“Well!” said Ida, breaking the silence. “I never saw her do that before!”
I did not need the remark. It was as though the creature had given herself to me.
“Come along, old girl,” I said gently, and took down her lead and collar from the wall. But this action at once brought on another surge of emotion in the excited dog, and she squirmed and coquetted and rolled to such an extent that I could not fasten the collar round her neck. When I thought it was there I found she had managed to get it, like a bit, between her teeth, and I had to begin all over again. Then she knocked my spectacles off my nose. Convulsed with laughter at her absurd antics, I fumbled blindly after them on the carpet.
“’Ere,” said Tom suddenly, “give it ’ere!” and almost snatching the collar from my hand, he grabbed hold of the dog by the scruff of her neck, forced her roughly down and, when she tried to wriggle out of his harsh grasp, dealt her a grinding blow with the heel of his hand on the bridge of her nose.
“Don’t!” I cried, but it was already done. She uttered a shrill cry of pain and lay there whimpering and rubbing her nose with her paws.
“You’ve hurt her!” I said angrily. “She was only playing!”
“You can’t ’urt a dog’s snout,” said he coldly, fastening the collar on to the now unresisting animal. “It’s the place to ’it ’em, and she ’as to learn.”
I was about to retort, when I saw Millie looking at me. I held my tongue. But I had at that moment an unpleasant, a quite frightening, feeling that, for some reason, Tom Winder hated me and that the blow he had dealt the dog had really been aimed at me.
We did not take the walk that I had planned. The direction of it obliged me to lead her at the start down one or two busy streets, and it was not only evident at once that she was in a greater state of frenzy than ever, but the cause, it seemed to me, was now apparent too. It was not merely the uncontrollable excitement of a young animal thrusting eagerly forward into freedom; it was fear. As she tore along, almost on her stomach, spurning the pavement with her powerful legs, with the motion of some beast of burden hauling a heavy load up a steep slope, she hugged the walls, keeping as far as possible from the curb. She was terrified. The racket of the road drove her against the shops; people suddenly emerging from these startled her out again towards the traffic, and she kept up a constant high-pitched barking at everyone and everything, which I had never heard her do before. It was as though the whole outside world, to which she was so little used, had thrown her into a state of nervous confusion and, totally unstrung, she tore panting through it like a demented creature, dragging me after her at a jog-trot. A bird seemed to confirm this hypothesis. The Rec. lay in our path; I set her free in it for a moment; she went to pee against the trunk of a tree, and a rook, which was roosting in its branches, uttered a brief emphatic caw and flapped its inky bulk away. Evie quailed as though a bomb had exploded and rushed back to me for protection.
Then she bit someone. I had re-attached her lead and brought her to a temporary standstill by a telephone kiosk, which afforded me shelter from the wind while I lighted a cigarette. What happened then I did not see; but behind my back some small boy approached, probably to stroke her, and she snapped at him. Whether she really hurt him I do not know; I only heard her growl and felt her lunge; but the child burst into tears and ran off holding his hand. I saw him disappear into a house nearby.
Now I too panicked. Discarding all plans I hurried her round the nearest side turning and took to my heels. One object only engrossed my mind, to remove her as quickly as possible from the scene of the crime. Without heed of direction, therefore, I rushed and bobbed along in her flying wake; my map of the district dropped out of my pocket and was abandoned where it fell; blindly I plunged down one street after another. Then, as in those terrible dreams in which we perform, always in the same recognizable yet unfamiliar landscape, our clogged and frantic labors of escape amid the ambiguities of our own fears and desires, I suddenly found myself back again on the dilapidated bombsite where we had ended up before. Too weary to unclip her lead I relinquished it from my tired hand; trailing it after her she bounded away while I stumbled over to that same concrete block that had once served me for a seat. But I had scarcely sat down upon it when she was in front of me, carrying a stick in her mouth and gazing at me with her strange animal eyes. The happiest day of her life, one of the wretchedest of mine, was to be lived over again. Her face, as she stood there challenging me, was charming; intelligent, affectionate, gay, there was no hint of savagery or ill-nature in it; and a violent gust of rage against the whole Winder family shook me, the callous Tom, Johnny the selfish, false ungrateful friend, and even fat Millie with her Margate plans for that moronic child. I thought of them shutting the door in Evie’s pleading face and going off, perfectly content, to enjoy their day of winkles, baby-talk and squalls of senseless laughter while she drooled out her lonely and frustrated life in captivity. Miss Sweeting’s warning had come true; their combined cruelty, ignorance, and indifference had ruined the pretty creature.
I gazed despairingly into the watchful eyes. How could I help her? Perhaps I should have taken her in the beginning . . . . but how could I? . . . . at least I could have given her a morning and an evening walk . . . . but no, I could not . . . . how could I? . . . . it was impossible. . . . In the distance a train clattered and puffed away over the embankment beyond the Winders’ house, and went on puffing through my head for some time afterwards. . . .
“Well, you’re back quick,” said Millie cheerfully. “Was she too much for you?”
Tom had gone to his allotment, I was not sorry to find. Ida was still there. I had debated on my way back whether to mention the incident of the boy and decided not to. The temptation to say “I told you so” was strong; on the other hand it could do Evie no good; improvement in her situation was not possible here. Besides, give a dog a bad name. . . .
“No, but I’ve had a better idea. A brilliant idea! I want to take her to Barnes with me for the weekend. I suddenly thought of it and can’t imagine why I never thought of it before. I’ve nothing special to do and it would make a wonderful change for her. The walks all round me there are far better than anything here, it would take her off your hands for the holiday and save Ida the trouble of coming in. I’ll bring her back Tuesday.”
“How would you feed her?” asked Millie promptly.
“That’s the snag. I don’t think I can. But I was hoping you’d let me take some of her meat with me. I expect you’ve got some laid in, haven’t you?” Millie hesitated, the room blurred and I put my hand on the table to steady myself. Not another consultation with Johnny, surely! “I’d better tell you she’s just bitten someone. I’m awfully worried about her.”
“Bit ’im!” exclaimed Millie.
“There!” said Ida simultaneously.
I described what had happened.
“I don’t believe she really hurt him, but it’s the kind of thing I said would happen if she didn’t get out more.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Millie. “You do as you like, Frank. Johnny would be pleased, I know.”
“Thank you, Millie.”
“And you’ll bring her back Tuesday?”
“Yes, Tuesday morning. I couldn’t keep her a day longer. I have to go to work.”
“How will you get her there?” asked Ida.
“I’m going to introduce her to a train!” I said gaily.
“Tom won’t like it when he finds her gone,” remarked Millie, with a cackle.
Bugger Tom! I thought. I did not say it.
It was extraordinary! It had struck me with the force of a revelation, swift, compelling, appointed, plain. At one moment I had been like a drowning man without hope; at the next, there was the life-line beside me, the way of rescue, the way of escape, the way out of the trap. Yet it had been there always, ready to be seized. How indeed could I have failed to think of it before? The train! The train! Excepting for a taxi—hard to obtai
n anywhere in this immediate post-war period, probably out of the question in such a wilderness as Stratford, immensely costly in any case—it was the only possible means, for a bus-conductor would be as likely to accept Evie for passenger as to accept a tigress. But the train! I had used it occasionally with Johnny in the happy past and forgotten about it since, finding the buses more convenient; it was a steam train, no lifts, no escalators; with any luck we might get a compartment to ourselves. The station was no distance off, we should be at Liverpool Street in about fifteen minutes. Beyond that I did not look. That in itself was salvation, the firm, the gleaming shore.
But as Evie hauled me to the station in her senseless way, a doubt assailed my mind. How was her introduction to the train to be effected? Considering her reaction to the rook, it was unlikely that she would contemplate an advancing locomotive with equanimity. Perhaps I could keep her out of the way somewhere until the train came to rest and then nip into it. I bought our tickets and made inquiries. A train was due in ten minutes; but a brief glance at the interior of the station, which was in process of reconstruction, established the fact that we could not avoid the platform. Well, there was always the waiting-room; we would huddle into that. I took her along to it. It was closed for repairs. Nothing remained for us but a bench, and seating myself upon one I clasped Evie between my legs and made soothing noises into her terrible ears. But if it was fortunate that I had foreseen the emergency at all, I had not foreseen it realistically enough. As soon as the great monster entered the station and came clanking and belching down towards us like some fabulous dragon, she made a movement of escape so convulsive that had I not had a firm hold upon her she would have wrenched her head out of her collar and fled. Instead, she sank to the platform in a quaking heap and clung to it with all her claws and force of gravity. The train stopped. I tried to coax her to it. She would not move. I pulled at her. She might have been nailed to the ground. Doors opened and slammed. I stroked her, I implored her, I slapped her; getting behind her I attempted to push her. Not an inch would she budge. Despair overcame me; even if I managed to drag her to the train, how could I hope to get her into it? I had forgotten how high the carriages were; steep steps led up to them. This then was the ignominious end to our flight; I would have to take her back to prison. The guard blew his whistle. It was the end. Then, suddenly, from the compartment in front of me, a young man sprang down to my side. “Let’s lift her!” said he and, suiting the action to the word, laid hold of Evie’s rump. Obediently I took her head; we raised the shivering animal between us, bundled her somehow into the carriage just as the train began to move, and fell in after her. We were off!
I have often thought since of that noble young man, that veritable deus ex machina, who, by lending me at this critical moment of my life an assistance which, after the episode of the little boy, I could not have requested or, if it had been merely offered, allowed, planted me firmly upon that fatal road that led to my doom. His cheerful kindness persisted throughout the short journey and was still required, for Evie, who recovered her nerve as soon as she was inside the train, had now to be endured. Excited and irrepressible, she rushed from side to side of the compartment, on and off the seats, trampling upon him, his hat and his papers, rejecting all his overtures of friendship, and barking continuously at the passing scenery, which certainly had little to recommend it. I told him something of her life by way of apology for the bad manners I could not restrain; and indeed, we both agreed, what else could be expected of a creature who was experiencing for the first time in her conscious life a room which, like the magic carpet of the fairy tales, flew and fluttered along. In this one we were left to ourselves; other travelers approached it at intermediate stops, but the apparition of what must have seemed to them an angry wolf confronting them through the glass always suggested to their minds the wisdom of discretion.
At Liverpool Street I bade a preoccupied farewell to my good genie and receded rapidly from his sight through the vaporous vaults in Evie’s tow. After the appalling experience she had just undergone I decided that further mechanical transport, even if available, should be spared her for a while; but when I had suffered her drag upon my arm down Bishopsgate, Cornhill, Poultry, Cheapside, Newgate, and the Viaduct, I began to regret that considerate resolve and to look about me for help. It was not until we reached Holborn Station that a cruising taxi overtook us and the driver was bribed to carry her. Marble Arch was the destination I gave, and he set us down inside the gates at the edge of the park.
Now I had the pleasure I had promised us both, the pleasure of setting her free upon grass. And her reward was mine. Across the open spaces of the park the rough wind blew with its full strength, and she became a part of the dancing day, leaping and flying among the torn trees, wild in her delight. And her gratitude was as boundless as her happiness. The same watchfulness, the same invitation, that I had already noticed in her governed her behavior still. Gay though she was, it was a shared gaiety always; to caper about was not enough, I must caper too; and who could have resisted such ebullience of spirit, which caught one up into itself and the buffeting wind?
We crossed Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. At the Round Pond she launched herself at the swans and received her first scolding: swans are dangerous. From Palace Gate, where I had to re-attach her, to Hammersmith was another painful and exhausting stretch of pavement; but when we reached the towing-path beyond the bridge I was able to release her again. It was a measure of her worldly inexperience that she should have supposed the river, which was at the flood and level with the path, to be another shallow pond, for she rushed straight into it and sank. The expression on her face when she rose to the surface was touching in its dismay. Hastening to her rescue I grasped her collar and hauled her out. So droll she now looked with her fur plastered to her ribs and thighs, but half the dog she had been, that I could not help laughing; and this she seemed to deprecate, for she became rather rough in her play, barging me in the back and tearing a hole in my sleeve. But the mishap was useful, for it washed much of the Winders’ coal dust out of her coat.
“It’s Megan, Frank.”
I had just finished drying Evie. For once I was not displeased to hear that toneless voice.
“Ah yes. I want a word with you. When will you be writing to Johnny again?”
“I expect to see him early next week.”
“You quite live there.”
“I’ve applied for another visit on compassionate grounds.”
“No visits come my way, I notice.”
“I’ll tell him, Frank.”
“Tell him, tell him, do. But I’m glad you’re seeing him. I want to get a message to him.”
“Didn’t he write you? He said he was going to.”
“Yes, I had a letter.” There was an expectant pause at the other end. “But you know all about that.” Silence. Evie was watching me intently. I winked at her. “Don’t you?”
“He said something about some cigarettes,” said she vaguely.
“Rather expensive ones.” She did not speak. “Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know,” said the dim voice.
Bloody little liar! He’d put her up to it and she’d lost her nerve.
“Five pounds is a lot of money.”
“Five pounds!” she echoed, with a faint giggle. “He never said nothing about that.”
“It wasn’t even an official letter,” I said, recollecting my grievance. A stupid remark. She pounced on it.
“It couldn’t be, could it? I only told him what you told me. You said he was to write you direct in future if he wanted anything. That’s what you told me to tell him.”
True enough! She had me there!
“Well, never mind. I want you to give him a message from me. It’s important. Are you listening?”
“Yes, Frank.”
“Well listen. It’s about Evie. I’ve got her here with me for the weekend, and I’m very worried about her. I want to put her in a country kenn
el till he comes out——”
“His mother asked him that and——”
“I know all about that. He thought my cousin would get too fond of her. But this is different. I want to put her in a kennel. I’ve heard of a good one. It’s a purely business matter, nothing personal, so the objection he had to my cousin doesn’t apply. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Frank.”
“It’s important. He doesn’t realize what’s happening to Evie. She’s having a rotten life up at Millie’s. She never gets out. Not at all. And she’s going bad. Are you listening?”
“Yes, Frank.”
“Very well. Tell him that. Millie’s sick of the dog. She said so. So the country kennel will suit everyone. Will you tell him all that?”
“Yes, Frank, I’ll tell him.”
“And ring me up directly you’ve seen him.”
“Yes, Frank.”
“And tell him I’m waiting for a visit.”
“Yes, Frank. What shall I say about the cigarettes?”
“Say I’m thinking about them.”
When I had rung off I thought it would be sensible, pending Johnny’s permission, to investigate Miss Sweeting’s opinion and charges. She might even be unable to take Evie, in which case I would have to look elsewhere. I turned up the Surrey number my cousin had given me and rang it. A male voice answered.
“Is Miss Sweeting in?” I inquired.
“Speaking,” said the voice.
“Miss Sweeting,” I said.
“Speaking,” said the voice.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said confusedly, coughed, and then stumbled through some explanation of my identity and trouble. I gave my silent listener an account of Evie’s upbringing and circumstances, her lack of training and experience, her nervous excitability. Suppressing the incident of the small boy, I merely hinted that there were indications already that she was getting rather snappy, and concluded by saying what a pretty and affectionate bitch she was. Could Miss Sweeting give me any help or advice?
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