The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Author

Author:Author
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

Two

Collapse of Elderly Party

M r. Pinfold’s idleness has been remarked. He was half-way through a novel and had stopped work in early summer. The completed chapters had been typed, rewritten, retyped, and lay in a drawer of his desk. He was entirely satisfied with them. He knew in a general way what had to be done to finish the book and he believed he could at any moment set himself to do it. But he was not pressed for money. The sales of his earlier works had already earned him that year the modest sufficiency which the laws of his country allowed. Further effort could only bring him sharply diminishing rewards and he was disinclined to effort. It was as though the characters he had quickened had fallen into a light doze and he left them benevolently to themselves. Hard things were in store for them. Let them sleep while they could. All his life he had worked intermittently. In youth his long periods of leisure had been devoted to amusement. Now he had abandoned that quest. That was the main difference between Mr. Pinfold at fifty and Mr. Pinfold at thirty.

Winter set in sharp at the end of October. The central-heating plant at Lychpole was ancient and voracious. It had not been used since the days of fuel shortage. With most of the children away at school Mr. and Mrs. Pinfold withdrew into two rooms, heaped the fires with such coal as they could procure, and sheltered from drafts behind screens and sandbags. Mr. Pinfold’s spirits sank, he began to talk of the West Indies and felt the need of longer periods of sleep.

The composition of his sleeping-draft, as originally prescribed, was largely of water. He suggested to his chemist that it would save trouble to have the essential ingredients in full strength and to dilute them himself. Their taste was bitter and after various experiments he found they were most palatable in crème de menthe. He was not scrupulous in measuring the dose. He splashed into the glass as much as his mood suggested and if he took too little and woke in the small hours he would get out of bed and make unsteadily for the bottles and a second swig. Thus he passed many hours in welcome unconsciousness; but all was not well with him. Whether from too much strong medicine or from some other cause, he felt decidedly seedy by the middle of November. He found himself disagreeably flushed, particularly after drinking his normal, not illiberal, quantity of wine and brandy. Crimson blotches appeared on the backs of his hands.

He called in Dr. Drake who said: “That sounds like an allergy.”

“Allergic to what?”

“Ah, that’s hard to say. Almost anything can cause an allergy nowadays. It might be something you’re wearing or some plant growing near. The only cure really is a change.”

“I might go abroad after Christmas.”

“Yes, that’s the best thing you could do. Anyway don’t worry. No one ever died of an allergy. It’s allied to hay-fever,” he added learnedly, “and asthma.

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