CHAPTER XII—DOUBTS

It was the early morning of the last day of the year. Staring out into the street, Teddy flattened his nose against the window. He was doing his best to make himself inconspicuous; neither Jane nor his father had yet noticed that he was wearing his Eton suit on a week-day. That his father hadn’t noticed was not surprising. For Jane’s blindness there was a reason.

Jane’s method of clearing the table would have told him that last night had been her night out. She would be like this all day. Dustpans would fall on the landings. Brooms would slide bumpity-bump down the stairs. The front-door bell would ring maddeningly, till an exasperated voice called not too loudly, “Jane, Jane. Are you deaf? Aren’t you ever going?” It was so that Vashti might not be kept waiting that Teddy was pressing his nose against the window.

This was to be his great day, when matters were to be brought to a crisis. In his secret heart he was wondering what marriage would be like. He was convinced he would enjoy it. Who wouldn’t enjoy living forever and forever alone with Vashti? Of course, at first he would miss his mother and father—he would miss them dreadfully; but then he could invite them to stay with him quite often. He was amused to remember that he was the only person in the world who knew that this was to be his wedding day. Even Vashti didn’t know it. He was saving the news to surprise her.

At each new outburst of noise his thoughts kept turning back to speculations as to what might have caused this terrific upsetting of Jane. She herself would tell him presently; she always did, and he would do his best to look politely sympathetic. Perhaps her middle-aged suitor from the country had pounced on her while out walking with her new young man. He might have struck him—might have killed him. Love brought her nothing but tragedy. It seemed silly of her to continue her adventures in loving.

Crash! He spun round. The tray had slipped from Jane’s hands. In a mood of penitence she stood gaping at the wreckage. His father lowered his paper and gazed at her with an air of complete self-mastery. He was always angriest when he appeared most quiet “Go on,” he encouraged. “Stamp on them. Don’t leave anything. You can do better than that.”

“If I don’t give satisfackshun——” Jane lifted her apron and dabbed at her eyes. “If I don’t give satisfackshun——-”

Teddy heard his father strike a match and settle back into his chair. In the quiet that followed, Teddy’s thoughts returned to the channels out of which they had been diverted.

Funny! Love was the happiest thing in the world, and yet—yet it hadn’t made the people whom he knew happy.

Harriet was in love; and Hal with Vashti; and Vashti——

He remembered another sequence of people who hadn’t been made happy by love. Mrs. Sheerug hadn’t, even though she was the daughter of a Lord Mayor of London and had run away with Alonzo to get him. Mr. Hughes hadn’t, for his Henrietta had gone up in a swing-boat and had failed to come down. Most distinctly Jane hadn’t. And his mother and his father—concerning them his memories contradicted one another. Was Dearie afraid of the ladies who came to have their portraits painted? Why should she be, when Jimmie Boy was already her husband?

He shifted his nose to a new place on the window; the old place was getting wet.

And then there was Mr. Yaffon. Mr. Yaffon lived next door and seemed to sum up the entire problem in a nutshell.

His neighbors accounted for his oddities by saying that long ago he had had an unfortunate heart affair.

He had a squeaky voice, was thin as a beanpole and very shabby. His legs caved in at the knees and his shoulders looked crushed, as if a heavy weight was perpetually pressing on his head. He didn’t go to business or paint pictures like other people. In winter he locked himself in a backroom and studied something called philosophy; the summers he spent in his garden, planting things and then digging them up. He was rarely seen in the street; when he did go out his chief object seemed to be to avoid attracting attention. By instinct he chose the side which was in shadow. Hugging the wall, he would creep along the pavement, wearily searching for something. At an interval of a dozen paces a fox terrier of immense age followed. Teddy had discovered the dog’s name by accident He had stopped to stroke it, saying, “He’s nearly blind, poor old fellow.” Mr. Yaffon had corrected him with squeaky severity: “Alice is not a fellow; she’s a lady-dog.” That was the only conversation he and Mr. Yaffon had ever held. Since then, without knowing why, he had taken it for granted that the adored one of the unfortunate heart affair had been named Alice. He accounted for their separation by supposing that Mr. Yaffon’s voice had done it. The reason for this supposition was the green parrot.

The green parrot was a reprobate-looking bird with broken tail-feathers and white eyelids which, when closed, gave him a sanctimonious expression. When open, they revealed Satanic black eyes which darted evilly in every direction. During the winter he disappeared entirely; but with the first day of spring he was brought out into the garden and lived there for the best part of the summer. From the bedroom windows Teddy could watch him rattling his chain and jigging up and down on his perch. He would make noises like a cork coming out of a bottle and follow them up with a fizzing sound; then he would lower his white lids in a pious manner and say, deep down in his throat, “Let us pray.” He seemed to be trying to create the impression that, whatever his master was now, there had been a time when he had been something of a hypocrite and a good deal of a devil.

But the parrot’s great moment came when his master pottered inoffensively up the path towards him. The bird would wait until he got opposite; then he would scream in a squeaky voice, an exact imitation of Mr. Yaffon’s, “But I love you. I love you.” The old gentleman would grow red and shuffle into the house, leaving the bird turning somersaults on his perch and flapping his wings in paroxysms of laughter.

That was why, whatever calamity had occurred, Teddy supposed that Mr. Yaffon’s voice had done it Try as he would, whichever way he turned, he could find no proof that love made people happy. That didn’t persuade him that love couldn’t. It only meant that grown people were stupid. In his experience they often were.

The bell of the front door rang. It rang a second time.

“Who is it?” asked his father.

Teddy turned; his face was glowing with excitement. “It’s Vashti.”