CHAPTER 4

       Uncle G.

      I

      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 fan-wise 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 and 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 savour 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, and crooked her fingers and croaked:

       ‘Weary sen’nights, 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, and if her mind 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,