SIR PATRICK
[drily]
But no drugs, Colly, remember that.
B. B. [
firmly
] Certainly not. Quite right, Sir Patrick. As temporary expedients, of course; but as treatment, no, NO. Keep away from the chemist’s shop, my dear Ridgeon, whatever you do.
RIDGEON
[going to the door with him]
I will. And thank you for the knighthood. Good-bye.
B. B. [
stopping at the door, with the beam in his eye twinkling a little]
By the way, who’s your patient?
RIDGEON Who?
B. B. Downstairs. Charming woman. Tuberculous husband.
RIDGEON Is she there still?
EMMY
[looking in]
Come on, Sir Ralph: your wife’s waiting in the carriage.
B. B.
(suddenly sobered]
Oh! Good-bye.
[He goes out almost precipitately] .
RIDGEON Emmy: is that woman there still? If so, tell her once for all that I cant and wont see her. Do you hear?
EMMY Oh, she aint in a hurry: she doesnt mind how long she waits.
[She goes out].
BLENKINSOP I must be off, too: every half-hour I spend away from my work costs me eighteenpence. Good-bye, Sir Patrick.
SIR PATRICK Good-bye. Good-bye.
RIDGEON Come to lunch with me some day this week.
BLENKINSOP I cant afford it, dear boy; and it would put me off my own food for a week. Thank you all the same.
RIDGEON
[uneasy at BLENKINSOP’s poverty]
Can I do nothing for you?
BLENKINSOP Well, if you have an old frock-coat to spare? you see what would be an old one for you would be a new one for me; so remember the next time you turn out your wardrobe. Good-bye.
[He hurries out].
RIDGEON
[looking after him]
Poor chap!
[Turning to SIR PATRICK]
So thats why they made me a knight! And thats the medical profession!
SIR PATRICK And a very good profession, too, my lad. When you know as much as I know of the ignorance and superstition of the patients, youll wonder that we’re half as good as we are.
RIDGEON We’re not a profession: we’re a conspiracy.
SIR PATRICK All professions are conspiracies against the laity. And we cant all be geniuses like you. Every fool can get ill; but every fool cant be a good doctor: there are not enough good ones to go round. And for all you know, Bloomfield Bonington kills less people than you do.
RIDGEON Oh, very likely. But he really ought to know the difference between a vaccine and an anti-toxin. Stimulate the phagocytes! The vaccine doesnt affect the phagocytes at all. He’s all wrong: hopelessly, dangerously wrong. To put a tube of serum into his hands is murder: simple murder.
EMMY
[returnins]
Now, Sir Patrick. How long more are you going to keep them horses standing in the draught?
SIR PATRICK Whats that to you, you old catamaran?
EMMY Come, come, now! none of your temper to me. And it’s time for Colly to get to his work.
RIDGEON Behave yourself, Emmy. Get out.
EMMY Oh, I learnt how to behave myself before I learnt you to do it. I know what doctors are: sitting talking together about themselves when they ought to be with their poor patients. And I know what horses are, Sir Patrick. I was brought up in the country. Now be good; and come along.
SIR PATRICK
[rising]
Very well, very well, very well . Good bye, Colly.
[He pats RIDGEON on the shoulder and goes out, turning for a moment at the door to look meditatively at EMMY and say, with grave conviction]
You
are
an ugly old devil, and no mistake.
EMMY
[highty indignant, calling after him]
Youre no beauty yourself.
[To RIDGEON, much flustered]
Theyve no manners: they think they can say what they like to me; and you set them on, you do. I’ll teach them their places. Here now: are you going to see that poor thing or are you not?
RIDGEON I tell you for the fiftieth time I wont see anybody. Send her away.
EMMY Oh, I’m tired of being told to send her away. What good will that do her?
RIDGEON Must I get angry with you, Emmy?
EMMY
[coaxing]
Come now: just see her for a minute to please me: theres a good boy. She’s given me half-a-crown. She thinks it’s life and death to her husband for her to see you.
RIDGEON Values her husband’s life at half-a-crown!
EMMY Well, it’s all she can afford, poor lamb. Them others think nothing of half-a-sovereign just to talk about themselves to you, the sluts! Besides, she’ll put you in a good temper for the day, because it’s a good deed to see her; and she’s the sort that gets round you.
RIDGEON Well, she hasnt done so badly. For half-a-crown she’s had a consultation with Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington and Cutler Walpole. Thats six guineas’ worth to start with. I dare say she’s consulted Blenkinsop too: thats another eighteenpence.
EMMY Then youll see her for me, wont you?
RIDGEON Oh, send her up and be hanged.
[EMMY trots out, satisfied. RIDGEON calls]
Redpenny!
REDPENNY
[appearing at the door]
What is it?
RIDGEON Theres a patient coming up. If she hasnt gone in five minutes, come in with an urgent call from the hospital for me. You understand: she’s to have a strong hint to go.
REDPENNY Right O!
[He vanishes].
RIDGEON goes to the glass, and arranges his tie a little.
EMMY
(announcing)
Mrs Doobidad
[RIDGEON leaves the glass and goes to the writing-table].
The lady comes in. EMMY goes out and shuts the door. RIDGEON, who has put on an impenetrable and rather distant professional manner, turns to the lady, and invites her, by a gesture, to sit down on the
couch.
MRS DUBEDAT is beyond all demur an arrestingly good-looking young woman. She has something of the grace and romance of a wild creature, with a good deal of the elegance and dignity of a fine lady. RIDGEON, who is extremely susceptible to the beauty of women, instinctively assumes the defensive at once, and hardens his manner still more. He has an impression that she is very well dressed; but she has a figure on which any dress would look well, and carries herself with the unaffected distinction of a woman who has never in her life suffered from those doubts and fears as to her social position which spoil the manners of most middling people. She is tall, slender, and strong; has dark hair, dressed so as to look like hair and not like a bird’s nest or a pantaloon’s wig (fashion wavering just then between these two models); has unexpectedly narrow, subtle, dark-fringed eyes that alter her expression disturbingly when she is excited and, flashes them wide open; is softly impetuous in her speech and swift in her movements; and is just now in mortal anxiety. She carries a portfolio.
MRS DUBEDAT
[in low urgent tones]
Doctor—
RIDGEON
[curtly]
Wait. Before you begin, let me tell you at once that I can do nothing for you. My hands are full. I sent you that message by my old servant. You would not take that answer.
MRS DUBEDAT How could I?
RIDGEON You bribed her.
MRS DUBEDAT I—
RIDGEON That doesnt matter. She coaxed me to see you. Well, you must take it from me now that with all the good will in the world, I cannot undertake another case.
MRS DUBEDAT Doctor: you must save my husband. You must. When I explain to you, you will see that you must. It is not an ordinary case, not like any other case. He is not like anybody else in the world: oh, believe me, he is not. I can prove it to you:
[fingering her portfolio]
I have brought some things to shew you. And you can save him: the papers say you can.
RIDGEON Whats the matter? Tuberculosis?
MRS DUBEDAT Yes. His left lung—
RIDGEON Yes: you neednt tell me about that.
MRS DUBEDAT You can cure him, if only you will. It is true that you can, isnt it?
[In great distress]
Oh, tell me, please.
RIDGEON
[worningly]
You are going to be quiet and self-possessed, arnt you?
MRS DUBEDAT Yes. I beg your pardon. I know I shouldnt—
[Giving way again]
Oh, please, say that you c a n; and then I shall be all right.
RIDGEON
[huffily]
I am not a curemonger: if you want cures, you must go to the people who sell them.
[Recovering himself, ashamed of the tone of his own voice]
But I have at the hospital ten tuberculous patients whose lives I believe I can save.
MRS DUBEDAT Thank God!
RIDGEON Wait a moment. Try to think of those ten patients as ten shipwrecked men on a raft—a raft that is barely large enough to save them—that will not support one more. Another head bobs up through the waves at the side. Another man begs to be taken aboard. He implores the captain of the raft to save him. But the captain can only do that by pushing one of his ten off the raft and drowning him to make room for the new comer. That is what you are asking me to do.
MRS DUBEDAT But how can that be? I dont understand. Surely—
RIDGEON You must take my word for it that it is so. My laboratory, my staff, and myself are working at full pressure. We are doing our utmost. The treatment is a new one. It takes time, means, and skill; and there is not enough for another case. Our ten cases are already chosen cases. Do you understand what I mean by chosen?
MRS DUBEDAT Chosen. No: I cant understand.
RIDGEON
(sternly]
You m u s t understand. Youve got to understand and to face it. In every single one of those ten cases I have had to consider, not only whether the man could be saved, but whether he was worth saving. There were fifty cases to choose from; and forty had to be condemned to death. Some of the forty had young wives and helpless children. If the hardness of their cases could have saved them they would have been saved ten times over. Ive no doubt your case is a hard one: I can see the tears in your eyes
[she hastily wipes her eyes]:
I know that you have a torrent of entreaties ready for me the moment I stop speaking; but it’s no use.You must go to another doctor.
MRS DUBEDAT But can you give me the name of another doctor who understands your secret?
RIDGEON I have no secret: I am not a quack.
MRS DUBEDAT I beg your pardon: I didnt mean to say anything wrong. I dont understand how to speak to you. Oh, pray dont be offended.
RIDGEON
[again a little ashamed]
There! there! never mind.
[He relaxes and sits down].
After all, I’m talking nonsense: I daresay I am a quack, a quack with a qualification. But my discovery is not patented.
MRS DUBEDAT Then can any doctor cure my husband? Oh, why dont they do it? I have tried so many: I have spent so much. If only you would give me the name of another doctor.
RIDGEON Every man in this street is a doctor. But outside myself and the handful of men I am training at St Anne‘s, there is nobody as yet who has mastered the opsonin treatment. And we are full up? I’m sorry; but that is all I can say.
[Rising]
Good morning.
MRS DUBEDAT
(suddenly and desperately taking some drawings from her portfolio]
Doctor: look at these. You understand drawings : you have good ones in your waiting-room. Look at them. They are his work.
RIDGEON It’s no use my looking. [
He looks, all the same
]
.
Hallo!
[He takes one to the window and studies
it]. Yes: this is the real thing. Yes, yes.
[He looks at another and returns to her].
These are very clever. Theyre unfinished, arnt they?
MRS DUBEDAT He gets tired so soon. But you see, dont you, what a genius he is? You see that he is worth saving. Oh, doctor, I married him just to help him to begin: I had money enough to tide him over the hard years at the beginning—to enable him to follow his inspiration until his genius was recognized. And I was useful to him as a model: his drawings of me sold quite quickly.
RIDGEON Have you got one?
MRS DUBEDAT
[producing another]
Only this one. It was the first.
RIDGEON
[devouring it with his eyes]
Thats a wonderful drawing. Why is it called Jennifer?
MRS DUBEDAT My name is Jennifer.
RIDGEON A strange name.
MRS DUBEDAT Not in Cornwall. I am Cornish. It’s only what you call Guinevere.
RIDGEON
[repeating the names with a certain pleasure in them]
Guinevere. Jennifer.
[Looking again at the drawing
] Yes: it’s really a wonderful drawing. Excuse me; but may I ask is it for sale? I’ll buy it.
MRS DUBEDAT Oh, take it. It’s my own: he gave it to me. Take it. Take them all. Take everything; ask anything; but save him. You can: you will: you must.
REDPENNY
[entering with every sign of alarm]
Theyve just telephoned from the hospital that youre to come instantly—a patient on the point of death. The carriage is waiting.
RIDGEON
[intolerantly]
Oh, nonsense: get out.
[Greatly annoyed]
What do you mean by interrupting me like this?
REDPENNY But—
RIDGEON Chut! cant you see I’m engaged? Be off.
REDPENNY, bewildered, vanishes.
MRS DUBEDAT
[rising]
Doctor: one instant only before you go—
RIDGEON Sit down. It’s nothing.
MRS DUBEDAT But the patient. He said he was dying.
RIDGEON Oh, he’s dead by this time. Never mind. Sit down.
MRS DUBEDAT
[sitting down and breaking down]
Oh, you none of you care. You see people die every day.
RIDGEON
[petting her]
Nonsense! it’s nothing: I told him to come in and say that. I thought I should want to get rid of you.
MRS DUBEDAT
[shocked at the falsehoodJ
Oh!
RIDGEON [
continuing
] Dont look so bewildered: theres nobody dying.