by A. J. Cronin
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hidden talent rediscovered
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Contents
A. J. Cronin
Book One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Book Two
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Book Three
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Book Four
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
A. J. Cronin
Shannon's Way
Born in Cardross, Scotland, A. J. Cronin studied at the University of Glasgow. In 1916 he served as a surgeon sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteers Reserve, and at the war’s end he completed his medical studies and practiced in South Wales. He was later appointed to the Ministry of Mines, studying the medical problems of the mining industry. He moved to London and built up a successful practice in the West End. In 1931 he published his first book, Hatter’s Castle, which was compared with the work of Dickens, Hardy and Balzac, winning him critical acclaim. Other books by A. J. Cronin include: The Stars Look Down, The Citadel, Three Loves, The Green Years, Beyond This Place, and The Keys of the Kingdom.
Book One
Chapter One
On a damp evening in December, the fifth of that month, in the year 1919—a date which marked the beginning of a great change in my life—six o’clock had struck from the University tower and the soft mist from the Eldon River was creeping round the Experimental Pathology buildings at the foot of Fenner Hill, invading our long work-room that smelled faintly of formalin, and was lit only by low, green-shaded lamps.
Professor Usher was still in his study—from behind the closed door on my right, with eardrums unnaturally attuned, I could hear his precise tones as he spoke, at length, upon the telephone. Surreptitiously, I glanced at the two other assistants who, with myself, made up the Professor’s team.
Directly opposite, Spence stood at his bench, racking culture tubes, awaiting the arrival of his wife. She called for him regularly, every Friday night, and they went out together to dinner and the theatre. A slanting beam drew a cruel caricature of his broken profile upon the wall.
In the far corner of the laboratory Lomax had knocked off work and was idly tapping a cigarette upon his thumbnail—signal for a departure which he generally contrived to make easy and negligent. Presently, in a bored manner, surrounded by a languid cloud of smoke, he stood up, adjusting the wave in his hair at the mirror he kept over his sink.
“Let’s go somewhere to-night, Shannon. Have dinner with me and we’ll take in a cinema.”
The invitation was flattering, but, of course, this evening I declined it.
“How about you, Spence?” Lomax turned towards the other bench.
“I’m afraid Muriel and I are going out.”
“This is a beastly unsociable town,” Lomax complained.
Neil Spence hesitated, almost apologetic, covering his chin with his left hand, an instinctive gesture, which seemed to give him confidence and which always touched me, increasing the sympathy and deep affection which I felt for him.
“Why don’t you come along with us?”
The suggestion halted Lomax.
“I shouldn’t want to butt in and spoil your evening.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Just then there came the sound of a motor horn, and almost at once Smith, the attendant, entered and announced that Mrs. Spence had arrived and was outside.
“Don’t let’s keep Muriel.” Spence, having put on his overcoat, waited companionably for Lomax at the door. “ I think you’ll enjoy the show … it’s The Maid of the Mountains. Good night, Robert.”
“Good night.”
When they had gone I breathed a little faster and my eyes, wandering round this world I loved, this inner, secret, mysterious world of the laboratory, came to rest, with apprehensive expectation, upon the Professor’s door.
At the same instant it opened and Hugo Usher came out. His exits and entrances, indeed all his movements, had a slightly theatrical quality, which so completely fitted his severe figure, iron-grey hair, and cropped imperial that he gave me always the uncomfortable impression of being less a distinguished scientist than an actor playing too perfectly that part. He drew up by the Hoffman centrifuge, near my bench. Despite his well-controlled expression, it was not difficult for me to read, in the faint constriction of his frontal muscles, a disapproval of my peculiarities, from the shabby naval uniform I persisted in wearing, to my failure, during the past six weeks, to evince enthusiasm for the research he had compelled me to take up.
There was a pause. Then, with that infusion of geniality which he assumed to temper his severity, he said, briefly:
“No, Shannon … I’m afraid not.”
My heart ceased its bounding and sank slowly, while my face coloured with disappointment and mortification.
“But, surely, sir, if you’ve read my memorandum …”
“I have read it,” he interrupted me and, by way of evidence, laid upon my bench the typewritten sheet which, earlier that day, I had presented to him and which now, to my burning eyes, presented the soiled and deplorable appearance of a rejected manuscript. “ I regret that I cannot accept your suggestion. The work upon which you are engaged is of very considerable importance. Impossible … to allow you to discontinue it.”
I lowered my eyes, debarred by my hurt pride from pressing my request, knowing also that his decisions were always irrevocable. Although my head was bent, I could feel his gaze resting upon the batch of slides stacked on the acid-charred wood of my bench.
“You’ve finished our latest counts?”
“Not yet,” I told him without looking up.
“You know I particularly want our paper ready for the Spring Congress. As I shall be away for several weeks, it is imperative you press forward with all possible speed.”
When I did not answer his half-frown deepened. He cleared his throat. I thought I was about to receive a dissertation on the nobility of pathological investigation, particularly as it related to his favourite subject, the theory of opsonins. However, after playing for a moment with his wide-brimmed soft black hat he flung it on the back of his head.
“Good evening, Shannon.”
With that formal withdrawing bow he had picked up abroad, he went out.
I sat for a long moment, completely still.
“I’m ready to close up, sir.”
Lean and cadaverous as ever, out of the c
orner of his eye, Smith, the attendant, was watching me, the same Herbert Smith who, when I first entered the Zoology laboratory six years before, had damped my youthful enthusiasm with his pessimism. Now he was head attendant in the Pathological Department, but the attainment of this better position had not changed him, and he displayed towards me a morose suspicion which my few successes, including an honours M.D. and the winning of the Lister Gold Medal, had increased rather than dispelled.
Without a word I shrouded my microscope, put away the slides, took my cap and went out. My thoughts were bitter as I walked down the dark, dripping avenue of Fenner Hill, crossed the crowded thoroughfare of Pardyke Road—where, beneath misty arc lights, the trams clanged and bounded over greasy cobblestones—then entered the drab district of Kirkhead. Here, terraces of old-fashioned houses, clinging desperately to respectability against an invasion of public-houses, ice-cream saloons and tenements for the workers at the nearby docks, raised their tall grimy fronts, with broken stucco cornices, slipped porticos and fallen gutters, weeping, it seemed, for their former glory, beneath the eternally smoky sky.
At Number 52, which bore on the fanlight the polite name ROTHESAY, and below, in discreet letters of peeling gilt, GUESTS, I mounted the steps and went in.
Chapter Two
My room, at the top of the boarding-house, was small, almost an attic, furnished sparsely with an iron cot, a white wooden washstand and a black-framed woolwork text. But it had the advantage of communicating with a little green-painted glass conservatory still equipped with stands and benches, a relic of the palmy days of the mansion. Although cold in winter and sweltering in summer, this served me adequately as a study.
For this accommodation, with two meals a day, I paid the Misses Dearie, co-owners of the establishment, the moderate sum of thirty-four shillings a week—which, I must at once acknowledge, was quite as much as I could afford. The money I had inherited from my grandfather, “ to put me through college,” had no more than fulfilled its purpose, while the honorarium for my assistantship, and for the extra work of demonstrating in Bacteriology to the third-year students, amounted to one hundred guineas a year, a delusive suggestion of gold pieces which concealed the fact that in Scotland they are cautious about spoiling their budding genius. Thus, on Saturday, when I had paid my board and lodgings, I had barely five shillings in my pocket to provide myself with midday luncheons at the Union, with clothing, shoes, books, tobacco—in brief, I was outrageously poor, compelled to wear my obsolete uniform, which so offended Professor Usher’s sense of propriety, not from choice, but because it was the only suit that I possessed.
However, these pinched circumstances scarcely troubled me. My upbringing in Levenford had inured me to such vicissitudes of the Spartan life as lumpy porridge, watery milk of singular and unforgettable blueness, made-down clothing, and thick-soled boots studded with “ tackets” to make them last. Besides, I regarded my present state as purely transitory, precursor of a splendid future, and my mind was too desperately engaged by the enterprise which would carry me to a great and immediate success to worry about trifles.
When I reached my lofty garret, from which I had a view of a blank brick wall topped by the smoke-stack of the city incinerator, I stood for a moment in determined thought, studying the paper which Usher had restored to me.
“You’ll be late for tea.”
With a start, I turned to the intruder who stood diffidently upon my threshold. It was, of course, Miss Jean Law, my next-door neighbour in the corridor. This young woman, one of the five medical students who lodged at Rothesay, was taking my Bacteriology class, and all through the present session had made me the object of her neighbourly attentions.
“The gong went five minutes ago,” she murmured, in her Northern accent; and, observing my irritation, she had the grace to blush—a warm, modest flush which suffused her fair skin yet did not cause her to lower her brown eyes. “I knocked, but you didn’t hear me.”
I crumpled up the paper.
“I’ve asked you, Miss Law, not to disturb me when I’m busy.”
“Yes … but your tea,” she protested, more than ever rolling her r’s in her confusion.
I could not help it—at the sight of her, in her blue serge skirt, her plain white blouse, black stockings, and sturdy shoes, entreating me with such earnest solicitude, as though the loss of my tea were a mortal calamity, I was obliged to smile.
“All right,” I consented, imitating her tone. “ I’ll come this very minute.”
We went down together to the dining-room, an appalling chamber, furnished in worn red plush, the very linoleum impregnated with the smell of boiled cabbage. Upon the mantelpiece, which had a tasselled velvet fringe, stood the pride of the Misses Dearie, token of their departed sire’s prestige and of their own “ ladylike” upbringing: a hideous green marble clock, stopped, but supported by two gilt-helmeted figures carrying axes and inscribed Presented to Captain Hamish Dearie on his retirement from command of the Winton Fire Brigade.
The meal, pale and meagre shadow of the traditional substantial Scots “high” tea, had already begun, and Miss Beth Dearie was presiding at the mahogany table covered with a mended but clean white cloth, bearing a few plates of bread, scones and seedcake, an ashet of kippers, one for each person, and a Britannia metal teapot, encased in a blue knitted “cosy.”
As she poured our tea, Miss Beth, a tall, correct, angular spinster of forty-five, with faded good looks, whose hair-net and a high bone-necked lace dress seemed to emphasize her air of reduced gentility, gave us—although she had due respect for my medical degree, and Miss Law was certainly her favourite—her pale, “suffering” smile, which vanished only when I dropped a penny in the little wooden box placed beside the empty biscuit barrel in the centre of the table, and marked “For the Blind.” Punctuality, like politeness, was one of the elder Miss Dearie’s many principles, and all who came after she had “ asked the blessing” were supposed to make atonement, although one must be forgiven for doubting, in unguarded moments, if this tribute ever reached its proper destination.
I began in silence to eat my kipper, which was salty, greasy, and more than usually undergrown. These two worthy gentlewomen had a hard struggle to make ends meet, and Miss Beth—who “managed” the establishment out in front, while Miss Ailie cooked and cleaned in the background—saw to it that the sin of gluttony was never committed in her presence. In spite of this, the scrupulous reputation of her house was recognized by those connected with the University, and she seldom had a vacancy. To-night, I saw that out of her complement of six, Galbraith and Harrington, both fourth-year undergraduates, were absent, having gone home for the weekend, but opposite me sat the two other medical students, Harold Muss and Babu Lal Chatterjee.
Muss was an undersized youth of eighteen, perpetually spotted with acne pimples, and endowed with a most striking set of protuberant buck teeth. He was only in his first year, and for the most part maintained deferential silence, but occasionally, when he thought someone had made a joke, he would burst suddenly into a wild and hoarse guffaw.
Lal Chatterjee, a Hindu from Calcutta, was older than Muss, actually about thirty-three, extremely plump and podgy, with a smooth saffron complexion set off by a trim little black beard and a beaming, ineffably stupid face. For at least fifteen years he had been waddling in and out of the Winton classrooms, wearing baggy trousers which hung down at the seat like an empty potato sack, and carrying a large green umbrella, trying without success to obtain his medical degree. Good-natured and garrulous, with an incessant flow of amiable small talk, he was nicknamed “ the Babu” and had become, at the University, a comic institution. Immediately we entered, in a high “singsong” voice which seemed always, like the cry of the muezzin proclaiming the hours of prayer, to be pitched in the minor key, he began:
“Ah, good evening, Dr. Robert Shannon and Miss Jean Law. I am afraid we have almost eaten all the food. For your lateness you may perhaps perish of malnutrition. Oh, ye
s, perhaps, ha, ha. Mr. Harold Muss, please to pass me the mustard, thank you. I appeal to my fellow doctor. I ask you, Dr. Robert Shannon, does not mustard stimulate the salivary glands, of which there are two, the sublingual and another whose name I have safely in my notebook? Sir, excuse me, how does that other gland call itself?”
“The pancreas,” I suggested.
“Ah, yes, sir, the pancreas,” agreed the Babu, beaming. “ That is exactly my own view.”
Muss, who was drinking tea, suddenly choked violently.
“The pancreas!” he gasped. “I don’t know much, but that’s in the
stummick!”
Lal Chatterjee gazed reproachfully upon his convulsed fellow student.
“Oh, poor Mr. Harold Muss! Do not exhibit your ignorance. Please to remember that I am many more years an undergraduate than you. I had the honour to fail B.A., Calcutta University, probably before you were born.”
Miss Law was attempting to catch my eye and to draw me into her conversation with Miss Beth. They were discussing, with the grave yet eager interest of those banded by evangelical sympathies, the coming performance of The Messiah at St. Andrew’s Hall—always a notable winter event in Winton—but since I had, for reasons of my own, a particular reticence towards religious matters, I fixed my gaze upon my plate.
“I do so like choral music, don’t you, Mr. Shannon?”
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
At this point, Miss Ailie Dearie entered from the kitchen, silently, in her broken-down felt slippers, bearing the “crystal,” the glass dish of stewed but stony prunes which, on “ kipper nights,” with the inevitability of death, terminated our grim repast.
Unlike her sister, Miss Ailie was a soft and tender creature, rather untidy in her appearance, with a thickset, slow-moving figure and hands knotted and disfigured by housework. It was rumoured—probably a piece of student nonsense, encouraged by the fact that her one relaxation, in the evenings, was the reading of romantic novels from the public library—that as a young girl she had suffered a tragic love affair. Her kind face, flushed from the stove, patient under her sister’s acid tongue, was sad and wistful, with a thin strand of hair falling so constantly over her forehead that she had the curious habit of pursing her lips and, with a gentle upward breath, puffing it away. Perhaps her own difficulties made her sympathetic towards my problems. Now, with kindly interest, she bent over and murmured in my ear: