CHAPTER III—THE SPUFFLER

One day there was a ring at the door in the lane, followed by a loud and impatient rat-a-tat. A gentleman, who was a stranger to me, hurled himself across the threshold. He wore the frown of one who is intensely in earnest, whose mind is very much occupied. His mustaches were the fiercest and most eager that I ever saw on any man. They stuck out at right angles from under his nose like a pair of shaving-brushes. They were of an extraordinary purplish color, and would have done credit to a pirate. But his dress was more clerical than sea-faring. It consisted of a black frock coat, bound with braid at the edges where the cloth was fretted; his vest was low-cut to display an ocean of white shirt, above which a small tie of black silk wobbled. Hurrying up the path, tugging at his bushy eye-brows, he disappeared into the house. The last I saw of him was a red bandana handkerchief, streaming like a danger-signal from his coat-tail pocket. I thought he must be one of those hostile publishers my father talked about or, at the very least, an editor.

Hetty, the maid, came into the garden looking worried. She did not stand on the steps and yell, as was customary, as though daring me to disobey her. She caught up her skirts with a dignified air and spoke my name softly, employing the honeyed tones with which she enticed our milkman every morning. I perceived at once that something momentous had occurred, and came out from behind the bushes. Then I saw the reason for her sudden change of manners—the purple mustached stranger was watching us from behind the curtains of my father’s study-window. I was most agreeably and unpresentably grubby. Hetty was distressed at my appearance; I knew she was by the way she kept hurting my hand and muttering to me to hide behind her.

When we got inside the house she became voluble, but only in whispers.

“Now, Master Dante, I can’t ’elp it if the soap do get into your mouth. You’ve got to be a clean boy fer once in yer h’existence. It may mean h’everythin’. That gent’s some relation o’ yourn. ’E’s goin’ to take you away wiv him, an’ he may ’ave money. I shall ’ate to lose yer. Now let’s look at yer neck.”

She scrubbed away at my face till it was scarlet; she let the water from the flannel trickle down my back. I was too awe-inspired to wriggle; by some occult power the dreadful personage downstairs might learn about it. Having been pitched into my Sunday sailor-suit and squeezed into a pair of new boots and prickly stockings, I was bundled into the august presence.

When I entered he was straddling the fire-place carpet—the one which ought to have been magic—and waggling his coat-tails with his hands.

My father rose from his chair. “This is your great-uncle, Obadiah Spreckles. Come and be introduced, Dante.”

Up to now I had never heard of such a relative, but I came timidly forward and shook hands.

“A fine little fellow. A very fine little fellow, and the image of his mother,” said my great-uncle.

My father winced at the mention of my mother. My great-uncle spread his legs still wider and addressed me in a jerky important manner.

“Got a lot of dogs and cats. Got a goat and a cow. Got some hens. Got up early this morning. Saw the sun shining. Thought you might like to take a look at ’em, young man.”

Turning to my father, “Well, Cardover, I must be going. I’ll take good care of him and all that. I’m very busy—hardly a moment to spare.”

Before I knew what had happened, I had said good-bye to my father and was standing in the lane alone with my strange uncle.

When the door had banged and he knew that no grownup could see him, he changed his manner. His hurry left him. Placing his hands on my shoulders, he looked down into my face, laughing. “Now for a good time, old chap.”

At the end of the lane, where the posts blocked the passage, stood a little dog-cart and pony. My bag was stowed under the seat; at a click of the tongue from my uncle, the little beast started up like the wind.

It was a bright June morning. The sky was intensely blue and cloudless. The air was full of flower-fragrance and dreamy somnolence. I had seen so little of the world that everything was vivid to me, and touched with the vagrant poetry of romance. Tram-lines were streaks of silver down the streets, shops were palaces, cabbies gentlemen who plied their trade because they loved horses. Postmen going their rounds were philanthropists. Everyone was free, doing what he liked, and happy. In my child’s way I realized that neither my father nor myself was typical—not all little boys were locked in gardens and not all grown men slaved from morning to midnight. A great lump came into my throat. It would have been quite easy to cry, I was so glad.

Uncle Obadiah kept chatting away, telling me that the name of his little mare was Dollie and how he came to buy her. “Couldn’t afford it, you know, old chap. She costs me ten shillings a week for fodder. But when I saw that coster whacking her, and she looked up into my eyes when I went to stop him, I just couldn’t resist her. She seemed to be asking me to buy her, and I did. You should have heard what your Aunt Lavinia said.”

All the way along the streets he kept pointing with his whip to things that he thought were interesting. He engaged me in conversation—a thing which no one had thought worth doing. He asked me questions which were not senseless, and seemed to suppose that a child had reasoning powers. I was flattered, and began to surprise myself by the boldness of the things I said.

We rattled down the City Road, past the Mansion House, over London Bridge to the Elephant and Castle, and so out toward Dulwich till we came within sight of the Crystal Palace.

He began to slow down and grow pensive, as though working out a problem. “You see, she’ll have lunch ready. She’s expecting us. She’s very precise about the keeping of hours and won’t like it.” Then, “Hang it all. We may as well have a holiday now we’re out.”

Shaking loose the reins we started forward again, racing everything we met upon the road. My uncle’s high spirits returned. I don’t know where we went. I know there were woods and farm-houses. We stopped for lunch at a village-inn. It stood on the edge of a gorse-common. On the common a donkey was grazing. A flock of geese wandered across it. Boys were playing cricket against a tree-stump. Several great wagons, piled high with vegetables, were drawn up, the horses with their heads deep in nose-bags.

We had our meal in the tap-room with the wagoners. While they were present my uncle assumed his pontifical manner, addressing me as “young man” and them as “my good fellows.” He was very dignified, and benevolent, and haughty. They were much impressed. But when they had left and we were alone, he winked his eye at me solemnly, as much as to say “that was all pretense. Now let’s be natural,” and entered once more into my boy’s world of escapades and gilded shadows.

While the mare rested, we strolled round. In a hollow of the woods we came across a gipsy encampment. Three yellow caravans were drawn up together. A fire was burning in the open, over which an iron pot was suspended from a bough. A fierce, gaudily clad woman was bent above it stirring. She looked up at sound of our approach and the big ear-rings which dropped upon her neck jangled. Recognizing my uncle she nodded, and allowed us to sit down and watch her. Presently a rough man came out of the woods and threw himself down beside us. A young woman returned from fortune-telling, with her baby in a shawl across her shoulders. Bowls were brought out, and we had a second lunch from the great pot bubbling on the fire. Pipes were produced; the women smoked as well as the men. My uncle asked them where they had been and how they had fared since last he saw them. I listened intently to their answers; it seemed that they must have discovered the boundless garden of which I had only dreamt.

In the dog-cart on the homeward journey, I learnt that my uncle was acquainted with a number of queer people. “Everybody’s interesting, Dante,” he said, by way of excuse and explanation; “it’s never safe to despise anyone.”

In course of conversation he informed me that he had always longed to be a gipsy, but had never dared. When I asked why not, he answered shortly, “Your Aunt Lavinia—she’s not like us and wouldn’t understand.”

“But if there wasn’t any Aunt Lavinia—would you dare then?”

“I might have to,” he said, smiling grimly.

I didn’t know at all what he meant. He didn’t intend I should. After all these years those words, chance-spoken to a child, remain with me. They were as near to a confession that his wife supported him as was possible for a proud man.

My grandmother Cardover at Ransby, whose sister he had married, had a habit of nicknaming people with words of her own invention. She called my great-uncle The Spuffler. Whether the verb to Spuffle is Suffolk dialect or a word of her own coining, I have never been able to find out—but in its hostile sense it described him exactly.

A spuffler is a gay pretender, who hides his lack of success beneath the importance of his manners. Time is his one possession, and to him it is valueless; yet he tries to impress the world with its extreme rarity. A spuffler is always in a hurry; he talks loudly. He plays a game of make-believe that he is a person of far-reaching authority; he deceives others and almost deceives himself. He is usually small in stature and not infrequently bald-headed. In conversing he makes an imaginary lather with his hands and points his finger, at you. He may splutter and spit when he gets excited; but this is accidental and not necessary. The prime requisite is that he should affect the prosperity of a bank-president and be dependent on some quite obscure source for his pocket-money. Since I have lived in America I have become familiar with a word which is very similar—a bluffer. But a bluffer is a conscious liar and may be a humorist, whereas a spuffler does all in his power to deceive himself and is always in dead earnest.

It is a curious fact that the men whom I loved best as a child were all three incompetents in the worldly sense. They were clever, but they lacked the faculty of marketing their talents. They were boys in men’s bodies. With children they had the hearts of children and were delightful. With business men their light-heartedness counted as irresponsibility and was a drawback. In two out of the three cases named, the disappointments which resulted from continual defeat produced vices. Only my Uncle Obadiah, clad in his armor of unpierceable spuffle, rode through the ranks of life scatheless, with his sweetness unembittered and his integrity untarnished. But they were all good men.

Through the June twilight we returned to the outskirts of London. We turned in at a ruined gateway, and rode through a tunnel of overhanging trees where laburnum blazed through the dusk. A long rambling house grew up before us. At one time it must have been the country estate of some city-merchant. At sound of our wheels on the gravel, the front-door opened and a little lady stepped out to greet us. She was neat and speckless as a hospital nurse. Her body was slim and dainty as a girl’s. There was an air of decision and restraint about her, which was in direct opposition to my uncle’s hurried geniality.

When we had halted, she lifted me out of the dog-cart and carried me into the house to a large room at the back, which looked into a shadowy garden and a paddock beyond. It seemed older and more opulent than any house I had known as yet. There was so much space about it.

My uncle came in from stabling Dollie. “Well, Lavinia, I couldn’t get home to lunch. Very sorry, but it couldn’t be helped.”

He darted a look across at me, wondering how much I had told her. The secret was established; I knew that I must hold my tongue. I knew something else—that he was afraid of her. Throughout the meal he kept up a stream of strenuous pretense, discussing large plans aloud with himself. What they were I cannot now remember. I suppose my grandmother would have called them spuffle. Suddenly he rose from the table, saying that he had a lot of letters to answer and excused himself. But when I went into his room an hour later to bid him good-night, he was sitting before his desk, doing nothing in particular, biting the end of his pen.

When my aunt and I were left together I felt very lonely at first. She had sat so silent all through supper.

But when the door had closed, she turned to me laughing. I knew at once that, like most grown-ups when they are together, she had only been shamming. Now she was-going to be real.

“Did you have a good day in the country?” she asked. “Oh, he can’t deceive me; I could tell by the dust on the wheels.”

Then, realizing, I suppose, that it was not fair to pump me, she stopped asking questions and began to speak about myself. She drew up a chair to the window and sat with me in the dark with her arms about me. She seemed extraordinarily young, and when her silky gray hair touched my cheek as she bent above me, I wondered what had made my uncle say that she wasn’t like us and wouldn’t understand.

They each had their secret world of desire: his was the open road, where liberty was and lack of convention; hers was a home with fire-light and children. She was childless. Into both these worlds a little boy might enter. That night as I lay awake in bed I was puzzled. Why was it that grown people were so funny, and could never be real with one another?