The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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She smiled. "I think perhaps they are relieved because I have ceased from
troubling them--from requiring more of them than they could give me," she
answered, smothering a sigh.

"May I look at them?" I asked, anticipating her permission by rising and
going toward them.

"Yes; certainly," she answered, rising herself, and following me
languidly. The books were arranged in groups--science, history, biography,
travels, poetry, fiction; with bound volumes of such periodicals as the
_Contemporary Review_, _The Nineteenth Century_, and the
_Westminster_. I read the titles of the volumes in the science
divisions with surprise, for she had never betrayed, nor had I ever
suspected, that she had added the incident of learning to the accident of
brains. But if she knew the contents of but half of these books well she
must be a highly educated woman. I took out several to see how they had
been read, and found them all carefully annotated, with marginal notes
very clearly written, and containing apposite quotations from and
references to the best authorities on the various subjects. This was
especially the case with books on the natural sciences; the physical ones
having apparently interested her less.

"These are not very elegant books for a lady's boudoir," she said,
referring to the plain dark bindings. "I dislike gorgeously bound books,
and could never make a pet of one. They are like over-dressed people; all
one's care is concentrated upon their appearance, and their real worth of
character, if they have any, escapes one."

"Were you ever an omnivorous reader?" I asked.

"No, I am thankful to say," she answered, her natural aptitude for
intellectual pursuits overcoming her artificial objection to them, as she
looked at her books and became interested in them in spite of herself;
"for I notice that the average reader who reads much remembers little, and
is absurdly inaccurate. It is as bad to read everything as to eat
everything; the mind, when it is gorged with a surfeit of subjects,
retains none of them."

She had a fairly representative collection of French, Italian, German
books, all equally well-read and annotated, each in its own language, the
French and Italian being excellent, but the German imperfect, although, as
she told me, she liked both the language and the literature very much the
best of the three. "German suggested ideas to me," she said, "and that is
why I paid less attention to the construction of the language, I think.
But I am afraid you will find no elegancies in any tongue I use, for
language has always been to me a vehicle of thought, and not a part of art
to be employed with striking effect. Now, here is Carlyle, the arch
phrasemaker. I always admired him more than I loved him; but his books are
excellent for intellectual exercise. He forced those phrases from his
brain with infinite pains, and, when you take them collectively, you find
yourself obliged to force them into yours in like manner."

She had become all interest and animation by this time, and I had never
known her so delightful as she was that morning while showing me her
books. She had no objection to lending me any that I chose, although I
told her that I only wanted them to read her notes. I took a variety, but
found no morbid tendency in any remark she had made upon them.

I paid my visit late in the afternoon next day, and found Evadne in the
drawing room. She was standing in the window when I entered, but came down
the room to greet me.

"I have been watching for you," she said. "I hoped you would come early.
And I have also been watching that party of jubilant ducks waddling down
the road. Come and see them. I believe they belong to us. They must have
escaped from the yard. But aren't they enjoying the ramble! That old drake
is quite puffed up with excitement and importance! He goes along nodding
his head, and saying again and again to the ducks: 'Now, didn't I tell you
so! and aren't you glad you took my advice and came?' And all the ducks
are smiling and complimenting him upon his wisdom and courage. They ought
to be driven back, but I haven't the heart to spoil their pleasure just
yet by informing against them."

I was standing beside her in the window now, and she looked up at me,
smiling as she spoke. She was brighter under the immediate influence even
of the watery winter sun, now a red ball, glowing behind the brown
branches of the leafless trees, than she had been in her gloomy north room;
and I took this lively interest in the adventurous ducks to be a glimpse
of the joyous, healthy mind, seeing character in all things animate, and
gifted with sympathy as well as insight, which must naturally have been
hers.

"When am I to go out?" she asked, "I begin to long for a sight of my
fellow-creatures. I don't want to speak to them. I only want to see them.
But I am sociable to that extent--when I am in my right mind."

"Tell me about this mental malady," I begged.

"Ah," she began, laughing up at me, but with a touch of bitterness. "I
interest you now! I am a case! You do not flatter me. But I mean to give
you every help in my power. If only you could cure me!" She clasped her
hands and held them out to me, the gesture of an instant, but full of
earnest entreaty.

"Come from the window," I said. "It is chilly here."

"Yes, come to the fire," she rejoined, leading the way; "and sit down, and
let us have tea, and talk, and be cosey. You want me to talk about myself,
and I will if I can. I was happy just now, but you see I am depressed in a
moment. It is misery to me to be so variable. And I constantly feel as if
I wanted something--to be somewhere, or to have something; I don't know
where or what; it is a sort of general dissatisfaction, but it is all the
worse for not being positive. If I knew what I wanted, I should be cured
by the effort to obtain it."

She rang the bell, and began to make up the fire; and I sat down and
watched her because she liked to do those things in her own house.
"Strangers wait upon me," she said, "but my friends allow me to wait upon
them."

When the servant had brought tea and retired, she began again.

"Now question me," she said, "and make me tell you the truth."

"I am sure you will tell me the truth," I asserted.

"I am sure I shall try," she replied; "but I am not so sure that I shall
succeed. If you provoke me, I shall fence with you; if you confuse me, I
shall unwittingly say 'yes' when I mean 'no.' In fact, I am surprised to
find myself confiding this trouble to you at all! It has come about by
accident, but I am very glad; it is such a relief to speak. But how
_has_ it come about?" she broke off. "Did you suspect?"

"Suspect what?"

"That I am insane."

"You are not insane," I answered harshly.

She looked at me as if my words or manner amused her. "I remember now,"
she said. "I complained of the worry in my head, and then you questioned
me."

"It is not an uncommon complaint," I rejoined.

"Is it not?" she answered. "Well, I don't know whether to be sorry for the
other sufferers, or relieved to think that I am not the only one, which is
what you intend, I believe. But, doctor, the misery is terrible,
especially now that it has become almost incessant. It drives me--fills my
mind with such dreadful ideas. I have actually meditated murder lately."

"Murder in the abstract, I supposed?"

"No, murder actually, murder for my own benefit, or what I fancy in that
mood would be for my benefit; the murder of one poor miserable creature
whom I pity with all my heart and really care for--when I am in my right
mind."

My heart sank. It was not necessary for me to know, and I had no
inclination to ask, who the "one poor miserable creature" was.

"And when the impulse is on you, what do you do?" I said.

"It is not an impulse exactly," she answered; "at least, it is nothing
which I have ever had the slightest inclination to act upon. I am just
possessed by the idea--whatever it may be--and then I cannot sit still. I
have to rush out."

"Into Regent Street, for example?" I suggested, her last remark having
thrown a sudden side-light upon that occurrence.

"Yes," she said. "But I didn't know I was going to Regent Street. I had
read of Dickens prowling about the streets of London late at night when he
was suffering from the effects of overwork, and recovering his
tranquillity and power in that way, and I thought I would try the
experiment; so I went out and just walked on until I was tired, and then I
got into an omnibus, so as to be with the people, and when it stopped and
they all got out, I got out too, and walked on again, and then that horrid
old man spoke to me. It was a great shock, but it had the happiest effect.
I woke up, as it were, the moment I got rid of him, and felt quite myself
again; and then I hurried back, as you know. You still disapprove? Well,
in one way, perhaps you are right; but still it did me good." She stopped,
and looked into the fire thoughtfully; and then she smiled. "Forgive me,
do!" she said. "I know I behaved badly next day; I could not help it. The
sudden relief to my mind had sent my spirits up inordinately for one thing;
and then your face! Your consternation was really comical! If I had
injured you irreparably in your estimation of the value of your own
opinion of people, you could not have cared more. But I am sorry, very,
very sorry," she added, with feeling, "that you should have lost your
respect for me."

"What could make you think that I had lost my respect for you?" I asked in
surprise.

"Because, you know, you have never come to see me since, as you used to
do." She looked at me a moment wistfully, and I knew she half expected me
to explain or make some excuse; but I could not, unfortunately, do either
without making bad worse. I could assure her, however, honestly, that I
had not lost my respect for her.

"And I came to see you when you required me," I added.

But she was not satisfied, "I know your philanthropy," she said. "But I
would rather have you come as of old because you believed in me, and like
and respect me. I value your friendship, and it pains me to find that you
can only treat me now like any other suffering sinner. Is it going to be
so always?"

("Will the child kill me with her innocent talk?")

She had not alluded to the discontinuance of my visits before. I thought
she had not missed me, and, being in a double mood, had been somewhat hurt
by the seeming indifference, although I would not have had her want me
when I could not come. Now, however, I was greatly distressed to find the
construction she had put upon my absence, and all the more so because I
could not explain.

"Do not say that!" I exclaimed. "You have always had, you always will
have, my most sincere respect. It is part of an unhealthy state of mind
which makes you doubt the attachment of your friends."

She was glad to accept this assertion. "Ah, yes!" she said. "I know the
symptoms, but I had forgotten for the moment. Thank you. I _am_ so
glad to see you again!" She sighed, leaned back in her chair, folded her
hands on her lap, and looked at me--"if only as a doctor," she added
slowly. "You have some mysterious power over my mind. All great doctors
have the power I mean; I wonder what it is. Your very presence restores me
in an extraordinary way. You dispel the worry in my head without a word,
by just being here, however bad it is. I used to long for you so on those
days when you never came, and I used to watch for you and be disappointed
when you drove past; but then I always said, 'He will come to-morrow,' and
that was something to look forward to. I used to think at first you would
get over my escapade, or learn to take another view of it; but then, when
you never came, I gradually lost heart and hope, and that is how it was I
broke down, I think."

This guileless confidence affected me painfully.

"But I want to discover the secret of a great doctor's success," she
pursued. "What is your charm? There is something mesmeric about you, I
think, something inimical to disease at all events. There is healing in
your touch, and your very manners make an impression which cures."

"Knowledge, I suppose, has nothing to do with it?" I suggested, smiling.

"No, nothing," she answered emphatically. "I have carried out directions
of yours successfully which had been previously given to me by another
doctor and tried by me without effect. You alter the attitude of one's
mind somehow--that is how you do it, I believe."

"Well, I hope to alter the present attitude of your mind completely," I
answered. "And to resume. I want you to tell me how you feel when one of
those tormenting thoughts has passed. Do you suffer remorse for having
entertained it?"

"Only an occasional pang," she said. "I do not allow myself to sorrow or
suffer for thoughts which I cannot control. I am suffering from a morbid
state of mind, and it is my duty to fight against the impulses which it
engenders. But my responsibility begins and ends with the struggle. And I
am quite sure that it is wiser to try and forget that such ideas ever were
than to encourage them to haunt me by recollecting them even for purposes
of penitential remorse."

"And when it is not a criminal impulse, that affects you---"

"_Criminal!_" she ejaculated, aghast at the word.

I had used it on purpose to see its effect upon her, and was satisfied.
The moral consciousness was still intact.

"Yes," I persisted. "But when it is not an impulse of that kind, what is
it that disturbs your mind?"

"Thoughts of the suffering, the awful, needless suffering that there is in
the world. The perception of it is a spur which goads me at times so that
I feel as if I could do almost anything to lessen the sum of it. But then,
you see, my hands are tied, so that all I can do is think, think, think."

"We must change that to work, work, work," I said.

"It is too late," she answered despondently. "Body and mind have suffered--
mind and body. All that is not wrong in me is weak. I would have it
otherwise, yes. But give me some anodyne to relieve the pain; that is all
you can do for me now."

"I will give you no anodyne, either actual or figurative," I answered,
rising to go. "If you had no recuperative force left in you there would be
less energy in your despair. It rests with yourself now entirely to be as
healthy-minded as ever again if you like."

I never could remember whether I said good-bye to her that day, or just
walked out of the room, like the forgetful boor I sometimes am, with the
words on my lips.

CHAPTER XIV.

A medical man who does not keep his moral responsibility before him in the
consideration of a case must be a very indifferent practitioner, and, with
regard to Evadne, I felt mine to such an extent that, before the interview
was over, I had decided that I was not the proper person to treat her. I
doubted my judgment for one thing, which showed that for once my nerve was
at fault; and I had other reasons which it is not necessary to give. I
therefore determined to run up to town to consult Sir Shadwell Rock about
her. He was a distinguished colleague and personal friend of mine, a man
of vast experience, and many years my senior; and I knew that if he would
treat her, she could not be in better hands.

When I left As-You-Like-It I found that I had just time to drive to
Morningquest and catch the last train to town. It was a four hours'
journey, but fortunately there was a train in the early morning which
would bring me back in time for my own work.

I knew Sir Shadwell was in town, and telegraphed to him to beg him to see
me that night at half-past eleven if he possibly, could, and, on arriving,
I found him at home--very much at home, indeed, in a smoking jacket and
slippers over a big fire in his own private sanctum, enjoying his bachelor
ease with a cigarette and the last shilling shocker.

I apologised for my untimely visit, but he put me at my ease at once by
cordially assuring me that I had done him a favour. "I was going to a
boring big dinner this evening when your telegram arrived, and your coming
in this way suggested something sufficiently important to detain me, so I
sent an excuse, and have had a wholesome chop, and--eh--_a real good
time_," he added confidentially, tapping the novelette. "Extraordinary
production this, really. Most entertaining. I can't guess who did it, you
know, I can't indeed--but, my dear boy, to what do I owe the pleasure?
What can I do for you?

"First of all give me a wholesome chop if you have another in the house,
for I'm famishing."

"Oh, a thousand pardons for my remissness!" he exclaimed, ringing the bell
vehemently. "Of course you haven't dined. I ought to have thought of that.
Something very important, I suppose?"

"A most interesting case."

"Mental?"

"Yes. A lady."

"Well, not another word until you've had something to eat. Suitable
surroundings play an important part in the discussion of such cases, and
suitable times and seasons also. Just before dinner one isn't sanguine,
and just after one is too much so. When you have eaten, take time to
reflect--and a cigarette if you are a smoker." He had been holding his
book in his hand all the time, but now he pottered to a side-table with an
old man's stiffness, peeped at the paragraph he had been reading, marked
his place with a paper cutter, and muttered--"Very strange, for if she
didn't steal the jewels, who did? Mustn't dip though; spoils it." He put
the book down, and returned to me, taking off his spectacles as he came,
and smoothing his thick white hair. "Now don't say a word if you've read
it," he cautioned me. "I always owe everybody a grudge who tells me the
plot of a story I'm interested in. But, let me see, what was I saying? Oh!
Take time, that was it! There is nothing like letting yourself settle if
you are at all perplexed. When the memory is crowded with details the mind
becomes muddy, and you must let it clear itself. That is the secret of my
own success. In any difficulty I have always waited. Don't try to think,
Much better dismiss the matter from your mind altogether, make yourself
comfortable in the easiest chair in the room, get a rousing book--the
subject is of no importance, so long as it interests you--and in half an
hour, if the physical well-being is satisfactory, you will find the mental
tension gradually relax. Your ideas begin to flow, your judgment becomes
clear, and you suddenly see for yourself in a way that astonishes you."

"Then pray oblige me by resuming your seat and cigarette," I answered,
"and let me transfer my difficulty to you while the moment
lasts--_your_ moment!"

"When you have dined," he said good-humouredly. "I won't hear a word while
you are famishing. Tell me how you are yourself, and what you are doing.
My dear boy, it is really a pleasure to see you! Why aren't you married?"

"Now, really, do you expect me to answer such an important question as
that with my mind in its present muddy condition!" I retorted upon him.
"My many reasons are all rioting in my recollection, and I can't see one
clearly,"

The old gentleman smiled, and sat patting the arms of his chair for a
little. "You're looking fagged," he remarked presently. "Work won't hurt
you, but beware of worry!"

My dinner was brought to me on a tray at this instant, and the dear old
man got up to see that it was properly served. He tried the champagne
himself, to be sure it was right, and gave careful directions about the
coffee. His interest in everything was as fresh as a boy's, and nothing he
could do in the way of kindness was ever a trouble to him.

"You have been coming out strong in defence of morality lately," I
remarked, when I had dined. "You have somewhat startled the proprieties."

"Startled the pruderies, you mean," he answered, bridling. "The
proprieties face any necessity for discussion with modest discretion,
however painful it may be,"

"Well, you've done some good, at all events," I answered. I did not tell
him, but only that very day I had heard it said that his was a name which
all women should reverence for what he had done for some of them.

"Well," he said, "the clergy have had a long innings. They have been hard
at it for the last eighteen hundred years, and society is still rotten at
the core. It is our turn now. But come, draw up your chair to the fire and
be comfortable. Well, yes," he went on, rubbing his hands, "I suppose
eventually morality will be taught by medical men, and when it is much
misery will be saved to the suffering sex. My own idea is that a woman is
a human being; but the clerical theory is that she is a dangerous beast,
to be kept in subjection, and used for domestic purposes only. Married
life is made up to a great extent of the most heartless abuse of a woman's
love and unselfishness. Submission, you know--!"

When I had given him the details of Evadne's case, so far as I had gone
into it, he asked me what my own theory was.

"I feel sure it is the old story of these cases in women," I answered.
"The natural bent has been thwarted to begin with."

"Yes," he commented, "that is a fruitful source of mischief even in these
days, when women so often listen to the voice of the Lord himself speaking
in their own hearts, and do what he directs in spite of the Church. The
restrictions imposed upon women of ability warp their minds, and the
rising generation suffers. But how has the natural bent been thwarted in
this case?"

"I have not ascertained," I said. "She is a woman of remarkable general
intelligence, but she makes no use of it, and she does not seem to have
any one decided talent that she cares to cultivate, and consequently she
has no absorbing interest to occupy her mind, no purpose for which to live
and make the most of her abilities. She attends punctually to her social
duties, but they do not suffice, and she has of necessity many spare hours
of every day on her hands, during which she sits and sews alone. I suppose
a woman's embroidery answers much the same purpose as a man's cigarette.
It quiets her nerves, and helps her to think. If she is satisfied and
happy in her surroundings her reflections will probably be tranquil and
healthy, but if her outward circumstances are not congenial, she will
banish all thoughts of them in her hours of ease, and her mind will
gradually become a prey to vain imaginings--pleasant enough to begin with,
doubtless, but likely to take a morbid tone at any time if her health
suffers. This has been the case with Evadne--"

"With _whom_?" Sir Shadwell interrupted.

"With my patient," I stammered. "I have been accustomed to hear her spoken
of by her Christian name."

"Humph!" the old gentleman grunted, enigmatically.

"She has one of those minds which should be occupied by a succession of
lively events, all helping on some desirable object," I proceeded--"the
mind of a naturally active woman."

"Well," he answered, "it seems to be another instance of the iniquitous
folly of allowing the one sex to impose galling limitations upon the
other. It is not an uncommon case so far as the mental symptoms go. How
does she get on with her husband? does she contradict him?"

"No, never," I answered. "She is always courteous and considerate."

"Ah, now, I thought so," he chuckled. "A happily married woman contradicts
her husband flatly whenever she thinks proper. She knows she is safe from
wrangling and bitterness. I think you will find that the domestic position
is the difficulty here. You don't seem to have inquired into that very
carefully."

I made no answer, and he looked at me sharply for a moment, then asked me
how old my patient was.

"Twenty-five," I told him.

"Twenty-five," he repeated; "and you are intimate with both her and her
husband. Now, have you ever had any reason to doubt her honesty--her
verbal honesty of course I mean?"

"Quite the contrary," I answered. "I have always found her almost
peculiarly frank."

"A woman may be accurate, you know, in all she says of other people," he
observed; "but that is no proof that she will be so concerning herself."

"I know," was my reply; "but I feel quite sure of this lady's word."

"And during the time that you have known her she now confesses that she
has suffered more or less?"

"Yes. She mentioned one interval during which she said a new interest in
life took her completely out of herself."

"What was the interest?"

"I did not ask her."

"She fell in love, I suppose, and you happened to know the fact."

"I neither know, nor suspected such a thing,"

"That was it, you may be sure," Sir Shadwell decided. "When a young and
attractive woman, who speaks to her husband with marked courtesy and
consideration, instead of treating him familiarly, talks of having an
interest in life which takes her completely out of herself, you may take
it for granted almost always that the new interest is love."

"It is more likely to have been the small-pox epidemic," I rejoined, and
then I gave him an account of that episode.

"Ah, well, perhaps," he said. "We are evidently dealing with a nature full
of surprises." He pursed up his mouth and eyed me attentively. "My dear
boy," he said at last, "I think I see your difficulty. You had better turn
this case over to me altogether."