Golden Hope

by Johanna Nicholls

  ‘What’s wrong with you people? Wake up to yourselves. Have you forgotten how many lives Doc has saved? All that he’s done for this community? Are you going to let Bruiser Twyman get away with running Doc out of your town?’

  All heads turned in the direction of the stage. Counsellor Twyman fired his last defiant shot.

  ‘The inescapable fact remains that Robert Hundey was treated for insanity and should be banned from practising medicine for the term of his natural life!’

  His words were met with a heavy pall of silence.

  Tears of rage clouded Clytie’s eyes. ‘If you choose to believe that Doc is crazy, then God help the lot of you!’ she cried in defiance.

  Defeated by their silence, she ran out into the night.

  Clytie knew the truth. If Doc is banned from practising medicine, it will destroy him. And I’ll never get my baby back.

  Chapter 45

  At first glance Doc’s house lay in darkness, strangely ominous, abandoned. Clytie was startled by the unexpected memory of the words, ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’

  She was alerted to the unusual emptiness of the noticeboard beside the front door. Not a single note from any of his patients.

  Doc’s horse and cart stood at the front of the stables. It was loaded up with a cabin trunk and a box of books, an ominous sign of an intended departure.

  ‘It seems we got here just in time to stop Doc bolting,’ Finch said.

  Clytie was agitated. ‘Did Adelaide give you any clues when you brought her home? How did she seem? Unbalanced? Who could blame her if she was? The whole day was a hellish ordeal for both of them.’

  ‘She didn’t say a single word until I delivered her here to her front door. She just said, “Take care of my friend, Clytie.”’ Finch hesitated and against his better judgement decided to pass on the rest of Adelaide’s curious statement. ‘She said she wished she could have been the woman friend that you needed – she felt she had let you down badly.’

  There was an air of finality in the words. Appalled, Clytie covered her mouth with her hands. ‘Never! Adelaide’s my friend for life!’

  ‘Then she’ll be happy to hear the truth directly from you.’

  He gave an aggressive series of raps on the brass knocker. ‘Come on, Doc, open up!’

  From the rear of the house came the distinctive sound of music being played on a cylinder. Scratchy with usage, the poignant strains of Home Sweet Home seemed rather ironic under the circumstances.

  ‘Madame Nellie Melba,’ Clytie said. ‘No voice in the world is as pure as hers. Adelaide adores her.’

  Finch nodded. ‘Doc was supposed to be under House Arrest but you know Doc. If a patient needed him he’d have broken the law and charged off to their aid. Anyway, he wasn’t here when I brought his sister home. He badly needs to know we’re on his side – despite Twyman’s ugly accusation. If Doc is crazy, then the sooner the rest of the world is certified insane the better!’

  Clytie agreed. ‘Doc sees inside everyone and accepts the best and worst in all of us.’

  ‘I don’t doubt Adelaide was right. Doc would even have forgiven Sister Bracken’s appalling mistake if only she had had the courage to confess it. But in a sense she died of shame.’

  ‘Don’t ask me to forgive her!’ Clytie said.

  Finch nodded. ‘We’ll leave her to the mercy of the One True Judge.’

  He knocked again. ‘Look, Clytie, try not to appear surprised – no matter what happens inside. Perhaps it would be best if I go around to the back to Adelaide’s quarters and see how the land lies before you come in. I have a hunch things could get really messy.’

  ‘Worse than being accused of murder? How much worse can they get? Nothing doing, Finch. I’ll meet whatever it is head on. They’re both my friends. Nothing can change that. They’ve put their lives on the line to get my baby back.’

  Clytie knocked again. The brass doorknocker depicted a snake twined around a pole, the symbol signifying a physician.

  ‘Oh my God! Finch, look, Doc has taken it down!’

  She pointed to the holes made by screws in the wall. The brass nameplate was gone.

  ‘Well, that’s certainly a statement of intent,’ Finch said.

  Crouched on his haunches, Shadow gave a series of growls.

  ‘What’s up with him?’ Finch snapped. ‘Can’t you keep him quiet? I wish Rom was here. It’s his damned dog.’

  ‘Shadow is highly sensitive to mood. He can smell trouble a mile off.’

  ‘Clever dog,’ Finch muttered.

  ‘No call for sarcasm. That Kelpie is smarter than most men.’

  ‘And all women?’ Finch retorted. ‘Sorry, I had no call to say that. Look, we’re wasting our time. It’s obvious Doc isn’t here – or doesn’t want to answer.’

  ‘You can piss off if you want. I’m not budging,’ Clytie snapped. ‘If I can survive today’s shockwaves, I can survive anything.’

  Just then the music stopped. Clytie hurried down the path towards Adelaide’s quarters, with Finch and Shadow close at her heels.

  The side door was ajar. She cleared her throat. ‘Anyone home? It’s Clytie and Finch. We were worried about you. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Come in, come in.’ The weary voice sounded suspiciously slurred, as if from drink.

  Adelaide’s quarters were shrouded in darkness except for the far corner where a kerosene lamp had been turned down, just low enough to cast a golden glow in a circle around a small table. The smell of whisky competed with the customary perfume of flowers. The winged chair was positioned with its back to them, so that the seated figure was totally obscure except for one hand resting on the velvet arm of the chair.

  ‘I was half expecting you. I’m glad you came to say goodbye. Saves me writing a long, painful explanation.’

  ‘Neither of you are leaving! We won’t allow it!’ Clytie tried to sound confident as she clutched hold of Finch in the dim light.

  ‘No choice, my dear. It doesn’t matter now. My work here is finished. The game is up. Come in, come in and join me in a farewell drink.’

  Clytie and Finch exchanged a look of surprise. Doc is teetotal.

  Finch gestured to her to precede him in the darkness but wasted no time in coming to the point.

  ‘Sonny Jantzen put it in a nutshell, Doc. It was a witch hunt – but Twyman failed. The whole town values you. We’re here to help you weather the storm.’

  ‘Thank you. But Adelaide and I cannot wade through a hurricane, my friends. We shall depart at dawn – destination unknown – once more to up stakes and begin life again in some remote place where no one knows us.’

  Finch stumbled against a table of bric-a-brac and searched for chairs as their eyes gradually adjusted to the dim light.

  ‘Share the love seat,’ Doc ordered amiably. ‘Isn’t it high time you two stopped fighting Nature?’

  ‘Oh, we’re not a couple, Doc. Just friends,’ Finch said quickly.

  ‘Some of the time,’ Clytie corrected with equal speed.

  ‘The Lady doth protest too much, methinks,’ Doc quoted as he poured out three glasses of whisky.

  ‘Yes, for once I’ll join you. I’ve fallen off the wagon,’ he said cheerfully.

  Clytie took her seat and the figure in the chair grew clearer. Her breath caught sharply in her throat. Finch shared her shocked response. He sat beside her and took hold of her hand. For once she did not pull away from him.

  The figure in the chair had Doc’s familiar voice and even in the darkness the profile and unkempt sandy hair were unquestionably his. But he looked different. Defeated. He sat slumped in the chair wearing a shabby striped dressing-robe, whisky tumbler in his hand.

  Clytie was chilled by the bleak expression in his red-rimmed eyes and the traces of tears staining his cheeks.

  Dear God, what is happening? Is the poor man mentally unbalanced again? Or is something wrong with Adelaide?

  ‘Care for a whisky?’ Doc asked cheerfully,
indicating the glasses. ‘Bad habit to drink alone.’

  ‘Thanks, I reckon I need one,’ Finch said.

  The Doc gave a sharp, self-deprecating laugh. ‘I don’t blame you, lad. I’m not a pretty sight. Here’s the bottle. Please, help yourselves.’

  Finch handed the first glass to Clytie with a frown that was unmistakably a silent command to drink it down. He dispatched his own drink with equal speed.

  ‘Cheers.’ Doc clinked his glass to theirs. ‘You’re too polite to ask the obvious question, so I’ll cut to the chase.’

  He refilled his own glass and drained it.

  ‘There, an injection of Dutch courage.’

  Clytie felt confused. ‘You don’t need to tell us anything you don’t want to, Doc,’ she said, despite her desperate curiosity.

  ‘It will be a relief to share it. You see, I’ve carried this secret all my life.’

  Finch shrugged. ‘There are worse secrets than yours, Doc. It’s your business if you needed medical help. No one else’s.’

  ‘Ah, if only that were true, lad. I was not incarcerated in Kew Asylum because I was insane but to avoid imprisonment.’ Doc paused to weigh their reaction. ‘For a crime involving Adelaide. As you know, it is a criminal offence for a woman to wear men’s clothing – and vice versa.’

  Clytie and Finch exchanged blank, covert glances. Clytie grasped desperately for a logical conclusion. ‘Do you mean that one of you was accused of masquerading in the other’s clothes?’

  Finch jumped in quickly. ‘Good God, Clytie, your imagination’s run riot!’

  Doc’s hand made a rocking motion. ‘You’re half right, Clytie – but it’s not quite as simple as that. Would you like me to explain?’

  They both leant forward in their seats. ‘Of course, Doc.’

  Doc refilled their glasses.

  ‘Bear with me. I need to begin at the very beginning. My father, a naval physician, married his first cousin – a tradition of intermarriage unwisely practised by our family in England for generations. When Adelaide and I were born only minutes apart, we were fortunate to have escaped the haemophilia that has cursed many Royal families, including our late Queen Victoria’s descendants. But we were both born with an impediment. Adelaide had a club foot. My feet were perfect – the rest of me presented a problem. My parents and the doctors were unable to agree on how to register my birth. The scales of gender seemed evenly balanced between male and female. Shall I continue?’

  Clytie and Finch answered with one voice. ‘Of course!’

  ‘My father wanted a son, my mother wanted daughters. As a result of this conflict of interests, when Father was in port I was dressed as a boy. When he was at sea for months on end, Mother dressed me as Adelaide’s twin sister. Not surprisingly, this caused me to be mocked and bullied by local village children. Adelaide was my sole refuge. She totally accepted me for whatever I was on any given day.

  ‘My father registered me at birth as Robert A – a name that could easily be switched legally to Roberta if, in the process of growing up, nature swung the balance one way or another, perhaps at puberty.’ He drained his glass. ‘The problem is, in my case it never did. The scales remained evenly balanced between male and female. I am so sorry to shock you,’ he apologised.

  ‘So Adelaide was your one true friend,’ Finch prompted.

  Clytie agreed. ‘What a blessing she is!’

  ‘She is my guiding light.’

  Doc passed across for their inspection the gold locket that Adelaide had worn that day in court. It held a miniature portrait of a young girl wearing a tailored Victorian gown. Her features, while similar to those of Doc’s, were cast in a stronger mould, intelligent rather than conventionally pretty. Her expression combined challenge with vulnerability. In contrast to his sandy hair, her crowning glory was an auburn mane that flowed around her shoulders.

  ‘My twin sister Adelaide at age eighteen – when we were both desperate to study medicine. Father encouraged me, took me to sea with him to gain medical experience at first hand. But he forbade Adelaide on the basis of her gender – and that.’

  He gestured towards the boot with the built-up sole which lay discarded on the carpet.

  ‘Adelaide always claimed she would make a better physician than me – no doubt she was right.’

  Clytie’s embarrassment gave her away. Adelaide had told her the same thing.

  ‘My dear, I see that Adelaide told you the truth. She was exceptionally clever. Thwarted in fulfilling her own dream, she threw her energies into coaching me. She honed up on my medical books and challenged me about medical theories – and my attitudes to healing and death. I doubt I would have passed my final exams without Adelaide’s coaching.’

  ‘A remarkably generous sister,’ Finch said gently.

  ‘Indeed. She was forced to stand in my shadow, watching me fulfil her dream – the only life she ever wanted, a career denied to her due to her gender and her club foot. Just as marriage was of course denied to me due to my unresolved gender . . . an illustration of “physician, heal thyself”. Who was it said that?’

  Finch answered automatically. ‘Jesus, in the gospel of Luke the Physician, I seem to remember.’

  ‘Gender,’ Doc added, as if the word had a slightly bitter taste. ‘Such an inadequate word for such a complex, God-given status. But please don’t pity me, I only ever wanted one thing from life – whether as a man or a woman. To be a physician who cares for his community with the same devotion a father cares for his own family.’

  ‘You’ve proved that a thousand fold,’ Finch said firmly. ‘Everyone loves and respects you, Doc.’

  ‘Because they never really knew me. Now that Twyman has bluffed his way into offering proof that I was an enforced inmate of Kew Asylum the game is up.’

  Finch was quick to deny it. ‘No! Whatever the reason for your treatment – it’s past history.’

  Doc hesitated before he said with a sigh, ‘Until the whole of Hoffnung discovers the truth. I was not incarcerated in Kew Asylum on the grounds of insanity, but to receive treatment – to avoid imprisonment. I was discovered in public wearing Adelaide’s gown. Shamed and forced to abandon my Melbourne practice, Hoffnung offered us the chance to begin a new life.’

  Finch tried to make the question sound off-handed. ‘Does anyone else know of your . . . your habit?’

  ‘Sergeant Mangles stumbled on the truth some years back when he called me to the station where his beloved mare was dying, her foal trapped in her womb. I delivered her foal and saved them both. It was an emergency. I had no time to change from Adelaide’s clothing.’

  Clytie gave an involuntary gasp and covered her mouth with her hands.

  ‘You mean . . .?’

  Doc nodded. ‘I suspect Mangles felt indebted to me. Whatever the reason, he turned a blind eye. Told me if I occasionally chose to wear Adelaide’s dress to the Post Office to collect a remittance cheque, he couldn’t see the harm in it, and it was no one else’s business.’

  ‘Good bloke, Mangles. There you are then!’ Finch said triumphantly. ‘Life goes on.’

  ‘So it did for a while. The problem was Adelaide grew stronger. Fired by the Women’s Suffrage cause. Then she took matters into her own hands – to force poor Sister Bracken to write her confession. The rest is history.’

  He turned to them like a child, hoping to regain their approval.

  ‘I promise you, there was never any attempt to attract the opposite sex, whatever that means. We could offer no man or woman anything but friendship but it was difficult to find a friend who could be trusted. I thought perhaps you, Clytie, being a child of the circus, would not look on us as freaks.’

  Clytie reached across and clasped his hand. ‘There’s no such thing, Doc. Only people who are different, unusual.’

  Finch grasped Doc’s shoulder. ‘You have more friends here than you know. You and Adelaide must remain in Hoffnung. You’re needed here!’

  ‘Thank you, more than I can say. But the t
ime has come for me to let Adelaide go.’

  Clytie and Finch looked blankly at each other until Doc gestured to the sculpture of a woman’s head on a shelf in the shadows. The blank unseeing face was framed by a beautifully groomed auburn wig.

  ‘Adelaide’s hair,’ said Doc. ‘You see, my sister died the year I gained my medical degree. She studied so long and devotedly with me she succumbed to consumption. She demanded I shave off her hair to try to reduce her fever. I could do nothing to save her.’ His voice cracked. ‘As a tribute to her memory I have tried to devote my life to my practice, fulfilling both our dreams by becoming a physician of whom she would be proud.’

  The three of them sat immobile, listening to the chimes of the grandfather clock.

  Clytie broke the silence in a voice that sounded unfamiliar. ‘Could I have a drink of water, please, Doc? My throat is as dry as chips.’

  Doc was resigned, almost cheerful. ‘No water. Tank’s run dry. Whisky will do the trick.’

  Their glasses filled, he sank back in his chair.

  ‘Forgive me, Clytie,’ Doc said with real concern. ‘In all this drama I neglected to tell you something of real importance. Now I know that Noni blocked Bracken’s letter to Sonny Janzen, before I leave I shall assure him of Sister Bracken’s verbal confession to Adelaide – to me. I can only trust he will accept the word of a gentleman – or otherwise, as the case may be. I truly hope the end result will lead to your happiness, Clytie.’

  Clytie felt her heart filled to overflowing and was on the point of reaching out to hug him. All three were startled by a series of loud knocks at the front of the house. This was followed by an extraordinary sound – a drum beat.

  They hurried out onto the veranda, Doc self-conscious of being barefooted, in his dressing-robe and a little unsteady on his feet.

  Boxes of vegetables were piled cheek to jowl from one end to the other – the accepted Hoffnung tribute in lieu of unpaid bills. The front garden was packed with townsfolk. Behind them in full military-style uniform stood the band of the Salvation Army.

  Sergeant Mangles stepped forward to present Doc with a long scroll.