The Citadel (54 page)

‘Are we to take it,’ Boon managed a sneer, ‘that you have an equal admiration for Richard Stillman?’

‘Yes! He’s a great man, a man who has devoted his whole life to benefiting mankind. He’s had to fight jealousy and prejudice and misrepresentation too. In his own country he has overcome it. But apparently not here. Yet I’m convinced that he’s done more against tuberculosis than any man living in this country. He’s outside the profession. Yes! But there are plenty inside it who have been running up against TB all their lives and have never done an atom of good in fighting it.’

There was sensation in the long high room. Mary Boland’s eyes now fixed on Andrew were shining between admiration and anxiety. Hopper, slowly and sadly, was gathering his papers, slipping them into his leather case.

The President intervened.

‘Do you realise what you are saying?’

‘I do,’ Andrew gripped the back of the chair tensely, aware that he had been carried into grave indiscretion but determined to stand by his opinions. Breathing quickly, strung to breaking pitch, a queer kind of recklessness took hold of him. If they were going to strike him off, let him give them cause to do so. He rushed on, ‘I’ve listened to the pleading that’s been going on to-day on my behalf and all the time I’ve been asking myself what harm I’ve done. I don’t want to work with quacks. I don’t believe in bogus remedies. That’s why I don’t open half the highly scientific advertisements that come pouring into my letter box by every post. I know I am speaking more strongly than I should, but I can’t help it. We’re not nearly liberal enough. If we go on trying to make out that everything’s wrong outside the profession and everything is right within, it means the death of scientific progress. We’ll just turn into a tight little trade protection society. It’s high time we started putting our own house in order, and I don’t mean the superficial things either. Go to the beginning, think of the hopelessly inadequate training doctors get. When I qualified I was more of a menace to society than anything else. All I knew was the names of a few diseases and the drugs I was supposed to give for them. I couldn’t even lock a pair of midwifery forceps. Anything I know I’ve learned since then. But how many doctors do learn anything beyond the ordinary rudiments they pick up in practice. They haven’t got time, poor devils, they’re rushed off their feet. That’s where our whole organisation is rotten. We ought to be arranged in scientific units. There ought to be compulsory post-graduate classes. There ought to be a great attempt to bring science into the front line, to do away with the old bottle-of-medicine idea, give every practitioner a chance to study, to co-operate in research. And what about commercialism? – the useless guinea-chasing treatments, the unnecessary operations, the crowds of worthless pseudo-scientific proprietary preparations we use – isn’t it time some of these were eliminated? The whole profession is far too intolerant and smug. Structurally, we’re static. We never think of advancing, altering our system. We say we’ll do things and we don’t. For years we’ve been bleating about the sweated conditions under which our nurses work, the wretched pittances we pay them. Well? They’re still being sweated, still paid pittances. That’s just an example. What I really mean is deeper than that. We don’t give our pioneers a chance. Doctor Hexam, the man who was brave enough to give anaesthetics for Jarvis, the manipulator, when he was beginning his work, got struck off the register. Ten years later when Jarvis had cured hundreds of cases which had baffled the best surgeons in London; when he had been given a knighthood, when all the “best people” proclaimed him a genius, then we crawled back and gave him an honorary MD. By that time Hexam was dead of a broken heart. I know I have made plenty of mistakes, and bad mistakes, in practice. And I regret them. But I made no mistake with Richard Stillman. And I don’t regret what I did with him. All I ask you to do is to look at Mary Boland. She had apical phthisis when she went to Stillman. Now she’s cured. If you want any justification of my infamous conduct here it is, in this room, before you.’

Quite abruptly he ended and sat down. At the high Council table there was a queer light upon Abbey’s face. Boon, still upon his feet, gazed at Manson with mixed feelings. Then, reflecting vengefully that he had at least given this upstart doctor enough rope to hang himself with, he bowed to the President and took his chair.

For a minute a peculiar silence filled the chamber, then the President made the customary declaration.

‘I ask all strangers to withdraw.’

Andrew went out with the rest. Now his recklessness was gone and his head, his whole body was throbbing like an overtaxed machine. The atmosphere of the council chamber stifled him. He could not endure the presence of Hopper, Boland, Mary and the other witnesses. He dreaded especially that melancholy reproach on the face of his solicitor. He knew he had behaved like a fool, a wretched declamatory fool. Now he saw his honesty as sheer madness. Yes, it was madness to attempt to harangue the Council as he had done. He ought to have been not a doctor but a stump orator in Hyde Park. Well! Soon he would cease to be a doctor. They would simply wipe him off the list.

He went into the cloak-room, desiring only to be alone, and sat on the edge of one of the washbasins, mechanically feeling for a cigarette. But the smoke was tasteless on his parched tongue and he crushed the cigarette beneath his heel. It was strange, despite the hard things, the true things he had said of the profession a few moments ago, how miserable he should feel at being cast out from it. He realised that he might find work with Stillman. But this was not the work he wanted. No! He wished to be with Denny and Hope, to develop his own bent, drive the spearhead of his scheme into the hide of apathy and conservatism. But all this must be done from within the profession, it could never, in England, never, never be accomplished from outside. Now Denny and Hope must man the Trojan horse alone. A great wave of bitterness swept over him. The future stretched out before him desolately. He had already that most painful sense of all – the feeling of exclusion – and allied to it, the knowledge that he was finished, done for – this was the end.

The sound of people moving in the corridor brought him wearily to his feet. As he joined them and re-entered the council chamber he told himself sternly that only one thing remained to him. He must not grovel. He prayed that he would give no sign of subservience, of weakness. With his eyes fixed firmly on the floor immediately before him, he saw no one, gave no glance towards the high table, remained passive, motionless. All the trivial sounds of the room re-echoed maddeningly about him – the scraping of chairs, the coughing, whispering, even the incredible sound of someone tapping idly with a pencil.

But suddenly there was silence. A spasm of rigidity took hold of Andrew. Now, he thought, now it is coming! The President spoke. He spoke slowly, impressively.

‘Andrew Manson, I have to inform you that the Council has given very careful consideration to the charge brought against you and to the evidence brought in support of it. The Council is of opinion that, despite the peculiar circumstances of the case and your own particularly unorthodox presentation of it, you were acting in good faith and were sincerely desirous of complying with the spirit of the law demanding a high standard of professional conduct. I have to inform you, accordingly, that the Council has not seen fit to direct the Registrar to erase your name.’

For one dazed second he did not comprehend. Then a sudden shivering thrill passed over him. They had not struck him off. He was free, clear, vindicated.

He raised his head shakily towards the Council table. Of all the faces, strangely blurred, turned towards his own, the one he saw most distinctly was that of Robert Abbey. The understanding in Abbey’s eyes distressed him even more. He knew, in one illuminating flash, that it was Abbey who had got him off. Gone now was his pretence of indifference. He muttered feebly – and though he addressed the President it was to Abbey that he spoke:

‘Thank you, sir.’

The President said:

‘That terminates the case.’

Andrew stood up, instantly surrounded by his friends, by Con, Mary, the astounded Mr Hopper, by people he had never seen before, who now shook him warmly by the hand. Somehow he was in the street outside, still being beaten about the shoulders by Con, oddly reassured in his nervous confusion by the passing buses, the normal stream of traffic, recapturing every now and then, with a start of joy, the unbelievable ecstasy of his release. He looked down unexpectedly to see Mary gazing up at him, her eyes still filled with tears.

‘If they’d done anything to you – after all you’ve done for me, I’d – oh! I’d have killed that old President.’

‘In the name of God!’ Con irrepressibly declared, ‘ I don’t know what ye were worrying about! The minute old Manson started to get goin’, sure, I knew he would knock the stuffing outa them.’

Andrew smiled weakly, doubtfully, joyously.

The three reached the Museum Hotel after one o’clock. And there, waiting in the lounge, was Denny. He sauntered towards them, gravely smiling. Hopper had telephoned the news. But he had no comment to make. He merely said:

‘I’m hungry. But we can’t feed here. Come along, all of you, and lunch with me.’

They lunched at the Connaught Restaurant. Though no flicker of emotion crossed Philip’s face, though he talked mainly of motor-cars to Con, he made it a happy celebration. Afterwards he said to Andrew:

‘Our train leaves at four o’clock. Hope’s in Stanborough – at the hotel, waiting on us. We can get that property dirt cheap. I’ve got some shopping to do. But I’ll meet you at Euston at ten to four!’

Andrew gazed at Denny, conscious of his friendship, of all that he owed him since the first moment of their meeting, in the little Drineffy surgery. He said suddenly.

‘Supposing I’d been struck off?’

‘You’re not.’ Philip shook his head. ‘And I’ll see to it that you never will be.’

When Denny left to make his purchases Andrew accompanied Con and Mary to their train at Paddington. As they waited on the platform, rather silent now, he repeated the invitation he had already given them.

‘You must come and see us at Stanborough.’

‘We will that,’ Con assured him. ‘In the spring – whenever I get the little bus tuned up.’

When their train steamed out he still had an hour to spare. But there was no doubt in his mind as to what he wished to do. Instinctively, he boarded a bus and soon he was in Kensal Green. He entered the cemetery, stood a long time at Christine’s grave, thinking of many things. It was a bright, fresh afternoon, with that crispness in the breeze which she had always loved. Above him, on the branch of a grimy tree, a sparrow chirped merrily. When at last he turned away, hastening for fear he should be late, there, in the sky before him, a bank of cloud lay brightly, bearing the shape of battlements.

First published in 1937 by Gollancz

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