Wicked Uncle

Chapter XVI

Gregory shepherded them.

“Mrs. Tote, shall we lead the way? No formality, I think. I am afraid our numbers don’t balance, but at an oval table that doesn’t matter so much, does it?”

As they crossed the hall, Justin felt a sharp pinch on the arm. Looking down, he saw Dorinda’s hand withdrawn, her eyes imploring. He fell back a pace and let the rest go by.

“What is it?”

Almost without moving her lips she said,

“He’s the Wicked Uncle.”

“Who is?”

“Mr. Porlock.”

“Nonsense!”

She gave an emphatic nod.

“He is.”

And with that they were at the dining-room door.

When they were in their places Dorinda found herself looking across the length of the table at Gregory and Mrs. Tote. Between her and them on her right were Mr. Masterman, Mrs. Oakley, Mr. Tote, Miss Masterman, Gregory; and on her left Justin, that odd-looking Leonard Carroll, Moira Lane, Martin Oakley, and Mrs. Tote.

Her eyes came back to Moira, laughing with Leonard Carroll. Quite honestly and doggedly she accepted her as something quite out of her own class-a beautiful magical creature dispensing smiles and wit with easy charm and perfect poise. She took her soup soberly, and had so far forgotten Gregory that when Justin said, “Did you mean that?” she had lost the thread and could only give him a blank look.

“What you said just now,” he prompted. “It seems incredible.”

“Sorry-I was thinking of something else. Of course I did.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“Oh, but I am. Quite-quite-quite sure.”

“Then we’d better talk about something else.”

Dorinda looked again at Moira Lane. Leonard Carroll was leaning towards her with his crooked smile. A rapid cut and thrust flashed back and forth between them. She said quite low to Justin,

“How beautiful she is.”

She wondered why he should be amused.

“Decorative creature,” he said. “All the lights on tonight. I wonder why.”

Something in Dorinda’s mind said, “Oh, Justin, they’re for you.” Didn’t he know? She thought he must. But perhaps you didn’t when it was for you… She wondered about that. When you were very, very fond of anyone, did it make you see clearly, or did it make a kind of mist in which you had to grope your way? She thought it might do both these things-not at the same time of course, but first one and then the other. Like with her and Justin-because sometimes she felt that she could see right into his mind and know just what he was thinking, like when he hated her blue dress, but other times she didn’t know at all, like just now about Moira Lane.

She emerged from this train of thought to help herself to an entrée. Justin and Moira were talking across Leonard Carroll. No, he was talking too. They were laughing together. On her right Mr. Masterman was staring at his plate. Mrs. Oakley beyond him had turned to Mr. Tote, to whom she could be heard recounting some instance of Marty’s unusual precocity and intelligence. The words, “And he was only three at the time,” impinged upon Dorinda’s ear. They must have impinged upon Mr. Tote’s ear too, but he gave no sign that they had done so. He had taken a very large helping and was eating his way through it in an impervious manner.

Urged by social duty, Dorinda addressed Mr. Masterman’s profile.

“I do hope it isn’t going to snow-don’t you?”

His full face was even less reassuring than his profile. He looked at Dorinda as if she wasn’t there and said,

“Why?”

“Messy-so perfectly horrid when it thaws. And never enough of it to do anything with.”

She got the profile again. He had taken up a fork and begun upon the entrée, but with the same air of not noticing what it was. Which seemed a terrible waste, because it was frightfully good and very intriguing. Even in the middle of feeling how beautiful Moira was, and what a marvellous wife she would make for Justin, Dorinda couldn’t help wondering what it was made of. The three on her left all laughed again. Justin sat turned away, making no attempt to include her. She couldn’t guess how devoutly he was hoping that she had not heard the joke.

It was at this moment that Linnet Oakley, having finished her anecdote, found herself addressed by Gregory Porlock across Miss Masterman and Mr. Tote. Just what prompted him remains a matter for conjecture. On his right Mrs. Tote was engaged with her other neighbour, Martin Oakley. They appeared to be comparing notes upon the intelligence of infants as exemplified by Marty and her daughter Allie’s child. Gregory had, perhaps, exhausted the flow of conversation which he had been perseveringly directing towards Miss Masterman, and to which she had remained completely unresponsive. He may have been provoked to malice, he may merely have felt that a diversion of some kind was a necessity. Be that as it may, he addressed Linnet by name.

“Mrs. Oakley, I hope you were successful in getting the luminous paint you wanted.”

Her helpless, startled air was noticed then, and remembered later. Mr. Tote noticed it. Woman looked like a frightened rabbit-just about that much brain. Mr. Masterman on her other side would not, perhaps, have been roused to notice anything if it had not been for the fact that her left hand was on the table between them, and that when she started in that senseless way she very nearly had his champagne-glass over. On the other side of the table Mrs. Tote thought Mrs. Oakley very nervous, and Martin Oakley, watching her change colour, wondered whether she wasn’t feeling well.

Linnet drew a fluttering breath and said, “Oh, yes,” took another, and said,

“It was Miss Brown who got it.”

“Without any trouble, I hope,” said Gregory Porlock, to Dorinda this time. And the moment he said it Dorinda was perfectly sure that he knew just what had happened at the De Luxe Stores. Their eyes met. Each said something to the other. Gregory’s said, “You see-take care.” Dorinda’s said, “I know.”

And she did. She would never be able to prove it, but she was quite, quite sure that he had pulled the strings which took her to the De Luxe Stores and took someone else there to put stolen goods in her pocket. Why? To get her away from the Oakleys, where she couldn’t help meeting him and might be inconvenient enough to recognize a Wicked Uncle.

She came back to the conversation, to find that practically everyone round the table had entered it. Martin Oakley was saying,

“The stuff has been extraordinarily difficult to get, and we wanted it for Marty’s clock. I was really grateful to you for the tip, Greg. I told my wife to get on with it, as Miss Brown was going up to town.”

Dorinda sorted that out. Gregory Porlock had told Martin Oakley that the De Luxe had luminous paint, and Martin had told his wife. It all fitted in. As she got there, Mrs. Tote said,

“But, Mr. Porlock, whatever did you want with luminous paint?”

Leonard Carroll broke in with a laugh.

“Don’t you know? I guessed at once. He goes creeping round with it in the dead of night looking for kind deeds to do by stealth. The perfect host-nothing escapes him. Comfort for the guest, and a twenty-four hour service-that’s the way it goes.”

Gregory laughed too. Mrs. Tote considered that “that Mr. Carroll” had had quite enough champagne. Something in the acting line, and a bit too free with his tongue. Some of the things he’d been saying to Miss Lane -well, really! And all she did was laugh, when what he wanted was a good setting-down. Give that sort an inch, and they’ll have the whole bolt of cloth before you can turn your head.

Gregory was laughing too.

“I’m afraid I’m not quite as attentive as that. I wanted the paint for that beam which runs across as you go down a step into the cloakroom. I don’t know why they built these old houses up and down like that-I suppose they didn’t bother to get their levels. Anyhow it’s a bit awkward for anyone who doesn’t know his way. You can reach the switch without going down the step, but only just, and you clear the beam if you’re not over six foot, but an extra tall guest is liable to brain himself, and anyone might come a cropper over the step. So I had the bright idea of painting the beam and the switch with luminous paint. By the way, I must apologize for the smell. It’s had one coat, which I hope is dry, but it’s got to have another, so we left the paint in the cupboard.”

Mrs. Oakley said in rather a high voice,

“Marty loves his clock. Martin gave it another coat just before we came out. Marty says he loves to wake up in the night and see it looking at him. He says it’s like a big eye. He has so much imagination.”

Mr. Tote turned a cross red face.

“How can it look like an eye? It’s only the hands that’s painted! Funny sort of an eye!”

Linnet gave a flustered laugh.

“Oh, well-you see-Marty painted the whole face. He didn’t know. And Nurse says it doesn’t matter, because the hands can be painted black, and then she’ll get quite near enough to the time by the position they’re in without bothering about the numbers. And of course Marty doesn’t care so long as it shines in the dark.”

“So shines,” proclaimed Mr, Carroll, “a good deed in this naughty world. Much ado about nothing. Night’s candles are burnt out. Let us eat, drink, and be merry. I could go on for hours like this if anyone would like me to.”

“They wouldn’t,” said Moira.

“Then I’ll tell you the latest, the very latest scandal-night’s scandals being by no means all burnt out.” He dropped his voice, and Justin turned back to Dorinda with the feeling that this was the most ill-assorted company he had ever been in, and that he wouldn’t be sorry when the evening was over.

It was at this moment that it occurred to him to wonder why a man of Gregory Porlock’s unquestionable social gifts should have assembled at his table people so incompatible as the Totes and Leonard Carroll, the Mastermans and Moira Lane, to mention only the extremer instances. To this “Why?” he had no reply, but it was to return and clamour for an answer before the night was out. For the moment he dismissed it and fell into easy, natural talk with Dorinda.