CHAPTER XLVI
"A bowshot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves."
The words made music in Beth's heart as she dressed next morning, and, instead of the torment of mind from which she had suffered for so long, there was a great glad glow. Dan went and came as usual, but neither his presence nor absence disturbed her. She had recovered her self-possession, her own point of view, and he and his habits resumed their accustomed place in her estimation. During that dreadful phase she had seen with Dan's suspicious eyes, and seen evil only, but had not acquired his interest and pleasure in it; on the contrary, her own tendency to be grieved by it had been intensified. Now, however, she had recovered herself, her sense of proportion had been restored, and she balanced the good against the evil once more, and rejoiced to find that the weight of good was even greater than she had hitherto supposed.
But although the spell had been broken in a moment, her right mind was not permanently restored all at once. It was only gradually, as the tide goes out after a tempest, and leaves the storm-beaten coast in peace, that the worry in her head subsided. She had lapse after lapse. She would lie awake at night, a prey to horrible thoughts, or start up in the early morning with her mind all turgid with suspicions which goaded her to rush out and act, act – see for herself – do something. But the great difference now was that, although she was still seized upon by the evil, it no longer had the same power to grieve her. She had valiantly resisted it from the moment she recognised its nature, but now she not only resisted it, she conquered it, and found relief. When her imagination insisted on pursuing Dan to his haunts, she deliberately and successfully turned her attention to other things. She turned her attention to the friends she loved and trusted, she dwelt on the kindness they had shown her, she forced herself to sit down and write to them, and she would rise from this happy task with her reason restored, the mere expression of affection having sufficed to exorcise the devils of rage and hate.
But it was the strange exalted sentiment which her knight had inspired that began, continued, and completed her cure. Day after day he came riding down the road, riding into her life for a moment, then passing on and leaving her, not desolate, but greatly elated. She had known no feeling like this feeling, no hope or faith like the hope and faith inspired by that man's mien. She did not know his name, she had never heard his voice; their greeting – which was hardly a greeting, so restrained was the glance and the brightening of the countenance which was all the recognition that passed between them – was merely momentary, yet, in that moment, Beth was imbued with joy which lasted longer and longer each time, until at last it stayed with her for good, restored the charm of life to her, re-aroused her dormant further faculty, and quickened the vision and the dream anew. She prayed again in those days fervently, and in full faith, as of old; for when we pray with love in our hearts our prayers are granted, and her heart was full of love – a holy, impersonal love, such as we feel for some great genius, adored at a distance, for the grace of goodness he has imparted to us. And her heart being full of love, her brain teemed with ideas; the love she lived on, the ideas she held in reserve, for she had been so weakened by all she had suffered that the slightest exertion in the way of work exhausted her. In any case, however, great ideas must simmer long in the mind before they come to the boil, and the time was not lost.
In those days fewer people than ever came to the house. For weeks together Beth never spoke to a soul except the servants and her husband, and through the long hours when her head troubled her and she could not work, she felt her isolation extremely. Mrs. Kilroy and her other new friends sent her pamphlets and papers and hurried notes to keep her heart up and inform her of their progress, and Beth, knowing what the hurry of their lives was, and not expecting any attention, was grateful for all they paid her. She had no fear of losing touch with such friends after they had once received her into their circle as one of themselves, however seldom she might see them, and it was well for her mental health that she had them to rely on during that time of trial, for without them she would have had no sense of security in any relation in life.
She was gradually growing to be on much more formal terms with Dan than she had been, thanks to her own strength of character. She found she was able to reduce the daily jar, and even to keep his coarseness in check, by extreme politeness. In any difference, his habit had been to try and shout her down; but the contrast of her own quiet dignified demeanour checked him in that. Beth had the magnetic quality which, when steadily directed, acts on people and forces them into any attitude desired; and Dan accommodated his manner and conversation to her taste more now than he had ever done before; but he felt the restraint, and was with her as little as possible, which, as she began to recover, was also a relief – for his blatant self-absorption, the everlasting I, I, I, of his conversation, and his low views of life, rasped her irritable nerves beyond endurance.
One day, coming into the drawing-room about tea-time, with muddy boots and his hat on, he found her lying on the sofa, prostrated with nervous headache. The days closed in early then, and she had had the fire lighted and the curtains drawn, but could not bear the gaslight because of her head.
"Well, this isn't brilliant," he began, at the top of his voice. "A little more light would suit me." He struck a match and turned the gas full on. "That's better," he said; "and some tea would be refreshing after my walk. I've done the whole trudge on foot this afternoon, and I consider that's a credit to me. You won't find many rising young men economising in the matter of horseflesh as I do, or in anything else. I'll undertake to say I spend less on myself than any other man in the diocese." He went to the door instead of ringing the bell, and shouted down the passage to Minna to bring him some tea.
Beth shut her eyes and groaned inwardly.
When the tea came, Dan poured some out for himself, remarking, "I suppose you've had yours." Beth had not, but she was beyond making any effort to help herself at the moment. Dan, who always ate at a greedy rate, left off talking for a little; and during the interval, Beth was startled by something cold touching her hand. She opened her eyes, and found a dainty little black-and-tan terrier standing up, with its forepaws on the couch, looking at her.
"You're a pretty thing," she said. "Where have you come from?"
"Oh, is that the dog?" said Dan, looking round to see to whom she was talking. "He followed me in. I don't know who he belongs to; but as I happen to want a little dog, he's welcome."
"But he's very well-bred, isn't he," said Beth, "and valuable? Look at his pencilled paws, and thin tail, and sharp ears pricked to attention. He's listening to what we are saying with the greatest intelligence. I'm sure he's a pet, and his owners will want him back."
"Let them come and fetch him, then," said Dan.
Then it occurred to Beth that Dan had probably bought him to present to somebody, but chose to lie about it for reasons of his own, so she said no more.
The next night, about ten o'clock, Dan was called out, and did not return. Beth, being very wideawake, sat up late, playing patience first of all, and then reading a shilling shocker of Dan's, which she had taken up casually and become interested in. The story was of an extremely sensational kind, and she found herself being wrought up by it to a high pitch of nervous excitement. At the slightest noise she jumped; and then she became oppressed by the silence, and found herself peering into the dark corners of the room, and hesitating to glance over her shoulder, as if she feared to see something. She supposed the servants had not yet gone to bed, for she heard at intervals what seemed to be a human voice. After a time, however, it struck her that there was something unusual in the regularity of the sound, and, although she continued to read, she found herself waiting involuntarily, with strained attention, for it to be repeated. When it occurred again, she thought it sounded suspiciously like a cry of pain; and the next time it came she was sure of it. Instantly forgetting herself and her nervous tremors, she threw down her book and went to see what was the matter. She stood a moment in the hall, where the gas had been left burning, and listened; but all was still. Then she opened the door of communication into the kitchen regions, and found that that part of the house was all in darkness. The servants had gone to bed. Holding the door open, she stood a little, and listened again; but, as she heard nothing, she began to think her fancy had played her a trick, when, just beside her, as it seemed, some one shrieked. Beth, gasping with terror, ran back into the hall, and struck a match to light one of the bed-candles that stood on a table, her impulse being to go to the rescue in spite of her deadly fright. It seemed an age before she could get the candle lit with her trembling hands, and, in the interval, the horrible cry recurred, and this time she thought it came from the surgery. Could any sick person have been left there locked up? Dan always kept the room locked up, and Beth had hardly ever been in it. She went to the door now, bent on breaking it open, but she found that for once the key had been left in the lock. She turned it and entered boldly; but her candle flickered as she opened the door, so that, at first, she could see nothing distinctly. She held it high above her head, however, and as the flame became steady she looked about her. There was no one to be seen. The room was large and bare. All that it contained was a bookcase, some shelves with books on them, a writing-table and chair, an arm-chair, a couch, and another table of common deal, like a kitchen table, on which was a variety of things – bottles, books, and instruments apparently – all covered up with a calico sheet.
Beth, checked again in her search, was considering what to do next, when the horrid cry was once more repeated. It seemed to come from under the calico sheet. Beth lighted the gas, put down her candle, and going to the table, took the sheet off deliberately, and saw a sight too sickening for description. The little black-and-tan terrier, the bonny wee thing which had been so blithe and greeted her so confidently only the evening before, lay there, fastened into a sort of frame in a position which alone must have been agonising. But that was not all.
Beth had heard of these horrors before, but little suspected that they were carried on under that very roof. She had turned sick at the sight, a low cry escaped her, and her great compassionate heart swelled with rage; but she acted without hesitation.
Snatching up her candle, she went to the shelves where the bottles were, looked along the row of red labels, found what she wanted, went back to the table, and poured some drops down the poor little tortured creature's throat.
In a moment its sufferings ceased.
Then Beth covered the table with the calico sheet mechanically, put the bottle back in its place, turned out the gas, and left the room, locking the door after her. Her eyes were haggard and her teeth were clenched, but she felt the stronger for a brave determination, and more herself than she had done for many months.
Maclure only came in to bathe and breakfast next morning, and she scarcely exchanged a word with him before he went out again; but in the afternoon he came into the drawing-room, where she was writing a letter, and began to talk as if he meant to be sociable. He had his usual air of having lavished much attention on his personal adornment – too much for manliness; and, in spite of the night work, his hair shone as glossy black, his complexion was as bright and clear, and his general appearance as fresh and healthy, as care of himself and complete indifference to other people, except in so far as his own well-being might be affected by them, could make it. Beth watched him surveying himself in the glass from different points of view with a complacent smile, and felt that his physical advantages, and the superabundant vitality which made the business of living such an easy enjoyable farce to him, made his inhuman callousness all the more repulsive.
"I should go out if I were you," he said, peering close into the glass at the corner of his eye, where he fancied he had detected the faint criss-cross of coming crows' feet "I'd never stay mugging up in the house, withering. Look at me! I go out in all weathers, and I'll undertake to say I'm a pretty good specimen both of health and spirits."
It was so unusual for Dan to recommend Beth to do anything for her own good that she began to wonder what he wanted; she had observed that he always felt kindly disposed towards people when he was asking a favour of them.
"And, by-the-bye," he pursued, turning his back to the mirror and craning his neck to see the set of his coat-tails, "you might do something for me when you are out. Wilberforce is worrying for his money. It's damned cheek. I sent him a large order for whisky the other day to keep him quiet, but it hasn't answered. I wish you would go and see him – go with a long face, like a good girl, and tell him I'm only waiting till I get my own accounts in. Have a little chat with him, you know, and all that sort of thing – lay yourself out to please him, in fact. He's a gentlemanly fellow for a wine-merchant, and has a weakness for pretty women. If you go, I'll take my dick he'll not trouble us with a bill for the next six months."
"It seems to me," said Beth in her quietest way, "that when a husband asks his wife to make use of her personal appearance or charm of manner to obtain a favour for him from another man, he is requiring something of her which is not at all consistent with her self-respect."
Dan stopped short with his hand up to his moustache to twist it, his bonhomie cast aside in a moment. "Oh, damn your self-respect!" he said brutally. "Your cursed book-talk is enough to drive a man to the devil. Anybody but you, with your 'views' and 'opinions' and fads and fancies generally, would be only too glad to oblige a good husband in such a small matter. And surely to God I know what is consistent with your self-respect! I should be the last person in the world to allow you to compromise it! But your eyes will be opened, and the cursed conceit taken out of you some day, madam, I can tell you! You'll live to regret the way you've treated me, I promise you!"
"My eyes have been pretty well opened as it is," Beth answered. "You left the key in the surgery door last night."
"And you went in there spying on me, did you? That was honourable!" he exclaimed in a voice of scorn.
"I heard the wretched creature you had been vivisecting crying in its agony, and I thought it was a human being, and went to see," Beth answered, speaking in the even, dispassionate way which she had found such an effectual check on Dan's vulgar bluster.
"You killed that dog, then!" he exclaimed, turning on her savagely. "How dare you?"
Beth rose from the writing-table, and went and stretched herself out on the sofa, deliberately facing him.
"How dare you?" she inquired.
"How dare I, indeed, in my own house!" he bawled. "Now, look here, madam, I'm not going to have any of your damned interference, and so I tell you."
"Please, I am not deaf," she remonstrated gently. "And now, look here, sir, I am not going to have any of your damnable cruelties going on under the same roof with me. I have endured your sensuality and your corrupt conversation weakly, partly because I knew no better, and partly because I was the only sufferer, as it seemed to me, in the narrow outlook I had on life until lately; but I know better now. I know that every woman who submits in such matters is not only a party to her own degradation, but connives at the degradation of her whole sex. Our marriage never can be a true marriage, the spiritual, intellectual, physical union of a man and a woman for the purpose of perfect companionship. We have none of the higher aspirations in common, we should be none the happier for tender experiences of parenthood, none the holier for any joy or sorrow, pain or pleasure, that might come to us to strengthen and ennoble us if rightly enjoyed or endured. And this, I think, is not altogether my fault. But however that may be, it is out of my power to remedy it now. All I can do is to prevent unedifying scenes between us by showing you such courtesy and consideration as is possible. On this occasion I will show you courtesy, but the consideration is due to me. A woman does not marry to have her heart wrung, her health destroyed, her life made wretched by anything that is preventable, and I intend to put a stop to this last discovered hellish practice of yours. I will not allow it, and if you dare to attempt it again, I will call in the townsfolk to see you at your brutal work."
She spoke with decision, in the tone of one who has determined on her plan of action and will fearlessly pursue it. A great gravity settled on Daniel Maclure. He stood still a little reflecting, then came to the fire, beside which Beth, who had risen restlessly as she spoke, was now sitting in an arm-chair. He drew up another chair, and sat down also, having resolved, in face of the gravity of the situation, to try some of his old tactics, and some new ones as well. His first pose was to gaze into the fire ruefully for awhile, and then his fine eyes slowly filled with tears.
"It must have been a brutal sight," he said at last, "and I can't tell you how sorry I am you saw it. I don't wonder you're shaken, poor little girl, and it's natural that the shock should have made you unreasonable and uncharitable – unlike yourself, in fact, for I never knew a more reasonable woman when you are in your right mind, or a more charitable. I'm not so bad, however, as you think me. I never intended to inflict suffering on the creature. I didn't know he'd recover. I had given him a dose of curare."
"The drug that paralyses without deadening the sense of pain," Beth interposed. "I have heard of the tender mercies of the vivisector. He saves himself as much as he can in the matter of distracting noises."
Dan had mentioned curare to give a persuasive touch of scientific accuracy to his explanation, not suspecting that she knew the properties of the drug, and he was taken aback for a moment; but he craftily abandoned that point and took up another.
"These experiments must be made, in the interests of suffering humanity, more's the pity," he said, sighing.
"In the interests of cruel and ambitious scientific men, struggling to outstrip each other, and make money, and win fame for themselves regardless of the cost. They were ready enough in old days to vivisect human beings when it was allowed, and they would do it again if they dared."
"Now look here, Beth; don't be rabid," said Dan temperately. "Just think of the sufferings medical men are able to relieve nowadays in consequence of these researches."
"Good authorities say that nothing useful has been discovered by vivisection that could not have been discovered without it," Beth rejoined. "And even if it had been the means of saving human life, that would not justify your employment of it. There never could be a human life worth saving at such an expense of suffering to other creatures. It isn't as if you made an experiment and had done with it either. One generation after another of you repeats the same experiments to verify them, to see for yourselves, for practice; and so countless helpless creatures are being tortured continually by numbers of men who are degraded and brutalised themselves by their experiments. Had I known you were a vivisector, I should not only have refused to marry you, I should have declined to associate with you. To conceal such a thing from the woman you were about to marry was a cruel injustice – a fraud."
"I concealed nothing from you that you were old enough to understand and take a right view of," Dan protested.
"According to custom," said Beth. "Anything that might prevent a woman accepting a man is carefully concealed from her. That kind of cant is wearisome. You did not think me too young to put at the head of a house, or to run the risk of becoming a mother, although I have heard you dilate yourself on the horrors of premature motherhood. But that is the way with men. For anything that suits their own convenience they are ingenious in finding excuses. As a rule, they see but one side of a social question, and that is their own. I cannot understand any but unsexed women associating with vivisectors. Don't pretend you pursue such experiments reluctantly – you delight in them. But, whatever the excuse for them, I am sure that the time is coming when the vivisector will be treated like the people who prepared the dead for embalming in ancient Egypt. You will be called in when there is no help for it; but, your task accomplished, you will be driven out of all decent society, to consort with the hangman – if even he will associate with you."
"Well, well!" Dan ejaculated, gazing into the fire sorrowfully. "But I suppose this is what we should expect. It's the way of the world. A scientific man who devotes all his time and talents to relieving his fellow-creatures must expect to be misunderstood and reviled by way of reward. You send for us when you want us – there's nobody like the doctor then; but you'll grudge every penny you've got to give us, and you'd not pay at all if you could help it. I should know."
"I was not speaking of doctors," Beth rejoined. "I was speaking of vivisectors. But after all, what is the great outcome of your extraordinary science? What do you do with it? Keep multitudes alive and suffering who would be happily dead and at rest but for you! If you practised with the honest intention of doing as much good as you could, you would not be content merely to treat effects as you do for the most part; you would strike at causes also; and we should hear more of prevention and less of wonderful cures. You dazzle the blockhead public with a showy operation, and no one thinks of asking why it is that the necessity for this same operation recurs so often. You know, probably, but you disclaim responsibility in the matter. It is not your place to teach the public, you modestly protest."
"I don't know how you can say that in the face of the effort we have made to stamp out disease. Why, look at zymotic diseases alone!"
"Exactly!" Beth answered. "Zymotic diseases alone! But why draw the line there? And what are you doing to improve the race, to strengthen its power to resist disease? You talk about Nature when it suits you; but it is the cant of the subject you employ, for you are at variance with Nature. Your whole endeavour is to thwart her. Nature decrees the survival of the fittest; you exercise your skill to preserve the unfittest, and stop there – at the beginning of your responsibilities, as it seems to me. Let the unfit who are with us live, and save them from suffering when you can, by all means; but take pains to prevent the appearance of any more of them. By the reproduction of the unfit, the strength, the beauty, the morality of the race is undermined, and with them its best chances of happiness. Yes, you certainly do your best to stamp out measles, smallpox, scarlet fever, and all that group – diseases that do not necessarily leave any permanent mark on the constitution; but at the same time you connive at the spread of the worst disease to which we are liable. About that you preserve the strictest professional secrecy. Only to-day, in the Times, there is the report of a discussion on the subject at a meeting of the International Congress of Legal Medicine – where is it?" She took up the paper and read: – "'There was an important debate on the spread of an infamous disease by wet nurses. This question is all the more urgent because, though the greatest dangers and complications are involved, it is very generally neglected… When a doctor knows that the parents of a child are tainted, should he so far disregard the professional secrecy to which he is bound as to warn the nurse of her danger in suckling the child?' Apparently not! The poor woman must take her chance, as the child's unfortunate mother had to do when she married."
"Ah, now you see for yourself, and will become reasonable, it is to be hoped," he interrupted, rubbing his hands complacently; "for it is precisely in order to check that particular disease that appointments like mine are made."
"It is precisely in order to make vice safe for men that such appointments are made," she answered. "Medical etiquette would not stop where it does, at the degradation of those unfortunate women, if you were honestly attempting to put a stop to that disease. You would have it reported, irrespective of the sex of the sufferer, like any other disease that is dangerous to the health of the community. It is not contrary to etiquette to break your peculiar professional secrecy in the case of a woman, but it would be in the case of a man; so you punish the women, and let the men go free to spread the evil from one generation to another as they like. O justice! O consistency! I don't wonder we have been shunned since we came to Slane. A man in your position is a mere pander, and right glad am I of what I have suffered from the scorn and contempt of the people who would not associate with us. It shows that the right spirit is abroad in the community."
"Pander!" Dan ejaculated. "I am sorry to hear you use such a word, Beth."
"It is the right word, unfortunately," she answered.
"You oughtn't to know anything about these things," the chaste Daniel observed, with an air of offended delicacy. "Women can't know enough to see the matter from the right point of view, and so they make mischief."
"Ah, you don't appreciate that women have grown out of their intellectual infancy," Beth said, "and have opinions and a point of view of their own in social matters, especially where their own sex is concerned. You are still in the days of old Chavasse, who expatiates in his 'Advice to a Wife' on the dangers of men marrying unhealthy women, but says not a word of warning to women on the risk of marrying unhealthy men. You would keep us blindfolded as we were in his day, and abandon us to our fate in like manner; but it can't be done any more, my friend. You can hide nothing from sensible women now that concerns the good of the community. We know there is no protection for women against this infamous disease, and no punishment for the men who spread it; and we consider the fact a disgrace to every medical man alive."
"You have a nice opinion of the men of your husband's profession!" Dan observed sarcastically.
"I have the highest opinion of medical men – such medical men as Sir George Galbraith," she replied. "I have seen something of their high-mindedness, their courage, their devotion, and their genuine disinterestedness; and I feel sure that in time their efforts will leaven the whole mass of callousness and cruelty against which they have to contend in their profession. The hope of humanity is in the doctors, and they will not fail us. Like Christ, they will teach as well as heal."
"Rubbish!" said Dan. "As I've told you before, it isn't our business to mind the morals of the people. It's for the parsons to fight the devil."
"But," said Beth, "as I answered you before, you cannot attend to the health of the community properly without also minding its morals. The real old devil is disease."
Dan left his seat and walked to the window, where he stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out for awhile.
"Well, this is enough jawbation for one day, I hope," he said at last, turning round. "Marrying a woman like you is enough to drive a man to the devil. I've a jolly good mind to go and get drunk. I declare to God if I could get drunk overnight and feel all right again in the morning, I'd be drunk every night. But it can't be done," he added regretfully. "There are drawbacks to everything."
Beth looked at him imperturbably while he was speaking, then turned her attention to the fire.
"You know my views now on the subject of vivisection," she said at last. "If there is any more of it here, I shall leave the house, and publish the reason. And you also know what I consider I owe myself in the way of self-respect. You must beguile your creditors by other means than my personal appearance."
She had spoken all through in the most temperate tone, and now, when she had finished, she leaned back in her chair and folded her hands with a sigh, as of one who had finished a hard task and would rest.
Dan looked at her with evident distaste, and considered a little, searching for something more to say that might move her, some argument that should persuade or convince; but, as nothing occurred to him, he left the room, banging the door after him in his ill-conditioned way, because he knew that the noise would be a racking offence to her overwrought nerves.
But from that time forward everything he did was an offence to Beth, a source of irritation. In spite of herself, she detected all the insincerity of his professions, the mean motives of his acts. Up to this time she had been more kindly disposed towards him than she herself knew. All she had wanted was to be able to care for him, to find some consistency in him, something to respect, and to which she could pin her faith; but now she knew him for what he was exactly – shallow, pretentious, plausible, vulgar-minded, without principle; a man of false pretensions and vain professions; utterly untrustworthy; saying what would suit himself at the moment, or just what occurred to him, not what he thought, but what he imagined he was expected to say. Beth had never heard him condemn a vice or habit which she did not afterwards find him practising himself. She used to wonder if he deceived himself, or was only intent on deceiving her; but from close observation of him at this period, she became convinced that, for the time being, he entered into whatever part he was playing, and hence his extreme plausibility. Beth found herself studying him continually with a curious sort of impersonal interest; he was a subject that repelled her, but from which, nevertheless, she could not tear herself away. His hands in particular, his handsome white hands, had a horrid sort of fascination for her. She had admired them while she thought of them as the healing hands of the physician, bringing hope and health; but now she knew them to be the cruel hands of the vivisector, associated with torture, from which humanity instinctively shrinks; and when he touched her, her delicate skin crisped with a shudder. She used to wonder how he could eat with hands so polluted, and once, at dessert, when he handed her a piece of orange in his fingers, she was obliged to leave it on her plate, she could not swallow it.