Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (interesting books to read TXT) đ
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âI shall not have the slightest objection. It will be so kind of you
to patronise my husband.â
âBut, by Jove, will he patronise me? I know youâll marry some awful
bigwig, or some terribly clever fellow; wonât she, Margaretta?â
âMiss Oriel was saying so much in praise of you before you came out,â
said Margaretta, âthat I began to think that her mind was intent on
remaining at Greshamsbury all her life.â
Frank blushed, and Patience laughed. There was but a yearâs
difference in their age; Frank, however, was still a boy, though
Patience was fully a woman.
âI am ambitious, Lady Margaretta,â said she. âI own it; but I am
moderate in my ambition. I do love Greshamsbury, and if Mr Gresham
had a younger brother, perhaps, you knowââ
âAnother just like myself, I suppose,â said Frank.
âOh, yes. I could not possibly wish for any change.â
âJust as eloquent as you are, Frank,â said the Lady Margaretta.
âAnd as good a carver,â said Patience.
âMiss Bateson has lost her heart to him for ever, because of his
carving,â said the Lady Margaretta.
âBut perfection never repeats itself,â said Patience.
âWell, you see, I have not got any brothers,â said Frank; âso all I
can do is to sacrifice myself.â
âUpon my word, Mr Gresham, I am under more than ordinary obligations
to you; I am indeed,â and Miss Oriel stood still in the path, and
made a very graceful curtsy. âDear 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.â
âAnd done with so much true gallantry, too,â said the other;
âexpressing himself quite willing to postpone any views of his own or
your advantage.â
âYes,â said Patience; âthatâs what I value so much: had he loved me
now, there would have been no merit on his part; but a sacrifice, you
knowââ
âYes, ladies are so fond of such sacrifices, Frank, upon my word, I
had no idea you were so very excellent at making speeches.â
âWell,â said Frank, âI shouldnât have said sacrifice, that was a
slip; what I meant wasââ
âOh, dear me,â said Patience, âwait a minute; now we are going
to have a regular declaration. Lady Margaretta, you havenât got
a scent-bottle, have you? And if I should faint, whereâs the
garden-chair?â
âOh, but Iâm not going to make a declaration at all,â said Frank.
âAre you not? Oh! Now, Lady Margaretta, I appeal to you; did you not
understand him to say something very particular?â
âCertainly, I thought nothing could be plainer,â said the Lady
Margaretta.
âAnd so, Mr Gresham, I am to be told, that after all it means
nothing,â said Patience, putting her handkerchief up to her eyes.
âIt means that you are an excellent hand at quizzing a fellow like
me.â
âQuizzing! 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 had
served me so.â
She said so just as her brother 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 Orielâs 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 earlâs 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 Orielâs 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.
âI donât know any position on earth more enviable than yours, Mr
Gresham,â said she, quite soberly and earnestly; âhow happy you ought
to be.â
âWhat, 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
to be laughed at pretty well generally, but I canât say that your
laughing at me makes me feel so happy as you say I ought to be.â
Frank was evidently of an opinion totally different from that of Miss
Oriel. Miss Oriel, when she found herself tĂȘte-Ă -tĂȘte with him,
thought it was time to give over flirting; Frank, however, imagined
that it was just the moment for him to begin. So he spoke and looked
very languishing, and put on him quite the airs of an Orlando.
âOh, Mr Gresham, such good friends as you and I may laugh at each
other, may we not?â
âYou may do what you like, Miss Oriel: beautiful women I believe
always may; but you remember what the spider said to the fly, âThat
which is sport to you, may be death to me.ââ Anyone looking at
Frankâs face as he said this, might well have imagined that he was
breaking his very heart for love of Miss Oriel. Oh, Master Frank!
Master Frank! if you act thus in the green leaf, what will you do in
the dry?
While Frank Gresham was thus misbehaving himself, and going on as
though to him belonged the privilege of falling in love with pretty
faces, as it does to ploughboys and other ordinary people, his great
interests were not forgotten by those guardian saints who were so
anxious to shower down on his head all manner of temporal blessings.
Another conversation had taken place in the Greshamsbury gardens,
in which nothing light had been allowed to present itself; nothing
frivolous had been spoken. The countess, the Lady Arabella, and Miss
Gresham had been talking over Greshamsbury affairs, and they had
latterly been assisted by the Lady Amelia, than whom no de Courcy
ever born was more wise, more solemn, more prudent, or more proud.
The ponderosity of her qualifications for nobility was sometimes too
much even for her mother, and her devotion to the peerage was such,
that she would certainly have declined a seat in heaven if offered to
her without the promise that it should be in the upper house.
The subject first discussed had been Augustaâs prospects. Mr Moffat
had been invited to Courcy Castle, and Augusta had been taken thither
to meet him, with the express intention on the part of the countess,
that they should be man and wife. The countess had been careful to
make it intelligible to her sister-in-law and niece, that though Mr
Moffat would do excellently well for a daughter of Greshamsbury, he
could not be allowed to raise his eyes to a female scion of Courcy
Castle.
âNot that we personally dislike him,â said the Lady Amelia; âbut rank
has its drawbacks, Augusta.â As the Lady Amelia was now somewhat
nearer forty than thirty, and was still allowed to walk,
âIn maiden meditation, fancy free,â
it may be presumed that in her case rank had been found to have
serious drawbacks.
To this Augusta said nothing in objection. Whether desirable by a
de Courcy or not, the match was to be hers, and there was no doubt
whatever as to the wealth of the man whose name she was to take; the
offer had been made, not to her, but to her aunt; the acceptance
had been expressed, not by her, but by her aunt. Had she thought of
recapitulating in her memory all that had ever passed between Mr
Moffat and herself, she would have found that it did not amount to
more than the most ordinary conversation between chance partners
in a ball-room. Nevertheless, she was to be Mrs Moffat. All that Mr
Gresham knew of him was, that when he met the young man for the first
and only time in his life, he found him extremely hard to deal with
in the matter of money. He had insisted on having ten thousand pounds
with his wife, and at last refused to go on with the match unless
he got six thousand pounds. This latter sum the poor squire had
undertaken to pay him.
Mr Moffat had been for a year or two M.P. for Barchester; having
been assisted in his views on that ancient city by all the de
Courcy interest. He was a Whig, of course. Not only had Barchester,
departing from the light of other days, returned a Whig member of
Parliament, but it was declared, that at the next election, now near
at hand, a Radical would be sent up, a man pledged to the ballot, to
economies of all sorts, one who would carry out Barchester politics
in all their abrupt, obnoxious, pestilent virulence. This was one
Scatcherd, a great railway contractor, a man who was a native of
Barchester, who had bought property in the neighbourhood, and who had
achieved a sort of popularity there and elsewhere by the violence of
his democratic opposition to the aristocracy. According to this manâs
political tenets, the Conservatives should be laughed at as fools,
but the Whigs should be hated as knaves.
Mr Moffat was now coming down to Courcy Castle to look after his
electioneering interests, and Miss Gresham was to return with her
aunt to meet him. The countess was very anxious that Frank should
also accompany them. Her great doctrine, that he must marry money,
had been laid down with authority, and received without doubt. She
now pushed it further, and said that no time should be lost; that
he should not only marry money, but do so very early in life; there
was always danger in delay. The Greshamsâof course she alluded only
to the males of the familyâwere foolishly soft-hearted; no one
could say what might happen. There was that Miss Thorne always at
Greshamsbury.
This was more than the Lady Arabella could stand. She protested
that there was at least no ground for supposing that Frank would
absolutely disgrace his family.
Still the countess persisted: âPerhaps not,â she said; âbut when
young people of perfectly different ranks were allowed to associate
together, there was no saying what danger might arise. They all knew
that old Mr Batesonâthe present Mr Batesonâs fatherâhad gone off
with the governess; and young Mr Everbeery, near Taunton, had only
the other day married a cook-maid.â
âBut Mr Everbeery was always drunk, aunt,â said Augusta, feeling
called upon to say something for her brother.
âNever mind, my dear; these things do happen, and they are very
dreadful.â
âHorrible!â said the Lady Amelia; âdiluting the best blood of the
country, and paving the way for revolutions.â This was very grand;
but, nevertheless, Augusta could not but feel that she perhaps might
be about to dilute the blood of her coming children in marrying the
tailorâs son. She consoled herself by trusting that, at any rate, she
paved the way for no revolutions.
âWhen a thing is so necessary,â said the countess, âit cannot be done
too soon. Now, Arabella, I donât say that anything will come of it;
but it may:
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