“Dear heavens, yes. There are physicians who fear for their prerogatives, priests frightened of being usurped, and whole hordes of the ignorant who simply dislike anything new. We are on dangerous ground. This is why we must tread carefully with Widow Blundy.”
I nodded; it was the same in Italy, I told him.
“In that case you will be prepared for Grove,” he replied with a grin. “Talk to him. He will keep you on your toes. He is no fool—even though he is wrong and, frankly, somewhat tedious.”
St. Mary College of Winchester in Oxford, vulgarly called New College, is a large, shabby building that stands in the east of the town hard up against the walls and the tennis courts. It is very wealthy but has a reputation for being one of the most backward of places. When I arrived, it seemed almost deserted, and there was no indication of where the object of my journey might be. So I asked the one person I saw, and he informed me that Dr. Grove had been ill for some days and was not encouraging visitors. I explained that, while I would normally be willing to leave him in peace, I could not in all conscience do so. Accordingly this man, a short, dark little fellow who introduced himself with a stiff little bow as one Thomas Ken, showed me to the staircase.
The thick oak door of Dr. Grove’s room—the English are prodigal with fine wood in this way—was firmly closed, and I knocked, expecting no reply. I did, however, hear a slight scuffling and so knocked again. I thought that I heard a voice; I could not make out what it was saying, but it seemed reasonable to assume that it was inviting me in.
“Go away,” the voice said with irritation as I entered the room. “Are you deaf?”
“I do beg your pardon, sir,” I replied, then paused in surprise. The man I had come to visit was the same person I had seen a few days previously rejecting Sarah Blundy’s request for help. I stared uncertainly at him, and he looked back at me, clearly also remembering that he had seen me before.
“As I say,” I continued when I recovered my poise. “I apologize. But I couldn’t hear very well.”
“Let me repeat myself, then, for the third time. I was telling you to go away. I am feeling much too poorly.”
He was an oldish man, in his early fifties and possibly more. Broad-shouldered, he nonetheless had that air of decline that sooner or later is sent by the Almighty to touch the shoulder of even the most robust of his creatures, reminding them of their subjection to His laws.
But, a re decedo. “I am very sorry to hear you are ill,” I said, standing my ground in the doorway. “Would I be right in thinking your eye is causing you distress?”
Anyone could have made this statement, for the doctor’s left eye was red and rheumy, inflamed by much irritated rubbing. Quite apart from my reason for being there, the sight aroused my interest.
“Of course it is my eye,” he replied curtly, “I am suffering the torments of hell from it.”
I advanced a step or two into the room, so that I could see more clearly and establish myself more firmly in his presence. “A severe irritation, sir, producing gumminess and inflammation. I hope you are receiving proper attention. Although I don’t think it looks so serious.”
“Serious?” he cried incredulously. “Not serious? I’m in agony. And I have a great deal of work to do. Are you a doctor? I don’t need one. I have the very best treatment available.”
I introduced myself. “Naturally, I hesitate to contradict a physician, sir, but it doesn’t look that way to me. I can see from here that there is a coalescence of a brown putridity around the eyelid, which requires medicine.”
“That is the medicine, idiot,” he said. “I mixed the ingredients myself.”
“What ingredients were they?”
“Dried dog excrement,” he said.
“What?”
“I had it from my doctor, Bate. The king’s physician, you know, and a man of good family. It is an infallible cure, tested through the ages. A pedigree dog, as well. It belongs to the warden.”
“Dog excrement?”
“Yes. You dry it in the sun, then powder it and blow it into the eyes. It is a sure remedy for all forms of eye complaint.”
To my mind this explained why his eyes were giving him so much trouble. There are, of course, innumerable old remedies in use and some are, no doubt, as efficacious as anything a physician could prescribe—not that this is necessarily saying much. I have no doubt that the mineral physick that so enthused Lower will eventually supplant them all. I had some idea of the sort of prattle that accompanied the recommendation. The natural attraction of like and like; the powdered excrement setting up an affinity with the noxiousness and sucking it out. Or not, as the case may be.
“Far be it from me to question, sir, but are you quite sure it is working?” I asked.
“Surely that means you are questioning it?”
“No,” I said cautiously. “In certain cases, it may be effective—I do not know. How long has your eye been troubling you?”
“About ten days.”
“And how long have you been treating it in this way?”
“About a week.”
“And in that time, has your eye become better or worse?”
“It has not improved,” he conceded. “But it may be that without the treatment it would have got worse.”
“And it may also be that with another treatment it would have become better,” I said. “Now, if I gave you another treatment, and your eye improved, that would demonstrate…”
“That would demonstrate that my original treatment has at last begun to be effective and that your treatment was of no significance.”
“You want your eye to recover as fast as possible. If you apply a treatment and within a reasonable time there has been no improvement, then one may conclude that, within that time, the treatment does not work. Whether it works next week, the week after or in three years’ time does not matter.”
Dr. Grove opened his mouth to dispute this line of argument, then suffered another twinge of pain in his eye, which he began once more to rub furiously.
I saw an opportunity both of ingratiating myself and perhaps even of gaining a fee to bolster my resources. So I asked for some water and straightaway began to bathe the foul mess out of the eye entirely, thinking that this alone would probably effect an almost miraculous cure. By the time I had finished, his tortured eye was open once more and, although he was still in some discomfort, he expressed his joy at how much better he felt already. Even more satisfyingly, he attributed it solely to the potion I had applied.
“Now for the next stage,” Grove said stoutly as he rolled up his sleeve. “I think five ounces would do, don’t you think?”
I disagreed, although I refrained from telling him that I was far from convinced that bleeding ever did anyone much good, as I was afraid of losing his confidence. So instead I suggested the harmony of his body would be better restored by a light vomit after eating—especially as he looked like a man who could easily miss a meal or two with no ill effects.
The treatment concluded, he asked me to share a glass of wine with him, which invitation I declined, having already drunk far too much recently. Instead, I explained my visit to him, thinking that if he did not bring up the incident in the coffee house, I would not do so either. Initially, I had been critical of his behavior; now I knew the girl better, I was more understanding.
“It is about a young man whom I encountered yesterday,” I said. “A Mr. Prestcott.”
Dr. Grove frowned at the very mention of Mr. Prestcott and asked how I had met him, considering that he was locked in the castle.
“It was through my dear friend Dr. Lower,” I said, “who had a… message to deliver to him.”
“Wants his corpse, does he?” Grove asked. “I swear when I become sick I feel inclined to go back to my family in Northampton, in case Lower turns up at my bedside with an acquisitive glint in his eye. What did Prestcott say?”