by Grant Allen
V
For a day or two after this notable encounter between tabooer andtaboo-breaker, Philip moved about in a most uneasy state of mind. Helived in constant dread of receiving a summons as a party to an assaultupon a most respectable and respected landed proprietor who preservedmore pheasants and owned more ruinous cottages than anybody else (exceptthe duke) round about Brackenhurst. Indeed, so deeply did he regret hisinvoluntary part in this painful escapade that he never mentioned aword of it to Robert Monteith; nor did Frida either. To say the truth,husband and wife were seldom confidential one with the other. But, toPhilip's surprise, Bertram's prediction came true; they never heardanother word about the action for trespass or the threatened prosecutionfor assault and battery. Sir Lionel found out that the person who hadcommitted the gross and unheard-of outrage of lifting an elderly andrespectable English landowner like a baby in arms on his own estate, wasa lodger at Brackenhurst, variously regarded by those who knew him bestas an escaped lunatic, and as a foreign nobleman in disguise, fleeingfor his life from a charge of complicity in a Nihilist conspiracy: hewisely came to the conclusion, therefore, that he would not be the firstto divulge the story of his own ignominious defeat, unless he found thatdamned radical chap was going boasting around the countryside how he hadbalked Sir Lionel. And as nothing was further than boasting from BertramIngledew's gentle nature, and as Philip and Frida both held their peacefor good reasons of their own, the baronet never attempted in any wayto rake up the story of his grotesque disgrace on what he consideredhis own property. All he did was to double the number of keepers on theborders of his estate, and to give them strict notice that whoevercould succeed in catching the "damned radical" in flagrante delicto, astrespasser or poacher, should receive most instant reward and promotion.
During the next few weeks, accordingly, nothing of importance happened,from the point of view of the Brackenhurst chronicler; though Bertramwas constantly round at the Monteiths' garden for afternoon tea or agame of lawn-tennis. He was an excellent player; lawn-tennis was mostpopular "at home," he said, in that same mysterious and non-committingphrase he so often made use of. Only, he found the racquets and balls(very best London make) rather clumsy and awkward; he wished he hadbrought his own along with him when he came here. Philip noticed hisstyle of service was particularly good, and even wondered at timeshe did not try to go in for the All England Championship. But Bertramsurprised him by answering, with a quiet smile, that though it was anexcellent amusement, he had too many other things to do with his time tomake a serious pursuit of it.
One day towards the end of June, the strange young man had gone round toThe Grange--that was the name of Frida's house--for his usual relaxationafter a very tiring and distressing day in London, "on importantbusiness." The business, whatever it was, had evidently harrowed hisfeelings not a little, for he was sensitively organised. Frida was onthe tennis-lawn. She met him with much lamentation over the unpleasantfact that she had just lost a sister-in-law whom she had never caredfor.
"Well, but if you never cared for her," Bertram answered, looking hardinto her lustrous eyes, "it doesn't much matter."
"Oh, I shall have to go into mourning all the same," Frida continuedsomewhat pettishly, "and waste all my nice new summer dresses. It's SUCHa nuisance!"
"Why do it, then?" Bertram suggested, watching her face very narrowly.
"Well, I suppose because of what you would call a fetich," Fridaanswered laughing. "I know it's ridiculous. But everybody expects it,and I'm not strong-minded enough to go against the current of whateverybody expects of me."
"You will be by-and-by," Bertram answered, with confidence. "They'requeer things, these death-taboos. Sometimes people cover their headswith filth or ashes; and sometimes they bedizen them with crape andwhite streamers. In some countries, the survivors are bound to shed somany tears, to measure, in memory of the departed; and if they can'tbring them up naturally in sufficient quantities, they have to be beatenwith rods, or pricked with thorns, or stung with nettles, till they'vefilled to the last drop the regulation bottle. In Swaziland, too, whenthe king dies, so the queen told me, every family of his subjects hasto lose one of its sons or daughters, in order that they may all trulygrieve at the loss of their sovereign. I think there are more horribleand cruel devices in the way of death-taboos and death-customs thananything else I've met in my researches. Indeed, most of our nomologistsat home believe that all taboos originally arose out of ancestralghost-worship, and sprang from the craven fear of dead kings or deadrelatives. They think fetiches and gods and other imaginary supernaturalbeings were all in the last resort developed out of ghosts, hostile orfriendly; and from what I see abroad, I incline to agree with them. Butthis mourning superstition, now--surely it must do a great deal of harmin poor households in England. People who can very ill afford to throwaway good dresses must have to give them up, and get new black ones, andthat often at the very moment when they're just deprived of the aid oftheir only support and bread-winner. I wonder it doesn't occur to themthat this is absolutely wrong, and that they oughtn't to prefer themeaningless fetich to their clear moral duty."
"They're afraid of what people would say of them," Frida ventured tointerpose. "You see, we're all so frightened of breaking through anestablished custom."
"Yes, I notice that always, wherever I go in England," Bertram answered."There's apparently no clear idea of what's right and wrong at all, inthe ethical sense, as apart from what's usual. I was talking to a ladyup in London to-day about a certain matter I may perhaps mention to youby-and-by when occasion serves, and she said she'd been 'always broughtup to think' so-and-so. It seemed to me a very queer substitute indeedfor thinking."
"I never thought of that," Frida answered slowly. "I've said the samething a hundred times over myself before now; and I see how irrationalit is. But, there, Mr. Ingledew, that's why I always like talking withyou so much: you make one take such a totally new view of things."
She looked down and was silent a minute. Her breast heaved and fell. Shewas a beautiful woman, very tall and queenly. Bertram looked at her andpaused; then he went on hurriedly, just to break the awkward silence:"And this dance at Exeter, then--I suppose you won't go to it?"
"Oh, I CAN'T, of course," Frida answered quickly. "And my two othernieces--Robert's side, you know--who have nothing at all to do with mybrother Tom's wife, out there in India--they'll be SO disappointed. Iwas going to take them down to it. Nasty thing! How annoying of her!She might have chosen some other time to go and die, I'm sure, than justwhen she knew I wanted to go to Exeter!"
"Well, if it would be any convenience to you," Bertram put in with aserious face, "I'm rather busy on Wednesday; but I could manage to takeup a portmanteau to town with my dress things in the morning, meet thegirls at Paddington, and run down by the evening express in time to gowith them to the hotel you meant to stop at. They're those two prettyblondes I met here at tea last Sunday, aren't they?"
Frida looked at him, half-incredulous. He was very nice, she knew, andvery quaint and fresh and unsophisticated and unconventional; but couldhe be really quite so ignorant of the common usages of civilised societyas to suppose it possible he could run down alone with two young girlsto stop by themselves, without even a chaperon, at an hotel at Exeter?She gazed at him curiously. "Oh, Mr. Ingledew," she said, "now you'rereally TOO ridiculous!"
Bertram coloured up like a boy. If she had been in any doubt beforeas to his sincerity and simplicity, she could be so no longer. "Oh, Iforgot about the taboo," he said. "I'm so sorry I hurt you. I was onlythinking what a pity those two nice girls should be cheated out of theirexpected pleasure by a silly question of pretended mourning, where evenyou yourself, who have got to wear it, don't assume that you feel theslightest tinge of sorrow. I remember now, of course, what a lady toldme in London the other day: your young girls aren't even allowed to goout travelling alone without their mother or brothers, in order to taboothem absolutely beforehand for the possible husband who may some daymarry them.
It was a pitiful tale. I thought it all most painful andshocking."
"But you don't mean to say," Frida cried, equally shocked and astonishedin her turn, "that you'd let young girls go out alone anywhere withunmarried men? Goodness gracious, how dreadful!"
"Why not?" Bertram asked, with transparent simplicity.
"Why, just consider the consequences!" Frida exclaimed, with a blush,after a moment's hesitation.
"There couldn't be ANY consequences, unless they both liked andrespected one another," Bertram answered in the most matter-of-coursevoice in the world; "and if they do that, we think at home it's nobody'sbusiness to interfere in any way with the free expression of theirindividuality, in this the most sacred and personal matter of humanintercourse. It's the one point of private conduct about which we're allat home most sensitively anxious not to meddle, to interfere, or even tocriticise. We think such affairs should be left entirely to the heartsand consciences of the two persons concerned, who must surely know besthow they feel towards one another. But I remember having met lots oftaboos among other barbarians, in much the same way, to preserve themere material purity of their women--a thing we at home wouldn't dreamof even questioning. In New Ireland, for instance, I saw poor girlsconfined for four or five years in small wickerwork cages, where they'rekept in the dark, and not even allowed to set foot on the ground on anypretext. They're shut up in these prisons when they're about fourteen,and there they're kept, strictly tabooed, till they're just going tobe married. I went to see them myself; it was a horrid sight. Thepoor creatures were confined in a dark, close hut, without air orventilation, in that stifling climate, which is as unendurable from heatas this one is from cold and damp and fogginess; and there they sat incages, coarsely woven from broad leaves of the pandanus trees, so thatno light could enter; for the people believed that light would killthem. No man might see them, because it was close taboo; but at last,with great difficulty, I persuaded the chief and the old lady whoguarded them to let them come out for a minute to look at me. A lotof beads and cloth overcame these people's scruples; and with greatreluctance they opened the cages. But only the old woman looked; thechief was afraid, and turned his head the other way, mumbling charmsto his fetich. Out they stole, one by one, poor souls, ashamed andfrightened, hiding their faces in their hands, thinking I was going tohurt them or eat them--just as your nieces would do if I proposed to-dayto take them to Exeter--and a dreadful sight they were, cramped withlong sitting in one close position, and their eyes all blinded by theglare of the sunlight after the long darkness. I've seen women shut upin pretty much the same way in other countries, but I never saw quite sobad a case as this of New Ireland."
"Well, you can't say we've anything answering to that in England," Fridaput in, looking across at him with her frank, open countenance.
"No, not quite like that, in detail, perhaps, but pretty much the samein general principle," Bertram answered warmly. "Your girls here are notcooped up in actual cages, but they're confined in barrack-schools, aslike prisons as possible; and they're repressed at every turn in everynatural instinct of play or society. They mustn't go here or theymustn't go there; they mustn't talk to this one or to that one; theymustn't do this, or that, or the other; their whole life is bound round,I'm told, by a closely woven web of restrictions and restraints, whichhave no other object or end in view than the interests of a purelyhypothetical husband. The Chinese cramp their women's feet to makethem small and useless: you cramp your women's brains for the self-samepurpose. Even light's excluded; for they mustn't read books that wouldmake them think; they mustn't be allowed to suspect the bare possibilitythat the world may be otherwise than as their priests and nurses andgrandmothers tell them, though most even of your own men know it well tobe something quite different. Why, I met a girl at that dance I went toin London the other evening, who told me she wasn't allowed to read abook called Tess of the D'Urbervilles, that I'd read myself, and thatseemed to me one of which every young girl and married woman in Englandought to be given a copy. It was the one true book I had seen in yourcountry. And another girl wasn't allowed to read another book, whichI've since looked at, called Robert Elsmere,--an ephemeral thing enoughin its way, I don't doubt, but proscribed in her case for no otherreason on earth than because it expressed some mild disbelief as to theexact literary accuracy of those Lower Syrian pamphlets to which yourpriests attach such immense importance."
"Oh, Mr. Ingledew," Frida cried, trembling, yet profoundly interested;"if you talk like that any more, I shan't be able to listen to you."
"There it is, you see," Bertram continued, with a little wave of thehand. "You've been so blinded and bedimmed by being deprived of lightwhen a girl, that now, when you see even a very faint ray, it dazzlesyou and frightens you. That mustn't be so--it needn't, I feel confident.I shall have to teach you how to bear the light. Your eyes, I know, arenaturally strong; you were an eagle born: you'd soon get used to it."
Frida lifted them slowly, those beautiful eyes, and met his own withgenuine pleasure.
"Do you think so?" she asked, half whispering. In some dim, instinctiveway she felt this strange man was a superior being, and that every smallcrumb of praise from him was well worth meriting.
"Why, Frida, of course I do," he answered, without the least sense ofimpertinence. "Do you think if I didn't I'd have taken so much troubleto try and educate you?" For he had talked to her much in their walks onthe hillside.
Frida did not correct him for his bold application of her Christianname, though she knew she ought to. She only looked up at him andanswered gravely--
"I certainly can't let you take my nieces to Exeter."
"I suppose not," he replied, hardly catching at her meaning. "One ofthe girls at that dance the other night told me a great many queer factsabout your taboos on these domestic subjects; so I know how stringentand how unreasoning they are. And, indeed, I found out a little bit formyself; for there was one nice girl there, to whom I took a very greatfancy; and I was just going to kiss her as I said good-night, whenshe drew back suddenly, almost as if I'd struck her, though we'd beentalking together quite confidentially a minute before. I could see shethought I really meant to insult her. Of course, I explained it was onlywhat I'd have done to any nice girl at home under similar circumstances;but she didn't seem to believe me. And the oddest part of it all was,that all the time we were dancing I had my arm round her waist, as allthe other men had theirs round their partners; and at home we considerit a much greater proof of confidence and affection to be allowed toplace your arm round a lady's waist than merely to kiss her."
Frida felt the conversation was beginning to travel beyond her ideas ofpropriety, so she checked its excursions by answering gravely: "Oh,Mr. Ingledew, you don't understand our code of morals. But I'm sure youdon't find your East End young ladies so fearfully particular?"
"They certainly haven't quite so many taboos," Bertram answered quietly."But that's always the way in tabooing societies. These things arenaturally worst among the chiefs and great people. I remember when Iwas stopping among the Ot Danoms of Borneo, the daughters of chiefs andgreat sun-descended families were shut up at eight or ten years old,in a little cell or room, as a religious duty, and cut off from allintercourse with the outside world for many years together. The cell'sdimly lit by a single small window, placed high in the wall, so thatthe unhappy girl never sees anybody or anything, but passes her lifein almost total darkness. She mayn't leave the room on any pretextwhatever, not even for the most pressing and necessary purposes. Noneof her family may see her face; but a single slave woman's appointed toaccompany her and wait upon her. Long want of exercise stunts her bodilygrowth, and when at last she becomes a woman, and emerges from herprison, her complexion has grown wan and pale and waxlike. They take herout in solemn guise and show her the sun, the sky, the land, the water,the trees, the flowers, and tell her all their names, as if to a newborncreature. Then a great feast is made, a poor crouching slave is killedwith a blow of the sword, and the gir
l is solemnly smeared with hisreeking blood, by way of initiation. But this is only done, of course,with the daughters of wealthy and powerful families. And I find itpretty much the same in England. In all these matters, your poorerclasses are relatively pure and simple and natural. It's your richer andworse and more selfish classes among whom sex-taboos are strongest andmost unnatural."
Frida looked up at him a little pleadingly.
"Do you know, Mr. Ingledew," she said, in a trembling voice, "I'm sureyou don't mean it for intentional rudeness, but it sounds to us verylike it, when you speak of our taboos and compare us openly to thesedreadful savages. I'm a woman, I know; but--I don't like to hear youspeak so about my England."
The words took Bertram fairly by surprise. He was wholly unacquaintedwith that rank form of provincialism which we know as patriotism. Heleaned across towards her with a look of deep pain on his handsome face.
"Oh, Mrs. Monteith," he cried earnestly, "if YOU don't like it, I'llnever again speak of them as taboos in your presence. I didn't dream youcould object. It seems so natural to us--well--to describe like customsby like names in every case. But if it gives you pain--why, sooner thando that, I'd never again say a single word while I live about an Englishcustom!"
His face was very near hers, and he was a son of Adam, like all therest of us--not a being of another sphere, as Frida was sometimes halftempted to consider him. What might next have happened he himself hardlyknew, for he was an impulsive creature, and Frida's rich lips were fulland crimson, had not Philip's arrival with the two Miss Hardys to makeup a set diverted for the moment the nascent possibility of a leadingincident.