"It is all rooted, continued Dr. Fell, "in a tragic misunderstanding which has been going on for years. And it would all have been so simple, you know, if certain persons had only spoken out!”
"But, oh, no. This thing must not be discussed. This thing was very awkward, if not actually shameful. It must be hushed up. So it was hushed up. And out of it grew pain and disillusionment and more misunderstanding; and, finally, murder."
Dr. Fell paused, dispelling smoke with a wave of his hand. His eyes were fixed with fierce concentration on Sir Danvers Locke.
"Sir," inquired Dr. Fell, "do you know what hysteria is?" Locke, obviously puzzled, frowned. "Hysteria? You mean—?"
"Not," said Dr. Fell decisively, "the loose, inaccurate sense in which all of us use the term. We say a person is hysterical or behaving hysterically when he or she may only be very much upset. No, sir I referred to the nervous disease known to medical science as real hysteria.
"If I speak as a layman," he added apologeticaDy, "Dr. Shepton will (harrumph) doubtless correct me. But this hysteria, the group of associated symptoms called hysteria, may be comparatively mild. Or it may require serious treatment by a neurologist. Or it may end, and can end, in actual insanity."
Again Dr. Fell paused.
Celia, beside Holden, sat motionless with her hands on her knees and her head bent forward. But he could feel her soft arm tremble.
"Let me tell you," pursued Dr. Fell, "some of the milder symptoms of the hysteric. I repeat: the milder! Each one of them, taken by itself, is not necessarily evidence of hysteria. But you win never find the true hysteric, who may be either a woman or a man, without all of them."
"And we are dealing here—?" demanded Locke.
"With a woman," said Dr. Fen.
(Again Celia's arm trembled.)
'The hysteric is easily moved, by small things, to either laughter or tears. She is always blurting out something before realizing its meaning. The hysteric loves the limelight; she must have attention paid her; she must play the tragedy queen. The hysteric is an inordinate diary keeper, with pages and pages of events that are often untrue. The hysteric is always threatening to commit suicide, but never does it. The hysteric is unduly fascinated by the mystic or the occult The ..."
"Wait a minute" said Donald Holden. His voice exploded in that group with the effect of blast waves.
'You spoke?" inquired Dr. Fell, as though there had been some doubt of this.
"Yes; very much so. You're not describing Celia, yon know."
"Ah!" murmured Dr. Fell.
Holden swallowed hard to get his words in order.
"Celia loathes the limelight," he said, "or she'd have told her story all over the place instead of keeping it so dark. Celia never blurts out anything; she's almost too quiet. Celia can't even keep an ordinary diary, let alone the kind you're talking about. Celia admits she'd never have the courage to commit suicide. You're not describing Celia, Dr. Fell! But—"
"But?" prompted Dr. Fell.
"You've given a thunderingly accurate picture of Margot." "Got it," breathed Dr. Fell. "Do you all see the tragedy now?"
He sank back in the big chair, making a vague gesture with the pipe. There was a silence before he went on.
"There, over the green lawns of the past, walked Margot Devereux. And how the outside world misunderstood!
"Because she was robust, because she was jovial, because she liked games, they laughed and approved and applauded. 'Strapping,' they called her. 'Uninhibited,' was another word. And if at times something seemed odd? Well! Only over-hearty, which was not a bad thing. Not only did the outside world misunderstand, but they got the position the wrong way round.
"Everyone here, I imagine, has heard the famous remark which Mammy Two made on a number of occasions. 'There's a funny streak in our family, y’know. One of my granddaughters is all right, but I've been worried about the other ever since she was a little child.' And, of course, that remark was applied to the wrong person.
"Suspect Margot, the hearty and athletic? In England, good sirs? Damme! Fie upon you! So they never guessed, any more than her own sister guessed, that Margot Devereux was a hysteric with the potentialities of a dangerous hysteric.”
"But Mammy Two knew. The family doctor knew. Obey and Cook: be sure they knew. And they waited (with God knows what fear in their hearts; I am not looking at Dr. Shepton now) while Margot grew up into a very beautiful woman. Even then stark tragedy might have been averted, if . . ."
Holden sat up straight
"If—what?" he demanded.
"If Margot" replied Dr. Fell, "had not married."
Celia was trembling violently. Holden did not look at her.
"I will not" scowled Dr. Fell, "discuss the various physical causes which may bring about hysteria. Except to say this: that the hysteric becomes dominated by a fixed idea. She believes, let us say, that she is blind. To all intents and purposes, she is blind.”
"In a case like that of Margot Devereux, it is plain that to marry almost any man would be dangerous. Except in the remote chance of finding the right man, it would be disastrous. For its root is sexual.
"Once married, she discovers (or thinks she discovers, which is the same thing) that physical intimacy with her husband is a matter of horror. She screams when he approaches her. His mere touch is nausea. And the poor devil of a husband, wondering bewilderdly what is wrong and why he has turned into a leper, is faced with a raging madwoman. And this may go on for years. And nobody ever knows."
Dr. Fell paused. Distressed and yet dogged, he would not look round; he kept his eyes fixed on the crystal.
And Holden, with a chill at his heart, recognized that his most poignant memory—the marriage in Caswall Church, with the colored dresses and the echo of music—must subtly alter in line. He must reinterpret the odd looks and tears of both Mammy Two and Obey. He must reinterpret now he remembered it the frankly dubious gaze of Dr. Shepton.
But above all (curse himself for being so blind!) he must reinterpret Thorley Marsh.
He must recognize why, in seven years, there had been changes in Thorley. Moods, expressions, whole sentences spoken by Thorley, crowded back to trouble him. Best of all he remembered Thorley being questioned by Dr. Fell in the Long Gallery last night. How do you know the door to your wife's bedroom was locked on her side? "It always was." And again Thorley's blank-voiced, groping cry: "Liquor always used to make me feel happy. It never does, now."
"Dr. Fell!" Holden said softly.
"Eh?"
"This plain speaking is right Ifs got to be done. But do you think, in front of Celia—?" "I know," said Celia, and turned suddenly and put her cheek against his shoulder. "I heard about it this afternoon. But I never knew before. Dr. Fell! Tell them about . . . the seizures."
"Yes, by thunder!" said Dr. Fell in a different voice.
He put down his pipe, which had gone out.
"The hysteric, under these conditions, is afflicted with attacks in the form of physical seizures. They may be brought on by a word, a look, by nothing at all. The husband, on one occasion, may completely lose his head. To quiet that screaming, he may strike his wife across the face with a razor strap; or try to choke the cries in her throat with his hands.
"On other occasions, the attacks may be more severe. They may need medical aid. When the hysteric is afflicted like this, she has a tetanic attack—limbs rigid, body arched— exactly, to the eye of an uninformed person who sees it, like a case of strychnine poisoning."
Here Dr. Fell, wheezing angrily, looked at Danvers Locke.
"And then the hysteric, as hysterics will, admits to Celia Devereux that she has swallowed strychnine to end her tragic life! Archons of Athens! Can you wonder that another girl, perfectly normal but frightened half out of her wits because no one has seen fit to tell her, misunderstands all this? Can you wonder Celia Devereux thought what she did think? Good God, what would you expect?"