When Friday evening came, Mona took a curious pleasure in making the very most of herself.
She knew, as well as any outsider could have told her, that her present depression and apathy were but the measure of the passionate enthusiasm with which she had lived the life of her choice; and yet it was inevitable that for the time she should look at life wholly on the shadowed side. Past and future seemed alike gloomy and forbidding—"Grau, grau, gleichgültig grau"—and the eager, unconscious protest of youth against such a destiny, took the form of a resolution to enjoy to the utmost this glimpse of brightness and colour. She would forget all but the present; new surroundings should find her for the moment a new being.
When she reached Gloucester Place, Lady Munro and her daughter were alone in the drawing-room.
Lady Munro was one of those people who make a marked impress on their material surroundings. The rooms in which she lived quickly became, as it were, a part of herself, which her friends could not fail to recognise as such.
Eastern rugs and draperies clothed the conventional London sitting-room; luxuriant, tropical-looking plants were grouped in corners, great sensuous roses lolled in Indian bowls, and a few rich quaint lamps cast a mellow glow across the twilight of the room.
"Why, Mona, can it really be you?" Lady Munro rose from her lounge, and kissed her niece affectionately on both cheeks. For a moment Mona could scarcely find words. She was keenly susceptible at all times to the beauty of luxury, and the very atmosphere of this room called up with irresistible force forgotten memories of childhood. The touch of this gracious woman's lips, the sound of her voice, the soft frou-frou of her gown, all gave Mona a sense of exquisite physical pleasure. Lady Munro was not, strictly speaking, a beautiful woman; but a subtle grace, a subtle fascination, a subtle perfume were part of her very being. She was worshipped by all the men who knew her, but the most cynical of her husband's friends could not deny that she was no whit less charming in her intercourse with her own sex than she was with them. She was not brilliant; she was not fast; she was simply herself.
"This is my daughter Evelyn," she said; and she laid her hand on a sweet, quiet, overgrown English schoolgirl—one of those curious chrysalis beings whom a few months of Anglo-Indian society transform from a child into a finished woman of the world.
"I expect my husband every moment. He is longing to meet you."
Evelyn slowly raised her blue eyes, looked quietly at her mother for a moment, and let them fall again without the smallest change of expression. In fact, Lady Munro's remark was a graceful modification of the truth. Sir Douglas Munro was nothing if not a man of the world. He knew the points of a wine, and he knew the points of a horse; but above all he flattered himself that he knew the points of a woman. He had made a study of them all his life, and he believed, perhaps rightly, that he could read them like an open book. "Sweet seventeen" was at a cruel disadvantage in his hands, if indeed he exerted himself to speak to her at all. The genus Medical Woman was not as yet included in his collection, but he had heard of it, and had classified it in his own mind as a useful but uninteresting hybrid, which could not strictly be called a woman at all. In the sense, therefore, in which a lukewarm entomologist "longs to meet" the rare but ugly beetle which he believes will complete his cabinet, Sir Douglas Munro was "longing" to make the acquaintance of Mona Maclean.
The new beetle certainly took him by surprise when he came in a minute later.
"Mona!" he replied to his wife's introduction; "Mona Maclean—the doctor?"
Mona laughed as she rose, and took his proffered hand.
"Far from it," she said. "In the vacation I try to forget that I am even the makings of one."
She looked almost handsome as she stood there in the soft light of the room. Lady Munro forgot that her niece was a medical student, and experienced a distinct sense of pride and proprietorship. No ordinary modiste, she felt sure, had arranged those folds of soft grey crape, and the dash of glowing crimson geraniums on the shoulder was the touch of an artist.
"Mona is the image of her mother," she said.
"Ye-e-s," said Sir Douglas, availing himself of his wife's relationship to look at Mona very frankly. "She reminds me a good deal of what you were at her age."
"Nonsense!" said Mona hastily. "Remember I am not used to flattery."
"To receiving or to paying it?"
"To neither;" and she turned a look of very honest and almost childlike admiration on her aunt.
Sir Douglas looked pleased, although he himself had long ceased to pay his wife compliments.
"There's a great deal of your father in your face, too," he said. "You have got his mouth. Ah, he was a good fellow! I could tell you many a story of our Indian life—a man in a thousand!"
"You could tell me nothing I should more dearly like to hear," said Mona, with eager interest.
"Ah, well—some day, some day."
A native servant announced dinner, and Sir Douglas gave Mona his arm.
"What! another scene from the 'Arabian Nights'?" she said as they entered the dining-room. "It is clear that a very wonderful genius presides over your household."
"You are going to have an Indian dinner, too," said Lady Munro. "Nubboo makes all the entrées and soups and sauces. He is worth half-a-dozen English servants."
Mona looked up at the dark bearded face under the voluminous white turban, but she could not tell whether Nubboo had heard the remark. All the philosophy of Buddh might lie behind those sad impenetrable eyes, or he might be thinking merely of the entrées; it was impossible to say. If the whole occasion had not seemed to her, as she said, a bit out of the 'Arabian Nights,' she would have thought it sacrilege that a man with such a face should be employed in so trivial an occupation as waiting at table.
"When I look at Nubboo I can almost believe myself a baby again," she said. "He seems like a bit of my dream-world."
The feeblest ghost of a smile flitted across the man's face, as he moved noiselessly from place to place.
"It must be a dream-world," laughed her aunt. "You cannot remember much of that!"
"I don't;" and Mona sighed.
Lady Munro and Mona kept the ball going between them during dinner. Evelyn only spoke now and then, to tone down one of her mother's most piquant and highly coloured remarks; and she did this with a hidden sense of humour which never rose to the surface in her face. Sir Douglas spoke as much as courtesy absolutely demanded, but no more. The new beetle was evidently perplexing him profoundly.
Lady Munro's feeling for her niece was one of mingled pride, affection, disgust, and fear—disgust for the life-work she had chosen, fear of her supposed "cleverness." Lady Munro despised learned women, but she was not at all willing that they should despise her. She exerted herself to talk well, but even Mona's evident admiration could not put her quite at her ease.
"How is it we have seen so little of you, Mona?" she said, when they had left Sir Douglas to his wine. "Where were you when we were last at home?"
"In Germany, I suppose. I went there for three years after I left school."
"To study music?"
"Both music and painting in a small way."
"You wonderful girl! Then you are a musician?"
"Gott bewahre!" burst from Mona involuntarily. "My musical friends thought me a Turner, and my artistic friends thought me a Rubinstein; from which you may gather the truth, that I had no real gift for either."
"So you say! I expect you are an 'Admirable Crichton.'"
"If that be a euphemism for 'Jack-of-all-trades and master of none,' I suppose I am—alas!"
"And does Homer never nod? Do you never amuse yourself like other girls?"
"I am afraid I must not allow you to call me a girl I believe you have my grandmother's Family Bible. Yes, indeed, Homer nods a great deal more than is consistent with his lofty calling. I am an epicure in frivolling."
"In what?"
"Forgive my school slang! It means that I indulge quite freely enough in concerts, theatres, and in picture-galleries—not to say shop-windows."
"You don't mean to say that you care for shop-windows?" and again Lady Munro's glance rested with satisfaction on Mona's pretty gown, although she was half afraid her niece was laughing at her.
"Oh, don't I? You little know!"
"Pictures, I suppose, and old china and furniture and that sort of thing," said Lady Munro, treading cautiously.
"Yes, I like all those, but I like pretty bonnets too, and tea-gowns and laces and note-paper and—every kind of arrant frivolity and bagatelle. But they must be pretty, you know. I am not caught with absolute chaff."
"You don't care about fashion, you mean."
Mona drew down her brows in deep thought. Clearly she was talking honestly. Then she shook her head with a light laugh.
"I am getting into deep water," she said. "I am afraid I do care about fashion, fashion quâ fashion, fashion pure and simple."
"Not if it is ugly?" questioned Evelyn gravely.
"Not if it is ugly, surely; but I question if it often is ugly in the hands of the artists among dressmakers. It is just as unfair to judge of a fashion as it issues from the hands of a mere seamstress, as it is to judge of an air from its rendering on a barrel-organ or a penny trumpet."
Lady Munro laughed. "I shall tell my husband that," she said. "Douglas"—as he entered the room—"you have no idea of the heresies Mona has been confessing. She cares as much about new gowns and bonnets as anybody."
Sir Douglas looked at Mona very gravely. Either he had not heard the remark, or he was striving to adapt it to his mental sketch of her character.
He seated himself on the sofa beside her, and turned towards her as though he meant to exclude his wife and daughter from the conversation.
"Have you seriously taken up the study of medicine?" he asked.
"Now for it!" thought Mona.
She took for granted that he was a decided enemy of the "movement," and although at the moment she was in little humour for the old battle, she was bound to be true to her colours. So she donned her armour wearily.
"I certainly have," she said quietly.
"And you mean to practise?"
"Assuredly."
The examination and its concomitant sorrows were forgotten. She answered the question as she would have answered it at any time in the last three or four years.
"Are you much interested in the work?"
"Very much," she said warmly.
"I am sure you need scarcely ask that," said Lady Munro, with a kind smile. "One does not undertake that sort of thing pour s'amuser!"
"There are other motives," he said, looking severely at his wife. "There is ambition." This was shrewdly said, and Mona's respect for her opponent rose. A fit of coughing had interrupted him.
His wife looked at him anxiously. "I wish you would prescribe for my husband," she said, smiling.
"Don't!" ejaculated Sir Douglas fiercely, before the cough gave him breath to speak.
At this moment Nubboo announced a visitor, a cousin of Sir Douglas', and the latter seemed glad of an interruption which allowed him to have Mona entirely to himself.
He shook hands with the new-comer, and then, returning to Mona's side, sat in silence for a few moments as if trying to collect his thoughts.
"The fact is," he broke out impulsively at last, "I am torn asunder on this subject of women doctors—torn asunder. There is a terrible necessity for them—terrible—and yet, what a sacrifice!"
Mona could scarcely believe her ears. This was very different from the direct, brutal attack she had anticipated. Instinctively she laid down her armour, and left herself at his mercy.
"I think you are unusually liberal to admit the necessity," she said, but her sweet earnest face said much more for her than her words.
"Liberal!" he said. "What man can live and not admit it? It makes me mad to think how a woman can allow herself to be pulled about by a man. Fifty years hence no woman will have the courage to own that it ever happened to her. But the sacrifice is a fearful one. Picture my allowing Evelyn to go through what you are going through!" And his glance rested fondly on his daughter's fair head.
"I agree with you so far," said Mona, "that no woman should undertake such work under the age of twenty-three."
"Twenty-three!" he repeated. "It is bad for a man, but a man has some virtues which remain untouched by it. A woman loses everything that makes womanhood fair and attractive. You must be becoming hard and blunted?"
He looked at her as if demanding an answer.
"I hope not," said Mona quietly, and her eyes met his.
"You hope not!" He dashed back her words with all the vehemence of an evangelical preacher who receives them in answer to his all-important question. "You hope not! Is that all you can say? You are not sure?"
"It is difficult to judge of one's self," said Mona thoughtfully, turning her face full to his piercing gaze; "and one's own opinion would not be worth having. I believe I am not becoming hardened. I am sure my friends would say I am not."
She felt as if he were reading her inmost soul, and for the moment she was willing that he should. No other argument would be of any weight in such a discussion as this.
He dropped his eyes, half ashamed of his vehemence. "No need to tell me that," he said hurriedly. "I am used to reading women's faces. I have been searching yours all evening for the hard lines that must be there, but there is not a trace that is not perfectly womanly. And yet I cannot understand it! From the very nature of your work you must revel in scenes of horror."
"That I am sure we don't!" said Mona warmly. She would have laughed if they had both been less in earnest. "You don't say that of all the noble nurses who have had to face scenes of horror."
"But you must become blunted, if you are to be of any use."
"I don't think blunted is the word. It is extremely true, as some one says, that pity becomes transformed from an emotion into a motive."
He seemed to be weighing this.
"You dissect?" he said presently.
"Yes."
"Think of that alone! It is human butchery."
"Of course you must know that I do not look upon it in that light."
But a sense of hopelessness came upon her, as she realised how she was handicapped in this discussion. She must either be silent or speak in an unknown tongue. How could she explain to this man the wonder and the beauty of the work that he dismissed in a brutal phrase? How could she talk of that ever-new field for observation, corroboration, and discovery; that unlimited scope for the keen eye, the skilful hand, the thinking brain, the mature judgment? How could she describe those exquisite mechanisms and traceries, those variations of a common type, developing in accordance with fixed law, and yet with a perfectness of adaptation that a priori would have seemed like an impossible fairy tale? How cruelly she would be misunderstood if she talked here of the passionate delight of discovery, of the enthusiasm that had often made her forgetful of time and of all other claims? "To be a true anatomist," she thought with glowing face, "one would need to be a mechanician and a scientist, an artist and a philosopher. He who is not something of all these must be content to learn his work as a trade."
Sir Douglas was looking at her intently. As a medical student she had got beyond his range. As a woman, for the moment, she was beautiful. Such a light is only seen in the eyes of those who can see the ideal in the actual.
But he had not finished his study. He must bring her down to earth again.
"Do you remember your first day in the dissecting-room?"
"Yes," said Mona. She sighed deeply, and the light died out of her eyes.
"A ghastly experience!"
"Yes."
"And yet you say you have not become blunted?"
"I do not think," said Mona, trying hard with a woman's instinct to avoid the least suspicion of dogmatism—"I do not think that one becomes blunted when one ceases to look at the garbage side of a subject. Every subject, I suppose, has its garbage side, if one is on the look-out for it; and in anatomy, unfortunately, that is the side that strikes one first, and consequently the only one outsiders ever see. It is difficult to discuss the question with one who is not a doctor" ("nor a scientist," she added inwardly); "but if you had pursued the study, I think you would see that one must, in time, lose sight of all but the wonder and the beauty of it."
There was a long pause.
"When you are qualified," he said at last, "you only mean to attend your own sex?"
"Oh, of course," said Mona earnestly.
He seemed relieved.
"That was why my wife made me angry by suggesting, even in play, that you should prescribe for me. You women are—with or without conscious sacrifice—wading through seas of blood to right a terrible evil that has hitherto been an inevitable one. If you deliberately and gratuitously repeat that evil by extending your services to men, the sacrifice has all been for nothing, and less than nothing."
He spoke with his old vehemence, and then relapsed into silence.
His next remark sounded curiously irrelevant.
"How long do you remain here?"
"In London? I don't quite know. I am going to visit a cousin in ten days or so."
Sir Douglas took advantage of a pause in the conversation between his wife and their visitor.
"Bruce," he said, "let me introduce you to my niece, Miss Maclean."
"That," he continued to his wife, with a movement of his head in Mona's direction, "is a great medical light."
Mona laughed.
"I am sure of it," said Lady Munro, with her irresistible smile. "As for me, I would as soon have a woman doctor as a man."
Sir Douglas threw back his head and clapped his hands, with a harsh laugh.
"Well," he said, "when you come to say that—the skies will fall."
"Douglas, what do you mean?" She looked annoyed. At the moment she really believed that she had been an advocate of women doctors all her life. Sir Douglas seated himself on a low chair beside her, and began to play with her embroidery silks.
When Mona rose to go, a little later, Lady Munro took her hand affectionately.
"Mona," she said, "I told you we were starting on Monday morning for a short tour in Norway. My husband and I should be so pleased if you would go with us."
Mona's cheek flushed. "How very kind!" she said. "I am so sorry it is impossible."
"Why?" said Sir Douglas quickly. "You don't need to go to your cousin till the end of the month."
Mona's colour deepened. "There is no use in beating about the bush," she said. "The fact is, I am engaged in the interesting occupation of retrenching just now. You know"—as Sir Douglas looked daggers—"I have not the smallest claim on you."
He laughed, and laid his hand on her shoulder.
"Don't be afraid, Mona," he said. "We are not trying to establish a claim on you. The great medical light shall continue her way as heretofore, without let or hindrance. Give us your society for a fortnight, and we shall be only too much your debtors."
"It will make the greatest difference to all of us!" said Lady Munro cordially.
And Evelyn, with the facile friendship of a schoolgirl, slipped her arm caressingly round her cousin's waist.
And so it was arranged.
"Shall Nubboo call you a hansom," said Lady Munro.
"She doesn't want a hansom," said Sir Douglas. "Throw your gown over your arm, and put on a cloak, and I will see you home."
It was a beautiful summer night; the air was soft and pleasant after the burning heat of the day.
It was natural that Sir Douglas should be curious to see the habitat of his new beetle, and after all, he was practically her uncle; but when they reached her door she held out her hand with a frank smile.
"You have been very kind to me," she said. "Good night."
"I am afraid Lucy would say I had not 'stood up' to him enough," she thought. "But all he wanted was to dissect me, and I hope he has done it satisfactorily. What a curious man he is! I wonder if any one ever took quite that view of the subject before? Not at all the view of a Sir Galahad, I fancy"—and she thought of a passage that had puzzled her in Rhoda Fleming—"but he was kind to me, and honest with me, and I like him. I must try very hard not to become unconsciously 'blunted' as he calls it."
Her eye fell on a letter from her cousin, and she sat down in her rocking-chair, cast a regretful glance at the withered maidenhairs on her shoulder, and tore open the envelope.
"MY DEAR COUSIN,—Your letter has just come in, and very good news it is. All the world looks brighter since I read it. I will do my best to make you happy, and although you will have plenty of time to yourself, you will be of the greatest use to me. Both in the house and in the shop——"
"Good God!" said Mona; and letting the letter fall, she buried her face in her hands.