Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [46]
Poor Frank had hardly anticipated what there would be to do, and before dinner was announced he was very tired of it. He had no warmer feeling for any of his grand cousins than a very ordinary cousinly love; and he had resolved, forgetful of birth and blood, and all those gigantic considerations which, now that manhood had come upon him, he was bound always to bear in mind, he had resolved to sneak out to dinner comfortably with Mary Thorne if possible; and if not with Mary, then with his other love, Patience Oriel.
Great, therefore, was his consternation at finding that, after being kept continually in the foreground for half an hour before dinner, he had to walk out to the dining-room with his aunt the countess, and take his father’s place for the day at the bottom of the table.
‘It will now depend altogether upon yourself, Frank, whether you maintain or lose that high position in the county which has been held by the Greshams for so many years,’ said the countess, as she walked through the spacious hall, resolving to lose no time in teaching to her nephew that great lesson which it was so imperative that he should learn.
Frank took this as an ordinary lecture, meant to inculcate general good conduct, such as old bores of aunts are apt to inflict on youthful victims in the shape of nephews and nieces.
‘Yes,’ said Frank; ‘I suppose so; and I mean to go along all square, aunt, and no mistake. When I get back to Cambridge, I’ll read like bricks.’
His aunt did not care two straws about his reading. It was not by reading that the Greshams of Greshamsbury had held their heads up in the county, but by having high blood and plenty of money. The blood had come naturally to this young man; but it behoved him to look for the money in a great measure himself. She, Lady de Courcy, could doubtless help him; she might probably be able to fit him with a wife who would bring her money to match his birth. His reading was a matter in which she could in no way assist him: whether his taste might lead him to prefer books or pictures, or dogs and horses, or turnips in drills, or old Italian plates and dishes, was a matter which did not much signify; with which it was not at all necessary that his noble aunt should trouble herself.
‘Oh! you are to go to Cambridge again, are you? Well, if your father wishes it; – though very little is ever gained now by a university connexion.’
‘I am to take my degree in October, aunt; and I am determined at any rate, that I won’t be plucked.’
‘Plucked!’
‘No; I won’t be plucked. Baker was plucked last year, and all because he got into the wrong set at John’s. He’s an excellent fellow if you knew him. He got among a set of men who did nothing but smoke and drink beer. Malthusians,1 we call them.’
‘Malthusians!’
‘“Malt,” you know, aunt, and “use”; meaning that they drink beer. So poor Harry Baker got plucked.2 I don’t know that a fellow’s any the worse; however, I won’t get plucked.’
By this time the party had taken their place round the long board, Mr Gresham sitting at the top, in the place usually occupied by the Lady Arabella. She, on the present occasion, sat next to her son on the one side, as the countess did on the other. If, therefore, Frank now went astray, it would not be from want of proper leading.
‘Aunt, will you have some beef?’ said he, as soon as the soup and fish had been disposed of, anxious to perform the rites of hospitality now for the first time committed to his charge.
‘Do not be in a hurry, Frank,’ said his mother; ‘the servants will –’
‘Oh! ah! I forgot; there are cutlets and those sort of things. My hand is not in yet for this work, aunt. Well, as I was saying about Cambridge –’
‘Is Frank to go back to Cambridge, Arabella?’ said the countess to her sister-in-law, speaking across her nephew.
‘So his father seems to say.’
‘Is it not waste of time?’ asked the countess.
‘You know I never interfere,’ said the Lady Arabella; ‘I never liked the idea of Cambridge myself, at all. All the De