by A. J. Cronin
But, indeed, when three o’clock came, and there was no sign of Peggy, a whisper ran through the crowd, a rumour went round that Nurse Angus would not play. And at this a sensation of dismay, mingled with compunction, swept over Finlay.
Perhaps she was not coming. Perhaps she disliked him so much she had refused to appear for the final match.
A sudden despondency took him, but at that same moment a shout went up from the crowd collected at the gate, and Nurse Angus made her appearance.
She did not quite look herself, somehow, for her face was extremely pale and almost drawn. It seemed as if she had been hurrying; at least, her distress was attributed by Finlay to this cause, but he had no time to dwell upon it, for immediately she led the way towards the court.
Together, with Doggy and Miss Brown, they went out into the bright sunshine of the centre court, and their appearance was greeted by a cheer. Then began a warming-up in preparation for the match. But, as he tossed a ball towards her, Finlay observed that she wore a wash-leather glove on her right hand. He eyed the glove oddly.
“You’ll never play with that thing,” he declared. “Why don’t you take it off?”
She shook her head, moistening her lips slightly.
“I’ve blistered my hand,” she answered rather uncertainly. “Oh, it’s nothing at all. Probably from playing so much. I hope it won’t put me off my game.”
Her answer left him rather at a loss, but before he could pursue the matter, Doggy sang out to him, and the game commenced.
It was going to be fast and furious, Finlay saw. Their opponents having won the toss, took the service, which Doggy smashed in relentlessly. His service was his strong suit, and it won him the first game easily.
Finlay set his teeth and pulled himself together. He saw that Peggy was not playing nearly so well as usual, and he felt that she was wilting under the excitement of the event.
When he had won his own service, and Miss Brown had won hers, Peggy served badly, and lost her service, making the score three-one in favour of Doggy and Miss Brown.
In the next game Doggy again served and won a smashing service, making the score four-one. And when Finlay, too eager, served a double fault, and went on to lose his own service, making the score five-one, a groan ran through the onlookers which deepened as Miss Brown easily served her way, to win the first set for her side at six-one.
It was to be exactly as anticipated, then, an easy victory for Doggy and Miss Brown.
The crowd, sympathetically disposed towards Finlay and Peggy, resigned themselves to the slaughter of the innocents and settled down to watch the massacre of the second set.
Before that set began Finlay remarked in a determined undertone –
“We’ve got to buck up, partner. Come on, now! We’ve got to win.”
Though he meant to be encouraging, for some reason Peggy grew even paler under those words.
But it seemed as if they took effect, for, setting her teeth and playing feverishly, she flung herself into the match. With complete abandon she smashed, and volleyed, and drove, and served, and every one of her desperately-executed shots came off miraculously.
Cheer after cheer rang out from the crowd.
Inspired by this turn of events, Finlay also played well. He reeled off the last game with four cannon-ball services, and he and his partner took the second set at six-three.
One set all, and the final set to go. Excitement amongst the spectators knew no bounds. It was to be a match after all, and a grand one too!
Gripped by the drama of this gallant recovery, the crowd held its breath and focussed its attention upon the last deciding set.
Wiping the perspiration off his face, Finlay backed to the base line to await Doggy’s serve. In the short interval he had exchanged no words with Peggy.
Subconsciously he felt something unusual about her game. Although she had played so brilliantly in the second set, when she struck the ball it seemed as if she did so with a conscious effort of will, and he could have sworn that after she had hit an extra powerful shot an expression of acute distress flashed across her face.
But now Finlay did not pause to reason. Straddling his feet, he balanced his racket and took Doggy’s first ball.
A beautiful serve and a beautiful return; but in spite of it Doggy won the service. Undismayed, Finlay followed by winning his. Then quickly Miss Brown won hers, and Peggy the next. Two games all.
A gasp from the crowd. And a succession of such gasps at the end of every game as, in turn, each player won the service until the score stood at five all. It was plain as a pikestaff that whoever broke through the service would win the match.
Excitement mounted higher and higher. Every shot evoked a cheer, every rally a burst of prolonged applause. Finlay felt the quick drumming of his pulse. He wanted, with all his heart, to win, to win with Peggy Angus. It would symbolise his whole feeling for her if they could win this match and share the triumph together.
Another shout from the crowd. The score was now seven all, and it was Peggy’s turn to serve.
The gruelling match had taken toll of her, and as she took up her position she appeared nearly worn out. Little beads of perspiration stood on her upper lip, and when she gripped her racket it struck Finlay that a little shiver of distress went through her whole body.
He glanced at her doubtfully as she served – a fault, and, again, a double fault. Her next service lacked its usual sting and the next also. Quicker than it takes to tell, Peggy had lost her service.
This time a groan rose from the spectators. The score now stood eight-seven, and it was Doggy’s service, which he was almost certain to win. It was the end at last.
“Are you all right?” inquired Finlay of his partner with sudden anxiety. But she did not answer.
Deep silence as Doggy served. Finlay, feeling the position hopeless, returned out. Fifteen love.
Doggy served to Peggy, who, setting her teeth and hitting fiercely, scored a winner right in the far corner of the court. Fifteen all.
Doggy served to Finlay, who returned badly into the net. Thirty-fifteen.
Doggy served to Peggy, who again made a brilliant winner right down the side line, and once more evened the points, earning a loud and prolonged cheer from the crowd.
Plainly unsettled, Doggy served to Finlay, who, encouraged by his partner’s daring, returned hard to Doggy, who, making a weak, backhand shot to Peggy, allowed her to run in to volley the ball away safely and win the point.
The score was now thirty-forty.
With an expression of anxiety on his face for the first time, Doggy served to Peggy. It was a fault. He served again. It was right and Peggy, playing with the utmost determination, steered the ball short over the net, and Miss Brown was unable to return it.
An almost hysterical burst of applause from the crowd. Thanks to Peggy’s brilliant play the scores had been levelled and now stood at eight games all.
The excitement was intense as Finlay served and won his service. Nine-eight in favour of Finlay and Miss Angus.
Miss Brown now served. She served to Finlay, who returned the ball and made the point. Love-fifteen. She served to Peggy, who made a brilliant winner, and won the point.
Miss Brown, looking very worried, served to Finlay, and in the rally Peggy again made the point. The score was love-forty. It was set and match point.
A deadly stillness settled upon the court as Miss Brown served to Peggy. The first service was a fault. The second was right, and Peggy met the ball firmly, and, with tremendous force, sent it right to the base line between Doggy and Miss Brown.
It was a marvellous shot, and it won the game, set, and match.
Cheer after cheer rang out. It had been a thrilling match, a magnificent recovery, and a marvellous finish.
The din was tremendous as Doggy and Miss Brown ran round to congratulate the winners. But all at once the general jubilation changed to a gasp of consternation. As Finlay turned exultantly to take her hand, quite qu
ietly Peggy crumpled up and collapsed upon the court. Finlay rushed forward.
“Good Lord!” cried Doggy. “She’s fainted.”
“Drink some water,” said Finlay, bending down and supporting Peggy’s head.
They brought a glass of water, and he held it to her lips. In a few seconds she opened her eyes.
“I’m all right,” she said faintly; then, as though realising that he held her, she added, “ Please let me get up.”
“The excitement was too much for you,” he muttered. “You shouldn’t have played if you didn’t feel up to it.”
She gave him a pale, cold glance, then in a voice only audible to him she said –
“A nice opinion you’d have had of me if I hadn’t played! Even better than you have already!”
Then she insisted on getting to her feet, and assisted by Miss Brown and some others she went into the pavillion.
Finlay stood for a moment, alone, cut to the quick by her bitter words. Then he changed quickly and left the ground. He ought to have been delighted that he had won, thrilled with the joy of victory. But instead he burned with a queer shame. He tried, to no purpose, to banish the whole thing from his mind. The memory of her white, drawn face haunted him.
In this desolate fashion he turned across the common towards Arden House. And then as he entered Park Street he saw an agitated figure hurrying down the road, apparently making for the tennis club. It was Matron Clark, and when she reached him she did not stand on ceremony.
“Have you seen Nurse Angus?” she demanded straight away. “ I left her in bed at the hospital, and she’s gone, she’s gone.”
He considered her flushed, concerned face in real amazement.
“But why not?” he asked. “ She had to play the tennis match with me this afternoon. She’s up there now.”
“Oh, Dr. Finlay,” wept the matron, “how could she, how could she? After me begging and praying her not to go.”
“What do you mean?” he cried.
“Don’t you know? Didn’t she tell you? Last night when she was on duty the patient in bed fifteen knocked a bottle of pure carbolic acid over. It went right over Nurse Angus’s hand and gave her a shocking burn, an acid burn. Don’t you understand? Why, this morning she could hardly hold a teacup. And to think she’s gone and played …” And in a perfect frenzy of concern matron rushed off towards the tennis court.
Turning, Finlay surveyed her retreating form with a horrified expression on his face. So that was it. That was why Peggy had fainted. He saw now the reason of the glove, remembered how she had winced each time her racket had met the ball in that last thrilling match! “It’s nothing,” she had said, “only a blister.”
Because of his behaviour to her at the beginning, because he had questioned her pluck, she had stubbornly refused to tell him. She had played the game with a badly burned hand, a hand that could hardly clasp the racket.
No doubt she despised him, had set herself thus to humiliate him. He groaned aloud at the very thought. And, all at once, a great tide seemed unlocked within his heart.
He wanted to turn, to run after the matron towards the tennis club, to aplogise to Peggy Angus, to get down on his knees, to say how sorry he was, to ask pardon humbly. But he did not. How could he? She would not even listen to him now. So he turned instead, and walked slowly towards Arden House, trying to take comfort from the thought that he would see her again, that perhaps, if the chance came he could make amends.
And through it all there pressed upon him an understanding unfathomable and bitter sweet.
He knew at last what his feeling was, had been from the first, and always would be, for Peggy Angus.
12. Known as Inflammation
After the final of the Nimmo Cup, as related previously in these chronicles, life went hard for Finlay. He moved in a queer preoccupation, ate poorly, slept worse, and in general offered every evidence of a man suffering from deep and compelling emotion.
Peggy Angus, following a short spell at her home at Dunhill to allow her injured hand to heel, was back in hospital, quietly efficient, once again on day duty.
Nothing passed between Finlay and the young nurse but a few brief words exchanged in the ordinary routine of the ward.
Yet Finlay would have given everything he possessed to break down this barrier of coldness and misunderstanding which had arisen and stood, it seemed, permanently separating them. He knew at last, in his secret heart, that he loved Peggy Angus. And it cast a mortal sadness upon him to feel that now she could never care for him.
As if to escape his melancholy, he threw himself desperately into his work, and more particularly into study.
Mark you, the conscientious strain in Finlay, though often overlaid by the natural impetuosity of the man, was strong, and this at all times caused him to try to keep up-to-date in his work. It was not easy, since usually the practice occupied him so fully he had little time to read.
Nevertheless, he did make an effort to keep in touch with modern research in medicine and surgery. And now more than ever he sought a weary consolation by burning the midnight oil over the recent advances of his profession. Not without result, as shall presently be seen.
To be dramatic fiction, the drama which ensued ought to have been staged on the grand scale. But it was simply bare reality, and concerned a poor family of foreigners named Pulaski, and in particular the little boy named Paul.
The Pulaski’s were Lithuanians who had come, like many others of their countrymen, to work in the mines of Lanarkshire. But, when the industrial situation became depressed, they drifted to Levenford. The father was fortunate in getting work in a humble capacity as labourer in a shipyard.
They lived in impoverished conditions in the Vennel, and there was a brood of children, amongst them was Paul, aged eight, who spent most of his spare time playing on the pavement of the squalid slum.
When Paul fell ill with vomiting and a bad pain in his stomach no one paid much attention to the fact.
Certainly Mrs. Pulaski had no thought of the doctor, for this was an expensive luxury far beyond the means of her humble establishment. But when Paul, dosed with some dark concoction and put to bed, showed no signs of improvement, she held an uneasy colloquy with her husband, the result of which was that Finlay arrived next morning to see the patient.
He found the little boy in bed with a furred, dry tongue, a flushed face, a high temperature, and severe pain and tenderness low down on the right side of his body. The vomiting had stopped, but, instead of bringing relief, this seemed merely to have aggravated the condition.
“I don’t know what he takes to upset him!” exclaimed Mrs. Pulaski brokenly, with her dark foreign eyes fixed intently on Finlay. “Or maybe it’s a chill on the stomach he would have – the inflammation, eh, doctor?”
As the familiar word fell on Finlay’s ear he remained silent. Inflammation! – the convenient receptable into which all manner of doubtful and unknown conditions were cast.
He continued his examination, not satisfied that this case before him was a simple chill or disturbance. Something in the signs and symptoms, in the boy’s attitude, struck him vividly and reminded him of a certain condition which his recent reading had brought before him.
He said nothing, however. Turning from the bedside, he prescribed a simple remedy and a fluid diet, and indicated to the mother that he would return with Dr. Cameron.
At mid-day he went over the points of the case with Cameron, making no bones about the fact that he considered the condition serious, and about two o’clock the two doctors walked down the road and arrived at the mean home in the Vennel.
Cameron made his examination of Paul, who seemed worse, in greater pain than ever, and unable, as his mother related, to retain even the sips of water she had given him.
Later, in consultation together in the little kitchen, Cameron passed up and down dubiously.
“He’s bad, right enough, the little chap,” he threw out. “It looks to me like inflammation of
the bowels. What do you think yourself?”
There was a silence. Inflammation again, thought Finlay, and he answered slowly –
“I think it’s appendicitis.”
At the mention of the strange new word which at the beginning of this century was causing open war amongst the pundits, Cameron threw up his head like a startled horse.
“That!” he said abruptly.
Finlay nodded slowly, and before the old doctor could intervene he launched into a rapid explanation.
“I’ve been reading Englemann’s treatise and Mitchell’s account of his cases. This boy here has got all the typical symptoms. It’s not just inflammation I’ll swear it’s this new thing they’re talking about in London, and Paris and Vienna. Appendicitis! Oh, I know it sounds trashy and newfangled to you, but I’m convinced in my very bones it’s a genuine case.”
Cameron inspected Finlay quietly
“I don’t think it’s trashy,” he said slowly.
“And just because I’m not acquainted with the condition, because maybe I’m a little old-fashioned and behind the times, I don’t propose to deny its existence.”
There was a silence. Moved by Cameron’s generous attitude Finlay did not speak, and eventually the older man resumed –
“But talking doesn’t help us much. Granted you’re right, what do you propose to do?”
Finlay started forward eagerly.
“Well, believe me, castor oil and linseed poultices won’t help us here There’s only one thing to do. Operation!
Another silence Cameron stroked his chin reflectively.
“Well,” he said at length, “maybe you’re right But it’s a serious step, man, a gey serious step. I wouldn’t like you to take it on your own responsibility. No, no! Suppose anything happened to the boy? Bless my soul, they’d swear the operation had killed him You’ll need to have another opinion. I can’t help you here, though I’m with you heart and soul”
He paused. “ Suppose you call in Reid and see what he says?”
Finlay’s eyes fell. Though he knew Cameron’s suggestion to be a wise one, it was not, to him, a happy one. He was fairly friendly with Dr. Reid, a young man like himself, with a fair-sized practice in the Newtown, and a bustling go-ahead manner, which was hearty enough, though perhaps a little jeering at times. Yet Finlay was loth to submit to outside interference. He was an individualist. Nevertheless, he saw the wisdom of Cameron’s advice, and at last he raised his head.