I
Mrs Brindeley looked across the lunch-table at her husband with
glinting, eager eyes, which showed that there was something unusual in
the brain behind them.
"Bob," she said, factitiously calm. "You don't know what I've just
remembered!"
"Well?" said he.
"It's only grandma's birthday to-day!"
My friend Robert Brindley, the architect, struck the table with a
violent fist, making his little boys blink, and then he said quietly:
"_The_ deuce!"
I gathered that grandmamma's birthday had been forgotten and that it was
not a festival that could be neglected with impunity. Both Mr and Mrs
Brindley had evidently a humorous appreciation of crises, contretemps,
and those collisions of circumstances which are usually called
"junctures" for short. I could have imagined either of them saying to
the other: "Here's a funny thing! The house is on fire!" And then
yielding to laughter as they ran for buckets. Mrs Brindley, in
particular, laughed now; she gazed at the table-cloth and laughed almost
silently to herself; though it appeared that their joint forgetfulness
might result in temporary estrangement from a venerable ancestor who was
also, birthdays being duly observed, a continual fount of rich presents
in specie.
Robert Brindley drew a time-table from his breast-pocket with the rapid
gesture of habit. All men of business in the Five Towns seem to carry
that time-table in their breast-pockets. Then he examined his watch
carefully.
"You'll have time to dress up your progeny and catch the 2.5. It makes
the connection at Knype for Axe."
The two little boys, aged perhaps four and six, who had been ladling the
messy contents of specially deep plates on to their bibs, dropped their
spoons and began to babble about grea'-granny, and one of them insisted
several times that he must wear his new gaiters.
"Yes," said Mrs Brindley to her husband, after reflection. "And a fine
old crowd there'll be in the train--with this football match!"
"Can't be helped!... Now, you kids, hook it upstairs to nurse."
"And what about you?" asked Mrs Brindley.
"You must tell the old lady I'm kept by business."
"I told her that last year, and you know what happened."
"Well," said Brindley. "Here Loring's just come. You don't expect me to
leave him, do you? Or have you had the beautiful idea of taking him over
to Axe to pass a pleasant Saturday afternoon with your esteemed
grandmother?"
"No," said Mrs Brindley. "Hardly that!"
"Well, then?"
The boys, having first revolved on their axes, slid down from their high
chairs as though from horses.
"Look here," I said. "You mustn't mind me. I shall be all right."
"Ha-ha!" shouted Brindley. "I seem to see you turned loose alone in this
amusing town on a winter afternoon. I seem to see you!"
"I could stop in and read," I said, eyeing the multitudinous books on
every wall of the dining-room. The house was dadoed throughout with
books.
"Rot!" said Brindley.
This was only my third visit to his home and to the Five Towns, but he
and I had already become curiously intimate. My first two visits had
been occasioned by official pilgrimages as a British Museum expert in
ceramics. The third was for a purely friendly week-end, and had no
pretext. The fact is, I was drawn to the astonishing district and its
astonishing inhabitants. The Five Towns, to me, was like the East to
those who have smelt the East: it "called."
"I'll tell you what we _could_ do," said Mrs Brindley. "We could put him
on to Dr Stirling."
"So we could!" Brindley agreed. "Wife, this is one of your bright,
intelligent days. We'll put you on to the doctor, Loring. I'll impress
on him that he must keep you constantly amused till I get back, which I
fear it won't be early. This is what we call manners, you know--to
invite a fellow-creature to travel a hundred and fifty miles to spend
two days here, and then to turn him out before he's been in the house an
hour. It's _us_, that is! But the truth of the matter is, the birthday
business might be a bit serious. It might easily cost me fifty quid and
no end of diplomacy. If you were a married man you'd know that the ten
plagues of Egypt are simply nothing in comparison with your wife's
relations. And she's over eighty, the old lady."
"_I_'ll give you ten plagues of Egypt!" Mrs Brindley menaced her spouse,
as she wafted the boys from the room. "Mr Loring, do take some more of
that cheese if you fancy it." She vanished.
Within ten minutes Brindley was conducting me to the doctor's, whose
house was on the way to the station. In its spacious porch he explained
the circumstances in six words, depositing me like a parcel. The doctor,
who had once by mysterious medicaments saved my frail organism from the
consequences of one of Brindley's Falstaffian "nights," hospitably
protested his readiness to sacrifice patients to my pleasure.
"It'll be a chance for MacIlroy," said he.
"Who's MacIlroy?" I asked.
"MacIlroy is another Scotchman," growled Brindley. "Extraordinary how
they stick together! When he wanted an assistant, do you suppose he
looked about for some one in the district, some one who understood us
and loved us and could take a hand at bridge? Not he! Off he goes to
Cupar, or somewhere, and comes back with another stage Scotchman, named
MacIlroy. Now listen here, Doc! A charge to keep you have, and mind you
keep it, or I'll never pay your confounded bill. We'll knock on the
window to-night as we come back. In the meantime you can show Loring
your etchings, and pray for me." And to me: "Here's a latchkey." With no
further ceremony he hurried away to join his wife and children at
Bleakridge Station. In such singular manner was I transferred forcibly
from host to host.