The Prisoners of Hartling/Chapter 1

OG'S life, old man, a dog's life; you can't get away from that."

Arthur Woodroffe's voice was quite cheerful as he framed this indictment of the life of a general practitioner in a poor neighbourhood, but his companion frowned and shook his head impatiently.

"You are still re-acting to the pernicious influences of that damnable war," he said. "You're hankering after the intoxication of saving wounded under fire; exciting stunts of that sort; Sbana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus. You've got to learn to be content with Jordan. Risk your life in more homely ways saving the sick in Peckham. Same thing, really; only you don't get orders for it. And of course …" he hesitated, pushed up his gold- rimmed spectacles, and stared hard at his friend and paid assistant. "Any way, what is it you're hankering after, my good chap?" he concluded.

Woodroffe looked critically round the little room, and then at Somers glowering down at him from the hearthrug. "More space," he said briefly; "and more …" He seemed to jib at the word that was obviously in his mind.

"More beauty," Somers suggested.

"If you like," Woodroffe agreed carelessly. "Something of that sort. I'd like to get about the world a bit, too."

"As medical attendant to a hypochondriac millionaire?"

"Or some job abroad; or …"

"What you really want, my lad, is an independent income and lots of leisure," Somers commented.

"You can't say I've ever been a slacker, Bob," Woodroffe said.

"No, but you'd soon pick it up if you had got enough to live on without worrying."

Woodroffe considered that before he replied. "Don't believe I should. Go in for research or something. Hate having nothing to do."

"There's always hunting and golf, and bridge and billiards, and cricket, and so on," Somers said. "Life of a country gentleman. Also, you might marry and beget a family, and go in for politics. Quite a strenuous life it seems, for a lot of 'em."

"Bit of a change wouldn't it, after the life of a panel doctor in Peckham," Woodroffe remarked; "but I don't think it's my style all the same. I'd like to do something, something useful. And by the way, old thing, if you're taking on Nellie Mason, I'd advise you to turn in. I saw her this morning, and she's pretty near her time. Rotten job it'll be, too. But I'll take her on if you like. A fat primip [sic] like her would be good for my character."

"No, I'll take it," Somers said. "I promised her I would. She thinks you're a bit young. All the same, I'm not going to bed yet. I want to have this out with you. It's interesting, for one thing. I suppose nothing particular has upset you lately, has it? Nothing that's set your mind roving."

"I don't know. Yes. In a way. Had a letter this morning asking me to spend a week-end with a wealthy sort of connection of mine in Sussex—or Surrey, is it? Hartling's the name of the place."

"Never heard of it, nor of your connection with wealth," Somers said.

"It's a bit distant," Woodroffe explained. "My aunt, my mother's sister that is, married the old man's son. His name's Garvice Kenyon. Ever heard of him?"

Somers shook his head.

"It'd be a bit before your time," Woodroffe acknowledged. "The old chap must be about ninety. I've only seen him once. I went there to stay with my mother when I was a kid of about nine or ten. Some idea of keeping up the connection, I suppose. But after my father got that living in Yorkshire, we dropped out. I don't remember much about the place or the people. General impression of grandeur, and so on, that's all. Mighty fine place, I believe."

"How did you pick 'em up again?" Somers asked.

"Well, I haven't picked 'em up again yet," Woodroffe said. "But I sat next to old Beddington at that public dinner you took me to a fortnight ago, and in the course of conversation—the sort of one does talk to your next door neighbour on those occasions—he happened to mention that he was going down to see old Kenyon. So I claimed the connection for the sake of something to say. After that Beddington talked a lot about Kenyon; in fact he told me more than I had ever heard before. And, well, I suppose in much the same sort of way he must have talked to old Kenyon about me, when he was down there. Anyhow, this morning I got a letter from my aunt—forwarded from Holt's—Beddington probably told 'em I'd been in the R.A.M.C.—asking me to go down there the week-end after next. She says the old man would be 'very interested to hear some of my war experiences.' Bright old bird, apparently, for ninety. Beddington said he was as fit as a flea, still, but a bit absent-minded."

"And the thought of going down there has unsettled you, has it?" Somers asked.

"Don't know that I am going," Woodroffe said. "My togs are a bit rusty for that kind of show."

"I'd almost forgotten that one felt like that at twenty-eight," commented Somers. "After the war, too. Accept the wisdom of forty-five, my dear boy, and believe me that rusty togs are quite distinguished these days."

"Makes you feel rotten, all the same," Woodroffe thought.

"But you still avoid the real issue," Somers persisted; "why this invitation has unsettled you."

"I don't know," Woodroffe said, settling himself a little deeper in his arm-chair. "I suppose if one analyses it, the thing set me thinking of—of the differences between Kenyon's position and mine. Here I am with no decent clothes, and no money; sweating myself thin over a dirty job like trying to mitigate the sickness of Peckham, while old Kenyon's got more money than he knows what to do with."

"Incipient socialism, this," Somers confided to the wall opposite.

"It isn't," Woodroffe said. "I've no sympathy with the greasy proletariat; not my line at all. It is that the whole thing has just set me wondering how I'm going to get out of it. It's no damned good pretending, my dear Bob, that I wouldn't sooner be lying snug in a clean comfortable bed than delivering women like Nellie Mason. And, oh! Lord, the accent is on the clean all the time."

"You don't mean to imply …" Somers began.

"My dear chap, of course I don't," Woodroffe cut in. "My bed here is clean enough for any one, but for about twelve hours of the day I am mixing with dirtiness of every sort and kind, and I had more than my fill of it in the war—lice by the yard and every sort of filth. You blooming base-wallahs never knew your blessings. Well, all I know is that I used to tell myself stories of getting clean, fantasy hot baths in exquisite surroundings, and picture myself going straight from them into brand new clothes and that sort of thing. Instead of which I've dropped straight into this. I know I'm clean all right, Bob, but I can't feel clean. You've got to admit now, haven't you, that ours is a dirty job, take it all round?"

Somers put his hand under his coat and scratched his left shoulder vigorously. "Oh! damn," he remarked, after a thoughtful interval.

"I might come back to it, after a couple of years or so," Woodroffe began again apologetically. "But it's becoming almost an obsession with me just now. I expect these psycho-analysis Johnnies would say I was suffering from some suppression or shock or something."

"You've definitely made up your mind to chuck this job, then?" Somers asked.

"I hadn't when we began," Woodroffe replied. "But talking to you about it seems to have cleared my mind. Honestly I'd no idea of chucking it when we started this jaw, and now it seems the only possible thing to do."

"What are you going to live on?" Somers asked.

"I've saved between four and five hundred pounds," Woodroffe said. "Carry me on for a bit, though I suppose it isn't worth two hundred these days. And then I might have a look round one of the colonies, Canada or New Zealand, or somewhere. It'd be cleaner than Peckham."

Somers sighed, and made a gesture of renunciation. "I'm sorry about this, Arthur," he said; "very sorry—not only because I shall lose you—though that's bad enough, but also, because, well, your attitude disappoints me."

Woodroffe hunched himself in his chair and began to fidget, touching various marks here and there on the hearthrug with the toe of his slipper.

"You've always said we ought to express ourselves," he grumbled, "and here I'm going contrary to my inclinations all the time. I haven't forgotten your yarns on that subject at the hospital eight years ago."

"My dear old chap, that's the very point," Somers replied. "That's what disappoints me. I thought you had something better to express than these calf-like yearnings for change and luxury."

Woodroffe's handsome face had taken on the expression of a sulky schoolboy. He was still intent on tracing some ideal pattern in the design of the hearthrug as he said: "Had nearly five years of it. Over four years in the Army and six months here. Don't see why in the name of God I shouldn't at least get out into some clean, decent country like Canada."

"I shan't try to stop you," Somers replied.

"All the same you're making me feel perfectly rotten about it," Woodroffe said. "Making me feel as if I were a deserter, slinking off and leaving you here. Might just as well say at once that you won't let me go. Of course I shan't, now I know how you feel about it."

Somers stared hard at the opposite wall, tucked his hands under his short coat-tails, and as he spoke alternately raised himself on his toes, and let himself down on his heels with an effect of emphasising his points.

"I stand reproved, Arthur," he said. "I was wrong—quite wrong. Purely selfish. I've been a bit tired lately and bad-tempered."

"Not you," Woodroffe mumbled.

"I have," Somers insisted. "I'm in a nasty mood to-night."

"I wish you'd let me take Nellie Mason," Woodroffe put in.

"I can't. I promised her, five months ago. Never mind that. We're talking about you. And I want you to go. Yes; I mean it. You ought to go. I'm a short-sighted old fool; much too wrapped up in myself and my own affairs; but now that I've heard the case stated I can see the truth. You'd only stultify and repress yourself by staying here. I know how loyal you are, and I know that at a word from me you'd go on. You mustn't. You'd do harm to yourself and to the practice by denying your impulse. As you reminded me, that's a well-established principle of mine, though I haven't thought much about it for the last five years—there's been too much to do. The point is, however, that you'll do no good to yourself or any one while you're working against the grain. Fay ce que voudra. It's possible that you may come a tremendous cropper, and that might do you all the good in the world. But go you must, I wouldn't keep you now if you wanted to stay."

Woodroffe had stopped fidgeting. "But look here, Bob, old man," he said. "As a matter of fact, I can't go yet, not for a month or two."

"You can go to-morrow if you want to," Somers replied. "Bates wants a job and he'd be glad to come."

"Oh! Lord! Bates!" interjected Woodroffe.

"Yes, ohlordbates!" Somers corroborated him. "Dear old wooden-headed, persistent, patient, uninspired Bates. He's just the man I want. The panel patients'll love him, because he'll take so much trouble over 'em. It's true that he'll have to work eighteen hours a day to get through, but he likes that sort of thing. Makes him feel as if he were being some use in the world, poor chap. Oh! yes, I can do with Bates, but God! I'll miss you, Arthur."

"I'm damned if I'll go," Woodroffe announced, getting up. "Everlastingly damned if I will."

"You will, my son, because I won't keep you," Somers said. "But I don't say that I won't ever have you back. That depends, of course, on how you return to me. If you want to come back in two, or three, or five years' time; just turn up and say, 'Bob, I think I'd like to take up the old work again! and we'll go into partnership.' You'll be ripe for it. Now you've got to go and find out what you are fit for. You're not just now fit for this job or you wouldn't be feeling as you do about it. I know you'd stay out of friendship for me, but that's no good—no good at all. I'd sooner have ohlordbates trying to be some use in the world."

Woodroffe sat down again and stared rather gloomily at the pattern of the hearthrug. "I feel rather a swine, all the same, Bob," he said.

"You won't in a month's time," Somers assured him.

Woodroffe contemplated that remark for a moment and then smiled rather grimly. "In a way I hope I will," he said, "and in another way I hope I won't. You needn't think it'll be a case of 'out of sight, out of mind,' Bob; but I shouldn't care to live permanently with the thought of myself as being a swine for having left you."

"You're not leaving me, my dear man, I'm sending you away for your own good and that of the practice," Somers returned.

"Comes to the same thing. It means I've failed you."

"It means that you've failed yourself," Somers corrected him. "Now I want you to go out into the world and find out where and why. You'll do it. I shall expect you back sometime."

Woodroffe sighed and got up, but his face had cleared. "I'll come back," he said; "but I'll admit it's a relief to go in a lot of ways. I—good Lord, I want more space," and he stretched out his arms as if to demonstrate how very little space there was in that small room.

Somers nodded. "That's settled," he said. "And I don't know that you could make a better beginning, Arthur, than by accepting that invitation of your rich connections for a week-end."

"Oh! ah! I'd forgotten that," Woodroffe said, looked down at the knees of his trousers, and added with a faint blush: "Might get myself some new togs out of capital? I'm sure to want 'em sooner or later. Only things are such a filthy price just now. They rook you about thirty quid for a dress suit."

"I should certainly get some new togs," Somers advised him. "Treat it as an investment."

"Of course, if you put it like that," Woodroffe said, with a grin.

"I'll take the responsibility of letting you squander your capital," Somers replied gravely.

"Facetious old dog, you!" Woodroffe returned. "Like to pretend I'm still in leading strings, don't you?"

"Lord, you're not ready for leading strings yet," Somers said. "Wait till you're weaned before you try to walk."

Woodroffe thumped him playfully on the chest.

"Oh! go to bed," Somers growled. "I'm going to try and snatch an hour before I'm fetched for Nellie Mason; if I am fetched. Personally, I shouldn't be surprised if it wasn't for another week yet."

"Dog's life, old man, a dog's life," Woodroffe commented as he left the room.

When he had gone Somers threw himself down with a groan into the arm-chair. "I wonder how long it'll be before he comes back?" he thought. "If he'll ever come back?"

In his mind's eye he had a disgustingly clear image of the solemn, earnest face of young Bates.