I
"Dog's life, old man, a dog's life; you can't get away from that."
Arthur Woodroffe's voice was quite cheerful as he framed this
indictment of the life of a general practitioner in a poor
neighbourhood, but his companion frowned and shook his head impatiently.
"You are still re-acting to the pernicious influences of that damnable
war," he said. "You're hankering after the intoxication of saving
wounded under fire; exciting stunts of that sort; Sbana and Pharpar,
rivers of Damascus. You've got to learn to be content with Jordan.
Risk your life in more homely ways saving the sick in Peckham. Same
thing, really; only you don't get orders for it. And of course ..." he
hesitated, pushed up his gold-rimmed spectacles, and stared hard at his
friend and paid assistant. "Any way, what is it you're hankering after,
my good chap?" he concluded.
Woodroffe looked critically round the little room, and then at Somers
glowering down at him from the hearthrug. "More space," he said
briefly; "and more...." He seemed to jib at the word that was obviously
in his mind.
"More beauty," Somers suggested.
"If you like," Woodroffe agreed carelessly. "Something of that sort.
I'd like to get about the world a bit, too."
"As medical attendant to a hypochondriac millionaire?"
"Or some job abroad; or...."
"What you really want, my lad, is an independent income and lots of
leisure," Somers commented.
"You can't say I've ever been a slacker, Bob," Woodroffe said.
"No, but you'd soon pick it up if you had got enough to live on without
worrying."
Woodroffe considered that before he replied. "Don't believe I should.
Go in for research or something. Hate having nothing to do."
"There's always hunting and golf, and bridge and billiards, and
cricket, and so on," Somers said. "Life of a country gentleman. Also,
you might marry and beget a family, and go in for politics. Quite a
strenuous life it seems, for a lot of 'em."
"Bit of a change wouldn't it, after the life of a panel doctor in
Peckham," Woodroffe remarked; "but I don't think it's my style all the
same. I'd like to _do_ something, something useful. And by the way, old
thing, if you're taking on Nellie Mason, I'd advise you to turn in. I
saw her this morning, and she's pretty near her time. Rotten job it'll
be, too. But I'll take her on if you like. A fat primip like her would
be good for my character."
"No, I'll take it," Somers said. "I promised her I would. She thinks
you're a bit young. All the same, I'm not going to bed yet. I want to
have this out with you. It's interesting, for one thing. I suppose
nothing particular has upset you lately, has it? Nothing that's set
your mind roving."
"I don't know. Yes. In a way. Had a letter this morning asking me
to spend a week-end with a wealthy sort of connection of mine in
Sussex--or Surrey, is it? Hartling's the name of the place."
"Never heard of it, nor of your connection with wealth," Somers said.
"It's a bit distant," Woodroffe explained. "My aunt, my mother's sister
that is, married the old man's son. His name's Garvice Kenyon. Ever
heard of _him_?"
Somers shook his head.
"It'd be a bit before your time," Woodroffe acknowledged. "The old
chap must be about ninety. I've only seen him once. I went there to
stay with my mother when I was a kid of about nine or ten. Some idea
of keeping up the connection, I suppose. But after my father got that
living in Yorkshire, we dropped out. I don't remember much about the
place or the people. General impression of grandeur, and so on, that's
all. Mighty fine place, I believe."
"How did you pick 'em up again?" Somers asked.
"Well, I haven't picked 'em up again yet," Woodroffe said. "But I sat
next to old Beddington at that public dinner you took me to a fortnight
ago, and in the course of conversation--the sort of tosh one does talk
to your next door neighbour on those occasions--he happened to mention
that he was going down to see old Kenyon. So I claimed the connection
for the sake of something to say. After that Beddington talked a lot
about Kenyon; in fact he told me more than I had ever heard before.
And, well, I suppose in much the same sort of way he must have talked
to old Kenyon about me, when he was down there. Anyhow, this morning I
got a letter from my aunt--forwarded from Holt's--Beddington probably
told 'em I'd been in the R.A.M.C.--asking me to go down there the
week-end after next. She says the old man would be 'very interested
to hear some of my war experiences.' Bright old bird, apparently, for
ninety. Beddington said he was as fit as a flea, still, but a bit
absent-minded."
"And the thought of going down there has unsettled you, has it?" Somers
asked.
"Don't know that I am going," Woodroffe said. "My togs are a bit rusty
for that kind of show."
"I'd almost forgotten that one felt like that at twenty-eight,"
commented Somers. "After the war, too. Accept the wisdom of forty-five,
my dear boy, and believe me that rusty togs are quite distinguished
these days."
"Makes you feel rotten, all the same," Woodroffe thought.
"But you still avoid the real issue," Somers persisted; "why this
invitation has unsettled you."
"I don't know," Woodroffe said, settling himself a little deeper in his
arm-chair. "I suppose if one analyses it, the thing set me thinking
of--of the differences between Kenyon's position and mine. Here I am
with no decent clothes, and no money; sweating myself thin over a dirty
job like trying to mitigate the sickness of Peckham, while old Kenyon's
got more money than he knows what to do with."
"Incipient socialism, this," Somers confided to the wall opposite.
"It isn't," Woodroffe said. "I've no sympathy with the greasy
proletariat; not my line at all. It is that the whole thing has just
set me wondering how I'm going to get out of it. It's no damned good
pretending, my dear Bob, that I wouldn't sooner be lying snug in a
clean comfortable bed than delivering women like Nellie Mason. And,
oh! Lord, the accent is on the _clean_ all the time."
"You don't mean to imply ..." Somers began.
"My dear chap, of course I don't," Woodroffe cut in. "My bed here is
clean enough for any one, but for about twelve hours of the day I am
mixing with dirtiness of every sort and kind, and I had more than my
fill of it in the war--lice by the yard and every sort of filth. You
blooming base-wallahs never knew your blessings. Well, all I know is
that I used to tell myself stories of getting clean, fantasy hot baths
in exquisite surroundings, and picture myself going straight from them
into brand new clothes and that sort of thing. Instead of which I've
dropped straight into this. I know I'm clean all right, Bob, but I
can't _feel_ clean. You've got to admit now, haven't you, that ours is
a dirty job, take it all round?"
Somers put his hand under his coat and scratched his left shoulder
vigorously. "Oh! damn," he remarked, after a thoughtful interval.
"I might come back to it, after a couple of years or so," Woodroffe
began again apologetically. "But it's becoming almost an obsession with
me just now. I expect these psycho-analysis Johnnies would say I was
suffering from some suppression or shock or something."
"You've definitely made up your mind to chuck this job, then?" Somers
asked.
"I hadn't when we began," Woodroffe replied. "But talking to you about
it seems to have cleared my mind. Honestly I'd no idea of chucking it
when we started this jaw, and now it seems the only possible thing to
do."
"What are you going to live on?" Somers asked.
"I've saved between four and five hundred pounds," Woodroffe said.
"Carry me on for a bit, though I suppose it isn't worth two hundred
these days. And then I might have a look round one of the colonies,
Canada or New Zealand, or somewhere. It'd be cleaner than Peckham."
Somers sighed, and made a gesture of renunciation. "I'm sorry about
this, Arthur," he said; "very sorry--not only because I shall lose
you--though that's bad enough, but also, because, well, your attitude
disappoints me."
Woodroffe hunched himself in his chair and began to fidget, touching
various marks here and there on the hearthrug with the toe of his
slipper.
"You've always said we ought to express ourselves," he grumbled, "and
here I'm going contrary to my inclinations all the time. I haven't
forgotten your yarns on that subject at the hospital eight years ago."
"My dear old chap, that's the very point," Somers replied. "That's what
disappoints me. I thought you had something better to express than
these calf-like yearnings for change and luxury."
Woodroffe's handsome face had taken on the expression of a sulky
schoolboy. He was still intent on tracing some ideal pattern in the
design of the hearthrug as he said: "Had nearly five years of it. Over
four years in the Army and six months here. Don't see why in the name
of God I shouldn't at least get out into some clean, decent country
like Canada."
"I shan't try to stop you," Somers replied.
"All the same you're making me feel perfectly rotten about it,"
Woodroffe said. "Making me feel as if I were a deserter, slinking off
and leaving you here. Might just as well say at once that you won't
let me go. Of course I shan't, now I know how you feel about it."
Somers stared hard at the opposite wall, tucked his hands under his
short coat-tails, and as he spoke alternately raised himself on his
toes, and let himself down on his heels with an effect of emphasising
his points.
"I stand reproved, Arthur," he said. "I was wrong--quite wrong. Purely
selfish. I've been a bit tired lately and bad-tempered."
"Not you," Woodroffe mumbled.
"I have," Somers insisted. "I'm in a nasty mood to-night."
"I wish you'd let me take Nellie Mason," Woodroffe put in.
"I can't. I promised her, five months ago. Never mind that. We're
talking about you. And I want you to go. Yes; I mean it. You ought
to go. I'm a short-sighted old fool; much too wrapped up in myself
and my own affairs; but now that I've heard the case stated I can see
the truth. You'd only stultify and repress yourself by staying here.
I know how loyal you are, and I know that at a word from me you'd go
on. You mustn't. You'd do harm to yourself and to the practice by
denying your impulse. As you reminded me, that's a well-established
principle of mine, though I haven't thought much about it for the last
five years--there's been too much to do. The point is, however, that
you'll do no good to yourself or any one while you're working against
the grain. _Fay ce que voudra._ It's possible that you may come a
tremendous cropper, and that might do you all the good in the world.
But go you must. I wouldn't keep you now if you wanted to stay."
Woodroffe had stopped fidgeting. "But look here, Bob, old man," he
said. "As a matter of fact, I can't go yet, not for a month or two."
"You can go to-morrow if you want to," Somers replied. "Bates wants a
job and he'd be glad to come."
"Oh! Lord! Bates!" interjected Woodroffe.
"Yes, ohlordbates!" Somers corroborated him. "Dear old wooden-headed,
persistent, patient, uninspired Bates. He's just the man I want. The
panel patients'll love him, because he'll take so much trouble over
'em. It's true that he'll have to work eighteen hours a day to get
through, but he likes that sort of thing. Makes him feel as if he were
being some use in the world, poor chap. Oh! yes, I can do with Bates,
but God! I'll miss you, Arthur."
"I'm damned if I'll go," Woodroffe announced, getting up.
"Everlastingly damned if I will."
"You will, my son, because I won't keep you," Somers said. "But I don't
say that I won't ever have you back. That depends, of course, on how
you return to me. If you _want_ to come back in two, or three, or five
years' time; just turn up and say, 'Bob, I think I'd like to take up
the old work again! and we'll go into partnership.' You'll be ripe for
it. Now you've got to go and find out what you are fit for. You're not
just now fit for this job or you wouldn't be feeling as you do about
it. I know you'd stay out of friendship for me, but that's no good--no
good at all. I'd sooner have ohlordbates trying to be some use in the
world."
Woodroffe sat down again and stared rather gloomily at the pattern of
the hearthrug. "I feel rather a swine, all the same, Bob," he said.
"You won't in a month's time," Somers assured him.
Woodroffe contemplated that remark for a moment and then smiled rather
grimly. "In a way I hope I will," he said, "and in another way I hope
I won't. You needn't think it'll be a case of 'out of sight, out of
mind,' Bob; but I shouldn't care to live permanently with the thought
of myself as being a swine for having left you."
"You're not leaving me, my dear man, I'm sending you away for your own
good and that of the practice," Somers returned.
"Comes to the same thing. It means I've failed you."
"It means that you've failed yourself," Somers corrected him. "Now I
want you to go out into the world and find out where and why. You'll do
it. I shall expect you back sometime."
Woodroffe sighed and got up, but his face had cleared. "I'll come
back," he said; "but I'll admit it's a relief to go in a lot of ways.
I--good Lord, I want more space," and he stretched out his arms as if
to demonstrate how very little space there was in that small room.
Somers nodded. "That's settled," he said. "And I don't know that
you could make a better beginning, Arthur, than by accepting that
invitation of your rich connections for a week-end."
"Oh! ah! I'd forgotten that," Woodroffe said, looked down at the knees
of his trousers, and added with a faint blush: "Might get myself some
new togs out of capital? I'm sure to want 'em sooner or later. Only
things are such a filthy price just now. They rook you about thirty
quid for a dress suit."
"I should certainly get some new togs," Somers advised him. "Treat it
as an investment."
"Of course, if you put it like that," Woodroffe said, with a grin.
"I'll take the responsibility of letting you squander your capital,"
Somers replied gravely.
"Facetious old dog, you!" Woodroffe returned. "Like to pretend I'm
still in leading strings, don't you?"
"Lord, you're not ready for leading strings yet," Somers said. "Wait
till you're weaned before you try to walk."
Woodroffe thumped him playfully on the chest.
"Oh! go to bed," Somers growled. "I'm going to try and snatch an hour
before I'm fetched for Nellie Mason; if I am fetched. Personally, I
shouldn't be surprised if it wasn't for another week yet."
"Dog's life, old man, a dog's life," Woodroffe commented as he left the
room.
When he had gone Somers threw himself down with a groan into the
arm-chair. "I wonder how long it'll be before he comes back?" he
thought. "If he'll ever come back?"
In his mind's eye he had a disgustingly clear image of the solemn,
earnest face of young Bates.