Arnold bennet

The Wind*

The vast stretch of lion-coloured sands; the stretch of tumbling grey sea; the still vaster stretch disordered grey-inky clouds which passed endlessly at great rate from west to east across the firmament; the wind; and one small bare-legged figure on the sands.

The wind had been blowing hard for days; it varied in strength from a stiffish breeze to half a gale; once or twice it had surprisingly gone right round to the east, and tin clouds had uncovered the sun, and the showers been briefer and fewer; but during the whole holiday the wind had never ceased. As soon as you arrived over the ridge of shingle on the beach, it assaulted you. There was no peace from it except in the lee of the tarry bathing-hut, sole edifice within sight, perched high on the shingle; and the instant you moved even a foot away from the shelter it assaulted you again with new power, and continued incessantly to assault you.

It may have been a healthy wind, but its effect on the nerves was evil. Mr. Frederick Lammond was keenly aware of its sinister influence on his nerves. Mr. Lammond stood where sand and shingle met, between the bathing-hut and the small figure approaching the sea's edge. Hearing a faint shriek from the hut, he turned.

«Look after the child!»

Across the hostile wind the words which had begun in a loud shriek from the lips of the half-undressed girl standing in the doorway of the hut reached him like a whisper.

The wind caused the end of the ribbon encircling insecure straw hat to vibrate with a noise like the hum of an insect's wings.

He waved a reassuring arm.

«Oh, d-n!» he muttered. «As if I hadn't got my eye on the kid the whole time!»

The infant was yet quite thirty yards off the water.

Mr. Lammond strolled after the infant with careful, callous deliberation.

The infant was the most expensive toy on earth. Her unconscious demands on Mr. Lammond's purse were enormous. She had meant a larger house (with all the expenses of removing and the wages of more servants) because she needed two entire rooms to herself, one for day, one for night. She had meant new furniture, new pictures (specially selected to attract and develop her youthful mind); a self-clicking gate at the top of the stairs; a succession of new toys; a succession of new clothes (for she grew day and night); a superb perambulator, whose wheels revolved on ball-bearings. Also the salary of a trained and certificated nurse, who save for half a day a week devoted her entire existence night and day to the welfare of the expensive toy. Then there was Grade A milk, which the infant seemed to drink in immoderate quantities, and various other costly foods.

And then there was the new motor car, with the chauffeur. Before the era of the infant the Lammonds had been happy with a trifling 7 h. p. run-about, which Frederick drove himself, and which even Edna herself occasionally drove. Edna, however, would not allow the life of «her» child to be risked in any run-about controlled by an amateur. Strange creature! She had not minded Frederick risking his own life, or hers. But the infant was as sacred as an Indian cow - and not more intelligent. Hence the chauffeur, and you could not decently put a chauffeur in a car of less than 20-40 h. p. Hence, further, liveries for the chauffeur, licence for the chauffeur, many meals for the chauffeur.

Frederick Lammond calculated, and loved to calculate, that his offspring cost him in all an extra thousand a year. He did not grudge the expense, for the profits of the wood trade were increasingly handsome; but be thought it was a lot, a tremendous lot, with little immediate result.

He thought, too, that Edna was rather silly about the child. He excused her silliness, on the score of maternal instinct, which he had often read about and was now witnessing in action. But he found it hard to excuse her criticism, spoken and implied, of his own attitude towards the child. She charged him with indifference. She asked him if he realized that he was a father. She expected him to kiss madly, to hug fondly, to be thrilled by, to think constantly of, the child. He could not. He knew, rather than felt, that he was a father. Certainly he thought that the whole business of the child was wonderful, even miraculous. He was pleased when the child began to adventure across floors on hands and knees; he was gratified when she managed the trick of balancing herself on two legs; he was delighted when she first said «Ta-ta.» And when she recognized him, smiled at him and otherwise «took notice» of him, he was absurdly flattered.

Yet for hours together he could completely forget the existence of the child. And he was capable of coming home of an evening and omitting to ask after her. Was it his fault? He could not pretend. Or, if he could pretend, he could only pretend to be more indifferent than he in fact was. A father is not a mother. But Edna was not pleased. The child was drawing Edna away from him. Edna, with the nurse and the child, formed a sort of Opposition to His Majesty's Government. The nurse would say to Mr. Lammond, critically: «Aren’t you coming to see your child in her bath?»

Still, despite occasional conjugal friction, it was all very romantic and agreeable.

So, with careful, callous deliberation, Mr. Lammond pursued his child.

* Bennet A. The Wind: Modern English Short Stories. Moscow, 1963, pp. 372-374.