Mister Dingledine by Robert F. Clifton (short novels in english .TXT) 📖

Saturdays at home or shopping and Sunday mornings as she attended church. Her eyes were dark brown and sparkled when she was happy. At noon the bell rang alerting both student body and teachers that it was the lunch period. Herbert opened his desk drawer, removed the brown paper bag and walked quickly weaving in and out of the crowd of students heading in the same direction.

In the lunch room, he stood waiting for her to appear. When she did he smiled and held the chair for her as she sat down. After taking a seat across from her he said, “Now Miss Collins, what is it that you wish to tell me?”

“Mister Dingledine, I have a cousin who happens to be a cellist, Andrew Cummings. He has just taken a position with the newly formed, Philadelphia Orchestra. The conductor will be Felix Sheel and the first concert will be held in the Academy of Music.”

“My that is exciting news. I can see that it makes you happy and please call me Herbert.”

“Very well Herbert, but only if you call me Alberta.”

“Then, Alberta it is.”

“Good. Now then, my purpose in telling you this is, that my cousin has given me two tickets for the first concert. I need an escort if I was to go.”

“May I be so bold to assume it is I that you wish as an escort?”

“You may and yes.”

“Surely your mother would wish to attend.”

“Mother is poorly.”

“I see. Then, as a gentleman, I must advise you that attending any affair with a married man and without chaperone would and could be damaging to your reputation as a lady.”

“I would have a chaperone.”

“Who?”

“My cousin, the cellist.”

“Who I can assume would only be able to keep an eye on you from where he sits in the orchestra and then only after taking his eyes off of the music sheets.”

“Still, he could vouch for my reputation.”

“I agree. Please tell me, when is this concert to be performed?”

“I believe it will be on the evening of Friday, November the sixteenth.”

“I see. It now being the beginning of October the concert is, let’s say, a month away. That being so, it allows you more time to select an escort other than myself.”

“I’m beginning to think that you do not wish to share my company, Mister Dingledine.”

“Please, do not think harshly of me Alberta. Understand that it is you and your reputation that concerns me if we were to be seen together, out for the evening.”

“It’s not like we were out honky tonkying. We would be attending a social event, actually, the performing arts, if you will. Please consider how much I want to attend and want you as my escort.”

“Very well. However, you must let me know certain things, such as the proper dress for the occasion. You see, I only have one suit. The one I’m wearing right now and I’m afraid that on a teacher's salary I can’t afford to purchase a tuxedo.”

“Herbert, our seats will be in the balcony. The tuxedo and evening gown crowd will be in the seats on the main floor. You forget I earn a teacher's salary also.”

At four thirty in the afternoon, Herbert opened the front door of his home. He walked past Ethel who lay on the sofa with a cold, wet, cloth on her forehead. Entering the kitchen he unwrapped the chicken he had bought at the butcher shop and placed it in the ice box. He then took a look at the block of ice that was slowly melting as it kept milk and other things cold.

“Soon be time to buy another block,” he thought.

“Herbert? Did you buy a chicken?”, yelled Ethel.

“Yes.”

“Fat and yellow, like I asked?”

“Yes.”

“ Well? I don’t hear you getting it ready to cook. I told you I need broth, chicken broth.”

“Ethel, I just walked into the house. I haven’t even removed my hat or taken off my coat. In time, I’ll stew the chicken.”

“Well, make sure you do. I’ve had a terrible day Herbert. Just terrible.”

“What’s wrong this time?” he asked.

“Headaches, terrible headaches,” she replied.

“Did you take something for the pain?”

“Yes, aspirin powder, which incidentally we’re almost out of it. You must go to the drug store and buy me some more, not that it helps.”

“I’ll stop at the pharmacy on the way home tomorrow.”

“See that you do.”

“I see that you ate lunch,” he said.

“Yes, but I had to force myself.”

“The bread is almost gone and the strawberry jam jar is empty. I’m sure it was difficult forcing yourself to eat so much,” he said sarcastically.

“Now, you’re begrudging me the few morsels I’m able to eat and keep down. Me, as sick as I am, left alone for the majority of the day with no one to look after me or even care.”

“Ethel, you imagine many of your ills.”

“So you say, Herbert. So you say.”

“Hey, I’m just glad that you got up off of the sofa. That in itself shows that you can do it if you really want to do it.”

“And I want you to know that while up I saw a rat again in the backyard.”

“Wonders never cease. When I’m home you become an invalid. When I’m gone from the house you can get up, feed yourself, even look out of the back door window long enough to see rodents in the backyard. Yesterday you couldn’t stand because of your imagined, vertigo.”

“You know the spells I have come and go.”

“ I wish to hell, that you would go,” he thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

Ethel

 

It was a warm, sunny, early October, Saturday morning.

Herbert enjoyed Saturdays. It was the only day of the week when he didn’t shave. Instead, he made a breakfast of bread, oatmeal, and coffee and after carrying the same to Ethel who once again was too ill to get out of bed he dressed in old clothes and went to his backyard garden. Here, he would harvest the rest of his vegetables. There were still string beans hanging from the plants. He grew two varieties, green and yellow. It was Ethel that preferred the green string beans. He liked the yellow, but he had picked those last week, cooked them and canned them in mason jars.

He knelt on one knee and picked the beans placing them in a wicker basket. He was pleased with the amount he had produced. He had been lucky, for the summer had produced just the right amount of sunshine and rain and that along with the horse manure he gathered from the street and mixed with his compost pile each year created an excellent soil condition.

When he was finished picking all of the beans he looked carefully under the leaves of the cucumber plants looking for any of the fruit that it had produced that he might have missed. He found one, but it had been gnawed on by some rodent, a mouse or rat. He picked and threw it towards his gathered compost material.

All that was left was the root vegetables, the potatoes, turnips, and beets. He got up slowly, picked up the basket of beans and carried them to the house. Entering at the back door he stood and wiped his feet after stepping into the Paris green that had been out down previously to kill rodents. Entering the laundry room he stumbled and in order not to fall Herbert dropped the basket of beans, spilling them on the floor. “Damn,” he said out loud, then knelt down and picked them up placing them in the basket again. He then carried them to the sink. There, he spent the rest of the morning, snapping, cooking and canning string beans. Canning was something he had learned to do as a boy at his mother's side. It was something he enjoyed to do even in this case where the green beans he prepared were for Ethel.

As the canned vegetables cooled Herbert sat eating his lunch consisting of sardines and crackers. As he ate he thought of what else he had to do in the garden. His thoughts were interrupted. “Herbert? Are you eating your lunch?” asked Ethel who as usual sat on the living room sofa.

“Yes. Yes, I am,” he answered.

“What are you eating?”

“Sardines and crackers.”

“Oh, that’s awful. Did you ever stop and ask yourself, What would my wife like for lunch. No, I know you don’t. You never have. All you do is think of yourself.”

“I know what I 'd like to give you for lunch. Ground glass comes to mind,” he thought.

“Make me a cup of tea and I’ll try a piece of toast and jam.”

“We are out of jam. I can give you cheese.”

“You know cheese binds me up. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to see me with intestinal distress.”

“Ethel, you don’t know what distress is. I know what distress is. It’s listening to you complain each and every day from sun up to when you go to bed. For goodness sake woman, don’t you realize that there’s nothing radically wrong with you?” he asked.

“According to you. Let me remind you of something Mister Dingledine. You are a teacher and a poor one at that. You teach biology. That does not make you a doctor even if you think you know everything. When to comes to me, you know absolutely nothing.”

“Wrong again Ethel. I know that you are one royal pain in the ass. Do you want tea? Get off of your ass and make it. Jam? Get dressed and walk down to the corner store and buy it.”

“You are heartless. You know how sick I am, but you pretend that there’s nothing wrong with me. You want me to die, don’t you? I’ve told Mrs. Kramer, next door that you wanted me dead.”

“Yes, I know. Mrs. Kramer told me what you said. Would you like to know what she said? She said that you are crazy. Mentally ill, bonkers and I’m starting to believe her.”

“You are a cruel man Herbert Dingldine, cruel. Had I known at the time you proposed that you were so mean and thoughtless I would have rejected you.”

“Oh, if only you had,” he replied.

“Say it. Say it. Say that you’re sorry that you married me.”

“Wrong again Ethel. I’m sorry that I ever met you,” said Herbert as he walked out of the house by the way of the back door.

Back in his garden, Herbert stood silently regaining his composure. When his heartbeat slowed and his respiration returned to normal he went to the shed and got a shovel. With it, he began digging and collecting potatoes and turnips. Soon he had two bushels of potatoes and one bushel of turnips. Most of these vegetables he would store in the root cellar he had dug and built under the side of the house. A friend of his at school supplied him with salt hay that he used to cover his bounty.

On Sunday morning Herbert brushed his black suit, shined his shoes and wearing a clean, white shirt and collar made his way to the Episcopal Church where he had worshiped at as a boy, and man. It was also the church where he and Ethel were married. Herbert entered the church and walked to the pew where he always sat. He genuflected, bending his knee as he bowed towards the altar and blessed himself. Then after taking his seat he knelt and prayed. When he was finished praying he looked to his right. He soon found Alberta on the other side of the church looking at him. She had a slight smile on her lips, but aware and satisfied that he had seen her, turned her head and turned the pages in the Common Book Of Prayer for her mother who sat next to her.

After the sermon and the end of services, Herbert walked slowly in line to the front door where he would shake hands and speak briefly to Father Holmes. Their conversations every Sunday morning were always the same. “Good to see you, Herbert. How is Ethel?”, asked the