Frank Gresham's Early Loves
It was, we have said, the first of July, and such being the time of
the year, the ladies, after sitting in the drawing-room for half an
hour or so, began to think that they might as well go through the
drawing-room windows on to the lawn. First one slipped out a little
way, and then another; and then they got on to the lawn; and then
they talked of their hats; till, by degrees, the younger ones of the
party, and at last of the elder also, found themselves dressed for
walking.
The windows, both of the drawing-room and the dining-room, looked out
on to the lawn; and it was only natural that the girls should walk
from the former to the latter. It was only natural that they, being
there, should tempt their swains to come to them by the sight of
their broad-brimmed hats and evening dresses; and natural, also, that
the temptation should not be resisted. The squire, therefore, and the
elder male guests soon found themselves alone round their wine.
"Upon my word, we were enchanted by your eloquence, Mr Gresham, were
we not?" said Miss Oriel, turning to one of the de Courcy girls who
was with her.
Miss Oriel was a very pretty girl; a little older than Frank
Gresham,--perhaps a year or so. She had dark hair, large round dark
eyes, a nose a little too broad, a pretty mouth, a beautiful chin,
and, as we have said before, a large fortune;--that is, moderately
large--let us say twenty thousand pounds, there or thereabouts.
She and her brother had been living at Greshamsbury for the last
two years, the living having been purchased for him--such were
Mr Gresham's necessities--during the lifetime of the last old
incumbent. Miss Oriel was in every respect a nice neighbour; she was
good-humoured, lady-like, lively, neither too clever nor too stupid,
belonging to a good family, sufficiently fond of this world's good
things, as became a pretty young lady so endowed, and sufficiently
fond, also, of the other world's good things, as became the mistress
of a clergyman's house.
"Indeed, yes," said the Lady Margaretta. "Frank is very eloquent.
When he described our rapid journey from London, he nearly moved me
to tears. But well as he talks, I think he carves better."
"I wish you'd had to do it, Margaretta; both the carving and
talking."
"Thank you, Frank; you're very civil."
"But there's one comfort, Miss Oriel; it's over now, and done. A
fellow can't be made to come of age twice."
"But you'll take your degree, Mr Gresham; and then, of course,
there'll be another speech; and then you'll get married, and there
will be two or three more."
"I'll speak at your wedding, Miss Oriel, long before I do at my own."
"I shall not have the slightest objection. It will be so kind of you
to patronise my husband."
"But, by Jove, will he patronise me? I know you'll marry some awful
bigwig, or some terribly clever fellow; won't she, Margaretta?"
"Miss Oriel was saying so much in praise of you before you came out,"
said Margaretta, "that I began to think that her mind was intent on
remaining at Greshamsbury all her life."
Frank blushed, and Patience laughed. There was but a year's
difference in their age; Frank, however, was still a boy, though
Patience was fully a woman.
"I am ambitious, Lady Margaretta," said she. "I own it; but I am
moderate in my ambition. I do love Greshamsbury, and if Mr Gresham
had a younger brother, perhaps, you know--"
"Another just like myself, I suppose," said Frank.
"Oh, yes. I could not possibly wish for any change."
"Just as eloquent as you are, Frank," said the Lady Margaretta.
"And as good a carver," said Patience.
"Miss Bateson has lost her heart to him for ever, because of his
carving," said the Lady Margaretta.
"But perfection never repeats itself," said Patience.
"Well, you see, I have not got any brothers," said Frank; "so all I
can do is to sacrifice myself."
"Upon my word, Mr Gresham, I am under more than ordinary obligations
to you; I am indeed," and Miss Oriel stood still in the path, and
made a very graceful curtsy. "Dear me! only think, Lady Margaretta,
that I should be honoured with an offer from the heir the very moment
he is legally entitled to make one."
"And done with so much true gallantry, too," said the other;
"expressing himself quite willing to postpone any views of his own or
your advantage."
"Yes," said Patience; "that's what I value so much: had he loved me
now, there would have been no merit on his part; but a sacrifice, you
know--"
"Yes, ladies are so fond of such sacrifices, Frank, upon my word, I
had no idea you were so very excellent at making speeches."
"Well," said Frank, "I shouldn't have said sacrifice, that was a
slip; what I meant was--"
"Oh, dear me," said Patience, "wait a minute; now we are going
to have a regular declaration. Lady Margaretta, you haven't got
a scent-bottle, have you? And if I should faint, where's the
garden-chair?"
"Oh, but I'm not going to make a declaration at all," said Frank.
"Are you not? Oh! Now, Lady Margaretta, I appeal to you; did you not
understand him to say something very particular?"
"Certainly, I thought nothing could be plainer," said the Lady
Margaretta.
"And so, Mr Gresham, I am to be told, that after all it means
nothing," said Patience, putting her handkerchief up to her eyes.
"It means that you are an excellent hand at quizzing a fellow like
me."
"Quizzing! No; but you are an excellent hand at deceiving a poor
girl like me. Well, remember I have got a witness; here is Lady
Margaretta, who heard it all. What a pity it is that my brother is
a clergyman. You calculated on that, I know; or you would never had
served me so."
She said so just as her brother joined them, or rather just as he
had joined Lady Margaretta de Courcy; for her ladyship and Mr Oriel
walked on in advance by themselves. Lady Margaretta had found it
rather dull work, making a third in Miss Oriel's flirtation with her
cousin; the more so as she was quite accustomed to take a principal
part herself in all such transactions. She therefore not unwillingly
walked on with Mr Oriel. Mr Oriel, it must be conceived, was not a
common, everyday parson, but had points about him which made him
quite fit to associate with an earl's daughter. And as it was known
that he was not a marrying man, having very exalted ideas on that
point connected with his profession, the Lady Margaretta, of course,
had the less objection to trust herself alone with him.
But directly she was gone, Miss Oriel's tone of banter ceased. It was
very well making a fool of a lad of twenty-one when others were by;
but there might be danger in it when they were alone together.
"I don't know any position on earth more enviable than yours, Mr
Gresham," said she, quite soberly and earnestly; "how happy you ought
to be."
"What, in being laughed at by you, Miss Oriel, for pretending to be
a man, when you choose to make out that I am only a boy? I can bear
to be laughed at pretty well generally, but I can't say that your
laughing at me makes me feel so happy as you say I ought to be."
Frank was evidently of an opinion totally different from that of Miss
Oriel. Miss Oriel, when she found herself _tête-à-tête_ with him,
thought it was time to give over flirting; Frank, however, imagined
that it was just the moment for him to begin. So he spoke and looked
very languishing, and put on him quite the airs of an Orlando.
"Oh, Mr Gresham, such good friends as you and I may laugh at each
other, may we not?"
"You may do what you like, Miss Oriel: beautiful women I believe
always may; but you remember what the spider said to the fly, 'That
which is sport to you, may be death to me.'" Anyone looking at
Frank's face as he said this, might well have imagined that he was
breaking his very heart for love of Miss Oriel. Oh, Master Frank!
Master Frank! if you act thus in the green leaf, what will you do in
the dry?
While Frank Gresham was thus misbehaving himself, and going on as
though to him belonged the privilege of falling in love with pretty
faces, as it does to ploughboys and other ordinary people, his great
interests were not forgotten by those guardian saints who were so
anxious to shower down on his head all manner of temporal blessings.
Another conversation had taken place in the Greshamsbury gardens,
in which nothing light had been allowed to present itself; nothing
frivolous had been spoken. The countess, the Lady Arabella, and Miss
Gresham had been talking over Greshamsbury affairs, and they had
latterly been assisted by the Lady Amelia, than whom no de Courcy
ever born was more wise, more solemn, more prudent, or more proud.
The ponderosity of her qualifications for nobility was sometimes too
much even for her mother, and her devotion to the peerage was such,
that she would certainly have declined a seat in heaven if offered to
her without the promise that it should be in the upper house.
The subject first discussed had been Augusta's prospects. Mr Moffat
had been invited to Courcy Castle, and Augusta had been taken thither
to meet him, with the express intention on the part of the countess,
that they should be man and wife. The countess had been careful to
make it intelligible to her sister-in-law and niece, that though Mr
Moffat would do excellently well for a daughter of Greshamsbury, he
could not be allowed to raise his eyes to a female scion of Courcy
Castle.
"Not that we personally dislike him," said the Lady Amelia; "but rank
has its drawbacks, Augusta." As the Lady Amelia was now somewhat
nearer forty than thirty, and was still allowed to walk,
"In maiden meditation, fancy free,"
it may be presumed that in her case rank had been found to have
serious drawbacks.
To this Augusta said nothing in objection. Whether desirable by a
de Courcy or not, the match was to be hers, and there was no doubt
whatever as to the wealth of the man whose name she was to take; the
offer had been made, not to her, but to her aunt; the acceptance
had been expressed, not by her, but by her aunt. Had she thought of
recapitulating in her memory all that had ever passed between Mr
Moffat and herself, she would have found that it did not amount to
more than the most ordinary conversation between chance partners
in a ball-room. Nevertheless, she was to be Mrs Moffat. All that Mr
Gresham knew of him was, that when he met the young man for the first
and only time in his life, he found him extremely hard to deal with
in the matter of money. He had insisted on having ten thousand pounds
with his wife, and at last refused to go on with the match unless
he got six thousand pounds. This latter sum the poor squire had
undertaken to pay him.
Mr Moffat had been for a year or two M.P. for Barchester; having
been assisted in his views on that ancient city by all the de
Courcy interest. He was a Whig, of course. Not only had Barchester,
departing from the light of other days, returned a Whig member of
Parliament, but it was declared, that at the next election, now near
at hand, a Radical would be sent up, a man pledged to the ballot, to
economies of all sorts, one who would carry out Barchester politics
in all their abrupt, obnoxious, pestilent virulence. This was one
Scatcherd, a great railway contractor, a man who was a native of
Barchester, who had bought property in the neighbourhood, and who had
achieved a sort of popularity there and elsewhere by the violence of
his democratic opposition to the aristocracy. According to this man's
political tenets, the Conservatives should be laughed at as fools,
but the Whigs should be hated as knaves.
Mr Moffat was now coming down to Courcy Castle to look after his
electioneering interests, and Miss Gresham was to return with her
aunt to meet him. The countess was very anxious that Frank should
also accompany them. Her great doctrine, that he must marry money,
had been laid down with authority, and received without doubt. She
now pushed it further, and said that no time should be lost; that
he should not only marry money, but do so very early in life; there
was always danger in delay. The Greshams--of course she alluded only
to the males of the family--were foolishly soft-hearted; no one
could say what might happen. There was that Miss Thorne always at
Greshamsbury.
This was more than the Lady Arabella could stand. She protested
that there was at least no ground for supposing that Frank would
absolutely disgrace his family.
Still the countess persisted: "Perhaps not," she said; "but when
young people of perfectly different ranks were allowed to associate
together, there was no saying what danger might arise. They all knew
that old Mr Bateson--the present Mr Bateson's father--had gone off
with the governess; and young Mr Everbeery, near Taunton, had only
the other day married a cook-maid."
"But Mr Everbeery was always drunk, aunt," said Augusta, feeling
called upon to say something for her brother.
"Never mind, my dear; these things do happen, and they are very
dreadful."
"Horrible!" said the Lady Amelia; "diluting the best blood of the
country, and paving the way for revolutions." This was very grand;
but, nevertheless, Augusta could not but feel that she perhaps might
be about to dilute the blood of her coming children in marrying the
tailor's son. She consoled herself by trusting that, at any rate, she
paved the way for no revolutions.
"When a thing is so necessary," said the countess, "it cannot be done
too soon. Now, Arabella, I don't say that anything will come of it;
but it may: Miss Dunstable is coming down to us next week. Now, we
all know that when old Dunstable died last year, he left over two
hundred thousand to his daughter."
"It is a great deal of money, certainly," said Lady Arabella.
"It would pay off everything, and a great deal more," said the
countess.
"It was ointment, was it not, aunt?" said Augusta.
"I believe so, my dear; something called the ointment of Lebanon, or
something of that sort: but there's no doubt about the money."
"But how old is she, Rosina?" asked the anxious mother.
"About thirty, I suppose; but I don't think that much signifies."
"Thirty," said Lady Arabella, rather dolefully. "And what is she
like? I think that Frank already begins to like girls that are young
and pretty."
"But surely, aunt," said the Lady Amelia, "now that he has come to
man's discretion, he will not refuse to consider all that he owes to
his family. A Mr Gresham of Greshamsbury has a position to support."
The de Courcy scion spoke these last words in the sort of tone that a
parish clergyman would use, in warning some young farmer's son that
he should not put himself on an equal footing with the ploughboys.
It was at last decided that the countess should herself convey to
Frank a special invitation to Courcy Castle, and that when she got
him there, she should do all that lay in her power to prevent his
return to Cambridge, and to further the Dunstable marriage.
"We did think of Miss Dunstable for Porlock, once," she said,
naïvely; "but when we found that it wasn't much over two hundred
thousand, why, that idea fell to the ground." The terms on which the
de Courcy blood might be allowed to dilute itself were, it must be
presumed, very high indeed.
Augusta was sent off to find her brother, and to send him to the
countess in the small drawing-room. Here the countess was to have
her tea, apart from the outer common world, and here, without
interruption, she was to teach her great lesson to her nephew.
Augusta did find her brother, and found him in the worst of bad
society--so at least the stern de Courcys would have thought. Old Mr
Bateson and the governess, Mr Everbeery and his cook's diluted blood,
and ways paved for revolutions, all presented themselves to Augusta's
mind when she found her brother walking with no other company than
Mary Thorne, and walking with her, too, in much too close proximity.
How he had contrived to be off with the old love and so soon on with
the new, or rather, to be off with the new love and again on with the
old, we will not stop to inquire. Had Lady Arabella, in truth, known
all her son's doings in this way, could she have guessed how very
nigh he had approached the iniquity of old Mr Bateson, and to the
folly of young Mr Everbeery, she would in truth have been in a hurry
to send him off to Courcy Castle and Miss Dunstable. Some days
before the commencement of our story, young Frank had sworn in sober
earnest--in what he intended for his most sober earnest, his most
earnest sobriety--that he loved Mary Thorne with a love for which
words could find no sufficient expression--with a love that could
never die, never grow dim, never become less, which no opposition on
the part of others could extinguish, which no opposition on her part
could repel; that he might, could, would, and should have her for his
wife, and that if she told him she didn't love him, he would--
"Oh, oh! Mary; do you love me? Don't you love me? Won't you love me?
Say you will. Oh, Mary, dearest Mary, will you? won't you? do you?
don't you? Come now, you have a right to give a fellow an answer."
With such eloquence had the heir of Greshamsbury, when not yet
twenty-one years of age, attempted to possess himself of the
affections of the doctor's niece. And yet three days afterwards he
was quite ready to flirt with Miss Oriel.
If such things are done in the green wood, what will be done in the
dry?
And what had Mary said when these fervent protestations of an undying
love had been thrown at her feet? Mary, it must be remembered, was
very nearly of the same age as Frank; but, as I and others have so
often said before, "Women grow on the sunny side of the wall." Though
Frank was only a boy, it behoved Mary to be something more than a
girl. Frank might be allowed, without laying himself open to much
just reproach, to throw all of what he believed to be his heart into
a protestation of what he believed to be love; but Mary was in duty
bound to be more thoughtful, more reticent, more aware of the facts
of their position, more careful of her own feelings, and more careful
also of his.
And yet she could not put him down as another young lady might put
down another young gentleman. It is very seldom that a young man,
unless he be tipsy, assumes an unwelcome familiarity in his early
acquaintance with any girl; but when acquaintance has been long and
intimate, familiarity must follow as a matter of course. Frank and
Mary had been so much together in his holidays, had so constantly
consorted together as boys and girls, that, as regarded her, he had
not that innate fear of a woman which represses a young man's tongue;
and she was so used to his good-humour, his fun, and high jovial
spirits, and was, withal, so fond of them and him, that it was very
difficult for her to mark with accurate feeling, and stop with
reserved brow, the shade of change from a boy's liking to a man's
love.
And Beatrice, too, had done harm in this matter. With a spirit
painfully unequal to that of her grand relatives, she had quizzed
Mary and Frank about their early flirtations. This she had done; but
had instinctively avoided doing so before her mother and sister, and
had thus made a secret of it, as it were, between herself, Mary, and
her brother;--had given currency, as it were, to the idea that there
might be something serious between the two. Not that Beatrice had
ever wished to promote a marriage between them, or had even thought
of such a thing. She was girlish, thoughtless, imprudent, inartistic,
and very unlike a de Courcy. Very unlike a de Courcy she was in all
that; but, nevertheless, she had the de Courcy veneration for blood,
and, more than that, she had the Gresham feeling joined to that of
the de Courcys. The Lady Amelia would not for worlds have had the
de Courcy blood defiled; but gold she thought could not defile.
Now Beatrice was ashamed of her sister's marriage, and had often
declared, within her own heart, that nothing could have made her
marry a Mr Moffat.
She had said so also to Mary, and Mary had told her that she was
right. Mary also was proud of blood, was proud of her uncle's blood,
and the two girls talked together in all the warmth of girlish
confidence, of the great glories of family traditions and family
honours. Beatrice had talked in utter ignorance as to her friend's
birth; and Mary, poor Mary, she had talked, being as ignorant; but
not without a strong suspicion that, at some future time, a day of
sorrow would tell her some fearful truth.
On one point Mary's mind was strongly made up. No wealth, no mere
worldly advantage could make any one her superior. If she were born
a gentlewoman, then was she fit to match with any gentleman. Let
the most wealthy man in Europe pour all his wealth at her feet, she
could, if so inclined, give him back at any rate more than that.
That offered at her feet she knew she would never tempt her to yield
up the fortress of her heart, the guardianship of her soul, the
possession of her mind; not that alone, nor that even, as any
possible slightest fraction of a make-weight.
If she were born a gentlewoman! And then came to her mind those
curious questions; what makes a gentleman? what makes a gentlewoman?
What is the inner reality, the spiritualised quintessence of that
privilege in the world which men call rank, which forces the
thousands and hundreds of thousands to bow down before the few elect?
What gives, or can give it, or should give it?
And she answered the question. Absolute, intrinsic, acknowledged,
individual merit must give it to its possessor, let him be whom, and
what, and whence he might. So far the spirit of democracy was strong
with her. Beyond this it could be had but by inheritance, received
as it were second-hand, or twenty-second-hand. And so far the spirit
of aristocracy was strong within her. All this she had, as may be
imagined, learnt in early years from her uncle; and all this she was
at great pains to teach Beatrice Gresham, the chosen of her heart.
When Frank declared that Mary had a right to give him an answer,
he meant that he had a right to expect one. Mary acknowledged this
right, and gave it to him.
"Mr Gresham," she said.
"Oh, Mary; Mr Gresham!"
"Yes, Mr Gresham. It must be Mr Gresham after that. And, moreover, it
must be Miss Thorne as well."
"I'll be shot if it shall, Mary."
"Well; I can't say that I shall be shot if it be not so; but if it be
not so, if you do not agree that it shall be so, I shall be turned
out of Greshamsbury."
"What! you mean my mother?" said Frank.
"Indeed, I mean no such thing," said Mary, with a flash from her eye
that made Frank almost start. "I mean no such thing. I mean you, not
your mother. I am not in the least afraid of Lady Arabella; but I am
afraid of you."
"Afraid of me, Mary!"
"Miss Thorne; pray, pray, remember. It must be Miss Thorne. Do not
turn me out of Greshamsbury. Do not separate me from Beatrice. It
is you that will drive me out; no one else. I could stand my ground
against your mother--I feel I could; but I cannot stand against you
if you treat me otherwise than--than--"
"Otherwise than what? I want to treat you as the girl I have chosen
from all the world as my wife."
"I am sorry you should so soon have found it necessary to make a
choice. But, Mr Gresham, we must not joke about this at present. I am
sure you would not willingly injure me; but if you speak to me, or of
me, again in that way, you will injure me, injure me so much that I
shall be forced to leave Greshamsbury in my own defence. I know you
are too generous to drive me to that."
And so the interview had ended. Frank, of course, went upstairs to
see if his new pocket-pistols were all ready, properly cleaned,
loaded, and capped, should he find, after a few days' experience,
that prolonged existence was unendurable.
However, he managed to live through the subsequent period; doubtless
with a view of preventing any disappointment to his father's guests.