When she saw this last, Henry's wife flatly refused to go on, unless she was given the star part and Henry took that of the stooge. "But" said Henry, drawing an apprehensive thumb down the notched and jagged edge of the grim and rusty bilbo. "But," said he, "you don't know how to make the passes."
"You shall teach me," she said, "and if anything goes wrong you will have only yourself to blame."
So Henry showed her. You may be sure he was very thorough in his instructions. In the end she mastered them perfectly, and there was nothing left to do but to stain themselves with coffee. Henry improvised a turban and loincloth; she wore a sari and a pair of ash-trays borrowed from the hotel. They sought out a convenient waste lot, a large crowd collected, and the show began.
Up went the rope. Sure enough, it stuck. The crowd, with a multiple snigger, whispered that everything was done by mirrors. Henry, not without a good deal of puffing, went up hand over hand. When he got to the top, he forgot the crowd, the act, his wife, and even himself, so surprised and delighted was he by the sight that met his eyes.
He found himself crawling out of something like a well, onto what seemed to be solid ground. The landscape about him was not at all like that below; it was like an Indian paradise, full of dells, bowers, scarlet ibises, and heaven knows what all. However, his surprise and delight came less from these features of the background than from the presence of a young female in the nearest of these bowers or arbours, which happened to be all wreathed, canopied, overgrown, and intertwined with passion flowers. This delightful creature, who was a positive houri, and very lightly attired, seemed to be expecting Henry, and greeted him with rapture.
Henry, who had a sufficiently affectionate nature, flung his arms round her neck and gazed deeply into her eyes. These were surprisingly eloquent They seemed to say, "Why not make hey hey while the sun shines?"
He found the notion entirely agreeable, and planted a lingering kiss on her lips, noting only with a dim and careless annoyance that his wife was hooting and hollering from below. "What person of any tact or delicacy," thought he, "could hoot and holler at such a moment?" and he dismissed her from his mind.
You may imagine his mortification when his delicious damsel suddenly repulsed him from her arms. He looked over his shoulder, and there was his wife, clambering over the edge, terribly red in the face, with the fury of a demon in her eye, and the mighty scimitar gripped firmly between her teeth.
Henry tried to rise, but she was beforehand with him, and while yet he had but his left foot on the ground, she caught him one across the loins with the huge and jagged bilbo, which effectually hamstrung him, so that he fell grovelling at her feet. "For heaven's sake!" he cried. "It's all a trick. Part of the act. It means nothing. Remember our public. The show must go on."
"It shall," said she, striking at his arms and legs.
"Oh, those notches!" cried he. "To oblige me, my dear, please sharpen it a little upon a stone."
"It is good enough for you, you viper," said she, hacking away all the time. Pretty soon Henry was a limbless trunk.
"For the love of God," said he, "I hope you remember the passes. I can explain everything."
"To hell with the passes!" said she, and with a last swipe she sent his head rolling like a football.
She was not long in picking up the scattered fragments of poor Henry, and flinging them down to earth, amid the applause and laughter of the crowd, who were more than ever convinced it was all done by mirrors.
Then, gripping her scimitar, she was about to swarm down after him, not from any soft-hearted intention of reassembling her unfortunate spouse, but rather to have another hack or two at some of the larger joints. At that moment she became aware of someone behind her, and, looking round, there was a divine young man, with the appearance of a Maharaja of the highest caste, an absolute Valentino, in whose eyes she seemed to read the words, "It is better to bum upon the Bed of Passion than in the Chair of Electricity."
This idea presented itself with an overwhelming appeal. She paused only to thrust her head through the aperture, and cry, "That's what happens to a pig of a man who betrays his wife with a beastly native," before hauling up the rope and entering into conversation with her charmer.
The police soon appeared upon the scene. There was nothing but a cooing sound above, as if invisible turtle doves were circling in amorous flight Below, the various portions of Henry were scattered in the dust, and the bluebottle flies were already settling upon them.
The crowd explained it was nothing but a trick, done with, mirrors.
It looks to me," said the sergeant, "as if the biggest one most have splintered right on top of him."
LITTLE MEMENTO
A young man who was walking fast came out of a deep lane onto a wide hilltop space, where there was a hamlet clustered about a green. The setting encompassed a pond, ducks, the Waggoner Inn, with white paint and swinging sign; in fact, all the fresh, clean, quiet, ordinary appurtenances of an upland Somerset hamlet.
The road went on, and so did the young man, over to the very brink of the upland, where a white gate gave upon a long garden well furnished with fruit trees, and at the end of it a snug little house sheltered by a coppice and enjoying a view over the vast vale below. An old man of astonishingly benevolent appearance was pottering about in the garden. He looked up as the walker, Eric Gaskell, approached his gate.
"Good morning," said he. "A fine September morning!"
"Good morning," said Eric Gaskell.
"I have had my telescope out this morning," said the old man. "I don't often get down the hill these days. The way back is a little too steep for me. Still, I have my view and my telescope. I think I know all that goes on."
"Well, that's very nice," said Eric.
"It is," said the old man. "You are Mr. Gaskell?"
"Yes," said Eric. "I know. We met at the vicarage."
"We did," said the old man. "You often take your walk this way. I see you go by. Today I thought, 'Now this is the day for a little chat with young Mr. Gaskell!' Come in."
"Thanks," said Eric. "I will, for a spell."
"And how," said the old man, opening his gate, "do you and Mrs. Gaskell like Somerset?"
"Enormously," said Eric.
"My housekeeper tells me," said the old man, "that you come from the East Coast. Very bracing. Her niece is your little maid. You don't find it too dull here? Too backward? Too old-fashioned?"
"We like that part of it best," said Eric, sitting with his host on a white seat under one of the apple trees.
"In these days," said the old man, "young people like old-fashioned things. That's a change from my day. Now most of us who live about here are old codgers, you know. There's Captain Felton, of course, but the Vicar, the Admiral, Mr. Coperus, and the rest all old codgers. You don't mind that?"
"I like it," said Eric.
"We have our hobbies," said the old man. "Coperus is by way of being an antiquarian; the Admiral has his roses."
"And you have your telescope," said Eric.
"Ah, my telescope," said the old man. "Yes, yes, I have my telescope. But my principal pastime what I really plume myself on is my museum."
"You have a museum?" said Eric.
"Yes, a museum," said the old man. "I should like you to have a look at it and tell me what you think."
"I shall be delighted," said Eric.
"Then come right in," said the old man, leading him toward the house. "I seldom have the chance of showing my collection to a newcomer. You must bring Mrs. Gaskell one of these days. Does she find enough entertainment in this quiet part, would you say?"
"She loves it," said Eric. "She can't see too much of the country here. She drives out almost every day."