Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

“Not even for a matter of dire importance?” interrupted Chuffey the baker.

“This most certainly doesn’t rise to that level, my dear sir, and if we are to have revolt here on behalf of the perpetually-persistent Mrs. Pilkins, then I will be forced to summon orderlies to clear this hall and send each and every one of you back to his home.”

Sir Dabber, who had bristled at my involvement as an impediment to his wish to see his son as soon and as quickly as possible, now be-mantled himself with a public garment I’d never before seen him wear: disdained and demeaned man of the people.

Brandishing his rather large enfolded umbrella as if it were some menacing mace or spear, the gentleman, his full cheeks puffed out and deeply coloured, plunged into the following wheezing, rather remarkable declamation: “My dear Mr. Howler, I have sat at intervals upon the supervisory board of this hospital, it being a public institution and answerable to the citizens of this valley whose taxes pay for its continuation and upkeep, and I must say that your obdurate behaviour can only be taken as offensive and insulting to every man, woman, and child in this hall. You have no authority here but to follow the rules you’ve been given as to who may enter and who may not, and you are obliged, nay, institutionally obligated to refer anyone who questions or contests your interpretation of those rules, or voices any grievance with regard to said rules, to the author of those selfsame rules, that person being Dr. Towlinson, who, I happen to know, maintains his office on Visitation Wednesdays to be available should there be matters pertaining to visitation that might require his immediate attention. This , sir, is just such a matter, and if you do not suffer Mrs. Pilkins and her daughters and my friend Mr. Trimmers, and myself to proceed to a direct and immediate interview with the good doctor, I shall use every ounce of the clout which I still maintain with the board of directors, each member of whom is a close colleague of mine in medical society, to see that you are promptly discharged from your position as registrar of visitation for this institution without hope of future reinstatement!”

Mr. Howler swallowed, his face having attained a most interesting plastery pallor. He had been trod thoroughly beneath the hooves of that large-framed authority known as Sir Dabber, who had hitherto represented himself as nothing more than a silent, perturbed man in a queue, no more important to eye and ear than a cold and silent sconce upon a wall. “I will take you to the doctor’s office this instant, by all means,” stammered Howler, who then bounded up from his desk with such a forceful application of bodily intention that the chair was tumbled backwards and the hand, which joined the voice in indicating the young man’s newlyfound purpose in life, swept itself in sloppy gesticulation across the bundle of visitor tickets, brushing no small number of them onto the floor, this collateral misfortune compelling the flustered and fluttering gatekeeper of Bedlam to deliver the following adjuration to his gaping-mouthed spectators: “Do not touch the tickets. Remain where you are. Let the paper slips lie! I will return shortly.”

In his patter across the hall with the five of us skating and skittering on the slick linoleum to keep up, Howler resembled some diminutive animal I could not bring fully to mind. But having raised his voice to a degree which had never before been heard here in this large and echoing chamber, he made me smile to think that the surname Howler on this particular day quite befitted the man, and that perchance it was the exception rather than the rule, in more cases than even this one, that commanded when it was most necessary.

r. Howler, finding the door to his employer’s study agape and its official occupant absent, bade that we all be seated within that room whilst he went searching for the man who paid his wages. The room was not a large one, having once served as a cozy bedchamber within the mansion home that was the hospital’s previous incarnation, but it was spruce and lavishly furnished. A fine mahogany triangular press dominated one corner. Scattered about were a Spanish mahogany desk, several leatherbottomed elbow chairs, and a couch to match the design and wooden filigree of its companion pieces. All were exemplary of the finest furniture construction in the Dell — a top line rarely found outside the home or office of the most patrician of Dingley Dell’s Bashaw class. A fireplace, girded in expressive marble, had been set into the handsomely wainscotted wall, that very architectural feature making it obvious that the room had been improved after the commencement of Towlinson’s reign, for the hearth frame matched in colour and pattern the marble top of a small lamp table also found within the room, as well as a decorative lintel imposed above the door.

The room was, in fact, far better appointed than even those libraries and studies I had visited within the homes of the Dingley Dell’s most titanic titans of industry, their league comprehending a half dozen or so gentlemen, who were themselves heirs to our earliest enterprisers in the sectors of coal and iron ore extraction and furniture manufacture and textile production and fruit and vegetable factoring.

Mrs. Pilkins, who was of that class which, whilst not by definition “poor,” scrimped and saved and did without to put a goose upon the Christmas table and warm shoes round her daughters’ feet, commented upon her exquisite surroundings through a breath-whistle of incredulity and an appeal to Charity and Mercy to be “ever so careful not to touch and soil anything.”

Mercy Pilkins, the younger of the two sisters, with eyes opened wider than even her mother’s, consented to the injunction with a nod, but appended withal, “Still, Mama, I should like to curl up in that easy chair, and take down a book and never leave!”

Charity, who shared her mother and sister’s sentiments, was loathe to take a spot between the two upon the beckoning couch when she could instead stand and run her fingertips along the smooth wooden grain of Towlinson’s desktop, those fingers quickly migrating to touch the items which rested thereupon, in clear violation of her mother’s enjoinment. All were things that a man would use in his attendance to the needs of the one-hundred-some-odd mentally-defective men and women (and a small smattering of mentally-defective children) who had been placed under his care: an opened foolscap pad with figures pencilled between its blue lines, a closed ledger, an ink well and pen, a ruler, sealing wax, wafers and pounce box with powder within to blot ink (Charity confirming this with a peek beneath the lid), a string box and fire-box and then another item that could not be identified, but which the young woman took into her hand to overturn and poke and squint at.

“For the sake of Heaven, put that down,” exhorted the girl’s mother. “We weren’t brought into this private chamber to dandle the doctor’s personal effects.”

“But what is it? I should like to know,” returned Charity in weak remonstrance. From where I sat, the item didn’t resemble anything I’d ever seen before. I myself was curious to discover its purpose. I rose from my chair and held out my hand for the girl to give it up. Having done so, Charity went to sit with her mother and sister, as Sir Dabber joined me at desk-side.

“Can you make it out?” asked Dabber. The item was largely flat with dimensions of roughly five inches by four inches. It was composed of some material that seemed an amalgam of ceramic and metal. It was black. There was a rectangular glass window at the top, which slanted upward, as would a propped-up bed. There were a number of raised button-like squares — I counted twenty-four — some containing the imprint of numbers placed in an oddly reversed sequence: 7,8,9, then below these 4,5,6 and so forth. Here is what was imprinted on the squares upon the top row: MC, MR, M-, M+, then down the right side, the mathematical symbols for dividing, multiplying, subtracting and adding, the button with this last imprint being longer width-wise than its neighbours. Next to it was a button bearing the double bar sign for “equals.” At the very top just below the curious window were buttons bearing the imprints “off ” and “on.” Next to these buttons the letters AARP had been written in unfamiliar script.