HUMPHREY COUNTS HIS CHICKENS
Humphrey went from Kencote to Thatchover, where Lady Aldeburgh was for the time being residing with her numerous family. This did not include her husband, who preferred to play a Box and Cox game with her in respect of his two houses; but on his way through London Humphrey called on his prospective father-in-law to gain formal authorisation of his suit.
Lord Aldeburgh had fitted himself up a suite of bachelor chambers on the top floor of his great house in Manchester Square, and had installed a lift, which no one was allowed to use without his permission, as its rumbling disturbed him in his chosen occupations. The chief of these was the collection of portraits of people and pictures of places, which he cut out of illustrated papers and magazines and pasted into large albums, indexing them up very thoroughly as he went on. He was also an ardent attender of plays and concerts and a persistent but indifferent bridge-player. He had found a club where the stakes were half a crown a hundred, and there was always a rubber to be had in the afternoon. So in the winter, which he spent mostly in London, his days were fully occupied. Early in the year he went to the Riviera or to Egypt, and about the time that his family came up to London for the season he installed himself at Thatchover and enjoyed his garden. In the autumn he went abroad again or travelled about England. He was not a rich man, but he was an entirely happy and contented one.
"His lordship is very busy this morning and I don't think he would like to be disturbed," said the servant who opened the door.
"Well, take up my name and say I won't keep him long," said Humphrey. "I'll come up with you."
"I don't think his lordship will see you, sir," said the man; but Humphrey climbed the four flights of stairs after him and waited in the hall of Lord Aldeburgh's self-contained flat until he was admitted to the presence.
Lord Aldeburgh was in what he called his work-room. It was a large light room furnished chiefly with deal tables, each devoted to a particular pursuit. One had paste-pots and scissors and knives and rulers and a sheet of glass and a pile of papers and albums. Another was for the making of jig-saw puzzles, a third for their elucidation, a fourth was for typewriting; and there was a reduplicating apparatus, and another table with materials for illuminating. The walls were covered with rubbings of monumental brasses, all ingeniously overlaid with colour and gilding. Lord Aldeburgh had hundreds more of these rubbings rolled up and put away in labelled drawers, and hoped before he died to have acquired one of every brass in England.
He was standing by his scissors-and-paste table when Humphrey went in, and there was a slight frown of annoyance on his otherwise amiable face. He was a big man, clean-shaven except for the rudiments of a pair of whiskers, and looked like an intelligent family solicitor, preoccupied with affairs of moment. His appearance had sometimes caused him to be taken for a serious politician and had caused him some annoyance. "I'm all for the constitution and that sort of thing," he was accustomed to say, "and my vote's safe enough when it's wanted. But I will not take the chair at political meetings. It interferes with my work. Besides, if they interrupt I don't know what to say." He had on a voluminous apron with bib and pockets over his tweed suit, which rather detracted from his habitual air of weight; but paste was sticky, and Lord Aldeburgh was careful of his clothes, which it was his custom to wear until they were hardly worth passing on to his valet.
"Always pleased to see you," he said, shaking hands, his habitual courtesy struggling with his annoyance at being disturbed. "But if you hadn't come straight up I should have asked you to call again to-morrow. Friday is a very busy day with me. I have all these papers to get through, and there are so many of them now that if I don't clear them up at once the next week's are on me before I know where I am."
"I'm sorry," said Humphrey, looking with interest at the pile of cut-out pictures on the table and the pile of disjointed papers on the floor. "But I'm going down to Thatchover this afternoon and I had to see you first."