by George Moore
‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear! You’re all bleeding, sir,’ cried the landlady; ‘she has nearly killed you.’
‘Never mind me. But what are we to do? I think she has gone mad this time.’
‘That’s what I think,’ said the landlady, trying to make herself heard above Kate’s shrieks.
‘Well, then, go and fetch a doctor, and let’s hear what he has to say,’ replied Dick, as he changed his grip on Kate’s arm, for in a desperate struggle she had nearly succeeded in wrenching herself free. The landlady retreated precipitately towards the door.
‘Well, will you go?’
‘Yes, yes, I’ll run at once.’
‘You’d better,’ yelled the mad woman after her. ‘I’ll give it to you! Let me go! Let me go, will you?’
But Dick never ceased his hold of her, and the blood, dripping upon her, trickled in large drops into her ears, and down into her neck and bosom.
‘You’re spitting on me, you beast! You filthy beast! I’ll pay you out for this.’ Then she perceived that it was blood; the intonation of her voice changed, and in terror she screamed, ‘Murder! murder! He’s murdering me! Is there no one here to save me?’
The minutes seemed like eternities. Dick felt himself growing faint, but should he lose his power over her before the doctor arrived, the consequences might be fatal to himself, so he struggled with her for very life.
At last the door was opened, and a man walked into the room, tripping in so doing over a piece of the broken mirror. It was the doctor, and accustomed as he was to betray surprise at nothing, he could not repress a look of horror on catching sight of the scene around him.
The apartment was almost dismantled; chairs lay backless about the floor amid china shepherdesses and toreadors; pictures were thrown over the sofa, and a huge pile of wax fruit — apples and purple grapes — was partially reflected in a large piece of mirror that had fallen across the hearthrug.
‘Come, help me to hold her,’ said Dick, raising his blood-stained face.
With a quick movement the doctor took possession of Kate’s arms. ‘Give me a sheet from the next room; I’ll soon make her fast.’
The threat of being tied had its effect. Kate became quieter, and after some trouble they succeeded in carrying her into the next room and laying her on the bed. There she rolled convulsively, beating the pillows with her arms. The landlady stationed herself at the door to give notice of any further manifestation of fury, whilst Dick explained the circumstances of the case to the doctor.
After a short consultation, he agreed to sign an order declaring that in his opinion Mrs. Lennox was a dangerous lunatic.
‘Will that be enough,’ said Dick, ‘to place her in an asylum?’
‘No, you’ll have to get the opinion of another doctor.’
The possibility of being able to rid himself of her was to him like the sudden dawning of a new life, and Dick rushed off, bleeding, haggard, wild-looking as he was, to seek for another doctor who would concur in the judgment of the first, asking himself if it were possible to see Kate in her present position, and say conscientiously that she was a person who could be safely trusted with her liberty? And to his great joy this view was taken by the second authority consulted, and having placed his wife under lock and key, Dick lay down to rest a happier man than he had been for many a day. The position in his mind was, of course, the means he should adopt to place her in the asylum. Force was not to be thought of; persuasion must be first tried. So far he was decided, but as to the arguments he should advance to induce her to give up her liberty he knew nothing, nor did he attempt to formulate any scheme, and when he entered the bedroom next morning he relied more on the hope of finding her repentant, and appealing to and working on her feelings of remorse than anything else. ‘The whole thing,’ as he put it, ‘depended upon the humour he should find her in.’
And he found her with stains of blood still upon her face, amid the broken furniture, and she asked calmly but with intense emotion:
‘Dick, did he say I was mad?’
‘Well, dear, I don’t know that he said you were mad except when you were the worse for drink, but he said—’
‘That I might become mad,’ she interposed, ‘if I don’t abstain from drink. Did he say that?’
‘Well, it was something like that, Kate. You know I only just escaped with my life.’
‘Only just escaped with your life, Dick! Oh, if I’d killed you, if I’d killed you! If I’d seen you lying dead at my feet!’ and unable to think further she fell on her knees and reached out her arms to him. But he did not take her to his bosom, and she sobbed till, touched to the heart, he strove to console her with kind words, never forgetting, however, to introduce a hint that she was not responsible for her actions.
‘Then I’m really downright mad?’ said Kate, raising her tear-stained face from her arms. ‘Did the doctor say so?’
This was by far too direct a question for Dick to answer; it were better to equivocate.
‘Well, my dear — mad? He didn’t say that you were always mad, but he said you were liable to fits, and that if you didn’t take care those fits would grow upon you, and you would become—’
Then he hesitated as he always did before a direct statement.
‘But what did he say I must do to get well?’
‘He advised that you should go to a home where you would not be able to get hold of any liquor and would be looked after’
‘You mean a madhouse. You wouldn’t put me in a madhouse, Dick?’
‘I wouldn’t put you anywhere where you didn’t like to go; but he said nothing about a madhouse.’
‘What did he say, then?’
‘He spoke merely of one of those houses which are under medical supervision, and where anyone can go and live for a time; a kind of hospital, you know.’
The argument was continued for an hour or more. Kate wept and protested against being locked up as a mad woman; while he, conscious of the strong hold he had over her, reminded her in a thousand ways of the danger she ran of awakening one morning to find herself a murderess. Yet it is difficult to persuade anyone voluntarily to enter a lunatic asylum, no matter how irrefutable the reasons advanced may be, and it was not until Dick on one side skilfully threatened her with separation, and tempted her on the other with the hope of being cured of her vice and living with him happily ever afterwards, that she consented to enter Dr. — — ‘s private asylum, Craven Street, Bloomsbury. But even then the battle was not won, for when he suggested going off there at once, he very nearly brought another fit of passion down on his head. It was only the extreme lassitude and debility produced from the excesses of last night that saved him.
‘Oh, Dick, dear! if you only knew how I love you! I would give my last drop of blood to save you from harm.’
‘I know you would, dear; it’s the fault of that confounded drink,’ he answered, his heart tense with the hope of being rid of her. Then the packing began. Kate sat disconsolate on the sofa, and watched Dick folding up her dresses and petticoats. It seemed to her that everything had ended, and wearily she collected the pearls which had been scattered in last night’s skirmishing. Some had been trodden on, others were lost, and only about half the original number could be found, and shaken with nervousness and lassitude, Kate cried and wrung her hands. Dick sat next her, kind, huge, and indifferent, even as the world itself.
‘But you’ll come and see me? You promise me that you’ll come — that you’ll come very often.’
‘Yes, dear, I’ll come two or three times a week; but I hope that you’ll be well soon — very soon.’
XXVIII
THE HOPE DICK expressed that his wife would soon be well enough to return home was, of course, untrue, his hope being that she would never cross the doors of the house in Bloomsbury whither he was taking her. The empty bed awaiting him was so great a relief that he fell on his knees before it and prayed that the doctors might judge her to be insane, unsafe to be at large. To wake up in th
e morning alone in his bed, and to be free to go forth to his business without question seemed to him like Heaven. But the pleasures of Heaven last for eternity, and Dick’s delight lasted but for two days. Two days after Kate had gone into the asylum a letter came from one of the doctors saying that Mrs. Lennox was not insane, and would have to be discharged.
Dick sank into a chair and lay there almost stunned, plunged in despair that was like a thick fog, and it did not lift until the door opened and Kate stood before him again.
He raised his head and looked at her stupidly, and interpreting his vacant face, she said:
‘Dick, you’re sorry to have me back again.’
‘Sorry, Kate? Well, if things were different I shouldn’t be sorry. But you see the blow you struck me with the poker very nearly did for me; I haven’t been the same man since.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I must go back to the asylum or the home, whatever you call it, and tell them that I am mad.’
‘There’s no use in doing that, Kate, they wouldn’t believe you. Here is the letter I’ve just received; read it.’
‘But, Dick, there must be some way out of this dreadful trouble, and yet there doesn’t seem to be any. Try to think, dear, try to think. Can you think of anything, dear? I don’t think I shall give way again. If I only had something to do; it’s because I’m always alone; because I love you; because I’m jealous of that woman.’
‘But, Kate, if I stop here with you all day we shall starve. I must go to business.’
‘Ah, business! Business! If I could go to business too. The days when we used to rehearse went merrily enough.’
‘You were the best Clairette I ever saw,’ Dick answered; ‘better than Paola Mariee, and I ought to know, for I rehearsed you both.’
‘I shall never play Clairette again,’ Kate said sadly. ‘I’ve lost my figure and the part requires a waist.’
‘You might get your waist again,’ Dick said, and the words seemed to him extraordinarily silly, but he had to say something.
‘If I could only get to work again,’ she muttered to herself, and then turning to Dick —
‘Dick, if I could get to work again; any part would do; it doesn’t matter how small, just to give me something to think about, that’s all, to keep my mind off it. If the baby had not died I should have had her to look after and that would have done just as well as a part. But I’ve disgraced you in company; I don’t blame you, you couldn’t have me in it, and I couldn’t bring myself to sing in that opera.’
‘Yes, you would only break out again, Kate. Those jealous fits are terrible. You think you could restrain yourself, but you couldn’t; and all that would come of a row between you and Mrs. Forest would be that I should lose my job.’
‘I know, Dick, I know,’ Kate cried painfully, ‘but I promise you that I never will again. You may go where you please and do what you please. I will never say a word to you again.’
‘I’m sure you believe all that you say, Kate, but I cannot get you a job. I may hear of something. Meanwhile — —’
‘Meanwhile I shall have to stay here and alone and no way of escaping from the hours, those long dreary hours, no way but one. Dick, I’m sorry they did not keep me in the asylum, it would have been better for both of us if they had; and if I could go back there again, if you will take me back, I will try to deceive the doctors.’
‘You mean, Kate, that you would play the mad woman? I doubt if any woman could do it sufficiently well to deceive the doctors. There was an Italian woman,’ and they talked of the great Italian actress for some time and then Dick said: ‘Well, Kate, I must be about my business. I’m sorry to leave you.’
‘No, Dick, you’re not.’
‘I am, dear, in a way. But if I hear of anything — —’ and he left the house knowing that there was no further hope for himself. He was tied to her and might be killed by her in his sleep, but that would not matter. What did matter was the thought that was always at the back of his mind, that she was alone in that Islington lodging-house craving for drink, striving to resist it, falling back into drink and might be coming down raving to the theatre to insult him before the company. Insult him before the company! That had been done, she had done her worst, and he was indifferent whether she came again, only she must not meet Mrs. Forest. On the whole he felt that his sorrow was with Kate herself rather than himself or with Mrs. Forest. ‘God only knows,’ he said as he rushed down the stairs, ‘what will become of her.’
Kate was asking herself the same question — what was to become of her? Would it be possible for her to find work to do that would keep her mind away from the drink? She seemed for the moment free from all craving, but she knew what the craving is, how overpowering in the throat it is, and how when one has got one mouthful one must go on and on, so intense is the delight of alcohol in the throat of the drunkard. But there was no craving upon her, and it might never come again. Every morning she awoke in great fear, but was glad to find that there was no craving in her throat, and when she went out she rejoiced that the public-houses offered no attraction to her. She became brave; and fear turned to contempt, and at the bottom of her heart she began to jeer at the demon which had conquered and brought her to ruin and which she had in turn conquered. But there was a last mockery she did not dare, for she knew that the demon was but biding his time. He seemed, however, to go on biding it, and Dick, finding Kate reasonable every evening, came home to dinner earlier so that the day should not appear to her intolerably long. But his business often detained him, and one night coming home late he noticed that she looked more sullen than usual, that her eyes drooped as if she had been drinking. A month of scenes of violence followed; ‘not a single day as far as I can remember for a fortnight’ he said one day on leaving the house and running to catch his bus to the Strand, ‘have we had a quiet evening.’ When he returned that night she ran at him with a knife, and he had only just time to ward off the blow. The house rang with shrieks and cries of all sorts, and the Lennoxes were driven from one lodging-house to another. Trousers, dresses, hats, boots and shoes, were all pawned. The comic and the pitiful are but two sides of the same thing, and it was at once comic and pitiful to see Dick, with one of the tails of his coat lost in the scrimmage, talking at one o’clock in the morning to a dispassionate policeman, while from the top windows the high treble voice of a woman disturbed the sullen tranquillity of the London night.
And yet Dick continued with her — continued to allow himself to be beaten, scratched, torn to pieces almost as he would be by a wild beast. Human nature can habituate itself even to pain, and it was so with him. He knew that his present life was as a Nessus shirt on his back, and yet he couldn’t make up his mind to have done with it. In the first place, he pitied his wife; in the second, he did not know how to leave her; and it was not until after another row with Kate for having been down to the theatre that he summoned up courage to walk out of the house with a fixed determination never to return again. Kate was too tipsy at the time to pay much attention to the announcement he made to her as he left the room. Besides, ‘Wolf!’ had been cried so often that it had now lost its terror in her ears, and it was not until next day that she began to experience any very certain fear that Dick and she had at last parted for ever. But when, with a clammy, thirsty mouth, she sat rocking herself wearily, and the long idleness of the morning hours became haunted with irritating remembrances of her shameful conduct, of the cruel life she led the man she loved, the black gulf of eternal separation became, as it were, etched upon her mind; and she heard the cold depths reverberating with vain words and foolish prayers. Then her thin hands trembled on her black dress, and waves of shivering passed over her. She thought involuntarily that a little brandy might give her strength, and as soon hated herself for the thought. It was brandy that had brought her to this. She would never touch it again. But Dick had not left her for ever; he would come back to her; she could not live without him. It was terrible! She would go to him, and on her knees beg h
is pardon for all she had done. He would forgive her. He must forgive her. Such were the fugitive thoughts that flashed through Kate’s mind as she hurried to and fro, seeking for her bonnet and shawl. She would go down to the theatre and find him; she would be sure to hear news of him there, she said, as she strove to brush away the mist that obscured her eyes. She could see nothing; things seemed to change their places, and so terrible were the palpitations of her heart that she was forced to cling to any piece of furniture within reach. But by walking very slowly she contrived to reach the stage-door of the Opéra Comique, feeling very weak and ill.
‘Is Mr. Lennox in?’ she asked, at the same time trying to look conciliatingly at the hard-faced hall-keeper.
‘No, ma’am, he ain’t,’ was the reply.
‘Who attended the rehearsal to-day, then?’
‘There was no rehearsal to-day, ma’am — leastways Mr. Lennox dismissed the rehearsal at half-past twelve.’
‘And why?’
‘Ah! that I cannot tell you.’
‘Could you tell me where Mr. Lennox would be likely to be found?’
‘Indeed I couldn’t, ma’am; I believe he’s gone into the country.’
‘Gone into the country!’ echoed Kate.
‘But may I ask, ma’am, if you be Mrs. Lennox? Because if you be, Mr. Lennox left a letter to be given to you in case you called.’
Her eyes brightened at the idea of a letter. To know the worst would be better than a horrible uncertainty, and she said eagerly:
‘Yes, I’m Mrs. Lennox; give me the letter.’
The hall-keeper handed it to her, and she walked out of the narrow passage into the street, so as to be free from observation. With anxious fingers she tore open the envelope, and read,
