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THE WONDER
BY J. D. BERESFORD
THESE LYNNEKERS THE EARLY HISTORY OF JACOB STAHL A CANDIDATE FOR TRUTH THE INVISIBLE EVENT THE HOUSE IN DEMETRIUS ROAD
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY NEW YORK
THE WONDER
BY
J. D. BERESFORD AUTHOR OF "THESE LYNNEKERS," "THE STORY OF JACOB STAHL," ETC.
[Device]
NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect and variant spellings have been retained. Greek text has been transliterated and is shown between {braces}.
TO MY FRIEND AND CRITIC HUGH WALPOLE
CONTENTS
PART ONE
MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT
CHAPTER PAGE I. THE MOTIVE 11
II. NOTES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF GINGER STOTT 22
III. THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF GINGER STOTT 58
PART TWO
THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WONDER
IV. THE MANNER OF HIS BIRTH 71
V. HIS DEPARTURE FROM STOKE-UNDERHILL 92
VI. HIS FATHER'S DESERTION 107
VII. HIS DEBT TO HENRY CHALLIS 118
VIII. HIS FIRST VISIT TO CHALLIS COURT 143
INTERLUDE 149
THE WONDER AMONG BOOKS
IX. HIS PASSAGE THROUGH THE PRISON OF KNOWLEDGE 155
X. HIS PASTORS AND MASTERS 179
XI. HIS EXAMINATION 193
XII. HIS INTERVIEW WITH HERR GROSSMANN 217
XIII. FUGITIVE 229
PART THREE
MY ASSOCIATION WITH THE WONDER
XIV. HOW I WENT TO PYM TO WRITE A BOOK 235
XV. THE INCIPIENCE OF MY SUBJECTION TO THE WONDER 247
XVI. THE PROGRESS AND RELAXATION OF MY SUBJECTION 267
XVII. RELEASE 284
XVIII. IMPLICATIONS 299
XIX. EPILOGUE: THE USES OF MYSTERY 305
PART ONE
MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT
PART ONE
MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT
CHAPTER I
THE MOTIVE
I
I could not say at which station the woman and her baby entered thetrain.
Since we had left London, I had been struggling with Baillie'stranslation of Hegel's "Phenomenology." It was not a book to read amongsuch distracting circumstances as those of a railway journey, but I waseagerly planning a little dissertation of my own at that time, and mywork as a journalist gave me little leisure for quiet study.
I looked up when the woman entered my compartment, though I did notnotice the name of the station. I caught sight of the baby she wascarrying, and turned back to my book. I thought the child was a freak,an abnormality; and such things disgust me.
I returned to the study of my Hegel and read: "For knowledge is not thedivergence of the ray, but the ray itself by which the truth comes tous; and if this ray be removed, the bare direction or the empty placewould alone be indicated."
I kept my eyes on the book--the train had started again--but the nextpassage conveyed no meaning to my mind, and as I attempted to re-read itan impression was interposed between me and the work I was studying.
I saw projected on the page before me an image which I mistook at firstfor the likeness of Richard Owen. It was the conformation of the headthat gave rise to the mistake, a head domed and massive, white andsmooth--it was a head that had always interested me. But as I looked, mymind already searching for the reason of this hallucination, I saw thatthe lower part of the face was that of an infant. My eyes wandered fromthe book, and my gaze fluttered along the four persons seated oppositeto me, till it rested on the reality of my vision. And even as myattention was thus irresistibly dragged from my book, my mind clung witha feeble desperation to its task, and I murmured under my breath like achild repeating a mechanically learned lesson: "Knowledge is not thedivergence of the ray but the ray itself...."
For several seconds the eyes of the infant held mine. Its gaze wassteady and clear as that of a normal child, but what differentiated itwas the impression one received of calm intelligence. The head wascompletely bald, and there was no trace of eyebrows, but the eyesthemselves were protected by thick, short lashes.
The child turned its head, and I felt my muscles relax. Until then I hadnot been conscious that they had been stiffened. My gaze was released,pushed aside as it were, and I found myself watching the object of thechild's next scrutiny.
This object was a man of forty or so, inclined to corpulence, anduntidy. He bore the evidences of failure in the process of becoming. Hewore a beard that was scanty and ragged, there were bald patches of skinon the jaw; one inferred that he wore that beard only to save thetrouble of shaving. He was sitting next to me, the middle passenger ofthe three on my side of the carriage, and he was absorbed in the pagesof a half-penny paper--I think he was reading the police reports--whichwas interposed between him and the child in the corner diagonallyopposite to that which I occupied.
The man was hunched up, slouching, his legs crossed, his elbows seekingsupport against his body; he held his clumsily folded paper close to hiseyes. He had the appearance of being very myopic, but he did not wearglasses.
As I watched him, he began to fidget. He uncrossed his legs and hunchedhis body deeper into the back of his seat. Presently his eyes began tocreep up the paper in front of him. When they reached the top, hehesitated a moment, making a survey under cover, then he dropped hishands and stared stupidly at the infant in the corner, his mouthslightly open, his feet pulled in under the seat of the carriage.
As the child let him go, his head drooped, and then he turned and lookedat me with a silly, vacuous smile. I looked away hurriedly; this was nota man with whom I cared to share experience.
The process was repeated. The next victim was a big, rubicund,healthy-looking man, clean shaved, with light-blue eyes that wereslightly magnified by the glasses of his gold-mounted spectacles. He,too, had been reading a newspaper--the _Evening Standard_--until thechild's gaze claimed his attention, and he, too, was held motionless bythat strange, appraising stare. But when he was released, his surprisefound vent in words. "This," I thought, "is the man accustomed to act."
"A very remarkable child, ma'am," he said, addressing the thin,ascetic-looking mother.
II
The mother's appearance did not convey the impression of poverty. Shewas, indeed, warmly, decently, and becomingly clad. She wore a longblack coat, braided and frogged; it had the air of belongin
g to an olderfashion, but the material of it was new. And her bonnet, trimmed withjet ornaments growing on stalks that waved tremulously--that, also, wasa modern replica of an older mode. On her hands were black threadgloves, somewhat ill-fitting.
Her face was not that of a country woman. The thin, high-bridged nose,the fallen cheeks, the shadows under eyes gloomy and retrospective--thesewere marks of the town; above all, perhaps, that sallow greyness of theskin which speaks of confinement....
The child looked healthy enough. Its great bald head shone resplendentlylike a globe of alabaster.
"A very remarkable child, ma'am," said the rubicund man who sat facingthe woman.
The woman twitched her untidy-looking black eyebrows, her head trembledslightly and set the jet fruit of her bonnet dancing and nodding.
"Yes, sir," she replied.
"Very remarkable," said the man, adjusting his spectacles and leaningforward. His action had an air of deliberate courage; he was justifyinghis fortitude after that temporary aberration.
I watched him a little nervously. I remembered my feelings when, as achild, I had seen some magnificent enter the lion's den in a travellingcircus. The failure on my right was, also, absorbed in the spectacle; hestared, open-mouthed, his eyes blinking and shifting.
The other three occupants of the compartment, sitting on the same sideas the woman, back to the engine, dropped papers and magazines andturned their heads, all interest. None of these three had, so far as Ihad observed, fallen under the spell of inspection by the infant, but Inoticed that the man--an artisan apparently--who sat next to the womanhad edged away from her, and that the three passengers opposite to mewere huddled towards my end of the compartment.
The child had abstracted its gaze, which was now directed down the aisleof the carriage, indefinitely focussed on some point outside the window.It seemed remote, entirely unconcerned with any human being.
I speak of it asexually. I was still uncertain as to its sex. It is truethat all babies look alike to me; but I should have known that thischild was male, the conformation of the skull alone should have told methat. It was its dress that gave me cause to hesitate. It was dressedabsurdly, not in "long-clothes," but in a long frock that hid its feetand was bunched about its body.
III
"Er--does it--er--can it--talk?" hesitated the rubicund man, and I grewhot at his boldness. There seemed to be something disrespectful inspeaking before the child in this impersonal way.
"No, sir, he's never made a sound," replied the woman, twitching andvibrating. Her heavy, dark eyebrows jerked spasmodically, nervously.
"Never cried?" persisted the interrogator.
"Never once, sir."
"Dumb, eh?" He said it as an aside, half under his breath.
"'E's never spoke, sir."
"Hm!" The man cleared his throat and braced himself with a deliberateand obvious effort. "Is it--he--not water on the brain--what?"
I felt that a rigour of breathless suspense held every occupant of thecompartment. I wanted, and I know that every other person there wanted,to say, "Look out! Don't go too far." The child, however, seemedunconscious of the insult: he still stared out through the window, lostin profound contemplation.
"No, sir, oh no!" replied the woman. "'E's got more sense than aordinary child." She held the infant as if it were some priceless pieceof earthenware, not nursing it as a woman nurses a baby, but balancingit with supreme attention in her lap.
"How old is he?"
We had been awaiting this question.
"A year and nine munse, sir."
"Ought to have spoken before that, oughtn't he?"
"Never even cried, sir," said the woman. She regarded the child with alook into which I read something of apprehension. If it wereapprehension it was a feeling that we all shared. But the rubicund manwas magnificent, though, like the lion tamer of my youthful experience,he was doubtless conscious of the aspect his temerity wore in the eyesof beholders. He must have been showing off.
"Have you taken opinion?" he asked; and then, seeing the woman's lack ofcomprehension, he translated the question--badly, for he conveyed adifferent meaning--thus,
"I mean, have you had a doctor for him?"
The train was slackening speed.
"Oh! yes, sir."
"And what do _they_ say?"
The child turned its head and looked the rubicund man full in the eyes.Never in the face of any man or woman have I seen such an expression ofsublime pity and contempt....
I remembered a small urchin I had once seen at the Zoological Gardens.Urged on by a band of other urchins, he was throwing pebbles at a greatlion that lolled, finely indifferent, on the floor of its playground.Closer crept the urchin; he grew splendidly bold; he threw larger andlarger pebbles, until the lion rose suddenly with a roar, and dashedfiercely down to the bars of its cage.
I thought of that urchin's scared, shrieking face now, as the rubicundman leant quickly back into his corner.
Yet that was not all, for the infant, satisfied, perhaps, with itsvictim's ignominy, turned and looked at me with a cynical smile. I was,as it were, taken into its confidence. I felt flattered, undeservedlyyet enormously flattered. I blushed, I may have simpered.
The train drew up in Great Hittenden station.
The woman gathered her priceless possession carefully into her arms, andthe rubicund man adroitly opened the door for her.
"Good day, sir," she said, as she got out.
"Good day," echoed the rubicund man with relief, and we all drew a deepbreath of relief with him in concert, as though we had just witnessedthe safe descent of some over-daring aviator.
IV
As the train moved on, we six, who had been fellow-passengers for somethirty or forty minutes before the woman had entered our compartment, wewho had not till then exchanged a word, broke suddenly into generalconversation.
"Water on the brain; I don't care what any one says," asserted therubicund man.
"My sister had one very similar," put in the failure, who was sittingnext to me. "It died," he added, by way of giving point to his instance.
"Ought not to exhibit freaks like that in public," said an old manopposite to me.
"You're right, sir," was the verdict of the artisan, and he spatcarefully and scraped his boot on the floor; "them things ought to bekep' private."
"Mad, of course, that's to say imbecile," repeated the rubicund man.
"Horrid head he'd got," said the failure, and shivered histrionically.
They continued to demonstrate their contempt for the infant by manyasseverations. The reaction grew. They were all bold now, and all wantedto speak. They spoke as the survivors from some common peril; they wereincreasingly anxious to demonstrate that they had never sufferedintimidation, and in their relief they were anxious to laugh at thething which had for a time subdued them. But they never named it as acause for fear. Their speech was merely innuendo.
At the last, however, I caught an echo of the true feeling.
It was the rubicund man who, most daring during the crisis, was now boldenough to admit curiosity.
"What's your opinion, sir?" he said to me. The train was running intoWenderby; he was preparing to get out; he leaned forward, his fingers onthe handle of the door.
I was embarrassed. Why had I been singled out by the child? I had takenno part in the recent interjectory conversation. Was this a consequenceof the notice that had been paid to me?
"I?" I stammered, and then reverted to the rubicund man's originalphrase, "It--it was certainly a very remarkable child," I said.
The rubicund man nodded and pursed his lips. "Very," he muttered as healighted, "Very remarkable. Well, good day to you."
I returned to my book, and was surprised to find that my index fingerwas still marking the place at which I had been interrupted some fifteenminutes before. My arm felt stiff and cramped.
I read: "... and if this ray be removed, the bare direction or the emptyplace would alone be indicated."
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