MY FIRST EXPERIENCES IN PRACTICE
A Strange Character--His Honeymoon--His Bristol Practice--Telegram
from Plymouth--Six Amusing Weeks--A Deep Plot--My Southsea
Venture--Furnishing on the Cheap--The Plot Explodes.
I have now come to the temporary end of my voyages, which were to be
renewed in years to come, and I have reached the time when, under very
curious circumstances, I endeavoured to establish myself in medical
practice. In a book written some years afterwards called “The Stark
Munro Letters,” I drew in very close detail the events of the next
few years, and there the curious reader will find them more clearly
and fully set out than would be to scale in these pages. I would only
remark, should any reader reconstruct me or my career from that book,
that there are some few incidents there which are imaginary, and that,
especially, the whole incident of the case of a lunatic and of Lord
Saltire in Chapter IV occurred to a friend and not to myself. Otherwise
the whole history of my association with the man whom I called
Cullingworth, his extraordinary character, our parting and the way in
which I was left to what seemed certain ruin, were all as depicted.
I will here simply give the essentials of the story, and retain the
fictitious name.
In my last year of study at Edinburgh I formed a friendship with this
remarkable student. He came of a famous medical family, his father
having been a great authority upon zymotic disease. He came also of a
famous athletic stock, and was a great Rugby forward himself, though
rather handicapped by the Berserk fury with which he would play. He
was up to international form, and his younger brother was reckoned
by good judges to be about the best forward who ever donned the
rose-embroidered jersey of England.
Cullingworth was as strong mentally as physically. In person he was
about 5 ft. 9 in. in height, perfectly built, with a bulldog jaw,
bloodshot deep-set eyes, overhanging brows, and yellowish hair as
stiff as wire, which spurted up above his brows. He was a man born for
trouble and adventure, unconventional in his designs and formidable in
his powers of execution--a man of action with a big but incalculable
brain guiding the action. He died in early middle age, and I understand
that an autopsy revealed some cerebral abnormality, so that there was
no doubt a pathological element in his strange explosive character.
For some reason he took a fancy to me, and appeared to attach an undue
importance to my advice.
When I met him first he had just indulged in one of his wild escapades,
which ended usually in a fight or in a transitory appearance in a
police court, but on this occasion was more serious and permanent.
He had run off with a charming young lady and married her, she being
a ward in Chancery and under age. However, the deed was done and
all the lawyers in the world could not undo it, though they might
punish the culprit. He told me how he and the lady had gone over a
Bradshaw with the intention that when they came on a station of which
neither of them had ever heard, they would make for that place and
spend their honeymoon there. They came therefore upon some awful
name, Clodpole-in-the-Marsh or something of the kind, and there
they sojourned in the village inn. Cullingworth stained his yellow
hair black, but the stain took in some places and not in others,
so that he looked as if he had escaped from Barnum’s show. What
Clodpole-in-the-Marsh could have thought of such an extraordinary
couple I cannot imagine, and it is probably the one occasion on which
it ever buzzed. I cannot think of any surer way of getting publicity
than that which Cullingworth took to avoid detection. In London they
would have been perfectly unobserved. I remember that for years
Cullingworth’s hair presented curious iridescent tints which were the
remains of his disguise.
He brought his bride safely to Edinburgh, where they hired a flat and
lived in it without furnishing it save for the absolutely needful.
I have dined with them there on an apple dumpling, seated on a pile
of thick volumes as there was no chair. We introduced them to a few
friends, did what we could for the lonely lady, and finally they
drifted off, and for a time we heard no more.
Just before I started for Africa I got a long telegram from
Cullingworth imploring me to go to Bristol as he needed my advice.
I was in Birmingham and I set forth at once. When I reached Bristol
he conducted me to a fine mansion, and there poured out his tale of
woe. He had started in great style, hoping to rally the remains of
his father’s patients, but his money had run out, he was dunned by
his tradespeople, there were no patients, and what was he to do? We
had a joyous riotous time for two days, for there was an exuberant
atmosphere about the man which rose above all trouble. The only advice
I could give was that he should make a composition with his creditors.
I heard afterwards that he assembled them, addressed them in a long and
emotional speech, reduced them almost to tears with his picture of the
struggles of a deserving young man, and finally got a unanimous vote of
confidence from them with full consent that he should pay at his own
leisure. It was the sort of thing that he would do, and tell the story
afterwards with a bull’s roar of laughter which could be heard down the
street.
When I had been back a couple of months from Africa, I received another
telegram--he always telegraphed and never wrote--which ran in some such
way as this: “Started here last June. Colossal success. Come down by
next train if possible. Plenty of room for you. Splendid opening.” The
telegram was stamped Plymouth. A second even more explosive telegram
upbraided me for delay and guaranteed me £300 the first year. This
looked like business, so off I went.
The events of the next six weeks, in the late spring and early
summer of 1882, were more fitted for some rollicking novel than for
the sober pages of a veracious chronicle. The conditions which I
found at Plymouth were incredible. In a short time this man, half
genius and half quack, had founded a practice worth several thousand
pounds of ready money in the year. “Free consultations but pay for
your medicine,” was his slogan, and as he charged a good price for
the latter it worked out all the same in the end. The mere words
“Free Consultations” attracted crowds. He used drugs in a heroic
and indiscriminate manner which produced dramatic results but at
an unjustifiable risk. I remember one instance where dropsy had
disappeared before a severe dose of croton oil in a way that set all
the gossips talking. People flocked into the town from 20 and 30 miles
round, and not only his waiting rooms, but his stairs and his passages,
were crammed. His behaviour to them was extraordinary. He roared and
shouted, scolded them, joked them, pushed them about, and pursued
them sometimes into the street, or addressed them collectively from
the landing. A morning with him when the practice was in full blast
was as funny as any pantomime and I was exhausted with laughter. He
had a well-worn volume on Medical Jurisprudence which he pretended
was the Bible, and he swore old women on it that they would drink no
more tea. I have no doubt he did a great deal of good, for there was
reason and knowledge behind all that he did, but his manner of doing
it was unorthodox in the extreme. His wife made up the prescriptions
at a pigeon-hole at the end of a passage and received the price which
was marked on the label carried down by the patient. Every evening
Cullingworth walked back to his great residential house upon the Hoe,
bearing his bag of silver, his coat flying, his hat on the back of his
head, and his great fangs grinning up at every doctor whose disgusted
face showed at a window.
Cullingworth had rigged me up a room, furnished with one table and
two chairs, in which I could take surgical or other cases which he
did not care to handle. I fear that my professional manners were very
unexciting after his more flamboyant efforts, which I could not imitate
even if I would. I had, however, a steady dribble of patients, and it
looked as if I might build something up. I went up country once, and
operated upon an old fellow’s nose which had contracted cancer through
his holding the bowl of a short clay pipe immediately beneath it. I
left him with an aristocratic, not to say supercilious organ, which was
the wonder of the village, and might have been the foundation of my
fame.
But there were other influences at work, and the threads of fate were
shooting out at strange unexpected angles. My mother had greatly
resented my association with Cullingworth. Her family pride had been
aroused, and justly as I can now see, though my wanderings had left
me rather too Bohemian and careless upon points of etiquette. But I
liked Cullingworth and even now I can’t help liking him--and I admired
his strong qualities and enjoyed his company and the extraordinary
situations which arose from any association with him. This resistance
upon my part, and my defence of my friend, annoyed my mother the more,
and she wrote me several letters of remonstrance which certainly dealt
rather faithfully with his character as it appeared to her. I was
careless of my papers and these letters were read both by Cullingworth
and his wife. I do them no injustice in saying this, for they finally
admitted it. Apparently he imagined--he was a man of strange suspicions
and secret plottings--that I was a party to such sentiments, whereas
they were actually called forth by my defence of him. His manner
changed, and more than once I caught his fierce grey eyes looking
furtively at me with a strange sullen expression, so much so that I
asked him what was the matter. He was actually scheming my ruin, which
would be nothing financially, since I had nothing to lose, but would be
much both to my mother and me if it touched my honour.
One day he came to me and told me that he thought my presence
complicated his practice and that we had better part. I agreed in all
good humour, assuring him that I had not come to hurt him and that I
was very grateful for what he had done, even if it came to nothing.
He then strongly advised me to go into practice myself. I replied
that I had no capital. He answered that he would see to that, that he
would allow me a pound a week until I got my feet under me, and that
I could repay it at leisure. I thanked him warmly, and after looking
at Tavistock I finally decided that Portsmouth would be a good place,
the only reason being that I knew the conditions at Plymouth, and
Portsmouth seemed analogous. I boarded an Irish steamer, therefore,
and about July of 1882 I started off by sea, with one small trunk
containing all my earthly possessions, to start practice in a town in
which I knew no single soul. My cash balance was under £10, and I knew
not only that I had to meet all present expenses upon this, but that
I had to furnish a house upon it. On the other hand the weekly pound
should easily cover all personal needs, and I had the devil-may-care
optimism of youth as to the future.
When I arrived at Portsmouth I went into lodgings for a week. On the
very first night, with that curious faculty for running into dramatic
situations which has always been with me, I became involved in a street
fight with a rough who was beating (or rather kicking) a woman. It was
a strange start, and after I began my practice one of the first people
to whom I opened my door was this very rascal. I don’t suppose he
recognized me, but I could have sworn to him. I emerged from the fray
without much damage, and was very glad to escape some serious scandal.
It was the second time that I had got knocked about in defence of
beauty in distress.
I spent a week in marking down the unoccupied houses, and finally
settled at £40 a year into Bush Villa, which a kindly landlord has
now called Doyle House. I was terrified lest the agent should ask
for a deposit, but the name of my C.B. uncle as reference turned
the scale in my favour. Having secured the empty house and its key,
I went down to a sale in Portsea and for about £4 secured quite a
lot of second-hand--possibly tenth-hand--furniture. It met my needs
and enabled me to make one room possible for patients with three
chairs, a table and a central patch of carpet. I had a bed of sorts
and a mattress upstairs. I fixed up the plate which I had brought
from Plymouth, bought a red lamp on tick, and fairly settled down
in receipt of custom. When all was done I had a couple of pounds in
hand. Servants, of course, were out of the question, so I polished my
own plate every morning, brushed down my front, and kept the house
reasonably clean. I found that I could live quite easily and well on
less than a shilling a day, so I could hold out for a long period.
I had at this time contributed several stories to “London Society,”
a magazine now defunct, but then flourishing under the editorship of
a Mr. Hogg. In the April, 1882, number I had a story, now happily
forgotten, called “Bones,” while in the preceding Christmas number I
had another, “The Gully of Bluemansdyke,” both of them feeble echoes
of Bret Harte. These, with the stories already mentioned, made up my
whole output at this time. I explained to Mr. Hogg how I was situated,
and wrote for him a new tale for his Christmas number entitled “My
Friend the Murderer.” Hogg behaved very well and sent me £10, which
I laid by for my first quarter’s rent. I was not so pleased with him
when, years later, he claimed the full copyright of all these immature
stories, and published them in a volume with my name attached. Have
a care, young authors, have a care, or your worst enemy will be your
early self!
It was as well that I had that £10, for Cullingworth, having learned
that I was fairly committed, with my lease signed, now hurled his
thunderbolt, which he thought would crush me. It was a curt letter--not
a telegram for a wonder--in which he admitted that my letters had been
read, expressed surprise that such a correspondence should have gone
on while I was under his roof, and declared that he could have nothing
more to do with me. He had, of course, no real grievance, but I am
quite willing to admit that he honestly thought he had. But his method
of revenge was a strange example of the schemings of a morbid mind.
For a moment I was staggered. But my boats were burned and I must go
forward. I sent back a derisive reply to Cullingworth, and put him out
of my head for ever--indeed, I heard of him no more until some five
years later I read the news of his premature death. He was a remarkable
man and narrowly escaped being a great one. I fear that he lived up to
his great income and left his wife but poorly off.