Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches

M >> Maurice Baring >> Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches


When he left school he went to Oxford. His life there was as lonely
as it had been at school. The dirty, untidy, ink-stained, and
chemical-stained little boy grew up into a tall, lank, slovenly-dressed
man, who kept entirely to himself, not because he cherished any dislike
or disdain for his fellow-creatures, but because he seemed to be
entirely absorbed in his own thoughts and isolated from the world by a
barrier of dreams.

He did well at Oxford, and when he went down he passed high into the
Civil Service and became a clerk in a Government office. There he kept
as much to himself as ever. He did his work rapidly and well, for this
man, who seemed so slovenly in his person, had an accurate mind, and was
what was called a good clerk, although his incurable absent-mindedness
once or twice caused him to forget certain matters of importance.

His fellow clerks treated him as a crank and as a joke, but none of
them, try as they would, could get to know him or win his confidence.
They used to wonder what Fletcher did with his spare time, what were
his pursuits, what were his hobbies, if he had any. They suspected that
Fletcher had some hobby of an engrossing kind, since in everyday life he
conveyed the impression of a man who is walking in his sleep, who acts
mechanically and automatically. Somewhere else, they thought, in some
other circumstances, he must surely wake up and take a living interest
in somebody or in something.

Yet had they followed him home to his small room in Canterbury-mansions
they would have been astonished. For when he returned from the office
after a hard day's work he would do nothing more engrossing than slowly
to turn over the leaves of a book in which there were elaborate drawings
and diagrams of locomotives and other kinds of engines. And on Sunday he
would take a train to one of the large junctions and spend the whole
day in watching express trains go past, and in the evening would return
again to London.

One day after he had returned from the office somewhat earlier than
usual, he was telephoned for. He had no telephone in his own room, but
he could use a public telephone which was attached to the building. He
went into the small box, but found on reaching the telephone that he had
been cut off by the exchange. He imagined that he had been rung up by
the office, so he asked to be given their number. As he did so his eye
caught an advertisement which was hung just over the telephone. It was
an elaborate design in black and white, pointing out the merits of a
particular kind of soap called the Venus: a classical lady, holding
a looking-glass in one hand and a cake of this invaluable soap in the
other, was standing in a sphere surrounded by pointed rays, which was no
doubt intended to represent the most brilliant of the planets.

Fletcher sat down on the stool and took the receiver in his hand. As he
did so he had for one second the impression that the floor underneath
him gave way and that he was falling down a precipice. But before he had
time to realise what was happening the sensation of falling left him; he
shook himself as though he had been asleep, and for one moment a faint
recollection as though of the dreams of the night twinkled in his mind,
and vanished beyond all possibility of recall. He said to himself that
he had had a long and curious dream, and he knew that it was too late to
remember what it had been about. Then he opened his eyes wide and looked
round him.

He was standing on the slope of a hill. At his feet there was a kind of
green moss, very soft to tread on. It was sprinkled here and there with
light red, wax-like flowers such as he had never seen before. He was
standing in an open space; beneath him there was a plain covered with
what seemed to be gigantic mushrooms, much taller than a man. Above
him rose a mass of vegetation, and over all this was a dense, heavy,
streaming cloud faintly glimmering with a white, silvery light which
seemed to be beyond it.

He walked towards the vegetation, and soon found himself in the middle
of a wood, or rather of a jungle. Tangled plants grew on every side;
large hanging creepers with great blue flowers hung downwards. There was
a profound stillness in this wood; there were no birds singing and
he heard not the slightest rustle in the rich undergrowth. It was
oppressively hot and the air was full of a pungent, aromatic sweetness.
He felt as though he were in a hot-house full of gardenias and
stephanotis. At the same time the atmosphere of the place was pleasant
to him. It was neither strange nor disagreeable. He felt at home in this
green shimmering jungle and in this hot, aromatic twilight, as though he
had lived there all his life.

He walked mechanically onwards as if he were going to a definite spot of
which he knew. He walked fast, but in spite of the oppressive atmosphere
and the thickness of the growth he grew neither hot nor out of breath;
on the contrary, he took pleasure in the motion, and the stifling,
sweet air seemed to invigorate him. He walked steadily on for over three
hours, choosing his way nicely, avoiding certain places and seeking
others, following a definite path and making for a definite goal. During
all this time the stillness continued unbroken, nor did he meet a single
living thing, either bird or beast.

After he had been walking for what seemed to him several hours, the
vegetation grew thinner, the jungle less dense, and from a more or less
open space in it he seemed to discern what might have been a mountain
entirely submerged in a multitude of heavy grey clouds. He sat down on
the green stuff which was like grass and yet was not grass, at the edge
of the open space whence he got this view, and quite naturally he picked
from the boughs of an overhanging tree a large red, juicy fruit, and
ate it. Then he said to himself, he knew not why, that he must not waste
time, but must be moving on.

He took a path to the right of him and descended the sloping jungle with
big, buoyant strides, almost running; he knew the way as though he had
been down that path a thousand times. He knew that in a few moments he
would reach a whole hanging garden of red flowers, and he knew that
when he had reached this he must again turn to the right. It was as he
thought: the red flowers soon came to view. He turned sharply, and then
through the thinning greenery he caught sight of an open plain where
more mushrooms grew. But the plain was as yet a great way off, and the
mushrooms seemed quite small.

"I shall get there in time," he said to himself, and walked steadily on,
looking neither to the right nor to the left. It was evening by the
time he reached the edge of the plain: everything was growing dark. The
endless vapours and the high banks of cloud in which the whole of this
world was sunk grew dimmer and dimmer. In front of him was an empty
level space, and about two miles further on the huge mushrooms stood
out, tall and wide like the monuments of some prehistoric age. And
underneath them on the soft carpet there seemed to move a myriad vague
and shadowy forms.

"I shall get there in time," he thought. He walked on for another half
hour, and by this time the tall mushrooms were quite close to him,
and he could see moving underneath them, distinctly now, green, living
creatures like huge caterpillars, with glowing eyes. They moved slowly
and did not seem to interfere with each other in any way. Further off,
and beyond them, there was a broad and endless plain of high green
stalks like ears of green wheat or millet, only taller and thinner.

He ran on, and now at his very feet, right in front of him, the green
caterpillars were moving. They were as big as leopards. As he drew
nearer they seemed to make way for him, and to gather themselves into
groups under the thick stems of the mushrooms. He walked along the
pathway they made for him, under the shadow of the broad, sunshade-like
roofs of these gigantic growths. It was almost dark now, yet he had no
doubt or difficulty as to finding his way. He was making for the green
plain beyond. The ground was dense with caterpillars; they were as
plentiful as ants in an ant's nest, and yet they never seemed to
interfere with each other or with him; they instinctively made way
for him, nor did they appear to notice him in any way. He felt neither
surprise nor wonder at their presence.

It grew quite dark; the only lights which were in this world came from
the twinkling eyes of the moving figures, which shone like little stars.
The night was no whit cooler than the day. The atmosphere was as steamy,
as dense and as aromatic as before. He walked on and on, feeling no
trace of fatigue or hunger, and every now and then he said to himself:
"I shall be there in time." The plain was flat and level, and covered
the whole way with the mushrooms, whose roofs met and shut out from him
the sight of the dark sky.

At last he came to the end of the plain of mushrooms and reached the
high green stalks he had been making for. Beyond the dark clouds a
silver glimmer had begun once more to show itself. "I am just in time,"
he said to himself, "the night is over, the sun is rising."

At that moment there was a great whirr in the air, and from out of
the green stalks rose a flight of millions and millions of enormous
broad-winged butterflies of every hue and description--silver, gold,
purple, brown and blue. Some with dark and velvety wings like the
Purple Emperor, or the Red Admiral, others diaphanous and iridescent as
dragon-flies. Others again like vast soft and silvery moths. They rose
from every part of that green plain of stalks, they filled the sky, and
then soared upwards and disappeared into the silvery cloudland.

Fletcher was about to leap forward when he heard a voice in his ear
saying--

"Are you 6493 Victoria? You are talking to the Home Office."

* * * * *

As soon as Fletcher heard the voice of the office messenger through
the telephone he instantly realised his surroundings, and the strange
experience he had just gone through, which had seemed so long and which
in reality had been so brief, left little more impression on him than
that which remains with a man who has been immersed in a brown study or
who has been staring at something, say a poster in the street, and has
not noticed the passage of time.

The next day he returned to his work at the office, and his
fellow-clerks, during the whole of the next week, noticed that he was
more zealous and more painstaking than ever. On the other hand, his
periodical fits of abstraction grew more frequent and more pronounced.
On one occasion he took a paper to the head of the department for
signature, and after it had been signed, instead of removing it from
the table, he remained staring in front of him, and it was not until the
head of the department had called him three times loudly by name that he
took any notice and regained possession of his faculties. As these
fits of absent-mindedness grew to be somewhat severely commented on, he
consulted a doctor, who told him that what he needed was change of
air, and advised him to spend his Sundays at Brighton or at some other
bracing and exhilarating spot. Fletcher did not take the doctor's
advice, but continued spending his spare time as he did before, that is
to say, in going to some big junction and watching the express trains go
by all day long.

One day while he was thus employed--it was Sunday, in August of
19--, when the Egyptian Exhibition was attracting great crowds of
visitors--and sitting, as was his habit, on a bench on the centre
platform of Slough Station, he noticed an Indian pacing up and down the
platform, who every now and then stopped and regarded him with peculiar
interest, hesitating as though he wished to speak to him. Presently the
Indian came and sat down on the same bench, and after having sat there
in silence for some minutes he at last made a remark about the heat.

"Yes," said Fletcher, "it is trying, especially for people like myself,
who have to remain in London during these months."

"You are in an office, no doubt," said the Indian.

"Yes," said Fletcher.

"And you are no doubt hard worked."

"Our hours are not long," Fletcher replied, "and I should not complain
of overwork if I did not happen to suffer from--well, I don't know what
it is, but I suppose they would call it nerves."

"Yes," said the Indian, "I could see that by your eyes."

"I am a prey to sudden fits of abstraction," said Fletcher, "they are
growing upon me. Sometimes in the office I forget where I am altogether
for a space of about two or three minutes; people are beginning to
notice it and to talk about it. I have been to a doctor, and he said I
needed change of air. I shall have my leave in about a month's time, and
then perhaps I shall get some change of air, but I doubt if it will
do me any good. But these fits are annoying, and once something quite
uncanny seemed to happen to me."

The Indian showed great interest and asked for further details
concerning this strange experience, and Fletcher told him all that
he could recall--for the memory of it was already dimmed--of what had
happened when he had telephoned that night.

The Indian was thoughtful for a while after hearing this tale. At
last he said: "I am not a doctor, I am not even what you call a quack
doctor--I am a mere conjurer, and I gain my living by conjuring tricks
and fortune-telling at the Exhibition which is going on in London. But
although I am a poor man and an ignorant man, I have an inkling, a few
sparks in me of ancient knowledge, and I know what is the matter with
you."

"What is it?" asked Fletcher.

"You have the power, or something has the power," said the Indian, "of
detaching you from your actual body, and your astral body has been into
another planet. By your description I think it must be the planet Venus.
It may happen to you again, and for a longer period--for a very much
longer period."

"Is there anything I can do to prevent it?" asked Fletcher.

"Nothing," said the Indian. "You can try change of air if you like,
but," he said with a smile, "I do not think it will do you much good."

At that moment a train came in, and the Indian said good-bye and jumped
into it.

On the next day, which was Monday, when Fletcher got to the office it
was necessary for him to use the telephone with regard to some business.
No sooner had he taken the receiver off the telephone than he vividly
recalled the minute details of the evening he had telephoned, when the
strange experience had come to him. The advertisement of Venus Soap that
had hung in the telephone box in his house appeared distinctly before
him, and as he thought of that he once more experienced a falling
sensation which lasted only a fraction of a second, and rubbing his eyes
he awoke to find himself in the tepid atmosphere of a green and humid
world.

This time he was not near the wood, but on the sea-shore. In front of
him was a grey sea, smooth as oil and clouded with steaming vapours,
and behind him the wide green plain stretched into a cloudy distance.
He could discern, faint on the far-off horizon, the shadowy forms of the
gigantic mushrooms which he knew, and on the level plain which reached
the sea beach, but not so far off as the mushrooms, he could plainly see
the huge green caterpillars moving slowly and lazily in an endless herd.
The sea was breaking on the sand with a faint moan. But almost at once
he became aware of another sound, which came he knew not whence, and
which was familiar to him. It was a low whistling noise, and it seemed
to come from the sky.

At that moment Fletcher was seized by an unaccountable panic. He was
afraid of something; he did not know what it was, but he knew, he felt
absolutely certain, that some danger, no vague calamity, no distant
misfortune, but some definite physical danger was hanging over him and
quite close to him--something from which it would be necessary to run
away, and to run fast in order to save his life. And yet there was no
sign of danger visible, for in front of him was the motionless oily sea,
and behind him was the empty and silent plain. It was then he noticed
that the caterpillars were fast disappearing, as if into the earth: he
was too far off to make out how.

He began to run along the coast. He ran as fast as he could, but he
dared not look round. He ran back from the coast to the plain, from
which a white mist was rising. By this time every single caterpillar had
disappeared. The whistling noise continued and grew louder.

At last he reached the wood and bounded on, trampling down long trailing
grasses and tangled weeds through the thick, muggy gloom of those
endless aisles of jungle. He came to a somewhat open space where there
was the trunk of a tree larger than the others; it stood by itself and
disappeared into the tangle of creepers above. He thought he would climb
the tree, but the trunk was too wide, and his efforts failed. He stood
by the tree trembling and panting with fear. He could not hear a sound,
but he felt that the danger, whatever it was, was at hand.

It grew darker and darker. It was night in the forest. He stood
paralysed with terror; he felt as though bound hand and foot, but there
was nothing to be done except to wait until his invisible enemy should
choose to inflict his will on him and achieve his doom. And yet the
agony of this suspense was so terrible that he felt that if it lasted
much longer something must inevitably break inside him . . . and just as
he was thinking that eternity could not be so long as the moments he was
passing through, a blessed unconsciousness came over him. He woke
from this state to find himself face to face with one of the office
messengers, who said to him that he had been given his number two or
three times but had taken no notice of it.

Fletcher executed his commission and then went upstairs to his office.
His fellow-clerks at once asked what had happened to him, for he was
looking white. He said that he had a headache and was not feeling quite
himself, but made no further explanations.

This last experience changed the whole tenor of his life. When fits of
abstraction had occurred to him before he had not troubled about
them, and after his first strange experience he had felt only vaguely
interested; but now it was a different matter. He was consumed with
dread lest the thing should occur again. He did not want to get back
to that green world and that oily sea; he did not want to hear the
whistling noise, and to be pursued by an invisible enemy. So much did
the dread of this weigh on him that he refused to go to the telephone
lest the act of telephoning should set alight in his mind the train of
associations and bring his thoughts back to his dreadful experience.

Shortly after this he went for leave, and following the doctor's advice
he spent it by the sea. During all this time he was perfectly well, and
was not once troubled by his curious fits. He returned to London in the
autumn refreshed and well.

On the first day that he went to the office a friend of his telephoned
to him. When he was told that the line was being held for him he
hesitated, but at last he went down to the telephone office.

He remained away twenty minutes. Finally his prolonged absence was
noticed, and he was sent for. He was found in the telephone room stiff
and unconscious, having fallen forward on the telephone desk. His face
was quite white, and his eyes wide open and glazed with an expression
of piteous and harrowing terror. When they tried to revive him their
efforts were in vain. A doctor was sent for, and he said that Fletcher
had died of heart disease.




THE FIRE

Before the bell had time to sound the alarm a huge pillar of smoke
and flame, leaping high in the breathless August night, told the whole
village the news of the fire. Men, women, and children hurried to the
burning place. The firemen galloped down the rutty road with their
barrels of water and hand-pumps, yelling. The bell rang, with hurried,
throbbing beats. The fire, which was further off than it seemed to be
at first sight, was in the middle of the village. Two houses were
burning--a house built of bricks and a wooden cottage. The flame was
prodigious: it soared into the sky like the eruption of a volcano, and
the wooden cottage, with its flat logs and blazing roof, looked like a
sacrificial pyre consuming the body of some warrior or Viking. In the
light of the flames the soft sky, which was starless and flooded with
stillness by the large full moon, had turned from blue to green. A dense
crowd had gathered round the burning houses.

The firemen, working like bees, were doing what they could to extinguish
the flames and to prevent the fire spreading. Volunteers from the crowd
helped them. One man climbed up on the edge of the wooden house, where
the flames had been overcome, and shovelled earth from the roof on the
little flames, which were leaping like earth spirits from the ground.
His wife stood below and called on him in forcible language to descend
from such a dangerous place. The crowd jeered at her fears, and she
spoke her mind to them in frank and unvarnished terms. It was St. John
the Baptist's Day. Some of the men had been celebrating the feast by
drinking. One of them, out of the fulness of his heart, cried out:
"Oh, how happy I am! I'm drunk, and there's a fire, and all at the same
time!" But most of the crowd--they looked like black shadows against
the glare--looked on quietly, every now and then making comments on the
situation. One of the peasants tried to knock down the burning house
with an axe. He failed. Someone not far off was playing an accordion and
singing a monotonous rhythmical song.

Amidst the shifting crowd of shadows I noticed a strange figure, who
beckoned to me. "I see you are short-sighted," he said, "let me lend you
a glass." His voice sounded thin and distant, and he handed me a piece
of glass which seemed to be more opaque than transparent. I looked
through it and I noticed a difference in things:

The cottages had disappeared; in their place were great high buildings
with lofty porticos, broad columns and carved friezes, but flames were
leaping round them, intenser and greater than before, and the noise of
the fire had increased. In front of me was an open court, in the centre
of which was an altar, and to the right of this altar stood an old
bay-tree. An old man and a grey-haired woman were clinging to this
altar; it was drenched with blood, and on the steps of it lay several
bodies of young men clothed in armour, but squalid with dust and blood.

I had scarcely become aware of the scene before a great cloud of smoke
passed through the court, and when it rose I saw there had been another
change: in that few moments' space the fire seemed to have wrought
incredible havoc. Nothing was left of all the tall pillared buildings,
the friezes and the porticos, the altar, the bay-tree and the
bodies--nothing but the pile of logs which vomited a rolling cloud of
flame and smoke into the sky. The moon was still shining calmly, and the
sky was softer and greener. On the ground there were hundreds of dead
and dying men; the dying were groaning in their agony. Far away on the
horizon there was a thin line of light, a faint trembling thread as
though of foam, and I seemed to hear the moaning of the sea.

All at once a woman walked in front of the burning pile. She was tall,
and silken folds clothed the perfect lines of her body and fell straight
to the ground. She walked royally, and when she moved her gestures were
like the rhythm of majestic music. The firelight shone on her hair,
which was bound with a narrow golden band. Her hair was like a cloud of
spun sunshine, and it seemed brighter than the flames. She was walking
with downcast eyes, but presently she looked up. Her face was calm, and
faultless as skilfully-hewn marble, and it seemed to be made of some
substance different from the clay which goes to the making of men and
women. It was not an angel's face; it was not a divine face; neither was
it a wicked face, nor had it anything cruel, nor anything of the siren
or the witch. Love and pleasure seemed to have moulded the flower-like
lips; but an infinite carelessness shone in the still blue eyes. They
seemed like two seas that had never known what winds and tempests
mean, but which bask for ever under unruffled skies lulled by a
slumber-scented breeze.

She looked up at the fire and smiled, and at that smile one thought the
heavens must open and the stars break into song, so marvellous was its
loveliness, so infinitely radiant the glory of it. She was a woman, and
yet more than a woman, a creature of the earth, yet fashioned of pearls
and dew and the petals of flowers: delicate as a gossamer, and yet
radiant with the flush of life, soft as the twilight, and glowing with
the blood of the ruby; and, above all things, serene, calm, aloof, and
unruffled like the silver moon. When the dying men saw her smile they
raised their eyes towards her, and one could see that there shone in
them a strange and wonderful happiness. And when they had looked they
fell back and died.