THE ORDEAL BY INSPECTION
In looks, Uncle Albert Waters was just like the John Bull of the
cartoons, minus the hat. In voice, he was Theo through a megaphone. In
manner, a genial form of hurricane.
“Now then, now then! How’s everybody?” he blared. “Mary! Blanche! Theo!”
(An explosive kiss to each.) “Ha! Billy, my boy!” (A violent blow on the
shoulder.) “Major Montresor, glad to see you again—how are you? Still
defying the enemy? Splendid!” (A pump-handle shake of the hand.) “Now,
Billy!” turning again to my employer. “You needn’t introduce _me_ to your
sweetheart. She knows who I am, and what I’ve come for. What I want is to
have a good look at _her_. Young lady,” to me, “will you be kind enough
to oblige an old man whose eyesight’s not quite what it was, by turning
full to the light?”
I did. What else could I do?
I sat, facing the low flood of late afternoon sunshine, and feeling
without seeing that all the others turned a little away from me, while
Uncle Albert fixed his prominent, honest grey eyes upon my face and
stared at it without reserve for—well! it seemed several of the longest
minutes I’d ever known. Then judgment was pronounced.
“Well done, Billy!” Here there would have been another of those heavy
blows upon the Governor’s broad shoulder, but he had edged away. “You’ve
chosen well, boy. A bonnie girl, and a well-bred one, and one to do you
credit. Now, Mary, I’m ready for that tea. And, you, my dear”—meaning
me—“pass me the bread and butter. What’s your name, now?”
“My full name is Monica,” I said for the benefit of Major Montresor who
had fixed the monocle with something like mild indignation upon the last
comer. “They call me Nancy, here.”
“Nancy. A pretty name for a pretty girl, appropriate, too. ‘_All my fancy
dwells upon Nancy_’—eh, William? You used to sing that song once upon a
time, dare say you haven’t forgotten it, now?”
And so on, and so forth. I really don’t know how much more of it there
was before the dreadful old man had finished his ample tea and was
carried off to his room by the Governor in much the same humour, I
thought, as he had dragged Cariad and his bone to the back of the house.
A pity Uncle Albert Waters couldn’t be locked up in the tool-house!
I felt like murder when I reached my pretty room at last. What a day it
had been! It had seemed forty-eight hours long at least. Beginning with
that horrible walk to the station with the Governor—Then there had been
the unwelcome appearance of Major Montresor and his clumsy blunderings,
first about Sydney and secondly about the old times at home—and now this
terrible old Uncle turning up to inspect and blare out his embarrassing
verdict upon my looks and suitability; oh, it’s the last straw!
It’s the worst that’s happened yet! There _can_ be nothing to beat the
Governor’s Uncle at tea, even though the evening isn’t yet over. I feel
as if it were long past bed-time, and there’s only half an hour or so
before dressing for dinner! Even half an hour alone——
But I haven’t been allowed a minute of it alone.
The girls fluttered into my room almost as soon as I came up; brimful of
sympathy, but not sympathetic enough to keep themselves from laughter.
“Poor dear Nancy! Wasn’t it awful?”
“Didn’t I tell you Uncle Albert was a terror? But you don’t think he
really _talks_ like me, Nancy, do you? Billy _will_ say he _does_!”
“Theo! He can _easily_ hear you from his room, and the window’s open. Oh,
I do hope that when I’m engaged my young man won’t have _quite_ such loud
relations!”
“Better than having deceitful whispery voices and saying horrid things
in them about you behind your back,” retorted Theo. “And anyhow, Uncle
Albert did _like_ her!”
“Yes,” said Blanche, deprecatingly, “but isn’t it nearly as terrible as
if he disapproved?”
“It’s _worse_,” I decided to myself as I dressed for dinner, in my white,
to please Theo, who apparently has some mysterious child’s reason for
wanting me to wear that particular frock to-night. “Even if one were
madly in love, a relation like that would be quite enough to make one
wonder if it were worth it! Yes! Even if one were _really_ engaged to be
married to a man—the man Mr. Waters would ‘pity,’ one would break it off
rather than put up with such an uncle-in-law. Well! Thank goodness I’m
spared _that_ at all events! I hope Uncle Albert won’t pay many of his
visits of inspection during the next year. One or two ought to be enough
for him, and I’ve taken the plunge now,” thought I, “and got it over. He
can’t go on being much more awful at dinner!”