by A. J. Cronin
However, McKellar himself was little changed, perhaps a trifle more veined around the nose, but still clean-shaven and close-cropped, eyes dry and penetrating beneath his sandy brows, manner contained, deliberate, judicial. He did not keep me waiting, and when I was seated before his broad mahogany desk, he began gravely to stroke his full underlip and, against the background of japanned deedboxes, to contemplate me.
“Well, Robert.” His survey completed, he spoke, at last, in a moderate tone. “ What is it, this time?”
The question was ordinary enough, but the note of quiet disapproval running through it made me gaze at him defensively. Ever since those early days when, without a word, he had, while passing me in the street, pressed into my hand tickets for the Mechanics’Concerts, I had been conscious of a current of sympathy, of interest, flowing towards me from this man. He had taken my part when I was a boy, had administered the money left me for my education, a very watchdog of probity, and, as a sort of unofficial guardian, had advised and encouraged me during my student days. But now he was shaking his head in sombre disappointment.
“Come on. Let’s have it, lad. What do you want?”
“Nothing,” I answered. “If this is how you feel about it.”
“Tut, tut. Don’t be a young fool. Out with it.”
Suppressing my sense of injury, I told him, as best I could.
“You see how important it is. If I’m to go on with this research I must get a hospital job. Perhaps Dalnair isn’t a big place, but that would give me all the more spare time to do my own work.”
“Do you think I carry appointments, like marbles, in my pocket?”
“No. But you’re treasurer to the County Health Board. You have influence. You could get me in.”
McKellar studied me again, his brows contracted; then, no longer able to restrain his irritation, he burst out:
“Just look at you, man. Shabby and down-at-heel. You’ve a button off your coat, your collar’s cracked, you need a hair-cut. There’s a burst in your boot, too. I tell you, sir, you’re a disgrace to me, to yourself, and the whole medical profession. Damn it all, you don’t look like a doctor. After all that’s been done for ye! Ye look like a tramp.”
Under this withering attack, I bit my lip in silence.
“And the worst o’t is,” he went on, lapsing more and more into broad Scots as his anger grew, “ it’s a’ your own perverse and ediotic fault. When I think on the career ye’ve had, on the way ye’ve taken medals and honours and fellowships, and then, after folks have built on ye … to come to this … Oh, man alive, it’s fair deplorable.”
“All right.” I stood up. “I’ll say goodbye. And thanks.”
“Sit down.” He shouted.
There was a pause. I sat down. With an effort he mastered his feelings and, in a constrained voice, remarked:
“I just cannot carry the sole responsibility any longer, Robert. I’ve asked here for a conference a certain person who is interested in you also, and whose sound common sense I value.”
He pressed the bell upon the desk and a moment later Miss Glennie, his faithful servitor, respectfully ushered into the room a figure, unchangeable as destiny, fateful as doom, wearing her historic black-beaded cape, elastic-sided boots, and crape-bedizened, white-frilled mutch.
Of all my relatives, the others having wandered far afield, Great-grandmother Leckie was now the sole representative in Levenford. Since her son had died of a stroke shortly after his retirement from the Borough Health Department, she had continued to inhabit his house, Lomond View, now aged eighty-four, yet physically active and in alert possession of all her faculties, unconquerable and indestructible, the last prop supporting the structure of a disintegrating family.
The old woman seated herself, very erect, with a prim bow to McKellar, who had half risen in his chair, then turned towards me observantly, but without visible recognition upon her long, firm, yellowish, deeply wrinkled face. Her purse was still treasured in her mittened hand. Her hair, still parted in the middle, seemed a trifle thinner than of old, but was still untouched by grey, as also were the crinkling whiskers which sprouted from the brown mole upon her upper lip. She still made the same clicking noises with her teeth.
“Well, ma’am,” said McKellar, formally opening the inquest, “here we are.”
Again the old woman inclined her head and, as though in church and about to enjoy a sermon of excellent severity, she took from her bag a peppermint imperial and placed it austerely between her lips.
“The position simply is,” the lawyer continued, “that Robert here, with everything in his favour and the best prospects in the world, is sitting before us without a curdie in his pocket.”
At this accusation, which was quite true, for, beyond my return ticket to Winton, I had in the way of available currency precisely nothing, my grandmother once more bent forward her head rigidly, to indicate her comprehension of my lamentable situation.
“He ought,” McKellar reasoned, getting warm again, “he ought to be in his own practice. There’s those would help him to that if he only said the word. He has brains. He’s personable. When he chooses, he has a way with him. Here, in Levenford, he could earn his thousand a year in good hard siller without the slightest trouble. He could settle down, get married to a decent lass and become a solid and respectable member of the community, like his friends have aye wished him to. But instead, what does he do? Starts out on a wild-goose chase that will never put a farthing in the bank for him. And now, here he is, begging me to get him a job in a poky, outlandish fever hospital an old cottage hospital where he’ll be lost, buried in the wilds, with no more nor a hundred and twenty pound a year!”
“You’re forgetting something,” I said. “In this hospital I’ll be able to do the work I want to do, work that may take me out of the wilds, and by your own material standards, bring me far more recognition than I could ever earn as a general practitioner in Levenford.”
“Tch!” McKellar dismissed my argument with an angry shrug. “That’s all up in the air. That’s the trouble with you. You’re too impractical for words.”
“I’m not so sure!” For the first time the old woman spoke, gazing at the lawyer inscrutably. “Robert is still young. He’s trying for big things. If we make him a general practitioner he’ll never forgive us.”
I could scarcely believe it. McKellar, who had clearly banked on her strong support, gazed towards her with a fallen expression.
“We must remember that Robert was subjected to very mixed influences when he was a boy. He must be given time to shake these off. I don’t think it would be a bad thing if he were to have this chance. If he brings it off, well and good. If not …” She paused, and I saw what was coming. “He will have to accept our conditions.”
The lawyer was now looking queerly at Grandma, darting peculiar, comprehending glances at her, while he pursed his lips and played with the heavy ruler on his desk.
I took advantage of the silence. “Help me get this job at Dalnair. If I don’t succeed in what I’m after and have to come back to you for help, I give you my word I’ll do what you ask.”
“Hmm!” McKellar hummed and hawed, still consulting with the old woman from beneath his brows with a mixed expression, through which, however, there predominated a reluctant respect.
“That seems to me a sound proposal,” she remarked mildly, but with a faint, meaningful relaxation of her features towards him.
“Hmm!” said McKellar again. “ I dare say.… I dare say, … Well———” He made up his mind. “ So be it. Mind ye, Robert, I can’t promise you the post, but I’ll do my best. I know Masters pretty well, the chairman of the committee. And if I get it for you I’ll expect you, without fail, to keep your side of the bargain.”
We shook hands upon this and, after some further conversation, I went out of the office.
I wanted to leave before the old woman could get hold of me. But as I swung into the street I heard her following close behind me.
“R
obert.”
I had to turn round.
“Don’t be in such a hurry.”
“I have a train to catch.”
She took no notice of the excuse.
“Give me your arm. I’m not so young as I was, Robert.”
I gritted my teeth. I was twenty-four, a bacteriologist who handled with contempt the deadliest germs, who, after the war, had gained a sharp experience of life. But in her presence the years fell away from me and I was again a child. She reduced me. She humiliated me. And I knew, from her possessive touch, that I should have to put up with her for the rest of the afternoon, that she would extract from me, using her tongue like a scourge, the full story of my doings.
As, arm in arm, we rounded, in stately fashion, the bend of Church Street, she leaned towards me, sweeping aside the last of my resistance.
“First thing we do is get that old uniform off your back. We’ll go up the town to the Co-operative Stores and get ye into a decent homespun suit. Then, instead of these broken-down bauchles, we’ll put a new pair of shoes on your misguided feet. Ay, ay, my man, I’ll have ye half-human again, before ye’re an hour older.”
I shuddered at the prospect of being “ fitted,” under her eagle eye, by the female assistants of the Boot and Draper departments.
Leaning closer, exhaling a powerful odour of peppermint, she breathed warmly into my ear:
“Now tell me everything, Robert, about this young woman Law.”
Book Two
Chapter One
I was met at Dalnair village station by the hospital chauffeur and handyman, with an old brass-bound Argyll ambulance, the paintwork washed away, but the glass glittering, rather like a hearse. When he had introduced himself as Peter Pim, he placed my bag aboard in sluggish fashion and, after many crankings, started up the machine. We lumbered off, past a jumble of ramshackle houses, a dingy little store, some clay pits, and a disused brickworks; then across a stream, striving valiantly to purify its muddy course, and into a bedraggled semi-urban countryside, upon which, however, the early spring had imposed a fresh green mantle.
From time to time, as I bounced upon the hard front seat, I stole inquiring glances at my companion’s expressionless profile, which, beneath his peaked cap, conveyed such an impression of lethargy I hesitated to break into speech. However, at last I ventured to compliment him upon the sound condition of his antique vehicle, which, from his handling of the controls, was clearly a source of pride to him.
He did not immediately reply, then with his gaze fixed on the road ahead he made a sort of considered pronouncement.
“I am interested in mechanics, sir.”
If this was so, I felt he could be of service to me, and I expressed the democratic hope that we might be friends.
Again he communed with himself.
“I think we’ll get along, sir. I always do my best. I was on excellent terms with Dr. Haines. A nice, easy gentleman, was Dr. Haines, sir. I was sorry to see him go.”
Chilled somewhat by this laudation of my predecessor and by the melancholy intonation with which it was delivered, I lapsed into silence that persisted until we laboured to the summit of a narrow lane and swept into a circular gravel driveway giving access to a little group of trim brick buildings. Opposite the largest of these we drew up and, descending from the ambulance, I became conscious of a short, swart-complexioned woman in uniform, whom I guessed to be the matron, standing upon the steps, protecting her winged white cap from the breeze and radiantly smiling her welcome.
“Dr. Shannon, I presume. Delighted to make your acquaintance. I’m Miss Trudgeon.”
While Pim made himself scarce with an astringent expression, she greeted me jovially and, almost before I knew where I was, had shown me to my quarters: sitting-room, bedroom, and bathroom all on the east side of the central building. Then, bustling me along, full of energy and enthusiasm, she took me proudly round the entire institution.
It was quite small, consisting of four little detached pavilions, spaced at the corners of a square, behind the administrative block, devoted respectively to the treatment of scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, and “mixed infections.” The arrangements were primitive, nevertheless, the old-fashioned wards, with their well-waxed floors and spotless little cots, shone with cleanliness. Most of the few patients were children, and as they sat up in their red bed-jackets, smiling as we went past, while the afternoon sun streamed through the long windows, they made me feel that my duties would be agreeable. The ward sisters, too—one presiding over each pavilion—had a reassuringly quiet and sensible air. In short, the general effect of this unpretentious little hospital, which, from its high and windswept hill-top, commanded a view of the valley townships it served, was one of efficiency and usefulness.
At the foot of the grounds, some distance from the four pavilions, there stood a peculiar maroon-coloured edifice of corrugated iron, somewhat dilapidated, and almost entirely surrounded by shrubbery.
“That was our smallpox ward,” Miss Trudgeon explained, her small shrewd eyes interpreting my thought. “As you can see, it isn’t used … so we won’t go in. Luckily, the laurel bushes hide it.” She added complacently: “We haven’t had a case in the last five years.”
From here, always with that air of justifiable pride, she conducted me to the nurses’ recreation-room, the kitchen, and the receiving-office—all of which exhibited the same immaculate gloss—and finally, to a room with a long wooden counter into which were set gas and electricity fittings and two porcelain sinks. Some varnished desks and a couple of benches were piled against the wall.
“This is our test-room,” Matron remarked. “ Don’t you think it’s nice?”
“Very.”
I said nothing more, of course. Yet I knew at once that I had found the ideal place for my laboratory. As we retraced our steps along the driveway I was already, in my mind’s eye, allocating the available space and making my arrangements.
Back in the main building, Miss Trudgeon insisted on giving me afternoon tea in her own parlour, an airy, charming room facing to the front, with a bow window, chintz-covered chairs and sofa, and a china bowl of flowering hyacinths on the piano, an apartment which, I could not but observe, was even nicer than any we had previously entered. When she had pressed the bell, a red-cheeked country girl in a starched cap and apron, whom she introduced to me as Katie, our “ joint” maid, brought in a tea service and a tiered cake stand. Talking all the time, Miss Trudgeon presided officiously behind this equipage, offering me a choice of India or China tea with an excellent cut of plum cake just out of the hospital oven.
She was about fifty, I judged, and before “ settling down” at Dalnair, had, she informed me, spent ten years in Bengal as an Army nurse, an experience which had no doubt imparted to her large and prominent features their distinct coppery tinge, and which also, perhaps, had given to her voice and manner characteristics closely resembling those of the sergeant-major. I had noticed particularly her projecting bust, her chesty swagger, and the lateral oscillation of her short but far from inconsiderable haunches, as she preceded me through the wards. And now, her bluff heartiness, the loudness of her laugh, her downright and decisive gestures, seemed to complete the picture of a personality better suited to the barrack square than the sick-room.
Yet what impressed me most was her determined pride in the hospital, a sense almost of ownership. Again, half jocularly, she reverted to that dominant theme.
“I’m glad you approve of our little place, Doctor. It’s a bit out of date, of course, but I’ve tried to get over that with a few Army dodges. I’ve worked hard to bring things to their present state. Yes, I’ve really put my back into it.”
A brief, odd silence followed, but presently, to my relief, there came a discreet tap upon the door, and in answer to Miss Trudgeon’s “Come in,” the handle turned noiselessly and a tall, thin, red-haired sister appeared upon the threshold. Upon seeing me, she started, and her pale green eyes, fringed by straw-coloured
lashes, sought out Miss Trudgeon’s with a deprecating humility which brought to the matron’s bronzed face an indulgent smile.
“Come, come, my dear, don’t run away. Doctor, this is Night Sister Effie Peek. She usually has tea with me when she gets up in the afternoon. Sit down, my dear.”
Modestly, Sister Peek entered the room and, seating herself on a low chair, accepted the cup which was offered her.
“I’m very pleased that you should meet Sister Peek,” continued Miss Trudgeon. “ She is quite the most helpful member of my staff.”
“Oh, no.” The pale, red-haired sister repudiated the compliment with a quiver of her unworthy flesh; then turning towards me, she murmured: “Matron is much too kind. But of course a word from her means so much. You see, everyone looks up to her. And she has been here so long, we simply couldn’t get on without her. After all, our doctors come and go. But Matron goes on for ever.”
Having thus paraphrased Tennyson’s “Brook” for my benefit, this blanched creature—even her red hair was pale, and her skin was milky-white—subsided to a respectful silence. In a few minutes, as though not daring to trespass further upon our time, she rose and with a fawnlike glance towards the matron glided from the room to begin her night’s duty. I did not long outstay her. I stood up and, having expressed to Miss Trudgeon my appreciation of the warmth of her welcome, excused myself on the grounds that I must unpack.
“That’s all right, Doctor. We ought to rub along together. As Sister Peek says, I’m an old-timer here.” Bouncing to her feet, her large face wreathed in smiles, she gave me, for an instant, a penetrating glance, adding, with jovial emphasis, “ I think you’ll find that my ways are the best.”
With curiously mixed feelings, I found my way to my own quarters, satisfied by my reception, telling myself, as I pottered round the room, examining its severe yet adequate furnishings with the eye of one who must live and become intimate with these unknown articles, that, although perhaps rather blunt, Miss Trudgeon was a cheery, hearty soul, but at the same time vaguely disturbed by the brio of her manner and by impressions and reactions which I could not quite define.
