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The Wheels of Chance Chapters 23 to 25 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Part eight of the Wheels of Chance. 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: The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells, Chapter twenty three.
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  Speaker 1: The ostler, being a fool, rushed violently down the road,
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  Speaker 1: vociferating after them. Then he returned panting to the Vicuna Hotel, and,
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  Speaker 1: finding a group of men outside the entrance who wanted
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  Speaker 1: to know what was up, stopped to give them the
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  Speaker 1: cream of the adventure that gave the fugitives five minutes. Then,
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  Speaker 1: pushing breathlessly into the bar, he had to make it
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  Speaker 1: clear to the barmaid what the matter was, and the
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  Speaker 1: governor being out, they spent some more precious time wondering
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  Speaker 1: whatever was to be done, in which the two customers
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  Speaker 1: returning from outside joined the animation. There were also moral
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  Speaker 1: remarks and other irrelevant contributions. There were conflicting ideas of
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  Speaker 1: telling the police and pursuing the flying couple on a
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  Speaker 1: horse That made ten minutes. Then Stephen, the waiter who
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  Speaker 1: had shown hoopdriver up, came down and lit wonderful lights
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  Speaker 1: and started quite a fresh discussion by the simple question,
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  Speaker 1: which that turned ten minutes into a quarter of an hour.
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  Speaker 1: And in the midst of this discussion, making a sudden
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  Speaker 1: and awestricken silence, appeared Bechamel in the hall beyond the bar,
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  Speaker 1: walked with a resolute air to the foot of the
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  Speaker 1: staircase and passed out of sight. You conceive the backward
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  Speaker 1: pitch of that exceptionally shaped cranium. Incredulous eyes staring into
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  Speaker 1: one another's in the bar, as his paces muffled by
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  Speaker 1: the stair carpet, went up to the landing, turned, reached
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  Speaker 1: the passage, and walked into the dining room overhead. It
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  Speaker 1: wasn't that one at all, miss, said the ostler. I'd
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  Speaker 1: swear well, that's mister Beaumont, said the bar maid. Anyhow,
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  Speaker 1: their conversation hung comatose in the air. Switched up by Bechamel,
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  Speaker 1: they listened together. His feet stomped, turned, went out of
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  Speaker 1: the dining room, down the passage to the bedroom. Stopped again.
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  Speaker 1: Poor chap, said the barmaid. She's a wicked woman, sh
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  Speaker 1: said Stephen. After a pause, Bechamel went back to the
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  Speaker 1: dining room. They heard a chair creak under him. Interlude
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  Speaker 1: of conversational eyebrows. I'm going up, said Stephen, to break
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  Speaker 1: the melancholy news to him. Bechamel looked up from a
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  Speaker 1: weak old newspaper, as without knocking, Stephen entered. Bechamel's face
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  Speaker 1: suggested a different expectation. BEG pardon, sir, said Stephen, with
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  Speaker 1: a diplomatic cough. Well, said Bechamel, wondering suddenly if Jesse
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  Speaker 1: had kept some of her threats. If so, he was
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  Speaker 1: in for an explanation. But he had it ready. She
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  Speaker 1: was a monomaniac. Leave me alone with her, he would say,
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  Speaker 1: I know how to calm her. Missus Beaumont said Stephen.
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  Speaker 1: Well has gone. He rose, with a fine surprise. Gone,
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  Speaker 1: he said, with a half laugh, Gone, Sir, on her bicycle.
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  Speaker 1: On her bicycle. Why she went, Sir, with another gentleman.
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  Speaker 1: This time Bechamel was really startled. Another gentleman. Whew, another
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  Speaker 1: gentleman in brown Sir went into the yard. Sir, got
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  Speaker 1: out the two bicycles, Sir, and went off. Sir. About
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  Speaker 1: twenty minutes ago, Bechamel stood with his eyes round and
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  Speaker 1: his knuckles on his hips. Stephen, watching him with immense adjoyment,
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  Speaker 1: speculated whether the abandoned husband would weep or curse or
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  Speaker 1: rush out of the office in furious pursuit. But as
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  Speaker 1: yet he seemed merely stunned. Brown clothes, he said, and
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  Speaker 1: fairish a little like yourself, sir, in the dark the ostler,
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  Speaker 1: Sir Jim Duke Bechamel laughed wryly. Then with infinite fervor,
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  Speaker 1: he said, but let us put in blank cartridge, he said.
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  Speaker 1: I might have thought he flung himself into the arm chair.
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  Speaker 1: Damn her, said Bechamel, for all the world, like a
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  Speaker 1: common man. I'll chuck this infernal business they've gone. Eh, Yes, sir, well,
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  Speaker 1: let em go, said Bechamel, making a memorable saying let
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  Speaker 1: em go. Who cares? And I wish him luck? And
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  Speaker 1: bring me some bourbon as fast as you can. There's
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  Speaker 1: a good chap. I'll take that. Then i'll have another
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  Speaker 1: look round Bognor before I turn in. Stephen was too
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  Speaker 1: surprised to say anything but bourbon, sir, go on, said Bechamel,
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  Speaker 1: Damn you. Stephen's sympathies changed at once, Yes, sir, he murmured,
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  Speaker 1: fumbling for the door handle, and left the room, marveling.
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  Speaker 1: Bechamel having in this way satisfied his senses of appearances,
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  Speaker 1: and comported himself as a pagan should. So soon as
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  Speaker 1: the waiter's footsteps had passed, vented the cream of his
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  Speaker 1: feelings into a stream of blasphemeness indecency. Whether his wife
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  Speaker 1: or her stepmother had sent this detective, she had evidently
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  Speaker 1: gone off with him, and that little business was over,
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  Speaker 1: and he was here stranded and sold an ass as
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  Speaker 1: it were, the son of many generations of asses. And
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  Speaker 1: his only ray of hope was that it seemed more
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  Speaker 1: probable after all that the girl had escaped through her stepmother,
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  Speaker 1: in which case the business might be hushed up yet,
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  Speaker 1: and the evil hour of explanation with his wife indefinitely postponed.
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  Speaker 1: Then abruptly, the image of that little figure in gray
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  Speaker 1: knickerbocker's went frisking across his mind again, and he reverted
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  Speaker 1: to his blasphemies. He started up in a gusty frenzy
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  Speaker 1: with a vague idea of pursuit, and incontinently sat down
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  Speaker 1: again with a concussion that stirred the bar below to
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  Speaker 1: its depths. He banged the arms of the chair with
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  Speaker 1: his fists and swore again of all the accursed fools
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  Speaker 1: that wherever spawned, he was chanting I Bechamel, when with
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  Speaker 1: an abrupt tap and prompt opening of the door, Stephen
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  Speaker 1: entered with the bourbon Chapter twenty four the moonlight Ride,
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  Speaker 1: and so the twenty minutes law passed into an infinity.
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  Speaker 1: We leave the wicked Bechamel, clothing himself with cursing as
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  Speaker 1: a garment. The wretched creature has already sufficiently sullied our
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  Speaker 1: modest but truthful pages. We leave the eager little group
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  Speaker 1: in the bar of the Vicuna Hotel. We leave all Bognor,
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  Speaker 1: as we have left all Chichester and Midhurst and Haslemere
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  Speaker 1: and Guildford and Ripley and Putney. And follow this dear
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  Speaker 1: fool of a hoopdriver of ours and his young lady
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  Speaker 1: in gray out upon the moonlit road. How they rode,
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  Speaker 1: how their hearts beat together and their breath came fast,
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  Speaker 1: and how every shadow was anticipation in every noise, pursuit
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  Speaker 1: for all that flight, mister hoopdriver was in the world
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  Speaker 1: of romance. Had a policeman intervened because their lamps were
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  Speaker 1: not lit, hoopdriver had cut 'em down and ridden on.
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  Speaker 1: After the fashion of a hero born had bechamel arisen
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  Speaker 1: in the way with rap ears for a duel hoopdriver
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  Speaker 1: had fought as one to whom Agincourt was a reality
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  Speaker 1: and drapery of dream. It was rescue, elopement, glory. And
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  Speaker 1: she by the side of him. He had seen her
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  Speaker 1: face and shadow, with the morning sunlight tangled in her hair.
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  Speaker 1: He had seen her sympathetic, with that warm light in
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  Speaker 1: her face. He had seen her troubled, and her eyes
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  Speaker 1: bright with tears. But what light is there lighting a
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  Speaker 1: face like hers, to compare with the soft glamour of
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  Speaker 1: the midsummer moon. The road turned northward, going round through
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  Speaker 1: the outskirts of Bognor, in one place dark and heavy
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  Speaker 1: under a thick growth of trees, then Amidst Villa's again
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  Speaker 1: some warm and lamplight, some white and sleeping in the moonlight.
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  Speaker 1: Then between hedges, over which they saw broad wan meadows
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  Speaker 1: shrouded in a low lying mists. They scarcely heeded. Whither
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  Speaker 1: they rode at first, being only anxious to get away,
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  Speaker 1: turning once westward, when the spire of Chichester Cathedral rose
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  Speaker 1: suddenly near them out of the dewy night, pale and
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  Speaker 1: intricate and high they rode, speaking little, just a rare
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  Speaker 1: word now and then at a turning, at a footfall,
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  Speaker 1: at a roughness in the road. She seemed to be
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  Speaker 1: too intent upon escape to give much thought to him.
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  Speaker 1: But after the first tumult of adventure, as flight passed
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  Speaker 1: into mere, steady riding, his mind became an enormous appreciation
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  Speaker 1: of the position. The night was a warm, white silence,
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  Speaker 1: save for the subtle running of their chains. He looked
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  Speaker 1: sideways at her as she sat beside him, with her
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  Speaker 1: ankle gracefully ruling the treadles. Now the road turned westward,
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  Speaker 1: and she was a dark gray outline against the shimmer
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  Speaker 1: of the moon. And now they faced northwards, and the
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  Speaker 1: soft cold light caressingly over her hair and touched her
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  Speaker 1: brow and cheek. There is a magic quality in moonshine.
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  Speaker 1: It touches all that is sweet and beautiful, and the
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  Speaker 1: rest of the night is hidden. It has created the
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  Speaker 1: fairies whom the sunlight kills, and fairyland rises again in
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  Speaker 1: our hearts at the sight of it, the voices of
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  Speaker 1: the filmy route and their faint, soul piercing melodies by
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  Speaker 1: the moonlight. Every man dull clod, though he may be
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  Speaker 1: by day, takes something of the youth and strength of Eddemon,
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  Speaker 1: and sees the dear white Goddess shining at him from
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  Speaker 1: his lady's eyes. The firm, substantial daylight, things become ghostly
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  Speaker 1: and elusive. The hills beyond are a sea of unsubstantial texture,
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  Speaker 1: the world a visible spirit. The spiritual within us rises
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  Speaker 1: out of its darkness, loses something of its weight and body,
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  Speaker 1: and swims up towards Heaven. This road that was a
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  Speaker 1: mere rudded white dust, hot underfoot, blinding to the eye,
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  Speaker 1: is now a soft gray silence with the glitter of
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  Speaker 1: a crystal grain set starlike in its silver. Here and
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  Speaker 1: there overhead, riding serenely through the spacious blue, is the
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  Speaker 1: mother of the silence. She who has spiritualized the world
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  Speaker 1: alone save for two attendant, steady shining stars, and in silence,
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  Speaker 1: under her benign influence, under the benediction of her light,
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  Speaker 1: rode our two wanderers, side by side through the transfigured
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  Speaker 1: and transfiguring night. Nowhere was the moon shining quite so
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  Speaker 1: brightly as in mister Hoopdriver's skull. At the turnings of
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  Speaker 1: the road. He made his decision with an air of
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  Speaker 1: profound promptitude, and quite haphazard. The right, he would say,
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  Speaker 1: or again the left, as one who knew. So, it
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  Speaker 1: was that, in the space of an hour they came
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  Speaker 1: abruptly down a little lane full tilt, upon the sea
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  Speaker 1: gray beach to the right of them, and to the
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  Speaker 1: left a little white cottage fast asleep inland of a
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  Speaker 1: sleeping fishing boat. Hullo, said mister Hoopdriver. Sobbed ovoco. They
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  Speaker 1: dismounted abruptly. Stunted oaks and thorns rose out of the
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  Speaker 1: haze of moonlight that was tangled in the hedge on
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  Speaker 1: either side. You are safe, said mister Hoopdriver, sweeping off
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  Speaker 1: his cap with an air of bowing courtly. Where are
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  Speaker 1: we safe? But where Chichester Harbor? He waved his arms seaward,
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  Speaker 1: as though it was a goal. Do you think they
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  Speaker 1: will follow us? We have turned and turned again. It
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  Speaker 1: seemed to Hoopdriver that he heard her sob. She stood
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  Speaker 1: dimly there holding her machine, and he, holding his, could
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  Speaker 1: go no nearer to her to see if she sobbed
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  Speaker 1: for weeping or for want of breath. What are we
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  Speaker 1: to do now? Her voice asked, Are you tired? He asked,
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  Speaker 1: I will do what has to be done. The two
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  Speaker 1: black figures in the broken light were silent for a pace.
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  Speaker 1: Do you know, she said, I am not afraid of you.
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  Speaker 1: I am sure you are honest to me. And I
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  Speaker 1: don't even know your name. He was taken with a
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  Speaker 1: sudden shame of his homely patronymic. It's an ugly name,
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  Speaker 1: he said. But you are right in trusting me. I would,
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  Speaker 1: I would do anything for you. This, this is nothing,
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  Speaker 1: she caught at her breath. She did not care to
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  Speaker 1: ask why. But compared with Bechamel, we take each other
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  Speaker 1: on trust, she said, Do you want to know how
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  Speaker 1: things are with me? That man, she went on, after
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  Speaker 1: the assent of his listening silence, promised to help and
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  Speaker 1: protect me. I was unhappy at home. Never mind why
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  Speaker 1: a stepmother idle unoccupied, hindered, cramped. That is enough. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: then he came into my life and talked to me
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  Speaker 1: of art and literature and set my brain on fire.
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  Speaker 1: I want to come out into the world to be
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  Speaker 1: a human being, not a thing in a hutch. And
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  Speaker 1: he I know, said hoopdriver, And now here I am.
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  Speaker 1: I will do anything, said hoopdriver. She thought, you cannot
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  Speaker 1: imagine my stepmother. No, I could not describe her. I
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  Speaker 1: am entirely at your service. I will help you with
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  Speaker 1: all my power. I have lost an illusion and found
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  Speaker 1: a knight errant. She spoke of Bechamel as the illusion.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Hoopdriver felt flattered, but he had no adequate answer.
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  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, he said, full of rapture of the protective responsibility,
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  Speaker 1: what we had best be doing. You are tired, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and we can't wander all night after the day we've had.
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  Speaker 1: That was Chichester we were near. She asked. If he meditated,
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  Speaker 1: with a tremble in his voice, you would make me
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  Speaker 1: your brother, Miss Beaumont, Yes, we could stop there together.
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  Speaker 1: She took a minute to answer. I'm going to light
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  Speaker 1: these lamps, said Hoopdriver. He bent down to his own
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  Speaker 1: and struck a match on his shoe. She looked at
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  Speaker 1: his face in the light, grave and how could she
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  Speaker 1: ever have thought him common or absurd? But you must
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  Speaker 1: tell me your name, brother, she said. Er Carrington said,
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  Speaker 1: mister Hoopdriver, after a momentary pause. Who would be Hoopdriver
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  Speaker 1: on a night like this? But the Christian name, Christian name,
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  Speaker 1: my Christian name, well, Chris. He snapped his lamp and
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  Speaker 1: stood up. If you will hold my machine, I will
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  Speaker 1: light yours, he said. She came round obediently and took
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  Speaker 1: his machine, and for a moment they stood face to face.
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  Speaker 1: My name, brother, Chris, she said, is Jesse. He looked
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  Speaker 1: into her eyes, and his excitement seemed arrested. Jesse, he
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  Speaker 1: repeated slowly. The mute emotion of his face affected her strangely.
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  Speaker 1: She had to speak. It's not such a wonderful name,
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  Speaker 1: is it, she said, with a laugh, to break the intensity.
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  Speaker 1: He opened his mouth and shut it again, and with
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  Speaker 1: a sudden wincing of his features, abruptly turned and bent
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  Speaker 1: down to open the lantern in front of her machine.
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  Speaker 1: She looked down at him, almost kneeling in front of her,
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  Speaker 1: with an unreasonable approbation in her eyes. It was, as
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  Speaker 1: I have indicated the hour and season of the Full Moon,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty five. Mister Hoopdriver conducted the rest of that
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  Speaker 1: night's journey with the same confident dignity as before. And
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  Speaker 1: it was chiefly by good luck and the fact that
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  Speaker 1: most roads about a town converged thereupon, that Chichester was
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  Speaker 1: at last attained. It seemed at first as though everyone
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  Speaker 1: had gone to bed, but the Red Hotel still glowed
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  Speaker 1: yellow and warm. It was the first time Hoopdriver had
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  Speaker 1: dared the mysteries of a first class hotel, but that
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  Speaker 1: night he was in the mood to dare anything. So
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  Speaker 1: you found your young lady at last, said the ostler
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  Speaker 1: of the Red Hotel. For it chanced he was one
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  Speaker 1: of those whom mister Hoopdriver had made inquiries in the afternoon.
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  Speaker 1: Quite a misunderstanding, said Hoopdriver with readiness. My sister had
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  Speaker 1: gone to Bognor, but I brought her back here. I've
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  Speaker 1: took a fancy to this place, and the moonlight's simply divine.
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  Speaker 1: We've had supper, thanks, and we're tired, said mister Hoopdriver.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose you won't take anything Jess, the glory of
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  Speaker 1: having her, even as a sister, and to call her
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  Speaker 1: Jessee like that. But he carried it off splendidly as
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  Speaker 1: he felt himself bound to admit. Good night, Sis, he
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  Speaker 1: said in pleasant dreams. I'll just have a look at
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  Speaker 1: this paper before I turn in. But this was living, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: he told himself so gallantly did mister Hoopdriver comport himself
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  Speaker 1: up to the very edge of the most wonderful day
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  Speaker 1: of all. It had begun early, you'll remember, with a vigil,
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  Speaker 1: in a little sweet stuff shop next door to the
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  Speaker 1: Angel at Midhurst, But to think of all the things
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  Speaker 1: that had happened since then, He caught himself in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of a yawn, pulled out his watch, saw the
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  Speaker 1: time was half past eleven, and marched off with a
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  Speaker 1: fine sense of heroism bedward. End of Part eight.