第217章

'Oh, certainly,' was Mary's answer when Beatrice, with a voice a little trembling, proposed her to walk up to the house. 'Certainly I will, if Lady Arabella will receive me;--only, one thing, Trichy.'

'What's that, dearest?'

'Frank will think that I come after him.'

'Never mind what he thinks. To tell you the truth, Mary, I often call on Patience for the sake of finding Caleb. That's all fair now, you know.'

Mary very quietly got put on her straw bonnet, and said she was ready to go up to the house. Beatrice was a little fluttered, and showed it. Mary was, perhaps, a good deal fluttered, but she did not show it. She had thought a good deal about her first interview with Lady Arabella, of her first return to the house; but she had resolved to carry herself as though the matter were easy to her. She would not allow it to be seen that she felt that she brought with her to Greshamsbury, comfort, ease, and renewed opulence.

So she put on her straw bonnet and walked up with Beatrice. Everybody about the place had already heard the news. The old woman at the lodge curtsied low to her; the gardener, who was mowing the lawn. The butler, who opened the front door--he must have been watching Mary's approach--had manifestly put on a clean white neckcloth for the occasion.

'God bless you once more, Miss Thorne!' said the old man, in a half-whisper. Mary was somewhat troubled, for everything seemed, in a manner, to bow down before her. And why should not everything bow down before her, seeing that she was in truth the owner of Greshamsbury?

And then a servant in livery would open the big drawing-room door. This rather upset both Mary and Beatrice. It became almost impossible for Mary to enter the room just as she would have done two years ago; but she got through the difficulty with much self-control.

'Mamma, here's Mary,' said Beatrice.

Nor was Lady Arabella quite mistress of herself, although she had studied minutely how to bear herself.

'Oh, Mary, dear Mary; what can I say to you?' and then, with a handkerchief to her eyes, she ran forward and hid her face in Miss Thorne's shoulders. 'What can I say--can you forgive my anxiety for my son?'

'How do you do, Lady Arabella?' said Mary.

'My daughter! my child! my Frank's own bride! Oh, Mary! oh, my child!

If I have seemed unkind to you, it has been through love to him.'

'All these things are over now,' said Mary. 'Mr Gresham told me yesterday that I should be received as Frank's future wife; and so, you see, I have come.' And then she slipped through Lady Arabella's arms, and sat down, meekly down, on a chair. In five minutes she had escaped with Beatrice into the school-room, and was kissing the children, and turning over the new trousseau. They were, however, soon interrupted, and there was, perhaps, some other kissing besides that of the children.

'You have no business here at all, Frank,' said Beatrice. 'Has he, Mary?'

'None in the world, I should think.'

'See what he has done to my poplin; I hope you won't have your things treated so cruelly. He'll be careful enough about them.'

'Is Oriel a good hand at packing up finery--eh, Beatrice,' said Frank.

'He is, at any rate, too well-behaved to spoil it.' Thus Mary was again made at home on the household of Greshamsbury.

Lady Arabella did not carry out her little plan of delaying the Oriel wedding. Her idea had been to add some grandeur to it, in order to make it a more fitting precursor of that other greater wedding which was to follow soon in its wake. But this, with the assistance of the countess, she found herself able to do without interfering with poor Mr Oriel's Sunday arrangements. The countess herself, with the Ladies Alexandrina and Margaretta, now promised to come, even to the first affair; and for the other, the whole De Courcy family would turn out, count and countess, lords and ladies, Honourable Georges and Honourable Johns.

What honour, indeed, could be too great to show to a bride who had fourteen thousand a year in her own right, or to a cousin, who had done his duty by securing such a bride to himself!

'If the duke be in the country, I am sure he will be happy to come,' said the countess. 'Of course, he will be talking to Frank about politics. I suppose the squire won't expect Frank to belong to the old school now.'

'Frank, of course, will judge for himself, Rosina;--with his position, you know!' And so things were settled at Courcy Castle.

And then Beatrice was wedded and carried off to the Lakes. Mary, as she had promised, did stand near her; but not exactly in the gingham frock of which she had once spoken. She wore on that occasion--But it will be too much, perhaps, to tell the reader what she wore as Beatrice's bridesmaid, seeing that a couple of pages, at least, must be devoted to her marriage-dress, and seeing, also, that we have only a few pages to finish everything; the list of visitors, the marriage settlements, the dress, and all included.

It was in vain that Mary endeavoured to repress Lady Arabella's ardour for grand doings. After all, she was to be married from the doctor's house, and not from Greshamsbury, and it was the doctor who should have invited the guests; but, in this matter, he did not choose to oppose her ladyship's spirit, and she had it all her own way.

'What can I do?' said he to Mary. 'I have been contradicting her in everything for the last two years. The least we can do is to let her have her own way now in a trifle like this.'

But there was one point on which Mary would let nobody have his or her own way; on which the way to be taken was very manifestly to be her own.

This was touching the marriage settlements. It must not be supposed, that if Beatrice were married on a Tuesday, Mary could be married on the Tuesday week following. Ladies with twelve thousand a year cannot be disposed of in that way: and bridegrooms who do their duty by marrying money often have to be kept waiting. It was spring, the early spring, before Frank was made altogether a happy man.