The Invisible Man
By H. G. Wells
CHAPTER I
THE STRANGE MAN'S ARRIVAL
PART ONE
PART ONE
The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a
biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year,
over
the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying
a
little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was
wrapped
up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every
inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled
itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to
the burden he carried. He staggered into the "Coach and
Horses" more
dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. "A
fire," he cried,
"in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!" He
stamped and
shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall
into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much
introduction, that and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the
table,
he took up his quarters in the inn.
Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to
prepare
him a meal with her own hands. A guest to stop at Iping in the
wintertime was an unheard-of piece of luck, let alone a guest who
was no "haggler," and she was resolved to show herself
worthy of her
good fortune. As soon as the bacon was well under way, and Millie,
her lymphatic maid, had been brisked up a bit by a few deftly
chosen
expressions of contempt, she carried the cloth, plates, and
glasses
into the parlour and began to lay them with the utmost _eclat_.
Although the fire was burning up briskly, she was surprised to see
that her visitor still wore his hat and coat, standing with his
back
to her and staring out of the window at the falling snow in the
yard.
His gloved hands were clasped behind him, and he seemed to be lost
in thought. She noticed that the melting snow that still sprinkled
his shoulders dripped upon her carpet. "Can I take your hat
and coat,
sir?" she said, "and give them a good dry in the
kitchen?"
"No," he said without turning.
She was not sure she had heard him, and was about to repeat her
question.
He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder. "I
prefer to
keep them on," he said with emphasis, and she noticed that he
wore
big blue spectacles with sidelights, and had a bush side-whisker
over his coat-collar that completely hid his cheeks and face.
"Very well, sir," she said. "_As_ you like. In a
bit the room will
be warmer."
He made no answer, and had turned his face away from her again,
and
Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were
ill-timed,
laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked
out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there,
like
a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his
dripping
hat-brim turned down, hiding his face and ears completely. She put
down the eggs and bacon with considerable emphasis, and called
rather than said to him, "Your lunch is served, sir."
"Thank you," he said at the same time, and did not stir
until she
was closing the door. Then he swung round and approached the table
with a certain eager quickness.
As she went behind the bar to the kitchen she heard a sound
repeated
at regular intervals. Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a
spoon being rapidly whisked round a basin. "That girl!"
she said.
"There! I clean forgot it. It's her being so long!" And
while she
herself finished mixing the mustard, she gave Millie a few verbal
stabs for her excessive slowness. She had cooked the ham and eggs,
laid the table, and done everything, while Millie (help indeed!)
had
only succeeded in delaying the mustard. And him a new guest and
wanting to stay! Then she filled the mustard pot, and, putting it
with a certain stateliness upon a gold and black tea-tray, carried
it into the parlour.
She rapped and entered promptly. As she did so her visitor moved
quickly, so that she got but a glimpse of a white object
disappearing
behind the table. It would seem he was picking something from the
floor. She rapped down the mustard pot on the table, and then she
noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a
chair
in front of the fire, and a pair of wet boots threatened rust to
her
steel fender. She went to these things resolutely. "I suppose
I may
have them to dry now," she said in a voice that brooked no
denial.
"Leave the hat," said her visitor, in a muffled voice,
and turning
she saw he had raised his head and was sitting and looking at her.
For a moment she stood gaping at him, too surprised to speak.
He held a white cloth--it was a serviette he had brought with
him--over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws
were completely hidden, and that was the reason of his muffled
voice. But it was not that which startled Mrs. Hall. It was the
fact
that all his forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a
white
bandage, and that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of
his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was
bright,
pink, and shiny just as it had been at first. He wore a dark-brown
velvet jacket with a high, black, linen-lined collar turned up
about
his neck. The thick black hair, escaping as it could below and
between the cross bandages, projected in curious tails and horns,
giving him the strangest appearance conceivable. This muffled and
bandaged head was so unlike what she had anticipated, that for a
moment she was rigid with terror, her senses reeling with panic.
(From the Guttenberg Edition)
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