‘Come along, my dear.’ Freddie greeted her with affection, even with deference, and darted to pour and offer her a glass of sherry. She had time negligently to wave away the glass before the other guests – Mr and Mrs Charles Ivory, Doctor and Mrs Paul Deedman – were announced. Introductions followed, with much talk and laughter amongst the Ivorys, the Deedmans and the Hamsons. Then they went in – not too soon – to dinner.
The table appointments were rich and superfine. They closely resembled a costly display, complete with candelabra, which Andrew had seen in the window of Labin & Benn, the famous Regent Street jewellers. The food was unrecognisable as meat or fish yet it tasted extremely well. And there was champagne. After two glasses Andrew felt more confident. He began to talk to Mrs Ivory who sat on his left, a slender woman in black with an extraordinary amount of jewellery around her neck and large protruding blue eyes which she turned upon him from time to time with an almost babyish stare.
Her husband was Charles Ivory the surgeon – she laughed in answer to his question, she thought everyone knew Charles. They lived in New Cavendish Street round the corner, the whole house was theirs. It was nice being near Freddie and his wife. Charles and Freddie and Paul Deedman were all such good friends, all members of the Sackville Club. She was surprised when he admitted he was not a member. She thought everyone was a member of the Sackville.
Deserted, he turned to Mrs Deedman on his other side, finding her softer, friendlier, with a pretty, almost oriental bloom. He encouraged her to talk of her husband also. He said to himself: ‘ I want to know these fellows, they’re so dashed prosperous and smart.’
Paul, said Mrs Deedman, was a physician, and though they had a flat in Portland Place, Paul’s rooms were in Harley Street. He had a wonderful practice – she spoke too fondly to be bragging – chiefly at the Plaza Hotel – he must know the big new Plaza, overlooking the Park. Why at lunch-time the Grill Room was crammed with celebrities. Paul was practically the official doctor for the Plaza Hotel. So many wealthy Americans and film stars and – she broke off, smiling – oh, everybody came to the Plaza, which made it rather wonderful for Paul.
Andrew liked Mrs Deedman. He let her run on until Mrs Hamson rose, when he jumped up gallantly to draw back her chair.
‘Cigar, Manson?’ Freddie asked him with a knowledgeable air when the ladies had gone. ‘You’ll find these pretty sound. And I advise you not to miss this brandy. Eighteen-ninety-four. Absolutely no nonsense about it.’
With his cigar going and a drain of brandy in the wide bellied glass before him, Andrew drew his chair nearer to the others. It was this he had really been looking forward to, a close lively medical palaver – straight-cut shop, and nothing else. He hoped Hamson and his friends would talk. They did.
‘By the way,’ Freddie said, ‘ I ordered myself one of these new Iradium lamps to-day at Glicker’s. Pretty stiff. Something around eighty guineas. But it’s worth it.’
‘M’yes,’ said Deedman thoughtfully. He was slight, dark-eyed, with a clever Jewish face. ‘It ought to pay for its keep.’
Andrew took an argumentative grip of his cigar.
‘I don’t think much of these lamps, you know. Did you see Abbey’s paper in the Journal on bogus Heliotherapy. These Iradiums have got absolutely no infra-red content.’
Freddie stared, then laughed.
‘They’ve got a hell of a lot of three-guinea content. Besides, they bronze nicely.’
‘Mind you, Freddie,’ Deedman cut in, ‘I’m not in favour of expensive apparatus. It’s got to be paid for before you show a profit. Besides, it dates, loses its vogue. Honestly, Old chap, you’ll find nothing to beat the good old hypo.’
‘You certainly use it,’ said Hamson.
Ivory joined in. He was bulky, older than the others, with a pale shaven jowl, and the easy style of a man about town.
‘Talking of that, I booked a course of injections to-day. Twelve. You know, manganese. And I tell you what I did. And I think it pays these days. I said to the fellow, I said, look here, you’re a business man. This course is going to cost you fifty guineas but if you care to pay me now and be done with it I’ll make it forty-five. He wrote the cheque there and then.’
‘Ruddy old poacher,’ Freddie expostulated. ‘I thought you were a surgeon.’
‘I am,’ Ivory nodded. ‘Doing a curettage at Sherrington’s to-morrow.’
‘Love’s labour lost,’ Deedman muttered absently to his cigar, then returning to his original thought, ‘ There’s no getting away from it, though. Basically, it’s interesting. In good-class practice oral administration is definitely demoded. If I prescribed – oh, say a veripon powder, at the Plaza, it wouldn’t cut one guinea’s worth of ice. But if you give the same thing hypodermically, swabbing up the skin, sterilising and all the rest of the game, your patient thinks, scientifically, that you are the cat’s pyjamas!’
Hamson declared vigorously:
‘It’s a damn good job for the medical profession that oral administration is off the map in the West End. Take Charlie’s case here as an example. Suppose he’d prescribed manganese – or manganese and iron, the good old bottle of physic – probably just as much use to the patient – all he knocks out of it is three guineas. Instead of that he splits the medicine into twelve ampoules and gets fifty – sorry, Charlie, I mean forty-five.’
‘Less twelve shillings,’ murmured Deedman gently. ‘The price of the ampoules.’
Andrew’s head rocked. Here was an argument in favour of the abolition of the medicine bottle which staggered him with its novelty. He took another swig of brandy to steady himself.
‘That’s another point,’ reflected Deedman. ‘They don’t know how little these things cost. Whenever a patient sees a row of ampoules on your desk she thinks instinctively, “ Heavens! this is going to mean money!”’
‘You’ll observe’ – Hamson winked at Andrew – ‘how Deedman’s parsing of the good word patient is usually feminine. By the way, Paul, I heard about that shoot yesterday. Dummett’s willing to make up a syndicate if you, Charles and I will go in with him.’
For the next ten minutes they talked shooting, golf, which they played on various expensive courses round London, and cars – Ivory was having a special body built to his instructions on a new three and a half litre Rex – while Andrew listened and smoked his cigar and drank his brandy. They all drank a deal of brandy. Andrew felt, a trifle muzzily, that they were extraordinarily good fellows. They did not exclude him from their conversation, but always managed to make him feel by a word or look that he was with them. Somehow they made him forget that he had eaten a soused herring for his luncheon. And as they stood up Ivory clapped him on the shoulder.
‘I must send you a card, Manson. It’d be a real pleasure to see a case with you – any time.’
Back in the drawing-room the atmosphere seemed by contrast, formal, but Freddie, in tremendous spirits, more shining than ever, hands in his pockets, linen spotlessly agleam, decided the evening was still young, that they must finish it altogether at the Embassy.
‘I’m afraid’ – Christine threw a pale glance at Andrew – ‘we ought to be going.’
‘Nonsense, darling!’ Andrew smiled roseately. ‘We couldn’t dream of breaking up the party.’
At the Embassy, Freddie was obviously popular. He and his party were bowed and smiled to a table against the wall. There was more champagne. There was dancing. These fellows do themselves well, thought Andrew mistily, expansively. ‘ Oh! tha’s a – tha’s a splen’id tune they’re playing – I won-woner if Chris would like t’dance.’
In the taxi, returning at last to Chesborough Terrace, he proclaimed happily:
‘First rate chaps these, Chris! ’Sbeen a wonderful evening, hasn’t it?’
She answered in a thin steady voice:
‘It’s been a hateful evening!’
‘Eh – what?’
‘I like Denny and Hope as – oh, as your medical friends, Andrew – not these,
these flashy –’
He broke in: ‘But look here, Chris – Wha’s wrong with –’
‘Oh! couldn’t you see,’ she answered in an icy fury. ‘It was everything. The food, the furniture, the way they talked – money, money all the time. Perhaps you didn’t see the way she looked at my dress. Mrs Hamson I mean. You could see her realising that she spends more on one beauty treatment than I do on clothes in a whole year. It was almost funny in the drawing-room when she found out what a nobody I was. She, of course, is the daughter of Whitton – the whisky Whitton! You can’t guess what it was like – the conversation – before you came in. Smart-set gossip, who’s week-ending with who, what the hairdresser told her, the latest society abortion, not one word of anything decent. Why! She actually hinted that she was “ sweet on” – as she put it – the dance-band leader of the Plaza.’
The sarcasm in her tone was diabolic. Mistaking it for jealousy he babbled:
‘I’ll make money for you, Chris. I’ll buy you plenty of expensive clothes.’
‘I don’t want money,’ she said tautly. ‘And I hate expensive clothes.’
‘But – darling.’ Tipsily he reached for her.
‘Don’t!’ Her voice struck him. ‘ I love you, Andrew. But not when you’re drunk.’
He subsided in his corner, fuddled, furious. It was the first time she had ever repulsed him.
‘All right, my girl,’ he muttered. ‘If that’s the way of it.’
He paid the taxi, let himself into the house before her. Then without a word he marched up to the spare bedroom. Everything seemed squalid and dismal after the luxury he had just quitted. The electric switch would not work properly – the whole house was imperfectly wired.
‘Damn it,’ he thought as he flung himself into bed. ‘ I’m going to get out of this hole. I’ll show her. I will make money. What can you do without it?’
Until now in all their married life, they had never slept apart.
Chapter Three
At breakfast next morning Christine behaved as though the whole episode were forgotten. He could see that she was trying to be especially nice to him. This gratified him and made him sulkier than ever. A woman, he reflected – pretending absorption in the morning paper – has got to be shown her place occasionally. But after he had grunted a few surly replies Christine suddenly stopped being nice to him and retired within herself, sitting at the table with compressed lips, not looking at him, waiting till he should finish the meal. Stubborn little devil, he thought, rising, and walking out of the room. I’ll show her!
His first action in his consulting-room was to take down the Medical Directory. He was both curious and eager to have more precise information of his friends of the previous evening. Quickly he turned the pages, taking Freddie first. Yes, there it was – Frederick Hamson, Queen Anne Street, MB, ChB, assistant to out-patients. Walthamwood.
Andrew’s brows drew into a frown of perplexity. Freddie had talked a great deal last night about the hospital appointment – nothing like a hospital appointment for helping a fellow in the West End, he had said, gives the patients confidence to know he’s a visiting physician. Yet surely this wasn’t it, a poor-law institution – and at Walthamwood, one of the newer outer suburbs? There couldn’t be a mistake, though, this was the current directory, he had bought it only a month ago.
More slowly, Andrew looked up Ivory and Deedman, then he rested the big red book on his knees, his expression puzzled, oddly reflective. Paul Deedman was, like Freddie, an MB. But without Freddie’s distinction. Deedman had no visiting appointment. And Ivory? Mr Charles Ivory of New Cavendish Street had no surgical qualification but the lowest, the MRCS, and no hospital appointment whatsoever. His record indicated a certain amount of experience in wartime and pensions hospitals. Beyond that – nothing.
Extremely thoughtful now, Andrew rose and put the book on its shelf, then his face drew into a sudden resolution. There was no comparison between his own qualifications and those of the prosperous fellows he had dined with last night. What they could do he could do also. Better. Despite Christine’s outburst, he was more determined than ever to make a success of himself. But first he must get himself attached, not to Walthamwood or any such poor-law make-believe, but to one of the London hospitals. Yes! a real hospital – that must be his immediate objective. But how?
For three days he brooded, then he went shakily to Sir Robert Abbey. It was the most difficult task in the world for him to ask a favour, particularly as Abbey received him with such twinkling kindness.
‘Well! How is our express bandage enumerator? Aren’t you ashamed to look me in the eye? I’m told Doctor Bigsby has developed hypertension. Know anything about that? What is it you want, an argument with me, or a seat on the Board?’
‘Well, no, Sir Robert. I was wondering – that’s to say – could you help me, Sir Robert, to find an out-patients hospital appointment?’
‘Hmm! That’s much more difficult than the Board. Do you know how many young fellows there are walking the Embankment? All waiting on honorary appointments. You ought really to be going on with your lung work too – and that narrows the field.’
‘Well – I – I suppose –’
‘The Victoria Chest Hospital. That’s your target. One of our oldest London hospitals. Suppose I make some inquiries. Oh! I don’t promise anything, but I’ll keep an eye scientifically open.’
Abbey made him stay to tea. At four o’clock, unvaryingly, he had a ritual of drinking two cups of china tea in his consulting-room, no milk or sugar, and nothing to eat. It was a special tea which tasted of orange blossom. Abbey kept the conversation flowing easily on diverse topics, from Khanghsi saucerless cups to the Von Pirquet skin reaction, then as he showed Andrew to the door he said:
‘Still quarrelling with the text-books? Don’t give that up. And don’t – even if I do get you into the Victoria – for the love of Galen! – don’t develop a bedside manner.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘That’s what has ruined me.’
Andrew went home treading the clouds. He was so pleased he neglected to maintain his dignity with Christine. He blurted out:
‘I’ve been to Abbey. He’s going to try and fix me up at the Victoria Chest! That practically gives me a consultant’s standing.’ The gladness in her eyes made him suddenly feel shamefaced, small. ‘I’ve been pretty difficult lately, Chris! We haven’t been getting on too well, I suppose. Let’s – oh! let’s make it up, darling.’
She ran to him, protesting it had all been her fault. Then, for some strange reason, it appeared entirely to be his. Only a small segment of his mind retained the fixed intention of confounding her, at some early date, by the greatness of his material success.
He flung himself into his work with renewed vigour, feeling that something fortunate would surely turn up soon. Meanwhile there was no doubt that his practice was increasing. It was not – he told himself – the class of practice he wanted, these three and sixpenny consultations and five shillings visits. Yet it was genuine practice. The people who came to him or called him out were far too poor to dream of troubling the doctor unless they were really ill. Thus he met diphtheria in queer stuffy rooms above converted stables, rheumatic fever in damp servants’ basements, pneumonia in the attics of lodging houses. He fought disease in that most tragic room of all: the single apartment where some elderly man or woman lived alone, forgotten by friends and relatives, cooking poor meals on a gas ring, neglected, unkempt, forsaken. There were many such cases. He came across the father of a well-known actress – whose name shone in bright lights in Shaftesbury Avenue – an old man of seventy, paralysed, living in filthy squalor. He visited an elderly gentlewoman, gaunt, ludicrous and starving, who could show him her photograph in her Court presentation dress, tell him of the days when she had driven down these same streets in her own carriage. In the middle of the night he pulled back to life – and afterwards hated himself for it – a wretched creature, penniless and desperate, who had preferred the gas oven to the workho
use.
Many of his cases were urgent – surgical emergencies which cried aloud for immediate admission to hospital. And here Andrew encountered his greatest difficulty. It was the hardest thing in the world to secure admission, even for the worst, the most dangerous case. These had a way of happening late at night. Returning, coat and jacket over his pyjamas, a scarf round his neck, hat still on the back of his head he would hang over the telephone, ringing one hospital after another, entreating, imploring, threatening, but always met with the same refusal, the curt, often insolent: ‘Doctor who? Who? No, no! Sorry! We’re full up!’
He went to Christine, livid, blaspheming.
‘They’re not full up. They’ve plenty of beds at St John’s for their own men. If they don’t know you they freeze you stiff. I’d like to wring that last young pup’s neck! Isn’t it hell – Chris! Here am I with this strangulated hernia and I can’t get a bed. Oh! I suppose some of them are full up! And this is London! This is the heart of the bloody British Empire. This is our voluntary hospital system. And some banqueting bastard of a philanthropist got up the other day and said it was the most marvellous in the world. It means the workhouse again for the poor devil. Filling in forms – what do you earn? What’s your religion? and was your mother born in wedlock? – and him with peritonitis! Oh, well! Be a good sort, Chris, and get the relieving officer on the phone for me.’
Whatever his difficulties, no matter if he railed against the dirt and poverty which he often had to combat, she always had the same reply.
‘It’s real work anyway. And that seems to me to make all the difference.’
‘Not enough to keep the bugs off me,’ he growled, going up to the bath to shake himself free.