The Judas Tree

by A. J. Cronin

  Moray had to laugh. What a decent sort O’Neil was. There wasn’t a bit of harm in his remark, he didn’t really mean it – like his profane limericks, it was just fun. Why couldn’t the Kindersleys see it that way?

  On the following day, when it was even cooler, Doris appeared on deck. He came on her reclining in a sheltered spot, her hair bound with a silk scarf, a light cashmere rug over her knees, looking dull and with dark lines beneath her eyes. She did not move, merely flickered her lashes towards him.

  ‘Hello, stranger, where have you been hiding?’ He took the chair beside her. ‘Feeling better?’

  Injured by his brightness, she did not reply.

  ‘Quite a few people have been laid out by the heat,’ he continued. ‘But now it’s really lovely.’

  They were in the Indian Ocean where the soft monsoon made songs in the rigging and a school of young whales, disporting gaily, blew temperate fountains about the ship.

  ‘You’ve seen our escort,’ he went on. ‘ I thought whales were only found in the Arctic, but O’Neil tells me they’re a regular feature of this run.’

  She took no notice of the remark, making it sound fatuous. Head pillowed sideways on the chair, she watched him with flat eyes as if she were drugged.

  ‘You’re a nice one,’ she said.

  ‘Why, Doris, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Don’t pretend, after what you did. It was an insult. I haven’t forgiven you yet. Who have you been dancing with while I was away?’

  ‘No one. I’ve been waiting on my own special teacher.’

  Her expression lightened faintly. She gave him a languid smile.

  ‘Why didn’t you come to see me? Oh, well, there wasn’t any need. And I can’t bear anyone when I have these turns. I don’t get them often, mind you, not more than once in six months.’

  He looked at her curiously; it wasn’t what he had imagined.

  She went on:

  ‘But they’re not exactly fun. Even when the headache goes, they leave me so blasted low.’

  ‘That’s not you, Dorrie.’

  ‘Don’t give me that, like Mother. When I’m this way I keep thinking what’s the good of anything, why go on, what’s the use. I feel I’m a terrible person, different from other girls, all so full of sweet ideas. You know what I mean. Clapcows!’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Where did I get that word?’

  ‘Well, it’s good to be a little different from the ordinary.’

  ‘Glad you think so. I used to try to work it all out, that time I was off school for a bit, wanting to be respected, to have everything just right. But I couldn’t do anything about it So now I just do as I feel, you know – what I feel like doing. I can’t fight it. Don’t you agree? You kill everything that’s in you if you don’t give way to your feelings.’

  ‘Well …’ He stared at her perplexedly. Why was she going on like this? He didn’t follow her at all.

  ‘You know the motto, be yourself. It’s a challenge. I’m glad I’m feminine, made for love, so I just want to be myself. Did you miss me? But you wouldn’t, you beastly rotter, you make friends so easily and get on with everybody. I’ve never made any real friends, I just don’t seem to get on with people, except you.’ She paused, said in a low voice: ‘ Can’t you see I’ve a frightful crush on you?’

  He was touched by the admission. Her apathetic voice and unusual depression went to his heart. And of course he was flattered, too.

  ‘Come now, Dorrie, you mustn’t give way.’ He reached out and pressed her hand. ‘If you want to know, I did miss you.’

  Inclining her head a little more to one side, she looked at him intently; then, retaining his hand as he made to withdraw, she tucked it beneath the cashmere rug.

  ‘That’s cosy. I missed you so much.’

  Moray was fearfully embarrassed, not only by the unexpectedness of her action but because, undoubtedly without her knowing it, she had pressed his fingers against the warm softness, of her thigh.

  ‘Now, Doris,’ he tried to speak lightly. ‘ you can’t do that there here – not to the ship’s surgeon.’

  ‘But I need a little petting. Mind you, I don’t let anybody into my life. Oh, I’ve been around with boys, some of them high, wide, and handsome, but you’re different. I’ve such an unselfish feeling towards you.’

  ‘Please … someone is sure to come along.’

  ‘You can say you’re feeling my pulse.’ She gave him a malicious caressing look. ‘Or else I’ll tell them it’s what the doctor ordered. Oh, you’re doing me so much good. I feel less of a washout already.’

  At last with a laugh she released him, but not before a wave of heat brought the blood to his cheeks, Quickly he countered it, forcing a reproving smile.

  ‘You mustn’t try these sort of tricks, my girl, or you’ll come to a sticky end. In the first place you’re too damned attractive, and in the second you might pick the wrong man.’

  ‘But I’ve picked you.’

  ‘Now, listen, and be serious.’ He turned the conversation determinedly. ‘There’s something I’ve been thinking. It’s this. As you’re not quite up to the mark, I feel we ought to scratch from the tournaments.’

  ‘What!’ she exclaimed, losing her air of indolence. ‘Pack up. After we’ve gone all the way to the finals and are practically sure to win?’

  ‘If we do, and scoop in all the prizes, we’re sure to be blamed for pot-hunting.’

  ‘I don’t care about the prizes – that plated tea-service and cheap Woolworth china I frankly wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. But if I start something I have to finish it, convince people I amount to something – especially that prissy Kindersley bitch. I got my self-respect to think of. I want to show that we’re the best in the ship.’

  ‘Well, we may be, but why rub it in?’

  ‘Because I want to rub it in. And when I want a thing I usually get it. I may be a bit down now but I pick up quick. I’ll be on top of my form in no time.’

  ‘All right then,’ reluctantly he pacified her. ‘Have it your way. But we must play Saturday at the latest. It’s the captain’s dinner that night and the presentation comes before the concert.’ He rose. ‘Now I must get on with my round. See you anon.’

  Saturday came, they did play – in the afternoon – and, as Moray had anticipated, won all three events. Mrs Kindersley and her husband fought hard in the deck-tennis match, but as Doris, quite herself again, played a fast aggressive game they were scarcely good enough. The climax came in the final set when Kindersley, reaching too far, missed his footing, skidded, then upended himself on the deck with a fearful thud.

  ‘Oh, do be careful.’ Doris leaned over the net with mock solicitude. ‘You’re rocking the boat.’

  Not many spectators attended the event and a hollow silence greeted the remark. Indeed, when the match ended the applause that greeted the victors was less unenthusiastic than perfunctory. Moray was annoyed although Doris, who was again in high spirits, did not appear to notice any lack of warmth. Nor did her parents who, inevitably, were present. When Moray came off the court Holbrook took his arm and drew him into the smoke-room.

  ‘I thought you and me ought to have a chat, doctor,’ he remarked, with an approving smile, when they had found two armchairs in a quiet corner. ‘And the better the opportunity the better the deed. Will you have a spot of something? No? You’ll not refuse a lime-juice then. And I’ll just take a chota peg of Scotch and soda.’

  When the drinks were brought he raised his glass.

  ‘Good health! You know, lad, you remind me of my own young days. I was ambitious too – a chemist’s assistant in Bootie, making up prescriptions for ignorant G.P.s who didn’t know an acid from an alkali. Many’s the time I had to ring up and say: “Doctor, you’ve prescribed soda bicarb, and hydrochloric acid in the same stomach mixture. If I make it up it’ll blow the bottle to bits.” Maybe ’twas that sort of thing first gave me the idea that there was money in Pharmaceuticals that actually worked. When I’d sav
ed a bit and married the wife and opened my own bit of a shop in Parkin Street, I started off with a few of my own prescriptions: Holbrook’s Headache Powders, Holbrook’s Senna Paste, Holbrook’s Anti-Sprain Liniment. I remember that liniment, it cost me three farthings a bottle, and I sold it for one-and-six. Damn good stuff too, all the Rugby League teams used it, it’s still one of our lines today. Well, that was the beginning, lad.’

  He took a slow swallow of his drink, then resumed, explaining the growth and expansion of his business, not boastfully, but with the quiet North Country assurance of a man who has built up an immensely successful enterprise and amassed a fortune from it. Holbrook’s were now one of the biggest manufacturers of chemists’ supplies in the United Kingdom, but the bulk of their profits came from the marketing of a large number of highly profitable proprietary medicines ranging from cough cures to anti-bilious pills.

  ‘And don’t you despise them, doctor, they’re all first-rate prescriptions, I can show you testimonials by the thousands. I’ve kept a personal file of grateful letters that would warm your heart.’ Holbrook nodded confidingly and warmed his own cockles with another swallow. ‘So as we stand now we have the main factory in Bootle, a secondary unit in Cardiff, and big distributing warehouses in London, Liverpool, Glasgow and Belfast. We do a tremendous export trade with the East, and that’s why my son Bert is out opening up new offices and larger stockrooms in Calcutta. But that’s not all, lad,’ Holbrook continued, knowingly prodding Moray with a forefinger. ‘ We have plans, big plans, for extending to America. Once Bert gets through with Calcutta I’m sending him to New York. He’s already spied out a good factory site there. Mind you, it’ll be a different kind of trade in the States. Times are changing and we’ll go in for high class stuff, vitamins and such-like. We might even have a go at some of the new barbiturates. But believe me, whatever we do we’ll make a slap-up success of it.’

  He sat back, pulled out a cigar and lit up, wheezed a little, then, his twinkling eyes still holding Moray, be smiled.

  ‘These are my prospects, young fellow me lad. Now what about yours?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ Moray had coloured slightly at the directness of the question, ‘when I get back from this trip I have a hospital job waiting on me. A good one too, with opportunity for research work and … a salary of five hundred a year.’

  ‘Ay, that’s a job, lad, right enough and, saving your presence, a pretty ordinary one. I asked about your prospects.’

  ‘Naturally, I’m hoping for advancement …’.

  ‘What kind of advancement? A move to a bigger hospital? I’m pretty familiar with that line of country; It’ll take years. Once you’re in the hospital service you’re bogged down in it for life. And for a smart young fellow like you, with brains and personality, that would be a crime.’

  ‘I don’t regard it as such,’ Moray said stiffly.

  ‘Well, I do. And I wouldn’t tell you so if the missus and I didn’t think the world of ye. Now look here,’ he tipped the ash off his cigar end, ‘I’m not a man to beat about the bush. We could use a young medico like you in our business, especially in the American plant. You could advise us on technique, work out new prescriptions, lay out our advertising and, since ye speak of research, get busy in our new laboratory. There would be plenty of opportunity for you. And from our point of view it would help us to have a professional man on the board. As to salary,’ he paused, riveting Moray with a friendly, bloodshot eye, ‘ I would start you at fifteen hundred quid a year, with a possible bonus, and annual increases. Furthermore, I’ll go so far as to say that, in time, if things went well between us, there might even be a partnership in store for ye.’

  Thoroughly taken aback, stunned, in fact, Moray averted his gaze. The nature of this startling offer, while it had a sound basis of commercial logic, was in reality as transparent as the porthole through which he now viewed with embarrassment the slowly heaving sky. And Holbrook meant it to be transparent. How to refuse gracefully, without hurting the old boy’s feelings without indeed alienating the entire family, that was the problem. At last he said:

  ‘It’s extremely generous of you, Mr Holbrook, and I feel deeply honoured by your good opinion of me. But I’ve accepted the hospital appointment, given my word. I couldn’t break it.’

  ‘They’ll get somebody else,’ Holbrook countered easily. ‘Ay, without the slightest trouble. There’ll be a regular hard-up rush.’

  Moray was silent. He knew that he had only to mention his approaching marriage to kill the offer dead. But for some obscure reason, perhaps an over-sensitivity, an exaggerated delicacy of feeling, he hesitated. He stood so well with this worthy family, that he did not relish the thought of shattering – as he undoubtedly would – a very pleasant and satisfactory relationship. Besides, the question of his engagement had never once come up during the voyage. It was not his fault if he had been mistaken for an unattached young man; he had simply not had the opportunity to introduce the subject. How painfully odd it would seem if he were forced to do so now. He’d look an absolute idiot, or worse, as though he had almost been ashamed to speak of Mary, No, with the end of the trip almost in sight, he could not place himself in so invidious a position. It wasn’t worth it. In a few more days the Holbrooks would be gone, he would never see them again. And on the voyage home he would take good care to declare his position early so that this kind of contretemps could not possibly recur. In the meantime his best course would be to temporise.

  ‘I needn’t say how much I appreciate your interest in me, sir. But naturally, with such an important decision to be made, I’d have to think it over.’

  ‘Do that, lad,’ said Holbrook with an encouraging nod. ‘The more ye think on it the better you’ll like it. And don’t forget my bit of advice. When a good thing comes your way, take it.’

  Moray went below to his cabin, and shut himself in. He wanted to be alone – not to consider this extraordinary offer, for he had not the slightest intention of accepting it, but, simply for his own satisfaction, to reason in detail how the thing had come about. In the first place, there was no doubt but that Dorrie’s parents had taken to him from the start. Mrs Holbrook especially had shown great partiality and had lately become almost maternal in her attitude. Old Holbrook was a tougher article, but he too had been won over, either through his wife’s persuasion, or through an actual liking for Moray. In the second place, so far as could be gathered, there would be a definite advantage to Holbrook and his son Bert in the acquisition of an active and clever young doctor for this new American venture. So far so good, thought Moray; but the answer was not yet conclusive. A third decisive motive must have operated to bring the two other factors together.

  Moray shook his head unconsciously, in self-disparagement, in immediate renunciation of all conceit, yet there was no escaping the fact that Doris herself must have had an important part in the development of this wholly unexpected situation. Even if he had not the evidence of Mrs Kindersley’s recent remarks, there was proof enough in Dorrie’s own behaviour. She was not the love-sick type, she would not sigh and moon around, but that look in her eye had a specific meaning that only a fool would misconstrue. Add to this the influence which, as a spoiled only daughter, she exercised over parents who were accustomed to yielding to her wishes, and in this instance willing to see her settled in a suitable marriage, and the answer was complete.

  During these reflections Moray had been frowning. Now, looking at himself in the glass, he gave a short, troubled laugh. Doris had really gone in off the deep end – head over heels. No, no, it wasn’t funny, not a bit of it. On the contrary – adjusting his expression – he felt put out and embarrassed, although no doubt it was flattering to be sought after and to have a rich, attractive girl so ‘ completely gone on him’ – Mrs Kindersley’s absurd phrase came to him again, making him smile – particularly when those moments on the upper deck, and others, came to mind, as they did now, with a sudden disturbing rush.

  He checked himsel
f, looked at his watch – that fine Patek Philippe – which showed five minutes to six. Good Lord! He’d forgotten about his surgery hour. He’d have to rush. Life was really exciting these days.

  But before he left the cabin he went to his bedside chest and took out the locket Mary had given him. Gazing at her dear sweet face in the little snapshot, a rush of tenderness overwhelmed him. He murmured emotionally:

  ‘As if I’d give you up, my own darling girl.’

  Yes, her image would protect him. In future he would be calm and composed, pleasant and agreeable of course, but inflexible to any of that nonsense. Only ten days remained before they would be in Calcutta. He swore by all he held dear that be would maintain this attitude of discretion until the danger was past, and the voyage over.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The ten days had passed, they were now in the delta of the Hoogly, and Moray, alone in his surgery, viewing that period in retrospect, found every reason to be satisfied with himself. Yes, he had kept his word. At the captain’s dinner, a hilarious affair of paper streamers, toy trumpets, and false noses, he had been a model of discretion. Indeed, he had done better. Resolved not to allow Doris to make an exhibition of herself, and him, before the entire ship, when O’Neil read out the sports prize winners he stood up, diffidently yet calmly, and with an unexpectedness that took everyone by surprise.

  ‘Captain Torrance, Mr O’Neil, ladies and gentlemen, with your kind permission may I say that Miss Holbrook and I fully understood from the start that as one of the ship’s officers I was not really eligible to compete in these events. We only went in for the fun of the thing and although we were lucky enough to win, we’ve both completely agreed we couldn’t possibly accept the prizes, which should go in all the events to the runners-up.’