Yes, those were palmy days; the rate at which the practice spread
astonished even himself. No slack seasons for him now; winter saw him
as busy as summer; and his chief ground for complaint was that he was
unable to devote the meticulous attention he would have wished to each
individual case. "It would need the strength of an elephant to do
that." But it was impossible not to feel gratified by the many marks of
confidence he received. And if his work had but left him some leisure
for study and an occasional holiday, he would have been content. But in
these years he was never able to get his neck out of the yoke; and Mary
took her annual jaunts to Melbourne and sea-breezes alone.
In a long talk they had with each other, it was agreed that, except in
an emergency, he was to be chary of entering into fresh
engagements--this referred in the first place to confinements, of which
his book was always full; and secondly, to outlying bush-cases, the
journey to and from which wasted many a precious hour. And where it
would have been impolitic to refuse a new and influential patient, some
one on his list--a doubtful payer or a valetudinarian--was gently to be
let drop. And it was Mary who arranged who this should be. Some umbrage
was bound to be given in the process; but with her help it was reduced
to a minimum. For Mary knew by heart all the links and ramifications of
the houses at which he visited; knew precisely who was related to whom,
by blood or marriage or business; knew where offence might with safety
be risked, and where it would do him harm. She had also a woman's tact
in smoothing things over. A born doctor's wife, declared Mahony in
grateful acknowledgment. For himself he could not keep such fiddling
details in his head for two minutes on end.
But though he thus succeeded in setting bounds to his activity, he
still had a great deal too much to do; and, in tired moments, or when
tic plagued him, thought the sole way out of the impasse would be to
associate some one with him as partner or assistant. And once he was
within an ace of doing so, chance throwing what he considered a likely
person across his path. In attending a coroner's inquest, he made the
acquaintance of a member of the profession who was on his way from the
Ovens district--a coach journey of well over two hundred miles--to a
place called Walwala, a day's ride to the west of Ballarat. And since
this was a pleasant-spoken man and intelligent--though with a somewhat
down-at-heel look--besides being a stranger to the town, Mahony
impulsively took him home to dinner. In the evening they sat and
talked. The visitor, whose name was Wakefield, was considerably
Mahony's senior. By his own account he had had but a rough time of it
for the past couple of years. A good practice which he had worked up in
the seaport of Warrnambool had come to an untimely end. He did not
enter into the reasons for this. "I was unfortunate ... had a piece of
ill-luck," was how he referred to it. And knowing how fatally easy was
a trip in diagnosis, a slip of the scalpel, Mahony tactfully helped him
over the allusion. From Warrnambool Wakefield had gone to the extreme
north of the colony; but the eighteen months spent there had nearly
been his undoing. Money had not come in badly; but his wife and family
had suffered from the great heat, and the scattered nature of the work
had worn him to skin and bone. He was now casting about him for a more
suitable place. He could not afford to buy a practice, must just creep
in where he found a vacancy. And Walwala, where he understood there had
never been a resident practitioner, seemed to offer an opening.
Mahony felt genuinely sorry for the man; and after he had gone sat and
revolved the idea, in the event of Walwala proving unsuitable, of
taking Wakefield on as his assistant. He went to bed full of the scheme
and broached it to Mary before they slept. Mary made big eyes to
herself as she listened. Like a wise wife, however, she did not press
her own views that night, while the idea bubbled hot in him; for, at
such times, when some new project seemed to promise the millennium, he
stood opposition badly. But she lay awake telling off the reasons she
would put before him in the morning; and in the dark allowed herself a
tender, tickled little smile at his expense.
"What a man he is for loading himself up with the wrong sort of
people!" she reflected. "And then afterwards, he gets tired of them,
and impatient with them--as is only natural."
At breakfast she came back on the subject herself. In her opinion, he
ought to think the matter over very carefully. Not another doctor on
Ballarat had an assistant; and his patients would be sure to resent the
novelty. Those who sent for Dr. Mahony would not thank you to be handed
over to "goodness knows who."
"Besides, Richard, as things are now, the money wouldn't really be
enough, would it? And just as we have begun to be a little easy
ourselves--I'm afraid you'd miss many comforts you have got used to
again, dear," she wound up, with a mental glance at the fine linen and
smooth service Richard loved.
Yes, that was true, admitted Mahony with a sigh; and being this morning
in a stale mood, he forthwith knocked flat the card-house it had amused
him to build. Himself he had only half believed in it; or believed so
long as he refrained from going into prosaic details. There was work
for two and money for one--that was the crux of the matter. Successful
as the practice was, it still did not throw off a thousand a year. Bad
debts ran to a couple of hundred annually; and their improved style of
living--the expenses of house and garden, of horses and vehicles, the
men-servants, the open house they had to keep--swallowed every penny of
the rest. Saving was actually harder than when his income had been but
a third of what it was at present. New obligations beset him. For one
thing, he had to keep pace with his colleagues; make a show of being
just as well-to-do as they. Retrenching was out of the question. His
patients would at once imagine that something was wrong--the practice
on the downgrade, his skill deserting him--and take their ailments and
their fees elsewhere. No, the more one had, the more one was forced to
spend; and the few odd hundreds for which Henry Ocock could yearly be
counted on came in very handy. As a rule he laid these by for Mary's
benefit; for her visits to Melbourne, her bonnets and gowns. It also
let her satisfy the needs of her generous little heart in matters of
hospitality--well, it was perhaps not fair to lay the whole blame of
their incessant and lavish entertaining at her door. He himself knew
that it would not do for them to lag a foot behind other people.
Hence the day on which he would be free to dismiss the subject of money
from his mind seemed as far off as ever. He might indulge wild schemes
of taking assistant or partner; the plain truth was, he could not
afford even the sum needed to settle in a LOCUM TENENS for three
months, while he recuperated.--Another and equally valid reason was
that the right man for a LOCUM was far to seek. As time went on, he
found himself pushed more and more into a single branch of
medicine--one, too, he had never meant to let grow over his head in
this fashion. For it was common medical knowledge out here that, given
the distances and the general lack of conveniences, thirty to forty
maternity cases per year were as much as a practitioner could with
comfort take in hand. HIS books for the past year stood at over a
hundred! The nightwork this meant was unbearable, infants showing a
perverse disinclination to enter the world except under cover of the
dark.
His popularity--if such it could be called--with the other sex was
something of a mystery to him. For he had not one manner for the
bedside and another for daily life. He never sought to ingratiate
himself with people, or to wheedle them; still less would he stoop to
bully or intimidate; was always by preference the adviser rather than
the dictator. And men did not greatly care for this arm's-length
attitude; they wrote him down haughty and indifferent, and pinned their
faith to a blunter, homelier manner. But with women it was otherwise;
and these also appreciated the fact that, no matter what their rank in
life, their age or their looks, he met them with the deference he
believed due to their sex. Exceptions there were, of course.
Affectation or insincerity angered him--with the "Zaras" of this world
he had scant patience--while among the women themselves, some
few--Ned's wife, for example--felt resentment at his very appearance,
his gestures, his tricks of speech. But the majority were his staunch
partisans; and it was becoming more and more the custom to engage Dr.
Mahony months ahead, thus binding him fast. And though he would
sometimes give Mary a fright by vowing that he was going to "throw up
mid. and be done with it," yet her ambition--and what an ambitious wife
she was, no one but himself knew--that he should some day become one of
the leading specialists on Ballarat, seemed not unlikely of fulfilment.
If his health kept good. And ... and if he could possibly hold out!
For there still came times when he believed that to turn his back for
ever, on place and people, would make him the happiest of mortals. For
a time this idea had left him in peace. Now it haunted him again.
Perhaps, because he had at last grasped the unpalatable truth that it
would never be his luck to save: if saving were the only key to
freedom, he would still be there, still chained fast, and though he
lived to be a hundred. Certain it was, he did not become a better
colonist as the years went on. He had learnt to hate the famous
climate--the dust and drought and brazen skies; the drenching rains and
bottomless mud--to rebel against the interminable hours he was doomed
to spend in his buggy. By nature he was a recluse--not an outdoor-man
at all. He was tired, too, of the general rampage, the promiscuous
connexions and slap-dash familiarity of colonial life; sick to death of
the all-absorbing struggle to grow richer than his neighbours. He
didn't give a straw for money in itself--only for what it brought him.
And what was the good of that, if he had no leisure to enjoy it? Or was
it the truth that he feared being dragged into the vortex? ... of
learning to care, he, too, whether or no his name topped
subscription-lists; whether his entertainments were the most sumptuous,
his wife the best-dressed woman in her set? Perish the thought!
He did not disquiet Mary by speaking of these things. Still less did he
try to explain to her another, more elusive side of the matter. It was
this. Did he dig into himself, he saw that his uncongenial surroundings
were not alone to blame for his restless state of mind. There was in
him a gnawing desire for change as change; a distinct fear of being
pinned for too long to the same spot; or, to put it another way, a
conviction that to live on without change meant decay. For him, at
least. Of course, it was absurd to yield to feelings of this kind; at
his age, in his position, with a wife dependent on him. And so he
fought them--even while he indulged them. For this was the year in
which, casting the question of expense to the winds, he pulled down and
rebuilt his house. It came over him one morning on waking that he could
not go on in the old one for another day, so cramped was he, so
tortured by its lath-and-plaster thinness. He had difficulty in winning
Mary over; she was against the outlay, the trouble and confusion
involved; and was only reconciled by the more solid comforts and
greater conveniences offered her. For the new house was of brick, the
first brick house to be built on Ballarat (and oh the joy! said
Richard, of walls so thick that you could not hear through them), had
an extra-wide verandah which might be curtained in for parties and
dances, and a side-entrance for patients, such as Mary had often sighed
for.
As a result of the new grandeur, more and more flocked to his door. The
present promised to be a record year even in the annals of the Golden
City. The completion of the railway-line to Melbourne was the
outstanding event. Virtually halving the distance to the metropolis in
count of time, it brought a host of fresh people capitalists,
speculators, politicians--about the town, and money grew perceptibly
easier. Letters came more quickly, too; Melbourne newspapers could be
handled almost moist from the press. One no longer had the sense of
lying shut off from the world, behind the wall of a tedious coach
journey. And the merry Ballaratians, who had never feared or shrunk
from the discomforts of this journey, now travelled constantly up and
down: attending the Melbourne race-meetings; the Government House balls
and lawn-parties; bringing back the gossip of Melbourne, together with
its fashions in dress, music and social life.
Mary, in particular, profited by the change; for in one of those
"general posts" so frequently played by the colonial cabinet, John
Turnham had come out Minister of Railways; and she could have a "free
pass" for the asking. John paid numerous visits to his constituency;
but he was now such an important personage that his relatives hardly
saw him. As likely as not he was the guest of the Henry Ococks in their
new mansion, or of the mayor of the borough. In the past two years
Mahony had only twice exchanged a word with his brother-in-law.
And then they met again.
In Melbourne, at six o'clock one January morning, the Honourable John,
about to enter a saloon-compartment of the Ballarat train, paused, with
one foot on the step, and disregarding the polite remarks of the
station-master at his heels, screwed up his prominent black eyes
against the sun. At the farther end of the train, a tall, thin,
fair-whiskered man was peering disconsolately along a row of crowded
carriages. "God bless me! isn't that ... Why, so it is!" And leaving
the official standing, John walked smartly down the platform.
"My dear Mahony!--this is indeed a surprise. I had no idea you were in
town."
"Why not have let me know you proposed coming?" he inquired as they
made their way, the train meanwhile held up on their account, towards
John's spacious, reserved saloon.
("What he means is, why I didn't beg a pass of him.") And Mahony, who
detested asking favours, laid exaggerated emphasis on his want of
knowledge. He had not contemplated the journey till an hour beforehand.
Then, the proposed delegate having been suddenly taken ill, he had been
urgently requested to represent the Masonic Lodge to which he belonged,
at the Installation of a new Grand Master.
"Ah, so you found it possible to get out of harness for once?" said
John affably, as they took their seats.
"Yes, by a lucky chance I had no case on hand that could not do without
me for twenty-four hours. And my engagement-book I can leave with
perfect confidence to my wife."
"Mary is no doubt a very capable woman; I noticed that afresh, when
last she was with us," returned John; and went on to tick off Mary's
qualities like a connoisseur appraising the points of a horse. "A
misfortune that she is not blessed with any family," he added.
Mahony stiffened; and responded dryly: "I'm not sure that I agree with
you. With all her energy and spirit Mary is none too strong."
"Well, well! these things are in the hands of Providence; we must take
what is sent us." And caressing his bare chin John gave a hearty yawn.
The words flicked Mahony's memory: John had had an addition to his
family that winter, in the shape--to the disappointment of all
concerned--of a second daughter. He offered belated congratulations. "A
regular Turnham this time, according to Mary. But I am sorry to hear
Jane has not recovered her strength."
"Oh, Jane is doing very well. But it has been a real disadvantage that
she could not nurse. The infant is ... well, ah ... perfectly formed,
of course, but small--small."
"You must send them both to Mary, to be looked after."
The talk then passed to John's son, now a schoolboy in Geelong; and
John admitted that the reports he received of the lad continued as
unsatisfactory as ever. "The young rascal has ability, they tell me,
but no application." John propounded various theories to account for
the boy having turned out poorly, chief among which was that he had
been left too long in the hands of women. They had overindulged him.
"Mary no more than the rest, my dear fellow," he hastened to smooth
Mahony's rising plumes. "It began with his mother in the first place.
Yes, poor Emma was weak with the boy--lamentably weak!"
Here, with a disconcerting abruptness, he drew to him a blue linen bag
that lay on the seat, and loosening its string took out a sheaf of
official papers, in which he was soon engrossed. He had had enough of
Mahony's conversation in the meantime, or so it seemed; had thought of
something better to do, and did it.
His brother-in-law eyed him as he read. "He's a bad colour. Been living
too high, no doubt."
A couple of new books were on the seat by Mahony; but he did not open
them. He had a tiring day behind him, and the briefest of nights.
Besides attending the masonic ceremony, which had lasted into the small
hours, he had undertaken to make various purchases, not the least
difficult of which was the buying of a present for Mary--all the little
fal-lals that went to finish a lady's ball-dress. Railway-travelling
was, too, something of a novelty to him nowadays; and he sat idly
watching the landscape unroll, and thinking of nothing in particular.
The train was running through mile after mile of flat, treeless
country, liberally sprinkled with trapstones and clumps of tussock
grass, which at a distance could be mistaken for couched sheep. Here
and there stood a solitary she-oak, most doleful of trees, its scraggy,
pine-needle foliage bleached to grey. From the several little stations
along the line: mere three-sided sheds, which bore a printed invitation
to intending passengers to wave a flag or light a lamp, did they wish
to board the train: from these shelters long, bare, red roads, straight
as ruled lines, ran back into the heart of the burnt-up, faded country.
Now and then a moving ruddy cloud on one of them told of some vehicle
crawling its laborious way.
When John, his memoranda digested, looked up ready to resume their
talk, he found that Mahony was fast asleep; and, since his first words,
loudly uttered, did not rouse him, he took out his case, chose a cigar,
beheaded it and puffed it alight.
While he smoked, he studied his insensible relative. Mahony was sitting
uncomfortably hunched up; his head had fallen forward and to the side,
his mouth was open, his gloved hands lay limp on his knee.
"H'm!" said John to himself as he gazed. And: "H'm," he repeated after
an interval.--Then pulling down his waistcoat and generally giving
himself a shake to rights, he reflected that, for his own two-and-forty
years, he was a very well preserved man indeed.