Wicked Uncle

by Patricia Wentworth

  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.

  Chapter V

  It was about an hour and a half later that Dorinda knocked on what had been the nursery door. A voice said, “Come in!” and she had no sooner done so t
han she became aware that after a brief unhappy interlude as a schoolroom it had quite firmly reverted to being a nursery again. All Marty’s clothes were airing in front of a fire, Marty was putting away his toys in a toy-cupboard, and a large, firm, buxom woman whom no one could have taken for anything but a nurse, was sitting up to the table darning socks. The scene was peaceful in the extreme, but there was an underlying feeling that if anything broke the peace, Nurse would want to know the reason why. Dorinda knew all about nurses. She had had a very strict old-fashioned one herself in the days before so much of Aunt Mary’s money had been disposed of by the Wicked Uncle. She said, “Good afternoon, Nurse,” very respectfully, and then explained that Mrs. Oakley had asked her to find out whether she had everything she wanted.

  Nurse Mason inclined her head and said in a tone which was more non-belligerent than neutral that what she hadn’t got she would see about, thank you.

  Marty stopped with a headless horse in his hand.

  “Nannie says she never did see anything like the way my things is gone to rack an’ ruin.”

  “That will be enough from you, Marty! You keep right on putting those toys away-and shocked I am to see the way they’ve been broke.”

  Marty thrust the mutilated horse out of sight and turned round with a cheerful smile.

  “I’ve been a very naughty boy since you’ve been away, haven’t I, Nannie?”

  “You go on picking up your toys!”

  With an armful of wreckage, Marty continued to discourse.

  “I frowed her brooch out of the car”-he appealed to Dorinda for confirmation-“didn’t I? And I digged a pin into her leg to make it bleed. Did it bleed, Miss Brown?”

  “I haven’t looked,” said Dorinda.

  Nurse had fixed a penetrating eye upon the culprit.

  “Then you say you’re sorry to Miss Brown this very minute! Digging pins into people to make them bleed-I never heard such a thing! More like naked heathen savages than a child brought up in any nursery of mine! Go and say you’re sorry at once!”

  Marty dropped all the toys he had gathered, advanced two paces, clasped his hands in front of him, and recited in a rapid sing-song,

  “I’m sorry I was a naughty boy and I won’t do it again.”

  There was a little talk about the brooch, Nurse being much shocked on hearing that it had been a legacy from a great-grandmother, and Marty contributing a few facts about cairngorms and finishing up with,

  “I frowed it as hard as shooting from a gun.”

  “I don’t want to hear no more about it,” said Nurse with decision.

  “And I frowed water out of the kettle on to Miss Cole, and she put on her coat and hat and went away.”

  “That’s enough, Marty! If those toys aren’t back in ten minutes, you know what will happen.”

  He bent strenuously to the task.

  Dorinda turned to go, but just as she did so something caught her eye. When Marty dropped his armful it had really been more of a throw than a drop. The lighter things had scattered, amongst them a bent carte-de-visite photograph. Dorinda picked it up and began to straighten it out. At just what instant everything in her began a landslide, she didn’t know. She heard Nurse say sharply,

  “Marty, wherever did you get that photograph from? Is it one of your mother’s?”

  And she heard him say, “It comed out of a box.”

  “What box did it come out of?”

  “A box. And it was all crumpled up and stuck in underneaf.”

  Dorinda heard the words, but she didn’t make anything of them. She was sliding much too fast. By making a simply tremendous effort she managed to say, “I’ll see it’s put back,” and she managed to get out of the room.

  Her own room was just across the landing. When she had locked herself in she sat down on the bed and gazed in unbelieving horror at the crumpled photograph. There wasn’t any mistake: The name of the photographer was glaringly legible- “Charles Rowbecker and Son, Norwood.” It was the twin photograph of the one in Aunt Mary’s album. It was, incredibly but indisputably, a photograph of the Wicked Uncle.

  Chapter VI

  It was certainly a shock. Practically everyone has a relation whom they hope never to see again. There never has been, and probably never will be a time when this would occasion any particular remark. Dorinda sat and looked at the photograph and told herself what a perfectly ordinary thing it was to have a Wicked Uncle, and to find his photo doubled up among the nursery toys of your employer’s brat. She had the feeling that if she could convince herself of the ordinariness of what had just happened she would stop feeling as if she might be going to be sick. The fact was that she had always had what she chose to call a complex about Glen Porteous. A very, very long time ago that famous charm of his had charmed her too. And then one night she woke up and heard him talking to Aunt Mary, and all the charm turned to bitter poison. She couldn’t have been more than six years old, but she never forgot lying there in the dark and hearing them in the next room. The door must have been open, because she could hear quite well, and she never forgot, because it was the first time that she had heard a grown-up person cry. Aunt Mary had cried bitterly, and Uncle Glen had laughed at her as if she was doing something very amusing. After that he went away for about two years. Aunt Mary didn’t cry any more, but she got very strict and cross.

  Dorinda came back out of the past. It was dead, and Aunt Mary was dead. But was the Wicked Uncle dead too-that was the question. It wasn’t a question to which she had any answer. His last appearance had been about seven years ago, when he had blown in and blown out again, leaving Aunt Mary noticeably more economical. She had rather taken it for granted that he was dead because he hadn’t come back, but that might only have been because he thought that there wasn’t any more to be had. As a matter of fact there was the fifty pounds a year which Dorinda had now, but he mightn’t have known about it, and the rest of what Aunt Mary had being an annuity, he couldn’t, even with the worst intentions in the world, put it in his pocket and walk off with it.

  She stared at the photograph. It was the exact twin of the one in Aunt Mary’s album. It showed a good-looking man with dark hair and very dark dancing eyes. The hair curled a little too visibly. The teeth showed in a smile which everyone who knew him had considered charming. Dorinda wondered when it had been taken. Not later than about fifteen years ago, because after that he only came to get what he could out of Aunt Mary, and he wouldn’t have gone to a local photographer and given her a copy. She thought it must have been done when they were living at Norwood. Before the Row.

  It was a long way from the time before the Row and Charles Rowbecker and Son to Marty’s toy-cupboard and the Mill House. The most frightening idea came suddenly into her head. Suppose the Wicked Uncle was Martin Oakley. She was too sensible to encourage it, but it lurked. Hastily assembling reasons to disprove it, she recalled that Nurse had given the photograph no name. If it was a picture of Martin Oakley, wouldn’t she have said, “What are you doing with your father’s picture all crumpled up like that?” She stopped feeling sick and her spirits began to rise. After all, the very worst that could happen would be that she might have to leave her job. But she wouldn’t have to-she felt quite reassured about that. Everyone has got old photograph albums full of junk. Aunt Mary had forgotten the names of a lot of the people in hers. Uncle Glen’s photograph was neither here nor there. It hadn’t the slightest importance. It was just something out of a junkery. She was wearing a dress with large patch pockets. She slipped the photograph into one of them and went down.

  It ought to have been the easiest thing in the world to walk into the boudoir, slap the photograph down in front of Mrs. Oakley, and say, “Marty had this knocking about in his toy-cupboard. I told Nurse I’d bring it down.” But it wasn’t. When she thought about doing it she couldn’t even open the door and go in. It was too stupid. If Doris, who was one of the housemaids, hadn’t come along the passage, she might have just stuck there and grown into
the floor. As it was, she got herself inside the room and found it empty. Voices from the bedroom next door proclaimed that Mrs. Oakley was dressing for dinner.

  With a feeling of relief, Dorinda put the photograph down upon a gimcrack writing-table and ran upstairs to assume the despised blue dress.

  When she came down again Mrs. Oakley had exchanged the sofa for the most comfortable of the armchairs. Her fluffy draperies were still pink, but of a different shade. The photograph was nowhere to be seen. No reference was made to it, which suited Dorinda very well. Anyone who had known Glen Porteous might have just as good reasons as she had herself for not wanting to talk about him.

  They had a delightful meal on a tray. Dorinda told herself that there were going to be far too many meals, and all much too good, but it was a very pleasing change after the economical dullness of the food at the Heather Club.

  They had no more than finished dinner, when the telephone bell rang. As it had been explained to her that her most important duty was to stand between Mrs. Oakley and the telephone, Dorinda went to it. The instrument stood upon the writing-table where she had put the photograph. She lifted the receiver and said,

  “Mrs. Oakley’s secretary speaking.”

  A man’s voice said, “Will you tell Mrs. Oakley that Gregory Porlock would like to speak to her?”

  She replaced the receiver and repeated the request. With her back to her, Mrs. Oakley murmured,

  “I don’t speak to anyone except Martin or someone I know very well indeed-never, never, never. He must talk to you, and you can tell me what he says.”

  Dorinda took up the receiver again.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Porlock-Mrs. Oakley asks me to explain that she never speaks on the telephone. I’m new, or I should have known. If you will tell me what you want to say, I will pass it on.”