At last I went to the address my uncle had given me in Gower Street,
and found my aunt Susan waiting tea for him.
Directly I came into the room I appreciated the change in outlook that
the achievement of Tono-Bungay had made almost as vividly as when I saw
my uncle’s new hat. The furniture of the room struck upon my eye as
almost stately. The chairs and sofa were covered with chintz which gave
it a dim, remote flavour of Bladesover; the mantel, the cornice, the
gas pendant were larger and finer than the sort of thing I had grown
accustomed to in London. And I was shown in by a real housemaid with
real tails to her cap, and great quantities of reddish hair. There was
my aunt too looking bright and pretty, in a blue-patterned tea-wrap
with bows that seemed to me the quintessence of fashion. She was
sitting in a chair by the open window with quite a pile of
yellow-labelled books on the occasional table beside her. Before the
large, paper-decorated fireplace stood a three-tiered cake-stand
displaying assorted cakes, and a tray with all the tea equipage except
the teapot, was on the large centre-table. The carpet was thick, and a
spice of adventure was given it by a number of dyed sheep-skin mats.
“Hel-_lo!_” said my aunt as I appeared. “It’s George!”
“Shall I serve the tea now, Mem?” said the real housemaid, surveying
our greeting coldly.
“Not till Mr. Ponderevo comes, Meggie,” said my aunt, and grimaced with
extraordinary swiftness and virulence as the housemaid turned her back.
“Meggie she calls herself,” said my aunt as the door closed, and left
me to infer a certain want of sympathy.
“You’re looking very jolly, aunt,” said I.
“What do you think of all this old Business he’s got?” asked my aunt.
“Seems a promising thing,” I said.
“I suppose there is a business somewhere?”
“Haven’t you seen it?”
“‘Fraid I’d say something AT it George, if I did. So he won’t let me.
It came on quite suddenly. Brooding he was and writing letters and
sizzling something awful—like a chestnut going to pop. Then he came
home one day saying Tono-Bungay till I thought he was clean off his
onion, and singing—what was it?”
“‘I’m afloat, I’m afloat,’” I guessed.
“The very thing. You’ve heard him. And saying our fortunes were made.
Took me out to the Ho’burm Restaurant, George,—dinner, and we had
champagne, stuff that blows up the back of your nose and makes you go
_So_, and he said at last he’d got things worthy of me—and we moved
here next day. It’s a swell house, George. Three pounds a week for the
rooms. And he says the Business’ll stand it.”
She looked at me doubtfully.
“Either do that or smash,” I said profoundly.
We discussed the question for a moment mutely with our eyes. My aunt
slapped the pile of books from Mudie’s.
“I’ve been having such a Go of reading, George. You never did!”
“What do you think of the business?” I asked.
“Well, they’ve let him have money,” she said, and thought and raised
her eyebrows.
“It’s been a time,” she went on. “The flapping about! Me sitting doing
nothing and him on the go like a rocket. He’s done wonders. But he
wants you, George—he wants you. Sometimes he’s full of hope—talks of
when we’re going to have a carriage and be in society—makes it seem so
natural and topsy-turvy, I hardly know whether my old heels aren’t up
here listening to him, and my old head on the floor.... Then he gets
depressed. Says he wants restraint. Says he can make a splash but can’t
keep on. Says if you don’t come in everything will smash—But you are
coming in?”
She paused and looked at me.
“Well—”
“You don’t say you won’t come in!”
“But look here, aunt,” I said, “do you understand quite?... It’s a
quack medicine. It’s trash.”
“There’s no law against selling quack medicine that I know of,” said my
aunt. She thought for a minute and became unusually grave. “It’s our
only chance, George,” she said. “If it doesn’t go...”
There came the slamming of a door, and a loud bellowing from the next
apartment through the folding doors. “Here-er Shee _Rulk_ lies _Poo_
Tom Bo—oling.”
“Silly old Concertina! Hark at him, George!” She raised her voice.
“Don’t sing that, you old Walrus, you! Sing ‘I’m afloat!’”
One leaf of the folding doors opened and my uncle appeared.
“Hullo, George! Come along at last? Gossome tea-cake, Susan?”
“Thought it over George?” he said abruptly.
“Yes,” said I.
“Coming in?”