Part 80 (1/2)
Do! and talk this over with us. I can see that it has been a great shock to you.”
”I cannot answer you now,” said Beth, ”I must think--I must think what I had better do.”
”Yes, think it over,” said Angelica, ”then write and tell me when you will come. Only do come. You will find yourself among friends--congenial friends, I venture to prophesy.”
When Mrs. Kilroy had gone, Beth went to her bedroom, and waited there for Dan. It was the only place where she could be sure of seeing him alone. He dressed for dinner now that Miss Petterick was with them.
Dan came in whistling hilariously. He stopped short when he saw Beth's face.
”What's up?” he asked.
”Mrs. Kilroy has been here.”
”I hope you thanked her for nothing!”
”I'm afraid I forgot to thank her at all,” Beth said, ”although she has put me under an obligation to her.”
”May I ask what the obligation is?”
”She told me frankly why no decent woman will a.s.sociate with us. It is not my fault after all, it seems, but yours--you and your Lock Hospital. It is against the Anglo-Saxon spirit to admit panders into society.”
”Oh, she told you about that, did she, the meddling busybody!” he answered coolly. ”I was afraid they would, some of them, d.a.m.n them!
and I knew you would go into hysterics. She didn't tell you the necessity for it, I suppose, nor the good it is doing; but I will; so just listen to me, then you'll see perhaps that I know more about it than these canting sentimentalists.”
Beth, sitting in judgment on him, set her mouth and listened in silence until he stopped. In his own defence he gave her many revolting details couched in the coa.r.s.est language.
”But then, in the name of justice,” she exclaimed, ”what means do you take to protect those poor unfortunate women from disease? What do you do to the men who spread it? What becomes of diseased men?”
”Oh, they marry, I suppose. Anyhow, that is not my business. Doctors can't be expected to preach morals. Sanitation is our business.”
”But aren't morals closely connected with sanitation?” Beth said. ”And why, if sanitation is your business, do you take no radical measures with regard to this horrible disease? Why do you not have it reported, never mind who gets it, as scarlet fever, smallpox, and other diseases--all less disastrous to the general health of the community--are reported?”
Dan shrugged his shoulders. ”It's a deuced awkward thing for a man to be suspected of disease. It's a stigma, and might spoil his prospects.
Women are so cursedly prying nowadays. They've got wind of its being incurable, and many a one won't marry a man if a suspicion of it attaches to him.”
”I see,” said Beth. ”The principles of the medical profession with regard to sanitation when women are in question seem to be peculiar. I wish to Heaven I had known them sooner.” She hid her face in her hands, and suddenly burst into tears.
Dan scowled. ”Well, this is nice!” he exclaimed. ”I have had a devilish hard day's work, and come in cheery, as usual, to do my best to make things pleasant for you, and this is the reception I get!
You're a nice pill, indeed!” He went off muttering into his dressing-room and slammed the door.
When he appeared in the drawing-room, he found Beth and Bertha chatting together as usual, and as, during the rest of the evening, he could detect no difference in Beth's manner, he congratulated himself that she was going to accept the position as inevitable, and say no more about it. It was not Beth's way to return to a disagreeable subject once it had been discussed, unless she meant to do something in the matter, and Dan conceived that there was nothing to be done in this instance. He considered that he was not the sort of man it was safe for women to interfere with, and he guessed she knew it!
He was mistaken, however, when he supposed that she had let the subject drop, and was going to resign herself to an invidious position. She was merely letting it lapse until she understood it. It was all as new to her as it was horrifying, and she required time to study both sides of the question. Her own sense of justice was too acute to let her accept at once the accusation that so-called civilised men, who boast of their chivalrous protection of the ”weaker s.e.x,” had imposed upon women a special public degradation, while the most abandoned and culpable of their own s.e.x were not only allowed to go unpunished, but to spread vice and disease where they listed. The iniquitous injustice and cruelty of it all made her sick and sorry for men, and reluctant to believe it.
A few days after Mrs. Kilroy's visit, Mrs. Carne called on Beth. Mrs.
Carne always followed the county people. To her they were a sacred set. Her faith in all they did was touching and sincere. The stupidest remark of the stupidest county lady impressed her more than the most brilliant wit of a professional man's wife. When she stayed at a country-house, whatever the tone of it, she felt like a shriven saint, so uplifted was she by reverence for rank. On finding, therefore, that some of the most influential ladies in the county were diffidently anxious to win Beth into their set, rather than prepared to admit her with confident patronage, as Mrs. Carne would have expected, it was natural that she should revise her own opinion of Beth, and also seek to cultivate her acquaintance.
She called in the morning by way of being friendly; but Beth, who was hard at work at the time, did not feel grateful for the attention.
Minna showed Mrs. Carne straight into the dining-room, where Beth usually worked now that Bertha was on the premises. Bertha happened to be out that morning, and Mrs. Carne surprised Beth sitting alone at a table covered with books and papers.