Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [253]
The name which Joe had given to his master’s illness was certainly not a false one. He did find Sir Louis ‘in the horrors.’ If any father have a son whose besetting sin is a passion for alcohol, let him take his child to the room of a drunkard when possessed by ‘the horrors.’ Nothing will cure him if not that.
I will not disgust my reader by attempting to describe the poor wretch in his misery: the sunken, but yet glaring eyes; the emaciated cheeks; the fallen mouth; the parched, sore lips; the face, now dry and hot, and then suddenly clammy with drops of perspiration; the shaking hand, and all but palsied limbs; and worse than this, the fearful mental efforts, and the struggles for drink; struggles to which it is often necessary to give way.
Dr Fillgrave soon knew what was to be the man’s fate; but he did what he might to relieve it. There, in one big, best bedroom, looking out to the north, lay Sir Louis Scatcherd, dying wretchedly. There, in the other big, best bedroom, looking out to the south, had died the other baronet about a twelvemonth since, and each a victim to the same sin. To this had come the prosperity of the house of Scatcherd!
And then Dr Fillgrave went on to Greshamsbury. It was a long day’s work, both for himself and the horses; but then, the triumph of being dragged up that avenue compensated for both the expense and the labour. He always put on his sweetest smile as he came near the hall-door, and rubbed his hands in the most complaisant manner of which he knew. It was seldom that he saw any of the family but Lady Arabella; but then he desired to see none other, and when he left her in a good humour, was quite content to take his glass of sherry and eat his lunch by himself.
On this occasion, however, the servant at once asked him to go into the dining-room, and there he found himself in the presence of Frank Gresham. The fact was, that Lady Arabella, having at last decided, had sent for Dr Thorne; and it had become necessary that someone should be intrusted with the duty of informing Dr Fillgrave. That someone must be the squire, or Frank. Lady Arabella would doubtless have preferred a messenger more absolutely friendly to her own side of the house; but such messenger there was none: she could not send Mr Gazebee to see her doctor, and so, of two evils, she chose the least.
‘Dr Fillgrave,’ said Frank, shaking hands with him very cordially as he came up, ‘my mother is so much obliged to you for all your care and anxiety on her behalf! and, so indeed, are we all.’
The doctor shook hands with him very warmly. This little expression of a family feeling on his behalf was the more gratifying, as he had always thought that the males of the Greshamsbury family were still wedded to that pseudo-doctor, that half-apothecary who lived in the village.
‘It has been awfully troublesome to you, coming over all this way, I am sure. Indeed, money could not pay for it; my mother feels that. It must cut up your time so much.’
‘Not at all, Mr Gresham; not at all,’ said the Barchester doctor, rising up on his toes proudly as he spoke. ‘A person of your mother’s importance, you know! I should be happy to go any distance to see her.’
‘Ah! but, Dr Fillgrave, we cannot allow that.’
‘Mr Gresham, don’t mention it.’
‘Oh, yes; but I must,’ said Frank, who thought that he had done enough for civility, and was now anxious to come to the point. ‘The fact is, doctor, that we are very much obliged for what you have done; but, for the future, my mother thinks she can trust to such assistance as she can get here in the village.’
Frank had been particularly instructed to be very careful how he mentioned Dr Thorne’s name, and, therefore, cleverly avoided it.
Get what assistance she wanted in the village! What words were those that he heard? ‘Mr Gresham, eh – hem – perhaps I do not completely –’ Yes, alas! he had completely understood what Frank