The History of Mr. Polly Part 42

"What you mean?"

Annie looked at him hard, and suddenly his soul was black with terror.

"Who else could it have been--in the very cloes 'e wore?"

"Of course," said Mr. Polly, and began his egg. He was so agitated that he only realised its condition when he was half way through it and Annie safely downstairs.

"Lord!" he said, reaching out hastily for the pepper. "One of Miriam's! Management! I haven't tasted such an egg for five years....

Wonder where she gets them! Picks them out, I suppose!"

He abandoned it for its fellow.

Except for a slight mustiness the second egg was very palatable indeed. He was getting on to the bottom of it as Miriam came in. He looked up. "Nice afternoon," he said at her stare, and perceived she knew him at once by the gesture and the voice. She went white and shut the door behind her. She looked as though she was going to faint. Mr.

Polly sprang up quickly and handed her a chair. "My G.o.d!" she whispered, and crumpled up rather than sat down.

"It's _you_" she said.

"No," said Mr. Polly very earnestly. "It isn't. It just looks like me.

That's all."

"I _knew_ that man wasn't you--all along. I tried to think it was. I tried to think perhaps the water had altered your wrists and feet and the colour of your hair."

"Ah!"

"I'd always feared you'd come back."

Mr. Polly sat down by his egg. "I haven't come back," he said very earnestly. "Don't you think it."

"'Ow we'll pay back the insurance now I _don't_ know." She was weeping. She produced a handkerchief and covered her face.

"Look here, Miriam," said Mr. Polly. "I haven't come back and I'm not coming back. I'm--I'm a Visitant from Another World. You shut up about me and I'll shut up about myself. I came back because I thought you might be hard up or in trouble or some silly thing like that. Now I see you again--I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied completely. See? I'm going to absquatulate, see? Hey Presto right away."

He turned to his tea for a moment, finished his cup noisily, stood up.

"Don't you think you're going to see me again," he said, "for you ain't."

He moved to the door.

"That _was_ a tasty egg," he said, hovered for a second and vanished.

Annie was in the shop.

"The missus has had a bit of a shock," he remarked. "Got some sort of fancy about a ghost. Can't make it out quite. So Long!"

And he had gone.

III

Mr. Polly sat beside the fat woman at one of the little green tables at the back of the Potwell Inn, and struggled with the mystery of life. It was one of those evenings, serenely luminous, amply and atmospherically still, when the river bend was at its best. A swan floated against the dark green ma.s.ses of the further bank, the stream flowed broad and shining to its destiny, with scarce a ripple--except where the reeds came out from the headland--the three poplars rose clear and harmonious against a sky of green and yellow. And it was as if it was all securely within a great warm friendly globe of crystal sky. It was as safe and enclosed and fearless as a child that has still to be born. It was an evening full of the quality of tranquil, unqualified a.s.surance. Mr. Polly's mind was filled with the persuasion that indeed all things whatsoever must needs be satisfying and complete. It was incredible that life has ever done more than seemed to jar, that there could be any shadow in life save such velvet softnesses as made the setting for that silent swan, or any murmur but the ripple of the water as it swirled round the chained and gently swaying punt. And the mind of Mr. Polly, exalted and made tender by this atmosphere, sought gently, but sought, to draw together the varied memories that came drifting, half submerged, across the circle of his mind.

He spoke in words that seemed like a bent and broken stick thrust suddenly into water, destroying the mirror of the shapes they sought.

"Jim's not coming back again ever," he said. "He got drowned five years ago."

"Where?" asked the fat woman, surprised.

"Miles from here. In the Medway. Away in Kent."

"Lor!" said the fat woman.

"It's right enough," said Mr. Polly.

"How d'you know?"

"I went to my home."

"Where?"

"Don't matter. I went and found out. He'd been in the water some days.

He'd got my clothes and they'd said it was me."

"_They_?"

"It don't matter. I'm not going back to them."

The fat woman regarded him silently for some time. Her expression of scrutiny gave way to a quiet satisfaction. Then her brown eyes went to the river.

"Poor Jim," she said. "'E 'adn't much Tact--ever."

She added mildly: "I can't 'ardly say I'm sorry."

"Nor me," said Mr. Polly, and got a step nearer the thought in him.

"But it don't seem much good his having been alive, does it?"

"'E wasn't much good," the fat woman admitted. "Ever."

"I suppose there were things that were good to him," Mr. Polly speculated. "They weren't _our_ things."

His hold slipped again. "I often wonder about life," he said weakly.

He tried again. "One seems to start in life," he said, "expecting something. And it doesn't happen. And it doesn't matter. One starts with ideas that things are good and things are bad--and it hasn't much relation to what _is_ good and what is bad. I've always been the skeptaceous sort, and it's always seemed rot to me to pretend we know good from evil. It's just what I've _never_ done. No Adam's apple stuck in _my_ throat, ma'am. I don't own to it."

He reflected.

"I set fire to a house--once."

The fat woman started.

"I don't feel sorry for it. I don't believe it was a bad thing to do--any more than burning a toy like I did once when I was a baby. I nearly killed myself with a razor. Who hasn't?--anyhow gone as far as thinking of it? Most of my time I've been half dreaming. I married like a dream almost. I've never really planned my life or set out to live. I happened; things happened to me. It's so with everyone. Jim couldn't help himself. I shot at him and tried to kill him. I dropped the gun and he got it. He very nearly had me. I wasn't a second too soon--ducking.... Awkward--that night was.... M'mm.... But I don't blame him--come to that. Only I don't see what it's all up to....