The wedding was planned for a fortnight after the examinations, and I was already wondering how to raise the rent of a Moss Bros. suit. I hadn't seen anything of Miles for weeks, and supposed he was swotting steadily for the exam. In fact, he was mostly sitting in Mrs Capper's parlour trying to find some honourable escape from his obligations short of suicide. After my own later experiences in Porterhampton, I could sympathize with the chap. He told me afterwards he'd almost reached for Murrell's
Miles decided deliberately to fail his exam.
Even I could appreciate the simplicity of the scheme. Miles couldn't sit again for another six months, and by then Dulcie Crimpole might have got tired of waiting. She might have got a sister's job miles away in the North. She might have got run over by an ambulance. At least he wouldn't be walking up the aisle with her in exactly six weeks' time.
'Hello!' exclaimed Barefoot, arriving home from his tramp in the Chilterns. 'You're looking much happier with life tonight.'
Personally, I always find the day of the examinations as unattractive as the Day of Judgement, but Miles and Barefoot strode into the examination hall a few weeks later without flinching.
'Good luck, Miles,' whispered Barefoot, as they separated among the schoolroom desks just far enough apart to make cribbing rather tantalizing.
My cousin smiled, 'This time you don't need any, Charlie.'
Miles told me he did well in the written paper-bottling up that knowledge from Mrs Capper's parlour would have been almost as heartbreaking for him as marrying Nurse Crimpole. Besides, the clinical session presents more opportunities for spectacular failure under the eye of the examiner himself. When a few mornings later Miles approached the bedside of his allotted examination case, he felt both determined and serene.
'Well, my boy,' began the examiner, appearing after the interval they give you for diagnosis, 'what do you find wrong with your patient?'
'I am afraid, sir,' said Miles, 'that I can't make a diagnosis of anything at all.'
The examiner seized him by the hand.
'Congratulations! We've put in a perfectly normal man, and you'd be horrified at the peculiar diagnoses I've had to put up with all morning. Mr Miles Grimsdyke, isn't it? I thought so. Only a student of your outstanding ability could have seen through our little deception. Excellent, my dear sir!
Good morning.'
Poor old Miles staggered into the street, gripped by an alarming thought-after all those years of being an academic athlete it was impossible for him to fail an examination at all. He made his way from the hall in a daze, wondering what the devil to do. There was still the oral examination that afternoon. He'd half a mind simply to clear off to the cinema instead, but they'd only give him another appointment like a candidate taken ill. The vision of Nurse Crimpole rose before him, wearing a wedding dress.
When he finally focused on his surroundings, he found himself facing a sign announcing THE RED LION-Ales and Spirits.
I don't believe Miles had ever swallowed a drink in his life, but he felt so miserable he decided to experiment with the treatment he'd seen me administering to myself for years.
'Good morning, sir,' said the chap behind the bar. 'What can I get you?'
'I want a drink.'
'Of course, sir. What sort of drink?'
It had never occurred to Miles that there were different ones.
He noticed an advertisement showing bottles glistening on blocks of ice, which looked very refreshing.
'A drink of that.'
'Vodka, sir? Large or small?'
'Oh, large, please. I didn't have time for my second cup of tea at breakfast.'
The story of Miles' oral examination never got out. No one likes a bit of gossip better than me, but even I should have felt a cad so much as hinting about it. His answers to Sir Lancelot Spratt at first flew across the green-baize table, even though he was grasping it for support as he wiped away the perspiration with his handkerchief.
'Now, Mr Grimsdyke,' went on Sir Lancelot, perfectly used to the oddities of nervous candidates, 'let us discuss the subject of gastric pain.'
'No,' said Miles.
'I beg your pardon?'
'I said no. You're always discussing gastric pain. And do you know why? I'll tell you. It's because you know all about gastric pain. You might know sweet Fanny Adams about anything else, as far as your students are concerned. You've bored me stiff with gastric pain for three years, and I'm not going to talk about it now.'
'You're perfectly correct, Mr Grimsdyke,' agreed Sir Lancelot after a thoughtful pause. 'Of all dead horses to flog, dead hobby horses are the worse. I'm glad that a gentleman of your courage had the decency to stop me becoming a tyrannical bore on the subject. Thank you. We shall discuss nausea and vomiting instead.'
'Oh, God!' said Miles, and gripped his waist coat.
He still might have passed if he hadn't been sick into Sir Lancelot's Homburg.
The next evening the pass-list was read from the examination hall steps, with the announcement that Charles Barefoot (St Swithin's) had won the University Prizes in Medicine and Surgery. Miles wasn't mentioned at all.
He'd arranged to meet Dulcie Crimpole outside Swan and Edgar's, and hurried to detonate his news. But before he could speak she held out her hand and said: 'Good-bye, Miles.'
'Good-bye?'
'Yes.' She felt for her handkerchief. 'I-I'm afraid I've been a bad girl. I'm very fond of you, Miles, but-I'm really in love with Charlie Barefoot after all. Now we want to get married.'
Miles gasped. 'But-but how long has this been going on?'
'Just a few weeks. I've been out with him every Saturday, while you studied at home.
But I didn't want to tell you before. I thought it might upset you for your examination.'
14
'Even Sir Lancelot himself doesn't know the full story about Dulcie Crimpole,' Miles whispered on the doorstep, as I left for the houseboat after dinner. 'I believe I read in an advertisement somewhere that vodka leaves no smell on the breath…'
I nodded. 'A wise choice at the time.'
'Having such a formidable rival for the job as Barefoot is bad enough as it is. But if the tale got out just at this particular moment-'
'Rely on Gaston, old lad. Compared with me an oyster is garrulous. Besides, I have problems enough of my own.'
'Not serious, I hope?'
'Purely professional, and happily resolving every moment.'
He frowned slightly. 'What exactly _are _you up to, Gaston?'
'One day I hope you'll find out.
Meanwhile, don't worry. I'll take any odds you end up with a permanent stable at St Swithin's.'
'It's certainly kind of you to give me some encouragement. I'm afraid I don't seem to get much of it these days.'
Dinner had been pretty gloomy that evening, with Miles brooding on Barefoot and even Connie hardly able to raise a laugh when I told a few funny stories to cheer them up. Falling into the prevailing mood, I started pondering on my own troubles with the book. Then I suddenly had another of those brilliant inspirations of mine. Here I was, stuck over portraying to the public the brilliant and dedicated young surgeon. And sitting opposite glaring into his raspberries was the prototype, known intimately from childhood. Whenever my Clifford Standforth was faced with a tricky situation I had only to ask myself, 'How would that chump Miles have tackled it?' and that should be good for
