Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [197]
The squire was very cheery this evening; from what cause cannot now be said. Perhaps he had succeeded in negotiating a further loan, thus temporarily sprinkling a drop of water over the ever-rising dust of his difficulties.
‘Well, Frank, what have you been after today? Peter told me you had the black horse out,’ said he, pushing the decanter to his son. ‘Take my advice, my boy, and don’t give him too much summer road-work. Legs won’t stand it, let them be ever so good.’
‘Why, sir, I was obliged to go out today, and therefore, it had to be either the old mare or the young horse.’
‘Why didn’t you take Ramble?’ Now Ramble was the squire’s own saddle hack, used for farm surveying, and occasionally for going to cover.
‘I shouldn’t think of doing that, sir.’
‘My dear boy, he is quite at your service; for goodness’ sake do let me have a little wine, Frank – quite at your service; any riding I have now is after the haymakers, and that’s all on the grass.’
‘Thank ’ee, sir. Well, perhaps I will take a turn out of Ramble should I want it.’
‘Do, and pray, pray take care of that black horse’s legs. He’s turning out more of a horse than I took him to be, and I should be sorry to see him injured. Where have you been today?’
‘Well, father, I have something to tell you.’
‘Something to tell me!’ and then the squire’s happy and gay look, which had been only rendered more happy and more gay by his assumed anxiety about the black horse, gave place to that heaviness of visage which acrimony and misfortune had made so habitual to him. ‘Something to tell me!’ Any grave words like these always presaged some money difficulty to the squire’s ears. He loved Frank with the tenderest love. He would have done so under almost any circumstances; but, doubtless, that love had been made more palpable to himself by the fact that Frank had been a good son as regards money – not exigeant as was Lady Arabella, or selfishly reckless as was his nephew, Lord Porlock. But now Frank must be in difficulty about money. This was his first idea. ‘What is it, Frank; you have seldom had anything to say that has not been pleasant for me to hear?’ And then the heaviness of visage again gave way for a moment as his eye fell upon his son.
‘I have been to Boxall Hill, sir.’
The tenor of the father’s thoughts was changed in an instant; and the dread of immediate temporary annoyance gave place to true anxiety for his son. He, the squire, had been no party to Mary’s exile from his own domain; and he had seen with pain that she had now a second time been driven from her home: but he had never hitherto questioned the expediency of separating his son from Mary Thorne. Alas! it became too necessary – too necessary through his own default – that Frank should marry money!
‘At Boxall Hill, Frank! Has that been prudent? Or, indeed, has it been generous to Miss Thorne, who has been driven there, as it were, by your imprudence?’
‘Father, it is well that we should understand each other about this –’
‘Fill your glass, Frank.’ Frank mechanically did as he was bid, and passed the bottle.
‘I should never forgive myself were I to deceive you, or keep anything from you.’
‘I believe it is not in your nature to deceive me, Frank.’
‘The fact is, sir, that I have made up my mind that Mary Thorne shall be my wife – sooner or later that is, unless, of course, she should utterly refuse. Hitherto, she has utterly refused me. I believe I may now say that she has accepted me.’
The squire sipped his claret, but at the moment said nothing. There was a quiet, manly, but yet modest determination about his son that he had hardly noticed before. Frank had become legally of age, legally a man, when he was twenty-one. Nature, it seems, had postponed the ceremony till he was twenty-two. Nature often does postpone the ceremony even to a much later age; – sometimes altogether forgets to accomplish it.
The squire