Babes in the Darkling Wood by H. G. Wells (Illustrated)
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Babes in the Darkling Wood by H. G. Wells (Illustrated)

H. G. Wells, Delphi Classics

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eBook - ePub

Babes in the Darkling Wood by H. G. Wells (Illustrated)

H. G. Wells, Delphi Classics

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This eBook features the unabridged text of 'Babes in the Darkling Wood' from the bestselling edition of 'The Complete Works of H. G. Wells'.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Wells includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

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Information

Year
2017
ISBN
9781786566065
Subtopic
Classics

CHAPTER I. UNREVEALED WORLD

1. AND NOW WHAT?
A GIRL still just short of twenty walked very gravely, lightly and happily beside her lover, a youngster of twenty-four, along an overgrown, sunken, sun-flecked lane in Suffolk. The lane ran sometimes between fields and sometimes along the boundaries of pleasant residences, and it led from the village green at the centre of all things to the cottage they occupied. It was early in June. Lilac was dropping but the may was at its last and best; and countless constellations of stitchwort, clusters and nebulae, celebrated a brief ascendency over the promiscuous profusion of the hedge-banks.
ā€œStellaria!ā€ said he, ā€œitā€™s just chickweed, which proves that Stella is a chick ā€” a downy little chick.ā€
ā€œWe wonā€™t always talk nonsense,ā€ said Stella.
ā€œWhen one is drunk with happiness, what else can one ta1k?ā€
ā€œWell,ā€ she considered....
They bumped themselves against each other, summer-drunk, love-drunk, smiled into each otherā€™s eyes, and he ran an impudent, appreciative hand over her bare shoulder. She shrank a little from that before she remembered not to shrink. His hand dropped to his side and they walked on, a little apart and with grave, preoccupied faces.
ā€œThings that arenā€™t nonsense are so hard to express,ā€ he said presently, and lapsed into another silence.
She was slight and lithe and sunburnt, with sun-bleached hair and intelligent, dark ā€” blue eyes. She had finely modelled brows, with a faintly humorous crinkle in the broad forehead, and enough mouth for a variety of expressions; a wide mouth it was that could flash into a vivid smile or shut with considerable deliberation, which could kiss, as he knew, very delightfully but was by no means specialised for that purpose. She was wearing an exiguous pale green vest which emphasised rather than hid the points of her pretty body, a pair of grey flannel trousers, in which she evidently carried a lot of small possessions as well as her dirty little hands, and brown canvas shoes. Her third finger in her left hand pocket bore a wedding ring that would not have deceived a rabbit. A bright patterned green and gold silk handkerchief round her slim but sufficient waist completed her costume.
Her companion was perhaps four or five inches taller, and darker in complexion. He was something of a pug about the face, with disarming brown eyes, a lot of forehead and a resolute mouth. His rather crisp brown hair seemed to grow anyhow and had apparently been cut en brosse by an impatient and easily discouraged barber. This young man also wore grey slacks and canvas shoes, with a white cotton shirt that had once no doubt possessed as many buttons as any shirt, but which was now buttoned only at the right wrist. He was carrying a spike of bananas still attached to their parent stem in his left (off) hand. It was only as he walked that it became apparent that he was extremely lame.
The least worldly of people meeting this young couple would have known at once, if only by the challenging pride in their faces, that they were living in sin together, that they had been doing so for five or six days at the outside, and that they had never done anything of the sort before. But old Mrs Greedle, who did for them in Mary Clarksonā€™s borrowed week-end cottage, never betrayed a shadow of doubt about that very loosely fitting wedding ring. She consulted Stella upon all sorts of matronly questions and prompted her with the right answer whenever there was the least sign of hesitation....
But of Mrs Greedle more later....
ā€œIt is just because we are so happy,ā€ he said, trying again.
ā€œI know,ā€ she agreed.
ā€œHas anyone any right to be happy in a world like this?ā€
ā€œWe were foolish to get those newspapers and letters.ā€
ā€œSooner or later that had to come.ā€
ā€œThey had to come. And anyhow itā€™s been a lovely time. Such a lovely time. Such a very lovely time. Anyhow.ā€
ā€œBut all those other fellows all over the world....ā€
ā€œWeā€™ve only stolen a weekā€
ā€œAnd no one can ever take it away from us. Whatever happens. Thereā€™s something unfair about our luck. Think of the ones who would ā€” and canā€™t. Down here-or wherever thereā€™s working people or out-of-works or gipsies or such-I look at them and feel a sort of thief. As though Iā€™d stolen it from them. What right have we to our education, to the freedom in our minds, to the time and money, that makes all this possible? And our health! If we havenā€™t stolen, our blessed progenitors did. We are Receivers of stolen goods.ā€
ā€œIn a way itā€™s getting less and less unfair. The Evil Thing is going to catch us all sooner or later. Why shouldnā€™t we snatch this? At the eleventh hour?ā€
ā€œTo think that itā€™s an advantage to have had a foot crushed between a motor-bike and a tram! Luck to be a cripple! No obligation to join up. One of the exempted. The last of the free. We shall catch it with the other civilians but anyhow weā€™re not under orders.ā€
ā€œNot so much of a cripple,ā€ she reflected. ā€œAnyhow Iā€™m a woman now and grown-up and ready to look at whatā€™s coming to us.ā€
ā€œAnd what is coming to us?ā€
ā€œIt isnā€™t fair. Life didnā€™t come after our grandfathers and grandmothers and trim them up for slaughter. They had a breathing space.ā€
ā€œMuch good they did with it.ā€
ā€œRomeo and Juliet werenā€™t called on for national service.ā€
ā€œThey didnā€™t get away with so very much either.ā€
ā€œJust accidents and misunderstandings in their case, Gemini; they had bad luck, their people were awful people, worse than ours, and there were those mixed philtres, pure accident, and that was all there was the matter with them. But now everyone, all over the world, is being threatened, compelled, driven. Like a great hand feeling for us, catching more and more of us. Itā€™s only Godā€™s mercy that there isnā€™t some siren howling after us, or some loud-speaker bellowing A.R.P. instructions, here and now. It got us at the post office; itā€™s waiting for us at the cottage.... But Iā€™m talking worse than you do, Gemini.ā€
ā€œAnd saying what everyone is saying. All the same we two are the worldā€™s pets. Weā€™ve had education, art, literature, travel, while most of those others have been marched off long ago, trained to drudge, to obey, to trust the nice ruling classes ā€” . Ideas kept from them. Books hard to get at. Whatā€™s the good of pretending that you and I are not the new ruling-class generation? We are. Weā€™ve shared the loot. And what are we doing by way of thank-you for the education and the art and the literature and the travel weā€™ve had? Trying not to care a damn. Having as good a time as we can manage until something hits us.... Itā€™s all the damned radio and the rest of it that does it. Why should I be worried because Chinese kids are being raped and disembowelled for fun by the Japs in Shanghai? Why should I be worried because they are being sold to the brothels and given syphilis and driven to death and all that, under the approving noses of our own blessed Pukka Sahibs in Hong Kong? Lousy Pukka Sahibs! Dirty old Blimps!... This, that and the other horror, up and down the world. That concentration camp stuff.... And all hammering down on our poor little brains. All the time now. All hammering down on us. Things like that have always been going on, but they didnā€™t worry grandfather when he walked in the lanes with grandmamma. They didnā€™t come after them as they come after us.ā€
ā€œAnd they didnā€™t say You next.ā€
ā€œGods! Stella, and are we as bad as that? Maybe we are. Did it have to be bombs over London before any of our lot worried?ā€
She puckered her brows and weighed the question. She stuck her hands deeper in her trouser pockets as though that helped her thinking. ā€œIt wasnā€™t in the same world then,ā€ she decided.
ā€œNow it is. ā€˜Ye ken the noo,ā€™ as the Calvinistā€™s God said.ā€
ā€œWe ken. And what are we going to do about it, Gemini? Playing bright kids wonā€™t save us. If our sort canā€™t think of something, nobody will think of anything. We have to do something about it. We! You and me! And what can we do?...ā€
ā€œWhat can we do?ā€ he echoed. ā€œOh hell! Stella, what can we do? Being a Communist! Whatā€™s being a Communist? What good is it? Trotsky and Stalin donā€™t matter a damn to me. Conscientious objectors ā€” objectors to being alive, I suppose. This, this muddle, is life. How can we stand out of it?... Anti-Fascist?... What party is there to work with; what leader can one follow? Saying No, No, NO to everything isnā€™t being alive. Why havenā€™t we leaders to lead us somewhere? I forgot things for a bit, this last week, but that emetic speech of the Prime Ministerā€™s friend ā€” what was his name? Lindsey-Jump-in-the-Snow Lindsey, they call him ā€” and that story of those Jews in No Manā€™s Land and that quotation from that book of Timperleyā€™s about those Japanese atrocities.... Itā€™s all come back to me, and the helplessness of it. And the sun, old fool, goes on shining. You poor old fool up there! Why donā€™t you go out and finish us up?ā€
ā€œAnd none of the old religions are any good?ā€
ā€œItā€™s the old religions and faiths and patriotisms that have brought us to just exactly where we are. Manifestly.ā€
ā€œNo good going back to them again.ā€
ā€œNo good going back to anything again. But how to get on?ā€
She confronted him. ā€œGemini,ā€ she said, ā€œhave you no ideas?ā€
ā€œOh! the shadows of the ghosts of ideas. And a sound of claptrap in the distanceā€
ā€œGemini Jimmini ā€” that is to say Mr James Twain ā€” listen to me. I love you. Always have done; long before you thought of it. I am your true love. Havenā€™t I proved it? And also, as I warned you, I am a prig.ā€
ā€œDonā€™t I know it? Could I love you otherwise? Go on.ā€
ā€œI warn you I am going to talk like a prig. Almost like warning you Iā€™m going to be sick. Iā€™ve felt it coming on. Gemini, I must say it.ā€
ā€œOut with it, as they say on the excursion steamboats. Sorry! Oh-out with it, Stella!ā€
ā€œWell, we two are individuals of outstanding intelligence. Outstanding intelligence. Young, of course, silly in a way because we are young, but really damned intelligent. Thatā€™s generally admitted by our friends and relations. Even Aunt Ruby said that. We are bright. In the privacy of this Loversā€™ Lane, need we hesitate to say as much to one another? We are. Yes. And Iā€™m for getting on with it. You listen. For all practical purposes, about the conduct of our lives, about the conduct of life, we donā€™t know a blessed thing. Not a blessed real thing. You as well as me. They havenā€™t told us anything worth knowing. We are just bright enough to realise that. The religion and morals they fed us are exploded old rubbish. That much weā€™ve found out. The unbelieving way they taught it us was enough to show that. Blank. Yet weā€™ve got to devote ourselves to something, Gemini, all the same. Weā€™re made that way. Weā€™ve got to learn what we can and use it somehow. Weā€™ve got to do whatever is in us, to save ourselves and the world. Maybe weā€™ll do something. Maybe weā€™ll do nothing at all. But weā€™ve got to make the effort. In a war hundreds of people have to be killed or messed-up. Even if their side is winning. Some get in the way of their own side and get done in like that. Trying to do their best. All sorts go into the boiling. But theyā€™ve got to join up, theyā€™ve got to try. It doesnā€™t matter so long as they donā€™t slack or hide.... Weā€™re slacking, Gemini....ā€
She was dismayed at herself.
ā€œI canā€™t go on. Itā€™s the very life of me Iā€™m telling you, and it sounds ā€” rot... preachment.... Salvation indeed!... Salvation Army.... If only I hadnā€™t begun. Iā€™ve never talked this way.... I must ā€” with you. Iā€™m not just talking? She was weeping.
ā€œDarling,ā€ he said, and kissed and embraced her.
ā€œNo need to say any of this again,ā€ she sobbed, clinging to him....
ā€œCan I borrow your snitch-rag, Gemini?ā€ she said presently. ā€œI left mine at home.ā€
ā€œWeā€™ll have to talk about things,ā€ he reflected. ā€œI will. But itā€™s awful hard. We get this stuff out of books. We think of it bookishly. We have to at first. When we talk about it, itā€™s like bringing up partly digested print. Weā€™ve got to talk bookish. What natural words are there? Slang, love-making, smut, games, gossip, ā€˜pass the mustar...

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