Doctor Thorne - Anthony Trollope (historical books to read .txt) 📗

class="calibre1">“I don’t say he intends to do it; but it looks to me as though he

were making a door for himself, or trying to make a door: if so, your

having the money will stop him there.”

 

“But, Thorne, don’t you think he loves the girl? If I thought not—”

 

The doctor stood silent for a moment, and then he said, “I am not a

love-making man myself, but I think that if I were much in love with

a young lady I should not write such a letter as that to her father.”

 

“By heavens! If I thought so,” said the squire—“but, Thorne, we

can’t judge of those fellows as one does of gentlemen; they are so

used to making money, and seeing money made, that they have an eye to

business in everything.”

 

“Perhaps so, perhaps so,” muttered the doctor, showing evidently that

he still doubted the warmth of Mr Moffat’s affection.

 

“The match was none of my making, and I cannot interfere now to break

it off: it will give her a good position in the world; for, after

all, money goes a great way, and it is something to be in Parliament.

I can only hope she likes him. I do truly hope she likes him;” and

the squire also showed by the tone of his voice that, though he might

hope that his daughter was in love with her intended husband, he

hardly conceived it to be possible that she should be so.

 

And what was the truth of the matter? Miss Gresham was no more in

love with Mr Moffat than you are—oh, sweet, young, blooming beauty!

Not a whit more; not, at least, in your sense of the word, nor in

mine. She had by no means resolved within her heart that of all the

men whom she had ever seen, or ever could see, he was far away the

nicest and best. That is what you will do when you are in love, if

you be good for anything. She had no longing to sit near to him—the

nearer the better; she had no thought of his taste and his choice

when she bought her ribbons and bonnets; she had no indescribable

desire that all her female friends should be ever talking to her

about him. When she wrote to him, she did not copy her letters again

and again, so that she might be, as it were, ever speaking to him;

she took no special pride in herself because he had chosen her to

be his life’s partner. In point of fact, she did not care one straw

about him.

 

And yet she thought she loved him; was, indeed, quite confident

that she did so; told her mother that she was sure Gustavus would

wish this, she knew Gustavus would like that, and so on; but as for

Gustavus himself, she did not care a chip for him.

 

She was in love with her match just as farmers are in love with

wheat at eighty shillings a quarter; or shareholders—innocent

gudgeons—with seven and half per cent. interest on their paid-up

capital. Eighty shillings a quarter, and seven and half per cent.

interest, such were the returns which she had been taught to look

for in exchange for her young heart; and, having obtained them, or

being thus about to obtain them, why should not her young heart be

satisfied? Had she not sat herself down obediently at the feet of her

lady Gamaliel, and should she not be rewarded? Yes, indeed, she shall

be rewarded.

 

And then the doctor went to the lady. On their medical secrets we

will not intrude; but there were other matters bearing on the course

of our narrative, as to which Lady Arabella found it necessary to say

a word or so to the doctor; and it is essential that we should know

what was the tenor of those few words so spoken.

 

How the aspirations, and instincts, and feelings of a household

become changed as the young birds begin to flutter with feathered

wings, and have half-formed thoughts of leaving the parental nest! A

few months back, Frank had reigned almost autocratic over the lesser

subjects of the kingdom of Greshamsbury. The servants, for instance,

always obeyed him, and his sisters never dreamed of telling anything

which he directed should not be told. All his mischief, all his

troubles, and all his loves were confided to them, with the sure

conviction that they would never be made to stand in evidence against

him.

 

Trusting to this well-ascertained state of things, he had not

hesitated to declare his love for Miss Thorne before his sister

Augusta. But his sister Augusta had now, as it were, been received

into the upper house; having duly received, and duly profited by the

lessons of her great instructress, she was now admitted to sit in

conclave with the higher powers: her sympathies, of course, became

changed, and her confidence was removed from the young and giddy

and given to the ancient and discreet. She was as a schoolboy, who,

having finished his schooling, and being fairly forced by necessity

into the stern bread-earning world, undertakes the new duties of

tutoring. Yesterday he was taught, and fought, of course, against the

schoolmaster; to-day he teaches, and fights as keenly for him. So

it was with Augusta Gresham, when, with careful brow, she whispered

to her mother that there was something wrong between Frank and Mary

Thorne.

 

“Stop it at once, Arabella: stop it at once,” the countess had said;

“that, indeed, will be ruin. If he does not marry money, he is lost.

Good heavens! the doctor’s niece! A girl that nobody knows where she

comes from!”

 

“He’s going with you to-morrow, you know,” said the anxious mother.

 

“Yes; and that is so far well: if he will be led by me, the evil

may be remedied before he returns; but it is very, very hard to

lead young men. Arabella, you must forbid that girl to come to

Greshamsbury again on any pretext whatever. The evil must be stopped

at once.”

 

“But she is here so much as a matter of course.”

 

“Then she must be here as a matter of course no more: there has been

folly, very great folly, in having her here. Of course she would turn

out to be a designing creature with such temptation before her; with

such a prize within her reach, how could she help it?”

 

“I must say, aunt, she answered him very properly,” said Augusta.

 

“Nonsense,” said the countess; “before you, of course she did.

Arabella, the matter must not be left to the girl’s propriety. I

never knew the propriety of a girl of that sort to be fit to be

depended upon yet. If you wish to save the whole family from ruin,

you must take steps to keep her away from Greshamsbury now at once.

Now is the time; now that Frank is to be away. Where so much, so very

much depends on a young man’s marrying money, not one day ought to be

lost.”

 

Instigated in this manner, Lady Arabella resolved to open her mind

to the doctor, and to make it intelligible to him that, under

present circumstances, Mary’s visits at Greshamsbury had better be

discontinued. She would have given much, however, to have escaped

this business. She had in her time tried one or two falls with the

doctor, and she was conscious that she had never yet got the better

of him: and then she was in a slight degree afraid of Mary herself.

She had a presentiment that it would not be so easy to banish Mary

from Greshamsbury: she was not sure that that young lady would not

boldly assert her right to her place in the schoolroom; appeal

loudly to the squire, and perhaps, declare her determination of

marrying the heir, out before them all. The squire would be sure to

uphold her in that, or in anything else.

 

And then, too, there would be the greatest difficulty in wording her

request to the doctor; and Lady Arabella was sufficiently conscious

of her own weakness to know that she was not always very good at

words. But the doctor, when hard pressed, was never at fault: he

could say the bitterest things in the quietest tone, and Lady

Arabella had a great dread of these bitter things. What, also, if he

should desert her himself; withdraw from her his skill and knowledge

of her bodily wants and ailments now that he was so necessary to her?

She had once before taken that measure of sending to Barchester for

Dr Fillgrave, but it had answered with her hardly better than with

Sir Roger and Lady Scatcherd.

 

When, therefore, Lady Arabella found herself alone with the doctor,

and called upon to say out her say in what best language she could

select for the occasion, she did not feel to very much at her ease.

There was that about the man before her which cowed her, in spite of

her being the wife of the squire, the sister of an earl, a person

quite acknowledged to be of the great world, and the mother of the

very important young man whose affections were now about to be called

in question. Nevertheless, there was the task to be done, and with a

mother’s courage she essayed it.

 

“Dr Thorne,” said she, as soon as their medical conference was at

an end, “I am very glad you came over to-day, for I had something

special which I wanted to say to you:” so far she got, and then

stopped; but, as the doctor did not seem inclined to give her any

assistance, she was forced to flounder on as best she could.

 

“Something very particular indeed. You know what a respect and

esteem, and I may say affection, we all have for you,”—here the

doctor made a low bow—“and I may say for Mary also;” here the

doctor bowed himself again. “We have done what little we could to be

pleasant neighbours, and I think you’ll believe me when I say that I

am a true friend to you and dear Mary—”

 

The doctor knew that something very unpleasant was coming, but he

could not at all guess what might be its nature. He felt, however,

that he must say something; so he expressed a hope that he was duly

sensible of all the acts of kindness he had ever received from the

squire and the family at large.

 

“I hope, therefore, my dear doctor, you won’t take amiss what I am

going to say.”

 

“Well, Lady Arabella, I’ll endeavour not to do so.”

 

“I am sure I would not give any pain if I could help it, much less

to you. But there are occasions, doctor, in which duty must be

paramount; paramount to all other considerations, you know, and,

certainly, this occasion is one of them.”

 

“But what is the occasion, Lady Arabella?”

 

“I’ll tell you, doctor. You know what Frank’s position is?”

 

“Frank’s position! as regards what?”

 

“Why, his position in life; an only son, you know.”

 

“Oh, yes; I know his position in that respect; an only son, and his

father’s heir; and a very fine fellow, he is. You have but one son,

Lady Arabella, and you may well be proud of him.”

 

Lady Arabella sighed. She did not wish at the present moment to

express herself as being in any way proud of Frank. She was desirous

rather, on the other hand, of showing that she was a good deal

ashamed of him; only not quite so much ashamed of him as it behoved

the doctor to be of his niece.

 

“Well, perhaps