The Citadel (40 page)

‘Well, what’s the remedy?’ Philip lifted an eyebrow in that new irritating fashion. ‘A joint hospitals’ board with you as director in chief?’

‘Don’t be an ass, Denny,’ Andrew answered irritably. ‘Decentralisation is the remedy. No, that isn’t just a word out of a book, it’s the result of all that I’ve gone through since I came to London. Why shouldn’t our big hospitals stand in a green belt outside London, say fifteen miles outside. Take a place like Benham, for instance, only ten miles out, where there’s still green country, fresh air, quiet. Don’t think there would be any transportation difficulties. The tube – and why not a specially run hospital service – one straight, silent line, could take you out to Benham in exactly eighteen minutes. Considering that it takes our fastest ambulance forty minutes on the average to bring in an emergency, that sounds to me an improvement. You might say if we moved the hospitals we’d denude each area of its medical service. That’s rot! The dispensary stops in the area, the hospital moves on. And while we’re talking about it this question of area service is just one large hopeless muddle. When I came here at first, I found here in
West
London that the only place I could get my patient in was the
East
London hospital. Down at the Victoria too, we get patients from all over the shop – Kensington, Ealing, Muswell Hill. There’s no attempt to delimit special areas – everything comes pouring in to the centre of the city. I’m telling you fellows straight, the confusion is often unbelievable. And what’s being done? Zero, absolute zero. We just drag on in the old, old way, rattling tin boxes, holding flag days, making appeals, letting students clown for pennies in fancy dress. One thing about these new European countries – they get things
done.
Lord, if I had my way I’d raze the Victoria flat and have a new Chest Hospital setting out at Benham with a straight line of communication. And by God! I’d show a rise in our recovery rate!’

This was merely by way of introduction. The crescendo of discussion rose.

Philip got on to his old contention – the folly of asking the general practitioner to pull everything out of the one black bag, the stupidity of making him carry every case on his shoulders until that delightful moment when, for five guineas, some specialist he had never seen before drove up to tell him it was too late to carry anything at all.

Hope, without mildness or restraint, expressed the case of the young bacteriologist, sandwiched between commercialism and conservatism – on the one hand, the bland firm of chemists who would pay him a wage to make proprietary articles, on the other a Board of blithering dotards.

‘Can you imagine,’ Hope hissed, ‘the Marx brothers sitting in a rickety motor-car with four independent steering wheels and an unlimited supply of motor-horns. That’s us at the MFB.’

They did not stop until after twelve o’clock and then, unexpectedly, they found sandwiches and coffee before them on the table.

‘Oh, I say, Mrs Manson,’ Hope protested with a politeness which showed that, in Denny’s gibe, he was a Nice Young Man at Heart. ‘We must have bored you stiff. Funny how hungry talking makes one. I’ll suggest that to Whinney as a new line of investigation – effect upon the gastric secretions of hot-air fatigue. Ha! Ha! That’s a perfect Nag-ism!’

When Hope had gone, with fervent protestations that he had enjoyed the evening, Denny remained a few minutes longer, exacting the privilege of his older friendship. Then, Andrew having left the room to ring for a taxi, he apologetically brought out a small, very beautiful Spanish shawl.

‘The Professor will probably slay me,’ he said. ‘But this is for you. Don’t tell him till I’m safely out of the way.’ He arrested her gratitude, always for him the most embarrassing emotion. ‘Extraordinary how all these shawls come from China. They’re not really Spanish. I got that one via Shanghai.’

A silence fell. They could hear Andrew coming back from the telephone in the hall.

Denny got up, his kind, wrinkled eyes avoiding hers.

‘I wouldn’t worry too much about him, you know.’ He smiled. ‘But we must try, mustn’t we, to get him back to Drineffy standards.’

At the beginning of the Easter school holidays Andrew received a note from Mrs Thornton asking him to call at Brown’s Hotel to see her daughter. She told him briefly, in the letter, that Sybil’s foot had not improved and, since she had been much struck by his interest at Mrs Lawrence’s she was anxious to have his advice. Flattered by this tribute to his personality, he made the visit promptly. The condition which he found upon examination was perfectly simple. Yet it was one which demanded an early operation. He straightened himself, with a smile to the solid, bare-legged Sybil now seated upon the edge of the bed, pulling on her long black stocking, and explained this to Mrs Thornton.

‘The bone has thickened. Might develop into a hammer toe if it’s left untreated. I suggest you have it seen to at once.’

‘That’s what the school doctor said.’ Mrs Thornton was not surprised. ‘We are really prepared. Sybil can go into a home here. But – well! – I’ve got confidence in you, doctor. And I want you to undertake all the arrangements. Who do you suggest should do it?’

The direct question placed Andrew in a dilemma. His work being almost entirely medical he had met many of the leading physicians, yet he knew none of the London surgeons. Suddenly he thought of Ivory. He said pleasantly:

‘Mr Ivory might do this for us – if he’s available.’

Mrs Thornton had heard of Mr Ivory. Of course! Wasn’t he the surgeon who had been in all the newspapers the month before through having flown to Cairo to attend a case of sunstroke? An extremely well-known man! She thought it an admirable suggestion that he should undertake her daughter’s case. Her only stipulation was that Sybil should go to Miss Sherrington’s Home. So many of her friends had been there she could not think of letting her go anywhere else.

Andrew went home and rang up Ivory, with all the hesitation of a man making a preliminary approach. But Ivory’s manner – friendly, confident, charming – reassured him. They arranged to see the case together on the following day and Ivory asserted that though he knew Ida to be bunged up to the attics, he could persuade her to make room for Miss Thornton should this be necessary.

Next morning, when Ivory had agreed emphatically in Mrs Thornton’s presence with all that Andrew had said – adding that immediate operation was imperative – Sybil was transferred to Miss Sherrington’s Home and two days later, giving her time to settle down, the operation was performed.

Andrew was there. Ivory insisted that he be present, in the most genuine and friendly fashion imaginable.

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.’