Fraser was just conscious, too weak to do more than follow Kit’s movements with his eyes. It was hard to remember who he was; he looked like a hundred old men whom Kit had seen among the same paraphernalia, wearing the same shapeless operation gown. The set was ready; the Sister, who helped him herself, quick and efficient. Everything was done in the minimum of time. He felt a deep, unconscious release in setting his own pace instead of waiting on some one else’s. The Sister, who had known him as a houseman, showed signs of wanting to keep him for a chat, but he eluded her.
There were two urgent cases waiting when he got back; he drove straight out to them, and from them to the ordinary round, without stopping for a meal. Speed satisfied him, like a drug to which he was becoming addicted. When he had finished, he drove back to the hospital to see Fraser again.
Mrs. Fraser, he found, was already with her husband. They seemed satisfied with his condition. Kit said he would wait till she had gone; there was no hurry. The phrase, as he uttered it, sounded odd and unreal.
Every one was busy, so he strolled out into the corridor. It was his first moment of inactivity since morning; the muscles of his mind seemed suddenly to sag, and his thoughts, which had consisted for hours of plans for immediate action, were wiped clean like a sponged slate. Voices drifted out to him from the nurses’ duty room; for a few minutes they were simply noises, like the noises of feet in the main passage outside.
“… that intravenous on top of everything. It saved my bacon, Sister doing it. I will say, she does work.”
“Well, you know why—it was Mr. Anderson. She was batty about him when he was R.S.O. here. Walker says the week he got married it was just hell to be on the ward.”
Kit, his ears suddenly opened, began a cautious retreat. Just before he moved out of earshot, the first nurse said,
“No, really? That was before my time. I must say, I thought he was rather a lamb when he came to Collis on Christmas Day.”
Kit passed beyond their voices, into a silence which nothing penetrated. From the memory of that Christmas other memories ringed outward, like the expanding rings made in water by a stone; back to the night when he had first seen Christie, onward to yesterday. For the first time, as if he were looking down from a height over a winding stream along which he had drifted, he saw it all together, without the interference of desire or dread. As a deep sleep clears perplexities away, the absolute removal of his mind during these last hours gave him now, by accident, the knowledge he had wrestled for in vain. He saw that he had failed her. Imprisoned in his own longing, he had been able only to reach for her or to thrust her away; he had not been able to free her or to give her light. She had required wisdom of him, not sacrifice; and he had been wise, not for her but for himself.
He had won a victory in his own will, achieving a discipline of which this moment of true perspective was the reward. He would, perhaps, be stronger and more confident for it all his life. But her he had weakened, because he had made a decision for her which she had had it in her to make for herself. Remembering her last letter, he knew that she was groping towards the same realization.
Well, it was finished. Perhaps she would be happy with Burford, perhaps unhappy; it was certain that she would be more alone. Probably Burford, who would not confuse the innermost part of her because he would never find it, would be more use to her in the end.
The door of Fraser’s room opened; Mrs. Fraser was leaving. He recalled himself to meet her anxiety and her thanks.
She thanked him again next day, when she came back from the hospital with the news that Fraser was holding his ground. He was taking little sips of water already, she said, and had even been able to talk to her for a minute or two. Mr. Harbutson, she could see, was delighted, though he hadn’t said very much.
Kit knew all this beforehand, having been to the hospital even earlier in the day. He knew, too, why Harbutson hadn’t said very much. The critical period was not likely to begin till the second or third day. But Kit, like Harbutson, did not feel that anything was to be gained by telling her this. She was a woman who had lived for forty years a life as regular and predictable as the tick of a grandfather clock, broken by nothing more shocking than the comfortable marriage of two daughters. She was as helpless under what had happened already as a non-swimmer who has been washed overboard. There were several things Kit would have liked to discuss with her, including the question of Fraser’s mail, which he could see lying untouched in the hall; but he let it go, reflecting that anything that could wait for the post could probably wait a little longer. He had arranged for Garrould, the locum, to sleep and eat in his own flat, so as to leave her undisturbed. With the arrears of yesterday, both men had more than enough to fill their time.
In the afternoon, the news of Fraser was still fairly reassuring, and Mrs. Fraser went up to the hospital again. When she got back she looked so much more cheerful that Kit, who still had the mail nagging at the back of his mind (he had just seen a buff Ministry of Health envelope in it) decided after evening surgery that he had better ask her about it.
“Oh, dear,” she said, “how thoughtless of me. I do hope there’s nothing important. Do take them, Dr. Anderson. Take anything that comes. Don’t bother to ask me. I’m not quite myself, and perhaps I might forget again.”
“If you’d just like to look at these and see there’s nothing personal—”
“Oh, yes, thank you. Though really it doesn’t matter. Yes, here’s a letter from one of the girls, it must have crossed with mine. I don’t think the others are from any one we know; in any case, I’m sure there’s nothing John would mind your seeing. If you’ll just let me have anything back that isn’t about the patients. Thank you so much … Oh, dear, I do hope that isn’t another call for you. You’ve been working so hard.”
“Never mind,” said Kit, who had heard his telephone bell a moment or two before her. “Better now than in the night.” He ran up to answer it, pushing the wad of letters into his pocket.
It turned out to be a call for both of them.
Fraser lapsed into coma within half an hour of the time when they reached the hospital. There was nothing for Kit to stay for, nothing more of any kind to be done. As he left, the night nurse was settling Mrs. Fraser in a basket chair with rugs and pillows, to wait till the worn-out mechanism of breathing and circulation ran at last to a standstill. She sat in the chair looking straight before her, thanking the nurse in vague whispers to which she herself seemed not to be listening.
Kent went home, told Garrould what had happened, and went to bed.
After he had put out his light he stood in the window, as he had stood on the night when he had discovered he did not love Janet any longer, looking out at the street lamp through the garden trees. In a few hours it would be Christie’s wedding day. Yesterday he had been making decisions as if other people’s lives depended on them. It had made no difference to Fraser. Perhaps if he had gone to Birmingham it would have made no ultimate difference to Christie, either. Probably, he thought, very few decisions made much difference except to the person who decided. If yesterday had begun again, there was nothing different he would have done. Perhaps for Fraser, for Christie, for Janet, for himself, all the decisions had been made years ago, and the moment that brought them to the surface was no more important than any other moment. His thoughts began the circular track of great physical weariness. There was nothing to stay awake for. He went to sleep.
Fraser, he heard next morning, had died at half-past one. Kit found he had exhausted the capacity for feeling anything more about it, and, after counting up the immediate things to be done, could only recall from hospital days that this was the hour at which night nurses preferred a death to take place; later than four in the morning, it upset the whole work of the ward. It was characteristic of Fraser, he thought; he had an old-fashioned courtesy, and disliked giving trouble to any one. Mrs. Fraser, for whom he had got a sedative ready the night before, was still sleeping. He wrote to notify the Genera
l Medical Council, and remembered that he would be senior partner now, when Fraser’s share was sold; their agreement had provided for it. McKinnon might possibly consider coming in with him. There was something against this, but he could not for a few minutes remember what. Of course; Janet didn’t like McKinnon. It was strange that Janet, when he thought about her, should seem so much further removed than Fraser did. There were some letters for her in the hall, waiting to be forwarded. He must remember, some time to-day.
At the end of morning surgery, the sight of Garrould about to start on his round reminded Kit of something.
“Oh, by the way,” he said, “it’s just possible something for your side may have come in by post. I’ve some stuff here that Mrs. Fraser turned over to me last night. Would you care to wait a moment while we go through it? It shouldn’t take long.”
They went into Fraser’s consulting room, and began on the pile. The first two were advertisements, the second a chemist’s account. In the fourth, the Ministry of Health announced a minor alteration in one of their forms. Kit glanced at it, passed it on to Garrould, and picked up the fifth, which was in an old-fashioned semi-literate hand; this one would be a patient, he thought. He ran his eye along it idly; he need only read enough to place it.
DEAR SIR [he read]:
After considering my duty in the matter for some time, I feel it right I should send you a few words to let you know what has come to my notice with regard to your partner, Dr. Anderson. During the time I was in service with my late mistress, Miss Amelia Heath, of Laurel Dene, Victoria Avenue—
Kit lowered the sheet. As he moved he knew that Garrould was much too far away to have seen anything; but the impulse was instinctive. It caused Garrould to look up from the Ministry of Health circular.
“Anything for me?” he asked.
“No,” said Kit. “Only a begging letter.” He put it aside.
Garrould returned to the circular, wondering what Anderson had thought it necessary to lie about. Well, thank God, it was no affair of his. He had done locum work for some years, and had long since discovered that odd things had a way of emerging when people died. Whatever Fraser had been up to, Anderson, not he, would have the job of sorting it out. The next letter revealed a visit that ought to have been made the day before; it was sufficient to crowd the incident from Garrould’s mind. Taking it with him (it was the last of the batch) he departed on his round.
Kit took the letter into his own consulting room, and opened it out. There were three sheets of it, very neat and legible. It was signed at the end: “Yours obediently, E. Pedlow.” Yes, he thought; she would sign it, of course.
Within a somewhat limited style, Pedlow had the gift of conciseness. She had not, in the course of her narrative, wasted many words. He could not remember, now, the exact number of times he had been to Christie’s room at Laurel Dene; but he had no doubt that her estimate was correct. The letter contained no surmises, no unsubstantiated accusations; no suggestions, for instance, that any neglect on his part had contributed to Miss Heath’s death. It was painstakingly, one might almost have said lovingly, accurate, like a careful historian’s research. More than the most vindictive slander, it sent a chill to the pit of his stomach.
Yet, when the first sick feeling was over, a deep relief succeeded it. He knew that, though not recently, he had expected something of the kind for a long time, without admitting it. He read the letter again, feeling, this time, even a kind of admiration that she could have retained through so much hatred her own kind of integrity. The thing could hardly have been better done. Only the limitations of her reading had kept it from the success it deserved; she had just not known enough to write to the General Medical Council. As it was, addressing the letter to Fraser had been the touch of an eminently practical mind. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred in her class, he reflected, would have sent it to …
A sudden thought struck him. With the letter in his hand, he ran upstairs to the little hall of his flat, where Janet’s letters were still on the table, waiting to be re-addressed. There were three or four of them. It was at the bottom; the same note paper, the same handwriting and postmark. He took it into the sitting room, tore it across unopened, and burned it in the grate.
A very remarkable woman, he thought. He wondered where a few hundred pounds’ worth of education would have taken her.
The letter to Janet had curled into hard black ash. He took Fraser’s letter from his pocket, and lit it; the envelope burnt last. The sight of Fraser’s name, browning out, stirred the numbness in him to a sharp affection and the knowledge of loss. For the first time he was angry, for Fraser’s sake. He remembered his little proprieties, his dislike of discussing, even with Kit, an unsavoury case; the humanity that had always been behind them. If this had come before his illness, Kit would have felt for ever afterwards the guilt of his death. Probably, he thought, if any ultimate justice directed these things, it had operated in Fraser’s favour rather than his own.
Picking up the poker, he stirred the ash of the two letters till it powdered. A clock struck the half-hour; it was more than time he went to see how Mrs. Fraser was, and started his round. As he went downstairs, something jogged at his mind, a puzzled feeling of some incongruity. I wonder, he thought, why she left it so long. I wonder why she picked on me. I should have expected …
The Fraser’s maid was in the hall. Mrs. Fraser was up, and would be pleased to see him. He knocked, the question falling into the background before the moment’s demand.
CHAPTER 26
MCKINNON PUSHED BACK HIS rough brown hair from his square forehead, and squinted at Kit along his pipe.
“You’ve forgotten the obvious objection,” he said.
“You can take the big half of the panel,” said Kit, “if that’s what’s worrying you. And we haven’t got any rich neurasthenics on fake injections to affront your principles. No Citadel stuff. Fraser was pretty straight that way.”
McKinnon looked at him, liking him as, even in the heat of their most violent disagreements (which had never been professional) he always did. There was something in him which McKinnon’s restlessness and cosmic indignation sometimes envied, sometimes resented, but respected on the whole. He attacked it, when he was in the mood, with various epithets derived with textbooks of the Left, which made as little impression on Kit as they made, secretly, on McKinnon himself. They understood one another.
“We should team up all right. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t the work I was thinking of.”
“My ideology bothering you again?”
“You haven’t got one, so while there’s life there’s hope. No, as a matter of fact, it was the domestic side. Look here, Anderson, there’s no sense in beating about the bush, particularly as you must know what I’m talking about as well as I do. The plain fact is that Mrs. Anderson hates my guts. She always has. I don’t see any particular reason why she shouldn’t, but there it is; it won’t work. It never does.”
Kit put his hand in his pocket for a cigarette. It encountered the thin crackle of the letter he had had the day before. He opened the cigarette-case and said, slowly, “I don’t think that question is likely to arise for some time.”
“She’s due back from South Africa in a month or two, isn’t she?”
“She was … I heard from her the other day.”
McKinnon said nothing. He had learned better, in the course of years, than to hurry Kit if he showed signs of talking about something personal. Only his pipe, which as usual was getting foul, made a gurgle like a note of interrogation.
“She wrote to ask me whether, in view of the international situation, I didn’t think there was a chance of her running into something on the voyage home. She suggested it might be wiser to stay put for a time, and asked me what I thought about it.”
McKinnon took his pipe out of his mouth.
“If you take my advice you’ll cable her to start out at once. All this playing fast and loose with Russia”—his eyes smouldered at t
he talismanic word—“can only end one way. When the Russian talks break down, it’s coming as sure as fate. It’ll come anyway, I think.”
“Yes. I think so too. I cabled back and advised her to stay where she was.”
“Oh, you did.” McKinnon slanted a quick glance at Kit’s face, which was unrevealing. “But, after all—”
“I don’t think,” said Kit carefully, “that she’s in any desperate hurry, in any case. She says she’s very happy out there. The climate suits her. And she seems to have made a great many friends.”
McKinnon sucked noisily at his pipe; partly because his private thoughts were unsuitable for expression (Janet’s dislike had been heartily returned), and partly because he hoped that silence might, as had sometimes happened, elicit something more. Nothing came; McKinnon had not really expected it. He had got the information that concerned him; he knew that Kit did not believe his wife would come back at all. He would have liked to know why, and what Kit thought about it, but had not the slenderest expectation of learning either. Kit’s private preserves had always been very clearly defined, and McKinnon knew all the fences by heart.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll think it over, and give you a ring to-morrow.”
“Good.” Kit recognized this as an acceptance; McKinnon never needed time to think over a refusal. Since the thing was as good as settled, his mind, as he walked home, drifted quickly away from it, and returned to Janet, who had solved her problems, at last, in her own way.
The letter she had sent him could only have had one answer; that she should have left the responsibility to him he took as a matter of course; he was so used to it that it passed him by like a mannerism, or a characteristic inflection of the voice. He had been interested not in her manner but in her motive. That she knew he had had a mistress he did not believe, and none of her letters had given any sign of it. Between the lines of the last, however, he had read a different reason. Janet had found some one to take his place. The new relationship was likely to be free from the inconveniences of the last, for it was a woman. Janet had begun to write about her friend Rachel some weeks before; her influence in the Group, her sympathy, her understanding, the nursery school she kept for children under five. Later it had appeared that Janet was helping with the smallest children two afternoons a week. In this last letter, she said that if she stayed Rachel wanted her to help permanently, and they were thinking of sharing a flat together.