The Strange Orchid by H. G. Wells. The buying of orchids has
always had in it a certain speculative flavor. You have before you the brown
shriveled lump of tissue, And for the rest you must trust your judgment,
or the auctioneer, or your good luck. As your taste may incline.
The plant may be moribund or dead, or it may just be a respectable
purchase, fair value for your money, or perhaps for the thing has happened
again and again, There slowly unfolds behof all the delighted eyes of the happy
purchaser, day after day, some new variety, some novel richness, a
strange twist of the labellum, or some subtler coloration, or unexpected mimicry.
Pride, beauty, and profit blossom together on one delicate green spike. And
it may be even immortality. For the new miracle of nature may stand in
need of a new specific name, how what so convenient as that of its
discoverer, John Smithia that have been worse names. It was perhaps the hope
of some such happy discovery that made Winter Wedderburn such a frequent attendant at these
sales. That hope and also maybe the fact they had nothing else of the
slightest interest to do in the world. He was a shy, lonely,
and rather ineffectual man, provided with just enough income to keep off the spur
of necessity, and not enough nervous energy to make him seek any exacting employment.
He might have collected stamps or coins, or translated horace or bound books,
or invented new species of diatoms, but as it happened, he grew
orchids and had one ambitious little hot house. I have a fancy, he
said over his coffee, that something is going to happen to me today.
He spoke as he moved, and thought slowly, Oh, don't say that
to his outkeeper, who was also his remote cousin. For something happening was
was a euphemism that meant only one thing to her. You misunderstand me.
I mean nothing pleasant, though what I do mean I scarcely know today,
he continued, after a pause, peters are going to sell a batch of
plants for the Andermans and the Indies. I shall go up and see what
they have. It may be I shall buy something good unawares, that may
be it. He passed his cup for a second cupful of coffee? Are
these the things collected by that poor young fellow who told me of the other
day, asked his cousin as she filled his cup. Yes, he said,
and became meditative over a piece of toast. Nothing ever, does happen
to me, he remarked, presently, beginning to think aloud. I wonder
why things enough happened to other people. There is Harvey only the other week
on Monday he picked up sixpence. On Wednesday, his chicks had the staggers.
On Friday, his cousin came home from Australia, and on Saturday he
broke his ankle. What a whirl of excitement compared to me. I think
I would rather be without so much excitement, said his housekeeper. It can't
be good for you. I suppose it's troublesome. Still, you see,
nothing ever happens to me. When I was a little boy, I never
had accidents. I never fell in love as I grew up, never married.
Wonder how it feels to have something happened to you, something really remarkable.
That orchid collector was only thirty six, twenty years younger than myself when
he died, and he had been married twice and divorced once. He had
had malarial fever four times, and once he broke his thigh, he killed
the ballet once, and once he was wounded by a poisoned dart, and
in the end he was killed by jungle leeches. It must have all been
very troublesome, but then it must have been very interesting, you know,
except perhaps the leeches. I am sure it was not good for him,
said the lady with conviction. Perhaps not. And then Wedderburn looked at his
watch. Twenty three minutes path eight. I'm going up by the quarter to
twelve train, so there's plenty of time. I think I'll wear my alpacker
jacket it is quite warm enough, and my grave felt hat and brown shoes.
I suppose. He glanced out of the window at the serene sky and
sunlit garden, and then nervously at his cousin's face. I think you had
better take an umbrella if you're going to London, she said, in a
voice that admitted of no denial. There's all between here and the station coming
back. When he returned, he was in a state of mild excitement.
He had made a purchase. It was read that he could make up his
mind quickly enough to buy, but this time he had done so. There
are van dass, he said, and a du nobi and some palionopsis.
He surveyed his purchases, loving me as he consumed his soup. They were
laid out on a spotless tablecloth before him, and he was telling his cousin
all about them as he slowly meandered through his dinner. It was ascustomed to
live all his visit to London over again in the evening for her and his
own entertainment. I knew something was going to happen today, and I have
bought all of these, some of them, some of them. I feel
sure. Do you know that some of them will be remarkable? I don't
know how it is, but I feel just as sure as if someone had
told me that some of these will turn out remarkable. That one, he
pointed to, a shriveled rhizome, was not identified. It may be a
Palaeonopsis, or it may not, may be a new species or even a
new genus, And it was the last that poor Patton ever collected. I
don't like the look of it, said his housekeeper. It's such an ugly
shape to me. It's scarcely seems to have a shape. I don't like
those things that stick out, said the housekeeper. It shall be put away
in a pot tomorrow. It looks, said the housekeeper, like a spider
shamming dead. Wedderburne smiled and surveyed the root with his head on one side.
It's certainly not a pretty lump of stuff. But you never can judge
of these things from their dry appearance. He may turn out to be a
very beautiful orchid. Indeed, how busy I shall be to morrow. I
must see tonight just what to do with these things, and tomorrow I shall
set to work. They found poor Baton lying dead or dying in a mangrove
swamp I forget which he began again presently, and with one of those very
orchids crushed up under his body. He had been unwell for some days,
with some kind of native fever, and I suppose he fainted. Those mangrove
swamps are very unwholesome. Every drop of blood they say, was taken out
of him by the jungle leeches. It may be that very plant that cost
him his life to obtain. I think none the better of it for that
man must work, though women may weep, said Wedderbourne, with profound gravity.
Fancy dying away from every comfort in a nasty swamp, fancy being ill
of fever with nothing to take but Chlorodyne and Queeneen. If men were laughter
themselves, they would live on Chlorodyne and Queen. And no one around you
but horrible natives. They say the Andaman Island as the most disgustingly wretches.
And anyhow they can scarcely make good nurses, not having the necessary training.
And just for people in England to have orchids. I don't suppose it was
comfortable, but some men seem to enjoy that kind of thing, said Bedobyrne.
Anyhow, the natives of hip party was sufficiently civilized to take core care
of all his recollection into this colleague, who was an ornithologist, came back
from the interior, though they could not tell the species of the orchid,
and had let it wither. And it makes these things more interesting, it
makes them disgusting. I should be afraid of some malaria clinging to them.
And just think there's been a dead body lying across that ugly thing. I
never thought of that before. There, I declare I canna eat another mouthful
of dinner. I will take them off the table, if you like,
and put them in the window seat. I can see them just as well
there. The next few days he was indeed singularly busy in his steamy little
hot house, fussing about with charcoal, lumps of teak moss, and all
the other mysteries of the orchid cultivator. He considered he was having a wonderfully
eventful time. In the evening, he would talk about these new orchids to
his friends, and over and over again he reverted to his expectation of seeing
something strange. Serrihl the vanda asked, and the drandrobium died under his care.
But presently the strange orchid began to show signs of life. He was
delighted and took his housekeeper right away from jam making to see it at once.
Directly he made the discovery. That is a bat, he said,
And presently there will be a lot of leaves there, And those little things
coming out here are aerial rootlets. They look to me like little white fingers
poking out of the brown. I don't like them, said the housekeeper.
Why not, I don't know they look like fingers trying to get at you.
I can't help my likes and dislikes. I don't know for certain,
but I don't think there are any orchids I know that have aerial rootlets quite
like that. Maybe my fancy. Of course, you see, they are
a little flattened at the ends. I don't like em, said the housekeeper,
certainly shivering and turning away. I know it's very silly of me,
and I'm very sorry, particularly as you'd liked the thing so much. But
I can't help thinking of that corpse. But it may not be that particular
plant that was merely a guess of mine. This housekeeper shrugged her shoulders.
Anyhow, I don't like it, she said where it. Burne felt a
little hurt at its to the plant, but that did not prevent his talking
to her about orchids generally, and this orchid in particular, whenever he felt
inclined. There are such queer things about orchids, he said, one day,
such possibilities of surprises, you know. Darwin studded their fertilization and showed
that the whole structure of an ordinary orchid flower was contrived in order that moths
might carry the pollen from plant to plant. While it seems there are a
lot of orchids known, the flower of which cannot possibly be used for fertilization
in that way. Some of the Cypridians, for instance, there are no
insects known that could possibly fertilize them, and some of them have never been
found for the seed. But how do they form new plants? By runners
and tubers and that kind of outgrowth that is easily explained. The puzzle is
what are the flowers? For? Very likely, he added, my orchid
may be something extraordinary in that way. If so, I shall study it.
I have often thought of making researches as Darwin dead. For in further
two, I have not found the time, or something else has happened to
prevent it. The leaves are beginning to unfold. Now. I do wish
you would come and see it. But she said that the orchid house was
so hot it gave her the headache. She had seen the plant once again,
and the aerial rootlets, which were now some of them more than a
foot long, had unfortunately reminded her of tentacles reaching out after something, and
they had got into her dreams, growing after her with incredible rapidity, so
that she had settled to her entire satisfaction. She would not see that plant
again, and Wedderburn had to admire its leaves alone. They were of the
ordinary broad form, and a deep glossy green, with splatches and dots of
deep red about the base. He knew of no other leaves quite like them.
The plant was placed on a low bench near the thermometer, and close
by a simple arrangement by which tap dripped on the hot water pipes. Jim
kept the air steamy, and he spent his afternoons with some regularity meditating on
the approaching flowering of his strange plant. And at last the great thing happened.
Directly he entered their little glass house. He knew that the spike could
burst, And although his great polyanthus low eye hid the corner where the new
darling stood, there was a new odor in the air, a rich,
intensely sweet scent that overpowered every other in that crowded, steaming little greenhouse.
Directly he noticed this, he hurried down to the strange orchid, and behold
the trailing green spikes bore now three great splashes of blossom, from which this
overpowering sweetness proceeded. He stopped before them in an ecstasy of admiration. The
flowers were white, with sticks of gold and orange upon the petals. The
heavy labellum was coiled into an intricate projection, and a wonderful bluish purple mingled
there with the gold. He could see at once that the genius was altogether
a new one, and the insufferable scent. How hot the place was.
The blossoms swam before his eyes. He would see if the temperature was right.
He made a step towards the thermometer. Suddenly everything appeared unsteady. The
bricks on the floor were dancing up and down, then the white blossoms,
the green leaves behind him. The whole greenhouse seemed to sweep sideways, and
then in a curve upward. At half past four, his cousin made the
tea according to their invariable custom, But Whaderburn did not come in for his
tea. He is worshiping that horrid orchid, she told herself, and waited
ten minutes. I will go and call him. She went straight to the
hot house, and opening the door, called his name. There was no
reply. She noticed that the air was very close and loaded with an intense
perfume. Then she saw something lying on the bricks between the hot water pipes.
For a minute, perhaps she stood motionless. He was lying face upward
at the foot of the strange orchid. The tentacle like aerial rootlets no longer
swayed freely in the air, but were crowded together a tangle of gray ropes,
and stretched tight, with their ends closely applied to his chin and neck
and hands. She did not understand. And then she saw from under one
of the exultant tentacles upon his cheek that trickled a little thread of blood.
With an inarticulate cry, she ran towards him and tried to pull him away
from the leech like suckers. She snapped two of these tentacles in the sap
dripped red. Then the overpowering scent of the blossom began to make her head
reel. How they clung to him. She tore at the top ropes,
and here the white inflorescence swam about her. She felt she was fainting,
knew she must not. She left him and hastily opened the nearest door,
And after she had panted for a moment in the fresh air. She had
a brilliant inspiration. She caught up a flower pot and smashed in the windows
at the end of the green house. Then she re entered. She tugged,
now with renewed strength that Wedderburne's motionless body, and brought the strange orchid
crashing to the floor. It still clung with grimaced tenacity to its victim.
In a frenzy, she lugged it and him into the open air. Then
she thought of tearing through the succor rootlets one by one, and in another
minute she had released him and was dragging him away from the horror. He
was white and bleeding from a dozen circular patches. The odd jobman was coming
up the garden, amazed at the smashing of glass, and saw her emerge,
holding the inanimate body with red stained hands. For a moment he thought
impossible things. Bring some water, she cried, and her voice dispelled his
fancies. When with unnatural alacrity he returned with the water, he found a
weeping with excitement, and with Wedderbourne's head upon her knee, wiping the blood
from his face. What's the matter? Said Wederbourn, opening his eyes feebly
and closing them again. At once, go and tell Annie to come out
here to me, and then go for doctor Haddon. At once, she
said to the odd jobman, as soon as he brought the water and add
it. Seeing he hesitated, I will tell you all about it when you
come back. Presently, Wederbourne opened his eyes again, and, seeing that
he was troubled by the puzzle of his exposition, she explained to him,
you fainted in the hot house and the orchid I will see to that.
She said. Weather Bird had lost a great deal of blood, but beyond
that he had suffered no very great injury. They gave him brandy mixed with
some pink extract of meat, and carried him upstairs to bed. His housekeeper
told her incredible story and fragments to doctor Haddon. Come to the orchid house
and see, she said. The cold outer air was blowing in through the
open door, and the sickly perfume was almost dispelled. Most of the torn
aerial rootlets lay already withered amongst a number of dark stains upon the bricks.
The stem of the inflorescence was broken by the fall of the plant, and
the flowers were growing limp and brown. At the edges of the petals.
The doctor stooped towards it, then saw that one of the aerial rootlets still
stirred feebly and hesitated. The next morning, the strange orchids still lay there,
black now and purescent. The door banged intermittently in the morning breeze,
and all the array of Wedderburn's orchids was shriveled and prostrate. But Wedderbourn himself
was bright and garrulous upstairs in the story of his strange adventure. End of
the Strange Orchid