Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope [best book reader .txt] 📗

CHAPTER XXVIII

The Doctor Hears Something to His Advantage

 

Sir Louis Scatcherd had told his mother that he was rather out of

sorts, and when he reached Boxall Hill it certainly did not appear

that he had given any exaggerated statement of his own maladies. He

certainly was a good deal out of sorts. He had had more than one

attack of delirium tremens since his father’s death, and had almost

been at death’s door.

 

Nothing had been said about this by Dr Thorne at Boxall Hill; but

he was by no means ignorant of his ward’s state. Twice he had gone

up to London to visit him; twice he had begged him to go down into

the country and place himself under his mother’s care. On the last

occasion, the doctor had threatened him with all manner of pains and

penalties: with pains, as to his speedy departure from this world and

all its joys; and with penalties, in the shape of poverty if that

departure should by any chance be retarded. But these threats had

at the moment been in vain, and the doctor had compromised matters

by inducing Sir Louis to promise that he would go to Brighton. The

baronet, however, who was at length frightened by some renewed

attack, gave up his Brighton scheme, and, without any notice to the

doctor, hurried down to Boxall Hill.

 

Mary did not see him on the first day of his coming, but the doctor

did. He received such intimation of the visit as enabled him to be at

the house soon after the young man’s arrival; and, knowing that his

assistance might be necessary, he rode over to Boxall Hill. It was

a dreadful task to him, this of making the same fruitless endeavour

for the son that he had made for the father, and in the same house.

But he was bound by every consideration to perform the task. He had

promised the father that he would do for the son all that was in his

power; and he had, moreover, the consciousness, that should Sir Louis

succeed in destroying himself, the next heir to all the property was

his own niece, Mary Thorne.

 

He found Sir Louis in a low, wretched, miserable state. Though he

was a drunkard as his father was, he was not at all such a drunkard

as was his father. The physical capacities of the men were very

different. The daily amount of alcohol which the father had consumed

would have burnt up the son in a week; whereas, though the son

was continually tipsy, what he swallowed would hardly have had an

injurious effect upon the father.

 

“You are all wrong, quite wrong,” said Sir Louis, petulantly; “it

isn’t that at all. I have taken nothing this week past—literally

nothing. I think it’s the liver.”

 

Dr Thorne wanted no one to tell him what was the matter with his

ward. It was his liver; his liver, and his head, and his stomach, and

his heart. Every organ in his body had been destroyed, or was in the

course of destruction. His father had killed himself with brandy;

the son, more elevated in his tastes, was doing the same thing with

curaçoa, maraschino, and cherry-bounce.

 

“Sir Louis,” said the doctor—he was obliged to be much more

punctilious with him than he had been with the contractor—“the

matter is in your own hands entirely: if you cannot keep your lips

from that accursed poison, you have nothing in this world to look

forward to; nothing, nothing!”

 

Mary proposed to return with her uncle to Greshamsbury, and he was

at first well inclined that she should do so. But this idea was

overruled, partly in compliance with Lady Scatcherd’s entreaties, and

partly because it would have seemed as though they had both thought

the presence of its owner had made the house an unfit habitation for

decent people. The doctor therefore returned, leaving Mary there; and

Lady Scatcherd busied herself between her two guests.

 

On the next day Sir Louis was able to come down to a late dinner, and

Mary was introduced to him. He had dressed himself in his best array;

and as he had—at any rate for the present moment—been frightened

out of his libations, he was prepared to make himself as agreeable as

possible. His mother waited on him almost as a slave might have done;

but she seemed to do so with the fear of a slave rather than the love

of a mother. She was fidgety in her attentions, and worried him by

endeavouring to make her evening sitting-room agreeable.

 

But Sir Louis, though he was not very sweetly behaved under these

manipulations from his mother’s hands, was quite complaisant to

Miss Thorne; nay, after the expiration of a week he was almost more

than complaisant. He piqued himself on his gallantry, and now found

that, in the otherwise dull seclusion of Boxall Hill, he had a good

opportunity of exercising it. To do him justice it must be admitted

that he would not have been incapable of a decent career had he

stumbled upon some girl who could have loved him before he stumbled

upon his maraschino bottle. Such might have been the case with many

a lost rake. The things that are bad are accepted because the things

that are good do not come easily in his way. How many a miserable

father reviles with bitterness of spirit the low tastes of his son,

who has done nothing to provide his child with higher pleasures!

 

Sir Louis—partly in the hopes of Mary’s smiles, and partly

frightened by the doctor’s threats—did, for a while, keep himself

within decent bounds. He did not usually appear before Mary’s eyes

till three or four in the afternoon; but when he did come forth, he

came forth sober and resolute to please. His mother was delighted,

and was not slow to sing his praises; and even the doctor, who now

visited Boxall Hill more frequently than ever, began to have some

hopes.

 

One constant subject, I must not say of conversation, on the part

of Lady Scatcherd, but rather of declamation, had hitherto been the

beauty and manly attributes of Frank Gresham. She had hardly ceased

to talk to Mary of the infinite good qualities of the young squire,

and especially of his prowess in the matter of Mr Moffat. Mary had

listened to all this eloquence, not perhaps with inattention, but

without much reply. She had not been exactly sorry to hear Frank

talked about; indeed, had she been so minded, she could herself have

said something on the same subject; but she did not wish to take Lady

Scatcherd altogether into her confidence, and she had been unable to

say much about Frank Gresham without doing so. Lady Scatcherd had,

therefore, gradually conceived the idea that her darling was not a

favourite with her guest.

 

Now, therefore, she changed the subject; and, as her own son was

behaving with such unexampled propriety, she dropped Frank and

confined her eulogies to Louis. He had been a little wild, she

admitted; young men so often were so; but she hoped that it was now

over.

 

“He does still take a little drop of those French drinks in the

morning,” said Lady Scatcherd, in her confidence; for she was too

honest to be false, even in her own cause. “He does do that, I know:

but that’s nothing, my dear, to swilling all day; and everything

can’t be done at once, can it, Miss Thorne?”

 

On this subject Mary found her tongue loosened. She could not talk

about Frank Gresham, but she could speak with hope to the mother of

her only son. She could say that Sir Louis was still very young; that

there was reason to trust that he might now reform; that his present

conduct was apparently good; and that he appeared capable of better

things. So much she did say; and the mother took her sympathy for

more than it was worth.

 

On this matter, and on this matter perhaps alone, Sir Louis and Lady

Scatcherd were in accord. There was much to recommend Mary to the

baronet;