第107章

Thinking over this in her own way, she was not slow to convince herself that it was out of the question that she should allow herself to love Frank Gresham. However well her heart might be inclined to such a feeling, it was her duty to repress it. She resolved, therefore, to do so; and she sometimes flattered herself that she had kept her resolution.

These were bad times for the doctor, and bad times for Mary too. She had declared that she could live without going to Greshamsbury; but she did not find it so easy. She had been going to Greshambury all her life, and it was customary with her to be there as at home. Such old customs are not broken without pain. Had she left the place it would have been far different; but, as it was, she daily passed the gates, daily saw and spoke to some of the servants, who knew her as well as they did the young ladies of the family--was in hourly contact, as it were, with Greshamsbury. It was not only that she did not go there, but that every one knew that she had suddenly discontinued doing so. Yes, she could live without going to Greshamsbury; but for some time she had but a poor life of it. She felt, nay, almost heard, that every man and woman, boy and girl in the village was telling his and her neighbour that Mary Thorne no longer went to the house because of Lady Arabella and the young squire.

But Beatrice, of course, came to her. What was she to say to Beatrice? The truth! Nay, but it is not always so easy to say the truth, even to one's dearest friends.

'But you'll come up now he has gone?' said Beatrice.

'No, indeed,' said Mary; 'that would hardly be pleasant to Lady Arabella, nor to me either. No, Trichy, dearest; my visits to dear old Greshamsbury are done, done, done: perhaps in some twenty years' time I may be walking down the lawn with your brother, and discussing the childish days--that is, always, if the then Mrs Gresham shall have invited me.'

'How can Frank have been so wrong, so unkind, so cruel?' said Beatrice.

This, however, was a light in which Miss Thorne did not take any pleasure, in discussing the matter. Her ideas of Frank's fault, and unkindness and cruelty, were doubtless different from those of her sister. Such cruelty was not unnaturally excused in her eyes by many circumstances which Beatrice did not fully understand. Mary was quite ready to go hand in hand with Lady Arabella and the rest of Greshamsbury fold in putting an end, if possible, to Frank's passion: she would give not one a right to accuse her of assisting to ruin the young heir; but she could hardly bring herself to admit that he was so very wrong--no, nor yet even so very cruel.

And then the squire came to see her, and this was a yet harder trial than the visit of Beatrice. It was so difficult for her to speak to him that she could not but wish him away; and yet, had he not come, had he altogether neglected her, she would have felt it to be unkind. She had ever been his pet, had always received kindness from him.

'I am sorry for all this, Mary; very sorry,' said he, standing up, and holding both her hands in his.

'It can't be helped, sir,' said she, smiling.

'I don't know,' said he; 'I don't know--it ought to be helped somehow--I am quite sure you have not been to blame.'

'No,' said she, very quietly, as though the position was one quite a matter of course. 'I don't think I have been very much to blame. There will be misfortunes sometimes when nobody is to blame.'

'I do not quite understand it all,' said the squire; 'but if Frank--'

'Oh! we will not talk about him,' said she, still laughing gently.

'You can understand, Mary, how dear he must be to me; but if--'

'Mr Gresham, I would not for worlds be the cause of any unpleasantness between you and him.'

'But I cannot bear to think that we have banished you, Mary.'

'It cannot be helped. Things will all come right in time.'

'But you will be lonely here.'

'Oh! I shall got over all that. Here, you know, Mr Gresham, "I am monarch of all I survey"; and there is a great deal in that.'

The squire did not catch her meaning, but a glimmering of it did reach him. It was competent to Lady Arabella to banish her from Greshamsbury; it was within the sphere of the squire's duties to prohibit his son from an imprudent match; it was for the Greshams to guard their Greshamsbury treasure as best they could within their own territories: but let them beware that they did not attack her on hers.

In obedience to the first expression of their wishes, she had submitted herself to this public mark of their disapproval because she had seen at once, with her clear intellect, that they were only doing that which her conscience must approve. Without a murmur, therefore, she consented to be pointed at as the young lady who had been turned out of Greshamsbury because of the young squire. She had no help for it. But let them take care that they did not go beyond that. Outside those Greshamsbury gates she and Frank Gresham, she and Lady Arabella met on equal terms; let them each fight their own battle.

The squire kissed her forehead affectionately and took his leave, feeling somehow, that he had been excused and pitied, and made much of; whereas he had called on his young neighbour with the intention of excusing, and pitying, and making much of her. He was not quite comfortable as he left the house; but, nevertheless, he was sufficiently honest-hearted to own to himself that Mary Thorne was a fine girl. Only that it was so absolutely necessary that Frank should marry money--and only, also, that poor Mary was such a birthless foundling in the world's esteem--only, but for these things, what a wife she would have made for that son of his!

To one person only did she talk freely on the subject, and that one was Patience Oriel; and even with her the freedom was rather of the mind than of the heart. She never said a word of her feeling with reference to Frank, but she said much of her position in the village, and of the necessity she was under to keep out of the way.

'It is very hard,' said Patience, 'that the offence should be all with him, and the punishment all with you.'