Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [234]
The doctor swallowed his draught, and put down the glass before he made any reply, and even then he said but little.
‘Oh! Frank Gresham.’
‘Yes, uncle.’
‘You thought him looking pretty well?’
‘Yes, uncle; he was very well, I believe.’
Dr Thorne had nothing more to say, so he got up and went to his patient in the next room.
‘If he disapproves of it, why does he not say so?’ said Mary, to herself. ‘Why does he not advise me?’
But it was not so easy to give advice while Sir Louis Scatcherd was lying there in that state.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Sir Louis Leaves Greshamsbury
JANET had been sedulous in her attentions to Sir Louis, and had not troubled her mistress; but she had not had an easy time of it. Her orders had been, that either she or Thomas should remain in the room the whole day, and those orders had been obeyed.
Immediately after, breakfast, the baronet had inquired after his own servant. ‘His confounded nose must be right by this time, I suppose?’
‘It was very bad, Sir Louis,’ said the old woman, who imagined that it might be difficult to induce Jonah to come into the house again.
‘A man in such a place as his has no business to be laid up,’ said the master, with a whine. ‘I’ll see and get a man who won’t break his nose.’
Thomas was sent to the inn three or four times, but in vain. The man was sitting up, well enough, in the taproom; but the middle of his face was covered with streaks of plaster, and he could not bring himself to expose his wounds before his conqueror.
Sir Louis began by ordering the woman to bring him chasse-café. She offered him coffee, as much as he would; but no chasse.‘A glass of port wine,’ she said, ‘at twelve o’clock, and another at three had been ordered for him.’
‘I don’t care a —— for the orders,’ said Sir Louis; ‘send me my own man.’ The man was again sent for; but would not come. ‘There’s a bottle of stuff that I like, in that portmanteau, in the left-hand corner – just hand it to me.’
But Janet was not to be done. She would give him no stuff, except what the doctor had ordered, till the doctor came back. The doctor would then, no doubt, give him anything that was proper.
Sir Louis swore a good deal, and stormed as much as he could. He drank, however, his two glasses of wine, and he got no more. Once or twice he essayed to get out of bed and dress; but, at every effort, he found that he could not do it without Joe: and there he was, still under the clothes when the doctor returned.
‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ said he, as soon as his guardian entered the room, ‘I’m not going to be made a prisoner of here.’
‘A prisoner! no, surely not.’
‘It seems very much like it at present. Your servant here – that old woman – takes it upon her to say she’ll do nothing without your orders.’
‘Well; she’s right there.’
‘Right! I don’t know what you call right; but I won’t stand it. You are not going to make a child of me, Dr Thorne; so you need not think it.’
And then there was a long quarrel between them, and but an indifferent reconciliation. The baronet said that he would go to Boxall Hill, and was vehement in his intention to do so because the doctor opposed it. He had not, however, as yet ferreted out the squire, or given a bit of his mind to Mr Gazebee, and it behoved him to do this before he took himself off to his own country mansion. He ended, therefore, by deciding to go on the next day but one.
‘Let it be so, if you are well enough,’ said the doctor.
‘Well enough!’ said the other, with a sneer. ‘There’s nothing to make me ill that I know of. It certainly won’t be drinking too much here.’
On the next day, Sir Louis was in a different mood, and in one more distressing for the doctor to bear. His compelled abstinence from intemperate drinking had, no doubt, been good for him; but his mind had so much sunk under the pain of the privation, that his state was piteous to behold. He had cried for his servant, as a child cries for its nurse, till at last the doctor, moved to pity, had himself gone out and brought the man