Doctor Thorne Part 65

Beatrice was somewhat astonished, and for the moment hardly understood. "I am sure I hope you will, some day."

"No, Trichy; no, you hope the other way. I love your brother; I love Frank Gresham; I love him quite as well, quite as warmly, as you love Caleb Oriel."

"Do you?" said Beatrice, staring with all her eyes, and giving one long sigh, as this new subject for sorrow was so distinctly put before her.

"It that so odd?" said Mary. "You love Mr Oriel, though you have been intimate with him hardly more than two years. Is it so odd that I should love your brother, whom I have known almost all my life?"

"But, Mary, I thought it was always understood between us that--that--I mean that you were not to care about him; not in the way of loving him, you know--I thought you always said so--I have always told mamma so as if it came from yourself."

"Beatrice, do not tell anything to Lady Arabella as though it came from me; I do not want anything to be told to her, either of me or from me. Say what you like to me yourself; whatever you say will not anger me. Indeed, I know what you would say--and yet I love you. Oh, I love you, Trichy--Trichy, I do love you so much! Don't turn away from me!"

There was such a mixture in Mary's manner of tenderness and almost ferocity, that poor Beatrice could hardly follow her. "Turn away from you, Mary! no never; but this does make me unhappy."

"It is better that you should know it all, and then you will not be led into fighting my battles again. You cannot fight them so that I should win; I do love your brother; love him truly, fondly, tenderly.

I would wish to have him for my husband as you wish to have Mr Oriel."

"But, Mary, you cannot marry him!"

"Why not?" said she, in a loud voice. "Why can I not marry him? If the priest says a blessing over us, shall we not be married as well as you and your husband?"

"But you know he cannot marry unless his wife shall have money."

"Money--money; and he is to sell himself for money? Oh, Trichy! do not you talk about money. It is horrible. But, Trichy, I will grant it--I cannot marry him; but still, I love him. He has a name, a place in the world, and fortune, family, high blood, position, everything.

He has all this, and I have nothing. Of course I cannot marry him.

But yet I do love him."

"Are you engaged to him, Mary?"

"He is not engaged to me; but I am to him."

"Oh, Mary, that is impossible!"

"It is not impossible: it is the case--I am pledged to him; but he is not pledged to me."

"But, Mary, don't look at me in that way. I do not quite understand you. What is the good of your being engaged if you cannot marry him?"

"Good! there is no good. But can I help it, if I love him? Can I make myself not love him by just wishing it? Oh, I would do it if I could.

But now you will understand why I shake my head when you talk of my coming to your house. Your ways and my ways must be different."

Beatrice was startled, and, for a time, silenced. What Mary said of the difference of their ways was quite true. Beatrice had dearly loved her friend, and had thought of her with affection through all this long period in which they had been separated; but she had given her love and her thoughts on the understanding, as it were, that they were in unison as to the impropriety of Frank's conduct.

She had always spoken, with a grave face, of Frank and his love as of a great misfortune, even to Mary herself; and her pity for Mary had been founded on the conviction of her innocence. Now all those ideas had to be altered. Mary owned her fault, confessed herself to be guilty of all that Lady Arabella so frequently laid to her charge, and confessed herself anxious to commit every crime as to which Beatrice had been ever so ready to defend her.

Had Beatrice up to this dreamed that Mary was in love with Frank, she would doubtless have sympathised with her more or less, sooner or later. As it was, is was beyond all doubt that she would soon sympathise with her. But, at the moment, the suddenness of the declaration seemed to harden her heart, and she forgot, as it were, to speak tenderly to her friend.

She was silent, therefore, and dismayed; and looked as though she thought that her ways and Mary's ways must be different.

Mary saw all that was pa.s.sing in the other's mind: no, not all; all the hostility, the disappointment, the disapproval, the unhappiness, she did see; but not the under-current of love, which was strong enough to well up and drown all these, if only time could be allowed for it to do so.

"I am glad I have told you," said Mary, curbing herself, "for deceit and hypocrisy are detestable."

"It was a misunderstanding, not deceit," said Beatrice.

"Well, now we understand each other; now you know that I have a heart within me, which like those of some others has not always been under my own control. Lady Arabella believes that I am intriguing to be the mistress of Greshamsbury. You, at any rate, will not think that of me. If it could be discovered to-morrow that Frank were not the heir, I might have some chance of happiness."

"But, Mary--"

"Well?"

"You say you love him."

"Yes; I do say so."

"But if he does not love you, will you cease to do so?"

"If I have a fever, I will get rid of it if I can; in such case I must do so, or die."

"I fear," continued Beatrice, "you hardly know, perhaps do not think, what is Frank's real character. He is not made to settle down early in life; even now, I believe he is attached to some lady in London, whom, of course, he cannot marry."

Beatrice said this in perfect trueness of heart. She had heard of Frank's new love-affair, and believing what she had heard, thought it best to tell the truth. But the information was not of a kind to quiet Mary's spirit.

"Very well," said she, "let it be so. I have nothing to say against it."

"But are you not preparing wretchedness and unhappiness for yourself?"

"Very likely."

"Oh, Mary, do not be so cold with me! you know how delighted I should be to have you for a sister-in-law, if only it were possible."

"Yes, Trichy; but it is impossible, is it not? Impossible that Francis Gresham of Greshamsbury should disgrace himself by marrying such a poor creature as I am. Of course, I know it; of course, I am prepared for unhappiness and misery. He can amuse himself as he likes with me or others--with anybody. It is his privilege. It is quite enough to say that he is not made for settling down. I know my own position;--and yet I love him."

"But, Mary, has he asked you to be his wife? If so--"

"You ask home-questions, Beatrice. Let me ask you one; has he ever told you that he has done so?"

At this moment Beatrice was not disposed to repeat all that Frank had said. A year ago, before he went away, he had told his sister a score of times that he meant to marry Mary Thorne if she would have him; but Beatrice now looked on all that as idle, boyish vapouring. The pity was, that Mary should have looked on it differently.

"We will each keep our secret," said Mary. "Only remember this: should Frank marry to-morrow, I shall have no ground for blaming him.

He is free as far I as am concerned. He can take the London lady if he likes. You may tell him so from me. But, Trichy, what else I have told you, I have told you only."

"Oh, yes!" said Beatrice, sadly; "I shall say nothing of it to anybody. It is very sad, very, very; I was so happy when I came here, and now I am so wretched." This was the end of that delicious talk to which she had looked forward with so much eagerness.

"Don't be wretched about me, dearest; I shall get through it. I sometimes think I was born to be unhappy, and that unhappiness agrees with me best. Kiss me now, Trichy, and don't be wretched any more.

You owe it to Mr Oriel to be as happy as the day is long."

And then they parted.

Beatrice, as she went out, saw Dr Thorne in his little shop on the right-hand side of the pa.s.sage, deeply engaged in some derogatory branch of an apothecary's mechanical trade; mixing a dose, perhaps, for a little child. She would have pa.s.sed him without speaking if she could have been sure of doing so without notice, for her heart was full, and her eyes were red with tears; but it was so long since she had been in his house that she was more than ordinarily anxious not to appear uncourteous or unkind to him.