All Creatures Great and Small (42 page)

I dropped in at the Midland Bank and drew out five pounds which at the time represented approximately half my available capital. I hurried round the remaining visits, had a quick lunch and got into my best suit. There was plenty of time to get to the course, meet the officials and get my fiver on Kemal before the first race at 2:30.

The phone rang just as I was about to leave the house. It was Mr. Sidlow. He had a scouring cow which needed attention immediately. It was fitting, I thought dully, that in my moment of eager anticipation it should be my old jinx who should stretch out his cold hand and grasp me. And it was Saturday afternoon; that was fitting too. But I shook myself—the farm was near Brawton and it shouldn’t take long to deal with a scouring cow; I could still make it.

When I arrived, my immaculate appearance set up an immediate flurry of oblique glances among the assembled family while Mr. Sidlow’s rigid lips and squared shoulders bore witness that he was prepared to endure another visit from me with courage.

A numbness filled me as we went into the byre. It continued as Mr. Sidlow described how he had battled against this cow’s recurring bouts of diarrhoea for several months; how he had started quietly with ground eggshells in gruel and worked up to his most powerful remedy, blue vitriol and dandelion tea, but all to no avail. I hardly heard him because it was fairly obvious at a glance that the cow had Johne’s disease.

Nobody could be quite sure, of course, but the animal’s advanced emaciation, especially in the hind end, and the stream of bubbly, foetid scour which she had ejected as I walked in were almost diagnostic. Instinctively I grasped her tail and thrust my thermometer into the rectum: I wasn’t much interested in her temperature but it gave me a couple of minutes to think.

However, in this instance I got only about five seconds because, without warning, the thermometer disappeared from my fingers. Some sudden suction had drawn it inside the cow. I ran my fingers round just inside the rectum—nothing; I pushed my hand inside without success; with a feeling of rising panic I rolled up my sleeve and groped about in vain.

There was nothing else for it—I had to ask for a bucket of hot water, soap and a towel and strip off as though preparing for some large undertaking. Over my thirty-odd years in practice I can recall many occasions when I looked a complete fool, but there is a peculiarly piercing quality about the memory of myself, bare to the waist, the centre of a ring of hostile stares, guddling frantically inside that cow. At the time, all I could think of was that this was the Sidlow place; anything could happen here. In my mental turmoil I had discarded all my knowledge of pathology and anatomy and could visualise the little glass tube working its way rapidly along the intestinal tract until it finally pierced some vital organ. There was another hideous image of myself carrying out a major operation, a full-scale laparotomy on the cow to recover my thermometer.

It is difficult to describe the glorious relief which flooded through me when at last I felt the thing between my fingers; I pulled it out, filthy and dripping and stared down stupidly at the graduations on the tube.

Mr. Sidlow cleared his throat. “Well, wot does it say? Has she got a temperature?”

I whipped round and gave him a piercing look. Was it possible that this man could be making a joke? But the dark, tight-shut face was expressionless.

“No,” I mumbled in reply. “No temperature.”

The rest of that visit has always been mercifully blurred in my mind. I know I got myself cleaned up and dressed and told Mr. Sidlow that I thought his cow had Johne’s disease which was incurable but I would take away a faeces sample to try to make sure. The details are cloudy but I do know that at no point was there the slightest gleam of light or hope.

I left the farm, bowed down by an ever greater sense of disgrace than usual and drove with my foot oh the boards all the way to Brawton. I roared into the special car park at the race-course, galloped through the owners’ and trainers’ entrance and seized the arm of the gatekeeper.

“Has the first race been run?” I gasped.

“Aye, just finished,” he replied cheerfully. “Kemal won it—ten to one.”

I turned and walked slowly towards the paddock. Fifty pounds! A fortune snatched from my grasp by cruel fate. And hanging over the whole tragedy was the grim spectre of Mr. Sidlow. I could forgive Mr. Sidlow, I thought, for dragging me out at all sorts of ungodly hours; I could forgive him for presenting me with a long succession of hopeless cases which had lowered my self-esteem to rock bottom; I could forgive him for thinking I was the biggest idiot in Yorkshire and for proclaiming his opinion far and wide. But I’d never forgive him for losing me that fifty pounds.

“T
HE
R
ENISTON, EH?”
I fidgeted uneasily. “Bit grand, isn’t it?”

Tristan lay rather than sat in his favourite chair and peered up through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Of course it’s grand. It’s the most luxurious hotel in the country outside of London, but for your purpose it’s the only possible place. Look, tonight is your big chance isn’t it? You want to impress this girl, don’t you? Well, ring her up and tell her you’re taking her to the Reniston. The food is wonderful and there’s a dinner dance every Saturday night. And today is Saturday.” He sat up suddenly and his eyes widened. “Can’t you see it, Jim? The music oozing out of Benny Thornton’s trombone and you, full of lobster thermidor, floating round the floor with Helen snuggling up to you. The only snag is that it will cost you a packet, but if you are prepared to spend about a fortnight’s wages you can have a really good night.”

I hardly heard the last part, I was concentrating on the blinding vision of Helen snuggling up to me. It was an image which blotted out things like money and I stood with my mouth half open listening to the trombone. I could hear it quite clearly.

Tristan broke in. “There’s one thing—have you got a dinner-jacket? You’ll need one.”

“Well, I’m not very well off for evening-dress. In fact, when I went to Mrs. Pumphrey’s party I hired a suit from Brawton, but I wouldn’t have time for that now.” I paused and thought for a moment. “I do have my first and only dinner-suit but I got it when I was about seventeen and I don’t know whether I’d be able to get into it.”

Tristan waved this aside. He dragged the Woodbine smoke into the far depths of his lungs and released it reluctantly in little wisps and trickles as he spoke. “Doesn’t matter in the least, Jim. As long as you’re wearing the proper gear they’ll let you in, and with a big, good-looking chap like you the fit of the suit is unimportant.”

We went upstairs and extracted the garment from the bottom of my trunk. I had cut quite a dash in this suit at the college dances and though it had got very tight towards the end of the course it had still been a genuine evening-dress outfit and as such had commanded a certain amount of respect.

But now it had a pathetic, lost look. The fashion had changed and the trend was towards comfortable jackets and soft, unstarched shirts. This one was rigidly of the old school and included an absurd little waistcoat with lapels and a stiff, shiny-fronted shirt with a tall, winged collar.

My problems really started when I got the suit on. Hard work, Pennine air and Mrs. Hall’s good food had filled me out and the jacket failed to meet across my stomach by six inches. I seemed to have got taller, too, because there was a generous space between the bottom of the waistcoat and the top of the trousers. The trousers themselves were skin tight over the buttocks, yet seemed foolishly baggy lower down.

Tristan’s confidence evaporated as I paraded before him and he decided to call on Mrs. Hall for advice. She was an unemotional woman and endured the irregular life at Skeldale House without noticeable reaction, but when she came into the bedroom and looked at me her facial muscles went into a long, twitching spasm. She finally overcame the weakness, however, and became very businesslike.

“A little gusset at the back of your trousers will work wonders, Mr. Herriot, and I think if I put a bit of silk cord across the front of your jacket it’ll hold it nicely. Mind you, there’ll be a bit of a space, like, but I shouldn’t think that’ll worry you. And I’ll give the whole suit a good press—makes all the difference in the world.”

I had never gone in much for intensive grooming, but that night I really went to work on myself, scrubbing and anointing and trying a whole series of different partings in my hair before I was satisfied. Tristan seemed to have appointed himself master of the wardrobe and carried the suit tenderly upstairs, still warm from Mrs. Hall’s ironing board. Then, like a professional valet, he assisted in every step of the robing. The high collar gave most trouble and he drew strangled oaths from me as he trapped the flesh of my neck under the stud.

When I was finally arrayed he walked around me several times, pulling and patting the material and making delicate adjustments here and there.

Eventually he stopped his circling and surveyed me from the front. I had never seen him look so serious. “Fine, Jim, fine—you look great. Distinguished, you know. It’s not everybody who can wear a dinner-jacket—so many people look like conjurers, but not you. Hang on a minute and I’ll get your overcoat.”

I had arranged to pick up Helen at seven o’clock and as I climbed from the car in the darkness outside her house a strange unease crept over me. This was different. When I had come here before it had been as a veterinary surgeon—the man who knew, who was wanted, who came to render assistance in time of need. It had never occurred to me how much this affected my outlook every time I walked on to a farm. This wasn’t the same thing at all. I had come to take this man’s daughter out. He might not like it, might positively resent it

Standing outside the farmhouse door I took a deep breath. The night was very dark and still. No sound came from the great trees near by and only the distant roar of the Darrow disturbed the silence. The recent heavy rains had transformed the leisurely, wandering river into a rushing torrent which in places overflowed its banks and flooded the surrounding pastures.

I was shown into the large kitchen by Helen’s young brother. The boy had a hand over his mouth in an attempt to hide a wide grin. He seemed to find the situation funny. His little sister sitting at a table doing her homework was pretending to concentrate on her writing but she, too, wore a fixed smirk as she looked down at her book.

Mr. Alderson was reading the
Farmer and Stockbreeder,
his breeches unlaced, his stockinged feet stretched out towards a blazing pile of logs. He looked up over his spectacles.

“Come in, young man, and sit by the fire,” he said absently. I had the uncomfortable impression that it was a frequent and boring experience for him to have young men calling for his eldest daughter.

I sat down at the other side of the fire and Mr. Alderson resumed his study of the
Farmer and Stockbreeder.
The ponderous tick-tock of a large wall clock boomed out into the silence. I stared into the red depths of the fire till my eyes began to ache, then I looked up at a big oil painting in a gilt frame hanging above the mantelpiece. It depicted shaggy cattle standing knee-deep in a lake of an extraordinary bright blue; behind them loomed a backcloth of fearsome, improbable mountains, their jagged summits wreathed in a sulphurous mist.

Averting my eyes from this, I examined, one by one, the sides of bacon and the hams hanging from the rows of hooks in the ceiling. Mr. Alderson turned over a page. The clock ticked on. Over by the table, spluttering noises came from the children.

After about a year I heard footsteps on the stairs, then Helen came into the room. She was wearing a blue dress—the kind, without shoulder straps, that seems to stay up by magic. Her dark hair shone under the single pressure lamp which lit the kitchen, shadowing the soft curves of her neck and shoulders. Over one white arm she held a camel-hair coat.

I felt stunned. She was like a rare jewel in the rough setting of stone flags and whitewashed walls. She gave me her quiet, friendly smile and walked towards me. “Hello, I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long.”

I muttered something in reply and helped her on with her coat. She went over and kissed her father who didn’t look up but waved his hand vaguely. There was another outburst of giggling from the table. We went out.

In the car I felt unusually tense and for the first mile or two had to depend on some inane remarks about the weather to keep a conversation going. I was beginning to relax when I drove over a little hump-backed bridge into a dip in the road. Then the car suddenly stopped. The engine coughed gently and then we were sitting silent and motionless in the darkness. And there was something else; my feet and ankles were freezing cold.

“My God!” I shouted. “We’ve run into a bit of flooded road. The water’s right into the car.” I looked round at Helen. “I’m terribly sorry about this—your feet must be soaked.”

But Helen was laughing. She had her feet tucked up on the seat, her knees under her chin. “Yes, I am a bit wet, but it’s no good sitting about like this. Hadn’t we better start pushing?”

Wading out into the black icy waters was a nightmare but there was no escape. Mercifully it was a little car and between us we managed to push it beyond the flooded patch. Then by torchlight I dried the plugs and got the engine going again.

Helen shivered as we squelched back into the car. “I’m afraid I’ll have to go back and change my shoes and stockings. And so will you. There’s another road back through Fensley. You take the first turn on the left.”

Back at the farm, Mr. Alderson was still reading the
Farmer and Stockbreeder
and kept his finger on the list of pig prices while he gave me a baleful glance over his spectacles. When he learned that I had come to borrow a pair of his shoes and socks he threw the paper down in exasperation and rose, groaning, from his chair. He shuffled out of the room and I could hear him muttering to himself as he mounted the stairs.

Helen followed him and I was left alone with the two young children. They studied my sodden trousers with undisguised delight. I had wrung most of the surplus water out of them but the final result was remarkable. Mrs. Hall’s knife-edge crease reached to just below the knee, but then mere was chaos. The trousers flared out at that point in a crumpled, shapeless mass and as I stood by the fire to dry them a gentle steam rose about me. The children stared at me, wide-eyed and happy. This was a big night for them.