Speaker 1: The Strange Orchid by H. G. Wells. The buying of
orchids has always had in it a certain speculative flavor.
You have before you the brown shriveled lump of tissue,
And for the rest you must trust your judgment, or
the auctioneer, or your good luck. As your taste may incline.
The plant may be moribund or dead, or it may
just be a respectable purchase, fair value for your money,
or perhaps for the thing has happened again and again.
There slowly unfolds before the delighted eyes of the happy purchaser,
day after day, some new variety, some novel richness, a
strange twist of the labellum, or some subtler coloration, or
some unexpected mimicry. Pride, beauty, and profit blossom together on
one delicate green spike. And it may be even immortality.
For the new miracle of nature may stand in need
of a new specific name, and what so convenience as
that of its discoverer, John Smithea. There have been worse names.
It was perhaps the hope of some such happy discovery
that made Winter Wedderbourn such a frequent attendant at these sales,
that hope, and also maybe the fact he had nothing
else of the slightest interest to do in the world.
He was a shy, lonely, and rather ineffectual man, provided
with just enough income to keep off the spurd of necessity,
and not enough nervous energy to make him seek any
exacting employment. He might have collected stamps or coins, or
translated horrors or bound books, or invented new species of diatoms,
but as it happened, he grew orchids and had one
ambitious little hot house. I have a fancy, he said
over his coffee, that something is going to happen to
me to day. He spoke as he moved and thought slowly. Oh,
don't say that, said his housekeeper, who was also his
remote cousin. For something happening was a euphemism that meant
only one thing. To her. You misunderstand me. I mean
nothing un pleasant, though what I do mean I scarcely know.
To day, he continued, after a pause, peters are going
to sell a batch of plants for the Anderman's and
the Indies. I shall go up and see what they have.
It may be I shall buy something good unawares. That
may be it, he passed his cup for a second
cupful of coffee. Are these the things collected by that
poor young fellow you told me of the other day,
asked his cousin, as she filled his cup. Yes, he said,
and became meditative over a piece of toast. Nothing ever,
does happen to me, he remarked, presently beinging to think aloud.
I wonder why things enough happen to other people. There
is Harvey only the other week on Monday he picked
up sixpence. On Wednesday, his chicks had the staggers. On Friday,
his cousin came home from Australia, and on Saturday he
broke his ankle. What a world of excitement compared to me.
I think I would rather be without so much excitement,
said his housekeeper. It can't be good for you. I
suppose it's troublesome. Still, you see, nothing ever happens to me.
When I was a little boy, I never had accidents.
I never fell in love as I grew up, never married.
Wonder how it feels to have something happened to you,
something really remarkable. That orchid collector was only thirty six,
twenty years younger than myself when he died, and he
had been married twice and divorced once. He had had
malarial fever four times, and once he broke his thigh.
He killed a malay once, and once he was wounded
by a poisoned dart, and in the end he was
killed by jungle leeches. It must have all been very troublesome,
but then it must have been very interesting, you know,
except perhaps the leeches. I am sure it was not
good for him, said the lady with conviction. Perhaps not.
And then Wedderburne looked at his watch. Twenty three minutes
path eight. I am going up by the quarter to
twelve train, so there's plenty of time. I think I'll
wear my old pack a jacket, it is quite warm enough,
and my grave felt hat and brown shoes. I suppose.
He glanced out of the window at the serene sky
and sunlit garden, and then nervously at his cousin's face.
I think you had better take an umbrella if you're
going to London, she said, in a voice that admitted
of no denial. There's all between here and the station
coming back. When he returned, he was in a state
of mild excitement. He had made a purchase. It was
rare that he could make up his mind quickly enough
to buy, but this time he had done so. There
are van das, he said, and a d'nobi, and some palaeonopsis.
He surveyed his purchasers, loving me as he consumed his soup.
They were laid out on a spotless table cloth before him,
and he was telling his cousin all about them as
he slowly beanded through his dinner. It was his customed
to live all his visits to London and over again
in the evening for her and his own entertainment. I
knew something was going to happen to day, and I
have bought all of these, some of them, some of them,
I feel sure. Do you know that some of them
will be remarkable? I don't know how it is, but
I feel just as sure as if some one had
told me that some of these will turn out remarkable.
That one, he pointed to, a shriveled rhizome, was not identified.
It may be a palaeonopsus, or it may not. It
may be a new species, or even a new genus.
And it was the last that poor Patten ever collected.
I don't like the look of it, said his housekeeper.
It's such an ugly shape. To me, it scarcely seems
to have a shape. I don't like those things that
stick out, said the housekeeper. It shall be put away
in a pot to morrow. It looks, said the housekeeper,
like a spider shamming dead. Wedderburn smiled and surveyed the
root with his head on one side. It's certainly not
a pretty lump of stuff, but you never can judge
of these things from their dry appearance. It may turn
out to be a very beautiful orchid. Indeed, how busy
I shall be to morrow. I must see to night
just what to do with these things, And to morrow
I shall set to work. They found poor Baton lying
dead or dying in a mangrove swamp I forget which
he began again presently, and with one of those very
orchids crushed up under his body. He had been unwell
for some days, with some kind of native fever, and
I suppose he fainted. Those mangrove swamps are very unwholesome.
Every drop of blood, they say, was taken out of
him by the jungle leeches. It may be that very
plant that cost him his life. To obtain none the
better of it. For that men must work, though women
may weep, said Wedderburn with profound gravity. Fancy dying away
from every comfort in a nasty swamp, fancy being ill
of fever with nothing to take but Chlorodyne and Queen.
If men were left to themselves, they would live on
Chlorodyne and Queen. And no one around you but horrible natives.
They say the Andaman Island as the most disgusting, the wretches,
And anyhow they can scarcely make good nurses, not having
the necessary training, and just for people in England to
have orchids. I don't suppose it was comfortable, but some
men seem to enjoy that kind of thing, said Baderburn. Anyhow,
the natives of his party was sufficiently civilized to take
more care of all his recollection into His colleague, who
was an ornithologist, came back from the interior, though they
could not tell the species of the orchid, and had
let it wither. And it makes these things more interesting,
it makes them disgusting. I should be afraid of some
malaria clinging to them, and just think there's been a
dead body lying across that ugly thing. I never thought
of that before. There, I declare, I cannot eat another
mouthful of dinner. I will take them off the table,
if you like, put them in the window seat. I
can see them just as well there. The next few
days he was indeed singularly busy in his steamy little
hot house, fussing about with charcoal, lumps of teak, moss,
and all the other mysteries of the orchid cultivator. He
considered he was having a wonderfully eventful time. In the evening,
he would talk about these new orchids to his friends,
and over and over again he reverted to his expectation
of seeing something strange. Severl the van Dass and the
Dandrobium died under his care, but presently the strange orchid
began to show signs of life. He was delighted and
took his housekeeper right away from jam making to see
it at once. Directly he made the discovery. That is
a bud, he said, And present, there will be a
lot of leaves there, And those little things coming out
here are aerial rootlets. They look to me like little
white fingers poking out of the brown. I don't like them,
said the housekeeper. Why not. I don't know. They look
like fingers trying to get at you. I can't help
my likes and dislikes. I don't know for certain, but
I don't think there are any orchids I know that
have aerial rootlets quite like that. Maybe my fancy. Of course,
you see, they are a little flattened at the ends.
I don't like them, said the housekeeper, certainly shivering and
turning away. I know it's very silly of me, and
I'm very sorry, particularly as you'd like the thing so much.
But I can't help thinking of that corpse. But it
may not be that particular plant that was merely a
guess of mine. His housekeeper shrugged her shoulders. Anyhow, I
don't like it, she said. Wend Burne felt a little
hurt at its life to the plant, but that did
not prevent his talking to her about orchids generally, and
this orchid in particular, whenever he felt inclined. There are
such queer things about orchids, he said, one day, such
possibilities of surprises, you know. Darwin studded their fertilization and
showed that the whole structure of an ordinary orchid flower
was contrived in order that moths might carry the pollen
from plant to plant. Well, it seems there are a
lot of orchids known, the flower of which cannot possibly
be used for fertilization in that way. Some of the Cyprideans,
for instance, there are no insects known that could possibly
fertilize them, and some of them have never been found
for the seed. But how do they form new plants?
By runners and tubers and that kind of outgrowth that
is easily explained. The puzzle is what are the flowers for?
Very likely, he added, my orchid may be something extraordinary
in that way. If so, I shall study it. I
have often thought of making researches as Darwin dead, but
furtherto I have not found the time, or something else
has happened to prevent it. The leaves are beginning to unfold. Now.
I do wish you would come and see it. But
she said that the orchid house was so hot he
gave her the headache. She had seen the plant once again,
and the aerial rootlets, which were now some of them
more than a foot long, had unfortunately reminded her of
tentacles reaching out after something, and they had got into
her dreams growing after her with incredible rapidity, so that
she had settled to her entire satisfaction. She would not
see that plant again, and Wedderbourne had to admire its
leaves alone. They were of the ordinary broad form, and
a deep glossy green, with splatches and dots of deep
red about the base. He knew of no other leaves
quite like them. The plant was placed on a low
bench near the thermometer, and close by a simple arrangement
by which tap dripped on the hot water pipes. Ken
kept the air steamy, and he spent his afternoons time
with some regularity, meditating on the approaching flowering of his
strange plant. And at last the great thing happened. Directly
he entered their little glass house. He knew that the
spike had burst, and although his great polyanthus low eye
hid the corner where the new darling stood, there was
a new odor in the air, a rich, intensely sweet
scent that overpowered every other in that crowded, steaming little greenhouse.
Directly he noticed this, he hurried down to the strange orchid,
and behold the trailing green spikes bore now three great
splashes of blossom, from which this overpowering sweetness proceeded. He
stopped before them in an ecstasy of admiration. The flowers
were white, with streaks of gold and orange upon the petals.
The heavy labalum was coiled into an intricate projection, and
a wonderful bluish purple mingled there with the gold. He
could see at once that the genus was altogether a
new one, and the insufferable scent, how hot the place was,
the blossom swam before his eyes. He would see if
the temperature was right. He made a step towards the thermometer.
Suddenly everything appeared unsteady. The bricks on the floor were
dancing up and down, then the white blossoms, the green
leaves behind him, The whole greenhouse seemed to sweep sideways,
and then in a curve upward. At half past four,
his cousin made the tea according to their invariable custom,
but Wedderburn did not come in for his tea. He
is worshiping that hotted orchid, she told herself, and waited
ten minutes. I will go and call him. She went
straight to the hot house, and, opening the door, called
his name. There was no reply. She noticed that the
air was very close and loaded with an intense perfume.
Then she saw something lying on the bricks between the
hot water pipes. For a minute, perhaps she stood motionless.
He was lying face upward at the foot of the
strange orchid. The tentacle like aerial rootlets no longer swayed
freely in the air, but were crowded together a tangle
of gray ropes, and stretched tight, with their ends closely
applied to his chin and neck and hands. She did
not understand. And then she saw from under one of
the exultant tentacles upon his cheek that trickled a little
thread of blood. With an inarticulate cry, she ran towards
him and tried to pull him away from the leech
like suckers. She snapped two of these tentacles, and their
sap dripped red. Then the overpowering scent of the blossom
began to make her head reel. How they clung to him.
She tore at the top ropes, and here the white
inflorescence swam about her. She felt she was fainting, knew
she must not. She left him and hastily opened the
nearest door, And after she had panted for a moment.
In the fresh air, she had a brilliant inspiration. She
caught up a flowerpot and smashed in the windows at
the end of the greenhouse. Then she re entered. She tugged,
now with renewed strength, at Wedderbourn's motionless body, and brought
the strange orchid crashing to the floor. It still clung
with grimace tenacity to its victim. In a frenzy, she
lugged it and him into the open air. Then she
thought of tearing through the sucker rootlets one by one,
and in another minute she had released him and was
dragging him away from the horror. He was white and
bleeding from a dozen circular patches. The odd jobman was
coming up the garden, amazed at the smashing of glass,
and saw her emerge, holding the inanimate body with red
stained hands. For a moment he thought impossible things. Bring
some water, as she cried, and her voice dispelled his fancies.
When with unnatural alacrity he returned with the water, he
found a weeping with excitement, and with Wedderburn's head upon
her knee, wiping the blood from his face. What's the matter,
said Wedderbourn, opening his eyes feebly and closing them again.
At once, go and tell Annie to come out here
to me, and then go for doctor Hadden at once,
she said to the odd jobman, as soon as he
brought the water and at it, seeing he hesitated, I
will tell you all about it when you come back. Presently,
Wedderburn opened his eyes again, and seeing that he was
troubled by the puzzle of his position, she explained to him,
you fainted in the hot house and the orchid I
will see to that. She said. Weather Bird had lost
a great deal of blood, but beyond that he had
suffered no very great injury. They gave him brandy mixed
with some pink extract of meat, and carried him upstairs
to bed. His housekeeper told her incredible story and fragments
to doctor Hadden. Come to the orchid house and see,
she said. The cold outer air was blowing in through
the open door, and the sickly perfume was almost dispelled.
Most of the torn aerial rootlets lay already withered, amongst
the number of dark stains upon the bricks. The stem
of the inflorescence was broken by the fall of the plant,
and the flowers were growing limp and brown at the
edges of the petals. The doctor stooped towards it, then
saw that one of the aerial rootlets still stirred feebly
and hesitated. The next morning, the Strange orchid still lay there,
black now and puescent. The door banged intermittently in the
morning breeze, and all the array of Wedderburn's orchids was
shriveled and prostrate. But Wedderburn himself was bright and garrulous
upstairs in the story of his strange adventure. End of
the Strange Orchid