Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XL

THE TWO DOC­TORS CHANGE PA­TIENTS

Dr Fill­grave still con­tin­ued his vis­its to Gre­shams­bury, for La­dy Ara­bel­la had not yet mus­tered the courage nec­es­sary for swal­low­ing her pride and send­ing once more for Dr Thorne. Noth­ing pleased Dr Fill­grave more than those vis­its.

He ha­bit­ual­ly at­tend­ed grander fam­ilies, and rich­er peo­ple; but then, he had at­tend­ed them ha­bit­ual­ly. Gre­shams­bury was a prize tak­en from the en­emy; it was his rock of Gibral­tar, of which he thought much more than of any or­di­nary Hamp­shire or Wilt­shire which had al­ways been with­in his own king­dom.

He was just start­ing one morn­ing with his post-​hors­es for Gre­shams­bury, when an im­pu­dent-​look­ing groom, with a crooked nose, trot­ted up to his door. For Joe still had a crooked nose, all the doc­tor’s care hav­ing been in­ef­fi­ca­cious to rem­edy the evil ef­fects of Brid­get’s lit­tle tap with the rolling-​pin. Joe had no writ­ten cre­den­tials, for his mas­ter was hard­ly equal to writ­ing, and La­dy Scatcherd had de­clined to put her­self to fur­ther per­son­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Dr Fill­grave; but he had ef­fron­tery enough to de­liv­er any mes­sage.

‘Be you Dr Fill­grave?’ said Joe, with one fin­ger just raised to his cocked hat.

‘Yes,’ said Dr Fill­grave, with one foot on the step of the car­riage, but paus­ing at the sight of the well-​turned-​out ser­vant. ‘Yes; I am Dr Fill­grave.’

‘Then you be to go to Box­all Hill im­me­di­ate­ly; be­fore any­where else.’

‘Box­all Hill!’ said the doc­tor, with a very an­gry frown.

‘Yes; Box­all Hill: my mas­ter’s place–my mas­ter is Sir Louis Scatcherd, baronet. You’ve heard of him, I sup­pose?’

Dr Fill­grave had not his mind quite ready for such an oc­ca­sion. So he with­drew his foot from the car­riage step, and rub­bing his hands one over an­oth­er, looked at his own hall door for in­spi­ra­tion. A sin­gle glance at his face was suf­fi­cient to show that no or­di­nary thoughts were be­ing turned over with­in his breast.

‘Well!’ said Joe, think­ing that his mas­ter’s name had not al­to­geth­er pro­duced the mag­ic ef­fect which he had ex­pect­ed; re­mem­ber­ing, al­so, now sub­mis­sive Greyson had al­ways been, who, be­ing a Lon­don doc­tor, must be sup­posed to be a big­ger man than this provin­cial fel­low. ‘Do you know my mas­ter is dy­ing, very like, while you stand here?’

‘What is your mas­ter’s dis­ease?’ said the doc­tor, fac­ing Joe, slow­ly, and still rub­bing his hands. ‘What ails him? What is the mat­ter with him?’

‘Oh; the mat­ter with him? Well, to say it out at once then, he do take a drop too much at times, and then he has the hor­rors–what is it they call it? De­li­cious beam-​ends, or some­thing of that sort.’

‘Ah, ah, yes; I know; and tell me, my man, who is at­tend­ing him?’

‘At­tend­ing him? why, I do, and his moth­er, that is, her la­dy­ship.’

‘Yes; but what med­ical at­ten­dant: what doc­tor?’

‘Why, there was Greyson, in Lon­don, and–’

‘Greyson!’ and the doc­tor looked as though a name so medic­inal­ly hum­ble had nev­er struck the tym­pa­num of his ear.

‘Yes; Greyson. And then, down at what’s a the man of the place, there was Thorne.’

‘Gre­shams­bury?’

‘Yes; Gre­shams­bury. But he and Thorne didn’t hit it off; and so since that he has had no one but my­self.’

‘I will be at Box­all Hill in the course of the morn­ing,’ said Dr Fill­grave; ‘or, rather, you may say, that I will be there at once: I will take it in my way.’ And hav­ing thus re­solved, he gave his or­ders that the post-​hors­es should make such a de­tour as would en­able him to vis­it Box­all Hill on his road. ‘It is im­pos­si­ble,’ said he to him­self, ‘that I should be twice treat­ed in such a man­ner in the same house.’

He was not, how­ev­er, al­to­geth­er in a com­fort­able frame of mind as he was driv­en up to the hall door. He could not but re­mem­ber the smile of tri­umph with which his en­emy had re­gard­ed him in that hall; he could not but think how he had re­turned fee-​less to Barch­ester, and how lit­tle he had gained in the med­ical world by re­ject­ing La­dy Scatcherd’s bank-​note. How­ev­er, he al­so had had his tri­umphs since that. He had smiled scorn­ful­ly at Dr Thorne when he had seen him in the Gre­shams­bury street; and had been able to tell, at twen­ty hous­es through the coun­ty, how La­dy Ara­bel­la had at last been obliged to place her­self in his hands. And he tri­umphed again when he found him­self re­al­ly stand­ing by Sir Louis Scatcherd’s bed­side. As for La­dy Scatcherd, she did not even show her­self. She kept in her own lit­tle room, send­ing out Han­nah to ask him up the stairs; and she on­ly just got a peep at him through the door as she heard the med­ical creak of his shoes as he again de­scend­ed.

We need say but lit­tle of his vis­it to Sir Louis. It mat­tered noth­ing now, whether it was Thorne, or Greyson, or Fill­grave. And Dr Fill­grave knew that it mat­tered noth­ing: he had skill at least for that–and heart enough al­so to feel that he would fain have been re­lieved from this task; would fain have left the pa­tient in the hands even of Dr Thorne.

The name which Joe had giv­en to his mas­ter’s ill­ness was cer­tain­ly not a false one. He did find Sir Louis ‘in the hor­rors’. If any fa­ther have a son whose be­set­ting sin was a pas­sion for al­co­hol, let him take his child to the room of a drunk­ard when pos­sessed by ‘the hor­rors’. Noth­ing will cure him if not that.

I will not dis­gust my read­er by at­tempt­ing to de­scribe the poor wretch in his mis­ery: the sunken, but yet glar­ing eyes; the ema­ci­at­ed cheeks; the fall­en mouth; the parched, sore lips; the face, now dry and hot, and then sud­den­ly clam­my with drops of per­spi­ra­tion; the shak­ing hand, and all but palsied limbs; and worse than this, the fear­ful men­tal ef­forts, and the strug­gles for drink; strug­gles to which it is of­ten nec­es­sary to give way.

Dr Fill­grave soon knew what was to be the man’s fate; but he did what he might to re­lieve it. There, in one big, best bed­room, look­ing out to the north, lay Sir Louis Scatcherd, dy­ing wretched­ly. There, in the oth­er big, best bed­room, look­ing out to the south, had died the oth­er baronet about twelve­month since, and each a vic­tim of the same sin. To this had come the pros­per­ity of the house of Scatcherd!

And then Dr Fill­grave went on to Gre­shams­bury. It was a long day’s work, both for him­self and the hors­es; but then, the tri­umph of be­ing dragged up that av­enue com­pen­sat­ed for both the ex­pense and the labour. He al­ways put on his sweet­est smile as he came near the hall door, and rubbed his hands in the most com­plaisant man­ner of which he knew. It was sel­dom that he saw any of the fam­ily but La­dy Ara­bel­la; but then he de­sired to see none oth­er, and when he left her in a good hu­mour, was quite con­tent to take his glass of sher­ry and eat his lunch by him­self.

On this oc­ca­sion, how­ev­er, the ser­vant at once asked him to go in­to the din­ing-​room, and there he found him­self in the pres­ence of Frank Gre­sham. The fact was, that La­dy Ara­bel­la, hav­ing at last de­cid­ed, had sent for Dr Thorne; and it had be­come nec­es­sary that some one should be en­trust­ed with the du­ty of in­form­ing Dr Fill­grave. That some one must be the squire, or Frank. La­dy Ara­bel­la would doubt­less have pre­ferred a mes­sen­ger more ab­so­lute­ly friend­ly to her own side of the house; but such mes­sen­ger there was none: she could not send Mr Gaze­bee to see the doc­tor, and so, of the two evils, she chose the least.

‘Dr Fill­grave,’ said Frank, shak­ing hands with him very cor­dial­ly as he came up, ‘my moth­er is so much obliged to you for all your care and anx­iety on her be­half! and, so in­deed, are we all.’

The doc­tor shook hands with him very warm­ly. This lit­tle ex­pres­sion of a fam­ily feel­ing on his be­half was the more grat­ify­ing, as he had al­ways thought that the males of the Gre­shams­bury fam­ily were still wed­ded to that pseu­do-​doc­tor, that half-​apothe­cary who lived in the vil­lage.

‘It has been aw­ful­ly trou­ble­some to you, com­ing over all this way, I am sure. In­deed, mon­ey could not pay for it; my moth­er feels that. It must cut up your time so much.’

‘Not at all, Mr Gre­sham; not at all,’ said the Barch­ester doc­tor, ris­ing up on his toes proud­ly as he spoke. ‘A per­son of your moth­er’s im­por­tance, you know! I should be hap­py to go any dis­tance to see her.’

‘Ah! but, Dr Fill­grave, we can­not al­low that.’

‘Mr Gre­sham, don’t men­tion it.’

‘Oh, yes; but I must,’ said Frank, who thought that he had done enough for ci­vil­ity, and was now anx­ious to come to the point. ‘The fact is, doc­tor, that we are very much obliged for what you have done; but, for the fu­ture, my moth­er thinks that she can trust to such as­sis­tance as she can get here in the vil­lage.’

Frank had been par­tic­ular­ly in­struct­ed to be very care­ful how he men­tioned Dr Thorne’s name, and, there­fore, clev­er­ly avoid­ed it.’

Get what as­sis­tance she want­ed in the vil­lage! What words were those that he heard? ‘Mr Gre­sham, eh–hem–per­haps I do not com­plete­ly–’ Yes, alas! he had com­plete­ly un­der­stood what Frank had meant that he should un­der­stand. Frank de­sired to be civ­il, but he had no idea of beat­ing un­nec­es­sar­ily about the bush on such an oc­ca­sion as this.

‘It’s by Sir Omi­cron’s ad­vice, Dr Fill­grave. You see, this man here’–and he nod­ded his head to­wards the doc­tor’s house, be­ing still anx­ious not to pro­nounce the hideous name–’has known my moth­er’s con­sti­tu­tion for so many years.’

‘Oh, Mr Gre­sham; of course, if it is wished.’

‘Yes, Dr Fill­grave, it is wished. Lunch is com­ing di­rect­ly:’ and Frank rang the bell.

‘Noth­ing, I thank you, Mr Gre­sham.’

‘Do take a glass of sher­ry.’

‘Noth­ing at all, I am very much obliged to you.’

‘Won’t you let the hors­es get some oats?’

‘I will re­turn at once, if you please, Mr Gre­sham.’ And the doc­tor did re­turn, tak­ing with him, on this oc­ca­sion, the fee that was of­fered to him. His ex­pe­ri­ence had at any rate taught him so much.

But though Frank could do this for La­dy Ara­bel­la, he could not re­ceive Dr Thorne on her be­half. The bit­ter­ness of that in­ter­view had to be borne by her­self. A mes­sen­ger had been sent for him, and he was up­stairs with her la­dy­ship while his ri­val was re­ceiv­ing his con­ge down­stairs. She had two ob­jects to ac­com­plish, if it might be pos­si­ble: she had found that high words with the doc­tor were of no avail; but it might be pos­si­ble that Frank could be saved by hu­mil­ia­tion on her part. If she hum­bled her­self be­fore this man, would he con­sent to ac­knowl­edge that his niece was not the fit bride for the heir of Gre­shams­bury?

The doc­tor en­tered the room where she was ly­ing on her so­fa, and walk­ing up to her with a gen­tle, but yet not con­strained step, took the seat be­side her lit­tle ta­ble, just as he had al­ways been ac­cus­tomed to do, and as though there had been no break in the in­ter­course.

‘Well, doc­tor, you see that I have come back to you,’ she said, with a faint smile.

‘Or, rather I have come back to you. And, be­lieve me, La­dy Ara­bel­la, I am very hap­py to do so. There need be no ex­cus­es. You were, doubt­less, right to try what oth­er skill could do; and I hope it has not been tried in vain.’

She had meant to have been so con­de­scend­ing; but now all that was put quite be­yond her pow­er. It was not easy to be con­de­scend­ing to the doc­tor: she had been try­ing all her life, and had nev­er suc­ceed­ed.

‘I have had Sir Omi­cron Pie,’ she said.

‘So I was glad to hear. Sir Omi­cron is a clever man, and has a good name. I al­ways rec­om­mend Sir Omi­cron my­self.’

‘And Sir Omi­cron re­turns the com­pli­ment,’ said she, smil­ing grace­ful­ly, ‘for he rec­om­mends you. He told Mr Gre­sham that I was very fool­ish to quar­rel with my best friend. So now we are friends again, are we not? You see how self­ish I am.’ And she put out her hand to him.

The doc­tor took her hand cor­dial­ly, and as­sured her that he bore her no ill-​will; that he ful­ly un­der­stood her con­duct–and that he had nev­er ac­cused her of self­ish­ness. This was all very well and very gra­cious; but, nev­er­the­less, La­dy Ara­bel­la felt that the doc­tor kept the up­per hand in those sweet for­give­ness­es. Where­as, she had in­tend­ed to keep the up­per hand, at least for a while, so that her hu­mil­ia­tion might be more ef­fec­tive when it did come.

And then the doc­tor used his sur­gi­cal lore, as he well knew how to use it. There was an as­sured con­fi­dence about him, an air which seemed to de­clare that he re­al­ly knew what he was do­ing. These were very com­fort­able to his pa­tients, but they were want­ing in Dr Fill­grave. When he had com­plet­ed his ex­am­ina­tions and ques­tions, and she had com­plet­ed her lit­tle de­tails and made her an­swer, she was cer­tain­ly more at ease than she had been since the doc­tor had last left her.

‘Don’t go yet, for a mo­ment,’ she said. ‘I have one word to say to you.’

He de­clared that he was not in the least in a hur­ry. He de­sired noth­ing bet­ter, he said, than to sit there and talk to her. ‘And I owe you a most sin­cere apol­ogy, La­dy Ara­bel­la.’

‘A sin­cere apol­ogy!’ said she, be­com­ing a lit­tle red. Was he go­ing to say any­thing about Mary? Was he go­ing to own that he, and Mary, and Frank had all been wrong?

‘Yes, in­deed. I ought not to have brought Sir Louis Scatcherd here: I ought to have known that he would have dis­graced him­self.’

‘Oh! it does not sig­ni­fy,’ said her la­dy­ship in a tone al­most of dis­ap­point­ment. ‘I had for­got­ten it. Mr Gre­sham and you had more in­con­ve­nience than we had.’

‘He is an un­for­tu­nate, wretched man–most un­for­tu­nate; with an im­mense for­tune which he can nev­er live to pos­sess.’

‘And who will the mon­ey go to, doc­tor?’

This was a ques­tion for which Dr Thorne was hard­ly pre­pared. ‘Go to?’ he re­peat­ed. ‘Oh, some mem­ber of the fam­ily, I be­lieve. There are plen­ty of nephews and nieces.’

‘Yes; but will it be di­vid­ed, or all go to one?’

‘Prob­ably to one, I think. Sir Roger had a strong idea of leav­ing it all in one hand.’ If it should hap­pen to be a girl, thought La­dy Ara­bel­la, what an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty would that be for Frank to mar­ry mon­ey!

‘And now, doc­tor, I want to say one word to you; con­sid­er­ing the very long time that we have known each oth­er, it is bet­ter that I should be open with you. This es­trange­ment be­tween us and dear Mary has giv­en us all so much pain. Can­not we do any­thing to put an end to it?’

‘Well, what can I say, La­dy Ara­bel­la? That de­pends so whol­ly on your­self.’

‘If it de­pends on me, it shall be done at once.’

The doc­tor bowed. And though he could hard­ly be said to do so stiffly, he did it cold­ly. His bow seemed to say, ‘Cer­tain­ly; if you choose to make a prop­er amende it can be done. But I think it is very un­like­ly that you will do so.’

‘Beat­rice is just go­ing to be mar­ried, you know that, doc­tor.’ The doc­tor said that he did know it. ‘And it will be so pleas­ant that Mary should make one of us. Poor Beat­rice; you don’t know what she has suf­fered.’

‘Yes,’ said the doc­tor, ‘there has been suf­fer­ing, I am sure; suf­fer­ing on both sides.’

‘You can­not won­der that we should be so anx­ious about Frank, Dr Thorne; an on­ly son, and the heir to an es­tate that has been so very long in the fam­ily:’ and La­dy Ara­bel­la put her hand­ker­chief to her eyes, as though these facts were them­selves melan­choly, and not to be thought of by a moth­er with­out some soft tears. ‘Now I wish you could tell me what your views are, in a friend­ly man­ner, be­tween our­selves. You won’t find me un­rea­son­able.’

‘My views, La­dy Ara­bel­la?’

‘Yes, doc­tor; about your niece, you know: you must have views of some sort; that’s of course. It oc­curs to me, that per­haps were all in the dark to­geth­er. If so, a lit­tle can­did speak­ing be­tween you and me may set it all right.’

La­dy Ara­bel­la’s ca­reer had not hith­er­to been con­spic­uous for can­dour, as far as Dr Thorne had been able to judge of it; but that was no rea­son why he should not re­spond to so very be­com­ing an in­vi­ta­tion on her part. He had no ob­jec­tion to a lit­tle can­did speak­ing; at least, so he de­clared. As to his views with re­gard to Mary, they were mere­ly these: that he would make her as hap­py and com­fort­able as he could while she re­mained with him; and that he would give her his bless­ing–for he had noth­ing else to give her–when she left him;–if ev­er she should do so.

Now, it will be said that the doc­tor was not very can­did in this; not more so, per­haps, than was La­dy Ara­bel­la her­self. But when one is spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed to be can­did, one is nat­ural­ly set up­on one’s guard. Those who by dis­po­si­tion are most open, are apt to be­come crafty when so ad­mon­ished. When a man says to you, ‘Let us be can­did with each oth­er,’ you feel in­stinc­tive­ly that he de­sires to squeeze you with­out giv­ing a drop of wa­ter him­self.

‘Yes; but about Frank,’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la.

‘About Frank!’ said the doc­tor, with an in­no­cent look, which her la­dy­ship could hard­ly in­ter­pret.

‘What I mean is this: can you give me your word that these young peo­ple do not in­tend to do any­thing rash? One word like that from you will set my mind quite at rest. And then we could be so hap­py to­geth­er again.’

‘Ah! who is to an­swer for what rash things a young man will do?’ said the doc­tor, smil­ing.

La­dy Ara­bel­la got up from the so­fa, and pushed away the lit­tle ta­ble. The man was false, hyp­ocrit­ical, and cun­ning. Noth­ing could be made of him. They were all in a con­spir­acy to­geth­er to rob her of her son; to make him mar­ry with­out mon­ey! What should she do? Where should she turn for ad­vice and coun­sel? She had noth­ing more to say to the doc­tor; and he, per­ceiv­ing that this was the case, took his leave. This lit­tle at­tempt to achieve can­dour had not suc­ceed­ed.

Dr Thorne had an­swered La­dy Ara­bel­la as had seemed best to him on the spur of the mo­ment; but he was by no means sat­is­fied with him­self. As he walked away through the gar­dens, he bethought him­self whether it would be bet­ter for all par­ties if he could bring him­self to be re­al­ly can­did. Would it not be bet­ter for him at once to tell the squire what were the fu­ture prospects of his niece, and let the fa­ther agree to the mar­riage, or not agree to it, as he might think fit. But then, if so, if he did do this, would he not in fact say, ‘There is my niece, there is this girl of whom you have been talk­ing for the last twelve­month, in­dif­fer­ent to what agony of mind you may have oc­ca­sioned to her; there she is, a prob­able heiress! It may be worth your son’s while to wait a lit­tle time, and not cast her off till he shall know whether she be an heiress or no. If it shall turn out that she is rich, let him take her; if not, why, he can desert her then as well as now.’ He could not bring him­self to put his niece in­to such a po­si­tion as this. He was anx­ious enough that she should be Frank Gre­sham’s wife, for he loved Frank Gre­sham; he was anx­ious enough, al­so, that she should give to her hus­band the means of sav­ing the prop­er­ty of his fam­ily. But Frank, though he might find her rich, was bound to take her while she was poor.

Then, al­so, he doubt­ed whether he would be jus­ti­fied in speak­ing of this will at all. He al­most hat­ed the will for the trou­ble and vex­ation it had giv­en him, and the con­stant stress it had laid on his con­science. He had spo­ken of it as yet to no one, and he thought that he was re­solved not to do so while Sir Louis should yet be in the land of the liv­ing.

On reach­ing home, he found a note from La­dy Scatcherd, in­form­ing him that Dr Fill­grave had once more been at Box­all Hill, and that, on this oc­ca­sion, he had left the house with­out anger.

‘I don’t know what he has said about Louis,’ she added, ‘for, to tell the truth, doc­tor, I was afraid to see him. But he comes again to-​mor­row, and then I shall be braver. But I fear that my poor boy is in a bad way.’