Джеймс Хилтон - And Now Good-bye

It was a few minutes past the hour when he rang the bell beside the massive blue-enamelled door. He recalled the last time he had been there, ten years before, when his youngest boy had been discovered tubercular; it had been Blenkiron’s partner then whom he had seen, and he had still a memory of the old man, and of his calm and somehow almost reassuring way of telling a father that his boy was seriously affected. He remembered coming out of the house with the boy’s hand in his; they had walked aimlessly round a few corners, and had then had muffins for tea in a small caf�, which he was sure he would never be able to find again, even if it still existed. Eighteen months after that, the boy had died.

Now, he thought, waiting for the door to open, it was his turn. The door swung back; he gave his name to the maid; he was shown into the same room, with the same furnishings—exactly the same, they looked, despite the fact that the old man had died in the interval and his assistant- partner had succeeded to the practice. There was certainly the same ormolu clock on the mantelpiece and the same locked bookcase full of richly bound copies of Dickens, Thackeray, and Lord Lytton. Howat put his hat and gloves on the table with a gesture almost of familiarity, and the maid, as she left him, switched on a cluster of lights that hardly illumined the room so much as extinguished the fading daylight outside.

The clock ticked on; and he knew, as he listened to it, that he was no longer nervous at all, but just calm, frozenly calm, and ready for whatever fate might send. Even the pain his his throat had merged into that all- enveloping numbness of sensation.

The door opened, and there half-entered a man of rather more than middle- age, keen-faced and handsome in conventional morning-dress. He shook hands with Howat, and guided him into an inner room.

Half an hour later the examination, which had been very thorough, was finished. Blenkiron sat in his swivel desk-chair, with his long fingers splayed out on the shining mahogany. He looked as if he could not quite decide how to begin. So far he had hardly spoken at all, except to ask questions. Howat faced him steadfastly from an armchair opposite; he was pale, excited, and twitching about the mouth as he sometimes did when he began sermons.

“I understand, Mr. Freemantle,” mused Blenkiron at length, “that you decided to consult me because my late partner, Doctor Newsome, once examined your son?”

“Yes. It was the only medical address in London I knew.”

“Quite.” A faint superciliousness edged round the doctor’s clear—cut lips. “And you have a great deal of faith, I suppose, in a London medical address?”

“Perhaps one has, rather naturally.”

Blenkiron smiled and began to fidget with a brass paperweight. “Well, well, I wonder whether one ought to say so—but it’s a fact, you know, that there are some exceedingly clever doctors and surgeons in the provinces. Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester—really, I could give you names in those cities, but of course I won’t—dear me, no. It is a most gratifying and profitable superstition that the best medical brains in this country are all congregated in the region bounded by Oxford Street and the Marylebone Road. Only a superstition, of course, but I don’t know what we doctors would do without it. I suppose you think that every brass plate in Wimpole Street and Harley Street means a fabulous income? Not at all—the superstition has shown signs of waning in recent years. Believe me, there are men in this road who can hardly find the cash for their quarterly telephone bills.”

Howat nodded and wished he would get to the point. Doctors seemed to enjoy keeping their patients in suspense as long as possible—as a nerve test, perhaps? Blenkiron caught the impatient glance and went on: “But these are digressions, are they not? By the way, Mr. Freemantle, how is your boy now? It was—let me see—what was the trouble exactly?”

“He died. It was consumption.”

“Oh, that’s bad, very bad. I didn’t realise.” He paused, apparently for deep thought, and then added: “And I understand that you yourself are a clergyman in Browdley?”

“A minister—a Nonconformist minister.”

“I don’t know the town, but I gather from the papers that trade has been very bad lately in that part of the country. I suppose cotton is the black spot.”

“Yes.”

“And coal? Have you any coal mines?”

“Several in the district.”

“And I don’t suppose you’ve ever been down one, eh? You’re just as bad as some of us Londoners. I had a titled person consulting me yesterday—I won’t tell you his name, but he’s very well known in politics—he confessed to me that he had never yet been inside the Tower of London. As I never had either, we were able to share the deep disgrace…However, that is rather by the by…Are you happy in your work in Browdley? Have you any particular worries—professional worries, I mean?”

“No more than most parsons, I should think.”

“You work hard, no doubt?”

“I try to.”

“Yes, of course. And you have to talk a good deal in public, that’s rather inevitable, isn’t it?”

“It is, I’m afraid, yes.”

“Well, you’ll have to drop doing so much of it for a time. I don’t suppose you’re surprised to hear me tell you that, eh?…Is your wife living?”

“Yes.”

“And in good health?”

“Fairly good. She’s not strong, I’m sorry to say.

“And your children—have you any other children?”

“I have a boy—in Canada—and a girl, who lives at home.”

“They are both well?”

“The girl is. The boy—well, we haven’t heard from him for several years.”

“Really? Perhaps he’ll come romping home someday with his pockets bulging with banknotes. They do sometimes, you know.”

“I should be glad to see him whether his pockets were bulging or not.”

“Ah, yes, of course…What would you do, though, if he did strike lucky and make you a present of a few thousand pounds? I suppose you’d rebuild your church or something of the sort.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never considered it.”

“I thought you clergymen always knew what to do with money?…But tell me now, coming back to the point, do you often have headaches?”

“Fairly often.”

“And your eyes—have they been tested lately?”

“About a year or so ago.”

“Do you enjoy your food?”

“Moderately.”

Only moderately?”

“I don’t think I ever was very keen on eating and drinking.”

“Are you an abstainer?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps that accounts for your not being keen on drinking, eh? Seriously, though, it’s a pity you don’t enjoy good food. Do you like corn on the cob?”

“I don’t think I know what it is.”

“It’s an American dish—they do it very well at Fouchard’s, in Greek Street. It’s something you oughtn’t to miss during your visit to London. You eat it, you know, with your fingers—rather like playing a mouth organ. Very messy, but extremely palatable. I have a doctor friend who says that a great part of its value lies in the mode of eating—it satisfies the atavistic desire we all have, consciously or unconsciously, to take our food in our hands and tear it to pieces with our teeth. I wonder if that is really so.”

“I wonder,” said Howat, without wondering at all.

Blenkiron gave the brass paperweight a little push to one side of the desk. “Well, I expect you’re waiting for me to tell you something about yourself. Of course the really hard problem in such a case as yours is not ‘what’ but ‘why’. I must confess that for the last ten minutes I’ve been puzzling myself over that…and I’m not much nearer an answer. You’ll have to knock off most things for a time, that’s clear. I daresay you know that your nervous system isn’t exactly a strong spot. But what prevented you from letting your own local doctor tell you so? As for your throat, I gather it’s been causing you a fair amount of worry, lately?”