The Chronicles of Barsetshire (83 page)

All her friends, including the doctor, had at times been made unhappy by this vehemence of character; but yet it was to that very vehemence that she owed it that all her friends so loved her. It had once nearly banished her in early years from the Greshamsbury schoolroom; and yet it ended in making her claim to remain there so strong, that Lady Arabella could no longer oppose it, even when she had the wish to do so.

A new French governess had lately come to Greshamsbury, and was, or was to be, a great pet with Lady Arabella, having all the great gifts with which a governess can be endowed, and being also a protégée from the castle. The castle, in Greshamsbury parlance, always meant that of Courcy. Soon after this a valued little locket belonging to Augusta Gresham was missing. The French governess had objected to its being worn in the schoolroom, and it had been sent up to the bedroom by a young servant-girl, the daughter of a small farmer on the estate. The locket was missing, and after a while, a considerable noise in the matter having been made, was found, by the diligence of the governess, somewhere among the belongings of the English servant. Great was the anger of Lady Arabella, loud were the protestations of the girl, mute the woe of her father, piteous the tears of her mother, inexorable the judgment of the Greshamsbury world. But something occurred, it matters now not what, to separate Mary Thorne in opinion from that world at large. Out she then spoke, and to her face accused the governess of the robbery. For two days Mary was in disgrace almost as deep as that of the farmer’s daughter. But she was neither quiet nor dumb in her disgrace. When Lady Arabella would not hear her, she went to Mr. Gresham. She forced her uncle to move in the matter. She gained over to her side, one by one, the potentates of the parish, and ended by bringing Mam’selle Larron down on her knees with a confession of the facts. From that time Mary Thorne was dear to the tenantry of Greshamsbury; and specially dear at one small household, where a rough-spoken father of a family was often heard to declare, that for Miss Mary Thorne he’d face man or magistrate, duke or devil.

And so Mary Thorne grew up under the doctor’s eye, and at the beginning of our tale she was one of the guests assembled at Greshamsbury on the coming of age of the heir, she herself having then arrived at the same period of her life.

CHAPTER IV

Lessons from Courcy Castle

It was the first of July, young Frank Gresham’s birthday, and the London season was not yet over; nevertheless, Lady de Courcy had managed to get down into the country to grace the coming of age of the heir, bringing with her all the Ladies Amelia, Rosina, Margaretta, and Alexandrina, together with such of the Honourable Johns and Georges as could be collected for the occasion.

The Lady Arabella had contrived this year to spend ten weeks in town, which, by a little stretching, she made to pass for the season; and had managed, moreover, at last to refurnish, not ingloriously, the Portman Square drawing-room. She had gone up to London under the pretext, imperatively urged, of Augusta’s teeth—young ladies’ teeth are not unfrequently of value in this way—and having received authority for a new carpet, which was really much wanted, had made such dexterous use of that sanction as to run up an upholsterer’s bill of six or seven hundred pounds. She had of course had her carriage and horses; the girls of course had gone out; it had been positively necessary to have a few friends in Portman Square; and, altogether, the ten weeks had not been unpleasant, and not inexpensive.

For a few confidential minutes before dinner, Lady de Courcy and her sister-in-law sat together in the latter’s dressing-room, discussing the unreasonableness of the squire, who had expressed himself with more than ordinary bitterness as to the folly—he had probably used some stronger word—of these London proceedings.

“Heavens!” said the countess, with much eager animation; “what can the man expect? What does he wish you to do?”

“He would like to sell the house in London, and bury us all here for ever. Mind, I was there only for ten weeks.”

“Barely time for the girls to get their teeth properly looked at! But Arabella, what does he say?” Lady de Courcy was very anxious to learn the exact truth of the matter, and ascertain, if she could, whether Mr. Gresham was really as poor as he pretended to be.

“Why, he said yesterday that he would have no more going to town at all; that he was barely able to pay the claims made on him, and keep up the house here, and that he would not—”

“Would not what?” asked the countess.

“Why, he said that he would not utterly ruin poor Frank.”

“Ruin Frank!”

“That’s what he said.”

“But, surely, Arabella, it is not so bad as that? What possible reason can there be for him to be in debt?”

“He is always talking of those elections.”

“But, my dear, Boxall Hill paid all that off. Of course Frank will not have such an income as there was when you married into the family; we all know that. And whom will he have to thank but his father? But Boxall Hill paid all those debts, and why should there be any difficulty now?”

“It was those nasty dogs, Rosina,” said the Lady Arabella, almost in tears.

“Well, I for one never approved of the hounds coming to Greshamsbury. When a man has once involved his property he should not incur any expenses that are not absolutely necessary. That is a golden rule which Mr. Gresham ought to have remembered. Indeed, I put it to him nearly in those very words; but Mr. Gresham never did, and never will receive with common civility anything that comes from me.”

“I know, Rosina, he never did; and yet where would he have been but for the De Courcys?” So exclaimed, in her gratitude, the Lady Arabella; to speak the truth, however, but for the De Courcys, Mr. Gresham might have been at this moment on the top of Boxall Hill, monarch of all he surveyed.

“As I was saying,” continued the countess, “I never approved of the hounds coming to Greshamsbury; but yet, my dear, the hounds can’t have eaten up everything. A man with ten thousand a year ought to be able to keep hounds; particularly as he had a subscription.”

“He says the subscription was little or nothing.”

“That’s nonsense, my dear. Now, Arabella, what does he do with his money? That’s the question. Does he gamble?”

“Well,” said Lady Arabella, very slowly, “I don’t think he does.” If the squire did gamble he must have done it very slyly, for he rarely went away from Greshamsbury, and certainly very few men looking like gamblers were in the habit of coming thither as guests. “I don’t think he does gamble.” Lady Arabella put her emphasis on the word gamble, as though her husband, if he might perhaps be charitably acquitted of that vice, was certainly guilty of every other known in the civilised world.

“I know he used,” said Lady de Courcy, looking very wise, and rather suspicious. She certainly had sufficient domestic reasons for disliking the propensity; “I know he used; and when a man begins, he is hardly ever cured.”

“Well, if he does, I don’t know it,” said the Lady Arabella.

“The money, my dear, must go somewhere. What excuse does he give when you tell him you want this and that—all the common necessaries of life, that you have always been used to?”

“He gives no excuse; sometimes he says the family is so large.”

“Nonsense! Girls cost nothing; there’s only Frank, and he can’t have cost anything yet. Can he be saving money to buy back Boxall Hill?”

“Oh no!” said the Lady Arabella, quickly. “He is not saving anything; he never did, and never will save, though he is so stingy to me. He
is
hard pushed for money, I know that.”

“Then where has it gone?” said the Countess de Courcy, with a look of stern decision.

“Heaven only knows! Now, Augusta is to be married. I must of course have a few hundred pounds. You should have heard how he groaned when I asked him for it. Heaven only knows where the money goes!” And the injured wife wiped a piteous tear from her eye with her fine dress cambric handkerchief. “I have all the sufferings and privations of a poor man’s wife, but I have none of the consolations. He has no confidence in me; he never tells me anything; he never talks to me about his affairs. If he talks to anyone it is to that horrid doctor.”

“What, Dr. Thorne?” Now the Countess de Courcy hated Dr. Thorne with a holy hatred.

“Yes; Dr. Thorne. I believe that he knows everything; and advises everything, too. Whatever difficulties poor Gresham may have, I do believe Dr. Thorne has brought them about. I do believe it, Rosina.”

“Well, that is surprising. Mr. Gresham, with all his faults, is a gentleman; and how he can talk about his affairs with a low apothecary like that, I, for one, cannot imagine. Lord de Courcy has not always been to me all that he should have been; far from it.” And Lady de Courcy thought over in her mind injuries of a much graver description than any that her sister-in-law had ever suffered; “but I have never known anything like that at Courcy Castle. Surely Umbleby knows all about it, doesn’t he?”

“Not half so much as the doctor,” said Lady Arabella.

The countess shook her head slowly; the idea of Mr. Gresham, a country gentleman of good estate like him, making a confidant of a country doctor was too great a shock for her nerves; and for a while she was constrained to sit silent before she could recover herself.

“One thing at any rate is certain, Arabella,” said the countess, as soon as she found herself again sufficiently composed to offer counsel in a properly dictatorial manner. “One thing at any rate is certain; if Mr. Gresham be involved so deeply as you say, Frank has but one duty before him. He must marry money. The heir of fourteen thousand a year may indulge himself in looking for blood, as Mr. Gresham did, my dear”—it must be understood that there was very little compliment in this, as the Lady Arabella had always conceived herself to be a beauty—”or for beauty, as some men do,” continued the countess, thinking of the choice that the present Earl de Courcy had made; “but Frank must marry money. I hope he will understand this early; do make him understand this before he makes a fool of himself; when a man thoroughly understands this, when he knows what his circumstances require, why, the matter becomes easy to him. I hope that Frank understands that he has no alternative. In his position he must marry money.”

But, alas! alas! Frank Gresham had already made a fool of himself.

“Well, my boy, I wish you joy with all my heart,” said the Honourable John, slapping his cousin on the back, as he walked round to the stable-yard with him before dinner, to inspect a setter puppy of peculiarly fine breed which had been sent to Frank as a birthday present. “I wish I were an elder son; but we can’t all have that luck.”

“Who wouldn’t sooner be the younger son of an earl than the eldest son of a plain squire?” said Frank, wishing to say something civil in return for his cousin’s civility.

“I wouldn’t for one,” said the Honourable John. “What chance have I? There’s Porlock as strong as a horse; and then George comes next. And the governor’s good for these twenty years.” And the young man sighed as he reflected what small hope there was that all those who were nearest and dearest to him should die out of his way, and leave him to the sweet enjoyment of an earl’s coronet and fortune. “Now, you’re sure of your game some day; and as you’ve no brothers, I suppose the squire’ll let you do pretty well what you like. Besides, he’s not so strong as my governor, though he’s younger.”

Frank had never looked at his fortune in this light before, and was so slow and green that he was not much delighted at the prospect now that it was offered to him. He had always, however, been taught to look to his cousins, the De Courcys, as men with whom it would be very expedient that he should be intimate; he therefore showed no offence, but changed the conversation.

“Shall you hunt with the Barsetshire this season, John? I hope you will; I shall.”

“Well, I don’t know. It’s very slow. It’s all tillage here, or else woodland. I rather fancy I shall go to Leicestershire when the partridge-shooting is over. What sort of a lot do you mean to come out with, Frank?”

Frank became a little red as he answered, “Oh, I shall have two,” he said; “that is, the mare I have had these two years, and the horse my father gave me this morning.”

“What! only those two? and the mare is nothing more than a pony.”

“She is fifteen hands,” said Frank, offended.

“Well, Frank, I certainly would not stand that,” said the Honourable John. “What, go out before the county with one untrained horse and a pony; and you the heir to Greshamsbury!”

“I’ll have him so trained before November,” said Frank, “that nothing in Barsetshire shall stop him. Peter says”—Peter was the Greshamsbury stud-groom—”that he tucks up his hind legs beautifully.”

“But who the deuce would think of going to work with one horse; or two either, if you insist on calling the old pony a huntress? I’ll put you up to a trick, my lad: if you stand that you’ll stand anything; and if you don’t mean to go in leading-strings all your life, now is the time to show it. There’s young Baker—Harry Baker, you know—he came of age last year, and he has as pretty a string of nags as anyone would wish to set eyes on; four hunters and a hack. Now, if old Baker has four thousand a year it’s every shilling he has got.”

This was true, and Frank Gresham, who in the morning had been made so happy by his father’s present of a horse, began to feel that hardly enough had been done for him. It was true that Mr. Baker had only four thousand a year; but it was also true that he had no other child than Harry Baker; that he had no great establishment to keep up; that he owed a shilling to no one; and, also, that he was a great fool in encouraging a mere boy to ape all the caprices of a man of wealth. Nevertheless, for a moment, Frank Gresham did feel that, considering his position, he was being treated rather unworthily.

“Take the matter in your own hands, Frank,” said the Honourable John, seeing the impression that he had made. “Of course the governor knows very well that you won’t put up with such a stable as that. Lord bless you! I have heard that when he married my aunt, and that was when he was about your age, he had the best stud in the whole county; and then he was in Parliament before he was three-and-twenty.”

“His father, you know, died when he was very young,” said Frank.

“Yes; I know he had a stroke of luck that doesn’t fall to everyone; but—”

Young Frank’s face grew dark now instead of red. When his cousin submitted to him the necessity of having more than two horses for his own use he could listen to him; but when the same monitor talked of the chance of a father’s death as a stroke of luck, Frank was too much disgusted to be able to pretend to pass it over with indifference. What! was he thus to think of his father, whose face was always lighted up with pleasure when his boy came near to him, and so rarely bright at any other time? Frank had watched his father closely enough to be aware of this; he knew how his father delighted in him; he had had cause to guess that his father had many troubles, and that he strove hard to banish the memory of them when his son was with him. He loved his father truly, purely, and thoroughly, liked to be with him, and would be proud to be his confidant. Could he then listen quietly while his cousin spoke of the chance of his father’s death as a stroke of luck?

“I shouldn’t think it a stroke of luck, John. I should think it the greatest misfortune in the world.”

It is so difficult for a young man to enumerate sententiously a principle of morality, or even an expression of ordinary good feeling, without giving himself something of a ridiculous air, without assuming something of a mock grandeur!

“Oh, of course, my dear fellow,” said the Honourable John, laughing; “that’s a matter of course. We all understand that without saying it. Porlock, of course, would feel exactly the same about the governor; but if the governor were to walk, I think Porlock would console himself with the thirty thousand a year.”

“I don’t know what Porlock would do; he’s always quarrelling with my uncle, I know. I only spoke of myself; I never quarrelled with my father, and I hope I never shall.”

“All right, my lad of wax, all right. I dare say you won’t be tried; but if you are, you’ll find before six months are over, that it’s a very nice thing to master of Greshamsbury.”

“I’m sure I shouldn’t find anything of the kind.”

“Very well, so be it. You wouldn’t do as young Hatherly did, at Hatherly Court, in Gloucestershire, when his father kicked the bucket. You know Hatherly, don’t you?”