Part 17

He resembled then nothing so much as a balloon from which the air has suddenly been withdrawn. He sat down.

"My God," he said, suddenly dropping his head between his great red hands. "It's true then."

It was at that moment that I saw the catastrophe that was upon us. I saw what Bomb would be without his tales: he would be dull, ordinary, colourless--nothing. The salient thing, the life, the salt, the savour would be withdrawn from him. And not only Bomb, but all of us--myself, Peter, young Gale, Alice Galleon, even Maradick. I saw, by my own experience, how we should suffer. I saw slipping away from under my very nose the whole of that magical world that Bomb had created; and above all, that magical London, the fairy palaces, the streets paved with gold, the walls of amethyst; the dark, shuttered windows opened for an instant to betray the gleaming, anxious eyes; the bearded foreigner conveying his sacred charge through the traffic of Trafalgar Square; the secrets and mysteries of the Bond Street jewellers.... I saw all that and more. But, after all, that was not the heart of the matter. We could get on without our entertainment; even Peter had been brought to life again whether Bomb went on with him or no. The tragedy was in Bomb's own soul; Helen Cather was slaying him as surely as though she stuck a dagger into his heart. And she did not know it--She did not know that she was probably marrying him for that very energy of imagination that she was bent upon destroying. Only, months after she had married him, she would discover, with a heavy and lifeless Bomb upon her hands, what it was that she had done.

"Look here, Jones," I said. "Don't take it too seriously. Miss Cather didn't know what she was saying. Don't you promise her anything. She'll forget----"

"Don't promise her!" He looked up at me wildly. "I have promised her! Of course I have--Don't I love her? Didn't I love her the first moment that I saw her? I'm never going to tell anyone about anything again."

Well, all my worst anticipations were at once fulfilled. You may think that this story is about a very small affair, but I ask you to take some friend of yours and be aware that he is in process, before your eyes, of dying from some slow poison skilfully administered by someone. You may not in the beginning have cared very greatly for the man, but the poignancy of the drama is such that before long you are drawn into the very heart of it; it is like a familiar nightmare; you are held there paralysed, longing to rush in and prevent the murder and unable to move.

In no time at all I had developed quite an affection for Jones, so pathetic a figure was he.

Beneath the stern gaze of his beloved Helen ("not quite of Troy," as someone said of her) he became a commonplace, dull, negligible creature, duller, save for the pathos of his position, than human. Very quickly we lost any sense of chagrin or disappointment at our own penalties in the absorption of "longing to do something for Bomb." Again and again we discussed the affair. Bomb's soul must be saved; but how? Before our eyes a tragedy was developing. In another month they would be married; Helen Cather would marry the greatest bore in Europe, and about six months after marriage would discover that she had done so.

Bomb was already miserable, sitting there silent and morose, his tongue-tied, adoring Helen, but saying nothing to her lest he should be accused of "romancing."

At last Peter insisted that I should speak to her--she liked me better than she did the others--she would listen to me. Needless to say, she did not. Not only did she not listen, but turned on me ferociously.

"I'm proud of Benedick!" she cried. "I've cured him of the only fault he had. If you think I'm going to turn him back into a liar again, Mr. Lester, just for the entertainment of yourself and your friends, you're greatly mistaken. You have a strange notion of morality."

She was proud, but she was uneasy. She realised that he was not happy, that, in one way or another, the spring had gone out of him--yes, thank God, she was uneasy.

Well, there was the situation. There was apparently nothing to be done, no way out. This is simply the story, after all, of our blindness. Just as we had not seen the influence that was to check our Bomb, so we did not see the influence that would make his fancy flow again. It's a wonderful world, thank God!

About a week before the wedding Peter Westcott said to me:

"Lester, don't you think that Bomb's reviving a little again?" I fancied I had seen something. Bomb was a little brighter, a little less heavy ... yes, I _had_ noticed.

"His fancy is being fed again somewhere," said Peter again. "Where? He tells _us_ no stories."

No, he certainly did not. His determination to achieve perfect accuracy was painful. It was a case of----

"Where have you been, Bomb?"

"Oh, just down to the bank to cash a cheque. The Joint Stock branch in Wigmore Street. I took a bus up Regent Street and got off at the Circus----" and so on, and so on.

Nevertheless, he was reviving. The Old Man was being blown back into him just as surely as one prick of Helen Cather's determination had let it out. Where was he feeding his imagination? How had he got round his Helen's autocracy without her knowing it? Because she did not know. She was completely satisfied--she was even more than satisfied, she was---- I watched her. Something was happening to her, too. She was dressing differently. Her austerity was dropping from her. She did her hair in a new way, no longer pulling it back, harsh and austere, from her forehead, but letting it have freedom and colour. She had very pretty hair....

She was wearing bright colours and pretty hats....

What was happening?

The day came when the problem was solved. Bomb's old mother came up to town, a dear old lady of nearly eighty, who adored Bomb and thought him perfection. She came up for the wedding. She was to see Helen for the first time. It was agreed that the meeting should be at Hortons, a nice, central spot. We were gathered there waiting--old Mrs. Jones with her lace cap and bright pink cheeks, Peter, Bomb, and myself. Helen was late.

"You know, Benedick," said the old lady in a voice like a withering canary, "you've told me very little about Helen. I've no real idea of her at all."

A moment's pause, and Bomb had sprung to his feet. Peter and I, spiritually, so to speak, rushed towards one another. This was the old attitude. We had not seen Bomb stand like this, his legs spread apart, his chest out, his eyes flashing, for weeks. The old attitude, the old voice, the old Bomb.

"Helen, mother!" he cried, and he was off.

The picture that he drew! It was about as much like the real Helen Cather as the Venus de Milo is like Miss Mary Pickford in the pictures; but it was a glorious picture, the portrait of a goddess, a genius, a Sappho. The phrases tumbled from his lips in the good old way--it was all the old times come back again. And how his imagination worked! How magnificently he flung his colours about, with what abandon he splashed and sprawled! For a breathless ten minutes we listened.

"Dear me," said old Mrs. Jones, "I do hope she's a good girl as well."

For myself I sat there entranced. The old Bomb was not lost. He had found, or Fate had found him, a safe outlet after all. He could see Helen as before he had seen the whole world, and it would do for him as well. His soul was saved.

The one question that now remained was how would Helen take this glorification of herself? Would she not resent it as deeply as she had resented the earlier "lies"?

On the answer to that question hung the whole of the future of their married life.

I was soon to have my answer. Helen came in. I did not perceive that old Mrs. Jones felt very deeply the contrast between reality and her son's picture. Her son was all that she saw.

He took her home. I walked away with Helen. Before we parted she turned to me. Happiness was burning in her face.

"Mr. Lester," she said, "you've been a good friend to both of us. You were all wrong about Benedick, but I know that you meant it well." She hesitated a little. "I'm terribly happy, almost too happy to be safe. Of course, I know that Benedick is a little absurd about me, has rather an exaggerated idea of me. But that's good for me, really it is. Nobody ever has before, you know, and it's only Benedick who's seen what I really am. I knew that I had all sorts of things in me that ought to come out, but no one encouraged them. Everyone laughed at them. But Benedick has seen them, and I'm going to be what he sees me. I feel free! Free for the first time in my life! You don't know how wonderful that is!"

She pulled the bright purple scarf more closely over her shoulders.

"We've done something for one another, he and I, really, haven't we? He's freed me, and I--well, I've stopped those terrible untruths of his in spite of you all. I don't believe he'll ever tell a lie again! Good-night. We'll see lots of you after we're married, won't we? Oh, we're going to be so happy----"

"Yes--_now_ I believe you are," I answered.

"What do you mean, _now_?" she asked. "Didn't you always think so?"

"There was a moment when I wasn't sure," I said. "But I was wrong. You're going to be splendidly happy."

And so they are....

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Transcriber's note:

A few obvious typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected. All other text has been retained.