Patricia Wentworth: Wicked Uncle

“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.