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The Dream Chapter the Fourth - The Widow Smith Moves to London Parts 6 and 7 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section eleven of The Dream, a novel. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: The Dream a novel by H. G. Wells. Chapter the
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  Speaker 1: fourth The Widow Smith moves to London, Parts six and seven.
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  Speaker 1: Part six next morning revealed a new Matilda good active,
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  Speaker 1: an urgent in a loose and rather unclean mauve cotton wrapper,
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  Speaker 1: and a head wrapped up in a sort of turban
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  Speaker 1: of figured silk. This cost him. She wore most of
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  Speaker 1: the day, except that she did her hand put on
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  Speaker 1: a cotton lace cap in the afternoon. The black dress
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  Speaker 1: and the real lace cap and the brooch I was
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  Speaker 1: to learn, were full Sundays and full week day evenings
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  Speaker 1: of distinction. My mother and Prue were arrayed in rough aprons,
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  Speaker 1: which Matilda had very thoughtfully brought for them. There was
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  Speaker 1: a great bustle in the basement of the house, and Prue,
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  Speaker 1: a little four eight, went up with Matilda to learn
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  Speaker 1: how to set out breakfast for mister Place. I made
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  Speaker 1: his acquaintance later in the day when I took up
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  Speaker 1: the late edition of the evening standard to him. I
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  Speaker 1: found him stooping, tall gentleman with a cadaverous face that
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  Speaker 1: was mostly profile, and he made great play with my
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  Speaker 1: Christian name, Moltimer, he said, and made his knee. Well,
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  Speaker 1: it might have been Norfolk Howard. There was an obscure
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  Speaker 1: illusion in that, for once upon a time ran the
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  Speaker 1: popular legend a certain mister Bug, seeking a less entomological name,
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  Speaker 1: had changed his name to Norfolk Howard, which was in
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  Speaker 1: those days a very aristocratic one. Whereupon vulgar people had
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  Speaker 1: equalized matters by calling the offensive bed bugs that abounded
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  Speaker 1: in London Norfolk Howards. Before many weeks were passed, it
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  Speaker 1: became evident that Matilda Good had made an excellent bargain
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  Speaker 1: in her annexation of our family. She had secured my
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  Speaker 1: mother's services for nothing, and it was manifest that my
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  Speaker 1: mother was a born lodging housewoman. She behaved like a
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  Speaker 1: partner in the concern, and the only money Matilda ever
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  Speaker 1: gave her was to pay her expenses upon some specific
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  Speaker 1: errand or to buy some specific things. Prue, however, with
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  Speaker 1: unexpected firmness, insisted upon wages and enforced her claim by
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  Speaker 1: going out and nearly getting employment at a dressmaker's In
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  Speaker 1: a little while, Matilda became to the lodgers an unseen
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  Speaker 1: power for righteousness in the basement, and all the staircase
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  Speaker 1: work was left to my mother and Prue. Often Matilda
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  Speaker 1: did not go up above the ground level once all
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  Speaker 1: day until, as she said, she toddled up to bed.
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  Speaker 1: Matilda made some ingenious attempts to utilize me also in
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  Speaker 1: the service of the household. I was exhortered to carry
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  Speaker 1: up scuttles of coal, clean boots and knives, and make
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  Speaker 1: myself useful generally. She even put it to me one
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  Speaker 1: day whether I wouldn't like a nice suit with buttons.
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  Speaker 1: In those days they still used to put small serving
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  Speaker 1: boys in tight suits of green or brown cloth, with
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  Speaker 1: rows of gilt buttons as close together as possible over
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  Speaker 1: the little chests and stomachs. But the very thought of
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  Speaker 1: it sent my mind to Chessing Hanger, where I had
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  Speaker 1: conceived an intense hatred and dread of service and livery,
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  Speaker 1: and determined me to find some other employment before Matilda
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  Speaker 1: Good's large and insidious will enveloped and overcame me, and
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  Speaker 1: oddly enough, a talk I had with Miss Beatrius Bumpus
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  Speaker 1: helped me greatly in my determination. Miss Bumpus was a
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  Speaker 1: slender young woman, about five and twenty. I suppose. She
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  Speaker 1: had short brown hair brushed back rather prettily from a
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  Speaker 1: broad forehead, and she had freckles on her nose and
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  Speaker 1: quick red brown eyes. She generally wore a plaid tweed costume,
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  Speaker 1: rather short in the skirt and with a coat cut
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  Speaker 1: like a man's. She wore green stockings and brown shoes.
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  Speaker 1: I had never seen green stockings before. And she would
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  Speaker 1: stand on her hearth rug in exactly the attitude mister
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  Speaker 1: Place adopted on his hearth rug downstairs, or she would
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  Speaker 1: be sitting at a writing desk against the window, smoking cigarettes.
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  Speaker 1: She asked me what sort of man I to be?
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  Speaker 1: And I said, with the sort of modesty I had
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  Speaker 1: been taught to assume as becoming my station that I
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  Speaker 1: hadn't thought yet, to which Miss Bumpus answered, liar, that
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  Speaker 1: was the sort of remark that either kills or cures.
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  Speaker 1: I said, well, miss, I want to get educated, and
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  Speaker 1: I don't know how to do it, and I don't
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  Speaker 1: know what I ought to do. Miss Bumpus held me
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  Speaker 1: with a gesture while she showed how nicely she could
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  Speaker 1: send out smoke through her nose. Then she said, avoid
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  Speaker 1: blind ally occupations, yes, miss, but you don't know what
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  Speaker 1: blind ally occupations are. No, Miss, occupations that in a
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  Speaker 1: boy wages and lead nowhere. One of the endless pitfalls
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  Speaker 1: of this silly man made pseudo civilization. Never do anything
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  Speaker 1: that doesn't lead somewhere, Aim high. I must think your
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  Speaker 1: case out, mister Harry Mortimer. I might be able to
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  Speaker 1: help you. This was the opening of quite a number
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  Speaker 1: of conversations between myself and Miss Bumpus. She was a
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  Speaker 1: very stimulating influence in my adolescence. She pointed out that
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  Speaker 1: although it was now late in the year, there were
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  Speaker 1: many evening classes of various sorts that I might attend
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  Speaker 1: with profit. She told me, all sorts of prominent and
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  Speaker 1: successful people who had begun their careers from beginnings as
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  Speaker 1: humble and hopeless as mine. She said, I was unhampered
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  Speaker 1: by my sex. She asked me if I was interested
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  Speaker 1: in the suffrage movement, and gave me tickets for two
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  Speaker 1: meetings at which I heard her speak. And she spoke,
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  Speaker 1: I thought very well. She answered some interrupters with extreme effectiveness,
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  Speaker 1: and I cheered myself hoarse for her. Something about her
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  Speaker 1: light and gallant attitude at life reminded me of Fanny.
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  Speaker 1: I said so one day, and found myself before I
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  Speaker 1: knew it, telling her reluctantly and shamefully the story of
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  Speaker 1: our family disgrace. Miss Bumpus was much interested. She wasn't
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  Speaker 1: like her sister Prue, No miss prettier, A lot prettier.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, you could hardly call Prue pretty. Miss. I
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  Speaker 1: hope she's got on all right, said Miss Bumpus. I
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  Speaker 1: don't blame her a bit, but I hope she's got
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  Speaker 1: the best of it. I'd give anything, Miss, to hear
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  Speaker 1: Fanny was all right. I did care for Fanny. Miss.
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  Speaker 1: I'd give anything almost to see Fanny again. You won't
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  Speaker 1: tell my mother, Miss, I told you anything about Fanny.
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  Speaker 1: It kind of slipped out, like Mortimer said, Miss Bumpus,
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  Speaker 1: you're a sticker. I wish I had a little brother
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  Speaker 1: like you. There, I won't breathe a word. I felt
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  Speaker 1: I had sealed a glorious friendship. I adopted votes for
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  Speaker 1: women as the first plank of my political platform. No firefly,
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  Speaker 1: I won't explain. I won't explain anything. You must guess
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  Speaker 1: what a political platform was and what its planks were.
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  Speaker 1: I followed up her indications and found out about classes
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  Speaker 1: in the district where I could learn geology and chemistry
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  Speaker 1: and how to speak French and German. Very timidly, I
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  Speaker 1: mooted the subject of my further edge in the basement
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  Speaker 1: living room, Part seven, Sarnak looked round at the firelit
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  Speaker 1: faces of his listeners. I know how topsy turvy the
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  Speaker 1: story must seem to you, but it is a fact.
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  Speaker 1: Before I was fourteen, I had to plead for education
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  Speaker 1: against the ideas and wishes of my own family. And
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  Speaker 1: the whole household, from top to bottom, was brought into
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  Speaker 1: the discussion by Matilda or my mother. Except for Miss
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  Speaker 1: Bumpus and frou Buckholtz, everyone was against the idea education,
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  Speaker 1: said Matilda, shaking her head slowly from side to side
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  Speaker 1: and smiling deprecatingly. Education. That's all very well for those
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  Speaker 1: who have nothing better to do. But you want to
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  Speaker 1: get out in the world. You've got to be earning,
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  Speaker 1: young man. But if I have an education, I'll be
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  Speaker 1: able to earn more. Matilda screwed up her mouth in
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  Speaker 1: a portentous manner and pointed to the ceiling to indicate,
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  Speaker 1: mister place, that's what comes of education, young man. A
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  Speaker 1: room frowsy with books and just enough salary not to
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  Speaker 1: be able to do a blessed thing you want to do,
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  Speaker 1: and giving yourself airs business is what you want, young man,
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  Speaker 1: Not education. And who's to pay for all these classes?
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  Speaker 1: Said my mother. That's what I want to know. That's
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  Speaker 1: what we all want to know, said Matilda. Good If
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  Speaker 1: I can't get education, I said, and left the desperate
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  Speaker 1: sentence unfinished. I am afraid I was near weeping to learn.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing beyond my present ignorance seemed to me like a
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  Speaker 1: sentence of imprisonment for life. It wasn't I who suffered
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  Speaker 1: that alone. Thousands of poor youngsters of fourteen or fifteen
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  Speaker 1: in those days new enough to see clearly that the
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  Speaker 1: doors of practical illiteracy were closing in upon them, and
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  Speaker 1: yet did not know enough to find a way of
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  Speaker 1: escape from this mental extinction. Look here, I said, If
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  Speaker 1: I can get some sort of job during the day,
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  Speaker 1: may I pay for classes in the evening? If you
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  Speaker 1: can earn enough, said Matilda. It's no worse, I suppose,
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  Speaker 1: than going to these new cinema shows buying suits for
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  Speaker 1: girls you've got to pay in for your room here
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  Speaker 1: and your keep. Marty first, said my mother. It isn't
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  Speaker 1: fair on miss Good if you don't I know, I said,
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  Speaker 1: with my heart sinking, I'll pay in my board and
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  Speaker 1: lodging somehow. I don't want to be dependent. What good
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  Speaker 1: you think it will do, you, said Matildagood. I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: You'll pick up a certain amount of learnings, perhaps get
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  Speaker 1: a certificate or something in ideas above your station. You'll
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  Speaker 1: give all the energy you might use in shoving your
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  Speaker 1: way up in some useful employment. You'll get round shouldered
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  Speaker 1: and near sighted, and just to grow up a discontented misfit.
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  Speaker 1: We'll have it your way if you must. If you
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  Speaker 1: earn the money yourself, it's yours to spend. Mister Place
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  Speaker 1: was no more encouraging. Well, my noble Mortimer, he said,
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  Speaker 1: tell me ah that you aspire to university honors. I
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  Speaker 1: want to learn a little more than I know, sir,
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  Speaker 1: and join the ranks of the half educated proletariat. It
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  Speaker 1: sounded bad, I hope not, I said, And what classes
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  Speaker 1: do you propose to attend, Maltimer? Whatever? There are no plan,
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  Speaker 1: No aim, I thought they'd know whatever they give you, eh,
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  Speaker 1: a promiscuous appetite. And while you, while you are indulged
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  Speaker 1: in this mixed feast of learning, this futile rivalry with
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  Speaker 1: the children of the leisure classes, somebody, I suppose will
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  Speaker 1: have to keep you. Don't you think it's a bit
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  Speaker 1: hard on that kind mother of yours, who toils day
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  Speaker 1: and night for you, that you shouldn't work and do
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  Speaker 1: your bit, eh. One of the things Maltima we used
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  Speaker 1: to learn in our much maligned public schools was something
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: we called plane cricket. Well, I ask you, is this
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  Speaker 1: this disinclination to do a bit of the yearning er?
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  Speaker 1: Is it playing cricket? I could expect such behavior from
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  Speaker 1: an aera, you know, but not from a Maltima. No,
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  Speaker 1: bless oblige you think it over, my boy. There's such
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  Speaker 1: a thing as learning, but such a thing as duty.
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  Speaker 1: Many of us have to be content with lives of
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  Speaker 1: unassuming labor, many of us men who, under happier circumstances
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  Speaker 1: might have done great things. The mortgarages were generally persuasive
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  Speaker 1: in the same strain my mother had put a case
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  Speaker 1: to them. Also, usually I was indisposed to linger in
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  Speaker 1: the mortgarage atmosphere. They had old fashioned ideas about drafts,
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  Speaker 1: and there was a peculiar aged flavor about them. They were,
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  Speaker 1: to be plain, a very dirty old couple. Indeed, with
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  Speaker 1: declining strength, they had relaxed by imperceptible degrees from the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: not very exacting standards of their youth. I used to
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  Speaker 1: cut into the room and out of it again as
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  Speaker 1: quickly as I could. But half a century of the
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  Speaker 1: clerical life among yielding country folk had given these bent, decaying,
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  Speaker 1: pitiful creatures a wonderful way with their social inferiors. Morning,
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  Speaker 1: Sir and ma'am, I said, and put down the coals
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  Speaker 1: I had brought them, and took up the empty scut
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  Speaker 1: lining eye had replaced. Miss Morgaridge advanced shakily so as
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  Speaker 1: to intercept to my retreat. She had silvery hair, a
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  Speaker 1: wrinkled face, and screwed up, red rimmed eyes. She was
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  Speaker 1: short sighted and came peering up very close to me.
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  Speaker 1: Whenever she spoke to me, breathing in my face, she
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  Speaker 1: held out a quivering hand to arrest me. She spoke
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  Speaker 1: with a quavering voice. And how is Master Morty this morning?
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  Speaker 1: She said, with kindly condescending intonations. Very well, thank you, ma'am,
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  Speaker 1: I said, I've been hearing rather a sad account of you, Morty,
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  Speaker 1: rather a sad account sorry, mum, I said, and wished
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  Speaker 1: I had the courage to tell her that my life
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  Speaker 1: was no business of hers. They say you're discontented, Morty,
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  Speaker 1: They say you complain of God's mercies. Mister Moulgiridge had
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: been sitting in the arm chair by the fireplace. He
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: was in his slippers and shirt sleeves, and he had
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  Speaker 1: been reading a newspaper. Now he looked at me over
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  Speaker 1: his silver rimmed spectacles and spoke in a rich, succulent voice.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry you should be giving trouble to that dear
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  Speaker 1: mother of yours, he said, very sorry, she's a devoted,
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  Speaker 1: saintly woman. Yes, Sir, I said, very few boys nowadays
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  Speaker 1: have the privilege of such an upbringing as yours. Some
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  Speaker 1: day you may understand what you owe her. I begin
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  Speaker 1: to interjected, Sarnak, it seems you want to launch out
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  Speaker 1: upon some extravagant plan of classes instead of settling down
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  Speaker 1: quietly in your proper sphere. Is that so? I don't
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  Speaker 1: feel I know enough yet, Sir I said, I feel
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  Speaker 1: I'd like to learn more. Knowledge isn't always happiness, Marty,
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  Speaker 1: said missus Mulgarridge, close to me, much too close to me.
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  Speaker 1: And what may these classes be that are tempting you
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  Speaker 1: to forget the honor you owe your dear mother, said
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: mister Mulgarridge. I don't know yet, sir. They say this
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  Speaker 1: classes and geology and French and things like that. Old
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: mister Muggeridge waved his hand in front of himself with
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: an expression of face, as though it was I who
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: admitted an evil odor. Geology, he said, French, the language
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  Speaker 1: of Voltaire. Let me tell you one thing, plainly, my boy.
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  Speaker 1: Your mother is quite right in objecting to these classes. Geology.
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  Speaker 1: Geology is all wrong. It has done more harm in
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  Speaker 1: the last fifty years than any other single influence. Whatever
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: it undermines faith, it sows doubt. I do not speak ignorantly, Mortimer.
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  Speaker 1: I have seen lives wrecked and destroyed, in souls lost
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  Speaker 1: by this same geology. I am an old learned man,
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  Speaker 1: and I have examined the work of many of these
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: so called geologists, Huxley, Darwin and the like. I have
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: examined it very very carefully, and very very tolerantly. And
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I tell you they are all, all of them hopelessly
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: mistaken men. And what good will such knowledge do you?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Will it make you happier? Will it make you better? No,
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  Speaker 1: my lad, But I know of something that will, something
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  Speaker 1: older than geology, older and better. Sarah, dear give me
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: that book there, please, yes, reverently the book. His wife
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: handed him, a black bound bible with its cover protected
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: against rough usage by a metal edge. Now, my boy,
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  Speaker 1: he said, let me give you this, this old, familiar
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  Speaker 1: book with an old man's blessing. In that is all
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  Speaker 1: the knowledge worth having, all the knowledge you will ever need.
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  Speaker 1: You will always find something fresh in it, and always
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: something beautiful. He held it out to me, accepting. It
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: seemed the shortest way out of the room, so I
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: took it. Thank you, sir, I said, Promise me you
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: will read it. Oh, yes, sir. I turned to go,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: but giving was in the air. Now, Mortimer said, missus Mulgarridge,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: do you please promise to seek strength where strength is
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: to be found and try to be a better son
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: to that dear struggling woman. And as she spoke, she
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: proffered for my acceptance an extremely hard, small yellow orange
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you, ma'am, I said, made shift to stow her
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: gift in my pocket, and with the Bible in one
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: hand and the empty coal scuttle lining in the other, escaped.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I returned wrathfully to the basement and deposited my presence
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: on the window sill. Some impulse made me open the Bible,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and inside the cover I found imperfectly erased the shadowy
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: outlines of these words printed in violet ink, not to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: be removed from the waiting room. I puzzled over the
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: significance of this for some time. And what did it signify,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: asked Firefly. I do not know to this day, said Sarnak,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: But apparently the reverend Gentleman had acquired that book at
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: a railway station during one of his journeys as a
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Sunday supply you mean, said Firefly, No more than I say.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: He was, in many ways a peculiar old gentleman, and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: his piety was, I fancy, an essentially superficial exudation. He was,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I will not say, dishonest, but spasmodically acquisitive, and like
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: many old people in those days, he preferred his refreshment
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: to be stimulating rather the nutritious, and so he may
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: have blured his ethical perceptions. An odd thing about him,
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  Speaker 1: Matil the Good was the first to point it out,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: was that he rarely took an umbrella away with him
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: whenever he went on supply, and almost always came back
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: with one, and once he came back with two. But
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: he never kept his umbrellas. He would take them off
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: for long walks and return without them, looking all the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: brighter fort I remember one day I was in the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: room when he returned from such an expedition. There had
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: been a shower, and his coat was wet. Miss Margaridge
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: made him change it and lamented that he had lost
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: his umbrella again. Not lost, I heard the old men say,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: in a whisper of infinite gentleness, not lost, dear, not lost,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: but gone before, gone before the rain came. The Lord gave,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Lord hath taken away. For a time he was silent,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: coat in hand. He stood with his shirt sleeve resting
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: on the mantel shelf, his foot upon the fender, and
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: his venerable hairy face gazing down into the fire. He
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: seemed to be thinking deep sad. Then he remarked, in
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: a thoughtful, less obituary tone ten and sixpence a jolly
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: good umbrella. End of Section eleven, read by Cris Buchanan, Springfield, Illinois,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: August twenty fifth, two thousand and twenty three.