chapter six

"it was not so, it is not so, and, indeed, god forbid it should be so."

i

at the foot of a hill, about five miles from great wymering, doctor allingham suddenly jammed down the brake of his car, got out, and began pacing the dusty road. gregg remained seated in the car with his arms folded.

"aren't you going any further?" he enquired, anxiously.

"no, i'm not," grumbled the doctor, "i've had enough of this wild-goose chase. and besides, it's nearly dinner time."

"but just now you were inclined to think differently," said gregg, reproachfully.

"well, i admit i was rather mystified by that hat and wig. but when you come to rationalise the thing, what is there in it?" the doctor was taking long strides and flourishing his leather gloves in the air. "how could such a thing be? how can anybody in his right senses entertain the notion that dunn brothers are still in existence two thousand years hence? and the clarkson business. it's absurd on the face of it."

[pg 106]

"even an absurdity," said gregg, quietly, "may contain the positive truth. i admit it's ludicrous, but we both agree that it's inexplicable. we have to fall back on conjecture. to my mind there is something suggestive about that persistency in the future of things familiar to us. suppose they have found a way of keeping things going, just as they are? hasn't the aim of man always been the permanence of his institutions? and wouldn't it be characteristic of man, as we know him to-day, that he should hold on to purely utilitarian things, conveniences? in this age we sacrifice everything to utility. that's because we're getting somewhere in a hurry. modern life is the last lap in man's race against time."

he paused, as though to adjust the matter in his mind. "but suppose time stopped. or, rather, suppose man caught up with time, raced the universal enemy, tracked him to his lair? that would account for the names being the same. dunn still breathes and clarkson endures, or their descendants. at any rate, the idea of them persists. perhaps this clock that they wear abolished death and successive generations. of course, it seems like a joke to us, but we've got to drop our sense of humour for the time being."

"but how could it be?" exclaimed[pg 107] allingham, kicking a loose stone in his walk. "this clock, i mean. it's—" he fumbled hopelessly for words with which to express new doubts. "what is this clock?"

"it's an instrument," rejoined gregg, leaning over the side of the car. "evidently it has some sort of effect upon the fundamental processes of the human organism. that's clear, to me. probably it replaces some of the ordinary functions and alters others. one gets a sort of glimmer—of an immense speeding up of the entire organism, and the brain of man developing new senses and powers of apprehension. they would have all sorts of second sights and subsidiary senses. they would feel their way about in a larger universe, creep into all sorts of niches and corners unknown to us, because of their different construction."

"yes, yes, i can follow all that," said allingham, biting his moustache, "but let's talk sense."

"in a matter like this," put in gregg, "sense is at a premium. what we have to do is to consult our intuitions."

allingham frowned. his intuitions, nowadays, were few and far between.

"when you get to my age, gregg, you'll have something else to do besides consult your intuitions. the fact is, you want all these[pg 108] wonderful things to happen. you have a flair for the unexpected, like all children and adolescents. but i tell you, the clockwork man is a myth, and i think you ought to respect my opinion."

"even if he's a myth," interrupted gregg, "he is still worth investigating. what annoys me is your positive antagonism to the idea that he might be possible. you seem to want to go out of your way to prove me in the wrong. i may add, that once a man has ceased to believe in the impossible he is damned."

allingham shot a look of veiled anger at the other, and prepared to re-enter the car.

"well, you prove yourself in the right," he muttered, "and then i'll apologise. i'm going to let the clockwork man drop. i've got other things to think about. and i don't mind telling you that if the clockwork man turns out to be all that you claim for him, i shall still wish him at the other end of the earth."

"which is probably where he is now," remarked gregg, with a slight bantering note in his voice.

"well, let him stop there," growled allingham, restarting the car with a vicious jerk, "let someone else bother their heads about him. i don't want him. i tell you i don't care a brass farthing about the future of[pg 109] the human race. i'm quite content to take the good and bad in life, and i want it to go on in the same damned old way."

gregg beat his fist into his open palm. "but that's just what has happened," he exclaimed, "they've found a way of keeping on just the same. that explains the clarkson business. if the clock is what i think it is, that precisely is its function."

allingham shouted out some impatient rejoinder, but it was drowned in the rising roar of the engine as they sped along the road.

ii

so the argument had waged since the telling of tom driver's story. gregg's chief difficulty was to get allingham to see that there really might be something in this theory of a world in which merely trivial things had become permanent, whilst the cosmos itself, the hitherto unchanging outer environment of man's existence, might have opened up in many new directions. man might have tired of waiting for a so long heralded eternity, and made one out of his own material tools. the clockwork man, now crystallised in gregg's mind as an unforgetable figure, seemed to him to stand for a sort of rigidity of personal being as opposed to the fickleness of mere[pg 110] flesh and blood; but the world in which he lived probably had widely different laws, if indeed it had humanly comprehensible laws at all.

the clock, perhaps, was the index of a new and enlarged order of things. man had altered the very shape of the universe in order to be able to pursue his aims without frustration. that was an old dream of gregg's. time and space were the obstacles to man's aspirations, and therefore he had invented this cunning device, which would adjust his faculties to some mightier rhythm of universal forces. it was a logical step forward in the path of material progress.

that was gregg's dimly conceived theory about the mystery, although, of course, he read into the interpretation a good deal of his own speculations. his imagination seized upon the clock as the possible symbol of a new counterpoint in human affairs. in his mind he saw man growing through the ages, until at last, by the aid of this mechanism, he was able to roll back the skies and reveal the vast other worlds that lay beyond, the unthinkable mysteries that lurked between the stars, all that had been sealed up in the limited brain of man since creation. from that extreme postulate it would be necessary to work backward, until some reasonable hypothesis could be found to explain the working[pg 111] of the clock mechanism. that difficulty, even, might be overcome if only an opportunity occurred to examine this strange being from the future, or if he could be prevailed upon to explain matters himself.

as the car sped swiftly along, gregg sat back with folded arms and gazed upwards at the now crystalline skies, wondering, as he had never wondered before, about that incomprehensible immensity which for centuries of successive generations man had silently respected. no authoritative voice had ever claimed to penetrate that supreme mystery. priests had evoked the gods from that starry depth, poets had sung of the swinging hemispheres, scientists had traced comets and knew the quality of each solar earth; but still that vast arch spanned all the movements of crawling mankind, and closed him in like a basin placed over a colony of ants.

true, it was an illusion, and man had always known that. for generations he had known that the universe contained more than his limited faculties could perceive. and beauty. there had always been the consoling fact of beauty, lulling the race of man to content, while every now and again a great mind arose and made one more effort to sweep aside the bejewelled splendour that hung between man and his final destiny—to know.

[pg 112]

and yet, a slight alteration in man's perceptive organs and that wide blue shell might shatter and disclose a thousand new forms, like fantastic cities shaped in the clouds at sunset. physiologists claimed that the addition of a single lobe to the human brain might mean that man would know the future as well as the past. what if that miracle had been performed? by such means man might have come to know not only the future, but other dimensions as yet unnamed or merely sketched out by the mathematician in brief, arbitrary terms.

until that time came, man's deepest speculations about ultimate reality brought him no nearer to the truth than the child worrying himself to sleep over the problem of what happened before god made the universe. man remained, in that sense, as innocent as a child, from birth to death. until the actual structure of the cells in his brain suffered a change man could not actually know.

einstein could say that we were probably wrong in our basic conceptions. but could he say how we were to get right? the clockwork man might be the beginning.

and then, when that change had been wrought, that physical reconstruction, what else might follow in its train? the truth at last, an end to all suffering and pain, a solution[pg 113] of the problems of civilisation, such as overpopulation and land distribution, the beginning of human sovereignty in the universe.

but gregg had the sense to admit to himself that his generalisation was no more than a faint aurora hovering around the rumoured dawn of the future. it was necessary, in the first place, to posit an imperfect thinking apparatus. after all, the clockwork man was still a mystery to be solved, and even if he failed to justify a single theory born of merely human conjecture, there still remained the exhilarating task of finding out what actually he was and how he had come to earth.

iii

leaving gregg at his rooms in the upper part of the town, the doctor drove slowly along the high street in the direction of his own house. everything was quiet now, and there was no sign of further disturbance, no indication that a miracle had taken place in the prosaic town of great wymering. the doctor noted the fact with quiet satisfaction; it helped him to simmer down, and it was necessary, for the sake of his digestion, that he should feel soothed and comforted.

still, if gregg's conjectures were anywhere near the mark, in a very few hours it would be[pg 114] known all over england that the jaws of the future had opened and disclosed this monstrosity to the eyes of the present. there would be a great stir of excitement; the newspapers would be full of the event. indeed, the whole course of the world might be altered as a result of this astounding revelation.

he would be dragged into the affair. in spite of himself, he would be obliged to go into some sort of witness box and declare that from the first he had thought the clockwork man phenomenal, when, as a matter of fact, he had merely thought him a nuisance. but, as one of those who had first seen the strange figure on the hill, and as a medical man, he would be expected to make an intelligent statement. one had to be consistent about such things.

and the real truth was that he had no desire to interest himself in the matter. it disturbed his mental equilibrium, and threatened the validity of that carefully considered world of assumptions which enabled him to make light, easy jests at its inconsistencies and incongruities.

besides, it was distressing to discover that, in middle life, he was no longer in the vanguard of human hopes and fears; but a miserable backslider, dating back to the time when thought and serious living had become[pg 115] too difficult for comfort. regarded in this way, nothing could ever compensate for the wasted years, the ideals extinguished, the rich hopes bargained for cheap doubts—unless, indeed, it was the reflection that such was the common lot of mankind. the comfortable old world rolled on from generation to generation, and nothing extraordinary happened to startle people out of their complacent preoccupation with passions, desires and ambitions. miracles were supposed to have happened at certain stages in world-history, but they were immediately obliterated by a mass of controversial comment, or hushed up by those whose axes were ground in a world that could be relied upon to go on repeating itself.

a comfortable world! of course, there were malcontents. when the shoe pinched, anybody would cry out for fire from heaven. but if a plebiscite were to be taken, it would be found that an overwhelming majority would be in favour of a world without miracles. if, for example, it could be demonstrated that this clockwork man was a being in many ways superior to the rest of mankind, he would be hounded out of existence by a jealous and conservative humanity.

but the clockwork man was not. he never had been, and, indeed, god forbid he ever should be.

[pg 116]

with that reflection illuminating his mind, the doctor ran his car into the garage, and with some return of his usual debonair manner, with something of that abiding confidence in a solid earth which is a necessary prelude to the marshalling of digestive juices, opened the front door of his house.

iv

mrs. masters was standing in the sitting room awaiting him. the doctor strode in without stopping to remove his hat or place his gloves aside, a peculiar mannerism of his upon which mrs. masters was wont occasionally to admonish him; for the good lady was not slow to give banter for banter when the opportunity arose, and she objected to these relics of the doctor's earlier bohemian ways. but for the moment her mood seemed to be rather one of blandishment.

"a young lady called to see you this evening," she announced, smilingly.

the doctor removed his hat as though in honour of the mere mention of his visitor. "did you give her my love?" was his light rejoinder, hat still poised at an elegant angle.

"indeed, no," retorted mrs. masters, "it wouldn't be my place to give such messages. not as though she weren't inquisitive enough[pg 117]—with asking questions about this and that. as though it were any business of 'ers 'ow you choose to arrange your house'old."

"on the contrary, i am flattered," said the doctor, inwardly chafing at this new example of lilian's originality. "but tell me, mrs. masters, am i not becoming more successful with the ladies?" as he spoke, he flicked with his gloves the reflection of himself in the mirror.

"you don't need to be reminded of that fact, i'm sure," sighed mrs. masters, "life sits lightly enough on you. i fear, too lightly. if i might venture to say so, a man in your position ought to take life more seriously."

"my patients would disagree with you."

"ah, well, i grant you that. they say you cure more with your tongue than with your physic."

"i certainly value my wit more than my prescriptions," laughingly agreed the doctor, "but, tell me, what was the lady's impression of my menagé? and that reminds me, you have not told me her name yet. did she carry a red parasol, or was it a white one?"

"i'm sure i never noticed," frowned mrs. masters, "such things don't interest me. but her name was miss lilian payne—"

the doctor interrupted with a guffah. "come, mrs. masters, we need not beat about[pg 118] the bush. i rather fancy you are aware of our relationship. did you find her agreeable?"

"pretty middling," said mrs. masters, reluctantly, "although at first i was put out by her manners. such airs these modern young women give themselves. but she got round me in the end with her pretty ways, and i found myself taking 'er all round the 'ouse, which of course i ought not to 'ave done without your permission."

"tell me," said the doctor, without moving a muscle in his face, "was she satisfied with her tour of my premises?"

"there now!" exclaimed mrs. masters, hastily arranging an antimacassar on the back of a chair, "i won't tell you that, because, of course, i don't know."

she retreated towards the door.

"but did she leave any message?" enquired the doctor, fixing her with his eye-glass.

"botheration!" ejaculated mrs. masters, in aggrieved tones, "now you've asked me and i've got to tell you. i wanted to keep it back. oh, i do hope you're not going to be disappointed. i'm sure she didn't really mean it."

"what did she say," demanded the doctor, irritably.

"she says to me, she says, 'tell him there's nothing doing.'"

there was a pause. mrs. masters drew in[pg 119] her lip and folded her arms stiffly. the doctor stared hard at her for a moment, and almost betrayed himself. then he threw back his head and laughed with the air of a man to whom all issues of life, great and small, had become the object of a graduated hilarity. "then upon some other lady will fall the supreme honour," he observed.

"you mean—" began mrs. masters, and then eyed him with the meaning expression of a woman scenting danger or happiness for some other woman. "that young lady is not suited to you, at all events," she continued, shaking her head.

"evidently not," replied the doctor, carelessly, "but it is not of the slightest importance. as i have said, the honour—"

"ah," broke in mrs. masters, "there's only one woman for you, and you have yet to find her."

"there's only one woman for me, and that is the woman who will marry me. nay, don't lecture me, mrs. masters. i perceive the admonishment leaping to your eye. i am determined to approach this question of matrimony in the spirit of levity which you admit is my good or evil genius. life is a comedy, and in order to shine in it one must assume the r?le of the buffoon who rollicks through the scenes, poking fun at those sober-[pg 120]minded folk upon whose earnestness the very comedy depends. i will marry in jest and repent in laughter."

"incorrigible man," said mrs. masters. but the doctor had turned his back upon her, unwilling to reveal the sudden change in his features. even as he spoke those light words, there came to him the reflection that he did not really mean them, and his pose seemed to crumble to dust. he had lived up to these nothings for years, but now he knew that they were nothings. as though to crown the irritations of a trying day, there came to him the conviction that his whole life had been an affair of studied gestures, of meticulous gesticulations.

v

over an unsatisfactory meal he tried to think things out, conscious all the time that he was missing gastronomical opportunities through sheer inattention.

of course, lilian's impression of his menagé would have been unsatisfactory, even though he had escorted her over the house himself; but it was highly significant that she should have preferred to come alone. holding advanced opinions about the simplification of the house, and of the woman's duties therein,[pg 121] she would regard his establishment as unwieldy, overcrowded, old-fashioned, even musty. it would represent to her unnecessary responsibilities, labour without reward, meaningless ostentation. the doctor's own tastes lay in the direction of massive, ornate furniture, rich carpets and hangings, a multiplicity of ornaments. he liked a house filled to the brim with expensive things. he was a born collector and accumulator of odds and ends, of things that had become necessary to his varying moods. he was proud of his house, with its seventeen rooms, including two magnificent reception rooms, four spare bedrooms in a state of constant readiness, like fire-stations, for old friends who always said they were coming and never did; its elaborate kitchen arrangements and servants' quarters. then there were cosy little rooms which a woman of taste would be able to decorate according to her whim, workrooms, snuggeries, halls and landings. there was much in the place that ought to appeal to a woman with right instincts.

was lilian going to destroy their happiness for the sake of these modern heresies? surely she would not throw him over now; and yet her message left that impression. nowadays women were so led by their sensibilities. lilian's hypersensitive nature might revolt at[pg 122] the prospect of living with him in the surroundings of his own choice.

he would look such a fool if the match did not come off. he had made so many sacrifices for her sake, sacrifices that were undignified, but necessary in a country town where every detail of daily life speedily becomes common knowledge. that was why he would appear so ridiculous if the marriage did not take place. it had been necessary, in the first place, to establish himself in the particular clique favoured by lilian's parents, and although this man?uvre had involved a further lapse from his already partly disestablished principles, and an almost palpable insincerity, the doctor had adopted it without much scruple. he had resigned his position as vicar's churchwarden at the rather eucharistic parish church, and become a mere worshipper in a back pew at the baptist chapel; for lilian's father favoured the humble religion of self-made men. he had subscribed to the local temperance society, and contributed medical articles to the local paper on the harmful effects of alcohol and the training of midwives. in the winter evenings he gave lantern lectures on "the wonders of science." he organised a p.s.a., delivered addresses to young men only, and generally did all he could to advance the baptist cause, which, in[pg 123] great wymering, stood not only for simplicity of religious belief, but also for the simplification of daily life aided by scientific knowledge and common sense. all that had been necessary in order to become legitimately intimate with the payne family; for they enjoyed the most aggravating good health, and the doctor had grown tired of awaiting an opportunity to dispense anti-toxins in exchange for tea.

but the class to which the paynes belonged were not really humble. they were urban in origin, and the semi-aristocratic tradition of great wymering was opposed to them. they had come down from the london suburbs in response to advertisements of factory sites, and their enterprise had been amazing. within a few years great wymering had ceased to be a pleasing country town, with historic associations dating back to the first roman occupation; it was merely known to travellers on the south-eastern and chatham railway as the place where payne's dog biscuits were manufactured.

the doctor, in establishing himself in the right quarter, had forgotten to allow for the fact that the force that had lifted the paynes out of their urban obscurity had descended to their daughter. lilian had been expensively educated, and although the doctor denied it[pg 124] to himself a hundred times a week, there was no evading the fact that an acute brain slumbered behind her rather immobile beauty. true, the fruits of her learning languished a little in great wymering, and that beyond a slight permanent frown and a disposition to argue about modern problems, she betrayed no revolt against the narrowness of her existence, but appeared, graceful and willowy, at garden parties or whist drives. it was the development of her mind that the doctor feared, especially as, all unconsciously at first, he had acted as its chief stimulant. during their talks together he had spoken too many a true word in jest; and his witticisms had revealed to lilian a whole world about which to think and theorise.

he glanced up at her photograph on the mantelpiece. if there was a flaw in the composition of her fair, saxon beauty, it was that the mouth was a little too large and opened rather too easily, disclosing teeth that were not as regular as they should be. but nature's blunder often sets the seal on man's choice, and to the doctor this trifling fault gave warmth and vivacity to a face that might easily have been cold and impassive, especially as her eyes were steel blue and she had no great art in the use of them. her voice, too, often startled the listener by its occasional note that[pg 125] suggested an excitability of temperament barely under control.

in vain the doctor tried to throw off his heavy reflections and assume the air of gaiety usual to him when drinking his coffee and thinking of lilian. such an oppression could hardly be ascribed to the malady of love. it was not romeo's "heavy lightness, serious vanity." it was a deep perplexity, a grave foreboding that something had gone hideously wrong with him, something that he was unable to diagnose. it could not be that he was growing old. as a medical man he knew his age to an artery. and yet, in spite of his physical culture and rather deliberate chastity, he felt suddenly that he was not a fit companion for this young girl with her resilient mind. he had always been fastidious about morals, without being exactly moral, but there was something within him that he did not care to contemplate. it almost seemed as though the sins of the mind were more deadly than those of the flesh, for the latter expressed themselves in action and re-action, while the former remained in the mind, there to poison and corrupt the very source of all activity.

what was it then—this feeling of a fixation of himself—of a slowing down of his faculties? was it some strange new malady of the modern world, a state of mind as yet not[pg 126] crystallised by the poet or thinker? it was difficult to get a clear image to express his condition; yet that was his need. there was no phrase or word in his memory that could symbolise his feeling.

and then there was the clockwork man—something else to think about, to be wondered at.

at this point in the doctor's reflections the door opened suddenly and mrs. masters ushered in the curate, very dishevelled and obviously in need of immediate medical attention. his collar was all awry, and the look upon his face was that of a man who has looked long and fixedly at some object utterly frightful and could not rid himself of the image. "i've had a shock," he began, trying pathetically to smile recognition. "sorry disturb you—meal time—" he sank into a saddle-bag chair and waved limp arms expressively. "there was a man—" he got out.

the doctor wiped his mouth and produced a stethoscope. his manner became soothingly professional. he murmured sympathetic phrases and pulled a chair closer to his patient.

"there was a man," continued the curate, in ancient-mariner-like tones, "at the templars' hall. i thought he was the conjurer, but he wasn't—at least, i don't think so. he did things—impossible things—"

[pg 127]

"what sort of things," enquired the doctor, slowly, as he listened to the curate's heart. "you must make an effort to steady yourself."

"he—he made things appear," gasped the curate, with a great effort, "out of nowhere—positively."

"well, isn't that what conjurers are supposed to do?" observed the doctor, blandly.

but the curate shook his head. fortunately, in his professional character there was no need for the doctor to exhibit surprise. on the contrary, it was necessary, for his patient's sake, to exercise control. he leaned against the mantelpiece and listened attentively to the curate's hurried account of his encounter with the clockwork man, and shook his head gravely.

"well, now," he prescribed, "complete rest for a few days, in a sitting posture. i'll give you something to quieten you down. evidently you've had a shock."

"it's very hard," the curate complained, "that my infirmity should have prevented me from seeing more. the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak."

"very likely," the doctor suggested, "someone has played a trick upon you. perhaps your own nerves are partly to blame. men with highly strung nerves like you are very liable to—er—hallucinations."

[pg 128]

"i wonder," said the curate, grasping the edge of his chair, "i wonder, now, if moses felt like this when he saw the burning bush."

"ah, very likely," rejoined the doctor, glad of the opportunity to enforce his analogy. "there's not the least doubt that many so-called miracles in the past had their origin in some pathological condition improperly understood at the time. moses probably suffered from some sort of hysteria—a sort of hypnosis. even in those days there was the problem of nervous breakdown."

his voice died away. the curate was not actually shaking his head, but there was upon his features an expression of incredulity, the like of which the doctor had not seen before upon a human face, for it was the incredulity of a man to whom all arguments against the incredible are in themselves unbelievable. it was a grotesque expression, and with it there went a pathetic fluttering of the curate's eyelids, a twitching of his lips, a clasping of small white hands.

"i'm afraid your explanation won't hold water," he rejoined. "i can't bring myself not to believe in what i saw. you see, all my life i have been trying to believe in miracles, in manifestations. i have always said that if only we could bring ourselves to accept what is not obvious. my best sermons have been upon[pg 129] that subject: of the desirability of getting ourselves into the receptive state. sometimes the vicar has objected. he seemed to think i was piling it on deliberately. but i assure you, doctor allingham, that i have always wanted to believe—and, in this case, it was only my infirmity and my unfortunate nervousness that led me to lose such an opportunity."

the doctor drew himself up stiffly, and just perceptibly indicated the door. "i think you need a holiday," he remarked, "and a change from theological pursuits. and don't forget. rest, for a few days, in a sitting posture."

"thank you," the curate beamed, "i'm afraid the vicar will be very annoyed, but it can't be helped."

they were in the hall now, and the doctor was holding the street door open.

"but it happened," the curate whispered. "it really did happen—and we shall hear and see more. i only hope i shall be well enough to stand it. we are living in great days."

he hovered on the doorstep, rubbing his hands together and looking timidly up at the stars as though half expecting to see a sign. "it distressed me at first," he resumed, "because he was such an odd-looking person, and the whole experience was really on the humorous side. i wanted to laugh at him,[pg 130] and it made me feel so disgraceful. but i'm quite sure he was a manifestation of something, perhaps an apotheosis."

"don't hurry home," warned the doctor. "take things quietly."

"oh, yes, of course. the body is a frail instrument. one forgets that. so good of you. but the spirit endures. good night."

he glided along the deserted high street. the doctor held the door ajar for a long while and watched that frail figure, nursing a tremendous conviction and hurrying along, in spite of instructions to the contrary.