Where the Blue Begins Page 3

  CHAPTER THREE

  A solitary little path ran across the fields not far from the house.It lay deep among tall grasses and the withered brittle stalks oflast autumn's goldenrod, and here Gissing rambled in the green hush oftwilight, after the puppies were in bed. In less responsible dayshe would have lain down on his back, with all four legs upward, andcheerily shrugged and rolled to and fro, as the crisp ground-stubble wasvery pleasing to the spine. But now he paced soberly, the smoke from hispipe eddying just above the top of the grasses. He had much to meditate.

  The dogwood tree by the house was now in flower. The blossoms, withtheir four curved petals, seemed to spin like tiny white propellersin the bright air. When he saw them fluttering Gissing had a happysensation of movement. The business of those tremulous petals seemed tobe thrusting his whole world forward and forward, through the viewlessocean of space. He felt as though he were on a ship--as, indeed, we are.He had never been down to the open sea, but he had imagined it. There,he thought, there must be the satisfaction of a real horizon.

  Horizons had been a great disappointment to him. In earlier days he hadoften slipped out of the house not long after sunrise, and had marvelledat the blue that lies upon the skyline. Here, about him, were the clearfamiliar colours of the world he knew; but yonder, on the hills, weretrees and spaces of another more heavenly tint. That soft blue light, ifhe could reach it, must be the beginning of what his mind required.

  He envied Mr. Poodle, whose cottage was on that very hillslope that roseso imperceptibly into sky. One morning he ran and ran, in the liftingday, but always the blue receded. Hot and unbuttoned, he came by thecurate's house, just as the latter emerged to pick up the morning paper.

  "Where does the blue begin?" Gissing panted, trying hard to keep histongue from sliding out so wetly.

  The curate looked a trifle disturbed. He feared that somethingunpleasant had happened, and that his assistance might be requiredbefore breakfast.

  "It is going to be a warm day," he said politely, and stooped for thenewspaper, as a delicate hint.

  "Where does--?" began Gissing, quivering; but at that moment, lookinground, he saw that it had hoaxed him again. Far away, on his own hillthe other side of the village, shone the evasive colour. As usual,he had been too impetuous. He had not watched it while he ran; it hadcircled round behind him. He resolved to be more methodical.

  The curate gave him a blank to fill in, relative to baptizing thechildren, and was relieved to see him hasten away.

  But all this was some time ago. As he walked the meadow path, Gissingsuddenly realized that lately he had had little opportunity for pursuingblue horizons. Since Fuji's departure every moment, from dawn to dusk,was occupied. In three weeks he had had three different servants, butnone of them would stay. The place was too lonely, they said, and withthree puppies the work was too hard. The washing, particularly was ahorrid problem. Inexperienced as a parent, Gissing was probably tooproud: he wanted the children always to look clean and soigne. The lastcook had advertised herself as a General Houseworker, afraid ofnothing; but as soon as she saw the week's wash in the hamper (includingtwenty-one grimy rompers), she telephoned to the station for a taxi.Gissing wondered why it was that the working classes were not willingto do one-half as much as he, who had been reared to indolent ease. Evenmore, he was irritated by a suspicion of the ice-wagon driver. He couldnot prove it, but he had an idea that this uncouth fellow obtained acommission from the Airedales and Collies, who had large mansions in theneighbourhood, for luring maids from the smaller homes. Of course Mrs.Airedale and Mrs. Collie could afford to pay any wages at all. So nowthe best he could do was to have Mrs. Spaniel, the charwoman, come upfrom the village to do the washing and ironing, two days a week. Therest of the work he undertook himself. On a clear afternoon, when theneighbours were not looking, he would take his own shirts and thingsdown to the pond--putting them neatly in the bottom of the redexpress-wagon, with the puppies sitting on the linen, so no one wouldsee. While the puppies played about and hunted for tadpoles, he wouldwash his shirts himself.

  His legs ached as he took his evening stroll--keeping within earshot ofthe house, so as to hear any possible outcry from the nursery. Hehad been on his feet all day. But he reflected that there was a realsatisfaction in his family tasks, however gruelling. Now, at last (hesaid to himself), I am really a citizen, not a mere dilettante. Ofcourse it is arduous. No one who is not a parent realizes, for example,the extraordinary amount of buttoning and unbuttoning necessary inrearing children. I calculate that 50,000 buttonings are required foreach one before it reaches the age of even rudimentary independence.With the energy so expended one might write a great novel or chisel astatue. Never mind: these urchins must be my Works of Art. If onewere writing a novel, he could not delegate to a hired servant thecomposition of laborious chapters.

  So he took his responsibility gravely. This was partly due to thechristening service, perhaps, which had gone off very charmingly. Ithad not been without its embarrassments. None of the neighbouring ladieswould stand as godmother, for they were secretly dubious as to thechildren's origin; so he had asked good Mrs. Spaniel to act in thatcapacity. She, a simple kindly creature, was much flattered, thoughcertainly she can have understood very little of the symbolical rite.Gissing, filling out the form that Mr. Poodle had given him, had putdown the names of an entirely imaginary brother and sister-in-law ofhis, "deceased," whom he asserted as the parents. He had been so busywith preparations that he did not find time, before the ceremony,to study the text of the service; and when he and Mrs. Spaniel stoodbeneath the font with an armful of ribboned infancy, he was franklystartled by the magnitude of the promises exacted from him. He foundthat, on behalf of the children, he must "renounce the devil and all hiswork, the vain pomp and glory of the world;" that he must pledge himselfto see that these infants would "crucify the old man and utterly abolishthe whole body of sin." It was rather doubtful whether they would do so,he reflected, as he felt them squirming in his arms while Mrs. Spanielwas busy trying to keep their socks on. When the curate exhorted him "tofollow the innocency" of these little ones, it was disconcerting to haveone of them burst into a piercing yammer, and wriggle so forcibly thatit slipped quite out of its little embroidered shift and flannel band.But the actual access to the holy basin was more seemly, perhaps due tothe children imagining they were going to find tadpoles there. When Mr.Poodle held them up they smiled with a vague almost bashful simplicity;and Mrs. Spaniel could not help murmuring "The darlings!" The curate,less experienced with children, had insisted on holding all three atonce, and Gissing feared lest one of them might swarm over the surplicedshoulder and fall splash into the font. But though they panted a littlewith excitement, they did nothing to mar the solemn instant. While Mrs.Spaniel was picking up the small socks with which the floor was strewn,Gissing was deeply moved by the poetry of the ceremony. He felt thatsomething had really been accomplished toward "burying the Old Adam."And if Mrs. Spaniel ever grew disheartened at the wash-tubs, he wascareful to remind her of the beautiful phrase about the mystical washingaway of sin.

  They had been christened Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers, three traditionalnames in his family.

  Indeed, he was reflecting as he walked in the dusk, Mrs. Spaniel wasnow his sheet anchor. Fortunately she showed signs of becomingextraordinarily attached to the puppies. On the two days a week when shecame up from the village, it was even possible for him to get a littlerelaxation--to run down to the station for tobacco, or to lie in thehammock briefly with a book. Looking off from his airy porch, he couldsee the same blue distances that had always tempted him, but he felt toopassive to wonder about them. He had given up the idea of trying to getany other servants. If it had been possible, he would have engaged Mrs.Spaniel to sleep in the house and be there permanently; but she hadchildren of her own down in the shantytown quarter of the village, andhad to go back to them at night. But certainly he made every effort tokeep her contented. It was a long steep climb up from the hollow, so
he allowed her to come in a taxi and charge it to his account. Then, oncondition that she would come on Saturdays also, to help him clean upfor Sunday, he allowed her, on that day, to bring her own children too,and all the puppies played riotously together around the place. But thishe presently discontinued, for the clamour became so deafening that theneighbours complained. Besides, the young Spaniels, who were a littleolder, got Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers into noisy and careless habits ofspeech.

  He was anxious that they should grow up refined, and was distressed bylittle Shaggy Spaniel having brought up the Comic Section of a Sundaypaper. With childhood's instinctive taste for primitive effects, thepuppies fell in love with the coloured cartoons, and badgered himcontinually for "funny papers."

  There is a great deal more to think about in raising children (he saidto himself) than is intimated in Dr. Holt's book on Care and Feeding.Even in matters that he had always taken for granted, such as fairytales, he found perplexity. After supper--(he now joined the children intheir evening bread and milk, for after cooking them a hearty lunch ofmeat and gravy and potatoes and peas and the endless spinach and carrotsthat the doctors advise, to say nothing of the prunes, he had no energyto prepare a special dinner for himself)--after supper it was his habitto read to them, hoping to give their imaginations a little exercisebefore they went to bed. He was startled to find that Grimm and HansAndersen, which he had considered as authentic classics for childhood,were full of very strong stuff--morbid sentiment, bloodshed, horror, andall manner of painful circumstance. Reading the tales aloud, he editedas he went along; but he was subject to that curious weakness thatafflicts some people: reading aloud made him helplessly sleepy: after apage or so he would fall into a doze, from which he would be awakened bythe crash of a lamp or some other furniture. The children, seized withthat furious hilarity that usually begins just about bedtime, would racemadly about the house until some breakage or a burst of tears woke himfrom his trance. He would thrash them all and put them to bed howling.When they were asleep he would be touched with tender compassion, andsteal in to tuck them up, admiring the innocence of each unconsciousmuzzle on its pillow. Sometimes, in a crisis of his problems, he thoughtof writing to Dr. Holt for advice; but the will-power was lacking.

  It is really astonishing how children can exhaust one, he used to think.Sometimes, after a long day, he was even too weary to correct theirgrammar. "You lay down!" Groups would admonish Yelpers, who was caperingin his crib while Bunks was being lashed in with the largest size ofsafety pins. And Gissing, doggedly passing from one to another, wasreally too fatigued to reprove the verb, picked up from Mrs. Spaniel.

  Fairy tales proving a disappointment, he had great hopes of encouragingthem in drawing. He bought innumerable coloured crayons and stacksof scribbling paper. After supper they would all sit down around thedining-room table and he drew pictures for them. Tongues depending withconcentrated excitement, the children would try to copy these picturesand colour them. In spite of having three complete sets of crayons, afull roster of colours could rarely be found at drawing time. Bunks hadthe violet when Groups wanted it, and so on. But still, this was oftenthe happiest hour of the day. Gissing drew amazing trains, elephants,ships, and rainbows, with the spectrum of colours correctly arrangedand blended. The children specially loved his landscapes, which wereopulently tinted and magnificent in long perspectives. He found himselfalways colouring the far horizons a pale and haunting blue.

  He was meditating these things when a shrill yammer recalled him to thehouse.