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The Sea Lady Chapter 8 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eight of the Sea Lady. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain recording by Thomas Copeland The Sea
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  Speaker 1: Lady by H. G. Wells, Chapter the eighth Moonshine Triumphant one.
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  Speaker 1: Just precisely what happened after that has been the most
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  Speaker 1: impossible thing to disinter I have given all the things
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  Speaker 1: that Melville remembered were said. I have linked them into
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  Speaker 1: a conversation, and checked them by my cousin's afterthoughts, and
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  Speaker 1: finally I have read the whole thing over to him.
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  Speaker 1: It is, of course no verbatim rendering, but it is,
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  Speaker 1: he says, closely after the manner of their talk. The
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  Speaker 1: gist was that, and things of that sort were said.
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  Speaker 1: And when he left chatteris he fully believed that the
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  Speaker 1: final and conclusive thing was said. And then he says,
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  Speaker 1: it came into his head that apart from and outside
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  Speaker 1: this settlement, there still remained a tangible reality capable of action.
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  Speaker 1: The Sea Lady, what was she going to do? The
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  Speaker 1: thought toppled him back into a web of perplexities again.
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  Speaker 1: It carried him back into a state of inconclusive interrogation.
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  Speaker 1: Past Lummage's hotel, the two men had gone back to
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  Speaker 1: the metropole, and had parted with a firm hand clasp
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  Speaker 1: outside the glare of the big doorway. Chatteris went straight
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  Speaker 1: in melville fancies, but he is not sure. I understand
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  Speaker 1: Melville had some private thinking to do on his own account,
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  Speaker 1: and I conceive him walking away in a state of
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  Speaker 1: profound preoccupation. Afterwards, the fact that the sea Lady was
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  Speaker 1: not to be abolished by renunciations cropped up in his mind,
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  Speaker 1: and he passed back along the leaves. As I have said,
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  Speaker 1: his inconclusive interrogations elicited at the utmost that Lummage's Private
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  Speaker 1: and Family Hotel is singularly like any other hotel of
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  Speaker 1: its class. Its windows tell no secrets. And there Melville's
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  Speaker 1: narrative ends. With that, My circumstantial record necessarily comes to
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  Speaker 1: an end. Also, there are sources, of course and glimpses.
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  Speaker 1: Parker refuses unhappily, as I explained. The chief of these
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  Speaker 1: sources are Verst Gooch, the valet employed by Chatterist, and
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  Speaker 1: secondly the hall porter of Lummage's Private and Family Hotel.
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  Speaker 1: The Valet's evidence is precise, but has an air of
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  Speaker 1: being irrelevant. He witnesses that at a quarter past eleven
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  Speaker 1: he went up to ask Chatteris if there was anything
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  Speaker 1: more to do that night, and found him seated in
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  Speaker 1: an arm chair before the open window, with his chin
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  Speaker 1: upon his hands, staring at nothing, which, indeed, as Schopenhauer
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  Speaker 1: observes in his crowning passage, is the whole of human life.
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  Speaker 1: More to do, said Chatters, Yes, sir, said the Valet, Nothing,
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  Speaker 1: said Chatteris, absolutely nothing. And the Valet, finding this answer
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  Speaker 1: quite satisfactory, wished him good night and departed. Possibly Chatters
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  Speaker 1: remained in this attitude for a considerable time, half an
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  Speaker 1: hour perhaps, or more slowly, it would seem his mood
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  Speaker 1: underwent a change at some definite moment. It must have
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  Speaker 1: been that his lethargic meditation gave way to a strange activity,
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  Speaker 1: to a sort of hysterical reaction against all his resolves
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  Speaker 1: and renunciations. His first action seems to me grotesque and
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  Speaker 1: grotesquely pathetic. He went into his dressing room, and in
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  Speaker 1: the morning his close said, the Valet was shyed about
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  Speaker 1: as though he'd lost a ticket. This poor worshiper of
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  Speaker 1: beauty and the dream shaved. He shaved and washed, and
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  Speaker 1: he brushed his hair, and his valet testifies one of
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  Speaker 1: the brushes got shied behind the bed. Even this throwing
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  Speaker 1: about of brushes seems to me to have done little
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  Speaker 1: or nothing to palliate his poor human preoccupation with the toilette.
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  Speaker 1: He changed his gray flannels, which suited him very well,
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  Speaker 1: for his white ones, which suited him extremely. He must
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  Speaker 1: deliberately and conscientiously have made himself quite lovely, as a
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  Speaker 1: school girl would have put it. And having capped his
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  Speaker 1: great renunciation by these proceedings, he seems to have gone
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  Speaker 1: straight to Lummage's private and family hotel and demanded to
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  Speaker 1: see the Sea lady. She had retired. This came from
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  Speaker 1: Parker and was delivered in a chilling manner by the
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  Speaker 1: hall porter. Chatteris, swore the hall porter. Tell her, I'm here,
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  Speaker 1: he said. She is retired, said the hall porter, with
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  Speaker 1: official severity. Will you tell her I'm here, said Chatteris,
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  Speaker 1: suddenly white. What name, sir? Said the hall porter, In order,
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  Speaker 1: as he explains, to avoid a fracas, Chatteris, tell her
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  Speaker 1: I must see her, now, do you hear? Now? The
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  Speaker 1: hall porter went to Parker and came half way back.
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  Speaker 1: He wished to goodness, he was not a hall porter.
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  Speaker 1: The manager had gone out. It was a stagnant hour.
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  Speaker 1: He decided to try Parker again. He raised his voice.
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  Speaker 1: The sea lady called to Parker from the inner room.
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  Speaker 1: There was an interval of tension. I gather that the
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  Speaker 1: sea Lady put on a loose wrap, and the faithful
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  Speaker 1: Parker either carried her or sufficiently helped her from her
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  Speaker 1: bedroom to the couch in the little sitting room in
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  Speaker 1: the Meanwhile, the hall porter hovered on the stairs praying
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  Speaker 1: for the manager. Prayers that went unanswered, and chatteris fumed low.
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  Speaker 1: Then they have a glimpse of the sea lady. I
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  Speaker 1: see her just in the crack of the door, said
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  Speaker 1: the porter, As that maid of hers opened it. She
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  Speaker 1: was raised up on her hands and turned so towards
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  Speaker 1: the door, looking exactly like this. And the hall porter,
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  Speaker 1: who has an irish type of face, a short nose,
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  Speaker 1: long upper lip and all the rest of it, and
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  Speaker 1: who has also neglected his dentist projected his face, suddenly
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  Speaker 1: opened his eyes very wide, and slowly curved his mouth
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  Speaker 1: into a fixed smile, and so remained until he judged
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  Speaker 1: the effect on me was complete. Parker a little flushed
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  Speaker 1: but resolutely flattening everything to the quality of the commonplace
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  Speaker 1: emerged upon him. Suddenly Miss Waters could see mister Chatteris.
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  Speaker 1: For a few minutes. She was emphatic with the mis Waters,
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  Speaker 1: the more emphatic for all the insurgent strets of the goddess,
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  Speaker 1: protestingly emphatic, and Chatteris went up quite and resolved to
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  Speaker 1: that smiling, expectant presence. No one witnessed their meeting, but
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  Speaker 1: Parker assuredly. Parker could not resist seeing that. But Parker
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  Speaker 1: is silent. Parker preserves the silence that Rubies could not break.
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  Speaker 1: All I know is this much from the porter. When
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  Speaker 1: I said she was up there and would see him,
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  Speaker 1: he says, the way he rushed up was outrageous. This
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  Speaker 1: is a private family hotel. Of course one sees things
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  Speaker 1: at times, even here. But I couldn't find the manager
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  Speaker 1: to tell him, said the hall porter. And what was
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  Speaker 1: I authorized to do? For a bit? They talked with
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  Speaker 1: the door open, and then it was shut. That maid
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  Speaker 1: of hers did it? I lay, I asked an ignoble question.
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  Speaker 1: Couldn't catch a word, said the hall porter. Dropped to
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  Speaker 1: whispers in stunter two and afterwards It was within ten
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  Speaker 1: minutes of one that Parker, conferring an amount of decorum
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  Speaker 1: on the request beyond the power of any other living being,
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  Speaker 1: descended to demand of all conceivable things. The bath chair.
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  Speaker 1: I got it, said the hall Porter, with inimitable profundity,
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  Speaker 1: And then, having let me realize the fullness of that,
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  Speaker 1: he said they never used it. No, No, He carried
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  Speaker 1: her down in his arms, and out and out. He
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  Speaker 1: was difficult to follow in his description of the sea lady.
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  Speaker 1: She wore her rapid seams, and she was like a statue.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever he may have meant by that, certainly not that
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  Speaker 1: she was impassive, only said the porter. She was alive.
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  Speaker 1: One arm was bare, I know, and her hair was down,
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  Speaker 1: a tossing mass of gold. He looked, you know, like
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  Speaker 1: a man who screwed himself up. She had one hand
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  Speaker 1: holding his hair, yes, holding his hair, with her fingers
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  Speaker 1: in among it. And when she see my face, she
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  Speaker 1: threw her head back, laughing at me, as much as
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  Speaker 1: to say got him laughed at me. She did bubblin over.
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  Speaker 1: I stood for a moment conceiving this extraordinary picture. Then
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  Speaker 1: a question occurred to me. Did he laugh? I asked God?
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  Speaker 1: Bless you, sir, laugh No. Three. The definite story ends
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  Speaker 1: in the warm light outside Lummage's Private and Family hotel.
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  Speaker 1: One sees that bright solitude of the lees stretching white
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  Speaker 1: and blank, deserted as only a seaside front in the
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  Speaker 1: small hours can be deserted, and all its electric light ablaze.
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  Speaker 1: And then the dark line of the edge where the
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  Speaker 1: cliff drops down to the under cliff and sea and
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  Speaker 1: beyond moonlit the channel and its incessant ships. Outside the
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  Speaker 1: front of the hotel, which is one of a great
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  Speaker 1: array of pallid white facades, stands this little black figure
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  Speaker 1: of a hall quarter, staring stupidly into the warm and
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  Speaker 1: luminous mystery of the night that has swallowed sea lady
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  Speaker 1: and chatters together, And he is the sole living thing
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  Speaker 1: in the picture. There is a little shelter set in
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  Speaker 1: the brow of the LEAs, wherein during the winter season
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  Speaker 1: a string band plays. Close by, there are steps that
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  Speaker 1: go down precipitously to the lower road below. Down these,
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  Speaker 1: it must have been they went together, hastening downward out
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  Speaker 1: of this life of ours, to unknown and inconceivable things.
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  Speaker 1: So it is as I seemed to see them, and surely,
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  Speaker 1: though he was not in a laughing mood, there was
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  Speaker 1: now no doubt nor resignation in his face. Assuredly, now
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  Speaker 1: he had found himself. For a time at least he
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  Speaker 1: was sure of himself, And that at least cannot be misery,
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  Speaker 1: though it leads, through a few swift stripes to death.
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  Speaker 1: They went down through the soft moonlight, tall and white
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  Speaker 1: and splendid, interlocked with his arms about her, his brow
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  Speaker 1: to her white shoulder, and her hair about his face,
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  Speaker 1: and she, I suppose, smiled above him and caressed him
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  Speaker 1: and whispered to him. For a moment they must have
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  Speaker 1: glowed under the warm light of the lamp, that is
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  Speaker 1: half way down the steps there, and then the shadows
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  Speaker 1: closed about them. He must have crossed the road with her,
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  Speaker 1: through the laced moonlight of the tree shadows, and through
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  Speaker 1: the shrubs and bushes of the under cliff, into the
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  Speaker 1: shadeless moon glare of the beach. There was no one
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  Speaker 1: to see that last descent, to tell whether for a
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  Speaker 1: moment he looked back before he waded into the bosphorescence,
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  Speaker 1: and for a little swam with her, And presently swam
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  Speaker 1: no longer, and so was no more to be seen
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  Speaker 1: by any one in this gray world of men? Did
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  Speaker 1: he look back? I wonder? They swam together for a
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  Speaker 1: little while, the man of the sea goddess who had
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  Speaker 1: come for him, With the sky above them and the
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  Speaker 1: water about them, all warmly filled with the moonlight and
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  Speaker 1: set with shining stars, it was no time for him
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  Speaker 1: to think of truth nor of the honest duties he
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  Speaker 1: had left behind him. As they swam together into the unknown,
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  Speaker 1: and of the end, I can only guess and dream.
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  Speaker 1: Did there come a sudden horror upon him at the last,
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  Speaker 1: a sudden perception of infinite error? And was he drawn
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  Speaker 1: down swiftly and terribly, a bubbling repentance into those unknown deeps?
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  Speaker 1: Or was she tender and wonderful to the last, And
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  Speaker 1: did she wrap her arms about him and draw him down,
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  Speaker 1: down until the soft waters closed above him, into a
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  Speaker 1: gentle ecstasy of death. Into these things we cannot pry
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  Speaker 1: or follow. And on the margin of the softly breathing water,
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  Speaker 1: the story of chatteris must end. For the tail piece
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  Speaker 1: to that, let us put that policeman who, in the
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  Speaker 1: small hours before dawn, came upon the wrap the sea
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  Speaker 1: lady had been wearing, just as the tide overtook it.
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  Speaker 1: It was not the sort of garment low people sometimes
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  Speaker 1: threw away. It was a soft and costly wrap. I
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  Speaker 1: seemed to see him, perplexed and dubious, wrap in charge
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  Speaker 1: over his arm and lantern in hand, scanning first the
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  Speaker 1: white beach and black bushes behind him, and then staring
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  Speaker 1: out to sea. It was the inexplicable abandonment of a
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  Speaker 1: thoroughly comfortable and desirable thing. What were people up to?
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  Speaker 1: One figures him asking, this simple citizen of a plain
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  Speaker 1: and observed world, what does such things mean? To throw
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  Speaker 1: away such an excellent rap? In all the southward heaven
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  Speaker 1: there were only a planet and the sinking moon. And
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  Speaker 1: from his feet a path of quivering light must have
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  Speaker 1: started and run up to the extreme dark edge before
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  Speaker 1: him of the sky. Ever and again, the darkness east
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  Speaker 1: and west of that glory would be lit by a
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  Speaker 1: momentary gleam of phosphorescence, and far out the lights of
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  Speaker 1: ships were shining bright and yellow. Across its shimmer, A
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  Speaker 1: black fishing smack was gliding out of mystery into mystery.
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  Speaker 1: Dungeness shone from the west a pin point of red light,
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  Speaker 1: and in the east the tireless glare of that great
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  Speaker 1: beacon on gris Nez wheeled athwart the sky, and vanished,
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  Speaker 1: and came again. I pictured the interrogation of his lantern,
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  Speaker 1: going out for a little way, a stain of faint
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  Speaker 1: pink curiosity upon the mysterious, vast serenity of night. The
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  Speaker 1: end end of Chapter seven recording by Thomas Copeland. End
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  Speaker 1: of the Sea Lady by H. G. Wells