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The Wonderful Visit
By
H. G. Wells
Contents
I. - THE NIGHT OF THE STRANGE BIRD. =
II. =
- THE
COMING OF THE STRANGE BIRD.
III.=
- THE
HUNTING OF THE STRANGE BIRD.
V.=
VI. =
- THE
VICAR AND THE ANGEL.
VII.=
=
VIII=
. =
XII.=
=
XIV.=
=
XVI.=
=
XVII=
. =
XIX.=
=
XXI.=
=
XXIV=
. - THE
ANGEL EXPLORES THE VILLAGE.
XXV.=
=
XXVI=
. =
XXVI=
I. =
XXVI=
II. -
LADY HAMMERGALLOW'S VIEW.
XXIX=
. -
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE ANGEL IN THE VILLAGE.
XXX.=
=
XXXI=
. - MRS
JEHORAM'S BREADTH OF VIEW.
XXXI=
I. - A
TRIVIAL INCIDENT.
XXXI=
II. -
THE WARP AND THE WOOF OF THINGS.
XXXV=
. =
XXXV=
I. =
XXXV=
III. -
THE TROUBLE OF THE BARBED WIRE.
XXXI=
X. =
XLII=
. - SIR
JOHN GOTCH ACTS.
XLVI=
. =
XLVI=
I. - THE
LAST DAY OF THE VISIT.
XLIX=
. =
LII.=
=
TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR FRIEND, WALTER LOW.
THE
WONDERFUL VISIT.
I. - THE NIGHT OF THE STR=
ANGE
BIRD.
On the Night of the Strange Bird, m=
any
people at Sidderton (and some nearer) saw a Glare on the Sidderford moor. B=
ut
no one in Sidderford saw it, for most of Sidderford was abed.
All day the wind =
had
been rising, so that the larks on the moor chirruped fitfully near the grou=
nd,
or rose only to be driven like leaves before the wind. The sun set in a blo=
ody
welter of clouds, and the moon was hidden. The glare, they say, was golden =
like
a beam shining out of the sky, not a uniform blaze, but broken all over by
curving flashes like the waving of swords. It lasted but a moment and left =
the night
dark and obscure. There were letters about it in Nature, and a rough drawing
that no one thought very like. (You may see it for yourself--the drawing th=
at
was unlike the glare--on page 42 of Vol. cclx. of that publication.)
None in Sidderford
saw the light, but Annie, Hooker Durgan's wife, was lying awake, and she saw
the reflection of it--a flickering tongue of gold--dancing on the wall.
She, too, was one=
of
those who heard the sound. The others who heard the sound were Lumpy Durgan,
the half-wit, and Amory's mother. They said it was a sound like children
singing and a throbbing of harp strings, carried on a rush of notes like th=
at
which sometimes comes from an organ. It began and ended like the opening and
shutting of a door, and before and after they heard nothing but the night w=
ind
howling over the moor and the noise of the caves under Sidderford cliff.
Amory's mother said she wanted to cry when she heard it, but Lumpy was only
sorry he could hear no more.
That is as much as
anyone can tell you of the glare upon Sidderford Moor and the alleged music
therewith. And whether these had any real connexion with the Strange Bird w=
hose
history follows, is more than I can say. But I set it down here for reasons
that will be more apparent as the story proceeds.
II. - THE COMING OF THE
STRANGE BIRD.
Sandy Bright was coming down the ro=
ad
from Spinner's carrying a side of bacon he had taken in exchange for a cloc=
k.
He saw nothing of the light but he heard and saw the Strange Bird. He sudde=
nly
heard a flapping and a voice like a woman wailing, and being a nervous man =
and
all alone, he was alarmed forthwith, and turning (all a-tremble) saw someth=
ing
large and black against the dim darkness of the cedars up the hill. It seem=
ed to
be coming right down upon him, and incontinently he dropped his bacon and s=
et
off running, only to fall headlong.
He tried in
vain--such was his state of mind--to remember the beginning of the Lord's
Prayer. The strange bird flapped over him, something larger than himself, w=
ith
a vast spread of wings, and, as he thought, black. He screamed and gave him=
self
up for lost. Then it went past him, sailing down the hill, and, soaring over
the vicarage, vanished into the hazy valley towards Sidderford.
And Sandy Bright =
lay
upon his stomach there, for ever so long, staring into the darkness after t=
he
strange bird. At last he got upon his knees and began to thank Heaven for h=
is
merciful deliverance, with his eyes downhill. He went on down into the vill=
age,
talking aloud and confessing his sins as he went, lest the strange bird sho=
uld
come back. All who heard him thought him drunk. But from that night he was a
changed man, and had done with drunkenness and defrauding the revenue by
selling silver ornaments without a licence. And the side of bacon lay upon =
the hillside
until the tallyman from Portburdock found it in the morning.
The next who saw =
the
Strange Bird was a solicitor's clerk at Iping Hanger, who was climbing the =
hill
before breakfast, to see the sunrise. Save for a few dissolving wisps of cl=
oud
the sky had been blown clear in the night. At first he thought it was an ea=
gle
he saw. It was near the zenith, and incredibly remote, a mere bright speck =
above
the pink cirri, and it seemed as if it fluttered and beat itself against the
sky, as an imprisoned swallow might do against a window pane. Then down it =
came
into the shadow of the earth, sweeping in a great curve towards Portburdock=
and
round over the Hanger, and so vanishing behind the woods of Siddermorton Pa=
rk.
It seemed larger than a man. Just before it was hidden, the light of the ri=
sing
sun smote over the edge of the downs and touched its wings, and they flashed
with the brightness of flames and the colour of precious stones, and so pas=
sed,
leaving the witness agape.
A ploughman going=
to
his work, along under the stone wall of Siddermorton Park, saw the Strange =
Bird
flash over him for a moment and vanish among the hazy interstices of the be=
ech
trees. But he saw little of the colour of the wings, witnessing only that i=
ts
legs, which were long, seemed pink and bare like naked flesh, and its body
mottled white. It smote like an arrow through the air and was gone.
These were the fi=
rst
three eye-witnesses of the Strange Bird.
Now in these days=
one
does not cower before the devil and one's own sinfulness, or see strange
iridiscent wings in the light of dawn, and say nothing of it afterwards. The
young solicitor's clerk told his mother and sisters at breakfast, and,
afterwards, on his way to the office at Portburdock, spoke of it to the
blacksmith of Hammerpond, and spent the morning with his fellow clerks
marvelling instead of copying deeds. And Sandy Bright went to talk the matt=
er
over with Mr Jekyll, the "Primitive" minister, and the ploughman =
told
old Hugh and afterwards the vicar of Siddermorton.
"They are no=
t an
imaginative race about here," said the Vicar of Siddermorton, "I
wonder how much of that was true. Barring that he thinks the wings were bro=
wn
it sounds uncommonly like a Flamingo."
III. - THE HUNTING OF THE
STRANGE BIRD.
The Vicar of Siddermorton (which is=
nine
miles inland from Siddermouth as the crow flies) was an ornithologist. Some
such pursuit, botany, antiquity, folk-lore, is almost inevitable for a sing=
le
man in his position. He was given to geometry also, propounding occasionall=
y impossible
problems in the Educational Times, but ornithology was his forte. He had
already added two visitors to the list of occasional British birds. His name
was well-known in the columns of the Zoologist (I am afraid it may be forgo=
tten
by now, for the world moves apace). And on the day after the coming of the
Strange Bird, came first one and then another to confirm the ploughman's st=
ory
and tell him, not that it had any connection, of the Glare upon Sidderford
moor.
Now, the Vicar of
Siddermorton had two rivals in his scientific pursuits; Gully of Sidderton,=
who
had actually seen the glare, and who it was sent the drawing to Nature, and
Borland the natural history dealer, who kept the marine laboratory at
Portburdock. Borland, the Vicar thought, should have stuck to his copepods,=
but
instead he kept a taxidermist, and took advantage of his littoral position =
to
pick up rare sea birds. It was evident to anyone who knew anything of
collecting that both these men would be scouring the country after the stra=
nge
visitant, before twenty-four hours were out.
The Vicar's eye
rested on the back of Saunders' British Birds, for he was in his study at t=
he
time. Already in two places there was entered: "the only known British
specimen was secured by the Rev. K. Hilyer, Vicar of Siddermorton." A
third such entry. He doubted if any other collector had that.
He looked at his
watch--two. He had just lunched, and usually he "rested" in the
afternoon. He knew it would make him feel very disagreeable if he went out =
into
the hot sunshine--both on the top of his head and generally. Yet Gully perh=
aps
was out, prowling observant. Suppose it was something very good and Gully g=
ot it!
His gun stood in =
the
corner. (The thing had iridiscent wings and pink legs! The chromatic confli=
ct
was certainly exceedingly stimulating). He took his gun.
He would have gone
out by the glass doors and verandah, and down the garden into the hill road=
, in
order to avoid his housekeeper's eye. He knew his gun expeditions were not
approved of. But advancing towards him up the garden, he saw the curate's w=
ife
and her two daughters, carrying tennis rackets. His curate's wife was a you=
ng
woman of immense will, who used to play tennis on his lawn, and cut his ros=
es,
differ from him on doctrinal points, and criticise his personal behaviour a=
ll
over the parish. He went in abject fear of her, was always trying to propit=
iate
her. But so far he had clung to his ornithology....
However, he went =
out
by the front door.
IV.
If it were not for collectors Engla=
nd
would be full, so to speak, of rare birds and wonderful butterflies, strange
flowers and a thousand interesting things. But happily the collector preven=
ts all
that, either killing with his own hands or, by buying extravagantly, procur=
ing
people of the lower classes to kill such eccentricities as appear. It makes=
work
for people, even though Acts of Parliament interfere. In this way, for
instance, he is killing off the chough in Cornwall, the Bath white butterfl=
y,
the Queen of Spain Fritillary; and can plume himself upon the extermination=
of
the Great Auk, and a hundred other rare birds and plants and insects. All t=
hat
is the work of the collector and his glory alone. In the name of Science. A=
nd
this is right and as it should be; eccentricity, in fact, is immorality--th=
ink
over it again if you do not think so now--just as eccentricity in one's way=
of
thinking is madness (I defy you to find another definition that will fit all
the cases of either); and if a species is rare it follows that it is not Fi=
tted
to Survive. The collector is after all merely like the foot soldier in the =
days
of heavy armour--he leaves the combatants alone and cuts the throats of tho=
se
who are overthrown. So one may go through England from end to end in the su=
mmer
time and see only eight or ten commonplace wild flowers, and the commoner
butterflies, and a dozen or so common birds, and never be offended by any
breach of the monotony, any splash of strange blossom or flutter of unknown
wing. All the rest have been "collected" years ago. For which cau=
se
we should all love Collectors, and bear in mind what we owe them when their
little collections are displayed. These camphorated little drawers of their=
s,
their glass cases and blotting-paper books, are the graves of the Rare and =
the
Beautiful, the symbols of the Triumph of Leisure (morally spent) over the
Delights of Life. (All of which, as you very properly remark, has nothing w=
hatever
to do with the Strange Bird.)
V.
There is a place on the moor where =
the
black water shines among the succulent moss, and the hairy sundew, eater of
careless insects, spreads its red-stained hungry hands to the God who gives=
his
creatures--one to feed another. On a ridge thereby grow birches with a silv=
ery
bark, and the soft green of the larch mingles with the dark green fir. Thit=
her through
the honey humming heather came the Vicar, in the heat of the day, carrying a
gun under his arm, a gun loaded with swanshot for the Strange Bird. And over
his disengaged hand he carried a pocket handkerchief wherewith, ever and ag=
ain,
he wiped his beady face.
He went by and on
past the big pond and the pool full of brown leaves where the Sidder arises,
and so by the road (which is at first sandy and then chalky) to the little =
gate
that goes into the park. There are seven steps up to the gate and on the
further side six down again--lest the deer escape--so that when the Vicar s=
tood
in the gateway his head was ten feet or more above the ground. And looking
where a tumult of bracken fronds filled the hollow between two groups of be=
ech,
his eye caught something parti-coloured that wavered and went. Suddenly his
face gleamed and his muscles grew tense; he ducked his head, clutched his g=
un with
both hands, and stood still. Then watching keenly, he came on down the steps
into the park, and still holding his gun in both hands, crept rather than
walked towards the jungle of bracken.
Nothing stirred, =
and
he almost feared that his eyes had played him false, until he reached the f=
erns
and had gone rustling breast high into them. Then suddenly rose something f=
ull
of wavering colours, twenty yards or less in front of his face, and beating=
the
air. In another moment it had fluttered above the bracken and spread its
pinions wide. He saw what it was, his heart was in his mouth, and he fired =
out
of pure surprise and habit.
There was a screa=
m of
superhuman agony, the wings beat the air twice, and the victim came slanting
swiftly downward and struck the ground--a struggling heap of writhing body,
broken wing and flying bloodstained plumes--upon the turfy slope behind.
The Vicar stood
aghast, with his smoking gun in his hand. It was no bird at all, but a youth
with an extremely beautiful face, clad in a robe of saffron and with irides=
cent
wings, across whose pinions great waves of colour, flushes of purple and
crimson, golden green and intense blue, pursued one another as he writhed in
his agony. Never had the Vicar seen such gorgeous floods of colour, not sta=
ined
glass windows, not the wings of butterflies, not even the glories of crysta=
ls
seen between prisms, no colours on earth could compare with them. Twice the
Angel raised himself, only to fall over sideways again. Then the beating of=
the
wings diminished, the terrified face grew pale, the floods of colour abated=
, and
suddenly with a sob he lay prone, and the changing hues of the broken wings
faded swiftly into one uniform dull grey hue.
"Oh! what has
happened to me?" cried the Angel (for such it was), shuddering violent=
ly,
hands outstretched and clutching the ground, and then lying still.
"Dear me!&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar. "I had no idea." He came forward cautiously. &quo=
t;Excuse
me," he said, "I am afraid I have shot you."
It was the obvious
remark.
The Angel seemed =
to
become aware of his presence for the first time. He raised himself by one h=
and,
his brown eyes stared into the Vicar's. Then, with a gasp, and biting his
nether lip, he struggled into a sitting position and surveyed the Vicar from
top to toe.
"A man!"
said the Angel, clasping his forehead; "a man in the maddest black clo=
thes
and without a feather upon him. Then I was not deceived. I am indeed in the
Land of Dreams!"
VI. - THE VICAR AND THE
ANGEL.
Now there are some things frankly
impossible. The weakest intellect will admit this situation is impossible. =
The
Athenæum will probably say as much should it venture to review this.
Sunbespattered ferns, spreading beech trees, the Vicar and the gun are
acceptable enough. But this Angel is a different matter. Plain sensible peo=
ple
will scarcely go on with such an extravagant book. And the Vicar fully
appreciated this impossibility. But he lacked decision. Consequently he wen=
t on
with it, as you shall immediately hear. He was hot, it was after dinner, he=
was
in no mood for mental subtleties. The Angel had him at a disadvantage, and
further distracted him from the main issue by irrelevant iridescence and a
violent fluttering. For the moment it never occurred to the Vicar to ask
whether the Angel was possible or not. He accepted him in the confusion of =
the
moment, and the mischief was done. Put yourself in his place, my dear
Athenæum. You go out shooting. You hit something. That alone would
disconcert you. You find you have hit an Angel, and he writhes about for a
minute and then sits up and addresses you. He makes no apology for his own
impossibility. Indeed, he carries the charge clean into your camp. "A
man!" he says, pointing. "A man in the maddest black clothes and
without a feather upon him. Then I was not deceived. I am indeed in the Lan=
d of
Dreams!" You must answer him. Unless you take to your heels. Or blow h=
is
brains out with your second barrel as an escape from the controversy.
"The Land of
Dreams! Pardon me if I suggest you have just come out of it," was the
Vicar's remark.
"How can that
be?" said the Angel.
"Your
wing," said the Vicar, "is bleeding. Before we talk, may I have t=
he
pleasure--the melancholy pleasure--of tying it up? I am really most sincere=
ly
sorry...." The Angel put his hand behind his back and winced.
The Vicar assisted
his victim to stand up. The Angel turned gravely and the Vicar, with number=
less
insignificant panting parentheses, carefully examined the injured wings. (T=
hey
articulated, he observed with interest, to a kind of second glenoid on the
outer and upper edge of the shoulder blade. The left wing had suffered litt=
le
except the loss of some of the primary wing-quills, and a shot or so in the=
ala
spuria, but the humerus bone of the right was evidently smashed.) The Vicar=
stanched
the bleeding as well as he could and tied up the bone with his pocket
handkerchief and the neck wrap his housekeeper made him carry in all weathe=
rs.
"I'm afraid =
you
will not be able to fly for some time," said he, feeling the bone.
"I don't like
this new sensation," said the Angel.
"The Pain wh=
en I
feel your bone?"
"The what?&q=
uot;
said the Angel.
"The Pain.&q=
uot;
"'Pain'--you
call it. No, I certainly don't like the Pain. Do you have much of this Pain=
in
the Land of Dreams?"
"A very fair=
share,"
said the Vicar. "Is it new to you?"
"Quite,"
said the Angel. "I don't like it."
"How
curious!" said the Vicar, and bit at the end of a strip of linen to ti=
e a
knot. "I think this bandaging must serve for the present," he sai=
d.
"I've studied ambulance work before, but never the bandaging up of wing
wounds. Is your Pain any better?"
"It glows now
instead of flashing," said the Angel.
"I am afraid=
you
will find it glow for some time," said the Vicar, still intent on the
wound.
The Angel gave a =
shrug
of the wing and turned round to look at the Vicar again. He had been trying=
to
keep an eye on the Vicar over his shoulder during all their interview. He
looked at him from top to toe with raised eyebrows and a growing smile on h=
is
beautiful soft-featured face. "It seems so odd," he said with a s=
weet
little laugh, "to be talking to a Man!"
"Do you
know," said the Vicar, "now that I come to think of it, it is equ=
ally
odd to me that I should be talking to an Angel. I am a somewhat matter-of-f=
act
person. A Vicar has to be. Angels I have always regarded as--artistic
conceptions----"
"Exactly wha=
t we
think of men."
"But surely =
you
have seen so many men----"
"Never before
to-day. In pictures and books, times enough of course. But I have seen seve=
ral
since the sunrise, solid real men, besides a horse or so--those Unicorn thi=
ngs
you know, without horns--and quite a number of those grotesque knobby things
called 'cows.' I was naturally a little frightened at so many mythical
monsters, and came to hide here until it was dark. I suppose it will be dark
again presently like it was at first. Phew! This Pain of yours is poor fun.=
I
hope I shall wake up directly."
"I don't
understand quite," said the Vicar, knitting his brows and tapping his
forehead with his flat hand. "Mythical monster!" The worst thing =
he
had been called for years hitherto was a 'mediaeval anachronism' (by an
advocate of Disestablishment). "Do I understand that you consider me
as--as something in a dream?"
"Of
course," said the Angel smiling.
"And this wo=
rld
about me, these rugged trees and spreading fronds----"
"Is all so v=
ery
dream like," said the Angel. "Just exactly what one dreams of--or
artists imagine."
"You have
artists then among the Angels?"
"All kinds of
artists, Angels with wonderful imaginations, who invent men and cows and ea=
gles
and a thousand impossible creatures."
"Impossible
creatures!" said the Vicar.
"Impossible
creatures," said the Angel. "Myths."
"But I'm
real!" said the Vicar. "I assure you I'm real."
The Angel shrugge=
d his
wings and winced and smiled. "I can always tell when I am dreaming,&qu=
ot;
he said.
"You--dreami=
ng,"
said the Vicar. He looked round him.
"You
dreaming!" he repeated. His mind worked diffusely.
He held out his h=
and
with all his fingers moving. "I have it!" he said. "I begin =
to
see." A really brilliant idea was dawning upon his mind. He had not
studied mathematics at Cambridge for nothing, after all. "Tell me plea=
se.
Some animals of your world ... of the Real World, real animals you know.&qu=
ot;
"Real
animals!" said the Angel smiling. "Why--there's Griffins and Drag=
ons--and
Jabberwocks--and Cherubim--and Sphinxes--and the Hippogriff--and Mermaids--=
and
Satyrs--and...."
"Thank
you," said the Vicar as the Angel appeared to be warming to his work;
"thank you. That is quite enough. I begin to understand."
He paused for a
moment, his face pursed up. "Yes ... I begin to see it."
"See what?&q=
uot;
asked the Angel.
"The Griffins
and Satyrs and so forth. It's as clear...."
"I don't see
them," said the Angel.
"No, the who=
le point
is they are not to be seen in this world. But our men with imaginations have
told us all about them, you know. And even I at times ... there are places =
in
this village where you must simply take what they set before you, or give
offence--I, I say, have seen in my dreams Jabberwocks, Bogle brutes,
Mandrakes.... From our point of view, you know, they are Dream
Creatures...."
"Dream
Creatures!" said the Angel. "How singular! This is a very curious=
dream.
A kind of topsy-turvey one. You call men real and angels a myth. It almost
makes one think that in some odd way there must be two worlds as it
were...."
"At least
Two," said the Vicar.
"Lying somew=
here
close together, and yet scarcely suspecting...."
"As near as =
page
to page of a book."
"Penetrating=
each
other, living each its own life. This is really a delicious dream!"
"And never
dreaming of each other."
"Except when
people go a dreaming!"
"Yes," =
said
the Angel thoughtfully. "It must be something of the sort. And that
reminds me. Sometimes when I have been dropping asleep, or drowsing under t=
he
noon-tide sun, I have seen strange corrugated faces just like yours, going =
by
me, and trees with green leaves upon them, and such queer uneven ground as
this.... It must be so. I have fallen into another world."
"Sometimes,&=
quot;
began the Vicar, "at bedtime, when I have been just on the edge of
consciousness, I have seen faces as beautiful as yours, and the strange
dazzling vistas of a wonderful scene, that flowed past me, winged shapes
soaring over it, and wonderful--sometimes terrible--forms going to and fro.=
I
have even heard sweet music too in my ears.... It may be that as we withdraw
our attention from the world of sense, the pressing world about us, as we p=
ass
into the twilight of repose, other worlds.... Just as we see the stars, tho=
se
other worlds in space, when the glare of day recedes.... And the artistic
dreamers who see such things most clearly...."
They looked at one
another.
"And in some
incomprehensible manner I have fallen into this world of yours out of my
own!" said the Angel, "into the world of my dreams, grown real.&q=
uot;
He looked about h=
im.
"Into the world of my dreams."
"It is
confusing," said the Vicar. "It almost makes one think there may =
be
(ahem) Four Dimensions after all. In which case, of course," he went on
hurriedly--for he loved geometrical speculations and took a certain pride in
his knowledge of them--"there may be any number of three dimensional
universes packed side by side, and all dimly dreaming of one another. There=
may
be world upon world, universe upon universe. It's perfectly possible. There=
's
nothing so incredible as the absolutely possible. But I wonder how you came=
to
fall out of your world into mine...."
"Dear me!&qu=
ot;
said the Angel; "There's deer and a stag! Just as they draw them on the
coats of arms. How grotesque it all seems! Can I really be awake?"
He rubbed his
knuckles into his eyes.
The half-dozen of
dappled deer came in Indian file obliquely through the trees and halted,
watching. "It's no dream--I am really a solid concrete Angel, in Dream
Land," said the Angel. He laughed. The Vicar stood surveying him. The
Reverend gentleman was pulling his mouth askew after a habit he had, and sl=
owly
stroking his chin. He was asking himself whether he too was not in the Land=
of
Dreams.
VII.
Now in the land of the Angels, so t=
he
Vicar learnt in the course of many conversations, there is neither pain nor
trouble nor death, marrying nor giving in marriage, birth nor forgetting. O=
nly
at times new things begin. It is a land without hill or dale, a wonderfully
level land, glittering with strange buildings, with incessant sunlight or f=
ull
moon, and with incessant breezes blowing through the Æolian traceries=
of
the trees. It is Wonderland, with glittering seas hanging in the sky, acros=
s which
strange fleets go sailing, none know whither. There the flowers glow in Hea=
ven
and the stars shine about one's feet and the breath of life is a delight. T=
he
land goes on for ever--there is no solar system nor interstellar space such=
as
there is in our universe--and the air goes upward past the sun into the
uttermost abyss of their sky. And there is nothing but Beauty there--all the
beauty in our art is but feeble rendering of faint glimpses of that wonderf=
ul
world, and our composers, our original composers, are those who hear, howev=
er
faintly, the dust of melody that drives before its winds. And the Angels, a=
nd wonderful
monsters of bronze and marble and living fire, go to and fro therein.
It is a land of
Law--for whatever is, is under the law--but its laws all, in some strange w=
ay,
differ from ours. Their geometry is different because their space has a cur=
ve
in it so that all their planes are cylinders; and their law of Gravitation =
is
not according to the law of inverse squares, and there are four-and-twenty
primary colours instead of only three. Most of the fantastic things of our
science are commonplaces there, and all our earthly science would seem to t=
hem
the maddest dreaming. There are no flowers upon their plants, for instance,=
but
jets of coloured fire. That, of course, will seem mere nonsense to you beca=
use
you do not understand Most of what the Angel told the Vicar, indeed the Vic=
ar
could not realise, because his own experiences, being only of this world of
matter, warred against his understanding. It was too strange to imagine.
What had jolted t=
hese
twin universes together so that the Angel had fallen suddenly into Sidderfo=
rd,
neither the Angel nor the Vicar could tell. Nor for the matter of that could
the author of this story. The author is concerned with the facts of the cas=
e,
and has neither the desire nor the confidence to explain them. Explanations=
are
the fallacy of a scientific age. And the cardinal fact of the case is this,
that out in Siddermorton Park, with the glory of some wonderful world where
there is neither sorrow nor sighing, still clinging to him, on the 4th of A=
ugust
1895, stood an Angel, bright and beautiful, talking to the Vicar of
Siddermorton about the plurality of worlds. The author will swear to the An=
gel,
if need be; and there he draws the line.
"I have," said the Angel,
"a most unusual feeling--here. Have had since sunrise. I don't remember
ever having any feeling--here before."
"Not pain, I
hope," said the Vicar.
"Oh no! It is
quite different from that--a kind of vacuous feeling."
"The atmosph=
eric
pressure, perhaps, is a little different," the Vicar began, feeling his
chin.
"And do you
know, I have also the most curious sensations in my mouth--almost as if--it=
's
so absurd!--as if I wanted to stuff things into it."
"Bless me!&q=
uot;
said the Vicar. "Of course! You're hungry!"
"Hungry!&quo=
t;
said the Angel. "What's that?"
"Don't you
eat?"
"Eat! The wo=
rd's
quite new to me."
"Put food in=
to
your mouth, you know. One has to here. You will soon learn. If you don't, y=
ou
get thin and miserable, and suffer a great deal--pain, you know--and finally
you die."
"Die!" =
said
the Angel. "That's another strange word!"
"It's not
strange here. It means leaving off, you know," said the Vicar.
"We never le=
ave
off," said the Angel.
"You don't k=
now
what may happen to you in this world," said the Vicar, thinking him ov=
er.
"Possibly if you are feeling hungry, and can feel pain and have your w=
ings
broken, you may even have to die before you get out of it again. At anyrate=
you
had better try eating. For my own part--ahem!--there are many more disagree=
able
things."
"I suppose I=
had
better Eat," said the Angel. "If it's not too difficult. I don't =
like
this 'Pain' of yours, and I don't like this 'Hungry.' If your 'Die' is anyt=
hing
like it, I would prefer to Eat. What a very odd world this is!"
"To Die,&quo=
t;
said the Vicar, "is generally considered worse than either pain or
hunger.... It depends."
"You must
explain all that to me later," said the Angel. "Unless I wake up.=
At
present, please show me how to eat. If you will. I feel a kind of urgency..=
.."
"Pardon
me," said the Vicar, and offered an elbow. "If I may have the ple=
asure
of entertaining you. My house lies yonder--not a couple of miles from
here."
"Your
House!" said the Angel a little puzzled; but he took the Vicar's arm
affectionately, and the two, conversing as they went, waded slowly through =
the
luxuriant bracken, sun mottled under the trees, and on over the stile in the
park palings, and so across the bee-swarming heather for a mile or more, do=
wn
the hillside, home.
You would have be=
en
charmed at the couple could you have seen them. The Angel, slight of figure,
scarcely five feet high, and with a beautiful, almost effeminate face, such=
as
an Italian old Master might have painted. (Indeed, there is one in the Nati=
onal
Gallery [Tobias and the Angel, by some artist unknown] not at all unlike hi=
m so
far as face and spirit go.) He was robed simply in a purple-wrought saffron
blouse, bare kneed and bare-footed, with his wings (broken now, and a leaden
grey) folded behind him. The Vicar was a short, rather stout figure, rubicu=
nd, red-haired,
clean-shaven, and with bright ruddy brown eyes. He wore a piebald straw hat
with a black ribbon, a very neat white tie, and a fine gold watch-chain. He=
was
so greatly interested in his companion that it only occurred to him when he=
was
in sight of the Vicarage that he had left his gun lying just where he had
dropped it amongst the bracken.
He was rejoiced to
hear that the pain of the bandaged wing fell rapidly in intensity.
IX. - PARENTHESIS ON ANGE=
LS.
Let us be plain. The Angel of this =
story
is the Angel of Art, not the Angel that one must be irreverent to
touch--neither the Angel of religious feeling nor the Angel of popular beli=
ef.
The last we all know. She is alone among the angelic hosts in being distinc=
tly
feminine: she wears a robe of immaculate, unmitigated white with sleeves, is
fair, with long golden tresses, and has eyes of the blue of Heaven. Just a =
pure
woman she is, pure maiden or pure matron, in her robe de nuit, and with win=
gs
attached to her shoulder blades. Her callings are domestic and sympathetic,=
she
watches over a cradle or assists a sister soul heavenward. Often she bears a
palm leaf, but one would not be surprised if one met her carrying a warming=
-pan
softly to some poor chilly sinner. She it was who came down in a bevy to
Marguerite in prison, in the amended last scene in Faust at the Lyceum, and=
the
interesting and improving little children that are to die young, have visio=
ns
of such angels in the novels of Mrs Henry Wood. This white womanliness with=
her
indescribable charm of lavender-like holiness, her aroma of clean, methodic=
al
lives, is, it would seem after all, a purely Teutonic invention. Latin thou=
ght
knows her not; the old masters have none of her. She is of a piece with that
gentle innocent ladylike school of art whereof the greatest triumph is &quo=
t;a
lump in one's throat," and where wit and passion, scorn and pomp, have=
no
place. The white angel was made in Germany, in the land of blonde women and=
the
domestic sentiments. She comes to us cool and worshipful, pure and tranquil=
, as
silently soothing as the breadth and calmness of the starlit sky, which als=
o is
so unspeakably dear to the Teutonic soul.... We do her reverence. And to the
angels of the Hebrews, those spirits of power and mystery, to Raphael, Zadk=
iel,
and Michael, of whom only Watts has caught the shadow, of whom only Blake h=
as
seen the splendour, to them too, do we do reverence.
But this Angel the
Vicar shot is, we say, no such angel at all, but the Angel of Italian art,
polychromatic and gay. He comes from the land of beautiful dreams and not f=
rom
any holier place. At best he is a popish creature. Bear patiently, therefor=
e,
with his scattered remiges, and be not hasty with your charge of irreverence
before the story is read.
The Curate's wife and her two daugh=
ters
and Mrs Jehoram were still playing at tennis on the lawn behind the Vicar's
study, playing keenly and talking in gasps about paper patterns for blouses.
But the Vicar forgot and came in that way.
They saw the Vica=
r's
hat above the rhododendrons, and a bare curly head beside him. "I must=
ask
him about Susan Wiggin," said the Curate's wife. She was about to serv=
e,
and stood with a racket in one hand and a ball between the fingers of the
other. "He really ought to have gone to see her--being the Vicar. Not
George. I----Ah!"
For the two figur=
es
suddenly turned the corner and were visible. The Vicar, arm in arm with----=
You see, it came =
on
the Curate's wife suddenly. The Angel's face being towards her she saw noth=
ing
of the wings. Only a face of unearthly beauty in a halo of chestnut hair, a=
nd a
graceful figure clothed in a saffron garment that barely reached the knees.=
The
thought of those knees flashed upon the Vicar at once. He too was horrorstr=
uck.
So were the two girls and Mrs Jehoram. All horrorstruck. The Angel stared i=
n astonishment
at the horrorstruck group. You see, he had never seen anyone horrorstruck
before.
"MIS--ter
Hilyer!" said the Curate's wife. "This is too much!" She sto=
od
speechless for a moment. "Oh!"
She swept round u=
pon
the rigid girls. "Come!" The Vicar opened and shut his voiceless
mouth. The world hummed and spun about him. There was a whirling of zephyr
skirts, four impassioned faces sweeping towards the open door of the passage
that ran through the vicarage. He felt his position went with them.
"Mrs
Mendham," said the Vicar, stepping forward. "Mrs Mendham. You don=
't understand----"
"Oh!" t=
hey
all said again.
One, two, three, =
four
skirts vanished in the doorway. The Vicar staggered half way across the lawn
and stopped, aghast. "This comes," he heard the Curate's wife say,
out of the depth of the passage, "of having an unmarried vicar----.&qu=
ot;
The umbrella stand wobbled. The front door of the vicarage slammed like a
minute gun. There was silence for a space.
"I might have
thought," he said. "She is always so hasty."
He put his hand to
his chin--a habit with him. Then turned his face to his companion. The Angel
was evidently well bred. He was holding up Mrs Jehoram's sunshade--she had =
left
it on one of the cane chairs--and examining it with extraordinary interest.=
He
opened it. "What a curious little mechanism!" he said. "What=
can
it be for?"
The Vicar did not
answer. The angelic costume certainly was--the Vicar knew it was a case for=
a
French phrase--but he could scarcely remember it. He so rarely used French.=
It
was not de trop, he knew. Anything but de trop. The Angel was de trop, but
certainly not his costume. Ah! Sans culotte!
The Vicar examined
his visitor critically--for the first time. "He will be difficult to
explain," he said to himself softly.
The Angel stuck t=
he
sunshade into the turf and went to smell the sweet briar. The sunshine fell=
upon
his brown hair and gave it almost the appearance of a halo. He pricked his
finger. "Odd!" he said. "Pain again."
"Yes," =
said
the Vicar, thinking aloud. "He's very beautiful and curious as he is. I
should like him best so. But I am afraid I must."
He approached the
Angel with a nervous cough.
XI.
"Those," said the Vicar,
"were ladies."
"How
grotesque," said the Angel, smiling and smelling the sweet briar. &quo=
t;And
such quaint shapes!"
"Possibly,&q=
uot;
said the Vicar. "Did you, ahem, notice how they behaved?"
"They went a=
way.
Seemed, indeed, to run away. Frightened? I, of course, was frightened at th=
ings
without wings. I hope---- they were not frightened at my wings?"
"At your
appearance generally," said the Vicar, glancing involuntarily at the p=
ink
feet.
"Dear me! It
never occurred to me. I suppose I seemed as odd to them as you did to me.&q=
uot;
He glanced down. "And my feet. You have hoofs like a hippogriff."=
"Boots,"
corrected the Vicar.
"Boots, you =
call
them! But anyhow, I am sorry I alarmed----"
"You see,&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar, stroking his chin, "our ladies, ahem, have peculiar
views--rather inartistic views--about, ahem, clothing. Dressed as you are, =
I am
afraid, I am really afraid that--beautiful as your costume certainly is--you
will find yourself somewhat, ahem, somewhat isolated in society. We have a
little proverb, 'When in Rome, ahem, one must do as the Romans do.' I can
assure you that, assuming you are desirous to, ahem, associate with us--dur=
ing
your involuntary stay----"
The Angel retreat=
ed a
step or so as the Vicar came nearer and nearer in his attempt to be diploma=
tic
and confidential. The beautiful face grew perplexed. "I don't quite
understand. Why do you keep making these noises in your throat? Is it Die or
Eat, or any of those...."
"As your hos=
t,"
interrupted the Vicar, and stopped.
"As my
host," said the Angel.
"Would you
object, pending more permanent arrangements, to invest yourself, ahem, in a
suit, an entirely new suit I may say, like this I have on?"
"Oh!" s=
aid
the Angel. He retreated so as to take in the Vicar from top to toe. "W=
ear
clothes like yours!" he said. He was puzzled but amused. His eyes grew
round and bright, his mouth puckered at the corners.
"Delightful!=
"
he said, clapping his hands together. "What a mad, quaint dream this i=
s!
Where are they?" He caught at the neck of the saffron robe.
"Indoors!&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar. "This way. We will change--indoors!"
XII.
So the Angel was invested in a pair=
of
nether garments of the Vicar's, a shirt, ripped down the back (to accommoda=
te
the wings), socks, shoes--the Vicar's dress shoes--collar, tie, and light
overcoat. But putting on the latter was painful, and reminded the Vicar that
the bandaging was temporary. "I will ring for tea at once, and send
Grummet down for Crump," said the Vicar. "And dinner shall be
earlier." While the Vicar shouted his orders on the landing rails, the
Angel surveyed himself in the cheval glass with immense delight. If he was a
stranger to pain, he was evidently no stranger--thanks perhaps to dreaming-=
-to the
pleasure of incongruity.
They had tea in t=
he
drawing-room. The Angel sat on the music stool (music stool because of his
wings). At first he wanted to lie on the hearthrug. He looked much less rad=
iant
in the Vicar's clothes, than he had done upon the moor when dressed in saff=
ron.
His face shone still, the colour of his hair and cheeks was strangely brigh=
t,
and there was a superhuman light in his eyes, but his wings under the overc=
oat
gave him the appearance of a hunchback. The garments, indeed, made quite a =
terrestrial
thing of him, the trousers were puckered transversely, and the shoes a size=
or
so too large.
He was charmingly
affable and quite ignorant of the most elementary facts of civilization. Ea=
ting
came without much difficulty, and the Vicar had an entertaining time teachi=
ng
him how to take tea. "What a mess it is! What a dear grotesque ugly wo=
rld
you live in!" said the Angel. "Fancy stuffing things into your mo=
uth!
We use our mouths just to talk and sing with. Our world, you know, is almost
incurably beautiful. We get so very little ugliness, that I find all this .=
..
delightful."
Mrs Hinijer, the
Vicar's housekeeper, looked at the Angel suspiciously when she brought in t=
he
tea. She thought him rather a "queer customer." What she would ha=
ve
thought had she seen him in saffron no one can tell.
The Angel shuffled
about the room with his cup of tea in one hand, and the bread and butter in=
the
other, and examined the Vicar's furniture. Outside the French windows, the =
lawn
with its array of dahlias and sunflowers glowed in the warm sunlight, and M=
rs
Jehoram's sunshade stood thereon like a triangle of fire. He thought the
Vicar's portrait over the mantel very curious indeed, could not understand =
what
it was there for. "You have yourself round," he said, apropos of =
the
portrait, "Why want yourself flat?" and he was vastly amused at t=
he
glass fire screen. He found the oak chairs odd--"You're not square, are
you?" he said, when the Vicar explained their use. "We never doub=
le
ourselves up. We lie about on the asphodel when we want to rest."
"The
chair," said the Vicar, "to tell you the truth, has always puzzle=
d me.
It dates, I think, from the days when the floors were cold and very dirty. I
suppose we have kept up the habit. It's become a kind of instinct with us to
sit on chairs. Anyhow, if I went to see one of my parishioners, and suddenly
spread myself out on the floor--the natural way of it--I don't know what she
would do. It would be all over the parish in no time. Yet it seems the natu=
ral
method of reposing, to recline. The Greeks and Romans----"
"What is
this?" said the Angel abruptly.
"That's a
stuffed kingfisher. I killed it."
"Killed
it!"
"Shot it,&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar, "with a gun."
"Shot! As you
did me?"
"I didn't ki=
ll
you, you see. Fortunately."
"Is killing
making like that?"
"In a way.&q=
uot;
"Dear me! And
you wanted to make me like that--wanted to put glass eyes in me and string =
me
up in a glass case full of ugly green and brown stuff?"
"You see,&qu=
ot;
began the Vicar, "I scarcely understood----"
"Is that
'die'?" asked the Angel suddenly.
"That is dea=
d;
it died."
"Poor little
thing. I must eat a lot. But you say you killed it. Why?"
"You see,&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar, "I take an interest in birds, and I (ahem) collect the=
m. I
wanted the specimen----"
The Angel stared =
at
him for a moment with puzzled eyes. "A beautiful bird like that!"=
he
said with a shiver. "Because the fancy took you. You wanted the
specimen!"
He thought for a
minute. "Do you often kill?" he asked the Vicar.
XIII. - THE MAN OF SCIENC=
E.
Then Doctor Crump arrived. Grummet =
had
met him not a hundred yards from the vicarage gate. He was a large, rather
heavy-looking man, with a clean-shaven face and a double chin. He was dress=
ed
in a grey morning coat (he always affected grey), with a chequered black and
white tie. "What's the trouble?" he said, entering and staring
without a shadow of surprise at the Angel's radiant face.
"This--ahem-=
-gentleman,"
said the Vicar, "or--ah--Angel"--the Angel bowed--"is suffer=
ing
from a gunshot wound."
"Gunshot
wound!" said Doctor Crump. "In July! May I look at it, Mr--Angel,=
I
think you said?"
"He will
probably be able to assuage your pain," said the Vicar. "Let me
assist you to remove your coat?"
The Angel turned
obediently.
"Spinal
curvature?" muttered Doctor Crump quite audibly, walking round behind =
the
Angel. "No! abnormal growth. Hullo! This is odd!" He clutched the
left wing. "Curious," he said. "Reduplication of the anterio=
r limb--bifid
coracoid. Possible, of course, but I've never seen it before." The ang=
el
winced under his hands. "Humerus. Radius and Ulna. All there. Congenit=
al,
of course. Humerus broken. Curious integumentary simulation of feathers. De=
ar
me. Almost avian. Probably of considerable interest in comparative anatomy.=
I
never did!----How did this gunshot happen, Mr Angel?"
The Vicar was ama=
zed
at the Doctor's matter-of-fact manner.
"Our
friend," said the Angel, moving his head at the Vicar.
"Unhappily i=
t is
my doing," said the Vicar, stepping forward, explanatory. "I mist=
ook
the gentleman--the Angel (ahem)--for a large bird----"
"Mistook him=
for
a large bird! What next? Your eyes want seeing to," said Doctor Crump.
"I've told you so before." He went on patting and feeling, keeping
time with a series of grunts and inarticulate mutterings.... "But this=
is
really a very good bit of amateur bandaging," said he. "I think I
shall leave it. Curious malformation this is! Don't you find it inconvenien=
t,
Mr Angel?"
He suddenly walked
round so as to look in the Angel's face.
The Angel thought=
he
referred to the wound. "It is rather," he said.
"If it wasn't
for the bones I should say paint with iodine night and morning. Nothing like
iodine. You could paint your face flat with it. But the osseous outgrowth, =
the
bones, you know, complicate things. I could saw them off, of course. It's n=
ot a
thing one should have done in a hurry----"
"Do you mean=
my
wings?" said the Angel in alarm.
"Wings!"
said the Doctor. "Eigh? Call 'em wings! Yes--what else should I mean?&=
quot;
"Saw them
off!" said the Angel.
"Don't you t=
hink
so? It's of course your affair. I am only advising----"
"Saw them of=
f!
What a funny creature you are!" said the Angel, beginning to laugh.
"As you
will," said the Doctor. He detested people who laughed. "The thin=
gs
are curious," he said, turning to the Vicar. "If inconvenient&quo=
t;--to
the Angel. "I never heard of such complete reduplication before--at le=
ast
among animals. In plants it's common enough. Were you the only one in your
family?" He did not wait for a reply. "Partial cases of the fissi=
on of
limbs are not at all uncommon, of course, Vicar--six-fingered children, cal=
ves
with six feet, and cats with double toes, you know. May I assist you?"=
he
said, turning to the Angel who was struggling with the coat. "But such=
a
complete reduplication, and so avian, too! It would be much less remarkable=
if
it was simply another pair of arms."
The coat was got =
on
and he and the Angel stared at one another.
"Really,&quo=
t;
said the Doctor, "one begins to understand how that beautiful myth of =
the
angels arose. You look a little hectic, Mr Angel--feverish. Excessive
brilliance is almost worse as a symptom than excessive pallor. Curious your
name should be Angel. I must send you a cooling draught, if you should feel
thirsty in the night...."
He made a memoran=
dum
on his shirt cuff. The Angel watched him thoughtfully, with the dawn of a s=
mile
in his eyes.
"One minute,
Crump," said the Vicar, taking the Doctor's arm and leading him towards
the door.
The Angel's smile
grew brighter. He looked down at his black-clad legs. "He positively
thinks I am a man!" said the Angel. "What he makes of the wings b=
eats
me altogether. What a queer creature he must be! This is really a most
extraordinary Dream!"
XIV.
"That is an Angel," whisp=
ered
the Vicar. "You don't understand."
"What?"
said the Doctor in a quick, sharp voice. His eyebrows went up and he smiled=
.
"But the
wings?"
"Quite natur=
al,
quite ... if a little abnormal."
"Are you sure
they are natural?"
"My dear fel=
low,
everything that is, is natural. There is nothing unnatural in the world. If=
I
thought there was I should give up practice and go into Le Grand Chartreuse.
There are abnormal phenomena, of course. And----"
"But the way=
I
came upon him," said the Vicar.
"Yes, tell me
where you picked him up," said the Doctor. He sat down on the hall tab=
le.
The Vicar began
rather hesitatingly--he was not very good at story telling--with the rumour=
s of
a strange great bird. He told the story in clumsy sentences--for, knowing t=
he
Bishop as he did, with that awful example always before him he dreaded gett=
ing
his pulpit style into his daily conversation--and at every third sentence or
so, the Doctor made a downward movement of his head--the corners of his mou=
th
tucked away, so to speak--as though he ticked off the phases of the story a=
nd
so far found it just as it ought to be. "Self-hypnotism," he murm=
ured
once.
"I beg your
pardon?" said the Vicar.
"Nothing,&qu=
ot;
said the Doctor. "Nothing, I assure you. Go on. This is extremely
interesting."
The Vicar told hi=
m he
went out with his gun.
"After lunch=
, I
think you said?" interrupted the Doctor.
"Immediately
after," said the Vicar.
"You should =
not
do such things, you know. But go on, please."
He came to the
glimpse of the Angel from the gate.
"In the full
glare," said the Doctor, in parenthesis. "It was seventy-nine in =
the
shade."
When the Vicar had
finished, the Doctor pressed his lips together tighter than ever, smiled
faintly, and looked significantly into the Vicar's eyes.
"You don't
..." began the Vicar, falteringly.
The Doctor shook =
his
head. "Forgive me," he said, putting his hand on the Vicar's arm.=
"You go
out," he said, "on a hot lunch and on a hot afternoon. Probably o=
ver
eighty. Your mind, what there is of it, is whirling with avian expectations=
. I
say, 'what there is of it,' because most of your nervous energy is down the=
re,
digesting your dinner. A man who has been lying in the bracken stands up be=
fore
you and you blaze away. Over he goes--and as it happens--as it happens--he =
has
reduplicate fore-limbs, one pair being not unlike wings. It's a coincidence
certainly. And as for his iridescent colours and so forth----. Have you nev=
er
had patches of colour swim before your eyes before, on a brilliant sunlight
day?... Are you sure they were confined to the wings? Think."
"But he says=
he
is an Angel!" said the Vicar, staring out of his little round eyes, his
plump hands in his pockets.
"Ah!" s=
aid
the Doctor with his eye on the Vicar. "I expected as much." He
paused.
"But don't y=
ou
think ..." began the Vicar.
"That man,&q=
uot;
said the Doctor in a low, earnest voice, "is a mattoid."
"A what?&quo=
t;
said the Vicar.
"A mattoid. =
An
abnormal man. Did you notice the effeminate delicacy of his face? His tende=
ncy
to quite unmeaning laughter? His neglected hair? Then consider his singular=
dress...."
The Vicar's hand =
went
up to his chin.
"Marks of me=
ntal
weakness," said the Doctor. "Many of this type of degenerate show
this same disposition to assume some vast mysterious credentials. One will =
call
himself the Prince of Wales, another the Archangel Gabriel, another the Dei=
ty
even. Ibsen thinks he is a Great Teacher, and Maeterlink a new Shakespeare.
I've just been reading all about it--in Nordau. No doubt his odd deformity =
gave
him an idea...."
"But
really," began the Vicar.
"No doubt he=
's
slipped away from confinement."
"I do not
altogether accept...."
"You will. If
not, there's the police, and failing that, advertisement; but, of course, h=
is
people may want to hush it up. It's a sad thing in a family...."
"He seems so
altogether...."
"Probably yo=
u'll
hear from his friends in a day or so," said the Doctor, feeling for his
watch. "He can't live far from here, I should think. He seems harmless
enough. I must come along and see that wing again to-morrow." He slid =
off
the hall table and stood up.
"Those old
wives' tales still have their hold on you," he said, patting the Vicar=
on
the shoulder. "But an angel, you know--Ha, ha!"
"I certainly=
did
think...." said the Vicar dubiously.
"Weigh the
evidence," said the Doctor, still fumbling at his watch. "Weigh t=
he
evidence with our instruments of precision. What does it leave you? Splashe=
s of
colour, spots of fancy--muscae volantes."
"And yet,&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar, "I could almost swear to the glory on his wings....&qu=
ot;
"Think it
over," said the Doctor (watch out); "hot afternoon--brilliant sun=
shine--boiling
down on your head.... But really I must be going. It is a quarter to five. =
I'll
see your--angel (ha, ha!) to-morrow again, if no one has been to fetch him =
in
the meanwhile. Your bandaging was really very good. I flatter myself on that
score. Our ambulance classes were a success you see.... Good afternoon.&quo=
t;
The Vicar opened the door half
mechanically to let out Crump, and saw Mendham, his curate, coming up the
pathway by the hedge of purple vetch and meadowsweet. At that his hand went=
up
to his chin and his eyes grew perplexed. Suppose he was deceived. The Doctor
passed the Curate with a sweep of his hand from his hat brim. Crump was an
extraordinarily clever fellow, the Vicar thought, and knew far more of anyo=
ne's
brain than one did oneself. The Vicar felt that so acutely. It made the com=
ing explanation
difficult. Suppose he were to go back into the drawing-room, and find just a
tramp asleep on the hearthrug.
Mendham was a cad=
averous
man with a magnificent beard. He looked, indeed, as though he had run to be=
ard
as a mustard plant does to seed. But when he spoke you found he had a voice=
as
well.
"My wife came
home in a dreadful state," he brayed out at long range.
"Come in,&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar; "come in. Most remarkable occurrence. Please come in. =
Come
into the study. I'm really dreadfully sorry. But when I explain...."
"And apologi=
se,
I hope," brayed the Curate.
"And apologi=
se.
No, not that way. This way. The study."
"Now what was
that woman?" said the Curate, turning on the Vicar as the latter closed
the study door.
"What
woman?"
"Pah!"<= o:p>
"But
really!"
"The painted
creature in light attire--disgustingly light attire, to speak freely--with =
whom
you were promenading the garden."
"My dear
Mendham--that was an Angel!"
"A very pret=
ty
Angel?"
"The world is
getting so matter-of-fact," said the Vicar.
"The
world," roared the Curate, "grows blacker every day. But to find =
a man
in your position, shamelessly, openly...."
"Bother!&quo=
t;
said the Vicar aside. He rarely swore. "Look here, Mendham, you really
misunderstand. I can assure you...."
"Very
well," said the Curate. "Explain!" He stood with his lank le=
gs apart,
his arms folded, scowling at his Vicar over his big beard.
(Explanations, I
repeat, I have always considered the peculiar fallacy of this scientific ag=
e.)
The Vicar looked
about him helplessly. The world had all gone dull and dead. Had he been
dreaming all the afternoon? Was there really an angel in the drawing-room? =
Or
was he the sport of a complicated hallucination?
"Well?"
said Mendham, at the end of a minute.
The Vicar's hand
fluttered about his chin. "It's such a round-about story," he sai=
d.
"No doubt it
will be," said Mendham harshly.
The Vicar restrai=
ned
a movement of impatience.
"I went out =
to
look for a strange bird this afternoon.... Do you believe in angels, Mendha=
m,
real angels?"
"I'm not her=
e to
discuss theology. I am the husband of an insulted woman."
"But I tell =
you
it's not a figure of speech; this is an angel, a real angel with wings. He'=
s in
the next room now. You do misunderstand me, so...."
"Really,
Hilyer--"
"It is true I
tell you, Mendham. I swear it is true." The Vicar's voice grew
impassioned. "What sin I have done that I should entertain and clothe
angelic visitants, I don't know. I only know that--inconvenient as it
undoubtedly will be--I have an angel now in the drawing-room, wearing my new
suit and finishing his tea. And he's stopping with me, indefinitely, at my
invitation. No doubt it was rash of me. But I can't turn him out, you know,
because Mrs Mendham----I may be a weakling, but I am still a gentleman.&quo=
t;
"Really,
Hilyer--"
"I can assure
you it is true." There was a note of hysterical desperation in the Vic=
ar's
voice. "I fired at him, taking him for a flamingo, and hit him in the
wing."
"I thought t=
his
was a case for the Bishop. I find it is a case for the Lunacy
Commissioners."
"Come and see
him, Mendham!"
"But there a=
re
no angels."
"We teach the
people differently," said the Vicar.
"Not as mate=
rial
bodies," said the Curate.
"Anyhow, come
and see him."
"I don't wan=
t to
see your hallucinations," began the Curate.
"I can't exp=
lain
anything unless you come and see him," said the Vicar. "A man who=
's
more like an angel than anything else in heaven or earth. You simply must s=
ee
if you wish to understand."
"I don't wis=
h to
understand," said the Curate. "I don't wish to lend myself to any
imposture. Surely, Hilyer, if this is not an imposition, you can tell me
yourself.... Flamingo, indeed!"
XVI.
The Angel had finished his tea and =
was
standing looking pensively out of the window. He thought the old church down
the valley lit by the light of the setting sun was very beautiful, but he c=
ould
not understand the serried ranks of tombstones that lay up the hillside bey=
ond.
He turned as Mendham and the Vicar came in.
Now Mendham could
bully his Vicar cheerfully enough, just as he could bully his congregation;=
but
he was not the sort of man to bully a stranger. He looked at the Angel, and=
the
"strange woman" theory was disposed of. The Angel's beauty was too
clearly the beauty of the youth.
"Mr Hilyer t=
ells
me," Mendham began, in an almost apologetic tone, "that you--ah--=
it's
so curious--claim to be an Angel."
"Are an
Angel," said the Vicar.
The Angel bowed.<= o:p>
"Naturally,&=
quot;
said Mendham, "we are curious."
"Very,"
said the Angel. "The blackness and the shape."
"I beg your
pardon?" said Mendham.
"The blackne=
ss
and the flaps," repeated the Angel; "and no wings."
"Precisely,&=
quot;
said Mendham, who was altogether at a loss. "We are, of course, curiou=
s to
know something of how you came into the village in such a peculiar
costume."
The Angel looked =
at
the Vicar. The Vicar touched his chin.
"You see,&qu=
ot;
began the Vicar.
"Let him
explain," said Mendham; "I beg."
"I wanted to
suggest," began the Vicar.
"And I don't
want you to suggest."
"Bother!&quo=
t;
said the Vicar.
The Angel looked =
from
one to the other. "Such rugose expressions flit across your faces!&quo=
t;
he said.
"You see,
Mr--Mr--I don't know your name," said Mendham, with a certain diminuti=
on
of suavity. "The case stands thus: My wife--four ladies, I might say--=
are
playing lawn tennis, when you suddenly rush out on them, sir; you rush out =
on
them from among the rhododendra in a very defective costume. You and Mr
Hilyer."
"But I--&quo=
t;
said the Vicar.
"I know. It =
was
this gentleman's costume was defective. Naturally--it is my place in fact--=
to
demand an explanation." His voice was growing in volume. "And I m=
ust
demand an explanation."
The Angel smiled =
faintly
at his note of anger and his sudden attitude of determination--arms tightly
folded.
"I am rather=
new
to the world," the Angel began.
"Nineteen at
least," said Mendham. "Old enough to know better. That's a poor
excuse."
"May I ask o=
ne
question first?" said the Angel.
"Well?"=
"Do you thin=
k I
am a Man--like yourself? As the chequered man did."
"If you are =
not
a man--"
"One other
question. Have you never heard of an Angel?"
"I warn you =
not
to try that story upon me," said Mendham, now back at his familiar
crescendo.
The Vicar
interrupted: "But Mendham--he has wings!"
"Please let =
me
talk to him," said Mendham.
"You are so
quaint," said the Angel; "you interrupt everything I have to say.=
"
"But what ha=
ve
you to say?" said Mendham.
"That I real=
ly
am an Angel...."
"Pshaw!"=
;
"There you
go!"
"But tell me,
honestly, how you came to be in the shrubbery of Siddermorton Vicarage--in =
the
state in which you were. And in the Vicar's company. Cannot you abandon this
ridiculous story of yours?..."
The Angel shrugged
his wings. "What is the matter with this man?" he said to the Vic=
ar.
"My dear
Mendham," said the Vicar, "a few words from me...."
"Surely my
question is straightforward enough!"
"But you won=
't
tell me the answer you want, and it's no good my telling you any other.&quo=
t;
"Pshaw!"
said the Curate again. And then turning suddenly on the Vicar, "Where =
does
he come from?"
The Vicar was in a
dreadful state of doubt by this time.
"He says he =
is
an Angel!" said the Vicar. "Why don't you listen to him?"
"No angel wo=
uld
alarm four ladies...."
"Is that wha=
t it
is all about?" said the Angel.
"Enough cause
too, I should think!" said the Curate.
"But I really
did not know," said the Angel.
"This is
altogether too much!"
"I am sincer=
ely
sorry I alarmed these ladies."
"You ought to
be. But I see I shall get nothing out of you two." Mendham went towards
the door. "I am convinced there is something discreditable at the bott=
om
of this business. Or why not tell a simple straightforward story? I will
confess you puzzle me. Why, in this enlightened age, you should tell this
fantastic, this far-fetched story of an Angel, altogether beats me. What go=
od
can it do?..."
"But stop and
look at his wings!" said the Vicar. "I can assure you he has
wings!"
Mendham had his f=
ingers
on the door-handle. "I have seen quite enough," he said. "It=
may
be this is simply a foolish attempt at a hoax, Hilyer."
"But
Mendham!" said the Vicar.
The Curate halted= in the doorway and looked at the Vicar over his shoulder. The accumulating jud= gment of months found vent. "I cannot understand, Hilyer, why you are in the Church. For the life of me I cannot. The air is full of Social Movements, of Economic change, the Woman Movement, Rational Dress, The Reunion of Christendom, Socialism, Individualism--all the great and moving Questions of the Hour! Surely, we who follow the Great Reformer.... And here you are stuffing birds, and startling ladies with your callous disregard...."<= o:p>
"But
Mendham," began the Vicar.
The Curate would =
not
hear him. "You shame the Apostles with your levity.... But this is onl=
y a
preliminary enquiry," he said, with a threatening note in his sonorous
voice, and so vanished abruptly (with a violent slam) from the room.
"Are all men so odd as this?&q=
uot;
said the Angel.
"I'm in such=
a
difficult position," said the Vicar. "You see," he said, and
stopped, searching his chin for an idea.
"I'm beginni=
ng
to see," said the Angel.
"They won't
believe it."
"I see
that."
"They will t=
hink
I tell lies."
"And?"<= o:p>
"That will b=
e extremely
painful to me."
"Painful!...
Pain," said the Angel. "I hope not."
The Vicar shook h=
is
head. The good report of the village had been the breath of his life, so fa=
r.
"You see," he said, "it would look so much more plausible if=
you
said you were just a man."
"But I'm
not," said the Angel.
"No, you're
not," said the Vicar. "So that's no good."
"Nobody here,
you know, has ever seen an Angel, or heard of one--except in church. If you=
had
made your debut in the chancel--on Sunday--it might have been different. But
that's too late now.... (Bother!) Nobody, absolutely nobody, will believe in
you."
"I hope I am=
not
inconveniencing you?"
"Not at
all," said the Vicar; "not at all. Only----. Naturally it may be =
inconvenient
if you tell a too incredible story. If I might suggest (ahem)----."
"Well?"=
"You see, pe=
ople
in the world, being men themselves, will almost certainly regard you as a m=
an.
If you say you are not, they will simply say you do not tell the truth. Only
exceptional people appreciate the exceptional. When in Rome one must--well,
respect Roman prejudices a little--talk Latin. You will find it
better----"
"You propose=
I
should feign to become a man?"
"You have my
meaning at once."
The Angel stared =
at
the Vicar's hollyhocks and thought.
"Possibly, a=
fter
all," he said slowly, "I shall become a man. I may have been too
hasty in saying I was not. You say there are no angels in this world. Who a=
m I
to set myself up against your experience? A mere thing of a day--so far as =
this
world goes. If you say there are no angels--clearly I must be something els=
e. I
eat--angels do not eat. I may be a man already."
"A convenient
view, at any rate," said the Vicar.
"If it is
convenient to you----"
"It is. And =
then
to account for your presence here."
"If," s=
aid
the Vicar, after a hesitating moment of reflection, "if, for instance,=
you
had been an ordinary man with a weakness for wading, and you had gone wadin=
g in
the Sidder, and your clothes had been stolen, for instance, and I had come =
upon
you in that position of inconvenience; the explanation I shall have to make=
to
Mrs Mendham----would be shorn at least of the supernatural element. There is
such a feeling against the supernatural element nowadays--even in the pulpi=
t.
You would hardly believe----"
"It's a pity
that was not the case," said the Angel.
"Of
course," said the Vicar. "It is a great pity that was not the cas=
e. But
at anyrate you will oblige me if you do not obtrude your angelic nature. You
will oblige everyone, in fact. There is a settled opinion that angels do no=
t do
this kind of thing. And nothing is more painful--as I can testify--than a
decaying settled opinion.... Settled opinions are mental teeth in more ways
than one. For my own part,"--the Vicar's hand passed over his eyes for=
a
moment--"I cannot but believe you are an angel.... Surely I can believ=
e my
own eyes."
"We always do
ours," said the Angel.
"And so do w=
e,
within limits."
Then the clock up=
on
the mantel chimed seven, and almost simultaneously Mrs Hinijer announced
dinner.
The Angel and the Vicar sat at dinn=
er.
The Vicar, with his napkin tucked in at his neck, watched the Angel struggl=
ing
with his soup. "You will soon get into the way of it," said the
Vicar. The knife and fork business was done awkwardly but with effect. The
Angel looked furtively at Delia, the little waiting maid. When presently th=
ey
sat cracking nuts--which the Angel found congenial enough--and the girl had
gone, the Angel asked: "Was that a lady, too?"
"Well,"
said the Vicar (crack). "No--she is not a lady. She is a servant."=
;
"Yes," =
said
the Angel; "she had rather a nicer shape."
"You mustn't
tell Mrs Mendham that," said the Vicar, covertly satisfied.
"She didn't
stick out so much at the shoulders and hips, and there was more of her in
between. And the colour of her robes was not discordant--simply neutral. And
her face----"
"Mrs Mendham=
and
her daughters had been playing tennis," said the Vicar, feeling he oug=
ht
not to listen to detraction even of his mortal enemy. "Do you like the=
se
things--these nuts?"
"Very
much," said the Angel. Crack.
"You see,&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar (Chum, chum, chum). "For my own part I entirely believe=
you
are an angel."
"Yes!" =
said
the Angel.
"I shot you-=
-I
saw you flutter. It's beyond dispute. In my own mind. I admit it's curious =
and
against my preconceptions, but--practically--I'm assured, perfectly assured=
in
fact, that I saw what I certainly did see. But after the behaviour of these
people. (Crack). I really don't see how we are to persuade people. Nowadays
people are so very particular about evidence. So that I think there is a gr=
eat
deal to be said for the attitude you assume. Temporarily at least I think it
would be best of you to do as you propose to do, and behave as a man as far=
as
possible. Of course there is no knowing how or when you may go back. After =
what
has happened (Gluck, gluck, gluck--as the Vicar refills his glass)--after w=
hat
has happened I should not be surprised to see the side of the room fall awa=
y,
and the hosts of heaven appear to take you away again--take us both away ev=
en.
You have so far enlarged my imagination. All these years I have been forget=
ting
Wonderland. But still----. It will certainly be wiser to break the thing ge=
ntly
to them."
"This life of
yours," said the Angel. "I'm still in the dark about it. How do y=
ou
begin?"
"Dear me!&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar. "Fancy having to explain that! We begin existence here,
you know, as babies, silly pink helpless things wrapped in white, with gogg=
ling
eyes, that yelp dismally at the Font. Then these babies grow larger and bec=
ome
even beautiful--when their faces are washed. And they continue to grow to a
certain size. They become children, boys and girls, youths and maidens (Cra=
ck),
young men and young women. That is the finest time in life, according to ma=
ny--certainly
the most beautiful. Full of great hopes and dreams, vague emotions and
unexpected dangers."
"That was a
maiden?" said the Angel, indicating the door through which Delia had
disappeared.
"Yes," =
said
the Vicar, "that was a maiden." And paused thoughtfully.
"And then?&q=
uot;
"Then,"
said the Vicar, "the glamour fades and life begins in earnest. The you=
ng
men and young women pair off--most of them. They come to me shy and bashful=
, in
smart ugly dresses, and I marry them. And then little pink babies come to t=
hem,
and some of the youths and maidens that were, grow fat and vulgar, and some
grow thin and shrewish, and their pretty complexions go, and they get a que=
er
delusion of superiority over the younger people, and all the delight and gl=
ory
goes out of their lives. So they call the delight and glory of the younger
ones, Illusion. And then they begin to drop to pieces."
"Drop to
pieces!" said the Angel. "How grotesque!"
"Their hair
comes off and gets dull coloured or ashen grey," said the Vicar. "=
;I,
for instance." He bowed his head forward to show a circular shining pa=
tch
the size of a florin. "And their teeth come out. Their faces collapse =
and
become as wrinkled and dry as a shrivelled apple. 'Corrugated' you called m=
ine.
They care more and more for what they have to eat and to drink, and less and
less for any of the other delights of life. Their limbs get loose in the
joints, and their hearts slack, or little pieces from their lungs come coug=
hing
up. Pain...."
"Ah!" s=
aid
the Angel.
"Pain comes =
into
their lives more and more. And then they go. They do not like to go, but th=
ey
have to--out of this world, very reluctantly, clutching its pain at last in
their eagerness to stop...."
"Where do th=
ey
go?"
"Once I thou=
ght
I knew. But now I am older I know I do not know. We have a Legend--perhaps =
it
is not a legend. One may be a churchman and disbelieve. Stokes says there is
nothing in it...." The Vicar shook his head at the bananas.
"And you?&qu=
ot;
said the Angel. "Were you a little pink baby?"
"A little wh=
ile
ago I was a little pink baby."
"Were you ro=
bed
then as you are now?"
"Oh no! Dear=
me!
What a queer idea! Had long white clothes, I suppose, like the rest of
them."
"And then you
were a little boy?"
"A little
boy."
"And then a
glorious youth?"
"I was not a
very glorious youth, I am afraid. I was sickly, and too poor to be radiant,=
and
with a timid heart. I studied hard and pored over the dying thoughts of men
long dead. So I lost the glory, and no maiden came to me, and the dulness of
life began too soon."
"And you have
your little pink babies?"
"None,"
said the Vicar with a scarce perceptible pause. "Yet all the same, as =
you
see, I am beginning to drop to pieces. Presently my back will droop like a
wilting flowerstalk. And then, in a few thousand days more I shall be done
with, and I shall go out of this world of mine.... Whither I do not know.&q=
uot;
"And you hav=
e to
eat like this every day?"
"Eat, and get
clothes and keep this roof above me. There are some very disagreeable thing=
s in
this world called Cold and Rain. And the other people here--how and why is =
too
long a story--have made me a kind of chorus to their lives. They bring their
little pink babies to me and I have to say a name and some other things over
each new pink baby. And when the children have grown to be youths and maide=
ns,
they come again and are confirmed. You will understand that better later. T=
hen
before they may join in couples and have pink babies of their own, they mus=
t come
again and hear me read out of a book. They would be outcast, and no other
maiden would speak to the maiden who had a little pink baby without I had r=
ead
over her for twenty minutes out of my book. It's a necessary thing, as you =
will
see. Odd as it may seem to you. And afterwards when they are falling to pie=
ces,
I try and persuade them of a strange world in which I scarcely believe myse=
lf,
where life is altogether different from what they have had--or desire. And =
in
the end, I bury them, and read out of my book to those who will presently f=
ollow
into the unknown land. I stand at the beginning, and at the zenith, and at =
the
setting of their lives. And on every seventh day, I who am a man myself, I =
who
see no further than they do, talk to them of the Life to Come--the life of
which we know nothing. If such a life there be. And slowly I drop to pieces
amidst my prophesying."
"What a stra=
nge
life!" said the Angel.
"Yes," =
said
the Vicar. "What a strange life! But the thing that makes it strange t=
o me
is new. I had taken it as a matter of course until you came into my life.&q=
uot;
"This life of
ours is so insistent," said the Vicar. "It, and its petty needs, =
its
temporary pleasures (Crack) swathe our souls about. While I am preaching to
these people of mine of another life, some are ministering to one appetite =
and
eating sweets, others--the old men--are slumbering, the youths glance at the
maidens, the grown men protrude white waistcoats and gold chains, pomp and
vanity on a substratum of carnal substance, their wives flaunt garish bonne=
ts
at one another. And I go on droning away of the things unseen and
unrealised--'Eye hath not seen,' I read, 'nor ear heard, nor hath it entered
into the imagination of man to conceive,' and I look up to catch an adult m=
ale
immortal admiring the fit of a pair of three and sixpenny gloves. It is dam=
ping
year after year. When I was ailing in my youth I felt almost the assurance =
of
vision that beneath this temporary phantasm world was the real world--the
enduring world of the Life Everlasting. But now----"
He glanced at his
chubby white hand, fingering the stem of his glass. "I have put on fle=
sh
since then," he said. [Pause].
"I have chan=
ged
and developed very much. The battle of the Flesh and Spirit does not troubl=
e me
as it did. Every day I feel less confidence in my beliefs, and more in God.=
I
live, I am afraid, a quiescent life, duties fairly done, a little ornitholo=
gy
and a little chess, a trifle of mathematical trifling. My times are in His
hands----"
The Vicar sighed =
and
became pensive. The Angel watched him, and the Angel's eyes were troubled w=
ith
the puzzle of him. "Gluck, gluck, gluck," went the decanter as the
Vicar refilled his glass.
XIX.
So the Angel dined and talked to the
Vicar, and presently the night came and he was overtaken by yawning.
"Yah----oh!&=
quot;
said the Angel suddenly. "Dear me! A higher power seemed suddenly to
stretch my mouth open and a great breath of air went rushing down my
throat."
"You
yawned," said the Vicar. "Do you never yawn in the angelic countr=
y?"
"Never,"
said the Angel.
"And yet you=
are
immortal!----I suppose you want to go to bed."
"Bed!" =
said
the Angel. "Where's that?"
So the Vicar
explained darkness to him and the art of going to bed. (The Angels, it seems
sleep only in order to dream, and dream, like primitive man, with their
foreheads on their knees. And they sleep among the white poppy meadows in t=
he
heat of the day.) The Angel found the bedroom arrangements quaint enough.
"Why is
everything raised up on big wooden legs?" he said. "You have the =
floor,
and then you put everything you have upon a wooden quadruped. Why do you do
it?" The Vicar explained with philosophical vagueness. The Angel burnt=
his
finger in the candle-flame--and displayed an absolute ignorance of the
elementary principles of combustion. He was merely charmed when a line of f=
ire
ran up the curtains. The Vicar had to deliver a lecture on fire so soon as =
the
flame was extinguished. He had all kinds of explanations to make--even the =
soap
needed explaining. It was an hour or more before the Angel was safely tucke=
d in
for the night.
"He's very
beautiful," said the Vicar, descending the staircase, quite tired out;
"and he's a real angel no doubt. But I am afraid he will be a dreadful
anxiety, all the same, before he gets into our earthly way with things.&quo=
t;
He seemed quite w=
orried.
He helped himself to an extra glass of sherry before he put away the wine in
the cellaret.
XX.
The Curate stood in front of the
looking-glass and solemnly divested himself of his collar.
"I never hea=
rd a
more fantastic story," said Mrs Mendham from the basket chair. "T=
he
man must be mad. Are you sure----."
"Perfectly, =
my
dear. I've told you every word, every incident----."
"Well!"
said Mrs Mendham, and spread her hands. "There's no sense in it."=
"Precisely, =
my
dear."
"The
Vicar," said Mrs Mendham, "must be mad."
"This hunchb=
ack
is certainly one of the strangest creatures I've seen for a long time. Fore=
ign
looking, with a big bright coloured face and long brown hair.... It can't h=
ave
been cut for months!" The Curate put his studs carefully upon the shel=
f of
the dressing-table. "And a kind of staring look about his eyes, and a
simpering smile. Quite a silly looking person. Effeminate."
"But who can=
he
be?" said Mrs Mendham.
"I can't
imagine, my dear. Nor where he came from. He might be a chorister or someth=
ing
of that sort."
"But why sho=
uld
he be about the shrubbery ... in that dreadful costume?"
"I don't kno=
w.
The Vicar gave me no explanation. He simply said, 'Mendham, this is an
Angel.'"
"I wonder if=
he
drinks.... They may have been bathing near the spring, of course,"
reflected Mrs Mendham. "But I noticed no other clothes on his arm.&quo=
t;
The Curate sat do=
wn
on his bed and unlaced his boots.
"It's a perf=
ect
mystery to me, my dear." (Flick, flick of laces.) "Hallucination =
is
the only charitable----"
"You are sur=
e,
George, that it was not a woman."
"Perfectly,&=
quot;
said the Curate.
"I know what=
men
are, of course."
"It was a yo=
ung
man of nineteen or twenty," said the Curate.
"I can't
understand it," said Mrs Mendham. "You say the creature is stayin=
g at
the Vicarage?"
"Hilyer is
simply mad," said the Curate. He got up and went padding round the roo=
m to
the door to put out his boots. "To judge by his manner you would really
think he believed this cripple was an Angel." ("Are your shoes ou=
t,
dear?")
("They're ju=
st
by the wardrobe"), said Mrs Mendham. "He always was a little quee=
r,
you know. There was always something childish about him.... An Angel!"=
The Curate came a=
nd
stood by the fire, fumbling with his braces. Mrs Mendham liked a fire even =
in the
summer. "He shirks all the serious problems in life and is always trif=
ling
with some new foolishness," said the Curate. "Angel indeed!"=
He
laughed suddenly. "Hilyer must be mad," he said.
Mrs Mendham laugh=
ed
too. "Even that doesn't explain the hunchback," she said.
"The hunchba=
ck
must be mad too," said the Curate.
"It's the on=
ly
way of explaining it in a sensible way," said Mrs Mendham. [Pause.]
"Angel or no
angel," said Mrs Mendham, "I know what is due to me. Even supposi=
ng
the man thought he was in the company of an angel, that is no reason why he
should not behave like a gentleman."
"That is
perfectly true."
"You will wr=
ite
to the Bishop, of course?"
Mendham coughed.
"No, I shan't write to the Bishop," said Mendham. "I think it
seems a little disloyal.... And he took no notice of the last, you know.&qu=
ot;
"But
surely----"
"I shall wri=
te
to Austin. In confidence. He will be sure to tell the Bishop, you know. And=
you
must remember, my dear----"
"That Hilyer=
can
dismiss you, you were going to say. My dear, the man's much too weak! I sho=
uld
have a word to say about that. And besides, you do all his work for him.
Practically, we manage the parish from end to end. I do not know what would
become of the poor if it was not for me. They'd have free quarters in the
Vicarage to-morrow. There is that Goody Ansell----"
"I know, my
dear," said the Curate, turning away and proceeding with his undressin=
g.
"You were telling me about her only this afternoon."
XXI.
And thus in the little bedroom over=
the
gable we reach a first resting place in this story. And as we have been har=
d at
it, getting our story spread out before you, it may be perhaps well to
recapitulate a little.
Looking back you =
will
see that much has been done; we began with a blaze of light "not unifo=
rm
but broken all over by curving flashes like the waving of swords," and=
the
sound of a mighty harping, and the advent of an Angel with polychromatic wi=
ngs.
Swiftly, dexterou=
sly,
as the reader must admit, wings have been clipped, halo handled off, the gl=
ory
clapped into coat and trousers, and the Angel made for all practical purpos=
es a
man, under a suspicion of being either a lunatic or an impostor. You have h=
eard
too, or at least been able to judge, what the Vicar and the Doctor and the
Curate's wife thought of the strange arrival. And further remarkable opinio=
ns
are to follow.
The afterglow of =
the
summer sunset in the north-west darkens into night and the Angel sleeps,
dreaming himself back in the wonderful world where it is always light, and
everyone is happy, where fire does not burn and ice does not chill; where
rivulets of starlight go streaming through the amaranthine meadows, out to =
the
seas of Peace. He dreams, and it seems to him that once more his wings glow
with a thousand colours and flash through the crystal air of the world from
which he has come.
So he dreams. But=
the
Vicar lies awake, too perplexed for dreaming. Chiefly he is troubled by the
possibilities of Mrs Mendham; but the evening's talk has opened strange vis=
tas
in his mind, and he is stimulated by a sense as of something seen darkly by=
the
indistinct vision of a hitherto unsuspected wonderland lying about his worl=
d.
For twenty years now he has held his village living and lived his daily lif=
e,
protected by his familiar creed, by the clamour of the details of life, from
any mystical dreaming. But now interweaving with the familiar bother of his
persecuting neighbour, is an altogether unfamiliar sense of strange new thi=
ngs.
There was somethi=
ng
ominous in the feeling. Once, indeed, it rose above all other consideration=
s,
and in a kind of terror he blundered out of bed, bruised his shins very
convincingly, found the matches at last, and lit a candle to assure himself=
of
the reality of his own customary world again. But on the whole the more
tangible trouble was the Mendham avalanche. Her tongue seemed to be hanging
above him like the sword of Damocles. What might she not say of this busine=
ss,
before her indignant imagination came to rest?
And while the
successful captor of the Strange Bird was sleeping thus uneasily, Gully of
Sidderton was carefully unloading his gun after a wearisome blank day, and
Sandy Bright was on his knees in prayer, with the window carefully fastened.
Annie Durgan was sleeping hard with her mouth open, and Amory's mother was
dreaming of washing, and both of them had long since exhausted the topics of
the Sound and the Glare. Lumpy Durgan was sitting up in his bed, now crooni=
ng
the fragment of a tune and now listening intently for a sound he had heard =
once
and longed to hear again. As for the solicitor's clerk at Iping Hanger, he =
was
trying to write poetry about a confectioner's girl at Portburdock, and the =
Strange
Bird was quite out of his head. But the ploughman who had seen it on the
confines of Siddermorton Park had a black eye. That had been one of the more
tangible consequences of a little argument about birds' legs in the
"Ship." It is worthy of this passing mention, since it is probably
the only known instance of an Angel causing anything of the kind.
The Vicar going to call the Angel, =
found
him dressed and leaning out of his window. It was a glorious morning, still
dewy, and the rising sunlight slanting round the corner of the house, struck
warm and yellow upon the hillside. The birds were astir in the hedges and
shrubbery. Up the hillside--for it was late in August--a plough drove slowl=
y.
The Angel's chin rested upon his hands and he did not turn as the Vicar cam=
e up
to him.
"How's the
wing?" said the Vicar.
"I'd forgott=
en
it," said the Angel. "Is that yonder a man?"
The Vicar looked.
"That's a ploughman."
"Why does he=
go
to and fro like that? Does it amuse him?"
"He's plough=
ing.
That's his work."
"Work! Why d=
oes
he do it? It seems a monotonous thing to do."
"It is,"
admitted the Vicar. "But he has to do it to get a living, you know. To=
get
food to eat and all that kind of thing."
"How
curious!" said the Angel. "Do all men have to do that? Do you?&qu=
ot;
"Oh, no. He =
does
it for me; does my share."
"Why?"
asked the Angel.
"Oh! in retu=
rn
for things I do for him, you know. We go in for division of labour in this
world. Exchange is no robbery."
"I see,"
said the Angel, with his eyes still on the ploughman's heavy movements.
"What do you=
do
for him?"
"That seems =
an
easy question to you," said the Vicar, "but really!--it's difficu=
lt.
Our social arrangements are rather complicated. It's impossible to explain
these things all at once, before breakfast. Don't you feel hungry?"
"I think I
do," said the Angel slowly, still at the window; and then abruptly,
"Somehow I can't help thinking that ploughing must be far from enjoyab=
le."
"Possibly,&q=
uot;
said the Vicar, "very possibly. But breakfast is ready. Won't you come
down?"
The Angel left the
window reluctantly.
"Our
society," explained the Vicar on the staircase, "is a complicated=
organisation."
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"And it is so
arranged that some do one thing and some another."
"And that le=
an,
bent old man trudges after that heavy blade of iron pulled by a couple of
horses while we go down to eat?"
"Yes. You wi=
ll
find it is perfectly just. Ah! mushrooms and poached eggs! It's the Social
System. Pray be seated. Possibly it strikes you as unfair?"
"I'm
puzzled," said the Angel.
"The drink I=
'm
sending you is called coffee," said the Vicar. "I daresay you are.
When I was a young man I was puzzled in the same way. But afterwards comes a
Broader View of Things. (These black things are called mushrooms; they look
beautiful.) Other Considerations. All men are brothers, of course, but some=
are
younger brothers, so to speak. There is work that requires culture and
refinement, and work in which culture and refinement would be an impediment.
And the rights of property must not be forgotten. One must render unto
Cæsar.... Do you know, instead of explaining this matter now (this is
yours), I think I will lend you a little book to read (chum, chum, chum--th=
ese mushrooms
are well up to their appearance), which sets the whole thing out very
clearly."
After breakfast the Vicar went into=
the
little room next his study to find a book on Political Economy for the Ange=
l to
read. For the Angel's social ignorances were clearly beyond any verbal
explanations. The door stood ajar.
"What is
that?" said the Angel, following him. "A violin!" He took it=
down.
"You play?&q=
uot;
said the Vicar.
The Angel had the=
bow
in his hand, and by way of answer drove it across the strings. The quality =
of
the note made the Vicar turn suddenly.
The Angel's hand
tightened on the instrument. The bow flew back and flickered, and an air the
Vicar had never heard before danced in his ears. The Angel shifted the fidd=
le
under his dainty chin and went on playing, and as he played his eyes grew
bright and his lips smiled. At first he looked at the Vicar, then his
expression became abstracted. He seemed no longer to look at the Vicar, but
through him, at something beyond, something in his memory or his imaginatio=
n,
something infinitely remote, undreamt of hitherto....
The Vicar tried to
follow the music. The air reminded him of a flame, it rushed up, shone,
flickered and danced, passed and reappeared. No!--it did not reappear! Anot=
her
air--like it and unlike it, shot up after it, wavered, vanished. Then anoth=
er,
the same and not the same. It reminded him of the flaring tongues that palp=
itate
and change above a newly lit fire. There are two airs--or motifs, which is
it?--thought the Vicar. He knew remarkably little of musical technique. The=
y go
dancing up, one pursuing the other, out of the fire of the incantation,
pursuing, fluctuating, turning, up into the sky. There below was the fire
burning, a flame without fuel upon a level space, and there two flirting bu=
tterflies
of sound, dancing away from it, up, one over another, swift, abrupt, uncert=
ain.
"Flirting
butterflies were they!" What was the Vicar thinking of? Where was he? =
In
the little room next to his study, of course! And the Angel standing in fro=
nt
of him smiling into his face, playing the violin, and looking through him as
though he was only a window----. That motif again, a yellow flare, spread
fanlike by a gust, and now one, then with a swift eddying upward flight the
other, the two things of fire and light pursuing one another again up into =
that
clear immensity.
The study and the
realities of life suddenly faded out of the Vicar's eyes, grew thinner and
thinner like a mist that dissolves into air, and he and the Angel stood
together on a pinnacle of wrought music, about which glittering melodies
circled, and vanished, and reappeared. He was in the land of Beauty, and on=
ce
more the glory of heaven was upon the Angel's face, and the glowing delight=
s of
colour pulsated in his wings. Himself the Vicar could not see. But I cannot
tell you of the vision of that great and spacious land, of its incredible
openness, and height, and nobility. For there is no space there like ours, =
no
time as we know it; one must needs speak by bungling metaphors and own in
bitterness after all that one has failed. And it was only a vision. The
wonderful creatures flying through the æther saw them not as they sto=
od
there, flew through them as one might pass through a whisp of mist. The Vic=
ar lost
all sense of duration, all sense of necessity----
"Ah!" s=
aid
the Angel, suddenly putting down the fiddle.
The Vicar had
forgotten the book on Political Economy, had forgotten everything until the
Angel had done. For a minute he sat quite still. Then he woke up with a sta=
rt.
He was sitting on the old iron-bound chest.
"Really,&quo=
t;
he said slowly, "you are very clever."
He looked about h=
im
in a puzzled way. "I had a kind of vision while you were playing. I se=
emed
to see----. What did I see? It has gone."
He stood up with a dazzled expression upon his face. "I shall never play the violin again," he said. "I wish you would take it to your room--and keep it----. And play to me again. I did not know anything of music until I heard you play. I do not feel as though I had ever heard any music before."<= o:p>
He stared at the
Angel, then about him at the room. "I have never felt anything of this
kind with music before," he said. He shook his head. "I shall nev=
er
play again."
XXIV. - THE ANGEL EXPLORES
THE VILLAGE.
Very unwisely, as I think, the Vicar allowed the Angel to go down into the village by himself, to enlarge his id= eas of humanity. Unwisely, because how was he to imagine the reception the Angel would receive? Not thoughtlessly, I am afraid. He had always carried himself with decorum in the village, and the idea of a slow procession through the little street with all the inevitable curious remarks, explanations, pointi= ngs, was too much for him. The Angel might do the strangest things, the village = was certain to think them. Peering faces. "Who's he got now?" Besides, was it not his duty to prepare his sermon in good time? The Angel, duly directed, went down cheerfully by himself--still innocent of most of the peculiarities of the human as distinguished from the angelic turn of mind.<= o:p>
The Angel walked
slowly, his white hands folded behind his hunched back, his sweet face look=
ing
this way and that. He peered curiously into the eyes of the people he met. A
little child picking a bunch of vetch and honeysuckle looked in his face, a=
nd
forthwith came and put them in his hand. It was about the only kindness he =
had
from a human being (saving only the Vicar and one other). He heard Mother
Gustick scolding that granddaughter of hers as he passed the door. "You
Brazen Faggit--you!" said Mother Gustick. "You Trumpery
Baggage!"
The Angel stopped,
startled at the strange sounds of Mother Gustick's voice. "Put yer best
clo'es on, and yer feather in yer 'at, and off you goes to meet en, fal lal,
and me at 'ome slaving for ye. 'Tis a Fancy Lady you'll be wantin' to be, my
gal, a walkin' Touch and Go, with yer idleness and finery----"
The voice ceased
abruptly, and a great peace came upon the battered air. "Most grotesque
and strange!" said the Angel, still surveying this wonderful box of
discords. "Walking Touch and Go!" He did not know that Mrs Gustick
had suddenly become aware of his existence, and was scrutinizing his appear=
ance
through the window-blind. Abruptly the door flew open, and she stared out i=
nto
the Angel's face. A strange apparition, grey and dusty hair, and the dirty =
pink
dress unhooked to show the stringy throat, a discoloured gargoyle, presentl=
y to
begin spouting incomprehensible abuse.
"Now, then,
Mister," began Mrs Gustick. "Have ye nothin' better to do than li=
sten
at people's doors for what you can pick up?"
The Angel stared =
at
her in astonishment.
"D'year!&quo=
t;
said Mrs Gustick, evidently very angry indeed. "Listenin'."
"Have you any
objection to my hearing...."
"Object to my
hearing! Course I have! Whad yer think? You aint such a Ninny...."
"But if ye
didn't want me to hear, why did you cry out so loud? I thought...."
"You thought!
Softie--that's what you are! You silly girt staring Gaby, what don't know a=
ny
better than to come holding yer girt mouth wide open for all that you can c=
atch
holt on? And then off up there to tell! You great Fat-Faced, Tale-Bearin'
Silly-Billy! I'd be ashamed to come poking and peering round quiet people's
houses...."
The Angel was
surprised to find that some inexplicable quality in her voice excited the m=
ost
disagreeable sensations in him and a strong desire to withdraw. But, resist=
ing
this, he stood listening politely (as the custom is in the Angelic Land, so
long as anyone is speaking). The entire eruption was beyond his comprehensi=
on.
He could not perceive any reason for the sudden projection of this vitupera=
tive
head, out of infinity, so to speak. And questions without a break for an an=
swer
were outside his experience altogether.
Mrs Gustick proce=
eded
with her characteristic fluency, assured him he was no gentleman, enquired =
if
he called himself one, remarked that every tramp did as much nowadays, comp=
ared
him to a Stuck Pig, marvelled at his impudence, asked him if he wasn't asha=
med
of himself standing there, enquired if he was rooted to the ground, was cur=
ious
to be told what he meant by it, wanted to know whether he robbed a scarecrow
for his clothes, suggested that an abnormal vanity prompted his behaviour, =
enquired
if his mother knew he was out, and finally remarking, "I got somethin'=
ll
move you, my gentleman," disappeared with a ferocious slamming of the
door.
The interval stru=
ck
the Angel as singularly peaceful. His whirling mind had time to analyse his
sensations. He ceased bowing and smiling, and stood merely astonished.
"This is a
curious painful feeling," said the Angel. "Almost worse than Hung=
ry,
and quite different. When one is hungry one wants to eat. I suppose she was=
a
woman. Here one wants to get away. I suppose I might just as well go."=
He turned slowly =
and
went down the road meditating. He heard the cottage door re-open, and turni=
ng
his head, saw through intervening scarlet runners Mrs Gustick with a steami=
ng
saucepan full of boiling cabbage water in her hand.
"'Tis well y=
ou
went, Mister Stolen Breeches," came the voice of Mrs Gustick floating =
down
through the vermilion blossoms. "Don't you come peeping and prying rou=
nd
this yer cottage again or I'll learn ye manners, I will!"
The Angel stood i=
n a
state of considerable perplexity. He had no desire to come within earshot of
the cottage again--ever. He did not understand the precise import of the bl=
ack
pot, but his general impression was entirely disagreeable. There was no exp=
laining
it.
"I mean
it!" said Mrs Gustick, crescendo. "Drat it!--I mean it."
The Angel turned =
and
went on, a dazzled look in his eyes.
"She was very
grotesque!" said the Angel. "Very. Much more than the little man =
in
black. And she means it.---- But what she means I don't know!..." He
became silent. "I suppose they all mean something,", he said,
presently, still perplexed.
XXV.
Then the Angel came in sight of the
forge, where Sandy Bright's brother was shoeing a horse for the carter from
Upmorton. Two hobbledehoys were standing by the forge staring in a bovine w=
ay
at the proceedings. As the Angel approached these two and then the carter
turned slowly through an angle of thirty degrees and watched his approach,
staring quietly and steadily at him. The expression on their faces was one =
of
abstract interest.
The Angel became
self-conscious for the first time in his life. He drew nearer, trying to
maintain an amiable expression on his face, an expression that beat in vain
against their granitic stare. His hands were behind him. He smiled pleasant=
ly,
looking curiously at the (to him) incomprehensible employment of the smith.=
But
the battery of eyes seemed to angle for his regard. Trying to meet the three
pairs at once, the Angel lost his alertness and stumbled over a stone. One =
of
the yokels gave a sarcastic cough, and was immediately covered with confusi=
on
at the Angel's enquiring gaze, nudging his companion with his elbow to cover
his disorder. None spoke, and the Angel did not speak.
So soon as the An=
gel
had passed, one of the three hummed this tune in an aggressive tone.
Then all three of
them laughed. One tried to sing something and found his throat contained
phlegm. The Angel proceeded on his way.
"Who's e
then?" said the second hobbledehoy.
"Ping, ping,
ping," went the blacksmith's hammer.
"Spose he's =
one
of these here foweners," said the carter from Upmorton. "Däa=
mned
silly fool he do look to be sure."
"Tas the way
with them foweners," said the first hobbledehoy sagely.
"Got somethi=
ng
very like the 'ump," said the carter from Upmorton. "Dää=
;-ä-ämned
if 'E ent."
Then the silence
healed again, and they resumed their quiet expressionless consideration of =
the
Angel's retreating figure.
"Very like t=
he
'ump et is," said the carter after an enormous pause.
The Angel went on through the villa=
ge,
finding it all wonderful enough. "They begin, and just a little while =
and
then they end," he said to himself in a puzzled voice. "But what =
are
they doing meanwhile?" Once he heard some invisible mouth chant inaudi=
ble
words to the tune the man at the forge had hummed.
"That's the =
poor
creature the Vicar shot with that great gun of his," said Sarah Glue (=
of
1, Church Cottages) peering over the blind.
"He looks
Frenchified," said Susan Hopper, peering through the interstices of th=
at
convenient veil on curiosity.
"He has sweet
eyes," said Sarah Glue, who had met them for a moment.
The Angel saunter=
ed
on. The postman passed him and touched his hat to him; further down was a d=
og
asleep in the sun. He went on and saw Mendham, who nodded distantly and hur=
ried
past. (The Curate did not care to be seen talking to an angel in the villag=
e,
until more was known about him). There came from one of the houses the soun=
d of
a child screaming in a passion, that brought a puzzled look to the angelic
face. Then the Angel reached the bridge below the last of the houses, and s=
tood
leaning over the parapet watching the glittering little cascade from the mi=
ll.
"They begin,=
and
just a little while, and then they end," said the weir from the mill. =
The
water raced under the bridge, green and dark, and streaked with foam.
Beyond the mill r=
ose
the square tower of the church, with the churchyard behind it, a spray of
tombstones and wooden headboards splashed up the hillside. A half dozen of
beech trees framed the picture.
Then the Angel he=
ard
a shuffling of feet and the gride of wheels behind him, and turning his head
saw a man dressed in dirty brown rags and a felt hat grey with dust, who was
standing with a slight swaying motion and fixedly regarding the Angelic bac=
k.
Beyond him was another almost equally dirty, pushing a knife grinder's barr=
ow
over the bridge.
"Mornin',&qu=
ot;
said the first person smiling weakly. "Goomorn'." He arrested an
escaping hiccough.
The Angel stared =
at
him. He had never seen a really fatuous smile before. "Who are you?&qu=
ot;
said the Angel.
The fatuous smile
faded. "No your business whoaaam. Wishergoomorn."
"Carm on:&qu=
ot;
said the man with the grindstone, passing on his way.
"Wishergoomo=
rn,"
said the dirty man, in a tone of extreme aggravation. "Carncher
Answerme?"
"Carm on you
fool!" said the man with the grindstone--receding.
"I don't
understand," said the Angel.
"Donundersta=
n'.
Sim'l enough. Wishergoomorn'. Willyanswerme? Wontchr? gemwishergem goomorn.
Cusom answer goomorn. No gem. Haverteachyer."
The Angel was
puzzled. The drunken man stood swaying for a moment, then he made an unstea=
dy
snatch at his hat and threw it down at the Angel's feet. "Ver well,&qu=
ot;
he said, as one who decides great issues.
"Carm on!&qu=
ot; said
the voice of the man with the grindstone--stopping perhaps twenty yards off=
.
"You wan fig=
ht,
you ----" the Angel failed to catch the word. "I'll show yer, not
answer gem's goomorn."
He began to strug=
gle
with his jacket. "Think I'm drun," he said, "I show yer.&quo=
t;
The man with the grindstone sat down on the shaft to watch. "Carm on,&=
quot;
he said. The jacket was intricate, and the drunken man began to struggle ab=
out
the road, in his attempts to extricate himself, breathing threatenings and
slaughter. Slowly the Angel began to suspect, remotely enough, that these
demonstrations were hostile. "Mur wun know yer when I done wi' yer,&qu=
ot;
said the drunken man, coat almost over his head.
At last the garme=
nt
lay on the ground, and through the frequent interstices of his reminiscence=
s of
a waistcoat, the drunken tinker displayed a fine hairy and muscular body to=
the
Angel's observant eyes. He squared up in masterly fashion.
"Take the pa=
int
off yer," he remarked, advancing and receding, fists up and elbows out=
.
"Carm on,&qu=
ot;
floated down the road.
The Angel's atten=
tion
was concentrated on two huge hairy black fists, that swayed and advanced and
retreated. "Come on d'yer say? I'll show yer," said the gentleman=
in
rags, and then with extraordinary ferocity; "My crikey! I'll show
yer."
Suddenly he lurch=
ed
forward, and with a newborn instinct and raising a defensive arm as he did =
so,
the Angel stepped aside to avoid him. The fist missed the Angelic shoulder =
by a
hairsbreadth, and the tinker collapsed in a heap with his face against the
parapet of the bridge. The Angel hesitated over the writhing dusty heap of
blasphemy for a moment, and then turned towards the man's companion up the
road. "Lemmeget up," said the man on the bridge: "Lemmeget u=
p,
you swine. I'll show yer."
A strange disgust=
, a
quivering repulsion came upon the Angel. He walked slowly away from the
drunkard towards the man with the grindstone.
"What does it
all mean?" said the Angel. "I don't understand it."
"Dam fool!...
say's it's 'is silver weddin'," answered the man with the grindstone,
evidently much annoyed; and then, in a tone of growing impatience, he called
down the road once more; "Carm on!"
"Silver
wedding!" said the Angel. "What is a silver wedding?"
"Jest is
rot," said the man on the barrow. "But 'E's always avin' some 'sc=
use
like that. Fair sickenin it is. Lars week it wus 'is bloomin' birthday, and
then 'e ad'nt ardly got sober orf a comlimentary drunk to my noo barrer. (C=
arm
on, you fool.)"
"But I don't
understand," said the Angel. "Why does he sway about so? Why does=
he
keep on trying to pick up his hat like that--and missing it?"
"Why!" =
said
the tinker. "Well this is a blasted innocent country! Why! Because 'E's
blind! Wot else? (Carm on--Dam yer). Because 'E's just as full as 'E can 'o=
ld.
That's why!"
The Angel noticing
the tone of the second tinker's voice, judged it wiser not to question him
further. But he stood by the grindstone and continued to watch the mysterio=
us
evolutions on the bridge.
"Carm on! I
shall 'ave to go and pick up that 'at I suppose.... 'E's always at it. I ne=
'er
'ad such a blooming pard before. Always at it, 'e is."
The man with the
barrow meditated. "Taint as if 'e was a gentleman and 'adnt no livin' =
to
get. An' 'e's such a reckless fool when 'e gets a bit on. Goes offerin out
everyone 'e meets. (There you go!) I'm blessed if 'e didn't offer out a 'ole
bloomin' Salvation Army. No judgment in it. (Oh! Carm on! Carm on!). 'Ave t=
o go
and pick this bloomin' 'at up now I s'pose. 'E don't care, wot trouble 'e
gives."
The Angel watched=
the
second tinker walk back, and, with affectionate blasphemy, assist the first=
to
his hat and his coat. Then he turned, absolutely mystified, towards the vil=
lage
again.
XXVII.<=
span
class=3DHeading1Char>
After that incident the Angel walked
along past the mill and round behind the church, to examine the tombstones.=
"This seems =
to
be the place where they put the broken pieces," said the Angel--reading
the inscriptions. "Curious word--relict! Resurgam! Then they are not d=
one
with quite. What a huge pile it requires to keep her down.... It is spirite=
d of
her."
"Hawkins?&qu=
ot;
said the Angel softly,.... "Hawkins? The name is strange to me.... He =
did
not die then.... It is plain enough,--Joined the Angelic Hosts, May 17, 186=
3.
He must have felt as much out of place as I do down here. But I wonder why =
they
put that little pot thing on the top of this monument. Curious! There are
several others about--little stone pots with a rag of stiff stone drapery o=
ver
them."
Just then the boys
came pouring out of the National School, and first one and then several sto=
pped
agape at the Angel's crooked black figure among the white tombs. "Ent =
'e
gart a bääk on en!" remarked one critic.
"'E's got 'a=
ir
like a girl!" said another.
The Angel turned
towards them. He was struck by the queer little heads sticking up over the
lichenous wall. He smiled faintly at their staring faces, and then turned to
marvel at the iron railings that enclosed the Fitz-Jarvis tomb. "A que=
er
air of uncertainty," he said. "Slabs, piles of stone, these
railings.... Are they afraid?... Do these Dead ever try and get up again?
There's an air of repression--fortification----"
"Gét =
yer
'air cut, Gét yer 'air cut," sang three little boys together.
"Curious the=
se
Human Beings are!" said the Angel. "That man yesterday wanted to =
cut
off my wings, now these little creatures want me to cut off my hair! And the
man on the bridge offered to take the 'paint' off me. They will leave nothi=
ng
of me soon."
"Where did y=
ou
get that 'at?" sang another little boy. "Where did you get them c=
lo'es?"
"They ask
questions that they evidently do not want answered," said the Angel.
"I can tell from the tone." He looked thoughtfully at the little =
boys.
"I don't understand the methods of Human intercourse. These are probab=
ly
friendly advances, a kind of ritual. But I don't know the responses. I thin=
k I
will go back to the little fat man in black, with the gold chain across his
stomach, and ask him to explain. It is difficult."
He turned towards=
the
lych gate. "Oh!" said one of the little boys, in a shrill falsett=
o,
and threw a beech-nut husk. It came bounding across the churchyard path. The
Angel stopped in surprise.
This made all the
little boys laugh. A second imitating the first, said "Oh!" and h=
it
the Angel. His astonishment was really delicious. They all began crying
"Oh!" and throwing beechnut husks. One hit the Angel's hand, anot=
her
stung him smartly by the ear. The Angel made ungainly movements towards the=
m.
He spluttered some expostulation and made for the roadway. The little boys =
were
amazed and shocked at his discomfiture and cowardice. Such sawney behaviour
could not be encouraged. The pelting grew vigorously. You may perhaps be ab=
le
to imagine those vivid moments, daring small boys running in close and deli=
vering
shots, milder small boys rushing round behind with flying discharges. Milton
Screever's mongrel dog was roused to yelping ecstacy at the sight, and danc=
ed
(full of wild imaginings) nearer and nearer to the angelic legs.
"Hi, hi!&quo=
t;
said a vigorous voice. "I never did! Where's Mr Jarvis? Manners, manne=
rs!
you young rascals."
The youngsters
scattered right and left, some over the wall into the playground, some down=
the
street.
"Frightful p=
est
these boys are getting!" said Crump, coming up. "I'm sorry they h=
ave
been annoying you."
The Angel seemed
quite upset. "I don't understand," he said. "These Human
ways...."
"Yes, of cou=
rse.
Unusual to you. How's your excrescence?"
"My what?&qu=
ot;
said the Angel.
"Bifid limb,=
you
know. How is it? Now you're down this way, come in. Come in and let me have=
a
look at it again. You young roughs! And meanwhile these little louts of ours
will be getting off home. They're all alike in these villages. Can't unders=
tand
anything abnormal. See an odd-looking stranger. Chuck a stone. No imaginati=
on
beyond the parish.... (I'll give you physic if I catch you annoying strange=
rs again.)
... I suppose it's what one might expect.... Come along this way."
So the Angel,
horribly perplexed still, was hurried into the surgery to have his wound
re-dressed.
XXVIII. - LADY HAMMERGALL=
OW'S
VIEW.
In Siddermorton Park is Siddermorton
House, where old Lady Hammergallow lives, chiefly upon Burgundy and the lit=
tle
scandals of the village, a dear old lady with a ropy neck, a ruddled
countenance and spasmodic gusts of odd temper, whose three remedies for all
human trouble among her dependents are, a bottle of gin, a pair of charity
blankets, or a new crown piece. The House is a mile-and-a-half out of
Siddermorton. Almost all the village is hers, saving a fringe to the south =
which
belongs to Sir John Gotch, and she rules it with an autocratic rule, refres=
hing
in these days of divided government. She orders and forbids marriages, driv=
es
objectionable people out of the village by the simple expedient of raising
their rent, dismisses labourers, obliges heretics to go to church, and made
Susan Dangett, who wanted to call her little girl 'Euphemia,' have the infa=
nt
christened 'Mary-Anne.' She is a sturdy Broad Protestant and disapproves of=
the
Vicar's going bald like a tonsure. She is on the Village Council, which
obsequiously trudges up the hill and over the moor to her, and (as she is a
trifle deaf) speaks all its speeches into her speaking trumpet instead of a
rostrum. She takes no interest now in politics, but until last year she was=
an
active enemy of "that Gladstone." She has parlour maids instead of
footmen to do her waiting, because of Hockley, the American stockbroker, and
his four Titans in plush.
She exercises wha=
t is
almost a fascination upon the village. If in the bar-parlour of the Cat and
Cornucopia you swear by God no one would be shocked, but if you swore by La=
dy
Hammergallow they would probably be shocked enough to turn you out of the r=
oom.
When she drives through Siddermorton she always calls upon Bessy Flump, the
post-mistress, to hear all that has happened, and then upon Miss Finch, the
dressmaker, to check back Bessy Flump. Sometimes she calls upon the Vicar,
sometimes upon Mrs Mendham whom she snubs, and even sometimes on Crump. Her=
sparkling
pair of greys almost ran over the Angel as he was walking down to the villa=
ge.
"So that's t=
he
genius!" said Lady Hammergallow, and turned and looked at him through =
the
gilt glasses on a stick that she always carried in her shrivelled and shaky
hand. "Lunatic indeed! The poor creature has rather a pretty face. I'm
sorry I've missed him."
But she went on to
the vicarage nevertheless, and demanded news of it all. The conflicting
accounts of Miss Flump, Miss Finch, Mrs Mendham, Crump, and Mrs Jehoram had
puzzled her immensely. The Vicar, hard pressed, did all he could to say into
her speaking trumpet what had really happened. He toned down the wings and =
the
saffron robe. But he felt the case was hopeless. He spoke of his
protégé as "Mr" Angel. He addressed pathetic asides=
to
the kingfisher. The old lady noticed his confusion. Her queer old head went
jerking backwards and forwards, now the speaking trumpet in his face when he
had nothing to say, then the shrunken eyes peering at him, oblivious of the
explanation that was coming from his lips. A great many Ohs! and Ahs! She
caught some fragments certainly.
"You have as=
ked
him to stop with you--indefinitely?" said Lady Hammergallow with a Gre=
at
Idea taking shape rapidly in her mind.
"I did--perh=
aps
inadvertently--make such--"
"And you don=
't
know where he comes from?"
"Not at
all."
"Nor who his
father is, I suppose?" said Lady Hammergallow mysteriously.
"No," s=
aid
the Vicar.
"Now!" =
said
Lady Hammergallow archly, and keeping her glasses to her eye, she suddenly =
dug
at his ribs with her trumpet.
"My dear Lady
Hammergallow!"
"I thought s=
o.
Don't think I would blame you, Mr Hilyer." She gave a corrupt laugh th=
at
she delighted in. "The world is the world, and men are men. And the po=
or
boy's a cripple, eh? A kind of judgment. In mourning, I noticed. It reminds=
me
of the Scarlet Letter. The mother's dead, I suppose. It's just as well.
Really--I'm not a narrow woman--I respect you for having him. Really I
do."
"But, Lady
Hammergallow!"
"Don't spoil
everything by denying it. It is so very, very plain, to a woman of the worl=
d.
That Mrs Mendham! She amuses me with her suspicions. Such odd ideas! In a
Curate's wife. But I hope it didn't happen when you were in orders."
"Lady
Hammergallow, I protest. Upon my word."
"Mr Hilyer, I
protest. I know. Not anything you can say will alter my opinion one jot. Do=
n't
try. I never suspected you were nearly such an interesting man."
"But this
suspicion is unendurable!"
"We will help
him together, Mr Hilyer. You may rely upon me. It is most romantic." S=
he
beamed benevolence.
"But, Lady
Hammergallow, I must speak!"
She gripped her
ear-trumpet resolutely, and held it before her and shook her head.
"He has quit=
e a
genius for music, Vicar, so I hear?"
"I can assure
you most solemnly--"
"I thought s=
o.
And being a cripple--"
"You are und=
er a
most cruel--"
"I thought t=
hat
if his gift is really what that Jehoram woman says."
"An
unjustifiable suspicion that ever a man--"
("I don't th=
ink
much of her judgment, of course.")
"Consider my
position. Have I gained no character?"
"It might be
possible to do something for him as a performer."
"Have
I--(Bother! It's no good!)"
"And so, dear
Vicar, I propose to give him an opportunity of showing us what he can do. I
have been thinking it all over as I drove here. On Tuesday next, I will inv=
ite
just a few people of taste, and he shall bring his violin. Eigh? And if that
goes well, I will see if I can get some introductions and really push
him."
"But Lady, L=
ady
Hammergallow."
"Not another
word!" said Lady Hammergallow, still resolutely holding her speaking
trumpet before her and clutching her eyeglasses. "I really must not le=
ave
those horses. Cutler is so annoyed if I keep them too long. He finds waiting
tedious, poor man, unless there is a public-house near." She made for =
the
door.
"Damn!"
said the Vicar, under his breath. He had never used the word since he had t=
aken
orders. It shows you how an Angel's visit may disorganize a man.
He stood under the
verandah watching the carriage drive away. The world seemed coming to pieces
about him. Had he lived a virtuous celibate life for thirty odd years in va=
in?
The things of which these people thought him capable! He stood and stared at
the green cornfield opposite, and down at the straggling village. It seemed
real enough. And yet for the first time in his life there was a queer doubt=
of
its reality. He rubbed his chin, then turned and went slowly upstairs to his
dressing-room, and sat for a long time staring at a garment of some yellow
texture. "Know his father!" he said. "And he is immortal, and
was fluttering about his heaven when my ancestors were marsupials.... I wis=
h he
was there now."
He got up and beg=
an
to feel the robe.
"I wonder how
they get such things," said the Vicar. Then he went and stared out of =
the
window. "I suppose everything is wonderful, even the rising and settin=
g of
the sun. I suppose there is no adamantine ground for any belief. But one ge=
ts
into a regular way of taking things. This disturbs it. I seem to be waking =
up
to the Invisible. It is the strangest of uncertainties. I have not felt so
stirred and unsettled since my adolescence."
XXIX. - FURTHER ADVENTURE=
S OF
THE ANGEL IN THE VILLAGE.
"That's all right," said =
Crump
when the bandaging was replaced. "It's a trick of memory, no doubt, but
these excrescences of yours don't seem nearly so large as they did yesterda=
y. I
suppose they struck me rather forcibly. Stop and have lunch with me now you=
're
down here. Midday meal, you know. The youngsters will be swallowed up by sc=
hool
again in the afternoon."
"I never saw
anything heal so well in my life," he said, as they walked into the
dining-room. "Your blood and flesh must be as clean and free from bact=
eria
as they make 'em. Whatever stuff there is in your head," he added sotto
voce.
At lunch he watch=
ed
the Angel narrowly, and talked to draw him out.
"Journey tire
you yesterday?" he said suddenly.
"Journey!&qu=
ot;
said the Angel. "Oh! my wings felt a little stiff."
("Not to be
had,") said Crump to himself. ("Suppose I must enter into it.&quo=
t;)
"So you flew=
all
the way, eigh? No conveyance?"
"There wasn't
any way," explained the Angel, taking mustard. "I was flying up a
symphony with some Griffins and Fiery Cherubim, and suddenly everything went
dark and I was in this world of yours."
"Dear me!&qu=
ot;
said Crump. "And that's why you haven't any luggage." He drew his
serviette across his mouth, and a smile flickered in his eyes.
"I suppose y=
ou
know this world of ours pretty well? Watching us over the adamantine walls =
and
all that kind of thing. Eigh?"
"Not very we=
ll.
We dream of it sometimes. In the moonlight, when the Nightmares have fanned=
us
to sleep with their wings."
"Ah, yes--of
course," said Crump. "Very poetical way of putting it. Won't you =
take
some Burgundy? It's just beside you."
"There's a
persuasion in this world, you know, that Angels' Visits are by no means
infrequent. Perhaps some of your--friends have travelled? They are supposed=
to
come down to deserving persons in prisons, and do refined Nautches and that
kind of thing. Faust business, you know."
"I've never
heard of anything of the kind," said the Angel.
"Only the ot=
her
day a lady whose baby was my patient for the time being--indigestion--assur=
ed
me that certain facial contortions the little creature made indicated that =
it
was Dreaming of Angels. In the novels of Mrs Henry Wood that is spoken of a=
s an
infallible symptom of an early departure. I suppose you can't throw any lig=
ht
on that obscure pathological manifestation?"
"I don't
understand it at all," said the Angel, puzzled, and not clearly appreh=
ending
the Doctor's drift.
("Getting
huffy,") said Crump to himself. ("Sees I'm poking fun at him.&quo=
t;)
"There's one thing I'm curious about. Do the new arrivals complain much
about their medical attendants? I've always fancied there must be a good de=
al
of hydropathic talk just at first. I was looking at that picture in the Aca=
demy
only this June...."
"New
Arrivals!" said the Angel. "I really don't follow you."
The Doctor stared.
"Don't they come?"
"Come!"
said the Angel. "Who?"
"The people =
who
die here."
"After they'=
ve
gone to pieces here?"
"That's the
general belief, you know."
"People, like
the woman who screamed out of the door, and the blackfaced man and his
volutations and the horrible little things that threw husks!--certainly not=
. I
never saw such creatures before I fell into this world."
"Oh! but
come!" said the Doctor. "You'll tell me next your official robes =
are
not white and that you can't play the harp."
"There's no =
such
thing as white in the Angelic Land," said the Angel. "It's that q=
ueer
blank colour you get by mixing up all the others."
"Why, my dear
Sir!" said the doctor, suddenly altering his tone, "you positively
know nothing about the Land you come from. White's the very essence of
it."
The Angel stared =
at
him. Was the man jesting? He looked perfectly serious.
"Look
here," said Crump, and getting up, he went to the sideboard on which a
copy of the Parish Magazine was lying. He brought it round to the Angel and
opened it at the coloured supplement. "Here's some real angels," =
he
said. "You see it's not simply the wings make the Angel. White you see,
with a curly whisp of robe, sailing up into the sky with their wings furled.
Those are angels on the best authority. Hydroxyl kind of hair. One has a bi=
t of
a harp, you see, and the other is helping this wingless lady--kind of larval
Angel, you know--upward."
"Oh! but
really!" said the Angel, "those are not angels at all."
"But they
are," said Crump, putting the magazine back on the sideboard and resum=
ing
his seat with an air of intense satisfaction. "I can assure you I have=
the
best authority...."
"I can assure
you...."
Crump tucked in t=
he
corners of his mouth and shook his head from side to side even as he had do=
ne
to the Vicar. "No good," he said, "can't alter our ideas jus=
t because
an irresponsible visitor...."
"If these are
angels," said the Angel, "then I have never been in the Angelic
Land."
"Precisely,&=
quot;
said Crump, ineffably self-satisfied; "that was just what I was getting
at."
The Angel stared =
at
him for a minute round-eyed, and then was seized for the second time by the
human disorder of laughter.
"Ha, ha,
ha!" said Crump, joining in. "I thought you were not quite so mad=
as
you seemed. Ha, ha, ha!"
And for the rest =
of
the lunch they were both very merry, for entirely different reasons, and Cr=
ump
insisted upon treating the Angel as a "dorg" of the highest degre=
e.
XXX.
After the Angel had left Crump's ho=
use he
went up the hill again towards the Vicarage. But--possibly moved by the des=
ire
to avoid Mrs Gustick--he turned aside at the stile and made a detour by the
Lark's Field and Bradley's Farm.
He came upon the
Respectable Tramp slumbering peacefully among the wild-flowers. He stopped =
to
look, struck by the celestial tranquillity of that individual's face. And e=
ven
as he did so the Respectable Tramp awoke with a start and sat up. He was a
pallid creature, dressed in rusty black, with a broken-spirited crush hat
cocked over one eye. "Good afternoon," he said affably. "How=
are
you?"
"Very well,
thank you," said the Angel, who had mastered the phrase.
The Respectable T=
ramp
eyed the Angel critically. "Padding the Hoof, matey?" he said.
"Like me."
The Angel was puz=
zled
by him. "Why," asked the Angel, "do you sleep like this inst=
ead
of sleeping up in the air on a Bed?"
"Well I'm
blowed!" said the Respectable Tramp. "Why don't I sleep in a bed?
Well, it's like this. Sandringham's got the painters in, there's the drains=
up
in Windsor Castle, and I 'aven't no other 'ouse to go to. You 'aven't the p=
rice
of a arf pint in your pocket, 'ave yer?"
"I have noth=
ing
in my pocket," said the Angel.
"Is this here
village called Siddermorton?" said the Tramp, rising creakily to his f=
eet
and pointing to the clustering roofs down the hill.
"Yes," =
said
the Angel, "they call it Siddermorton."
"I know it, I
know it," said the Tramp. "And a very pretty little village it is
too." He stretched and yawned, and stood regarding the place.
"'Ouses," he said reflectively; "Projuce"--waving his h=
and
at the cornfields and orchards. "Looks cosy, don't it?"
"It has a qu=
aint
beauty of its own," said the Angel.
"It 'as a qu=
aint
beauty of its own--yes.... Lord! I'd like to sack the blooming place.... I =
was
born there."
"Dear me,&qu=
ot;
said the Angel.
"Yes, I was =
born
there. Ever heard of a pithed frog?"
"Pithed
frog," said the Angel. "No!"
"It's a thing
these here vivisectionists do. They takes a frog and they cuts out his brai=
ns
and they shoves a bit of pith in the place of 'em. That's a pithed frog.
Well--that there village is full of pithed human beings."
The Angel took it
quite seriously. "Is that so?" he said.
"That's so--=
you
take my word for it. Everyone of them 'as 'ad their brains cut out and chun=
ks
of rotten touchwood put in the place of it. And you see that little red pla=
ce
there?"
"That's call=
ed
the national school," said the Angel.
"Yes--that's
where they piths 'em," said the Tramp, quite in love with his conceit.=
"Really! Tha=
t's
very interesting."
"It stands to
reason," said the Tramp. "If they 'ad brains they'd 'ave ideas, a=
nd
if they 'ad ideas they'd think for themselves. And you can go through that
village from end to end and never meet anybody doing as much. Pithed human
beings they are. I know that village. I was born there, and I might be there
now, a toilin' for my betters, if I 'adnt struck against the pithin'."=
"Is it a pai=
nful
operation?" asked the Angel.
"In parts.
Though it aint the heads gets hurt. And it lasts a long time. They take 'em
young into that school, and they says to them, 'come in 'ere and we'll impr=
ove
your minds,' they says, and in the little kiddies go as good as gold. And t=
hey
begins shovin' it into them. Bit by bit and 'ard and dry, shovin' out the n=
ice
juicy brains. Dates and lists and things. Out they comes, no brains in their
'eads, and wound up nice and tight, ready to touch their 'ats to anyone who
looks at them. Why! One touched 'is 'at to me yesterday. And they runs about
spry and does all the dirty work, and feels thankful they're allowed to liv=
e.
They take a positive pride in 'ard work for its own sake. Arter they bin
pithed. See that chap ploughin'?"
"Yes," =
said
the Angel; "is he pithed?"
"Rather. Else
he'd be paddin' the hoof this pleasant weather--like me and the blessed
Apostles."
"I begin to
understand," said the Angel, rather dubiously.
"I knew you
would," said the Philosophical Tramp. "I thought you was the right
sort. But speaking serious, aint it ridiculous?--centuries and centuries of
civilization, and look at that poor swine there, sweatin' 'isself empty and
trudging up that 'ill-side. 'E's English, 'e is. 'E belongs to the top race=
in
creation, 'e does. 'E's one of the rulers of Indjer. It's enough to make a
nigger laugh. The flag that's braved a thousand years the battle an' the
breeze--that's 'is flag. There never was a country was as great and gloriou=
s as
this. Never. And that's wot it makes of us. I'll tell you a little story ab=
out
them parts as you seems to be a bit of a stranger. There's a chap called Go=
tch,
Sir John Gotch they calls 'im, and when 'e was a young gent from Oxford, I =
was a
little chap of eight and my sister was a girl of seventeen. Their servant s=
he
was. But Lord! everybody's 'eard that story--it's common enough, of 'im or =
the
likes of 'im."
"I
haven't," said the Angel.
"All that's
pretty and lively of the gals they chucks into the gutters, and all the men
with a pennorth of spunk or adventure, all who won't drink what the Curate's
wife sends 'em instead of beer, and touch their hats promiscous, and leave =
the
rabbits and birds alone for their betters, gets drove out of the villages as
rough characters. Patriotism! Talk about improvin' the race! Wot's left aint
fit to look a nigger in the face, a Chinaman 'ud be ashamed of 'em...."=
;
"But I don't
understand," said the Angel. "I don't follow you."
At that the Philo=
sophic
Tramp became more explicit, and told the Angel the simple story of Sir John
Gotch and the kitchen-maid. It's scarcely necessary to repeat it. You may
understand that it left the Angel puzzled. It was full of words he did not
understand, for the only vehicle of emotion the Tramp possessed was blasphe=
my.
Yet, though their tongues differed so, he could still convey to the Angel s=
ome
of his own (probably unfounded) persuasion of the injustice and cruelty of
life, and of the utter detestableness of Sir John Gotch.
The last the Angel
saw of him was his dusty black back receding down the lane towards Iping
Hanger. A pheasant appeared by the roadside, and the Philosophical Tramp
immediately caught up a stone and sent the bird clucking with a viciously
accurate shot. Then he disappeared round the corner.
XXXI. - MRS JEHORAM'S BRE=
ADTH
OF VIEW.
"I heard some one playing the =
fiddle
in the Vicarage, as I came by," said Mrs Jehoram, taking her cup of tea
from Mrs Mendham.
"The Vicar
plays," said Mrs Mendham. "I have spoken to George about it, but =
it's
no good. I do not think a Vicar should be allowed to do such things. It's so
foreign. But there, he ...."
"I know,
dear," said Mrs Jehoram. "But I heard the Vicar once at the schoo=
lroom.
I don't think this was the Vicar. It was quite clever, some of it, quite sm=
art,
you know. And new. I was telling dear Lady Hammergallow this morning. I
fancy--"
"The lunatic!
Very likely. These half-witted people.... My dear, I don't think I shall ev=
er
forget that dreadful encounter. Yesterday."
"Nor I."=
;
"My poor gir=
ls!
They are too shocked to say a word about it. I was telling dear Lady
Ham----"
"Quite prope=
r of
them. It was dreadful, dear. For them."
"And now, de=
ar,
I want you to tell me frankly--Do you really believe that creature was a
man?"
"You should =
have
heard the violin."
"I still more
than half suspect, Jessie ----" Mrs Mendham leant forward as if to
whisper.
Mrs Jehoram helped
herself to cake. "I'm sure no woman could play the violin quite like I
heard it played this morning."
"Of course, =
if
you say so that settles the matter," said Mrs Mendham. Mrs Jehoram was=
the
autocratic authority in Siddermorton upon all questions of art, music and
belles-lettres. Her late husband had been a minor poet. Then Mrs Mendham ad=
ded
a judicial "Still--"
"Do you
know," said Mrs Jehoram, "I'm half inclined to believe the dear V=
icar's
story."
"How good of
you, Jessie," said Mrs Mendham.
"But really,=
I
don't think he could have had any one in the Vicarage before that afternoon=
. I
feel sure we should have heard of it. I don't see how a strange cat could c=
ome
within four miles of Siddermorton without the report coming round to us. The
people here gossip so...."
"I always
distrust the Vicar," said Mrs Mendham. "I know him."
"Yes. But the
story is plausible. If this Mr Angel were someone very clever and
eccentric--"
"He would ha=
ve
to be very eccentric to dress as he did. There are degrees and limits,
dear."
"But
kilts," said Mrs Jehoram.
"Are all very
well in the Highlands...."
Mrs Jehoram's eyes
had rested upon a black speck creeping slowly across a patch of yellowish-g=
reen
up the hill.
"There he
goes," said Mrs Jehoram, rising, "across the cornfield. I'm sure
that's him. I can see the hump. Unless it's a man with a sack. Bless me, Mi=
nnie!
here's an opera glass. How convenient for peeping at the Vicarage!... Yes, =
it's
the man. He is a man. With such a sweet face."
Very unselfishly =
she
allowed her hostess to share the opera glass. For a minute there was a rust=
ling
silence.
"His dress,&=
quot;
said Mrs Mendham, "is quite respectable now."
"Quite,"
said Mrs Jehoram.
Pause.
"He looks
cross!"
"And his coa=
t is
dusty."
"He walks
steadily enough," said Mrs Mendham, "or one might think.... This =
hot
weather...."
Another pause.
"You see,
dear," said Mrs Jehoram, putting down the lorgnette. "What I was
going to say was, that possibly he might be a genius in disguise."
"If you can =
call
next door to nothing a disguise."
"No doubt it=
was
eccentric. But I've seen children in little blouses, not at all unlike him.=
So
many clever people are peculiar in their dress and manners. A genius may st=
eal
a horse where a bank-clerk may not look over the hedge. Very possibly he's
quite well known and laughing at our Arcadian simplicity. And really it was=
n't
so improper as some of these New Women bicycling costumes. I saw one in one=
of
the Illustrated Papers only a few days ago--the New Budget I think--quite
tights, you know, dear. No--I cling to the genius theory. Especially after =
the playing.
I'm sure the creature is original. Perhaps very amusing. In fact, I intend =
to
ask the Vicar to introduce me."
"My dear!&qu=
ot;
cried Mrs Mendham.
"I'm
resolute," said Mrs Jehoram.
"I'm afraid
you're rash," said Mrs Mendham. "Geniuses and people of that kind=
are
all very well in London. But here--at the Vicarage."
"We are goin=
g to
educate the folks. I love originality. At any rate I mean to see him."=
"Take care y=
ou
don't see too much of him," said Mrs Mendham. "I've heard the fas=
hion
is quite changing. I understand that some of the very best people have deci=
ded
that genius is not to be encouraged any more. These recent scandals....&quo=
t;
"Only in
literature, I can assure you, dear. In music...."
"Nothing you=
can
say, my dear," said Mrs Mendham, going off at a tangent, "will
convince me that that person's costume was not extremely suggestive and
improper."
The Angel came
thoughtfully by the hedge across the field towards the Vicarage. The rays of
the setting sun shone on his shoulders, and touched the Vicarage with gold,=
and
blazed like fire in all the windows. By the gate, bathed in the sunlight, s=
tood
little Delia, the waiting maid. She stood watching him under her hand. It
suddenly came into the Angel's mind that she, at least, was beautiful, and =
not
only beautiful but alive and warm.
She opened the ga=
te
for him and stood aside. She was sorry for him, for her elder sister was a
cripple. He bowed to her, as he would have done to any woman, and for just =
one
moment looked into her face. She looked back at him and something leapt wit=
hin
her.
The Angel made an
irresolute movement. "Your eyes are very beautiful," he said quie=
tly,
with a remote wonder in his voice.
"Oh, sir!&qu=
ot;
she said, starting back. The Angel's expression changed to perplexity. He w=
ent
on up the pathway between the Vicar's flower-beds, and she stood with the g=
ate
held open in her hand, staring after him. Just under the rose-twined verand=
ah
he turned and looked at her.
She still stared =
at
him for a moment, and then with a queer gesture turned round with her back =
to
him, shutting the gate as she did so, and seemed to be looking down the val=
ley
towards the church tower.
XXXIII. - THE WARP AND THE
WOOF OF THINGS.
At the dinner tab=
le
the Angel told the Vicar the more striking of his day's adventures.
"The strange
thing," said the Angel, "is the readiness of you Human Beings--the
zest, with which you inflict pain. Those boys pelting me this morning----&q=
uot;
"Seemed to e=
njoy
it," said the Vicar. "I know."
"Yet they do=
n't
like pain," said the Angel.
"No," s=
aid
the Vicar; "they don't like it."
"Then,"
said the Angel, "I saw some beautiful plants rising with a spike of
leaves, two this way and two that, and when I caressed one it caused the mo=
st
uncomfortable----"
"Stinging
nettle!" said the Vicar.
"At any rate=
a
new sort of pain. And another plant with a head like a coronet, and richly
decorated leaves, spiked and jagged----"
"A thistle,
possibly."
"And in your
garden, the beautiful, sweet-smelling plant----"
"The sweet
briar," said the Vicar. "I remember."
"And that pi=
nk
flower that sprang out of the box----"
"Out of the
box?" said the Vicar.
"Last
night," said the Angel, "that went climbing up the curtains----
Flame!"
"Oh!--the
matches and the candles! Yes," said the Vicar.
"Then the
animals. A dog to-day behaved most disagreeably----. And these boys, and the
way in which people speak----. Everyone seems anxious--willing at any rate-=
-to
give this Pain. Every one seems busy giving pain----"
"Or avoiding
it," said the Vicar, pushing his dinner away before him. "Yes--of
course. It's fighting everywhere. The whole living world is a battle-field-=
-the
whole world. We are driven by Pain. Here. How it lies on the surface! This
Angel sees it in a day!"
"But why does
everyone--everything--want to give pain?" asked the Angel.
"It is not s=
o in
the Angelic Land?" said the Vicar.
"No," s=
aid
the Angel. "Why is it so here?"
The Vicar wiped h=
is
lips with his napkin slowly. "It is so," he said. "Pain,&quo=
t;
said he still more slowly, "is the warp and the woof of this life. Do =
you
know," he said, after a pause, "it is almost impossible for me to
imagine ... a world without pain.... And yet, as you played this morning---=
-
"But this wo=
rld
is different. It is the very reverse of an Angelic world. Indeed, a number =
of
people--excellent religious people--have been so impressed by the universal=
ity
of pain that they think, after death, things will be even worse for a great
many of us. It seems to me an excessive view. But it's a deep question. Alm=
ost
beyond one's power of discussion----"
And incontinently=
the
Vicar plumped into an impromptu dissertation upon "Necessity," how
things were so because they were so, how one had to do this and that.
"Even our food," said the Vicar. "What?" said the Angel.
"Is not obtained without inflicting Pain," said the Vicar.
The Angel's face =
went
so white that the Vicar checked himself suddenly. Or he was just on the very
verge of a concise explanation of the antecedents of a leg of lamb. There w=
as a
pause.
"By-the-bye,=
"
said the Angel, suddenly. "Have you been pithed? Like the common
people."
XXXIV. - THE ANGEL'S DEBU=
T.
When Lady Hammergallow made up her =
mind,
things happened as she resolved. And though the Vicar made a spasmodic prot=
est,
she carried out her purpose and got audience, Angel, and violin together, a=
t Siddermorton
House before the week was out. "A genius the Vicar has discovered,&quo=
t;
she said; so with eminent foresight putting any possibility of blame for a
failure on the Vicar's shoulders. "The dear Vicar tells me," she
would say, and proceed to marvellous anecdotes of the Angel's cleverness wi=
th
his instrument. But she was quite in love with her idea--she had always had=
a
secret desire to play the patroness to obscure talent. Hitherto it had not
turned out to be talent when it came to the test.
"It would be
such a good thing for him," she said. "His hair is long already, =
and
with that high colour he would be beautiful, simply beautiful on a platform.
The Vicar's clothes fitting him so badly makes him look quite like a
fashionable pianist already. And the scandal of his birth--not told, of cou=
rse,
but whispered--would be--quite an Inducement----when he gets to London, that
is."
The Vicar had the
most horrible sensations as the day approached. He spent hours trying to
explain the situation to the Angel, other hours trying to imagine what peop=
le
would think, still worse hours trying to anticipate the Angel's behaviour.
Hitherto the Angel had always played for his own satisfaction. The Vicar wo=
uld
startle him every now and then by rushing upon him with some new point of
etiquette that had just occurred to him. As for instance: "It's very
important where you put your hat, you know. Don't put it on a chair, whatev=
er
you do. Hold it until you get your tea, you know, and then--let me see--then
put it down somewhere, you know." The journey to Siddermorton House wa=
s accomplished
without misadventure, but at the moment of introduction the Vicar had a spa=
sm
of horrible misgivings. He had forgotten to explain introductions. The Ange=
l's
naïve amusement was evident, but nothing very terrible happened.
"Rummy looki=
ng
greaser," said Mr Rathbone Slater, who devoted considerable attention =
to
costume. "Wants grooming. No manners. Grinned when he saw me shaking
hands. Did it chic enough, I thought."
One trivial
misadventure occurred. When Lady Hammergallow welcomed the Angel she looked=
at
him through her glasses. The apparent size of her eyes startled him. His
surprise and his quick attempt to peer over the brims was only too evident.=
But
the Vicar had warned him of the ear trumpet.
The Angel's
incapacity to sit on anything but a music stool appeared to excite some
interest among the ladies, but led to no remarks. They regarded it perhaps =
as
the affectation of a budding professional. He was remiss with the teacups a=
nd
scattered the crumbs of his cake abroad. (You must remember he was quite an
amateur at eating.) He crossed his legs. He fumbled over the hat business a=
fter
vainly trying to catch the Vicar's eye. The eldest Miss Papaver tried to ta=
lk
to him about continental watering places and cigarettes, and formed a low
opinion of his intelligence.
The Angel was
surprised by the production of an easel and several books of music, and a
little unnerved at first by the sight of Lady Hammergallow sitting with her
head on one side, watching him with those magnified eyes through her gilt
glasses.
Mrs Jehoram came =
up
to him before he began to play and asked him the Name of the Charming Piece=
he
was playing the other afternoon. The Angel said it had no name, and Mrs Jeh=
oram
thought music ought never to have any names and wanted to know who it was b=
y,
and when the Angel told her he played it out of his head, she said he must =
be
Quite a Genius and looked open (and indisputably fascinating) admiration at
him. The Curate from Iping Hanger (who was professionally a Kelt and who pl=
ayed
the piano and talked colour and music with an air of racial superiority) wa=
tched
him jealously.
The Vicar, who was
presently captured and set down next to Lady Hammergallow, kept an anxious =
eye
ever Angelward while she told him particulars of the incomes made by
violinists--particulars which, for the most part, she invented as she went
along. She had been a little ruffled by the incident of the glasses, but had
decided that it came within the limits of permissible originality.
So figure to your=
self
the Green Saloon at Siddermorton Park; an Angel thinly disguised in clerical
vestments and with a violin in his hands, standing by the grand piano, and a
respectable gathering of quiet nice people, nicely dressed, grouped about t=
he
room. Anticipatory gabble--one hears scattered fragments of conversation.
"He is
incog."; said the very eldest Miss Papaver to Mrs Pirbright. "Isn=
't
it quaint and delicious. Jessica Jehoram says she saw him at Vienna, but she
can't remember the name. The Vicar knows all about him, but he is so
close----"
"How hot and
uncomfortable the dear Vicar is looking," said Mrs Pirbright. "I'=
ve
noticed it before when he sits next to Lady Hammergallow. She simply will n=
ot
respect his cloth. She goes on----"
"His tie is =
all
askew," said the very eldest Miss Papaver, "and his hair! It real=
ly
hardly looks as though he had brushed it all day."
"Seems a for=
eign
sort of chap. Affected. All very well in a drawing-room," said George
Harringay, sitting apart with the younger Miss Pirbright. "But for my =
part
give me a masculine man and a feminine woman. What do you think?"
"Oh!--I thin=
k so
too," said the younger Miss Pirbright.
"Guineas and
guineas," said Lady Hammergallow. "I've heard that some of them k=
eep
quite stylish establishments. You would scarcely credit it----"
"I love musi=
c,
Mr Angel, I adore it. It stirs something in me. I can scarcely describe
it," said Mrs Jehoram. "Who is it says that delicious antithesis:=
Life
without music is brutality; music without life is---- Dear me! perhaps you
remember? Music without life----it's Ruskin I think?"
"I'm sorry t=
hat
I do not," said the Angel. "I have read very few books."
"How charmin=
g of
you!" said Mrs Jehoram. "I wish I didn't. I sympathise with you
profoundly. I would do the same, only we poor women----I suppose it's
originality we lack---- And down here one is driven to the most desperate
proceedings----"
"He's certai=
nly
very pretty. But the ultimate test of a man is his strength," said Geo=
rge
Harringay. "What do you think?"
"Oh!--I thin=
k so
too," said the younger Miss Pirbright.
"It's the
effeminate man who makes the masculine woman. When the glory of a man is his
hair, what's a woman to do? And when men go running about with beautiful he=
ctic
dabs----"
"Oh George! =
You
are so dreadfully satirical to-day," said the younger Miss Pirbright.
"I'm sure it isn't paint."
"I'm really =
not
his guardian, my dear Lady Hammergallow. Of course it's very kind indeed of=
you
to take such an interest----"
"Are you rea=
lly
going to improvise?" said Mrs Jehoram in a state of cooing delight.
"SSsh!"
said the curate from Iping Hanger.
Then the Angel be=
gan
to play, looking straight before him as he did so, thinking of the wonderfu=
l things
of the Angelic Land, and yet insensibly letting the sadness he was beginnin=
g to
feel, steal over the fantasia he was playing. When he forgot his company the
music was strange and sweet; when the sense of his surroundings floated into
his mind the music grew capricious and grotesque. But so great was the hold=
of
the Angelic music upon the Vicar that his anxieties fell from him at once, =
so
soon as the Angel began to play. Mrs Jehoram sat and looked rapt and
sympathetic as hard as she could (though the music was puzzling at times) a=
nd
tried to catch the Angel's eye. He really had a wonderfully mobile face, and
the tenderest shades of expression! And Mrs Jehoram was a judge. George Har=
ringay
looked bored, until the younger Miss Pirbright, who adored him, put out her
mousy little shoe to touch his manly boot, and then he turned his face to c=
atch
the feminine delicacy of her coquettish eye, and was comforted. The very el=
dest
Miss Papaver and Mrs Pirbright sat quite still and looked churchy for nearly
four minutes.
Then said the eld=
est
Miss Papaver in a whisper, "I always Enjoy violin music so much."=
And
Mrs Pirbright answered, "We get so little Nice music down here." =
And
Miss Papaver said, "He plays Very nicely." And Mrs Pirbright,
"Such a Delicate Touch!" And Miss Papaver, "Does Willie keep=
up
his lessons?" and so to a whispered conversation.
The Curate from I=
ping
Hanger sat (he felt) in full view of the company. He had one hand curled ro=
und
his ear, and his eyes hard and staring fixedly at the pedestal of the
Hammergallow Sèvres vase. He supplied, by the movements of his mouth=
, a
kind of critical guide to any of the company who were disposed to avail
themselves of it. It was a generous way he had. His aspect was severely
judicial, tempered by starts of evident disapproval and guarded appreciatio=
n.
The Vicar leaned back in his chair and stared at the Angel's face, and was
presently rapt away in a wonderful dream. Lady Hammergallow, with quick jer=
ky
movements of the head and a low but insistent rustling, surveyed and tried =
to
judge of the effect of the Angelic playing. Mr Rathbone-Slater stared very =
solemnly
into his hat and looked very miserable, and Mrs Rathbone-Slater made mental
memoranda of Mrs Jehoram's sleeves. And the air about them all was heavy wi=
th
exquisite music--for all that had ears to hear.
"Scarcely
affected enough," whispered Lady Hammergallow hoarsely, suddenly poking
the Vicar in the ribs. The Vicar came out of Dreamland suddenly.
"Eigh?" shouted the Vicar, startled, coming up with a jump. "=
;Sssh!"
said the Curate from Iping Hanger, and everyone looked shocked at the brutal
insensibility of Hilyer. "So unusual of the Vicar," said the very
eldest Miss Papaver, "to do things like that!" The Angel went on
playing.
The Curate from I=
ping
Hanger began making mesmeric movements with his index finger, and as the th=
ing
proceeded Mr Rathbone-Slater got amazingly limp. He solemnly turned his hat
round and altered his view. The Vicar lapsed from an uneasy discomfort into
dreamland again. Lady Hammergallow rustled a great deal, and presently foun=
d a
way of making her chair creak. And at last the thing came to an end. Lady
Hammergallow exclaimed "De--licious!" though she had never heard a
note, and began clapping her hands. At that everyone clapped except Mr Rath=
bone-Slater,
who rapped his hat brim instead. The Curate from Iping Hanger clapped with a
judicial air.
"So I said
(clap, clap, clap), if you cannot cook the food my way (clap, clap, clap) y=
ou
must go," said Mrs Pirbright, clapping vigorously. "(This music i=
s a
delightful treat.)"
"(It is. I
always revel in music,)" said the very eldest Miss Papaver. "And =
did
she improve after that?"
"Not a bit of
it," said Mrs Pirbright.
The Vicar woke up
again and stared round the saloon. Did other people see these visions, or w=
ere
they confined to him alone? Surely they must all see ... and have a wonderf=
ul
command of their feelings. It was incredible that such music should not aff=
ect
them. "He's a trifle gauche," said Lady Hammergallow, jumping upon
the Vicar's attention. "He neither bows nor smiles. He must cultivate
oddities like that. Every successful executant is more or less gauche."=
;
"Did you rea=
lly
make that up yourself?" said Mrs Jehoram, sparkling her eyes at him,
"as you went along. Really, it is wonderful! Nothing less than
wonderful."
"A little amateurish," said the Curate from Iping Hanger to Mr Rathbone-Slater. "A great gift, undoubtedly, but a certain lack of sustained training. There were one or two little things ... I would like to talk to him."<= o:p>
"His trousers
look like concertinas," said Mr Rathbone-Slater. "He ought to be =
told
that. It's scarcely decent."
"Can you do
Imitations, Mr Angel?" said Lady Hammergallow.
"Oh do, do s=
ome
Imitations!" said Mrs Jehoram. "I adore Imitations."
"It was a fa=
ntastic
thing," said the Curate of Iping Hanger to the Vicar of Siddermorton,
waving his long indisputably musical hands as he spoke; "a little
involved, to my mind. I have heard it before somewhere--I forget where. He =
has
genius undoubtedly, but occasionally he is--loose. There is a certain deadly
precision wanting. There are years of discipline yet."
"I don't adm=
ire
these complicated pieces of music," said George Harringay. "I have
simple tastes, I'm afraid. There seems to me no tune in it. There's nothing=
I
like so much as simple music. Tune, simplicity is the need of the age, in my
opinion. We are so over subtle. Everything is far-fetched. Home grown thoug=
hts
and 'Home, Sweet Home' for me. What do you think?"
"Oh! I think
so--quite," said the younger Miss Pirbright.
"Well, Amy,
chattering to George as usual?" said Mrs Pirbright, across the room.
"As usual,
Ma!" said the younger Miss Pirbright, glancing round with a bright smi=
le
at Miss Papaver, and turning again so as not to lose the next utterance from
George.
"I wonder if=
you
and Mr Angel could manage a duet?" said Lady Hammergallow to the Curate
from Iping Hanger, who was looking preternaturally gloomy.
"I'm sure I
should be delighted," said the Curate from Iping Hanger, brightening u=
p.
"Duets!"=
; said
the Angel; "the two of us. Then he can play. I understood--the Vicar t=
old
me--"
"Mr Wilmerdi=
ngs
is an accomplished pianist," interrupted the Vicar.
"But the
Imitations?" said Mrs Jehoram, who detested Wilmerdings.
"Imitations!=
"
said the Angel.
"A pig
squeaking, a cock crowing, you know," said Mr Rathbone-Slater, and add=
ed
lower, "Best fun you can get out of a fiddle--my opinion."
"I really do=
n't
understand," said the Angel. "A pig crowing!"
"You don't l=
ike
Imitations," said Mrs Jehoram. "Nor do I--really. I accept the sn=
ub.
I think they degrade...."
"Perhaps
afterwards Mr Angel will Relent," said Lady Hammergallow, when Mrs
Pirbright had explained the matter to her. She could scarcely credit her
ear-trumpet. When she asked for Imitations she was accustomed to get Imitat=
ions.
Mr Wilmerdings had
seated himself at the piano, and had turned to a familiar pile of music in =
the
recess. "What do you think of that Barcarole thing of Spohr's?" he
said over his shoulder. "I suppose you know it?" The Angel looked
bewildered.
He opened the fol=
io
before the Angel.
"What an odd
kind of book!" said the Angel. "What do all those crazy dots
mean?" (At that the Vicar's blood ran cold.)
"What
dots?" said the Curate.
"There!"
said the Angel with incriminating finger.
"Oh come!&qu=
ot;
said the Curate.
There was one of
those swift, short silences that mean so much in a social gathering.
Then the eldest M=
iss
Papaver turned upon the Vicar. "Does not Mr Angel play from ordinary..=
..
Music--from the ordinary notation?"
"I have never
heard," said the Vicar, getting red now after the first shock of horro=
r.
"I have really never seen...."
The Angel felt the
situation was strained, though what was straining it he could not understan=
d.
He became aware of a doubtful, an unfriendly look upon the faces that regar=
ded
him. "Impossible!" he heard Mrs Pirbright say; "after that
beautiful music." The eldest Miss Papaver went to Lady Hammergallow at
once, and began to explain into her ear-trumpet that Mr Angel did not wish =
to
play with Mr Wilmerdings, and alleged an ignorance of written music.
"He cannot p=
lay
from Notes!" said Lady Hammergallow in a voice of measured horror.
"Non--sense!"
"Notes!"
said the Angel perplexed. "Are these notes?"
"It's carryi=
ng
the joke too far--simply because he doesn't want to play with
Wilmerdings," said Mr Rathbone-Slater to George Harringay.
There was an
expectant pause. The Angel perceived he had to be ashamed of himself. He was
ashamed of himself.
"Then," said Lady Hammergallow, throwing her head back and speaking with deliberate indignation, as she rustled forward, "if you cannot play with Mr Wilmerdings I am afraid I cannot ask you to play again." She made it s= ound like an ultimatum. Her glasses in her hand quivered violently with indignat= ion. The Angel was now human enough to appreciate the fact that he was crushed.<= o:p>
"What is
it?" said little Lucy Rustchuck in the further bay.
"He's refuse=
d to
play with old Wilmerdings," said Tommy Rathbone-Slater. "What a l=
ark!
The old girl's purple. She thinks heaps of that ass, Wilmerdings."
"Perhaps, Mr
Wilmerdings, you will favour us with that delicious Polonaise of
Chopin's," said Lady Hammergallow. Everybody else was hushed. The
indignation of Lady Hammergallow inspired much the same silence as a coming
earthquake or an eclipse. Mr Wilmerdings perceived he would be doing a real
social service to begin at once, and (be it entered to his credit now that =
his
account draws near its settlement) he did.
"If a man
pretend to practise an Art," said George Harringay, "he ought at
least to have the conscience to study the elements of it. What do you....&q=
uot;
"Oh! I think=
so
too," said the younger Miss Pirbright.
The Vicar felt th=
at
the heavens had fallen. He sat crumpled up in his chair, a shattered man. L=
ady
Hammergallow sat down next to him without appearing to see him. She was
breathing heavily, but her face was terribly calm. Everyone sat down. Was t=
he
Angel grossly ignorant or only grossly impertinent? The Angel was vaguely a=
ware
of some frightful offence, aware that in some mysterious way he had ceased =
to
be the centre of the gathering. He saw reproachful despair in the Vicar's e=
ye. He
drifted slowly towards the window in the recess and sat down on the little
octagonal Moorish stool by the side of Mrs Jehoram. And under the circumsta=
nces
he appreciated at more than its proper value Mrs Jehoram's kindly smile. He=
put
down the violin in the window seat.
Mrs Jehoram and the Angel (apart)--=
Mr
Wilmerdings playing.
"I have so
longed for a quiet word with you," said Mrs Jehoram in a low tone.
"To tell you how delightful I found your playing."
"I am glad it
pleased you," said the Angel.
"Pleased is
scarcely the word," said Mrs Jehoram. "I was moved--profoundly. T=
hese
others did not understand.... I was glad you did not play with him."
The Angel looked =
at
the mechanism called Wilmerdings, and felt glad too. (The Angelic conceptio=
n of
duets is a kind of conversation upon violins.) But he said nothing.
"I worship
music," said Mrs Jehoram. "I know nothing about it technically, b=
ut
there is something in it--a longing, a wish...."
The Angel stared =
at
her face. She met his eyes.
"You
understand," she said. "I see you understand." He was certai=
nly
a very nice boy, sentimentally precocious perhaps, and with deliciously liq=
uid
eyes.
There was an inte=
rval
of Chopin (Op. 40) played with immense precision.
Mrs Jehoram had a
sweet face still, in shadow, with the light falling round her golden hair, =
and
a curious theory flashed across the Angel's mind. The perceptible powder on=
ly
supported his view of something infinitely bright and lovable caught,
tarnished, coarsened, coated over.
"Do you,&quo=
t;
said the Angel in a low tone. "Are you ... separated from ... your
world?"
"As you
are?" whispered Mrs Jehoram.
"This is
so--cold," said the Angel. "So harsh!" He meant the whole wo=
rld.
"I feel it
too," said Mrs Jehoram, referring to Siddermorton Home.
"There are t=
hose
who cannot live without sympathy," she said after a sympathetic pause.
"And times when one feels alone in the world. Fighting a battle agains=
t it
all. Laughing, flirting, hiding the pain of it...."
"And
hoping," said the Angel with a wonderful glance.--"Yes."
Mrs Jehoram (who =
was
an epicure of flirtations) felt the Angel was more than redeeming the promi=
se
of his appearance. (Indisputably he worshipped her.) "Do you look for
sympathy?" she said. "Or have you found it?"
"I think,&qu=
ot;
said the Angel, very softly, leaning forward, "I think I have found
it."
Interval of Chopin
Op. 40. The very eldest Miss Papaver and Mrs Pirbright whispering. Lady
Hammergallow (glasses up) looking down the saloon with an unfriendly expres=
sion
at the Angel. Mrs Jehoram and the Angel exchanging deep and significant
glances.
"Her name,&q=
uot;
said the Angel (Mrs Jehoram made a movement) "is Delia. She is....&quo=
t;
"Delia!"
said Mrs Jehoram sharply, slowly realising a terrible misunderstanding. &qu=
ot;A
fanciful name.... Why!... No! Not that little housemaid at the
Vicarage--?..."
The Polonaise
terminated with a flourish. The Angel was quite surprised at the change in =
Mrs
Jehoram's expression.
"I never
did!" said Mrs Jehoram recovering. "To make me your confidant in =
an
intrigue with a servant. Really Mr Angel it's possible to be too
original...."
Then suddenly the=
ir
colloquy was interrupted.
XXXVI.<=
span
class=3DHeading1Char>
This section is (so far as my memory
goes) the shortest in the book.
But the enormity =
of
the offence necessitates the separation of this section from all other
sections.
The Vicar, you mu=
st
understand, had done his best to inculcate the recognised differentiae of a
gentleman. "Never allow a lady to carry anything," said the Vicar.
"Say, 'permit me' and relieve her." "Always stand until every
lady is seated." "Always rise and open a door for a lady...."
and so forth. (All men who have elder sisters know that code.)
And the Angel (who
had failed to relieve Lady Hammergallow of her teacup) danced forward with
astonishing dexterity (leaving Mrs Jehoram in the window seat) and with an
elegant "permit me" rescued the tea-tray from Lady Hammergallow's
pretty parlour-maid and vanished officiously in front of her. The Vicar ros=
e to
his feet with an inarticulate cry.
XXXVII.=
"He's drunk!" said Mr
Rathbone-Slater, breaking a terrific silence. "That's the matter with
him."
Mrs Jehoram laugh=
ed
hysterically.
The Vicar stood u=
p,
motionless, staring. "Oh! I forgot to explain servants to him!" s=
aid
the Vicar to himself in a swift outbreak of remorse. "I thought he did
understand servants."
"Really, Mr
Hilyer!" said Lady Hammergallow, evidently exercising enormous self-co=
ntrol
and speaking in panting spasms. "Really, Mr Hilyer!--Your genius is too
terrible. I must, I really must, ask you to take him home."
So to the dialogu=
e in
the corridor of alarmed maid-servant and well-meaning (but shockingly gauch=
e)
Angel--appears the Vicar, his botryoidal little face crimson, gaunt despair=
in
his eyes, and his necktie under his left ear.
"Come,"=
he
said--struggling with emotion. "Come away.... I.... I am disgraced for
ever."
And the Angel sta=
red
for a second at him and obeyed--meekly, perceiving himself in the presence =
of
unknown but evidently terrible forces.
And so began and
ended the Angel's social career.
In the informal
indignation meeting that followed, Lady Hammergallow took the (informal) ch=
air.
"I feel humiliated," she said. "The Vicar assured me he was =
an
exquisite player. I never imagined...."
"He was
drunk," said Mr Rathbone-Slater. "You could tell it from the way =
he
fumbled with his tea."
"Such a
fiasco!" said Mrs Mergle.
"The Vicar
assured me," said Lady Hammergallow. "'The man I have staying wit=
h me
is a musical genius,' he said. His very words."
"His ears mu=
st
be burning anyhow," said Tommy Rathbone-Slater.
"I was tryin=
g to
keep him Quiet," said Mrs Jehoram. "By humouring him. And do you =
know
the things he said to me--there!"
"The thing he
played," said Mr Wilmerdings,"--I must confess I did not like to
charge him to his face. But really! It was merely drifting."
"Just fooling
with a fiddle, eigh?" said George Harringay. "Well I thought it w=
as
beyond me. So much of your fine music is--"
"Oh,
George!" said the younger Miss Pirbright.
"The Vicar w=
as a
bit on too--to judge by his tie," said Mr Rathbone-Slater. "It's a
dashed rummy go. Did you notice how he fussed after the genius?"
"One has to =
be
so very careful," said the very eldest Miss Papaver.
"He told me =
he
is in love with the Vicar's housemaid!" said Mrs Jehoram. "I almo=
st
laughed in his face."
"The Vicar o=
ught
never to have brought him here," said Mrs Rathbone-Slater with decisio=
n.
XXXVIII. - THE TROUBLE OF=
THE
BARBED WIRE.
So, ingloriously, ended the Angel's=
first
and last appearance in Society. Vicar and Angel returned to the Vicarage;
crestfallen black figures in the bright sunlight, going dejectedly. The Ang=
el,
deeply pained that the Vicar was pained. The Vicar, dishevelled and despera=
te, intercalating
spasmodic remorse and apprehension with broken explanations of the Theory of
Etiquette. "They do not understand," said the Vicar over and over
again. "They will all be so very much aggrieved. I do not know what to=
say
to them. It is all so confused, so perplexing." And at the gate of the
Vicarage, at the very spot where Delia had first seemed beautiful, stood
Horrocks the village constable, awaiting them. He held coiled up about his =
hand
certain short lengths of barbed wire.
"Good evenin=
g,
Horrocks," said the Vicar as the constable held the gate open.
"Evenin',
Sir," said Horrocks, and added in a kind of mysterious undertone,
"Could I speak to you a minute, Sir?"
"Certainly,&=
quot;
said the Vicar. The Angel walked on thoughtfully to the house, and meeting
Delia in the hall stopped her and cross-examined her at length over differe=
nces
between Servants and Ladies.
"You'll excu=
se
my taking the liberty, Sir," said Horrocks, "but there's trouble
brewin' for that crippled gent you got stayin' here."
"Bless me!&q=
uot;
said the Vicar. "You don't say so!"
"Sir John Go=
tch,
Sir. He's very angry indeed, Sir. His language, Sir----. But I felt bound to
tell you, Sir. He's certain set on taking out a summons on account of that
there barbed wire. Certain set, Sir, he is."
"Sir John
Gotch!" said the Vicar. "Wire! I don't understand."
"He asked me=
to
find out who did it. Course I've had to do my duty, Sir. Naturally a
disagreeable one."
"Barbed wire!
Duty! I don't understand you, Horrocks."
"I'm afraid,
Sir, there's no denying the evidence. I've made careful enquiries, Sir.&quo=
t;
And forthwith the constable began telling the Vicar of a new and terrible
outrage committed by the Angelic visitor.
But we need not
follow that explanation in detail--or the subsequent confession. (For my own
part I think there is nothing more tedious than dialogue). It gave the Vica=
r a
new view of the Angelic character, a vignette of the Angelic indignation. A
shady lane, sun-mottled, sweet hedges full of honeysuckle and vetch on eith=
er
side, and a little girl gathering flowers, forgetful of the barbed wire whi=
ch,
all along the Sidderford Road, fenced in the dignity of Sir John Gotch from
"bounders" and the detested "million." Then suddenly a
gashed hand, a bitter outcry, and the Angel sympathetic, comforting,
inquisitive. Explanations sob-set, and then--altogether novel phenomenon in=
the
Angelic career--passion. A furious onslaught upon the barbed wire of Sir Jo=
hn Gotch,
barbed wire recklessly handled, slashed, bent and broken. Yet the Angel act=
ed
without personal malice--saw in the thing only an ugly and vicious plant th=
at
trailed insidiously among its fellows. Finally the Angel's explanations gave
the Vicar a picture of the Angel alone amidst his destruction, trembling and
amazed at the sudden force, not himself, that had sprung up within him, and=
set
him striking and cutting. Amazed, too, at the crimson blood that trickled d=
own
his fingers.
"It is still
more horrible," said the Angel when the Vicar explained the artificial
nature of the thing. "If I had seen the man who put this silly-cruel s=
tuff
there to hurt little children, I know I should have tried to inflict pain u=
pon
him. I have never felt like this before. I am indeed becoming tainted and
coloured altogether by the wickedness of this world."
"To think, t=
oo,
that you men should be so foolish as to uphold the laws that let a man do s=
uch
spiteful things. Yes--I know; you will say it has to be so. For some remoter
reason. That is a thing that only makes me angrier. Why cannot an act rest =
on
its own merits?... As it does in the Angelic Land."
That was the inci=
dent
the history of which the Vicar now gradually learnt, getting the bare outli=
ne
from Horrocks, the colour and emotion subsequently from the Angel. The thing
had happened the day before the musical festival at Siddermorton House.
"Have you to=
ld
Sir John who did it?" asked the Vicar. "And are you sure?"
"Quite sure,
Sir. There can be no doubting it was your gentleman, Sir. I've not told Sir
John yet, Sir. But I shall have to tell Sir John this evening. Meaning no
offence to you, Sir, as I hopes you'll see. It's my duty, Sir. Besides
which--"
"Of
course," said the Vicar, hastily. "Certainly it's your duty. And =
what
will Sir John do?"
"He's dreadf=
ul
set against the person who did it--destroying property like that--and sort =
of
slapping his arrangements in the face."
Pause. Horrocks m=
ade
a movement. The Vicar, tie almost at the back of his neck now, a most unusu=
al
thing for him, stared blankly at his toes.
"I thought I=
'd
tell you, Sir," said Horrocks.
"Yes," =
said
the Vicar. "Thanks, Horrocks, thanks!" He scratched the back of h=
is
head. "You might perhaps ... I think it's the best way ... Quite sure =
Mr
Angel did it?"
"Sherlock 'O=
mes,
Sir, couldn't be cocksurer."
"Then I'd be=
tter
give you a little note to the Squire."
XXXIX.<=
span
class=3DHeading1Char>
The Vicar's table-talk at dinner th=
at
night, after the Angel had stated his case, was full of grim explanations,
prisons, madness.
"It's too la=
te
to tell the truth about you now," said the Vicar. "Besides, that's
impossible. I really do not know what to say. We must face our circumstance=
s, I
suppose. I am so undecided--so torn. It's the two worlds. If your Angelic w=
orld
were only a dream, or if this world were only a dream--or if I could believe
either or both dreams, it would be all right with me. But here is a real An=
gel
and a real summons--how to reconcile them I do not know. I must talk to
Gotch.... But he won't understand. Nobody will understand...."
"I am putting
you to terrible inconvenience, I am afraid. My appalling unworldliness--&qu=
ot;
"It's not
you," said the Vicar. "It's not you. I perceive you have brought
something strange and beautiful into my life. It's not you. It's myself. If=
I
had more faith either way. If I could believe entirely in this world, and c=
all
you an Abnormal Phenomenon, as Crump does. But no. Terrestrial Angelic, Ang=
elic
Terrestrial.... See-Saw."
"Still, Gotc=
h is
certain to be disagreeable, most disagreeable. He always is. It puts me into
his hands. He is a bad moral influence, I know. Drinking. Gambling. Worse.
Still, one must render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's. =
And
he is against Disestablishment...."
Then the Vicar wo=
uld
revert to the social collapse of the afternoon. "You are so very
fundamental, you know," he said--several times.
The Angel went to=
his
own room puzzled but very depressed. Every day the world had frowned darker
upon him and his angelic ways. He could see how the trouble affected the Vi=
car,
yet he could not imagine how he could avert it. It was all so strange and
unreasonable. Twice again, too, he had been pelted out of the village.
He found the viol=
in
lying on his bed where he had laid it before dinner. And taking it up he be=
gan
to play to comfort himself. But now he played no delicious vision of the
Angelic Land. The iron of the world was entering into his soul. For a week =
now
he had known pain and rejection, suspicion and hatred; a strange new spirit=
of
revolt was growing up in his heart. He played a melody, still sweet and ten=
der
as those of the Angelic Land, but charged with a new note, the note of human
sorrow and effort, now swelling into something like defiance, dying now int=
o a
plaintive sadness. He played softly, playing to himself to comfort himself,=
but
the Vicar heard, and all his finite bothers were swallowed up in a hazy
melancholy, a melancholy that was quite remote from sorrow. And besides the
Vicar, the Angel had another hearer of whom neither Angel nor Vicar was
thinking.
She was only four or five yards awa=
y from
the Angel in the westward gable. The diamond-paned window of her little whi=
te
room was open. She knelt on her box of japanned tin, and rested her chin on=
her
hands, her elbows on the window-sill. The young moon hung over the pine tre=
es,
and its light, cool and colourless, lay softly upon the silent-sleeping wor=
ld.
Its light fell upon her white face, and discovered new depths in her dreami=
ng
eyes. Her soft lips fell apart and showed the little white teeth.
Delia was thinkin=
g, vaguely,
wonderfully, as girls will think. It was feeling rather than thinking; clou=
ds
of beautiful translucent emotion drove across the clear sky of her mind, ta=
king
shape that changed and vanished. She had all that wonderful emotional
tenderness, that subtle exquisite desire for self-sacrifice, which exists so
inexplicably in a girl's heart, exists it seems only to be presently trampl=
ed
under foot by the grim and gross humours of daily life, to be ploughed in a=
gain
roughly and remorselessly, as the farmer ploughs in the clover that has spr=
ung
up in the soil. She had been looking out at the tranquillity of the moonlig=
ht
long before the Angel began to play,--waiting; then suddenly the quiet,
motionless beauty of silver and shadow was suffused with tender music.
She did not move,=
but
her lips closed and her eyes grew even softer. She had been thinking before=
of
the strange glory that had suddenly flashed out about the stooping hunchback
when he spoke to her in the sunset; of that and of a dozen other glances, c=
hance
turns, even once the touching of her hand. That afternoon he had spoken to =
her,
asking strange questions. Now the music seemed to bring his very face before
her, his look of half curious solicitude, peering into her face, into her e=
yes,
into her and through her, deep down into her soul. He seemed now to be spea=
king
directly to her, telling her of his solitude and trouble. Oh! that regret, =
that
longing! For he was in trouble. And how could a servant-girl help him, this
soft-spoken gentleman who carried himself so kindly, who played so sweetly.=
The
music was so sweet and keen, it came so near to the thought of her heart, t=
hat
presently one hand tightened on the other, and the tears came streaming down
her face.
As Crump would te=
ll
you, people do not do that kind of thing unless there is something wrong wi=
th
the nervous system. But then, from the scientific point of view, being in l=
ove
is a pathological condition.
I am painfully aware of the objecti=
onable
nature of my story here. I have even thought of wilfully perverting the tru=
th
to propitiate the Lady Reader. But I could not. The story has been too much=
for
me. I do the thing with my eyes open. Delia must remain what she really was=
--a servant
girl. I know that to give a mere servant girl, or at least an English serva=
nt
girl, the refined feelings of a human being, to present her as speaking with
anything but an intolerable confusion of aspirates, places me outside the p=
ale
of respectable writers. Association with servants, even in thought, is
dangerous in these days. I can only plead (pleading vainly, I know), that D=
elia
was a very exceptional servant girl. Possibly, if one enquired, it might be
found that her parentage was upper middle-class--that she was made of the f=
iner
upper middle-class clay. And (this perhaps may avail me better) I will prom=
ise that
in some future work I will redress the balance, and the patient reader shall
have the recognised article, enormous feet and hands, systematic aspiration=
of
vowels and elimination of aspirates, no figure (only middle-class girls have
figures--the thing is beyond a servant-girl's means), a fringe (by agreemen=
t),
and a cheerful readiness to dispose of her self-respect for half-a-crown. T=
hat
is the accepted English servant, the typical English woman (when stripped of
money and accomplishments) as she appears in the works of contemporary writ=
ers.
But Delia somehow was different. I can only regret the circumstance--it was
altogether beyond my control.
Early the next morning the Angel we=
nt
down through the village, and climbing the fence, waded through the waist-h=
igh
reeds that fringe the Sidder. He was going to Bandram Bay to take a nearer =
view
of the sea, which one could just see on a clear day from the higher parts o=
f Siddermorton
Park. And suddenly he came upon Crump sitting on a log and smoking. (Crump
always smoked exactly two ounces per week--and he always smoked it in the o=
pen
air.)
"Hullo!"
said Crump, in his healthiest tone. "How's the wing?"
"Very
well," said the Angel. "The pain's gone."
"I suppose y=
ou
know you are trespassing?"
"Trespassing=
!"
said the Angel.
"I suppose y=
ou
don't know what that means," said Crump.
"I don't,&qu=
ot;
said the Angel.
"I must
congratulate you. I don't know how long you will last, but you are keeping =
it
up remarkably well. I thought at first you were a mattoid, but you're so
amazingly consistent. Your attitude of entire ignorance of the elementary f=
acts
of Life is really a very amusing pose. You make slips of course, but very f=
ew.
But surely we two understand one another."
He smiled at the
Angel. "You would beat Sherlock Holmes. I wonder who you really are.&q=
uot;
The Angel smiled
back, with eyebrows raised and hands extended. "It's impossible for yo=
u to
know who I am. Your eyes are blind, your ears deaf, your soul dark, to all =
that
is wonderful about me. It's no good my telling that I fell into your
world."
The Doctor waved =
his
pipe. "Not that, please. I don't want to pry if you have your reasons =
for
keeping quiet. Only I would like you to think of Hilyer's mental health. He
really believes this story."
The Angel shrugged
his dwindling wings.
"You did not
know him before this affair. He's changed tremendously. He used to be neat =
and
comfortable. For the last fortnight he's been hazy, with a far-away look in=
his
eyes. He preached last Sunday without his cuff links, and something wrong w=
ith
his tie, and he took for his text, 'Eye hath not seen nor ear heard.' He re=
ally
believes all this nonsense about the Angel-land. The man is verging on
monomania!"
"You will see
things from your own standpoint," said the Angel.
"Everyone mu=
st.
At any rate, I think it jolly regrettable to see this poor old fellow
hypnotized, as you certainly have hypnotized him. I don't know where you co=
me
from nor who you are, but I warn you I'm not going to see the old boy made a
fool of much longer."
"But he's not
being made a fool of. He's simply beginning to dream of a world outside his
knowledge----"
"It won't
do," said Crump. "I'm not one of the dupe class. You are either of
two things--a lunatic at large (which I don't believe), or a knave. Nothing
else is possible. I think I know a little of this world, whatever I do of
yours. Very well. If you don't leave Hilyer alone I shall communicate with =
the
police, and either clap you into a prison, if you go back on your story, or
into a madhouse if you don't. It's stretching a point, but I swear I'd cert=
ify
you insane to-morrow to get you out of the village. It's not only the Vicar=
. As
you know. I hope that's plain. Now what have you to say?"
With an affectati=
on
of great calm, the Doctor took out his penknife and began to dig the blade =
into
his pipe bowl. His pipe had gone out during this last speech.
For a moment neit=
her
spoke. The Angel looked about him with a face that grew pale. The Doctor
extracted a plug of tobacco from his pipe and flung it away, shut his penkn=
ife
and put it in his waistcoat pocket. He had not meant to speak quite so
emphatically, but speech always warmed him.
"Prison,&quo=
t;
said the Angel. "Madhouse! Let me see." Then he remembered the
Vicar's explanation. "Not that!" he said. He approached Crump wit=
h eyes
dilated and hands outstretched.
"I knew you
would know what those things meant--at any rate. Sit down," said Crump,
indicating the tree trunk beside him by a movement of the head.
The Angel, shiver=
ing,
sat down on the tree trunk and stared at the Doctor.
Crump was getting=
out
his pouch. "You are a strange man," said the Angel. "Your
beliefs are like--a steel trap."
"They are,&q=
uot;
said Crump--flattered.
"But I tell
you--I assure you the thing is so--I know nothing, or at least remember not=
hing
of anything I knew of this world before I found myself in the darkness of n=
ight
on the moorland above Sidderford."
"Where did y=
ou
learn the language then?"
"I don't kno=
w.
Only I tell you--But I haven't an atom of the sort of proof that would conv=
ince
you."
"And you
really," said Crump, suddenly coming round upon him and looking into h=
is
eyes; "You really believe you were eternally in a kind of glorious hea=
ven
before then?"
"I do,"
said the Angel.
"Pshaw!"
said Crump, and lit his pipe. He sat smoking, elbow on knee, for some time,=
and
the Angel sat and watched him. Then his face grew less troubled.
"It is just
possible," he said to himself rather than to the Angel, and began anot=
her
piece of silence.
"You see;&qu=
ot;
he said, when that was finished. "There is such a thing as double
personality.... A man sometimes forgets who he is and thinks he is someone
else. Leaves home, friends, and everything, and leads a double life. There =
was
a case in Nature only a month or so ago. The man was sometimes English and
right-handed, and sometimes Welsh and left-handed. When he was English he k=
new
no Welsh, when he was Welsh he knew no English.... H'm."
He turned suddenl=
y on
the Angel and said "Home!" He fancied he might revive in the Angel
some latent memory of his lost youth. He went on "Dadda, Pappa, Daddy,
Mammy, Pappy, Father, Dad, Governor, Old Boy, Mother, dear Mother, Ma,
Mumsy.... No good? What are you laughing at?"
"Nothing,&qu=
ot;
said the Angel. "You surprised me a little,--that is all. A week ago I
should have been puzzled by that vocabulary."
For a minute Crump
rebuked the Angel silently out of the corner of his eye.
"You have su=
ch
an ingenuous face. You almost force me to believe you. You are certainly no=
t an
ordinary lunatic. Your mind--except for your isolation from the past--seems
balanced enough. I wish Nordau or Lombroso or some of these Saltpetriere men
could have a look at you. Down here one gets no practice worth speaking abo=
ut
in mental cases. There's one idiot--and he's just a damned idiot of an idio=
t--;
all the rest are thoroughly sane people."
"Possibly th=
at
accounts for their behaviour," said the Angel thoughtfully.
"But to cons=
ider
your general position here," said Crump, ignoring his comment, "I
really regard you as a bad influence here. These fancies are contagious. It=
is
not simply the Vicar. There is a man named Shine has caught the fad, and he=
has
been in the drink for a week, off and on, and offering to fight anyone who =
says
you are not an Angel. Then a man over at Sidderford is, I hear, affected wi=
th a
kind of religious mania on the same tack. These things spread. There ought =
to
be a quarantine in mischievous ideas. And I have heard another story....&qu=
ot;
"But what ca=
n I
do?" said the Angel. "Suppose I am (quite unintentionally) doing
mischief...."
"You can lea=
ve
the village," said Crump.
"Then I shall
only go into another village."
"That's not =
my
affair," said Crump. "Go where you like. Only go. Leave these thr=
ee
people, the Vicar, Shine, the little servant girl, whose heads are all spin=
ning
with galaxies of Angels...."
"But," =
said
the Angel. "Face your world! I tell you I can't. And leave Delia! I do=
n't
understand.... I do not know how to set about getting Work and Food and
Shelter. And I am growing afraid of human beings...."
"Fancies,
fancies," said Crump, watching him, "mania."
"It's no goo=
d my
persisting in worrying you," he said suddenly, "but certainly the
situation is impossible as it stands." He stood up with a jerk.
"Good-mornin=
g,
Mr--Angel," he said, "the long and the short of it is--I say it as
the medical adviser of this parish--you are an unhealthy influence. We can't
have you. You must go."
He turned, and we=
nt
striding through the grass towards the roadway, leaving the Angel sitting
disconsolately on the tree trunk. "An unhealthy influence," said =
the
Angel slowly, staring blankly in front of him, and trying to realise what it
meant.
XLII. - SIR JOHN GOTCH AC=
TS.
Sir John Gotch was a little man with
scrubby hair, a small, thin nose sticking out of a face crackled with wrink=
les,
tight brown gaiters, and a riding whip. "I've come, you see," he
said, as Mrs Hinijer closed the door.
"Thank
you," said the Vicar, "I'm obliged to you. I'm really obliged to =
you."
"Glad to be =
of
any service to you," said Sir John Gotch. (Angular attitude.)
"This
business," said the Vicar, "this unfortunate business of the barb=
ed
wire--is really, you know, a most unfortunate business."
Sir John Gotch be=
came
decidedly more angular in his attitude. "It is," he said.
"This Mr Ang=
el
being my guest--"
"No reason w=
hy
he should cut my wire," said Sir John Gotch, briefly.
"None
whatever."
"May I ask w=
ho
this Mr Angel is?" asked Sir John Gotch with the abruptness of long
premeditation.
The Vicar's finge=
rs
jumped to his chin. What was the good of talking to a man like Sir John Got=
ch
about Angels?
"To tell you=
the
exact truth," said the Vicar, "there is a little secret--"
"Lady
Hammergallow told me as much."
The Vicar's face
suddenly became bright red.
"Do you
know," said Sir John, with scarcely a pause, "he's been going abo=
ut
this village preaching Socialism?"
"Good
heavens!" said the Vicar, "No!"
"He has. He =
has
been buttonholing every yokel he came across, and asking them why they had =
to
work, while we--I and you, you know--did nothing. He has been saying we oug=
ht
to educate every man up to your level and mine--out of the rates, I suppose=
, as
usual. He has been suggesting that we--I and you, you know--keep these peop=
le
down--pith 'em."
"Dear me!&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar, "I had no idea."
"He has done
this wire-cutting as a demonstration, I tell you, as a Socialistic
demonstration. If we don't come down on him pretty sharply, I tell you, we
shall have the palings down in Flinders Lane next, and the next thing will =
be
ricks afire, and every damned (I beg your pardon, Vicar. I know I'm too fon=
d of
that word), every blessed pheasant's egg in the parish smashed. I know
these--"
"A Socialist," said the Vicar, quite put out, "I had no idea."<= o:p>
"You see why=
I
am inclined to push matters against our gentleman though he is your guest. =
It
seems to me he has been taking advantage of your paternal--"
"Oh, not
paternal!" said the Vicar. "Really--"
"(I beg your
pardon, Vicar--it was a slip.) Of your kindness, to go mischief-making
everywhere, setting class against class, and the poor man against his bread=
and
butter."
The Vicar's finge=
rs
were at his chin again.
"So there's =
one
of two things," said Sir John Gotch. "Either that Guest of yours
leaves the parish, or--I take proceedings. That's final."
The Vicar's mouth=
was
all askew.
"That's the
position," said Sir John, jumping to his feet, "if it were not for
you, I should take proceedings at once. As it is--am I to take proceedings =
or no?"
"You see,&qu=
ot;
said the Vicar in horrible perplexity.
"Well?"=
"Arrangements
have to be made."
"He's a
mischief-making idler.... I know the breed. But I'll give you a week----&qu=
ot;
"Thank
you," said the Vicar. "I understand your position. I perceive the=
situation
is getting intolerable...."
"Sorry to gi=
ve
you this bother, of course," said Sir John.
"A week,&quo=
t;
said the Vicar.
"A week,&quo=
t;
said Sir John, leaving.
The Vicar returned, after accompany=
ing
Gotch out, and for a long time he remained sitting before the desk in his
study, plunged in thought. "A week!" he said, after an immense
silence. "Here is an Angel, a glorious Angel, who has quickened my sou=
l to
beauty and delight, who has opened my eyes to Wonderland, and something more
than Wonderland, ... and I have promised to get rid of him in a week! What =
are
we men made of?... How can I tell him?"
He began to walk =
up
and down the room, then he went into the dining-room, and stood staring bla=
nkly
out at the cornfield. The table was already laid for lunch. Presently he
turned, still dreaming, and almost mechanically helped himself to a glass of
sherry.
XLIII. - THE SEA
CLIFF.
The Angel lay upon the summit of the
cliff above Bandram Bay, and stared out at the glittering sea. Sheer from u=
nder
his elbows fell the cliff, five hundred and seven feet of it down to the da=
tum
line, and the sea-birds eddied and soared below him. The upper part of the
cliff was a greenish chalky rock, the lower two-thirds a warm red, marbled =
with
gypsum bands, and from half-a-dozen places spurted jets of water, to fall in
long cascades down its face. The swell frothed white on the flinty beach, a=
nd
the water beyond where the shadows of an outstanding rock lay, was green and
purple in a thousand tints and marked with streaks and flakes of foam. The =
air
was full of sunlight and the tinkling of the little waterfalls and the slow
soughing of the seas below. Now and then a butterfly flickered over the fac=
e of
the cliff, and a multitude of sea birds perched and flew hither and thither=
.
The Angel lay with
his crippled, shrivelled wings humped upon his back, watching the gulls and
jackdaws and rooks, circling in the sunlight, soaring, eddying, sweeping do=
wn
to the water or upward into the dazzling blue of the sky. Long the Angel lay
there and watched them going to and fro on outspread wings. He watched, and=
as
he watched them he remembered with infinite longing the rivers of starlight=
and
the sweetness of the land from which he came. And a gull came gliding overh=
ead,
swiftly and easily, with its broad wings spreading white and fair against t=
he
blue. And suddenly a shadow came into the Angel's eyes, the sunlight left t=
hem,
he thought of his own crippled pinions, and put his face upon his arm and w=
ept.
A woman who was
walking along the footpath across the Cliff Field saw only a twisted hunchb=
ack
dressed in the Vicar of Siddermorton's cast-off clothes, sprawling foolishl=
y at
the edge of the cliff and with his forehead on his arm. She looked at him a=
nd
looked again. "The silly creature has gone to sleep," she said, a=
nd
though she had a heavy basket to carry, came towards him with an idea of wa=
king
him up. But as she drew near she saw his shoulders heave and heard the soun=
d of
his sobbing.
She stood still a
minute, and her features twitched into a kind of grin. Then treading softly=
she
turned and went back towards the pathway. "'Tis so hard to think of
anything to say," she said. "Poor afflicted soul!"
Presently the Ang=
el
ceased sobbing, and stared with a tear-stained face at the beach below him.=
"This
world," he said, "wraps me round and swallows me up. My wings gro=
w shrivelled
and useless. Soon I shall be nothing more than a crippled man, and I shall =
age,
and bow myself to pain, and die.... I am miserable. And I am alone."
Then he rested hi=
s chin
on his hands upon the edge of the cliff, and began to think of Delia's face
with the light in her eyes. The Angel felt a curious desire to go to her and
tell her of his withered wings. To place his arms about her and weep for the
land he had lost. "Delia!" he said to himself very softly. And
presently a cloud drove in front of the sun.
Mrs Hinijer surprised the Vicar by
tapping at his study door after tea. "Begging your pardon, Sir," =
said
Mrs Hinijer. "But might I make so bold as to speak to you for a
moment?"
"Certainly, =
Mrs
Hinijer," said the Vicar, little dreaming of the blow that was coming.=
He
held a letter in his hand, a very strange and disagreeable letter from his
bishop, a letter that irritated and distressed him, criticising in the
strongest language the guests he chose to entertain in his own house. Only a
popular bishop living in a democratic age, a bishop who was still half a
pedagogue, could have written such a letter.
Mrs Hinijer cough=
ed
behind her hand and struggled with some respiratory disorganisation. The Vi=
car
felt apprehensive. Usually in their interviews he was the most disconcerted.
Invariably so when the interview ended.
"Well?"=
he
said.
"May I make =
so
bold, sir, as to arst when Mr Angel is a-going?" (Cough.)
The Vicar started.
"To ask when Mr Angel is going?" he repeated slowly to gain time.
"Another!"
"I'm sorry, =
sir.
But I've been used to waitin' on gentlefolks, sir; and you'd hardly imagine=
how
it feels quite to wait on such as 'im."
"Such as ... 'im! Do I understand you, Mrs Hinijer, that you don't like Mr Angel?"<= o:p>
"You see, si=
r,
before I came to you, sir, I was at Lord Dundoller's seventeen years, and y=
ou,
sir--if you will excuse me--are a perfect gentleman yourself, sir--though in
the Church. And then...."
"Dear,
dear!" said the Vicar. "And don't you regard Mr Angel as a gentle=
man?"
"I'm sorry to
'ave to say it, sir."
"But what...?
Dear me! Surely!"
"I'm sorry to
'ave to say it, sir. But when a party goes turning vegetarian suddenly and =
putting
out all the cooking, and hasn't no proper luggage of his own, and borry's
shirts and socks from his 'ost, and don't know no better than to try his kn=
ife
at peas (as I seed my very self), and goes talking in odd corners to the
housemaids, and folds up his napkin after meals, and eats with his fingers =
at
minced veal, and plays the fiddle in the middle of the night keeping everyb=
ody
awake, and stares and grins at his elders a-getting upstairs, and generally=
misconducts
himself with things that I can scarcely tell you all, one can't help thinki=
ng,
sir. Thought is free, sir, and one can't help coming to one's own conclusio=
ns.
Besides which, there is talk all over the village about him--what with one
thing and another. I know a gentleman when I sees a gentleman, and I know a
gentleman when I don't see a gentleman, and me, and Susan, and George, we've
talked it over, being the upper servants, so to speak, and experienced, and
leaving out that girl Delia, who I only hope won't come to any harm through
him, and depend upon it, sir, that Mr Angel ain't what you think he is, sir,
and the sooner he leaves this house the better."
Mrs Hinijer ceased
abruptly and stood panting but stern, and with her eyes grimly fixed on the
Vicar's face.
"Really, Mrs
Hinijer!" said the Vicar, and then, "Oh Lord!"
"What have I
done?" said the Vicar, suddenly starting up and appealing to the
inexorable fates. "What HAVE I done?"
"There's no
knowing," said Mrs Hinijer. "Though a deal of talk in the village=
."
"Bother!&quo=
t;
said the Vicar, going and staring out of the window. Then he turned. "=
Look
here, Mrs Hinijer! Mr Angel will be leaving this house in the course of a w=
eek.
Is that enough?"
"Quite,"
said Mrs Hinijer. "And I feel sure, sir...."
The Vicar's eyes =
fell
with unwonted eloquence upon the door.
XLV. - THE ANGEL IN TROUB=
LE.
"The fact is," said the V=
icar,
"this is no world for Angels."
The blinds had not
been drawn, and the twilight outer world under an overcast sky seemed
unspeakably grey and cold. The Angel sat at table in dejected silence. His
inevitable departure had been proclaimed. Since his presence hurt people and
made the Vicar wretched he acquiesced in the justice of the decision, but w=
hat
would happen to him after his plunge he could not imagine. Something very d=
isagreeable
certainly.
"There is the
violin," said the Vicar. "Only after our experience----"
"I must get =
you
clothes--a general outfit.---- Dear me! you don't understand railway
travelling! And coinage! Taking lodgings! Eating-houses!---- I must come up=
at
least and see you settled. Get work for you. But an Angel in London! Working
for his living! That grey cold wilderness of people! What will become of
you?---- If I had one friend in the world I could trust to believe me!"=
;
"I ought not=
to
be sending you away----"
"Do not trou=
ble
overmuch for me, my friend," said the Angel. "At least this life =
of
yours ends. And there are things in it. There is something in this life of
yours---- Your care for me! I thought there was nothing beautiful at all in
life----"
"And I have
betrayed you!" said the Vicar, with a sudden wave of remorse. "Why
did I not face them all--say, 'This is the best of life'? What do these
everyday things matter?"
He stopped sudden=
ly.
"What do they matter?" he said.
"I have only
come into your life to trouble it," said the Angel.
"Don't say
that," said the Vicar. "You have come into my life to awaken me. I
have been dreaming--dreaming. Dreaming this was necessary and that. Dreaming
that this narrow prison was the world. And the dream still hangs about me a=
nd
troubles me. That is all. Even your departure----. Am I not dreaming that y=
ou
must go?"
When he was in bed
that night the mystical aspect of the case came still more forcibly before =
the
Vicar. He lay awake and had the most horrible visions of his sweet and deli=
cate
visitor drifting through this unsympathetic world and happening upon the
cruellest misadventures. His guest was an Angel assuredly. He tried to go o=
ver
the whole story of the past eight days again. He thought of the hot afterno=
on,
the shot fired out of sheer surprise, the fluttering iridescent wings, the =
beautiful
saffron-robed figure upon the ground. How wonderful that had seemed to him!
Then his mind turned to the things he had heard of the other world, to the
dreams the violin had conjured up, to the vague, fluctuating, wonderful cit=
ies
of the Angelic Land. He tried to recall the forms of the buildings, the sha=
pes
of the fruits upon the trees, the aspect of the winged shapes that traversed
its ways. They grew from a memory into a present reality, grew every moment
just a little more vivid and his troubles a little less immediate; and so,
softly and quietly, the Vicar slipped out of his troubles and perplexities =
into
the Land of Dreams.
Delia sat with her window open, hop=
ing to
hear the Angel play. But that night there was to be no playing. The sky was
overcast, yet not so thickly but that the moon was visible. High up a broken
cloud-lace drove across the sky, and now the moon was a hazy patch of light,
and now it was darkened, and now rode clear and bright and sharply outlined
against the blue gulf of night. And presently she heard the door into the
garden opening, and a figure came out under the drifting pallor of the moon=
light.
It was the Angel.=
But
he wore once more the saffron robe in the place of his formless overcoat. In
the uncertain light this garment had only a colourless shimmer, and his win=
gs
behind him seemed a leaden grey. He began taking short runs, flapping his w=
ings
and leaping, going to and fro amidst the drifting patches of light and the
shadows of the trees. Delia watched him in amazement. He gave a despondent =
cry,
leaping higher. His shrivelled wings flashed and fell. A thicker patch in t=
he cloud-film
made everything obscure. He seemed to spring five or six feet from the grou=
nd
and fall clumsily. She saw him in the dimness crouching on the ground and t=
hen
she heard him sobbing.
"He's
hurt!" said Delia, pressing her lips together hard and staring. "=
I ought
to help him."
She hesitated, th=
en
stood up and flitted swiftly towards the door, went slipping quietly downst=
airs
and out into the moonlight. The Angel still lay upon the lawn, and sobbed f=
or
utter wretchedness.
"Oh! what is= the matter?" said Delia, stooping over him and touching his head timidly.<= o:p>
The Angel ceased
sobbing, sat up abruptly, and stared at her. He saw her face, moonlit, and =
soft
with pity. "What is the matter?" she whispered. "Are you
hurt?"
The Angel stared
about him, and his eyes came to rest on her face. "Delia!" he
whispered.
"Are you
hurt?" said Delia.
"My wings,&q=
uot;
said the Angel. "I cannot use my wings."
Delia did not
understand, but she realised that it was something very dreadful. "It =
is
dark, it is cold," whispered the Angel; "I cannot use my wings.&q=
uot;
It hurt her unacc=
ountably
to see the tears on his face. She did not know what to do.
"Pity me,
Delia," said the Angel, suddenly extending his arms towards her;
"pity me."
Impulsively she k=
nelt
down and took his face between her hands. "I do not know," she sa=
id;
"but I am sorry. I am sorry for you, with all my heart."
The Angel said no=
t a
word. He was looking at her little face in the bright moonlight, with an
expression of uncomprehending wonder in his eyes. "This strange
world!" he said.
She suddenly with=
drew
her hands. A cloud drove over the moon. "What can I do to help you?&qu=
ot;
she whispered. "I would do anything to help you."
He still held her=
at
arm's length, perplexity replacing misery in his face. "This strange
world!" he repeated.
Both whispered, s=
he
kneeling, he sitting, in the fluctuating moonlight and darkness of the lawn=
.
"Delia!" said Mrs Hinijer,
suddenly projecting from her window; "Delia, is that you?"
They both looked =
up
at her in consternation.
"Come in at
once, Delia," said Mrs Hinijer. "If that Mr Angel was a gentleman
(which he isn't), he'd feel ashamed of hisself. And you an orphan too!"=
;
XLVII. - THE LAST DAY OF =
THE
VISIT.
On the morning of the next day the =
Angel,
after he had breakfasted, went out towards the moor, and Mrs Hinijer had an
interview with the Vicar. What happened need not concern us now. The Vicar =
was
visibly disconcerted. "He must go," he said; "certainly he m=
ust
go," and straightway he forgot the particular accusation in the general
trouble. He spent the morning in hazy meditation, interspersed by a spasmod=
ic study
of Skiff and Waterlow's price list, and the catalogue of the Medical,
Scholastic, and Clerical Stores. A schedule grew slowly on a sheet of paper
that lay on the desk before him. He cut out a self-measurement form from the
tailoring department of the Stores and pinned it to the study curtains. This
was the kind of document he was making:
"1 Black Mel=
ton
Frock Coat, patts? £3, 10s.
"? Trousers.=
2
pairs or one.
"1 Cheviot T=
weed
Suit (write for patterns. Self-meas.?)"
The Vicar spent s=
ome
time studying a pleasing array of model gentlemen. They were all very
nice-looking, but he found it hard to imagine the Angel so transfigured. Fo=
r,
although six days had passed, the Angel remained without any suit of his ow=
n.
The Vicar had vacillated between a project of driving the Angel into
Portbroddock and getting him measured for a suit, and his absolute horror of
the insinuating manners of the tailor he employed. He knew that tailor would
demand an exhaustive explanation. Besides which, one never knew when the An=
gel
might leave. So the six days had passed, and the Angel had grown steadily in
the wisdom of this world and shrouded his brightness still in the ample ret=
irement
of the Vicar's newest clothes.
"1 Soft Felt
Hat, No. G. 7 (say), 8s 6d.
"1 Silk Hat,=
14s
6d. Hatbox?"
("I suppose =
he
ought to have a silk hat," said the Vicar; "it's the correct thin=
g up
there. Shape No. 3 seems best suited to his style. But it's dreadful to thi=
nk
of him all alone in that great city. Everyone will misunderstand him, and he
will misunderstand everybody. However, I suppose it must be. Where was
I?)"
"1 Toothbrus=
h. 1
Brush and Comb. Razor?
"½ do=
z.
Shirts (? measure his neck), 6s ea.
"Socks? Pant=
s?
"2 suits
Pyjamas. Price? Say 15s.
"1 doz. Coll=
ars
('The Life Guardsman'), 8s.
"Braces. Oxon
Patent Versatile, 1s 11½d."
("But how wi=
ll
he get them on?" said the Vicar.)
"1 Rubber St=
amp,
T. Angel, and Marking Ink in box complete, 9d.
("Those
washerwomen are certain to steal all his things.")
"1 Single-bl=
aded
Penknife with Corkscrew, say 1s 6d.
"N.B.--Don't
forget Cuff Links, Collar Stud, &c." (The Vicar loved "&c=
.",
it gave things such a precise and business-like air.)
"1 Leather
Portmanteau (had better see these)."
And so
forth--meanderingly. It kept the Vicar busy until lunch time, though his he=
art
ached.
The Angel did not
return to lunch. This was not so very remarkable--once before he had missed=
the
midday meal. Yet, considering how short was the time they would have togeth=
er
now, he might perhaps have come back. Doubtless he had excellent reasons,
though, for his absence. The Vicar made an indifferent lunch. In the aftern=
oon
he rested in his usual manner, and did a little more to the list of
requirements. He did not begin to feel nervous about the Angel till tea-tim=
e.
He waited, perhaps, half an hour before he took tea. "Odd," said =
the
Vicar, feeling still more lonely as he drank his tea.
As the time for
dinner crept on and no Angel appeared the Vicar's imagination began to trou=
ble
him. "He will come in to dinner, surely," said the Vicar, caressi=
ng
his chin, and beginning to fret about the house upon inconsiderable errands=
, as
his habit was when anything occurred to break his routine. The sun set, a
gorgeous spectacle, amidst tumbled masses of purple cloud. The gold and red
faded into twilight; the evening star gathered her robe of light together f=
rom
out the brightness of the sky in the West. Breaking the silence of evening =
that
crept over the outer world, a corncrake began his whirring chant. The Vicar=
's
face grew troubled; twice he went and stared at the darkening hillside, and
then fretted back to the house again. Mrs Hinijer served dinner. "Your
dinner's ready," she announced for the second time, with a reproachful
intonation. "Yes, yes," said the Vicar, fussing off upstairs.
He came down and =
went
into his study and lit his reading lamp, a patent affair with an incandesce=
nt
wick, dropping the match into his waste-paper basket without stopping to se=
e if
it was extinguished. Then he fretted into the dining-room and began a desul=
tory
attack on the cooling dinner....
(Dear Reader, the
time is almost ripe to say farewell to this little Vicar of ours.)
XLVIII.=
Sir John Gotch (still smarting over=
the
business of the barbed wire) was riding along one of the grassy ways through
the preserves by the Sidder, when he saw, strolling slowly through the trees
beyond the undergrowth, the one particular human being he did not want to s=
ee.
"I'm
damned," said Sir John Gotch, with immense emphasis; "if this isn=
't altogether
too much."
He raised himself=
in
the stirrups. "Hi!" he shouted. "You there!"
The Angel turned
smiling.
"Get out of =
this
wood!" said Sir John Gotch.
"Why?" =
said
the Angel.
"I'm
------," said Sir John Gotch, meditating some cataclysmal expletive. B=
ut
he could think of nothing more than "damned." "Get out of th=
is
wood," he said.
The Angel's smile
vanished. "Why should I get out of this wood?" he said, and stood
still.
Neither spoke for=
a
full half minute perhaps, and then Sir John Gotch dropped out of his saddle=
and
stood by the horse.
(Now you must
remember--lest the Angelic Hosts be discredited hereby--that this Angel had
been breathing the poisonous air of this Struggle for Existence of ours for
more than a week. It was not only his wings and the brightness of his face =
that
suffered. He had eaten and slept and learnt the lesson of pain--had travell=
ed
so far on the road to humanity. All the length of his Visit he had been mee=
ting
more and more of the harshness and conflict of this world, and losing touch
with the glorious altitudes of his own.)
"You won't g=
o,
eigh!" said Gotch, and began to lead his horse through the bushes towa=
rds
the Angel. The Angel stood, all his muscles tight and his nerves quivering,
watching his antagonist approach.
"Get out of =
this
wood," said Gotch, stopping three yards away, his face white with rage,
his bridle in one hand and his riding whip in the other.
Strange floods of
emotion were running through the Angel. "Who are you," he said, i=
n a
low quivering voice; "who am I--that you should order me out of this
place? What has the World done that men like you...."
"You're the =
fool
who cut my barbed wire," said Gotch, threatening, "If you want to
know!"
"Your barbed
wire," said the Angel. "Was that your barbed wire? Are you the man
who put down that barbed wire? What right have you...."
"Don't you go
talking Socialist rot," said Gotch in short gasps. "This wood's m=
ine,
and I've a right to protect it how I can. I know your kind of muck. Talking=
rot
and stirring up discontent. And if you don't get out of it jolly
sharp...."
"Well!"
said the Angel, a brimming reservoir of unaccountable energy.
"Get out of =
this
damned wood!" said Gotch, flashing into the bully out of sheer alarm at
the light in the Angel's face.
He made one step
towards him, with the whip raised, and then something happened that neither=
he
nor the Angel properly understood. The Angel seemed to leap into the air, a
pair of grey wings flashed out at the Squire, he saw a face bearing down up=
on
him, full of the wild beauty of passionate anger. His riding whip was torn =
out
of his hand. His horse reared behind him, pulled him over, gained his bridle
and fled.
The whip cut acro=
ss
his face as he fell back, stung across his face again as he sat on the grou=
nd.
He saw the Angel, radiant with anger, in the act to strike again. Gotch flu=
ng
up his hands, pitched himself forward to save his eyes, and rolled on the
ground under the pitiless fury of the blows that rained down upon him.
"You
brute," cried the Angel, striking wherever he saw flesh to feel. "=
;You
bestial thing of pride and lies! You who have overshadowed the souls of oth=
er
men. You shallow fool with your horses and dogs! To lift your face against =
any
living thing! Learn! Learn! Learn!"
Gotch began screa=
ming
for help. Twice he tried to clamber to his feet, got to his knees, and went
headlong again under the ferocious anger of the Angel. Presently he made a
strange noise in his throat, and ceased even to writhe under his punishment=
.
Then suddenly the
Angel awakened from his wrath, and found himself standing, panting and
trembling, one foot on a motionless figure, under the green stillness of the
sunlit woods.
He stared about h=
im,
then down at his feet where, among the tangled dead leaves, the hair was ma=
tted
with blood. The whip dropped from his hands, the hot colour fled from his f=
ace.
"Pain!" he said. "Why does he lie so still?"
He took his foot =
off
Gotch's shoulder, bent down towards the prostrate figure, stood listening,
knelt--shook him. "Awake!" said the Angel. Then still more softly,
"Awake!"
He remained liste=
ning
some minutes or more, stood up sharply, and looked round him at the silent
trees. A feeling of profound horror descended upon him, wrapped him round
about. With an abrupt gesture he turned. "What has happened to me?&quo=
t;
he said, in an awe-stricken whisper.
He started back f=
rom
the motionless figure. "Dead!" he said suddenly, and turning, pan=
ic
stricken, fled headlong through the wood.
It was some minutes after the foots=
teps
of the Angel had died away in the distance that Gotch raised himself on his
hand. "By Jove!" he said. "Crump's right."
"Cut at the
head, too!"
He put his hand to
his face and felt the two weals running across it, hot and fat. "I'll
think twice before I lift my hand against a lunatic again," said Sir J=
ohn
Gotch.
"He may be a
person of weak intellect, but I'm damned if he hasn't a pretty strong arm.
Phew! He's cut a bit clean off the top of my ear with that infernal lash.&q=
uot;
"That infern=
al
horse will go galloping to the house in the approved dramatic style. Little
Madam'll be scared out of her wits. And I ... I shall have to explain how it
all happened. While she vivisects me with questions.
"I'm a jolly
good mind to have spring guns and man-traps put in this preserve. Confound =
the
Law!"
L.
But the Angel, thinking that Gotch =
was
dead, went wandering off in a passion of remorse and fear through the brakes
and copses along the Sidder. You can scarcely imagine how appalled he was at
this last and overwhelming proof of his encroaching humanity. All the darkn=
ess,
passion and pain of life seemed closing in upon him, inexorably, becoming p=
art
of him, chaining him to all that a week ago he had found strange and pitifu=
l in
men.
"Truly, this=
is
no world for an Angel!" said the Angel. "It is a World of War, a
World of Pain, a World of Death. Anger comes upon one ... I who knew not pa=
in
and anger, stand here with blood stains on my hands. I have fallen. To come
into this world is to fall. One must hunger and thirst and be tormented wit=
h a
thousand desires. One must fight for foothold, be angry and strike----"=
;
He lifted up his
hands to Heaven, the ultimate bitterness of helpless remorse in his face, a=
nd
then flung them down with a gesture of despair. The prison walls of this na=
rrow
passionate life seemed creeping in upon him, certainly and steadily, to cru=
sh
him presently altogether. He felt what all we poor mortals have to feel soo=
ner
or later--the pitiless force of the Things that Must Be, not only without us
but (where the real trouble lies) within, all the inevitable tormenting of
one's high resolves, those inevitable seasons when the better self is
forgotten. But with us it is a gentle descent, made by imperceptible degrees
over a long space of years; with him it was the horrible discovery of one s=
hort
week. He felt he was being crippled, caked over, blinded, stupefied in the
wrappings of this life, he felt as a man might feel who has taken some horr=
ible
poison, and feels destruction spreading within him.
He took no accoun=
t of
hunger or fatigue or the flight of time. On and on he went, avoiding houses=
and
roads, turning away from the sight and sound of a human being in a wordless
desperate argument with Fate. His thoughts did not flow but stood banked ba=
ck
in inarticulate remonstrance against his degradation. Chance directed his
footsteps homeward and, at last, after nightfall, he found himself faint and
weary and wretched, stumbling along over the moor at the back of Siddermort=
on. He
heard the rats run and squeal in the heather, and once a noiseless big bird
came out of the darkness, passed, and vanished again. And he saw without
noticing it a dull red glow in the sky before him.
LI.
But when he came over the brow of t=
he
moor, a vivid light sprang up before him and refused to be ignored. He came=
on
down the hill and speedily saw more distinctly what the glare was. It came =
from
darting and trembling tongues of fire, golden and red, that shot from the w=
indows
and a hole in the roof of the Vicarage. A cluster of black heads, all the
village in fact, except the fire-brigade--who were down at Aylmer's Cottage
trying to find the key of the machine-house--came out in silhouette against=
the
blaze. There was a roaring sound, and a humming of voices, and presently a
furious outcry. There was a shouting of "No! No!"--"Come
back!" and an inarticulate roar.
He began to run
towards the burning house. He stumbled and almost fell, but he ran on. He f=
ound
black figures running about him. The flaring fire blew gustily this way and=
that,
and he smelt the smell of burning.
"She went
in," said one voice, "she went in."
"The mad
girl!" said another.
"Stand back!
Stand back!" cried others.
He found himself
thrusting through an excited, swaying crowd, all staring at the flames, and=
with
the red reflection in their eyes.
"Stand
back!" said a labourer, clutching him.
"What is
it?" said the Angel. "What does this mean?"
"There's a g=
irl
in the house, and she can't get out!"
"Went in aft=
er a
fiddle," said another.
"'Tas
hopeless," he heard someone else say.
"I was stand=
ing
near her. I heerd her. Says she: 'I can get his fiddle.' I heerd her--Just =
like
that! 'I can get his fiddle.'"
For a moment the
Angel stood staring. Then in a flash he saw it all, saw this grim little wo=
rld
of battle and cruelty, transfigured in a splendour that outshone the Angelic
Land, suffused suddenly and insupportably glorious with the wonderful light=
of
Love and Self-Sacrifice. He gave a strange cry, and before anyone could sto=
p him,
was running towards the burning building. There were cries of "The Hun=
chback!
The Fowener!"
The Vicar, whose
scalded hand was being tied up, turned his head, and he and Crump saw the
Angel, a black outline against the intense, red glare of the doorway. It was
the sensation of the tenth of a second, yet both men could not have remembe=
red
that transitory attitude more vividly had it been a picture they had studied
for hours together. Then the Angel was hidden by something massive (no one =
knew
what) that fell, incandescent, across the doorway.
LII.
There was a cry of "Delia"=
; and
no more. But suddenly the flames spurted out in a blinding glare that shot
upward to an immense height, a blinding brilliance broken by a thousand
flickering gleams like the waving of swords. And a gust of sparks, flashing=
in
a thousand colours, whirled up and vanished. Just then, and for a moment by
some strange accident, a rush of music, like the swell of an organ, wove in=
to
the roaring of the flames.
The whole village
standing in black knots heard the sound, except Gaffer Siddons who is
deaf--strange and beautiful it was, and then gone again. Lumpy Durgan, the
idiot boy from Sidderford, said it began and ended like the opening and
shutting of a door.
But little Hetty
Penzance had a pretty fancy of two figures with wings, that flashed up and
vanished among the flames.
(And after that it
was she began to pine for the things she saw in her dreams, and was abstrac=
ted
and strange. It grieved her mother sorely at the time. She grew fragile, as
though she was fading out of the world, and her eyes had a strange, far-away
look. She talked of angels and rainbow colours and golden wings, and was for
ever singing an unmeaning fragment of an air that nobody knew. Until Crump =
took
her in hand and cured her with fattening dietary, syrup of hypophosphites a=
nd
cod liver oil.)
And there the story of the Wonderful
Visit ends. The Epilogue is in the mouth of Mrs Mendham. There stand two li=
ttle
white crosses in the Siddermorton churchyard, near together, where the bram=
bles
come clambering over the stone wall. One is inscribed Thomas Angel and the =
other
Delia Hardy, and the dates of the deaths are the same. Really there is noth=
ing
beneath them but the ashes of the Vicar's stuffed ostrich. (You will rememb=
er
the Vicar had his ornithological side.) I noticed them when Mrs Mendham was
showing me the new De la Beche monument. (Mendham has been Vicar since Hily=
er
died.) "The granite came from somewhere in Scotland," said Mrs
Mendham, "and cost ever so much--I forget how much--but a wonderful lo=
t!
It's quite the talk of the village."
"Mother,&quo=
t;
said Cissie Mendham, "you are stepping on a grave."
"Dear me!&qu=
ot;
said Mrs Mendham, "How heedless of me! And the cripple's grave too. But
really you've no idea how much this monument cost them."
"These two
people, by the bye," said Mrs Mendham, "were killed when the old
Vicarage was burnt. It's rather a strange story. He was a curious person, a
hunchbacked fiddler, who came from nobody knows where, and imposed upon the
late Vicar to a frightful extent. He played in a pretentious way by ear, an=
d we
found out afterwards that he did not know a note of music--not a note. He w=
as
exposed before quite a lot of people. Among other things, he seems to have =
been
'carrying on,' as people say, with one of the servants, a sly little drab..=
..
But Mendham had better tell you all about it. The man was half-witted and
curiously deformed. It's strange the fancies girls have."
She looked sharpl=
y at
Cissie, and Cissie blushed to the eyes.
"She was lef=
t in
the house and he rushed into the flames in an attempt to save her. Quite
romantic--isn't it? He was rather clever with the fiddle in his uneducated =
way.
"All the poor
Vicar's stuffed skins were burned at the same time. It was almost all he ca=
red
for. He never really got over the blow. He came to stop with us--for there
wasn't another house available in the village. But he never seemed happy. He
seemed all shaken. I never saw a man so changed. I tried to stir him up, bu=
t it
was no good--no good at all. He had the queerest delusions about angels and
that kind of thing. It made him odd company at times. He would say he heard
music, and stare quite stupidly at nothing for hours together. He got quite
careless about his dress.... He died within a twelvemonth of the fire."=
;
THE END.