by George Moore
‘Yes,’ he said, after a pause, ‘My wife is very ill indeed - I doubt that she will pull through the winter.’ Hall fell into the second trap as easily as the first. A grey cloud passed over his face, and, unable to contain himself any longer, Nixon roared with laughter.
“Pon my word, mate,’ he said, holding his sides, ‘you are as good as a play; my word, mate, you’ll be the death of me one of these days if you make me laugh like this.’
‘What do you mean? Don’t make a damned fool of yourself, Nixon.’
‘You would like to stand by a regulator and arrange my wife’s health just to suit your own convenience - shut off steam just when a danger signal is up, put the brake on, and now when the line’s clear, set her going again. You would like her to be ill, so that I might not be able to get down to the Stag and Hounds; but you would not have her die. Oh, dear no, that wouldn’t do at all, for then I should be free to go in and marry the widow.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of the widow.’
‘Weren’t you, indeed? Well then, you were thinking of the back parlour, so nice and cosy. How pleasant it would be to sit there, lord and master; no more shovelling of coals on the engine fire; slippers warmed, glass of hot toddy on the table, pipe in its place, only to say, “Lucy dear, will you be good enough to hand me down my pipe?” Very pretty business is the Stag and Hounds. I would not mind betting a sovereign it doesn’t bring in less than two hundred a year to Mrs Heath.’
Hall writhed under Nixon’s words, like a dog under the lash.
‘I tell you, I wasn’t thinking of Mrs Heath,’ he said; ‘but if you ask me, I tell you straight that if I had a wife, and a poor sick wife, I would stay at home and mind her, and not go after another woman, and spend the money that should go to support a family in a public-house.’
‘And who told you what I spent at the Stag and Hounds? Come, now, I’ll take you a bet that I haven’t spent a half, nor yet a quarter, of what you have within the last fortnight, and Mrs Heath shall decide the bet.’ Hall understood. Nixon did not pay for his drink. ‘But never mind, mate,’ continued the driver, ‘I’ll take your advice, and stay at home this evening and look after my wife.’
The men parted. ‘I wonder if he believes me,’ thought Nixon, as he hurried home. ‘I shall see by his face when he comes into the bar. I wish I could get there before him. The missus will kick up a row, but I shan’t stand much of her jaw to-night - I am in no humour for it.’ Nixon lived about half-a-mile from the station, in one of a long line of cottages that stretched into the country. The moon was shining with dazzling brightness on the snow, and the stars glittered in the blue heavens. Lights in the windows twinkled, but Nixon’s cottage was in darkness. ‘I wonder where the missus is?’ he asked himself. A neighbour told him that she had gone to meet him at the station.
‘Here is the key, Mr Nixon. Your children are sitting with me by my fire.’
He took the key, and thanked the woman. He begged her to allow his children to remain where they were till their mother came back. He had an appointment to keep, and was only running in to change his coat.
‘Tell her,’ he added, ‘that I shall be back in an hour’s time.’
‘Nothing could happen more fortunately,’ he thought, as he washed himself free of the daily dirt and grime. ‘I shall be in for a scolding match. She will guess where I am, but I don’t think she will come after me; she got enough of that the last time.’ Then he slipped on his Sunday coat, and in a moment was hurrying along the frozen roads.
The Stag and Hounds was situated at the end of a small street leading from the station. It looked like a small villa residence that had been transformed into a hostelry. Red-lettered boards hung in the large windows, on either side of the swinging door, announcing that the best Old Tom was sold on the premises, and that sausages and potatoes were always kept in readiness. The bar-room occupied all, save a small triangular space in one corner; the floor was strewn with sawdust, and there were a few high stools. Behind the zinc counter there were shelves reaching to the ceiling. These were lined with bottles of whisky, brandy, and gin, decanters of port and sherry, white, green, and pink glasses of all shapes and sizes. At the back there was a door curtained with a piece of red silk; and when it was open or ajar you could see a bright fire, a small leather sofa, and a couple of comfortable arm-chairs. The table generally showed that a meal of some sort or kind was in progress.
There was no one in the bar when Nixon entered; but at the sound of footsteps, the door of the little back parlour opened, and Mrs Heath appeared. Her face lighted up with that look of tender, charmed voluptuousness which is instinctive in women at the sight of a man they love. Looking round to make sure no one was nigh, they leaned over the bar and kissed each other fervently.
‘What will you take, dear? How cold you are. Shall I mix you a glass of hot brandy and water?’
‘No, I’ll take whisky. You’d be cold if you had been on an engine since seven o’clock in the morning. I am pretty nigh frozen. How snug you are in there by the fire. You don’t know what we poor devils suffer.’
‘My poor dear,’ murmured Mrs Heath, throwing a bit of lemon-peel into a glass; she added two lumps of sugar, a large measure of spirit, and then filled the glass up with hot water from an urn which steamed at the far end of the bar. Nixon stirred his liquor and told stories of Hall, with an intention of making him ridiculous; but the widow evidently saw nothing absurd in the fact that a man should be madly in love with her, and the stories fell somewhat flat.
Now the bar began to fill. Children of thirteen and fourteen came in with jugs and cans, and demanded pints and quarts of porter, beer, and half-and-half; a vagrant, who had probably just earned a few pence for fetching a gentleman a cab, shivered in his thin jacket, and demanded something ‘ot - ‘Two-pennoth of gin ‘ot, marm, please’; a couple of women in battered bonnets and worn shawls whispered together; a long soldier twirled his moustache and looked at Mrs Heath, who had been obliged to ring for the barman to assist her, so numerous were her customers. Outside, three children were heard, singing ‘Fairy Voices’, and they rasped out the tune agonizingly on two fiddles and a violoncello. The voices sounded deathlike and hollow in the frosty air.
Hall started on seeing Nixon in the bar; his face clouded and he withdrew to the opposite corner.
‘You did not expect to see me here, mate, did you?’
‘Well, you said you were going to stop at home and look after your sick wife.’
Both men spoke loudly, and there was an intonation of anger in their voices. Mrs Heath, fearing a dispute, went over to Hall, and, smiling pleasantly, asked him what he’d take. A little mollified, he gave his order, and she remained speaking with him a few minutes. But when she went back to Nixon, Hall said, as if resolved to come to conclusions with his mate, ‘I met your wife as I was coming along here, Nixon. She asked me if you had told me where you were going to spend the evening. I said you had, that you had said that your wife was ill, and that you were going to stay at home and nurse her. She said she knew better than that, and that if it cost her her life she’d show you up. It won’t be long before she is here.’
‘What the devil has my wife got to do with you?’
‘Nothing; I only tell you what she said. You had better look out for squalls; she said she’d show you up.’
‘Show me up! I’d like to see her. If she dares to come down here, messing about after me, I’ll show her what’s what. I am not going to let any woman bully me. Things have come to a pretty pass if a man cannot go and have a drink at his pub without his wife coming down after him. Let her try it. But I don’t think she will try it on.’
‘You had better not hit her too hard. It is a bad habit to get into. One doesn’t mean it, of course; but the time comes when one hits a bit too hard, and then... (Here Hall made a movement with his hand, indicative of a man being hanged.)
Nixon flushed crimson: but at that moment two persons entered the bar. The first was a small child
of four, with a fiddle in her hand; the second was a tall, gaunt woman, holding an infant to her breast. One side of her face was disfigured by great yellow and dark blue stains, the result of a recent blow. The little musician held out a cap for halfpence, but at the violent words withdrew frightened into a corner.
‘I don’t care if you kill me for it, but I will let the people know how you treat me. Look ’ere; that’s what he gave me last week, because I asked him not to go to the public-house. It is that woman there... Oh, you beast you; why do you not get a man for yourself, and not go after other women’s husbands? I’ll do for you one of these days.’
‘Now then, no more of this, out you go; I’ll show you I am not to be made a fool of,’ said Nixon, seizing his wife by the arm and forcing her towards the door.
‘No, I won’t go home without you... Yes; strike me, you brute, I dare you do it; strike me and I’ll have you locked up for it. Yes; kill the innocent child.’
Threatening to do for her, Nixon forced her out of the bar room; but she returned frequently, and, thrusting her head inside, she screamed violent abuse. Finally she retired; her voice grew fainter and fainter in the distance. The singing was heard again. The little one collected a few halfpence, and Hall took advantage of the occasion to whisper to Mrs Heath that if he had a wife he would not treat her like that. Mrs Heath laughed, and replied that all men were very nice till you married them. Nixon drank and smoked in stolid silence; his glass had been replenished several times. But Mrs Heath, who was by no means pleased at the accusations that had been brought against her, whispered something to him; he nodded in assent, and jamming his hat over his eyes, he left the house without bidding anyone good-night.
At these signs of intimacy Hall was influenced to frenzy, and he resolved - he swore to himself-that he would throw Nixon from the engine.
At two o’clock next day they met at the station. They took a train to Hastings. They worked up to the Rotherhithe Road, and on to Cannon Street. It was then five o’clock in the afternoon; they were bound for Tonbridge. The signal whistle sounded, Nixon answered. With the left hand he touched the regulator, with the right he turned the wheel that brought a pressure of steam on the engine. A slight whiff, and the engine started. Snort followed snort. Nixon’s hand never left the regulator, and he used it like a rein. Through the round window he viewed the labyrinth of iron ways; he took note of the signs in the constellations of green, white, and red lights. The pointsmen could be seen in their glass boxes, tugging at the handles. The engine capered in and out of this and that set of rails, and the inanimate life of the creature of steam and steel throbbed and palpitated. She was speeding now along a high embankment, but had not yet fairly settled into her stride. The brown wilderness of brick that is London spread far away; through it the great brown and ornamental Thames rolled by: barges moored in midstream, barges a-row, with long yards pointing, drawn up on its slimy banks. The roofs were white with new fallen snow, there was snow in heaps in the gardens of the outlying streets; and soon appeared the fields, ghostly under the rays of the moon. Then a road and bridge silhouetted across the sky; the whistle shrieked, and the train rushed into the red glare of the tunnel. Overhead, the steam floated away in great white clouds, and the men in darkness and flame were as demons. It was here that Hall had thought of precipitating Nixon from the engine. Now a unique occasion presented itself. The driver, one hand laid on the rail, was looking over the side, a determined push would send him crashing against the brickwork. ‘But if they picked him up alive, I might hang for it; better settle him with a shovel first.’ The stoker turned to draw the shovel out of the coals, but at that moment Nixon turned round; Hall hesitated, and the train passed out of the tunnel. Then the end of a long silence, speaking like a man who has had something on his mind for a long time, Nixon said -
‘Now, look here, mate, I would sooner play fair with you. I have chaffed you a bit, it is true, but there is not much good going on with that game. I’d sooner play fair. Take my advice and turn it up.’
‘What up? What’s it to do with you?’
‘Not much; I don’t mind, but I’d sooner play fair and tell you straight that you haven’t a ghost of a chance. If my wife died to-morrow I would marry the widow.’
‘I know nothing about that, but your wife won’t die to-morrow, leastways, if you don’t murder her.’
‘Now then, keep a civil tongue in your head. It doesn’t make much difference whether my wife dies or not. I am the widow’s man. There you have it straight.’
‘It is a lie!’ cried Hall, overcome with passion. He lifted his shovel suddenly and brought it down on Nixon’s head. The driver fell back stunned; Hall prepared to repeat the blow, but before he could do so, Nixon had closed in on him. They seized each other by their throats. At the moment of the attack, Nixon was about to turn the wheel and relieve the engine of some pressure of steam, for they were now descending the incline towards the low-lying marshy lands. The engine snorted violently, and in ribbons of iron the miles fled beneath the wheels of the locomotive. The blow of the shovel had rendered Hall more than a match for his mate, and he dragged him forward; but seeing the fate that awaited him, Nixon made a tremendous effort and almost succeeded in throwing the stoker into the tender. But his grasp relaxed at the last, and Hall forced him at a run right back against the furnace, and held him there. The regulator was shifted right over, and now, like a race horse that has got the bit fairly between his teeth, the engine rushed along the plain, entering a deep cutting at fearful speed. The train rocked as if it were going every minute to pitch over, and more than one terrified passenger leaned out of the window, unable to imagine what was happening. The danger signal was up, but without a warning shriek the train plunged into the tunnel. Now the little blond face of the stoker was demonized with rage and red light. He had thrown Nixon over, and was striving to batter his head against the iron work; and, far away, the end of the tunnel gleamed like a white star, growing gradually larger, until at last the line of the ground, a tree, the high structure of the signal-box were visible. Then suddenly the train rushed past, out of the red flame into the blue light. The signalman threw up his arms in terror. A few hundred yards further on, at Tonbridge Station, the line was blocked by a cattle train. The station-master turned aside, the night echoed with the roar of sixty miles an hour, the yellow eyes gleamed fiercely, the pebbles flew from the route with a sharp sound, and, ah! with a horrid crash, the cattle trucks telescoped one into the other - disappeared as if in an earthquake. For a moment it seemed as if Nixon’s engine would pass triumphantly after all; but suddenly it turned over, and, helplessly as a giant done to death, fumed out its life of steam and fire. Then, hurling their great weight of iron and wood forward, the carriages came on, mounting one on top of the other like acrobats in a show, and they fell back, pounding out the lives of those within. The flying woodwork shrieked, and the whirling wheels broke with a grating sound. Between two awful moments of destruction, a tiny cry was heard. Was it that of child, or man, or beast, or woman? Impossible to say. It sank out of memory in the ocean-like cry of suffering which engulfed the night. O, beautiful and bountiful night, thou hidest so much misery beneath thy dark and shadowy garments. Why dost thou not close our ears to the heart-rending cries: to this groaning of married men and women, to this bleating of mangled sheep, to this moaning of lacerated bullocks, to this most awful tumult of pain and desperate agonies?
The line is like a wreck-strewn shore. Men with lanterns and implements arrive. But with the removal of each fresh heap of débris a new object of horror is discovered. This broken carriage is full of crushed human beings; this truck over-thrown, with wounded and dead animals; under the carcass of a sheep you find the body of a man, a bullock stands breathing in your face, and you see that one leg has been torn from its body; every runnel flows with blood, and the smell is the soft sickly smell of the shambles. A child is heard crying, and many lanterns flash through this long scene of bewildering confusion.
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The townspeople came running and breathless. They asked the cause of the accident. None knew, but a stout woman about five-and-thirty. Her face was round and pale, her chin was slightly doubled, and she wore her hair parted, and it was looped up over her ears. It was very cold. She shivered, for she had left her bar without waiting to snatch up a shawl. She asked if the engine driver and stoker were killed, and she murmured nervously - ‘Oh, I knew those men would get a fighting over me.’
A STRANGE DEATH
CHAPTER I
CHARMANDEAN WAS A lonely and ugly village in an ugly and lonely district.
The station - a dot on a high embankment which crossed the valley - attracted village idlers; and every evening half-a-dozen assembled on the little platform to view the arrival and departure of the five o’clock train. It often brought an acquaintance, and, like the weather, afforded an unfailing subject for gossip. But on May 6th, 1889, not a door was opened, not a parcel was thrown out. Presently the guard was called, and a curiously well-dressed man got out of a first-class carriage. He wore a long, green overcoat with a fur collar and fur cuffs. Stopping occasionally, leaning on his cane, he looked round with a weary and apprehensive air; and, avoiding the eyes of the station-master, who advanced to take his ticket, he said he would send for his portmanteau, and passed hurriedly out of the station. The station-master, his admirers, and his underlings turned the portmanteau over. It had evidently travelled far, and was covered with labels of strange, foreign towns, the very names of which were unknown to those present.
