The Wonderful Visit, H. G. Wells [me reader txt] 📗

assists a sister soul heavenward. Often she bears a palm leaf, but one would not be surprised if one met her carrying a warming-pan softly to some poor chilly sinner. She it was who came down in a bevy to Marguerite in prison, in the amended last scene in Faust at the Lyceum, and the interesting and improving little children that are to die young, have visions of such angels in the novels of Mrs. Henry Wood. This white womanliness with her indescribable charm of lavender-like holiness, her aroma of clean, methodical lives, is, it would seem after all, a purely Teutonic invention. Latin thought knows her not; the old masters have none of her. She is of a piece with that gentle innocent ladylike school of art whereof the greatest triumph is “a lump in one’s throat,” and where wit and passion, scorn and pomp, have no place. The white angel was made in Germany, in the land of blonde women and the domestic sentiments. She comes to us cool and worshipful, pure and tranquil, as silently soothing as the breadth and calmness of the starlit sky, which also is so unspeakably dear to the Teutonic soul.⁠ ⁠… We do her reverence. And to the angels of the Hebrews, those spirits of power and mystery, to Raphael, Zadkiel, and Michael, of whom only Watts has caught the shadow, of whom only Blake has seen the splendour, to them too, do we do reverence.

But this Angel the Vicar shot is, we say, no such angel at all, but the Angel of Italian art, polychromatic and gay. He comes from the land of beautiful dreams and not from any holier place. At best he is a popish creature. Bear patiently, therefore, with his scattered remiges, and be not hasty with your charge of irreverence before the story is read.

X At the Vicarage

The Curate’s wife and her two daughters and Mrs. Jehoram were still playing at tennis on the lawn behind the Vicar’s study, playing keenly and talking in gasps about paper patterns for blouses. But the Vicar forgot and came in that way.

They saw the Vicar’s hat above the rhododendrons, and a bare curly head beside him. “I must ask him about Susan Wiggin,” said the Curate’s wife. She was about to serve, and stood with a racket in one hand and a ball between the fingers of the other. “He really ought to have gone to see her⁠—being the Vicar. Not George. I⁠—Ah!”

For the two figures suddenly turned the corner and were visible. The Vicar, arm in arm with⁠—

You see, it came on the Curate’s wife suddenly. The Angel’s face being towards her she saw nothing of the wings. Only a face of unearthly beauty in a halo of chestnut hair, and a graceful figure clothed in a saffron garment that barely reached the knees. The thought of those knees flashed upon the Vicar at once. He too was horrorstruck. So were the two girls and Mrs. Jehoram. All horrorstruck. The Angel stared in astonishment at the horrorstruck group. You see, he had never seen anyone horrorstruck before.

“Mis⁠—ter Hilyer!” said the Curate’s wife. “This is too much!” She stood speechless for a moment. “Oh!”

She swept round upon the rigid girls. “Come!” The Vicar opened and shut his voiceless mouth. The world hummed and spun about him. There was a whirling of zephyr skirts, four impassioned faces sweeping towards the open door of the passage that ran through the vicarage. He felt his position went with them.

“Mrs. Mendham,” said the Vicar, stepping forward. “Mrs. Mendham. You don’t understand⁠—”

“Oh!” they all said again.

One, two, three, four skirts vanished in the doorway. The Vicar staggered half way across the lawn and stopped, aghast. “This comes,” he heard the Curate’s wife say, out of the depth of the passage, “of having an unmarried vicar⁠—.” The umbrella stand wobbled. The front door of the vicarage slammed like a minute gun. There was silence for a space.

“I might have thought,” he said. “She is always so hasty.”

He put his hand to his chin⁠—a habit with him. Then turned his face to his companion. The Angel was evidently well bred. He was holding up Mrs. Jehoram’s sunshade⁠—she had left it on one of the cane chairs⁠—and examining it with extraordinary interest. He opened it. “What a curious little mechanism!” he said. “What can it be for?”

The Vicar did not answer. The angelic costume certainly was⁠—the Vicar knew it was a case for a French phrase⁠—but he could scarcely remember it. He so rarely used French. It was not de trop, he knew. Anything but de trop. The Angel was de trop, but certainly not his costume. Ah! Sans culotte!

The Vicar examined his visitor critically⁠—for the first time. “He will be difficult to explain,” he said to himself softly.

The Angel stuck the sunshade into the turf and went to smell the sweet briar. The sunshine fell upon his brown hair and gave it almost the appearance of a halo. He pricked his finger. “Odd!” he said. “Pain again.”

“Yes,” said the Vicar, thinking aloud. “He’s very beautiful and curious as he is. I should like him best so. But I am afraid I must.”

He approached the Angel with a nervous cough.

XI At the Vicarage (Continued)

“Those,” said the Vicar, “were ladies.”

“How grotesque,” said the Angel, smiling and smelling the sweet briar. “And such quaint shapes!”

“Possibly,” said the Vicar. “Did you, ahem, notice how they behaved?”

“They went away. Seemed, indeed, to run away. Frightened? I, of course, was frightened at things without wings. I hope⁠—they were not frightened at my wings?”

“At your appearance generally,” said the Vicar, glancing involuntarily at the pink feet.

“Dear me! It never occurred to me. I suppose I seemed as odd to them as you did to me.” He glanced down. “And my feet. You have hoofs like a hippogriff.”

“Boots,” corrected the Vicar.

“Boots, you call them! But anyhow, I am sorry I alarmed⁠—”

“You