Here and Hereafter

THE GARDENER

Seven years to-day have I been in this place, and I am beginning to ask myself whether it is not time that I made a move. When I come to think of it, in my last place I had ten under me, and here it's but three men and a boy, and I always have said and always shall say that a boy is worse than nothing. In some ways I might be sorry to leave. There is work which I have begun here, and which I should be sorry to see pass into other hands to be made a muddle of. Still, as my father used to say, if you don't respect yourself, nobody is going to respect you, and I'm in two minds whether I ought to put up with such language as I had to-day.

"It's all damned carelessness," he said. "You know how particular I am about those Blenheims, and I'd sooner have lost anything in the garden. It isn't because you can't do it. I've always been proud of my melons before. It's just because you've got careless and don't care a curse how much you neglect your work. Most men would have given you the sack at once, and you shall have it from me if ever I find anything of this kind again."

That's what he said. And in one way it's all true enough. That lot of melons should have been shut up at the right time, and I've lost 'em in consequence. But it's the first time I've lost anything like that all the years I've been here, and I don't know that I feel inclined to put up with it. Here am I, a single man of good character. There may be some as can teach me a little about my business, and I'm always willing to learn; but I've never found 'em yet. I can show as good testimonials as anybody, and I'm not likely to be long out of a berth. Even if I was, it wouldn't much matter; for, not being a fool, like Townes, I haven't got a wife and six children to keep, and I've been able to put by money.

One of those Townes children walked back with me as I came from my work to-day. It was the one they call Hilda. She's a pretty enough child, but nothing like what Townes thinks. The way that man talks about them, as if they were a set of angels, makes me laugh. Thank God, I've none of my own to make a fool of myself about. It's lucky for Townes, too, that I'm not a married man, for otherwise I should have had the lodge and he wouldn't, and the lodge is a lot better than anything he could afford out of his wages.

About half-past eight to-night Townes came round to the cottage to see me, and pulled out a rabbit from under his coat.

"I don't know whether you'd care about anything in this way, Mr Adam," he said. "It's a nice fat young rabbit."

"Where did you get that, Townes?" I said.

He gave a sheepish kind of grin. "Well," he said, "there's plenty of them about, aren't there? I count they're more a pest than anything else. Anyway, one rabbit more or less won't matter to 'em up at the House. It's not as if rabbits were game."

"I don't know nothing about that, Townes, and I don't care nothing, either. I won't have it. As you've got it, you'd better take it back to your wife; and if I find you getting any more, you'll get the sack as sure as my name's Stephen Adam."

"All right, Mr Adam," he said. "That shall be as you say, of course. I thought perhaps, rabbits not coming into your province, you wouldn't mind. Then I wanted to call round too, to say how much obliged I am to you."

"What for?" I said.

"About those melons. There was a holy row about it, wasn't there? I don't deny it. You told me yourself to shut those lights, and I said I would. How I came to miss it I can't think. Something or other must have got into my head."

"It's a pity, Townes, that a bit of sense don't get into your head sometimes."

"Well, there it was, anyhow. We heard the governor laying into you about it, and not a word did you say about it's being anybody's fault but your own. Of course the governor thinks a lot of you, and he'd put up with a thing in you which he'd give me the sack for right off. Still, I do take it as being very kind—"

"You can hold your tongue, Townes. I've got no kindness for such as you—wasting hours of skilled work by your damned wool-gathering forgetfulness."

"The fact of the case is that I'd got that child Hilda a bit on my mind at the time. The missus thought she was sickening for the measles."

"Well, she wasn't. What would it have mattered if she had been? All children have the measles, don't they? Do you think yours have got to be so blessed superior? That's no excuse at all. As for the kindness, it was simply justice. If I choose to give an order to an idiot, then it's only fair that I should suffer for it."

"I don't know that I've forgotten much before, Mr Adam."

"No, my boy, you haven't. And you'd better not forget much again if you want to keep your place. Just you let it be a lesson to you. And if you must be the father of six squalling brats, keep 'em out of your mind during work-hours. The truth is, Townes, that you think too much of those children of yours. I'm sure I don't know what they'll come to. You'll spoil 'em. Your own wife told me only the other day that you spoilt 'em."

Townes gave that stupid grin of his again. "Anyhow," he said, "I don't go buying chocolates for 'em in the village."

"Well," I said, "you can get about your business. I want to read my paper, and I'm not one of those that sit up half the night."

I wonder if Hilda told him about those sweets, or if he found her eating them and then guessed. It was a fool of a thing for me to do, and I shan't do it again. That's the way you lose your authority over the men under you, by being a bit too familiar, and then of course they shirk their work and you get blamed for it.

The governor was pretty civil to-day, and after all, I don't know as I want to change at my time of life. There's a lot of half-finished work about the place still and some of it'll take a long time to get exactly to my liking.

I can't make things out. We did a lot better than we expected at the Horticultural, and the governor behaved handsomely by me, as he always does. But he's not as cheerful as usual. I see him wandering about the garden by himself, just as if he'd got something on his mind. He's sold his hunters, and I want to know what for. It's given out that he finds he's getting too old for it. Looks to me more like something in the cutting-down way. I had a word with the cook up at the House, and she's of the same way of thinking. It's not only the hunters. She says there's less ordered and less entertaining done, and one of the maids has been turned off. If he's lost money, I wonder how he's lost it. It's not betting or gambling, for he was never that sort. I should say it was some investment gone wrong. I'm glad I took my father's advice there and put my savings into Consols. It may not bring in much, but the money is always there. The fact of the case is that these gentlefolk never ought to touch business at all. There are plenty of solicitors and such to look after it for them. A gentleman isn't meant to do anything except amuse himself, and when he interferes with other things he is going out of his station in life and acting foolishly. This is particularly the case when a gentleman tries to talk as if he knew anything about gardening. I was looking round the place to-day, and I should be sorry to leave it—in fact, I doubt if I should be able to make myself comfortable anywhere else. Three weeks ago, when there was that row about the melons, I did think of going. But that was a fit of temper, and with me a fit of temper's soon over. I believe I'd sooner work for half the wages than go. And if the governor says anything to me about cutting down, I don't know as I shan't hint at something of the kind. He's cut down in the stable and in the house, and it won't surprise me if the garden has the next turn. I may be wrong. He's always very keen about his garden, and I fancy he'd as soon spend money on that as anything.

Had to give that fool Townes a bit of the rough side of my tongue. I found one of his children, the one they call Hilda, up on Sunley Hill, and they've got measles in those cottages there, as he well knows. Of course he had to make his excuse. He couldn't always be looking after them, and there were such a lot of them, and he knew his missus was hard at it all day. That last part's true. I had to promise that child Hilda something if she wouldn't go Sunley Hill way any more, but it's all against my better judgment. What I ought to have done was to have given her a good dressing-down and frightened her a bit. Seems a queer thing that a man who knows how to handle men and keep them in their place shouldn't know how to treat a child. All I can say is that it's the last time I shall make that mistake. Otherwise I don't know that I can say much against Townes. He's at his work smart and early every morning, which is what I like; and he doesn't loiter about. I hate a man who stands like a statue, with one foot on his spade, when he thinks nobody is looking at him. What's more, he takes a real interest in his work. He's not an educated man, as I am, and he's never had my advantages, but I will say for him that he's as willing to learn as anybody can want. In fact, I sometimes wonder if I'm not spoiling my own game by teaching him a bit too much. I must be on the lookout about that.

It's just exactly what I thought. One of Townes' kids has got the measles. It's the one they call Hilda; and that's a very stupid name, to my mind, to give to the daughter of a working gardener. Of course Townes is about half off his head, and that's a bad thing, for he never had too much sense at any time. I told him yesterday, as I've told him before, that all children have measles, and the sooner they have 'em the sooner it's over, and the better it is every way. Then he says the child's rare bad, and the doctor wouldn't come twice a day if he didn't think so. As I told him, the doctor comes twice a day to make his bill a bit bigger. I suppose doctors are on the make, same as gardeners and everybody else. Why wasn't Townes in any club? He says he shall be now. He's always shutting the stable door after he's lost the horse. That's the way things happen. I've been in a club for years, and never had any occasion for a doctor at all. I looked in at the lodge yesterday to give Hilda what I had promised, having first of all found out that she had kept her word and had not been up to Sunley Hill again. Otherwise I shouldn't have gone in. As it was, it was of no use, as she was too bad to eat what I'd brought, and was a bit light-headed. She didn't seem to recognise me; and, queerly enough, that was almost a kind of disappointment. I felt quite angry with the child. As she couldn't take what I'd promised, and I found there were one or two other little things that were wanted, I got them instead. I believe in acting fairly by everybody, even if it's only one of Townes' brats. I went in again to-day, and this time she knew me. That speaks for itself, and shows that she must be getting better. I've had the measles myself or I wouldn't have taken the risk.

Had to complain to Townes to-day about his half starving himself. He said that he'd had a good deal of expense lately, and money was a bit short, and he had to save where he could. I told him, as I've told him twenty times, not to act like a fool. If a man doesn't eat, he can't work. If a man is paid to work, and doesn't work, he's swindling his boss. As I'm here to see, amongst other things, that Townes doesn't swindle the governor, I had to make some sort of an arrangement with him. I've told him we'll settle about the interest later. Strictly speaking, I ought to make it pretty stiff, for Townes isn't Consols by a long way. Now I'll go off for a stroll and my evening pipe. Possibly I may look in at the lodge. In that case I think I'll leave the pipe till afterwards, as the child may not like it.

That brat of Townes' is better—ever so much better. In another week she'll be about, all over the place, and worrying the life out of me, same as usual. I did get a little peace and quietness when she was ill. Townes, of course, is as pleased as Punch, but I very soon knocked that out of him. I asked him how he thought he was going to support his children when they were a bit bigger on the wages that he got. I told him he was fit to be a head-gardener now, and asked him if he was content to be second all his life. He said, as things were at present, he didn't like to chuck a sure thing for what was only a chance. He's got no more enterprise than a dead dog. That's the curse of children. They hang round you like a dead weight, and you never get on at all. Thank Heaven, I've none of my own.

I will say this for myself, that I can generally foresee what's going to happen. I'm not one of those that has to look at a newspaper to know what the weather's going to be. It was the stables first, and then it was the house, and I said at the time it would be the garden next. The governor came along to me this morning with a sort of melancholy smile on his face, and talked to me just as openly and frankly as if I'd been a gentleman like himself.

"Adam," he said, "I've lost a lot of money lately. Been swindled out of it. I daresay you heard?"

"I'd heard nothing definite, sir. I'm sure I'm very sorry to hear it now."

"Well," he said, "what I came to tell you is that you'll have to get along with one man less in the garden. I think Green will be the one to go."

"Well, sir," I said, "I don't know if I might venture on a suggestion."

"What is it?"

"I was going to say that Green's wages don't amount to very much in the year, not as compared with mine. If I might suggest, I think you might do a lot worse than to let me go and make Townes the head man here, with, say, a small rise. That'd save a lot of money, and I know you'd find Townes satisfactory."

"Does he know enough about it?"

"To speak plainly, by this time he knows as much about it as I do. He's one of the cleverest and smartest men I ever had under me, and he's a beggar to work as well. He's never done one single thing wrong since he's been here."

"What about yourself, Adam? I thought you were attached to the place. I didn't think you'd ever want to leave my service."

"No, sir, I've been very well suited here. But then, you see, it all fits in. I could take a rather bigger place. Before I came here I'd ten men under me. And I should feel quite comfortable if Townes was taking on the work, for he knows how things ought to be done."

So it's all settled. Townes has got a grin on him that would reach from here to London, and would keep on thanking me all day if I didn't tell him to shut his head and get on with his work. I may be leaving, but so long as I am here I'll see proper order kept.

That kid of his, the one they call Hilda, isn't pleased at all. She says that if I go she'll come with me.

I wish to God she would.

THE SCENT

There was no one but myself in the smaller of the two smoking-rooms when he entered. I had picked up an evening paper, and was boring myself with it for a few minutes in front of the fire, before going on to bore myself somewhere else. He walked rapidly to the fireplace and rang the bell, and then turned abruptly to me.

"Hullo! How are you! Didn't know you were here." Then he caught sight of the evening paper in my hands and asked me for God's sake to put that thing down. I put it down and asked him what was the matter. He was very pale and had just the appearance of a man whose nerves were suffering from over-strain.

"I must tell you," he said abruptly. "I'm glad I found you. It's the most perfectly—"

He stopped there because the waiter who answered the bell had just entered. He ordered some brandy and resumed again.

"You will laugh your head off by the time I have finished my story, ghastly though it is. You won't believe a word of it. See here."

He picked up the paper which I had thrown down, opened it rapidly, and handed it to me with his finger on one particular paragraph. The paragraph referred to an inquest on a somewhat commonplace suicide in Soho. The suicide, an Italian judging by his name, had flung himself from a window on the first floor, and had broken his neck on the pavement. Evidence was given by those who knew him that he had been very queer in his manners of late, and the usual verdict had been returned.

"Well?" I said.

"It's God's mercy that I wasn't a witness at that inquest."

"What does it matter?" I replied. "I suppose you saw the accident. You are required to go and say that; it doesn't hurt you. Nobody thinks any the worse of you. It may be a little tiresome, but there is nothing to bring you to this condition, even if you had really given evidence, which it seems you haven't."

The waiter brought the brandy. He drank it, ordered another, and continued more quietly.

"I am afraid I have let the thing prey on my mind a little. I confess that I have had a shock. The story is not at all what you imagine. I did not witness the accident; it was only within the last two hours that I heard of it, but I know how it was that it happened."

He paused. I selected another cigar, lit it, and said nothing. He continued:

"You know me well enough to know my interest in anything which is a little out of the way. I will even run some slight risk to meet and talk with a man who is not as other men are, or, better still, a woman who is not as other women are. I have a fancy for human curiosities; I should like to take a museum and collect them."

"Yes," I said, "I know that. You will get yourself into trouble one of these days."

He went on speaking.

"About a week ago I went down Wardour Street and saw an Italian looking in at a shop window. I did not know that he was an Italian at the time. The national characteristics were not very strongly marked in him. He was quite well dressed, rather like a well-to-do young City man. His head was abnormal. The breadth from the end of the eyebrow to the ear was enormous. His eyes were not of the same colour; his skin was like parchment; he continually moved the tip of his nose. His nostrils opened and shut. He looked to me to be a very queer beast indeed, and I meant to talk to him.

"After a while he went into a restaurant. I waited ten minutes and then went in after him. I sat down at the same table, and, by way of opening a conversation, knocked over his glass of claret, breaking the glass. Then, of course, I apologised and ordered a waiter to replace it. He at once countermanded the order, and turned to me, saying in excellent English, 'Pray do not trouble. I had quite finished with it.'

"'But,' I said, 'you must let me. Your glass was untouched.'

"'Yes,' he said, 'but I never drink it.'

"I looked amazed. 'I could explain,' he added, 'but it is a little difficult to understand, and it would bore you.'

"'The only things that I care about,' I replied, 'are the things which are not ordinary, and are a little difficult to understand. Unless you are a dipsomaniac, triumphing over temptation, I fail to see why you should order wine which you have no intention of drinking.'

"'Your explanation is wrong,' he replied. 'I ordered the claret because I wanted to smell it.'

"As he seemed to find that conclusive, I observed that even that did not clear the thing up.

"'You must know,' he said a little impatiently, 'that with some people the scents of different objects have curious results. The possibilities implied in the sense of smell are enormous. In most people they are undeveloped; in very few are they at all understood. The connection between a scent and a memory has been noticed. I have seen a woman who smelt wallflowers for the first time for ten years burst into tears. The scent of eau de Cologne is supposed to be refreshing, and that of ammonia to be vivifying, and that of ether sickening. No scent possesses the very curious attraction for a human being that valerian does for the lower animals.'

"'The whole art of obtaining a new sensation by the use of scents is absolutely unknown to most people. Most women divide scents vaguely into opaque and transparent; most virtuous women prefer the transparent. But that is really as far as they have gone. As for the effect of those scents which are not pleasant to anybody, and therefore are generally called by an unpleasant name, there seems to be no knowledge at all.'

"'I knew a case,' I said, 'of a gardener who had to work in a hothouse filled with lilies-of-the-valley. He fainted away.'

"My Italian friend took up the story.

"'And when he recovered consciousness he was angry and entreated to be put back again?'

"'Yes,' I said, 'but how did you know it?'

"'Because I know the effect of different scents.'

"I was more fascinated than ever, and made him talk for a long time. Several times he seemed to be hesitating whether or not to tell me something, and I urged him on. It came at last. He had got a secret. He had invented a scent and was assured of the marvellous power of it, but not of the whole of its effects, afterwards or immediate. These he was investigating. 'And,' he added impressively, 'it gives one an entirely new way of living.'

"'I wish,' I said, 'that you were a poor man wanting money with which to carry on your experiments. If I offered to finance you perhaps you would let me witness some of them. I love nothing better than to see something new.'

"'I do not want any money,' he answered laughing. 'My workshop is near here, and I will show it to you if you care to take the risk of coming.'

"'I will come,' I replied, 'with pleasure.'

"And we both walked out together. He took me up a side-street, and then up a precipitous staircase to the first floor of a dingy-looking house. He had three large rooms there, opening into one another. He made me wait in the first, which was somewhat poorly furnished as a library, and he went through into the others. After about ten minutes he came back and fetched me through the second room, where a lot of things were cooking over tiny little spirit lamps, and into the third. The third was furnished as the first, but it was much more luxurious. He opened a corner cupboard and took down an ordinary glass stopper bottle, unlabelled and containing a colourless liquid.

"'That is it,' he said smiling; 'that is what makes all things new.'

"Of course by this time I knew he was cracked, but I asked him how.

"'After frequent inhalations of this scent,' he said, 'one loses all sense of limitations or conditions. One believes that one can walk straight through a brick wall, or fly in the air, or live in the year one, or in the year two million, or in any intervening year. One is sure that he can do anything which it occurs to him that he would like to do. One has a feeling of complete omnipotence, and that means a feeling of complete happiness. No one conscious of a limitation can be completely happy. At present the effects are very transient, but I may be able to improve upon that.'

"'One moment,' I said. 'This scent does not really remove limitations and conditions.'

"'Subjectively, yes, objectively, no; but that matters little. Nothing can be unreal to us at the time that we fully believe it to be real. It is because the effects are illusive that I now refrain from experimenting with myself unless there is someone in the room with me. It is a hard struggle to keep off it. Frankly, I was very glad when you suggested that you should come here. Now, watch me.'

"He removed the stopper, and for perhaps two minutes continued to inhale the perfume. Then he put the stopper back again in the bottle and set it down on the table by his side. He did not change in appearance in the least. Half-jokingly I asked him if he could now write stories like Mr Rudyard Kipling.

"'Better,' he said, 'infinitely better. They are nothing. I will show you one very short thing.'

"He took paper, pen and ink, and covered one sheet with feverish haste. Then he handed it to me with an air of triumph. It was absolute nonsense from beginning to end, and absolutely incoherent. There were phrases in it which we had used in our conversation, phrases which he might have seen in advertisements on hoardings, two or three lines of a song which is very popular just now, the whole strung together anyhow. I looked over it.

"'Capital,' I said; 'and can you fly?'

"'Of course.' He got up and opened the window. I let him climb up on the ledge, where a nervous man would certainly have fallen. I saved him only just in time, and he was angry with me. As I told him unfortunately I was not able to fly and wished for his company, he sat down and talked rubbish about the things which he said he could do for about five minutes. Then he stretched himself and yawned.

"'It has passed off now,' he said. I had a long argument with him, but it was of no use. He would not give up the bottle and he would not promise to leave it alone in the future, and he would not tell me what he called it. To irritate him I said that the whole thing was a fraud from beginning to end; the bottle contained water, and nothing else. I picked it up, took a long sniff at it, and went out.

"In the street a moment later I called a cabman and told him to drive to Downing Street. I wanted to show Lord Salisbury the means of destroying any nation. I had the power of destroying any nation, and I wished to use it for the benefit of England. Long before the cab reached Downing Street I also stretched my arms and yawned, and knew that the effect had gone off. I drove back to my chambers.

"To-day I read of the suicide. He had tried to fly and he did it because I suggested it to him when he was in that state the other day. It was my fault, really."

He picked up his second glass of brandy and began sipping it. He talked it over for a long time, but he would not contradict himself or be shaken in any way.

It is at any rate perfectly true that at the sale of the suicide's property he made some large purchases. I found that out afterwards from the auctioneer.

He is living abroad now.

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