THE EFFECT OF SUGGESTION
The clock struck midnight, and yet the Warden had not done what he had
intended to do before he picked up that letter and read it. He had not
gone to bed. He was still in his library, not at his desk, but in a
great shabby easy-chair by the fire. He had put the lights out and was
smoking in the half-dark.
So deeply absorbed was the Warden in his own thoughts that he did not
hear the first knock on the door. But he heard the second knock, which
was louder.
"Come in," he called, and he leaned forward in his chair. Who wanted him
at such an hour? It would not be any one from the college?
The door opened and Lady Dashwood came in. She was in a dressing-gown.
"You haven't gone to bed," she said.
It was obvious that he hadn't gone to bed.
"No, not yet," said the Warden. And he added, "Do you want me?"
"I ought not to want you, dear," she said, "for I know you must be very
tired."
Then she came up to the fireplace and stood looking down at her brother.
She saw that the spring and the hope had gone out of his face. He looked
older.
"I have put Gwen to bed in my room, but even that has not quieted her,"
said Lady Dashwood, speaking slowly.
The Warden's face in the twilight looked set. He did not glance at his
sister now.
"She has lost her self-control. Do you know what the silly child thinks
she saw?"
Here Lady Dashwood paused, and waited for his reply.
"I hadn't thought. She fancied she saw something--a man!" he answered,
in his deep voice.
He hadn't thought! There had been no room in his mind for anything but
the doom that was awaiting him. One of his most bitter thoughts in the
twilight of that room had been that a woman he could have loved was
already under his roof when he took his destiny into his own hands and
wrecked it.
"I don't know," he said, repeating mechanically an answer to his
sister's question.
"She thought she saw the Barber's ghost," said Lady Dashwood.
The Warden looked up in surprise. There was a slight and bitter smile at
the corners of his mouth. Then he straightened himself in his chair and
looked frowning into the fire. That Gwendolen should have taken a
college "story" seriously and "made a scene" about it was particularly
repugnant to him.
"She came in here; why I don't know, and no doubt was full of the story
about the Barber appearing in the library," said Lady Dashwood. "We
ought not to have talked about it to any one so excitable. Then she
knocked her head against the book-case and was in a state of daze, in
which she could easily mistake the moonlight coming through an opening
in the curtains for a ghost, and if a ghost, then of course the Barber's
ghost. And so all this fuss!"
"I see," said the Warden, gloomily.
"As soon as we got upstairs, I had to pack Louise off before she had
time to hear anything, for I can't have the whole household upset simply
because a girl allows herself to become hysterical. May is now sitting
with Gwen, as she won't be left alone for a moment."
"What are you going to do?" asked the Warden, in a slow hard voice.
"That's the question," she said, looking down at him narrowly.
"Do you want a doctor?" he asked. "Is it bad enough for that? It is
rather late to ask any one to come in when there isn't any actual
illness."
"A doctor would be worse than useless."
"Well, then, what do you suggest?" he asked.
"Couldn't you say something to her to quiet her?" said Lady Dashwood.
The Warden looked surprised. "I couldn't say anything, Lena, that you
couldn't say. You can speak with authority when you like."
"More is wanted than that. She must be made to think she saw nothing
here in this library," said Lady Dashwood. "You used to be able to
'suggest.' Don't you remember?"
The Warden pondered and said nothing.
"She would like to keep the whole house awake--if she had the chance,"
said Lady Dashwood, and the bitterness in her voice made her brother
wince.
"Couldn't you make her believe that the ghost won't, or can't come
again, or that there are no such things as ghosts?"
The Warden sat still; the glow was dying out of the cigar he held
between his fingers. He did not move.
"When you were a boy you found it easy enough to suggest; I remember I
disapproved of it. I want you to do it now, because we must have quiet
in the house."
"She may not be susceptible to suggestion!" said the Warden, still
obstinately keeping his seat.
"You think she is too flighty, that she has too little power of
concentration," suggested Lady Dashwood, with a sting in her voice. "You
must try: come, Jim! I want to get some rest, I'm very tired."
She did, indeed, look hollow-eyed, and seeing this he rose and threw his
cigar into the fire. So this was the first thing he had to do as an
engaged man: he had to prevent his future wife from disturbing the
household. He had to distract her attention from absurd fears, he had to
impose his will upon her. Such a relationship between them, the husband
and wife that were to be, would be a relationship that he did not wish
to have with any one whom he ought to respect, much less any one whom he
ought to love.
The errand on which he was going was a repulsive one. If even a faint
trace of romantic appreciation of the girl's beauty had survived in him,
it would have vanished now. What he was going to do seemed like a denial
of her identity, and yet it seemed necessary to do it. Had he still much
of that "pity" left for her that had impelled him to offer her a home?
They left the library and, as they passed the curtained door of the
Warden's bedroom, Lady Dashwood said, "You'll go to bed afterwards,
Jim?"
She had spoken a moment ago of her own fatigue as if it was important.
She had now forgotten it. Her mind was never occupied for many moments
with herself, she was now back again at her old habit, thinking of him.
He was tired. No wonder, worn out with worries, of his own making, alas!
"Yes," said the Warden, "yes, dear."
The lights in the hall were still burning, and he turned them out from
the wall by the head of the staircase. Then they went up the short steps
into the corridor. Lady Dashwood's room was at the end.
At the door of her room Lady Dashwood paused and listened, and turned
round to her brother as if she were going to say something.
"What?" whispered the Warden, bending his head.
"Oh, nothing!" said Lady Dashwood, as if exasperated with her own
thoughts. Then she opened the door and went in, followed by the Warden.
The room was not spacious, and the canopied bedstead looked too massive
for the room. It had stood there through the reign of four of the
Wardens, and Lady Dashwood had kept it religiously. Gwen was propped up
on pillows at one side of it, looking out of her luminous eyes with
great self-pity. Her dark hair was disordered. She glanced round
tearfully and apprehensively. An acute observer might have detected that
her alarm was a little over expressed: she had three spectators--and one
of them was the Warden!
Near her stood May Dashwood in a black dressing-gown illumined by her
auburn hair. It was tied behind at her neck and spread on each side and
down her back in glistening masses. She looked like some priestess of an
ancient cult, ministering to a soul distressed. The Warden stood for a
moment arrested, looking across at them, and then his eyes rested on May
alone.
Gwen made a curious movement into her pillows and May moved away from
the bed. She seemed about to slip away from the room, but Lady Dashwood
made her a sign to stay. It was such an imperative sign that May stayed.
She went to the fireplace silently and stood there, and Lady Dashwood
came to her. No one spoke. Lady Dashwood stood with face averted from
the bed and closed her eyes, like one who waits patiently, but takes no
part and no responsibility. May did not look at the bed, but she heard
what was said and saw, without looking.
The Warden was now walking quietly round to the side where Gwendolen was
propped. She made a convulsive movement of her arms towards him and
sobbed hysterically--
"Oh, I'm so frightened!"
He approached her without responding either to her exclamation or her
gestures. He put his hand on the electric lamp by the bed, raised the
shade, and turned it so as to cast its light on his own face. While he
did this there was silence.
Then he began to speak, and the sound of his voice made May's heart stir
strangely. She leaned her elbow on the mantelpiece and pressed her hand
over her eyes. All her prayers that night, all her self-reproach, meant
very little. What were they but a pretence, a cloak to hide from herself
the nakedness of her soul? No, they were not a pretence. Her prayer had
been a real prayer for forgetfulness of herself. But in his presence the
past seemed to slip away and leave her clamouring for relief from this
strange present suffering, and from this dull empty aching below her
heart when she drew her breath. She knew now how weak she was.
She could hear his voice saying: "What is it you are afraid of?" and as
he spoke, it seemed to May herself that fear, of all things in the
world, was the least real, and fear of spirits was an amazing folly.
"I thought I saw something," said Gwendolen, doubtfully; for already she
was under the influence of his voice, his manner, his face; and her mind
had begun to relax the tenacity of its hold on that one distracting
fear.
"You thought you saw something," he said, emphasising the word
"thought"; "you made a mistake. You saw nothing--you imagined you
saw--there _was_ nothing!"
May could not hear whether Gwendolen made any reply.
"And now I am going to prevent you from frightening yourself by
imagining such foolish things again."
Although she did not look towards them, but kept her eyes on the ground,
May was aware that the Warden was now bending over the bed, and he was
speaking in an inaudible voice. She could hear the girl move round on
the pillow in obedience to some direction of his. After this there came
a brief silence between them that seemed an age of intolerable misery to
May, and then she perceived that the Warden was turning out the bed
light, and she heard him move away from the bed. He walked to the door
very quietly, as if to avoid awakening a sleeper.
"Good night," he said in a low voice, and then, without turning towards
them, he went out of the room.
The door was closed. The two women moved, looked at each other, and then
glanced at the bed. Gwen was lying still; she had slid down low on her
pillows, with her face towards the windows and her eyes closed. They
stood motionless and intent, till they could see in the dim light that
the girl was breathing quietly and slowly in sleep. Then Lady Dashwood
spoke in a whisper.
"Now, I suppose, I can go to bed!"
Then she looked round at May. "Go to bed, May! You look worn out."
"Shall you sleep?" whispered May Dashwood, but she spoke as if she
wasn't listening for an answer.
"I don't know," said Lady Dashwood, in a whisper too. "It's so like
life. The person who has made all the fuss is comfortably asleep, and we
who have had to endure the fuss, we who are worn out with it, are awake
and probably won't sleep."
May moved towards the door and her aunt followed her. When May opened
the door and went outside, Lady Dashwood did not close the door or say
good night. She stood for a moment undecided, and then came outside
herself and pulled the door to softly behind her.
"May!" she said, and she laid a detaining hand on her niece's arm.
"What, Aunt Lena?"
"If he liked, he could repel her, make her dislike him! If he liked he
could make her refuse to marry him! You understand what I mean? He must
know this now. The idea will be in his mind. He'll think it over. But
I've no hope. He won't act on it. He'll only think of it as a temptation
that he must put aside."
May did not answer.
"He could," said Lady Dashwood; "but he won't. He thinks himself
pledged. And he isn't even in love with her. He isn't even infatuated
for the moment!"
"You can't be sure."
"I am sure," said Lady Dashwood.
"How?" And now May turned back and listened for an answer with downcast
eyes.
"I asked him a question--which he refused to answer. If he were in love
he would have answered it eagerly. Why, he would have forced me to
listen to it."
May Dashwood moved away from her aunt. "Still--they are engaged," she
said. "They are engaged--that is settled."
Lady Dashwood spoke in a low, detaining voice. "Wait, May! Somehow she
has got hold of him--somehow. Often the weak victimise the strong. Those
who clamour for what they want, get it. Every day the wise are
sacrificed to fools. I know it, and yet I sleep in peace. But when Jim
is to be sacrificed--I can't sleep. I am like a withered leaf, blown by
the wind."
May took her aunt's arm and laid her cheek against her shoulder.
"How can I sleep," said Lady Dashwood, "when I think of him, worried
into the grave by petty anxieties, by the daily fretting of an
irresponsible wife, by the hopeless daily task of trying to make
something honourable and worthy--out of Belinda and Co.? When I say
Belinda and Co., I think not merely of Belinda Scott and her child, but
of all that Jim hates: the whole crew of noisy pleasure-hunters that
float upon the surface of our social life. The time may come when we
shall say to our social parasites, 'Take up your burden of life and
work!' The time _will_ come! But meanwhile Jim has to be sacrificed
because he is hopelessly just. And yet I wouldn't have him otherwise.
Go, dear, try and sleep, for all my talk." Then, as she drew away from
her niece, she said in a tense whisper: "What an unforgivable fool he
has been!"
May closed her eyes intently and said nothing.
"Oh, May," sighed Lady Dashwood, "forgive me; I feel so bitter that I
could speak against God."
May looked up and laid her hand on her aunt's arm.
"You know those lines, Aunt Lena--
"Measure thy life by loss and not by gain,
Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth!"
Lady Dashwood's eyes flashed. "If Jim had offered his life for England I
could say that: but are we to pour forth wine to Belinda and Co.?"
The two women looked at each other; stared, silently.
Then Lady Dashwood began to turn the handle of the door.
"Why should he be sacrificed to--to--futilities?" Then she added very
softly: "I have had no son of my own, May, so Jim fills the vacant
place. I think I could, like Abraham, have sacrificed my son to the
Great God of my nation, but this sacrifice! Oh, May, it's so silly! He
might have married some nice, quiet Oxford girl any day. And he has
waited for this!"
She saw the pain in May's eyes and added: "I am wearing you out with my
talk. I am getting very selfish. I am thinking too much of my own
suffering. You, too, have suffered, dear, and you say nothing," and as
she spoke her voice softened to a whisper. "But, May, your sacrifice
_was_ to the Great God of your nation--the Great God of all nations."
"The sacrifice had nothing to do with me," said May, turning away. "It
was his."
"But you endure the loss, the vacant place," said Lady Dashwood.
"I know what a vacant place means," said May, quietly, "and my vacant
place will never be filled--except by the children of other women! Good
night, dear aunt," and she walked away quickly, without looking back.
Then she found the door of her room and went in.
Lady Dashwood's eyes followed her, till the door closed.
"I ought not to have said what I did," murmured Lady Dashwood. "Oh, dear
May, poor May," and she went back into her room.
Gwen was still sleeping peacefully.