by H. G. Wells
"But I tell you--I assure you the thing is so--I know nothing, or atleast remember nothing of anything I knew of this world before I foundmyself in the darkness of night on the moorland above Sidderford."
"Where did you learn the language then?"
"I don't know. Only I tell you--But I haven't an atom of the sort ofproof that would convince you."
"And you really," said Crump, suddenly coming round upon him andlooking into his eyes; "You really believe you were eternally in a kindof glorious heaven before then?"
"I do," said the Angel.
"Pshaw!" said Crump, and lit his pipe. He sat smoking, elbow on knee,for some time, and the Angel sat and watched him. Then his face grewless troubled.
"It is just possible," he said to himself rather than to the Angel, andbegan another piece of silence.
"You see;" he said, when that was finished. "There is such a thing asdouble personality.... A man sometimes forgets who he is and thinks heis someone else. Leaves home, friends, and everything, and leads adouble life. There was a case in _Nature_ only a month or so ago. Theman was sometimes English and right-handed, and sometimes Welsh andleft-handed. When he was English he knew no Welsh, when he was Welsh heknew no English.... H'm."
He turned suddenly on the Angel and said "Home!" He fancied he mightrevive in the Angel some latent memory of his lost youth. He went on"Dadda, Pappa, Daddy, Mammy, Pappy, Father, Dad, Governor, Old Boy,Mother, dear Mother, Ma, Mumsy.... No good? What are you laughing at?"
"Nothing," said the Angel. "You surprised me a little,--that is all. Aweek ago I should have been puzzled by that vocabulary."
For a minute Crump rebuked the Angel silently out of the corner of hiseye.
"You have such an ingenuous face. You almost force me to believe you.You are certainly not an ordinary lunatic. Your mind--except for yourisolation from the past--seems balanced enough. I wish Nordau orLombroso or some of these _Saltpetriere_ men could have a look at you.Down here one gets no practice worth speaking about in mental cases.There's one idiot--and he's just a damned idiot of an idiot--; all therest are thoroughly sane people."
"Possibly that accounts for their behaviour," said the Angelthoughtfully.
"But to consider your general position here," said Crump, ignoring hiscomment, "I really regard you as a bad influence here. These fanciesare contagious. It is not simply the Vicar. There is a man named Shinehas caught the fad, and he has been in the drink for a week, off and on,and offering to fight anyone who says you are not an Angel. Then a manover at Sidderford is, I hear, affected with a kind of religious maniaon the same tack. These things spread. There ought to be a quarantine inmischievous ideas. And I have heard another story...."
"But what can I do?" said the Angel. "Suppose I am (quiteunintentionally) doing mischief...."
"You can leave the village," said Crump.
"Then I shall only go into another village."
"That's not my affair," said Crump. "Go where you like. Only go. Leavethese three people, the Vicar, Shine, the little servant girl, whoseheads are all spinning with galaxies of Angels...."
"But," said the Angel. "Face your world! I tell you I can't. And leaveDelia! I don't understand.... I do not know how to set about gettingWork and Food and Shelter. And I am growing afraid of human beings...."
"Fancies, fancies," said Crump, watching him, "mania."
"It's no good my persisting in worrying you," he said suddenly, "butcertainly the situation is impossible as it stands." He stood up with ajerk.
"Good-morning, Mr--Angel," he said, "the long and the short of it is--Isay it as the medical adviser of this parish--you are an unhealthyinfluence. We can't have you. You must go."
He turned, and went striding through the grass towards the roadway,leaving the Angel sitting disconsolately on the tree trunk. "Anunhealthy influence," said the Angel slowly, staring blankly in front ofhim, and trying to realise what it meant.
SIR JOHN GOTCH ACTS.
XLII.
Sir John Gotch was a little man with scrubby hair, a small, thin nosesticking out of a face crackled with wrinkles, tight brown gaiters, anda riding whip. "I've come, you see," he said, as Mrs Hinijer closed thedoor.
"Thank you," said the Vicar, "I'm obliged to you. I'm really obliged toyou."
"Glad to be of any service to you," said Sir John Gotch. (Angularattitude.)
"This business," said the Vicar, "this unfortunate business of thebarbed wire--is really, you know, a most unfortunate business."
Sir John Gotch became decidedly more angular in his attitude. "It is,"he said.
"This Mr Angel being my guest--"
"No reason why he should cut my wire," said Sir John Gotch, briefly.
"None whatever."
"May I ask _who_ this Mr Angel is?" asked Sir John Gotch with theabruptness of long premeditation.
The Vicar's fingers jumped to his chin. What _was_ the good of talkingto a man like Sir John Gotch about Angels?
"To tell you the exact truth," said the Vicar, "there is a littlesecret--"
"Lady Hammergallow told me as much."
The Vicar's face suddenly became bright red.
"Do you know," said Sir John, with scarcely a pause, "he's been goingabout this village preaching Socialism?"
"Good heavens!" said the Vicar, "_No!_"
"He has. He has been buttonholing every yokel he came across, and askingthem why they had to work, while we--I and you, you know--did nothing.He has been saying we ought to educate every man up to your level andmine--out of the rates, I suppose, as usual. He has been suggesting thatwe--I and you, you know--keep these people down--pith 'em."
"_Dear_ me!" said the Vicar, "I had no idea."
"He has done this wire-cutting as a demonstration, I tell you, as aSocialistic demonstration. If we don't come down on him pretty sharply,I tell you, we shall have the palings down in Flinders Lane next, andthe next thing will be ricks afire, and every damned (I beg your pardon,Vicar. I know I'm too fond of that word), every blessed pheasant's eggin the parish smashed. I know these--"
"A Socialist," said the Vicar, quite put out, "I had _no_ idea."
"You see why I am inclined to push matters against our gentleman thoughhe _is_ your guest. It seems to me he has been taking advantage of yourpaternal--"
"Oh, _not_ paternal!" said the Vicar. "Really--"
"(I beg your pardon, Vicar--it was a slip.) Of your kindness, to gomischief-making everywhere, setting class against class, and the poorman against his bread and butter."
The Vicar's fingers were at his chin again.
"So there's one of two things," said Sir John Gotch. "Either that Guestof yours leaves the parish, or--I take proceedings. That's final."
The Vicar's mouth was all askew.
"That's the position," said Sir John, jumping to his feet, "if it werenot for you, I should take proceedings at once. As it is--am I to takeproceedings or no?"
"You see," said the Vicar in horrible perplexity.
"Well?"
"Arrangements have to be made."
"He's a mischief-making idler.... I know the breed. But I'll give you aweek----"
"Thank you," said the Vicar. "I understand your position. I perceive thesituation is getting intolerable...."
"Sorry to give you this bother, of course," said Sir John.
"A week," said the Vicar.
"A week," said Sir John, leaving.
The Vicar returned, after accompanying Gotch out, and for a long time heremained sitting before the desk in his study, plunged in thought. "Aweek!" he said, after an immense silence. "Here is an Angel, a gloriousAngel, who has quickened my soul to beauty and delight, who has openedmy eyes to Wonderland, and something more than Wonderland, ... and Ihave promised to get rid of him in a week! What are we men made of?...How _can_ I tell him?"
He began to walk up and down the room, then he went into thedining-room, and stood staring blankly out at the cornfield. The tablewas already laid for lunch. Presently he turned, still
dreaming, andalmost mechanically helped himself to a glass of sherry.
THE SEA CLIFF.
XLIII.
The Angel lay upon the summit of the cliff above Bandram Bay, and staredout at the glittering sea. Sheer from under his elbows fell the cliff,five hundred and seven feet of it down to the datum line, and thesea-birds eddied and soared below him. The upper part of the cliff was agreenish chalky rock, the lower two-thirds a warm red, marbled withgypsum bands, and from half-a-dozen places spurted jets of water, tofall in long cascades down its face. The swell frothed white on theflinty beach, and the water beyond where the shadows of an outstandingrock lay, was green and purple in a thousand tints and marked withstreaks and flakes of foam. The air was full of sunlight and thetinkling of the little waterfalls and the slow soughing of the seasbelow. Now and then a butterfly flickered over the face of the cliff,and a multitude of sea birds perched and flew hither and thither.
The Angel lay with his crippled, shrivelled wings humped upon his back,watching the gulls and jackdaws and rooks, circling in the sunlight,soaring, eddying, sweeping down to the water or upward into the dazzlingblue of the sky. Long the Angel lay there and watched them going to andfro on outspread wings. He watched, and as he watched them he rememberedwith infinite longing the rivers of starlight and the sweetness of theland from which he came. And a gull came gliding overhead, swiftly andeasily, with its broad wings spreading white and fair against the blue.And suddenly a shadow came into the Angel's eyes, the sunlight leftthem, he thought of his own crippled pinions, and put his face upon hisarm and wept.
A woman who was walking along the footpath across the Cliff Field sawonly a twisted hunchback dressed in the Vicar of Siddermorton's cast-offclothes, sprawling foolishly at the edge of the cliff and with hisforehead on his arm. She looked at him and looked again. "The sillycreature has gone to sleep," she said, and though she had a heavy basketto carry, came towards him with an idea of waking him up. But as shedrew near she saw his shoulders heave and heard the sound of hissobbing.
She stood still a minute, and her features twitched into a kind of grin.Then treading softly she turned and went back towards the pathway. "'Tisso hard to think of anything to say," she said. "Poor afflicted soul!"
Presently the Angel ceased sobbing, and stared with a tear-stained faceat the beach below him.
"This world," he said, "wraps me round and swallows me up. My wings growshrivelled and useless. Soon I shall be nothing more than a crippledman, and I shall age, and bow myself to pain, and die.... I ammiserable. And I am alone."
Then he rested his chin on his hands upon the edge of the cliff, andbegan to think of Delia's face with the light in her eyes. The Angelfelt a curious desire to go to her and tell her of his withered wings.To place his arms about her and weep for the land he had lost. "Delia!"he said to himself very softly. And presently a cloud drove in front ofthe sun.
MRS HINIJER ACTS.
XLIV.
Mrs Hinijer surprised the Vicar by tapping at his study door after tea."Begging your pardon, Sir," said Mrs Hinijer. "But might I make so boldas to speak to you for a moment?"
"Certainly, Mrs Hinijer," said the Vicar, little dreaming of the blowthat was coming. He held a letter in his hand, a very strange anddisagreeable letter from his bishop, a letter that irritated anddistressed him, criticising in the strongest language the guests hechose to entertain in his own house. Only a popular bishop living in ademocratic age, a bishop who was still half a pedagogue, could havewritten such a letter.
Mrs Hinijer coughed behind her hand and struggled with some respiratorydisorganisation. The Vicar felt apprehensive. Usually in theirinterviews he was the most disconcerted. Invariably so when theinterview ended.
"Well?" he said.
"May I make so bold, sir, as to arst when Mr Angel is a-going?" (Cough.)
The Vicar started. "To ask when Mr Angel is going?" he repeated slowlyto gain time. "_Another!_"
"I'm sorry, sir. But I've been used to waitin' on gentlefolks, sir; andyou'd hardly imagine how it feels quite to wait on such as 'im."
"Such as ... _'im_! Do I understand you, Mrs Hinijer, that you don'tlike Mr Angel?"
"You see, sir, before I came to you, sir, I was at Lord Dundoller'sseventeen years, and you, sir--if you will excuse me--are a perfectgentleman yourself, sir--though in the Church. And then...."
"Dear, dear!" said the Vicar. "And don't you regard Mr Angel as agentleman?"
"I'm sorry to 'ave to say it, sir."
"But what...? Dear me! Surely!"
"I'm sorry to 'ave to say it, sir. But when a party goes turningvegetarian suddenly and putting out all the cooking, and hasn't noproper luggage of his own, and borry's shirts and socks from his 'ost,and don't know no better than to try his knife at peas (as I seed myvery self), and goes talking in odd corners to the housemaids, and foldsup his napkin after meals, and eats with his fingers at minced veal, andplays the fiddle in the middle of the night keeping everybody awake, andstares and grins at his elders a-getting upstairs, and generallymisconducts himself with things that I can scarcely tell you all, onecan't help thinking, sir. Thought is free, sir, and one can't helpcoming to one's own conclusions. Besides which, there is talk all overthe village about him--what with one thing and another. I know agentleman when I sees a gentleman, and I know a gentleman when I don'tsee a gentleman, and me, and Susan, and George, we've talked it over,being the upper servants, so to speak, and experienced, and leaving outthat girl Delia, who I only hope won't come to any harm through him, anddepend upon it, sir, that Mr Angel ain't what you think he is, sir, andthe sooner he leaves this house the better."
Mrs Hinijer ceased abruptly and stood panting but stern, and with hereyes grimly fixed on the Vicar's face.
"_Really_, Mrs Hinijer!" said the Vicar, and then, "Oh _Lord_!"
"What _have_ I done?" said the Vicar, suddenly starting up and appealingto the inexorable fates. "What HAVE I done?"
"There's no knowing," said Mrs Hinijer. "Though a deal of talk in thevillage."
"_Bother!_" said the Vicar, going and staring out of the window. Then heturned. "Look here, Mrs Hinijer! Mr Angel will be leaving this house inthe course of a week. Is that enough?"
"Quite," said Mrs Hinijer. "And I feel sure, sir...."
The Vicar's eyes fell with unwonted eloquence upon the door.
THE ANGEL IN TROUBLE.
XLV.
"The fact is," said the Vicar, "this is no world for Angels."
The blinds had not been drawn, and the twilight outer world under anovercast sky seemed unspeakably grey and cold. The Angel sat at table indejected silence. His inevitable departure had been proclaimed. Sincehis presence hurt people and made the Vicar wretched he acquiesced inthe justice of the decision, but what would happen to him after hisplunge he could not imagine. Something very disagreeable certainly.
"There is the violin," said the Vicar. "Only after our experience----"
"I must get you clothes--a general outfit.---- Dear me! you don'tunderstand railway travelling! And coinage! Taking lodgings!Eating-houses!---- I must come up at least and see you settled. Get workfor you. But an Angel in London! Working for his living! That grey coldwilderness of people! What _will_ become of you?---- If I had one friendin the world I could trust to believe me!"
"I ought not to be sending you away----"
"Do not trouble overmuch for me, my friend," said the Angel. "At leastthis life of yours ends. And there are things in it. There is somethingin this life of yours---- Your care for me! I thought there was nothingbeautiful at all in life----"
"And I have betrayed you!" said the Vicar, with a sudden wave ofremorse. "Why did I not face them all--say, 'This is the best of life'?What do these everyday things matter?"
He stopped suddenly. "What _do_ they matter?" he said.
"I have only come into your life to trouble it," said the Angel.
"Don't say that," said the Vicar. "You have come into my life to awakenme. I have been dreaming--dreaming. Dr
eaming this was necessary andthat. Dreaming that this narrow prison was the world. And the dreamstill hangs about me and troubles me. That is all. Even yourdeparture----. Am I not dreaming that you must go?"
When he was in bed that night the mystical aspect of the case came stillmore forcibly before the Vicar. He lay awake and had the most horriblevisions of his sweet and delicate visitor drifting through thisunsympathetic world and happening upon the cruellest misadventures. Hisguest _was_ an Angel assuredly. He tried to go over the whole story ofthe past eight days again. He thought of the hot afternoon, the shotfired out of sheer surprise, the fluttering iridescent wings, thebeautiful saffron-robed figure upon the ground. How wonderful that hadseemed to him! Then his mind turned to the things he had heard of theother world, to the dreams the violin had conjured up, to the vague,fluctuating, wonderful cities of the Angelic Land. He tried to recallthe forms of the buildings, the shapes of the fruits upon the trees, theaspect of the winged shapes that traversed its ways. They grew from amemory into a present reality, grew every moment just a little morevivid and his troubles a little less immediate; and so, softly andquietly, the Vicar slipped out of his troubles and perplexities into theLand of Dreams.
XLVI.
Delia sat with her window open, hoping to hear the Angel play. But thatnight there was to be no playing. The sky was overcast, yet not sothickly but that the moon was visible. High up a broken cloud-lace droveacross the sky, and now the moon was a hazy patch of light, and now itwas darkened, and now rode clear and bright and sharply outlined againstthe blue gulf of night. And presently she heard the door into the gardenopening, and a figure came out under the drifting pallor of themoonlight.
