Part 85 (1/2)
”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 pa.s.sage. She bore the suspicion awhile, then jumped out of bed impetuously and opened the door. The gas was burning low in the pa.s.sage, 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 been impossible, 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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.sed 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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 a.s.severate. ”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--help _me_ also 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 s.n.a.t.c.hes, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 greaves Of 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.