H G Wells Omnibus, page 793
He found the plump woman rather flushed and tearful, and seated at one of the green tables outside.
“I been laughing at you,” she said.
“What for?” asked Mr. Polly.
“I ain’t ’ad such a laugh since Jim come ’ome. When you ’it ’is ’ed, it ’urt my side.”
“It didn’t hurt his head—not particularly.”
She waved her head. “Did you charge him anything?”
“Gratis,” said Mr. Polly. “I never thought of it.”
The plump woman pressed her hands to her side and laughed silently for a space. “You ought to have charged him sumpthing,” she said. “You better come and have your cold meat, before you do any more puntin’. You and me’ll get on together.”
Presently she came and stood watching him eat. “You eat better than you punt,” she said, and then, “I dessay you could learn to punt.”
“Wax to receive and marble to retain,” said Mr. Polly. “This beef is a Bit of All Right, Ma’m. I could have done differently if I hadn’t been punting on an empty stomach. There’s a lear feeling as the pole goes in—”
“I’ve never held with fasting,” said the plump woman.
“You want a ferryman?”
“I want an odd man about the place.”
“I’m odd, all right. What’s your wages?”
“Not much, but you get tips and pickings. I’ve a sort of feeling it would suit you.”
“I’ve a sort of feeling it would. What’s the duties? Fetch and carry? Ferry? Garden? Wash bottles? Ceteris paribus?”
“That’s about it,” said the fat woman.
“Give me a trial.”
“I’ve more than half a mind. Or I wouldn’t have said anything about it. I suppose you’re all right. You’ve got a sort of half-respectable look about you. I suppose you ’aven’t done anything.”
“Bit of Arson,” said Mr. Polly, as if he jested.
“So long as you haven’t the habit,” said the plump woman.
“My first time, M’am,” said Mr. Polly, munching his way through an excellent big leaf of lettuce. “And my last.”
“It’s all right if you haven’t been to prison,” said the plump woman. “It isn’t what a man’s happened to do makes ’im bad. We all happen to do things at times. It’s bringing it home to him, and spoiling his self-respect does the mischief. You don’t look a wrong ’un. ’Ave you been to prison?
“Never.”
“Nor a reformatory? Nor any institution?”
“Not me. Do I look reformed?”
“Can you paint and carpenter a bit?”
“Well, I’m ripe for it.”
“Have a bit of cheese?”
“If I might.”
And the way she brought the cheese showed Mr. Polly that the business was settled in her mind.
He spent the afternoon exploring the premises of the Potwell Inn and learning the duties that might be expected of him, such as tarring fences, digging potatoes, swabbing out boats, helping people land, embarking, landing and time-keeping for the hirers of two rowing boats and one Canadian canoe, baling out the said vessels and concealing their leaks and defects from prospective hirers, persuading inexperienced hirers to start down stream rather than up, repairing rowlocks and taking inventories of returning boats with a view to supplementary charges, cleaning boots, sweeping chimneys, house-painting, cleaning windows, sweeping out and sanding the tap and bar, cleaning pewter, washing glasses, turpentining woodwork, whitewashing generally, plumbing and engineering, repairing locks and clocks, waiting and tapster’s work generally, beating carpets and mats, cleaning bottles and saving corks, taking into the cellar, moving, tapping and connecting beer casks with their engines, blocking and destroying wasps’ nests, doing forestry with several trees, drowning superfluous kittens, and dog-fancying as required, assisting in the rearing of ducklings and the care of various poultry, bee-keeping, stabling, baiting and grooming horses and asses, cleaning and “garing” motor cars and bicycles, inflating tires and repairing punctures, recovering the bodies of drowned persons from the river as required, and assisting people in trouble in the water, first-aid and sympathy, improvising and superintending a bathing station for visitors, attending inquest and funerals in the interests of the establishment, scrubbing floors and all the ordinary duties of a scullion, the ferry, chasing hens and goats from the adjacent cottages out of the garden, making up paths and superintending drainage, gardening generally, delivering bottled beer and soda water syphons in the neighbourhood, running miscellaneous errands, removing drunken and offensive persons from the premises by tact or muscle as occasion required, keeping in with the local policemen, defending the premises in general and the orchard in particular from predators… .
“Can but try it,” said Mr. Polly towards tea time. “When there’s nothing else on hand I suppose I might do a bit of fishing.”
3
Mr. Polly was particularly charmed by the ducklings.
They were piping about among the vegetables in the company of their foster mother, and as he and the plump woman came down the garden path the little creatures mobbed them, and ran over their boots and in between Mr. Polly’s legs, and did their best to be trodden upon and killed after the manner of ducklings all the world over. Mr. Polly had never been near young ducklings before, and their extreme blondness and the delicate completeness of their feet and beaks filled him with admiration. It is open to question whether there is anything more friendly in the world than a very young duckling. It was with the utmost difficulty that he tore himself away to practise punting, with the plump woman coaching from the bank. Punting he found was difficult, but not impossible, and towards four o’clock he succeeded in conveying a second passenger across the sundering flood from the inn into the unknown.
As he returned, slowly indeed, but now one might almost say surely, to the peg to which the punt was moored, he became aware of a singularly delightful human being awaiting him on the bank. She stood with her legs very wide apart, her hands behind her back, and her head a little on one side, watching his gestures with an expression of disdainful interest. She had black hair and brown legs and a buff short frock and very intelligent eyes. And when he had reached a sufficient proximity she remarked: “Hello!”
“Hello,” said Mr. Polly, and saved himself in the nick of time from disaster.
“Silly,” said the young lady, and Mr. Polly lunged nearer.
“What are you called?”
“Polly.”
“Liar!”
“Why?”
“I’m Polly.”
“Then I’m Alfred. But I meant to be Polly.”
“I was first.”
“All right. I’m going to be the ferryman.”
“I see. You’ll have to punt better.”
“You should have seen me early in the afternoon.”
“I can imagine it… . I’ve seen the others.”
“What others?” Mr. Polly had landed now and was fastening up the punt.
“What Uncle Jim has scooted.”
“Scooted?”
“He comes and scoots them. He’ll scoot you too, I expect.”
A mysterious shadow seemed to fall athwart the sunshine and pleasantness of the Potwell Inn.
“I’m not a scooter,” said Mr. Polly.
“Uncle Jim is.”
She whistled a little flatly for a moment, and threw small stones at a clump of meadow-sweet that sprang from the bank. The she remarked:
“When Uncle Jim comes back he’ll cut your insides out… . P’raps, very likely, he’ll let me see.”
There was a pause.
“Who’s Uncle Jim?” Mr. Polly asked in a faded voice.
“Don’t you know who Uncle Jim is? He’ll show you. He’s a scorcher, is Uncle Jim. He only came back just a little time ago, and he’s scooted three men. He don’t like strangers about, don’t Uncle Jim. He can swear. He’s going to teach me, soon as I can whissle properly.”
“Teach you to wear!” cried Mr. Polly, horrified.
“And spit,” said the little girl proudly. “He says I’m the gamest little beast he ever came across—ever.”
For the first time in his life it seemed to Mr. Polly that he had come across something sheerly dreadful. He stared at the pretty thing of flesh and spirit in front of him, lightly balanced on its stout little legs and looking at him with eyes that had still to learn the expression of either disgust or fear.
“I say,” said Mr. Polly, “how old are you?”
“Nine,” said the little girl.
She turned away and reflected. Truth compelled her to add one other statement.
“He’s not what I should call handsome, not Uncle Jim,” she said. “But he’s a scorcher and no mistake… . Gramma don’t like him.”
4
Mr. Polly found the plump woman in the big bricked kitchen lighting a fire for tea. He went to the root of the mater at once.
“I say,” he asked, “who’s Uncle Jim?”
The plump woman blanched and stood still for moment. A stick fell out of the bundle in her hand unheeded.
“That little granddaughter of mine been saying things?” she asked faintly.
“Bits of things,” said Mr. Polly.
“Well, I suppose I must tell you sooner or later. He’s—. It’s Jim. He’s the Drorback to this place, that’s what he is. The Drorback. I hoped you mightn’t hear so soon… . Very likely he’s gone.”
“She don’t seem to think so.”
“ ’E ’asn’t been near the place these two weeks and more,” said the plump woman.
“But who is he?”
“I suppose I got to tell you,” said the plump woman.
“She says he scoots people,” Mr. Polly remarked after a pause.
“He’s my own sister’s son.” The plump woman watched the crackling fire for a space. “I suppose I got to tell you,” she repeated.
She softened towards tears. “I try not to think of it, and night and day he’s haunting me. I try not to think of it. I’ve been for easy-going all my life. But I’m that worried and afraid, with death and ruin threatened and evil all about me! I don’t know what to do! My own sister’s son, and me a widow woman and ’elpless against his doin’s!”
She put down the sticks she held upon the fender, and felt for her handkerchief. She began to sob and talk quickly.
“I wouldn’t mind nothing else half so much if he’d leave that child alone. But he goes talking to her—if I leave her a moment he’s talking to her, teaching her words and giving her ideas!”
“That’s a Bit Thick,” said Mr. Polly.
“Thick!” cried the plump woman; “it’s ’orrible! And what am I to do? He’s been here three times now, six days and a week and a part of a week, and I pray to God night and day he may never come again. Praying! Back he’s come sure as fate. He takes my money and he takes my things. He won’t let no man stay here to protect me or do the boats or work the ferry. The ferry’s getting a scandal. They stand and shout and scream and use language… . If I complain they’ll say I’m helpless to manage here, they’ll take away my license, out I shall go—and it’s all the living I can get—and he knows it, and he plays on it, and he don’t care. And here I am. I’d send the child away, but I got nowhere to send the child. I buys him off when it comes to that, and back he comes, worse than ever, prowling round and doing evil. And not a soul to help me. Not a soul! I just hoped there might be a day or so. Before he comes back again. I was just hoping—I’m the sort that hopes.”
Mr. Polly was reflecting on the flaws and drawbacks that seem to be inseparable from all the more agreeable things in life.
“Biggish sort of man, I expect?” asked Mr. Polly, trying to get the situation in all its bearings.
But the plump woman did not heed him. She was going on with her tire-making, and retailing in disconnected fragments the fearfulness of Uncle Jim.
“There was always something a bit wrong with him,” she said, “but nothing you mightn’t have hoped for, not till they took him and carried him off and reformed him… .
“He was cruel to the hens and chickings, it’s true, and stuck a knife into another boy, but then I’ve seen him that nice to a cat, nobody could have been kinder. I’m sure he didn’t do no ’arm to that cat whatever anyone tries to make out of it. I’d never listen to that… . It was that reformatory ruined him. They put him along of a lot of London boys full of ideas of wickedness, and because he didn’t mind pain—and he don’t, I will admit, try as I would—they made him think himself a hero. Them boys laughed at the teachers they set over them, laughed and mocked at them—and I don’t suppose they was the best teachers in the world; I don’t suppose, and I don’t suppose anyone sensible does suppose that everyone who goes to be a teacher or a chapl’in or a warder in a Reformatory Home goes and changes right away into an Angel of Grace from Heaven—and Oh, Lord! where was I?”
“What did they send him to the Reformatory for?”
“Playing truant and stealing. He stole right enough—stole the money from an old woman, and what was I to do when it came to the trial but say what I knew. And him like a viper a-looking at me—more like a viper than a human boy. He leans on the bar and looks at me. ‘All right, Aunt Flo,’ he says, just that and nothing more. Time after time, I’ve dreamt of it, and now he’s come. ‘They’ve Reformed me,’ he says, ‘and made me a devil, and devil I mean to be to you. So out with it,’ he says.”
“What did you give him last time?” asked Mr. Polly.
“Three golden pounds,” said the plump woman. “ ‘That won’t last very long,’ he says. ‘But there ain’t no hurry. I’ll be back in a week about.’ If I wasn’t one of the hoping sort—”
She left the sentence unfinished.
Mr. Polly reflected. “What sort of a size is he?” he asked. “I’m not one of your Herculaceous sort, if you mean that. Nothing very wonderful bicepitally.”
“You’ll scoot,” said the plump woman with conviction rather than bitterness. “You’d better scoot now, and I’ll try and find some money for him to go away again when he comes. It ain’t reasonable to expect you to do anything but scoot. But I suppose it’s the way of a woman in trouble to try and get help from a man, and hope and hope. I’m the hoping sort.”
“How long’s he been about?” asked Mr. Polly, ignoring his own outlook.
“Three months it is come the seventh since he come in by that very back door—and I hadn’t set eyes on him for seven long years. He stood in the door watchin’ me, and suddenly he let off a yelp—like a dog, and there he was grinning at the fright he’d given me. ‘Good old Aunty Flo,’ he says, ‘ain’t you dee-lighted to see me?’ he says, ‘now I’m Reformed.’ ”
The plump lady went to the sink and filled the kettle.
“I never did like ’im,” she said, standing at the sink. “And seeing him there, with his teeth all black and broken—. P’raps I didn’t give him much of a welcome at first. Not what would have been kind to him. ‘Lord!’ I said, ‘it’s Jim.’ ”
“ ‘It’s Jim,’ he said. ‘Like a bad shilling’—like a damned bad shilling. Jim and trouble. You all of you wanted me Reformed and now you got me Reformed. I’m a Reformatory Reformed Character, warranted all right and turned out as such. Ain’t you going to ask me in, Aunty dear?’
“ ‘Come in,’ I said, ‘I won’t have it said I wasn’t ready to be kind to you!’
“He comes in and shuts the door. Down he sits in that chair. ‘I come to torment you!’ he says, ‘you Old Sumpthing!’ and begins at me… . no human being could ever had been called such things before. It made me cry out. ‘And now,’ he says, ‘just to show I ain’t afraid of ’urting you,’ he says, and ups and twists my wrist.”
Mr. Polly gasped.
“I could stand even his vi’lence,” said the plump woman, “if it wasn’t for the child.”
Mr. Polly went to the kitchen window and surveyed his namesake, who was away up the garden path with her hands behind her back, and whisps of black hair in disorder about her little face, thinking, thinking profoundly, about ducklings.
“You two oughtn’t to be left,” he said.
The plump woman stared at his back with hard hope in her eyes.
“I don’t see that it’s my affair,” said Mr. Polly.
The plump woman resumed her business wit the kettle.
“I’d like to have a look at him before I go,” said Mr. Polly, thinking aloud. And added, “Somehow. Not my business, of course.”
“Lord!” he cried with a start at a noise in the bar, “who’s that?”
“Only a customer,” said the plump woman.
5
Mr. Polly made no rash promises, and thought a great deal.
“It seems a good sort of crib,” he said, and added, “for a chap who’s looking for trouble.”
But he stayed on and did various things out of the list I have already given, and worked the ferry, and it was four days before he saw anything of Uncle Jim. And so resistent is the human mind to things not yet experienced that he could easily have believed in that time that there was no such person in the world as Uncle Jim. The plump woman, after her one outbreak of confidence, ignored the subject, and little Polly seemed to have exhausted her impressions in her first communication, and engaged her mind now with a simple directness in the study and subjugation of the new human being Heaven had sent into her world. The first unfavourable impression of his punting was soon effaced; he could nickname ducklings very amusingly, create boats out of wooden splinters, and stalk and fly from imaginary tigers in the orchard with a convincing earnestness that was surely beyond the power of any other human being She conceded at last that he should be called Mr. Polly, in honour of her, Miss Polly, even as he desired.
Uncle Jim turned up in the twilight.
Uncle Jim appeared with none of the disruptive violence Mr. Polly had dreaded. He came quite softly. Mr. Polly was going down the lane behind the church that led to the Potwell Inn after posting a letter to the lime-juice people at the post-office. He was walking slowly, after his habit, and thinking discursively. With a sudden tightening of the muscles he became aware of a figure walking noiselessly beside him. His first impression was of a face singularly broad above and with a wide empty grin as its chief feature below, of a slouching body and dragging feet.
