Dr Thorne (65 page)

The firm had been going on for a hundred and fifty years, and the designation had often been altered; but it always consisted of Gumptions and Gazebees differently arranged, and no less hallowed names had ever been permitted to appear. It had been Gazebee, Gazebee & Gumption; then Gazebee & Gumption; then Gazebee, Gumption & Gumption; then Gumption, Gumption & Gazebee; and now it was Gumption, Gazebee & Gazebee.

Mr Gazebee, the junior member of this firm, was a very elegant young man. While looking at him riding in Rotten Row, you would hardly have taken him for an attorney; and had he heard that you had so taken him, he would have been very much surprised indeed. He was rather bald; not being, as people say, quite so young as he was once. His exact age was thirty-eight. But he had a really remarkable pair of jet-black whiskers, which fully made up for any deficiency as to his head; he had also dark eyes, and a beaked nose, what may be called a distinguished mouth, and was always dressed in fashionable attire. The fact was, that Mr Mortimer Gazebee, junior partner in the firm of Gumption, Gazebee & Gazebee, by no means considered himself to be made of that very disagreeable material which mortals call small beer.

When this great firm was applied to, to get Mr Gresham through his difficulties, and when the state of his affairs was made known to them, they at first expressed rather a disinclination for the work. But at last, moved doubtless by their respect for the De Courcy interest, they assented; and Mr Gazebee, junior, went down to Greshamsbury. The poor squire passed many a sad day
after that before he again felt himself to be master even of his own domain.

Nevertheless, when Mr Mortimer Gazebee visited Greshamsbury, which he did on more than one or two occasions, he was always received
en grand seigneur
. To Lady Arabella he was by no means an unwelcome guest, for she found herself able, for the first time in her life, to speak confidentially on her husband's pecuniary affairs with the man who had the management of her husband's property. Mr Gazebee also was a pet with Lady de Courcy; and being known to be a fashionable man in London, and quite a different sort of person from poor Mr Umbleby, he was always received with smiles. He had a hundred little ways of making himself agreeable, and Augusta declared to her cousin, the Lady Amelia, after having been acquainted with him for a few months, that he would be a perfect gentleman, only, that his family had never been anything but attorneys. The Lady Amelia smiled in her own peculiarly aristocratic way, shrugged her shoulders slightly, and said, ‘that Mr Mortimer Gazebee was a very good sort of a person, very.' Poor Augusta felt herself snubbed, thinking perhaps of the tailor's son; but as there was never any appeal against the Lady Amelia, she said nothing more at that moment in favour of Mr Mortimer Gazebee.

All these evils – Mr Mortimer Gazebee being the worst of them – had Sir Louis Scatcherd brought down on the poor squire's head. There may be those who will say that the squire had brought them on himself, by running into debt; and so, doubtless, he had; but it was not the less true that the baronet's interference was unnecessary, vexatious, and one might almost say, malicious. His interests would have been quite safe in the doctor's hands, and he had, in fact, no legal right to meddle; but neither the doctor, nor the squire could prevent him. Mr Finnie knew very well what he was about, if Sir Louis did not; and so the three went on, each with his own lawyer, and each of them distrustful, unhappy, and ill at ease. This was hard upon the doctor, for he was not in debt, and had borrowed no money.

There was not much reason to suppose that the visit of Sir Louis to Greshamsbury would much improve matters. It must be presumed that he was not coming with any amicable views, but with the object rather of looking after his own; a phrase which was now
constantly in his mouth. He might probably find it necessary, while looking after his own at Greshamsbury, to say some very disagreeable things to the squire; and the doctor, therefore, hardly expected that the visit would go off pleasantly.

When last we saw Sir Louis, now nearly twelve months since, he was intent on making a proposal of marriage to Miss Thorne. This intention he carried out about two days after Frank Gresham had done the same thing. He had delayed doing so till he had succeeded in purchasing his friend Jenkins's Arab pony, imagining that such a present could not but go far in weaning Mary's heart from her other lover. Poor Mary was put to the trouble of refusing both the baronet and the pony, and a very bad time she had of it while doing so. Sir Louis was a man easily angered, and not very easily pacified, and Mary had to endure a good deal of annoyance; from any other person, indeed, she would have called it impertinence. Sir Louis, however, had to bear his rejection as best he could, and, after a perseverance of three days, returned to London in disgust; and Mary had not seen him since.

Mr Greyson's first letter was followed by a second; and the second was followed by the baronet in person. He also required to be received
en grand seigneur
, perhaps more imperatively than Mr Mortimer Gazebee himself. He came with four posters from the Barchester Station, and had himself rattled up to the doctor's door in a way that took the breath away from all Greshamsbury. Why! the squire himself for many a long year had been contented to come home with a pair of horses; and four were never seen in the place, except when the De Courcys came to Greshamsbury, or Lady Arabella with all her daughters returned from her hard-fought metropolitan campaigns.

Sir Louis, however, came with four, and very arrogant he looked, leaning back in the barouche belonging to the George and Dragon, and wrapped up in fur, although it was now midsummer. And up in the dicky behind was a servant, more arrogant, if possible, than his master – the baronet's own man, who was the object of Dr Thorne's especial detestation and disgust. He was a little fellow, chosen originally on account of his light weight on horseback; but if that may be considered a merit, it was the only one he had. His out-door show dress was a little tight frock-coat, round which a polished strap was always buckled tightly, a stiff
white choker, leather breeches, top-boots, and a hat, with a cockade, stuck on one side of his head. His name was Jonah, which his master and his master's friends shortened into Joe; none, however, but those who were very intimate with his master were allowed to do so with impunity.

This Joe was Dr Thorne's especial aversion. In his anxiety to take every possible step to keep Sir Louis from poisoning himself, he had at first attempted to enlist the baronet's ‘own man' in the cause. Joe had promised fairly, but had betrayed the doctor at once, and had become the worst instrument of his master's dissipation. When, therefore, his hat and the cockade were seen, as the carriage dashed up to the door, the doctor's contentment was by no means increased.

Sir Louis was now twenty-three years old, and was a great deal too knowing to allow himself to be kept under the doctor's thumb. It had, indeed, become his plan to rebel against his guardian in almost everything. He had at first been decently submissive, with the view of obtaining increased supplies of ready money; but he had been sharp enough to perceive that, let his conduct be what it would, the doctor would keep him out of debt; but that the doing so took so large a sum that he could not hope for any further advances. In this respect, Sir Louis was perhaps more keen-witted than Dr Thorne.

Mary, when she saw the carriage, at once ran up to her own bedroom. The doctor, who had been with her in the drawing-room, went down to meet his ward, but as soon as he saw the cockade he darted almost involuntarily into his shop and shut the door. This protection, however, lasted only for a moment; he felt that decency required him to meet his guest, and so he went forth and faced the enemy.

‘I say,' said Joe, speaking to Janet, who stood curtsying at the gate, with Bridget, the other maid, behind her, ‘I say, are there any chaps about the place to take these things – eh? come, look sharp here.'

It so happened that the doctor's groom was not on the spot, and ‘other chaps' the doctor had none.

‘Take those things, Bridget,' he said, coming forward and offering his hand to the baronet. Sir Louis, when he saw his host, roused himself slowly from the back of his carriage. ‘How do,
doctor?' said he. ‘What terrible bad roads you have here! and, upon my word, it's as cold as winter': and, so saying, he slowly proceeded to descend.

Sir Louis was a year older than when we last saw him, and, in his generation, a year wiser. He had then been somewhat humble before the doctor; but now he was determined to let his guardian see that he knew how to act the baronet; that he had acquired the manners of a great man; and that he was not to be put upon. He had learnt some lessons from Jenkins, in London, and other friends of the same sort, and he was about to profit by them.

The doctor showed him to his room, and then proceeded to ask after his health. ‘Oh, I'm right enough,' said Sir Louis. ‘You mustn't believe all that fellow Greyson tells you: he wants me to take his salts and senna, opodeldoc, and all that sort of stuff; looks after his bill, you know – eh? like all the rest of you. But I won't have it; – not at any price; and then he writes to you.'

‘I'm glad to see you able to travel,' said Dr Thorne, who could not force himself to tell his guest that he was glad to see him at Greshamsbury.

‘Oh, travel; yes, I can travel well enough. But I wish you had some better sort of trap down in these country parts. I'm shaken to bits. And, doctor, would you tell your people to send that fellow of mine up here with hot water.'

So dismissed, the doctor went his way, and met Joe swaggering in one of the passages, while Janet and her colleague dragged along between them a heavy article of baggage.

‘Janet,' said he, ‘go downstairs and get Sir Louis some hot water, and, Joe, do you take hold of your master's portmanteau.'

Joe sulkily did as he was bid. ‘Seems to me,' said he, turning to the girl, and speaking before the doctor was out of hearing, ‘seems to me, my dear, you be rather short-handed here; lots of work and nothing to get; that's about the ticket, ain't it?' Bridget was too demurely modest to make any answer upon so short an acquaintance; so, putting her end of the burden down at the strange gentleman's door, she retreated into the kitchen.

Sir Louis, in answer to the doctor's inquiries, had declared himself to be all right; but his appearance was anything but all right. Twelve months since, a life of dissipation, or rather, perhaps, a life of drinking, had not had upon him so strong an effect but
that some of the salt of youth was still left; some of the freshness of young years might still be seen in his face. But this was now all gone; his eyes were sunken and watery, his cheeks were hollow and wan, his mouth was drawn and his lips dry; his back was even bent, and his legs were unsteady under him, so that he had been forced to step down from his carriage as an old man would do. Alas, alas! he had no further chance now of ever being all right again.

Mary had secluded herself in her bedroom as soon as the carriage had driven up to the door, and there she remained till dinner-time. But she could not shut herself up altogether. It would be necessary that she should appear at dinner; and, therefore, a few minutes before the hour, she crept out into the drawing-room. As she opened the door, she looked in timidly, expecting to see Sir Louis there; but when she saw that her uncle was the only occupant of the room, her brow cleared, and she entered with a quick step.

‘He'll come down to dinner; won't he, uncle?'

‘Oh, I suppose so.'

‘What's he doing now?'

‘Dressing, I suppose; he's been at it this hour.'

‘But, uncle –'

‘Well?'

‘Will he come up after dinner, do you think?'

Mary spoke of him as though he were some wild beast, whom her uncle insisted on having in his house.

‘Goodness knows what he will do! Come up? Yes. He will not stay in the dining-room all night.'

‘But, dear uncle, do be serious.'

‘Serious!'

‘Yes; serious. Don't you think I might go to bed, instead of waiting?'

The doctor was saved the trouble of answering by the entrance of the baronet. He was dressed in what he considered the most fashionable style of the day. He had on a new dress-coat lined with satin, new dress-trousers, a silk waistcoat covered with chains, a white cravat, polished pumps, and silk stockings, and he carried a scented handkerchief in his hand; he had rings on his fingers, and carbuncle studs in his shirt, and he smelt as sweet as patchouli
could make him. But he could hardly do more than shuffle into the room, and seemed almost to drag one of his legs behind him.

Mary, in spite of her aversion, was shocked and distressed when she saw him. He, however, seemed to think himself perfect, and was no whit abashed by the unfavourable reception which twelve months since had been paid to his suit. Mary came up and shook hands with him, and he received her with a compliment which no doubt he thought must be acceptable. ‘Upon my word, Miss Thorne, every place seems to agree with you; one better than another. You were looking charming at Boxall Hill; but, upon my word, charming isn't half strong enough now.'

Mary sat down quietly, and the doctor assumed a face of unutterable disgust. This was the creature for whom all his sympathies had been demanded, all his best energies put in requisition; on whose behalf he was to quarrel with his oldest friends, lose his peace and quietness of life, and exercise all the functions of a loving friend! This was his self-invited guest, whom he was bound to foster, and whom he could not turn from his door.

Then dinner came, and Mary had to put her hand upon his arm. She certainly did not lean upon him, and once or twice felt inclined to give him some support. They reached the dining-room, however, the doctor following them, and then sat down, Janet waiting in the room, as was usual.