PART TWENTY-SEVEN

THE NEW SCIENCE

§ 1

Into every marriage there come times of crisis, when man and woman gaze at each other dumbly across a great wall of misunderstanding. Peter’s homecoming from hospital provided that crisis in his life and Patricia’s.

Poor Patricia! she had looked forward so rapturously to having him at Sunflowers; worked so hard to make the place perfect. And now it seemed to her as though not only house and children but she herself must be distasteful to him; as though even palship were ended. Night after night, his placid kisses banished her to loneliness. Night after wakeful night, she watched the light in his dressing-room glimmer through the chinks of the door between them. Poor Patricia! unable to realize that this man who annoyed her by the very placidity of his demeanour, was struggling—every minute of the day, and every hour of the night—to prevent his hands from trembling, his voice from quivering, his every tone and every attitude from betraying the terrors which were eating away his self-respect.

Poor Peter! he strove so desperately to conceal his miseries. Poor Peter, who only succeeded, by not voicing them, in finally convincing his wife that the something he strove so obviously to conceal from her must be lack of affection. . . .

Thus brick by reticent brick: he with his nameless shameless fears, she with her certainty of love lost for ever: these two built up their pathetic wall of misunderstandings.

In all their lives they had never had so many opportunities for companionship: in all their lives they had never been so uncompanionable. They were always together—but they were never in harmony. Mutual existence turned to a game of finesse—“I mustn’t let her know this,” “I mustn’t let him see that.” Yet, outwardly, they remained a very ordinary married couple. No visiting stranger, not even Francis whom they saw almost daily, perceived the barrier between them.

Walking together, talking together, in the dining-room with the children, in the garden with Fry, morning and evening, the game of misunderstanding went on.

And the man used to say to himself: “O God, am I going mad? I am afraid, afraid. Everything frightens me. One day she will know I am afraid. Then, she will despise me. The servants know I am afraid: they talk about me: I cannot hear what they say, but I know they are talking about me, they talk about me all the time. The children know I am afraid. . . . O God, what am I afraid of? Of what am I not afraid? I wish to God I could go back to the front. Death is simpler out there. And I am only fit for death, because I am afraid to go back to the front. . . . She mustn’t know that I am afraid, she must never guess that I am afraid.”

And the woman used to say to herself: “O God, what is behind Peter’s eyes? He hates it all—me, the children, this house I have made for him. His voice praises, but his heart condemns me. O God, if he’d only say what he is thinking. We used to be pals once—and that was not enough for me. I used to call myself his chattel. Now, I am not even chattel to him. We are strangers in a strange house. He hates me. He mustn’t guess that I know of his hatred.”

The woman, at any rate, had work for anodyne. By now, Patricia began to realize that country life on a moderate income is not the simple paradise which town dwellers imagine it. She was not yet fully aware of the robberies practised on her; but she had learned, at least, the necessity of personal supervision. Children, house, servants, garden, animals—all needed her. The man Fry, grown arrogant on the proceeds of speculation (he had utilized her absence to dispose of the apple-crop to a confederate—and the two were now holding forty bushels of pippins for the ultimate rise) turned lazy, insubordinate; required constant prodding. Fanny and Elizabeth—half-trained, utterly uneducated, liars by inheritance of serfdom—could not be trusted to work unwatched. Also, accounts had begun to roll in.

None of these inevitable pettinesses would have been a burden, if she could have laughed over them with Peter. But household affairs had always been taboo between them: her job and hers only. They had made that rule in the prosperity of three thousand a year; and she was not the type of woman to break it in the adversity of six hundred. Moreover, intuition warned her that he must, for the present, be shielded from financial anxieties.

Peter, who had no work for anodyne and cherished all the prejudices of the caste which is not accustomed to see its womenfolk labour, watched her busied about the house, feeding her chickens, educating the children, till the Fear of Poverty wiped out all other fears and he said to himself: “This is the way my clerks used to live. I’ve brought her to this. I shall bring her to worse than this. . . .” Then he would take his twelve-bore from the case in his dressing-room, drop a couple of No. 5’s into the breech, and slip through Tebbits’ Farm, down the hill to Francis Gordon’s cottage.

“Why the devil do you always bring that gun of yours?” Francis used to ask.

“Might see a rabbit.” Invariably Peter gave the same answer to his cousin’s question; invariably he felt shamed by it. For the real reason of that gun-carrying was Fear, the Fear of Open Spaces.

And when Peter used to ask, “Done any work, old man?” Francis would answer, “Oh, I’m just lying fallow for a bit.” For Francis Gordon had passed beyond the Fears into the land of No-Incentive.

§ 2

Heron Baynet arrived at Sunflowers on Christmas Eve. Nothing about the house suggested tragedy: the hedges were clipped, the ground dug; holly decked the hall; above the oak dining-table hung a bunch of mistletoe; Peter’s study had been cleared for the children’s tree and presents. The day itself brought its usual gift-giving, its usual church-going, the usual roast-beef for lunch, the usual turkey, the usual champagne—and Francis Gordon who hobbled through Tebbits’ cowyard in full evening-kit and a fur-coat—for dinner.

The usual Christmas dinner-party! Yet all through it, Heron Baynet felt conscious of tension. To his professional mind, these three fairly ordinary people—the young wife, the convalescent and the invalided soldier—seemed somehow out of tune with the world and with each other; he sensed discord in the apparent harmony of their even small-talk. Instinctively, he began to analyse them, to look for tangible symptoms of that intangible tension.

What could be the trouble? Covertly, he studied Peter. The man looked thin, of course: that was to be expected after his illness. He spoke rather more slowly than usual, drank more than his share of wine, seemed to grip knife and fork. . . . “I wonder,” thought Heron Baynet. Then Fanny, entering hurriedly, caught her foot in the edge of the carpet, stumbled, recovered her balance. The doctor saw Peter’s face twitch for the fraction of a second; saw the lower jaw drop, jerk back into position as the fifth nerve sent its message of control from the taut brain. “Poor devil,” thought Heron Baynet. . . .

In the light of that subtle revelation, many things became clear to the neurologist’s mind: he understood his daughter’s occasional glances at her husband, Peter’s carefully modulated voice, the whole atmosphere of watchful distrust in which these two must have been living since his son-in-law returned from hospital. Professional instinct satisfied, he turned his attention to Francis.

But nothing in Francis Gordon’s demeanour betrayed tension. On the contrary, he seemed—compared with the super-alertness of Peter and Patricia—a mind gone mute. He talked, and he ate, and he drank, like an automaton. . . .

Meal over, Patricia left her three men alone in the small candle-lit dining-room. The maid brought coffee; Peter produced cigars. They talked for a little about the fall of the Asquith Cabinet, Lloyd George, Tanks, the chances of America coming in.

The last topic seemed to strike a responsive chord in Francis Gordon’s mind. His eyes brightened to it for a moment: then the flame in them went dead. Peter told about Charlie Henry; Heron Baynet led him from that to his own wounding.

“I don’t remember much after I was hit,” said Peter, and shied off the subject.

“But were you unconscious all the way to England?”

“I suppose so.”

Conversation languished for a moment. Then Peter edged his chair towards his father-in-law’s; began to talk medicine. Peter opened very carefully, feeling his way with each sentence towards the topic which for the moment obsessed him: but it did not take the doctor’s astute mind very long to realize that he was being pumped for information. And the information his son-in-law sought was all about one subject—tubercle. “At what age were people most liable to consumption?” “How did it start?” “Was it hereditary?” “How long did it take to kill a man?” “Could it be cured?” . . .

* * * * *

“Now why on earth,” thought Heron Baynet, “does a man who is obviously suffering from repressed shell-shock, want to know about tubercle?” And that night he sat up very late, peering into the flames of the wood-fire in his bed-room, seeing visions of this new science, the science of neurology, by which men who had learned how to die might be taught how to live.

§ 3

Heron Baynet had planned his return to London for Boxing Day; but he cancelled his appointments by wire, and stayed on at Sunflowers. He felt his daughter’s happiness to be staked on a correct diagnosis of her husband’s mental condition; and as Peter’s reserve made direct methods impossible, the diagnosis necessitated vigilance and unceasing study.

After two days spent apparently in idleness, actually in the most minute observation, the doctor succeeded in decoying his daughter away from home, husband and children; suggested a little stroll through Arlsfield Woods.

It was a dull December afternoon; and as they took the footpath across the paddock, picked their way under leafless branches over slippery tree-roots, Patricia could not help contrasting this winter sombreness with the splendid springtime when she and Francis had first found Sunflowers. Then, the world had been one great promise; now, the world and her own hope seemed withered, never to blossom again. . . .

“I wanted to talk to you about Peter.” Her father’s voice interrupted reverie. “Does he ever fire that gun he carries about all the time?”

She looked up astonished. “No, I don’t think he ever does. Why do you ask, pater?”

But Heron Baynet only muttered, “H’m, I thought not”; and walked on in silence. “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?” he said at last.

“A little”—loyalty restrained her from giving the correct reason—“he doesn’t seem really well yet.”

“He isn’t. He’s very far from well. He’s about as ill as any one can be.”

“Pater!” she stopped in her walk, and they stood facing each other. “Not his lungs.”

“No”—the man spoke very gently—“not his lungs, but his mind. You’ve often heard me talk about shell-shock, Pat; and I’ve often bored you with my jargon of neurasthenia. Well, now you’ll have to listen to it all over again. Only this time, it’s got a personal application.”

He took her arm, and they resumed their walk, pacing slowly among the trees.

“Peter,” began Heron Baynet, “is suffering from acute neurasthenia brought on partly by actual shell-shock, and partly by the general strain of war. In a weaker character the symptoms would be perfectly plain—shaky hand, general jumpiness, irritability, forgetfulness. Peter is controlling all these symptoms—and Heaven knows what impulses—with the result that, sooner or later unless we can find some means to save him, his mind will give way altogether.”

“You don’t mean that he’ll go mad, pater.” Love and horror mingled in Patricia’s voice.

“Nothing of the sort,” said her father angrily. “Neurasthenia isn’t madness; any more than a sprained ankle is madness. Neurasthenia is a mind-sprain; and like all sprains, its primary treatment must be rest. Do you think Peter’s soul ever gives his mind a rest? Not a bit of it. Peter’s mind is afraid of going out by itself—that’s why he always carries that gun—but Peter’s soul says to it, ‘Afraid, are you? I’ll teach you to be afraid’; and off he goes for a walk. Result: he comes back with his mind a little more sprained than when he started. Peter’s mind wants his fingers to shake, his body to start when it hears some sudden noise: Peter’s soul says to his mind, ‘You let those fingers shake—and there’ll be trouble.’ Result: more mind-sprain.”

Heron Baynet elaborated his theory of the “soul and the mind”—known also in the patter of neurologists as the “mind and the brain,” or the “conscious and the subconscious”—till he succeeded in making clear to Patricia that the thing to be feared in Peter’s case was not madness, a wrong-functioning of the brain, but break-down, a non-functioning of it.

“But surely, pater,” she said at last, “if he’s as bad inside as you think, he’d have consulted you about it?”

“My dear, he’s afraid to.”

“Afraid?” Patricia laughed incredulously. In spite of all she had just heard, she could not yet bring herself to believe Peter afraid of anything. “Afraid to consult you?”

“Yes, afraid to consult me. Scared to death! Don’t you see, Pat, that the whole trouble lies in that one word, ‘Fear’? Do you think that your so-called ‘heroes’ aren’t afraid? Of course they are—otherwise they wouldn’t be heroes. The hero is the man who controls fear—not the man who doesn’t feel it. But the process of controlling fear can’t go on indefinitely. Every man has his limit. . . .”

“But Peter!” she interrupted, still unbelieving. “Peter!”

“Peter’s gone beyond his limit and his fear-controlling apparatus is breaking down; that’s all. Take his history, and you’ll see what I mean. At eighteen, he goes into business: that means anxiety, mind-strain, fear to be controlled; at twenty-one, his father dies—more mind-strain; he gets married, takes on more responsibilities; buys another business. . . . Then, comes the War; instead of going to it with an easy mind. . . . Well, you know what’s happened since 1914.” Heron Baynet broke off for a minute, resumed: “I felt, when he came home on leave in April that the strain was telling on him. However, apparently he gets over it; goes back to the front. What do we know after that? Practically nothing. He tells us that he had a ‘cushy time’ at Neuve Eglise, that he had rather a ‘rotten time’ on the Somme. At the end of the ‘rather rotten time’ he gets a crack on the head which keeps him unconscious for the best part of three days, a wound in the fleshy part of the arm, _and_ bronchial pneumonia. How did he get bronchial pneumonia?”

“Exposure,” said Patricia.

“Exposure be sugared. He was picked up the same day. . . . By the way, has he ever spoken to you about consumption?”

“Yes. Twice. He said the children ought to sleep in the open air.”

“Consumption is one of the particular fears he can’t quite control. That, I’m certain of. I wonder what his other fears are—or aren’t.”

For all her anxiety, Patricia could not restrain a feeling of relief. One thing at least, her father’s explanation had taught her: that she might still win her husband’s love—“even if he is a coward,” she said aloud.

“A coward!”—Heron Baynet snapped at the word as he had snapped at the suggestion of madness. “A coward! Were you afraid before Primula was born?”

“A little,” she confessed.

“Well, multiply that fear by infinity—and you will have some idea of what Peter is going through. And remember, you _knew_; he knows nothing, except that he is afraid, and that to be afraid is to be”—Heron Baynet hesitated over the word—“caddish.”

Silently, they began to retrace their steps homewards. Already, light was failing among the trees. It seemed to Patricia that she walked in cold shadows—helpless.

“Can nothing be done?” she said at last.

“Without his willingness to be treated—nothing.”

“Will he have to go back to the front in March?”

For the first time that afternoon, her father laughed. “Not if I know anything about Medical Boards, Pat. He wouldn’t last ten days.” The doctor grew serious. “But that doesn’t help us much. The damage to his mind has got to be repaired somehow. _You_ might start the process; I can’t.”

“I?” The monosyllable carried infinite query.

“Yes. You, and you only. Get his confidence; make him tell you—under pledge of secrecy—why he carries that gun; why he’s afraid of consumption for the children. Make him talk to you about the day he was wounded—about the horrors he’s seen.”

“Can’t you talk to him, pater? He never opens his mouth about that sort of thing to me.”—Her voice faltered.—“We’re not such good friends as we used to be, pater.”

Heron Baynet’s voice did not falter. “I know you’re not, Pat. But you’ve got to be. These repressions are killing Peter. Unless somebody can break them down, I won’t be answerable for the consequences. It’s no use my talking to him, he’d freeze up at once. Whereas you, you’re his wife.”

“But, Pater. . . .”

“Damn it, girl,”—the doctor’s voice rose to fury—“can’t you see that this is a matter of life or death. You _must_ make him talk. Make him drunk if you like—get drunk yourself—make love to him as if you were his mistress: but for God’s sake, make him talk.”

Patricia blushed scarlet; quickened her pace.

“And then?” she asked.

“Persuade him somehow that he’s got shell-shock, and to consult me about it.” For a moment, the doctor forgot his son-in-law: neurasthenia and its treatment lay very near his professional heart, and that heart was being steadily broken by War Office neglect. “Two years, I’ve been at them,” he burst out, “two years! And they’re only just beginning to realize that a wound in the mind can be as fatal as a wound in the body. Meanwhile, God knows how many brave men are being tortured.”

By now, they had reached the paddock-gate, stood gazing down on Sunflowers. The mellow house behind the leafless walnut-tree looked a veritable English home of peace; smoke spired lazily from its tall chimneys; its square windows glinted welcome. They heard the children’s voices shouting, “Daddy! Daddy!” saw Peter striding, gun over shoulder, to the front door.

“He’s been to see Francis again,” said Patricia.

“Agoraphobia,” thought Heron Baynet, “the Fear of Open Spaces. I wonder what particular kind of horror he sees every time he goes down across that little bit of meadow-land.”

But Patricia’s mind had suddenly remembered Francis; Francis, alone, night after night, in that quaint up-and-down cottage, firelight glowing sombrely on panelled walls, Prout and his “female” pottering in the red-tiled kitchen.

“Pater,” she said suddenly, “supposing you’re wrong in your diagnosis?”

“I’m never wrong about these things,” he answered, purposely boastful.

“Then tell me what’s the matter with Francis. Even I can see _he’s_ not normal.”

“Normal!”—Heron Baynet pulled a cigarette-case from his over-coat pocket, extracted and lit a Gianaclis—“of course he’s normal. That’s his trouble. A normal man trying to live an abnormal life.”

“It isn’t abnormal to live in the country.”

“No, it isn’t abnormal to live in the country, _but_”—for the second time that afternoon, Heron Baynet laughed and his daughter blushed—“but it is abnormal, especially for a man of Francis Gordon’s temperament, to live there like a monk.”

“But he doesn’t even work, pater,” protested Patricia.

“Why should he?” said her father. “He hasn’t got anybody to work _for_.”

Thoughtfully, they passed into the house.