WhenBeth returned to Slane, Dan received her so joyously she wondered what particularly successful piece of turpitude he had been busy about. He was always effusive to her when evil things went well with him. At first she had supposed that this effusiveness was the outcome of affection for her; but when she began to know him, she perceived that it was only the expression of some personal gratification. He had been quite demonstrative in his attentions to her during the time that Bertha Petterick stayed in the house.
"By the way, there is a letter for you," he said, when they were at lunch.
"Is there?" Beth answered. "Who from?"
"How the devil am I to know?" he rejoined, glancing up at the mantelpiece. "I can't tell who your correspondents are by instinct."
Beth's eye followed his to the mantelpiece, where she saw a large square envelope propped up against an ornament in a conspicuous position, and recognised the unmistakable, big, clear, firm hand of Bertha Petterick, and the thick kind of paper she always used.
Beth had been thinking about Bertha on the way home. She knew that, if Bertha had been as wrong in body as in mind and moral nature, she would have had compassion on her; and shehad determined to tolerate her as it was, to do what she could for her maimed soul, just as she would have ministered to her had her malady been physical. But Dan's hypocrisy about the letter ruffled her into opposition. He knew Bertha's handwriting as well as she did, and was doubtless equally well acquainted with the contents of the letter; and this affectation of ignorance must therefore mean something special. Probably he was anxious to propitiate her with regard to whatever Bertha might be writing about. But Beth was not to be managed in that way, and so she let the letter be.
As she was leaving the room after lunch, Dan called after her: "You have forgotten your letter."
"It doesn't matter," Beth answered. "Any time will do for that."
The letter was left there for days unopened, and it had the effect of stopping the conversation at meals, for although Dan did not allude to it again, he constantly glanced at it, and it was evident that he had it on his mind.
At last, one day, when he came in, he said, "I have just seen Mrs. Petterick, and she tells me Bertha wrote to you days ago, and has had no answer."
"Indeed," Beth observed indifferently. "I shouldn't think she could have anything to say to me that specially required an answer."
Dan fidgeted about a little, then burst out suddenly, "Why the devil don't you open the girl's letter?"
"Because you pretended you didn't know who it was from," Beth said.
"I declare to God I never pretended anything of the kind," Dan answered hotly.
Beth laughed. Then she went to the mantelpiece, took down the letter, turned it over and displayed the huge monogram and scroll with "Bertha" printed on it, with which it was bedizened, laughed again a little, and threw the letter unopened into the fire, "There!" she said. "Let that be an end of the letter, and Bertha Petterick too, so far as I am concerned. She bores me, that girl; I will not be bothered with her."
"Well, well!" Dan exclaimed pathetically, looking hard at the ashes of the letter on the coals: "that's gratitude! I do my best to make an honest living for you, and you repay me by affronting one of my best patients. And what the unfortunate girl has done to offend you, the devil only knows. I'm sure she would have blacked your boots for you when she was here, she was so devoted."
"Shewaspretty servile, I grant that," Beth answered dispassionately. "But that is enough of Bertha Petterick, please.Here is the butcher's bill for the last month, and the baker's, the milk, the wine, the groceries, all nearly doubled on Bertha's account. If adding to your expenses in every way makes a good patient, she was excellent, certainly. I'll leave you the bills to console you; but, if you value your peace of mind, don't dare to worrymeabout them. You were quite right when you said I was too young to be troubled about money matters, and I shall not let myself be troubled—especially when they are matters, like these bills, for which I am not responsible." She was leaving the room as she spoke, but stopped at the door: "And, Dan," she added, quoting his favourite phrase, "I'd be cheery if I were you. There's nothing like being cheery. Why, look at me! I never let anything worry me!"
She left Dan speechless, and went to her secret chamber, where she sat and suffered for an hour, blaming herself for her lightness, her contrariness, her want of dignity, and all those faults which were the direct consequence of Dan's evil influence. She was falling farther and farther away from her ideal in everything, and knew it, but seemed to have lost the power to save herself. The degeneration had begun in small matters of discipline, apparently unimportant, but each one of consequence, in reality, as part of her system of self-control. From the moment we do a thing thinking it to be wrong, we degenerate. If it be a principle that we abandon, it does not matter what the principle is, our whole moral fibre is loosened by the gap it makes. Beth, who had hitherto shunned easy-chairs, as Aunt Victoria had taught her, lest she should be enervated by lolling, now began to take to them, and so lost the strengthening effect of a wholesome effort. Other little observances, too, little regular habits which discipline mind and body to such good purpose, slipped from her,—such as the care of her skin after the manner of the ladies of her family, who had been renowned for their wonderful complexions. This had been enjoined upon her by her mother in her early girlhood as a solemn duty, and had entailed much self-denial in matters of food and drink, quantities being restricted, and certain things prohibited at certain times, while others were forbidden altogether. She had had to exercise patience, also, in the concoction and use of delicately perfumed washes of tonic and emollient properties, home distilled, so as to be perfectly pure; all of which had been strictly practised by her, like sacred rites or superstitious observances upon the exact performance of which good fortune depends. In such matters she now became lax. And, besides the care of her person, she neglected the care of her clothes, which had been so beneficial to her mind; for it must be remembered that it was during those long hours of meditation, while she sat sewing, that her readinghad been digested, her knowledge assimilated, her opinions formed, and her random thoughts collected and arranged, ready to be turned to account on an emergency. Until this time, too, she had kept Sunday strictly as a day of rest. Books and work, and all else that had occupied her during the week, were put away on Saturday night, and not taken out again until Monday morning; and the consequence was complete mental relaxation. But now she began to do all kinds of little things which she had hitherto thought it wrong to do on Sunday, so that the sanitary effect of the day of rest—or of change of occupation, for sometimes Sunday duties are arduous—was gradually lost, and she no longer returned to her work on Monday strengthened and refreshed. Little by little her "good reading" was also neglected, and instead of relying upon her own resolution, as had hitherto been her wont, she began to seek the prop of an odd cup of tea or coffee at irregular hours, to raise her spirits if she felt down, or stimulate her if she were out of sorts and work was not easy; all of which tended to weaken her will. Then, by degrees, she began to lose the balance of mind which had been wont to carry her on from one little daily doing to another, with calm deliberation, taking them each in turn without haste or rest, and finding time for them all. Now, the things that she did not care about she began to do with a rush, so as to get to her writing. She wanted to be always at that; and the consequence was a wearing sensation, as of one who is driven to death, and has never time enough for any single thing.
But it was in these days, nevertheless, that she began to write with decision. Hitherto, she had been merely trying her pen—feeling her way; but now she unconsciously ceased to follow in other people's footsteps, and struck out for herself boldly. She had come back from Ilverthorpe with a burning idea to be expressed, and it was for the shortest, crispest, clearest way to express it that she tried. Foreign phrases she discarded, and she never attempted to produce an eccentric effect by galvanising obsolete words, rightly discarded for lack of vitality, into a ghastly semblance of life. Her own language, strong and pure, she found a sufficient instrument for her purpose. When the true impulse to write came, her fine theories about style only hampered her, so she cast them aside, as habitual affectations are cast aside and natural emotions naturally expressed, in moments of deep feeling; and from that time forward she displayed, what had doubtless been coming to her by practice all along, a method and a manner of her own.
She produced a little book at this time, the first thing of any real importance she had accomplished as yet; and during the writing of it she enjoyed an interval of unalloyed happiness, themost perfect that she had ever known. The world without became as nothing to her; it was the world within that signified. The terrible sense of loneliness, from which she had always suffered more or less, was suspended, and she began to wonder how it was she had ever felt so desolate, that often in the streets of Slane she would have been grateful to anybody who had spoken to her kindly. Now she said to herself, sincerely, "Never less alone than when alone!" And up in the quiet of her secret chamber, with the serene blue above, the green earth and the whispering trees below, and all her little treasures about her: the books, the pictures, the pretty hangings, and little ornaments for flowers; things she had indulged in by degrees since her mother's death had left her with the money in her hands which she had made to discharge Dan's debt—up there at her ease in that peaceful shrine, secure from intrusion, "There is no joy but calm!" was her constant ejaculation. Then again, too, she felt to perfection the fine wonder, the fine glow of a great inspiration, and realised anew that therein all the pleasures of the senses added together are contained; that inspiration in its higher manifestations is like love—that it is love, in fact—love without the lover; there being all the joy of love in it, but none of the trouble.
But, like most young writers when they set up a high ideal for themselves, and are striving conscientiously to arrive at it, because the thing came easily she fancied she had not done her best, and was dissatisfied. She talked to herself about fatal facility, without reflecting that in time ease comes by practice; nor did she discriminate between the flow of cheap ideas pumped up from any source for the occasion, which satisfies the conceit of shallow workers, and the deep stream that bubbles up of itself when it is once released, and flows freely from the convictions, the observations, and the knowledge of an earnest thinker. Diffidence is a help to some, but to Beth it was a hindrance, a source of weakness. There was no fear of her taking herself for a heaven-born genius. Her trouble had always been her doubt of the merit of anything she did. She should have been encouraged, but instead she had always been repressed. Accordingly, when she had finished her little masterpiece, she put it away with the idea of rewriting it, and making something of it when she should be able; and then she began a much more pretentious work, and thought it must be better because of the trouble it gave her.
Gradually, from now, she gave up all her time to reading and writing, and she overdid it. Work in excess is as much a vice as idleness, and it was particularly bad for Beth, whose constitution had begun to be undermined by dutiful submission. The consulting rooms of specialists are full of such cases. There aremarriages which for the ignorant girl preached into dutiful submission, whose "innocence" has been carefully preserved for the purpose, mean prostitution as absolute, as repugnant, as cruel, and as contrary to nature as that of the streets. Beth's marriage was one of those. Until she went to Ilverthorpe, she had never heard that there was a duty she owed to herself as well as to her husband; and, as Sir George Galbraith had said, her brain was too delicately poised for the life she had been leading. Work had been her opiate; but unfortunately she did not understand the symptoms which should have warned her that she was overdoing it, and her nerves became exceedingly irritable. Noises which she had never noticed in her life before began to worry her to death. Very often, when she was spoken to, she could hardly answer civilly. At meals everything that was handed to her was just the very thing she did not want. She quarrelled with all her food, drank quantities of strong coffee for the sake of the momentary exhilaration, and even tried wine; but as it only made her feel worse, she gave that up. Writing became a rage with her, and the more she had to force herself, the longer she sat at it. She would spend hours over one sentence, turning it and twisting it, and never be satisfied; and when she was at last obliged to stop and go downstairs lest she should be missed, she went with her brain congested, and her complexion, which was naturally pale and transparent, all flushed or blotched with streaks of crimson.
"What's the matter with your face?" Dan said to her one day, apt, as usual, to comment offensively on anything wrong.
"I should like you to tell me," Beth answered.
"You'd better take some citrate of iron and quinine."
"You've prescribed citrate of iron and quinine for everything I've ever had since I knew you," said Beth. "If I have any more of it, I shall be like the man in the quack advertisement, who felt he could conscientiously recommend a tonic because he had taken it for fourteen years. I should like something that would act a little quicker."
Dan left the room and banged the door.
That afternoon Beth, up in her shrine at work, suddenly began to wonder what he was doing. As a rule, she did not trouble herself about his pursuits, but now all at once she became anxious. The thought of all the unholy places that he might be at (and the unfortunate girl knew all about all of them, for there was no horror of life with which her husband had not made her acquainted), filled her with dread—with a sensation entirely new to her, and absolutely foreign to her normal nature. Her feeling for Dan and Bertha, when she discovered their treachery, had been one of contempt. Their disloyalty, andthe petty mean deceits which it entailed, made it difficult to tolerate their presence, and she was always glad to get rid of them, wherever they might go. Now, however, she was seized upon with a kind of rage at the recollection of their intrigue, of the scene in the garden, the glances she had intercepted, their stolen interviews, clandestine correspondence, and impudent security. It was all retrospective this feeling, but the torment of it was none the less acute for that. She recalled the scene in the garden, and her heart throbbed with anger. She regretted her own temperate conduct, and imagined herself stealing out upon them, standing before them, and pouring forth floods of invective till they cowered. She wished she had refused to let Bertha enter the house again, and had threatened to expose Dan if he did not meekly submit to her dictation. She ought to have exposed him too. She should have gone to Bertha's mother. But where was Dan at that moment? She jumped up, rushed down to her room, put on her outdoor things in hot haste, and ran downstairs determined to go and see; but as she entered the hall at one end of it, Dan himself came in by the hall-door at the other. The relief was extraordinary.
"Hallo! where are you off to?" he said.
"Just going for a little walk," she answered, speaking ungraciously and without looking at him. Now that she saw him, her ordinary feeling for him returned; but instead of being quiet and indifferent as usual, she found herself showing in her manner something of the contempt she felt, and it pleased her to do it. She was glad to go out, and be in the open air away from him; but she had not gone far before the torment in her mind began again. Why had he come in so unusually early? Was there anything going on in the house? He was always very familiar with the servants.
She stopped short at this, turned back, and went in as hurriedly as she had gone out. In the hall she stood a moment listening. The house seemed unusually quiet. A green baize door separated the kitchen and offices from the hall. She opened it, and saw Minna in the butler's pantry, cleaning the plate. Minna was parlour-maid now, a housemaid having been added to the establishment when Miss Petterick came, so that that young lady might be well waited on.
"I think we should give the girl full value for her money, you know, even if we do without something ourselves," Dan had said, in the generous thoughtful way that had so often imposed upon Beth.
Beth asked Minna where Drew, the housemaid, was.
"It's her afternoon out, ma'am," Minna answered.
"So it is," said Beth. "I had forgotten."
"Do you want anything, ma'am?" Minna asked. "You're looking poorly. Would you like a cup o' tea?"
"No, thank you," Beth rejoined, then changed her mind. "Yes, I should, though. Get me one while I'm taking my things off, and bring it to me in the dining-room. Where is your master?"
"I don't know, ma'am. I've not heard if he's come in; but it's full early for him yet," Minna replied, as she took off her working apron.
While she was talking to the girl, the worry in Beth's head stopped, and she felt as usual. Going quietly upstairs, she fancied she heard some one moving in her bedroom, and, entering it by way of the dressing-room, she discovered Dan on his knees on the floor, prying into one of the boxes she had had with her at Ilverthorpe, and kept locked until she should feel inclined to unpack it. He seemed to have had all the contents out, and was just deftly repacking it. As he replaced the dresses, he felt in the pocket of each, and in one he found an old letter which he read.
Beth withdrew on tiptoe, and went downstairs again, wondering at the man. She took off her hat and jacket, and ensconced herself with the newspaper in an easy-chair. Minna came presently with fragrant tea and hot buttered toast, and talked cheerfully about some of her own interests. Beth treated her servants like human beings, and rarely had any trouble with them. She had learnt the art from Harriet, who had awakened her sympathies, and taught her practically, when she was a child, what servants have to suffer; and "well loved and well served" exactly described what Beth was as a mistress. When Minna withdrew, and Beth had had her tea and toast, she felt quite right again, and read the paper with interest. The shock of the real trouble had ousted the imaginary one for the moment.
The next morning, however, as she toiled with flushed face and weary brain, stultifying her work with painful elaboration, she was seized with another fit of jealous rage, just as she had been the day before. Her mind in a moment, like a calm sea caught by a sudden tempest, seethed with horrible suspicions of her husband. His gross ideas, expressed in coarse language, had hitherto been banished from her mind by her natural refinement; but now, like the works of a disordered machine, whirling with irresponsible force, thoughts suggested by him came crowding in the language he habitually used, and she found herself accusing him with conviction of all she had ever heard others accused of by him. For a little she pursued this turn of thought, then all at once she jumped up and rushed downstairs, goaded again to act—to avenge herself—to dog him down to one of his haunts, and there confront him, revile him, expose him.
It was a tranquil grey day in early autumn, the kind of day, full of quiet charm, which had always been grateful to Beth; but now, as she stood on the doorstep, with wrinkled forehead, dilated eyes, and compressed lips, putting her gloves on in feverish haste, she felt no tranquillising charm, and saw no beauty in the tangled hedgerows bright with briony berries, the tinted beeches, the Canadian poplars whispering mysteriously by the watercourse at the end of the meadow, the glossy iridescent plumes of the rooks that passed in little parties silhouetted darkly bright against the empty sky; it was all without significance to her; her further faculty was suspended, and even the recollection of anything she had been wont to feel had lapsed, and she perceived no more in the scene surrounding, in the colours and forms of things, the sounds and motions, than those perceive whose eyes have never been opened to anything beyond what appears to the grazing cattle. In many a heavy hour she had found delight in nature; but now, again, she had lost that solace; the glory had departed, and she had sunk to one of the lowest depths of human pain.
Not understanding the frightful affliction that had come upon her, she made no attempt to control her disordered fancy, but hurried off into the town, and hovered about the places which Dan had pointed out as being of special evil interest, and searched the streets for him, acting upon the impulse without a doubt of the propriety of what she was doing. Had the obsession taken another form, had it seemed right to her to murder him, the necessity would have been as imperative, and she would have murdered him, not only without compunction, but with a sense of satisfaction in the deed.
She pursued her search for hours, but did not find him; then went home, and there he was, standing on the doorstep, looking out for her.
"Where on earth have you been?" he said.
"Where on earth have you been yourself?" she rejoined.
"Minding my own business," he answered.
"So have I," she retorted, pushing past him into the hall.
He had never seen her like that before, and he stood looking after her in perplexity.
She went upstairs and threw herself on her bed. The worry in her head was awful. Turn and toss as she would, the one idea pursued her, until at last she groaned aloud, "O God! release me from this dreadful man!"
After a time, being thoroughly exhausted, she dropped into a troubled sleep.
When she awoke, Dan was standing looking at her.
"Aren't you well, Beth?" he said. "You've been moaningand muttering and carrying on in your sleep as if you'd got fever."
"I don't think I am well," she answered in her natural manner, the pressure on her brain being easier at the moment of awakening.
He felt her pulse. "You'd better get into bed," he said, "and I'll fetch you a sedative draught. You'll be all right in the morning."
Beth was only too thankful to get into bed. When he returned with the draught, she asked him if he were going out again.
"No, not unless I'm sent for," he said. "Where the devil should I be going to? It's close on dinner-time."
Beth shut her eyes. "If he is sent for and goes," she reflected, "I shall know it is a ruse to deceive me; and I shall get up and follow him."
He left her to sleep and went downstairs. But Beth could not sleep. The draught quieted her mind for a little; then the worry began again as bad as ever, and she found herself straining her attention to discover to whom he was talking, for she fancied she heard him whispering with some one out in the passage. She bore the suspicion awhile, then jumped out of bed impetuously and opened the door. The gas was burning low in the passage, but she could see that there was no one about. Surely, though, there were voices downstairs? Barefooted, and only in her night-dress, she went to see. Yes, there were voices in the dining-room—now! She flung the door wide open. Dan and another man, a crony of his, who had dropped in casually, were sitting smoking and chatting over their whiskeys-and-sodas.
Beth, becoming conscious of her night-dress the moment she saw them, turned and fled back to her bed; greatly relieved in her mind by the shock of her own indiscretion.
"What a mad thing to do!" she thought. "I hope to goodness they didn't see me."
A mad thing to do!
The words, when they recurred to her, were a revelation. What had she been doing all day? Mad things! What was this sudden haunting horror that had seized upon her? Why, madness! Dan was just as he had always been. The change was in herself, and only madness could account for such a change. There was madness in the family. She remembered her father and the "moon-faced Bessie"—the familiarities with servants, too; surely her mother had suffered, and doubtless this misery which had come upon her had been communicated to her before her birth. Jealous-mad she was; that was what it meant, the one idea goading her on to do what would otherwise have beenimpossible, possessing her in spite of herself, and not to be banished by any effort of will.
"Heaven help me!" she groaned. "What will become of me?"
Then, as if in reply, there rose to her lips involuntarily the assurance which recurred to her now for her help and comfort in every hard moment of her life like a refrain: "I shall succeed."
And she set herself bravely to conceal her trouble, whatever it cost her, and to conquer it.
But it was a hard battle. For months the awful worry in her head continued, the same thoughts haunted her, the same jealous rage possessed her, and she knew no ease except when Dan was at hand. The trouble always passed when she had him under observation. She could not read, she could not write, she was too restless to sit and sew for more than a few moments at a time. Up and down stairs she went, out of the house and in again, fancying always, when in one place, that she would be better in another, but finding no peace anywhere, no brightness in the sunshine, no beauty in nature, no interest in life. Through the long solitary hours of the long solitary days she fought her affliction with her mouth set hard in determination to conquer it. She met the promptings of her disordered fancy with answers from her other self. "He and Bertha Petterick are together, that is why he is so late," the fiend would asseverate. "Very likely," her temperate self would reply. "But they may have been together any day this two years, and I knew it, and pitied and despised them, but felt no pain; why should I suffer now? Because my mind is disordered. But I shall recover! I shall succeed!"
She would look at the clock, however, every five minutes in an agony of suspense until Dan came in. Then she had to fight against the impulse to question him, which beset her as strongly as the impulse to follow him, and that was always upon her except when his presence arrested it. Never once through it all, however, did she think of death as a relief; it was life she looked to for help, more life and fuller. She could interest herself in nothing, care for nothing; all feeling of affection for any one had gone, and was replaced by suspicion and rage. In her torment her cry was, "Oh, if some one would only care for me! for me as I am with all my faults! If they would only forgive me my misery and help me to care again—helpmealso to the luxury of loving!"
Forgive her her misery! The world will forgive anything but that; it tramples on the wretched as the herd turns on a wounded beast, not to put it out of its pain, but because the sight of suffering is an offence to it. If we cannot enliven our acquaintances,they will do little to enliven us. Sad faces are shunned; and signs of suffering excite less sympathy than repulsion. The spirit of Christ the Consoler has been driven out from among us.
Beth poured herself out in letters at this time rather more than was her habit; it was an effort to get into touch with the rest of the world again. In one to Jim, speaking of her hopes of success, she said she should get on better with her work if she had more sympathy shown her; to which he replied by jeering at her. What did she mean by such nonsense? But that was the way with women; they were all sickly sentimental. Sympathy indeed! She should think herself devilish lucky to have a good husband and a home of her own. Many a girl would envy her. He wrote also to other members of the family on the subject, as if it were a rare joke worth spreading that Beth wanted more sympathy; and Beth received several letters in which the writers told her what their opinion was of her and her complaints as compared to that good husband of hers, who was always so bright and cheery. All their concern was for the worthy man who had done so much for Beth. They had no patience with her, could scarcely conceal their amusement with this last absurdity, but thought she should be laughed out of her fads and fancies. That was the only time Beth sought sympathy from any of her relations. Afterwards she took to writing them bitter letters in which she told them what she thought of them as freely as they told her. "What is the use," she said to Jim, "what is the use of sisters and wives being refined and virtuous if their fathers, brothers, husbands, are bar-loafers, men of corrupt imagination and depraved conversation? Surely, if we must live with such as these, all that is best in us adds to our misery rather than helps us. If we did not love the higher life ourselves, it would not hurt us to be brought into contact with the lower."
On receiving this letter, Jim wrote kindly to Dan, and said many things about what women were coming to with their ridiculous notions. But men were men and women were women, and that was all about it,—a lucid conclusion that appealed to Dan, who quoted it to Beth in discussions on the subject ever afterwards.
Beth broke down and despaired many times during the weary struggle with her mental affliction. She felt herself woefully changed; and not only had the light gone out of her life, but it seemed as if it never would return. When she awoke in the morning, she usually felt better for awhile, but the terrible torment in her mind returned inevitably, and rest and peace were banished for the day. It was then she learnt what is meant by the inner calm, and how greatly to be desired it is—desired above everything. The power to pray left her entirely during this phase.She could repeat prayers and extemporise them as of old, but there was no more satisfaction in the effort than in asking a favour of an empty room. Sometimes, and especially during the hideous nights, when she slept but little, and only in short snatches, she felt tempted to take something, stimulant or sedative; but this temptation she resisted bravely, and, the whole time, an extra cup of tea or coffee for the sake of the momentary relief was the only excess she committed. If she had not exercised her will in this, her case would have been hopeless; but, as it was, her self-denial, and the effort it entailed, kept up her mental strength, and helped more than anything to save her.
To beguile the long hours, she often stood in the dining-room window looking out. The window was rather above the road, so that she looked down on the people who passed, and she could also see over the hedge on the opposite side of the road into the meadow beyond. Small things distracted her sometimes, though nothing pleased her. If two rooks flew by together, she hoped for a better day; if one came first, she would not accept the omen, but waited, watching for two. By a curious coincidence, they generally passed, first one for sorrow, then two for mirth, then three for a wedding; and she would say to herself, first, bad luck, then good luck, then a marriage; and wonder how it would come about, but anyhow—"I shall succeed!" would flash from her and stimulate her.
One day, as she stood there watching, she saw a horseman come slowly down the road.
"A bowshot from her bower-eaves,He rode between the barley sheaves,The sun came dazzling through the leaves,And flamed upon the brazen greavesOf bold Sir Launcelot."
"A bowshot from her bower-eaves,He rode between the barley sheaves,The sun came dazzling through the leaves,And flamed upon the brazen greavesOf bold Sir Launcelot."
Beth's attention sharpened to sudden interest. As he came abreast of the window, the rider looked up, and Beth's heart bounded at the sight of his face, which was the face of a man from out of the long ago, virile, knightly, high-bred, refined; the face of one that lives for others, and lives openly. He had glanced up indifferently, but, on seeing Beth, a look of interest came into his eyes. It was as if he had recognised her; and she felt herself as if she had seen him before, but when or where, in what picture, in what dream, she could not tell.
With the first flush of healthy interest she had experienced for a long time, she watched him till he was all but out of sight, then shut her eyes that she might not see him vanish, for fear of bad luck; a superstition she had not practised since she was achild. When he had gone, she found herself with a happy impression of him in her mind, an impression of quiet dignity, and of strength in repose. "A man to be trusted," she thought; "true and tender, a perfect knight." The flash of interest or recognition that came into his countenance when he saw her haunted her; she recalled the colour of his blue eyes, noted the contrast they were to his dark hair and clear dark skin, and was pleased. In the afternoon she sat and sewed, and smiled to herself over her work with an easy mind. Her restlessness had subsided; Dan scarcely cost her a thought; the tension was released and a reaction had set in; but, at the time, she herself was quite unaware of it. All she felt was a good appetite for her tea.
"Minna," she said to the parlour-maid, "bring me a big cup of tea and a good plate of buttered toast. I'm famishing."
"That's good news, ma'am," Minna answered, for it was long since Beth had had any appetite at all.
The next day Beth stood at the window again, but without intention. She was thinking of her knight of the noble mien, however, and at about the same hour as on the day before, he came again, riding slowly down the road; and again he looked at Beth with a flash of interest in his face, to which she involuntarily responded. When he was out of sight she opened the window, and perceived to her glad surprise that the air was balmy, and on all things the sun shone, shedding joy.
The horrid spell was broken.
"A bowshot from her bower-eaves,He rode between the barley-sheaves."
"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 oneshrieked. 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, withyour '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 GodIknow what is consistent with your self-respect!Ishould 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 therespyingon 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 dareyou?" 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 yourdamnablecruelties 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 haveher 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 savinghuman 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 wouldstrike 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 theTimes, 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 wouldnot 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'tour 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 fromclose 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.
After that last scene the days dragged more intolerably than ever; but happily for Beth there were not many more of them without a break, for just as it seemed that endurance must end in some desperate act, Mrs. Kilroy sent her a pressing invitation to go and pay her a long visit in London; and Beth accepted it, and went with such a sense of relief as an invalid feels who, after long suffering, finds herself well, and out in the free fresh air once more.