“Here’s some more of us,” Mary laughed. “Aunt Minnie and,” she blushed slightly, “my intended, Mr Walter Stoddart.”
As she spoke her father appeared with the boy, Willie, and after the baker had muttered a quick grace, they all sat down at table.
“I am led to believe,” Stoddart, who, while Mary poured the tea, had been served first with cold ham and great deference by Aunt Minnie, now addressed himself to Moray with a polite smile, “that you have had a somewhat trying experience. I myself had a somewhat similar adventure on the Luss road when a boy. When was it now, let me see, ah, yes, in nineteen oh nine, that hot summer we had. I was just thirteen years of age and growing fast. A push bicycle, naturally, in that era, and a punctured tyre. Fortunately I sustained nothing more serious than an abrasion of the left elbow, though it might well have been a tragedy. May I trouble you for another sugar, Mary. You know, I think, that my preference is for three lumps.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Walter dear.”
Stoddart, evidently, was regarded, not only by himself, but by the family, as a person of definite importance. And presently Aunt Minnie, who seemed his chief admirer, conveyed to Moray in a whispered, wheezy aside that Walter was the Town Clerk’s son, with a splendid position in the accounts department of the Gas Department—a real catch for Mary, she supplemented with a meaning, satisfied nod.
The situation intrigued Moray, provoked his sense of humour. Walter’s excruciating mannerisms, his condescension towards the Douglases exercised, with all the stiff assertiveness of the small-town bureaucrat, even the ostrich-like convulsion of his long thin neck when he drank his tea—all these gave promise of entertainment. While doing full justice to the good things on the table, it amused him to cultivate Stoddart, playing a little on his vanity, and at the same time defining his own position, as coequal, by relating, in a racy style, some of the more interesting aspects of his work in the out-patient’s department of the Infirmary. It was not long before he was rewarded by indications of Walter’s growing esteem. Indeed as the meal drew to its close, Stoddart took out his gold watch and clicked it open—this was another and frequent mannerism—meanwhile favouring Moray with a toothy smile.
“It’s a great pity I am obliged to leave you so soon. I’m escorting Mary to the Band of Hope Social. Otherwise I should have been delighted to have more of your company. However, I have a suggestion. I am of the opinion that it would be highly irregular for you to convey your motor-cycle to Winton without a ticket, sub rosa, as the saying is, in the manner indicated to me by Mary. It might expose you to all sorts of pains and penalties. After all, the North British Railway does not frame its code of bylaws for fun! Huh, huh! Now what I propose,” he smiled hospitably around the table, “is that our friend Moray secure the spare part in Winton, travel down next weekend, fit the part, and drive the machine back. This, naturally, will afford us the opportunity of meeting with him again.”
“What a good idea,” Mary glowed. “Why on earth didn’t we think of it.”
“We, Mary?” queried Walter, repocketing the watch with dignity. “I fancy that I . . .”.
“Ay, ye’re a knowledgeable chap, Walter. I don’t know what we’d do without ye,” interposed the little baker, glancing towards Moray with an ironic twinkle, which indicated that he did not altogether subscribe to the prevailing view of Stoddart’s accomplishments. “Come by all means, lad. Ye’ll be verra welcome.”
It was settled, then, and when Mary rose to put on her hat and coat and, accepting the invitation of Walter’s crooked arm, was led off by him to the Church Social, she smiled at Moray over her shoulder.
“We’ll see you next Saturday, so I won’t say goodbye.”
“Nor will I.” Walter bowed. “I hope to have the pleasure of your further acquaintance.”
Half an hour later Moray left for the station. Willie, who had listened with bright eyes to his stories of the hospital, insisted on accompanying him.
Chapter Two
Moray’s lodging was a small room at the top of a back-to-back tenement near the Blairlaw Docks. The neighbourhood, shut in by a disused city dump known locally as the Tipps, was undoubtedly one of the poorest in Winton. Ragged, rickety children played on the broken, chalk-marked pavements while the women stood gossiping, in shawl and cap, outside the “close-mouths”. On every street there was a pub or a fish-and-chip shop, while, through the Clydeside fog, the three brass balls of the pawnbroker beckoned irresistibly. Tugs hooted from the river and incessant hammering came from the repair yards. The district was certainly not a pleasure resort, but by cutting over Blairhill into Eldongrove it was within reasonable walking distance of the University and the Western Infirmary. Above all, it was cheap.
The brief though striking account Moray had given Baker Douglas of himself was thus, in some respects, though not in all, the truth. The first twelve years of his life, as an only child of indulgent middle-class parents, had been normal; never affluent, but easy and comfortable. Then his father, local agent of the Caledonia Insurance Company in Overton, had come down with influenza, contracted, it was thought, during his door-to-door collections. For a week his wife nursed him while he grew worse. A specialist was called in, and abruptly the diagnosis was altered to typhoid fever, but not before she, too, had contracted the disease. Within the month David found himself thrown upon a distant relative, the widowed half-sister of his mother, a burden accepted unwillingly, an unwanted child. For four years young Moray had undoubtedly suffered neglect, eaten the bitter bread of dependence, but at the age of sixteen an educational policy, prudently taken out by his father, had come into force. It was not much, sufficient only for fees, and a bare subsistence, but it was enough and, helped by a sympathetic schoolmaster who recognised unusual possibilities in his pupil, he had entered for the medical curriculum of Winton University.
But this providential provision was something which Moray, from motives of expediency, or a natural tendency to dramatise his own efforts, sometimes conveniently forgot. With his diffident charm that made most people take to him on sight, it was agreeable, and often helpful, to hint at the tight corners he had been in, the shifts and evasions he had been forced into, the indignities he had endured—shaking the fleas from his trouser ends, using the public convenience on the stair-head, washing his own shirt, eating chips from a greasy newspaper, sustained only by a heroic determination to raise himself out of the ruck and attain the heights.
Admittedly there had been diversions, occasional meals at the home of his friend Bryce, or, through the kindness of one of the Infirmary staff, a free theatre or concert ticket would come his way; and once, in the summer vacation, he had spent an exceptional week at the seaside house of his biology professor. Certainly he had made the most of his opportunities, not only by the profusion of his gratitude when anything was done for him but by a particular earnestness of manner, quite touching, that inspired confidence and affection. “So good of you to give me a leg-up, sir,” or, “Jolly decent of you, old chap.” With that modest, self-disparaging expression and those clear, frank eyes, who could help liking him? He was so absolutely sincere. The truth is that, when he was in the mood, he believed everything he said.
But entertainments are never a conspicuous feature of Scottish universities and in recent months they had been few. For this reason alone his encounter with the Douglas family held the attraction of the unusual. During the week, while he attended the Infirmary by day and studied late at night, it remained agreeably at the back of his mind. He found himself looking forward to his visit on the following Saturday.