The Chronicles of Barsetshire (135 page)

“At Malvern, eh? Ah! so Oriel told me. The death of poor Sir Louis was very sudden—was it not?”

“Very.”

“Poor fellow—poor fellow! His fate has for some time been past hope. It is a madness, Frank; the worst of madness. Only think of it—father and son! And such a career as the father had—such a career as the son might have had!”

“It has been very quickly run,” said Frank.

“May it be all forgiven him! I sometimes cannot but believe in a special Providence. That poor fellow was not able, never would have been able, to make proper use of the means which fortune had given him. I hope they may fall into better hands. There is no use in denying it, his death will be an immense relief to me, and a relief also to your father. All this law business will now, of course, be stopped. As for me, I hope I may never be a trustee again.”

Frank had put his hand four or five times into his breast-pocket, and had as often taken out and put back again Mary’s letter before he could find himself able to bring Dr. Thorne to the subject. At last there was a lull in the purely legal discussion, caused by the doctor intimating that he supposed Frank would now soon return to Greshamsbury.

“Yes; I shall go to-morrow morning.”

“What! so soon as that? I counted on having you one day in London with me.”

“No, I shall go to-morrow. I’m not fit for company for anyone. Nor am I fit for anything. Read that, doctor. It’s no use putting it off any longer. I must get you to talk this over with me. Just read that, and tell me what you think about it. It was written a week ago, when I was there, but somehow I have only got it to-day.” And putting the letter into the doctor’s hands, he turned away to the window, and looked out among the Holborn omnibuses. Dr. Thorne took the letter and read it. Mary, after she had written it, had bewailed to herself that the letter was cold; but it had not seemed cold to her lover, nor did it appear so to her uncle. When Frank turned round from the window, the doctor’s handkerchief was up to his eyes; who, in order to hide the tears that were there, was obliged to go through a rather violent process of blowing his nose.

“Well,” he said, as he gave back the letter to Frank.

Well! what did well mean? Was it well? or would it be well were he, Frank, to comply with the suggestion made to him by Mary?

“It is impossible,” he said, “that matters should go on like that. Think what her sufferings must have been before she wrote that. I am sure she loves me.”

“I think she does,” said the doctor.

“And it is out of the question that she should be sacrificed; nor will I consent to sacrifice my own happiness. I am quite willing to work for my bread, and I am sure that I am able. I will not submit to— Doctor, what answer do you think I ought to give to that letter? There can be no person so anxious for her happiness as you are—except myself.” And as he asked the question, he again put into the doctor’s hand, almost unconsciously, the letter which he had still been holding in his own.

The doctor turned it over and over, and then opened it again.

“What answer ought I to make to it?” demanded Frank, with energy.

“You see, Frank, I have never interfered in this matter, otherwise than to tell you the whole truth about Mary’s birth.”

“Oh, but you must interfere: you should say what you think.”

“Circumstanced as you are now—that is, just at the present moment—you could hardly marry immediately.”

“Why not let me take a farm? My father could, at any rate, manage a couple of thousand pounds or so for me to stock it. That would not be asking much. If he could not give it me, I would not scruple to borrow so much elsewhere.” And Frank bethought him of all Miss Dunstable’s offers.

“Oh, yes; that could be managed.”

“Then why not marry immediately; say in six months or so? I am not unreasonable; though, Heaven knows, I have been kept in suspense long enough. As for her, I am sure she must be suffering frightfully. You know her best, and, therefore, I ask you what answer I ought to make: as for myself, I have made up my own mind; I am not a child, nor will I let them treat me as such.”

Frank, as he spoke, was walking rapidly about the room; and he brought out his different positions, one after the other, with a little pause, while waiting for the doctor’s answer. The doctor was sitting, with the letter still in his hands, on the head of the sofa, turning over in his mind the apparent absurdity of Frank’s desire to borrow two thousand pounds for a farm, when, in all human probability, he might in a few months be in possession of almost any sum he should choose to name. And yet he would not tell him of Sir Roger’s will. “If it should turn out to be all wrong?” said he to himself.

“Do you wish me to give her up?” said Frank, at last.

“No. How can I wish it? How can I expect a better match for her? Besides, Frank, I love no man in the world so well as I do you.”

“Then you will help me?”

“What! against your father?”

“Against! no, not against anybody. But will you tell Mary that she has your consent?”

“I think she knows that.”

“But you have never said anything to her.”

“Look here, Frank; you ask me for my advice, and I will give it you: go home; though, indeed, I would rather you went anywhere else.”

“No, I must go home; and I must see her.”

“Very well, go home: as for seeing Mary, I think you had better put it off for a fortnight.”

“Quite impossible.”

“Well, that’s my advice. But, at any rate, make up your mind to nothing for a fortnight. Wait for one fortnight, and I then will tell you plainly—you and her too—what I think you ought to do. At the end of a fortnight come to me, and tell the squire that I will take it as a great kindness if he will come with you. She has suffered, terribly, terribly; and it is necessary that something should be settled. But a fortnight more can make no great difference.”

“And the letter?”

“Oh! there’s the letter.”

“But what shall I say? Of course I shall write to-night.”

“Tell her to wait a fortnight. And, Frank, mind you bring your father with you.”

Frank could draw nothing further from his friend save constant repetitions of this charge to him to wait a fortnight—just one other fortnight.

“Well, I will come to you at any rate,” said Frank; “and, if possible, I will bring my father. But I shall write to Mary to-night.”

On the Saturday morning, Mary, who was then nearly broken-hearted at her lover’s silence, received a short note—

MY OWN MARY,

I shall be home to-morrow. I will by no means release you from your promise. Of course you will perceive that I only got your letter to-day.

Your own dearest,

FRANK.

P.S.—You will have to call me so hundreds and hundreds of times yet.

Short as it was, this sufficed to Mary. It is one thing for a young lady to make prudent, heart-breaking suggestions, but quite another to have them accepted. She did call him dearest Frank, even on that one day, almost as often as he had desired her.

CHAPTER XLVI

Our Pet Fox Finds a Tail

Frank returned home, and his immediate business was of course with his father, and with Mr. Gazebee, who was still at Greshamsbury.

“But who is the heir?” asked Mr. Gazebee, when Frank had explained that the death of Sir Louis rendered unnecessary any immediate legal steps.

“Upon my word I don’t know,” said Frank.

“You saw Dr. Thorne,” said the squire. “He must have known.”

“I never thought of asking him,” said Frank, naïvely.

Mr. Gazebee looked rather solemn. “I wonder at that,” said he; “for everything now depends on the hands the property will go into. Let me see; I think Sir Roger had a married sister. Was not that so, Mr. Gresham?” And then it occurred for the first time, both to the squire and to his son, that Mary Thorne was the eldest child of this sister. But it never occurred to either of them that Mary could be the baronet’s heir.

Dr. Thorne came down for a couple of days before the fortnight was over to see his patients, and then returned again to London. But during this short visit he was utterly dumb on the subject of the heir. He called at Greshamsbury to see Lady Arabella, and was even questioned by the squire on the subject. But he obstinately refused to say more than that nothing certain could be known for yet a few days.

Immediately after his return, Frank saw Mary, and told her all that had happened. “I cannot understand my uncle,” said she, almost trembling as she stood close to him in her own drawing-room. “He usually hates mysteries, and yet now he is so mysterious. He told me, Frank—that was after I had written that unfortunate letter—”

“Unfortunate, indeed! I wonder what you really thought of me when you were writing it?”

“If you had heard what your mother said, you would not be surprised. But, after that, uncle said—”

“Said what?”

“He seemed to think—I don’t remember what it was he said. But he said, he hoped that things might yet turn out well; and then I was almost sorry that I had written the letter.”

“Of course you were sorry, and so you ought to have been. To say that you would never call me Frank again!”

“I didn’t exactly say that.”

“I have told him I will wait a fortnight, and so I will. After that, I shall take the matter into my own hands.”

It may be well supposed that Lady Arabella was not well pleased to learn that Frank and Mary had been again together; and, in the agony of her spirit, she did say some ill-natured things before Augusta, who had now returned from Courcy Castle, as to the gross impropriety of Mary’s conduct. But to Frank she said nothing.

Nor was there much said between Frank and Beatrice. If everything could really be settled at the end of that fortnight which was to witness the disclosure of the doctor’s mystery, there would still be time to arrange that Mary should be at the wedding. “It shall be settled then,” he said to himself; “and if it be settled, my mother will hardly venture to exclude my affianced bride from the house.” It was now the beginning of August, and it wanted yet a month to the Oriel wedding.

But though he said nothing to his mother or to Beatrice, he did say much to his father. In the first place, he showed him Mary’s letter. “If your heart be not made of stone it will be softened by that,” he said. Mr. Gresham’s heart was not of stone, and he did acknowledge that the letter was a very sweet letter. But we know how the drop of water hollows stone. It was not by the violence of his appeal that Frank succeeded in obtaining from his father a sort of half-consent that he would no longer oppose the match; but by the assiduity with which the appeal was repeated. Frank, as we have said, had more stubbornness of will than his father; and so, before the fortnight was over, the squire had been talked over, and promised to attend at the doctor’s bidding.

“I suppose you had better take the Hazlehurst farm,” said he to his son, with a sigh. “It joins the park and the home-fields, and I will give you up them also. God knows, I don’t care about farming any more—or about anything else either.”

“Don’t say that, father.”

“Well, well! But, Frank, where will you live? The old house is big enough for us all. But how would Mary get on with your mother?”

At the end of his fortnight, true to his time, the doctor returned to the village. He was a bad correspondent; and though he had written some short notes to Mary, he had said no word to her about his business. It was late in the evening when he got home, and it was understood by Frank and the squire that they were to be with him on the following morning. Not a word had been said to Lady Arabella on the subject.

It was late in the evening when he got home, and Mary waited for him with a heart almost sick with expectation. As soon as the fly had stopped at the little gate she heard his voice, and heard at once that it was quick, joyful, and telling much of inward satisfaction. He had a good-natured word for Janet, and called Thomas an old blunderhead in a manner that made Bridget laugh outright.

“He’ll have his nose put out of joint some day; won’t he?” said the doctor. Bridget blushed and laughed again, and made a sign to Thomas that he had better look to his face.

Mary was in his arms before he was yet within the door. “My darling,” said he, tenderly kissing her. “You are my own darling yet a while.”

“Of course I am. Am I not always to be so?”

“Well, well; let me have some tea, at any rate, for I’m in a fever of thirst. They may call that tea at the Junction if they will; but if China were sunk under the sea it would make no difference to them.”

Dr. Thorne always was in a fever of thirst when he got home from the railway, and always made complaint as to the tea at the Junction. Mary went about her usual work with almost more than her usual alacrity, and so they were soon seated in the drawing-room together.

She soon found that his manner was more than ordinarily kind to her; and there was moreover something about him which seemed to make him sparkle with contentment, but he said no word about Frank, nor did he make any allusion to the business which had taken him up to town.

“Have you got through all your work?” she said to him once.

“Yes, yes; I think all.”

“And thoroughly?”

“Yes; thoroughly, I think. But I am very tired, and so are you too, darling, with waiting for me.”

“Oh, no, I am not,” said she, as she went on continually filling his cup; “but I am so happy to have you home again. You have been away so much lately.”

“Ah, yes; well, I suppose I shall not go away any more now. It will be somebody else’s turn now.”

“Uncle, I think you’re going to take up writing mysterious romances, like Mrs. Radcliffe’s.”

“Yes; and I’ll begin to-morrow, certainly with— But, Mary, I will not say another word to-night. Give me a kiss, dearest, and I’ll go.”

Mary did kiss him, and he did go. But as she was still lingering in the room, putting away a book, or a reel of thread, and then sitting down to think what the morrow would bring forth, the doctor again came into the room in his dressing-gown, and with the slippers on.

“What, not gone yet?” said he.

“No, not yet; I’m going now.”

“You and I, Mary, have always affected a good deal of indifference as to money, and all that sort of thing.”

“I won’t acknowledge that it has been affectation at all,” she answered.

“Perhaps not; but we have often expressed it, have we not?”

“I suppose, uncle, you think that we are like the fox that lost his tail, or rather some unfortunate fox that might be born without one.”

“I wonder how we should either of us bear it if we found ourselves suddenly rich. It would be a great temptation—a sore temptation. I fear, Mary, that when poor people talk disdainfully of money, they often are like your fox, born without a tail. If nature suddenly should give that beast a tail, would he not be prouder of it than all the other foxes in the wood?”

“Well, I suppose he would. That’s the very meaning of the story. But how moral you’ve become all of a sudden at twelve o’clock at night! Instead of being Mrs. Radcliffe, I shall think you’re Mr. Æsop.”

He took up the article which he had come to seek, and kissing her again on the forehead, went away to his bedroom without further speech. “What can he mean by all this about money?” said Mary to herself. “It cannot be that by Sir Louis’s death he will get any of all this property;” and then she began to bethink herself whether, after all, she would wish him to be a rich man. “If he were very rich, he might do something to assist Frank; and then—”

There never was a fox yet without a tail who would not be delighted to find himself suddenly possessed of that appendage. Never; let the untailed fox have been ever so sincere in his advice to his friends! We are all of us, the good and the bad, looking for tails—for one tail, or for more than one; we do so too often by ways that are mean enough: but perhaps there is no tail-seeker more mean, more sneakingly mean than he who looks out to adorn his bare back with a tail by marriage.

The doctor was up very early the next morning, long before Mary was ready with her teacups. He was up, and in his own study behind the shop, arranging dingy papers, pulling about tin boxes which he had brought down with him from London, and piling on his writing-table one set of documents in one place, and one in another. “I think I understand it all,” said he; “but yet I know I shall be bothered. Well, I never will be anybody’s trustee again. Let me see!” and then he sat down, and with bewildered look recapitulated to himself sundry heavy items. “What those shares are really worth I cannot understand, and nobody seems able to tell one. They must make it out among them as best they can. Let me see; that’s Boxall Hill, and this is Greshamsbury. I’ll put a newspaper over Greshamsbury, or the squire will know it!” and then, having made his arrangements, he went to his breakfast.

I know I am wrong, my much and truly honoured critic, about these title-deeds and documents. But when we’ve got that barrister in hand, then if I go wrong after that, let the blame be on my own shoulders—or on his.

The doctor ate his breakfast quickly; and did not talk much to his niece. But what he did say was of a nature to make her feel strangely happy. She could not analyse her own feelings, or give a reason for her own confidence; but she certainly did feel, and even trust, that something was going to happen after breakfast which would make her more happy than she had been for many months.

“Janet,” said he, looking at his watch, “if Mr. Gresham and Mr. Frank call, show them into my study. What are you going to do with yourself, my dear?”

“I don’t know, uncle; you are so mysterious, and I am in such a twitter, that I don’t know what to do. Why is Mr. Gresham coming here—that is, the squire?”

“Because I have business with him about the Scatcherd property. You know that he owed Sir Louis money. But don’t go out, Mary. I want you to be in the way if I should have to call for you. You can stay in the drawing-room, can’t you?”

“Oh, yes, uncle; or here.”

“No, dearest; go into the drawing-room.” Mary obediently did as she was bid; and there she sat, for the next three hours, wondering, wondering, wondering. During the greater part of that time, however, she well knew that Mr. Gresham, senior, and Mr. Gresham, junior, were both with her uncle, below.

At eleven o’clock the doctor’s visitors came. He had expected them somewhat earlier, and was beginning to become fidgety. He had so much on his hands that he could not sit still for a moment till he had, at any rate, commenced it. The expected footsteps were at last heard on the gravel-path, and a moment or two afterwards Janet ushered the father and son into the room.

The squire did not look very well. He was worn and sorrowful, and rather pale. The death of his young creditor might be supposed to have given him some relief from his more pressing cares, but the necessity of yielding to Frank’s wishes had almost more than balanced this. When a man has daily to reflect that he is poorer than he was the day before, he soon becomes worn and sorrowful.

But Frank was well; both in health and spirits. He also felt as Mary did, that the day was to bring forth something which should end his present troubles; and he could not but be happy to think that he could now tell Dr. Thorne that his father’s consent to his marriage had been given.

The doctor shook hands with them both, and then they sat down. They were all rather constrained in their manner; and at first it seemed that nothing but little speeches of compliment were to be made. At last, the squire remarked that Frank had been talking to him about Miss Thorne.

“About Mary?” said the doctor.

“Yes; about Mary,” said the squire, correcting himself. It was quite unnecessary that he should use so cold a name as the other, now that he had agreed to the match.

“Well!” said Dr. Thorne.

“I suppose it must be so, doctor. He has set his heart upon it, and God knows, I have nothing to say against her—against her personally. No one could say a word against her. She is a sweet, good girl, excellently brought up; and, as for myself, I have always loved her.” Frank drew near to his father, and pressed his hand against the squire’s arm, by way of giving him, in some sort, a filial embrace for his kindness.

“Thank you, squire, thank you,” said the doctor. “It is very good of you to say that. She is a good girl, and if Frank chooses to take her, he will, in my estimation, have made a good choice.”

“Chooses!” said Frank, with all the enthusiasm of a lover.

The squire felt himself perhaps a little ruffled at the way in which the doctor received his gracious intimation; but he did now show it as he went on. “They cannot, you know, doctor, look to be rich people—”

“Ah! well, well,” interrupted the doctor.

“I have told Frank so, and I think that you should tell Mary. Frank means to take some land into his hand, and he must farm it as a farmer. I will endeavour to give him three, or perhaps four hundred a year. But you know better—”

“Stop, squire; stop a minute. We will talk about that presently. This death of poor Sir Louis will make a difference.”