Poor Relations Part 6

"He'll be going Wrottesford way to-morrow morning."

Obviously John could not carry the toboggan five miles, but just as obviously he must get the toboggan back to Ambles that night: so he declined the carrier, and asked the ironmonger to order him a fly while he made a last desperate search for Frida's present. In the end, with twilight falling fast, he bought for his niece twenty-nine small china animals, which the stationer a.s.sured him would enchant any child between nine and eleven, though perhaps less likely to appeal to ages outside that period. A younger child, for instance, might be tempted to put them in its mouth, even to swallow them if not carefully watched, while an older child might tread on them. Another advantage was that when the young lady for whom they were intended grew out of them, they could be put away and revived to adorn her mantelpiece when she had reached an age to appreciate the possibilities of a mantelpiece. John did not feel as happy about these animals as he did about the toboggan: there was not a single buffalo among them, and not one looked in the least distinctively American, but the stationer was so rea.s.suring and time was going by so rapidly that he decided to risk the purchase. And really when they were deposited in a cardboard box among cotton-wool they did not look so dull, and perhaps Frida would enjoy guessing how many there were before she unpacked them.

"Better than a Noah's Ark," said John, hopefully.

"Oh yes, much better, sir. A much more suitable present for a young lady. In fact Noah's Arks are considered all right for village treats, but they're in very little demand among the gentry nowadays."

When John was within a quarter of a mile from Ambles he told the driver of the fly to stop. Somehow he must creep into the house and up to his room with the toboggan and the china animals; it was after six, and the children would have been looking out for his return since five. Perhaps the cows would have gone home by now and he should not excite their nocturnal apprehensions by dragging the toboggan across the twenty-acre field. Meanwhile, he should tell the fly to wait five minutes before driving slowly up to the house, which would draw the scent and enable him with Emily's help to reach his room unperceived by the backstairs. A heavy mist hung upon the meadow, and the paper wrapped round the toboggan, which was just too wide to be carried under his arm like a portfolio, began to peel off in the dew with a swishing sound that would inevitably attract the curiosity of the cows were they still at large; moreover, several of the china animals were now c.h.i.n.king together and, John could not help feeling with some anxiety, probably chipping off their noses.

"I must look like a broken-down Santa Claus with this vehicle," he said to himself. "Where's the path got to now? I wonder why people wiggle so when they make a path? Hullo! What's that?"

The munching of cattle was audible close at hand, a munching that was sometimes interrupted by awful snorts.

"Perhaps it's only the mist that makes them do that," John tried to a.s.sure himself. "It seems very imprudent to leave valuable cows out of doors on a damp night like this."

There was a sound of heavy bodies moving suddenly in unison.

"They've heard me," thought John, hopelessly. "I wish to goodness I knew something about cows. I really must get the subject up. Of course, they _may_ be frightened of _me_. Good heavens, they're all snorting now.

Probably the best thing to do is to keep on calmly walking; most animals are susceptible to human indifference. What a little fool that nephew of mine was to shoot at them this afternoon. I'm hanged if he deserves his toboggan."

The lights of Ambles stained the mist in front; John ran the last fifty yards, threw himself over the iron railings, and stood panting upon his own lawn. In the distance could be heard the confused thudding of hoofs dying away toward the far end of the twenty-acre meadow.

"I evidently frightened them," John thought.

A few minutes later he was calling down from the landing outside his bedroom that it was time for presents. In the first brief moment of intoxication that had succeeded his defeat of the cattle John had seriously contemplated tobogganing downstairs himself in order to "surprise the kids" as he put it. But from his landing the staircase looked all wrong for such an experiment and he walked the toboggan down, which lamplight appeared to him a typical product of the bear-haunted mountains of Canada.

Everybody was waiting for him in the drawing-room; everybody was flatteringly enthusiastic about the toboggan and seemed anxious to make it at home in such strange surroundings; n.o.body failed to point out to the lucky boy the extreme kindness of his uncle in bringing back such a wonderful present all the way from America--indeed one almost had the impression that John must often have had to wake up and feed it in the night.

"The trouble you must have taken," Hilda exclaimed.

"Yes, I did take a good deal of trouble," John admitted. After all, so he had--a d.a.m.ned sight more trouble than any one there suspected.

"When will it snow?" Harold asked. "To-morrow?"

"I hope not--I mean, it might," said John. He must keep up Harold's spirits, if only to balance Frida's depression, about whose present he was beginning to feel very doubtful when he saw her eyes glittering with feverish antic.i.p.ation while he was undoing the string. He hoped she would not faint or scream with disappointment when it was opened, and he took off the lid of the box with the kind of flourish to which waiters often treat dish-covers when they wish to promote an appet.i.te among the guests.

"How sweet," Edith murmured.

John looked gratefully at his sister; if he had made his will that night she would have inherited Ambles.

"Ah, a collection of small china animals," said Laurence, choosing a cat to set delicately upon the table for general admiration. John wished he had not chosen the cat that seemed to suffer with a tumor in the region of the tail and disinclined in consequence to sit still.

"Yes, I was anxious to get her a Noah's Ark," John volunteered, seeming to suggest by his tone how appropriate such a gift would have been to the atmosphere of a vicarage. "But they've practically given up making Noah's Arks in America, and you see, these china animals will serve as toys now, and later on, when Frida is grown-up, they'll look jolly on the mantelpiece. Those that are not broken, of course."

The animals had all been taken out of their box by now, but a few paws and ears were still adhering to the cotton-wool.

"Frida is always very light on her toys," said Edith, proudly.

"Not likely to put them in her mouth," said John, heartily. "That was the only thing that made me hesitate when I first saw them in Fifth Avenue. But they don't look quite so edible here."

"Frida never puts anything in her mouth," Edith generalized, primly.

"And she's given up biting her nails since Uncle John came home, haven't you, dear?"

"That's a good girl," John applauded; he did not believe in Frida's sudden conquest of autophagy, but he was anxious to encourage her in every way at the moment.

Yes, the gift-horses had shown off their paces better than he had expected, he decided. To be sure, Frida did not appear beside herself with joy, but at any rate she had not burst into tears--she had not thrust the present from her sight with loathing and begged to be taken home. And then Harold, who had been staring at the animals through his gla.s.ses, like the horrid little naturalist that he was, said:

"I've seen some animals like them in Mr. Goodman's shop."

John hoped a blizzard would blow to-morrow, that Harold would toboggan recklessly down the steepest slope of the downs behind Ambles, and that he would hit an oak tree at the bottom and break his gla.s.ses. However, none of these dark thoughts obscured the remote brightness with which he answered:

"Really, Harold. Very likely. There is a considerable exportation of china animals from America nowadays. In fact I was very lucky to find any left in America."

"Let's go into Gallon to-morrow and look at Mr. Goodman's animals,"

Harold suggested.

John had never suspected that one day he should feel grateful to his brother-in-law; but when the dinner-bell went at half-past six instead of half-past seven solely on his account, John felt inclined to shake him by the hand. Nor would he have ever supposed that he should one day welcome the prospect of one of Laurence's long confidential talks. Yet when the ladies departed after dessert and Laurence took the chair next to himself as solemnly as if it were a fald-stool, he encouraged him with a smile.

"We might have our little talk now," and when Laurence cleared his throat John felt that the conversation had been opened as successfully as a local bazaar. Not merely did John smile encouragingly, but he actually went so far as to invite him to go ahead.

Laurence sighed, and poured himself out a second gla.s.s of port.

"I find myself in a position of considerable difficulty," he announced, "and should like your advice."

John's mind went rapidly to the balance in his pa.s.sbook instead of to the treasure of worldly experience from which he might have drawn.

"Perhaps before we begin our little talk," said Laurence, "it would be as well if I were to remind you of some of the outstanding events and influences in my life. You will then be in a better position to give me the advice and help--ah--the moral help, of which I stand in need--ah--in sore need."

"He keeps calling it a little talk," John thought, "but by Jove, it's lucky we did have dinner early. At this rate he won't get back to his vicarage before c.o.c.k-crow."

John was not deceived by his brother-in-law's minification of their talk, and he exchanged the trim Henry Clay he had already clipped for a very large Upman that would smoke for a good hour.

"Won't you light up before you begin?" he asked, pushing a box of commonplace Murillos toward his brother-in-law, whose habit of biting off the end of a cigar, of letting it go out, of continually knocking off the ash, of forgetting to remove the band till it was smoldering, and of playing miserable little tunes with it on the rim of a coffee-cup, in fact of doing everything with it except smoke it appreciatively, made it impossible for John, so far as Laurence was concerned, to be generous with his cigars.

"I think you'll find these not bad."

This was true; the Murillos were not actually bad.

"Thanks, I will avail myself of your offer. But to come back to what I was saying," Laurence went on, lighting his cigar with as little expression of antic.i.p.ated pleasure as might be discovered in the countenance of a lodging-house servant lighting a fire. "I do not propose to occupy your time by an account of my spiritual struggles at the University."

"You ought to write a novel," said John, cheerfully.

Laurence looked puzzled.

"I am now occupied with the writing of a play, but I shall come to that presently. Novels, however...."

"I was only joking," said John. "It would take too long to explain the joke. Sorry I interrupted you. Cigar gone out? Don't take another. It doesn't really matter how often those Murillos go out."

"Where am I?" Laurence asked in a bewildered voice.