Shannon's Way Page 15

  “Make yourself at home.… Muriel will be down presently.”

  I lay back and closed my eyes, still feeling weak, and fighting an inane desire to break down because of the kindness Spence had shown me. Presently, I relaxed a little; the sherry had revived me, and the comfortable chair almost made me doze off. Ten minutes later I roused myself with a start to find Mrs. Spence standing in the doorway.

  “Don’t get up.” She made a gesture of restraint as she came in.

  In spite of Neil’s assurance and her own polite smile, she did not seem particularly pleased to see me. She was as attractive as ever, even more so, I thought, wearing a pink, young-looking dress, cut low round the neck, with a tight-fitting bodice covered with sequins. Her hair had been freshly set, and there were reddish lights in it which I had not noticed before. She had on a good deal of make-up, and the heavy lipstick gave her thin lips an artificial warmth.

  “I hope I’m not putting you about,” I said, awkwardly.

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head, lighting a cigarette with little affected movements. “Mr. Lomax was coming, anyway. It will be quite like old times for you three to get together.”

  A silence fell between us which was growing difficult when Spence appeared, washed and changed. He had put on a black tie and a dinner jacket.

  “I apologize for these glad rags, Shannon.” He smiled placatingly towards his wife. “ Muriel insists.”

  “We don’t entertain much,” Mrs. Spence said sharply. “At least let us do it like gentlepeople.”

  Spence flushed slightly, but he busied himself filling up the decanters, and did not say anything. Muriel, with one eye upon the clock, was occupying herself in rearranging, with a slight frown of dissatisfaction, the row of miniature ivory elephants which stood upon the mantelpiece.

  “Shall I help you, dear!” said Spence. “ These things never stand up.”

  She shook her head. “I wish we had some decent ornaments.”

  Somehow it hurt me to see Spence so solicitous, so over-anxious to please his wife—I also observed that he had poured himself a second whisky, and much more of it than usual.

  Towards eight o’clock, when dinner had been ready for half an hour, there was the sound of a taxi and Lomax arrived, full of apologies for his lateness. He was charming, easy and composed, delighted, he said, to see me again, his clothes and his manners both quite perfect.

  In the dining-room the table was covered by a lace-edged cloth and lit by green wax candles with frilled paper shades. Previously, when I had visited Spence, there was usually a plain and simple meal, but now the dinner was pretentious with lots of courses and nothing much to eat. I did not mind, for although, an hour before, I was ravenously hungry, now my stomach had turned against food and I had no appetite at all. The parlourmaid who waited, drilled by her mistress as to the usages of “ the best people,” stood at attention by the door, in the intervals of serving, breathing through her mouth and staring at us while we ate. Spence spoke very little, but Muriel chattered all the time, mostly to Lomax, in a gay and vivacious style, knowingly discussing items of society news, picked up, no doubt, from the fashion journals she so eagerly perused, and covering up the delays in the service with an exaggeration of her best social manner which set my teeth on edge.

  At last it ended, the rattle of crockery in the kitchen ceased, the waitress disappeared, and Mrs. Spence addressed us prettily.

  “You three may go and smoke your pipes in the study. Join me in the drawing-room in half an hour.” At the door she detained Lomax with her little laugh. “ First you must help me blow out the candles.”

  Spence and I moved into the study where, silently, he stirred up the fire, poured out some whisky, and passed me a cigarette. He looked on the mantelpiece, then felt in his pockets.

  “Have you a match, Robert?”

  “I’ll get some,” I said.

  I returned to the hall and there, through the open door of the dining-room, I saw Lomax and Mrs. Spence. Encircled by his arms, she was standing close to him, her hands resting intimately on his shoulders, looking up adoringly into his eyes. It was not her attitude alone but the expression of complete infatuation upon her face which stunned me. I stood for an instant, then, as their lips met, I turned away, found a box of matches in my coat pocket, and went back to the study.

  Spence was crouched forward in his chair, staring into the fire. He lit his pipe slowly.

  “These evenings cheer Muriel up,” he said without looking at me. “I think Lomax does her good.”

  “Of course,” I agreed.

  “I sometimes wish I weren’t such a dull sort of chap, Robert. I try to be bright, but I can’t. I’ve no small talk at all.”

  “Thank God for that, Neil.”

  He threw me a grateful glance.

  A moment later Lomax joined us. A brief silence followed his appearance, but it did not disconcert him; nothing seemed ever to leave Adrian Lomax at a loss. Taking a cigarette from his case, he occupied the hearthrug, began to describe his conversation with the taxi-driver who had brought him out. He was graceful and amusing, and before long Spence, who had at first gazed at him with brooding eyes, was listening with a smile. But I could not smile. I was not squeamish, and I had half suspected Lomax all along, yet even so, I felt within me a sort of burning nausea. If it had been anyone but Spence … I kept thinking.

  I could not restrain myself. While Lomax went on talking I got up, left the study with a muttered excuse, and crossed the hall to the drawing-room.

  Mrs. Spence was standing by the fireplace, one foot upon the brass fender, her elbow upon the mantelpiece, gazing with an absent smile at her reflection in the mirror. She seemed restless, pleased with herself, yet filled with a flickering disquiet. As I came in and closed the door behind me she spun round quickly.

  “Oh, it’s you. Where are the others?”

  “In the study.”

  She must have guessed from my tone that something was wrong. With a sudden lift of her eyelashes she sped a swift glance at me.

  “Mrs. Spence,” I said at last in a stony voice, “I saw you and Lomax a few minutes ago.”

  She paled slightly, then coloured deeply and angrily.

  “So you spied on us.”

  “No. I saw you quite by accident.”

  Speechless, she struggled for words, her cheeks aflame with vexation. I went on:

  “Your husband is my best friend. And the best fellow in the world. I can’t compel you in any way. But I beg of you to think of him.”

  “Think of him!” she exclaimed. “Why doesn’t someone think of me for a change?” She choked, overcome by a sudden uprush of passionate resentment. “Have you any idea what I’ve gone through in these last five years?”

  “You were happy enough till Lomax came along.”

  “That’s all you know. I was miserable.”

  “Why did you marry Neil?”

  “Because I was a perfect fool, carried away by sentiment, pity, and popular approval.… Such a nice girl, doing a fine thing, so wonderfully noble.” Her lip drew back. “I didn’t realize what I was letting myself in for. Oh, it was all right at first, during the war. There was lots of excitement then. The bands were playing and the flags flying. They even stood up and applauded him when we went to the theatre. But that’s all over and forgotten now. He isn’t a hero any more. He’s a freak. People stare at him in the street. The boys shout after him. Can you imagine my feelings? Only the other day we were in a restaurant and a group at the next table started laughing at him behind his back, till I could have sunk through the floor.”

  I gazed at her stiffly, frozen by the cheapness of her mind, but I did not give up.

  “People can be horribly unkind. You don’t have to go out. You have a nice home.”

  “A poky little house in the suburbs,” she flung back scornfully. “That’s not what I was brought up to. I’m bored, yes, bored to death. Sitting here night after night, I could scream. When I was engaged t
o him we planned he would be a consultant. Can you see him in a fashionable practice now, with that bedside appearance? Once he was called in to a little girl down the street, and when he bent over the cot the child nearly had a fit. He’ll never be anything but a laboratory hack.”

  “That should make you very gentle with him.”

  “Oh, shut up!” She threw the words at me. “ You half-baked idealists are all the same. I’ve given him enough. I’m tired of making jellies and soups for him. I can’t go on wasting the best years of my life.”

  “He loves you,” I said. “That’s worth something to both of you. Don’t throw it away.”

  Her eyes met mine, fiercely, like a blow. I expected an outburst. Instead, she turned away and gazed into the fireplace. The slow ticking of the clock sounded in the room like the heartbeats of a mechanical doll. When she faced me again her expression was calm, her gaze open and beguiling.

  “Now listen, Robert. You’re making a great fuss about nothing. It’s only a flirtation really, between Adrian and me. I swear to you there’s no harm in it.”

  She came forward and laid her hand lightly on my sleeve.

  “Life is rather dull in this hateful suburb. One does deserve a little cheering-up sometimes. Every woman likes to be flattered and made up to … to feel she has some fascination. That’s all there is to it. You won’t tell Neil?”

  I shook my head, looking at her fixedly, wondering if she spoke anything like the truth.

  “I do make it up to him. I am nice to him really.” She smiled, persuasively, still stroking my sleeve. “ Promise you won’t say a word?”

  “No,” I said. “I won’t tell him. I’m going now. Good night, Mrs. Spence.”

  In the study, on the pretext that I must take the ten o’clock train for Dalnair, I announced that I must leave, and said good night to Lomax. Spence came with me to the door, rather put out at my abrupt departure. In the porch he slipped an arm round my shoulders.

  “I wish you wouldn’t rush off, Robert.” His dark eyes rested on mine. “In fact … I was going to ask you to stay here for a few days … if things were difficult for you.”

  “Difficult?” I echoed.

  He glanced away.

  “I rang Dalnair last week. They told me you had gone.” He groped for words which seemed to come from deep down in his unselfish heart. “ You see, I’d love to help … I’m so well off here … I don’t like to think of you knocking around, on the loose.”

  “Thanks, Spence, thanks. I’m quite all right.” My feelings overpowered me, I could not go on. I wrung his hand and ran down the steps into the wet darkness of the night.

  I walked all the way back to the city in an effort to pull myself together. My arm felt hot and swollen, but that ache was less than the pain that burned in my breast. A sense of the cruelty of life overwhelmed me.

  It was eleven o’clock when I reached the Globe, and as I entered the chilly lobby I saw a letter for me in the rack. I took it hurriedly.

  “MY DEAR SHANNON,—I am sorry to report that despite my strongest representations, the Research Council has refused to make a grant towards your work. This I am afraid is final. I shall, however, continue to bear your needs in mind. If in the meantime you should require a room for your equipment I have arranged that you may have this at the old Apothecaries’ Hall in St. Andrew’s Lane. Do not be discouraged.

  “Very sincerely yours, “ W ILFRED C HAILLIS .”

  I could not read any more, I simply could not see the words. I had to clench my teeth, to keep the tears from rolling from my eyes.

  Chapter Two

  Next morning, like an unskilled boxer who, although knocked down, must struggle to his feet, I went, but without much hope, to the Apothecaries’ Hall. This was a rambling old building, situated near the Wellgate, a branch of the Pharmaceutical College, where students for the Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries took their classes. It was in every sense inferior to the University.

  The janitor had been notified of my coming, and when I gave him my name he conducted me to a room on the ground floor, a long, low room, rather dark, with a table, a leather couch, an agate balance in a glass case, a rack of test tubes and two small shelves of simple chemical reagents. It was, in fact, the sort of room I had feared that I might find, a room suited to a student in pharmacy, and as I surveyed its limitations I asked myself if I should ever, under high heaven, secure the proper background for my work. Here, by constant improvising, by straining every nerve, one might push ahead. But alone, without money or adequate assistance, that progress would be slow.

  Outside, I gave the janitor a shilling and asked him to call at the Globe with a hand-barrow and bring over my apparatus. At least I should have free storage for my things. This, since I did not know how long I should be able to remain at the hotel, would be some advantage. Whether I should make the effort to carry on here I could not at this moment decide. In my heart, as I came through the ivy-covered archway of the Hall, I was conscious of a slight rankling towards Professor Challis. Yet I could not believe that he would willingly fail me.

  On the way back to the hotel, struggling with these thoughts, I went by the Trongate Cross. This was a noisy, congested triangle in the poor section of the city, formed by the intersection of three narrow, busy streets, and hemmed in by cheap shops and tall tenements. All the traffic from the docks flowed through it, a steady stream of drays and lorries, mingling and intermingling with the trams and buses from Old High Street.

  I was about to turn the corner into Trongate proper when, suddenly, through my preoccupation, there flashed that strange premonition occasioned by disaster. Amongst the crowd on the opposite pavement a schoolgirl of about fourteen, her satchel under her arm, had been standing with a companion, waiting for an opportunity to cross the street. Now, thinking the intersection clear, with a laughing goodbye to her friend, she stepped off the kerb. At that instant a motor wagon swung out of Old High Street at unexpected speed. The child saw it and ran forward. It seemed that she would escape. But in the same second a heavy lorry lumbered up from the other direction. The space between the two vehicles drew in. She halted dizzily, saw that she was trapped, made an awkward effort to turn back, then slipped full length on the wet asphalt. Her satchel shot across the street, spilling her school-books at my feet. There was a screech of brakes, a shrill scream of terror, and with a grinding noise the wheel of the lorry, weighted with pig-iron from the docks, passed over her body.

  A cry of horror arose, there was a general rush forward, and immediately a crowd surrounded the victim. I could not help myself. Although my whole instinct was to shun the public exhibition of my profession, I thrust through the milling throng and knelt beside the injured girl. Beneath the mud which soiled her face she was deathly pale, inert, and moaning feebly. A policeman was supporting her head in the crook of his arm, hampered by well-meaning persons, pressing close and offering advice.

  “Get her in somewhere,” I said. “ I’m a doctor.”

  His red, resentful face cleared at once. Willing hands passed down a plank from the stationary truck. Amidst more shouting and confusion she was placed on this impromptu stretcher, carried to the back premises of a small surgery, set amongst the shops across the way, and laid upon a couch. A score of curious individuals poured in after us. Immediately the policeman telephoned for an ambulance. But as he joined me at the couch, he said:

  “It’ll take a good ten minutes in this traffic.”

  “Please move these people out of here,” I told him.

  While he cleared the shabby consulting-room I bent down and opened the child’s stained and torn blouse. Her rent undervest fell away, exposing her flat little chest. It was the left shoulder, I saw, an impacted compound fracture of the humerus. Her broken left arm hung deformed and limp, but worse than that was the large bluish swelling, growing steadily larger, in the left axilla. With my fingers on her wrist I threw a quick glance of anxiety at her face, completely blanched now, the eyes fixe
d and slightly upturned.

  The police officer was beside me again. We were joined by the surgery dispenser, an elderly man in a short white jacket.

  “Whose place is this?” I asked him.

  “Dr. Mathers’s. It’s unlucky he’s not here.”

  “She don’t look too well,” the officer said in a low voice.

  With my gaze upon that pulsing swelling, I was thinking rapidly. The brachial artery was undoubtedly ruptured, too high up to apply a tourniquet, and the bleeding was so profuse it might easily prove fatal before the ambulance arrived.

  I could not hesitate. Without a word to the others, I dragged the couch to the window, went to the small enamel instrument cabinet in the corner, took out a scalpel, Spencer forceps, and a glass container of catgut sutures. The ether bottle was on the bottom shelf. I poured some on a pad of gauze, placed this upon the child’s nostrils. She whimpered faintly, then lay still.

  No time for routine antisepsis. I dashed some iodine over my hands, swabbed the swollen armpit with the same pungent fluid. The other two were watching me with staring eyes. Framed in the doorway was a group of silent spectators. Ignoring them, I took the knife and cut into the puffy arm.

  Immediately a great clot of blood welled out. Through it I saw the ragged spurting gap in the torn artery. Instantly I clamped the forceps on it. Then, deliberately, almost at my leisure, I ligatured the vessel. It was very easy, all over in five minutes. Removing the ether mask, I unclipped the forceps, lightly packed the wound, and applied a bandage, reverse spica, to make it extra neat. Already the pulse was stronger, the breathing deeper and more regular. I took the coarse grey blanket from the foot of the couch and wrapped it tight about her skinny form. They might give her a transfusion at the hospital, perhaps an intravenous saline, but the real emergency was over.

  “She’ll do now,” I said briefly.

  The policeman gave a gratified sigh, and from the doorway there came a murmur of approval. But, as I turned, I became aware of a short, stocky, vigorous man, with a fiery complexion and a shock of frizzy hair, staring at me with unfriendly eyes.