In the Days of the Comet Read online

  Section 6

  Old Stuart was pitiful.

  I found him still inert in the greenhouse where I had first seenhim. He did not move as I drew near him; he glanced at me, and thenstared hard again at the flowerpots before him.

  "Eh, Willie," he said, "this is a black day for all of us."

  "What are you going to do?" I asked.

  "The missus takes on so," he said. "I came out here."

  "What do you mean to do?"

  "What IS a man to do in such a case?"

  "Do!" I cried, "why-- Do!"

  "He ought to marry her," he said.

  "By God, yes!" I cried. "He must do that anyhow."

  "He ought to. It's--it's cruel. But what am I to do? Suppose hewon't? Likely he won't. What then?"

  He drooped with an intensified despair.

  "Here's this cottage," he said, pursuing some contracted argument."We've lived here all our lives, you might say. . . . Clear out.At my age. . . . One can't die in a slum."

  I stood before him for a space, speculating what thoughts mightfill the gaps between these broken words. I found his lethargy, andthe dimly shaped mental attitudes his words indicated, abominable.I said abruptly, "You have her letter?"

  He dived into his breast-pocket, became motionless for ten seconds,then woke up again and produced her letter. He drew it clumsilyfrom its envelope, and handed it to me silently.

  "Why!" he cried, looking at me for the first time, "What's come toyour chin, Willie?"

  "It's nothing," I said. "It's a bruise;" and I opened the letter.

  It was written on greenish tinted fancy note-paper, and with alland more than Nettie's usual triteness and inadequacy of expression.Her handwriting bore no traces of emotion; it was round and uprightand clear as though it had been done in a writing lesson. Alwaysher letters were like masks upon her image; they fell like curtainsbefore the changing charm of her face; one altogether forgot thesound of her light clear voice, confronted by a perplexing stereotypedthing that had mysteriously got a hold upon one's heart and pride.How did that letter run?--

  "MY DEAR MOTHER,

  "Do not be distressed at my going away. I have gone somewhere safe,and with some one who cares for me very much. I am sorry for yoursakes, but it seems that it had to be. Love is a very difficultthing, and takes hold of one in ways one does not expect. Do notthink I am ashamed about this, I glory in my love, and you must nottrouble too much about me. I am very, very happy (deeply underlined).

  "Fondest love to Father and Puss.

  "Your loving

  "Nettie."

  That queer little document! I can see it now for the childish simplething it was, but at the time I read it in a suppressed anguish ofrage. It plunged me into a pit of hopeless shame; there seemed toremain no pride for me in life until I had revenge. I stood staringat those rounded upstanding letters, not trusting myself to speakor move. At last I stole a glance at Stuart.

  He held the envelope in his hand, and stared down at the postmarkbetween his horny thumbnails.

  "You can't even tell where she is," he said, turning the thinground in a hopeless manner, and then desisting. "It's hard on us,Willie. Here she is; she hadn't anything to complain of; a sort ofpet for all of us. Not even made to do her share of the 'ousework.And she goes off and leaves us like a bird that's learnt to fly.Can't TRUST us, that's what takes me. Puts 'erself-- But there!What's to happen to her?"

  "What's to happen to him?"

  He shook his head to show that problem was beyond him.

  "You'll go after her," I said in an even voice; "you'll make himmarry her?"

  "Where am I to go?" he asked helplessly, and held out the envelopewith a gesture; "and what could I do? Even if I knew-- How couldI leave the gardens?"

  "Great God!" I cried, "not leave these gardens! It's your Honor,man! If she was my daughter--if she was my daughter--I'd tear theworld to pieces!" . . I choked. "You mean to stand it?"

  "What can I do?"

  "Make him marry her! Horsewhip him! Horsewhip him, I say!--I'dstrangle him!"

  He scratched slowly at his hairy cheek, opened his mouth, andshook his head. Then, with an intolerable note of sluggish gentlewisdom, he said, "People of our sort, Willie, can't do things likethat."

  I came near to raving. I had a wild impulse to strike him in theface. Once in my boyhood I happened upon a bird terribly mangledby some cat, and killed it in a frenzy of horror and pity. I hada gust of that same emotion now, as this shameful mutilated soulfluttered in the dust, before me. Then, you know, I dismissed himfrom the case.

  "May I look?" I asked.

  He held out the envelope reluctantly.

  "There it is," he said, and pointing with his garden-rough forefinger."I.A.P.A.M.P. What can you make of that?"

  I took the thing in my hands. The adhesive stamp customary in thosedays was defaced by a circular postmark, which bore the name ofthe office of departure and the date. The impact in this particularcase had been light or made without sufficient ink, and half theletters of the name had left no impression. I could distinguish--

  I A P A M P

  and very faintly below D.S.O.

  I guessed the name in an instant flash of intuition. It wasShaphambury. The very gaps shaped that to my mind. Perhaps in asort of semi-visibility other letters were there, at least hintingthemselves. It was a place somewhere on the east coast, I knew,either in Norfolk or Suffolk.

  "Why!" cried I--and stopped.

  What was the good of telling him?

  Old Stuart had glanced up sharply, I am inclined to think almostfearfully, into my face. "You--you haven't got it?" he said.

  Shaphambury--I should remember that.

  "You don't think you got it?" he said.

  I handed the envelope back to him.

  "For a moment I thought it might be Hampton," I said.

  "Hampton," he repeated. "Hampton. How could you make Hampton?" Heturned the envelope about. "H.A.M.--why, Willie, you're a worsehand at the job than me!"

  He replaced the letter in the envelope and stood erect to put thisback in his breast pocket.

  I did not mean to take any risks in this affair. I drew a stumpof pencil from my waistcoat pocket, turned a little away from himand wrote "Shaphambury" very quickly on my frayed and rather grimyshirt cuff.

  "Well," said I, with an air of having done nothing remarkable.

  I turned to him with some unimportant observation--I have forgottenwhat.

  I never finished whatever vague remark I commenced.

  I looked up to see a third person waiting at the greenhouse door.