'If you both liked each other there would be no harm in that--if that were all.'
'Wouldn't there?' said Mary, in a low tone of bantering satire; 'that is so kind, Trichy, coming from you--from one of the family, you know.'
'You are well aware, Mary, that if I could have my wishes--'
'Yes: I am well aware what a paragon of goodness you are. If you could have your way I should be admitted into heaven again; shouldn't I? Only with this proviso, that if a stray angel should ever whisper to me with bated breath, mistaking me, perchance, for one of his own class, I should be bound to close my ears to his whispering, and remind him humbly that I was only a poor mortal. You would trust me so far, wouldn't you, Trichy?'
'I would trust you in any way, Mary. But I think you are unkind in saying such things to me.'
'Into whatever heaven I am admitted, I will go only on this understanding: that I am to be as good an angel as any of those around me.'
'But, Mary dear, why do you say this to me?'
'Because--because--because--ah me! Why, indeed, but because I have no one else to say it to. Certainly not because you have deserved it.'
'It seems as if you were finding fault with me.'
'And so I am; how can I do other than find fault? How can I help being sore? Trichy, you hardly realize my position; you hardly see how I am treated; how I am forced to allow myself to be treated without a sign of complaint. You don't see it all. If you did, you would not wonder that I should be sore.'
Beatrice did not quite see it all; but she saw enough of it to know that Mary was to be pitied; so, instead of scolding her friend for being cross, she threw her arms round her and kissed her affectionately.
But the doctor all this time suffered much more than his niece did. He could not complain out loudly; he could not aver that his pet lamb had been ill treated; he could not even have the pleasure of openly quarrelling with Lady Arabella; but not the less did he feel it to be most cruel that Mary should have to live before the world as an outcast, because it had pleased Frank Gresham to fall in love with her.
But his bitterness was not chiefly against Frank. That Frank had been very foolish he could not but acknowledge; but it was a kind of folly for which the doctor was able to find excuse. For Lady Arabella's cold propriety he could find no excuse.
With the squire he had spoken no word on the subject up to this period of which we are now writing. With her ladyship he had never spoken on it since that day when she had told him that Mary was to come no more to Greshamsbury. He never now dined or spent his evenings at Greshamsbury, and seldom was to be seen at the house, except when called in professionally. The squire, indeed, he frequently met; but he either did so in the village, or out on horseback, or at his own house.
When the doctor first heard that Sir Roger had lost his seat, and had returned to Boxall Hill, he resolved to go over and see him. But the visit was postponed from day to day, as visits are postponed which may be made any day, and he did not in fact go till summoned there somewhat peremptorily. A message was brought to him one evening to say that Sir Roger had been struck by paralysis, and that not a moment was to be lost.
'It always happens at night,' said Mary, who had more sympathy for the living uncle whom she did know, than for the other dying uncle whom she did not know.
'What matters?--there--just give me my scarf. In all probability I may not be home to-night--perhaps not till late to-morrow. God bless you, Mary!' and away the doctor went on his cold bleak ride to Boxall Hill.
'Who is to be his heir?' As the doctor rode along, he could not quite rid his mind of the question. The poor man now about to die had wealth enough to make many heirs. What if his heart should have softened towards his sister's child! What if Mary should be found to be possessed of such wealth that the Greshams should be again be happy to welcome her at Greshamsbury!
The doctor was not a lover of money--and he did his best to get rid of such pernicious thoughts. But his longings, perhaps, were not so much that Mary should be rich, as that she should have the power of heaping coals of fire upon the heads of those people who had so injured her.
