“Somebody for you, father,” she said, and even as she spoke the owner of the strange voice came in behind her.
He was tall, and young, and seemed to be a study in browns, for he wore a brown trench coat and muffler, a brown tweed suit underneath, with brown shoes and socks. His face, too, was brown, although the shrieking wind outside had whipped it to a warm flush. He was young and debonair and handsome, and the sparkle of the raindrops on his muffler and the flash of his dark eyes and the gust of cold wind that entered the room at the same time as himself all combined to make his unexpected appearance as dramatic as even John, standing amazed by the fire, could wish for.
The stranger paused for a moment at the doorway.
“Good evening,” he said, a little diffidently.
“Good evening,” replied Mr. Marble, wondering who on earth he was.
“I suppose you are my Uncle William,” said the new arrival. “I didn’t expect you to know me.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“My mother was Mrs. Medland, Mrs. Winnie Medland, your sister, sir, I think. I have just come from Melbourne.”
“Oh, of course. You’re Winnie’s boy? Come on in—no, let’s get your coat off first. Annie, poke up the fire. Winnie, clear that stuff off that chair.”
Mr. Marble bustled out into the hall with his guest. His family heard him helping him off with his coat, and then—
“And how is your mother now?”
There was no immediate answer to this question. The trench coat and the hat had been hung up on the hall-stand and the pair were about to reappear in the dining-room before the listeners there heard the hesitant, almost whispered, reply.
“She’s dead. She died—six months ago.”
Mr. Marble was still muttering the conventional condolences as they reentered the dining-room, but he changed to clumsy brightness at the earliest possible moment. Truth to tell, he was not particularly interested in his sister Winnie, of whom he probably had not thought for the thirteen and a half years that had elapsed since he had had his daughter christened after her. Also he was feeling a little annoyed with this young man for turning up and interfering with the comfort of his evening. But Mr. Marble was not the man to show it. Hostility of any kind—even the instinctive hostility towards strangers—was a feeling to be carefully concealed on every occasion. That was the lesson learned as a result of a lifetime spent in carrying out the orders of other people.
“Annie,” said Mr. Marble, “this is our young nephew, Jim. Do you remember him when he was a little boy, just going out to Australia with Winnie and Tom? I think I can. You wore a sailor suit, didn’t you, er—Jim. Here, Winnie, this is a new cousin for you, one you never knew you had. Now sit down, sit down, man, and let’s hear all your news.”
“Take that chair, Mr.—Jim, I mean,” said Mrs. Marble, stumbling in embarrassed fashion at having to address an opulently clothed and handsome stranger by his Christian name, “you must be frozen.”
The new arrival was nearly as shy as was his hostess, but he suffered himself to be thrust into the best chair in the house—the one Mr. Marble had coveted all the evening—while Mrs. Marble ransacked her brain for something to talk about, and while the children drew as close as they could while remaining in the background.
Mr. Marble plunged heavily into conversation.
“When did you arrive?” he asked.
“This morning only. I came on the Malina, arriving at Tilbury at twelve. In fact, I only reached London and found a hotel and had something to eat before coming here.”
“But how did you know we lived here?”
“Mother told me your address before she d‑died.” The stumble was excusable. After all, the boy was no more than twenty. “We’d often talked about this trip. She was coming with me, you see. She never liked Australia—I don’t know why—and after father died—”
“Tom dead as well? That’s bad luck.”
“Yes. He died the beginning of last year. It was that really that made mother—”
“Quite, quite,” Mrs. Marble clucked in sympathetic chorus. She hated to hear of anyone dying.
Mr. Marble made haste to change the conversation to matters more interesting.
“And how was your father’s business getting on?” he demanded.
“Oh, pretty well. He made a lot of money during the war. He didn’t want to, you know, but it just came, he said. But mother sold out after he died. She said she couldn’t run that big shipping office by herself, and I was too young, and they offered a good price for it, so she took it.”
“So you’re a young man of leisure now, eh?”
“I suppose so. I’ve only just come out of college, you know. Melbourne University. I’m having a look round to start with. That’s what mother always planned for me.”
“Quite right too,” said Mr. Marble, with the instinctive deference towards the independently rich which was by now an inevitable trait in his character.
For a moment the conversation flagged, and the boy, still a little shy, had leisure to look about him. These were the only relatives he had on earth, and he would like to make the most of them, although, he confessed to himself, he was not greatly attracted at first sight. The room was frankly hideous. The flowered wallpaper was covered with photographs and with the worst kind of engravings. The spurious marble mantelpiece was littered with horrible vases. Of the two armchairs one was covered with plush, the other with a chintz that blended unhappily with the wallpaper. The other chairs were plain bentwood ones. On a table in the window were dusty aspidistras in vast green china pots. In the armchair opposite him sat his uncle, in a shabby blue suit flagrantly spotted here and there. He was a small man, with sparse reddish hair and a bristling moustache of the same colour. His weak grey eyes bore a worried
