Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories/The Fate of John Goodenough
XXVI.—THE FATE OF JOHN GOODENOUGH
I THINK very kindly of John Goodenough now that he is gone. He was a man of many virtues. No one was ever more imperturbably good-tempered than John. Neither disappointment nor prolonged ill-luck dimmed the smiles with which he faced life. Insults which would have driven other men into frenzies of passion did not move John in the slightest. He was open-hearted and generous; ever ready, too ready, to extend his hospitality to acquaintances and friends. Life was valuable to John, chiefly, I think, on account of the opportunities it afforded him of doing kind acts to other people. He was full of admiration for the characters and attainments of his friends and had a low opinion, in fact, had no opinion at all, of his own merits. I cannot help feeling sorry that he is dead.
I first met him two years ago when he came to reside in this neighbourhood. He attached himself to me at once and up to the very last showed a warm affection for me which was wholly undeserved. In the end it was this affection which caused his death. He used to meet me every morning, very often going far out of his proper way, in order to secure a chat with me. I changed my habits of life, altered my accustomed hours for doing things, took strange circuitous routes to places which I wanted to reach in order to avoid John. I sometimes succeeded in avoiding him for a day or two, but he always found me in the end, greeted me with the same cheery smile, and talked to me with the same abundant fluency. He used to invite me to spend long quiet evenings with him in his house, and I spent many.
There was no way of escaping these quiet evenings; for if I said I was engaged on Tuesday he suggested Wednesday. If I told him a lie about Wednesday he went on, with unruffled good-humour, to Thursday. If I succeeded in accounting for Thursday he passed Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and the following Tuesday before me in rapid succession. I seldom got off with less than one "quiet evening" in each week. John had a gramophone at first, and he used to make it hoot at me. When I lost all self-control and expressed my feelings about gramophones in violent language he was deeply pained, and bought a pianola instead. With this abominable instrument he played for me all the most popular tunes from the latest comic operas.
When I cursed these bitterly he sold all the records and bought instead long perforated sheets of classical music. I shall not easily forget the smile of triumph with which he announced that he was going to give me real pleasure by playing "The Cruiser." My nerves were so ragged that evening that it was not until far on in the second movement that I recognised a ghastly version of the Kreutzer Sonata. John pedalled away through the whole of it, his shoulders rising and falling alternately, his hands busy with little nickel-plated levers, his face wreathed in benignant smiles.
On the other evenings of the week, those on which I professed to have engagements, John usually called on me. He said that he enjoyed a quiet chat before going to bed and regarded it as a high privilege to be allowed to chat with me. After the first few evenings he did all the chatting that was done. I have often sat from half-past ten o'clock until one o'clock or even later in stony silence, listening to John chatting. I tried the plan of giving orders to my servants to refuse admission to John. This was no use. He came round to my window, easily recognisable by the light in it, and tapped with his knuckles until I let him in. I tried telling him that I was very busy, and could not possibly leave off working for a single moment. Then he promised not to disturb me. "I'll just light my pipe," he used to say, "and sit quiet until you've finished." He was always as good as his word. He sat without speaking, motionless, and watched me with an expression of affectionate admiration while I pretended to write. I could not in reality write a single word. No one could write with a warm douche of unalterable love playing on the small of his back from John's eyes.
I tried the plan of going out for long walks at ten o'clock at night. I chose the remotest and most unlikely places for these pilgrimages, but quite vainly. John had an instinct like a hound's. He used to track me down, and when he found me, uttered shattering platitudes about the beauty of the moon, or the splendour of the velvety darkness, or the glory of the storm, fitting the things he said to the weather conditions which prevailed at the time. I do not know which I disliked more, listening to a rhapsody about the moon when I was shivering with cold, or hearing Kingsley's poem about the north-east wind declaimed when I was crouching under the lee of a wall with my umbrella blown inside out.
Hardly a day passed on which John did not do me some little kindness. He grew early lettuces and brought me one every morning during the sea- son. He found out that I liked cream cheese and bribed a man who deals in such commodities to post me one every week. I mentioned incautiously in his hearing that I was singularly interested in the protest made by the English land-owning classes against the Budget. He subscribed to a press-cutting agency and secured for some months every article and letter which appeared in any paper about Form IV. and the valuation of land. No one would believe the number of them there were. John used to carry them up to my house every morning in a brown gladstone bag and unpack them in my study with smiles of amazed delight.
The end came early last month. I had spent a quiet evening with John on Tuesday and heard the whole "Cruiser" played through from beginning to end. I hoped, vainly, that I might have had Wednesday evening to myself. I said distinctly that I was expecting a brother to dine with me whom I had not seen for more than twenty years and with whom I had many private affairs to discuss. Yet at nine o'clock John arrived. He reminded me, facetiously, that there was an "r" in September, and then produced a basket containing about fifty oysters. He had gone out in a boat during the after- noon and dredged them up. He sat down opposite me and took out an oyster knife. With it he opened the oysters, laboriously, and handed them one by one to me. I was expected to eat them. John babbled pleasantly all the time. His flow of talk never ceased for an instant, not even when he gashed his hand, as he frequently did, with the oyster knife. At ten o'clock I defiantly refused to eat another oyster. John sat there with his bandaged hands on his knees and talked to me. At eleven o'clock I stopped answering him. At twelve I yawned and continued to yawn until half-past twelve. Then I said I wanted to go to bed. John pleaded for another half-hour. He said that he enjoyed talking to me more than anything else in the world. At a quarter to two I took the poker, a strong, heavy one, and killed John Goodenough. It was the only thing to do. . . .
I have managed to escape being hanged or even tried, but my conscience sometimes troubles me. Now that he is gone I remember all the good points there were about John.