Читать книгу The Secret Sanctuary (Historical Novel) - Warwick Deeping - Страница 3

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Bartholomew Stretton, Esq., was shown into Beal's dining-room.

"Dr. Beal won't keep you a minute, sir."

"Quite so, quite so. He expects me—I think."

Mr. Stretton put his hat and gloves on the table, and picking up a month-old copy of Punch, looked at one or two of the pictures and then discarded the paper with an air of impatience. He was in no mood to appreciate humour. He glanced round Beal's dining-room as though he disliked it. His restlessness would not permit him to sit down; it carried him to one of the windows and exhibited to him a section of Wimpole Street: iron railings, pavement, road, more pavement, more railings, a series of windows and three green front doors decorated with a number of very clean brass plates. It was raining. People passed with open umbrellas. To Mr. Stretton the rain, the pavements, the houses, and the people all looked the same colour.

"Beastly place!"

It occurred to him that he had never seen Wimpole Street till six months ago, that it had not existed so far as he was concerned, and that it would have had no present existence had he not needed help. And yet he hated the street as a comfort-loving man hates anything which associates itself with some very unpleasant and importunate reality. Wimpole Street was an ugly smudge across the suburban serenity of Mr. Stretton's vision of life. He had been a successful man, a genially self-satisfied man, and that Fate should have administered a kick to him just when he was entering the last lap seemed monstrous and an outrage. It was the kind of scandal that impels a man to write angry letters to the papers—but this affair was too personal and too serious for such splutterings in self-relief. The problem—for it was a problem—stuck in poor old Stretton's throat, made his lower lip lax and querulous, and gave a slightly bewildered irritability to his blue eyes.

The street depressed him so thoroughly that he turned about and began to wander round the room, looking at Rollin Beal's exquisite Georgian furniture and pictures with an air of perfunctory attention. He really did not see them, the beauty and the distinction of them; they were just so many chairs and cabinets and pieces of coloured porcelain and canvas. He had to look at something; the mental attitude of the man who reads every page of the morning and the evening paper.

An oval mirror in a mahogany frame hanging slightly tilted above the Adam mantelpiece showed Bartholomew Stretton a reflection of himself. Instantly interested, he paused, like a very young child. He put up a hand and smoothed his hair, and gave a little touch to his tie. An observant person could have told him that he belonged to a previous generation, and that he should have worn a white top-hat, a white waistcoat and spats, and black-and-white check trousers.

As a matter of fact, he did wear spats, but they were biscuit-brown in colour. Mr. Stretton was very punctilious about being up to date. He was very punctilious in all the externals. When golf knickers were baggy, he wore them baggy. He was the most careful of formalists. That was why his son's disaster had hurt him so badly. He was sorry for his son; he was sorry for his wife—but he was bitterly sorry for himself.

The door opened.

"Dr. Beal is ready for you, sir."

Bartholomew Stretton was shown into Rollin Beal's consulting-room. A tall man with kind eyes and an ironical mouth rose from his desk and extended a hand.

"Well, how are things?"

Old Stretton's face betrayed annoyance. Always, he had found Rollin Beal sympathetic, and when a man has a grievance he cannot resist airing it in the sunshine of some other man's sympathy.

"It's perfectly damnable!"

"Sit down. Is your son back?"

"He has been back a week. And my wife, sir, has been unable to sleep."

He sat down. His blue eyes seemed to grow more prominent. In the most impressive and sentimental moments of his life he had always contrived to express his prejudices or his emotions by putting them into the mouth of his wife. It saved personal odium and suggested a considerate unselfishness. "Mrs. Stretton, sir, always says—" "My wife may be a little old-fashioned, but she does not approve," etc.

Beal looked at him with observant eyes. They were kind, like the eyes of most men who do big things, or live big, active lives.

"Nothing fresh, I hope?"

"Oh, not in that way. But he is so utterly unreasonable. I don't think that we could have done more to soften the affair for him. My wife has been a perfect angel, and John has done nothing but sulk."

"He feels it a good deal?"

"My dear sir, I can understand that, but what I cannot understand is his way of showing it."

"Or perhaps—of not showing it."

Mr. Stretton sat forward in his chair. His irritation changed suddenly and became an impulse of compassion; we are all of us egotists, and even our affections are tinted with various shades of egotism, and in Bartholomew Stretton's case his vexation was largely a matter of balked affection.

"That's it, doctor. While John was in prison his mother and I talked everything over. We have been very happy in our children, you know, Beal, and rather proud of them; there's Reginald making his three thousand a year at the Bar, and Carlyon a managing director of Medmenhams at three-and-thirty. Well, we decided that when John came out we would have him home and go on as if nothing had happened."

Beal's eyes were faintly smiling.

"You did not even mention this affair?"

"No."

"And John did not mention it?"

"He has never said a word. That is what has hurt his mother—wounded her. My wife is a very affectionate woman, Beal, and I can tell you she has felt his silence—his almost hostile silence, I might call it."

Beal nodded his big head.

"But if you and Mrs. Stretton had agreed to bury the misfortune why should you be annoyed when your son did the same thing?"

Old Stretton looked at him reproachfully.

"But, my dear sir, perhaps you don't understand. I don't think you are married—please excuse me—I have no wish to be personal; I am merely trying to explain why John's silence wounded us."

"I see," said Beal, and turned to his desk and the open case-book which was lying on it. Rollin Beal was forty-five, young enough to sympathize with the younger man, and old enough to understand the prejudices of the father, yet the vital part of his sympathy was with the son.

Bartholomew Stretton had lived his life; Beal doubted whether sorrow had ever touched him; a man with that pink and comfortable face had never suffered very acutely. The very way in which he wished to claim a sort of ownership over the sufferings of a younger man who happened to be his son showed how little he fathomed the rebellious deeps of this other and more sensitive nature.

Beal's compassion went out to the son. Here was a man who had spent three years in the trenches, who had enlisted as a private and been twice wounded before he had won his company, and that other and far more disastrous wound which carried no visible scar and had brought him no honour. Beal, alienist and man of the world, had a warm heart and a deep compassion for all that generous youth which had laughed and died and suffered. He had seen the wreckage, the driftwood.

No case had appealed to him more personally than John Stretton's. There was a likeness between them. As he looked at his case-book he had a very vivid picture of John Stretton, fine strung, sensitive, intensely intelligent, going tight lipped and brittle-eyed through all those years, to be brought down to a sort of ignominy, the victim of a spiritual wound of which no one could see the scar. It was a queer case, not a little pathetic, of a fine life balked and twisted, brought not only to apparent impotence, but to the very edge of disaster.

Bartholomew Stretton was fidgeting in his chair.

"The thing is—what are we to do with him?"

Beal turned on the older man with curious swiftness. It was as though his impulse was to strike not a physical blow, but a spiritual one, and the austerity of his fine face seemed sharpened. He could be severe, and his severity was all the more potent because his eyes remained kind.

"You know the danger? I think that is the one thing we should keep in mind."

Old Stretton's face showed a slight increase of colour.

"You mean that his career has gone? Of course, he had to resign from Rome and Mellabys; in six months he would have been a partner."

"I mean nothing of the sort. Don't you realize that some day—under certain circumstances—your son might commit murder—"

Old Stretton bounced in his chair. He believed in plain speaking, or said he did, but when a very conventional man has become crystallized and rigid he is apt to resent sudden and violent vibrations. And Mr. Stretton looked inexpressibly shocked. Beal had meant to shock him.

"It can't be as bad as that. I know you doctors always exaggerate a little."

"I am stating a plain fact. It might be as bad as that. Morally your son would be innocent, because when these brain storms arise he is not responsible for what he does. Remember, it has happened three times, and on the last occasion—"

Old Stretton put up an appealing hand as though to ward off a blow. "Don't, man, don't! The idea is too horrible. It would kill my poor wife." And then he added with a plaintive wail, "but why should this have happened to us?"

"My dear sir, it might have happened to anybody."

Beal's face softened. There was pathos and humour in the picture of this chubby, genial old Christian who had come through life with the idea that he and his were sacrosanct. Job-like he was almost ready to curse the Deity, the war, the doctors, his own incredible and undeserved affliction, but Beal did not want curses; he required the father's logical and kindly help in the healing of the son.

"Well, there's the danger. Now, what are we going to do about it? I know quite well how this is worrying you for John's sake. There is something very lovable about John."

Stretton's face twitched in response.

"Of course there is. He was the gentlest child of the whole lot. You know, Beal, when we are hurt we get rather touchy. I'm ready to make any sacrifice, and so is his mother."

"Well, we must all work together."

"What do you suggest? A nursing-home, or something of that sort?"

"No, nothing like that. But for this one leak in his brain your son is a healthy and a normal man. We have got to try to close that leak, give him the chance of leading a healthy life under circumstances which are the least likely to produce one of these storms."

Old Stretton nodded; he had become an audience, a docile and eager audience.

"Money need be no consideration."

"That's a great help, a very great help; but I don't think your son wants to be an idler."

"The trouble is, Beal, that I don't know what the devil he does want! If he'd only talk—"

Beal smiled. There were moments when his face became luminous.

"We have got to find out. It is possible that he does not know himself. When a sensitive and proud man has had a knock-down blow like that—"

Then old Stretton saw light; it may have dawned on him in Rollin Beal's smile, in the patient and subtle wisdom of this healer of broken souls.

"I say, doctor, I know that you are a very busy man, but could you come down to Esher and spend the week-end with us? I have an idea that John might talk to you. He likes you."

Beal turned to his desk and glanced at his book of appointments.

"I think I might manage it. I am free after one o'clock on Saturday. I should have to be back in town on the Sunday evening."

Stretton breathed gratitude and relief. The problem of his youngest son's future had scared him into a sense of helplessness.

"That's awfully good of you, Beal. Look here, I will send the car up for you on Saturday. I was booked to play golf, but of course—"

Beal, rising, stood over him protectingly.

"Play golf. I shall want to be alone with John. And will you ask Mrs. Stretton to look on me as a friend and not as a doctor."

"I will give her the hint, Beal."

"That's right. I'll expect the car at two o'clock on Saturday."

Rollin Beal was busy for the rest of the morning; all his days were busy and he loved them, for Beal's life was good. There are some men who inspire gratitude and devotion, men of whom women speak with tenderness and not a little awe, the man whose work is as a fire to which the sick and the unfortunate come to warm their hands. Our little cynicisms and meannesses, our scoffings and clevernesses leave such men untouched.

To them—the Pasteurs and the Listers of this world—the children whom they have saved run to be kissed, and we—who believe and strive—turn from the little dirtinesses of some cad's novel, or the treacheries in an egoist's memoirs, to the patient and unsensational greatness of such men's lives, and take heart and breathe more deeply.

But if Rollin Beal thought that he had finished with the Stretton menfolk for the day, they had not finished with him. He lunched at one, and at half-past two he had his out-patients and his clinic at Great Ormond Street, where a hundred or more students, packed in the big room, waited to see Rollin Beal's thin hands disentangle with sure brilliance some complex knot. At a quarter to two Rollin Beal's bell rang, and his maid brought him a card. "Mr. Reginald Stretton." The three thousand a year man was close on the heels of his father.

"The gentleman particularly wishes to see you, sir."

"I can give him five minutes, Parker."

Beal found Reginald Stretton planted well and square on the consulting-room hearthrug, and in this tacit assumption of his right to all hearthrugs lay the inwardness of his success. He was tall, deadly pale, with a slight stoop, and a bald superciliousness that was disturbing to smaller people. His great rolling forehead, cold eyes, and dominating nose made him impressive. He was laconic and deliberate. He gave shy people the feeling that he was prodding them as he might have prodded a hostile witness.

Beal did not like Reginald Stretton. You may respect a man's ability and hate him all the more for it, and Beal had very human moments. To be able to heal people you must have the understanding of all frailties, and Reginald Stretton had no frailties. Beal had hardly closed the door before the barrister had him in the witness-box, and was cross-examining him in his flat and inexorable voice. Bartholomew's eldest son would have been a failure in criminal cases, but then crime in its physical aspects had not appealed to him.

"I take it that this sort of thing may occur again?"

"It might occur to-morrow."

"Well, may I ask what your experts are going to do about it? Here is this unfortunate youngster knocking about loose at Esher. Isn't that a temptation to providence?"

Beal saw in a flash what was at the back of this other man's mind, and he was nettled, not on his own account but on John's.

"Providence may be kinder than we are."

He gave Reginald Stretton a blind eye. He wanted the other man to commit himself to the more or less brutal suggestion that it was annoying for him to have a young brother appearing at the police courts and getting sent to prison, and that this inconvenient ex-soldier should be caged up somewhere.

"I am going down to Esher for the week-end. I think I may be able to do something."

The rolling forehead and the emphatic chin became more aggressive.

"I don't like this delay. Now, can you assure me—?"

Beal glanced at the clock.

"I'm sorry; I am due at my hospital at half-past two. But, tell me, what do you mean—exactly—by delay?"

"Nothing is being done."

"It is better that nothing should be done. I presume you are suggesting some form of restraint?"

"Certainly; in my brother's interest."

Beal showed him eyes that were not blind.

"The interest lies all the other way. You'll excuse me; can my maid ring you up a taxi? Before I go, I may as well remind you I don't want your brother fussed or frightened."

Reginald Stretton remained on the hearthrug looking at the opposite wall for something he had meant to say and had forgotten, and Beal left him there still groping for the thing that he should have said. He discovered it and got it out as the doctor reached the front door.

"If you assume the whole responsibility—"

Beal turned in the doorway and saw the other man's big white face at the end of the hall.

"Certainly, but without interference, in the interests of my patient."

It was an evening of blue, autumnal dusk, with the lights shining big and yellow when Rollin Beal walked back to Wimpole Street. He had been an athlete in his day, but walking was the only exercise left to him, so exacting had life become. He had swung the door open and was removing his latchkey when Parker met him in the hall.

"A gentleman waiting to see you, sir. Another Mr. Stretton."

Beal laughed.

"Oh, well, Parker, all good things come to an end! What is the other name?"

"Carlyon, sir."

Parker took his coat. This elderly woman with the watchful eyes and the pale and restrained face contradicted the old tag that no man is a hero to his servant. Or rather, they both shared in the contradiction of it, and the little leisure which Beal had lay in the lap of this devoted woman's shrewd loyalty. She was a sure buttress against fools and bores. She had the manners of a great lady, and an eye that never forgot a face.

"In the dining-room, Parker?"

"Yes, sir. In a quarter of an hour I shall come in to lay the table."

But Carlyon Stretton, "Car" as he had been called at Cambridge, was a very different proposition from his elder brother. He was the younger brother, without John's sensitiveness and his reticencies, a rather frail man, but sanguine and full of vitality. He was energetic, generous, a hater of all humbug, one of those direct, spontaneous people who carry the world along.

"Forgive me waiting for you like a tout, Dr. Beal, but I'm worried about Jack. Can you give me five minutes?"

They looked at each other as men do when they like each other instinctively.

"Sit down, my dear man. Parker is allowing you a quarter of an hour. We are all worried about Jack."

"What I want you to tell me is, can I help, back you up in any way? I'm not here to fuss or to fiddle."

Beal took the chair at the end of the table.

"I fancy you understand," he said. "Your father and Mr. Reginald Stretton have both been here to-day."

"And they are both as blind as bats! No. Stretton Primus sees certain things clearly enough—but they are his things. I ought not to blackguard my brother."

He sat there with his alert easiness, smiling at Beal.

"Can I help? What I mean is, doctor, that a man in Jack's position needs help of a certain sort, the sort of unconscious help we gave each other during the war."

"Exactly," said Beal; "you could not have put it better."

He picked up a magazine from the table, crumpled up a page, and then made a movement as of smoothing it out.

"That sort of thing. Certain surroundings, certain people, some particular occupation. I am going to find out."

The younger man nodded.

"Smoothing out the creases! Of course. But if I can help—"

"I'll tell you. I am spending the week-end at Esher. I want Jack to talk to me. I think he will."

"Car" rose, glancing at his wrist-watch.

"I have beaten Parker by exactly seven minutes. Good night, Beal. And thanks—ever so much."

Beal lit a cigarette.

"How much more work one could do," he thought, "if more people were like that."