by A. J. Cronin
Bello:
hidden talent rediscovered
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Contents
A. J. Cronin
1. Finlay’s Drastic Cure
2. Pantomime
3. The Sisters Scobie
4. Wife of a Hero
5. The Resolution that Went Wrong
6. Wee Robison’s Lost Memory
7. The Man Who Came Back
8. Miracle By Lestrange
9. The Wild Rasp Jam
10. Who Laughs Last
11. Enter Nurse Angus
12. Known as Inflammation
13. The Fête at Dunhill
A. J. Cronin
Adventures of a Black Bag
Born in Cardross, Scotland, A. J. Cronin studied at the University of Glasgow. In 1916 he served as a surgeon sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteers Reserve, and at the war’s end he completed his medical studies and practiced in South Wales. He was later appointed to the Ministry of Mines, studying the medical problems of the mining industry. He moved to London and built up a successful practice in the West End. In 1931 he published his first book, Hatter’s Castle, which was compared with the work of Dickens, Hardy and Balzac, winning him critical acclaim. Other books by A. J. Cronin include: The Stars Look Down, The Citadel, Three Loves, The Green Years, Beyond This Place, and The Keys of the Kingdom.
1. Finlay’s Drastic Cure
Often, when Finlay felt himself in need of exercise after a long day’s driving in the gig, he would walk in the evening to the Lea Brae.
At this period, before successful burghers started dotting its summit with their bandbox villas, it was a favourite walk, approached from Levenford by a gentle incline and sweeping steeply westwards to the Firth.
From the top the view was superb. On a still summer evening with the sun sinking behind Ardfillan hills, the wide water of the estuary below, and the faint haze of a steamer’s smoke mellowing the far horizon, it was a place to stir the soul.
Yet for Finlay it was ruined by Sam Forrest and his wheeled chair.
Up Sam would come, red-faced, bulging with fat, lying back on the cushions like a lord, with poor Peter Lennie panting and pushing at the chair behind him.
Then at the top, while Peter gasped and wiped the sweat from his brow, Sam would majestically relinquish the little metal steering rod, pull a plug from his pocket, bite enormously, and, mouthing his quid like a great big ox, would gaze solemnly, not at the view, but at the steep hill beneath, as though to say: “ Here, my friends! Here was the place where the awful thing happened!”
It all went back a matter of five long years.
Then Peter Lennie was a spry young fellow of twenty-seven, very modest and obliging, proprietor of the small general stores in College Street which – not without a certain daring timidity – he had named Lennie’s Emporium.
In fiction the convention exists that meek little men have large, domineering wives, but in reality it is seldom so. And Retta Lennie was as small, slight and unassertive as her husband.
In consequence, in business they were often “ put upon.” But for all that, things went pretty well, the future was opening out nicely, and they lived comfortably with their two children in a semi-detached house out Barloan way, which is a genteel quarter to which tradesmen in Levensford aspire.
Now, in Peter Lennie, the humble little counter-jumping tradesman, there lurked unsuspected longings for adventure. There were moments when, lying reflectively in bed with Retta of a Sunday morning, he would stare frowningly at the ceiling and suddenly declare – while Retta looked at him admiringly:
“India!” (or it might be China). “ There’s a place we ought to see some day!”
Perhaps it was this romantic boldness which led to the purchase of the tandem bicycle, for though at that moment the craze for “a bicycle built for two” was at its height, in the ordinary way Peter would never have done anything so rash.
But buy the tandem he did, a shining instrument of motion, a wicked pneumatic-tyred machine, which cost a mint of good money, and which, being uncrated, caused Retta to gasp incredulously:
“Oh, Peter!”
“Get about on it,” he remarked, trying to speak nonchalantly. “See places. Easy!”
It was, however, not quite so easy. There was, for instance, the difficulty of Retta’s bloomers, She was a modest little woman was Retta, and it cost Peter a week of solid argument and persuasion before he could coax his wife into the light of day in these fashionable but apparently improper garments.
Peter himself wore a Norfolk jacket, the belt rather gallantly unbuckled so that, even merely wheeling the tandem, it gave him a terribly professional air. Then, being competently clothed, Peter and Retta set out to master the machine.
They practised shyly, towards dusk, in the quiet lanes around Barloan, and they fell off in an amusing way quite a lot.
Oh! It was great fun. Retta, in her bloomers, was extremely fetching; Peter liked to lift her up as red-cheeked and giggling, she sprawled gracefully in the dust.
They had their courtship all over again. And when finally, defying all laws of gravitation, they spun round Barloan Toll without a single wobble, they agreed that never before had life been so thrilling for them both.
Peter, significantly producing a newly-purchased road map, decided that on Sunday they would have their first real run.
It dawned fine that Sunday; the sky was open and the roads were dry. They set off, Peter bowed dauntlessly over the front handlebars, Retta manfully pedalling her weight behind. They bowled down the High Street, conscious of admiring, yes, even of envious stares.
Ting-a-ling, ting-ting, went their little bell. A great moment. Ting-a-ling, ting-ting! They swung left – steady, Retta, steady – over the bridge; put their backs into the Knoxhill ascent, then dipped over the crest of the Lea Brae.
Down the Brae they went, faster, faster. The wind whistled past them. Never had flight been swifter than this.
It was great, it was glorious, but heavens! it was awful quick! Far, far quicker than either had bargained for.
From a momentary exaltation. Retta turned pale.
“Brake, Peter, brake!” she shrieked.
Nervously he jammed on the brakes, the tandem shuddered, and Retta nearly went over his head. At that he lost his wits completely, loosed the brake altogether, and tried to get his feet out of the pedal clips.
The machine, from skidding broadside on, took the bit between its teeth and shot down the hill like a rocket gone mad.
At the foot of the brae was Sam Forrest.
Sam had been down looking for drift on the Lea Shore; that, indeed, was one of Sam’s two occupations, his other being to support with great industry the comer of the Fitter’s Arms.
Actually, Sam was so seldom away from the Fitter’s Arms that it never was in any real danger of falling down.
The plain fact is that Sam was a loafer, a big, fat, boozy ne’er-do-well, with a wife who did washing and a houseful of clamorous children who did not.
Sam, with an air at once fascinated and bemused, observed the bicycle approach. It came so quick he wondered for a second if he were seeing right. Saturday, the night before, had been a heavy night for Sam, and his brain was still slightly fuddled.
Peter, with a face frozen to horror, made a last effort to control the machine, collided with the kerb, shot across the road and crashed straight into Sam.
In point of fact, it hit him fair in the backside as he turned to run. There was a desperate roar from Sam, a loud clatter as the pieces of the machine dispersed themselves, followed by a long silence.
Then Retta and Peter picked themselves out of the ditch. They looked at each other incredulously as if to say – It’s impossible; we’re not really alive.
Stupefied, Peter grinned feebly at Retta, and Retta, who felt like fainting, smiled weakly in return. But suddenly they recollected!
What about Sam? Ah, poor Sam lay groaning in the dust. They rushed over to him.
“Are you hurt?” cried Peter.
“I’m dead,” he moaned. “ Ye’ve killed me, ye bloody murderers.”
Terrible silence, punctuated by Sam’s groans. Nervously Peter tried to raise the fallen man, who was quite double his weight.
“Let me be! Let me be!” Sam roared. “ You’re tearin’ me to bits.”
Retta went whiter than ever.
“Get up, Sam, do,” she implored. She knew him well, having refused him credit the week before.
But Sam wouldn’t get up. The slightest attempt to raise him sent him into the most terrible convulsions, and his big beefy legs seemed now no more able to support him than watery blancmange.
By this time Retta and Peter were at their wits’ end; they saw Sam a mutilated corpse and themselves standing palely in the dock while the Judge sternly assumed the black cap.
However, at this moment help arrived in the shape of Rafferty’s light lorry.
Rafferty, the butter and egg man, to whom Sunday – with early Mass over – was as good as any other day, had been down at Ardfillan collecting eggs. And with his help, Sam was hoisted up amongst the eggs and driven to his house in the Vennel.
A few eggs were smashed in the process, but Peter and Retta didn’t mind; they would pay, they protested passionately. Oh, yes, they would pay; nothing mattered so long as Sam got safely back.
At last Sam was home and in his bed surrounded by his curious progeny, sustained by the shrill lamentations of his wife.
“The doctor,” she whined, “ we’ll need the doctor!”
“Yes, yes,” stammered Peter. “ I’ll fetch the doctor!”
What had he been thinking of? Of course they must have the doctor! He tore down the dirty steps and ran for the nearest doctor like the wind.
At that time Dr. Snoddy had not married the wealthy Mrs. Innes, nor removed to the salubrious Knoxhill. His premises still stood, quite undistinguished, in the High Street adjacent to the Vennel. And it was Snoddy who came to Sam.
Sam lay on his back with his mouth open and his eyes closed. No martyr suffered more than did Sam during the doctor’s examination.
Indeed, his groans drew a crowd round the house, in the belief that he was once again leathering his wife, though when the truth emerged the sympathy for Sam was enormous.
The doctor, while puzzled, was impressed by Sam’s condition – no bones broken, no internal injuries that he could find, but something seemingly wrong for all that, the patient’s agony was so manifest.
Snoddy was a small, prosy, pompous man with a tremendous sense of his own dignity, and finally, with a great show of knowledge, he made the ominous pronouncement:
“It’s the spine!”
Sam echoed the words with a hollow groan. And horror thrilled through to Peter’s marrow.
“Ye understand,” he whispered, “ it was us to blame; we take full responsibility. He’s to have everything that’s needed. Nothing’s too good for him! Nothing!”
That was the beginning. Nourishment was necessary for the invalid, good strong nourishment. Nourishment was provided. Stimulant – Peter saw that the brandy was the very best. A proper bed – Retta sent round the bed herself. Towels, linen, saucepans, jellies, tea, nightshirts, sugar, they all flowed gently to the sick man’s home. Later – some tobacco – to soothe the anguished nerves. And a little money too, since Mrs. Forrest, tied to Sam’s bedside, could not do her washing as before.
“Run round with this to Sam’s,” became the order of the day.
Snoddy of course was calling regular as the clock. And finally there came the day when, taking Peter aside, he articulated the fatal word paralysis. Sam’s life was saved, but Sam would never use his legs again.
“Never!” Peter faltered. “I don’t understand!”
Snoddy laughed his pompous little laugh.
“Just watch the poor fellow try to walk – then ye’ll understand.”
It was a staggering blow for Peter and Retta. They talked it, over late into the night – over and over and over. But there was no way out.
Retta wept a little, and Peter was not far off tears himself, but they had to make up their minds to it; they had done it, they alone must foot the bill, and Sam, of course, Sam, poor soul, his lot was far far worse than theirs.
A bath-chair was bought – Peter sweated when he saw the price – and Sam and his chair assumed their place in Levenford society.
On the level his eldest son, aged fourteen, could wheel him easily enough and “ down to the emporium” became a favourite excursion of Sam’s. He would sit outside the shop, basking in the sun, sending in for tobacco, or a pie, or dried prunes, of which he was particularly fond. Now, indeed, there was no talk of refusing him credit. Sam’s credit was unlimited, and he had his weekly dole from Peter as well.
When the nine days’ wonder of the wheeled chair subsided, Levenford forgot. Hardly anyone noticed it when Peter and Retta relinquished the cosy little Barloan house, and moved into the rooms above the shop, when the little girl gave up her music lessons, and the boy suddenly left the academy to earn a wage in Gillespie’s office.
The grey creeping into Peter’s hair and the worried frown deepening on Retta’s brow, evoked little interest and less sympathy.
As Sam himself put it with a pathetic shake of his head: “ They have their legs, at any rate!”
This was indeed the very phrase which Sam employed to Finlay on that fateful evening on the first July.
It was a fine, bright evening, with the view looking its very best. Finlay stood on the brae, trying to find tranquility in the sight.
Tonight his surgery had worried him, the day had been troublesome, and his mood, taken altogether, was cantankerous.
At length the soothing quiet of the scene sank into him; he lit his pipe, beginning to feel himself at peace. And then, over the crest of the brae, came Sam in the wheeled chair.
Finlay swore. The history of Sam and Peter had long been known to him, and the sight of the big, bloated fellow, fastened like a parasite on the lean and hungry Lennie, goaded him immeasurably.
He watched them draw near, irritably observing Peter’s physical distress, and, as they reached the summit, he made a caustic comment on the difficulties of propelling inert matter uphill.
“He canna complain,” sighed Sam. “ He has his legs, at any rate.”
And then, instinctively, Finlay looked at Sam’s legs as they lay snugly in the long, wheeled chair. They were, strangely, a remarkably stout pair of legs. Fat, like the rest of Sam, bulging Sam’s blue serge trousers.
Peculiar, thought Finlay, that there should be no atrophy, no wasting of these ineffectual limbs. Most peculiar! He stared and stared at Sam’s legs with a growing penetration, and then, with a terrible intentness, he stared at the unconscious man. My God! he thought all at once. Supposing – supposing all these years –
And suddenly, as he stood beside the wheeled chair on the edge of the brae – suddenly with a devilish impulse, he took the flat of his boot and gave the chair a frightful push.
Without a word of warning the chair shot off downhill.
Peter stood gaping at the bolting chair like a man petrified by the repetition of dread
ful history; then he let out a nervous scream.
Sam, roaring like a bull, was trying to control the chair. But the chair had no brakes. It careered all over the road, dashed at frantic speed into the hedge, overturned, and shot Sam bang into a bed of nettles. For two seconds Sam was lost to view in the green sea of the stinging nettles; then, miraculously, he arose.
Cursing with rage, he scrambled to his feet and ran up to Finlay.
“What the hell!” he shouted, brandishing his fists; “what the hell did ye do that for?”
“To see if ye could walk!” Finlay shouted back, and hit Sam first.
Peter and Retta have returned to the Barloan house. The wheeled chair is sold, and Sam is back at his old job – supporting the corner of the Fitter’s Arms. But every time Finlay drives past he curses and spits upon the ground.
2. Pantomime
As a rule, Levenford saw little of the theatre.
As the annual Fair, the Bostons and Roundabouts were usually accompanied by a canvas “ geggie”, where, in an atmosphere of naphtha smoke and orange peel, you could, for two pence, see “The Girl Who Took the Wrong Turning”, or “ The Murder in the Red Barn.”
At the other pole, of course, stood the Mechanics Concerts. There, on Thursday nights during the winter season, a bevy of refined ladies and gentlemen entertained an equally refined audience to songs and readings.
“Mr. Archibald Small will now give–”
Whereupon Mr. Archibald Small would advance, blushing, in squeaky boots and a hired evening dress, and sing – “Thora! Speak ag-hain to mee!”
Between these extremes Levenford went dry of drama, and the stern spirit of the Covenanters was appeased.
Imagine then, the commotion when it became known early in December that a pantomime was coming to the Burgh Hall for the week beginning Hogmanay.
Pantomime! For the children of course! Yet it woke a thrill of interest in the austerest heart, and caused a perfect flutter amongst the burgh’s amorous youth.
Even “Doggy” Lindsay, the Provost’s son, allowed his interest in the pantomime to be known – a superior interest, naturally; a rather sophisticated interest – for Doggy was a “blood”, the centre of a little coterie of “bloods” who set a dashing fashion in dress and manners in the town.