XVII
Thevicar and Dr. Parker slowly descended the long, straggling village street, until they came to Dr. Joliffe’s gate. They found their man at home. In shirt sleeves and pipe in mouth he was mowing the back lawn with a very creditable display of energy for a householder of fifty-five, on an extremely oppressive afternoon.
The perspiring Dr. Joliffe donned a light alpaca coat, and then led his visitors to the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden, where they could talk without fear of being overheard.
The vicar began at once in a concise, businesslike way.
“Dr. Parker has seen John Smith. And he is quite ready to certify him.”
“Hopelessly mad, poor fellow, I’m afraid,” said Dr. Parker.
A quick frown passed across the face of Dr. Joliffe.
“Dangerously?” The tone was curt.
Dr. Parker slowly weighed out a careful reply.
“Not exactly, in an active sense. But there is nosaying when he will become so. At any time acute mania may intervene.”
“It may, of course.” But it was a reluctant admission. Moreover, there was an implication behind it which Dr. Parker was not slow to understand. No love was lost between these two, nor was their estimate of each other’s professional abilities altogether flattering.
“Highly probable,” said Dr. Parker, in a warming tone.
“Contrary to my experience of the man. I’ve known him some years now, and though I’m bound to own that he has always seemed a bit cracked, it has never occurred to me that it was a case to certify, and with all deference I am not quite convinced even now.”
“But surely, Joliffe,” the vicar interposed, with some little acerbity, “the need for the course we propose to take was made clear to you on Saturday?”
The look of doubt deepened in Dr. Joliffe’s red face. “I’m very sorry”—there was obvious hesitation in the tone—“but you are really asking a general practitioner to take a great deal on himself.”
“But why?” There was a perceptible stiffening of the vicar’s voice. “I thought I had fully explained to you on Saturday what the alternative is. You seeif we can’t get the man into an asylum quietly and humanely, he must be made amenable to the Defense of the Realm Regulations. If you would prefer that course to be taken I will go over to the Depot and see General Clarke. We are bound in honor to move in the matter. But Dr. Parker agrees with me that an asylum will be kinder to the man himself, less disturbing to the public mind, and therefore in the national interest.”
“I do, indeed,” said Dr. Parker.
But the frown was deepening upon Dr. Joliffe’s face.
“I see the force of your argument,” he said. “But knowing the man as I do, and feeling him to be a harmless chap, although just a little cracked, no doubt, I’m not sure that you don’t take an exaggerated view of what he said the other day.”
“Exaggerated view!” The vicar caught up the phrase. “My friend,” he said imperiously, “don’t you realize the danger of having such things said in this parish at a time like the present?”
“Yes, I do.” There was a stiffening of attitude at the vicar’s tone. “But even in a time like the present, I shouldn’t like to overstate its importance.”
The vicar looked at Dr. Joliffe almost with an airof pity. “Don’t you realize the effect it might have on some of our young villagers?”
“Well, that is the point, and I’m not sure that you don’t overstate it, vicar.”
“That’s an Irishman all over,” said Mr. Perry-Hennington to Dr. Parker in an impatient aside. “One can never get him to agree to anything.”
“Even if I was born in Limerick,” said Dr. Joliffe, with an arch smile, “it gives me no particular pleasure to be unreasonable. I’ll own that when the best has been said for the man he’s not so wise as he might be.”
“And don’t forget that he claims to be a Messiah.”
“So I understand. But there’s historical precedent even for that, if we are to believe the Bible.”
The vicar drew his lips into a straight line, and Dr. Parker followed his example.
They did not venture to look at each other, but it was clear they held the opinion in common that Dr. Joliffe had been guilty of a grave breach of taste.
“The trouble with you Saxons,” said Dr. Joliffe, who had been getting his back gradually to the wall, “is that you have too little imagination; the trouble with us Celts that we have too much.”
“Joliffe,” said the vicar, in a tone of pain and surprise, “please understand that such a thing as imagination does not enter into this matter. We are face toface with a very unpleasant fact. There is a mad person in this parish, who goes about uttering stupid blasphemies, who openly sides with the enemy, and we have to deal with him in a humane, but practical and efficient way. Dr. Parker and I are agreed that the public safety calls for certain measures; we are also agreed that the national interest will be best served by their adoption. Are you ready to fall in with our views?—that is the question it is my duty to ask you.”
Dr. Joliffe stroked a square jaw. He resented the vicar’s tone and at that moment he disliked Dr. Parker more intensely than he had ever disliked any human being. In Dr. Joliffe’s opinion both stood for a type of pharisee behind which certain reactionary forces, subtle but deadly, invariably intrenched themselves. But Dr. Joliffe, although cursed with an average share of human weakness, was at heart a fair-minded man. And his one desire, now that he was up against a delicate problem, was to hold the balance true between both parties. From the Anglo-Saxon standpoint the vicar and that old fool, Parker, were right no doubt; but from the Celtic outlook there was also something to be said of John Smith.
“Now, Joliffe,” said the vicar, “please understand this. Our man has to be put away quietly, without any fuss. He will be very comfortable in the countyasylum. I speak from experience. I go there once a month. Everything possible is done to insure the well-being of the inmates. It may be possible to let him take his books with him. He is a great reader, I hear—even writes verses of sorts. Anyhow I will speak to Dr. Macey about him at the first opportunity, and do all I can for his comfort and happiness.”
But Dr. Joliffe compressed obstinate lips, and stared with a fixed blue eye at the storm clouds coming up from that dangerous quarter, the southwest.
“By the way, as I think I told you,” continued the vicar, “I spoke to Whymper on Saturday evening. He sees as I do. And he said the bench would support my action, provided the man was duly certified by two doctors to meet the requirements of the Lord Chancellor. Now come, Joliffe, be reasonable.”
But Dr. Joliffe shook a somber head.
“I don’t like to do it on my own responsibility,” he said.
“But you have our friend Parker to share it.”
“The fact is,” said Dr. Joliffe slowly, “I walked as far as Hart’s Ghyll this morning to have a little talk with Brandon on the subject.”
“Gervase Brandon!” To the mind of the vicar much was explained. “Wasn’t it rather a pity to troublethe poor fellow with a thing of this kind in his present condition?”
“I understand that you didn’t hesitate to trouble him with it on Saturday.”
“I did not. I felt it to be my duty.”
The retort was so obvious, that Dr. Joliffe did not trouble to make it. When the vicar chose to look at things from the angle of his official status it was hardly worth while to argue with him.
“May I ask what you said to Gervase Brandon?”
“I told him what you proposed to do.”
The vicar shook a dubious head. “Was that wise, do you think—in the circumstances?”
Dr. Joliffe ignored the question.
“I informed him also,” he added, “that I didn’t feel equal to taking such a great responsibility upon myself.”
“You went so far as to tell him that?”
“I did. This affair has cost me a great deal of anxiety since I saw you on Saturday. I feel very strongly that we ought to have further advice.”
“We have it.” The vicar inclined a diplomatist’s head in Dr. Parker’s direction.
“I told the squire,” said Dr. Joliffe, with a menacing eye upon Dr, Parker, “that I didn’t feel able tomove in the matter without the advice of a mental specialist.”
“The man is as mad as a hatter,” said Dr. Parker, with the air of a mental specialist.
“But is he certifiable—that’s the point?”
“He’s a source of danger to the community,” the vicar cut in. But Dr. Joliffe had asked Dr. Parker the question, and his eye demanded that Dr. Parker should answer it.
“I think we may take Mr. Perry-Hennington’s word for that,” said Dr. Parker.
“Well, with all deference,” said Dr. Joliffe, “the squire feels very strongly that the man ought not to be interfered with.”
The vicar was plainly annoyed. He caught up Dr. Joliffe sharply. “I am sorry to say that Brandon with all his merits is little better than an atheist.”
The tone and the manner were a little too much for Irish blood. “And so am I if it comes to that,” said Dr. Joliffe; and then like a true Hibernian he added: “And I thank God for it.”
The vicar and Dr. Parker were greatly pained by this indiscretion, but both were careful to refrain by word or gesture from making the slightest comment upon it.
“Well, Joliffe,” said the vicar, when at last he wasable to achieve the necessary composure, “if you cannot see your way to act with us we must find someone who will.”
By now the blood of Dr. Joliffe was running dangerously high. But fresh with his talk with Brandon, which had greatly impressed him, he somehow felt that big issues were at stake. Therefore he must hold himself in hand.
“Mr. Perry-Hennington,” he said, after an inward struggle, in a voice scrupulously mild, “I must tell you that Mr. Brandon has offered to pay the fee of any mental specialist we may like to summon, and that he will abide by his decision.”
“Abide by his decision!” The words were unfortunate, but tact was not one of Dr. Joliffe’s virtues. “Very good of Brandon I’m sure. But may one ask wherehestands in the matter?”
“He’s the friend of John Smith.”
“It hardly seems a friendship to be proud of.” The vicar continued to let off steam. “Still I think I see your point. The law entitles the man to have a friend to speak for him, and if Brandon constitutes himself his champion we can’t complain. What do you say, Parker?”
“By all means let him be given every chance,” said Dr. Parker, in a suave, judicial tone. “Personally Idon’t think there is a shadow of a doubt that the man is of unsound mind, and I am convinced, after what you have told me, that he ought to be taken care of; but as Joliffe doesn’t agree, and as Mr. Brandon will pay a specialist’s fee, I am quite willing to meet him in consultation.”
“Very well, Parker,” said the vicar, in his getting-things-done voice, “that seems reasonable. Let us have a man down at once. Suggest somebody, and we’ll telegraph here and now.”
Dr. Parker thought for a moment.
“Shall we say Murfin? A sound man, I believe, with a good reputation.”
“Belongs to the old school,” said Dr. Joliffe. “Why not Moriarty?”
Dr. Parker stiffened visibly at the interruption. “Wrote a cranky book, didn’t he, called ‘The Power of Faith’ or something?”
“Moriarty is a pioneer in mental and psychical matters. And Mr. Brandon has a high opinion of his book. It is only the other day that he advised me to read it.”
But the vicar shook his head in vigorous dissent. “The trouble is,” he said, “that Brandon is getting more than a little cranky himself.”
“Depends upon what you mean by the term,” said Dr. Joliffe bridling.
“You know, Joliffe, as well as I do,” the vicar expostulated, “that our friend Brandon, fine and comprehensive as his intellect may be, is now in a very curious state. His judgment is no longer to be trusted.”
“I’d trust his judgment before my own in some things,” was Dr. Joliffe’s rejoinder.
“I’d trust no man’s judgment before my own in anything,” said the vicar. “I’m no believer in the gloss that is put on everything nowadays. White is white, black is black, and two and two make four—that’s my creed, and no amount of intellectual smear is going to alter it. However, we shall not agree about Brandon, therefore we shall not agree about Dr. Moriarty. And as it will devolve upon our friend Parker to meet the specialist and issue the certificate, it seems to me only fair and reasonable that he should make his own choice.”
With a touch of professional rigor, Dr. Parker thought so too.
“Well, it’s immaterial to me,” said Dr. Joliffe, “as I’m retiring from the case. All the same I think it would be best for the squire to decide. He who pays the piper has a right to call the tune.”
“It doesn’t apply in this case,” said the vicar incisively. “One feels that one is making an immense concession in studying Brandon’s feelings in the way one is doing. You seem to forget, Joliffe, that we have a public duty to perform.”
“I am very far from forgetting it. But Brandon and I feel that we have also our duty to perform. And that is why I take the liberty to suggest that he should choose his own mental specialist.”
“Preposterous. What do you say, Parker?”
Dr. Parker tacitly agreed.
“Well,” said Dr. Joliffe, “if the squire will consent to Murfin, it’s all the same to me, but if my opinion is asked, I am bound to say that to my mind Moriarty is by far the abler man.”
“Why do you think so?” Dr. Parker asked.
“More modern in his ideas. Sees farther. Knows we are only at the threshold of a tremendous subject.”
“Nonsense, Joliffe.” The vicar was losing a little of his patience. “White’s white, and black’s black. This man John Smith ought not to be at large, and neither you nor Brandon nor all the mad doctors in Harley Street can be allowed to dictate to us in the matter. We have our duty to do, and very disagreeable it is, but fortunately there is the county bench behind us.”
“Quite so,” said Dr. Joliffe, drily.
“At the same time we don’t want to put ourselves wrong with public opinion, nor do we want to act in any way that will hurt people’s feelings. And it is most undesirable that it should be made into a party or sectarian matter. Therefore, before we take definite action, I think I had better walk as far as Hart’s Ghyll, and have a few further words with Gervase Brandon myself.”
Both doctors promptly fell in with the suggestion. There seemed much to be said for it. Dr. Parker was invited to await Mr. Perry-Hennington’s return and to join Dr. Joliffe in a cup of tea in the meantime. To this proposal Dr. Parker graciously assented; and the vicar, already inflamed with argument, went forth to Hart’s Ghyll to lay his views before Gervase Brandon.