第50章

Now the fact was, that Sir Roger Scatcherd felt in his heart no special love for young 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 let 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 is certainly 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; 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 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 counter-pane, 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 will 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--may be, 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.