- Stories
by Walter de la Mare -
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Bad Company (page 1)
It is very
seldom that one encounters what would appear to be sheer unadulterated evil
in a human face; an evil, I mean, active, deliberate, deadly, dangerous. Folly,
heedlessness, vanity, pride, craft, meaness, stupidity - yes. But even Iagos
in the world are few, and devilry is as rare as witchcraft.
One winter's evening
some little time ago, bound on a visit to a friend in London, I found myself
on the platform of one of its many subterranean railway stations. It is an ordeal
that one may undergo as seldom as one can. The glare and glitter, the noise,
the very air one breathes affects nerves and spirits. One expects vaguely strange
meetings in such surroundings. On this occasion, the expectation was justified.
The mind is at times more attentive than the eye. Already tired, and troubled
with personal cares and problems, which a little wisdom and enterprise should
have refused to entertain, I had seated myself on one of the low, wooden benches
to the left of the entrance to the platform, when, for no conscious reason,
I was prompted to turn my head in the direction of a fellow traveller, seated
across the gangway some few yards away.
What was wrong with
him? He was enveloped in a loose cape or cloak, sombre and motionless. He appeared
to be wholly unaware of my abrupt scrutiny. And yet I doubt it; for the next
moment, although the door of the nearest coach gaped immediately opposite him,
he had shuffled into the compartment I had entered myself, and now it its corner,
confronted me, all but knee to knee. I could have touched him with my hand.
We had, too, come at once into an even more intimate contact than that of touch.
Our eyes - his own fixed in a dwelling and lethargic stare - had instantly met,
and no less rapidly mine had uncharitably recoiled, not only in misgiving, but
in something little short of disgust. The effect resembled that of an acid on
milk, and for the time being cast my thoughts into confusion.
Yet that one glance
had taken him in. He was old - over seventy. A wide-brimmed rusty and dusty
black hat concealed his head - a head fringed with wisps of hair, lank and paper-grey.
His loose, jaded cheeks were the colour of putty; the thin lips above the wide
unshaven and dimpled chin showing scarcely a trace of red. The cloak suspended
from his shoulders mantled him to his shins. One knuckled, cadaverous, mittened
hand clasped a thick ash stick, its handle black and polished with long usage.
The only sign of life in his countenance was secreted in his eyes - fixed on
mine - hazed and dully glistening, as a snail in winter is fixed to a wall.
There was a dull deliberate challenge in them, and as I fancied, something more
than that. They suggested that he had been in wait for me; that for him, it
was almost "well met!".
For minutes together
I endeavoured to accept their challenge, to make sure. Yet I realised, fascinated
the while, that he was well aware of the futility of this attempt, as is of
the restless, fated bird in the branches above its head.
Such a statement, I
am aware, must appear wildly exaggerated, but I can only record my impression.
It was already lateish - much later than I had intended. The passengers came
and went, and, whether intentionally or not, none consented to occupy the vacant
seat beside him. I fixed my eyes on an advertisement - that of a Friendly Society
I remember! - immediately above his head, with the intention of watching him
in the field of an eye that I could not persuade to meet his own in full focus
again.
He had instantly detected
this ingenious device. By a fraction of an inch he had shifted his grasp upon
his stick. So intolerable, at length, became the physical - and psychical -
effect of his presence on me that I determined to leave the train at the next
station, and there to await the next. And at this precise moment, I was conscious
that he had not only withdrawn his eyes but closed them.
I was not so easily
to free myself of his company. A glance over my shoulder as, after leaving the
train, I turned towards the lift, showed him hastily groping his way out of
the carriage. The metal gate clanged. The lift slid upwards and, such is the
contrariness of human nature, a faint disappointment followed. One may, for
example, be appalled and yet engrossed in reading an account of some act of
infamous cruelty.
