All Souls' Night

THE WHISTLE-2

Nevertheless, behind these sentiments, there was this great difference, that Mrs. Penwin disliked Blake extremely (whenever he looked at her he made her feel a weak, helpless and idiotic woman), while Charlie Penwin, although he was afraid of him, in his heart liked him very much indeed.

If Blake only were human, little Charlie Penwin, who was a sentimentalist, used to think—and now, suddenly, Blake was human. He had gone ‘dotty’ about this dog, and the dog followed him like a shadow. So close were they the one to the other that you could almost imagine that they held conversations together.

Then Blake came in to his master’s room one day to ask whether Adam could sleep in his room. He had a small room next to Mrs. Blake’s, because he was often out late with the car at night and must rise very early in the morning. Clara Blake liked to have her sleep undisturbed.

‘You see, sir,’ he said, ‘he won’t sort of settle down in the outhouse. He’s restless: I know he is.’

‘How do you know he is?’ asked Charlie Penwin.

‘I can sort of feel it, sir. He won’t be no sort of trouble in my room, and he’ll be a fine guard to the house at night.’

The two men looked at one another and were in that moment friends. They both smiled.

‘Very well, Blake. I don’t think there’s anything against it.’

Of course there were things against it. Mrs. Penwin hated the idea of the dog sleeping in the house. She did not really hate it; what she hated was that Blake and her husband should settle this thing without a word to her. Nor, when she protested, would her husband falter. Blake wanted it. It would be a good protection for the house.

Blake discovered a very odd whistle with which he called the dog. Putting two fingers into his mouth he called forth this strange note that seemed to penetrate into endless distance and that had in it something mysterious, melancholy and dangerous. It was musical and inhuman; friends of the Penwins, comfortably at tea, would hear this thin whistling cry coming, it seemed, from far away beyond the Fells, having in it some part of the Lake and the distant sea tumbling on Drigg sands, and of the lonely places in Eskdale and Ennerdale.

‘What’s that?’ they would say, looking up.

‘Oh, it’s Blake calling his dog.’

‘What a strange whistle!’

‘Yes, it’s the only one the dog hears.’

The dog did hear it, at any distance, in any place. When Blake went with the car the Alsatian would lie on the upper lawn whence he could see the road, and wait for his return.

He would both see and hear the car’s return, but he would not stir until Blake, released from his official duties, could whistle to him—then with one bound he would be up, down the garden, and with his front paws up against Blake’s chest would show him his joy.

To all the rest of the world he was indifferent. But he was not hostile. He showed indeed an immense patience, and especially with regard to the Sealyham.

The dog Mopsa attempted twice at least every day to kill the Alsatian. He succeeded in biting him severely, but so long as Blake was there Adam showed an infinite control, letting Blake part them although every instinct in him was stirred to battle.

But, after a time, Blake became clever at keeping the two dogs separate; moreover, the Sealyham became afraid of Blake. He was clever enough to realise that when he fought the Alsatian he fought Blake as well—and Blake was too much for him.

Very soon, however, Blake was at war not only with the Sealyham but with his wife and Mrs. Penwin too. You might think that the words ‘at war’ were too strong when nothing was to be seen on the surface. Mrs. Blake said nothing, Mrs. Penwin said nothing, Blake himself said nothing.

Save for the fights with the Sealyham there was no charge whatever to bring against the Alsatian. He was never in anyone’s way, he brought no dirt into the house, whenever Charlie Penwin took him in the car he sat motionless on the back seat, his wolf ears pricked up, his large and beautiful eyes sternly regarding the outside world, but his consciousness fixed only upon Blake’s back, broad and masterly above the wheel.

No charge could be brought against him except that the devotion between the man and the dog was, in this little house of ordered emotions, routine habits, quiet sterility, almost terrible. Mrs. Blake, as her husband left her one night to return to his own room, broke out:

‘If you’d loved me as you love that dog I’d have had a different life.’

Blake patted her shoulder, moist beneath her night-dress.

‘I love you all right, my girl,’ he said.

And Mrs. Penwin found that here she could not move her husband.

Again and again she said:

‘Charlie, that dog’s got to go.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s dangerous.’

‘I don’t see it.’

‘Somebody will be bitten one day and then you will see it.’

‘There’s a terrible lot of nonsense talked about Alsatians. . . .’

And then, when everyone was comfortable, Mrs. Blake reading her Home Chat, Mrs. Penwin her novel, Mrs. Fern, Mrs. Penwin’s best friend, doing a ‘crossword,’ over the misty dank garden, carried, it seemed, by the muffled clouds that floated above the Fell, would sound that strange melancholy whistle, so distant and yet so near, Blake calling his dog.

For Blake himself life was suddenly, and for the first time, complete. He had not known, all this while, what it was that he missed, although he had known that he missed something.

Had Mrs. Blake given him a child he would have realised completion. Mrs. Blake alone had not been enough for his heart. In this dog he found fulfilment because here were all the things that he admired—loyalty, strength, courage, self-reliance, fidelity, comradeship, and above all, sobriety of speech and behaviour. Beyond these there was something more—love. He did not, even to himself, admit the significance of this yet deeper contact. And he analysed nothing.

For the dog, life in this dangerous menacing country of the enemy was at last secure and simple. He had only one thing to do, only one person to consider.

But of course life is not so simple as this for anybody. A battle was being waged and it must have an issue. The Penwins were not in Cumberland during the winter. They went to their little place in Sussex, very close to London and to all their London friends. Mrs. Penwin would not take the Alsatian to Sussex. But why not? asked Charlie. She hated it, Mrs. Blake hated it. That, said Charlie, was not reason enough.

‘Do you realise,’ said Mrs. Penwin theatrically, ‘that this dog is dividing us?’

‘Nonsense,’ said Charlie.

‘It is not nonsense. I believe you care more for Blake than you do for me.’ She cried. She cried very seldom. Charlie Penwin was uncomfortable, but some deep male obstinacy was roused in him. This had become an affair of the sexes. Men must stand together and protect themselves or they would be swept away in this feminine flood. . . .

Blake knew, Mrs. Blake knew, Mrs. Penwin knew, that the dog would go with them to Sussex unless some definite catastrophe gave Mrs. Penwin the victory. As he lay on his bed at night, seeing the grey wolf-like shadow of the dog stretched on the floor, Blake’s soul for the first time in its history trembled at the thought of the slight movement, incident, spoken word, sound, that might rouse the dog beyond his endurance and precipitate the catastrophe. The dog was behaving magnificently, but he was surrounded by his enemies. Did he know what hung upon his restraint?

Whether he knew or no, the catastrophe arrived, and arrived with the utmost, most violent publicity. On a sun-gleaming russet October afternoon, on the lawn, while Charlie was giving Blake instructions about the car, and Mrs. Penwin put in also her word, Mopsa attacked the Alsatian, Blake ran to separate them, and the Alsatian, sharply bitten, bewildered, humiliated, snapped and caught Blake’s leg between his teeth. A moment later he and Blake knew, both of them, what he had done. Blake would have hidden it, but blood was flowing. In the Alsatian’s heart remorse, terror, love, and a sense of disaster, a confirmation of all that, since his birth, knowing the traps that his enemies would lay for him, he had suspected, leapt to life together.

Disregarding all else he looked up at Blake.

‘And that settles it!’ cried Mrs. Penwin, triumphantly. ‘He goes!’

Blake’s leg was badly bitten in three places; they would be scars for life. And it was settled. Before the week was out the dog would be returned to his first owners, who did not want him, who would give him to someone else who also, in turn, through fear or shyness of neighbours, would not want him. . . .

Two days after this catastrophe Mrs. Blake went herself to Mrs. Penwin.

‘My husband’s that upset . . . I wouldn’t care if the dog stays, Mum.’

‘Why, Clara, you hate the dog.’

‘Oh, well, Mum, Blake’s a good husband to me. I don’t like to see him . . .’

‘Why, what has he said?’

‘He hasn’t said anything, Mum.’

But Mrs. Penwin shook her head. ‘No, Clara, it’s ridiculous. The dog’s dangerous.’

And Blake went to Charlie Penwin. The two men faced one another and were closer together, fonder of one another, man caring for man, than they had ever been before.

‘But, Blake, if the dog bites you whom he cares for . . . I mean, don’t you see, he really is dangerous. . . .’

‘He wasn’t after biting me,’ said Blake slowly. ‘And if he had to bite somebody, being aggravated and nervous, he’d not find anyone better to bite than me who understands him and knows he don’t mean nothing by it.’

Charlie Penwin felt in himself a terrible disloyalty to his wife. She could go to . . . Why should not Blake have his dog? Was he for ever to be dominated by women? For a brief, rocking, threatening moment his whole stable ordered world trembled. He knew that if he said the dog was to remain the dog would remain and that something would have broken between his wife and himself that could never be mended.

He looked at Blake, who with his blue serious eyes stared steadily in front of him. He hesitated. He shook his head.

‘No, Blake, it won’t do. Mrs. Penwin will never be easy now while the dog is there.’

Later in the day Blake did an amazing thing. He went to Mrs. Penwin.

During all these years he had never voluntarily, himself, gone to Mrs. Penwin. He had never gone unless he were sent for. She looked at him and felt as she always did, dislike, admiration, and herself a bit of a fool.

‘Well, Blake?’

‘If the dog stays I’ll make myself responsible. He shan’t bite nobody again.’

‘But how can you tell? You said he wouldn’t bite anyone before, and he did?’

‘He won’t again.’

‘No, Blake, he’s got to go. I shan’t have a moment’s peace while he’s here.’

‘He’s a wonderful dog. I’ll have him trained so he won’t hurt a fly. He’s like a child with me.’

‘I’m sure he is. Irresponsible like a child. That’s why he bit you.’