In the Days of the Comet Read online

  Section 3

  After our midday dinner--it was a potato-pie, mostly potato withsome scraps of cabbage and bacon--I put on my overcoat and got itout of the house while my mother was in the scullery at the back.

  A scullery in the old world was, in the case of such houses asours, a damp, unsavory, mainly subterranean region behind the darkliving-room kitchen, that was rendered more than typically dirtyin our case by the fact that into it the coal-cellar, a yawningpit of black uncleanness, opened, and diffused small crunchableparticles about the uneven brick floor. It was the region of"washing-up," that greasy, damp function that followed every meal;its atmosphere had ever a cooling steaminess and the memory ofboiled cabbage, and the sooty black stains where saucepan or kettlehad been put down for a minute, scraps of potato-peel caught bythe strainer of the escape-pipe, and rags of a quite indescribablehorribleness of acquisition, called "dish-clouts," rise in mymemory at the name. The altar of this place was the "sink," a tankof stone, revolting to a refined touch, grease-filmed and unpleasantto see, and above this was a tap for cold water, so arranged thatwhen the water descended it splashed and wetted whoever had turnedit on. This tap was our water supply. And in such a place youmust fancy a little old woman, rather incompetent and very gentle,a soul of unselfishness and sacrifice, in dirty clothes, all comefrom their original colors to a common dusty dark gray, in worn,ill-fitting boots, with hands distorted by ill use, and untidygraying hair--my mother. In the winter her hands would be "chapped,"and she would have a cough. And while she washes up I go out, tosell my overcoat and watch in order that I may desert her.

  I gave way to queer hesitations in pawning my two negotiable articles.A weakly indisposition to pawn in Clayton, where the pawnbrokerknew me, carried me to the door of the place in Lynch Street,Swathinglea, where I had bought my revolver. Then came an idea thatI was giving too many facts about myself to one man, and I cameback to Clayton after all. I forget how much money I got, but Iremember that it was rather less than the sum I had made out to bethe single fare to Shaphambury. Still deliberate, I went back tothe Public Library to find out whether it was possible, by walkingfor ten or twelve miles anywhere, to shorten the journey. My bootswere in a dreadful state, the sole of the left one also was nowpeeling off, and I could not help perceiving that all my plansmight be wrecked if at this crisis I went on shoe leather in whichI could only shuffle. So long as I went softly they would serve,but not for hard walking. I went to the shoemaker in Hacker Street,but he would not promise any repairs for me under forty-eight hours.

  I got back home about five minutes to three, resolved to start bythe five train for Birmingham in any case, but still dissatisfiedabout my money. I thought of pawning a book or something of thatsort, but I could think of nothing of obvious value in the house.My mother's silver--two gravy-spoons and a salt-cellar--had beenpawned for some weeks, since, in fact, the June quarter day. Butmy mind was full of hypothetical opportunities.

  As I came up the steps to our door, I remarked that Mr. Gabbitaslooked at me suddenly round his dull red curtains with a sort ofalarmed resolution in his eye and vanished, and as I walked alongthe passage he opened his door upon me suddenly and interceptedme.

  You are figuring me, I hope, as a dark and sullen lout in shabby,cheap, old-world clothes that are shiny at all the wearing surfaces,and with a discolored red tie and frayed linen. My left hand keepsin my pocket as though there is something it prefers to keep a gripupon there. Mr. Gabbitas was shorter than I, and the first notehe struck in the impression he made upon any one was of somethingbright and birdlike. I think he wanted to be birdlike, he possessedthe possibility of an avian charm, but, as a matter of fact, therewas nothing of the glowing vitality of the bird in his being. Anda bird is never out of breath and with an open mouth. He was inthe clerical dress of that time, that costume that seems now almostthe strangest of all our old-world clothing, and he presented it inits cheapest form--black of a poor texture, ill-fitting, strangelycut. Its long skirts accentuated the tubbiness of his body, theshortness of his legs. The white tie below his all-round collar,beneath his innocent large-spectacled face, was a little grubby,and between his not very clean teeth he held a briar pipe. Hiscomplexion was whitish, and although he was only thirty-three orfour perhaps, his sandy hair was already thinning from the top ofhis head.

  To your eye, now, he would seem the strangest figure, in the utterdisregard of all physical beauty or dignity about him. You wouldfind him extraordinarily odd, but in the old days he met not onlywith acceptance but respect. He was alive until within a year or soago, but his later appearance changed. As I saw him that afternoonhe was a very slovenly, ungainly little human being indeed, not onlywas his clothing altogether ugly and queer, but had you strippedthe man stark, you would certainly have seen in the bulging paunchthat comes from flabby muscles and flabbily controlled appetites,and in the rounded shoulders and flawed and yellowish skin, the samefailure of any effort toward clean beauty. You had an instinctivesense that so he had been from the beginning. You felt he was notonly drifting through life, eating what came in his way, believingwhat came in his way, doing without any vigor what came in his way,but that into life also he had drifted. You could not believe himthe child of pride and high resolve, or of any splendid passion oflove. He had just HAPPENED. . . But we all happened then. Why amI taking this tone over this poor little curate in particular?

  "Hello!" he said, with an assumption of friendly ease. "Haven'tseen you for weeks! Come in and have a gossip."

  An invitation from the drawing-room lodger was in the nature of acommand. I would have liked very greatly to have refused it, neverwas invitation more inopportune, but I had not the wit to thinkof an excuse. "All right," I said awkwardly, and he held the dooropen for me.

  "I'd be very glad if you would," he amplified. "One doesn't getmuch opportunity of intelligent talk in this parish."

  What the devil was he up to, was my secret preoccupation. He fussedabout me with a nervous hospitality, talking in jumpy fragments,rubbing his hands together, and taking peeps at me over and roundhis glasses. As I sat down in his leather-covered armchair, I hadan odd memory of the one in the Clayton dentist's operating-room--Iknow not why.

  "They're going to give us trouble in the North Sea, it seems," heremarked with a sort of innocent zest. "I'm glad they mean fighting."

  There was an air of culture about his room that always cowed me,and that made me constrained even on this occasion. The table underthe window was littered with photographic material and the lateralbums of his continental souvenirs, and on the American clothtrimmed shelves that filled the recesses on either side of thefireplace were what I used to think in those days a quite incrediblenumber of books--perhaps eight hundred altogether, includingthe reverend gentleman's photograph albums and college and schooltext-books. This suggestion of learning was enforced by thelittle wooden shield bearing a college coat-of-arms that hung overthe looking-glass, and by a photograph of Mr. Gabbitas in cap andgown in an Oxford frame that adorned the opposite wall. And in themiddle of that wall stood his writing-desk, which I knew to havepigeon-holes when it was open, and which made him seem not merelycultured but literary. At that he wrote sermons, composing themhimself!

  "Yes," he said, taking possession of the hearthrug, "the war hadto come sooner or later. If we smash their fleet for them now;well, there's an end to the matter!"

  He stood on his toes and then bumped down on his heels, and lookedblandly through his spectacles at a water-color by his sister--thesubject was a bunch of violets--above the sideboard which was hispantry and tea-chest and cellar. "Yes," he said as he did so.

  I coughed, and wondered how I might presently get away.

  He invited me to smoke--that queer old practice!--and then whenI declined, began talking in a confidential tone of this "dreadfulbusiness" of the strikes. "The war won't improve THAT outlook," hesaid, and was very grave for a moment.

  He spoke of the want of thought for their wives and children shownby the col
liers in striking merely for the sake of the union, andthis stirred me to controversy, and distracted me a little from myresolution to escape.

  "I don't quite agree with that," I said, clearing my throat. "Ifthe men didn't strike for the union now, if they let that be brokenup, where would they be when the pinch of reductions did come?"

  To which he replied that they couldn't expect to get top-pricewages when the masters were selling bottom-price coal. I replied,"That isn't it. The masters don't treat them fairly. They have toprotect themselves."

  To which Mr. Gabbitas answered, "Well, I don't know. I've been inthe Four Towns some time, and I must say I don't think the balanceof injustice falls on the masters' side."

  "It falls on the men," I agreed, wilfully misunderstanding him.

  And so we worked our way toward an argument. "Confound thisargument!" I thought; but I had no skill in self-extraction, andmy irritation crept into my voice. Three little spots of color cameinto the cheeks and nose of Mr. Gabbitas, but his voice showednothing of his ruffled temper.

  "You see," I said, "I'm a socialist. I don't think this world wasmade for a small minority to dance on the faces of every one else."

  "My dear fellow," said the Rev. Gabbitas, "I'M a socialist too.Who isn't. But that doesn't lead me to class hatred."

  "You haven't felt the heel of this confounded system. I have."

  "Ah!" said he; and catching him on that note came a rap at the frontdoor, and, as he hung suspended, the sound of my mother lettingsome one in and a timid rap.

  "NOW," thought I, and stood up, resolutely, but he would not letme. "No, no, no!" said he. "It's only for the Dorcas money."

  He put his hand against my chest with an effect of physicalcompulsion, and cried, "Come in!"

  "Our talk's just getting interesting," he protested; and thereentered Miss Ramell, an elderly little young lady who was mightyin Church help in Clayton.

  He greeted her--she took no notice of me--and went to his bureau,and I remained standing by my chair but unable to get out of theroom. "I'm not interrupting?" asked Miss Ramell.

  "Not in the least," he said; drew out the carriers and opened hisdesk. I could not help seeing what he did.

  I was so fretted by my impotence to leave him that at the momentit did not connect at all with the research of the morning thathe was taking out money. I listened sullenly to his talk with MissRamell, and saw only, as they say in Wales, with the front of myeyes, the small flat drawer that had, it seemed, quite a numberof sovereigns scattered over its floor. "They're so unreasonable,"complained Miss Ramell. Who could be otherwise in a socialorganization that bordered on insanity?

  I turned away from them, put my foot on the fender, stuck my elbowon the plush-fringed mantelboard, and studied the photographs,pipes, and ash-trays that adorned it. What was it I had to thinkout before I went to the station?

  Of course! My mind made a queer little reluctant leap--it felt likebeing forced to leap over a bottomless chasm--and alighted upon thesovereigns that were just disappearing again as Mr. Gabbitas shuthis drawer.

  "I won't interrupt your talk further," said Miss Ramell, recedingdoorward.

  Mr. Gabbitas played round her politely, and opened the door for herand conducted her into the passage, and for a moment or so I hadthe fullest sense of proximity to those--it seemed to methere must be ten or twelve--sovereigns. . . .

  The front door closed and he returned. My chance of escape hadgone.