“I shall be glad to see the back of him, poor fellow,” said the matron, “for, of course, we have no arrangements for dealing with sick men.”
“Do you often get cases of illness here?” I asked.
“I really don’t know,” she answered. “You see, I am only doing temporary duty here while the regular matron is away. But I should think not, though little ailments are apt to occur in the case of a poor man who has been on the road for a week or so.”
“This man is on tramp, is he’” said I.
“Well, no,” she replied. “It seems, from what he tells me, that his wife has left him, and he had reason to believe that she was staying in this town. So he came down here to try to find her. He supposed that Rochester was a little place where everybody knew everybody else, and that he would have no difficulty in discovering her whereabouts. But all his inquiries have come to nothing. Nobody seems to have heard of her. I suppose you don’t happen to know the name—Frood?”
“I only came here yesterday, myself,” was my evasive reply. “I am a stranger to the town. But is he certain that she is here?”
“I don’t think he is. At any rate, he seems inclined to give up the search for the present, and he is very anxious to get back to London. But I don’t know how he is going to manage it. He isn’t fit to walk.”
“Well,” I said, “if it is only the railway fare that stands in the way, that difficulty can be got over. I will pay for his ticket; but I should like to be sure that he really goes.”
“Oh, I’ll see to that,” she said, with evident relief. “I will go with him to the station, and get his ticket and see him into the train. But you had better just have a look at him, and see that he is fit to go.”
She conducted me to the supper-room, where our friend was sitting in a Windsor armchair, looking the very picture of misery and dejection.
“Here is the doctor come to see you, Mr. Frood,” the matron said cheerfully, “and he is kind enough to say that, if you are well enough to travel, he will pay your fare to London. So there’s an end of your difficulties.”
The poor devil glanced at me for an instant, and then looked away; and, to my intense discomfort, I saw that his eyes were filling.
“It is indeed good of you, Sir,” he murmured, shakily, but in a very pleasant voice and with a refined accent; “most good and kind to help a lame dog over a stile in this way. I don’t know how to thank you.”
Here, as he showed a distinct tendency to weep, I replied hastily:
“Not at all. We’ve all got to help one another in this world. And how are you feeling? Hand is still a little bit shaky, I see.”
I put my finger on his wrist and then looked him over generally. He was a miserable wreck, but I judged that he was as well as he was ever likely to be.
“Well,” I said, “you are not in first-class form, but you are up to a short railway journey. I suppose you have somewhere to go to in London?”
“Yes,” he replied, dismally, “I have a room. It isn’t in the Albany, but it is a shelter from the weather.”
“Never mind,” said I. “We must hope for better times. The matron is going to see you safely to the station and comfortably settled in the train—and”—here I handed her a ten shilling note—“you will get Mr. Frood’s ticket, matron, and you had better give him the change. He may want a cab when he gets to town.”
He glowered sulkily at this arrangement—I suspect he had run out of cigarettes—but he thanked me again, and, when I had privately ascertained the time of the train which was to bear him away, I wished him adieu.
“I suppose,” said I, “there is no likelihood of his hopping out at Strood to get a drink and losing the train?”
The matron smiled knowingly. “He will start from Strood,” said she. “I shall take him over the bridge in the tram and put him into the London express there. We don’t want him back here tonight.”
Much relieved by the good lady’s evident grasp of the situation, I turned away up the street and began to consider my next move. I had nothing to do this morning, for at present there was not a single patient on my books with the exception of Mrs. Frood; and it may have been in accordance with the prevailing belief that to persons in my condition, an individual, familiarly known as “the old gentleman,” obligingly functions as employment agent, that my thoughts turned to that solitary patient. At any rate they did. Suddenly, it was borne in on me that I ought, without delay, to convey to her the glad tidings of her husband’s departure. Whether the necessity would have appeared as urgent if her personal attractions had been less, I will not presume to say; nor whether had I been more self-critical, I should not have looked with some suspicion on this intense concern respecting the welfare of a woman who was almost a stranger to me. As it was, it appeared to me that I was but discharging a neighbourly duty when I executed an insinuating rat-tat on the handsome brass knocker which was adorned—somewhat inappropriately, under the circumstances—with a mask of Hypnos.
After a short interval, the door was opened by a spare, middle-aged woman of melancholic aspect, with tow-coloured hair and a somewhat anemic complexion, who regarded me inquiringly with a faded blue eye.
“Is Mrs. Frood at home?” I asked briskly.
“I am afraid she is not,” was the reply, uttered in a dejected tone. “I saw her go out some time ago, and I haven’t heard her come back. But I’ll just see, if you will come in a moment.”
I entered the hall and listened with an unaccountable feeling of disappointment as she rapped on the door first of the front room, and then of the back.
“She isn’t in her rooms there,” was the dispirited report, “but she may be in the basement. I’ll call out and ask.”
She retired to the inner hall and gave utterance to a wail like that of an afflicted seagull. But there was no response; and I began to feel myself infected by her melancholy.
“I am sorry you have missed her, Sir,” said she; and then she asked: “Are you her doctor, Sir?”
I felt myself justified in affirming that I was, whereupon she exclaimed:
“Ah, poor thing! It is a comfort to know that she has someone to look after her. She has been looking very sadly of late. Very sadly, she has.”
I began to back cautiously towards the door, but she followed me up and continued: “I am afraid she has had a deal of trouble; a deal of trouble, poor dear. Not that she ever speaks of it to me. But I know. I can see the lines of grief and sorrow—like a worm in the bud, so to speak, Sir—and it makes my heart ache. It does, indeed.”
I mumbled sympathetically and continued to back towards the door.
“I don’t see very much of her,” she continued in a plaintive tone. “She keeps herself very close. Too close, I think. You see, she does for herself entirely. Now and again, when she asks me, which is very seldom, I put a bit of supper in her room. That is all. And I do think that it isn’t good for a young woman to live so solitary; and I do hope you’ll make her take a little more change.”
“I suppose she goes out sometimes,” said I, noting that she was out at the present moment.
“Oh, yes,” was the reply. “She goes out a good deal. But always alone. She never has any society.”
“And what time does she usually come in?” I asked, with a view to a later call.
“About six; or between that and seven. Then she has her supper and puts the things out on the hall table. And that is the last I usually see of her.”
By this time I had reached the door and softly unfastened the latch.
“If you should see her,” I said, “you might tell her that I shall look in this evening about half-past seven.”
“Certainly, Sir,” she replied. “I shall see her at lunch-time, and I will give her your message.”
I thanked her, and, having now got the door open, I wished her good morning, and retreated down the steps.
As I was in the act of turning away, my eye lighted on the adjacent bay window, appertaining to the offic
e of Messrs. Japp and Bundy, and I then perceived’ above the green curtain the upper half of a human face, including a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles; an apparition which informed me that Mr. Bundy had been—to use Sam Weller’s expression—“a-twigging of me.” On catching my eye, the face rose higher, disclosing a broad grin; whereupon, without any apparent reason, I felt myself turning somewhat red. However, I mounted the official steps, and, opening the office door, confronted the smiler and his more sedate partner.
“Ha!” said the former, “you drew a blank, doctor. I saw the lovely Angelina go out about an hour ago. Whom did you see?”
“The lady of the house, I presume; a pale, depressed female.”
“I know,” said Bundy. “Looks like an undertaker’s widow. That’s Mrs. Gillow. Rhymes with willow—very appropriate, too,” and he began to chant in an absurd, Punch-like voice: “Oh, all round my hat I’ll wear the green—”
“Be quiet, Bundy,” said Mr. Japp, regarding his partner with a wrinkly and indulgent smile.
Bundy clapped his hand over his mouth and blew out his cheeks, and I took the opportunity to explain: “I called on Mrs. Frood to let her know that her husband is leaving the town.”
“Leaving the town, is he?” said Mr. Japp, elevating his eyebrows and thereby causing his forehead to resemble a small Venetian blind. “Do you know when?”
“He goes this morning by the ten-thirty express to London.”
“Hooray!” ejaculated Bundy, with a flourish of his arms that nearly capsized his stool. He recovered himself with an effort, and then, fixing his eyes on me, proceeded to whistle the opening bars of “O! Thou that tellest good tidings to Zion!”
“That’ll do, Bundy,” said Mr. Japp. Then turning to me, he asked: “Where did you learn these good tidings, Doctor’”
I gave them a brief account of the happenings of the previous night and this morning’s sequel, to which they listened with deep attention. When I had finished Mr. Japp said: “You have done a very great kindness to my friend Mrs. Frood. It will be an immense relief to her to know that she can walk abroad without the danger of encountering this man. Besides, if he had stayed here he would probably have found her out.”
“He might even have found her at home,” said Bundy, “and that would have been worse. So I propose a vote of thanks to the doctor—with musical honours. For-hor he’s a jolly good fell—”
“There, that’ll do, Bundy, that’ll do,” said Mr. Japp. “I never saw such a fellow. You’ll have the neighbours complaining.”
Bundy leaned towards me confidentially and remarked in a stage whisper, glancing at his partner: “Fidgetty old cove; regular old killjoy.” Then, with a sudden change of manner, he asked: “What about that wall job, Japp? Are you going to have a look at them?”
“I can’t go at present,” said Japp. “Bulford will be coming in presently and I must see him. Have you got anything special to do?”
“Only old Jeff’son’s lease, and that can wait. Shall I trot over and see what sort of mess they are making of things?”
“I wish you would,” said Japp; whereupon Mr. Bundy removed his spectacles, stuck in his monocle, extracted from the desk his hat and gloves which he assumed with the aid of the looking-glass, and took his stick from the corner. Then he looked at me reflectively and asked:
“Are you interested in archaeology, Doctor?”
“Somewhat,” I replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Because we are putting some patches in the remains of the city wall. It isn’t much to look at, and there isn’t a great deal of the original Roman work left; but if you would care to have a look at it you might walk up there with me.”
I agreed readily, being, as I have said, somewhat at a loose end, and we set forth together, Bundy babbling cheerfully as we went.
“I have often thought,” said he, “that there must have been something rather pleasant and restful about the old walled cities, particularly after curfew when the gates were shut—that is, provided you were inside at the time.”
“Yes,” said I. “An enclosed precinct has a certain agreeable quality of seclusion that you can’t get in an open town or village. When I was a student, I lived for a time in chambers in Staple Inn, and it was, as you say, rather pleasant, when one came home at night, and the porter had let one in at the wicket, to enter and find the gates closed, the courts all quiet and empty, and to know that all traffic was stopped and all strangers shut out until the morning. But it doesn’t appear to be in accordance with modern taste, for those old Chancery Inns have nearly all gone, and there is no tendency to replace them with anything similar.”
“No,” Bundy agreed, stopping to look up at an old timber house, “taste in regard to buildings, if there is any—Japp says there isn’t—has changed completely in the last hundred years or so. Look at this alley we are in now. Every house has got a physiognomy of its own. But when we rebuild it, we shall fill it up with houses that will look as if they had been bought in packets like matchboxes.”
Gossiping thus, we threaded our way through all sorts of queer little alleys and passages. At length Bundy stopped at a wooden gate in a high fence, and, pushing it open, motioned for me to enter; and as I did so he drew out the key which was in the lock and put it in his pocket.
The place which we had entered was a space of waste land, littered with the remains of some old houses that had been demolished and enclosed on three sides by high fences. The fourth side was formed by a great mass of crumbling rubble, patched in places with rough masonry and brickwork, and showing in its lower part the remains of courses of Roman bricks. It rose to a considerable height, and was evidently of enormous thickness, as could be seen where large areas of the face had crumbled away, exposing great cavities, in which wall-flowers, valerian and other rock-haunting plants, had taken up their abode. On one of these a small gang of men were at work, and it was evident that repairs on a considerable scale were contemplated, for there were several large heaps of rough stone and old bricks, and in a cart-shed in a corner of the space were a large number of barrels of lime.
As we entered, the foreman came forward to meet us, and Bundy handed him the key from the gate.
“Better keep it in your pocket,” said he. “Mr. Japp is rather particular about keys that he has charge of. He doesn’t like them left in doors or gates. How are the men getting on?”
“As well as you can expect of a lot of casuals like these,” was the reply. “There isn’t a mason or a bricklayer among them, excepting that old chap that’s mixing the mortar. However, it’s only a rough job.”
We walked over to the part of the old wall where the men were at work, and the appearances certainly justified the foreman’s last remark. It was a very rough job. The method appeared to consist in building up outside the cavity a primitive wall of unhewn stone with plenty of mortar, and, when it had risen a foot or two, filling up the cavity inside with loose bricks, lumps of stone, shovelfuls of liquid mortar, and chunks of lime.
I ventured to remark that it did not look a very secure method of building, upon which Bundy turned his monocle on me and smiled knowingly.
“My dear Doctor,” said he, “you don’t appear to appreciate the subtlety of the method. The purpose of these activities is to create employment. That has been clearly stated by the town council. But if you want to create employment you build a wall that will tumble down and give somebody else the job of putting it up again.”
Here, as a man suddenly bore down on us with a bucket of mortar, Bundy hopped back to avoid the unclean contact, and nearly sat down on a heap of smoking lime.
“You had a narrow escape that time, mister,” remarked the old gentleman who presided over the mortar department, as Bundy carefully dusted his delicate shoes with his handkerchief; “that stuff would ’ave made short work of them fine clothes of yourn.”
“Would it?” said Bundy, dusting his shoes yet more carefully and wiping the soles on the turf.
“Ah,” re
joined the old man; “terrible stuff is quicklime. Eats up everything same as what fire does.” He rested his hands on his shovel, and, assuming a reminiscent air, continued: “There was a pal o’ mine what was skipper of a barge. A iron barge, she was, and he had to take on a lading of lime from some kilns. The stuff was put aboard with a shoot. Well, my pal, he gets ’is barge under the shoot and then ’e goes off, leavin’ ’is mate to see the lime shot into the hold. Well, it seems the mate had been takin’ some stuff aboard, too. Beer, or p’raps whisky. At any rate, he’d got a skinful. Well, presently the skipper comes back, and he sees ’em a-tippin’ the trucks of lime on to the shoot, and he sees the barge’s hold beginning to fill, but ’e don’t see ’is mate nowhere. He goes aboard, down to the cabin, but there ain’t no signs of the mate there, nor yet anywheres else. Well, they gets the barge loaded and the hatch-covers on, and everything ready for sea; and still there ain’t no signs of the mate. So my pal, rememberin’ that the mate—his name was Bill—rememberin’ that Bill seemed a bit squiffy, supposed he must ’ave gone overboard. So ’e takes on a fresh hand temporary and off ’e goes on ’is trip.
“Well, they makes their port all right and brings up alongside the wharf, but owing to a strike among the transport men they can’t unload for about three weeks. However, when the strike is over, they rigs a whip and a basket and begins to get the stuff out. All goes well until they get down to the bottom tier. Then one of the men brings upa bone on his shovel. ‘Hallo!’ says the skipper, ‘what’s bones a-doin’ in a cargo of fresh lime?” He rakes over the stuff on the floor and up comes a skull with a hole in the top of it. ‘Why, blow me,’ says the skipper, ‘if that don’t look like Bill. He warn’t as thin in the face as all that, but I seem to know them teeth.’ Just then one of the men finds a clay pipe—and the skipper reckernizes it at once. ‘That there’s Bill’s pipe,’ sez he, ‘and them bones is Bill’s bones,’ ’e sez. And so they were. They found ’is belt-buckle and ’is knife, and ’is trouser buttons and the nails out of ’is boots. And that’s all there was left of Bill. He must have tumbled down into the hold and cracked his nut, and then the first truckful of lime must ’ave covered ’im up. So, if you sets any value on them ’andsome shoes o’ yourn, don’t you go a-treadin’ in quick lime.”
The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack Page 51