The Beth Book
was roused at last by Minna, the parlour-maid. "Please, ma'am, a lady
wishes to see you," Minna said.
"Show her in," Beth answered listlessly. But the next moment she
stiffened with astonishment, for the lady who entered was Mrs. Kilroy
of Ilverthorpe.
"I am afraid I have taken you by surprise," Mrs. Kilroy began rather
nervously.
"Will you sit down?" Beth said coldly. "You cannot wonder if I am
surprised to see you. This is the first visit you have paid me,
although we met directly after I came to Slane some years ago. You
were kind and cordial on that occasion, but the next time I saw
you--at that ball--you slighted me; and after that you shunned me
until I met you the other day at Mrs. Carne's, and then you seemed
inclined to take me up again. I do not understand such caprices, and I
do not like them."
"It was not caprice," Mrs. Kilroy assured her. "I liked you very much
the first time we met, and I should have called immediately; but when
I asked for your address, I was told that your husband was in charge
of the Lock Hospital----"
"Yes, the hospital for the diseases of women," Beth said. "But what
difference does that make?"
"It made me jump to the hasty conclusion that you approved of the
degradation of your own sex," said Angelica.
"The degradation of my own sex!" said Beth bewildered. "What is a Lock
Hospital?"
Angelica explained the whole horrible apparatus for the special
degradation of women.
"Now perhaps you will understand what we felt about you," Angelica
concluded--"we who are loyal to our own sex, and have a sense of
justice--when we thought you were content to live on the means your
husband makes in such a shameful way."
An extraordinary look of relief came into Beth's face. "Then it was
not my fault--not because I was horrid," she exclaimed. All the
slights were as nothing the moment she gathered that she had not
deserved them. Angelica stared at her. But it was not in Beth's nature
to think long about herself; only the full force of what she had just
heard as it concerned others did not come to her for some seconds.
When it did, she was overcome. "How could you suppose that I knew?"
she gasped at last. "This is the first hint I have had of the
loathsome business. My husband talks to me about--many things that he
had better not have mentioned--but about this he has never said a
word."
"Then he must have suspected that you would disapprove," said Mrs.
Kilroy.
"Disapprove!" Beth ejaculated. "The whole thing makes me sick. I ought
to have been told before I married him. I never would have spoken to a
man in such a position had I known. You did well to avoid me."
"No," said Angelica. "I did ill, and I feel humiliated for my own want
of penetration--for my hasty conclusion. It was Sir George Galbraith
who first made me suspect that you knew nothing about it, and I would
have come at once to make sure, but we were just leaving the
neighbourhood, and we only returned yesterday. Ideala did not believe
that you knew it either, and she rated us all for the way we had
treated you. She has been in America ever since she met you at Mrs.
Carne's, but she is coming home next week, and has written to entreat
me to ask you to meet her. Will you? Will you come and stay with me?
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 associate 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, damn 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 coarsest 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
sex," had imposed upon women a special public degradation, while the
most abandoned and culpable of their own sex 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.
"And so the little woman is going to be a great one!" Mrs. Carne
exclaimed playfully. "Well, I _was_ surprised to hear it! I know I am
not flattering to my own discernment when I say so; but there! I
should never have supposed you were a genius. You are such a quiet
little mouse, you know, you don't give yourself away much, if you will
excuse the expression! I always say what I think."
"I hope you will not call me a genius again, Mrs. Carne," Beth said
stiffly. "All exaggeration is distasteful to me."
"And to me, too, my dear child," Mrs. Carne hastened to assure her
blandly. "But I always say what I think, you know."
Beth fixed her eyes on the clock absently.
When Dan came in to lunch that day, he seemed pleased to hear that
Mrs. Carne had been.
"What had she to say for herself?" he asked.
"She said 'I always say what I think,'" Beth replied; "until it
struck me that 'I always say what I think' is a person who only thinks
disagreeable things."
"Well, _I_ like her," said Dan; "and I always get on with her. If
she's going to show up friendly at last, I hope you won't snub her. We
can't afford to make enemies, according to your own account," he
concluded significantly. "What do you think of her, Miss Petterick?"
he added, by way of giving a pleasanter turn to the conversation. He
and his patient always addressed each other with much formality. Beth
asked him once in private why he was so stiff with Bertha, and he
explained that he thought it wiser, as a medical man, not to be at all
familiar; formality helped to keep up his authority.
"I have had no opportunity of thinking anything about her," Bertha
rejoined. "She has never spoken to me. I have heard her speak, though,
and like her voice. It's so cooing. She makes me think of a dove."
"And I shouldn't be surprised to find," said Beth, with cruel insight,
"that, like the dove, she conceals a villainous disposition and
murderous proclivities by charms of manner and a winning voice. What
are you going to do this afternoon, Bertha?"
Bertha glanced at Dan. "I am going to read 'The Moonstone' out in the
garden the whole afternoon," she replied.
"Then you won't mind if I disappear till tea-time?" said Beth. "I want
to do some work upstairs."
"No, I would rather be alone," Bertha answered frankly. "That book's
entrancing."
"I shall go round on foot this afternoon, for exercise," Dan announced
as he left the room.
Beth saw Bertha settled on a seat in the garden, and then retired to
her secret chamber. She had not yet come to any conclusion with regard
to Mrs. Kilroy's invitation, and she felt it was time she decided. She
took her sewing, her accustomed aid to thought, and sat down on a high