The Wish House and Other Stories

  ‘It ought to be, dearie. It ought to be.’

  ‘It do ‘urt sometimes. You shall see it when nurse comes. She thinks I don’t know it’s turned.’

  Mrs Fettley understood. Human nature seldom walks up to the word ‘cancer’.

  ‘Be ye certain sure, Gra’?’ she asked.

  ‘I was sure of it when old Mr Marshall ‘ad me up to ‘is study an’ spoke a long piece about my faithful service. I’ve obliged ’em on an’ off for a goodish time, but not enough for a pension. But they give me a weekly ‘lowance for life. I knew what that sinnified – as long as three years ago.’

  ‘Dat don’t prove it, Gra’.’

  ‘To give fifteen bob a week to a woman ‘oo’d live twenty year in the course o’ nature? It do!

  ‘You’re mistook! You’re mistook!’ Mrs Fettley insisted.

  ‘Liz, there’s no mistakin’ when the edges are all heaped up, like – same as a collar. You’ll see it. an’ I laid out Dora Wickwood, too. She ‘ad it under the armpit, like.’

  Mrs Fettley considered awhile, and bowed her head in finality.

  “ow long d’you reckon ‘twill allow ye, countin’ from now, dearie?’

  ‘Slow come, slow go. But if I don’t set eyes on ye ‘fore next hoppin’, this’ll be goodbye, Liz.’

  ‘Dunno as I’ll be able to manage by then – not ‘thout I have a liddle dog to lead me. For de chillern, dey won’t be troubled, an’ – O Gra’!–I’m blindin’ up – I’m blindin’ up!’

  ‘Oh, dat was why you didn’t more’n finger with your quilt-patches all this while! I was wonderin’…But the pain do count, don’t ye think, Liz? The pain do count to keep ‘Arry – where I want ‘im. Say it can’t be wasted, like.’

  ‘I’m sure of it – sure of it, dearie. You’ll ‘ave your reward.’

  ‘I don’t want no more’n this – if de pain is taken into de reckonin’.’

  “Twill be – ‘twill be, Gra’.’

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘That’s nurse. She’s before ’ertime,’ said Mrs Ashcroft. ‘Open to ‘er.’

  The young lady entered briskly, all the bottles in her bag clicking. ‘Evening Mrs Ashcroft,’ she began. ‘I’ve come raound a little earlier than usual because of the Institute dance to-na-ite. You won’t ma-ind, will you?’

  ‘Oh, no. Me dancin’ days are over.’ Mrs Ashcroft was the self-contained domestic at once. ‘My old friend, Mrs Fettley ‘ere, has been settin’ talkin’ with me a while.’

  ‘I hope she ‘asn’t been fatiguing you?’ said the nurse a little frostily.

  ‘Quite the contrary. It ‘as been a pleasure. Only – only – just at the end I felt a bit – a bit flogged out like.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ The nurse was on her knees already, with the washes to hand. ‘When old ladies get together they talk a deal too much, I’ve noticed.’

  ‘Mebbe we do,’ said Mrs Fettley, rising. ‘So now I’ll make myself scarce.’

  ‘Look at it first, though,’ said Mrs Ashcroft feebly. ‘I’d like ye to look at it.’

  Mrs Fettley looked, and shivered. Then she leaned over, and kissed Mrs Ashcroft once on the waxy yellow forehead, and again on the faded grey eyes.

  ‘It do count, don’t it – de pain?’ The lips that still kept trace of their original moulding hardly more than breathed the words.

  Mrs Fettley kissed them and moved towards the door.

  RAHERE

  Rahere, King Henry’s Jester, feared by all the Norman Lords

  For his eye that pierced their bosoms, for his tongue that shamed their swords;

  Feed and flattered by the Churchmen – well they knew how deep he stood

  In dark Henry’s crooked counsels – fell upon an evil mood.

  Suddenly, his days before him and behind him seemed to stand

  Stripped and barren, fixed and fruitless, as those leagues of naked sand

  When St Michael’s ebb slinks outward to the bleak horizon-bound

  And the trampling wide-mouthed waters are withdrawn from sight and sound.

  Then a Horror of Great Darkness sunk his spirit and, anon,

  (Who had seen him wince and whiten as he turned to walk alone)

  Followed Gilbert the Physican, and muttered in his ear,

  ‘Thou hast it, O my brother?’ ‘Yea, I have it,’ said Rahere.

  ‘So it comes,’ said Gilbert smoothly, ‘man’s most immanent distress.

  ’Tis a humour of the Spirit which abhorreth all excess;

  And, whatever breed the surfeit – Wealth, or Wit, or Power, or Fame –

  (And thou hast each) the Spirit laboureth to expel the same.

  ‘Hence the dulled eye’s deep self-loathing – hence the loaded leaden brow;

  Hence the burden of Wanhope that aches thy soul and body now.

  Ay, the merriest fool must face it, and the wisest Doctor learn;

  For it comes – it comes,’ said Gilbert, ‘as it passes – to return.’

  But Rahere was in his torment, and he wandered, dumb and far,

  Till he came to reeking Smithfield where the crowded gallows are,

  (Followed Gilbert the Physician) and beneath the wry-necked dead,

  Sat a leper and his woman, very merry, breaking bread.

  He was cloaked from chin to ankle – faceless, fingerless, obscene –

  Mere corruption swaddled man-wise, but the woman whole and clean;

  And she waited on him crooning, and Rahere beheld the twain,

  Each delighting in the other, and he checked and groaned again.

  ‘So it comes – it comes,’ said Gilbert, ‘as it came when Life began.

  Tis a motion of the Spirit that revealeth God to man

  In the shape of Love exceeding, which regards not taint or fall,

  Since in perfect Love, saith Scripture, can be no excess at all.

  ‘Hence the eye that sees no blemish – hence the hour that holds no shame.

  Hence the Soul assured the Essence and the Substance are the same.

  Nay, the meanest need not miss it, though the mightier pass it by;

  For it comes – it comes,’ said Gilbert, ‘and, thou seest, it does not die!’

  THE SURVIVAL

  HORACE, Ode 22, Bk. V

  Securely, after days

  Unnumbered, I behold

  Kings mourn that promised praise

  Their cheating bards foretold.

  Of earth-constricting wars,

  Of Princes passed in chains,

  Of deeds out-shining stars,

  No word or voice remains.

  Yet furthest times receive,

  And to fresh praise restore,

  Mere flutes that breathe at eve,

  Mere seaweed on the shore;

  A smoke of sacrifice;

  A chosen myrtle-wreath;

  An harlot’s altered eyes;

  A rage ‘gainst love or death;

  Glazed snow beneath the moon;

  The surge of storm-bowed trees-

  The Caesars perished soon,

  And Rome Herself: But these

  Endure while Empires fall

  And Gods for Gods make room…

  Which greater God than all

  Imposed the amazing doom?

  * Hop-picking.

  The Janeites

  Jane lies in Winchester-blessed be her shade!

  Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made!

  And while the stones of Winchester, or Milsom Street, remain,

  Glory, love, and honour unto England’s Jane!

  IN the Lodge of Instruction attached to ‘Faith and Works No. 5837 E.G.,’ which has already been described, Saturday afternoon was appointed for the weekly clean-up, when all visiting Brethren were welcome to help under the direction of the Lodge Officer of the day: their reward was light refreshment and the meeting of companions.

  This particular afternoon – in the autumn of ‘20 – Brother Burges, P.M., was on duty and,
finding a strong shift present, took advantage of it to strip and dust all hangings and curtains, to go over every inch of the Pavement – which was stone, not floorcloth – by hand; and to polish the Columns, Jewels, Working outfit and organ. I was given to clean some Officers’ Jewels – beautiful bits of old Georgian silver-work humanized by generations of elbow-grease – and retired to the organ-loft; for the floor was like the quarterdeck of a battleship on the eve of a ball. Half a dozen brethren had already made the Pavement as glassy as the aisle of Greenwich Chapel; the brazen chapiters winked like pure gold at the flashing Marks on the Chairs; and a morose one-legged brother was attending to the Emblems of Mortality with, I think, rouge.

  ‘They ought,’ he volunteered to Brother Burges as we passed, ‘to be betwixt the colour of ripe apricots an’ a half-smoked meerschaum. That’s how we kept ’em in my Mother-Lodge – a treat to look at.’

  ‘I’ve never seen spit-and-polish to touch this,’ I said.

  ‘Wait till you see the organ,’ Brother Burges replied. ‘You could shave in it when they’ve done. Brother Anthony’s in charge up there – the taxi-owner you met here last month. I don’t think you’ve come across Brother Humberstall, have you?’

  ‘I don’t remember—‘ I began.

  ‘You wouldn’t have forgotten him if you had. He’s a hairdresser now, somewhere at the back of Ebury Street. Was Garrison Artillery. Blown up twice.’

  ‘Does he show it?’ I asked at the foot of the organ-loft stairs.

  ‘No-o. Not much more than Lazarus did, I expect.’ Brother Burges fled off to set someone else to a job.

  Brother Anthony, small, dark, and hump-backed, was hissing groom-fashion while he treated the rich acacia-wood panels of the Lodge organ with some sacred, secret composition of his own. Under his guidance Humberstall, an enormous, flat-faced man, carrying the shoulders, ribs, and loins of the old Mark ‘14 Royal Garrison Artillery, and the eyes of a bewildered retriever, rubbed the stuff in. I sat down to my task on the organ-bench, whose purple velvet cushion was being vacuum-cleaned on the floor below.

  ‘Now,’ said Anthony, after five minutes’ vigorous work on the part of Humberstall. ‘Now we’re gettin’ somethin’ worth lookin’ at! Take it easy, an’ go on with what you was tellin’ me about that Macklin man.’

  ‘I – I ’adn’t anything against ‘im,’ said Humberstall, ‘excep’ he’d been a toff by birth; but that never showed till he was bosko absoluto. Mere bein’ drunk on’y made a common ‘ound of ‘im. But when bosko, it all came out. Otherwise, he showed me my duties as mess-waiter very well on the ‘ole.’

  ‘Yes, yes. But what in ‘ell made you go back to your Circus? The Board gave you down-an’-out fair enough, you said, after the dump went up at Eatables?’

  ‘Board or no Board, I ’adn’t the nerve to stay at ‘ome – not with Mother chuckin’ ‘erself round all three rooms like a rabbit every time the Gothas tried to get Victoria; an’ sister writin’ me aunts four pages about it next day. Not for me, thank you! till the war was over. So I slid out with a draft – they wasn’t particular in ‘17, so long as the tally was correct-and I joined up again with our Circus somewhere at the back of Lar Pug Noy, I think it was.’ Humberstall paused for some seconds and his brow wrinkled. ‘Then I-I went sick or somethin’ or other, they told me; but I know when I reported for duty, our battery sergeant-major says that I wasn’t expected back, an’ – an’, one thing leadin’ to another – to cut a long story short – I went up before our major – Major – I shall forget my own name next – Major—‘

  ‘Never mind,’ Anthony interrupted. ‘Go on! It’ll come back in talk!’

  “Alf a mo’. ’twas on the tip o’ my tongue then.’

  Humberstall dropped the polishing-cloth and knitted his brows again in most profound thought. Anthony turned to me and suddenly launched into a sprightly tale of his taxi’s collision with a Marble Arch refuge on a greasy day after a three-yard skid.

  ‘Much damage?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh no! Ev’ry bolt an’ screw an’ nut on the chassis strained; but nothing carried away, you understand me, an’ not a scratch on the body. You’d never ‘ave guessed a thing wrong till you took ’erin hand. It was a wop too: ‘ead-on – like this!’ And he slapped his tactful little forehead to show what a knock it had been.

  ‘Did your major dish you up much?’ he went on over his shoulder to Humberstall, who came out of his abstraction with a slow heave.

  ‘We-ell! He told me I wasn’t expected back either; an’ he said ’e couldn’t ‘ang up the Ole Circus till I’d rejoined; an’ he said that my ten-inch Skoda which I’d been Number Three of, before the dump went up at Eatables, had ’erfull crowd. But, ’e said, as soon as a casualty occurred he’d remember me. “Meantime,” says he, “I particularly want you for actin’ mess-waiter.”

  “‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” I says perfectly respectful; “but I didn’t exactly come back for that, sir.”

  “‘Beggin’ your pardon, ‘Umberstall,” says ‘e, “but I ‘appen to command the Circus! Now, you’re a sharp-witted man,” he says; “an’ what we’ve suffered from fool-waiters in mess ‘as been somethin’ cruel. You’ll take on, from now – under instruction to Macklin ‘ere.” So this man, Macklin, that I was tellin’ you about, showed me my duties…‘Ammick! I’ve got it! ‘Ammick was our major, an’ Mosse was captain!’ Humberstall celebrated his recapture of the name by labouring at the organ-panel on his knee.

  ‘Look out! You’ll smash it,’ Anthony protested.

  ‘Sorry! Mother’s often told me I didn’t know my strength. Now, here’s a curious thing. This major of ours – it’s all comin’ back to me – was a high-up divorce-court lawyer; an’ Mosse, our captain, was number one o’ Mosse’s Private Detective Agency. You’ve heard of it? Wives watched while you wait, an’ so on. Well, these two ‘ad been registerin’ together, so to speak, in the Civil Line for years on end, but hadn’t ever met till the war. Consequently, at mess their talk was mostly about famous cases they’d been mixed up in. ‘Ammick told the law-courts’ end o’ the business, an’ all what had been left out of the pleadin’s; an’ Mosse ‘ad the actual facts concernin’ the errin’ parties – in hotels an’ so on. I’ve heard better talk in our mess than ever before or since. It comes o’ the Gunners bein’ a scientific corps.’

  ‘That be damned!’ said Anthony. ‘If anythin’ ‘appens to ‘ em they’ve got it all down in a book. There’s no book when your lorry dies on you in the ‘Oly Land. That’s brains.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Humberstall continued, ‘come on this secret society business that I started teilin’ you about. When those two – ‘ Ammick an’ Mosse – ‘ad finished about their matrimonial relations – and, mind you, they weren’t radishes – they seldom or ever repeated – they’d begin, as often as not, on this Secret Society woman I was tellin’ you of – this Jane. She was the only woman I ever ’eard ’em say a good word for. ‘Cordin’ to them Jane was a nonesuch. I didn’t know then she was a Society. Fact is, I only ‘ung out ‘arf an ear in their direction at first, on account of bein’ under instruction for mess-duty to this Macklin man. What drew my attention to her was a new lieutenant joinin’ up. We called ’im “Gander” on account of his profeel, which was the identical bird. ‘E’d been a nactuary – workin’ out ow long civilians ‘ad to live. Neither ‘Ammick nor Mosse wasted words on ’im at mess. They went on talking as usual, an’ in due time, as usual, they got back to Jane. Gander cocks one of his big chilblainy ears an’ cracks his cold finger-joints. “By God! Jane?” says ‘e. “Yes, Jane,” says ‘Ammick pretty short an’ senior. “Praise ‘Eaven!” says Gander. “It was ‘Bubbly’ where I’ve come from down the line.” (Some damn revue or other, I expect.) Well, neither ‘Ammick nor Mosse was easy-mouthed, or for that matter mealy-mouthed; but no sooner ‘ad Gander passed that remark than they both shook ‘ands with the young squirt across the table an’ called for the port back again. It was a password, all right! Then
they went at it about Jane – all three, regardless of rank. That made me listen. Presently, I ’eard ‘Ammick say—‘

  “Arf a mo’,’ Anthony cut in. ‘But what was you doin’ in mess?’

  ‘Me an’ Macklin was refixin’ the sandbag screens to the dug-out passage in case o’ gas. We never knew when we’d cop it in the ‘Eavies, don’t you see? But we knew we ‘ad been looked for for some time, an’ it might come any minute. But, as I was sayin’, ‘Ammick says what a pity ’twas Jane ‘ad died barren. “I deny that,” says Mosse. “I maintain she was fruitful in the ‘ighest sense o’ the word.” an’ Mosse knew about such things, too. “I’m inclined to agree with ‘Ammick,” says young Gander. “Any’ow, she’s left no direct an’ lawful prog’ny.” I remember every word they said, on account o’ what ‘appened subsequently. I ’adn’t noticed Macklin much, or I’d ha’ seen he was bosko absoluto. Then ‘e cut in, leanin’ over a packin’-case with a face on ’im like a dead mackerel in the dark. “Pa-hardon me, gents,” Macklin says, “but this is a matter on which I do ‘appen to be moderately well-informed. She did leave lawful issue in the shape o’ one son; and ‘is name was ‘Enery James.”

  ‘“By what sire? Prove it,” says Gander, before ‘is senior officers could get in a word.

  “‘I will,” says Macklin, surgin’ on ‘is two thumbs. An’, mark you, none of ’em spoke! I forget whom he said was the sire of this ‘Enery James-man; but ’e delivered ’em a lecture on this Jane-woman for more than a quarter of an hour. I know the exact time, because my old Skoda was on duty at ten-minute intervals reachin’ after some Jerry formin’-up area; and her blast always put out the dug-out candles. I relit ’em once, an’ again at the end. In conclusion, this Macklin fell flat forward on ‘is face, which was how ’e generally wound up ‘is notion of a perfect day. Bosko absoluto!

  ‘“Take ’im away,” says ‘Ammick to me. ‘“E’s sufferin’ from shell-shock.”

  ‘To cut a long story short, that was what first put the notion into my ‘ead. Wouldn’t it you? Even ‘ad Macklin been a ‘igh-up mason—‘