Buried Alive | Page 4

hotel,
or of entering a large house for the first time, or of walking across a
room full of seated people, or of dismissing a servant, or of arguing
with a haughty female aristocrat behind a post-office counter, or of
passing a shop where we owe money. As for blushing or hanging back,
or even looking awkward, when faced with any such simple, everyday
acts, the idea of conduct so childish would not occur to us. We behave
naturally under all circumstances--for why should a sane man behave
otherwise? Priam Farll was different. To call the world's attention
visually to the fact of his own existence was anguish to him. But in a

letter he could be absolutely brazen. Give him a pen and he was
fearless.
Now he knew that he would have to go and open the front door. Both
humanity and self-interest urged him to go instantly. For the visitant
was assuredly the doctor, come at last to see the sick man lying upstairs.
The sick man was Henry Leek, and Henry Leek was Priam Farll's bad
habit. While somewhat of a rascal (as his master guessed), Leek was a
very perfect valet. Like you and me, he was never shy. He always did
the natural thing naturally. He had become, little by little, indispensable
to Priam Farll, the sole means of living communication between Priam
Farll and the universe of men. The master's shyness, resembling a
deer's, kept the pair almost entirely out of England, and, on their
continuous travels, the servant invariably stood between that sensitive
diffidence and the world. Leek saw every one who had to be seen, and
did everything that involved personal contacts. And, being a bad habit,
he had, of course, grown on Priam Farll, and thus, year after year, for a
quarter of a century, Farll's shyness, with his riches and his glory, had
increased. Happily Leek was never ill. That is to say, he never had been
ill, until this day of their sudden incognito arrival in London for a brief
sojourn. He could hardly have chosen a more inconvenient moment; for
in London of all places, in that inherited house in Selwood Terrace
which he so seldom used, Priam Farll could not carry on daily life
without him. It really was unpleasant and disturbing in the highest
degree, this illness of Leek's. The fellow had apparently caught cold on
the night-boat. He had fought the approaches of insidious disease for
several hours, going forth to make purchases and incidentally
consulting a doctor; and then, without warning, in the very act of
making up Farll's couch, he had abandoned the struggle, and, since his
own bed was not ready, he had taken to his master's. He always did the
natural thing naturally. And Farll had been forced to help him to
undress!
From this point onwards Priam Farll, opulent though he was and
illustrious, had sunk to a tragic impotence. He could do nothing for
himself; and he could do nothing for Leek, because Leek refused both
brandy and sandwiches, and the larder consisted solely of brandy and

sandwiches. The man lay upstairs there, comatose, still, silent, waiting
for the doctor who had promised to pay an evening visit. And the
summer day had darkened into the summer night.
The notion of issuing out into the world and personally obtaining food
for himself or aid for Leek, did genuinely seem to Priam Farll an
impossible notion; he had never done such things. For him a shop was
an impregnable fort garrisoned by ogres. Besides, it would have been
necessary to 'ask,' and 'asking' was the torture of tortures. So he had
wandered, solicitous and helpless, up and down the stairs, until at
length Leek, ceasing to be a valet and deteriorating into a mere human
organism, had feebly yet curtly requested to be just let alone, asserting
that he was right enough. Whereupon the envied of all painters, the
symbol of artistic glory and triumph, had assumed the valet's notorious
puce dressing-gown and established himself in a hard chair for a night
of discomfort.
The bell rang once more, and there was a sharp impressive knock that
reverberated through the forlorn house in a most portentous and
terrifying manner. It might have been death knocking. It engendered
the horrible suspicion, "Suppose he's seriously ill?" Priam Farll sprang
up nervously, braced to meet ringers and knockers.
Cure for Shyness
On the other side of the door, dressed in frock coat and silk hat, there
stood hesitating a tall, thin, weary man who had been afoot for exactly
twenty hours, in pursuit of his usual business of curing imaginary
ailments by means of medicine and suggestion, and leaving real
ailments to nature aided by coloured water. His attitude towards the
medical profession was