Once or twice he made a mistake in diagnosis (he had never seen a case of measles before, and when he was confronted with the rash took it for an obscure disease of the skin), and once or twice his ideas of treatment differed from Doctor South's. The first time this happened Doctor South attacked him with savage irony; but Philip took it with good humour; he had some gift for repartee, and he made one or two answers which caused Doctor South to stop and look at him curiously. Philip's face was grave, but his eyes were twinkling. The old gentleman could not avoid the impression that Philip was chaffing him. He was used to being disliked and feared by his assistants, and this was a new experience. He had half a mind to fly into a passion and pack Philip off by the next train, he had done that before with his assistants; but he had an uneasy feeling that Philip then would simply laugh at him outright; and suddenly he felt amused. His mouth formed itself into a smile against his will, and he turned away. In a little while he grew conscious that Philip was amusing himself systematically at his expense. He was taken aback at first and then diverted.
‘Damn his impudence,' he chuckled to himself. ‘Damn his impudence.'
CXVII
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 the 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. Into 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 two-penny 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 realized 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 overcrowded, 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 connexion 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.
CXVIII
IT WAS late in the evening when Philip arrived at Ferne. It was Mrs Athelny's native village, and she had been accustomed from her childhood to pick in the hop-field to which with her husband and her children she still went every year. Like many Kentish folk her family had gone out regularly, glad to earn a little money, but especially regarding the annual outing, looked forward to for months, as the best of holidays. The work was not hard, it was done in common, in the open air, and for the children it was a long, delightful picnic; here the young men met the maidens; in the long evenings when work was over they wandered about the lanes, making love; and the hopping season was generally followed by weddings. They went out in carts with bedding, pots and pans, chairs and tables; and Ferne while the hopping lasted was deserted. They were very exclusive and would have resented the intrusion of foreigners, as they called the people who came from London; they looked down upon them and feared them too; they were a rough lot, and the respectable country folk did not want to mix with them. In the old days the hoppers slept in barns, but ten years ago a row of huts had been erected at the side of a meadow; and the Athelnys, like many others, had the same hut every year.
Athelny met Philip at the station in a cart he had borrowed from the public-house at which he had got a room for Philip. It was a quarter of a mile from the hop-field. They left his bag there and walked over to the meadow in which were the huts. They were nothing more than a long, low shed, divided into little rooms about twelve feet square. In front of each was a fire of sticks, round which a family was grouped, eagerly watching the cooking of supper. The sea-air and the sun had browned already the faces of Athelny's children. Mrs Athelny seemed a different woman in her sunbonnet: you felt that the long years in the city had made no real difference to her; she was the country woman born and bred, and you could see how much at home she found herself in the country. She was frying bacon and at the same time keeping an eye on the younger children, but she had a hearty handshake and a jolly smile for Philip. Athelny was enthusiastic over the delights of a rural existence.
‘We're starved for sun and light in the cities we live in. It isn't life, it's a long imprisonment. Let us sell all we have, Betty, and take a farm in the country.'
‘I can see you in the country,' she answered with good-humoured scorn. ‘Why, the first rainy day we had in the winter you'd be crying for London.' She turned to Philip. ‘Athelny's always like this when we come down here. Country, I like that! Why, he don't know a swede from a mangel-wurzel.'
‘Daddy was lazy today,' remarked Jane, with the frankness which characterized her, ‘he didn't fill one bin.'
‘I'm getting into practice, child, and tomorrow I shall fill more bins than all of you put together.'
‘Come and eat your supper, children,' said Mrs Athelny. ‘Where's Sally?'
‘Here I am, mother.'
She stepped out of their little hut, and the flames of the wood fire leaped up and cast sharp colour upon her face. Of late Philip had only seen her in the trim frocks she had taken to since she was at the dressmaker's, and there was something very charming in the print dress she wore now, loose and easy to work in; the sleeves were tucked up and showed her strong, round arms. She too had a sunbonnet.
‘You look like a milkmaid in a fairy story,' said Philip, as he shook hands with her.
‘She's the belle of the hop-fields,' said Athelny. ‘My word, if the Squire's son sees you he'll make you an offer of marriage before you can say Jack Robinson.'
‘The Squire hasn't got a son, father,' said Sally.
She looked about for a place to sit down in, and Philip made room for her beside him. She loo
ked wonderful in the night lit by wood fires. She was like some rural goddess, and you thought of those fresh, strong girls whom old Herrick had praised in exquisite numbers. The supper was simple—bread and butter, crisp bacon, tea for the children, and beer for Mr and Mrs Athelny and Philip. Athelny, eating hungrily, praised loudly all he ate. He flung words of scorn at Lucullus and piled invectives upon Brillat-Savarin.
‘There's one thing one can say for you, Athelny,' said his wife, ‘you do enjoy your food and no mistake!'
‘Cooked by your hand, my Betty,' he said, stretching out an eloquent forefinger.
Philip felt himself very comfortable. He looked happily at the line of fires, with people grouped about them, and the colour of the flames against the night; at the end of the meadow was a line of great elms, and above the starry sky. The children talked and laughed, and Athelny, a child among them, made them roar by his tricks and fancies.
‘They think a rare lot of Athelny down here,' said his wife. ‘Why, Mrs Bridges said to me, I don't know what we should do without Mr Athelny now, she said. He's always up to something, he's more like a schoolboy than the father of a family.'
Sally sat in silence, but she attended to Philip's wants in a thoughtful fashion that charmed him. It was pleasant to have her beside him, and now and then he glanced at her sunburned, healthy face. Once he caught her eyes, and she smiled quietly. When supper was over Jane and a small brother were sent down to a brook that ran at the bottom of the meadow to fetch a pail of water for washing up.
‘You children, show your Uncle Philip where we sleep, and then you must be thinking of going to bed.'
Small hands seized Philip, and he was dragged towards the hut. He went in and struck a match. There was no furniture in it; and beside a tin box, in which clothes were kept, there was nothing but the beds; there were three of them, one against each wall. Athelny followed Philip in and showed them proudly.