Donkey Boy (17 page)

“Now be a good boy, Phillip, and say ‘How do you do’ properly to your Uncles.”

Phillip hung back, sucking his thumb, while with the other hand he held tight to Aunty Belle’s skirt.

Hilary tried his charm on the boy. He jingled coins in his pocket, then withdrew some and made them dance in the palm of his hand. This not being attractive, he selected a new sixpence
and held it up between finger and thumb. At the sight of the coin Phillip retired once more behind Aunty Belle’s skirts.

“You can’t buy him, Hilary,” laughed George Lemon.

“Come on, you little rascal!” said Hilary. “Come on, don’t be frightened of me. I’ll be jiggered if you don’t look just like a marmoset looking round the trunk of a banyan tree!”

Neither man connected Isabelle with a banyan tree, their thoughts being with the unusual solemnity in the face of a small boy. It seemed so funny, the solemn, gazing eyes of the bony, white face: the mixture of caution, fear, and curiosity.

“He was supposed to have been reared on the milk of a donkey, but bless my soul, it might very well have been an organ grinder’s guenoy,” remarked George Lemon. At the last thought he had changed the word monkey into its French female equivalent; for in his opinion the boy was exceptionally precocious, and he did not want to hurt his feelings.

Hilary suddenly darted forward and caught the boy by an arm. Then holding his wrists, while he faced him, he told him to bend down his head and Uncle would give him a somersault. The boy became rigid. “Come on, you young rascal, over with you!” cried Hilary. “It’s very easy, Phillip, why, there’s nothing in it!” As the boy still resisted, he caught him under the arms and threw him up into the air, laughing as the boy’s skirt flew open on the descent, to reveal above the skinny legs a thin, grey belly. Hilary threw him up again and again, saying, “There’s nothing to be afraid of! Why are you so scared of me? I won’t let you fall! Come on now, once more, only make yourself less rigid, relax your muscles, man, relax yourself! Why, you’re not half a boy! You ought to see the little chaps, no older than you, diving in off the quays of Colombo, a knife between their teeth, and not a stitch on ’em, not a man jack of ’em over five years of age, and swimming under the sharks, to rip them up with their knives. What, don’t you want to hear? You little swine you! Did you see that, George? Look at my hand! The young cuss bit me!”

It had been accidental: Phillip had gasped with fear of being thrown up, and Hilary’s hand had met the little teeth in the open, rigid mouth.

I
N THE
morning George Lemon, frock-coated, silk-hatted, dog-skin-gloved and carrying a rolled umbrella, left for the station, accompanied by his wife. Victoria, pale of complexion and fair as a Burne-Jones angel, walked with him down the pleasant, secluded road, with its villas standing well back behind cleft-oak paling fences, among trees of lilac, double-flowering Japanese cherry, mimosa and laburnum, all so fair in the sun rising into a clear sky of the south-east, thrushes and blackbirds and chaffinches singing, cuckoos calling from many points of the downs; and immediately and startling near, as though summer shadow itself were vocal, the shaking notes and trills of a nightingale.

Victoria held George’s arm tightly in her elation that she was to have his child. She had come with him that morning specially to tell him her secret. Victoria felt unusually free and happy, and this taking of his arm in public, with both hands, was for her almost a defiance of convention. However, they were alone in the road, except for a very fat terrier dog, with grey jowl and teeth protruding with premature senility due to eating too much red meat, who was inspecting the base of one after another of the trees along the sidewalk.

“Hullo, Joey,” said George Lemon, whereupon the dog gave one wag of its tail before passing on.

Joey belonged to Sir Alfred Catt, a neighbour. The Lemons held the Catts in some scorn because they were so obviously
arrivistes,
by way of trade and lord-mayoralty of a Midland manufacturing town. Joey, the obese terrier, much larger than any genuine terrier-dog should have been, looked like part of the late Corporation of his master’s home-town, its body being encased in blue straps, each one properly saddle-soaped before the morning constitutional, and fastened with German silver buckles. As for the collar, that also was a Birmingham speciality, being of strong leather set with formidable spikes, also of German silver, the points of which had been rounded off, as a concession to canine civility.

The Catts were elderly and childless. Joey (named after the great Chamberlain, of course) along with several blue Persian cats, was privileged to share the bedroom of her Ladyship. The animals were regarded and cared for as a family. Joey, however, contrary to the experience of most eldest sons, had found so much favour in his father’s eyes, that he was on the way to a rapid death through kindness. The dog’s heavy, studded collar was an armour against having its throat torn out by the savage hairy mongrels of the seasonal gipsies of Epsom; the straps and bands were to protect its heart from excessive exertion when on the leash; but there was no protection for its kidneys, liver, and colon, from overmuch fat, acid, and carbo-hydrate.

Joey, however, all his life had been protected from intercourse with common dogs. Hence, in late middle age, and during walks with his master or his master’s valet, Joey’s almost feverish interest in the recognition, or perhaps in the collection, of as many visiting cards and calls of his canine neighbours at the bases of trees owned and cared for by the Epsom Rural District Council,

That, at any rate, was Joey seen through the eyes of George Nathaniel Lemon.

Victoria did not really care for her husband’s quips and remarks about Joey, the poor old dog. Many of his other ways did, while not exactly shocking her, for she prided herself on her broadmindedness, tend secretly to dismay her sense of propriety. Of course a man’s mind was entirely different from a woman’s, but even so—— It was somewhat curious, that streak in him, for George was a gentleman, of good family. Victoria could not imagine any of her brothers saying, or even thinking, the things George Lemon said. He was Cornish, of course, that might well be the difference. It certainly accounted for his dark hair and eyes, his brown skin, and a peculiar, almost uncanny, awareness of what she, Victoria, was thinking. How could George then, with all his intelligence, be so, well, crude on occasion? Not that it really mattered in other things, for after all he was her husband; but even so, why did George, so esteemed in his profession, and so popular with people, not realise that it was not very nice to say the things he did at times say?

But that May morning of 1900 as she walked down the avenue of limes, murmurous with bees upon their canopies in the bright morning, Victoria felt free of herself, of her experience, for joy
of the new life within her; and she clung to her husband’s arm, her somewhat indecorous behaviour happily unobservable by anybody except the snuffling old dog. And Joey, having wagged his tail to greet, on equal term, his friend in the shiner—Joey like all well-brought-up dogs, knew a gent from a common person by his hat, clothes, gait and smell—then trotted on to ascertain what had been doing since his arboreal survey, master’s valet waiting at the gate, of the night before.

Victoria (the childish name of Viccy seemed, somehow, to be part of the past) turned back just before the end of the road, not wanting to meet any of George’s Town and Golf Club acquaintances who, about that time of a few minutes after nine o’clock, usually passed by on foot or carriage on their way to the railway station. At the parting she hoped that George would kiss her, though she knew the vulgarity of such demonstration in public. George did not; so Victoria returned up the road faster than she had come down it, for the care of the house was her dominant concern in living.

While she walked under the avenue of lime trees, she turned over in her mind what George had said about Dickie’s little boy. “A boy needs more affection from his father than from his mother.” “Dickie is too self-absorbed, perhaps, ever to share his inner feelings with anyone else.” This implied criticism of her favourite brother Richard had somehow prevented her from telling George what she had been rehearsing in her mind to tell him ever since the previous day, when the doctor had confirmed her hopes. George’s words had chilled her. Her brother was
not
selfish, and never had been! If Dickie had become more reserved than before who, or what, was to blame? His marriage!

George Lemon, in his first-class carriage, richly upholstered in leather, mahogany, and Liberty fabric, settled back in his corner seat and opened
The
Times
in an atmosphere of aromatic, blue Havana cigar smoke. No conversation in the carriage was usual, or conventional, beyond the initial
Good
morning
and the briefest impersonal genialities about the weather. He opened the rear pages in order to read the Stock Exchange prices in the lists there, which concerned his holdings; but he thought not of prices but of a case in which he was engaged, of a client who wanted an injunction against a neighbour, alleging that his premises were being used as a disorderly house. The neighbour in question was a peer of the realm, not one of Gladstone’s crop
of glorified shop-keepers and worthy tradesmen, but one of the oldest families in Surrey.

It was a case of the utmost delicacy, and might, if persisted in, cause a first-class scandal. There had been some investigation by a private enquiry agent, a retired Scotland Yard man whom the partners sometimes employed, and undoubtedly the house in Bryanston Square was a select
bordel.
The point was in the alleged disorder.

With an interior feeling of fascination George Lemon played with the idea of doing some investigation on his own. The enquiry agent had reported that some of the “young ladies” visiting the place were “high class”, and from the “theatrical profession”. By Jove!

With Isabelle in his house, staying between jobs of work, George Lemon felt more shut-in upon himself than ever. He was glad to have the poor old thing, of course, though by heaven what a frump she was! She couldn’t help it, being an effect rather than a cause, a surplus female. To offset Belle’s coming, Hilary’s visit had been much anticipated. At least he was realistic, having had seen something of the world. Dick and Viccy were very much of a type, thin-blooded people. He hoped his child, of whose coming George Lemon had known without any particular satisfaction, would not take after his wife’s family. At least, not the ‘Viking’ side of it. But you could never tell; it might be like Hilary, who took after his mother, an amiable and easy German woman, whose life had been hell with her husband, from all accounts. Perhaps it might be a daughter, like his sister Bee, a jolly girl with no inhibitions, who was coming to stay.

Beatrice was a young widow: and on previous occasions George Lemon had observed his sister’s interest in Hilary; first for the photographs on his chimney-piece while her elderly husband was still alive, and later when she had met him; and the interest was mutual, he had decided. The two, Hilary and Bee, would make a fine pair, he thought.

That afternoon when they returned from a walk, Phillip kept well behind Aunty Belle. To him the new uncle was an object to be avoided, with his pink, roundish face and big white legs wide apart on a chair. With the other new uncle it was different. He was not a great big white man, he was ordinary size brown
face, not ha-ha toothy face like white uncle holding out arms for him. In dread of this personality, Phillip took a double grip of the handle of the mail cart.

“I can push, Aunty Belle, you have tired feet, you sit down, Aunty Belle,” he said, and was surprised at the laughter of the men who, he had been told, were his two uncles. The teeth of uncle white did not look so much like big-dog-bite after the laughing. Aunty Belle said, “Now Phillip be a good boy and say how do you do, to your Uncle Hilary.”

“No,” said Phillip, meaning that he wanted to go with Aunty Belle, being afraid of Uncle White. Isabelle misinterpreted the refusal.

“You must not be rude, Phillip. Now go and shake your uncle’s hand, or you will not have any sop for your supper.”

“No, Aunty Belle!” The child clung more tightly to the mail-cart. Isabelle, embarrassed, unpicked his fingers. The child clutched her skirts. Hilary laughed. Isabelle became quietly firmer. The child struggled, and hid his face in her skirts.

“You see,” said Isabelle to her brother-in-law George Lemon, “what Dickie meant by clinging to Hetty’s apron-strings? Come, Phillip, you must not make an exhibition of yourself! There now, you have made your sister cry! I will not allow such bad manners, so be a good boy and do as Aunty Belle tells you,” she said, her voice ameliorating.

“No, no, Aunty Belle!”

“Very well, you will have no sop for supper.”

“Leave him to me,” said George Lemon, gently. He was thinking that if children should be seen and not heard, so should all governesses, by God. “The boy will be better when he knows us all more.” He turned with a smile to the child staring up at him. “Now then, Phillip, shall we roll some croquet balls on the grass? You help me, like a good chap, to get them through the hoops!”

He got up, and rolled a ball for a few feet, then went on his hands and knees. As soon as the towering size of Uncle Lemon was gone, and a nice, brown uncle was crawling on the grass, hope sprang up in Phillip, and he ran forward to play with his new friend. His eyes lit up and he laughed and cried “Jolly! Jolly!” as he rolled his ball beside Uncle Brown rolling another ball. Uncle Brown was a nice man—he was Uncle Lemon.

Phillip’s ball was white with blue rings, Uncle’s was white with
red rings. It was good fun trying to see which ball went through the hoop first. They took turns. Oh, his ball slipped! Uncle Brown let him have another turn. Red ball was near blue ball! “Quick, quick, Uncle Brown!” he cried. Then, “Ha! ha! your ball was too fast; perhaps a daddy-long-legs looked up and pushed it, Uncle Lemon.”

“You have a remarkable imagination, my boy!”

The boy was intent on getting the blue ball through the hoop. He rolled it, it slowed, he gave it an extra touch, glanced furtively at the other, and jumped around when Uncle Brown said, “Well, perhaps the daddy-long-legs was pulling your ball back this time, Phil.” He added, “Did you see it?”

“No, Uncle Brown Lemon! It was me who pushed it.”

“Ha ha!” exclaimed George Lemon, as though to his wife. He put his hand affectionately on the boy’s head. “Thank you for telling me the truth. Well done. I must go in now, Phil, and get into some more comfortable clothes. Perhaps if you ask Uncle Hilary, very nicely, to play with you, he will take my place. Don’t be afraid of him, he’s quite harmless, really. And don’t bite him, he’s got a horror of hydrophobia! Lives too well on board ship, that’s his only trouble. A little too fat. Go and ask him. Say, ‘Please, Uncle Hilary, will you play with me?’”

George Lemon went into the house through the open french windows and Phillip went slowly towards Uncle White, looking at him doubtfully. Hilary was sitting in a deck-chair. Summoning up his resistance, Phillip managed to say, “Please, Uncle White, will you play with me?”

“If you shake hands first, and call me Uncle Hilary, that’s my name, you know. Then we can be friends, can’t we? Shake hands like a little man.”

Phillip advanced to hold out his hand. Hilary took it, and pulled the boy to him. He stood him before him, holding him there while he sat himself in the deck-chair, saying, “Let’s have a good look at you. I’ve heard a lot about you, young man. Do you know who I am? We must now get properly acquainted. I am your father’s brother. We used to collect butterflies together. You know what they are, don’t you? Ha ha! You young rascal, you; I hear you purloined a case of your father’s, and took them to bed with you, under your pillow. Didn’t you, that? What did Daddy do, tell me? Did he smack your bottom?”

“My farver’s stronger than you,” said Phillip, not liking this uncle at all.

“Good for you. So you’ve got some spunk! Only you should say ‘Father’ not ‘Farver’. You’re too big a boy now to talk like that. Say it after me—‘Far’—go on!”

“Far.”

“Now then.”

“‘Now then’.”

“Don’t be cheeky, or I’ll spifflicate you. Now once more. ‘Far—ther’.”

“Far—ther.”

“Well done! Now you are a big boy, aren’t you? Say ‘Father’ again.”

“Far—ther.”

“Splendid!”