animal stories (5 page)

I laughed aloud in the darkness and as I got into the car I was still chuckling. That old chap certainly wasn’t kidding. Variety. That was it—variety.

Susie, Messenger of Love

The big room at Skeldale House was full. It seemed to me that this room with its graceful alcoves, high carved ceilings and french windows lay at the center of our life in Darrowby. It was where Siegfried, his brother Tristan, and I gathered when the day’s work was done, toasting our feet by the white wood fireplace with the glass-fronted cupboard on top, talking over the day’s events. It was the heart of our bachelor existence, sitting there in a happy stupor, reading, listening to the radio, Tristan usually flipping effortlessly through the Daily Telegraph crossword.

It was where Siegfried entertained his friends and there was a constant stream of them—old and young, male and female. But tonight it was Tristan’s turn and the pack of young people with drinks in their hands were there at his invitation. And they wouldn’t need much persuasion. Though just about the opposite of his brother in many ways he had the same attractiveness which brought the friends running at the crook of a finger.

The occasion was the Daffodil Ball at the Drovers’ Arms and we were dressed in our best. This was a different kind of function from the usual village institute hop with the farm lads in their big boots and music from a scraping fiddle and piano. It was a proper dance with a popular local band—Lenny Butterfield and his Hot Shots—and was an annual affair to herald the arrival of spring.

When we arrived at the Drovers’ the bar was congested while only a dedicated few circled round the ballroom. But as time went on more and more couples ventured out and by ten o’clock the dance floor was truly packed and I soon found I was enjoying myself. Tristan’s friends were an effervescent bunch; likable young men and attractive girls; I just couldn’t help having a good time.

There was no pairing off in our party and I danced with all the girls in turn. At the peak of the evening I was jockeying my way around the floor with Daphne and the way she was constructed made it a rewarding experience. I never have been one for skinny women but I suppose you could say that Daphne’s development had strayed a little too far in the other direction. She wasn’t fat, just lavishly endowed.

Battling through the crush, colliding with exuberant neighbors, bouncing deliciously off Daphne, with everybody singing as they danced and the Hot Shots pouring out an insistent boom-boom beat, I felt I hadn’t a care in the world. And then, across the dance floor, I saw Helen.

When the music stopped I returned Daphne to her friends and went to find Tristan. The comfortable little bar in the Drovers’ was overflowing and the temperature like an oven. Through an almost impenetrable fog of cigarette smoke I discerned my colleague on a high stool holding court with a group of perspiring revelers. Tristan himself looked cool and, as always, profoundly content. He drained his glass, smacked his lips gently as though it had been the best pint of beer he’d ever tasted, then, as he reached across the counter and courteously requested a refill, he spotted me struggling toward him.

When I reached his stool he laid an affable hand on my shoulder. “Ah, Jim, nice to see you. Splendid dance, this, don’t you think?”

I didn’t bring up the fact that I hadn’t seen him on the floor yet, but making my voice casual I mentioned that Helen was there. Tristan nodded benignly.

“Yes, saw her come in. Why don’t you go and dance with her?”

“I can’t do that. She’s with a partner—young Edmundson.”

“Not at all.” Tristan surveyed his fresh pint with a critical eye and took an exploratory sip. “She’s with a party, like us. No partner.”

“How do you know that?”

“I watched all the fellows hand their coats out there while the girls went upstairs. No reason at all why you shouldn’t have a dance with her.”

“I see.” I hesitated for a few moments, then made my way back to the ballroom.

But it wasn’t as easy as that. I had to keep doing my duty with the girls in our group and whenever I headed for Helen she was whisked away by one of her men friends before I got near her. At times I fancied she was looking over at me but I couldn’t be sure; the only thing I knew for certain was that I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore; the magic and gaiety had gone and I felt a rising misery at the thought that this was going to be another of my frustrating contacts with Helen when all I could do was look at her hopelessly. Only this time was worse—I hadn’t even spoken to her.

I was almost relieved when the manager came up and told me there was a call for me. I went to the phone and spoke to Mrs. Hall, our housekeeper at Skeldale House. There was a bitch in trouble whelping and I had to go. I looked at my watch—after midnight, so that was the end of the dance for me.

I stood for a moment listening to the muffled thudding from the dance floor, then slowly pulled on my coat before going in to say good-bye to Tristan’s friends. I exchanged a few words with them, waved, then turned back and pushed the swing door open.

Helen was standing there, about a foot away from me. Her hand was on the door, too. I didn’t wonder whether she was going in or out but stared dumbly into her smiling blue eyes.

“Leaving already, Jim?” she said.

“Yes, I’ve got a call, I’m afraid.”

“Oh what a shame. I hope it’s nothing very serious.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but her dark beauty and the very nearness of her suddenly filled my world and a wave of hopeless longing swept over and submerged me. I slid my hand a few inches down the door and gripped hers as a drowning man might and wonderingly I felt her fingers come round and entwine themselves tightly in mine.

And in an instant there was no band, no noise, no people, just the two of us standing, very close in the doorway.

“Come with me,” I said.

Helen’s eyes were very large as she smiled that smile I knew so well.

“I’ll get my coat, she murmured.

This wasn’t really me, I thought, standing on the hall carpet watching Helen trotting quickly up the stairs, but I had to believe it as she reappeared on the landing pulling on her coat. Outside, on the cobbles of the marketplace, my car, too, appeared to be taken by surprise because it roared into life at the first touch of the starter.

I had to go back to the surgery for my whelping instruments and in the silent moonlit street we got out and I opened the big white door to Skeldale House.

And once in the passage it was the most natural thing in the world to take her in my arms and kiss her gratefully and unhurriedly. I had waited a long time for this and the minutes flowed past unnoticed as we stood there, our feet on the black and red eighteenth-century tiles, our heads almost touching the vast picture of the Death of Nelson which dominated the entrance.

We kissed again at the first bend of the passage under the companion picture of the Meeting of Wellington and Bl@ucher at Waterloo. We kissed at the second bend by the tall cupboard where Siegfried kept his riding coats and boots. We kissed in the dispensary in between searching for my instruments. Then we tried it out in the garden and this was the best of all, with the flowers still and expectant in the moonlight and the fragrance of the moist earth and grass rising about us.

I have never driven so slowly to a case. About ten miles an hour with Helen’s head on my shoulder and all the scents of spring drifting in through the open window. And it was like sailing from stormy seas into a sweet, safe harbor, like coming home.

The light in the cottage window was the only one showing in the sleeping village and when I knocked at the door Bert Chapman answered. Bert was a council roadman—one of the breed for whom I felt an abiding affinity. The councilmen were my brethren of the roads. Like me they spent most of their lives on the lonely byways around Darrowby and I saw them most days of the week, repairing the tarmac, cutting back the grass verges in the summer, gritting and snow plowing in the winter.

I had seen Bert Chapman just a day or two ago, siting on a grassy bank, his shovel by his side, a vast sandwich in his hand. He had raised a corded forearm in salute, a broad smile bisecting his round, sun-reddened face. He had looked eternally care, free but tonight his smile was strained.

“I’m sorry to bother you this late, Mr. Herriot,” he said as he ushered us into the house, “but I’m gettin’ a bit worried about Susie. Her pups are due and she’s been making a bed for them and messing about all day but nowt’s happened. I was goin’ to leave her till morning but about midnight she started panting like ‘ell—I don’t like the look of her.”

Susie was one of my regular patients. Her big, burly master was always bringing her to the surgery, a little shamefaced at his solicitude, and when I saw him sitting in the waiting room looking strangely out of place among the ladies with their pets, he usually said, “T’missus asked me to bring Susie.” But it was a transparent excuse.

“She’s nobbut a little mongrel, but very faithful,” Bert said, still apologetic, but I could understand how he felt about Susie, a shaggy little ragamuffin whose only wile was to put her paws on my knees and laugh up into my face with her tail lashing. I found her irresistible.

But she was a very different character tonight. As we went into the living room of the cottage the little animal crept from her basket, gave a single indeterminate wag of her tail, then stood miserably in the middle of the floor, her ribs heaving. As I bent to examine her she turned a wide, panting mouth and anxious eyes up to me.

I ran my hands over her abdomen. I don’t think I have ever felt a more bloated little dog; she was as round as a football, absolutely bulging with pups, ready to pop, but nothing was happening.

“What do you think?” Bert’s face was haggard under his sunburn and he touched the dog’s head briefly with a big calloused hand.

“I don’t know yet, Bert,” I said. “I’ll have to have a feel inside. Bring me some hot water, will you?”

I added some antiseptic to the water, soaped my hand and with one finger carefully explored inside. There was a pup there, all right; my fingertip brushed across the nostrils, the tiny mouth and tongue, but he was jammed in that passage like a cork in a bottle.

Squatting back on my heels I turned to the Chapmans. “I’m afraid there’s a big pup stuck fast. I have a feeling that if she could get rid of this chap the others would come away. They’d probably be smaller.”

“Is there any way of shiftin’ him, Mr. Herriot?” Bert asked.

I paused for a moment. “I’m going to put forceps on his head and see if he’ll move. I don’t like using forceps but I’m going to have one careful try and if it doesn’t work I’ll have to take her back to the surgery for a caesarean.”

“An operation?” Bert said hollowly. He gulped and glanced fearfully at his wife. Like many big men he had married a tiny woman and at this moment Mrs. Chapman looked even smaller than her four feet eleven inches as she huddled in her chair and stared at me with wide eyes.

“Oh I wish we’d never had her mated,” she wailed, wringing her hands. “I told Bert five year old was too late for a first litter but he wouldn’t listen. And now we’re maybe going to lose ‘er.”

I hastened to reassure her. “No, she isn’t too old, and everything may be all right. Let’s just see how we get on.”

I boiled the instrument for a few minutes on the stove, then kneeled behind my patient again. I poised the forceps for a moment and at the flash of steel a gray tinge crept under Bert’s sunburn and his wife coiled herself into a ball in her chair. Obviously they were nonstarters as assistants so Helen held Susie’s head while I once more reached in toward the pup. There was desperately little room but I managed to direct the forceps along my finger until they touched the nose. Then very gingerly I opened the jaws and pushed them forward with the very gentlest pressure until I was able to clamp them on either side of the head.

I’d soon know now. In a situation like this you can’t do any pulling, you can only try to ease the thing along. This I did and I fancied I felt just a bit of movement. I tried again and there was no doubt about it, the pup was coming toward me. Susie, too, appeared to sense that things were taking a turn for the better. She cast off her apathy and began to strain lustily.

It was no trouble after that and I was able to draw the pup forth almost without resistance.

“I’m afraid this one’ll be dead,” I said, and as the tiny creature lay across my palm there was no sign of breathing. But pinching the chest between thumb and forefinger I could feel the heart pulsing steadily and I quickly opened his mouth and blew softly down into his lungs.

I repeated this a few times, then laid the pup on his side in the basket. I was just thinking it was going to be no good when the little rib cage gave a sudden lift, then another and another.

“He’s off!” Bert exclaimed happily. “That’s champion! We want these puppies alive tha knows. They’re Jack Dennison’s terrier and he’s a grand ‘un.”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Chapman put in. “No matter how many she has, they’re all spoken for. Everybody wants a pup out of Susie.”

“I can believe that,” I said. But I smiled to myself. Jack Dennison’s terrier was another hound of uncertain ancestry, so this lot would be a right mixture, but none the worse for that.

I gave Susie half a c.c. of pituitrin. “I think she needs it after pushing against that fellow for hours. We’ll wait and see what happens now.”

And it was nice waiting. Mrs. Chapman brewed a pot of tea and began to slap butter onto homemade scones. Susie, partly aided by my pituitrin, pushed out a pup in a self-satisfied manner about every fifteen minutes. The pups themselves soon set up a bawling of surprising volume for such minute creatures.

Bert, relaxing visibly with every minute, filled his pipe and regarded the fast-growing family with a grin of increasing width. “Ee, it is kind of you young folks to stay with us like this.”

Mrs. Chapman put her head on one side and looked at us worriedly. “I should think you’ve been dying to get back to your dance all this time.”

I thought of the crush at the Drovers’. The smoke, the heat, the nonstop boom-boom of the Hot Shots and I looked around the peaceful little room with old-fashioned black grate, the low, varnished beams, Mrs. Chapman’s sewing box, the row of Bert’s pipes on the wall. I took a firmer grasp of Helen’s hand which I had been holding under the table for the last hour.