Fancies and Goodnights

by John Collier

  The boy then, with a caper, sprang at the rope, clutched it, and went up hand over hand, like a monkey. When he reached the top he vanished into thin air. Henry guffawed.

  Soon the man, looking upwards with an anxious expression, began to hoot and holler after the boy. He called him down, he ordered him down, he begged him down, he began to swear and curse horribly. The boy, it seemed, took no notice at all. Henry roared.

  Now the black, clapping his abominable great scimitar between his teeth, took hold of the rope himself, and went up it like a sailor. He, also, disappeared at the top. Henry's mirth increased.

  Pretty soon some yelps and squeals were heard coming out of the empty air, and then a blood-curdling scream. Down came a leg, thump onto the ground, then an arm, a thigh, a head and other joints, and finally (no ladies being present) a bare backside, which struck the earth like a bomb. Henry went into fits.

  Then the black came sliding down, holding on with one hand, fairly gibbering with excitement. He presented to Henry, with a salaam, his reeking blade for inspection. Henry locked in his chair.

  The black, seemingly overwhelmed with remorse, gathered up the fragments of his little stooge, lavishing a hundred lamentations and endearments upon each grisly member, and he stowed them all in the giant basket.

  At that moment Henry, feeling the time had come for a showdown, and willing to bet a thousand to one they'd planted the whole compound full of mirrors before calling him out there, pulled out his revolver, and blazed away all six chambers in different directions, in the expectation of splintering at least one of those deceiving glasses.

  Nothing of that sort happened, but the black, doing a quick pirouette in alarm, looked down in the dust at his feet, and held up a villainous little snake, no thicker than a lead pencil, which had been killed by one of Henry's stray bullets. He gave a gasp of relief, touched his turban very civilly, turned round again, and made a pass or two over the basket. At once, with a wriggle and a frisk, the boy sprang out, whole, alive, smiling, full of health and wickedness.

  The black hastily hauled down the rope, and came cringing up to Henry, overflowing with gratitude for having been saved from that villainous little snake, which was nothing more nor less than a krait — one nip and a man goes round and round like a Catherine wheel for eleven seconds; then he is as dead as mutton.

  «But for the Heavenborn,» said the black, «I should have been a goner, and my wicked little boy here, who is my pride and delight, must have lain dismembered in the basket till the sahib's servants condescended to throw him to the crocodiles. Our worthless lives, our scanty goods, are all at the sahib's disposal.»

  «That's all right,» said Henry. «All I ask is, show me how the trick is worked, or the laugh will be on me from now on.»

  «Would not the sahib,» said the blade diffidently, «prefer the secret of a superb hair-restorer?»

  «No. No,» said Henry. «Nothing but the trick.»

  «I have,» said the black, «the secret of a very peculiar tonic, which the sahib (not now, of course, but in later life) might find —»

  «The trick,» said Henry, «and without further delay.»

  «Very well,» said the black. «Nothing in the world could be more simple. You make a pass, Like that —»

  «Wait a minute,» said Henry. «Like that?»

  «Exactly,» said the black. «You then throw up the rope — so. You see? It sticks.»

  «So it does,» said Henry.

  «Any boy can climb,» said the black. «Up boy! Show the sahib.»

  The boy, smiling, climbed up and disappeared.

  «Now,» said the black, «if the sahib will excuse me, I shall be back immediately.» And with that he climbed up himself, threw down the boy in sections, and speedily rejoined Henry on the ground.

  «All that,» said he, scooping up legs and arms as he spoke, «all that can be done by anyone. There is a little knack, however, to the pass I make at this juncture. If the sahib will deign to observe closely — like that.»

  «Like that?» said Henry.

  «You have it to perfection,» said the black.

  «Very interesting,» said Henry. «Tell me, what's up there at the top of the rope?»

  «Ah, sahib,» said the black with a smile, «that is something truly delightful.»

  With that he salaamed and departed, taking with him his rope, his giant basket, his tremendous great scimitar, and his wicked little boy. Henry was left feeling rather morose: he was known from, the Deccan to the Khyber Pass as the man who laughed at the Indian Rope Trick, and now he could laugh no more.

  He decided to keep very quiet about it, but this unfortunately was not enough. At tiffin, at chota peg, at the Club, on the Maidan, in the bazaar, and at polo, he was expected to laugh like a horse, and in India one has to do what is expected of one. Henry became extremely unpopular, cabals were formed against him, and soon he was hoofed out of the Service.

  This was the more distressing as in the meantime he had married a wife, strong-featured, upstanding, well groomed, straight-eyed, a little peremptory in manner, and as jealous as a demon, but in all respects a memsahib of the highest type, who knew very well what was due to her. She told Henry he had better go to America and make a fortune. He agreed, they packed up, and off they went to America.

  «I hope,» said Henry, as they stood looking at the skyline of New York, «I hope I shall make that fortune.»

  «Of course,» said she. «You must insist upon it»

  «Very well, my dear,» said he.

  On landing, however, he discovered that all the fortunes had already been made, a discovery which very generally awaits those who visit America on this errand, and after some weeks of drifting about from place to place, he was prepared to cut his demand down to a mere job, then to a lesser job, and finally to the price of a meal and a bed for the night.

  They reached this extremity in a certain small town in the Middle West «There is nothing for it, my dear,» said Henry. «We shall have to do the Indian Rope Trick.»

  His wife cried out very bitterly at the idea of a memsahib performing this native feat in a Middle Western town, before a Middle Western audience. She reproached him with the loss of his job, the poor quality of his manhood, with the time he let her little dog get run over on the bund, and with a glance he had cast at a Parsee maiden at Bombay. Nevertheless, reason and hunger prevailed; they pawned her last trinket and invested in a rope, a roomy grip, and a monstrous old rusty scimitar they discovered in a junk-shop.

  When she saw this last, Henry's wife flatly refused to go on, unless she was given the star part and Henry took that of the stooge. «But» said Henry, drawing an apprehensive thumb down the notched and jagged edge of the grim and rusty bilbo. «But,» said he, «you don't know how to make the passes.»

  «You shall teach me,» she said, «and if anything goes wrong you will have only yourself to blame.»

  So Henry showed her. You may be sure he was very thorough in his instructions. In the end she mastered them perfectly, and there was nothing left to do but to stain themselves with coffee. Henry improvised a turban and loincloth; she wore a sari and a pair of ash-trays borrowed from the hotel. They sought out a convenient waste lot, a large crowd collected, and the show began.

  Up went the rope. Sure enough, it stuck. The crowd, with a multiple snigger, whispered that everything was done by mirrors. Henry, not without a good deal of puffing, went up hand over hand. When he got to the top, he forgot the crowd, the act, his wife, and even himself, so surprised and delighted was he by the sight that met his eyes.

  He found himself crawling out of something like a well, onto what seemed to be solid ground. The landscape about him was not at all like that below; it was like an Indian paradise, full of dells, bowers, scarlet ibises, and heaven knows what all. However, his surprise and delight came less from these features of the background than from the presence of a young female in the nearest of these bowers or arbours, which happened to be all wreathed, canopied, overgrown, a
nd intertwined with passion flowers. This delightful creature, who was a positive houri, and very lightly attired, seemed to be expecting Henry, and greeted him with rapture.

  Henry, who had a sufficiently affectionate nature, flung his arms round her neck and gazed deeply into her eyes. These were surprisingly eloquent They seemed to say, «Why not make hey hey while the sun shines?»

  He found the notion entirely agreeable, and planted a lingering kiss on her lips, noting only with a dim and careless annoyance that his wife was hooting and hollering from below. «What person of any tact or delicacy,» thought he, «could hoot and holler at such a moment?» and he dismissed her from his mind.

  You may imagine his mortification when his delicious damsel suddenly repulsed him from her arms. He looked over his shoulder, and there was his wife, clambering over the edge, terribly red in the face, with the fury of a demon in her eye, and the mighty scimitar gripped firmly between her teeth.

  Henry tried to rise, but she was beforehand with him, and while yet he had but his left foot on the ground, she caught him one across the loins with the huge and jagged bilbo, which effectually hamstrung him, so that he fell grovelling at her feet. «For heaven's sake!» he cried. «It's all a trick. Part of the act. It means nothing. Remember our public. The show must go on.»

  «It shall,» said she, striking at his arms and legs.

  «Oh, those notches!» cried he. «To oblige me, my dear, please sharpen it a little upon a stone.»

  «It is good enough for you, you viper,» said she, hacking away all the time. Pretty soon Henry was a limbless trunk.

  «For the love of God,» said he, «I hope you remember the passes. I can explain everything.»

  «To hell with the passes!» said she, and with a last swipe she sent his head rolling like a football.

  She was not long in picking up the scattered fragments of poor Henry, and flinging them down to earth, amid the applause and laughter of the crowd, who were more than ever convinced it was all done by mirrors.

  Then, gripping her scimitar, she was about to swarm down after him, not from any soft-hearted intention of reassembling her unfortunate spouse, but rather to have another hack or two at some of the larger joints. At that moment she became aware of someone behind her, and, looking round, there was a divine young man, with the appearance of a Maharaja of the highest caste, an absolute Valentino, in whose eyes she seemed to read the words, «It is better to bum upon the Bed of Passion than in the Chair of Electricity.»

  This idea presented itself with an overwhelming appeal. She paused only to thrust her head through the aperture, and cry, «That's what happens to a pig of a man who betrays his wife with a beastly native,» before hauling up the rope and entering into conversation with her charmer.

  The police soon appeared upon the scene. There was nothing but a cooing sound above, as if invisible turtle doves were circling in amorous flight Below, the various portions of Henry were scattered in the dust, and the bluebottle flies were already settling upon them.

  The crowd explained it was nothing but a trick, done with, mirrors.

  «It looks to me,» said the sergeant, «as if the biggest one most have splintered right on top of him.»

  LITTLE MEMENTO

  A young man who was walking fast came out of a deep lane onto a wide hilltop space, where there was a hamlet clustered about a green. The setting encompassed a pond, ducks, the Waggoner Inn, with white paint and swinging sign; in fact, all the fresh, clean, quiet, ordinary appurtenances of an upland Somerset hamlet.

  The road went on, and so did the young man, over to the very brink of the upland, where a white gate gave upon a long garden well furnished with fruit trees, and at the end of it a snug little house sheltered by a coppice and enjoying a view over the vast vale below. An old man of astonishingly benevolent appearance was pottering about in the garden. He looked up as the walker, Eric Gaskell, approached his gate.

  «Good morning,» said he. «A fine September morning!»

  «Good morning,» said Eric Gaskell.

  «I have had my telescope out this morning,» said the old man. «I don't often get down the hill these days. The way back is a little too steep for me. Still, I have my view and my telescope. I think I know all that goes on.»

  «Well, that's very nice,» said Eric.

  «It is,» said the old man. «You are Mr. Gaskell?»

  «Yes,» said Eric. «I know. We met at the vicarage.»

  «We did,» said the old man. «You often take your walk this way. I see you go by. Today I thought, 'Now this is the day for a little chat with young Mr. Gaskell!' Come in.»

  «Thanks,» said Eric. «I will, for a spell.»

  «And how,» said the old man, opening his gate, «do you and Mrs. Gaskell like Somerset?»

  «Enormously,» said Eric.

  «My housekeeper tells me,» said the old man, «that you come from the East Coast. Very bracing. Her niece is your little maid. You don't find it too dull here? Too backward? Too old-fashioned?»

  «We like that part of it best,» said Eric, sitting with his host on a white seat under one of the apple trees.

  «In these days,» said the old man, «young people like old-fashioned things. That's a change from my day. Now most of us who live about here are old codgers, you know. There's Captain Felton, of course, but the Vicar, the Admiral, Mr. Coperus, and the rest — all old codgers. You don't mind that?»

  «I like it,» said Eric.

  «We have our hobbies,» said the old man. «Coperus is by way of being an antiquarian; the Admiral has his roses.»

  «And you have your telescope,» said Eric.

  «Ah, my telescope,» said the old man. «Yes, yes, I have my telescope. But my principal pastime — what I really plume myself on — is my museum.»

  «You have a museum?» said Eric.

  «Yes, a museum,» said the old man. «I should like you to have a look at it and tell me what you think.»

  «I shall be delighted,» said Eric.

  «Then come right in,» said the old man, leading him toward the house. «I seldom have the chance of showing my collection to a newcomer. You must bring Mrs. Gaskell one of these days. Does she find enough entertainment in this quiet part, would you say?»

  «She loves it,» said Eric. «She can't see too much of the country here. She drives out almost every day.»

  «All by herself in that little red roadster of hers,» said the old man. «Does she like the house?»

  «Well, I don't know,» said Eric. «She did when we chose it last spring. She liked it very much.»

  «It is a very nice house,» said the old man.

  «She finds it a little oppressive lately, I'm afraid,» said Eric. «She says she has to get out to breathe.»

  «It is the difference in the air,» said the old man. «After living on the East Coast.»

  «Probably it's that,» said Eric.

  By this time they had reached the front door. The old man ushered Eric in. They entered a very snug, trim little room, the furniture all well polished and everything meticulously arranged. «This is my little sitting-room,» the old man said. «My dining-room, too, these days. The drawing-room and the little study beyond I have given over entirely to my museum. Here we are.»

  He threw open a door. Eric stepped in, looked around, and stared in amazement. He had been expecting the usual sort of thing: a neat cabinet or two with Roman coins, flint implements, a snake in alcohol, perhaps a stuffed bird or some eggs. But this room and the study, seen through the connecting doorway, were piled high with the most broken, battered, frowzy, gimcrack collection of junk he had ever seen in his life. What was oddest of all was that no item in this muddle of rubbish had even the excuse of a decent antiquity. It was as if several cartloads of miscellaneous material had been collected from the village dump and spilled over the tables, sideboards, chairs, and floors of these two rooms.

  The old man observed Eric's astonishment with the greatest good humour. «You are thinking,» said he, «that this c
ollection is not the sort of thing one usually finds in a museum. You are right. But let me tell you, Mr. Gaskell, that every object here has a history. These pieces are pebbles rolled and broken by the stream of time as it flows over the villages in our quiet little district. Taken together, they are a — a record. Here is a souvenir from the War: a telegram to the Bristows in Upper Medium, saying their boy was killed. It was years before I could get that from poor Mrs. Bristow. I gave her a pound for it.»

  «Very interesting,» said Eric.

  «That wheelbarrow,» said the old man, pointing out a splintered wreck, «was the cause of two deaths. It rolled down a bank into the lane here just as a car was coming along. It was in all the papers. 'Local Tragedy.'»

  «Extraordinary!» said Eric.

  «It all makes up life,» said the old man. «Here is a belt dropped by one of the Irish haymakers when they fought the gipsies. This hat belonged to the man who had Church Farm, near you. He won a prize in the Irish Sweep and drank himself to death, poor fellow! These are bricks from my gardener's cottage. It burned down, you know, and nobody knows how the fire started. This is a snake which somehow got into the church during service last year. Captain Felton killed it. He's a very handsome man, don't you think?»

  «Yes. I suppose so. I hardly know him.»

  «That's funny. I thought you and Mrs. Gaskell were very great friends of Captain Felton.»

  «What gave you that idea?»

  «Perhaps it was just my fancy. Here is a rather sad exhibit. These horns came from a bull that Farmer Lawson put into my meadow. Somebody left the gate open; it got out and gored a man on the road.»

  «We scarcely know Captain Felton,» said Eric. «We met him when first we came here, but —»

  «Quite, quite,» said the old man. «Here is an anonymous letter. We have them now and then in this district, as in most places. Mr. Coperus gave me this.»

  «Are they usually well founded, the hints in your local brand of anonymous letters?» asked Eric.

  «I believe they are,» said the old man. «Someone seems to know what goes on. Here's something that I fear won't last very long: a giant puffball from the graveyard. They grow larger there than anywhere else. Feel how light it is.»