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

lady” as if there was some excellent joke in it; and, so, indeed, there was.

“You know you needn’t mind nothing he says, nor yet take nothing he sends: and I’ll tell him not to come no more. Now do ’ee see him, Roger.”

But there was no coaxing Roger over now, or indeed ever: he was a wilful, headstrong, masterful man; a tyrant always though never a cruel one; and accustomed to rule his wife and household as despotically as he did his gangs of workmen. Such men it is not easy to coax over.

“You go down and tell him I don’t want him, and won’t see him, and that’s an end of it. If he chose to earn his money, why didn’t he come yesterday when he was sent for? I’m well now, and don’t want him; and what’s more, I won’t have him. Winterbones, lock the door.”

So Winterbones, who during this interview had been at work at his little table, got up to lock the door, and Lady Scatcherd had no alternative but to pass through it before the last edict was obeyed.

Lady Scatcherd, with slow step, went downstairs and again sought counsel with Hannah, and the two, putting their heads together, agreed that the only cure for the present evil was to be found in a good fee. So Lady Scatcherd, with a five-pound note in her hand, and trembling in every limb, went forth to encounter the august presence of Dr. Fillgrave.

As the door opened, Dr. Fillgrave dropped the bell-rope which was in his hand, and bowed low to the lady. Those who knew the doctor well, would have known from his bow that he was not well pleased; it was as much as though he said, “Lady Scatcherd, I am your most obedient humble servant; at any rate it appears that it is your pleasure to treat me as such.”

Lady Scatcherd did not understand all this; but she perceived at once that the man was angry.

“I hope Sir Roger does not find himself worse,” said the doctor. “The morning is getting on; shall I step up and see him?”

“Hem! ha! oh! Why, you see, Dr. Fillgrave, Sir Roger finds hisself vastly better this morning, vastly so.”

“I’m very glad to hear it; but as the morning is getting on, shall I step up to see Sir Roger?”

“Why, Dr. Fillgrave, sir, you see, he finds hisself so much hisself this morning, that he a’most thinks it would be a shame to trouble you.”

“A shame to trouble me!” This was the sort of shame which Dr. Fillgrave did not at all comprehend. “A shame to trouble me! Why Lady Scatcherd⁠—”

Lady Scatcherd saw that she had nothing for it but to make the whole matter intelligible. Moreover, seeing that she appreciated more thoroughly the smallness of Dr. Fillgrave’s person than she did the peculiar greatness of his demeanour, she began to be a shade less afraid of him than she had thought she should have been.

“Yes, Dr. Fillgrave; you see, when a man like he gets well, he can’t abide the idea of doctors: now, yesterday, he was all for sending for you; but today he comes to hisself, and don’t seem to want no doctor at all.”

Then did Dr. Fillgrave seem to grow out of his boots, so suddenly did he take upon himself sundry modes of expansive attitude;⁠—to grow out of his boots and to swell upwards, till his angry eyes almost looked down on Lady Scatcherd, and each erect hair bristled up towards the heavens.

“This is very singular, very singular, Lady Scatcherd; very singular, indeed; very singular; quite unusual. I have come here from Barchester, at some considerable inconvenience, at some very considerable inconvenience, I may say, to my regular patients; and⁠—and⁠—and⁠—I don’t know that anything so very singular ever occurred to me before.” And then Dr. Fillgrave, with a compression of his lips which almost made the poor woman sink into the ground, moved towards the door.

Then Lady Scatcherd bethought her of her great panacea. “It isn’t about the money, you know, doctor,” said she; “of course Sir Roger don’t expect you to come here with 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 banknote, 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 eyeglasses 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