Уилки Коллинз - Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time

“Nobody—I am happy to say.”

“That’s downright cynicism, Benjulia!”

The doctor reflected. “Is it?” he said. “Perhaps you may be right again. I think it’s only indifference, myself. Curiously enough my brother looks at it from your point of view—he even used the same word that you used just now. I suppose he found my cynicism beyond the reach of reform. At any rate, he left off coming here. I got rid of him on easy terms. What do you say? That inhuman way of talking is unworthy of me? Really I don’t think so. I’m not a downright savage. It’s only indifference.”

“Does your brother return your indifference? You must be a nice pair, if he does!”

Benjulia seemed to find a certain dreary amusement in considering the question that Ovid had proposed. He decided on doing justice to his absent relative.

“My brother’s intelligence is perhaps equal to such a small effort as you suggest,” he said. “He has just brains enough to keep himself out of an asylum for idiots. Shall I tell you what he is in two words? A stupid sensualist—that’s what he is. I let his wife come here sometimes, and cry. It doesn’t trouble me; and it seems to relieve her. More of my indifference—eh? Well, I don’t know. I gave her the change out of the furniture-cheque, to buy a new bonnet with. You might call that indifference, and you might be right once more. I don’t care about money. Will you have a drink? You see I can’t move. Please ring for the man.”

Ovid refused the drink, and changed the subject. “Your servant is a remarkably silent person,” he said.

“That’s his merit,” Benjulia answered; “the women-servants have quarrelled with every other man I’ve had. They can’t quarrel with this man. I have raised his wages in grateful acknowledgment of his usefulness to me. I hate noise.”

“Is that the reason why you don’t keep a watch-dog?”

“I don’t like dogs. They bark.”

He had apparently some other disagreeable association with dogs, which he was not disposed to communicate. His hollow eyes stared gloomily into vacancy. Ovid’s presence in the room seemed to have become, for the time being, an impression erased from his mind. He recovered himself, with the customary vehement rubbing of his head, and turned the talk to the object of Ovid’s visit.

“So you have taken my advice,” he said. “You’re going to Canada, and you want to get at what I can tell you before you start. Here’s my journal. It will jog my memory, and help us both.”

His writing materials were placed on a movable table, screwed to his chair. Near them lay a shabby-looking book, guarded by a lock. Ten minutes after he had opened his journal, and had looked here and there through the pages, his hard intellect had grasped all that it required. Steadily and copiously his mind emptied its information into Ovid’s mind; without a single digression from beginning to end, and with the most mercilessly direct reference to the traveller’s practical wants. Not a word escaped him, relating to national character or to the beauties of Nature. Mrs. Gallilee had criticized the Falls of Niagara as a reservoir of wasted power. Doctor Benjulia’s scientific superiority over the woman asserted itself with magnificent ease. Niagara being nothing but useless water, he never mentioned Niagara at all.

“Have I served your purpose as a guide?” he asked. “Never mind thanking me. Yes or no will do. Very good. I have got a line of writing to give you next.” He mended his quill pen, and made an observation. “Have you ever noticed that women have one pleasure which lasts to the end of their lives?” he said. “Young and old, they have the same inexhaustible enjoyment of society; and, young and old, they are all alike incapable of understanding a man, when he says he doesn’t care to go to a party. Even your clever mother thinks you want to go to parties in Canada.” He tried his pen, and found it would do—and began his letter.

Seeing his hands at work, Ovid was again reminded of Carmina’s discovery. His eyes wandered a little aside, towards the corner formed by the pillar of the chimney-piece and the wall of the room. The big bamboo-stick rested there. A handle was attached to it, made of light-coloured horn, and on that handle there were some stains. Ovid looked at them with a surgeon’s practised eye. They were dry stains of blood. (Had he washed his hands on the last occasion when he used his stick? And had he forgotten that the handle wanted washing too?)

Benjulia finished his letter, and wrote the address. He took up the envelope, to give it to Ovid—and stopped, as if some doubt tempted him to change his mind. The hesitation was only momentary. He persisted in his first intention, and gave Ovid the letter. It was addressed to a doctor at Montreal.

“That man won’t introduce you to society,” Benjulia announced, “and won’t worry your brains with medical talk. Keep off one subject on your side. A mad bull is nothing to my friend if you speak of Vivisection.”

Ovid looked at him steadily, when he uttered the last word. Benjulia looked back, just as steadily at Ovid.

At the moment of that reciprocal scrutiny, did the two men suspect each other? Ovid, on his side, determined not to leave the house without putting his suspicions to the test.

“I thank you for the letter,” he began; “and I will not forget the warning.”

The doctor’s capacity for the exercise of the social virtues had its limits. His reserves of hospitality were by this time near their end.

“Is there anything more I can do for you?” he interposed.

“You can answer a simple question,” Ovid replied. “My cousin Carmina—”

Benjulia interrupted him again: “Don’t you think we said enough about your cousin in the Gardens?” he suggested.

Ovid acknowledged the hint with a neatness of retort almost worthy of his mother. “You have your own merciful disposition to blame, if I return to the subject,” he replied. “My cousin cannot forget your kindness to the monkey.”

“The sooner she forgets my kindness the better. The monkey is dead.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

“Why?”

“I thought the creature was living in pain.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I heard a moaning—”

“Where?”

“In the building behind your house.”

“You heard the wind in the trees.”

“Nothing of the sort. Are your chemical experiments ever made on animals?”

The doctor parried that direct attack, without giving ground by so much as a hair’s breadth.

“What did I say when I gave you your letter of introduction?” he asked. “I said, A mad bull is nothing to my friend, if you speak to him of Vivisection. Now I have something more to tell you. I am like my friend.” He waited a little. “Will that do?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Ovid; “that will do.”

They were as near to an open quarrel as two men could be: Ovid took up his hat to go. Even at that critical moment, Benjulia’s strange jealousy of his young colleague—as a possible rival in some field of discovery which he claimed as his own—showed itself once more. There was no change in his tone; he still spoke like a judicious friend.

“A last word of advice,” he said. “You are travelling for your health; don’t let inquisitive strangers lead you into talk. Some of them might be physiologists.”

“And might suggest new ideas,” Ovid rejoined, determined to make him speak out this time.

Benjulia nodded, in perfect agreement with his guest’s view.

“Are you afraid of new ideas?” Ovid went on.

“Perhaps I am—in your head.” He made that admission, without hesitation or embarrassment. “Good-bye!” he resumed. “My sensitive foot feels noises: don’t bang the door.”