The Complete Short Stories Page 12

Em.: Never mind who she’s called after. Three!

  Maj.: And Gerald.

  Em.: Four!

  Maj.: That’s the lot.

  Em.: Are you sure?

  Maj.: I swear that’s the lot. I must have counted Albert-Victor as two.

  Em.: Richard!

  Maj.: Emily!

  (They embrace.)

  THE MOUSE

  THEODORIC VOLER had been brought up, from infancy to the confines of middle age, by a fond mother whose chief solicitude had been to keep him screened from what she called the coarser realities of life. When she died she left Theodoric alone in a world that was as real as ever, and a good deal coarser than he considered it had any need to be. To a man of his temperament and upbringing even a simple railway journey was crammed with petty annoyances and minor discords, and as he settled himself down in a second-class compartment one September morning he was conscious of ruffled feelings and general mental discomposure. He had been staying at a country vicarage, the inmates of which had been certainly neither brutal nor bacchanalian, but their supervision of the domestic establishment had been of that lax order which invites disaster. The pony carriage that was to take him to the station had never been properly ordered, and when the moment for his departure drew near the handyman who should have produced the required article was nowhere to be found. In this emergency Theodoric, to his mute but very intense disgust, found himself obliged to collaborate with the vicar’s daughter in the task of harnessing the pony, which necessitated groping about in an ill-lighted outhouse called a stable, and smelling very like one—except in patches where it smelt of mice. Without being actually afraid of mice, Theodoric classed them among the coarser incidents of life, and considered that Providence, with a little exercise of moral courage, might long ago have recognized that they were not indispensable, and have withdrawn them from circulation. As the train glided out of the station Theodoric’s nervous imagination accused himself of exhaling a weak odour of stableyard, and possibly of displaying a mouldy straw or two on his usually well-brushed garments. Fortunately the only other occupant of the compartment, a lady of about the same age as himself, seemed inclined for slumber rather than scrutiny; the train was not due to stop till the terminus was reached, in about an hour’s time, and the carriage was of the old-fashioned sort, that held no communication with a corridor, therefore no further travelling companions were likely to intrude on Theodoric’s semi-privacy. And yet the train had scarcely attained its normal speed before he became reluctantly but vividly aware that he was not alone with the slumbering lady; he was not even alone in his own clothes. A warm, creeping movement over his flesh betrayed the unwelcome and highly resented presence, unseen but poignant, of a strayed mouse, that had evidently dashed into its present retreat during the episode of the pony harnessing. Furtive stamps and shakes and wildly directed pinches failed to dislodge the intruder, whose motto, indeed, seemed to be Excelsior; and the lawful occupant of the clothes lay back against the cushions and endeavoured rapidly to evolve some means for putting an end to the dual ownership. It was unthinkable that he should continue for the space of a whole hour in the horrible position of a Rowton House for vagrant mice (already his imagination had at least doubled the numbers of the alien invasion). On the other hand, nothing less drastic than partial disrobing would ease him of his tormentor, and to undress in the presence of a lady, even for so laudable a purpose, was an idea that made his eartips tingle in a blush of abject shame. He had never been able to bring himself even to the mild exposure of open-work socks in the presence of the fair sex. And yet—the lady in this case was to all appearances soundly and securely asleep; the mouse, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to crowd a Wanderjahr into a few strenuous minutes. If there is any truth in the theory of transmigration, this particular mouse must certainly have been in a former state a member of the Alpine Club. Sometimes in its eagerness it lost its footing and slipped for half an inch or so; and then, in fright, or more probably temper, it bit. Theodoric was goaded into the most audacious undertaking of his life. Crimsoning to the hue of a beetroot and keeping an agonized watch on his slumbering fellow-traveller, he swiftly and noiselessly secured the ends of his railway-rug to the racks on either side of the carriage, so that a substantial curtain hung athwart the compartment. In the narrow dressing-room that he had thus improvised he proceeded with violent haste to extricate himself partially and the mouse entirely from the surrounding casings of tweed and half-wool. As the unravelled mouse gave a wild leap to the floor, the rug, slipping its fastening at either end, also came down with a heart-curdling flop, and almost simultaneously the awakened sleeper opened her eyes. With a movement almost quicker than the mouse’s, Theodoric pounced on the rug, and hauled its ample folds chin-high over his dismantled person as he collapsed into the further corner of the carriage. The blood raced and beat in the veins of his neck and forehead, while he waited dumbly for the communication-cord to be pulled. The lady, however, contented herself with a silent stare at her strangely muffled companion. How much had she seen, Theodoric queried to himself, and in any case what on earth must she think of his present posture?

  “I think I have caught a chill,” he ventured desperately.

  “Really, I’m sorry,” she replied. “I was just going to ask you if you would open this window.”

  “I fancy it’s malaria,” he added, his teeth chattering slightly, as much from fright as from a desire to support his theory.

  “I’ve got some brandy in my hold-all, if you’ll kindly reach it down for me,” said his companion.

  “Not for worlds—I mean, I never take anything for it,” he assured her earnestly.

  “I suppose you caught it in the Tropics?”

  Theodoric, whose acquaintance with the Tropics was limited to an annual present of a chest of tea from an uncle in Ceylon, felt that even the malaria was slipping from him. Would it be possible, he wondered, to disclose the real state of affairs to her in small instalments?

  “Are you afraid of mice?” he ventured, growing, if possible, more scarlet in the face.

  “Not unless they came in quantities, like those that ate up Bishop Hatto. Why do you ask?”

  “I had one crawling inside my clothes just now,” said Theodoric in a voice that hardly seemed his own. “It was a most awkward situation.”

  “It must have been, if you wear your clothes at all tight,” she observed; “but mice have strange ideas of comfort.”

  “I had to get rid of it while you were asleep,” he continued; then, with a gulp, he added, “it was getting rid of it that brought me to— to this.”

  “Surely leaving off one small mouse wouldn’t bring on a chill,” she exclaimed, with a levity that Theodoric accounted abominable.

  Evidently she had detected something of his predicament, and was enjoying his confusion. All the blood in his body seemed to have mobilized in one concentrated blush, and an agony of abasement, worse than a myriad mice, crept up and down over his soul. And then, as reflection began to assert itself, sheer terror took the place of humiliation. With every minute that passed the train was rushing nearer to the crowded and bustling terminus where dozens of prying eyes would be exchanged for the one paralyzing pair that watched him from the further corner of the carriage. There was one slender despairing chance, which the next few minutes must decide. His fellow-traveller might relapse into a blessed slumber. But as the minutes throbbed by that chance ebbed away. The furtive glance which Theodoric stole at her from time to time disclosed only an unwinking wakefulness.

  “I think we must be getting near now,” she presently observed.

  Theodoric had already noted with growing terror the recurring stacks of small, ugly dwellings that heralded the journey’s end. The words acted as a signal. Like a hunted beast breaking cover and dashing madly towards some other haven of momentary safety he threw aside his rug, and struggled frantically into his dishevelled garments. He was conscious of dull suburban stations racing past the window, of a cho
king, hammering sensation in his throat and heart, and of an icy silence in that corner towards which he dared not look. Then as he sank back in his seat, clothed and almost delirious, the train slowed down to a final crawl, and the woman spoke.

  “Would you be so kind,” she asked, “as to get me a porter to put me into a cab? It’s a shame to trouble you when you’re feeling unwell, but being blind makes one so helpless at a railway station.”

  The Chronicles of Clovis

  First Collected, 1911

  To the Lynx Kitten,

  With His Reluctantly Given Consent,

  This Book Is Affectionately

  Dedicated

  H. H. M.

  August, 1911

  ESMÉ

  ALL hunting stories are the same,” said Clovis; “just as all Turf stories are the same, and all–”

  “My hunting story isn’t a bit like any you’ve ever heard,” said the Baroness. “It happened quite a while ago, when I was about twenty-three. I wasn’t living apart from my husband then; you see, neither of us could afford to make the other a separate allowance. In spite of everything that proverbs may say, poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up. But we always hunted with different packs. All this has nothing to do with the story.”

  “We haven’t arrived at the meet yet. I suppose there was a meet,” said Clovis.

  “Of course there was a meet,” said the Baroness; “all the usual crowd were there, especially Constance Broddle. Constance is one of those strapping florid girls that go so well with autumn scenery or Christmas decorations in church. ‘I feel a presentiment that something dreadful is going to happen,’ she said to me; ‘am I looking pale?’

  “She was looking about as pale as a beetroot that has suddenly heard bad news.

  “ ‘You’re looking nicer than usual,’ I said, ‘but that’s so easy for you.’ Before she had got the right bearings of this remark we had settled down to business; hounds had found a fox lying out in some gorse-bushes.”

  “I knew it,” said Clovis; “in every fox-hunting story that I’ve ever heard there’s been a fox and some gorse-bushes.”

  “Constance and I were well mounted,” continued the Baroness serenely, “and we had no difficulty in keeping ourselves in the first flight, though it was a fairly stiff run. Towards the finish, however, we must have held rather too independent a line, for we lost the hounds, and found ourselves plodding aimlessly along miles away from anywhere. It was fairly exasperating, and my temper was beginning to let itself go by inches, when on pushing our way through an accommodating hedge we were gladdened by the sight of hounds in full cry in a hollow just beneath us.

  “‘There they go,’ cried Constance, and then added in a gasp, ‘In Heaven’s name, what are they hunting?’

  “It was certainly no mortal fox. It stood more than twice as high, had a short, ugly head, and an enormous thick neck.

  “ ‘It’s a hyæna,’ I cried; ‘it must have escaped from Lord Pabham’s Park.’

  “At that moment the hunted beast turned and faced its pursuers, and the hounds (there were only about six couple of them) stood round in a half-circle and looked foolish. Evidently they had broken away from the rest of the pack on the trail of this alien scent, and were not quite sure how to treat their quarry now they had got him.

  “The hyæna hailed our approach with unmistakable relief and demonstrations of friendliness. It had probably been accustomed to uniform kindness from humans, while its first experience of a pack of hounds had left a bad impression. The hounds looked more than ever embarrassed as their quarry paraded its sudden intimacy with us, and the faint toot of a horn in the distance was seized on as a welcome signal for unobtrusive departure. Constance and I and the hyæna were left alone in the gathering twilight.

  “ ‘What are we to do?’ asked Constance.

  “ ‘What a person you are for questions,’ I said.

  “ ‘Well, we can’t stay here all night with a hyæna,’ she retorted.

  “ ‘I don’t know what your ideas of comfort are,’ I said; ‘but I shouldn’t think of staying here all night even without a hyæna. My home may be an unhappy one, but at least it has hot and cold water laid on, and domestic service, and other conveniences which we shouldn’t find here. We had better make for that ridge of trees to the right; I imagine the Crowley road is just beyond.’

  “We trotted off slowly along a faintly marked cart-track, with the beast following cheerfully at our heels.

  “ ‘What on earth are we to do with the hyæna?’ came the inevitable question.

  “ ‘What does one generally do with hyænas?’ I asked crossly.

  “‘I’ve never had anything to do with one before,’ said Constance.

  “ ‘Well, neither have I. If we even knew its sex we might give it a name. Perhaps we might call it Esmé. That would do in either case.’

  “There was still sufficient daylight for us to distinguish wayside objects, and our listless spirits gave an upward perk as we came upon a small half-naked gipsy brat picking blackberries from a low-growing bush. The sudden apparition of two horsewomen and a hyæna set it off crying, and in any case we should scarcely have gleaned any useful geographical information from that source; but there was a probability that we might strike a gipsy encampment somewhere along our route. We rode on hopefully but uneventfully for another mile or so.

  “ ‘I wonder what the child was doing there,’ said Constance presently.

  “ ‘Picking blackberries. Obviously.’

  “ ‘I don’t like the way it cried,’ pursued Constance; ‘somehow its wail keeps ringing in my ears.’

  “I did not chide Constance for her morbid fancies; as a matter of fact the same sensation, of being pursued by a persistent fretful wail, had been forcing itself on my rather over-tired nerves. For company’s sake I hulloed to Esmé, who had lagged somewhat behind. With a few springy bounds he drew up level, and then shot past us.

  “The wailing accompaniment was explained. The gipsy child was firmly, and I expect painfully, held in his jaws.

  “ ‘Merciful Heaven!’ screamed Constance, ‘what on earth shall we do? What are we to do?’

  “I am perfectly certain that at the Last Judgment Constance will ask more questions than any of the examining Seraphs.

  “ ‘Can’t we do something?’ she persisted tearfully, as Esmé cantered easily along in front of our tired horses.

  “Personally I was doing everything that occurred to me at the moment. I stormed and scolded and coaxed in English and French and gamekeeper language; I made absurd, ineffectual cuts in the air with my thongless hunting-crop; I hurled my sandwich case at the brute; in fact, I really don’t know what more I could have done. And still we lumbered on through the deepening dusk, with that dark uncouth shape lumbering ahead of us, and a drone of lugubrious music floating in our ears. Suddenly Esmé bounded aside into some thick bushes, where we could not follow; the wail rose to a shriek and then stopped altogether. This part of the story I always hurry over, because it is really rather horrible. When the beast joined us again, after an absence of a few minutes, there was an air of patient understanding about him, as though he knew that he had done something of which we disapproved, but which he felt to be thoroughly justifiable.

  “ ‘How can you let that ravening beast trot by your side?’ asked Constance. She was looking more than ever like an albino beetroot.

  “ ‘In the first place, I can’t prevent it,’ I said; ‘and in the second place, whatever else he may be, I doubt if he’s ravening at the present moment.’

  “Constance shuddered. ‘Do you think the poor little thing suffered much?’ came another of her futile questions.

  “ ‘The indications were all that way,’ I said; ‘on the other hand, of course, it may have been crying from sheer temper. Children sometimes do.’

  “It was nearly pitch-dark when we emerged suddenly into the high road. A flash of lights and the whir of a motor went past us at the same moment
at uncomfortably close quarters. A thud and a sharp screeching yell followed a second later. The car drew up, and when I had ridden back to the spot I found a young man bending over a dark motionless mass lying by the roadside.

  “ ‘You have killed my Esmé,’ I exclaimed bitterly.

  “ ‘I’m so awfully sorry,’ said the young man; ‘I keep dogs myself, so I know what you must feel about it I’ do anything I can in reparation.’

  “ ‘Please bury him at once,’ I said; ‘that much I think I may ask of you.’

  “ ‘Bring the spade, William,’ he called to the chauffeur. Evidently hasty roadside interments were contingencies that had been provided against.

  “The digging of a sufficiently large grave took some little time. ‘I say, what a magnificent fellow,’ said the motorist as the corpse was rolled over into the trench. ‘I’m afraid he must have been rather a valuable animal.’

  “ ‘He took second in the puppy class at Birmingham last year,’ I said resolutely.

  “Constance snorted loudly.

  “ ‘Don’t cry, dear,’ I said brokenly; ‘it was all over in a moment. He couldn’t have suffered much,’

  “ ‘Look here,’ said the young fellow desperately, ‘you simply must let me do something by way of reparation.’

  “I refused sweetly, but as he persisted I let him have my address.

  “Of course, we kept our own counsel as to the earlier episodes of the evening. Lord Pabham never advertised the loss of his hyæna; when a strictly fruit-eating animal strayed from his park a year or two previously he was called upon to give compensation in eleven cases of sheep-worrying and practically to re-stock his neighbours’ poultry-yards, and an escaped hyæna would have mounted up to something on the scale of a Government grant. The gipsies were equally unobtrusive over their missing offspring; I don’t suppose in large encampments they really know to a child or two how many they’ve got.”

  The Baroness paused reflectively, and then continued: