CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Bishop sees the Patient.
In the hall Varbarriere met the Reverend Dives Marlowe.
"Well, sir, how is Sir Jekyl?" asked he.
The parson looked bilious and lowering.
"To say truth, Monsieur, I can't very well make out what the Doctor thinks. I suspect he does not understand very well himself. Gout, he says, but in a very sinking state; and we've sent for the physician at Slowton; and altogether, sir, I'm very uneasy."
I suppose if the blow had fallen, the reverend gentleman would in a little while have become quite resigned, as became him. There were the baronetcy and some land; but on the whole, when Death drew near smirking, and offered on his tray, with a handsome black pall over it, these sparkling relics of the late Sir Jekyl Marlowe, Bart., the Rev. Dives turned away; and though he liked these things well enough, put them aside honestly, and even with a sort of disgust. For Jekyl, as I have said, though the brothers could sometimes exchange a sharp sally, had always been essentially kind to him; and Dives was not married, and, in fact, was funding money, and in no hurry; and those things were sure to come to him if he lived, sooner or later.
"And what, may I ask, do you suppose it is?" inquired Varbarriere.
"Well, gout, you know—he's positive; and, poor fellow, he's got it in his foot, and a very nasty thing it is, I know, even there. We all of us have it hereditarily—our family." The apostle and martyr did not want him to suppose he had earned it. "But I am very anxious, sir. Do you know anything of gout? May it be there and somewhere else at the same time? Two members of our family died of it in the stomach, and one in the head. It has been awfully fatal with us."
Varbarriere shook his head. He had never had a declared attack, and had no light to throw on the sombre prospect. The fact is, if that solemn gentleman had known for certain exactly how matters stood, and had not been expecting the arrival of his contumacious nephew, he would have been many miles on his way to London by this time.