Whatever happened to mar.., p.44
Whatever Happened to Mary Bold, page 44
By this time next week, thought Diana, as she sipped her coffee, I shall have shed the name of Oakrhynd and I will be happy to have done so. Mine will be the first of this ring of weddings, though no one knows it yet. She had smiled to herself as she sipped, not knowing whether she relished the thought of being Philip's wife more than that of quitting forever the Oakrhynd household. Now, on the verge of leaving it, she understood how oppressive she had come to find it.
The Deanery breakfast party dispersed as soon as they had left the table. Holly and Diana, in a hired chaise, were bound for the Rural Deanery after a meeting with Lang at the Dragon during which he reassured Holly that he intended the wedding to be early in October, had made enquiries already about having it celebrated in the Cathedral and confirmed the date. He had, further, enlisted Mrs. Grant to supervise the wedding breakfast which, he told them, would be in the Supper Room of the Assembly Rooms. He gave Holly a neat list of the persons in Barchester whom he wished to have invited and told her she should add those she wished to come. When Holly observed, timidly, that neither her father nor her mother would be happy about such an early wedding, saying that they wished she should wait till she was eighteen or even longer, he cuddled her into his side and said he was quite sure that Dr. Oakrhynd would come to see it his way and she should not be left throughout an English winter to mourn his absence in sunny Italy. He would see her again tonight, have a word with her parents and everything would be settled satisfactorily, they would see. Diana smiled to herself. Indeed they would see.
Lang had been invited to dine with the Oakrhynds that evening, and both Diana and Holly knew very well that Dr. and Mrs. Oakrhynd were both determined to impress upon him the imperative need to postpone the wedding until after Christmas or even till after Rose had married her eligible young man. Neither parent was ready to countenance an earlier ceremony. Heriot, however, had every intention of making sure that date was fixed for October 15th, as he intended to start for Italy the following week. Holly should start preparing for the wedding immediately, he told her, before they set off for Silverbridge, so that all would be in train before a wedding on that date and a departure for Italy immediately afterwards. The pretty gown she had worn for the concert would be perfectly adequate for such a small ceremony, and they might find some pretty things in Rome. It might not be Paris, he said, but it was well endowed with dressmakers. To Diana's intense (if well-hidden) amusment, Holly was given a written list of all she would need for the journey and warned that, while Italy had the name of a warm country, winters there could be both wet and windy and she should bring warm clothes, stout boots and a sturdy umbrella.
Holly listened wide-eyed, and perhaps a little inattentively, for Lang had just set upon her finger an magnificent emerald ring, unlike anything she had ever seen before, and this, as much as anything, made her engagement seem a reality and her October wedding a genuine prospect and not a daydream, sure to be dashed down by her Mama and a contemptuous Rose. Diana, on the sidelines, could find it in her almost to be sorry for the Oakrhynds, now to be exposed to one who knew his own mind and acted upon what he knew. Had she been a gambler like Lord Peter (currently attending the races in Ireland), she might have wagered a considerable sum on Langton Heriot's having matters precisely as he wished. And, may I assure my readers who doubtless wish for little Holly to see Italy, even in the winter in stout boots, she would have won her wager. Mrs. Oakrhynd was later to say indignantly to her husband, who protested that she had not said and done as they had agreed she should say and do, that she had been rolled out like piecrust and so had he.
Soon after Holly and Diana had departed, the Grantlys took an affectionate farewell of the Deanery party, squeezed into their travelling carriage together with Septimus's violoncello, Nell's violin and Florinda's mandolin, and went home to Plumstead. Florinda was uncharacteristically quiet, and Mrs. Grantly was sure she had seen a tear wiped away. She wondered whether the absence of that extremely large young man, Jason, was the cause. In which she was, as she so often was, quite right.
However, after an hour or so, Jason Carruthers hired a horse from the Dragon and set out in pursuit. He had missed the departure of the Plumstead party because he and Johnny had lingered at the Lady Glen (it had taken less than twenty-four hours for the Hospital's name to become comfortable upon the tongues of those who would use it) talking to Eb Greenacre about the previous history of the Bootmaker's House and arguing with Mary herself about the equipping of the laboratory. Back at the Deanery, and due to return to London with Johnny by the five fifteen up, he had been dismayed because he had missed saying farewell to Florinda. In fact, so dismayed was he to find the Rectory carriage had already departed, that he understood that he had wished not only to say goodbye and wish her well but also to make sure that she realized he wished very much to see her again. He hoped that she had not taken his absence amiss, had not thought that now the concerts were over he did not care whether he saw her again or not. In fact, he found himself, as he phrased it, deucedly uncomfortable.
He thought about it for some two minutes and then demanded of Johnny that he would make his excuses to the student gathering they had intended to grace that evening and said he meant to return by a later train, possibly on Monday. Johnny had agreed with a private smile but without asking any questions which was a very great relief to Jason for he did not know quite how he would have answered them, as Johnny knew very well when he did not ask them.
Jason had then hired the horse from the Dragon and ridden off at a canter along the road to Plumstead. He had decided that before he returned to London and his studies he would speak to Archdeacon Grantly and ask him for the hand of his daughter Florinda.
Unlike Langton Heriot, Jason could not be called a man who 'knew his mind' Such men are few? and we need only look at the House of Commons or any other comparable assembly to understand this. He had been rattled into understanding that he had intentions by the way he felt upon finding that Florinda had gone and he had not been there to wish her goodbye. Those intentions had been formed in a somewhat inchoate fashion during the gathering after the concert. He had watched Florinda, tall and sturdy rather than elegant, as she had made her curtsey to the Duke. That appealed to him as the little, slender, doll-like creatures by whom she was surrounded did not. Girls like Florinda were hard to find: she had no flummery about her, no tricks. He thought he would ask her father before he spoke to her, just to prove that he was in earnest. Sometimes, when people saw the way Johnny and he played the clown together, they wondered if they were ever serious about anything.
Money would be no difficulty, he thought, as he eased his horse into a trot, even if he were to marry before he was qualified. His people were well off and for the time being he could support a wife in moderate comfort on the allowance they made him, and he had only two years before he would be qualified as a doctor. Moreover, he understood the Grantlys were pretty well to pass; perhaps Florinda would bring a little money with her which would help provide them with a comfortable lodging until he qualified. After that he would find a practice, and he flattered himself he would be a competent doctor and would soon be able to make a comfortable living for them both and, who knew, for a family. Florinda, he thought, would make a splendid mother: nothing die-away or delicate about her.
As he cantered along the road to Plumstead, he wondered whether Florinda might like it if he started up a practice in Barchester? In that event she need not lose sight of all her friends and she might be near her family. The Grantlys and the Arabins struck him as being a close-knit family. It seemed to him that there was plenty of scope for a doctor in Barchester, and he had been impressed by Miss Mary's Hospital. The Lady Glen was going to be one of the best small hospitals in the south of England. He could do very much worse than nail up his brass plate in the city. There was work for three doctors at least, if Johnny was to be believed. Perhaps Johnny would come into partnership with him when he had qualified. Johnny had some money of his own and had said that he was very interested in the new surgical techniques. Jason himself preferred general medicine. Surgery rather turned his stomach. They would make a good team. He hoped that Johnny would marry someone that Florinda would like, for they would most likely be thrown together a good deal.
In all these musings, my readers will note that there had been no wondering whether Florinda herself might reject such a proposition. The truth was that, almost without words, Jason knew very well that Florinda would make no objections, and it was even possible that she had been hoping he would not leave without making his intentions plain. He knew that his not having been there when the carriage left must have distressed her, and that knowledge had spurred him to action. They did not need many words, Jason and Florinda, which was as well, for neither of them was very articulate.
The outcome need not be in any doubt: the Archdeacon liked the young man, had done from the start, and knew of his people if he did not know them personally. Mrs. Carruthers was of good family, a Bennet of Longbourn, and Mr. Carruthers, père, was rich enough for it not to matter that his father had been a blacksmith and his grandfather, a small farmer. Mrs. Grantly, it has to be admitted, was privately relieved that this daughter was not to marry into the aristocracy. Grizelda, although her mother never admitted as much to her husband or even very often to herself, was becoming entirely too wearisome with her airs and graces. It was the outside of enough, Mrs. Grantly had thought very often in the past few years, to have her daughter condescend to visit her humble home and to patronize her parents and her brothers and sisters. Moreover, such visits only very rarely included her (rather tedious) husband. And dearest Henry's parents-in-law were almost as bad, in their own way: Mr. Crawley so ready to see a slight and his wife so wrapped up in him that she took little heed of any other being. It would be a relief to have a connection with one family, at least, with whom one need not peel eggs. Also, while she had never mentioned the matter to the Archdeacon, or indeed to anyone else, she had not forgotten Grizelda's ill-hidden distaste before the birth of Septimus when she had been told that her mother was, once more, most unexpectedly, in a promising way.
Furthermore, she was too relieved to think that her Florinda, her clumsy, gawky, blundering child, would find a comfortable home and a charming husband to object either to farmer or to blacksmith. Doctors were perfectly respectable, though Grizelda would be sure to turn up her nose at such a connection. Then let her! thought Grizelda's mother with a certain robustness. Jason Carruthers was a decent man and no pauper either. Mrs. Grantly had envisioned Florinda becoming an old maid: not poor, her father would see to that, but with few resources to keep her contented. Now she would have a busy husband to care for, a home and, in time, a family, and be spared that fate. Mrs. Grantly was a realist and she welcomed Jason as heartily as her husband had done. Consequently, Jason returned to London on Monday after spending two nights at Plumstead as an engaged man, with a November wedding planned in every detail, and the first question to be asked of his friend Johnny was, would he stand by him as best man? to which Johnny assented very readily; and the second was, what did Johnny think about setting up their practice in Barchester when the time came? To this, Johnny heartily assented also and agreed with Jason that, even should they be preempted by some other practitioner before they were qualified, there would still be room for them, and that their local connections would assist in the establishment of their practice.
"They still recall my grandpa around there," he told Jason. "That will give us a start. And it will be such a boon to have the Lady Glen. I wonder will Aunt Mary think to set aside an operating room."
Florinda was left to moon about the house in a daze of happiness (and let us admit it privately, relief) until she was roused by her mother to discuss the practicalities of a trousseau and the contents of a future linen cupboard. And the wedding of Jason and Florinda made up a round dozen of weddings, which might be attributed directly or indirectly to the Hospital concerts. And no, we have not miscounted, as those who have read these pages with attention must recall the twelfth, due to be celebrated on the last day of September.
However, we need not be wholly concerned with weddings, interesting as they are to at least half the human race, and they must be left for a possible later chapter in which more justice can be done to them. In the meanwhile we must concern ourselves with two things: first, how much money will there be for the Hospital, andc second, who will win the by-election of Barset East.
The first is easy to answer: when the money paid for tickets, the collections made in the crowd outside in the street, with young Lord Peter's contribution, as generous as it was unexpected, the various amounts placed in the collecting boxes in the Supper Room and in the Assembly Rooms lobby and elsewhere in the City, and also the surprisingly large amount collected in a campaign run by the Barchester Echo (much to the chagrin of one of its larger shareholders) – when all this was added together, it came to a sum both gratifying and astonishing. The editor had run a competion for the best essay entitled WHY WE NEED A HOSPITAL IN BARCHESTER. A small entry fee of fourpence was charged which was to go to the Hospital fund, and entries came in from almost every school in the county. The prize for the winner was to be present at the official opening of the Hospital, to watch the Duke cut the ribbon across the door and to be presented with a framed acknowledgement of his (or her) literary skills from the ducal hands and two golden sovereigns.
The collections made in parishes throughout the diocese had exceeded all expectations, and they included the proceeds of innumerable sales-of-work and jumble sales and parish fetes. The various sums collected in all these ways had been paid into the committee's account with the Barsetshire and Barcheste Bank just as they came in, and no one had thought to calculate how much they represented.
The young accountant at the Barset and Barchester to whom the task of totalling the contributions had been entrusted came to the Deanery on Sunday morning with a bundle of papers in which it was disclosed that the Hospital account stood at £8,706: 19s and sevenpence. The Committee, now augmented by Miss Prentice, co-opted for her skill in coordinating the women's' efforts, and by Mr. Thorne, gasped over this result.
"I would have been more than pleased to see us make £5,000!" said Mary Bold. "This passes belief."
"I allow I am delighted," said the Archdeacon, "delighted, simply delighted. It is far more than I dared hope for. And more than £1,000 of that to have come from parishes in the diocese. I declare I am quite overcome!"
"For my part, I am delighted also," said Mr. Thorne, "but I cannot say I am astonished. This has been a truly communal effort, and when people work together, success usually follows. It is a lesson from which we might learn in Parliament."
The rest of the committee added their incredulous comments, passing the paper on which the total was written down from hand to hand like a talisman.
"I think, one might say," said the Dean, "that Miss Bold's notion of a concert has been most successful, and I, for one, would like to have the Committee pass a vote of thanks to her."
This was duly done and Mary, a trifle pink of cheek and damp of eye, accepted this tribute gracefully, and then said,
"It is not just the money, useful as it is going to be. It is the ...the... feeling in the city. On Friday night it felt as if the whole of Barchester was with us."
"Miss Mary is right!" the Bishop said. "And in my official capacity I am delighted to find all the aspects of the Church in this city working together in harmony, which has been another splendid outcome of our campaign. Long may it continue!"
"Hear! Hear!" said the Dean and the Archdeacon together. Bishop Proudie smiled at them and then touched the new ring on the hand of Miss Prentice, who was sitting on his right.
"For my part," he said, "Miss Prentice's having consented to be my wife is not the least of the good things to have come out of our campaign."
"Indeed it is not!" exclaimed the Archdeacon. "Allow me to assure you both that, while I fear eyebrows may be raised in some quarters, we know, Arabin and myself, how splendid such an alliance must be for the work of the Church and for the people of Barchester. Perhaps at one time, when we were not truly acquainted, I would have demurred, but now, having seen how all the Christians in this city have worked together for a single excellent purpose, how could anyone criticize what will be a most excellent union?"
"May I add," said Dean Arabin, "that I agree in every respect with my colleague and brother. May I wish you both a long and happy life together."
"And," said Mrs. Grantly, rising and taking Miss Prentice's hand, "I would like to second my husband's good wishes..."
And she kissed Miss Prentice on the cheek and shook Bishop Proudie by the hand. Eleanor, a little startled by such a move, for she alone of the family had viewed the match more critically, also rose from her place, kissed Miss Prentice and offered her formal congratulations to Bishop Proudie. Sibyl Standish, who had relinquished the notion of a match between her brother and Miss Mary only with reluctance, finally added her own congratulations and good wishes. Mary watched, a little amused, until they had again taken their seats.
