The contractor threw himself back on his bed, and lay for some ten minutes perfectly quiet; so much so that the doctor began to think that he was sleeping. So thinking, and wearied by the watching, Dr Thorne was beginning to creep quietly from the room, when his companion again roused himself, almost with vehemence.
'You won't do this thing for me, then?' said he.
'Do it! It is not for you or me to do such things as that. Such things must be left to those concerned themselves.'
'You will not even help me?'
'Not in this thing, Sir Roger.'
'Then by --, she shall not under any circumstances ever have a shilling of mine. Give me some of that stuff there,' and he again pointed to the brandy bottle which stood ever within his sight.'
The doctor poured out and handed to him another small modicum of spirit.
'Nonsense, man; fill the glass. I'll stand no nonsense now. I'll be master of my own house to the last. Give it here, I tell you. Ten thousand devils are tearing me within. You--you could have comforted me; but you would not. Fill the glass I tell you.'
'I should be killing you were I to do it.'
'Killing me! killing me! you are always talking of killing me. Do you suppose that I am afraid to die? Do not I know how soon it is coming? Give me the brandy, I say, or I will be out across the room to fetch it.'
'No, Scatcherd. I cannot give it to you; not while I am here. Do you remember how you were engaged this morning?'--he had that morning taken the sacrament from the parish clergyman--'you would not wish to make me guilty of murder, would you?'
'Nonsense! You are talking nonsense; habit is second nature. I tell you I shall sink without it. Why, you know, I always get it directly your back it turned. Come, I will not be bullied in my own house; give me that bottle, I say!'--and Sir Roger essayed, vainly enough, to raise himself from the bed.
'Stop, Scatcherd; I will give it to you--I will help you. It may be that habit is second nature.' Sir Roger in his determined energy had swallowed, without thinking of it, the small quantity which the doctor had before poured out for him, and still held the empty glass within his hand. This the doctor now took and filled nearly to the brim.
'Come, Thorne, a bumper; a bumper for this once. "Whatever the drink, it a bumper must be." You stingy fellow! I would not treat you so.
Well--well.'
'It's about as full as you can hold it, Scatcherd.'
'Try me; try me! my hand is a rock; at least at holding liquor.' And then he drained the contents of the glass, which were in sufficient quantity to have taken away the breath of any ordinary man.
'Ah, I'm better now. But, Thorne, I do love a full glass, ha! ha! ha!'
There was something frightful, almost sickening, in the peculiar hoarse guttural tone of his voice. The sounds came from him as though steeped in brandy, and told, all too plainly, the havoc which the alcohol had made. There was a fire too about his eyes which contrasted with his sunken cheeks: his hanging jaw, unshorn beard, and haggard face were terrible to look at. His hands and arms were hot and clammy, but so thin and wasted! Of his lower limbs the lost use had not returned to him, so that in all his efforts at vehemence he was controlled by his own want of vitality. When he supported himself, half-sitting against the pillows, he was in a continual tremor; and yet, as he boasted, he could still lift his glass steadily to his mouth. Such now was the hero of whom that ready compiler of memoirs had just finished his correct and succinct account.
After he had had his brandy, he sat glaring a while at vacancy, as though he was dead to all around him, and was thinking--thinking--thinking of things in the infinite distance of the past.
'Shall I go now,' said the doctor, 'and send Lady Scatcherd to you?'
'Wait a while, doctor; just one minute longer. So you will do nothing for Louis, then?'
'I will do everything for him that I can do.'
'Ah, yes! everything but the one thing that will save him. Well, I will not ask you again. But remember, Thorne, I shall alter my will to-morrow.'
'Do so, by all means; you may well alter it for the better. If I may advise you, you will have down your own business attorney from London.
If you will let me send he will be here before to-morrow night.'
'Thank you for nothing, Thorne: I can manage that matter myself. Now leave me; but remember, you have ruined that girl's fortune.'
The doctor did leave him, and went not altogether happy to his room. He could not but confess to himself that he had, despite himself as it were, fed himself with hope that Mary's future might be made more secure, aye, and brighter too, by some small unheeded fraction broken off from the huge mass of her uncle's wealth. Such hope, if it had amounted to hope, was now all gone. But this was not all, nor was this the worst of it. That he had done right in utterly repudiating all idea of a marriage between Mary and her cousin--of that he was certain enough; that no earthly consideration would have induced Mary to plight her troth to such a man--that, with him, was as certain as doom. But how far had he done right in keeping her from the sight of her uncle?
How could he justify it to himself if he had thus robbed her of her inheritance, seeing that he had done so from a selfish fear lest she, who was now all his own, should be known to the world as belonging to others rather than to him? He had taken upon him on her behalf to reject wealth as valueless; and yet he had no sooner done so than he began to consume his hours with reflecting how great to her would be the value of wealth. And thus, when Sir Roger told him, as he left the room, that he had ruined Mary's fortune, he was hardly able to bear the taunt with equanimity.
On the next morning, after paying his professional visit to his patient, and satisfying himself that the end was now drawing near with steps terribly quickened, he went down to Greshamsbury.
'How long is this to last, uncle?' said his niece, with sad voice, as he again prepared to return to Boxall Hill.
'Not long, Mary; do not begrudge him a few more hours of life.'
