Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (interesting books to read TXT) 📖

CHAPTER XXIII

Retrospective

 

It was declared in the early pages of this work that Dr Thorne was to

be our hero; but it would appear very much as though he had latterly

been forgotten. Since that evening when he retired to rest without

letting Mary share the grievous weight which was on his mind, we have

neither seen nor heard aught of him.

 

It was then full midsummer, and it is now early spring: and during the

intervening months the doctor had not had a happy time of it. On that

night, as we have before told, he took his niece to his heart; but

he could not then bring himself to tell her that which it was so

imperative that she should know. Like a coward, he would put off

the evil hour till the next morning, and thus robbed himself of his

night’s sleep.

 

But when the morning came the duty could not be postponed. Lady

Arabella had given him to understand that his niece would no longer

be a guest at Greshamsbury; and it was quite out of the question that

Mary, after this, should be allowed to put her foot within the gate

of the domain without having learnt what Lady Arabella had said. So

he told it her before breakfast, walking round their little garden,

she with her hand in his.

 

He was perfectly thunderstruck by the collected—nay, cool way in

which she received his tidings. She turned pale, indeed; he felt also

that her hand somewhat trembled in his own, and he perceived that

for a moment her voice shook; but no angry word escaped her lip, nor

did she even deign to repudiate the charge, which was, as it were,

conveyed in Lady Arabella’s request. The doctor knew, or thought he

knew—nay, he did know—that Mary was wholly blameless in the matter:

that she had at least given no encouragement to any love on the part

of the young heir; but, nevertheless, he had expected that she would

avouch her own innocence. This, however, she by no means did.

 

“Lady Arabella is quite right,” she said, “quite right; if she has

any fear of that kind, she cannot be too careful.”

 

“She is a selfish, proud woman,” said the doctor; “quite indifferent

to the feelings of others; quite careless how deeply she may hurt her

neighbours, if, in doing so, she may possibly benefit herself.”

 

“She will not hurt me, uncle, nor yet you. I can live without going

to Greshamsbury.”

 

“But it is not to be endured that she should dare to cast an

imputation on my darling.”

 

“On me, uncle? She casts no imputation on me. Frank has been foolish:

I have said nothing of it, for it was not worth while to trouble you.

But as Lady Arabella chooses to interfere, I have no right to blame

her. He has said what he should not have said; he has been foolish.

Uncle, you know I could not prevent it.”

 

“Let her send him away then, not you; let her banish him.”

 

“Uncle, he is her son. A mother can hardly send her son away so

easily: could you send me away, uncle?”

 

He merely answered her by twining his arm round her waist and

pressing her to his side. He was well sure that she was badly

treated; and yet now that she so unaccountably took Lady Arabella’s

part, he hardly knew how to make this out plainly to be the case.

 

“Besides, uncle, Greshamsbury is in a manner his own; how can he be

banished from his father’s house? No, uncle; there is an end of my

visits there. They shall find that I will not thrust myself in their

way.”

 

And then Mary, with a calm brow and steady gait, went in and made the

tea.

 

And what might be the feelings of her heart when she so sententiously

told her uncle that Frank had been foolish? She was of the same age

with him; as impressionable, though more powerful in hiding such

impressions,—as all women should be; her heart was as warm, her

blood as full of life, her innate desire for the companionship of

some much-loved object as strong as his. Frank had been foolish in

avowing his passion. No such folly as that could be laid at her door.

But had she been proof against the other folly? Had she been able to

walk heart-whole by his side, while he chatted his commonplaces about

love? Yes, they are commonplaces when we read of them in novels;

common enough, too, to some of us when we write them; but they are by

no means commonplace when first heard by a young girl in the rich,

balmy fragrance of a July evening stroll.

 

Nor are they commonplaces when so uttered for the first or second

time at least, or perhaps the third. ‘Tis a pity that so heavenly a

pleasure should pall upon the senses.

 

If it was so that Frank’s folly had been listened to with a certain

amount of pleasure, Mary did not even admit so much to herself. But

why should it have been otherwise? Why should she have been less

prone to love than he was? Had he not everything which girls do love?

which girls should love? which God created noble, beautiful, all but

godlike, in order that women, all but goddesslike, might love? To

love thoroughly, truly, heartily, with her whole body, soul, heart,

and strength; should not that be counted for a merit in a woman? And

yet we are wont to make a disgrace of it. We do so most unnaturally,

most unreasonably; for we expect our daughters to get themselves

married off our hands. When the period of that step comes, then love

is proper enough; but up to that—before that—as regards all those

preliminary passages which must, we suppose, be necessary—in all

those it becomes a young lady to be icy-hearted as a river-god in

winter.

 

O whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad!

O whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad!

Tho’ father and mither and a’ should go mad,

O whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad!

 

This is the kind of love which a girl should feel before she puts her

hand proudly in that of her lover, and consents that they two shall

be made one flesh.

 

Mary felt no such love as this. She, too, had some inner perception

of that dread destiny by which it behoved Frank Gresham to be

forewarned. She, too—though she had never heard so much said in

words—had an almost instinctive knowledge that his fate required him

to marry money. Thinking over this in her own way, she was not slow

to convince herself that it was out of the question that she should

allow herself to love Frank Gresham. However well her heart might

be inclined to such a feeling, it was her duty to repress it. She

resolved, therefore, to do so; and she sometimes flattered herself

that she had kept her resolution.

 

These were bad times for the doctor, and bad times for Mary too. She

had declared that she could live without going to Greshamsbury; but

she did not find it so easy. She had been going to Greshamsbury all

her life, and it was as customary with her to be there as at home.

Such old customs are not broken without pain. Had she left the place

it would have been far different; but, as it was, she daily passed

the gates, daily saw and spoke to some of the servants, who knew her

as well as they did the young ladies of the family—was in hourly

contact, as it were, with Greshamsbury. It was not only that she

did not go there, but that everyone knew that she had suddenly

discontinued doing so. Yes, she could live without going to

Greshamsbury; but for some time she had but a poor life of it. She

felt, nay, almost heard, that every man and woman, boy and girl, in

the village was telling his and her neighbour that Mary Thorne no

longer went to the house because of Lady Arabella and the young

squire.

 

But Beatrice, of course, came to her. What was she to say to

Beatrice? The truth! Nay, but it is not always so easy to say the

truth, even to one’s dearest friends.

 

“But you’ll come up now he has gone?” said Beatrice.

 

“No, indeed,” said Mary; “that would hardly be pleasant to Lady

Arabella, nor to me either. No, Trichy, dearest; my visits to dear

old Greshamsbury are done, done, done: perhaps in some twenty years’

time I may be walking down the lawn with your brother, and discussing

our childish days—that is, always, if the then Mrs Gresham shall

have invited me.”

 

“How can Frank have been so wrong, so unkind, so cruel?” said

Beatrice.

 

This, however, was a light in which Miss Thorne did not take any

pleasure in discussing the matter. Her ideas of Frank’s fault, and

unkindness, and cruelty, were doubtless different from those of his

sister. Such cruelty was not unnaturally excused in her eyes by many

circumstances which Beatrice did not fully understand. Mary was quite

ready to go hand in hand with Lady Arabella and the rest of the

Greshamsbury fold in putting an end, if possible, to Frank’s passion:

she would give no one a right to accuse her of assisting to ruin the

young heir; but she could hardly bring herself to admit that he was

so very wrong—no, nor yet even so very cruel.

 

And then the squire came to see her, and this was a yet harder trial

than the visit of Beatrice. It was so difficult for her to speak to

him that she could not but wish him away; and yet, had he not come,

had he altogether neglected her, she would have felt it to be unkind.

She had ever been his pet, had always received kindness from him.

 

“I am sorry for all this, Mary; very sorry,” said he, standing up,

and holding both her hands in his.

 

“It can’t be helped, sir,” said she, smiling.

 

“I don’t know,” said