All Creatures Great and Small Read online

  “Hey, when you two have finished rubbing noses I’d rather like another drink.”

  Tristan gave her a cold look. “You’ll have to wait just a few minutes. There’s something I have to do.” He rose, shook himself and walked with dignity to the centre of the floor. When he turned to face his audience he looked exalted. I felt that this would be an outstanding performance.

  Tristan raised his arms and gazed imperiously over his imaginary orchestra, taking in the packed rows of strings, the woodwind, brass and tympani in one sweeping glance. Then with a violent downswing he led them into the overture. Rossini, this time, I thought or maybe Wagner as I watched him throwing his head about, bringing in the violins with a waving clenched fist or exhorting the trumpets with a glare and a trembling, outstretched hand.

  It was somewhere near the middle of the piece that the rot always set in and I watched enthralled as the face began to twitch and the lips to snarl. The arm waving became more and more convulsive then the whole body jerked with uncontrollable spasms. It was clear that the end was near—Tristan’s eyes were rolling, his hair hung over his face and he had lost control of the music which crashed and billowed about him. Suddenly he grew rigid, his arms fell to his sides and he crashed to the floor.

  I was joining in the applause and laughter when I noticed that Tristan was very still. I bent over him and found that he had struck his head against the heavy oak leg of the settle and was almost unconscious. The nurses were quickly into action. Brenda expertly propped up his head while Connie ran for a basin of hot water and a cloth. When he opened his eyes they were bathing a tender lump above his ear. Mr. Peacock hovered anxiously in the background. “Ista all right? Can ah do anything?”

  Tristan sat up and sipped weakly at his beer. He was very pale. “I’ll be all right in a minute and there is something you can do. You can bring us one for the road and then we must be getting on to this dance.”

  The landlord hurried away and returned with the enamel jug brimming. The final pint revived Tristan miraculously and he was soon on his feet. Then we shook hands affectionately with Mr. Peacock and took our leave. After the brightness of the inn the darkness pressed on us like a blanket and we groped our way up the steep street till we could see the institute standing on its grassy mound. Faint rays of light escaped through the chinks in the curtained windows and we could hear music and a rhythmic thudding.

  A cheerful young farmer took our money at the door and when we went into the hall we were swallowed up in a tight mass of dancers. The place was packed solidly with young men in stiff-looking dark suits and girls in bright dresses all sweating happily as they swayed and wheeled to the music.

  On the low platform at one end, four musicians were playing their hearts out—piano, accordion, violin and drums. At the other end, several comfortable, middle-aged women stood behind a long table on trestles, presiding over the thick sandwiches of ham and brawn, home made pies, jugs of milk and trifles generously laid with cream.

  All round the walls more lads were standing, eyeing the unattached girls. I recognised a young client. “What do you call this dance?” I yelled above the din.

  “The Eva Three Step,” came back the reply.

  This was new to me but I launched out confidently with Connie. There was a lot of twirling and stamping and when the men brought their heavy boots down on the boards the hall shook and the noise was deafening. I loved it—I was right on the peak and I whirled Connie effortlessly among the throng. I was dimly aware of bumping people with my shoulders but, try as I might, I couldn’t feel my feet touching the floor. The floating sensation was delicious. I decided that I had never been so happy in my life.

  After half a dozen dances I felt ravenous and floated with Connie towards the food table. We each ate an enormous wedge of ham and egg pie which was so exquisite that we had the same again. Then we had some trifle and plunged again into the crush. It was about half way through a St. Bernard’s Waltz that I began to feel my feet on the boards again—quite heavy and dragging somewhat. Connie felt heavy too. She seemed to be slumped in my arms.

  She looked up. Her face was very white. “Jus’ feeling a bit queer—’scuse me.” She broke away and began to tack erratically towards the ladies’ room. A few minutes later she came out and her face was no longer white. It was green. She staggered over to me. “Could do with some fresh air. Take me outside.”

  I took her out into the darkness and it was as if I had stepped aboard a ship; the ground pitched and heaved under my feet and I had to straddle my legs to stay upright. Holding Connie’s arm, I retreated hastily to the wall of the institute and leaned my back against it. This didn’t help a great deal because the wall, too, was heaving about. Waves of nausea swept over me. I thought of the ham and egg pie and groaned loudly.

  Open mouthed, gulping in the sharp air, I looked up at the clean, austere sweep of the night sky and at the ragged clouds driving across the cold face of the moon. “Oh God,” I moaned at the unheeding stars, “Why did I drink all that bloody beer?”

  But I had to look after Connie. I put my arm round her. “Come on, we’d better start walking.” We began to reel blindly round the building, pausing after every two or three circuits while I got my breath back and shook my head violently to try to clear my brain.

  But our course was erratic and I forgot that the institute was perched on a little steep-sided hill. There was an instant when we were treading on nothing, then we were sprawling down a muddy bank. We finished in a tangled heap on the hard road at the bottom.

  I lay there peacefully till I heard a pitiful whimpering near by. Connie! Probably a compound fracture at least; but when I helped her up I found she was unhurt and so, surprisingly, was I. After our large intake of alcohol we must have been as relaxed as rag dolls when we fell.

  We went back into the institute and stood just inside the door. Connie was unrecognisable; her beautiful hair hung across her face in straggling wisps, her eyes were vacant and tears coursed slowly through the muddy smears on her cheeks. My suit was plastered with clay and I could feel more of it drying on one side of my face. We stood close, leaning miserably on each other in the doorway. The dancers were a shapeless blur. My stomach heaved and tossed.

  Then I heard somebody say “Good evening.” It was a woman’s voice and very close. There were two figures looking at us with interest. They seemed to have just come through the door.

  I concentrated fiercely on them and they swam into focus for a few seconds. It was Helen and a man. His pink, scrubbed-looking face, the shining fair hair plastered sideways across the top of his head was in keeping with the spotless British warm overcoat. He was staring at me distastefully. They went out of focus again and there was only Helen’s voice. “We thought we would just look in for a few moments to see how the dance was going. Are you enjoying it?”

  Then, unexpectedly, I could see her clearly. She was smiling her kind smile but her eyes were strained as she looked from me to Connie and back again. I couldn’t speak but stood gazing at her dully, seeing only her calm beauty in the crush and noise. It seemed, for a moment, that it would be the most natural thing in the world to throw my arms around her but I discarded the idea and, instead, just nodded stupidly.

  “Well then, we must be off,” she said and smiled again. “Good night.”

  The fair haired man gave me a cold nod and they went out.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  IT LOOKED AS THOUGH I was going to make it back to the road all right. And I was thankful for it because seven o’clock in the morning with the wintry dawn only just beginning to lighten the eastern rim of the moor was no time to be digging my car out of the snow.

  This narrow, unfenced road skirted a high tableland and gave on to a few lonely farms at the end of even narrower tracks. It hadn’t actually been snowing on my way out to this early call—a uterine haemorrhage in a cow—but the wind had been rising steadily and whipping the top surface from the white blanket which had covered the fell-tops for w