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

the next morning, after paying his professional visit to his

patient, and satisfying himself that the end was now drawing near

with steps terribly quickened, he went down to Greshamsbury.

 

“How long is this to last, uncle?” said his niece, with sad voice, as

he again prepared to return to Boxall Hill.

 

“Not long, Mary; do not begrudge him a few more hours of life.”

 

“No, I do not, uncle. I will say nothing more about it. Is his son

with him?” And then, perversely enough, she persisted in asking

numerous questions about Louis Scatcherd.

 

“Is he likely to marry, uncle?”

 

“I hope so, my dear.”

 

“Will he be so very rich?”

 

“Yes; ultimately he will be very rich.”

 

“He will be a baronet, will he not?”

 

“Yes, my dear.”

 

“What is he like, uncle?”

 

“Like—I never know what a young man is like. He is like a man with

red hair.”

 

“Uncle, you are the worst hand in describing I ever knew. If I’d seen

him for five minutes, I’d be bound to make a portrait of him; and

you, if you were describing a dog, you’d only say what colour his

hair was.”

 

“Well, he’s a little man.”

 

“Exactly, just as I should say that Mrs Umbleby had a red-haired

little dog. I wish I had known these Scatcherds, uncle. I do so

admire people that can push themselves in the world. I wish I had

known Sir Roger.”

 

“You will never know him now, Mary.”

 

“I suppose not. I am so sorry for him. Is Lady Scatcherd nice?”

 

“She is an excellent woman.”

 

“I hope I may know her some day. You are so much there now, uncle; I

wonder whether you ever mention me to them. If you do, tell her from

me how much I grieve for her.”

 

That same night Dr Thorne again found himself alone with Sir Roger.

The sick man was much more tranquil, and apparently more at ease

than he had been on the preceding night. He said nothing about his

will, and not a word about Mary Thorne; but the doctor knew that

Winterbones and a notary’s clerk from Barchester had been in the

bedroom a great part of the day; and, as he knew also that the great

man of business was accustomed to do his most important work by the

hands of such tools as these, he did not doubt but that the will

had been altered and remodelled. Indeed, he thought it more than

probable, that when it was opened it would be found to be wholly

different in its provisions from that which Sir Roger had already

described.

 

“Louis is clever enough,” he said, “sharp enough, I mean. He won’t

squander the property.”

 

“He has good natural abilities,” said the doctor.

 

“Excellent, excellent,” said the father. “He may do well, very well,

if he can only be kept from this;” and Sir Roger held up the empty

wine-glass which stood by his bedside. “What a life he may have

before him!—and to throw it away for this!” and as he spoke he took

the glass and tossed it across the room. “Oh, doctor! would that it

were all to begin again!”

 

“We all wish that, I dare say, Scatcherd.”

 

“No, you don’t wish it. You ain’t worth a shilling, and yet you

regret nothing. I am worth half a million in one way or the other,

and I regret everything—everything—everything!”

 

“You should not think in that way, Scatcherd; you need not think so.

Yesterday you told Mr Clarke that you were comfortable in your mind.”

Mr Clarke was the clergyman who had visited him.

 

“Of course I did. What else could I say when he asked me? It wouldn’t

have been civil to have told him that his time and words were

all thrown away. But, Thorne, believe me, when a man’s heart is

sad—sad—sad to the core, a few words from a parson at the last

moment will never make it all right.”

 

“May He have mercy on you, my friend!—if you will think of Him, and

look to Him, He will have mercy on you.”

 

“Well—I will try, doctor; but would that it were all to do again.

You’ll see to the old woman for my sake, won’t you?”

 

“What, Lady Scatcherd?”

 

“Lady Devil! If anything angers me now it is that ‘ladyship’—her to

be my lady! Why, when I came out of jail that time, the poor creature

had hardly a shoe to her foot. But it wasn’t her fault, Thorne; it

was none of her doing. She never asked for such nonsense.”

 

“She has been an excellent wife, Scatcherd; and what is more, she

is an excellent woman. She is, and ever will be, one of my dearest

friends.”

 

“Thank’ee, doctor, thank’ee. Yes; she has been a good wife—better

for a poor man than a rich one; but then, that was what she was born

to. You won’t let her be knocked about by them, will you, Thorne?”

 

Dr Thorne again assured him, that as long as he lived Lady Scatcherd

should never want one true friend; in making this promise, however,

he managed to drop all allusion to the obnoxious title.

 

“You’ll be with him as much as possible, won’t you?” again asked the

baronet, after lying quite silent for a quarter of an hour.

 

“With whom?” said the doctor, who was then all but asleep.

 

“With my poor boy; with Louis.”

 

“If he will let me, I will,” said the doctor.

 

“And, doctor, when you see a glass at his mouth, dash it down; thrust

it down, though you thrust out the teeth with it. When you see that,

Thorne, tell him of his father—tell him what his father might have

been but for that; tell him how his father died like a beast, because

he could not keep himself from drink.”

 

These, reader, were the last words spoken by Sir Roger Scatcherd. As

he uttered them he rose up in bed with the same vehemence which he

had shown on the former evening. But in the very act of doing so

he was again struck by paralysis, and before nine on the following

morning all was over.

 

“Oh, my man—my own, own man!” exclaimed the widow, remembering in

the paroxysm of her grief nothing but the loves of their early days;

“the best, the brightest, the cleverest of them all!”

 

Some weeks after this Sir Roger was buried, with much pomp and

ceremony, within the precincts of Barchester Cathedral; and a

monument was put up to him soon after, in which he was portrayed as

smoothing a block of granite with a mallet and chisel; while his

eagle eye, disdaining such humble work, was fixed upon some intricate

mathematical instrument above him. Could Sir Roger have seen it

himself, he would probably have declared, that no workman was ever

worth his salt who looked one way while he rowed another.

 

Immediately after the funeral the will was opened, and Dr Thorne

discovered that the clauses of it were exactly identical with those

which his friend had described to him some months back. Nothing had

been altered; nor had the document been unfolded since that strange

codicil was added, in which it was declared that Dr Thorne knew—and

only Dr Thorne—who was the eldest child of the testator’s only

sister. At the same time, however, a joint executor with Dr Thorne

had been named—one Mr Stock, a man of railway fame—and Dr Thorne

himself was made a legatee to the humble extent of a thousand pounds.

A life income of a thousand pounds a year was left to Lady Scatcherd.