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.
"I have a fancy," he said over his coffee, "that something is
going to happen to me today."
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.
"You misunderstand me. I mean nothing unpleasant...though what
I do mean I scarcely know."
"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.
Finis

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