Beyond the City
By Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle
In Beyond the City, the desire for money and romance drives the
characters beyond the typical boundaries of their middle class Victorian lives.
Lust, deceit, and financial scandals rock their placid world.
Source: Doyle, A.C. (1892) Beyond the City London,
England: Simpkin, Hamilton, Kent
Chapter I: The New-Comers
Two women, Bertha and Monica, are watching their new neighbors move in.
The woman does not act lady-like and her nephew is quite broad. The cabman
unloads a good amount of various types of sports equipment.
“If you please, mum,” said the voice of a domestic
from somewhere round the angle of the door, “number three is moving in.”
Two little old ladies, who were sitting at either side
of a table, sprang to their feet with ejaculations of interest, and rushed to
the window of the sitting-room.
“Take care, Monica dear,” said one, shrouding herself
in the lace curtain; “don’t let them see us.
“No, no, Bertha. We must not give them reason to say
that their neighbors are inquisitive. But I think that we are safe if we stand
like this.”
The open window looked out upon a sloping lawn, well
trimmed and pleasant, with fuzzy rosebushes and a star-shaped bed of
sweet-william. It was bounded by a low wooden fence, which screened it off from
a broad, modern, new metaled road. At the other side of this road were three
large detached deep-bodied villas with peaky eaves and small wooden balconies,
each standing in its own little square of grass and of flowers. All three were
equally new, but numbers one and two were curtained and sedate, with a human,
sociable look to them; while number three, with yawning door and unkempt
garden, had apparently only just received its furniture and made itself ready
for its occupants. A four- wheeler had driven up to the gate, and it was at
this that the old ladies, peeping out bird-like from behind their curtains,
directed an eager and questioning gaze.
The cabman had descended, and the passengers within
were handing out the articles which they desired him to carry up to the house.
He stood red- faced and blinking, with his crooked arms outstretched, while a
male hand, protruding from the window, kept piling up upon him a series of
articles the sight of which filled the curious old ladies with bewilderment.
“My goodness me!” cried Monica, the smaller, the
drier, and the more wizened of the pair. “What do you call that, Bertha? It
looks to me like four batter puddings.”
“Those are what young men box each other with,” said
Bertha, with a conscious air of superior worldly knowledge.
“And those?”
Two great bottle-shaped pieces of yellow shining wood
had been heaped upon the cabman.
“Oh, I don’t know what those are,” confessed Bertha.
Indian clubs had never before obtruded themselves upon her peaceful and very
feminine existence.
a picture of the countryside
a picture of the countryside
These mysterious articles were followed, however, by
others which were more within their, range of comprehension—by a pair of
dumb-bells, a purple cricket-bag, a set of golf clubs, and a tennis racket.
Finally, when the cabman, all top-heavy and bristling, had staggered off up the
garden path, there emerged in a very leisurely way from the cab a big,
powerfully built young man, with a bull pup under one arm and a pink sporting
paper in his hand. The paper he crammed into the pocket of his light yellow
dust-coat, and extended his hand as if to assist some one else from the
vehicle. To the surprise of the two old ladies, however, the only thing which
his open palm received was a violent slap, and a tall lady bounded unassisted
out of the cab. With a regal wave she motioned the young man towards the door,
and then with one hand upon her hip she stood in a careless, lounging attitude
by the gate, kicking her toe against the wall and listlessly awaiting the
return of the driver.
As she turned slowly round, and the sunshine struck
upon her face, the two watchers were amazed to see that this very active and
energetic lady was far from being in her first youth, so far that she had
certainly come of age again since she first passed that landmark in life’s
journey. Her finely chiseled, clean-cut face, with something red Indian about
the firm mouth and strongly marked cheek bones, showed even at that distance
traces of the friction of the passing years. And yet she was very handsome. Her
features were as firm in repose as those of a Greek bust, and her great dark
eyes were arched over by two brows so black, so thick, and so delicately
curved, that the eye turned away from the harsher details of the face to marvel
at their grace and strength. Her figure, too, was straight as a dart, a little
portly, perhaps, but curving into magnificent outlines, which were half
accentuated by the strange costume which she wore. Her hair, black but
plentifully shot with grey, was brushed plainly back from her high forehead,
and was gathered under a small round felt hat, like that of a man, with one
sprig of feather in the band as a concession to her sex. A double- breasted
jacket of some dark frieze-like material fitted closely to her figure, while
her straight blue skirt, untrimmed and ungathered, was cut so short that the
lower curve of her finely-turned legs was plainly visible beneath it,
terminating in a pair of broad, flat, low-heeled and square-toed shoes. Such was
the lady who lounged at the gate of number three, under the curious eyes of her
two opposite neighbors.
But if her conduct and appearance had already somewhat
jarred upon their limited and precise sense of the fitness of things, what were
they to think of the next little act in this tableau vivant? The cabman, red
and heavy-jowled, had come back from his labors, and held out his hand for his
fare. The lady passed him a coin, there was a moment of mumbling and
gesticulating, and suddenly she had him with both hands by the red cravat which
girt his neck, and was shaking him as a terrier would a rat. Right across the
pavement she thrust him, and, pushing him up against the wheel, she banged his
head three several times against the side of his own vehicle.
“Can I be of any use to you, aunt?” asked the large
youth, framing himself in the open doorway.
“Not the slightest,” panted the enraged lady. “There,
you low blackguard, that will teach you to be impertinent to a lady.”
The cabman looked helplessly about him with a
bewildered, questioning gaze, as one to whom alone of all men this unheard-of
and extraordinary thing had happened. Then, rubbing his head, he mounted slowly
on to the box and drove away with an uptossed hand appealing to the universe.
The lady smoothed down her dress, pushed back her hair under her little felt
hat, and strode in through the hall-door, which was closed behind her. As with
a whisk her short skirts vanished into the darkness, the two spectators—Miss
Bertha and Miss Monica Williams—sat looking at each other in speechless
amazement. For fifty years they had peeped through that little window and
across that trim garden, but never yet had such a sight as this come to
confound them.
“I wish,” said Monica at last, “that we had kept the
field.”
“I am sure I wish we had,” answered her sister.
Chapter II: “Breaking the Ice”
The cottage from the window of which the Misses
Williams had looked out stands, and has stood for many a year, in that pleasant
suburban district which lies between Norwood, Anerley, and Forest Hill. Long
before there had been a thought of a township there, when the Metropolis was
still quite a distant thing, old Mr. Williams had inhabited “The Brambles,” as
the little house was called, and had owned all the fields about it. Six or
eight such cottages scattered over a rolling country- side were all the houses
to be found there in the days when the century was young. From afar, when the
breeze came from the north, the dull, low roar of the great city might be
heard, like the breaking of the tide of life, while along the horizon might be
seen the dim curtain of smoke, the grim spray which that tide threw up.
Gradually, however, as the years passed, the City had thrown out a long
brick-feeler here and there, curving, extending, and coalescing, until at last
the little cottages had been gripped round by these red tentacles, and had been
absorbed to make room for the modern villa. Field by field the estate of old
Mr. Williams had been sold to the speculative builder, and had borne rich crops
of snug suburban dwellings, arranged in curving crescents and tree-lined
avenues. The father had passed away before his cottage was entirely bricked
round, but his two daughters, to whom the property had descended, lived to see
the last vestige of country taken from them. For years they had clung to the
one field which faced their windows, and it was only after much argument and
many heartburnings, that they had at last consented that it should share the
fate of the others. A broad road was driven through their quiet domain, the
quarter was re-named “The Wilderness,” and three square, staring,
uncompromising villas began to sprout up on the other side. With sore hearts,
the two shy little old maids watched their steady progress, and speculated as
to what fashion of neighbors chance would bring into the little nook which had
always been their own.
And at last they were all three finished. Wooden
balconies and overhanging eaves had been added to them, so that, in the
language of the advertisement, there were vacant three eligible Swiss-built
villas, with sixteen rooms, no basement, electric bells, hot and cold water,
and every modern convenience, including a common tennis lawn, to be let at L100
a year, or L1,500 purchase. So tempting an offer did not long remain open.
Within a few weeks the card had vanished from number one, and it was known that
Admiral Hay Denver, V. C., C. B., with Mrs. Hay Denver and their only son, were
about to move into it. The news brought peace to the hearts of the Williams sisters.
They had lived with a settled conviction that some wild impossible colony, some
shouting, singing family of madcaps, would break in upon their peace. This
establishment at least was irreproachable. A reference to “Men of the Time”
showed them that Admiral Hay Denver was a most distinguished officer, who had
begun his active career at Bomarsund, and had ended it at Alexandria, having
managed between these two episodes to see as much service as any man of his
years. From the Taku Forts and the Shannon brigade, to dhow-harrying off
Zanzibar, there was no variety of naval work which did not appear in his
record; while the Victoria Cross, and the Albert Medal for saving life, vouched
for it that in peace as in war his courage was still of the same true temper.
Clearly a very eligible neighbor this, the more so as they had been
confidentially assured by the estate agent that Mr. Harold Denver, the son, was
a most quiet young gentleman, and that he was busy from morning to night on the
Stock Exchange.
The Hay Denvers had hardly moved in before number two
also struck its placard, and again the ladies found that they had no reason to
be discontented with their neighbors. Doctor Balthazar Walker was a very
well-known name in the medical world. Did not his qualifications, his
membership, and the record of his writings fill a long half-column in the
“Medical Directory,” from his first little paper on the “Gouty Diathesis” in
1859 to his exhaustive treatise upon “Affections of the Vaso-Motor System” in
1884? A successful medical career which promised to end in a presidentship of a
college and a baronetcy, had been cut short by his sudden inheritance of a
considerable sum from a grateful patient, which had rendered him independent
for life, and had enabled him to turn his attention to the more scientific part
of his profession, which had always had a greater charm for him than its more
practical and commercial aspect. To this end he had given up his house in
Weymouth Street, and had taken this opportunity of moving himself, his
scientific instruments, and his two charming daughters (he had been a widower
for some years) into the more peaceful atmosphere of Norwood.
There was thus but one villa unoccupied, and it was no
wonder that the two maiden ladies watched with a keen interest, which deepened
into a dire apprehension, the curious incidents which heralded the coming of
the new tenants. They had already learned from the agent that the family
consisted of two only, Mrs. Westmacott, a widow, and her nephew, Charles
Westmacott. How simple and how select it had sounded! Who could have foreseen
from it these fearful portents which seemed to threaten violence and discord
among the dwellers in The Wilderness? Again the two old maids cried in
heartfelt chorus that they wished they had not sold their field.
“Well, at least, Monica,” remarked Bertha, as they sat
over their teacups that afternoon, “however strange these people may be, it is
our duty to be as polite to them as to the others.”
“Most certainly,” acquiesced her sister.
“Since we have called upon Mrs. Hay Denver and upon
the Misses Walker, we must call upon this Mrs. Westmacott also.”
“Certainly, dear. As long as they are living upon our
land I feel as if they were in a sense our guests, and that it is our duty to
welcome them.”
“Then we shall call to-morrow,” said Bertha, with
decision.
“Yes, dear, we shall. But, oh, I wish it was over!”
At four o’clock on the next day, the two maiden ladies
set off upon their hospitable errand. In their stiff, crackling dresses of
black silk, with jet-bespangled jackets, and little rows of cylindrical grey
curls drooping down on either side of their black bonnets, they looked like two
old fashion plates which had wandered off into the wrong decade. Half curious
and half fearful, they knocked at the door of number three, which was instantly
opened by a red-headed page-boy.
Yes, Mrs. Westmacott was at home. He ushered them into
the front room, furnished as a drawing-room, where in spite of the fine spring
weather a large fire was burning in the grate. The boy took their cards, and
then, as they sat down together upon a settee, he set their nerves in a thrill
by darting behind a curtain with a shrill cry, and prodding at something with
his foot. The bull pup which they had seen upon the day before bolted from its
hiding-place, and scuttled snarling from the room.
“It wants to get at Eliza,” said the youth, in a
confidential whisper. “Master says she would give him more’n he brought.” He
smiled affably at the two little stiff black figures, and departed in search of
his mistress.
a picture of the countryside
a picture of the countryside
“What—what did he say?” gasped Bertha.
“Something about a—— Oh, goodness gracious! Oh, help,
help, help, help, help!” The two sisters had bounded on to the settee, and
stood there with staring eyes and skirts gathered in, while they filled the
whole house with their yells. Out of a high wicker-work basket which stood by
the fire there had risen a flat diamond-shaped head with wicked green eyes
which came flickering upwards, waving gently from side to side, until a foot or
more of glossy scaly neck was visible. Slowly the vicious head came floating
up, while at every oscillation a fresh burst of shrieks came from the settee.
“What in the name of mischief!” cried a voice, and
there was the mistress of the house standing in the doorway. Her gaze at first
had merely taken in the fact that two strangers were standing screaming upon
her red plush sofa. A glance at the fireplace, however, showed her the cause of
the terror, and she burst into a hearty fit of laughter.
“Charley,” she shouted, “here’s Eliza misbehaving
again.”
“I’ll settle her,” answered a masculine voice, and the
young man dashed into the room. He had a brown horse-cloth in his hand, which
he threw over the basket, making it fast with a piece of twine so as to
effectually imprison its inmate, while his aunt ran across to reassure her
visitors.
“It is only a rock snake,” she explained.
“Oh, Bertha!” “Oh, Monica!” gasped the poor exhausted
gentlewomen.
“She’s hatching out some eggs. That is why we have the
fire. Eliza always does better when she is warm. She is a sweet, gentle
creature, but no doubt she thought that you had designs upon her eggs. I
suppose that you did not touch any of them?”
“Oh, let us get away, Bertha!” cried Monica, with her
thin, black-gloved hands thrown forwards in abhorrence.
“Not away, but into the next room,” said Mrs.
Westmacott, with the air of one whose word was law. “This way, if you please!
It is less warm here.” She led the way into a very handsomely appointed library,
with three great cases of books, and upon the fourth side a long yellow table
littered over with papers and scientific instruments. “Sit here, and you,
there,” she continued. “That is right. Now let me see, which of you is Miss
Williams, and which Miss Bertha Williams?”
“I am Miss Williams,” said Monica, still palpitating,
and glancing furtively about in dread of some new horror.
“And you live, as I understand, over at the pretty
little cottage. It is very nice of you to call so early. I don’t suppose that
we shall get on, but still the intention is equally good.” She crossed her legs
and leaned her back against the marble mantelpiece.
“We thought that perhaps we might be of some
assistance,” said Bertha, timidly. “If there is anything which we could do to
make you feel more at home——”
“Oh, thank you, I am too old a traveler to feel
anything but at home wherever I go. I’ve just come back from a few months in
the Marquesas Islands, where I had a very pleasant visit. That was where I got
Eliza. In many respects the Marquesas Islands now lead the world.”
“Dear me!” ejaculated Miss Williams. “In what
respect?”
“In the relation of the sexes. They have worked out
the great problem upon their own lines, and their isolated geographical
position has helped them to come to a conclusion of their own. The woman there
is, as she should be, in every way the absolute equal of the male. Come in,
Charles, and sit down. Is Eliza all right?”
“All right, aunt.”
“These are our neighbors, the Misses Williams. Perhaps
they will have some stout. You might bring in a couple of bottles, Charles.”
“No, no, thank you! None for us!” cried her two
visitors, earnestly.
“No? I am sorry that I have no tea to offer you. I
look upon the subserviency of woman as largely due to her abandoning nutritious
drinks and invigorating exercises to the male. I do neither.” She picked up a
pair of fifteen-pound dumb-bells from beside the fireplace and swung them
lightly about her head. “You see what may be done on stout,” said she.
“But don’t you think,” the elder Miss Williams
suggested timidly, “don’t you think, Mrs. Westmascott, that woman has a mission
of her own?”
The lady of the house dropped her dumb-bells with a
crash upon the floor.
“The old cant!” she cried. “The old shibboleth! What
is this mission which is reserved for woman? All that is humble, that is mean,
that is soul-killing, that is so contemptible and so ill-paid that none other
will touch it. All that is woman’s mission. And who imposed these limitations
upon her? Who cooped her up within this narrow sphere? Was it Providence? Was
it nature? No, it was the arch enemy. It was man.”
“Oh, I say, auntie!” drawled her nephew.
“It was man, Charles. It was you and your fellows I
say that woman is a colossal monument to the selfishness of man. What is all
this boasted chivalry—these fine words and vague phrases? Where is it when we
wish to put it to the test? Man in the abstract will do anything to help a
woman. Of course. How does it work when his pocket is touched? Where is his
chivalry then? Will the doctors help her to qualify? will the lawyers help her
to be called to the bar? will the clergy tolerate her in the Church? Oh, it is
close your ranks then and refer poor woman to her mission! Her mission! To be
thankful for coppers and not to interfere with the men while they grabble for
gold, like swine round a trough, that is man’s reading of the mission of women.
You may sit there and sneer, Charles, while you look upon your victim, but you
know that it is truth, every word of it.”
Terrified as they were by this sudden torrent of
words, the two gentlewomen could not but smile at the sight of the fiery,
domineering victim and the big apologetic representative of mankind who sat
meekly bearing all the sins of his sex. The lady struck a match, whipped a
cigarette from a case upon the mantelpiece, and began to draw the smoke into
her lungs.
“I find it very soothing when my nerves are at all
ruffled,” she explained. “You don’t smoke? Ah, you miss one of the purest of
pleasures—one of the few pleasures which are without a reaction.”
Miss Williams smoothed out her silken lap.
“It is a pleasure,” she said, with some approach to
self-assertion, “which Bertha and I are rather too old-fashioned to enjoy.”
“No doubt, It would probably make you very ill if you
attempted it. By the way, I hope that you will come to some of our Guild
meetings. I shall see that tickets are sent you.”
“Your Guild?”
“It is not yet formed, but I shall lose no time in
forming a committee. It is my habit to establish a branch of the Emancipation
Guild wherever I go. There is a Mrs. Sanderson in Anerley who is already one of
the emancipated, so that I have a nucleus. It is only by organized resistance,
Miss Williams, that we can hope to hold our own against the selfish sex. Must
you go, then?”
“Yes, we have one or two other visits to pay,” said
the elder sister. “You will, I am sure, excuse us. I hope that you will find
Norwood a pleasant residence.”
“All places are to me simply a battle-field,” she
answered, gripping first one and then the other with a grip which crumpled up
their little thin fingers. “The days for work and healthful exercise, the
evenings to Browning and high discourse, eh, Charles? Good-bye!” She came to
the door with them, and as they glanced back they saw her still standing there
with the yellow bull pup cuddled up under one forearm, and the thin blue reek
of her cigarette ascending from her lips.
“Oh, what a dreadful, dreadful woman!” whispered
sister Bertha, as they hurried down the street. “Thank goodness that it is
over.”
“But she’ll return the visit,” answered the other. “I
think that we had better tell Mary that we are not at home.”
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