“Nonetheless, Mr. Trimmers’ advocacy is much appreciated,” said Mrs. Pilkins, with lips that half-smiled, no doubt, for the first time since she set foot that day within the asylum’s great front hall.
I dropt my voice for a private conference with Sir Dabber. I reminded him that I was doing him a favour by accompanying him on this trip to see his son Bevan, and it was only right and meet that he should reciprocate my kindness by indulging my promotion of Mrs. Pilkins’ four-month-long cause. Had Newman and Gus never left Dingley Dell and the matter remained in the abstract with regard to my own curiosity, I should still at all events wish to find out why it was that none who had left our valley and then returned was ever permitted to see his family, even, in some cases, after many long years of agonising separation. It made no sense — never had. I could not help recalling what Muntle had said to me only two days before: that it was his belief and the belief of the others who gathered with him (for a purpose other than reading poetry) that there was a false reason conveniently put forward for everything that happened in the Dell and then a second true and hidden reason. Was this the case here?
“You cannot see Dr. Towlinson because it’s his afternoon off, and he doesn’t conduct interviews on his afternoon off. It is unheard of,” said Mr. Howler, with finality.
“This is his afternoon off?” asked an elderly farmer, listening with his ear-horn. The farmer’s name I recalled as Matthew or Mark (or Luke or John; the mnemonic I used for this gentleman placed the man somewhere within the ranks of that scribing quartet of gospel apostles).
“That’s what I just said,” snapped Howler with a curved and nearly snarling lip, contemptuously dis-acknowledging the man’s hearing infirmity.
I surmised that, given the way that some in the queue closed about to better hear our exchange, there just might be others amongst those present on this day who were either themselves in straits similar to those endured by members of the Pilkins family or were sympathetic to Mrs. Pilkins’ struggle through sensipathic solidarity.
My supposition was confirmed by the following observations:
“Sometimes I will speak to a person on my afternoon off.” This from Mrs. Jellyby, who supervised the laundresses at Dingley Dell Workhouse #3.
“That isn’t at all germane to the matter at hand,” replied Howler dismissively.
“Where does the good doctor spend his afternoon off? Where is he at this moment?” asked Miss Clickett, Newman’s former village schoolteacher, who had come to visit her sister Minnie who was being briefly interned for a climacteric nervous condition.
“How should I know?” replied Howler, growing more bilious with each moment. “In his study, I would warrant, but don’t hold me to it!”
As a farrier by the name of Stiltstalking was opening his mouth to speak, Howler appended, “But he’s left specific instructions that he isn’t to be disturbed. That is always the way on Wednesday afternoon. Now if you will all kindly—”
“Not even for a matter of dire importance?” interrupted Chuffey the baker.
“This most certainly doesn’t rise to that level, my dear sir, and if we are to have revolt here on behalf of the perpetually-persistent Mrs. Pilkins, then I will be forced to summon orderlies to clear this hall and send each and every one of you back to his home.”
Sir Dabber, who had bristled at my involvement as an impediment to his wish to see his son as soon and as quickly as possible, now be-mantled himself with a public garment I’d never before seen him wear: disdained and demeaned man of the people.
Brandishing his rather large enfolded umbrella as if it were some menacing mace or spear, the gentleman, his full cheeks puffed out and deeply coloured, plunged into the following wheezing, rather remarkable declamation: “My dear Mr. Howler, I have sat at intervals upon the supervisory board of this hospital, it being a public institution and answerable to the citizens of this valley whose taxes pay for its continuation and upkeep, and I must say that your obdurate behaviour can only be taken as offensive and insulting to every man, woman, and child in this hall. You have no authority here but to follow the rules you’ve been given as to who may enter and who may not, and you are obliged, nay, institutionally obligated to refer anyone who questions or contests your interpretation of those rules, or voices any grievance with regard to said rules, to the author of those selfsame rules, that person being Dr. Towlinson, who, I happen to know, maintains his office on Visitation Wednesdays to be available should there be matters pertaining to visitation that might require his immediate attention. This, sir, is just such a matter, and if you do not suffer Mrs. Pilkins and her daughters and my friend Mr. Trimmers, and myself to proceed to a direct and immediate interview with the good doctor, I shall use every ounce of the clout which I still maintain with the board of directors, each member of whom is a close colleague of mine in medical society, to see that you are promptly discharged from your position as registrar of visitation for this institution without hope of future reinstatement!”
Mr. Howler swallowed, his face having attained a most interesting plastery pallor. He had been trod thoroughly beneath the hooves of that large-framed authority known as Sir Dabber, who had hitherto represented himself as nothing more than a silent, perturbed man in a queue, no more important to eye and ear than a cold and silent sconce upon a wall. “I will take you to the doctor’s office this instant, by all means,” stammered Howler, who then bounded up from his desk with such a forceful application of bodily intention that the chair was tumbled backwards and the hand, which joined the voice in indicating the young man’s newlyfound purpose in life, swept itself in sloppy gesticulation across the bundle of visitor tickets, brushing no small number of them onto the floor, this collateral misfortune compelling the flustered and fluttering gatekeeper of Bedlam to deliver the following adjuration to his gaping-mouthed spectators: “Do not touch the tickets. Remain where you are. Let the paper slips lie! I will return shortly.”
In his patter across the hall with the five of us skating and skittering on the slick linoleum to keep up, Howler resembled some diminutive animal I could not bring fully to mind. But having raised his voice to a degree which had never before been heard here in this large and echoing chamber, he made me smile to think that the surname Howler on this particular day quite befitted the man, and that perchance it was the exception rather than the rule, in more cases than even this one, that commanded when it was most necessary.
Chapter the Twenty-ninth. Wednesday, July 2, 2003
r. Howler, finding the door to his employer’s study agape and its official occupant absent, bade that we all be seated within that room whilst he went searching for the man who paid his wages. The room was not a large one, having once served as a cozy bedchamber within the mansion home that was the hospital’s previous incarnation, but it was spruce and lavishly furnished. A fine mahogany triangular press dominated one corner. Scattered about were a Spanish mahogany desk, several leatherbottomed elbow chairs, and a couch to match the design and wooden filigree of its companion pieces. All were exemplary of the finest furniture construction in the Dell — a top line rarely found outside the home or office of the most patrician of Dingley Dell’s Bashaw class. A fireplace, girded in expressive marble, had been set into the handsomely wainscotted wall, that very architectural feature making it obvious that the room had been improved after the commencement of Towlinson’s reign, for the hearth frame matched in colour and pattern the marble top of a small lamp table also found within the room, as well as a decorative lintel imposed above the door.