V. The Fight For Timothy
Mary's poor pretentious babe screamed continually, with a note ofexultation in his din, as if he thought he was devoting himself to alife of pleasure, and often the last sound I heard as I got me out ofthe street was his haw-haw-haw, delivered triumphantly as if it weresome entirely new thing, though he must have learned it like a parrot. Ihad not one tear for the woman, but Poor father, thought I; to know thatevery time your son is happy you are betrayed. Phew, a nauseous draught.
I have the acquaintance of a deliciously pretty girl, who is alwayssulky, and the thoughtless beseech her to be bright, not witting whereinlies her heroism. She was born the merriest of maids, but, being astudent of her face, learned anon that sulkiness best becomes it, and soshe has struggled and prevailed. A woman's history. Brave Margaret, whennight falls and thy hair is down, dost thou return, I wonder, to thynatural state, or, dreading the shadow of indulgence, sleepest thou evensulkily?
But will a male child do as much for his father? This remains to beseen, and so, after waiting several months, I decided to buy David arocking-horse. My St. Bernard dog accompanied me, though I have alwaysbeen diffident of taking him to toy-shops, which over-excite him.Hitherto the toys I had bought had always been for him, and as we durstnot admit this to the saleswoman we were both horribly self-consciouswhen in the shop. A score of times I have told him that he had muchbetter not come, I have announced fiercely that he is not to come. Hethen lets go of his legs, which is how a St. Bernard sits down, makingthe noise of a sack of coals suddenly deposited, and, laying his headbetween his front paws, stares at me through the red haws that make hiseyes so mournful. He will do this for an hour without blinking, for heknows that in time it will unman me. My dog knows very little, but whatlittle he does know he knows extraordinarily well. One can get out of mychambers by a back way, and I sometimes steal softly--but I can'thelp looking back, and there he is, and there are those haws askingsorrowfully, "Is this worthy of you?"
"Curse you," I say, "get your hat," or words to that effect.
He has even been to the club, where he waddles up the stairs so exactlylike some respected member that he makes everybody most uncomfortable.I forget how I became possessor of him. I think I cut him out of an oldnumber of Punch. He costs me as much as an eight-roomed cottage in thecountry.
He was a full-grown dog when I first, most foolishly, introduced himto toys. I had bought a toy in the street for my own amusement. Itrepresented a woman, a young mother, flinging her little son over herhead with one hand and catching him in the other, and I was entertainingmyself on the hearth-rug with this pretty domestic scene when I heardan unwonted sound from Porthos, and, looking up, I saw that noble andmelancholic countenance on the broad grin. I shuddered and was forputting the toy away at once, but he sternly struck down my arm withhis, and signed that I was to continue. The unmanly chuckle alwayscame, I found, when the poor lady dropped her babe, but the whole thingentranced him; he tried to keep his excitement down by taking hugedraughts of water; he forgot all his niceties of conduct; he sat in holyrapture with the toy between his paws, took it to bed with him, ate itin the night, and searched for it so longingly next day that I had to goout and buy him the man with the scythe. After that we had everything ofnote, the bootblack boy, the toper with bottle, the woolly rabbitthat squeaks when you hold it in your mouth; they all vanished asinexplicably as the lady, but I dared not tell him my suspicions, for hesuspected also and his gentle heart would have mourned had I confirmedhis fears.
The dame in the temple of toys which we frequent thinks I want themfor a little boy and calls him "the precious" and "the lamb," the whilePorthos is standing gravely by my side. She is a motherly soul, butover-talkative.
"And how is the dear lamb to-day?" she begins, beaming.
"Well, ma'am, well," I say, keeping tight grip of his collar.
"This blighty weather is not affecting his darling appetite?"
"No, ma'am, not at all." (She would be considerably surprised ifinformed that he dined to-day on a sheepshead, a loaf, and threecabbages, and is suspected of a leg of mutton.)
"I hope he loves his toys?"
"He carries them about with him everywhere, ma'am." (Has the one webought yesterday with him now, though you might not think it to look athim.)
"What do you say to a box of tools this time?"
"I think not, ma'am."
"Is the deary fond of digging?"
"Very partial to digging." (We shall find the leg of mutton some day.)
"Then perhaps a weeny spade and a pail?"
She got me to buy a model of Canterbury Cathedral once, she was soinsistent, and Porthos gave me his mind about it when we got home. Hedetests the kindergarten system, and as she is absurdly prejudiced inits favour we have had to try other shops. We went to the Lowther Arcadefor the rocking-horse. Dear Lowther Arcade! Ofttimes have we wanderedagape among thy enchanted palaces, Porthos and I, David and I, David andPorthos and I. I have heard that thou art vulgar, but I cannot see how,unless it be that tattered children haunt thy portals, those awful yetsmiling entrances to so much joy. To the Arcade there are two entrances,and with much to be sung in laudation of that which opens from theStrand I yet on the whole prefer the other as the more truly romantic,because it is there the tattered ones congregate, waiting to see theDavids emerge with the magic lamp. We have always a penny for them,and I have known them, before entering the Arcade with it, retire (butwhither?) to wash; surely the prettiest of all the compliments that arepaid to the home of toys.
And now, O Arcade, so much fairer than thy West End brother, we are toldthat thou art doomed, anon to be turned into an eating-house or a hivefor usurers, something rankly useful. All thy delights are under noticeto quit. The Noah's arks are packed one within another, with clockworkhorses harnessed to them; the soldiers, knapsack on back, are kissingtheir hands to the dear foolish girls, who, however, will not be leftbehind them; all the four-footed things gather around the elephant, whois overful of drawing-room furniture; the birds flutter their wings; theman with the scythe mows his way through the crowd; the balloons tugat their strings; the ships rock under a swell of sail, everything isgetting ready for the mighty exodus into the Strand. Tears will be shed.
So we bought the horse in the Lowther Arcade, Porthos, who thought itwas for him, looking proud but uneasy, and it was sent to the bandboxhouse anonymously. About a week afterward I had the ill-luck to meetMary's husband in Kensington, so I asked him what he had called hislittle girl.
"It is a boy," he replied, with intolerable good-humour, "we call himDavid."
And then with a singular lack of taste he wanted the name of my boy.
I flicked my glove. "Timothy," said I.
I saw a suppressed smile on his face, and said hotly that Timothy was asgood a name as David. "I like it," he assured me, and expressed a hopethat they would become friends. I boiled to say that I really could notallow Timothy to mix with boys of the David class, but I refrained, andlistened coldly while he told me what David did when you said his toeswere pigs going to market or returning from it, I forget which. Healso boasted of David's weight (a subject about which we are uncommonlytouchy at the club), as if children were for throwing forth for a wager.
But no more about Timothy. Gradually this vexed me. I felt what aforlorn little chap Timothy was, with no one to say a word for him, andI became his champion and hinted something about teething, but withdrewit when it seemed too surprising, and tried to get on to safer ground,such as bibs and general intelligence, but the painter fellow was sowilling to let me have my say, and knew so much more about babies thanis fitting for men to know, that I paled before him and wondered why thedeuce he was listening to me so attentively.
You may remember a story he had told me about some anonymous friend."His latest," said he now, "is to send David a rocking-horse!"
I must say I could see no reason for his mirth. "Picture it," said he,"a rocking-horse for a child not three months old!"
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I was about to say fiercely: "The stirrups are adjustable," but thoughtit best to laugh with him. But I was pained to hear that Mary hadlaughed, though heaven knows I have often laughed at her.
"But women are odd," he said unexpectedly, and explained. It appearsthat in the middle of her merriment Mary had become grave and said tohim quite haughtily, "I see nothing to laugh at." Then she had kissedthe horse solemnly on the nose and said, "I wish he was here to seeme do it." There are moments when one cannot help feeling a drawing toMary.
But moments only, for the next thing he said put her in a particularlyodious light. He informed me that she had sworn to hunt Mr. Anon down.
"She won't succeed," I said, sneering but nervous.
"Then it will be her first failure," said he.
"But she knows nothing about the man."
"You would not say that if you heard her talking of him. She says he isa gentle, whimsical, lonely old bachelor."
"Old?" I cried.
"Well, what she says is that he will soon be old if he doesn't takecare. He is a bachelor at all events, and is very fond of children, buthas never had one to play with."
"Could not play with a child though there was one," I said brusquely;"has forgotten the way; could stand and stare only."
"Yes, if the parents were present. But he thinks that if he were alonewith the child he could come out strong."
"How the deuce--" I began
"That is what she says," he explained, apologetically. "I think she willprove to be too clever for him."
"Pooh," I said, but undoubtedly I felt a dizziness, and the next timeI met him he quite frightened me. "Do you happen to know any one," hesaid, "who has a St. Bernard dog?"
"No," said I, picking up my stick.
"He has a St. Bernard dog."
"How have you found that out?"
"She has found it out."
"But how?"
"I don't know."
I left him at once, for Porthos was but a little way behind me. Themystery of it scared me, but I armed promptly for battle. I engageda boy to walk Porthos in Kensington Gardens, and gave him theseinstructions: "Should you find yourself followed by a young womanwheeling a second-hand perambulator, instantly hand her over to thepolice on the charge of attempting to steal the dog."
Now then, Mary.
"By the way," her husband said at our next meeting, "that rocking-horseI told you of cost three guineas."
"She has gone to the shop to ask?"
"No, not to ask that, but for a description of the purchaser'sappearance."
Oh, Mary, Mary.
Here is the appearance of purchaser as supplied at the Arcade:--lookedlike a military gentleman; tall, dark, and rather dressy; fine Romannose (quite so), carefully trimmed moustache going grey (not at all);hair thin and thoughtfully distributed over the head like fiddlestrings,as if to make the most of it (pah!); dusted chair with handkerchiefbefore sitting down on it, and had other oldmaidish ways (I should liketo know what they are); tediously polite, but no talker; bored face; ageforty-five if a day (a lie); was accompanied by an enormous yellow dogwith sore eyes. (They always think the haws are sore eyes.)
"Do you know anyone who is like that?" Mary's husband asked meinnocently.
"My dear man," I said, "I know almost no one who is not like that," andit was true, so like each other do we grow at the club. I was pleased,on the whole, with this talk, for it at least showed me how she hadcome to know of the St. Bernard, but anxiety returned when one day frombehind my curtains I saw Mary in my street with an inquiring eye onthe windows. She stopped a nurse who was carrying a baby and went intopretended ecstasies over it. I was sure she also asked whether by anychance it was called Timothy. And if not, whether that nurse knew anyother nurse who had charge of a Timothy.
Obviously Mary suspicioned me, but nevertheless, I clung to Timothy,though I wished fervently that I knew more about him; for I still metthat other father occasionally, and he always stopped to compare notesabout the boys. And the questions he asked were so intimate, how Timothyslept, how he woke up, how he fell off again, what we put in his bath.It is well that dogs and little boys have so much in common, for it wasreally of Porthos I told him; how he slept (peacefully), how he wokeup (supposed to be subject to dreams), how he fell off again (with onelittle hand on his nose), but I glided past what we put in his bath(carbolic and a mop).
The man had not the least suspicion of me, and I thought it reasonableto hope that Mary would prove as generous. Yet was I straitened inmy mind. For it might be that she was only biding her time to strikesuddenly, and this attached me the more to Timothy, as if I feared shemight soon snatch him from me. As was indeed to be the case.