The doctor could not remain with her long, as it was necessary that he should take upon himself the direction of the household, and give orders for the funeral. First of all, he had to undergo the sad duty of seeing the corpse of the deceased baronet. This, at any rate, may be spared to my readers. It was found to be necessary that the internment should be made very quickly, as the body was nearly destroyed by alcohol. Having done all this, and sent back his horse to Greshamsbury, with directions that clothes for a journey might be sent to him, and a notice that he should not be home for some days, he again returned to Lady Scatcherd.Of course he could not but think much of the immense property which was now, for a short time, altogether in his own hands. His resolution was soon made to go at once to London and consult the best lawyer he could find — or the best dozen lawyers should such be necessary — as to the validity of Mary’s claims. This must be done before he said a word to her or to any of the Gresham family; but it must be done instantly, so that all suspense might be at an end as soon as possible. He must, of course, remain with Lady Scatcherd till the funeral should be over; but when that office should be complete, he would start instantly for London.In resolving to tell no one as to Mary’s fortune till after he had fortified himself with legal warranty, he made one exception. He thought it rational that he should explain to Lady Scatcherd who was now the heir under her husband’s will; and he was more inclined to do so, from feeling that the news would probably be gratifying to her. With this view, he had once or twice endeavoured to induce her to talk about the property, but she had been unwilling to do so. She seemed to dislike all allusions to it, and it was not until she had incidentally mentioned the fact that she would have to look for a home, that he was able to fix her to the subject. This was on the evening before the funeral; on the afternoon of which day he intended to proceed to London.‘It may probably be arranged that you may continue to live here,’ said the doctor.‘I don’t wish it at all,’ said she, rather sharply. ‘I don’t wish to have any arrangements made. I would not be indebted to any of them for anything. Oh, dear! if money could make it all right, I should have enough of that.’‘Indebted to whom, Lady Scatcherd? Who do you think will be the owner of Boxall Hill?’‘Indeed, then, Dr Thorne, I don’t much care: unless it be yourself, it won’t be any friend of mine, or any one I shall care to make a friend of. It isn’t so easy for an old woman like me to make new friends.’‘Well, it certainly won’t belong to me.’‘I wish it did, with all my heart. But even then, I would not live here. I have had too many troubles here to wish to see more.’‘That shall be as you like, Lady Scatcherd; but you will be surprised to hear that the place will — at least I think it will — belong to a friend of yours: to one to whom you have been very kind.’‘And who is he, doctor? Won’t it go to some of those Americans? I am sure I never did anything kind to them; though, indeed, I did love poor Mary Scatcherd. But that’s years upon years ago, and she is dead, and gone now. Well, I begrudge nothing to Mary’s children. As I have none of my own, it is right that they should have the money. It has not made me happy; I hope it may do them.’‘The property will, I think, go to Mary Scatcherd’s eldest child. It is she whom you have known as Mary Thorne.’‘Doctor!’ And then Lady Scatcherd, as she made the exclamation, put both her hands down to hold her chair, as though she feared the weight of her surprise would topple her off her seat.‘Yes; Mary Thorne — my Mary — to whom you have been so good, who loves you so well; she, I believe, will be Sir Roger’s heiress. And it was so that Sir Roger intended on his deathbed, in the event of poor Louis’s life being cut short. If this be so, will you be ashamed to stay here as the guest of Mary Thorne? She has not been ashamed to be your guest.’But Lady Scatcherd was now too much interested in the general tenor of the news which she had heard to care much about the house which she was to inhabit in future. Mary Thorne, the heiress of Boxall Hill! Mary Thorne, the still living child of that poor creature who had so nearly died when they were all afflicted with their early grief! Well; there was consolation, there was comfort in this. There were but three people left in the world that she could love: her foster-child, Frank Gresham — Mary Thorne, and the doctor. If the money went to Mary, it would of course go to Frank, for she now knew that they loved each other; and if it went to them, would not the doctor have his share also; such share as he might want? Could she have governed the matter, she would have given all to Frank; and now it would be as well bestowed.Yes; there was consolation in this. They both sat up more than half the night talking over it, and giving and receiving explanations. If only the council of lawyers would not be adverse! That was now the point of suspense.The doctor, before he left her, bade her hold her peace, and say nothing of Mary’s fortune to any one till her rights have been absolutely acknowledged. ‘It will be nothing not to have it,’ said the doctor; ‘but it would be very bad to hear it was hers, and then to lose it.’On the next morning, Dr Thorne deposited the remains of Sir Louis in the vault prepared for the family in the parish church. He laid the son where a few months ago he had laid the father,— and so the title of Scatcherd became extinct. Their race of honour had not been long.After the funeral, the doctor hurried up to London, and there we will leave him.Chapter 44 Saturday Evening and Sunday MorningWe must now go back a little and describe how Frank had been sent off on special business to London. The household at Greshamsbury was at this time in but a doleful state. It seemed to be pervaded, from the squire down to the scullery-maid, with a feeling that things were not going well; and men and women, in spite of Beatrice’s coming marriage, were grim-visaged, and dolorous. Mr Mortimer Gazebee, rejected though he had been, still, went and came, talking much to the squire, much also to her ladyship, as to the ill-doings which were in the course of projection by Sir Louis; and Frank went about the house with clouded brow, as though finally resolved to neglect his one great duty.Poor Beatrice was robbed of half her joy; over and over again her brother asked her whether she had yet seen Mary, and she was obliged as often to answer that she had not. Indeed, she did not dare to visit her friend, for it was hardly possible that they should sympathize with each other. Mary was, to say the least, stubborn in her pride; and Beatrice, though she could forgive her friend for loving her brother, could not forgive the obstinacy with which Mary persisted in a course which, as Beatrice thought, she herself knew to be wrong.And then Mr Gazebee came down from town, with an intimation that it behoved the squire himself to go up that he might see certain learned pundits, and be badgered in his own person at various dingy, dismal chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Temple, and Gray’s Inn Lane. It was an invitation exactly of that sort which a good many years ago was given to a certain duck.‘Will you, will you — will you, will you — come and be killed?’ Although Mr Gazebee urged the matter with such eloquence, the squire remained steady to his objection, and swam obstinately about his Greshamsbury pond in any direction save that which seemed to lead towards London.This occurred on the very evening of that Friday which had witnessed the Lady Arabella’s last visit to Dr Thorne’s house. The question of the squire’s necessary journey to the great fountains of justice was, of course, discussed between Lady Arabella and Mr Gazebee; and it occurred to the former, full as she was of Frank’s iniquity and of Mary’s obstinacy, that if Frank were sent up in lieu of his father, it would separate them at least for a while. If she could only get Frank away without seeing his love, she might yet so work upon him, by means of the message which Mary had sent, as to postpone, if not break off, this hateful match. It was inconceivable that a youth of twenty-three, and such a youth as Frank, should be obstinately constant to a girl possessed of no great beauty — so argued Lady Arabella to herself — and who had neither wealth, birth, nor fashion to recommend her.And this it was at last settled — the squire being a willing partner to the agreement — that Frank should go up and be badgered in lieu of his father. At his age it was possible to make a thing desirable, if not necessary — on account of the importance conveyed — to sit day after day in the chambers of Messrs Slow & Bideawhile, and hear musty law talk, and finger dusty law parchments. The squire had made many visits to Messrs Slow & Bideawhile, and he knew better. Frank had not hitherto been there on his own bottom, and thus he fell easily into the trap.Mr Oriel was also going to London, and this was another reason for sending Frank. Mr Oriel had business of great importance, which it was quite necessary that he should execute before his marriage. How much of this business consisted in going to his tailor, buying a wedding-ring, and purchasing some other more costly present for Beatrice, we need not here inquire. But Mr Oriel was quite on Lady Arabella’s side with reference to this mad engagement, and as Frank and he were now fast friends, some good might be done in that way. ‘If we all caution him against it, he can hardly withstand us all!’ said Lady Arabella to herself.The matter was broached to Frank on the Saturday evening, and settled between them all on the same night. Nothing, of course, was at that moment said about Mary; but Lady Arabella was too full of the subject to let him go to London without telling him that Mary was ready to recede if only he would allow her to do so. About eleven o’clock, Frank was sitting in his own room, coming over the difficulties of the situation — thinking of his father’s troubles, his own position — when he was roused from his reverie by a slight tap at the door.‘Come in,’ he said somewhat loudly. He thought it was one of his sisters, who were apt to visit him at all hours and for all manner of reasons; and he, though he was usually gentle to them, was not at present exactly in a humour to be disturbed.The door gently opened, and he saw his mother standing hesitating in the passage.‘Can I come in, Frank?’ said she.‘Oh, yes, mother; by all means:’ and then, with some surprise marked in his countenance, he prepared a seat for her. Such a visit as this from Lady Arabella was very unusual; so much so, that he had probably not seen her in his own room since the day when he first left school. He had nothing, however, to be ashamed of; nothing to conceal unless it were an open letter from Miss Dunstable which he had in his hand when she entered, and which he somewhat hurriedly thrust into his pocket.‘I wanted to say a few words to you, Frank, before you start for London about this business.’ Frank signified by a gesture, that he was quite ready to listen to her.‘I am so glad to see your father putting the matter into your hands. You are younger than he is; and then — I don’t know why, but somehow your father has never been a good man of business — everything has gone wrong with him.’‘Oh, mother! do not say anything against him.’‘No, Frank, I will not; I do not wish it. Things have been unfortunate, certainly. Ah me! I little thought when I married — but I don’t mean to complain — I have excellent children, and I ought to be thankful for that.’Frank began to fear that no good would be coming when his mother spoke in that strain. ‘I will do the best I can,’ said he, ‘up in town. I can’t help thinking myself that Mr Gazebee might have done as well, but —’‘Oh, dear no; by no means. In such cases the principal must show himself. Besides, it is right you should know how matters stand. Who is so much interested in it as you are? Poor Frank! I do so often feel for you when I think how the property has dwindled.’‘Pray do not mind me, mother. Why should you talk of it as my matter while my father is not yet forty-five? His life, so to speak, is as good as mine. I can do very well without it; all I want is to be allowed to settle to something.’‘You mean a profession.’‘Yes; something of that sort.’‘They are all so slow, dear Frank. You, who speak French so well — I should think my brother might get you in as an attache to some embassy.’‘That wouldn’t suit me at all,’ said Frank.‘Well, we’ll talk about that some other time. But I came about something else, and I do hope you will hear me.’Frank’s brow again grew black, for he knew that his mother was about to say something which it would be disagreeable for him to hear.‘I was with Mary, yesterday.’‘Well, mother?’‘Don’t be angry with me, Frank; you can’t but know that the fate of an only son must be a subject of anxiety to a mother.’ Ah! how singularly altered was Lady Arabella’s tone since first she had taken upon herself to discuss the marriage prospects of her son! Then how autocratic had she been as she went him away, bidding him, with full command, to throw himself into the golden embraces of Miss Dunstable! But now, how humble, as she came suppliantly to his room, craving that she might have leave to whisper into his ear a mother’s anxious fears! Frank had laughed at her stern behests, though he had half obeyed them; but he was touched to the heart by her humility.He drew his chair nearer to her, and took her by the hand. But she, disengaging hers, parted the hair from off his forehead, and kissed his brow. ‘Oh, Frank,’ she said, ‘I have been so proud of you, am still so proud of you. It will send me to my grave if I see you sink below your proper position. Not that it will be your fault. I am sure it will not be your fault. Only circumstanced as you are, you should be doubly, trebly, careful. If your father had not —’‘Do not speak against my father.’‘No, Frank; I will not — no, I will not; not another word. And now, Frank —’Before we go on we must say one word further as to Lady Arabella’s character. It will probably be said that she was a consummate hypocrite; but at the present moment she was not hypocritical. She did love her son; was anxious — very, very anxious for him; was proud of him, and almost admired the obstinacy which so vexed her inmost soul. No grief would be to her so great as that of seeing him sink below what she conceived to be his position. She was as genuinely motherly, in wishing that he should marry money, as another woman might be in wishing to see her son a bishop; or as the Spartan matron, who preferred that her offspring should return on his shield, to hearing that he had come back whole in limb but tainted in honour. When Frank spoke of a profession, she instantly thought of what Lord de Courcy might do for him. If he would not marry money, he might, at any rate, be attache at an embassy. A profession — hard work, as a doctor, or as an engineer — would, according to her ideas, degrade him; cause him to sink below his proper position; but to dangle at a foreign court, to make small talk at evening parties of a lady ambassadress, and occasionally, perhaps, to write demi-official notes containing demi-official tittle-tattle; this would be in proper accordance with the high honour of a Gresham of Greshamsbury.We may not admire the direction taken by Lady Arabella’s energy on behalf of her son, but that energy was not hypocritical.‘And now, Frank —’ She looked wistfully into his face as she addressed him, as though half afraid to go on, and begging that he would receive with complaisance whatever she found herself forced to say.‘Well, mother?’‘I was with Mary yesterday.’‘Yes, yes; what then? I know what your feelings are with regard to her.’‘No, Frank; you wrong me. I have no feelings against her — none, indeed; none but this: that she is not fit to be your wife.’‘I think her fit.’‘Ah, yes; but how fit? Think of your position, Frank, and what means you have of keeping her. Think of what you are. Your father’s only son; the heir to Greshamsbury. If Greshamsbury be ever again more than a name, it is you that must redeem it. Of all men living you are the least able to marry a girl like Mary Thorne.’‘Mother, I will not sell myself for what you call my position.’‘Who asks you? I do not ask you; nobody asks you. I do not want you to marry any one. I did think once — but let that pass. You are now twenty-three. In ten years’ time you will still be a young man. I only ask you to wait. If you marry now, that is, marry such a girl as Mary Thorne —’‘Such a girl! Where shall I find another?’‘I mean as regards money, Frank; you know I mean that; how are you to live? Where are you to go? And then, her birth. Oh, Frank, Frank!’‘Birth! I hate such pretence. What was — but I won’t talk about it. Mother, I tell you my word is pledged, and on no account will I be induced to break it.’‘Ah, that’s just it; that’s just the point. Now, Frank, listen to me. Pray listen to me patiently for one minute.’Frank promised that he would listen patiently; but he looked anything but patient as he said so.‘I have seen Mary, as it was certainly my duty to do. You cannot be angry with me for that.’‘Who said that I was angry, mother?’‘Well, I have seen her, and I must own, that though she was not disposed to be courteous to me, personally, she said much that marked her excellent good sense. But the gist of it was this; that as she had made you a promise, nothing should turn her from that promise but your permission.’‘And do you think —’‘Wait a moment, Frank, and listen to me. She confessed that this marriage was one which would necessarily bring distress on all your family; that it was one which would probably be ruinous to yourself; that it was a match which could not be approved of: she did, indeed; she confessed all that. “I have nothing”, she said — those were her own words —“I have nothing to say in favour of this engagement, except that he wishes it.” That is what she thinks of it herself. “His wishes are not a reason; but a law,” she said —’‘And, mother, would you have me desert such a girl as that?’‘It is not deserting, Frank: it would not be deserting: you would be doing that which she herself approves of. She feels the impropriety of going on; but she cannot draw back because of her promise to you. She thinks that she cannot do it, even though she wishes it.’‘Wishes it! Oh, mother!’‘I do believe she does, because she has sense to feel the truth of all that your friends say. Oh, Frank, I will go on my knees to you if you will listen to me.’‘Oh, mother! mother! mother!’‘You should think twice, Frank, before you refuse the only request your mother ever made you. And why do I ask you? why do I come to you thus? Is it for my own sake? Oh, my boy! my darling boy! will you lose everything in life, because you love the child with whom you played with as a child?’‘Whose fault is it that we were together as children? She is now more than a child. I look on her already as my wife.’‘But she is not your wife, Frank; and she knows that she ought not to be. It is only because you hold her to it that she consents to it.’‘Do you mean to say that she does not love me?’Lady Arabella would probably have said this, also, had she dared; but she felt that in doing so, she would be going too far. It was useless for her to say anything that would be utterly contradicted by an appeal to Mary herself.‘No, Frank; I do not mean to say that you do not love her. What I do mean is this: that it is not becoming in you to give up everything — not only yourself, but all your family — for such a love as this; and that she, Mary herself acknowledges this. Every one is of the same opinion. Ask your father: I need not say that he would agree with you about everything he could. I will not say the De Courcys.’‘Oh, the De Courcys!’‘Yes, they are my relations, I know that.’ Lady Arabella could not quite drop the tone of bitterness which was natural to her in saying this. ‘But ask your sisters; ask Mr Oriel, whom you esteem so much; ask your friend Harry Baker.’Frank sat silent for a moment or two while his mother, with a look almost of agony, gazed into his face. ‘I will ask no one,’ at last he said.‘Oh, my boy! my boy!’‘No one but myself can know my heart.’‘And you will sacrifice all to such a love as that, all; her, also, whom you say that you so love? What happiness can you give her as your wife? Oh, Frank! is that the only answer you will make to your mother on her knees?‘Oh, mother! mother!’‘No, Frank, I will not let you ruin yourself; I will not let you destroy yourself. Promise this, at least, that you will think of what I have said.’‘Think of it! I do think of it.’‘Ah, but think of it in earnest. You will be absent now in London; you will have the business of the estate to manage; you will have heavy cares upon your hands. Think of it as a man, and not as a boy.’‘I will see her tomorrow before I go.’‘No, Frank, no; grant me that trifle, at any rate. Think upon this without seeing her. Do not proclaim yourself so weak that you cannot trust yourself to think over what your mother says to you without asking her leave. Though you be in love, do not be childish with it. What I have told you as coming from her is true, word for word; if it were not, you would soon learn so. Think now of what I have said, and of what she says, and when you come back from London, then you can decide.’To so much Frank consented after some further parley; namely, that he would proceed to London on the following Monday morning without again seeing Mary. And in the meantime, she was waiting with sore heart for his answer to that letter that was lying, and was still to lie for so many hours, in the safe protection of Silverbridge postmistress.It may seem strange; but, in truth, his mother’s eloquence had more effect on Frank than that of his father: and yet, with his father he had always sympathized. But his mother had been energetic; whereas, his father, if not lukewarm, had, at any rate, been timid. ‘I will ask no one,’ Frank had said in the strong determination of his heart; and yet the words were hardly out of his mouth before he bethought himself that he would talk the thing over with Harry Baker. ‘Not,’ said he to himself, ‘that I have any doubt: I have no doubt; but I hate to have all the world against me. My mother wishes me to ask Harry Baker. Harry is a good fellow, and I will ask him.’ And with this resolve he betook himself to bed.The following day was Sunday. After breakfast Frank went with the family to church, as was usual; and there, as usual, he saw Mary in Dr Thorne’s pew. She, as she looked at him, could not but wonder why he had not answered the letter which was still at Silverbridge; and he endeavoured to read into her face whether it was true, as his mother told him, that she was quite ready to give him up. The prayers of both of them were disturbed, as is so often the case with the prayers of other anxious people.There was a separate door opening from the Greshamsbury pew out into the Greshamsbury grounds, so that the family were not forced into unseemly community with the village multitude in going to and from their prayers; for the front door of the church led out into a road which had no connexion with the private path. It was not unusual with Frank and his father to go round, after the service, to the chief entrance, so that they might speak to their neighbours, and get rid of some of the exclusiveness which was intended for them. On this morning the squire did so; but Frank walked home with his mother and sisters, so that Mary saw no more of him.I have said that he walked home with his mother and sisters; but he rather followed in their path. He was not inclined to talk much, at least, not to them; and he continued asking himself the question — whether it could be possible that he was wrong in remaining true to his promise? Could it be that he owed more to his father and his mother, and what they chose to call his position, than he did to Mary?After church, Mr Gazebee tried to get hold of him, for there was still much to be said, and many hints to be given, as to how Frank should speak, and, more especially, as to how to hold his tongue among the learned pundits in and about Chancery Lane. ‘You must be very wide awake with Messrs Slow and Bideawhile,’ said Mr Gazebee. But Frank would not hearken to him just at that moment. He was going to ride over to Harry Baker, so he put Mr Gazebee off till the half-hour before dinner,— or else the half-hour after tea.On the previous day he had received a letter from Miss Dunstable, which he had hitherto read but once. His mother had interrupted him as he was about to refer to it; and now, as his father’s nag was being saddled — he was still prudent in saving the black horse — he again took it out.Miss Dunstable had written in excellent humour. She was in great distress about the oil of Lebanon, she said. ‘I have been trying to get a purchaser for the last two years; but my lawyer won’t let me sell it, because the would-be purchasers offer a thousand pounds or so less than the value. I would give ten to get rid of the bore; but I am as little able to act myself as Sancho was in his government. The oil of Lebanon! Did you hear anything of it when you were in those parts? I thought of changing the name to “London particular”; but my lawyers says the brewers would bring an action against me.’‘I was going down to your neighbourhood — to your friend the duke’s, at least. But I am prevented by my poor doctor, who is so weak that I must take him to Malvern. It is a great bore; but I have the satisfaction that I do my duty by him!‘Your cousin George is to be married at last. So I hear, at least. He loves wisely, if not well; for his widow has the name of being prudent and fairly well to do in the world. She has got over the caprices of her youth. Dear Aunt De Courcy will be so delighted. I might perhaps have met her at Gatherum Castle. I do so regret it.‘Mr Moffat has turned up again. We all thought you had finally extinguished him. He left a card the other day, and I have told the servant always to say that I am at home, and that you are with me. He is going to stand for some borough in the west of Ireland. He’s used to shillelaghs by this time.‘By the by, I have a cadeau for a friend of yours. I won’t tell you what it is, nor permit you to communicate the fact. But when you tell me that in sending it I may fairly congratulate her on having so devoted a slave as you, it shall be sent.‘If you have nothing better to do at present, do come and see my invalid at Malvern. Perhaps you might have a mind to treat for the oil of Lebanon. I’ll give you all the assistance I can in cheating my lawyers.’There was not much about Mary in this; but still, the little that was said made him again declare that neither father nor mother should move him from his resolution. ‘I will write to her and say that she may send her present when she pleases. Or I will run down to Malvern for a day. It will do me good to see her.’ And so he resolved, he rode away to Mill Hill, thinking, as he went, how he would put the matter to Harry Baker.Harry was at home; but we need not describe the whole interview. Had Frank been asked beforehand, he would have declared, that on no possible subject could he have had the slightest hesitation in asking Harry any question, or communicating to him any tidings. But when the time came, he found that he did hesitate much. He did not want to ask his friend if he should be wise to marry Mary Thorne. Wise or not, he was determined to do that. But he wished to be quite sure that his mother was wrong in saying that all the world would dissuade him from it. Miss Dunstable, at any rate, did not do so.At last, seated on a stile at the back of the Mill Hill stables, while Harry stood close before him with both his hands in his pockets, he did get his story told. It was by no means the first time that Harry Baker had heard about Mary Thorne, and he was not, therefore, so surprised as he might have been, had the affair been new to him. And thus, standing there in the position we have described, did Mr Baker, junior, give utterance to such wisdom as was in him on this subject.‘You see, Frank, there are two sides to every question; and, as I take it, fellows are so apt to go wrong because they are so fond of one side, they won’t look at the other. There’s no doubt about it, Lady Arabella is a very clever woman, and knows what’s what; and there’s no doubt about this either, that you have a very ticklish hand of cards to play.’‘I’ll play it straightforward; and that’s my game’ said Frank.‘Well and good, my dear fellow. That’s the best game always. But what is straightforward? Between you and me, I fear there’s no doubt that your father’s property has got into a deuce of a mess.’‘I don’t see that that has anything to do with it.’‘Yes, but it has. If the estate was all right, and your father could give you a thousand a year to live on without feeling it, and if your eldest child would be cock-sure of Greshamsbury, it might be very well that you should please yourself as to marrying at once. But that’s not the case; and yet Greshamsbury is too good a card to be flung away.’‘I could fling it away tomorrow,’ said Frank.‘Ah! you think so,’ said Harry the Wise. ‘But if you were to hear tomorrow that Sir Louis Scatcherd were master of the whole place, and be d — d to him, you would feel very uncomfortable.’ Had Harry known how near Sir Louis was to his last struggle, he would not have spoken of him in this manner. ‘That’s all very fine talk, but it won’t bear wear and tear. You do care for Greshamsbury if you are the fellow I take you to be: care for it very much; and you care too much for your father being Gresham of Greshamsbury.’‘This won’t affect my father at all.’‘Ah, but it will affect him very much. If you were to marry Miss Thorne tomorrow, there would at once be an end to any hope to save your property.’‘And do you mean to say I’m to be a liar to her for such reasons as that? Why, Harry, I should be as bad as Moffat. Only it would be ten times more cowardly, as she has no brother.’‘I must differ from you there altogether; but mind, I don’t mean to say anything. Tell me that you have made up your mind to marry her, and I’ll stick to you through thick and thin. But if you ask my advice, why, I must give it. It is quite a different affair to that of Moffat’s. He had lots of tin, everything he could want, and there could be no reason why he should not marry,— except that he was a snob, of whom your sister was well quit. But this is very different. If I, as your friend, were to put it to Miss Thorne, what do you think she would say herself?’‘She would say whatever was best for me.’‘Exactly: because she is a trump. And I say the same. There can be no doubt about it, Frank, my boy: such a marriage would be very foolish for you both; very foolish. Nobody can admire Miss Thorne more than I do; but you oughtn’t to be a marrying man for the next ten years, unless you get a fortune. If you tell her the truth, and if she’s the girl I take her to be, she’ll not accuse you of being false. She’ll peak for a while; and so will you, old chap. But others have had to do that before you. They have got over it and so will you.’Such was the spoken wisdom of Harry Baker, and who can say that he was wrong? Frank sat a while on his rustle seat, paring his nails with his penknife, and then looking up, he thus thanked his friend:-‘I’m sure you mean well, Harry; and I’m much obliged to you. I dare say you’re right too. But, somehow, it doesn’t come home to me. And what is more, after what has passed, I could not tell her that I wish to part from her. I could not do it. And besides, I have that sort of feeling, that if I heard she was to marry any one else, I am sure I would blow his brains out. Either his or my own.’‘Well, Frank, you may count on me for anything, except the last proposition:’ and so they shook hands, and Frank rode back to Greshamsbury.Chapter 45 Law Business in LondonOn the Monday morning at six o’clock, Mr Oriel and Frank started together; but early as it was, Beatrice was up to give them a cup of coffee, Mr Oriel having slept that night in the house. Whether Frank would have received the coffee from his sister’s fair hands had not Mr Oriel been there, may be doubted. He, however, loudly asserted that he should not have done so, when she laid claim to great merit for rising on his behalf.Mr Oriel had been specially instigated by Lady Arabella to use the opportunity of their joint journey, for pointing out to Frank the iniquity as well as madness of the course he was pursuing; and he had promised to obey her ladyship’s request. But Mr Oriel was perhaps not an enterprising man, and was certainly not a presumptuous one. He did intend to do as he was bid; but when he began, with the object of leading up to the subject of Frank’s engagement, he always softened down into some much easier enthusiasm in the matter of his own engagement with Beatrice. He had not that perspicuous, but not over-sensitive strength of mind which had enabled Harry Baker to express his opinion out at once; and boldly as he did it, yet to do so without offence.Four times before the train arrived in London, he made some little attempt; but four times he failed. As the subject was matrimony, it was his easiest course to begin about himself; but never could he get any further.‘No man was ever more fortunate in a wife than I shall be,’ he said, with a soft, euphuistic self-complacency, which would have been silly had it been adopted to any other person than the bride’s brother. His intention, however, was very good, for he meant to show, that in his case marriage was prudent and wise, because his case differed so widely from that of Frank.‘Yes,’ said Frank. ‘She is an excellent good girl:’ he had said it three times before, and was not very energetic.‘Yes, and so exactly suited to me; indeed, all that I could have dreamed of. How very well she looked this morning! Some girls only look well at night. I should not like that at all.’‘You mustn’t expect her to look like that always at six o’clock a.m.,’ said Frank, laughing. ‘Young ladies only take that trouble on very particular occasions. She wouldn’t have come down like that if my father or I had been going alone. No, and she won’t do that for you in a couple of years’ time.’‘Oh, but she’s always nice. I have seen her at home as much almost as you could do; and then she’s so sincerely religious.’‘Oh, yes, of course; that is, I am sure she is,’ said Frank, looking solemn as became him.‘She’s made to be a clergyman’s wife.’‘Well, so it seems,‘said Frank.‘A married life, I’m sure, the happiest in the world — if people are only in a position to marry,’ said Mr Oriel, gradually drawing near to the accomplishment of his design.‘Yes; quite so. Do you know, Oriel, I never was so sleepy in my life. What with all that fuss of Gazebee’s, and one thing and another, I could not get to bed till one o’clock; and then I couldn’t sleep. I’ll take a snooze now, if you won’t think it uncivil.’ And then, putting his feet on the opposite seat, he settled himself comfortably to his rest. And so Mr Oriel’s last attempt for lecturing Frank in the railway-carriage faded away and was annihilated.By twelve o’clock Frank was with Messrs Slow & Bideawhile. Mr Bideawhile was engaged at the moment, but he found the managing Chancery clerk to be a very chatty gentleman. Judging from what he saw, he would have said that the work to be done at Messrs Slow & Bideawhile’s was not very heavy.‘A singular man that Sir Louis,’ said the Chancery clerk.‘Yes; very singular,’ said Frank.‘Excellent security; no better; and yet he will foreclose; but you see he has no power himself. But the question is, can the trustee refuse? Then, again, trustees are so circumscribed nowadays that they are afraid to do anything. There has been so much said lately, Mr Gresham, that a man doesn’t know where he is, or what he is doing. Nobody trusts anybody. There have been such terrible things that we can’t wonder at it. Only think of the case of those Hills! How can any one expect that any one else will ever trust a lawyer again after that? But that’s Mr Bideawhile’s bell. How can one expect it? He will see you now, I dare say, Mr Gresham.’So it turned out, and Frank was ushered into the presence of Mr Bideawhile. He had got his lesson by heart, and was going to rush into the middle of his subject; such a course, however, was not in accordance with Mr Bideawhile’s usual practice. Mr Bideawhile got up from his large wooden-seated Windsor chair, and, with a soft smile, in which, however, was mingled some slight dash of the attorney’s acuteness, put out his hand to his young client; not, indeed, as though he were going to shake hands with him, but as though the hand were some ripe fruit all but falling, which his visitor might take and pluck if he thought proper. Frank took hold of the hand, which returned no pressure, and then let it go again, not making any attempt to gather the fruit.‘I have come up to town, Mr Bideawhile, about this mortgage.’‘Mortgage — ah, sit down, Mr Gresham; sit down. I hope your father is quite well?’‘Quite well, thank you.’‘I have a great regard for your father. So I had for your grandfather; a very good man indeed. You, perhaps, don’t remember him, Mr Gresham?’‘He died when I was only a year old.’‘Oh, yes; no, you of course, can’t remember him; but I do well: he used to be very fond of some port wine I had. I think it was “11”; and if I don’t mistake, I have a bottle or two of it yet; but it is not worth drinking now. Port wine, you know, won’t keep beyond a certain time. That was very good wine. I don’t exactly remember what it stood me a dozen then; but such wine can’t be had now. As for the Madeira, you know there’s an end of that. Do you drink Madeira, Mr Gresham?’‘No,’ said Frank, ‘not very often.’‘I’m sorry for that, for it’s a fine wine; but then there’s none of it left, you know. I have a few dozen, I’m told they’re growing pumpkins where the vineyards were. I wonder what they do with all the pumpkins they grow in Switzerland! You’ve been to Switzerland, Mr Gresham?’Frank said he had ben in Switzerland.‘It’s a beautiful country; my girls made me go there last year. They said it would do me good; but then you know, they wanted to see it themselves; ha! ha! ha! However, I believe I shall go again this autumn. That is to Aix, or some of those places; just for three weeks. I can’t spare any more time, Mr Gresham. Do you like that dining at the tables d’hote?’‘Pretty well, sometimes.’‘One would get tired of it — eh! But they gave us capital dinners at Zurich. I don’t think much of their soup. But they had fish, and about seven kinds of meats and poultry, and three or four puddings, and things of that sort. Upon my word, I thought we did very well, and so did my girls, too. You see a great many ladies travelling now.’‘Yes,’ said Frank; ‘a great many.’‘Upon my word, I think they are right; that is, if they can afford time. I can’t afford time. I’m here every day till five, Mr Gresham; then I go out and dine in Fleet Street, and then back to work till nine.’‘Dear me! that’s very hard.’‘Well, yes it is hard work. My boys don’t like it; but I manage somehow. I get down to my little place in the country on Saturday. I shall be most happy to see you there next Saturday.’Frank, thinking it would be outrageous on his part to take up much of the time of the gentleman who was constrained to work so unreasonably hard, began again to talk about his mortgages, and, in so doing, had to mention the name of Mr Yates Umblelby.‘Ah, poor Umblelby!’ said Mr Bideawhile; ‘what is he doing now? I am quite sure your father was right, or he wouldn’t have done it; but I used to think that Umbleby was a decent sort of man enough. Not so grand, you know, as your Gazebees and Gumptions — eh, Mr Gresham? They do say young Gazebee is thinking of getting into Parliament. Let me see: Umbleby married — who was it he married? That was the way your father got hold of him; not your father, but your grandfather. I used to know all about it. Well, I was sorry for Umbleby. He has got something, I suppose — eh?’Frank said that he believed Mr Yates Umbleby had something wherewith to keep the wolf from the door.‘So you have got Gazebee down there now? Gumption, Gazebee & Gazebee: very good people, I’m sure; only, perhaps, they have a little too much on hand to do your father justice.’‘But about Sir Louis Scatcherd, Mr Bideawhile.’‘Well, about Sir Louis; a very bad sort of fellow, isn’t he? Drinks — eh? I knew his father a little. He was a rough diamond, too. I was once down in Northamptonshire, about some railway business; let me see; I almost forget whether I was with him, or against him. But I know he made sixty thousand pounds by one hour’s work; sixty thousand pounds! And then he got so mad with drinking that we all thought —’And so Mr Bideawhile went on for two hours, and Frank found no opportunity of saying one word about the business which had brought him up to town. What wonder that such a man as this should be obliged to stay at his office every night till nine o’clock?During these two hours, a clerk had come in three or four times, whispering something to the lawyer, who, on the last of such occasions, turned to Frank, saying, ‘Well, perhaps that will do for today. If you’ll manage to call tomorrow, say about two, I will have the whole thing looked up; or, perhaps Wednesday or Thursday would suit you better.’ Frank, declaring that the morrow would suit him very well, took his departure, wondering much at the manner in which business was done at the house of Messrs Slow and Bideawhile.When he called the next day, the office seemed to be rather disturbed, and he was shown quickly into Mr Bideawhile’s room. ‘Have you heard this?’ said that gentleman, putting a telegram into his hands. It contained tidings of the death of Sir Louis Scatcherd. Frank immediately knew that these tidings must be of importance to his father; but he had no idea how vitally they concerned his own more immediate interests.‘Dr Thorne will be up in town on Thursday evening after the funeral,’ said the talkative clerk. ‘And nothing of course can be done till he comes,’ said Mr Bideawhile. And so Frank, pondering on the mutability of human affairs, again took his departure.He could do nothing now but wait for Dr Thorne’s arrival, and so he amused himself in the interval by running down to Malvern, and treating with Miss Dunstable in person for the oil of Lebanon. He went down on the Wednesday, and thus, failed to receive, on the Thursday morning, Mary’s letter, which reached London on that day. He returned, however, on the Friday, and then got it; and perhaps it was well for Mary’s happiness that he had seen Miss Dunstable in the interval. ‘I don’t care what your mother says,’ said she, with emphasis. ‘I don’t care for any Harry, whether it be Harry Baker or old Harry himself. You made her a promise, and you are bound to keep it; if not on one day, then on another. What! because you cannot draw back yourself, get out of it by inducing her to do so! Aunt de Courcy herself could not improve upon that.’ Fortified in this manner, he returned to town on the Friday morning, and then got Mary’s letter. Frank also got a note from Dr Thorne, stating that he had taken up his temporary domicile at the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house, so as to be near the lawyers.It has been suggested that the modern English writers of fiction should among them keep a barrister, in order that they may be set right on such legal points as will arise in their little narratives, and thus avoid the exposure of their own ignorance of the laws, which, now, alas! they too often make. The idea is worthy of consideration, and I can only say, that if such an arrangement can be made, and if a counsellor adequately skilful can be found to accept the office, I shall be happy to subscribe my quota; it would be but a modest tribute towards the cost.But as the suggestion has not yet been carried out, and as there is at present no learned gentleman whose duty would induce him to set me right, I can only plead for mercy if I be wrong allotting all Sir Roger’s vast possessions in perpetuity to Miss Thorne, alleging also, in excuse, that the course of my narrative absolutely demands that she shall be ultimately recognized as Sir Roger’s undoubted heiress.Such, after a not immoderate delay, was the opinion expressed to Dr Thorne by his law advisers; and such, in fact, turned out to be the case. I will leave the matter so, hoping that my very absence of defence may serve to protect me from severe attack. If under such a will as that described as having been made by Sir Roger, Mary would not have been the heiress, that will must have been described wrongly.But it was not quite at once that those tidings made themselves absolutely certain to Dr Thorne’s mind; nor was he able to express any such opinion when he first met Frank in London. At that time Mary’s letter was in Frank’s pocket; and Frank, though his real business appertained much more to the fact of Sir Louis’s death, and the effect that would immediately have on his father’s affairs, was much more full of what so much more nearly concerned himself. ‘I will show it Dr Thorne himself,’ said he, ‘and ask him what he thinks.’Dr Thorne was stretched fast asleep on the comfortless horse-hair sofa in the dingy sitting-room at the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house when Frank found him. The funeral, and his journey to London, and the lawyers had together conquered his energies, and he lay and snored, with nose upright, while heavy London summer flies settled on his head and face, and robbed his slumbers of half their charms.‘I beg your pardon,’ said he, jumping up as though he had been detected in some disgraceful act. ‘Upon my word, Frank, I beg your pardon; but — well, my dear fellow, all well at Greshamsbury — eh?’ and as he shook himself, he made a lunge at one uncommonly disagreeable fly that had been at him for the last ten minutes. It is hardly necessary to say that he missed his enemy.‘I should have been with you before, doctor, but I was down at Malvern.’‘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 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 tomorrow morning.’‘What! so soon as that? I counted on having you one day in London with me.’‘No, I shall go tomorrow. I’m not fit for company for any one. 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, but somehow I have only got it today.’ 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 hands, 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 h 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 will you help me?’‘What! against your father?’‘Against! no, not against anybody. But will you tell Mary 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 can make no great difference.’‘And the letter?’‘Oh! there’s the letter.’‘But what shall I say? Of course I shall write to her 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 tomorrow. I will by no means release you from your promise. Of course you will perceive that I only got your letter today.’Your own dearest, FRANK.’Short as it was, this sufficed 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 46 Our Pet Fox Finds a TailFrank 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, naively.Mr Gazebee looked rather solemn. ‘I wonder at that,’ said he; ‘for everything 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 anything more than nothing certain could be known for 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 that I will wait a fortnight, and so I will. After that, I shall take the matter into my own hands.’It may be 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 home 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 them up 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 this 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 blunder-head 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 awhile.’‘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 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 tired,’ 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 are going to take up writing mystery romances, like Mrs Radciffe’s.’‘Yes; and I’ll begin tomorrow, 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 an 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 Aesop.’He took up the article which he had come to seek, and kissing her again on the forehead, went away to his bed-room 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 by 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 anyone’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 to be 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 a 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 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 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.’‘Not permanently,’ said the squire mournfully.‘And now, Frank,’ said the doctor, not attending to the squire’s last words, ‘what do you say?’‘What do I say? I say what I said to you in London the other day. I believe Mary loves me; indeed, I won’t be affected — I know she does. I have loved her — I was going to say always; and, indeed, I almost might say so. My father knows that this is no light fancy of mine. As to what he says about our being poor, why —’The doctor was very arbitrary, and would hear neither of them on the subject.‘Mr Gresham,’ said he, interrupting Frank, ‘of course I am well aware how very little suited Mary is by birth to marry your only son.’‘It is too late to think about that now,’ said the squire.‘It is not too late for me to justify myself,’ replied the doctor. ‘We have long known each other, Mr Gresham, and you said here the other day, that this is a subject as to which we have been of one mind. Birth and blood are very valuable gifts.’‘I certainly think so,’ said the squire; ‘but one can’t have everything.’‘No; one can’t have everything.’‘If I am satisfied in that matter —’ began Frank.‘Stop a moment, my dear boy,’ said the doctor. ‘As your father says, one can’t have everything. My dear friend —’ and he gave his hand to the squire —‘do not be angry if I alluded for a moment to the estate. It has grieved me to see it melting away — the old family acres that have so long been the heritage of the Greshams.’‘We need not talk about that now, Dr Thorne,’ said Frank, in an almost angry tone.‘But I must, Frank, for one moment, to justify myself. I could not have excused myself in letting Mary think that she could become your wife if I had not hoped that good might come of it.’‘Well; good will come of it,’ said Frank, who did not quite understand at what the doctor was driving.‘I hope so. I have had much doubt about this, and have been sorely perplexed; but now I do hope so. Frank — Mr Gresham —’ and then Dr Thorne rose from his chair; but was, for a moment, unable to go on with his tale.‘We will hope that it is all for the best,’ said the squire.‘I am sure it is,’ said Frank.‘Yes; I hope it is. I do think it is; I am sure it is, Frank. Mary will not come to you empty-handed. I wish for your sake — yes, and for hers too — that her birth were equal to her fortune, as her worth is superior to both. Mr Gresham, this marriage will, at any rate, put an end to your pecuniary embarrassments — unless, indeed, Frank should prove a hard creditor. My niece is Sir Roger Scatcherd’s heir.’The doctor, as soon as he made the announcement, began to employ himself sedulously about the papers on the table; which, in the confusion caused by his own emotion, he transferred hither and thither in such a manner as to upset all his previous arrangements. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘I might as well explain, as well as I can, of what that fortune consists. Here, this is — no —’‘But, Dr Thorne,’ said the squire, now perfectly pale, and almost gasping for breath, ‘what is it you mean?’‘There’s not a shadow of doubt,’ said the doctor. ‘I’ve had Sir Abraham Haphazard, and Sir Rickety Giggs, and old Neversaye Dis, and Mr Snilam; and they are all of the same opinion. There is not the smallest doubt about it. Of course, she must administer, and all that; and I’m afraid there’ll be a very heavy sum to pay for the tax; for she cannot inherit as a niece, you know. Mr Snilam pointed out that particularly. But, after all that, there’ll be — I’ve got it down on a piece of paper, somewhere — three grains of blue pill. I’m really so bothered, squire, with all these papers, and all those lawyers, that I don’t know whether I’m sitting or standing. There’s ready money enough to pay all the tax and all the debts. I know that, at any rate.’‘You don’t mean to say that Mary Thorne is now possessed of all Sir Roger Scatcherd’s wealth?’ at last ejaculated the squire.‘But that’s exactly what I do mean to say,’ said the doctor, looking up from his papers with a tear in his eye, and a smile on his mouth; ‘and what is more, squire, you owe her at the present moment exactly — I’ve got that down too, somewhere, only I am so bothered with all these papers. Come, squire, when do you mean to pay her? She’s in a great hurry, as young ladies are when they want to get married.’The doctor was inclined to joke if possible, so as to carry off, as it were, some of the great weight of obligation which it might seem that he was throwing on the father and son; but the squire was by no means in a state to understand a joke: hardly as yet in a state to comprehend what was so very serious in this matter.‘Do you mean that Mary is the owner of Boxall Hill?’ said he.‘Indeed I do,’ said the doctor; and he was just going to add, ‘and of Greshamsbury also,’ but he stopped himself.‘What, the whole property there?’‘That’s only a small portion,’ said the doctor. ‘I almost wish it were all, for then I would not be so bothered. Look here; these are the Boxall Hill title-deeds; that’s the simplest part of the whole affair; and Frank may go and settle himself there tomorrow if he pleases.’‘Stop a moment, Dr Thorne,’ said Frank. These were the only words which he had yet uttered since the tidings had been conveyed to him.‘And these, squire, are the Greshamsbury papers:’ and the doctor, with considerable ceremony, withdrew the covering newspapers. ‘Look at them; there they all are once again. When I suggested to Mr Snilam that I supposed they might now all go back to the Greshamsbury muniment room, I thought he would have fainted. As I cannot return them to you, you will have to wait till Frank shall give them up.’‘But, Dr Thorne,’ said Frank.‘Well, my boy.’‘Does Mary know all about this?’‘Not a word of it. I mean that you shall tell her.’‘Perhaps, under such very altered circumstances —’‘Eh?’‘The change is so great and so sudden, so immense in its effects, that Mary may wish perhaps —’‘Wish! wish what? Wish not to be told of it at all?’‘I shall not think of holding her to her engagement — that is, if — I mean to say, she should have time at any rate for consideration.’‘Oh, I understand,’ said the doctor. ‘She shall have time for consideration. How much shall we give her, squire, three minutes? Go up to her Frank: she is in the drawing-room.’Frank went to the door, and then hesitated, and returned. ‘I could not do it,’ said he. ‘I don’t think that I understand it all yet. I am so bewildered that I could not tell her;’ and he sat down at the table, and began to sob with emotion.‘And she knows nothing of it?’ said the squire.‘Not a word. I thought that I would keep the pleasure of telling her for Frank.’‘She should not be left in suspense,’ said the squire.‘Come, Frank, go up to her,’ again urged the doctor. ‘You’ve been ready enough with your visits when you knew that you ought to stay away.’‘I cannot do it,’ said Frank, after a pause of some moments; ‘nor is it right that I should. It would be taking advantage of her.’‘Go to her yourself, doctor; it is you that should do it,’ said the squire.After some further slight delay, the doctor got up, and did go upstairs. He, even, was half afraid of the task. ‘It must be done,’ he said to himself, as his heavy steps mounted the stairs. ‘But how to tell it?’When he entered, Mary was standing half-way up the room, as though she had risen to meet him. Her face was troubled, and her eyes were almost wild. The emotion, the hopes, the fears of the morning had almost been too much for her. She had heard the murmuring of the voices in the room below, and had known that one of them was that of her lover. Whether that discussion was to be for her good or ill she did not know; but she felt that further suspense would almost kill her. ‘I could wait for years,’ she said to herself, ‘if I did but know. If I lost him, I suppose I should bear it, if I did but know.’— Well; she was going to know.Her uncle met her in the middle of the room. His face was serious, though not sad; too serious to confirm her hopes at that moment of doubt. ‘What is it, uncle?’ she said, taking one of his hands between both of her own. ‘What is it? Tell me.’ And as she looked up into his face with her wild eyes, she almost frightened him.‘Mary,’ he said gravely, ‘you have heard much, I know of Sir Roger Scatcherd’s great fortune.’‘Yes, yes, yes!’‘Now that poor Sir Louis is dead —’‘Well, uncle, well?’‘It has been left —’‘To Frank! to Mr Gresham, to the squire!’ exclaimed Mary, who felt, with an agony of doubt, that this sudden accession of immense wealth might separate her still further from her lover.‘No, Mary, not to the Greshams; but to yourself.’‘To me!’ she cried, and putting both her hands to her forehead, she seemed to be holding her temples together. ‘To me!’‘Yes, Mary; it is all your own now. To do as you like best with it all — all. May God, in His mercy, enable you to bear the burden, and lighten for you the temptation!’She had so far moved as to find the nearest chair, and there she was now seated, staring at her uncle with fixed eyes. ‘Uncle,’ she said, ‘what does it mean?’ Then he came, and sitting beside her, he explained, as best he could, the story of her birth, and her kinship with the Scatcherds. ‘And where is he, uncle?’ she said. ‘Why does he not come to me?’‘I wanted him to come, but her refused. They are both there now, the father and son; shall I fetch them?’‘Fetch them! whom? The squire? No, uncle; but may we go to them?’‘Surely, Mary.’‘But, uncle —’‘Yes, dearest.’‘Is it true? are you sure? For his sake, you know; not for my own. The squire, you know — Oh, uncle! I cannot go.’‘They shall come to you.’No — no. I have gone to him such hundreds of times; I will never allow that he shall be sent to me. But, uncle, is it true?’The doctor, as he went downstairs, muttered something about Sir Abraham Haphazard, and Sir Rickety Giggs; but these great names were much thrown away upon poor Mary. The doctor entered the room first, and the heiress followed him with downcast eyes and timid steps. She was at first afraid to advance, but when she did look up, and saw Frank standing alone by the window, her lover restored her courage, and rushing up to him, she threw herself into his arms. ‘Oh, Frank; my own Frank! my own Frank! we shall never be separated again.’Chapter 47 How the Bride was Received, and who Were Asked toAnd thus after all did Frank perform his duty; he did marry money; or rather, as the wedding has not yet taken place, and is, indeed, as yet hardly talked of, we should more properly say that he had engaged himself to marry money. And then, such a quantity of money! the Scatcherd wealth greatly exceeded the Dunstable wealth; so that our hero may be looked on as having performed his duties in a manner deserving the very highest commendation from all classes of the De Courcy connexion.And he received it. But that was nothing. That he should be feted by the De Courcys and the Greshams, now that he was about to do his duty by his family in so exemplary a manner: that he should be patted on the back, now that he no longer meditated that vile crime which had been so abhorrent to his mother’s soul; this was only natural; this is hardly worthy of remark. But there was another to be feted, another person to be made a personage, another blessed human mortal about to do her duty by the family of Gresham in a manner that deserved, and should receive, Lady Arabella’s warmest caresses.Dear Mary! It was, indeed, not singular that she should be prepared to act so well, seeing that in early youth she had had the advantage of an education in the Greshamsbury nursery; but not on that account was it the less fitting that her virtue should be acknowledged, eulogized, nay, all but worshipped.How the party at the doctor’s got itself broken up, I am not prepared to say. Frank, I know, stayed, and dined there, and his poor mother, who would not retire to rest till she had kissed him, and blessed him, and thanked him for all he was doing for the family, was kept waiting in her dressing-room till a very unreasonable hour of the night.It was the squire who brought the news up to the house. ‘Arabella,’ he said, in a low, but somewhat solemn voice, ‘you will be surprised at the news I bring you. Mary Thorne is the heiress to all the Scatcherd property!’‘Oh, heavens! Mr Gresham.’‘Yes, indeed,’ continued the squire. ‘So it is; it is very, very —’ But Lady Arabella had fainted. She was a woman who generally had her feelings and her emotions much under her own control; but what she now heard was too much for her. When she came to her senses, the first words that escaped her lips were, ‘Dear Mary!’But the household had to sleep on the news before it could be fully realized. The squire was not by nature a mercenary man. If I have at all succeeded in putting his character before the reader, he will be recognized as one not over attached to money for money’s sake. But things had gone so hard with him, the world had become so rough, so ungracious, so full of thorns, the want of means had become an evil so keenly felt in every hour, that it cannot be wondered at that his dreams that night should be of a golden Elysium. The wealth was not coming to him. True. But his chief sorrow had been for his son. Now that son would be his only creditor. It was as though mountains of marble had been taken off his bosom.But Lady Arabella’s dreams flew away at once into the seventh heaven. Sordid as they certainly were, they were not absolutely selfish. Frank would now certainly be the first commoner in Barsetshire; of course he would represent the county; of course there would be the house in town; it wouldn’t be her house, but she was contented that the grandeur should be that of her child. He would have heaven knows what to spend per annum. And that it should come through Mary Thorne! What a blessing she had allowed Mary to be brought into the Greshamsbury nursery! Dear Mary!‘She will of course be one now,’ said Beatrice to her sister. With her, at the present moment, ‘one’ of course meant one of the bevy that was to attend her at the altar. ‘Oh dear! how nice! I shan’t know what to say to her tomorrow. But I know one thing.’‘What is that?’ asked Augusta.‘She will be as mild and meek as a little dove. If she and the doctor had lost every shilling in the world, she would have been proud as an eagle.’ It must be acknowledged that Beatrice had had the wit to read Mary’s character right.But Augusta was not quite pleased with the whole affair. Not that she begrudged her brother his luck, or Mary her happiness. But her ideas of right and wrong — perhaps we should rather say Lady Amelia’s ideas — would not be fairly carried out.‘After all, Beatrice, this does not alter her birth. I know it is useless saying anything to Frank.’‘Why, you wouldn’t break both their hearts now?’‘I don’t want to break their hearts, certainly. But there are those who put their dearest and warmest feelings under restraint rather than deviate from what they know to be proper.’ Poor Augusta! she was the stern professor of the order of this philosophy; the last in the family who practised with unflinching courage its cruel behests; the last, always excepting the Lady Amelia.And how slept Frank that night? With him, at least, let us hope, nay, let us say boldly, that his happiest thoughts were not with the wealth which he was to acquire. But yet it would be something to restore Boxall Hill to Greshamsbury; something to give back to his father those rumpled vellum documents, since the departure of which the squire had never had a happy day; nay, something to come forth again to his friends as a gay, young country squire, instead of a farmer, clod-compelling for his bread. We would not have him thought to be better than he was, nor would we wish him to make him of other stuff than nature generally uses. His heart did exult at Mary’s wealth; but it leaped higher still when he thought of purer joys.And what shall we say of Mary’s dreams? With her, it was altogether what she should give, not at all what she should get. Frank had loved her so truly when she was so poor, such an utter castaway; Frank, who with his beauty, and spirit, and his talents might have won the smiles of the richest, the grandest, the noblest! What lady’s heart would not have rejoiced to be allowed to love her Frank? But he had been true to her through everything. Ah! how often she thought of that hour, when suddenly appearing before her, he had strained her to his breast, just as she had resolved how best to bear the death-like chill of his supposed estrangements! She was always thinking of that time. She fed her love by recurring over and over to the altered feeling of that moment. Any now she could pay him for his goodness. Pay him! No, that would be a base word, a base thought. Her payment must be made, if God would so grant it, in many, many years to come. But her store, such as it was, should be emptied into his lap. It was soothing to her pride that she would not hurt him by her love, that she would bring no injury to the old house. ‘Dear, dear Frank’ she murmured, as her waking dream, conquered at last by sleep, gave way to those of the fairy world.But she thought not only of Frank; dreamed not only of him. What had he not done for her, that uncle of hers, who had been more loving to her than any father! How was he, too, to be paid? Paid, indeed! Love can only be paid in its own coin: it knows of no other legal tender. Well, if her home was to be Greshamsbury, at any rate she would not be separated from him.What the doctor dreamed of that, neither he or anyone ever knew. ‘Why, uncle, I think you’ve been asleep,’ said Mary to him that evening as he moved for a moment uneasily on the sofa. He had been asleep for the last three-quarters of an hour;— but Frank, his guest, had felt no offence. ‘No, I’ve not been exactly asleep,’ said he; ‘but I’m very tired. I wouldn’t do it all again, Frank, to double the money. You haven’t got any more tea, have you, Mary?’On the following morning, Beatrice was of course with her friend. There was no awkwardness between them in meeting. Beatrice had loved her when she was poor, and though they had not lately thought alike on one very important subject, Mary was too gracious to impute that to Beatrice as a crime.‘You will be one now, Mary; of course you will.’‘If Lady Arabella will let me come.’‘Oh, Mary; let you! Do you remember what you said once about coming, and being near me? I have so often thought of it. And now, Mary, I must tell you about Caleb;’ and the young lady settled herself on the sofa, so as to have a comfortable long talk. Beatrice had been quite right. Mary was as meek with her, and as mild as a dove.And then Patience Oriel came. ‘My fine, young darling, magnificent, overgrown heiress,’ said Patience, embracing her. ‘My breath deserted me, and I was nearly stunned when I heard of it. How small we shall all be, my dear! I am quite prepared to toady to you immensely; but pray be a little gracious to me, for the sake of auld lang syne.’Mary gave a long, long kiss. ‘Yes, for auld lang syne, Patience; when you took me away under your wing to Richmond.’ Patience also had loved her when she was in trouble, and that love, too, should never be forgotten.But the great difficulty was Lady Arabella’s first meeting with her. ‘I think I’ll go down to her after breakfast,’ said her ladyship to Beatrice, as the two were talking over the matter while the mother was finishing her toilet.‘I am sure she will come up if you like it, mamma.’‘She is entitled to every courtesy — as Frank’s accepted bride, you know,’ said Lady Arabella. ‘I would not for worlds fail in any respect to her for his sake.’‘He will be glad enough for her to come, I am sure,’ said Beatrice. ‘I was talking to Caleb this morning, and he says —’The matter was of importance, and Lady Arabella gave it her most mature consideration. The manner of receiving into one’s family an heiress whose wealth is cure all one’s difficulties, disperse all one’s troubles, give a balm to all the wounds of misfortune, must under any circumstances, be worthy of much care. But when that heiress had been treated as Mary had been treated!‘I must see her, at any rate, before I go to Courcy.’ said Lady Arabella.‘Are you going to Courcy, mamma?’
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