Patricia Wentworth - Wicked Uncle

“She gave me her card, and she said if I had any more trouble to let her know at once. I told her I couldn’t pay a fee or anything like that, and she said it didn’t matter-just to let her know. Justin, she’s rather a pet. She patted my hand, and she said, ‘My dear, there was a time when I was a young girl earning my living in other people’s houses. I have so much to be grateful for that I like to pay a little of the debt when I can.’ ”

In the end Justin gave up. He had something to give Dorinda, and if he wrangled with her up to the last moment, the atmosphere would be all wrong. Not that there was any wrangling on Dorinda’s side. She just glowed, and called him darling, and went on saying no. He began to feel that he must be making a fool of himself. What he wanted for his little presentation was the attitude of the kind, indulgent cousin, but he didn’t find it easy to come by.

Dorinda gave him an opening by opining that she would just have time to shop her rolled-gold safety-pin before she had to meet Mr. Oakley at his office. Justin dived into his pocket and produced something in an envelope.

“This will look nicer than a safety-pin-at least I hope you’ll think so. It belonged to my mother.”

“Oh, Justin!” Her colour changed brightly.

Inside the envelope was a shabby little brown leather case, and inside the case, on a background of ivory velvet which had turned as yellow as the keys of an old piano, there was a shining brooch. Dorinda gazed at it and felt quite unable to speak. The interlaced double circle of small bright diamonds caught the light. She lifted swimming eyes to Justin’s face.

“You like it?”

She took a long breath.

“It’s much too lovely!”

“Put it on.”

Half way to her throat her hands remained suspended.

“Justin-you oughtn’t to-I mean I oughtn’t to take it. If it was your mother’s, oughtn’t you to keep it? Because when you get married-” She stopped there, because the idea of Justin getting married hurt so frightfully that she couldn’t go on.

There was a curious emotional moment. Justin looked at her rather gravely and said,

“What sort of girl do you think I ought to marry?”

It was of course quite easy to answer this, though it hurt like knives and daggers. Dorinda had always known exactly the sort of girl that Justin would marry, and within the last few months, from being a type, this girl had become someone with a name. Dorinda had seen her photograph in a gossipy weekly- “Mr. Justin Leigh and Miss Moira Lane.” She cut out the picture and kept it, and one day when she was feeling extra brave she asked Justin, “Who is Moira Lane?” and got a frown and a casual “Oh, just a girl I know.” After that she saw them together once or twice-at lunch when she was out with Tip, and at the theatre with Buzzer. Moira Lane always looked just the same-as if she knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

She was very, very decorative of course, but she might have been that and yet all wrong for Justin. It was that look of being dead right and dead sure of being right which ran the splinter of ice into Dorinda’s heart. She laid the brooch back on its ivory bed and began to draw strokes on the tablecloth with the tip of her finger.

“Tall, and of course very, very slim, only not thin-you don’t like thin girls, do you? And perhaps very fair hair-only I don’t know that that matters very much as long as it’s beautifully done. And very, very smart, with all the right clothes, and knowing just where to get them. And what you do and what you don’t do, and just the right kind of make-up, and when a thing’s dead and you just can’t be seen with it any more. Because, you know, all that sort of thing is very difficult unless you’ve been brought up to it, only even then some people are much better at it than others-and you’d have to have someone who was really good at it.”

“Would I?”

“Oh, yes, Justin. Because you notice everything, and you can’t bear it if there’s the least thing wrong. You like everything to be perfect, so you would have to marry a girl who would never, never make a mistake.”

She pushed the little brown leather case across the table, not looking at it, because her eyes never left his face. He picked it up and put it down in front of her.

“She would probably think my mother’s brooch old-fashioned. I think I’d rather you had it. Suppose you put it on.”

“Oh, Justin!”

“My darling child, don’t be ridiculous. I shouldn’t give it to you if I didn’t want you to have it… No, that’s not right-a little higher up… That will do.” He looked at his wrist watch and got up briskly. “I shall have to fly. Be a good child. And continue to report progress.”

Mrs. Oakley had been wishing all the morning that she hadn’t sent Dorinda up to town. Any of the three houses to which she had directed her would have been only too pleased to send down a selection of suitable frocks in response to a request from Mrs. Martin Oakley. And the De Luxe Stores could have been rung up. There was nothing else that couldn’t have waited. As it was, she was going to be alone all day. Martin wouldn’t be down till four o’clock at the very earliest, because Dorinda was only to meet him at half past two, and that meant he wouldn’t get started till three, and it might be much later than that. Things always seemed to turn up at the last moment in offices.

Her ideas about Martin’s office were rather mingled. She hated it because it took him away from her, but if he didn’t go to it there wouldn’t be any money, and she would hate it if there weren’t any money. There had been a time in her life when there had been, first very little money, and then no money at all. There had been only one room, and there hadn’t always been enough to eat. She had had to try and clean the room herself, with the result that her hands became exceedingly dirty, and the room didn’t seem to get any cleaner. She had had to try to cook, but the results wouldn’t bear thinking about. For years she had never let herself think about that time, but today she couldn’t help it. The dreadful sordid memories came crowding into her mind. It was like having a lot of dirty tramps in her nice clean house. They went everywhere, and did just what they liked. They had kept her awake in the night, and when she slept they had walked in and out of her dreams.

She oughtn’t to have let Dorinda go. There were quite a lot of things they could have done together. There were all those patterns for the new curtains and covers for the drawing-room -they could have had them out and looked at them. It would have taken the best part of the morning. After lunch Dorinda could have read to her or talked to her, and by tea-time she could have been looking forward to Martin’s arrival. Whereas now there was the whole empty, dragging day with no one to talk to. Nurse didn’t really care about her coming into the nursery. She was very polite, but she and Marty always gave her the feeling that she was interrupting something. She could feel them going back to it with relief almost before she was out of the room. If her new maid had been different, the morning could have been got through quite easily. She had a lot of clothes and it would have been quite interesting to talk to Hooper about them. The trouble was that Hooper wouldn’t talk. She knew her duties, and she knew how to carry them out, but that was as far as it went. She said, “Yes, madam,” and she said, “No, madam,” and if she had to say more than that she cut it as short as possible.

In Dorinda’s absence Hooper had to answer the telephone when the bell rang just before lunch.

“Mr. Porlock, madam.”

“Ask what he wants, Hooper. He knows I don’t come to the telephone.”