by H.G.Wells.
The buying of orchids always has in it a certain
speculative flavour. You have before you the brown shrivelled lump of tissue,
and for the rest you must trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or your
good-luck, as your taste may incline. The plant may be moribund or dead, or it
may be just a respectable purchase, fair value for your money, or perhaps - for
the thing has happened again and again - there slowly unfolds before the
delighted eyes of the happy purchaser, day after day, some new variety,
some novel richness, a strange twist of the
labellum, or some subtler coloration or unexpected mimicry.
Pride, beauty, and profit blossom
together on one delicate green spike, and it may be, even immortality. For the
new miracle of Nature may stand in need of a new specific name, and what so
convenient as that of its discoverer? "Johnsmithia!" There have been
worse names.
It was perhaps the hope of some such
happy discovery that made Winter-Wedderburn such a frequent attendant at these sales - that hope, and also, maybe, the
fact that he had nothing else of the slightest interest to do in the world. He
was a shy, lonely, rather ineffectual man, provided with just enough income to
keep off the spur of necessity, and not enough nervous energy to make him seek
any exacting employments. He might have collected stamps or
coins, or translated Horace, or bound books, or invented new species of
diatoms. But, as it happened, he grew orchids, and had one ambitious little
hothouse.
He spoke - as he moved and thought -
slowly.
"Oh, don't say THAT!" said
his housekeeper, who was also his remote cousin. For "something
happening" was a euphemism that meant only one thing to her.
"Today," he continued,
after a pause, "Peters' are going to sell a batch of plants from the Andamans and the Indies. I
shall go up and see what they have. It may be I shall buy something good,
unawares. That may be it."
He passed his cup for his second
cupful of coffee.
"Are these the things collected
by that poor young fellow you told me of the other day?" asked his cousin
as she filled his cup.
"Yes," he said, and became
meditative over a piece of toast.
"Nothing ever does happen to
me," he remarked presently, beginning to think aloud. "I wonder why? Things enough happen to other
people. There is Harvey. Only the other week, on Monday he picked up sixpence,
on Wednesday his chicks all had the staggers, on
Friday his cousin came home from Australia, and on Saturday he broke his ankle.
What a whirl of excitement - compared to
me."
"I think I would rather be without so much excitement," said
his housekeeper. "It can't be good for you."
"I suppose it's troublesome.
Still...you see, nothing ever happens to me. When I was a little boy I never
had accidents. I never fell in love as I grew up. Never married...I wonder how
it feels to have something happen to you, something really remarkable."
"That orchid-collector was only
thirty-six-twenty years younger than myself when he died. And he had been
married twice, and divorced once; he had had malarial fever four times, and
once he broke his thigh. He killed a Malay once, and once he was wounded by a
poisoned dart. And in the end he was killed by jungle-leeches. It must have all
been very troublesome, but then it must have been very interesting, you know, except,
perhaps, the leeches."
"I am sure it was not good for
him," said the lady, with conviction.
"Perhaps not." And then
Wedderburn looked at his watch. "Twenty-three minutes past eight. I am
going up by the quarter to twelve train, so that there is plenty of time. I
think I shall wear my alpaca jacket - it is quite warm enough - and my grey
felt hat and brown shoes. I suppose---"
He glanced out of the window at the
serene sky and sunlit garden, and then nervously at his cousin's face.
"I think you had better take an
umbrella if you are going to London," she said, in a voice that admitted
of no denial. "There's all between here and the station coming back."
When he returned he was in a state
of mild excitement. He had made a purchase. It was rarely that he could make up
his mind quickly enough to buy, but this time he had done so.
"There are Vandas," he
said, "and a Dendrobe and some Palaeonophis." He surveyed his
purchases lovingly as he consumed his soup. They were laid out on the spotless
tablecloth before him, and he was telling his cousin all about them as he
slowly meandered through his dinner. It was his custom to live all his visits
to London over again in the evening for her and his own entertainment.
"I knew something would happen
today. And I have bought all these. Some of them - some of them - I feel sure,
do you know, that some of them will be remarkable. I don't know how it is, but
I feel just as sure as if someone had told me that some of these will turn out
remarkable."
"That one" - he pointed to
a shrivelled rhizome - "was not identified. It may be a Palaeonophis - or
it may not. It may be a new species, or even a new genus. And it was the last
that poor Batten ever collected."
"I don't like the look of
it," said his housekeeper. "It`s such an ugly shape."
"To me it scarcely seems to
have a shape."
"I don't like those things that
stick out," said his housekeeper.
"It shall be put away in a pot
tomorrow."
"It looks," said the
housekeeper, "like a spider shamming dead."
Wedderburn smiled and surveyed the
root with his head on one side. "It is certainly not a pretty lump of
stuff. But you can never judge of these things from their dry appearance. It
may turn out to be a very beautiful orchid indeed. How busy I shall be
tomorrow! I must see tonight just exactly what to do with these things, and
tomorrow I shall set to work.
They found poor Batten lying dead,
or dying, in a mangrove swamp - I forget which," he began again presently,
"with one of these very orchids crushed up under his body. He had been
unwell for some days with some kind of native fever, and I suppose he fainted.
These mangrove swamps are very unwholesome. Every drop of blood, they say, was
taken out of him by the jungle-leeches. It may be that very plant that cost him
his life to obtain."
"I think none the better of it
for that."
"Men must work though women may
weep," said Wedderburn, with profound gravity.
"Fancy dying away from every
comfort in a nasty swamp! Fancy being ill of fever with nothing to take but
chlorodyne and quinine - if men were left to themselves they would live on
chlorodyne and quinine - and no one round you but horrible natives! They say
the Andaman islanders are most disgusting wretches - and, anyhow, they can
scarcely make good nurses, not having the necessary training. And just for
people in England to have orchids!"
"I don't suppose it was
comfortable, but some men seem to enjoy that kind of thing," said
Wedderburn. "Anyhow, the natives of his party were sufficiently civilized
to take care of all his collection until his colleague, who was an
ornithologist, came back again from the interior; though they could not tell
the species of the orchid and had let it wither. And it makes these things more
interesting."
"It makes them disgusting. I
should be afraid of some of the malaria clinging to them. And just think, there
has been a dead body lying across that ugly thing! I never thought of that
before. There! I declare I cannot eat another mouthful of dinner!"
"I will take them off the table
if you like, and put them in the windowseat. I can see them just as well
there."
The next few days he was indeed
singularly busy in his steamy little hot-house, fussing about with charcoal,
lumps of teak, moss, and all the other mysteries of the orchid cultivator. He
considered he was having a wonderfully eventful time. In the evening he would
talk about these new orchids to his friends, and over and over again he
reverted to his expectation of something strange.
Several of the Vandas and the
Dendrobium died under his care, but presently the strange orchid began to show
signs of life. He was delighted and took his housekeeper right away from
jam-making to see it at once, directly he made the discovery.
"That is a bud," he said,
"and presently there will be a lot of leaves there, and those little
things coming out here are aerial rootlets."
"They look to me like little
white fingers poking out of the brown," said his housekeeper. "I
don't like them."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. They look like
fingers trying to get at you. I can't help my likes and dislikes."
"I don't know for certain, but
I don't THINK there are any orchids I know that have aerial rootlets quite like
that. It may be my fancy, of course. You see they are a little flattened at the
ends."
"I don't like 'em," said
his housekeeper, suddenly shivering and turning away. "I know it's very
silly of me - and I'm very sorry, particularly as you like the thing so much.
But I can't help thinking of that corpse."
"But it may not be that
particular plant. That was merely a guess of mine."
His housekeeper shrugged her
shoulders. "Anyhow I don't like it," she said.
Wedderburn felt a little hurt at her
dislike to the plant. But that did not prevent his talking to her about orchids
generally, and this orchid in particular, whenever he felt inclined.
"There are such queer things
about orchids," he said one day; "such possibilities of surprises.
You know, Darwin studied their fertilisation, and showed that the whole
structure of an ordinary orchid flower was contrived in order that moths might carry the pollen
from plant to plant. Well, it seems that there are lots of orchids known the
flower of which cannot possibly be used for fertilisation in that way. Some of
the Cypripediums, for instance; there are no insects known that can possibly
fertilise them, and some of them have never been found with seed."
"But how do they form new
plants?"
"By runners and tubers, and
that kind of outgrowth. That is easily explained. The puzzle is, what are the
flowers for?"
"Very likely," he added,
"MY orchid may be something extraordinary in that way. If so, I shall
study it. I have often thought of making researches as Darwin did. But hitherto
I have not found the time, or something else has happened to prevent it. The
leaves are beginning to unfold now. I do wish you would come and see
them!"
But she said that the orchid-house
was so hot it gave her the headache. She had seen the plant once again, and the
aerial rootlets, which were now some of them more than a foot long, had
unfortunately reminded her of tentacles reaching out after something; and they
got into her dreams, growing after her with incredible rapidity. So that she
had settled to her entire satisfaction that she would not see that plant again,
and Wedderburn had to admire its leaves alone. They were of the ordinary broad
form, and deep, glossy green, with splashes and dots of deep red towards the
base. He knew of no other leaves quite like them.
The plant was placed on a low bench
near the thermometer, and close by was a simple arrangement by which a tap
dripped on the hot-water pipes and kept the air steamy. And he spent his
afternoons now with some regularity meditating on the approaching flowering of this strange plant.
And at last the great thing
happened. Directly he entered the little glass house he knew that the spike had
burst out, although his great Palaeonophis Lowii hid the corner where his new
darling stood There was a new odour in the air - a rich, intensely sweet scent,
that overpowered every other in that crowded, steaming little greenhouse.
Directly he noticed this he hurried
down to the strange orchid. And, behold! the trailing green spikes bore now
three great splashes of blossom, from which this overpowering sweetness
proceeded. He stopped before them in an ecstasy of admiration.
The flowers were white, with streaks
of golden orange upon the petals; the heavy labellum was coiled into an
intricate projection, and a wonderful bluish purple mingled there with the
gold. He could see at once that the genus was altogether a new one. And the
insufferable scent! How hot the place was! The blossoms swam before his eyes.
He would see if the temperature was
right. He made a step towards the thermometer. Suddenly everything appeared
unsteady. The bricks on the floor were dancing up and down. Then the white
blossoms, the green leaves behind them, the whole green house, seemed to sweep
sideways, and then in a curve upward.
* * * * * * * * * * *
At half-past four his cousin made
the tea, according to their invariable custom But Wedderburn did not come in
for his tea.
"He is worshipping that horrid
orchid," she told herself, and waited ten minutes. "His watch must
have stopped. I will go and call him."
She went straight to the hothouse,
and, opening the door, called his name. There was no reply. She noticed that
the air was very close, and loaded with an intense perfume. Then she saw
something lying on the bricks between the hotwater pipes.
For a minute, perhaps, she stood
motionless.
He was lying, face upward, at the
foot of the strange orchid. The tentacle-like aerial rootlets no longer swayed
freely in the air, but were crowded together, a tangle of grey ropes, and
stretched tight, with their ends closely applied to his chin and neck and
hands.
She did not understand. Then she saw
from one of the exultant tentacles upon his cheek there trickled a little
thread of blood.
With an inarticulate cry she ran
towards him, and tried to pull him away from the leech-like suckers. She
snapped two of these tentacles, and their sap dripped red.
Then the overpowering scent of the
blossom began to make her head reel. How they clung to him! She tore at the
tough ropes, and he and the white inflorescence swam about her. She felt she
was fainting, knew she must not. She left him and hastily opened the nearest
door, and, after she had panted for a moment in the fresh air, she had a
brilliant inspiration. She caught up a flower-pot and smashed in the windows at
the end of the greenhouse. Then she re-entered. She tugged now with renewed
strength at Wedderburn's motionless body, and brought the strange orchid
crashing to the floor. It still clung with the grimmest tenacity to its victim.
In a frenzy, she lugged it and him into the open air.
Then she thought of tearing through
the sucker rootlets one by one, and in another minute she had released him and
was dragging him away from the horror.
He was white and bleeding from a
dozen circular patches.
The odd-job man was coming up the
garden, amazed at the smashing of glass, and saw her emerge, hauling the
inanimate body with red-stained hands. For a moment he thought impossible
things.
"Bring some water!" she
cried, and her voice dispelled his fancies. When, with unnatural alacrity, he
returned with the water, he found her weeping with excitement, and with
Wedderburn's head upon her knee, wiping the blood from his face.
"What's the matter?" said
Wedderburn, opening his eyes feebly, and closing them again at once.
"Go and tell Annie to come out
here to me, and then go for Dr. Haddon at once," she said to the odd-job
man so soon as he had brought the water, and added, seeing he hesitated:
"I will tell you all about it when you come back."
Presently, Wedderburn opened his
eyes again, and, seeing that he was troubled by the puzzle of his position, she
explained to him: "You fainted in the hothouse."
"And the orchid?"
"I will see to that," she
said.
Wedderburn had lost a good deal of
blood, but beyond that he had suffered no very great injury. They gave him
brandy mixed with some pink extract of meat, and carried him upstairs to bed.
His housekeeper told her incredible story in fragments to Dr. Haddon. "Come to the orchid-house
and see," she said.
The cold outer air was blowing in
through the open door, and the sickly perfume was almost dispelled. Most of the
torn aerial rootlets lay already withered amidst a number of dark stains upon
the bricks. The stem of the inflorescence was broken by the fall of the plant,
and the flowers were growing limp and brown at the edges of the petals. The
doctor stooped towards it, then saw that one of the aerial rootlets still
stirred feebly, and hesitated.
The next morning the strange orchid
still lay there, black now and putrescent. The door banged intermittently in
the morning breeze, and all the array of Wedderburn's orchids was shrivelled
and prostrate. But Wedderburn himself was bright and garrulous upstairs in the
glory of his strange adventure.
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