Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [163]
‘It does not much matter,’ Dr Thorne had said to Lady Scatcherd. ‘Do what you can to keep down the quantity, but do not irritate him by refusing to obey. It does not much signify now.’ So Lady Scatcherd still administered the alcohol, and he from day to day invented little schemes for increasing the amount, over which he chuckled with ghastly laughter.
Two or three times during these days Sir Roger essayed to speak seriously to his son; but Louis always frustrated him. He either got out of the room on some excuse, or made his mother interfere on the score that so much talking would be bad for his father. He already knew with tolerable accuracy what was the purpose of his father’s will, and by no means approved of it; but as he could not now hope to induce his father to alter it so as to make it more favourable to himself, he conceived that no conversation on matters of business could be of use to him.
‘Louis,’ said Sir Roger, one afternoon to his son; ‘Louis, I have not done by you as I ought to have done – I know that now.’
‘Nonsense, governor; never mind about that now; I shall do well enough, I dare say. Besides, it isn’t too late; you can make it twenty-three years instead of twenty-five, if you like it.’
‘I do not mean as to money, Louis. There are things besides money which a father ought to look to.’
‘Now, father, don’t fret yourself – I’m all right; you may be sure of that.’
‘Louis, it’s that accursed brandy – it’s that that I’m afraid of: you see me here, my boy, how I’m lying here now.’
‘Don’t you be annoying yourself, governor; I’m all right – quite right; and as for you, why, you’ll be up and about yourself in another month or so.’
‘I shall never be off this bed, my boy, till I’m carried into my coffin, on those chairs there. But I’m not thinking of myself, Louis, but you; think what you may have before you if you can’t avoid that accursed bottle.’
‘I’m all right, governor; right as a trivet. It’s very little I take, except at an odd time or so.’
‘Oh, Louis! Louis!’
‘Come, father, cheer up; this sort of thing isn’t the thing for you at all. I wonder where mother is: she ought to be here with the broth; just let me go, and I’ll see for her.’
The father understood it all. He saw that it was now much beyond his faded powers to touch the heart or conscience of such a youth as his son had become. What now could he do for his boy except die? What else, what other benefit, did his son require of him but to die; to the so that his means of dissipation might be unbounded? He let go the unresisting hand which he held, and, as the young man crept out of the room, he turned his face to the wall. He turned his face to the wall and held bitter commune with his own heart. To what had he brought himself? To what had he brought his son? Oh, how happy would it have been for him could he have remained all his days a working stone-mason in Barchester! How happy could he have died as such, years ago! Such tears as those which wet that pillow are the bitterest which human eyes can shed.
But while they were dropping, the memoir of his life was in quick course of preparation. It was, indeed, nearly completed, with considerable detail. He had lingered on four days longer than might have been expected, and the author had thus had more than usual time for the work. In these days a man is nobody unless his biography is kept so far posted up that it may be ready for the national breakfast-table on the morning after his demise. When it chances that the dead hero is one who was taken in his prime of life, of whose departure from among us