The summer evenings sounded a very different music from that thin
wheedling of April. It was now a soft steady vibration, the incessant
drone and throb of locust and cricket, and sometimes the sudden rasp,
dry and hard, of katydids. Gissing, in spite of his weariness, was all
fidgets. He would walk round and round the house in the dark, unable
to settle down to anything; tired, but incapable of rest. What is this
uneasiness in the mind, he asked himself? The great sonorous drumming of
the summer night was like the bruit of Time passing steadily by. Even
in the soft eddy of the leaves, lifted on a drowsy creeping air, was a
sound of discontent, of troublesome questioning. Through the trees he
could see the lighted oblongs of neighbours' windows, or hear stridulent
jazz records. Why were all others so cheerfully absorbed in the minutiae
of their lives, and he so painfully ill at ease? Sometimes, under the
warm clear darkness, the noises of field and earth swelled to a kind
of soft thunder: his quickened ears heard a thousand small outcries
contributing to the awful energy of the world--faint chimings and
whistlings in the grass, and endless flutter, rustle, and whirr. His own
body, on which hair and nails grew daily like vegetation, startled and
appalled him. Consciousness of self, that miserable ecstasy, was heavy
upon him.
He envied the children, who lay upstairs sprawled under their mosquito
nettings. Immersed in living, how happily unaware of being alive! He
saw, with tenderness, how naively they looked to him as the answer and
solution of their mimic problems. But where could he find someone to be
to him what he was to them? The truth apparently was that in his inward
mind he was desperately lonely. Reading the poets by fits and starts,
he suddenly realized that in their divine pages moved something of this
loneliness, this exquisite unhappiness. But these great hearts had had
the consolation of setting down their moods in beautiful words, words
that lived and spoke. His own strange fever burned inexpressibly inside
him. Was he the only one who felt the challenge offered by the maddening
fertility and foison of the hot sun-dazzled earth? Life, he realized,
was too amazing to be frittered out in this aimless sickness of heart.
There were truths and wonders to be grasped, if he could only throw off
this wistful vague desire. He felt like a clumsy strummer seated at a
dark shining grand piano, which he knows is capable of every glory of
rolling music, yet he can only elicit a few haphazard chords.
He had his moments of arrogance, too. Ah, he was very young! This
miracle of blue unblemished sky that had baffled all others since life
began--he, he would unriddle it! He was inclined to sneer at his friends
who took these things for granted, and did not perceive the infamous
insolubility of the whole scheme. Remembering the promises made at
the christening, he took the children to church; but alas, carefully
analyzing his mind, he admitted that his attention had been chiefly
occupied with keeping them orderly, and he had gone through the service
almost automatically. Only in singing hymns did he experience a tingle
of exalted feeling. But Mr. Poodle was proud of his well-trained choir,
and Gissing had a feeling that the congregation was not supposed to do
more than murmur the verses, for fear of spoiling the effect. In his
favourite hymns he had a tendency to forget himself and let go: his
vigorous tenor rang lustily. Then he realized that the backs of people's
heads looked surprised. The children could not be kept quiet unless
they stood up on the pews. Mr. Poodle preached rather a long sermon, and
Yelpers, toward twelve-thirty, remarked in a clear tone of interested
inquiry, “What time does God have dinner?”
Gissing had a painful feeling that he and Mr. Poodle did not thoroughly
understand each other. The curate, who was kindness itself, called one
evening, and they had a friendly chat. Gissing was pleased to find
that Mr. Poodle enjoyed a cigar, and after some hesitation ventured to
suggest that he still had something in the cellar. Mr. Poodle said that
he didn't care for anything, but his host could not help hearing the
curate's tail quite unconsciously thumping on the chair cushions. So he
excused himself and brought up one of his few remaining bottles of
White Horse. Mr. Poodle crossed his legs and they chatted about golf,
politics, the income tax, and some of the recent books; but when Gissing
turned the talk on religion, Mr. Poodle became diffident.. Gissing,
warmed and cheered by the vital Scotch, was perhaps too direct.
“What ought I to do to 'crucify the old man'?” he said.
Mr. Poodle was rather embarrassed.
“You must mortify the desires of the flesh,” he replied. “You must dig
up the old bone of sin that is buried in all our hearts.”
There were many more questions Gissing wanted to ask about this, but Mr.
Poodle said he really must be going, as he had a call to pay on Mr. and
Mrs. Chow.
Gissing walked down the path with him, and the curate did indeed set off
toward the Chows'. But Gissing wondered, for a little later he heard a
cheerful canticle upraised in the open fields.
He himself was far from gay. He longed to tear out this malady from his
breast. Poor dreamer, he did not know that to do so is to tear out God
Himself. “Mrs. Spaniel,” he said when the laundress next came up from
the village, “you are a widow, aren't you?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Poor Spaniel was killed by a truck, two years ago
April.” Her face was puzzled, but beneath her apron Gissing could see
her tail wagging.
“Don't misunderstand me,” he said quickly. “I've got to go away on
business. I want you to bring your children and move into this house
while I'm gone. I'll make arrangements at the bank about paying all the
bills. You can give up your outside washing and devote yourself entirely
to looking after this place.”
Mrs. Spaniel was so much surprised that she could not speak. In her
amazement a bright bubble dripped from the end of her curly tongue.
Hastily she caught it in her apron, and apologized.
“How long will you be away, sir?” she asked.
“I don't know. It may be quite a long time.”
“But all your beautiful things, furniture and everything,” said Mrs.
Spaniel. “I'm afraid my children are a bit rough. They're not used to
living in a house like this--”
“Well,” said Gissing, “you must do the best you can. There are some
things more important than furniture. It will be good for your children
to get accustomed to refined surroundings, and it'll be good for my
nephews to have someone to play with. Besides, I don't want them to grow
up spoiled mollycoddles. I think I've been fussing over them too much.
If they have good stuff in them, a little roughening won't do any
permanent harm.”
“Dear me,” cried Mrs. Spaniel, “what will the neighbours think?”
“They won't,” said Gissing. “I don't doubt they'll talk, but they won't
think. Thinking is very rare. I've got to do some myself, that's one
reason why I'm going. You know, Mrs. Spaniel, God is a horizon, not
someone sitting on a throne.” Mrs. Spaniel didn't understand this--in
fact, she didn't seem to hear it. Her mind was full of the idea that
she would simply have to have a new dress, preferably black silk, for
Sundays. Gissing, very sagacious, had already foreseen this point.
“Let's not have any argument,” he continued. “I have planned everything.
Here is some money for immediate needs. I'll speak to them at the
bank, and they will give you a weekly allowance. I leave you here as
caretaker. Later on I'll send you an address and you can write me how
things are going.”
Poor Mrs. Spaniel was bewildered. She came of very decent people, but
since Spaniel took to drink, and then left her with a family to support,
she had sunk in the world. She was wondering now how she could face it
out with Mrs. Chow and Mrs. Fox-Terrier and the other neighbours.
“Oh, dear,” she cried, “I don't know what to say, sir. Why, my boys are
so disreputable-looking, they haven't even a collar between them.”
“Get them collars and anything else they need,” said Gissing kindly.
“Don't worry, Mrs. Spaniel, it will be a fine thing for you. There will
be a little gossip, I dare say, but we'll have to chance that. Now
you had better go down to the village and make your arrangements. I'm
leaving tonight.”
Late that evening, after seeing Mrs. Spaniel and her brood safely
installed, Gissing walked to the station with his suitcase. He felt a
pang as he lifted the mosquito nettings and kissed the cool moist noses
of the sleeping trio. But he comforted himself by thinking that this was
no merely vulgar desertion. If he was to raise the family, he must earn
some money. His modest income would not suffice for this sudden increase
in expenses. Besides, he had never known what freedom meant until it
was curtailed. For the past three months he had lived in ceaseless
attendance; had even slept with one ear open for the children's cries.
Now he owed it to himself to make one great strike for peace. Wealth, he
could see, was the answer. With money, everything was attainable: books,
leisure for study, travel, prestige--in short, command over the physical
details of life. He would go in for Big Business. Already he thrilled
with a sense of power and prosperity.
The little house stood silent in the darkness as he went down the path.
The night was netted with the weaving sparkle of fireflies. He stood
for a moment, looking. Suddenly there came a frightened cry from the
nursery.
“Daddy, a keeto, a keeto!”
He nearly turned to run back, but checked himself. No, Mrs. Spaniel was
now in charge. It was up to her. Besides, he had only just enough time
to catch the last train to the city.
But he sat on the cinder-speckled plush of the smoker in a mood that was
hardly revelry. “By Jove,” he said to himself, “I got away just in time.
Another month and I couldn't have done it.”
It was midnight when he saw the lights of town, panelled in gold against
a peacock sky. Acres and acres of blue darkness lay close-pressing
upon the gaudy grids of light. Here one might really look at this great
miracle of shadow and see its texture. The dulcet air drifted lazily in
deep, silent crosstown streets. “Ah,” he said, “here is where the blue
begins.”