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

had subsequently

lent the squire large sums of money on mortgage, in all which

transactions the doctor had taken part. It had therefore come to pass

that Mr Gresham was not unfrequently called upon to discuss his money

affairs with Dr Thorne, and occasionally to submit to lectures and

advice which might perhaps as well have been omitted.

 

So much for Dr Thorne. A few words must still be said about Miss Mary

before we rush into our story; the crust will then have been broken,

and the pie will be open to the guests. Little Miss Mary was kept at

a farm-house till she was six; she was then sent to school at Bath,

and transplanted to the doctor’s newly furnished house a little more

than six years after that. It must not be supposed that he had lost

sight of his charge during her earlier years. He was much too well

aware of the nature of the promise which he had made to the departing

mother to do that. He had constantly visited his little niece, and

long before the first twelve years of her life were over had lost all

consciousness of his promise, and of his duty to the mother, in the

stronger ties of downright personal love for the only creature that

belonged to him.

 

When Mary came home the doctor was like a child in his glee. He

prepared surprises for her with as much forethought and trouble as

though he were contriving mines to blow up an enemy. He took her

first into the shop, and then into the kitchen, thence to the

dining-rooms, after that to his and her bedrooms, and so on till

he came to the full glory of the new drawing-room, enhancing the

pleasure by little jokes, and telling her that he should never dare

to come into the last paradise without her permission, and not then

till he had taken off his boots. Child as she was, she understood the

joke, and carried it on like a little queen; and so they soon became

the firmest of friends.

 

But though Mary was a queen, it was still necessary that she should

be educated. Those were the earlier days in which Lady Arabella had

humbled herself, and to show her humility she invited Mary to share

the music-lessons of Augusta and Beatrice at the great house. A

music-master from Barchester came over three times a week, and

remained for three hours, and if the doctor chose to send his girl

over, she could pick up what was going on without doing any harm.

So said the Lady Arabella. The doctor with many thanks and with no

hesitation, accepted the offer, merely adding, that he had perhaps

better settle separately with Signor Cantabili, the music-master. He

was very much obliged to Lady Arabella for giving his little girl

permission to join her lessons to those of the Miss Greshams.

 

It need hardly be said that the Lady Arabella was on fire at once.

Settle with Signor Cantabili! No, indeed; she would do that; there

must be no expense whatever incurred in such an arrangement on Miss

Thorne’s account! But here, as in most things, the doctor carried his

point. It being the time of the lady’s humility, she could not make

as good a fight as she would otherwise have done; and thus she

found, to her great disgust, that Mary Thorne was learning music in

her schoolroom on equal terms, as regarded payment, with her own

daughters. The arrangement having been made could not be broken,

especially as the young lady in nowise made herself disagreeable; and

more especially as the Miss Greshams themselves were very fond of

her.

 

And so Mary Thorne learnt music at Greshamsbury, and with her music

she learnt other things also; how to behave herself among girls of

her own age; how to speak and talk as other young ladies do; how to

dress herself, and how to move and walk. All which, she, being quick

to learn, learnt without trouble at the great house. Something also

she learnt of French, seeing that the Greshamsbury French governess

was always in the room.

 

And then, some few years later, there came a rector, and a rector’s

sister; and with the latter Mary studied German, and French also.

From the doctor himself she learnt much; the choice, namely, of

English books for her own reading, and habits of thought somewhat

akin to his own, though modified by the feminine softness of her

individual mind.

 

And so Mary Thorne grew up and was educated. Of her personal

appearance it certainly is my business as an author to say something.

She is my heroine, and, as such, must necessarily be very beautiful;

but, in truth, her mind and inner qualities are more clearly distinct

to my brain than her outward form and features. I know that she was

far from being tall, and far from being showy; that her feet and

hands were small and delicate; that her eyes were bright when looked

at, but not brilliant so as to make their brilliancy palpably

visible to all around her; her hair was dark brown, and worn very

plainly brushed from her forehead; her lips were thin, and her

mouth, perhaps, in general inexpressive, but when she was eager in

conversation it would show itself to be animated with curves of

wondrous energy; and, quiet as she was in manner, sober and demure as

was her usual settled appearance, she could talk, when the fit came

on her, with an energy which in truth surprised those who did not

know her; aye, and sometimes those who did. Energy! nay, it was

occasionally a concentration of passion, which left her for the

moment perfectly unconscious of all other cares but solicitude for

that subject which she might then be advocating.

 

All her friends, including the doctor, had at times been made unhappy

by this vehemence of character; but yet it was to that very vehemence

that she owed it that all her friends so loved her. It had once

nearly banished her in early years from the Greshamsbury schoolroom;

and yet it ended in making her claim to remain there so strong, that

Lady Arabella could no longer oppose it, even when she had the wish

to do so.

 

A new French governess had lately come to Greshamsbury, and was, or

was to be, a great pet with Lady Arabella, having all the great gifts

with which a governess can be endowed, and being also a protégée

from the castle. The castle, in Greshamsbury parlance, always meant

that of Courcy. Soon after this a valued little locket belonging to

Augusta Gresham was missing. The French governess had objected to its

being worn in the schoolroom, and it had been sent up to the bedroom

by a young servant-girl, the daughter of a small farmer on the

estate. The locket was missing, and after a while, a considerable

noise in the matter having been made, was found, by the diligence of

the governess, somewhere among the belongings of the English servant.

Great was the anger of Lady Arabella, loud were the protestations

of the girl, mute the woe of her father, piteous the tears of her

mother, inexorable the judgment of the Greshamsbury world. But

something occurred, it matters now not what, to separate Mary Thorne

in opinion from that world at large. Out she then spoke, and to her

face accused the governess of the robbery. For two days Mary was in

disgrace almost as deep as that of the farmer’s daughter. But she was

neither quiet nor dumb in her disgrace. When Lady Arabella would not

hear her, she went to Mr Gresham. She forced her uncle to move in the

matter. She gained over to her side, one by one, the potentates of

the parish, and ended by bringing Mam’selle Larron down on her knees

with a confession of the facts. From that time Mary Thorne was dear

to the tenantry of Greshamsbury; and specially dear at one small

household, where a rough-spoken father of a family was often heard to

declare, that for Miss Mary Thorne he’d face man or magistrate, duke

or devil.

 

And so Mary Thorne grew up under the doctor’s eye, and at the

beginning of our tale she was one of the guests assembled at

Greshamsbury on the coming of age of the heir, she herself having

then arrived at the same period of her life.