Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Daniel Stashower

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СКАЧАТЬ keep,’ he said in Memories and Adventures. ‘Therefore I endeavoured almost from the first to compress the classes for a year into half a year, and so to have some months in which to earn a little money as a medical assistant, who would dispense and do odd jobs for a doctor.’

      Before his second year began Conan Doyle, now eighteen years old, took several weeks’ holiday on the island of Arran (‘Scotland in miniature’) with his eleven-year-old sister Lottie and his Stonyhurst friend Jimmy Ryan, who was about to start medical school himself. His letters introduce their landlady, Miss Fullerton, first of several such women merging one day as Mrs Hudson, Sherlock Holmes’s landlady at Baker Street. They also give us another look at Charles Doyle, when Conan Doyle urges his father to join them, and subsequently reports his father’s sudden fluttery flight back to Edinburgh.

      to Mary Doyle EAST KNOWE, BRODICK, ARRAN, AUGUST 30, 1877

      We have fallen on our feet with a vengeance. When we arrived here at 6 last night, we found the Nicholl’s engaged, and every house in Brodick crammed. However after half an hour’s hunting we came upon a darling little cottage up among the hills, such a delicious place, kept by a certain buxom motherly dame called Mrs Fullerton. She fell in love with us directly, & especially Lottie, and gave us a glorious tea, and comfortable bed. She has let us a glorious parlour with a big bed, and a sofa for Lottie, awfully comfortable and splendidly furnished for fourteen shillings a week. She said she would charge us nothing for the little girl, but that we might give anything we thought fit. I think it would be nicest to present her with a shawl or something now or at the end of our stay, for the room is worth 30/ a week as Arran prices go, and she is desperately kind.

      So we have left 7 shillings, of which I have given 2/ to Mrs Fullerton to pay the carriage of the hamper, which I hope is on its way up to the house.

      It is a delightful place, I never saw anything so pretty, we are all enchanted. We go up Goatfell whenever the grub arrives.

      to Mary Doyle ARRAN, SEPTEMBER 6, 1877

      That Miss Fullerton is an awful brick; we have just been settling with her for our last week’s grub, and she would only take 6/ for a loaf of bread every day, potatoes at dinner, cream, two pots of jam and numerous other little treats. So we paid her £1 in all for last weeks food and next weeks lodging; I never knew such polite nice people as the real Arran aborigines. For example we took a boat the other day, and got for 6d an hour not only the boat but also the use of two deep sea fishing lines. While out we managed to lose the hooks and weights from each of the lines, but the owner would not hear of taking any recompense, and only laughed at our disaster.

      Miss Fullerton rejoices in the use of nervous energetic English; she was in here this morning to confide to us some ill deeds of her servant girl. Her oration began ‘Och, that gal, that gal, the divil tak’ her skin!’ The Arran dialect is more akin to the Irish than Scotch. She informed us yesterday that her lodger, in the front, who is a beastly cad, got as ‘fre’ as the Baltic’.

      I hope this may reach you in good time before Cony starts. I think after all we need a little butter, as the non-appearance of the store jam made us rather heavy on it. Also I think you could not do better than send a dozen or so of saveloys. They would be grand for excursions. Also some coffee. We need something in the meat line. We make a tin last us two days, which is, I think, a very moderate allowance. We have a tin of Australian and a tin of corned beef left.

      [P.S.] Though the house is very clean the sandy beach is a desperate place for fleas. We have occasion to sing with Watts of pious memory

How doth the little busy flea, / Improve each shining hour.*

      While his mother stayed home with the youngest children, Conan Doyle cheerfully took on the care of not only Lottie but the even younger Connie, during his stay on Arran. It was a pattern of looking out for his younger siblings that would continue his entire life.

      to Charles Doyle ARRAN, SEPTEMBER 1877

      Dear Papa

      We have just returned from the ascent of Goatfell (3000 feet), and are, as you may imagine a little stiff and sore in consequence, so I am devoting the day to letter writing.

      Jimmy Ryan goes on Thursday morning, so if the spirit moves you to pay us a visit we can put you up nicely. You really should, it would do you a world of good. It is a most lovely place, multa in parvo, sea, mountain and moorland all tumbled up together.

      Then our landlady too is a curious character. She is ‘full of strange oaths and bearded like a Pard’ like Shakespeare’s soldier, and can be quite as truculent as that worthy when she likes.

      You have capital streams for trout all round, and may indulge in deep sea fishing in the bay with scarcely any expense. In fact there is no limit to the means of killing time.

      I saw, for the first time, yesterday, the real red deer in a state of freedom. How disappointing the calf-like original is, after you have admired Landseer’s leviathans.

      to Mary Doyle ARRAN, SEPTEMBER 18, 1877

      I suppose papa is with you by this time; I think his short sojourn in the country did him good, but he was in a fright about his ticket, which some stupid official said would not do for the return unless he went soon. Of course I advised him to have the ticket sent to you, and wait here while you inquired at headquarters about its validity, but he would not hear of it. So he departed yesterday. I had no warning or I would have written to tell you he was going.

      Lottie and Conny have performed such a feat! They are the talk of all Brodick. They set out with me on Monday for Loch Ranza, which by the guidebook is 14, but by the united testimony of all the aborigines more than 15 miles away. We started at 9 o’clock, got there about 2, and were in Brodick again by 8. So that the youngsters did between 28 and 30 miles. An amusing adventure befell us on the way; Conny was slightly tired on the way there once; just about this time we passed a peat cutting wherein lay an old wheelbarrow, and as I knew that the owner must come from Loch Ranza, I did not scruple to clap the young woman in, and wheel her along for about quarter of a mile. Then we left the vehicle on a conspicuous place near the road. When returning I entered into conversation with a countryman, and as we passed the cutting I told him as a joke what we had done, and said ‘That’s the barrow, which that old woman has over there.’ To my horror he answered with a broad grin ‘Oh aye, th’ auld wuman is just my wife, and the barry’s my barry.’ He was very good natured and laughed at the way I had insulted his wife & his ‘barry’.

      I am not sure if I told you that I am bringing an interesting family of 10 young vipers home with me. A pretty plaything for old Duff. I need, I think, scarcely bring my old football boots home. They are a sight for ‘men to wonder at, not to see’. The soles are off, the uppers broken, and all in rags.

I met no less a person than Dr Joseph Bell in Brodick yesterday.* I wonder what he is doing here.

[P.S.] We all went out fishing last night in the brook, with a very original & primitive apparatus. However I managed to catch two fine trout, which we ate for supper. I suppose if we leave on Saturday it will be soon enough. I have paid her for our rent for this week, up to Thursday; the grub is the only thing I need to pay for, then 4s for the two extra nights. However one more pound will pay all that and take us home into the bargain. Did you СКАЧАТЬ