And then, suddenly appearing from nowhere (like the chimpanzee), John was on the scene. He appeared in the full magnitude of a hero, skimming lightly over the black face of the desert, though in his ordinary clothes and with no weapon.
“Oh, John!—dear John!—save me!”
With this cry actually on her lips, Bertha woke.
“Eh, what? What’s matter?” said Robert drowsily. As luck would have it, he had been sleeping extremely well.
“It’s—it’s nothing, Bobby. Only a nightmare. I’m so sorry if I disturbed you.”
But Robert only mumbled in somnolence, rolled himself round on the squeaking mattress and fell asleep again.
Chapter VIII
1
Bertha was not the only one to be troubled by the unaccountable resistance of Robert. Doctor Wilson Bagge had been for some time on the look-out for symptoms. He had called once or twice in a friendly and hopeful way, and was not a little disconcerted by the appearance of his patient. Of course he behaved in the most irreproachable manner.
Robert looked up with his peculiar, twisted, excruciating smile. “Your medicine appears to suit me very well. I notice a marked improvement.” He had never made such an admission before.
Doctor Bagge stared at him with a prim fixity. He was at a loss.
“No trace of the colic, eh?”
“No pains at all, doctor. I don’t eat a great deal, you know. I never did. But—all things considered—I feel remarkably well.”
“Well; keep it up, keep it up,” said the doctor rather testily. “Take larger doses if you like. Take the extra dose at bedtime. Splendid, eh? Positively splendid result!”
In spite of himself, he could not help speaking in a snappy, irritated, precise way. After all the trouble he had taken, he was not merely disappointed, he was bewildered. He could hardly believe that Robert was taking his medicine. He would have to find out.
Another week passed. The doctor called again. Robert Arthur had gone to a meeting of his Rule Britannia League, as fit as a fiddle. Bertha, however, was in the drawing-room. She was looking ill.
“Ah-h!” cried the little man, twinkling with dapper vivacity. “Good afternoon, my dear Mrs. Kewdingham. How delightful to see you.” He made the primmest of little bows. “The new rugs have arrived only this morning from Heal’s, and I do hope you will come and give me your opinion of them. I depend entirely upon your impeccable judgment.”
“I should love to.” But there was no eagerness in her voice. “Do sit down. I wanted to ask you—about Bobby. I am feeling rather anxious.”
“Why—he’s very well, isn’t he?”
“Unnaturally well.”
“Unnaturally well! My dear lady!—whatever do you mean?”
“He can’t really be well.”
“And why not?” He was in a twitter of curiosity.
“It’s not so easy to explain. For one thing—hasn’t he got a very weak heart?”
“Yes: but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t last for years.”
“And kidney trouble?”
“Chronic nephritis. Yes.”
“Then, you see, he gets those awful gastric attacks from time to time. So you can hardly expect him to be very well, can you?”
“Still, he’s much better?”
“He appears to be better.”
“To be frank with you, Mrs. Kewdingham, I will admit that I certainly am surprised to find him as well as he is. I had not anticipated so rapid an improvement. The ways of Nature are incalculable.”
“You are very modest. He puts it down to your medicine.”
The devil he does! thought Doctor Bagge. But he said:
“That is very kind of him, but I don’t think I can take all the credit. Nature, I repeat, is always baffling or surprising us. I must say that I had not expected—well, I had expected a change, of course. Can you tell me whether he really does take the medicine regularly?”
“Yes. I think he wants another bottle.”
“He shall have it. I shall see that he is not kept waiting. And I’ll stiffen it up a bit.” As he spoke the last words a transient though savage gleam flickered in his eyes. “I shall make it up this evening.”
Then he said again:
“Are you quite sure that he takes it regularly?”
“Quite. I usually get the medicine-glass and the water for him.”
The doctor pressed his lips together demurely and lowered his eyelids. He was trying to conceal his perplexity.
“It’s very peculiar,” he said.
Bertha, whose nerves were on edge, replied a little sharply:
“What is peculiar? I don’t understand.”
Instantly the little man recovered himself. He cocked his head on one side and twinkled at her like a perky though amiable little sparrow.
“A purely professional matter, my dear lady. In ordinary practice one would not anticipate such a marked reaction to the drug in so short a time. But as it suits him, let us carry on; and let us hope for even greater improvement.”
Then, hearing the slippers of his enemy, old father Kewdingham, shuffling over the oil-cloth on the landing, he rose to take his leave.
The old man, a grim, tall figure in his grey and black clothes, entered the room. He looked sternly at the doctor and bowed with tight, exaggerated formality. He did not lack intuition. It was like an encounter between a venerable sardonic jackdaw and a bright little pitter-pattering sparrow.
“Good afternoon, Doctor Bagge. Cold, is it not? Yeh. I suppose this weather keeps you busy. What does Dickens say in one of his books?—I can’t remember which one, but it don’t matter. Very fine thought. He says: ‘There’s something good in all weathers…something good in all weathers…’ I forget how he goes on. I should like your opinion of Dickens. I suppose you will admit there’s no one like him now? What?” He frowned fiercely. “But I won’t keep you now—I see you’re busy.”
2
That evening the doctor bounced into his dispensary in a flutter of keen vexation. He ran nimbly from bottle to bottle, preparing for his irritated nerves a pharmaceutical cocktail. It was his custom, when tired or depressed, to run for relief to his materia medica, as a less enlightened man would run to his whisky or some other crude intoxicant.
Quickly he mixed for himself an exciting compound of strychnine, phosphoric acid, calcium carbonate, manganese dioxide, cannabis indica and acetum cantharidis. After swallowing his ingenious concoction he felt very much happier.
Now then! said Doctor Bagge to himself—what about this Kewdingham fellow? What’s the matter with him? Why does he fail to react as he should to my alum chlorate? It is damnable: it is enough to make a man lose faith in his own knowledge. And yet—knowledge, truth, science—these things eventually must prevail! They must and they will prevail!
He had chosen aluminium for several reasons. There is considerable diversity of opinion in regard to the toxic properties of this metal, and there are some who deny that it has any toxic properties at all. Bagge knew better. He had carried out a little experiment. But he was not obliged to give away his knowledge; and if, in given circumstances, there were any questions about the medicine he gave to Kewdingham, he would at once invoke the respectable opinions of those who believed that aluminium was perfectly harmless. What is more, he had taken the precaution of falsifying his prescription-book, in order to explain, if necessary, his liberal use of alum chlorate.
And it would be correct to say that the doctor’s vexation was rather professional than personal. After all—good Lord!—he was a man of science, he knew what he was doing, he was no bungling amateur. He knew what would happen, what was bound to happen, if you gave a man an aluminium lining. But it wasn’t happening—that was the trouble. There was a hitch, a resistance. Or miraculous immunity.
No, it was physically impossible! I
t would only be a matter of time and a heavier dosage, a much heavier dosage, an overwhelming percentage of metal. He was only at the beginning of his resources, and he was too moderate. That was it—a mere freak of the constitution, a physiological curiosity.
In all his medical experience he had never come across anything like Robert. Probably the case was unique. It was a shame that, for purely personal reasons, he would be unable to send a report to the Lancet. Still, he might carry out another experiment on rabbits or something like that. The possibility of being thwarted by another chemical, administered by Robert himself, did come into his mind; but the chances of such a thing being the case were about ten thousand to one.
Very good then, said he—the best thing is to increase the amount of the toxin, for it is a toxin, whatever they may say.
The doctor also thought he might make up an additional medicine, to be taken between meals. He could, moreover, carry out a flank attack on the heart, which might be helpful. Indeed, there were all sorts of things he might do without spoiling the main experiment. Cheer up! said this clever little Doctor Bagge; we are only at the beginning after all! So he might comfort himself, but he could not understand—no, he could not for the life of him understand…
3
The explanation of this tragic dilemma is purely chemical.
Doctor Bagge and Mrs. Kewdingham, though bravely and patiently working for the same result, were defeating each other’s purposes. The subtle aluminium of Doctor Bagge was counteracted by the obtuse lead of Mrs. Kewdingham. The acetate of the one was hurried away by the impetuous chlorate of the other. Nothing, or next to nothing, was left behind. Each of these people was giving a poison, and each was giving an antidote. What is more, the doses were so graduated that the only consequence, at first, was a gentle stimulus to the peristaltic movement, beneficial rather than otherwise. At the odds of twenty thousand to one, the almost incredible was happening.
It was a game of cross purposes, no doubt unique in the history of medicine. Had there been a lag, an irregularity, a disproportion, then the acetate or the chlorate, as the case might have been, would have had a chance of winning. But their own admirable care and vigilance, their own thoughtful preparation and excellent method, actually prevented both Doctor Bagge and Mrs. Kewdingham from making any headway. By their very persistence in a common design they were acting at variance with each other: co-operating, yet rivals; united in purpose, yet mutually obstructive; criminal in thought and innocent in action.
For the time being, therefore, matters were at a deadlock.
4
Then, towards the end of February, John Harrigall came to Shufflecester for the day—at the very time when our puzzled poisoners were beginning to realise that something was wrong.
He had lunch with Uncle Richard, who grumbled savagely about his nephew Robert.
“What the devil’s the matter with him, eh? Pecking about over that rubbish of his. Collection, he calls it; and it is a collection too, by gad! Did you ever see anything like it? Trash, trash. Anyone can see that. I’ve as good as told him so, but he only grins at me. I suppose he thinks I’m a poor ignorant old buffer. If you ask me, I should say he’s a bit—” Uncle Richard smartly tapped the shining top of his head.
He continued, grimly:
“I don’t know what’s come over him these last few weeks. Of course, we’re talking of family matters, and so I may as well be frank with you. But since he went up to London the other day…did you meet him?”
“We had a little walk together.”
“Well, something must have gone pretty wrong, I should think. There was a yarn about some Dutch company or other—”
“It came to nothing, I believe.”
“Pssh! Came to nothing? Of course it came to nothing. If there was any stuff in the fellow do you think he would go muddling along as he does? Damned if I understand him. At one time he was doing well enough. But now—and the way he treats that poor girl—”
“Bertha?”
“Yes, Bertha. She has a sharp tongue, I know, and I dare say she makes good use of it—or bad use of it, perhaps. But he’s outrageous. Orders her about, snubs her in front of other people. Asking for trouble, I call it. She’s a fine handsome woman.”
“Unwise of him, certainly.”
John twiddled his fingers round the stem of his port glass. He looked thoughtful. He had come to Shufflecester with a definite design.
“I think I shall run round and call on them presently.”
At half-past three he was walking up Wellington Avenue. Uncle Richard’s account had prepared him for the possibility of a stormy encounter. He had not written to Bertha; he now regarded letters—rightly—as highly imprudent; but he had resolved to see her at all costs.
Robert Arthur was at home. He received John with an air in which enmity, a stiff politeness and a real desire for compromise were strangely combined in various degrees and alternations. To his chaotic mind there was nothing unreasonable in the idea of being friendly with John without abandoning totally his misgivings.
For a few moments, as luck would have it, John found himself alone with Bertha. Robert had gone to look for something.
“My dear,” she said, “have you quarrelled with him?”
“Yes—in a way. He’s jealous. I was afraid of writing.”
“John, John! This is too dreadful! Will you promise—”
“Yes, Bertha, of course I will. You may depend upon me.”
It sounded very sententious and formal, but he meant what he said. Certainly, John had never been so fond of any other woman as he was of Bertha. He continued more happily:
“I could meet you with the car. At Eastbourne, for example.”
Bertha looked rather perplexed and uneasy. She did not feel quite sure of him.
“I will write to you,” she said. “But, John, you must promise—”
Robert Arthur, with an enormous cardboard box in his arms, appeared in the doorway. Nothing can prevail against the pride, the pertinacity of the born collector. And obviously Robert did desire a compromise or a state of suspended hostility. Besides, he had obtained a fibula, a hairpin, a pair of tweezers and a bit of an ivory comb, all of which were probably Roman.
Chapter IX
1
After further study of the Kewdingham problem, Doctor Bagge prepared carefully a new mixture. It was pinkish, opaque, viscous, and it smelt agreeably of roses. In his tiny, meticulous hand the doctor wrote a label: “R. A. Kewdingham, Esq. Three times a day as before.”
As he licked the label in his dispensary, the blue eyes of Doctor Bagge flickered up for a moment like the eyes of a little demon.
“There you are, my boy!” he said.
He took up the large bottle lovingly and shook it with a gentle sideways motion. Then he put it down on the table. Filmy coils of an exquisite cloudy pink were softly curling and falling in the darker pink of the mixture. Coils neither of oil nor of powder, and yet both oily and powdery, wreathing and curling and falling like a plume, a cloud, a living flush in marble. It was very pretty indeed. Of course, when the mixture was properly shaken, these clouds all ran together and made a homogeneous opacity in the bottle. Pink and milky, like an ideal union of strawberries and cream.
The doctor himself carried his masterpiece to Wellington Avenue.
“Now, my dear chap,” he said to Robert, “if this doesn’t work I shall be very much astonished. It’s the same as the other,” he added quite truthfully, “only stronger and with a less objectionable taste. You may take longer doses if you like. Take one in the morning, before breakfast.”
2
Mrs. Kewdingham was keeping pace with the doctor. Two or three packets of acetate were being administered every week. The pink mixture and the acetate hurried each other away; but now they were causing a more painful disturbance.
By the
middle of March, Robert was decidedly unwell. He was fretful, captious, and occasionally brutal. In the secret councils of the Rule Britannia League he talked more fiercely and extravagantly about his flying bombers, his machine-guns. He talked like an arm-chair soldier. In the home, his behaviour was too shocking for words. He snapped, he blustered, he bullied, he sulked, he scattered petulantly over carpets or tables the rubbish of his collection. It was hardly possible to walk across the drawing-room without kicking the trays or crushing upon the floor a dusty assortment of beetles. And before sitting down, the visitor had to remove from his chair a tottering pylon of boxes or a heap of junk.
Even the old father was a little dismayed by this encroachment, and he was almost inclined to sympathise with his unhappy daughter-in-law.
The strain of this very singular position was beginning to tell on Bertha. She was reckoning upon the affection, the generosity of John Harrigall. She was reckoning upon the final success of her experiment. It was a grim job. She had need of all her courage and resolution. And so she went on, persevering from day to day, never allowing herself to despair. Now, in view of what had happened, it was more than ever necessary for her to accomplish her purpose—by some means or other. If she failed with acetate, she would have to consider a new method. It might be said that she was displaying a perverse kind of heroism.
Family Matters Page 12
