The Wonderful Visit Read online

  "MIS--ter Hilyer!" said the Curate's wife. "This is _too_ much!" Shestood speechless for a moment. "_Oh!_"

  She swept round upon the rigid girls. "Come!" The Vicar opened and shuthis voiceless mouth. The world hummed and spun about him. There was awhirling of zephyr skirts, four impassioned faces sweeping towards theopen door of the passage that ran through the vicarage. He felt hisposition went with them.

  "Mrs Mendham," said the Vicar, stepping forward. "Mrs Mendham. You don'tunderstand----"

  "_Oh!_" they all said again.

  One, two, three, four skirts vanished in the doorway. The Vicarstaggered half way across the lawn and stopped, aghast. "This comes," heheard the Curate's wife say, out of the depth of the passage, "of havingan unmarried vicar----." The umbrella stand wobbled. The front door ofthe vicarage slammed like a minute gun. There was silence for a space.

  "I might have thought," he said. "She is always so hasty."

  He put his hand to his chin--a habit with him. Then turned his face tohis companion. The Angel was evidently well bred. He was holding up MrsJehoram's sunshade--she had left it on one of the cane chairs--andexamining it with extraordinary interest. He opened it. "What a curiouslittle mechanism!" he said. "What can it be for?"

  The Vicar did not answer. The angelic costume certainly was--the Vicarknew it was a case for a French phrase--but he could scarcely rememberit. He so rarely used French. It was not _de trop_, he knew. Anythingbut _de trop_. The Angel was _de trop_, but certainly not his costume.Ah! _Sans culotte!_

  The Vicar examined his visitor critically--for the first time. "He_will_ be difficult to explain," he said to himself softly.

  The Angel stuck the sunshade into the turf and went to smell the sweetbriar. The sunshine fell upon his brown hair and gave it almost theappearance of a halo. He pricked his finger. "Odd!" he said. "Painagain."

  "Yes," said the Vicar, thinking aloud. "He's very beautiful and curiousas he is. I should like him best so. But I am afraid I must."

  He approached the Angel with a nervous cough.

  XI.

  "Those," said the Vicar, "were ladies."

  "How grotesque," said the Angel, smiling and smelling the sweet briar."And such quaint shapes!"

  "Possibly," said the Vicar. "Did you, _ahem_, notice how they behaved?"

  "They went away. Seemed, indeed, to run away. Frightened? I, of course,was frightened at things without wings. I hope---- they were notfrightened at my wings?"

  "At your appearance generally," said the Vicar, glancing involuntarilyat the pink feet.

  "Dear me! It never occurred to me. I suppose I seemed as odd to them asyou did to me." He glanced down. "And my feet. _You_ have hoofs like ahippogriff."

  "Boots," corrected the Vicar.

  "Boots, you call them! But anyhow, I am sorry I alarmed----"

  "You see," said the Vicar, stroking his chin, "our ladies, _ahem_, havepeculiar views--rather inartistic views--about, _ahem_, clothing.Dressed as you are, I am afraid, I am really afraid that--beautiful asyour costume certainly is--you will find yourself somewhat, _ahem_,somewhat isolated in society. We have a little proverb, 'When in Rome,_ahem_, one must do as the Romans do.' I can assure you that, assumingyou are desirous to, _ahem_, associate with us--during your involuntarystay----"

  The Angel retreated a step or so as the Vicar came nearer and nearer inhis attempt to be diplomatic and confidential. The beautiful face grewperplexed. "I don't quite understand. Why do you keep making thesenoises in your throat? Is it Die or Eat, or any of those...."

  "As your host," interrupted the Vicar, and stopped.

  "As my host," said the Angel.

  "_Would_ you object, pending more permanent arrangements, to investyourself, _ahem_, in a suit, an entirely new suit I may say, like this Ihave on?"

  "Oh!" said the Angel. He retreated so as to take in the Vicar from topto toe. "Wear clothes like yours!" he said. He was puzzled but amused.His eyes grew round and bright, his mouth puckered at the corners.

  "Delightful!" he said, clapping his hands together. "What a mad, quaintdream this is! Where are they?" He caught at the neck of the saffronrobe.

  "Indoors!" said the Vicar. "This way. We will change--indoors!"

  XII.

  So the Angel was invested in a pair of nether garments of the Vicar's, ashirt, ripped down the back (to accommodate the wings), socks,shoes--the Vicar's dress shoes--collar, tie, and light overcoat. Butputting on the latter was painful, and reminded the Vicar that thebandaging was temporary. "I will ring for tea at once, and send Grummetdown for Crump," said the Vicar. "And dinner shall be earlier." Whilethe Vicar shouted his orders on the landing rails, the Angel surveyedhimself in the cheval glass with immense delight. If he was a strangerto pain, he was evidently no stranger--thanks perhaps to dreaming--tothe pleasure of incongruity.

  They had tea in the drawing-room. The Angel sat on the music stool(music stool because of his wings). At first he wanted to lie on thehearthrug. He looked much less radiant in the Vicar's clothes, than hehad done upon the moor when dressed in saffron. His face shone still,the colour of his hair and cheeks was strangely bright, and there was asuperhuman light in his eyes, but his wings under the overcoat gave himthe appearance of a hunchback. The garments, indeed, made quite aterrestrial thing of him, the trousers were puckered transversely, andthe shoes a size or so too large.

  He was charmingly affable and quite ignorant of the most elementaryfacts of civilization. Eating came without much difficulty, and theVicar had an entertaining time teaching him how to take tea. "What amess it is! What a dear grotesque ugly world you live in!" said theAngel. "Fancy stuffing things into your mouth! We use our mouths just totalk and sing with. Our world, you know, is almost incurably beautiful.We get so very little ugliness, that I find all this ... delightful."

  Mrs Hinijer, the Vicar's housekeeper, looked at the Angel suspiciouslywhen she brought in the tea. She thought him rather a "queer customer."What she would have thought had she seen him in saffron no one can tell.

  The Angel shuffled about the room with his cup of tea in one hand, andthe bread and butter in the other, and examined the Vicar's furniture.Outside the French windows, the lawn with its array of dahlias andsunflowers glowed in the warm sunlight, and Mrs Jehoram's sunshade stoodthereon like a triangle of fire. He thought the Vicar's portrait overthe mantel very curious indeed, could not understand what it was therefor. "You have yourself round," he said, _apropos_ of the portrait, "Whywant yourself flat?" and he was vastly amused at the glass fire screen.He found the oak chairs odd--"You're not square, are you?" he said, whenthe Vicar explained their use. "_We_ never double ourselves up. We lieabout on the asphodel when we want to rest."

  "The chair," said the Vicar, "to tell you the truth, has always puzzled_me_. It dates, I think, from the days when the floors were cold andvery dirty. I suppose we have kept up the habit. It's become a kind ofinstinct with us to sit on chairs. Anyhow, if I went to see one of myparishioners, and suddenly spread myself out on the floor--the naturalway of it--I don't know what she would do. It would be all over theparish in no time. Yet it seems the natural method of reposing, torecline. The Greeks and Romans----"

  "What is this?" said the Angel abruptly.

  "That's a stuffed kingfisher. I killed it."

  "Killed it!"

  "Shot it," said the Vicar, "with a gun."

  "Shot! As you did me?"

  "I didn't kill you, you see. Fortunately."

  "Is killing making like that?"

  "In a way."

  "Dear me! And you wanted to make me like that--wanted to put glass eyesin me and string me up in a glass case full of ugly green and brownstuff?"

  "You see," began the Vicar, "I scarcely understood----"

  "Is that 'die'?" asked the Angel suddenly.

  "That is dead; it died."

  "Poor little thing. I must eat a lot. But you say you killed it. _Why?_"

  "You see," said the Vicar, "I take an interest in birds, and I (_ahem_)co
llect them. I wanted the specimen----"

  The Angel stared at him for a moment with puzzled eyes. "A beautifulbird like that!" he said with a shiver. "Because the fancy took you. Youwanted the specimen!"

  He thought for a minute. "Do you often kill?" he asked the Vicar.

  THE MAN OF SCIENCE.

  XIII.

  Then Doctor Crump arrived. Grummet had met him not a hundred yards fromthe vicarage gate. He was a large, rather heavy-looking man, with aclean-shaven face and a double chin. He was dressed in a grey morningcoat (he always affected grey), with a chequered black and white tie."What's the trouble?" he said, entering and staring without a shadow ofsurprise at the Angel's radiant face.

  "This--_ahem_--gentleman," said the Vicar, "or--_ah_--Angel"--the Angelbowed--"is suffering from a gunshot wound."

  "Gunshot wound!" said Doctor Crump. "In July! May I look at it,Mr--Angel, I think you said?"

  "He will probably be able to assuage your pain," said the Vicar. "Letme assist you to remove your coat?"

  The Angel turned obediently.

  "Spinal curvature?" muttered Doctor Crump quite audibly, walking roundbehind the Angel. "No! abnormal growth. Hullo! This is odd!" He clutchedthe left wing. "Curious," he said. "Reduplication of the anteriorlimb--bifid coracoid. Possible, of course, but I've never seen itbefore." The angel winced under his hands. "Humerus. Radius and Ulna.All there. Congenital, of course. Humerus broken. Curious integumentarysimulation of feathers. Dear me. Almost avian. Probably of considerableinterest in comparative anatomy. I never did!----How did this gunshothappen, Mr Angel?"

  The Vicar was amazed at the Doctor's matter-of-fact manner.

  "Our friend," said the Angel, moving his head at the Vicar.

  "Unhappily it is my doing," said the Vicar, stepping forward,explanatory. "I mistook the gentleman--the Angel (_ahem_)--for a largebird----"

  "Mistook him for a large bird! What next? Your eyes want seeing to,"said Doctor Crump. "I've told you so before." He went on patting andfeeling, keeping time with a series of grunts and inarticulatemutterings.... "But this is really a very good bit of amateurbandaging," said he. "I think I shall leave it. Curious malformationthis is! Don't you find it inconvenient, Mr Angel?"

  He suddenly walked round so as to look in the Angel's face.

  The Angel thought he referred to the wound. "It is rather," he said.

  "If it wasn't for the bones I should say paint with iodine night andmorning. Nothing like iodine. You could paint your face flat with it.But the osseous outgrowth, the bones, you know, complicate things. Icould saw them off, of course. It's not a thing one should have done ina hurry----"

  "Do you mean my wings?" said the Angel in alarm.

  "Wings!" said the Doctor. "Eigh? Call 'em wings! Yes--what else should Imean?"

  "Saw them off!" said the Angel.

  "Don't you think so? It's of course your affair. I am only advising----"

  "Saw them off! What a funny creature you are!" said the Angel, beginningto laugh.

  "As you will," said the Doctor. He detested people who laughed. "Thethings are curious," he said, turning to the Vicar. "Ifinconvenient"--to the Angel. "I never heard of such completereduplication before--at least among animals. In plants it's commonenough. Were you the only one in your family?" He did not wait for areply. "Partial cases of the fission of limbs are not at all uncommon,of course, Vicar--six-fingered children, calves with six feet, and catswith double toes, you know. May I assist you?" he said, turning to theAngel who was struggling with the coat. "But such a completereduplication, and so avian, too! It would be much less remarkable if itwas simply another pair of arms."

  The coat was got on and he and the Angel stared at one another.

  "Really," said the Doctor, "one begins to understand how that beautifulmyth of the angels arose. You look a little hectic, Mr Angel--feverish.Excessive brilliance is almost worse as a symptom than excessive pallor.Curious your name should be Angel. I must send you a cooling draught, ifyou should feel thirsty in the night...."

  He made a memorandum on his shirt cuff. The Angel watched himthoughtfully, with the dawn of a smile in his eyes.

  "One minute, Crump," said the Vicar, taking the Doctor's arm and leadinghim towards the door.

  The Angel's smile grew brighter. He looked down at his black-clad legs."He positively thinks I am a man!" said the Angel. "What he makes of thewings beats me altogether. What a queer creature he must be! This isreally a most extraordinary Dream!"

  XIV.

  "That _is_ an Angel," whispered the Vicar. "You don't understand."

  "_What?_" said the Doctor in a quick, sharp voice. His eyebrows went upand he smiled.

  "But the wings?"

  "Quite natural, quite ... if a little abnormal."

  "Are you sure they are natural?"

  "My dear fellow, everything that is, is natural. There is nothingunnatural in the world. If I thought there was I should give up practiceand go into _Le Grand Chartreuse_. There are abnormal phenomena, ofcourse. And----"

  "But the way I came upon him," said the Vicar.

  "Yes, tell me where you picked him up," said the Doctor. He sat down onthe hall table.

  The Vicar began rather hesitatingly--he was not very good at storytelling--with the rumours of a strange great bird. He told the story inclumsy sentences--for, knowing the Bishop as he did, with that awfulexample always before him he dreaded getting his pulpit style into hisdaily conversation--and at every third sentence or so, the Doctor made adownward movement of his head--the corners of his mouth tucked away, soto speak--as though he ticked off the phases of the story and so farfound it just as it ought to be. "Self-hypnotism," he murmured once.

  "I beg your pardon?" said the Vicar.

  "Nothing," said the Doctor. "Nothing, I assure you. Go on. This isextremely interesting."

  The Vicar told him he went out with his gun.

  "_After_ lunch, I think you said?" interrupted the Doctor.

  "Immediately after," said the Vicar.

  "You should not do such things, you know. But go on, please."

  He came to the glimpse of the Angel from the gate.

  "In the full glare," said the Doctor, in parenthesis. "It wasseventy-nine in the shade."

  When the Vicar had finished, the Doctor pressed his lips togethertighter than ever, smiled faintly, and looked significantly into theVicar's eyes.

  "You don't ..." began the Vicar, falteringly.

  The Doctor shook his head. "Forgive me," he said, putting his hand onthe Vicar's arm.

  "You go out," he said, "on a hot lunch and on a hot afternoon. Probablyover eighty. Your mind, what there is of it, is whirling with avianexpectations. I say, 'what there is of it,' because most of your nervousenergy is down there, digesting your dinner. A man who has been lying inthe bracken stands up before you and you blaze away. Over he goes--andas it happens--as it happens--he has reduplicate fore-limbs, one pairbeing not unlike wings. It's a coincidence certainly. And as for hisiridescent colours and so forth----. Have you never had patches ofcolour swim before your eyes before, on a brilliant sunlight day?... Areyou sure they were confined to the wings? Think."

  "But he says he _is_ an Angel!" said the Vicar, staring out of hislittle round eyes, his plump hands in his pockets.

  "_Ah!_" said the Doctor with his eye on the Vicar. "I expected asmuch." He paused.

  "But don't you think ..." began the Vicar.

  "That man," said the Doctor in a low, earnest voice, "is a mattoid."

  "A what?" said the Vicar.

  "A mattoid. An abnormal man. Did you notice the effeminate delicacy ofhis face? His tendency to quite unmeaning laughter? His neglected hair?Then consider his singular dress...."

  The Vicar's hand went up to his chin.

  "Marks of mental weakness," said the Doctor. "Many of this type ofdegenerate show this same disposition to assume some vast mysteriouscredentials. One will call himself the Prince of Wales, another theArchangel Gabriel, another the Deity even. I
bsen thinks he is a GreatTeacher, and Maeterlink a new Shakespeare. I've just been reading allabout it--in Nordau. No doubt his odd deformity gave him an idea...."

  "But really," began the Vicar.

  "No doubt he's slipped away from confinement."

  "I do not altogether accept...."

  "You will. If not, there's the police, and failing that, advertisement;but, of course, his people may want to hush it up. It's a sad thing in afamily...."

  "He seems so altogether...."

  "Probably you'll hear from his friends in a day or so," said the Doctor,feeling for his watch. "He can't live far from here, I should think. Heseems harmless enough. I must come along and see that wing againto-morrow." He slid off the hall table and stood up.

  "Those old wives' tales still have their hold on you," he said, pattingthe Vicar on the shoulder. "But an angel, you know--Ha, ha!"

  "I certainly _did_ think...." said the Vicar dubiously.

  "Weigh the evidence," said the Doctor, still fumbling at his watch."Weigh the evidence with our instruments of precision. What does itleave you? Splashes of colour, spots of fancy--_muscae volantes_."

  "And yet," said the Vicar, "I could almost swear to the glory on hiswings...."