If you're feeling confined by coronavirus quarantine...imagine the stories you could write!
Here's
"Through a Window," a story about a man confined by injury, written by the English writer
H.G. Wells (1866-1946), published in 1894. Wells is considered to be one of the "fathers" of science fiction, and wrote such works as
The Invisible Man and
The War of the Worlds. As a boy, Wells had been laid up with a broken leg, which undoubtedly helped spark the idea for this story. Wells' story inspired an American writer
Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968) to write "
It Had to Be Murder" (1942). Woolrich, like Wells, had also been laid up by injury. Woolrich's story in turn became the basis for
Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 movie, "
Rear Window." The movie, regarded as one of Hitchcock's best, starred James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr, and Thelma Ritter.
Text courtesy of Project Gutenberg, an online library of out-of-copyright material.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0609221h.html#c16
A couple of offensive words have been removed for this post; the story content reflects attitudes of the time.
THROUGH A WINDOW--H.G. Wells
After his legs were set, they carried Bailey into the study and put him on a
couch before the open window. There he lay, a live--even a feverish man down to
the loins, and below that a double-barrelled mummy swathed in white wrappings.
He tried to read, even tried to write a little, but most of the time he looked
out of the window.
He had thought the window cheerful to begin with, but now he thanked God for
it many times a day. Within, the room was dim and grey, and in the reflected
light, the wear of the furniture showed plainly. His medicine and drink stood
on the little table, with such litter as the bare branches of a bunch of
grapes, or the ashes of a cigar upon a green plate, or a day old evening paper.
The view outside was flooded with light, and across the corner of it came the
head of the acacia, and at the foot, the top of the balcony-railing of hammered
iron. In the foreground was the weltering silver of the river, never quiet and
yet never tiresome. Beyond was the reedy bank, a broad stretch of meadow land,
and then a dark line of trees ending in a group of poplars at the distant bend
of the river, and upstanding behind them, a square church tower.
Up and down the river, all day long, things were passing. Now a string of
barges drifting down to London, piled with lime or barrels of beer; then a
steam-launch, disengaging heavy masses of black smoke, and disturbing the whole
width of the river with long rolling waves; then an impetuous electric launch,
and then a boatload of pleasure-seekers, a solitary sculler, or a four from
some rowing club. Perhaps the river was quietest of a morning or late at night.
One moonlight night some people drifted down singing, and with a zither
playing--it sounded very pleasantly across the water.
In a few days Bailey began to recognise some of the craft; in a week he knew
the intimate history of half-a-dozen. The launch Luzon, from Fitzgibbon's, two
miles up, would go fretting by, sometimes three or four times a day,
conspicuous with its colouring of Indian-red and yellow, and its two Oriental
attendants; and one day, to Bailey's vast amusement, the house-boat Purple
Emperor came to a stop outside, and breakfasted in the most shameless
domesticity. Then one afternoon, the captain of a slow-moving barge began a
quarrel with his wife as they came into sight from the left, and had carried it
to personal violence before he vanished behind the window-frame to the right.
Bailey regarded all this as an entertainment got up to while away his illness,
and applauded all the more, these moving incidents. Mrs. Green, coming in at
rare intervals with his meals, would catch him clapping his hands or softly
crying, "Encore!" But the river players had other engagements, and his encore
went unheeded.
"I should never have thought I could take such an interest in things that
did not concern me," said Bailey to Wilderspin, who used to come in, in his
nervous, friendly way and try to comfort the sufferer by being talked to. "I
thought this idle capacity was distinctive of little children and old maids.
But it's just circumstances. I simply can't work, and things have to drift;
it's no good to fret and struggle. And so I lie here and am as amused as a baby
with a rattle, at this river and its affairs.
"Sometimes, of course, it gets a bit dull, but not often.
"I would give anything, Wilderspin, for a swamp--just one swamp--once. Heads
swimming and a steam launch to the rescue, and a chap or so hauled out with a
boat-hook...There goes Fitzgibbon's launch! They have a new boat-hook, I see,
and the little blackie is still in the dumps. I don't think he's very well,
Wilderspin. He's been like that for two or three days, squatting sulky-fashion
and meditating over the churning of the water. Unwholesome for him to be always
staring at the frothy water running away from the stern."
They watched the little steamer fuss across the patch of sunlit river,
suffer momentary occultation from the acacia, and glide out of sight behind the
dark window-frame.
"I'm getting a wonderful eye for details," said Bailey: "I spotted that new
boat-hook at once. The other n--- is a funny little chap. He never used to
swagger with the old boat-hook like that."
"Malays, aren't they?" said Wilderspin.
"Don't know," said Bailey. "I thought one called all that sort of mariner
Lascar."
Then he began to tell Wilderspin what he knew of the private affairs of the
house-boat, Purple Emperor. "Funny," he said, "how these people come from all
points of the compass--from Oxford and Windsor, from Asia and Africa--and
gather and pass opposite the window just to entertain me. One man floated out
of the infinite the day before yesterday, caught one perfect crab opposite,
lost and recovered a scull, and passed on again. Probably he will never come
into my life again. So far as I am concerned, he has lived and had his little
troubles, perhaps thirty--perhaps forty--years on the earth, merely to make an
ass of himself for three minutes in front of my window. Wonderful thing,
Wilderspin, if you come to think of it."
"Yes," said Wilderspin; "isn't it?"
A day or two after this Bailey had a brilliant morning. Indeed, towards the
end of the affair, it became almost as exciting as any window show, very well
could be. We will, however begin at the beginning.
Bailey was all alone in the house, for his housekeeper had gone into the
town three miles away to pay bills, and the servant had her holiday. The
morning began dull. A canoe went up about half-past nine, and later a boatload
of camping men came down. But this was mere margin. Things became cheerful
about ten o'clock.
It began with something white fluttering in the remote distance where the
three poplars marked the river bend. "Pocket-handkerchief," said Bailey, when
he saw it "No, too big! Flag perhaps."
However, it was not a flag, for it jumped about. "Man in whites running
fast, and this way," said Bailey.
"That's luck! But his whites are precious
loose!"
Then a singular thing happened. There was a minute pink gleam among the dark
trees in the distance, and a little puff of pale grey that began to drift and
vanish eastward. The man in white jumped and continued running. Presently the
report of the shot arrived.
"What the devil!" said Bailey. "Looks as if someone was shooting at
him."
He sat up stiffly and stared hard. The white figure was coming along the
pathway through the corn. "It's one of those n--- from the Fitzgibbon's,"
said Bailey; "or may I be hanged! I wonder why he keeps sawing with his
arm."
Then three other figures became indistinctly visible against the dark
background of the trees.
Abruptly on the opposite bank a man walked into the picture. He was
black-bearded, dressed in flannels, had a red belt, and a vast, grey felt hat.
He walked, leaning very much forward and with his hands swinging before him.
Behind him one could see the grass swept by the towing-rope of the boat he was
dragging. He was steadfastly regarding the white figure that was hurrying
through the corn. Suddenly he stopped. Then, with a peculiar gesture, Bailey
could see that he began pulling in the tow-rope hand over hand. Over the water
could be heard the voices of the people in the still invisible boat.
"What are you after, Hagshot?" said someone.
The individual with the red belt shouted something that was inaudible, and
went on lugging in the rope, looking over his shoulder at the advancing white
figure as he did so. He came down the bank, and the rope bent a lane among the
reeds and lashed the water between his pulls.
Then just the bows of the boat came into view, with the towing-mast and a
tall, fair-haired man standing up and trying to see over the bank. The boat
bumped unexpectedly among the reeds, and the tall, fair-haired man disappeared
suddenly, having apparently fallen back into the invisible part of the boat.
There was a curse and some indistinct laughter. Hagshot did not laugh, but
hastily clambered into the boat and pushed off. Abruptly the boat passed out of
Bailey's sight.
But it was still audible. The melody of voices suggested that its occupants
were busy telling each other what to do.
The running figure was drawing near the bank. Bailey could now see clearly
that it was one of Fitzgibbon's Orientals, and began to realise what the
sinuous thing the man carried in his hand might be. Three other men followed
one another through the corn, and the foremost carried what was probably the
gun. They were perhaps two hundred yards or more behind the Malay.
"It's a man hunt, by all that's holy!" said Bailey.
The Malay stopped for a moment and surveyed the bank to the right. Then he
left the path, and breaking through the corn, vanished in that direction. The
three pursuers followed suit, and their heads and gesticulating arms above the
corn, after a brief interval, also went out of Bailey's field of vision.
Bailey so far forgot himself as to swear. "Just as things were getting
lively!" he said. Something like a woman's shriek came through the air. Then
shouts, a howl, a dull whack upon the balcony outside that made Bailey jump,
and then the report of a gun.
"This is precious hard on an invalid," said Bailey.
But more was to happen yet in his picture. In fact, a great deal more. The
Malay appeared again, running now along the bank up stream. His stride had more
swing and less pace in it than before. He was threatening someone ahead with
the ugly krees he carried. The blade, Bailey noticed, was dull--it did not
shine as steel should.
Then came the tall, fair man, brandishing a boat-hook, and after him three
other men in boating costume, running clumsily with oars. The man with the grey
hat and red belt was not with them. After an interval the three men with the
gun reappeared, still in the corn, but now near the river bank. They emerged
upon the towing-path, and hurried after the others. The opposite bank was left
blank and desolate again.
The sick-room was disgraced by more profanity. "I would give my life to see
the end of this," said Bailey. There were indistinct shouts up stream. Once
they seemed to be coming nearer, but they disappointed him.
Bailey sat and grumbled. He was still grumbling when his eye caught
something black and round among the waves. "Hullo!" he said. He looked narrowly
and saw two triangular black bodies frothing every now and then about a yard in
front of this.
He was still doubtful when the little band of pursuers came into sight
again, and began to point to this floating object. They were talking eagerly.
Then the man with the gun took aim.
"He's swimming the river, by George!" said Bailey.
The Malay looked round, saw the gun, and went under. He came up so close to
Bailey's bank of the river that one of the bars of the balcony hid him for a
moment. As he emerged the man with the gun fired. The Malay kept steadily
onward--Bailey could see the wet hair on his forehead now and the krees between
his teeth--and was presently hidden by the balcony.
This seemed to Bailey an unendurable wrong. The man was lost to him for ever
now, so he thought. Why couldn't the brute have got himself decently caught on
the opposite bank, or shot in the water?
"It's worse than Edwin Drood," said Bailey.
Over the river, too, things had become an absolute blank. All seven men had
gone down stream again, probably to get the boat and follow across. Bailey
listened and waited. There was silence. "Surely it's not over like this," said
Bailey.
Five minutes passed--ten minutes. Then a tug with two barges went up stream.
The attitudes of the men upon these were the attitudes of those who see nothing
remarkable in earth, water, or sky. Clearly the whole affair had passed out of
sight of the river. Probably the hunt had gone into the beech woods behind the
house.
"Confound it!" said Bailey. "To be continued again, and no chance this time
of the sequel. But this is hard on a sick man."
He heard a step on the staircase behind him and looking round saw the door
open. Mrs. Green came in and sat down, panting. She still had her bonnet on,
her purse in her hand, and her little brown basket upon her arm. "Oh, there!"
she said, and left Bailey to imagine the rest.
"Have a little whisky and water, Mrs. Green, and tell me about it," said
Bailey.
Sipping a little, the lady began to recover her powers of explanation.
One of those black creatures at the Fitzgibbon's had gone mad, and was
running about with a big knife, stabbing people. He had killed a groom, and
stabbed the under-butler, and almost cut the arm off a boating gentleman.
"Running amuck with a krees," said Bailey. "I thought that was it."
And he was hiding in the wood when she came through it from the town.
"What! Did he run after you?" asked Bailey, with a certain touch of glee in
his voice.
"No, that was the horrible part of it." Mrs. Green explained. She had been
right through the woods and had never known he was there. It was only when she
met young Mr. Fitzgibbon carrying his gun in the shrubbery that she heard
anything about it. Apparently, what upset Mrs. Green was the lost opportunity
for emotion. She was determined, however, to make the most of what was left
her.
"To think he was there all the time!" she said, over and over again.
Bailey endured this patiently enough for perhaps ten minutes. At last he
thought it advisable to assert himself. "It's twenty past one, Mrs. Green," he
said. "Don't you think it time you got me something to eat?"
This brought Mrs. Green suddenly to her knees.
"Oh Lord, sir!" she said. "Oh! Don't go making me go out of this room sir,
till I know he's caught. He might have got into the house, sir. He might be
creeping, creeping, with that knife of his, along the passage this very--"
She broke off suddenly and glared over him at the window. Her lower jaw
dropped. Bailey turned his head sharply.
For the space of half a second things seemed just as they were. There was
the tree, the balcony, the shining river, the distant church tower. Then he
noticed that the acacia was displaced about a foot to the right, and that it
was quivering, and the leaves were rustling. The tree was shaken violently, and
a heavy panting was audible.
In another moment a hairy brown hand had appeared and clutched the balcony
railings, and in another the face of the Malay was peering through these at the
man on the couch. His expression was an unpleasant grin, by reason of the krees
he held between his teeth, and he was bleeding from an ugly wound in his cheek.
His hair wet to drying stuck out like horns from his head. His body was bare
save for the wet trousers that clung to him. Bailey's first impulse was to
spring from the couch, but his legs reminded him that this was impossible.
By means of the balcony and tree, the man slowly raised himself until he was
visible to Mrs. Green. With a choking cry she made for the door and fumbled
with the handle.
Bailey thought swiftly and clutched a medicine bottle in either hand. One he
flung, and it smashed against the acacia. Silently and deliberately, and
keeping his bright eyes fixed on Bailey, the Malay clambered into the balcony.
Bailey, still clutching his second bottle, but with a sickening, sinking
feeling about his heart, watched first one leg come over the railing and then
the other.
It was Bailey's impression that the Malay took about an hour to get his
second leg over the rail. The period that elapsed before the sitting position
was changed to a standing one seemed enormous--days, weeks, possibly a year or
so. Yet Bailey had no clear impression of anything going on in his mind during
that vast period, except a vague wonder at his inability to throw the second
medicine bottle. Suddenly the Malay glanced over his shoulder. There was the
crack of a rifle. He flung up his arms and came down upon the couch. Mrs. Green
began a dismal shriek that seemed likely to last until Doomsday. Bailey stared
at the brown body with its shoulder blade driven in, that writhed painfully
across his legs and rapidly staining and soaking the spotless bandages. Then he
looked at the long krees, with the reddish streaks upon its blade, that lay an
inch beyond the trembling brown fingers upon the floor. Then at Mrs. Green, who
had backed hard against the door and was staring at the body and shrieking in
gusty outbursts as if she would wake the dead. And then the body was shaken by
one last convulsive effort.
The Malay gripped the krees, tried to raise himself with his left hand, and
collapsed. Then he raised his head, stared for a moment at Mrs. Green, and
twisting his face round looked at Bailey. With a gasping groan the dying man
succeeded in clutching the bed clothes with his disabled hand, and by a violent
effort, which hurt Bailey's legs exceedingly, writhed sideways towards what
must be his last victim. Then something seemed released in Bailey's mind and he
brought down the second bottle with all his strength on to the Malay's face.
The krees fell heavily upon the floor.
"Easy with those legs," said Bailey, as young Fitzgibbon and one of the
boating party lifted the body off him.
Young Fitzgibbon was very white in the face. "I didn't mean to kill him," he
said.
"It's just as well," said Bailey.
END
