LITMIR.BIZ

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to Hampstead that day. But for twenty times that Lady Tasker said "I will not," nineteen she repented and went, taking out the small change of her magnanimity when she got there. And after all, she would be killing two birds with one stone, for her niece Dorothy also lived somewhere in this northern Great Karroo, and unless she got these things over before the "Seringapatam" dropped anchor on Saturday there was no knowing when next she would have an hour to call her own. As she turned (after a brush with a second policeman, who summed her up quite wrongly on the strength of her antiquated pelisse and trailing old Victorian hat) down Merton Lane to the ponds, she told herself again that she was a foolish old woman to have come at all.

      For the Cosimo Pratts were not bosom friends of hers. True, they had been, until six months ago, her neighbours at Ludlow, and for that matter she had known young Cosimo's people for the greater part of her life: but she had not forgotten the hearty blackguarding the young couple had got, any time this last two years, from the rest of the country-side. Small wonder. What else did they expect, after the way in which they had made farm-labour too big for its jacket and beaters hardly to be had for love or money? Not that Lady Tasker herself had seen very much of their antics. Great-nieces and nephews had kept her too busy for that, and she was moreover wise enough not to believe all she heard. And even were it true, that, she now told herself, had been in the country. They would have to behave differently now that they had let the Shropshire house and had come to live in town. They could hardly dance barefoot round a maypole in Hampstead, or stage-manage the yearly Hiring-Fair for the sake of the "Daily Speculum" photographer (as they had done in Ludlow), or group themselves picturesquely about the feet of the oldest inhabitant while that shocking old reprobate with the splendid head recited (at five shillings an hour) the stories of old, unhappy, far-off things he had learned by heart from the booklets they had printed at the Village Press. No: in London they would almost certainly have to do as other people did, and Shropshire, after its three years of social and artistic awakening, would no doubt forget all about the æsthetic revival and would sink back into a well-earned rest.

      It was a Thursday afternoon in September, warm for the time of the year, and a half-day closing for the shops. Had Lady Tasker remembered the half-holiday she certainly would not have come. She hated crowds, and, if you would believe her, had no illusions whatever about the sanctity of our common nature and the brotherhood of man. She would tell you roundly that there was far too much aimless good-nature in the world, and that every sob wasted over a sinner was something taken away from the man who, if he was a sinner too, had at least the decency to keep up appearances. And so much for brotherhood. Great-nephewship, of course, was another matter. Somebody had to look after all those youngsters, and if her sister Eliza, the one at Spurrs, went into a tantrum about every bud that was picked in the gardens and every chair-leg that was an inch out of its place in the house, so much the worse for Lady Tasker, who must walk because she had something else to do with her money than to waste it on taxis.

      She had been told by her niece Dorothy to look out for a clump of tall willows and an ivied chimney; that was where the Pratts lived; but Dorothy had spoken of the approach from the Hampstead side, not from Highgate way. Lady Tasker got lost. She was almost dropping for want of a cup of tea, and the Heath seemed all willows, and all the wrong ones. No policeman, Radical or Conservative, was to be seen. Walking across an apparently empty space, well away (as she thought) from a horde of shouting boys, the old lady suddenly found herself enveloped in a game of football. This completed her exhaustion. Near by, one of Messrs. Libertys' carts was ascending a steep road at a slow walk; somehow or other Lady Tasker managed to get her hand on the tail of it; and the car gave her a tow. She was seventy after all.

      As it happened, that was her first piece of luck in a luckless afternoon. The cart drew on to the left; Lady Tasker trailed after it; and suddenly it stopped before a high privet hedge with a closed green door in the middle of it. Lady Tasker did not look for the ivied chimney. On the door was painted in white letters "The Witan." She was where she wanted to be.

      Ordinarily Lady Tasker would have approved of the height of the privet hedge, which was seven or eight feet; that was a nice, reassuring, anti-social height for a hedge; but as it was she could not even put up her hand to the bell. The carter rang it for the pair of them. Over the hedge came the low murmur of voices and the clink of cups and saucers, and then the door was opened. It was opened by the mistress of the house. No doubt Mrs. Pratt had expected the cart, had heard its drawing up, and had not waited for a maid to come. Her eyes sought the carman, who had stepped aside. She spoke with some asperity.

      "It's Libertys', isn't it?" she said. "Well, I've a very good mind to make you take it back. It was promised for yesterday."

      "Can't say, I'm sure, m'm."

      "It's always the same. Every time I——"

      Then she saw her visitor, and gave a little start.

      "Why, it's Lady Tasker! How delightful! Do come in! And do just excuse me—I shan't be a minute. … Why didn't this come yesterday? It was promised faithfully——"

      She stepped outside to scold the carman, leaving Lady Tasker standing just within the green door.

      The altercation was plainly audible:

      "Very sorry, m'm. You see——"

      "I will see, if it occurs again——"

      "The orders is taken as they come, m'm——"

      "They said the first delivery——"

      "We wasn't loaded till one o'clock——"

      "That's none of my business——"

      "Very sorry, m'm——"

      "Well, the next time it occurs——"

      And so forth.

      Now in reading what happened the next moment you must remember that Lady Tasker was very, very tired. Had she been less tired she might have wondered why one of the two maids she saw crossing to the tea-table under the copper beech had not been allowed to take in Mrs. Cosimo Pratt's parcel. And she would certainly have thought it extraordinary that she should be left standing alone while Mrs. Cosimo Pratt scolded the carrier, and wanted to know why the parcel had not been brought yesterday. But, tired as she was, her eyes had already rested on something that had momentarily galvanized even the weariness out of her. It was this:—

      Seven or eight people sat in basket-chairs or stood talking; and, under the copper beech, as if Mrs. Pratt had just slid out of it, a hammock of coloured string still moved, slung from the beech to a sycamore beyond. Lady Tasker saw these things at once; she did not at once see what it was that stood just beyond the hammock.

      Then it moved, and Lady Tasker raised her glass.

      No doubt you have seen the cover of Mr. Wells's "Invisible Man." It will be remembered that all that can be seen of that afflicted person is his clothes; and all that Lady Tasker at first saw of the Invisible Man by the copper beech was his clothes. These were of light yellow tussore, with a white double collar and a small red tie, sharp-edged white cuffs and highly polished brown boots. At collar and cuffs the man ended.

      And yet he did not end, for the lenses of a pair of spectacles made lurking lights in the shadow of the beech, a few inches above the white collar.

      The phantom wore no hat.

      Then Lady Tasker, suddenly pale, dropped her glass. Between the collar and the spectacles a white gash of teeth had appeared. The Invisible Man had smiled, and at the same moment there had shown round the bole of the beech a second smoky shape, this one without teeth, but with white and mobile eyes instead.

      Lady Tasker was in the presence of two Hindoos.

      Now all her life, and long before her life for that matter, Lady Tasker had been accustomed … but no: that is not the way to put it. The following table will save many words:

      PORTION OF TREE OF THE LENNARDS AND TASKERS

       (Comments by Lady Tasker)

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