The Citadel (35 page)

She mentioned the name of a well-known preparation. ‘My old doctor put me to that. I have great faith in it.’

‘Oh, that!’ Nettled at her manner, he was on the point of telling her that the faithful remedy of her faithful doctor was worthless, that it had achieved its popularity through skilful advertising on the part of the firm who produced it and the absence of pollen in most English summers. But with an effort he restrained himself. There was a struggle between all that he believed and all he wished to have. He thought defiantly, if I let this chance slip, after all these months, I’m a fool. He said, ‘I think I can give you the injection as well as anyone.’

‘Very well. And now about your fees. I never paid Doctor Sinclair more than one guinea a visit. May I take it that you will continue this arrangement.’

A guinea a visit – it was three times the largest fee he had ever earned! And more important still, it represented his first step into the superior class of practice he had coveted all these months. Again he stifled the quick protests of his convictions. What did it matter if the injections were useless? – that was her lookout, not his. He was sick of failure, tired of being a three-and-sixpenny hack. He wanted to get on, succeed. And he would succeed at all costs.

He came again the following day at eleven o’clock sharp. She had warned him, in her severe way, against being late. She did not wish her forenoon walk interfered with. He gave her the first injection. And thereafter he called twice a week, continuing the treatment.

He was punctual, precise as she, and he never presumed. It was almost amusing the way in which she gradually thawed to him. She was a queer person, Winifred Everett, and a most decided personality. Though she was rich – her father had been a large manufacturer of cutlery in Sheffield and all the money that she had inherited from him was safely invested in the Funds – she set herself out to get the utmost value from every penny. It was not meanness but rather an odd kind of egoism. She made herself the centre of her universe, took the utmost care of her body, which was still white and fine, went in for all sorts of treatments which she felt would benefit her. She must have everything of the best. She ate sparingly, but only the finest food. When on his sixth visit she unbent to offer him a glass of sherry he observed that it was Amontillado of the year 1819. Her clothes came from Laurier’s. Her bed linen was the finest he had ever seen. And yet, with all this, she never, according to her lights, wasted a farthing. Not for the life of him could he imagine Miss Everett flinging a half-crown to a taximan without first carefully looking at the meter.

He ought to have loathed her yet strangely he did not. She had developed her selfishness to the point of philosophy. And she was so eminently sensible. She exactly reminded him of a woman in an old Dutch picture, a Terborch, which Christine and he had once seen. She had the same large body, the same smooth-textured skin, the same forbidding yet pleasure-loving mouth.

When she saw that he was, in her own phrase, really going to suit her, she became much less reserved. It was an unwritten law with her that the doctor’s visit should last twenty minutes, otherwise she felt she had not had the value of it. But by the end of a month he was extending this to half an hour. They talked together. He told her of his desire for success. She approved it. Her range of conversation was limited. But the range of her relations was unlimited and it was of them, mostly, that she talked. She spoke to him frequently of her niece, named Catharine Sutton, who lived in Derbyshire and who often came to town since her husband, Captain Sutton, was MP for Barnwell.

‘Doctor Sinclair used to look after them,’ she remarked in a non-committal voice. ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t now.’

On his last visit she gave him another glass of her Amontillado and, very pleasantly, she said:

‘I hate bills coming in. Please let me settle up now.’ She handed him a folded cheque for twelve guineas. ‘ Of course, I shall have you in again soon. I usually have an anticoryza vaccine in the winter.’

She actually accompanied him to the door of the flat and there she stood for a moment, her face drily illumined, the nearest approach to a smile he had ever seen there. But it passed quickly and, gazing at him forbiddingly, she said:

‘Will you take the advice of a woman old enough to be your mother. Go to a good tailor. Go to Captain Sutton’s tailor – Rogers, in Conduit Street. You’ve told me how much you wish to succeed. You never will in that suit.’

He strode down the road cursing her, the hot indignity still burning on his brow, cursing her in his old impassioned style. Interfering old bitch! What business was it of hers! What right had she to tell him how he should dress? Did she take him for a
lapdog
? That was the worst of compromise, of truckling to convention. His Paddington patients paid him only three and six yet they did not ask him to be a tailor’s dummy. In future he would confine himself to them and call his soul his own!

But somehow that mood passed. It was perfectly true that he had never taken the slightest interest in his clothes, a suit off the peg had always served him excellently, covered him, kept him warm without elegance. Christine, too, though she was always so neat, never bothered about clothes. She was happiest in a tweed skirt and a woollen jumper she had knitted herself.

Surreptitiously he took stock of himself, his nondescript worsted, uncreased trousers, mud-splattered at the selvedge. Hang it all, he thought testily, she’s perfectly right. How can I attract first-class patients if I look like this? Why didn’t Christine tell me? It was
her
job; not old lady Winnie’s. What was that name she gave me – Rogers of Conduit Street. Hell! I’m likely to go there!

He had recovered his spirits when he reached home. He flourished the cheque under Christine’s nose.

‘See that, my good woman! Remember when I came running in with that first wretched three and a bender from the surgery. Bah! That’s what I say to it now – bah! This is real money, gen-u-ine fees, like a first rate MD, MRCP, ought to be earning. Twelve guineas for talking nicely to Winnie the Pooh, and innocuously inoculating her with Glickert’s Eptone.’

‘What’s that?’ she asked smiling; then suddenly she was doubtful. ‘Isn’t that the stuff I’ve heard you run down so much?’

His face altered, he frowned at her, completely at a loss. She had made the one remark he did not wish to hear. All at once he felt angry, not with himself, but with her.

‘Blast it, Chris! You’re
never
satisfied!’ He turned and banged out of the room. For the rest of that day he was in a sulky humour. But next day he cheered up. He went then to Rogers, in Conduit Street.

He was self-conscious as a schoolboy when, a fortnight later, he came down in one of his two new suits. It was a dark, double-breasted grey, worn, on Rogers’ suggestion, with a wing collar and a dark bow-tie which picked up the shade of the grey. There was not the shadow of a doubt, the Conduit Street tailor knew his job, and the mention of Captain Sutton’s name had made him do it thoroughly.

This morning, as it fell out, Christine was not looking her best. She had a slight sore throat and had wound her old scarf protectively around her throat and head. She was pouring his coffee when the radiance of his presence burst upon her. For a moment she was too staggered to speak.

‘Why, Andrew!’ she gasped. ‘You look wonderful. Are you going anywhere?’

‘Going anywhere? I’m going on my rounds, my work of course!’ Being self-conscious made him almost snappy. ‘ Well! Do you like it?’

‘Yes,’ she said, not quickly enough to please him. ‘It’s – it’s frightfully smart – but’ – she smiled – ‘somehow it doesn’t quite seem
you
!’

‘You’d rather keep me looking like a tramp, I suppose.’

She was silent, her hand, raising her cup, suddenly contracted so that the knuckles showed white. Ah! he thought, I got her there. He finished breakfast and entered the consulting-room.

Five minutes later she followed him there, scarf still round her throat, her eyes hesitant, pleading.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘please don’t misunderstand me! I’m delighted to see you in a new suit. I want you to have everything, everything that’s best for you. I’m sorry I said that a moment ago but you see – I’m accustomed to you – oh! it’s awfully hard to explain – but I’ve always identified you as – now
please
don’t misunderstand me – as someone who doesn’t give a hang about how he looks or how people think he looks. You remember that Epstein head we saw. That it wouldn’t have looked quite the same if – oh, if it had been trimmed and polished up.’

He answered abruptly.

‘I’m not an Epstein head.’

She made no reply. Lately, he had been difficult to reason with and, hurt at this misunderstanding, she did not know what to say. Still hesitating, she turned away.

Three weeks later when Miss Everett’s niece came to spend a few weeks in London he was rewarded for his wise observance of the elder lady’s hint. On a pretext Miss Everett summoned him to Park Gardens, where she scanned him with severe approval. He could almost see her passing him as a fit candidate for her recommendation. On the following day he received a call from Mrs Sutton, who, since the condition ran, apparently, in the family, wished the same hay-fever treatment as her aunt. This time he had no compunction about injecting the useless Eptone of the useful Messrs Glickert. He made an excellent impression upon Mrs Sutton. And before the end of that same month he was called to a friend of Miss Everett’s who also occupied a flat in Park Gardens.

Andrew was highly diverted with himself. He was winning, winning, winning. In his straining eagerness for success he forgot how contrary was his progress to all that he had hitherto believed. His vanity was touched. He felt alert and confident. He did not pause to reflect that this rolling snowball of his high-class practice had been started, in the first place, by a fat little German woman behind the counter of a ham and beef shop near that vulgar Mussleburgh Market. Indeed, almost before he had time to reflect at all the snowball took a further downhill roll – another and more exciting opportunity was offered to his grasp.

One afternoon in June, the zero hour between two o’clock and four, when nothing of consequence normally occurred, he was sitting in the consulting-room, totalling his receipts for the past month, when suddenly the phone rang. Three seconds and he was at the instrument.

‘Yes, yes! This is Doctor Manson speaking.’

A voice, anguished and palpitant, came back to him.

‘Oh, Doctor Manson! I’m relieved to find you in. This is Mr Winch! – Mr Winch of Laurier’s. We’ve had a slight mishap to one of our customers. Could you come? Could you come at once?’

‘I’ll be there in four minutes.’ Andrew clicked back the receiver and sprang for his hat. A 15 bus, hurtling outside, solidly sustained his impetuous leap. In four minutes and a half he was inside the revolving doors of Laurier’s, met by an anxious Miss Cramb, and escorted over swimming surfaces of green-piled carpet, past long gilt mirrors and satinwood panelling against which, as if by chance, there could be seen one small hat on its stand, a lacy scarf, an ermine evening wrap. As they hastened, with rapid earnestness, Miss Cramb explained:

‘It’s Miss le Roy, Doctor Manson. One of our customers. Not mine, thank goodness, she’s always giving trouble. But, Doctor Manson, you see I spoke to Mr Winch about you –’

‘Thanks!’ brusquely – he could still, on occasion, be brusque! ‘What’s happened?’

‘She seems – oh, Doctor Manson – she seems to have had a fit in the fit-fitting room!’

At the head of the broad staircase she surrendered him to Mr Winch, pinkly agitated, who fluttered:

‘This way, doctor – this way – I hope you can do something. It’s most dreadfully unfortunate –’

Into the fitting-room, warm, exquisitely carpeted in a lighter shade of green, with gilt and green panelled walls, a crowd of twittering girls, a gilt chair upturned, a towel thrown down, a spilled glass of water, pandemonium. And there, the centre of it all, Miss le Roy, the woman in the fit. She lay on the floor, rigid, with spasmodic clutching of her hands and sudden stiffenings of her feet. From time to time a straining, intimidating crowing broke from her tense throat.

As Andrew entered with Mr Winch one of the older assistants in the group burst into tears.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she sobbed. ‘I only pointed out to Miss le Roy it was the design she chose herself –’

‘Oh, dear. Oh, dear,’ muttered Mr Winch. ‘This is dreadful, dreadful. Shall I – shall I ring for the ambulance.’

‘No, not yet,’ Andrew said in a peculiar tone. He bent down beside Miss le Roy. She was very young, about twenty-four, with blue eyes and washed-out silky hair all tumbled under her askew hat. Her rigidity, her convulsive spasms were increasing. On the other side of her knelt another woman, with dark concerned eyes, apparently her friend. ‘Oh, Toppy, Toppy,’ she kept murmuring.

‘Please clear the room,’ said Andrew suddenly. ‘ I’d like everyone out but’ – his eye fell upon the dark young woman – ‘ but this lady here.’

The girls went, a trifle unwillingly – it had been pleasurable diversion assisting at Miss le Roy’s fit. Miss Cramb, even Mr Winch, removed themselves from the room. The moment they had gone the convulsions became terrifying.

‘This is an extremely serious case,’ Andrew said, speaking very distinctly. Miss le Roy’s eyeballs rolled towards him. ‘Get me a chair, please.’

The fallen chair was righted, in the centre of the room, by the other woman. Then slowly and with great sympathy, supporting her by the armpits, Andrew helped the convulsed Miss le Roy upright into the chair. He held her head erect.

‘There,’ he said with greater sympathy. Then, taking the flat of his hand, he hit her a resounding smack upon the cheek. It was his most courageous action for many months and remained so – alas! – for many months to come.

Miss le Roy stopped crowing, the spasm ceased, her rolling eyeballs righted themselves. She gazed at him in pained, in infantile bewilderment. Before she could relapse he took his hand again and struck her on the other cheek. Smack! The anguish in Miss le Roy’s face was ludicrous. She dithered, seemed about to crow again and then began, gently, to cry. Turning to her friend she wept: