The stranger came early in February one winter's day, through a freezing wind and a heavy snow, the last snowfall of the year, walking, it seemed, from Bramblehurst railway station and carrying a little black bag in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the edge of his soft hat hid every inch of his face except the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white peak to the bag he carried. He came exhausted into the Coach and Horses, more dead than alive, and threw his bag down. "A fire," he shouted, "in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!" He shook the snow off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall into her office. And with that much introduction, that and a complete agreement to terms and a couple of gold coins thrown on the table, he took up his rooms 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 at Iping in the winter-time was an extraordinary piece of luck, especially a guest who didn't argue over conditions, and she was determined to show herself worthy of her good fortune. As soon as the bacon was frying, and Millie, her helper, had been hurried up a bit by a few cleverly chosen insults, she carried the cloth, plates, and glasses into the room and began to lay them with the greatest care. Although the fire was burning vigorously, she was surprised to see that her visitor was still wearing 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 held behind him, and he seemed to be lost in thought. She noticed that the melted snow that still covered his shoulders was dripping on 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 glasses and had a thick collar that completely hid his 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 attempts at conversation were inopportune, laid the rest of the table things quickly and rushed out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there like a man of stone, his back bent, his collar turned up, his dripping hat 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 move until she was closing the door. Then he turned round and went to the table.
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 going rapidly round a mixing-bowl. "That girl!" she said. "I completely forgot it. It's her taking so long!" And while she finished mixing the mustard, she reprimanded Millie 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 he was a new guest and wanted to stay! Then she filled the mustard pot, and, putting it with a certain grandeur upon a gold and black tray, carried it into the room.
She knocked and entered without delay. As she did so her visitor moved quickly, so that she got only a quick look of a white object disappearing behind the table. It would seem he was picking something up from the floor. She put 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. A pair of wet boots stood by the fireplace. "I suppose I may have them to dry now," she said in a voice that allowed no disagreement.
"Leave the hat," said her visitor in a barely audible voice, and turning she saw he had raised his head and was sitting looking at her.
For a moment she stood looking at him with her mouth wide open, 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 for his barely audible voice. But it was not that which surprised 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 bit of his face exposed except for his pink, pointed 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 collar turned up around his neck. The thick black hair, escaping below and between the bandages, came out in curious tails and horns, giving him the strangest appearance imaginable. This bandaged head was so unlike what she had anticipated, that for a moment she was rigid.
He did not remove the serviette, but remained holding it, as she saw now, with a brown gloved hand, and looking at her with his impenetrable blue glasses. "Leave the hat," he said, speaking very clearly through the white cloth.
Her nerves began to recover from the shock they had received. She placed the hat on the chair again by the fire. "I didn't know, sir," she began, "that - " and she stopped embarrassed.
"Thank you," he said dryly, looking from her to the door and then at her again.
"I'll have them nicely dried, sir, at once," she said, and carried his clothes out of the room. She looked quickly at his white-bandaged head and blue glasses again as she was going out of the door; but his serviette was still in front of his face. She shivered a little as she closed the door behind her, and her face was expressive of her surprise and perplexity. "I never," she whispered. "There!" She went quite softly to the kitchen, and was too preoccupied to ask Millie what she was doing now, when she got there.
The visitor sat and listened to her disappearing foot-steps. He glanced at the window before he removed his serviette and resumed his meal. He took a mouthful, glanced suspiciously at the window, took another mouthful, then got up and, taking the serviette in his hand, walked across the room and pulled the blind down. This left the room in semi-darkness. This done, he returned with a more relaxed air to the table and his meal.
"The poor thing's had an accident or an operation or something," said Mrs. Hall. "What a shock those bandages did give me!"
She put on some more coal and hung the traveller's coat up to dry. "And those glasses! Why, he looked more like a diving helmet than a human man!" She hung his scarf up. "And holding that handkerchief over his mouth all the time. Talking through it!...Perhaps his mouth was hurt too - maybe."
She turned round, suddenly remembering. "Bless my soul!" she said, "haven't you done those potatoes yet, Millie?"
When Mrs. Hall went to clear away the stranger's lunch, her idea that his mouth must also have been cut or disfigured in the accident she imagined he had suffered, was confirmed. He was smoking a pipe, and all the time that she was in the room he never loosened the silk scarf he had round the lower part of his face to put the pipe to his lips. However it wasn't that he had forgotten, because she saw he glanced at it as it burnt out. He sat in the corner with his back to the window and spoke now, having eaten and drunk and being comfortably warmed through, with less aggressive brevity than before. The reflection of the fire gave a kind of red animation to his big glasses.
"I have some luggage," he said, "at Bramblehurst station," and he asked her how he could have it sent. He bowed his bandaged head quite politely in answer to her explanation. "Tomorrow!" he said. "There is no faster delivery?" and seemed quite disappointed when she answered "No." Was she quite sure? No man with a cart who would go over?
Mrs. Hall answered his questions and developed a conversation. "It's a steep road, sir," she said in answer to the question about a cart; and then, taking advantage of an opening said, "A carriage turned over there, more than a year ago. A gentleman killed, his coachman too. Accidents, sir, happen in a moment, don't they?"
But the visitor wasn't going to open up so easily. "They do," he said through his scarf, looking at her quietly through his impenetrable glasses.
"But they take a long time to get well, sir, don't they? ... My sister's son, Tom, cut his arm with a scythe, fell on it in the field, and he spent three months tied up, sir. You wouldn't believe it. It's given me a fear of scythes, sir."
"I can quite understand that," said the visitor.
"He was worried that he'd have to have an operation - he was that bad, sir."
The visitor laughed abruptly, a sharp laugh that he seemed to bite and kill in his mouth. "Was he?" he said.
"He was, sir. And it wasn't funny for those who had to look after him, as I had to - my sister has to spend most of her time looking after her little ones. There were bandages to do, sir, and bandages to undo. So that if I may say so, sir - "
"Will you get me some matches?" said the visitor, quite abruptly. "My pipe is out."
Mrs. Hall was stopped suddenly. It was certainly rude of him, after telling him all she had done. She stood with her mouth open for a moment, and remembered the two gold coins. She went for the matches.
"Thanks," he said concisely, as she put them down, and turned his shoulder upon her and stared out of the window again. Evidently he was sensitive on the topic of operations and bandages. She did not "say so," however, after all. But the way he had interrupted had irritated her, and Millie had a bad time of it that afternoon.
The visitor remained in the room until four o'clock, without giving the slightest excuse for an intrusion. For the most part he was quite still during that time; it would seem he sat in the growing darkness smoking in the firelight, perhaps sleeping.
Once or twice a curious listener might have heard him at the coals, and for the space of five minutes he was audible walking up and down the the room. He seemed to be talking to himself. Then the armchair creaked as he sat down again.