In the Days of the Comet Read online

  Section 5

  A happy accident relieved Mr. Gabbitas from the embarrassmentof that challenge, and carried me another step along my course ofpersonal disaster.

  It came on the heels of my question in the form of a clatter ofhorses without, and the gride and cessation of wheels. I glimpseda straw-hatted coachman and a pair of grays. It seemed an incrediblymagnificent carriage for Clayton.

  "Eh!" said the Rev. Gabbitas, going to the window. "Why, it's oldMrs. Verrall! It's old Mrs. Verrall. Really! What CAN she want withme?"

  He turned to me, and the flush of controversy had passed and hisface shone like the sun. It was not every day, I perceived, thatMrs. Verrall came to see him.

  "I get so many interruptions," he said, almost grinning. "You mustexcuse me a minute! Then--then I'll tell you about that fellow.But don't go. I pray you don't go. I can assure you. . . . MOSTinteresting."

  He went out of the room waving vague prohibitory gestures.

  "I MUST go," I cried after him.

  "No, no, no!" in the passage. "I've got your answer," I think itwas he added, and "quite mistaken;" and I saw him running down thesteps to talk to the old lady.

  I swore. I made three steps to the window, and this brought mewithin a yard of that accursed drawer.

  I glanced at it, and then at that old woman who was so absolutelypowerful, and instantly her son and Nettie's face were flaming inmy brain. The Stuarts had, no doubt, already accepted accomplishedfacts. And I too--

  What was I doing here?

  What was I doing here while judgment escaped me?

  I woke up. I was injected with energy. I took one reassuring lookat the curate's obsequious back, at the old lady's projected noseand quivering hand, and then with swift, clean movements I had thelittle drawer open, four sovereigns in my pocket, and the drawershut again. Then again at the window--they were still talking.

  That was all right. He might not look in that drawer for hours. Iglanced at his clock. Twenty minutes still before the Birminghamtrain. Time to buy a pair of boots and get away. But how I was toget to the station?

  I went out boldly into the passage, and took my hat and stick. . . .Walk past him?

  Yes. That was all right! He could not argue with me while soimportant a person engaged him. . . . I came boldly down the steps.

  "I want a list made, Mr. Gabbitas, of all the really DESERVINGcases," old Mrs. Verrall was saying.

  It is curious, but it did not occur to me that here was a motherwhose son I was going to kill. I did not see her in that aspectat all. Instead, I was possessed by a realization of the blazingimbecility of a social system that gave this palsied old womanthe power to give or withhold the urgent necessities of life fromhundreds of her fellow-creatures just according to her poor, foolishold fancies of desert.

  "We could make a PROVISIONAL list of that sort," he was saying,and glanced round with a preoccupied expression at me.

  "I MUST go," I said at his flash of inquiry, and added, "I'll beback in twenty minutes," and went on my way. He turned again tohis patroness as though he forgot me on the instant. Perhaps afterall he was not sorry.

  I felt extraordinarily cool and capable, exhilarated, if anything,by this prompt, effectual theft. After all, my great determinationwould achieve itself. I was no longer oppressed by a senseof obstacles, I felt I could grasp accidents and turn them tomy advantage. I would go now down Hacker Street to the littleshoemaker's--get a sound, good pair of boots--ten minutes--and then tothe railway-station--five minutes more--and off! I felt as efficientand non-moral as if I was Nietzsche's Over-man already come. It didnot occur to me that the curate's clock might have a considerablemargin of error.