Mrs Doober opened the door, beaming and being as thoroughly a good sort as she knew how. Behind her hovered the current slavey summoned to help with the luggage.
The “Hall” of Scartmore House, that is to say its passage entrance, testified that Doober’s was reasonably and miscellaneously full. The place had a dingy but nutritious smell, and was toned by oil-cloth and marbled paper to a pale mellow brown. Colour and odour blended together. A row of hat and coat pegs sustained a selection of outer garments above an extensive range of umbrellas and sticks. There was a large hall-stand with a fly-blown mirror and racks for letters and papers.
Largely occluding this mellow background was Mrs Doober’s receptive personality. “And this is our young gentleman?” said she. “A student. We’ll do all we can to make you comfortable. You’re not the only student, you’ll find. There’s young Mr Frankincense from University College. Such a clever young man—the highest honours!—and we’ve got a great teacher of elocution, Mr Harold Thump, and his lady, and a young Indian gentleman.”
She whispered confidentially closer to young Matterlock.
“The son of a rajah. He speaks English beautifully.”
She shot an aside at the slavey. “Number thirteen. If they’re too heavy, take them up one at a time.... Well then, ask Gawpy to help you. Don’t stand there helpless.”
She restored her amiability as she turned back to her clients.
Edward Albert listened confusedly. He was doing his best to keep his unfortunate wrists up his sleeves, and he had already acquired a habit of inaccurate attention that would last his lifetime. “We’re a young household,” she was saying.
“There’s only one really old gentleman among us and he’s charming. Such.good stories!....”
He felt the pressure of young Matterlock’s hand upon his shoulder. “You’ll be all right. You’ll feel a little strange at first but you’ll soon settle down to it.”
“Belgians. A family of refugees from Antwerp. So if you want to learn French....”
“So it’s good-bye and good luck, Tewler.” Matterlock was shaking his hand. And leaving him!
Edward Albert had a wild desire to cry out, “Oh, don’t leave me,” and bolt after his protector before the door closed. Then he was alone with Mrs Doober. Her propitiatory manner was now faintly tinged with proprietorship.
“I must show you our common rooms and explain a few of our rules and regulations—because there must be rules and regulations, you know—and then I will take you up to your own apartment. Just a quiet little room it is,” she said, and then added informatively, “upstairs. It’s number thirteen. I hope you won’t mind that. I’ve sometimes thought of changing it to 12A. But I never have. I do so hope you’ll like it all. We’re all such friends—it’s just like one big family. You must hang up your hat and coat on that peg....”
And in this manner Edward Albert entered upon a fresh phase in his life and adapted himself discreetly to a new and wider environment. Breakfast was from half-past seven to half-past nine. Then you were supposed to go out and return about six or seven. (But one old gentleman was asleep before the fire in the drawing-room. He woke up, stared for a moment, grunted, and then composed himself for further slumber.) Dinner was from seven-thirty to nine-thirty. There was a large dingy dining-room with shaded gas lamps, a big sideboard, a service lift that came up with a rumble and a smack, and a sort of backward extension to a little sitting-room behind, and on the first floor there was a diffused drawing-room which had once been bisected by folding doors, with armchairs and corners more or less appropriated by books, pieces of knitting, shawls and the like, two fireplaces and a snuggery with two card tables, a chess table, and a sofa at the back. And so upstairs, where Edward Albert was left to unpack, put his things away in a chest of drawers, and spend a long time studying his wrists in the little looking-glass and meditating upon the possibilities of bespoke clothes. If he had long cuffs; if he got one of those new up and then down collars like what Mr Matterlock wore; if he pulled himself up—so. And a dark suit with a touch of blue in it and creased trousers like Mr Matterlock’s. Which fitted. Then it would be different?....
They looked at him at the dinner table when Mrs Doober brought him down—she had to bring him down. They didn’t say so very much to him, but they peeped and looked at him all the time. (He would get those cuffs to-morrow.) People came and went with an extraordinary assurance. Afterwards in the drawing-room a lady said, “You’re a new arrival?” and he said “Yes, Mam.”
“And what’s your name?” she said, and he told her quite friendly like, and then he got into a corner and affected to read a very nice book, A Guide to the Hotels of Europe, while he watched his fellow boarders unobtrusively.
XII. Mr Harold Thump
Some of the happy family of Scartmore House Edward Albert got to know quite soon. Some remained remote. For a time Mr Harold Thump dominated all the other individualities in this new world. He was, Mrs Doober had explained, “a teacher of elocution and a reciter; and such a buoyant man”, large, round and rosy, with a lot of fair hair and large, watery, blue eyes; he rubbed his hands together and breathed with a gusto whenever he thought of it; sometimes he forgot himself and lapsed into a coma; but when the spirit was in him he went about Doober’s like a brass band. He sang in the bathroom like a choir coming home from a heavily liquidated bean-feast. He saluted everybody by name as he encountered them. He always brightened up for a new arrival.
“Ah, a new recruit to the Select Company!” he said, at his first sight of Edward Albert, who, on his second night, had come down to dinner rather early, so as not to be brought down by Mrs Doober, and cooed over as he came down.
“Young I perceive you are, but you’ll grow out of it. Tell me your name, laddie....
“Now tell me, my young friend, have you heard the latest story about the zoo? About the monkey and the little fretful porcupine?”
He was addressing himself to Edward Albert. Edward Albert was being asked whether he had heard the story of the monkey and the little fretful porcupine.
“No, Sir,” he said brightly.
“It was such a leetle monkey,” said Mr Thump, and then in a whisper, “Blue. You’ve seen them—blue?”
“Yes, Sir.” He hadn’t exactly, but he could imagine it. Whereupon Mr Thump’s face changed and became marvellous. He lifted a flat hand as who should say, “You wait!”
His lips tightened. His eyes became very round, he projected his face. He seemed to be scrutinising every corner of the room for some hostile hearer. “It’s such a vulgar story,” he said in a stage whisper, confidentially. He reduced Edward Albert to a state of tension. He stood up and looked over the top of the lamp. What was he looking for there? There couldn’t be anything there. Edward Albert began to giggle. Mr Thump, much encouraged, leant forward to look behind the door.
Then suddenly he affected to think of under the table. He went down to look underneath. Edward Albert’s giggle became uncontrollable. Mr Thump looked at him dubiously and went underneath again. Then he came up questioningly, with only the upper part of his face, shining, grave, doubtful, confidential. “Eh?” he said, and put his finger to his lips.
It was too funny.
Then the lady came in, the lady who had said, “You’re a new arrival?” the night before.
She took her place at the table. She affected to ignore Mr Thump. You might infer she did not like him.