Dr Thorne (84 page)

‘She would say whatever she thought best for me.'

‘Exactly: because she is a trump. And I say the same. There can be no doubt about it, Frank, my boy: such a marriage would be very foolish for you both; very foolish. Nobody can admire Miss Thorne more than I do; but you oughtn't to be a marrying man for the next ten years, unless you get a fortune. If you tell her the truth, and if she's the girl I take her to be, she'll not accuse you of being false. She'll peak for a while; and so will you, old chap. But others have had to do that before you. They have got over it, and so will you.'

Such was the spoken wisdom of Harry Baker, and who can say that he was wrong? Frank sat a while on his rustic seat, paring his nails with his penknife, and then looking up, he thus thanked his friend:–

‘I'm sure you mean well, Harry; and I'm much obliged to you. I dare say you're right too. But, somehow, it doesn't come home to me. And what is more, after what has passed, I could not tell her that I wish to part from her. I could not do it. And besides, I have that sort of feeling, that if I heard she was to marry anyone else, I am sure I should blow his brains out. Either his or my own.'

‘Well, Frank, you may count on me for anything, except the last proposition': and so they shook hands, and Frank rode back to Greshamsbury.

O
N
the Monday morning at six o'clock, Mr Oriel and Frank started together; but early as it was, Beatrice was up to give them a cup of coffee, Mr Oriel having slept that night in the house. Whether Frank would have received his coffee from his sister's fair hands had not Mr Oriel been there, may be doubted. He, however, loudly asserted that he should not have done so, when she laid claim to great merit for rising in his behalf.

Mr Oriel had been specially instigated by Lady Arabella to use the opportunity of their joint journey, for pointing out to Frank the iniquity as well as madness of the course he was pursuing; and he had promised to obey her ladyship's behests. But Mr Oriel was perhaps not an enterprising man, and was certainly not a presumptuous one. He did intend to do as he was bid; but when he began, with the object of leading up to the subject of Frank's engagement, he always softened down into some much easier enthusiasm in the matter of his own engagement with Beatrice. He had not that perspicuous, but not over-sensitive strength of mind which had enabled Harry Baker to express his opinion out at once; and boldly, as he did it, yet to do so without offence.

Four times before the train arrived in London, he made some little attempt; but four times he failed. As the subject was matrimony, it was his easiest course to begin about himself; but he never could get any further.

‘No man was ever more fortunate in a wife than I shall be,' he said, with a soft, euphuistic self-complacency, which would have been silly had it been adopted to any other person than the bride's brother. His intention, however, was very good, for he meant to show, that in his case marriage was prudent and wise, because his case differed so widely from that of Frank.

‘Yes,' said Frank. ‘She is an excellent good girl': he had said it three times before, and was not very energetic.

‘Yes, and so exactly suited to me; indeed, all that I could have dreamed of. How very well she looked this morning! Some girls only look well at night. I should not like that at all.'

‘You mustn't expect her to look like. that always at six o'clock a.m.,' said Frank, laughing. ‘Young ladies only take that trouble on very particular occasions. She wouldn't have come down like that if my father or I had been going alone. No, and she won't do so for you in a couple of years' time.'

‘Oh, but she's always nice. I have seen her at home as much almost as you could do; and then she's so sincerely religious.'

‘Oh, yes, of course; that is, I am sure she is,' said Frank, looking solemn as became him.

‘She's made to be a clergyman's wife.'

‘Well, so it seems,' said Frank.

‘A married life is, I'm sure, the happiest in the world – if people are only in a position to marry,' said Mr Oriel, gradually drawing near to the accomplishment of his design.

‘Yes; quite so. Do you know, Oriel, I never was so sleepy in my life. What with all that fuss of Gazebee's, and one thing and another, I could not get to bed till one o'clock; and then I couldn't sleep. I'll take a snooze now, if you won't think it uncivil.' And then, putting his feet upon the opposite seat, he settled himself comfortably to his rest. And so Mr Oriel's last attempt for lecturing Frank in the railway-carriage faded away and was annihilated.

By twelve o'clock Frank was with Messrs Slow & Bideawhile. Mr Bideawhile was engaged at the moment, but he found the managing Chancery clerk to be a very chatty gentleman. Judging from what he saw, he would have said that the work to be done at Messrs Slow & Bideawhile's was not very heavy.

‘A singular man that Sir Louis,' said the Chancery clerk.

‘Yes; very singular,' said Frank.

‘Excellent security, excellent; no better: and yet he will foreclose; but you see he has no power himself. But the question is, can the trustee refuse? Then, again, trustees are so circumstanced nowadays that they are afraid to do anything. There has been so much said lately, Mr Gresham, that a man doesn't know where he is, or
what he is doing. Nobody trusts anybody. There have been such terrible things that we can't wonder at it. Only think of the case of those Hills! How can anyone expect that anyone else will ever trust a lawyer again after that? But that's Mr Bideawhile's bell. How can anyone expect it? He will see you now, I dare say, Mr Gresham.'

So it turned out, and Frank was ushered into the presence of Mr Bideawhile. He had got his lesson by heart, and was going to rush into the middle of his subject; such a course, however, was not in accordance with Mr Bideawhile's usual practice. Mr Bide-awhile got up from his large wooden-seated Windsor chair, and, with a soft smile, in which, however, was mingled some slight dash of the attorney's acuteness, put out his hand to his young client; not, indeed, as though he were going to shake hands with him, but as though the hand were some ripe fruit all but falling, which his visitor might take and pluck if he thought proper. Frank took hold of the hand, which returned him no pressure, and then let it go again, not making any attempt to gather the fruit.

‘I have come up to town, Mr Bideawhile, about this mortgage,' commenced Frank.

‘Mortgage – ah, sit down, Mr Gresham; sit down. I hope your father is quite well.'

‘Quite well, thank you.'

‘I have a great regard for your father. So I had for your grandfather; a very good man indeed. You, perhaps, don't remember him, Mr Gresham?'

‘He died when I was only a year old.'

‘Oh, yes; no, you of course can't remember him; but I do, well: he used to be very fond of some port wine I had. I think it was “II”; and if I don't mistake, I have a bottle or two of it yet; but it is not worth drinking now. Port wine, you know, won't keep beyond a certain time. That was very good wine. I don't exactly remember what it stood me a dozen then; but such wine can't he had now. As for the Madeira, you know there's an end of that. Do you drink Madeira, Mr Gresham?'

‘No,' said Frank, ‘not very often.'

‘I'm sorry for that, for it's a fine wine; but then there's none of it left, you know. I have a few dozen. I'm told they're growing pumpkins where the vineyards were. I wonder what they do with
all the pumpkins they grow in Switzerland! You've been in Switzerland, Mr Gresham?'

Frank said he had been in Switzerland.

‘It's a beautiful country; my girls made me go there last year. They said it would do me good; but then, you know, they wanted to see it themselves; ha! ha! ha! However, I believe I shall go again this autumn. That is to Aix, or some of those places; just for three weeks. I can't spare any more time, Mr Gresham. Do you like that dining at the
tables d'hôte
?'

‘Pretty well, sometimes.'

‘One would get tired of it – eh! But they gave us capital dinners at Zurich. I don't think much of their soup. But they had fish, and about seven kinds of meats and poultry, and three or four puddings, and things of that sort. Upon my word, I thought we did very well, and so did my girls, too. You see a great many ladies travelling now.'

‘Yes,' said Frank; ‘a great many.'

‘Upon my word, I think they are right; that is, if they can afford time. I can't afford time. I'm here every day till five, Mr Gresham; then I go out and dine in Fleet Street, and then back to work till nine.'

‘Dear me! that's very hard.'

‘Well, yes, it is hard work. My boys don't like it; but I manage it somehow. I get down to my little place in the country on Saturday. I shall be most happy to see you there next Saturday.'

Frank, thinking it would be outrageous on his part to take up much of the time of a gentleman who was constrained to work so unreasonably hard, began again to talk about his mortgages, and, in so doing, had to mention the name of Mr Yates Umbleby.

‘Ah, poor Umbleby!' said Mr Bideawhile; ‘what is he doing now? I am quite sure your father was right, or he wouldn't have done it; but I used to think that Umbleby was a decent sort of man enough. Not so grand, you know, as your Gazebees and Gumptions – eh, Mr Gresham? They do say young Gazebee is thinking of getting into Parliament. Let me see: Umbleby married – who was it he married? That was the way your father got hold of him; not your father, but your grandfather. I used to know all about it. Well, I was sorry for Umbleby. He has got something, I suppose – eh?'

Frank said that he believed Mr Yates Umbleby had something wherewith to keep the wolf from the door.

‘So you have got Gazebee down there now? Gumption, Gazebee, & Gazebee: very good people, I'm sure; only, perhaps, they have a little too much on hand to do your father justice.'

‘But about Sir Louis, Mr Bideawhile.'

‘Well, about Sir Louis; a very bad sort of fellow, isn't he? Drinks – eh? I knew his father a little. He was a rough diamond, too. I was once down in Northamptonshire, about some railway business; let me see; I almost forget whether I was with him, or against him. But I know he made sixty thousand pounds by one hour's work; sixty thousand pounds! And then he got so mad with drinking that we all thought –'

And so Mr Bideawhile went on for two hours, and Frank found no opportunity of saying one word about the business which had brought him up to town. What wonder that such a man as this should be obliged to stay at his office every night till nine o'clock?

During these two hours, a clerk had come in three or four times, whispering something to the lawyer, who, on the last of such occasions, turned to Frank, saying, ‘Well, perhaps that will do for today. If you'll manage to call tomorrow, say about two, I will have the whole thing looked up; or, perhaps, Wednesday or Thursday would suit you better.' Frank, declaring that the morrow would suit him very well, took his departure, wondering much at the manner in which business was done at the house of Messrs Slow & Bideawhile.

When he called the next day, the office seemed to be rather disturbed, and he was shown quickly into Mr Bideawhile's room. ‘Have you heard this?' said that gentleman, putting a telegram into his hands. It contained tidings of the death of Sir Louis Scatcherd. Frank immediately knew that these tidings must be of importance to his father; but he had no idea how vitally they concerned his own more immediate interests.

‘Dr Thorne will be up in town on Thursday evening after the funeral,' said the talkative clerk. ‘And nothing of course can be done till he comes,' said Mr Bideawhile. And so Frank, pondering on the mutability of human affairs, again took his departure.

He could do nothing now but wait for Dr Thorne's arrival, and so he amused himself in the interval by running down to Malvern,
and treating with Miss Dunstable in person for the oil of Lebanon. He went down on the Wednesday, and thus failed to receive, on the Thursday morning, Mary's letter, which reached London on that day. He returned, however, on the Friday, and then got it; and perhaps it was well for Mary's happiness that he had seen Miss Dunstable in the interval. ‘I don't care what your mother says,' said she, with emphasis. ‘I don't care for any Harry, whether it be Harry Baker, or old Harry himself. You made her a promise, and you are bound to keep it; if not on one day, then on another. What! because you cannot draw back yourself, get out of it by inducing her to do so! Aunt de Courcy herself could not improve upon that.' Fortified in this manner, he returned to town on the Friday morning, and then got Mary's letter. Frank also got a note from Dr Thorne, stating that he had taken up his temporary domicile at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house, so as to be near the lawyers.

It has been suggested that the modern English writers of fiction should among them keep a barrister, in order that they may be set right on such legal points as will arise in their little narratives, and thus avoid that exposure of their own ignorance of the laws, which now, alas! they too often make. The idea is worthy of consideration, and I can only say, that if such an arrangement can be made, and if a counsellor adequately skilful can be found to accept the office, I shall be happy to subscribe my quota; it would be but a modest tribute towards the cost.