Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [215]
‘No, we will stay a while yet,’ said her uncle. ‘It may come to that, but this is not the time. For one season longer let us face – I will not say our enemies; I cannot call anybody my enemy who bears the name of Gresham.’ And then he went on for a moment with his breakfast. ‘So Frank is to be here on the 12th?’
‘Yes, uncle.’
‘Well, dearest, I have no questions to ask you; no directions to give. I know how good you are, and how prudent; I am anxious only for your happiness; not at all –’
‘Happiness, uncle, is out of the question.’
‘I hope not. It is never out of the question, never can be out of the question. But, as I was saying, I am quite satisfied your conduct will be good, and, therefore, I have no questions to ask. We will remain here; and, whether good or evil come, we will not be ashamed to show our faces.’
She sat for a while again silent; collecting her courage on the subject that was nearest her heart. She would have given the world that he should ask her questions; but she could not bid him to do so; and she found it impossible to talk openly to him about Frank unless he did so. ‘Will he come here?’ at last she said, in a low-toned voice.
‘Who? He, Louis? Yes, I think that in all probability he will.’
‘No; but Frank,’ she said, in a still lower voice.
‘Ah! my darling, that I cannot tell; but will it be well that he should come here?’
‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘No, I suppose not. But, uncle, I don’t think he will come.’
She was now sitting on a sofa away from the table, and he got up, sat down beside her, and took her hands in his. ‘Mary,’ said he, ‘you must be strong now; strong to endure, not to attack. I think you have that strength; but, if not, perhaps it will be better that we should go away.’
‘I will be strong,’ said she, rising up and going towards the door. ‘Never mind me, uncle; don’t follow me; I will be strong. It will be base, cowardly, mean, to run away; very base in me to make you do so.’
‘No, dearest, not so; it will be the same to me.’
‘No,’ said she, ‘I will not run away from Lady Arabella. And, as for him – if he loves this other one, he shall hear no reproach from me. Uncle, I will be strong’; and running back to him, she threw her arms round him and kissed him. And, still restraining her tears, she got safely to her bedroom. In what way she may there have shown her strength, it would not be well for us to inquire.
CHAPTER XXXIV
A Barouche and Four Arrives at Greshamsbury
DURING the last twelve months Sir Louis Scatcherd had been very efficacious in bringing trouble, turmoil, and vexation upon Greshamsbury. Now that it was too late to take steps to save himself, Dr Thorne found that the will left by Sir Roger was so made as to entail upon him duties that he would find it almost impossible to perform. Sir Louis, though his father had wished to make him still a child in the eye of the law, was no child. He knew his own rights and was determined to exact them; and before Sir Roger had been dead three months, the doctor found himself in continual litigation with a low Barchester attorney, who was acting on behalf of his, the doctor’s, own ward.
And if the doctor suffered, so did the squire, and so did those who had hitherto had the management of the squire’s affairs. Dr Thorne soon perceived that he was to be driven into litigation, not only with Mr Finnie, the Barchester attorney, but with the squire himself. While Finnie harassed him, he was compelled to harass Mr Gresham. He was no lawyer himself; and though