The Wonderful Visit Read online

  "Really, Mr Hilyer!" said Lady Hammergallow, evidently exercisingenormous self-control and speaking in panting spasms. "Really, MrHilyer!--Your genius is _too_ terrible. I must, I really _must_, ask youto take him home."

  So to the dialogue in the corridor of alarmed maid-servant andwell-meaning (but shockingly _gauche_) Angel--appears the Vicar, hisbotryoidal little face crimson, gaunt despair in his eyes, and hisnecktie under his left ear.

  "Come," he said--struggling with emotion. "Come away.... I.... I amdisgraced for ever."

  And the Angel stared for a second at him and obeyed--meekly, perceivinghimself 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 Hammergallowtook the (informal) chair. "I feel humiliated," she said. "The Vicarassured me he was an exquisite player. I never imagined...."

  "He was drunk," said Mr Rathbone-Slater. "You could tell it from the wayhe fumbled with his tea."

  "Such a _fiasco_!" said Mrs Mergle.

  "The Vicar assured me," said Lady Hammergallow. "'The man I have stayingwith me is a musical genius,' he said. His very words."

  "His ears must be burning anyhow," said Tommy Rathbone-Slater.

  "I was trying 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 notlike to charge him to his face. But really! It was merely _drifting_."

  "Just fooling with a fiddle, eigh?" said George Harringay. "Well Ithought it was beyond me. So much of your fine music is--"

  "Oh, _George_!" said the younger Miss Pirbright.

  "The Vicar was a bit on too--to judge by his tie," said MrRathbone-Slater. "It's a dashed rummy go. Did you notice how he fussedafter 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 almost laughed in his face."

  "The Vicar ought _never_ to have brought him here," said MrsRathbone-Slater with decision.

  THE TROUBLE OF THE BARBED WIRE.

  XXXVIII.

  So, ingloriously, ended the Angel's first and last appearance inSociety. Vicar and Angel returned to the Vicarage; crestfallen blackfigures in the bright sunlight, going dejectedly. The Angel, deeplypained that the Vicar was pained. The Vicar, dishevelled and desperate,intercalating spasmodic remorse and apprehension with brokenexplanations of the Theory of Etiquette. "They do _not_ understand,"said the Vicar over and over again. "They will all be so very muchaggrieved. I do not know what to say to them. It is all so confused, soperplexing." And at the gate of the Vicarage, at the very spot whereDelia had first seemed beautiful, stood Horrocks the village constable,awaiting them. He held coiled up about his hand certain short lengths ofbarbed wire.

  "Good evening, Horrocks," said the Vicar as the constable held the gateopen.

  "Evenin', Sir," said Horrocks, and added in a kind of mysteriousundertone, "_Could_ I speak to you a minute, Sir?"

  "Certainly," said the Vicar. The Angel walked on thoughtfully to thehouse, and meeting Delia in the hall stopped her and cross-examined herat length over differences between Servants and Ladies.

  "You'll excuse my taking the liberty, Sir," said Horrocks, "but there'strouble brewin' for that crippled gent you got stayin' here."

  "Bless me!" said the Vicar. "You don't say so!"

  "Sir John Gotch, Sir. He's very angry indeed, Sir. His language,Sir----. But I felt bound to tell you, Sir. He's certain set on takingout a summons on account of that there barbed wire. Certain set, Sir, heis."

  "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 carefulenquiries, Sir." And forthwith the constable began telling the Vicar ofa new and terrible outrage committed by the Angelic visitor.

  But we need not follow that explanation in detail--or the subsequentconfession. (For my own part I think there is nothing more tedious thandialogue). It gave the Vicar a new view of the Angelic character, avignette of the Angelic indignation. A shady lane, sun-mottled, sweethedges full of honeysuckle and vetch on either side, and a little girlgathering flowers, forgetful of the barbed wire which, all along theSidderford Road, fenced in the dignity of Sir John Gotch from "bounders"and the detested "million." Then suddenly a gashed hand, a bitteroutcry, and the Angel sympathetic, comforting, inquisitive. Explanationssob-set, and then--altogether novel phenomenon in the Angeliccareer--_passion_. A furious onslaught upon the barbed wire of Sir JohnGotch, barbed wire recklessly handled, slashed, bent and broken. Yetthe Angel acted without personal malice--saw in the thing only an uglyand vicious plant that trailed insidiously among its fellows. Finallythe Angel's explanations gave the Vicar a picture of the Angel aloneamidst his destruction, trembling and amazed at the sudden force, nothimself, that had sprung up within him, and set him striking andcutting. Amazed, too, at the crimson blood that trickled down hisfingers.

  "It is still more horrible," said the Angel when the Vicar explained theartificial nature of the thing. "If I had seen the man who put thissilly-cruel stuff there to hurt little children, I know I should havetried to inflict pain upon him. I have never felt like this before. I amindeed becoming tainted and coloured altogether by the wickedness ofthis world."

  "To think, too, that you men should be so foolish as to uphold the lawsthat let a man do such spiteful things. Yes--I know; you will say it hasto be so. For some remoter reason. That is a thing that only makes meangrier. Why cannot an act rest on its own merits?... As it does in theAngelic Land."

  That was the incident the history of which the Vicar now graduallylearnt, getting the bare outline from Horrocks, the colour and emotionsubsequently from the Angel. The thing had happened the day before themusical festival at Siddermorton House.

  "Have you told Sir John who did it?" asked the Vicar. "And are yousure?"

  "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 thisevening. Meaning no offence to you, Sir, as I hopes you'll see. It's myduty, Sir. Besides which--"

  "Of course," said the Vicar, hastily. "Certainly it's your duty. Andwhat will Sir John do?"

  "He's dreadful set against the person who did it--destroying propertylike that--and sort of slapping his arrangements in the face."

  Pause. Horrocks made a movement. The Vicar, tie almost at the back ofhis neck now, a most unusual 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 theback of his head. "You might perhaps ... I think it's the best way ...Quite sure Mr Angel did it?"

  "Sherlock 'Omes, Sir, couldn't be cocksurer."

  "Then I'd better give you a little note to the Squire."

  XXXIX.

  The Vicar's table-talk at dinner that night, after the Angel had statedhis case, was full of grim explanations, prisons, madness.

  "It's too late to tell the truth about you now," said the Vicar."Besides, that's impossible. I really do not know what to say. We mustface our circumstances, I suppose. I am so undecided--so torn. It's thetwo worlds. If your Angelic world were only a dream, or if _this_ worldwere only a dream--or if I could believe either or both dreams, it wouldbe all right with me. But here is a real Angel and a real summons--howto reconcile them I do not know. I must talk to Gotch.... But he won'tunderstand. Nobody will understand...."

  "I am putting you to terrible inconvenience, I am afraid. My appallingunworldliness--"

  "It's not you," said the Vicar. "It's not you. I perceive you havebrought something strange and b
eautiful into my life. It's not you.It's myself. If I had more faith either way. If I could believe entirelyin this world, and call you an Abnormal Phenomenon, as Crump does. Butno. Terrestrial Angelic, Angelic Terrestrial.... See-Saw."

  "Still, Gotch is certain to be disagreeable, _most_ disagreeable. Healways is. It puts me into his hands. He is a bad moral influence, Iknow. Drinking. Gambling. Worse. Still, one must render unto Caesar thethings that are Caesar's. And he is against Disestablishment...."

  Then the Vicar would 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 theworld had frowned darker upon him and his angelic ways. He could see howthe trouble affected the Vicar, yet he could not imagine how he couldavert it. It was all so strange and unreasonable. Twice again, too, hehad been pelted out of the village.

  He found the violin lying on his bed where he had laid it beforedinner. And taking it up he began to play to comfort himself. But now heplayed no delicious vision of the Angelic Land. The iron of the worldwas entering into his soul. For a week now he had known pain andrejection, suspicion and hatred; a strange new spirit of revolt wasgrowing up in his heart. He played a melody, still sweet and tender asthose of the Angelic Land, but charged with a new note, the note ofhuman sorrow and effort, now swelling into something like defiance,dying now into a plaintive sadness. He played softly, playing to himselfto comfort himself, but the Vicar heard, and all his finite bothers wereswallowed up in a hazy melancholy, a melancholy that was quite remotefrom sorrow. And besides the Vicar, the Angel had another hearer of whomneither Angel nor Vicar was thinking.

  DELIA.

  XL.

  She was only four or five yards away from the Angel in the westwardgable. The diamond-paned window of her little white room was open. Sheknelt on her box of japanned tin, and rested her chin on her hands, herelbows on the window-sill. The young moon hung over the pine trees, andits light, cool and colourless, lay softly upon the silent-sleepingworld. Its light fell upon her white face, and discovered new depths inher dreaming eyes. Her soft lips fell apart and showed the little whiteteeth.

  Delia was thinking, vaguely, wonderfully, as girls will think. It wasfeeling rather than thinking; clouds of beautiful translucent emotiondrove across the clear sky of her mind, taking shape that changed andvanished. She had all that wonderful emotional tenderness, that subtleexquisite desire for self-sacrifice, which exists so inexplicably in agirl's heart, exists it seems only to be presently trampled under footby the grim and gross humours of daily life, to be ploughed in againroughly and remorselessly, as the farmer ploughs in the clover that hassprung up in the soil. She had been looking out at the tranquillity ofthe moonlight long before the Angel began to play,--waiting; thensuddenly the quiet, motionless beauty of silver and shadow was suffusedwith tender music.

  She did not move, but her lips closed and her eyes grew even softer. Shehad been thinking before of the strange glory that had suddenly flashedout about the stooping hunchback when he spoke to her in the sunset; ofthat and of a dozen other glances, chance turns, even once the touchingof her hand. That afternoon he had spoken to her, asking strangequestions. Now the music seemed to bring his very face before her, hislook of half curious solicitude, peering into her face, into her eyes,into her and through her, deep down into her soul. He seemed now to bespeaking directly to her, telling her of his solitude and trouble. Oh!that regret, that longing! For he was in trouble. And how could aservant-girl help him, this soft-spoken gentleman who carried himself sokindly, who played so sweetly. The music was so sweet and keen, it cameso near to the thought of her heart, that presently one hand tightenedon the other, and the tears came streaming down her face.

  As Crump would tell you, people do not do that kind of thing unlessthere is something wrong with the nervous system. But then, from thescientific point of view, being in love is a pathological condition.

  I am painfully aware of the objectionable nature of my story here. Ihave even thought of wilfully perverting the truth to propitiate theLady Reader. But I could not. The story has been too much for me. I dothe thing with my eyes open. Delia must remain what she really was--aservant girl. I know that to give a mere servant girl, or at least anEnglish servant girl, the refined feelings of a human being, to presenther as speaking with anything but an intolerable confusion of aspirates,places me outside the pale of respectable writers. Association withservants, even in thought, is dangerous in these days. I can only plead(pleading vainly, I know), that Delia was a very exceptional servantgirl. Possibly, if one enquired, it might be found that her parentagewas upper middle-class--that she was made of the finer uppermiddle-class clay. And (this perhaps may avail me better) I will promisethat in some future work I will redress the balance, and the patientreader 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 aservant-girl's means), a fringe (by agreement), and a cheerful readinessto dispose of her self-respect for half-a-crown. That is the acceptedEnglish servant, the typical English woman (when stripped of money andaccomplishments) as she appears in the works of contemporary writers.But Delia somehow was different. I can only regret the circumstance--itwas altogether beyond my control.

  DOCTOR CRUMP ACTS.

  XLI.

  Early the next morning the Angel went down through the village, andclimbing the fence, waded through the waist-high reeds that fringe theSidder. 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 ofSiddermorton Park. And suddenly he came upon Crump sitting on a log andsmoking. (Crump always smoked exactly two ounces per week--and he alwayssmoked it in the open air.)

  "Hullo!" said Crump, in his healthiest tone. "How's the wing?"

  "Very well," said the Angel. "The pain's gone."

  "I suppose you know you are trespassing?"

  "Trespassing!" said the Angel.

  "I suppose you don't know what that means," said Crump.

  "I don't," said the Angel.

  "I must congratulate you. I don't know how long you will last, but youare keeping it up remarkably well. I thought at first you were amattoid, but you're so amazingly consistent. Your attitude of entireignorance of the elementary facts of Life is really a very amusing pose.You make slips of course, but very few. But surely we two understand oneanother."

  He smiled at the Angel. "You would beat Sherlock Holmes. I wonder whoyou really are."

  The Angel smiled back, with eyebrows raised and hands extended. "It'simpossible for you to know who I am. Your eyes are blind, your earsdeaf, your soul dark, to all that is wonderful about me. It's no good mytelling that I fell into your world."

  The Doctor waved his pipe. "Not that, please. I don't want to pry if youhave your reasons for keeping quiet. Only I would like you to think ofHilyer'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. Heused 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 hiscuff links, and something wrong with his tie, and he took for his text,'Eye hath not seen nor ear heard.' He really believes all this nonsenseabout the Angel-land. The man is verging on monomania!"

  "You _will_ see things from your own standpoint," said the Angel.

  "Everyone must. At any rate, I think it jolly regrettable to see thispoor old fellow hypnotized, as you certainly have hypnotized him. Idon't know where you come from nor who you are, but I warn you I'm notgoing 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 aworld outside his knowledge----"

  "It won't do," said Crump. "I'm not one of the dupe class. You areeither of two things--a lunatic at large (
which I don't believe), or aknave. 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 Ishall communicate with the police, and either clap you into a prison, ifyou go back on your story, or into a madhouse if you don't. It'sstretching a point, but I swear I'd certify you insane to-morrow to getyou out of the village. It's not only the Vicar. As you know. I hopethat's plain. Now what have you to say?"

  With an affectation of great calm, the Doctor took out his penknife andbegan to dig the blade into his pipe bowl. His pipe had gone out duringthis last speech.

  For a moment neither spoke. The Angel looked about him with a face thatgrew pale. The Doctor extracted a plug of tobacco from his pipe andflung it away, shut his penknife and put it in his waistcoat pocket. Hehad not meant to speak quite so emphatically, but speech always warmedhim.

  "Prison," said the Angel. "Madhouse! Let me see." Then he rememberedthe Vicar's explanation. "Not that!" he said. He approached Crump witheyes dilated and hands outstretched.

  "I knew _you_ would know what those things meant--at any rate. Sitdown," said Crump, indicating the tree trunk beside him by a movement ofthe head.

  The Angel, shivering, sat down on the tree trunk and stared at theDoctor.

  Crump was getting out his pouch. "You are a strange man," said theAngel. "Your beliefs are like--a steel trap."

  "They are," said Crump--flattered.