Wicked Uncle (2 page)

Justin Leigh took Dorinda to one of those places which is just going to be the rage. When it actually did become the rage he would probably say it was vulgar and go somewhere else. He was a beautiful and immaculate young man on the opinionated side of thirty, with a job in the Ministry of Reconstruction. No one, to look at him, could have believed it possible that he had spent nearly six years in a more or less constant condition of being dirty, unshaved, and soaked to the skin, with excursions into being baked and frozen. There were also considerable periods when his immediate surroundings were going up in smoke. If you survived, it left you even filthier than before. All very incredible when you looked at the dark soigné young man with his air of careless elegance and the poise which always gave Dorinda a slight feeling of being back in the schoolroom. She didn’t give way to this feeling, because if you once let yourself start an inferiority complex with Justin, he would become simply intolerable, and that would be a pity because, umpteenth cousin or no, he was the only relation she had left.

She could feel his eye on her dress. It was a blue dress, and she had bought it because she liked the colour, and of course that was a mistake. If you’ve only got one dining-out dress, it’s simply got to be black, and no matter what else you do without, it’s got to be good. Then you just go on wearing it until one of you dies.

She met the eye with firmness mitigated by the dimples.

“It’s no good—I know it all by heart—it hasn’t got any line, and line is what sees you through. But it’s a nice colour, isn’t it?”

“My child, it’s a disaster.”

Dorinda was not lacking in spirit.

“What’s the good of saying that when I’ve got it on? The pink one was worse—I’ve given it away. And you can say what you like, this one suits me. Tip said it did.”

“Tip Remington is in the maudlin state of mind in which he would say anything.”

“Buzzer said so too.”

“Did he?”

Justin’s voice was completely uninterested in Buzzer Blake. He was consulting the menu, and proceeded to catch the head-waiter’s eye. After an intimate and technical discussion he turned back to Dorinda, who was solacing herself for her lost lunch by thinking that it sounded as if it was going to be a heavenly dinner, and said,

“Are you engaged to either of them?”

She came out of a lovely dream of food and met his eyes frankly.

“Well, I don’t know—”

Justin’s eyebrows rose, as at a social solecism.

“Hadn’t you better find out? I should hate to interfere, but you can’t marry them both.”

“Oh, I’m not marrying them. I don’t want to marry anyone for a long time.”

The soup arrived. It smelt heavenly. It was very difficult to take it slowly enough, but Aunt Mary’s iron training held. One of the last things she had said to Dorinda was, ‘Well, I’ve only got fifty pounds a year to leave you, but I’ve taught you how to behave like a gentlewoman.’ There were moments when she found it inconvenient. This was one of them. She was very hungry.

Between sips she imparted her views on matrimony.

“You see, it lasts such a long time, unless you go in for divorce, and that always seems to me rather nasty, unless you’ve simply got to.”

Justin looked faintly amused and said,

“It can be overdone.”

Dorinda pursued the theme.

“Suppose I married Tip. He’s twenty-four, and I’m twenty-one. It might go on for about fifty or sixty years. It’s a frightfully long time. Of course he’s got plenty of money. He’s in his uncle’s office and he’ll be a partner in a year or two, and it would be rather nice to have one’s own flat and a car, but I’ve got a feeling I’d get tired of being married to Tip—” She broke off to help herself to sole meunière.

“Then I shouldn’t do it.”

Dorinda said, “Oh, I’m not going to—at least I don’t suppose I shall, unless the Oakleys really do turn out to be pure poison like the red-headed girl said. Do you know, she looked nice. I wouldn’t have minded knowing her.”

“It isn’t the slightest good trailing red-headed herrings across the path. The point is not what you either think or don’t think about getting married, but what these wretched lads think you are thinking. Have you, or have you not, given either or both of them to suppose that you will marry him?”

Dorinda beamed.

“Justin, darling, this is the most lovely fish I’ve ever tasted. I’m so glad I didn’t have any lunch.”

He looked at her severely.

“Neither red herrings nor soles, Dorinda. Have you, or have you not?”

“Do you think I could have some more?”

“You can if you like, but you’d better see what’s coming.”

After an earnest study of the menu she sighed regretfully and said perhaps she had better not— “It all sounds too lovely.”

“Well then, perhaps you’ll answer my question.”

Whilst the waiter was changing their plates she gazed at Justin, and he had occasion to observe that the offending dress really did make her hair look very bright. To the callow taste of Tip Remington and Buzzer Blake it would doubtless appear that it was becoming. On the other hand, it was improbable that they would notice or appreciate the fact that her lashes were of exactly the same golden brown. If she ever started darkening them, he would have to speak to her about it, because it was a very unusual colour and from the purely aesthetic point of view she couldn’t be allowed to play tricks with it.

When they had helped themselves to chicken en casserole with mushrooms and all sorts of other exciting things in the gravy, he put his question again.

“Well,” said Dorinda, “I might say, ‘What has it got to do with you?’ ” Her tone was perfectly friendly.

“Are you going to?”

She laughed.

“I don’t suppose I am. The trouble is—”

“Well?”

“It’s so hard to say no.”

This had the pleasing effect of making Justin laugh. On the rare occasions when that happened Dorinda always felt that she was a social success. Her eyes became several shades darker and her colour deepened.

“Well, it is,” she protested. “I like them both dreadfully. If anything, I think I like Buzzer best, but perhaps that’s only because he hasn’t got any money, which gives me a fellow feeling. But I don’t really want to marry someone who has absolutely nothing, because when I do get married I should like to have some children, and if one hadn’t got anything at all, it would be a bit difficult to bring them up.”

“It might be.”

“Oh, it would. I’ve thought about it a lot. You see, I think two boys and two girls would be nice. And there’s not only bringing them up, with shoes, and school books—even if all the education is free—but it’s putting them out in the world and getting them jobs. So I don’t think it would be a good plan to marry Buzzer even if I wanted to. And I should feel a bit low if I married Tip just because there would be enough money.”

“My good child, if you attempt to marry either of them, I shall come and forbid the banns.”

Dorinda evinced a frank interest.

“How do you do it?”

“I’ve no idea, but I shall make it my business to find out. You’d better stiffen the backbone and practise saying no for five minutes every morning in front of the looking-glass. You can’t marry everyone who asks you.”

“Nobody has except Tip—not really. Buzzer just said he couldn’t—not until he got a proper job, but would I wait for him. I don’t know if you’d count that or not.”

“I shouldn’t count either of them. Look here, will you promise me something?”

Dorinda possessed a vein of caution. It prompted her to ask,

“What is it?”

“Don’t get engaged to anyone without asking me. And don’t be in a hurry. Generally speaking, I should say the idea is not to get engaged unless you mean to get married, and not to get married unless you feel you must. Didn’t your Aunt Mary ever tell you that?” There was a slight quizzical smile in his eyes.

Dorinda said candidly, “She told me never to get married at all. You see, she had a complex about men. Because of the Wicked Uncle.”

“I never met your Aunt Mary, but she sounds a most unpleasant woman.”

Dorinda did her duty by the dead.

“Oh, she wasn’t really. It was frightfully good of her to bring me up, you know. Nobody else wanted to, but she thought it was her duty and she did. I was only two, and I must have been a lot of trouble.”

If Justin had a softened thought of Dorinda at two, smilingly unconscious of being a nuisance, he showed no sign of it. He simply disliked the late Mrs. Porteous a little more.

Dorinda pursued the theme.

“The Wicked Uncle really was an uncommonly bad lot. He used to go off and run riot, and then come back, take anything she’d got, and go off again.”

“There’s a Married Woman’s Property Act. Why did she let him?”

“Well, she told me about that when she was ill. I think she was a bit wandery and didn’t quite know what she was saying, but she meant it all right. She said, ‘Don’t ever get married, Dorinda. It’s just giving a man the power to wring your heart.’ And another time she said, ‘He was bad through and through.’ She asked me if I remembered him. I said I remembered calling him Uncle Glen, and that he had dancing dark eyes, and a round white scar on his wrist. And she said in a dreadfully bitter voice, ‘He had what they call charm. And he’d take anyone’s last drop of blood and their last penny and laugh.’ Then she told me that he’d had all her money except her annuity and the fifty pounds a year she was leaving me. And she said never to let him have a penny of it.”

“He isn’t dead?”

“She didn’t know. And right at the end when she was very wandery she wanted me to promise I’d never marry, but of course I wouldn’t.”

“You can refer the applicants to me.”

“Justin, do you know, I believe you’ve got something there. It really is frightfully difficult for a girl to go on saying no all on her own. I’ve often felt it would be useful to have a stern parent or guardian or someone in the background to say it for you. Would you—really?”

“I would—I will. You can come and watch me if you like. I feel I’m going to be good at it. Are you going to have ice pudding?”

Dorinda looked at him reproachfully.

“Of course I am! Justin, it’s a lovely dinner!”

“Enjoy it, my child. And now listen. I’ve been finding out about your Oakleys. He made a lot of money in the war. Theoretically the Excess Profits Tax made this impossible. Actually quite a lot of people did it. Martin Oakley is one of them.”

“Yes, I told you he’d got a lot of money—Mrs. Oakley said so. She’s that sort—she tells you everything.”

Justin laughed.

“Then Martin Oakley probably takes care she doesn’t know anything to tell. Anyhow he’s supposed to be financially sound, and there’s nothing against her, so there seems to be no reason why you shouldn’t take the job.”

An agreeable glow made Dorinda’s colour rise. Justin had actually taken the trouble to find out about the Oakleys because she was going to them. It was frightfully nice of him. She said so.

“Because there isn’t anyone else to do it, is there—only me. And of course it’s much nicer to have the stern parent or guardian or whatnot to do it for you—it gives you a background, if you know what I mean.”

Justin smiled rather nicely.

“I definitely refuse to be a parent.”

Dorinda regarded him with thoughtful appreciation.

“No, you’re much more the right age for a brother—aren’t you?”

She was surprised and a little startled at the warmth with which he said,

“I’m damned if I’ll be a brother, Dorinda!”

In her own mind she put it down to the unlucky blue dress. Justin’s sister would certainly never have bought it just because she liked the colour. She would have had perfect taste, and would never have made him feel ashamed of her in public. She said with artless candour,

“Of course if you’d had a sister she wouldn’t have been a bit like me.”

Justin had retreated behind an enigmatic smile.

“I’ll be a whatnot,” he said.

Dorinda travelled down to the Mill House next day in a very large Rolls which contained Mrs. Oakley, the nursery governess whose name was Florence Cole, Marty, herself, and, in front beside the chauffeur, Mrs. Oakley’s maid, who looked like an old retainer but had actually only been with her for a week. Nobody seemed to have been with her for very long except Marty. Florence Cole had done about ten days, and if Dorinda was any judge, she was rapidly working up to leave at the end of the month. The pay might be good, but Marty was definitely poison. As he bore no resemblance to his little fair-haired wisp of a mother, Dorinda concluded that he must take after Mr. Oakley, in which case it was perhaps not surprising that the latter had emerged from the war in the odour of prosperity. Marty was the most acquisitive little boy she had ever had the misfortune to meet. He wanted everything he saw, and bounced up and down on the well-sprung cushions demanding it at the top of his voice. If he didn’t get it he roared like a bull, and Mrs. Oakley said fretfully, “Really, Miss Cole!”

The first thing he wanted was a small black goat tethered by the side of the road, which they passed in a flash but which he lamented loudly until his attention was caught by Dorinda’s brooch. His mouth, which had been open to the fullest extent, fell to, cutting off a sirenlike scream half way up the scale, and a quite normal little boy’s voice said, “What’s that?” A grubby finger pointed.

Dorinda said, “It’s a brooch.”

“Why is it?”

“Why are you a little boy?”

Marty began to bounce.

“Why is it a brooch? I want to see it. Give it to me!”

“You can see it from there quite nicely, or you can come over here and look. It’s a Scotch brooch. It belonged to my great-grandmother. Those yellow stones are cairngorms. They come out of the Cairngorm mountains.”

“How do they come out?”

“People find them lying about there.”

“I want to go there and find some—I want to go now.”

Dorinda kept her head.

“It would be much too cold. There would be deep snow all over the place—you wouldn’t be able to find the stones.”

Marty had continued to bounce.

“How deep would the snow be?”

“It would be four foot six and a half inches. It would be right over your head.”

Marty was a plain, dark little boy. A dull red colour came into his face. He bounced harder.

“I don’t want it to be!”

Dorinda smiled at him.

“The snow will go away in summer.”

He bounced right out of his seat.

“I want to go now! I want your brooch! Undo it, quick!”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why can’t you? I want it!”

Mrs. Oakley, who had been leaning back with her eyes shut, now opened them and said in a hopeless tone,

“If he doesn’t get it he’ll scream.”

Dorinda regarded her with interest.

“Do you always give him things when he screams?”

Mrs. Oakley closed her eyes again.

“Oh, yes. He goes on screaming till I do, and my nerves won’t stand it.”

Dorinda wondered if anyone had tried what a good hard smack would do. She almost asked the question, but thought perhaps she had better not. Marty was opening his mouth. A roar was obviously imminent. Her fingers tingled as she unfastened the brooch and held it out. With a carefree smile he took it, jabbed the pin into her leg as far as it would go, and with a shriek of laughter tossed the brooch clean out of the top of the window, which happened to be two or three inches open. By the time the car had been stopped it was extremely difficult to identify the spot. After a half-hearted search they drove on, leaving Dorinda’s great-grandmother’s brooch somewhere by the wayside.

“Marty has a marvellously straight eye,” said Mrs. Oakley. “Martin will be so pleased. Fancy him getting right through the top of the window like that!”

Even Dorinda’s sweet temper found it difficult to respond. Florence Cole had obviously given up trying. She was a pale, rather puffy young woman who had been brought up to breathe through her nose, however difficult. Whenever the car stopped she could be heard doing so.

Marty continued to bounce and scream—for a wild rabbit whose scut glimmered away into a hedgerow, for an inn sign depicting a white hart on a green ground, for a cat asleep inside a cottage window, and finally for chocolate. Upon which Miss Cole, still breathing hard, opened her bag and produced a bar. He went to sleep over it after smearing his face and hands profusely. The resultant peace was almost too good to be true.

He slept until they arrived at the Mill House. There was a lot of shrubbery round it, and a dark, gloomy drive overhung with trees went winding up to the top of the hill, where the house stood in the open, exposed to every point of the compass except the south. It was a very large and perfectly hideous house, with patterns of red and yellow brick running about at random, and frightful little towers and balconies all over the place. Mrs. Oakley shivered and said the situation was very bracing. And then Marty woke up and began to roar for his tea. Dorinda wondered whether she would be having nursery tea, and felt selfishly relieved when she found that she wouldn’t. But she no longer expected Florence Cole to leave at the month. Her only doubt now was whether she would catch the last train tonight or the first tomorrow morning. In which case—no, she would not look after Marty—not for thousands a year—unless she had a free hand.

She had tea with Mrs. Oakley in a distressingly feminine apartment which she was thrilled to hear her employer call the boudoir. Dorinda had never encountered a boudoir before except in an old-fashioned novel. It lived up to her fondest dreams, with a rose and ivory carpet, rose and ivory curtains lined with pink, a couch with more cushions than she had ever before seen assembled at one time, and a general air of being tiresomely expensive.

Mrs. Oakley, in a rose-coloured negligée covered with frills, nestled among the cushions, whilst Dorinda sat on a horribly uncomfortable gold chair and poured out. Just as they were finishing, a knock came at the door. Mrs. Oakley said “Come in!” in rather a surprised voice, and Florence Cole, still in her outdoor things, advanced into the room. She wore an air of dogged purpose, and Dorinda knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth. She said it in quite a loud, determined voice.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Oakley, but I’m not staying. There’s a train at six, and I’m catching it. I’ve given that child his tea, and left him with the housemaid. She tells me his old nurse is in the village, and that she can manage him. I can’t. If there’s anyone who can, you’d better have her back. He’s just tried to pour the boiling kettle-water over my foot. If you ask me, he’s not safe.”

“He has such high spirits,” said Mrs. Oakley.

“He wants a good whipping!” said Miss Cole. A dull colour came into her face. “Are you going to pay me for the ten days I’ve put up with him, Mrs. Oakley? You’re not legally bound to, but I think anyone would say I’d earned it.”

Mrs. Oakley looked bewildered.

“I don’t know what I did with my purse,” she said. “It will be somewhere in my bedroom—if you don’t mind, Miss Brown. Perhaps you and Miss Cole could look for it together. It will be in that bag I had in the car.”

When they had found it, and Florence Cole had been paid a generous addition to cover her railway fare, her manner softened.

“If you like, Mrs. Oakley, I can stop and see Nurse Mason on my way through the village. Doris says I can’t miss the house.”

Mrs. Oakley fluttered.

“Oh, no, you can’t miss it. But perhaps she won’t come back. My husband thought Marty was getting too old for a nurse. She was very much upset about it. Perhaps she won’t come.”

“Doris says she’ll jump at it,” said Florence Cole. “She says she’s devoted to Marty.” Her tone was that of one confronted by some phenomenon quite beyond comprehension.

Mrs. Oakley continued to flutter.

“Well, perhaps you’d better. But my husband mayn’t like it— perhaps Miss Brown—”

“I couldn’t possibly,” said Dorinda with unmistakable firmness.

Mrs. Oakley closed her eyes.

“Well then, perhaps—yes, it will be very kind if you will—only I hope my husband—”

Florence Cole said, “Goodbye, Mrs. Oakley,” and walked out of the room.

Dorinda went out on to the landing with her and shook hands.

“I hope you’ll get a nice job soon,” she said. “Have you anywhere to go?”

“Yes, I’ve got a married sister. Are you going to stay?”

“I shall if I can.”

Florence Cole said, “Well, if you ask me, it’s the kind of place to get out of.”

Dorinda remembered that afterwards.