The Revolutions by Felix Gilman Read Free Book Online Page B

hand, but in entirely the wrong direction, over towards the chaise longue in the corner, where Miss Florence Shale was now much recovered, and was earnestly holding Miss Roberta Blaylock’s hands and instructing her in something or other. Mrs Sedgley was bustling over, waggling her eyebrows to communicate who-knows-what vitally important message.
    She wasn’t more than five lines into the poem before Atwood’s smile vanished. He glanced over her shoulder in sudden alarm.
    “A-ha. I apologise, Miss Bradman—I do apologise. I’ve been rude.”
    “No,” Mrs Sedgley insisted, “not at all!”
    “I have. I’m sorry. Miss Bradman.” He flashed a forced smile. His eyes didn’t meet hers.
    Josephine glanced over her shoulder to see what could have upset Mr Atwood so. Nothing but the mirror, in which she saw the reflection of her own face; and Mr Atwood—who was now rather theatrically checking his watch and announcing that it was time to leave; and behind him Arthur, approaching at last, looking cross; and behind Arthur the arched entrance of Mrs Sedgley’s hall, Mr Hare in the distance, taking his umbrella from the stand by the open door, and Mrs Sedgley’s cat Gautama jumping down from his sleeping-place on the table and dashing off.
    “Well,” Atwood said. “I do hope we meet again, Miss, ah, Bradman. I’m afraid I have to run.”
    He left. He very nearly did run, glancing back over his shoulder as if pursued; brushing past Arthur without a word and nearly knocking Dr Varley’s wine-glass out of his hand.
    “What an odd fellow,” Arthur said. “Josephine—are you all right?”
    “Of course.” But it was a great comfort to take his offered arm.
    “ Josephine ,” Mrs Sedgley said, contriving to suggest that the whole awkward scene had somehow been Arthur’s fault, and that she did not entirely approve. Then she set off in pursuit of Atwood, just in time to have him close the door in her face.
    Arthur toyed with the card Atwood had given him. It was blank, except for the address Atwood had written on it. Somewhere in Deptford.
    “Well. Something always turns up, doesn’t it?”
    “I think,” Josephine said, “that you should throw that away.”
    “Do you think so?” He looked disappointed. She did think so, though she couldn’t say exactly why.
    “I’m afraid the poor man may be a neurotic,” she said. “It’s regrettably common in these circles. No sense in indulging him; it would probably be an utter waste of your time.”
    “I don’t know,” Arthur said. “One never knows. Don’t you always say that? One never knows, these days.”
    *   *   *
     
    On the way home they talked about money, and the closing of the Mammoth , and the future. It wasn’t until she got back to Rugby Street, and had said good night to Arthur, who was still turning the card over in his hand—in fact, it wasn’t until she was half-way up the dark stairs to bed that something odd moved in her memory. She stopped on the stairs with her hand on the bannister, and she thought back to the conversation with Atwood—the odd moment when his mood had changed. In her memory, she saw Mrs Sedgley’s ugly gilt-edged mirror again. Was it a trick of her imagination, or had there been, now that she thought about it, a fifth person reflected in the mirror—out in the street, peering in through the open door, his face gaslit and half-obscured by rain? A pale stranger with dark eyes. Then Gautama had distracted her, and in the next instant, he was gone.
    The product of an overactive imagination, no doubt. That was what came of too much reading.

 
     
    Chapter Five
     
     
    In the morning Arthur set off for Deptford. The tram deposited him outside the central station of the London Electric Supply Corporation—which at the time (so Arthur had written for the Mammoth ) was the world’s largest power station, an unsurpassed triumph of engineering, one of the jewels in London’s crown. It had flooded on the night of the