lighted from above by a large skylight and bounded by walls the entire
area of which was covered with a collection of astonishingly banal
pictures. The visitor realized with a shock of knowledge that the
pictures from the exhibition of the Royal Academy went every year to
accommodation provided by staircases like this. The most rapid, the most
inattentive glance at these pictures was enough to produce a sense of
almost intolerable fatigue, because each picture was so obviously what
it set out to be that the eye was not allowed a blink between a Sussex
down, a Devonshire harbour, a Dorset pasture, and a London slum, and the
amount of narrative compressed into the space was as if a dozen bad
novelists had simultaneously read a dozen of their worst chapters. The
massed effect was as confused and brilliant as a wall covered with
varnished scraps. The brightness of the staircase and the gaudiness of
the pictures were accentuated by the comparative gloom of the rooms on
either side, particularly those at the back of the house, which from
having been designed to look over a spacious garden were some of them
now only six feet from the walls of the new flats. The still close
atmosphere created by windows that were never opened from one year's end
to the other was tainted by the odour of varnish and stale sunlight; the
rooms on the ground floor smelt perpetually of half-past-two on Sunday
afternoon, partly of clean linen, partly of gravy.
There were six bedrooms, all of them with large four-poster beds, and
all of them haunted by that strange frigidity, that frigidity almost of
death which is produced by the least superfluity of china. They were
furnished in an eclectic style, but the china was kept strictly to its
own kind; thus one bedroom would be red, blue, and gold with Crown
Derby; another, and this the most attractive, rose and lavender with
Lowestoft; and there was one nightmare of a room filled with black and
rose Sevres.
"I don't like the idea of your sleeping in any of these rooms," Mr.
Rouncivell grumbled to Jasmine. She thought at first that he meant to
suggest their discomfort, but he went on: "You'll have to be very
careful not to break anything. Just because there are three toilet sets,
it doesn't mean that you can break what you like. This china has taken
me a long time to collect, and it has cost me a great deal of money,
what's more. Look at that slop-pail. You dare use that slop-pail!"
"Couldn't I have a less valuable set in my room?" Jasmine suggested.
"Less valuable?" the old man echoed fiercely. "What do you mean by less
valuable? Do you want me to provide you with china you can throw about
the room?"
"Which bedroom do you use?" she asked to change the subject.
"Bedroom? Did you say bedroom? I don't sleep in a bedroom. I sleep in
the bathroom."
He took her to the furthest door along the passage and showed her what
she thought was the most depressing room she had ever seen in her life.
It was such a small bathroom that having chosen it for a bedroom Uncle
Matthew had actually to sleep in the bath itself, or rather on a box
mattress which he had fixed on top of it. The window of the room,
already sufficiently gloomy from looking out on the flats, was made
still more gloomy by its panes being plastered with ferns and the faded
plumage of tropical birds. A board was nailed to the sill on which was a
brush with scarcely more bristles than Uncle Matthew had hairs, a comb
with four teeth, and a safety razor. Safety razors had brought a
peculiar pleasure into the old man's life, because since their
introduction he had been able to calculate every morning how many less
blades he used than anybody else would have used.
After seeing this room Jasmine began to be rather apprehensive where she
should sleep; but with many admonitions she was finally awarded the
Lowestoft room, which, if she had to live surrounded by china, was the
ware she would have chosen. There was only one servant in the house, an
elderly woman with a yellow face called Selina, to whom Uncle Matthew
presented Jasmine with a solemnity that was accentuated by a din of
multitudinous clocks striking noon all over the house with an
accompaniment of cuckoos, chimes, and musical voluntaries.
"Twelve o'clock," Uncle Matthew announced.
"At least," said Jasmine. And then she blushed, because she had not
meant to be anything more than anxious to please the old man by an
assumption of cheerful interest. "I meant ... I was surprised to find it
was so early."
"You'll be more surprised than that before you leave this house," said
Selina bitterly. "You'll be more surprised than that. You'll have the
surprise of your life. You'll be so surprised that you won't know
whether you're on your head or your heels."
After this prophecy, the application of which Jasmine could not guess,
Selina did not speak to the guest except in monosyllables, and she
passed a dreary enough week in being shown Uncle Matthew's antiques and
in trying to hold the balance between greediness and wastefulness at
their sombre meals. At the end of the week he chose from his collection
of walking-sticks a Jersey cabbage-stalk, which he offered to lend her
for promenades about the shrubbery.
"You've taken his fancy," said Selina, grabbing her arm when Jasmine,
cabbage-stalk in hand, was pretending to enjoy walking up and down the
drive.
"I wish I could take yours," she replied.
"You have," said the housekeeper. "And you're going to have tea with me
this blessed afternoon. It isn't the surprise I intended for you."
"But it's a very nice surprise," said Jasmine.
"It's a surprise to me. Which is God's way," she added more
enigmatically than ever.
Selina belonged to one of those small religious sects which have done so
much to solve, to their own satisfaction at any rate, the obscure
problems of eschatology. Ceaseless meditation upon the fact that
ninety-nine per cent of the human race were damned made Selina gloomy,
for she was not naturally a misanthropist and took no pleasure in the
thought. Sometimes, moreover, she had doubts even about her own
salvation, and on such days the household suffered. Jasmine's arrival at
Rouncivell Lodge induced her to proclaim her conviction that with no
exception at all the whole of the human race was to be damned eternally.
Gradually, however, she realized that in any case she could not hope to
inherit the whole of Uncle Matthew's fortune, and she decided that the
few years between Uncle Matthew's death and her own projection into
eternal torment would be more pleasantly and more profitably passed with
Jasmine than alone on what might be an inadequate pension. No sooner had
she reached this conclusion than she heard a voice in the night telling
her that she was saved; the following morning she cooked some cakes and
invited Jasmine to tea with her in the kitchen, the character of which
accounted, Jasmine felt, for the housekeeper's yellow complexion; the
room was as warm and nearly as dark as the inside of an oven. A large
American clock, which only had to be wound up annually, was ticking over
the high black mantelpiece; crickets were clicking somewhere behind the
range; a green Norwich canary was pecking at his seeds; the hostess was
rustling the tea in a canister.
Selina came to the point at once, and postponing the discussion of
Jasmine's chances in the eternal future asked her frankly how she
proposed to provide for the temporal future.
"That's a question we're both entitled to ask, as you might say. Don't
eat those cakes too fast, or you'll have indigestion. What I mean to say
is Mr. Rouncivell's rich and you're not. You'll excuse the familiarity?
As soon as I saw your box, I said to myself: 'She's not rich.' Well,
that's nothing, is it? I'm not rich myself. But that doesn't say we
shouldn't live in hope. And that doesn't mean that I'm not provided for
in a manner of speaking. Well, I like your looks, and I don't mind
telling you that a lady friend of mine in Catford has taken two rooms
for my retirement when Mr. Rouncivell's earthly troubles are over; for I
wouldn't have you think he's not going to have worse troubles in the
next world. That's neither here nor there. He can't expect to keep me
for ever, that's a sure thing. If I'm one of the elect, he must just
lump it. Only as soon as I heard you was coming I said to myself: 'Now,
don't take an instant dislike to her before you've seen her. Make
friends and talk things over quietly in your own kitchen.' You're eating
those cakes too fast. Oh yes, I know they're very light and eat
theirselves in a manner of speaking, but you're eating them too fast.
Wait a bit and you shall have a cup of tea before you eat another one.
You help me and I'll help you. That's all there is to it. Yes, now
you're choking, you see. Supposing Mr. Rouncivell was to leave you
everything, you _would_ take care, wouldn't you, that those two rooms of
mine in Catford which my lady friend is occupying at present was nicely
furnished with what you might call any little tit-bits I chose for
myself? Now, there's the clock in the hall, for instance. I've been
listening to that clock these twenty years, and I've a fancy I should
like to go on listening to it until I die. The beds you can have. Well,
I mean to say, I never really cared for sleeping in a four-post bed.
Too human altogether, I'm bound to say. The posts, I mean."
Jasmine had made several attempts to interrupt this stream of
conversation, and once she would have succeeded if Selina had not filled
her mouth at the moment of speech with a small tart. At last, however,
she managed to protest that she expected nothing from Uncle Matthew.
"And that's where you're quite right," said Selina. "Don't expect
nothing, and you won't be disappointed. If I expected, I shouldn't be
taking you into my confidence, as it were, like I am doing. But if
you'll only do what I say and follow my advice, you can have it all.
There's that Lettice and that Pamela coming down with their darling
Uncle Matthew here and their darling Uncle Matthew there. But he sees
through it. Oh yes, he sees through all of them, the same as anybody
else might see through glass. He wants to leave his money to somebody
who'll look after it and not go and spend it. All you've got to do is to
scrimp and scrape and let him see as you're like himself. I suppose you
think he paid for those cakes you're eating? Not at all. They're paid
for out of my savings to show you I'm your friend. You help me and I'll
help you; and you can't say that's going against the Gospel, can you? Do
unto others as you would they should do unto you. So what you've got to
do is keep on admiring the way I save money, and I won't let any chance
go by of whispering in his ear that his money is safer with you than
with any of them. All I ask for myself is a few tit-bits when the poor
old gentleman's in the ground. He's got _no_ religion; he hates dogs, he
hates poor people, he hates hospitals, he hates public parks, he hates
everything. So there you are. I've been very plain spoken with you, and
you can't say the contrary; very plain spoken, I've been. I'm one of
the elect, and I can afford to be plain spoken. It doesn't matter what I
say or what I do, our loving heavenly Father's waiting for me at this
very moment, because He told me so last night. So far as I can see at
present, you're not one of the elect. I'm sorry for it, because I've
taken a rare fancy to you. But if we don't meet, in the heavenly courts,
we can be friends so long as we're on earth. Oh yes, it's all in the
Gospel."
The housekeeper's frankness was not displeasing to Jasmine, although she
was much amused at the idea of inheriting money from anybody. However,
for the first month of her stay with Uncle Matthew she was, without
realizing it, quite a success, because having no money to spend, she
gave him the impression that she was of a saving disposition. It never
entered his head that anybody could be actually without one halfpenny,
and he applauded her disinclination to visit shops and theatres, her
habit of walking to where she wanted to go rather than of riding on
omnibuses, her transformation of a spring hat into a summer hat, as
admirable economies.
"You're doing a treat," whispered Selina cunningly. "Last night I peeped
through his keyhole, and he was reading his will."
It was a strange existence for a girl of nineteen, this life with Uncle
Matthew, and there were moments when she really did have daydreams about
inheriting a vast fortune and going back to Sirene. It was not so much
the idea of the money as of the return to her beloved island which
twined itself round her thoughts. There would be such delightful things
to do. She would buy that villa her father had always talked about
buying one day; she would buy up all the pictures of her father that she
could find and have a permanent exhibition of them in a large studio;
she would invite Lettice and Pamela to stay with her and make their
visit much more pleasant than they had made hers; she would invite Aunt
Cuckoo and Uncle Eneas to bring the baby to Sirene, and she would make
_their_ visit very pleasant; and, above all, she would always take care
that no people ever had to leave Sirene just because they could not
afford to go on living there. Oh yes, and then there was Cousin Edith.
She would certainly make an allowance to her so that she need never
again be snubbed by Aunt May. Poor Cousin Edith, how polite she would be
if she did inherit all Uncle Matthew's money. She would be so sorry
about the way she had behaved about Harry Vibart. Harry Vibart? What
could she do for him? She would never be able to marry him if she were
an heiress, because she would always be afraid that he only wanted to
marry her for her money. What a pity he did not propose to her before
she inherited. She would not accept him, of course, but if he did not
marry anybody else, and if he asked her again when she was rich, why
perhaps ... but what nonsense all this dreaming was! She ought to be
ashamed of herself.
And then she would jump up from the chair in which she was sitting, jump
up so abruptly that all the knick-knacks would rattle and clink, and
taking her Jersey cabbage-stalk, she would wander up and down the drive
and become interested by such dull little incidents. Far the most
exciting thing that happened all that month was a white butterfly that
went dancing past and seemed to be flying south; and once an errand boy
tried to stand on his head in his empty basket just outside the gates of
Rouncivell Lodge. But that was only moderately exciting. Sometimes Uncle
Matthew would come and stump up and down beside her and tell her how
much a square foot the wood of whatever walking-stick he was using that
morning fetched. And then he would think that it was too cold to be out
of doors, and she would have to go in with him and mount a crazy
step-ladder to lift down some ornament that he wanted to move. Or else
she would have to wind up all the twelve tunes in his musical box, an
elaborate instrument with little drums, the parchment of which was
illuminated with posies, as much unlike real drums as the tinkling music
from old operas was unlike a real band. When all the tunes had been
played, Uncle Matthew always told her to be careful how she closed the
lid, because the case was worth a lot of money and the tunes had been
favourites of his wife.
That young wife of Uncle Matthew who died so long ago! It was difficult
to think of her as his wife. Her portrait, in a full-skirted riding
habit and wearing a hat such as only undertakers and mutes wear
nowadays, hung over the mantelpiece in the dining-room, and Uncle
Matthew used to talk about her as Clara, which made it seem all the more
absurd to think that were she alive now Lady Grant would be calling her
Aunt Clara. Jasmine had never disliked Uncle Matthew, and his devotion
to the memory of his dead wife kindled the beginnings in her of a
genuine affection. She divined now why he slept in that bleak
uncomfortable bathroom, divined that it was due to a sentimental horror
of occupying any room that contained relics of her too intimate to be
spoken of. Jasmine used to ponder the old trunks, locked and strapped
and full no doubt of mouldering clothes, that stood in every bedroom
except her own. And even in her own bedroom the chests of drawers had
both of them two locked drawers, containing who should say now what
souvenirs of girlhood? Jasmine asked the housekeeper about Clara; but
Selina knew no more than herself.
"I've never caught so much as a tiny glimpse of anything," she said.
"And of course she was dead almost before I was born, though not before
I was thought of, because my Pa was set on having a little girl of his
own a considerable number of years before he actually did. Yes, Mr.
Rouncivell cherishes her memory very dearly, and if ever he unlocks any
of her boxes or drawers, he always takes care to bolt himself in first.
In the room that is, of course. She was well-born too. Oh yes, an
undoubted lady--the only daughter of an esquire."
One day Uncle Matthew took from the middle of his walking-sticks a slim
malacca cane, the silver handle of which was cut to represent a mailed
hand grasping a pistol.
"Loaded with lead," he observed, "just like a real pistol. That was
Clara's favourite stick, and it's stood in this stand ever since she had
it first. If you like...."
But he thought better of his offer and recommended Jasmine to look well
after her Jersey cabbage-stalk. Jasmine liked to think that the
unpleasant side of Uncle Matthew had not been developed until Clara's
death. She tried to get accustomed to his meanness, making all sorts of
excuses for it, and sometimes she actually encouraged him in it, as one
humours an invalid's petulance and selfishness. She never felt nearly so
much of a poor relation with him as with the others, and it was a
satisfaction to feel that he regarded all of them as every bit as much
poor relations as herself. Well, time was passing: already people were
writing less frequently from Sirene. The city sunlight glittered upon
the dusty leaves of the shrubs; Selina was a perpetual diversion;
Jasmine was as happy as a Java sparrow in a cage, and almost as happy as
the sparrows on the roof of Rouncivell Lodge. As for Uncle Matthew, he
became less grumpy every day.
"Which means you suit him," said Selina. "You suit him the same as I
suit him. Yes, in a manner of speaking, I fit that man like a glove."
Uncle Matthew had other reasons for supposing that in Jasmine he had
discovered a treasure, for no sooner had the information that she was
staying with him gone the round of her relatives than she received
pressing invitations to come and stay with them as soon as dear Uncle
Matthew could spare her. Perhaps Aunt Cuckoo, who had always been
considered the most foolish of the family, had proved herself the
wisest. The more the others wrote to ask Jasmine to stay with them, the
more Uncle Matthew expressed himself content with her company, and the
more Selina, with knowing looks and headshakes, implied her success.
"You'll be his heir, you'll be his heir, you'll be his heir!" she
breathed exultingly. "And I've written to Mrs. Vokins she can rent the
kitchen an extra two days a week as from per now. What did he do
yesterday? Sent me out for a bottle of indelible ink. Indelible ink is
only used for two things--wills and washing. Oh, there's not a doubt
about it."
The yellow-faced housekeeper was so confident of success that when Lady
Grant visited Rouncivell Lodge a few days later she alarmed her by open
references to Jasmine's good fortune. Lady Grant hurried home and told
Lettice and Pamela that, whatever their engagements during the crowded
end of June, they must be prepared to sacrifice themselves. Nothing
could be allowed to interfere with the affection they owed Uncle
Matthew. The poor old gentleman was in his dotage; he was on the edge of
the grave; he was being got at by that odious housekeeper and Jasmine.
"After all our kindness," Lady Grant lamented. "It does seem a little
hard that she should turn the poor old dear against us. It's a crime."
"It's worse than a crime," declared Cousin Edith fervidly, "it's a----"
But she could not think of anything worse than a crime except the sin
against the Holy Ghost, and fond though she was of Cousin May, she did
not think that Jasmine's behaviour was that--no, not quite that ... but
worse than a crime.... "it's an unnatural sin," she triumphantly
concluded after a little longer reflection.
"Don't be ridiculous!" This was from Sir Hector.
"Lettice and Pamela must go and stay with him," their mother decided.
"Now please, dear children, don't look so disagreeable."
Lady Grant sat down at once and wrote to propose the visit. Next morning
Uncle Matthew tossed the letter across the breakfast table to Jasmine.
317 Harley Street, W.
_June 20._
_My dearest Uncle Matthew,_
_Poor Lettice and Pamela are both getting so tired of gaiety that
ever since they went and had tea with you last they've been at me
to ask you to invite them to stay with you at Rouncivell Lodge. If
three are too many for you (or even two) Jasmine could come here
and stay with either Lettice and Pamela, whichever you didn't have
with you. If Lettice came now, Pamela could come in July, and I
thought that_ you _would like to come and spend the summer holidays
with us wherever_ you _liked. We thought of going to Littlehampton,
but anywhere will suit us. Do send a p.c. to say you expect either
or both. I'll send you all our news by the girls. Hector has been
awarded an honorary degree by the University of Cambridge. He has
just been trying on his robes. How expensive such things are! And
of course his brother's affairs cost him more than he could well
afford. But he never grumbles, though sometimes after a hard day he
talks of giving up his cigars._
_Ever your affectionate niece,_
_May Grant._
"Oh, I hope you won't send me away," Jasmine begged. She was not perhaps
actually enjoying herself at Rouncivell Lodge, but she greatly preferred
walking about the shrubbery with her Jersey cabbage-stalk to walking
round the Chamber of Horrors with Cousin Edith, which had been the last
dissipation provided for her at Harley Street.
Therefore, when Uncle Matthew told her to write and say he could not
have either Lettice or Pamela, she was overjoyed to do so. It did not
strike her that it was a good opportunity to score off the Hector
Grants, and she wrote so simply that her letter gave the impression of a
security that irritated her relations much more than an attempt on her
side to be clever.
"She's perfectly sure of herself," Lady Grant gasped. "She's wormed
herself in."
"I always thought she was deeper than she pretended," Cousin Edith said
with a shake of her head. "Do you remember, May, I said to you once:
'Still waters run deep'? Only of course she wasn't still. She was never
still really. She was always jumping up and...."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Edith, don't babble on like that!" Sir Hector
interrupted. "Eighty pounds for these robes, my dear. That's a nice sum
to pay for a morning's masquerade."
"Little beast," said Pamela loudly. "I detested her from the first. By
the way, I saw the Vibart youth at the Grave-Smiths' dance last night.
I didn't say anything about it at the time, because I was afraid that
Lettice might be upset."
"Me upset?" Lettice exclaimed angrily. "Why should I have been upset?"
"Now, please, darlings, don't quarrel," their mother begged. "This is
not the moment to quarrel among ourselves."
"I say, I've got rather a notion," Pamela announced. "Why shouldn't we
ask the Vibart youth here and tell him where dear Cousin Jasmine is to
be found? _That_ would annoy Uncle Matthew."
"What would annoy Uncle Matthew?" asked Lettice scornfully.
"Sorry you still can't bear the thought of your beloved's treachery,"
said Pamela with a malicious affectation of sympathy. "But if you could
calm your beating heart for the sake of the family, you'd see what I
meant."
"If Pamela thinks she can say what she likes to me just because...."
"Now hush, darling. Don't lose your temper, my pet. I see what Pamela
means," interposed Lady Grant soothingly.
"You always take Pamela's side."
"Now, my darling, I must entreat you not to argue so absurdly."
"I should have thought it would have been obvious to the meanest
intelligence," said Pamela with lofty sarcasm.
"Oh, would you, cleversticks?" her sister sneered.