Читать книгу Bracken Turning Brown - Pamela Wynne - Страница 6

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Harley Street is not quite so depressing as it used to be. The day of the tightly-drawn muslin blind is over. Large prosperous windows are now shrouded with coloured net and waiting rooms have brightly-coloured cretonne chairs in them, and pewter pots full of flowers. But to Sir Pelham Brooke it all looked ghastly. Why on earth had he come, he asked himself furiously. Probably it had only been a little touch of indigestion that had affected his sight. And then as he walked to the curtained window and stood there staring out of it he knew that he had never really thought it was indigestion at all. Fear had driven him there ... deadly overwhelming fear.

And at the soft footstep at the door his fear almost overwhelmed him. What would happen if he charged past the neat manservant and bolted out into the street? Had anyone ever done it, he wondered, standing there tall and well-groomed and without a quiver on his face.

“Will you step this way, please, sir?” And now he was out in the hall again, following the manservant. In at another door ... facing the high uncurtained window this time. Almost a blaze of light: he closed his eyes.

“It is Sir Pelham Brooke, isn’t it?” The great doctor was small and cheerful. He almost seemed to be peeping up at his patient as he stood there holding out his hand.

“Yes,” said Pelham Brooke. And then he spoke simply. “I’m sick with fright,” he said. “I’m going blind, or I think I am. Perhaps you can tell me.”

“I could tell you without even seeing you that you are overworked,” said the great doctor cheerfully. “I read my Times, you know, Sir Pelham. Why don’t some of you well-known barristers give another man a chance? Sit down, and have a cigarette while we talk things over,” and Sir John Hearn pattered over to his writing-table.

But half an hour later he spoke gravely. “I’ve been perfectly frank,” he said; “you asked me to be, and I think in a case of this kind it’s far better. You’ve come to me just in time. You must take a year’s holiday at once, during which time you must do nothing at all. You must be out in the open air as much as you can. You must not motor. You can swim, and best of all, you can walk. You must not read at night, for in addition to everything else you have badly strained your eyes. To put it briefly, if you want to live to a healthy old age, and there is not the remotest reason why you shouldn’t, you must lead the life of a vegetable for the next twelve months.”

“Where?” said Sir Pelham blankly. He sat there feeling stupid. For years he had lived for his work and nothing else. His beautiful rooms in the Temple. Those wonderful days in Court. Lord Merrivale’s round placid face and his deep, rather booming voice. “May I draw your ludship’s attention ... ?” The glory of feeling that he had the Court in the hollow of his hand. “Oh, my God!” he dropped his face into his hands.

“You can afford to take a year’s holiday?” said the doctor sympathetically.

“So far as money is concerned, certainly, but it’s a ghastly prospect.”

“Then take it and be thankful that you can do so,” said the doctor briskly. “You are not married, I believe?”

“No,” said Sir Pelham briefly. “Perhaps if I had been I should not have come to this. I was engaged some years ago, but she died before we could be married.”

“I see,” said the doctor. Again he was standing in front of his patient. “Work is an exacting mistress,” he said. “Perhaps the most exacting of all. Keep her in her place, Sir Pelham,” and the doctor laughed cheerfully at his own joke.

“Well——” Sir Pelham heaved himself wearily up out of his chair.

“I need not tell you not to drink too much,” said the doctor, “because it is obvious that you don’t. But a really good port will help. After your dinner: it will make you sleep.”

“Thanks,” said Sir Pelham. And then after placing an envelope on the writing-table, and a quick hand-shake, he was gone. Out in the hall again, the same slippery manservant on his heels. Well, on the whole, the verdict had not been too bad. He slid half a crown into the willing hand and walked slowly down the well-whitened steps into the street again.