Widdershins Part 22

There was a stretcher couch in the middle of the room, and all manner of queer appliances, frames of ground gla.s.s, tubes of gla.s.s blown into extraordinary shapes, a dynamo, and a lot of other things all about. A couple of doctors were there too, and Benlian was talking to them.

"We'll try my hand first," Benlian said by-and-by.

He advanced to the couch, and put his hand under one of the frames of ground gla.s.s. One of the doctors did something in a corner. A harsh crackling filled the room, and an unearthly, fluorescent light shot and flooded across the frame where Benlian's hand was. The two doctors looked, and then started back. One of them gave a cry. He was sickly white.

"Put me on the couch," said Benlian.

I and the doctor who was not ill lifted him on the canvas stretcher. The green-gleaming frame of fluctuating light was pa.s.sed over the whole of his body. Then the doctor ran to a telephone and called a colleague....

We spent the morning there, with dozens of doctors coming and going. Then we left. All the way home in the cab Benlian chuckled to himself.

"That scared 'em, Pudgie!" he chuckled. "A man they can't X-ray--that scared 'em! We must put that down in the diary--"

"Wasn't it ripping!" I chuckled back.

He kept a sort of diary or record. He gave it to me afterwards, but they've borrowed it. It was as big as a ledger, and immensely valuable, I'm sure; they oughtn't to borrow valuable things like that and not return them. The laughing that Benlian and I have had over that diary!

It fooled them all--the clever X-ray men, the artists of the academies, everybody! Written on the fly-leaf was "_To My Pudgie_." I shall publish it when I get it back again.

Benlian had now got frightfully weak; it's awfully hard work, pa.s.sing yourself. And he had to take a little milk now and then or he'd have died before he had quite finished. I didn't bother with miniatures any longer, and when angry letters came from my employers we just put them into the fire, Benlian and I, and we laughed--that is to say, I laughed, but Benlian only smiled, being too weak to laugh really. He'd lots of money, so that was all right; and I slept in his studio, to be there for the pa.s.sing.

And that wouldn't be very long now, I thought; and I was always looking at the statue. Things like that (in case you don't know) have to be done gradually, and I supposed he was busy filling up the inside of it and hadn't got to the outside yet--for the statue was much the same to look at. But, reckoning off his sips of milk and s.n.a.t.c.hes of sleep, he was making splendid progress, and the figure must be getting very full now.

I was awfully excited, it was getting so near....

And then somebody came bothering and nearly spoiling all. It's odd, but I really forget exactly what it was. I only know there was a funeral, and people were sobbing and looking at me, and somebody said I was callous, but somebody else said, "No, look at him," and that it was just the other way about. And I think I remember, now, that it wasn't in London, for I was in a train; but after the funeral I dodged them, and found myself back at Euston again. They followed me, but I shook them off. I locked my own studio up, and lay as quiet as a mouse in Benlian's place when they came hammering at the door....

And now I must come to what you'll called the finish--though it's awfully stupid to call things like that "finishes."

I'd slipped into my own studio one night--I forget what for; and I'd gone quietly, for I knew they were following me, those people, and would catch me if they could. It was a thick, misty night, and the light came streaming up through Benlian's roof window, with the shadows of the window-divisions losing themselves like dark rays in the fog. A lot of hooting was going on down the river, steamers and barges.... Oh, I know what I'd come into my studio for! It was for those negatives. Benlian wanted them for the diary, so that it could be seen there wasn't any fake about the prints. For he'd said he would make a final spurt that evening and get the job finished. It had taken a long time, but I'll bet _you_ couldn't have pa.s.sed _yourself_ any quicker.

When I got back he was sitting in the chair he'd hardly left for weeks, and the diary was on the table by his side. I'd taken all the scaffolding down from the statue, and he was ready to begin. He had to waste one last bit of strength to explain to me, but I drew as close as I could, so that he wouldn't lose much.

"Now, Pudgie," I just heard him say, "you've behaved splendidly, and you'll be quite still up to the finish, won't you?"

I nodded.

"And you mustn't expect the statue to come down and walk about, or anything like that," he continued. "_Those_ aren't the really wonderful things. And no doubt people will tell you it hasn't changed; but you'll know better! It's much more wonderful that I should be there than that they should be able to prove it, isn't it?... And, of course, I don't know exactly how it will happen, for I've never done this before.... You have the letter for the S.P.R.? They can photograph it if they want.... By the way, you don't think the same of my statue as you did at first, do you?"

"Oh, it's wonderful!" I breathed.

"And even if, like the G.o.d of the others, it doesn't vouchsafe a special sign and wonder, it's Benlian, for all that?"

"Oh, do be quick, Benlian! I can't bear another minute!"

Then, for the last time, he turned his great eaten-out eyes on me.

"_I seal you mine, Pudgie_!" he said.

Then his eyes fastened themselves on the statue.

I waited for a quarter of an hour, scarcely breathing. Benlian's breath came in little flutters, many seconds apart. He had a little clock on the table. Twenty minutes pa.s.sed, and half an hour. I was a little disappointed, really, that the statue wasn't going to move; but Benlian knew best, and it was filling quietly up with him instead. Then I thought of those zigzag bunches of lightning they draw on the electric-belt advertis.e.m.e.nts, and I was rather glad after all that the statue _wasn't_ going to move. It would have been a little cheap, that ... vulgar, in a sense.... He was breathing a little more sharply now, as if in pain, but his eyes never moved. A dog was howling somewhere, and I hoped that the hooting of the tugs wouldn't disturb Benlian....

Nearly an hour had pa.s.sed when, all of a sudden, I pushed my chair farther away and cowered back, gnawing my fingers, very frightened.

Benlian had suddenly moved. He'd set himself forward in his chair, and he seemed to be strangling. His mouth was wide open, and he began to make long harsh "_Aaaaah-aaaah's_!" I shouldn't have thought pa.s.sing yourself was such agony....

And then I gave a scream--for he seemed to be thrusting himself back in his chair again, as if he'd changed his mind and didn't want to pa.s.s himself at all. But just you ask anybody: When you get yourself just over half-way pa.s.sed, the other's dragged out of you, and you can't help yourself. His "_Aaaaahs_!" became so loud and horrid that I shut my eyes and stopped my ears.... Minutes that lasted; and then there came a high dinning that I couldn't shut out, and all at once the floor shook with a heavy thump. When all was still again I opened my eyes.

His chair had overturned, and he lay in a heap beside it.

I called "Benlian!" but he didn't answer....

He'd pa.s.sed beautifully; quite dead. I looked up at the statue. It was just as Benlian had said--it didn't open its eyes, nor speak, nor anything like that. Don't you believe chaps who tell you that statues that have been pa.s.sed into do that; they don't.

But instead, in a blaze and flash and shock, I knew now for the first time what a glorious thing that statue was! Have you ever seen anything for the first time like that? If you have, you never see very much afterwards, you know. The rest's all piffle after that. It was like coming out of fog and darkness into a split in the open heavens, my statue was so transfigured; and I'll bet if you'd been there you'd have clapped your hands, as I did, and chucked the tablecloth over the Benlian on the floor till they should come to cart that empty sh.e.l.l away, and patted the statue's foot and cried: "_Is it all right, Benlian_?"

I did this; and then I rushed excitedly out into the street, to call somebody to see how glorious it was....

They've brought me here for a holiday, and I'm to go back to the studio in two or three days. But they've said that before, and I think it's caddish of fellows not to keep their word--and not to return a valuable diary too! But there isn't a peephole in my room, as there is in some of them (the Emperor of Brazil told me that); and Benlian knows I haven't forsaken him, for they take me a message every day to the studio, and Benlian always answers that it's "_all right_, and I'm to stay where I am for a bit." So as long as he knows, I don't mind so much. But it is a bit rotten hanging on here, especially when the doctors themselves admit how reasonable it all is.... Still, if Benlian says it's "_All right_ ..."

IO

As the young man put his hand to the uppermost of the four bra.s.s bell-k.n.o.bs to the right of the fanlighted door he paused, withdrew the hand again, and then pulled at the lowest k.n.o.b. The sawing of bell-wire answered him, and he waited for a moment, uncertain whether the bell had rung, before pulling again. Then there came from the bas.e.m.e.nt a single cracked stroke; the head of a maid appeared in the whitewashed area below; and the head was withdrawn as apparently the maid recognised him.

Steps were heard along the hall; the door was opened; and the maid stood aside to let him enter, the ap.r.o.n with which she had slipped the latch still crumpled in her greasy hand.

"Sorry, Daisy," the young man apologised, "but I didn't want to bring her down all those stairs. How is she? Has she been out to-day?"

The maid replied that the person spoken of had been out; and the young man walked along the wide carpeted pa.s.sage.

It was c.u.mbered like an antique-shop with alabaster busts on pedestals, dusty palms in faience vases, and trophies of spears and shields and a.s.segais. At the foot of the stairs was a rustling portiere of strung beads, and beyond it the carpet was continued up the broad, easy flight, secured at each step by a bra.s.s rod. Where the stairs made a turn, the fading light of the December afternoon, made still dimmer by a window of decalcomanied gla.s.s, shone on a cloudy green aquarium with sallow goldfish, a number of cacti on a shabby console table, and a large and dirty white sheepskin rug. Pa.s.sing along a short landing, the young man began the ascent of the second flight. This also was carpeted, but with a carpet that had done duty in some dining- or bed-room before being cut up into strips of the width of the narrow s.p.a.ce between the wall and the handrail. Then, as he still mounted, the young man's feet sounded loud on oilcloth; and when he finally paused and knocked at a door it was on a small landing of naked boards beneath the cold gleam of the skylight above the well of the stairs.

"Come in," a girl's voice called.

The room he entered had a low sagging ceiling on which shone a low glow of firelight, making colder still the patch of eastern sky beyond the roofs and the cowls and hoods of chimneys framed by the square of the single window. The glow on the ceiling was reflected dully in the old dark mirror over the mantelpiece. An open door in the farther corner, hampered with skirts and blouses, allowed a glimpse of the girl's bedroom.

The young man set the paper bag he carried down on the littered round table and advanced to the girl who sat in an old wicker chair before the fire. The girl did not turn her head as he kissed her cheek, and he looked down at something that had m.u.f.fled the sound of his steps as he had approached her.

"Hallo, that's new, isn't it, Bessie? Where did that come from?" he asked cheerfully.

The middle of the floor was covered with a common jute matting, but on the hearth was a magnificent leopard-skin rug.

"Mrs. Hepburn sent it up. There was a draught from under the door. It's much warmer for my feet."