Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [204]
‘Perhaps, Mr Gresham, we need hardly discuss it; but there have been circumstances –’
‘I am not going to discuss anything, Dr Fillgrave; I say I am sorry for it, because I believe that prudence will imperatively require Lady Arabella to have Dr Thorne back again. Now, if you would not object to meet him –’
‘Mr Gresham, I beg pardon; I beg pardon, indeed; but you must really excuse me. Dr Thorne has, in my estimation –’
‘But, Dr Fillgrave –’
‘Mr Gresham, you really must excuse me; you really must, indeed. Anything else that I could do for Lady Arabella, I should be most happy to do; but after what has passed, I cannot meet Dr Thorne; I really cannot. You must not ask me to do so, Mr Gresham. And, Mr Gresham,’ continued the doctor, ‘I did understand from Lady Arabella that his – that is, Dr Thorne’s – conduct to her ladyship had been such – so very outrageous, I may say, that – that – that – of course, Mr Gresham, you know best; but I did think that Lady Arabella herself was quite unwilling to see Dr Thorne again’; and Dr Fillgrave looked very big, and very dignified, and very exclusive.
The squire did not again ask him. He had no warrant for supposing that Lady Arabella would receive Dr Thorne if he did come; and he saw that it was useless to attempt to overcome the rancour of a man so pig-headed as the little Galen now before him. Other propositions were then broached, and it was at last decided that assistance should be sought from London, in the person of the great Sir Omicron Pie.
Sir Omicron came, and Drs Fillgrave and Century were there to meet him. When they all assembled in Lady Arabella’s room, the poor woman’s heart almost sank within her – as well it might, at such a sight. If she could only reconcile it with her honour, her consistency, with her high De Courcy principles, to send once more for Dr Thorne. Oh, Frank! Frank! to what misery has your disobedience brought your mother!
Sir Omicron and the lesser provincial lights had their consultation, and the lesser lights went their way to Barchester and Silverbridge, leaving Sir Omicron to enjoy the hospitality of Greshamsbury.
‘You should have Thorne back here, Mr Gresham,’ said Sir Omicron, almost in a whisper, when they were quite alone. ‘Dr Fillgrave is a very good man, and so is Dr Century; very good, I am sure. But Thorne has known her ladyship so long.’ And then, on the following morning, Sir Omicron also went his way.
And then there was a scene between the squire and her ladyship. Lady Arabella had given herself credit for great good generalship when she found that the squire had been induced to take that pill. We have all heard of the little end of the wedge, and we have most of us an idea that the little end is the difficulty. That pill had been the little end of Lady Arabella’s wedge. Up to that period she had been struggling in vain to make a severance between her husband and her enemy. That pill should do the business. She well knew how to make the most of it; to have it published in Greshamsbury that the squire had put his gouty toe into Dr Fillgrave’s hands; how to let it be known – especially at that humble house in the corner of the street – that Fillgrave’s prescriptions now ran current through the whole establishment. Dr Thorne did hear of it, and did suffer. He had been a true friend to the squire, and he thought the squire should have stood to him more staunchly.
‘After all,’ said he to himself, ‘perhaps it’s as well – perhaps it will be best that I should leave this place altogether.’ And then he thought of Sir Roger and his will, and of Mary and her lover. And then of Mary’s birth, and of his own theoretical doctrines as to pure blood. And so his troubles multiplied, and he saw no present daylight through them.
Such had been the way in which Lady Arabella had got in the little end of the wedge. And she would have triumphed joyfully had not her incessant doubts and fears as to herself then come in to check her triumph and destroy her joy. She had not yet confessed to anyone her secret regret for the friend she had