Uncle Dynamite

1

On the little branch line
which starts at Wockley Junction and conveys passengers to Eggmarsh St John,
Ashenden Oakshott, Bishop’s Ickenham and other small and somnolent hamlets of
the south of
England
the early
afternoon train had just begun its leisurely journey.

It was
a train whose patrons, sturdy sons of the soil who did not intend to let a
railway company trouser more of their money than they could help, had for the
most part purchased third-class tickets. But a first-class compartment had been
provided for the rich and thriftless, and today it had two occupants, a large
youth of open and ingenuous countenance, much sunburned, and a tall, slim,
distinguished-looking man of some thirty years his senior with a jaunty grey
moustache and a bright and enterprising eye, whose air was that of one who has
lived to the full every minute of an enjoyable life and intends to go on doing
so till further notice. His hat was on the side of his head, and he bore his
cigar like a banner.

For
some ten minutes after the train had started, the usual decent silence of the
travelling Englishman prevailed in the compartment. Then the young man, who had
been casting covert glances at his companion, cleared his throat and said ‘Er.’

The elderly
gentleman looked up enquiringly. Deepening in colour, for he was of bashful
temperament and was already wondering why he had been ass enough to start this,
the sunburned youth proceeded.

‘I say,
excuse me. Aren’t you Lord Ickenham?’

‘I am.’

‘Fine.’

The
elderly gentleman seemed puzzled.

‘I’m
pretty pleased about it myself,’ he admitted. ‘But why do you rejoice?’

‘Well,
if you hadn’t been —‘ said the young man, and paused aghast at the thought of
what horrors might not have resulted from the wanton addressing of a perfect
stranger. ‘What I mean is, I used to know you. Years ago. Sort of. I was a pal
of your nephew Pongo, and I came over to your place for tennis sometimes. You
once tipped me five bob.’

‘That’s
how the money goes.’

‘I
don’t suppose you remember me. Bill Oakshott.’

‘Of
course I remember you, my dear fellow,’ said Lord Ickenham heartily and quite
untruthfully. ‘I wish I had a tenner for every time I’ve said to my wife
“Whatever became of Bill Oakshott?”‘

‘No,
really? Fine. How is Lady Ickenham?’

‘Fine.’

‘Fine.
She once tipped me half a crown.’

‘You
will generally find women loosen up less lavishly than men. It’s something to do
with the bone structure of the head. Yes, my dear wife, I am glad to say,
continues in the pink. I’ve just been seeing her off on the boat at
Southampton
. She is taking a trip to the
West Indies
.’

‘
Jamaica
?’

‘No,
she went of her own free will.’

The
human tomato digested this for a moment in silence, seemed on the point of
saying ‘Fine,’ then changed his mind, and enquired after Pongo.

‘Pongo,’
said Lord Ickenham, ‘is in terrific form. He bestrides the world like a
Colossus. It would not be too much to say that
Moab
is his washpot and over what’s-its-name has he cast his shoe. He
came into the deuce of a lot of money the other day from a deceased godfather
in
America
, and can now face
his tailor without a tremor. He is also engaged to be married.’

‘Good.’

‘Yes,’
said Lord Ickenham, rather startled by this evidence of an unexpectedly wide
vocabulary. ‘Yes, he seems fairly radiant about it. I myself, I must confess,
am less enthusiastic. I don’t know if you have noticed it, Bill Oakshott, but
nothing in this world ever works out one hundred per cent satisfactorily for
all parties. Thus, while A is waving his hat and giving a series of rousing
cheers, we see B frowning dubiously. And the same is true of X and Z. Take this
romance of Pongo’s for instance. I was hoping that he would marry another girl,
a particular protégée of mine whom I have watched grow from a child, and a singularly
fascinating child, at that, to a young woman of grace, charm and strength of
character who in my opinion has everything. Among other advantages which she
possesses is sense enough for two, which, it seems to me, is just the amount
the wife of Reginald (“Pongo”) Twistleton will require. But it was not to be.
However, let us look on the bright side. Shall we?’

‘Oh,
rather.’

‘Fine.
Well, looking on the bright side, I haven’t met this new girl, but she sounds
all right. And of course the great thing is to get the young blighter safely
married and settled down, thus avoiding the risk of his coming in one day and
laying on the mat something with a platinum head and an Oxford accent which he
picked up on the pier at Blackpool. You remember what a pushover he always was
for the gentle sex.’

‘I
haven’t seen Pongo since we were kids.’

‘Even
then he was flitting from flower to flower like a willowy butterfly. He was the
Don Juan of his dancing class when he wore Little Lord Fauntleroy suits, his
heart an open door with “Welcome” on the mat.’

‘He’ll
chuck all that sort of thing now.’

‘Let us
hope so. But you remember what the fellow said. Can the leopard change his
spots, or the Ethiopian his hue? Or is it skin? And talking of Ethiopians,’
said Lord Ickenham, allowing himself to become personal, ‘has someone been
cooking you over a slow fire, or did you sit in the sun without your parasol?’

Bill
Oakshott grinned sheepishly.

‘I am a
bit sunburned, aren’t I? I’ve been in
Brazil
. I’m on my way home from the boat.’

‘You
reside in this neighbourhood?’

‘At
Ashenden Manor.’

‘Married?’

‘No. I
live with my uncle. Or, rather, he lives with me.’

‘What
is the distinction?’

‘Well,
what I mean is, Ashenden really belongs to me, but I was only about sixteen
when my father died, and my uncle came barging over from
Cheltenham
and took charge. He dug in, and
has been there ever since. Running the whole show. You’d think from the way he
goes on,’ said Bill, stirred to unwonted loquacity by the recollection of his
wrongs, ‘that he owned the bally place. Well, to give you an instance, he’s
pinched the best room in the house for his damned collection of African
curios.’

‘Does
he collect African curios? God help him.’

‘And
that’s not all. Who has the star bedroom? Me? No! Uncle Aylmer. Who collars the
morning paper? Me? No! Uncle Aylmer. Who gets the brown egg at breakfast?’

‘Don’t
tell me. Let me guess. Uncle Aylmer?’

‘Yes.
Blast him!’

Lord
Ickenham stroked his moustache.

‘A
certain guarded something in your manner, Bill Oakshott,’ he said, ‘suggests to
me that you do not like having your Uncle Aylmer living at Ashenden Manor. Am I
correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then
why not bung him out?’

The
truculence faded from Bill Oakshott’s demeanour, leaving in its place embarrassment.
He could have answered the question, but to do so would have involved revealing
his great love for his uncle’s daughter, Hermione, and agreeable old bird
though Lord Ickenham was, he did not feel that he knew him intimately enough.

‘Oh,
well,’ he said, and coyly scraped a shoe like a violin case along the floor of
the compartment. ‘No, I don’t quite see how I could do that.’

‘There
are complications?’

‘Yes.
Complications.’

‘I
understand.’

It was
plain to Lord Ickenham that he had stumbled upon a delicate domestic situation,
and he tactfully forbore to probe into it. Picking up his
Times,
he
turned to the crossword puzzle, and Bill Oakshott sat gazing out of the window
at the passing scenery.

But he
did not see the familiar fields and spinneys, only the lovely face of his
cousin Hermione. It rose before him like some radiant vision, and soon, he
reflected, he would be beholding it not merely with the eye of imagination.
Yes, at any moment, now that he was back in
England
again, he was liable to find himself gazing into her beautiful eyes
or, if she happened to be standing sideways, staring at her pure, perfect
profile.

In
which event, what would the procedure be? Would he, as before, just gape and
shuffle his feet? Or would he, fortified by three months in bracing
Brazil
, at last be able to shake off his
distressing timidity and bring himself to reveal a silent passion which had
been functioning uninterruptedly for some nine years?

He
hoped so, but at the same time was compelled to recognize the point as a very
moot one.

A tap
on the knee interrupted his meditations.

‘Next
stop, Ashenden Oakshott,’ Lord Ickenham reminded him.

‘Eh?
Oh, yes. That’s right, so it is.’

‘You
had better be girding up your loins.’

‘Yes,’
said Bill, and rose and hauled down his suitcase from the rack. Then, as the
train puffed out of the tunnel, he gave a sudden sharp cry and stood staring.
As if unable to believe his eyes, he blinked them twice with great rapidity.
But they had not deceived him. He still saw what he thought he had seen.

Under
normal conditions there is about the station of Ashenden Oakshott little or nothing
to rouse the emotions and purge the soul with pity and terror. Once you have
seen the stationmaster’s whiskers, which are of a Victorian bushiness and give
the impression of having been grown under glass, you have drained it of all it
has to offer in the way of thrills, unless you are one of those easily excited
persons who can find drama in the spectacle of a small porter wrestling with a
series of large milk cans. ‘Placid’ is the word that springs to the lips.

But
today all this was changed, and it was obvious at a glance that Ashenden
Oakshott was stepping out. From the penny-in-the-slot machine at the far end to
the shed where the porter kept his brooms and buckets the platform was dark
with what practically amounted to a sea of humanity. At least forty persons
must have been present.

Two,
selected for their muscle and endurance, were holding aloft on poles a streamer
on which some loving hand, which had not left itself quite enough room, had
inscribed the words:

WELCOME
HOME, MR WILL
M
.

and in addition to these
the eye noted a Silver Band, some Boy Scouts, a policeman, a clergyman, a mixed
assortment of villagers of both sexes, what looked like an Infants ‘Bible Class
(with bouquets) and an impressive personage with a large white moustache, who
seemed to be directing the proceedings.

From
his post by the window, Bill Oakshott continued to stand rigid and
open-mouthed, like some character in a fairy story on whom a spell has been
cast, and so limpid was his countenance that Lord Ickenham had no difficulty in
analysing the situation.

Here,
he perceived, was a young man of diffident and retiring disposition, one who
shrank from the public eye and quailed at the thought of being conspicuous, and
for some reason somebody had organized this stupendous reception for him. That
was why he was now looking like a stag at bay.

Publicity
was a thing from which Lord Ickenham himself had never been averse. He frankly
enjoyed it. If Silver Bands and Boy Scouts had come to welcome him at a
station, he would have leaped to meet them with a whoop and a holler, and would
have been out taking bows almost before the train had stopped. But it was plain
that this young friend of his was differently constituted, and his heart was
moved by his distress.