Here and Hereafter Part 35

I will say this for myself, that I can generally foresee what's going to happen. I'm not one of those that has to look at a newspaper to know what the weather's going to be. It was the stables first, and then it was the house, and I said at the time it would be the garden next. The governor came along to me this morning with a sort of melancholy smile on his face, and talked to me just as openly and frankly as if I'd been a gentleman like himself.

"Adam," he said, "I've lost a lot of money lately. Been swindled out of it. I daresay you heard?"

"I'd heard nothing definite, sir. I'm sure I'm very sorry to hear it now."

"Well," he said, "what I came to tell you is that you'll have to get along with one man less in the garden. I think Green will be the one to go."

"Well, sir," I said, "I don't know if I might venture on a suggestion."

"What is it?"

"I was going to say that Green's wages don't amount to very much in the year, not as compared with mine. If I might suggest, I think you might do a lot worse than to let me go and make Townes the head man here, with, say, a small rise. That'd save a lot of money, and I know you'd find Townes satisfactory."

"Does he know enough about it?"

"To speak plainly, by this time he knows as much about it as I do. He's one of the cleverest and smartest men I ever had under me, and he's a beggar to work as well. He's never done one single thing wrong since he's been here."

"What about yourself, Adam? I thought you were attached to the place. I didn't think you'd ever want to leave my service."

"No, sir, I've been very well suited here. But then, you see, it all fits in. I could take a rather bigger place. Before I came here I'd ten men under me. And I should feel quite comfortable if Townes was taking on the work, for he knows how things ought to be done."

So it's all settled. Townes has got a grin on him that would reach from here to London, and would keep on thanking me all day if I didn't tell him to shut his head and get on with his work. I may be leaving, but so long as I am here I'll see proper order kept.

That kid of his, the one they call Hilda, isn't pleased at all. She says that if I go she'll come with me.

I wish to G.o.d she would.

THE SCENT

There was no one but myself in the smaller of the two smoking-rooms when he entered. I had picked up an evening paper, and was boring myself with it for a few minutes in front of the fire, before going on to bore myself somewhere else. He walked rapidly to the fireplace and rang the bell, and then turned abruptly to me.

"Hullo! How are you! Didn't know you were here." Then he caught sight of the evening paper in my hands and asked me for G.o.d's sake to put that thing down. I put it down and asked him what was the matter. He was very pale and had just the appearance of a man whose nerves were suffering from over-strain.

"I must tell you," he said abruptly. "I'm glad I found you. It's the most perfectly--"

He stopped there because the waiter who answered the bell had just entered. He ordered some brandy and resumed again.

"You will laugh your head off by the time I have finished my story, ghastly though it is. You won't believe a word of it. See here."

He picked up the paper which I had thrown down, opened it rapidly, and handed it to me with his finger on one particular paragraph. The paragraph referred to an inquest on a somewhat commonplace suicide in Soho. The suicide, an Italian judging by his name, had flung himself from a window on the first floor, and had broken his neck on the pavement. Evidence was given by those who knew him that he had been very queer in his manners of late, and the usual verdict had been returned.

"Well?" I said.

"It's G.o.d's mercy that I wasn't a witness at that inquest."

"What does it matter?" I replied. "I suppose you saw the accident. You are required to go and say that; it doesn't hurt you. n.o.body thinks any the worse of you. It may be a little tiresome, but there is nothing to bring you to this condition, even if you had really given evidence, which it seems you haven't."

The waiter brought the brandy. He drank it, ordered another, and continued more quietly.

"I am afraid I have let the thing prey on my mind a little. I confess that I have had a shock. The story is not at all what you imagine. I did not witness the accident; it was only within the last two hours that I heard of it, but I know how it was that it happened."

He paused. I selected another cigar, lit it, and said nothing. He continued:

"You know me well enough to know my interest in anything which is a little out of the way. I will even run some slight risk to meet and talk with a man who is not as other men are, or, better still, a woman who is not as other women are. I have a fancy for human curiosities; I should like to take a museum and collect them."

"Yes," I said, "I know that. You will get yourself into trouble one of these days."

He went on speaking.

"About a week ago I went down Wardour Street and saw an Italian looking in at a shop window. I did not know that he was an Italian at the time.

The national characteristics were not very strongly marked in him. He was quite well dressed, rather like a well-to-do young City man. His head was abnormal. The breadth from the end of the eyebrow to the ear was enormous. His eyes were not of the same colour; his skin was like parchment; he continually moved the tip of his nose. His nostrils opened and shut. He looked to me to be a very queer beast indeed, and I meant to talk to him.

"After a while he went into a restaurant. I waited ten minutes and then went in after him. I sat down at the same table, and, by way of opening a conversation, knocked over his gla.s.s of claret, breaking the gla.s.s.

Then, of course, I apologised and ordered a waiter to replace it. He at once countermanded the order, and turned to me, saying in excellent English, 'Pray do not trouble. I had quite finished with it.'

"'But,' I said, 'you must let me. Your gla.s.s was untouched.'

"'Yes,' he said, 'but I never drink it.'

"I looked amazed. 'I could explain,' he added, 'but it is a little difficult to understand, and it would bore you.'

"'The only things that I care about,' I replied, 'are the things which are not ordinary, and are a little difficult to understand. Unless you are a dipsomaniac, triumphing over temptation, I fail to see why you should order wine which you have no intention of drinking.'

"'Your explanation is wrong,' he replied. 'I ordered the claret because I wanted to smell it.'

"As he seemed to find that conclusive, I observed that even that did not clear the thing up.

"'You must know,' he said a little impatiently, 'that with some people the scents of different objects have curious results. The possibilities implied in the sense of smell are enormous. In most people they are undeveloped; in very few are they at all understood. The connection between a scent and a memory has been noticed. I have seen a woman who smelt wallflowers for the first time for ten years burst into tears.

The scent of eau de Cologne is supposed to be refreshing, and that of ammonia to be vivifying, and that of ether sickening. No scent possesses the very curious attraction for a human being that valerian does for the lower animals.'

"'The whole art of obtaining a new sensation by the use of scents is absolutely unknown to most people. Most women divide scents vaguely into opaque and transparent; most virtuous women prefer the transparent. But that is really as far as they have gone. As for the effect of those scents which are not pleasant to anybody, and therefore are generally called by an unpleasant name, there seems to be no knowledge at all.'

"'I knew a case,' I said, 'of a gardener who had to work in a hothouse filled with lilies-of-the-valley. He fainted away.'

"My Italian friend took up the story.

"'And when he recovered consciousness he was angry and entreated to be put back again?'

"'Yes,' I said, 'but how did you know it?'

"'Because I know the effect of different scents.'

"I was more fascinated than ever, and made him talk for a long time.

Several times he seemed to be hesitating whether or not to tell me something, and I urged him on. It came at last. He had got a secret. He had invented a scent and was a.s.sured of the marvellous power of it, but not of the whole of its effects, afterwards or immediate. These he was investigating. 'And,' he added impressively, 'it gives one an entirely new way of living.'