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The Woman Hater

C >> Charles Reade >> The Woman Hater




"Poor girl!" said Miss Maitland; and took the hint. She had still an
arrow in her quiver--Vizard.

In mid-channel, ten miles south of Dover, she caught him in a lucid
interval of non-smoke. She reminded, him he had promised her to give Mr.
Severne a hint about Zoe.

"So I did," said he.

"And have you?"

"Well, no; to tell the truth, I forgot."

"Then please do it now; for they are going on worse than ever."

"I'll warn the fool," said he.

He did warn him, and in the following terms:

"Look here, old fellow. I hear you are getting awfully sweet on my sister
Zoe."

No answer. Severne on his guard.

"Now, you had better mind your eye. She is a very pretty girl, and you
may find yourself entangled before you know where you are."

Severne hung his head. "Of course, I know it is great presumption in me."

"Presumption? fiddlestick! Such a man as you are ought not to be tied to
any woman, or, if you must be, you ought not to go cheap. Mind, Zoe is a
poor girl; only ten thousand in the world. Flirt with whom you
like--there is no harm in that; but don't get seriously entangled with
any of them. Good sisters, and good daughters, and good flirts make bad
wives."

"Oh, then," said Severne, "it is only on my account you object."

"Well, principally. And I don't exactly object. I warn. In the first
place, as soon as ever we get into Barfordshire, she will most likely
jilt you. You may be only her Continental lover. How can I tell, _or you
either?_ And if not, and you were to be weak enough to marry her, she
would develop unexpected vices directly--they all do. And you are not
rich enough to live in a house of your own; you would have to live in
mine--a fine fate for a rising blade like you."

"What a terrible prospect--to be tied to the best friend in England as
well as the loveliest woman!"

"Oh, if that is the view you take," said Vizard, beaming with delight,
"it is no use talking reason to _you."_

When they reached London, Vizard gave Miss Maitland an outline of this
conversation; and, so far from seeing the humor of it, which,
nevertheless, was pretty strong and characteristic of the man and his one
foible, she took the huff, and would not even stay to dinner at the
hotel. She would go into her own county by the next train, bag and
baggage.

Mr. Severne was the only one who offered to accompany her to the Great
Western Railway. She declined. He insisted; went with her; got her
ticket, numbered and arranged her packages, and saw her safely off, with
an air of profound respect and admirably feigned regret.

That she was the dupe of his art, may be doubted: that he lost nothing by
it, is certain. Men are not ruined by civility. As soon as she was
seated, she said, "I beg, sir, you will waste no more time with me. Mr.
Severne, you have behaved to me like a gentleman, and that is very
unusual in a man of your age nowadays. I cannot alter my opinion about my
niece and you: but I _am_ sorry you are a poor gentleman--much too poor
to marry her, and I wish I could make you a rich one; but I cannot. There
is my hand."

You should have seen the air of tender veneration with which the young
Machiavel bowed over her hand, and even imprinted a light touch on it
with his velvet lips.

Then he retired, disconsolate, and, once out of sight, whipped into a
gin-palace and swallowed a quartern of neat brandy, to take the taste out
of his mouth. "Go it, Ned," said he, to himself; "you can't afford to
make enemies.

The old lady went off bitter against the whole party _except Mr.
Severne;_ and he retired to his friends, disembarrassed of the one foe he
had not turned into a downright friend, but only disarmed. Well does the
great Voltaire recommend what he well calls "le grand art de plaire."

Vizard sent Harris into Barfordshire, to prepare for the comfort of the
party; and to light fires in all the bedrooms, though it was summer; and
to see the beds, blankets and sheets aired at the very fires of the very
rooms they were to be used in. This sacred office he never trusted to a
housekeeper; he used even to declare, as the result of experience, that
it was beyond the intellect of any woman really to air mattresses,
blankets, and sheets--all three. He had also a printed list he used to
show about, of five acquaintances, stout fellows all, whom "little bits
of women" (such was his phraseology) had laid low with damp beds, having
crippled two for life with rheumatism and lumbago, and sent three to
their long home.

Meantime Severne took the ladies to every public attraction by day and
night, and Vizard thanked him, before the fair, for his consideration in
taking them off his hands; and Severne retorted by thanking him for
leaving them on his.

It may seem, at first, a vile selection; but I am going to ask the ladies
who honor me with their attention to follow, not that gay, amorous party
of three, but this solitary cynic on his round.

Taking a turn round the garden in Leicester Square, which was new to him,
Harrington Vizard's observant eye saw a young lady rise up from a seat to
go, but turn pale directly, and sit down again upon the arm of the seat,
as if for support.

"Halloo!" said Vizard, in his blunt way, _"you_ are not well. What can I
do for you?"

"I am all right," said she. "Please go on;" the latter words in a tone
that implied she was not a novice, and the attentions of gentlemen to
strange ladies were suspected.

"I beg your pardon," said Vizard, coolly. "You are not all right. You
look as if you were going to faint."

"What, are my lips blue?"

"No; but they are pale."

"Well, then it is not a case of fainting. It _may_ be exhaustion."

"You know best. What shall we do?"

"Why, nothing. Yes; mind our own business."

"With all my heart; my business just now is to offer you some
restorative--a glass of wine."

"Oh, yes! I think I see myself going into a public-house with you.
Besides, I don't believe in stimulants. Strength can only enter the human
body one way. I know what is the matter with me."

"What is it?"

"I am not obliged to tell _you."_

"Of course you are not obliged; but you might as well."

"Well, then, it is Hunger."

"Hunger!"

"Hunger -- famine -- starvation. Don't you know English?"

"I hope you are not serious, madam," said Vizard, very gravely. "However,
if ladies will say such things as that, men with stomachs in their bosoms
must act accordingly. Oblige me by taking my arm, as you are weak, and we
will adjourn to that eating-house over the way."

"Much obliged," said the lady, satirically, "our acquaintance is not
_quite_ long enough for that."

He looked at her; a tall, slim, young lady, black merino, by no means
new, clean cuffs and collar leaning against the chair for support, and
yet sacrificing herself to conventional propriety, and even withstanding
him with a pretty little air of defiance that was pitiable, her pallor
and the weakness of her body considered.

The poor Woman-hater's bowels began to yearn. "Look here, you little
spitfire," said he, "if you don't instantly take my arm, I'll catch you
up and carry you over, with no more trouble than you would carry a
thread-paper."

She looked him up and down very keenly, and at last with a slight
expression of feminine approval, the first she had vouchsafed him. Then
she folded her arms, and cocked her little nose at him, "You daren't.
I'll call the police."

"If you do, I'll tell them you are my little cousin, mad as a March hare:
starving, and won't eat. Come, how is it to be?" He advanced upon her.

"You can't be in earnest, sir," said she, with sudden dignity.

"Am I not, though? You don't know _me._ I am used to be obeyed. If you
don't go with me like a sensible girl, I'll carry you--to your
dinner--like a ruffian."

"Then I'll go--like a lady," said she, with sudden humility.

He offered her his arm. She passed hers within; but leaned as lightly as
possible on it, and her poor pale face was a little pink as they went.

He entered the eating-house, and asked for two portions of cold roast
beef, not to keep her waiting. They were brought.

"Sir," said she, with a subjugated air, "will you be so good as cut up
the meat small, and pass it to me a bit or two at a time."

He was surprised, but obeyed her orders.

"And if you could make me talk a little? Because, at sight of the meat so
near me, I feel like a tigress--poor human nature! Sir, I have not eaten
meat for a week, nor food of any kind this two days."

"Good God!"

"So I must be prudent. People have gorged themselves with furious eating
under those circumstances; that is why I asked you to supply me slowly.
Thank you. You need not look at me like that. Better folk than I have
_died_ of hunger. Something tells me I have reached the lowest spoke,
when I have been indebted to a stranger for a meal."

Vizard felt the water come into his eyes; but he resisted that pitiable
weakness. "Bother that nonsense!" said he. "I'll introduce myself, and
then you can't throw _stranger_ in my teeth. I am Harrington Vizard, a
Barfordshire squire."

"I thought you were not a Cockney."

"Lord forbid! Does that information entitle me to any in return?"

"I don't know; but, whether or no, my name is Rhoda Gale."

"Have another plate, Miss Gale?"

"Thanks."

He ordered another.

"I am proud of your confiding your name to me, Miss Gale; but, to tell
the truth, what I wanted to know is how a young lady of your talent and
education could be so badly off as you must be. It is not impertinent
curiosity."

The young lady reflected a moment. "Sir," said she, "I don't think it is;
and I would not much mind telling you. Of course I studied you before I
came here. Even hunger would not make me sit in a tavern beside a fool,
or a snob, or (with a faint blush) a libertine. But to tell one's own
story, that is so egotistical, for one thing.

"Oh, it is never egotistical to oblige."

"Now, that is sophistical. Then, again, I am afraid I could not tell it
to you without crying, because you seem rather a manly man, and some of
it might revolt you, and you might sympathize right out, and then I
should break down."

"No matter. Do us both good."

"Yes, but before the waiters and people! See how they are staring at us
already."

"We will have another go in at the beef, and then adjourn to the garden
for your narrative."

"No: as much garden as you like, but no more beef. I have eaten one
sirloin, I reckon. Will you give me one cup of black tea without sugar or
milk?"

Vizard gave the order.

She seemed to think some explanation necessary, though he did not.

"One cup of tea agrees with my brain and nerves," said she. "It steadies
them. That is a matter of individual experience. I should not prescribe
it to others any the more for that."

Vizard sat wondering at the girl. He said to himself, "What is she? A
_lusus naturoe?"_

When the tea came, and she had sipped a little, she perked up
wonderfully. Said she, "Oh, the magic effect of food eaten judiciously!
Now I am a lioness, and do not fear the future. Yes; I will tell you my
story--and, if you think you are going to hear a love-story, you will be
nicely caught--ha-ha! No, _sir;"_ said she, with rising fervor and
heightened color, "you will hear a story the public is deeply interested
in and does not know it; ay, a story that will certainly be referred to
with wonder and shame, whenever civilization shall become a reality, and
law cease to be a tool of injustice and monopoly." She paused a moment;
then said a little doggedly, as one used to encounter prejudice, "I am a
medical student; a would-be doctor."

"Ah!"

"And so well qualified by genuine gifts, by study from my infancy, by
zeal, quick senses, and cultivated judgment, that, were all the leading
London physicians examined to-morrow by qualified persons at the same
board as myself, most of those wealthy practitioners--not all, mind you--
would cut an indifferent figure in modern science compared with me, whom
you have had to rescue from starvation--because I am a woman."

Her eye flashed. But she moderated herself, and said, "That is the
outline; and it is a grievance. Now, grievances are bores. You can escape
this one before it is too late."

"If it lies with me, I demand the minutest details," said Vizard, warmly.

"You shall have them; and true to the letter."

Vizard settled the small account, and adjourned, with his companion, to
the garden. She walked by his side, with her face sometimes thoughtfully
bent on the ground, and sometimes confronting him with ardor, and told
him a true story, the simplicity of which I shall try not to spoil with
any vulgar arts of fiction.




A LITTLE NARRATIVE OF DRY FACTS TOLD TO A WOMAN-HATER BY A WOMAN.



CHAPTER XII.

"My father was an American, my mother English. I was born near Epsom and
lived there ten years. Then my father had property left him in
Massachusetts, and we went to Boston. Both my parents educated me, and
began very early. I observe that most parents are babies at teaching,
compared with mine. My father was a linguist, and taught me to lisp
German, French, and English; my mother was an ideaed woman: she taught me
three rarities--attention, observation, and accuracy. If I went a walk in
the country, I had to bring her home a budget: the men and women on the
road, their dresses, appearance, countenances, and words; every kind of
bird in the air, and insect and chrysalis in the hedges; the crops in the
fields, the flowers and herbs on the banks. If I walked in the town, I
must not be eyes and no eyes; woe betide me if I could only report the
dresses! Really, I have known me, when I was but eight, come home to my
mother laden with details, when perhaps an untrained girl of eighteen
could only have specified that she had gone up and down a thoroughfare.
Another time mother would take me on a visit: next day, or perhaps next
week, she would expect me to describe every article of furniture in her
friend's room, and the books on the table, and repeat the conversation,
the topics at all events. She taught me to master history _accurately._
To do this she was artful enough to turn sport into science. She utilized
a game: young people in Boston play it. A writes an anecdote on paper, or
perhaps produces it in print. She reads it off to B. B goes away, and
writes it down by memory; then reads her writing out to C. C has to
listen, and convey her impression to paper. This she reads to D, and D
goes and writes it. Then the original story and D's version are compared;
and, generally speaking, the difference of the two is a caution-- against
oral tradition. When the steps of deviation are observed, it is quite a
study.

"My mother, with her good wit, saw there was something better than fun to
be got out of this. She trained my memory of great things with it. She
began with striking passages of history, and played the game with father
and me. But as my power of retaining, and repeating correctly, grew by
practice, she enlarged the business, and kept enriching my memory, so
that I began to have tracts of history at my fingers' ends. As I grew
older, she extended the sport to laws and the great public controversies
in religion, politics, and philosophy that have agitated the world. But
here she had to get assistance from her learned friends. She was a woman
valued by men of intellect, and she had no mercy--milked jurists,
physicians, and theologians and historians all into my little pail. To be
sure, they were as kind about it as she was unscrupulous. They saw I was
a keen student, and gave my mother many a little gem in writing. She read
them out to me: I listened hard, and thus I fixed many great and good
things in my trained memory; and repeated them against the text: I was
never allowed to see _that._

"With this sharp training, school subjects were child's play to me, and I
won a good many prizes very easily. My mother would not let me waste a
single minute over music. She used to say 'Music extracts what little
brains a girl has. Open the piano, you shut the understanding.' I am
afraid I bore you with my mother."

"Not at all, not at all. I admire her."

"Oh, thank you! thank you, sir! She never uses big words; so it is only
of late I have had the _nous_ to see how wise she is. She corrected the
special blots of the female character in me, and it is sweet to me to
talk of that dear friend. What would I give to see her here!





"Well, then, sir, she made me, as far as she could, a--what shall I say?
a kind of little intellectual gymnast, fit to begin any study; but she
left me to choose my own line. Well, I was for natural history first;
began like a girl; gathered wild flowers and simples at Epsom, along with
an old woman; she discoursed on their traditional virtues, and knew
little of their real properties: _that_ I have discovered since.

"From herbs to living things; never spared a chrysalis, but always took
it home and watched it break into wings. Hung over the ponds in June,
watching the eggs of the frog turn to tadpoles, and the tadpoles to
Johnny Crapaud. I obeyed Scripture in one thing, for I studied the ants
and their ways.

"I collected birds' eggs. At nine, not a boy in the parish could find
more nests in a day than I could. With birdnesting, buying, and now and
then begging, I made a collection that figures in a museum over the
water, and is entitled 'Eggs of British Birds.' The colors attract, and
people always stop at it. But it does no justice whatever to the great
variety of sea-birds' eggs on the coast of Britain.

"When I had learned what little they teach in schools, especially
drawing, and that is useful in scientific pursuits, I was allowed to
choose my own books, and attend lectures. One blessed day I sat and
listened to Agassiz--ah! No tragedy well played, nor opera sung, ever
moved a heart so deeply as he moved mine, that great and earnest man,
whose enthusiasm for nature was as fresh as my own, and his knowledge a
thousand times larger. Talk of heaven opening to the Christian pilgrim as
he passes Jordan! Why, God made earth as well as heaven, and it is worthy
of the Architect; and it is a joy divine when earth opens to the true
admirer of God's works. Sir, earth opened to me, as Agassiz discoursed.

"I followed him about like a little bloodhound, and dived into the
libraries after each subject he treated or touched.

"It was another little epoch in my life when I read 'White's Letters to
Pennant' about natural history in Selborne. Selborne is an English
village, not half so pretty as most; and, until Gilbert White came,
nobody saw anything there worth printing. His book showed me that the
humblest spot in nature becomes extraordinary the moment extraordinary
observation is applied to it. I must mimic Gilbert White directly. I
pestered my poor parents to spend a month or two in the depths of the
country, on the verge of a forest. They yielded, with groans; I kissed
them, and we rusticated. I pried into every living thing, not forgetting
my old friends, the insect tribe. Here I found ants with grander ideas
than they have to home, and satisfied myself they have more brains than
apes. They co-operate more, and in complicated things. Sir, there are
ants that make greater marches, for their size, than Napoleon's invasion
of Russia. Even the less nomad tribes will march through fields of grass,
where each blade is a high gum-tree to them, and never lose the track. I
saw an army of red ants, with generals, captains, and ensigns, start at
daybreak, march across a road, through a hedge, and then through high
grass till noon, and surprise a fortification of black ants, and take it
after a sanguinary resistance. All that must have been planned
beforehand, you know, and carried out to the letter. Once I found a
colony busy on some hard ground, preparing an abode. I happened to have
been microscoping a wasp, so I threw him down among the ants. They were
disgusted. They ran about collecting opinions. Presently half of them
burrowed into the earth below and undermined him, till he lay on a crust
of earth as thin as a wafer, and a deep grave below. Then they all got on
him except one, and be stood pompous on a pebble, and gave orders. The
earth broke--the wasp went down into his grave--and the ants soon covered
him with loose earth, and resumed their domestic architecture. I
concluded that though the monkey resembles man most in body, the ant
comes nearer him in mind. As for dogs, I don't know where to rank them in
_nature,_ because they have been pupils of man for centuries. I bore
you?"

"No."

"Oh, yes, I do: an enthusiast is always a bore. 'Les facheux,' of Moliere
are just enthusiasts. Well, sir, in one word, I was a natural
philosopher--very small, but earnest; and, in due course, my studies
brought me to the wonders of the human body. I studied the outlines of
anatomy in books, and plates, and prepared figures; and from that, by
degrees, I was led on to surgery and medicine--in books, you understand;
and they are only half the battle. Medicine is a thing one can do. It is
a noble science, a practical science, and a subtle science, where I
thought my powers of study and observation might help me to be keen at
reading symptoms, and do good to man, and be a famous woman; so I
concluded to benefit mankind and myself. Stop! that sounds like
self-deception. It must have been myself and mankind I concluded to
benefit. Anyway, I pestered that small section of mankind which consisted
of my parents, until they consented to let me study medicine in Europe."

"What, all by yourself?"

"Yes. Oh, girls are very independent in the States, and govern the old
people. Mine said 'No' a few dozen times; but they were bound to end in
'Yes,' and I went to Zurich. I studied hard there, and earned the
approbation of the professors. But the school deteriorated; too many
ladies poured in from Russia: some were not in earnest, and preferred
flirting to study, and did themselves no good, and made the male students
idle, and wickeder than ever--if possible."

"What else could you expect?" said Vizard.

"Nothing else from _unpicked_ women. But when all the schools in Europe
shall be open--as they ought to be, and must, and shall--there will be no
danger of shallow girls crowding to any particular school. Besides, there
will be a more strict and rapid routine of examination then to sift out
the female flirts and the male dunces along with them, I hope.

"Well, sir, we few, that really meant medicine, made inquiries, and heard
of a famous old school in the south of France, where women had graduated
of old; and two of us went there to try--an Italian lady and myself. We
carried good testimonials from Zurich, and, not to frighten the Frenchmen
at starting, I attacked them alone. Cornelia was my elder, and my
superior in attainments. She was a true descendant of those learned
ladies who have adorned the chairs of philosophy, jurisprudence, anatomy,
and medicine in her native country; but she has the wisdom of the
serpent, as well as of the sage; and she put me forward because of my red
hair. She said that would be a passport to the dark philosophers of
France."

"Was not that rather foxy, Miss Gale?"

"Foxy as my hair itself, Mr. Vizard.

"Well, I applied to a professor. He received me with profound courtesy
and feigned respect, but was staggered at my request to matriculate. He
gesticulated and bowed _'a la Francaise,_ and begged the permission of
his foxy-haired invader from Northern climes to consult his colleagues.
Would I do him the great honor to call again next day at twelve? I did
and met three other polished authorities. One spoke for all, and said, If
I had not brought with me proofs of serious study, they should have
dissuaded me very earnestly from a science I could not graduate in
without going through practical courses of anatomy and clinical surgery.
That, however (with a regular French shrug), was my business, not theirs.
It was not for them to teach me delicacy, but rather to learn it from me.
That was a French sneer. The French are _un gens moqueur,_ you know. I
received both shrug and sneer like marble. He ended it all by saying the
school had no written law excluding doctresses; and the old records
proved women had graduated, and even lectured, there. I had only to pay
my fees, and enter upon my routine of studies. So I was admitted on
sufferance; but I soon earned the good opinion of the professors, and of
this one in particular; and then Cornelia applied for admission, and was
let in too. We lived together, and had no secrets; and I think, sir, I
may venture to say that we showed some little wisdom, if you consider our
age, and all that was done to spoil us. As to parrying their little sly
attempts at flirtation, that is nothing; we came prepared. But, when our
fellow-students found we were in earnest, and had high views, the
chivalrous spirit of a gallant nation took fire, and they treated us with
a delicate reverence that might have turned any woman's head. But we had
the credit of a sneered-at sex to keep up, and felt our danger, and
warned each other; and I remember I told Cornelia how many young ladies
in the States I had seen puffed up by the men's extravagant homage, and
become spoiled children, and offensively arrogant and discourteous; so I
entreated her to check those vices in me the moment she saw them coming.

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