Philip had written to Athelny to tell him that he was doing a locum in
Dorsetshire and in due course received an answer from him. It was
written in the formal manner he affected, studded with pompous epithets
as a Persian diadem was studded with precious stones; and in the
beautiful hand, like black letter and as difficult to read, upon which
he prided himself. He suggested that Philip should join him and his
family in the Kentish hop-field to which he went every year; and to
persuade him said various beautiful and complicated things about
Philip’s soul and the winding tendrils of the hops. Philip replied at
once that he would come on the first day he was free. Though not born
there, he had a peculiar affection for the Isle of Thanet, and he was
fired with enthusiasm at the thought of spending a fortnight so close
to the earth and amid conditions which needed only a blue sky to be as
idyllic as the olive groves of Arcady.
The four weeks of his engagement at Farnley passed quickly. On the
cliff a new town was springing up, with red brick villas round golf
links, and a large hotel had recently been opened to cater for the
summer visitors; but Philip went there seldom. Down below, by the
harbour, the little stone houses of a past century were clustered in a
delightful confusion, and the narrow streets, climbing down steeply,
had an air of antiquity which appealed to the imagination. By the
water’s edge were neat cottages with trim, tiny gardens in front of
them; they were inhabited by retired captains in the merchant service,
and by mothers or widows of men who had gained their living by the sea;
and they had an appearance which was quaint and peaceful. In the little
harbour came tramps from Spain and the Levant, ships of small tonnage;
and now and then a windjammer was borne in by the winds of romance. It
reminded Philip of the dirty little harbour with its colliers at
Blackstable, and he thought that there he had first acquired the
desire, which was now an obsession, for Eastern lands and sunlit
islands in a tropic sea. But here you felt yourself closer to the wide,
deep ocean than on the shore of that North Sea which seemed always
circumscribed; here you could draw a long breath as you looked out upon
the even vastness; and the west wind, the dear soft salt wind of
England, uplifted the heart and at the same time melted it to
tenderness.
One evening, when Philip had reached his last week with Doctor South, a
child came to the surgery door while the old doctor and Philip were
making up prescriptions. It was a little ragged girl with a dirty face
and bare feet. Philip opened the door.
“Please, sir, will you come to Mrs. Fletcher’s in Ivy Lane at once?”
“What’s the matter with Mrs. Fletcher?” called out Doctor South in his
rasping voice.
The child took no notice of him, but addressed herself again to Philip.
“Please, sir, her little boy’s had an accident and will you come at
once?”
“Tell Mrs. Fletcher I’m coming,” called out Doctor South.
The little girl hesitated for a moment, and putting a dirty finger in a
dirty mouth stood still and looked at Philip.
“What’s the matter, Kid?” said Philip, smiling.
“Please, sir, Mrs. Fletcher says, will the new doctor come?” There was
a sound in the dispensary and Doctor South came out into the passage.
“Isn’t Mrs. Fletcher satisfied with me?” he barked. “I’ve attended Mrs.
Fletcher since she was born. Why aren’t I good enough to attend her
filthy brat?”
The little girl looked for a moment as though she were going to cry,
then she thought better of it; she put out her tongue deliberately at
Doctor South, and, before he could recover from his astonishment,
bolted off as fast as she could run. Philip saw that the old gentleman
was annoyed.
“You look rather fagged, and it’s a goodish way to Ivy Lane,” he said,
by way of giving him an excuse not to go himself.
Doctor South gave a low snarl.
“It’s a damned sight nearer for a man who’s got the use of both legs
than for a man who’s only got one and a half.”
Philip reddened and stood silent for a while.
“Do you wish me to go or will you go yourself?” he said at last
frigidly.
“What’s the good of my going? They want you.”
Philip took up his hat and went to see the patient. It was hard upon
eight o’clock when he came back. Doctor South was standing in the
dining-room with his back to the fireplace.
“You’ve been a long time,” he said.
“I’m sorry. Why didn’t you start dinner?”
“Because I chose to wait. Have you been all this while at Mrs.
Fletcher’s?”
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t. I stopped to look at the sunset on my way
back, and I didn’t think of the time.”
Doctor South did not reply, and the servant brought in some grilled
sprats. Philip ate them with an excellent appetite. Suddenly Doctor
South shot a question at him.
“Why did you look at the sunset?”
Philip answered with his mouth full.
“Because I was happy.”
Doctor South gave him an odd look, and the shadow of a smile flickered
across his old, tired face. They ate the rest of the dinner in silence;
but when the maid had given them the port and left the room, the old
man leaned back and fixed his sharp eyes on Philip.
“It stung you up a bit when I spoke of your game leg, young fellow?” he
said.
“People always do, directly or indirectly, when they get angry with
me.”
“I suppose they know it’s your weak point.”
Philip faced him and looked at him steadily.
“Are you very glad to have discovered it?”
The doctor did not answer, but he gave a chuckle of bitter mirth. They
sat for a while staring at one another. Then Doctor South surprised
Philip extremely.
“Why don’t you stay here and I’ll get rid of that damned fool with his
mumps?”
“It’s very kind of you, but I hope to get an appointment at the
hospital in the autumn. It’ll help me so much in getting other work
later.”
“I’m offering you a partnership,” said Doctor South grumpily.
“Why?” asked Philip, with surprise.
“They seem to like you down here.”
“I didn’t think that was a fact which altogether met with your
approval,” Philip said drily.
“D’you suppose that after forty years’ practice I care a twopenny damn
whether people prefer my assistant to me? No, my friend. There’s no
sentiment between my patients and me. I don’t expect gratitude from
them, I expect them to pay my fees. Well, what d’you say to it?”
Philip made no reply, not because he was thinking over the proposal,
but because he was astonished. It was evidently very unusual for
someone to offer a partnership to a newly qualified man; and he
realised with wonder that, although nothing would induce him to say so,
Doctor South had taken a fancy to him. He thought how amused the
secretary at St. Luke’s would be when he told him.
“The practice brings in about seven hundred a year. We can reckon out
how much your share would be worth, and you can pay me off by degrees.
And when I die you can succeed me. I think that’s better than knocking
about hospitals for two or three years, and then taking assistantships
until you can afford to set up for yourself.”
Philip knew it was a chance that most people in his profession would
jump at; the profession was over-crowded, and half the men he knew
would be thankful to accept the certainty of even so modest a
competence as that.
“I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t,” he said. “It means giving up
everything I’ve aimed at for years. In one way and another I’ve had a
roughish time, but I always had that one hope before me, to get
qualified so that I might travel; and now, when I wake in the morning,
my bones simply ache to get off, I don’t mind where particularly, but
just away, to places I’ve never been to.”
Now the goal seemed very near. He would have finished his appointment
at St. Luke’s by the middle of the following year, and then he would go
to Spain; he could afford to spend several months there, rambling up
and down the land which stood to him for romance; after that he would
get a ship and go to the East. Life was before him and time of no
account. He could wander, for years if he chose, in unfrequented
places, amid strange peoples, where life was led in strange ways. He
did not know what he sought or what his journeys would bring him; but
he had a feeling that he would learn something new about life and gain
some clue to the mystery that he had solved only to find more
mysterious. And even if he found nothing he would allay the unrest
which gnawed at his heart. But Doctor South was showing him a great
kindness, and it seemed ungrateful to refuse his offer for no adequate
reason; so in his shy way, trying to appear as matter of fact as
possible, he made some attempt to explain why it was so important to
him to carry out the plans he had cherished so passionately.
Doctor South listened quietly, and a gentle look came into his shrewd
old eyes. It seemed to Philip an added kindness that he did not press
him to accept his offer. Benevolence is often very peremptory. He
appeared to look upon Philip’s reasons as sound. Dropping the subject,
he began to talk of his own youth; he had been in the Royal Navy, and
it was his long connection with the sea that, when he retired, had made
him settle at Farnley. He told Philip of old days in the Pacific and of
wild adventures in China. He had taken part in an expedition against
the head-hunters of Borneo and had known Samoa when it was still an
independent state. He had touched at coral islands. Philip listened to
him entranced. Little by little he told Philip about himself. Doctor
South was a widower, his wife had died thirty years before, and his
daughter had married a farmer in Rhodesia; he had quarrelled with him,
and she had not come to England for ten years. It was just as if he had
never had wife or child. He was very lonely. His gruffness was little
more than a protection which he wore to hide a complete
disillusionment; and to Philip it seemed tragic to see him just waiting
for death, not impatiently, but rather with loathing for it, hating old
age and unable to resign himself to its limitations, and yet with the
feeling that death was the only solution of the bitterness of his life.
Philip crossed his path, and the natural affection which long
separation from his daughter had killed—she had taken her husband’s
part in the quarrel and her children he had never seen—settled itself
upon Philip. At first it made him angry, he told himself it was a sign
of dotage; but there was something in Philip that attracted him, and he
found himself smiling at him he knew not why. Philip did not bore him.
Once or twice he put his hand on his shoulder: it was as near a caress
as he had got since his daughter left England so many years before.
When the time came for Philip to go Doctor South accompanied him to the
station: he found himself unaccountably depressed.
“I’ve had a ripping time here,” said Philip. “You’ve been awfully kind
to me.”
“I suppose you’re very glad to go?”
“I’ve enjoyed myself here.”
“But you want to get out into the world? Ah, you have youth.” He
hesitated a moment. “I want you to remember that if you change your
mind my offer still stands.”
“That’s awfully kind of you.”
Philip shook hands with him out of the carriage window, and the train
steamed out of the station. Philip thought of the fortnight he was
going to spend in the hop-field: he was happy at the idea of seeing his
friends again, and he rejoiced because the day was fine. But Doctor
South walked slowly back to his empty house. He felt very old and very
lonely.