The Chronicles of Barsetshire

by Anthony Trollope

  “Not one word, Mary? Then after all my dreams, after all my patience, you do not love me at last?”

  Oh, Frank! notwithstanding what has been said in thy praise, what a fool thou art! Was any word necessary for thee? Had not her heart beat against thine? Had she not borne thy caresses? Had there been one touch of anger when she warded off thy threatened kisses? Bridget, in the kitchen, when Jonah became amorous, smashed his nose with the rolling-pin. But when Thomas sinned, perhaps as deeply, she only talked of doing so. Miss Thorne, in the drawing-room, had she needed self-protection, could doubtless have found the means, though the process would probably have been less violent.

  At last Mary succeeded in her efforts at enfranchisement, and she and Frank stood at some little distance from each other. She could not but marvel at him. That long, soft beard, which just now had been so close to her face, was all new; his whole look was altered; his mien, and gait, and very voice were not the same. Was this, indeed, the very Frank who had chattered of his boyish love, two years since, in the gardens at Greshamsbury?

  “Not one word of welcome, Mary?”

  “Indeed, Mr. Gresham, you are welcome home.”

  “Mr. Gresham! Tell me, Mary—tell me, at once—has anything happened? I could not ask up there.”

  “Frank,” she said, and then stopped; not being able at the moment to get any further.

  “Speak to me honestly, Mary; honestly and bravely. I offered you my hand once before; there it is again. Will you take it?”

  She looked wistfully up in his eyes; she would fain have taken it. But though a girl may be honest in such a case, it is so hard for her to be brave.

  He still held out his hand. “Mary,” said he, “if you can value it, it shall be yours through good fortune or ill fortune. There may be difficulties; but if you can love me, we will get over them. I am a free man; free to do as I please with myself, except so far as I am bound to you. There is my hand. Will you have it?” And then he, too, looked into her eyes, and waited composedly, as though determined to have an answer.

  She slowly raised her hand, and, as she did so, her eyes fell to the ground. It then drooped again, and was again raised; and, at last, her light tapering fingers rested on his broad open palm.

  They were soon clutched, and the whole hand brought absolutely within his grasp. “There, now you are my own!” he said, “and none of them shall part us; my own Mary, my own wife.”

  “Oh, Frank, is not this imprudent? Is it not wrong?”

  “Imprudent! I am sick of prudence. I hate prudence. And as for wrong—no. I say it is not wrong; certainly not wrong if we love each other. And you do love me, Mary—eh? You do! don’t you?”

  He would not excuse her, or allow her to escape from saying it in so many words; and when the words did come at last, they came freely. “Yes, Frank, I do love you; if that were all you would have no cause for fear.”

  “And I will have no cause for fear.”

  “Ah; but your father, Frank, and my uncle. I can never bring myself to do anything that shall bring either of them to sorrow.”

  Frank, of course, ran through all his arguments. He would go into a profession, or take a farm and live in it. He would wait; that is, for a few months. “A few months, Frank!” said Mary. “Well, perhaps six.” “Oh, Frank!” But Frank would not be stopped. He would do anything that his father might ask him. Anything but the one thing. He would not give up the wife he had chosen. It would not be reasonable, or proper, or righteous that he should be asked to do so; and here he mounted a somewhat high horse.

  Mary had no arguments which she could bring from her heart to offer in opposition to all this. She could only leave her hand in his, and feel that she was happier than she had been at any time since the day of that donkey-ride at Boxall Hill.

  “But, Mary,” continued he, becoming very grave and serious. “We must be true to each other, and firm in this. Nothing that any of them can say shall drive me from my purpose; will you say as much?”

  Her hand was still in his, and so she stood, thinking for a moment before she answered him. But she could not do less for him than he was willing to do for her. “Yes,” said she—said in a very low voice, and with a manner perfectly quiet—”I will be firm. Nothing that they can say shall shake me. But, Frank, it cannot be soon.”

  Nothing further occurred in this interview which needs recording. Frank had been three times told by Mary that he had better go before he did go; and, at last, she was obliged to take the matter into her own hands, and lead him to the door.

  “You are in a great hurry to get rid of me,” said he.

  “You have been here two hours, and you must go now; what will they all think?”

  “Who cares what they think? Let them think the truth: that after a year’s absence, I have much to say to you.” However, at last, he did go, and Mary was left alone.

  Frank, although he had been so slow to move, had a thousand other things to do, and went about them at once. He was very much in love, no doubt; but that did not interfere with his interest in other pursuits. In the first place, he had to see Harry Baker, and Harry Baker’s stud. Harry had been specially charged to look after the black horse during Frank’s absence, and the holiday doings of that valuable animal had to be inquired into. Then the kennel of the hounds had to be visited, and—as a matter of second-rate importance—the master. This could not be done on the same day; but a plan for doing so must be concocted with Harry—and then there were two young pointer pups.

  Frank, when he left his betrothed, went about these things quite as vehemently as though he were not in love at all; quite as vehemently as though he had said nothing as to going into some profession which must necessarily separate him from horses and dogs. But Mary sat there at her window, thinking of her love, and thinking of nothing else. It was all in all to her now. She had pledged herself not to be shaken from her troth by anything, by any person; and it would behove her to be true to this pledge. True to it, though all the Greshams but one should oppose her with all their power; true to it, even though her own uncle should oppose her.

  And how could she have done any other than so pledge herself, invoked to it as she had been? How could she do less for him than he was so anxious to do for her? They would talk to her of maiden delicacy, and tell her that she had put a stain on that snow-white coat of proof, in confessing her love for one whose friends were unwilling to receive her. Let them so talk. Honour, honesty, and truth, out-spoken truth, self-denying truth, and fealty from man to man, are worth more than maiden delicacy; more, at any rate, than the talk of it. It was not for herself that this pledge had been made. She knew her position, and the difficulties of it; she knew also the value of it. He had much to offer, much to give; she had nothing but herself. He had name, and old repute, family, honour, and what eventually would at least be wealth to her. She was nameless, fameless, portionless. He had come there with all his ardour, with the impulse of his character, and asked for her love. It was already his own. He had then demanded her troth, and she acknowledged that he had a right to demand it. She would be his if ever it should be in his power to take her.

  But there let the bargain end. She would always remember, that though it was in her power to keep her pledge, it might too probably not be in his power to keep his. That doctrine, laid down so imperatively by the great authorities of Greshamsbury, that edict, which demanded that Frank should marry money, had come home also to her with a certain force. It would be sad that the fame of Greshamsbury should perish, and that the glory should depart from the old house. It might be, that Frank also should perceive that he must marry money. It would be a pity that he had not seen it sooner; but she, at any rate, would not complain.

  And so she stood, leaning on the open window, with her book unnoticed lying beside her. The sun had been in the mid-sky when Frank had left her, but its rays were beginning to stream into the room from the west before she moved from her position. Her first thought in the morning had been this
: Would he come to see her? Her last now was more soothing to her, less full of absolute fear: Would it be right that he should come again?

  The first sounds she heard were the footsteps of her uncle, as he came up to the drawing-room, three steps at a time. His step was always heavy; but when he was disturbed in spirit, it was slow; when merely fatigued in body by ordinary work, it was quick.

  “What a broiling day!” he said, and he threw himself into a chair. “For mercy’s sake give me something to drink.” Now the doctor was a great man for summer-drinks. In his house, lemonade, currant-juice, orange-mixtures, and raspberry-vinegar were used by the quart. He frequently disapproved of these things for his patients, as being apt to disarrange the digestion; but he consumed enough himself to throw a large family into such difficulties.

  “Ha—a!” he ejaculated, after a draught; “I’m better now. Well, what’s the news?”

  “You’ve been out, uncle; you ought to have the news. How’s Mrs. Green?”

  “Really as bad as ennui and solitude can make her.”

  “And Mrs. Oaklerath?”

  “She’s getting better, because she has ten children to look after, and twins to suckle. What has he been doing?” And the doctor pointed towards the room occupied by Sir Louis.

  Mary’s conscience struck her that she had not even asked. She had hardly remembered, during the whole day, that the baronet was in the house. “I do not think he has been doing much,” she said. “Janet has been with him all day.”

  “Has he been drinking?”

  “Upon my word, I don’t know, uncle. I think not, for Janet has been with him. But, uncle—”

  “Well, dear—but just give me a little more of that tipple.”

  Mary prepared the tumbler, and, as she handed it to him, she said, “Frank Gresham has been here to-day.”

  The doctor swallowed his draught, and put down the glass before he made any reply, and even then he said but little.

  “Oh! Frank Gresham.”

  “Yes, uncle.”

  “You thought him looking pretty well?”

  “Yes, uncle; he was very well, I believe.”

  Dr. Thorne had nothing more to say, so he got up and went to his patient in the next room.

  “If he disapproves of it, why does he not say so?” said Mary to herself. “Why does he not advise me?”

  But it was not so easy to give advice while Sir Louis Scatcherd was lying there in that state.

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  Sir Louis Leaves Greshamsbury

  Janet had been sedulous in her attentions to Sir Louis, and had not troubled her mistress; but she had not had an easy time of it. Her orders had been, that either she or Thomas should remain in the room the whole day, and those orders had been obeyed.

  Immediately after breakfast, the baronet had inquired after his own servant. “His confounded nose must be right by this time, I suppose?”

  “It was very bad, Sir Louis,” said the old woman, who imagined that it might be difficult to induce Jonah to come into the house again.

  “A man in such a place as his has no business to be laid up,” said the master, with a whine. “I’ll see and get a man who won’t break his nose.”

  Thomas was sent to the inn three or four times, but in vain. The man was sitting up, well enough, in the tap-room; but the middle of his face was covered with streaks of plaster, and he could not bring himself to expose his wounds before his conqueror.

  Sir Louis began by ordering the woman to bring him chasse-café. She offered him coffee, as much as he would; but no chasse. “A glass of port wine,” she said, “at twelve o’clock, and another at three had been ordered for him.”

  “I don’t care a —— for the orders,” said Sir Louis; “send me my own man.” The man was again sent for; but would not come. “There’s a bottle of that stuff that I take, in that portmanteau, in the left-hand corner—just hand it to me.”

  But Janet was not to be done. She would give him no stuff, except what the doctor had ordered, till the doctor came back. The doctor would then, no doubt, give him anything that was proper.

  Sir Louis swore a good deal, and stormed as much as he could. He drank, however, his two glasses of wine, and he got no more. Once or twice he essayed to get out of bed and dress; but, at every effort, he found that he could not do it without Joe: and there he was, still under the clothes when the doctor returned.

  “I’ll tell you what it is,” said he, as soon as his guardian entered the room, “I’m not going to be made a prisoner of here.”

  “A prisoner! no, surely not.”

  “It seems very much like it at present. Your servant here—that old woman—takes it upon her to say she’ll do nothing without your orders.”

  “Well; she’s right there.”

  “Right! I don’t know what you call right; but I won’t stand it. You are not going to make a child of me, Dr. Thorne; so you need not think it.”

  And then there was a long quarrel between them, and but an indifferent reconciliation. The baronet said that he would go to Boxall Hill, and was vehement in his intention to do so because the doctor opposed it. He had not, however, as yet ferreted out the squire, or given a bit of his mind to Mr. Gazebee, and it behoved him to do this before he took himself off to his own country mansion. He ended, therefore, by deciding to go on the next day but one.

  “Let it be so, if you are well enough,” said the doctor.

  “Well enough!” said the other, with a sneer. “There’s nothing to make me ill that I know of. It certainly won’t be drinking too much here.”

  On the next day, Sir Louis was in a different mood, and in one more distressing for the doctor to bear. His compelled abstinence from intemperate drinking had, no doubt, been good for him; but his mind had so much sunk under the pain of the privation, that his state was piteous to behold. He had cried for his servant, as a child cries for its nurse, till at last the doctor, moved to pity, had himself gone out and brought the man in from the public-house. But when he did come, Joe was of but little service to his master, as he was altogether prevented from bringing him either wine or spirits; and when he searched for the liqueur-case, he found that even that had been carried away.

  “I believe you want me to die,” he said, as the doctor, sitting by his bedside, was trying, for the hundredth time, to make him understand that he had but one chance of living.

  The doctor was not the least irritated. It would have been as wise to be irritated by the want of reason in a dog.

  “I am doing what I can to save your life,” he said calmly; “but, as you said just now, I have no power over you. As long as you are able to move and remain in my house, you certainly shall not have the means of destroying yourself. You will be very wise to stay here for a week or ten days: a week or ten days of healthy living might, perhaps, bring you round.”

  Sir Louis again declared that the doctor wished him to die, and spoke of sending for his attorney, Finnie, to come to Greshamsbury to look after him.

  “Send for him if you choose,” said the doctor. “His coming will cost you three or four pounds, but can do no other harm.”

  “And I will send for Fillgrave,” threatened the baronet. “I’m not going to die here like a dog.”

  It was certainly hard upon Dr. Thorne that he should be obliged to entertain such a guest in the house—to entertain him, and foster him, and care for him, almost as though he were a son. But he had no alternative; he had accepted the charge from Sir Roger, and he must go through with it. His conscience, moreover, allowed him no rest in this matter: it harassed him day and night, driving him on sometimes to great wretchedness. He could not love this incubus that was on his shoulders; he could not do other than be very far from loving him. Of what use or value was he to anyone? What could the world make of him that would be good, or he of the world? Was not an early death his certain fate? The earlier it might be, would it not be the better?

  Were he to linger on yet for two years longer—and suc
h a space of life was possible for him—how great would be the mischief that he might do; nay, certainly would do! Farewell then to all hopes for Greshamsbury, as far as Mary was concerned. Farewell then to that dear scheme which lay deep in the doctor’s heart, that hope that he might, in his niece’s name, give back to the son the lost property of the father. And might not one year—six months be as fatal. Frank, they all said, must marry money; and even he—he the doctor himself, much as he despised the idea for money’s sake—even he could not but confess that Frank, as the heir to an old, but grievously embarrassed property, had no right to marry, at his early age, a girl without a shilling. Mary, his niece, his own child, would probably be the heiress of this immense wealth; but he could not tell this to Frank; no, nor to Frank’s father while Sir Louis was yet alive. What, if by so doing he should achieve this marriage for his niece, and that then Sir Louis should live to dispose of his own? How then would he face the anger of Lady Arabella?

  “I will never hanker after a dead man’s shoes, neither for myself nor for another,” he had said to himself a hundred times; and as often did he accuse himself of doing so. One path, however, was plainly open before him. He would keep his peace as to the will; and would use such efforts as he might use for a son of his own loins to preserve the life that was so valueless. His wishes, his hopes, his thoughts, he could not control; but his conduct was at his own disposal.

  “I say, doctor, you don’t really think that I’m going to die?” Sir Louis said, when Dr. Thorne again visited him.

  “I don’t think at all; I am sure you will kill yourself if you continue to live as you have lately done.”

  “But suppose I go all right for a while, and live—live just as you tell me, you know?”

  “All of us are in God’s hands, Sir Louis. By so doing you will, at any rate, give yourself the best chance.”