A Woman's War by Warwick Deeping (ap literature book list .txt) đ
- Author: Warwick Deeping
- Performer: -
Book online «A Woman's War by Warwick Deeping (ap literature book list .txt) đ». Author Warwick Deeping
a veritable bower of bottles, lit by a skylight, a ledger
desk under the gas-jet in one corner, medicine glasses
standing on the sloppy drugstained dresser, a spirituous
reek filling the little room. Oil-cloth, worn patternless,
covered all the floors. The gas-jet in the surgery flared
perpetually through all the winter months, for the skylight was too small and dirty to gather much light from
the December skies.
It was Saturday night at Wilton, and hucksters were
shouting up their wares in High Street, despite the fine
and almost impalpable rain that wrapped everything in
a dismal mist. The gongs of the tram-cars clanged impatiently past Dr. Tuglerâs surgery, where a row of stalls
ranged beside the pavement gathered a crowd of marketers under their naphtha lamps. Trade had been busy
behind the red window that Saturday evening. Piles of
shillings and sixpences lay in the drawer of Dr. Tuglerâs
consulting-table, small change left by anaemic, work-worn
women, who needed food and rest more than Dr. Tuglerâs
cheap and not very effectual mixtures. The room had
been full of the bronchitic coughing of old men, the whining of children, the scent of wet, warm, dirty clothes.
The front room had emptied itself at last, an old woman with a cancerous lip being the last to go. Dr. Tugler
was sitting at the table nearest to the red window, counting up the miscellaneous and greasy pile of small coins,
and packing them pound by pound into a black handbag that lay across his knees. He was a vulgar little man
with a cheerful, blustering manner, and a kind of plump
and smiling self-assurance that was never at a loss for
the most dogmatic of opinions.
Among the Wilton colliery folk he was known distinctively as âthe doctor.â A man of finer fibre might
have been wasted amid such surroundings. Dr. Tugler,
florid, bumptious, ever ready with a semi-decent joke,
and boasting an aggressive yet generous aplomb, contrived to impress his uncultured clients with a sense of
sufficiency and of rough-and-ready power. But for his
frock-coat, and for the binoral stethoscope that dangled
from the top button of his fancy waistcoat, he might have
been taken for a prosperous publican, a bookmaker, or a
butcher.
Dr. Tugler swept the remaining small change into his
bag, locked it, and jumped up with the air of a man eminently satisfied with the dayâs trade. The assistant at the
other table was pencilling a few notes into a pocket-book,
and humming the tune of a popular, music-hall song.
The surgery door opened as Dr. Tugler deposited the
black bag on the mantelshelf, and a swarthy collier, with
one hand bandaged, came slouching out, swinging an
old cap.
âGoodnight, doctor.â
Dr. Tugler faced round with his hands stuffed into his
trousers pockets.
âHallo, Smith, find the knife sharp, eh?â
The man grinned, and glanced at his bandaged hand.
âThere was a tidy lot of muck in it,â he said.
âGood thing weâve saved the finger. Paid your bob,
eh? Right. Keep off the booze, and go straight home
to the missus.â
Tugler turned down the gas-jets, and entered the surgery. A big man in a white cotton coat was bending
over the sink and washing a porcelain tray under the hotwater tap. Blood-stained swabs of wool lay in an old
paper basket under the sink. A couple of scalpels, a
pair of dressing forceps and scissors, a roll of lint, dental
forceps still clutching a decayed tooth, an excised cyst
floating in a bowl of blood-stained water, such were the
details that completed the picture of a general surgeon at
work.
Dr. Tugler cast a quick and observant glance round the
room, turned down the gas a little, and counted the bandages in a card-board box on the dresser.
âFeel fagged, Murchison, eh?â
The big man turned, his lined and powerful face wearing a look of patient self-restraint.
âNo thanks.â
âBe easy on the bandages,â and Dr. Tugler gave a
frowning wink; âwe canât do the beggars a la West End
on a bob a time.â
The big man nodded, and began to clean his knives.
âA message has just come round from Cinder Lane,
No. 10. Primip. Glad if youâd see to it. I feel dead
fagged myself.â
An almost imperceptible sigh and a slight deepening
of the lines about Murchisonâs mouth escaped Dr. Tuglerâs notice,
âI will start as soon as I have cleaned these instruments. No. 10, is it?â
âYes. Hereâs the weekâs cash.â
Dr. Tugler rapped down three sovereigns and three
shillings on the dresser, and turning into the dispensary,
busied himself by inspecting the contents of the bottles
with the critical eye of a man who realizes that details
decide the difference between profit and loss.
In ten minutes Murchison had taken off his white cotton
coat, pocketed his money, put on a blue serge jacket and
overcoat, and taken a rather shabby bowler from the peg
on the surgery door. He picked up an obstetric bag from
under the dresser, and crossing the outer room with a
curt âgoodnightâ to his fellow-assistant, plunged into
the glare and drizzle of Wilton High Street.
Despite the rain, the sidewalks were crowded with
Saturday-night bargainers who loitered round the stalls
under the flaring naphtha lamps. The strident voices of
the salesmen mingled with the clangor of the passing teams
and the plaintive whining of the overhead wires. Here
and there the glare from a publichouse streamed across
the pavement, and through the swing-doors, Murchison,
as he passed, had a glimpse of the gaudy fittings, the
glittering glasses, the rows of bottles set out like lures to
catch the eye. The bars were crowded with men and
women, the discordant hubbub of their voices striking
out like the waters of a mill-race into the more even murmur of the streets.
The man with the bag shuddered as he passed these
glittering dens, and felt the hot breath of the âdrink
beastâ on his face. His eyes seemed to fling back the
glare of the lights with a fierceness that was not far from
fanatical disgust. Possibly there was an element of
mockery for him in the coarse chattering and the braying
laughter. His fingers contracted about the handle of his
bag. He seemed to hurry with the air of some grim wayfarer in the Pilgrimâs Progress, escaping from sights and
sounds poignant with the prophecies of despair.
In Cinder Lane, Murchison found the door of No. 10
half open, and a man sitting reading in his shirt-sleeves
in the little front parlor. A significant whimpering came
from the room above, the first faint crying of a new-born
child. A flash of relief passed across Murchison âs face.
The sound reprieved him from a possible night-watch
in the stuffy heat of a room that smelled of paraffin,
stale beer, and unwashed clothes.
âAll over, I think.â
The man with the paper rose, removed his clay pipe,
jerked back his chair, and grinned.
âJusâ so, doctor.â
âSo much the better for every one.â
âLord love you, doctor, I feel as though Iâd bin sittinâ
on âot coals for ten mortal hours.â
Murchison swung his overcoat over a chair, and climbed
the stairs, a half open door showing a band of light blotted
by the shadow of a womanâs head. The proud father returned to his pipe and to his paper and the mug of beer
on the table at his elbow. He looked a mere lad, sickly,
beardless, hatchet - faced, with high shoulders and no
chest. Coal-dust seemed to have been grimed into the
pores of his greasy and wax-white skin.
The ladâs smirk was a quaint mixture of pride and
sheepishness when Murchison came down the stairs half
an hour later and congratulated him on the possession of
a son.
âGlad itâs over, doctor. âAve a drop?â and he reached
for a clean glass.
Murchisonâs face hardened.
âNo, thanks very much. Your wife has come through
it very well.â
The man put his paper down and held Murchisonâs
overcoat for him.
âWell, itâs a mercy, doctor, that it ainât twins.â
âNot a double responsibility, eh?â
The lad winked.
âWhy, thereâs a cove bin writinâ in this paper as âow
every man ought tâ have a woppinâ famâly. I shâld like to
ask âim, âow about the bread and cheeseâ?â
âAnd the beer, perhaps?â
âTher, doctor, only two bob a week regâlar. That
ainât ruination. Itâs a bit sweaty down in the coal-âole.
I give the missus most of the money.â
âSo do I,â and Murchison smiled at the lad with something fatherly in his eyes.
âYou do that, doctor?â
âI do.â
âWell, there ainât much mistake in makin* the missus
yer banker when sheâs clean and tidy, and looks to a manâs
buttons.â
Murchison turned out again into the drizzling rain,
and swung along a dozen dreary streets that resembled
each other much as one curbstone resembles another.
A church clock was striking eleven as he reached a row
of little, red brick villas on the outskirts of the town, with
a dirty piece of waste-land in front and the black canal
behind. He stopped before a gate that bore, as though
in irony, the name âClovelly.â There was no blue,
boundless Atlantic within glimpse of Wilton town, no
flashing up of golden coast-lines in the sunlight, no towering cliffs piling green foam towards a sapphire sky.
The front door opened at the click of the garden gate,
if ten square feet of garden and a gravel-path could be
flattered with the name of a garden. A womanâs figure
stood outlined by the lamp burning in the hall. She was
dressed in a cheap cotton blouse, and skirt of dark-blue
serge, but the clothes looked well on her, better than silks
on the body of another.
Her husbandâs face drew out of the darkness into the
light. Catherineâs eyes had rested half-questioningly on
it for a moment, the eyes of a woman whose love is ever
on the watch.
âI am late, dear,â and he went in with a feeling of
tired relief.
They kissed,
âCome, your supper is ready. Dear me, what a long
day you have had!â and she glanced at the bag, understanding at once what had kept him to such an hour.
âHow are the youngsters?â
âAsleep since nine.â
Catherine took his coat and hat, and put her arm
through his as they went into the little front room together. A coke fire glowed in the diminutive grate, a
saucepan full of soup stood steaming on the trivet. Murchison sat down at the table that was half covered by a
white cloth. At the other end lay his wifeâs work-basket,
with a dozen pairs of socks and stockings. Her eyes had
been tired before the opening of the garden gate. Now
they were bright and vital, for love had wiped all weariness away that heroic, quiet love that conquers a thousand sordid trifles.
âSaturday is always busy.â
âI know,â and she smiled as she poured him out his
soup.
âI think we had nearly a hundred people tonight.
Thanks, dear, thanks,â and he touched her hand.
Catherine sat down on the sofa, and took up her stockings, seeing that he was tired, too tired to care to talk.
Her womanâs instinct was rarely at a loss, and a tired man
appreciates restfulness in a wife.
When he had finished, she rose and drew the solitary
arm-chair before the fire, and brought him his pipe and
his tobacco. Murchisonâs face softened. He never lost
the consciousness
Comments (0)