The Citadel (19 page)

‘What was the idea? Tell me that! I’ve seen him pass Llewellyn in the street and barely throw him a nod. Perhaps he thought he’d mug me into sending a few more men back to work at his dashed mines!’

‘Now, don’t, Andrew,’ Christine protested. ‘That’s one thing about you! You’re suspicious, frightfully suspicious of people.’

‘Think I would be suspicious of him. Stuck up blighter, rolling in money, old school tie under his ugly phiz – My missus – been yodelling on the Alps while you pigged it on Mardy Hill – will be calling on yours! Huh! I can
see
her looking near us, darling! And if she does,’ he was suddenly fierce, ‘take jolly good care you don’t let her patronise you.’

Chris answered – more shortly than he had ever heard her in all the tenderness of those first months:

‘I think I know how to behave.’

Despite Andrew’s premonitions Mrs Vaughan did call upon Christine and remained, apparently, much longer than the bare period demanded by convention. When Andrew came in that evening he found Christine gay, slightly flushed, with every appearance of having enjoyed herself. She was reticent to his ironic probings but admitted that the occasion had been a success.

He mocked her. ‘I suppose you had out the family silver, the best china, the gold-plated samovar. Oh! and a cake from Parry’s.’

‘No. We had bread and butter,’ she answered equably. ‘And the brown tea-pot.’

He raised his brows derisively.

‘And she liked it?’

‘I hope so!’

Something rankled queerly in Andrew after this conversation, an emotion which, had he tried, he could not quite have analysed. Ten days later when Mrs Vaughan rang him up and asked Christine and him to dinner he was shaken. Christine was in the kitchen at the time baking a cake, and he answered the phone himself.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid it’s impossible. I have surgery till nearly nine every evening.’

‘But not on Sunday, surely.’ Her voice was light, charming. ‘Come to supper next Sunday. That’s settled then. We’ll expect you!’

He stormed in to Christine.

‘These dashed high-blown friends of yours have raked us in to supper. We can’t go! I’ve got a positive conviction I’m having a midder case next Sunday evening!’

‘Now you listen to me, Andrew Manson!’ Her eyes had sparkled at the invitation but nevertheless she lectured him severely. ‘You’ve got to stop being silly. We’re poor and everybody knows it. You wear old clothes and I do the cooking. But that doesn’t matter. You’re a doctor and a good doctor, too, and I’m your wife.’ Her expression relaxed momentarily. ‘Are you listening to me? Yes, it may surprise you, that I have my marriage lines tucked away in my bottom drawer. The Vaughans have got a lot of money but that’s just a detail beside the fact that they’re kind and charming and intelligent people. We’re marvellously happy together here, darling, but we must have friends. Why shouldn’t we be friendly with them if they’ll let us? Now don’t you be ashamed of being poor. Forget about money and position and everything and learn to take people for what they really are!’

‘Oh, well –’ he said grudgingly.

He went, on Sunday, expressionless and with apparent docility, merely using the corner of his mouth to remark, as they walked up the well laid out drive beside a new hard tennis court:

‘Probably won’t let us in, seeing I haven’t got on a fish and soup.’

Contrary to his expectations they were well received. Vaughan’s bony, ugly face smiled hospitably over a silver canister which, for a reason unexplained, he shook heartily. Mrs Vaughan greeted them with effortless simplicity. There were two other guests, Professor and Mrs Challis, who were staying over the week-end with the Vaughans.

Over the first cocktail he had ever dealt with in his life Andrew took stock of the long fawn carpeted room with its flowers, books, strangely beautiful old furniture. Christine was talking lightheartedly with Vaughan and his wife and Mrs Challis, an elderly woman with humorous wrinkles around her eyes. Feeling isolated and conspicuous, Andrew gingerly approached Challis who, despite a large white beard, was successfully and cheerfully despatching his third short drink.

‘Will some bright young physician kindly undertake an investigation,’ he smiled at Andrew, ‘as to the exact function of the olive in the martini. Mind you, I warn you beforehand – I have my suspicions. But what do you think, doctor?’

‘Why –’ Andrew stammered. ‘I – I hardly know –’

‘My theory!’ Challis took pity on him. ‘A conspiracy of bartenders and inhospitable fellows like our friend Vaughan. An exploitation of the law of Archimedes.’ He blinked rapidly under his black bushy brows. ‘By the simple action of displacement they hope to save the gin!’

Andrew could not smile for thinking of his own awkwardness. He had no social graces and he had never been in so grand a house in all his life. He did not know what to do with his empty glass, his cigarette ash, his own – actually his own hands! He was glad when they went in to supper. But here again he felt himself at a disadvantage.

It was a simple but beautifully set out meal – a cup of hot bouillon stood waiting on each plate and this was followed by a chicken salad, all white breast and heart of lettuce and strange delicate flavours. Andrew was next to Mrs Vaughan.

‘Your wife is charming, Doctor Manson,’ she quietly remarked as they sat down. She was a tall thin elegant woman, very delicate in her appearance, not in the least pretty but with wide intelligent eyes and a manner of distinguished ease. Her mouth had a kind of upturned crookedness, a mobility which somehow conveyed a sense of wit and breeding.

She began to talk to him about his work, saying that her husband had heard of his thoroughness on more than one occasion. She tried kindly to draw him out, asking in an interested fashion, how he felt the conditions of practice could be improved in the district.

‘Well – I don’t know –’ clumsily spilling some soup. ‘I suppose – I’d like to see more scientific methods used.’

Stiff and tongue-tied upon his favourite subject – with which he had entranced Christine for hours – he kept his eyes upon his plate until, to his relief, Mrs Vaughan slipped into conversation with Challis, on her other side.

Challis – presently revealed as Professor of Metallurgy at Cardiff, lecturer on the same subject at London University, and a member of the exalted Mines Fatigue Board – was a gay and gusty talker. He talked with his body, his hands, his beard, arguing, laughing, exploding, gurgling, meanwhile throwing great quantities of food and drink into himself like a stoker deliriously raising steam. But his talk was good; and the rest of the table seemed to like it.

Andrew, however, refused to admit the value of the conversation, listening grudgingly as it turned to music, to the qualities of Bach, and then, by one of Challis’s prodigious leaps, to Russian literature. He heard mentioned the names of Tolstoy, Tchekov, Turgenev, Pushkin with his teeth on edge. Tripe, he raged to himself, all unimportant tripe. Who does this old beaver think he is? I’d like to see him tackle a tracheotomy, say, in a back kitchen in Cefan Row. He wouldn’t get far with his Pushkin there!

Christine, however, was enjoying herself thoroughly. Glaring sideways, Andrew saw her smiling at Challis, heard her take her part in the discussion. She made no pretence, she was perfectly natural. Once or twice she referred to her Council-schoolroom in Bank Street. It amazed him how well she stood up to the Professor, how quickly, unselfconsciously she made her points. He began to see his wife, as for the first time, and in a strange new light. Seems to know all about these Russian bugs, he grated inwardly, funny she never talks to me about them! And later, as Challis approvingly patted Christine on the hand – can’t old bird’s nest keep his paws to himself! Hasn’t he got a wife of his
own
!

Once or twice he caught Christine’s eyes offering him a bright interchange of intimacy and several times she diverted the conversation in his direction.

‘My husband is very interested in the anthracite workers, Professor Challis. He’s started a line of investigation. On dust inhalation.’

‘Yes, yes,’ puffed Challis, turning an interested glance on Manson.

‘Isn’t that so, darling?’ Christine encouraged. ‘You were telling me all about it the other night.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Andrew growled. ‘There’s probably nothing in it. I haven’t enough data yet. Perhaps this TB doesn’t come from the dust at all.’

He was furious with himself, of course. Perhaps this man Challis might have helped him, not that he would have asked for assistance, yet the fact that he was connected with the Mines Fatigue Board certainly seemed to offer a wonderful opportunity. For some incomprehensible reason his anger became directed towards Christine. As they walked home towards Vale View at the end of the evening he was jealously silent. And in the same silence he preceded her to the bedroom.

While they undressed, usually a communicative and informal proceeding when, with his braces hanging and a toothbrush in his hand, he would dilate upon the doings of the day, he kept his gaze studiously averted.

When Christine pleaded:

‘We did have a nice time, didn’t we, darling?’ he answered with great politeness. ‘Oh! An excellent time!’ In bed he kept well to the edge, away from her, resisting the slight movement which he felt her make towards him, with a long and heavy snore.

Next morning the same sense of constraint persisted between them. He went about his work sulking, stupidly unlike himself. About five o’clock in the afternoon while they were having tea a ring came to the front door. It was the Vaughan chauffeur with a pile of books and a great bunch of pheasant’s eye narcissi laid on top of them.

‘From Mrs Vaughan, madam,’ he said smiling, touching his peaked cap as he retreated.

Christine returned to the sitting-room with heaped arms and a glowing face.

‘Look, darling,’ she cried excitedly. ‘Isn’t that too kind. The whole of Trollope loaned me by Mrs Vaughan. I’ve always wanted to read him right through! And such lovely – lovely flowers.’

He stood up stiffly, sneering:

‘Very pretty! Books and flowers from the lady of the manor! You’ve got to have them, I suppose, to help you to endure living with me! I’m too
dull
for you. I’m not one of those flash talkers that you seemed to like so much last night. I don’t know the Russian for boloney! I’m just one of these bloody ordinary medical aid assistants!’

‘Andrew!’ All the colour had gone out of her face. ‘How can you!’

‘It’s true, isn’t it? I could see while I was gawking my way through that blasted supper. I’ve got eyes in my head. You’re sick of me already. I’m only fit for slogging round in the slush, turning over dirty blankets, collecting fleas. I’m too much of a lout for your taste now!’

Her eyes were dark and pitiful in her pale face. But she said steadily:

‘How can you talk like that! It’s because you
are
yourself that I love you. And I’ll never love anybody else.’

‘Sounds like it,’ he snarled and banged out of the room.

For five minutes he skulked in the kitchen, tramping up and down, biting his lip. Then all at once he turned, dashed back to the sitting-room, where she stood, her head bent forlornly, staring into the fire. He took her fiercely in his arms.

‘Chris, darling!’ he cried, in hot repentance. ‘Darling, darling! I’m sorry! For heaven’s sake forgive me. I didn’t mean a word of it. I’m just a crazy jealous fool. I adore you!’

They clung to each other wildly, closely. The scent of the narcissi was in the air.

‘Don’t you know,’ she sobbed, ‘that I’d just die without you!’ Afterwards, as she sat with her cheek pressed against his he said sheepishly, reaching forward for a book:

‘Who is this chap Trollope, anyway? Will you teach me, darling? I’m just an ignorant hog!’

The winter passed. He had now the added incentive of his work on dust inhalation which he had begun by planning and conducting a systematic examination of every anthracite worker upon his list. Their evenings together were even happier than before. Christine helped him to transcribe his notes, working before the fine coal fire – it was one advantage of the district that they never lacked an abundance of cheap coal – when he came home from his late surgery. Often they had long talks in which the extent of her knowledge, though she never obtruded it, and her acquaintance with books, astounded him. He began, moreover, to discern in her a fineness of instinct, an intuition which made her judgment of literature, music, and especially of people, uncannily correct.

‘Hang it all,’ he would tease her. ‘I’m just getting to know my wife. In case you’re getting swelled head we’ll take half an hour off and I’ll beat you at piquet.’ They had learned the game from the Vaughans.

As the days lengthened, without speaking of it to him, she began on the wilderness that was the garden. Jenny, the maid, had a great-uncle – she was proud of the unique relationship – an elderly, disabled miner who for tenpence an hour became Christine’s assistant. Manson, crossing the dilapidated bridge, found them down by the stream bed one March afternoon, starting an assault on the rusty salmon tins that lay there!

‘Hey, you below,’ he shouted from the bridge. ‘What are you doing? Spoiling my fishing!’

She answered his gibes with a brisk nod:

‘You wait and see.’

In a few weeks she had grubbed out the weeds and cleared the neglected paths. The bed of the stream was clean, its edges were cut and trimmed. A new rockery, made from loose stones lying about, stood at the foot of the glen. Vaughan’s gardener, John Roberts, kept coming over, bringing bulbs and cuttings, offering advice. With real triumph she led Andrew by the arm to view the first daffodil.

Then, on the last Sunday in March, without warning, Denny came over to visit them. They fell upon him with open arms, belaboured him with their delighted welcome. To see the squat figure, that red sandy-browed face again gave Manson a rare pleasure. When they had shown him round, fed him on their best, and thrust him into their softest chair they eagerly demanded news.