"Well, let"s have a look at it." Edward Henry attempted jollity.
"Mother"s wrapped it all up in boracic wool."
The bed-clothes were drawn down and the leg gradually revealed. And the sight of the little soft leg, so fragile and defenceless, really did touch Edward Henry. It made him feel more like an authentic father than he had felt for a long time. And the sight of the red wound hurt him.
Still, it was a beautifully clean wound, and it was not a large wound.
"It"s a clean wound," he observed judiciously. In spite of himself, he could not keep a certain flippant harsh quality out of his tone.
"Well, I"ve naturally washed it with carbolic," Nellie returned sharply.
He illogically resented this sharpness.
"Of course he was bitten through his stocking?"
"Of course," said Nellie, re-enveloping the wound hastily, as though Edward Henry was not worthy to regard it.
"Well, then, by the time they got through the stocking, the animal"s teeth couldn"t be dirty. Every one knows that."
Nellie shut her lips.
"Were you teasing Carlo?" Edward Henry demanded curtly of his son.
"I don"t know."
Whenever anybody asked that child for a piece of information, he almost invariably replied, "I don"t know."
"How, you don"t know? You must know whether you were teasing the dog or not!" Edward Henry was nettled.
The renewed spectacle of his own wound had predisposed Robert to feel a great and tearful sympathy for himself. His mouth now began to take strange shapes and to increase magically in area, and beads appeared in the corners of his large eyes.
"I--I was only measuring his tail by his hind leg," he blubbered, and then sobbed.
Edward Henry did his best to save his dignity.
"Come, come!" he reasoned, less menacingly. "Boys who can read enyclopedias mustn"t be cry-babies. You"d no business measuring Carlo"s tail by his hind leg. You ought to remember that that dog"s older than you." And this remark, too, he thought rather funny, but apparently he was alone in his opinion.
Then he felt something against his calf. And it was Carlo"s nose.
Carlo was a large, very s.h.a.ggy and unkempt Northern terrier, but owing to vagueness of his princ.i.p.al points, due doubtless to a vagueness in his immediate ancestry, it was impossible to decide whether he had come from the north or the south side of the Tweed. This aging friend of Edward Henry"s, surmising that something unusual was afoot in his house, and having entirely forgotten the trifling episode of the bite, had un.o.btrusively come to make enquiries.
"Poor old boy!" said Edward Henry, stooping to pat the dog. "Did they try to measure his tail with his hind leg?"
The gesture was partly instinctive, for he loved Carlo; but it also had its origin in sheer nervousness, in sheer ignorance of what was the best thing to do. However, he was at once aware that he had done the worst thing. Had not Nellie announced that the dog must be got rid of? And here he was fondly caressing the bloodthirsty dog! With a hysterical movement of the lower part of her leg, Nellie pushed violently against the dog,--she did not kick, but she nearly kicked,--and Carlo, faintly howling a protest, fled.
Edward Henry was hurt. He escaped from between the beds, and from that close, enervating domestic atmosphere where he was misunderstood by women and disdained by infants. He wanted fresh air; he wanted bars, whiskies, billiard-rooms, and the society of masculine men about town.
The whole of his own world was against him.
As he pa.s.sed by his knitting mother, she ignored him and moved not. She had a great gift of holding aloof from conjugal complications.
On the landing he decided that he would go out at once into the major world. Half-way down the stairs he saw his overcoat on the hall-stand, beckoning to him and offering release.
Then he heard the bedroom door and his wife"s footsteps.
"Edward Henry!"
"Well?"
He stopped and looked up inimically at her face, which overhung the banisters. It was the face of a woman outraged in her most profound feelings, but amazingly determined to be sweet.
"What do you think of it?"
"What do I think of what? The wound?"
"Yes."
"Why, it"s simply nothing. Nothing at all. You know how that kid always heals up quickly. You won"t be able to find the wound in a day or two."
"Don"t you think it ought to be cauterised at once?"
He moved downwards.
"No, I don"t. I"ve been bitten three times in my life by dogs, and I was never cauterised."
"Well, I _do_ think it ought to be cauterised." She raised her voice slightly as he retreated from her. "And I shall be glad if you"ll call in at Dr. Stirling"s and ask him to come round."
He made no reply, but put on his overcoat and his hat, and took his stick. Glancing up the stairs, he saw Nellie was now standing at the head of them, under the electric light there, and watching him. He knew that she thought he was cravenly obeying her command. She could have no idea that before she spoke to him he had already decided to put on his overcoat and hat and take his stick and go forth into the major world.
However, that was no affair of his.
He hesitated a second. Then the nurse appeared out of the kitchen with a squalling Maisie in her arms, and ran up-stairs. Why Maisie was squalling, and why she should have been in the kitchen at such an hour instead of in bed, he could not guess; but he could guess that if he remained one second longer in that exasperating minor world he would begin to smash furniture, and so he quitted it.
V.
It was raining slightly, but he dared not return to the house for his umbrella. In the haze and wet of the shivering October night, the clock of Bleakridge Church glowed like a fiery disk suspended in the sky; and, mysteriously hanging there, without visible means of support, it seemed to him somehow to symbolise the enigma of the universe and intensify his inward gloom. Never before had he had such feelings to such a degree.
It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that never before had the enigma of the universe occurred to him. The side gates clicked as he stood hesitant under the shelter of the wall, and a figure emerged from his domain. It was Bellfield, the new chauffeur, going across to his home in the little square in front of the church. Bellfield touched his cap with an eager and willing hand, as new chauffeurs will.
"Want the car, sir? Setting in for a wet night!"
"No, thanks."
It was a lie. He did want the car. He wanted the car so that he might ride right away into a new and more interesting world, or at any rate into Hanbridge, centre of the pleasures, the wickedness, and the commerce of the Five Towns. But he dared not have the car. He dared not have his own car. He must slip off, noiseless and una.s.suming. Even to go to Dr. Stirling"s he dared not have the car. Besides, he could have walked down the hill to Dr. Stirling"s in three minutes. Not that he had the least intention of going to Dr. Stirling"s. No! His wife imagined that he was going; but she was mistaken. Within an hour, when Dr. Stirling had failed to arrive, she would doubtless telephone, and get her Dr. Stirling. Not, however, with Edward Henry"s a.s.sistance!
He reviewed his conduct throughout the evening. In what particular had it been sinful? In no particular. True, the accident to the boy was a misfortune, but had he not borne that misfortune lightly, minimised it, and endeavoured to teach others to bear it lightly? His blithe humour ought surely to have been an example to Nellie! And as for the episode of the funeral march on the "Pianisto," really, really, the tiresome little thing ought to have better appreciated his whimsical drollery!
But Nellie was altered; he was altered; everything was altered. He remembered the ecstasy of their excursion to Switzerland. He remembered the rapture with which, on their honeymoon, he had clasped a new opal bracelet on her exciting arm. He could not possibly have such sensations now. What was the meaning of life? Was life worth living? The fact was, he was growing old. Useless to pretend to himself that it was not so. Both he and she were growing old. Only, she seemed to be placidly content, and he was not content. And more and more the domestic atmosphere and the atmosphere of the district fretted and even annoyed him. To-night"s affair was not unique, but it was a culmination. He gazed pessimistically north and south along the slimy expanse of Trafalgar Road, which sank northwards in the direction of Dr.
Stirling"s, and southwards in the direction of joyous Hanbridge. He loathed and despised Trafalgar Road. What was the use of making three hundred and forty-one pounds by a shrewd speculation? None. He could not employ three hundred and forty-one pounds to increase his happiness.
Money had become futile for him. Astounding thought! He desired no more of it. He had a considerable income from investments, and also at least four thousand a year from the Five Towns Universal Thrift Club, that wonderful but unpretentious organisation which now embraced every corner of the Five Towns; that gorgeous invention for profitably taking care of the pennies of the working cla.s.ses; that excellent device, his own, for selling the working cla.s.ses every kind of goods at credit prices after having received part of the money in advance!