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

she said, would not let her leave her child.

 

“And what will you do for her here, Mary?” said the doctor. Poor Mary

replied to him with a deluge of tears.

 

“She is my niece,” said the doctor, taking up the tiny infant in his

huge hands; “she is already the nearest thing, the only thing that I

have in this world. I am her uncle, Mary. If you will go with this

man I will be father to her and mother to her. Of what bread I eat,

she shall eat; of what cup I drink, she shall drink. See, Mary, here

is the Bible;” and he covered the book with his hand. “Leave her to

me, and by this word she shall be my child.”

 

The mother consented at last; left her baby with the doctor, married,

and went to America. All this was consummated before Roger Scatcherd

was liberated from jail. Some conditions the doctor made. The first

was, that Scatcherd should not know his sister’s child was thus

disposed of. Dr Thorne, in undertaking to bring up the baby, did not

choose to encounter any tie with persons who might hereafter claim

to be the girl’s relations on the other side. Relations she would

undoubtedly have had none had she been left to live or die as a

workhouse bastard; but should the doctor succeed in life, should he

ultimately be able to make this girl the darling of his own house,

and then the darling of some other house, should she live and win the

heart of some man whom the doctor might delight to call his friend

and nephew; then relations might spring up whose ties would not be

advantageous.

 

No man plumed himself on good blood more than Dr Thorne; no man had

greater pride in his genealogical tree, and his hundred and thirty

clearly proved descents from MacAdam; no man had a stronger theory

as to the advantage held by men who have grandfathers over those who

have none, or have none worth talking about. Let it not be thought

that our doctor was a perfect character. No, indeed; most far from

perfect. He had within him an inner, stubborn, self-admiring pride,

which made him believe himself to be better and higher than those

around him, and this from some unknown cause which he could hardly

explain to himself. He had a pride in being a poor man of a high

family; he had a pride in repudiating the very family of which he

was proud; and he had a special pride in keeping his pride silently

to himself. His father had been a Thorne, and his mother a Thorold.

There was no better blood to be had in England. It was in the

possession of such properties as these that he condescended to

rejoice; this man, with a man’s heart, a man’s courage, and a man’s

humanity! Other doctors round the county had ditch-water in their

veins; he could boast of a pure ichor, to which that of the great

Omnium family was but a muddy puddle. It was thus that he loved to

excel his brother practitioners, he who might have indulged in the

pride of excelling them both in talent and in energy! We speak now

of his early days; but even in his maturer life, the man, though

mellowed, was the same.

 

This was the man who now promised to take to his bosom as his own

child a poor bastard whose father was already dead, and whose

mother’s family was such as the Scatcherds! It was necessary that

the child’s history should be known to none. Except to the mother’s

brother it was an object of interest to no one. The mother had for

some short time been talked of; but now the nine-days’ wonder was a

wonder no longer. She went off to her far-away home; her husband’s

generosity was duly chronicled in the papers, and the babe was left

untalked of and unknown.

 

It was easy to explain to Scatcherd that the child had not lived.

There was a parting interview between the brother and sister in the

jail, during which, with real tears and unaffected sorrow, the mother

thus accounted for the offspring of her shame. Then she started,

fortunate in her coming fortunes; and the doctor took with him his

charge to the new country in which they were both to live. There he

found for her a fitting home till she should be old enough to sit

at his table and live in his bachelor house; and no one but old Mr

Gresham knew who she was, or whence she had come.

 

Then Roger Scatcherd, having completed his six months’ confinement,

came out of prison.

 

Roger Scatcherd, though his hands were now red with blood, was to be

pitied. A short time before the days of Henry Thorne’s death he had

married a young wife in his own class of life, and had made many

resolves that henceforward his conduct should be such as might become

a married man, and might not disgrace the respectable brother-in-law

he was about to have given him. Such was his condition when he first

heard of his sister’s plight. As has been said, he filled himself

with drink and started off on the scent of blood.

 

During his prison days his wife had to support herself as she might.

The decent articles of furniture which they had put together were

sold; she gave up their little house, and, bowed down by misery, she

also was brought near to death. When he was liberated he at once got

work; but those who have watched the lives of such people know how

hard it is for them to recover lost ground. She became a mother

immediately after his liberation, and when her child was born they

were in direst want; for Scatcherd was again drinking, and his

resolves were blown to the wind.

 

The doctor was then living at Greshamsbury. He had gone over there

before the day on which he undertook the charge of poor Mary’s baby,

and soon found himself settled as the Greshamsbury doctor. This

occurred very soon after the birth of the young heir. His predecessor

in this career had “bettered” himself, or endeavoured to do so, by

seeking the practice of some large town, and Lady Arabella, at a very

critical time, was absolutely left with no other advice than that of

a stranger, picked up, as she declared to Lady de Courcy, somewhere

about Barchester jail, or Barchester court-house, she did not know

which.

 

Of course Lady Arabella could not suckle the young heir herself.

Ladies Arabella never can. They are gifted with the powers of being

mothers, but not nursing-mothers. Nature gives them bosoms for show,

but not for use. So Lady Arabella had a wet-nurse. At the end of six

months the new doctor found Master Frank was not doing quite so well

as he should do; and after a little trouble it was discovered that

the very excellent young woman who had been sent express from Courcy

Castle to Greshamsbury—a supply being kept up on the lord’s demesne

for the family use—was fond of brandy. She was at once sent back to

the castle, of course; and, as Lady de Courcy was too much in dudgeon

to send another, Dr Thorne was allowed to procure one. He thought of

the misery of Roger Scatcherd’s wife, thought also of her health,

and strength, and active habits; and thus Mrs Scatcherd became the

foster-mother to young Frank Gresham.

 

One other episode we must tell of past times. Previous to his

father’s death, Dr Thorne was in love. Nor had he altogether sighed

and pleaded in vain; though it had not quite come to that, that the

young lady’s friends, or even the young lady herself, had actually

accepted his suit. At that time his name stood well in Barchester.

His father was a prebendary; his cousins and his best friends were

the Thornes of Ullathorne, and the lady, who shall be nameless, was

not thought to be injudicious in listening to the young doctor. But

when Henry Thorne went so far astray, when the old doctor died, when

the young doctor quarrelled with Ullathorne, when the brother was

killed in a disgraceful quarrel, and it turned out that the physician

had nothing but his profession and no settled locality in which to

exercise it; then, indeed, the young lady’s friends thought that she

was injudicious, and the young lady herself had not spirit enough, or

love enough, to be disobedient. In those stormy days of the trial she

told Dr Thorne that perhaps it would be wise that they should not see

each other any more.

 

Dr Thorne, so counselled, at such a moment,—so informed then, when

he most required comfort from his love, at once swore loudly that he

agreed with her. He rushed forth with a bursting heart, and said to

himself that the world was bad, all bad. He saw the lady no more;

and, if I am rightly informed, never again made matrimonial overtures

to any one.