Doctor Thorne Part 23

"I'm very glad to hear it; but as the morning is getting on, shall I step up to see Sir Roger?"

"Why, Dr Fillgrave, sir, you see, he finds hisself so much hisself this morning, that he a'most thinks it would be a shame to trouble you."

"A shame to trouble me!" This was the sort of shame which Dr Fillgrave did not at all comprehend. "A shame to trouble me! Why Lady Scatcherd--"

Lady Scatcherd saw that she had nothing for it but to make the whole matter intelligible. Moreover, seeing that she appreciated more thoroughly the smallness of Dr Fillgrave's person than she did the peculiar greatness of his demeanour, she began to be a shade less afraid of him than she had thought she should have been.

"Yes, Dr Fillgrave; you see, when a man like he gets well, he can't abide the idea of doctors: now, yesterday, he was all for sending for you; but to-day he comes to hisself, and don't seem to want no doctor at all."

Then did Dr Fillgrave seem to grow out of his boots, so suddenly did he take upon himself sundry modes of expansive att.i.tude;--to grow out of his boots and to swell upwards, till his angry eyes almost looked down on Lady Scatcherd, and each erect hair bristled up towards the heavens.

"This is very singular, very singular, Lady Scatcherd; very singular, indeed; very singular; quite unusual. I have come here from Barchester, at some considerable inconvenience, at some very considerable inconvenience, I may say, to my regular patients; and--and--and--I don't know that anything so very singular ever occurred to me before." And then Dr Fillgrave, with a compression of his lips which almost made the poor woman sink into the ground, moved towards the door.

Then Lady Scatcherd bethought her of her great panacea. "It isn't about the money, you know, doctor," said she; "of course Sir Roger don't expect you to come here with post-horses for nothing." In this, by the by, Lady Scatcherd did not stick quite close to veracity, for Sir Roger, had he known it, would by no means have a.s.sented to any payment; and the note which her ladyship held in her hand was taken from her own private purse. "It ain't at all about the money, doctor;" and then she tendered the bank-note, which she thought would immediately make all things smooth.

Now Dr Fillgrave dearly loved a five-pound fee. What physician is so unnatural as not to love it? He dearly loved a five-pound fee; but he loved his dignity better. He was angry also; and like all angry men, he loved his grievance. He felt that he had been badly treated; but if he took the money he would throw away his right to indulge in any such feeling. At that moment his outraged dignity and his cherished anger were worth more than a five-pound note. He looked at it with wishful but still averted eyes, and then sternly refused the tender.

"No, madam," said he; "no, no;" and with his right hand raised with his eye-gla.s.ses in it, he motioned away the tempting paper. "No; I should have been happy to have given Sir Roger the benefit of any medical skill I may have, seeing that I was specially called in--"

"But, doctor; if the man's well, you know--"

"Oh, of course; if he's well, and does not choose to see me, there's an end of it. Should he have any relapse, as my time is valuable, he will perhaps oblige me by sending elsewhere. Madam, good morning.

I will, if you will allow me, ring for my carriage--that is, post-chaise."

"But, doctor, you'll take the money; you must take the money; indeed you'll take the money," said Lady Scatcherd, who had now become really unhappy at the idea that her husband's unpardonable whim had brought this man with post-horses all the way from Barchester, and that he was to be paid nothing for his time nor costs.

"No, madam, no. I could not think of it. Sir Roger, I have no doubt, will know better another time. It is not a question of money; not at all."

"But it is a question of money, doctor; and you really shall, you must." And poor Lady Scatcherd, in her anxiety to acquit herself at any rate of any pecuniary debt to the doctor, came to personal close quarters with him, with the view of forcing the note into his hands.

"Quite impossible, quite impossible," said the doctor, still cherishing his grievance, and valiantly rejecting the root of all evil. "I shall not do anything of the kind, Lady Scatcherd."

"Now doctor, do 'ee; to oblige me."

"Quite out of the question." And so, with his hands and hat behind his back, in token of his utter refusal to accept any pecuniary accommodation of his injury, he made his way backwards to the door, her ladyship perseveringly pressing him in front. So eager had been the attack on him, that he had not waited to give his order about the post-chaise, but made his way at once towards the hall.

"Now, do 'ee take it, do 'ee," pressed Lady Scatcherd.

"Utterly out of the question," said Dr Fillgrave, with great deliberation, as he backed his way into the hall. As he did so, of course he turned round,--and he found himself almost in the arms of Dr Thorne.

As Burley must have glared at Bothwell when they rushed together in the dread encounter on the mountain side; as Achilles may have glared at Hector when at last they met, each resolved to test in fatal conflict the prowess of the other, so did Dr Fillgrave glare at his foe from Greshamsbury, when, on turning round on his exalted heel, he found his nose on a level with the top b.u.t.ton of Dr Thorne's waistcoat.

And here, if it be not too tedious, let us pause a while to recapitulate and add up the undoubted grievances of the Barchester pract.i.tioner. He had made no effort to ingratiate himself into the sheepfold of that other shepherd-dog; it was not by his seeking that he was now at Boxall Hill; much as he hated Dr Thorne, full sure as he felt of that man's utter ignorance, of his incapacity to administer properly even a black dose, of his murdering propensities and his low, mean, unprofessional style of practice; nevertheless, he had done nothing to undermine him with these Scatcherds. Dr Thorne might have sent every mother's son at Boxall Hill to his long account, and Dr Fillgrave would not have interfered;--would not have interfered unless specially and duly called upon to do so.

But he had been specially and duly called on. Before such a step was taken some words must undoubtedly have pa.s.sed on the subject between Thorne and the Scatcherds. Thorne must have known what was to be done. Having been so called, Dr Fillgrave had come--had come all the way in a post-chaise--had been refused admittance to the sick man's room, on the plea that the sick man was no longer sick; and just as he was about to retire fee-less--for the want of the fee was not the less a grievance from the fact of its having been tendered and refused--fee-less, dishonoured, and in dudgeon, he encountered this other doctor--this very rival whom he had been sent to supplant; he encountered him in the very act of going to the sick man's room.

What mad fanatic Burley, what G.o.d-succoured insolent Achilles, ever had such cause to swell with wrath as at that moment had Dr Fillgrave? Had I the pen of Moliere, I could fitly tell of such medical anger, but with no other pen can it be fitly told. He did swell, and when the huge bulk of his wrath was added to his natural proportions, he loomed gigantic before the eyes of the surrounding followers of Sir Roger.

Dr Thorne stepped back three steps and took his hat from his head, having, in the pa.s.sage from the hall-door to the dining-room, hitherto omitted to do so. It must be borne in mind that he had no conception whatever that Sir Roger had declined to see the physician for whom he had sent; none whatever that the physician was now about to return, fee-less, to Barchester.

Dr Thorne and Dr Fillgrave were doubtless well-known enemies. All the world of Barchester, and all that portion of the world of London which is concerned with the lancet and the scalping-knife, were well aware of this: they were continually writing against each other; continually speaking against each other; but yet they had never hitherto come to that positive personal collision which is held to justify a cut direct. They very rarely saw each other; and when they did meet, it was in some casual way in the streets of Barchester or elsewhere, and on such occasions their habit had been to bow with very cold propriety.

On the present occasion, Dr Thorne of course felt that Dr Fillgrave had the whip-hand of him; and, with a sort of manly feeling on such a point, he conceived it to be most compatible with his own dignity to show, under such circ.u.mstances, more than his usual courtesy--something, perhaps, amounting almost to cordiality. He had been supplanted, _quoad_ doctor, in the house of this rich, eccentric, railway baronet, and he would show that he bore no malice on that account.

So he smiled blandly as he took off his hat, and in a civil speech he expressed a hope that Dr Fillgrave had not found his patient to be in any very unfavourable state.

Here was an aggravation to the already lacerated feelings of the injured man. He had been brought thither to be scoffed at and scorned at, that he might be a laughing-stock to his enemies, and food for mirth to the vile-minded. He swelled with n.o.ble anger till he would have burst, had it not been for the opportune padding of his frock-coat.

"Sir," said he; "sir:" and he could hardly get his lips open to give vent to the tumult of his heart. Perhaps he was not wrong; for it may be that his lips were more eloquent than would have been his words.

"What's the matter?" said Dr Thorne, opening his eyes wide, and addressing Lady Scatcherd over the head and across the hairs of the irritated man below him. "What on earth is the matter? Is anything wrong with Sir Roger?"

"Oh, laws, doctor!" said her ladyship. "Oh, laws; I'm sure it ain't my fault. Here's Dr Fillgrave in a taking, and I'm quite ready to pay him,--quite. If a man gets paid, what more can he want?" And she again held out the five-pound note over Dr Fillgrave's head.

What more, indeed, Lady Scatcherd, can any of us want, if only we could keep our tempers and feelings a little in abeyance? Dr Fillgrave, however, could not so keep his; and, therefore, he did want something more, though at the present moment he could have hardly said what.

Lady Scatcherd's courage was somewhat resuscitated by the presence of her ancient trusty ally; and, moreover, she began to conceive that the little man before her was unreasonable beyond all conscience in his anger, seeing that that for which he was ready to work had been offered to him without any work at all.

"Madam," said he, again turning round at Lady Scatcherd, "I was never before treated in such a way in any house in Barchester-- never--never."

"Good heavens, Dr Fillgrave!" said he of Greshamsbury, "what is the matter?"

"I'll let you know what is the matter, sir," said he, turning round again as quickly as before. "I'll let you know what is the matter.

I'll publish this, sir, to the medical world;" and as he shrieked out the words of the threat, he stood on tiptoes and brandished his eye-gla.s.ses up almost into his enemy's face.

"Don't be angry with Dr Thorne," said Lady Scatcherd. "Any ways, you needn't be angry with him. If you must be angry with anybody--"

"I shall be angry with him, madam," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dr Fillgrave, making another sudden demi-pirouette. "I am angry with him--or, rather, I despise him;" and completing the circle, Dr Fillgrave again brought himself round in full front of his foe.

Dr Thorne raised his eyebrows and looked inquiringly at Lady Scatcherd; but there was a quiet sarcastic motion round his mouth which by no means had the effect of throwing oil on the troubled waters.

"I'll publish the whole of this transaction to the medical world, Dr Thorne--the whole of it; and if that has not the effect of rescuing the people of Greshamsbury out of your hands, then--then--then, I don't know what will. Is my carriage--that is, post-chaise there?"

and Dr Fillgrave, speaking very loudly, turned majestically to one of the servants.

"What have I done to you, Dr Fillgrave," said Dr Thorne, now absolutely laughing, "that you should determined to take my bread out of my mouth? I am not interfering with your patient. I have come here simply with reference to money matters appertaining to Sir Roger."

"Money matters! Very well--very well; money matters. That is your idea of medical practice! Very well--very well. Is my post-chaise at the door? I'll publish it all to the medical world--every word--every word of it, every word of it."

"Publish what, you unreasonable man?"

"Man! sir; whom do you call a man? I'll let you know whether I'm a man--post-chaise there!"

"Don't 'ee call him names now, doctor; don't 'ee, pray don't 'ee,"

said Lady Scatcherd.

By this time they had all got somewhere nearer the hall-door; but the Scatcherd retainers were too fond of the row to absent themselves willingly at Dr Fillgrave's bidding, and it did not appear that any one went in search of the post-chaise.

"Man! sir; I'll let you know what it is to speak to me in that style.

I think, sir, you hardly know who I am."