Patricia Wentworth: Wicked Uncle

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.

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 than 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?”