Doctor Thorne Part 50

"It's as full as you can hold it, Scatcherd."

"Try me; try me! my hand is a rock; at least at holding liquor." And then he drained the contents of the gla.s.s, which were sufficient in quant.i.ty to have taken away the breath from any ordinary man.

"Ah, I'm better now. But, Thorne, I do love a full gla.s.s, ha! ha!

ha!"

There was something frightful, almost sickening, in the peculiar hoa.r.s.e guttural tone of his voice. The sounds came from him as though steeped in brandy, and told, all too plainly, the havoc which the alcohol had made. There was a fire too about his eyes which contrasted with his sunken cheeks: his hanging jaw, unshorn beard, and haggard face were terrible to look at. His hands and arms were hot and clammy, but so thin and wasted! Of his lower limbs the lost use had not returned to him, so that in all his efforts at vehemence he was controlled by his own want of vitality. When he supported himself, half-sitting against the pillows, he was in a continual tremor; and yet, as he boasted, he could still lift his gla.s.s steadily to his mouth. Such now was the hero of whom that ready compiler of memoirs had just finished his correct and succinct account.

After he had had his brandy, he sat glaring a while at vacancy, as though he was dead to all around him, and was thinking--thinking-- thinking of things in the infinite distance of the past.

"Shall I go now," said the doctor, "and send Lady Scatcherd to you?"

"Wait a while, doctor; just one minute longer. So you will do nothing for Louis, then?"

"I will do everything for him that I can do."

"Ah, yes! everything but the one thing that will save him. Well, I will not ask you again. But remember, Thorne, I shall alter my will to-morrow."

"Do so by all means; you may well alter it for the better. If I may advise you, you will have down your own business attorney from London. If you will let me send he will be here before to-morrow night."

"Thank you for nothing, Thorne: I can manage that matter myself. Now leave me; but remember, you have ruined that girl's fortune."

The doctor did leave him, and went not altogether happy to his room.

He could not but confess to himself that he had, despite himself as it were, fed himself with hope that Mary's future might be made more secure, aye, and brighter too, by some small unheeded fraction broken off from the huge ma.s.s of her uncle's wealth. Such hope, if it had amounted to hope, was now all gone. But this was not all, nor was this the worst of it. That he had done right in utterly repudiating all idea of a marriage between Mary and her cousin--of that he was certain enough; that no earthly consideration would have induced Mary to plight her troth to such a man--that, with him, was as certain as doom. But how far had he done right in keeping her from the sight of her uncle? How could he justify it to himself if he had thus robbed her of her inheritance, seeing that he had done so from a selfish fear lest she, who was now all his own, should be known to the world as belonging to others rather than to him? He had taken upon him on her behalf to reject wealth as valueless; and yet he had no sooner done so than he began to consume his hours with reflecting how great to her would be the value of wealth. And thus, when Sir Roger told him, as he left the room, that he had ruined Mary's fortune, he was hardly able to bear the taunt with equanimity.

On 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-gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 s.h.i.+lling, 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 'ladys.h.i.+p'--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 a.s.sured 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 t.i.tle.

"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.