Dr Thorne (70 page)

‘What a broiling day!' he said, and he threw himself into a chair. ‘For mercy's sake give me something to drink.' Now the doctor was a great man for summer-drinks. In his house, lemonade, currant-juice, orange-mixtures, and raspberry-vinegar were used
by the quart. He frequently disapproved of these things for his patients, as being apt to disarrange the digestion; but he consumed enough himself to throw a large family into such difficulties.

‘Ha – a!' he ejaculated, after a draught; ‘I'm better now. Well, what's the news?'

‘You've been out, uncle; you ought to have the news. How's Mrs Green?'

‘Really as bad as ennui and solitude can make her.'

‘And Mrs Oaklerath?'

‘She's getting better, because she has ten children to look after, and twins to suckle. What has he been doing?' And the doctor pointed towards the room occupied by Sir Louis.

Mary's conscience struck her that she had not even asked. She had hardly remembered, during the whole day, that the baronet was in the house. ‘I do not think he has been doing much,' she said. ‘Janet has been with him all day.'

‘Has he been drinking?'

‘Upon my word, I don't know, uncle. I think not, for Janet has been with him. But, uncle –'

‘Well, dear – but just give me a little more of that tipple.'

Mary prepared the tumbler, and, as she handed it to him, she said, ‘Frank Gresham has been here today.'

The doctor swallowed his draught, and put down the glass before he made any reply, and even then he said but little.

‘Oh! Frank Gresham.'

‘Yes, uncle.'

‘You thought him looking pretty well?'

‘Yes, uncle; he was very well, I believe.'

Dr Thorne had nothing more to say, so he got up and went to his patient in the next room.

‘If he disapproves of it, why does he not say so?' said Mary, to herself. ‘Why does he not advise me?'

But it was not so easy to give advice while Sir Louis Scatcherd was lying there in that state.

J
ANET
had been sedulous in her attentions to Sir Louis, and had not troubled her mistress; but she had not had an easy time of it. Her orders had been, that either she or Thomas should remain in the room the whole day, and those orders had been obeyed.

Immediately after, breakfast, the baronet had inquired after his own servant. ‘His confounded nose must be right by this time, I suppose?'

‘It was very bad, Sir Louis,' said the old woman, who imagined that it might be difficult to induce Jonah to come into the house again.

‘A man in such a place as his has no business to be laid up,' said the master, with a whine. ‘I'll see and get a man who won't break his nose.'

Thomas was sent to the inn three or four times, but in vain. The man was sitting up, well enough, in the taproom; but the middle of his face was covered with streaks of plaster, and he could not bring himself to expose his wounds before his conqueror.

Sir Louis began by ordering the woman to bring him
chasse-café
. She offered him coffee, as much as he would; but no
chasse
.‘A glass of port wine,' she said, ‘at twelve o'clock, and another at three had been ordered for him.'

‘I don't care a —— for the orders,' said Sir Louis; ‘send me my own man.' The man was again sent for; but would not come. ‘There's a bottle of stuff that I like, in that portmanteau, in the left-hand corner – just hand it to me.'

But Janet was not to be done. She would give him no stuff, except what the doctor had ordered, till the doctor came back. The doctor would then, no doubt, give him anything that was proper.

Sir Louis swore a good deal, and stormed as much as he could. He drank, however, his two glasses of wine, and he got no more. Once or twice he essayed to get out of bed and dress; but, at every effort, he found that he could not do it without Joe: and there he was, still under the clothes when the doctor returned.

‘I'll tell you what it is,' said he, as soon as his guardian entered the room, ‘I'm not going to be made a prisoner of here.'

‘A prisoner! no, surely not.'

‘It seems very much like it at present. Your servant here – that old woman – takes it upon her to say she'll do nothing without your orders.'

‘Well; she's right there.'

‘Right! I don't know what you call right; but I won't stand it. You are not going to make a child of me, Dr Thorne; so you need not think it.'

And then there was a long quarrel between them, and but an indifferent reconciliation. The baronet said that he would go to Boxall Hill, and was vehement in his intention to do so because the doctor opposed it. He had not, however, as yet ferreted out the squire, or given a bit of his mind to Mr Gazebee, and it behoved him to do this before he took himself off to his own country mansion. He ended, therefore, by deciding to go on the next day but one.

‘Let it be so, if you are well enough,' said the doctor.

‘Well enough!' said the other, with a sneer. ‘There's nothing to make me ill that I know of. It certainly won't be drinking too much here.'

On the next day, Sir Louis was in a different mood, and in one more distressing for the doctor to bear. His compelled abstinence from intemperate drinking had, no doubt, been good for him; but his mind had so much sunk under the pain of the privation, that his state was piteous to behold. He had cried for his servant, as a child cries for its nurse, till at last the doctor, moved to pity, had himself gone out and brought the man in from the public-house. But when he did come, Joe was of but little service to his master, as he was altogether prevented from bringing him either wine or spirits; and when he searched for the liqueur-case, he found that even that had been carried away.

‘I believe you want me to die,' he said, as the doctor, sitting by
his bedside, was trying, for the hundredth time, to make him understand that he had but one chance of living.

The doctor was not the least irritated. It would have been as wise to be irritated by the want of reason in a dog.

‘I am doing what I can to save your life,' he said calmly; ‘but, as you said just now, I have no power over you. As long as you are able to move and remain in my house, you certainly shall not have the means of destroying yourself. You will be very wise to stay here for a week or ten days: a week or ten days of healthy living might, perhaps, bring you round.'

Sir Louis again declared that the doctor wished him to die, and spoke even of sending for his attorney, Finnie, to come to Greshamsbury to look after him.

‘Send for him if you choose,' said the doctor. ‘His coming will cost you three or four pounds, but can do no other harm.'

‘And I will send for Fillgrave,' threatened the baronet. ‘I'm not going to die here like a dog.'

It certainly was hard upon Dr Thorne that he should be obliged to entertain such a guest in his house; – to entertain him, and foster him, and care for him, almost as though he were a son. But he had no alternative; he had accepted the charge from Sir Roger, and he must go through with it. His conscience, moreover, allowed him no rest in this matter: it harassed him day and night, driving him on sometimes to great wretchedness. He could not love this incubus that was on his shoulders; he could not do other than be very far from loving him. Of what use or value was he to anyone? What could the world make of him that would be good, or he of the world? Was not an early death his certain fate? The earlier it might be, would it not be the better?

Were he to linger on yet for two years longer – and such a space of life was possible for him – how great would be the mischief that he might do; nay, certainly would do! Farewell then to all hopes for Greshamsbury, as far as Mary was concerned. Farewell then to that dear scheme which lay deep in the doctor's heart, that hope that he might, in his niece's name, give back to the son the lost property of the father. And might not one year – six months be as fatal. Frank, they all said, must marry money; and even he – he the doctor himself, much as he despised the idea for money's sake – even he could not but confess that Frank, as the heir to an old,
but grievously embarrassed property, had no right to marry, at his early age, a girl without a shilling. Mary, his niece, his own child, would probably be the heiress of this immense wealth; but he could not tell this to Frank; no, nor to Frank's father while Sir Louis was yet alive. What, if by so doing he should achieve this marriage for his niece, and that then Sir Louis should live to dispose of his own? How then would he face the anger of Lady Arabella?

‘I will never hanker after a dead man's shoes, neither for myself nor for another,' he had said to himself a hundred times; and as often did he accuse himself of doing so. One path, however, was plainly open before him. He would keep his peace as to the will; and would use such efforts as he might use for a son of his own loins to preserve the life that was so valueless. His wishes, his hopes, his thoughts, he could not control; but his conduct was at his own disposal.

‘I say, doctor, you don't really think I'm going to die?' Sir Louis said, when Dr Thorne again visited him.

‘I don't think at all; I am sure you will kill yourself if you continue to live as you have lately done.'

‘But suppose I go all right for a while, and live – live just as you tell me, you know?'

‘All of us are in God's hands, Sir Louis. By so doing you will, at any rate, give yourself the best chance.'

‘Best chance? Why, d——, doctor! there are fellows have done ten times worse than I; and they are not going to kick. Come, now, I know you are trying to frighten me; ain't you, now?'

‘I am trying to do the best I can for you.'

‘It's very hard on a fellow like me; I have nobody to say a kind word to me; no, not one.' And Sir Louis, in his wretchedness, began to weep. ‘Come, doctor; if you'll put me once more on my legs, I'll let you draw on the estate for five hundred pounds; by G——, I will.'

The doctor went away to his dinner, and the baronet also had his in bed. He could not eat much, but he was allowed two glasses of wine, and also a little brandy in his coffee. This somewhat invigorated him, and when Dr Thorne again went to him, in the evening, he did not find him so utterly prostrated in spirit. He had, indeed, made up his mind to a great resolve; and thus unfolded his final scheme for his own reformation:

‘Doctor,' he began again, ‘I believe you are an honest fellow; I do, indeed.'

Dr Thorne could not but thank him for his good opinion.

‘You ain't annoyed at what I said this morning, are you?'

The doctor had forgotten the particular annoyance to which Sir Louis alluded; and informed him that his mind might be at rest on any such matter.

‘I do believe you'd be glad to see me well; wouldn't you, now?'

The doctor assured him that such was in very truth the case.

‘Well, now, I'll tell you what: I've been thinking about it a great deal today; indeed, I have, and I want to do what's right. Mightn't I have a little drop more of that stuff, just in a cup of coffee?'

The doctor poured him out a cup of coffee, and put about a tea-spoonful of brandy in it. Sir Louis took it with a disconsolate face, not having been accustomed to such measures in the use of his favourite beverage.

‘I do wish to do what's right – I do, indeed; only, you see, I'm so lonely. As to those fellows up in London, I don't think that one of them cares a straw about me.'

Dr Thorne was of the same way of thinking, and he said so. He could not but feel some sympathy with the unfortunate man as he thus spoke of his own lot. It was true that he had been thrown on the world without anyone to take care of him.

‘My dear friend, I will do the best I can in every way; I will, indeed. I do believe that your companions in town have been too ready to lead you astray. Drop them, and you may yet do well.'

‘May I though, doctor? Well, I will drop them. There's Jenkins; he's the best of them; but even he is always wanting to make money of me. Not but what I'm up to the best of them in that way.'

‘You had better leave London, Sir Louis, and change your old mode of life. Go to Boxall Hill for a while; for two or three years or so; live with your mother there and take to farming.'

‘What! farming?'

‘Yes; that's what all country gentlemen do: take the land there into your own hand, and occupy your mind upon it.'

‘Well, doctor, I will – upon one condition.'

Dr Thorne sat still and listened. He had no idea what the
condition might be, but he was not prepared to promise acquiescence till he heard it.

‘You know what I told you once before,' said the baronet.

‘I don't remember at this moment.'

‘About my getting married, you know.'.