THE IMAGININGS OF ALFRED (AND OF HIS WIFE).

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 82

THE IMAGININGS OF ALFRED (AND OF HIS WIFE).

By Constance Clyde.

He was outwardly a prosaic, scanthaired little fellow, city clerk written all over him, domestically cheerful, capable of saying “ The shades of night are falling fast ” when he pulled down the blinds, and “ Let us have a little light on the subject ” when he lit the globed lamp for his wife’s mending. That was all that the world saw of him, as he sat on his office stool over his ledgers or in his self-con-tained Pimlico flat tried to nurse a rather large boy on a somewhat small foot as fathers are supposed to do. Such was Alfred Deakin, acccountant at Messrs Thompson, Bridges, and Co., near Ludgato Circus; but the man himself had an inner life that had nothing to do with the work at the office or the witticisms of the parlour. None of these mind fancies need concern us save one, which may be called the where-would-I-have-been-now-if-such-and-euch-an-event-had-not-happened idea. Ho played the game tentatively at first, going just a little way. Then came a time when he resolved to set out boldly on the adventure. He would follow the ins and outs of the game for days, weeks even, and note how far it would lead him from actual fact, his fancy self moving in some distant region maybe, while his real self plodded still from Pimlico to Ludgate Circus. One Monday, therefore, he resolved to begin his trip to Fancyland whenever opportunity arose. Two or three little events occurred during the day, but led to nothing. The real trip, he realised later, began when, at six o’clock, he left the office and made his way to Ludgat© Circus. As a rule he got to the Circus at eight minutes past six, just in time to catch his ’bus for Pimlico. On this occasion, however, he stopped to look at

some dernier cn’s in millinery at the big draper’s near there. There was no reason why he should do this. He was not the comic husband of the funny papers who buys peace-offerings for his wife; Mrs Deakin purchased her own headgear and had no debates on the subject. It was simply, therefore, the appalling ideas of art in the brain of a Parisian dressmaker that caused him to arrive just in time to see his ’bus depart. It was moving with its full complement of jrassengers inside and out ; the last was just taking his place at the top left-hand side. Alfred could see him dimly—a young man in the twenties, in appearance a shop-worker of some sort, the big palely-reddish hand clasping a parcel. That man was taking the place that was his—that would have been his had he arrived half a minute earlier, his usual time. In a minute the “ where-would-I-be-if, etc., game was begun. It was his other might-have-been self that was disappearing through the gloom. Whatever happened to that man during the ’bus ride was in a mystic sense happening to Alfred Deakin. Then he turned tin his coat collar against the cold, and presently was making no impression on everyone as a prosaic, ordinary, cheap little fellow climbing into another ’bus. But in the morning, as his dry toast crackled thunderously in his own ears, the game began its first complication. This complication was shown by a certain heading “ Serious ’Bus Accident at Charing Cross ” —to all the world a mere occurrence on the material plane, to Alfred a continuation of his dream. A motor ’bus had crashed into another yesterday even-, ing at a certain time. From the time given, as also from other details, Alfred realised that it was the very ’bus that he would have caught except for the hat display. He ran his eyes hastily down the list of the' injured to find his other self. Here he was: John Peter Thomas, aged twenty-seven, employed at, etc., etc., with all the meticulous detail deemed indispensable when obscure persons flash momentarily into the limelight as “ accidents.” Thomas had been seated at the left-hand corner inside. He was thrown violently against the woodwork, and was now in St. Thomas’s Hospital suffering from internal injuries and from shock. Alfred Deakin put down the paper and did not hear his wife ask twice whatever made him look like that for. He could not tell her that he was really in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital suffering from shock. Yes, that, is where he would have been now had ho caught the ’bus. He knew that he had no heart trouble; he had been sounded a year ago when he had mused about entering a football team ; 50 he would not have died from the shock: he would simply be lying where John Thomas was lying now, in his ward bed, suffering his pains. All that week and part of the next that thought was with Alfred Deakin. He was sitting at his ledger, but he was also lying on the ward bed; he was enjoying his ABC luncheon of sausages and mashed, bread a penny, but he was at the same time sitting up against white pillows spooning arrowroot. At the halfholiday the week following he took a resolution, and, smiling consciously at his own fancifulness, went his way to St. Bartholomew’s. Yee, it was visiting day, and he could see No. 48. Was he a friend, a relative? And Alfred Deakin heard himself answer foolishly —well, a sort of relative. But John Thomas proved glad to see him, still too egotistic from illness and newspaper importance to wonder at the kindly stranger’s intrusion. Yes, he was doing all right; he’d he out in a fortnight. He’d take his compensation money and join his brother, who’d written to him. ,A market gardener in Kent he was. The compensation money? Alfred had not remembered that. Of course, he would have had compensation money, too, had he been injured. As he went home ho calculated how much it would be. Yes, and two weeks hence lie would have been using it. He had no brother to go to, but almost certainly his nerves would have called for a change further out? Where? Why, Hampstead, of course. He’d-'have tried that first. He pictured himself seeking such a home obtainable for his extra money, and two weeks later, now smiling only a little at Ids folly, he began looking up houses to let just as he would have done had he been really intending to move. It was rough on the agents that persons shoud pursue the unvemunerative psychic life on their premises, but he had seen his other self on a sick bed. Now he must see it in the new home where it would most assuredly have been had he not stopped to look at the hat display. As so often happens, he saw his choice by accident when going away from the agents! It was at Laurel road, near the Heath. Hia other eelf immeditaely domiciled itself within, planted trellis work along the garden, and basked on the pretty pocket handkerchief of a lawn. To make assurance doubly sure, however, he invented an excuse to take bis wife to Hampstead “for a blow,*’ and made her go through the empty house “for a bit of a lark." Yes, it would have suited her admirably, she said. Thers were enough cupboards—and not so dear if they’d only had a little more; but what wag the use wondering! She shrugged her shoulders. But Alfred Deakin was now firmly installed in 52 Laurel road, Hampstead. He had mystic letters there. He worked—astrally, as it were—in the garden. Then three weeks later, “ because he needed some fre«h air on the Heath,” he persuaded himself, he was at Laurel road once more. A countryman, looking now his other self, was setting bulbs. Yes, he*d Just come in this week. Liked it right enough; so did his wife. Neighbours Were a good sort. There was an invalid eld gentleman lived in the house opposite. Took a lot of notice of his two little boys. Seemed a lonely fellow. Well, the game had surely come to a full stop this time. Thera could bo no

further developments, it would seem. His other self would simply go 40 work from Hampstead instead of from Westminster, and there it would end. But the greatest development of all was at hand, it came some two months later, when Alfred happened to be at Hampstead. It was with no expectation uf events that- he went down Laurel road. The householder was manicuring daintily a rosebush this time, but looked up from one twig as Deakin leaned over the fence. He remembered him, and had something to tell. The old gentleman had died, and had left his little boy twenty pounds. Good of him, and knowing nothing of ’em. The rest—twelve thousand it was—had gone to-chari-tics—name? Samuel Houston, not long back from Australia, where he’d made his pile said he’d rather have left it to relations if he’d known of any, but he’d never been able to trace them. An ordinary story, but it set Alfred Deakin’s heart beating, as his dream world suddenly fled, for he suspected, and verified it later, that Samuel Marston was his own cousin. He had been out of the family history for thirty years, and Alfred had never thought of him. And now what he had missed! He had lived in Laurel road in reality instead of only in fancy, his children, like this man’s son, would have come across the invalid gentleman. The relationship would have been discovered, and not twenty, but all the twelve thousand, pounds would have come to him. He had no doubt of that. The old gentleman had said he’d prefer a relative; and as for personal liking, Alfred had often averred with modest pride that he and Ann “hit it off with most people.” And now (because a tain Parisian artist had invented a more than usually atrocious matinee) he had lost a legacy of twelve thousand! For a while under this sharp stimulus he was no longer the Magnificent Dreamer —the walker on strange oaths, —but only Alfred Deakin, a Dondon clerk in a shabby coat looking forward to a poor holiday. But mourning was useless, and presently the dream attracted once more. The twelve thousand had come to his other self—thus he saw it; what would ho do with it? He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and felt important. Why, travel, of course. “Travel where?” He put the question an hour later to Ann, his wife, and she answered promptly, “Rome, Florence, Naples, without the children. But what’s the good of asking ?” But Alfred did not heed her. He was in the game once more. He must send his other self on tour at once. So he went to the Tourist Bureau to make inquiries. He was a rich man now, he remembered, and would probably go early, being no longer tied to his work. So he even took a morning off from his office — they’d pass it this once—to make the programme exact. As he entered the Bureau a man with an American accent ■was eliciting information about the same tour. Presently, Alfred having murmured something to the Bureau attendant about “information tor a friend,” the American got into conversation with the timidspoken little Londoner, a certain friendship cementing itself through the discovery of a mutual faith in Esperanto, and a common commercial brotherhood, so forth. In the newspaper room where they adjourned for a cigar Deakin half unburdened himself. “I can’t go really on this tour, so I thought I’d try to imagine it, you know.” It seemed a little x )a th e t’ c to the big American. He was sure he and Mr Deakin (they had got to names now) would have toured together without a hitch; and the wife, she got on with all women—a virtue which Alfred discovered to be characteristic also of his Ann. Well, seein’ Mr Deakin couldn’t go, he, John P. Billings, would send him a picture-card occasionally, and perhaps a hit of writing now and then. He didn’t know anybody much in England, and he’d be glad to call when he came back. So addresses were exchanged, and Alfred returned to Pimlico, waking a certain morning a week later curiously excited, because to-day his second self was going with Mr Billings a-touring on the Continent. Ho crossed the Channel in safety, so he ascertained from a post-card received from Mr Billings three days later. Also, he’d enjoyed himself immensely—seen the Louvre and the hat market and some apaches. It was always a few days later before Alfred knew what he bad done and enjoyed, but he always did know eventually. So for a month his ghost self wandered through Italy, sailing over Venice, sauntering through Rome. This second self saw the Coliseum, and mentioned that before him the gladiator lay. He watched the Tiber, and spurred brave Horatius to gain the other side. CRer his ledger at the office he would suddenly remember that he was really standing outside St. Peter’s, and when he ate his evening mutton chop in the small, cheaply-fur-nished flat he knew that he was sipping black coffee on a loggia hundreds of miles away. So through the spring months and into the summer he went a-touring. Then the end came. For a week he had received no letter. Another passed, and still there was none. Was the tour over? What would he do now with his mystic self Where would he bestow himself? Then a letter came, a blotted, ill-written epistle post-markc*l London —emotional —would be on his way to New York before his friend of a day got this. “ Of course, you heard about it—the epidemic in Rome, typhoid. My poor Nora was one of the first victims. Mav you and your wife—a more fortunate holiday,” etc. For some minutes iAlfred Deakin knew nothing but sympathy. This man with whom he had imagined himself on tour was stricken, even as ho might have been stricken. As he might have been stricken ! The phrase recalled him _ to hie dream. Ho remembered now having read about the epidemic in the but he had not thought Billings was in Rome at the time. It had been very severe.

Several women iiaU died! Suddenly he remembered Aim. She was very subject to infection. Their own marriage had been postponed because of an attack of influenza. Of late she had not bean strong. If—his imagination took a giant stride, going back to the very beginning of the dream —if a certain .Parisian dressmaker had not thought out a speedily atrocious hat design his wife would now be dead. If the design had been a shade less maniacal, and therefore less eye-arrest-ing, lie would now be a widower. To Hud fro went his mind ov©r the incidents of the half-year, but there was no escaping this conclusion. In a moment his other self was in some big house or hotel. He was dressed in black; his children were with him. Tears were in his eye. They fell down his face. . . . “ Alfred, wliatever’s the matter,?” She was with him now, and the big room, furnished with vague splendour, shrank down to his own little parlour, with its " vawses ” and art muslins. She spoke again, and on an impulse he told her the dream. Ife told it, laughing now, while she ‘ ‘ made over ” something of her own for Cissy. “i ou see, you would have been dead to-day if I hadn’t looked at that hat shop.” He could afford to laugh now—all a dream. “ Saved by a Paris hat. Good idea, isn’t it?” And then he arose to pull down the blinds, making the usual observation, and presently went out to do some evening work at the office. The over-pay was always useful. His wife continued sewing, her long lashes hiding her inscrutable eyes. She had scarcely spoken. There, was no need to tell him that if he had not looked at the hat shop she would still be outside the cemetery, for if the fortune had come to Alfred Deakin she would have gone to a certain army man whom she hind refused only because she would not leave her children so long as they were poor That was a dream which in all his imaginings Alfred Deakin could never have dreamt.