Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XLIII

THE RACE OF SCATCHERD BE­COMES EX­TINCT

It will not be imag­ined, at any rate by fem­inine read­ers, that Mary’s let­ter was writ­ten off at once, with­out al­ter­ations and changes, or the ne­ces­si­ty for a fair copy. Let­ters from one young la­dy to an­oth­er are doubt­less writ­ten in this man­ner, and even with them it might some­times be bet­ter if more pa­tience had been tak­en; but with Mary’s first let­ter to her lover–her first love-​let­ter, if love-​let­ter it can be called-​much more care was used. It was copied and re-​copied, and when she re­turned from post­ing it, it was read and re-​read.

‘It is very cold,’ she said to her­self; ‘he will think I have no heart, that I have nev­er loved him!’ And then she all but re­solved to run down to the bak­er’s wife, and get back her let­ter, that she might al­ter it. ‘But it will be bet­ter so,’ she said again. ‘If I touched his feel­ings now, he would nev­er bring him­self to leave me. It is right that I should be cold with him. I should be false to my­self if I tried to move his love–I, who have noth­ing to give him in re­turn for it.’ And so she made no fur­ther vis­it to the post-​of­fice, and the let­ter went on its way.

We will now fol­low its for­tunes for a short while, and ex­plain how it was that Mary re­ceived no an­swer for a week; a week, it may well be imag­ined, of ter­ri­ble sus­pense to her. When she took it to the post-​of­fice, she doubt­less thought that the bak­er’s wife had noth­ing to do but to send it up to the house at Gre­shams­bury, and that Frank would re­ceive it that evening, or, at lat­est, ear­ly on the fol­low­ing morn­ing. But this was by no means so. The epis­tle was post­ed on a Fri­day af­ter­noon, and it be­hoved the bak­er’s wife to send it in­to Sil­ver­bridge–Sil­ver­bridge be­ing the post-​town–so that all due for­mal­ities, as or­dered by the Queen’s Gov­ern­ment, might there be per­fect­ed. Now, un­for­tu­nate­ly the post-​boy had tak­en his de­par­ture be­fore Mary reached the shop, and it was not, there­fore, dis­patched till Sat­ur­day. Sun­day was al­ways a dies non with the Gre­shams­bury Mer­cury, and, con­se­quent­ly, Frank’s let­ter was not de­liv­ered at the house till Mon­day morn­ing; at which time Mary had for two long days been wait­ing with weary heart for the ex­pect­ed an­swer.

Now Frank had on that morn­ing gone up to Lon­don by the ear­ly train, with his fu­ture broth­er-​in-​law, Mr Oriel. In or­der to ac­com­plish this, they had left Gre­shams­bury for Barch­ester ex­act­ly as the post­boy was leav­ing Sil­ver­bridge for Gre­shams­bury.

‘I should like to wait for my let­ters,’ Mr Oriel had said, when the jour­ney was be­ing dis­cussed.

‘Non­sense,’ Frank had an­swered. ‘Who ev­er got a let­ter that was worth wait­ing for?’ and so Mary was doomed to a week of mis­ery.

When the post-​bag ar­rived at the house on Mon­day morn­ing it was opened as usu­al by the squire him­self at the break­fast-​ta­ble. ‘Here is a let­ter for Frank,’ said he, ‘post­ed in the vil­lage. You had bet­ter send it to him:’ and he threw the let­ter across to Beat­rice.

‘It’s from Mary,’ said Beat­rice, out loud, tak­ing the let­ter up and ex­am­in­ing the ad­dress. And hav­ing said so, she re­pent­ed what she had done, as she looked first at her fa­ther and then at her moth­er.

A cloud came over the squire’s brow as for a minute he went on turn­ing over the let­ters and news­pa­pers. ‘Oh, from Mary Thorne, is it?’ he said. ‘Well, you had bet­ter send it to him.’

‘Frank said that if any let­ters came they were to be kept,’ said his sis­ter So­phy. ‘He told me so par­tic­ular­ly. I don’t think he likes hav­ing let­ters sent to him.’

‘You had bet­ter send that one,’ said the squire.

‘Mr Oriel is to have all his let­ters ad­dressed to Long’s Ho­tel, Bond Street, and this one can very well be sent with them,’ said Beat­rice, who knew all about it, and in­tend­ed her­self to make free use of the ad­dress.

‘Yes, you had bet­ter send it,’ said the squire; and then noth­ing fur­ther was said at the ta­ble. But La­dy Ara­bel­la, though she said noth­ing, had not failed to mark what had passed. Had she asked for the let­ter be­fore the squire, he would prob­ably have tak­en pos­ses­sion of it him­self; but as soon as she was alone with Beat­rice, she did de­mand it, ‘I shall be writ­ing to Frank him­self,’ she said, ‘and will send it to him.’ And so, Beat­rice, with a heavy heart, gave it up.

The let­ter lay be­fore La­dy Ara­bel­la’s eyes all that day, and many a wist­ful glance was cast at it. She turned it over and over, and much de­sired to know its con­tents; but she did not dare to break the seal of her son’s let­ter. All that day it lay up­on her desk, and all the next, for she could hard­ly bring her­self to part with it; but on the Wednes­day it was sent–sent with these lines from her­self:-

‘Dear­est, dear­est Frank, I send you a let­ter which has come by the post from Mary Thorne. I do not know what it may con­tain; but be­fore you cor­re­spond with her, pray, pray think of what I said to you. For my sake, for your fa­ther’s, for your own, pray think of it.’

That was all, but it was enough to make her word to Beat­rice true. She did send it to Frank en­closed in a let­ter from her­self. We must re­serve for the next chap­ter what had tak­en place be­tween Frank and his moth­er; but, for the present, we will re­turn to the doc­tor’s house.

Mary said not a word to him about the let­ter; but, keep­ing silent on the sub­ject, she felt wretched­ly es­tranged from him. ‘Is any­thing the mat­ter, Mary?’ he said to her on the Sun­day af­ter­noon.

‘No, un­cle,’ she an­swered, turn­ing away her head to hide her tears.

‘Ah, but there is some­thing; what is it, dear­est?’

‘Noth­ing–that is, noth­ing that one can talk about.’

‘What Mary! Be un­hap­py and not to talk about it to me? That’s some­thing new, is it not?’

‘One has pre­sen­ti­ments some­times, and is un­hap­py with­out know­ing why. Be­sides, you know–’

‘I know! What do I know? Do I know any­thing that will make my pet hap­pi­er?’ and he took her in­to his arms and they sat to­geth­er on the so­fa. Her tears were now falling fast, and she no longer made an ef­fort to hide them. ‘Speak to me, Mary; this is some­thing more than a pre­sen­ti­ment. What is it?’

‘Oh, un­cle–’

‘Come, love, speak to me; tell me why you are griev­ing.’

‘Oh, un­cle, why have you not spo­ken to me? Why have you not told me what to do? Why have you not ad­vised me? Why are you al­ways so silent?’

‘Silent about what?’

‘You know, un­cle; silent about him; silent about Frank.’

Why, in­deed? What was he to say to this? It was true that he had nev­er coun­selled her; nev­er shown her what course she should take; had nev­er even spoke to her about her lover. And it was equal­ly true that he was not now pre­pared to do so, even in an­swer to such an ap­peal as this. He had a hope, a strong hope, more than a hope, that Mary’s love would yet be hap­py; but he could not ex­press or ex­plain his hope; nor could he even ac­knowl­edge to him­self a wish that would seem to be based on the death of him to whose life he was bound, if pos­si­ble, to pre­serve.

‘My love,’ he said, ‘it is a mat­ter in which you must judge for your­self. Did I doubt your con­duct, I should in­ter­fere; but I do not.’

‘Con­duct! Is con­duct ev­ery­thing? One may con­duct one­self ex­cel­lent­ly, and yet break one’s heart.’

This was too much for the doc­tor; his stern­ness and firm­ness in­stant­ly de­sert­ed him. ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘I will do any­thing that you would have me. If you wish it, I will make ar­range­ments for leav­ing this place at once.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said, plain­tive­ly.

‘When you tell me of a bro­ken heart, you al­most break my own. Come to me, dar­ling; do not leave me so. I will say all that I can say. I have thought, do still think, that cir­cum­stances will ad­mit of your mar­riage with Frank if you both love each oth­er, and can both be pa­tient.’

‘You think so,’ said she, un­con­scious­ly slid­ing her hand in­to his, as though to thank him by its pres­sure for the com­fort he was giv­ing her.

‘I do think so now more than ev­er. But I on­ly think so; I have been un­able to as­sure you. There, dar­ling, I must not say more; on­ly that I can­not bear to see you griev­ing, I would not have said this:’ and then he left her, and noth­ing more was spo­ken on the sub­ject.

If you can be pa­tient! Why, a pa­tience of ten years would be as noth­ing to her. Could she but live with the knowl­edge that she was first in his es­ti­ma­tion, dear­est in his heart; could it be al­so grant­ed to her to feel that she was re­gard­ed as his equal, she could be pa­tient for ev­er. What more did she want than to know and feel this? Pa­tient, in­deed!

But what could these cir­cum­stances be to which her un­cle had al­lud­ed? ‘I do think that cir­cum­stances will ad­mit of your mar­riage.’ Such was his opin­ion, and she had nev­er known him to be wrong. Cir­cum­stances! What cir­cum­stances? Did he per­haps mean that Mr Gre­sham’s af­fairs were not so bad as they had been thought to be? If so, that alone would hard­ly al­ter the mat­ter, for what could she give in re­turn? ‘I would give him the world for one word of love,’ she said to her­self, ‘and nev­er think that he was my debtor. Ah! how beg­gar­ly the heart must be that spec­ulates on such gifts as those!’

But there was her un­cle’s opin­ion: he still thought that they might be mar­ried. Oh, why had she sent her let­ter? and why had she made it so cold? With such a let­ter as that be­fore him, Frank could not do oth­er than con­sent to her pro­pos­al. And then, why did he not at least an­swer it?

On the Sun­day af­ter­noon there ar­rived at Gre­shams­bury a man and a horse from Box­all Hill, bear­ing a let­ter from La­dy Scatcherd to Dr Thorne, earnest­ly re­quest­ing the doc­tor’s im­me­di­ate at­ten­dance. ‘I fear ev­ery­thing is over with poor Louis,’ wrote the un­hap­py moth­er. ‘It has been dread­ful. Do come to me; I have no oth­er friend, and I am near­ly worn through with it. The man from the city’–she meant Dr Fill­grave–’comes ev­ery day, and I dare say he is all very well, but he has nev­er done much good. He has not had spir­it enough to keep the bot­tle from him; and it was that, and that on­ly, that most be­hoved to be done. I doubt you won’t find him in this world when you get here.’

Dr Thorne start­ed im­me­di­ate­ly. Even though he might have to meet Dr Fill­grave, he could not hes­itate, for he went not as a doc­tor to the dy­ing man, but as the trustee un­der Sir Roger’s will. More­over, as La­dy Scatcherd had said, he was on­ly her friend, and he could not desert her at such a mo­ment for an army of Fill­graves. He told Mary he should not re­turn that night; and tak­ing with him a small sad­dle-​bag, he start­ed at once for Box­all Hill.

As he rode to the hall door, Dr Fill­grave was get­ting in­to his car­riage. They had nev­er met so as to speak to each oth­er since that mem­orable day, when they had their fa­mous pas­sage of arms in the hall of that very house be­fore which they both now stood. But, at the present mo­ment, nei­ther of them was dis­posed to re­new the fight.

‘What news of your pa­tient, Fill­grave?’ said our doc­tor, still seat­ed on his sweat­ing horse, and putting his hand light­ly to his hat.

Dr Fill­grave could not re­frain from one mo­ment of su­per­cil­ious dis­dain: he gave one lit­tle chuck to his head, one lit­tle twist to his neck, one lit­tle squeeze to his lips, and then the man with­in him over­came the doc­tor. ‘Sir Louis is no more,’ he said.

‘God’s will be done!’ said Dr Thorne.

‘His death is a re­lease; for his last days have been very fright­ful. Your com­ing, Dr Thorne, will be a com­fort to La­dy Scatcherd.’ And then Dr Fill­grave, think­ing that even the present cir­cum­stances re­quired no fur­ther con­de­scen­sion, en­sconced him­self in the car­riage.

‘His last days have been very dread­ful! Ah, me, poor fel­low! Dr Fill­grave, be­fore you go, al­low me to say this: I am quite aware that when he fell in­to your hands, no med­ical skill in the world could save him.’

Dr Fill­grave bowed low from the car­riage, and af­ter this un­wont­ed ex­change of cour­te­sies, the two doc­tors part­ed, not to meet again–at any rate, in the pages of this nov­el. Of Dr Fill­grave, let it now be said, that he is now re­gard­ed as one of the celebri­ties of Barch­ester.

La­dy Scatcherd was found sit­ting alone in her lit­tle room on the ground-​floor. Even Han­nah was not with her, for Han­nah was now oc­cu­pied up­stairs. When the doc­tor en­tered the room, which he did unan­nounced, he found her seat­ed on a chair, with her back against one of the press­es, her hands clasped to­geth­er over her knees, gaz­ing in­to va­can­cy. She did not ev­er hear him or see him as he ap­proached, and his hand had light­ly touched her shoul­der be­fore she knew that she was not alone. Then, she looked up at him with a face so full of sor­row, so worn with suf­fer­ing, that his own heart was racked to see her.

‘It’s all over, my friend,’ said he. ‘It is bet­ter so; much bet­ter so.’

She seemed at first hard­ly to un­der­stand him, but still re­gard­ing him with that wan face, shook her head slow­ly and sad­ly. One might have thought that she was twen­ty years old­er than when Dr Thorne last saw her.

He drew a chair to her side, and sit­ting by her, took her hand in his. ‘It is bet­ter so, La­dy Scatcherd; bet­ter so,’ he re­peat­ed. ‘The poor lad’s doom had been spo­ken, and it is well for him, and for you, that it should be over.’

‘They are both gone now,’ said she, speak­ing very low; ‘both gone now. Oh, doc­tor! To be left alone here, all alone!’

He said some few words try­ing to com­fort her; but who can com­fort a wid­ow be­reaved of her child? Who can con­sole a heart that has lost all it pos­sessed? Sir Roger had not been to her a ten­der hus­band; but still he had been the hus­band of her love. Sir Louis had not been to her an af­fec­tion­ate son; but still he had been her child, her on­ly child. Now they were both gone. Who can won­der that the world should be a blank to her?

Still the doc­tor spoke sooth­ing words, and still he held her hand. He knew that his words could not con­sole her; but the sounds of his kind­ness at such des­olate mo­ments are, to such minds as hers, some al­le­vi­ation of grief. She hard­ly an­swered him, but sat there star­ing out be­fore her, leav­ing her hand pas­sive­ly to him, and sway­ing her head back­wards and for­wards as though her grief were too heavy to be borne.

At last, her eye rest­ed up­on an ar­ti­cle which stood up­on the ta­ble, and she start­ed up im­petu­ous­ly from her chair. She did this so sud­den­ly, that the doc­tor’s hand fell be­side him be­fore he knew that she had risen. The ta­ble was cov­ered with all those im­ple­ments which be­come so fre­quent about a house when se­vere ill­ness is an in­hab­itant there. There were lit­tle box­es and apothe­caries’ bot­tles, cups and saucers stand­ing sep­arate, and bowls, in which mess­es have been pre­pared with the hope of suit­ing a sick man’s fail­ing ap­petite. There was a small saucepan stand­ing on a plate, a cu­ri­ous­ly shaped glass uten­sil left by the doc­tor, and sundry pieces of flan­nel, which had been used in rub­bing the suf­fer­er’s limbs. But in the mid­dle of the de­bris stood one blank bot­tle, with head erect, un­suit­ed to the com­pan­ion­ship in which it was found.

‘There,’ she said, ris­ing up, and seiz­ing it in a man­ner that would have been ridicu­lous had it not been so tru­ly trag­ic. ‘There, that has robbed me of ev­ery­thing–of fa­ther and son; that has swal­lowed them both–mur­dered them both! Oh, doc­tor! that such a thing as that should ev­er cause such bit­ter sor­row! I have hat­ed it al­ways, but now–Oh, woe is me! weary me!’ And then she let the bot­tle drop from her hand as though it were too heavy for her.

‘This comes of bar­ro-​nit­ing,’ she con­tin­ued. ‘If they had let him alone, he would have been here now, and so would the oth­er one. Why did they do it? why did they do it? Ah, doc­tor! peo­ple such as us should nev­er med­dle with them above us. See what has come of it; see what has come of it!’

The doc­tor could not re­main with her long, as it was nec­es­sary that he should take up­on him­self the di­rec­tion of the house­hold, and give or­ders for the fu­ner­al. First of all, he had to un­der­go the sad du­ty of see­ing the corpse of the de­ceased baronet. This, at any rate, may be spared to my read­ers. It was found to be nec­es­sary that the in­tern­ment should be made very quick­ly, as the body was near­ly de­stroyed by al­co­hol. Hav­ing done all this, and sent back his horse to Gre­shams­bury, with di­rec­tions that clothes for a jour­ney might be sent to him, and a no­tice that he should not be home for some days, he again re­turned to La­dy Scatcherd.

Of course he could not but think much of the im­mense prop­er­ty which was now, for a short time, al­to­geth­er in his own hands. His res­olu­tion was soon made to go at once to Lon­don and con­sult the best lawyer he could find–or the best dozen lawyers should such be nec­es­sary–as to the va­lid­ity of Mary’s claims. This must be done be­fore he said a word to her or to any of the Gre­sham fam­ily; but it must be done in­stant­ly, so that all sus­pense might be at an end as soon as pos­si­ble. He must, of course, re­main with La­dy Scatcherd till the fu­ner­al should be over; but when that of­fice should be com­plete, he would start in­stant­ly for Lon­don.

In re­solv­ing to tell no one as to Mary’s for­tune till af­ter he had for­ti­fied him­self with le­gal war­ran­ty, he made one ex­cep­tion. He thought it ra­tio­nal that he should ex­plain to La­dy Scatcherd who was now the heir un­der her hus­band’s will; and he was more in­clined to do so, from feel­ing that the news would prob­ably be grat­ify­ing to her. With this view, he had once or twice en­deav­oured to in­duce her to talk about the prop­er­ty, but she had been un­will­ing to do so. She seemed to dis­like all al­lu­sions to it, and it was not un­til she had in­ci­den­tal­ly men­tioned the fact that she would have to look for a home, that he was able to fix her to the sub­ject. This was on the evening be­fore the fu­ner­al; on the af­ter­noon of which day he in­tend­ed to pro­ceed to Lon­don.

‘It may prob­ably be ar­ranged that you may con­tin­ue to live here,’ said the doc­tor.

‘I don’t wish it at all,’ said she, rather sharply. ‘I don’t wish to have any ar­range­ments made. I would not be in­debt­ed to any of them for any­thing. Oh, dear! if mon­ey could make it all right, I should have enough of that.’

‘In­debt­ed to whom, La­dy Scatcherd? Who do you think will be the own­er of Box­all Hill?’

‘In­deed, then, Dr Thorne, I don’t much care: un­less it be your­self, it won’t be any friend of mine, or any one I shall care to make a friend of. It isn’t so easy for an old wom­an like me to make new friends.’

‘Well, it cer­tain­ly won’t be­long to me.’

‘I wish it did, with all my heart. But even then, I would not live here. I have had too many trou­bles here to wish to see more.’

‘That shall be as you like, La­dy Scatcherd; but you will be sur­prised to hear that the place will–at least I think it will–be­long to a friend of yours: to one to whom you have been very kind.’

‘And who is he, doc­tor? Won’t it go to some of those Amer­icans? I am sure I nev­er did any­thing kind to them; though, in­deed, I did love poor Mary Scatcherd. But that’s years up­on years ago, and she is dead, and gone now. Well, I be­grudge noth­ing to Mary’s chil­dren. As I have none of my own, it is right that they should have the mon­ey. It has not made me hap­py; I hope it may do them.’

‘The prop­er­ty will, I think, go to Mary Scatcherd’s el­dest child. It is she whom you have known as Mary Thorne.’

‘Doc­tor!’ And then La­dy Scatcherd, as she made the ex­cla­ma­tion, put both her hands down to hold her chair, as though she feared the weight of her sur­prise would top­ple her off her seat.

‘Yes; Mary Thorne–my Mary–to whom you have been so good, who loves you so well; she, I be­lieve, will be Sir Roger’s heiress. And it was so that Sir Roger in­tend­ed on his deathbed, in the event of poor Louis’s life be­ing cut short. If this be so, will you be ashamed to stay here as the guest of Mary Thorne? She has not been ashamed to be your guest.’

But La­dy Scatcherd was now too much in­ter­est­ed in the gen­er­al tenor of the news which she had heard to care much about the house which she was to in­hab­it in fu­ture. Mary Thorne, the heiress of Box­all Hill! Mary Thorne, the still liv­ing child of that poor crea­ture who had so near­ly died when they were all af­flict­ed with their ear­ly grief! Well; there was con­so­la­tion, there was com­fort in this. There were but three peo­ple left in the world that she could love: her fos­ter-​child, Frank Gre­sham–Mary Thorne, and the doc­tor. If the mon­ey went to Mary, it would of course go to Frank, for she now knew that they loved each oth­er; and if it went to them, would not the doc­tor have his share al­so; such share as he might want? Could she have gov­erned the mat­ter, she would have giv­en all to Frank; and now it would be as well be­stowed.

Yes; there was con­so­la­tion in this. They both sat up more than half the night talk­ing over it, and giv­ing and re­ceiv­ing ex­pla­na­tions. If on­ly the coun­cil of lawyers would not be ad­verse! That was now the point of sus­pense.

The doc­tor, be­fore he left her, bade her hold her peace, and say noth­ing of Mary’s for­tune to any one till her rights have been ab­so­lute­ly ac­knowl­edged. ‘It will be noth­ing not to have it,’ said the doc­tor; ‘but it would be very bad to hear it was hers, and then to lose it.’

On the next morn­ing, Dr Thorne de­posit­ed the re­mains of Sir Louis in the vault pre­pared for the fam­ily in the parish church. He laid the son where a few months ago he had laid the fa­ther,–and so the ti­tle of Scatcherd be­came ex­tinct. Their race of hon­our had not been long.

Af­ter the fu­ner­al, the doc­tor hur­ried up to Lon­don, and there we will leave him.