A.V. Laider | Page 8

palmistry.
"One of the first things I had seen in my own hand, as soon as I had
learned to read it, was that at about the age of twenty-six I should have
a narrow escape from death--from a violent death. There was a clean
break in the life-line, and a square joining it--the protective square, you
know. The markings were precisely the same in both hands. It was to
be the narrowest escape possible. And I wasn't going to escape without
injury, either. That is what bothered me. There was a faint line
connecting the break in the lifeline with a star on the line of health.
Against that star was another square. I was to recover from the injury,
whatever it might be. Still, I didn't exactly look forward to it. Soon after
I had reached the age of twenty-five, I began to feel uncomfortable.
The thing might be going to happen at any moment. In palmistry, you
know, it is impossible to pin an event down hard and fast to one year.
This particular event was to be when I was ABOUT twenty-six; it
mightn't be till I was twenty-seven; it might be while I was only
twenty-five.
"And I used to tell myself it mightn't be at all. My reason rebelled
against the whole notion of palmistry, just as yours does. I despised my
faith in the thing, just as you despise yours. I used to try not to be so
ridiculously careful as I was whenever I crossed a street. I lived in
London at that time. Motor-cars had not yet come in, but--what hours,
all told, I must have spent standing on curbs, very circumspect, very
lamentable! It was a pity, I suppose, that I had no definite occupation--
something to take me out of myself. I was one of the victims of private
means. There came a time when I drove in four-wheelers rather than in
hansoms, and was doubtful of four-wheelers. Oh, I assure you, I was
very lamentable indeed.

"If a railway-journey could be avoided, I avoided it. My uncle had a
place in Hampshire. I was very fond of him and of his wife. Theirs was
the only house I ever went to stay in now. I was there for a week in
November, not long after my twenty-seventh birthday. There were
other people staying there, and at the end of the week we all traveled
back to London together. There were six of us in the carriage: Colonel
Elbourn and his wife and their daughter, a girl of seventeen; and
another married couple, the Bretts. I had been at Winchester with Brett,
but had hardly seen him since that time. He was in the Indian Civil, and
was home on leave. He was sailing for India next week. His wife was
to remain in England for some months, and then join him out there.
They had been married five years. She was now just twenty-four years
old. He told me that this was her age. The Elbourns I had never met
before. They were charming people. We had all been very happy
together. The only trouble had been that on the last night, at dinner, my
uncle asked me if I still went in for 'the Gipsy business,' as he always
called it; and of course the three ladies were immensely excited, and
implored me to 'do' their hands. I told them it was all nonsense, I said I
had forgotten all I once knew, I made various excuses; and the matter
dropped. It was quite true that I had given up reading hands. I avoided
anything that might remind me of what was in my own hands. And so,
next morning, it was a great bore to me when, soon after the train
started, Mrs. Elbourn said it would be 'too cruel' of me if I refused to do
their hands now. Her daughter and Mrs. Brett also said it would be
'brutal'; and they were all taking off their gloves, and--well, of course I
had to give in.
"I went to work methodically on Mrs. Elbourn's hands, in the usual way,
you know, first sketching the character from the backs of them; and
there was the usual hush, broken by the usual little noises-- grunts of
assent from the husband, cooings of recognition from the daughter.
Presently I asked to see the palms, and from them I filled in the details
of Mrs. Elbourn's character before going on to the events in her life.
But while I talked I was calculating how old Mrs. Elbourn might be. In
my first glance at her palms I had seen that she could not have been less
than twenty-five when she married. The daughter was seventeen.
Suppose the daughter had been