor,’ said he, ‘when are we going to see any of this Greshamsbury money? That’s what I want to know.’
‘Your money is quite safe, Sir Louis; and the interest is paid to the day.’
‘Interest yes; but how do I know how long it will be paid? I should like to see the principal. A hundred thousand pounds, or something like it, is a precious large stake to have in one man’s hands, and he is preciously hard up himself. I’ll tell you what, doctor — I shall look the squire up myself.’
‘Look him up?’
‘Yes; look him up; ferret him out; tell him a bit of my mind. I’ll thank you to pass the bottle. D—— me doctor; I mean to know how things are going on.’
‘Your money is quite safe,’ repeated the doctor, ‘and, to my mind, could not be better invested.’
‘That’s all very well; d —— well I dare say, for you and Squire Gresham —’
‘What do you mean, Sir Louis?’
‘Mean! why I mean that I’ll sell the squire up; that’s what I mean — hallo — beg pardon. I’m blessed if I haven’t broken the water-jug. That comes of having water on the table. Oh, d —— me, it’s all over me.’ And then, getting up, to avoid the flood he himself had caused, he nearly fell into the doctor’s arms.
‘You’re tired with your journey, Sir Louis; perhaps you’d better go to bed.’
‘Well, I am a bit seedy or so. Those cursed roads of yours shake a fellow so.’
The doctor rang the bell, and, on this occasion, did request that Joe might be sent for. Joe came in, and, though he was much steadier than his master, looked as though he also had found some bin of which he had approved.
‘Sir Louis wishes to go to bed,’ said the doctor; ‘you had better give him your arm.’
‘Oh, yes; in course I will,’ said Joe, standing immoveable about half-way between the door and the table.
‘I’ll just take one more glass of the old port — eh, doctor?’ said Sir Louis, putting out his hand and clutching the decanter.
It is very hard for any man to deny his guest in his own house, and the doctor, at the moment, did not know how to do it; so Sir Louis got his wine, after pouring half of it over the table.
‘Come in, sir, and give Sir Louis your arm,’ said the doctor, angrily.
‘So I will in course, if my master tells me; but, if you please, Dr Thorne —’ and Joe put his hand up to his hair in a manner that a great deal more impudence than reverence in it —‘I just want to ax one question; where be I to sleep?’
Now this was a question which the doctor was not prepared to answer on the spur of the moment, however well Janet or Mary might have been able to do so.
‘Sleep,’ said he, ‘I don’t know where you are to sleep, and don’t care; ask Janet.’
‘That’s all very well, master —’
‘Hold your tongue, sirrah!’ said Sir Louis. ‘What the devil do you want of sleep?— come here,’ and then, with his servant’s help, he made his way up to his bedroom, and was no more heard of that night.
‘Did he get tipsy,’ asked Mary, almost in a whisper, when her uncle joined her in the drawing-room.
‘Don’t talk of it,’ said he. ‘Poor wretch! poor wretch! Let’s have some tea now, Molly, and pray don’t talk any more about him to-night.’ Then Mary did make the tea, and did not talk any more about Sir Louis that night.
What on earth were they to do with him? He had come there self-invited; but his connexion with the doctor was such, that it was impossible he should be told to go away, either he himself, or that servant of his. There was no reason to disbelieve him when he declared that he had come down to ferret out the squire. Such was, doubtless, his intention. He would ferret out the squire. Perhaps he might ferret out Lady Arabella also. Frank would be home in a few days; and he, too, might be ferreted out.
But the matter took a very singular turn, and one quite unexpected on the doctor’s part. On the morning following the little dinner of which we have spoken, one of the Greshamsbury grooms rode up to the doctor’s door with two notes. One was addressed to the doctor in the squire’s well-known large handwriting, and the other was for Sir Louis. Each contained an invitation do dinner for the following day; and that to the doctor was in this wise:-
‘DEAR DOCTOR,
Do come and dine here tomorrow, and bring Sir Louis Scatcherd with you. If you’re the man I take you to be, you won’t refuse me. Lady Arabella sends a note for Sir Louis. There will be nobody here but Oriel, and Mr Gazebee, who’s staying in the house.
‘Yours ever, F.N.GRESHAM’
‘PS— I make a positive request that you’ll come, and I think you will hardly refuse me.’
The doctor read it twice before he could believe it, and then ordered Janet to take the other note up to Sir Louis. As these invitations were rather in opposition to the then existing Greshamsbury tactics, the cause of Lady Arabella’s special civility must be explained.
Mr Mortimer Gazebee was now at the house, and therefore, it must be presumed, that things were not allowed to go on after their old fashion. Mr Gazebee was an acute as well as fashionable man; one who knew what he was about, and who, moreover, had determined to give his very best efforts on behalf of the Greshamsbury property. His energy, in this respect, will explain itself hereafter. It was not probable that the arrival in the village of such a person as Sir Louis Scatcherd should escape attention. He had heard of it before dinner, and, before the evening was over, had discussed it with Lady Arabella.
Her ladyship was not at first inclined to make much of Sir Louis, and expressed herself as but little inclined to agree with Mr Gazebee when that gentleman suggested that he should be treated with civility at Greshamsbury. But she was at last talked over. She found it pleasant enough to have more to do with the secret management of the estate than Mr Gresham himself; and when Mr Gazebee proved to her, by sundry nods and winks, and subtle allusions to her own infinite good sense, that it was necessary to catch this obscene bird which had come to prey upon the estate, by throwing a little salt upon his tail, she also nodded and winked, and directed Augusta to prepare the salt according to order.
‘But won’t it be odd, Mr Gazebee, asking him out of Dr Thorne’s house?’
‘Oh, we must have the doctor, too, Lady Arabella; by all means ask the doctor also.’
Lady Arabella’s brow grew dark. ‘Mr Gazebee,’ she said, ‘you can hardly believe how that man has behaved to me.’
‘He is altogether beneath your anger,’ said Mr Gazebee, with a bow.
‘I don’t know: in one way he may be, but not in another. I really do not think I can sit down to table with Doctor Thorne.’
But, nevertheless, Mr Gazebee gained his point. It was now about a week since Sir Omicron Pie had been at Greshamsbury, and the squire had, almost daily, spoken to his wife as to that learned man’s advice. Lady Arabella always answered in the same tone: ‘You can hardly know, Mr Gresham, how that man has insulted me.’ But, nevertheless, the physician’s advice had not been disbelieved: it tallied too well with her own inward convictions. She was anxious enough to have Doctor Thorne back at her bedside, if she could only get him there without damage to her pride. Her husband, she thought, might probably send the doctor there without absolute permission from herself; in which case she would have been able to scold, and show that she was offended; and, at the same time, profit by what had been done. But Mr Gresham never thought of taking so violent a step as this, and, therefore, Dr Fillgrave still came, and her ladyship’s finesse was wasted in vain.
But Mr Gazebee’s proposition opened a door by which her point might be gained. ‘Well,’ said she, at last, with infinite self-denial, ‘if you think it is for Mr Gresham’s advantage, and if he chooses to ask Dr Thorne, I will not refuse to receive him.’
Mr Gazebee’s next task was to discuss the matter with the squire. Nor was this easy, for Mr Gazebee was no favourite with Mr Gresham. But the task was at last performed successfully. Mr Gresham was so glad at heart to find himself able, once more, to ask his old friend to his own house; and, though it would have pleased him better that this sign of relenting on his wife’s part should have reached him by other means, he did not refuse to take advantage of it; and so he wrote the above letter to Dr Thorne.
The doctor, as we have said, read it twice; and he at once resolved stoutly that he would not go.
‘Oh, do, do, do go!’ said Mary. She well knew how wretched this feud had made her uncle. ‘Pray, pray go!’
‘Indeed, I will not,’ said he. ‘There are some things a man should bear, and some he should not.’
‘You must go,’ said Mary, who had taken the note from her uncle’s hand, and read it. ‘You cannot refuse him when he asks you like that.’
‘It will greatly grieve me; but I must refuse him.’
‘I also am angry, uncle; very angry with Lady Arabella; but for him, for the squire, I would go to him on my knees if he asked me in that way.’
‘Yes; and had he asked you, I also would have gone.’
‘Oh! now I shall be so wretched. It is his invitation, not hers: Mr Gresham could not ask me. As for her, do not think of her; but do, do go when he asks you like that. You will make me so miserable if you do not. And then Sir Louis cannot go without you,’— and Mary pointed upstairs —‘and you may be sure that he will go.’
‘Yes; and make a beast of himself.’
This colloquy was cut short by a message praying the doctor to go up to Sir Louis’s room. The young man was sitting in his dressing-gown, drinking a cup of coffee at his toilet-table, while Joe was preparing his razor and hot water. The doctor’s nose immediately told him that there was more in the coffee-cup than had come out of his own kitchen, and he would not let the offence pass unnoticed.
‘Are you taking brandy this morning, Sir Louis?’
‘Just a little chasse-cafe,’ said he, not exactly understanding the word he used. ‘It’s all the go now; and a capital thing for the stomach.’
‘It’s not a capital thing for your stomach;— about the least capital thing you can take; that is, if you wish to live.’
‘Never mind about that now, doctor, but look here. This is what we call the civil thing — eh?’ and he showed the Greshamsbury note. ‘Not but that they have an object, of course. I understand all that. Lots of girls there — eh?’
The doctor took the note and read it. ‘It is civil,’ said he; ‘very civil.’
‘Well; I shall go, of course. I don’t bear malice because he can’t pay me the money he owes me. I’ll eat his dinner, and look at the girls. Have you an invite too, doctor?’
‘Yes; I have.’
‘And you’ll go?’
‘I think not; but that need not deter you. But, Sir Louis —’
‘Well! eh! what is it?’
‘Step downstairs a moment,’ said the doctor, turning to the servant, ‘and wait till you are called for. I wish to speak to your master.’ Joe, for a moment, looked up at the baronet’s face, as though he wanted but the slightest encouragement to disobey the doctor’s orders; but not seeing it, he slowly retired, and placed himself, of course, at the keyhole.
And then, the doctor began a long and very useless lecture. The first object of it was to induce his ward not to get drunk at Greshamsbury; but having got so far, he went on, and did succeed in frightening his unhappy guest. Sir Louis did not possess the iron nerves of his father — nerves which even brandy had not been able to subdue. The doctor spoke, strongly, very strongly; spoke of quick, almost immediate death in case of further excesses; spoke to him of the certainty there would be that he could not live to dispose of his own property if he could not refrain. And thus he did frighten Sir Louis. The father he had never been able to frighten. But there are men who, though they fear death hugely, fear present suffering more; who, indeed, will not bear a moment of pain if there by any mode of escape. Sir Louis was such: he had no strength of nerve, no courage, no ability to make a resolution and keep it. He promised the doctor that he would refrain; and, as he did so, he swallowed down his cup of coffee and brandy, in which the two articles bore about equal proportions.
The doctor did, at last, make up his mind to go. Whichever way he determined, he found that he was not contented with himself. He did not like to trust Sir Louis by himself, and he did not like to show that he was angry. Still less did he like the idea of breaking bread in Lady Arabella’s house till some amends had been made to Mary. But his heart would not allow him to refuse the petition contained in the squire’s postscript, and the matter ended in his accepting the invitation.
This visit of his ward’s was, in every way, pernicious to the doctor. He could not go about his business, fearing to leave such a man alone with Mary. On the afternoon of the second day, she escaped to the parsonage for an hour or so, and then, walked away among the lanes, calling on some of her old friends among the farmers’ wives. But even then, the doctor was afraid to leave Sir Louis. What could such a man do, left alone in a village like Greshamsbury? So he stayed at home, and the two together went over their accounts. The baronet was particular about his accounts, and said a good deal as to having Finnie over to Greshamsbury. To this, however, Dr Thorne positively refused his consent.
The evening passed off better than the preceding one; at least the early part of it. Sir Louis did not get tipsy; he came up to tea, and Mary, who did not feel so keenly on the subject as her uncle, almost wished that he had done so. At ten o’clock he went to bed.
But after that new troubles came on. The doctor had gone downstairs into his study to make up some of the time which he had lost, and had just seated himself at his desk, when Janet, without announcing herself, burst into the room; and Bridget, dissolved in hysterical tears, with her apron to her eyes, appeared behind the senior domestic.
‘Please, sir,’ said Janet, driven by excitement much beyond her usual place of speaking, and becoming unintentionally a little less respectful than usual, ‘please sir, that ’ere young man must go out of this here house; or else no respectable young ‘ooman can’t stop here; no, indeed, sir; and we be sorry to trouble you, Dr Thorne; so we be.’
‘What young man? Sir Louis?’ asked the doctor.
‘Man!’ sobbed Bridget from behind. ‘He an’t no man, no nothing like a man. If Tummas had been here, he wouldn’t have dared; so he wouldn’t.’ Thomas was the groom, and, if all Greshamsbury reports were true, it was probable, that on some happy, future day, Thomas and Bridget would become one flesh and one bone.
‘Please sir,’ continued Janet, ‘there’ll be bad work here if there ’ere young man doesn’t quit this here house this very night, and I’m sorry to trouble you, doctor; and so I am. But Tom, he be given to fight a’most for nothin’. He’s out now; but if that there young man be’s here when Tom comes home, Tom will be punching his head; I know he will.’
‘He wouldn’t stand by and see a poor girl put upon; no more he wouldn’t,’ said Bridget, through her tears.
After many futile inquiries, the doctor ascertained that Mr Jonah had expressed some admiration for Bridget’s youthful charms, and had, in the absence of Janet, thrown himself at the lady’s feet in a manner which had not been altogether pleasing to her. She had defended herself stoutly and loudly, and in the middle of the row Janet had come down.
‘And where is he now?’ said the doctor.
‘Why, sir,’ said Janet, ‘the poor girl was so put about that she did give him one touch across the face with the rolling-pin, and he be all bloody now, in the back kitchen.’ At hearing this achievement of hers thus spoken of, Bridget sobbed more hysterically than ever; but the doctor, looking at her arm as she held her apron to her face, thought in his heart that Joe must have had so much the worst of it, that there could be no possible need for the interference of Thomas the groom.
And such turned out to be the case. The bridge of Joe’s nose was broken; and the doctor had to set it for him in a little bedroom at the village public-house, Bridget having positively refused to go to bed in the same house with so dreadful a character.
‘Quiet now, or I’ll be serving thee the same way; thee see I’ve found the trick of it.’ The doctor could not but hear so much as he made into his own house by the back door, after finishing his surgical operation. Bridget was recounting to her champion the fracas that had occurred; and he, as was so natural, was expressing his admiration for her valour.
Chapter 35 Sir Louis Goes Out to Dinner
The next day Joe did not make his appearance, and Sir Louis with many execrations, was driven to the terrible necessity of dressing himself. Then came an unexpected difficulty: how were they to get up to the house? Walking out to dinner, though it was merely through the village and up the avenue seemed to Sir Louis to be a thing impossible. Indeed, he was not well able to walk at all, and positively declared that he should never be able to make his way over the gravel in pumps. His mother would not have thought half as much of walking from Boxall Hill to Greshamsbury and back again. At last, the one village fly was sent for, and the matter was arranged.
When they reached the house, it was easy to see that there was some unwonted bustle. In the drawing-room there was no one but Mr Mortimer Gazebee, who introduced himself to them both. Sir Louis, who knew that he was only an attorney, did not take much notice of him, but the doctor entered into conversation.
‘Have you not heard that Mr Gresham has come home?’
‘Mr Gresham! I did not know that he had been away.’
‘Mr Gresham, junior, I mean.’ No, indeed; the doctor had not heard. Frank had returned unexpectedly, just before dinner, and was now undergoing his father’s smiles, his mother’s embraces, and his sisters’ questions.
‘Quite unexpectedly,’ said Mr Gazebee. ‘I don’t know what has brought him back before his time. I suppose he found London too hot.’
‘Deuced hot,’ said the baronet. ‘I found it so, at least. I don’t know what keeps men in London when it’s so hot; except those fellows who have business to do: they’re paid for it.’
Mr Mortimer Gazebee looked at him. He was managing an estate which owed Sir Louis an enormous sum of money, and, therefore, he could not afford to despise the baronet; but he thought to himself, what a very abject fellow the man would be if he were not a baronet, and had not a large fortune!
And the squire came in. His broad, honest face was covered with a smile when he saw the doctor.
‘Thorne,’ said he, almost in a whisper, ‘you’re the best fellow breathing; I have hardly deserved this.’ The doctor, as he took his old friend’s hand, could not but be glad that he had followed Mary’s counsel.
‘So Frank has come home?’
‘Oh, yes; quite unexpectedly. He was to have stayed a week longer in London. You would hardly know him if you met him. Sir Louis, I beg your pardon.’ And the squire went up to his other guest, who had remained somewhat sullenly standing in one corner of the room. He was the man of highest rank present, or to be present, and he expected to be treated as such.
‘I am happy to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance, Mr Gresham,’ said the baronet, intending to be very courteous. ‘Though we have not met before, I very often see your name in my accounts — ha! ha! ha!’ and Sir Louis laughed as though he had said something very good.
The meeting between Lady Arabella and the doctor was rather distressing to the former; but she managed to get over it. She shook hands with him graciously, and said that it was a fine day. The doctor said that it was fine, only perhaps a little rainy. And then they went into different parts of the room.
When Frank came in, the doctor hardly did know him. His hair was darker than it had been, and so was his complexion; but his chief disguise was in a long silken beard, which hung down over his cravat. The doctor had hitherto not been much in favour of long beards, but he could not deny that Frank looked very well with the appendage.
‘Oh, doctor, I am so delighted to find you here,’ said he, coming up to him; ‘so very, very glad:’ and, taking the doctor’s arm, he led him away into a window, where they were alone. ‘And how is Mary?’ said he, almost in a whisper. ‘Oh, I wish she were here! But, doctor, it shall all come in time. But tell me, doctor, there is no news about her, is there?’
‘News — what news?’
‘Oh, well; no news is good news: you will give her my love, won’t you?’
The doctor said that he would. What else could he say? It appeared quite clear to him that some of Mary’s fears were groundless.

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