Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (interesting books to read TXT) 📖

post-horses for nothing.” In this,

by the by, Lady Scatcherd did not stick quite close to veracity,

for Sir Roger, had he known it, would by no means have assented to

any payment; and the note which her ladyship held in her hand was

taken from her own private purse. “It ain’t at all about the money,

doctor;” and then she tendered the bank-note, which she thought would

immediately make all things smooth.

 

Now Dr Fillgrave dearly loved a five-pound fee. What physician is so

unnatural as not to love it? He dearly loved a five-pound fee; but he

loved his dignity better. He was angry also; and like all angry men,

he loved his grievance. He felt that he had been badly treated; but

if he took the money he would throw away his right to indulge in any

such feeling. At that moment his outraged dignity and his cherished

anger were worth more than a five-pound note. He looked at it with

wishful but still averted eyes, and then sternly refused the tender.

 

“No, madam,” said he; “no, no;” and with his right hand raised with

his eye-glasses in it, he motioned away the tempting paper. “No; I

should have been happy to have given Sir Roger the benefit of any

medical skill I may have, seeing that I was specially called in—”

 

“But, doctor; if the man’s well, you know—”

 

“Oh, of course; if he’s well, and does not choose to see me, there’s

an end of it. Should he have any relapse, as my time is valuable, he

will perhaps oblige me by sending elsewhere. Madam, good morning.

I will, if you will allow me, ring for my carriage—that is,

post-chaise.”

 

“But, doctor, you’ll take the money; you must take the money; indeed

you’ll take the money,” said Lady Scatcherd, who had now become

really unhappy at the idea that her husband’s unpardonable whim had

brought this man with post-horses all the way from Barchester, and

that he was to be paid nothing for his time nor costs.

 

“No, madam, no. I could not think of it. Sir Roger, I have no doubt,

will know better another time. It is not a question of money; not at

all.”

 

“But it is a question of money, doctor; and you really shall, you

must.” And poor Lady Scatcherd, in her anxiety to acquit herself at

any rate of any pecuniary debt to the doctor, came to personal close

quarters with him, with the view of forcing the note into his hands.

 

“Quite impossible, quite impossible,” said the doctor, still

cherishing his grievance, and valiantly rejecting the root of all

evil. “I shall not do anything of the kind, Lady Scatcherd.”

 

“Now doctor, do ‘ee; to oblige me.”

 

“Quite out of the question.” And so, with his hands and hat behind

his back, in token of his utter refusal to accept any pecuniary

accommodation of his injury, he made his way backwards to the door,

her ladyship perseveringly pressing him in front. So eager had been

the attack on him, that he had not waited to give his order about the

post-chaise, but made his way at once towards the hall.

 

“Now, do ‘ee take it, do ‘ee,” pressed Lady Scatcherd.

 

“Utterly out of the question,” said Dr Fillgrave, with great

deliberation, as he backed his way into the hall. As he did so, of

course he turned round,—and he found himself almost in the arms of

Dr Thorne.

 

As Burley must have glared at Bothwell when they rushed together in

the dread encounter on the mountain side; as Achilles may have glared

at Hector when at last they met, each resolved to test in fatal

conflict the prowess of the other, so did Dr Fillgrave glare at his

foe from Greshamsbury, when, on turning round on his exalted heel,

he found his nose on a level with the top button of Dr Thorne’s

waistcoat.

 

And here, if it be not too tedious, let us pause a while to

recapitulate and add up the undoubted grievances of the Barchester

practitioner. He had made no effort to ingratiate himself into the

sheepfold of that other shepherd-dog; it was not by his seeking that

he was now at Boxall Hill; much as he hated Dr Thorne, full sure

as he felt of that man’s utter ignorance, of his incapacity to

administer properly even a black dose, of his murdering propensities

and his low, mean, unprofessional style of practice; nevertheless, he

had done nothing to undermine him with these Scatcherds. Dr Thorne

might have sent every mother’s son at Boxall Hill to his long

account, and Dr Fillgrave would not have interfered;—would not have

interfered unless specially and duly called upon to do so.

 

But he had been specially and duly called on. Before such a step was

taken some words must undoubtedly have passed on the subject between

Thorne and the Scatcherds. Thorne must have known what was to be

done. Having been so called, Dr Fillgrave had come—had come all the

way in a post-chaise—had been refused admittance to the sick man’s

room, on the plea that the sick man was no longer sick; and just as

he was about to retire fee-less—for the want of the fee was not

the less a grievance from the fact of its having been tendered and

refused—fee-less, dishonoured, and in dudgeon, he encountered this

other doctor—this very rival whom he had been sent to supplant; he

encountered him in the very act of going to the sick man’s room.

 

What mad fanatic Burley, what god-succoured insolent Achilles,

ever had such cause to swell with wrath as at that moment had Dr

Fillgrave? Had I the pen of Moliere, I could fitly tell of such

medical anger, but with no other pen can it be fitly told. He did

swell, and when the huge bulk of his wrath was added to his natural

proportions, he loomed gigantic before the eyes of the surrounding

followers of Sir Roger.

 

Dr Thorne stepped back three steps and took his hat from his head,

having, in the passage from the hall-door to the dining-room,

hitherto omitted to do so. It must be borne in mind that he had no

conception whatever that Sir Roger had declined to see the physician

for whom he had sent; none whatever that the physician was now about

to return, fee-less, to Barchester.

 

Dr Thorne and Dr Fillgrave were doubtless well-known enemies. All

the world of Barchester, and all that portion of the world of London

which is concerned with the lancet and the scalping-knife, were well

aware of this: they were continually writing against each other;

continually speaking against each other; but yet they had never

hitherto come to that positive personal collision which is held to

justify a cut direct. They very rarely saw each other; and when they

did meet, it was in some casual way in the streets of Barchester or

elsewhere, and on such occasions their habit had been to bow with

very cold propriety.

 

On the present occasion, Dr Thorne of course felt that Dr Fillgrave

had the whip-hand of him; and, with a sort of manly feeling on

such a point, he conceived it to be most compatible with his own

dignity to show, under such circumstances, more than his usual

courtesy—something, perhaps, amounting almost to cordiality. He

had been supplanted, quoad doctor, in the house of this rich,

eccentric, railway baronet, and he would show that he bore no malice

on that account.

 

So he smiled blandly as he took off his hat, and in a civil speech he

expressed a hope that Dr Fillgrave had not found his patient to be in

any very unfavourable state.

 

Here was an aggravation to the already lacerated feelings of the

injured man. He had been brought thither to be scoffed at and scorned

at, that he might be a laughing-stock to his enemies, and food

for mirth to the vile-minded. He swelled with noble anger till he

would have burst, had it not been for the opportune padding of his

frock-coat.

 

“Sir,” said he; “sir:” and he could hardly get his lips open to give

vent to the tumult of his heart. Perhaps he was not wrong; for it may

be that his lips were more eloquent than would have been his words.

 

“What’s the matter?” said Dr Thorne, opening his eyes wide, and

addressing Lady Scatcherd over the head and across the hairs of the

irritated man below him. “What on earth is the matter? Is anything

wrong with Sir Roger?”

 

“Oh, laws, doctor!” said her ladyship. “Oh, laws; I’m sure it ain’t

my fault. Here’s Dr Fillgrave in a taking, and I’m quite ready to

pay him,—quite. If a man gets paid, what more can he want?” And she

again held out the five-pound note over Dr Fillgrave’s head.

 

What more, indeed, Lady Scatcherd, can any of us want, if only

we could keep our tempers and feelings a little in abeyance? Dr

Fillgrave, however, could not so keep his; and, therefore, he did

want something more, though at the present moment he could have

hardly said what.

 

Lady Scatcherd’s courage was somewhat resuscitated by the presence of

her ancient trusty ally; and, moreover, she began to conceive that

the little man before her was unreasonable beyond all conscience in

his anger, seeing that that for which he was ready to work had been

offered to him without any work at all.

 

“Madam,” said he, again turning round at Lady Scatcherd, “I was

never before treated in such a way in any house in Barchester—

never—never.”

 

“Good heavens, Dr Fillgrave!” said he of Greshamsbury, “what is the

matter?”

 

“I’ll let you know what is the matter, sir,” said he, turning round

again as quickly as before. “I’ll let you know what is the matter.

I’ll publish this, sir, to the medical world;” and as he shrieked

out the words of the threat, he stood on tiptoes and brandished his

eye-glasses up almost into his enemy’s face.

 

“Don’t be angry with Dr Thorne,” said Lady Scatcherd. “Any ways, you

needn’t be angry with him. If you must be angry with anybody—”

 

“I shall be angry with him, madam,” ejaculated Dr Fillgrave, making

another sudden demi-pirouette. “I am angry with him—or, rather, I

despise him;” and completing the circle, Dr Fillgrave again brought

himself round in full front of his foe.

 

Dr Thorne raised his eyebrows and looked inquiringly at Lady

Scatcherd; but there was a quiet sarcastic motion round his mouth

which by no means had the effect of throwing oil on the troubled

waters.

 

“I’ll publish the whole of this transaction to the medical world, Dr

Thorne—the whole of it; and if that has not the effect of rescuing

the people of Greshamsbury out of your hands, then—then—then, I

don’t know what will. Is my carriage—that is, post-chaise there?”

and Dr Fillgrave, speaking very loudly, turned majestically to one of

the servants.

 

“What have I done to you, Dr Fillgrave,” said Dr Thorne, now

absolutely laughing, “that you should determined to take my bread out

of my mouth? I am not interfering with your patient. I have come here

simply with reference to money matters appertaining to Sir Roger.”

 

“Money matters! Very well—very well; money matters. That is your

idea of medical practice! Very well—very well. Is my post-chaise at

the door? I’ll publish it all to the medical world—every word—every

word of it, every word of it.”

 

“Publish what, you unreasonable man?”

 

“Man! sir; whom do you call a man? I’ll let you know whether I’m a

man—post-chaise there!”

 

“Don’t ‘ee call him names now, doctor; don’t ‘ee, pray don’t ‘ee,”

said Lady Scatcherd.