Obviously this was no boy: the approach sounded unlike a master’s. The hinge creaked, and, as the door began to open, a face, deprecatory and enquiring, peered through the narrow space released between the door and the wall. There was an impression of a slight moustache, grey or very fair, and a well-worn, rather sporting tweed suit. I realised all at once, not without apprehension, that my Uncle Giles was attempting to enter the room.
I had not seen my uncle since the end of the war, when he had been wearing some sort of uniform, though not one of an easily recognisable service. This sudden appearance in Stringham’s room was an unprecedented incursion: the first time that he had found his way here. He delayed entry for a brief period, pressing the edge of the door against his head, the other side of which touched the walclass="underline" rigid, as if imprisoned in a cruel trap specially designed to catch him and his like: some ingenious snare, savage in mechanism, though at the same time calculated to preserve from injury the skin of such rare creatures. Uncle Giles’s skin was, in point of fact, not easily injured, though experience of years had made him cautious of assuming as a matter of course that his company would be welcome anywhere — anywhere, at least, where other members of his family might be gathered together. At first, therefore, he did not venture to advance farther into the room, meekly conscious that his unexpected arrival might, not unreasonably, be regarded by the occupants as creating a pivot for potential embarrassment.
“I was just passing through on the way to Reading,” he said. “Thought I might look you up.”
He stood by the door and appeared a little dazed, perhaps overcome by the rich smell of sausages that permeated the atmosphere of the room: possibly reminding him of what might easily have been a scanty luncheon eaten earlier in the day. Why he should be going to Reading was unguessable. If he had come from London, this could hardly be termed “on the way;” but it might well be that Uncle Giles had not come from London. His locations were not, as a rule, made public. Stringham stood up and pushed the sausages on to a plate.
“This is my uncle — Captain Jenkins.”
Checking the sausages with the paper-knife, Stringham said: “I’ll get another cup. You’ll have tea with us, won’t you?”
“Thank you, I never take tea,” said Uncle Giles. “People who eat tea waste half the afternoon. Never wanted to form the habit.” He added: “Of course, I’m not speaking of your sort of tea.”
He looked round at us, as if for sympathy, a bit uncertain as to whether or not this declaration expressed a justifiable attitude towards tea; unsure — and with good reason — if an assertion that he made efforts, however small, to avoid waste of time would prove easily credible, even in the company in which he now found himself. We borrowed a hard chair from next door, and he sat down, blowing his nose into a bandana handkerchief in a series of little grunts.
“Don’t let me keep you fellows from your sausages,” he said. “They will be getting cold. They look damned good to me.”
Neat, and still slightly military in appearance — though he had not held a commission for at least twenty years and “captain” was probably a more or less honorary rank, gazetted to him by himself and the better disposed of his relations — my father’s brother was now about fifty. His arrival that night made it clear that he had not emigrated: a suggestion put forward at one moment to explain his disappearance for a longer period than usual from public view. There had also been some rather uneasy family jokes regarding the possibility of his having overstepped the limits set by the law in the transaction of everyday business, some slip in financial dealings that might account for an involuntary absence from the scene; for Uncle Giles had been relegated by most of the people who knew him at all well to that limbo where nothing is expected of a person, and where more than usually outrageous actions are approached, at least conversationally, as if they constituted a series of practical jokes, more or less enjoyable, according to where responsibility for clearing up matters might fall. The curious thing about persons regarding whom society has taken this largely self-defensive measure is that the existence of the individual himself reaches a pitch when nothing he does can ever be accepted as serious. If he commits suicide, or murder, only the grotesque aspects of the event dominate the circumstances: on the whole, avoidance of such major issues being an integral part of such a condition. My uncle was a good example of the action of this law; though naturally I did not in those days see him with anything like this clearness of vision. If Reading were his destination, there could be no hint of immediate intention to leave the country: and, unless on ticket-of-leave, he was evidently under no sort of legal restraint. He finished blowing his nose, pushed the handkerchief back up his sleeve, and, using without facetious implication a then popular catchword, said: “How’s your father?”
“All right.”
“And your mother?”
“Very well.”
“Good,” said Uncle Giles, as if it were a relief to him personally that my parents were well, even when the rest of the world might feel differently on the same matter.
There was a pause. I asked how his own health had been, at which he laughed scornfully.
“Oh, me,” he said. “I’ve been about the same. Not growing any younger. Trouble with the old duodenal. I rather wanted to get hold of your father about signing some papers. Is he still in Paris? I suppose so.”
“That bit of the Conference is finished.”
“Where is he?”
“London.”
“On leave?”
“Yes.”
“The War Office haven’t decided where they are going to send him?”
“No.”
My uncle looked put out at this piece of news. It was most unlikely, hardly conceivable, that he really intended to impose his company on my father, who had for many years discouraged close association with his brother, except when possessed with an occasional and uncontrollable desire to tell Uncle Giles to his face what he thought of him, a mood that rarely lasted more than thirty-six hours; by the end of which period of time the foredoomed inefficacy of any such contact made itself clear.
“In London, is he?” said Uncle Giles, wrinkling the dry, reddish skin at the sides of his nostrils, under which a web of small grey veins etched on his nose seemed to imply preliminary outlines for a game of noughts-and-crosses. He brought out a leather cigarette-case and — before I could prevent him — lighted a cigarette.
“Visitors are not really supposed to smoke here.”
“Oh, aren’t they?” said Uncle Giles. He looked very surprised. “Why not?”
“Well, if the place smells of smoke, you can’t tell if someone else smokes too.”
“Of course you can’t,” said Uncle Giles readily, blowing, outward a long jet of smoke. He seemed puzzled.
“Le Bas might think a boy had been smoking.”
“Who is Le Bas?”
“Our housemaster.”
How he had managed to find the house if he were ignorant of Le Bas’s identity was mysterious: even inexplicable. It was, however, in keeping with the way my uncle conducted his life that he should reach his destination without knowing the name of the goal. He continued to take small puffs at his cigarette.
“I see,” he said.
“Boys aren’t allowed to smoke.”
“Quite right. Stunts the growth. It is a great mistake to smoke before you are twenty-one.”
Uncle Giles straightened his back and squared his shoulders. One had the impression that he was well aware that young people of the day could scarcely attempt to compete with the rigorous standards that had governed his own youth. He shook his head and flicked some ash on to one of the dirty plates.