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In the Days of the Comet Book Third Chapter Second Section 1-3 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book three, Chapter two, sections one, two, and three of
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  Speaker 1: In the Days of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. In
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  Speaker 1: the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells, Book three,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter two, sections one, two and three. Next day I
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  Speaker 1: came home to Clayton. The new, strange brightness of the
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  Speaker 1: world was all the brighter there for the host of dark,
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  Speaker 1: distressful memories of darkened childhood, toilsome youth, embittered adolescence that
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  Speaker 1: wove about the place. For me, it seemed to me
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  Speaker 1: that I saw that morning there for the first time.
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  Speaker 1: No chimneys smoked that day, no furnaces were burning, the
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  Speaker 1: people busy with other things. The clear, strong sun, the
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  Speaker 1: sparkle in the dustless air made a strange gayety in
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  Speaker 1: the narrow streets. I passed a number of smiling people
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  Speaker 1: coming home from the public breakfasts that were given in
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  Speaker 1: the town hall until better things could be arranged and
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  Speaker 1: happened on parlead among them. You were right about that comet.
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  Speaker 1: I sang out at the sight of him, and he
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  Speaker 1: came toward me and clasped my hand. What are people
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  Speaker 1: doing here, said I. They're sending us food from outside,
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  Speaker 1: he said, and we're going to level all these slums
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  Speaker 1: and shift into tents on to the moors. And he
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  Speaker 1: began to tell me of many things that were being arranged.
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  Speaker 1: The Midland Land committees had got to work with remarkable
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  Speaker 1: celerity and directness of purpose, and the redistribution of population
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  Speaker 1: was already in its broad outlines planned. He was working
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  Speaker 1: at an improvised college engineering. Until schemes of work were
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  Speaker 1: made out, Almost every one was going to school again
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  Speaker 1: to get as much technical training as they could against
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  Speaker 1: the demands of the huge enterprise of reconstruction that was
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  Speaker 1: now beginning. He walked with me to my door, and
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  Speaker 1: there I met Old Pettigrew coming down the steps. He
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  Speaker 1: looked dusty and tired, but his eye was brighter than
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  Speaker 1: it used to be, and he carried in a rather
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  Speaker 1: unaccustomed manner a workman's tool basket. How's the rheumatism, mister Pettigrew,
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  Speaker 1: I asked, die Terry said, Old Pettigrew can work wonders.
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  Speaker 1: He looked me in the eye. These houses, he said,
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  Speaker 1: will have to come down, I suppose, and now notions
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  Speaker 1: of property must undergo very considerable revision in the light
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  Speaker 1: of reason. But meanwhile, I've been doing something to patch
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  Speaker 1: that disgraceful roof of mine. To think that I could
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  Speaker 1: have dodged and evaded, He raised a precatory hand, drew
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  Speaker 1: down the loose corners of his ample mouth, and shook
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  Speaker 1: his old head. The past is past, mister Pettigrew, Your
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  Speaker 1: poor dear mother, so good and honest, a woman so
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  Speaker 1: simple and kind and forgiving. To think of it, my
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  Speaker 1: dear young man, he said it manfully. I'm ashamed. The
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  Speaker 1: whole world blushed at dawn the other day, mister Pettigrew,
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  Speaker 1: I said, and did it very prettily. That's over now.
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  Speaker 1: God knows who is not ashamed of all that came
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  Speaker 1: before last Tuesday. I held out a forgiving hand, naively
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  Speaker 1: forgetful that in this place I was a thief, and
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  Speaker 1: he took it and went his way, shaking his head
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  Speaker 1: and repeating he was ashamed, But I think a little comforted.
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  Speaker 1: The door opened, and my poor old mother's face, marvelously
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  Speaker 1: cleaned appeared. Ah, Willie boy, you you. I ran up
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  Speaker 1: the steps to her for a fear she might fall.
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  Speaker 1: How she clung to me in the passage the dear woman.
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  Speaker 1: But first she shut the front door. The old habit
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  Speaker 1: of respect for my unaccountable temper still swayed her. Ah, dearie,
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  Speaker 1: she said, Ah, dearie, but you were sorely tried, and
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  Speaker 1: kept her face close to my shoulder lest she should
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  Speaker 1: offend me by the sight of the tears that welled
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  Speaker 1: within her. She made a sort of gulping noise, and
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  Speaker 1: was quiet for a while, holding me very tightly to
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  Speaker 1: her heart with her worn long hands. She thanked me
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  Speaker 1: presently for my telegram, and I put my arm about
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  Speaker 1: her and drew her into the living room. It's all
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  Speaker 1: well with me, mother, dear, I said, And the dark
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  Speaker 1: times are over, are done with for ever. Mother. Whereupon
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  Speaker 1: she had courage and gave way, and sobbed aloud, none
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  Speaker 1: chiding her. She had not let me know she could
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  Speaker 1: still weep for five grimy years Section two, Dear heart,
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  Speaker 1: there remained for her but a very brief while in
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  Speaker 1: this world that had been renewed. I did not know
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  Speaker 1: how short that time would be, But the little I
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  Speaker 1: could do. Perhaps, after all, it was not little to
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  Speaker 1: her to atone for the harshness of my days of
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  Speaker 1: wrath and rebellion, I did. I took care to be
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  Speaker 1: constantly with her, for I perceived now her curious need
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  Speaker 1: of me. It was not that we had ideas to
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  Speaker 1: exchange or pleasures to share. But she liked to see
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  Speaker 1: me at the table, to watch me working, to have
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  Speaker 1: me go to and fro. There was no toil for
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  Speaker 1: her any more in the world, but only such light
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  Speaker 1: services as are easy and pleasant for a worn and
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  Speaker 1: weary old woman to do. And I think she was
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  Speaker 1: happy even at her end. She kept to her queer,
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  Speaker 1: old eighteenth century version of religion too, without a change.
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  Speaker 1: She had worn this particular omulet so long it was
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  Speaker 1: a part of her. Yet the change was evident even
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  Speaker 1: in that persistence. I said to her one day, but
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  Speaker 1: do you still believe in that hell of flame? Dear mother,
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  Speaker 1: you with your tender heart, she vowed. She did. Some
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  Speaker 1: theological intricacy made it necessary to her, But still she
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  Speaker 1: looked thoughtfully at a bank of primoles before her for
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  Speaker 1: a time and laid her tremulous hand impressively on my arm.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Willie, dear, she said, as though she was
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  Speaker 1: clearing up a childish misunderstanding of mine. I don't think
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  Speaker 1: any one will go there. I never did think that
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  Speaker 1: section three. That talk stands out in my memory because
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  Speaker 1: of that agreeable theological decision of hers, But it was
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  Speaker 1: only one of a great number of talks. It used
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  Speaker 1: to be pleasant in the afternoon, after the day's work
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  Speaker 1: was done, and before one went out with the evening's study.
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  Speaker 1: How odd it would have seemed in the old time
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  Speaker 1: for a young man of the industrial class to be
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  Speaker 1: doing postgraduate work in sociology. And how much a matter
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  Speaker 1: of course it seems now to walk out into the
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  Speaker 1: gardens of Lowchester House and smoke a cigarette or so
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  Speaker 1: and let her talk, ramblingly of the things that interested her. Physically,
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  Speaker 1: the great change did not do so very much to
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  Speaker 1: reinvigorate her. She had lived in that dismal underground kitchen
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  Speaker 1: in Clayton too long for any material rejuvenescence. She glowed out, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: as a dying spark among the ashes might glow under
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  Speaker 1: a draft of fresh air, and assuredly it hastened her
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  Speaker 1: end for those closing days were very tranquil, full of
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  Speaker 1: an effortless contentment with her life was like a rainy,
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  Speaker 1: windy day that clears only to show the sunset afterglow
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  Speaker 1: the light has passed. She acquired no new habits amid
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  Speaker 1: the comforts of the new life, did no new things,
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  Speaker 1: but only found a happier light upon the old. She
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  Speaker 1: lived with a number of other old ladies belonging to
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  Speaker 1: our commune in the upper rooms of Lochester House. Those
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  Speaker 1: upper apartments were simple and ample, fine and well done
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  Speaker 1: in the Georgian style, and they had been organized to
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  Speaker 1: give the maximum of comfort and conveniences, and to economize
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  Speaker 1: the need of skilled attendants. We had taken over the
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  Speaker 1: various great houses, as they used to be called, to
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  Speaker 1: make communal dining rooms and so forth. Their kitchens were
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  Speaker 1: conveniently large and pleasant places for the old people of
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  Speaker 1: over sixty, whose time of ease had come, and for
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  Speaker 1: such like public uses. We had done this not only
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  Speaker 1: with Lord Redcarr's House, but also with Cheekskill House, where
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  Speaker 1: old Missus Verel made a dignified and capable hostess, and
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  Speaker 1: indeed with most of the fine residences in the beautiful
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  Speaker 1: wide country between the Four Towns district and the Welsh Mountains.
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  Speaker 1: About these great houses there had usually been good outbuildings, laundries,
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  Speaker 1: married servants, quarters, stabling, dairies and the like, suitably masked
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  Speaker 1: by trees. We turned these into homes, and to them
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  Speaker 1: we added first tents and wood chalets, and afterward quadrangular
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  Speaker 1: residential buildings. In order to be near my mother, I
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  Speaker 1: had two small rooms in the new collegiate buildings, which
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  Speaker 1: our commune was almost the first to possess, and they
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  Speaker 1: were very convenient for the station of a high speed
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  Speaker 1: electric railway that took me down to our daily conferences
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  Speaker 1: and my secretarial and statistical work in Clayton. Ours had
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  Speaker 1: been one of the first modern communes to get in order.
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  Speaker 1: We were greatly helped by the energy of Lord Redcar,
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  Speaker 1: who had a fine feeling for the picturesque associations of
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  Speaker 1: his ancestral home. The detour that took our line through
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  Speaker 1: the beaches and bracken and bluebells of the Westwood and
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  Speaker 1: saved the pleasant, open wildness of the park was one
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  Speaker 1: of his suggestions, and we had many reasons to be
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  Speaker 1: proud of our surroundings. Nearly all the other communes that
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  Speaker 1: sprang up all over the pleasant park land round the
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  Speaker 1: industrial valley of the four towns as the workers moved
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  Speaker 1: out came to us to study the architecture of the
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  Speaker 1: residential squares and quadrangles with which we had replaced, the
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  Speaker 1: back streets between the great houses and the ecclesiastical residences
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  Speaker 1: about the cathedral, and the way in which we had
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  Speaker 1: adapted all these buildings to our new social needs. Some
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  Speaker 1: claimed to have improved on us, but they could not
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  Speaker 1: emulate the rhodendrum garden out beyond our shrubberies. That was
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  Speaker 1: a thing altogether our own, in our part of England,
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  Speaker 1: because of its ripeness, the rarity of good peat free
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  Speaker 1: from lime. These gardens had been planned under the Third
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  Speaker 1: Lord Redcar fifty years ago and more. They abounded in
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  Speaker 1: rhotodendra and azaleas, and were in places so well sheltered
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  Speaker 1: and sunny that great magnolias flourished and flowered. There were
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  Speaker 1: tall trees smothered in crimson and yellow climbing roses, and
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  Speaker 1: an endless variety of flowering shrubs and fine conifers, and
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  Speaker 1: such pampas grass as no other garden can show. And
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  Speaker 1: barred by the broad shadows of these were glades and
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  Speaker 1: broad spaces of emerald turf, And here and there banks
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  Speaker 1: of pegged roses and flower beds, and banks given over,
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  Speaker 1: some to spring bulbs and some to primroses and primulas
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  Speaker 1: and polyanthuses. My mother loved these latter banks and the little, round,
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  Speaker 1: staring eyes of their innumerable yellow, ruddy, brown, and purple corollas,
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  Speaker 1: more than anything else the gardens could show, And in
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  Speaker 1: the spring of the year of scaffolding, she would go
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  Speaker 1: with me day after day to the seat that showed
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  Speaker 1: them in the greatest multitude. It gave her, I think,
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  Speaker 1: among other agreeable impressions, a sense of gentle opulence. In
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  Speaker 1: the old time, she had never known what it was
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  Speaker 1: to have more than enough of anything agreeable in the
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  Speaker 1: world at all. We would sit and think or talk,
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  Speaker 1: and there was a curious effect of complete understanding between us,
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  Speaker 1: whether we talked or were still heaven. She said to
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  Speaker 1: me one day, heaven is a garden. I was moved
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  Speaker 1: to tease her a little. There's jewels, you know, walls
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  Speaker 1: and gates of jewels, and singing for such is like them,
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  Speaker 1: said my mother firmly, and thought for a while. They'll
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  Speaker 1: be things for all of us, of course, but for
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  Speaker 1: me it couldn't be heaven, dear, unless it was a garden,
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  Speaker 1: a nice sunny garden, and feeling such as were fond
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  Speaker 1: of are close and handy by you of your happier generation.
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  Speaker 1: Cannot realize the wonderfulness of those early days in the
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  Speaker 1: new epoch, the sense of security, the extraordinary effects of
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  Speaker 1: contrast in the morning, except in high summer. I was
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  Speaker 1: up before dawn and breakfasted upon the swift, smooth train,
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  Speaker 1: and perhaps saw the sunrise as I rushed out of
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  Speaker 1: the little tunnel that pierced Clayton Crest, And so to
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  Speaker 1: work like a man. Now that we had got all
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  Speaker 1: the homes and schools, and all the softness of life
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  Speaker 1: away from our coal and iron ore and clay, Now
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  Speaker 1: that a thousand obstructive rights and timidities had been swept aside,
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  Speaker 1: we could let ourselves go. We merged this enterprise with
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  Speaker 1: that cut across this or that. Anciently obstructive peace of
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  Speaker 1: private land, joined and separated, effected gigantic consolidations and gigantic economies,
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  Speaker 1: and the valley, no longer a pit of squalid human
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  Speaker 1: tragedies and meanly conflicting industries, grew into a sort of
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  Speaker 1: beauty of its own, a savage inhuman beauty of force
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  Speaker 1: and machinery and flames. One was a titan in that etna,
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  Speaker 1: And then back when came at midday to bath and
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  Speaker 1: change in the train, and so to the leisurely gossiping
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  Speaker 1: lunch in the club dining room in Lowchester House, and
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  Speaker 1: the refreshment of these green and sunlit afternoon tranquilities. Sometimes,
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  Speaker 1: in her profounder moments, my mother doubted whether all this
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  Speaker 1: last phase of her life was not a dream. A dream,
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  Speaker 1: I used to say, a dream, indeed, but a dream
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  Speaker 1: that is one step nearer awakening than that nightmare of
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  Speaker 1: the former days. She found great comfort and assurance in
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  Speaker 1: my altered clothes. She liked the new fashion of dress.
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  Speaker 1: She alleged it was not simply altered clothes. I did
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  Speaker 1: grow two inches, broaden some inches round my chest, and
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  Speaker 1: increase in weight three stones before I was twenty three.
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  Speaker 1: I wore a soft brown cloth, and she would caress
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  Speaker 1: my sleeve and admire it greatly. She had the woman's
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  Speaker 1: sense of texture very strong in her. Sometimes she would
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  Speaker 1: muse upon the past, rubbing together her poor rough hands.
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  Speaker 1: They never got softened one over the other. She told
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  Speaker 1: me much I had not heard before about my father
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  Speaker 1: and her own early life. It was like finding flat
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  Speaker 1: and faded flowers in a book, still faintly sweet to
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  Speaker 1: realize that once my mother I had been loved with passion,
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  Speaker 1: but my remote father had once shed hot tears of
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  Speaker 1: tenderness in her arms. And she would sometimes even speak
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  Speaker 1: tentatively in those narrow old world phrases that her lips
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  Speaker 1: could rob of all their bitter narrowness of Nettie. She
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  Speaker 1: wasn't worthy of you, dear, she would say, abruptly, leaving
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  Speaker 1: me to guess the person she intended. No man is
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  Speaker 1: worthy of a woman's love, I answered, No woman is
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  Speaker 1: worthy of a man's I love her, dear mother, and
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  Speaker 1: that you cannot alter. There's others she would muse, Not
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  Speaker 1: for me, I said, no. I didn't fire a shot
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  Speaker 1: that time. I burnt my magazine. I can't begin again, mother,
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  Speaker 1: not from the beginning. She sighed and said no more. Then,
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  Speaker 1: and another time she said, I think her words were,
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  Speaker 1: you'll be lonely when I'm gone, dear, you'll not think
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  Speaker 1: of going there. Then I said, eh, dear, but man
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  Speaker 1: and maid should come together. I said nothing to that.
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  Speaker 1: You brood overmuch on Nettie, dear, if I could see
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  Speaker 1: you married to some sweet girl of a woman, some
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  Speaker 1: good kind girl. Dear mother, I'm married enough perhaps some day,
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  Speaker 1: who knows. I can wait, but to have nothing to
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  Speaker 1: do with women. I have my friends. Don't you trouble, mother.
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  Speaker 1: There's plentiful work for a man in this world, though
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  Speaker 1: the heart of love is cast out from him. Nettie
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  Speaker 1: was life and beauty for me is will be. Don't
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  Speaker 1: think I've lost too much, mother, because in my heart
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  Speaker 1: I told myself the end had still to come. And
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  Speaker 1: once she sprang a question on me suddenly that surprised me.
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  Speaker 1: Where are they now? She asked who? Nettie and him
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  Speaker 1: she had pierced to the marrow of my thoughts. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, I said shortly. Her shriveled hand just fluttered
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  Speaker 1: into touch of mine. It's better, so she said, as
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  Speaker 1: if pleading. Indeed, it is better. So there was something
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  Speaker 1: in a quivering old voice that, for a moment took
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  Speaker 1: me back across an epoch to the protests of the
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  Speaker 1: former time, to those counsels of submission, those appeals not
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  Speaker 1: to offend it that had always stirred an angry spirit
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  Speaker 1: of rebellion within me. That is the thing I doubt,
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  Speaker 1: I said, and abruptly I felt I could talk no
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  Speaker 1: more to her. Of Nettie, I got up and walked
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  Speaker 1: away from her, and came back after a while to
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  Speaker 1: speak of other things, with a bunch of daffodils for
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  Speaker 1: her in my hand. But I did not always spend
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  Speaker 1: my afternoons with her. There were days when my crushed
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  Speaker 1: hunger for Nettie rose again, and then I had to
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  Speaker 1: be alone. I walked or bicycled, and presently I found
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  Speaker 1: a new interest and relief in learning to ride, for
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the horse was already very swiftly reaping the benefit to
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  Speaker 1: the change. Hardly anywhere was the inhumanity of horse traction
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  Speaker 1: to be found. After the first year of the new epoch.
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  Speaker 1: Everywhere lugging and dragging and straining was done by machines,
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  Speaker 1: and the horse had become a beautiful instrument for the
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  Speaker 1: pleasure and carriage of youth. I rode both in the
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  Speaker 1: saddle and what is finer, naked and bare backed. I
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  Speaker 1: found violent exercises were good for the states of enormous
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  Speaker 1: melancholy that came upon me. And when at last horse
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  Speaker 1: riding paled, I went and joined the aviators who practiced
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  Speaker 1: soaring upon aeroplanes beyond the horse Martin Hill. But at
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  Speaker 1: least every alternate day I spent with my mother, and
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  Speaker 1: altogether I think I gave her two thirds of my afternoons.
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  Speaker 1: End of Book three, Chapter two, Sections one to three.
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  Speaker 1: I haven't got the s