第136章

Frank went out from his mother and immediately ordered his black horse to be got ready for him. He would at once go over to Boxall Hill. He went himself to the stables to give his orders; and as he returned to get his gloves and whip he met Beatrice in the corridor.

'Beatrice,' said he, 'step in here,' and she followed him into his room. 'I'm not going to bear this any longer; I'm going to Boxall Hill.'

'Oh, Frank! how can you be so imprudent?'

'You, at any rate, have some decent feeling for Mary. I believe you have some regard for her; and therefore I tell you. Will you send her any message?'

'Oh, yes; my best, best love; that is if you will see her; but, Frank, you are very foolish, very; and she will be infinitely distressed.'

'Do not mention this, not at present; not that I mean you to make any secret of it. I shall tell my father everything. I'm off now!' and then, paying no attention to her remonstrance, he turned down the stairs and was soon on horseback.

He took the road to Boxall Hill, but he did not ride very fast: he did not go jauntily as a jolly, thriving wooer; but musingly, and often with diffidence, meditating every now and then whether it would not be better for him to turn back: to turn back--but not from fear of his mother; not from prudential motives; not because that often-repeated lesson as to marrying money was beginning to take effect; not from such causes as these; but because he doubted how he might be received by Mary.

He did, it is true, think something about his worldly prospects. He had talked rather grandiloquently to his mother as to his hating money, and hating the estate. His mother's never-ceasing worldly cares on such subjects perhaps demanded that a little grandiloquence should be opposed to them. But Frank did not hate the estate; nor did he at all hate the position of an English country gentleman. Miss Dunstable's eloquence, however, rang in his ears. For Miss Dunstable had an eloquence of her own, even in her letters. 'Never let them talk you out of your own true, honest, hearty feelings,' she had said.

'Greshamsbury is a very nice place, I am sure; and I hope I shall see it some day; but all its green knolls are not half so nice, should not be half so precious, as the pulses of your own heart. That is your own estate, your own, your very own--your own and another's; whatever may go to the money-lenders, don't send that there. Don't mortgage that, Mr Gresham.'

'No,' said Frank, pluckily, as he put his horse into a faster trot, 'I won't mortgage that. They may do what they like with the estate; but my heart's my own,' and so speaking to himself, almost aloud, he turned a corner of the road rapidly and came at once upon the doctor.

'Hallo, doctor! is that you?' said Frank, rather disgusted.

'What! Frank! I hardly expected to meet you here,' said Dr Thorne, not much better pleased.

They were now not above a mile from Boxall Hill, and the doctor, therefore, could not but surmise whither Frank was going. They had repeatedly met since Frank's return from Cambridge, both in the village and in the doctor's house; but not a word had been said between them about Mary beyond what the merest courtesy had required. Not that each did not love the other sufficiently to make a full confidence between them desirable to both; but neither had had the courage to speak out.

Nor had either of them the courage to do so now. 'Yes,' said Frank, blushing, 'I am going to Lady Scatcherd's. Shall I find the ladies at home?'

'Yes; Lady Scatcherd is there; but Sir Louis is there also--an invalid: perhaps you would not wish to meet him.'

'Oh! I don't mind,' said Frank, trying to laugh; 'he won't bite, I suppose?'

The doctor longed in his heart to pray to Frank to return with him; not to go and make further mischief; not to do that which might cause a more bitter estrangement between himself and the squire. But he had not the courage to do it. He could not bring himself to accuse Frank of being in love with his niece. So after a few more senseless words on either side, words which each knew to be senseless as he uttered them, they both rode on their own ways.

And then the doctor silently, and almost unconsciously, made such a comparison between Louis Scatcherd and Frank Gresham as Hamlet made between the dead and live king. It was Hyperion to a satyr. Was it not as impossible that Mary should not love the one, as that she should love the other? Frank's offer of his affections had at first probably been but a boyish ebullition of feeling; but if it should now be, that this had grown into a manly and disinterested love, how could Mary remain unmoved? What could her heart want more, better, more beautiful, more rich than such a love as this? Was he not personally all that a girl could like? Were not his disposition, mind, character, acquirements, all such as women most delight to love? Was it not impossible that Mary should be indifferent to him?