Dr Thorne

CHAPTER X

SIR ROGER’S WILL

Dr Thorne left the room and went down­stairs, be­ing ful­ly aware that he could not leave the house with­out hav­ing some com­mu­ni­ca­tion with La­dy Scatcherd. He was not soon­er with­in the pas­sage than he heard the sick man’s bell ring vi­olent­ly; and then the ser­vant, pass­ing him on the stair­case, re­ceived or­ders to send a mount­ed mes­sen­ger im­me­di­ate­ly to Barch­ester. Dr Fill­grave was to be sum­moned to come as quick­ly as pos­si­ble to the sick man’s room, and Mr Win­ter­bones was to be sent up to write the note.

Sir Roger was quite right in sup­pos­ing that there would be some words be­tween the doc­tor and her la­dy­ship. How, in­deed, was the doc­tor to get out of the house with­out such, let him wish it ev­er so much? There were words; and these were pro­tract­ed, while the doc­tor’s cob was be­ing or­dered round, till very many were ut­tered which the con­trac­tor would prob­ably have re­gard­ed as non­sense.

La­dy Scatcherd was no fit as­so­ciate for the wives of En­glish baronets;–was no doubt by ed­uca­tion and man­ners much bet­ter fit­ted to sit in their ser­vants’ halls; but not on that ac­count was she a bad wife or a bad wom­an. She was painful­ly, fear­ful­ly, anx­ious for that hus­band of hers, whom she hon­oured and wor­shipped, as it be­hoved her to do, above all oth­er men. She was fear­ful­ly anx­ious as to his life, and faith­ful­ly be­lieved, that if any man could pro­long it, it was that old and faith­ful friend whom she had known to be true to her lord since their ear­ly mar­ried trou­bles.

When, there­fore, she found that she had been dis­missed, and that a stranger was to be sent for in his place, her heart sank be­low with­in her.

‘But, doc­tor,’ she said, with her apron up to her eyes, ‘you ain’t go­ing to leave him, are you?’

Dr Thorne did not find it easy to ex­plain to her la­dy­ship that med­ical eti­quette would not per­mit him to re­main in at­ten­dance on her hus­band af­ter he had been dis­missed and an­oth­er physi­cian called in his place.

‘Eti­quette!’ said she, cry­ing. ‘What’s eti­quette to do with it when a man is a-​killing his­self with brandy?’

‘Fill­grave will for­bid that quite as strong­ly as I can do.’

‘Fill­grave!’ said she. ‘Fid­dle­sticks! Fill­grave, in­deed!’

Dr Thorne could al­most have em­braced her for the strong feel­ing of thor­ough con­fi­dence on the one side, and thor­ough dis­trust on the oth­er, which she con­trived to throw in­to those few words.

‘I’ll tell you what, doc­tor; I won’t let that mes­sen­ger go. I’ll bear the brunt of it. He can’t do much now he ain’t up, you know. I’ll stop the boy; we won’t have no Fill­grave here.’

This, how­ev­er, was a step to which Dr Thorne would not as­sent. He en­deav­oured to ex­plain to the anx­ious wife, that af­ter what had passed he could not ten­der his med­ical ser­vices till they were again asked for.

‘But you can slip in as a friend, you know; and then by de­grees you can come round him, eh? can’t you now, doc­tor? And as to pay­ment–’

All that Dr Thorne said on the sub­ject may eas­ily be imag­ined. And in this way, and in par­tak­ing of the lunch which was forced up­on him, an hour had near­ly passed be­tween his leav­ing Sir Roger’s bed­room and putting his foot in the stir­rup. But no soon­er had the cob be­gun to move on the grav­el-​sweep be­fore the house than one of the up­per win­dows opened, and the doc­tor was sum­moned to an­oth­er con­fer­ence with the sick man.

‘He says you are to come back, whether or no,’ said Mr Win­ter­bones, screech­ing out of the win­dow, and putting all his em­pha­sis on the last words.

‘Thorne! Thorne! Thorne!’ shout­ed the sick man from his sick-​bed, so loud­ly that the doc­tor heard him, seat­ed as he was on horse­back out be­fore the house.

‘You’re to come back, whether or no,’ re­peat­ed Win­ter­bones, with more em­pha­sis, ev­ident­ly con­ceiv­ing that there was a strength of in­junc­tion in that ‘whether or no’ which would be found quite in­vin­ci­ble.

Whether ac­tu­at­ed by these mag­ic words, or by some in­ter­nal pro­cess of thought, we will not say; but the doc­tor did slow­ly, and as though un­will­ing­ly, dis­mount again from his steed, and slow­ly re­trace his steps in­to the house.

‘It is no use,’ he said to him­self, ‘for that mes­sen­ger has al­ready gone to Barch­ester.’

‘I have sent for Dr Fill­grave,’ were the first words which the con­trac­tor said to him when he again found him­self by the bed­side.

‘Did you call me back to tell me that?’ said Thorne, who now felt re­al­ly an­gry at the im­per­ti­nent petu­lance of the man be­fore him: ‘you should con­sid­er, Scatcherd, that my time may be of val­ue to oth­ers, if not to you.’

‘Now don’t be an­gry, old fel­low,’ said Scatcherd, turn­ing to him, and look­ing at him with a coun­te­nance quite dif­fer­ent from any that he had shown that day; a coun­te­nance in which there was a show of man­hood,–some show al­so of af­fec­tion. ‘You ain’t an­gry now be­cause I’ve sent for Fill­grave?’

‘Not in the least,’ said the doc­tor very com­pla­cent­ly. ‘Not in the least. Fill­grave will do as much good as I can do.’

‘And that’s none at all, I sup­pose; eh, Thorne?’

‘That de­pends on your­self. He will do you good if you will tell him the truth, and will then be guid­ed by him. Your wife, your ser­vant, any one can be as good a doc­tor to you as ei­ther he or I; as good, that is, in the main point. But you have sent for Fill­grave now; and of course you must see him. I have much to do, and you must let me go.’

Scatcherd, how­ev­er, would not let him go, but held his hand fast. ‘Thorne,’ said he, ‘if you like it, I’ll make them put Fill­grave un­der the pump di­rect­ly he comes here. I will in­deed, and pay all the dam­age my­self.’

This was an­oth­er propo­si­tion to which the doc­tor could not con­sent; but he was ut­ter­ly un­able to re­frain from laugh­ing. There was an earnest look of en­treaty about Sir Roger’s face as he made the sug­ges­tion; and, joined to this, there was a gleam of com­ic sat­is­fac­tion in his eye which seemed to promise, that if he re­ceived the least en­cour­age­ment he would put his threat in­to ex­ecu­tion. Now our doc­tor was not in­clined to tak­ing any steps to­wards sub­ject­ing his learned broth­er to pump dis­ci­pline; but he could not but ad­mit to him­self that the idea was not a bad one.

‘I’ll have it done, I will, by heav­ens! if you’ll on­ly say the word,’ protest­ed Sir Roger.

But the doc­tor did not say the word, and so the idea was passed off.

‘You shouldn’t be so testy with a man when he is ill,’ said Scatcherd, still hold­ing the doc­tor’s hand, of which he had again got pos­ses­sion; ’spe­cial­ly not an old friend; and spe­cial­ly again when you’re been a-​blow­ing him up.’

It was not worth the doc­tor’s while to aver that the testi­ness had all been on the oth­er side, and that he had nev­er lost his good-​hu­mour; so he mere­ly smiled, and asked Sir Roger if he could do any­thing fur­ther for him.

‘In­deed you can, doc­tor; and that’s why I sent for you,–why I sent for you yes­ter­day. Get out of the room, Win­ter­bones,’ he then said gruffly, as though he were dis­miss­ing from his cham­ber a dirty dog. Win­ter­bones, not a whit of­fend­ed, again hid his cup un­der his coat-​tail and van­ished.

‘Sit down, Thorne, sit down,’ said the con­trac­tor, speak­ing in quite a dif­fer­ent man­ner from any that he had yet as­sumed. ‘I know you’re in a hur­ry, but you must give me half an hour. I may be dead be­fore you can give me an­oth­er; who knows?’

The doc­tor of course de­clared that he hoped to have many a half-​hour’s chat with him for many a year to come.

‘Well, that’s as may be. You must stop now, at any rate. You can make the cob pay for it, you know.’

The doc­tor took a chair and sat down. Thus en­treat­ed to stop, he had hard­ly any al­ter­na­tive but to do so.

‘It wasn’t be­cause I’m ill that I sent for you, or rather let her la­dy­ship send for you. Lord bless you, Thorne; do you think I don’t know what it is that makes me like this? When I see that poor wretch Win­ter­bones, killing him­self with gin, do you think I don’t know what’s com­ing to my­self as well as him?

‘Why do you take it then? Why do you do it? Your life is not like his. Oh, Scatcherd! Scatcherd!’ and the doc­tor pre­pared to pour out the flood of his elo­quence in be­seech­ing this sin­gu­lar man to ab­stain from his well-​known poi­son.

‘Is that all you know of hu­man na­ture, doc­tor? Ab­stain. Can you ab­stain from breath­ing, and live like a fish does un­der wa­ter?’

‘But Na­ture has not or­dered you to drink, Scatcherd.’

‘Habit is sec­ond na­ture, man; and a stronger na­ture than the first. And why should I not drink? What else has the world giv­en me for all that I have done for it? What oth­er re­source have I? What oth­er grat­ifi­ca­tion?’

‘Oh, my God! Have you not un­bound­ed wealth? Can you not do any­thing you wish? be any­thing you choose?’

‘No,’ and the sick man shrieked with an en­er­gy that made him au­di­ble all through the house. ‘I can do noth­ing that I would choose to do; be noth­ing that I would wish to be! What can I do? What can I be? What grat­ifi­ca­tion can I have ex­cept the brandy bot­tle? If I go among gen­tle­men, can I talk to them? If they have any­thing to say about a rail­way, they will ask me a ques­tion: if they speak to me be­yond that, I must be dumb. If I go among my work­men, can they talk to me? No; I am their mas­ter, and a stern mas­ter. They bob their heads and shake in their shoes when they see me. Where are my friends? Here!’ said he, and he dragged a bot­tle from un­der his very pil­low. ‘Where are my amuse­ments? Here!’ and he bran­dished the bot­tle al­most in the doc­tor’s face. ‘Where is my one re­source, my one grat­ifi­ca­tion, my on­ly com­fort af­ter all my toils. Here, doc­tor; here, here, here!’ and, so say­ing, he re­placed his trea­sure be­neath his pil­low.

There was some­thing so hor­ri­fy­ing in this, that Dr Thorne shrank back amazed, and was for a mo­ment un­able to speak.

‘But, Scatcherd,’ he said at last; ’sure­ly you would not die for such a pas­sion as that?’ ‘Die for it? Aye, would I. Live for it while I can live; and die for it when I can live no longer. Die for it! What is that for a man to do? What is a man the worse for dy­ing? What can I be the worse for dy­ing? A man can die but once, you said just now. I’d die ten times for this.’

‘You are speak­ing now ei­ther in mad­ness, or else in fol­ly, to star­tle me.’

‘Fol­ly enough, per­haps, and mad­ness enough, al­so. Such a life as mine makes a man a fool, and makes him mad too. What have about me that I should be afraid to die? I’m worth three hun­dred thou­sand pounds; and I’d give it all to be able to go to work to-​mor­row with a hod and mor­tar, and have a fel­low clap his hand up­on my shoul­der, and say: “Well, Roger, shall us have that ‘ere oth­er half-​pint this morn­ing?” I’ll tell you what, Thorne, when a man has made three hun­dred thou­sand pounds, there’s noth­ing left for him but to die. It’s all he’s good for then. When mon­ey’s been made, the next thing is to spend it. Now the man who makes it has not the heart to do that.’

The doc­tor, of course, in hear­ing all this, said some­thing of a ten­den­cy to com­fort and con­sole the mind of his pa­tient. Not that any­thing he could say would com­fort or con­sole the man; but that it was im­pos­si­ble to sit there and hear such fear­ful truths–for as re­gard­ed Scatcherd they were truths–with­out mak­ing some an­swer.’

‘This is as good as a play, isn’t, doc­tor?’ said the baronet. ‘You didn’t know how I could come out like one of those ac­tor fel­lows. Well, now, come; at last I’ll tell you why I have sent for you. Be­fore that last burst of mine I made my will.’

‘You had made a will be­fore that.’

‘Yes, I had. That will is de­stroyed. I burnt it with my own hand, so that there should be no mis­take about it. In that will I had named two ex­ecu­tors, you and Jack­son. I was then part­ner with Jack­son in the York and Yeovil Grand Cen­tral. I thought a deal of Jack­son then. He’s not worth a shilling now.’

‘Well, I’m ex­act­ly in the same cat­ego­ry.’

‘No, you’re not. Jack­son is noth­ing with­out mon­ey; but mon­ey’ll nev­er make you.’

‘No, nor I shan’t make mon­ey,’ said the doc­tor.

‘No, you nev­er will. Nev­er­the­less, there’s my oth­er will, there, un­der that desk there; and I’ve put you in as sole ex­ecu­tor.’

‘You must al­ter that, Scatcherd; you must in­deed; with three hun­dred thou­sand pounds to be dis­posed of, the trust is far too much for any one man: be­sides you must name a younger man; you and I are of the same age, and I may die first.’

‘Now, doc­tor, no hum­bug; let’s have no hum­bug from you. Re­mem­ber this; if you’re not true, you’re noth­ing.’

‘Well, but, Scatcherd–’

‘Well, but doc­tor, there’s the will, it’s al­ready made. I don’t want to con­sult you about that. You are named as ex­ecu­tor, and if you have the heart to refuse to act when I’m dead, why, of course, you can do so.’

The doc­tor was not lawyer, and hard­ly knew whether he had any means of ex­tri­cat­ing him­self from this po­si­tion in which his friend was de­ter­mined to place him.

‘You’ll have to see that will car­ried out, Thorne. Now I’ll tell you what I have done.’

‘You’re not go­ing to tell me how you have dis­posed of your prop­er­ty?’

‘Not ex­act­ly; at least not all of it. One hun­dred thou­sand I’ve in lega­cies, in­clud­ing, you know, what La­dy Scatcherd will have.’

‘Have you not left the house to La­dy Scatcherd?’

‘No; what the dev­il would she do with a house like this? She doesn’t know how to live in it now she has got it. I have pro­vid­ed for her; it mat­ters not how. The house and the es­tate, and the re­main­der of my mon­ey I have left to Louis Philippe.’

‘What! two hun­dred thou­sand pounds?’ said the doc­tor.

‘And why shouldn’t I leave two hun­dred thou­sand pounds to my son, even to my el­dest son if I have more than one? Does not Mr Gre­sham leave all his prop­er­ty to his heir? Why should not I make an el­dest son as well as Lord de Cour­cy or the Duke of Om­ni­um? I sup­pose a rail­way con­trac­tor ought not to be al­lowed an el­dest son by Act of Par­lia­ment! Won’t my son have a ti­tle to keep up? And that’s more than the Gre­shams have among them.’

The doc­tor ex­plained away what he said as well as he could. He could not ex­plain that what he had re­al­ly meant was this, that Sir Roger Scatcherd’s son was not a man fit to be trust­ed with the en­tire con­trol of an enor­mous for­tune.

Sir Roger Scatcherd had but one child; that child which had been born in the days of his ear­ly trou­bles, and had been dis­missed from his moth­er’s breast in or­der that the moth­er’s milk might nour­ish the young heir of Gre­shams­bury. The boy had grown up, but had be­come strong nei­ther in mind nor body. His fa­ther had de­ter­mined to make a gen­tle­man of him, and had sent to Eton and Cam­bridge. But even this re­ceipt, gen­er­al­ly as it is rec­og­nized, will not make a gen­tle­man. It is hard, in­deed, to de­fine what re­ceipt will do so, though peo­ple do have in their own minds some cer­tain un­de­fined, but yet tol­er­ably cor­rect ideas on the sub­ject. Be that as it may, two years at Eton, and three terms at Cam­bridge, did not make a gen­tle­man of Louis Philippe Scatcherd.

Yes; he was chris­tened Louis Philippe, af­ter the King of the French. If one wish­es to look out in the world for roy­al nomen­cla­ture, to find chil­dren who have been chris­tened af­ter kings and queens, or the un­cles and aunts of kings and queens, the search should be made in the fam­ilies of democrats. None have so servile a def­er­ence for the very nail-​par­ings of roy­al­ty; none feel so won­der­ing an awe at the ex­al­ta­tion of a crowned head; none are so anx­ious to se­cure them­selves some shred or frag­ment that has been con­se­crat­ed by the roy­al touch. It is the dis­tance which they feel to ex­ist be­tween them­selves, and the throne which makes them cov­et the crumbs of majesty, the odds and ends and chance splin­ters of roy­al­ty.

There was noth­ing roy­al about Louis Philippe Scatcherd but his name. He had now come to man’s es­tate, and his fa­ther, find­ing the Cam­bridge re­ceipt to be in­ef­fi­ca­cious, had sent him abroad to trav­el with a tu­tor. The doc­tor had from time to time heard tid­ings of this youth; he knew that he had al­ready shown symp­toms of his fa­ther’s vices, but no symp­toms of his fa­ther’s tal­ents; he knew that he had be­gun life by be­ing dis­si­pat­ed, with­out be­ing gen­er­ous; and that at the age of twen­ty-​one he had al­ready suf­fered from delir­ium tremens.

It was on this ac­count that he had ex­pressed dis­ap­pro­ba­tion, rather than sur­prise, when he heard that his fa­ther in­tend­ed to be­queath the bulk of his large for­tune to the un­con­trolled will of this un­for­tu­nate boy.

‘I have toiled for my mon­ey hard, and I have a right to do as I like with it. What oth­er sat­is­fac­tion can it give me?’

The doc­tor as­sured him that he did not at all mean to dis­pute this.

‘Louis Philippe will do well enough, you’ll find,’ con­tin­ued the baronet, un­der­stand­ing what was pass­ing with­in his com­pan­ion’s breast. ‘Let a young fel­low sow his wild oats while he is young, and he’ll be steady enough when he grows old.’

‘But what if he nev­er lives to get through the sow­ing?’ thought the doc­tor to him­self. ‘What if the wild-​oats op­er­ation is car­ried on in so vi­olent a man­ner as to leave no strength in the soil for the prod­uct of a more valu­able crop?’ It was of no use say­ing this, how­ev­er, so he al­lowed Scatcherd to con­tin­ue.

‘If I’d had a free fling when I was a young­ster, I shouldn’t have been so fond of the brandy bot­tle now. But any way, my son shall be my heir. I’ve had the gump­tion to make the mon­ey, but I haven’t the gump­tion to spend it. My son, how­ev­er, shall be able to ruf­fle it with the best of them. I’ll go bail he shall hold his head high­er than ev­er young Gre­sham will be able to hold his. They are much of the same age, as well I have cause to re­mem­ber;–and so has her la­dy­ship here.’

Now the fact was, that Sir Roger Scatcherd felt in his heart no spe­cial love for young Gre­sham; but with her la­dy­ship it might al­most be a ques­tion whether she did not love the youth whom she had nursed al­most as well as that oth­er one who was her own prop­er off­spring.

‘And will you not put any check on thought­less ex­pen­di­ture? If you live ten or twen­ty years, as we hope you may, it will be­come un­nec­es­sary; but in mak­ing a will, a man should al­ways re­mem­ber he may go off sud­den­ly.’

‘Es­pe­cial­ly if he goes to bed with a brandy bot­tle un­der his head; eh, doc­tor? But, mind, that’s a med­ical se­cret, you know; not a word of that out of the bed­room.’

Dr Thorne could but sigh. What could he say on such a sub­ject to such a man as this?

‘Yes, I have put a check on his ex­pen­di­ture. I will not let his dai­ly bread de­pend on any man; I have there­fore let him five hun­dred a year at his own dis­pos­al, from the day of my death. Let him make what ducks and drakes of that he can.’

‘Five hun­dred a year is cer­tain­ly not much,’said the doc­tor.

‘No; nor do I want to keep him to that. Let him have what­ev­er he wants if he sets about spend­ing it prop­er­ly. But the bulk of the prop­er­ty–this es­tate of Box­all Hill, and the Gre­shams­bury mort­gage, and those oth­er mort­gages–I have tied up in this way: they shall be all his at twen­ty-​five; and up to that age it shall be in your pow­er to give him what he wants. If he shall die with­out chil­dren be­fore he shall be twen­ty-​five years of age, they are all to go to Mary’s el­dest child.’

Now Mary was Sir Roger’s sis­ter, the moth­er, there­fore, of Miss Thorne, and, con­se­quent­ly, the wife of the re­spectable iron­mon­ger who went to Amer­ica, and the moth­er of a fam­ily there.

‘Mary’s el­dest child!’ said the doc­tor, feel­ing that the per­spi­ra­tion had near­ly bro­ken out on his fore­head, and that he could hard­ly con­trol his feel­ings. ‘Mary’s el­dest child! Scatcherd, you should be more par­tic­ular in your de­scrip­tion, or you will leave your best lega­cy to the lawyers.’

‘I don’t know, and nev­er heard the name of one of them.’

‘But do you mean a boy or a girl?’

‘They may be all girls for what I know, or all boys; be­sides, I don’t care which it is. A girl would prob­ably do best with it. On­ly you’d have to see that she mar­ried some de­cent fel­low; you’d be her guardian.’

‘Pooh, non­sense,’ said the doc­tor. ‘Louis will be five-​and-​twen­ty in a year or two.’

‘In about four years.’

‘And for all that’s come and gone yet, Scatcherd, you are not go­ing to leave us your­self quite so soon as all that.’

‘Not if I can help it; but that’s as may be.’

‘The chances are ten to one that such a clause in your will will nev­er come to bear.’

‘Quite so, quite so. If I die, Louis Philippe won’t, but I thought it right to put in some­thing to pre­vent his squan­der­ing it all be­fore he comes to his sens­es.’

‘Oh! quite right, quite right. I think I would have named a lat­er age than twen­ty-​five.’

‘So would not I. Louis Philippe will be all right by that time. That’s my look­out. And now, doc­tor, you know my will; and if I die to-​mor­row, you will know what I want you to do for me.’

‘You have mere­ly said the el­dest child, Scatcherd?’

‘That’s all; give it here; and I’ll read it to you.’

‘No; no; nev­er mind. The el­dest child! You should be more par­tic­ular, Scatcherd; you should, in­deed. Con­sid­er what an enor­mous in­ter­est may have to de­pend on those words.’

‘Why, what the dev­il could I say? I don’t know their names; nev­er even heard them. But the el­dest is the el­dest, all the world over. Per­haps I ought to say the youngest, see­ing that I am on­ly a rail­way con­trac­tor.’

Scatcherd be­gan to think that the doc­tor might now as well go away and leave him to the so­ci­ety of Win­ter­bones and the brandy; but, much as our friend had be­fore ex­pressed him­self in a hur­ry, he now seemed in­clined to move very leisure­ly. He sat there by the bed­side, rest­ing his hands on his knees and gaz­ing un­con­scious­ly at the coun­ter­pane. At last he gave a deep sigh, and then he said, ‘Scatcherd, you must be more par­tic­ular in this. If I am to have any­thing to do with it, you must, in­deed, be more ex­plic­it.’

‘Why, how the deuce can I be more ex­plic­it? Isn’t her el­dest liv­ing child plain enough, whether he be Jack, or she be Gill?’

‘What did your lawyer say to this, Scatcherd?’

‘Lawyer! You don’t sup­pose I let my lawyer know what I was putting. No; I got the form and the pa­per, and all that from him, and I did it in an­oth­er. It’s all right enough. Though Win­ter­bones wrote it, he did it in such a way he did not know what he was writ­ing.’

The doc­tor sat a while longer, still look­ing at the counter-​pane, and then got up to de­part. ‘I’ll see you again soon,’ said he; ‘to-​mor­row, prob­ably.’

‘To-​mor­row!’ said Sir Roger, not at all un­der­stand­ing why Dr Thorne should talk of re­turn­ing so soon. ‘To-​mor­row! why I ain’t so bad as that, man, am I? If you come so of­ten as that you will ru­in me.’

‘Oh, not as a med­ical man; not as that; but about this will, Scatcherd. I must think if over; I must, in­deed.’

‘You need not give your­self the least trou­ble in the world about my will till I’m dead; not the least. And who knows–may be, I may be set­tling your af­fairs yet; eh, doc­tor? look­ing af­ter your niece when you’re dead and gone, and get­ting a hus­band for her, eh? Ha! ha! ha!’

And then, with­out fur­ther speech, the doc­tor went his way.