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Beyond the City

A >> Arthur Conan Doyle >> Beyond the City



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BEYOND THE CITY.


CHAPTER I.


THE NEW-COMERS.


"If you please, mum," said the voice of a domestic
from somewhere round the angle of the door, "number three
is moving in.

Two little old ladies, who were sitting at either
side of a table, sprang to their feet with ejaculations
of interest, and rushed to the window of the
sitting-room.

"Take care, Monica dear," said one, shrouding herself
in the lace curtain; "don't let them see us.

"No, no, Bertha. We must not give them reason to say
that their neighbors are inquisitive. But I think that
we are safe if we stand like this."

The open window looked out upon a sloping lawn, well
trimmed and pleasant, with fuzzy rosebushes and a
star-shaped bed of sweet-william. It was bounded by
a low wooden fence, which screened it off from a broad,
modern, new metaled road. At the other side of this road
were three large detached deep-bodied villas with peaky
eaves and small wooden balconies, each standing in its
own little square of grass and of flowers. All three
were equally new, but numbers one and two were curtained
and sedate, with a human, sociable look to them; while
number three, with yawning door and unkempt garden, had
apparently only just received its furniture and made
itself ready for its occupants. A four-wheeler had
driven up to the gate, and it was at this that the old
ladies, peeping out bird-like from behind their curtains,
directed an eager and questioning gaze.

The cabman had descended, and the passengers within
were handing out the articles which they desired him to
carry up to the house. He stood red-faced and blinking,
with his crooked arms outstretched, while a male hand,
protruding from the window, kept piling up upon him a
series of articles the sight of which filled the curious
old ladies with bewilderment.

"My goodness me!" cried Monica, the smaller, the
drier, and the more wizened of the pair. "What do you
call that, Bertha? It looks to me like four batter
puddings."

"Those are what young men box each other with,"
said Bertha, with a conscious air of superior worldly
knowledge.

"And those?"

Two great bottle-shaped pieces of yellow shining wood
had been heaped upon the cabman.

"Oh, I don't know what those are," confessed Bertha.
Indian clubs had never before obtruded themselves upon
her peaceful and very feminine existence.

These mysterious articles were followed, however, by
others which were more within their, range of
comprehension--by a pair of dumb-bells, a purple
cricket-bag, a set of golf clubs, and a tennis racket.
Finally, when the cabman, all top-heavy and bristling,
had staggered off up the garden path, there emerged in a
very leisurely way from the cab a big, powerfully built
young man, with a bull pup under one arm and a pink
sporting paper in his hand. The paper he crammed into
the pocket of his light yellow dust-coat, and extended
his hand as if to assist some one else from the vehicle.
To the surprise of the two old ladies, however, the only
thing which his open palm received was a violent slap,
and a tall lady bounded unassisted out of the cab. With
a regal wave she motioned the young man towards the door,
and then with one hand upon her hip she stood in a
careless, lounging attitude by the gate, kicking her
toe against the wall and listlessly awaiting the return
of the driver.

As she turned slowly round, and the sunshine struck
upon her face, the two watchers were amazed to see that
this very active and energetic lady was far from being in
her first youth, so far that she had certainly come of
age again since she first passed that landmark in life's
journey. Her finely chiseled, clean-cut face, with
something red Indian about the firm mouth and strongly
marked cheek bones, showed even at that distance traces
of the friction of the passing years. And yet she was
very handsome. Her features were as firm in repose as
those of a Greek bust, and her great dark eyes were
arched over by two brows so black, so thick, and so
delicately curved, that the eye turned away from the
harsher details of the face to marvel at their grace and
strength. Her figure, too, was straight as a dart, a
little portly, perhaps, but curving into magnificent
outlines, which were half accentuated by the strange
costume which she wore. Her hair, black but plentifully
shot with grey, was brushed plainly back from her high
forehead, and was gathered under a small round felt hat,
like that of a man, with one sprig of feather in the band
as a concession to her sex. A double-breasted jacket of
some dark frieze-like material fitted closely to her
figure, while her straight blue skirt, untrimmed and
ungathered, was cut so short that the lower curve of her
finely-turned legs was plainly visible beneath it,
terminating in a pair of broad, flat, low-heeled and
square-toed shoes. Such was the lady who lounged at the
gate of number three, under the curious eyes of her two
opposite neighbors.

But if her conduct and appearance had already
somewhat jarred upon their limited and precise sense of
the fitness of things, what were they to think of the
next little act in this tableau vivant? The cabman,
red and heavy-jowled, had come back from his labors, and
held out his hand for his fare. The lady passed him a
coin, there was a moment of mumbling and gesticulating,
and suddenly she had him with both hands by the red
cravat which girt his neck, and was shaking him as a
terrier would a rat. Right across the pavement she
thrust him, and, pushing him up against the wheel, she
banged his head three several times against the side of
his own vehicle.

"Can I be of any use to you, aunt?" asked the large
youth, framing himself in the open doorway.

"Not the slightest," panted the enraged lady.
"There, you low blackguard, that will teach you to be
impertinent to a lady."

The cabman looked helplessly about him with a
bewildered, questioning gaze, as one to whom alone of
all men this unheard-of and extraordinary thing had
happened. Then, rubbing his head, he mounted slowly on
to the box and drove away with an uptossed hand appealing
to the universe. The lady smoothed down her dress,
pushed back her hair under her little felt hat, and
strode in through the hall-door, which was closed behind
her. As with a whisk her short skirts vanished into the
darkness, the two spectators--Miss Bertha and Miss Monica
Williams--sat looking at each other in speechless
amazement. For fifty years they had peeped through that
little window and across that trim garden, but never yet
had such a sight as this come to confound them.

"I wish," said Monica at last, "that we had kept the
field."

"I am sure I wish we had," answered her sister.



----


CHAPTER II.


BREAKING THE ICE.


The cottage from the window of which the Misses
Williams had looked out stands, and has stood for many a
year, in that pleasant suburban district which lies
between Norwood, Anerley, and Forest Hill. Long
before there had been a thought of a township there, when
the Metropolis was still quite a distant thing, old Mr.
Williams had inhabited "The Brambles," as the little
house was called, and had owned all the fields about it.
Six or eight such cottages scattered over a rolling
country-side were all the houses to be found there in the
days when the century was young. From afar, when the
breeze came from the north, the dull, low roar of the
great city might be heard, like the breaking of the tide
of life, while along the horizon might be seen the dim
curtain of smoke, the grim spray which that tide threw
up. Gradually, however, as the years passed, the City
had thrown out a long brick-feeler here and there,
curving, extending, and coalescing, until at last the
little cottages had been gripped round by these red
tentacles, and had been absorbed to make room for the
modern villa. Field by field the estate of old Mr.
Williams had been sold to the speculative builder, and
had borne rich crops of snug suburban dwellings, arranged
in curving crescents and tree-lined avenues. The father
had passed away before his cottage was entirely bricked
round, but his two daughters, to whom the property had
descended, lived to see the last vestige of country taken
from them. For years they had clung to the one field
which faced their windows, and it was only after much
argument and many heartburnings, that they had at last
consented that it should share the fate of the others.
A broad road was driven through their quiet domain, the
quarter was re-named "The Wilderness," and three square,
staring, uncompromising villas began to sprout up on the
other side. With sore hearts, the two shy little old
maids watched their steady progress, and speculated as to
what fashion of neighbors chance would bring into the
little nook which had always been their own.

And at last they were all three finished. Wooden
balconies and overhanging eaves had been added to them,
so that, in the language of the advertisement, there were
vacant three eligible Swiss-built villas, with sixteen
rooms, no basement, electric bells, hot and cold water,
and every modern convenience, including a common tennis
lawn, to be let at L100 a year, or L1,500 purchase. So
tempting an offer did not long remain open. Within a few
weeks the card had vanished from number one, and it was
known that Admiral Hay Denver, V. C., C. B., with Mrs.
Hay Denver and their only son, were about to move into
it. The news brought peace to the hearts of the Williams
sisters. They had lived with a settled conviction that
some wild impossible colony, some shouting, singing
family of madcaps, would break in upon their peace.
This establishment at least was irreproachable. A
reference to "Men of the Time" showed them that Admiral
Hay Denver was a most distinguished officer, who had
begun his active career at Bomarsund, and had ended it at
Alexandria, having managed between these two episodes to
see as much service as any man of his years. From the
Taku Forts and the _Shannon_ brigade, to dhow-harrying
off Zanzibar, there was no variety of naval work which
did not appear in his record; while the Victoria Cross,
and the Albert Medal for saving life, vouched for it that
in peace as in war his courage was still of the same true
temper. Clearly a very eligible neighbor this, the more
so as they had been confidentially assured by the estate
agent that Mr. Harold Denver, the son, was a most quiet
young gentleman, and that he was busy from morning to
night on the Stock Exchange.

The Hay Denvers had hardly moved in before number two
also struck its placard, and again the ladies found that
they had no reason to be discontented with their
neighbors. Doctor Balthazar Walker was a very well-known
name in the medical world. Did not his qualifications,
his membership, and the record of his writings fill a
long half-column in the "Medical Directory," from his
first little paper on the "Gouty Diathesis" in 1859 to
his exhaustive treatise upon "Affections of the
Vaso-Motor System" in 1884? A successful medical career
which promised to end in a presidentship of a college and
a baronetcy, had been cut short by his sudden inheritance
of a considerable sum from a grateful patient, which had
rendered him independent for life, and had enabled him to
turn his attention to the more scientific part of his
profession, which had always had a greater charm for him
than its more practical and commercial aspect. To this
end he had given up his house in Weymouth Street, and had
taken this opportunity of moving himself, his scientific
instruments, and his two charming daughters (he had been
a widower for some years) into the more peaceful
atmosphere of Norwood.

There was thus but one villa unoccupied, and it was
no wonder that the two maiden ladies watched with a keen
interest, which deepened into a dire apprehension, the
curious incidents which heralded the coming of the new
tenants. They had already learned from the agent that
the family consisted of two only, Mrs. Westmacott, a
widow, and her nephew, Charles Westmacott. How simple
and how select it had sounded! Who could have foreseen
from it these fearful portents which seemed to threaten
violence and discord among the dwellers in The
Wilderness? Again the two old maids cried in
heartfelt chorus that they wished they had not sold their
field.

"Well, at least, Monica," remarked Bertha, as they
sat over their teacups that afternoon, "however strange
these people may be, it is our duty to be as polite to
them as to the others."

"Most certainly," acquiesced her sister.

"Since we have called upon Mrs. Hay Denver and upon
the Misses Walker, we must call upon this Mrs. Westmacott
also."

"Certainly, dear. As long as they are living upon
our land I feel as if they were in a sense our guests,
and that it is our duty to welcome them."

"Then we shall call to-morrow," said Bertha, with
decision.

"Yes, dear, we shall. But, oh, I wish it was over!"

At four o'clock on the next day, the two maiden
ladies set off upon their hospitable errand. In their
stiff, crackling dresses of black silk, with
jet-bespangled jackets, and little rows of cylindrical
grey curls drooping down on either side of their black
bonnets, they looked like two old fashion plates which
had wandered off into the wrong decade. Half curious and
half fearful, they knocked at the door of number three,
which was instantly opened by a red-headed page-boy.

Yes, Mrs. Westmacott was at home. He ushered them
into the front room, furnished as a drawing-room, where
in spite of the fine spring weather a large fire was
burning in the grate. The boy took their cards, and
then, as they sat down together upon a settee, he set
their nerves in a thrill by darting behind a curtain with
a shrill cry, and prodding at something with his foot.
The bull pup which they had seen upon the day before
bolted from its hiding-place, and scuttled snarling from
the room.

"It wants to get at Eliza," said the youth, in a
confidential whisper. "Master says she would give him
more'n he brought." He smiled affably at the two little
stiff black figures, and departed in search of his
mistress.

"What--what did he say?" gasped Bertha.

"Something about a---- Oh, goodness gracious! Oh,
help, help, help, help, help!" The two sisters had
bounded on to the settee, and stood there with staring
eyes and skirts gathered in, while they filled the whole
house with their yells. Out of a high wicker-work basket
which stood by the fire there had risen a flat
diamond-shaped head with wicked green eyes which came
flickering upwards, waving gently from side to side,
until a foot or more of glossy scaly neck was visible.
Slowly the vicious head came floating up, while at every
oscillation a fresh burst of shrieks came from
the settee.


"What in the name of mischief!" cried a voice, and
there was the mistress of the house standing in the
doorway. Her gaze at first had merely taken in the fact
that two strangers were standing screaming upon her red
plush sofa. A glance at the fireplace, however, showed
her the cause of the terror, and she burst into a hearty
fit of laughter.

"Charley," she shouted, "here's Eliza misbehaving
again."

"I'll settle her," answered a masculine voice, and
the young man dashed into the room. He had a brown
horse-cloth in his hand, which he threw over the basket,
making it fast with a piece of twine so as to effectually
imprison its inmate, while his aunt ran across to
reassure her visitors.

"It is only a rock snake, " she explained.

"Oh, Bertha!" "Oh, Monica!" gasped the poor
exhausted gentlewomen.

"She's hatching out some eggs. That is why we have
the fire. Eliza always does better when she is warm.
She is a sweet, gentle creature, but no doubt she thought
that you had designs upon her eggs. I suppose that you
did not touch any of them?"

"Oh, let us get away, Bertha!' cried Monica, with her
thin, black-gloved hands thrown forwards in abhorrence.

"Not away, but into the next room," said Mrs.
Westmacott, with the air of one whose word was law.
"This way, if you please! It is less warm here." She
led the way into a very handsomely appointed library,
with three great cases of books, and upon the fourth side
a long yellow table littered over with papers and
scientific instruments. "Sit here, and you, there," she
continued. "That is right. Now let me see, which of you
is Miss Williams, and which Miss Bertha Williams?"

"I am Miss Williams," said Monica, still palpitating,
and glancing furtively about in dread of some new horror.

"And you live, as I understand, over at the pretty
little cottage. It is very nice of you to call so early.
I don't suppose that we shall get on, but still the
intention is equally good." She crossed her legs and
leaned her back against the marble mantelpiece.

"We thought that perhaps we might be of some
assistance," said Bertha, timidly. "If there is anything
which we could do to make you feel more at home----"

"Oh, thank you, I am too old a traveler to feel
anything but at home wherever I go. I've just come back
from a few months in the Marquesas Islands, where I had
a very pleasant visit. That was where I got Eliza. In
many respects the Marquesas Islands now lead the world."

"Dear me!" ejaculated Miss Williams. "In what
respect?"

"In the relation of the sexes. They have worked out
the great problem upon their own lines, and their
isolated geographical position has helped them to come to
a conclusion of their own. The woman there is, as she
should be, in every way the absolute equal of the male.
Come in, Charles, and sit down. Is Eliza all right?"

"All right, aunt."

"These are our neighbors, the Misses Williams.
Perhaps they will have some stout. You might bring in a
couple of bottles, Charles."

"No, no, thank you! None for us!" cried her two
visitors, earnestly.

"No? I am sorry that I have no tea to offer you. I
look upon the subserviency of woman as largely due to her
abandoning nutritious drinks and invigorating exercises
to the male. I do neither." She picked up a pair of
fifteen-pound dumb-bells from beside the fireplace and
swung them lightly about her head. "You see what may be
done on stout," said she.

"But don't you think," the elder Miss Williams
suggested timidly, "don't you think, Mrs. Westmascott,
that woman has a mission of her own?"

The lady of the house dropped her dumb-bells with a
crash upon the floor.

"The old cant!" she cried. "The old shibboleth!
What is this mission which is reserved for woman? All
that is humble, that is mean, that is soul-killing, that
is so contemptible and so ill-paid that none other will
touch it. All that is woman's mission. And who imposed
these limitations upon her? Who cooped her up within
this narrow sphere? Was it Providence? Was it nature?
No, it was the arch enemy. It was man."

"Oh, I say, auntie!" drawled her nephew.

"It was man, Charles. It was you and your fellows I
say that woman is a colossal monument to the selfishness
of man. What is all this boasted chivalry--these fine
words and vague phrases? Where is it when we wish to put
it to the test? Man in the abstract will do anything to
help a woman. Of course. How does it work when his
pocket is touched? Where is his chivalry then? Will the
doctors help her to qualify? will the lawyers help her to
be called to the bar? will the clergy tolerate her in the
Church? Oh, it is close your ranks then and refer poor
woman to her mission! Her mission! To be thankful for
coppers and not to interfere with the men while they
grabble for gold, like swine round a trough, that is
man's reading of the mission of women. You may sit there
and sneer, Charles, while you look upon your victim, but
you know that it is truth, every word of it.

Terrified as they were by this sudden torrent of
words, the two gentlewomen could not but smile at the
sight of the fiery, domineering victim and the big
apologetic representative of mankind who sat meekly
bearing all the sins of his sex. The lady struck a
match, whipped a cigarette from a case upon the
mantelpiece, and began to draw the smoke into her lungs.

"I find it very soothing when my nerves are at all
ruffled," she explained. "You don't smoke? Ah, you miss
one of the purest of pleasures--one of the few pleasures
which are without a reaction."

Miss Williams smoothed out her silken lap.

"It is a pleasure," she said, with some approach to
self-assertion, "which Bertha and I are rather too
old-fashioned to enjoy."

"No doubt, It would probably make you very ill if you
attempted it. By the way, I hope that you will come to
some of our Guild meetings. I shall see that tickets are
sent you."

"Your Guild?"

"It is not yet formed, but I shall lose no time in
forming a committee. It is my habit to establish a
branch of the Emancipation Guild wherever I go. There is
a Mrs. Sanderson in Anerley who is already one of the
emancipated, so that I have a nucleus. It is only by
organized resistance, Miss Williams, that we can hope to
hold our own against the selfish sex. Must you go,
then?"

"Yes, we have one or two other visits to pay," said
the elder sister. "You will, I am sure, excuse us. I
hope that you will find Norwood a pleasant residence."

"All places are to me simply a battle-field," she
answered, gripping first one and then the other with a
grip which crumpled up their little thin fingers. "The
days for work and healthful exercise, the evenings to
Browning and high discourse, eh, Charles? Good-bye!"
She came to the door with them, and as they glanced back
they saw her still standing there with the yellow bull
pup cuddled up under one forearm, and the thin blue reek
of her cigarette ascending from her lips.

"Oh, what a dreadful, dreadful woman!" whispered
sister Bertha, as they hurried down the street. "Thank
goodness that it is over."

"But she'll return the visit," answered the other.
"I think that we had better tell Mary that we are not at
home.



----


CHAPTER III.


DWELLERS IN THE WILDERNESS.


How deeply are our destinies influenced by the most
trifling causes! Had the unknown builder who erected and
owned these new villas contented himself by simply
building each within its own grounds, it is probable that
these three small groups of people would have remained
hardly conscious of each other's existence, and that
there would have been no opportunity for that action and
reaction which is here set forth. But there was a common
link to bind them together. To single himself out from
all other Norwood builders the landlord had devised and
laid out a common lawn tennis ground, which stretched
behind the houses with taut-stretched net, green
close-cropped sward, and widespread whitewashed lines.
Hither in search of that hard exercise which is as
necessary as air or food to the English temperament, came
young Hay Denver when released from the toil of the City;
hither, too, came Dr. Walker and his two fair daughters,
Clara and Ida, and hither also, champions of the lawn,
came the short-skirted, muscular widow and her athletic
nephew. Ere the summer was gone they knew each other in
this quiet nook as they might not have done after years
of a stiffer and more formal acquaintance.

And especially to the Admiral and the Doctor were
this closer intimacy and companionship of value. Each
had a void in his life, as every man must have who with
unexhausted strength steps out of the great race, but
each by his society might help to fill up that of his
neighbor. It is true that they had not much in
common, but that is sometimes an aid rather than a bar to
friendship. Each had been an enthusiast in his
profession, and had retained all his interest in it. The
Doctor still read from cover to cover his Lancet and
his Medical Journal, attended all professional
gatherings, worked himself into an alternate state of
exaltation and depression over the results of the
election of officers, and reserved for himself a den of
his own, in which before rows of little round bottles
full of glycerine, Canadian balsam, and staining agents,
he still cut sections with a microtome, and peeped
through his long, brass, old-fashioned microscope at the
arcana of nature. With his typical face, clean shaven on
lip and chin, with a firm mouth, a strong jaw, a steady
eye, and two little white fluffs of whiskers, he could
never be taken for anything but what he was, a high-class
British medical consultant of the age of fifty, or
perhaps just a year or two older.

The Doctor, in his hey-day, had been cool over great
things, but now, in his retirement, he was fussy over
trifles. The man who had operated without the quiver of
a finger, when not only his patient's life but his own
reputation and future were at stake, was now shaken to
the soul by a mislaid book or a careless maid. He
remarked it himself, and knew the reason. "When Mary
was alive," he would say, "she stood between me and the
little troubles. I could brace myself for the big ones.
My girls are as good as girls can be, but who can know a
man as his wife knows him?" Then his memory would
conjure up a tuft of brown hair and a single white, thin
hand over a coverlet, and he would feel, as we have all
felt, that if we do not live and know each other after
death, then indeed we are tricked and betrayed by all the
highest hopes and subtlest intuitions of our nature.

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