by A. J. Cronin
As the time at my disposal lessened, I increased my efforts, by a method of selective culture, to produce a strong, pure strain of this precious organism. I had a key for the side door of the Pathology building that gave me access to the laboratory when everyone had gone. After tea at Miss Dearie’s, I returned to the Department, remaining there, submerged like a diver, connected to the world by only the thinnest cord of consciousness, in the cool, green-shaded solitude, until midnight boomed across the silent University. These were the most productive hours of all.
I was confident that I could finish this essential phase by the following Saturday, February 1st, and remove all traces of my experiments that same night. It fitted beautifully, like a well-designed mosaic—Professor Usher had written that he would return on Monday, the 3rd, and I should be at my bench, busy with his tests, when he came back.
On the Wednesday evening of that last week, shortly after nine o’clock, I felt that, at last, the culture was ripe for examination, and with a platinum loop I smeared and stained a microscope slide. It was a crucial moment. Holding my breath, I placed the slide under the oil immersion lens; then, as the dark forms leaped up against the shining background, I gave a sharp involuntary gasp.
The field was loaded with a small, comma-shaped bacillus which I had never seen before.
For a long time I sat immobile, gazing at my discovery, suffused by an exaltation which turned me giddy. At last, collecting myself, I opened my note-book and began, with scientific accuracy, to write a specific description of the organism, which from its shape, I named, provisionally, Bacillus C. For perhaps fifteen minutes I continued, but suddenly my concentration was broken by a flood of light through the workroom fanlight. A few seconds later I heard steps in the passage, the door opened, and, while I turned cold with consternation, Professor Usher walked into the laboratory. He wore a grey suit with a dark cloth cape thrown across his shoulders, and his pale, stiff face was stained with the grime of travel. At first I could not believe that he was real. Then I saw he had just come off the train.
“Good evening, Shannon.” He advanced slowly, in a measured fashion. “Still here?”
I blinked at him across the culture flasks. He was looking at them.
“You show remarkable industry. What’s this?”
Utterly unnerved at being caught, I was silent. Why, oh, why had he come back before his time?
Suddenly, behind Professor Usher, I saw that bird of ill omen, standing, without his white coat, in an ill-fitting street suit, his long neck drooping, his orbits hollow—Smith. I realized, then, that I would have to tell him.
As I began haltingly, yet with jealous reserve, to speak, Usher’s manner grew more distant and severe. When I finished his face was wintry.
“Do you mean that you have deliberately shelved my work in favour of your own?”
“I’ll resume the counts next week.”
“Since I’ve been away how many have you done?”
I hesitated.
“None.”
His narrow, ingrained features turned grey with anger.
“I especially told you I wished our paper finished by the end of this month … for Professor Harrington … whose hospitality I have been enjoying … my old friend and colleague. Yet the minute my back was turned …” He stuttered slightly. “Why? Why?”
I kept looking at the lining of his cape. It was made of dark green silk. I muttered:
“I have to find out about this …”
“Indeed.” Even his nostrils turned white. “Well, sir, let us not beat about the bush. You will abandon it at once.”
I felt myself wince, but steadied my unruly nerves.
“Surely my fellowship gives me some say in the matter?”
“As Professor of Experimental Pathology, I have the last word.”
I was not easily aroused, in fact my nature was retiring and inoffensive, I believed profoundly in universal tolerance, in that blessed motto, “Live and let live,” yet now a reddish haze swam up before me.
“I can’t give up this investigation. I consider it of far greater importance than the opsonin tests.”
In the background Smith swallowed suddenly, his bony Adam’s apple shuttling up and down his throat, as though relishing a savoury morsel. Usher drew himself to his full height, his lips wire-thin.
“You are a singularly graceless fellow, Shannon. I observe it in your manners, which are deplorable, in your dress, totally unsuited to your professional standing, and in your outrageous disrespect towards myself. I am accustomed to co-operating with gentlemen. If I have been lenient towards you it was because of my belief that with proper guidance you might go far. But if you choose to behave like a boor, we know how to deal with you. Unless by Monday you hand me a written apology for this almost unpardonable lapse I must ask you to leave my Department.”
A dead stillness followed.
After a fitting interval, Usher took out his handkerchief and wiped his lips. He saw that he had silenced me and, as usual, his sense of self-interest came to the surface.
“Seriously, Shannon, for your own good, I advise you to take yourself in hand. In spite of everything, I am reluctant to break up our collaboration. Now, if you will excuse me, I have not been home yet.”
With a matador-like sweep of his cape, he spun round and went out. At his departure, Smith stood a moment, then began to whistle softly under his ragged moustache, and, not looking at me, to make pretence of cleaning out Spence’s sink.
He was waiting for me to speak, of course, and I was a fool to fall into the trap.
“Well,” I said, bitterly. “I suppose you think you’ve queered my pitch.”
“You heard the Chief, sir. I must carry out his orders. I have my responsibilities.”
I knew this to be sheer hypocrisy. The truth was that, for the most incredible of reasons, Smith nursed against me, in his heart, an almost morbid jealousy. A poor youngster like myself, he had once aspired towards the highest scientific goal. Now, beaten, frustrated, and consumed with envy, he could not endure that I might succeed where he had failed.
“It’s no fault of mine, sir.” He swabbed at the sink with a defiant smirk. “I only done my duty.”
“I congratulate you.”
I put away my cultures, set the regulator of the incubator to the requisite temperature, while he stared at me, sideways, in an odd manner. Then I took my cap and went out.
Sick with resentment, I walked down Fenner Hill, in the darkness.
At the intersection of Pardyke Road and Kirkhead Terrace, to clear my head, I stepped into the cabman’s shelter upon the corner, and ordered a mug of coffee. Seated on a high stool, with my elbows on the counter, I sipped the dark, gritty fluid, blind to the surrounding swirl of the night life of this poor quarter—the familiar crowds gathered round the pubs and fried-fish shops, the hucksters shouting at their barrows under naphtha flares, the slowly promenading women, the newsboys darting, between the traffic, shouting the latest sensation.
A moment later, as I sat brooding, I felt the tap of an umbrella upon my shoulder and, turning, I saw the Babu at my elbow, beaming, full of friendship and affection for his fellow men.
“Good evening, sir.”
I scowled at him, but he slid forward a stool and pantingly elevated his flabby bulk to the level of the counter.
“Most fortunate meeting. I have been to Alhambra Varieties, second house naturally, so extremely jolly.” He rapped for attention with his umbrella. “Coffee, please, with plenty sugar. And one large portion fruit cake. Give nice piece, please.”
I turned my back. But Chatterjee, between noisy draughts, and with many giggles, persisted in describing his evening’s entertainment, in which the famous Scots comedian, Sir Harry Lauder, had played a prominent part.
“Tee, hee, hee. At the frolics of that hilarious nobleman, I laugh so heartily I nearly fall from my front position in the balcony. I tell you, sir, I am so fearfully enamoured of the Scottish music, I am
sincerely wishful of learning to play bagpipes. Can you suggest instructor, sir?”
“For God’s sake leave me alone.”
“But how nice, sir, for my Calcutta friends if, when returning with my degree, I also dispense Scottish airs while attired in kilt.” Waving a pudgy forefinger, he lilted in a high falsetto. “ Ay, ay, ay … la, la, la… lasee by the side … on banks of bonnee Clyde … When sun go down to rest … that is hour that I love best… roaming in the … roaming in the … gloaming. Excuse me, Dr. Robert Shannon, what is precise meaning of Scottish ‘gloaming’? A wood, forest, nullah or concealed place, probably, suitable for love? Hee, hee, hee. Am I right, sir?”
I felt in my pocket for a coin, placed it on the counter to pay for my coffee and got abruptly to my feet.
“Wait, wait, wait, Dr. Robert Shannon.” He tried to detain me, with the crook of his umbrella. “Guess, sir. In the audience to-night, who do I see from my high front place in the balcony? It is two of your friends, in front stalls, Dr. Adrian Lomax and the lady of Dr. Spence, both together, enjoying performance. Don’t go, sir. I wish to accompany you.”
But I was already outside the shelter. A new fear had entered my mind, driving me to retrace my steps hastily towards the Department.
“‘I must carry out his orders.’”
As I raced back, I kept thinking with increased foreboding of that last gleam in the attendant’s eye.
The place was in total darkness when I got there. Hurriedly, I opened the side door, went into the laboratory. Even as I entered I missed the faint reassuring hum of the heater. With a sinking heart I switched on the light above my bench and opened the incubator. Then I saw with certainty. Smith had thrown out my cultures, the flasks stood empty on the bench, and four weeks of my hardest work had gone to waste.
Chapter Seven
Upon the following morning I did not go to the University, but made my way, after breakfast, to Parkside Crescent, where, in a quiet and unobtrusive terrace overlooking Kelvingrove Gardens, Professor Challis lived in retirement. I felt sure I should get advice and help from this good old man who had so often encouraged me in the past. When I rang the bell it was Beatrice, his married daughter, who opened the door—a pleasant young woman, wearing an art print overall, with her children, two bright-eyed little girls, peeping at me from behind her skirts.
“I’m sorry to trouble you so early, Beatrice. Could I see the Professor?”
“But, Robert,” she exclaimed in her warm voice, smiling in spite of herself at my anxious face, “didn’t you know…? He’s away.”
My disappointment must have shown only too plainly, for, with a change of manner, she went on quickly to explain that her father, who suffered severely from arthritis, had been taken by some friends upon a trip to Egypt for his health. He would be away all winter.
“Won’t you come in a moment?” she added kindly. “The children and I are having biscuits and hot cocoa.”
“No, thank you, Beatrice.” I tried to smile as I turned away.
Most of the day, which was grey and overcast, I walked aimlessly about the city, along Sinclair and Manfield Streets, staring unseeingly into the windows of the large shops; then in the afternoon, I wandered to the docks where, wrapped in a chilly mist, the black and white river steamers lay paddle to paddle, laid up for the winter. I came back to the boardinghouse and, more from habit than anything else, drifted into tea.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Miss Jean Law, who had been away—where, I did not know—for the past three days, was again in her usual place. I thought she looked queer, quite ill, in fact—she was pale and her nose and eyes were swollen, slightly inflamed, as though she had been suffering from a severe head cold—but I was too moodily preoccupied to give her more than a single glance. She left the table early.
However, when I went upstairs, ten minutes later, I found her standing, erect, in the corridor, with her back to my door. She addressed me in a stiff, unnatural tone.
“Mr. Shannon, I should like a word with you.”
“Not just now,” I answered. “I’m tired. I’m busy. And my room’s in a mess.”
“Then come into mine.” Her lips became resolute.
She opened her own door and, before I could protest, I was in her small room which was, in contrast to my littered and untidy den, a model of cool propriety. As, for the first time, I viewed the narrow, neatly “ made” white bed, the hand-hooked rug, the shining, silver-framed photograph of her parents placed on the little table precisely set out with her comb and brush, I vaguely recollected her having told me that, to help Miss Ailie, she “did” her room herself.
“Sit down, Mr. Shannon.” As I was about to rest on the window ledge, she interposed with a sudden quiver of irony: “ No, not there … take the chair, please … it’s much more suitable for a gentleman like you.”
I glanced at her sharply. She was breathing quickly and was paler than ever—a pallor that darkened her swollen brown eyes and made deeper the shadows which lay beneath them. I also saw, with surprise, that she was trembling. But, keeping her gaze unwaveringly upon me, she began, steadily, and with a curl of her lip:
“Mr. Shannon, I owe a great deal to you. It’s really remarkable, in fact, that one in your exalted position should have condescended to be good to a poor creature like myself, a petty tradesman’s daughter.”
In spite of myself, I was now listening to her with moody attentiveness.
“You may have observed that I’ve been absent for a few days. Perhaps you’d care to guess where I’ve been?”
“No,” I said. “ I wouldn’t.”
“Then I’ll tell you, Mr. Shannon.” Her dark eyes sparkled. “I’ve been visiting in your part of the country. Every year my father goes to speak at the Tent Meeting and, though it may amuse you, I go with him. This year the Tent was pitched at Levenford.”
I began vaguely to see the shape of things to come, and an added bitterness corroded me.
“I hope it didn’t blow down on you.”
“No, it didn’t,” she answered hotly, “ though I’m sure you wish it had.”
“Far from it, I rather like a circus. What did you do? Jump through paper hoops?”
“No, Mr. Shannon.” Her voice quivered. “We had a splendid, fruitful mission. There are some good people in Levenford, you see. I met one of them, after our first meeting. A fine old lady … Mrs. Leckie.”
In spite of having steeled myself, I flinched. Although I had not seen her for more than twelve months, I had every reason to remember this indomitable woman, the support yet flail of my childhood, this paragon who wore six petticoats and elastic-sided boots, whose bed I had occupied at the tender age of seven, the patron of open-air Conventicles, of Gregory powder and peppermint imperials; now—I computed rapidly—eighty-four years old. She was my great-grandmother.
Standing there, her eyes flashing fire, Miss Law saw that she had touched me on the raw. She began to tremble all over.
“Naturally, in your native place, we spoke to her of you. My father inquired, in fact, if some of your wealthy relatives might not be induced to support our cause. She stared at us, then she laughed. Yes, Mr. Shannon, she laughed out loud.”
I felt myself redden at the vision of that wrinkled, ochreous grin, but my tormentor, relentlessly, cuttingly, went on.
“Yes, she told us all about you. At first we couldn’t believe it. ‘There’s some mistake,’ my father said. ‘This young man is most highly connected.’ Then she took us across the Common.”
“Shut up,” I exclaimed, in a rage. “I’m not interested in what she did.”
“She took us and showed us your country estate.” Pale and quivering, almost gasping for breath, Miss Jean Law choked out the words. “A dreary, poky little semi-detached, with weeds all round and washing on the line. One by one, she exposed all your beastly lies. She told us you were never wrecked on a raft in the war. ‘You’ll not drown that one,’ she said. ‘He’s like his wicked old grand
father.’ Yes, she even told us”—her voice broke upon the culminating odium—“ what church you go to.”
I jumped furiously to my feet. On top of all my troubles, this was the last straw.
“What right have you to preach at me? I only did it for a joke.”
“A joke! That makes it more shameful.”
“Oh, be quiet,” I shouted. “I wouldn’t have done it at all if you hadn’t run after me, imposed yourself on me at every turn with your blasted medical papers and your… your inane white cows.”
“So that’s the way of it.” She bit her lip fiercely, but could not keep back the tears. “Now we’re getting the truth. Oh, you fine gentleman, you hero, you aristocrat… you miserable Ananias, it would serve you right if you were struck down too.” Her colour came and went, she made the motion of swallowing, then suddenly, passionately, unrestrainedly she gave way to her sobs. “I never want to see you again, never, never, as long as I live.”
“That suits me. I never wanted to see you in the first place. And for all I care you can go to Blairhill, or West Africa, or Timbuktu. In fact, you can go to hell. Goodbye.”
I walked out of the room and slammed the door.
Chapter Eight
Most of that night I lay awake, thinking of my own uncertain future. It was cold in my room. Through the window, which I always kept open, I heard the night trams banging along Pardyke Road. The noise went through my head. Occasionally from the docks came the low wail of a ship, slipping down river on the tide. There were no sounds from next door, none. I lay on my back, with my hands behind my head, gnawing the bitter bone of reflection.
What Usher did not understand was the inner compulsion —call it, if you choose, the inspiration—which motivated my research. How could I abandon it without betraying my scientific conscience, without, in fact, selling myself? The desire to find out the truth concerning this epidemic, this strange bacillus, was irresistible. I could not let it go.