by Неизвестный
[P.S.] What infernal muffs those people in London are—If the thing has been bought (and it said it had in the papers) why dont they clamour for the money or put the head of the British Museum into the small debt court.*
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA, JUNE OR JULY 1882
Another light thing which Innes might convoy are those African mats of mine—I could litter them about in the hall. The first spare money I have I must buy a stair carpet with. Is it not wonderful that I have already £11 laid by towards the quarter. The rent is £10 but then 15/6 was deducted at my request as I entered the house a week late. Then there are taxes which amount I believe to about £3 a quarter. I shall never touch that money if I starve first.
Of course this sudden wealth is mainly due to Hogg who sent me £7.15 after one or two letters requesting it (nicely)—and a very nice note he sent me into the bargain. I had one disappointment this week for I got a postcard from Belgravia saying they had returned my ‘Veteran’ to Plymouth. It was a capital article and I must shove it in somewhere. What a fool that editor of Cornhill is—he mistakes originality for crudeness. I affect those brusque crisp sentences which he thinks are defects. I have been reading his dry as dust old journal lately, and can quite believe in his literary taste being perverted—even in my earliest stories I was never crude.
No patients yet but the number of people who stop and read my plate is enormous. On Wednesday evening in 25 minutes 28 people stopped in front of it, and yesterday I counted 24 in 15 minutes, which was better still. On the average of one a minute of working hours 2880 people have read it during the week. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I may be consulted free from 10 to 1. That is to get the good will of the poor. As today is Friday I shouldn’t be surprised if one or two dropped in. I got my drugs from London (£11.14, Oh Himmel!) But they are pretty easygoing, and if you pay a pound here and a pound there they are quite satisfied. It was far cheaper than getting them by driblets from local chemists, and a workman must have his tools.
The sooner Innes comes the better. He shall have plenty of good food—now that the rent is off my mind we will not be so scrimpy. I have to sit up nearly to midnight every night in order to polish my two door-plates without being seen. Have no gas yet—but candles.
‘One happy evening the little knicker-bockered fellow, just ten years old, joined me as my comrade,’ said Conan Doyle in Memories and Adventures. ‘No man could have had a merrier and brighter one.’
A letter to Mrs Charlotte Drummond of Edinburgh, a family friend and another of Conan Doyle’s second mothers, summed up the situation at this point nicely:
to Charlotte Drummond SOUTHSEA, JULY 1882
You’ll think me very undutiful, not to say rude, in not answering your kind letter sooner. Fancy you’re talking about an ‘excuse for writing’ as if the excessive pleasure which your letters give were not reason enough, as long as it does not bore you to write them. I take up my pen (which is a shocking bad one, and seems to be growing a beard) to let you know all about our establishment. I first as you know went to Plymouth where Budd and I did not pull together very well. I then went prospecting to Tavistock in Devon but could not see anything to suit. I then set sail to Portsmouth, a town where I knew nobody, and nobody knew me (which was a point in my favour). I took the most central house I could find, determined to make a spoon or spoil a horn, and got three pounds worth of furniture for the Consulting Room, a bed, a tin of corned beef and two enormous brass plates with my name on it. I then sat on the bed and ate the corned beef for a period of six days at the end of which time a vaccination turned up. I had to pay 2/6 for the vaccine in London, and could only screw 1/6 out of the woman, so that I came to the conclusion that if I got many more patients I would have to sell the furniture. The same day I got another, and yesterday I got two more, so my name is evidently getting known and I feel hopeful about the future. I write away for the papers in the intervals of brushing floors, blacking boots and the rest of my labours—occasionally glaring out through the Venetian blinds to see if anyone is reading the plate. I counted 28 people in 15 minutes in front of it one evening. Duffy turned up a couple of days ago and at once made himself quite at home. He goes down to the beach and helps the fishermen with their boats, and talks Scotch to them. We are going to have stirring times down here apparently—from ‘my house’ I can hear the cheering of the men in the transports as they steam out of the harbour for the East. I hope I’ll get up to Scotland to see you all this autumn, if things go well. By the way I am ‘on’ with Elmo again. Pray remember me kindly to Jessie, and with love to yourself I am
Ever your affectionate fraction, Arthur
[P.S.] Excuse this letter being so selfish. I know nobody and have nothing to talk about but myself.
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA, JULY 18, 1882
FROM INNES Dearest mama London is such a jolly place, on sunday I went to hyde park and saw the band play the[n] I to side of the lake and their were lots of little ducklings and they made such a noise when we gave them crumbs and they fought and they quacked and they said to each other that crumb is mine or I’ll have this one read this and tell her to write to me soon and you do likewise good by dear mo*
FROM ARTHUR Innes reached this stage, and then he rushed out to get a newspaper to hear the particulars of the battle at Alexandria,† so I continue his scrawl. He came here yesterday afternoon & seems delighted with the place. He says our house is bigger than the George Square one. The carpet is splendid & fits to a nicety. The Consulting Room looks awfully well. I don’t know how to measure for a stair carpet—there are 12 steps before you come to the turn—each about a foot high & a foot broad. There are half a dozen steps round the turn but they don’t matter so much. Another patient came on Monday as well as the vaccination.
Never fear about Innes. I find I can manage for him nicely. We have not had breakfast yet on account of a small difficulty with the fire, but it is burning nicely now & the kettle boiling so by the time he comes back from the Post Office it will be ready. Salmon—bread & butter marmalade. A[unt] Annette sent down a nice pair of curtains & one or two odds & ends. Well adieu, I must go and make the tea & get the boots blacked.
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA, JULY 1882
Elmo has £1500 which however she cannot touch until the death of this old Aunt with whom she lives at Lismore. She writes such cheery letters, and seems to be getting ever so much better since our reconciliation, dear lass. They proposed sending her to New York for change of air, but with the example of Mary Ryan in my mind I absolutely refused to let her go.* I said that if before winter I was making two pound clear a week from physic, what with literature, and the increase to be expected and her little in the background we should marry. Marriage would double my income. If however I was not in a position then she should come and winter at Ventnor where we would be near each other and she would not be lonely. Don’t you think that was sensible?
Innes is cooking the potatoes & announces that they are nearly ready—so adieu for the present. Innes makes an admirable door opener but I have to teach him discretion. He opens the door to a patient, and then yells up the stair ‘Hurray, Arthur, it’s another baby’ to the mother’s great discomfiture.
Goodbye, darling, I hope you did not say anything too hard to Budd, for though I think he has used me badly in this, he was honestly fond of me once. His ‘amour propre’ was hurt.*
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA, JULY 1882
I am enclosing a letter of the boy’s—I don’t know whether you can make anything out of it—I can’t. He is very jolly and well and says Portsmouth is the best place ever he was in. I am rather disappointed today as only one patient appeared, and I had 2, 2 and 3 on the free days last week. However when I think how Hoare never saw a patient for 6 months I am reconciled to my lot. Never forget that Budd pursuing the exact same tactics which I am adopting made considerably over 2000 in the first twelve month.
Don’t you pinch yourself to help us. We will get along famously, by hook or by croo
k. Never mind the L.T. [locum tenens] advertisement. You would in all probability waste the money as there is very small likelihood of anyone here wanting one, and in any case I don’t want a connection among medical men nor to appear as the hanger on any of them. I hope to have cut the lot of them out before another year. Two of a trade never agree, and the less you have to say to them the better, that was Hoare’s maxim and quite right. In medicine one man’s success means another man’s failure and it is expecting more than human nature is capable of to imagine there could be any real advantage to be gained from knowing the men about. When I have beaten them I don’t mind knowing them, but I can not stand patronage.
I read a splendid story the other day—one of the most powerful I ever read. ‘The Pavilion on the Links’ it is called, in Cornhill for 1880. Read it.* Also read a novel ‘By Celia’s Arbour’ the scene of which is laid in Portsmouth.†
Adieu. Don’t be in the least uneasy about us.
The Mam might have felt that she had reason to feel uneasy about her sons if she had read the diary that Innes kept late that July. For dinner, he recorded on July 24th, ‘I had to go and put on the last potatoes the only six we had in the world.’ He also recorded games he enjoyed, exciting visits to army barracks and navy piers, reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and long walks in town and in the countryside with his elder brother, whom he clearly worshipped as a hero. But their situation was very straitened, as Conan Doyle confessed in his breezy way in his next letter to their mother.
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
I have got a lot of literary chickens hatched and flying about, but none of them have come home to roost yet. Last week I sent ‘The winning shot’ to Temple Bar—a very ghastly Animal Magnetic vampirey sort of a tale. It came back again but with a very complimentary letter, & Hogg says he should like to see it. (2) ‘That Veteran’ went to ‘All the Year Round’ and as I have heard nothing I am in hopes (3) ‘Up an African River’ went to the Journal of Photography. It won’t fetch more than a pound if they do take it. (4) ‘Our Confidential Column’ went to Punch. That is very problematical but possible (5) I send off today ‘How my Carotid Artery was tied’ to Chambers’—a clever little story but a short one. Unfortunately they pay by size not Specific Gravity, however I hope they may take it.
I am rather disgusted about the practise, but I suppose it is the same with every beginner and not much worse than most. Last week I had seven. This week has only produced four as yet. Monday 1 (my old landlady) Tuesday 1 (paid 2/) Wednesday 2 and none yesterday, but surely someone will come today. I want to increase every week & here I am almost retrograding. However never say die. There is the ‘three eyed man’ glaring at us from the background. I could have made a good horrible story of it, but I think I can do the cheerful also.* It was delicate as well as kind of Hogg under the circumstances to offer the money on getting the m.s. I wrote and told him so. A fellow came in for the poor rate today 30/ think of that, and I had only been a fortnight in the house. However I was prepared for him. But is it not an extortion, as if any man in Great Britain could possibly be poorer than me.
Innes is as jolly as possible, and wrote a long letter to a certain John Blake yesterday. He brings pet crabs into the house, which go sidling along the floor until I inadvertently tread on them, which is the end of the unhappy crustacean. He looks far rosier than when he came. I think the splendid air and the rambles along the beach will do his lump more good than any amount of syrup ferri iodidi.† I send you as much of Elmo’s last as I can find. She thinks you are angry with her. You might drop her a line anytime you feel inclined. It is Ned she is talking about at the beginning. I wish her money was not tied up so. If I could marry it would fetch the practise up with a rush.
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
The things came last night, and were beautiful. The house looks really well with the stair carpet. On Monday at 5 AM Reg, Currie and Mickey walked in upon me. I did the best I could for them and went to Ryde together. Reg seemed to like the situation and admired the house—though of course to a man coming from a luxurious mansion it seemed a little queer having a paucity of knives plates &c—but he said there was no reason why it should not make a very good practise, which is the main thing. At 7.30 I saw them off.* At 8 I went to bed. At 9 I got a telegram—J.R. ‘Will be down at 10.20—Get me a bed.’ I dressed and hurried down to the station when I met James Paul Emilius. He is in great feather, and apparently intends to settle down for some time to come. He is bright & lively and keeps us alive, so I am glad to have him—and he gives me a little mental friction which I sadly need sometimes. He is upstairs now ‘cleaning’. He says that the house is ‘charming’ & ‘palatial’ and the consulting room ‘swagger’ so he approves. Patients still few and far between and editors unresponsive but I am all right—don’t be uneasy. Three Eyes is nearly finished but I dont think much of it—however I think Hogg will take it, and that is the main thing.
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
I’m not going to jump into matrimony until I see my way clear, so don’t be uneasy. I certainly don’t see my way yet. First I shall speak about the black side of things—Patients are few and far between & our faces are as long as your arm. 7 the first week, 4 the next & only 2 so far this. You see however that the original 7 came mostly from pure curiosity you see—& then my landlady came & brought me one or two. The next week some of these came again to say how they were getting on and now it is the turn of bona fide patients, who however do not seem to be flocking in with startling rapidity. In the meantime we try to keep the thing going by literature—yesterday I got the proofs of a photographic article—not much but a pound I daresay.
This morning I got a notice from ‘All the Year Round’ that they had accepted ‘That Veteran’—which is also not a long story, about two to three guineas I think. On the other hand I got The Carotid Artery back from Chambers. I sent ‘The Winning Shot’ to Hogg. It is a capital story & a seven pounder if he takes it. Our living with sundry expences costs us 10/ a week I find—you were quite right about the little expences mounting up. Innes and I washed out the rooms with cold water yesterday & very well we did it too. I am reading ‘Asphodel’—rather good. Read ‘The man with red hair’ lately, it was good too.* Innes goes down and superintends the sending of the soldiers off to Egypt. He embarked 2 regiments in the Euphrates last week without an accident.
‘Why,’ says he, ‘here’s another vacancy on the League of the Redheaded Men. It’s worth quite a little fortune to any man who gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than there are men, so that the trustees are at their wits’ end what to do with the money. If my hair would only change colour, here’s a nice little crib all ready for me to step into.’
—‘The Red-headed League’
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
Am writing away at the political pamphlet which I started long ago. W.K.B. was down from Saturday to Monday and enjoyed himself immensely. We are looking forward to see you so much. One of my patients is to have her son march first past the queen today in honour of his bravery in Egypt. She was so affected that I knocked 2/ worth of medicine into her. Innes is clamouring for his breakfast so I must go. Has J.R. made any remarks about his stay here?
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
I have just this moment got your letter, and having nothing to do, I proceed to answer by return like a model correspondent as I am.
1. It was a mistake my not discussing the basement floor in my last. The idea is excellent and must be carried out. I have not however had a gas meter put up yet for the reason that many brackets and fixings are not in their place, and I have not dared to order them yet for fear of debt. Until they are right the gas would escape. Again I want to get a few things in the next room & a washing stand &c in the bedroom before having a possible gossiper in. Dr Hoare agreed on that point. If I could get the ten guineas and A the Year R’s contribution I should do it. I must wait a week or two.
2. Hogg has not sent yet. If he did not like t
he thing he would have written and said so. Still I can’t help being uneasy. It’s bad form for an editor to break a promise like that.
3. I partly agree with you about James. His mother however in her letter to me laid stress upon his going up to London on legal business which she says has been unduly delayed. Very possibly he wants to see how matters stand at the end of this necessary trip before parting with money. I paid the hamper at the time but he repaid me when the fiver came. I paid for your hamper too, but got the money out of the company again. I never paid for the trunk.
4. I think you have managed Elmo’s business very well—wonderfully in fact. Send me details as often as you can. Travelling companions are necessary to her, poor girl, if she is so poorly.
5. Shall I take down my free plate? That is the question. I find that my patients don’t come in free hours, and I might lose caste by it. I called on Pike a neighbouring medical man yesterday.* He was very friendly & strongly advised me to do so. He said it answered in some towns but not in an exclusive place like Southsea.
I have finished ‘My friend the murderer’ or ‘the convicts tale’ and it has gone to Hogg. I have another in my head.
Innes’ lump is much smaller. It is his double chin, and the way he is sitting gives him the lumpy look. He is fairly clean—running rather short of boots. I cut his hair the other day, and made a very good job of it.
to Charlotte Drummond SOUTHSEA