There was something so horrifying in this, that Dr. Thorne shrank back amazed, and was for a moment unable to speak.
“But, Scatcherd,” he said at last; “surely you would not die for such a passion as that?”
“Die for it? Aye, would I. Live for it while I can live; and die for it when I can live no longer. Die for it! What is that for a man to do? Do not men die for a shilling a day? What is a man the worse for dying? What can I be the worse for dying? A man can die but once, you said just now. I’d die ten times for this.”
“You are speaking now either in madness, or else in folly, to startle me.”
“Folly enough, perhaps, and madness enough, also. Such a life as mine makes a man a fool, and makes him mad too. What have I about me that I should be afraid to die? I’m worth three hundred thousand pounds; and I’d give it all to be able to go to work to-morrow with a hod and mortar, and have a fellow clap his hand upon my shoulder, and say: ‘Well, Roger, shall us have that ‘ere other half-pint this morning?’ I’ll tell you what, Thorne, when a man has made three hundred thousand pounds, there’s nothing left for him but to die. It’s all he’s good for then. When money’s been made, the next thing is to spend it. Now the man who makes it has not the heart to do that.”
The doctor, of course, in hearing all this, said something of a tendency to comfort and console the mind of his patient. Not that anything he could say would comfort or console the man; but that it was impossible to sit there and hear such fearful truths—for as regarded Scatcherd they were truths—without making some answer.
“This is as good as a play, isn’t, doctor?” said the baronet. “You didn’t know how I could come out like one of those actor fellows. Well, now, come; at last I’ll tell you why I have sent for you. Before that last burst of mine I made my will.”
“You had a will made before that.”
“Yes, I had. That will is destroyed. I burnt it with my own hand, so that there should be no mistake about it. In that will I had named two executors, you and Jackson. I was then partner with Jackson in the York and Yeovil Grand Central. I thought a deal of Jackson then. He’s not worth a shilling now.”
“Well, I’m exactly in the same category.”
“No, you’re not. Jackson is nothing without money; but money’ll never make you.”
“No, nor I shan’t make money,” said the doctor.
“No, you never will. Nevertheless, there’s my other will, there, under that desk there; and I’ve put you in as sole executor.”
“You must alter that, Scatcherd; you must indeed; with three hundred thousand pounds to be disposed of, the trust is far too much for any one man: besides you must name a younger man; you and I are of the same age, and I may die the first.”
“Now, doctor, doctor, no humbug; let’s have no humbug from you. Remember this; if you’re not true, you’re nothing.”
“Well, but, Scatcherd—”
“Well, but doctor, there’s the will, it’s already made. I don’t want to consult you about that. You are named as executor, and if you have the heart to refuse to act when I’m dead, why, of course, you can do so.”
The doctor was no lawyer, and hardly knew whether he had any means of extricating himself from this position in which his friend was determined to place him.
“You’ll have to see that will carried out, Thorne. Now I’ll tell you what I have done.”
“You’re not going to tell me how you have disposed of your property?”
“Not exactly; at least not all of it. One hundred thousand I’ve left in legacies, including, you know, what Lady Scatcherd will have.”
“Have you not left the house to Lady Scatcherd?”
“No; what the devil would she do with a house like this? She doesn’t know how to live in it now she has got it. I have provided for her; it matters not how. The house and the estate, and the remainder of my money, I have left to Louis Philippe.”
“What! two hundred thousand pounds?” said the doctor.
“And why shouldn’t I leave two hundred thousand pounds to my son, even to my eldest son if I had more than one? Does not Mr. Gresham leave all his property to his heir? Why should not I make an eldest son as well as Lord de Courcy or the Duke of Omnium? I suppose a railway contractor ought not to be allowed an eldest son by Act of Parliament! Won’t my son have a title to keep up? And that’s more than the Greshams have among them.”
The doctor explained away what he said as well as he could. He could not explain that what he had really meant was this, that Sir Roger Scatcherd’s son was not a man fit to be trusted with the entire control of an enormous fortune.
Sir Roger Scatcherd had but one child; that child which had been born in the days of his early troubles, and had been dismissed from his mother’s breast in order that the mother’s milk might nourish the young heir of Greshamsbury. The boy had grown up, but had become strong neither in mind nor body. His father had determined to make a gentleman of him, and had sent to Eton and to Cambridge. But even this receipt, generally as it is recognised, will not make a gentleman. It is hard, indeed, to define what receipt will do so, though people do have in their own minds some certain undefined, but yet tolerably correct ideas on the subject. Be that as it may, two years at Eton, and three terms at Cambridge, did not make a gentleman of Louis Philippe Scatcherd.
Yes; he was christened Louis Philippe, after the King of the French. If one wishes to look out in the world for royal nomenclature, to find children who have been christened after kings and queens, or the uncles and aunts of kings and queens, the search should be made in the families of democrats. None have so servile a deference for the very nail-parings of royalty; none feel so wondering an awe at the exaltation of a crowned head; none are so anxious to secure themselves some shred or fragment that has been consecrated by the royal touch. It is the distance which they feel to exist between themselves and the throne which makes them covet the crumbs of majesty, the odds and ends and chance splinters of royalty.
There was nothing royal about Louis Philippe Scatcherd but his name. He had now come to man’s estate, and his father, finding the Cambridge receipt to be inefficacious, had sent him abroad to travel with a tutor. The doctor had from time to time heard tidings of this youth; he knew that he had already shown symptoms of his father’s vices, but no symptoms of his father’s talents; he knew that he had begun life by being dissipated, without being generous; and that at the age of twenty-one he had already suffered from delirium tremens.
It was on this account that he had expressed disapprobation, rather than surprise, when he heard that his father intended to bequeath the bulk of his large fortune to the uncontrolled will of this unfortunate boy.
“I have toiled for my money hard, and I have a right to do as I like with it. What other satisfaction can it give me?”
The doctor assured him that he did not at all mean to dispute this.
“Louis Philippe will do well enough, you’ll find,” continued the baronet, understanding what was passing within his companion’s breast. “Let a young fellow sow his wild oats while he is young, and he’ll be steady enough when he grows old.”
“But what if he never lives to get through the sowing?” thought the doctor to himself. “What if the wild-oats operation is carried on in so violent a manner as to leave no strength in the soil for the product of a more valuable crop?” It was of no use saying this, however, so he allowed Scatcherd to continue.
“If I’d had a free fling when I was a youngster, I shouldn’t have been so fond of the brandy bottle now. But any way, my son shall be my heir. I’ve had the gumption to make the money, but I haven’t the gumption to spend it. My son, however, shall be able to ruffle it with the best of them. I’ll go bail he shall hold his head higher than ever young Gresham will be able to hold his. They are much of the same age, as well I have cause to remember—and so has her ladyship there.”
Now the fact was, that Sir Roger Scatcherd felt in his heart no special love for youn
g Gresham; but with her ladyship it might almost be a question whether she did not love the youth whom she had nursed almost as well as that other one who was her own proper offspring.
“And will you not put any check on thoughtless expenditure? If you live ten or twenty years, as we hope you may, it will become unnecessary; but in making a will, a man should always remember he may go off suddenly.”
“Especially if he goes to bed with a brandy bottle under his head; eh, doctor? But, mind, that’s a medical secret, you know; not a word of that out of the bedroom.”
Dr. Thorne could but sigh. What could he say on such a subject to such a man as this?
“Yes, I have put a check on his expenditure. I will not let his daily bread depend on any man; I have therefore left him five hundred a year at his own disposal, from the day of my death. Let him make what ducks and drakes of that he can.”
“Five hundred a year certainly is not much,” said the doctor.
“No; nor do I want to keep him to that. Let him have whatever he wants if he sets about spending it properly. But the bulk of the property—this estate of Boxall Hill, and the Greshamsbury mortgage, and those other mortgages—I have tied up in this way: they shall be all his at twenty-five; and up to that age it shall be in your power to give him what he wants. If he shall die without children before he shall be twenty-five years of age, they are all to go to Mary’s eldest child.”
Now Mary was Sir Roger’s sister, the mother, therefore, of Miss Thorne, and, consequently, the wife of the respectable ironmonger who went to America, and the mother of a family there.
“Mary’s eldest child!” said the doctor, feeling that the perspiration had nearly broken out on his forehead, and that he could hardly control his feelings. “Mary’s eldest child! Scatcherd, you should be more particular in your description, or you will leave your best legacy to the lawyers.”
“I don’t know, and never heard the name of one of them.”
“But do you mean a boy or a girl?”
“They may be all girls for what I know, or all boys; besides, I don’t care which it is. A girl would probably do best with it. Only you’d have to see that she married some decent fellow; you’d be her guardian.”
“Pooh, nonsense,” said the doctor. “Louis will be five-and-twenty in a year or two.”
“In about four years.”
“And for all that’s come and gone yet, Scatcherd, you are not going to leave us yourself quite so soon as all that.”
“Not if I can help it, doctor; but that’s as may be.”
“The chances are ten to one that such a clause in your will will never come to bear.”
“Quite so, quite so. If I die, Louis Philippe won’t; but I thought it right to put in something to prevent his squandering it all before he comes to his senses.”
“Oh! quite right, quite right. I think I would have named a later age than twenty-five.”
“So would not I. Louis Philippe will be all right by that time. That’s my lookout. And now, doctor, you know my will; and if I die to-morrow, you will know what I want you to do for me.”
“You have merely said the eldest child, Scatcherd?”
“That’s all; give it here, and I’ll read it to you.”
“No, no; never mind. The eldest child! You should be more particular, Scatcherd; you should, indeed. Consider what an enormous interest may have to depend on those words.”
“Why, what the devil could I say? I don’t know their names; never even heard them. But the eldest is the eldest, all the world over. Perhaps I ought to say the youngest, seeing that I am only a railway contractor.”
Scatcherd began to think that the doctor might now as well go away and leave him to the society of Winterbones and the brandy; but, much as our friend had before expressed himself in a hurry, he now seemed inclined to move very leisurely. He sat there by the bedside, resting his hands on his knees and gazing unconsciously at the counterpane. At last he gave a deep sigh, and then he said, “Scatcherd, you must be more particular in this. If I am to have anything to do with it, you must, indeed, be more explicit.”
“Why, how the deuce can I be more explicit? Isn’t her eldest living child plain enough, whether he be Jack, or she be Gill?”
“What did your lawyer say to this, Scatcherd?”
“Lawyer! You don’t suppose I let my lawyer know what I was putting. No; I got the form and the paper, and all that from him, and had him here, in one room, while Winterbones and I did it in another. It’s all right enough. Though Winterbones wrote it, he did it in such a way he did not know what he was writing.”
The doctor sat a while longer, still looking at the counterpane, and then got up to depart. “I’ll see you again soon,” said he; “to-morrow, probably.”
“To-morrow!” said Sir Roger, not at all understanding why Dr. Thorne should talk of returning so soon. “To-morrow! why I ain’t so bad as that, man, am I? If you come so often as that you’ll ruin me.”
“Oh, not as a medical man; not as that; but about this will, Scatcherd. I must think if over; I must, indeed.”
“You need not give yourself the least trouble in the world about my will till I’m dead; not the least. And who knows—maybe, I may be settling your affairs yet; eh, doctor? looking after your niece when you’re dead and gone, and getting a husband for her, eh? Ha! ha! ha!”
And then, without further speech, the doctor went his way.
CHAPTER XI
The Doctor Drinks His Tea
The doctor got on his cob and went his way, returning duly to Greshamsbury. But, in truth, as he went he hardly knew whither he was going, or what he was doing. Sir Roger had hinted that the cob would be compelled to make up for lost time by extra exertion on the road; but the cob had never been permitted to have his own way as to pace more satisfactorily than on the present occasion. The doctor, indeed, hardly knew that he was on horseback, so completely was he enveloped in the cloud of his own thoughts.
In the first place, that alternative which it had become him to put before the baronet as one unlikely to occur—that of the speedy death of both father and son—was one which he felt in his heart of hearts might very probably come to pass.
“The chances are ten to one that such a clause will never be brought to bear.” This he had said partly to himself, so as to ease the thoughts which came crowding on his brain; partly, also, in pity for the patient and the father. But now that he thought the matter over, he felt that there were no such odds. Were not the odds the other way? Was it not almost probable that both these men might be gathered to their long account within the next four years? One, the elder, was a strong man, indeed; one who might yet live for years to come if he would but give himself fair play. But then, he himself protested, and protested with a truth too surely grounded, that fair play to himself was beyond his own power to give. The other, the younger, had everything against him. Not only was he a poor, puny creature, without physical strength, one of whose life a friend could never feel sure under any circumstances, but he also was already addicted to his father’s vices; he also was already killing himself with alcohol.
And then, if these two men did die within the prescribed period, if this clause in Sir Roger’s will were brought to bear, if it should become his, Dr. Thorne’s, duty to see that clause carried out, how would he be bound to act? That woman’s eldest child was his own niece, his adopted bairn, his darling, the pride of his heart, the cynosure of his eye, his child also, his own Mary. Of all his duties on this earth, next to that one great duty to his God and conscience, was his duty to her. What, under these circumstances, did his duty to her require of him?
But then, that one great duty, that duty which she would be the first to expect from him; what did that demand of him? Had Scatcherd made his will without saying what its clauses were, it seemed to Thorne that Mary must have been the heiress, should that clause become necessarily operative. Whether she were so or not would at any rate be for lawyers to decide. But now the case w
as very different. This rich man had confided in him, and would it not be a breach of confidence, an act of absolute dishonesty—an act of dishonesty both to Scatcherd and to that far-distant American family, to that father, who, in former days, had behaved so nobly, and to that eldest child of his, would it not be gross dishonesty to them all if he allowed this man to leave a will by which his property might go to a person never intended to be his heir?
Long before he had arrived at Greshamsbury his mind on this point had been made up. Indeed, it had been made up while sitting there by Scatcherd’s bedside. It had not been difficult to make up his mind to so much; but then, his way out of this dishonesty was not so easy for him to find. How should he set this matter right so as to inflict no injury on his niece, and no sorrow to himself—if that indeed could be avoided?
And then other thoughts crowded on his brain. He had always professed—professed at any rate to himself and to her—that of all the vile objects of a man’s ambition, wealth, wealth merely for its own sake, was the vilest. They, in their joint school of inherent philosophy, had progressed to ideas which they might find it not easy to carry out, should they be called on by events to do so. And if this would have been difficult to either when acting on behalf of self alone, how much more difficult when one might have to act for the other! This difficulty had now come to the uncle. Should he, in this emergency, take upon himself to fling away the golden chance which might accrue to his niece if Scatcherd should be encouraged to make her partly his heir?
“He’d want her to go and live there—to live with him and his wife. All the money in the Bank of England would not pay her for such misery,” said the doctor to himself, as he slowly rode into is own yard.
On one point, and one only, had he definitely made up his mind. On the following day he would go over again to Boxall Hill, and would tell Scatcherd the whole truth. Come what might, the truth must be the best. And so, with some gleam of comfort, he went into the house, and found his niece in the drawing-room with Patience Oriel.
The Chronicles of Barsetshire Page 94