‘She was cross about the petrol,’ said Harold, glad to relieve his mind. ‘I hadn’t a notion she was cross till I went up into the bedroom. Not a notion! I explained to her it wasn’t my fault. I argued it out with her very calmly. I did my best to reason with her—’
‘Listen here, young ‘un,’ Dan interrupted him. ‘How old art?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘Thou may’st live another fifty years. If thou’st a mind to spend ‘em i’ peace, thoud’st better give up reasoning wi’ women. Give it up right now! It’s worse nor drink, as a habit. Kiss ‘em, cuddle ‘em, beat ‘em. But dunna’ reason wi’ ‘em.’
‘What should you have done in my place?’ Harold asked.
‘I should ha’ told Maud her was quite right.’
‘But she wasn’t.’
‘Then I should ha’ winked at mysen i’ th’ glass,’ continued Dan, ‘and kissed her.’
‘That’s all very well—’
‘Naturally,’ said Dan, ‘her wanted to show off that car i’ front o’ me. That was but natural. And her was vexed when it went wrong.’
‘But I told her—I explained to her.’
‘Her’s a handsome little wench,’ Dan proceeded. ‘And a good heart. But thou’st got ten times her brains, lad, and thou ought’st to ha’ given in.’
‘But I can’t always be—’
‘It’s allus them as gives in as has their own way. I remember her grandfather—he was th’ eldest o’ us—he quarrelled wi’ his wife afore they’d been married a week, and she raced him all over th’ town wi’ a besom—’
‘With a besom, uncle?’ exclaimed Harold, shocked at these family disclosures.
‘Wi’ a besom,’ said Dan. That come o’ reasoning wi’ a woman. It taught him a lesson, I can tell thee. And afterwards he always said as nowt was worth a quarrel—NOWT! And it isna’.’
‘I don’t think Maud will race me all over the town with a besom,’ Harold remarked reflectively.
‘There’s worse things nor that,’ said Dan. ‘Look thee here, get out o’ th’ house for a’ ‘our. Go to th’ Conservative Club, and then come back. Dost understand?’
‘But what—’
‘Hook it, lad!’ said Dan curtly.
And just as Harold was leaving the room, like a school-boy, he called him in again.
‘I havena’ told thee, Harold, as I’m subject to attacks. I’m getting up in years. I go off like. It isna’ fits, but I go off. And if it should happen while I’m here, dunna’ be alarmed.’
‘What are we to do?’
‘Do nothing. I come round in a minute or two. Whatever ye do, dunna’ give me brandy. It might kill me—so th’ doctor says. I’m only telling thee in case.’
‘Well, I hope you won’t have an attack,’ said Harold.
‘It’s a hundred to one I dunna’,’ said Dan.
And Harold departed.
Soon afterwards Uncle Dan wandered into a kitchen full of servants.
‘Show me th’ missis’s bedroom, one on ye,’ he said to the crowd.
And presently he was knocking at Maud’s door.
‘Maudie!’
‘Who is it?’ came a voice.
‘It’s thy owd uncle. Can’st spare a minute?’
Maud appeared at the door, smiling, and arrayed in a peignoir.
‘HE’S gone out,’ said Dan, implying scorn of the person who had gone out. ‘Wilt come downstairs?’
‘Where’s he gone to?’ Maud demanded.
She didn’t even pretend she was ill.
‘Th’ Club,’ said Dan.
And in about a hundred seconds or so he had her in the drawing-room, and she was actually pouring out gin for him. She looked ravishing in that peignoir, especially as she was munching an apple, and balancing herself on the arm of a chair.
‘So he’s been quarrelling with ye, Maud?’ Dan began.
‘No; not quarrelling, uncle.’
‘Well, call it what ye’n a mind,’ said Dan. ‘Call it a prayer-meeting. I didn’t notice as ye came down for supper—dinner, as ye call it.’
‘It was like this, uncle,’ she said. ‘Poor Harry was very angry with himself about that petrol. Of course, he wanted the car to go well while you were in it; and he came upstairs and grumbled at me for leaving him all alone and driving home with you.’
‘Oh, did he?’ exclaimed Dan.
‘Yes. I explained to him that of course I couldn’t leave you all alone. Then he got hot. I kept quite calm. I reasoned it out with him as quietly as I could—’
‘Maudie, Maudie,’ protested the old man, ‘thou’rt th’ prettiest wench i’ this town, though I AM thy great-uncle, and thou’st got plenty o’ brains—a sight more than that husband o’ thine.’
‘Do you think so, uncle?’
‘Aye, but thou hasna’ made use o’ ‘em tonight. Thou’rt a foolish wench, wench. At thy time o’ life, and after a year o’ th’ married state, thou ought’st to know better than reason wi’ a man in a temper.’
‘But, really, uncle, it was so absurd of Harold, wasn’t it?’
‘Aye!’ said Dan. ‘But why didst-na’ give in and kiss him, and smack his face for him?’
‘There was nothing to give in about, uncle.’
‘There never is,’ said Dan. ‘There never is. That’s the point. Still, thou’rt nigh crying, wench.’
‘I’m not, uncle,’ she contradicted, the tears falling on to the apple.
‘And Harold’s using bad language all up Trafalgar Road, I lay,’ Dan added.
‘It was all Harold’s fault,’ said Maud.
‘Why, in course it were Harold’s fault. But nowt’s worth a quarrel, my dear—NOWT. I remember Harold’s grandfeyther—he were th’ second of us, your grandfeyther were the eldest, and I were the youngest—I remember Harold’s grandfeyther chasing his wife all over th’ town wi’ a besom a week after they were married.’
‘With a besom!’ murmured Maud, pained and forgetting to cry. ‘Harold’s grandfather, not mine?’
‘Wi’ a besom,’ Dan repeated, nodding. ‘They never quarrelled again—ne’er again. Th’ old woman allus said after that as quarrels were for fools. And her was right.’
‘I don’t see Harold chasing me across Bursley with a besom,’ said Maud primly. ‘But what you say is quite right, you dear old uncle. Men are queer—I mean husbands. You can’t argue with them. You’d much better give in—’
‘And have your own way after all.’
‘And perhaps Harold was—’
Harold’s step could be heard in the hall.
‘Oh, dear!’ cried Maud. ‘What shall I do?’
‘I’m not feeling very well,’ whispered Uncle Dan weakly. ‘I have these ‘ere attacks sometimes. There’s only one thing as’ll do me any good—brandy.’
And his head fell over one side of the chair, and he looked precisely like a corpse.
‘Maud, what are you doing?’ almost shouted Harold, when he came into the room.
She was putting a liqueur-glass to Uncle Dan’s lips.
‘Oh, Harold,’ she cried, ‘uncle’s had an attack of some sort. I’m giving him some brandy.’
‘But you mustn’t give him brandy,’ said Harold authoritatively to her.
‘But I MUST give him brandy,’ said Maud. ‘He told me that brandy was the only thing to save him.’
‘Nonsense, child!’ Harold persisted. ‘Uncle told ME all about these attacks. They’re perfectly harmless so long as he doesn’t have brandy. The doctors have warned him that brandy will be fatal.’
‘Harold, you are absolutely mistaken. Don’t you understand that uncle has only this minute told me that he MUST have brandy?’
And she again approached the glass to the pale lips of the old man. His tasselled Turkish smoking-cap had fallen to the floor, and the hemisphere of his bald head glittered under the gas.
‘Maud, I forbid you!’ And Harold put a hand on the glass. ‘It’s a matter of life and death. You must have misunderstood uncle.’
‘It was you who misunderstood uncle,’ said Maud. ‘Of course, if you mean to prevent me by brute force—’