Dr Thorne (57 page)

Frank went out from his mother and immediately ordered his black horse to be got ready for him. He would at once go over to
Boxall Hill. He went himself to the stables to give his orders; and as he returned to get his gloves and whip he met Beatrice in the corridor.

‘Beatrice,' said he, ‘step in here,' and she followed him into his room. ‘I'm not going to bear this any longer; I'm going to Boxall Hill.'

‘Oh, Frank! how can you be so imprudent?'

‘You, at any rate, have some decent feeling for Mary. I believe you have some regard for her; and therefore I tell you. Will you send her any message?'

‘Oh, yes; my best, best love; that is if you will see her; but, Frank, you are very foolish, very; and she will be infinitely distressed.'

‘Do not mention this, that is, not at present; not that I mean to make any secret of it. I shall tell my father everything. I'm off now!' and then, paying no attention to her remonstrance, he turned down the stairs and was soon on horseback.

He took the road to Boxall Hill, but he did not ride very fast: he did not go jauntily as a jolly, thriving wooer,
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but musingly, and often with diffidence, meditating every now and then whether it would not be better for him to turn back: to turn back – but not from fear of his mother; not from prudential motives; not because that often-repeated lesson as to marrying money was beginning to take effect; not from such causes as these; but because he doubted how he might be received by Mary.

He did, it is true, think something about his worldly prospects. He had talked rather grandiloquently to his mother as to his hating money, and hating the estate. His mother's never-ceasing worldly cares on such subjects perhaps demanded that a little grandiloquence should be opposed to them. But Frank did not hate the estate; nor did he at all hate the position of an English country gentleman. Miss Dunstable's eloquence, however, rang in his ears. For Miss Dunstable had an eloquence of her own, even in her letters. ‘Never let them talk you out of your own true, honest, hearty feelings,' she had said. ‘Greshamsbury is a very nice place, I am sure; and I hope I shall see it some day; but all its green knolls are not half so nice, should not be half so precious, as the pulses of your own heart. That is your own estate, your own, your very own – your own and another's; whatever may go to the
money-lenders, don't send that there. Don't mortgage that, Mr Gresham.'

‘No,' said Frank, pluckily, as he put his horse into a faster trot, ‘I won't mortgage that. They may do what they like with the estate; but my heart's my own,' and so speaking to himself, almost aloud, he turned a corner of the road rapidly and came at once upon the doctor.

‘Hallo, doctor! is that you?' said Frank, rather disgusted.

‘What! Frank! I hardly expected to meet you here,' said Dr Thorne, not much better pleased.

They were now not above a mile from Boxall Hill, and the doctor, therefore, could not but surmise whither Frank was going. They had repeatedly met since Frank's return from Cambridge, both in the village and in the doctor's house; but not a word had been said between them about Mary beyond what the merest courtesy had required. Not that each did not love the other sufficiently to make a full confidence between them desirable to both; but neither had had the courage to speak out.

Nor had either of them the courage to do so now. ‘Yes,' said Frank, blushing, ‘I am going to Lady Scatcherd's. Shall I find the ladies at home?'

‘Yes; Lady Scatcherd is there; but Sir Louis is there also – an invalid: perhaps you would not wish to meet him.'

‘Oh! I don't mind,' said Frank, trying to laugh; ‘he won't bite, I suppose?'

The doctor longed in his heart to pray Frank to return with him; not to go and make further mischief; not to do that which might cause a more bitter estrangement between himself and the squire. But he had not the courage to do it. He could not bring himself to accuse Frank of being in love with his niece. So after a few more senseless words on either side, words which each knew to be senseless as he uttered them, they both rode on their own ways.

And then the doctor silently, and almost unconsciously, made such a comparison between Louis Scatcherd and Frank Gresham as Hamlet made between the dead and live king. It was Hyperion to a satyr.
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Was it not as impossible that Mary should not love the one, as that she should love the other? Frank's offer of his affections had at first probably been but a boyish ebullition of feeling; but if it should now be, that this had grown into a manly and disinter
ested love, how could Mary remain unmoved? What could her heart want more, better, more beautiful, more rich than such a love as his? Was he not personally all that a girl could like? Were not his disposition, mind, character, acquirements, all such as women most delight to love? Was it not impossible that Mary should be indifferent to him?

So meditated the doctor as he rode along, with only too true a knowledge of human nature. Ah! it was impossible, it was quite impossible that Mary should be indifferent. She had never been indifferent since Frank had uttered his first half-joking word of love. Such things are more important to women than they are to men, to girls than they are to boys. When Frank had first told her that he loved her; aye, months before that, when he merely looked his love, her heart had received the whisper, had acknowledged the glance, unconscious as she was herself, and resolved as she was to rebuke his advances. When, in her hearing, he had said soft nothings to Patience Oriel, a hated, irrepressible tear had gathered in her eye. When he had pressed in his warm, loving grasp the hand which she had offered him as a token of mere friendship, her heart had forgiven him the treachery, nay, almost thanked him for it, before her eyes or her words had been ready to rebuke him. When the rumour of his liaison with Miss Dunstable reached her ears, when she heard of Miss Dunstable's fortune, she had wept, wept outright, in her chamber – wept, as she said to herself, to think that he should be so mercenary; but she had wept, as she should have said to herself, at finding that he was so faithless. Then, when she knew at last that this rumour was false, when she found that she was banished from Greshamsbury for his sake, when she was forced to retreat with her friend Patience, how could she but love him, in that he was not mercenary? How could she not love him in that he was so faithful?

It was impossible that she should not love him. Was he not the brightest and the best of men that she had ever seen, or was like to see? – that she could possibly ever see, she would have said to herself, could she have brought herself to own the truth? And then, when she heard how true he was, how he persisted against father, mother, and sisters, how could it be that that should not be a merit in her eyes which was so great a fault in theirs? When Beatrice, with would-be solemn face, but with eyes beaming with
feminine affection, would gravely talk of Frank's tender love as a terrible misfortune, as a misfortune to them all, to Mary herself as well as others, how could Mary do other than love him? ‘Beatrice is his sister,' she would say within her own mind, otherwise she would never talk like this; were she not his sister, she could not but know the value of such love as this.' Ah! yes; Mary did love him; love him with all the strength of her heart; and the strength of her heart was very great. And now by degrees, in those lonely donkey-rides at Boxall Hill, in those solitary walks, she was beginning to own to herself the truth.

And now that she did own it, what should be her course? What should she do, how should she act if this loved one persevered in his love? And, ah! what should she do, how should she act if he did not persevere? Could it be that there should be happiness in store for her? Was it not too clear that, let the matter go how it would, there was no happiness in store for her? Much as she might love Frank Gresham, she could never consent to be his wife unless the squire would smile on her as his daughter-in-law. The squire had been all that was kind, all that was affectionate. And then, too, Lady Arabella! As she thought of the Lady Arabella a sterner form of thought came across her brow. Why should Lady Arabella rob her of her heart's joy? What was Lady Arabella that she, Mary Thorne, need quail before her? Had Lady Arabella stood only in her way, Lady Arabella, flanked by the De Courcy legion, Mary felt that she could have demanded Frank's hand as her own before them all without a blush of shame or a moment's hesitation. Thus, when her heart was all but ready to collapse within her, would she gain some little strength by thinking of the Lady Arabella.

‘Please, my lady, here be young squoire Gresham,' said one of the untutored servants at Boxall Hill, opening Lady Scatcherd's little parlour door as her ladyship was amusing herself by pulling down and turning, and re-folding, and putting up again, a heap of household linen which was kept in a huge press for the express purpose of supplying her with occupation.

Lady Scatcherd, holding a vast counterpane in her arms, looked back over her shoulders and perceived that Frank was in the room. Down went the counterpane on the ground, and Frank soon found himself in the very position which that useful article had so lately filled.

‘Oh, Master Frank! oh, Master Frank!' said her ladyship, almost in an hysterical fit of joy; and then she hugged and kissed him as she had never kissed and hugged her own son since that son had first left the parent nest.

Frank bore it patiently and with a merry laugh. ‘But, Lady Scatcherd,' said he, ‘what will they all say? you forget I am a man now,' and he stooped his head as she again pressed her lips upon his forehead.

‘I don't care what none of ‘em say,' said her ladyship, quite going back to her old days; ‘I will kiss my own boy; so I will. Eh, but, Master Frank, this is good of you. A sight of you is good for sore eyes; and my eyes have been sore enough too since I saw you'; and she put her apron up to wipe away a tear.

‘Yes,' said Frank, gently trying to disengage himself, but not successfully; ‘yes, you have had a great loss, Lady Scatcherd. I was so sorry when I heard of your grief.'

‘You always had a soft, kind heart, Master Frank; so you had, God's blessing on you! What a fine man you have grown! Deary me! Well, it seems as though it were only just t'other day like.' And she pushed him a little off from her, so that she might look the better into his face.

‘Well. Is it all right? I suppose you would hardly know me again now I've got a pair of whiskers?'

‘Know you! I should know you well if I saw but the heel of your foot. Why, what a head of hair you have got, and so dark too! but it doesn't curl as it used once.' And she stroked his hair, and looked into his eyes, and put her hand to his cheeks. ‘You'll think me an old fool, Master Frank: I know that; but you may think what you like. If I live for the next twenty years you'll always be my own boy; so you will.'

By degrees, slow degrees, Frank managed to change the conversation, and to induce Lady Scatcherd to speak on some topic other than his own infantine perfections. He affected an indifference as he spoke of her guest, which would have deceived no one but Lady Scatcherd; but her it did deceive; and then he asked where Mary was.

‘She's just out on her donkey – somewhere about the place. She rides on a donkey mostly every day. But you'll stop and take a bit of dinner with us? Eh, now, do ‘ee, Master Frank!'

But Master Frank excused himself. He did not choose to pledge himself to sit down to dinner with Mary. He did not know in what mood they might return with regard to each other at dinner-time. He said, therefore, that he would walk out and, if possible find Miss Thorne; and that he would return to the house again before he went.

Lady Scatcherd then began making apologies for Sir Louis. He was an invalid; the doctor had been with him all the morning, and he was not yet out of his room.

These apologies Frank willingly accepted, and then made his way as he could on to the lawn. A gardener, of whom he inquired, offered to go with him in pursuit of Miss Thorne. This assistance, however, he declined, and set forth in quest of her, having learnt what were her most usual haunts. Nor was he directed wrongly; for after walking about twenty minutes, he saw through the trees the legs of a donkey moving on the green-sward, at about two hundred yards from him. On that donkey doubtless sat Mary Thorne.

The donkey was coming towards him; not exactly in a straight line, but so much so as to make it impossible that Mary should not see him if he stood still. He did stand still, and soon emerging from the trees, Mary saw him all but close to her.

Her heart gave a leap within her, but she was so far mistress of herself as to repress any very visible sign of outward emotion. She did not fall from her donkey, or scream, or burst into tears. She merely uttered the words, ‘Mr Gresham!' in a tone of not unnatural surprise.

‘Yes,' said he, trying to laugh, but less successful than she had been in suppressing a show of feeling. ‘Mr Gresham! I have come over at last to pay my respects to you. You must have thought me very uncourteous not to do so before.'

This she denied. ‘She had not,' she said, ‘thought him at all uncivil. She had come to Boxall Hill to be out of the way; and, of course, had not expected any such formalities.' As she uttered this she almost blushed at the abrupt truth of what she was saying. But she was taken so much unawares that she did not know how to make the truth other than abrupt.

‘To be out of the way!' said Frank. ‘And why should you want to be out of the way?'

‘Oh! there were reasons,' said she, laughing. ‘Perhaps I have quarrelled dreadfully with my uncle.'

Frank at the present moment had not about him a scrap of badinage. He had not a single easy word at his command. He could not answer her with anything in guise of a joke; so he walked on, not answering at all.

‘I hope all my friends at Greshamsbury are well,' said Mary. ‘Is Beatrice quite well?'