Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

Severing said to Charles: ‘I suppose you’ll go home.’

‘Jane will and I know she’d like me to go with her this time.’

‘I’m sure Banky will understand. Too bad this isn’t Washington— then you could both stay. I mean, because of the dual citizenship. Nice thing for a kid to start off with…’

The Coppermills had moved out of Burton Bridgwater by the time Jane and Charles arrived in England. Jane thought she would prefer the country to London, so they rented a house near High Wycombe and paid several short visits to Beeching. Havelock greeted them hospitably and seemed excited at the prospect of becoming a grandfather. At seventy-five he was still upright and active, able to walk miles without tiring, and no less vigorous in some of his opinions. Politically he was now so far to the right that one wondered where he would or could emerge, for he had lost favour with most local Tories when he expounded the unfashionable argument that Mussolini had as much right to conquer Ethiopia as England had had to defeat the Boers. He called the League of Nations a hypocrisy and Anthony Eden a pecksniffian Galahad. Normally this sort of extremism would not have mattered much in a country addicted to almost unlimited free speech; but the barometer of English opinion, as of European and world opinion, was rather rapidly moving to stormy. Only for this reason Charles was concerned. His father’s political views, whatever they were, seemed far less important than the fact that friendships and the tolerance of neighbours were being put to strain.

One June Friday about two months before the birth was expected Charles and Jane set out from High Wycombe intending to spend a weekend at Beeching. Charles was enjoying himself with a new car, and they stopped for lunch in Oxford and walked a little around the colleges. With every discount as a Cambridge man, he still thought Oxford had been ruined as well as enriched by its automobile industry; always sensitive to noise, he wondered how an undergraduate of Queen’s or Magdalen could ever work if his rooms faced that once tranquil curve of the High, along which traffic now passed in roaring procession. Jane said the place had given her a headache, but by the time they were on their way again and approaching the Cotswolds it was clear she was suffering from much more than that. At Beeching she felt worse, and during the night suffered severe pain. By mid-morning Dr. Somerville had diagnosed possible appendicitis and ordered her immediate removal to a hospital. Charles accompanied her in the ambulance, realizing as he watched her (she was already under sedatives) how unimaginable would be any disaster that separated them. Presently he learned that an operation was necessary and that there was some risk of losing the baby. A recommended London surgeon named Blainey was telephoned; he said he could arrive that evening by train.

As the day progressed Charles grew increasingly anxious and was almost glad he did not have to put on an act in front of Jane—though if even half-conscious she would doubtless have seen through it. Yet he felt she could not possibly know what store he had set on fatherhood. People thought they had planned it, and he did not mind anyone thinking so; actually it had been accidental, not even consciously desired, yet afterwards a source of such encompassing joy that they both wondered why they had ever considered their lives too roving and unsettled for such an event. Somehow the baby, even unborn, had already turned wherever they lived into a home.

Charles met Blainey—MR. Blainey, since he was a very distinguished surgeon and not a physician—at Stow Magna station and drove him to the hospital. Charles was favourably impressed by a first look at him— fiftyish, red-haired, slight in build, curtly polite. They did not talk much on the way and hardly at all about Jane. Charles had the professional man’s reluctance to intrude on another professional man’s field; he had suffered too often from the na veté of dinner partners who had discussed international affairs. At the hospital he waited while Somerville took Blainey to see Jane. Blainey was reticent afterwards; he merely confirmed the doctor’s tentative diagnosis and said he had arranged for surgery at seven in the morning.

‘Seven?’

‘Yes. Everything ready by then. You think that’s terribly early?’

‘Oh no—on the contrary. I mean—if it’s so urgent— ‘

What he really meant was that he was already beginning to fret about the overnight delay, but Blainey went on, smiling: ‘Don’t worry—we surgeons are used to it. We don’t keep Civil Service hours, you know.’

Charles was puzzled for a second; then he realized it was not only Blainey’s idea of a joke but Blainey’s idea of the time for a joke. Oh, well… so he smiled back. Even the implication that he could properly be described as a civil servant hadn’t its normal power to irritate him. He then had the sudden idea that Blainey should come to Beeching for a meal and a bed —much quieter and more comfortable than the nearest good hotel, and only a mile or two further. He made the suggestion, which the surgeon accepted nonchalantly; then he telephoned Cobb to prepare a room. It was eight o’clock before they were on the road, exchanging few remarks during the journey. But when they reached the lodge and had to slow down past the opened gates, Blainey remarked, peering out: ‘Quite a place for your son to inherit.’

‘My… my SON…’ echoed Charles, gathering his wits. ‘You mean…’ In exultation over what might be Blainey’s oblique way of conveying reassurance he nearly steered the car off the gravel. ‘Sure it’ll be a son?’ he added, forcing a smile before he found it need not be forced.

‘Try again if it isn’t. Plenty of time.’

Charles warmed further to the remark, though he hadn’t much of the ancestral feeling for Beeching that Blainey was taking for granted. But he needed comfort and Blainey had given it. ‘Too bad it’s dark,’ Charles said, ready to meet the wrong but hopeful assumption halfway. ‘There’s quite a view of the house from here.’

‘Any special reason why it’s called Beeching? Is there a river where boats used to beach?’

‘Oh, it isn’t THAT beaching—it’s b-double e-c-h. Beech trees, I suppose. My father once talked about changing its name to suit his profession —he said he’d call it Loopholes… He being a lawyer.’ (I too can joke at a time like this, was in his mind.)

‘Ha, ha… so if I ever live in one of these places I ought to call it Gallstones, eh?’

They both laughed more than the humour deserved, and Charles felt quite cheerful when, a few minutes later, he led the surgeon into the dining-room and introduced him to Havelock, who had apparently delayed his own evening meal to give the welcome its fullest possible scope. Charles was also a little touched by evidences that during his absence the old man had been busy —a bottle of rather special claret and the table set more elaborately than Cobb would have done it without particular orders. They all drank sherry standing by the mantelpiece, then sat down to the soup. Charles was glad to let his father steer the conversation, which he did fluently and with tact, avoiding strictly medical territory yet touching near enough to bridge the interesting gulf between medicine and the law. It was quite fascinating, an interplay of really first-class minds; yet suddenly, between one sentence and another, Charles ceased to be fascinated and could only itch for the meal to finish so that Blainey could get to bed for a full night’s sleep. With shock he realized it was already midnight. From then on what was left of the meal seemed to progress so slowly that Charles thought there might have been some upset in the kitchen till he verified that every minute was crawling like an hour. Finally Cobb entered with coffee.