The Citadel

by A. J. Cronin

  The operation was not difficult – indeed in his Drineffy days Andrew would have tackled it himself – and Ivory, though he seemed disinclined to speed, accomplished it with imposing competence. He made a strong cool figure in his big white gown above which his face showed firm, massive, dominant jawed. No one more completely resembled the popular conception of the great surgeon than Charles Ivory. He had the fine supple hands with which popular fiction always endows the hero of the operating theatre. In his handsomeness and assurance he was dramatically impressive. Andrew, who had himself slipped on a gown, watched him from the other side of the table with grudging respect.

  A fortnight later, when Sybil Thornton had left the home, Ivory asked him to lunch at the Sackville Club. It was a pleasant meal. Ivory was a perfect conversationalist, easy and entertaining, with a fund of up-to-the-minute gossip, which somehow placed his companion on the same intimate, man-of-the-world footing as himself. The high dining-room of the Sackville, with its Adam ceilings and rock crystal chandeliers, was full of famous – Ivory named them amusing – people. Andrew found the experience flattering, as no doubt Ivory intended it should be.

  ‘You must let me put your name up at the next meeting,’ the surgeon remarked. ‘You’d find a lot of friends here, Freddie, Paul, myself – by the way, Jackie Lawrence is a member. Interesting marriage that, they’re perfect good friends and they each go their own way! Honestly, I’d love to put you up. I’ve rather felt, you know that you’ve just been a shade suspicious of me, old fellow. Your Scottish caution, eh? As you know I don’t visit any of the hospitals. That’s because I prefer to freelance. Besides, my dear boy, I’m too busy. Some of these hospital fogies don’t have one private case a month. I average ten a week! By the by, we’ll be hearing from the Thorntons presently. You leave all that to me. They’re first class people. And, incidentally, while I speak of it, don’t you think Sybil ought to have her tonsils seen to. Did you look at them?’

  ‘No – no, I didn’t.’

  ‘Oh, you ought to have done, my boy. Absolutely pocketed, no end of septic absorption. I took the liberty – hope you don’t mind – of saying we might do them for her when the warm weather comes in!’

  On his way home Andrew could not help reflecting what a charming fellow Ivory had turned out to be – actually, he ought to be grateful to Hamson for the introduction. This case had passed off superbly. The Thorntons were particularly pleased. Surely there could be no better criterion.

  Three weeks later, as he sat at tea with Christine, the afternoon post brought him a letter from Ivory.

  My dear Manson,

  Mrs Thornton has just come nicely to scratch. As I am sending the anaesthetist his bit I may as well send you yours – for assisting me so splendidly at the operation. Sybil will be coming to see you at the end of this term. You remember those tonsils I mentioned. Mrs Thornton is delighted.

  Ever cordially yours, C.I.

  Enclosed was a cheque for twenty guineas.

  Andrew stared at the cheque in astonishment – he had done nothing to assist Ivory at the operation – then gradually the warm feeling which money always gave him now stole round his heart. With a complacent smile he handed over the letter and the cheque for Christine’s inspection.

  ‘Damned decent of Ivory, isn’t it, Chris? I bet we’ll have a record in our receipts this month.’

  ‘But I don’t understand.’ Her expression was perplexed. ‘Is this your bill to Mrs Thornton?’

  ‘No – silly,’ he chuckled. ‘It’s a little extra – merely for the time I gave up to the operation.’

  ‘You mean Mr Ivory is giving you part of his fee.’

  He flushed, suddenly up in arms.

  ‘Good Lord, no! That’s absolutely forbidden. We wouldn’t dream of that. Don’t you see I earned this fee for assisting, for being there, just as the anaesthetist earned his fee for giving the anaesthetic. Ivory sends it all in with his bill. And I’ll bet it was a bumper.’

  She laid the cheque upon the table, subdued, unhappy.

  ‘It seems a great deal of money.’

  ‘Well, why not?’ He closed the argument in a blaze of indignation. ‘The Thorntons are tremendously rich, This is probably no more to them than three and six to one of our surgery patients.’

  When he had gone, her eyes remained fastened upon the cheque with strained apprehension. She had not realised that he had associated himself professionally with Ivory. Suddenly all her former uneasiness swept back over her. That evening with Denny and Hope might never have taken place for all its effect upon him. How fond he now was, how terribly fond, of money. His work at the Victoria seemed not to matter beside this devouring desire for material success. Even in the surgery she had observed that he was using more and more stock mixtures, prescribing for people who had nothing wrong with them, urging them to call and call again. The worried look deepened upon her face, making it pinched and small, as she sat there, confronted by Charles Ivory’s cheque. Tears welled slowly to her eyes. She must speak to him, oh, she must, she must.

  That evening, after surgery, she approached him diffidently. ‘Andrew, would you do something to please me? Would you take me out to the country on Sunday in the car? You promised me when you got it. And of course – all winter we haven’t been able to go.’

  He glanced at her queerly.

  ‘Well – oh! all right.’

  Sunday came fine, as she had hoped, a soft spring day. By eleven o’clock he had done what visits were essential and with a rug and a picnic basket in the back of the car they set off. Christine’s spirits lifted as they ran across Hammersmith Bridge and took the Kingston By-Pass for Surrey. Soon they were through Dorking, turning to the right on the road to Shere. It was so long since they had been together in the country that the sweetness of it, the vivid green of the fields, the purple of the budding elms, the golden dust of drooping catkins, the paler yellow of primroses clumped beneath a bank, suffused her being, intoxicating her.

  ‘Don’t drive so fast, dear,’ she murmured in a tone softer than she had used for weeks. ‘It’s so lovely here.’ He seemed intent upon passing every car upon the road.

  Towards one o’clock they reached Shere. The village, with its few red roofed cottages and its stream quietly wandering amongst the watercress beds, was as yet untroubled by the rush of summer tourists. They reached the wooded hill beyond, and parked the car near one of the close turfed bridle paths. There, in the little clearing where they spread the rug, was a singing solitude which belonged only to them and the birds.

  They ate sandwiches in the sunshine, drank the coffee from the thermos. Around them, in the alder clumps, the primroses grew in great profusion. Christine longed to gather them, to bury her face in their cool softness. Andrew lay with half closed eyes, his head resting near her. A sweet tranquillity settled upon the dark uneasiness of her soul. If their life together could always be like this!

  His drowsy gaze had for some moments been resting on the car and suddenly he said:

  ‘Not a bad old bus, is she, Chris? – I mean, for what she cost us. But we shall want a new one at the Show.’

  She stirred – her disquiet renewed by this fresh instance of his restless striving. ‘But we haven’t had her any time. She seems to me all that we could wish for.’

  ‘Hum! She’s sluggish. Didn’t you notice how that Buick kept ahead of us. I want one of these new Vitesse saloons.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Why not? We can afford it. We’re getting on, you know, Chris. Yes!’ He lit a cigarette and turned to her with every sign of satisfaction. ‘In case you may not be aware of the fact, my dear little schoolmarm from Drineffy, we are rapidly getting rich.’

  She did not answer his smile. She felt her body, peaceful and warm in the sunshine, chill suddenly. She began to pick at a tuft of grass, to twine it foolishly with a tassel of the rug. She said slowly:

  ‘Dear, do we really want to be rich? I know I don’t! Why all this talk about money? When we
had scarcely any we were – oh! we were deliriously happy. We never talked of it then. But now we never talk of anything else.’

  He smiled again, in a superior manner.

  ‘After years of tramping about in slush, eating sausage and soused herrings, taking dog’s abuse from pigheaded committees, and attending miners’ wives in dirty back bedrooms, I propose, for a change, to ameliorate our lot. Any objections?’

  ‘Don’t make a joke of it, darling. You usen’t to talk that way. Oh! Don’t you see, don’t you see, you’re falling a victim to the very system you used to run down, the thing you used to hate.’ Her face was pitiful in its agitation. ‘Don’t you remember how you used to speak of life, that it was an attack on the unknown, an assault uphill – as though you had to take some castle that you knew was there, but couldn’t see, on the top –’

  He muttered uncomfortably.

  ‘Oh! I was young then – foolish. That was just romantic talk. You look round, you’ll see that everybody’s doing the same thing – getting together as much as they can! It’s the only thing to do.’

  She took a shaky breath. She knew that she must speak now or not at all.

  ‘Darling! It isn’t the only thing. Please listen to me. Please! I’ve been so unhappy at this – the change in you. Denny saw it too. It’s dragging us away from one another. You’re not the Andrew Manson I married. Oh! If only you’d be as you used to be.’

  ‘What have I done?’ he protested irritably. ‘Do I beat you, do I get drunk, do I commit murder? Give me one example of my crimes.’

  Desperately, she replied:

  ‘It isn’t the obvious things, it’s your whole attitude, darling. Take that cheque Ivory sent you, for instance. It’s a small matter on the surface perhaps, but underneath – oh, if you take it underneath it’s cheap and grasping and dishonest.’

  She felt him stiffen, then he sat up, offended, glaring at her!

  ‘For God’s sake! Why bring that up again. What’s wrong with my taking it?’

  ‘Can’t you see?’ All the accumulated emotion of the past months overwhelmed her, stifling her arguments, causing her suddenly to burst into tears. She cried hysterically, ‘For God’s sake, darling. Don’t, don’t sell yourself!’

  He ground his teeth, furious with her. He spoke slowly, with cutting deliberation.

  ‘For the last time! I warn you to stop making a neurotic fool of yourself. Can’t you try to be a help to me, instead of a hindrance, nagging me every minute of the day!’

  ‘I haven’t nagged you.’ She sobbed. ‘I’ve wanted to speak before, but I haven’t.’

  ‘Then don’t.’ He lost his temper and suddenly shouted. ‘ Do you hear me. Don’t. It’s some complex you’ve got. You talk as if I was some kind of dirty crook. I only want to get on. And if I want money it’s only a means to an end. People judge you by what you are, what you have. If you’re one of the have nots you get ordered about. Well, I’ve had enough of that in my time. In future I’m going to do the ordering. Now do you understand. Don’t even mention this damned nonsense to me again.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ she wept. ‘ I won’t. But I tell you – some day you’ll be sorry.’

  The excursion was ruined for them, and most of all for her. Though she dried her eyes and gathered a large bunch of primroses, though they spent another hour on the sunny slope and stopped on the way down at the Lavender Lady for tea, though they spoke, in apparent amity, of ordinary things, all the rapture of the day was dead. Her face, as they drove through the early darkness, was pale and stiff.

  His anger turned gradually to indignation. Why should Chris of all people set upon him! Other women, and charming women too, were enthusiastic at his rapid rise.

  A few days later Frances Lawrence rang him up. She had been away, spending the winter in Jamaica – he had several times in the past two months had letters from the Myrtle Bank Hotel – but now she was back, eager to see her friends, radiating the sunshine she had absorbed. She told him gaily she wanted him to see her before she lost her sunburn.

  He went round to tea. As she had inferred, she was beautifully tanned, her hands and slender wrists, her spare interrogative face stained as a faun’s. The pleasure of seeing her again was intensified extraordinarily by the welcome in her eyes, those eyes which were indifferent to so many persons and which were, with their high points of light, so friendly to him.

  Yes, they talked as old friends. She told him of her trip, of the coral gardens, the fishes seen through the glass-bottomed boats, of the heavenly climate. He gave her, in return, an account of his progress. Perhaps some indication of his thoughts crept into his words for she answered lightly:

  ‘You’re frightfully solemn and disgracefully prosy. That’s what happens to you when I’m away. No! Frankly I think it’s because you’re doing too much. Must you keep on with all this surgery work? For my part I should have thought it time for you to take a room up West – Wimpole Street or Welbeck Street for instance – and do your consulting there.’

  At this point her husband entered, tall, lounging, mannered. He nodded to Andrew, whom he now knew fairly well – they had once or twice played bridge at the Sackville Club – and gracefully accepted a cup of tea.

  Though he protested cheerfully that he would not for anything disturb them, Lawrence’s entrance interrupted the serious turn of the conversation. They began to discuss, with considerable amusement, the latest junketing of Rumbold-Blane.

  But half an hour later, as Andrew drove back to Chesborough Terrace, Mrs Lawrence’s suggestion firmly occupied his mind. Why shouldn’t he take a consulting-room in Welbeck Street? The time was clearly ripe for it. He wouldn’t give up anything of his Paddington practice – the surgery was far too profitable a concern to abandon lightly. But he could easily combine it with a room up West, use the better address for his correspondence, have the heading on his notepaper, his bills.

  The thought sparkled within him, nerved him to greater conquest. What a good sort Frances was, just as helpful as Miss Everett and infinitely more charming, more exciting! Yet he was on excellent terms with her husband. He could meet his eye steadily. He needn’t come skulking out of the house like some low boudoir hound. Oh! friendship was a great thing!

  Without saying anything to Christine he began to look for a convenient consulting-room up West. And when he found one, about a month later, it gave him great satisfaction to declare in assumed indifference, over the morning paper:

  ‘By the way – you might care to know – I’ve taken a place in Welbeek Street now. I shall use it for my better-class consultations.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The room at 57a Welbeck Street gave Andrew a new surge of triumph – I’m there, he secretly exulted, I’m there at last! Though not large, the room was well lit by a bay window and situated on the ground floor, a distinct advantage, since most patients hated to climb stairs. Moreover, although he shared the waiting-room with several other consultants whose neat plates shone beside his own on the front door, this consulting-room was exclusively his own.

  On the 19th of April when the lease was signed, Hamson accompanied him as he went round to take possession. Freddie had proved extraordinarily helpful in all the preliminaries and had found him a useful nurse, a friend of the woman whom he employed at Queen Anne Street. Nurse Sharp was not beautiful. She was middle-aged, with a sour, vaguely ill-used, yet capable expression. Freddie explained Nurse Sharp concisely:

  ‘The last thing a fellow wants is a pretty nurse. You know what I mean, old man. Fun is fun. But business is business. And you can’t combine the two. We none of us are in this for our health. As a damned hard-headed fellow you’ll appreciate that. As a matter of fact I’ve got a notion you and I are going to come pretty close together now you’ve moved alongside me.’

  While Freddie and he stood discussing the arrangement of the room, Mrs Lawrence unexpectedly appeared. She had been passing and came in, gaily, to investigate his choice. She had an attractive wa
y of turning up casually, of never appearing to obtrude herself. Today she was especially charming in a black coat and skirt with a necklet of rich brown fur about her throat. She did not stay long but she had ideas, suggestions for decoration, for the window hangings and the curtains behind his desk, far more tasteful than the crude plannings of Freddie and himself.

  Bereft of her vivacious presence the room was suddenly empty. Freddie gushed:

  ‘You’re a lucky devil, if ever I met one. She’s a nice thing.’ He grinned enviously. ‘What did Gladstone say in eighteen-ninety about the surest way to advance a man’s career.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re driving at.’

  Nevertheless when his room was finished he had to agree with Freddie and with Frances, who arrived to view her completed scheme, that it struck exactly the right note – advanced yet professionally correct. Consultations in these surroundings made three guineas seem a right and reasonable fee.

  He had not many patients at the start. But by dint of writing politely to every doctor who sent him cases to the Chest Hospital – letters relating, naturally, to these hospital cases and their symptoms – he soon had a network of filaments reaching out all over London which began to bring private patients to his door. He was a busy man these days, dashing in his new Vitesse saloon between Chesborough Terrace and the Victoria, between the Victoria and Welbeck Street, with a full round of visits in addition and always his packed surgery, often running as late as ten o’clock at night.

  The tonic of success braced him for everything, tingled through his veins like a gorgeous elixir. He found time to run round to Rogers to order another three suits, then to a shirtmaker in Jermyn Street Hamson had recommended. His popularity at the hospital was increasing. True, he had less time to devote to his work in the outpatient department, but he told himself that what he sacrificed in time he made up in expertness. Even to his friends he developed a speedy brusqueness, rather taking, with his ready smile: ‘I must go, old fellow, simply rushed off my legs.’