1
00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:07,400
Out of the deep by Walter Delamare. The steely light of daybreak, increasing

2
00:00:07,440 --> 00:00:11,919
in volume and intensity as the east
grew larger with the day, showed clearly

3
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:18,879
at length that prodigious yet elegant Arabian
bed was empty. What might tenderly have

4
00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:24,800
cradled the slumbers of some exquisite fare
of Romance now contained no human occupant.

5
00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:29,280
To all. The whole immense room, its air, dry and thin as

6
00:00:29,320 --> 00:00:34,200
if burnt, was quiet as a
sepulcher. To the right of the bed

7
00:00:34,320 --> 00:00:39,679
towered of vast and heavily carved wardrobe, to the left a lofty fireplace of

8
00:00:39,840 --> 00:00:45,560
stone, flanked by its grinning,
frigid dogs. A few cumbrous and obscure

9
00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:50,079
oil paintings hung on the walls,
and like the draperies of a proscenium,

10
00:00:50,399 --> 00:00:56,359
the fringed and balanced damask curtains on
either side the two high windows poured down

11
00:00:56,520 --> 00:01:02,039
their motionless cataract of crimson. They
had had been left undrawn overnight, and

12
00:01:02,159 --> 00:01:07,640
yet gave the scene a slight theatricality, a theatricality which the painted nymphs,

13
00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:12,400
disporting themselves on the ceiling scarcely helped
to dispel. Not that these coy and

14
00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:18,519
oggling faces suggested any vestige of chagrin
at the absence of the young man who,

15
00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:22,879
for some weeks past had shared the
long nights with them, they merely

16
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:27,519
smiled on. For after all,
Jimmy's restless head upon the pillow had never

17
00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:33,480
really been in harmony with his pompous, inanimous surroundings. The thin, high

18
00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:38,480
nose like the beak of a small
ship, between the fast sealed lids and

19
00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:44,640
narrow cheekbones, the narrow birdlike brow, the shell of the ear slightly pointed.

20
00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:51,280
If inspired by the distant music of
the spheres, the painted creatures had

21
00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:55,519
with this daybreak broken into song,
it would certainly not have been to the

22
00:01:55,599 --> 00:02:00,120
tune of Oh Where, and oh
where is my little dog Gone? There

23
00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:04,079
was even less likelihood of Jimmy's voice
now taking up their strains from out of

24
00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:07,719
the distance, And yet, to
judge from appearances, the tongue within that

25
00:02:07,879 --> 00:02:13,919
head might have been that of an
extremely vivacious talker, even though apart from

26
00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:17,840
missus thrips its talk these last few
days had been for the most part with

27
00:02:17,960 --> 00:02:23,800
himself. Indeed, as one of
his friends had remarked, don't you believe

28
00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:27,719
it Jimmy has pots and pots to
say, though he don't say it.

29
00:02:28,319 --> 00:02:31,680
That's what makes him such a damn
good loser. Whether or not, if

30
00:02:31,759 --> 00:02:36,680
Jimmy had been in the habit of
conversing with himself, he must have had

31
00:02:36,719 --> 00:02:40,759
odd company at times. Night after
night, he had lain there flat on

32
00:02:40,800 --> 00:02:45,919
his back, his hands crossed on
his breast, a pose that never failed

33
00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:51,159
to amuse him. A smooth eminence
in the dark, rich quilt about sixty

34
00:02:51,159 --> 00:02:54,479
inches from his chin, indicated to
his attentive eye the points of his toes.

35
00:02:55,719 --> 00:03:00,400
The hours had been heavy, the
hours had been long. Still there

36
00:03:00,400 --> 00:03:05,319
are only twelve or so of utter
darkness in the most tedious of nights,

37
00:03:05,599 --> 00:03:10,599
and Matan tinkles at length, excepting
the last of them, a night which

38
00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:16,120
was now apparently forever over. He
had occupied this majestic bed for about six

39
00:03:16,199 --> 00:03:22,319
weeks, though on no single occasion
could he have confessed to being really at

40
00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:28,360
home in it. He had chosen
it not from any characteristic whim or caprice,

41
00:03:28,719 --> 00:03:31,960
and certainly not because it dominated the
room in which his uncle Timothy himself

42
00:03:32,080 --> 00:03:37,080
used to sleep, Yes, and
for forty years on end, only at

43
00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:42,560
last to expire in it. He
had chosen it because when its Venetian blinds

44
00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:46,520
were pulled high up under the fringed
cornice, it was as light as a

45
00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:52,520
London april sky could make it.
And because well, just one single glance

46
00:03:52,599 --> 00:03:55,520
in from the high, narrow doorway
upstairs had convinced him that the attic in

47
00:03:55,599 --> 00:04:00,360
which he was wont to sleep as
a small boy was simply out of the

48
00:04:00,439 --> 00:04:04,479
question. A black, heavy flood
of rage swept over him at the sight

49
00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:11,879
of it. He had never before
positively realized the abominations of that early past.

50
00:04:12,159 --> 00:04:15,000
To a waf and stray, any
kind of shelter is, of course

51
00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:20,360
a godsend. But even though this
huge, sumptuous barrack of a house had

52
00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:26,199
been left to him, or rather
abandoned to him by his uncle Timothy's relict

53
00:04:26,279 --> 00:04:30,680
aunt Charlotte, Jimmy could not,
even at his loosest have been described as

54
00:04:30,759 --> 00:04:36,759
homeless, friendless, rather, but
that of his own deliberate choice. Not

55
00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:41,800
so very long ago. In fact, he had made a clean sweep of

56
00:04:41,879 --> 00:04:46,279
every single living being, male or
female, to whom the term friend could,

57
00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:53,160
with some little elasticity be applied.
A little official affair, to put

58
00:04:53,199 --> 00:04:59,759
it politely, eased their exit and
then this vacant hostel. The house in

59
00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:03,399
fa act, occupied only by a
caretaker in the service of his aunt's lawyers,

60
00:05:03,439 --> 00:05:08,360
had been his for the asking at
any time during the last two or

61
00:05:08,399 --> 00:05:14,199
three years, but he had steadily
delayed in taking possession of it until there

62
00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:21,920
was practically no alternative circumstances accustom even
a young man to a good many inconveniences.

63
00:05:21,959 --> 00:05:26,800
Still, it would have been a
little too quixotic to sleep in the

64
00:05:26,839 --> 00:05:30,839
street. Even though his uncle Timothy's
house, as a mere property was little

65
00:05:30,879 --> 00:05:35,879
better than a white and unpleasing elephant, he could not sell it. That

66
00:05:36,079 --> 00:05:42,079
is not en mass. It was
more than dubious if he was legally entitled

67
00:05:42,079 --> 00:05:46,160
to make away with its contents.
But quite apart from an extreme aversion to

68
00:05:46,199 --> 00:05:50,560
you, uncle Timothy's valuables in themselves, you cannot eat, even if you

69
00:05:50,560 --> 00:05:57,600
can subsist on articles of virtue.
Sir Richard Grenville, a hero for whom

70
00:05:57,720 --> 00:06:01,560
Jimmy had every respect, may have
been accustomed to chewing up his wineglass after

71
00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:05,639
swinging off its contents. But this
must have been on the spur of an

72
00:06:05,639 --> 00:06:12,480
impulse, hardly in obedience to the
instinct of self preservation. Jimmy would have

73
00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:15,519
much preferred to balance a chair at
the foot of his uncle's Arabian bed and

74
00:06:15,639 --> 00:06:20,399
salute the smiling lips of the painted
nymphs on the ceiling, though even that

75
00:06:20,519 --> 00:06:26,959
experiment would probably have rather a gritty
flavor. Still, possession is nine points

76
00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:31,160
of the law, and necessity is
the deadly enemy of convention. Jimmy was

77
00:06:31,240 --> 00:06:38,680
unconscious of the faintest scruples on that
score. His scruples, indeed, were

78
00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:43,120
in another direction. Only a few
days ago. The day in fact,

79
00:06:43,199 --> 00:06:47,560
before his first indulgence in the queer
experience of pulling the bell, he had

80
00:06:47,600 --> 00:06:53,680
sailed out with his aunt Charlotte's black
leather dressing bag, positively bulging with a

81
00:06:53,720 --> 00:06:59,720
pair of bow candlesticks, an illuminated
missile, mutely exquisite with its blues and

82
00:06:59,759 --> 00:07:05,279
gold walls and crimsons, and a
tiny old silver gilt bejutery box. He

83
00:07:05,439 --> 00:07:11,319
was a young man of absurdly impulsive
aversions, and a dealer to whom he

84
00:07:11,439 --> 00:07:16,360
carried this further consignment of loot was
one of them. After a rapid and

85
00:07:16,519 --> 00:07:23,160
contemptuous examination, this gentleman spread out
his palms, shrugged his shoulders, and

86
00:07:23,279 --> 00:07:27,920
suggested a sum that would have caused
even a more phlegmatic connoisseur than his customers,

87
00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:32,120
Uncle Timothy, to turn in his
grave, and Jimmy replied, nicely,

88
00:07:32,199 --> 00:07:39,480
slurring his ahs. Really, mister
soancer, that is impossible, no

89
00:07:39,639 --> 00:07:44,560
doubt the things have an artificial value, but not for me. I must

90
00:07:44,639 --> 00:07:47,399
ask you to oblige me by giving
me only half the sum you have kindly

91
00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:54,199
mentioned, rather than accept your figure, you know I would well, perhaps

92
00:07:54,279 --> 00:07:58,480
it would be impolite to tell you
what I would prefer to do. Disiree

93
00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:03,720
de zilla, and so on.
The dealer flushed, though he had been

94
00:08:03,759 --> 00:08:07,920
apparently content to leave it at that, He was not the man to be

95
00:08:07,959 --> 00:08:13,600
easily insulted by a good customer,
and Jimmy's depredations were methodical, with the

96
00:08:13,639 --> 00:08:20,160
fastidiousness of an expert. He selected
from the rare and costly contents of the

97
00:08:20,199 --> 00:08:26,319
house only what was light and portable, and became inconspicuous by its absence.

98
00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:31,879
The supply, he realized, though
without any perceptible animation, however recklessly it

99
00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:39,840
might be squandered, would easily last
out his lifetime, certainly not after having

100
00:08:39,919 --> 00:08:43,720
once made up his mind to accept
his uncle Timothy's posthumous hospitality. The real

101
00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:48,919
difficulty was unlikely to be a conscientious
one. It was the attempt merely to

102
00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:54,600
accustom himself to the house, the
hated house, that grew more and more

103
00:08:54,799 --> 00:09:01,639
arduous. It falsified his hope that, like other experisperiances, this one would

104
00:09:01,679 --> 00:09:07,159
prove only the more piquant for being
so precarious. Days and moments quickly flying

105
00:09:07,840 --> 00:09:16,399
just his one funny old charwoman Missus
thrips himself and the past. After pausing

106
00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:22,279
a while under the dingy and dusty
portico, Jimmy had entered into his inheritance

107
00:09:22,320 --> 00:09:26,039
on the last afternoon in March.
The wind was fallen, the day was

108
00:09:26,080 --> 00:09:33,919
beginning to narrow. A chill crystal
light hung over the unshuttered staircase by sheer

109
00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:37,159
force of forgotten habit. He at
once ascended to the attic in which he

110
00:09:37,240 --> 00:09:43,840
had slept as a child. Pausing
on the threshold, he looked in conscious

111
00:09:43,919 --> 00:09:48,200
not so much, of the few
familiar sticks of furniture, the truckle bed,

112
00:09:48,600 --> 00:09:52,039
the worn strip of Brussels carpet,
the chipped blue banded eyewer and basin,

113
00:09:52,399 --> 00:09:58,440
the framed illuminated texts on the walls
as of a perfect hive of a

114
00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:05,559
borrent memories. That high cupboard in
the corner from which certain bodiless shapes had

115
00:10:05,559 --> 00:10:09,480
been wont to issue and stoop at
him cowering out of his dreams. The

116
00:10:09,559 --> 00:10:16,039
crab patterned paper that came alive as
you stared, the window cold with menacing

117
00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:20,399
stars, the mouseholes, the rusty
great trumpet of every wind that blows.

118
00:10:22,279 --> 00:10:28,039
These objects at once lustily shouted at
him in their own original tongues. Quite

119
00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:35,159
apart from themselves, they reminded him
of incidents and experiences which at the time

120
00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:39,320
could scarcely have been so nauseous as
they now seemed. In retrospect, he

121
00:10:39,399 --> 00:10:46,600
found himself suffocatingly resentful, even of
what must have been kindly intentions. He

122
00:10:46,639 --> 00:10:50,759
remembered how his aunt Charlotte used to
read to him, with her puffy cheeks,

123
00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:54,240
plump ringed hands, and the moving
orbs of her eyes showing under her

124
00:10:54,240 --> 00:11:01,559
spectacles. He wasn't exactly accusing the
asked. Even in his first breeches.

125
00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:05,679
He was never what could be called
a nice little boy. He had never

126
00:11:05,799 --> 00:11:09,799
ordered himself lowly and reverently to any
of his betters, at least in their

127
00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:15,679
absence. Nevertheless, what stirred in
his bosom as he gazed in on this

128
00:11:15,799 --> 00:11:24,480
discarded scene was certainly not remorse.
He remembered how gingerly and with what peculiar

129
00:11:24,559 --> 00:11:28,360
breathings his uncle Timothy used to lift
his microscope out of its wooden case,

130
00:11:30,159 --> 00:11:35,639
and how after the necessary manipulation of
the instrument, he himself would be bidden

131
00:11:35,720 --> 00:11:41,320
mount of footstool and fix his dazzled
eye on the slides of sluggish or darting

132
00:11:41,399 --> 00:11:48,639
horrors of minute magnified life. And
how after a steady, unawing drawl of

133
00:11:48,679 --> 00:11:54,960
inapprehensible instruction, his uncle would suddenly
flick out a huge silk pocket handkerchief as

134
00:11:54,960 --> 00:12:01,919
a signal that little tongue tied and
nervous boys were themselves nothing but miserable,

135
00:12:03,200 --> 00:12:07,639
sluggish or darting reptiles, and that
his nephew was the most deplorable kind of

136
00:12:07,720 --> 00:12:16,200
little boy. Jimmy remembered too,
once asking the loose bow shaped old gentleman

137
00:12:16,240 --> 00:12:20,399
in his chair if he might himself
twist the wheel, and his uncle Timothy

138
00:12:20,440 --> 00:12:24,120
had replied in a loud, ringing
voice, and almost as if he were

139
00:12:24,120 --> 00:12:30,000
addressing a public meeting. Um,
ah, my boy, I say no

140
00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:35,399
to that. He said no to
most things, and just like that if

141
00:12:35,399 --> 00:12:41,840
he vouchsafed speech at all. And
then there was church on Sundays, and

142
00:12:41,919 --> 00:12:46,120
his hoop on week days in the
Crescent, and days when with nothing to

143
00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:50,679
do, little Jimmy had been wont
to sit watching the cold, silvery rain

144
00:12:50,759 --> 00:12:54,120
on the window, the body he
was in slowly congealing, the while into

145
00:12:54,200 --> 00:13:00,960
a species of rancid suet pudding.
Mornings too, when his Aunt Charlotte would

146
00:13:00,960 --> 00:13:05,559
talk nasily to him about Christianity,
or when he was allowed to help his

147
00:13:05,720 --> 00:13:09,519
uncle and a tall, scared parlormaid
dust and rearranged the contents of a cabinet

148
00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:15,480
or bureau. The smell of the
air, the check duster, the odious

149
00:13:15,519 --> 00:13:22,559
objet dar, and the aging old
man snorting and looking like a superannuated silenus

150
00:13:22,919 --> 00:13:28,360
beside the neat and frightened parlormaid.
It was a curious thing. Though death

151
00:13:28,639 --> 00:13:35,240
with his luring grin, had beckoned
him off, there he was alive as

152
00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:41,960
ever, And when amid these ruminations, Jimmy's eyes had at last fixed themselves

153
00:13:43,039 --> 00:13:46,320
on the frayed, dangling cord that
hung from the ceiling over the truckle bed.

154
00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:52,360
It was because he had already explored
all that the name Solmes had stood

155
00:13:52,360 --> 00:14:00,320
for Solmes the butler, a black
clothed, tub bellied, pompous man that

156
00:14:00,519 --> 00:14:07,080
might have been his uncle Timothy's impoverished
first cousin or illegitimate step brother. Solmes

157
00:14:07,360 --> 00:14:18,279
Solmes, Solmes used frequently to wring
Jimmy's then protuberant ears. Solmes, sneaked

158
00:14:18,399 --> 00:14:24,960
habitually and with a sort of gloating
piety on his drooping face, was invariably

159
00:14:24,039 --> 00:14:31,679
present at the subsequent castigation. Solmes
had been wont to pile up on his

160
00:14:31,799 --> 00:14:37,080
plate with lumps of fat that even
Destiny had never intended to consort with any

161
00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:43,679
single leg of mutton, or even
surloin of beef jelly like rapidly cooling nuggets

162
00:14:43,720 --> 00:14:50,200
of fat, and Solmes invariably brought
him cold rice pudding when there was hot

163
00:14:50,320 --> 00:14:58,000
ginger roll. Jimmy remembered the lines
that drooped down from his pale, long

164
00:14:58,159 --> 00:15:01,200
nose, the sleek s of his
whiskers as he stood there in his coat,

165
00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:07,639
tails reflected in the glass of the
sideboard carving the Sunday joint, but

166
00:15:07,799 --> 00:15:13,000
that slack green bell cord his very
first glimpse of it had set waggling score

167
00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:20,799
of peculiar remembrances first, and not
so very peculiarly. Perhaps it recalled an

168
00:15:20,799 --> 00:15:24,759
occasion when, as he stood before
his aunt's footstool to bid her good night,

169
00:15:26,159 --> 00:15:30,360
her aggrieved pupils had visibly swum down
from beneath their lids out of a

170
00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:35,320
nap to fix themselves and look at
him at last, as if neither he

171
00:15:35,919 --> 00:15:39,519
nor she, either in this or
in any other world, had ever so

172
00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:45,240
much as seen one another before.
Perhaps his own face, if not so

173
00:15:45,320 --> 00:15:50,039
puffy, appeared that evening to be
unusually pasty and pallid, with those dark

174
00:15:50,120 --> 00:15:56,279
rings which even to this day added
vivacity and luster to his extremely clear eyes.

175
00:15:56,279 --> 00:16:00,440
And as Aunt Charlotte had asked him
why he was such a cowardly boy

176
00:16:00,840 --> 00:16:07,360
and so wickedly frightened of the dark, you know very well your dear uncle

177
00:16:07,399 --> 00:16:11,480
will not permit gassimi attic, so
there's no use asking for it. You

178
00:16:11,559 --> 00:16:15,440
have nothing on your conscience. I
trust you have not been talking to the

179
00:16:15,559 --> 00:16:22,679
servants infallible liar. He had shaken
his head, and his Aunt Charlotte in

180
00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:27,159
return wagged hers at him. It's
no good staring in that rebellious, sullen

181
00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:32,559
way at me. I have told
you repeatedly that if you are really in

182
00:16:32,600 --> 00:16:37,639
need of anything, just ring the
bell for solms. A good little boy

183
00:16:37,759 --> 00:16:42,759
with nothing on his conscience knows that
God watches over him. I hope you

184
00:16:42,879 --> 00:16:48,080
are at least trying to be a
good little boy. There is a limit

185
00:16:48,159 --> 00:16:53,559
even to your uncle's forbearance. It
was perfectly true, even bad little boys

186
00:16:53,639 --> 00:16:57,919
might be watched over in the dead
of night. And as for his uncle

187
00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:04,079
Timothy's forbearon, he had discovered the
limitations of that fairly early in life.

188
00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:08,400
Well, it was a pity,
he smiled to himself, that his Aunt

189
00:17:08,480 --> 00:17:12,960
Charlotte could not be present to see
his uncle Timothy's bedroom on that first celebration

190
00:17:14,039 --> 00:17:18,720
of their prodigal nephew's return. Jimmy's
first forey had been to range the house

191
00:17:18,759 --> 00:17:23,359
from attic to cella, where he
had paused to rest for candlesticks, and

192
00:17:23,519 --> 00:17:29,680
that night something like six dozen of
the best wax watched over his heavy and

193
00:17:29,759 --> 00:17:34,359
galvanic slumbers in the Arabian bed.
Aunt Charlotte, now rather more accustomed to

194
00:17:34,400 --> 00:17:40,880
the dark even than Jimmy himself,
would have opened her eyes at that gamblers

195
00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:45,559
are naturally superstitious folk, he supposed, But that was the queerest feature of

196
00:17:45,599 --> 00:17:49,640
the whole thing. He had not
then been conscious of even the slightest apprehension

197
00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:56,720
or speculation. It was far rather
a kind of ribaldry than any sort of

198
00:17:56,759 --> 00:18:00,440
foreboding that had lit up positive constellations
of candle, as if for a prince's,

199
00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:07,799
as if for Princely Cardinal's lying in
state. It had taken a devil

200
00:18:07,839 --> 00:18:11,000
of a time too. His uncle
Timothy's port was not the less potent for

201
00:18:11,079 --> 00:18:15,240
a long spell of obscure mellowing,
and the hand that held the taper had

202
00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:21,920
been a shaky one, yet it
had provided an amusing process too, almost

203
00:18:22,079 --> 00:18:26,680
childish. Jimmy hadn't laughed like that
for years. Certainly, until then he

204
00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:33,960
had been unconscious of the feeblest,
squeamish inkling of anything apart from old remembrances

205
00:18:33,279 --> 00:18:40,400
peculiar in the house. Yet well, no doubt even the first absurd,

206
00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:45,559
impulsive experiment that followed had shaken him
up. Its result would have been less

207
00:18:45,640 --> 00:18:52,200
unexpected if he hadn't made a point
and almost the duty of continually patrolling the

208
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:59,119
horrible old vacant London mansion. Hardly
a day had lately passed, and there

209
00:18:59,160 --> 00:19:03,519
was nothing better today, But it
found him on his rounds. He was

210
00:19:03,559 --> 00:19:07,079
not waiting for anything except for the
hour maybe when he would have to wait

211
00:19:07,119 --> 00:19:15,079
no more. Nevertheless, faithful as
the sentinel on Elsinore's hoary ramparts, he

212
00:19:15,119 --> 00:19:21,200
would find himself day after day,
treading almost catlike on from room to room,

213
00:19:21,839 --> 00:19:26,680
surveying his paradoxical inheritance, dotting down
a list in a nice order of

214
00:19:26,759 --> 00:19:33,920
the next sacrifices, grimacing at the
ming divinities, and pirouetting an occasional long

215
00:19:34,079 --> 00:19:40,079
nose at the portraits on the walls. He had sometimes had a few words

216
00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:45,640
animated ones too, with missus Thripps. And perhaps if he could have persuaded

217
00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:49,839
himself to talk sensibly, and not
to gesticulate, not to laugh himself so

218
00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:55,839
easily into a fit of coughing,
she would have proved better company. She

219
00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:00,119
was amazingly honest and punctual, and
quiet and white heaven, a woman with

220
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:07,000
such excellent qualities should customarily wear so
scared a gleam in her still colorless eyes,

221
00:20:07,480 --> 00:20:11,880
and be so idiotically timid and nervous
in his company. He could not

222
00:20:11,039 --> 00:20:18,359
imagine she was being paid handsome wages
anyhow, And naturally he was aware of

223
00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:22,440
no rooted objection to other people helping
themselves, at least if they managed it

224
00:20:22,519 --> 00:20:27,720
as skillfully as he did himself.
But missus Thripps, it seemed, had

225
00:20:27,799 --> 00:20:32,880
never been able, in any sense
at all, to help herself. She

226
00:20:33,039 --> 00:20:38,680
was simply a crape bonneted motherly creature, if not excessively intelligent, if a

227
00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:45,079
little slow in seeing points. It
was indeed her alarm when he asked her

228
00:20:45,119 --> 00:20:49,319
if she had happened to notice any
young man about the house that had irritated

229
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:55,480
him, though of course it was
hardly fair not to explain what had given

230
00:20:55,559 --> 00:21:02,359
rise to the question that was perfectly
simple. It was like this for years,

231
00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:07,640
for centuries. In fact, Jimmy
had been, except in certain unusual

232
00:21:07,680 --> 00:21:12,400
circumstances, an exceedingly bad sleeper.
He still hated sleeping in the dark.

233
00:21:12,960 --> 00:21:18,960
But a multitude of candles at various
degrees of exhaustion make rather lively company when

234
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:22,680
you are sick of your uncle Timothy
Seller, and even the best of vintage

235
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:27,759
wines may prove an ineffectual soporific.
His too, was a wretchedly active mind.

236
00:21:30,079 --> 00:21:33,480
Even as a boy he had thought
a good deal about his uncle and

237
00:21:33,559 --> 00:21:38,480
aunt and Solmes and the house,
and the reverend mister Grayson, and specters

238
00:21:38,519 --> 00:21:45,160
and schoolmasters, and painted nymphs,
and running away to sea, and curios

239
00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:52,319
and dead silence, and his early
childhood. And though since then other enigmas

240
00:21:52,359 --> 00:21:57,799
had engaged his attention, this purely
automatic and tiresome activity of mind still persisted.

241
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:03,759
On his oath. He had been, in some respects, and in

242
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:08,119
secret rather a goody, goody little
boy, though his piety had been rather

243
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:14,160
the offspring of fear than of love. Had he not been expelled from melishes

244
00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:18,640
almost solely for that reason, What
on earth was the good of repeatedly thrashing

245
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:23,839
a boy when you positively knew that
he has lied merely from terror of your

246
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:30,759
roaring voice and horrible white face.
But there it was. If there had

247
00:22:30,799 --> 00:22:33,799
been some one to talk to,
he would not have talked so much to

248
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:38,279
himself. He would not have lain
awake thinking night after night, like a

249
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:44,640
rat in a trap. Thinking was
like a fountain. Once it gets going

250
00:22:44,680 --> 00:22:48,599
at a certain pressure, well it
is almost impossible to turn it off.

251
00:22:48,039 --> 00:22:53,880
And my hat, what odd things
come up with the water. On the

252
00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:59,079
particular night in question, In spite
of the candles and the mice and the

253
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:04,400
moon, he badly wanted company in
a moment of pining yet listless jocosity.

254
00:23:04,559 --> 00:23:11,720
Then he had merely taken his Aunt
Charlotte's advice true. The sumptuous crimson pleated

255
00:23:11,799 --> 00:23:17,599
silk bell pull dangling like a serpent
with a huge tassel for skull over his

256
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:22,279
uncle Timothy's pillow, was a more
formidable instrument than the yard or two a

257
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:27,200
frayed green cord in the attic.
Yet they shared the same purpose many a

258
00:23:27,279 --> 00:23:32,279
time. Must his uncle Timothy have
stretched up a large, loose hand in

259
00:23:32,319 --> 00:23:38,359
that direction when in need of Solmes's
nocturnal ministrations. And now, alas both

260
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:45,039
master and man were long since gone
the way of all flesh, you couldn't,

261
00:23:45,279 --> 00:23:49,880
it appeared, pull bells in your
coffin. But Jimmy was not as

262
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:53,839
yet in his coffin. And as
soon as his fingers slipped down from the

263
00:23:53,839 --> 00:24:00,039
smooth pull, the problem in the
abstract, as it were, began to

264
00:24:00,079 --> 00:24:06,680
fascinate him. With cold, froggy
hands crossed over his beautiful puce patterned pajamas,

265
00:24:07,039 --> 00:24:11,440
he lay staring at the crimson tassel
till he had actually seen the hidden

266
00:24:11,519 --> 00:24:17,880
fangs thickeringly jet out at him.
The effort, then, must have needed

267
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:23,759
some little courage. It might almost
have needed a tinge of inspiration. It

268
00:24:23,839 --> 00:24:30,000
was in no sense intended as a
challenge. He would in fact rather remain

269
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:36,519
alone than chance, summoning well any
once animate relic of the distant past.

270
00:24:37,759 --> 00:24:41,920
But obviously, the most practical way
of proving, if only to yourself,

271
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:45,680
that you can be content with your
own reconnaissances in the very dead of night,

272
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:51,160
was to demonstrate to that self that
even if you should ask for it,

273
00:24:51,559 --> 00:24:57,039
assistance would not be forthcoming. He
had been as fantastic as that at

274
00:24:57,079 --> 00:25:03,519
the prolonged, pulsating, faint,
distant tintinabulation. He had fallen back onto

275
00:25:03,519 --> 00:25:08,160
his pillow with an absurd little quicket
of laughter, like that of a naughty

276
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:15,799
boy up to mischief, but instant
sobriety followed. Poor sleepers should endeavor to

277
00:25:15,839 --> 00:25:21,759
compose themselves. Tampering with empty space, stirring up echoes in pitch black pits

278
00:25:21,799 --> 00:25:27,119
of darkness is scarcely sedative. And
then, as he lay striving with an

279
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:33,200
extraordinary fervor not to listen, but
to concentrate his mind on the wardrobe,

280
00:25:33,599 --> 00:25:38,200
and to keep his eyes from the
door. That door must gently have opened.

281
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:45,920
It must have opened, and as
noiselessly closed again, for a more

282
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:49,680
or less decent looking young man,
seemingly not a day older than himself,

283
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:55,480
was now apparent in the room.
It might almost be said that he had

284
00:25:55,519 --> 00:26:00,759
insinuated himself into the room. But
well trained domestics, or customed to move

285
00:26:00,799 --> 00:26:07,640
their limbs and bodies with a becoming
unobtrusiveness. There was also that familiar slight

286
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:11,240
inclination of the apologetic in this young
man's pose, as he stood there,

287
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:17,880
solitary in his black in that terrific
blaze of candlelight, and for a sheer,

288
00:26:18,079 --> 00:26:22,119
solid minute, the occupant of the
Arabian bed had really stopped thinking.

289
00:26:23,799 --> 00:26:29,000
When indeed, you positively press your
face, so to speak, against the

290
00:26:29,039 --> 00:26:34,079
crystalline window of your eyes, your
mind is apt to become a perfect vacuum.

291
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:42,240
And Jimmy's first rapid and instinctive who
the devil had remained inaudible. In

292
00:26:42,279 --> 00:26:45,960
the course of the next few days, Jimmy was to become familiar, at

293
00:26:47,039 --> 00:26:51,079
least in memory, with the looks
of this new young butler or valet.

294
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:56,039
But first impressions are usually the vividest, the dark blue gray eyes, the

295
00:26:56,119 --> 00:27:02,440
high nose, the scarcely perceptible smile, the slight stoop of the shoulders.

296
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:07,119
There was no doubt of it.
There was just a flavor, a flicker

297
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:11,599
there of resemblance to himself, Not
that he himself could ever have cut as

298
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:18,559
respectful and respectable a figure as that, and the smile. The fellow seemed

299
00:27:18,559 --> 00:27:25,000
to be ruminating over a thousand dubious, long interred secrets, secrets such as

300
00:27:25,079 --> 00:27:29,519
one may be a little cautious of
digging up, even to share with one's

301
00:27:29,519 --> 00:27:36,480
self. His face turned sidelong on
his pillow and through air as visibly transparent

302
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:41,920
as a sheet of glass, Jimmy
had steadily regarded this strange bell answerer,

303
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:47,440
and the bell answerer had never so
much as stirred his frigid, glittering eyes

304
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:53,200
in response. The silence that hung
between them produced eventually a peculiar effect on

305
00:27:53,319 --> 00:27:59,920
Jimmy. Menials, as a general
rule, should be less emphatic personally.

306
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:07,240
Their unobtrusiveness should surely not emphasize their
imminence. It had been Jimmy who was

307
00:28:07,279 --> 00:28:10,799
the first to withdraw his eyes,
only once more to find them settling,

308
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:15,440
as if spell bound, on those
of his visitor. Yet, after all,

309
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,640
there was nothing to take offense at
in the young man's countenance or attitude.

310
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:23,160
He did not seem even to be
thinking back at the bell pullar,

311
00:28:23,759 --> 00:28:30,799
but merely to be awaiting instructions.
Yet Jimmy's heart at once rapidly began to

312
00:28:30,839 --> 00:28:34,599
beat again beneath his icy hands,
And at last he made a perfect idiotic

313
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:41,519
response, wagging his head on his
pillow, he turned abruptly away. It

314
00:28:41,599 --> 00:28:44,480
was only to tell you that I
shall need nothing more to night, he

315
00:28:44,559 --> 00:28:52,000
had said. Good heavens, the
fatuity of it. He wanted thirsted force,

316
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:56,160
scores upon scores of things. Aladdin's
was the cupidity of a simpleton,

317
00:28:56,279 --> 00:29:02,759
by comparison time the past, for
instance, and the ability to breathe again

318
00:29:02,839 --> 00:29:07,000
as easily as if it were natural, as natural as the processes of digestion.

319
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,359
Why, if you were intent only
on a little innocent companionship, one

320
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:15,119
or two of those nymphs up there
would be far more amusing company than missus

321
00:29:15,119 --> 00:29:21,160
thrips. If that is, apart
from yearning to their harps and vials that

322
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:26,039
he could have been persuaded to scrub
and sweep. Jimmy wanted no other kind

323
00:29:26,039 --> 00:29:32,279
of help. There is a beauty
that is but skin deep. Altogether,

324
00:29:32,559 --> 00:29:38,240
it had been a far from satisfactory
experience. Jimmy was nettled, his mincing

325
00:29:38,359 --> 00:29:44,119
tones echoed on in his mind.
They must have suggested that he was unaccustomed

326
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:48,319
to menservants and bell pulls and opulent
surroundings. And the fellow had instantly taken

327
00:29:48,359 --> 00:29:53,559
him at his word, a solemn, little, rather agreeable and unservile inclination

328
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:59,720
of the not unfriendly head. And
he was gone. And there was Jimmy,

329
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:04,839
absolutely exhausted, coughing his lungs out, and entirely incapable of concluding whether

330
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:11,359
the new butler was a creature of
actuality or of dream. Well, well,

331
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:15,039
well that was nothing new. That's
just how things do take one in

332
00:30:15,079 --> 00:30:22,000
one's weak moments in the dead of
night. Nevertheless, the experience had apparently

333
00:30:22,039 --> 00:30:29,640
provoked sedative. He had slept like
an infant. The morning found him vivacious

334
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:34,599
with curiosity. He had paused to
make only an exceedingly negligent toilet before beginning

335
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:41,119
his usual wanderings about the house.
Calm, cold daylight reflection may dismiss almost

336
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:45,960
any nocturnal experience as a dream,
if at any rate one's temperature in the

337
00:30:47,039 --> 00:30:52,039
night hours is habitually above the norm. But Jimmy could not or would not

338
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:57,160
absolutely make up his mind. So
clear a picture had his visit and imprinted

339
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:02,480
on his memory, that he found
himself just like a specialist sounding a patient

340
00:31:02,559 --> 00:31:07,000
in search of the secret ravages of
thysis. He had found himself stealthily tapping

341
00:31:07,039 --> 00:31:11,480
over the basement walls, as if
in search of a concealed pantry, a

342
00:31:11,519 --> 00:31:15,160
foolish proceeding if one has not the
least desire in the well to attract the

343
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:22,720
attention of one's neighbors. Having at
length satisfied himself in a rather confused fashion,

344
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:26,359
that whatever understudy of somes might share
the house with him in the small

345
00:31:26,359 --> 00:31:30,519
hours, he must be a butler
of the migratory order. Jimmy then began

346
00:31:30,599 --> 00:31:36,720
experimenting with the bells mounted on a
kitchen chair, cornice brush in hand.

347
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:41,759
He had been surprised by Missus Thrips
in her quiet boots as he stood gently

348
00:31:41,839 --> 00:31:47,319
knocking one by one the full eighteen
of the long green, crooked jingle row,

349
00:31:47,559 --> 00:31:52,319
which hung open mouthed above the immense
dresser. She had caught him in

350
00:31:52,359 --> 00:31:56,640
the act, and Jimmy had once
more exercised his customary glib presence of mind.

351
00:31:57,599 --> 00:32:00,440
They ought to be hung in a
scale, you know, wouldn't they,

352
00:32:00,519 --> 00:32:05,519
Missus Thrips. Then we could have
home, sweet home, and a

353
00:32:05,599 --> 00:32:09,400
hunting up and a hunting down,
grand sires and treble bobs and a grand

354
00:32:09,519 --> 00:32:15,079
Maximus, even on weekdays. And
if we were in danger of any kind

355
00:32:15,079 --> 00:32:17,680
of fire, which you will never
be, we could ring them backwards.

356
00:32:17,839 --> 00:32:22,279
Couldn't be, Missus Thrips. Not
there's much quality in them, no medieval

357
00:32:22,359 --> 00:32:27,680
monkish tone or timber in them.
They're a bit moldy too, and one

358
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:31,640
can't tell t'other from which it's not
like Saint Faith's. One would recognize that

359
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:36,319
old clankor in one shroud, wouldn't
one, Missus Thrips. Has it ever

360
00:32:36,359 --> 00:32:39,720
occurred to you that the first Campanologist's
real intention was not so much to call

361
00:32:39,759 --> 00:32:46,079
the congregation as to summon, well
what the congregations after, Yes, sir,

362
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:51,720
Missus Thrips had agreed, Her watery
gray eyes fixed largely on the elevated

363
00:32:51,759 --> 00:32:55,039
young man. But it don't matter
which of them you ring. I'll answer

364
00:32:55,079 --> 00:33:00,839
Henry at least while I'm in the
house. Hi, don't think, sir,

365
00:33:00,039 --> 00:33:06,279
you rest your mind enough. My
own boy now he's in the navy.

366
00:33:07,079 --> 00:33:10,680
But with one graceful flourish Jimmy had
run his long handled brush clean east

367
00:33:10,759 --> 00:33:15,880
to west along the clanging row.
You mustn't, he shouted, You shouldn't.

368
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:22,000
Once aboard the lugger. They are
free. It's you mother's. He

369
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,720
gently shook his peculiar wand at the
flat looking little old woman. No,

370
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:34,079
Missus thrips. What I'm after is
he who is here here couchamp perdieu leiree,

371
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:37,599
in these same subterranean vaults, when
you and I are snug in our

372
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:44,400
nightcaps, a most nice spoken young
man, not in the navy. Missus

373
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,920
thrips. And before the old lady
had had time to seize any one of

374
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:53,119
these seductive threads of conversation, Jimmy
had flashed his usual brilliant smile or grimace

375
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:58,279
at her, and soon afterwards sailed
out of the house to purchase a further

376
00:33:58,359 --> 00:34:04,720
gross or two of candles, gently
and furtively pushing across the counter half a

377
00:34:04,759 --> 00:34:07,760
sovereign, not as a du sur, but merely from friend to friend.

378
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:14,719
He had similarly smiled back at the
secretive looking old assistant in the stead west

379
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:20,559
End family grosses. No, I
don't suppose you could remember me. One

380
00:34:20,559 --> 00:34:25,679
altars, one ages, one deals
elsewhere. But anyhow, a happy new

381
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:30,199
year to you if the next ever
comes. You know you see, sir,

382
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:36,719
the straight aproned old man had retorted, with equal confidentiality. It is

383
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:43,360
not so much the alterations. They
are what you might call uncircumventable, sir.

384
00:34:44,599 --> 00:34:49,599
It's the stream, sir, behind
the counter here we are like rocks

385
00:34:49,599 --> 00:34:53,039
in it. But even if I
can't for the moment put a thought to

386
00:34:53,119 --> 00:34:58,519
your face, though it's already stirring
in me, in a manner of speaking,

387
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:01,679
I shall in the fuature, sir. You may rely upon that,

388
00:35:02,559 --> 00:35:07,199
and the same, sir, to
you and many of them. I'm sure,

389
00:35:07,599 --> 00:35:13,880
somehow or other, Jimmy's vanity had
been mollified by this pleasing little ceremoniousness,

390
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:17,000
and that even before he had smiled
yet once again at the saffron young

391
00:35:17,079 --> 00:35:21,559
lady in the pay box. The
truth is, my dear, he had

392
00:35:21,599 --> 00:35:25,440
assured himself, as he once more
ascended into the dingy porch. The truth

393
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:30,079
is, when once you begin to
tamper, you won't know where you are.

394
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:37,880
You won't really And that night he
had lain soberly on in a peculiar

395
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:44,519
state of physical quiescence and self satisfaction, his dark bright eyes wandering from nymph

396
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:49,360
to nymph, his hands folded over
his breast under the bedclothes, his heart

397
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:54,719
persisting in its usual habits. Nevertheless, the fountain of his thoughts had continued

398
00:35:54,800 --> 00:36:00,559
softly to splash on in its worn
basin. With ear year as a cock,

399
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:06,559
he had frankly enjoyed inhaling the parched, spent brilliant air. And when

400
00:36:06,599 --> 00:36:12,880
his fingers had at last manifested the
faintest possible itch to experiment once more with

401
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:15,880
the bellbill, he had slipped out
of bed, and, hastily searching through

402
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:21,079
a little privy case of his uncle's
bedside books, had presently slipped back again,

403
00:36:21,599 --> 00:36:25,840
armed with a fat little copy of
The Mysteries of Paris in its original

404
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:32,920
French. The next day, a
horrible lassitude descended upon him. For the

405
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:37,840
better part of an hour, he
had stood staring out of the drawing room

406
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:42,480
window into the London street. At
last, with a yawn that was almost

407
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:46,559
a groan, and with an absurdly
disproportionate effort, he turned himself about.

408
00:36:47,639 --> 00:36:52,199
Heavily hung the gilded chandeliers in the
long vista of the room, heavily gloomed,

409
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:58,320
the gilded furniture, scarcely distinguishable in
the obscurity of the further wall,

410
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,880
stood watching him from a mirror what
might have appeared to be the shadowy reflection

411
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:08,039
of himself. With a still yet
extreme aversion, he kept his eyes fixed

412
00:37:08,079 --> 00:37:14,880
on this distant nonentity, hardly realizing
his own fantastic resolve that if he did

413
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:20,880
catch the least faint independent movement there, he would give Solmes Junior a caustic

414
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:27,039
peace of his mind. He must
have been abominably fast asleep for hours,

415
00:37:27,079 --> 00:37:30,840
when a night or two afterwards he
had suddenly awakened, sweat streaming along his

416
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:36,360
body, his mouth stretched into a
long, narrow oh, and his right

417
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:40,880
hand clutching the bell rope as might
a drowning man a straw. The room

418
00:37:42,039 --> 00:37:46,880
was a drowse with light. All
was still. The flitting horrors between dream

419
00:37:47,119 --> 00:37:52,760
and wake in his mind were already
thinning into air through their transparency he looked

420
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:58,920
out once more on the substantial,
the familiar. His breath came heavily,

421
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:02,840
like puffs of wind over a stormy
sea, and yet a profound peace and

422
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:09,800
tranquility was swathing him in. The
relaxed mouth was now faintly smiling. Not

423
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:15,360
a sound, not the feeblest,
distant, unintended tinkling, was trembling up

424
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:22,079
from the abyss, And for a
moment or two the young man refrained even

425
00:38:22,119 --> 00:38:29,039
from turning his head at the soundless
opening and closing of the door. He

426
00:38:29,199 --> 00:38:34,679
lay fully conscious that he was not
alone, that quiet eyes had him steadily

427
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:38,920
in regard. But like rats,
his wits were beginning to busy themselves again.

428
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:45,599
Sheer relief from the terrors of sleep, shame of his extremity and weakness,

429
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:51,320
a festering sense of humiliation. Yes, he must save his face at

430
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:57,719
all costs. He must put this
preposterous spying valet in his place. Oddly

431
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,840
enough, too, out of the
depths, a peculiar little vision of recollection

432
00:39:02,159 --> 00:39:08,079
had inexplicably obtruded itself into consciousness.
It would be a witticism of the first

433
00:39:08,119 --> 00:39:14,360
water. They are dreadfully out of
season, you know. He began murmuring

434
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:20,280
effectively into the hush, dreadfully.
But what I'm really pining for is a

435
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:25,960
bunch of primroses. A primrose by
the river's brim must be a little conservative.

436
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:32,880
His voice was once more trailing off
into a maudlin drowsiness. With an

437
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:37,800
effort, he roused himself, and
now with an extremely sharp twist of his

438
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:43,159
head, he turned to confront his
visitor, But the room was already vacant.

439
00:39:43,639 --> 00:39:46,559
The door Ajar and Jimmy's lids were
on the point of closing again,

440
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:52,679
sliding down over his tired eyes like
leaden shutters which no power on earth could

441
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:58,519
hinder or restrain. When at the
faintest, far whisper of sound, they

442
00:39:58,559 --> 00:40:02,760
swept back, suddenly and almost incredibly
wide, to drink in all they could

443
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:07,599
of the spectacle of a small,
odd looking child, who at that moment

444
00:40:07,639 --> 00:40:13,599
had embodied herself in the doorway.
She seemed to have not the least intention

445
00:40:13,679 --> 00:40:17,079
of returning the compliment. Her whole
gaze, from out of her fair,

446
00:40:17,199 --> 00:40:22,639
flaxen pigtailed face, was fixed on
the coarse blue banded kitchen bowl, which

447
00:40:22,679 --> 00:40:29,079
she was carrying with extreme care and
caution in her two narrow hands. The

448
00:40:29,119 --> 00:40:32,400
idiots down below had evidently filled it
too full of water, for the pale,

449
00:40:32,519 --> 00:40:38,079
wide petaled flowers and thick, clinkered
leaves it contained were floating buoyantly nid,

450
00:40:38,199 --> 00:40:43,119
nod to and fro as she moved, pushing on each slippered foot in

451
00:40:43,199 --> 00:40:46,639
turn in front of the other,
her whole mind concentrated on her task.

452
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:53,960
A plain child, but extraordinarily fair, as fair as the primroses themselves.

453
00:40:54,000 --> 00:41:00,320
In the congregation of candlelight that motionlessly
flooded the room, a narrow chest did

454
00:41:00,559 --> 00:41:06,920
long chinned little creature who had evidently
outgrown her strength. Jimmy was well accustomed

455
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:09,880
to take things they come, and
his brief sojourn in his uncle's house in

456
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:15,960
his present state of health had already
enlarged the confines of the term things.

457
00:41:16,039 --> 00:41:22,000
Anyhow, she was a relief from
the valet. He found himself then,

458
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:27,000
watching this new visitor without the least
trace of astonishment or even of surprise.

459
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,119
And as his dark eyes coursed over
the child, he simply couldn't decide whether

460
00:41:31,159 --> 00:41:37,239
she most closely took after Solmes Junior
or Missus Thrips. All he could positively

461
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:44,039
assure himself of was just the look
the family likeness, and that in itself

462
00:41:44,119 --> 00:41:47,679
was a queerest coincidence, since whatever
your views might be regarding Solmes Junior,

463
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:52,719
Missus Thrips was real enough, as
real at any rate as her scrubbing brush

464
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:58,639
and her wholesome, evil smelling soap. As a matter of fact, Jimmy

465
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:02,679
was taking a very tight of himself. His mind might fancifully be compared to

466
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:07,440
a quiet, green, swarming valley
between steep rock bound hills, in which

467
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:13,800
a violent battle was preceding. Standards
and horsemen and smoke and terror and violence,

468
00:42:14,599 --> 00:42:20,840
but no sound. Deep down somewhere, he really wanted to be nice

469
00:42:21,039 --> 00:42:24,159
to the child. She meant no
ill. She was a demure, far

470
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:30,960
away, harmless looking creature ages ago. On the other hand, he wished

471
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:36,920
to Heaven they would leave him alone. They were pestering him. He knew

472
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:42,079
perfectly well how far he was gone, and bitterly resented this renewed interference.

473
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:45,960
And if there was one thing he
detested it was being made to look silly.

474
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:51,039
I hope you are trying to be
a good little boy. You have

475
00:42:51,159 --> 00:42:57,400
not been talking to the servants that
kind of thing. It was therefore,

476
00:42:57,519 --> 00:43:01,360
with mixed feelings and with a tinge
of shamefacedness, that he heard his own

477
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:08,599
sneering, toneless voice insinuate itself into
the silence. And what Missikins, can

478
00:43:08,639 --> 00:43:15,119
I do for you? What you
will understand? Not how the sneer had

479
00:43:15,159 --> 00:43:22,760
degenerated into a snarl. The child
at this had not perceptibly faltered. Her

480
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:27,280
face had seemed to lengthen a little, but that might have been due solely

481
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:30,960
to her efforts to deliver her bowl
without spilling its contents. Indeed, she

482
00:43:31,079 --> 00:43:36,840
actually succeeded in doing so, almost
before Jimmy had time to withdraw abruptly from

483
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:43,760
the little gilt rail table on which
she deposited the clumsy bot frock pigtail red

484
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:47,280
hands. She seemed to be as
real a fellow creature as you might wish

485
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:53,559
to see, But Jimmy stared quizzically
on. Unfortunately, primroses have no scent,

486
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:57,800
so that he could not call on
his nose to bear witness to his

487
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:04,400
eyes, and the congested conflict in
the green valley was still proceeding. The

488
00:44:04,519 --> 00:44:08,119
child had paused, her hands hung
down now as if they were accustomed to

489
00:44:08,159 --> 00:44:12,760
service, and her pale blue eyes
were fixed on his face. In that

490
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:17,159
exasperating manner, which suggests that the
owner of them is otherwise engaged. Not

491
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:22,039
that she was looking through him.
Even the sharpest of his female friends had

492
00:44:22,079 --> 00:44:27,800
never been able to boast of that
little accomplishment. She was looking into him

493
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:34,159
as if he occupied time rather than
space. Or was she sneered that weary

494
00:44:34,159 --> 00:44:38,360
inwood voice again, was she merely
waiting for a tip? Look here,

495
00:44:38,679 --> 00:44:44,079
said Jimmy dexterously, raising himself to
his elbow on the immense lace fringed pillow.

496
00:44:44,519 --> 00:44:47,400
It's all very well. You have
managed things quite admirably, considering your

497
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:52,360
age and the season and so on. But I didn't ask for primroses.

498
00:44:52,599 --> 00:44:59,360
I asked for violets. That's very
old trick, very old trick for one.

499
00:44:59,519 --> 00:45:04,719
Further, in instant, dark and
fair, crafty and simpleton face communed

500
00:45:05,199 --> 00:45:08,880
each with each, but the smile
on the one had fainted into a profound

501
00:45:09,079 --> 00:45:15,440
childlike contemplation. And then so swift
and imperceptible had been his visitants in vanishment

502
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:20,079
out of the room, that the
very space she had occupied seemed to remain

503
00:45:20,159 --> 00:45:25,360
for a while outlined in the air, a nebular shell of vacancy. She

504
00:45:25,519 --> 00:45:31,119
must apparently have glided backwards through the
doorway, for Jimmy had assuredly not been

505
00:45:31,159 --> 00:45:37,480
conscious of the remotest glimpse of her
pig tail from behind. Instantly on that

506
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:43,920
the stony hillside within had resounded with
a furious clangor cries and shouts and screamings,

507
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:47,679
and Jimmy, his face bloodless with
rage, his eyes almost blind with

508
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:52,360
it, had leaped out of the
great bed, as if in murderous pursuit.

509
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,880
There must, however, have been
an unusual degree or so a fever

510
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:00,880
in his veins that night, So
swift was his reaction. For the moment

511
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:06,559
he was on his feet, an
almost unendurable self pity had swept into possession

512
00:46:06,559 --> 00:46:09,880
of him, to take a poor
devil, as literally as that, to

513
00:46:10,039 --> 00:46:14,519
catch him off his guard, not
to give him the mere fleck of an

514
00:46:14,519 --> 00:46:19,239
opportunity to get his balance, to
explain, to answer back, curse the

515
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:23,679
primroses. But there was no time
to lose. With one hand clutching his

516
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:28,960
pajamas, the other carrying the bowl, he poked forward out of the flare

517
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:35,840
of the room into the cold lightlessness
of the wide stone staircase. Look here,

518
00:46:36,159 --> 00:46:39,599
he called down, in a low
argumentative voice, look here. You

519
00:46:39,599 --> 00:46:44,320
you can cheat, and you can
cheat, but to half strangle a fellow

520
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:49,719
in his sleep and then send him
up the snuffling caretaker's daughter. No,

521
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:53,760
no, next time, you old
make believe we'd prefer company a little more,

522
00:46:54,599 --> 00:47:01,280
a little more congenial. He swayed
slightly, grimacing vacantly into the darkness

523
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:07,440
and listening to his speech as dimly
as mitas somnambulist, to the distant roar

524
00:47:07,519 --> 00:47:14,400
of falling water. And then poor
benighted creature Jimmy tried to spit, but

525
00:47:14,559 --> 00:47:19,599
his lips and tongue were dry,
and that particular insult was spared him.

526
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:25,159
He had stooped laboriously, had put
down the earthenware bowl on the persian mat

527
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:30,320
at the head of the staircase,
and was self congratulatorally re welcoming himself into

528
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:35,840
the scene of still luster. He
had dared for that protracted minute to abandon

529
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:39,719
when he heard, as if from
beneath and behind him, a kind of

530
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:47,239
lullaping disquietude, and the sound as
of a clumsy, clawed but persistent animal

531
00:47:47,599 --> 00:47:55,960
pushing its uncustomary awkward way up the
soap polished marble staircase. It was to

532
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:01,880
be tit for tat. Then the
miserable my nage had let loose it's menagerie

533
00:48:02,119 --> 00:48:07,159
that they were going to experiment with
the mouse, cupboard and keyhole trickery of

534
00:48:07,199 --> 00:48:14,599
his childhood. Jimmy was violently shivering. His very toes were clinging to the

535
00:48:14,639 --> 00:48:19,039
mat on which he stood, swaying
a little, and casting at the same

536
00:48:19,119 --> 00:48:23,199
time a strained, whitened glance round
the room, in which every object rested

537
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:28,679
in the light, as if so
it had rested from all eternity. He

538
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:37,559
stood mutely and ghastly listening. Even
a large bedroom five times the size of

539
00:48:37,599 --> 00:48:42,960
a small boy's attic, affords little
scope for a fugitive, and shutting your

540
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:49,159
eyes, darkening your outward face is
no escape. It had been a silly

541
00:48:49,199 --> 00:48:53,639
boast, he agreed, that challenge
that dare on the staircase, the boast

542
00:48:53,639 --> 00:49:00,639
of an idiot. For the congenial
company that had now managed to hoof and

543
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:07,800
scrabble its way up the slippery marble
staircase was already on the threshold. All

544
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:16,000
was utterly silent. Now there was
no obvious manifestation of danger. What was

545
00:49:16,159 --> 00:49:22,079
peering steadily in upon him out of
the obscurity beyond the door was merely a

546
00:49:22,159 --> 00:49:29,280
blurred, whitish beastlike shape, with
still passive, almost stagnant eyes in its

547
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:37,760
immense fixed face, a perfectly ludicrous
object on paper, yet a creature so

548
00:49:37,119 --> 00:49:44,119
nauseous to soul and body, and
with so obscene agreed in its motionless piglike

549
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:50,239
grin that with one retigenous swell,
Jimmy's candles had swept up in his hand

550
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:55,000
like a lateral race of streaming planets
into outer darkness. If his wet,

551
00:49:55,119 --> 00:50:00,239
groping fingers had not then encountered one
of the carved pedestin of his uncle's bedstead,

552
00:50:00,599 --> 00:50:07,239
Jimmy would have fallen. Jimmy would
have found in fact the thing's physical

553
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:13,320
level, try as he might,
he had never in the days that followed

554
00:50:13,599 --> 00:50:19,000
made quite clear in his mind why
for the third time he had not made

555
00:50:19,039 --> 00:50:23,639
a desperate plunging clutch at the bowl
rope. The thing must have been Solme's

556
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:29,519
junior's emissary, even if the bird
faced scullery made with the primroses had not

557
00:50:29,639 --> 00:50:35,920
also been one of the staff that
he had desisted, simply in case she

558
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:39,760
should herself have answered his summons and
so have encountered the spurious animal as she

559
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:46,079
mounted the dark staircase, seemed literally
too good to be true. Not only

560
00:50:46,159 --> 00:50:52,440
was Jimmy no sentimentalist, but that
particular kind of goodness, even in a

561
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:57,679
state of mind perfectly calm and collected, was not one of his pleasanter characteristics.

562
00:50:59,159 --> 00:51:05,760
Yet acts are facts, even comforting
ones. And unless his memory was

563
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:10,760
utterly untrustworthy, he had somehow,
somehow contrived to regain his physical balance.

564
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:17,800
Candelabrum in hand, he had actually
indeed at last emerged from the room and

565
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:23,639
stooped his dark head over the balusters
in search of what, unaccountably had not

566
00:51:24,159 --> 00:51:31,159
awaited his near acquaintance, and he
had he must have flung the substantial,

567
00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:37,280
little blue banded slop basin primroses and
all clean, straight down in the direction

568
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:43,400
of any kind of sentient target that
happened to be in its way. You

569
00:51:43,559 --> 00:51:49,159
must understand, missus Thripps. He
had afterwards solemnly explained, I don't care

570
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:53,840
to be disturbed, and particularly at
night, all litter should of course be

571
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:59,920
immediately cleared away. That's merely as
things go in a well regulated household,

572
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:05,119
as in fact they do go.
And I see you have replaced the one

573
00:52:05,199 --> 00:52:08,440
or two little specimens I was looking
over out of the cabinet on the staircase.

574
00:52:09,159 --> 00:52:14,559
Pretty things too, though you hadn't
the advantage of being in the service

575
00:52:14,599 --> 00:52:19,559
of their late owner, my uncle, as I was. Of course,

576
00:52:19,719 --> 00:52:25,280
two breakages cannot be avoided. There. I assure you you are absolutely free

577
00:52:25,519 --> 00:52:31,320
moth and rust, Missus thrips.
No, all that I was merely inquiring

578
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:37,079
about at the moment is that particular
pot. There was an accident last night,

579
00:52:37,639 --> 00:52:44,400
primroses and so on, and one
might have expected, one might almost

580
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:49,199
have sworn, Missus Strips that at
least a shard or two, as the

581
00:52:49,199 --> 00:52:53,360
Psalmist says, would have been pretty
conspicuous, even if the water had completely

582
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:59,440
dried away. Not that I heard
the smash mine. I don't go so

583
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:05,719
far as that, nor am I
making any insinuations. Whatever. You are

584
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:08,639
the best of good creatures. You
are, indeed, and it's no good

585
00:53:08,639 --> 00:53:14,199
looking at me like patience on a
monument, because at present life is real

586
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:19,639
and life is earnest. All I
mean is that if one, for a

587
00:53:19,679 --> 00:53:25,599
single moment ceases to guide one's conduct
on reasonable lines, well one comes a

588
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:34,960
perfectly indescribable cropper Missus Strips like the
pot. Missus Thrips's gray, untidy head

589
00:53:35,079 --> 00:53:39,280
had remained oddly stuck out from her
body throughout this harangue. No, sir,

590
00:53:39,599 --> 00:53:43,719
she repeated, once more, high
and low, I've searched the house

591
00:53:43,800 --> 00:53:46,159
down, and there isn't a shadder
of what you might be referring to,

592
00:53:46,599 --> 00:53:52,480
not a shadder. And once more
I ask you, sir, let me

593
00:53:52,599 --> 00:53:57,960
call in doctor Stokes. He's a
very nice gentleman, and one as keeps

594
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:00,800
what should be kept as close to
himself as it being his duty. He

595
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:07,840
sees right and proper to do chasing
and racketing of yourself up and down these

596
00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:13,199
runs of naked stairs in the dead
of night is no proper place for you,

597
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:19,079
sir, in your state. And
I don't like to take the responsibility.

598
00:54:20,119 --> 00:54:23,239
It's first the candles, then the
bells, then the kitchen, and

599
00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:28,639
then the basin. I know what
I'm talking about, sir, having lost

600
00:54:28,639 --> 00:54:35,239
two and one at sea. And
suppose my dear Jimmy had almost brilliantly as

601
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:39,039
ever smiled, suppose we are all
of us at sea. What then,

602
00:54:40,639 --> 00:54:45,719
why then, sir, Missus Strips
had courageously retorted, I had, as

603
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:51,199
life be at the bottom of it. There's been as much worry and trouble

604
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:53,760
and making two ends meet in my
life, not to make the getting out

605
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:59,599
of it what you'd stand on no
ceremony, For I say it with all

606
00:54:59,679 --> 00:55:04,800
detai respect for what's respectful and proper, Sir, that there isn't a morning

607
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:08,480
I step down those area steps.
But my heart's in my mouth for fear

608
00:55:08,519 --> 00:55:14,159
there won't be anything in the house. But what can't answer back. It's

609
00:55:14,199 --> 00:55:17,679
been a struggle to keep on,
sir, and as you generous, as

610
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:22,719
gentlemen as need be, if only
you'd remain warm and natural in your bed.

611
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:30,039
When once there a little inward trickle
of laughter had entertained Jimmy as he

612
00:55:30,119 --> 00:55:36,280
watched the shapeless, patient old mouth
utter these last few words. That's just

613
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:40,559
it, missus thrips, he had
replied softly. You've done for me far

614
00:55:40,639 --> 00:55:46,280
more effectively than anyone I care to
remember in my insignificant little lifetime. You

615
00:55:46,519 --> 00:55:52,440
have. Indeed, Jimmy had even
touched the hand bent like the claw of

616
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:55,800
a bird around the broom handle.
In fact, you know, and I'm

617
00:55:55,800 --> 00:56:00,280
bound to confess it as gratefully as
need be. They are, all of

618
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:06,360
them doing for me as fast as
they can. I don't complain, not

619
00:56:06,440 --> 00:56:09,239
the least little bit in the world. All that I might be asking is

620
00:56:10,039 --> 00:56:15,840
how the devil, to put it
politely, how the goodness gracious is one

621
00:56:15,920 --> 00:56:21,119
to tell which is which? In
my particular case, it seems to be

622
00:56:21,199 --> 00:56:24,199
the miller that sets the wind,
Not of course, that he's got any

623
00:56:24,239 --> 00:56:30,159
particular graintgrind, not even wild out
you, funny old mother of a youthful

624
00:56:30,199 --> 00:56:35,480
mariner. No, no, no. Even the fact that there wasn't perhaps

625
00:56:35,559 --> 00:56:39,760
any pot after all, you will
understand, doesn't positively prove that neither could

626
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:45,440
there have been any primoses than before
next January is four months old. We

627
00:56:45,519 --> 00:56:49,440
shall be at the end of yet
another April, at least, and a

628
00:56:49,519 --> 00:56:53,679
sort of almost bluish pallor had spread
like a shadow over his face. At

629
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:59,199
least you will be all of which
is only to say, dear Madam,

630
00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:05,599
as Beckfield remarked to old Vic that
I am thanking you now, at which

631
00:57:05,679 --> 00:57:09,440
Missus thrips, immediately fell upon her
knees on her housemaid's pad, and plunged

632
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:14,559
her hands into her zinc pail,
only instantly after to sit back on her

633
00:57:14,639 --> 00:57:19,880
heels. Skinny hands on canvas apron. All I says, sir, is

634
00:57:20,239 --> 00:57:24,119
we go as we go, and
a nicer gentleman taking things on the surface

635
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:29,360
I never worked for. But one
don't want to move too much in the

636
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:32,840
public, high, Sir, of
all the houses below stairs I've worked for,

637
00:57:34,280 --> 00:57:37,440
and all alone in, I don't
want a chance on a more private

638
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:43,480
in a manner of speaking than this. All that I was saying, sir,

639
00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:46,719
and I wouldn't to none, but
you is the life skeetting on my

640
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:52,159
nerves. When that door there closes
after me, and every day drawing out

641
00:57:52,239 --> 00:57:55,920
steady as you can see, without
so much as glancing at the clock,

642
00:57:57,800 --> 00:58:02,199
I say to myself, well,
better that poor young gentleman alone up there

643
00:58:02,239 --> 00:58:07,280
at night coffin all than me.
I wouldn't sleep in this house, sir,

644
00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:13,239
not if you was to offer me
a plateful of sovereigns, unless sir,

645
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:19,440
you wanted me. On reflection,
Jimmy decided that he had cut almost

646
00:58:19,440 --> 00:58:23,840
a gallant figure, as he had
retorted gaily, yet with extraordinary sobriety,

647
00:58:24,559 --> 00:58:29,840
you shall have a whole dishful before
I'm done. Missus thrips with a big

648
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:34,719
scoop in it for the gravy.
But on my oath I assure you there's

649
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:39,519
absolutely nothing or nobody in this old
barn of a museum except you and me.

650
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:45,400
Nobody, unless, of course,
you will understand one happens to pull

651
00:58:45,519 --> 00:58:51,400
the bell, and that we're not
likely to do in broad daylight? Are

652
00:58:51,440 --> 00:58:55,320
we missus? Thrips upon which he
had hastily caught up his aunt's hand bag

653
00:58:55,480 --> 00:59:00,079
and had emerged into a daylight a
good deal bleaker, if not broader than

654
00:59:00,119 --> 00:59:07,960
he could gratefully stomach for a while, Jimmy had let well alone. Indeed,

655
00:59:07,159 --> 00:59:10,199
if it had been a mere matter
of choice, he would far rather

656
00:59:10,239 --> 00:59:15,760
have engaged in a friendly and jocular
conversation of this description with his old charwoman

657
00:59:15,960 --> 00:59:20,199
than in the endless monologues in which
he found himself submerged on other occasions.

658
00:59:21,559 --> 00:59:24,360
One later afternoon, for instance,
at half past three, by his watch,

659
00:59:24,679 --> 00:59:30,000
sitting there by a small fire in
the large muffled drawing room, he

660
00:59:30,079 --> 00:59:35,440
at length came definitely to the conclusion
that some kind of finality should be reached

661
00:59:35,559 --> 00:59:39,519
in his relations with the night staff
in his uncle Timothy's. It was pretty

662
00:59:39,559 --> 00:59:45,519
certain that his visit would soon be
drawing to a close. Staying out at

663
00:59:45,639 --> 00:59:49,800
night until he was almost too exhausted
to climb down to the pavement from his

664
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:54,320
hansom. The first April silver of
dawn warning the stark and empty chimney pots

665
00:59:55,039 --> 01:00:01,719
had proved a dull and tedious alternative
The spectator of gaiety, he concluded,

666
01:00:01,920 --> 01:00:06,719
as he stared at the immense picture
of the Colosseum on his uncle Timothy's wall,

667
01:00:07,119 --> 01:00:09,800
may have as boring a time as
must the slaves who cleaned out the

668
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:15,519
cages of the lions that ate the
Christians, and snapping out insults at former

669
01:00:15,599 --> 01:00:22,599
old cronies who couldn't help their faces
being as tiresome as a whitewashed pigstye had

670
01:00:22,679 --> 01:00:28,840
soon grown wearisome. Jimmy, of
course, was accustomed to taking no interest

671
01:00:28,880 --> 01:00:34,079
in things which did not interest him, But quite respectable people could manage that

672
01:00:34,239 --> 01:00:38,719
equally well. What fretted him almost
beyond endurance was an increasing inability to keep

673
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:44,559
his attention fixed on what was really
there. What, at least all such

674
01:00:44,639 --> 01:00:51,119
respectable people, one might suppose,
would unanimously agree was there a moment's fixture

675
01:00:51,159 --> 01:00:54,800
of the eyes, and he would
find himself steadily steadily listening. Now in

676
01:00:54,840 --> 01:01:00,559
a creeping dread that somewhere down below
there was a good deal that needed an

677
01:01:00,599 --> 01:01:07,039
almost constant attention, and now in
sudden alarm that after all there was absolutely

678
01:01:07,159 --> 01:01:14,039
nothing. Again and again in recollection, he had hung over the unlighted staircase,

679
01:01:14,320 --> 01:01:19,239
listening in an extremity of foreboding for
the outbreak of a rabbit like childish

680
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:23,199
squeal of terror, which would have
proved, well, what would it have

681
01:01:23,280 --> 01:01:30,360
proved, My god, what a
wild You can prove nothing. The fact

682
01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:36,440
that he was all but certain that
any such intolerably helpless squeal never had wailed

683
01:01:36,519 --> 01:01:39,840
up to him out of its pit
of blackness could be only a partial consolation.

684
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:45,280
He hadn't meant to be a beast. It was only his facetious little

685
01:01:45,280 --> 01:01:51,719
way, and you would have to
be something pretty piggish in pigs to betray

686
01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:57,559
a child. However insubstantial into the
nausea and vertigo he had experienced in the

687
01:01:57,559 --> 01:02:02,639
presence of that unspeakable abortion, the
whole thing had become a fatuous obsession.

688
01:02:04,679 --> 01:02:08,840
If it appeared you only remained solitary
and secluded enough and let your mind wander

689
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:14,119
on in its own sweet way.
The problem was almost bound to become if

690
01:02:14,159 --> 01:02:19,360
not your one and only at least
your chief concern, unless you were preter

691
01:02:19,519 --> 01:02:23,119
naturally busy and preoccupied. You simply
couldn't live on and on in a haunted

692
01:02:23,159 --> 01:02:30,400
house without being occasionally reminded of its
ghosts. To dismiss the matter as pure

693
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:36,039
illusion, to dismiss the matter as
pure illusion, the spectral picturing of life's

694
01:02:36,079 --> 01:02:40,000
fitful fever might be all very well, that is, if you had the

695
01:02:40,039 --> 01:02:45,400
blood of a fish. But who
on earth had ever found the world the

696
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:50,840
pleasanter and sweeter place to bid goodbye
to simply because it was obviously substantial,

697
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:54,960
whatever that might mean, Simply because
it did nothing you wanted it to do,

698
01:02:55,159 --> 01:03:00,239
unless you paid for it pretty handsomely, or unless you were accept did

699
01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:04,760
what it proffered with as open a
hospitality as Jimmy had bestowed on his pilgrims

700
01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:08,280
of the night, not that he
much wanted, however, pressing the invitation

701
01:03:08,760 --> 01:03:13,679
to wander off out of his body
into a better world, or for that

702
01:03:13,719 --> 01:03:19,920
matter, into a worse upstairs under
the roof. Years ago, Jimmy,

703
01:03:20,000 --> 01:03:22,400
as a small boy, would rather
have died of terror than meddle with the

704
01:03:22,440 --> 01:03:28,039
cord above his bed rail simply because
he knew that Solmes Senior was at the

705
01:03:28,079 --> 01:03:31,960
other end of it. He had
hated Solmes, He had merely feared the

706
01:03:32,079 --> 01:03:37,800
nothings of his night hours. But
suppose Solmes had been a different kind of

707
01:03:37,800 --> 01:03:43,000
butler. There must be almost as
many kinds as there are human beings.

708
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:49,159
Suppose his uncle Timothy and aunt Charlotte
had chosen theirs a little less sidiosyncratically.

709
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:53,679
What then, Well, anyhow,
in a sense he was not sorry.

710
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:58,880
Life had been a little exciting these
last few weeks. How odd that what

711
01:03:59,119 --> 01:04:01,960
all but jelly your soul in your
body at night or in a dream might

712
01:04:02,000 --> 01:04:08,320
merely amuse you like a shilling shocker
in the safety of day, the safety

713
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:12,199
of day. That the very cadence
of the words in his mind. As

714
01:04:12,199 --> 01:04:15,840
he sat there in his aunt's salon, his limbs huddled over missus Thripps's fire,

715
01:04:16,320 --> 01:04:23,280
Jimmy's eyes had fixed themselves again again. He was listening. Was it

716
01:04:23,320 --> 01:04:28,880
that if you saw in your mind
any distant room of place, that place

717
01:04:28,960 --> 01:04:33,280
must actually, at the moment contain
you some self, some astral body.

718
01:04:34,519 --> 01:04:42,960
If so, wouldn't of course you
hear yourself moving about in it? There

719
01:04:43,000 --> 01:04:46,199
was a slight whining wind in the
street outside the rainy window that afternoon,

720
01:04:46,679 --> 01:04:51,440
and once more, the bright idea
crossed Jimmy's mind that he should steal upstairs

721
01:04:51,559 --> 01:04:56,559
before it was dark, mount up
on to the Arabian bed, and just

722
01:04:56,719 --> 01:05:02,440
cut the bell pull once for all. But would that necessarily dismiss the staff

723
01:05:03,280 --> 01:05:10,360
necessarily? His eyes wandered to the
discreet s of yet another bell pull,

724
01:05:11,039 --> 01:05:16,320
that which graced the wall beneath the
expansive white marble chimney piece. He hesitated.

725
01:05:16,679 --> 01:05:20,320
There was no doubt his mind was
now hopelessly jaundiced against bell ropes,

726
01:05:20,719 --> 01:05:25,480
whether they failed to summon one to
church or persisted in summoning one to a

727
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:29,719
six foot hole in the cemetery.
His uncle Timothy lay in a moresoleum.

728
01:05:30,960 --> 01:05:33,320
On the other hand, he was
properly convinced that a gentleman is as a

729
01:05:33,360 --> 01:05:39,280
gentleman does, and that it was
really up to you to treat all bell

730
01:05:39,360 --> 01:05:45,000
answerers with decent courtesy, no matter
who, when where. A universal rule

731
01:05:45,079 --> 01:05:49,280
like that is a sheer godsend.
If they didn't answer, well, you

732
01:05:49,320 --> 01:05:57,079
couldn't help yourself, or rather you
would have to. This shivering was merely

733
01:05:57,119 --> 01:06:00,960
physical when a fellow is so thin
that he can almost hear his ribs grid

734
01:06:01,000 --> 01:06:04,360
one against the other when he stoops
to pick up a poker. Such symptoms

735
01:06:04,400 --> 01:06:09,760
must be expected. There was still
an hour or two of daylight, even

736
01:06:09,800 --> 01:06:13,920
though clouds admitted only a grayish light
upon the world, and his uncle Timothy's

737
01:06:13,920 --> 01:06:18,440
house was by nature friendly to gloom. That house, at this moment seemed

738
01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:25,719
to hang domed upon his shoulders like
an immense, imponderable shell. The flames

739
01:06:25,719 --> 01:06:30,719
in the chimney whispered, fluttered,
hovered like fitfully playing once happy birds.

740
01:06:31,800 --> 01:06:35,920
Supposing, if, even against his
better judgment, he leaned forward now in

741
01:06:35,960 --> 01:06:41,599
his chair, and what was infinitely
more conventional, and in a sense more

742
01:06:41,639 --> 01:06:46,840
proper than summoning unforeseen entities to one's
bedside. Supposing he gave just one discreet

743
01:06:47,239 --> 01:06:54,639
little tug at that small porcelain knob, What would he ask for? He

744
01:06:54,719 --> 01:06:59,559
need ask nothing. He could act. Yes, if he could be perfectly

745
01:06:59,639 --> 01:07:04,280
sure that some monstrous, poor signed
kakademon akin to the shapes of childish nightmare

746
01:07:04,280 --> 01:07:09,840
would come hoofing up out of the
deeps at his behest well, he would

747
01:07:09,960 --> 01:07:14,360
chance it. He would have it
out with the brute it was still day.

748
01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:20,519
It was still day, But maybe
the ear of pleasanter visitors might catch

749
01:07:20,559 --> 01:07:26,400
the muffled tinkle in the young man's
mind. There was now no vestige of

750
01:07:26,480 --> 01:07:30,719
jocularity in an instant's lightness of heart. He had once thought of purchasing from

751
01:07:30,719 --> 01:07:35,400
the stiff aproned old assistant at his
aunt Charlotte's family grocer's a thumping big box

752
01:07:35,440 --> 01:07:41,639
of chocolates. Why just that one
small bowl in famil rows up there could

753
01:07:41,639 --> 01:07:45,320
be bartered for the prettiest little necklet
of seed pearls. She had done her

754
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:51,079
best with her skimpy shoulders, skimpier
pigtail, and soda reddened hands. Pigtail,

755
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:58,760
but no, you might pour real
bells to pull dubiously genuine pigtails seemed

756
01:07:58,840 --> 01:08:02,639
now a feeble jest. The old
Jimmy of that kind of facetiousness was a

757
01:08:02,679 --> 01:08:09,719
thing of the past. Apart from
pigs and tweeny maids, what other peculiar

758
01:08:09,719 --> 01:08:15,960
emanations might in the future respond his
summonings. Jimmy's exhausted imagination could only faintly

759
01:08:15,039 --> 01:08:20,640
prefigure for a few minutes. A
modern Saint Antony sat there in solitude in

760
01:08:20,680 --> 01:08:27,119
the vast half blinded London drawing room, while shapes and images and apparitions of

761
01:08:27,159 --> 01:08:33,560
memory and fantasy sprang into thin being
and passed away in his mind. No,

762
01:08:33,560 --> 01:08:40,279
no, due to the book quench, the candles ring, the bell,

763
01:08:41,279 --> 01:08:46,680
Amen, Amen. He was done
with all that maledictions and anathemas they

764
01:08:46,680 --> 01:08:53,720
only tangled the hank. So when
at last his meager, stooping body mutely

765
01:08:53,760 --> 01:08:57,920
played on by the flamelight, he
jerked round his dark, narrow head to

766
01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:01,279
glance at the distant mirror. It
must have been on the mere after image,

767
01:09:01,319 --> 01:09:05,720
so to speak, of the once
quite substantial looking tweeny maid that his

768
01:09:05,880 --> 01:09:13,640
exhausted eyes thirstily fixed themselves. She
was there, over there, where Solmes

769
01:09:13,720 --> 01:09:17,840
Junior had more than once taken up
his obsequious station. She was smiling,

770
01:09:18,399 --> 01:09:23,079
if the dusk of the room could
be trusted that far and not through.

771
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:29,359
But really at Jimmy, she was
fairer than ever, Fairer than the flaxenest

772
01:09:29,399 --> 01:09:33,039
of nymphs on his uncle's ceiling,
fairer than the saffronist of young ladies in

773
01:09:33,119 --> 01:09:41,159
the respectablest of family grossers, Fairer
even than Jimmy hung on this simple vision

774
01:09:41,399 --> 01:09:46,239
as did divies on the spectacle of
Lazarus in bliss at once. Of course,

775
01:09:46,520 --> 01:09:50,800
after his very first sigh of relief
and welcome, he had turned back

776
01:09:50,800 --> 01:09:57,359
on his lips a glib little speech
suggesting forgiveness, Let old acquaintance be forgot

777
01:09:57,880 --> 01:10:00,439
that kind of thing. He was
too tired even to be clever now,

778
01:10:00,960 --> 01:10:05,439
and the oddest of convictions had at
once come into his mind, seemed almost

779
01:10:05,439 --> 01:10:11,960
to fill his body, even that
she was waiting for something else. Yes,

780
01:10:12,239 --> 01:10:15,600
she was smiling, as if in
hope, she was waiting to be

781
01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:19,960
told to go. Jimmy was no
father. He didn't want to be considerate

782
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:24,399
to the raw little creature to cling
to her company for but a few minutes

783
01:10:24,479 --> 01:10:29,000
longer, with a view to returns
in kind. No nothing of all that.

784
01:10:30,439 --> 01:10:33,920
Oh, my god, my god, her voice groaned within him,

785
01:10:33,960 --> 01:10:40,079
But not at any unprecedented jag or
stab of pain. The child was still

786
01:10:40,159 --> 01:10:45,199
waiting quite quietly there, as if
a shadow, as if a secret and

787
01:10:45,279 --> 01:10:49,000
obscure ray of light. And it
seemed to Jimmy that in its patient face

788
01:10:49,159 --> 01:10:57,720
hung veil upon veil of uncountable faces
of the past in paint stone actuality.

789
01:10:57,920 --> 01:11:01,960
Dream that he had glanced at or
brooded on in the enormous history of his

790
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:08,560
life that he may have coveted too, and as well as his rebellious features

791
01:11:08,560 --> 01:11:13,800
could and would. He smiled back
at her. I understand, my dear,

792
01:11:14,279 --> 01:11:18,319
he drew back his dry lips to
explain perfectly. And it was courtesy

793
01:11:18,359 --> 01:11:24,079
itself of you to look in When
I didn't ring, I didn't. I

794
01:11:24,159 --> 01:11:28,000
absolutely put my tongue out at the
grinning old knob. But no more of

795
01:11:28,039 --> 01:11:32,520
that. One mustn't talk for talking's
sake. Else why all those old Trappists,

796
01:11:33,159 --> 01:11:35,520
though none of them such a bag
of bones as me, I bet,

797
01:11:36,119 --> 01:11:42,000
but without jesting, you know?
Once more, A distant voice spoke

798
01:11:42,039 --> 01:11:46,800
in Jimmy's ear. It's important,
it said. You really must hold your

799
01:11:46,840 --> 01:11:55,039
tongue until well it holds itself.
But Jimmy's face continued to smile, and

800
01:11:55,119 --> 01:12:00,399
then suddenly every vestige of amusement abandoned
it. He stared head baldly, almost

801
01:12:00,439 --> 01:12:05,039
emptily, at the faint inmate of
his solitude. All that I have to

802
01:12:05,119 --> 01:12:12,239
say, he muttered, is just
this. I have, missus thrips.

803
01:12:12,720 --> 01:12:17,840
I have absolutely cut the wire.
I wish to be alone. But if

804
01:12:18,199 --> 01:12:25,279
I ring, I'm not asking do
you see? In time I may be

805
01:12:25,439 --> 01:12:30,880
able to know what I want.
But what is important now is that no

806
01:12:30,000 --> 01:12:35,640
more than the accursed pig where your
primrose is real? My dear, you

807
01:12:35,760 --> 01:12:43,279
see, things must be real.
And now I suppose he had begun shivering

808
01:12:43,319 --> 01:12:48,520
again. You must go to you
must go. But listen, listen,

809
01:12:49,439 --> 01:12:57,000
we part friends, the coals in
the grate, with a scarcely audible shuffling,

810
01:12:57,520 --> 01:13:03,720
recompose themselves to their consuming. When
there hasn't been anything there. Nothing

811
01:13:03,760 --> 01:13:09,840
can be said to have vanished from
the place where it has not been still.

812
01:13:10,279 --> 01:13:15,720
Jimmy had felt infinitely colder and immeasurably
lonelier when his mouth had thus fallen

813
01:13:15,840 --> 01:13:20,479
to silence, and he was so
empty and completely exhausted, that his one

814
01:13:20,600 --> 01:13:26,239
apprehension had been lest he should be
unable to ascend the staircase to get to

815
01:13:26,239 --> 01:13:31,119
bed. There was no doubt of
it. His ultimatum had been instantly effective.

816
01:13:32,239 --> 01:13:39,279
The whole house was now preternaturally empty. It was needless even to listen

817
01:13:39,319 --> 01:13:44,760
to prove that, so absolute was
its pervasive quietude that, when at last

818
01:13:44,960 --> 01:13:48,000
he gathered his bones together in the
effort to rise, to judge from the

819
01:13:48,039 --> 01:13:53,039
withering color of the cinders and ashes
in the fireplace. He must have been

820
01:13:53,119 --> 01:13:59,199
for some hours asleep, and daybreak
must be near. He managed the feet

821
01:13:59,239 --> 01:14:03,520
at last gathered up the tartan traveling
shawl that tented in his scarecrow knees,

822
01:14:03,760 --> 01:14:09,439
and lit the only candle in its
crystal stick in his aunt Charlotte's drawing room.

823
01:14:10,399 --> 01:14:15,319
And it was an almost chiotically peaceful
though for bodeful Jimmy, who stepped

824
01:14:15,319 --> 01:14:18,840
by step the fountain of his thoughts
completely stilled his night mind as clear and

825
01:14:18,960 --> 01:14:26,079
sparkling as a cavern bedangled with stalagmites
and stalactites. Climbed laboriously on and up

826
01:14:26,359 --> 01:14:31,479
from wide, shallow marble stair to
stair. He paused in the corridor above.

827
01:14:32,159 --> 01:14:36,159
But the nymphs within, muses,
graces, fates, what not,

828
01:14:36,880 --> 01:14:43,840
piped in vain their mute decoy.
His uncle Timothy's Arabian bed in vain summoned

829
01:14:43,920 --> 01:14:47,760
him to its downy embraces. At
the wide open door. He brandished his

830
01:14:47,880 --> 01:14:56,880
guttering candle in a last smiling gesture
of farewell, and held on. That

831
01:14:57,079 --> 01:15:00,520
is why, when next morning,
out of a sound andading, slanting shower

832
01:15:00,600 --> 01:15:05,000
of rain, missus Thripps admitted herself
into the house. At the area door,

833
01:15:05,600 --> 01:15:11,239
she found the young man still in
his clothes, lying very fast asleep,

834
01:15:11,279 --> 01:15:15,800
indeed on the truckle bed in the
attic. His hands were not only

835
01:15:15,880 --> 01:15:19,760
crossed, but convulsively clenched in that
position on his breast, and it appeared

836
01:15:19,760 --> 01:15:26,680
from certain distressing indications that he must
have experienced a severe struggle to refrain from

837
01:15:26,760 --> 01:15:30,279
a wild, blind tug at the
looped up length of knotted whip cord over

838
01:15:30,319 --> 01:15:34,439
his head. As a matter of
fact, it did not occur to the

839
01:15:34,479 --> 01:15:40,279
littered old Charlm's mind to speculate whether
or not Jimmy had actually made such a

840
01:15:40,399 --> 01:15:45,000
last attempt, or whether he had
been content merely to wait on a Solmes,

841
01:15:45,119 --> 01:15:48,159
who might, perhaps, like all
good servants, come when he was

842
01:15:48,239 --> 01:15:55,199
wanted, rather than when he was
called. All her own small knowledge of

843
01:15:55,319 --> 01:16:00,239
Solmes's, though not without comfort,
had been acquired at second hand. Nor

844
01:16:00,279 --> 01:16:05,279
did missus Thrips waste time in surmising
how Jimmy could ever have persuaded himself to

845
01:16:05,399 --> 01:16:10,279
loop up the chord like that out
of his reach, unless he had first

846
01:16:10,399 --> 01:16:15,359
become abysmally ill content with his small, primitive and belated knowledge of Campanology.

847
01:16:16,720 --> 01:16:21,399
She merely looked at what was left
of him, her old face almost comically

848
01:16:21,439 --> 01:16:31,720
transfixed in its appearance of pity,
horror, astonishment and curiosity. End of

849
01:16:31,880 --> 01:16:32,680
out of the deep,