 Section XI. of Here and Here-After—This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Here and Here-After by Barry Payne. The Four-Fingered Hand. Charles Yarrow held fours. But as he had come up against Brackley's straight flush, they only did him harm, leading him to remark—by no means for the first time—that it did not matter what cards one held, but only when one held to them. "'I get out here,' he remarked with a resignation. No one else seemed to care for further play. The two other men left at once, and shortly afterwards Yarrow and Brackley sauntered out of the club together. "'The night's young,' said Brackley. "'If you're doing nothing, you may as well come round to me.' "'Thanks, I will. I'll talk or smoke or go so far as to drink, but I don't play poker. It's not my night.' "'I didn't know,' said Brackley, that you had any superstitions.' "'Haven't. I've only noticed that as a rule my luck goes in runs, and that a good run or a bad run usually lasts the length of a night's play. There is probably some simple reason for it, if I were enough of a mathematician to worry it out. In luck, as distinct from arithmetic, I have no belief at all. I wish you could bring me to that happy condition. That hard-headed man of the world, without a superstition or a belief of any kind, has the best time of it.' They reached Brackley's chambers, lit pipes and mixed drinks. Yarrow stretched himself in a lounge-chair and took up the subject again, speaking lazily and meditatively. He was a man of thirty-eight with a clean-shaven face. He looked, as indeed he was, traveled and experienced. "'I don't read any books,' he remarked, but I've been twice round the world, and am just about to leave England again. I've been alive for thirty-eight years, and during most of them I've been living. Consequently I've formed opinions. And one of my opinions is, that it is better to dispense with superfluous luggage. Prejudices, superstitions, beliefs of any kind that are not capable of easy and immediate proof, are superfluous luggage. One goes more easily without them. You implied just now that you had a certain amount of this superfluous luggage, Brackley. What form does it take? Do you turn your chair? Are you afraid of thirteen at dinner? No, nothing of that sort. I'll tell you about it. You've heard of my grandfather, who made the money? Heard of him, had him rubbed into me in my childhood. He's in smiles, or one of those books, isn't he? Started life as a navvy, educated himself, invented things, made a fortune, gave vast sums in charity. That is the man? Well, he lived to be a fair age, but he was dead before I was born. What I know of him I know from my father, and some of it is not included in those improving books for the young. For instance, there is no mention in the printed biography of his curious belief in the forefingered hand. His belief was that, from time to time, he saw a phantom hand. Sometimes it appeared to him in the daytime, and sometimes at night. It was a right hand, with the second finger missing. He always regarded the appearance of the hand as a warning. It meant, he supposed, that he was to stop anything on which he was engaged. If he was about to let a house, buy a horse, go a journey, or whatever it was, he stopped if he saw the forefingered hand. Now look here, said Yaro. We'll examine this thing rationally. Can you quote one special instance in which your grandfather saw this maimed hand, broke off a particular project, and found himself benefited? No. In telling my father about it he spoke quite generally. Oh yes, said Yaro dryly. The people who see these things do speak quite generally as a rule. But wait a moment. This vision of the forefingered hand appears to have been hereditary. My father also saw it, from time to time. And here I can give you the special instances. Do you remember the crew disaster some years ago? Well, my father had intended to travel by the train that was wrecked. Just as he was getting into the carriage he saw the forefingered hand. He at once got out and postponed his journey until later in the day. Another occasion was two months before the failure of Varrings. My father banked there. As a rule he kept a comparatively small balance at the bank, but on this occasion he had just realized an investment, and was about to place the result, six thousand pounds, in the bank, pending reinvestment. He was on the point of sending off his confidential clerk with the money, when once more he saw the forefingered hand. Now at that time Varrings was considered to be as safe as a church. Possibly a few people with special means of information may have had some slight suspicion at the time, but my father certainly had none. He had always banked with Varrings, as his father had done before him. However, his faith in the warning hand was so great, that instead of paying in the six thousand he withdrew his balance that day. Is that good enough for you? Not entirely. Mind, I don't dispute your facts, but I doubt if it requires the supernatural to explain them. You say that the vision appears to be hereditary. Does that mean that you yourself have ever seen it? I have seen it once. When? I saw it to-night. Brackley spoke like a man suppressing some strong excitement. It was just as you got up from the card table after losing on your force. I was on the point of urging you and the other two men to go on playing. I saw the hand distinctly. It seemed to be floating in the air about a couple of yards away from me. It was a small, white hand, like a lady's hand, cut short off at the wrist. For a second it moved slowly towards me, and then vanished. Nothing would have induced me to go on playing poker to-night. You are—excuse me for mentioning it—not in the least—degree under the influence of drink. Further, you are, by habit, an almost absurdly temperate man. I mention these things because they have to be taken into consideration. They show that you are not at any rate the victim of a common and disreputable form of illusion. But what service has the hand done you? We play a regular point at the club. We are not the excited gamblers of fiction. We don't increase the points, and we never play after one in the morning. At the moment, when the hand appeared to you, how much had you won? Twenty-five pounds! An exceptionally large amount. Very well, you're a careful player. You play best when your luck's worst. We stopped play at half-past eleven. If we had gone on playing till one, and your luck had been of the worst possible description all the time, we will say that you might have lost that twenty-five, and twenty-five more. To me it is inconceivable, but with the worst luck and the worst play it is perhaps possible. Now then, do you mean to tell me that the loss of twenty-five pounds is a matter of such importance to a man with your income as to require a supernatural intervention to prevent you from losing it? Of course it isn't. Well then, the four-fingered hand has not accomplished its mission. It has not saved you from anything. It might even have been inconvenient. If you had been playing with strangers and winning, and they had wished to go on playing, you could hardly have refused. Of course it did not matter with us. We play with you constantly, and can have our revenge at any time. The four-fingered hand is proved in this instance to have been useless and inept. Therefore I am inclined to believe that the appearances, when it really did some good work, coincidences. Doubtless your grandfather and father and yourself have seen the hand. But surely that may be due to some slight hereditary defect in the seeing apparatus, which, under certain conditions, say, of the light and of your own health, creates the illusion. The four-fingered hand is natural and not supernatural, subjective and not objective. It sounds plausible, remarked Brackley. He got up, crossed the room, and began to open the card-table. Practical tests are always the most satisfactory, and we can soon have a practical test. As he put the candles on the table, he started a little and nearly dropped one of them. He laughed, dryly. I saw the four-fingered hand again just then, he said. But no matter. Come, let us play. Oh, the two-game isn't funny enough. Then I'll fetch Blake from downstairs. You know him. He never goes to bed, and he plays the game. Blake, who was a youngish man, had chambers downstairs. Brackley easily persuaded him to join the party. It was decided that they should play for exactly an hour. It was a poor game. The cards ran low and there was very little betting. At the end of the hour Brackley had lost a sovereign, and Yarrow had lost five pounds. I don't like to get up a winner like this, said Blake. Let's go on. But Yarrow was not to be persuaded. He said that he was going off to bed. No allusion to the four-fingered hand was made in speaking in the presence of Blake. But Yarrow's smile of conscious superiority had its meaning for Brackley. It meant that Yarrow had overthrown a superstition, and was consequently pleased with himself. After a few minutes' chat, Yarrow and Blake said good night to Brackley, and went downstairs together. Just as they reached the ground floor they heard, from far up the staircase, a short cry followed a moment afterwards by the sound of a heavy fall. What's that? Blake exclaimed. I'm just going to see, said Yarrow quietly. It seemed to me to come from Brackley's rooms. Let's go up again. They hurried up the staircase and knocked at Brackley's door. There was no answer. The whole place was absolutely silent. The door was ajar. Yarrow pushed it open, and the two men went in. The candles on the card-table were still burning. At some distance from them, in a dark corner of the room, lay Brackley, face downwards, with one arm folded under him, and the other stretched wide. Blake stood in the doorway. Yarrow went quickly over to Brackley, and turned the body partially over. What is it? asked Blake excitedly. Is the manial? Has he fainted? Run downstairs, said Yarrow curtly. Rouse the porter and get a doctor at once. The moment Blake had gone, Yarrow took a candle from the card-table, and by the light of it examined, once more, the body of the dead man. On the throat there was the imprint of a hand. A right hand, with the second finger missing. The marks, which were crimson at first, grew gradually fainter. Some years afterwards, in Yarrow's presence, a man happened to tell some story of a warning apparition that he himself had investigated. And do you believe that? Yarrow asked. The evidence that the apparition was seen, and seen by more than one person, seems to me fairly conclusive in this case. That is all very well. I will grant you the apparition if you like. But why speak of it as a warning? If such appearances take place, it still seems to me absurd and disproportionate to suppose that they do so in order to warn us, or help us, or hinder us, or any thing of the kind. They appear for their own unfathomable reasons only, if they seem to forbid one thing or command another. That also is for their own purpose. I have an experience of my own, which would tend to show that. The Tower In the billiard room of the Cabinet Club, shortly after midnight, two men had just finished a game. A third had been watching it from the lounge at the end of the room. The winner put up his cue, slipped on his coat, and with a brief good-night, passed out of the room. He was tall, dark, clean-shaven, and foreign in appearance. It would not have been easy to guess his nationality, but he did not look English. The loser, a fair-haired boy of twenty-five, came over to the lounge and dropped down by the side of the elderly man who had been watching the billiards. Pfft! Silly game, ain't it, Doctor? he said cheerfully. The doctor smiled. Yours, he said. Vise is a little bit too hot for you, Bill. A bit too hot for anything, said the boy. He never takes any trouble. He never hesitates. He never thinks. He never takes an easy shot when there's a brilliant one to be pulled off. It's almost uncanny. Ah, said the doctor reflectively. It's a queer thing. Yours a third man whom I have heard say that about Vise within the last week. I believe he's quite all right. Good sort of chap, you know. He's frightfully clever, too. Speaks a lot of beastly, difficult Oriental languages. Does well at any game he takes up. Yours, said the doctor. He is clever. And he is also a fool. What do you mean? He's eccentric, of course. Fancy is buying that rot in tower. A sweet place to spend Christmas in all alone, I don't think. Why does he say he's going there? Says he hates the conventional Christmas and wants to be out of it. Says also that he wants to shoot Duck. That won't do him, said the doctor. He may hate the conventional Christmas. He may, and he probably will, shoot Duck, but that's not his reason for going there. Then what's is it? asked the boy. Nothing that would interest you much, Bill. Vise is one of the chaps that wants to know too much. He's playing about in a way that every medical man knows to be a rotten, dangerous way. Mind he may get at something. If the stories are true, he has already got at a good deal. I believe it is possible for a man to develop in himself certain powers at a certain price. What surprise? Insanity is often is not. Here, let's talk about something pleasanter. Where are you yourself going this Christmas, by the way? My sister has taken compassion upon this lone bachelor. And you? I shall be out of England, said the doctor. Cairo, probably. The two men passed out into the hall of the club. As Mr. Vise gone yet, the boy asked the porter. Not yet, Sir William. Mr. Vise is changing in one of the dressing rooms. His car is outside. The two men passed the car in the street and noticed the luggage in the tunnel. The driver, in his long leather coat, stood motionless beside it, waiting for his master. The powerful headlight raked the dusk of the street. You could see the paint on a tired woman's cheek as she passed through it on her way home at last. You see his gang, said Bill. Of course, said the doctor. He's off to the marshes and that blessed tower of his tonight. Well, odd town envy him. Holy sort of amusement it must be driving all that way on a cold night like this. I wonder if the beggar ever goes to sleep. That's all. They had reached Bill's chambers in German Street. You must come in and have a drink, said Bill. I don't think so. Thanks, said the doctor. It's late, you know. Oh, you'd better, said Bill. And the doctor followed him in. A letter and a telegram were lying on the table in the diminutive hall. The letter had been sent by messenger and was addressed to Sir William Orlsie, Bart. In a remarkably small handwriting, Bill picked it up and thrust it into his pocket at once, unopened. He took the telegram with him into the next room where the drinks had been put out and opened it as he sipped his whiskey and soda. Great Scott, he exclaimed. Nothing serious, I hope, said the doctor. I hope not. I suppose old children have got to have the measles some time or another, but it's a bit unlucky that my sister's three should all go down with it just now. That does for her house party at Christmas, of course. A few minutes later, when the doctor had gone, Bill took the letter from his pocket and tore it open. A check fell from the envelope and fluttered to the ground. The letter ran as follows. Dear Bill, I could not talk to you tonight, as the doctor who happens to disapprove of me was in the billiard room. Of course, I can let you have the hundred you want and enclose it herewith, with the utmost pleasure. The time you mentioned for repayment would suit me all right, and so would any other time. Suit your own convenience entirely. I have a favour to ask of you. I know you are intending to go down to the Leylands for Christmas. I think you will be prevented from doing so. If that is the case and you have no better engagement, would you hold yourself at my disposal for a week? It is just possible that I may want a man like you pretty badly. There ought to be plenty of duck this weather, but I don't know that I can offer any other attraction. Very sincerely yours, Edward Vise. Bill picked up the check and thrust it into the drawer with a feeling of relief. It was a queer invitation, he thought, funnily worded with the usual intimations of time and place missing. He switched off the electric lights and went into his bedroom. As he was undressing, a thought struck him suddenly. How the deuce, he said aloud, did he know that I should be prevented from going to Polly's place? Then he looked round quickly. He thought that he had heard a faint laugh just behind him. No one was there, and Bill's nerves were good enough. In twenty minutes he was fast asleep. The cottage. Built of grey stone, stood some thirty yards back from the road from which it was screened by a shrubbery. It was an ordinary eight-roomed cottage, and it did well enough for Vise and his servants and one guest, if Vise happened to want a guest. There was a pleasant little walled garden of a couple of acres behind the cottage. Through a doorway in the further wall one passed into a stunted and dismal plantation, and in the middle of this rose the tower, far higher than any of the trees that surrounded it. Sir William Orlesy had arrived just in time to change before dinner. Talk at dinner had been of indifferent subjects, the queer characters of the village and the chances of sport on the morrow. Bill had mentioned the tower, and his host had hastened to talk of other things. But now that dinner was over, and the man who had waited on them had left the room, Vise of his own accord returned to the subject. Danvers is a superstitious ass, he observed, and he's in quite enough of a funk about that tower as it is. That's why I wouldn't give you the story of it while he was in the room. According to the village tradition, a witch was burned on the site where the tower now stands, and she declared that where she burned the devil should have his house. The lord of the manor at that time, hearing what the old lady had said, and wishing to discourage house-building on that particular site, had it covered with the plantation, and made it a condition of his will that this plantation should be kept up. Bill lit a large cigar. Looks like checkmate, he said, however, seeing that the tower is actually there. Quite so. The man's son came no end of a cropper, and the property changed hands several times. It was divided and subdivided. I, for instance, only own about twenty acres of it. Presently there came along a scientific old gentleman and bought the piece that I now have. Whether he knew of the story or whether he didn't, I cannot say, but he set to work to build the tower that is now standing in the middle of the plantation. He may have intended it as an observatory. He got the stone for it on the spot from his own quarry, but he had to import his labour as the people in these parts didn't think the work healthy. Then, one fine morning before the tower was finished, they found the old gentleman at the bottom of his quarry with his neck broken. So, said Bill, they say, of course, that the tower is haunted. What is it that they think they see? Nothing. You can't see it. But there are people who think they have touched it and have heard it. Rot, ain't it? I don't know exactly. You see, I happen to be one of those people. Then, if you think so, there's something in it. This is interesting. I say, can't we go across there now? Certainly, if you like. Sure you won't have any more wine? Come along, then. The two men slipped on their coats and caps. Vice carried a lighted stable lantern. It was a frosty moonlit night, and the path was crisp and hard beneath their feet. As Vice slid back the bolts of the gate to the garden wall, Bill said suddenly, by the way, Vice, how did you know that I shouldn't be at Leyland's this Christmas? I told you I was going there. I don't know. I had the feeling that you were going to be with me. It might have been wrong. Anyhow, I'm very glad you're here. You are just exactly the man I want. We've only a few steps to go now. This path is ours. That cart track leads away to the quarry, where the scientific gentleman took the shortcuts to further knowledge. And here's the door of the tower. They walked round the tower before entering. The night was so still that, unconsciously, they spoke in lowered voices and trod as softly as possible. The lock of the heavy door groaned and screeched as the key turned. The light of the lantern fell now on the white sand of the floor and on a broken spiral staircase on the further side. Far up above one saw a tangle of beams and the stars beyond them. Bill heard Vise saying that it was left like that after the death in the quarry. It's a good solid bit of masonry, said Bill, but it ain't a cheerful spot exactly. And par-cho, it smells like a menagerie. It does, said Vise, who was examining the sand on the floor. Bill also looked down at the prints in the sand. Some dog's been in here. No, said Vise thoughtfully. Dogs won't come in here, and you can't make them. Also there were no marks on the sand when I left the place and locked the door this afternoon. Queer, isn't it? But there things a blank impossibility, unless of course we ought to suppose that. He did not finish his sentence, and if he had finished it, it would not have been audible. A chorus of grunting, growling, and squealing broke out almost from under his feet, and he sprang backwards. It lasted for a few seconds, and then died slowly away. Did you hear that? Vise asked quietly. Ah, should Raza think so? Good, then it was not subjective. What was it? Only one corner beast makes that, Rao. Peaks, of course. A whole drove of them. It sounded as if they were in here, close to us, but as they obviously are not, they must be outside. But they are not outside, said Vise. Come and see. They hunted the plantation through and through, with no result, and then locked the tower door and went back to the cottage. Rao said very little. He was not capable of much self-analysis, but he was conscious of a sudden dislike of Vise. He was angry that he had ever put himself under an obligation to this man. He had wanted the money for a gambling debt, and he had already repaid it. Now he saw Vise in the light of a man with whom one should have no dealings, and the last man from whom one should accept a kindness. A strange experience that he had just been through filled him with loathing, far more than with fear or wonder. There was something unclean and diabolical about the whole thing that made a decent man reluctant to question or to investigate. The filthy smell of the brutes seemed still to linger in his nostrils. He was determined that on no account would he enter the tower again, and as soon as he could find a decent excuse, he would leave the place altogether. A little later, as he sat before the log fire and filled his pipe, he turned to his host with a sudden question. I say, Vise, why did you want me to come down here? What's the meaning of it all? My dear fellow, said Vise, I wanted you for the pleasure of your society. Now don't get impatient. I wanted you because you are the most normal man I know. Your confirmation of my experiences in the tower is most valuable to me. Also you have good nerves, and if you will forgive me for saying so, no imagination. I may want help that only a man with good nerves would be able to give. Why don't you leave the whole thing alone? It's too basely. Vise laughed. I'm afraid my hobby bores you. We won't talk about it. After all, there's no reason why you should help me. Tell me just what it is that you wanted. I wanted you if you heard this whistle. He took an ordinary police whistle down from the mantelpiece, any time tonight or tomorrow night to come over to the tower at once and bring a revolver with you. The whistle would be a sign that I was in a tight place, that my life in fact was in danger. You see, we are dealing here with something preternatural, but it is also something material. In addition to other risks, one risks ordinary physical destruction. However, I could see that you were repelled by the sight and the sound of those beasts, whatever they may be. And I can tell you from my own experience that the touch of them is even worse. There is no reason why you should bother yourself any further about the thing. You can take your whistle with you, said Bill. If I hear it, I will come. Thanks, said Vise, and immediately changed the subject. He did not say why he was spending the night in the tower or what it was he proposed to do there. It was three in the morning when Bill was suddenly startled out of his sleep. He heard the whistle being blown repeatedly. He hurried on some clothes and dashed down into the hall where his lantern and revolver lay all ready for him. He ran along the garden path and threw the door in the wall until he got to the tower. The sound of the whistle had ceased now, and everything was horribly still. The door of the tower stood wide open, and without hesitation Bill entered, holding his lantern high. The tower was absolutely empty. Not a sound was to be heard. Bill called Vise by name twice, loudly. And then again the awful silence spread over the place. Then, as if guided by some unseen hand, he took the track that led to the quarry, well knowing what he would find at the bottom of it. The jury assigned the death of Vise to an accident and said that the quarry should be fenced in. They had no explanation to offer of the mutilation of the face as if by the teeth of some savage beast. End of Section 12 The Futility of William Penardin General Penardin C.B. married late in life and had one son who was intended by General Penardin to follow his father's profession to be V.C. and D.S.O., and to be a bright and shining light. As the intentions of destiny did not precisely agree with the intentions of General Penardin, it is perhaps just as well that the old man died when William his son was a boy of six. He was thus saved some disappointment. But even in those brief years he was not saved all disappointment. He made, grimly, a list of the different things of which the child was frightened, and it was a very long list. Many, of course, were things of which any child is frightened. Many others came into a doubtful category. The fear would have been excusable perhaps in a girl. There was left a residue which was all wrong and quite inexplicable. The general, though disappointed, did not despair. He quoted instances of brave men who had had him in childhood. His optimistic program was that his son should have it all knocked out of him by the paternal hand, by the severe discipline of a public school, and by experience of dangers. Familiarity of them would breed contempt, and all would yet be well. On the day before his death from apoplexy, he imagined to himself dispatches in which his son's name figured brilliantly. The general had married a woman much younger than himself. She was beautiful and she was bored. She came of a decaying race. The brilliant vices and wild extravagances of her 18th-century forefathers had ended with the usual and prosaic sequel of tainted blood and fallen fortunes. Possibly there were few things that bored this tired London woman more than her son, William. She remembered to talk about him a little to her friends. She had the best possible care taken of him by the best possible servants. She gave him expensive presents on the days appointed, but she did not want to be with him very much. When she was with him, she either spoiled him or bullied him, and more often she bullied him. At the age of 12, William, at a preparatory school which he hated, was bitten to write an essay on the subject of war. He wrote childishly and with many faults of punctuation and spelling, to the effect that war was the wickedest thing in the world and that a soldier's profession was the most inhuman and abominable. By chance the essay came into his mother's way and she laughed till she cried over it. He was not a pretty boy, and he could never be admirable, but there seemed to be some chance that he might at least be quaint. At the age of 14 he made to his mother a profound observation, to it that though for many long years past he himself had been getting older and older, she had never changed one little bit. For this she kissed him. He might have found her in a mood when she would have struck him for it. It was quite clear by this time that he was not to be a soldier. The weakness of his physique supported the firmness of his wishes in this respect. He could have never passed the doctor. At his public school, which he hated even more than the preparatory school, medical certificates freed him to some extent from compulsory games. He was a moth at all games and he was no great scholar, yet he was less unpopular at school than might have been expected. He had no pretensions whatsoever, and he was very obliging. He would do anything for anybody. He had the fatal gift of imagination, and a few eccentricities that amused other boys. Boys treat with good humor that with which they are amused. There was, for instance, a certain shortcut, a footpath across some fields, in common use by the boys, which William Pernardon resolutely refused to take. He gave no reasons, but he said that he could not take that path. So he went all the way round, and was frequently late, and from that came trouble. But he remained obstinate. He was one of the things that pleased the other boys. Mad as a hatter, they would say, and quoted his dislike of the field-pathim-proof. It was during his first term at Cambridge that he heard from his mother that she intended to marry again. She had not aged at all, except to the most careful observer and to her own maid, and even her own maid did not know everything. It was, perhaps, rather remarkable that she had not remarried before, but she had always preferred the admiration of the many to the devotion of the one, and by the terms of the late General's will, her remarriage made her son much richer and herself much poorer. It may have occurred to her that this prolonged struggle with age could not be carried on indefinitely. As for the money, she was marrying a wealthy baronet and knew how to take care of herself. It was true that he was a sportsman who hated London, and that she would have to live for the most part in the country. But the things which are supposed to amuse had bored her so long that she had begun to wonder if she could not be amused by the things that are supposed to bore. Then there was always the resource of foreign travel. She knew a doctor who could generally be counted upon to order her to the place to which she wished to go. William was not much surprised by the news, and he wrote the kindest of letters to his mother. He was really an extremely kind young man. He had already met many characters of doubtful probity. None of them had ever asked him to lend money. He had always anticipated them by the offer of a loan. On the occasions when his mother got to hear of this, she had been unfailingly very, very mad with him. At present, William was quite ready to accept the situation, but the situation was not quite ready to accept William. He was not much of a sportsman, and his new father said candidly that he could see nothing in the boy. Lady Coyne, formerly Mrs. Pinardin, became suddenly serious and plagiarly moral in the subject of William's career. She spelled career with a capital letter and her letters to him. She pronounced it in italics for her talk. It was true that it was not necessary for him to make an income, but no good ever came of idleness. She had, by the way, made an exhaustive trial of it herself for the last twenty years, and was therefore in a position to speak. She suggested politics and the diplomatic service. He had no taste for either. Above all, she emphasized the bad effect which a prolonged home life had upon a young man. Before he took his degree, it was a past degree. He had learned to interpret this correctly and spent very little of his vacations at home. He had made friends who found him amiable and liked him to visit them occasionally. Sometimes he traveled. When he was at home he did not see very much of his mother. There were always other visitors staying in the house. Sir Charles Coyne was pessimistic on the subject of William. He complained the piano a bit, he said, and he can drive the car, and there is not one other solitary damned thing that he can do. I wished a goodness he would get married. William did not get married, but he kept out of the way, which, after all, was almost as good. Further, to please his mother, he said that he proposed ultimately to become a candidate for parliament. In the meantime, he would like to devote two or three years to serious preparation. Lady Coyne observed that he could cram up all that a member needed to know in two or three weeks, but did not remont straight further. William took a riverside cottage in a small flat in London. He went from one to the other as the mood took him, and as a rule made the journey on his motor car. He liked driving the car, but it was rather a fearful pleasure. He was, perhaps, the most cautious driver extant and the secret amusement of his hireling chauffeur. When William went from his cottage to his flat in town, he made the chauffeur take the wheel when they approached London. William did not like driving through the thick traffic at any time, and did not like driving by night at all. One Saturday night in June, Dolin, the chauffeur, received an unexpected visit from a long absent brother. The visitor arrived just at the moment when he and his master were about to start for London in the car. Timidity and amyability struggled in the breast of William Penardin, and amyability won. I shan't want you, Dolin, he said. I can manage it all right by myself. Mr. Dolin was sure that it was very kind of him. It was a bright moonlight night with deep, bothering shadows. William started slowly. He already felt nervous. How would it be if he gave up the London idea altogether? He could telegraph in the morning to the friend whom he was to have met. He turned off from the London road where a circuit of two or three miles would bring him back to the cottage again. There was a dark stretch of road here, trees on either side almost meeting overhead. Beyond, the road lay white and open. William went into his third speed as he emerged from the darkness. At that moment, a black figure shot out from the hedge into the road right across the way of the car. In a moment or two, William had jammed on the brakes, and the car stood still with the engines racing. Had he touched the man or not, it seemed to him to be a long while before he could force himself to look round and see. When he did so, he saw the black figure lying motionless on the road in the bright moonlight. Are you hurt, William called hoarsely? All was silent. With great care, William turned his car round in the road and crawled up alongside. He could see now that it was the figure of a man, raggedly dressed, absolutely motionless. The hat had fallen off, and the moonlight made the thick, white hair brilliant. Are you hurt, William asked again. He stared hard to see if he could detect the slightest movement. There was none. He listened intently, stopping his engines. The whole night seemed to him full of the silence of the dead. He knew perfectly well what he ought to do, but sheer panic had hold of him. He touched the switch and his engines started again. For once in his life he drove recklessly and he drove to London. There would be ample evidence that he had been intending to go to London when he started, and there would be no reason why he should ever have taken his car on the road where the dead body would be found. No one had seen him. No suspicion could attach to him. Long before he reached London, the drunken tramp whom William supposed that he had killed, sat up. The car had never touched him. He had fallen in the road and had been slightly stunned. He rubbed his aged and disreputable head and grumbled to himself that this was what came of those sanguinary motors. Then he walked home, kicked his wife, and slept the sleep of the just. The price that William Penardin was to pay for his cowardice was heavy enough. He was never to know that he had not even touched the man. Coincidence was already busy to convince him that he had killed that man and to keep the terror of it fresh in his mind for the remaining two years of his life. He came back from London by train on Sunday afternoon. He told Dolin that he was ill and that he did not feel up to driving the car. Dolin could fetch it back from the garage on Monday. Dolin looked remarkably serious. He did not know if his master had heard of it, but a terrible thing had happened not three miles away from them. The man had been found dead in the road on Saturday night, and it was supposed that he had been knocked down by a motor car. It was not the London road. It was just where... William Penardin stopped him abruptly and savagely. It was all true then, and not the dream that he had hoped to find it. Yes, it was true enough, but it was another man in another car. The horny reprobate who had been dazzled by the headlights of Penardin's car and had stunned himself in his fall was now no worse than he usually was after his usual Saturday night. For many weeks Penardin carefully avoided the newspapers. He was afraid of what he would find there. After that came a feeling of security, but never a moment's peace. That brilliant white hair and the moonlight wove itself into the fabric of his dreams. That black figure lurched ever before his car, till Penardin had a nervous breakdown and gave up motoring. When he got a little better, the chief question in his mind was how long he could stand it, how long it would be before his mind gave way and in his ravines he let loose his secret. Morose, nervous, ill, he saw no one. For a long time he traveled, change of scene was inopiate. It put the day of madness a little further off. The poor man did his best. The political career was now definitely given up. Lady Coyne spoke with the sigh to the more intimate part of her circle of her son's incurable idleness. On his return to England he had yielded to archaeology. It was a subject which had always interested him, and he looked to it now to take his mind off. He journeyed from one cathedral to another, asking erudite questions, making rubbings of brasses and always haunted. In the course of his wanderings and quest of the quaint, he stopped at a provincial town, the normal serenity of which was in a state of temporary interruption, owing to some reliability trials of motors being held in its neighborhood. Penardin drove to the hotel which the railway porter impressed upon him, was the only one likely to have accommodation for such as himself, and asked for a room. The clerk announced mournfully that only number fifty-four was unoccupied, and, well, before offering it to the gentleman he had better see the manager. That official saw the class of man he was dealing with, and regretted deeply that he had no other room. But the reliability trials were on, and his resources were strained to the uttermost. It was all that he had to offer, and it was on the top floor of an annex, the decoration of which was not yet completed. The painter's stepladders and planks still lingered in the corridor, the view from the window was obstructed by a mean building scarcely eight feet away. True, the mean building had been condemned and was to come down, and the decorations would be finished and the workmen would be out in a fortnight. But in the meantime... Well, in the meantime William Penardin did not care much in what room he failed to get to sleep, and he accepted the bedroom that was offered. He even managed to sleep in it, until in the early hours he was aroused by the waiter, in dress trousers and the jacket of his pajamas, who told him that the building opposite was well alight, and that they hoped that the annex would not catch, the wind being favourable to them, but that Mr. Penardin had better get down at once and bring his travelling bag with him. Right, said Penardin, and sent the waiter to wake up the others. Then he dressed quickly, and looked out of his window down to the alley beneath. The fire brigade had not yet arrived. Two policemen were doing their best to keep the narrow alley clear. An ugly old woman in violent hysterics was screaming, there up there, and a man was trying to quiet her. Then Penardin gave a great sigh of relief, for here was the chance of expiation. He took the longest of the planks that the painters had left, and ran it through his own window so that it dropped on a window ledge of the burning house opposite. As a rule he had no head at all for heights, but now he felt perfectly unperturbed. He did not attempt to walk along the plank, for he was not giving a circus exhibition, but he began to work himself along it slowly in a sitting position, taking great care not to jolt the end of it off the window ledge opposite. An authoritative voice below shouted him to go back. He went on. He reached the window opposite and flung it open. A volley of black and stifling smoke poured forth and he nearly fell. Then he climbed into the room, and the last that was seen of him was that he stood at the window, taking off his coat to put it over his head before he could go further. He was not seen again alive. And as his mother Lady Coyne observed, it was all so absolutely futile. The people in the house had already got out, and he had let himself be guided by the hysterical raving of some chanced woman in the crowd. So he annoyed her almost as much in death as he had done in life. But it is possible that his death, horrible though it was, was for him of an extreme happiness. End of Section 13 Section 14 of Here and Hereafter. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Josh Kibbe. Here and Hereafter by Barry Payne. The Pathos of the Common Place. He was a middle-aged man when he first came to the town. He had taken an appointment as clerk to a firm of solicitors, and he was happy in that appointment, regarding it as a step upwards. He was small in stature and wild in manner. His eyes had a hesitating look in them, and he pressed his thin lips tightly together as though to counterbalance his look of hesitation and to make himself appear rather firm. He found himself furnished apartments in a house that was one of a row on the very outskirts of the great town. There were two rooms at the top of the house, small and shabbily furnished, looking out on a piece of wasteland at the back. On this piece of wasteland there was one large tree growing. At the time when he first took the rooms he was talkative and told the landlady all about himself. My name is Peters. You see, I've just got a step upwards rather by being appointed clerk to grant them in Flinders. Formerly I used to keep the books for Flinders's cousin, who's a grocer in a small way at Melstow, oh, quite a comparatively small way. Really now, said Mrs. Marks, a good woman, but not always logical. And then for this Flinders to give himself those heirs, and his cousin no more than that? Ah, I have many a times said that half the world doesn't know who the other half's relations are. So it is, replied Peters. I may say, I think I may say, that I've done a good deal for Flinders's cousin. He's taken my advice more than once, notably in an extension of the counter trade in effervescence during the hot weather, and he's found it pay him. Well, he knew that I could do a good deal better than I was doing. I taught myself things, you know. They were shorthand now. At Melstow my shorthand was, if it's not to use too strong a term, going to rot, simply going to rot. In a grocery in general there's no use for it. I pointed that all out to Flinders's cousin, and he, being good natured in seeing what I was, got me this birth with this Flinders himself. So I left Melstow, and I left Flinders's cousin. Left him, thanks to me, doing to my certain knowledge some gross more in the lemonade than he had ever done in the past. Peters paused, and looked proud of himself. Mind he went on, rather weakly, I'm telling you all this not from any, any desire to tell anyone anything, but because I may be giving up these rooms in two or three years, or even less. You see, I've taken one of those steps upwards that may lead to anything. Most like mine you just work yourself up and work yourself up. Starting with what I may call family influence, and having rather a strong natural turn, I may be made managing clerk in no time. Then, perhaps, Flinders dies, and I'm took in. Grantham and Peters wouldn't sound bad. Only then, of course, I shouldn't keep these rooms. I should be taking a house of my own. Mrs. Sparks considered this, not in justly, to be a little wild, but it was cheaper always to humor a lodger, and she mostly chose the cheapest. Then you'd be getting married, she said. Under the circumstances, I should ask Flinders' cousin's second daughter to... to considerate suggested the landlady? To re-considerate, said Peters, sadly and correctively. He had a nervous anxiety to get away from the subject. He glanced out of the window. I call that a pleasant lookout, he said. Being high up in that sycamore touching the window nearly, it ain't unlike Zacchaeus. That's no sycamore, Mr. Peters. It's a plane. I don't know about such things. I need to talk her as a rule. It may be that I'm a bit excited at entering a new spear, a spear from which much may be hoped. Not for worlds would I have him know in the office that I've got ambitions, oh no. The landlady moved to the door. Will there be anything else now? A little tea if it's not too much trouble, said Peters. I have a partiality for tea. You shall have it, said Mrs. Marks. She did a good deal with the manner and tone of the voice. Peters vaguely understood that all this was exceptional and must not occur again. He must not make a practice of taking up Mrs. Mark's precious time to cheer gearlessness. And he must not get into the habit of ordering tea or anything else that he wanted. He must wait until it was brought to him spontaneously. He began to unpack his few belongings and put them away neatly. He had a picture and engraving that he had purchased ready-framed in Melstow. It represented David playing before Saul. He hung it over the mantelpiece. Beneath stood a partly decayed model of a Swiss mountain in Chalet, protected by a glass case. When everything was tidy, he got his ambitions. Now, Mr. Peters, as will have been gathered, was as ignorant as a child of the manner in which promotion takes place in a solicitor's office and of the fact that he had no chance whatever. He was conscientious and patient and could do mechanical work. He was quite regular. Some men can do a thing one day which they cannot do on the next, but Peters was never unexpected. He was invariable in his merits and in his incompetence. You are never going beyond that. His disappointment dawned very slowly upon him. He found that a solicitor's office was not what he had supposed it to be. Neither grant them nor Flinders was at all by a way of being intimate with him. In fact, they rarely spoke to him, except to dictate a letter. It was the managing clerk who told him what to do and he always did it as well as he could and that was never very well, nor very badly. Sometimes he thought with regret with the nearly social terms upon what he had been with Flinders' cousin. His cousin had taken his advice about the lemonade. Now he was not on social terms with anybody. He was not good at making friends. He did not get on very well with the other clerks. They were not serious. They played practical jokes upon him which he took as a rule with his accustomed mildness. Once or twice he lost his temper and then he was undignified but very funny. His position was not in any danger. He was careful, methodical, punctual. It was only that his step upwards had been the last step that he was able to take in that direction. He had found his level. In the first few months of his appointment he had purchased a large law book secondhand. He picked that one because it was so very cheap and it was so very cheap because it was also so very obsolete. But Peters did not know this. He studied his book without entirely understanding it by the light of an evil smelling lamp in the long evenings. When his disappointment had finally dawned upon him he took the book back to the secondhand bookseller and tried to get him to purchase it again. But that was of no use. It had taken the secondhand man some years to sell that book once and he did not feel inclined to recommence the struggle. So Peters put it up on a shelf and did his best to forget it. Now he read Mrs. Marx's newspaper. She obliged him with the loan of it in the evening. On one occasion another clerk lent him something described as a regular spicy novel. Peters read a few pages but he did not like it and gave it back. He began to be sorry that on his first arrival he had been so confidential with his landlady. He had given her a false impression and he must correct it. So one day he mentioned to her that he had relinquished the notion of a partnership. Ah yes she said. She had quite forgotten about it but one must verbally humor lodgers. Besides, she had an apposite observation to make. I've often remarked, she said, that if we could all have everything we wanted there wouldn't be enough to go around. Peters felt a little lonely. One day it was very much like another. He always went to bed at the same time and his life seemed to be going on by machinery with himself left out of it. He had a fancy that it was the plain tree which woke him in the morning. Its bows touched lightly against his window sometimes when the wind blew. He was rather attached to that tree. In the summer it looked so cool and pleasant. There was a door at the back of the house leading on to that piece of wasteland and he would have liked to have gone outside and sat under the tree in the hot weather. But he doubted if he had any right to use that backdoor. He had a right to his two rooms but he was doubtful about the backdoor. On one or two occasions he had inadvertently exceeded his rights and Mrs. Marx had seemed to him rather put out. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Marx was very well satisfied with him. He was a good lodger, gave no trouble and paid his book punctually. He rarely rang, never seemed to mind if the bell was not answered, went to church twice every Sunday and was accredited to the house. He was an economical man and was putting by a little money. He had a small sum of his own, but neither father had left him or, as he preferred to call it, a certain private income independent of his salary. The days went on. The old tree looked in at his window and seemed interested in him and he was interested in the tree noting the way it took the seasons. Otherwise there was nothing and it was rather lonely. And then one day Mrs. Marx brought him a piece of news. Her little niece Elsa was coming to spend a holiday with her. She thought she would mention it and that he did not object to children at all. Oh, and about that back door, Mrs. Marx, he added. I've sometimes thought I'd like to make use of it so as to sit out under that tree of a warm evening. Most certainly, Mr. Peters and no need to ask, either. Under the plain tree, Peters found a thin girl with a white dress, black stockings, yellow hair and a large doll. He gazed at her mildly. Are you Elsa? Yes. Are you the lodger? Yes. He paused for want of ideas and added that it was a fine Saturday afternoon. She had much more self-possession than he had. She looked at him critically. Were you going to sit out here, lodger? I had been thinking of it. Well, do it then. He sat down beside her and said that she had a nice doll. Yes. Its name is Mrs. Markham. I'm giving her up because I'm nearly nine and it's silly to keep on with dolls when you've nearly grown up. I used to have six dolls and I've given them all up except Mrs. Markham. She'll have to go, too. I say, how do you play with dolls? You pretend things. Can you do that? Bless you, yes, said Peters cheerfully. I can pretend anything you like. What shall it be? Let's pretend it's night. All right. It's night. And what do you do then? Well, if it's night, of course, we must put Mrs. Markham to bed. I've got her nightdress in my pocket. She pulled it out and smoothed it on her knee. Now I must undress her. But she did not do it. She sat quite still, humming a little tune while Peters watched her with interest. What are you waiting for, he asked? I'm waiting, she said, with some severity for you to look the other way. Mrs. Markham, while you're staring at her. Peters blushed, apologized, and looked the other way. Presently he was told that he might turn around again. Mrs. Markham was properly attired and asleep with her head supported by part of a brick. Capital exclaimed Peters. Hush, said Elsa reproachfully. It doesn't seem as if he could pretend very well. Mrs. Markham's asleep and so we must speak in whispers. Now, what are you besides being a lodger? I'm a clerk to a firm of solicitors. Peters replied and the repressed and husky voice on him. That all? I'm afraid so. I had expected to be one of the firm, but there are difficulties. It seems to be usual for a solicitor to be article and I doubt if the firm will see its way to Elsa yawned and interrupted. That'll do, this isn't any good. Let's play it something else. Can't you think of anything? Peters had an idea. He passed a small confectioner shop on his way from business and he had observed and remembered a label on the window. Look here Elsa, do you think you could manage a liquorous jujubee? Elsa looked down at the grass and waggled one foot nervously. Her eyes seemed to get larger. Yes, thank you she said demurely. I think I could. So they went off to the confectioner shop. Peters cross-examined the woman behind the counter almost imperiously as to the presence of deleterious mineral coloring matter in the desired sweetmeat. The woman answered him with cold confidence. The liquorous jujubee takes its color from the licorice, which is a vegetable and wholesome. Then the purchase was made and they sauntered back, Elsa slowly becoming sticky and Peters smiling abundantly. Peters was lonely no longer while Elsa's holiday lasted as a rule she made suggestions and he acted upon them. She wanted to know why he had never went on the river so one afternoon he took her. A man from the boathouse rode them. Why don't you wear yourself, asked Elsa, because Peters answered as he ran the boat's hard nose into a thornbush, I have to steer. Mind your head, I took that a little too close. The man from the boathouse backed them out, similar incidents that occurred frequently since Peters took the lines. At the boatman's suggestion he now relinquished them. In the course of her holiday Mrs. Markham, so Elsa said, died. She was buried under the plane tree. Peters dug the grave with this pocket knife into a portion of a broken tea cup. When the funeral service was over, Peters produced a toy cricket set and proposed a game. Elsa went in and Peters bowled. After an hour and a half she retired hot. She was not out. Peters had bowled her twice, but on each occasion the ball was disqualified by the Empire. Elsa was the Empire. On the first occasion he had forgotten to say play, and on the second he had bowled faster than the rules of cricket permitted. Peters did not get an innings. That was characteristic of him. On Sundays, Peters took Elsa to church. She refused to go out more than once a Sunday because her father went only once. If she went twice she explained it would be like saying that her father was a bad man and he was a very good man. Peters asked her what prayer she said night and morning. I used to have special ones, she said, but I have forgotten them. Besides, I'm too old for them. They were baby things. Now I say any colic out of the prayer book. They're all good. I don't think that's quite right, said Peters. Policy observed with subtle relevancy. Used to say that all solicitors were liars. Well, I'm not a solicitor. Peters objected triumphantly. He remembered two prayers for morning and evening that he had learned when he was a boy. He copied them out in an exquisite hand with old English titles on a sheet of tinted cardboard. Then he ruled a frame round them, three thin red lines within a broad black line. He was proud of his work. He presented it to Elsa, the way where Elsa chose to be pleased with it and owned that Peters wrote better than she did. She took the cart away to a room at once. To try them, she explained. Peters found himself very dull indeed when Elsa had gone. He thought it over and concluded that he was a man who needed companionship. One night he wrote a long letter, not a love letter, to Flinders' cousin's second daughter and posted it. He got no reply and a few months afterwards he read in Mrs. Marx's newspaper the announcement that Flinders' cousin's second daughter had married the curate. She was always one for social success, Peters reflected. He wrote to Elsa and she also did not answer. She had explained to him that he must not expect it because she disliked writing letters. He sent her every year a birthday card with a present, a Christmas card also with a present and a Valentine. She sent him so far as he knew, nothing at all. But one year he received a very ugly Valentine, an insulting Valentine. He thought that it must have come either from Elsa or from that young clerk who had lent him the really spicy novel. One day that young clerk seemed almost friendly to Peters. You're a lonely old chap he said to him in the lunch and hour. Why don't you buy a dog? It would be a companion to you. Peters thought it rather a good idea. As it happened, the young clerk had one that he wanted to sell. He described it as a faithful, pure-bred, sweet-tempered fox terrier. Its name was Tommy. Peters bought it and its kennel was located under the plane tree. Tommy liked almost everyone except Peters. He would follow anyone except Peters. If he was in the mood to snap at anybody, he preferred to snap at Peters. Mrs. Marks under a special pecuniary arrangement agreed to wash the dog, but she soon pleaded for the use of a muzzle on those occasions. For the way that dog turns against anything in the shape of soap and water is pretty nigh human, instinct they call it. Peters thought that muzzles were in human and said that he would wash the dog himself. The first time he tried, Tommy bit him in three places and escaped before the operation was over. He bolted into the street, ran away, and never came back. So Peters was quite alone. Mrs. Marks was too busy to talk to him. Elsa did not come back, but the old plane tree did not seem to mind him. As the years went on, Peters found that he got old very quickly. One of the effects of age in his case was a violent pain in the chest, which came on after any great exertion or if he walked fast uphill. He went for a holiday, a week at an instant, but it did not seem to do him much good. But when he came back, he heard glorious news. Elsa was coming again for a few days. Now I'm glad, said Peters. I always like the child, such bright ways she had. We shall soon be playing cricket together again. Why you forget, Mr. Peters, said Mrs. Marks. Elsa's near 17 now. Besides, you're too much of an invalid to think of running about. You've aged. Mrs. Marks herself did not age. She was one of those hard, wiry women that are capable of looking 40 years. Elsa looked very pretty. She still wore her hair down, but her dresses were much longer. She had a very superior manner, and did not seem particularly glad to see Peters. She took one of the licorice jujubes that he offered her. But she explained that she did not care about that sort now. She only liked the best chocolates. You can't get them here. If you want to give me anything, Mr. Peters, there's a blouse, 2-11, in Higginson's window that would do me nicely. He looked a little bewildered, but he bought her nicely indeed. So nicely that she thought it was a pity that she was not to be photographed in it. We might be photographed together, she said alluringly. I shouldn't want more than two copies. Cabinets. This was better. Peters was pleased that she wanted him to be photographed with her. The photographer placed her on a rustic style, with Peters standing by her side. He smiled widely and with feeling as he looked at her. She shook her head impatiently. Oh, this won't do, she said. Your grinning puts me out. Besides, you shake the head a little bit, but you're not going to be done alone. Then you can have yourself took afterwards. So Peters stood away meekly, but on the whole he did not think it worthwhile to have himself taken afterwards. The two copies arrived and satisfied Elsa. Though I've known myself look better, she said. One copy was for herself and the other she destined for a particular friend. Peters had bought a plush frame, supposing that she had intended to give him one copy. Well, that did not matter. He could order a third from a particular friend. It would travel safer, he said, if he packed between a couple of pieces of card. Elsa looked thoughtful. I've got an old bit in my writing case, she said. Go and fetch it, Mr. Peters. He hunted through the writing case, but could not find it. Well, I know it's there anyhow, she retorted. I kept it, knowing it would come in some day. It's got those prayers on it that you wrote out for me when I was here before. Oh, yes, I saw that. I didn't think. Well, never mind. I'll go and get it myself. Tort in half my friend, though, he's not one of the praying sort. Peters was guilty of looking somewhat despondent as he moved away. This made Elsa rather angry. You needn't look so glum, she said. You didn't expect me to keep it all my life and have it buried with me, silly old card, did you? One thing I will say Mrs. Marks observed after Elsa had gone is that she does brighten up a house and I hope her looks may be a snare to her. She has one young admirer already and she a mere child. She's promised to come again next year. I hope you'll come again. You seemed more standoffish this time. You've no complaint against her. Oh, no, certainly not. You're not looking well, Mr. Peters. You'll excuse my mentioning it, but you want a doctor. Peters shook his head slowly but owned to a touch of something, probably liver. It was Sunday evening and he had been intending to go to church as usual, but he changed his mind. He did not feel up to it. He sat under the plain tree and thought about Elsa as she used to be before she grew up. He all now knew every twist of the branches, every kink of the bark in an unreasoning way he loved the tree. It had never repulsed him. It had always been there for him. Mrs. Marks was right. Peters did want a doctor. He took to fainting when he was at work at the office. He apologized for it to the senior partner who had found him unconscious and promised that it should not occur again. But it did. One morning he was summoned to the senior partner's private room. Grantham and Flinders were both there. They told him many years a faithful servant to them and that now, when he was past work, they wanted to mark their sense of his services. He was not to come to the office anymore, but they named a sum which would be paid to him by way of pension for the rest of his life, and they advised him to see a doctor. Peters could not understand it, and it had to be explained to him again. Then he tried to thank them. He felt proud and tremulous. He had been praised. It was years since anybody had praised him. He walked to him not to work anymore. Grantham and Flinders had praised him very highly, and he had a pension, and Mrs. Marks congratulated him and said that he deserved his luck, and finally Peters broke down and wept. Peters spent most of his days doing absolutely nothing stretched on the grass under the plain tree. He had grown rather queer in one or two points. Mrs. Marks could not make him believe that the strip of land was to be built over and that the tree would have to come down. He did not argue about it. He merely said, they shall come down. I shall see about it. Now that is silly, Mr. Peters. The tree will come down before they begin to build. No it will not, said Peters. One day while Peters was lying under the tree a party of men came and took measurements and cut lines in the turf, but they did not attempt to touch the tree. Peters chuckled. But next morning he was awakened by a sound of sign. A party of laborers had come early and worked on the tree, sawing off the heavy lower boughs. Peters lent half out of the window in his night shirt and fisted them. He was wild with excitement. Leave my tree alone, he screamed. The men stopped to work for a minute. Two of them laughed. One of them shouted up to him, hold your row, you old fool. It ain't your tree. It is mine, cried Peters. I shall come down to you and stop you. I'm coming now. Then he fell back on the bed fainting. Mrs. Marks was much alarmed and whether Peters liked it or not insisted on having a doctor. When the doctor came downstairs she met him in the passage. Well, sir, she said, nothing. Might have done if I'd been called in years ago. It's the heart. He can't last long. Don't let him be excited and I'll send you something to give him for these fainting attacks. Mrs. Marks was a hard woman, but she wiped her eyes with her apron. He's been here so long, you see, she explained. Peters protested against the doctor. It was a foolish expense, if he was certain to die. I've got a little put by. Yes, that's true, but it's all to go to Elsa, you see, and I don't want any of it wasted. The doctor said that he might not be excited by seeing the felling of the tree, but he could hear the work going on, though he pressed his thin hands to his ears. As the sun shone in his window one morning and he lay awake in bed, a big, swift shadow swept across the blind and then came a deafening crash. Peters half-raised himself in bed, one hand on his heart. His voice came in a whisper, my God. He sank quite gently back again on the bed and did not move. End of Section 14 Section 15 of Here and Hereafter. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Maria Fatima da Silva. Here and Hereafter by Barry Payne. The Night of Glory It was half-past six at night when she came down from the work rooms and out into the street. She was an intensely anemic girl neatly dressed, thin, tired. Given better health she would not have been unattractive. Given a better way of life she would have had better health. A gentleman of 45 crossed the street towards her, raised his hat and said you're late tonight. She took absolutely no notice and slightly quickened in her pace. Please do not hurry, said I have so much to say to you. Then she turned round on him and was very furious. If he bothered her anymore she would hand him over to the police. Pray don't misunderstand me, said the gentleman plaintively. I would not insult you or treat you with anything but the greatest respect on any account. Then what on earth do you want? She said rather irritably. I will put it as briefly as I can. I happen to be very wealthy. I can enjoy nothing. The day for that has gone past for me. I wish for one night to see somebody else enjoy something. It had to be somebody who did not usually spend money freely, somebody who worked hard, somebody who had refinement and education. I thought, and I still think that I have found all these things in you. Will you come with me? Then a theatre or a music hall, a little supper at the Colton and then my broom shall drive you home. You will be rendering me the greatest possible service. She was a girl that was quite used to taking care of herself. If she had not much confidence in him, she had great confidence in herself. She could at any rate test it and abandon the experiment when it pleased her. But she said, I have no proper dress for that kind of thing. You know what the proper dress would be. Of course I do. It's my business. Very well then. The rest is simple. You will go immediately and get all that you require in that way. Dress, gloves, everything. Do not think about money. Merely exercise the excellent taste which you show in your present costume. If the dress gives you the least pleasure, I know that it will give me much more. I shall be your debtor. It is like a fairy tale, she said. My broom is here and at your service. The electric broom slid noiselessly up to them. They got in. In the broom, she watched him nervously sideways. Yes, he was 45. His dark hair was grey on the temples. There was a melancholy cruelty in his thin, lipped mouth. But the greenish eyes strong and searching were not the eyes of one who had outlived himself. I can't understand, she said. What do you mean you can't understand? Almost that. I am unfortunately one who must have novelty. There are many women to whom I have given pretty toys and suppers at the Colton. That, well, that was another affair. This is quite different. Tonight, I give for no other motive than to bring enjoyment to you. You see? I shall enjoy it second hand. Tell me all about the dress. She laughed. Oh, you wouldn't understand if I did. I am going to Lumberts. One of the ladies there is a great friend of mine. Lucky that I am stock size, isn't it? Very, said the man, with enthusiasm. He had not the faintest notion what stock size meant. When the broom stopped at Lumberts she seemed a little troubled. Half an hour is the least time I can possibly be, she said. You won't like waiting. Like it? It will be a luxury to me. Nobody has dared to make me wait for 20 years. You shall do it. Your foot is on my neck. Seriously, I have one or two little things to do myself. In the meantime he handed her a roll of notes. Get everything you want and pay for it. She was fully three quarters of an hour away, but she was a very transfigured maiden when the commissioner opened the door of the broom for her. Excitement or a touch of rouge had put a little colour into her pale face. Her dark hair was beautiful and becomingly dressed. For the rest, always perfect from that shapely head down to the white satin shoes. Will this do? She said eagerly. It is superb. You are transformed. That's quite true, she said. I don't seem to myself to be the same kind of person. I don't think the same way. Oh, please, it didn't take nearly all that money. Look, I have got it here somewhere. She fumbled under her cloak. Oh, please don't bother, said her companion. You may want it later for something or other. See what I have been doing to fill in time. He took from its box an old ivory fan exquisitely painted and handed it to her. That fan, he said, belonged once to a princess, a daughter of George III. She was his favourite daughter and it was her death which finally dethroned his reason. Take it. You also are a princess tonight. I cannot thank you. I cannot even begin to thank you. It is like a most heavenly dream coming true. Pray, don't speak of thanks. It is I who am indebted to you for being pleased. I have bought another little toy for you as well. He opened a case containing a necklace of pearls, a single row, not of great size, but well matched and graduated. I am afraid, he said, that this has no romantic history. The best I can imagine is that the diver who brought the pearls was snapped into by a shark. The best, she cried. That is the worst. That is horrible. Oh, but what a lovely necklace. Then said the man, he was not snapped into by a shark. He amassed great wealth in the pearl fishery business, retired from it, married a wife, had 17 children and was very, very happy. 17 seems a lot, said the girl. Tonight you have only to command. The poor man had but two. May I put the necklace on for you? She hesitated. After all, why be a fool? Of course, if you like, she said. He fastened the snap quickly and deftly. That is the way pearls look best, he said. She rubbed her eyes. Oh, don't do that, said the man. She laughed. I was trying to wake up, she said. Don't wake up. But as we now know, one another, so well, shall we say what our names are? Well, your lordship, said the girl a little timidly. My name is Applebee, Marian Applebee. Not your lordship. Lord Ulster, please. Presently she had recovered from the shock seduction and was eating iced cantaloupe melon. She looked pleased with the world. She tasted everything and drank a very little champagne. His lordship dined principally on dry toast and old brandy. He was evidently well known and appreciated in the restaurant. Tell me all about yourself, he said to her. What is your ordinary day like? That is what I'd like to forget just now, she said. We live in Follum and it's a big family. Fathers are very highly educated man and speaks three languages. He is a clock in a very good position. But still you see, there are so many of us and mama's health isn't good. I am up early every morning seeing to the children and there is my own work all day and those work rooms are awful in the summer. Then there is the walk back or sometimes a burst if I am very tired and after that there is always something to do about the house before I go to bed. Any holidays? Oh yes, we have our fortnight at the sea every summer. Father says that is not a luxury but a necessity and he'd save in almost anyway sooner than give that up. I believe his right too. You hardly know me after a fortnight at Margate if the weather's been good. I get tanned but I don't freckle. That's luck isn't it? It is the luckiest thing in the world. Waiter, I want a box at the frivolity tonight. See about it please. If there is no box to be had I will not take stalls I will go somewhere else. And Miss Appleby, what do you suppose a day of my life is like? I haven't the least idea. It is far harder work than yours and much duller. Believe me my child. There is no toil so hard or so absolutely uninteresting as the toil that one goes through in order to enjoy oneself. In August when I go north for the shooting I still enjoy a little pleasure. At any rate the life there is not too actively disgusting. But the London season and I would far sooner die London season is if I may use the expression unmitigated hell. I think the girl said that I could be happy if I were you. Undoubtedly for six months not always. This is really the only pleasant evening that I have spent this summer. What made you think of it? Why did you choose me? An all merciful providence that did not desire that I should slit my throat out of sheer boredom made me think of it. I waited and I saw the rest of your companions pass out from the shop. Not one of them would have suited me. Frankly they are all a little vulgar and which is far worse a little uninteresting. You on the other hand are quite charming. You possess a fascination peculiar to yourself. What is it the girl asked breathlessly? You are very good and you have a potentiality of being very bad. If you had been very bad with a potentiality of being very good you would also have fascinated me. I like potentiality in others for there is none in myself. I shall never be any better and I could not be any worse and I don't care two straws either way. Let's talk about something more interesting than myself. What? Oh, the box and the frivolity. Very well shall we go my child or would you like to change your mind and go to something else? It was quite late that night when he put her carefully into his broom, shook hands with her, refused to hear a word of thanks and gave the coachman the address in Follum to which he was to take her. Five years had done a good deal. They had nearly but not quite killed Lord Ulster. This winter night bent, wisened, wrapped in furs and leaning heavily on his stick. He crawled slowly along Piccadilly on his way from one club to another. An ungloved hand touched his arm and a horsewoman's voice said half a moment my lord he gave her one quick glance from under his heavy eyebrows. Those eyes were not dead yet. It won't do said lord Ulster. The girl laughed bitterly. I thought you might like to look at your work. She said you were the ruin of me five years ago. My good woman said lord Ulster if I stopped in Piccadilly to talk to all the women who think I have been the ruin of them it would stop the traffic let me go please. She still clung to his arm. Just half a moment she said. The work girl whom you gave a pretty dress to and a string of pearls and a fan that was belong to a princess. You remember? Good God said lord Ulster where can we talk? She laughed again the same bitter laugh and surveyed her reflection in a shop window. Yes she said a box at the frivolity wouldn't do for me now would it? Here I know of a place if you will follow me. All right said lord Ulster. Walk slowly. She led him by side streets into back streets. The little public house was very quiet, discreet, sinful and unsavory. She pushed her way through to a little room behind the bar. Now then she said with difficulty lord Ulster dragged off his heavy fur coat along himself down on the crimson valve of teen. What a godless hole this is he said. What are you going to have? Glass of porch she said promptly. You haven't taken to spirits yet? I keep that for the mornings. Shall I ring the bell? He nodded. The waiter who entered looked curiously from one to another. Lord Ulster had a firm, quiet, impressive manner. Will bring me, he said, a bottle of the best port you have and a small bottle of soda water. Make up that fire. I never said a bottle, said the woman. Are you going to drink the rest? I am going to drink the soda water. Don't talk about that. Sit down by the fire. Warm your hands and tell me about yourself. It was not until she had finished her first glass of port that she began on the project. There is no more to say than what I said before, she said. You were my ruin. I remember that night very distinctly. I never made love to you. I never tried to kiss you. I never treated you with any less respect than I would have treated a woman of my own class. What are you talking about? What is all this nonsense? No nonsense at all. How did you think it would be that night with 50 pounds worth of new clothes and my pearl necklace and the story of a theater and supper afterwards? Do you think they would believe my word at home? They said they did. I have got a temper and they didn't say anything else. But they let me see very well that they didn't believe me. I wasn't going to stand it. Next morning at breakfast when they were all full of the thing I gave them some straight talking and then I cleared out. Am I responsible for the heat of your temper and the straightness of your talking? You might have guessed how it would be with me. Did you think that after one night of glory like that I was going back to perpetual drudgery? I'd seen life as it might be and I'd been given a bad name. I'd only got to deserve it. How much did you get for the pearl necklace? 350. Then you were swindled. I know that of course. I told them so. What did it matter? It was all gone in a few weeks. I can tell you I made money flying those days. That's all passed. I've lost what little good looks I ever had. Haven't I? Quite said Lord Ulster mercilessly. You drink, you see, he added. The girl put down her glass and fumbled desperately for the dirty little hunker chief with her face screwed ory. She dabbed at her eyes and shook with sobs. Stop that, said Lord Ulster. You are making the devil of a row. Look here, come to business. I might have been good, she moaned. If I had never met you I might have been good. Lord Ulster was writing something on one of his visiting cards. He stepped over to her and touched her on the shoulder. Can you read that address, he said? Yes, she said between the sobs. Lincoln's infields. Solicit as I suppose. Quite so, said Lord Ulster as he struggled back into his coat again. They'll give you a pound a week as long as you live. Call for it on Saturday mornings. Call for it on Saturday mornings. I could also give you plenty of good advice, but I won't. Are you coming? She glanced at the decanter by her side. Not quite yet, she said. I think I'll just... Oh, I see, said Lord Ulster contemptuously. Good night then. Out in the street he stopped the first handsome that he saw. The man had often driven him before. What will you take, he said to the man to drive this cab to eternal smash. Drive it, for instance, down the Duke of York steps. The government smiled patiently. Which club did you say, my lord? Lord Ulster gave the address of his club and got into the cab. End of section 15, section 16 of here and hereafter. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Maria Fatima da Silva. Here and hereafter by Barry Payne. The Idol of the Sea. The repellent midday meal grew to its untidy close in a frowsy boarding house in one of the less pleasing back streets of Sefton on sea. Mr. Siegismund Porter had eaten so remarkably little that he might almost have won an approving smile from the Hawkeye Proprietress. As a rule, Mr. Porter was a young man who liked value for his money, but today there was something on his mind, a gloomy resolution which destroyed his appetite. I am going, he said to himself, to put my cards down on the table. I am going to own up and to act on the square and to be chucked for doing it and to leave this blighted place tomorrow. In his small bedroom at the very top of the house, he arrayed himself with his usual scrupulous care. He wore a pair of the yellow boots in Sefton on sea waistcoat and trousers of gray flannel, a dark blue smoking jacket of the rich midtown, or edge wear road order, and a straw hat adorned with the bewitching colors of the advance guard cycling club. His necktie was of the palest saffron, saving for such stains as it had acquired by natural wear and tear. He surveyed himself in the looking glass and was satisfied. Considering that he was really rather nice looking young man, he was a bad sight. He had dark, wavy hair, and the girl had once said that he had the most pathetic eyes in Brixton. He lived up Brixton and so did the girl. That was now merely an incident in the dead past. He selected one of those cigarettes, the principal characteristic of which is that you get an amazing amount of them for three pence. He shot the case with a snap, a real silver case which gave him pleasure. And so he went forth jointly. He was going to his doom, of course, and he knew that he was going to his doom. But as his way to his doom lay along the seafront, it was as well for the present to keep up appearances. From the seafront, he reached the pier, cast down his penny at the turnstiles, and walked up to the further end of it to a secluded seat behind the little pavilion where they let the entertainments loose. There he waited, leaning forward with his rather weak chin on the handle of his walking stick. For a moment, the wicked thought flushed across him that there was no necessity for him to put his cards down on the table that he might as well have played the game out to the end. He cast the temptation from him. He would lose the girl, of course, but there was the very devil in it. He would rather lose her fairly than leave her with a glittering but untrue portrait of himself that she must now possess. He looked up and saw the girl herself walking towards him. Walks like a queen, he said to himself, walks as if she'd bought the whole place and could pay for it. And she gets thirty bob a week from a Dover street mill in a you couldn't hardly believe it. Then he arose and lifted his absurd hat. The girl shook hands with him frankly. She was simply and quietly dressed. But perhaps her profession gave her advantages there. Good afternoon, Mr. Porter, she said. You are getting splendid weather for your last day here. She was a pretty girl with enigmatic eyes, and her voice was softer and pleasanter than the voice of Mr. Sigisman Porter. Yes, said Mr. Porter gloomily. The weather's a bit of all right, I suppose, if the weather were everything. But the weather is quite a good deal, isn't it? said the girl chiefly. You wouldn't enjoy your run on your motor car up to the lakes if it came on wet. There ain't going to be any run, said the young man. What? For what about your friends? Colonel Reigns and Lord Daybrook. You can't disappoint them. I shan't, he said bitterly. They won't be disappointed, because they don't exist. I haven't got any colonels and lords amongst my friends. It was all eyes and brag. For that matter I haven't got any friends except one girl, as she's just going to give me the check for taking her in. I see, said the girl thoughtfully. Would you mind very much if we left this disgusting, vulgar little pier and walked along by the sands? They begin to make music of sorts here directly, and it will be quieter out of the crowd. The thought flushed into his mind that it was hardly worthwhile to pay a penny for the pier and leave it at the end of five minutes, for his mind was perforce economical. But many questions at the moment seemed too sordid. All right, he said, considering the way I've carried on, I may say the rotten way I've carried on. It's pretty decent of you to hear the story out. I suppose I could kick up some sort of an excuse. Perhaps I could find the excuses for you, said the girl, as they went down together onto the beach. You are not really stopping at the grand, then? No, I'm not. I've been stopping at the cheapest and muckiest boarding house in the place, and in a mortal funk all the time, lest you should see me going in and out. Well, that's all over at any rate. You know the worst now. The way it started was that I wanted to impress you a bit. I wanted to make myself out one of the lucky ones. I wanted to see a superior class to you all together. And that's the dumb funny thing about it, if you'll excuse my swearing. All the time that I was bragging about motorcars, and you were talking about the stuffy workrooms, you were the superior class to me, and I was the dirt under your feet. Looking back on it, I can't think how I came to make such a fool of myself. You're superior indeed. Why, even on the outside facts, I'm not that, for I only make twenty-eight bob to your thirty, and I haven't got your chance of a rise. I think I see how it all happened, said the girl. It was all very natural. I was sorry you told me those fibs, but I was not half as sorry, then, as I am glad, now, when you've taken them back again. Hold on, said the man. I mean, just half a moment, if you don't mind. You said you were sorry when I began blowing about my position on all that. You knew, then? Yes, said the girl. I knew all the time, and all the time I was rather thinking that you wouldn't go on with it. The young man stared at her hard. You beat me altogether, he said. I can't make head or tail of it. Of course, you've had opportunities of picking up style in your work, and there's no manner of doubt that you've got it. Well, I've known other girls who worked at a mill in us who have done the same. What beats me is that you've got that way of thinking. That's where they slip up. They say it all right, but what they say is all wrong. It's the same here, for the matter of that, he added, gloomily. Now I want to talk to you, said the girl. We are out of the crowd here. Let's sit down. I've got to apologize to you too, you know. I've told you lies too. I never worked for a mill in my life. I've got a motor car and more money than I want, and I am stopping at the very hotel where you said you were. I take it, said the young man quietly, that this is about the last straw. If you permit one question, miss, that being the case, why on earth did you ever let me speak to you? We will both be honest now, said the girl. I saw you several times and always alone. You did not seem to be having a particularly happy holiday. I saw that you wanted to talk to me. The book that I left on the seat gave you your chance, but I did not leave my book there on purpose. I had not even made up my mind at the moment when you brought it to me, what I would do. When you began to talk, I saw that right at the back of all the talk, you were quite a good young man. You always treated me properly and with respect. The man's not been born yet. Who would dare do anything else? The girl laughed. Well, I was inclined to like you. I don't value what you call the outside facts so very, very much. I rather like doing something unconventional, if it is not actually wrong. I thought you would please you if I let you meet me sometimes. That's rather mild way of putting it. It pleased me too. At the back of everything that was wrong in you, there were such lots and lots of good. I don't want you to look on it as simply an idle experiment on my part. Perhaps there was a slight shade of that in it, and I am rather ashamed of it. But it was chiefly that I wanted you to have a rather happier time here. I believe all that said, Mr. Porter, and I did have a happier time here. But think how I've got to pay for it afterwards. There's the contempt you must have felt for me. That's a nice sort of thing to have in your mind when you can't sleep at night. By God, he burst out with sudden ferocity. You lied worse than I did. You did more harm. Now you talk like a man, she said. But you're mistaken on one point. There was never any contempt. All the time I was thinking that in your circumstances I should probably have been sorely attempted to do exactly as you did. Think of that when you can't sleep. That isn't everything, said the young man, jabbing holes in the sand with his stick. Isn't it, said the girl? What's the rest? Thanks, said the young man, bitterly. But I'm not going to make a fool of myself again. You go and become what you pretend it to be. Come to me as a 30-barber week girl, working for a milliner, then I'll tell you the rest fast enough. Now I'm going to say goodbye to you. I think I see, said the girl. That could never have been in any circumstances. But because I want you to know that I'm a friend to you, goodbye. She held out both her hands to him. And remember this. Then she put her face up to his and kissed him. In a moment she was gone. The young man remained standing there. And, he said to himself, one ought to go straight up to heaven in a chariot of golden fire. End of section 16