Fancies and Goodnights

GREAT POSSIBILITIES

There are certain people who do not come to full flower until they are well over fifty. Among these are all males named Murchison. A Mr. Murchison is nothing without pink cheeks, white whiskers, and vintage port. There are no females of this name, except by accident. In fact, one wonders how the breed is continued, since bachelorhood is a fourth essential attribute of a true Murchison. Fortunately, they tend to be lawyers of the old-fashioned school, and old-fashioned family lawyers know all sorts of peculiar secrets.

By keeping at it twenty-four hours a day, and for considerably more than fifty years, Mr. Benjamin Murchison had succeeded in becoming a nearly perfect specimen of his race. He was fit to be stuffed and put in a museum, although there, of course, he could not have beamed and twinkled so benevolently.

He was very comfortably off, and could have been really wealthy, but certain of the more remunerative fields of law were not entirely to his taste. Indeed, he had become so fastidious that he would have retired completely, but many of his old friends had died and had left estates to be divided among their children, and to all these numerous broods Mr. Murchison was guardian, trustee, adviser, friend, and uncle.

Nothing delighted him more than to pay visits to his young friends, and nothing delighted them more than to have him.

Although nearly perfect, Mr. Murchison had one little eccentricity, which he kept extremely private. It was a mere nothing, a thought, a whim; it seems almost unfair to mention it. The fact is, he felt that nothing in the world would be nicer than to set fire to a house and watch it blaze.

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 protégés 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.»

«What?» said Mr. Murchison. «Sniff? At Mark? Never in my life.»

«Good heavens! Can it be the fish?» cried Vicky. «Please say so, Uncle Ben, if it is.»

«No, no,» said he. «It is excellent.»

«But you don't eat it,» said she. «You do nothing but sniff.»

«On my word, Vicky,» said Mr. Murchison, defending his plate, «I am enjoying myself enormously.»

«Don't tell me,» said Vicky. «If the fish is all right, you must have a cold. Oh, dear!»

«No, I have not,» said he. «But that reminds me. The nights are getting brisk. I hope you have a warm wrap handy, my dear?»

«Oh, I am warm enough,» said Vicky. «But are you cold? The heating here is like everything else.»

«Thank you,» said he. «I am very comfortable. I just thought — if we should go outside. On the lawn, you know.»

«The lawn?» said Mark. «Go out on the lawn? Why should we go out on the lawn?»

«Ah, yes! You are right. Why should we?» said Mr. Murchison in some confusion. «A very sensible question. Now, what put the idea into my head? How ridiculous! Let us forget it. Tell me, Mark, who built this amazing place?»

«It was my great-uncle Coxon,» said Mark.

«Coxon? Do you mean the banker?» asked Mr. Murchison.

«Yes,» said Mark. «And they used to wonder why banks failed!»

«He was the father of the famous Annabel Coxon,» said Vicky. «The great beauty. You must have known her, Uncle Ben. Were you one of her admirers?»

«Well …» said Mr. Murchison, his smile fading.

«This,» said Mark, «is the scene of her adorable girlhood. Her little white bedroom was presumably in some goddam turret.»

«She was born here. Yes, of course. She was a child here,» murmured Mr. Murchison, now not smiling at all.

«It was her bower,» said Mark, «the scene of her maiden dreams. Her lovely ghost is probably scampering around upstairs at this moment. In pantalettes, or whatever they wore. I wish I could meet it.»

«Uncle Ben is not amused,» said Vicky. «I bet you were in love with her, Uncle Ben. Do tell.»

«I? What a notion! Dear me!» said Mr. Murchison, looking quite shaken. «At all events, she was a lovely creature. Yes. 'Her lovely ghost,' you said. Quite a felicitous expression! Well, well, well!»

«But seriously,» said Mark, «isn't it extraordinary? She probably loved this place, which is driving us melancholy mad.»

«She did,» said Mr. Murchison. «I remember her describing it. Yes, she did indeed.»

«Was she pretty?» asked Vicky. «Was she full of life?»

«Oh, yes, »said Mr. Murchison. «Very lovely. Very alive. Alive in a way — well, perhaps I'm growing old. In these days people don't seem to be alive that way. Alive like a bird singing. Except, of course, you, my dear,» he added politely.

«And was she nice?» said Vicky.

«Yes,» said Mr. Murchison. «Very nice. Later on, some people thought, she grew a little — different. But she was so young when first I knew her. She must have just come from this house. Yes, very nice. 'Her lovely ghost!' Dear me! Well, I'm glad you are looking after the old place, my boy. It would be a pity if — if it went to ruin. Oh, my God!»

«What? What is it, Uncle Ben?»

«What is that I smell?» cried he. «Do I smell burning? I do!»

«Burning?» said Mark.

«I know!» cried Mr. Murchison. «Keep your heads, pray! Remain precisely where you are! I shall be back in a moment.» And he hastened from the room.

«Well, I'll be damned!» said Mark to Vicky after they had stared at one another for a time. «Has the old boy gone crazy, or what?»

«I think I did smell smoke,» said she. «Can he have left a cigarette in the cellar, do you think?»

«Maybe,» said Mark. «I suppose he'll shout if it's anything serious.»

Soon afterwards, Mr. Murchison returned. «Nothing at all,» said he, smiling. «Just my fancy. I knew it.»

«But you have a great smear of black on your face,» said Vicky. «And look at your hands! Uncle Ben, you left a cigarette in the cellar.»

«Well,» said he, «perhaps I did. I confess I did. Don't be angry with me, Vicky.»

«Angry!» said Mark, laughing. «We are, though — for putting it out. Why didn't you let the confounded place burn down?»

«My dear boy,» said Mr. Murchison, «I know you are joking. That would be a very serious crime. Arson, in fact. Besides, a house, you know, is not like a — a haystack. There is something alive about an old house, Mark. It has its memories.»

«When we go,» said Mark, «this house will have a hangover.»

«I can't help feeling you somehow don't care very much for the place,» said Mr. Murchison. «You said you find it hard to rent or sell?»

«Not hard,» said Mark. «Impossible.»

«Not impossible,» said Mr. Murchison. «You could sell it to me.»

«You, Uncle Ben?» cried Vicky. «You live in this dismal place? Alone?»

«I don't think it dismal,» said Mr. Murchison. «I don't think I should feel lonely.»

Everything was speedily arranged. In a very few weeks, Mark and Vicky were back at Willowdale. Various other friends of Mr. Murchison's dropped in to see them. «How is he getting on?» they asked. «Does he like it?»

«He thinks it's fine,» said Mark. «You know, the old boy really is marvellous. Always the perfect type. He's the eccentric squire nowadays. Have you heard about him and the fire brigade?»

«No. Let's hear it,» they cried.

«Well,» said Mark, «first of all he raised hell. He said the service wasn't efficient. He wrote letters, called a meeting, went round to all the farmers — God knows what all.»

«And then?»

«Then he must have waved a check at them or something. They elected him chairman, captain, the whole works. We were over that way last week; they all said he drills hell out of 'em. And we saw them charge through the village with the new engine, and there was Uncle Ben sitting up by the driver, smiling all over his face, with a damned great axe in his hand.»

«He always was a bit fussy about the chance of fire,» said the others.