Shannon's Way

by A. J. Cronin

  And suddenly, to my own surprise, I felt a warm tide welling up within me, I found myself answering, with an air of logical decision:

  “There’s no law against it, I suppose. I dare say we could see each other once in a while.”

  Her face lighted up. She bent forward with a tremulous and happy smile and in a tone which paid high tribute to my superior wisdom, she exclaimed:

  “I’m so glad. I was afraid … I mean, it’s such a sensible way to look at things.”

  “Good.” I acknowledged her flattery with a generous nod and, spurred by some incomprehensible impulse, gazed into her shining eyes. “ What are you doing this evening?”

  An imperceptible stiffening of her figure attended this unexpected remark.

  “Well … I am going to see the Miss Dearies … they were so kind to me, you know. Then, I’m taking the six-thirty train home to Blairhill.”

  The spurt of recklessness expanded in me further. I remarked coolly:

  “Come to the theatre with me instead?”

  She started, perceptibly, and the faint look of fright came back into her eyes, increasing as I went on:

  “I have some business that will take about an hour. Let’s meet at the Theatre Royal at seven. Martin Harvey is on there, in The Only Way. You ought to enjoy that.”

  Still she gazed at me in stricken silence as though my invitation had exposed to her all the secret terrors and dangers of the world. Then she gulped.

  “Mr. Shannon, I’m afraid you don’t understand. I’ve never been to the theatre in my life.”

  “Good heavens!” Although I ought to have been prepared for this, I could scarcely believe my ears. “Why on earth not?”

  “Well, you know how strict we are at home.”

  Lowering her gaze, she drew patterns on the cloth with her finger. “In the Brethren, we don’t hold with cards, or dances, or going to the theatre. Of course, Father doesn’t exactly forbid us … but we just never seemed to think of it.”

  I studied her in wonder.

  “Then it’s high time you thought of it now. Why,” I spoke largely, “the theatre is one of the greatest cultural influences in the world. Mind you, I don’t think too much of The Only Way. But it’ll do for a start.”

  She was silent, continuing to make designs in painful, downcast indecision. Then slowly, as her Puritan grain refused to yield, she raised her head and faltered.

  “I’m afraid, Mr. Shannon, I couldn’t go.”

  “But why?”

  She made no answer, but her melting gaze was sorely troubled. Weighing down the scale against her natural inclination, so vivid and ardent, were all the sad and sombre teachings of her childhood, these austere warnings against the world, those apocalyptic prophesies of doom.

  “Well!” I exclaimed in annoyance. “If that isn’t the limit. You waste half the afternoon trying to convince me that we ought to spend some time together. And, when I offer to take you out, to a perfectly innocent entertainment, in fact, a classical performance, based on a famous novel by Charles Dickens, you flatly refuse to come.”

  “Oh, Dickens …” she murmured faintly, as though partly reassured. “Charles Dickens. He was a very worthy writer.”

  But in my resentment I had buttoned my jacket and was looking round for the waitress to obtain the bill.

  Scorched by my displeasure, she observed, with renewed agitation, these signs of imminent departure; then with a little gasp, her breast rising and falling, she tremblingly surrendered.

  “Very well,” she whispered helplessly. “I’ll come.”

  Despite the entreaty of her gaze, I did not immediately forgive her, not until I had paid the check—an action which now she did not dare dispute—and escorted her to the street. There I turned and, as we said goodbye, I addressed her in a friendly yet warning tone.

  “Seven o’clock at the theatre. Don’t be late.”

  “Yes, Mr. Shannon,” she murmured submissively and, with a last quivering glance, she swung round and went off.

  After standing a moment, I departed for the Pathology Department, where, since I had written him beforehand, I expected that Spence would be awaiting me.

  It was quarter past six when I reached the building and, since the last thing I wished was to run into Usher or Smith, I reconnoitred the corridors carefully before entering the laboratory. There, as I had hoped, Spence was alone, bent in close study at his bench.

  Since my approach was quiet, I was at his elbow before he became aware of my presence. Then I saw, with some surprise, that he was not working, but examining, meditatively, a photograph.

  “It’s you, Robert.” He looked me over, rather heavily. “ I’ve missed you. How goes it at Dalnair?”

  “Pretty well,” I answered cheerfully. “I’m scrapping with the matron. But I’ve cultured my bacillus again—a pure strain.”

  “Good work. Have you identified it?”

  “No, but I shall. I’m working on that now.”

  He nodded his head.

  “I wish I could get out of here too, Robert. If only I could land a professorship at one of the smaller schools … Aberdeen or St. Andrews.”

  “You will,” I said encouragingly.

  “Yes.” His tone was curiously reflective. “ I’ve plodded along pretty hard these last four years … for Muriel’s sake. She would like it at St. Andrews.”

  “How is Lomax?” I asked.

  Spence gave me his expressionless glance. There was a perceptible pause.

  “Handsome and dashing as ever. Quite pleased with life … and himself.”

  “I haven’t seen him for ages.”

  “He appears to have been rather busy lately. Well, it’s good to know you’re getting ahead. I had your letter. I can give you all the glycerine medium you want.”

  “Thanks, Spence. I knew I could count on you.”

  He made a deprecating gesture. There was an odd silence. Awkwardly I shifted my gaze, which came to rest on the photograph before him. His eyes followed mine.

  “Take a better look,” he said, and handed me the photograph. It was the pleasing likeness of a youngster with well-cut features and a clean, vigorous air.

  “Very nice,” I commented. “ Who is it?”

  He began to laugh, a strange sound, for although he often smiled, in his twisted fashion, I had seldom heard him laugh.

  “Could you believe it?” he said. “ That’s me.”

  I gave an inarticulate murmur. I didn’t know what to say. And I glanced at him uncomfortably. He was so unlike his usual mild and quiet self.

  “Yes, I was like that at eighteen. Extraordinary how important a face is … I don’t mean a good-looking face … just an ordinary, even an ugly face. You know what you read in novels. ‘ His face had a kind of charming ugliness.’ But you can’t romanticize half a face. Impossible. The Colosseum is quite a spectacle. But only by moonlight, and for half an hour. Who wants to look at a blasted ruin all the time? In fact, if you were to ask me, Shannon, I’d say in the end it would get most hellishly upon your nerves.”

  No, I had never before seen Spence in this overwrought, this morbid frame of mind. His quiet reserve made one forget that he must always exercise upon himself a rigid discipline against self-pity. Touched, vaguely uneasy, I wondered if I should speak. But at that moment, when he seemed almost on the point of breaking down, he suddenly took himself in hand, jumped up and went over to the storage shelves.

  “Come along,” he said briskly. “Let’s pack up your stuff.”

  I followed, slowly.

  Together we selected a dozen half-litre flasks of the medium, which we packed with straw in a portable hamper, made of stout wicker. Then I left, warmly thanking Spence once more. I was relieved to see that he seemed almost himself again. That odd spell of his had given me quite a shock.

  Chapter Four

  At the foot of the hill I took the red tram to Central Station, and at the Left Luggage Office checked in my hamper. Then I went into the Railway
Buffet and fortified myself hurriedly with a cold sausage roll and a glass of beer. I was beginning to have qualms about the evening, and to wonder if Miss Jean’s tender conscience might not prove an insurmountable barrier to our enjoyment.

  However, when I met her at the theatre she had thrown off her scruples, her expression was eager and responsive, her dark irises held a sparkle of excitement.

  “I’ve been looking at the posters,” she said as we entered the foyer. “ I can see nothing wrong in them whatever.”

  Our seats, although inexpensive, were reasonably good, two pit stalls in the third row, and as we occupied them, the orchestra began tuning up. My companion gave me a glance of communicative ardour and burrowed into the programme which I handed her. Then, as though wishing to be free of all encumbrance, she took off and entrusted to me her wristlet watch.

  “Please keep this safe for me. It’s loose. And has worried me all afternoon.”

  Presently the lights went down; then, after a short overture, the curtain rose upon a scene of eighteenth-century Paris, and the crashing melodrama of the French Revolution began slowly to unfold its interwoven themes of hopeless love and heroic self-sacrifice.

  This was the evergreen play from A Tale of Two Cities, with which that superb trouper, Martin Harvey, yielding himself nobly to the scaffold night after night and at Wednesday matinees, had enthralled provincial audiences for at least a score of years.

  At first my companion seemed, circumspectly, to reserve her judgement; then gradually she sat up straight, her clear eyes kindling with interest and delight. Without removing her gaze from the stage, she murmured to me in a human undertone:

  “What a lovely scene!”

  Then she yielded herself to the pale, dark glamour of Sydney Carton, to the frail and sylphlike charm of Lucie Manette.

  At the first interval she relaxed slowly, with a sigh, and, fanning her flushed cheeks with her programme, bent a grateful glance upon me.

  “It’s splendid, Mr. Shannon. So different from what I expected. I can’t tell you what a treat it is for me.”

  “Would you like an ice?”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t dream of it. After what we’ve seen it would be like sacrilege.”

  “Of course, it’s not a really first-rate play.”

  “Oh, it is, it is,” she insisted. “It’s lovely. I feel so sorry for poor Sydney Carton. He’s so much in love with Lucie and she … Oh, it must be a frightful thing, Mr. Shannon, to be terribly in love with someone and not to be loved in return.”

  “Quite,” I agreed gravely. “ Of course, they’re extremely good friends. And friendship is a wonderful thing.”

  She consulted her programme to conceal her blush.

  “I like them all,” she said. “The girl who does Lucie is very sweet, she has such lovely long blonde hair. Miss N. de Silva is her name.”

  “She,” I answered, “ in real life, is Martin Harvey’s wife.”

  “No!” she exclaimed, looking up, with animation. “How interesting.”

  “She is probably forty-five years of age, and that blonde hair is a wig.”

  “Please don’t, Mr. Shannon,” she cried, in a shocked voice. “How can you joke about such things? I’m loving every minute of it. Hush! The curtain’s going up.”

  The second act began with green lights and soft, sad music. And more and more, the sensitive features of my companion reflected the emotions awakened in her breast. At the intermission, deeply affected, she barely spoke at all. But, as the last act got under way and she became once more a rapt being, a strange phenomenon occurred, how I could not guess, yet in some manner her hand, small and rather damp, became entangled with my own. So stimulating was the warm current of her blood I did not break the contact. And thus we sat, with fingers interlocked, linked together as though to sustain each other while the drama of Carton’s self-sacrifice worked to its heart-rending end. As the noble fellow made the supreme sacrifice, mounting to the guillotine firmly, with pallid countenance and carefully ruffled raven locks, his speaking eye soulfully sweeping the gallery and pit, I felt a convulsive tremor pass through my companion’s body, which was very close to mine; then, one by one, like pattering raindrops in springtime, her warm, tender tears fell upon the back of my hand.

  At last, the end, with a clamorous house and many, many curtain calls for Miss de Silva and Martin Harvey—now looking, in fact, happy and handsome in his silk shirt and varnished top-boots, marvellously resurrected from the tomb. Miss Jean Law, however, was too overcome to join in such banal applause. Silently, as though crushed by feelings too deep for words, she rose and accompanied me from the theatre. Only when we reached the street did she turn to me.

  “Oh, Robert, Robert,” she whispered, with brimming eyes. “You can’t believe how much I’ve enjoyed myself.”

  It was the first time she had used my Christian name.

  We walked to Central Station in silence and, since her train, the last of the day, did not leave for fifteen minutes, we stood somewhat self-consciously together under the bookstall clock.

  Suddenly, as though awakening from a dream, Miss Jean gave a little start of recollection.

  “My watch!” she exclaimed. “I was almost forgetting it.”

  “Oh, of course.” I smiled. “ I had quite forgotten too.” And I felt in my jacket-pocket for the trinket she had entrusted to me.

  But I could not find it. I searched unsuccessfully through all the pockets of my jacket, inside and out. Then, with growing consternation I began to fumble in my waistcoat pockets.

  “Good heavens,” I muttered. “I don’t seem to have it.”

  “But you must have it.” Her voice sounded stiff and queer. “I gave it to you.”

  “I know you did. But I’m such an absent-minded beggar. I mislay everything.”

  I was now searching, vainly, and somewhat desperately, in my trousers when, chancing to glance up, I caught sight of the look upon Miss Jean’s face, the look of a pure young woman, who finds, after all, that she is indeed dealing with a blackguard and has been deceived, duped, and deluded by him, such a look of pain, doubt and consternation I stopped my futile fumblings in dismay.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It isn’t my watch.” Her lips had turned deathly white, her voice was smaller than ever. “It’s my mother’s watch, given her by my father. I borrowed it, out of vanity, to impress you. Oh dear, oh dear.” The inexhaustible fountains of her eyes overflowed again. “After this lovely evening … when I was trusting you and … liking you …”

  “Good Lord,” I shouted. “Do you think I’ve stolen the blasted thing?”

  By way of answer she broke down completely. Then, as she opened her handbag to find her sodden handkerchief, a sudden gleam of gold illumined the dimness of the station arches. Even as she started, I remembered that, while she sat entranced—fearing, indeed, that I might lose the thing—I had slipped it for safety in her bag.

  “Oh!” she gasped, petrified. “Oh, dear, goodness …” She stared at me in horrified contrition and stammered: “How can I … ever apologize … for doubting you?”

  Stony silence on my part.

  From behind us came the shrill blast of a guard’s whistle, followed by the warning shriek of an engine.

  “Robert!” she cried wildly. “What can I say … oh, my dear, what can I do?”

  I gazed upon her coldly. Again the engine shrieked.

  “Unless you wish to spend the night on the Winton pavements, I advise you to catch your train.”

  Frantically, she gazed from me to the platform where, with slow, reverberating chuffs, her train was beginning to move. For an instant she hesitated, then, with a little moan, she turned and ran.

  When I saw that she was safely aboard I turned, collected my hamper, and, a few minutes later, took the last train for Dalnair, not altogether displeased with myself. That I was a bit of a fraud, I fully realized; but somehow, like Sydney Carton, I had acquired a halo, at least for the
time being and I rather liked the cosy feel of it.

  Chapter Five

  I got back to the hospital shortly before midnight and, to my surprise, observed that a light was still showing in Miss Trudgeon’s window. As the slate in the hall indicated that there were no new admissions, I locked up, meaning to turn in at once. But I had no sooner entered my own quarters than I heard, from the corridor, those ingratiating tones which belonged only to Sister Peek.

  “Doctor … Dr. Shannon.”

  I opened my door.

  “Doctor.” She gave me her meek, downcast smile “The matron wishes to see you.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, at once, Doctor, in her office.”

  This peremptory summons, delivered secondhand, at such an hour, struck me as an impertinence. For an instant, anxious to preserve the peace, I thought of complying. Then I felt it was too much to swallow.

  “Give the matron my compliments. If she wants to speak to me, she knows where to find me.”

  Sister Peek turned up the whites of her eyes in dismay, yet from the manner in which she scurried off, I could see that she was not sorry to act as the virtuous intermediary in promoting the difference between the matron and myself. She must, indeed, have delivered my message with considerable empressement for, a minute later, Miss Trudgeon bore in upon me, wearing her dark uniform but without her cap, cuffs, and collar. Shorn of these embellishments of white linen, her face looked yellower than ever.

  “Dr. Shannon. On my monthly inspection to-day I went into the test-room. I found it in the most atrocious disorder, littered with all sorts of rubbish—untidy, messed up and muddled.”

  “Well, what about it?”

  “Is it your doing?”