“To be sure we have, Mr. Timberry,” answered Harry Scadger.
“Please don’t call me ‘mister.’ For as of to-day, my good man, I am in name and fact…a doctor of medicine.” Turning to me, with a face flushed with excitement and overflowing affability: “You see, Sir Dabber has decided to recommend to the licensing sub-committee of the Medical Board my installation as practitioner-in-full. It is as good as done. And I know, Trimmers, that I have you to thank for your promotion of my lifelong objective. I can think of no other way to shew my gratitude other than to say thank you until I grow blissfully hoarse.”
“No. You mustn’t do that, Timberry,” I replied with a chuckle. It would have been difficult not to smile and congratulate and join the young man in his infectious celebration. “We shall drink to you, Timberry, as soon as I am sufficiently recovered from my foray into the vineyards with Sir Dabber last night. But for now, I must accompany my friend Scadger to his new home in the Mews. His daughter Florence is in a bad way and we must take her this medicine.”
“I’ll join you,” the young doctor returned. “The young girl shall be my very first patient, though my shingle has yet to be hung.”
Scadger eyed the sprightly young man with some suspicion.“We live in the East End. In the Pupker Mews.”
“Yes, I naturally assumed that this was to be our destination.”
“And you do not demur?”
Timberry shrugged. “Why should I?”
“There’s only one physician who condescends to treat patients in the East End. And if I may be candid, sir, one is better off not to summon him, for his cures are sometimes more injurious to the patient than the complaint itself.”
Timberry laughed in a boyish manner that reminded one in an instant how very young he was to be taking up the mantle of physician and healer. “You must put him totally out of mind, Mr. Scadger, for he has been retired. As of to-day that most decrepit old gentleman joins the ranks of the superannuated set. I am to be the one who attends to the poor of the East End from this day forward, and I relish the challenge, I most certainly do! Lead on, my good man. Let me attend to your infirm daughter Florence, full stop, end of discussion.” Seeing the bottle of cough syrup in my hand, Timberry took it and examined the label. “This is good. This will help. What we need here in Dingley Dell is a true sanatorium for our consumptives; the lung hospital is nothing more than a scrofula warehouse. I cannot believe that I am a doctor now! Trimmers, I am walking upon clouds. Now I must be subdued when I see the girl. I must be subdued and sober and evince maturity.”
An interval of quiet succeeded these words as we walked along. I couldn’t help thinking of how happy I was for Timberry and how grateful I was that Sir Dabber had changed his opinion of the young man based upon my own good opinion. It was good that Dabber and I were now allies, each warmed by the incandescent rays of mutual respect. It would be good as well to have as many allies as fate would permit in these days to come— days that would put each of us to the test within that crucible that would prove to be unlike any other that the mind can possibly imagine.
Chapter the Thirty-fourth. Thursday, July 3, 2003
f one were to take a torch to the Pupker Mews and reduce all the structures therein to elemental charcoal and ash, and then sweep away the smoking ruins, and leave in its place a stark, besooted vacancy, one would say that this was a far, far better thing one did, than to leave extant that which presently assaulted the gaze and troubled the heart. Stables they once were, and little more than stables they still seemed to be, and how merciless it was to think that two-legged beasts should adapt so readily to a place hardly fit even for quadrupedal habitation!
Yet this is where Harry Scadger and his devoted wife Matilda and their three girls and two boys set up their new home, for they had no choice in the matter. Theirs was a building not much larger than the smallest of cottages in the Dinglian countryside, and where a wall or two of pasteboard had been thrown up, one could pretend the separation of rooms, though one could have just as easily strung curtains or erected tattered, moth-nibbled Japanese screens to achieve the same flimsy effect.
But to Harry and Matilda Scadger, a home was a home. And lodgings in the Pupker Mews were, at all events, more home than the couple and their children had ever known before. For every year that had preceded their present situation, the family had occupied mean and lowly domiciles that were little more than sleeping barracks of castoff plank and scavenged log. Everything that one did in a wakeful state was done out-of-doors and under sun, moon and stars, and even during eventide a drowsy Scadger might lie supine upon an old, frayed hearthrug or a soiled charity-bestowed counterpane, which served as crude floor mattress, and gaze through chinks in the ceiling at the night sky through the sort of rude skylight that required no glazing.
“What you see round you much improves upon our previous circumstances,” said Scadger, leading Timberry and me to his newly occupied dwelling. “Mind the rubbish,” he cautioned, stepping deftly over a dust pile near the front door. “They have not yet carted away the refuse from this long-vacant by-street. But I am told that it is to be done quite soon.”
The loud creak of the door, which did not hang easily upon its rusty hinges, proclaimed better than any bell or butler’s declaration our arrival, and in a trice, the three of us found ourselves in the company of four members of Harry Scadger’s young brood — two boys and two girls — each of whom either tugged upon the skirts of their father’s fustian waistcoat or pulled at his trowser pockets in want of something to eat.
The object of their quest lay within Scadger’s waistcoat pocket, and it was from this deep pouch that the man withdrew a paper of assorted nuts and currants “given to me by the kind charity woman who is overseeing our case.” This was said to Timberry and me to explain why such a poor man who was not a thief could be in possession of so much tasty treasure. The papa then commenced to passing a few tidbits to each of the children, who, in the manner of little baby birds, opened their beaks (whilst cupping their hands to give an alternate means of receipt). As Scadger was about the business of distributing the treats, his wife Matilda entered from the rear rooms, wiping her hands upon a flannel cleaning cloth.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” said she, dropping a small curtsey. “I didn’t know, my love,” this to her husband, “that we were to have guests to-day or I would have done a much better job of brightening up these dreary rooms.” Mrs. Scadger used the back of her hand to push a fallen lock of hair from her eyes. Her tresses were wilting in these stifling rooms, and perspiration beaded upon her flushed face.
“This isn’t a social call, per se, my love,” said the master of the house. “I have brought Dr. Timberry to see Florence.”
“A doctor? You have brought a doctor here?” exclaimed Matilda, craning her neck to look behind us and out the door and into the lane.
“Right here and at your service, madam,” said Timberry, waving his hand as if he were hailing a hackney. “You may call me the boy physician, but I won’t mind it. Where’s the patient?”
“In the back room,” said Matilda, her face still registering some measure of confusion. Matilda led Timberry away as the father followed behind. I waited amongst the children who were gobbling their nuts and currants as if these were to be the only morsels they should eat this week.