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🟡 Beckoning Fair One (Full Audiobook) | Oliver Onions · Weird Fiction Audiobooks: Cosmic Horror, Strange Realities & Uncanny Tales

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of The Beckoning Fair One. This is a
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  Speaker 1: Librivark's recording. All librivoq's recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivarks dot org.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Read by Morgan Scorpion. The Beckoning Fair one by Oliver Onions,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Part one. The three or four toilette boards had stood
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: within the low paling as long as the inhabitants of
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the little triangular square could remember, and if they had
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: ever been vertical, it was a very long time ago.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: They now overhung the palings, each at its own angle,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and resembled nothing so much as a row of wooden choppers,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: ever in the act of falling upon some passer by,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: yet never cutting off a tenant for the old house
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: on the stream of his fellows. Not that there was
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: ever any great stream through the square. The stream passed
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: a furlong and more away beyond the intricacy of tenements
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and alleys and byways that had sprung up since the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: old house had been built, hemming it in completely, and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: probably the house itself was only suffered to stand pending
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the falling in of a lease or two, when doubtless
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: a clearance would be made of the whole neighborhood. It
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: was of bloomy old red brick and built into its
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: walls where the crowns and clasped hands and other insignia
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of insurance companies long since defunct. The children of the
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  Speaker 1: secluded square had swung upon the low gate at the
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  Speaker 1: end of the entrance alley until little more than the
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  Speaker 1: solid top bar of it remained, and the alley itself
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  Speaker 1: ran past bordered basement windows on which tramps had choped
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: their cryptic marks. The path was washed and worn uneven
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: by the spilling of water from the eaves of the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: encroaching next house, and cats and dogs had made the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: approach their own. The chances of a tenant did not
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: seem such as to warrant the keeping of the to
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: let boards in a state of legibility and repair, and
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, they were not so kept.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: For six months, Olivan had passed the old place twice
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a day or oftener on his way from his lodgings
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  Speaker 1: to the room ten minutes walk away he had taken
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  Speaker 1: to work in, and for six months no hatchet like
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: notice board had fallen across his path. This might have
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: been due to the fact that he usually took the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: other side of the square, but he chanced one morning
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  Speaker 1: to take the side that ran past the broken gate
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  Speaker 1: and the rain worn entrance alley, and to pause before
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: one of the inclined boards. The board bore beside the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: agent's name the announcement, written apparently about the time of
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Olioran's own early youth, that the key was to be
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: had at number six. Now Oliwan was already paying for
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: his separate bedroom and workroom, more than an author who
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: without private means, habitually disregards his public can of ford,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: and he was paying, an addition, a small rent for
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the storage of the greater part of his grandmother's furniture. Moreover,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: it invariably happened that the book he wished to read
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: in bed was that his working quarters half a mile
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and more away, while the note or letter he had
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: sudden need of during the day was as likely as
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: not to be in the pocket of another coat hanging
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: behind his bedroom door. And there were other inconveniences in
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: having a divided domicile. Therefore, olo on walkeed suddenly up
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: by the hatchet like notice board, looked first down through
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: some scanty privet bushes, at the bordered basement windows, then
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: up at the blank and grimy windows of the first floor,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: and so up to the second floor and the flat
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: stone culoping up the leads. He stood for a minute,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: thumbing his lean and shaven jaw, Then, with another glance
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: at the board, he walked slowly across the square to
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  Speaker 1: number six. He knocked and waited for two or three minutes,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: but although the door stood open, received no answer. He
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: was knocking again when a long nosed man in shirt
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: sleeves appeared. I was asking a blessing on our food,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: he said, in severe explanation. Olawan asked if he might
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: have the key of the old house, and the long
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: nosed man withdrew again. Olowan waited for another five minutes
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: on the step. Then the man, appearing again and masticating
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: some of the food of which he had spoken, announced
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  Speaker 1: that the key was lost. But you won't want it,
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  Speaker 1: he said. The entrance door isn't closed, and a push'll
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  Speaker 1: open any of the others. I'm a agent for it
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  Speaker 1: if you're thinking of taking it. Allo on recrossed the square,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: descended the two steps at the broken gate, passed along
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  Speaker 1: the alley, and turned in at the old, wide doorway
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: to the light immediately within. The door steps descended to
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  Speaker 1: the roomy cellars, and the staircase before him had a
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  Speaker 1: carved rail and was broad and handsome and filthy. Ollowan
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: ascended it, avoiding contact with the rail and wall, and
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  Speaker 1: stopped at the first landing. A door facing him had
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: been boarded up, but he pushed at that on his
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  Speaker 1: right hand, and an insecure bolt or staple yielded. He
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: entered the empty first floor. He spent a quarter of
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: an hour in the place, and then came out again.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Without mounting higher. He descended and recrossed the square to
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the house of the man who had lost the key.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me how much the rent is? He asked,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the comparative lowness of which seemed accounted for by the
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: character of the neighborhood and the abominable state of unrepair
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of the place. Would it be possible to rent a
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: single floor? The long nosed man did not know. They might.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Who are they? The man gave Olion the name of
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a firm of lawyers in Lincoln's Inn. You might mention
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  Speaker 1: my name, Barrett, he added. Pleasure of work prevented Oliwan
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: from going down to Lincoln's Inn that afternoon, but he
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: went on the morrow and was instantly offered the whole
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  Speaker 1: house as a purchase for fifty pounds down, the remainder
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: of the purchase money to remain on mortgage. It took
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  Speaker 1: him half an hour to disabuse the lawyer's mind of
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  Speaker 1: the idea that he wished anything more of the place
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  Speaker 1: than to rent a single floor of it. This made
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  Speaker 1: certain hums and halls of a difference, and the lawyer
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: was by no means certain that it lay within his
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: power to do as Oliwan suggested. But it was finally
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: extracted from him that provided the notice boards were allowed
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to remain up, and that provided it was agreed that
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: in the event of the whole house letting, the arrangement
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  Speaker 1: should terminate automatically without further notice, something might be done
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: that the old place should suddenly let over where his
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: head seemed to oler on the slightest of risks to take,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and he promised a decision within a week. On the
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: morrow he visited the house again, went through it from
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: top to bottom, and then went home to his lodgings
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to take a bath. He was immensely taken with that
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: portion of the house, he had already determined should be
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: his own, scraped clean and repainted, and with that old
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: furniture of Olan's grandmother's it ought to be entirely charming.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: He went to the storage warehouse to refresh his memory
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  Speaker 1: of his half forgotten belongings and to take measurements, and
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: thence he went to a decorator's. He was very busy
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: with his regular work and could have wished that the
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: notice board had caught his attention, either a few months
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: earlier or else later in the year. But the quickest
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: way would be to suspend work entirely until after his removal.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: A fortnight later. His first floor was painted throughout in
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  Speaker 1: a tender elder flower white. The paint was dry, and
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Olowan was in the middle of his installation. He was animated, delighted,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and he rubbed his hands as he polished and made
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: disposals of his grandmother's effects. The tall lattice paned china
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: covered with its derby and mason and spode, the large
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: folding sherret and table, the long low bookshelves he had
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: had two of them copied, the chairs, the Sheffield candlesticks,
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  Speaker 1: the riveted rose bowls. These things he set against his
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  Speaker 1: newly painted elder white walls, walls of wood, paneled in
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  Speaker 1: the happiest proportions, and molded and coffered to the low
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: seated window recess in a mood of gaiety and rest
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  Speaker 1: that the builders of rooms no longer know. The ceilings
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: were lofty and faintly painted with an old pattern of stars.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Even the tapering moulderins of his iron fireplace were as
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  Speaker 1: delicately designed as jewelry. And Olowan walked about, rubbing his hands, frequently,
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  Speaker 1: stopping for the mere pleasure of the glimpses from white
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: room to white room. Charming, charming, He said to himself,
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  Speaker 1: I wonder what Elsie Bengal will think of this. He
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: bought a bolt and a yale lock for his door,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and shut off his quarters from the rest of the house.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: If he now wanted to read in bed, his book
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: could be had for stepping into the next room. All
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  Speaker 1: the time he thought how exceedingly lucky he was to
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  Speaker 1: get the place. He put up a hat rack in
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  Speaker 1: the little square hall and hung up his hats and
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  Speaker 1: caps and coats, and passes through the small triangular square
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: late at night, looking up over the little serried row
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  Speaker 1: of wooden to let hatchets could see the light within
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Oliwan's red blinds, or else the sudden darkening of one
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: blind and the illumination of another, as Olivan candlestick in
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  Speaker 1: hand passed from room to room, making final settlings off
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  Speaker 1: his furniture, or preparing to assume the work that his
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: removal had interrupted. End of chapter one, Chapter two of
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: The Beckoning Fair one. This libevox recording is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain recording by Morgan Scorpion. The Beckoning Fair One
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: by oliver onions chapter two. As far as the chief
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: business of his life his writing was concerned, Paul Olivon
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: treated the world a good deal better than he was
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: treated by it. But he seldom took the trouble to
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: strike a balance, or to compute how far, at forty
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  Speaker 1: four years of age, he was behind his points on
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the handicap. To have done so wouldn't have altered matters,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and it might have depressed Oliwan. He had chosen his
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: path and was committed to it beyond the possibility of withdrawal.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Perhaps he had chosen it in the day when he
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: had been easily swayed by something a little disinterested, a
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  Speaker 1: little generous, a little noble, and had he ever thought
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: of questioning himself, he would still have held to it
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: that a life without nobility and generosity and disinterestedness was
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  Speaker 1: no life for him. Only quite recently and rarely had
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: he even vaguely suspected that there was more in it
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  Speaker 1: than this. But it was no good anticipating the day
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: when he supposed he would reach that maximum point of
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: his powers, beyond which he must inevitably decline, and be
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: left face to face with the question whether it would
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: not have profited him better to have ruled his life
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: by less exigent ideals. In the meantime, his removal into
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the old house with the insurance marks built into its brick,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: merely interrupted Romilly Bishop at the fifteenth chapter. As this
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: tall man with the lean, ascetic face moved about his
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: new abode, arranging, changing, altering hardly yet into his working
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: stride again, he gave the impression of an almost spinster
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: like precision and nicety. For twenty years past in a
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: score of lodgings, garrets, flats, and rooms furnished and unfurnished,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: he had been accustomed to do many things for himself,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: and he had discovered that it saves time and temper.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: To be methodical, he had arranged with the wife of
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the long nosed Barret, a stout Welsh woman with a
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: falsetto voice the marionettcho accent of which long residence in
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: London had not perceptibly modified, to come across the square
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: each morning to prepare his breakfast, and also to turn
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the place out on Saturday mornings. And for the rest
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: he even welcomed a little housework as a relaxation from
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the strain of writing. His kitchen, together with the adjoining
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: strip of an apartment, into which a modern bath had
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: been fitted, overlooked the alley at the side of the house,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and at one end of it was a large closet
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: with a door and a square sliding hatch in the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: upper part of the door. This had been a powder closet,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: and through the hatch the elaborately dressed head had been
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: thrust to receive the click and puff of the powder pistol.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Olowan puzzled a little over this closet, then, as its
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: use occurred to him, he smiled faintly, a little moved.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: He knew not by what he would have to put
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: it to a very different purpose from its original one.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: It would probably have to serve as his larder. It
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: was in this closet that he made a discovery. The
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: back of it was shelved, and rummaging on an upper
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: shelf that ran deeply into the wall, Olowan found a
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: couple of mushroom shaped old wooden wig stands. He did
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: not know how they had come to be there. Doubtless
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the painters had turned them up someher or other and
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: had put them there. But his five rooms as a
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: whole were short of covered and closet room, and it
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: was only by the exercise of some ingenuity that he
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: was able to find places for the restowal of his household, linen,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: his boxes, and his seldom used but not to be
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: destroyed accumulations of papers. It was in early spring that
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Olwen entered on his tenancy, and he was anxious to
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: have Romilly ready for publication in the coming autumn. Nevertheless,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: he did not intend to force its production, should it
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: demand longer. In the doing so, much the worse, he
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: realized its importance, its crucial importance in his artistic development,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and it must have its own length and time. In
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the work room he had recently left, he had been
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: making excellent progress. Romilly had begun, as the saying is,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: to speak and act of herself, and he did not
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: doubt he would continue to do so the moment the
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: distraction of his removal was over. This distraction was almost over,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: he told himself it was time he pulled himself together again.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And on a March morning he went out, returned again
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: with two great bunches of yellow daffodils, placed one bunch
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: on his mantelpiece between the Sheffield sticks and the other
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: on the table before him, and took out the half
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: completed manuscript of Wromally Bishop. But before beginning work, he
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: went to a small rosewood cabinet and took from a
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: drawer his check book and pass book. He totted them up,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: and his monk like face grew thoughtful. His installation had
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: cost him more than he had intended it should, and
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: his balance was rather less than fifty pounds, with no
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: immediate prospect of more. Hum I'd forgotten rugs and chintz
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: curtains and so forth mounted up, so said Olwan. But
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: it would have been a pity to spoil the place
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: for the want of ten pounds or so well. Romilly
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: simply must be out for the autumn. That's all, so
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: here goes. He drew his papers towards him. But he
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: worked badly, or rather he did not work at all.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: The square outside had its own noises, frequent and new,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: and Olowan could only hope that he would speedily become
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: accustomed to these. First came hawkers with their carts and cries.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: At midday, the children returning from school trooped into the
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: square and swollen Oliwan's gait. And when the children had
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: departed again for afternoon school, an intituant musician with a
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: mandolin posted himself beneath Olan's window and began to strum.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: This was not an unpleasant distraction, and Oloan, pushing up
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: his window, threw the man a penny. Then he returned
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: to his table again, but it was no good. He
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: came to himself at long intervals to find that he
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: had been looking about his room and wondering how it
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: had formerly been furnished. Whether a settee in buttercup or
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: petunia satin had stood under the father window, whether from
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the center molding of the light lofty ceiling had depended
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: a glimmering crystal chandelier, or where the tambore frame or
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the piquet table had stood. No, it was no good.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: He had far better be, frankly doing nothing than getting
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: fruitlessly tired. He decided that he would take a walk, but,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: chancing to sit down for a moment, dozed in his
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: chair instead. This won't do, he yawned, when he awoke
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: at half past forward the afternoon. I must do better
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: than this to morrow. And he felt so deliciously lazy
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: that for some minutes he even contemplated the breach of
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: an appointment he had for the evening. The next morning,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: he sat down to work without even permitting himself to
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: answer one of his three letters, two of them tradesmen's accounts,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the third a note from miss Bengo, forwarded from his
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: old address. It was a jolly day of white and blue,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: with a gay, noisy wind and a subtle turn in
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the color of growing things, And over and over again,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: once or twice a minute, his room became suddenly light,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and then subdued again as the shining white clouds rolled
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: northeastwards over the square. The soft, fitful illumination was reflected
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: in the polished surface of the table and even in
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the foot worn old floor and the morning noises had
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: begun again. Oleron made a pattern of darts on the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: paper before him, and then broke off to move the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: jar of daffodils exactly opposite the center of a creamy panel.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Then he wrote a sentence that ran continuously for a
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: couple of lines, after which it broke on into notes
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: and jottings for a time. He succeeded in persuading himself
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: that in making his memoranda he was really working. Then
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: he rose and began to pace his room. As he
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: did so, he was struck by an idea. It was
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: that the place might possibly be a little better, full,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: more positive color. It was perhaps a thought to pale,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: mild and sweet as a kind old face, but a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: little devitalized even one. Yes, he decided it would bear
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a buster note, more and richer flowers, and possibly some
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: warm and gay stuff for cushions for the window seats.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Of course, I really can't afford it, he muttered, as
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: he went for two foot and began to measure the
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: width of the window recess. In stooping to measure a recess,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: his attitude suddenly changed to one of interest and attention.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Presently he rose again rubbing his hands with gentle glee.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Oh ho, oh ho, he said, these looked to me
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: very much like window boxes nailed up. We must look
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: into this. Yes, those are boxes, or I'm oh ho,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: this is an adventure. On that wall of his sitting
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: room there were two windows. The third was in another corner,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and beyond the open bedroom door, on the same wall
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: was another. The seats of all had been painted, repainted,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and painted again, and Oliwan's investigating finger had barely detected
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the old nail heads beneath the paint. Under the ledge
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: over which he stooped, an old keyhole also had been
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: putted up. Oliveran took out his penknife. He worked carefully
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: for five minutes, and then went into the kitchen for
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a hammer and chisel. Driving the chisel cautiously under the seat,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: he started the hole lid slightly, and using the penknife,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: he cut along the hinged edge and outward along the ends.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: And then he fetched a wedge and a wooden mallet.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Now for our little mystery, he said, the sound of
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the mallet on the wedge seemed in that sweet and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: pale apartment somehow a little brutal, nay even shocking. The
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: paneling rang and rattled and vibrated to the blows like
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a sounding board. The whole house seemed to echo from
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the woomy celaridge to the garrets above. A flock of
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: echoes seemed to awake, and the sound got a lift
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: on Olivan's nerves. All at once. He paused, fetched a duster,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and muffled the mallet. When the edge was sufficiently raised,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: he put his fingers under it and lifted. The paint
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: flaked and stirred a little. The rusty old nails squeaked
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: and grunted, and the lid came up, laying open the
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: box beneath. Oliwan looked into it. Save were a couple
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of inches of scurf and mould and old cobwebs. It
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: was empty. No treasure there, said Oliwan, a little amused
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: that he should have thought there might have been. Romily
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: will still have to be out by the autumn. Let's
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: have a look at the others. He turned to the
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: second window. The raising of the two remaining seats occupied
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: him well into the afternoon. That of the bedroom, like
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the first, was empty. But from the second seat of
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: his sitting room he drew out something yielding and folded
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and furred aver an inch thick with dust. He carried
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the object into the kitchen, and, having swept it over
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a bucket, took a duster to it. It was some
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: sort of a large bag of an ancient freeze like material,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and when unfolded, it occupied the greater part of the
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: small kitchen floor. In shape, it was an irregular, a
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: very irregular triangle, and it had a couple of wide
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: flaps with the remains of straps and buckles. The patch
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: that had been uppermost in the folding was of a
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: faded yellowish brown, but the rest of it was of
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: shades of crimson that varied according to the exposure of
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the parts of it. Now, whatever can that have been?
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: All un mused? As he stood surveying it, I give
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: it up. Whatever it is, it settled my work for
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to day, I'm afraid. He folded the object up carelessly
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and thrust it into a corner of the kitchen. Then,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: taking pans and brush and an old knife, he returned
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to the sitting room and began to scrape and wash
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and to line with paper his newly discovered receptacles. When
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: he had finished, he put his spare boots and boots
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and papers into them, and he closed the lids again,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: amused with his little adventure, but also a little anxious
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: for the hour to come when he should settle fairly
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: down to his work again. End of Part two, Chapter
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: three of The Beckoning Fair one. This librivoke's recording is
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Recording by more than Scorpion. Chapter
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: three of The Beckoning Fair one by Oliver Onions. It
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: peaked all on a little that his friend Miss Bengal
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: should dismiss with a glance the place he himself had
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: found so singularly winning. Indeed, she scarcely lifted her eyes
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: to it. But then she had always been more or
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: less like that, a little indifferent to the graces of life,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: careless of appearances, and perhaps a shade more herself when
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: she ate biscuits from a paper bag than when she
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: dined with greater observance of the conveniences. She was an
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: unattached journalist of thirty four large, showy, fair as butter,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: pink as a dog rose, reminding one of the florists,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: picked specimen bloom and given to sudden and ample movements
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and moist and explosive utterances. She pulled her better living
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: out of the pool, as she expressed it, than Olowan did,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and by cunningly disguised puffs of drapers and haberdashes, she
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: pulled also the greater part of her very varied wardlobe.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: She left small whirlwinds of air behind her when she moved,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: in which her veils and scarves fluttered and spun. Oloon
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: heard the flurry of her skirts on his staircase, and
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: her single loud knock at his door when he had
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: been a month in his new abode. Her garments brought
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: in the outer air, and she flung a bundle of
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Ladies journals down on a chair. Don't knock off for me,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: she said across a mouthful of large headed hatpins, as
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: she removed her hat and veil. I don't know whether
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: you were straight yet, So I've bought some sandwiches for lunch.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: You've got coffee, I suppose. Now don't get up, I'll
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: find a kitchen. Oh that's all right, I'll clear these
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: things away. To tell the truth, I'm rather glad to
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: be interrupted, said Olier On he gathered his work together
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and put it away. She was already in the kitchen.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: He heard the running of water into the kettle. He
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: joined her, and ten minutes later followed her back to
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the sitting room with the coffee and sandwiches on a tray.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: They sat down with the tray on a small table
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: between them. Well, what do you think of the new place,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Olin asked, as she poured out coffee. Hum, anybody would
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: think you were going to get married, Paul, he laughed. Oh, no,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: but it's an improvement on some of em, isn't it?
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Is it? I suppose it is. I don't know. I
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: liked the last place in spite of the black ceiling
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and no water tap. How's Romilly, Olowan thumbed his chin. Hum,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I'm rather ashamed to tell you. The fact is, I've
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: not got on very well with it, but it will
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: be all right on the night. As you used to say,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: stuck rather stuck, got any bit you cared to read
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: to me. Olowan had long been in the habit of
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: reading portions of his work to Miss Bengo occasionally. Her
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: comments were always quick and practical, sometimes directly useful, sometimes
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: indirectly suggestive. She, in return for his confidence, always kept
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: all mention of her own work seduously from him. His
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: she said, was real work, hers merely filled space, not
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: always even grammatically. I'm afraid there isn't, Oliwan replied, still meditatively,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: dry shaving his chin. Then he added, with a little
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: burst of candor, the fact is, Elsie, I've not written,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: not actually written very much more of it, any more
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of it in fact. But of course that doesn't mean
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I haven't progressed. I've progressed in one sense, rather alarmingly.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I'm now thinking of reconstructing the whole thing. Miss Bengal
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: gave a gasp, reconstructing, making Romily herself a different type
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of woman. Somehow, I've begun to feel that I'm not
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: getting the most out of her as she stands. I've
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: certainly lost interest in her to some extent. But but
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Miss Bengal protested, you had her so real, so living.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Poor Oliwan smiled faintly. He had been quite prepared for
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Miss Bengal's disapproval. He wasn't surprised that she liked Romilly
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: as she at present existed. She would, whether she realized
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: it or not. There was much of herself in his
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: fictitious creation. Naturally, Romily would seem real living to her.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: But are you really serious, Paul, miss Bengal asked presently,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: with a round eyed stare quite serious, you're really going
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: to scrap those fifteen chapters. I didn't exactly say that,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: that fine, rich love scene. I should only do it
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: reluctantly and for the sake of something I thought better,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and that beautiful, beautiful description of Romilly on the shore.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't necessarily be wasted, he said a little uneasily.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: But Miss Bengo made a large and windy gesture and
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: then let him have it. Really, you are too trying,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: she broke out. I do wish sometimes you'd remember you're
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: human and live in all world. You know, I'd be
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the last to wish you to lower your stand at
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: one inch. But it wouldn't be lowering it to bring
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: it within human comprehension. Oh, you're sometimes altogether too godlike.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Why it would be a wicked, criminal waste of your
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: powers to destroy those fifteen chapters? Look at it reasonably.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Now you've been working for nearly twenty years. You've now
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: got what you've been working for almost within your grasp.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Your affairs are at a most critical stage. Oh don't
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: tell me. I know you're about at the end of
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: your money and here you are deliberately proposing to withdraw
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: a thing that will probably make your name, and to
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: substitute it for something that ten to one nobody on
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: earth will ever want to read. And small blame them, really,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: you try, my patience. Oli On had shaken his head
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: slowly as she had talked. It was an old story
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: between them. The noisy, able practical journalist was an admirable
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: friend up to a certain point. Beyond that, well, each
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of us knows that point beyond which we stand alone.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Elsie Bungo sometimes said that had she one tenth part
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: of Olowan's genius, there were few things she could not
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: have done, thus making that genius a quantitatively divisible thing,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: a sort of ingredient to be added to or subtracted
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: from in the admixture of his work. That it was
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: a qualitative thing, essential, indivisible. Informing passed her comprehension. Their
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: spirits parted company. At that point. Oleron knew it, She
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: did not appear to know it. Yes, yes, yes, he
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: said a little wearily by, and by practically you're quite right,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: entirely right. And I haven't a word to say. If
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I could only turn Romilly over to you, you'd make
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: an enormous success of her, but that can't be, And I,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: for my part, am seriously doubting whether she's worth my while.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: You know what that means? What does it mean? She
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: demanded bluntly, Well, he said, smiling wanly, what does it mean?
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: When you're convinced a thing isn't worth doing, you simply
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: don't do it. Miss Bengo's eyes swept the ceiling for
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: assistance against this impossible man. What utter rubbish, she broke
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: out at last. Why when I saw you last, you
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: were simply ooling romily, You were turning her off at
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the rate of four chapters a week. If you hadn't moved,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: you'd have had her three parts done by now. What
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: on earth possessed you to move right in the middle
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: of your most important work. Oler On tried to put
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: her off with a recital of inconveniences, but she wouldn't
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: have it. Perhaps in her heart she partly suspected the reason.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: He was simply mortally weary of the narrow circumstances of
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: his life. He had had twenty years of it, twenty
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: years of garrets and roof chambers and dingy flat and
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: shabby lodgings, and he was tired of dinginess and shabbiness.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: The reward was as far off as ever, or if
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: it was not, he no longer cared as once he
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: would have cared to put out his hand and take it.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: It is all very well to tell a man who
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: is at the point of exhaustion that only another effort
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: is required of him. If he cannot make it, he
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: is as far off as ever anyway, Olowan summed up,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: I'm happier here than I've been for a long time.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: That's some sort of a justification. And doing no work,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: said Miss Bengel pointedly. At that, a trifling petulance that
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: had been gathering in Oliwan came to a head. And
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: why should I do nothing but work? He demanded? How
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: much happier am I for it? I don't say I
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: don't love my work when it's done, but I hate
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: doing it sometimes. It's an intolerable burden that I simply
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: long to be rid of. Once in many weeks, it
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: has a moment, one moment of glow and thrill for me.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I remember the days when it was all glow and thrill,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: And now I'm forty four and it's becoming drudgery. Nobody
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: wants it. I'm ceasing to want it myself. And if
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: any ordinary sensible man were to ask me whether I
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: didn't think I was a fool to go on, I
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: think I should agree that I was. Miss Bengo's comely,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: pink face was serious. But you knew all that many
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: many years ago, Paul, And still you chose it, she said,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: in a low voice. Well, and how should I have known?
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: He demanded, I didn't know. I was told so, my heart,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: if you like told me so, and I thought I knew.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Youth always thinks it knows. Then one day it discovers
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: that it is nearly fifty forty four, Paul, forty four.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Then and it finds that the glamor isn't in front
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: but behind. Yes, I knew and chose. If that's knowing choosing.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: But it's a costly choice were called on to make
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: when we're young. Miss Bengo's eyes were on the floor
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: without moving them. She said, you're not regretting it, Paul,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Am I not? He took her up upon my word.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I've lately thought, I am what do I get in
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: return for it? All? You know what you get? She replied,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: he might have known from her tone what else he
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: could have had for the holding up of a finger herself.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: She knew, but could not tell him that he could
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: have done no better thing for himself. Had he any
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: time these ten years asked her to marry him, she
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: would have replied, quietly, very well when he had never
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: thought of it. Yours is the real work, she continued quietly.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Without you, we jackals couldn't exist. You and a few
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: like you hold everything upon your shoulders. For a minute
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: there was silence. Then it occurred to Olieran that this
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: was a common, vulgar grumbling. It was not his habit.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Suddenly he rose and began to stack cups and plates
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: on the tray. Sorry you catch me like this, Elsie,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: he said, with a little laugh. No, I'll take them out,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: then we'll go for a walk if you like. He
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: carried out the tray and then began to show Miss
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Bengo round his flat. She made few comments in the kitchen.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: She asked what an old faded square of reddish frieze
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: was that Missus Barrett used as a cushion for her
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: wooden chair. That I should be glad if you could
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: tell me what it is, Oleron replied, as he unfolded
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the bag and related the story of its finding in
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the window seat. I think I know what it is,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: said Miss BEng It's been used to wrap up a
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: harp before putting it into its case. By jove, that's
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: probably just what it was, said Olive. I could make
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: neither head nor tail of it. They finished the tour
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: of the flat and returned to the sitting room. And
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: who lives in the rest of the house, Miss Bengo asked,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I dare say a tramp sleaps in the cellar occasionally?
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Nobody else? Hum, well, I'll tell you what I think
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: about it. If you like, I should like. You'll never
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: work here, oh, said Olwan quickly. Why not? You'll never
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: finish romily here? Why? I don't know, But you won't.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I know it. You'll have to leave before you get
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: on with that book. He mused for a moment, and
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: then said, isn't that a little prejudiced? Elsie? Perfectly ridiculous
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: as an argument. It hasn't a leg to stand on,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: But there it is, she replied, her mouth once more
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: full of the large headed hatpins. Oliwan was reaching down
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: his hat and coat. He laughed. I can only hope
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: you're entirely wrong, he said, for I shall be in
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: a serious mess as Romilly isn't out in the autumn
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: end of chapter three, Chapter four of the Beckoning Fair one.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: This librivoke's recording is in the public domain recording by
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Morgan Scorpion. Chapter four of the Beckoning Fair one by
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Oliver Onions. As Oliwan sat by his fire that evening,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: pondering Miss Bengal's prognostication that difficulties awaited him in his work,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: he came to the conclusion that it would have been
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: far better had she kept her beliefs to herself. No
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: man does a thing better for having his confidence damped
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: at the outset. And to speak of difficulties is in
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: a sense to make them. Speech itself becomes detered act
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: to which other discouragements accrete, until the very event of
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: which warning is given is as likely as not to
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: come to pass. He heartily confounded her. An influence hostile
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: to the completion of Romily had been born, and in
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: some illogical, dogmatic way women seem to have she had
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: attached this antagonistic influence to his new abode. Was ever
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: anything so absurd you'll never finish Romilly here. Why not
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: was this her idea of the luxury that SAPs the
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: springs of action and brings a man down to indolence
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: and dropping out of the race. The place was well enough.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: It was entirely charming, for that matter, But it was
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: not so demoralizing as all that. No Elsie had missed
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: the mark that time he moved his chair to look
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: around the room that smiled positively smiled in the firelight.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: He too smiled, as if pity was to be entertained
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: from aligne department. Even that slight lack of robust color
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: he had remarked was not noticeable in the soft glow.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: The drawn chintz curtains, they had a flowered and trellised pattern,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: with baskets and oaten pipes, fell in long quired folds
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: to the window seats. The rows of bindings in old
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: bookcases took the light richly. The last trace of sallenness
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: had gone with the daylight. And if the truth must
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: be told, it had been Elsie herself who had seen
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: a little out of the picture. That reflection struck him
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: a little, and presently he returned to it. Yes, the
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: room had quite accidentally done. Miss Bengo a disserviced that afternoon,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: it had, in some subtle but unmistakable way, placed her
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: marked a contrast of qualities, assuming, for the sake of argument,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: the slightly ridiculous proposition that the room in which Olowan
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: sat was characterized by a certain sparsity and lack of vigor,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: so much the worse for Miss BEng She certainly erred
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: on the side of redundancy and general muchness. And if
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: one must contrast abstract qualities, Olieron inclined to the austere
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: in taste. Yes, here Olowan had made a distinct discovery.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: He wondered he had not made it before. He pictured
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Miss Bengo again as she had appeared that afternoon, large, showy,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: moistly pink, with that quality of the prized bloom exuding
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: as it were, from her, and instantly she suffered in
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: his thought. He even recognized now that he had noticed
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: something odd at the time, and that unconsciously his attitude,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: even while she had been there, had been one of criticism.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: The mechanism of her was a little obvious. Her melting
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: humidity was the result of analyzable processes, and behind her
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: there had seemed to lurk, some dim shape emblematic of mortality.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: He had never during the ten years of their intimacy
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: dreamed for a moment of asking her to marry him.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: None the less, he now felt for the first time
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: a thankfulness that he had not done so. Then, suddenly
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: and swiftly, his face flamed. That he should be thinking
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: thus of his friend, what Elsie bad and go with
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: whom he had spent weeks and weeks of afternoons. She
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the good chum on whose help he would have counted
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: had all the rest of the world failed him, She
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: whose loyalty to him would not he knew, swerve as
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: long as there was breath in her. Elsie to be
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: even in thought descepted. Thus he was an ingrate and
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: a cad. Had she been there in that moment, he
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: would have abased himself before her. For ten minutes and more,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: he sat still, gazing into the fire, with that humiliating
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: red fading slowly from his cheeks. All was still within
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and without save for a tiny musical tinkling that came
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: from his kitchen, the dripping of water from an imperfectly
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: turned off tap into the vessel beneath it. Mechanically, he
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: began to beat with his finger to the faintly heard
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: falling of the drops. The tiny, regular movement seemed to
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: hasten that shameful withdrawal from his face. He grew cool
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: once more, and when he resumed his meditation, he was
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: all unconscious that he took it up again at the
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: same point. It was not only her florid superfluity of
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: build that he had approached in the attitude of criticism.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: He was conscious also of the wide differences between her
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: mind and his own. He felt no thankfulness that, out
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: to a certain point, their natures had ever run companionably
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: side by side. He was now full of questions. Beyond
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: that point, though in les diverged, there was no denying it,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: and looking back he was inclined to doubt whether there
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: had been any real coincidence. True, he had read his
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: writings to her, and she had appeared to speak comprehendingly
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: and to the point. But what can a man do who,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: having assumed that another sees as he does, is suddenly
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: brought up sharp by something that falsifies and discredits all
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: that has gone before. He doubted all now it did
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: for a moment occur to him that the man who
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: demands of a friend more than can be given to
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: him is in danger of losing that friend. But he
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: put the thought aside. Again, he ceased to think, and
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: again moved his finger to the distant dripping of the tap.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: And now he resumed by and by. If these things
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: were true of Elsie ben Go, they were also true
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: of the creation, of which she was the prototype Romilly Bishop.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: And since he could say of Romilly, what of a
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: very shame he could not say of Elsie, he gave
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: his thoughts rein. He did so in that smiling, fire
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: lighted room, to the accompaniment of the faintly heard tap.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: There was no longer any doubt about it. He hated
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: the central character of his novel, even as he had
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: described her. Physically, she overpowered the senses. She was coarse
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: fibered overcolored rank. It became true the moment he formulated
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: his thought. Gulliver had described the Brobdignarian maids of honor
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: thus and mentally and spiritually she corresponded was unsensitive, limited
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: common the model. He closed his eyes for a moment.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: The model stuck out through fifteen vulgar and blatant chapters
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: to such a pitch that, without seeing the reason, he
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: had been unable to begin the sixteenth He marveled that
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: it had only just dawned upon him, and this was
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: to have been his bare treaty, his vision as Elsie.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: She was to have gone into the furnace of his art,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: and she was to have come out the woman all
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: men desire. Her thoughts were to have been culled from
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: his own finest, her form, from his dearest dreams, and
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: her setting wherever he could find one fit for her worth.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: He had brooded long before making the attempt. Then one
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: day he had felt her stir within him as a
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: mother feels a quickening, and he had begun to write.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: And so he had added chapter to chapter, And those
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: fifteen chapters were what he had produced. Again, he sat softly,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: moving his finger. Then he bestirred himself. She must go
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: all fifteen chapters of her that were settled. For what
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: was to take her place? His mind was a blank.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: But one thing at a time. A man is not
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: excused from taking the wrong course because the right one
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: is not immediately revealed to him. Better would come if
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: it was to come. In the meantime, he rose fetched
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: the fifteen chapters and read them over before he should
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: drop them into the fire. But instead of putting them
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: into the fire, he let them fall from his hand.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: He became conscious of the dripping of the tap again.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: It had a tinkling gammut of four or five notes,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: on which it rang irregular changes, and it was foolishly
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: sweet and dulcamerlike. In his mind, Olivan could see the
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: gathering of each drop, its little tremble on the lip
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: of the tap, and the tiny percussion of its fall
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: blink plunk, minimized almost to inaudibility. Following the lowest note,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: there seemed to be a brief phrase irregularly repeated, and
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: presently Olivan found himself waiting for the recurrence of this phrase.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: It was quite pretty, but it did not conduce to wakefulness,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: and Olieron dozed over his fire. When he awoke again,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: the fire had burned low, and the flames of the
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: candles were licking the rims of the sheffield sticks sluggishly.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: He rose, yawned, went his nightly round of door locks
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: and window fastenings, and passed into his bedroom. Soon he
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: slept soundly, But a curious little sequel followed on the morrow,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Missus Barrett usually tapped not at his door, but at
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: the wooden wall beyond which lay Olieran's bed. And then
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Olieron rose put on his dressing gown and admitted her
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: he was not conscious that as he did so that morning,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: he hummed an air. But Missus Barrett lingered, with her
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: hand on the door knob, and her face a little
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: averted and smiling, dear me her soft falsetto rose. But
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: that will be a very old tune, mister Oliwan, I
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: will not have heard it this forty years. What tune?
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Olowan asked? The tune? Indeed, that you are humming? Sir
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Olowan had his thumb in the flap of a letter.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: It remained there. I was humming sing it, Missus Barrett.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Missus Barrett prodded, I have no voice for singing, mister Olawan.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: It was Anne Pew, was the singing of our family.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: But the tune will be very old, and it is
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: called the beckoning. Fair one try to sing it, said Oliwan,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: his thumb still in the envelope, and Missus Barrett, with
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: much dimpling and confusion, hummed the air. They do say
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: it was sung to a harp mister Olawan, and it
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: will be very old, she concluded, And I was singing
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: that indeed you was. I would not be likely to
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: tell you lies with a very well let me have breakfast.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Olivan opened his letter, but the trifling circumstance struck him
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: as more odd than he would have admitted to himself.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: The phrase he had hummed had been that which he
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: had associated with the falling from the tap on the
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: evening before end of chapter four, chapter five of the
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Beckoning Fair One. This LibriVox recording is in the public
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: domain The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver onions chapter five.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: Even more curious than that the dripping of an ordinary
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: water tap should have tallied so closely with an actually
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: existing air was another result it had, namely that it awakened,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: or seemed to awaken in Oliwan an abnormal sensitiveness through
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: the other noises of the old house. It has been
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: remarked that silence obtains its fullest and most impressive quality
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: when it is broken by some minute sound. And truth
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: to tell, the place was never still. Perhaps the mildness
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: of the spring air operated on its torpid old timbers.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Perhaps Olowan's fires caused it to stretch its old anatomy,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: and certainly a whole world of insect life bored and
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: burrowed in its bulks and joists. At any rate, Olowan
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: had only to sit quiet in his chair and to
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: wait for a minute or two in order to become
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: aware of such a change in the auditory scale, as
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: comes upon a man who, conceiving the midsummer woods to
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: be motionless and still, all at once finds his ear
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: sharpened to the crepitation of a myriad insects, And he
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: smiled to think of man's arbitrary distinction between that which
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: has life and that which has not. Here, quite apart
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: from such recognized visible sounds as the scamping of mice,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: the falling of plaster behind his paneling, and the popping
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: of purses or coffins from his fire, was a whole
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: house talking to him, had he but known its language.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Beams settled with a tired sigh into their old mortises,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Creatures ticked in the walls, joints cracked, boards complained with
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: no palpable stirring of the air. Window sashes changed their
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: positions with a soft knock in their frames, And whether
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: the place had a life in this sense or not,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: it had, all events a winsome personality. It needed but
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: an hour of musing for Olwan to conceive the idea that,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: as his own body stood in friendly relation to his soul,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: so by an extension and an attenuation, his habitation might
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: fantastically be supposed to stand in some relation to himself.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: He even amused himself with the far fetched fancy that
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: he might so identify himself with the place that some
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: future tenant taking possession might regard it as in a
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: sense haunted. It would be rather a joke if he,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: a perfectly harmless author with nothing on his mind worse
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: than a novel he had discovered he must begin again,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: should turn out to be laying the foundation of a
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: future ghost in proportion. However, as he felt this growing
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: attachment to the fabricary's abode, Elsie ben Go, from being
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: merely unattracted, began to show a dislike of the place
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: that was more and more marked, and she did not
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: scruple to speak of her aversion. It doesn't belong to
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: day at all, and for you especially it's bad, she said,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: with decision. You are only too ready to let go
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: your hold on actual things, and to slip into apathy.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: You ought to be in a place with concrete flaws
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: and a patent gas meter and a tradesman's lift, and
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: it would do you all the good in the world
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: if you had a job that made you scramble and
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: rub elbows with your fellow men. Now, if I could
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: get you a job for say, two or three days
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: a week, one that would allow you heaps of time
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: for your paperwork, would you take it? Somehow? Olon resented
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: a little being diagnosed like this. He thanked Miss Bengol,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: but without a smile. Thank you, But I don't think so.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: After all, each of us has his own life to live.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: He could not refrain from adding his own life to live.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: How long is it since you were out, Paul? About
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: two hours? I don't mean to buy stamps or to
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: post a letter. How long is it since you had
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: anything like a stretch? Oh, some little time? Perhaps? I
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: don't know. Since I was here last, I haven't been
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: out much. And has Romany progressed much better for your
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: being cooped up? I think she has. I'm laying the
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: foundations of her I shall begin the actual writing. Presently,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: it seemed as if Miss BEng had forgotten their tussle
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: about the first Romilly. She frowned, turned half away, and
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: then quickly turned again. Ah so you've still got that
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: ridiculous idea in your head if you mean, said olivand slowly,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: that I've discarded the old Romilly and I am at
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: work on a new one. You're right, I have still
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: got that idea in my head. Something uncordial in his
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: tone struck her, but she was a fighter. His own
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: absurd sensitiveness hardened her. She gave up psure of impatience.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Where is the old one? She demanded abruptly, why, asked Olivan.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I want to see it. I want to show some
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: of it to you. I want, if you're not well, gathering,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: entirely to bring you back to your senses. This time
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: it was he who turned his back, but when he
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: turned round again, he spoke more gently. It's no good, Elsie.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: I'm responsible for the way I go, and you must
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: allow me to go it, even if it should seem
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: wrong to you. Believe me, I am giving thought to it.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: The manuscript. I was on the point of burning it,
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: but I didn't. It's in that window seat. If you
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: must see it, Miss Bengo, crossed quickly to the window
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: seat and lifted the lid. Suddenly, she gave a little
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: exclamation and put the back of her hand to a mouth.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: She spoke over her shoulder. You ought to knock those
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: nails in, Paul, she said. He strode to her side.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: What what is it? What's the matter, he asked, I
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: did knock them in, or rather pulled them out. You
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: left enough to scratch with, she replied, showing her hand
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: from the upper wrist to the knuckle of the little finger,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: a welling red wound. Showed. Good, gracious Olne ejaculated here,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Come to the barsroom and bay did it quickly? He
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: hurried her to the bathroom, turned on warm water, and
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: bathed and cleansed the bad gash. Then, still holding the hand,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: he turned cold water on it, uttering broken phrases of
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: astonishment and concern. Good Lord, how did that happen? As
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: far as I knew, i'd is this water too cold?
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Does that hurt? I can't imagine how on earth there
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: that'll do? No one moment longer I can bear it,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: she murmured, her eyes closed. Presently, he led her back
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: to the sitting room and bound the hands in one
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: of his handkerchiefs, but his face did not lose its
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: expression of perplexity. He had spent half a day in
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: opening and making service of all these three window boxes,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: and he could not conceive how he had come to
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: leave an inch and a half of lusty nail standing
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: in the wood. He himself had opened the lids of
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: each of them a dozen times and had not noticed
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: any nail. But there it was. It shall come out
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: now at all events, he muttered, as he went for
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: a pair of pincers, and he made no mistake about it.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: That time, elsie Ben had sunk into a chair, and
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: her face was rather white, but in her hand was
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: the manuscript of Womily. She had not finished with Romilly
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: yet presently she returned to the charge, Oh, Paul, it
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: will be the greatest mistake you ever ever made if
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: you do not publish this, she said. He hung his head,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: genuinely distressed. He couldn't get that incident of the nail
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: out of his head, and Romilly occupied a second place
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: in his thoughts for the moment. But still she insisted,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: and when presently he spoke, it was almost as if
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: he asked her pardon for something. What can I say, Elsie.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: I can only hope that when you see the new
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: version you'll see how right I am. And if, in
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: spite of all you don't like her, well, he made
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: a hopeless gesture, don't you see that I must be
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: guided by my own lights. She was silent. Come, Elsie,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: he said gently. We've got along well so far. Don't
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: let us split on this. The last words had hardly
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: passed his lips before he regretted them. She had been
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: nursing her injured hand with her eyes once more closed,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: but her lips and lips quivered simultaneously. Her voice shook
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: as she spoke. I can't help saying it, Paul, but
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: you are so greatly changed. Huh, Elsie, he murmured soothingly.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: You've had a shock rest for a while. How could
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: I change? I don't know, but you are. You've not
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: been yourself ever since you came here. I wish you'd
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: never seen the place. It stopped your work. It's making
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: you into a person I hardly know, and it's made
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: me horribly anxious about you. Oh how my hand is
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: beginning to throb. Poor child, he murmured, Will you let
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: me take you to a doctor and have it properly dressed. No,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: I shall be all right. Presently, I'll keep it raised.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: She put her elbow on the back of her chair,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: and the bandaged hand rested lightly on his shoulder. At
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: that touch, an entirely new anxiety stirred suddenly within him.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Hundreds of times previously, on their jaunts and excursions, she
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: had slipped her hand within his arm as she might
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: have slipped it into the arm of a brother, and
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: he had accepted the little affectionate gesture as a brother
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: might have accepted it. But now, for the first time,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: there rushed into his mind a hundred startling questions. Her
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: eyes were still closed, and her head had fallen pathetically back,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: and there was a lost and ineffable smile on her
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: parted lips. The truth broke in upon him, Good God,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: and he had never divined it. And stranger than all
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: that was now that she did see that she was
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: lost in love of him. There came to him not
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: sorrow and humility and abasement, but something else that he
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: struggled in vain against, something entirely strange, and knew that
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: had he analyzed it, he would have found to be
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: petulance and irritation and resentment and ungentleness. The sudden selfish
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: prompting mastered him. Before he was aware, He all but
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: gave it words. What was she doing there at all?
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Why was she not getting on with her own work?
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: Why was she here interfering with his? Who had given
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: her this guardianship over him that lately she had put
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: forward so assertively changed It was she, not himself who
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: had changed. But by the time she had opened her
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: eyes again, he had overcome his resentment sufficiently to speak gently,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: albeit with reserve. I wish you would let me take
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: you to adopt her. She rose. No, thank you, Paul,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: she said, I'll go now. If I need a dressing,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: I'll get one. Take the other hand, please good bye.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: He did not attempt to detain her. He walked with
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: her to the foot of the stairs. Half way along
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: the narrow alley. She turned. It would be a long
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: way to come if you happened not to be in,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: she said, I'll send you a postcard the next time.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: At the gate. She turned again. Leave here, Paul, she said,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: with a mournful look. Everything's wrong with this house. Then
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: she was gone. Lluan returned to his room. He crossed
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: straight to the window box. He opened the lid and
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: stood long looking at it. Then he closed it again
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: and turned away. That's rather frightening, he muttered. It's simply
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: not possible that I should not have removed that nail.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: End of chapter five, chapter six of The Beckoning Fair One.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: This Librivok's recording is in the public domain. The Beckoning
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Fair One by Oliver Onions, Chapter six. Olivan knew very
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: well what Elsie had meant when she had said that
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: her next visit would be preceded by a postcard. She
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: too had realized that at last, at last he knew, knew,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: and didn't want her. It gave him a miserable, pitiful pang. Therefore,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: when she came again within a week, knocking at the
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: door unannounced, she spoke from the landing. She did not
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: intend to stay, she said, and he had to press
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: her before she would so much have enter. Her excuse
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: for calling was that she had heard of an inquiry
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: for short stories that he might be wise to follow up.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: He thanked her. Then her business over, she seemed anxious
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: to get away again. Oliwan did not seek to detain her,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: even he saw through the pretext of the stories and
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: he accompanied her down the stairs, but Elsie Bengo had
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: no luck whatever in that house. A second accident befell
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: her half way down the staircase. There was the sharp
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: sound of splintering wood, and she checked a loud cry
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: Olieran knew the woodwork to be old, but he himself
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: had descended and descended frequently enough without mishap. Elsie had
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: put her foot through one of the stairs. He sprang
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: to her side in alarm. Oh, I say, my poor girl,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: she laughed hysterically. It's no wait, I know I'm getting fat.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Keep still, get me clear these splinters away, he muttered
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: between his teeth. She continued to laugh and sob that
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: it was her weight she was getting fat. He thrust
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: downwards at the broken boards. The extrication was no easy matter,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: and her torn wound showed him how badly the foot
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: and ankle within it must be upbraided. Good God, good god,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: he muttered, over and over again. I shall be too
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: heavy for anything soon. She sobbed and laughed, but she
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: refused to reascend and to examine her hurt. No, let
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: me go quickly, Let me go quickly, she repeated. But
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: it's a frightful gash, No, not so bad. Let me
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: get away quickly. I'm I'm not wanted. At her words
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: that she was not wanted, his head dropped as if
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: she had given him above it, Elsie, he choked brokenly
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: and shocked. But she too made a quick gesture as
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: if she put something violently aside. Oh, Paul, not that,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: not you. Of course I do mean that too, in
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: a sense. Oh you know what I mean. But if
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: the other can't be, spare me this now, I wouldn't
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: have come. But but oh I did. I did try
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: to keep away. It was intolerable, heartbreaking. But what could
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: he do, what could he say? He did not love her?
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: Let me go, I'm not wanted. Let me take away
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: what's left of me. Dear Elsie, you are very dear
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: to me. But again she made the gesture as of
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: putting something violently aside. No, not that, not anything less.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Don't offer me anything less, leave me a little pride.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Let me get my hat and coat. Let me take
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: you to a doctor, he muttered, but she refused. She refused,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: even the support of his arm. She gave another unsteady laugh.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry I broke your stairs, Pau. You will go
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: and see about the short stories, won't you, he groaned.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: Then if you won't see a doctor, will you go
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: across the square and let missus Barrett look at you? Look,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: there's Barrett passing now. The long nosed Barrett was looking
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: curiously down the alley, but as Olowan was about to
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: call him, he made off without a word. Elsie seemed
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: anxious for nothing so much as to be clear of
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: the place, and finally promised to go straight to a doctor,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: but insisted on going alone. Good Bye, she said, and
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Olieran watched her until she was past the hatchet like
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: to let boards, as if he feared that even they
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: might fall upon her and maim her. That night, Oliwan
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: did not dine. He had far too much on his mind.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: He walked from room to room of his flat, as
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: if he could have walked away from Elsie Bengoe's haunting
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: cry that still rang in his ears. I'm not wanted.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: Don't offer me anything less, let me take away what's
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: left of me. Oh, if he could only have persuaded
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: himself that he loved her. He walked until twilight fell. Then,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: without lighting candles, he stirred out the fire and flung
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: himself into a chair, Poor poor Elsie. But even while
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: his heart ached for her, it was out of the question.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: If only he had known, if only he had used
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: common observation, But those walks, those sisterly takings of the arm,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: would of all he had been well, it was too late.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Now It was she, not he who must now act
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: act by keeping away. He would help her all he could.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: He himself would not did in her presence. If she came,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: he would hurry her out again as fast as he could.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: Poor poor Elsie. His womb grew dark, the fire burned dead,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: and he continued to sit, wincing from time to time
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: as a fresh, tortured phrase rang again in his ears.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Then suddenly he knew not why, he found himself anxious
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: for her in a new sense, uneasy about her personal safety.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: A horrible fancy that even then she might be looking
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: open an embankment down into dark water, That she might
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: even now be glancing up at the hook on the
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: door took him. Women had been known to do these things.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: Then there would be an inquest, and he himself would
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: be called upon to identify her, and would be asked
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: how she had come by an ill healed wound on
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: the hand and a bad abrasion of the ankle bowret
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: would say that he had seen her leaving his house.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: Then he recognized that his thoughts were morbid by an
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: effort of will. He put them aside and sat for
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: a while, listening to the faint creakings and tickings and
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: wrappings within his paneling if only he could have married her,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: But he couldn't. Her face had risen before him again
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: as he had seen it on the stairs, drawn with pain,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: and ugly, and swollen with tears. Ugly, yes, positively blubbered.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: If tears weren't women's weapons, as they were said to be,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: such tears were weapons turned against themselves, suicide again, Then
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: all at once he found himself attentively considering her two
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: accidents extraordinary. They had been, both of them. He could
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: not have left that old nail standing in the wood.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: Why he had fetched tools, specially from the kitchen. And
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: he was convinced that that step that had been broken
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: beneath her weight could have been as sound as the others.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: It was inexplicable. If these things could happen, anything could happen.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: There was not a beam nor a jam in the
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: place that might not fall without warning, not a plank
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: that might not crash inwards, not a nail that might
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: not become a dagger. The whole place was full of life.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: Even now, as he sat there in the dark, he
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: heard its crowds of noises, as if the house had
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: been one great microphone, only half conscious that he did so.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: He had been sitting for some time, identifying these noises,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: attributing each crack or creak or not its material cause.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: But there was one noise which, again, not fully conscious
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: of the omission, he had not sought to account for.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: It had last come some minutes ago. It came again now,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: a sort of soft, sweeping rustle that seemed to hold
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: an almost inaudibly minute crackling for half a minute or so,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: it had Olivan's attention. Then his heavy thoughts were of
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: Elsie Bengal. Again. He was nearer to loving her in
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: that moment than he had ever been. He thought, how
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: to some men their loved ones were but the dearer
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: for those poor mortal blemishes that tell us we are
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: but sojourners on earth, with a common fate not far distant,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: that makes it hardly worth while to do anything but love,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: or the time remaining strangling sobs, blearing tears, bodies buffeted
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: by sickness, hearts and minds callous and hard with the
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: rubs of the world. How little love there would be?
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: Were these things a barrier to love? In that sense?
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: He did love Elsie Bengal what her happiness had never
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: moved in him, her sorrow almost awoke. Suddenly his meditation went.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: His ear had once more become conscious of that soft
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: and repeated noise, the long sweep with the almost inaudible
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: crackle in it. Again and again it came with a
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: curious insistence and urgency. It quickened a little as he
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: became increasingly attentive. It seemed to oli on that it
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: grew louder. All at once. He started bolt upright in
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: his chair, tense and listening. The silky rustle came again.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: He was trying to attach it to something. The next
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: moment he had leaped to his feet, unnerved and terrified.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: His chair hung poised for a moment, and then went over,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: setting the fire irons clattering as it fell. There was
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: only one noise in the world like that which had
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: caused him to spring bust to his feet. The next
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: time it came, Olowan felt behind himself at the empty
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: chair with his hand, and back slowly until he found
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: himself against the wall. God in heaven. The ejaculation broke
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: from Oliwan's lips. The sound had ceased. The next moment
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: he had given a high cry, is it? What's there?
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Who's there? A sound of scuttling caused his knees to
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: bend under him for a moment, but that he knew
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: was a mouse. That was not something that His stomach
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: turned sick, and his mind reeled to entertain. The other sound,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: the like of which was not in the world, had
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: now entirely ceased. And again he called. He called, and
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: continued to call, And then another terror, a terror of
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: the sound of his own voice, seized him. He did
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: not dare to call again. His shaking hands went to
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: his pocket for a match, but found none. He thought
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: there might be matches on the mantelpiece. He worked his
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: way to the mantelpiece round a little recess, without for
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: a moment leaving the wall. Then his hand encountered the
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: mantelpiece and groped along it. A box of matches fell
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: to the hearth. He could just see them in the firelight,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: but his hand could not pick them up until he
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: had cornered them inside the fender. Then he rose and
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: struck a light. The room was as usual. He struck
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: a second match. A candle stood on the table. He
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: lighted it, and the flame sank for a moment, and
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: then burned up clear again. He looked round. There was nothing.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: There was nothing, but there had been something, and might
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: still be something. Formerly. Olawan had smiled at the fantastic
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: thought that by emerging an interplay of identities between himself
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: and his beautiful room, he might be preparing a ghost
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: for the future. It had not occurred to him that
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: there might have been a similar merging and coalescence in
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: the past. Yet with this staggering impossibility, he was now
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: face to face. Something did persist in the house. It
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: had a tenant other than himself, And that tenant, whatsoever,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: or whosoever, had appalled all O soul by producing the
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: sound of a woman brushing her hair end of chapter six,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: chapter seven of The Beckoning Fair One. This librivoke's recording
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. The Beckoning fair One by
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: Oliver onions chapter seven. Without knowing how he came to
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: be there. Olion found himself striding over the loose board
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: he had temporarily placed on the step broken by miss Bengal.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: He was heartless and descending the stairs. Not until later
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: did there return to him a hazy memory that he
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: had left the candle burning on the table, had opened
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: the door no wider than was necessary to allow the
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: passage of his body, and had sidled out, closing the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: door softly behind him. At the foot of the stairs,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: another shock awaited him. Something dashed with a flurry up
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: from the disused cellars and disappeared out of the door.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: It was only a cat, but Oliwan gave a childish sob.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: He passed out of the gate and stood for a
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: moment under the toilette boards, plucking foolishly at his lip
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: and looking up at the glimmer of light behind one
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: of his red blinds. Then, still looking over his shoulder,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: he moved stumblingly up the square. There was a small
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: public house round the corner. Olowan had never entered it,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: but he entered it now and put down a shilling
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: that missed the counter by inches. The fern brandy, he said,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: and then stooped to look for the shilling. He had
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: the little sawdusted bar to himself. What company there was?
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: Carters and laborers and the small tradesmen of the neighborhood
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: was gathered in the farther compartment, beyond the space where
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: the white haired land laid moved among her caps and bottles.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: All a one sat down on a hardwood settee with
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: a perforated seat, drank half his brandy, and then, thinking
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: you might as well drink it as Filet finished it.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: Then he fell to wondering which of the men whose
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: voices he heard across the public house would undertake the
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: removal of his effects on the morrow. In the meantime,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: he ordered more brandy, for he did not intend to
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: go back to that room where he had left the
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: candle burning. Oh no, he couldn't have faced even the
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: entry and the staircase with the broken step, certainly not
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: that pith white, fascinating room. He would go back for
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: the present to his old arrangement of work room and
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: separate sleeping quarters. He would go to his old landlady
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: at once, presently, when he had finished his brandy, and
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: see if she could put him up for the night.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: His glass was empty now he rose, had it refed,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: filled and sat down again. And if anybody asked his
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: reason for removing again, oh he had reason enough. Reason enough.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: Nails that put themselves back into wood again and gashed
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: people's hands, steps that broke when you todd on them,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: and women who came into a man's place and brushed
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: their hair in the dark were reasons enough. He was
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: querulous and injured about it all. He had taken the
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: place for himself, not for invisible women to brush their
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: hair in that lawyer Fellow in Lincoln's Inn should be
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: told so too, before many hours were out. It was
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: outrageous letting people in for agreements like that. A cut
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: glass partition divided the compartment where Oliveron sat from the
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: space where the white haired Landlady moved, but it stopped
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: seven or eight inches above the level of the counter.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: There was no petition at the father bar presently. Oliver On,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: raising his eyes, saw that faces were waste him through
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: the aperture. The faces disappeared when he looked at them.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: He moved to a corner where he could not be
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: seen from the other bar, but this brought him into
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: line with the white haired landlady. She knew him by
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: sight had doubtless seen him passing and repassing, and presently
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: she made a remark on the weather. Olieran did not
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: know what he replied, but it sufficed to call forth
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: the further remark that the winter had been a bad
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: one for influenza, but that the spring weather seemed to
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: be coming at last. Even this slight contact with the commonplace,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: studied oler On a little, an idle nascent wonder whether
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: the landlady brushed her hair every night, and if so,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: whether it gave out those little electric cracklings. Was shut
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: down with a snap, and Oleran was better with his
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: next glass of brandy. He was all for going back
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: to his flat, not go back, indeed, he would go back.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: They should very soon see whether he was to be
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: turned out of his place. Like that, he began to
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: wonder why he was doing the rather unusual thing he
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: was doing at that moment, unusual for him, sitting hatless,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: drinking brandy in a public house. Suppose he were to
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: tell the white haired landlady all about it, to tell
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: her that a caller had scratched her hand on a
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: nail and later had the bad luck to put her
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: foot through a rotten stair, and that he himself, in
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: an old house full of squeaks and creeks and whispers,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: had heard a minute noise and had bolted from it
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: in fright. What would she think of him? That he
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: was man? Of course, the real truth of the matter
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: was that he hadn't been doing enough work to occupy him.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: He had been dreaming his days away, filling his head
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: with a lot of moonshine about a new Romilly, as
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: if the old one was not good enough. And now
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: he was advised that the devil should enter an empty head. Yes,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: he would go back. He would take a walk in
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: the air first, he hadn't walked enough lately, and then
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: he would take himself in hand, settle the hash of
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: that sixteenth chapter of Wromily fancy he had actually been
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: fool enough to think of destroying fifteen chapters, And thenceforward
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: he would remember that he had obligations to his fellow
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: men and work to do in the world. There was
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: the matter in a nutshell. He finished his brandy and
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: went out. He had walked for some time before any
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: other bearing of the matter than that on himself occurred
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: to him. At first, the fresh air had increased the
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: heavy effect of the brandy he had drunk. But afterwards
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: his mind grew clearer than it had been since morning.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: And the clearer it grew, the less final did his
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: boastful self assurances become, and the firmer his conviction that,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: when all explanations had been made, there remained something that
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: could not be explained. His hysteria of an hour before
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: had passed. He grew steadily calmer, but the disquieting conviction remained.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: A deep fear took possession of him. It was a
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: fear for Elsie, for something in his place was inimical
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: to her safety of themselves. Her two accidents might not
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: have persuaded him of this, but she herself had said it,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not wanted here, and she had declared that there
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: was something wrong with the place. She had seen it before.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: He had well and good, for one thing stood out clearly,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: namely that if this were so, she must be kept
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: away for quite another reason than that which had so
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: confounded and humiliated oler On. Luckily, she had expressed her
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: intention of staying away. She must be held to that intention.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: He must see to it, and he must see to it.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: All the more that he now saw his first impulse
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: never to set foot in the place again, was obsurd.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: People did not do that kind of thing. With Elsie
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: made secure, he could not, with any respect himself suffer
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: himself to be turned out by a shadow, not even
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: by a danger, merely because it was a danger. He
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: had to live somewhere, and he would live there. He
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: must return. He mastered the faint chill of fear that
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: came with a decision, and turned in his walk abruptly.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: Should fear grow on him again, he would perhaps take
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: one more glass of brandy. But by the time he
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: reached the short street that led to the square, he
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: was too late for more brandy. The little public house
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: was still lighted but closed, and one or two men
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: were standing talking on the curb along noticed that a
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: sudden silence fell on them as he passed, and he
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: noticed further that the long nosed barret whom he passed
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: a little lower down, did not return his good night.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: He turned in the broken gate, hesitated merely an instant
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: in the alley, and then mounted his stairs again. Only
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: an inch of candle remained in the Sheffield stick, and
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: Olian did not light another one. Deliberately, he forced himself
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: to take it up and to make the tour of
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: his five rooms before retiring. It was as he returned
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: from the kitchen across his little hall that he noticed
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: that a letter lay on the floor. He carried it
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: into his sitting room and glanced at the envelope before
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: opening it. It was unstamped and had been put into
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: the door by hand. Its handwriting was clumsy, and it
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: ran from beginning to end without comma or period. Olieran
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: read the first line, turned to the signature, and then
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: finished a letter. It was from the man Barrett, and
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: it informed oller On that he Barrett would be obliged
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: if mister Oliwan would make other arrangements for the preparing
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: of his breakfasts and the cleaning out of his place.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: This lay in the tail, that is to say, the PostScript.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: This consisted of a text of scripture. It embodied an
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: allusion that could only be to Elsie ben goll As
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: seldom seen. Frown had cut deeply into Oloran's brow. So
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: that was it very well? They would see about that
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: on the morrow. For the rest this seemed merely another
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: reason why Elsie should keep away. Then his suppressed rage
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: broke out the foul minded lot. The devil himself could
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: not have given a leer at anything that had ever
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: passed between Paul Olowan and Elsie ben Goll. Yet this
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: nosing rascal must be prying and talking. Oliwan crumpled the
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: paper up, held it in the candle flame, and then
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: ground the ashes under his heel. One useful purpose, however,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: the letter had served. It had created in oler on
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: a wrathful blaze that effectually banished the pale shadows. Nevertheless,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: one other puzzling circumstance was to close the day. As
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: he undressed, he chanced to glance at his bed. The
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: coverlets bore an impress as if somebody had lain on them.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: Olowan could not remember that he himself had lain down
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: during the day. Offhand, he would have said that certainly
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: he had not, But after all he could not be positive.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: His indignation for Elsie, acting possibly with the residue of
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: the brandy in him, excluded all other considerations, and he
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: put out his candle, lay down, and passed immediately into
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: a deep and dreamless sleep, which, in the absence of
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: missus Barrett's morning call, lasted almost once round the clock.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: End of chapter seven, Chapter eight of The Beckoning Fair one.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: This live Revark's recording is in the public domain. The
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: Beckoning Fair by Oliver onions chapter eight. To the man
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: who pays heed to that voice within him which warns
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: him that twilight and danger are settling over his soul,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: Terror is apt to appear an absolute thing against which
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: his heart must be safeguarded in a twinkle, unless there
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: is to take place and alteration in the whole range
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: and scale of his nature. Mercifully, he has never far
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: to look for safeguards of the immediate and small, and
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: common and momentary things of life, of usages and observances,
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: and modes and conventions. He builds up fortifications against the
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: powers of darkness. He is even content that not terror only,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: but joy also, should, for working purposes, be placed in
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: the category of the absolute things. And the last treason
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: he will commit will be that breaking down of terms
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: and limits that strikes not at one man, but at
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: the welfare of the souls of all. In his own person.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: All began to commit this treason. He began to commit
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: it by admitting the inexplicable and horrible to an increasing familiarity.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: He did it insensibly, unconsciously, by a neglect of the
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: things that he now regarded it as an impertinence. In
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: Elsie van Gold to have prescribed two months before the
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: words a haunted house applied to his lovely bemusing dwelling
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: would have chilled his marrow. Now, his scale of sensation
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: becoming depressed, he could ask haunted by what, and remain unconscious.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: That horror, when it can be proved to be relative
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: by so much, loses its proper quality. He was setting
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: aside the landmarks, mists, and confusion had begun to unwrap him,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: and he was conscious of nothing so much as of
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: a voracious inquisitiveness He wanted to know. He was resolved
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: to know nothing. But the knowledge would satisfy him, And
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: craftily he cast about from means whereby he might attain it.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: He might have spared his craft. The matter was the
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: easiest imaginable, as in time past he had known in
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: his writing moments when his thoughts had seemed to rise
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: of themselves and to embody themselves in words not to
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: be altered afterwards. So now the questions he put himself
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: seemed to be answered, even in the moment of their asking.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: There was exhilaration in the swift, easy processes. He had
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: known no such joy in his own power since the
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: days when his writing had been a daily freshness and
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: a delight to him. It was almost as if the
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: course he must pursue was being dictated to him, And
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: the first thing he must do, of course, was to
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: define the problem. He defined it in terms of mathematics,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: Granted that he had not the place to himself, Granted
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: that the old house had inexpressibly caught and engaged his spirit.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: Granted that, by virtue of the common denominator of the place,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: this unknown co tenant stood in some relation to himself.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: What next, Clearly the nature of the other numertor must
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: be ascertained. And how ordinarily this would not have seemed simple,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: But to Olleron it was now pellucidly clear. The key,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: of course, lay in his half written novel, or rather
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: in both romillies, the old and the proposed new ones.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: A little while before, Oleron would have thought himself mad
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: to have embraced such an opinion. Now he accepted a
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: dizzying hypothesis without a quiver. He began to examine the
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: first and second Romillis. From the moment of his doing so,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: the thing advanced by leaps and bands. Swiftly he reviewed
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: the history of the Romilly, of the fifteen chapters. He
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: remembered clearly now that he had found her insufficient on
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: the very first morning on which he had sat down
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: to work in his new place. Other instances of his
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: aversion leapt to confirm his obscure investigation. There had come
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: the night when he had hardly forborne to throw the
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: whole thing into the fire, and the next morning he
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: had begun the planning of the new Romily. It had
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: been on that morning that Missus Barrett, overhearing him humming
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: a brief phrase that the dripping of a tap the
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: night before had suggested, had informed him that he was
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: singing some air he had never in his life heard before,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: called the beckoning fair one, the beckoning fair One. With
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: scarcely a pause in thought, he continued. The first romily,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: having been definitely thrown over, the second had instantly fastened
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: herself upon him, clamoring for birth in his brain. He
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: even fancied, now, looking back, that there had been something
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: like passion hate almost in the supplanting, and that more
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: than once a stray thought given to his discarded creation had.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: It was astonishing how credible Oliver found the almost unthinkable
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: idea had offended the supplanter. Yet that alignancy, almost homicidal,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: should be extended to his fiction's poor, mortal prototype, in
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: spite of his inuring to a scale in which the
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: horrible was now a thing to be fingered and turned to.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: This way, and that a good God broke from Olier
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: on this intrusion of the first Romilly's prototype into his
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: thought again was the factor that, for the moment brought
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: his inquiry into the nature of this problem to a termination.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: The mere thought of Elsie was fatal to anything abstract.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: For another thing, he could not yet think of that
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: letter of Barret's, nor of a little thing that had
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: followed it, without a mounting of color and a quick
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: contraction of the brow. For wisely or not, he had
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: had that argument out at once. Striding across the square
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: on the following morning, he had bearded Barrett on his
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: own doorstep. Coming back again a few minutes later, he
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: had been strongly of the opinion that he had only
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: made matters worse. The man had been vagueness itself. He
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: had not been to be either challenged or browbeaten into
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: anything more definite than a muttered ferrago in which the
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: words certain things missus Barrett respectable house, if the cap
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: fits proceedings that shall be nameless had been constantly repeated.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: Not I make any charge ed concluded charge, Olowan had cried,
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: I have my ideas are things as I don't doubt
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: you of yours ideas mine. Oliwan had cried, wrathfully, immediately
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: dropping his voice, as heads had appeared at windows of
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: the square. Look you here, my man, You've an unwholesome
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: mind which poorly you can't help, but a tongue which
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: you can help, and shall if there is a breath
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: of this repeated, I'll not be talked to on my
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: own door step like this by anybody. Barrett had blustered,
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: You shall, and I'm doing it. Don't you forget there's
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: a god above all who has said you're a low scandalmonger,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: and so forth, continuing badly what was already badly begun.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: Olwan had returned wrathfully to his own house, and thenceforward,
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: looking out of his windows, had seen Bowret's face at
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: odd times, lifting blinds or peering round curtains, as if
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: he sought to put himself in possession of heaven, knew
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: what evidence in case it should be required of him.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: The unfortunate occurrence made certain minor differences in Oland's domestic arrangements.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: Bowret's tongue. He was gathered had already been busy. He
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: was looked at askance by the dwellers of the square,
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: and he judged it better untill he should be able
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: to obtain other help to make his purchases of provisions
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: a little farther afield, rather than at the small shops
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: of the immediate neighborhood. For the rest, housekeeping was no
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: new thing to him, and he would resume his old
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: bachelor habits. Besides, he was deep in certain rather obstruse investigations,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: in which it was better that he should not be disturbed.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: He was looking out of his window one mid day,
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: rather tired, not very well, and glad that it was
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: not very lightly you would have to stir out of doors,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: when he saw Elsie Bengal crossing the square towards his house.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: The weather had broken. It was a raw and gusty day,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: and she had to force her way against the wind
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: that set her ample skirts bellying about her opland figure
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: and her veils spinning and streaming behind her. Oloon acted
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: swiftly and instinctively, seizing his hat. He sprang to the
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: door and descended the stairs at a run. A sort
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: of panic had seized him. She must be prevented from
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: setting foot in the place. As he ran along the alley,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: he was conscious that his eyes went up to the eaves,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: as if something drew them. He did not know that
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: a slap might not accidentally fall. He met her at
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: the gate and spoke with curious vollibleness. This is really
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: too bad, Elsie, just as I'm urgently called away. I'm
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: afraid it can't be helped, though, and you'll have to
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: think me an inhospitable beast. He poured it out, just
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: as it came into his head. She asked if he
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: was going to town. Yes, Yes, to town, he replied,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: I've got to call on on Chambers. You know Chambers,
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: don't you? No? I remember you don't a big man
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: you once saw me with. I ought to have gone yesterday,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: and this, he felt to be a brilliant effort. And
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: he's going out of town this afternoon to Brighton. I
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: had a letter from him this morning. He took her
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: arm and led her up the square. She had to
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: remind him that his way to town lay in the
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: other direction. Of course, how stupid of me, he said,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: with a little loud laugh. I'm so used to going
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: the other way with you. Of course, it's the other
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: way to the bus. Will you come along with me?
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: I am so awfully sorry it's happened like this. They
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: took the street to the bus terminus. This time Elsie
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: bore no signs of having gone through interior struggles. If
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: she detected any thing unusual in his manner, she made
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: no comment, and he, seeing her calm, began to talk
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: less recklessly through silences. By the time they reached the
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: bus terminus, nobody, seeing the pallid faced man without an
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: overcoat and the large, ample skirted girl at his side,
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: would have supposed that one of them was ready to
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: sink on his knees for thankfulness that he had, as
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: he believed, saved the other from a wildly unthinkable danger.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: They mounted to the top of the bus, allthough on
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: protesting that he should not miss his overcoat, that he
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: found the day, if anything, hither oppressively hot. They sat
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: down on a front seat. Now that this meeting was
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: forced upon him, he had something else to say that
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: would make demands upon his tact. It had been on
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: his mind for some time, and was indeed peculiarly difficult
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: to put. He revolved it for some minutes, and then,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: remembering the success of his story of a sudden court
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: a town, cut the knot of his difficulty with another lie.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of going away for a little while, Elsie,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: he said. She merely said, oh, somewhere for a change.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: I need a change. I think I shall go to
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: morrow or the day after. Yes, to morrow, I think, yes,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: she replied. I don't quite know how long I shall be.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: He continued, I shall have to let you know when
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: I am back. Yes, let me know, she replied, in
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: an even tone. The tone was for her, suspiciously even.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: He was a little uneasy. You don't ask me where
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: I'm going, he said, with a little convass effort to
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: rally her. She was looking straight before her passed the
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: bus driver. I know, she said. He was startled. How
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: you know you're not going anywhere, she replied. He found
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: an not a word to say. It was a minute
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: or so before she continued in the same controlled voice
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: she had employed from the start. You're not going anywhere.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: You weren't going out this morning. You only came out
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: because I appeared. Don't behave as if we were strangers. Poor.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: A flush of pink had mounted to his cheeks. He
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: noticed that the wind had given her the pink of
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: early rhubarb. Still he found nothing to say. Of course
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: you ought to go away, she continued. I don't know
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: whether you look at yourself often in the glass, but
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: you're rather noticeable. Several people have turned to look at
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: you this morning, So of course you ought to go away.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: But you won't, and I know why. He shivered, coughed
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: a little, and then broke silence. Then, if you know,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: there's no use in continuing this discussion, he said curtly.
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: Not for me perhaps, but there is for you. She replied,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: Shall I tell you what I know? No, he said,
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: in a voice slightly raised, No, she asked, her round
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: eyes earnestly on him. No again, he was getting out
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: of patience with her. Again. He was conscious of the
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: strain her devotion and fidelity and love plagued him. She
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: was only humiliating both herself and him. It would have
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: been bad enough had he ever, by word or deed,
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: given her cause for thus fastening herself on him. But
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: there that was the worst of that kind of life
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: for a woman. Women such as she, business women in
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: and out of offices all the time, always, whether they
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: realized it or not, made comradeship a cover for something else.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: They accepted the unconventional status, came and went freely as
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: men did, and were honestly taken by men at their
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: own valuation. And then it turned out to be the
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: other thing after all, and they went and fell in love.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: No wonder, there was gossip in shops and squares and
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: public houses. In a sense, the gossipers were in the
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: right of it, independent yet not efficient, with some of
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: womanhood's graces foregone, and yet with all the woman's hunger
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: and need, half sophisticated yet not wise. All Arong was
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: tired of it all, and it was time, he told her. So,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: I suppose, he said, tremblingly, looking down between his knees.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: I suppose the real trouble is in the life. Women
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: who earn their own living are obliged to lead. He
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: could not tell in what sense she took the lame generality.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: She merely replied, I suppose so it can't be helped.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: He continued, but you do sacrifice a good deal. She agreed,
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: a good deal, and then she added, after a moment, what,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: for instance, you may or may not be gradually attaining
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: a new status, but you're in a false position to day.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: It was very likely. She said, she hadn't thought of
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: it much in that light, and he continued, desperately, You're
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: bound to suffer. Your most innocent acts are misunderstood, Motives
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: you never dreamed of are attributed to you, and in
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: the end it comes to He hesitated a moment, and
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: then took the plunge to the sidelong look and the leer.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: She took his meaning with perfect ease. She merely shivered
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: a little as she pronounced the name Barrett. His silence
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: told her the rest, anything further that was to be said,
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: must come from her. It came as the bus stopped
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: at the stage and fresh passengers mounted the stairs. You'd
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: better get down here and go back, Paul, she said,
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: I understand perfectly, perfectly. It isn't Barrett. You'd be able
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: to deal with Barrett. It's merely convenient for you to
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: say it's about it I know what it is, but
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: you said I wasn't to tell you that very well.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: But before you go, let me tell you why I
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: came up this morning. In a dull tone, he asked
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: her why again. She looked straight before her as she replied,
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: I came to force your hand. Things couldn't go on
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: as they have been going, you know. And now that's
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: all over, all over, he repeated, stupidly, all over. I
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: want you now to consider yourself, as far as I'm concerned,
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: perfectly free. I make only one reservation. He hardly had
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: the spirit to ask her what that was. If I
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: merely need you, she said, Please, don't give that a thought.
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: That's nothing. I sha'n't come near for that. But she
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: dropped her voice. If you're in need of me, Paul,
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: I shall know. If you are, and you will be,
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: then I shall come at no matter what cost. You
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: understand that. He could only groan the soul. That's understood.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: She concluded, And I think that's all. Now go back.
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: I should advise you to walk back for your shivering
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: good bye. She gave him a cold hand and he descended.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: He turned on the edge of the curb as the
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: bus started again. For the first time in all the
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: years he had known her. She parted from him with
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: no smile and no wave of her long arm. End
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: of Part eight, chapter nine of The Beckoning Fair One.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: This Librivog's recording is in the public domain. The Beckoning
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: Fair One by Oliver Onion, Chapter nine. He stood on
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: the curb, plunged in misery, looking after her as long
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: as she remained in sight. But almost instantly with her disappearance,
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: he felt the heaviness lift a little from his spirit.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: She had given him his liberty. True, there was a
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: sense in which he had never parted with it. But
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: now was no time for splitting hairs. He was free
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: to act, and all was clear ahead. Swiftly the sense
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: of lightness grew on him. It became a positive rejoicing
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: in his liberty, and before he was half way home
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: he had decided what must be done next. The vicar
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: of the parish in which his dwelling was situated lived
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: within ten minutes of the square to his house. Oleron
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: turned his steps. It was necessary that he should have
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: all the information he could get about this old house,
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: for the insurance marks and the sloping to let boards,
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: and theer was the person most likely to be able
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: to furnish it. This last preliminary out of the way,
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: and aha Olwen shuffled. Things might be expected to happen,
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: but he gained less information than he had hoped for.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: The house, the vicar said, was old, but there needed
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: no vicar to tell Oloan that it was reputed. Olwen
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: picked up his ears to be haunted. But there were
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: few old houses about which some such rumor did not
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: circulate among the ignorant and the deplorable lack of faith
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: of the modern world. The vicar thought, did not tend
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: to dissipate these superstitions for the rest. His manner was
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: the soothing manner of one who prefers not to make
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: statements without knowing how they will be taken by his hearer.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: Oliveron smiled as he perceived this. You may leave my
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: nerves out of the question. He said, how long has
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: the place been empty? A dozen years, I should say,
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: the vicar replied, and the last tenant, did you know
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: him or her? Oluan was conscious of a tingling of
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: his nerves as he offered the vicar the alternative of
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: sex him, said the vicar, A man if I remember rightly.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: His name was Madly, an artist, he was a great recluse,
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: seldom went out of the place, and the vicar hesitated
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: and then broke into a little gush of candle. And
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: since you appear to have come for this information, and
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: since it is better that the truth should be told
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: than that garbled versions should get about, I don't mind
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: saying that this man Madly died there under somewhat unusual circumstances.
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: It was ascertained at the post mortem that there was
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: not a particle of food in his stomach, although he
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: was found to be not without money, and his frame
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: was simply worn out. Suicide was spoken of, but you
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: will agree with me that deliberate starvation is, to say
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: the least, an uncommon form of suicide. An open verdict
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: was returned, Ah said Oliwan. Does there happen to be
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: any comprehensive history of this parish? No partial ones? Only?
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: I myself am not guiltless of having made a number
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: of notes on its purely ecclesiastical history, its registers and
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: so forth, which I shall be happy to show you
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: if you would care to see them. But it is
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: a large parish. I have only one court and my leisure,
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: as you will readily understand, the extent of the parish
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: and the scantiness of the vicar's leisure, occupied the remainder
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: of the interview, and Oliwan thanked the vicar, took his
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: leave and walked slowly home. He walked slowly for a reason,
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: twice turning away from the house within a stone's flow
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: of the gate, and taking another turn of twenty minutes
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: or so. He had a very ticklish piece of work
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: now before him. It required the greatest mental concentration. It
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: was nothing less than to bring his mind, if he
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: might right, into such a state of unpreoccupation and receptivity
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: that he should see the place as he had seen
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: it on that morning, when his removal accomplished, he had
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: sat down to begin the sixteenth chapter of the First Romilly.
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: For could he recapture that first impression? He now hoped
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: for far more from it. Formerly, he had carried no
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: end of mental lumber before the influence of the place
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: had been able to find him out at all. It
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: had the inertia of those dreary chapters to overcome. No
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: results had shown. The process had been one of slow saturation,
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: charging filling up to a brim. But now he was light,
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: unburdened rid at last, both of that Romilly and of
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: her prototype. Now for the new unknown KOI jealous, bewitching,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: beckoning affairs. At half past two of the afternoon, he
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: put his key into the Yale, entered, and closed the
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: door behind him. His fantastic attempt was instantly and astonishingly successful.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: He could have shouted with triumph as he entered the room.
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: It was as if he had escaped into it once more,
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: as in the days when his writing had had a
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: daily freshness and wonder and promise for him. He was
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: conscious of that new ease and mastery and exhilaration and release.
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: The air of the place seemed to hold more oxygen,
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: as if his own specific gravity had changed. His very
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: tread seemed less ponderable. The flowers in the bowls, the
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: fair proportions of the meadow street, colored panels and moldings,
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: the polished floor, and the lofty and faintly starred ceiling
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: fairly laughed their welcome. Olon actually laughed back, and he
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: spoke aloud, Oh you're pretty pretty, He flattered it. Then
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: he lay down on his couch. He spent that afternoon
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: as a convalescent who expected a dear visitor might have
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: spent it in a delicious vacancy, smiling now and then
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: as if in his sleep, and ever lifting drowsy and
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: contented eyes to his alluring surroundings. He lay thus until
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: darkness came, and with darkness the nocturnal noises of the
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: old house. But if he waited for any specific happening,
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: he waited in vain. He waited similarly in vain on
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: the morrow, maintaining, though with less ease, that sensitized plate
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: like condition of his mind. Nothing occurred to give it
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: an impression. Whatever it was which he so patently wooed,
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: it seemed to be both shy and exacting. Then on
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: the third day he thought he understood a look of gentle,
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: drollery and cunning came into his eyes, and he chuckled,
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: Oh ha h ha, Well, if the wind sits in
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: that quarter, we must see what else there is to
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: be done? What is there now? No, I won't send
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: for Elsie. We don't need a wheel to break the
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: butterfly on. We won't go to those lengths my butterfly.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: He was standing musing, thumbing his lean jaw, looking aslant.
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: Suddenly he crossed to his hall, took down his hat,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: and went out. My lady is coquettish, is she? Well,
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: we'll see what a little neglect will do, he chuckled
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: as he went down the stairs. He sought a railway station,
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: got into a train, and spent the rest of the
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: day in the country. Oh yes, alla one thought he
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: was the man to deal with fair ones who beckoned
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: and invited, and then took refuge in shyness and hanging back.
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: He did not return until after eleven that night. Now,
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: my fair beckoner, he murmured as he walked along the
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: alley and felt in his pocket for his keys. Inside
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: his flat, he was perfectly composed, perfectly deliberate, exceedingly careful
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: not to give himself away, as if to intimate that
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: he intended to retire immediately. He lighted only a single candle,
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: and as he set out with it on his nightly round,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: he affected to yawn. He went first into his kitchen.
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: There was a full moon, and a lozenge of moonlight,
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: almost pecock blue by contrast with his candleplane, lay on
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: the floor. The window was uncurtained, and he could see
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: the reflection of the candle, and faintly that of his
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: own face as he moved about. The door of the
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: powder closet stood a little ajar, and he closed it
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: before sitting down to remove his boots on the chair.
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: With the cushion made of the folded heart bag from
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: the kitchen, he passed to the bathroom. There another slant
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: of blue moonlight cut the window sill and lay across
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: the pipes on the wall. He visited his seldom used
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: study and stood for more gazing at the silvered roofs
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: across the square. Then walking straight through his sitting room,
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: his stockinged feet making no noise, he entered his bedroom
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: and put the candle on the chest of drawers. His
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: face all this time wore no expression save that of tiredness.
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: He had never been wilier nor more alert. His small
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: bedroom fireplace was opposite the chest of drawers on which
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: the mirror stood, and his bed and the window occupied
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: the remaining sides of the room. Olieran drew down his blind,
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: took off his coat, and then stooped to get his
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: slippers from under the bed. He could have given no
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: reason for the conviction, but that the manifestation that for
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: two days, had been withheld, was close at hand. He
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: never for an instant doubted, nor though he could not
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: form the faintest guess of the shape it might take,
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: did he experience fear, startling or surprising. It might be
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: he was prepared for that, but that was all His
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: scale of sensation had become depressed. His hand moved this
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: way and that under the bed in search of his slippers.
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: But for all his caution and method and preparedness, his
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: heart all at once gave a leap and a pause
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: that was almost horrid. His hand had found the slippers,
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: but he was still on his knees. Save for this circumstance,
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: he would have fallen. The bed was a low one.
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: The groping for the slippers accounted for the turn of
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: his head to one side, and he was careful to
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: keep the attitude until he had partly recovered his self possession.
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: When presently he rose, there was a drop of blood
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: on his lower lip, where he had caught at it
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: with his teeth, and his watch had jerked out of
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: the pocket of his waistcoat and was dangling at the
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: end of its short leather guard. Then, before the watch
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: had seized his little oscillation. He was himself again. In
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: the middle of his mantelpiece. There stood a picture, a
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: portrait of his grandmother. He placed himself before this picture
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: so that he could see in the glass of it
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: the steady flame of the candle that burned behind him
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: on the chest of drawers. He could see also in
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: the picture glass the little glancings of light from the
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: bevels and facets of the objects about the mirror and candle.
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: But he could see more. These twinklings and reflections and
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: re reflections did not change their position. But there was
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: one gleam that had motion. It was fainter than the rest,
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: and it moved up and down through the air. It
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: was the reflection of the candle on Oliwan's black vulcanite comba,
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: and each of its dangward movements was accompanied by a
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: silky and crackling rustle. Olowan, watching what went on in
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: the glass of his grandmother's portrait, continued to play his part.
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: He felt for his dangling watch and began slow to
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: wind it up. Then, for a moment, ceasing to watch,
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: he began to empty his trousers pockets and to place
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: methodically in a little row on the mantelpiece. The pennies
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: and half pennies he took upon them. The sweeping minutely
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: electric noise filled the whole bedroom, and had Oliwan altered
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: his point of observation, he could have brought the dim
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: gleam of the moving comb so into position that it
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: would almost have outlined his grandmother's head, any other head
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: of which it might have been. Following the outline was invisible.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: Olian finished the emptying of his pockets, then under cover
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: of another simulating yawn, not so much summoning his resolution
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: as overmastered by an exorbitant curiosity. He swung suddenly round.
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: That which was being combed was still not to be seen.
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: But the comb did not stop. It had altered its
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: angle a little, and had moved a little to the left.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: It was passing in fairly regus the sweeps from a
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: point rather more than five feet from the ground in
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: a direction roughly vertical to another point a few inches
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: below the level of the chest of drawers. Olian continued
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: to act to admiration. He walked to his little washstand
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: in the corner, poured out water, and began to wash
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: his hands. He removed his waistcoat and continued his preparations
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: for bed. The combing did not cease, and he stood
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: for a moment in thought. Again, his eyes twinkled. The
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: next was very cunning. Hum, I think I'll read a
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: quarter of an hour, he said aloud. He passed out
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: of the room. He was away a couple of minutes.
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: When he returned again, the room was suddenly quiet. He
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: glanced at the chest of drawers. The comb lay still
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: between the collar he had removed and a pair of gloves.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: Without hesitation, Olwan put out his hand and picked it up.
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: It was an ordinary eighteen penny comb, taken from a
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: card in a chemist's shop, of a substance, of a
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: definite specific gravity, and no more capable of rebellion against
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: the laws by which it existed than are the worlds
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: that keep their orbits through the void. Olowan put it
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: down again. Then he glanced at the bundle of papers
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: he held in his hands. What he had gone to
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: fetch had been the fifteen chapters of the original Womily hum,
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: he muttered as he threw the manuscript into a chair.
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: As I thought, she is just blindly, ragingly, murderously jealous.
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: On the night after that, and on the following night,
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: and for many nights and days, so many that he
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: began to be uncertain about the account of them, oloon, courting, cajoling, neglecting, threatening, beseeching,
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: eaten out with unappeased curiosity, and regardless that his life
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: was becoming one consuming passion and desire, continued his search
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: for the unknown co enumerator of his abode end of
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: chapter nine, Part ten of The Beckoning Fair One. This
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: librivoke's recording is in the public domain, read by more
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: than Scorpions. The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions, Chapter ten.
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: As time went on, it came to pass that few
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: except the postman mounted oler on stairs. And since men
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: who do not write letters receive few, even the postman's
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: tread became so infrequent that it was not heard more
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: than once or twice a week. There came a letter
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: from Oleran's publishers, asking when they might expect to receive
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: the manuscript of his new book. He delayed for some
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: time to answer it, and finally forgot it. A second
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: letter came, which he also failed to answer. He received
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: no third. The weather grew bright and warm, the privid
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: bushes among the chopperlike notice boards flowered, and in the
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: streets where Oloran did his shopping, the baskets of flower
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: women lined the curves. Olieran purchased flowers daily. His room
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: clamored for flowers, fresh and continually renewed, and Oloran did
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: not stint its demands. Nevertheless, the necessity for going out
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: to buy them began to irk him more and more,
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: and it was with a greater and ever greater sense
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: of relief that he returned home again. He began to
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: be conscious that again his scale of sensation had suffered
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: a subtle change, a change that was not restoration to
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: its former capacity, but an extension and enlarging that once
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: more included terror. It admitted it in an entirely new
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: form lux orco tenebie joviy. The name of this terror
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: was agoraphobia. Olover had begun to dread air and space
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: and the horror that might pounce upon the unguarded back. Presently,
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: he so contrived it that his food and flowers were
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: delivered daily at his door. He rubbed his hands when
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: he had hit upon this expedient. That was better. Now
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: he could please himself, whether he went out or not
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: quickly he was confirmed in his choice. It became his
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: pleasure to remain inured. But he was not happy, or
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: if he was, his happiness took an extraordinary turn. He
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: fretted discontentedly, could sometimes have wept for mere weakness and misery.
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: And yet he was dimly conscious that he would not
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: have exchanged his sadness for all the noisy mirth of
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: the world outside. And speaking of noise, noise, much noise,
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: now caused him the acutest discomfort. It was hardly more
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: to be endured than that new born fear that kept
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: him on the increasingly rare occasions when he did go out,
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: sidling close to walls and feeling friendly railings with his hand.
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: He moved from room to room softly and in snippers,
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: and sometimes stood for many seconds closing a door so
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: gently that not a sound broke the stillness that was
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: in itself a delight. Sunday now became an intolerable day
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: to him, for since the coming of the fine weather
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: there had begun to assemble in the square under his
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: windows each Sunday morning, certain members of the sect to
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: which the long nosed barret adhered. These came with a
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: great drum and large brass bellied instruments, men and women
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: uplifted anguish voices, struggling with their God, and Barrett himself,
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: with upraised face and closed eyes and working brows, prayed
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: that the sound of his voice might penetrate the ears
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: of all unbelievers, as its certainly did Oloran's. One day,
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: in the middle of one of these rhapsodies, Oloran sprang
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: to his blind and pulled it down, and heard as
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: he did so, his own name made the subject of
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: a fresh torrent of outpouring. And sometimes, but not as
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: expecting a reply, Oloran stood still and called softly. Once
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: or twice he called womily, and then waited, But more
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: often his whispering did not take the shape of a name.
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: There was one spot in particular of his abode that
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: he began to haunt with increasing persistency. This was just
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: within the opening of his bedroom door. He had discovered
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: one day that by opening every door in his place,
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: always excepting the outer one, which he only opened unwillingly,
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: and by placing himself on this particular spot, he could
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: actually see to a greater or less extent into each
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: of his five rooms without changing his position. He could
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: see the whole of his sitting room, all of his
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: bedroom except the part hidden by the open door, and
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: glimpses of his kitchen, bathroom, and of his rarely used study.
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: He was often in this place breathless and with his
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: finger on his lip. One day, as he stood there,
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: he suddenly found himself wondering whether this madly of whom
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: the Vicar had spoken had ever discovered the strategic importance
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: of the bedroom entry. Light moreover, now caused him greater
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: disquietude than did darkness. Direct sunlight, of which as the
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: sun passed daily round the house each of his wounds
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: now had its share, was like a flame in his brain.
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: An even diffused light was a dull and numbing ache.
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: He began, at successive hours of the day, one after another,
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: to lower his crimson blinds. He made short and daring
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: its urgeons in order to do this, but he was
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: ever careful to leave his retreat open in case he
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: should have sudden need of it. Presently, this lowering of
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: the blinds had become a daily methodical exercise, and his rooms,
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: when he had been his round, had the blood red
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: half light of a photographer's dark room. One day, as
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: he drew down the blind of his little study, and
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: back in a good order out of the room. Again
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: he broke into a soft laugh. That bilks mister Barrett,
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: he said, And the baffling of Barrett continued to afford
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: him mirth for an hour. But on another day, soon
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: after he had a fright that left him trembling also
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: for an hour. He had seized the cord to darken
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: the window over the seat in which he had found
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: the half bag, and was standing with his back well
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: protected in the embrasure, when he thought he saw the
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: tail of a black and white checked skirt disappear round
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: the corner of the house. He could not be sure.
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: He had run to the window of the other wall,
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: which was blinded, the skirt must have already passed, but
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: he was almost sure that it was Elsie. He listened
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: in an agony of suspense for her tread on the stairs,
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: but no tread came, and after three or four minutes
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: he drew a long breath of relief. By Jove, but
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: that would have compromised me horribly, he muttered, And he
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: continued to mutter from time to time, horribly compromising. No
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: woman would stand that, not any kind of woman, Oh,
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: compromising in the extreme. Yet he was not happy. He
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: could not have assigned the cause of the fits of
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: quiet weeping which took him. Sometimes they came and went
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: like the fitful illumination of the clouds that traveled over
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: the square. And perhaps, after all, if he was not happy,
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: he was not unhappy. Before he could be unhappy, something
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: must have been withdrawn. And nothing had yet been withdrawn
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: from him, for nothing had been granted. He was waiting
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: for that granting in that flower laden frightfully enticing apartment
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: of his with the pierce white walls, tinged and subdued
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: by the crimson blinds to a bloodlike gloom. He paid
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: no heed to it that his stock of money was
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: running periously low, not that he had ceased to work,
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: cease to work. He had not ceased to work. They
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: knew very little about it. Who supposed that Oliwan had
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: ceased to work? He was, in truth only now beginning
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: to work. He was preparing such a work, such a work,
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: such a mistress, was a making in the gestation of
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: his art. Let him but get this period of probation
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: and poignant waiting over, and men should see. How should
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: men know her, this fair one of Oliwan's, until Olowan
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: himself knew her lovely, radiant creations are not thrown off
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: like how he dos. The men to whom it is
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: committed to father them must weep wretched tears, as Oleron did,
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: must swell with vain, presumptuous hopes, as Oloron did, must pursue,
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: as Oloron pursued. The capricious, fair, mocking, slippery, eager spirit
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: that ever eluding ever sees to it that the chase
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: does not slacken. Let Oloon but hunt this mistress a
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: little longer. He would have her sparkling and panting in
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: his arms. Yet, oh no, they were very far from
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: the truth. Who supposed that Oliwan had ceased to work?
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: And it all else was falling away from Oloran gladly
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: he was letting it go. So do we all, when
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: our fair ones beckon quite at the beginning, we wink
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: and promise ourselves that we will put her ladyship through
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: her paces, neglect her for a day, turn her own
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: jealous wilds against her flout, and ignore her when she
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: comes wheeling. Perhaps their lurks within us all the time
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: are heartless spite who is never fooled. But in the
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: end all falls away. She beckons beckons, and all goes.
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: And so Olon kept his strategic post within the frame
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: of his bedroom door, and watched and waited and smiled
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: with his finger on his lips. It was his duteous service,
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: his worship, his truth, blighting all that he had ever
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: known of love. And when he found himself as he
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: now and then did, hating the dead man madly and
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: wishing that he had never lived, he felt that that,
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: too was an acceptable service. But as he thus prepared himself,
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: as it were, for a marriage, and moped and chafed
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: more and more that the bride made no sign, he
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: made a discovery that he ought to have made weeks before.
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: It was through a thought of the dead madly that
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: he made it. Since that night, when he had thought
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: in his greenness that a little studied neglect would bring
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: the lovely Beckoner to her knees, and had made use
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: of her own jealousy to banish her, he had not
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: set eyes on those fifteen discarded chapters of Romily. He
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: had thrown them back into the window seat, forgotten their
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: very existence. But his own jealousy of madly put him
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: in mind of hers, of her jilted rival, of flesh
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: and blood, and he remembered them all that he had been.
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: Had He then expected his desire to manifest herself while
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: there still existed the evidence of his divided allegiance. What
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: and she, with a passion so fierce and scented that
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: it had not hesitated at the destruction twice, attempted of
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: her rival all that he had been. But if that
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: was all the pledge and sacrifice she required, he should
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: have it. Ah, Yes, And quickly he took the manuscript
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: from the window seat and brought it to the fire.
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: He kept his fire always burning. Now the warmth brought
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: out the last vestige of odor of the flowers with
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: which his room was banked. He did not know what
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: time it was, long since he had allowed his clock
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: to run down. It had seemed a foolish measure of
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: time in regard to the stupendous things that were happening
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 1: to Olivan, But he knew it was late. He took
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: the Romilly manuscript and knelt before the fire. But he
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: had not finished removing the fastening that held the sheets
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: together before he suddenly gave a start, turned his head
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: over his shoulder and listened intently. The sound he had
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: heard had not been loud. It had been indeed no
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: more than a tap twice or thrice repeated, but it
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: had filled oliver On with alarm. His face grew dark.
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: As it came again. He heard a voice outside on
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: his landing. Paul, Paul. It was Elsie's voice, Paul, I
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: know you're in I want to see you. He cursed
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: her under his breath, but kept perfectly still. He did
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: not intend to admit her. Paul, you're in trouble. I
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: believe you're in danger. At least come to the door.
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: Oliveran smothered a low laugh. It somehow amused him that she,
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: in such danger herself, should talk to him of his danger. Well,
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: if she was serve her right, she knew, or said
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: she knew all about it. Paul, Paul, Paul Paul. He
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: mimicked her under his breath. Oh Paul, it's horrible, horrible,
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: was it? Thought Oliveran. Then let her get away. I
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: only want to help you, Paul. I didn't promise not
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: to come if you needed me. He was impervious to
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: the pitiful sob that interrupted the low cry. The devil
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: take the woman. Should he shout to her to go
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: away and not come back. No, let her call and
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: knock and sob. She had a gift for sobbing. She
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: mustn't think her sobs would move him. They irritated him
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: so that he set his teeth and shook his fist
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: at her. But that was all. Let her sob Paul Paul,
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: with his teeth hard set, he dropped the first page
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: of Romilly into the fire. Then he began to drop
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: the rest in sheet by sheet. For many minutes, the
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: calling behind his door continued, Then suddenly it ceased. He
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: heard the sound of feet slowly descending the stairs. He
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: listened for the noise of a fall, or the crash
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: of a piece of the hand rail of the upper landing,
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: but none of these things came. She was spared. Apparently
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 1: her rival suffered her to call abject and beaten away.
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: Olowan heard the passing of her steps under his window.
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: Then she was gone. He dropped the last page into
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: the fire, and then, with a low laugh rose He
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: looked fondly round his room. Lucky to get away like that,
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: he remarked, she wouldn't have got away if I'd given
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: her as much as a word or a look what
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 1: devils these women are? But no, I oughtn't to say
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: that one of them showed forbearance? Who showed forbearance? And
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: what was forborne? Ah Olloon knew contempt, no doubt had
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: been at the bottom of it. But that didn't matter.
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: The pestering creature had been allowed to go unharmed. Yes,
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: she was lucky. Ollo On hoped she knew it. And
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: now now now for his reward. Aloan crossed the room.
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: All his doors were open, his eyes shone as he
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: placed himself within that of his bedroom. Fall that he
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: had been not to think of destroying the manuscript sooner?
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: How in a house full of shadows should he know
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 1: his own shadow? How in a houseful of noises distinguished
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: the summons he felt to be at hand? A trust
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: him he would know. The place was full of a
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 1: juggery of dim lights. The blind at his elbow that
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 1: allowed the first light of a street lamp to struggle
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: vaguely through the glimpse of greeny blue moonlight seen through
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 1: the distant kitchen door, the sulky glow of the fire
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 1: under the black ashes of the burnt manuscript, the glimmering
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: of the tulips and the moon, daisies and narcissi in
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: the balls and jugs and jars. These did not so
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: trick and bewilder his eyes that he would not know
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: his own. It was he, not she, who had been
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: delaying the shadowy bridle. He hung his head a moment
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: in mute acknowledgment. Then he bent his eyes on the deceiving,
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: puzzling gloom again. He would have called her name, had
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: he known it, But now he would not ask her
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: to share even a name with the other. His own
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: face within the frame of the door glimmered white as
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: the narcissi in the darkness. A shadow light as fleece,
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: seemed to take shape in the kitchen. The time had
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: been when Olwan would have said that a cloud had
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: passed over the unseen moon, the low illumination on the blind,
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: that his elbow grew dimmer. The time had been when
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: Olowan would have concluded that the lamp light her going
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: his rounds, had turned low the flame of the lamp.
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: The fire settled, letting down the black and charred papers.
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: A flower fell from a ball and lay indistinct upon
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: the floor. All was still, and then the stray draft
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: moved to the old house, passing before Olian's face. Suddenly,
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: in climbing his head, he withdrew a little from the
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: door jam. The wandering draft had caused a door to
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: move a little on its hinges. Olivan trembled violently, stood
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: for a moment longer, and then, putting his hand out
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: to the knob, softly threw the door too, sat down
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: on the nearest chair, and waited, as a man might
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: await the calling of his name that should summon him
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: to some weighty, high and privy audience. End of Part ten,
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven of The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions.
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: Morgan's Scorpion. Chapter ten of the Beckoning by Oliver Onions.
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: One knows not whether there can be human compassion for
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: anemia of the soul. When the pitch of life is dropped,
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: and the spirit is so put over and reversed, that
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: that only is horrible, which before both sweet and worldly,
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: and of the day the human relation disappears. The same
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: soul turns appalled away, lest not merely itself but sanity
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: should suffer. We are not God's We cannot drive out devils.
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: We must see selfishly to it that devils do not
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: enter into ourselves. And this we must do, even though
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: love so transfuse us, that we may well deem our
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: nature to be half divine. We shall but speak of
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: honor and duty in vain. The letter dropped within the
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: dark door will lie unregarded, or if regarded, for a
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: brief instant between two unspeakable lapses, left left and forgotten again,
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: the telegram will be undelivered. Nor will the whistling messenger
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: wiselier guided than he knows to whistle, be conscious as
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: he walks away of the drawn blind that is pushed
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: aside an inch by a finger, and then fearfully replaced again. No,
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: let the miserable wrestle with his own shadows. Let him,
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: if indeed he be so mad, clip and strain, and
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: unfold and couch the succubus. But let him do so
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: in a house into which not an air of heaven penetrates,
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: not a bright finger of the sun pierces the filthy twilight.
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: The lost must remain lost. Humanity has other business to
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: attend to. For the handwriting of the two letters that
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: oler on stealing noiselessly one June day into his kitchen
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: to rid his sitting room of an armful of vetted
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 1: and decaying flowers. Has seen on the floor within his
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: door had had no more meaning for him than if
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: it had belonged to some dim and far away dream.
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: And at the beating of the telegraph boy upon the
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: door within a few feet of the bed where he lay,
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: he had gnashed his teeth and stopped his ears. He
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: had pictured the lad standing there just beyond his partition,
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: among packets of provisions and bundles of dead and dying flowers,
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: for his outer landing was littered with these. Oliwan had
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: feared to open his door to take them in. After
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 1: a week, the errand lad had reported that there must
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: be some mistake about the order, and left no more inside.
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: In the red twilight, the old flowers turned brown and
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: fell and decayed where they lay. Gradually, his power was
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: draining away. The abomination fastened on Olian's power. The steady
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: sapping sometimes left him for many hours of prostration, gazing
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: vacantly up at his red tinged ceiling, idly suffering such
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: fancies as King of themselves to have their way with him.
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: Even the strongest of his memories had no more than
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: a precarious hold upon his attention. Sometimes our flitting half
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: memory of a novel to be written. A novel it
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: was important that he should write, cantialized him for a
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: space before vanishing again. And sometimes whole novels, perfect splendid
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: established to endure, rose magically before him. And sometimes the
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: memories were absurdly remote and trivial, of garrets he had inhabited,
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: and lodgings that had sheltered him, and so forth. Oloon
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: had known a good deal about such things in his time,
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: But all that was now past. He had at last
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: found a place which he did not intend to leave
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 1: until they fetched him out. A place that some might
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 1: have thought a little on the green sick side, that
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 1: others might have considered to be a little too redolent
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: of long dead and morbid things for a living man
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: to be mewed up in. But ah so irresistible, with
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: such an authority of its own, with such an associate
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: of its own, and a place of such delights, When
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: once a man had ceased to struggle against its inetiable will,
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 1: a novel somebody ought to write a novel about a
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: place like that. There must be lots to write about
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: in a place like that, if one could but get
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: to the bottom of it. It had probably already been
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: painted by a man called Madly, who had lived there.
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: But Olivan had not known this. Madly had a strong
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: feeling that he wouldn't have liked him, would rather he
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: had lived somewhere else. Really couldn't stand the fellow hated
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: him Madly. In fact, ah, that was a joke. He
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 1: seriously doubted whether the man led to life. He ought
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: Oloran was in two minds sometimes whether he wouldn't tell
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: that longnos guardian of the public morals across the way
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: about him. But probably he knew and had made his
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: praying color balloose for him. Also, that was his line.
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: Why Olon himself had had a dust up with him
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: about something or other, some girl or over Elsie ben
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: Gore her name was, he remembered, Alan had moments of
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: deep uneasiness about this Elsie Bengal, or rather, he was
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: not so much easy about her as restless about the
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: things she did. Chief of these was the way in
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: which she persisted in thrusting herself into his thoughts, and
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: whenever he was quick enough he sent her packing the
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: moment she made her appearance there. The truth was that
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: she was not merely a bore. She had always been,
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: that it had now come to the pitch when her
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: very presence in his fancy was inimitable to the full
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: enjoyment of certain experiences. She had no tact, really ought
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: to have known that people are not at home to
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 1: the thoughts of everybody all the time, ought in mere politeness,
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: to have allowed him certain seasons quite to himself, and
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: was monstrously ignorant of things if she did not know,
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: as she appeared not to know, that there were certain
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: special hours when a man's veins ran with fire and
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: daring in power, in which well, in which he had
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: a reasonable right to treat folk as he had treated
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: that prying barret, to shut them out completely. But no,
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: up she popped the very thought of her, and ruined
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: all bright, towering fabrics by the side of which even
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: those perfect magical novels of which he dreamed were done.
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: And Gray vanished utterly at her intrusion. It was as
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: if a fog should suddenly quench some fair beaming star,
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: as if at the threshold of some golden portal prepared
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: for Olier on a pit should suddenly gape, as if
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: that like shadow should turn the glowing dawn to murk
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 1: and darkness again. Therefore, Olawan strived to stifle even the
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 1: nascent thought of her. Nevertheless, there came an occasion on
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: which this woman ben Go absolutely refused to be suppressed.
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: Olowan could not have told exactly when this happened. He
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: only knew by the glimmer of the street lamp on
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: his blind that it was some time during the night,
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: and that for some time she had not presented herself.
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: He had no warning, none of her coming. She just came,
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: was there Strive as he would. He could not shake
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: off the thought of her, nor the image of her face.
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: She haunted him. But for her to come at that
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: moment of all moments, really it was past belief. How
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: she could endure it? Oliwan could not conceive actually, to
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 1: look on, as it were, at the triumph of a rival,
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: Good God, it was monstrous tact reticence. He had never
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: credited her with an overwhelming amount of either, but he
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: had never attributed mere Oh, there was no word for it.
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: Monstrous monstros Did she intend thenceforward, Good God to look
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: on Olion felt the blood rush up to the roots
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: of his hair with anger against her, damnation, take her.
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 1: He choked, But the next moment his heat and resentment
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: had changed to a cold sweat of cowering fear. Panic Stricken,
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: he strove to comprehend what he had done. For though
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: he knew not what he knew, he had done something,
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: something fatal, irreparable, lasting anger he had felt, But not
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: this blaze of eye that suddenly flooded the twilet of
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: his consciousness with a white, infernal light. That appalling flash
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: was not his, not his, That open rift of bright
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: and searing hell not his, not his. His had been
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: the hand of a child preparing a puny blow. But
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: what was this other horrific hand that was drawn back
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: to strike in the same place? Had he said that
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 1: in motion? Had he provided the spark that had touched
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 1: off the whole accumulated power of that formidable and relentless place.
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 1: He did not know. He only knew that a poor,
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: igniting particle in himself was blown out, that oh impossible,
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 1: a clinging kiss.
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 2: How else to express it, had changed on his very
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 2: lips to a gnashing and a removal, And that for
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 2: very pity of the awful odds he must cry.
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: Out to her, against whom he had lately raged to
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: guard herself, Guard herself, look out, He shrieked aloud. The
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: revulsion was instant, as if a cold, slow billow had
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: broken over him. He came too to find that he
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: was lying in his bed, that the mist and horror
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: that had for so long enwrapped him had departed. That
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: he was Paul Oloron, and that he was sick, naked,
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: helpless and utterly abandoned and alone. His faculties, as though weak,
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: answered at last to his calls upon them, And he
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: knew that it must have been a hideous nightmare that
• 2:29:32
  Speaker 1: had left him sweating and shaking. Thus, yes, he was himself,
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 1: Paul Oloron, a tired novelist, already passed the summit of
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: his best work, and slipping down hill again empty handed
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: from it all, he had struck short in his life,
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: saying he had tried too much, had over estimated his strength,
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: and was a failure, a failure. It all came to
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 1: him in a single word, in wrapt and complete. It
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: needed no sequential thought. He was a failure. He had missed,
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: and he had missed, not one happiness, but two he
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: had missed the ease of this world which men love,
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: And he had missed also that other shining prize for
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: which men forego ease, the snatching and holding and triumphant
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 1: bearing up a loft of which is the only justification
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: of the mad adventurer who hazard the enterprise. And there
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 1: was no second attempt. Fate has no morrow. All o
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: On's morrow must be to sit down to profitless ill
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 1: done unrequired work again, and so on the morrow after that,
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 1: and the morrow after that, and as many morrows as
• 2:30:53
  Speaker 1: there might be. He lay there, weakly yet sanely, considering it.
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: And since the whole attempt had failed, it was hardly
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: worth while to consider whether a little might not be
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 1: saved from the general wreck. No good would ever come
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: of that half finished novel. He had intended that it
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 1: should appear in the autumn, was under contract that it
• 2:31:17
  Speaker 1: should appear, no matter. It was better to pay forfeit
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: to his publishers than to waste what days were left.
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 1: He was spent. Age was not far off, and paths
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 1: of wisdom and sadness were the properest for the remainder
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 1: of the journey. If only he had chosen the wife,
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 1: the child, the faithful friend at the fireside, and let
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: them follow an ignis fatuous at the list. In the meantime,
• 2:31:48
  Speaker 1: it began to puzzle him exceedingly. Why he should be
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: so weak, that his room should smell so overpoweringly of
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: decaying vegetable matter, and that his hand, chancing to stray
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 1: to his face in the darkness, should encounter a beard
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: most extraordinary? He began to mutter to himself, Have I
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 1: been ill? Am I ill? Now? And if so, why
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: have they left me alone? Extraordinary? He thought he heard
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 1: a sound from the kitchen or bathroom. He rose a
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: little on his pillow and listened. Ah, he was not alone. Then,
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 1: It certainly would have been extraordinary if they had left
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 1: him ill and alone alone. Oh no, he would be
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 1: looked after. He wouldn't be left ill to shift for himself.
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: If everybody else had forgotten him. He could trust Elsie
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: ben Go, the dearest chum he had for that, bless
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 1: her faithful heart. But suddenly a short, stifled, spluttering cry
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: rang sharply out Paul. It came from the kitchen, and
• 2:32:58
  Speaker 1: in the same moment it flat upon Oliver On. He
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: knew not how that two, three, five, he knew not
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 1: how many minutes before. Another sound, unmarked at the time,
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 1: but suddenly transfixing his attention now had striven to reach
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: his intelligence. This sound had been the slight touch of
• 2:33:17
  Speaker 1: metal on metal, just such a sound as Olowan made
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 1: when he put his key into the lock. Hello, who's that?
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: He called sharply from his bed. He had no answer.
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 1: He called again, Hello, who's there? Who is it? This
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: time he was sure he heard noises, soft and heavy
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 1: in the kitchen. This is a queer thing altogether, he muttered.
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: By jove, I'm as weak as a kitten too. Hallo there.
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: Somebody called, didn't they? Elsie? Is that you? Then he
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 1: began to knock with his hand on the wall at
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 1: the side of his bed. Elsie, Elsie, see you caught,
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: didn't you? Please come here, whoever it is. There was
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 1: a sound as of a closing door, and then silence.
• 2:34:10
  Speaker 1: All Alan began to get rather alarmed. It may be
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: a nurse, he muttered, Elsie'd have to get me a nurse.
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: Of course. She'd sit with me as long as she
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 1: could spare the time, grave Lass, and she'd get a
• 2:34:24
  Speaker 1: nurse for the rest. But it was awfully like her voice,
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: Elsie or whoever it is. I can't make this out
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: at all. I must go and see what's the matter.
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 1: He put one leg out of bed, feeling its feebleness.
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: He reached with his hand for the additional support of
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: the wall, But before putting out the other leg, he
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: stopped and considered picking at his new found beard. He
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 1: was suddenly wondering whether he dared go into the kitchen.
• 2:34:53
  Speaker 1: It was such a frightfully long way. No man knew
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: what horror might not leap an huddle on his shoulders
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: if he were so far. When a man has an
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: overmastering impulse to get back into bed, he ought to
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: take heed of the warning and obey it. Besides, why
• 2:35:08
  Speaker 1: should he go, what was there to go for? If
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: it was that ben creature again, let her look after herself.
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 1: Olan was not going to have such things cramp themselves
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: on his defense's back for the sake of such a
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 1: spalse thought as she if she was in, let her
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: let herself out again, and the sooner the better for her.
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: Olowan simply couldn't be bothered. He had his work to do.
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: On the morrow, he must set about the writing of
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: a novel with a heroine so winsome, capricious, adorable, jealous, wicked, beautiful, inflaming,
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 1: and altogether evil, that men should stand amazed. She was
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 1: coming over him, now, he knew by the alteration of
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: the very air of the room when she was near him,
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 1: and that soft thrill of bliss that had begun to
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 1: stir in him never came unless she was beckoning, beckoning.
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: He let go the war and fell back into bed again,
• 2:36:09
  Speaker 1: as all unthinkable. The other half of that kiss that
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: in Nash had interrupted was placed, how else, conveyed on
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 1: his lips, robbing him of very breath. End of Party eleven,
• 2:36:32
  Speaker 1: Chapter twelve of The Beckoning Fair one. This LibriVox recording
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Morgan Scorpion, The
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions, Chapter twelve. In the
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: bright June sunlight, a crowd filled the square and looked
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: up at the windows of the old house, with the
• 2:36:58
  Speaker 1: antique insurance marks in its walls of red brick, and
• 2:37:01
  Speaker 1: the agent's notice boards hanging like wooden choppers over the paling.
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: Two constables stood at the broken gate of the narrow
• 2:37:09
  Speaker 1: entrance alley, keeping folk back. The women kept to the
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: outskirts of the throng, moving now and then as if
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: to see the drawn red blinds of the old house
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 1: from a new angle, and talking in whispers. The children
• 2:37:23
  Speaker 1: were in the houses behind closed doors. A long nosed
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: man had a little group about him, and he was
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: telling some story over and over again. And another man,
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: little and fat and wide eyed, sought to capture the
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 1: long nosed man's audience with some relation in which a
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: key figured. And it was revealed to me that there
• 2:37:45
  Speaker 1: had been something that very afternoon. The long nosed man
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: was saying, I was standing there where Constable Saunders is,
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: or rather I was passing about my business when they
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 1: came out. There was no deceiving me. Oh, no deceiving me.
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 1: I saw her face. What was it like, mister Barrett?
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: A man asked, it was like hers whom our lord
• 2:38:08
  Speaker 1: said to woman doth any man, accuse thee write as paper,
• 2:38:13
  Speaker 1: and no mistake, don't tell me. And so I walked
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: straight across to missus Barrett, and Jane I says, this
• 2:38:21
  Speaker 1: must stop and stop at once. We are commanded to
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: avoid evil, I says, and must come to an end.
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 1: Now let him get help elsewhere. And she says, to
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 1: me John, she says, it's four and sixpence a week.
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 1: Then was her words. Jane I says, if it was
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: forty six thousand pounds, it should stop. And from that
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: day to this she hasn't set foot inside that gate.
• 2:38:47
  Speaker 1: There was a short silence. Then did missus Barrett ever
• 2:38:51
  Speaker 1: see anything like? Somebody vaguely inquired. Barrett turned austerely on
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: the speaker. What missus Barrett saw and Missus Barrett didn't see?
• 2:39:02
  Speaker 1: Shall not pass these lips, even as it is written,
• 2:39:05
  Speaker 1: keep thy tongue from speaking evil, he said. Another man spoke,
• 2:39:11
  Speaker 1: He was pretty near canned up in the wagon and
• 2:39:13
  Speaker 1: horses that night, won't he Jim? Yes, he hadn't half
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 1: cocked it, not standing treat much neither. He was in
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: the bar all on his own, so he was. We
• 2:39:25
  Speaker 1: talked about it. The fat, scared eyed man made another attempt.
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 1: She got the key off me. She had the number
• 2:39:34
  Speaker 1: of it. She come into my shop of a Tuesday evening.
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 1: Nobody heeded him. Shut your heads, a heavy labor commented gruffly.
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: She hasn't been found yet. Here's the inspector. We shall
• 2:39:46
  Speaker 1: know more in a bit. Two inspectors had come up
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 1: and were talking to the constables who guarded the gate.
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: The little fat man ran eagerly forward, saying that she
• 2:39:57
  Speaker 1: had bought the key of him. I remember the number
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: because of its being three ones and three threes. One
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: one one three three three, he exclaimed excitedly. An inspector
• 2:40:10
  Speaker 1: put him aside. Nobody's been in, he asked of one
• 2:40:14
  Speaker 1: of the constables. No, sir, then you Brackley, come with us,
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: You smith, keep the gate. There's a squad on its way.
• 2:40:23
  Speaker 1: The two inspectors and the constable passed down the alley
• 2:40:26
  Speaker 1: and entered the house. They mounted the wide carved staircase.
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 1: This don't look as if he'd been out much lately,
• 2:40:34
  Speaker 1: one of the inspectors muttered, as he kicked aside a
• 2:40:37
  Speaker 1: litter of dead leaves and paper that lay outside Olian's door.
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: I don't think we need knock break a pane, Brackley.
• 2:40:46
  Speaker 1: The door had two glazed panels. There was a sound
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 1: of shattered glass, and Brackley put his hand through the
• 2:40:53
  Speaker 1: hole his elbow had made and drew back. The latch full,
• 2:40:57
  Speaker 1: choked one of the inspectors as they entered. Let's some
• 2:41:00
  Speaker 1: light and air in quick. It stinks like a hearse.
• 2:41:04
  Speaker 1: The assembly out in the square saw the red blinds
• 2:41:06
  Speaker 1: go up and the windows of the old house flung open.
• 2:41:11
  Speaker 1: That's better, said one of the inspectors, putting his head
• 2:41:14
  Speaker 1: out of a window and drawing a deep breath. That
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: seems to be the bedroom in there. Will you go in,
• 2:41:19
  Speaker 1: Sims while I go over the rest. They had drawn
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: up the bedroom blind also, and the waxy, white, emaciated
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: man on the bed had made a blinker of his
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: hand against the torturing flood of brightness. Nor could he
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: believe that his hearing was not playing tricks with him,
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: for there were two policemen in his room, bending over
• 2:41:40
  Speaker 1: him and asking where she was. He shook his head.
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: This woman ben Go goes by the name of miss
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 1: Elsie ben Go. D'ye hear where is she? No good Brackley,
• 2:41:53
  Speaker 1: get him up, Be careful with him. I'll just shove
• 2:41:56
  Speaker 1: my head out the window. I think. The other inspector
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: had been through Olon's study and had found nothing, and
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: was now in the kitchen, kicking aside an ankle deep
• 2:42:07
  Speaker 1: mass of vegetable refuse that cumbered the floor. The kitchen
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: window had no blind and was overshadowed by the blank
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: end of the house across the alley. The kitchen appeared
• 2:42:17
  Speaker 1: to be empty, but the inspector, kicking aside the dead flowers,
• 2:42:23
  Speaker 1: noticed that a shuffling track that was not of his
• 2:42:26
  Speaker 1: making had been swept to a cupboard in the corner.
• 2:42:29
  Speaker 1: In the upper part of the door of the cupboard
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: was a square panel that looked as if it slid
• 2:42:34
  Speaker 1: on runners. The door itself was closed. The inspector advanced,
• 2:42:41
  Speaker 1: put out his hand to the little knob, and slid
• 2:42:44
  Speaker 1: the hatch along its groove. Then he took an involuntary
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 1: step back again, framed in the aperture and falling forward
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: a little before it jammed again. In its frame was
• 2:42:56
  Speaker 1: something that resembled a large, lumpy pudding done up in
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: a pudding bag of faded browny red frieze. Ah, said
• 2:43:05
  Speaker 1: the inspector. To close the hatch again, he would have
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 1: had to thrust that pudding back with his hand, and
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: somehow he did not quite like the idea of touching it. Instead,
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 1: he turned the handle of the cupboard itself. There was
• 2:43:21
  Speaker 1: weight behind it, so much weight that, after opening the
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 1: door three or four inches and peering inside, he had
• 2:43:28
  Speaker 1: to put his shoulder to it in order to close
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: it again. In closing it, he left sticking out a
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: few inches from the floor a triangle of black and
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: white check skirt. He went into the small hall. All right,
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 1: he called. They had gotten an oler On into his clothes.
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 1: He still used his hands as blinkers, and his brain
• 2:43:51
  Speaker 1: was very confused. A number of things were happening that
• 2:43:54
  Speaker 1: he couldn't understand. He couldn't understand the extraordinary mess of
• 2:43:59
  Speaker 1: dead flowers there seemed to be everywhere. He couldn't understand
• 2:44:03
  Speaker 1: why there should be police officers in his room. He
• 2:44:06
  Speaker 1: couldn't understand why one of these should be sent for
• 2:44:09
  Speaker 1: a four wheeler and a stretcher. And he couldn't understand
• 2:44:14
  Speaker 1: what heavy article they seemed to be moving about in
• 2:44:16
  Speaker 1: the kitchen, his kitchen. What's the matter? He muttered sleepily.
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: Then he heard a murmur in the square and the
• 2:44:26
  Speaker 1: stopping of a four wheeler outside. A police officer was
• 2:44:30
  Speaker 1: at his elbow again, and Olleron wondered why when he
• 2:44:34
  Speaker 1: whispered something to him, he should run off a string
• 2:44:37
  Speaker 1: of words, something about used in evidence against you. They
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: had lifted him to his feet and were assisting him
• 2:44:46
  Speaker 1: towards the door. No Oleran couldn't understand it at all.
• 2:44:52
  Speaker 1: They got him down the stairs and along the alley.
• 2:44:55
  Speaker 1: Olwan was aware of confused, angry shoutings. He gathered that
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: a number of people wanted to lynch somebody or other.
• 2:45:04
  Speaker 1: Then his attention became fixed on a little, fat, frightened
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: eyed man who appeared to be making a statement that
• 2:45:10
  Speaker 1: an officer was taking down in a note book. I'd
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 1: seen her with him, They was often together. She came
• 2:45:18
  Speaker 1: into my shop and said it was for him. I
• 2:45:20
  Speaker 1: thought it was all right. One one, one three three
• 2:45:24
  Speaker 1: three the number was the man was saying. The people
• 2:45:27
  Speaker 1: seemed to be very angry. Many police were keeping them back,
• 2:45:32
  Speaker 1: but one of the inspectors had a voice that Oliver
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 1: thought quite kind and friendly. He was telling somebody to
• 2:45:38
  Speaker 1: get somebody else into the cab before something or other
• 2:45:41
  Speaker 1: was brought out, and Oliver noticed that a four wheeler
• 2:45:45
  Speaker 1: was drawn up at the gate. It appeared that it
• 2:45:48
  Speaker 1: was himself who was to be put into it, and
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: as they lifted him up, he saw that the inspector
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 1: tried to stand between him and something that stood behind
• 2:45:57
  Speaker 1: the cab, but he was not quick enough to prevent Olowan,
• 2:46:00
  Speaker 1: seeing that this something was a hooded stretcher. The angry
• 2:46:05
  Speaker 1: voices sounded like a sea. Something hard like a stone
• 2:46:09
  Speaker 1: hit the back of the cab, and the inspector followed
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: ollowan in and stood with his back to the window
• 2:46:14
  Speaker 1: near the side where the people were. The door they
• 2:46:17
  Speaker 1: had put ollo on in at remained open, apparently till
• 2:46:20
  Speaker 1: the other inspectors had come, and so the opening, Olowan
• 2:46:24
  Speaker 1: had a glimpse of the hatchet like to let boards
• 2:46:27
  Speaker 1: among the private trees. One of them said that the
• 2:46:31
  Speaker 1: key was at number six. Suddenly, the raging of voices
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 1: was hushed along the entrance alley. Shuffling steps were heard,
• 2:46:39
  Speaker 1: and the other inspector appeared at the cab door right away,
• 2:46:44
  Speaker 1: he said to the driver. He entered, fastened the door
• 2:46:48
  Speaker 1: after him, and blocked up the second window. With his
• 2:46:51
  Speaker 1: back between the two inspectors, Oliwan slept peacefully. The cab
• 2:46:58
  Speaker 1: moved down the square, the other vehicle went up the hill.
• 2:47:03
  Speaker 1: The mortuary lay that way. It is the end of
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: chapter twelve of the Beckoning Fair one by Oliver Onions.
• 2:47:13
  Speaker 1: And this is the end of the Beckoning Fair one
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 1: recorded by Morgan Scorpions