Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - The Jilting of Jane

Transcript

The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - The Jilting of Jane · The H. G. Wells Library

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section one of the Country of the Blind and other
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: stories by age she wells. This LibriVox recording is in
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Peter Yearsley, The Jilting of Jane.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: As I sit writing in my study, I can hear
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: our Jane bumping her way downstairs with a brush and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: dust pan. She used in the old days to sing
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: hymn tunes or the British National Song. For the time being,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to these instruments, but spatterly she has been silent and
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: even careful over her work. Time was when I prayed
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: with fervor for such silence, and my wife with sighs
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: for such care. But now they have come, we are
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: not so glad as we might have anticipated we should be. Indeed,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I would rejoice secretly, though it may be unmanly weakness
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: to admit it, even to hear Jane sing Daisy, or
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: by the fracture of any plate, but one of Euphemia's
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: best green ones, to learn that the period of brooding
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: has come to an end. Yet, how we longed to
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: hear the last of Jane's young man. Before we heard
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the last of him, Jane was always very free with
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: her conversation to my wife, and discoursed admirably in the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: kitchen on a variety of topics, so well indeed that
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I sometimes left my study door open. Our house is
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a small one to partake of it. But after William
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: came it was always William, nothing but William, William this,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and William that. And when we thought William was worked
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: out and exhausted altogether, then William all over again. The
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: engagement lasted altogether three years. Yet how she got introduced
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: to William and so became thus saturated with him, was
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: always a secret for my part. I believe it was
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: at the street corner where the Reverend Barnabas Bau used
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to hold an open air service after evensong on Sundays.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Young cupids were wont to flit like moths round the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: paraffin flare of that center of high church hymn singing.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I fancy she stood singing hymns there out of memory
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: and her imagination, instead of coming home to get supper.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: And William came up beside her and said, hallo, hallo yourself,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: she said, and etiquette being satisfied, they proceeded to talk together.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: As Euphemia has a reprehensible way of letting her servants
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: talk to her. She soon heard of him. He is
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: such a respectable young man, ma'am, said Jane. You don't know,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: ignoring the slur cast on her acquaintance. My wife inquired
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: further about this William. He is second porter at Maynard's
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the drapers, said Jane, and gets eighteen shills nearly a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: pound a week, mum. And when the head porter leaves
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: he will be head porter. His relatives are quite superior peoplemaan,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: not laboring people at all. His father was a greengrocer, ma'am,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and had a churner, and he was bankrupt twice, and
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: one of his sisters is in a home for the dying.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: It will be a very good match for me, ma'am,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: said Jane, me being an orphan girl. Then you are
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: engaged to him, asked my wife. Not engaged, ma'am. But
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: he is saving money to buy a ring, amephyst. Well, Jane,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: when you're properly engaged to him, you may ask him
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: round here on Sunday afternoons and have tea with him
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: in the kitchen. For my Euphemia has a motherly conception
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: of her duty towards her maid servants, and presently the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: amethystine ring was being worn about the house, even with ostentation,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: and Jane developed a new way of bringing in the
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: joint so that this gage was evident. The elder Miss Maitland,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: was aggrieved by it and told my wife that servants
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: ought not to wear rings. But my wife looked it
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: up in inquire within and missus Motherly's Book of household Management,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and found no prohibition. So Jane remained with this happiness
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: added to her love. The treasure of Jane's heart appeared
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: to me to be what respectable people call a very
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: deserving young man. William, ma'am, said Jane one day, suddenly,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: with an ill concealed complacency, as she counted out the
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: beer bottles. William, ma'am is a teetotaler, yes, ma'am, and
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: he don't smoke smoking, ma'am, said Jane. As one who
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: reads the heart do make such a dust about beside
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the waste of money and the smell. However, I suppose
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: they got to do it, some of them. William was
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: at first a rather shabby young man of the ready
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: made black coat school of costume. He had watery gray
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: eye and a complexion appropriate to the brother of one
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: in a home for the dying. Euphemia did not fancy
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: him very much. Even at the beginning. His eminent respectability
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: was vouched for by an alpaca umbrella, from which he
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: never allowed himself to be parted. He goes to chapel, said,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Jane is papa, ma'am is what Jane his papa man
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: was church, But mister Maynard is a plymouth brother, and
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: William thinks it policy, ma'am to go there too. Mister
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Maynard comes and talks to him quite friendly when they
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: ain't busy about using up all the ends of string,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and about his soul. He takes a lot of notice
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: to mister Maynard of William and the way he saves
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: his soul, ma'am. Presently we heard that the head porter
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: at Maynard's had left, and that William was head porter
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: at twenty three shillings a week. He is really kind
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: of over the man who drives the van. Said Jane
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and him married with three children, and she promised, in
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the pride of her heart to make interest for us
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: with William, to favor us so that we might get
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: our parcels of drapery from Maynard's with exceptional promptitude. After
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: this promotion, a rapidly increasing prosperity came upon Jane's young man.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: One day we learned that mister Maynard had given William
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a book Smiles, Help Yourself. It's called, said Jane, but
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: he ain't comic. It tells you how to get on
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: in the world. And somewhat William read to me was lovely, ma'am.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Euphemia told me of this, laughing, and then she became
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: suddenly grave. Do you know, dear, she said, Jane said
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: one thing I did not like. She had been quiet
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: for a minute, and then she suddenly remarked, William is
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a lot above me, ma'am, ain't he. I don't see
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: anything in that, I said, though later my eyes were
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: to be opened. One Sunday morning that time I was
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: sitting at my writing desk. Possibly I was reading a
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: good book when a something went by the window. I
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: heard a startled exclamation behind me, and saw Euphemia with
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: her hands clasped together and her eyes dilated. George, she said,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: in an awe stricken whisper. Did you see? Then we
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: both spoke to one another at the same moment, slowly
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and solemnly. A silk hat, yellow gloves, a new umbrella.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: It may be my fancy, dear, said Euphemia, but his
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: tie was very like yours. I believe Jane keeps him
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: in ties, she told me a little while ago, in
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: a way that implied volumes about the rest of your costume.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: The master do wear pretty ties, ma'am, and he echoes
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: all your novelties. The young couple passed our window again
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: on their way to their customary walk. They were arm
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: in arm. Jane looked exquisitely proud, happy and uncomfortable with
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: new white cotton gloves, and William in the silk hat
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: singularly genteel. That was the culmination of Jane's happiness when
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: she returned. Mister Maynard has been talking to William, ma'am,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: she said, And he is to serve customers just like
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the young shop gentleman during the next sail. And if
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: he gets on, he is to be made an assistant,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: ma'am at the first opportunity. He has got to be
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: as gentlemanly as he can, ma'am. And if he ain't, ma'am,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: he says, it won't be for want of trying. Mister
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Maynard has took a great fancy to him. He is
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: getting on, Jane, said my wife. Yes, ma'am, said Jane thoughtfully,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: he is getting on. And she sighed that. Next Sunday,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: as I drank my tea, I interrogated my wife, how
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: is this Sunday different from all other Sundays? Little woman?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: What has happened? Have you altered the curtains or re
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: arranged the furniture, or where is the indefinable difference of it?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Are you wearing your hair in a new way without
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: warning me? I perceive a change clearly, and I cannot,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: for the life of me say what it is. Then
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: my wife answered in her most tragic voice, George. She
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: said that William has not come near the place to day,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: and Jane is crying her heart out upstairs. There followed
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: a period of silence. Jane, as I have said, stopped
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: singing about the house and began to care for our
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: brittle possessions, which struck my wife as being a very
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: sad sign. Indeed, the next Sunday and the next Jane
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: asked to go out to walk with William, and my wife,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: who never attempts to extort confidences, gave her permission and
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: asked no questions. On each occasion, Jane came back looking
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: flushed and very determined. At last, one day she became communicative.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: William is being led away, she remarked, abruptly, with a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: catching of the breath apropos of tablecloths. Yes'm, she's a
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: milliner and she can play on the piano. I thought,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: said my wife, that you went out with him on Sunday.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Not with him, ma'am. After him, I walked along by
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the side of them and told her he was engaged
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: to me. Dear me, Jane, did you what did they do?
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Took no more notice of me than if I was dirt,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: So I told her she should suffer for it. It
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: could not have been a very agreeable walk, Jane. Not
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: for no parties, ma'am. I wish, said Jane. I could
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: play the piano, ma'am, But anyhow, I don't mean to
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: let her get him away from me. She's old, older
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: than him, and her hair ain't gold to the roots, ma'am.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: It was on the August Bank Holiday that the crisis came.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: We do not clearly know the details of the fray,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: but only such fragments as poor Jane let fall. She
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: came home dusty, excited and with her heart hot within her.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: The Milliner's mother, the Milliner and William had made a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: party to the Art Museum at South Kensington. I think anyhow,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Jane had calmly but firmly accosted them somewhere in the
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: streets and asserted her right to what, in spite of
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the consensus of literature, she held to be her inalienable property.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: She did, I think, go so far as to lay
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: hands on him. They dealt with her in a crushingly
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: superior way. They called a cab. There was a scene
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: William being pulled away into the four wheeler by his
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: future wife and mother in law from the reluctant hand
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: of our discarded Jane. There were threats of giving her
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: in charge. My poor Jane, said my wife, mincing Veal,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: as though she were mincing William. It's a shame of them.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I would think no more of him. He is not
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: worthy of you, no, ma'am, said Jane. He is weak.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: But it's that woman has done it, said Jane. She
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: was never known to bring herself to pronounce that woman's name,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: or to admit her girlishness. I can't think what minds.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Some women must have to try and get a girl's
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: young man away from her. But there it only hurts
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to talk about it, said Jane. Thereafter our house rested
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: from William. But there was something in the manner of
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Jane's scrubbing the front door step or sweeping out the rooms,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: a certain viciousness that persuaded me that the story had
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: not yet ended. Please leasem now go and see a
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: wedding tomorrow, said Jane. One day my wife knew by
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: instinct whose wedding do you think it is? Wise, Jane?
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: She said, I would like to see the last of him,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: said Jane. My dear, said my wife, fluttering into my room,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: about twenty minutes after Jane had started. Jane has been
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: to the boot hole and taken all the leftover boots
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: and shoes and gone off to the wedding with them
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: in a bag. Surely she cannot mean, Jane, I said,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: is developing character. Let us hope for the best. Jane
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: came back with a pale, hard face. All the boots
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: seemed to be still in her bag, at which my
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: wife heaved a premature sigh of relief. We heard her
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: go upstairs and replace the boots with considerable emphasis. Quite
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: a crowd at the wedding, ma'am, she said, presently, in
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: a purely conversational style, sitting in our little kitchen and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: scrubbing the potatoes, and such a lovely day for them.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: She proceeded to numerous other details, clearly avoiding some cardinal incident.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: It was all extremely respectable and nice, ma'am. But her
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: father didn't wear a black coat and looked quite out
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: of place, ma'am. Mister Pidding Quirk, who mister Pidding Quirk
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: William that was, ma'am, had white gloves and a coat
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: like a clergyman, and a lovely chrysanthemum. He looked so nice, ma'am.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: And there was red carpet down, just like for gentlefolks.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: And they say he gave the clerk four shillings, ma'am.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: It was a real carriage. They had not a fly
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: when they came out of church. There was rice throwing,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: and her two little sisters dropping dead flowers, and someone
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: threw a slipper, and then I threw a boot, threw
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: a boot Jane, yes, ma'am, aimed at her, but it
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: hit him, yes, ma'am. Hard give him a black eye.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I should think I only threw that one. I hadn't
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: hearts to try again. All the little boys cheered when
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: it hit him. After an interval, I am sorry the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: boot hit him. Another pause. The potatoes were being scrubbed violently.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: He always was a bit above me, you know, ma'am,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: And he was led away the potatoes were more than finished.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Jane rose sharply with a sigh and wrapped the basin
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: down on the table. I don't care, she said, I
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: don't care a rap. He will find out his mistake.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Yet it serves me right. I was stuck up about him.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I ought not to have looked so high, and I
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: am glad things are as things are. My wife was
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: in the kitchen, seeing to the higher cookery after the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: confession of the boot throwing. She must have watched poor
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Jane fuming with a certain dismay in those brown eyes
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: of hers. But I imagine they softened again very quickly, and
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: then Jane's must have met them, Oh ma'am, said Jane,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: with an astonishing change of note. Think of all that
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: might have been, Oh ma'am. I could have been so happy.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I ought to have known, but I didn't know. You're
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: very kind to let me talk to you, ma'am, for
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: it's hard on me. Ma'am. It's hard. And I gathered
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: that Euphemia so far forgot herself as to let Jane
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: sob out some of the fullness of her heart on
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a sympathetic shoulder. My Euphemia, thank Heaven, has never properly
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: grasped the importance of keeping up her position. And since
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: that fit of weeping, much of the accent of bitterness
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: has gone out of Jane's scrubbing and brushwork. Indeed, something
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: passed the other day with the butcher boy, but that
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: scarcely belongs to this story. However, Jane is young still,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: and time and Jane are at work with her. We
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: all have our sorrows, but I do not believe very
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: much in the existence of sorrows that never heal. End
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: of Section one.