"They seem to like you down here."
"I didn"t think that was a fact which altogether met with your approval,"
Philip said drily.
"D"you suppose that after forty years" practice I care a twopenny d.a.m.n whether people prefer my a.s.sistant to me? No, my friend. There"s no sentiment between my patients and me. I don"t expect grat.i.tude from them, I expect them to pay my fees. Well, what d"you say to it?"
Philip made no reply, not because he was thinking over the proposal, but because he was astonished. It was evidently very unusual for someone to offer a partnership to a newly qualified man; and he realised with wonder that, although nothing would induce him to say so, Doctor South had taken a fancy to him. He thought how amused the secretary at St. Luke"s would be when he told him.
"The practice brings in about seven hundred a year. We can reckon out how much your share would be worth, and you can pay me off by degrees. And when I die you can succeed me. I think that"s better than knocking about hospitals for two or three years, and then taking a.s.sistantships until you can afford to set up for yourself."
Philip knew it was a chance that most people in his profession would jump at; the profession was over-crowded, and half the men he knew would be thankful to accept the certainty of even so modest a competence as that.
"I"m awfully sorry, but I can"t," he said. "It means giving up everything I"ve aimed at for years. In one way and another I"ve had a roughish time, but I always had that one hope before me, to get qualified so that I might travel; and now, when I wake in the morning, my bones simply ache to get off, I don"t mind where particularly, but just away, to places I"ve never been to."
Now the goal seemed very near. He would have finished his appointment at St. Luke"s by the middle of the following year, and then he would go to Spain; he could afford to spend several months there, rambling up and down the land which stood to him for romance; after that he would get a ship and go to the East. Life was before him and time of no account. He could wander, for years if he chose, in unfrequented places, amid strange peoples, where life was led in strange ways. He did not know what he sought or what his journeys would bring him; but he had a feeling that he would learn something new about life and gain some clue to the mystery that he had solved only to find more mysterious. And even if he found nothing he would allay the unrest which gnawed at his heart. But Doctor South was showing him a great kindness, and it seemed ungrateful to refuse his offer for no adequate reason; so in his shy way, trying to appear as matter of fact as possible, he made some attempt to explain why it was so important to him to carry out the plans he had cherished so pa.s.sionately.
Doctor South listened quietly, and a gentle look came into his shrewd old eyes. It seemed to Philip an added kindness that he did not press him to accept his offer. Benevolence is often very peremptory. He appeared to look upon Philip"s reasons as sound. Dropping the subject, he began to talk of his own youth; he had been in the Royal Navy, and it was his long connection with the sea that, when he retired, had made him settle at Farnley. He told Philip of old days in the Pacific and of wild adventures in China. He had taken part in an expedition against the head-hunters of Borneo and had known Samoa when it was still an independent state. He had touched at coral islands. Philip listened to him entranced. Little by little he told Philip about himself. Doctor South was a widower, his wife had died thirty years before, and his daughter had married a farmer in Rhodesia; he had quarrelled with him, and she had not come to England for ten years. It was just as if he had never had wife or child. He was very lonely. His gruffness was little more than a protection which he wore to hide a complete disillusionment; and to Philip it seemed tragic to see him just waiting for death, not impatiently, but rather with loathing for it, hating old age and unable to resign himself to its limitations, and yet with the feeling that death was the only solution of the bitterness of his life. Philip crossed his path, and the natural affection which long separation from his daughter had killed--she had taken her husband"s part in the quarrel and her children he had never seen--settled itself upon Philip. At first it made him angry, he told himself it was a sign of dotage; but there was something in Philip that attracted him, and he found himself smiling at him he knew not why. Philip did not bore him. Once or twice he put his hand on his shoulder: it was as near a caress as he had got since his daughter left England so many years before. When the time came for Philip to go Doctor South accompanied him to the station: he found himself unaccountably depressed.
"I"ve had a ripping time here," said Philip. "You"ve been awfully kind to me."
"I suppose you"re very glad to go?"
"I"ve enjoyed myself here."
"But you want to get out into the world? Ah, you have youth." He hesitated a moment. "I want you to remember that if you change your mind my offer still stands."
"That"s awfully kind of you."
Philip shook hands with him out of the carriage window, and the train steamed out of the station. Philip thought of the fortnight he was going to spend in the hop-field: he was happy at the idea of seeing his friends again, and he rejoiced because the day was fine. But Doctor South walked slowly back to his empty house. He felt very old and very lonely.
CXVIII
It was late in the evening when Philip arrived at Ferne. It was Mrs.
Athelny"s native village, and she had been accustomed from her childhood to pick in the hop-field to which with her husband and her children she still went every year. Like many Kentish folk her family had gone out regularly, glad to earn a little money, but especially regarding the annual outing, looked forward to for months, as the best of holidays. The work was not hard, it was done in common, in the open air, and for the children it was a long, delightful picnic; here the young men met the maidens; in the long evenings when work was over they wandered about the lanes, making love; and the hopping season was generally followed by weddings. They went out in carts with bedding, pots and pans, chairs and tables; and Ferne while the hopping lasted was deserted. They were very exclusive and would have resented the intrusion of foreigners, as they called the people who came from London; they looked down upon them and feared them too; they were a rough lot, and the respectable country folk did not want to mix with them. In the old days the hoppers slept in barns, but ten years ago a row of huts had been erected at the side of a meadow; and the Athelnys, like many others, had the same hut every year.
Athelny met Philip at the station in a cart he had borrowed from the public-house at which he had got a room for Philip. It was a quarter of a mile from the hop-field. They left his bag there and walked over to the meadow in which were the huts. They were nothing more than a long, low shed, divided into little rooms about twelve feet square. In front of each was a fire of sticks, round which a family was grouped, eagerly watching the cooking of supper. The sea-air and the sun had browned already the faces of Athelny"s children. Mrs. Athelny seemed a different woman in her sun-bonnet: you felt that the long years in the city had made no real difference to her; she was the country woman born and bred, and you could see how much at home she found herself in the country. She was frying bacon and at the same time keeping an eye on the younger children, but she had a hearty handshake and a jolly smile for Philip. Athelny was enthusiastic over the delights of a rural existence.
"We"re starved for sun and light in the cities we live in. It isn"t life, it"s a long imprisonment. Let us sell all we have, Betty, and take a farm in the country."
"I can see you in the country," she answered with good-humoured scorn.
"Why, the first rainy day we had in the winter you"d be crying for London." She turned to Philip. "Athelny"s always like this when we come down here. Country, I like that! Why, he don"t know a swede from a mangel-wurzel."
"Daddy was lazy today," remarked Jane, with the frankness which characterized her, "he didn"t fill one bin."
"I"m getting into practice, child, and tomorrow I shall fill more bins than all of you put together."
"Come and eat your supper, children," said Mrs. Athelny. "Where"s Sally?"
"Here I am, mother."
She stepped out of their little hut, and the flames of the wood fire leaped up and cast sharp colour upon her face. Of late Philip had only seen her in the trim frocks she had taken to since she was at the dressmaker"s, and there was something very charming in the print dress she wore now, loose and easy to work in; the sleeves were tucked up and showed her strong, round arms. She too had a sun-bonnet.
"You look like a milkmaid in a fairy story," said Philip, as he shook hands with her.
"She"s the belle of the hop-fields," said Athelny. "My word, if the Squire"s son sees you he"ll make you an offer of marriage before you can say Jack Robinson."
"The Squire hasn"t got a son, father," said Sally.
She looked about for a place to sit down in, and Philip made room for her beside him. She looked wonderful in the night lit by wood fires. She was like some rural G.o.ddess, and you thought of those fresh, strong girls whom old Herrick had praised in exquisite numbers. The supper was simple, bread and b.u.t.ter, crisp bacon, tea for the children, and beer for Mr. and Mrs.
Athelny and Philip. Athelny, eating hungrily, praised loudly all he ate.
He flung words of scorn at Lucullus and piled invectives upon Brillat-Savarin.
"There"s one thing one can say for you, Athelny," said his wife, "you do enjoy your food and no mistake!"
"Cooked by your hand, my Betty," he said, stretching out an eloquent forefinger.
Philip felt himself very comfortable. He looked happily at the line of fires, with people grouped about them, and the colour of the flames against the night; at the end of the meadow was a line of great elms, and above the starry sky. The children talked and laughed, and Athelny, a child among them, made them roar by his tricks and fancies.
"They think a rare lot of Athelny down here," said his wife. "Why, Mrs.
Bridges said to me, I don"t know what we should do without Mr. Athelny now, she said. He"s always up to something, he"s more like a schoolboy than the father of a family."
Sally sat in silence, but she attended to Philip"s wants in a thoughtful fashion that charmed him. It was pleasant to have her beside him, and now and then he glanced at her sunburned, healthy face. Once he caught her eyes, and she smiled quietly. When supper was over Jane and a small brother were sent down to a brook that ran at the bottom of the meadow to fetch a pail of water for washing up.
"You children, show your Uncle Philip where we sleep, and then you must be thinking of going to bed."
Small hands seized Philip, and he was dragged towards the hut. He went in and struck a match. There was no furniture in it; and beside a tin box, in which clothes were kept, there was nothing but the beds; there were three of them, one against each wall. Athelny followed Philip in and showed them proudly.
"That"s the stuff to sleep on," he cried. "None of your spring-mattresses and swansdown. I never sleep so soundly anywhere as here. YOU will sleep between sheets. My dear fellow, I pity you from the bottom of my soul."
The beds consisted of a thick layer of hopvine, on the top of which was a coating of straw, and this was covered with a blanket. After a day in the open air, with the aromatic scent of the hops all round them, the happy pickers slept like tops. By nine o"clock all was quiet in the meadow and everyone in bed but one or two men who still lingered in the public-house and would not come back till it was closed at ten. Athelny walked there with Philip. But before he went Mrs. Athelny said to him:
"We breakfast about a quarter to six, but I daresay you won"t want to get up as early as that. You see, we have to set to work at six."
"Of course he must get up early," cried Athelny, "and he must work like the rest of us. He"s got to earn his board. No work, no dinner, my lad."
"The children go down to bathe before breakfast, and they can give you a call on their way back. They pa.s.s The Jolly Sailor."
"If they"ll wake me I"ll come and bathe with them," said Philip.
Jane and Harold and Edward shouted with delight at the prospect, and next morning Philip was awakened out of a sound sleep by their bursting into his room. The boys jumped on his bed, and he had to chase them out with his slippers. He put on a coat and a pair of trousers and went down. The day had only just broken, and there was a nip in the air; but the sky was cloudless, and the sun was shining yellow. Sally, holding Connie"s hand, was standing in the middle of the road, with a towel and a bathing-dress over her arm. He saw now that her sun-bonnet was of the colour of lavender, and against it her face, red and brown, was like an apple. She greeted him with her slow, sweet smile, and he noticed suddenly that her teeth were small and regular and very white. He wondered why they had never caught his attention before.
"I was for letting you sleep on," she said, "but they would go up and wake you. I said you didn"t really want to come."
"Oh, yes, I did."
They walked down the road and then cut across the marshes. That way it was under a mile to the sea. The water looked cold and gray, and Philip shivered at the sight of it; but the others tore off their clothes and ran in shouting. Sally did everything a little slowly, and she did not come into the water till all the rest were splashing round Philip. Swimming was his only accomplishment; he felt at home in the water; and soon he had them all imitating him as he played at being a porpoise, and a drowning man, and a fat lady afraid of wetting her hair. The bathe was uproarious, and it was necessary for Sally to be very severe to induce them all to come out.