The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories

  XVII.

  THE PURPLE PILEUS

  Mr. Coombes was sick of life. He walked away from his unhappy home, and,sick not only of his own existence but of everybody else's, turned asidedown Gaswork Lane to avoid the town, and, crossing the wooden bridge thatgoes over the canal to Starling's Cottages, was presently alone in thedamp pine woods and out of sight and sound of human habitation. He wouldstand it no longer. He repeated aloud with blasphemies unusual to him thathe would stand it no longer.

  He was a pale-faced little man, with dark eyes and a fine and very blackmoustache. He had a very stiff, upright collar slightly frayed, that gavehim an illusory double chin, and his overcoat (albeit shabby) was trimmedwith astrachan. His gloves were a bright brown with black stripes over theknuckles, and split at the finger ends. His appearance, his wife had saidonce in the dear, dead days beyond recall--before he married her, thatis--was military. But now she called him--it seems a dreadful thing totell of between husband and wife, but she called him "a little grub." Itwasn't the only thing she had called him, either.

  The row had arisen about that beastly Jennie again. Jennie was his wife'sfriend, and, by no invitation of Mr. Coombes, she came in every blessedSunday to dinner, and made a shindy all the afternoon. She was a big,noisy girl, with a taste for loud colours and a strident laugh; and thisSunday she had outdone all her previous intrusions by bringing in a fellowwith her, a chap as showy as herself. And Mr. Coombes, in a starchy, cleancollar and his Sunday frock-coat, had sat dumb and wrathful at his owntable, while his wife and her guests talked foolishly and undesirably, andlaughed aloud. Well, he stood that, and after dinner (which, "as usual,"was late), what must Miss Jennie do but go to the piano and play banjotunes, for all the world as if it were a week-day! Flesh and blood couldnot endure such goings on. They would hear next door, they would hear inthe road, it was a public announcement of their disrepute. He had tospeak.

  He had felt himself go pale, and a kind of rigour had affected hisrespiration as he delivered himself. He had been sitting on one of thechairs by the window--the new guest had taken possession of the arm-chair.He turned his head. "Sun Day!" he said over the collar, in the voice ofone who warns. "Sun Day!" What people call a "nasty" tone, it was.

  Jennie had kept on playing, but his wife, who was looking through somemusic that was piled on the top of the piano, had stared at him. "What'swrong now?" she said; "can't people enjoy themselves?"

  "I don't mind rational 'njoyment, at all," said little Coombes, "but Iain't a-going to have week-day tunes playing on a Sunday in this house."

  "What's wrong with my playing now?" said Jennie, stopping and twirlinground on the music-stool with a monstrous rustle of flounces.

  Coombes saw it was going to be a row, and opened too vigorously, as iscommon with your timid, nervous men all the world over. "Steady on withthat music-stool!" said he; "it ain't made for 'eavy-weights."

  "Never you mind about weights," said Jennie, incensed. "What was yousaying behind my back about my playing?"

  "Surely you don't 'old with not having a bit of music on a Sunday, Mr.Coombes?" said the new guest, leaning back in the arm-chair, blowing acloud of cigarette smoke and smiling in a kind of pitying way. Andsimultaneously his wife said something to Jennie about "Never mind 'im.You go on, Jinny."

  "I do," said Mr. Coombes, addressing the new guest.

  "May I arst why?" said the new guest, evidently enjoying both hiscigarette and the prospect of an argument. He was, by-the-by, a lank youngman, very stylishly dressed in bright drab, with a white cravat and apearl and silver pin. It had been better taste to come in a black coat,Mr. Coombes thought.

  "Because," began Mr. Coombes, "it don't suit me. I'm a business man. I'ave to study my connection. Rational 'njoyment--"

  "His connection!" said Mrs. Coombes scornfully. "That's what he's alwaysa-saying. We got to do this, and we got to do that--"

  "If you don't mean to study my connection," said Mr. Coombes, "what didyou marry me for?"

  "I wonder," said Jennie, and turned back to the piano.

  "I never saw such a man as you," said Mrs. Coombes.

  "You've altered all round since we were married. Before--"

  Then Jennie began at the turn, turn, turn again.

  "Look here!" said Mr. Coombes, driven at last to revolt, standing up andraising his voice. "I tell you I won't have that." The frock-coat heavedwith his indignation.

  "No vi'lence, now," said the long young man in drab, sitting up.

  "Who the juice are you?" said Mr. Coombes fiercely.

  Whereupon they all began talking at once. The new guest said he wasJennie's "intended," and meant to protect her, and Mr. Coombes said he waswelcome to do so anywhere but in his (Mr. Coombes') house; and Mrs.Coombes said he ought to be ashamed of insulting his guests, and (as Ihave already mentioned) that he was getting a regular little grub; and theend was, that Mr. Coombes ordered his visitors out of the house, and theywouldn't go, and so he said he would go himself. With his face burning andtears of excitement in his eyes, he went into the passage, and as hestruggled with his overcoat--his frock-coat sleeves got concertinaed uphis arm--and gave a brush at his silk hat, Jennie began again at thepiano, and strummed him insultingly out of the house. Turn, turn, turn. Heslammed the shop door so that the house quivered. That, briefly, was theimmediate making of his mood. You will perhaps begin to understand hisdisgust with existence.

  As he walked along the muddy path under the firs,--it was late October,and the ditches and heaps of fir needles were gorgeous with clumps offungi,--he recapitulated the melancholy history of his marriage. It wasbrief and commonplace enough. He now perceived with sufficient clearnessthat his wife had married him out of a natural curiosity and in order toescape from her worrying, laborious, and uncertain life in the workroom;and, like the majority of her class, she was far too stupid to realisethat it was her duty to co-operate with him in his business. She wasgreedy of enjoyment, loquacious, and socially-minded, and evidentlydisappointed to find the restraints of poverty still hanging about her.His worries exasperated her, and the slightest attempt to control herproceedings resulted in a charge of "grumbling." Why couldn't he be nice--as he used to be? And Coombes was such a harmless little man, too,nourished mentally on _Self-Help_, and with a meagre ambition ofself-denial and competition, that was to end in a "sufficiency." ThenJennie came in as a female Mephistopheles, a gabbling chronicle of"fellers," and was always wanting his wife to go to theatres, and "allthat." And in addition were aunts of his wife, and cousins (male andfemale) to eat up capital, insult him personally, upset businessarrangements, annoy good customers, and generally blight his life. It wasnot the first occasion by many that Mr. Coombes had fled his home in wrathand indignation, and something like fear, vowing furiously and even aloudthat he wouldn't stand it, and so frothing away his energy along the lineof least resistance. But never before had he been quite so sick of life ason this particular Sunday afternoon. The Sunday dinner may have had itsshare in his despair--and the greyness of the sky. Perhaps, too, he wasbeginning to realise his unendurable frustration as a business man as theconsequence of his marriage. Presently bankruptcy, and after that----Perhaps she might have reason to repent when it was too late. And destiny,as I have already intimated, had planted the path through the wood withevil-smelling fungi, thickly and variously planted it, not only on theright side, but on the left.

  A small shopman is in such a melancholy position, if his wife turns out adisloyal partner. His capital is all tied up in his business, and to leaveher means to join the unemployed in some strange part of the earth. Theluxuries of divorce are beyond him altogether. So that the good oldtradition of marriage for better or worse holds inexorably for him, andthings work up to tragic culminations. Bricklayers kick their wives todeath, and dukes betray theirs; but it is among the small clerks andshopkeepers nowadays that it comes most often to a cutting of throats.Under the circumstances it is not so very remarkable--and you must take itas charitably as you ca
n--that the mind of Mr. Coombes ran for a while onsome such glorious close to his disappointed hopes, and that he thought ofrazors, pistols, bread-knives, and touching letters to the coronerdenouncing his enemies by name, and praying piously for forgiveness. Aftera time his fierceness gave way to melancholia. He had been married in thisvery overcoat, in his first and only frock-coat that was buttoned upbeneath it. He began to recall their courting along this very walk, hisyears of penurious saving to get capital, and the bright hopefulness ofhis marrying days. For it all to work out like this! Was there nosympathetic ruler anywhere in the world? He reverted to death as a topic.

  He thought of the canal he had just crossed, and doubted whether heshouldn't stand with his head out, even in the middle, and it was whiledrowning was in his mind that the purple pileus caught his eye. He lookedat it mechanically for a moment, and stopped and stooped towards it topick it up, under the impression that it was some such small leatherobject as a purse. Then he saw that it was the purple top of a fungus, apeculiarly poisonous-looking purple: slimy, shiny, and emitting a sourodour. He hesitated with his hand an inch or so from it, and the thoughtof poison crossed his mind. With that he picked the thing, and stood upagain with it in his hand.

  The odour was certainly strong--acrid, but by no means disgusting. Hebroke off a piece, and the fresh surface was a creamy white, that changedlike magic in the space of ten seconds to a yellowish-green colour. It waseven an inviting-looking change. He broke off two other pieces to see itrepeated. They were wonderful things these fungi, thought Mr. Coombes, andall of them the deadliest poisons, as his father had often told him.Deadly poisons!

  There is no time like the present for a rash resolve. Why not here andnow? thought Mr. Coombes. He tasted a little piece, a very little pieceindeed--a mere crumb. It was so pungent that he almost spat it out again,then merely hot and full-flavoured: a kind of German mustard with a touchof horse-radish and--well, mushroom. He swallowed it in the excitement ofthe moment. Did he like it or did he not? His mind was curiously careless.He would try another bit. It really wasn't bad--it was good. He forgot histroubles in the interest of the immediate moment. Playing with death itwas. He took another bite, and then deliberately finished a mouthful. Acurious, tingling sensation began in his finger-tips and toes. His pulsebegan to move faster. The blood in his ears sounded like a mill-race. "Trybi' more," said Mr. Coombes. He turned and looked about him, and found hisfeet unsteady. He saw, and struggled towards, a little patch of purple adozen yards away. "Jol' goo' stuff," said Mr. Coombes. "E--lomore ye'." Hepitched forward and fell on his face, his hands outstretched towards thecluster of pilei. But he did not eat any more of them. He forgotforthwith.

  He rolled over and sat up with a look of astonishment on his face. Hiscarefully brushed silk hat had rolled away towards the ditch. He pressedhis hand to his brow. Something had happened, but he could not rightlydetermine what it was. Anyhow, he was no longer dull--he felt bright,cheerful. And his throat was afire. He laughed in the sudden gaiety of hisheart. Had he been dull? He did not know; but at any rate he would be dullno longer. He got up and stood unsteadily, regarding the universe with anagreeable smile. He began to remember. He could not remember very well,because of a steam roundabout that was beginning in his head. And he knewhe had been disagreeable at home, just because they wanted to be happy.They were quite right; life should be as gay as possible. He would go homeand make it up, and reassure them. And why not take some of thisdelightful toadstool with him, for them to eat? A hatful, no less. Some ofthose red ones with white spots as well, and a few yellow. He had been adull dog, an enemy to merriment; he would make up for it. It would be gayto turn his coat-sleeves inside out, and stick some yellow gorse into hiswaistcoat pockets. Then home--singing---for a jolly evening.

  After the departure of Mr. Coombes, Jennie discontinued playing, andturned round on the music-stool again. "What a fuss about nothing!" saidJennie.

  "You see, Mr. Clarence, what I've got to put up with," said Mrs. Coombes.

  "He is a bit hasty," said Mr. Clarence judicially.

  "He ain't got the slightest sense of our position," said Mrs. Coombes;"that's what I complain of. He cares for nothing but his old shop; and ifI have a bit of company, or buy anything to keep myself decent, or get anylittle thing I want out of the housekeeping money, there's disagreeables.'Economy' he says; 'struggle for life,' and all that. He lies awake ofnights about it, worrying how he can screw me out of a shilling. He wantedus to eat Dorset butter once. If once I was to give in to him--there!"

  "Of course," said Jennie.

  "If a man values a woman," said Mr. Clarence, lounging back in thearm-chair, "he must be prepared to make sacrifices for her. For my ownpart," said Mr. Clarence, with his eye on Jennie, "I shouldn't think ofmarrying till I was in a position to do the thing in style. It's downrightselfishness. A man ought to go through the rough-and-tumble by himself,and not drag her--"

  "I don't agree altogether with that," said Jennie. "I don't see why a manshouldn't have a woman's help, provided he doesn't treat her meanly, youknow. It's meanness--"

  "You wouldn't believe," said Mrs. Coombes. "But I was a fool to 'ave 'im.I might 'ave known. If it 'adn't been for my father, we shouldn't 'ave 'adnot a carriage to our wedding."

  "Lord! he didn't stick out at that?" said Mr. Clarence, quite shocked.

  "Said he wanted the money for his stock, or some such rubbish. Why, hewouldn't have a woman in to help me once a week if it wasn't for mystanding out plucky. And the fusses he makes about money--comes to me,well, pretty near crying, with sheets of paper and figgers. 'If only wecan tide over this year,' he says, 'the business is bound to go.' 'If onlywe can tide over this year,' I says; 'then it'll be, if only we can tideover next year. I know you,' I says. 'And you don't catch me screwingmyself lean and ugly. Why didn't you marry a slavey?' I says, 'if youwanted one--instead of a respectable girl,' I says."

  So Mrs. Coombes. But we will not follow this unedifying conversationfurther. Suffice it that Mr. Coombes was very satisfactorily disposed of,and they had a snug little time round the fire. Then Mrs. Coombes went toget the tea, and Jennie sat coquettishly on the arm of Mr. Clarence'schair until the tea-things clattered outside. "What was that I heard?"asked Mrs. Coombes playfully, as she entered, and there was badinage aboutkissing. They were just sitting down to the little circular table when thefirst intimation of Mr. Coombes' return was heard.

  This was a fumbling at the latch of the front door.

  "'Ere's my lord," said Mrs. Coombes. "Went out like a lion and comes backlike a lamb, I'll lay."

  Something fell over in the shop: a chair, it sounded like. Then there wasa sound as of some complicated step exercise in the passage. Then the dooropened and Coombes appeared. But it was Coombes transfigured. Theimmaculate collar had been torn carelessly from his throat. Hiscarefully-brushed silk hat, half-full of a crush of fungi, was under onearm; his coat was inside out, and his waistcoat adorned with bunches ofyellow-blossomed furze. These little eccentricities of Sunday costume,however, were quite overshadowed by the change in his face; it was lividwhite, his eyes were unnaturally large and bright, and his pale blue lipswere drawn back in a cheerless grin. "Merry!" he said. He had stoppeddancing to open the door. "Rational 'njoyment. Dance." He made threefantastic steps into the room, and stood bowing.

  "Jim!" shrieked Mrs. Coombes, and Mr. Clarence sat petrified, with adropping lower jaw.

  "Tea," said Mr. Coombes. "Jol' thing, tea. Tose-stools, too. Brosher."

  "He's drunk," said Jennie in a weak voice. Never before had she seen thisintense pallor in a drunken man, or such shining, dilated eyes.

  Mr. Coombes held out a handful of scarlet agaric to Mr. Clarence. "Jo'stuff," said he; "ta' some."

  At that moment he was genial. Then at the sight of their startled faces hechanged, with the swift transition of insanity, into overbearing fury. Andit seemed as if he had suddenly recalled the quarrel of his departure. Insuch a huge voice as Mrs. Coombes had never heard bef
ore, he shouted, "Myhouse. I'm master 'ere. Eat what I give yer!" He bawled this, as itseemed, without an effort, without a violent gesture, standing there asmotionless as one who whispers, holding out a handful of fungus.

  Clarence approved himself a coward. He could not meet the mad fury inCoombes' eyes; he rose to his feet, pushing back his chair, and turned,stooping. At that Coombes rushed at him. Jennie saw her opportunity, and,with the ghost of a shriek, made for the door.

  Mrs. Coombes followed her. Clarence tried to dodge. Over went thetea-table with a smash as Coombes clutched him by the collar and tried tothrust the fungus into his mouth. Clarence was content to leave his collarbehind him, and shot out into the passage with red patches of fly agaricstill adherent to his face. "Shut 'im in!" cried Mrs. Coombes, and wouldhave closed the door, but her supports deserted her; Jennie saw the shopdoor open, and vanished thereby, locking it behind her, while Clarencewent on hastily into the kitchen. Mr. Coombes came heavily against thedoor, and Mrs. Coombes, finding the key was inside, fled upstairs andlocked herself in the spare bedroom.

  So the new convert to _joie de vivre_ emerged upon the passage, hisdecorations a little scattered, but that respectable hatful of fungi stillunder 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 toimprison his host, and fled into the scullery, only to be captured beforehe could open the door into the yard. Mr. Clarence is singularly reticentof the details of what occurred. It seems that Mr. Coombes' transitoryirritation had vanished again, and he was once more a genial playfellow.And as there were knives and meat choppers about, Clarence very generouslyresolved to humour him and so avoid anything tragic. It is beyond disputethat Mr. Coombes played with Mr. Clarence to his heart's content; theycould not have been more playful and familiar if they had known each otherfor years. He insisted gaily on Clarence trying the fungi, and, after afriendly tussle, was smitten with remorse at the mess he was making of hisguest's face. It also appears that Clarence was dragged under the sink andhis face scrubbed with the blacking brush--he being still resolved tohumour the lunatic at any cost--and that finally, in a somewhatdishevelled, chipped, and discoloured condition, he was assisted to hiscoat and shown out by the back door, the shopway being barred by Jennie.Mr. Coombes' wandering thoughts then turned to Jennie. Jennie had beenunable 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 ofthe evening.

  It would appear that Mr. Coombes then returned to the kitchen, still inpursuit of gaiety, and, albeit a strict Good Templar, drank (or spilt downthe front of the first and only frock-coat) no less than five bottles ofthe stout Mrs. Coombes insisted upon having for her health's sake. He madecheerful noises by breaking off the necks of the bottles with several ofhis wife's wedding-present dinner-plates, and during the earlier part ofthis great drunk he sang divers merry ballads. He cut his finger ratherbadly with one of the bottles--the only bloodshed in this story--and whatwith that, and the systematic convulsion of his inexperienced physiologyby the liquorish brand of Mrs. Coombes' stout, it may be the evil of thefungus poison was somehow allayed. But we prefer to draw a veil over theconcluding incidents of this Sunday afternoon. They ended in the coalcellar, in a deep and healing sleep.

  An interval of five years elapsed. Again it was a Sunday afternoon inOctober, and again Mr. Coombes walked through the pine wood beyond thecanal. He was still the same dark-eyed, black-moustached little man thathe was at the outset of the story, but his double chin was now scarcely soillusory as it had been. His overcoat was new, with a velvet lapel, and astylish collar with turn-down corners, free of any coarse starchiness, hadreplaced the original all-round article. His hat was glossy, his glovesnewish--though one finger had split and been carefully mended. And acasual observer would have noticed about him a certain rectitude ofbearing, a certain erectness of head that marks the man who thinks well ofhimself. He was a master now, with three assistants. Beside him walked alarger sunburnt parody of himself, his brother Tom, just back fromAustralia. They were recapitulating their early struggles, and Mr. Coombeshad just been making a financial statement.

  "It's a very nice little business, Jim," said brother Tom. "In these daysof competition you're jolly lucky to have worked it up so. And you'rejolly 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'talways like this. To begin with, the missus was a bit giddy. Girls arefunny creatures."

  "Dear me!"

  "Yes. You'd hardly think it, but she was downright extravagant, and alwayshaving slaps at me. I was a bit too easy and loving, and all that, and shethought the whole blessed show was run for her. Turned the 'ouse into aregular caravansery, always having her relations and girls from businessin, and their chaps. Comic songs a' Sunday, it was getting to, and drivingtrade 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 awife like a pet animal. I married you for 'elp and company.' I said, 'Yougot to 'elp and pull the business through.' She wouldn't 'ear of it. 'Verywell,' I says?? 'I'm a mild man till I'm roused,' I says, 'and it'sgetting 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 untilthey're a bit afraid of him. So I just broke out to show her. In comes agirl named Jennie, that used to work with her, and her chap. We 'ad a bitof a row, and I came out 'ere--it was just such another day as this--and Ithought 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 Icould do. 'E was a big chap, too. Well, I chucked him, and smashed thingsabout, and gave 'er a scaring, and she ran up and locked 'erself into thespare room."

  "Well?"

  "That's all. I says to 'er the next morning, 'Now you know,' I says, 'whatI'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 forbringing her to poverty--I know their little ways. But we're all rightnow. 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 Tompresently. "I can't see what use they are in the world."

  Mr. Coombes looked. "I dessay they're sent for some wise purpose," saidMr. Coombes.

  And that was as much thanks as the purple pileus ever got for maddeningthis absurd little man to the pitch of decisive action, and so alteringthe whole course of his life.