Frank sat silent, looking very blank; he also had, as had every Gresham, a great love for his pure blood. He had said to his mother that he hated money, that he hated the estate; but he would have been very slow to say, even in his warmest opposition to her, that he hated the roll of the family pedigree. He loved it dearly, though he seldom spoke of it;--as men of good family seldom do speak of it. It is one of those possessions which to have is sufficient. A man having it need not boast of what he has, or show it off before the world. But on that account he values it more. He had regarded Mary as a cutting duly taken from the Ullathorne tree; not, indeed, as a grafting branch, full of flower, just separated from the parent stalk, but as being not a whit the less truly endowed with the pure sap of that venerable trunk.
When, therefore, he heard her true history he sat awhile dismayed.
'It is a sad story,' said the father.
'Yes, sad enough,' said Frank, rising from his chair and standing with it before him, leaning on the back of it. 'Poor Mary, poor mary! She will have to learn it some day.'
'I fear so, Frank;' and then there was again a few moments' silence.
'To me, father, it is told too late. It can now have no effect on me.
Indeed,' said he, sighing as he spoke, but still relieving himself by the very sigh, 'it could have had no effect had I learned it ever so soon.'
'I should have told you before,' said the father; 'certainly I ought to have done so.'
'It would have been no good,' said Frank. 'Ah, sir, tell me this: who were Miss Dunstable's parents? What was that fellow Moffat's family?'
This was perhaps cruel of Frank. The squire, however, made no answer to the question. 'I have thought it right to tell you,' said he. 'I leave all the commentary to yourself. I need not tell you what your mother will think.'
'What did she think of miss Dunstable's birth?' said he, again more bitterly than before. 'No, sir,' he continued, after a further pause.
'All that can make no change; none at any rate now. It can't make my love less, even if it could have prevented it. Nor, even, could it do so--which it can't in the least, not in the least--but could it do so, it could not break my engagement. I am now engaged to Mary Thorne.'
And then he again repeated his question, asking for his father's advice under the present circumstances. The conversation was a very long one, as long as to disarrange all Lady Arabella's plans. She had determined to take her son more stringently to task that very evening; and with this object had ensconced herself in the small drawing-room which had formerly been used for a similar purpose by the august countess herself. Here she now sat, having desired Augusta and Beatrice, as well as the twins, to beg Frank to go to her as soon as he should come out of the dining-room. Poor lady! there she waited till ten o'clock,--tealess. There was not much of the Bluebeard about the squire; but he had succeeded in making it understood through the household that he was not to be interrupted by messages from his wife during the post-prandial hour, which, though no toper, he loved so well.
As a period of twelve months will now have to be passed over, the upshot of this long conversation must be told in as few words as possible. The father found it impracticable to talk his son out of his intended marriage; indeed, he hardly attempted to do so by any direct persuasion. He explained to him that it was impossible that he should marry at once, and suggested that he, Frank, was very young.
'You married, sir, before you were one-and-twenty,' said Frank. Yes and repented before I was two-and-twenty. So did not say the squire.
He suggested that Mary should have time to ascertain what would be her uncle's wishes, and ended by inducing Frank to promise, that after taking his degree in October he would go abroad for some months, and that he would not indeed return to Greshamsbury until he was three-and-twenty.
'He may perhaps forget her,' said the father to himself.
'He thinks that I shall forget her,' said Frank to himself at the same time; 'but he does not know me.'
When Lady Arabella at last got hold of her son she found that the time for her preaching had utterly gone by. He told he, almost with sang-froid, what his plans were; and when she came to understand them, and to understand also what had taken place at Boxall Hill, she could not blame the squire for what he had done. She also said to herself, more confidently than the squire had done, that Frank would quite forget Mary before the year was out. 'Lord Buckish,' said she to herself, rejoicingly, 'is now with the ambassador at Paris'--Lord Buckish was her nephew--'and with him Frank will meet women that are really beautiful--women of fashion. When with Lord Buckish he will soon forget Mary Thorne.'
But not on this account did she change her resolve to follow up to the furthest point her hostility to the Thornes. She was fully enabled now to do so, for Dr Fillgrave was already reinstated at Greshamsbury as her medical adviser.
One other short visit did Frank pay to Boxall Hill, and one interview had he with Dr Thorne. Mary told him all she knew of her own sad history, and was answered only by a kiss,--a kiss absolutely not in any way by her to be avoided; the first, and only one, that had ever yet reached her lips from his. And then he went away.
The doctor told him the full story. 'Yes,' said Frank, 'I knew it all before. Dear Mary, dearest Mary! Don't you, doctor, teach yourself to believe that I shall forget her.' And then also he went his way from him--went his way also from Greshamsbury, and was absent for the full period of the allotted banishment--twelve months, namely, and a day.
