VIII
He timed his return with exactitude, and, going straight upstairs 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 tothemselves. Robert lay on the hearthrug, the insteps of his soft pinkfeet rubbing idly against the pile of the rug, his elbows digging intothe pile, his chin on his fists, and a book perpendicularly beneathhis eyes. Ralph, careless adventurer rather than student, had climbedto the glittering brass rail of Maisie's new bedstead and was thereonimitating a recently-seen circus performance. Maisie, in the bedaccording to regulation, and lying on the flat of her back, wassinging nonchalantly to the ceiling. Carlo, unaware that at thatmoment he might have been a buried corpse but for the benignancy ofProvidence in his behalf, was feeling sympathetic towards himselfbecause he was slightly bored.
"Hello, kids!" Edward Henry greeted them. As he had seen them beforemid-day dinner, the more formal ceremonies of salutation afterabsence--so hateful to the Five Towns temperament--were happily overand done with.
Robert turned his head slightly, inspected his father with a judicialdetachment that hardly escaped the inimical, and then resumed hisbook.
("No one would think," said Edward Henry to himself, "that theperson who has just entered this room is the most enterprising andenlightened of 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 hearthrug, 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 oneside, and smiled at her father in a style of heavenly and mischievousflirtatiousness.
"Well, Robert, what are you reading?" Edward Henry inquired, in hisbest fatherly manner--half authoritative and half humorous--while heformed part 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 witha savage air of giving way to the unreasonable demands of affectedfools. Why indeed should it be necessary in conversation always to endone's sentence 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 tobe top-boy."
It was a fact that the infant (whose programmes were always somehowarranged in advance, and were in his mind absolutely unalterable)could spell the most obstreperous words. Quite conceivably he couldspell better than his father, who still showed an occasional tendencyto 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,grinning good-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 toLondon, and you can choose a doll in London. You never saw such dollsas there are in London--talking dolls that shut and open their eyesand say papa and 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, fahver?"
"Yes."
"You promise, fahver?"
"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.He was about to put his father through a cross-examination, but HenryEdward dropped Ralph (who had been climbing up him as up a telegraphpole) on to the bed and went over to the window, nervously, and tappedthereon.
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 youforgotten his name's 'Carlo'?" It was one of the greatest jokes thatRalph had heard for a long time.
Then Nellie hurried into the room, and Edward Henry, with a "Mustn'tbe late for tea," as hurriedly left it.
Three minutes later, while he was bent over the lavatory basin,someone burst 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 I want you to come to-morrow. I knew it was the confounded infantsyou wouldn't leave. You don't mean to tell me you can't arrange it--awoman like 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 shewas gone, 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 toneto convey the fact that she was just as much disturbed as hermother-in-law could 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 thevery middle of the night. He arose not late; but they were all threeafoot before him, active and whispering.