Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XXXV

SIR LOUIS GOES OUT TO DIN­NER

The next day Joe did not make his ap­pear­ance, and Sir Louis with many ex­ecra­tions, was driv­en to the ter­ri­ble ne­ces­si­ty of dress­ing him­self. Then came an un­ex­pect­ed dif­fi­cul­ty: how were they to get up to the house? Walk­ing out to din­ner, though it was mere­ly through the vil­lage and up the av­enue seemed to Sir Louis to be a thing im­pos­si­ble. In­deed, he was not well able to walk at all, and pos­itive­ly de­clared that he should nev­er be able to make his way over the grav­el in pumps. His moth­er would not have thought half as much of walk­ing from Box­all Hill to Gre­shams­bury and back again. At last, the one vil­lage fly was sent for, and the mat­ter was ar­ranged.

When they reached the house, it was easy to see that there was some un­wont­ed bus­tle. In the draw­ing-​room there was no one but Mr Mor­timer Gaze­bee, who in­tro­duced him­self to them both. Sir Louis, who knew that he was on­ly an at­tor­ney, did not take much no­tice of him, but the doc­tor en­tered in­to con­ver­sa­tion.

‘Have you not heard that Mr Gre­sham has come home?’

‘Mr Gre­sham! I did not know that he had been away.’

‘Mr Gre­sham, ju­nior, I mean.’ No, in­deed; the doc­tor had not heard. Frank had re­turned un­ex­pect­ed­ly, just be­fore din­ner, and was now un­der­go­ing his fa­ther’s smiles, his moth­er’s em­braces, and his sis­ters’ ques­tions.

‘Quite un­ex­pect­ed­ly,’ said Mr Gaze­bee. ‘I don’t know what has brought him back be­fore his time. I sup­pose he found Lon­don too hot.’

‘Deuced hot,’ said the baronet. ‘I found it so, at least. I don’t know what keeps men in Lon­don when it’s so hot; ex­cept those fel­lows who have busi­ness to do: they’re paid for it.’

Mr Mor­timer Gaze­bee looked at him. He was man­ag­ing an es­tate which owed Sir Louis an enor­mous sum of mon­ey, and, there­fore, he could not af­ford to de­spise the baronet; but he thought to him­self, what a very ab­ject fel­low the man would be if he were not a baronet, and had not a large for­tune!

And the squire came in. His broad, hon­est face was cov­ered with a smile when he saw the doc­tor.

‘Thorne,’ said he, al­most in a whis­per, ‘you’re the best fel­low breath­ing; I have hard­ly de­served this.’ The doc­tor, as he took his old friend’s hand, could not but be glad that he had fol­lowed Mary’s coun­sel.

‘So Frank has come home?’

‘Oh, yes; quite un­ex­pect­ed­ly. He was to have stayed a week longer in Lon­don. You would hard­ly know him if you met him. Sir Louis, I beg your par­don.’ And the squire went up to his oth­er guest, who had re­mained some­what sul­len­ly stand­ing in one cor­ner of the room. He was the man of high­est rank present, or to be present, and he ex­pect­ed to be treat­ed as such.

‘I am hap­py to have the plea­sure of mak­ing your ac­quain­tance, Mr Gre­sham,’ said the baronet, in­tend­ing to be very cour­te­ous. ‘Though we have not met be­fore, I very of­ten see your name in my ac­counts–ha! ha! ha!’ and Sir Louis laughed as though he had said some­thing very good.

The meet­ing be­tween La­dy Ara­bel­la and the doc­tor was rather dis­tress­ing to the for­mer; but she man­aged to get over it. She shook hands with him gra­cious­ly, and said that it was a fine day. The doc­tor said that it was fine, on­ly per­haps a lit­tle rainy. And then they went in­to dif­fer­ent parts of the room.

When Frank came in, the doc­tor hard­ly did know him. His hair was dark­er than it had been, and so was his com­plex­ion; but his chief dis­guise was in a long silken beard, which hung down over his cra­vat. The doc­tor had hith­er­to not been much in favour of long beards, but he could not de­ny that Frank looked very well with the ap­pendage.

‘Oh, doc­tor, I am so de­light­ed to find you here,’ said he, com­ing up to him; ’so very, very glad:’ and, tak­ing the doc­tor’s arm, he led him away in­to a win­dow, where they were alone. ‘And how is Mary?’ said he, al­most in a whis­per. ‘Oh, I wish she were here! But, doc­tor, it shall all come in time. But tell me, doc­tor, there is no news about her, is there?’

‘News–what news?’

‘Oh, well; no news is good news: you will give her my love, won’t you?’

The doc­tor said that he would. What else could he say? It ap­peared quite clear to him that some of Mary’s fears were ground­less.

Frank was again very much al­tered. It has been said, that though he was a boy at twen­ty-​one, he was a man at twen­ty-​two. But now, at twen­ty-​three, he ap­peared to be al­most a man of the world. His man­ners were easy, his voice un­der his con­trol, and words were at his com­mand: he was no longer ei­ther shy or noisy; but, per­haps, was open to the charge of seem­ing, at least, to be too con­scious of his own mer­its. He was, in­deed, very hand­some; tall, man­ly, and pow­er­ful­ly built, his form was such as wom­en’s eyes have ev­er loved to look up­on. ‘Ah, if he would but mar­ry mon­ey!’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la to her­self, tak­en up by a moth­er’s nat­ural ad­mi­ra­tion for her son. His sis­ters clung around him be­fore din­ner, all talk­ing to him at once. How proud a fam­ily of girls are of one, big, tall, burly broth­er!

‘You don’t mean to tell me, Frank, that you are go­ing to eat soup with that beard?’ said the squire, when they were seat­ed round the ta­ble. He had not ceased to ral­ly his son as to this pa­tri­ar­chal adorn­ment; but, nev­er­the­less, any one could have seen, with half and eye, that he was as proud of it as were the oth­ers.

‘Don’t I, sir? All I re­quire is a re­lay of nap­kins for ev­ery course;’ and he went to work, cov­er­ing it with ev­ery spoon­ful, as men with beards al­ways do.

‘Well, if you like it!’ said the squire, shrug­ging his shoul­ders.

‘But I do like it,’ said Frank.

‘Oh, pa­pa, you wouldn’t have him cut it off,’ said one of the twins. ‘It is so hand­some.’

‘I should like to work it in­to a chair-​back in­stead of floss-​silk,’ said the oth­er twin.

‘Thank ‘ee, So­phy; I’ll re­mem­ber you for that.’

‘Doesn’t it look nice, and grand, and pa­tri­ar­chal?’ said Beat­rice, turn­ing to her neigh­bour.

‘Pa­tri­ar­chal, cer­tain­ly,’ said Mr Oriel. ‘I should grow one my­self if I had not the fear of the arch­bish­op be­fore my eyes.’

What was next said to him was in a whis­per, au­di­ble on­ly to him­self.

‘Doc­tor, did you know Wild­man of the Ninth. He was left as sur­geon at Scu­tari for two years. Why, my beard to his is on­ly a lit­tle down.’

‘A lit­tle way down, you mean,’ said Mr Gaze­bee.

‘Yes,’ said Frank, res­olute­ly set against laugh­ing at Mr Gaze­bee’s pun. ‘Why, his beard de­scends to his an­kles, and he is obliged to tie it in a bag at night, be­cause his feet get en­tan­gled in it when he is asleep!’

‘Oh, Frank!’ said one of the girls.

This was all very well for the squire, and La­dy Ara­bel­la, and the girls. They were all de­light­ed to praise Frank, and talk about him. Nei­ther did it come amiss to Mr Oriel and the doc­tor, who had both a per­son­al in­ter­est in the young hero. But Sir Louis did not like it at all. He was the on­ly baronet in the room, and yet no­body took any no­tice of him. He was seat­ed in the post of hon­our, next to La­dy Ara­bel­la; but even La­dy Ara­bel­la seemed to think more of her own son than of him. See­ing he was ill-​used, he med­itat­ed re­venge; but not the less did it be­hove him to make some ef­fort to at­tract at­ten­tion.

‘Was your la­dy­ship in Lon­don, this sea­son?’

La­dy Ara­bel­la had not been in Lon­don at all this year, and it was a sore sub­ject with her. ‘No,’ said she, very gra­cious­ly; ‘cir­cum­stances have kept us at home.’

‘Ah, in­deed! I am very sor­ry for that; that must be very dis­tress­ing to a per­son like your la­dy­ship. But things are mend­ing, per­haps?’

La­dy Ara­bel­la did not in the least un­der­stand him. ‘Mend­ing!’ she said, in her pe­cu­liar tone of aris­to­crat­ic in­dif­fer­ence; and then turned to Mr Gaze­bee, who was on the oth­er side of her.

Sir Louis was not go­ing to stand this. He was the first man in the room, and he knew his own im­por­tance. It was not to be borne that La­dy Ara­bel­la should turn to talk to a dirty at­tor­ney, and leave him, a baronet, to eat his din­ner with­out no­tice. If noth­ing else would move her, he would let her know who was the re­al own­er of the Gre­shams­bury ti­tle-​deeds.

‘I think I saw your la­dy­ship out to-​day, tak­ing a ride,’ La­dy Ara­bel­la had driv­en through the vil­lage in her pony-​chair.

‘I nev­er ride,’ said she, turn­ing her head for one mo­ment from Mr Gaze­bee.

‘In the one-​horse car­riage, I mean, my la­dy. I was de­light­ed with the way you whipped him up round the cor­ner.’

Whipped him up round the cor­ner! La­dy Ara­bel­la could make no an­swer to this; so she went on talk­ing to Mr Gaze­bee. Sir Louis, re­pulsed, but not van­quished-​re­solved not to be van­quished by any La­dy Ara­bel­la– turned his at­ten­tion to his plate for a minute or two, and then recom­menced.

‘The hon­our of a glass of wine with you, La­dy Ara­bel­la,’ said he.’

‘I nev­er take wine at din­ner,’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la. The man was be­com­ing in­tol­er­able to her, and she was be­gin­ning to fear that it would be nec­es­sary for her to fly the room to get rid of him.

The baronet was again silent for a mo­ment; but he was de­ter­mined not to be put down.

‘This is a nice-​look­ing coun­try about her,’ said he.

‘Yes; very nice,’ said Mr Gaze­bee, en­deav­our­ing to re­lieve the la­dy of the man­sion.

‘I hard­ly know which I like best; this, or my own place at Box­all Hill. You have the ad­van­tage here in trees, and those sort of things. But, as to the house, why, my box there is very com­fort­able, very. You’d hard­ly know the place now, La­dy Ara­bel­la, if you haven’t seen it since my gov­er­nor bought it. How much do you think he spent about the house and grounds, piner­ies in­clud­ed, you know, and those sort of things.’

La­dy Ara­bel­la shook her head.

‘Now guess, my la­dy,’ said he. But it was not to be sup­posed that La­dy Ara­bel­la should guess on such a sub­ject.

‘I nev­er guess,’ said she, with a look of in­ef­fa­ble dis­gust.

‘What do you say, Mr Gaze­bee?’

‘Per­haps a hun­dred thou­sand pounds.’

‘What! for a house! You can’t know much about mon­ey, nor yet about build­ing, I think, Mr Gaze­bee.’

‘Not much,’ said Mr Gaze­bee, ‘as to such mag­nif­icent places as Box­all Hill.’

‘Well, my la­dy, if you won’t guess, I’ll tell you. It cost twen­ty-​two thou­sand four hun­dred and nine­teen pounds four shillings and eight­pence. I’ve all the ac­counts ex­act. Now, that’s a tidy lot of mon­ey for a house for a man to live in.’

Sir Louis spoke this in a loud tone, which at least com­mand­ed the at­ten­tion of the ta­ble. La­dy Ara­bel­la, van­quished, bowed her head, and said that it was a large sum; Mr Gaze­bee went on sed­ulous­ly eat­ing his din­ner; the squire was struck mo­men­tar­ily dumb in the mid­dle of a long chat with the doc­tor; even Mr Oriel ceased to whis­per; and the girls opened their eyes with as­ton­ish­ment. Be­fore the end of his speech, Sir Louis’s voice had be­come very loud.

‘Yes, in­deed,’ said Frank; ‘a very tidy lot of mon­ey. I’d have gen­er­ous­ly dropped the four and eight­pence if I’d been the ar­chi­tect.’

‘It wasn’t on one bill; but that’s the tot. I can show the bills;’ and Sir Louis, well pleased with his tri­umph, swal­lowed a glass of wine.

Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the cloth was re­moved, La­dy Ara­bel­la es­caped, and the gen­tle­men clus­tered to­geth­er. Sir Louis found him­self next to Mr Oriel, and be­gan to make him­self agree­able.

‘A very nice girl, Miss Beat­rice; very nice.’

Now Mr Oriel was a mod­est man, and, when thus ad­dressed as to his fu­ture wife, found it dif­fi­cult to make any re­ply.

‘You par­sons al­ways have your own luck,’ said Sir Louis. ‘You get all the beau­ty, and gen­er­al­ly all the mon­ey, too. Not much of the lat­ter in this case, though–eh?’

Mr Oriel was dumb­found­ed. He had nev­er said a word any crea­ture as to Beat­rice’s dowry; and when Mr Gre­sham had told him, with sor­row, that his daugh­ter’s por­tion must be small, he had at once passed away from the sub­ject as one that was hard­ly fit for con­ver­sa­tion, even be­tween him and his fu­ture fa­ther-​in-​law; and now he was abrupt­ly ques­tioned on the sub­ject by a man he had nev­er seen be­fore in his life. Of course, he could make no an­swer.

‘The squire has mud­dled his mat­ters most un­com­mon­ly,’ con­tin­ued Sir Louis, fill­ing his glass for the sec­ond time be­fore he passed the bot­tle. ‘What do you sup­pose now he owes me alone; just at one lump, you know?’

Mr Oriel had noth­ing for it but to run. He could make no an­swer, nor would he sit there for tid­ings as to Mr Gre­sham’s em­bar­rass­ments. So he fair­ly re­treat­ed, with­out hav­ing said one word to his neigh­bour, find­ing such dis­cre­tion to be the on­ly kind of val­our left to him.

‘What, Oriel! off al­ready?’ said the squire. ‘Any­thing the mat­ter?’

‘Oh, no; noth­ing par­tic­ular. I’m not just quite–I think I will go out for a few min­utes.’

‘See what it is to be in love,’ said the squire, half-​whis­per­ing to Dr Thorne. ‘You’re not in the same way, I hope?’

Sir Louis then shift­ed his seat again, and found him­self next to Frank. Mr Gaze­bee was op­po­site to him, and the doc­tor op­po­site to Frank.

‘Par­son seems peek­ish, I think,’ said the baronet.

‘Peek­ish!?’ said the squire, in­quis­itive­ly.

‘Rather down on his luck. He’s de­cent­ly well off him­self, isn’t he?’

There was an­oth­er pause, and no­body seemed in­clined to an­swer the ques­tion.

‘I mean, he’s got some­thing more than his bare liv­ing.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Frank, laugh­ing. ‘He’s got what will buy him bread and cheese when the Rads shut up the Church:–un­less, in­deed, they shut up the Funds too.’

‘Ah, there’s noth­ing like land,’said Sir Louis: ‘noth­ing like dirty acres; is there, squire?’

‘Land is a very good in­vest­ment, cer­tain­ly,’ said the Mr Gre­sham.

‘The best go­ing,’ said the oth­er, who was now, as peo­ple say when they mean to be good-​na­tured, slight­ly un­der the in­flu­ence of liquor. ‘The best go­ing–eh, Gaze­bee?’

Mr Gaze­bee gath­ered him­self up, and turned away his head, look­ing out of the win­dow.

‘You lawyers nev­er like to give an opin­ion with­out mon­ey, ha! ha! ha! Do they, Mr Gre­sham? You and I have had to pay for plen­ty of them, and will have to pay plen­ty more be­fore they let us alone.’

Here Mr Gaze­bee got up, and fol­lowed Mr Oriel out of the room. He was not, of course, on such in­ti­mate terms in the house as was Mr Oriel; but he hoped to be for­giv­en by the ladies in con­se­quence of the sever­ity of the mis­eries to which he was sub­ject­ed. He and Mr Oriel were soon to be seen through the din­ing-​room win­dow, walk­ing about the grounds with the two el­dest Miss Gre­shams. And Pa­tience Oriel, who had al­so been of the par­ty, was al­so to be seen with the twins. Frank looked at his fa­ther with al­most a ma­li­cious smile, and be­gan to think that he too might be bet­ter em­ployed out among the walks. Did he think then of a for­mer sum­mer evening, when he had half bro­ken Mary’s heart by walk­ing there too lov­ing­ly with Pa­tience Oriel?

Sir Louis, if he con­tin­ued his bril­liant ca­reer of suc­cess, would soon be left the cock of the walk. The squire, to be sure, could not bolt, nor could the doc­tor very well; but they might be equal­ly van­quished, re­main­ing there in their chairs. Dr Thorne, dur­ing all this time, was sit­ting with tin­gling ears. In­deed, it may be said that his whole body tin­gled. He was in a man­ner re­spon­si­ble for this hor­ri­ble scene; but what could he do to stop it? He could not take Sir Louis up bod­ily and car­ry him away. One idea did oc­cur to him. The fly had been or­dered for ten o’clock. He could rush out and send for it in­stant­ly.

‘You’re not go­ing to leave me?’ said the squire, in a voice of hor­ror, as he saw the doc­tor ris­ing from his chair.

‘Oh, no, no, no,’ said the doc­tor; and then he whis­pered the pur­pose of his mis­sion. ‘I will be back in two min­utes.’ The doc­tor would have giv­en twen­ty pounds to have closed the scene at once; but he was not the man to desert his friend in such a strait as that.

‘He’s a well-​mean­ing fel­low, the doc­tor,’ said Sir Louis, when his guardian was out of the room, ‘very; but he’s not up to trap–not at all.’

‘Up to trap–well, I should say he was; that is, if I know what trap means,’ said Frank.

‘Ah, but that’s just the tick­et. Do you know? Now I say Dr Thorne’s not a man of the world.’

‘He’s about the best man I know, or ev­er heard of,’ said the squire. ‘And if any man ev­er had a good friend, you have got one in him; and so have I:’ and the squire silent­ly drank the doc­tor’s health.

‘All very true, I dare say; but yet he’s not up to trap. Now look here, squire–’

‘If you don’t mind, sir,’ said Frank, ‘I’ve got some­thing very par­tic­ular–per­haps, how­ev­er–’

‘Stay till Thorne re­turns, thanks Frank.’

Frank did stay till Thorne re­turned, and then es­caped.

‘Ex­cuse me, doc­tor,’ said he, ‘but I’ve some­thing very par­tic­ular to say; I’ll ex­plain to-​mor­row.’ And then the three were left alone.

Sir Louis was now be­com­ing al­most drunk, and was knock­ing his words to­geth­er. The squire had al­ready at­tempt­ed to stop the bot­tle; but the baronet had con­trived to get hold of a mod­icum of Madeira, and there was no pre­vent­ing him from help­ing him­self; at least, none at the mo­ment.

‘As we were say­ing about lawyers,’ con­tin­ued Sir Louis. ‘Let’s see, what were we say­ing? Why, squire, it’s just here. These fel­lows will fleece us both if we don’t mind what we are af­ter.’

‘Nev­er mind about lawyers now,’ said Dr Thorne, an­gri­ly.

‘Ah, but I do mind; most par­tic­ular­ly. That’s all very well for you, doc­tor; you’ve noth­ing to lose. You’ve no great stake in the mat­ter. Why, now, what sum of mon­ey of mine do you think those d—- doc­tors are han­dling?’

‘D—- doc­tors!’ said the squire in a tone of dis­may.

‘Lawyers, I mean, of course. Why, now, Gre­sham, we’re all tot­ted now, you see; you’re down in my books, I take it, for pret­ty near a hun­dred thou­sand pounds.’

‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ said the doc­tor, get­ting up.

‘Hold my tongue!’ said Sir Louis.

‘Sir Louis Scatcherd,’ said the squire, slow­ly ris­ing from his chair, ‘we will not, if you please, talk about busi­ness at the present mo­ment. Per­haps we had bet­ter go to the ladies.’

This lat­ter propo­si­tion had cer­tain­ly not come from the squire’s heart: go­ing to the ladies was the very last thing for which Sir Louis was now fit. But the squire had said it as be­ing the on­ly recog­nised for­mal way he could think of for break­ing up the sym­po­sium.

‘Oh, very well,’ hic­cupped the baronet, ‘I’m al­ways ready for the ladies,’ and he stretched out his hand to the de­canter to get a last glass of Madeira.

‘No,’ said the doc­tor, ris­ing stout­ly, and speak­ing with a de­ter­mined voice. ‘No; you will have no more wine.’

‘What’s all this about?’ said Sir Louis, with a drunk­en laugh.

‘Of course he can­not go in­to the draw­ing-​room, Mr Gre­sham. If you will leave him here with me, I will stay with him, till the fly comes. Pray tell La­dy Ara­bel­la from me how sor­ry I am that this has oc­curred.’

The squire took him by the hand af­fec­tion­ate­ly. ‘I’ve seen a tip­sy man be­fore to-​night,’ said he.

‘Yes,’ said the doc­tor, ‘and so have I, but–’ He did not ex­press the rest of his thoughts.