Siegfried’s student brother Tristan didn’t help, either. When seeing practice he was very selective in the cases he wished to observe, but he was immediately attracted to Cedric’s symptoms and insisted on coming with me on one occasion. I never took him again because as we went in the big dog bounded from his mistress’ side and produced a particularly sonorous blast as if in greeting.
Tristan immediately threw out a hand in a dramatic gesture and declaimed: “Speak on, sweet lips that never told a lie!” That was his only visit. I had enough trouble without that.
I didn’t know it at the time but a greater blow awaited me. A few days later Mrs. Rumney was on the ’phone again.
“Mr. Herriot, a friend of mine has such a sweet little Boxer bitch. She wants to bring her along to be mated with Cedric.”
“Eh?”
“She wants to mate her bitch with my dog.”
“With Cedric …?” I clutched at the edge of the desk. It couldn’t be true! “And … and are you agreeable?”
“Yes, of course.”
I shook my head to dispel the feeling of unreality. I found it incomprehensible that anyone should want to reproduce Cedric, and as I gaped into the receiver a frightening vision floated before me of eight little Cedrics all with his complaint. But of course such a thing wasn’t hereditary. I took a grip of myself and cleared my throat.
“Very well, then, Mrs. Rumney, you’d better go ahead.”
There was a pause. “But Mr. Herriot I want you to supervise the mating.”
“Oh really, I don’t think that’s necessary.” I dug my nails into my palms. “I think you’ll be all right without me.”
“Oh but I would be much happier if you were there. Please come,” she said appealingly.
Instead of emitting a long-drawn groan I took a deep breath.
“Right” I said. “I’ll be along in the morning.”
All that evening I was obsessed by a feeling of dread. Another acutely embarrassing session was in store with this exquisite woman. Why was it I always had to share things like this with her? And I really feared the worst. Even the daftest dog, when confronted with a bitch in heat knows instinctively how to proceed, but with a really ivory-skulled animal like Cedric I wondered …
And next morning all my fears were realised. The bitch, Trudy, was a trim little creature and showed every sign of willingness to cooperate. Cedric, on the other hand, though obviously delighted to meet her, gave no hint of doing his part. After sniffing her over, he danced around her a few times, goofy-faced, tongue lolling. Then he had a roll on the lawn before charging at her and coming to a full stop, big feet outsplayed, head down, ready to play. I sighed. It was as I thought. The big chump didn’t know what to do.
This pantomime went on for some time and, inevitably, the emotional strain brought on a resurgence of his symptoms. Frequently he paused to inspect his tail as though he had never heard noises like that before.
He varied his dancing routine with occasional headlong gallops round the lawn and it was after he had done about ten successive laps that he seemed to decide he ought to do something about the bitch. I held my breath as he approached her but unfortunately he chose the wrong end to commence operations. Trudy had put up with his nonsense with great patience but when she found him busily working away in the region of her left ear it was too much. With a shrill yelp she nipped him in the hind leg and he shot away in alarm.
After that whenever he came near she warned him off with bared teeth. Clearly she was disenchanted with her bridegroom and I couldn’t blame her.
“I think she’s had enough, Mrs. Rumney,” I said.
I certainly had had enough and so had the poor lady, judging by her slight breathlessness, flushed cheeks and waving handkerchief.
“Yes … yes … I suppose you’re right,” she replied.
So Trudy was taken home and that was the end of Cedric’s career as a stud dog.
This last episode decided me. I had to have a talk with Mrs. Rumney and a few days later I called in at The Laurels.
“Maybe you’ll think it’s none of my business,” I said. “But I honestly don’t think Cedric is the dog for you. In fact he’s so wrong for you that he is upsetting your life.”
Mrs. Rumney’s eyes widened. “Well … he is a problem in some ways … but what do you suggest?”
“I think you should get another dog in his place. Maybe a poodle or a corgi—something smaller, something you could control.”
“But Mr. Herriot, I couldn’t possibly have Cedric put down.” Her eyes filled quickly with tears. “I really am fond of him despite his … despite everything.”
“No, no, of course not!” I said. “I like him too. He has no malice in him. But I think I have a good idea. Why not let Con Fenton have him?”
“Con …?”
“Yes, he admires Cedric tremendously and the big fellow would have a good life with the old man. He has a couple of fields behind his cottage and keeps a few beasts. Cedric could run to his heart’s content out there and Con would be able to bring him along when he does the garden. You’d still see him three times a week.”
Mrs. Rumney looked at me in silence for a few moments and I saw in her face the dawning of relief and hope.
“You know, Mr. Harriot, I think that could work very well. But are you sure Con would take him?”
“I’d like to bet on it. An old bachelor like him must be lonely. There’s only one thing worries me. Normally they only meet outside and I wonder how it would be when they were indoors and Cedric started to … when the old trouble …”
“Oh, I think that would be all right,” Mrs. Rumney broke in quickly. “When I go on holiday Con always takes him for a week or two and he has never mentioned any … anything unusual … in that way.”
I got up to go. “Well, that’s fine. I should put it to the old man right away.”
Mrs. Rumney rang within a few days. Con had jumped at the chance of taking on Cedric and the pair had apparently settled in happily together. She had also taken my advice and acquired a poodle puppy.
I didn’t see the new dog till it was nearly six months old and its mistress asked me to call to treat it for a slight attack of eczema. As I sat in the graceful room looking at Mrs. Rumney, cool, poised, tranquil, with the little white creature resting on her knee I couldn’t help feeling how right and fitting the whole scene was. The lush carpet, the trailing velvet curtains, the fragile tables with their load of expensive china and framed miniatures. It was no place for Cedric.
Con Fenton’s cottage was less than half a mile away and on my way back to the surgery, on an impulse I pulled up at the door. The old man answered my knock and his big face split into a delighted grin when he saw me.
“Come in, young man!” he cried in his strange snuffly voice. “I’m right glad to see tha!”
I had hardly stepped into the tiny living room when a hairy form hurled itself upon me. Cedric hadn’t changed a bit and I had to battle my way to the broken armchair by the fireside. Con settled down opposite and when the Boxer leaped to lick his face he clumped him companionably on the head with his fist.
“Siddown, ye great daft bugger,” he murmured with affection. Cedric sank happily on to the tattered hearthrug at his feet and gazed up adoringly at his new master.
“Well, Mr. Herriot,” Con went on as he cut up some villainous-looking plug tobacco and began to stuff it into his pipe. “I’m right grateful to ye for gettin” me this grand dog. By gaw, he’s a topper and ah wouldn’t sell ’im for any money. No man could ask for a better friend.’’
“Well, that’s great, Con,” I said. “And I can see that the big chap is really happy here.”
The old man ignited his pipe and a cloud of acrid smoke rose to the low, blackened beams. “Aye, he’s ’ardly ever inside. A gurt strong dog like ’im wants to work ’is energy off, like.”
But just at that moment Cedric was obviously working something else off because the familiar pungency rose from him even above th
e billowings from the pipe. Con seemed oblivious of it but in the enclosed space I found it overpowering.
“Ah well,” I gasped. “I just looked in for a moment to see how you were getting on together. I must be on my way.” I rose hurriedly and stumbled towards the door but the redolence followed me in a wave. As I passed the table with the remains of the old man’s meal I saw what seemed to be the only form of ornament in the cottage, a cracked vase holding a magnificent bouquet of carnations. It was a way of escape and I buried my nose in their fragrance.
Con watched me approvingly. “Aye, they’re lovely flowers, aren’t they? T’missus at Laurels lets me bring ’ome what I want and I reckon them carnations is me favourite.”
“Yes, they’re a credit to you.” I still kept my nose among the blooms.
“There’s only one thing,” the old man said pensively. “Ah don’t get t’full benefit of ’em.”
“How’s that, Con?”
He pulled at his pipe a couple of times. “Well, you can hear ah speak a bit funny, like?”
“No … no … not really.”
“Oh aye, ye know ah do. I’ve been like it since I were a lad. I ’ad a operation for adenoids and summat went wrong.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
“Well, it’s nowt serious, but it’s left me lackin’ in one way.”
“You mean …?” A light was beginning to dawn in my mind, an elucidation of how man and dog had found each other, of why their relationship was so perfect, of the certainty of their happy future together. It seemed like fate.
“Aye,” the old man went on sadly. “I ’ave no sense of smell.”
CHAPTER 5
I THINK IT WAS when I saw the London policeman wagging a finger at a scowling urchin that I thought of Wesley Binks and the time he put the firework through the surgery letter box.
It was what they used to call a “banger” and it exploded at my feet as I hurried along the dark passage in answer to the door bell’s ring, making me leap into the air in terror.
I threw open the front door and looked into the street. It was empty, but at the corner where the lamplight was reflected in Robson’s shop window I had a brief impression of a fleeing form and a faint echo of laughter. I couldn’t do anything about it but I knew Wes was out there somewhere.
Wearily I trailed back into the house. Why did this lad persecute me? What could a ten-year-old boy possibly have against me? I had never done him any harm, yet I seemed to be the object of a deliberate campaign.
Or maybe it wasn’t personal. It could be that he felt I represented authority or the establishment in some way, or perhaps I was just convenient.
I was certainly the ideal subject for his little tricks of ringing the door bell and running away, because I dared not ignore the summons in case it might be a client, and also the consulting and operating rooms were such a long way from the front of the house. Sometimes I was dragged down from our bed-sitter under the tiles. Every trip to the door was an expedition and it was acutely exasperating to arrive there and see only a little figure in the distance dancing about and grimacing at me.
He varied this routine by pushing rubbish through the letter box, pulling the flowers from the tiny strip of garden we tried to cultivate between the flagstones and chalking rude messages on my car.
I knew I wasn’t the only victim because I had heard complaints from others; the fruiterer who saw his apples disappear from the box in front of the shop, the grocer who unwillingly supplied him with free biscuits.
He was the town naughty boy all right, and it was incongruous that he should have been named Wesley. There was not the slightest sign in his behaviour of any strict methodist upbringing. In fact I knew nothing of his family life—only that he came from the poorest part of the town, a row of “yards” containing tumbledown cottages, some of them evacuated because of their condition.
I often saw him wandering about in the fields and lanes or fishing in quiet reaches of the river when he should have been in school. When he spotted me on these occasions he invariably called out some mocking remark and if he happened to be with some of his cronies they all joined in the laughter at my expense. It was annoying but I used to tell myself that there was nothing personal in it. I was an adult and that was enough to make me a target.
Wes’s greatest triumph was undoubtedly the time he removed the grating from the coal cellar outside Skeldale House. It was on the left of the front steps and underneath it was a steep ramp down which the coalmen tipped their bags.
I don’t know whether it was inspired intuition but he pinched the grating on the day of the Darrowby Gala. The festivities started with a parade through the town led by the Houlton Silver Band and as I looked down from the windows of our bed-sitter I could see them all gathering in the street below.
“Look, Helen,” I said. “They must be starting the march from Trengate. Everybody I know seems to be down there.”
Helen leaned over my shoulder and gazed at the long lines of boy scouts, girl guides, ex-servicemen, with half the population of the town packed on the pavements, watching. “Yes, it’s quite a sight, isn’t it? Let’s go down and see them move off.”
We trotted down the long flights of stairs and I followed her out through the front door. And as I appeared in the entrance I was suddenly conscious that I was the centre of attention. The citizens on the pavements, waiting patiently for the parade to start, had something else to look at now. The little brownies and wolf cubs waved at me from their ranks and there were nods and smiles from the people across the road and on all sides.
I could divine their thoughts. “There’s t’young vitnery coming out of his house. Not long married, too. That’s his missus next to him.”
A feeling of wellbeing rose in me. I don’t know whether other newly married men feel the same, but in those early days I was aware of a calm satisfaction and fulfillment. And I was proud to be the “vitnery” and part of the life of the town. There was my plate on the wall beside me, a symbol of my solid importance. I was a man of substance now. I had arrived.
Looking around me, I acknowledged the greeting with a few dignified little smiles, raising a gracious hand now and then rather like a royal personage on view. Then I noticed that Helen hadn’t much room by my side, so I stepped to the left to where the grating should have been and slid gracefully down into the cellar.
It would be a dramatic touch to say I disappeared from view; in fact I wish I had, because I would have stayed down there and avoided further embarrassment. But as it was I travelled only so far down the ramp and stuck there with my head and shoulders protruding into the street.
My little exhibition caused a sensation among the spectators. Nothing in the Gala parade could compete with this. One or two of the surrounding faces expressed alarm but loud laughter was the general response. The adults were almost holding each other up but the little brownies and wolf cubs made my most appreciative audience, breaking their ranks and staggering about helplessly in the roadway while their leaders tried to restore order.
I caused chaos, too, in the Houlton Silver Band, who were hoisting their instruments prior to marching off. If they had any ideas about bursting into tune they had to abandon them temporarily because I don’t think any of them had breath to blow.
It was, in fact two of the bandsmen who extricated me by linking their hands under my armpits. My wife was of no service at all in the crisis and I could only look up at her reproachfully as she leaned against the doorpost dabbing at her eyes.
It all became clear to me when I reached street level. I was flicking the coal dust from my trousers and trying to look unconcerned when I saw Wesley Binks doubled up with mirth, pointing triumphantly at me and at the hole over the cellar. He was quite near, jostling among the spectators, and I had my first close look at the wild-eyed little goblin who had plagued me. I may have made an unconscious movement towards him because he gave me a last malevolent grin and disappeared into the crowd.
Strangely, I had another opportunity to study him quite soon afterwards. It was about a week later and my feathers were still a little ruffled after the grating incident when I saw him sitting all alone in the waiting room. Alone, that is, except for a skinny black dog in his lap.
I could hardly believe it. I had often rehearsed the choice phrases which I would use on this very occasion but the sight of the animal restrained me; if he had come to consult me professionally I could hardly start pitching into him right away. Maybe later.
I pulled on a white coat and went in.
“Well, what can I do for you?” I asked coldly.
The boy stood up and his expression of mixed defiance and desperation showed that it had cost him something to enter this house.
“Summat matter wi’ me dog,” he muttered.
“Right, bring him through.” I led the way along the passage to the consulting room.
“Put him on the table, please,” I said, and as he lifted the little animal I decided that I couldn’t let this opportunity pass. While I was carrying out my examination I would quite casually discuss recent events. Nothing nasty, no clever phrases, just a quiet probe into the situation. I was just about to say something like “What’s the idea of all those tricks you play on me?” when I took my first look at the dog and everything else fled from my mind.
He wasn’t much more than a big puppy and an out-and-out mongrel. His shiny black coat could have come from a labrador and there was a suggestion of terrier in the pointed nose and pricked ears, but the long string-like tail and the knock-kneed forelimbs baffled me. For all that he was an attractive little creature with a sweetly expressive face.
But the things that seized my whole attention were the yellow blobs of pus in the corners of the eyes, the mucopurulent discharge from the nostrils and the photophobia which made the dog blink painfully at the light from the surgery window.
All Things Wise and Wonderful Page 5