The Citadel by A. J. Cronin Read Free Book Online Page B

pale blue eyes goggled contentedly over the rim of his milk mug.
    The sight infuriated Andrew. He laughed contemptuously, offensively.
    ‘That may be your idea of isolation. I’m afraid it isn’t mine. You must send that child home at once.’
    Tiny points of light glinted in her eyes.
    ‘Doesn’t it occur to you that I’m the mistress of this class? You may be able to order people about in more exalted spheres. But here it’s my word that counts.’
    He glared at her, with raging dignity.
    ‘You’re breaking the law! You can’t keep him here. If you do I’ll have to report you.’
    A short silence followed. He could see her hand tighten on the chalk she held. That sign of her emotion added to his anger against her, yes, against himself. She said disdainfully:
    ‘Then you had better report me. Or have me arrested. I’ve no doubt it will give you immense satisfaction.’
    Furious, he did not answer, feeling himself in an utterly false position. He tried to rally himself, raising his eyes, attempting to beat down hers, which now sparkled frostily towards him. For an instant they faced each other, so close he could see the soft beating in her neck, the gleam of her teeth between her parted lips. Then she said:
    ‘There’s nothing more, is there?’ She swung round tensely to the class. ‘Stand up, children, and say: “Good morning, Doctor Manson. Thank you for coming.”’
    A clatter of chairs as the infants rose and chanted her ironic bidding. His ears were burning as she escorted him to the door. He had an exasperating sense of discomfiture and added to it the wretched suspicion that he had behaved badly in losing his temper while she had so admirably controlled hers. He sought for a crushing phrase, some final intimidating repartee. But before that came the door closed quietly in his face.

Chapter Six
    Manson, after a furious evening during which he composed and tore up three vitriolic letters to the medical officer of health, tried to forget about the episode. His sense of humour, momentarily lost in the vicinity of Bank Street, made him impatient with himself because of his display of petty feeling. Following a sharp struggle with his stiff Scots pride, he decided he had been wrong, he could not dream of reporting the case, least of all to the ineffable Griffiths. Yet, though he made the attempt, he could not so easily dismiss Christine Barlow from his mind.
    It was absurd that a juvenile school-mistress should so insistently occupy his thoughts or that he should be concerned by what she might think of him. He told himself it was a stupid case of injured pride. He knew that he was shy and awkward with women. Yet no amount of logic could alter the fact that he was now restless and a little irritable. At unguarded moments, as for example when he was falling off to sleep, the scene in the classroom would flash back to him with renewed vividness and he would find himself frowning in the darkness. He still saw her, crushing the chalk, her brown eyes warm with indignation. There were three small pearly buttons on the front of her blouse. Her figure was thin and agile, with a firm economy of line which spoke to him of much hard running and dauntless skipping in her childhood. He did not ask himself if she were pretty. It was enough that she stood, spare and living, before the screen of his sight. And his heart would turn unwillingly, with a kind of sweet oppression which he had never known before.
    A fortnight later he was walking down Chapel Street in a fit of abstraction when he almost bumped into Mrs Bramwell at the corner of Station Road. He would have gone on without recognising her. She, however, stopped at once, and hailed him, dazzling him with a smile.
    ‘Why, Doctor Manson! The very man I’m looking for. I’m giving one of my little social evenings tonight. You’ll come, won’t you?’
    Gladys Bramwell was a corn-haired lady of thirty-five, showily dressed, with a full figure, baby blue eyes and