tea-table with a smash as Coombes clutched him by the collar and tried to
thrust the fungus into his mouth. Clarence was content to leave his collar
behind him, and shot out into the passage with red patches of fly agaric
still adherent to his face. "Shut 'im in!" cried Mrs. Coombes, and would
have closed the door, but her supports deserted her; Jennie saw the shop
door open, and vanished thereby, locking it behind her, while Clarence
went on hastily into the kitchen. Mr. Coombes came heavily against the
door, and Mrs. Coombes, finding the key was inside, fled upstairs and
locked herself in the spare bedroom.
So the new convert to _joie de vivre_ emerged upon the passage, his
decorations a little scattered, but that respectable hatful of fungi still
under his arm. He hesitated at the three ways, and decided on the kitchen.
Whereupon Clarence, who was fumbling with the key, gave up the attempt to
imprison his host, and fled into the scullery, only to be captured before
he could open the door into the yard. Mr. Clarence is singularly reticent
of the details of what occurred. It seems that Mr. Coombes' transitory
irritation had vanished again, and he was once more a genial playfellow.
And as there were knives and meat choppers about, Clarence very generously
resolved to humour him and so avoid anything tragic. It is beyond dispute
that Mr. Coombes played with Mr. Clarence to his heart's content; they
could not have been more playful and familiar if they had known each other
for years. He insisted gaily on Clarence trying the fungi, and, after a
friendly tussle, was smitten with remorse at the mess he was making of his
guest's face. It also appears that Clarence was dragged under the sink and
his face scrubbed with the blacking brush--he being still resolved to
humour the lunatic at any cost--and that finally, in a somewhat
dishevelled, chipped, and discoloured condition, he was assisted to his
coat and shown out by the back door, the shopway being barred by Jennie.
Mr. Coombes' wandering thoughts then turned to Jennie. Jennie had been
unable to unfasten the shop door, but she shot the bolts against Mr.
Coombes' latch-key, and remained in possession of the shop for the rest of
the evening.
It would appear that Mr. Coombes then returned to the kitchen, still in
pursuit of gaiety, and, albeit a strict Good Templar, drank (or spilt down
the front of the first and only frock-coat) no less than five bottles of
the stout Mrs. Coombes insisted upon having for her health's sake. He made
cheerful noises by breaking off the necks of the bottles with several of
his wife's wedding-present dinner-plates, and during the earlier part of
this great drunk he sang divers merry ballads. He cut his finger rather
badly with one of the bottles--the only bloodshed in this story--and what
with that, and the systematic convulsion of his inexperienced physiology
by the liquorish brand of Mrs. Coombes' stout, it may be the evil of the
fungus poison was somehow allayed. But we prefer to draw a veil over the
concluding incidents of this Sunday afternoon. They ended in the coal
cellar, in a deep and healing sleep.
An interval of five years elapsed. Again it was a Sunday afternoon in
October, and again Mr. Coombes walked through the pine wood beyond the
canal. He was still the same dark-eyed, black-moustached little man that
he was at the outset of the story, but his double chin was now scarcely so
illusory as it had been. His overcoat was new, with a velvet lapel, and a
stylish collar with turn-down corners, free of any coarse starchiness, had
replaced the original all-round article. His hat was glossy, his gloves
newish--though one finger had split and been carefully mended. And a
casual observer would have noticed about him a certain rectitude of
bearing, a certain erectness of head that marks the man who thinks well of
himself. He was a master now, with three assistants. Beside him walked a
larger sunburnt parody of himself, his brother Tom, just back from
Australia. They were recapitulating their early struggles, and Mr. Coombes
had just been making a financial statement.
"It's a very nice little business, Jim," said brother Tom. "In these days
of competition you're jolly lucky to have worked it up so. And you're
jolly lucky, too, to have a wife who's willing to help like yours does."
"Between ourselves," said Mr. Coombes, "it wasn't always so. It wasn't
always like this. To begin with, the missus was a bit giddy. Girls are
funny creatures."
"Dear me!"
"Yes. You'd hardly think it, but she was downright extravagant, and always
having slaps at me. I was a bit too easy and loving, and all that, and she
thought the whole blessed show was run for her. Turned the 'ouse into a
regular caravansery, always having her relations and girls from business
in, and their chaps. Comic songs a' Sunday, it was getting to, and driving
trade away. And she was making eyes at the chaps, too! I tell you, Tom,
the place wasn't my own."
"Shouldn't 'a' thought it."
"It was so. Well--I reasoned with her. I said, 'I ain't a duke, to keep a
wife like a pet animal. I married you for 'elp and company.' I said, 'You
got to 'elp and pull the business through.' She wouldn't 'ear of it. 'Very
well,' I says?? 'I'm a mild man till I'm roused,' I says, 'and it's
getting to that.' But she wouldn't 'ear of no warnings."
"Well?"
"It's the way with women. She didn't think I 'ad it in me to be roused.
Women of her sort (between ourselves, Tom) don't respect a man until
they're a bit afraid of him. So I just broke out to show her. In comes a
girl named Jennie, that used to work with her, and her chap. We 'ad a bit
of a row, and I came out 'ere--it was just such another day as this--and I
thought it all out. Then I went back and pitched into them."
"You did?"
"I did. I was mad, I can tell you. I wasn't going to 'it 'er if I could
'elp it, so I went back and licked into this chap, just to show 'er what I
could do. 'E was a big chap, too. Well, I chucked him, and smashed things
about, and gave 'er a scaring, and she ran up and locked 'erself into the
spare room."
"Well?"
"That's all. I says to 'er the next morning, 'Now you know,' I says, 'what
I'm like when I'm roused.' And I didn't have to say anything more."
"And you've been happy ever after, eh?"
"So to speak. There's nothing like putting your foot down with them. If it
'adn't been for that afternoon I should 'a' been tramping the roads now,
and she'd 'a' been grumbling at me, and all her family grumbling for
bringing her to poverty--I know their little ways. But we're all right
now. And it's a very decent little business, as you say."
They proceeded on their way meditatively. "Women are funny creatures,"
said Brother Tom.
"They want a firm hand," says Coombes.
"What a lot of these funguses there are about here!" remarked Brother Tom
presently. "I can't see what use they are in the world."
Mr. Coombes looked. "I dessay they're sent for some wise purpose," said
Mr. Coombes.
And that was as much thanks as the purple pileus ever got for maddening
this absurd little man to the pitch of decisive action, and so altering
the whole course of his life.
XVIII.
A SLIP UNDER THE MICROSCOPE.
Outside the laboratory windows was a watery-grey fog, and within a close
warmth and the yellow light of the green-shaded gas lamps that stood two
to each table down its narrow length. On each table stood a couple of
glass jars containing the mangled vestiges of the crayfish, mussels,
frogs, and guinea-pigs upon which the students had been working, and down
the side of the room, facing the windows, were shelves bearing bleached
dissections in spirits, surmounted by a row of beautifully executed
anatomical drawings in white-wood frames and overhanging a row of cubical
lockers. All the doors of the laboratory were panelled with blackboard,
and on these were the half-erased diagrams of the previous day's work. The
laboratory was empty, save for the demonstrator, who sat near the
preparation-room door, and silent, save for a low, continuous murmur and
the clicking of the rocker microtome at which he was working. But
scattered about the room were traces of numerous students: hand-bags,
polished boxes of instruments, in one place a large drawing covered by
newspaper, and in another a prettily bound copy of _News from
Nowhere_, a book oddly at variance with its surroundings. These things
had been put down hastily as the students had arrived and hurried at once
to secure their seats in the adjacent lecture theatre. Deadened by the
closed door, the measured accents of the professor sounded as a
featureless muttering.
Presently, faint through the closed windows came the sound of the Oratory
clock striking the hour of eleven. The clicking of the microtome ceased,
and the demonstrator looked at his watch, rose, thrust his hands into his
pockets, and walked slowly down the laboratory towards the lecture theatre
door. He stood listening for a moment, and then his eye fell on the little
volume by William Morris. He picked it up, glanced at the title, smiled,
opened it, looked at the name on the fly-leaf, ran the leaves through with
his hand, and put it down. Almost immediately the even murmur of the
lecturer ceased, there was a sudden burst of pencils rattling on the desks
in the lecture theatre, a stirring, a scraping of feet, and a number of
voices speaking together. Then a firm footfall approached the door, which
began to open, and stood ajar, as some indistinctly heard question
arrested the new-comer.
The demonstrator turned, walked slowly back past the microtome, and left
the laboratory by the preparation-room door. As he did so, first one, and
then several students carrying notebooks entered the laboratory from the
lecture theatre, and distributed themselves among the little tables, or
stood in a group about the doorway. They were an exceptionally
heterogeneous assembly, for while Oxford and Cambridge still recoil from
the blushing prospect of mixed classes, the College of Science anticipated
America in the matter years ago--mixed socially, too, for the prestige of
the College is high, and its scholarships, free of any age limit, dredge
deeper even than do those of the Scotch universities. The class numbered
one-and-twenty, but some remained in the theatre questioning the
professor, copying the black-board diagrams before they were washed off,
or examining the special specimens he had produced to illustrate the day's
teaching. Of the nine who had come into the laboratory three were girls,
one of whom, a little fair woman, wearing spectacles and dressed in
greyish-green, was peering out of the window at the fog, while the other
two, both wholesome-looking, plain-faced schoolgirls, unrolled and put on
the brown holland aprons they wore while dissecting. Of the men, two went
down the laboratory to their places, one a pallid, dark-bearded man, who
had once been a tailor; the other a pleasant-featured, ruddy young man of
twenty, dressed in a well-fitting brown suit; young Wedderburn, the son of
Wedderburn, the eye specialist. The others formed a little knot near the
theatre door. One of these, a dwarfed, spectacled figure, with a
hunchback, sat on a bent wood stool; two others, one a short, dark
youngster, and the other a flaxen-haired, reddish-complexioned young man,
stood leaning side by side against the slate sink, while the fourth stood
facing them, and maintained the larger share of the conversation.
This last person was named Hill. He was a sturdily built young fellow, of
the same age as Wedderburn; he had a white face, dark grey eyes, hair of
an indeterminate colour, and prominent, irregular features. He talked
rather louder than was needful, and thrust his hands deeply into his
pockets. His collar was frayed and blue with the starch of a careless
laundress, his clothes were evidently ready-made, and there was a patch on
the side of his boot near the toe. And as he talked or listened to the
others, he glanced now and again towards the lecture theatre door. They
were discussing the depressing peroration of the lecture they had just
heard, the last lecture it was in the introductory course in zoology.
"From ovum to ovum is the goal of the higher vertebrata," the lecturer had
said in his melancholy tones, and so had neatly rounded off the sketch
of comparative anatomy he had been developing. The spectacled hunchback
had repeated it, with noisy appreciation, had tossed it towards the
fair-haired student with an evident provocation, and had started one of
these vague, rambling discussions on generalities, so unaccountably dear
to the student mind all the world over.
"That is our goal, perhaps--I admit it, as far as science goes," said the
fair-haired student, rising to the challenge. "But there are things above
science."
"Science," said Hill confidently, "is systematic knowledge. Ideas that
don't come into the system--must anyhow--be loose ideas." He was not quite
sure whether that was a clever saying or a fatuity until his hearers took
it seriously.
"The thing I cannot understand," said the hunchback, at large, "is whether
Hill is a materialist or not."
"There is one thing above matter," said Hill promptly, feeling he had a
better thing this time; aware, too, of someone in the doorway behind him,
and raising his voice a trifle for her benefit, "and that is, the delusion
that there is something above matter."
"So we have your gospel at last," said the fair student. "It's all a
delusion, is it? All our aspirations to lead something more than dogs'
lives, all our work for anything beyond ourselves. But see how
inconsistent you are. Your socialism, for instance. Why do you trouble
about the interests of the race? Why do you concern yourself about the
beggar in the gutter? Why are you bothering yourself to lend that book "--
he indicated William Morris by a movement of the head--"to everyone in the
lab.?"
"Girl," said the hunchback indistinctly, and glanced guiltily over his
shoulder.
The girl in brown, with the brown eyes, had come into the laboratory, and
stood on the other side of the table behind him, with her rolled-up apron
in one hand, looking over her shoulder, listening to the discussion. She
did not notice the hunchback, because she was glancing from Hill to his
interlocutor. Hill's consciousness of her presence betrayed itself to her
only in his studious ignorance of the fact; but she understood that, and
it pleased her. "I see no reason," said he, "why a man should live like a
brute because he knows of nothing beyond matter, and does not expect to
exist a hundred years hence."
"Why shouldn't he?" said the fair-haired student.
"Why _should_ he?" said Hill.
"What inducement has he?"
"That's the way with all you religious people. It's all a business of
inducements. Cannot a man seek after righteousness for righteousness'
sake?"
There was a pause. The fair man answered, with a kind of vocal padding,
"But--you see--inducement--when I said inducement," to gain time. And then
the hunchback came to his rescue and inserted a question. He was a
terrible person in the debating society with his questions, and they
invariably took one form--a demand for a definition, "What's your
definition of righteousness?" said the hunchback at this stage.
Hill experienced a sudden loss of complacency at this question, but even
as it was asked, relief came in the person of Brooks, the laboratory
attendant, who entered by the preparation-room door, carrying a number of
freshly killed guinea-pigs by their hind legs. "This is the last batch of
material this session," said the youngster who had not previously spoken.
Brooks advanced up the laboratory, smacking down a couple of guinea-pigs
at each table. The rest of the class, scenting the prey from afar, came
crowding in by the lecture theatre door, and the discussion perished
abruptly as the students who were not already in their places hurried to
them to secure the choice of a specimen. There was a noise of keys
rattling on split rings as lockers were opened and dissecting instruments
taken out. Hill was already standing by his table, and his box of scalpels
was sticking out of his pocket. The girl in brown came a step towards him,
and, leaning over his table, said softly, "Did you see that I returned
your book, Mr. Hill?"
During the whole scene she and the book had been vividly present in his
consciousness; but he made a clumsy pretence of looking at the book and
seeing it for the first time. "Oh, yes," he said, taking it up. "I see.
Did you like it?"
"I want to ask you some questions about it--some time."
"Certainly," said Hill. "I shall be glad." He stopped awkwardly. "You
liked it?" he said.
"It's a wonderful book. Only some things I don't understand."
Then suddenly the laboratory was hushed by a curious, braying noise. It
was the demonstrator. He was at the blackboard ready to begin the day's
instruction, and it was his custom to demand silence by a sound midway
between the "Er" of common intercourse and the blast of a trumpet. The
girl in brown slipped back to her place: it was immediately in front of
Hill's, and Hill, forgetting her forthwith, took a notebook out of the
drawer of his table, turned over its leaves hastily, drew a stumpy pencil
from his pocket, and prepared to make a copious note of the coming
demonstration. For demonstrations and lectures are the sacred text of the
College students. Books, saving only the Professor's own, you may--it is
even expedient to--ignore.
Hill was the son of a Landport cobbler, and had been hooked by a chance
blue paper the authorities had thrown out to the Landport Technical
College. He kept himself in London on his allowance of a guinea a week,
and found that, with proper care, this also covered his clothing
allowance, an occasional waterproof collar, that is; and ink and needles
and cotton, and such-like necessaries for a man about town. This was his
first year and his first session, but the brown old man in Landport had
already got himself detested in many public-houses by boasting of his son,
"the Professor." Hill was a vigorous youngster, with a serene contempt for
the clergy of all denominations, and a fine ambition to reconstruct the
world. He regarded his scholarship as a brilliant opportunity. He had
begun to read at seven, and had read steadily whatever came in his way,
good or bad, since then. His worldly experience had been limited to the
island of Portsea, and acquired chiefly in the wholesale boot factory in
which he had worked by day, after passing the seventh standard of the
Board school. He had a considerable gift of speech, as the College
Debating Society, which met amidst the crushing machines and mine models
in the metallurgical theatre downstairs, already recognised--recognised by
a violent battering of desks whenever he rose. And he was just at that
fine emotional age when life opens at the end of a narrow pass like a
broad valley at one's feet, full of the promise of wonderful discoveries
and tremendous achievements. And his own limitations, save that he knew
that he knew neither Latin nor French, were all unknown to him.
At first his interest had been divided pretty equally between his
biological work at the College and social and theological theorising, an
employment which he took in deadly earnest. Of a night, when the big
museum library was not open, he would sit on the bed of his room in
Chelsea with his coat and a muffler on, and write out the lecture notes
and revise his dissection memoranda, until Thorpe called him out by a
whistle--the landlady objected to open the door to attic visitors--and
then the two would go prowling about the shadowy, shiny, gas-lit streets,
talking, very much in the fashion of the sample just given, of the God
idea, and Righteousness, and Carlyle, and the Reorganisation of Society.
And in the midst of it all, Hill, arguing not only for Thorpe, but for the
casual passer-by, would lose the thread of his argument glancing at some
pretty painted face that looked meaningly at him as he passed. Science and
Righteousness! But once or twice lately there had been signs that a third
interest was creeping into his life, and he had found his attention
wandering from the fate of the mesoblastic somites or the probable meaning
of the blastopore, to the thought of the girl with the brown eyes who sat
at the table before him.
She was a paying student; she descended inconceivable social altitudes to
speak to him. At the thought of the education she must have had, and the
accomplishments she must possess, the soul of Hill became abject within
him. She had spoken to him first over a difficulty about the alisphenoid
of a rabbit's skull, and he had found that, in biology at least, he had no
reason for self-abasement. And from that, after the manner of young people
starting from any starting-point, they got to generalities, and while Hill
attacked her upon the question of socialism--some instinct told him to
spare her a direct assault upon her religion--she was gathering resolution
to undertake what she told herself was his aesthetic education. She was a
year or two older than he, though the thought never occurred to him. The
loan of _News from Nowhere_ was the beginning of a series of cross
loans. Upon some absurd first principle of his, Hill had never "wasted
time" upon poetry, and it seemed an appalling deficiency to her. One day
in the lunch hour, when she chanced upon him alone in the little museum
where the skeletons were arranged, shamefully eating the bun that
constituted his midday meal, she retreated, and returned to lend him, with
a slightly furtive air, a volume of Browning. He stood sideways towards
her and took the book rather clumsily, because he was holding the bun in
the other hand. And in the retrospect his voice lacked the cheerful
clearness he could have wished.
That occurred after the examination in comparative anatomy, on the day
before the College turned out its students, and was carefully locked up by
the officials, for the Christmas holidays. The excitement of cramming for
the first trial of strength had for a little while dominated Hill, to the
exclusion of his other interests. In the forecasts of the result in which
everyone indulged he was surprised to find that no one regarded him as a
possible competitor for the Harvey Commemoration Medal, of which this and
the two subsequent examinations disposed. It was about this time that
Wedderburn, who so far had lived inconspicuously on the uttermost margin
of Hill's perceptions, began to take on the appearance of an obstacle. By
a mutual agreement, the nocturnal prowlings with Thorpe ceased for the
three weeks before the examination, and his landlady pointed out that she
really could not supply so much lamp oil at the price. He walked to and
fro from the College with little slips of mnemonics in his hand, lists of
crayfish appendages, rabbits' skull-bones, and vertebrate nerves, for
example, and became a positive nuisance to foot passengers in the opposite
direction.
But, by a natural reaction, Poetry and the girl with the brown eyes ruled
the Christmas holiday. The pending results of the examination became such
a secondary consideration that Hill marvelled at his father's excitement.
Even had he wished it, there was no comparative anatomy to read in
Landport, and he was too poor to buy books, but the stock of poets in the
library was extensive, and Hill's attack was magnificently sustained. He
saturated himself with the fluent numbers of Longfellow and Tennyson, and
fortified himself with Shakespeare; found a kindred soul in Pope, and a
master in Shelley, and heard and fled the siren voices of Eliza Cook and
Mrs. Hemans. But he read no more Browning, because he hoped for the loan
of other volumes from Miss Haysman when he returned to London.