“Oh, no, really not!” Aubrey assured him earnestly. “I’ve got a perfectly charming nature. It’s just my manner that you object to. I do so sympathise with you! I find all of you more than a little trying, so I know exactly how you feel!”
Ingram immediately became alarmingly red in the face, and began to say that Aubrey had better be careful. Clara recommended them all not to quarrel; and Clay wondered bitterly why he was wholly unable to hold his own against his family as Aubrey so triumphantly could, and did.
Chapter Twelve
By the time Aubrey had been twenty-four hours at Trevellin, the family, with the single exception of his father, heartily wished him otherwhere. The twins took one look at the effeminate length of his wavy hair, another at his tie, a third at his socks, and gave realistic impressions of persons taken suddenly unwell. When he appeared at dinner in a soft silk shirt and a maroon velvet smoking jacket, each expressed his firm conviction that nothing short of debagging would meet the case. Had it not been for the presence of females in their midst, they would undoubtedly have put the efficacy of this cure to the test; as it was, Aubrey smiled sweetly upon them both, and told them not to be nasty, rough brutes. When they showed a tendency to make the stables the chief topic of conversation, he flicked a glance at Charmian, and began to tell them about the revue upon which he was at work. After dinner, he lit a Russian cigarette, in a very long holder, and said that the cigars which those dreadful strong men, his brothers, smoked made him feel too terribly ill. “And what do we do now?” he asked. “If the piano were in tune, which I am sure it is not, I would play to you. Or do we still congregate in Father’s room in the repellent fashion reigning when I was last here?”
“Yes, we do,” replied Raymond. “And I don’t advise you to talk in that style to Father!”
“No, no, I wouldn’t annoy him for the world!” Aubrey said. “I do think he was quite pleased to see his little Aubrey, don’t you? I have always regarded myself as the feminine influence in the family, and definitely beneficent. Oh, Char my sweet, would you let me have a teeny-weeny share of your lovely China tea for my early-morning tray? So dear and generous of you!”
“Before you go to Father I want a word with you!” said Raymond curtly. “Come into my office!”
“Oh, must I?” Aubrey said, in an appealing voice. “I do so admire you, Ray, but I can never think of anything to say to you. I always feel — but I expect it’s just my foolish fancy — that you don’t really like me, and that’s terribly daunting to anyone with a very, very sensitive nature, like mine.”
Raymond deigned no reply to this speech, but strode off in the direction of the room at the end of the house which he used as an office. Aubrey said falteringly: “Oh dear, do you think I’ve offended him? I do hope not!” and followed him meekly.
Once inside the office, which was a severely furnished apartment largely given over to the transaction of all business connected with the estate, Raymond wasted no words on preliminaries, but gave his younger brother an abrupt and unvarnished account of the financial position of the family. Aubrey said plaintively that he knew he was a dreadfully stupid about money-matters, but all these rents and things meant nothing — but definitely nothing! — to him.