第181章

It generally happens, that in every household, one subject of importance occupies it at a time. The subject of importance now mostly thought of in the Greshamsbury household, was the marriage of Beatrice. Lady Arabella had to supply the trousseau for her daughter; the squire had to supply the money for the trousseau; Mr Gazebee had the task of obtaining the money for the squire. While this was going on, Mr Gresham was not anxious to talk to his son, either about his own debts or his son's love. There would be time for these things when the marriage-feast was over.

So thought the father, but the matter was precipitated by Frank. He also had put off the declaration which he had to make, partly from a wish to spare the squire, but partly also with a view to spare himself.

We have all some of that cowardice which induces us to postpone an inevitably evil day. At this time the discussions as to Beatrice's wedding were frequent in the house, and at one of them Frank had heard his mother repeat the names of the proposed bridesmaids. Mary's name was not among them, and hence had arisen the attack on his sister.

Lady Arabella had had her reason for naming the list before her son; but she overshot her mark. She wished to show him how Mary was forgotten at Greshamsbury; but she only inspired him with a resolve that she should not be forgotten. He accordingly went to his sister; and then, the subject being full on his mind, he resolved at once to discuss it with his father.

'Sir, are you at leisure for five minutes?' he said, entering the room in which the squire was accustomed to sit majestically, to receive his tenants, scold his dependants, and in which, in former happy days, he had always arranged the meets of the Barsetshire hunt.

Mr Gresham was quite at leisure: when was he not so? But had he been immersed in the deepest business of which he was capable, he would gladly have put it aside at his son's instance.

'I don't like to have any secret from you, sir,' said Frank; 'nor, for the matter of that, from anybody else'--the anybody else was intended to have reference to his mother--'and, therefore, I would rather tell you at once what I have made up my mind to do.'

Frank's address was very abrupt, and he felt it was so. He was rather red in the face, and his manner was fluttered. He had quite made up his mind to break the whole affair to his father; but he had hardly made up his mind as to the best mode of doing so.

'Good heavens, Frank! what do you mean? you are not going to do anything rash? What is it you mean, Frank?'

'I don't think it is rash,' said Frank.

'Sit down, my boy; sit down. What is it that you say you are going to do?'

'Nothing immediately, sir,' said he, rather abashed; 'but as I have made up my mind about Mary Thorne--'

'Oh, about Mary,' said the squire, almost relieved.

And then Frank, in voluble language, which he hardly, however, had quite under his command, told his father all that had passed between him and Mary. 'You see, sir,' said he, 'that it is fixed now, and cannot be altered. Nor must it be altered. You asked me to go away for twelve months, and I have done so. It has made no difference, you see. As to our means of living, I am quite willing to do anything that may be best and most prudent. I was thinking, sir, of taking a farm somewhere near here, and living on that.'

The squire sat quite silent for some moments after this communication had been made to him. Frank's conduct, as a son, in this special matter of his love, how was it possible for him to find fault? He himself was almost as fond of Mary as of a daughter; and, though he too would have been desirous that his son should receive the estate from its embarrassment by a rich marriage, he did not at all share Lady Arabella's feelings on the subject. No Countess de Courcy had ever engraved it on the tablets of his mind that the world would come to ruin if Frank did not marry money. Ruin there was, and would be, but it had been brought about by no sin of Frank's.

'Do you remember about her birth, Frank?' he said, at last.

'Yes, sir; everything. She told me all she knew; and Dr Thorne finished the story.'

'And what do you think of it?'

'It is a pity and a misfortune. It might, perhaps, have been a reason why you or my mother should not have had Mary in the house many years ago; but it cannot make any difference now.'

Frank had not meant to lean so heavily on his father; but he did so. The story had never been told to Lady Arabella; was not even known to her now, positively, and on good authority. But Mr Gresham had always known it. If Mary's birth was so great a stain upon her, why had he brought her into his house among his children?

'It is a misfortune, Frank; a very great misfortune. It will not do for you and me to ignore birth; too much of the value of one's position depends on it.'

'But what was Mr Moffat's birth?' said Frank, almost with scorn; 'or what Miss Dunstable's?' he would have added, had it not been that his father had not been concerned in that sin of wedding him to the oil of Lebanon.

'True, Frank. But yet, what you would mean to say is not true. We must take the world as we find it. Were you to marry a rich heiress, were her birth even as low as that of poor Mary--'

'Don't call her poor Mary, father; she is not poor. My wife will have a right to take rank in the world, however she was born.'

'Well,--poor in that way. But were she an heiress, the world would forgive her birth on account of her wealth.'

'The world is very complaisant, sir.'

'You must take it as you find it, Frank. I only say that such is the fact. If Porlock were to marry the daughter of a shoeblack, without a farthing, he would make a mesalliance; but if the daughter of the shoeblack had half a million of money, nobody would dream of saying so.

I am stating no opinion of my own: I am only giving you the world's opinion.'

'I don't give a straw for the world.'

'That is a mistake, my boy; you do care for it, and would be very foolish if you did not. What you mean is, that, on this particular point, you value your love more than the world's opinion.'

'Well, yes, that is what I mean.'