The Corner of Harley Street Part 3

If the proprietors of a very excellent emulsion of cod liver oil did not send me (as they do) a little memorandum book at the beginning of each year, I should find letter-writing to my sister considerably more difficult. The book is not s.p.a.cious enough to be called a diary, and the lines allotted to each day are merely sufficient to contain the baldest records of two or three dry facts. But while it is less than a diary, for the keeping of which, if it weren't for you, I'm afraid that I should never have had even the desire, it is entirely valuable as a means to an end. And may the aforesaid proprietors wax therefore as fat and well-liking as their advertised babies. For although you may never have thought of it, oh sister mine, it was by no means an easy condition that you imposed upon me in exchange for your consent to my wedding.

"One letter a month, Peter," I can see your stern uplifted finger even now, "one letter a month you must faithfully promise me, or Esther shall only capture you over my dead body."

And although in those glorious days it seemed but a little bargain to set one's hand to, yet I may now reveal to your horrified gaze--as regards the pre-emulsion period at any rate--visions of a haggard physician battering his cranium in a desperate effort to jog his memory for news. A little reflection will secure you from considering this to be an affront. For the very existence of such visions is the most eloquent testimony to the state of his brotherly affections; and to prevent your instantly taking the next train to town, I can a.s.sure you positively that the wing of a merciful providence (the liver wing) took him under its protection at the psychological moment. Thanks to the cod, its oil, and the emulsion thereof, his memory has been propped up just when he began to need it most. And this is why I can a.s.sure you most positively that, although ourselves and our daffodils are shrivelling to-day in the bitterest of easterly winds, but three short weeks ago we were picking primroses in the woods of Upper Basildon.

We were staying of course with Uncle Jacob, who was celebrating his seventy-sixth birthday and the fourth anniversary of his retirement from the judicial bench in contravening all the known rules of health--or, at any rate, the modern conception of them. Esther and Molly went down on the Friday night, and I joined them on Sat.u.r.day, his birthday.

It was a lovely warm morning, with just enough briskness in the air to remind one that winter was still fighting a rearguard action, and just enough warmth in the sun to make one quite certain that it would end in a general defeat. Slipping into Portland Road Station in golfing kit, I caught an early train at Paddington, and was down at Goring soon after ten, where Esther and Molly met me in the pony-trap. We were to spend the day upon some private links upon the downs above Streatley, a beautiful, invigorating piece of country, and an offshoot, I think, of the Berkshire Ridgeway. From a strictly golfing point of view the course is, I suppose, an easy one. To players like myself, of the occasional order, too delighted at achieving anything that may decently be called a stroke to mind very much about a little pulling or slicing, the penalties, no doubt, are scarcely severe enough. But there are possibilities, at any rate, of some grand, exhilarating drives; the greens are capital; and there is seldom the nerve-racking ordeal of playing off before a mult.i.tude of cynical observers.

Instead, this particular course is filled for me with memories of elemental foursomes, innocent of caddies, unwitnessed by any living creature other than some simple sheep or an occasional pony, but filled to the brim with such dramatic fluctuations of chance and skill as are unknown to (or at any rate unremembered by) your poor plus 1 players at Richmond or St. Andrews. For golf, like her fairer sister cricket, reveals her wild and fickle heart in a truer lovableness at such places as this. Kneeling on immaculate turf, you may salute her queenly finger-tips at Hoylake or Sandwich or Rye--as her sister's at Lord's.

But to know her as she is--to know them both as they really are--to s.n.a.t.c.h kisses from their sweet and rosy lips, to look deep into their honest, if baffling eyes, you must woo them, afar from fashion, by brae-side and village green.

And yet--and yet--well, perhaps that's just how we duffers always did talk. Like amateur mountaineers, we are fain to conceal our lack of craft in an admiration of extraneous circ.u.mstances--such as the view, for instance. And indeed the view from almost any of these particular eighteen holes is of the most comforting type that I know--a wide, pastoral expanse, silvered here and there with water, and apparently melting upon its horizons into a veiled and delicate endlessness. Upon such a view I would quite willingly close my eyes for the last time. And when the day comes for me to retire it will be to the arm of some such westward hill as this that I shall trust my aged pilgrimage.

Grindelwald, Como, Cap Martin--they are good enough company for a mile or two of the road. To have known them has been a real privilege, and to meet them again would be an equal joy. But for the long, all-weathers'

tramp, for the comfortable silences of true comradeship, and above all for those last hobbling footsteps of the journey, give me some little hill like this above English cornlands.

And, taking everything into consideration, I can really find very little in the way of an emotional demand that the view, for example, from the fourth hole of this particular course doesn't amply satisfy. For eyes necessarily accustomed to close studies and narrower outlooks there is s.p.a.ce enough and to spare, and grandeur too, if they are content to accept it from above rather than below, and to feast upon those heavenly Himalayas and ethereal Pacifics that Nature and a south-west wind will always provide for the untravelled. As an echo, or perhaps fountain, of which sentiments let me extract for you three verses from a weekly paper upon my table. They are ent.i.tled--it is the Prayer Book heading of the traveller's psalm--"Levavi oculos."

Mahomed, when the mountains stood Aloof from his so strong desire, Mahomed, being great and good-- And likewise free--concealed his ire.

And since their will might not be bent, Mahomed to the mountains went.

I too, a clerk in Bedford Row, Long years the mountains yearned to see, And since to them I could not go, Besought that they might come to me.

"If Faith," I said, "can mountains move, How surely should they come for Love."

And lo, to-day I watch them crowd, Range upon range, above my head, Cordilleras of golden cloud, And snow-white Andes, captive-led, Yea, Himalayas, crowned with snow, Above my head in Bedford Row.

Wiser than Mahomed, like this little clerk, I begin to think that I can see myself enthroned, in my retirement, and letting my mountains be brought to my door. Moreover to old age, a little timid of loneliness, such a view as this would be completely rea.s.suring. Cottages, manor-houses, Oxford with her dreaming spires, they are all contained within its broad and kindly grasp. Life, human life, trivial, cheery, part and parcel of the ages, has not here been sacrificed to any merely scenic splendour; while beneath it, if still flowing through it, lies the fierce and jovial memory of Briton and Saxon and Dane, their frames long since a part of this quiet crucible, and all but the heroic of their memories--a peaceable reflection--distilled into oblivion.

Yes, one might do a great deal worse, I think, than retire to Streatley.

At any rate that is Uncle Jacob's opinion, and he has been there a year.

"View?" he remarked, when I pointed it out to him, "G.o.d bless my soul, it's the finest view in England. Let me see, where are they? Aha, just there. No, that's not them. _There_ they are--the Wittenham Clumps. My honour, I think. Fore!"

When you have stayed here so long as an afternoon and evening, you will perceive that as St. Paul's to Ludgate Hill or the cross to Banbury, so are the Wittenham Clumps to Streatley. They are, at any rate, its soundest conversational investment.

We celebrated the evening with a feast to which Uncle Jacob had bidden several of his fellow-bachelors--Esther and Molly being the only ladies honoured with an invitation. Uncle Jacob, who has never, I should think, for the last thirty years consumed less than five gla.s.ses of port a night, accompanied, upon normal occasions, by two cigars, and followed, a little later, by a couple of large whiskies-and-sodas, was in great form, and very anecdotal. He did full justice to an excellent repast, and was knocking at our bedroom door at seven the next morning to summon us for early service.

"After that, sir, you may loaf, lounge, practise approach shots in the garden, play billiards, or pick primroses. But every able-bodied person must attend divine service at least once on Sundays while he is a guest under my roof." And so there he was, pink from his morning tub, and with an autocratic twinkle in an eye as clear as yours. I have often, I'm afraid, in a horrid, professional sort of way, contemplated Uncle Jacob, who is typical of a distinct cla.s.s of prosperous old gentlemen, albeit not a large one. All my training and instincts tell me that he eats too much, and drinks too much. And I know that, until his retirement, his life, as a county-court judge, was almost wholly sedentary. And yet here he is at seventy-six, cheerful, vigorous, and very pleasantly self-satisfied--so apparently sound himself, in fact, as to be perhaps just a little bit intolerant of the frailties of others. Personally I am always tempted--a little unfairly, since he is really a trifle exceptional--to wield him as a bludgeon over the misguided pates of fanatical vegetarians. But, on the other hand, how just as reasonably might not some head-strong _bon viveur_ wield him over mine, who am of course a preacher of the simple life. No, I think that Uncle Jacob has three things to thank for the blithe appearance that he cuts before the world: his forefathers' healthy and athletic simplicity; the fact that both by temperament and profession he has lived an objective, rather than a subjective, life; and finally the truth--Medicine's most comfortable axiom--that Nature, given half a chance, will always come up smiling. He is l.u.s.ty _malgre lui_.

Apart from this little visit in the country I have been very busy; and some difficult and rather critical cases have tied me to town ever since. Horace, after some hesitation, has decided to take up medicine, and is working already for his first and second examinations at Cambridge, where he will now, I think, stay an extra year. Next month Esther and I are s.n.a.t.c.hing a week with old Bob Lynn at Applebrook, when young Calverley will look after my patients, and I shall, I hope, land trout for a little while instead of fees. Molly is well and very stately, biding her time, politically speaking, with a stern eye on Mr.

Asquith and a doubtful one on Mr. Balfour. Claire decided after all that she would like to postpone her confirmation until next year. She came up for a week-end, at her mistress's wish, to consult about it.

"You see, Daddy," she told me thoughtfully, "I'm not _frightfully_ keen on it"; and then after contemplating her toes for a moment, "It's not that I want to be wicked exactly, only I like feeling sort of comfy."

When Mummy came in we had a little talk about it, and it emerged, I think, that being "comfy" meant retaining certain rights as to dormitory feasts and midnight expeditions that were believed to be incompatible with the confirmed conscience. Next year it would be different. Well, I suppose next year it will; and having preached her a little sermon, which she accepted very gracefully, we ended in a compromise. She was to be as good as she could, but need not take the irrevocable step till she felt quite ready for it--somewhere about next Easter.

Meanwhile she has discovered Mr. Stanley Weyman, and is doubtful if there is anything in all literature to compare with "Under the Red Robe," though one of the girls thinks "Count Hannibal" almost as good.

Tom's letters are terse, and, as I told you last month, we are still rather troubled about him.

My love to the orphans, with their proper little plaits and their shiny cheeks. And that they may continue to rejoice their matron's heart is the prayer of

Her affectionate brother PETER.

VII

_To Harry Carthew, Trenant Hotel, Leeds._

91B HARLEY STREET, W., _April_ 8, 1910.

MY DEAR CARTHEW,

I believe every word you tell me about yourself--that you are feeling, that is to say, pumped-out, uncertain, doubtful each morning if you can get through the day without breaking down, and as a result of it all, very wretched and depressed. At the same time I can only a.s.sure you, and I think you must accept my word as a trained man, that you are physically sound, and indeed at this very moment a "first-cla.s.s life."

I know how difficult it is to believe all this when one is suffering as you are now. But believe me, it is the gospel truth, and one that you must reiterate daily, and if need be hourly, to yourself. Remember that all this is just a phase of experience. Twelve months from now you will be laughing at the memory of it. Twelve years hence it will have ceased even to be a memory. And if you could only observe your troubles from without, as I do, you would see at once how very understandable they are.

For here are you, a busy enough barrister at all times, plunging headlong into the sea of electioneering, from which, after a very stormy month or two, you emerge to find heavy arrears of work awaiting you at chambers, to say nothing of two unexpectedly prolonged and arduous cases in the courts. In addition to these things you have been, as you tell me, caught up a little in the present whirlwind of rubber speculation, and have had rather disquieting reports of Eric's health in Switzerland.

Now I know you to be a healthy disbeliever in drugs, the possessor of a scepticism, in this respect, that I largely share. And I'm not going to wind up this letter with a prescription. But you tell me that your cases are now well in hand, and that you have four clear days before the Leeds Sessions begin; and therefore, if you will let me, I am going to a.s.sume the sceptre of the autocrat, and commandeer them for your good. First, then, select a bedroom with a south aspect, and have your bed pulled up beneath the window in such a manner that, being propped up with pillows, you can survey some little portion of the outside world. Having done this, prepare to stop in it for thirty-six hours. The preparation will be simple. Procure a round table and a selection of suitable books. What these should be I daren't prescribe. Let me suggest widely that most of them should deal rather with abstracts than concretes, that some of them should therefore be books of poetry, but that a volume of Jacobs'

stories should by all means be included. Select one newspaper only, and that of an unsensational character. Let me recommend, without prejudice to political convictions, the "Morning Post." As regards Eric, consign him mentally, as you have done actually, to the wisdom of his headmaster and the school doctor. And for the rest, commend your affairs to the discretion of your broker. Now as to diet--for twenty-four hours you must live on milk, and milk alone, no matter how hungry you may become.

The hunger will by no means be hurtful, and you can console yourself by remembering that your bodily tissue-waste, while in bed, will be comparatively small. So much for the first day. For breakfast, upon the second, have a bowl of bread and milk. Lunch in bed on some sole or plaice, followed by a rice pudding and some stewed fruit. Rise at three, spend an hour in the garden if the day is warm enough, and have tea at half-past four. Being in the provinces, this meal may be accompanied by two boiled eggs without creating undue attention. Have a warm bath, followed by a cold sponge-down, at seven o'clock, when you must retire to bed, supping on bread and milk at half-past eight, and taking thereafter some effective, but not too violent aperient, such as five grains of calomel, let us say, an hour later.

On the third day, having breakfasted in bed upon a cup of tea, two rounds of b.u.t.tered toast and a boiled egg, you may rise at eleven, and take an hour's walk. For lunch you should have some boiled fish, potatoes, stewed fruit and custard. In the afternoon you should take another hour's walk, and have a cup of tea and some toast at half-past four. Dine in your room at half-past seven upon some clear soup, sole, a nicely grilled chop with some mashed potatoes, and any sort of sweet that you may fancy. Having dined, drink a cup of coffee, and smoke your first cigar among your fellow-men downstairs. Upon the fourth day, arise, and have a cold tub. Don some old and comfortable tweeds, eat the biggest breakfast of which you are capable, seize a stout stick, take an early train, and spend the day in the country, eating when and what you like, and drinking, if you can get it, some good home-brewed ale. Go to bed early, and I will promise you that, upon the morning of the fifth, you will arrive in court at any rate relatively cheerful. A fortnight's holiday, when the sessions are over, will complete the good work.

Yrs. very sincerely, PETER HARDING.

VIII

_To John Summers, M.B., at Actonhurst, Granville Road, Bristol._

91B HARLEY STREET, W., _April_ 12, 1910.

MY DEAR JACK,

I expect that, by this time, a good long night and twenty-four hours'

reflection will have restored your equanimity. For I can't imagine that much more would be necessary, although I can sympathise, with a very sincere fellow-feeling. Bless you, my boy, it's happened to all of us--and goes on happening too, if that's any comfort to you.

Why even young Calverley, who was in here just now, and who looks, as you know, almost supernaturally solemn for his five-and-thirty years, was the victim of a similar experience only last week, under circ.u.mstances far less considerate than yours. For the old lady--the scene was somewhere near Cadogan Square, and it was his second visit--received him in person, sitting very bolt upright.

"You're very young," she told him. "I _don't_ like you. And you don't understand my case."