by A. J. Cronin
And Anabel, with equal determination, hissed:
‘It is not my turn to call the cat.’
Whereupon they both rose and went to bed. Neither of them called the cat.
All might have been well, but for the fact that Rufus, finding himself so unexpectedly at large, took it into his stupid feline head to wander.
Next morning Rufus was lost – not only lost, but lost beyond recall. And when it was known that Rufus was irreparably gone, Beth turned to her sister like a viper that has been trampled on.
‘I will never,’ she declared with concentrated venom, ‘speak to you again as long as I live until you go down upon your bended knees and beg my pardon for what you have done.’
‘And I,’ Anabel retorted passionately, ‘will never speak to you again as long as I have breath in my body, until you go down on your bended knees and beg pardon of me.’
Such vows have been taken before in the course of family squabbles! But the strange thing about this vow was that the Scobie sisters kept it; and even stranger perhaps the manner in which they kept it.
It fell out, then, at half-past eleven on this particular day when he got word to call on Miss Anabel, that Finlay walked up the white pebbled path of the Scobie house and knocked discreetly at the Scobie door, Beth Scobie opened the door herself.
Though the sisters were comfortably off, with an income derived from a joint annuity, they prided themselves in keeping no maid.
‘Please to step this way, doctor,’ Beth observed, showing him into the front parlour, a freezingly clean apartment with horsehair furniture, marine paintings on the walls, some excellent Satsuma china in a case, and a heavy marble presentation clock ticking solemnly upon the mantelpiece.
In the same colourless voice she added: ‘I’ll see if my sister is ready for you yet.’
Then she left the room.
When she had gone Finlay turned instinctively to warm himself at the fireplace. It was blank, however, of any cheerful blaze – the grate hidden behind an incised lacquer screen. But on the mantelpiece beside the clock his eye was arrested by a neat pile of paper slips, each exactly like the slip upon which had been written the message asking him to call. Beside the little pile of papers lay a pencil.
Finlay stared at the papers and the pencil, while a dim understanding worked to the surface of his mind.
Suddenly he observed two crumpled slips lying in the grate behind the screen, and, impelled by an odd curiosity, he stooped and picked them up.
On the first, written in pencil, were the words—
I don’t feel well, please send for the doctor, and on the second: A pack of nonsense fancying you’re ill.
Finlay dropped the papers in amazement. So that, he thought, that’s the way they’ve worked it all the time.
Just then a noise made him swing round. Beth stood before him at the door.
‘My sister will see you,’ she declared evenly. And he could have sworn she was crushing a slip of paper in her palm.
He went upstairs, at her direction, for she did not follow, and entered one of the two front bedrooms.
Anabel lay in the big brass bed covered by a beautifully worked bedspread. The linen of the sheets and pillows was very fine. And Anabel herself was far from being fine.
It took Finlay just five minutes to discover that she had influenza – the early symptoms – and that she was going to have it pretty bad.
Her skin was dry, her temperature on the rise, her pulse bounding; and already there was a suspicious roughness creeping round the bases of her lungs.
She submitted grimly to his examination. She had none of that skittish modesty which so often besets the elderly unmarried female. And at the end she went straight to the point.
‘I’m going to be ill, then, by the look of ye?’
‘You’ve got influenza,’ he admitted. ‘There’s a regular epidemic of it about. It’s sharp while it lasts, but not serious.’
At his evasion she laughed shortly, which brought on her cough.
‘I mean,’ he amended, colouring, ‘you’ll be over it in a week or ten days.’
‘Of course I will!’
‘In the meantime, I’d better get you a nurse.’
‘You’ll do no such thing, doctor.’
The dour look settled back in her deep-set eyes.
‘My sister will look after me. She’ll make a handless nurse, no doubt, poor creature, but I maun just put up with that.’ Pause. ‘She’s stubborn, ye know, doctor. Stubborn to a fault and quarrelsome, forbye. But I’ve tholed it in health. And I can thole it in sickness.’
There was nothing more to be said to Anabel. He folded his stethoscope, snapped his bag shut, and went downstairs.
In the parlour, amongst the horsehair furniture, the marine paintings, the Satsuma china, and the little pile of papers by the monumental clock, he addressed himself to Beth.
‘Your sister has influenza.’
‘Influenza! Is that all? Well, well! Anabel was aye one to be sorry for herself.’
‘Don’t you understand?’ he exclaimed curtly. ‘Your sister is definitely ill. She’ll be worse before she’s better. Much worse. This influenza is no joke. It’s the real pulmonary type she’s got. She’ll want a lot of looking after.’
Beth made a slight ironic gesture.
‘I can look after her. And look after her well. Though I’ve little doubt she’ll make a poor, poor, patient. She’s stubborn, ye know, doctor. Stubborn to a fault and quarrelsome, forbye. What I’ve had to endure ye wouldn’t credit. But sin I’ve endured it from her when she was well, faith, I can endure it now she’s ill.’
He stared at her astounded. At length he said:
‘There’s just one difficulty.’ He paused to clear his throat awkwardly. ‘You and your sister don’t appear to be on speaking terms. You can’t possibly nurse her under these conditions.’
She smiled her gaunt, humourless smile.
‘We’ll manage! We’ve managed well enough these fifteen years!’
There was a silence. With a shrug of his shoulders Finlay accepted the situation.
He began to explain at some length what had to be done. Having made his instructions clear he took his hat and left the house.
So Beth began to nurse her sister in that same stubborn silence which had lasted fifteen years. At the beginning it was easy enough.
As yet Anabel was not acutely ill, and notes flew between the sisters like swallows on the wing. Propped up on her pillows, the invalid would scrawl:
‘Give me beef-tea instead of gruel tonight.’
And the nurse with a frigid face would countersign: ‘Very well. But you must take your medicine first.’
Ludicrous, of course! But ludicrous or no, the habits of fifteen years are hard to break.
Late on the second afternoon, however, something went wrong with the well-tried system.
Anabel was worse; much worse; for several hours she had been lying still, looking very queer. Now darkness was falling, and sunk back on the bed with flushed cheeks and unseeing eyes, she lapsed into a light delirium.
Nonsense it was she talked, like scraps of words and phrases, but suddenly, in the midst of that rambling incoherence, she spoke – spoke to her sister. Out came the words—
‘I’m that thirsty, Beth. Please give me a drink.’
Beth started as though a lance had pierced her.
Anabel had spoken to her – after all these years – Anabel had spoken first. Her face, her whole body quivered. She pressed her hand against her side. Then she gave a cry.
‘Yes, Anabel, I’ll give you a drink. Look! Here it is—’ And she rushed forward to the bed, supported her sister’s head with her arm, offered her the cup.
The sound of Beth’s voice seemed to stir Anabel from her unconsciousness. She looked at her and smiled.
At that Beth began to sob, harsh dry sobs that tore and racked her narrow bosom.
‘I’m sorry, Anabel,’ she wept. ‘I’m dreadfully
sorry. It’s been all my fault. And all about nothing.’
‘Maybe it was my fault,’ Anabel whispered. ‘Maybe it was my turn to call him.’
‘No, no,’ Beth sobbed. ‘I’m thinkin’ it was mine.’
That night when Finlay called he found Beth waiting for him in the parlour. All her grimness had gone, and in its place there stood a real anxiety.
‘Doctor,’ she asked straight away. ‘My sister’s worse. You don’t think – you don’t think she’s not going to get better?’
He studied the marine painting on the opposite wall – the Magnetic passing the Tail o’ the Bank.
‘I think she’ll get over it,’ he said eventually. ‘With a bit of luck, you know.’
‘She’s got to get over it,’ Beth cried hysterically. ‘Don’t you understand, doctor – we’ve made it up. This afternoon she spoke to me.’
And without warning she burst into tears.
In spite of himself Finlay was moved, moved by those tears – so foreign to this hard nature, they were like waters struck miraculously from barren rock.
He saw as something strangely beautiful the reconciliation of the two sisters, two crabbed and arid beings who had turned a trifling quarrel into such savage animosity, and linked their lives by speechless hatred.
With sudden poetic vision he reflected – if only he could save Miss Anabel, how marvellous to see the unfolding of these warped, malignant cords, the rebirth of affection, the progression of these twin natures into a rich and generous old age.
And such was the intensity of the thought that he declared aloud:
‘We’ve got to save her!’
But it was not easy.
The days slipped in, and Anabel hovered between delirium and reason, her fever rising and falling, her pulse flickering feebly at the wrist, her strength gradually failing.
The infection ravaged her. She seemed to verge upon a secondary pneumonia which could have ended everything. That, at least, was Finlay’s fear.
At times he almost despaired of her, her crisis was so long delayed. But she was tough, her fibre fashioned of a stern material. She lasted bravely. And she lacked for nothing.
Beth nursed her devotedly, wheedling her, coaxing her, humouring her with the utmost tenderness.
‘Come away, my dear, and take your physic. Try some more of this nice chicken tea. This blackcurrant jelly should ease your cough.’
At last the reward came; reward for Finlay’s vigilance and Beth’s self-sacrificing care. A full fourteen days after the first day of her illness Finlay was able to pronounce that Anabel would recover.
At the news Beth sank down beside the bed and buried her head in the pillow beside her sister.
‘Thank God!’ she sobbed. She was overwrought from anxiety and loss of sleep. ‘Thank God, you’re to be spared to me. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
From that moment Anabel progressed rapidly towards recovery. Perhaps because the acute period of her illness had been prolonged, her convalescence was extraordinarily swift.
In ten days she was able to be up in her room, to sit by the window and watch the fascinating procession of ships as they stole up or down the Firth.
In a fortnight she was downstairs, in another week she was able to go out. And at the end of the month Finlay proclaimed her as good as new.
‘Indeed, ye’re right, doctor,’ she affirmed with a self-satisfied smile. ‘To tell you the truth I feel better than I did before I was taken ill.’
He smiled back at her as he took his departure.
‘I’ll look in just once again before I finish with you. Say in a week or ten days. Will that suit you?’
‘It’ll suit me fine, doctor,’ she returned primly.
When he had gone she continued swaying herself gently backwards and forwards in the rocking-chair.
‘He’s a nice young fellow that,’ she ruminated amiably. ‘A nice young lad he is. Mind you, though, when all’s said and done, I wouldna go so far as to say ’twas him that saved me.’
She paused significantly.
‘No, no! What really gave me the turn was you speakin’ to me like ye did.’
Another pause, vaguely triumphant.
‘Ye see – the very idea that you had given in, Beth – speakin’ first like that – bad as I was – fair uplifted me.’
Beth sat up on the sofa, a little flush colouring her cheek. ‘What are ye talkin’ about, my dear? It was you, Anabel, who spoke to me. “Give me a drink” says you as plain as I’m speakin’ to ye now.’
‘No, no,’ Anabel gently shook her head. ‘I mind fine how it was. Over ye came to my bedside and knelt down. Then, with tears in your eyes, ye said – “ ’Twas all my fault, Anabel, dear. I’ve been to blame for everything.” ’
‘What!’ threw out Beth, stiffening in every limb, glowering at her sister from beneath those black brows of hers.
‘Ay,’ tittered Anabel. ‘And you even said ye’d been wrong all along. “’Twas my turn,” says you. “It really was my turn to call the cat.” ’
‘It’s not true!’ shouted Beth.
‘Eh? What’s that?’ exclaimed Anabel, stopping her rocking and slowly reddening.
‘It’s not true,’ Beth repeated, viciously. ‘It was you yourself said you were mistaken. You admitted it was your turn to call the cat.’
‘I did nothing of the kind.’
‘You did so.’
‘I did not. It was not my turn to call the cat.’
‘It was your turn.’
‘It was not.’
On they went. On, on – right to the bitter, inevitable end.
And so, when Finlay called at the end of the week, silence reigned once more between the Scobie sisters. Beth and Anabel were passing notes exactly as they had done for fifteen years.
He went out of the house, stupefied, pressing his head between his hands. Then – after the manner of Cameron – he invoked the high heavens above.
‘My God! If one of these auld deevils takes ill again I’ll see she doesn’t recover – if I’ve got to poison her myself.
Wife of a Hero
For days Levenford had talked of nothing but the match. Of course they were always ‘daft on football’ in these parts. They had the tradition, you see. In the good old days, when centre-forwards wore side whiskers and the goalie’s knickers buttoned below the knee, Levenford had been a team of champions.
That they had languished since those Homeric triumphs – languished to a low place in the Second League – was as nothing. Levenford was still Levenford. And now, in the first round of the Scottish Cup, they had drawn the Glasgow Rovers at home.
The Glasgow Rovers – top of the First Division – crack team of the country – and at home!
In the shipyards, the streets, the shops; in every howff from the Philosophical right down to the Fitter’s Bar, the thrill of it worked like madness.
Total strangers stopped each other at the Cross.
‘Can we do it?’ the one would gasp. And the other, with real emotion, would reply: ‘Well! Anyhow we’ve got Ned!’
Ned Sutherland was the man they meant – Sutherland, the idol, the prodigy, the paragon! Sutherland, subject of Bailie Paxton’s solemn aphorism – ‘He has mair fitba’ in his pinkie than the hale team has in their heids.’
Good old Sutherland! Hurray for Ned!
Ned was not young; his age, guarded like a woman’s, was uncertain. But those in the know put Ned down at forty, for Ned, they wisely argued, had been playing professional football for no less than twenty years. Not in Levenford, dear, dear, no!
Ned’s dazzling career had carried him far from his native town – to Glasgow first, where his debut had sent sixty thousand delirious with delight, and then to Newcastle, from there to Leeds, then down to Birmingham – oh, Ned had been everywhere, never staying long, mark you, but always the centre of attraction, always the idol of the crowd.
And then, the year before, after a short interval wh
en all the big clubs – with unbelievable stupidity – ignored his ‘free transfer’, he had returned magnificently to Levenford while still, as he said, in his prime, to put the club back upon the map.
It cannot be denied that there were rumours about Ned, base rumours that are the penalty of greatness.
It was whispered, for instance, that Ned loved the drink, that Newcastle had been glad to see the last of him, and Leeds not sorry to watch him go.
It was a shame, a scandal, an iniquity – the lies that followed him about.
What matter if Ned liked his glass? He could play the better for it, and very often did.
What matter if an occasional drink gaily marked the progress of his greatness? If his wanderings had been prodigal, was he not Levenford’s famous son?
Away with the slanderers! So said Levenford, for when Ned returned she took him to her heart.
He was a biggish man, was Ned, rather bald on the top, with a smooth pale face, and a moist convivial eye.
He had the look, not of a footballer, but rather of a toastmaster at a city banquet.
In his appearance he was something of the dandy; his suit was invariably of blue serge – neat, well brushed; on his little finger he wore a heavy ring with a coloured stone; his watch chain, stretched between the top pockets of his waistcoat, carried a row of medals he had won; and his shoes – his shoes in particular were polished till they shone.
Naturally Ned did not brush his shoes himself. Though most of the Levenford team held jobs in the shipyard and the foundry, Ned, as befitting his superior art, did not work at all. The shoes were brushed by Ned’s wife.
And here, with the mention of Mrs Sutherland, is reached the point on which everyone agreed.
It was a pity, an awful pity, that Ned’s wife should be such a drag, such a burden on him – not only the wife but those five children of his as well. God! It was sickening that Ned should have tied himself up so young – that he had been forced to cart round the wife, and this increasing regiment of children upon his famous travels.
There, if you like, was the reason of his decline, and it all came back to the woman who was his wife.
As Bailie Paxton put it knowingly – with a significant gesture of distaste – ‘Could she not have watched herself better?’