Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope [an ebook reader .TXT] 📗

you can be patient! Why, a patience of ten years would be as nothing to her. Could she but live with the knowledge that she was first in his estimation, dearest in his heart; could it be also granted to her to feel that she was regarded as his equal, she could be patient forever. What more did she want than to know and feel this? Patient, indeed!

But what could these circumstances be to which her uncle had alluded? “I do think that circumstances will admit of your marriage.” Such was his opinion, and she had never known him to be wrong. Circumstances! What circumstances? Did he perhaps mean that Mr. Gresham’s affairs were not so bad as they had been thought to be? If so, that alone would hardly alter the matter, for what could she give in return? “I would give him the world for one word of love,” she said to herself, “and never think that he was my debtor. Ah! how beggarly the heart must be that speculates on such gifts as those!”

But there was her uncle’s opinion: he still thought that they might be married. Oh, why had she sent her letter? and why had she made it so cold? With such a letter as that before him, Frank could not do other than consent to her proposal. And then, why did he not at least answer it?

On the Sunday afternoon there arrived at Greshamsbury a man and a horse from Boxall Hill, bearing a letter from Lady Scatcherd to Dr. Thorne, earnestly requesting the doctor’s immediate attendance. “I fear everything is over with poor Louis,” wrote the unhappy mother. “It has been very dreadful. Do come to me; I have no other friend, and I am nearly worn through with it. The man from the city”⁠—she meant Dr. Fillgrave⁠—“comes every day, and I dare say he is all very well, but he has never done much good. He has not had spirit enough to keep the bottle from him; and it was that, and that only, that most behoved to be done. I doubt you won’t find him in this world when you arrive here.”

Dr. Thorne started immediately. Even though he might have to meet Dr. Fillgrave, he could not hesitate, for he went not as a doctor to the dying man, but as the trustee under Sir Roger’s will. Moreover, as Lady Scatcherd had said, he was her only friend, and he could not desert her at such a moment for an army of Fillgraves. He told Mary he should not return that night; and taking with him a small saddlebag, he started at once for Boxall Hill.

As he rode up to the hall door, Dr. Fillgrave was getting into his carriage. They had never met so as to speak to each other since that memorable day, when they had their famous passage of arms in the hall of that very house before which they both now stood. But, at the present moment, neither of them was disposed to renew the fight.

“What news of your patient, Dr. Fillgrave?” said our doctor, still seated on his sweating horse, and putting his hand lightly to his hat.

Dr. Fillgrave could not refrain from one moment of supercilious disdain: he gave one little chuck to his head, one little twist to his neck, one little squeeze to his lips, and then the man within him overcame the doctor. “Sir Louis is no more,” he said.

“God’s will be done!” said Dr. Thorne.

“His death is a release; for his last days have been very frightful. Your coming, Dr. Thorne, will be a comfort to Lady Scatcherd.” And then Dr. Fillgrave, thinking that even the present circumstances required no further condescension, ensconced himself in the carriage.

“His last days have been very dreadful! Ah, me, poor fellow! Dr. Fillgrave, before you go, allow me to say this: I am quite aware that when he fell into your hands, no medical skill in the world could save him.”

Dr. Fillgrave bowed low from the carriage, and after this unwonted exchange of courtesies, the two doctors parted, not to meet again⁠—at any rate, in the pages of this novel. Of Dr. Fillgrave, let it now be said, that he grows in dignity as he grows in years, and that he is universally regarded as one of the celebrities of the city of Barchester.

Lady Scatcherd was found sitting alone in her little room on the ground-floor. Even Hannah was not with her, for Hannah was now occupied upstairs. When the doctor entered the room, which he did unannounced, he found her seated on a chair, with her back against one of the presses, her hands clasped together over her knees, gazing into vacancy. She did not ever hear him or see him as he approached, and his hand had slightly touched her shoulder before she knew that she was not alone. Then, she looked up at him with a face so full of sorrow, so worn with suffering, that his own heart was racked to see her.

“It is all over, my friend,” said he. “It is better so; much better so.”

She seemed at first hardly to understand him, but still regarding him with that wan face, shook her head slowly and sadly. One might have thought that she was twenty years older than when Dr. Thorne last saw her.

He drew a chair to her side, and sitting by her, took her hand in his. “It is better so, Lady Scatcherd; better so,” he repeated. “The poor lad’s doom had been spoken, and it is well for him, and for you, that it should be over.”

“They are both gone now,” said she, speaking very low; “both gone now. Oh, doctor! To be left alone here, all alone!”

He said some few words trying to comfort her; but who can comfort a widow bereaved of her child? Who can console a heart that has lost all that it possessed? Sir Roger had not been to her a tender husband; but still he had been the husband of her love. Sir Louis had not