by A. J. Cronin
‘Oh, Lord save us! Finlay,’ gasped Cameron. ‘When I think of it. You, day after day – running after her – cutting out her wen – waitin’ on her hand and foot . . .’
‘Well,’ said Finlay, faintly annoyed. ‘Ye’ve got the Ming plate, haven’t ye?’
‘Ming!’ choked Cameron with a fresh convulsion. ‘My dear man it’s no such thing. It’s an ordinary dinner plate. You can buy this for three halfpenny in the Stores. I’ll bet my hat that’s where Meg got it. The window’s full o’ them.’ And holding his sides he collapsed in a peal of fresh hysterics.
Finlay sat down on the sofa.
Man, I can see it all,’ went on Cameron. ‘Right at the start Meg changed the plate. She’s sold ye – lock, stock and barrel. At this very minute she’ll be telling her cronies how she’s worsted ye, tittering, and tee-heeing, rubbing her hands together. “This self-same plate”, ye insisted, holding up the threepence-halfpenny article, driving your bargain by your way o’t. And ye got the self-same plate. Ye’ve got no redress.’
There was a moment’s silence while Finlay gazed across at the helpless, speechless Cameron. Then, slowly, reflectively, but with increasing enjoyment, Finlay began to laugh as well. And at that unexpected sound Cameron’s mirth underwent a sudden change into sharp surprise.
‘Wh—?’ he exclaimed. ‘What’s this? What in all the world have you got to laugh at?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ answered Finlay nonchalently. ‘Just nothing at all.’
‘I should think not,’ retorted Cameron with marked emphasis. ‘I couldna find much to laugh at myself if I’d let Meg Mirless make a cuddy out of me so easy.’
‘Maybe, maybe,’ agreed Finlay with a sly nod. ‘But to tell you the truth I had a feeling in my bones all along that Meg might make a cuddy out of me.’
‘Well, I’ll be hanged!’ gasped Cameron, both astounded and perplexed that his young partner should take defeat at the redoubtable Meg’s hands in so spiritless a fashion. A healthy fury he could have understood, but this easy laughter left him at a loss. He would have said more upon the subject, too, but Finlay, without further ado, walked out of the room to take the evening surgery.
At supper that night the matter was not mentioned again, but Cameron kept darting curious glances at Finlay, as though pondering what might be behind that complacent silence, wondering perhaps if, after all, in the classic phrase, Finlay had not something up his sleeve.
And, sure enough, on the following morning events took a sudden and more mysterious turn. It had barely gone nine o’clock when old Jeannie Glen, bosom friend and sycophant-in-chief to Miss Mirlees, came hirpling round as fast as her rheumaticky bones could carry her to bid Dr Finlay come post-haste to visit Meg.
Cameron, taking half an hour’s ease before setting out upon his round, peered incredulously over the edge of his morning paper at old Jeannie.
‘Another call for Meg?’ he ejaculated. ‘Has the dressing come undone?’
‘Na, na,’ panted Jeannie. ‘It’s no’ her heid ava’. It’s waur, far, far waur nor that.’
‘What then?’ queried Cameron.
‘The Almighty alone kens,’ answered Jeannie with palpitating emotion. ‘But unless I’m far cheated, it’s a summons. Ye maun come straight away, Dr Finlay, and I’ll get back till her this meenit myself. Oh, dear; oh, dear, it’s a sair fecht. I’m tellin’ ye,’ and muttering agitatedly old Jeannie hurriedly retraced her steps.
Cameron turned upon Finlay a look which held volumes of the most pressing inquiry. But Finlay took no heed. Whistling lightly, with an air both leisurely and aloof, he finished arran-ging the contents of the famous black bag. Then picking it up, he donned his hat at an angle slightly unprofessional, nodded briskly to Cameron, and left the house.
His demeanour, however, as he mounted the steps of Meg Mirlees house was formality itself. He entered the back kitchen with real solemnity and marched up to the box bed where Meg lay, moaning and groaning, attended by the trembling Jeannie Glen.
‘And what’s the matter now?’ asked Finlay briefly.
‘I’m dyin’,’ articulated Meg, going straight to the point. With another hollow groan she writhed upon her couch and clasped her middle. ‘My stomach’s a mass of fire. I canna keep a thing down, not even a sip o’ caul watter. Oh, doctor, dear, I’m near by wi’t.’
And, as though to prove the truth of her assertion, she retched weakly into the basin which the trusty Jeannie proffered below her scraggy chin.
‘What have you been eating?’ inquired Finlay after a minute.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ protested the groaning Meg. ‘I just had my breakfast, a sup parritch and a kipper, and a dose o’ that braw tonic ye gi’en me. And I hadna been half an hour started to redd up the room when this awfu’ burnin’ and scaldin’ took me just like a clap o’ thunder. Oh, doctor, doctor, what in the name of heaven do ye think it is?’
A silence.
‘Maybe,’ said Finlay solemnly, ‘maybe it’s a judgement on you for swindling me out of the plate.’
A shiver passed over Meg’s suffering form.
‘Oh, doctor, doctor,’ she whimpered, ‘dinna bring up sic a thing at a time like this. I kept my bargain and you kept yours. Oh, give me something quick to ease my pain.’
Finlay fixed the old woman with an accusing eye. Then, without further speech, he bent over the bed, and, to the accompaniment of much audible tribulation on the part of Meg, examined her sombrely.
When it was over Meg retched again, then desperately groaned.
‘Can ye cure me, doctor? Oh, dear, oh, dear, can ye cure me?’
Another silence, until with due deliberation Finlay answered— ‘Yes, I can cure you, but this time I’m standing no nonsense. I want the plate, the real Ming plate, or as sure as my name’s Finlay I’ll walk out of this room and leave you to your fate.’
Meg began to whine feebly.
‘Oh, doctor, doctor, ye couldna be so cruel?’
‘Very well, then . . .’
Finlay buttoned up his coat sternly, as though preparing to depart, but at that Meg cried out shrilly—
‘All right, then, I’ll gi’e ye the plate, only get quit o’ this retchin’,’ and, raising a stricken hand, she indicated a cupboard in the corner.
Following a sharp instruction from the patient, Jeannie Glen waddled to the cupboard, produced the plate, and handed it to Finlay, who received it in dignified silence, and then, with all despatch, opened his black bag.
Taking out a packet of white powder, he mixed an effervescing draught for Meg. She drank it feverishly and relapsed upon the bed, declaring a moment later—
‘Ye’re richt. It’s easin’ me. Oh, thanks be to the Almighty and yerself, doctor. It’s easin’ me a treat.’
‘Certainly it’s easing you,’ coolly retorted Finlay. ‘By this afternoon you’ll be right as rain. There’s only one thing for you to remember.’
‘And what’s that, doctor?’
Finlay walked to the table by the bed, took up the bottle of physic he had given Meg on the previous day, then stalked over to the sink. Looking Meg straight in the eye, he declared deliberately—
‘You mustn’t take any more of this medicine.’
A pause while he uncorked the bottle and let the contents trickle down the waste.
‘Ye see, Meg, this isn’t a tonic after all. I felt in my bones you would try to swindle me, though I didn’t know how. So, to be on the safe side, I gave ye a fine bottle of ipecacuanha. I knew ye’d need me after the first dose. It’s an emetic, Meg – if you understand what that means – a grand strong emetic.’
‘Ye young de’il,’ cried Meg, struggling up in her night-gown from the bed. ‘Let me get my claws on ye, and . . .’
But Finlay, roaring with laughter, the real Ming plate under his arm, was already halfway down the stairs.
Enter Nurse Angus
From that first moment when Finlay met Peggy Angus he knew that he detested her, and, naturally enough, h
e suspected the feeling to be mutual. But whether or not our young medico was right in such dour primary impressions the events of these chronicles may presently reveal.
Admittedly the meeting was unfortunate. Finlay was in a bad mood. Troubled over a case, bothered and overworked, he had got out of bed on the wrong side that morning, which, to add to the general gaiety, was teeming with rain.
He drove to the Cottage Hospital under the dripping heavens, jumped down from the gig, then, with his head lowered to escape the pelting raindrops, he dashed through the front door into the corridor beyond. Here he ran full-tilt into a nurse.
Angrily he raised his head and glowered at her. She was young and slender, and rather small, very neat and trim in her uniform, with a clear complexion, and lively, sparkling eyes. Her mouth was big and ready to smile, her teeth white and even, while her nose, small and decidedly upturned, gave her an air of vivacity and impudence.
Altogether she was, Finlay saw, uncommonly pretty; moreover, she was preparing to smile at him. But this, for some strange reason, added to his simmering annoyance.
He had realised, of course, right away that she was the new nurse they had been expecting at the hospital in place of Nurse Crockett, who had recently been appointed to Ardfillan. And he scowled.
‘Can’t you look where you’re going? Or do you make a habit of running people down?’
Her smile, which had begun with much affected friendliness, immediately died out. Her eyebrows lifted, and her eyes sparkled more.
‘It was you who ran into me,’ she declared with emphasis. ‘I tried to get out of your way, but you came through the door and down the passage like a bull at a gate.’
Finlay’s temper flared. He was at his worst this morning, and he knew it, and the knowledge served to make him even more disagreeable.
‘Do you know who you are talking too?’ he barked.
Her expression altered to one of mockery.
‘Oh, yes,’ she returned, in a pretence of awe. ‘You must be Dr Finlay. I’ve heard how nice you were. I couldn’t possibly mistake you.’
His face flushed with discomfiture.
‘Please remember your position. You’re a nurse in this hospital, and I’m – I’m your superior.’
Again the sparks flashed from her pretty, dark eyes, but she was cleverer than he, and knew better than to display her anger. Lowering her lashes with mock demureness, she remarked—
‘Yes, sir. I won’t say a word the next time you run into me.’
‘Why, hang it all!’ Finlay exploded. ‘How dare you talk to me like that?’
But at this point Matron Clark came out of her room and waddled along the corridor towards them, a short, rather stout, important figure, her round, fat face beaming with unusual amiability. Advancing, all unconscious of the scene which had occurred, she cooed to Finlay—
‘So you’ve made friends with Nurse Angus already, Dr Finlay? I’m real glad. I was coming into the ward to introduce you. We’re downright pleased to have Miss Angus with us. She’s just finished her training at the Edinburgh Royal, you know, doctor, and now that she’s come back home she’s going to lend us a hand.’
Furious though he was, the open flattery towards the new nurse in matron’s tone quite took Finlay aback. Junior nurses, he was fully aware, did not receive such signal recognition without due cause, and he was right, for while he stood speechless, matron’s honeyed voice went on—
‘You ought to know, of course, doctor, that nursing is a labour of love with Miss Angus. She doesn’t – er – she doesn’t have to do it for her living. You see, her father – oh, well doctor, you know all about the Anguses of Dunhill, don’t you, now?’
Naturally enough, like everyone in the district, Finlay did know of the Anguses. Old John Angus, who owned enormous dye-works at Dunhill, employed close on fifteen hundred men, and was justly reputed to be worth a fortune.
His only daughter, Finlay remembered, had persuaded the old man into allowing her to take up nursing as a profession. All this occurred to Finlay as he stared fixedly at matron, who continued—
‘So you see, doctor, under the circumstances, we’re pleased and proud to have Nurse Angus here. Her father’s such a large benefactor to the hospital. We must try and make things pleasant for her. Eh, Peggy?’ And she beamed in motherly fashion at the young nurse.
A wave of repugnance swept over Finlay. He did not see – at least, he did not choose to see – the quick distaste which matron’s too obvious flattery had aroused in the eyes of Nurse Angus. Instead, he declared, in a loud and surly voice—
‘I don’t care who Nurse Angus is, or what she is. She’s come to nurse in this hospital, and not to be on the social register. I’ll treat her exactly as she deserves.’ And, pushing past the astounded and crestfallen matron, Finlay stalked his way into the ward.
An unfortunate beginning, you must agree, for the doctor and the nurse, in which each was represented to the other in a most indifferent light.
And, indeed, from that beginning, things went from bad to worse. Every time Finlay came into contact with Nurse Angus the air crackled with an electric hostility.
Quite frankly, Finlay was determined to put the young nurse down. He found fault with her on every pretext, real and imaginary, tried to catch her in mistakes, laid traps for her, and in general pursued her at every turn. Yet, for all his efforts, he found Peggy Angus more than a match for him.
When, in a bossy tone, he would make her fetch and carry for him in the ward, the derisive meekness with which she answered ‘Yes, sir’, drove him nearly frantic.
What annoyed him most of all was her extreme proficiency in her work and her extreme fondness for it. As he watched her deft and skilful movements with the patients, and saw her slight trim figure moving briskly down the ward, at times an almost unwilling admiration came upon him. But he checked it fiercely. He was resolved to subjugate her.
Another source of exasperation to Finlay was Nurse Angus’s popularity. She had many friends in the town, was continually renewing old associations which had lapsed while she was absent at her training school.
Invited everywhere, Peggy went out a great deal in her spare time; she was on terms of familiarity with the very best families in the district.
Angrily, Finlay told himself that it was all due to her father’s position and money. And he bristled at the very thought.
Once when she returned from spending a weekend on the family estate between Dunhill and the Loch shore he remarked with a sneer—
‘Why don’t you stay at home all the time? You’re only playing at nursing here.’
For once the impudence left her eyes.
‘Am I?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ he scoffed. ‘And you know it. The lady bountiful stooping to suffering humanity! A fine pose. You’re not genuine. It takes courage and real endurance to make a proper nurse.’
‘Oh,’ she answered in a quiet voice, ‘then I suppose that rules me out?’
So much had Peggy Angus come to prey upon Finlay’s mind it was a godsend when, at the beginning of the summer, she went upon night duty in the hospital. Thereafter he saw her seldom; indeed, for days on end he did not see her at all, and the relief, so he told himself, was tremendous. Though at moments he almost missed the stimulus of her disturbing presence, the sharp satisfaction of matching his wits and tongue against hers, he was once more, he told himself, infinitely better off now that she had vanished from the sphere of his activities. And he hoped that it would be long enough before she reappeared to worry him again.
But here Finlay little reckoned with the fates, which held more in store for him than ever he visioned in his wildest dreams.
It was, by this time, the summer season – a hot summer which made fishing indifferent sport, and caused Finlay to spend most of his leisure on the Levenford lawn tennis courts. He was a keen player, and, though he played little in his student days, now, with regular play and practice, his game had rapidly improved, an
d he had become quite adept at the game.
It was, then, in a spirit of considerable enthusiasm not unmixed with optimism that he put his name down for the Nimmo Trophy, the big annual tournament. This competition was for mixed doubles, partners to be drawn by ballot, and it was looked upon as the main event in the tennis season of the town, and, indeed, of the entire county.
On the Monday evening following that on which he had made his entry, Finlay strolled up to the club after surgery hours to see what his luck had been in the draw.
A pleasurable excitement stirred him, for he was aware that on this particular turn of fortune much of his chance depended. It was late, the dusk falling, and most of the Club members had gone home.
He entered the pavilion, sauntered up to the notice board, and let his eye run down the list of names on the white sheet. Suddenly his expression altered to incredulous dismay. Bracketed with his own name was the name of Peggy Angus.
Finlay stared at the offensive name, with muttered exclamation he was turning away from the notice board when Doggy Lindsay and some others came in from the changing-room.
‘Congratulations, Finlay, old man!’ cried Doggy in his usual offensive style. ‘You’re the lucky man right enough.’
‘Lucky?’
‘Certainly! To draw Miss Angus!’
Finlay frowned at Doggy.
‘I didn’t know she played. I didn’t know she was even a member of the club.’
‘Of course she is,’ cried the irrepressible Doggy. ‘And a jolly fine little player, too. When she was at school she won the junior championship here. See?’
‘I see,’ retorted Finlay again. ‘So she does know something about the game.’
‘Why, of course.’ Here Doggy laughed and slapped Finlay on the back. ‘Not that it really matters, Finlay, old man. I’ve drawn Anne Brown. We’ll wipe the floor with the rest of you. We’re the winners, Finlay, and don’t you forget it.’