They Hanged My Saintly Billy (13 page)

Dr Salt, though often gr
umbling of his assistant's pigheaded
ness, never expected him to break his engagement, however harshly he might be scolded. But Mrs Thirlby now informed him —for Thirlby himself hid his shame under a mask of surliness, and turned to walk in the opposite direction whenever he saw Dr Salt approaching—that Dr Palmer had offered her husband twenty
pounds a year more than his former wage. The news made Dr Salt very an
gry indeed. That a surgeon shoul
d entice away another's assistant is considered as grave a breach of professional etiquette, as when a gentleman steals his neighbour's French cook, or a minister of religion poaches for souls in a fellow-minister's congregation. Dr Salt, who was much respected locally, did not scruple to complain in public of Thirlby's ingratitude and Dr Palmer's ill-manners, and earned a deal of sympathy; Rugeley being a town where sharp practice has never been condoned as a good joke, as it so often is in Liverpool and London.

Miss Salt, Dr Salt's daughter and Annie Palmer's closest friend, when she called the next day as usual, explained how difficult her situation had become as a result of Thirlby's sudden change of employment.

' Oh, but my dear child,' cried Annie, 'I'm afraid you have been given quite the wrong notion. William told me all about Thirlby as soon as he came home. It appears that your father scolded Thirlby because he had forgotten to prepare some pills, and when he pleaded that the prescription was written so illegibly that it would have been dangerous to guess at its meaning, your father called him a bleary-eyed clodhopper and dismissed him on the spot. William, happening to pass by, found Mrs Thirlby in a flood of tears, and kindly told her not to despair—Thirlby should first make sure that the dismissal was final, and if so, come to work with himself. She sent Thirlby off to try at the surgery whether vour father might perhaps relent, but he soon returned, saying: ' Dr Salt swears
that
he never goes back on a dismissal. I'll come to you, Will, if I may." As you see, Will is not in the least to blame.'

Miss Salt naturally concluded that Thirlby had been lying to Dr Palmer. She told her father so, but he merely remarked 'Humph!', and never troubled to inquire into the matter; though
when Dr Palmer offered him neith
er an apology nor an explanation, he cut him dead one morning in the Market Square.

Dr Salt did not forbid his family to continue their friendly relations with the Palmers. He knew
that
Miss Salt had been Annie Palmer's bridesmaid at the wedding and loved her dearly; and that his son Edwin thought highly of Dr Palmer. 'It takes all sorts to make a world,' he would say in sour tones
that
showed his ill opinion of a world so made; but he was kind enough not to involve his children in the quarrel.

Annie Palmer grieved to think that Dr Salt had taken an aversion to her beloved husband. She had inherited a tendency to melancholia from her father and, though hitherto the fits had been slight and short-lasting, some drunken talk she now overheard from the tap-room of The Talbot Arms Hotel across the street, about her husband's escapades at Stafford Infirmary, plunged her into a black misery. Yet Dr Palmer was tenderness itself, and did all in his power to cheer Annie up, attributing these moods to her condition; for she had found herself pregnant after three months of marriage. He bought her a chaise and a beautiful pair of ponies to drive about the country with, and she used to tell Miss Salt: 'I really can't explain these black fits, unless Will is right in saying that they're due to my baby, for you know I'm very happy indeed. I have all that heart could desire, or that money can buy. And to be a mother is a glorious thing!'

When at last he begged to be taken into Annie's confidence, it came out that guilt was gnawing at her conscience. By order of the Court of Chancery she had been separated from her mother, whom the Bible required that she should honour, and had never asked leave to be reunited with her. 'Mr Dawson and Dr Knight,' Annie told him, 'both spoke unkindly of my mother, and I dared not oppose them. Neither have I dared to mention the matter to you. But I should think very ill of myself if I didn't long wholeheartedly to see her again. I can't pretend that I have pleasant memories of her, but perhaps I was a difficult and disagreeable child. If so, I should like to do better now and make her love me again; as she must have done once. All mothers dote on their children until some little thing turns up to disappoint them. What if I died in childbirth? Would that not be God's punishment on me for not having insisted on visiting her while I yet could?'

It speaks exceedingly well for Dr Palmer that though he had heard the whole story of Colonel Brookes and Mary Ann Thornton from Mr Weaver, if from nobody else, he decided to humour his wife. Mrs Thornton, by this time a haggard and prematurely aged eccentric, still occupied the house behind St Mary's Church, Stafford, where Colonel Brookes had died and Annie had been born. She kept no servants, seldom appeared in the street except on her brief visits to shops, and lived among a swarm of cats with which she held prolonged and one-sided conversations about subjects certainly well above their heads.

Mrs Thornton would not at first open the front door to the elegant young couple who came calling in their chaise-and-pair; but when Annie had made herself known, through the keyhole, she unlocked the door hastily and, with tears coursing down her dirty cheeks, sobbed out: 'My little love . . . My own lost darling!'

Annie timidly asked her mother not to squeeze her quite so hard because she hoped, within a few months' time, to become a mother herself.

' At last I have something to live for!' Mrs Thornton exclaimed, raining alcoholic kisses on Annie's face. She promised to put the house in better order for a next visit which, she hoped, would take place as soon as possible. Dr Palmer showed great attention to the poor creature, even bringing himself to address her as 'Mamma'; and Annie returned home deeply grateful for his kindness and understanding.

She was very religious, and persuaded her husband to be the same. They regularly attended the new church of St Augustine's, near The Yard, which is kept up in style, with gravelled walks and turf well-swept and trimmed. (The old Parish Church, on the other hand, is a mere Gothic ruin. Its square tower has empty holes for windows, like the eye-sockets of a skull, and is swathed with tattered ivy. Its chancel, roofed in with boards and tarpaulin, has been turned into a Sunday School.) Enter the new church by the great oaken door, and the swinging inner doors faced with red baize, as new and bright as a postman's coat in May, and you will find the Palmers' pew well to the fore. Black-bound prayer books and Bibles with* gilt edges rest on its ledge, and the fly-leaf of a Book of Common Prayer is inscribed:
William Palmer, Rugeley, Aug.
28, 1837;
the gift of his mother, Mrs Sarah Palmer, Rugeley.
A Bible contains some pencil notes in Dr Palmer's handwriting:
He was a teacher come from God—Means, Prayer—God's word all the means of grace—Particularly means, faith in Christ—Faith has a heavenly influence.
The interior of the church is newly whitewashed, and flooded with light streaming in cleanly through diamond-paned windows; but a huge red curtain casts a warm glow upon the sides of a polished, goblet-shaped pulpit. Dr Palmer
is
said to have been exceedingly attentive to the sermons, and the only member of the congregation who took notes; he would also read the responses louder than anyone else and give generously to all charities.

A rumour, almost certainly unfounded, had of late coupled his
name with that of Mrs Salt, Dr Salt's daughter-in-law, whom he was treating for some female ailment; and this, added to Dr Salt's opinion of him, caused a decided shrinkage in the flow of patients. But he did not care, being already tired of medical work. The following letter to his wife, which has come into our hands, must have been written from Rugeley about this time, when she had gone for a change of air to stay with Mr Edwin Salt and his wife some fourteen miles away.

Sunday Evening

My ever adored Annie:

I feel certain that you will forgive me for not writing to you last night, when I tell you that since I last saw you I have not had two hours' sleep. I do assure you, I never felt so tired in my life—I am almost sick of my profession. Sorry I am to say, my Mother has had another attack and one of my late sister's children I think will be dead before morning. It is now half past ten, and I have just come home from Haywood to write you: for I do assure you, my dearest, I should have been very unhappy had I not done so.

My dearest Annie, I propose, all being well, to be with you tomorrow about three, and depend upon it, nothing but ill health will ever keep me away from you—forgive me, my duck, for not sending you the paper last night, I really could not help it. I will explain fully tomorrow. My dear, remember I must say something about needlework—you will be amused. My sweetest and loveliest Annie, I never was more pleased with you in my life than on Friday afternoon last— it was a combination of things. God bless you! I hope we may live together and love each other for sixty years to come.

Excuse me now, for I must go. Till tomorrow at
3.
Accept my everlasting love and believe me,

Ever your most affectionate Wm Palmer

On the advice of a sporting friend, George Myatt the Rugeley saddler, Dr Palmer now resolved to supplement his earnings by an altogether different means: namely, the breeding of racehorses. In Rugeley, where horses are almost the sole subject of serious conversation among the mass of the people, there was nothing surprising or improper in such a resolve. On the contrary, should he succeed in his new trade, a great number of men would offer themselves as patients who judged a physician or surgeon by his ability to judge a horse. He must be able to pronounce on its good and bad points; accurately diagnose its diseases, if any; reckon its speed and staying-power; and, at the finish, by an abstruse but rapid calculation, tell to within a couple of guineas what it should fetch in the ring. If by virtue of his critical faculty, Dr Palmer could buy cheap and sell dear; and if he could lay his hands on three or four useful mares, engage famous stallions to cover them, and so breed foals which sporting men would come many miles to look at—why, his fortune was made! So Dr Palmer laid out most of his remaining capital on horseflesh, and leased from Lord Litchfield a large paddock at the back of the house, with stabling for twelve horses and several fields adjacent—altogether some twenty-one acres enclos
ed by hawthorn hedges. He had th
e property in order shortly before the birth of his first child, whom he christened William after himself, and who is today a healthy seven-year-old, showing promise of great intelligence.

'Harry Hockey', the withered old groom until recently employed by Dr Palmer at Rugeley—his real name seems to be Henry Cockayne—discoursed to us, straw in mouth. Since Dr Palmer's arrest, the fields have reverted to Lord Litchfield, and Harry keeps an eye on the hunters and carriage horses put out to grass there.

HARRY
HOCKEY

No, Sir, I could never complain that Dr Palmer treated me badly, nor could any of the boys employed. But ours was a rum concern. What I mean is that the Doctor's chief passion was racing, yet he never bred any colts to run, barring Rip van Winkle, whom Nat Flaxman coaxed into second place at the Brighton T.Y.O. Sweepstakes last year. He bought a good many for that purpose, that's certain, at very large prices, too, and sent them to train at Saunders', in Hednesford. I reckon he began his racing career four years ago—the Spring of
1852
—and his colours were registered as all-yellow.

This place was a nursery only; with no training done, except for the ringing we gave
the
colts. He kept, on an average, three or four broodmares at a time, and there always used to be a good many young things about. He was proud of his stables, and often brought parties of friends to view them, and talked big about the mares. However, he seldom kept up an interest in any particular animal for more than a week or two after he bought it. They say, Sir, that he was the same with his fancy women. For a short while they entranced him, but because of some slight fault, real or fancied, he would suddenly wish himself rid of them. He used to sell them—the mares, I mean—for most curious prices. Once, I remember, he priced a couple at ten pounds. Perhaps he needed the money, but I'd have offered three times that sum for either of
them
, had I known he was selling, and pledged my cottage to raise it. He bred some good horses, I can assure you, but all to what purpose? The money he made can't have paid the expenses, not one quarter! He always seemed to buy at the highest price, and sell at the lowest; all Rugeley called him a mug. Yet even Tom Masters allowed he had a wonderful eye for a horse, and most people were glad to get his free opinion on their own purchases. It s my view that he had a great contempt of money, which was matched only by his need of it. He paid mc well, not regular, but well enough: a guinea a week, sometimes two.

The races were meat and drink to him. There's many racing gentlemen I know who find time for shooting and fishing, or else they hunt foxes. The Doctor wasn't one of them. He had a good, clumsy seat on a horse, and used to ride beside Saunders to watch colts of his being tried out; but I never saw him going over the sticks, or jogging off to a meet, though there's three packs of hounds that meet regularly hereabouts.