by A. J. Cronin
That night in the stark torture of his neurosis he tried to drink himself insensible. But the whisky only seemed to goad him to fresh anger against himself. He paced up and down the room, late into the night, muttering aloud, drunkenly apostrophising himself.
‘You thought you could get away with it. You thought you were getting away with it. But my God! you weren’t. Crime and punishment, crime and punishment! You’re to blame for what happened to her. You’ve got to suffer.’ He walked the length of the street, hatless, swaying, to stare wild-eyed at the blank shuttered windows of the Vidler shop. He came back muttering, through bitter maudlin tears, ‘God is not mocked! Chris said that once – God is not mocked, my friend.’
He staggered upstairs, hesitated, went into her room, silent, cold, deserted. There on the dressing-table lay her bag. He picked it up, pressed it against his cheek, then fumblingly opened it. Some coppers and loose silver lay inside, a small handkerchief, a bill for groceries. And then, in the middle pocket he came upon some papers – a faded snapshot of himself taken at Drineffy and – yes, he recognised them with a throbbing pang – those little notes he had received at Christmas from his patients at Aberalaw: With grateful thanks – she had treasured them all those years. A heavy sob broke from his heart. He fell on his knees by the bed in a passion of weeping.
Denny made no effort to stop him drinking. It seemed to him that Denny was about the house almost every day. It was not because of the practice, for Doctor Lowry was doing that now. Lowry was living out somewhere but coming in to consult and pick up the calls. He knew nothing, nothing whatever of what was going on, he did not wish to know. He kept out of Lowry’s way. His nerves had gone to pieces. The sound of the door-bell made his heart palpitate madly. A sudden step made the sweat break out on the palms of his hands. He sat upstairs in his room with a rolled-up handkerchief between his fingers, wiping his sweating palms from time to time, staring at the fire, knowing that when night came he must face the spectre of insomnia.
This was his condition when Denny walked in one morning and said:
‘I’m free at last, thank God. Now we can go away.’
There was no question of refusal, his power of resistance was completely gone. He did not even ask where they were going. In silent apathy he watched Denny pack a suitcase for him. Within an hour they were on their way to Paddington Station.
They travelled all afternoon through the south-west counties, changed at Newport and struck up through Monmouthshire. At Abergavenny they left the train and here, outside the station, Denny hired a car. As they drove out of the town across the River Usk and through the rich autumnal tinted countryside he said:
‘This is a small place I once used to come to – fishing. Llantony Abbey. I think it ought to suit.’
They reached their destination, through a network of hazel fringed lanes, at six o’clock. Round a square of close green turf lay the ruins of the Abbey, smooth grey stones, a few arches of the cloisters still upstanding. And adjoining was the guest-house, built entirely from the fallen stones. Near at hand a small stream flowed with a constant soothing ripple. Wood smoke rose, straight and blue, into the quiet evening air.
Next morning Denny dragged Andrew out to walk. It was a crisp dry day but Andrew, sick from a sleepless night, his flabby muscles failing on the first hill, made to turn back when they had gone only a short way. Denny, however, was firm. He walked Andrew eight miles that first day and on the next he made it ten. By the end of the week they were walking twenty miles a day and Andrew, crawling up to his room at night, fell immediately into insensibility upon his bed.
There was no one to worry them at the Abbey. Only a few fishermen remained, for it was now close to the end of the trout season. They ate in the stone-flagged refectory at a long oak table before an open log fire. The food was plain and good.
During their walks they did not speak. Often they walked the whole day long with no more than a few words passing between them. At the beginning Andrew was quite unconscious of the countryside through which they tramped, but as the days passed the beauty of its woods and rivers, of its sweeping bracken-covered hills penetrated gradually, imperceptibly, through his numbed senses.
The progress of his recovery was not sensationally swift, yet by the end of the first month he was able to stand the fatigue of their long marches, eat and sleep normally, bathe in cold water every morning and face the future without cowering. He saw that no better place could have been chosen for his recovery than this isolated spot, no better routine than this spartan, this monastic existence. When the first frost bit hard into the ground he felt the joy of it instinctively in his blood.
He began unexpectedly to talk. The topics of their discussion were inconsequential at the outset. His mind, like an athlete performing simple exercises before approaching greater feats, was guarded in its approach to life. But imperceptibly he learned from Denny the progress of events.
His practice was sold to Doctor Lowry, not for the full amount which Tucker had stipulated – since under the circumstances no introduction had been given – but for a figure near enough that sum. Hope had at last completed the full term of his scholarship, and was now at his home in Birmingham. Denny also was free. He had given up his registrarship before coming to Llantony. The inference was so clear that Andrew suddenly lifted up his head.
‘I ought to be fit for work at the beginning of the year.’
Now they began to talk in earnest and within a week his hard-faced listlessness was gone. He felt it strange and sad that the human mind should be capable of recovering from such a mortal blow as that which had struck him. Yet he could not help it, the recovery was there. Previously he had trudged with stoic indifference, a perfectly functioning machine. Now he breathed the sharp air with real vigour, switched at the bracken with his stick, took his correspondence out of Denny’s hands, and cursed when the post did not bring the Medical Journal.
At night Denny and he pored over a large scale map. With the help of an almanac they made a list of towns, weeded out that list, then narrowed their selection down to eight. Two of the towns were in Staffordshire, three in Northampton and three in Warwickshire.
On the following Monday Denny took his departure and was away a week. During these seven days Andrew felt the rushing return of his old desire to work, his own work, the real work he could do with Hope and Denny. His impatience became colossal. On Saturday afternoon he walked all the way to Abergavenny to meet the last train of the week. Returning, disappointed, to endure two further nights and one whole day of this intensifying delay, he found a small dark Ford drawn up at the guest-house. He hurried through the door. There in the lamp-lit refectory, Denny and Hope sat at a ham and egg tea with whipped cream and tinned peaches on the sideboard.
That week-end they had the place entirely to themselves. Philip’s report delivered at that richly composite meal was a fiery prelude to the excitement of their discussions. Outside rain and hail battered on the windows. The weather had finally broken. It made no difference to them.
Two of the towns visited by Denny – Franton and Stanborough – were, in Hope’s phrase, ripe for medical development. Both were solid semi-agricultural towns upon which recently a new industry had been grafted. Stanborough had a freshly erected plant for the manufacture of motor engine bearings, Franton a large sugar beet factory. Houses were springing up on the outskirts, the population increasing. But in each case the medical services had lagged behind. Franton had only a cottage hospital and Stanborough none at all. Emergency cases were sent to Coventry, fifteen miles away.
These bare details were enough to set them off like hounds upon a scent. But Denny had information even more stimulating. He produced a plan of Stanborough torn from an AA Midland route itinerary. He remarked:
‘I regret to say I stole it from the hotel at Stanborough. Sounds like a good beginning for us there.’
‘Quick,’ impatiently declared the once facetious Hope, ‘what’s this mark here?’
> ‘That,’ Denny said, as they bent their heads over the plan, ‘is the market square – at least, that’s what it amounts to, only for some reason they call it the Circle. It’s bang in the centre of the town, high up, too, with a fine situation. You know the kind of thing, a ring of houses and shops and offices, half residential, half old established business, rather a Georgian effect, with low windows and porticoes. The chief medico of the place, a whale of a fellow, I saw him, important red face and mutton chops, incidentally he employs two assistants, has his house in the Circle.’ Denny’s tone was gently ironic. ‘Directly opposite, on the other side of the charming granite fountain in the middle of the Circle, are two empty houses, large rooms, sound floors, good frontage and for sale. It seems to me –’
‘And to me,’ said Hope with a catch in his breath, ‘offhand I should say there’s nothing I should like better than a little lab opposite that fountain.’
They went on talking. Denny unfolded further details, interesting details.’
‘Of course,’ he concluded, ‘we are probably all quite mad. This idea has been brought to perfection in the big American cities by thorough organisation and tremendous outlay. But here – in Stanborough! And we none of us have a lot of cash! We shall also probably fight like hell amongst ourselves. But somehow –’
‘God help old mutton chops!’ said Hope, rising and stretching himself.
With the prospect of a full day before him Hope left early next morning, dashing off in his Ford in a spatter of mud before the others had finished breakfast. The sky was still heavily overcast but the wind was high, a gusty, exhilarating day. After breakfast Andrew went out by himself for an hour. It was good to feel fit again, with his work reaching out to him once more in the high adventure of the new clinic. He had not realised how much his scheme meant to him until now, quite suddenly it was near fruition.
When he returned at eleven o’clock the post had come in, a pile of letters forwarded from London. He sat down at the table with a sense of anticipation to open them. Denny was beside the fire behind the morning paper.
His first letter was from Mary Boland. As he scanned the closely written sheets his face warmed to a smile. She began by sympathising with him, hoping he had now recovered fully. Then briefly she told him about herself. She was better, infinitely better, almost well again. Her temperature had been normal for the last five weeks. She was up, taking graduated exercise. She had put on so much weight he would scarcely recognise her. She asked him if he could not come to see her. Mr Stillman had returned to America for several months leaving his assistant, Mr Marland, in charge. She could not thank him sufficiently for having sent her to Bellevue.
Andrew laid down the letter, his expression still bright with the thought of Mary’s recovery. Then, throwing aside a number of circulars and advertising literature, all in flimsy envelopes with halfpenny stamps, he picked up his next letter. This was a long official-looking envelope. He opened it, drew out the stiff sheet of notepaper within.
Then the smile left his face. He stared at the letter with disbelieving eyes. His pupils widened. He turned deadly pale. For a full minute he remained motionless, staring, staring at the letter.
‘Denny,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘Look at this.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Eight weeks before, when Andrew set down Nurse Sharp at Notting Hill Station she went on by tube to Oxford Circus and from there walked rapidly in the direction of Queen Anne Street. She had arranged with her friend Nurse Trent, who was Doctor Hamson’s receptionist, to spend the evening at the Queen’s Theatre where Louis Savory, whom they both adored, was appearing in The Duchess Declares. But since it was now quarter past eight and the performance began at eight forty-five the margin of time left for Nurse Sharp to call for her friend and be in the upper circle of the Queen’s was narrow. Moreover, instead of having leisure for a nice hot meal at the Corner House as she had planned, they would be obliged to snatch a sandwich on the way down or perhaps do without altogether. Nurse Sharp’s mood, as she thrust her way along Queen Anne Street, was that of a woman bitterly ill-used. As the events of the afternoon kept turning in her mind she seethed with indignation and resentment. Mounting the steps of No 17c she hurriedly pressed the bell.
It was Nurse Trent who opened the door, her expression patiently reproachful. But before she could speak, Nurse Sharp pressed her arm. ‘My dear,’ she said, speaking rapidly, ‘ I’m ever so sorry. But what a day I’ve had! I’ll tell you later. Just let me pop in to leave my things. If I come as I am I think we can just do it.’
At that moment as the two nurses stood together in the passage Hamson came down the stairs, groomed, shining and in his evening clothes. Seeing them he paused. Freddie could never resist an opportunity to demonstrate the charm of his personality. It was part of his technique, making people like him, getting the most out of them.
‘Hello, Nurse Sharp!’ – rather gaily, as he picked a cigarette from his gold case. ‘You look weary. And why are you both so late? Didn’t I hear something from Nurse Trent about a theatre tonight?’
‘Yes, doctor,’ said Nurse Sharp. ‘But I – I was detained over one of Doctor Manson’s cases.’
‘Oh?’ Freddie’s tone held just a hint of interrogation.
It was enough for Nurse Sharp. Rankling from her injustices, disliking Andrew and admiring Hamson, she suddenly let herself go.
‘I’ve never had such a time in all my life, Doctor Hamson. Never. Taking a patient from the Victoria and sneaking her out to that Bellevue place and Doctor Manson keeping me there all hours while he does a pneumothorax with an unqualified man –’ She poured out the whole story of the afternoon, repressing her smarting tears of vexation with difficulty.
There was a silence when she concluded. Freddie’s eyes held an odd expression.
‘That was too bad, nurse,’ he said at length. ‘But I hope you won’t miss your theatre. Look, Nurse Trent – you must take a taxi and charge it to me. Put it on your expense sheet. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go.’
‘There’s a gentleman,’ Nurse Sharp murmured, following him admiringly with her eyes. ‘ Come, dear, get the taxi.’
Freddie drove thoughtfully to the club. Since his quarrel with Andrew he had, almost of necessity, pocketed his pride and fallen back to a closer association with Deedman and Ivory. Tonight the three were dining together. And as they dined, Freddie, less in malice than from a desire to interest the other two, to pull himself up with them again, airily remarked:
‘Manson seems to be playing pretty parlour tricks since he left us. I hear he’s started feeding patients to that Stillman fellow.’
‘What!’ Ivory laid down his fork.
‘And co-operating, I understand.’ Hamson sketched a graceful version of the story.
When he finished Ivory demanded with sudden harshness
‘Is this true?’
‘My dear fellow,’ Freddie answered in an aggrieved tone, ‘I had it from his own nurse not half an hour ago.’
A pause followed. Ivory lowered his eyes and went on with his dinner. Yet beneath his calm he was conscious of a savage elation. He had never forgiven Manson for that final remark after the Vidler operation. Though he was not thin-skinned, Ivory had the sultry pride of a man who knows his own weakness and guards it jealously. He knew deep in his heart that he was an incompetent surgeon. But no one had ever told him with such cutting violence the full extent of his incompetence. He hated Manson for that bitter truth.
The others had been talking a few moments when he raised his head. His voice was impersonal.
‘This nurse of Manson’s – can you get her address?’
Freddie broke off, gazing at him across the table.
‘Absolutely.’
‘It seems to me,’ Ivory reflected coolly, ‘that something ought to be done about this. Between you and me, Freddie, I never had much time for this Manson of yours, but that’s neither here nor there. I’m thinking purely of the ethical aspec
t. Gadsby happened to be speaking to me about this Stillman only the other evening – we were guests at the Mayfly Dinner. He’s getting into the papers – Stillman, I mean. Some ignorant jackass in Fleet Street has got together a list of alleged cures by Stillman, cases where doctors had failed, you know the usual twaddle. Gadsby is pretty hot about it all. I believe Churston was a patient of his at one time – before he ditched him for this quack. Now! Just what is going to happen if members of the profession are going to support this rank outsider. Gad! The more I think about it the less I like it. I’m going to get in touch with Gadsby straight off the handle. Waiter! Find out if Doctor Maurice Gadsby is in the Club. If not, have the porter ring up and find out if he’s at his house.’
Hamson, for once, looked uncomfortable about his collar. He had no rancour in his disposition and no ill-will towards Manson, whom, in his easy, egotistic fashion he had always liked. He muttered:
‘Don’t bring me into it.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Freddie. Are we going to let that fellow sling mud at us and get away with this?’
The waiter returned to say that Doctor Gadsby was at home. Ivory thanked him.
‘I’m afraid this means the end of my bridge, you fellows. Unless Gadsby happens to be engaged.
But Gadsby was not engaged and later that evening Ivory called upon him. Though the two were not exactly friends they were good enough acquaintances for the physician to produce his second best port and a reputable cigar. Whether or not Doctor Gadsby knew something of Ivory’s reputation he was at least aware of the surgeon’s social standing, which ranked high enough for Maurice Gadsby, aspirant to fashionable honours, to treat him with adequate good-fellowship.