Читать книгу The Dark House - Warwick Deeping - Страница 8

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Not only did the sawyer recover, but his arm was saved.

Dr. Davidson, returning from his short holiday in the quest of a new home, heard the whole story from Mr. Charles Byng. Dr. Davidson and his dispenser were such good friends, and trusted each other so completely, that for years their confidences had been exchanged with mutual candour and discretion. Charles Byng did not exactly say that Dr. Burgoyne had shirked the issue, but that he had delegated the responsibility, and presented Dr. Richmond with the problem, but Dr. Davidson knew just what Mr. Byng meant. He was not conscious of any surprise, but he was conscious of pleasure. As a self-ordained healer he had long ago taught himself to transcend the qualms of professional jealousy.

He went with Richmond to visit Jackson, and though at that time the saving of the man’s arm was still hypothetical, the sawyer’s gratitude to Richmond was obvious. He lay in bed and looked up into the young doctor’s face with the eyes of a man beholding his saviour. Moreover, Jackson’s tail was up. He was sure that he was going to keep his arm, and Dr. Davidson, bracketing the man’s sanguine spirit with the cleanliness of the wound, believed that all would be well.

Walking down the path of Jackson’s little garden the elder man said to the younger: “You ought to be pleased with that case, John.”

Richmond’s face went suddenly soft. It was the first time that Dr. Davidson had called him by his Christian name.

“I am. It was worth chancing.”

“More than that, I think. May I confess that it is a relief to me.”

Richmond opened the gate for Dr. Davidson.

“How, sir?”

Dr. Davidson might smile his dry and slightly austere smile, but he laid a hand on Richmond’s arm.

“Because, when one has worked for more than thirty years with and for people, one does feel some responsibility when one leaves them. That sort of feeling gets into one’s marrow. It is not cant, my lad.”

“I know, sir.”

“This is absolutely between ourselves. Burgoyne is a good fellow, but no surgeon. That worried me. In our world, John, life and death do sometimes depend upon a man’s decision and skill. That is why one tries to set one’s self so high a standard. We may not prate about it, but the pride is there.”

“I think I hate humbug as much as you do, sir.”

“Ah, humbug, John, yes. But toleration is sometimes necessary. Also, a little compassionate deceit. Spiritual opium. But I am glad you will follow me.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And be patient with Burgoyne. He is rather like a large baby. The ladies like him. He is admirable when a little cosseting is indicated. But in a crisis—— Well, you’ll understand.”

Now, Southfleet was very much a closed community, save when the summer season brought an influx of visitors. Southfleet was interested in itself and in the things that happened in Southfleet. Sensational happenings were rare, and became local history, to be talked about for years, even in the hearing of the younger generation. Southfleet still spoke of the Dutch barque that had been wrecked on the Camplin Sands, and the Martyr’s Grange murder, and the fire at Dashwell’s Drapery Shop in which a girl assistant had jumped from a window and been killed. It remembered how, some thirty years ago, a portion of the West Cliff had, at the end of one wet winter, slid down tumultuously on to the foreshore. Southfleet gossiped, and its gossip was by no means always unkind. Even a conventional community has its heroes, and perhaps a secret admiration for those mischievous and merry rascals who must cut an occasional caper. All Southfleet had heard of the accident at Clements’ Sawmill. It understood that the new young doctor had saved Jackson’s life and his arm. No doubt the town exaggerated the details. People love to be dramatic, but Richmond, without realizing it, had become, either for good or evil, a figure in the place. People looked at him with interest, and were eager to wish him good morning. Young gentlewomen ran to windows when he passed, to see, but not, of course, to be seen.

For in those Victorian days any community that was somewhat isolated, and had no body of metropolitan experts to call on at five minutes’ notice, had every reason to be deeply interested in its doctor. Davidson was going, and there were many people in Southfleet who deplored his departure. Dr. Davidson had been to them, and especially to the women, a father and a friend. There were those who had said to him: “I don’t know what I shall do when you go, Doctor.” Burgoyne was not Davidson. He might be decorative and genial, and a lady’s man, but the common sense of the community had not been fooled by his fine feathers. Dr. Sylvester Soames was a good old sheep, but not quite the man you would be glad to see when you had had a smash in the hunting-field, or a horse had kicked you, or when you had fallen off a ladder, or your wife looked like dying in childbed.

Especially so did the common people ask for a man with courage, resource and skill, a man who had hands, for the men who labour with their hands are more liable to life’s mischances. They can trust and respect a fellow-craftsman. Dr. Burgoyne might be ready enough with a bottle of physic and florid sympathy, but when a real job of work had had to be done, Dr. Davidson had been the man for it. Labouring folk had tales to tell of Teddy Burgoyne. There was the case of Mr. Lukmor’s gardener who had run a digging-fork into his foot. Burgoyne had pooh-poohed the accident, and in three weeks the man had been dead of lockjaw. There was the case of Tom Smith’s wife—— So, when Southfleet gossiped about the affair, and said that the new doctor had made a pretty good job of Jackson’s arm, the verdict had a communal significance. Davidson was going, but here was a young man who appeared to be capable of filling Dr. Davidson’s place, and of dealing with any disaster that might overtake any member of the community.

It did occur to both Davidson and Richmond that Dr. Burgoyne might be jealous but, as a matter of fact, Teddy Burgoyne was so floridly and perpetually pleased with himself that he was not much troubled by such emotion. Moreover, he was not deeply interested in his professional work. He had private means, and he was much more interested in his own person and its appearance, and in his social successes. He hunted, and he gave dinner-parties, and sang sentimental ballads, accompanying himself on the piano. Actually, he had no wish to quarrel with a capable young man who would deal with the dirty work, while leaving him two-thirds of the practice’s receipts. Dr. Burgoyne would take care of the decorative details, give tone and colour to the partnership, and pose as the beloved physician. He described himself to himself as “A sensitive sort of fellow,” a little bit of a Bohemian, and superior to the blood and bones of life’s more messy manifestations. He was capable of cracking up anything that was his, or that was associated with his affairs. In a little while he would be going about the neighbourhood declaring that The Practice had obtained the services of a most able and valuable surgeon. “Yes, m’am, Sir Humphrey Jolland’s protégé. But, of course, a practice such as ours needs such a man.” Almost, he pocketed Richmond’s virtues, and was ready to produce them as personal attributes and favours. He, Dr. Edward Burgoyne, had seen to it that Southfleet should have its Tom Bryant or its Jolland. He was ready to wear Richmond as he wore one of his colourful waistcoats.

His lady patients thought him exceedingly magnanimous. Yes, Dr. Burgoyne was a dear creature, so generous and so very good-looking. Young Richmond was lucky to have such a man for his senior partner. They hoped he appreciated it.

Moreover, Teddy Burgoyne was particularly pleased with himself at the moment. He was attending that interesting widow Mrs. Borrowdale, of White Lodge, a golden-haired and jocund lady whose antecedents were something of a mystery. Teddy and Mrs. Borrowdale were liking each other. Dr. Burgoyne was so very sympathetic.

Petticoat Lane was interested in Dr. Richmond, in his looks, in his age, and particularly in his future. Was he heart-whole, was he genuinely single, was he engaged to be married? He was considered to be very good looking, and all the more so because he did not tout for favours. If there were young ladies in Southfleet who were ready to regard him as Prince Charming, he was not at all conscious of it. He was finding the work more absorbing than he had expected it to be, and he walked, and he rode, and he drove to it in Dr. Davidson’s dog-cart. He sat a horse well. He turned out for the Southfleet Cricket Club, and scored twenty-three runs in his first match, including a six that he hit over the club marquee. Feminine eyes were sure that he looked very well in flannels. And he was so strong. He smote the ball hard and lustily. The club-patients accepted him; he took trouble, and did not fob them off with two minutes and a bottle of pink medicine. Those who made a hobby of being sick were not so sure that they liked him. This young man was no fool, no suave sympathizer with the exponents of self-pity.

It was Ursula, Lady Neath, who made to her husband that very significant and penetrating remark about Dr. Richmond. He had been sent to see her by Dr. Davidson, partly because she had expressed a desire to meet the new doctor.

“A clever young man, but hard, Hector.”

“Hard! I shouldn’t have said so. Why hard?”

“Because my feeling about him is that he is more interested in the case than the patient.”

“But isn’t that rather admirable?”

“No, my dear, not from the patient’s point of view, especially so if she happens to be a woman.”

“Oh, shame!”

“Oh, Hector! But the young man interests me. I wonder what he will make of life in Southfleet.”

“From what I hear he is making a very good showing.”

“Yes, my dear, for the first year, perhaps. But afterwards? I divine a kind of turbulence in that young man, urges that won’t sit easily in a dog-cart.”

It was indeed a fact that women had not entered intimately into John Richmond’s life, and he did not intend that they should so do. He had not forgotten Sir Humphrey Jolland’s advice, nor did he need to remember it. As he walked through Southfleet or rode his horse to Danesfleet or Richford or Eastness, and looked at tongues and felt pulses, he reminded himself that he was merely serving an apprenticeship to fortune. For a certain number of years he would partner Dr. Teddy Burgoyne, and save precious money, and seize every chance of gaining surgical experience and reputation. It was his very definite plan to become known both as the consulting surgeon and the practising surgeon in this particular part of the world. And his reputation should spread, gradually but inevitably nearer and nearer to the metropolis, until the transition became actual, and the provincial surgeon found himself re-established in London.

The Misses Davidson, or rather the two younger sisters, Charlotte and Caroline, were, it must be confessed, not a little disappointed at the apparent absence of any romantic feeling in Dr. Richmond. He was asked to tea and a game of croquet on the Davidson lawn, and he came and he played, but rather ruthlessly and efficiently so. He sent balls flying into Mrs. Davidson’s geranium beds, but it appeared that he was more interested in the game than in the players. Not that he showed himself anything of a hobbledehoy, a shy, farouche young man in the presence of so many petticoats. He was too honestly at his ease, and almost brotherly in the naturalness with which he treated the young ladies. He joked and laughed. He teased his partner, who happened to be Caroline. “Now then, Miss Caroline, into the geraniums with the enemy.” “Good shot. Now, let’s see if I can ring the bell.” But he had no sentimental tricks, no amorous graces. He did not offer to place your mallet for you, or drop soft glances, or stand close to you as though promising to be a yet more intimate partner. Caroline went into supper peeved and disappointed. She let it be known that she considered Dr. Richmond a very conceited young man. Oh, yes, he did everything well, rather too well, except make love.

Miss Caroline was quite ready to remain in Southfleet as a wife, and neither she nor her sisters were welcoming the prospect of increasing the unmarried population of Hastings. Caroline might declare that Dr. Richmond was very spoilt, but she did contrive to find it necessary to go out and collect a book from the circulating library just when Dr. Richmond would be due at the surgery. It was indeed remarkable how often they happened to meet, but beyond a lift of the hat and a smile, poor Caroline’s trophies were not encouraging. She was a rather pale girl, with sandy eyebrows and eyelashes, but she was not without intuition, and her passion for new literature ceased when she realized that she had no romantic meaning for Dr. John Richmond.

July brought London’s East End to Southfleet, and August even more so. Ladies in large plumed hats, and black velvet dresses shaped to the figure, danced to the strains of the concertina with gentlemen who, though the temperature might be eighty in the shade, had a passion for overcoats with black velvet collars. Such was the fashion. Whitechapel bathed in the sea, and sardonic people asserted that you could smell the act, as well as behold it. Much beer was consumed. The East End went sailing and was sea-sick. Fond mothers fed infants upon whelks and cockles, and then marvelled that their little interiors rebelled. Twice in one week Richmond was called out to resuscitate men who had chosen to bathe after indulging in heavy dinners washed down with lots of liquor. The second case of cramp refused to be resuscitated. Towards evening Southfleet’s old town, especially in the neighbourhood of the Ship Hotel, was prone to riot and recrimination. Language became completely red, and sometimes incredibly filthy. There were fights. Ladies tore off each other’s plumed hats, and even portions of each other’s hair. The few police were kept busy, sometimes so busy that they needed medical attention.

Dr. Davidson would say: “Thank God, life isn’t all one August Bank Holiday.”

He was not a believer in the masses being capable of assimilating or utilizing leisure.

It happened that one summer evening Dr. Richmond was sent for to visit a patient in Jessamy Lane. Jessamy Lane led from the High Street and ran as though it had no ultimate purpose past Clements’ Timber Yard, and a nursery garden to the old houses on the hill above and behind the old town. Eventually, it did reach the old town near the saltings beyond Lukin’s boat-yard. Jessamy Lane linked up a number of pleasant old houses and cottages, and since it did not possess a single public-house, it was spared the intrusions of the East End trippers. Richmond found his house, one of a series, queer, white, two storied places with green verandas and holly hedges. He saw his patient, gave advice and instructions for the medicine that was to be called for, and then let himself out into the little front garden. Dusk had come, and in the dusk he heard loud and unpleasant voices, laughter, animal noises, the makers of these noises were riotously drunk. Richmond had reached the white gate in the holly hedge when he heard another voice, sudden and frightened, a girl’s voice.

“Oh, please, let me go.”

There was loud laughter, neighing laughter.

“Garn, Bill, kiss the little tart. Maul ’er.”

Richmond opened the gate and stepped out into the lane. He saw a girl crushing herself into the holly hedge, rather like a bird trying to escape into a bush. She was being held by the wrists by a large man with a brutal and unfinished face, who wore a white handkerchief knotted round his neck in lieu of a collar. Two other men were standing in the roadway, guffawing and gloating and urging the other fellow on. All three of them were nastily drunk, but sufficiently masters of their legs to be a dangerous nuisance.

The girl turned her head and saw Richmond. Her face was very white, and in it her eyes looked huge and dark and frightened. She was wearing a little black bonnet, and under it her copper-coloured hair was drawn back smooth and sleek to a knot at the back of her head. Her mouth was open, but no sound came from it. It was like a little dark crevice in a voiceless, tragic mask. And by her dress and face Richmond realized that she belonged to his own world.

He turned sharply towards the group.

“Take your hands off that lady, damn you.”

The rough swung round, lower lip out, eyes bulging.

“ ’Ere, you ’op it. I don’t want any bloody sauce from toffs.”

Richmond walked straight towards them, and when he was within a couple of yards of the pair, the fellow let the girl go and faced the obvious intervention. He squared up to the doctor, his large fists as red as his face, knees bent, jaw thrust forward.

“Want a lickin’, do yer.”

His first blow was a staggering, clumsy lunge. Richmond’s fists were up. He stepped back and avoided the blow, and the gentleman in the white neckerchief nearly lost his balance. It was violently restored. Richmond drove his fist into the fellow’s face, and as he rocked back, the doctor stepped in on brisk feet. The great flabby throat was exposed, and Richmond’s knuckles smashed against the fellow’s larynx. He went down and rolled into the gutter, gasping. Richmond turned on the other two. One of them had his fists up, and he lurched oilily towards the doctor. Richmond floored him with a straight left. The third blackguard, hands hanging, mouth open, stood and stared at his fallen comrades.

Richmond turned to the girl.

“I’m so sorry this has happened. Do you live near?”

Her large, hazel eyes seemed to swim before him.

“Yes, quite close, Holly Lodge.”

He thought that she was going to faint, and he stepped to her quickly, and took her gently by the arm.

“Can you manage?”

“Yes.”

“Which way?”

“Down the lane.”

He turned to glance at the drunken three. The first fellow was being incontinently sick in the gutter, the second was squatting bemused, the third still had the gapes. There would be no more trouble from that quarter. Richmond looked at the girl.

“Feeling all right?”

“Yes, now.”

He found himself wondering at her exquisite pallor, and at the lambent richness of her hair. She had a little, fragile face and the lips were still tremulous. Her hazel eyes met his.

“Oh, thank you very much. I——”

“I’m glad I happened to turn up. I had just been seeing a patient.”

“It is Dr. Richmond, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But you have the advantage of me there.”

“Oh, our name is Lancaster. I had been out to post a letter.”

“Here’s your gate. I suppose somebody is at home?”

“Yes, mother and the maid. Please don’t trouble to come any further, Dr. Richmond.”

He opened the gate, and slipped his hand from under her arm.

“No trouble, you know. Now, go in and lie down. I’ll walk up and down outside and see those blackguards off the earth. Better leave it like that, don’t you think?”

She looked at him intently for a moment.

“Oh, yes. It is the kind of thing one wishes to forget.”

“Of course. Forget it.”

“I shall not forget what you did.”

She put out her hand, and he held it for a moment, thinking that he had never seen any creature so mysterious and appealing as she was. He saw her eyelids flicker, as though his gaze disturbed her. She withdrew her hand, smiled dimly and turned to walk up the path. Her home was one of the little low white houses with a green veranda. He watched her open the door and enter, but she did not look back. The door closed, and Richmond was conscious of a curious sense of stillness.