Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [66]
‘Frank,’ said Augusta, in a tone of voice which did honour to the great lessons she had lately received, ‘Aunt De Courcy wants to see you immediately in the small drawing-room’; and, as she said so, she resolved to say a few words of advice to Miss Thorne as soon as her brother should have left them.
‘In the small drawing-room, does she? Well, Mary, we may as well go together, for I suppose it is tea-time now.’
‘You had better go at once, Frank,’ said Augusta; ‘the countess will be angry if you keep her waiting. She has been expecting you these twenty minutes. Mary Thorne and I can return together.’
There was something in the tone in which the words, ‘Mary Thorne,’ were uttered, which made Mary at once draw herself up. ‘I hope,’ said she, ‘that Mary Thorne will never be any hindrance to either of you.’
Frank’s ear had also perceived that there was something in the tone of his sister’s voice not boding comfort to Mary; he perceived that the De Courcy blood in Augusta’s veins was already rebelling against the doctor’s niece on his part, though it had condescended to submit itself to the tailor’s son on her own part.
‘Well, I am going,’ said he; ‘but look here, Augusta, if you say one word of Mary –’
Oh, Frank! Frank! you boy, you very boy! you goose, you silly goose! Is that the way you make love, desiring one girl not to tell of another, as though you were three children, tearing your frocks and trousers in getting through the same hedge together? Oh, Frank! Frank! you, the full-blown heir of Greshamsbury? You, a man already endowed with a man’s discretion? You, the forward rider, that did but now threaten young Harry Baker and the Honourable John to eclipse them by prowess in the field? You, of age? Why, diou canst not as yet have left thy mother’s apron-string!
‘If you say one word of Mary –’
So far had he got in his injunction to his sister, but further than that, in such a case, was he never destined to proceed. Mary’s indignation flashed upon him, striking him dumb long before the sound of her voice reached his ears; and yet she spoke as quick as the words would come to her call, and somewhat loudly too.
‘Say one word of Mary, Mr Gresham! And why should she not say as many words of Mary as she may please? I must tell you all now, Augusta! and I must also beg you not to lie silent for my sake. As far as I am concerned, tell it to whom you please. This is the second time your brother –’
‘Mary, Mary,’ said Frank, deprecating her loquacity.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Gresham; you have made it necessary that I should tell your sister all. He has now twice thought it well to amuse himself by saying to me words which it was ill-natured in him to speak, and –’
‘Ill-natured, Mary!’
‘Ill-natured in him to speak,’ continued Mary, ‘and to which it would be absurd for me to listen. He probably does the same to others,’ she added, being unable in heart to forget that sharpest of her wounds, that flirtation of his with Patience Oriel; ‘but to me it is almost cruel. Another girl might laugh at him, or listen to him, as she would choose; but I can do neither. I shall now keep away from Greshamsbury, at any rate till he has left it; and, Augusta, I can only beg you to understand, that, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing which may not be told to all the world.’
And, so saying, she walked on a little in advance of them, as proud as a queen. Had Lady de Courcy herself met her at that moment, she would almost have felt herself forced to shrink out of the pathway. ‘Not say a word of me!’ she repeated to herself, but still out loud. ‘No word need be left unsaid on my account; none, none.’
Augusta followed her, dumbfounded at her indignation; and Frank also followed, but not in silence. When his first surprise at Mary’s great anger was over, he felt himself called upon to say some word that might tend to exonerate his lady-love; and some word also of protestation as to his own purpose.
‘There is nothing to be told, nothing, at least, of Mary,’ he said, speaking