Orientations Part 8

'And think of yourself--one must think of oneself. "G.o.d helps those who help themselves." How are you going to exist when this little money of yours is gone? You'll simply have to go to the workhouse.... It's absurd, I tell you.'

Mr Clinton took no further notice of the curate, but he broke into a loud chant,--

'"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal."' Then, turning on the unhappy curate, he stretched out his arm and pointed his finger at him. 'Last Sunday,' he said, 'I 'eard you read those very words from the chancel steps. Go! go! I tell you, go! You are a bad man, a wolf in sheep's clothing--go!' Mr Clinton walked up to him threateningly, and the curate, with a gasp of astonishment and indignation, fled from the room.

He met Mrs Clinton outside.

'I can't do anything with him at all,' he said angrily. 'I've never heard such things in my life. He's either mad or he's got into the hands of the Dissenters. That's the only explanation I can offer.'

Then, to quiet his feelings, he called on a wealthy female paris.h.i.+oner, with whom he was a great favourite, because she thought him 'such a really pious man,' and it was not till he had drunk two cups of tea that he recovered his equilibrium.

XI

Mrs Clinton was at her wit's end. Her husband had sold out his shares, and the money was lying at the bank ready to be put to its destined use.

Visions of debt and bankruptcy presented themselves to her. She saw her black satin dress in the ruthless clutches of a p.a.w.nbroker, the house and furniture sold over her head, the children down at heel, and herself driven to work for her living--needlework, nursing, charing--what might not things come to? However, she went to the doctor and told him of the failure of their scheme.

'I've come to the end of my tether, Mrs Clinton; I really don't know what to do. The only thing I can suggest is that a mental specialist should examine into the state of his mind. I really think he's wrong in his head, and, you know, it may be necessary for your welfare and his own that he be kept under restriction.'

'Well, doctor,' answered Mrs Clinton, putting her handkerchief up to her eyes and beginning to cry, 'well, doctor, of course I shouldn't like him to be shut up--it seems a terrible thing, and I shall never 'ave a moment's peace all the rest of my life; but if he must be shut up, for Heaven's sake let it be done at once, before the money's gone.' And here she began to sob very violently.

The doctor said he would immediately write to the specialist, so that they might hold a consultation on Mr Clinton the very next day.

So, the following morning, Mrs Clinton again put on her black satin dress, and, further, sent to her grocer's for a bottle of sherry, her inner consciousness giving her to understand that specialists expected something of the kind....

The specialist came. He was a tall, untidily-dressed man, with his hair wild and straggling, as if he had just got out of bed. He was very clever, and very impatient of stupid people, and he seldom met anyone whom he did not think in one way or another intensely stupid.

Mr Clinton, as before, had gone out, but Mrs Clinton did her best to entertain the two doctors. The specialist, who talked most incessantly himself, was extremely impatient of other people's conversation.

'Why on earth don't people see that they're much more interesting when they hold their tongues than when they speak?' he was in the habit of saying, and immediately would pour out a deluge of words, emphasising and explaining the point, giving instances of its truth....

'You must see a lot of strange things, doctor,' said Mrs Clinton, amiably.

'Yes,' answered the specialist.

'I think it must be very interesting to be a doctor,' said Mrs Clinton.

'Yes, yes.'

'You _must_ see a lot of strange things.'

'Yes, yes,' repeated the doctor, and as Mrs Clinton went on complacently, he frowned and drummed his fingers on the table and looked to the right and left. 'When is the man coming in?' he asked impatiently.

And at last he could not contain himself.

'If you don't mind, Mrs Clinton, I should like to talk to your doctor alone about the case. You can wait in the next room.'

'I'm sure I don't wish to intrude,' said Mrs Clinton, bridling up, and she rose in a dignified manner from her chair. She thought his manners were distinctly queer. 'But, of course,' she said to a friend afterwards, 'he's a genius, there's no mistaking it, and people like that are always very eccentric.'

'What an insufferable woman!' he began, when the lady had retired, talking very rapidly, only stopping to take an occasional breath. 'I thought she was going on all night. She's enough to drive the man mad.

One couldn't get a word in edgeways. Why on earth doesn't this man come?

Just like these people, they don't think that my time's valuable. I expect she drinks. Shocking, you know, these women, how they drink!' And still talking, he looked at his watch for the eighth time in ten minutes.

'Well, my man,' he said, as Mr Clinton at last came in, 'what are you complaining of?... One moment,' he added, as Mr Clinton was about to reply. He opened his notebook and took out a stylographic pen. 'Now, I'm ready for you. What are you complaining of?'

'I'm complaining that the world is out of joint,' answered Mr Clinton, with a smile.

The specialist raised his eyebrows and significantly looked at the family doctor.

'It's astonis.h.i.+ng how much you can get by a well-directed question,' he said to him, taking no notice of Mr Clinton. 'Some people go floundering about for hours, but, you see, by one question I get on the track.'

Turning to the patient again, he said, 'Ah! and do you see things?'

'Certainly; I see you.'

'I don't mean that,' impatiently said the specialist. 'Distinctly stupid, you know,' he added to his colleague. 'I mean, do you see things that other people don't see?'

'Alas! yes; I see Folly stalking abroad on a 'obby 'orse.'

'Do you really? Anything else?' said the doctor, making a note of the fact.

'I see Wickedness and Vice beating the land with their wings.'

'_Sees things beating with their wings_,' wrote down the doctor.

'I see misery and un'appiness everywhere.'

'Indeed!' said the doctor. '_Has delusions._ Do you think your wife puts things in your tea?'

'Yes.'

'Ah!' joyfully uttered the doctor, 'that's what I wanted to get at--_thinks people are trying to poison him_. What is it they put in, my man?'

'Milk and sugar,' answered Mr Clinton.

'Very dull mentally,' said the specialist, in an undertone, to his colleague. 'Well, I don't think we need go into any more details.

There's no doubt about it, you know. That curious look in his eyes, and the smile--the smile's quite typical. It all clearly points to insanity.

And then that absurd idea of giving his money to the poor! I've heard of people taking money away from the poor, there's nothing mad in that; but the other, why, it's a proof of insanity itself. And then your account of his movements! His giving ice-creams to children. Most pernicious things, those ice-creams! The Government ought to put a stop to them.

Extraordinary idea to think of reforming the world with ice-cream!

Post-enteric insanity, you know. Mad as a hatter! Well, well, I must be off.' Still talking, he put on his hat and talked all the way downstairs, and finally talked himself out of the house.

The family doctor remained behind to see Mrs Clinton.

'Yes, it's just as I said,' he told her. 'He's not responsible for his actions. I think he's been insane ever since his illness. When you think of his behaviour since then--his going among those common people and trying to reform them, and his ideas about feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, and finally wanting to give his money to the poor--it all points to a completely deranged mind.'

Mrs Clinton heaved a deep sigh. 'And what do you think 'ad better be done now?' she asked.

'Well, I'm very sorry, Mrs Clinton; of course it's a great blow to you; but really I think arrangements had better be made for him to be put under restraint.'