The Damnation of Theron Ware · Part III · Chapter 21 (2/2)

Dr. Ledsmar shrugged his well shoulder. “They have their points,” he said briefly. “These are all dioecious here. Over beyond are monoecious species. My work is to test the probabilities for or against Darwin’s theory that hermaphroditism in plants is a late byproduct of these earlier forms.”

“And is his theory right?” asked Mr. Ware, with a polite show of interest.

“We may know in the course of three or four hundred years,” replied Ledsmar. He looked up into his guest’s face with a quizzical half-smile. “That is a very brief period for observation when such a complicated question as sex is involved,” he added. “We have been studying the female of our own species for some hundreds of thousands of years, and we haven’t arrived at the most elementary rules governing her actions.”

They had moved along to a bed of tall plants, the more forward of which were beginning to show bloom. “Here another task will begin next month,” the doctor observed. “These are salvias, pentstemons, and antirrhinums, or snapdragons, planted very thick for the purpose. Humblebees bore holes through their base, to save the labor of climbing in and out of the flowers, and we don’t quite know yet why some hive-bees discover and utilize these holes at once, while others never do. It may be merely the old-fogy conservatism of the individual, or there may be a law in it.”

These seemed very paltry things for a man of such wisdom to bother his head about. Theron looked, as he was bidden, at the rows of hives shining in the hot sun on a bench along the wall, but offered no comment beyond a casual, “My mother was always going to keep bees, but somehow she never got around to it. They say it pays very well, though.”

“The discovery of the reason why no bee will touch the nectar of the Epipactis latifolia, though it is sweet to our taste, and wasps are greedy for it, would pay,” commented the doctor. “Not like a blue rhododendron, in mere money, but in recognition. Lots of men have achieved a half-column in the Encyclopedia Britannica on a smaller basis than that.”

They stood now at the end of the garden, before a small, dilapidated summerhouse. On the bench inside, facing him, Theron saw a strange recumbent figure stretched at full length, apparently sound asleep, or it might be dead. Looking closer, with a startled surprise, he made out the shaven skull and outlandish garb of a Chinaman. He turned toward his guide in the expectation of a scene.

The doctor had already taken out a notebook and pencil, and was drawing his watch from his pocket. He stepped into the summerhouse, and, lifting the Oriental’s limp arm, took account of his pulse. Then, with head bowed low, sidewise, he listened for the heart-action. Finally, he somewhat brusquely pushed back one of the Chinaman’s eyelids, and made a minute inspection of what the operation disclosed. Returning to the light, he inscribed some notes in his book, put it back in his pocket, and came out. In answer to Theron’s marvelling stare, he pointed toward a pipe of odd construction lying on the floor beneath the sleeper.

“This is one of my regular afternoon duties,” he explained, again with the whimsical half-smile. “I am increasing his dose monthly by regular stages, and the results promise to be rather remarkable. Heretofore, observations have been made mostly on diseased or morbidly deteriorated subjects. This fellow of mine is strong as an ox, perfectly nourished, and watched over intelligently. He can assimilate opium enough to kill you and me and every other vertebrate creature on the premises, without turning a hair, and he hasn’t got even fairly under way yet.”

The thing was unpleasant, and the young minister turned away. They walked together up the path toward the house. His mind was full now of the hostile things which Celia had said about the doctor. He had vaguely sympathized with her then, upon no special knowledge of his own. Now he felt that his sentiments were vehemently in accord with hers. The doctor was a beast.

And yet⁠—as they moved slowly along through the garden the thought took sudden shape in his mind⁠—it would be only justice for him to get also the doctor’s opinion of Celia. Even while they offended and repelled him, he could not close his eyes to the fact that the doctor’s experiments and occupations were those of a patient and exact man of science⁠—a philosopher. And what he had said about women⁠—there was certainly a great deal of acumen and shrewd observation in that. If he would only say what he really thought about Celia, and about her relations with the priest! Yes, Theron recognized now there was nothing else that he so much needed light upon as those puzzling ties between Celia and Father Forbes.

He paused, with a simulated curiosity, about one of the flowerbeds. “Speaking of women and religion”⁠—he began, in as casual a tone as he could command⁠—“I notice curiously enough in my own case, that as I develop in what you may call the⁠—the other direction, my wife, who formerly was not especially devote, is being strongly attracted by the most unthinking and hysterical side of⁠—of our church system.”

The doctor looked at him, nodded, and stooped to nip some buds from a stalk in the bed.

“And another case,” Theron went on⁠—“of course it was all so new and strange to me⁠—but the position which Miss Madden seems to occupy about the Catholic Church here⁠—I suppose you had her in mind when you spoke.”

Ledsmar stood up. “My mind has better things to busy itself with than mad asses of that description,” he replied. “She is not worth talking about⁠—a mere bundle of egotism, ignorance, and redheaded lewdness. If she were even a type, she might be worth considering; but she is simply an abnormal sport, with a little brain addled by notions that she is like Hypatia, and a large impudence rendered intolerable by the fact that she has money. Her father is a decent man. He ought to have her whipped.”

Mr. Ware drew himself erect, as he listened to these outrageous words. It would be unmanly, he felt, to allow such comments upon an absent friend to pass unrebuked. Yet there was the courtesy due to a host to be considered. His mind, fluttering between these two extremes, alighted abruptly upon a compromise. He would speak so as to show his disapproval, yet not so as to prevent his finding out what he wanted to know. The desire to hear Ledsmar talk about Celia and the priest seemed now to have possessed him for a long time, to have dictated his unpremeditated visit out here, to have been growing in intensity all the while he pretended to be interested in orchids and bees and the drugged Chinaman. It tugged passionately at his self-control as he spoke.

“I cannot in the least assent to your characterization of the lady,” he began with rhetorical dignity.

“Bless me!” interposed the doctor, with deceptive cheerfulness, “that is not required of you at all. It is a strictly personal opinion, offered merely as a contribution to the general sum of hypotheses.”

“But,” Theron went on, feeling his way, “of course, I gathered that evening that you had prejudices in the matter; but these are rather apart from the point I had in view. We were speaking, you will remember, of the traditional attitude of women toward priests⁠—wanting to curl their hair and put flowers in it, you know, and that suggested to me some individual illustrations, and it occurred to me to wonder just what were the relations between Miss Madden and⁠—and Father Forbes. She said this morning, for instance⁠—I happened to meet her, quite by accident⁠—that she was going to the church to practise a new piece, and that she could have Father Forbes to herself all day. Now that would be quite an impossible remark in our⁠—that is, in any Protestant circles⁠—and purely as a matter of comparison, I was curious to ask you just how much there was in it. I ask you, because going there so much you have had exceptional opportunities for⁠—”

A sharp exclamation from his companion interrupted the clergyman’s hesitating monologue. It began like a high-pitched, violent word, but dwindled suddenly into a groan of pain. The doctor’s face, too, which had on the flash of Theron’s turning seemed given over to unmixed anger, took on an expression of bodily suffering instead.

“My shoulder has grown all at once excessively painful,” he said hastily. “I’m afraid I must ask you to excuse me, Mr. Ware.”

Carrying the afflicted side with ostentatious caution, he led the way without ado round the house to the front gate on the road. He had put his left hand under his coat to press it against his aching shoulder, and his right hung palpably helpless. This rendered it impossible for him to shake hands with his guest in parting.

“You’re sure there’s nothing I can do,” said Theron, lingering on the outer side of the gate. “I used to rub my father’s shoulders and back; I’d gladly⁠—”

“Oh, not for worlds!” groaned the doctor. His anguish was so impressive that Theron, as he walked down the road, quite missed the fact that there had been no invitation to come again.

Dr. Ledsmar stood for a minute or two, his gaze meditatively following the retreating figure. Then he went in, opening the front door with his right hand, and carrying himself once more as if there were no such thing as rheumatism in the world. He wandered on through the hall into the laboratory, and stopped in front of the row of little tanks full of water.

Some deliberation was involved in whatever his purpose might be, for he looked from one tank to another with a pondering, dilatory gaze. At last he plunged his hand into the opaque fluid and drew forth a long, slim, yellowish-green lizard, with a coiling, sinuous tail and a pointed, evil head. The reptile squirmed and doubled itself backward around his wrist, darting out and in with dizzy swiftness its tiny forked tongue.

The doctor held the thing up to the light, and, scrutinizing it through his spectacles, nodded his head in sedate approval. A grim smile curled in his beard.

“Yes, you are the type,” he murmured to it, with evident enjoyment in the conceit. “Your name isn’t Johnny any more. It’s the Rev. Theron Ware.”