Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (408 page)

“But the second man’s prayer, being a thanksgiving merely, was short, so that when the first man raised his eyes, he saw the face of his enemy gazing at him across the chair-tops, with a mocking smile upon it.

“He made no attempt to rise, but remained kneeling, fascinated by the look of joy that shone out of the other man’s eyes. And the other man moved the high-backed chairs one by one, and came towards him softly.

“Then, just as the man who had been wronged stood beside the man who had wronged him, full of gladness that his opportunity had come, there burst from the cathedral tower a sudden clash of bells, and the man, whose opportunity had come, broke his heart and fell back dead, with that mocking smile still playing round his mouth.

“And so he lay there.

“Then the man who had done the wrong rose up and passed out, praising God.

“What became of the body of the other man is not known. It was the body of a stranger who had died suddenly in the cathedral. There was none to identify it, none to claim it.

“Years passed away, and the survivor in the tragedy became a worthy and useful citizen, and a noted man of science.

“In his laboratory were many objects necessary to him in his researches, and, prominent among them, stood in a certain corner a human skeleton. It was a very old and much-mended skeleton, and one day the long-expected end arrived, and it tumbled to pieces.

“Thus it became necessary to purchase another.

“The man of science visited a dealer he well knew — a little parchment-faced old man who kept a dingy shop, where nothing was ever sold, within the shadow of the towers of Notre Dame.

“The little parchment-faced old man had just the very thing that Monsieur wanted — a singularly fine and well-proportioned ‘study.’ It should be sent round and set up in Monsieur’s laboratory that very afternoon.

“The dealer was as good as his word. When Monsieur entered his laboratory that evening, the thing was in its place.

“Monsieur seated himself in his high-backed chair, and tried to collect his thoughts. But Monsieur’s thoughts were unruly, and inclined to wander, and to wander always in one direction.

“Monsieur opened a large volume and commenced to read. He read of a man who had wronged another and fled from him, the other man following. Finding himself reading this, he closed the book angrily, and went and stood by the window and looked out. He saw before him the sun-pierced nave of a great cathedral, and on the stones lay a dead man with a mocking smile upon his face.

“Cursing himself for a fool, he turned away with a laugh. But his laugh was short-lived, for it seemed to him that something else in the room was laughing also. Struck suddenly still, with his feet glued to the ground, he stood listening for a while: then sought with starting eyes the corner from where the sound had seemed to come. But the white thing standing there was only grinning.

“Monsieur wiped the damp sweat from his head and hands, and stole out.

“For a couple of days he did not enter the room again. On the third, telling himself that his fears were those of a hysterical girl, he opened the door and went in. To shame himself, he took his lamp in his hand, and crossing over to the far corner where the skeleton stood, examined it. A set of bones bought for three hundred francs. Was he a child, to be scared by such a bogey!

“He held his lamp up in front of the thing’s grinning head. The flame of the lamp flickered as though a faint breath had passed over it.

“The man explained this to himself by saying that the walls of the house were old and cracked, and that the wind might creep in anywhere. He repeated this explanation to himself as he recrossed the room, walking backwards, with his eyes fixed on the thing. When he reached his desk, he sat down and gripped the arms of his chair till his fingers turned white.

“He tried to work, but the empty sockets in that grinning head seemed to be drawing him towards them. He rose and battled with his inclination to fly screaming from the room. Glancing fearfully about him, his eye fell upon a high screen, standing before the door. He dragged it forward, and placed it between himself and the thing, so that he could not see it — nor it see him. Then he sat down again to his work. For a while he forced himself to look at the book in front of him, but at last, unable to control himself any longer, he suffered his eyes to follow their own bent.

“It may have been an hallucination. He may have accidentally placed the screen so as to favour such an illusion. But what he saw was a bony hand coming round the corner of the screen, and, with a cry, he fell to the floor in a swoon.

“The people of the house came running in, and lifting him up, carried him out, and laid him upon his bed. As soon as he recovered, his first question was, where had they found the thing — where was it when they entered the room? and when they told him they had seen it standing where it always stood, and had gone down into the room to look again, because of his frenzied entreaties, and returned trying to hide their smiles, he listened to their talk about overwork, and the necessity for change and rest, and said they might do with him as they would.

“So for many months the laboratory door remained locked. Then there came a chill autumn evening when the man of science opened it again, and closed it behind him.

“He lighted his lamp, and gathered his instruments and books around him, and sat down before them in his high-backed chair. And the old terror returned to him.

“But this time he meant to conquer himself. His nerves were stronger now, and his brain clearer; he would fight his unreasoning fear. He crossed to the door and locked himself in, and flung the key to the other end of the room, where it fell among jars and bottles with an echoing clatter.

“Later on, his old housekeeper, going her final round, tapped at his door and wished him good-night, as was her custom. She received no response, at first, and, growing nervous, tapped louder and called again; and at length an answering ‘good-night’ came back to her.

“She thought little about it at the time, but afterwards she remembered that the voice that had replied to her had been strangely grating and mechanical. Trying to describe it, she likened it to such a voice as she would imagine coming from a statue.

“Next morning his door remained still locked. It was no unusual thing for him to work all night and far into the next day, so no one thought to be surprised. When, however, evening came, and yet he did not appear, his servants gathered outside the room and whispered, remembering what had happened once before.

“They listened, but could hear no sound. They shook the door and called to him, then beat with their fists upon the wooden panels. But still no sound came from the room.

“Becoming alarmed, they decided to burst open the door, and, after many blows, it gave way, and they crowded in.

“He sat bolt upright in his high-backed chair. They thought at first he had died in his sleep. But when they drew nearer and the light fell upon him, they saw the livid marks of bony fingers round his throat; and in his eyes there was a terror such as is not often seen in human eyes.”

* * * * *

Brown was the first to break the silence that followed. He asked me if I had any brandy on board. He said he felt he should like just a nip of brandy before going to bed. That is one of the chief charms of Jephson’s stories: they always make you feel you want a little brandy.

CHAPTER VI

“Cats,” remarked Jephson to me, one afternoon, as we sat in the punt discussing the plot of our novel, “cats are animals for whom I entertain a very great respect. Cats and Nonconformists seem to me the only things in this world possessed of a practicable working conscience. Watch a cat doing something mean and wrong — if ever one gives you the chance; notice how anxious she is that nobody should see her doing it; and how prompt, if detected, to pretend that she was not doing it — that she was not even thinking of doing it — that, as a matter of fact, she was just about to do something else, quite different. You might almost think they had a soul.

“Only this morning I was watching that tortoise-shell of yours on the houseboat. She was creeping along the roof, behind the flower-boxes, stalking a young thrush that had perched upon a coil of rope. Murder gleamed from her eye, assassination lurked in every twitching muscle of her body. As she crouched to spring, Fate, for once favouring the weak, directed her attention to myself, and she became, for the first time, aware of my presence. It acted upon her as a heavenly vision upon a Biblical criminal. In an instant she was a changed being. The wicked beast, going about seeking whom it might devour, had vanished. In its place sat a long-tailed, furry angel, gazing up into the sky with an expression that was one-third innocence and two-thirds admiration of the beauties of nature. What was she doing there, did I want to know? Why, could I not see, playing with a bit of earth. Surely I was not so evil-minded as to imagine she wanted to kill that dear little bird — God bless it.

“Then note an old Tom, slinking home in the early morning, after a night spent on a roof of bad repute. Can you picture to yourself a living creature less eager to attract attention? ‘Dear me,’ you can all but hear it saying to itself, ‘I’d no idea it was so late; how time does go when one is enjoying oneself. I do hope I shan’t meet any one I know — very awkward, it’s being so light.’

“In the distance it sees a policeman, and stops suddenly within the shelter of a shadow. ‘Now what’s he doing there,’ it says, ‘and close to our door too? I can’t go in while he’s hanging about. He’s sure to see and recognise me; and he’s just the sort of man to talk to the servants.’

“It hides itself behind a post and waits, peeping cautiously round the corner from time to time. The policeman, however, seems to have taken up his residence at that particular spot, and the cat becomes worried and excited.

“‘What’s the matter with the fool?’ it mutters indignantly; ‘is he dead? Why don’t he move on, he’s always telling other people to. Stupid ass.’

“Just then a far-off cry of ‘milk’ is heard, and the cat starts up in an agony of alarm. ‘Great Scott, hark at that! Why, everybody will be down before I get in. Well, I can’t help it. I must chance it.’

“He glances round at himself, and hesitates. ‘I wouldn’t mind if I didn’t look so dirty and untidy,’ he muses; ‘people are so prone to think evil in this world.’

“‘Ah, well,’ he adds, giving himself a shake, ‘there’s nothing else for it, I must put my trust in Providence, it’s pulled me through before: here goes.’

“He assumes an aspect of chastened sorrow, and trots along with a demure and saddened step. It is evident he wishes to convey the idea that he has been out all night on work connected with the Vigilance Association, and is now returning home sick at heart because of the sights that he has seen.

“He squirms in, unnoticed, through a window, and has just time to give himself a hurried lick down before he hears the cook’s step on the stairs. When she enters the kitchen he is curled up on the hearthrug, fast asleep. The opening of the shutters awakes him. He rises and comes forward, yawning and stretching himself.

“‘Dear me, is it morning, then?’ he says drowsily. ‘Heigh-ho! I’ve had such a lovely sleep, cook; and such a beautiful dream about poor mother.’

“Cats! do you call them? Why, they are Christians in everything except the number of legs.”

“They certainly are,” I responded, “wonderfully cunning little animals, and it is not by their moral and religious instincts alone that they are so closely linked to man; the marvellous ability they display in taking care of ‘number one’ is worthy of the human race itself. Some friends of mine had a cat, a big black Tom: they have got half of him still. They had reared him from a kitten, and, in their homely, undemonstrative way, they liked him. There was nothing, however, approaching passion on either side.

“One day a Chinchilla came to live in the neighbourhood, under the charge of an elderly spinster, and the two cats met at a garden wall party.

“‘What sort of diggings have you got?’ asked the Chinchilla.

“‘Oh, pretty fair.’

“‘Nice people?’

“‘Yes, nice enough — as people go.’

“‘Pretty willing? Look after you well, and all that sort of thing?’

“‘Yes — oh yes. I’ve no fault to find with them.’

“‘What’s the victuals like?’

“‘Oh, the usual thing, you know, bones and scraps, and a bit of dog-biscuit now and then for a change.’

“‘Bones and dog-biscuits! Do you mean to say you eat bones?’

“‘Yes, when I can get ‘em. Why, what’s wrong about them?’

“‘Shade of Egyptian Isis, bones and dog-biscuits! Don’t you ever get any spring chickens, or a sardine, or a lamb cutlet?’

“‘Chickens! Sardines! What are you talking about? What are sardines?’

“‘What are sardines! Oh, my dear child (the Chinchilla was a lady cat, and always called gentlemen friends a little older than herself ‘dear child’), these people of yours are treating you just shamefully. Come, sit down and tell me all about it. What do they give you to sleep on?’

“‘The floor.’

“‘I thought so; and skim milk and water to drink, I suppose?’

“‘It
is
a bit thin.’

“‘I can quite imagine it. You must leave these people, my dear, at once.’

“‘But where am I to go to?’

“‘Anywhere.’

“‘But who’ll take me in?’

“‘Anybody, if you go the right way to work. How many times do you think I’ve changed my people? Seven! — and bettered myself on each occasion. Why, do you know where I was born? In a pig-sty. There were three of us, mother and I and my little brother. Mother would leave us every evening, returning generally just as it was getting light. One morning she did not come back. We waited and waited, but the day passed on and she did not return, and we grew hungrier and hungrier, and at last we lay down, side by side, and cried ourselves to sleep.

“‘In the evening, peeping through a hole in the door, we saw her coming across the field. She was crawling very slowly, with her body close down against the ground. We called to her, and she answered with a low “crroo”; but she did not hasten her pace.