The Wonderful Visit Read online

  It was the Angel. But he wore once more the saffron robe in the place ofhis formless overcoat. In the uncertain light this garment had only acolourless shimmer, and his wings behind him seemed a leaden grey. Hebegan taking short runs, flapping his wings and leaping, going to andfro amidst the drifting patches of light and the shadows of the trees.Delia watched him in amazement. He gave a despondent cry, leapinghigher. His shrivelled wings flashed and fell. A thicker patch in thecloud-film made everything obscure. He seemed to spring five or six feetfrom the ground and fall clumsily. She saw him in the dimness crouchingon the ground and then she heard him sobbing.

  "He's hurt!" said Delia, pressing her lips together hard and staring. "Iought to help him."

  She hesitated, then stood up and flitted swiftly towards the door, wentslipping quietly downstairs and out into the moonlight. The Angel stilllay upon the lawn, and sobbed for utter wretchedness.

  "Oh! what is the matter?" said Delia, stooping over him and touching hishead timidly.

  The Angel ceased sobbing, sat up abruptly, and stared at her. He saw herface, 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," said the Angel. "I cannot use my wings."

  Delia did not understand, but she realised that it was something verydreadful. "It is dark, it is cold," whispered the Angel; "I cannot usemy wings."

  It hurt her unaccountably to see the tears on his face. She did not knowwhat to do.

  "Pity me, Delia," said the Angel, suddenly extending his arms towardsher; "pity me."

  Impulsively she knelt down and took his face between her hands. "I donot know," she said; "but I am sorry. I am sorry for you, with all myheart."

  The Angel said not a word. He was looking at her little face in thebright moonlight, with an expression of uncomprehending wonder in hiseyes. "This strange world!" he said.

  She suddenly withdrew her hands. A cloud drove over the moon. "What canI do to help you?" she whispered. "I would do anything to help you."

  He still held her at arm's length, perplexity replacing misery in hisface. "This strange world!" he repeated.

  Both whispered, she kneeling, he sitting, in the fluctuating moonlightand 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 agentleman (which he isn't), he'd feel ashamed of hisself. And you anorphan too!"

  THE LAST DAY OF THE VISIT.

  XLVII.

  On the morning of the next day the Angel, after he had breakfasted, wentout towards the moor, and Mrs Hinijer had an interview with the Vicar.What happened need not concern us now. The Vicar was visiblydisconcerted. "He _must_ go," he said; "certainly he must go," andstraightway he forgot the particular accusation in the general trouble.He spent the morning in hazy meditation, interspersed by a spasmodicstudy of Skiff and Waterlow's price list, and the catalogue of theMedical, Scholastic, and Clerical Stores. A schedule grew slowly on asheet of paper that lay on the desk before him. He cut out aself-measurement form from the tailoring department of the Stores andpinned it to the study curtains. This was the kind of document he wasmaking:

  "_1 Black Melton Frock Coat, patts? L3, 10s._

  "_? Trousers. 2 pairs or one._

  "_1 Cheviot Tweed Suit (write for patterns. Self-meas.?)_"

  The Vicar spent some time studying a pleasing array of model gentlemen.They were all very nice-looking, but he found it hard to imagine theAngel so transfigured. For, although six days had passed, the Angelremained without any suit of his own. The Vicar had vacillated between aproject of driving the Angel into Portbroddock and getting him measuredfor a suit, and his absolute horror of the insinuating manners of thetailor he employed. He knew that tailor would demand an exhaustiveexplanation. Besides which, one never knew when the Angel might leave.So the six days had passed, and the Angel had grown steadily in thewisdom of this world and shrouded his brightness still in the ampleretirement 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 thecorrect thing up there. Shape No. 3 seems best suited to his style. Butit's dreadful to think of him all alone in that great city. Everyonewill misunderstand him, and he will misunderstand everybody. However, Isuppose it _must_ be. Where was I?)"

  "_1 Toothbrush. 1 Brush and Comb. Razor?_

  "_1/2 doz. Shirts (? measure his neck), 6s ea._

  "_Socks? Pants?_

  "_2 suits Pyjamas. Price? Say 15s._

  "_1 doz. Collars ('The Life Guardsman'), 8s._

  "_Braces. Oxon Patent Versatile, 1s 111/2d._"

  ("But how will he get them on?" said the Vicar.)

  "_1 Rubber Stamp, T. Angel, and Marking Ink in box complete, 9d._

  ("Those washerwomen are certain to steal all his things.")

  "_1 Single-bladed 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 heart ached.

  The Angel did not return to lunch. This was not so very remarkable--oncebefore he had missed the midday meal. Yet, considering how short was thetime they would have together now, he might perhaps have come back.Doubtless he had excellent reasons, though, for his absence. The Vicarmade an indifferent lunch. In the afternoon he rested in his usualmanner, and did a little more to the list of requirements. He did notbegin to feel nervous about the Angel till tea-time. He waited, perhaps,half an hour before he took tea. "Odd," said the Vicar, feeling stillmore lonely as he drank his tea.

  As the time for dinner crept on and no Angel appeared the Vicar'simagination began to trouble him. "He will come in to dinner, surely,"said the Vicar, caressing his chin, and beginning to fret about thehouse upon inconsiderable errands, as his habit was when anythingoccurred to break his routine. The sun set, a gorgeous spectacle, amidsttumbled masses of purple cloud. The gold and red faded into twilight;the evening star gathered her robe of light together from out thebrightness of the sky in the West. Breaking the silence of evening thatcrept over the outer world, a corncrake began his whirring chant. TheVicar's face grew troubled; twice he went and stared at the darkeninghillside, and then fretted back to the house again. Mrs Hinijer serveddinner. "Your dinner's ready," she announced for the second time, with areproachful intonation. "Yes, yes," said the Vicar, fussing offupstairs.

  He came down and went into his study and lit his reading lamp, a patentaffair with an incandescent wick, dropping the match into hiswaste-paper basket without stopping to see if it was extinguished. Thenhe fretted into the dining-room and began a desultory attack on thecooling dinner....

  (Dear Reader, the time is almost ripe to say farewell to this littleVicar of ours.)

  XLVIII.

  Sir John Gotch (still smarting over the business of the barbed wire) wasriding 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 see.

  "I'm damned," said Sir John Gotch, with immense emphasis; "if this isn'taltogether 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 cataclysmalexpletive. But he could think of nothing more than "damned." "Get out ofthis wood," he said.

&nb
sp; The Angel's smile vanished. "Why should I get out of this wood?" hesaid, and stood still.

  Neither spoke for a full half minute perhaps, and then Sir John Gotchdropped out of his saddle and stood by the horse.

  (Now you must remember--lest the Angelic Hosts be discreditedhereby--that this Angel had been breathing the poisonous air of thisStruggle for Existence of ours for more than a week. It was not only hiswings and the brightness of his face that suffered. He had eaten andslept and learnt the lesson of pain--had travelled so far on the road tohumanity. All the length of his Visit he had been meeting more and moreof the harshness and conflict of this world, and losing touch with theglorious altitudes of his own.)

  "You won't go, eigh!" said Gotch, and began to lead his horse throughthe bushes towards the Angel. The Angel stood, all his muscles tight andhis nerves quivering, watching his antagonist approach.

  "Get out of this wood," said Gotch, stopping three yards away, his facewhite with rage, his bridle in one hand and his riding whip in theother.

  Strange floods of emotion were running through the Angel. "Who areyou," he said, in a low quivering voice; "who am I--that you shouldorder me out of this place? What has the World done that men likeyou...."

  "You're the fool who cut my barbed wire," said Gotch, threatening, "Ifyou want to know!"

  "_Your_ barbed wire," said the Angel. "Was that your barbed wire? Areyou the man who put down that barbed wire? What right have you...."

  "Don't you go talking Socialist rot," said Gotch in short gasps. "Thiswood's mine, and I've a right to protect it how I can. I know your kindof muck. Talking rot and stirring up discontent. And if you don't getout 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 outof sheer alarm at the light in the Angel's face.

  He made one step towards him, with the whip raised, and then somethinghappened that neither he nor the Angel properly understood. The Angelseemed to leap into the air, a pair of grey wings flashed out at theSquire, he saw a face bearing down upon him, full of the wild beauty ofpassionate anger. His riding whip was torn out of his hand. His horsereared behind him, pulled him over, gained his bridle and fled.

  The whip cut across his face as he fell back, stung across his faceagain as he sat on the ground. He saw the Angel, radiant with anger, inthe act to strike again. Gotch flung up his hands, pitched himselfforward to save his eyes, and rolled on the ground under the pitilessfury 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 thesouls of other men. You shallow fool with your horses and dogs! To liftyour face against any living thing! Learn! Learn! Learn!"

  Gotch began screaming for help. Twice he tried to clamber to his feet,got to his knees, and went headlong again under the ferocious anger ofthe Angel. Presently he made a strange noise in his throat, and ceasedeven to writhe under his punishment.

  Then suddenly the Angel awakened from his wrath, and found himselfstanding, panting and trembling, one foot on a motionless figure, underthe green stillness of the sunlit woods.

  He stared about him, then down at his feet where, among the tangled deadleaves, the hair was matted with blood. The whip dropped from his hands,the hot colour fled from his face. "_Pain!_" he said. "Why does he lieso still?"

  He took his foot off Gotch's shoulder, bent down towards the prostratefigure, stood listening, knelt--shook him. "Awake!" said the Angel. Thenstill more softly, "_Awake!_"

  He remained listening some minutes or more, stood up sharply, and lookedround him at the silent trees. A feeling of profound horror descendedupon him, wrapped him round about. With an abrupt gesture he turned."What has happened to me?" he said, in an awe-stricken whisper.

  He started back from the motionless figure. "_Dead!_" he said suddenly,and turning, panic stricken, fled headlong through the wood.

  XLIX.

  It was some minutes after the footsteps of the Angel had died away inthe 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 lunaticagain," said Sir John Gotch.

  "He may be a person of weak intellect, but I'm damned if he hasn't apretty strong arm. _Phew!_ He's cut a bit clean off the top of my earwith that infernal lash."

  "That infernal horse will go galloping to the house in the approveddramatic style. Little Madam'll be scared out of her wits. And I ... Ishall have to explain how it all happened. While she vivisects me withquestions.

  "I'm a jolly good mind to have spring guns and man-traps put in thispreserve. Confound the Law!"

  L.

  But the Angel, thinking that Gotch was dead, went wandering off in apassion of remorse and fear through the brakes and copses along theSidder. You can scarcely imagine how appalled he was at this last andoverwhelming proof of his encroaching humanity. All the darkness,passion and pain of life seemed closing in upon him, inexorably,becoming part of him, chaining him to all that a week ago he had foundstrange and pitiful in men.

  "Truly, this is no world for an Angel!" said the Angel. "It is a Worldof War, a World of Pain, a World of Death. Anger comes upon one ... Iwho knew not pain and anger, stand here with blood stains on my hands. Ihave fallen. To come into this world is to fall. One must hunger andthirst and be tormented with a thousand desires. One must fight forfoothold, be angry and strike----"

  He lifted up his hands to Heaven, the ultimate bitterness of helplessremorse in his face, and then flung them down with a gesture of despair.The prison walls of this narrow passionate life seemed creeping in uponhim, certainly and steadily, to crush him presently altogether. He feltwhat all we poor mortals have to feel sooner or later--the pitilessforce of the Things that Must Be, not only without us but (where thereal trouble lies) within, all the inevitable tormenting of one's highresolves, those inevitable seasons when the better self is forgotten.But with us it is a gentle descent, made by imperceptible degrees over along space of years; with him it was the horrible discovery of one shortweek. He felt he was being crippled, caked over, blinded, stupefied inthe wrappings of this life, he felt as a man might feel who has takensome horrible poison, and feels destruction spreading within him.

  He took no account of hunger or fatigue or the flight of time. On and onhe went, avoiding houses and roads, turning away from the sight andsound of a human being in a wordless desperate argument with Fate. Histhoughts did not flow but stood banked back in inarticulateremonstrance against his degradation. Chance directed his footstepshomeward and, at last, after nightfall, he found himself faint and wearyand wretched, stumbling along over the moor at the back of Siddermorton.He heard the rats run and squeal in the heather, and once a noiselessbig bird came out of the darkness, passed, and vanished again. And hesaw without noticing it a dull red glow in the sky before him.

  LI.

  But when he came over the brow of the moor, a vivid light sprang upbefore him and refused to be ignored. He came on down the hill andspeedily saw more distinctly what the glare was. It came from dartingand trembling tongues of fire, golden and red, that shot from thewindows and a hole in the roof of the Vicarage. A cluster of blackheads, all the village in fact, except the fire-brigade--who were downat Aylmer's Cottage trying to find the key of the machine-house--cameout in silhouette against the blaze. There was a roaring sound, and ahumming of voices, and presently a furious outcry. There was a shoutingof "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 found black figures running about him. The flaringfire blew gustily this way and that, and he smelt the smell of burning.

  "She went in," said one voice, "she went in."

  "The m
ad girl!" said another.

  "Stand back! Stand back!" cried others.

  He found himself thrusting through an excited, swaying crowd, allstaring 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 girl in the house, and she can't get out!"

  "Went in after a fiddle," said another.

  "'Tas hopeless," he heard someone else say.

  "I was standing near her. I heerd her. Says she: 'I _can_ get hisfiddle.' 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, sawthis grim little world of battle and cruelty, transfigured in asplendour that outshone the Angelic Land, suffused suddenly andinsupportably glorious with the wonderful light of Love andSelf-Sacrifice. He gave a strange cry, and before anyone could stophim, was running towards the burning building. There were cries of "TheHunchback! The Fowener!"

  The Vicar, whose scalded hand was being tied up, turned his head, and heand Crump saw the Angel, a black outline against the intense, red glareof the doorway. It was the sensation of the tenth of a second, yet bothmen could not have remembered that transitory attitude more vividly hadit been a picture they had studied for hours together. Then the Angelwas hidden by something massive (no one knew what) that fell,incandescent, across the doorway.