A Long Time Ago

by Margaret Kennedy

  Far away, in London, Dick had also wakened beside a gap—if he wakened at all that morning. It was just as probable that he had been out all night—more probable. During the last eighteen months it had seemed to her as if there must be some law of nature arranging that all emergency operations and all abnormal confinements must take place in the middle of the night.

  They would call Dick up, out of his bed, and next morning he would come stumbling home again, too tired to eat any breakfast, too tired to sleep. Early in the morning, when the milk carts were rattling down the street she would wake up and find him standing just inside her bedroom door.

  “Ellen?”

  “O-o-o-h … Dick? What time is it?”

  “Half-past five. Do you think the water’s hot? I’d like a bath.”

  Of course it was hot. She had drilled the household into that, and he could have a bath at any moment of the day or night. But he seldom took it at once. She could hear him moving up and down his dressing-room for hours, loudly yawning, with pauses and periods of complete silence, when he was probably reading for a few minutes out of one of the many books that lay piled about the room. And then at last there would be the sound of bath water. Just when she was getting up he would come in again and lie on the sofa at the foot of her bed and tell her what he had done the day before. Or, he would fall into a half-doze as he stared at the early sunlight winking on the crystal bottles on her dressingtable, and turning her cloud of soft hair into a golden haze as she brushed it and brushed it.

  Gradually he would recover from the effort, the concentration of the night, as the sun rose higher over the opposite houses and the noises of London outside grew louder. From upstairs would come the thumping of small feet and an echo of shrill voices. The children were having their breakfast. Day would catch him up. It was his morning at the hospital. He would look suddenly at his watch, kiss Ellen and rush out. The front door slammed behind him.

  He was overworking himself. She had known it for months. He was losing the power to snatch sleep when he could get it; he never relaxed, and his assertion that all his friends were in the same boat did not completely reassure her. She was used to the spectacle of overwork and it was difficult to know when the Rubicon had been crossed, the border-line between the fatigue which must be accepted as a chronic evil and that which had become an active menace. He said, and she always believed what he said, that if one had not got the health to stand it one might as well sweep crossings. But she could not help thinking that other people stood it better.

  “I wonder how Mrs. Thring manages,” she thought. “I wonder if Dr. Thring’s hair ever peeled off like that at the top…. Dick says it’ll grow again and I do hope it will. It would be dreadful to have a bald husband, like Louise’s. Why should Gordon be bald? I’m sure he never did one day’s work in his life as hard as Dick does every day. I wonder how much sleep Dr. Thring gets. Perhaps he’s just the same, but his hair looks very nice. He must have been quite run down, getting influenza like that on his holiday, bother the man!”

  For it was Ensor Thring’s fault that Dick was still behind, in London. He should have been back a week ago, but he had gone down with influenza in the South of France, and Dick, who was looking after some cases for him, had thought that he must stay until his colleague returned.

  Ellen reproved herself for worrying. It was only a little delay and there was no point in making a fuss. Dr. Thring would be back in another week, and seven days more of it could not possibly make any difference to Dick. She must remember how quickly a healthy man picks up. In next to no time he would be quite himself again, rested, and sleeping properly, if only he would not immediately begin to say that he had a paper to write. She would know that he was all right as soon as he stopped bothering about his old papers, though it might be a day or two before he grew calm enough for that. And, anyway, there was nothing to be done now, and thinking the same thing over and over again was worse than useless. She was worrying, and that was bad for her baby. Dick said ….

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, let me think of something else.”

  But even when she thought of something else there was still that queer feeling of tightness, as if some nerve had been stretched taut. Dick gave her that feeling all the time now. He was stretched and taut, and she, being so close to him, must share the tension.

  The moment had come when lying in bed ceased to be pleasant. With her mind she leapt out of bed and began briskly to put on her clothes. But her body was still tired. It protested against exertion and lagged behind her eager thoughts, which raced ahead and took her out into the pleasant sunshine and the enjoyment of the summer day. Her body moved slowly through the ritual of washing and dressing, a little sick and heavy, burdened with a task of its own which was independent of her conscious will. She was wearily brushing her hair when Muffy came in to take the breakfast tray.

  “You should have waited to let me do that, Miss Ellen.”

  Muffy took the brush out of Ellen’s hand and pushed her into a chair in front of the dressing-table.

  “I’m worried about Dick, Muffy.”

  The cry broke from her, before she could restrain it.

  “You didn’t ought to. It’s bad for you.”

  “I know. But he’s overdoing it. He never stops. He’s up all night and he works all day. Besides John’s, you know he’s got five appointments at other hospitals, now, and he does a terrific amount of teaching, as well as continually being called in to give advice to public committees. And all that on top of consultations every other minute and his private work and the hospitals. And his hair’s coming out.”

  “Bay rum,” said Muffy. And then, after a pause: “Yes, I daresay he wants a holiday, and knows it as well as you do. He’ll get a good rest here.”

  The brush moved down Ellen’s head in long, gentle sweeps. It was very pleasant, and the morning sun winked on the crystal bottles of the dressing-table, just as it did at home. Ellen was one of those women who take all their household gods with them: her dressingtable was always arranged in the same way, wherever she might be. All that she had was solid, plain and valuable. Dick gave her nice things, which he bought in a hurry at the Army and Navy Stores. When he had more time he meant to look round and find something rare for her. But the giving and receiving of presents had never been much of a ritual between them, though they were too conventional to neglect the proper occasions. At Christmas, on birthdays, they produced their offerings in silver, ivory or leather without any sentimental ponderings.

  “If it’s hard for him, why it’s hard for all of them,” continued Muffy. “It’s the same for all of them, once they begin to get on.”

  “Yes … I know … but …”

  Ellen looked up at the old face in the glass. If she told Muffy all that was in her mind, then she might be able to forget about it.

  “It isn’t just ordinary overwork, Muffy. It’s … oh, I don’t know … it’s more his mind than his body, somehow. I mean, he’s always said himself that it’s fatal if a doctor begins to worry. He’s always quoting examples of it. He says about somebody: ‘Oh, So-and-so lost his nerve: between you and me he simply got so that he daren’t operate.’ Or else he says: ‘So-and-so retired because he thought he’d made a mistake’ … as if we didn’t all make mistakes. He says that worry is a vice. He says you do your best, and if you think anyone else could do better, you hand your patient over to him. You have to make decisions and if you couldn’t take the risk of making a mistake a lot more people would die than do, even now. And the most you can hope to know is only a very little. And you may see you’ve made a mistake, but you did your best at the time and that’s an end of it. He always says that. And he says, once a man begins to worry over his cases he’s done for. He had a friend, who lost his nerve, and he went on a six months’ cruise, but he never … he was a gynæcologist too, and Dick gets a lot of his work. He says it’s fatal to worry.”

  “Very sensible,” observed Muffy.

  “Yes. That�
��s what he says. But he’s doing it. He’s quite different. But it’s come on so slowly that I’ve only noticed it just lately. He talks about his cases in a different way, somehow. The way he talks, shows that he’s never done with them, in his mind, even when they’re over. Oh, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. But how does he show it? What way does he talk?”

  “Oh, it’s so difficult. But he’s sort of … sort of uncertain and contradictory … and going over what he ought to have done, and wondering if he was right, as if he simply hated having to make up his mind. And yet he has to spend his whole life making up his mind! And then, some weeks ago, Dr. Barlow, from John’s too, you know, was dining with us and he was laughing at Dick, half in fun, but seriously too, for always ringing up the intern about cases, to ask how they were getting on, much more than he used to. I mean, quite unnecessarily. I mean, I felt that there was something behind it and they were saying at John’s that Dick was getting fussy, and he wanted to hint it in a nice way. And he said to me that Dick really ought to get a holiday, quite gravely. Because I know that state of mind so well, don’t you, Muffy? When you’re out of sorts and think you can’t trust people to do their work properly. I know it’s always a bad sign with me when I simply can’t sit still and believe that Nannie has carried out some order that I’ve given her, but have to go fussing after her and reminding her. It’s a sign of nerves. But I think women are more able to have nerves than men. I mean, it’s worse when men get them.

  “And then there’s another thing: he seems to mind about other people more, and if they’re criticising him behind his back. He says how he simply couldn’t make up his mind or something, and then he says: ‘Oh, I hope So-and-so didn’t spot it; he squinted at me sideways once or twice.’ Or if he’s called in to a consultation with someone he doesn’t know, he always says something afterwards about what impression he thinks he’s made with this new man: he says: ‘I didn’t cut much ice with that fellow’ … but he never used to worry about this sort of thing. He never used to mind what other people thought of him. And then, once or twice, I’m sure he’s sent patients on to other men, cases that he could perfectly well have managed himself, simply to … simply to get out of having to … to take the responsibility. And he thinks they criticise him at the hospital. Even the students …”

  Ellen stopped and sighed. It was inconceivable that she should be saying all this, out loud, to anyone else. But it was a great relief. She wanted no comment from Muffy, and Muffy made none.

  “Oh, I know it all sounds rather petty. But it’s not like him. He gets upset about things that never used to upset him. In March he read a paper to some society and some old stick-in-the-mud, Sir Norman Kevin, criticised him and heckled him rather sharply. And he minded frightfully. It upset him for days. As if it mattered tuppence! Before he got like this he’d have quite enjoyed having to defend himself. He used to like operating with an audience. I know he did. He often said so. But now he simply hates it … and as for Mrs. Briggs, I really think if anything goes wrong with her, he’ll have a breakdown or something.”

  “Who is Mrs. Briggs?” ventured Muffy.

  “Oh, she’s just a patient of Dr. Thring’s. She’s the chief reason for Dick staying in London, because he thinks she needs constant watching. She’s going to have a baby … I think it’s four or five months on, and she has an appendix that ought to come out. Dick and Dr. Thring are doing it for nothing. Dr. Briggs is an old friend of theirs; he was a student when they were, but he’s badly off: a struggling G.P. and all that. So Dick feels he must stay and keep an eye on her till Dr. Thring gets back. But the ups and downs we’ve had over this appendix! He couldn’t make up his mind if he’d take it out or leave it. First of all he says: ‘What’ll Thring say if I operate, and she aborts?’ And then he says: ‘What’ll Thring say if I don’t operate and she gets peritonitis?’ Personally, I’d have asked what Mrs. Briggs would say, but I suppose it’s more professional to mind what Thring would think about it. If ever he does get a clear night in bed he’s sure to wake up and wake me up to tell me that in nine cases out of ten it’s best not to risk the operation during pregnancy. I’ve never known him get a case on his mind so badly, yet it’s a very common one. And I have a feeling that he’s got so jumpy about it that he’d be terrified, now, if he did have to operate. Luckily it seems to be quiescent. He’s made me jumpy, too, so that I get almost to feel that if he did have to operate he might sew up the dressing scissors inside her or something. I never used to feel he could do anything wrong. And then it’s awful the way his hair is coming out. But I told you about that.”

  This seemed really everything, and Ellen felt better already. It did not sound so bad, now that she had said it, and she would not have been surprised if Muffy had told her not to be silly. But Muffy said:

  “Well, by all accounts, it’s high time he came away. Though I don’t call this a place I’d choose for a nerve cure, not by a long chalk.”

  “Oh, Muffy! Are you still hating it? Don’t you like it any better? Mother wrote to me …”

  Muffy’s face, reflected in the glass, became mulish. She said nothing, but it was clear that she never would, never could, never wanted to like it any better.

  “I suppose it’s rather inconvenient from your point of view.”

  “Oh, it isn’t only the inconvenience. There … I don’t know. There’s a lot I don’t like about it. It’s so … so outlandish, somehow.”

  “Too lonely, you mean?”

  “Not sure that I do. Not lonely enough, in a manner of speaking. There’s some very funny sort of people about in these parts.”

  “Funny people? On the island?”

  “Not on the island … yet. But hanging about.” Muffy lowered her voice mysteriously. “I saw one yesterday. Early before breakfast. I went just outside the gate to see what sort of a day it was. And there, as bold as brass, was a person rowing up to the island.”

  “A person?”

  “A lady. Only she was no lady, that I’ll swear. A boldlooking woman, she was. One of these actresses, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Actresses? What actresses? Muffy, what do you mean?”

  Muffy nodded solemnly in the glass.

  “There’s actresses come here, Miss Ellen, and people of that sort. You see what I mean. It isn’t a gentleman’s house, such as you’d expect Dr. Lindsay to take for the summer. It’s got something queer about it. This person looked for all the world as if she’d the right to come here. Rowed up close to the landing-stage. She’d no paint on her face, that I will say, but she was bold-looking and her hair, you wouldn’t believe, hanging down all over the place like yours is now. And her arms all bare and no collar to her bodice, so you could see her neck and her bosom, almost. It was disgusting. Like a slut out of the slums. Supposing if any of the gentlemen had been out and seen her! If she’d got on shore I’d have sent her about her business. ‘And what might you be wanting?’ I’d have asked. But she thought better of it. After a bit she took herself off.”

  “How extraordinary! Where could she have come from?”

  “That’s not for me to say. But she wouldn’t have dared come up like that to a gentleman’s house. You see what I mean, Miss Ellen. Those sort of people wouldn’t come hanging round a house if it was all as it should be.”

  9

  EVERYBODY was disappointed that Dick had not come, but they, none of them, not even Kerran, understood how bitter a blow it was for Louise. They were all so pleased to see Ellen and the children, this matriarchal tribe which came trooping possessively into the castle. They had exclaimed when they counted the heads in the boats, they had asked one another where Dick could be, but their spirits had not fallen to zero.

  Child after child had been lifted out and deposited on the shore. They came stumping up towards the castle, clutching boats and spades and buckets. There were only four of them, yet they were like an army, generalled by Ellen and the nursery maid. They beamed at Louise in the confident belief th
at they were welcome. They volunteered dull pieces of information. They expected to be kissed.

  “Such a wonderful crossing!”

  “Oh, Aunt Louise, we’ve brought our spades and buckets.”

  “Where is the nursery?”

  “We came in the Irish Mail!”

  “Are there dungeons in this castle?”

  “Why, Louise! You’re looking quite sunburnt! Dick? Oh, he couldn’t come. He had to stay in London. Listen! I’m afraid we’ve had to leave some luggage at Killross. Could one of the boats go back for it?”

  Louise stood thunderstruck. No Dick? And what was to become of all the fun which she had planned? Even a Russian novel must have a hero.

  The invasion swept past into the castle, where Muffy and Maude were only too ready to swell the prosaic bustle of unpacking and settling in. She felt that their “party” had received a formidable reinforcement. For already she had mentally divided the castle community into two sections. There was her own group, who were to enjoy the pleasures of cultivated idleness, and there was the useful domestic rabble of women, children and servants. It was important that the activities of the latter should not be allowed to impinge upon the tranquillity of the former. The rabble must be kept in its place. But now it seemed to be ubiquitous.

  For the first time she began to wonder if it was not a disadvantage to be the only woman in her group. It had been quite easy to dispose of Maude before Ellen came, but the spectacle of the pair of them, so arrogantly commonplace, so determined to turn the abode of romance into a seaside lodging-house, was disconcerting. She did not tell herself outright that a close understanding between these two was undesirable, but it was an impulse, born of some such thought, that lay behind a new cordiality which she suddenly felt for Maude. She compromised. Ellen had Muffy, anyhow: to balance them there had better be Louise and Maude, even though that might mean certain sacrifices. Maude, in spite of her deficiencies, must have a sort of place in the superior group. Ellen was better qualified for such promotion, but she had put herself out of court by leaving Dick behind her.