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Certain Personal Matters - Concerning a Certain Lady · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter sixteen of Certain Personal Matters. 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. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Greg Giardano. Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter sixteen, Concerning a certain lady. This lady wears a
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  Speaker 1: blue serge suit and a black hat without flippancy. She
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  Speaker 1: is a powerfully built lady, and generally more or less flushed,
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  Speaker 1: and she is aunt, apparently to a great number of
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  Speaker 1: objectionable looking people. I go in terror of her. Yet
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  Speaker 1: the worm will turn at last, and so will the mild,
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  Speaker 1: pacific literary man. Her last outrage was too much, even
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  Speaker 1: for my patience. It was committed at Gloucester Road station
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  Speaker 1: the other afternoon. I was about to get into a
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  Speaker 1: train for Wimbledon, and there were only two of them
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  Speaker 1: to the hour, and so far as I could see,
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  Speaker 1: the whole world was at peace with me. I felt
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  Speaker 1: perfectly secure. The aegis of the Pax Britannica, if you
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  Speaker 1: will pardon the expression, was over me for the moment.
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  Speaker 1: The thought of the lady in the blue serge was
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  Speaker 1: quite out of my mind. I had just bought a
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  Speaker 1: newspaper and had my hand on the carriage door. The
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  Speaker 1: guard was fluttering his flag. Then suddenly she swooped out
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  Speaker 1: of space, out of the infinite unknown, and hit me.
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  Speaker 1: She always hits me when she comes near me, and
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  Speaker 1: I infer she hits everyone she comes across. She hit
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  Speaker 1: me this time in the chest with her elbow and
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  Speaker 1: knocked me away from the door handle. She hit me
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  Speaker 1: very hard, Indeed, she was as fierce as I have
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  Speaker 1: ever known her. With her, there were two nieces and
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  Speaker 1: a nephew, and the nephew hit me too. He was
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  Speaker 1: a horrid little boy in an eaten suit of the
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  Speaker 1: kind they do not wear at Eton, and he hit
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  Speaker 1: me with his head and pushed me with his little
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  Speaker 1: pink hands. The nieces might have been about twenty two
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  Speaker 1: and thirteen, respectively, and I infer that they were apprenticed
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  Speaker 1: to her. All four people seemed madly excited. It's just starting,
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  Speaker 1: they screamed, and the train was indeed slowly moving. Their object,
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  Speaker 1: so far as they had an object and were not
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  Speaker 1: animated by mere fury, appeared to be to assault me
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  Speaker 1: and then escape in the train. The lady in blue
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  Speaker 1: got in and then came backwards out again, sweeping the
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  Speaker 1: smaller girl behind her upon the two others who were
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  Speaker 1: engaged in hustling me. It's smoking, she cried. I could
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  Speaker 1: have told her that if she had asked. Instead of
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  Speaker 1: hitting me. The elder girl, by backing dexterously upon me,
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  Speaker 1: knocked my umbrella out of my hand, and when I
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  Speaker 1: stooped to pick it up, the little boy knocked my
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  Speaker 1: hat off. I will confess they demoralized me with their
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  Speaker 1: archaic violence. I had some thought of joining in their
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  Speaker 1: wild muck whooping, kicking out madly, perhaps assaulting a porter.
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  Speaker 1: I think the lady in blue would have been surprised
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  Speaker 1: to find what an effective addition to her staff she
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  Speaker 1: had picked up. But before I could collect my thoughts
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  Speaker 1: sufficiently to do any definite thing, the whole affair is over.
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  Speaker 1: A porter was slamming doors on them. The train was
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  Speaker 1: running fast out of the station, and I was left
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  Speaker 1: alone with an unmannerly newsboy and an unmannerly porter on
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  Speaker 1: the platform. I waited until the porter was out of
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  Speaker 1: the way, and then I hit the newsboy for laughing
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  Speaker 1: at me. But even with that altercation, it was a
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  Speaker 1: tedious wait for the next train to Wimbledon. This is
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  Speaker 1: the latest of my encounters with this lady, but it
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  Speaker 1: has decided me to keep silence no longer. She has
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  Speaker 1: been persecuting me now for years, in all parts of London.
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  Speaker 1: It may be I am her only victim. But on
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  Speaker 1: the other hand, she may be in the habit of
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  Speaker 1: annoying the entire class of slender and inoffensive young men.
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  Speaker 1: If so, and they will communicate with me to the
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  Speaker 1: publishers of this little volume, we might do something towards
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  Speaker 1: suppressing her. Found an anti energet lady league or something
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  Speaker 1: of that sort. For if there was ever a crying
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  Speaker 1: wrong that clamored for suppression, it is this violent woman.
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  Speaker 1: She is even now flagrantly illegal. She might be given
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  Speaker 1: in charge for hitting people at any time and be
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  Speaker 1: warned or fined or given a week. But somehow it
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  Speaker 1: is only when she is overpassed and I am recovering
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  Speaker 1: my wits that I recollect that she might be dealt
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  Speaker 1: with in this way. She is the chartered libertine of
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  Speaker 1: British matrons, and assaulteth where she listeth the blows I
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  Speaker 1: have endured from her. She fights people who are getting
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  Speaker 1: into buses. It is no mere accidental jostling, but a
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  Speaker 1: deliberate shouldering, poking with umbrellas and clawing. It is her
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  Speaker 1: delight to go to the Regent's Circus corner of Piccadilly
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  Speaker 1: about half past seven in the evening, accompanied by a
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  Speaker 1: genteel rout of daughters, and fill up whole omnibuses with them.
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  Speaker 1: At that hour there are work girls and tired clerks
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  Speaker 1: and the like, worn out anemic humanity trying to get
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  Speaker 1: home for an hour or so of rest before bed,
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  Speaker 1: and they crowd round the buses very eagerly. They are
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  Speaker 1: little able to cope with her exuberant vitality, being ill
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  Speaker 1: nourished and tired from the day's work, and she simply
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  Speaker 1: mows through them and fills up every vacant place they
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  Speaker 1: covert before their eyes. Then I can never count change,
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  Speaker 1: even when my mind is tranquil. And she knows that,
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  Speaker 1: and swoops threateningly upon me in booking offices and stationer shops.
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  Speaker 1: When I am dodging cabs at crossings, she will appear
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  Speaker 1: from behind an omnibus or carriage and butt into me furiously.
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  Speaker 1: She holds her umbrella in her folded arms, just as
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  Speaker 1: the punch puppet does his staff, and with his deadly effect.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes she discards her customary navy blue and puts on
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  Speaker 1: a glittering bonnet with bead trimmings, and goes and hurts
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  Speaker 1: people who are waiting to enter the pit at theaters,
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  Speaker 1: and especially to hurt me. She is fond of public
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  Speaker 1: shows because they afford such possibilities of hurting me. Once
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  Speaker 1: I saw her standing partly on a seat and partly
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  Speaker 1: on another lady in the church at Saint George's Hanover Square,
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  Speaker 1: partly indeed watching a bride cry, but chiefly I expect
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  Speaker 1: scheming how she could get round to me and hurt me.
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  Speaker 1: Then there was no occasion at the academy when she
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  Speaker 1: is peculiarly aggressive. I was sitting next my lame friend
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  Speaker 1: when she marked me. Of course, she came at once
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  Speaker 1: and sat right upon us. Come alone, Jane, I heard
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  Speaker 1: her say, as I struggle to draw my flattened remains
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  Speaker 1: from under her, this till men will make room. My
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  Speaker 1: friend was not so entangled and had escaped on the
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  Speaker 1: other side. She noticed his walk. Oh don't you get up,
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  Speaker 1: she said, this, gentleman. She indicated my convulsive struggles to
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  Speaker 1: free myself will do that. I do not see that
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  Speaker 1: you were a cripple. It may be some of my
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  Speaker 1: readers will recognize the lady now it can be for
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  Speaker 1: the honor of womankind. Only one woman. She is an atavism,
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  Speaker 1: a survival of the age of violence, a paleolithic squaw
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  Speaker 1: in petticoats. I do not know her name and address,
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  Speaker 1: or I would publish it. I do not care if
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  Speaker 1: she kills me the next time she meets me, for
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  Speaker 1: the limits of endurance have been passed. If she kills me,
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  Speaker 1: I shall die a martyr in the cause of the
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  Speaker 1: Queen's peace. And if it is only one woman, then
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  Speaker 1: it was the same lady, more than half intoxicated, that
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  Speaker 1: I saw in the Whitechapel Road, cruelly ill treating a
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  Speaker 1: little clostermonger. If it was not she, it was certainly
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  Speaker 1: her sister. And I do not care who knows it
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  Speaker 1: what to do with her. I do not know a league,
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  Speaker 1: after all seems ineffectual. She would break up any league.
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  Speaker 1: I have thought of giving her in charge for assault,
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  Speaker 1: but I shrink from the invidious publicity of that. Still
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  Speaker 1: I am in grim earnest to do something. I think
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  Speaker 1: at times that the compulsory adoption of a narrow doorway
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  Speaker 1: for churches in places of public entertainment might be some
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  Speaker 1: protection for quiet, inoffensive people. How she would rage outside
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  Speaker 1: to be sure. Yet that seems a great undertaking. But
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  Speaker 1: this little paper is not so much a plan of
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  Speaker 1: campaign as a preliminary defiance. Life is a doubtful boon.
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  Speaker 1: While one is never safe from assault, from hitting and shoving,
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  Speaker 1: from poking, with umbrellas being sat upon and used as
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  Speaker 1: a target for projectile nephews and nieces, I warn her,
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  Speaker 1: possibly with a certain quaver in my voice, that I
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  Speaker 1: am in revolt if she hits me again. I will
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  Speaker 1: not say the precise thing I will do, but I
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  Speaker 1: warn her, very solemnly and deliberately, that she had better
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  Speaker 1: not hit me again. And so, for the present the
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  Speaker 1: matter remains and of Chapter sixteen. Recording by Greg Giardano, Newport, Ritchie, Florida,