DR. THORNE.
When Miss Dunstable met her friends, the Greshams—young Frank
Gresham and his wife—at Gatherum Castle, she immediately asked after
one Dr. Thorne, who was Mrs. Gresham’s uncle. Dr. Thorne was an old
bachelor, in whom both as a man and a doctor Miss Dunstable was
inclined to place much confidence. Not that she had ever entrusted
the cure of her bodily ailments to Dr. Thorne—for she kept a doctor
of her own, Dr. Easyman, for this purpose—and it may moreover be
said that she rarely had bodily ailments requiring the care of any
doctor. But she always spoke of Dr. Thorne among her friends as a man
of wonderful erudition and judgment; and had once or twice asked and
acted on his advice in matters of much moment. Dr. Thorne was not
a man accustomed to the London world; he kept no house there, and
seldom even visited the metropolis; but Miss Dunstable had known him
at Greshamsbury, where he lived, and there had for some months past
grown up a considerable intimacy between them. He was now staying at
the house of his niece, Mrs. Gresham; but the chief reason of his
coming up had been a desire expressed by Miss Dunstable, that he
should do so. She had wished for his advice; and at the instigation
of his niece he had visited London and given it.
The special piece of business as to which Dr. Thorne had thus been
summoned from the bedsides of his country patients, and especially
from the bedside of Lady Arabella Gresham, to whose son his niece was
married, related to certain large money interests, as to which one
might have imagined that Dr. Thorne’s advice would not be peculiarly
valuable. He had never been much versed in such matters on his own
account, and was knowing neither in the ways of the share market, nor
in the prices of land. But Miss Dunstable was a lady accustomed to
have her own way, and to be indulged in her own wishes without being
called on to give adequate reasons for them.
“My dear,” she had said to young Mrs. Gresham, “if your uncle don’t
come up to London now, when I make such a point of it, I shall think
that he is a bear and a savage; and I certainly will never speak to
him again,—or to Frank—or to you; so you had better see to it.”
Mrs. Gresham had not probably taken her friend’s threat as meaning
quite all that it threatened. Miss Dunstable habitually used strong
language; and those who knew her well, generally understood when
she was to be taken as expressing her thoughts by figures of speech.
In this instance she had not meant it all; but, nevertheless, Mrs.
Gresham had used violent influence in bringing the poor doctor up to
London.
“Besides,” said Miss Dunstable, “I have resolved on having the doctor
at my conversazione, and if he won’t come of himself, I shall go down
and fetch him. I have set my heart on trumping my dear friend Mrs.
Proudie’s best card; so I mean to get everybody!”
The upshot of all this was, that the doctor did come up to town, and
remained the best part of a week at his niece’s house in Portman
Square—to the great disgust of the Lady Arabella, who conceived
that she must die if neglected for three days. As to the matter
of business, I have no doubt but that he was of great use. He
was possessed of common sense and an honest purpose; and I am
inclined to think that they are often a sufficient counterpoise to
a considerable amount of worldly experience. If one could have the
worldly experience also—! True! but then it is so difficult to get
everything. But with that special matter of business we need not
have any further concern. We will presume it to have been discussed
and completed, and will now dress ourselves for Miss Dunstable’s
conversazione.
But it must not be supposed that she was so poor in genius as to call
her party openly by a name borrowed for the nonce from Mrs. Proudie.
It was only among her specially intimate friends, Mrs. Harold Smith
and some few dozen others, that she indulged in this little joke.
There had been nothing in the least pretentious about the card with
which she summoned her friends to her house on this occasion. She
had merely signified in some ordinary way, that she would be glad to
see them as soon after nine o’clock on Thursday evening, the ——
instant, as might be convenient. But all the world understood that
all the world was to be gathered together at Miss Dunstable’s house
on the night in question,—that an effort was to be made to bring
together people of all classes, gods and giants, saints and sinners,
those rabid through the strength of their morality, such as our
dear friend Lady Lufton, and those who were rabid in the opposite
direction, such as Lady Hartletop, the Duke of Omnium, and Mr.
Sowerby. An orthodox martyr had been caught from the East, and an
oily latter-day St. Paul from the other side of the water—to the
horror and amazement of Archdeacon Grantly, who had come up all the
way from Plumstead to be present on the occasion. Mrs. Grantly also
had hankered to be there; but when she heard of the presence of the
latter-day St. Paul, she triumphed loudly over her husband, who had
made no offer to take her. That Lords Brock and De Terrier were to
be at the gathering was nothing. The pleasant king of the gods and
the courtly chief of the giants could shake hands with each other
in any house with the greatest pleasure; but men were to meet who,
in reference to each other, could shake nothing but their heads or
their fists. Supplehouse was to be there, and Harold Smith, who now
hated his enemy with a hatred surpassing that of women—or even
of politicians. The minor gods, it was thought, would congregate
together in one room, very bitter in their present state of
banishment; and the minor giants in another, terribly loud in
their triumph. That is the fault of the giants, who, otherwise,
are not bad fellows; they are unable to endure the weight of any
temporary success. When attempting Olympus—and this work of
attempting is doubtless their natural condition—they scratch and
scramble, diligently using both toes and fingers, with a mixture
of good-humoured virulence and self-satisfied industry that
is gratifying to all parties. But whenever their efforts are
unexpectedly, and for themselves unfortunately successful, they are
so taken aback that they lose the power of behaving themselves with
even gigantesque propriety.
Such, so great and so various, was to be the intended gathering
at Miss Dunstable’s house. She herself laughed, and quizzed
herself—speaking of the affair to Mrs. Harold Smith as though it
were an excellent joke, and to Mrs. Proudie as though she were simply
emulous of rivalling those world-famous assemblies in Gloucester
Place; but the town at large knew that an effort was being made, and
it was supposed that even Miss Dunstable was somewhat nervous. In
spite of her excellent joking it was presumed that she would be
unhappy if she failed.
To Mrs. Frank Gresham she did speak with some little seriousness.
“But why on earth should you give yourself all this trouble?” that
lady had said, when Miss Dunstable owned that she was doubtful,
and unhappy in her doubts, as to the coming of one of the great
colleagues of Mr. Supplehouse. “When such hundreds are coming, big
wigs and little wigs of all shades, what can it matter whether Mr.
Towers be there or not?”
But Miss Dunstable had answered almost with a screech,—“My dear, it
will be nothing without him. You don’t understand; but the fact is,
that Tom Towers is everybody and everything at present.”
And then, by no means for the first time, Mrs. Gresham began to
lecture her friend as to her vanity; in answer to which lecture Miss
Dunstable mysteriously hinted, that if she were only allowed her full
swing on this occasion,—if all the world would now indulge her, she
would— She did not quite say what she would do, but the inference
drawn by Mrs. Gresham was this: that if the incense now offered on
the altar of Fashion were accepted, Miss Dunstable would at once
abandon the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the
sinful lusts of the flesh.
“But the doctor will stay, my dear? I hope I may look on that as
fixed.”
Miss Dunstable, in making this demand on the doctor’s time, showed an
energy quite equal to that with which she invoked the gods that Tom
Towers might not be absent. Now, to tell the truth, Dr. Thorne had at
first thought it very unreasonable that he should be asked to remain
up in London in order that he might be present at an evening party,
and had for a while pertinaciously refused; but when he learned that
three or four prime ministers were expected, and that it was possible
that even Tom Towers might be there in the flesh, his philosophy also
had become weak, and he had written to Lady Arabella to say that his
prolonged absence for two days further must be endured, and that the
mild tonics, morning and evening, might be continued.
But why should Miss Dunstable be so anxious that Dr. Thorne should
be present on this grand occasion? Why, indeed, should she be so
frequently inclined to summon him away from his country practice, his
compounding board, and his useful ministrations to rural ailments?
The doctor was connected with her by no ties of blood. Their
friendship, intimate as it was, had as yet been but of short date.
She was a very rich woman, capable of purchasing all manner of advice
and good counsel, whereas he was so far from being rich, that any
continued disturbance to his practice might be inconvenient to him.
Nevertheless, Miss Dunstable seemed to have no more compunction in
making calls upon his time, than she might have felt had he been her
brother. No ideas on this matter suggested themselves to the doctor
himself. He was a simple-minded man, taking things as they came,
and especially so taking things that came pleasantly. He liked Miss
Dunstable, and was gratified by her friendship, and did not think
of asking himself whether she had a right to put him to trouble and
inconvenience. But such ideas did occur to Mrs. Gresham, the doctor’s
niece. Had Miss Dunstable any object, and if so, what object? Was
it simply veneration for the doctor, or was it caprice? Was it
eccentricity—or could it possibly be love?
In speaking of the ages of these two friends it may be said in round
terms that the lady was well past forty, and that the gentleman was
well past fifty. Under such circumstances could it be love? The lady,
too, was one who had had offers almost by the dozen,—offers from men
of rank, from men of fashion, and from men of power; from men endowed
with personal attractions, with pleasant manners, with cultivated
tastes, and with eloquent tongues. Not only had she loved none such,
but by none such had she been cajoled into an idea that it was
possible that she could love them. That Dr. Thorne’s tastes were
cultivated, and his manners pleasant, might probably be admitted by
three or four old friends in the country who valued him; but the
world in London, that world to which Miss Dunstable was accustomed,
and which was apparently becoming dearer to her day by day, would not
have regarded the doctor as a man likely to become the object of a
lady’s passion.
But nevertheless the idea did occur to Mrs. Gresham. She had been
brought up at the elbow of this country practitioner; she had lived
with him as though she had been his daughter; she had been for years
the ministering angel of his household; and, till her heart had
opened to the natural love of womanhood, all her closest sympathies
had been with him. In her eyes the doctor was all but perfect; and it
did not seem to her to be out of the question that Miss Dunstable
should have fallen in love with her uncle.
Miss Dunstable once said to Mrs. Harold Smith that it was possible
that she might marry, the only condition then expressed being this,
that the man elected should be one who was quite indifferent as to
money. Mrs. Harold Smith, who, by her friends, was presumed to know
the world with tolerable accuracy, had replied that such a man Miss
Dunstable would never find in this world. All this had passed in that
half comic vein of banter which Miss Dunstable so commonly used when
conversing with such friends as Mrs. Harold Smith; but she had spoken
words of the same import more than once to Mrs. Gresham; and Mrs.
Gresham, putting two and two together as women do, had made four
of the little sum; and, as the final result of the calculation,
determined that Miss Dunstable would marry Dr. Thorne if Dr. Thorne
would ask her.
And then Mrs. Gresham began to bethink herself of two other
questions. Would it be well that her uncle should marry Miss
Dunstable? and if so, would it be possible to induce him to make such
a proposition? After the consideration of many pros and cons, and the
balancing of very various arguments, Mrs. Gresham thought that the
arrangement on the whole might not be a bad one. For Miss Dunstable
she herself had a sincere affection, which was shared by her
husband. She had often grieved at the sacrifices Miss Dunstable
made to the world, thinking that her friend was falling into vanity,
indifference, and an ill mode of life; but such a marriage as this
would probably cure all that. And then as to Dr. Thorne himself, to
whose benefit were of course applied Mrs. Gresham’s most earnest
thoughts in this matter, she could not but think that he would be
happier married than he was single. In point of temper, no woman
could stand higher than Miss Dunstable; no one had ever heard of her
being in an ill humour; and then though Mrs. Gresham was gifted with
a mind which was far removed from being mercenary, it was impossible
not to feel that some benefit must accrue from the bride’s wealth.
Mary Thorne, the present Mrs. Frank Gresham, had herself been a
great heiress. Circumstances had weighted her hand with enormous
possessions, and hitherto she had not realized the truth of that
lesson which would teach us to believe that happiness and riches are
incompatible. Therefore she resolved that it might be well if the
doctor and Miss Dunstable were brought together.
But could the doctor be induced to make such an offer? Mrs. Gresham
acknowledged a terrible difficulty in looking at the matter from that
point of view. Her uncle was fond of Miss Dunstable; but she was sure
that an idea of such a marriage had never entered his head; that
it would be very difficult—almost impossible—to create such an
idea; and that if the idea were there, the doctor could hardly be
instigated to make the proposition. Looking at the matter as a whole,
she feared that the match was not practicable.
On the day of Miss Dunstable’s party, Mrs. Gresham and her uncle
dined together alone in Portman Square. Mr. Gresham was not yet in
Parliament, but an almost immediate vacancy was expected in his
division of the county, and it was known that no one could stand
against him with any chance of success. This threw him much among the
politicians of his party—those giants, namely, whom it would be his
business to support—and on this account he was a good deal away from
his own house at the present moment.
“Politics make a terrible demand on a man’s time,” he said to his
wife; and then went down to dine at his club in Pall Mall with sundry
other young philogeants. On men of that class politics do make a
great demand—at the hour of dinner and thereabouts.
“What do you think of Miss Dunstable?” said Mrs. Gresham to her
uncle, as they sat together over their coffee. She added nothing to
the question, but asked it in all its baldness.
“Think about her!” said the doctor. “Well, Mary; what do you think
about her? I dare say we think the same.”
“But that’s not the question. What do you think about her? Do you
think she’s honest?”
“Honest? Oh, yes, certainly—very honest, I should say.”
“And good-tempered?”
“Uncommonly good-tempered.”
“And affectionate?”
“Well; yes,—and affectionate. I should certainly say that she is
affectionate.”
“I’m sure she’s clever.”
“Yes, I think she’s clever.”
“And, and—and womanly in her feelings.” Mrs. Gresham felt that she
could not quite say lady-like, though she would fain have done so had
she dared.
“Oh, certainly,” said the doctor. “But, Mary, why are you dissecting
Miss Dunstable’s character with so much ingenuity?”
“Well, uncle, I will tell you why; because—” and Mrs. Gresham, while
she was speaking, got up from her chair, and going round the table to
her uncle’s side, put her arm round his neck till her face was close
to his, and then continued speaking as she stood behind him out of
his sight—“because—I think that Miss Dunstable is—is very fond of
you; and that it would make her happy if you would—ask her to be
your wife.”
“Mary!” said the doctor, turning round with an endeavour to look his
niece in the face.
“I am quite in earnest, uncle—quite in earnest. From little things
that she has said, and little things that I have seen, I do believe
what I now tell you.”
“And you want me to—”
“Dear uncle; my own one darling uncle, I want you only to do that
which will make you—make you happy. What is Miss Dunstable to me
compared to you?” And then she stooped down and kissed him.
The doctor was apparently too much astounded by the intimation given
him to make any further immediate reply. His niece, seeing this,
left him that she might go and dress; and when they met again in the
drawing-room Frank Gresham was with them.