Where the Blue Begins, Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was after dinner, an April evening, and Gissing slipped away from thehouse for a stroll. He was afraid to stay in, because he knew that if hedid, Fuji would ask him again to fix the dishcloth rack in the kitchen.Fuji was very short in stature, and could not reach up to the placewhere the rack was screwed over the sink. Like all people whose mindsare very active, Gissing hated to attend to little details like this. Itwas a weakness in his character. Fuji had asked him six times to fix therack, but Gissing always pretended to forget about it. To appease hismethodical butler he had written on a piece of paper FIX DISHCLOTH RACKand pinned it on his dressing-table pincushion; but he paid no attentionto the memorandum.

  He went out into a green April dusk. Down by the pond piped thoserepeated treble whistlings: they still distressed him with a mysteriousunriddled summons, but Mike Terrier had told him that the secret ofrespectability is to ignore whatever you don't understand. Carefulobservation of this maxim had somewhat dulled the cry of that shrillqueer music. It now caused only a faint pain in his mind. Still, hewalked that way because the little meadow by the pond was agreeably softunderfoot. Also, when he walked close beside the water the voices weresilent. That is worth noting, he said to himself. If you go directly atthe heart of a mystery, it ceases to be a mystery, and becomes only aquestion of drainage. (Mr. Poodle had told him that if he had the pondand swamp drained, the frog-song would not annoy him.) But to-night,when the keen chirruping ceased, there was still another sound that didnot cease--a faint, appealing cry. It caused a prickling on his shoulderblades, it made him both angry and tender. He pushed through the bushes.In a little hollow were three small puppies, whining faintly. They werecold and draggled with mud. Someone had left them there, evidently,to perish. They were huddled close together; their eyes, a cloudyunspeculative blue, were only just opened. "This is gruesome," saidGissing, pretending to be shocked. "Dear me, innocent pledges of sin, Idare say. Well, there is only one thing to do."

  He picked them up carefully and carried them home.

  "Quick, Fuji!" he said. "Warm some milk, some of the Grade A, and put alittle brandy in it. I'll get the spare-room bed ready."

  He rushed upstairs, wrapped the puppies in a blanket, and turned on theelectric heater to take the chill from the spare-room. The little padsof their paws were ice-cold, and he filled the hot water bottle and heldit carefully to their twelve feet. Their pink stomachs throbbed, and atfirst he feared they were dying. "They must not die!" he said fiercely."If they did, it would be a matter for the police, and no end oftrouble."

  Fuji came up with the milk, and looked very grave when he saw the muddyfootprints on the clean sheet.

  "Now, Fuji," said Gissing, "do you suppose they can lap, or will we haveto pour it down?"

  In spite of his superior manner, Fuji was a good fellow in an emergency.It was he who suggested the fountain-pen filler. They washed the inkout of it, and used it to drip the hot brandy-and-milk down the puppies'throats. Their noses, which had been icy, suddenly became very hot anddry. Gissing feared a fever and thought their temperatures should betaken.

  "The only thermometer we have," he said, "is the one on the porch, withthe mercury split in two. I don't suppose that would do. Have you aclinical thermometer, Fuji?"

  Fuji felt that his employer was making too much fuss over the matter.

  "No, sir," he said firmly. "They are quite all right. A good sleep willrevive them. They will be as fit as possible in the morning."

  Fuji went out into the garden to brush the mud from his neat whitejacket. His face was inscrutable. Gissing sat by the spare-room beduntil he was sure the puppies were sleeping correctly. He closed thedoor so that Fuji would not hear him humming a lullaby. Three Blind Micewas the only nursery song he could remember, and he sang it over andover again.

  When he tiptoed downstairs, Fuji had gone to bed. Gissing went into hisstudy, lit a pipe, and walked up and down, thinking. By and bye he wrotetwo letters. One was to a bookseller in the city, asking him to send (atonce) one copy of Dr. Holt's book on the Care and Feeding of Children,and a well-illustrated edition of Mother Goose. The other was to Mr.Poodle, asking him to fix a date for the christening of Mr. Gissing'sthree small nephews, who had come to live with him.

  "It is lucky they are all boys," said Gissing. "I would know nothingabout bringing up girls."

  "I suppose," he added after a while, "that I shall have to raise Fuji'swages."

  Then he went into the kitchen and fixed the dishcloth rack.

  Before going to bed that night he took his usual walk around the house.The sky was freckled with stars. It was generally his habit to make atour of his property toward midnight, to be sure everything was in goodorder. He always looked into the ice-box, and admired the cleanlinessof Fuji's arrangements. The milk bottles were properly capped with theirround cardboard tops; the cheese was never put on the same rack withthe butter; the doors of the ice-box were carefully latched. Suchobservations, and the slow twinkle of the fire in the range, deep downunder the curfew layer of coals, pleased him. In the cellar he peepedinto the garbage can, for it was always a satisfaction to assure himselfthat Fuji did not waste anything that could be used. One of the laundrytub taps was dripping, with a soft measured tinkle: he said to himselfthat he really must have it attended to. All these domestic mattersseemed more significant than ever when he thought of youthful innocencesleeping upstairs in the spare-room bed. His had been a selfish lifehitherto, he feared. These puppies were just what he needed to take himout of himself.

  Busy with these thoughts, he did not notice the ironical whistlingcoming from the pond. He tasted the night air with cheerfulsatisfaction. "At any rate, to-morrow will be a fine day," he said.

  The next day it rained. But Gissing was too busy to think about theweather. Every hour or so during the night he had gone into the spareroom to listen attentively to the breathing of the puppies, to pull theblanket over them, and feel their noses. It seemed to him that theywere perspiring a little, and he was worried lest they catch cold. Hismorning sleep (it had always been his comfortable habit to lie abed atrifle late) was interrupted about seven o'clock by a lively clamouracross the hall. The puppies were awake, perfectly restored, and whilethey were too young to make their wants intelligible, they plainlyexpected some attention. He gave them a pair of old slippers to playwith, and proceeded to his own toilet.

  As he was bathing them, after breakfast, he tried to enlist Fuji'senthusiasm. "Did you ever see such fat rascals?" he said. "I wonder ifwe ought to trim their tails? How pink their stomachs are, and how pinkand delightful between their toes! You hold these two while I drythe other. No, not that way! Hold them so you support their spines. Apuppy's back is very delicate: you can't be too careful. We'll have todo things in a rough-and-ready way until Dr. Holt's book comes. Afterthat we can be scientific."

  Fuji did not seem very keen. Presently, in spite of the rain, he wasdispatched to the village department store to choose three small cribsand a multitude of safety pins. "Plenty of safety pins is the idea,"said Gissing. "With enough safety pins handy, children are easy tomanage."

  As soon as the puppies were bestowed on the porch, in the sunshine, fortheir morning nap, he telephoned to the local paperhanger.

  "I want you" (he said) "to come up as soon as you can with some nicesamples of nursery wallpaper. A lively Mother Goose pattern would dovery well." He had already decided to change the spare room into anursery. He telephoned the carpenter to make a gate for the top of thestairs. He was so busy that he did not even have time to think of hispipe, or the morning paper. At last, just before lunch, he found abreathing space. He sat down in the study to rest his legs, and lookedfor the Times. It was not in its usual place on his reading table. Atthat moment the puppies woke up, and he ran out to attend them. He wouldhave been distressed if he had known that Fuji had the paper in thekitchen, and was studying the HELP WANTED columns.

  A great deal of interest was aroused in the neighbourhood by the arri
valof Gissing's nephews, as he called them. Several of the ladies, who hadignored him hitherto, called, in his absence, and left extra cards. Thisimplied (he supposed, though he was not closely versed in such nicetiesof society) that there was a Mrs. Gissing, and he was annoyed, for hefelt certain they knew he was a bachelor. But the children were a sourceof nothing but pride to him. They grew with astounding rapidity, atetheir food without coaxing, rarely cried at night, and gave him muchamusement by their naive ways. He was too occupied to be troubled withintrospection. Indeed, his well-ordered home was very different frombefore. The trim lawn, in spite of his zealous efforts, was constantlylittered with toys. In sheer mischief the youngsters got into hiswardrobe and chewed off the tails of his evening dress coat. But hefelt a satisfying dignity and happiness in his new status as head of afamily.

  What worried him most was the fear that Fuji would complain of thissudden addition to his duties. The butler's face was rather an enigma,particularly at meal times, when Gissing sat at the dinner tablesurrounded by the three puppies in their high chairs, with a spindriftof milk and prune-juice spattering generously as the youngsters pliedtheir spoons. Fuji had arranged a series of scuppers, made of oilcloth,underneath the chairs; but in spite of this the dining-room rug, after ameal, looked much as the desert place must have after the feeding ofthe multitude. Fuji, who was pensive, recalled the five loaves and twofishes that produced twelve baskets of fragments. The vacuum cleaner gotclogged by a surfeit of crumbs.

  Gissing saw that it would be a race between heart and head. If Fuji'sheart should become entangled (that is, if the innocent charms of thechildren should engage his affections before his reason convinced himthat the situation was now too arduous), there was some hope. He triedto ease the problem also by mental suggestion. "It is really remarkable"(he said to Fuji) "that children should give one so little trouble."As he made this remark, he was speeding hotly to and fro between thebathroom and the nursery, trying to get one tucked in bed and anotherundressed, while the third was lashing the tub into soapy foam. Fujimade his habitual response, "Very good, sir." But one fears that hedetected some insincerity, for the next day, which was Sunday, he gavenotice. This generally happens on a Sunday, because the papers publishmore Help Wanted advertisements then than on any other day.

  "I'm sorry, sir," he said. "But when I took this place there was nothingsaid about three children."

  This was unreasonable of Fuji. It is very rare to have everythingexplained beforehand. When Adam and Eve were put into the Garden ofEden, there was nothing said about the serpent.

  However, Gissing did not believe in entreating a servant to stay. Heoffered to give Fuji a raise, but the butler was still determined toleave.

  "My senses are very delicate," he said. "I really cannot standthe--well, the aroma exhaled by those three children when they have hada warm bath."

  "What nonsense!" cried Gissing. "The smell of wet, healthy puppies?Nothing is more agreeable. You are cold-blooded: I don't believe you arefond of puppies. Think of their wobbly black noses. Consider how pink isthe little cleft between their toes and the main cushion of their feet.Their ears are like silk. Inside their upper jaws are parallel blackridges, most remarkable. I never realized before how beautifully andcarefully we are made. I am surprised that you should be so indifferentto these things."

  There was a moisture in Fuji's eyes, but he left at the end of the week.