Uncle Hugh was one of those very discreet people who never attempt a reply to children's questions.
"Go into the house, Brian, and take your cousin to have some breakfast in the nursery. Is your mother up yet? Mind you both come down tidy in time for prayers."
"But please, Uncle Hugh, I never have breakfast in the nursery. Father and mother think I am old enough to eat with them. Maggie, do tell him it is true. Must I really go with them? Can't I see grandmama or Aunt Annie, first? They are mother's own, her very own relations, you see. And she did send so many messages. I have said them over and over again to myself, not to forget. It is very important is it not, Uncle Hugh, to deliver your despatches?"
Alas for poor Jeff! His pleading was not heard. He had yet to learn the firm and obdurate nature of the starched gentleman with whiskers.
"Brian, obey me at once. Show your cousin the way upstairs."
And then Jeff, further constrained by old Maggie's hand, was marched away up two flight of stairs, through a long corridor and double baize doors, then down another narrower passage into a large square room. It seemed to Jeff that there was a great deal of heavy furniture everywhere, and thick carpets, and an excess of light flooding the rooms. In India the sunshine was always excluded.
Breakfast was laid on the table in the nursery. There were steaming bowls of porridge and a large glass dish of marmalade set out. An odour of bacon also was perceptible.
"Isn't my governor a stiff one?" said Brian in a jeering way, as his cousin drew near the great coal fire and drew off his little worsted gloves—the gloves which mother had knitted.
"Is your governor a tyrant too?"
Jeff shook his head in a fierce negative.