UNCLE G
On the morning after her arrival Roberta woke to see a ray of thin London sunshine slanting across the counterpane. A maid in a print dress had drawn the curtains and put a tray on the bedside table. Dream and reality mixed themselves in Roberta’s thoughts. As she grew wide awake she began to count over the wonderful events of the night that was past. In the hour before dawn she had been driven through London. She had seen jets from hose-pipes splayed fanwise over deserted streets, she had heard the jingle of milk-carts and seen the strange silhouette made by roofs and chimney pots against a thinning sky. She had heard Big Ben tell four of a spring morning and the clocks of Chelsea answer him. Before that she had danced in a room so full of shadows, abrupt lights, relentless music, and people, that the memory was as confused as a dream. She had danced with Colin and Stephen and Henry. Colin had played the fool, pretended he was a Russian, and spoken broken English. Stephen with his quick stutter had talked incessantly and complimented Roberta on her dancing. She had danced most often with Henry who was more silent than the twins. He said so little that Roberta in a sudden panic had wondered if he merely danced with her out of a sense of hospitality and regretted the absence of the person called Mary. In those strange surroundings Henry had become remote, a sophisticated grandee with a white waistcoat, and a gardenia in his coat. Yet, when she danced with him, behind all her bewilderment Roberta had been aware of a deep satisfaction. Now, lying still in her bed, she called back the events of the night so potently that though her eyes were still open she had no thought for the sunlight on her counterpane but anxiously examined the picture of herself and Henry. There they were, moving together among a shadowy company of dancers. He did not wait to see if Stephen or Colin would ask her to dance, but himself asked her quickly and danced on until long after the others had gone back to their table. There was a sort of protective decisiveness in his manner that pleased and embarrassed Roberta. Perhaps after all, he was only worried about the financial crisis. “Heaven knows,” thought Roberta, “it’s enough to worry anybody but a Lamprey into a thousand fits.” She realized that the crisis lay like a nasty taste behind the savor of her own enjoyment. It was not discussed during that dazzling evening until they got home. Creeping into the flat in the half light, they found Nanny’s thermos of Ovaltine and sat drinking it round the heater in Roberta’s room. Henry laughed unexpectedly and said: “Well, chaps, we may not be here much longer.” Frid, very elegant and pale, struck a tragic attitude and said: “The last night in the old home. Pause for sobs.” There was a brief silence broken by Stephen.
“Uncle Gabriel,” Stephen said, “has s-simply g-got to stump up.”
“What if he won’t?” Colin had asked.
“We’ll bribe Aunt V. to bewitch him,” said Frid. She pulled her cloak over her head, crouched down, crooked her fingers and croaked:
“Weary se’nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine.”
The twins instantly turned themselves into witches and circled with Frid round the heater.
“Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
“Shut up,” said Henry. “I thought you said it was unlucky to quote ‘Macbeth.’ ”
“If we gave Aunt V. the ingredients for a charm,” said Colin, “I expect she’d be only too pleased to make Uncle G. dwindle, peak and pine.”
“They’re awkward things to beat up in a hurry,” said Frid.
Stephen said: “I wonder what Aunt V.‘s friends d-do about it. It must be rather dull to be witches if you can’t cast murrains on cattle or give your husband warts.”
“I wish,” Roberta cried, “that you’d tell me the truth about your Aunt V. and not go rambling on about her being a witch.”
“Poor Robin,” Henry said. “It does sound very silly, but as an actual fact, if her maid is to be believed, Aunt V. has taken up some sort of black magic. I imagine it boils down to reading histories of witchcraft and turning tables. In my opinion Aunt V. is simply dotty.”
“Well,” Frid said, “let’s go to bed, anyway.” She kissed the air near Roberta’s cheek and drifted to the door. “Come on, twins,” she added.
The twins kissed Roberta and wandered after Frid.
Henry stood in the doorway.
“Sleep well,” he said.
“Thank you, Henry,” said Roberta. “It was a lovely party.”
“For once,” said Henry, “I thought so too. Good night, Robin!”
Roberta, as she watched the sun on her counterpane, reviewed this final scene several times and felt happy.
II
The visit of Lord Wutherwood was prejudiced from the start by the arrival of Lady Katherine Lobe. Lady Katherine was a maiden aunt of Lord Charles. She was extremely poor and lived in a small house at Hammersmith. There she was surrounded by photographs of the Lamprey children to whom she was passionately devoted. Being poor herself, she spent the greater part of her life in working for the still-poorer members of her parish. She wore nondescript garments: hats that seemed to have no connection with her head, and grey fabric gloves. She was extremely deaf and spoke in a toneless whispering manner, with kind smiles, and with many anxious looks into the faces of the people she addressed. But for all her diffidence there was a core of determination in Lady Katherine. In her likes and dislikes she was immovable. Nothing would reconcile her to a person of whom she disapproved, and unfortunately she disapproved most strongly of her nephew Wutherwood, who, for his part, refused to meet her. At Christmas she invariably wrote him a letter on the subject of good-will towards men, pointing out his short-comings under this heading and enclosing a blank promise to pay yearly a large sum to one of her charities. Lord Wutherwood’s only reply to these communications was an irritable tearing across of the enclosures. For his younger brother Lady Katherine had the warmest affection. Occasionally she would travel in a bus up to the West End in order to visit the Lampreys and beg, with a gentle persistence, for their old clothes or force them to buy tickets for charitable entertainments. They were always warned by letter of these visits, but on this occasion Lady Charles, agitated by the crisis, had forgotten to open the note, and the only warning she had was Baskett’s announcement, at six o’clock in the evening, of Lady Katherine’s arrival.
The Lampreys and Roberta had assembled in the drawing-room to await the arrival of Lord Wutherwood. They were unnaturally silent. Even Mike had caught the feeling of tension. He stood by the wireless and turned the control knob as rapidly as possible until told to stop, when he flung himself moodily full length on the hearthrug and kicked his feet together.
“There’s the lift,” cried Lady Charles suddenly. “Mike, stay where you are and jump up. Remember to shake hands with Uncle Gabriel. Sprinkle some ‘sirs’ through your conversation, for heaven’s sake, and when I nod to you you are to give him the pot.”
“Mike’ll break it,” said Patch.
“I won’t,” shouted Mike indignantly.
“And remember,” continued his mother, “if I suggest a charade you’re all to go out and come back quietly and do one. Then, when you’ve finished, go out again so that Daddy can talk to Uncle Gabriel. And remember—”
“Can’t we listen?” asked Patch.
“We’ll probably hear Uncle G. all over the flat,” said Henry.
“And remember not to mention witchcraft. Uncle G. hates it.”
“Ssh!”
“Can’t we be talking?” Frid suggested. “You’d think there was a corpse in the flat.”
“If you can think of anything to say, say it,” said her father gloomily.
Frid began to speak in a high voice. “Aren’t those flowers over there too marvellous?” she asked. Nobody answered her. In the distance a bell rang. Baskett was heard to walk across the hall.
“Lovely, darling,” said Lady Charles violently. She appealed mutely to the children who stared in apprehension at the door and grimaced at each other. Lady Charles turned to Roberta.
“Robin, darling, do tell us about your voyage Home. Did you have fun?”
“Yes,” said Roberta, whose heart was now thumping against her ribs. “Yes. We had a fancy-dress ball.”
Lady Charles and Frid laughed musically. The door opened and Baskett came in.
“Lady Katherine Lobe, m’lady,” said Baskett.
“Good God!” said Lord Charles.
Lady Katherine came in. She walked with short steps and peered amiably through the cigarette smoke.
“Imogen, darling,” she whispered.
“Aunt Kit!”
The Lampreys kept their heads admirably. They told Lady Katherine how delighted they were to see her and seated her by the fire. They introduced Roberta to her, teased her gently about her lame ducks and, with panic-stricken glances at each other, asked her to remove her raincoat.
“So nice to see you all,” whispered Lady Katherine. “Such luck for me to find the whole family. And there’s Michael home for the holidays and grown enormously. Patricia too. And the twins. Don’t speak, twins, and let me see if I can guess. This is Stephen, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Aunt Kit,” said Colin.
“There! I knew I was right. You got my note, Imogen darling?”
“Yes, Aunt Kit. We’re so pleased,” said Charlot.
“Yes I wondered if you had got it because you all looked quite surprised when I walked in. So I wondered.”
“We thought you were Uncle Gabriel,” shouted Mike.
“What, dear?”
“Uncle Gabriel.”
Lady Katherine passed a grey-fabric finger across her lips. “Is Gabriel coming, Charles?”
“Yes, Aunt Kit,” said Lord Charles. And as she merely gazed dimly at him he added loudly: “He’s coming to see me on business.”
“We’re going to have some charades,” bawled Mike.
“I’m very glad,” said Lady Katherine emphatically. “I wish to see Gabriel. I have written to him several times but no response did I get. It’s about our Fresh Air Fund. A day in the country for a hundred children and a fortnight in private homes for twenty sickly mites. I want Gabriel to take six.”
“Six sickly mites?” asked Henry.
“What, dear?”
“Do you want Uncle Gabriel to take six sickly mites at Deepacres?”
“It’s the least he can do. I’m afraid Gabriel is inclined to be too self-centred, Charles. He’s a very wealthy man and he should think of other people more than he does. Your mama always said so. And I hear the most disquieting news of Violet. It appears that she has taken up spiritualism and sits in the dark with a set of very second-rate sort of people.”
“Not spiritualism, darling,” said Charlot. “Black magic.”
“What, dear?”
“Magic.”
“Oh. Oh, I see. That’s entirely different. I suppose she does it to entertain their house-parties. But that doesn’t alter the fact that both Violet and Gabriel are getting rather self-centred. It would be an excellent thing for both of them if they adopted two children.”
“For mercy’s sake, Aunt Kit,” cried Charlot, “don’t suggest that to Gabriel.”
“Don’t suggest anything,” said Lord Charles. “I implore you, Aunt Kit, not to tackle Gabriel this afternoon. You see—” he peered anxiously at his watch and broke off. “Good God, Immy,” he whispered to his wife, “we must do something. She’ll infuriate him. Take her to your room.”
“Under what pretext?” muttered Charlot.
“Think of something.”
“Aunt Kit, would you like to see my bedroom?”
“What, dear?”
“It’s no good, Mummy,” said Frid. “Better tell her we’re bust.”
“I think so,” said Lord Charles. He bent his legs and brought his face close to his aunt’s.
“Aunt Kit,” he shouted, “I’m in difficulties.”
“Are you, dear?”
“I’ve no money.”
“What?”
“There’s a bum in the house,” yelled Patch.
“Be quiet, Patch,” said Henry. His father continued. “I’ve asked Gabriel to lend me two thousand. If he doesn’t I shall go bankrupt.”
“Charlie!”
“It’s true.”
“I’ll speak to Gabriel,” said Lady Katherine quite loudly.
“No, no!” cried the Lampreys.
“Lord and Lady Wutherwood, m’lady,” said Baskett in the doorway.
III
Roberta knew that the Lampreys had not reckoned on Lady Wutherwood’s arrival with her husband, and she had time to admire their almost instant recovery from this second and formidable shock. Charlot met her brother and sister-in-law half-way across the room. Her manner held a miraculous balance between the over-cordial and the too-casual. Her children and her husband supported her wonderfully. Lady Katherine for the moment was too rattled by the Lampreys’ news of impending disaster to make any disturbance. She sat quietly in her chair.
Roberta found herself shaking hands with an extremely odd couple. The Marquis of Wutherwood and Rune was sixty years of age but these years sat heavily upon him and he looked like an old man. His narrow head, sunken between high shoulders, poked forward with an air that was at once mean and aggressive. His face was colourless. The bridge of his nose was so narrow that his eyes appeared to be impossibly close-set. His mouth drooped querulously and the length of his chin, though prodigious, was singularly unexpressive of anything but obstinacy. His upper teeth projected over his under lip and hinted at a high and a narrow palate. These teeth gave him an unpleasingly feminine appearance increased by his chilly old-maidish manner, which suggested that he lived in a state of perpetual offence. Roberta, found herself wondering if he could possibly be as disagreeable as he looked.
His wife was about fifty years of age. She was dark, extremely sallow, and fat. There was a musty falseness about the dank hair which she wore over her ears in sibylline coils. She painted her face, but with such inattention to detail that Roberta was reminded of a cheap print in which the colours had slipped to one side, showing the original structure of the drawing underneath. She had curious eyes, very pale, with tiny pupils, and muddy whites. They were so abnormally sunken that they seemed to reflect no light and this gave them a veiled appearance which Roberta found disconcerting, and oddly repellent. Her face had once been round but like her make-up it had slipped and now hung in folds and pockets about her lips, which were dragged down at the corners. Roberta saw that Lady Wutherwood had a trick of parting and closing her lips. It was a very slight movement but she did it continually with a faint click of sound. And in the corners of her lips there was a kind of whiteness that moved when they moved. “Henry is right,” thought Roberta. “She is disgusting.”
Lord Wutherwood greeted the Lampreys without much show of cordiality. When he saw Lady Katherine Lobe his attitude stiffened still further. He turned to his brother and in a muffled voice said: “We’re in a hurry, Charles.”
“Oh,” said Lord Charles. “Are you? Oh — well—”
“Are you?” Charlot repeated. “Not too much of a hurry, I hope, Gabriel. We never see anything of you.”
“You never come to Deepacres when we ask you, Imogen.”
“I know. We’d adore to come, especially the children, but you know it’s so frightfully expensive to travel, even in England. You see we can’t all get into one car—”
“The fare, third-class return, is within the reach of most people.”
“ Miles beyond us, I’m afraid,” said Charlot with a charming air of ruefulness. “We’re cutting down everything. We never budge from where we are.”
Lord Wutherwood turned to Henry.
“Enjoy your trip to the Cote d’Azur?” he asked. “Saw your photograph in one of these papers. In my day we didn’t strip ourselves naked and wallow in front of press photographers but I suppose you like that sort of thing.”
“Enormously, sir,” said Henry coldly.
There was a slight pause. Roberta felt uncomfortably that Charlot’s plan should be amended and that they should leave the field to Lord Charles. She wondered if she herself should slip out of the room. Her thoughts must have appeared in her face for Henry caught her eye, smiled, and shook his head. The Wutherwoods were now seated side-by-side on the sofa. Baskett came in with the sherry.
“Ah, sherry,” said Lord Charles. Henry began to pour it out. Charlot made desperate efforts with her brother-in-law. Lady Katherine leant forward in her chair and addressed Lady Wutherwood.
“Well, Violet,” she said, “I hear you have taken up conjuring.”
“You couldn’t be more mistaken,” said Lady Wutherwood in a deep voice. She spoke with a very slight accent, slurring her words together. After each phrase she rearranged her mouth with those clicking movements and stealthily touched away the white discs at the corners, but in a little while they reformed.
“Aunty Kit,” cried Frid, “will you have some sherry? Aunt Violet?”
“No thank you, my dear,” said Lady Katherine.
“Yes,” said Lady Wutherwood.
“You’d better not, V.,” said Lord Wutherwood. “You know what’ll happen.”
Mike walked to the end of the sofa and stared fixedly at his aunt. Lord Charles turned to his brother with an air of cordiality. “It’s a sherry that I think you rather like, Gabriel, don’t you?” he said. “Corregio del Martez, ’79.”
“If you can afford a sherry like that—” began Lord Wutherwood. Henry hurriedly placed a glass at his elbow.
“Aunt Violet,” asked Mike suddenly, “can you do the rope trick? I bet you can’t. I bet you can’t do that and I bet you can’t saw a lady in half.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Mike,” said Patch.
“Mikey,” said his mother, “run and find Baskett, darling, and ask him to take care of Uncle Gabriel’s chauffeur. I suppose he’s there, isn’t he, Gabriel?”
“He’ll do very well in the car. Your aunt’s maid is there, too. Your aunt insists on cartin’ her about with us. I strongly object, of course, but that makes no difference. She’s a nasty type.”
Lady Wutherwood laughed rather madly. Her husband turned on her. “You know what I mean, V.,” he said. “Tinkerton’s a bad lot. Put it bluntly, she’s damn well debauched my chauffeur. It’s been goin’ on under your nose for years.”
Charlot evidently decided that it would be better not to have heard this embarrassing parenthesis. “Of course they must come up,” she said cheerfully. “Nanny will adore to see Tinkerton. Mikey, ask Baskett to bring Tinkerton and Giggle up to the Servants’ sitting-room and give them a drink of tea or something. Ask politely, won’t you?”
“O.K.,” said Mike. He hopped on one foot and turned to look at Lady Wutherwood.
“Isn’t it pretty funny?” he asked. “Your chauffeur’s called Giggle and there’s a man in the kitchen called Grumble. He’s a…”
“Michael!” said Lord Charles. “Do as you’re told at once.”
Mike went out, followed unostentatiously by Stephen who shut the door behind him. Stephen returned in a few moments.
“I wish you’d tell me, Violet,” said Lady Katherine, “what it is you have taken up. One hears such extraordinary reports.”
“She’s dabblin’ in some damn-fool kind of occultism,” said Lord Wutherwood, turning pale with annoyance.
Roberta noticed that when he stopped speaking his upper teeth closed firmly on his under lip, causing his whole mouth to settle down at the corners in an expression of maddening complacency.
“Gabriel,” said his wife, “believes in what he sees. Nothing else. He thinks himself fortunate in that. He is not so fortunate as he supposes.”
“What the devil d’you mean?” demanded Lord Wutherwood. “Don’t look at me like that, V., I don’t like it. These friends of yours are makin’ a damned unpleasant woman of you. Of all the miserable footlin’ crew! What d’you think you’re doin’ huntin’ up a parcel of spooks? A lot of trickery. I’ve told you before, I’ve a damn good mind to speak to the police about the whole affair. If it wasn’t for draggin’ my name into it—”
“You had better be careful; Gabriel. It is not wise to sneer at the unseen.”
“The unseen what?” asked Lady Katherine who had caught this last phrase.
“The unseen forces.”
Lord Wutherwood made exasperated sounds and turned his back.
“What sort of forces?” persisted Lady Katherine against the combined mental opposition of the Lampreys.
“Do you seek,” asked Lady Wutherwood with a formidable air of contempt, “to learn in a few words the wisdom of all the ages? A lifetime is too short to reach full understanding.”
“Of what?”
“Esoteric Lore.”
“What’s that?”
Charlot suddenly made a bold dash into this strange conversation, and Roberta with something like terror saw that she had decided on the line she would take with her sister-in-law. Evidently it was to be a line of gentle banter. Charlot leant towards Lady Wutherwood and said gaily: “I’m as bewildered as Aunty Kit, Violet. Is esoteric lore the same as — what? Witchcraft? Don’t turn into a witch, darling.”
Lady Wutherwood stared at Charlot. “It’s a great mistake,” she said in her deep voice, “to laugh at necromancy, Imogen. There are more things in Heaven and earth—”
“I suppose there are, Violet, but I don’t want to meet them.”
“The church,” said Lady Katherine in her loudest whisper, “takes a firm stand in such matters. I imagine you know, Violet; that you are in danger of—”
The Lampreys all began to talk at once. They talked persistently, not raising their voices but overpowering their guests with a sort of gentle barrage. They seemed by tacit agreement to have split into two groups: Frid, Patch and their mother tackling Lord Wutherwood, while Henry and the twins concentrated on his wife. Lord Charles, nervously polishing his eye-glass, stood aside like a sort of inadequate referee. The scene now developed in accordance with the best traditions of polite drawing-room comedy. Roberta was irresistably reminded of the play she had seen the previous night and, once possessed of this idea, it seemed to her that the Lampreys and their relations had begun to pitch their voices like actors and actresses and to use gestures that were a little larger than life. The scene was building towards some neat and effective climax. There was perhaps a superfluity of character parts and with Lady Katherine Lobe smiling and nodding in her corner the eccentric dowager was not lacking. Partly to dispel this idea and in the hope that she might be of some service to the cause, Roberta moved to Lady Katherine who, true to family form, instantly began to confide in her, saying that she had heard most disquieting news of Violet and asking Roberta if she thought the Lampreys would rather she went away as poor Charles must be given a free hand with Gabriel. All this was fortunately uttered in such a muffled aside that Roberta could hear no more than half of it. Lady Katherine was too insistent, however, for Roberta to divide her own attention and she had no idea of what went forward between the Lampreys and the Wutherwoods until she heard Frid say: “No, Uncle Gabriel, I shall be bitterly humiliated if you don’t ask us to do one for you.” Roberta saw that Lord Wutherwood looked slightly less disagreeable. Frid was presenting herself as a lovely and attentive niece.
“I’m so glad you agree with me,” whispered Lady Katherine. “There is no doubt at all, in my mind, of our duty to these poor things.” Roberta did not know if she spoke of the Lampreys, of ailing children, or of Jewish refugees, in all of whom she seemed to be passionately interested. Frid had refilled her uncle’s glass. Lady Wutherwood was droning interminably to Henry and the twins who appeared to be enraptured with the recital. Charlot suddenly broke up this comparatively peaceful picture by making the much-discussed announcement.
“Children,” she said gaily. “Frid’s been telling Uncle Gabriel about your charades. Do you think you could do a very quick rhyming charade now, for Aunt Violet and Aunt Kit and Uncle Gabriel? Don’t take ages deciding what to do; just do the first thing that comes into your heads. We’ll give you a word. Out you go.”
“Come on, Robin,” said Henry.
Robin, full of misgivings, followed the Lampreys into the ball.