Yours, ever most affectionately and obliged, AUGUSTA GRESHAM.
P.S.—I told mamma what you said about Mary Thorne, and she said, “Yes; I suppose all the world knows it now; and if all the world did know it, it makes no difference to Frank.” She seemed very angry; so you see it was true.
Though, by so doing, we shall somewhat anticipate the end of our story, it may be desirable that the full tale of Mr. Gazebee’s loves should be told here. When Mary is breaking her heart on her death-bed in the last chapter, or otherwise accomplishing her destiny, we shall hardly find a fit opportunity of saying much about Mr. Gazebee and his aristocratic bride.
For he did succeed at last in obtaining a bride in whose veins ran the noble ichor of De Courcy blood, in spite of the high doctrine preached so eloquently by the Lady Amelia. As Augusta had truly said, he had failed to understand her. He was led to think, by her manner of receiving his first proposal—and justly so, enough—that she liked him, and would accept him; and he was, therefore, rather perplexed by his second interview. He tried again and again, and begged permission to mention the matter to Mr. Gresham; but Augusta was very firm, and he at last retired in disgust. Augusta went to Courcy Castle, and received from her cousin that consolation and re-strengthening which she so much required.
Four years afterwards—long after the fate of Mary Thorne had fallen, like a thunderbolt, on the inhabitants of Greshamsbury; when Beatrice was preparing for her second baby, and each of the twins had her accepted lover—Mr. Mortimer Gazebee went down to Courcy Castle; of course, on matters of business. No doubt he dined at the table, and all that. We have the word of Lady Amelia, that the earl, with his usual good-nature, allowed him such privileges. Let us hope that he never encroached on them.
But on this occasion, Mr. Gazebee stayed a long time at the castle, and singular rumours as to the cause of his prolonged visit became current in the little town. No female scion of the present family of Courcy had, as yet, found a mate. We may imagine that eagles find it difficult to pair when they become scarce in their localities; and we all know how hard it has sometimes been to get comme il faut husbands when there has been any number of Protestant princesses on hand.
Some such difficulty had, doubtless, brought it about that the countess was still surrounded by her full bevy of maidens. Rank has its responsibilities as well as its privileges, and these young ladies’ responsibilities seemed to have consisted in rejecting any suitor who may have hitherto kneeled to them. But now it was told through Courcy, that one suitor had kneeled, and not in vain; from Courcy the rumour flew to Barchester, and thence came down to Greshamsbury, startling the inhabitants, and making one poor heart throb with a violence that would have been piteous had it been known. The suitor, so named, was Mr. Mortimer Gazebee.
Yes; Mr. Mortimer Gazebee had now awarded to him many other privileges than those of dining at the table, and all that. He rode with the young ladies in the park, and they all talked to him very familiarly before company; all except the Lady Amelia. The countess even called him Mortimer, and treated him quite as one of the family.
At last came a letter from the countess to her dear sister Arabella. It should be given at length, but that I fear to introduce another epistle. It is such an easy mode of writing, and facility is always dangerous. In this letter it was announced with much preliminary ambiguity, that Mortimer Gazebee—who had been found to be a treasure in every way; quite a paragon of men—was about to be taken into the De Courcy bosom as a child of that house. On that day fortnight, he was destined to lead to the altar—the Lady Amelia.
The countess then went on to say, that dear Amelia did not write herself, being so much engaged by her coming duties—the responsibilities of which she doubtless fully realised, as well as the privileges; but she had begged her mother to request that the twins should come and act as bridesmaids on the occasion. Dear Augusta, she knew, was too much occupied in the coming event in Mr. Oriel’s family to be able to attend.
Mr. Mortimer Gazebee was taken into the De Courcy family, and did lead the Lady Amelia to the altar; and the Gresham twins did go there and act as bridesmaids. And, which is much more to say for human nature, Augusta did forgive her cousin, and, after a certain interval, went on a visit to that nice place in Surrey which she had once hoped would be her own home. It would have been a very nice place, Augusta thought, had not Lady Amelia Gazebee been so very economical.
We must presume that there was some explanation between them. If so, Augusta yielded to it, and confessed it to be satisfactory. She had always yielded to her cousin, and loved her with that sort of love which is begotten between fear and respect. Anything was better than quarrelling with her cousin Amelia.
And Mr. Mortimer Gazebee did not altogether make a bad bargain. He never received a shilling of dowry, but that he had not expected. Nor did he want it. His troubles arose from the overstrained economy of his noble wife. She would have it, that as she had married a poor man—Mr. Gazebee, however, was not a poor man—it behoved her to manage her house with great care. Such a match as that she had made—this she told in confidence to Augusta—had its responsibilities as well as its privileges.
But, on the whole, Mr. Gazebee did not repent his bargain; when he asked his friends to dine, he could tell them that Lady Amelia would be very glad to see them; his marriage gave him some éclat at his club, and some additional weight in the firm to which he belonged; he gets his share of the Courcy shooting, and is asked about to Greshamsbury and other Barsetshire houses, not only “to dine at table and all that,” but to take his part in whatever delights country society there has to offer. He lives with the great hope that his noble father-in-law may some day be able to bring him into Parliament.
CHAPTER XXXIX
What the World Says about Blood
“Beatrice,” said Frank, rushing suddenly into his sister’s room, “I want you to do me one especial favour.” This was three or four days after Frank had seen Mary Thorne. Since that time he had spoken to none of his family on the subject; but he was only postponing from day to day the task of telling his father. He had now completed his round of visits to the kennel, master huntsman, and stables of the county hunt, and was at liberty to attend to his own affairs. So he had decided on speaking to the squire that very day; but he first made his request to his sister.
“I want you to do me one especial favour.” The day for Beatrice’s marriage had now been fixed, and it was not to be very distant. Mr. Oriel had urged that their honeymoon trip would lose half its delights if they did not take advantage of the fine weather; and Beatrice had nothing to allege in answer. The day had just been fixed, and when Frank ran into her room with his special request, she was not in a humour to refuse him anything.
“If you wish me to be at your wedding, you must do it,” said he.
“Wish you to be there! You must be there, of course. Oh, Frank! what do you mean? I’ll do anything you ask; if it is not to go to the moon, or anything of that sort.”
Frank was too much in earnest to joke. “You must have Mary for one of your bridesmaids,” he said. “Now, mind; there may be some difficulty, but you must insist on it. I know what has been going on; but it is not to be borne that she should be excluded on such a day as that. You that have been like sisters all your lives till a year ago!”
“But, Frank—”
“Now, Beatrice, don’t have any buts; say that you will do it, and it will be done: I am sure Oriel will approve, and so will my father.”
“But, Frank, you won’t hear me.”
“Not if you make objections; I have set my heart on your doing it.”
“But I had set my heart on the same thing.”
“Well?”
“And I went to Mary on purpose; and told her just as you tell me now, that she must come. I meant to make mamma understand that I could not be happy unless it were so; but Mary positively refused.”
“Refused! What did she say?”
“I could not tell
you what she said; indeed, it would not be right if I could; but she positively declined. She seemed to feel, that after all that had happened, she never could come to Greshamsbury again.”
“Fiddlestick!”
“But, Frank, those are her feelings; and, to tell the truth, I could not combat them. I know she is not happy; but time will cure that. And, to tell you the truth, Frank—”
“It was before I came back that you asked her, was it not?”
“Yes; just the day before you came, I think.”
“Well, it’s all altered now. I have seen her since that.”
“Have you Frank?”
“What do you take me for? Of course, I have. The very first day I went to her. And now, Beatrice, you may believe me or not, as you like; but if I ever marry, I shall marry Mary Thorne; and if ever she marries, I think I may say, she will marry me. At any rate, I have her promise. And now, you cannot be surprised that I should wish her to be at your wedding; or that I should declare, that if she is absent, I will be absent. I don’t want any secrets, and you may tell my mother if you like it—and all the De Courcys too, for anything I care.”
Frank had ever been used to command his sisters: and they, especially Beatrice, had ever been used to obey. On this occasion, she was well inclined to do so, if she only knew how. She again remembered how Mary had once sworn to be at her wedding, to be near her, and to touch her—even though all the blood of the De Courcys should be crowded before the altar railings.
“I should be so happy that she should be there; but what am I to do, Frank, if she refuses? I have asked her, and she has refused.”
“Go to her again; you need not have any scruples with her. Do not I tell you she will be your sister? Not come here again to Greshamsbury! Why, I tell you that she will be living here while you are living there at the parsonage, for years and years to come.”
Beatrice promised that she would go to Mary again, and that she would endeavour to talk her mother over if Mary would consent to come. But she could not yet make herself believe that Mary Thorne would ever be mistress of Greshamsbury. It was so indispensably necessary that Frank should marry money! Besides, what were those horrid rumours which were now becoming rife as to Mary’s birth; rumours more horrid than any which had yet been heard?
Augusta had said hardly more than the truth when she spoke of her father being broken-hearted by his debts. His troubles were becoming almost too many for him; and Mr. Gazebee, though no doubt he was an excellent man of business, did not seem to lessen them. Mr. Gazebee, indeed, was continually pointing out how much he owed, and in what a quagmire of difficulties he had entangled himself. Now, to do Mr. Yates Umbleby justice, he had never made himself disagreeable in this manner.
Mr. Gazebee had been doubtless right, when he declared that Sir Louis Scatcherd had not himself the power to take any steps hostile to the squire; but Sir Louis had also been right, when he boasted that, in spite of his father’s will, he could cause others to move in the matter. Others did move, and were moving, and it began to be understood that a moiety, at least, of the remaining Greshamsbury property must be sold. Even this, however, would by no means leave the squire in undisturbed possession of the other moiety. And thus, Mr. Gresham was nearly broken-hearted.
Frank had now been at home a week, and his father had not as yet spoken to him about the family troubles; nor had a word as yet been said between them as to Mary Thorne. It had been agreed that Frank should go away for twelve months, in order that he might forget her. He had been away the twelvemonth, and had now returned, not having forgotten her.
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 should be 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 his 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 totally 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—quite made up my mind, I think it right to tell you.”
“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, had been such that he could not find fault with it; and, 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 relieve the estate from its embarrassments 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 do 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 upon 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 mésalliance; 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.”
But the squire, though he had been very lucid in his definition, had not got no nearer to his object; had not even yet ascertained what his own object was. This marriage would be ruinous to Greshamsbury; and yet, what was he to say against it, seeing that the ruin had been his fault, and not his son’s?
The Chronicles of Barsetshire Page 131