Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [54]
“Well,” said the Chairman in an unperturbed voice, “it’s up to us then, isn’t it? Don’t worry, Treves. We’ll make them see it our way.” He lifted one of the pictures. “They’ve eyes, haven’t they?”
Chapter 10
Treves knew that both he and the Chairman had miscalculated about the Committee meeting even before it started. He knew it when he encountered Carr-Gomm with Ebeneezer Broadneck in the corridor, and Broadneck said briskly, “Ah Treves, I wanted to talk to you. Strange rumors going about—patient of yours I understand. Taking up the Isolation Ward when there’s nothing wrong with him. Can’t have that now. Still, I expect you can explain yourself.”
The idea that he was to “explain himself,” as though he were in disgrace, was so totally unexpected to Treves that for a moment he was too stunned even to be angry. By the time his temper flared Carr-Gomm had managed to catch his eye with a silent warning. He also read in the Chairman’s face a reflection of his own realization that this was a disaster. Instead of being able to introduce the subject of the Elephant Man in his own way Carr-Gomm had had it thrust on him by Broadneck in a way that put him on the defensive.
“Mr. Treves will be coming to address the meeting later, Broadneck,” the Chairman put in hastily. “We have a lot of other business to get through first. Thank you, Mr. Treves, don’t let us detain you from your patients.”
He steered Broadneck ruthlessly away, keeping him from further observations by the simple expedient of not ceasing to talk himself. Treves could hear Carr-Gomm’s voice going on and on right down the corridor and into the Committee Room. He gave an appreciative grin at these effective tactics, but all the same he was worried. Carr-Gomm had previously identified Broadneck as the most likely cause of bother; now it looked as if the problem was to be more serious than either of them had suspected.
Broadneck fancied himself as a leader among men. It galled him that he was not Chairman of the Committee, and that his place on it was no higher than that of any other ordinary member. The owner of a string of abattoirs across the country, he was constantly searching for ways in which his considerable wealth could buy him social as well as material advancement. He yearned to be a public man, and his seat on the Committee was intended to be but a step in that direction.
“A status seeker,” Carr-Gomm had once called him, with all the aristocratic contempt of one whose own status seeking had been conducted in more genteel circumstances.
Broadneck’s immediate aim was to get himself noticed, and to this end he became a troublemaker. No Committee meeting was allowed to pass by peacefully. The most trivial change of policy would have him on his feet yapping about “the good of the hospital.” And although most of his fellow Committee members were antagonized by behavior that made meetings last long past the time that a gentleman would have preferred to depart for his club, their dislike had not made them immune to his influence.
It became plain that afternoon that his influence had already been at work. As he had said, Broadneck had heard rumors, and on the basis of those rumors had got to work on the other members, mostly with success. The Committeemen were good, decent Englishmen. They would none of them have kicked a dog or refused a coin to a beggar that stood in their path. But like most decent Englishmen they were nervous of what they did not know. When, after three hours, Treves finally entered the Committee Room, in response to a summons from Carr-Gomm, he knew at once, with a sinking heart, that their hostility had been marshaled in advance against Merrick.
Carr-Gomm addressed the meeting strongly, hoping to recover the initiative from Broadneck. He gave a brief account of Merrick’s introduction into the hospital and the piteous nature of his deformities. Broadneck leaned back with a weary air.
“Mr. Chairman,” he said, “the rules of this hospital are quite specific. No incurables