At the new year Philip became dresser in the surgical out-patients'
department. The work was of the same character as that which he had just
been engaged on, but with the greater directness which surgery has than
medicine; and a larger proportion of the patients suffered from those two
diseases which a supine public allows, in its prudishness, to be spread
broadcast. The assistant-surgeon for whom Philip dressed was called
Jacobs. He was a short, fat man, with an exuberant joviality, a bald head,
and a loud voice; he had a cockney accent, and was generally described by
the students as an `awful bounder'; but his cleverness, both as a surgeon
and as a teacher, caused some of them to overlook this. He had also a
considerable facetiousness, which he exercised impartially on the patients
and on the students. He took a great pleasure in making his dressers look
foolish. Since they were ignorant, nervous, and could not answer as if he
were their equal, this was not very difficult. He enjoyed his afternoons,
with the home truths he permitted himself, much more than the students who
had to put up with them with a smile. One day a case came up of a boy with
a club-foot. His parents wanted to know whether anything could be done.
Mr. Jacobs turned to Philip.
"You'd better take this case, Carey. It's a subject you ought to know
something about."
Philip flushed, all the more because the surgeon spoke obviously with a
humorous intention, and his brow-beaten dressers laughed obsequiously. It
was in point of fact a subject which Philip, since coming to the hospital,
had studied with anxious attention. He had read everything in the library
which treated of talipes in its various forms. He made the boy take off
his boot and stocking. He was fourteen, with a snub nose, blue eyes, and
a freckled face. His father explained that they wanted something done if
possible, it was such a hindrance to the kid in earning his living. Philip
looked at him curiously. He was a jolly boy, not at all shy, but talkative
and with a cheekiness which his father reproved. He was much interested in
his foot.
"It's only for the looks of the thing, you know," he said to Philip. "I
don't find it no trouble."
"Be quiet, Ernie," said his father. "There's too much gas about you."
Philip examined the foot and passed his hand slowly over the shapelessness
of it. He could not understand why the boy felt none of the humiliation
which always oppressed himself. He wondered why he could not take his
deformity with that philosophic indifference. Presently Mr. Jacobs came up
to him. The boy was sitting on the edge of a couch, the surgeon and Philip
stood on each side of him; and in a semi-circle, crowding round, were
students. With accustomed brilliancy Jacobs gave a graphic little
discourse upon the club-foot: he spoke of its varieties and of the forms
which followed upon different anatomical conditions.
"I suppose you've got talipes equinus?" he said, turning suddenly to
Philip.
"Yes."
Philip felt the eyes of his fellow-students rest on him, and he cursed
himself because he could not help blushing. He felt the sweat start up in
the palms of his hands. The surgeon spoke with the fluency due to long
practice and with the admirable perspicacity which distinguished him. He
was tremendously interested in his profession. But Philip did not listen.
He was only wishing that the fellow would get done quickly. Suddenly he
realised that Jacobs was addressing him.
"You don't mind taking off your sock for a moment, Carey?"
Philip felt a shudder pass through him. He had an impulse to tell the
surgeon to go to hell, but he had not the courage to make a scene. He
feared his brutal ridicule. He forced himself to appear indifferent.
"Not a bit," he said.
He sat down and unlaced his boot. His fingers were trembling and he
thought he should never untie the knot. He remembered how they had forced
him at school to show his foot, and the misery which had eaten into his
soul.
"He keeps his feet nice and clean, doesn't he?" said Jacobs, in his
rasping, cockney voice.
The attendant students giggled. Philip noticed that the boy whom they were
examining looked down at his foot with eager curiosity. Jacobs took the
foot in his hands and said:
"Yes, that's what I thought. I see you've had an operation. When you were
a child, I suppose?"
He went on with his fluent explanations. The students leaned over and
looked at the foot. Two or three examined it minutely when Jacobs let it
go.
"When you've quite done," said Philip, with a smile, ironically.
He could have killed them all. He thought how jolly it would be to jab a
chisel (he didn't know why that particular instrument came into his mind)
into their necks. What beasts men were! He wished he could believe in hell
so as to comfort himself with the thought of the horrible tortures which
would be theirs. Mr. Jacobs turned his attention to treatment. He talked
partly to the boy's father and partly to the students. Philip put on his
sock and laced his boot. At last the surgeon finished. But he seemed to
have an afterthought and turned to Philip.
"You know, I think it might be worth your while to have an operation. Of
course I couldn't give you a normal foot, but I think I can do something.
You might think about it, and when you want a holiday you can just come
into the hospital for a bit."
Philip had often asked himself whether anything could be done, but his
distaste for any reference to the subject had prevented him from
consulting any of the surgeons at the hospital. His reading told him that
whatever might have been done when he was a small boy, and then treatment
of talipes was not as skilful as in the present day, there was small
chance now of any great benefit. Still it would be worth while if an
operation made it possible for him to wear a more ordinary boot and to
limp less. He remembered how passionately he had prayed for the miracle
which his uncle had assured him was possible to omnipotence. He smiled
ruefully.
"I was rather a simple soul in those days," he thought.
Towards the end of February it was clear that Cronshaw was growing much
worse. He was no longer able to get up. He lay in bed, insisting that the
window should be closed always, and refused to see a doctor; he would take
little nourishment, but demanded whiskey and cigarettes: Philip knew that
he should have neither, but Cronshaw's argument was unanswerable.
"I daresay they are killing me. I don't care. You've warned me, you've
done all that was necessary: I ignore your warning. Give me something to
drink and be damned to you."
Leonard Upjohn blew in two or three times a week, and there was something
of the dead leaf in his appearance which made the word exactly descriptive
of the manner of his appearance. He was a weedy-looking fellow of
five-and-thirty, with long pale hair and a white face; he had the look of
a man who lived too little in the open air. He wore a hat like a
dissenting minister's. Philip disliked him for his patronising manner and
was bored by his fluent conversation. Leonard Upjohn liked to hear himself
talk. He was not sensitive to the interest of his listeners, which is the
first requisite of the good talker; and he never realised that he was
telling people what they knew already. With measured words he told Philip
what to think of Rodin, Albert Samain, and Caesar Franck. Philip's
charwoman only came in for an hour in the morning, and since Philip was
obliged to be at the hospital all day Cronshaw was left much alone. Upjohn
told Philip that he thought someone should remain with him, but did not
offer to make it possible.
"It's dreadful to think of that great poet alone. Why, he might die
without a soul at hand."
"I think he very probably will," said Philip.
"How can you be so callous!"
"Why don't you come and do your work here every day, and then you'd be
near if he wanted anything?" asked Philip drily.
"I? My dear fellow, I can only work in the surroundings I'm used to, and
besides I go out so much."
Upjohn was also a little put out because Philip had brought Cronshaw to
his own rooms.
"I wish you had left him in Soho," he said, with a wave of his long, thin
hands. "There was a touch of romance in that sordid attic. I could even
bear it if it were Wapping or Shoreditch, but the respectability of
Kennington! What a place for a poet to die!"
Cronshaw was often so ill-humoured that Philip could only keep his temper
by remembering all the time that this irritability was a symptom of the
disease. Upjohn came sometimes before Philip was in, and then Cronshaw
would complain of him bitterly. Upjohn listened with complacency.
"The fact is that Carey has no sense of beauty," he smiled. "He has a
middle-class mind."
He was very sarcastic to Philip, and Philip exercised a good deal of
self-control in his dealings with him. But one evening he could not
contain himself. He had had a hard day at the hospital and was tired out.
Leonard Upjohn came to him, while he was making himself a cup of tea in
the kitchen, and said that Cronshaw was complaining of Philip's insistence
that he should have a doctor.
"Don't you realise that you're enjoying a very rare, a very exquisite
privilege? You ought to do everything in your power, surely, to show your
sense of the greatness of your trust."
"It's a rare and exquisite privilege which I can ill afford," said Philip.
Whenever there was any question of money, Leonard Upjohn assumed a
slightly disdainful expression. His sensitive temperament was offended by
the reference.
"There's something fine in Cronshaw's attitude, and you disturb it by your
importunity. You should make allowances for the delicate imaginings which
you cannot feel."
Philip's face darkened.
"Let us go in to Cronshaw," he said frigidly.
The poet was lying on his back, reading a book, with a pipe in his mouth.
The air was musty; and the room, notwithstanding Philip's tidying up, had
the bedraggled look which seemed to accompany Cronshaw wherever he went.
He took off his spectacles as they came in. Philip was in a towering rage.
"Upjohn tells me you've been complaining to him because I've urged you to
have a doctor," he said. "I want you to have a doctor, because you may die
any day, and if you hadn't been seen by anyone I shouldn't be able to get
a certificate. There'd have to be an inquest and I should be blamed for
not calling a doctor in."
"I hadn't thought of that. I thought you wanted me to see a doctor for my
sake and not for your own. I'll see a doctor whenever you like."
Philip did not answer, but gave an almost imperceptible shrug of the
shoulders. Cronshaw, watching him, gave a little chuckle.
"Don't look so angry, my dear. I know very well you want to do everything
you can for me. Let's see your doctor, perhaps he can do something for me,
and at any rate it'll comfort you." He turned his eyes to Upjohn. "You're
a damned fool, Leonard. Why d'you want to worry the boy? He has quite
enough to do to put up with me. You'll do nothing more for me than write
a pretty article about me after my death. I know you."
Next day Philip went to Dr. Tyrell. He felt that he was the sort of man to
be interested by the story, and as soon as Tyrell was free of his day's
work he accompanied Philip to Kennington. He could only agree with what
Philip had told him. The case was hopeless.
"I'll take him into the hospital if you like," he said. "He can have a
small ward."
"Nothing would induce him to come."
"You know, he may die any minute, or else he may get another attack of
pneumonia."
Philip nodded. Dr. Tyrell made one or two suggestions, and promised to
come again whenever Philip wanted him to. He left his address. When Philip
went back to Cronshaw he found him quietly reading. He did not trouble to
inquire what the doctor had said.
"Are you satisfied now, dear boy?" he asked.
"I suppose nothing will induce you to do any of the things Tyrell
advised?"
"Nothing," smiled Cronshaw.
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