Graf had lowered his head, as if mortified, and slipped his hands into the pockets of his coat. At the bottom of the right-hand one, he felt the hole through which he had lost countless coins and once a souvenir cigarette lighter.
“Come along now, love,” he mumbled to Circe, and then to the officer—whose badge bore an army emblem of some kind—“Quite right, you are. We’ll be on our way.” A drop of rain fell on his spectacles, and then another.
“You do that,” the man said, “and behave properly from now on.”
“Yes, of course.”
But Circe, defiant to the end, threw a haughty glance at the officer. Graf was afraid she was about to make the situation worse. He slipped his arm through hers, and firmly drew her back toward the pathway. Under his breath he muttered, “Keep your mouth shut.”
“Why should I? All my life blokes have been trying to tell me what to do. The Master says to ignore them, and to do what thou wilt.”
Good Christ, she had swallowed that Whole of the Law business—hook, line, and sinker.
People on the gravel pathway were unfurling their umbrellas, turning up the collars of their coats, and moving briskly for the park exits. Graf, frustrated in his mission, pulled Circe, now moaning about the mud on the boots that had been clean just that morning, toward the street, in hopes of finding a cab.
“Aren’t you at least going to take me out for tea and sandwiches?” Circe said. “Any gent, who’d taken the liberties you just did, wouldn’t think twice about that.”
“I’m not a gent.”
“I can see that now.”
They had spoken barely a word in the horse-drawn cab ride back to Chancery Lane. Circe had flapped the tails of her coat, hoping to shake off the rain—“The Master gave me this coat, and I won’t have it ruined”—while Graf had fretted over the fate of his brass case and how it might affect the success of his grand plan; he had dubbed it “Operation Ottershaw,” after the observatory from which the Martian invasion was first spotted in that novel by H. G. Wells. In the story, the humans had seen the cataclysm coming—the gaseous plumes and blaze of light on the alien planet’s surface as their hostile rockets were launched—but they had not understood it until it was too late.
By the time the people of Earth had grasped the scope and scale of the danger, the enemy, like Graf, had landed on their very shores and the war of the worlds had begun. What better metaphor, and in Britain’s own canon, could he have found?
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Mr. Wells!” the doctor’s wife exclaimed upon opening her front door. “To what do we owe the honor?”
Her eyes flicked to the suitcase in his hand, puzzled.
“I thought I’d like a brief consultation with your husband, if he’s at home.”
“Of course he’s home—these are his office hours. Come in.”
Wells came in, dropping his bag in the vestibule. He was glad to be relieved of its weight.
“You’ve been away,” Maude observed. “In London?”
“Yes, and elsewhere,” Wells replied. “Jane wrote to tell me she’d been appointed your deputy.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
The doctor, hearing the commotion, came out of his office, shook Wells’s hand vigorously, and escorted him to the inner sanctum. Maude, Wells could guess, was terribly frustrated by the closed door.
Almost as soon as they were alone, the doctor mentioned his recent name change, “for reasons I need hardly explain.”
Wells had seen it happen all over the country. Theirs was a time, he reflected, when identities had become muddled, friendships strained, alliances shattered. There was a great sorting out going on in the world.
“But you’ve not been about for a while,” Grover said. “You were in the very teeth of it, weren’t you?”
“How would you know that?”
“Jane might have mentioned something.”
Odd, he thought, that she would have confided in the doctor. “I’ve written some dispatches,” he admitted, “the first of which should appear in tomorrow’s papers.”
“I’m pleased to see that you appear to have escaped unscathed.”
At that, Wells hesitated. “Not entirely true. It’s why I’ve come straight here, instead of home. I don’t want Jane to know.”
“Know what?”
How to start? All the way up on the train, he’d wondered how much he could, or should, share, without violating the warnings from Colonel Bryce: “Do not breathe a word about your time in the underground den of ghouls. It would be very detrimental to both the military and the national morale.” “Let me just say, I witnessed horrors I could not have imagined.”
“For someone of your imaginative powers that is a surprising statement.”
“And yet it still does not do justice to the reality.”
Dr. Grover sat silently, waiting for the patient to continue.
“Some of those horrors seem to have followed me home.”
“How so?”
He described the vision of Corporal Norridge in the bathroom mirror, and then the even more prolonged visitation of a ghost—his German nationality skirted altogether—in the ward at Guy’s Hospital. “The apparition even seemed to hold my gaze, as firmly as you are holding it now.”
“These soldiers you see—they are all dead?”
Wells nodded.
“And when you perceive them, do you experience other physical symptoms?”
“Yes, I do,” and he went on to retail the pain between his eyes, the blurred vision, the olfactory disturbances. “I would like you to examine my eyes, my ears, and anything else you deem appropriate, and then prescribe for me something to calm my nerves—these episodes must be nervous in origin—and help me sleep. I can’t go to bed without starting awake, often several times, in the dead of night.”
Dr. Grover asked him to remove his coat and shirt, then listened to his heart and lungs, tested his vision and auditory capacities, even his reflexes—earning a quick kick in response—before going to his cabinet, where he withdrew a green glass bottle labeled “Veronal.” Shaking a handful of cachets, small white capsules, into a paper packet, he said, “These should help, but no more than one at a time. And for heaven’s sake, don’t wash them down with liquor.”
“What are they? Chloral hydrate?”
“No, they’re a barbital. A dozen grains’ strength. German synthesis—you can’t get them anymore.” The doctor paused. “They will address the sleeplessness, and some of the physical manifestations, but as you know, perturbations of the mind are beyond the ken of us country physicians. Much less the ones as old as I am.”
Wells tucked the packet into his shirt pocket.
“Jane will be very glad to have you back,” the doctor volunteered, before adding, in a curious tone, “She does know you are coming, right?”
“Yes, of course—I sent her a telegram.”
Grover nodded, stroking his chin. “Good. Then I’m sure she will have everything well in hand by the time you arrive.”
“She always does,” Wells replied, putting on his coat and hat.
On the drive over, sitting in the back seat of Slattery’s livery car, Wells wondered just what it was that Grover thought Jane had to have so well in hand before he got home. On the front seat of the car, between the gearshift and a shotgun, a pair of dead grouse lay.
“Good hunting on these grounds,” Slattery observed, “especially out by the wreckage of the zeppelin.”
Though Wells would never be able to forget the sight of Slattery plunging the pitchfork into the German gunner, he now had a veritable catalog of other atrocities in which to include it.
Clambering out of the back seat with his suitcase, he was embraced by Jane, who held him tight all the way to the front door of the house, which stood open.
After all the hardships he had endured, it was good to be home, better than he could ever have imagined. The fire in the hearth, the gleaming andirons, the rich Oriental rugs
on the floor, the crystal decanters on the bar cart. His loyal and adoring wife. Long ago, he had learned the trick of compartmentalizing his love life, accepting his passades for what they were, while acknowledging that his marriage was the bedrock on which the whole edifice of his life rested.
So why was this Rebecca never far from his thoughts? It wasn’t customary.
Jane had prepared a lovely dinner, and they ate by candlelight, enjoying some of his best port afterward. Too much, given the fragile state of his constitution just now. And whether it was his own distraction that was affecting Jane, or there was something on her own mind that wanted airing, he couldn’t say, but the conversation between them, which had always flowed as smoothly as a mountain stream, repeatedly stopped and started. She listed the foreign editions that had arrived in his absence—the war had proved a boon to his sales, especially his more apocalyptic titles such as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds—discussed the preparation of the pages he had left to be typed, and chuckled at her appointment as deputy of the local watch. But all the while, he felt like there was something being left unsaid, something skimming along beneath the surface like a great gray shark.
Once or twice, he felt she was on the verge of divulging whatever it might be, but each time she retreated. In the candlelight, he noticed more than a few strands of her hair had gone silver.
He had his own reticence to deal with, too. Jane had of course inquired, several times, about his exploits at the Front, but it was not something he wanted to revisit. “Whatever I can share, I will share in the newspapers,” he said, and, intuiting his discomfort, she dropped the subject. It was only when the grandfather clock on the landing struck ten, and he felt his entire body sagging with exhaustion, that he swallowed the last of his port and suggested they go upstairs to retire for the night. At her bedroom door, at the opposite end of the hall from his own, he kissed her tenderly, and she folded herself into his arms.
“You cannot imagine how hard these nights have been,” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt. “I’ve been so worried.”
“Worry no more. All’s well that ends well.”
She turned her face up to his, begging another kiss, which he bestowed. But she wanted more than a kiss, and that he could not give. Not just then. Between his fatigue and the nagging thoughts of Rebecca, he wanted only solitude, and slumber. The packet of Veronal pills crinkled in his pocket against Jane’s cheek. “Good night, my dear. Thank you for keeping the home fires burning.”
He turned down the hall, embarrassed by how trite his words had been, and waiting to hear Jane’s door close behind her, but it didn’t—not until he had gone into his own bedroom—where he could barely make it to the pitcher on the bureau; there, he poured himself a glass of cold water and swallowed one of the pills. Tonight he meant to sleep soundly, in the safety and security of his own bed, untroubled by those sporadic bouts of wakefulness, not to mention the nightmares or visitations. Pulling his shirttails loose, he fell sideways onto the bed, feeling distinctly remorseful. For all his talk of free love, all his advanced and modern thinking, he was not immune to sorrow at the hurt he knew his views inflicted on others—most notably his wife, a woman he cherished and respected in every way, but to whom he could no more remain exclusively bound than he could stick to a lifelong diet of bread and water. He just wasn’t made like other men. (Or was he?)
Before he could even take off the rest of his clothes, he fell into a stupor, a half-conscious state in which he could scarcely move a muscle. His legs hung over the side of the bed, his arms spread wide. How long he lay like that he couldn’t know, but to be in his own bed, safe and secure, on a night when the wind howled at the windows, was a blessing in itself. His dreams were tangled, all in a swirl, bringing together everything from an ashen Von Baden to the nubile Rebecca, and he was somehow asleep and aware at the same time, watching the pictures pass through his mind in an endless cavalcade.
At some point he became aware of an ache in his back, no doubt the result of his posture on the bed, and sat up, his head swimming. The room was dark, but it no longer seemed like his bedroom—it was just another dugout, another funk hole. And there was a noise upstairs, under the dormers. His thoughts were thick as mud and muddled as a stew. But the sound came again—a creak and a thump—and he wasn’t sure if it was rats in the attic, or sappers working at a tunnel. Regardless, he needed to investigate, that much he knew, and stumbling to his feet—why was the ground tilted so under his feet?—he rummaged around in the bottom of his suitcase and retrieved the Webley revolver that the colonel had issued, and allowed him to keep.
The wind battered the windows, and the curtains stirred, but he fumbled for the door handle and went out into the hall. The grandfather clock ticked on the landing, and he wondered if it wasn’t the ticking of a bomb. He padded in his stocking feet toward the door to the attic, and opened it; to his surprise, there was a faint glow coming from the top. The third floor was not electrified. As stealthily as his dizziness would allow him, he crept up the stairs, the light growing brighter as he went. Close to the top, he paused and poked his head just above the level of the floor.
An oil lamp was burning, a bed had been made up, and a pair of his own pajamas came into view. What was this?
He rose up another step, his finger on the trigger of the gun, and now he saw the intruder—a young man with blond hair, limping about in his stocking feet. Wells felt a sudden surge of outrage. Waving the revolver, he tried to charge into the room. But he tripped on the top step, the gun going off and the bullet shattering a mirror above the dresser.
“Herr Wells!” the man shouted, backing away with his palms raised.
But Wells knew the enemy when he saw—and heard—it. Herr Wells, indeed!
“Who are you?” Wells bellowed, trying to level the gun. “What are you doing here?”
“Ich bin Kurt! I am Kurt!”
None of this made any sense.
“Lie down!” Wells ordered, unable to think of what else he could do. “On the floor!”
But the man—boy?—approached him instead, saying something, then reaching for the gun that was wavering in Wells’s hand. Wells didn’t want to shoot him in cold blood, but he was not about to surrender his weapon, either. “Stop where you are!” he shouted, backing up and colliding with the open drawer of an old dresser. The room was dark and starting to spin, and as Wells went down, the gun went off again, the bullet demolishing the window.
The boy was on him in an instant, wrestling for the gun, and very nearly had it when Wells heard Jane crying, “Stop it! Both of you! H. G., stop it!” and in her nightgown prying the boy away. “Stop it!”
The boy relaxed his hold, and fell back, grimacing and clutching one ankle. Wells could hardly breathe, and rolled to one side, his chest heaving. Jane crouched down beside him, saying, “Are you all right?” over and over again, and stroking his arm.
Wells, coughing, nodded his head.
Jane stayed where she was, calming him and gently removing the pistol from his grip, while the boy scooted on his bottom toward the bed.
The wind whistled through the splintered window frame and broken glass.
Wells was so confused, he wasn’t sure what to make of any of this. What had just happened? Where was he? He closed his eyes, spent, and the last thing he remembered was Jane’s hand rubbing his arm and her voice as she repeated, “Tomorrow I’ll explain everything, H. G., tomorrow, I promise, I’ll explain . . .”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Waking up, alone, in Wells’s flat, Rebecca felt utterly disoriented.
After her dramatic exit from her family’s house, she had wondered where to go. She had put a bit of money aside, but for a single woman seeking inexpensive but furnished accommodations in overcrowded London, not to mention on an immediate basis, it would not be easy. Wells had taken pity on her, and said that as he was traveling up to Easton Glebe for a few days, she was welcome to stay in his flat until he returned.
Rebecca had jumped at the offer.
The morning papers were left at the door, and she was thrilled to see a dispatch—billed as the first in a series—from H. G. on the front page of the Times. It carried an account of his journey from the city to the battlefield, and what he had observed, accompanied by one stolid sergeant, in transit—the crowded trains, the night crossing to Le Havre, the camaraderie of the troops, the moments of deep and silent introspection that every soldier underwent, wondering when, and if, he would ever return to England. It stopped short at his arrival at the trenches and his first grim view of the legendary no man’s land. “Who could doubt that the hearts of St. George or his angels would not be inspired to action by such a desolate sight?” It was a neat trick, she observed, to end in such a way, neither endorsing the story that Arthur Machen had himself disavowed, nor dismissing it out of hand.
It was only when she’d finished the piece, and resolved to dash off a few lines of congratulation to Wells, that she noticed another story, less prominently displayed, but billed as an exclusive and arresting nonetheless. Apparently, there had been an incident at the Horse Guards Parade, in which a saboteur had attempted to enter the pens and do harm to the animals. Anyone with information about the possible perpetrator was advised to contact the newspaper, which would then facilitate communication with the proper authorities.
The first thing that popped into her mind was her visit to the Crowley townhouse, and the strange veterinarian—who’d studied in Germany yet—leaning up against the blazing hearth. Could there be a connection? From what she already knew of that bunch, it was not something she would put past them. But before she went to any other publication, her reportorial instincts kicked in. If there was something to this, then she should be the one to uncover it and even perhaps trumpet it to the world in the pages of the Freewoman magazine.
She had just thrown on her clothes, resolved to go to the Horse Guards Parade and see what she could find out for herself, when there was a knock on the door that brought her up short. She was not exactly keen on being discovered there. Quietly peering through the peephole, she saw, turned to one side, a man in a black coat, long gray hair over the back of his collar and a newspaper tucked under his arm. When he turned around to knock again, she saw that it was, of all people, Arthur Machen.
The Haunting of H. G. Wells Page 20
