“I thought that would get the car for you, Claude,” he said; “that vexed your father.”
Claude finished his tea.
“I know it did, Uncle Alfred,” he said. “Why did you say it?”
“Why, to get you the car. That’s what I’m here for, to learn what you want and see you get it. There’s some use in me yet, my lad. Usually I can’t make your father annoyed with me, but I touched him up that time.”
Claude could not help smiling at his uncle’s intense satisfaction, as he sat there with shoulders hunched up, like a little malevolent ape, still grinning over the touch-up he had so dexterously delivered. He himself had got up after finishing his slop-basin of tea and was balanced on the arm of his chair, one slim leg crossed over the other, and his hands clasping his knees. His smile caused those great dark eyes nearly to close with the soft wrinkling up of the flesh at their outer corners, but closing them it opened his lips and showed the even white teeth between them. Then, with that gesture which was frequent with him, he tossed back his head and broke into a laugh.
“Well, it’s too bad of you,” he said, “but thanks for getting me the car. It’s a handsome bit of work; they told me at Napier’s there wasn’t such another on the road anywhere. And what if I do want to run Dora up in style? It’s natural, isn’t it?”
Somehow when Claude was with his father and mother he appeared to be a perfectly well-bred boy. But in spite of his extraordinary good looks and the perfect ease of his manner, the moment they had gone, and there was no standard of that kind to judge him by, he seemed different.
“It’ll be a pleasant change for her finding the house comfortable,” he went on, “with servants to answer the bells, and half a dozen bathrooms where there wasn’t one before, and no holes in the carpets to trip yourself over. The place was like an old dust heap when the lease was signed three weeks ago. But you may bet I made the furnishers and decorators put their best feet foremost, and I must say they’ve done it all in the best style. It’s a nice comfortable English house, that is what it is. Mother wanted to have no end of gilding and kickshaws. I put my foot on that and Per backed me up.”
Alfred shuffled to the house after Claude had gone, and made his way to the dining room, where he expected to find the portraits of his brother and sister-in-law in process of being placed. The gallery through which he had first to pass had been left more or less in the state the Osbornes had found it in, though it was with difficulty that Mrs. Osborne had been persuaded not to put down a carpet on the polished oak boards. But she had had her way with regard to a few Persian rugs which had been there, and which she pronounced not fit to be seen, and had got some nice thick pieces of the best Kidderminster instead. Otherwise the Jacobean oak of its chairs, tables and book-cases had been allowed to abide, nor had she interfered with the portraits of Wests that hung on its oak-panelled walls. But with the hall it was different; and she had made several striking changes here. There had not even been a hatrack in it, which did not matter much before, since the Wests had not entertained there for years, and you could put your hat down on one of the low oak chests. But Mrs. Osborne intended to entertain a great deal, and the first thing she did was to order two large mahogany hatstands with a sort of dock for umbrellas beneath, which she had placed one on each side of the door. On the white plaster walls between the oak pillars that ran up to the roof she had put up a couple of dozen stags’ heads (ordered from Roland Ward) and half a dozen foxes’ masks, which gave the place a baronial and sporting air. The light from the two old bronze lamps similarly was quite insufficient, and she had put up four very solid yet elegant (such was their official description) electric standards, one in each corner of the hall, while over the central table she suspended another from the rafters above, slightly ecclesiastic in design, though indeed it might suggest an earthly coronet of overwhelming proportions as much as a heavenly crown. A few stuffed tarpons, killed by Per in Florida, carried on the sporting note, which was further borne out by a trophy of spears and battle axes and bead aprons which he had brought with him from the same tour. Finally, she had introduced an enormous early Victorian mahogany sideboard for laying a cloak or a coat on, and on this also stood a stuffed crocodile-lizard sitting up on its hind-legs, and carrying in its fore paws a tray for cards. This had been a birthday present to her from Mrs. Alderman Price, who was expected that evening, and even Percy, who had such taste, had said it was very quaint. So there it stood in the middle of the mahogany sideboard, carrying in its tray only the card of the clergyman of the parish. But Mrs. Osborne had no fear about callers; she was long past all that, and surveying the hall only this morning she had said to herself with great satisfaction, “I declare I shouldn’t have known it, when I think what it was when I first see it.”
Alfred stood and looked about him for a moment or two when he came into this very suitably furnished hall, and observed with some silent amusement that Roland Ward’s label was still attached to one of the stag’s heads. This he did not remove; indeed, with the end of his stick he poked it into a rather more prominent position. Then he passed on into the dining room.