Dr Thorne (15 page)

He got up to hold the door for them as they passed; and as they went, he managed to take Patience by the hand; he took her hand and pressed it for a moment, but dropped it quickly, in order that he might go through the same ceremony with Mary, but Mary was too quick for him.

‘Frank,' said Mr Gresham, as soon as the door was closed, ‘bring your glass here, my boy'; and the father made room for his son close beside himself. ‘The ceremony is over now, so you may leave your place of dignity.' Frank sat himself down where he was told, and Mr Gresham put his hand on his son's shoulder and half caressed him, while the tears stood in his eyes. ‘I think the doctor is right, Baker, I think he'll never make us ashamed of him.'

‘I am sure he never will,' said Mr Baker.

‘I don't think he ever will,' said Dr Thorne.

The tones of the men's voices were very different. Mr Baker did not care a straw about it; why should he? He had an heir of his own as well as the squire; one also who was the apple of
his
eye. But the doctor – he did care; he had a niece, to be sure, whom he loved, perhaps as well as these men loved their sons; but there was room in his heart also for young Frank Gresham.

After this small exposé of feeling they sat silent for a moment or
two. But silence was not dear to the heart of the Honourable John, and so he took up the running.

‘That's a niceish nag you gave Frank this morning,' said he to his uncle. ‘I was looking at him before dinner. He is a Monsoon,
³
isn't he?'

‘Well, I can't say I know how he was bred,' said the squire. ‘He shows a good deal of breeding.'

‘He's a Monsoon, I'm sure,' said the Honourable John. ‘They've all those ears, and that peculiar dip in the back. I suppose you gave a goodish figure for him?'

‘Not so very much,' said the squire.

‘He's a trained hunter, I suppose?'

‘If not, he soon will be,' said the squire.

‘Let Frank alone for that,' said Harry Baker.

‘He jumps beautifully, sir,' said Frank. ‘I haven't tried him myself, but Peter made him go over the bar two or three times this morning.'

The Honourable John was determined to give his cousin a helping hand, as he considered it. He thought that Frank was very ill-used in being put off with so incomplete a stud, and thinking also that the son had not spirit enough to attack his father himself on the subject, the Honourable John determined to do it for him.

‘He's the making of a very nice horse, I don't doubt. I wish you had a string like him, Frank.'

Frank felt the blood rush to his face. He would not for worlds have his father think that he was discontented, or otherwise than pleased with the present he had received that morning. He was heartily ashamed of himself in that he had listened with a certain degree of complacency to his cousin's tempting; but he had no idea that the subject would be repeated – and then repeated, too, before his father, in a manner to vex him on such a day as this, before such people as were assembled there. He was very angry with his cousin, and for a moment forgot all his hereditary respect for a De Courcy.

‘I tell you what, John,' said he, ‘do you choose your day, some day early in the season, and come out on the best thing you have, and I'll bring, not the black horse, but my old mare; and then do you try and keep near me. If I don't leave you at the back of Godspeed before long, I'll give you the mare and the horse too.'

The Honourable John was not known in Barsetshire as one of the most forward of its riders. He was a man much addicted to hunting, as far as the get-up of the thing was concerned; he was great in boots and breeches; wondrously conversant with bits and bridles; he had quite a collection of saddles; and patronised every newest invention for carrying spare shoes, sandwiches, and flasks of sherry. He was prominent at the cover side; – some people, including the master of the hounds, thought him perhaps a little too loudly prominent; he affected a familiarity with the dogs, and was on speaking acquaintance with every man's horse. But when the work was cut out, when the pace began to be sharp, when it behoved a man either to ride or visibly to decline to ride, then – so at least said they who had not the De Courcy interest quite closely at heart – then, in those heart-stirring moments, the Honourable John was too often found deficient.

There was, therefore, a considerable laugh at his expense when Frank, instigated to his innocent boast by a desire to save his father, challenged his cousin to a trial of prowess. The Honourable John was not, perhaps, as much accustomed to the ready use of his tongue as was his honourable brother, seeing that it was not his annual business to depict the glories of the farmers' daughters; at any rate, on this occasion he seemed to be at some loss for words: he shut up, as the slang phrase goes, and made no further allusion to the necessity of supplying young Gresham with a proper string of hunters.

But the old squire had understood it all; had understood the meaning of his nephew's attack; had thoroughly understood also the meaning of his son's defence, and the feeling which had actuated it. He also had thought of the stableful of horses which had belonged to himself when he came of age; and of the much more humble position which his son would have to fill than that which
his
father had prepared for him. He thought of this, and was sad enough, though he had sufficient spirit to hide from his friends around him the fact, that the Honourable John's arrow had not been discharged in vain.

‘He shall have Champion,' said the father to himself. ‘It is time for me to give it up.'

Now Champion was one of two fine old hunters which the squire kept for his own use. And it might have been said of him
now, at the period of which we are speaking, that the only really happy moments of his life were those which he spent in the field. So much as to its being time for him to give it up.

IT
was, we have said, the first of July, and such being the time of the year, the ladies, after sitting in the drawing-room for half an hour or so, began to think that they might as well go through the drawing-room windows on to the lawn. First one slipped out a little way, and then another; and then they got on to the lawn; and then they talked of their hats; till, by degrees, the younger ones of the party, and at last the elder also, found themselves dressed for walking.

The windows, both of the drawing-room and the dining-room, looked out on to the lawn; and it was only natural that the girls should walk from the former to the latter. It was only natural that they, being there, should tempt their swains to come to them by the sight of their broad-brimmed hats and evening dresses; and natural, also, that the temptation should not be resisted. The squire, therefore, and the elder male guests soon found themselves alone round their wine.

‘Upon my word, we were enchanted by your eloquence, Mr Gresham, were we not?' said Miss Oriel, turning to one of the De Courcy girls who was with her.

Miss Oriel was a very pretty girl; a little older than Frank Gresham – perhaps a year or so. She had dark hair, large round dark eyes, a nose a little too broad, a pretty mouth, a beautiful chin, and, as we have said before, a large fortune; – that is, moderately large – let us say twenty thousand pounds, there or thereabouts. She and her brother had been living at Greshamsbury for the last two years, the living having been purchased for him – such were Mr Gresham's necessities – during the lifetime of the last old incumbent. Miss Oriel was in every respect a nice neighbour; she was good-humoured, lady-like, lively, neither too clever
nor too stupid, belonging to a good family, sufficiently fond of this world's good things, as became a pretty young lady so endowed, and sufficiently fond, also, of the other world's good things, as became the mistress of a clergyman's house.

‘Indeed, yes,' said the Lady Margaretta. ‘Frank is very eloquent. When he described our rapid journey from London, he nearly moved me to tears. But well as he talks, I think he carves better.'

‘I wish you'd had it to do, Margaretta; both the carving and talking.'

‘Thank you, Frank; you're very civil.'

‘But there's one comfort, Miss Oriel: it's over now, and done. A fellow can't be made to come of age twice.'

‘But you'll take your degree, Mr Gresham; and then, of course, there'll be another speech; and then you'll get married, and then there will be two or three more.'

‘I'll speak at your wedding, Miss Oriel, long before I do at my own.'

‘I shall not have the slightest objection. It will be so kind of you to patronise my husband.'

‘But, by Jove, will he patronise me? I know you'll marry some awful bigwig, or some terribly clever fellow; won't she, Margaretta?'

‘Miss Oriel was saying so much in praise of you before you came out,' said Margaretta, ‘that I began to think that her mind was intent on remaining at Greshamsbury all her life.'

Frank blushed, and Patience laughed. There was but a year's difference in their age; Frank, however, was still a boy, though Patience was fully a woman.

‘I am ambitious, Lady Margaretta,' said she. ‘I own it; but I am moderate in my ambition. I do love Greshamsbury, and if Mr Gresham had a younger brother, perhaps, you know –'

‘Another just like myself, I suppose,' said Frank.

‘Oh, yes. I could not possibly wish for any change.'

‘Just as eloquent as you are, Frank,' said the Lady Margaretta.

‘And as good a carver,' said Patience.

‘Miss Bateson has lost her heart to him for ever, because of his carving,' said the Lady Margaretta.

‘But perfection never repeats itself,' said Patience.

‘Well, you see, I have not got any brothers,' said Frank; 'so all I can do is to sacrifice myself.'

‘Upon my word, Mr Gresham, I am under more than ordinary obligations to you; I am, indeed,' and Miss Oriel stood still in the path, and made a very graceful curtsy. ‘Dear me! only think, Lady Margaretta, that I should be honoured with an offer from the heir the very moment he is legally entitled to make one.'

‘And done with so much true gallantry, too,' said the other; ‘expressing himself quite willing to postpone any views of his own or your advantage.'

‘Yes,' said Patience; ‘that's what I value so much: had he loved me now, there would have been no merit on his part; but a sacrifice, you know –'

‘Yes, ladies are so fond of such sacrifices. Frank, upon my word, I had no idea you were so very excellent at making speeches.'

‘Well,' said Frank, ‘I shouldn't have said sacrifice, that was a slip; what I meant was –'

‘Oh, dear me,' said Patience, ‘wait a minute; now we are going to have a regular declaration. Lady Margaretta, you haven't got a scent-bottle, have you? And if I should faint, where's the garden-chair?'

‘Oh, but I'm not going to make a declaration at all,' said Frank.

‘Are you not? Oh! Now, Lady Margaretta, I appeal to you; did you not understand him to say something very particular?'

‘Certainly, I thought nothing could be plainer,' said the Lady Margaretta.

‘And so, Mr Gresham, I am to be told, that after all it means nothing,' said Patience, putting her handkerchief up to her eyes.

‘It means that you are an excellent hand at quizzing a fellow like me.'

‘Quizzing! No; but you are an excellent hand at deceiving a poor girl like me. Well, remember I have got a witness; here is Lady Margaretta, who heard it all. What a pity it is that my brother is a clergyman. You calculated on that, I know; or you would never have served me so.'

She said so just as her brother had joined them, or rather just as he had joined Lady Margaretta de Courcy; for her ladyship and Mr Oriel walked on in advance by themselves. Lady Margaretta had found it rather dull work, making a third in Miss Oriel's flirtation with her cousin; the more so as she was quite accustomed
to take a principal part herself in all such transactions. She therefore not unwillingly walked on with Mr Oriel. Mr Oriel, it must be conceived, was not a common, everyday parson, but had points about him which made him quite fit to associate with an earl's daughter. And as it was known that he was not a marrying man, having very exalted ideas on that point connected with his profession, the Lady Margaretta, of course, had the less objection to trust herself alone with him.

But directly she was gone, Miss Oriel's tone of banter ceased. It was very well making a fool of a lad of twenty-one when others were by; but there might be danger in it when they were alone together.

‘I don't know any position on earth more enviable than yours, Mr Gresham,' she said, quite soberly and earnestly; ‘how happy you ought to be!'

‘What, in being laughed at by you, Miss Oriel, for pretending to be a man, when you choose to make out that I am only a boy? I can bear being laughed at pretty well generally, but I can't say that your laughing at me makes me feel so happy as you say I ought to be.'