Part 76 (1/2)
”Why should I?” she asked.
”Well, it isn't right that he should come to see you, and I won't have it,” he reiterated.
”Do you mean that I am not to have any friends of my own?” she demanded.
”_He_ is not to be one of your friends,” Dan answered doggedly.
”And what explanation am I to give him, please?” she asked politely.
”I won't have you giving him any explanation.”
”My dear Dan,” she rejoined, ”when you speak in that way, you show an utter want of knowledge of my character. If I will not allow you to insult me, and bully me, and bl.u.s.ter at me, it is not likely that I will allow you to insult my friends. If Sir George Galbraith's visits are to stop, I shall tell him the reason exactly. He at least is a gentleman.”
”That is as much as to say that I am not,” Dan bl.u.s.tered.
”You certainly are not behaving like one now,” Beth coolly rejoined.
”But there! You have my ultimatum. I am not going to waste any more time in vulgar scenes with you.”
”Ultimatum, indeed!” he jeered. ”Well, you _are_, you know! You'll write and explain to him, will you, that your husband's jealous of him? That shows the terms you are on!”
”It is jealousy then, is it?” said Beth. ”Thank you. Now I understand you.”
Dan's evil mood took another turn. His anger changed to self-pity. ”Oh dear! oh dear! what am I to do with you?” he exclaimed. ”And after all I've done for you--to treat me like this.” He took out his pocket-handkerchief and wiped away the tears which any mention of his own goodness and the treatment he received from others always brought to his eyes.
Beth watched him contemptuously, yet her heart smote her. He was a poor creature, but for that very reason, and because she was strong, surely she should be gentle with him.
”Look here, Dan,” she said. ”I have never knowingly done you any wrong in thought, or word, or deed; all you have said to me to-day has been ridiculously wrong-headed; but never mind. Stop crying, do, and don't let us have any more idiotic jealousy. Why, it was Lady Galbraith who sent me the flowers and fruit, with a kind message of apology because she has not been able to call. Why should not she be jealous?”
”Oh, she's a fool!” Dan rejoined, recovering himself. ”She leads him the life of a dog with her fears and fancies, and she won't take any part in his philanthropic work, though he wishes it. She's a pretty pill!”
The servant came in at this moment to lay the table for lunch, and Dan went to the looking-gla.s.s with the inconsequence of a child, and forgot his grievance in the contemplation of his own beloved image and in abusing Lady Galbraith. Abusing somebody was mental relaxation of the most agreeable kind to him. Feeling that he had gone too far, he was gracious to Beth during lunch, and just before he went out he kissed her, and said, ”We won't mention that fellow again, Beth. I don't believe you'd do anything dishonourable.”
”I should think not!” said Beth.
When he had gone, she returned to her secret chamber, the one little corner sacred to herself, to her purest, n.o.blest thoughts, her highest aspirations; and as she looked round, it seemed as if ages had pa.s.sed since she last entered it, full of happiness and hope. It was as if she had been innocent then, and was now corrupted. Her self-control did not give way, but she could do nothing, and just sat there, wan with horror; and as she sat, every now and then she s.h.i.+vered from head to foot. She had known of course in a general way that such things did happen, that married women did give their husbands cause for jealousy; but to her mind they were a kind of married women who lived in another sphere where she was not likely to encounter them. She had never expected to be brought near such an enormity, let alone to have it brought home to herself in a horrible accusation; and the effect of it was a shock to her nervous system--one of those stunning blows which are scarcely felt at first, but are agonising in their after effects.
When the reaction set in, Beth's disgust was so great it took a physical form, and ended by making her violently sick. It was days before she quite recovered, and in one sense of the word she was never the same again.
CHAPTER XLI
Dan said no more about Sir George Galbraith; and indeed he had no excuse, for Sir George did not come again. There were other men, however, who came to the house, Dan's own friends; and now that Beth's eyes were opened, she perceived that he watched them all suspiciously if they paid her any attention; and if she showed the slightest pleasure in the conversation of any of them, he would be sure to make some sneering remark about it afterwards. Dan was so radically vicious that the notion of any one being virtuous except under compulsion was incomprehensible to him.
”Your spirits seem to go up when Mr. Vanrickards is here,” he observed one day.
”Thank you for warning me,” Beth answered, descending to his level in spite of herself. ”I will be properly depressed the next time he comes.”
But although she could keep him in check so that he dared not say all that he had in his mind, she understood him; and the worst of it was that his coa.r.s.e and brutal jealousy accustomed her to the suspicion, and made her contemplate the possibility of such a lapse as he had in his mind. She began to believe that he would not have tormented himself so if husbands did not ordinarily have good reason to be jealous of their wives. She concluded that such treachery of man to man as he dreaded must be normal. And then also she realised that it was thought possible for a married woman to fall in love, and even wondered at last if that would ever be her own case. Dan had, in fact, destroyed his own best safeguard. If a man would keep his wife from evil, he should not teach her to suspect herself--neither should he familiarise her with ideas of vice. Since their marriage Dan's whole conversation, and the depravity of his tastes and habits, had tended towards the brutalisation of Beth. Married life for her was one long initiation into the ways of the vicious.
Dr. Maclure's sordid jealousy made him the laughing-stock of the place, though he never suspected it. His conceit was too great to let him suppose that any sentiment of his could provoke ridicule. It became matter for common gossip, however, and from that time forward gentlemen ceased to visit the house. Men of a certain kind came still, men who were bound to Dan by kindred tastes, but not such as he cared to introduce to Beth. These boon companions generally came in the evening, and were entertained in the dining-room, where they spent the night together, smoking, drinking, and talking after the manner of their kind. Beth could not use her secret chamber after dark for fear of the light being seen, so she stayed in the drawing-room alone till she went to bed. She found those evenings interminable, and the nights more trying still. She could not read or write because of the noise in the dining-room, and had to fall back on her sewing for occupation; but sewing left her mind open to any obsession, and only too often, with the gross laughter from the next room, sc.r.a.ps of the lewd topics her husband delighted in came to her recollection. When Dan discoursed about such things he was at the high-water mark of pleasure, his countenance glowed, and enjoyment of the subject was expressed in all his person. Beth's better nature revolted, but alas!