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I arrived in the sitting room a little before six-thirty. Although I had no recollection of doing so, I had managed to keep hold of my suitcase as I stumbled around the countryside in the fog, following the accident. One welcome advantage of this was that I was able to change into some clean and more suitable clothes for dinner.
My spirits took a distinct upward lift at the sight of a man and a woman occupying two of the chairs in the room. Although I would have hesitated to admit it to any of the Doctor’s patients, I was, in fact, a little keen to meet one or two of them; based, I must add, on nothing other than a curious interest in the treatments Sneijder was providing in such an isolated location. Since I had a passing interest in the works of Sigmund Freud, I found the opportunity to speak to patients in the process of undergoing such a regime distinctly appealing. I was somewhat embarrassed to find myself immediately contemplating how I might go about eliciting information from them as to their treatment, without appearing to be rude and intrusive.
“Ah, Mr Templeman, you are in good time,” Doctor Sneijder spoke as he arrived at my shoulder. I hadn’t noticed he’d entered the room and his appearance caused me to flinch. “Excellent. In that case, allow me to introduce you to two of our current guests.”
The other two people in the room, who had now noticed the arrival of myself and Sneijder, got to their feet and turned to face us.
“This is Mr Harold Duncan. He has been with us for a week now. And allow me to introduce Mrs Camilla Downing. Mrs Downing is very nearly at the end of her treatment and we entertain high hopes she will be leaving us within the next two or three days. Mr Duncan and Mrs Downing, please meet Mr Alexander Templeman, our most recent and somewhat unexpected arrival, though a very welcome guest, all the same.”
I had feared being as welcome as a bachelor at a dinner party, where all the other guests are married couples, but neither of my two new acquaintances showed any sign of hostility, which put my mind at ease on that score.
The Doctor led us without delay through to the dining room, which was large enough to accommodate a dozen guests, or so I judged. It was just the four of us for dinner, which was a simple affair, beginning with French onion soup, followed by lamb cutlets, then a dessert of sherry trifle, which, from the look of total satisfaction that appeared on his face, Sneijder enjoyed most of all.
Although I am not the greatest of conversationalists, I am usually a willing participant during a meal, since it would be rude to be anything else. However, conversation on this occasion was rather sparse and sporadic and I did wonder at times if my presence was the cause of this, especially as my less than subtle attempts to find out a little something about the nature of Harold Duncan’s and Camilla Downing’s medical problems and their treatment elicited exceedingly brief answers that gave away nothing at all. Out of a sense of guilt and embarrassment, I attempted to steer the conversation on to, first, the quality of the shooting and fishing in the area and then, out of near desperation, revisiting my recent adventures. Neither subject piqued the interest of the two patients, although the Doctor was good enough to humour me and asked a question or two.
With dinner finished, we returned to the sitting room to take coffee and spirits, of which there seemed to be a plentiful supply; indeed, the breadth of the offering was most impressive for such an isolated house. It was while the housekeeper brought through our coffee and Sneijder attended to the spirits that I took the opportunity to assess my two reticent dinner guests afresh, perplexed as I was at their odd state of mind during the meal.
Harold Duncan was a man I judged to be in his early forties, going by the thinning nature of his short, brown hair and the lines that were starting to make their presence known on his forehead. He was a remarkably slender man; indeed, so much so that, given his greater than average height, I feared he might snap in half during a high wind. Whenever I tried to engage him in conversation, he would look at me through his wire-framed glasses, his wide, weepy eyes seemingly unable to focus properly, and answer, mostly with a single short sentence and never with more than two.
I did manage to ascertain that he was from Dorking in Surrey and worked for one of the country’s leading newspapers, but more was not forthcoming, despite several attempts on my part to dig a little deeper. There was a flicker of something more in his eyes, perhaps a sign of real contentment, when Sneijder asked him how he liked the trifle and when I mentioned that I enjoyed the occasional game of cricket, he managed a thin, if briefly lived, smile as he mentioned that he had watched a day’s play during an England test match against Australia in 1909.
But, on the whole, I felt I knew nothing more about the newspaper man as we sat there in the living room than I had upon first meeting him. I didn’t like to suppose that he was seeking to deliberately keep things from me, but it is not altogether a normal experience to learn so little about a person during the course of an evening when there are only four of you in the room. Indeed, it wasn’t even as if he had dominated the conversation with his own questions, since he had asked very few about me.
As I sat there watching him, he began to stir two cubes of sugar into his coffee, an excessively long, drawn out process that suggested he was afraid a single grain might remain intact when he came to drink the coffee. It was the kind of obsessive behaviour that I witnessed in a chap I used to know at the office, who would become uncommonly agitated when something was not entirely right. A sheaf of papers that were not precisely in alignment or a speck of dust on the toe of a shoe. There had been a day the previous September when he stopped coming into the office and we were later informed he had experienced a nervous breakdown. We never saw nor heard from him again. A sad case, indeed.
Having taken a minute or two to cast an eye over Duncan, I then turned my attention to the very different figure of Camilla Downing. A short and somewhat plump woman whom I judged to be in her mid-thirties, she had rather lovely auburn hair that she kept piled high with an assortment of pins, rather in the style of the day.
If Duncan had been a challenge to engage in conversation, he was, by comparison with Downing, something of a chatterbox. I found the woman almost impossible to extract a word from. I deployed all my very best efforts, even attempting to converse on matters of speculative gossip I had noticed in the newspapers in recent weeks and the latest ladies’ fashions, but she never took the bait and would slip away, to drift once more deeper waters, where she lurked silent and beyond my reach.
In matter of fact, it was Sneijder who told me most about her. Her husband had arranged for Mrs Downing to visit Sneijder’s premises after her debilitating emotional and mental problems had defeated the best efforts of other doctors, some of them well known in their field. It seemed Mr Downing occupied a senior post as a civil servant in the War Office and was somewhat concerned that his wife’s disturbing condition might limit his progress into more senior posts. Of course, added Sneijder, Mr Downing had not put things quite like that himself, but it had been clear to even the most casual of observers what his motives were.
But what I found most odd, you could even say disturbing, about Mrs Downing was the entirely vacant look in her eyes. It was as if they were no more than a facade, beyond which there lay an empty structure. Her movements too were strange; somewhat slow and laborious, as if she was having to engage in an abnormal amount of effort in order to exert proper control over her limbs.
All in all, things struck me as being very odd and I had a thought that I was rather grateful I didn’t need to avail myself of the specialist services of Dr Sneijder, since it seemed to entail the complete breaking down of a person’s character, leaving them something of a hollowed-out husk. I could only hope he rebuilt each individual before they left his care. Lord knows what their families and friends would think if they arrived home in the state Duncan and Downing were in that evening.
We idled away another twenty minutes or so over coffee and further stilted conversation, before Sneijder stood up and announced that it was time for his two patients to be retiring for the night.
“It is most important, Mr Templeman, that all my patients get a full night’s sleep. There must be no exceptions, not even when we have the excitement of an unexpected guest. Otherwise, it can undermine all the hard work both I and my patients put into their recovery.”
I exchanged good evenings with the two patients and looked on as Sneijder ushered them out of the room, speaking in such a low voice that I could not make out a single word. Not that I had any need to hear what was said, of course.
“Well, now then, Mr Templeman, will you stay on for a while and join me in another glass or two? It would make a pleasant change to be able to spend some time conversing with someone other than my patients. Or, for that matter, Selkman and my housekeeper; neither of whom are the greatest of conversationalists. If I am to be honest, it can get a little dull at times,” he added, his voice lowered, while he looked towards the doorway in an exaggerated manner.
“My pleasure, Doctor. I feel as if I have slept for England already today and I would be only too happy to see if I’m up to the challenge of matching your wits sufficiently so as not to bore you.”
“Excellent. Another coffee, or can I tempt you with a whiskey?”
“I don’t mind if I try a drop of your whiskey, thank you very much.”
While Sneijder attended to our drinks, I noticed again the map hanging on the wall. It prompted a question I felt a sudden urge to have answered.
“I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting Holland, Doctor, but, tell me, is it really as flat as they say it is? No hills at all?”
For a moment, Sneijder’s shoulders shook a little, then he turned towards me, a glass in each hand, and replied with a good deal of humour in his voice. “Yes, Mr Templeman, I can assure you it really is a very flat country indeed. I am sure there is a very small incline here and there, but they are few and far between and rarely encountered.” He handed me my drink and we saluted the fog.
“I suppose the closest we have here to match that is East Anglia. Once you get beyond Peterborough it is as flat as a table-top all the way to the sea. I’m not sure there’s anywhere else in the country that’s quite like it.”
“Ah, yes. I have heard of East Anglia, of course, but I have not yet had the pleasure of visiting that part of the country. It sounds positively ideal, should I happen to ever feel homesick.”
The Doctor sat down in the chair opposite me, loosened his tie with some relish, then breathed in the peaty scent of the whiskey. “Such a wonderful aroma,” he observed, with real feeling. “You can, as they say, smell the peat upon which much of this part of the country is built.”
“My godfather would certainly agree with you there. He’s a whiskey man through-and-through.”
We each took a moment to savour our drinks, the warmth of the alcohol playing across my tongue before igniting in my throat. There was not a better drink for a time when the weather pressed in, chill and wet.
“Tell me, Templeman, if you don’t mind, what do you think about all this talk of war? Do you think it will really come to that?”
War? It was, indeed, a subject of regular discussion in the newspapers and increasingly so at dinner parties and the like, but I tried not to think about it too much. For one thing, given my age, I was bound to be expected to volunteer if it came to that and, whilst I would naturally not hesitate to do so, I was no budding hero. The thought of being blown to pieces on some faraway battlefield did not much appeal to me. I was rather anticipating a long and happy life.
“I should hope not, Doctor. It seems to me it’s rather difficult to see how it would be in anyone’s best interests.”
“But the situation in the Balkans looks most delicate. Some suggest it will only take the smallest of provocations to ignite things and up it will all go, like a powder keg. You have hopes, then, it can be resolved peacefully?”
“All that is needed, surely, is for all concerned to remain calm and talk things through in a level-headed manner. I would imagine it will probably help to keep the professional soldiers and sailors out of the room too. I think sometimes they get rather bored cooped up in their barracks and on their ships with no wars to fight.”
“A war brought on by boredom, then? An interesting theory, indeed,” he guffawed, such a show of emotion catching me off guard for a moment.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if that very thing hasn’t happened many times before,” I added, in mock indignation, glad to see that the evening was livening up somewhat.
“That’s not a line of thought I believe I have read in the newspapers, though now you suggest it I think they ought to consider it.”
I returned for a moment to my whiskey, before adding, in a more serious tone, “I can’t see the Kaiser being stupid enough to take on the might of the British Empire, can you? Germany may be a revitalised power since unification, but it is still no match for us.”
“I am not so sure. On the continent there is a good deal of nervousness about the situation and a sense that some people are anxious indeed to go to war as soon as the opportunity presents itself.”
The Doctor fingered one end of his moustache, his eyes downcast, and for a moment he seemed deep in thought.
“Am I to understand thoughts of war are altogether nearer the surface on the continent than they are here, Doctor?”
“I am afraid they are, yes indeed. Very many people live in full expectation there will be a war before the year is out and there are so many intertwined treaties that as soon as any two parties commit, it will be sure to bring in many, many more.”
The Doctor sounded now somewhat despondent, the ease and humour of a moment ago now gone from his voice.
“Well, let’s hope that people in high places who can take the necessary action to avoid a war breaking out do just that. It can’t be beyond the wit of the best brains available to each party to sort out some sort of agreement that is to everyone’s satisfaction.”
“Yes, quite so. Let’s hope you’re right about that.”
The conversation moved on to other subjects after a while and the Doctor’s happy demeanour returned, especially when we alighted on the subject of politicians and, in particular, how the services of someone such as himself could be put to good use in flushing out of their heads all the many mad schemes they seemed forever able to dream up.
Eventually, as the clock on the mantelpiece chimed to let us know it was ten o’clock, the Doctor rose to his feet, a little unsteady, if I say so, and bade me goodnight. Breakfast, he informed me, was at eight sharp. Although I did not notice it at the time, by now all my earlier thoughts of how odd Duncan and Downing had appeared had left me entirely and I retired to my bed as relaxed and content as a man could be.
