A Likely Story

by William De Morgan

"I will if you insist upon it; it is of small importance to me what others think, so long as I may hang here undisturbed, and dream over the happy days I must have passed, in the person of my original, four hundred years ago. But oh, to think of that hateful time of bondage, with my darling hidden in the darkness underground, sore with manacles and starved for want of food! Think of my joy when I could see and feel his own dear face, all clammy though it was with the dungeon damps from below! Think of my exultation at his returning life—life to be lived for me! And believe me—for this I can know, for I was Maddalena, and now it comes, like a dim memory—that I shuddered when they told me that the sodden old horror that had been my owner was well started on his flight to Hell, sent by the swift little knife-spike of my Marta. Oh how often have I seen that little knife itself in the long girth that could but just span the bloated carcass of the Ferretti!—for he is a clear memory to me. And to think that that knife—that knife—was to..."

Mr. Pelly felt constrained to interrupt. "Pardon me," he said, "if I venture to recall to you that the duty of Christians, of all denominations, is to forgive; and besides, entirely apart from that, all this occurred such a very long time ago."

"How long is needed, think you"—and as the voice said this, it almost grew cruel in its earnestness—"how long, for a girl, to forgive the utmost wrong God in His wisdom has put it in the power of Man to inflict on Woman? Still, I did shudder—have I not said it?—at what they told me; though they showed me not the knife, and that was well. I did shudder, it is true; but now, as you say, it is best forgotten. Better for me to think of our days that must have been, of the babes that were born to us that I never saw, of how we watched them growing in the happy passing hours, in the little old Castello in the hills. Better for me to know, as I know now, that I, while this thing that I am now—this thing of paint and canvas—lay hid in a garret, even I could be to him, my love, a slight half-solace for his ruined hand. How slight, who can tell who does not know what a lost right hand means to the artist whose life is in his craft?..."

It seemed then to Mr. Pelly that the voice continued, though he heard it less distinctly, always dwelling on the life of its prototype, as revealed to it by the manuscript, in a manner that the dream-machinery of his mind failed to account for. His impression was that it continued thus for a very long time—some hours—during the last half of which it changed its character, becoming slowly merged in that of another voice, familiar to Mr. Pelly, which ended by saying with perfect distinctness, "The Captain wished his arm to be broke gradual to his family. 'Ence what I say!" And then Mr. Pelly was suddenly aware that he had dropped asleep for five minutes, and had been spoiling his night's rest. Also that he was now quite awake, and that Mr. Stebbings the butler had spoken the last words to Mrs. Buckmaster the housekeeper; and that both were unaware that he was on the other side of the large armchair-back—and, indeed, it was large enough to conceal something bigger than Mr. Pelly. He abstained from making his presence known, however; more, perhaps, because he thought he was scarcely awake enough for words than to hear what should come next. He fancied the crushed hand incident of the dream had mixed itself into Mr. Stebbings' last speech, and made nonsense of it. But then, how about the sequel?

"'His arm broke gradual,' Mr. Stebbings?" Mrs. Buckmaster repeated. And her perception of the oddity of the speech reassured Mr. Pelly, who began to suspect he might be awake. But he waited for the reply.

"Quite so, Mrs. Buckmaster. Broke gradual. From consideration for family feeling. And that, if an amanuensis, suspicion would attach, and, in consequence, divulge."

Mr. Stebbings's style assumed that if he used the right words, somewhere, it didn't matter what order they came in. It didn't really matter; his respectability seemed more than a makeweight for slighted syntax.

Mrs. Buckmaster was a venerable and sweet institution of forty years standing, that spoke to every member of the household as "my dear"; and conveyed an impression, always, of having in her hands a key with which she had just locked a store-room, or was going to unlock one. Or, rather, not so much a key, as a flavour of a key. Mrs. Buckmaster was a sort of amateur mother of several county families, whose components all but acknowledged her, and paid her visits in her private apartments when they came to call at the Stakes. Her reply to Mr. Stebbings now was, "Merciful Heaven! And the girl nursed him. And she a Dutch woman!"

Mr. Pelly roused himself. His sensitive conscience recoiled from further eavesdropping. "What's all that, Stebbings? What's all that, Mrs. Buckmaster?" he said, becoming manifest, and evoking apologies. Mr. Stebbings had had no idear!

Mrs. Buckmaster said: "Well, now—to think of that!" then, collecting herself, added, "Tell Mr. Pelly, Thomas, what you know. Thomas will tell you, sir, what he knows."