stoutfellow

Doctor Thorne is the third book in the "Chronicles of Barset" series, by Anthony Trollope. (The Warden, reviewed here, is the first; the second, Barchester Towers, is quite funny, but I have nothing in particular to say about it.) Its plot is, at bottom, one of the old standbys: two young people fall in love and must overcome various obstacles before they can marry. There isn't a lot of suspense, either; the reader learns fairly early just how those obstacles will be overcome. Nonetheless, the story is quite interesting, as a picture of social conditions in England in the early Victorian period.

It all comes down to money. Frank Gresham, the squire of Greshamsbury, married into a family of the higher aristocracy, and in trying to live up to his new relations has impoverished himself (in a relative sense only, of course). His son, also named Frank, is now close to marriageable age, and is under heavy pressure to marry money. He has, however, fallen in love with Mary Thorne, the niece of the Dr. Thorne of the title, who has neither the bloodlines nor the wealth required.
Part of the Gresham estate has had to be sold off, and a deal more of it mortgaged; the creditor is one Roger Scatcherd. Scatcherd began as a stonemason, but turned out to have a genius for constructing and managing rail lines, thereby achieving great wealth and a baronetcy. He is a hard worker and a hard drinker, and the combination of the two is driving him to an early grave. His son Louis is only half of his father, inheriting only the latter of the two traits. Next in line for the Scatcherd fortune is the illegitimate daughter of Roger's sister; the sister emigrated to America after the birth, and is out of the picture. The daughter, unknown to anyone except Dr. Thorne, is none other than Mary Thorne. Eventually the Scatcherds, father and son, die; Mary, now revealed as the heiress, becomes a fit bride for the younger Frank Gresham, and all ends happily.

The greatest interest of the story is the interplay of blood, money, and honor. It is Lady Arabella Gresham's expensive tastes, together with the usual obligations of a country squire, that put her family into such straits - and we learn that one of her daughters, marrying a man of yet lesser means, reacts by becoming a pinchpenny. Roger Scatcherd, though of humble origins, has by virtue of his wealth gained power over the squire, to whom, in an earlier generation, he would have deferred. (His wife is humbled, not elevated, when he is granted his baronetcy; she never becomes comfortable with the title.) Mr. Gresham and Mr. Scatcherd do not deal with one another directly; it is Dr. Thorne, who has achieved a species of friendship with both, who acts as go-between. (Thorne, as a physician, has a measure of influence over both families, out of proportion to his social standing.) Mary Thorne manages to confound the Greshams thoroughly, with an integrity that strikes them as impudent combined with a clear-eyed recognition of the social constraints that make her relationship with the younger Gresham a futile one. Dr. Thorne, the one person in possession of the full truth, is constrained from revealing it by a web of responsibilities to his niece and to his patients.

Other characters dance through the narrative as well - Lady Arabella's aristocratic relatives, the nouvelle riche free spirit Miss Dunstable, Dr. Thorne's rival Dr. Fillgrave, and numerous others - and fill out the rich picture of a nation in social upheaval.

The story is not without its flaws, of course. There is altogether too much archness of the "Dear Reader" variety - but that is not exactly rare in literature of that era - and it is hard to believe that no one inquired into, or guessed at, Mary's origins. Nonetheless, the intricate web of relationships and obligations depicted makes the story a satisfying one.