'I felt no alarm for her,' continued the doctor, 'and desired no change. Frank is your son, and it is for you to look to him. You thought proper to do so by desiring Mary to absent herself from Greshamsbury.'
'Oh, no, no, no!' said Lady Arabella.
'But you did, Lady Arabella; and as Greshamsbury is your home, neither I nor my niece had any ground of complaint. We acquiesced, not without much suffering, but we did acquiesce; and you, I think, can have no ground of complaint against me.'
Lady Arabella had hardly expected that the doctor would reply to her mild and conciliatory exordium with so much sternness. He had yielded so easily to her on the former occasion. She did not comprehend that when she uttered her sentence of exile against Mary, she had given an order which she had the power of enforcing; but that obedience to that order had now placed Mary altogether beyond her jurisdiction. She was, therefore, a little surprised, and for a few moments overawed by the doctor's manner; but she soon recovered herself, remembering, doubtless, that fortune favours none but the brave.
'I make no complaint, Dr Thorne,' she said, after assuming a tone more befitting a De Courcy than that hitherto used, 'I make no complaint either as regards you or Mary.'
'You are very kind, Lady Arabella.'
'But I think that it is my duty to put a stop, a peremptory stop to anything like a love affair between my son and your niece.'
'I have not the least objection in life. If there is such a love affair, put a stop to it--that is, if you have the power.'
Here the doctor was doubtless imprudent. But he had begun to think that he had yielded sufficiently to the lady; and he had begun to resolve, also, that though it would not become him to encourage even the idea of such a marriage, he would make Lady Arabella understand that he thought his niece quite good enough for her son, and that the match, if regarded as imprudent, was to be regarded as equally imprudent on both sides. He would not suffer that Mary and her heart and feelings and interest should be altogether postponed to those of the young heir; and, perhaps, he was unconsciously encouraged in this determination by the reflection that Mary herself might perhaps become a young heiress.
'It is my duty,' said Lady Arabella, repeating her words with even a stronger De Courcy intonation; 'and your duty also, Dr Thorne.'
'My duty!' said he, rising from his chair and leaning on the table with the two thigh-bones. 'Lady Arabella, pray understand at once, that I repudiate any such duty, and will have nothing whatever to do with it.'
'But you do not mean to say that you will encourage this unfortunate boy to marry your niece?'
'The unfortunate boy, Lady Arabella--whom, by the by, I regard as a very fortunate young man--is your son, not mine. I shall take no steps about his marriage, either one way or the other.'
'You think it right, then, that your niece should throw herself in his way?'
'Throw herself in his way! What would you say if I came up to Greshamsbury, and spoke of your daughters in such language? What would my dear friend, Mr Gresham say, if some neighbour's wife should come and so speak to him? I will tell you what he would say: he would quietly beg her to go back to her own home and meddle only with her own matters.'
This was dreadful to Lady Arabella. Even Dr Thorne had never before dared thus to lower her to the level of common humanity, and liken her to any other wife in the country-side. Moreover, she was not quite sure whether he, the parish doctor, was not desiring her, the earl's daughter, to go home and mind her own business. On this first point, however, there seemed to be no room for doubt, of which she gave herself the benefit.
'It would not become me to argue with you, Dr Thorne,' she said.
'Not at least on this subject,' said he.
'I can only repeat that I mean nothing offensive to our dear Mary; for whom, I think I may say, I have always shown almost a mother's care.'
'Neither am I, nor is Mary, ungrateful for the kindness she has received at Greshamsbury.'
'But I must do my duty: my own children must be my first consideration.'
'Of course they must, Lady Arabella; that's of course.'
'And, therefore, I have called on you to say that I think it is imprudent that Beatrice and Mary should be so much together.'
The doctor had been standing during the latter part of this conversation, but now he began to walk about, still holding the two bones like a pair of dumb-bells.
'God bless my soul!' he said; 'God bless my soul! Why, Lady Arabella, do you suspect your own daughter as well as your own son? Do you think that Beatrice is assisting Mary in preparing this wicked clandestine marriage? I tell you fairly, Lady Arabella, the present tone of your mind is such that I cannot understand it.'
'I suspect nobody, Dr Thorne; but young people will be young.'
