Читать книгу The Young Physician - Francis Brett Young - Страница 15

Mr. Ingleby had now reached the indeterminate period of middle age: his hair was gray, rather thin about the crown, and wanted cutting. In the shop he always wore a black alpaca jacket, and this, by reason of its thinness, made his chest look mean and skimpy. In this state of comparative repose he was not impressive. From time to time he raised his hand to scratch his shoulder. A customer came in to buy a cake of soap and Mr. Ingleby climbed down from his stool to attend to her. He opened a glass case, and, groping for this particular soap, upset at least half a dozen others. Edwin noticed his hands, which were clumsy and heavily veined on the back, and felt sorry for him when he stooped to pick up the cakes of soap that he had upset. It all seemed so inelastic, so different from the eager youth of his mother. Examining his father from a physical standpoint he recalled the day on which Widdup had begun his sexual education and had laughed at his innocent ideals. Now Edwin laughed at himself; and the laugh made Mr. Ingleby look up as if a flying beetle had banged against his ear.

“Hallo, boy,” he said. “You were late for tea, you two!”

“Oh, we had a lovely walk—right on to Uffdown.”

“I hope you didn’t tire your mother. You must be careful, Eddie. Do you want me to give you something to do? You shall weigh these powders then: Phenacetin, five grains in each. Only try to be quiet; I have to get on with these Lady-day bills.”

Mr. Ingleby yawned and Edwin started to weigh powders.

“Father, what is Dragon’s Blood?”

“It isn’t the blood of dragons, Edwin. . . .” Mr. Ingleby smiled under his glasses.

“Oh, father, don’t rot.”

“Dragon’s Blood is a resin. It’s prepared from Dracæna Draco, and it’s used for mahogany varnishes.”

“O-oh.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Edwin.”

Silence for five minutes.

“Father . . . Keats was a chemist.”

“Keats?” Mr. Ingleby pronounced the word in the same tone as he would have used if he had been saying “Keatings, madam?”

“The poet.”

“Oh—Keats. Yes, of course he was. He was consumptive, too. Died in Italy.”

“Yes, father.” Edwin was thankful to leave it at that; thankful that his father knew just so much, even if he didn’t know any more. It would be terrible to know more than your father, to feel that he was a sort of intellectual inferior to you—a boy of fifteen. He would not talk of these things any more.

They walked home in silence. It seemed as if Mr. Ingleby were still worrying about his wife’s tiredness, for when she tried to joke with him at the supper table he was moody and restrained.

“I’m not really a bit overdone,” she protested, kissing his forehead.

“You’re like a pair of children, the two of you,” he said, and indeed his gray seriousness seemed to isolate him from all the joy of youth that was in them.

That night Edwin’s mother sat for a long time on the bed talking to him in a low voice. She would not tell him any more about the mountain farmstead that had once been a castle, even when he begged her to do so. She wanted to talk, she said, about all that he was to do during the term, to make wonderful plans for the holidays, when the days would be longer and they would be able to sit out under the limes on the lawn in the twilight.

“I am going to plant evening stock,” she said, “all along the lawn border in between the irises. Besides, I shall be stronger then and we will often take our tea with us to Uffdown.” And at last she said, “Eddie, you bad boy, you must really go to sleep now, darling. You’ve got such a big journey before you to-morrow, and you’re sure to get a headache if you don’t have a good night’s sleep.” She kissed him many times.