I was silent, fighting with all my strength the depth, the intensity of my relief.
The village gasped at the turn of events, and, allowing due sympathy for Shawhead, opinion swung round like a weathercock in a change of wind. I became at one stroke protector of the people and the public health of Tannochbrae. But I would have none of the congratulations which folks tried to offer me as I went about my work, for now it was known that Jean Hendry was desperately ill. The attack was of the fulminating type, her temperature was reported to be mounting rapidly, and she was delirious.
Shawhead had forbidden her removal to the hospital at Knoxhill, and now, in truth, was the dairy closed, the whole farm isolated, and the cows out in the pasture by day and by night. Dr Snoddie, with a sour and worried face, was in close attendance, and a specialist had been summoned from the Ruchill Hospital in Glasgow.
In spite of all this, Jean Hendry grew worse. On the Sunday it was reported that she was sinking, and a kind of silence, greater far than the ordinary Sabbath stillness, settled over Tannochbrae. Not a word passed between Cameron and myself. Then, toward the evening of that quiet day, as the sun was setting in a pool of light behind the Winton Hills, Janet, the housekeeper, entered the living-room. Her face was drawn in noncommittal lines, her hands were folded tightly over her bosom and her voice was sombre as she said:
‘It’s all done with now. Jamie just brought in the word. She’s gone.’
Still not a word was spoken. I turned my head away. Outside a bell began to toll.
Six weeks later, I met Shawhead for the first time since our encounter in the byre. The farmer, aged and broken by his loss, was returning from the churchyard, which lay on the hillside, beyond the village kirk. Awkwardly, I stopped in the middle of the pathway, and almost mechanically Shawhead stopped too. Our eyes met, and each read in the face of the other the knowledge of what might have been, the terrible knowledge that his wife might now have been quick and alive beside him, not cold in her narrow grave.
A kind of groan broke from Shawhead’s pale lips, slowly he reached out his hand, which met mine in a long and tortured grasp.
Chapter Seven
One evening, when consultations in the surgery were so few that I sat glancing through the West Highland Advertiser, a long thin man, with bad teeth and sandy hair streaked over his bald head, called to see me. I recognised him as Dougal Todd, the village painter and carpenter.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing ye, Doctor,’ he began, in a melancholy, sanctimonious style, and with accent and idiom so broad that I am forced, in some measure, to translate it. ‘The truth is, I’ve just dropped in to have a word with you about my poor old mother.’ He shook his head and lowered his eyes. ‘Ye see,’ he explained, ‘my mother’s a frail little body, and pretty old believe me or not, she’s eighty if she’s a day. It’s but right she should see the doctor once in a while. I wouldna’ have it otherwise, I’m so fond of her. Forby, I’ve got her life insured in a society or two, which makes it more or less obleegatory.
‘Now, Doctor, I was wonderin’’ – his voice became ingratiating, confidential – ‘seein’ that my mother is just a poor old woman and me so ill off myself, I was wonderin’, seein’ that you’re just the assistant here, I was wonderin’, I say, if ye wouldna’ see her for half the ordinary fee.’
I stared at my dismal-faced visitor, quite baffled by his astounding proposition.
‘I’ll think it over,’ I said at length, resolving to put the matter before Cameron later in the evening.
‘Ay, ay,’ agreed Todd. ‘Think it over, Doctor, do. As a kindness to a poor old done woman, ye understand.’
He hung about for a minute with a hesitating, meanly propitiating air; then, remarking that it was a chilly evening, he bared his bad teeth in a smile and scraped himself out.
That night at supper Cameron answered my query with emphasis:
‘Don’t! Not on any account! If the old woman comes in of her own accord about her rheumatics or a touch of bronchitis, it’s quite different. Don’t charge her a penny piece. Consultation and as much physic as she needs for nothing. Mind you, she’ll want to pay you with the few pennies in her purse – she’s the decentest, honestest old body ye’d meet in a day’s march. But if Dougal has you in to her for his demned insurance societies or the like, make the fee double. He’s the nearest, whingiest miser in the whole of Tannochbrae.’
The Todds lived in the main street, beside the general store. Todd was too mean to have a shop himself; he had ‘premises’, as he put it – a big corrugated shed littered with shavings and scaffolding – in the yard behind.
Perhaps Todd’s avarice was catching, for his wife, Jessie, a big, stout woman with a shrewd eye, had the name for hardness, while Jessica, their only child, had never been known to give a sweet away. When observed chewing in the school playground and asked by a schoolmate for a share of her candy, the invariable reply of the red-cheeked little Jessica was: ‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I’ve just put the last bit in my mouth.’
From which a saying arose in Tannochbrae: ‘Never ask the Todds for anything – they’ve aye just put it in their mouths.’
Not that they weren’t decent folks, the Todds; oh, yes, they were self-respecting, hard-working, God-fearing folks! Six days of the week, without thought of half-holiday, Dougal could be seen in his dirty white coat attached to a paint brush and a ladder, while on the seventh, in his sober blacks, he escorted his wife and daughter to the kirk.
In this household lived old Mrs Todd, a quiet, timid little woman, with a wrinkled, cheerful face and an almost sparrow-like chirpiness of manner. How this modest, kindly body had ever propagated a son like Dougal remained a mystery to Tannochbrae. All her life she had worked hard and done her best for Dougal. But now she was old, with, as Dougal sadly remarked, little enough but himself to show for it.
She had a very small room right at the top of the house where she kept her treasures – a small bottle of cough syrup to ease her bronchitis, a few strong peppermints in a round tin box. Her meals, by gracious permission, were taken downstairs with the family, except when the Todds had company, but most of her time was spent in the broken armchair in her attic by the minute spark of fire – which she displayed a genius in nursing. On rare occasions, when the weather was warm, she made a brave sortie and went out. Dougal discouraged these small excursions.
‘Now, now, mother, remember your age. Ye ought to be thinkin’ about your last end instead of jauntin’ down the town.’
A kindly protest, of course! To the old woman, Dougal never seemed anything but kindly. True, he would watch her with a harassed eye if she took a second scone at teatime. ‘Mother! Ye oughtna’ to eat so much at your time of life.’
And he would wince to see her labouring upstairs with the tiny scuttle of coal from which she fed her fire; not because she laboured, but because, alas, she used his coal.
Despite his parsimony, Dougal was not rich – in business his meanness cut both ways – but he was rich in hope. He had insured his mother for ‘ a heap of silver’. When she was dead, this money would be Dougal’s. The only trouble was that quite steadfastly the old woman refused to die.
Despite the most sympathetic encouragement – ‘Mother, ye’re lookin’ verra poorly today,’ or ‘ Mother, would ye not like to take to your bed and let me fetch the minister’ – old Mrs Todd went on meekly consuming food, tea, and coal, as though she meant to live to be a hundred.
Late at night Dougal and his wife would sit up, thinking of the food, the tea, the coal – of the heavy insurance payments mounting up from week to week – not saying a word, but both of them brooding over the loveliest diseases, from pneumonia to apoplexy, which might have taken the old woman off, and didn’t.
A few weeks after Dougal had called on me, old Mrs Todd visited the surgery herself. It was one of her rare treats – which she enjoyed so much and experienced so seldom – a jaunt ‘ doun the street.’ She had bought herself some tape she needed at Jenny
McKechnie’s – fancy goods and millinery – and enjoyed the long gossip with Jenny to the bargain. At the store she had got herself two pennyworth of black striped balls – less delicate in flavour than the peppermints, but infinitely more lasting. And now, tired but triumphant, she dropped in on me at Arden House on her way back to her garret.
‘I’ve heard tell of ye so much, Doctor, I just had to come and see ye. Would ye give me a drop cough mixture for my hoast? I’ve a tickly in my tubes at nights.’
She beamed at me with her dark, sparrowy eye – a cheerful, taking little body – withered, perhaps, like an apple that has been kept, but sound to the core for all that.
I loved her instantly.
‘Certainly you’ll have some cough mixture. And strong at that, I’ll make it up for you myself.’
‘Something to warm my chest, Doctor,’ she suggested, coming out of her shell.
‘Ay, ay!’ I agreed heartily. I gave her the best, a good stiff chlorodyne concoction, fit, as I assured her, for the Queen herself.
‘And the dose – it’s two teaspoonfuls at night,’ I announced, licking on the label.
‘What’s that ye say, Doctor?’ she inquired, and then, with a comical simplicity, ‘Ye ken, I’ve turned that deaf since I broke my spectacles.’
I had to laugh. It was so infectious that in a minute old Mrs Todd joined in.
‘Ye’ve a joke in ye, Doctor,’ she complimented me archly, as I showed her the door. ‘Fine! I aye like a doctor with a joke in him.’
Next morning, which was Saturday, the Todds sat down to breakfast in the kitchen. Porridge was supplied in silence by Dougal, his wife, and Jessica. Old Mrs Todd had not appeared. Next, tea was poured, and Dougal’s egg, shelled and in a cup, produced from the oven. And then, with a sour look at the wag-at-the-wall clock, Jessie remarked to her husband:
‘Can that mother of yours not get up in time for her breakfast? I’ve put up with plenty from the same old faggot – and for long enough and all. Things are coming to a bonny pass. She’ll like to have me runnin’ up with trays to her, no doubt.’
‘I don’t think she’s even out of her bed yet,’ said Jessica, taking her cue from her mother and tossing her head. ‘Auld lazybones!’
Dougal steered a spoonful of egg past his lugubriously drooping moustache.
‘It’s a waste of guid gas’ – he masticated glumly with an eye on the meter – ‘to keep things warm for her.’
‘Here, dearie!’ cried Jessie to her pet, in an access of spite, ‘run upstairs and shake her out of bed this very minute.’
Jessica slid agreeably from her chair and, clutching her buttered scone, went bouncing upstairs.
Silence – silence above and below. Then a sudden wail, a wild scampering, and Jessica flung back into the kitchen.
‘Aw, maw!’ she blubbered. ‘Granny’s dead!’
Dougal exploded a mouthful of tea back into his saucer; Jessie drew bolt upright in her chair.
‘Dead, hinny,’ she whispered gently. ‘Did you say …?’
‘Ay,’ Jessica whined, with a wisdom beyond her years. ‘That’s what I did say. She’s streiket out stiff as a poker.’
A long exhalation that might have been a sigh came slowly from Jessie’s bosom. At the same moment Dougal thrust back his chair.
‘Come on.’
He made a masterful gesture to his wife. They hurried up to the top floor. They burst into the attic. Then, suddenly, they paused.
The old woman lay on her back with her mouth fallen open and her cheeks fallen in. Her eyes were gummed, her nostrils pinched.
‘Mother!’ exclaimed Dougal, lifting her hand. But it slipped out of his grasp and fell stiffly on the bed.
There was a pregnant pause while Dougal and his wife stared at the rigid figure on the bed. Then from over his shoulder Jessie whispered reverently:
‘It’s all over, Dougal! Ay, she’s by with it all now.’
And taking the end of the sheet she solemnly covered old Mrs Todd’s pallid face.
Dougal looked at his wife, sniffed, and whined:
‘Oh, dear, oh, dear! My poor mother’s deid.’
‘She’s with her Maker, Dougal,’ said Jessie, turning up the whites of her eyes. ‘We mustna’ question His holy will.’ And taking him by the arm she led him gently downstairs. But in the kitchen Dougal sank into a chair.
‘Pity me!’ he groaned. ‘My poor mother’s deid at last.’
‘Ye canna’ reproach yourself, Dougal,’ said Jessie firmly. ‘Ye were aye a good son to her. And aye I did my best for her myself. A decent old body she was. She had to go sooner or later. And what a peaceful end. Will ye have a drop spirits to steady you up?’
Dougal groaned again, and shook his head. But it was no time for economy. Jessica fetched the bottle from the parlour dresser, and with a show of repugnance Dougal took off a good four fingers.
‘That’s better,’ said Jessie. ‘ Ye maun draw yourself together, man. There’s plenty for ye to do. There’s the doctor’s certificate to get, and the undertaker to see, and the insurance …’
Dougal lifted his head.
‘Ay – there’s the insurance.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Ah, weel, I’ll better get on with it – though it’s bitter, bitter work to do.’
He got up, took his cap, and went.
He went first to Arden House, where Janet answered the door.
‘Janet! I want the doctor,’ Dougal blubbered, for the whisky had intensified his grief. ‘My dear old mother – she’s passed away in her sleep.’
‘Poor body,’ Janet exclaimed involuntarily. Then, inspecting him sternly, ‘Ye canna’ have the doctor the noo. They’re both of the two of them out. I’ll send up the assistant when he comes in from Marklea.’ And she slammed the door in his face.
No sympathy, thought Dougal; oh, dear, oh, dear – no sympathy in the woman at all. My poor old mother! I’m crying like a bairn.
On the way to the undertaker’s, in neighbouring Knoxhill, he stopped folks in the street to tell them, weeping, of his loss.
At Gibson’s, the undertaker’s, he ordered the coffin – a nice coffin, a beautiful coffin, fine value for the money, and not too dear. Sam Gibson was a good lad with a kind word, and a fair promise of 5 per cent discount for cash. He promised to send round to lay out the old woman that evening.
It was dinnertime when Dougal got home. Jessie had been busy; she had made a beautiful steak-and-kidney pie. That and a baked custard stood on the table. The whisky was there, too. Jessie exclaimed sensibly:
‘At a time like this we’ve got to have our food. What with the shock and one thing and another …’
They sat in.
‘I don’t feel like it,’ Dougal protested, as he accepted his plate. Then, as he put a large tender piece of steak below his moustache. ‘But I suppose we must keep up our strength.’
Jessie said:
‘Come to think on it – what was the insurance, up to date?’
‘Near enough five hundred pound,’ Dougal answered solemnly, and forked a promising potato.
‘Dear, oh, dear. It’s a heap of money.’
‘Ay, it’s a heap of money. Wheesht! There’s the doorbell. It’ll be the doctor.
On my return from Marklea, Janet had given me the message, and I had come on directly, worried and rather upset that the old woman should have died so soon after consulting me. Jessie met me in the lobby.
‘Ye don’t mind if I don’t come with ye, Doctor. The shock of it has fair upset us all. The very idea of entering the poor old body’s room’s enough to make me grue. It’s the left-hand door on the top landing.’
I went up and into the room alone. I drew up the blind. Then, on the table by the window, the first thing I saw was my chlorodyne mixture. I stared at the bottle. One-third of it was gone.
Quickly I went over to the bed, lifted the old woman’s eyelids. Pin-point pupils. I took her wrist, held it. Then a faint smile came to my face. From my bag I took a vial of strong
spirits of ammonia and held it under her nose. For a moment nothing happened. Then, with great enthusiasm, the dead woman sneezed.
Drowsily she opened her eyes, stared at me, and yawned while I shook her.
‘Doctor, Doctor – what are ye doin’ here in all the world? But, oh, I’ve had the most wonderful sleep.’
Bending over her, I bawled inner ear:
‘How much of that medicine did ye take?’
‘Eh, what? Two tablespoonfuls – like ye telled me.’
‘No wonder ye slept,’ I shouted. ‘But now I’m thinkin’ it’s high time ye were up.’
I corked the chlorodyne, thrust it in my pocket, and went downstairs.
‘Will ye have a drop whisky, Doctor?’ Dougal asked me mournfully in the kitchen.
‘I think I will,’ I said, heartily, ‘though it’s the first time I’ve heard you offering anyone a drink, Dougal.’
The bereaved son shook his head pathetically.
‘It’s the occasion, Doctor. My poor old mother! I’m heartbroken she should be taken from us!’
‘We’re all heartbroken,” Jessie echoed piously.
‘Well! Here’s health, Dougal,’ I said.
‘Your good health, Doctor,’ said Dougal sadly. ‘ We’ll want four certificates. I had her in four insurance societies, the poor old body.’
There was a loud noise upstairs, followed by the banging of a door.
‘Goodsakes!’ cried Jessie, turning pale. ‘ What’s that?’
‘Grand whisky, Dougal.’ This, with great heartiness, from me.
There was the sound of someone coming downstairs.
‘Do ye hear it?’ cried Jessie again. ‘ There’s something coming down the stairs.’
The door opened, and old Mrs Todd walked into the room. Jessie shrieked.
‘God Almighty!’ said Dougal, as he spilled the good whisky all over his dickey.
Paralysed, they watched the old woman draw in her chair to the table and help herself to pie. First she yawned, then she tittered – then, with a look at the pie, the custard, and the whisky, she exclaimed: