Doctor Thorne - Anthony Trollope (historical books to read .txt) 📗

me a dozen then; but such wine can’t be had now. As for the

Madeira, you know there’s an end of that. Do you drink Madeira, Mr

Gresham?”

 

“No,” said Frank, “not very often.”

 

“I’m sorry for that, for it’s a fine wine; but then there’s none

of it left, you know. I have a few dozen, I’m told they’re growing

pumpkins where the vineyards were. I wonder what they do with all the

pumpkins they grow in Switzerland! You’ve been in Switzerland, Mr

Gresham?”

 

Frank said he had been in Switzerland.

 

“It’s a beautiful country; my girls made me go there last year. They

said it would do me good; but then you know, they wanted to see it

themselves; ha! ha! ha! However, I believe I shall go again this

autumn. That is to Aix, or some of those places; just for three

weeks. I can’t spare any more time, Mr Gresham. Do you like that

dining at the tables d’hôte?”

 

“Pretty well, sometimes.”

 

“One would get tired of it—eh! But they gave us capital dinners at

Zurich. I don’t think much of their soup. But they had fish, and

about seven kinds of meats and poultry, and three or four puddings,

and things of that sort. Upon my word, I thought we did very well,

and so did my girls, too. You see a great many ladies travelling

now.”

 

“Yes,” said Frank; “a great many.”

 

“Upon my word, I think they are right; that is, if they can afford

time. I can’t afford time. I’m here every day till five, Mr Gresham;

then I go out and dine in Fleet Street, and then back to work till

nine.”

 

“Dear me! that’s very hard.”

 

“Well, yes it is hard work. My boys don’t like it; but I manage it

somehow. I get down to my little place in the country on Saturday. I

shall be most happy to see you there next Saturday.”

 

Frank, thinking it would be outrageous on his part to take up much of

the time of the gentleman who was constrained to work so unreasonably

hard, began again to talk about his mortgages, and, in so doing, had

to mention the name of Mr Yates Umbleby.

 

“Ah, poor Umbleby!” said Mr Bideawhile; “what is he doing now? I am

quite sure your father was right, or he wouldn’t have done it; but I

used to think that Umbleby was a decent sort of man enough. Not so

grand, you know, as your Gazebees and Gumptions—eh, Mr Gresham? They

do say young Gazebee is thinking of getting into Parliament. Let me

see: Umbleby married—who was it he married? That was the way your

father got hold of him; not your father, but your grandfather. I

used to know all about it. Well, I was sorry for Umbleby. He has got

something, I suppose—eh?”

 

Frank said that he believed Mr Yates Umbleby had something wherewith

to keep the wolf from the door.

 

“So you have got Gazebee down there now? Gumption, Gazebee & Gazebee:

very good people, I’m sure; only, perhaps, they have a little too

much on hand to do your father justice.”

 

“But about Sir Louis, Mr Bideawhile.”

 

“Well, about Sir Louis; a very bad sort of fellow, isn’t he?

Drinks—eh? I knew his father a little. He was a rough diamond, too.

I was once down in Northamptonshire, about some railway business; let

me see; I almost forget whether I was with him, or against him. But I

know he made sixty thousand pounds by one hour’s work; sixty thousand

pounds! And then he got so mad with drinking that we all thought—”

 

And so Mr Bideawhile went on for two hours, and Frank found no

opportunity of saying one word about the business which had brought

him up to town. What wonder that such a man as this should be obliged

to stay at his office every night till nine o’clock?

 

During these two hours, a clerk had come in three or four times,

whispering something to the lawyer, who, on the last of such

occasions, turned to Frank, saying, “Well, perhaps that will do for

to-day. If you’ll manage to call to-morrow, say about two, I will

have the whole thing looked up; or, perhaps Wednesday or Thursday

would suit you better.” Frank, declaring that the morrow would suit

him very well, took his departure, wondering much at the manner in

which business was done at the house of Messrs Slow & Bideawhile.

 

When he called the next day, the office seemed to be rather

disturbed, and he was shown quickly into Mr Bideawhile’s room. “Have

you heard this?” said that gentleman, putting a telegram into his

hands. It contained tidings of the death of Sir Louis Scatcherd.

Frank immediately knew that these tidings must be of importance to

his father; but he had no idea how vitally they concerned his own

more immediate interests.

 

“Dr Thorne will be up in town on Thursday evening after the funeral,”

said the talkative clerk. “And nothing of course can be done till he

comes,” said Mr Bideawhile. And so Frank, pondering on the mutability

of human affairs, again took his departure.

 

He could do nothing now but wait for Dr Thorne’s arrival, and so

he amused himself in the interval by running down to Malvern, and

treating with Miss Dunstable in person for the oil of Lebanon. He

went down on the Wednesday, and thus, failed to receive, on the

Thursday morning, Mary’s letter, which reached London on that day.

He returned, however, on the Friday, and then got it; and perhaps

it was well for Mary’s happiness that he had seen Miss Dunstable in

the interval. “I don’t care what your mother says,” said she, with

emphasis. “I don’t care for any Harry, whether it be Harry Baker, or

old Harry himself. You made her a promise, and you are bound to keep

it; if not on one day, then on another. What! because you cannot draw

back yourself, get out of it by inducing her to do so! Aunt de Courcy

herself could not improve upon that.” Fortified in this manner, he

returned to town on the Friday morning, and then got Mary’s letter.

Frank also got a note from Dr Thorne, stating that he had taken up

his temporary domicile at the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house, so as to be

near the lawyers.

 

It has been suggested that the modern English writers of fiction

should among them keep a barrister, in order that they may be set

right on such legal points as will arise in their little narratives,

and thus avoid that exposure of their own ignorance of the laws,

which, now, alas! they too often make. The idea is worthy of

consideration, and I can only say, that if such an arrangement can be

made, and if a counsellor adequately skilful can be found to accept

the office, I shall be happy to subscribe my quota; it would be but a

modest tribute towards the cost.

 

But as the suggestion has not yet been carried out, and as there is

at present no learned gentleman whose duty would induce him to set

me right, I can only plead for mercy if I be wrong allotting all Sir

Roger’s vast possessions in perpetuity to Miss Thorne, alleging also,

in excuse, that the course of my narrative absolutely demands that

she shall be ultimately recognised as Sir Roger’s undoubted heiress.

 

Such, after a not immoderate delay, was the opinion expressed to Dr

Thorne by his law advisers; and such, in fact, turned out to be the

case. I will leave the matter so, hoping that my very absence of

defence may serve to protect me from severe attack. If under such

a will as that described as having been made by Sir Roger, Mary

would not have been the heiress, that will must have been described

wrongly.

 

But it was not quite at once that those tidings made themselves

absolutely certain to Dr Thorne’s mind; nor was he able to express

any such opinion when he first met Frank in London. At that time

Mary’s letter was in Frank’s pocket; and Frank, though his real

business appertained much more to the fact of Sir Louis’s death, and

the effect that would immediately have on his father’s affairs, was

much more full of what so much more nearly concerned himself. “I will

show it Dr Thorne himself,” said he, “and ask him what he thinks.”

 

Dr Thorne was stretched fast asleep on the comfortless horse-hair

sofa in the dingy sitting-room at the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house when

Frank found him. The funeral, and his journey to London, and the

lawyers had together conquered his energies, and he lay and snored,

with nose upright, while heavy London summer flies settled on his

head and face, and robbed his slumbers of half their charms.

 

“I beg your pardon,” said he, jumping up as though he had been

detected in some disgraceful act. “Upon my word, Frank, I beg your

pardon; but—well, my dear fellow, all well at Greshamsbury—eh?” and

as he shook himself, he made a lunge at one uncommonly disagreeable

fly that had been at him for the last ten minutes. It is hardly

necessary to say that he missed his enemy.

 

“I should have been with you before, doctor, but I was down at

Malvern.”

 

“At Malvern, eh? Ah! so Oriel told me. The death of poor Sir Louis

was very sudden—was it not?”

 

“Very.”

 

“Poor fellow—poor fellow! His fate has for some time been past

hope. It is a madness, Frank; the worst of madness. Only think of

it—father and son! And such a career as the father had—such a

career as the son might have had!”

 

“It has been very quickly run,” said Frank.

 

“May it be all forgiven him! I sometimes cannot but believe in a

special Providence. That poor fellow was not able, never would have

been able, to make proper use of the means which fortune had given

him. I hope they may fall into better hands. There is no use in

denying it, his death will be an immense relief to me, and a relief

also to your father. All this law business will now, of course, be

stopped. As for me, I hope I may never be a trustee again.”

 

Frank had put his hand four or five times into his breast-pocket, and

had as often taken out and put back again Mary’s letter before he

could find himself able to bring Dr Thorne to the subject. At last

there was a lull in the purely legal discussion, caused by the doctor

intimating that he supposed Frank would now soon return to

Greshamsbury.

 

“Yes; I shall go to-morrow morning.”

 

“What! so soon as that? I counted on having you one day in London

with me.”

 

“No, I shall go to-morrow. I’m not fit for company for any one. Nor

am I fit for anything. Read that, doctor. It’s no use putting it off

any longer. I must get you to talk this over with me. Just read that,

and tell me what you think about it. It was written a week ago, when

I was there, but somehow I have only got it to-day.” And putting the

letter into the doctor’s hands, he turned away to the window, and

looked out among the Holborn omnibuses. Dr Thorne took the letter and

read it. Mary, after she had written it, had bewailed to herself that

the letter was cold; but it had not seemed cold to her lover, nor did

it appear so to her uncle. When Frank turned round from the window,

the doctor’s handkerchief was up to