The Flowering Thorn (19 page)

“Put that dog outside, Pat, and come and wash your hands.”

And immediately, from the expression on his face, she knew there was going to be trouble.

“But, Frewen—”

“Outside, Pat. I've said before you can't have a dog, and you shouldn't have brought it.”

There was a long, horrified pause. The children looked at each other, faith, hope and charity tottering under the blow. ‘
But over the lambs
,' that look seemed to say, ‘
she was quite reasonable!
' And Lesley, interpreting, consolidated her position.

“Outside, Pat.”

“But he'll die!” cried all the children together.

Acutely conscious that she was about to be blackmailed, Lesley advanced a step from the doorway to take matters into her own hands. Pat shifted his grip from the pseudo-lead to the handkerchiefs round the animal's neck. Behind him the children seemed to close their ranks.

“Let go, Pat,” said Lesley.

And then, looking down from her superior and adult height, she saw that he was in agony. There were no tears, but his face was somehow twisted and wrenched, as though a mask should try to express more than its designer intended. Lesley thought, ‘It's no good. You can't force a child to turn out a starving animal. It's wicked;' and the adjective, so long a stranger to her mind, fell so naturally into place that she hardly noticed it.

“Very well, then,” said Lesley, “you may get it some scraps from Mrs. Sprigg, and then you must put it out.” She kept her eyes fixed on Pat's face; all at once it was round and childish again. The device had worked, then. He would feed and fondle the creature, see it go on its way relieved, and so leave his mind free to forget all about it.

But the five children exchanged glances.
They
knew, and the dog knew, that it was the thin end of the wedge.

2

In the morning the dog was still there; and for the next two days the blackmail continued. Not a word was uttered, not a tear wept: but like a brooding thunderstorm the sorrows of Pincher filled the air. He was not on the premises, for in obedience to her edict he had been ruthlessly put out: but Lesley had a strong suspicion that he was just on the other side of the fence. There was a disused wood-shed of Mr. Walpole's, backing on to the cottage tool-house, which had suddenly begun to exert a magnet-like influence: and Pat, for the first time in his life, developed the extraordinarily messy habit of concealing food about his person.

“If you haven't finished, don't ask to get down,” said Lesley, the second time she saw him.

“I have finished,” said Pat, uneasily clasping the jersey over his stomach.

“Then don't take food away with you. It's rude and greedy,” said Lesley, on whom the didactic was now beginning to sit quite naturally.

“I'm not,” said Pat.

It was quite true; he
wasn't
greedy: but without admitting the existence of Pincher (at present still a sort of open diplomatic secret) the injustice could hardly be remedied. The situation, in fact—the ridiculous, childish situation—was rapidly becoming impossible; and seated that morning at her writing-table Lesley suddenly and fantastically wondered whether she had at last stumbled on the secret of that brooding Russian melancholy which has so long puzzled the Anglo-Saxon. Were the children of the Treplevs, the Voynitskys, the Karamozovs, all being denied a dog? Lesley looked out of the window. They were all there, Pat and the four Pomfrets, grouped in attitudes of listless despair under the biggest apple-tree. The strength of the June sun was like a personal gift, something undeserved and lavish from a bachelor uncle: beneath it the backs of their necks were warm but bowed.

Unable to bear it a moment longer, Lesley picked up her hat and went out for a walk. She wanted a long period of solitude in which to examine and reaffirm her already considered position; but in this she was not indulged, for hardly had she left Pig Lane than her way was effectually barred by the figure of Mr. Povey leaning thoughtfully on a gate.

“Warm, ain't it?” said Mr. Povey.

Lesley agreed. The dog-days!

“But not,” said Mr. Povey, “close.”

She agreed again. Looking inquiringly towards the gate, she added that however hot, the weather was probably not stormy.

“Ah! you're right there,” said Mr. Povey, making no attempt to move. “
You
never had a storm here, not a really bad one. They get inside the hills, d'you see, and they can't get out. Just go round and round. My wife she gets all 'ysterical.” He slightly shifted his position. “Now, about that bird-bath, Miss Frewen—”

“I've decided not to have it,” said Lesley quickly.

“You haven't thought what it would look like, I s'pose, picked out in green?”

Lesley admitted that she had not.

“Well, I have,” said Mr. Povey. “I've an eye for these things, and I can tell you, Miss Frewen, that it would look very natty.”

With a tremor of apprehension she braced herself to resist.

“But I don't think—”

“Wait,” said Mr. Povey. Extending his right forefinger he described an airy circle. “Just the beading round the rim, d'you see, and the bodies of the frogs, and the vine-leaves in 'er air. A piece like that in London, Miss Frewen, would cost you a ten-pound note.”

“You couldn't
get
it in London,” said Lesley. She had just remembered a perfectly genuine reason for leaving him at once and returning to the cottage. It was the day for going to Aylesbury, and Mrs. Pomfret would be calling for her.…

“And there's another thing I've thought of,” said Mr. Povey, “it's getting on to be summer. Summer and autumn.… And after autumn you get the winter. And in the winter time what've you got, in a garden like yours? You got nothing at all, Miss Frewen.”

The dying fall of his rhetoric affected her in spite of herself.

“I don't suppose I have,” admitted Lesley weakly.

“Whereas with a nice piece of statuary,” continued Mr. Povey, pressing home his advantage, “you'd have something to look at—something to fill the eye as you might say—the whole year round. And you can have it, Miss Frewen, for six-pound-five.”

“Thank you very much,” said Lesley, “I'll think it over. Only just now, Mr. Povey, I've got to hurry home.”

He looked at her reproachfully, for he had just been getting into his stride. But Lesley had no illusions: it was a choice, and she knew it, between buying the bird-bath and taking to flight. She took to flight. She ran all the way back to the cottage (she quite often ran, nowadays) and entered by the kitchen door. Mrs. Sprigg was not there, but on the flap by the door stood a plate of freshly-chopped scraps suitable to a puppy six or eight months old.

With a feeling of being surrounded by secret and hostile forces, Lesley returned to her writing-desk and faced the situation. It was an extremely simple one. The animal Pincher, however long she might continue to disown him, was in fact already a member of the household: in which case the sooner they got him into carbolic the better for all concerned.

3

“You're perfectly right, my dear,” said Mrs. Pomfret, observing this last item at the bottom of Lesley's shopping list. “People say dogs don't need washing, but they do when they're in the state your animal is.” She looked about her, while Lesley put on her hat, and thought that the whole room seemed somehow brighter. There were new curtains!

“You've got the same stuff as the Alfred Walpoles!” exclaimed Mrs. Pomfret. “How nice it looks.”

“And unlike Mrs. Alfred, I can have a chair-cover as well,” said Lesley. “I bought four yards too much.”

“My dear! But chintz always comes in useful.… Why can't Mrs. Alfred have them?”

“Because her husband's too mean,” said Lesley.

Gathering basket, list and bag, she followed Mrs. Pomfret out. The Aylesbury 'bus stopped on the main road, a bare quarter-mile or so beyond High Westover proper, but in the early days of her taking it Lesley used to double the distance by going across the fields. Mrs. Pomfret, however, automatically turned down Pig Lane; and walking through the village beside her Lesley suddenly realised that she no longer minded doing so. The thought was an odd one, and she completed it aloud.

“Do you know,” said Lesley, “for months and months I used to avoid coming to the Post Office, because I fancied people looked at me. Just people in the street, you know. They were probably thinking exclusively about the crops, but somehow I always felt they were … hostile.” She glanced sideways at her companion, fully prepared for amused astonishment; but Mrs. Pomfret, though perfectly cheerful, was not in the least surprised.

“But, my dear, they were hostile!” she exclaimed. “You got all your things from Town. Oh, I know it all evens up in the Balance of Trade, but here they can't see it. Going to Aylesbury is all right, because they all know each other, and half of them are related: the big draper there, for instance—Walpole, where you got your curtains—is a cousin of old Horace's.”

“I know,” said Lesley. “He offered Florrie a job there, but now of course it's no good.”

Mrs. Pomfret sighed.

“Oh, dear! I do hope it won't mean more unpleasantness. Henry always christens them, you see, just like—like ordinary children, and then half the other mothers lie in wait for me and complain.”

“I hope you pitch into them,” said Lesley indignantly.

“Oh, no, my dear, it's very natural. They don't think it's fair, you see, when they've been through all the trouble of getting married, and putting up with their husbands, and slaving day and night—”

“— Keeping themselves respectable, in fact,” said Lesley.

“Exactly, my dear—they don't feel it's fair. Like the parable of the Prodigal Son,” added Mrs. Pomfret vaguely. “Henry never
can
make them see it. Martha and Mary, too—that's another difficult one. But you mustn't think they're brutes, Miss Frewen, because they're not. They're just a little jealous of their rights. It won't make a scrap of difference to the child really, or to Florrie either. Why, look at you and Pat—”

Her voice suddenly ceased: her earnestness had run away with her. With extreme ingenuity, she began to explain.…

“That's all right,” said Lesley. “Of course they do. I don't know who Mrs. Sprigg fathered him on, but she's very resourceful.”

“I don't know either, my dear, but I expect we're the only two in the village. And he does do you credit, you know: they all think he's a
splendid
little boy.”

“So he is,” said Lesley, signalling to the 'bus. “If I stay here much longer I shall join the Mothers' Union.”

They climbed in and found themselves seats, suspending, in deference to Mrs. Pomfret's position, all further references to Lesley's potential bastard; and so proceeded to Aylesbury to buy Garibaldi biscuits; lard, bacon and corn-flour; two tins of shoe-polish; and carbolic soap for Patrick's dog.

4

He was a good dog. Within a couple of weeks regular feeding and carbolic baths began to do their work, appearance and manners improving together. His coat grew thicker, though no less carrotty, the search for fleas became daily less urgent. He developed, moreover, into an intelligent watchdog, learning to know and pass all regular visitors, and holding the rest gently at bay until further orders. Towards Lesley he displayed a respectful attitude, towards Pat the unconscious intimacy of a twin-soul. Their characters were complementary. Pat walked, thought, inquired, considered: Pincher ran, rejoiced, cavorted, leapt. Crossing a meadow, Pat invariably took the straight line between two gates, while Pincher raced round in circles chasing the birds: but they arrived within a yard of each other. A yard, indeed, was apparently the maximum distance they could bear to be separated by; and the two days Patrick lay up with a bruised knee Pincher never left the orchard.

He was a good dog; but he was never an Airedale.

CHAPTER FOUR

All through the summer Lesley's household consolidated itself. It now included, besides Patrick, Mrs. Sprigg and Pincher, a fine ginger cat who was sometimes called Alice; and of this tiny universe—as variously inhabited, for all its size, as the island in
The Tempest
—Lesley herself was the natural and undisputed centre. Within it, whatever she said or did was of extreme importance: goddess-like in her meanest activities, she dispensed food, favour, justice and protection. She had scraps for a dog, milk for a cat, bread for a child, a wage for an old woman: she had a roof and a fire and a door to shut or open. She was beginning to be beloved, and she was already essential.

2

In her relations abroad, the outstanding factor was perhaps this, that she liked the Vicar.

She even liked the Vicar's wife.

The shock to a young woman of Lesley's temperament and habits was naturally great, and it must be allowed to her credit that—as in the case of Pincher—she kept her head and faced the facts. She liked the Vicar (and the Vicar's wife) because they asked no questions, genuinely loved music—on Mr. Pomfret's gramophone, indeed, Lesley was now hearing more Bach, Mozart and Beethoven than ever in her life before—and made no attempt to redeem her. More positively, she liked them for a quality which Elissa would have called their technique of living, and to which Mrs. Sprigg commonly referred as their easygoing ways. More than any family or group Lesley had ever encountered, they let each other alone. The Vicarage was a large one, and they spread all over it. Meal-times assembled them, but not for long; and the only place where three or four consistently gathered together was the schoolroom on a wet morning.

“The schoolroom?” repeated Lesley, when first ushered through the door. “Do they do lessons, then?”