Twelve Stories and a Dream (16 page)

That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old gentleman
in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of us and
afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious eye, and,
finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us, I doubt if a
solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among them. Plop! We must
have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder almost at once, though
the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The attention of every
one—including even the Amusements' Association band, which on this
occasion, for the only time in its history, got out of tune—was
arrested by the amazing fact, and the still more amazing yapping and
uproar caused by the fact that a respectable, over-fed lap-dog sleeping
quietly to the east of the bandstand should suddenly fall through the
parasol of a lady on the west—in a slightly singed condition due to the
extreme velocity of its movements through the air. In these absurd
days, too, when we are all trying to be as psychic, and silly, and
superstitious as possible! People got up and trod on other people,
chairs were overturned, the Leas policeman ran. How the matter settled
itself I do not know—we were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves
from the affair and get out of range of the eye of the old gentleman in
the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were sufficiently
cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness and nausea and
confusion of mind to do so we stood up and, skirting the crowd, directed
our steps back along the road below the Metropole towards Gibberne's
house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly the gentleman who
had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured sunshade using quite
unjustifiable threats and language to one of those chair-attendants who
have "Inspector" written on their caps. "If you didn't throw the dog,"
he said, "who DID?"

The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural
anxiety about ourselves (our clothe's were still dreadfully hot, and
the fronts of the thighs of Gibberne's white trousers were scorched a
drabbish brown), prevented the minute observations I should have liked
to make on all these things. Indeed, I really made no observations of
any scientific value on that return. The bee, of course, had gone. I
looked for that cyclist, but he was already out of sight as we came into
the Upper Sandgate Road or hidden from us by traffic; the char-a-banc,
however, with its people now all alive and stirring, was clattering
along at a spanking pace almost abreast of the nearer church.

We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped in
getting out of the house was slightly singed, and that the impressions
of our feet on the gravel of the path were unusually deep.

So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically
we had been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things in
the space of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour while the
band had played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it had upon us
was that the whole world had stopped for our convenient inspection.
Considering all things, and particularly considering our rashness in
venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly have been
much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt, that Gibberne
has still much to learn before his preparation is a manageable
convenience, but its practicability it certainly demonstrated beyond all
cavil.

Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under
control, and I have several times, and without the slightest bad result,
taken measured doses under his direction; though I must confess I have
not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence. I may mention,
for example, that this story has been written at one sitting and without
interruption, except for the nibbling of some chocolate, by its means.
I began at 6.25, and my watch is now very nearly at the minute past the
half-hour. The convenience of securing a long, uninterrupted spell of
work in the midst of a day full of engagements cannot be exaggerated.
Gibberne is now working at the quantitative handling of his preparation,
with especial reference to its distinctive effects upon different types
of constitution. He then hopes to find a Retarder with which to dilute
its present rather excessive potency. The Retarder will, of course, have
the reverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should enable the
patient to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary time,—and
so to maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like absence of
alacrity, amidst the most animated or irritating surroundings. The two
things together must necessarily work an entire revolution in civilised
existence. It is the beginning of our escape from that Time Garment
of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator will enable us to
concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact upon any moment or occasion
that demands our utmost sense and vigour, the Retarder will enable us
to pass in passive tranquillity through infinite hardship and tedium.
Perhaps I am a little optimistic about the Retarder, which has indeed
still to be discovered, but about the Accelerator there is no possible
sort of doubt whatever. Its appearance upon the market in a convenient,
controllable, and assimilable form is a matter of the next few months.
It will be obtainable of all chemists and druggists, in small green
bottles, at a high but, considering its extraordinary qualities, by no
means excessive price. Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator it will be called,
and he hopes to be able to supply it in three strengths: one in 200, one
in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and white labels
respectively.

No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things
possible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even
criminal proceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging, as
it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations it
will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of
the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this is purely a
matter of medical jurisprudence and altogether outside our province.
We shall manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and, as for the
consequences—we shall see.

My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural
mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam
through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates
irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has come
with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an elaborate
clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination to be firm
and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant alike. He is a
sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many of the secret
practice of the higher mathematics—creditable rather than interesting
things. His conversation is copious and given much to needless detail.
By many, indeed, his intercourse is condemned, to put it plainly, as
"boring," and such have even done me the compliment to wonder why I
countenance him. But, on the other hand, there is a large faction
who marvel at his countenancing such a dishevelled, discreditable
acquaintance as myself. Few appear to regard our friendship with
equanimity. But that is because they do not know of the link that binds
us, of my amiable connection via Jamaica with Mr. Ledbetter's past.

About that past he displays an anxious modesty. "I do not KNOW what I
should do if it became known," he says; and repeats, impressively, "I do
not know WHAT I should do." As a matter of fact, I doubt if he would do
anything except get very red about the ears. But that will appear
later; nor will I tell here of our first encounter, since, as a general
rule—though I am prone to break it—the end of a story should come
after, rather than before, the beginning. And the beginning of the story
goes a long way back; indeed, it is now nearly twenty years since
Fate, by a series of complicated and startling manoeuvres, brought Mr.
Ledbetter, so to speak, into my hands.

In those days I was living in Jamaica, and Mr. Ledbetter was a
schoolmaster in England. He was in orders, and already recognisably the
same man that he is to-day: the same rotundity of visage, the same or
similar glasses, and the same faint shadow of surprise in his resting
expression. He was, of course, dishevelled when I saw him, and his
collar less of a collar than a wet bandage, and that may have helped to
bridge the natural gulf between us—but of that, as I say, later.

The business began at Hithergate-on-Sea, and simultaneously with Mr.
Ledbetter's summer vacation. Thither he came for a greatly needed rest,
with a bright brown portmanteau marked "F. W. L.", a new white-and-black
straw hat, and two pairs of white flannel trousers. He was naturally
exhilarated at his release from school—for he was not very fond of the
boys he taught. After dinner he fell into a discussion with a talkative
person established in the boarding-house to which, acting on the advice
of his aunt, he had resorted. This talkative person was the only
other man in the house. Their discussion concerned the melancholy
disappearance of wonder and adventure in these latter days, the
prevalence of globe-trotting, the abolition of distance by steam and
electricity, the vulgarity of advertisement, the degradation of men
by civilisation, and many such things. Particularly was the talkative
person eloquent on the decay of human courage through security, a
security Mr. Ledbetter rather thoughtlessly joined him in deploring. Mr.
Ledbetter, in the first delight of emancipation from "duty," and being
anxious, perhaps, to establish a reputation for manly conviviality,
partook, rather more freely than was advisable, of the excellent whisky
the talkative person produced. But he did not become intoxicated, he
insists.

He was simply eloquent beyond his sober wont, and with the finer edge
gone from his judgment. And after that long talk of the brave old days
that were past forever, he went out into moonlit Hithergate—alone and
up the cliff road where the villas cluster together.

He had bewailed, and now as he walked up the silent road he still
bewailed, the fate that had called him to such an uneventful life as
a pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so stagnant, so
colourless! Secure, methodical, year in year out, what call was there
for bravery? He thought enviously of those roving, mediaeval days, so
near and so remote, of quests and spies and condottieri and many a risky
blade-drawing business. And suddenly came a doubt, a strange doubt,
springing out of some chance thought of tortures, and destructive
altogether of the position he had assumed that evening.

Was he—Mr. Ledbetter—really, after all, so brave as he assumed? Would
he really be so pleased to have railways, policemen, and security vanish
suddenly from the earth?

The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime. "The burglar," he said,
"is the only true adventurer left on earth. Think of his single-handed
fight against the whole civilised world!" And Mr. Ledbetter had echoed
his envy. "They DO have some fun out of life," Mr. Ledbetter had said.
"And about the only people who do. Just think how it must feel to wire
a lawn!" And he had laughed wickedly. Now, in this franker intimacy of
self-communion he found himself instituting a comparison between his
own brand of courage and that of the habitual criminal. He tried to
meet these insidious questionings with blank assertion. "I could do all
that," said Mr. Ledbetter. "I long to do all that. Only I do not give
way to my criminal impulses. My moral courage restrains me." But he
doubted even while he told himself these things.

Mr. Ledbetter passed a large villa standing by itself. Conveniently
situated above a quiet, practicable balcony was a window, gaping black,
wide open. At the time he scarcely marked it, but the picture of it came
with him, wove into his thoughts. He figured himself climbing up that
balcony, crouching—plunging into that dark, mysterious interior. "Bah!
You would not dare," said the Spirit of Doubt. "My duty to my fellow-men
forbids," said Mr. Ledbetter's self-respect.

It was nearly eleven, and the little seaside town was already very
still. The whole world slumbered under the moonlight. Only one warm
oblong of window-blind far down the road spoke of waking life. He turned
and came back slowly towards the villa of the open window. He stood for
a time outside the gate, a battlefield of motives. "Let us put things
to the test," said Doubt. "For the satisfaction of these intolerable
doubts, show that you dare go into that house. Commit a burglary in
blank. That, at any rate, is no crime." Very softly he opened and
shut the gate and slipped into the shadow of the shrubbery. "This is
foolish," said Mr. Ledbetter's caution. "I expected that," said Doubt.
His heart was beating fast, but he was certainly not afraid. He was NOT
afraid. He remained in that shadow for some considerable time.

The ascent of the balcony, it was evident, would have to be done in a
rush, for it was all in clear moonlight, and visible from the gate into
the avenue. A trellis thinly set with young, ambitious climbing roses
made the ascent ridiculously easy. There, in that black shadow by the
stone vase of flowers, one might crouch and take a closer view of this
gaping breach in the domestic defences, the open window. For a while
Mr. Ledbetter was as still as the night, and then that insidious whisky
tipped the balance. He dashed forward. He went up the trellis with
quick, convulsive movements, swung his legs over the parapet of the
balcony, and dropped panting in the shadow even as he had designed. He
was trembling violently, short of breath, and his heart pumped noisily,
but his mood was exultation. He could have shouted to find he was so
little afraid.