The Citadel by A. J. Cronin Page A

work at the end of two months. He came round one evening to the surgery at Bryngower, lean and active, accompanied by the smiling Olwen, to tell Andrew he had never felt better in his life.
    Olwen said:
    ‘We owe everything to you, doctor. We want to change over to you from Bramwell. Emlyn was on his list before I married him. He’s just a silly old woman. He’d have had my Emlyn in the – well, you know what – if it hadn’t been for you and all you’ve done for us.’
    ‘You can’t change, Olwen,’ Andrew answered. ‘It would spoil everything.’ He dropped his professional gravity and broke into genuine youthful glee. ‘ If you even try to – I’ll come after you with that bread knife.’
    Bramwell, meeting Andrew in the street, remarked airily:
    ‘Hello, Manson! You’ve seen Hughes about, I suppose. Ha!
    They’re both very grateful. I flatter myself I’ve never had a better
    case.’
Annie said:
‘That ol’ Bramwell, struttin’ about the town like he was
    somebod-ee. He don’t know nothing. And his wife, bah! She can’t
    keep her servants no time.’
Miss Page said:
‘Doctor, don’t forget you’re workin’ for Doctor Page.’
Denny’s comment was:
‘Manson! At present you’re too conceited to live with. You’re
    going to make a most hell of a bloomer. Soon. Very soon.’
But Andrew, hurrying to Christine full of the triumph of the
    scientific method, kept everything he had to say for her.

Chapter Nine
    In July of that year the Annual Conference of the British Medical Union was held in Cardiff. The Union, to which, as Professor Lamplough always informed his students in his final address, every reputable medical man ought to belong, was famous for its Annual Conferences. Splendidly organised, these Conferences offered sporting, social and scientific enjoyments to members and their families, reduced terms at all but the best hotels, free charabanc trips to any ruined abbey in the neighbourhood, a memento art brochure, souvenir diaries from the leading surgical appliance makers and drug houses, and pumproom facilities at the nearest spa. The previous year at the end of the week’s festivity generous free sample boxes of Non-Adipo biscuits had been sent to each doctor and his wife.
    Andrew was not a member of the Union, since the five guinea subscription was, as yet, beyond his means, but he viewed it a little enviously from a distance. Its effect was to make him feel isolated and out of touch in Drineffy. Photographs in the local newspaper of an array of doctors receiving addresses of welcome on a beflagged platform, driving off at the first tee of the Penarth Golf Course, flocking upon a steamer for a sea trip to Weston-super-Mare served to intensify his sense of exclusion.
    But midway through the week a letter arrived bearing the address of a Cardiff hotel which caused Andrew a more pleasurable sensation. It was from his friend Freddie Hamson. Freddie, as might be expected, was attending the Conference and he asked Manson to run down and see him. He suggested Saturday, for dinner.
    Andrew showed the letter to Christine. It was instinctive now for him to take her into his confidence. Since that evening, nearly two months before, when he had gone round to supper, he was more than ever in love. Now that he could see her frequently, and be reassured by her evident pleasure in these meetings, he was happier than ever he had been in his life. Perhaps it was Christine who had this stabilising effect upon him. She was a very practical little person, perfectly direct and entirely without coquetry. Often he would join her in a state of worry or irritation and come away soothed and tranquillised. She had a way of listening to what he had to say, quietly, then of making some comment which was usually apropos or amusing. She had a lively sense of humour. And she never flattered him.
    Occasionally, despite her calmness, they had great arguments, for she had a mind of her own. She told him, with a smile,