Читать книгу The Dark House - Warwick Deeping - Страница 6

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John Richmond, wearing a new frock-coat and top-hat, opened the railway-carriage door, and stepped out on to the platform of Southfleet station. Southfleet was a terminus, and its station rather picturesque improvisation in wood and glass, somewhat like an overgrown greenhouse. It was painted white. Richmond, surrendering one half of a return ticket to the collector, asked to be directed to the High Street and the house of Dr. Davidson. He was told that neither the High Street nor Dr. Davidson’s house could escape him; he had only to follow his nose across the station-yard and the High Street would welcome him.

It did, with a very new yellow brick public-house on the left, and a thatched white cottage with a greengrocer’s shop attached to it on the right. A pretty girl with fair, fluffy hair was weighing out the year’s first green gooseberries in the shop scales. Richmond walked down Southfleet High Street between shops, and an occasional garden, and past a comely old white house with green jalousies and veranda. Ahead of him he saw a silver streak meeting the thin blue sky, the broad waters of the estuary gleaming in the sun. He passed a timber-yard shaded by trees, where a circular saw screamed as it ripped through a tree trunk. Over the way The Royal George Hotel spread its quiet dignity behind a white, pillared portico. The High Street spread out here into a pleasant, sunny space with a shrubbery between it and the sea, one road descending towards the pier and the old town, the other turning right to serve the Regency houses of Queen’s Terrace. On the left a tall, bow-fronted old house with a balustraded cornice gazed placidly over the estuary. This was Prospect House, the home of Dr. Davidson.

Richmond pulled a brass bell-handle in the shape of a clenched fist, and as he waited on the doorstep of Prospect House and looked at the estuary and the shipping and the pier like some immense black centipede crawling out to sea, he thought that both house and vista were such as Dickens would have loved. Dr. Davidson’s was Nicholas Nickleby, The Royal George, Pickwick, though to Richmond life seemed more Thackeray than Dickens. But the door was open, and a large, fresh-faced maid waiting upon his pleasure.

“Is Mr. Davidson in?”

“He’s in the surgery, sir.”

“He expects me. I am Dr. Richmond.”

So might he have announced himself to Southfleet, as a rather masterful young man to whom this little sea-coast town was but Jericho on the borders of Canaan. The maid showed him into a prim little room with a bow-window, on the ground floor. It was Dr. Davidson’s consulting-room and study, with an oak desk, a revolving chair, two other chairs, a big glass-fronted bookcase full of solemn medical literature. There were Landseer engravings on the walls, and the windows were protected by wire blinds so that rude and inquisitive children should not peer in when the doctor was applying a stethoscope to some chaste and naked chest.

Dr. Davidson bustled in. He bustled everywhere, upstairs and downstairs and into my lady’s chamber, a little man with a large head, like a white owl fitted with spectacles. In his hospital days he had been known as Fanny, but life had made of him a shrewd Fanny, kind and capable. Also, it had tired him, and rendered him prematurely old.

“Dr. Richmond?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Davidson’s mild blue eyes summed up the younger man as he would have summed up a new patient. So, this was Sir Humphrey’s recommendation? And, with the instinct of the physician, Dr. Davidson approved it. Dr. Richmond had looks and a manner, a young dignity that stood straight and still, and did not fidget.

“Please sit down, Richmond.”

Probably, their liking was mutual, and Richmond took the patient’s chair, Dr. Davidson the physician’s. They looked at each other across the desk, and suddenly each of them smiled.

“Your house is well christened, sir.”

“Prospect, eh, and pleasant. This is not a bad spot, Richmond, to work and spend your life in. May I say that Sir Humphrey Jolland’s recommendation was very emphatic.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Excuse me if I ask a few questions.”

“Certainly.”

“Married?”

“No, neither married nor contemplating it.”

“Can you ride or drive?”

“Both, sir.”

“Excellent. We cover a lot of ground. I gather that you have had considerable experience for your age.”

“I have held all the house appointments, and deputised as casualty officer. Sir Humphrey sometimes allowed me to perform a straightforward operation.”

“Drink or smoke?”

“I smoke a pipe, sir, sometimes when I’m off duty. An occasional glass of beer satisfies the other interrogation.”

Again, they smiled at each other, and more broadly.

“Well, I think it is your turn to cross-examine, Richmond.”

This was a likeable old man, pithy and humorous, who did not ascend a pulpit when he spoke to the young. Certainly, Dr. Richmond had every right to know what was expected of him, and what he might expect. The firm’s ledgers were also open for inspection. Dr. Davidson stated that the practice was worth close upon three thousand pounds a year. He and Dr. Burgoyne had been drawing each half a share, but on Dr. Davidson’s retirement Dr. Burgoyne would be assigned three quarters of the proceeds, and the junior partner a quarter share for a stated number of years. Also, he would be expected to buy himself in, and the capital required would be a thousand pounds.

“I have not got it,” said Richmond frankly.

“Well, that could be arranged. You could pay a stated amount off yearly, or insure your life and raise the money on the policy.”

“Meanwhile, I should act as assistant for a year.”

“I think that would be fair to everybody concerned.”

“Quite fair, sir. And what would my salary be?”

“A hundred and fifty pounds a year.”

“I could manage on that. I suppose I should be provided with a horse.”

“Of course. The practice does that. But before we come to any decision, I think you should meet Dr. Burgoyne.”

Richmond agreed. If he and Dr. Burgoyne were to be future partners, it was very necessary that neither of them should regard the other as Dr. Fell.

Meanwhile it was the Davidson dinner hour, and Richmond was taken to join the family in the dining-room of Prospect House. Mrs. Davidson in lace cap and side-curls, and the mother of five marriageable daughters, smiled upon him, and introduced him to those same five daughters, Anna, Marion, Edith, Charlotte and Caroline. Anna and Marion, at a time when anything over thirty was regarded as completely old maidish, had dedicated themselves to good works. Edith was willowy and shy, Caroline stolid and black-browed, Charlotte as much of a minx as convention and her mother allowed her to be. It was a considerable ordeal for John. He was the new sensation, and all through the meal those five young gentlewomen observed him and were mute, while their mother chattered, and Dr. Davidson gazed benignantly upon the company through his spectacles. Who could blame either of the parents if they hoped that a prospective partner might take one of the dear girls off their hands?

With dinner over, Dr. Davidson put on his hat and walked John off to interview Dr. Edward Burgoyne. It would be a good moment for the new man to meet “Teddy,” for Dr. Burgoyne enjoyed his dinner, and drank a tankard of porter with it, and felt genial towards his fellows. Dr. Burgoyne lived at No. 9 Queen’s Terrace, and each house in Queen’s Terrace possessed a minute front garden protected by iron railings, and a balcony upon which the french windows of the first floor opened. Queen’s Terrace was Southfleet’s Park Lane. Its windows looked out over Caroline Gardens to the estuary and the far coasts of Kent, and the dignity of its seclusion was enhanced by white posts and a white bar that closed its western end. No through traffic was permitted. Even the donkey-boys and their beasts were forbidden to use Queen’s Terrace as a highway. The Victorians believed in discipline and enforced it. John Gage, Esq., a very active old gentleman who owned No. 20, had on occasions chased the rude urchins who had attempted to drive their donkeys along this sacred way and had administered corporal chastisement in good old English fashion.

As they stood on the doorstep of No. 9, Richmond heard a fine, full, throaty voice breaking into song.

“Juanita, Juanita——”

Almost, Dr. Davidson winked at the younger man. He said, with thin-lipped asperity: “Burgoyne is musical, very musical indeed.” The voice died away as the door opened, and Richmond saw a large, florid man in the act of descending the stairs. Dr. Burgoyne was a flamboyant person; his red hair flared, so did his bright blue eyes. He wore a green velvet waistcoat under his frock-coat; Dr. Davidson abominated Dr. Burgoyne’s waistcoats, but it was said that his lady patients liked them. Teddy Burgoyne was very much a lady’s man. He sported mutton-chop whiskers, and a flower in his buttonhole, and a smile that always seemed a little overheated. He drove a very smart dog-cart with yellow wheels, and hunted twice a week in the season and, thanks to his choler and his flow of language, was known in the hunting-field as “Dr. Vesuvius.”

His manner was hearty, and his voice had a ripeness.

“Ha, Davidson! Mr. Richmond, I presume?”

He held out a large, pink hand to Richmond, and stared him in the face.

“How de do?”

Now, Richmond, being a young man, and perhaps more wise as to the functions of the heart than as to the ways of men, was impressed by this handsome, confident person. Burgoyne’s grip was firm and friendly. Their contrasts in colour were complimentary. Richmond returned the hand-grip.

“Come in, my dear fellow, come in. I hope my senior has given you a complete list of my sins? Tra-la! Now, Davidson, I insist on a glass of port.”

Dr. Burgoyne took them into his dining-room where the midday meal had not yet been cleared away, and rang the bell, and opening a wine-cooler under the Hepplewhite sideboard, lifted out a dusty bottle.

“Best Cockburn’s, Richmond. Ever been to Oporto?”

Richmond had not.

“Boo-tiful place. Dark-eyed Juanitas,” and he winked at the younger man behind Dr. Davidson’s sedate back. “Ah, Florrie, three port glasses, please. Well, well, and how’s Sir Humphrey? Wonderful old man. Does he still tell naughty stories in the operating theatre?”

Richmond laughed. Dr. Burgoyne certainly was a cheerful person, though Richmond did not realize how much of Teddy’s charm was exercised for effect.

“I have never heard one.”

“Is that so? I’d tell you a fruity one, but I fear Dr. David would be shocked. Ha, Florrie, thank you, my girl. Now then for red and white wine and French brandy. That’s what port is dispensed from. Two fluid ounces per diem, p.p. or more if you feel like it.”

He filled the glasses and, raising his own, held it to the light.

“Bouquet and colour, what! Well, here’s to your joining us, my dear fellow. I presume our senior has made the position plain.”

“Quite, sir.”

“That’s good, very good.”

Richmond returned to London as the accepted assistant, and a potential partner in the firm of Davidson and Burgoyne. He had his books and his few belongings to pack, and he assigned to ex-Sergeant Ruggles the task of procuring a packing-case from some neighbouring shop or warehouse. As to the hospital, Richmond had no desire to parade it for sympathy, nor to acknowledge that in leaving it he was accepting defeat. His going should be like the going of hundreds of other men who drifted down into country practices and married, and begot children, and grew old, and died. It was Ruggles who offered to pack for him, and who uttered the words that were at the back of Richmond’s thoughts.

“I reckon we’ll see you here again, sir.”

“That’s on the knees of the gods, Ruggles.”

The porter looked puzzled. He had heard of the Trinity, but he did not connect those solemn and mysterious essences with knees. Knees were apt to be knobly and uncomfortable things, unless they were those of a comfortable wench, nursing you or a baby.

Richmond’s last contact with Mr. Steering was made in the college common-room. The supercilious young man, strolling in after supper, posted himself on the hearthrug, and asked Richmond a question.

“Do you want to sell any of your books, J.C.?”

Richmond was lying back in an arm-chair and smoking his pipe.

“I had not thought of it.”

“Well, I’ll take some off you. Might be useful, you know.”

“How?”

“Oh, ready cash.”

There were other men in the common-room, and they were silent, expecting, and perhaps hoping for an explosion. Steering was not popular, and he cultivated insolence.

Richmond smiled.

“Not necessary, thanks. Besides, I shouldn’t read too much, Steering. Gives some fellows swollen heads.”

“Mine being that way?”

“Quite so. And not worth reducing.”

Steering waggled his fists in his trouser pockets.

“I shouldn’t try, if I were you.”

“Oh, go and boil it harder.”

So, early in June, when the red may and the laburnums had ceased flowering in Caroline Gardens, Richmond and a large brown leather portmanteau arrived at Southfleet, and were driven in an old four-wheeler down the High Street and Pier Hill to Pier House. Pier House was a big white Regency building, buxom and broad-breasted with its bow front and green balcony, and was kept as a very superior lodging-house by a Mrs. Kemp. Mrs. Kemp, under persuasion from Dr. Davidson, had agreed to let the dining-room floor to Dr. Richmond, seeing that he would be no summer bird of passage, but resident through all the year. Richmond’s portmanteau was a heavy one. It had been in the Richmond family for many years, and it too suggested permanence, though its master’s dream might regard Southfleet merely as a place of exile. Richmond had to help the puffing old cabbie to carry this piece of baggage up the steps of Pier House. Mrs. Kemp, in white cap and black satin, waited for him above. She was not quite sure whether it was proper for a doctor to help in the handling of his own luggage, for Southfleet was a very proper little town.

She gave Dr. Richmond a prim greeting.

“Welcome to my house, Doctor. I trust that you will find it clean and comfortable. You should have allowed my girl to help you with the luggage.”

Richmond smiled at his new landlady. Perhaps it did not occur to him that a professional gentleman in a new top-hat and frock-coat was expected to cherish a rather particular dignity.