Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [182]
‘She was very unfortunate, you say, Lady Scatcherd?’
‘Yes, Miss Thorne; Mary, I mean – never mind me – I shall do it in time. Yes, she was; but now I think of it, I had better say nothing more about it. There are reasons, and I ought not to have spoken of it. You won’t be provoked with me, will you?’
Mary assured her that she would not be provoked, and of course asked no more questions about Mary Scatcherd: nor did she think much more about it. It was not so, however, with her ladyship, who could not keep herself from reflecting that the old clergyman in the Close at Barchester certainly had but two sons, one of whom was now the doctor at Greshamsbury, and the other of whom had perished so wretchedly at the gate of that farmyard. Who then was the father of Mary Thorne?
The days passed very quietly at Boxall Hill. Every morning Mary went out on her donkey, who justified by his demeanour all that had been said in his praise; then she would read or draw, then walk with Lady Scatcherd, then dine, then walk again; and so the days passed quietly away. Once or twice a week the doctor would come over and drink his tea there, riding home in the cool of the evening. Mary also received one visit from her friend Patience.
So the days passed quietly away till the tranquillity of the house was suddenly broken by tidings from London. Lady Scatcherd received a letter from her son, contained in three lines, in which he intimated that on the following day he meant to honour her with a visit. He had intended, he said, to have gone to Brighton with some friends; but as he felt himself a little out of sorts, he would postpone his marine trip and do his mother the grace of spending a few days with her.
This news was not very pleasant to Mary, by whom it had been understood, as it had also by her uncle, that Lady Scatcherd would have had the house to herself; but as there were no means of preventing the evil, Mary could only inform the doctor, and prepare herself to meet Sir Louis Scatcherd.
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Doctor Hears Something to his Advantage
SIR LOUIS SCATCHERD had told his mother that he was rather out of sorts, and when he reached Boxall Hill it certainly did not appear that he had given any exaggerated statement of his own maladies. He certainly was a good deal out of sorts. He had had more than one attack of delirium tremens since his father’s death, and had almost been at death’s door.
Nothing had been said about this by Dr Thorne at Boxall Hill; but he was by no means ignorant of his ward’s state. Twice he had gone up to London to visit him; twice he had begged him to go down into the country and place himself under his mother’s care. On the last occasion, the doctor had threatened him with all manner of pains and penalties: with pains, as to his speedy departure from this world and all its joys; and with penalties, in the shape of poverty if that departure should by any chance be retarded. But these threats had at the moment been in vain, and the doctor had compromised matters by inducing Sir Louis to promise that he would go to Brighton. The baronet, however, who was at length frightened by some renewed attack, gave up his Brighton scheme, and, without any notice to the doctor, hurried down to Boxall Hill.
Mary did not see him on the first day of his coming, but the doctor did. He received such intimation of the visit as enabled him