Two days later, at about ten o'clock in the morning, Samuel Peel, J.P.,
entered the market-place, Bursley, from the top of Oldcastle Street. He
had walked down, as usual, from his dignified residence at Hillport. It
was his day for the Bench, and he had, moreover, a lot of complicated
election business. On a dozen hoardings between Hillport and Bursley
market-place blazed the red letters of his posters inviting the faithful
to vote for Peel, whose family had been identified with the district for
a century and a half. He was pleased with these posters, and with the
progress of canvassing. A slight and not a tall man, with a feeble grey
beard and a bald head, he was yet a highly-respected figure in the town.
He had imposed himself upon the town by regular habits, strict morals, a
reasonable philanthropy, and a successful career. He had, despite
natural disadvantages, upheld on high the great name of Peel. So that he
entered the town on that fine morning with a certain conquering
jauntiness. And citizens saluted him with respect and he responded with
benignity.
And as, nearly opposite that celebrated hotel, the Tiger, he was about
to cross over to the eastern porch of the Town Hall, he saw a
golden-haired man approaching him with a perambulator. And the sight
made him pause involuntarily. It was a strange sight. Then he recognized
his nephew-in-law. And he blanched, partly from excessive astonishment,
but partly from fear.
"How do, uncle?" said George, nonchalantly, as though he had parted from
him on the previous evening. "Just hang on to this pram a sec., will
you?" And, pushing the perambulator towards Samuel Peel, J.P., George
swiftly fled, and, for the perfection of his uncle-in-law's amazement,
disappeared into the Tiger.
Then the occupant of the perambulator began to weep.
The figure of Samuel Peel, dressed as a Justice of the Peace should be
dressed for the Bench, in a frock-coat and a ceremonious necktie, and
(of course) spats over his spotless boots; the figure of Samuel Peel,
the wrinkled and dry bachelor (who never in his life had held a saucepan
of infant's food over a gas-jet in the middle of the night), this figure
staring horror-struck through spectacles at the loud contents of the
perambulator, soon excited attention in the market-place of Bursley. And
Mr Peel perceived the attention.
He guessed that the babe was Mary's babe, though he was quite incapable
of recognizing it. And he could not imagine what George was doing with
it (and the perambulator) in Bursley, nor why he had vanished so swiftly
into the Tiger, nor why he had not come out again. The whole situation
was in the acutest degree mysterious. It was also in the acutest degree
amazing. Samuel Peel had no facility in baby-talk, so, to tranquillize
Georgie, he attempted soothing strokes or pats on such portions of
Georgie's skin as were exposed. Whereupon Georgie shrieked, and even
dogs stood still and lifted noses inquiringly.
Then Jos Curtenty, very ancient but still a wag, passed by, and said:
"Hello, Mr Peel. Truth will out. And yet who'd ha' suspected you o'
being secretly married!"
Samuel Peel could not take offence, because Jos Curtenty, besides being
old and an alderman, and an ex-Mayor, was an important member of his
election committee. Of course such a friendly joke from an incurable
joker like Jos Curtenty was all right; but supposing enemies began to
joke on similar lines--how he might be prejudiced at the polls! It was
absurd, totally absurd, to conceive Samuel Peel in any other relation
than that of an uncle to a baby; yet the more absurd a slander the more
eagerly it was believed, and a slander once started could never be
overtaken.
What on earth was George Peel doing in Bursley with that baby? Why had
he not announced his arrival? Where was the baby's mother? Where was
their luggage? Why, in the name of reason, had George vanished so
swiftly into the Tiger, and what in the name of decency and sobriety was
he doing in the Tiger such a prodigious time?
It occurred to him that possibly George had written to him and the
letter had miscarried.
But in that case, where had they slept the previous night? They could
not have come down from London that morning; it was too early.
Little Georgie persevered in the production of yells that might have
been heard as far as the Wesleyan Chapel, and certainly as far as the
Conservative Club.
Then Mr Duncalf, the Town Clerk, went by, from his private office,
towards the Town Hall, and saw the singular spectacle of the public man
and the perambulator. Mr Duncalf, too, was a bachelor.
"So you've come down to see 'em," said Mr Duncalf, gruffly, pretending
that the baby was not there.
"See whom?"
"Well, your niece and her husband, of course."
"Where are they?" asked Mr Peel, without having; sufficiently considered
the consequences of his question.
"Aren't they in the Tiger?" said Mr Duncalf. "They put up there
yesterday afternoon, anyhow. But naturally you know that."
He departed, nodding. The baby's extraordinary noise incommoded him and
seemed somehow to make him blush if he stood near it.
Mr Peel did not gasp. It is at least two centuries since men gasped from
astonishment. Nevertheless, Mr Duncalf with those careless words had
simply knocked the breath out of him. Never, never would he have
guessed, even in the wildest surmise, that Mary and her husband and
child would sleep at the Tiger! The thought unmanned him. What! A baby
at the Tiger!
Let it not be imagined for a moment that the Tiger is not an utterly
respectable hotel. It is, always was, always will be. Not the faintest
slur had ever been cast upon its licence. Still, it had a bar and a
barmaid, and indubitably people drank at the bar. When a prominent man
took to drink (as prominent men sometimes did), people would say, "He's
always nipping into the Tiger!" Or, "You'll see him at the Tiger before
eleven o'clock in the morning!" Hence to Samuel Peel, total abstainer
and temperance reformer, the Tiger, despite its vast respectability and
the reputation of its eighteen-penny ordinary, was a place of sin, a
place of contamination; briefly, a "gin palace," if not a
"gaming-saloon." On principle, Samuel Peel (as his niece suspected) had
never set foot in the Tiger. The thought that his great-nephew and his
niece had actually slept there horrified him.
And further and worse; what would people say about Samuel Peel's
relatives having to stop at the Tiger, while Samuel Peel's large house
up at Hillport was practically empty? Would they not deduce family
quarrels, feuds, scandals? The situation was appalling.
He glanced about, but he did not look high enough to see that George was
watching him from a second-floor window of the Tiger, and he could not
hear Mary imploring George: "Do for goodness sake go back to him."
Ladies passed along the pavement, stifling their curiosity. At the back
of the Town Hall there began to collect the usual crowd of idlers who
interest themselves in the sittings of the police-court.
Then Georgie, bored with weeping, dropped off into slumber. Samuel Peel
saw that he could not, with dignity, lift the perambulator up the steps
into the porch of the Tiger, and so he began to wheel it cautiously down
the side-entrance into the Tiger yard. And in the yard he met George,
just emerging from the side-door on whose lamp is written the word
"Billiards."
"So sorry to have troubled you, uncle. But the wife's unwell, and I'd
forgotten something. Asleep, is he?"
George spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, with no hint whatever that he
bore ill-will against Samuel Peel for having robbed him of two hundred
a year. And Samuel felt as though he had robbed George of two hundred a
year.
"But--but," asked Samuel, "what are you doing here?"
"We're stopping here," said George. "I've come down to look out for some
work--modelling, or anything I can get hold of. I shall begin a round of
the manufacturers this afternoon. We shall stay here till I can find
furnished rooms, or a cheap house. It's all up with sculpture now, you
know."
"Why! I thought you were doing excellently. That medal--"
"Yes. In reputation. But it was just now that I wanted money for a big
job, and--and--well, I couldn't have it. So there you are. Seven years
wasted. But, of course, it was better to cut the loss. I never pretend
that things aren't what they are. Mind you, I'm not blaming you, uncle.
You're no doubt hard up like other people."
"But--but," Samuel began stammering again. "Why didn't you come straight
to me--instead of here?"
George put on a confidential look.
"The fact is," said he, "Mary wouldn't. She's vexed. You know how women
are. They never understand things--especially money."
"Vexed with me?"
"Yes."
"But why?" Again Samuel felt like a culprit.
"I fancy it must be something you said in your letter concerning
champagne."
"It was only what I read about you in a paper."
"I suppose so. But she thinks you meant it to insult her. She thinks you
must have known perfectly well that we simply asked the reporter to put
champagne in because it looks well--seems very flourishing, you know."
"I must see Mary," said Samuel. "Of course the idea of you staying on
here is perfectly ridiculous, perfectly ridiculous. What do you suppose
people will say?"
"I'd like you-to-see her," said George. "I wish you would. You may be
able to do what I can't. You'll find her in Room 14. She's all dressed.
But I warn you she's in a fine state."
"You'd better come too," said Samuel.
George lifted Georgie out of the perambulator.
"Here," said George. "Suppose you carry him to her."
Samuel hesitated, and yielded. And the strange procession started
upstairs.
In two hours a cab was taking all the Peels to Hillport.
In two days George and his family were returning to London, sure of the
continuance of five hundred a year, and with a gift of two hundred
supplementary cash.
But it was long before Bursley ceased to talk of George Peel and his
family putting up at the Tiger. And it was still longer before the
barmaid ceased to describe to her favourite customers the incredible
spectacle of Samuel Peel, J.P., stumbling up the stairs of the Tiger
with an infant in his arms.