VIII.
He timed his return with exactitude, and, going straight up-stairs tothe chamber known indifferently as "Maisie's room" or "nurse's room,"sure enough he found the three children there alone! They were fed,washed, night-gowned, and even dressing-gowned; and this was the hourwhen, while Nurse repaired the consequences of their revolutionaryconduct in the bathroom and other places, they were left to themselves.Robert lay on the hearth-rug, the insteps of his soft, pink feet rubbingidly against the pile of the rug, his elbows digging into the pile, hischin on his fists, and a book perpendicularly beneath his eyes. Ralph,careless adventurer rather than student, had climbed to the glitteringbrass rail of Maisie's new bedstead, and was thereon imitating arecently seen circus performance. Maisie, in the bed according toregulation, and lying on the flat of her back, was singing nonchalantlyto the ceiling. Carlo, unaware that at that moment he might have been aburied corpse but for the benignancy of Providence in his behalf, wasfeeling sympathetic towards himself because he was slightly bored.
"Hello, kids!" Edward Henry greeted them. As he had seen them beforemidday dinner, the more formal ceremonies of salutation after absence,so hateful to the Five Towns temperament, were happily over and donewith.
Robert turned his head slightly, inspected his father with a judicialdetachment that hardly escaped the inimical, and then resumed his book.
("No one would think," said Edward Henry to himself, "that the personwho has just entered this room is the most enterprising and enlightenedof West End theatrical managers.")
"'Ello, Father!" shrilled Ralph. "Come and help me to stand on thiswire rope."
"It isn't a wire rope," said Robert from the hearth-rug, withoutstirring. "It's a brass rail."
"Yes, it is a wire rope, because I can make it bend," Ralph retorted,bumping down on the thing. "Anyhow, it's going to be a wire rope."
Maisie simply stuck several fingers into her mouth, shifted to one side,and smiled at her father in a style of heavenly and mischievousflirtatiousness.
"Well, Robert, what are you reading?" Edward Henry inquired in his bestfatherly manner, half authoritative and half humorous, while he formedpart of the staff of Ralph's circus.
"I'm not reading, I'm learning my spellings," replied Robert.
Edward Henry, knowing that the discipline of filial politeness must bemaintained, said: "'Learning my spellings'--what?"
"Learning my spellings, Father," Robert consented to say, but with asavage air of giving way to the unreasonable demands of affected fools.Why indeed should it be necessary in conversation always to end one'ssentence with the name or title of the person addressed?
"Well, would you like to go to London with me?"
"When?" the boy demanded cautiously. He still did not move, but hisears seemed to prick up.
"To-morrow?"
"No thanks ... Father." His ears ceased their activity.
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a spellings examination on Friday, and I'm going to betop boy."
It was a fact that the infant (whose programmes were always somehowarranged in advance, and were in his mind absolutely unalterable) couldspell the most obstreperous words. Quite conceivably he could spellbetter than his father, who still showed an occasional tendency to write"separate" with three e's and only one a.
"London's a fine place," said Edward Henry.
"I know," said Robert negligently.
"What's the population of London?"
"I don't know," said Robert with curtness, though he added after apause: "But I can spell population--p-o-p-u-l-a-t-i-o-n."
"_I'll_ come to London, Father, if you'll have me," said Ralph, grinninggood-naturedly.
"Will you!" said his father.
"Fahver," asked Maisie, wriggling, "have you brought me a doll?"
"I'm afraid I haven't."
"Mother said p'r'aps you would."
It was true, there had been talk of a doll; he had forgotten it.
"I tell you what I'll do," said Edward Henry, "I'll take you to London,and you can choose a doll in London. You never saw such dolls as thereare in London--talking dolls that shut and open their eyes and say Papaand Mamma, and all their clothes take off and on."
"Do they say 'Father?'" growled Robert.
"No, they don't," said Edward Henry.
"Why don't they?" growled Robert.
"When will you take me?" Maisie almost squealed.
"To-morrow."
"Certain sure, Father?"
"Yes."
"You promise, Father?"
"Of course I promise."
Robert at length stood up to judge for himself this strange andagitating caprice of his father's for taking Maisie to London. He sawthat, despite spellings, it would never do to let Maisie alone go. Hewas about to put his father through a cross-examination, but EdwardHenry dropped Ralph, who had been climbing up him as up atelegraph-pole, on to the bed and went over to the window, nervously,and tapped thereon.
Carlo followed him, wagging an untidy tail.
"Hello, Trent!" murmured Edward Henry, stooping and patting the dog.
Ralph exploded into loud laughter.
"Father's called Carlo 'Trent,'" he roared. "Father, have you forgottenhis name's Carlo?" It was one of the greatest jokes that Ralph hadheard for a long time.
Then Nellie hurried into the room, and Edward Henry, with a "Mustn't belate for tea," as hurriedly left it.
Three minutes later, while he was bent over the lavatory basin, someoneburst into the bathroom. He lifted a soapy face.
It was Nellie, with disturbed features.
"What's this about your positively promising to take Maisie to Londonto-morrow to choose a doll?"
"I'll take 'em all," he replied with absurd levity. "And you too!"
"But really--" she pouted, indicating that he must not carry theridiculous too far.
"Look here, d--n it," he said impulsively, "I _want_ you to come. And Iwant you to come to-morrow. I knew it was the confounded infants youwouldn't leave. You don't mean to tell me you can't arrange it--a womanlike you!"
She hesitated.
"And what am I to do with three children in a London hotel?"
"Take Nurse, naturally."
"Take Nurse?" she cried.
He imitated her with a grotesque exaggeration, yelling loudly, "TakeNurse?" Then he planted a soap-sud on her fresh cheek.
She wiped it off carefully and smacked his arm. The next moment she wasgone, having left the door open.
"He _wants_ me to go to London to-morrow," he could hear her saying tohis mother on the landing.
"Confound it!" he thought. "Didn't she know that at dinner-time?"
"Bless us!" His mother's voice.
"And take the children--and Nurse!" his wife continued in a tone toconvey the fact that she was just as much disturbed as her mother-in-lawcould possibly be by the eccentricities of the male.
"He's his father all over, that lad is!" said his mother strangely.
And Edward Henry was impressed by these words, for not once in sevenyears did his mother mention his father.
Tea was an exciting meal.
"You'd better come too, Mother," said Edward Henry audaciously. "We'llshut the house up."
"I come to no London," said she.
"Well, then, you can use the motor as much as you like while we'reaway."
"I go about gallivanting in no motor," said his mother. "It'll take meall my time to get this house straight against you come back."
"I haven't a _thing_ to go in!" said Nellie with a martyr's sigh.
After all (he reflected), though domesticated, she was a woman.
He went to bed early. It seemed to him that his wife, his mother, andthe nurse were active and whispering up and down the house till the verymiddle of the night. He arose not late, but they were all three afootbefore him, active and whispering.