Chambers's journal of popular literature, science, and art, fifth series, no. 125, vol. III, May 22, 1886

ARTHUR CRAWFORD.’

This is an extract from a letter that I received on the 10th of June 1870, and being but a young fellow of twenty-six, I was very much elated thereby. The great drawback to being what is called a specialist is that the generality of people—for what reason, I have never been able to discover—are afraid to employ you until you are well on in years, and consequently this Mrs Crawford for whom my services had been enlisted was my first private patient. My speciality was madness; and tiring equally of hospital-work and of idling in my own rooms, I was heartily thankful for the good luck that had befallen me. In a previous letter, Mr Crawford had given a detailed account of his wife’s symptoms; and now all arrangements were completed, and I was due at his Berkshire home on the following day.

When the train steamed into the little country station, I found a carriage and pair ready to meet me. Evidently, to judge by the general get-up of the whole thing, the Crawfords were wealthy folk; and this impression was confirmed when we reached the house, which was standing in the midst of a lovely park. In true country fashion, the hall-doors were standing open, and my host met me on the threshold with outstretched hands.

‘This is exceedingly kind of you,’ he said genially, ‘for I know you have come at your very earliest convenience.—Journey from town pleasant?—Yes? That’s right.—James, take Mr Lennox’s things to his room. Lunch in the morning-room, hey?—Come along, my dear sir; you must be half famished.’ So saying, he preceded me down a long corridor, whence I caught distant glimpses of a beautiful garden at the back of the house, and into a snug little room where luncheon was laid. While I discussed a cold chicken, Mr Crawford went on chatting; and ere I went to my room for a wash and brush up before presenting myself to his wife, we were excellent friends. I do not think I ever met a man who so much charmed me at first sight; nay, he more than charmed, he captivated me. He was about thirty, and exceedingly handsome, with fair curly hair, and bright blue eyes. He had a bronzed complexion, and a hearty laugh, and was altogether a most attractive specimen of a young Englishman. When I had finished luncheon, his manner changed abruptly as he began speaking of his young wife.

‘I did not like to enter upon the subject before you were rested,’ he began courteously; ‘but I am intensely anxious you should see her. For some months past she has been suffering from intense melancholia, and lately she has taken a deep distrust of those around her, more particularly of me.’ He stopped abruptly and bit his lip. ‘Doctor, I simply worship her,’ he went on passionately. ‘When I married her five years ago, she was the blithest, merriest girl in all the shire; and now, to see her like this—why, it breaks my heart!’ and he dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

There was an awkward pause, for in those days I was too inexperienced to be much of a hand at consolation, and then I stepped nearer to him and laid my hand upon his shoulder. ‘Come, come,’ I said cheerily, ‘there is no need to despair like this. We must hope for the best. How does she show her distrust of you?’

He raised his head to answer me. ‘By keeping the boy from me, for one thing. She will hardly let me touch him.’

‘The boy? A son of yours?’

‘Our only child,’ he answered—‘a dear little fellow of nearly four; and she betrays a terrible fear whenever I have him with me.’

‘Does she eat well?’

‘Hardly at all.’

‘Sleep at night?’

He shook his head; and then followed a string of various professional questions. Our conversation at an end, I requested to be shown to my room, promising to be in the drawing-room for five o’clock tea, when I should be introduced to Mrs Crawford.

‘As _Mr_ Lennox, if you please,’ suggested her husband as we crossed the hall. ‘You remember that I asked you to drop the doctor, and seem an ordinary visitor?’

Of course I agreed; and then he told me he had spoken to her of me as an old college friend; and finally he left me to myself.

When I descended to the drawing-room, I found both Crawford and his wife waiting for me. He was standing by the open window playing with the climbing roses that were nodding by its sill: he was talking merrily as I entered, and looked the personification of life and good spirits. A girl was standing by the mantel-shelf with her back towards me, and I had barely time to admire the slight figure and graceful pose, before Crawford’s voice rang out in hearty cordiality.

‘Ah! there you are at last! Let me introduce you to my wife.—Beatrice, this is Mr John Lennox.’

She had half turned when he began speaking; but as he said my name, she gave a sudden gasp and confronted me with large startled eyes. I have seen the eyes of a snared bird and those of a hunted stag, but I have never seen such a look of piteous fear as dwelt in hers then. For one moment she seemed half mad with terror; but the next it fled as quickly as it came, and she held out her hand in greeting. As she did so, an ugly scar on the smooth white wrist caught my eye. It looked to me like an unskilful but intentional cut from a knife, and while we were exchanging commonplaces as to my journey, &c., I was wondering as to whether she had ever attempted her own life. She was in the first flush of her womanhood; and her glorious blue eyes and coil of auburn hair would alone have sufficed to stamp her as a beautiful woman, had it not been that the curious expression of her face outweighed every other fascination. She gave me the impression of being literally consumed by a terrible dread, to the nature of which I of course as yet held no clue; and with this dread, an equally strong desire to suppress all outward indication of it. Add to this, the fact that her face was entirely colourless, and that the hand she had given me, in spite of the June sunshine, was as cold as ice, and it will be seen that my first case promised to be full of interest.

She poured out the tea silently, while her husband and I went on chatting, and she did not speak again until he proposed to ring the nursery bell.

‘We have not seen Bertie all day,’ he added, ‘and I know you would like to show him off to Lennox.’

‘He is having his tea,’ she rejoined quickly. ‘Show him off in the morning, Arthur; I don’t think we want him now.’

‘O fie! There is an unkind mamma! I wonder what Bertie would say to you? He can finish his tea here, dear. I’ll fetch him.’

‘No, no; I’ll go.’ She ran out of the room as she spoke; and Crawford turned to me with a weary-looking smile.

‘You see, Lennox? I generally give way; but I am afraid of it growing upon her, if I never see the child. He is such a splendid fellow!’ As he spoke, his wife returned with the boy in her arms.

‘I met him in the hall,’ she explained; ‘he was just coming in from his walk.—No, Arthur, don’t take him: he is not at all heavy.’ This last to her husband, who had advanced with outstretched hands. ‘Look here, Bertie, darling. Who likes cake?’ She seated herself on a low chair, still keeping a jealous arm around the child, and went on talking, this time to me. ‘Arthur and I quarrel over this small boy.’ She laughed a little, but it sounded very mirthless. ‘The last cause of dissension is his health. I think he is growing delicate and wants change, and papa doesn’t agree. Does he, my beauty?’

The boy laughed as she held him yet more closely to her; and looking at his rosy cheeks and bright eyes, it seemed to me that there could not be a healthier youngster.

‘I am afraid I must take papa’s side,’ I said. ‘You must not alarm yourself unnecessarily, dear Mrs Crawford, for I think’—— I stopped abruptly, alarmed by the expression on her face. I was new at my work, be it remembered; but I think that older men than I would have been frightened. Bertie had rebelled against the detaining arm; and sliding on to the floor, had run to his father and climbed into his arms.

A fine game of romps now ensued, and the mother sat and watched them. Sitting there facing her, I, too, was watching. In my student days, I had kept a tame lizard, and by whistling to it, had been able to direct its movements at will, and now I was reminded of my whilom pet by watching Beatrice Crawford’s eyes. Every motion of her husband’s, as he ran round the room tossing the laughing boy in his arms, appeared to hold a fascination for her, and her gaze never left him but once. That once was when she walked swiftly to a further table and possessed herself of a paper-knife, which she handed to me, commenting on its curious make. It was of steel and sharply pointed; and I handed it back again with the remark, that it would make a nasty weapon if needed. She took it without glancing at me again; but her husband had caught her words, and now came up to us breathless and laughing, with Bertie clinging round his neck.

‘Don’t hold that thing, my darling,’ he said tenderly. ‘I hate to see such an ugly knife in your dear little hands.’

‘Give it to Bertie, mamma,’ cried the child, stretching dimpled hands for the coveted treasure; and his father, with an injunction to be careful, was taking it from her to give to him, when, with a muffled cry, she snatched the knife back and dashed it through the open window into the garden beyond.

‘You shan’t have it!—you shan’t have it!’ she cried excitedly, while a bright red spot burned on either cheek. ‘You would’—— With marvellous self-control, she stopped dead short; and after an almost imperceptible pause, she added in her usual quiet tones: ‘Pray, forgive me, Arthur; I am so afraid of Bertie hurting himself.—Go up to the nursery, dear. Mamma will come to you.’

Awe-struck at her late passion, the child went gently out of the room, and his mother following him, I was left alone with Crawford. It went to my heart to see the pained, drawn look on his face; but the scene had at all events put one thing beyond a doubt: Mrs Crawford was not merely failing in brain-power—she was mad.

A couple of days went by, and I became fairly puzzled. All the ordinary verbal tests when applied to my patient proved complete failures. Her memory was excellent, and indeed in this respect she was far better than her husband, who was constantly forgetting things. As to her judgment, it struck me as above the average, for she was a widely-read woman, and we had a stiff argument one night as to the merits of our favourite authors. She managed her own housekeeping, and capitally she did it too; and, in fact—not to exhaust the reader’s patience by entering into details—the only visible outcome of her mental aberration was this extreme terror in which she lived, and for which I could find no reason. (I may remark parenthetically that the mad undoubtedly have rules of their own by which they are influenced. Experience thus teaching me that Mrs Crawford had some reason for this, to us, inexplicable dread—even though it might be but a fear of her own shadow—it became my business to solve this reason.) What baffled me most was the fact that while it was Crawford himself who primarily excited this terror, she was undeniably fond of him. Indeed, the word ‘fond’ is hardly suitable, for she simply adored him. I never heard him express the slightest wish as to the household arrangements but it was instantly fulfilled; while every whim—and he was the most whimsical of men—was implicitly obeyed. In fact, at the end of a week I was precisely in the same state as when I first entered the house. But that my _amour propre_ was piqued, and I felt angry at my non-success, I should have been paying a very enjoyable visit. Arthur Crawford made a capital host; and although, as I have already said, he was a very whimsical man, and was subject to unaccountable fits of depression, he and I got on excellently together.

At the end of the week, something happened which had the double effect of lowering me several inches in my own estimation, and of placing matters in a totally different light. It was an exceedingly hot night; and after we had all gone to bed, I was tempted to leave my room, and seating myself by the open window in the corridor, to indulge in an extra cigar. The fact that it was a fine moonlight night, and that while the corridor window boasted a lovely view, that of my own room looked into the stables, amply justified my choice of a seat. I had been there for perhaps an hour, when I heard the Crawfords talking in their room, which was on a level with my own. The tones were excited and eager; and fearing that Mrs Crawford might be lashing herself into a fury, and that her husband might be ignorantly increasing it, I stole down to their door and stood listening.

‘Arthur, dear, give it to me. You don’t want it to-night. Why not wait until the morning?’

These were the first words that I caught spoken in Mrs Crawford’s usually gentle tones.

‘Give it to you?—No; not I! I know a trick worth two of that. Ah, you think I don’t know that you and that confounded mealy-mouthed doctor are in league against me.’

Crawford’s voice, shrill and mocking, but undoubtedly his. Good heavens! was the man drunk? There was a moment’s pause, and then he began again, this time more gently.

‘Come, come, Beatrice. Drop this stupid joking. I only want to have a little cut at Bertie, just a little cut; and look! the knife is so bright and sharp, it cannot hurt him much.’

The wall seemed to reel around me as I leaned against it for support. In a flash of revelation that nearly blinded me, as I realised the full horror of the situation, I understood for the first time how matters actually stood. Crawford himself was the madman, and the devoted wife, whom I had been taught to look upon as insane, had known the truth all this time; and knowing it, for some inscrutable woman’s reason, had shielded him, perhaps at the cost of her very life. In a moment the meaning of his many whims, his loss of memory, his fits of depression, were made clear to me; and as I thought of the martyrdom through which his girl-wife had passed, I cursed myself for the readiness with which I had been duped.

While these thoughts were rushing through my brain, I had noiselessly opened the outer door, and now stood in the dressing-room, peering into the bedroom beyond. The door between the two was standing open; but a heavy curtain hung in the aperture, and by making a little slit in it by means of my penknife, I was enabled to command a view of the interior. At the farther end of the apartment lay Bertie asleep in his cot. Standing before him, clad in a long white wrapper, and with her auburn hair flowing over her shoulders, was the young mother herself; while at some paces from her stood Crawford, still in evening dress, and balancing in his fingers a long glittering dagger, that I recognised as one that usually hung in the library below. By this time he had dropped his angry tones, and was speaking in his accustomed pleasant fashion. ‘You know, dear,’ he was saying, ‘it really is necessary that we both drink some. Half a glassful of young and innocent blood, and we both shall keep young and happy for ever.’

‘Won’t my blood do?’ asked the girl desperately. She stretched her bare arms towards him and forced a smile to her poor quivering lips. ‘You are much fonder of me, aren’t you, dear? I shall do much better.’

He laughed softly. ‘No, no, my darling; not you. I wouldn’t hurt you for all the gold of all the Indies.’ He stopped suddenly, as if struck by his own words. ‘Gold?’ he repeated. ‘Ah! yes, of course, I must have gold. Where did I put it now?’

He retreated a few steps, looking uneasily from side to side.

‘Perhaps you left it in the library.—Ring for James. Or go to Mr Lennox, Arthur; he will help you to find it.’

He laughed again—a low monotonous laugh, to which my hospital-work had but too well accustomed me, and then he moved nearer her, still balancing the dagger in his long nervous fingers. That terrible knife! If he had only put it down for a moment, I could have rushed in and secured it before turning to him; but as matters were, cruel experience taught me that the instant he caught sight of me, he would rush to the child, to carry his dreadful purpose into effect, and that the mother in all probability would fall the victim. On the other hand, I dared not quit my post to summon assistance, and so leave Beatrice entirely at his mercy. I glanced round the dressing-room, and the window-cord caught my eye. It was new and strong. I cut it as high as I could reach, and crept back to my hole at the curtain. Crawford was growing rapidly angry.

‘Give me that boy!’ he cried roughly. ‘Get out of the way, Beatrice, and let me have him;’ and he caught her by the arm and dragged her from the cot.

‘Arthur, Arthur! husband, sweetheart!’ She clasped both arms around his neck, and raised imploring eyes to his; but the sight of the thin white face only moved him to greater wrath.

‘It is all your fault I have not made you strong long ago,’ he exclaimed irritably. ‘You never laugh now, and you can’t sing, and you won’t dance.’

‘Dance? O yes, I can. Look, Arthur!’ She drew rapidly back towards the cot, speaking in her ordinary quiet voice. ‘You shall do what you like with Bertie; I was only joking. Only we must have our dance first, you know.’

With a sudden movement, she stooped and lifted the sleeping child from the bed, talking all the time in an arch merry voice, that still retained its old power over the poor madman. He nodded approvingly as she began rocking to and fro with the boy in her arms, and he moved a chair or two, to give her more space.

‘Dance, Beatrice!’ and he began whistling a then fashionable valse, beating time to the air with the dagger, of which he never relinquished his hold.

‘Very well,’ she responded cheerily. ‘Stand by the mantel-piece and give us plenty of room. Now, then, my baby boy; one, two, and off we go.’

My life has shown me instances of self-devotion in plenty; I have seen proofs of ready wit, and more of indomitable pluck; but I have never seen them so marvellously combined as on that terrible June night. Instinct taught me what she meant to do. She had persuaded her husband to stand at the end of the room farthest from the curtain that hid her one means of escape, and now she intended to hazard her only chance, dash through it, lock the door on the other side, and then go for help. Backwards and forwards, round and round, she circled, a weird enough figure in her white draperies. The little white feet were bare, and it taxed her utmost strength to hold the heavy boy in her arms; but with a sublime heroism of which I should never have believed her capable, she never once paused for breath. A miracle alone kept the child asleep; but when I saw the poor mother’s lips move dumbly between the snatches of the gay valse she was humming, I felt that she was praying God he might not waken. Nearer and nearer the curtain she came; but, to my horror, I perceived that Crawford was growing uneasy and advancing slowly in the rear.

‘Mrs Crawford! Quick!’

There was not a minute to be lost. I tore the curtain aside, and she rushed towards me; but ere I could fasten the heavy door, her husband was upon us. With a yell of baffled rage, he was tearing after her through the open doorway, and in another moment would have reached her with uplifted knife, when I tripped him up, and he fell headlong to the floor. He was stunned by his fall; and while I fastened his hands and feet by means of the cut window-cord, his wife went back to the inner room and rang loudly for assistance.

Ere he came to himself, Arthur Crawford was safely secured in my own room. Leaving him there under charge of the men-servants, I went back to seek Mrs Crawford. She was lying on the bedroom floor with her nervous fingers still tightly interlaced, and by her side sat her little son, warm and rosy from his broken sleep. He was kissing the paling lips as I came hastily into the room, and now held up a warning finger as I knelt beside them.