by A. J. Cronin
Physical combat was offered by others as loyal as Mary.
Though Andrew’s district was solidly behind him, round the East Surgery there was a block of contrary opinion. Fights broke out in the pubs between Andrew’s supporters and his enemies. Frank Davis came to the surgery on Thursday night, himself slightly battered, to inform Andrew that he had ‘knocked the block off two of Oxborrow’s patients for saying as ’ow our man was a bloody butcher!’
Thereafter Doctor Oxborrow passed Andrew with a bouncing tread and eyes fixed a long way off. He was known to be working openly with the Reverend Parry against his undesirable colleague. Urquhart came back from the Masonic Club with the meaty Christian’s comments, of which perhaps the choicest was: ‘ Why should any doctor have to murder God’s living creatures?’
Urquhart had few remarks to make himself. But once, squinting across at Andrew’s constrained, tense face, he declared:
‘Dammit to hell! When I was your age I’d have enjoyed a scrap like this, too. But now – oh, dammit! I suppose I’m getting old.’
Andrew could not help thinking that Urquhart misjudged him. He was far from enjoying the ‘scrap’. He felt tired, irritable, worried. He asked himself fretfully if he was to spend all his life running his head into stone walls. Yet, although his vitality was low, he had a desperate desire to justify himself, to be openly vindicated before the squabbling town.
The week passed at last, and on Sunday afternoon the Committee assembled for what was specified in the agenda as the disciplinary examination of Doctor Manson. There was not a vacant place in the Committee-room and outside in the Square groups of people were hanging about as Andrew entered the offices and walked up the narrow stairs. He felt his heart bumping rapidly. He had told himself he must be calm and steeled. Instead, as he took his seat on that same chair which as a candidate he had occupied five years before, he was stiff, dry lipped, nervous.
The proceedings began – not with prayer, as might have been expected from the sanctimony with which the opposition had conducted their campaign – but with a fiery speech from Ed Chenkin.
‘I’m going to put the full facts of this case,’ said Chenkin, jumping up, ‘ before my fellow members of this Committee.’ He proceeded, in a loud illiterate speech to enumerate the complaints. Doctor Manson had no right to do this work. It was work done in the Committee’s time, work done when he was being paid for doing the Committee’s work, and work done on the Committee’s property. Also it was vivisection, or near neighbour to it. And it was all done without the necessary permit, a very serious offence in the eye of the law!
Here Owen intervened swiftly.
‘As regards that last point, I must advise the Committee that if they report Doctor Manson’s failure to secure this permit any subsequent action taken would involve the Medical Aid Society as a whole.’
‘What the ’ ell d’you mean?’ Chenkin asked.
‘As he is our assistant,’ Owen held. ‘We are legally responsible for Doctor Manson!’
There was a murmur of assent at this and cries of, ‘Owen’s right! We don’t want any trouble on the Society. Keep it amongst ourselves.’
‘Never mind the bloody permit, then,’ bawled Chenkin, still upon his feet. ‘ There’s enough in the other charges to hang anybody.’
‘Hear! Hear!’ called out someone at the back. ‘What about all them times he sneaked off to Cardiff on his motor bike – that summer three years back?’
‘He don’t give medicine,’ came the voice of Len Richards. ‘You can wait an hour outside his surgery and not get your bottle filled.’
‘Order! Order!’ Chenkin shouted. When he had stilled them he proceeded to his final peroration. ‘All these complaints are bad enough! They show that Doctor Manson’as never been a satisfactory servant to the Medical Aid. Besides which I might add that he don’t give proper certificates to the men. But we got to keep our minds on the main item. Here we have an assistant that the whole town’s up against for what ought by rights to be a police case, a man who has turned our property into a slaughter-’ouse – I swear by the Almighty, fellow members, I saw the blood on the floor with my own eyes – a man who’s nothing but an experimenter and a crank. I ask you, fellow members, if you’re goin’ to stand it. No! say I. No! say you. Fellow members, I know you are with me one and all, when I say that here and now we demand Doctor Manson’s resignation.’ Chenkin glanced round at his friends and sat down amidst loud applause.
‘Perhaps you’ll allow Doctor Manson to state his case,’ Owen said palely, and turned to Andrew.
There was a silence. Andrew sat still for a moment. The situation was worse, even, than he had imagined. Put not your trust in committees, he thought bitterly. Were these the same men who had smiled at him approvingly when they gave him the appointment? His heart burned. He would not, simply would not resign. He got to his feet. He was no speaker and he knew that he was no speaker. But he was angry now, his nervousness lost in a swelling indignation at the ignorance, the intolerant stupidity of Chenkin’s accusation, and the acclamation with which the others had received it. He began:
‘No one seems to have said anything about the animals Ed Chenkin drowned. That was cruelty if you like – useless cruelty. What I’ve been doing wasn’t that! Why do you men take white mice and canaries down the mine? To test for black damp – you all know that. And when these mice get finished by a whiff of gas – do you call that cruelty? No, you don’t. You realise that these animals have been used to save men’s lives, perhaps your own lives.
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to do for you! I’ve been working on these lung diseases that you get from the dust of the mine headings. You all know that you get chest trouble and that when you do get it you don’t get compensation. For these last three years I’ve spent nearly every minute of my spare time on this inhalation problem. I’ve found out something which might improve your working conditions, give you a fairer deal, keep you in health better than that stinking bottle of medicine Len Richards was talking about would have done! What if I did use a dozen guinea-pigs? Don’t you think it was worth it?
‘You don’t believe me, perhaps. You’re prejudiced enough to think I would lie to you. Maybe you still think I’ve been wasting my time, your time as you call it, in a lot of cranky experiments.’ He was so worked up he forgot his stern resolution not to be dramatic. Diving into his breast pocket he produced the letter he had received earlier in the week. ‘But this’ll show you what other people think of it, people who are qualified to judge.’
He walked across to Owen and handed him the letter. It was an intimation from the Clerk of the Senate at St Andrews that, for his thesis on Dust Inhalation, he had been awarded his MD.
Owen read the crested, blue-typed letter with a sudden brightening of his face. Thereafter it was passed slowly from hand to hand.
It annoyed Andrew to observe the effect created by the Senate’s communication. Although he was so desperately anxious to prove his case he almost regretted his impulse in producing it. If they could not take his word without some sort of official bolstering they must be heavily prejudiced against him. Letter or no letter, he felt moodily that they were bent on making an example of him.
He was relieved when, after a few further remarks, Owen said:
‘Perhaps you’ll leave us now, doctor, please.’
Waiting outside, while they voted on his case, he kicked his heels, simmering with exasperation. It was a wonderful ideal, this group of working men controlling the medical services of the community for the benefit of their fellow workers. But it was only an ideal. They were too biased, too unintelligent ever to administer such a scheme progressively. It was perpetual labour for Owen to drag them along the road with him. And he had the conviction, that on this occasion, even Owen’s goodwill would not save him.
But the secretary, when Andrew went in again, was smiling, briskly rubbing his hands. Others on the Committee were regarding him more favourably, at least without hostilit
y. And Owen immediately stood up and said:
‘I’m glad to tell you, Doctor Manson – I may even say that personally I’m delighted to tell you – that the Committee have decided by a majority to ask you to remain.’
He had won, he had carried them after all. But the knowledge, after one swift throb of satisfaction, gave him no elation. There was a pause. They obviously expected him to express his relief, his gratitude. But he could not. He felt tired of the whole distorted business, of the Committee, Aberalaw, medicine, silica dust, guinea-pigs and himself.
At last he said:
‘Thank you, Mr Owen. I’m glad, after all I’ve tried to do here, that the Committee don’t wish me to go. But, I’m sorry, I can’t wait on in Aberalaw any longer. I give the Committee a month’s notice from today.’ He spoke without feeling, then he spun round and walked out of the room.
There was a dead silence. Ed Chenkin was the quickest to recover himself. ‘Good riddance,’ he called halfheartedly after Manson.
Then Owen startled them all with the first burst of anger he had ever shown in that Committee room.
‘Shut your senseless mouth, Ed Chenkin.’ He flung down his ruler with intimidating violence. ‘We have lost the best man we ever had.’
Chapter Sixteen
Andrew woke up in the middle of that night groaning:
‘Am I a fool, Chris? Chucking away our living – a sound job? after all, I was getting a few private patients lately. And Llewellyn has been pretty decent. Did I tell you? – he half promised to let me consult at the hospital. And the Committee – they aren’t a bad lot when you cut out the Chenkin crowd. I believe in time when Llewellyn retired they might have made me head doctor in his place.’
She comforted him, quiet, reasonable, lying beside him in the darkness.
‘You don’t really want us to stay in a Welsh mining practice all our lives, my dear. We’ve been happy here, but it’s time for us to move on.’
‘But listen, Chris,’ he worried, ‘we haven’t enough to buy a practice yet. We ought to have collected some more money before we hoofed it.’
She answered sleepily. ‘What has money got to do with it? Besides, we’re going to spend all we’ve got – almost – on a real holiday. Do you realise you’ve hardly been away from these old mines for nearly four years.’
Her spirit infected him. Next morning the world seemed a gay and careless place. At breakfast, which he ate with new relish, he declared:
‘You’re not a bad old girl, Chris. Instead of getting up on the platform and telling me you expect Big Things of me, now that it’s time for me to go out and make my mark in the world, you just –’
She was not listening to him. Irrelevantly she protested.
‘Really, dear, I wish you wouldn’t bunch the paper so! I thought it was only women did that. How do you expect me to read my gardening column?’
‘Don’t read it.’ On his way to the door he kissed her, smiling. ‘Think about me.’
He felt adventurous, prepared to take his chance with life. Besides, the cautious side of him could not avoid glancing at the assets side of his balance sheet. He had his MRCP, an honours MD and over £300 in the bank. With all this behind them surely they would not starve.
It was well that their intention stood firm. A revulsion of sentiment had swept upon the town. Now that he was going of his own free will everybody wished him to remain.
The climax came a week after the meeting when Owen unsuccessfully headed a deputation to Vale View to ask Andrew to reconsider his decision. Thereafter the feeling against Ed Chenkin swelled to the verge of violence. He was booed in the Rows. Twice he was played home from the mine by the penny-whistle band, an ignominy usually reserved by the workmen for a blackleg.
In the face of all these local reverberations it was strange how lightly his thesis appeared to have shaken the outer world. It had gained him his MD. It had been printed in the Journal of Industrial Health, in England and published as a brochure in the United States by the Association of American Hygiene. But beyond that it earned him exactly three letters.
The first was from a firm in Brick Lane, EC, informing him that samples were being forwarded to him of their Pulmo-Syrup, the infallible lung specific for which they had hundreds of testimonials including several from prominent physicians. They hoped he would recommend Pulmo-Syrup amongst the miners in his practice. Pulmo-Syrup, they added, also cured rheumatism.
The second was from Professor Challis, an enthusiastic letter of congratulation and appreciation which ended by asking if Andrew could not call at the Institute in Cardiff some time that week. In a PS, Challis added: Try and come Thursday. But Andrew, in the hurry of these last few days, was unable to keep that appointment. Indeed he mislaid the letter and for the time being forgot to answer it.
The third letter he did immediately answer, he was so genuinely thrilled to receive it. It was an unusual, stimulating communication which had crossed the Atlantic from Oregon. Andrew read and re-read the typewritten sheets then took them in excitement to Christine.
‘This is rather decent, Chris! – this American letter – it’s from a fellow called Stillman, Robert Stillman of Oregon – you’ve probably never heard of him, but I have – it’s full of the most exact appreciation of my Inhalation stuff. More, much more than Challis – damn it, I should have answered his letter! This chap has absolutely understood what I was after, in fact he quietly puts me right on one or two points. Apparently the active destructive ingredient in my silica is serecite. I hadn’t enough chemistry to get to that. But it’s a marvellous letter, congratulatory – and from Stillman!’
‘Yes?’ She peeped inquiring. ‘Is he some doctor out there?’
‘No, that’s the amazing thing. He’s a physicist really. But he runs a clinic for disorders of the lungs, near Portland, Oregon – look, it’s on the notepaper. Some of them don’t recognise him yet, but he’s as big a man as Spahlinger in his own way. I’ll tell you about him when we’ve time.’
It showed how much he thought of Stillman’s letter for him to sit down and answer it on the spot.
They were now overwhelmed by preparations for their holiday, arrangements for storing their furniture in Cardiff – the most convenient centre – and by the doleful processes of leave-taking. Their departure from Drineffy had been abrupt, a heroic cleavage. But here they suffered much lingering sentiment. They were entertained by the Vaughans, the Bolands, even by the Llewellyns. Andrew developed ‘farewell-dyspepsia’, symptomatic of these parting banquets. When the actual day arrived Jenny, in tears, told them – to their consternation – that they were to be given a ‘platform send-off’.
At the last moment, on top of this unsettling information, Vaughan came hastening round.
‘Sorry to harass you people again. But look here, Manson, what have you been doing to Challis? I’ve just had a letter from the old boy. Your paper has sent him quite ga-ga – and incidentally – at least so I understand – the Metalliferous Board as well. Anyway he’s asked me to get in touch with you. He wants you to see him in London without fail, says it’s extremely important.’
Andrew answered a trifle peevishly.
‘We’re going on holiday, man. The first real holiday we’ve had for years. How can I see him?’
‘Let’s have your address then. He’ll obviously want to write to you.’
Andrew glanced uncertainly at Christine. They had meant to keep their destination a secret, so that they should be free from all worries, correspondence, interference. But he gave Vaughan the information.
Then they were hurrying to the station, engulfed by the crowd from the district who waited there, shaken by the hand, shouted at, patted on the back, embraced, and finally hustled into their compartment of the moving train. As they steamed off, their friends massed on the platform began lustily to sing ‘Men of Harlech’.
‘My God!’ Andrew said, trying out his numb fingers. ‘That was the last straw.’ But his eyes were glistening, and a mi
nute later he added, ‘I wouldn’t have had us miss it for anything, Chris. Aren’t people decent. And to think that a month ago half the town was after my blood! You can’t get away from the fact – life’s damn funny.’ He gazed at her humorously as she sat beside him. ‘And this, Mrs Manson, though you are now an old woman, is your second honeymoon!’
They reached Southampton that evening, took their berths in the cross-channel steamer. Next morning they saw the sun rise behind St Malo and an hour later Brittany received them.
The wheat was ripening, the cherry-trees were heavy with fruit, goats strayed on the flowering pastures. It had been Christine’s idea to come here, to get close to the real France – not its picture galleries or palaces, not historic ruins or monuments, nothing which the tourist’s guidebook insisted that they should see.
They reached Val André. Their little hotel was within sound of the sea, within scent of the meadows. Their bedroom had plain scrubbed boards, and their morning coffee came to them steaming in thick blue bowls. They lazed the whole day long.
‘Oh, Lord!’ Andrew kept repeating. ‘Isn’t this wonderful, darling. I never, never, never want to look a lobar pneumonia in the face again.’ They drank cider, ate langoustines, shrimps, pastries and whiteheart cherries. In the evenings Andrew played billiards with the proprietor on the antique octagonal table. Sometimes he only lost by fifty in the hundred.
It was lovely, wonderful, exquisite – the adjectives were Andrew’s– all but the cigarettes, he would add. A whole blissful month slipped past. And then, more frequently, and with unceasing restlessness, Andrew began to finger the unopened letter, now stained by cherry juice and chocolate, which had remained in his jacket for the past fortnight.
‘Go on,’ Christine urged, at last, one morning. ‘We’ve kept our word! Open it.’
He slit up the envelope studiously, read the letter lying upon his back in the sunlight, sat up slowly, then read it again. In silence he passed it over to Christine.
