Free Fatal Inheritance by Catherine Shaw Page A

forward to her aid, added his protests to hers.
    ‘Whatever have you been saying to shock my wife so deeply?’
    ‘Oh, the conversation took a turn – dear Thomas, I know that it is science, but I really could not hear it!’
    ‘Well, it shan’t go on, my dear. Would you like me to take you home?’
    ‘No, no,’ said Mrs Darwin soothingly. ‘Here, dear Mrs Bates, do have your tea, it will revive you in a moment. We shan’t have any more scientific conversation, shall we? Let us all speak of ordinary things!’
    Calm returned to the company, and everyone present was relieved that the moment of tension had passed. Everyone, that is, except for myself. I was overcome by a great wave of anger and frustration, so powerful that it risked entirely ruining the atmosphere of a pleasant social occasion, and leaving an unpleasant trace and strained relations behind. My delight at being asked to tea had been uniquely due to the possibility of having my questions answered, and now the tea party had transformed itself into an obstacle blocking my way to the knowledge I so dearly wanted. Even though Mrs Bates’ fainting spell was genuine enough, I could not help feeling that there was something hateful about it – something artificial and untruthful; not that she herself was counterfeiting her emotion – I did not think that of her – but yet how in Heaven’s name could the words ‘male organ’, pronounced in the most abstract scientific manner, on the subject of the stamens of a flower, cause such an effect upon a woman who was a wife and very probably a mother? Whence exactly came the shock to her nervous system upon hearing those words? Certainly not in the actual fact of the existence of the corresponding object! What hypocrisy, that the pronunciation of a word should cause a shock where the thing itself presumably caused none! I was truly suffused with rage and unable to pronounce a single word, for I saw that not only was Professor Correns’ fascinating discourse destined to be interrupted, but there should be no chance of its being resumed at any time during the course of the party, which at once became a dreary duty that I must perform, puppet-like, while hiding my feelings to the best of my ability.
    By a miracle of the same kind of intuition that had allowed him to sense the importance of Gregor Mendel’s published but utterly unrecognised work, Professor Correns detected my thoughts and drew me aside.
    ‘I perceive your deep interest in these questions,’ he said, ‘and that you do not suffer from the sensitivity of certain English ladies with regard to certain somewhat delicate questions. Or perhaps it is that you, like myself, belong to a new and younger generation. So, I would propose, if you wish, that we meet again, perhaps to take a quiet walk through one of Cambridge’s lovely parks, and discuss these things in privacy and at leisure. It would afford me great pleasure to do so.’
    The world returned to rights, and I felt a great smile of gratefulness spread over my face as I accepted joyfully and fixed a date that unfortunately could not, due to other obligations, be nearer than two days hence. But the professor’s understanding compensated for the delay, and, thanks to his words, I was able to resume the tea-drinking and the now relentlessly proper and correct conversation that ensued, with everyone gathered round the tea table together, and nothing left to chance, the husbands apparently not ready to abandon their wives once again to the unknown dangers of science.

CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    In which Vanessa reads a book in German and one chapter in particular
     
    The art of automatic writing,
I wrote, painstakingly translating the foreword to Dr Bernstein’s book in the hopes of developing an honest interest in the material, and thus providing myself with a perfect reason to ask for an introduction to the good doctor at the very next SPR meeting in London –
is one of the most mysterious and