The Citadel

by A. J. Cronin

  He had never before thought seriously of love. At the university he had been too poor, too badly dressed and far too intent on getting through his examinations to come much in contact with the other sex. At St Andrews, one had to be a blood, like his friend and classmate Freddie Hamson, to move in that circle which danced and held parties and exhibited the social graces. All this had been denied him. He had really belonged – his friendship with Hamson apart – to that crowd of outsiders who turned up their coat collars, swotted, smoked and took occasional recreation not at the Union but in a down-town billiard saloon.

  It is true that the inevitable romantic images had presented themselves to him. Because of his poverty these were usually projected against a lavishly wealthy background. But now, in Drineffy, he stared through the window of the ramshackle surgery, his clouded eyes fastened upon the dirty slag heap of the ore works, longing with all his heart for the skimpy junior mistress of a Council school. The bathos of it made him want to laugh.

  He had always prided himself on being practical, upon his strong infusion of native caution, and he attempted, violently and with determined self-interest, to argue himself out of his emotion. He tried, coldly and logically, to examine her defects. She was not beautiful, her figure was too small and thin. She had that mole upon her cheek and a slight crinkling, visible when she smiled, in her upper lip. In addition she probably detested him.

  He told himself angrily that he was utterly ill advised to give way to his feelings in this weak fashion. He had dedicated himself to his work. He was still only an assistant. What kind of doctor was he, to form, at the very outset of his career, an attachment which must hamper her future and was even now seriously interfering with his work?

  In the effort to take himself in hand, he created loopholes of distraction. Deluding himself that he was missing the old associations of St Andrews, he wrote a long letter to Freddie Hamson, who had lately gone down to a hospital appointment in London. He fell back a great deal upon Denny. But Philip, though sometimes friendly, was more often cold, suspicious, with the bitterness of a man whom life has hurt.

  Try as he would Andrew could not get Christine out of his mind, nor that tormenting yearning for her from his heart. He had not seen her since his outburst at the front gate of The Retreat. What did she think of him? Did she ever think of him? It was so long since he had seen her, despite an eager scanning of Bank Street when he passed it, that he despaired of seeing her at all.

  Then, on the afternoon of Saturday, the 25th of May, when he had almost given up hope, he received a note which ran as follows:

  Dear Doctor Manson,

  Mr and Mrs Watkins are coming to supper with me tomorrow, Sunday evening. If you have nothing better to do would you care to come too. Half past seven.

  Sincerely, Christine Barlow.

  He gave a cry which brought Annie hurrying from the scullery.

  ‘Eh, doctor, bach,’ reprovingly. ‘ Sometimes you do act silly.’

  ‘I have, Annie,’ he answered, still overcome. ‘But I – I seem to have got off with it. Listen, Annie, dear. Will you press my trousers for me before tomorrow? I’ll sling them outside my door tonight when I go to bed.’

  On the following evening which, being Sunday, left him free of the evening surgery, he presented himself in tremulous expectation at the house of Mrs Herbert, with whom Christine lodged, near the Institute. He was early and he knew it, but he could not wait a moment longer.

  It was Christine herself who opened the door for him, her face welcoming, smiling towards him.

  Yes, she was smiling actually smiling. And he had felt that she disliked him! He was so overwhelmed he could barely speak.

  ‘It’s been a lovely day, hasn’t it?’ he mumbled as he followed her into her sitting-room.

  ‘Lovely,’ she agreed. ‘And I had such a grand walk this afternoon. Right out beyond Pandy. I actually found some celandines.’

  They sat down. It was on his tongue to inquire nervously if she enjoyed walking but he nipped the gauche futility in time.

  ‘Mrs Watkins has just sent word,’ she remarked. ‘She and her husband will be a little late. He’s had to go down to the office. You don’t mind waiting a few minutes on them?’

  Mind! A few minutes! He could have laughed out of sheer happiness. If only she knew how he had waited all those days, how wonderful it was to be here with her. Surreptitiously he looked about him. Her sitting-room, furnished with her own things, was different from any room he had entered in Drineffy. It held neither plush nor horsehair not axminster, nor any of those shiny satin cushions which conspicuously adorned Mrs Bramwell’s drawing-room. The floor-boards were stained and polished, with a plain brown rug before the open fireplace. The furniture was so unobtrusive he scarcely noticed it. In the centre of the table, set for supper, was a plain white dish in which floated, like masses of tiny water-lilies, the celandines she had gathered. The effect was simple and beautiful. On the window-sill stood a wooden confectionery box, now filled with earth, from which thin green seedlings were sprouting. Above the mantelpiece was a most peculiar picture, which showed nothing more than a child’s small wooden chair, painted red and, he thought, extremely badly drawn.

  She must have noticed the surprise with which he viewed it. She smiled with infectious amusement.

  ‘I hope you don’t think it’s the original.’

  Embarrassed, he did not know what to say. The expression of her personality through the room, the conviction that she knew things which were beyond him, confounded him. Yet his interest was so awakened he forgot his awkwardness, escaped from the stupid banalities of remarks about the weather. He began to ask her about herself.

  She answered him simply. She was from Yorkshire. Her mother had died when she was fifteen. Her father had then been under-manager at one of the big Bramwell Main Collieries. Her only brother John had been trained in the same colliery as a mining engineer. Five years later when she was nineteen and her Normal course completed, her father had been appointed manager of the Porth Pit, twenty miles down the valley. She and her brother had come to South Wales with him, she to keep the house, John to assist his father. Six months after their arrival there had been an explosion in the Porth Pit. John had been underground, killed instantly. Her father, hearing of the disaster, had immediately gone down, only to be met by a rush of black damp. A week later his body and John’s were brought out together.

  When she concluded there was a silence.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Andrew said in a sympathetic voice.

  ‘People were kind to me,’ she said soberly. ‘Mr and Mrs Watkins especially. I got this job at school here.’ She paused, her face lighting up again. ‘ I’m like you, though. I’m still strange here. It takes a long time to get used to the valleys.’

  He looked at her, searching for something which would even faintly express his feeling for her, a remark which might tactfully dispose of the past and hopefully open out the future.

  ‘It’s easy to feel cut off down here, lonely. I know. I do often. I often feel I want someone to talk to.’

  She smiled. ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  He reddened, with a sense that she had cornered him. ‘Oh, my work, I suppose.’ He halted, then felt obliged to explain himself. ‘I seem just to be blundering about, running into one problem after another.’

  ‘Do you mean you have difficult cases.’

  ‘It isn’t that.’ He hesitated, went on. ‘I came down here full of formulae, the things that everybody believes, or pretends to believe. That swollen joints means rheumatism. That rheumatism means salicylate. You know, the orthodox things! Well I’m finding out that some of them are all wrong. Take medicine, too. It seems to me that some of it does more harm than good. It’s the system. A patient comes into the surgery. He expects his “ bottle of medicine”. And he gets it, even if it’s only burnt sugar, soda carb. and good old aqua. That’s why the prescription is written in Latin – so he won’t understand it. It isn’t ri
ght. It isn’t scientific. And another thing. It seems to me that too many doctors treat diseases empirically, that’s to say, they treat the symptoms individually. They don’t bother to combine the symptoms in their own mind and puzzle out the diagnosis. They say very quick, because they’re usually in a rush, “Ah! headache – try this powder,” or “ you’re anaemic, you must have some iron.” Instead of asking themselves what is causing the headache or the anaemia –’ He broke off sharply, ‘Oh! I’m sorry! I’m boring you!’

  ‘No, no,’ she said quickly. ‘ It’s awfully interesting.’

  ‘I’m just beginning, just feeling my way,’ he went on tempestuously, thrilled by her interest. ‘But I do honestly think even from what I’ve seen that the text-books I was brought up on have too many old-fashioned conservative ideas in them. Remedies that are no use, symptoms that were shoved in by somebody in the Middle Ages. You might say it doesn’t matter to the average GP. But why should the general practitioner be no more than a poultice mixer or a medicine slinger? It’s time science was brought into the front line. A lot of people think that science lies in the bottom of a test-tube. I believe that the outlying GP’s have all the opportunities to see things, and a better chance to observe the first symptoms of new disease than they have at any of the hospitals. By the time a case gets to hospital it’s usually past the early stages.’

  She was about to answer quickly when the door bell rang. She rose, suppressing her remark, saying instead, with her faint smile:

  ‘I hope you won’t forget your promise to talk of this another time.’

  Watkins and his wife came in, apologising for being late. And almost at once they sat down to supper.

  It was a very different meal from that cold collation which had last brought them together. They had veal cooked in a casserole and potatoes mashed with butter, followed by new rhubarb tart with cream, then cheese and coffee. Though plain, every dish was good and there was plenty of it. After the skimpy meals served to him by Blodwen it was a treat to Andrew to find hot appetising food before him. He sighed:

  ‘You’re lucky in your landlady, Miss Barlow. She’s a marvellous cook!’

  Watkins, who had been observing Andrew’s trencher work with a quizzical eye, suddenly laughed out loud.

  ‘That’s a good one.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Did you hear him, mother? He says old Mrs Herbert’s a marvellous cook.’

  Christine coloured slightly.

  ‘Don’t pay any attention to him,’ she said to Andrew. ‘It’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever had – because you didn’t mean it. As it happens, I cooked the supper. I have the run of Mrs Herbert’s kitchen. I like doing for myself. And I’m used to it.’

  Her remark served to make the mine manager more jovially boisterous. He was quite changed from the taciturn individual who had stoically endured the entertainment at Mrs Bramwell’s. Blunt and likeably common, he enjoyed his supper, smacked his lips over the tart, put his elbows on the table, told stories which made them laugh.

  The evening passed quickly. When Andrew looked at his watch he saw to his amazement that it was nearly eleven o’clock. And he had promised to pay a late visit to see a case in Blaina Place before half past ten.

  As he rose, regretfully, to take his leave, Christine accompanied him to the door. In the narrow passage his arm touched her side. A pang of sweetness went over him. She was so different from anyone he had ever known, with her quietness, her fragility, her dark intelligent eyes. Heaven forgive him for daring to have thought her skimpy!

  Breathing quickly, he mumbled:

  ‘I can’t thank you enough for asking me tonight. Please can I see you again? I don’t always talk shop. Would you – Christine, would you come to the Toniglan cinema with me, sometime?’

  Her eyes smiled up at him, for the first time faintly provocative.

  ‘You try asking me.’

  A long silent minute on the doorstep under the high stars. The dew scented air was cool on his hot cheek. Her breath came sweetly towards him. He longed to kiss her. Fumblingly he pressed her hand, turned, clattered down the path and was on his way home with dancing thoughts, walking on air along that dizzy path which millions have tritely followed and still believed themselves unique, rapturously predestined, eternally blessed. Oh! She was a wonderful girl! How well she had understood his meaning when he spoke of his difficulties in practice! She was clever, far cleverer than he. What a marvellous cook too! And he had called her Christine!

  Chapter Eight

  Though Christine now occupied his mind more than ever the whole complexion of his thoughts was altered. He no longer felt despondent but happy, elated, hopeful. And this change of outlook was immediately reflected in his work. He was young enough to create in fancy a constant situation wherein she observed him at his cases, watched his careful methods, his scrupulous examinations, commended him for the searching accuracy of his diagnosis. Any temptation to scamp a visit, to reach a conclusion without first sounding the patient’s chest, was met by the instant thought: ‘Lord, no! What would she think of me if I did that!’

  More than once he found Denny’s eye upon him, satirical, comprehensive. But he did not care. In his intense, idealistic way he linked Christine with his ambitions, made her unconsciously an extra incentive, in the great assault upon the unknown.

  He admitted to himself that he still knew practically nothing. Yet he was teaching himself to think for himself, to look behind the obvious in an effort to find the proximate cause. Never before had he felt himself so powerfully attracted to the scientific ideal. He prayed that he might never become slovenly or mercenary, never jump to conclusions, never come to write ‘the mixture as before’. He wanted to find out, to be scientific, to be worthy of Christine.

  In the face of his ingenuous eagerness it seemed a pity that his work in the practice should suddenly and uniformly turn dull. He wanted to scale mountains. Yet for the next few weeks he was presented by a series of insignificant mole-hills. His cases were trivial, supremely uninteresting, a banal run of sprains, cut fingers, colds in the head. The climax came when he was called two miles down the valley by an old woman who asked him, peering yellow faced from beneath her flannel mutch, to cut her corns.

  He felt foolish, chafed at his lack of opportunity, longed for whirlwind and tempest.

  He began to question his own faith, to wonder if it were really possible for a doctor in this out-of-the-way place to be anything more than a petty, common hack. And then, at the lowest ebb of all, came an incident which sent the mercury of his belief soaring once again towards the skies.

  Towards the end of the last week in June, as he came over the station bridge he encountered Doctor Bramwell. The Lung Buster was slipping out of the side door of the Railway Inn, stealthily wiping his upper lip with the back of his hand. He had the habit, when Gladys departed, gay and dressed in her best, upon her enigmatic ‘shopping’ expeditions to Toniglan, of soothing himself unobtrusively with a pint or two of beer.

  A trifle discomfited at being seen by Andrew he nevertheless carried off the situation with a flourish.

  ‘Ah, Manson! Glad to see you. I just had a call to Pritchard.’

  Pritchard was the proprietor of the Railway Inn and Andrew had seen him five minutes ago, taking his bull terrier for a walk. But he allowed the opportunity to pass. He had an affection for the Lung Buster whose highflown language and mock heroics were offset in a very human way by his timidity and the holes in his socks which the gay Gladys forgot to darn.

  As they walked up the street together they began to talk shop. Bramwell was always ready to discuss his cases and now, with an air of gravity, he told Andrew that Emlyn Hughes, Annie’s brother-in-law, was on his hands. Emlyn, he said, had been acting strangely lately, getting into trouble at the mine, losing his memory. He had turned quarrelsome and violent.

  ‘I don’t like it, Manson.’ Bramwell nodded sagely. ‘I’ve seen mental trouble before. And this looks uncommonly like it.’

 
Andrew expressed his concern. He had always thought Hughes a stolid and agreeable fellow. He recollected that Annie had looked worried lately and when questioned had inferred vaguely, for despite her proclivity for gossip she was reticent upon family affairs, that she was anxious about her brother-in-law. When he parted from Bramwell he ventured the hope that the case might quickly take a turn for the better.

  But on the following Friday at six o’clock in the morning he was awakened by a knocking on his bedroom door. It was Annie, fully dressed and very red about the eyes, offering him a note. Andrew tore open the envelope. It was a message from Doctor Bramwell.

  Come round at once. I want you to help certify a dangerous lunatic.

  Annie struggled with her tears.

  ‘It’s Emlyn, doctor, bach. A dreadful thing has happened. I do hope you’ll come down quick, like.’

  Andrew threw on his things in three minutes. Accompanying him down the road, Annie told him as best she could about Emlyn. He had been ill and unlike himself for three weeks, but during the night he had turned violent, and gone clean out of his mind. He had set upon his wife with a bread knife. Olwen had just managed to escape by running into the street in her nightgown. The sensational story was sufficiently distressing as Annie brokenly related it, hurrying beside him in the grey light of morning, and there seemed little he could add, by way of consolation, to alter it. They reached the Hugheses’ house. In the front room Andrew found Doctor Bramwell, unshaven, without his collar and tie, wearing a serious air, seated at the table, pen in hand. Before him was a bluish paper form, half filled in.

  ‘Ah, Manson! Good of you to come so quickly. A bad business this. But it won’t keep you long.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Hughes has gone mad. I think I mentioned to you a week ago I was afraid of it. Well! I was right. Acute mania.’ Bramwell rolled the words over his tongue with tragic grandeur. ‘Acute homicidal mania. We’ll have to get him into Pontynewdd straight away. That means two signatures on the certificate, mine and yours – the relatives wanted me to call you in. You know the procedure, don’t you?’