Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / In the Days of the Comet Book First Chapter Second Section 5-7

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In the Days of the Comet Book First Chapter Second Section 5-7 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book one, Chapter two, sections five, six, and seven of
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  Speaker 1: In the Days of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recorded
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  Speaker 1: by Lewis, section five. For a long time I feared
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  Speaker 1: I should have to go back to Clayton without another
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  Speaker 1: word to Nettie. She seemed insensible to the need I
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  Speaker 1: felt for a talk with her, and I was thinking
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  Speaker 1: even of a sudden demand for that Before them all
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  Speaker 1: it was a transparent maneuver of her mother's, who had
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  Speaker 1: been watching my face, that sent us out at last
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  Speaker 1: together to do something I forgot now what in one
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  Speaker 1: of the greenhouses. Whatever that little mission may have been,
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  Speaker 1: it was the merest, most bare faced excuse a door
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  Speaker 1: to shut or winded to close, and I don't think
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  Speaker 1: it got done. Nettie hesitated and obeyed. She led the
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  Speaker 1: way through one of the hothouses. It was a low, steamy,
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  Speaker 1: brick floored alley between staging that bore a close crowd
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  Speaker 1: of pots and ferns, and behind big branching plants that
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  Speaker 1: were spread and nailed overhead so as to make an
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  Speaker 1: impervious cover of leaves, and in that close green privacy.
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  Speaker 1: She stopped and turned on me suddenly, like a creature
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  Speaker 1: at bay. Isn't the maidenhair fern lovely? She said, and
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  Speaker 1: looked at me with eyes that said, now, Nettie, I began,
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  Speaker 1: I was a fool to write to you as I did.
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  Speaker 1: She startled me by the ascent that flashed out upon
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  Speaker 1: her face, but she said nothing and stood waiting. Bettie,
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  Speaker 1: I plunged. I can't do without you. I love you
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  Speaker 1: if you loved me, she said, trimly, watching the white
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  Speaker 1: fingers she plunged among the green branches of a selaginella.
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  Speaker 1: Could you write the things you do to me? I
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  Speaker 1: don't mean them, I said, at least not always. I thought,
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  Speaker 1: really they were very good letters, and that Nettie was
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  Speaker 1: stupid to think otherwise. But I was, for the moment
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  Speaker 1: clearly aware of the impossibility of conveying that to her.
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  Speaker 1: You wrote them. But then I tramped seventeen miles to
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  Speaker 1: say I don't mean them. Yes, but perhaps you do,
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  Speaker 1: I think. I was at a loss then I said,
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  Speaker 1: but not very clearly. I don't you think you You
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  Speaker 1: love me, Willie? But you don't I do, Nettie, you
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  Speaker 1: know I do. For answer, she shook her head. I
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  Speaker 1: made what I thought was a most heroic place lunch, Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: I said, I'd rather have you than than my own opinions.
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  Speaker 1: The selaginella still engaged her. You think so now, she said,
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  Speaker 1: I broke out into Protestations. No, she said shortly, it's
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  Speaker 1: different now. But why should two letters make so much difference?
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  Speaker 1: I said, It isn't only the letters, but it is different.
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  Speaker 1: It's different for good. She halted a little, with that
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  Speaker 1: sentence seeking her expression, She looked up abruptly into my
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  Speaker 1: eyes and moved, indeed slightly, but with the intimation that
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  Speaker 1: she thought our talk might end. But I did not
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  Speaker 1: mean it to end like that, for Good, said I. No, Nettie, Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: you don't mean that. I do, she said, deliberately, still
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  Speaker 1: looking at me, and with all her poise conveying her finality.
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  Speaker 1: She seemed to brace herself for the outbreak that must follow.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, I became wordy, but I did not submerge her.
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  Speaker 1: She stood intrenched, firing her contradictions like guns into my
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  Speaker 1: scattered discursive attack. I remember that our talk took the
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  Speaker 1: absurd form of disputing whether I could be in love
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  Speaker 1: with her or not. And there was I present in evidence,
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  Speaker 1: in a deepening and widening distress of soul, because she
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  Speaker 1: could stand there defensive, brighter and prettier than ever, and
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  Speaker 1: in some inexplicable way, cut off from me and inaccessible.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we had never been together before without little
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  Speaker 1: enterprises of endearment, without a faintly guilty, quite delightful excitement,
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  Speaker 1: I pleaded, I argued. I tried to show that even
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  Speaker 1: my harsh and difficult letters came from my desire to
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  Speaker 1: come wholly into cont act with her. I made exaggerated,
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  Speaker 1: fine statements of the longings I felt for her. When
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  Speaker 1: I was away of the shock and misery of finding
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  Speaker 1: her estranged and cool, she looked at me, feeling the
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  Speaker 1: emotion of my speech, and impervious to its ideas. I
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  Speaker 1: had no doubt, whatever poverty in my words coolly written down.
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  Speaker 1: Now that I was eloquent, then I meant most intensely
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  Speaker 1: what I said. Indeed, I was wholly concentrated upon it.
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  Speaker 1: I was set upon conveying to her with absolute sincerity
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  Speaker 1: my sense of distance and the greatness of my desire.
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  Speaker 1: I toiled towards her, painfully and obstinately, through a jungle
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  Speaker 1: of words. Her face changed very slowly, by such imperceptible
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  Speaker 1: degrees as when at dawn light comes into a clear
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  Speaker 1: I could feel that I touched her, That her hardness
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  Speaker 1: was in some manner, melting her determination, softening toward hesitations.
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  Speaker 1: The habit of an old familiarity lurked somewhere within her.
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  Speaker 1: But she would not let me reach her. No, she cried, abruptly,
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  Speaker 1: starting into motion, she laid a hand on my arm.
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  Speaker 1: A wonderful new friendliness came into her voice. It's impossible, Willie.
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  Speaker 1: Everything is different now. Everything We made a mistake, We
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  Speaker 1: two young sillies made a mistake, and everything is different forever. Yes, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: she turned about. Nettie cried, I, and still protesting, pursued
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  Speaker 1: her along the narrow alley between the staging towards the
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  Speaker 1: hot house door. I pursued her like an accusation, and
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  Speaker 1: she went before me like one who is guilty in a show, shamed.
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  Speaker 1: So I recall it now. She would not let me
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  Speaker 1: talk to her again. Yet I could see that my
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  Speaker 1: talk to her had altogether abolished the clear cut distance
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  Speaker 1: of our meeting in the park, ever, and again I
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  Speaker 1: found her hazel eyes upon me. They expressed something novel,
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  Speaker 1: a surprise, as though she realized an unwonted relationship, and
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  Speaker 1: a sympathetic pity, and still something defensive. When we got
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  Speaker 1: back to the cottage, I fell talking rather more freely
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  Speaker 1: with her father about the nationalization of railways, and my
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  Speaker 1: spirit and temper had so far mended at the realization
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  Speaker 1: that I could still produce an effect upon Nettie, that
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  Speaker 1: I was even playful with Puss. Miss Stewart judged from
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  Speaker 1: that that things were better with me than they were,
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  Speaker 1: and began to beam mightily. But Nettie remained thoughtful and
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  Speaker 1: said very little. She was lost in perplexities I could
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  Speaker 1: not fathom, and presently she slipped away from us and
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  Speaker 1: went upstairs Section six. I was, of course too footsore
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  Speaker 1: to walk back to Clayton, but I had a shilling
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  Speaker 1: and a penny in my pocket for the train between
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  Speaker 1: checks Hill and the two mile Stone, and that much
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  Speaker 1: of the distance I proposed to do in the train.
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  Speaker 1: And when I got ready to go, Nettie amazed me
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  Speaker 1: by winking up to the most remarkable solicitude for me,
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  Speaker 1: I must she said go by the road. It was
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  Speaker 1: altogether too dark for the short way to the lodge gates.
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  Speaker 1: I pointed out that it was moonlight with the comet
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  Speaker 1: thrown in, said old Stuart. No, she insisted, you must
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  Speaker 1: go by the road. I still disputed. She was standing
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  Speaker 1: near me. To please me, she urged, in a quick
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  Speaker 1: undertone and with a persuasive look that puzzled me even
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  Speaker 1: in the moment. I asked myself, why should this please her?
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  Speaker 1: I might have agreed had she not followed that up
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  Speaker 1: with the hollies by the shrubbery are as dark as pitch,
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  Speaker 1: and there's the deerhounds. I'm not afraid of the dark,
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  Speaker 1: said I, nor of the deer hounds either, But those dogs,
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  Speaker 1: supposing one was loose. That was a girl's argument, a
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  Speaker 1: girl who still had to understand that fear is an
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  Speaker 1: overt argument only for her own sex. I thought, too,
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  Speaker 1: of those grisly, lank brutes straining at their chains, and
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  Speaker 1: the chorus they could make of a night when they
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  Speaker 1: heard belated footsteps along the edge of the killing wood,
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  Speaker 1: and the thought banished my wish to please her. Like
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  Speaker 1: most imaginative natures, I was acutely capable of dreads and retreats,
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  Speaker 1: and constantly occup with their suppression and concealment. And to
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  Speaker 1: refuse the shortcut, when it might appear that I did
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  Speaker 1: it on account of half a dozen almost certainly chained dogs,
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  Speaker 1: was impossible. So I set off, in spite of her,
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  Speaker 1: feeling valiant and glad to be so easily brave, but
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  Speaker 1: a little sorry that she should think herself crossed by me.
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  Speaker 1: A thin cloud veiled the moon, and the way under
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  Speaker 1: the beaches was dark and indistinct. I was not so
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  Speaker 1: preoccupied with my love affairs as to neglect what I
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  Speaker 1: will confess was always my custom at night across that
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  Speaker 1: wild and lonely park. I made myself a club by
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  Speaker 1: fastening a big flint to one end of my twisted
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  Speaker 1: handkerchief and tying the other about my wrist, And with
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  Speaker 1: this in my pocket, went on comforted. And it chanced
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  Speaker 1: that as I emerged from the hollies by the corner
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  Speaker 1: of the shrubbery, I was startled to unexpectedly upon a
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  Speaker 1: young man in evening dress smoking a cigar. I was
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  Speaker 1: walking on turf, so that the sound I made was slight.
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  Speaker 1: He stood clear in the moonlight. His cigar glowed like
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  Speaker 1: a blood red star. And it did not occur to
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  Speaker 1: me at the time that I advanced toward him, almost invisibly,
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  Speaker 1: in an impenetrable shadow. Hullo, he cried, with a sort
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  Speaker 1: of amiable challenge. I am here first, I came out
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  Speaker 1: into the light. Who cares if you are, said I.
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  Speaker 1: I had jumped at once to an interpretation of his words.
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  Speaker 1: I knew that there was an intermittent dispute between the
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  Speaker 1: house people and the villager public about the use of
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  Speaker 1: this track. And it is needless to say where my
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  Speaker 1: sympathies fell in that dispute. Ah, he cried in surprise.
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  Speaker 1: Thought I would run away, I suppose, said I, and
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  Speaker 1: came close up to him. All my enormous hatred of
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  Speaker 1: his class had flared up at the side of his
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  Speaker 1: costume at the fancied challenge of his words. I knew him.
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  Speaker 1: He was Edward Verrall, son of the man who owned
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  Speaker 1: not only this great estate, but more than half of
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  Speaker 1: Rawdon's pot bank, and who had interest and possessions, collieries
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  Speaker 1: and rents all over the district of the four towns.
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  Speaker 1: He was a gallant youngster, people said, and very clever
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  Speaker 1: young as he was, there was talk of parliament for him.
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  Speaker 1: He had been a great success at the university, and
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  Speaker 1: he was being seduously popularized among us. He took with
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  Speaker 1: a light confidence, as a matter of course, advantages that
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  Speaker 1: I would have faced the rack to get, and I
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  Speaker 1: firmly believed myself a better man than he. He was
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  Speaker 1: as he stood there, a concentrated figure of all that
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  Speaker 1: filled me with bitterness. One day he had stopped in
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  Speaker 1: a motor outside our house, and I remember the thrill
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  Speaker 1: of rage with which I had noted, the dutiful admiration
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  Speaker 1: in my mother's eyes as she peered through her blind
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  Speaker 1: at him. That's young mister Verral's, she said. They say
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  Speaker 1: he's very clever. They would, I answered, damn them and him.
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  Speaker 1: But that is by the way. He was clearly astonished
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  Speaker 1: to find himself face to face with a man. His
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  Speaker 1: note changed, Who the devil are you? He asked. My
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  Speaker 1: retort was the chief expedient of re echoing who the
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  Speaker 1: devil are you? Well? He said, I'm coming along this
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  Speaker 1: path if I like I said, see it's a public path,
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  Speaker 1: just as this used to be public land. You've stolen
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  Speaker 1: the land, you and yours, and now you want to
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  Speaker 1: steal the right of way, you'll ask us to get
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  Speaker 1: off the face of the earth next. I shann't oblige. See.
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  Speaker 1: I was shorter, and I suppose a couple of years
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  Speaker 1: younger than he. But I had the improvised club in
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  Speaker 1: my pocket, gripped ready, and I would have fought with him,
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  Speaker 1: very cheerfully. But he fell a step backward as I
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  Speaker 1: came toward him. Socialist, I presume, he said, alert and quiet,
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  Speaker 1: with the faintest note of badin USh, one of many.
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  Speaker 1: We're all socialists nowadays, he remarked, philosophically, and I haven't
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  Speaker 1: the faintest intention of disputing your right of way. You
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  Speaker 1: better not, I said, no. No. He replaced his cigar,
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  Speaker 1: and there was a brief pause. Catching a train, he
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  Speaker 1: threw out. It seemed absurd not to answer, yes, I said, shortly.
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  Speaker 1: He said, it was a pleasant evening for a walk.
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  Speaker 1: I hovered for a moment, and there was my path
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  Speaker 1: before me, and he stood aside. There seemed nothing to
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  Speaker 1: do but go on good night, said he. As that
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  Speaker 1: intention took effect, I growled a surly good night. I
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  Speaker 1: felt like a bombshell of swearing that must presently burst
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  Speaker 1: with some violence. As I went on my silent way,
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  Speaker 1: he had so completely got the best of our encounter.
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  Speaker 1: Section seven. There comes a memory, an odd intermixture of
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  Speaker 1: two entirely divergent things that stands out with the intensest vividness.
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  Speaker 1: As I went across the last open meadow following the
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  Speaker 1: shortcut to Checkshill station, I perceived I had two shadows.
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  Speaker 1: The thing jumped into my mind and stopped its tumid
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  Speaker 1: flow for a moment. I remember the intelligent detachment of
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  Speaker 1: my sudden interest. I turned sharply and stood looking at
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  Speaker 1: the moon in the great white comet that the drift
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  Speaker 1: of the clouds had now rather suddenly unveiled. The comet
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  Speaker 1: was perhaps twenty degrees from the moon. What a wonderful
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  Speaker 1: thing it looked, floating there, a greenish white apparition in
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  Speaker 1: the dark blue deeps. It looked brighter than the moon
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  Speaker 1: because it was smaller, but the shadowy cast, though clearer cut,
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  Speaker 1: was much fainter than the Moon's shadow. I went on
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  Speaker 1: noting these facts, watching my two shadows precede me. I
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  Speaker 1: am totally unable to account for the sequence of my
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  Speaker 1: thoughts on this occasion. But suddenly, as if I had
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  Speaker 1: come on this new fact round a corner. The comet
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  Speaker 1: was out of my mind again, and I was face
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  Speaker 1: to face with an absolutely new idea. I wonder sometimes
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  Speaker 1: if the two shadows I cast, one with a sort
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  Speaker 1: of feminine faintness with regard to the other, and not
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  Speaker 1: quite so tall, all may not have suggested the word
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  Speaker 1: or the thought of an assignation to my mind. All
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  Speaker 1: that I have clear is that with the certitude of intuition,
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  Speaker 1: I knew what it was that had brought the youth
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  Speaker 1: in the evening dress outside the shrubbery. Of course, he
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  Speaker 1: had come to meet Nettie. Once the mental process was started,
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  Speaker 1: it took no time at all. The day, which had
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  Speaker 1: been full of perplexities for me. The mysterious invisible thing
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  Speaker 1: that had held Nettie in myself apart, the unaccountable, strange
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  Speaker 1: something in her manner, was revealed and explained. I knew
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  Speaker 1: now why she had looked guilty at my appearance, what
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  Speaker 1: had brought her out that afternoon, why she had hurried
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  Speaker 1: me in the nature of the book she had run
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  Speaker 1: back to fetch, the reason why she had wanted me
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  Speaker 1: to go back by the high road, and why she
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  Speaker 1: had pitied me. It was all in the end, instant
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  Speaker 1: clear to me. You must imagine me a black little creature,
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  Speaker 1: suddenly stricken still for a moment, standing rigid, and then
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  Speaker 1: again suddenly becoming active with an impotent gesture, becoming audible,
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  Speaker 1: with an inarticulate cry, with two little shadows mocking my dismay.
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  Speaker 1: And about this figure you must conceive a great, wide
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  Speaker 1: space of moonlit grass, rimmed by the looming suggestion of
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  Speaker 1: distant trees, trees very low and faint and dim, and
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  Speaker 1: over it all the domed serenity of that wonderful, luminous night.
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  Speaker 1: For a little while, this realization stunned my mind. My
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  Speaker 1: thoughts came to a pause, staring at my discovery. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: my feet, in my previous direction, carried me through the
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  Speaker 1: warm darkness to checks Hill station with its little lights,
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  Speaker 1: to the ticket office window, and so to the train.
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  Speaker 1: I remember myself as it were, waking up to the thing.
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  Speaker 1: I was alone in one of the dingy third class
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  Speaker 1: compartments of that time, and the sudden, nearly frantic insurgents
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  Speaker 1: of my rage. I stood up with a cry of
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  Speaker 1: an angry animal, and smote my fist with all my
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  Speaker 1: strength against the panel of wood before me. Curiously enough,
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  Speaker 1: I have completely forgotten my mood after that for a
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  Speaker 1: little while, but I know that later, for a minute,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps I hung for a time out of the carriage
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  Speaker 1: with the door open, contemplating a leap from the train.
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  Speaker 1: It was to be a dramatic leap, and then I
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  Speaker 1: would go storming back to her, denounce her, overwhelm her,
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  Speaker 1: and I hung, urging myself to do it. I don't
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  Speaker 1: remember how it was I decided not to do this
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  Speaker 1: at last, but in the end I didn't. When the
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  Speaker 1: train stopped at the next station, I had given up
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  Speaker 1: all thoughts of going back. I was sitting in the
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  Speaker 1: corner of the carriage, with my bruised and wounded hand
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  Speaker 1: pressed under my arm and still insensible to its pain,
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  Speaker 1: trying to think out clearly a scheme of action, action
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  Speaker 1: that should express the monstrous indignation that possessed me. End
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  Speaker 1: of Book one, Chapter two, Sections five, six, and seven.