THE ENCHANTED MOMENT
MR. JOHN PARDOE was not an imaginative man, but—if the truth must be known—he had once been a child, and though, as Mr. Pardoe aged, the child grew smaller and smaller, it was not yet squeezed out of existence. The secret had been well kept. Plump, rosy, and forty-five years old, encased in patent-toe boots, doeskin spats, sleek morning coat, striped trousering, and silk hat—not to mention certain articles of underwear—Mr. Pardoe oscillated daily between his office in Cannon Street and his pleasant home at Putney, giving no cause to his dearest friend or his bitterest enemy to suspect him of having a secret hoard of youth. His waking mind was occupied exclusively by lighterage, freight duties, marine insurance, bus routes, time tables, foreign exchange rates, and the criminal ineptitude of the Government party; and his dreams, which rose only to the bait of cheese and spring onions for supper, reflected his general staidness of character with a minimum of humorous distortion. For more than a decade he had lived within half a mile of the house that held Swinburne, and he was still unaware of having anything in particular to thank God for.
But in his forty-sixth year, when he had already begun to cherish some of the idiosyncrasies proper to a much older man and to regard with complacency his shining porcelain pate and his fringe of greying hair, something happened to Mr. Pardoe that was the beginning of a spiritual revolution. The something was named Miss Adela Simpson, and it had for many years typed his business letters with an enthusiasm and a generous disregard for pedantry in spelling which would have been hard to match in any other city office. Perhaps it was Mr. Pardoe’s patience with these orthographical freedoms that won Adela’s affection, or perhaps she alone of all his acquaintances had divined the existence of that child in him which I have felt it my duty to mention. Whatever the cause, she married him; and, being herself a fluffy, golden-haired, and sentimental creature, with an unbounded capacity for enjoyment, she persuaded him that he was very happy with her. Had the matter ended there, all might have been well: Mr. Pardoe might have lived and died decorously, a plain man with no nonsense about him. The youth in him might have remained bottled and out of sight for ever, had not Adela tampered with the cork.
But destiny, in the person of Mrs. Pardoe, chose to play tricks on this excellent man. Some eighteen months after that rational registry wedding, the fluffy girl insisted on giving birth to a boy. The local doctor assisted its entry, and the local vicar declared its name to be Timothy. I have already said that Mr. Pardoe was not an imaginative man, and this event was quite outside his calculations. Being both by instinct and training a gentleman of considerable delicacy, he was embarrassed—as who would not be?—and quite unable to assume, at short notice, the rôle of fond parent. But as the weeks passed by and the red squeaking pudding called Timothy began to shew some traces of its humanity, began even to bear a slight resemblance to himself, a change more subtle but no less real occurred in the feelings of the reluctant father. For one thing, the preposterous littleness of the creature attracted his notice and excited his wonder. Sometimes when he looked at Timothy Mr. Pardoe’s face would break into a wholly irrational grin. Once or twice, when no one was near, he presented his index finger to be enfolded in miniature hands of unparalleled clamminess, or played the fool with his watch; and once, once only, he blushed to find himself making ridiculous noises, noises not unlike those emitted habitually by the child’s agreeable but infatuated mother.
The translation of Mr. Pardoe from a serious man with business responsibilities and a taste for party politics into a kind of domestic pet, thinker of thoughts too deep for tears, and lover of children—this translation might have continued apace had not the cook suddenly, wantonly, left to get married. Adela, luxuriating in her new freedom, decided to manage without a cook; but Adela’s cooking was no more precise than her spelling. It played havoc with Mr. Pardoe’s digestive apparatus, and—by that transmutation of matter into spirit which is the most disconcerting fact in life—Mr. Pardoe’s digestive apparatus played havoc with Mr. Pardoe’s temper. He became angry with the world and with the life that crawled upon its surface.
Nevertheless the world continued to revolve, and life was not extinct. Timothy, in particular, was far from extinct. For five years he flourished, and on his fifth birthday, at an hour well past his bedtime, he entered Mr. Pardoe’s study and demanded to be told a story.
Mr. Pardoe, interrupted in the reading of his favourite periodical, The Bondholder’s Register, was annoyed. Birthday or no birthday, this was an outrage: the sanctuary violated, the high priest disturbed at his devotions. Yet, in spite of his dyspepsia, he exhibited an admirable restraint.
‘No, Timothy,’ he said, holding up a cautionary finger. ‘I shall not tell you a story. You know I do not like to be disturbed in the evening. You will go to bed, and at the proper moment I shall come to kiss you good night. But tell you a story I will not. I see your mother’s hand in this—this act of rebellion. If you wanted stories you could go to your toy-cupboard, where you would find several volumes of stories: ridiculous enough, no doubt, but suited to your age. Although you cannot yet read with facility you could easily amuse yourself with the pictures. Really, Timothy, I can’t imagine why you should suppose that I should tell you a story, a thing I have never done in my life.’
As a substitute for an applauding public meeting of the company’s shareholders, Timothy was not a success. He clung to his simple thesis with the brutal tenacity of the very young. ‘Mummy says you are to tell me a story.’
The fluffy girl appeared suddenly in the doorway. ‘Yes, John, you really might, this once. He’s tired of my stories. And it’s his birthday, after all, poor little thing!’
‘Poor little thing!’ sneered Mr. Pardoe. This was sheer domestic tyranny: he wouldn’t suffer it. ‘Let me tell you, Adela,’ he cried, pointing at her accusingly with The Bondholder’s Register, ‘you are spoiling the poor little thing, as you call him. It’s eight o’clock, an hour past his bedtime. The way to bring a child up....’
But here Mr. Pardoe was interrupted, and a valuable homily on the training of children thereby lost to the world. The clock began striking. Now it was one of Mr. Pardoe’s nervous weaknesses, of which there were many, that he could never raise his voice above the sound of a striking clock. He disliked clocks. He resented their unmannerly habit of cutting his sentences in half and making him lose the thread of his discourse. And now he had to wait several seconds until that clock chose to let him proceed with what he was saying. Very well: he resigned himself to the delay. His face was that of a martyr too well-bred even to invoke his God. He mentally counted the strokes: ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven....’
‘Why!’ cried Mr. Pardoe, ‘that clock’s wrong. An hour slow. I’m sure it’s eight o’clock. I set my watch this morning by Greenwich Time....’