Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (epub ebook reader .TXT) 📕

herself backwards and forwards on her chair, with her

apron up to her eyes. “What shall I do? what shall I do?”

 

“Look to Him, Lady Scatcherd, who only can make such grief

endurable.”

 

“Yes, yes, yes; I suppose so. Ah me! ah me! But, Dr Thorne, there

must be some chance—isn’t there any chance? That man says he’s going

on so well.”

 

“I fear there is no chance—as far as my knowledge goes there is no

chance.”

 

“Then why does that chattering magpie tell such lies to a woman? Ah

me! ah me! ah me! oh, doctor! doctor! what shall I do? what shall I

do?” and poor Lady Scatcherd, fairly overcome by her sorrow, burst

out crying like a great school-girl.

 

And yet what had her husband done for her that she should thus weep

for him? Would not her life be much more blessed when this cause of

all her troubles should be removed from her? Would she not then be a

free woman instead of a slave? Might she not then expect to begin to

taste the comforts of life? What had that harsh tyrant of hers done

that was good or serviceable for her? Why should she thus weep for

him in paroxysms of truest grief?

 

We hear a good deal of jolly widows; and the slanderous raillery of

the world tells much of conjugal disturbances as a cure for which

women will look forward to a state of widowhood with not unwilling

eyes. The raillery of the world is very slanderous. In our daily

jests we attribute to each other vices of which neither we, nor our

neighbours, nor our friends, nor even our enemies are ever guilty.

It is our favourite parlance to talk of the family troubles of Mrs

Green on our right, and to tell how Mrs Young on our left is strongly

suspected of having raised her hand to her lord and master. What

right have we to make these charges? What have we seen in our own

personal walks through life to make us believe that women are devils?

There may possibly have been a Xantippe here and there, but Imogenes

are to be found under every bush. Lady Scatcherd, in spite of the

life she had led, was one of them.

 

“You should send a message up to London for Louis,” said the doctor.

 

“We did that, doctor; we did that to-day—we sent up a telegraph. Oh

me! oh me! poor boy, what will he do? I shall never know what to do

with him, never! never!” And with such sorrowful wailings she sat

rocking herself through the long night, every now and then comforting

herself by the performance of some menial service in the sick man’s

room.

 

Sir Roger passed the night much as he had passed the day, except

that he appeared gradually to be growing nearer to a state of

consciousness. On the following morning they succeeded at last in

making Mr Rerechild understand that they were not desirous of keeping

him longer from his Barchester practice; and at about twelve o’clock

Dr Thorne also went, promising that he would return in the evening,

and again pass the night at Boxall Hill.

 

In the course of the afternoon Sir Roger once more awoke to his

senses, and when he did so his son was standing at his bedside. Louis

Philippe Scatcherd—or as it may be more convenient to call him,

Louis—was a young man just of the age of Frank Gresham. But there

could hardly be two youths more different in their appearance. Louis,

though his father and mother were both robust persons, was short and

slight, and now of a sickly frame. Frank was a picture of health

and strength; but, though manly in disposition, was by no means

precocious either in appearance or manners. Louis Scatcherd looked

as though he was four years the other’s senior. He had been sent to

Eton when he was fifteen, his father being under the impression that

this was the most ready and best-recognised method of making him a

gentleman. Here he did not altogether fail as regarded the coveted

object of his becoming the companion of gentlemen. He had more

pocket-money than any other lad in the school, and was possessed also

of a certain effrontery which carried him ahead among boys of his own

age. He gained, therefore, a degree of éclat, even among those who

knew, and very frequently said to each other, that young Scatcherd

was not fit to be their companion except on such open occasions as

those of cricket-matches and boat-races. Boys, in this respect, are

at least as exclusive as men, and understand as well the difference

between an inner and an outer circle. Scatcherd had many companions

at school who were glad enough to go up to Maidenhead with him in his

boat; but there was not one among them who would have talked to him

of his sister.

 

Sir Roger was vastly proud of his son’s success, and did his best

to stimulate it by lavish expenditure at the Christopher, whenever

he could manage to run down to Eton. But this practice, though

sufficiently unexceptionable to the boys, was not held in equal

delight by the masters. To tell the truth, neither Sir Roger nor his

son were favourites with these stern custodians. At last it was felt

necessary to get rid of them both; and Louis was not long in giving

them an opportunity, by getting tipsy twice in one week. On the

second occasion he was sent away, and he and Sir Roger, though long

talked of, were seen no more at Eton.

 

But the universities were still open to Louis Philippe, and before he

was eighteen he was entered as a gentleman-commoner at Trinity. As he

was, moreover, the eldest son of a baronet, and had almost unlimited

command of money, here also he was enabled for a while to shine.

 

To shine! but very fitfully; and one may say almost with a ghastly

glare. The very lads who had eaten his father’s dinners at Eton, and

shared his four-oar at Eton, knew much better than to associate with

him at Cambridge now that they had put on the toga virilis. They

were still as prone as ever to fun, frolic, and devilry—perhaps more

so than ever, seeing that more was in their power; but they acquired

an idea that it behoved them to be somewhat circumspect as to the men

with whom their pranks were perpetrated. So, in those days, Louis

Scatcherd was coldly looked on by his whilom Eton friends.

 

But young Scatcherd did not fail to find companions at Cambridge

also. There are few places indeed in which a rich man cannot buy

companionship. But the set with whom he lived at Cambridge were the

worst of the place. They were fast, slang men, who were fast and

slang, and nothing else—men who imitated grooms in more than their

dress, and who looked on the customary heroes of race-courses as the

highest lords of the ascendant upon earth. Among those at college

young Scatcherd did shine as long as such lustre was permitted him.

Here, indeed, his father, who had striven only to encourage him at

Eton, did strive somewhat to control him. But that was not now easy.

If he limited his son’s allowance, he only drove him to do his

debauchery on credit. There were plenty to lend money to the son of

the great millionaire; and so, after eighteen months’ trial of a

university education, Sir Roger had no alternative but to withdraw

his son from his alma mater.

 

What was he then to do with him? Unluckily it was considered quite

unnecessary to take any steps towards enabling him to earn his

bread. Now nothing on earth can be more difficult than bringing up

well a young man who has not to earn his own bread, and who has no

recognised station among other men similarly circumstanced. Juvenile

dukes, and sprouting earls, find their duties and their places as

easily as embryo clergymen and sucking barristers. Provision is

made for their peculiar positions: and, though they may possibly go

astray, they have a fair chance given to them of running within the

posts. The same may be said of such youths as Frank Gresham. There

are enough of them in the community to have made it necessary that

their well-being should be a matter of care and forethought. But

there are but few men turned out in the world in the position of

Louis Scatcherd; and, of those few, but very few enter the real

battle of life under good auspices.

 

Poor Sir Roger, though he had hardly time with all his multitudinous

railways to look into this thoroughly, had a glimmering of it. When

he saw his son’s pale face, and paid his wine bills, and heard of his

doings in horse-flesh, he did know that things were not going well;

he did understand that the heir to a baronetcy and a fortune of some

ten thousand a year might be doing better. But what was he to do? He

could not watch over his boy himself; so he took a tutor for him and

sent him abroad.

 

Louis and the tutor got as far as Berlin, with what mutual

satisfaction to each other need not be specially described. But from

Berlin Sir Roger received a letter in which the tutor declined to go

any further in the task which he had undertaken. He found that he

had no influence over his pupil, and he could not reconcile it to

his conscience to be the spectator of such a life as that which Mr

Scatcherd led. He had no power in inducing Mr Scatcherd to leave

Berlin; but he would remain there himself till he should hear from

Sir Roger. So Sir Roger had to leave the huge Government works which

he was then erecting on the southern coast, and hurry off to Berlin

to see what could be done with young Hopeful.

 

The young Hopeful was by no means a fool; and in some matters was

more than a match for his father. Sir Roger, in his anger, threatened

to cast him off without a shilling. Louis, with mixed penitence and

effrontery, reminded him that he could not change the descent of the

title; promised amendment; declared that he had done only as do other

young men of fortune; and hinted that the tutor was a strait-laced

ass. The father and the son returned together to Boxall Hill, and

three months afterwards Mr Scatcherd set up for himself in London.

 

And now his life, if not more virtuous, was more crafty than it had

been. He had no tutor to watch his doings and complain of them, and

he had sufficient sense to keep himself from absolute pecuniary ruin.

He lived, it is true, where sharpers and blacklegs had too often

opportunities of plucking him; but, young as he was, he had been

sufficiently long about the world to take care he was not openly

robbed; and as he was not openly robbed, his father, in a certain

sense, was proud of him.

 

Tidings, however, came—came at least in those last days—which cut

Sir Roger to the quick; tidings of vice in the son which the father

could not but attribute to his own example. Twice the mother was

called up to the sick-bed of her only child, while he lay raving in

that horrid madness by which the outraged mind avenges itself on the

body! Twice he was found raging in delirium tremens, and twice the

father was told that a continuance of such life must end in an early

death.

 

It may easily be conceived that Sir Roger was not a