What is the harm in that? Who has not had a similar bright vision at some time or other? There is no doubt about it; it would be nice, very nice indeed, absolutely delightful. But most of us are well broken in and we dismiss the idea as impracticable. Mr. Murchison found that it took root in his mind and blossomed there like a sultry flower.
When thoughts of this delightful description occurred to him, which was increasingly often, he would smile all over his face and rub his hands together with a zest that was very pleasant to behold. Having rubbed them, he would spread them out, as if to enjoy the cheerful blaze of a Christmas fire. Nothing could be more benevolent than his aspect when indulging in this little mannerism. Young wives who had married into the circle of his wards and proteges would at once think of him as a godfather.
Mr. Murchison was always the first to inspect and praise a new home. «Ah!» said he, on looking over Millicent and Rodney's, «I am glad you have chosen the Colonial style. I am glad you have built in wood; it is a fine tradition. It is cool in summer, and can be warm, very warm, in winter. Of course you have a good cellar? Excellent! Excellent! And there is your front door; the back door, I suppose, is through there? Yes, that is beautifully planned. A fine current of air — there is nothing like it. I like these long draperies, Millicent. Some people like little, skimpy, short draperies; I vastly prefer long ones. Well, you have a delightful home, my dears, I hope you have it completely insured.»
«Oh, yes. We have the house covered,» Rodney said. «But as for Millie's precious antiques — you know how she absolutely wore herself to death going round picking them up at auctions. Well, you can't insure blood and sweat, of course. She'd be absolutely broken-hearted if anything happened. Still, touching wood, let's hope it won't. How did we get talking about this sort of thing anyway?»
At this, Mr. Murchison lost a little of his sparkle, for the thought of distressing his young friends cast cold water upon all his pleasant fancies. The following week he motored up to Buck and Ida's, a fine old place on a hill in the Berkshires, and four miles from a one-horse fire station. The situation was superb. Probably on a clear, windy night the house, ablaze, would have been visible fifty miles away. But Buck was an architect, and his competition plans were all done in his spare time at home. His study was full of them.
At Dick and Lucy's there were three high gables, rich with promise of the most dramatic effects imaginable, so Mr. Murchison rubbed his hands like an Indian rubbing two sticks of wood together. «You rub your hands so briskly, Uncle Ben,» said Lucy, smiling happily at the sight of him. «One would almost expect to see sparks flying from your fingers. Electricity, you know.» She went on to tell how Dick's book on insect civilizations was nearly finished, notes and draft chapters littered all over the house — five years of work — and soon he would be famous.
So Mr. Murchison travelled on. Cecily had all her father's books. John had the family portraits, Tom and Lisbeth had little Tom and little Lisbeth.
Sometimes, when Mr. Murchison went walking in the mornings during his week-end visits, he was almost reduced to hailing some passing farmhand and asking to whom that old barn belonged, and if the owner might be likely to take a price for it just as it stood. But he speedily dismissed impulses of that sort as altogether unworthy.
Pity this sweet-natured old gentleman, compelled to visit a tantalizing succession of highly combustible houses and always finding some little obstacle which would have deterred no one less good-hearted than himself.
At length a letter reached Mr. Murchison from Mark and Vicky, whom he had not seen for rather a long time, begging him, with exclamation marks, to come and inspect their new, magnificent abode. «Come and warm the place for us!» they said. He went the very next week end, and Mark and Vicky met him at the station.
«Now, what is all this?» said he. «A new house, and this is the first I hear of it! You may imagine I am all agog. Tell me, is it one you have built, or —»
«Ask Mark,» said Vicky in a disgruntled tone. «It's nothing to do with me. Except I have to live in it.»
«It was my mother's uncle's,» said Mark, dealing ferociously with the gears of the car. «And now it's mine.»
«The sins of the mother's uncles are visited on the children,» said Vicky, with an obvious effort at good humor.
«But what about your little place at Willowdale?» asked Mr. Murchison. «I thought you were so very fond of it.»
«We were,» said Mark.
«Don't make me weep,» said Vicky. «When I think of the garden —»
«Yes, don't make her weep,» said Mark. «We had to rent Willowdale. You see, we have to pay the taxes on this place. Twenty-eight rooms! You can't rent it, you can't sell it. So we had to move in. Here's the gate. Now you'll see it. Look.»
«Dear me!» said Mr. Murchison. «Dear me!»
«That's what everyone says,» said Vicky. «A castle on the Rhine, built in clapboard!»
«The other side has a touch of the Taj Mahal,» said Mark.
«Well, well, well!» said Mr. Murchison. «And yet — and yet, you know, perhaps you think I am old-fashioned, but I feel it has possibilities. Those pinnacles! Those things which conceivably may have been meant to suggest flying buttresses! And that minaret-like structure at the very top of all! Seen under the right conditions …» And he beamed more jovially than he had beamed for months.
«Oh, come, Uncle Ben!» said Vicky.
«Never mind me,» said he, rubbing his hands. «Never mind an old fogy. Perhaps I am a little eccentric. I must confess it needs a spark of imagination. But then — yes, it has possibilities. The insurance must be very high.»
«The rascals have had a fortune in premiums,» said Mark. «I'm going to stop it. However, let me take your bags.»
«Mind the big box,» said Murchison. «It's just a dozen of a little wine I thought you'd like. Put it down in the cellar and I'11 unpack it myself before dinner.»
Mr. Murchison frequently took presents of wine to his young friends. He felt it was one of the gracious duties of a quasi-uncle. He also felt the straw bottle-wrappers might somehow come in handy.
They went into the house, and Vicky, with bitter mirth, showed him a vast succession of rooms through which the wind whistled, as if to keep up its spirits.
«We just live in a corner of the damned place,» said Vicky, «and we'll end up all thin and dry and pale, with great, long nails, among cobwebs.»
«Oh, come!» said Mr. Murchison. «I'm sure something will turn up. We must get the neighbours to come around. A little light, a little warmth, a little bustle and the old place will seem quite different. Believe me, my dear, things may change over-night.»
And, indeed, when Mr. Murchison went down to unpack the wine, it really seemed as if they would. He made admirable disposition of the straw wrappers in which the bottles were packed, and he emerged from the cellar in the highest of spirits, rubbing his hands with a gusto that would have warmed the cockles of your heart. It was as well that he was so jovial, for otherwise dinner would have been a very gloomy meal. Mark and Vicky were already far into the bickering stage.
«I can't help it,» said Mark, in reply to complaints he had obviously heard before. «I've told you a hundred times we'll clear out as soon as we can afford to.»
«Can you beat that, Uncle Ben?» cried Vicky. «As soon as we can afford to live in tiny six-roomed Willowdale!»
«Oh, please forget it!» said Mark, rather loudly. «Just for a little while.»
«Don't shout,» said Vicky. «I don't wonder Uncle Ben sniffs at you.»
