Chapter 2

William returned to the dining-room, and I had to show him that if he did not cease looking gratefully at me I must change my waiter. I also ordered him to stop telling me nightly how his wife was, but I continued to know, as I could not help seeing the girl Jenny from the window. Twice in a week I learned from this objectionable child that the ailing woman had again eaten all the tapioca. Then I became suspicious of William. I will tell why.

It began with a remark of Captain Upjohn’s. We had been speaking of the inconvenience of not being able to get a hot dish served after 1 A.M., and he said:

“It is because these lazy waiters would strike. If the beggars had a love of their work they would not rush away from the club the moment one o’clock strikes. That glum fellow who often waits on you takes to his heels the moment he is clear of the club steps. He ran into me the other night at the top of the street, and was off without apologising.”

“You mean the foot of the street, Upjohn,” I said; for such is the way to Drury Lane.

“No; I mean the top. The man was running west.”

“East.”

“West.”

I smiled, which so annoyed him that he bet me two to one in sovereigns. The bet could have been decided most quickly by asking William a question, but I thought, foolishly doubtless, that it might hurt his feelings, so I watched him leave the club. The possibility of Upjohn’s winning the bet had seemed remote to me. Conceive my surprise, therefore when William went westward.

Amazed, I pursued him along two streets without realising that I was doing so. Then curiosity put me into a hansom. We followed William, and it proved to be a three-shilling fare, for, running when he was in breath and walking when he was out of it, he took me to West Kensington.

I discharged my cab, and from across the street watched William’s incomprehensible behaviour. He had stopped at a dingy row of workmen’s houses, and knocked at the darkened window of one of them. Presently a light showed. So far as I could see, some one pulled up the blind and for ten minutes talked to William. I was uncertain whether they talked, for the window was not opened, and I felt that, had William spoken through the glass loud enough to be heard inside, I must have heard him too. Yet he nodded and beckoned. I was still bewildered when, by setting off the way he had come, he gave me the opportunity of going home.

Knowing from the talk of the club what the lower orders are, could I doubt that this was some discreditable love-affair of William’s? His solicitude for his wife had been mere pretence; so far as it was genuine, it meant that he feared she might recover. He probably told her that he was detained nightly in the club till three.

I was miserable next day, and blamed the deviled kidneys for it. Whether William was unfaithful to his wife was nothing to me, but I had two plain reasons for insisting on his going straight home from his club: the one that, as he had made me lose a bet, I must punish him; the other that he could wait upon me better if he went to bed betimes.

Yet I did not question him. There was something in his face that--Well, I seemed to see his dying wife in it.

I was so out of sorts that I could eat no dinner. I left the club. Happening to stand for some time at the foot of the street, I chanced to see the girl Jenny coming, and--No; let me tell the truth, though the whole club reads: I was waiting for her.

“How is William’s wife to-day?” I asked.

“She told me to nod three times,” the little slattern replied; “but she looked like nothink but a dead one till she got the brandy.

“Hush, child!” I said, shocked. “You don’t know how the dead look.”

“Bless yer,” she answered, “don’t I just! Why, I’ve helped to lay ‘em out. I’m going on seven.”

“Is William good to his wife?”

“Course he is. Ain’t she his missis?”

“Why should that make him good to her?” I asked, cynically, out of my knowledge of the poor. But the girl, precocious in many ways, had never had any opportunities of studying the lower classes in the newspapers, fiction, and club talk. She shut one eye, and, looking up wonderingly, said:

“Ain’t you green--just!”

“When does William reach home at night?”

“‘Tain’t night; it’s morning. When I wakes up at half dark and half light, and hears a door shutting, I know as it’s either father going off to his work or Mr. Hicking come home from his.”

“Who is Mr. Hicking?”

“Him as we’ve been speaking on--William. We calls him mister, ‘cause he’s a toff. Father’s just doing jobs in Covent Gardens, but Mr. Hicking, he’s a waiter, and a clean shirt every day. The old woman would like father to be a waiter, but he hain’t got the ‘ristocratic look.”

“What old woman?”

“Go ‘long! that’s my mother. Is it true there’s a waiter in the club just for to open the door?”

“Yes; but--”

“And another just for to lick the stamps? My!”

“William leaves the club at one o’clock?” I said, interrogatively.

She nodded. “My mother,” she said, “is one to talk, and she says Mr. Hicking as he should get away at twelve, ‘cause his missis needs him more’n the gentlemen need him. The old woman do talk.”

“And what does William answer to that?”

“He says as the gentlemen can’t be kept waiting for their cheese.”

“But William does not go straight home when he leaves the club?”

“That’s the kid.”

“Kid!” I echoed, scarcely understanding, for, knowing how little the poor love their children, I had asked William no questions about the baby.

“Didn’t you know his missis had a kid?”

“Yes; but that is no excuse for William’s staying away from his sick wife,” I answered, sharply. A baby in such a home as William’s, I reflected, must be trying; but still--Besides, his class can sleep through any din.

“The kid ain’t in our court,” the girl explained. “He’s in W., he is, and I’ve never been out of W.C.; leastwise, not as I knows on.”

“This is W. I suppose you mean that the child is at West Kensington? Well, no doubt it was better for William’s wife to get rid of the child--”

“Better!” interposed the girl. “‘Tain’t better for her not to have the kid. Ain’t her not having him what she’s always thinking on when she looks like a dead one?”

“How could you know that?”

“Cause,” answered the girl, illustrating her words with a gesture, “I watches her, and I sees her arms going this way, just like as she wanted to hug her kid.”

“Possibly you are right,” I said, frowning; “but William had put the child out to nurse because it disturbed his night’s rest. A man who has his work to do--”

“You are green!”

“Then why have the mother and child been separated?”

“Along of that there measles. Near all the young ‘uns in our court has ‘em bad.”

“Have you had them?”

“I said the young ‘uns.”

“And William sent the baby to West Kensington to escape infection?”

“Took him, he did.”

“Against his wife’s wishes?”

“Na-o!”

“You said she was dying for want of the child?”

“Wouldn’t she rayther die than have the kid die?”

“Don’t speak so heartlessly, child. Why does William not go straight home from the club? Does he go to West Kensington to see it?”

“‘Tain’t a hit, it’s an ‘e. Course he do.”

“Then he should not. His wife has the first claim on him.”

“Ain’t you green! It’s his missis as wants him to go. Do you think she could sleep till she knowed how the kid was?”

“But he does not go into the house at West Kensington?”

“Is he soft? Course he don’t go in, fear of taking the infection to the kid. They just holds the kid up at the window to him, so as he can have a good look. Then he comes home and tells his missis. He sits foot of the bed and tells.”

“And that takes place every night? He can’t have much to tell.”

“He has just.”

“He can only say whether the child is well or ill.”

“My! He tells what a difference there is in the kid since he seed him last.”

“There can be no difference!”

“Go ‘long! Ain’t a kid always growing? Haven’t Mr. Hicking to tell how the hair is getting darker, and heaps of things beside?”

“Such as what?”

“Like whether he larfed, and if he has her nose, and how as he knowed him. He tells her them things more ‘n once.”

“And all this time he is sitting at the foot of the bed?”

“‘Cept when he holds her hand.”

“But when does he get to bed himself?”

“He don’t get much. He tells her as he has a sleep at the club.”

“He cannot say that.”

“Hain’t I heard him? But he do go to his bed a bit, and then they both lies quiet, her pretending she is sleeping so as he can sleep, and him ‘feard to sleep case he shouldn’t wake up to give her the bottle stuff.”

“What does the doctor say about her?”

“He’s a good one, the doctor. Sometimes he says she would get better if she could see the kid through the window.”

“Nonsense!”

“And if she was took to the country.”

“Then why does not William take her?”

“My! you are green! And if she drank port wines.”

“Doesn’t she?”

“No; but William, he tells her about the gentlemen drinking them.”

On the tenth day after my conversation with this unattractive child I was in my brougham, with the windows up, and I sat back, a paper before my face lest any one should look in. Naturally, I was afraid of being seen in company of William’s wife and Jenny, for men about town are uncharitable, and, despite the explanation I had ready, might have charged me with pitying William. As a matter of fact, William was sending his wife into Surrey to stay with an old nurse of mine, and I was driving her down because my horses needed an outing. Besides, I was going that way at any rate.

I had arranged that the girl Jenny, who was wearing an outrageous bonnet, should accompany us, because, knowing the greed of her class, I feared she might blackmail me at the club.

William joined us in the suburbs, bringing the baby with him, as I had foreseen they would all be occupied with it, and to save me the trouble of conversing with them. Mrs. Hicking I found too pale and fragile for a workingman’s wife, and I formed a mean opinion of her intelligence from her pride in the baby, which was a very ordinary one. She created quite a vulgar scene when it was brought to her, though she had given me her word not to do so, what irritated me even more than her tears being her ill-bred apology that she “had been ‘feared baby wouldn’t know her again.” I would have told her they didn’t know any one for years had I not been afraid of the girl Jenny, who dandled the infant on her knees and talked to it as if it understood. She kept me on tenter-hooks by asking it offensive questions, such as, “‘Oo know who give me that bonnet?” and answering them herself, “It was the pretty gentleman there;” and several times I had to affect sleep because she announced, “Kiddy wants to kiss the pretty gentleman.”

Irksome as all this necessarily was to a man of taste, I suffered even more when we reached our destination. As we drove through the village the girl Jenny uttered shrieks of delight at the sight of flowers growing up the cottage walls, and declared they were “just like a music-’all without the drink license.” As my horses required a rest, I was forced to abandon my intention of dropping these persons at their lodgings and returning to town at once, and I could not go to the inn lest I should meet inquisitive acquaintances. Disagreeable circumstances, therefore, compelled me to take tea with a waiter’s family--close to a window too, through which I could see the girl Jenny talking excitedly to the villagers, and telling them, I felt certain, that I had been good to William. I had a desire to go out and put myself right with those people.

William’s long connection with the club should have given him some manners, but apparently his class cannot take them on, for, though he knew I regarded his thanks as an insult, he looked them when he was not speaking them, and hardly had he sat down, by my orders, than he remembered that I was a member of the club, and jumped up. Nothing is in worse form than whispering, yet again and again, when he thought I was not listening, he whispered to Mrs. Hicking, “You don’t feel faint?” or “How are you now?” He was also in extravagant glee because she ate two cakes (it takes so little to put these people in good spirits), and when she said she felt like another being already the fellow’s face charged me with the change. I could not but conclude, from the way Mrs. Hicking let the baby pound her, that she was stronger than she had pretended.

I remained longer than was necessary, because I had something to say to William which I knew he would misunderstand, and so I put off saying it. But when he announced that it was time for him to return to London,--at which his wife suddenly paled, so that he had to sign to her not to break down,--I delivered the message.

“William,” I said, “the head waiter asked me to say that you could take a fortnight’s holiday just now. Your wages will be paid as usual.”

Confound them! William had me by the hand, and his wife was in tears before I could reach the door.

“Is it your doing again, sir?” William cried.

“William!” I said, fiercely.

“We owe everything to you,” he insisted. “The port wine--”

“Because I had no room for it in my cellar.”

“The money for the nurse in London--”

“Because I objected to being waited on by a man who got no sleep.”

“These lodgings--”

“Because I wanted to do something for my old nurse.”

“And now, sir, a fortnight’s holiday!”

“Good-bye, William!” I said, in a fury.

But before I could get away Mrs. Hicking signed to William to leave the room, and then she kissed my hand. She said something to me. It was about my wife. Somehow I--What business had William to tell her about my wife?

They are all back in Drury Lane now, and William tells me that his wife sings at her work just as she did eight years ago. I have no interest in this, and try to check his talk of it; but such people have no sense of propriety, and he even speaks of the girl Jenny, who sent me lately a gaudy pair of worsted gloves worked by her own hand. The meanest advantage they took of my weakness, however, was in calling their baby after me. I have an uncomfortable suspicion, too, that William has given the other waiters his version of the affair; but I feel safe so long as it does not reach the committee.

THE BLACK POODLE, By F. Anstey

I have set myself the task of relating in the course of this story, without suppressing or altering a single detail, the most painful and humiliating episode of my life.

I do this, not because it will give me the least pleasure, but simply because it affords me an opportunity of extenuating myself, which has hitherto been wholly denied to me.

As a general rule, I am quite aware that to publish a lengthy explanation of one’s conduct in any questionable transaction is not the best means of recovering a lost reputation; but in my own case there is one to whom I shall nevermore be permitted to justify by word of mouth--even if I found myself able to attempt it. And as she could not possibly think worse of me than she does at present, I write this, knowing it can do me no harm, and faintly hoping that it may come to her notice and suggest a doubt whether I am quite so unscrupulous a villain, so consummate a hypocrite, as I have been forced to appear in her eyes.

The bare chance of such a result makes me perfectly indifferent to all else; I cheerfully expose to the derision of the whole reading world the story of my weakness and my shame, since by doing so I may possibly rehabilitate myself somewhat in the good opinion of one person.

Having said so much, I will begin my confession without further delay.

My name is Algernon Weatherhead, and I may add that I am in one of the government departments, that I am an only son, and live at home with my mother.

We had had a house at Hammersmith until just before the period covered by this history, when, our lease expiring, my mother decided that my health required country air at the close of the day, and so we took a “desirable villa residence” on one of the many new building estates which have lately sprung up in such profusion in the home counties.

We have called it “Wistaria Villa.” It is a pretty little place, the last of a row of detached villas, each with its tiny rustic carriage-gate and gravel sweep in front, and lawn enough for a tennis-court behind, which lines the road leading over the hill to the railway-station.

I could certainly have wished that our landlord, shortly after giving us the agreement, could have found some other place to hang himself in than one of our attics, for the consequence was that a housemaid left us in violent hysterics about every two months, having learned the tragedy from the tradespeople, and naturally “seen a somethink” immediately afterward.

Still it is a pleasant house, and I can now almost forgive the landlord for what I shall always consider an act of gross selfishness on his part.

In the country, even so near town, a next-door neighbor is something more than a mere numeral; he is a possible acquaintance, who will at least consider a new-comer as worth the experiment of a call. I soon knew that “Shuturgarden,” the next house to our own, was occupied by a Colonel Currie, a retired Indian officer; and often, as across the low boundary wall I caught a glimpse of a graceful girlish figure flitting about among the rose-bushes in the neighbouring garden, I would lose myself in pleasant anticipations of a time not too far distant when the wall which separated us would be (metaphorically) levelled.

I remember--ah, how vividly!--the thrill of excitement with which I heard from my mother, on returning from town one evening, that the Curries had called, and seemed disposed to be all that was neighbourly and kind.

I remember, too, the Sunday afternoon on which I returned their call--alone, as my mother had already done so during the week. I was standing on the steps of the colonel’s villa, waiting for the door to open, when I was startled by a furious snarling and yapping behind, and, looking round, discovered a large poodle in the act of making for my legs.

He was a coal-black poodle, with half of his right ear gone, and absurd little thick moustaches at the end of his nose; he was shaved in the shamlion fashion, which is considered, for some mysterious reason, to improve a poodle, but the barber had left sundry little tufts of hair, which studded his haunches capriciously.

I could not help being reminded, as I looked at him, of another black poodle, which Faust entertained for a short time with unhappy results, and I thought that a very moderate degree of incantation would be enough to bring the fiend out of this brute.

He made me intensely uncomfortable, for I am of a slightly nervous temperament, with a constitutional horror of dogs, and a liability to attacks of diffidence on performing the ordinary social rites under the most favourable conditions, and certainly the consciousness that a strange and apparently savage dog was engaged in worrying the heels of my boots was the reverse of reassuring.

The Currie family received me with all possible kindness. “So charmed to make your acquaintance, Mr. Weatherhead,” said Mrs. Currie, as I shook hands. “I see,” she added, pleasantly, “you’ve brought the doggie in with you.” As a matter of fact, I had brought the doggie in at the ends of my coat-tails; but it was evidently no unusual occurrence for visitors to appear in this undignified manner, for she detached him quite as a matter of course, and as soon as I was sufficiently collected we fell into conversation.

I discovered that the colonel and his wife were childless, and the slender willowy figure I had seen across the garden wall was that of Lilian Roseblade, their niece and adopted daughter. She came into the room shortly afterward, and I felt, as I went through the form of an introduction, that her sweet, fresh face, shaded by soft masses of dusky-brown hair, more than justified all the dreamy hopes and fancies with which I had looked forward to that moment.

She talked to me in a pretty, confidential, appealing way, which I have heard her dearest friends censure as childish and affected; but I thought then that her manner had an indescribable charm and fascination about it, and the memory of it makes my heart ache now with a pang that is not all pain.

Even before the colonel made his appearance I had begun to see that my enemy, the poodle, occupied an exceptional position in that household. It was abundantly clear by the time I took my leave.

He seemed to be the centre of their domestic system, and even lovely Lilian revolved contentedly around him as a kind of satellite; he could do no wrong in his owner’s eyes, his prejudices (and he was a narrow-minded animal) were rigorously respected, and all domestic arrangements were made with a primary view to his convenience.

I may be wrong, but I cannot think that it is wise to put any poodle upon such a pedestal as that. How this one in particular, as ordinary a quadruped as ever breathed, had contrived to impose thus upon his infatuated proprietors, I never could understand, but so it was; he even engrossed the chief part of the conversation, which after any lull seemed to veer round to him by a sort of natural law.

I had to endure a long biographical sketch of him,--what a society paper would call an “anecdotal photo,”--and each fresh anecdote seemed to me to exhibit the depraved malignity of the beast in a more glaring light, and render the doting admiration of the family more astounding than ever.

“Did you tell Mr. Weatherhead, Lily, about Bingo” (Bingo was the poodle’s preposterous name) “and Tacks? No? Oh, I _must_ tell him that; it’ll make him laugh. Tacks is our gardener down in the village (d’ ye know Tacks?). Well, Tacks was up here the other day, nailing up some trellis-work at the top of a ladder, and all the time there was Master Bingo sitting quietly at the foot of it looking on; wouldn’t leave it on any account. Tacks said he was quite company for him. Well, at last, when Tacks had finished and was coming down, what do you thing that rascal there did? Just sneaked quietly up behind and nipped him in both calves and ran off. Been looking out for that the whole time! Ha, ha!--deep that, eh?”

I agreed, with an inward shudder, that it was very deep, thinking privately that, if this was a specimen of Bingo’s usual treatment of the natives, it would be odd if he did not find himself deeper still before--probably _just_ before--he died.

“Poor, faithful old doggie!” murmured Mrs. Currie; “he thought Tacks was a nasty burglar, didn’t he? He wasn’t going to see master robbed was he?”

“Capital house-dog, sir,” struck in the colonel. “Gad, I shall never forget how he made poor Heavisides run for it the other day! Ever met Heavisides of the Bombay Fusileers? Well, Heavisides was staying here, and the dog met him one morning as he was coming down from the bath-room. Didn’t recognise him in ‘pajamas’ and a dressing-gown, of course, and made at him. He kept poor old Heavisides outside the landing window on top of the cistern for a quarter of an hour, till I had to come and raise the siege!”

Such were the stories of that abandoned dog’s blunderheaded ferocity to which I was forced to listen, while all the time the brute sat opposite me on the hearth-rug, blinking at me from under his shaggy mane with his evil, bleared eyes, and deliberating where he would have me when I rose to go.

This was the beginning of an intimacy which soon displaced all ceremony. It was very pleasant to go in there after dinner, even to sit with the colonel over his claret, and hear more stories about Bingo; for afterward I could go into the pretty drawing-room and take my tea from Lilian’s hands, and listen while she played Schubert to us in the summer twilight.