Part 62 (1/2)

There were but few words spoken between Dr Century and the squire; but few as they were, they frightened Mr Gresham. When Dr Fillgrave came down the grand stairs, a servant waited at the bottom to ask him also to go to the squire. Now there never had been much cordiality between the squire and Dr Fillgrave, though Mr Gresham had consented to take a preventative pill from his hands, and the little man therefore swelled himself out somewhat more than ordinarily as he followed the servant.

”Dr Fillgrave,” said the squire, at once beginning the conversation, ”Lady Arabella, is, I fear, in danger?”

”Well, no; I hope not in danger, Mr Gresham. I certainly believe I may be justified in expressing a hope that she is not in danger. Her state is, no doubt, rather serious--rather serious--as Dr Century has probably told you;” and Dr Fillgrave made a bow to the old man, who sat quiet in one of the dining-room arm-chairs.

”Well, doctor,” said the squire, ”I have not any grounds on which to doubt your judgement.”

Dr Fillgrave bowed, but with the stiffest, slightest inclination which a head could possibly make. He rather thought that Mr Gresham had no ground for doubting his judgement.

”Nor do I.”

The doctor bowed, and a little, a very little less stiffly.

”But, doctor, I think that something ought to be done.”

The doctor this time did his bowing merely with his eyes and mouth.

The former he closed for a moment, the latter he pressed; and then decorously rubbed his hands one over the other.

”I am afraid, Dr Fillgrave, that you and my friend Thorne are not the best friends in the world.”

”No, Mr Gresham, no; I may go so far as to say we are not.”

”Well, I am sorry for it--”

”Perhaps, Mr Gresham, we need hardly discuss it; but there have been circ.u.mstances--”

”I am not going to discuss anything, Dr Fillgrave; I say I am sorry for it, because I believe that prudence will imperatively require Lady Arabella to have Doctor Thorne back again. Now, if you would not object to meet him--”

”Mr Gresham, I beg pardon; I beg pardon, indeed; but you must really excuse me. Doctor Thorne has, in my estimation--”

”But, Doctor Fillgrave--”

”Mr Gresham, you really must excuse me; you really must, indeed.

Anything else that I could do for Lady Arabella, I should be most happy to do; but after what has pa.s.sed, I cannot meet Doctor Thorne; I really cannot. You must not ask me to do so; Mr Gresham. And, Mr Gresham,” continued the doctor, ”I did understand from Lady Arabella that his--that is, Dr Thorne's--conduct to her ladys.h.i.+p had been such--so very outrageous, I may say, that--that--that--of course, Mr Gresham, you know best; but I did think that Lady Arabella herself was quite unwilling to see Doctor Thorne again;” and Dr Fillgrave looked very big, and very dignified, and very exclusive.

The squire did not ask again. He had no warrant for supposing that Lady Arabella would receive Dr Thorne if he did come; and he saw that it was useless to attempt to overcome the rancour of a man so pig-headed as the little Galen now before him. Other propositions were then broached, and it was at last decided that a.s.sistance should be sought for from London, in the person of the great Sir Omicron Pie.

Sir Omicron came, and Drs Fillgrave and Century were there to meet him. When they all a.s.sembled in Lady Arabella's room, the poor woman's heart almost sank within her,--as well it might, at such a sight. If she could only reconcile it with her honour, her consistency, with her high de Courcy principles, to send once more for Dr Thorne. Oh, Frank! Frank! to what misery your disobedience brought your mother!

Sir Omicron and the lesser provincial lights had their consultation, and the lesser lights went their way to Barchester and Silverbridge, leaving Sir Omicron to enjoy the hospitality of Greshamsbury.

”You should have Thorne back here, Mr Gresham,” said Sir Omicron, almost in a whisper, when they were quite alone. ”Doctor Fillgrave is a very good man, and so is Dr Century; very good, I am sure. But Thorne has known her ladys.h.i.+p so long.” And then, on the following morning, Sir Omicron also went his way.

And then there was a scene between the squire and her ladys.h.i.+p. Lady Arabella had given herself credit for great good generals.h.i.+p when she found that the squire had been induced to take that pill. We have all heard of the little end of the wedge, and we have most of us an idea that the little end is the difficulty. That pill had been the little end of Lady Arabella's wedge. Up to that period she had been struggling in vain to make a severance between her husband and her enemy. That pill should do the business. She well knew how to make the most of it; to have it published in Greshamsbury that the squire had put his gouty toe into Dr Fillgrave's hands; how to let it be known--especially at that humble house in the corner of the street--that Fillgrave's prescriptions now ran current through the whole establishment. Dr Thorne did hear of it, and did suffer. He had been a true friend to the squire, and he thought the squire should have stood to him more staunchly.

”After all,” said he himself, ”perhaps it's as well--perhaps it will be best that I should leave this place altogether.” And then he thought of Sir Roger and his will, and of Mary and her lover. And then of Mary's birth, and of his own theoretical doctrines as to pure blood. And so his troubles multiplied, and he saw no present daylight through them.

Such had been the way in which Lady Arabella had got in the little end of the wedge. And she would have triumphed joyfully had not her increased doubts and fears as to herself then come in to check her triumph and destroy her joy. She had not yet confessed to any one her secret regret for the friend she had driven away. She hardly yet acknowledged to herself that she did regret him; but she was uneasy, frightened, and in low spirits.