My Dog Tulip (6 page)

But her sensitivity can be more vividly illustrated if, Tulip permitting, I continue the journey we were attempting to make a short while ago and recount our experiences when we first went country visiting. Very few of my country friends ask her to stay with them; they mostly go in for cats who go out for Tulip; those who have no pets of their own are a little forgetful about inviting her twice; her unconquerable belief that every building we enter, even a railway carriage, belongs from that moment exclusively to us, may have something to do with it; people seem to resent being challenged whenever they approach their own sitting or dining rooms.

Our first host was a Captain Pugh, who had served with me in France in the 1914 war. I had seen nothing of him for a great many years, then he suddenly turned up again as people do and asked me down to stay. He was farming in Kent. How can an urban dog owner go into the country without his dog? I said I should be delighted to come if I could bring Tulip. It appeared, however, that Mrs. Pugh, of whom, until then, I had never heard, kept Cairns, and although I assured Pugh that Tulip was very partial to little dogs, negotiations were suspended. Then Mrs. Pugh went off with her Cairns for a night elsewhere, my invitation was renewed to include Tulip, and she and I traveled down into Kent together.

Actually I remembered very little about my host, except that he had been an officer who had managed to combine great courage and efficiency with a marked indolence of habit. Whenever, for instance, he had wanted his servant or his orderly, as he frequently did, it had been his custom to fire his revolver into the wall of his dugout—one shot for the servant, two for the orderly—to save himself the exertion of shouting. An odd figure, and, as I was to discover, set in his ways; his whims were, indeed, to contribute to the misfortunes that befell us beneath his roof.

He emerged from a cowshed as we entered his extensive domain, and guided us up to the house. Poultry came into view, pecking about on either side of the long drive, and Pugh interrupted his conversation about old times to remark briefly that he hoped Tulip would not “go after” them as they were laying rather well at present. I hoped not too; but she had met hens only once before, so I had no means of telling whether she would recall the smacking she had received on that occasion. I could have put her on the lead, I suppose, and that may have been what Pugh was hinting at; but how can one gauge the intelligence of one's animal if one never affords it the chance to display any? And, to my astonishment and pride, only one sharp cautionary word was needed, when I saw her tail go up and a wolfish gleam enter her eye, to remind her of her lesson: the poultry were passed unscathed. Indeed, we should have gained Pugh's residence in faultless style, had it not been for a ginger cat that was idling in the shrubbery. I was quite unprepared for this cat, which had never been mentioned in the kind of farmyard inventory to which, in our correspondence about the Cairns, Pugh had apparently thought it advisable to extend his concern, so I was too late to prevent Tulip, who saw it first, from sailing into combat. She pursued it into a small potting shed that stood alongside the house. I apologized profusely; but it turned out to be not at all an important cat; it belonged to the category neither of pet nor of livestock, but was a mere hireling, engaged for the purpose of keeping down the mice, in which capacity, I gathered, it was not giving the utmost satisfaction; and since Pugh observed its narrow escape without apparent emotion, remarking offhandedly, as he clapped-to the potting-shed door, “It can stay there now,” I permitted myself to be amused. Little did I think that this cat, who was scowling wrathfully at us through the dusty panes, was to take its revenge upon us later.

As I have said, Pugh's personal idiosyncrasies had gained ground. I scarcely saw him during my stay. He had arrived at the conclusion, which I might have foreseen if I had given the matter thought, that rest and relaxation were the key to efficient health, the art of life, so that the only problem that appeared to trouble him was whether, for half an hour or more, both before and after every meal, it should be “Head-down” or “Bed-down,” by which he meant whether it would be more rewarding to nap on a sofa or to undress and return to bed. Earnestly recommending me to follow an example which, he declared, would enable me to derive the maximum amount of benefit from my short stay with him, his phrase was “One rises like a giant refreshed”; and, indeed, that did seem to be the effect upon himself, for at those rare moments when he was not horizontal he would stalk about the farm buildings with great vigor, making many pertinent remarks in his military voice and spreading consternation among the cows. The house, which he had built himself, managed to be bleak without being actually cold; the wide wooden staircase, with its low treads to reduce leg-strain, was uncarpeted and so was the gallery above, on to which the bedroom doors opened. I had been allotted the bedroom of the absent Mrs. Pugh, a large room, strewn with a number of small mats and rugs, which adjoined the Captain's and communicated with it. Besides the bed, it contained, I was glad though not surprised to find, a comfortable sofa for Tulip: there was a sofa in every room, including the dining room and bathroom.

When Pugh finally retired, at an early hour, he observed that he was a light sleeper and therefore hoped that Tulip was a sound one. He added that he always slept with his passage door and window wide open in order to obtain the maximum amount of fresh air. In fact Tulip is a very quiet sleeper, though she will usually pay me one visit in the night and put her nose against my face. Perhaps I cry out in my dreams—or do not, and she wishes to reassure herself that I am not dead. It was, therefore, well precedented when she wakened me at about 2 am on this particular night. I patted her drowsily and recomposed myself for slumber. But Tulip did not go away. Instead she rose up on her hind legs and pulled in an urgent kind of way, with her paw, at the shoulder I had turned towards her. Looking up, I could discern in the gloom the shape of her head with its tall ears cocked down at me as she stared intently into my face. What could she want? I fumbled about on the side-table for my matches and lighted the candle (the farm was too remote for electricity), whereupon Tulip hurried over to the door and stood in front of it, looking eagerly back at me.

“What's up, old girl?” I asked uneasily.

She made a little whinnying sound, pawed excitedly at the door and again turned her brilliant gaze upon me. Hell! I thought, can she possibly want to pee or something? She scarcely ever needed to relieve herself at night; she had done her duties often throughout the day, and (I looked at my watch) it was only four hours since I had taken her for a final tour of the grounds before Pugh locked and bolted his front door. Could she really want to go again? Not that in other circumstances I would have hesitated to take or let her out; but how in the world was I to get her past my host's open door at the head of the staircase and down the slithery wooden stairs which, I had already noticed, rang like a sounding-board beneath her tapping claws, without waking him? Even then, and all by the light of a candle, there was that heavy oak door at the bottom to be noiselessly unlocked and unbolted … .

“Tulip dear,” I said to the earnest face, “you don't honestly want to, do you?”

Then her knell, and mine, sounded. The cat, still imprisoned in the potting-shed in the garden outside, yowled, and Tulip's bright eyes shifted to the window. So that was it! On all our numerous excursions round the grounds, during Pugh's bouts of “Head-down” or “Bed-down,” she had made a bee-line for this shed and taunted the cat, who had consolidated an already impregnable position by entrenching itself among some flower-pots on an upper shelf. Doubtless its maledictions had been provoking her while I slept. I extinguished the candle and settled back on my pillow. But Tulip was instantly beside me, clawing at my face and arm.

“Don't be tiresome, Tulip! Go back to bed! We'll visit the cat in the morning.”

She left me then, but she did not go to her sofa. She returned to the door, snuffled at the bottom of it, and then subsided heavily against it with a sigh. But almost at once she was up again and prowling about the dark room. Silence. Then I heard plop-plop-plop. I fumbled for my matches now with such haste that I knocked over several objects on my table with a loud clatter. When the candle was lit, Tulip was coming towards me from the other side of the room. Wagging her tail and gazing at me with soft, glowing eyes, she kissed my cheek. And, indeed, she couldn't have helped it. I saw that at once when I got out of bed to look. She couldn't have retained it for a moment longer. But—I was deeply touched—she had selected her place with as much care as the lay-out of the room allowed. Avoiding all the rugs, she had laid her mess on the linoleum and as far from me as she could get, against Pugh's communicating door.

I was more than touched. I was dreadfully upset. My pretty animal, my friend, who reposed in me a loving confidence that was absolute, had spoken to me as plainly as she could. She had used every device that lay in her poor brute's power to tell me something, and I had not understood. True I had considered her meaning, but she was not to know that for I had rejected it; nor could I ever explain to her that I had not totally misunderstood but only doubted: to her it must have seemed that she had been unable to reach me after all. How wonderful to have had an animal come to one to communicate where no communication is, over the incommunicability of no common speech, to ask a personal favor! How wretched to have failed! Alas for the gulf that separates man and beast: I had had my chance; now it was too late to bridge it. Oh yes, I could throw my arms about her as I did, fondle and praise her in my efforts to reassure her that it was all my fault and she was the cleverest person in the world. But what could she make of that? I had failed to take her meaning, and nothing I could ever do could put that right.

She lay now on her sofa watching me swab it up. For that had to be done at once. What did she think as she observed me take all the trouble which, one might say, she had tried so hard to avert? For it needed a good twenty minutes to clear the mess up, and numerous visits to the WC half-way down the stairs, with the paper linings of Mrs. Pugh's chest-of-drawers. Poor Pugh! It was not, I fear, with the look of a giant refreshed that he appeared at the breakfast table later. He said kindly that it was of no consequence. But it was. Tulip was never asked again.

Did she lose some confidence in me at that moment? I have often sadly wondered. But I cannot be sure. For the next time we went visiting I was rather unwell and took a drug to make me sleep. I shall never know, therefore, whether she tried to wake me or not. Her problem this time was both easier and more difficult. It was a far grander house than Captain Pugh's, with a lot of unoccupied bedrooms, one of which communicated with mine. Since the communicating door on this occasion was ajar, Tulip's main strategic problem of removing herself from my presence was solved; she had only to push the door open and go into the next room. On the other hand, the house was carpeted throughout with handsome Indian carpeting. There was not an inch of linoleum or skirting-board anywhere. It so happened, however, that in this large adjoining room there was a solitary rug, small, cheap and suitably brown, spread upon the pile carpet in front of a dressing table, and Tulip selected this for her purpose. (
Did
she try to wake me first? Or did she say to herself, “Alas, he wouldn't understand”? How I wish I knew!) At any rate, she made this delicate choice for cleanliness, unobtrusiveness and protective coloring, and thereby defeated her own ends. For the housemaid who brought up my breakfast the following morning and had already learnt to approach any place where Tulip lay with circumspection, thoughtfully decided not to enter our room at all. Instead, she carried my breakfast into the adjoining one by its passage door and, quietly crossing it, placed the tray upon the dressing table. She then retraced her steps and, coming round to my own passage door, tapped upon it to tell me what she had done. What she had done was only perceived later in the day, and then a bottle of ammonia and several hours' hard work were required before the poor girl's retraced steps across the white carpet were wholly obliterated.

After the episode of the greengrocer's wife, it is a pleasure to record that at this time sympathy and moral support came from the least expected quarter. I was in need of both, for Tulip and I had been invited to the house for several days. Now that she had improvised a WC for herself, would she not return to it every night? And what could I do to circumvent this? Should I, for instance, strew sheets of brown paper in front of the dressing table where the rug had been? But the housemaid, upon whom the brunt of the business had fallen, assured me that it was quite unnecessary to take precautions of any kind. This good-natured girl, it transpired, had had much to do with dogs in her time, and she stoutly maintained that Tulip would not repeat the offense, that the only reason why she had committed it at all was that dogs are highly nervous and excitable creatures, and that travel, when they are unused to it, often upsets their digestions. Her diagnosis and prediction were perfectly correct. Tulip never did it again.

The story has an even happier ending. If I did forfeit any of Tulip's confidence at this period, I have reason to believe that I recovered it later. For the events I have related took place many years ago when she was young and a shade irresponsible, and our love was new. There came a day, however, when we were walking in Wimbledon woods and she suddenly added my urine, which I had been obliged to void, to the other privileged objects of her social attention. How touched I was! How honored I felt! “Oh, Tulip! Thank you,” I said.

And now she always does it. No matter how preoccupied her mind may be with other things, such as rabbiting, she will always turn back, before following me, to the place where she saw me relieve myself—for nothing that I do escapes her—to sprinkle her own drops upon mine. So I feel that if ever there were differences between us they are washed out now. I feel a proper dog.