Alice,tell him.It's going to bite Mr.Jellybrand."The dog raised one eye from his dreamy contemplation of the trousers and glanced at Aunt Amy;from that moment may be dated a feud which death only concluded.This dog was not a forgetful dog.
Jeremy advanced."It's all right,"he cried scornfully."He wouldn't bite anything."He bent down,took the animal by the scruff of the neck,and proceeded to lead it back to the fire.The animal went without a moment's hesitation;it would be too much to say that it exchanged a wink with Jeremy,but something certainly passed between them.Back again on the Turkey rug he became master of the situation.He did the only thing possible:he disregarded entirely the general company and addressed himself to the only person of ultimate importance--namely,Mrs.Cole.He lay down on all fours,looked up directly into her face,bared his teeth this time in a smile and not in a growl,and wagged his farcical tail.
Mrs.Cole's psychology was of the ******st:if you were nice to her she would do anything for you,but in spite of all her placidity she was sometimes hurt in her most sensitive places.These wounds she never displayed,and no one ever knew of them,and indeed they passed very quickly--but there they occasionally were.Now on what slender circumstances do the fates of dogs and mortals hang.Only that afternoon Mr.Jellybrand,in the innocent self-confidence of his heart,had agreed with Miss Maple,an elderly and bitter spinster,that the next sewing meeting of the Dorcas Sisterhood should be held in her house and not at the Rectory.He had told Mrs.
Cole of this on his way upstairs to the nursery.Now Mrs.Cole liked the Dorcas meetings at the Rectory;she liked the cheerful chatter,the hospitality,the gentle scandal and her own position as hostess.
She did not like--she never liked--Miss Maple,who was always pushing herself forward,criticising and back-biting.Mr.Jellybrand should not have settled this without consulting her.He had taken it for granted that she would agree.He had said:"Iagreed with Miss Maple that it would be better to have it at her house.I'm sure you will think as I do."Why should he be sure?Was he not forgetting his position a little?
Kindest woman in the world,she had seen with a strange un-Christian pleasure the dog's advance upon the black trousers.Then Mr.Jellybrand had been obviously afraid.He fancied,perhaps,that she too had been afraid.He fancied,perhaps,that she was not mistress in her house,that she could be browbeaten by her sister and her nurse.
She smiled at him."There's no reason to be afraid,Mr.Jellybrand.
He's such a little dog."
Then the dog smiled at her.
"Poor little thing,"she said."He must have nearly died in the snow."Thus Miss Maple,bitterest of spinsters,influenced,all unwitting,the lives not only of a dog and a curate,but of the entire Cole family,and through them,of endless generations both of dogs and men as yet unborn.Miss Maple,sitting in her little yellow-curtained parlour drinking,in jaundiced contentment,her afternoon's cup of tea,was,of course,unaware of this.A good thing that she was unaware -she was quite conceited enough already.
IV
After that smiling judgment of Mrs.Cole's,affairs were quickly settled.
"Of course it can only be for the night,children.Father will arrange something in the morning.Poor little thing.Where did you find him?""We saw him from the window,"said Jeremy quickly,"and he was shivering like anything,so we called him in to warm him.""My dear Alice,you surely don't mean--"began Aunt Amy,and the Jampot said:"I really think,Mum-,"and Mr.Jellybrand,in his rich voice,murmured:"Is it quite wise,dear Mrs.Cole,do you think?"With thoughts of Miss Maple she smiled upon them all.
"Oh,for one night,I think we can manage.He seems a clean little dog,and really we can't turn him out into the snow at once.It would be too cruel.But mind,children,it's only for one night.He looks a good little dog."When the "quality"had departed,Jeremy's mind was in a confused condition of horror and delight.Such a victory as he had won over the Jampot,a victory that was a further stage in the fight for independence begun on his birthday,might have very awful qualities.
There would begin now one of the Jampot's sulks--moods well known to the Cole family,and lasting from a day to a week,according to the gravity of the offence.Yes,they had already begun.There she sat in her chair by the fire,sewing,sewing,her fat,roly-poly face carved into a parody of deep displeasure.Life would be very unpleasant now.No tops of eggs,no marmalade on toast,no skins of milk,no stories of "when I was a young girl,"no sitting up five minutes "later,"no stopping in the market-place for a talk with the banana woman--only stern insistence on every detail of daily life;swift judgment were anything left undone or done wrong.