Books: The Professional Aunt
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Mary C.E. Wemyss >> The Professional Aunt
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THE PROFESSIONAL AUNT
By Mary C. E. Wemyss
Chapter I
A boy's profession is not infrequently chosen for him by his
parents, which perhaps accounts for the curious fact that the
shrewd, business-like member of a family often becomes a painter,
while the artistic, unpractical one becomes a member of the Stock
Exchange, in course of time, naturally.
My profession was forced upon me, to begin with, by my sisters-in-
law, and in the subsequent and natural order of things by their
children -- my nephews and nieces.
Zerlina says it is the duty of one woman in every family to be an
aunt. By that she means of course a professional aunt. She says
she does not understand the longing on the part of unattached
females -- the expression is hers, not mine - for a larger sphere
of usefulness than that which aunt hood offers. She considers that
it affords full scope for the energies of any reasonably
constituted woman; and no doubt, if the professional aunt was all
that Zerlina says she should be, she would have her time fully
occupied in the discharging of her duties.
Zerlina cannot see that it is not exactly a position of a woman's
own choosing, although under strong pressure she has been known to
admit that there have been cases in which women have been made
aunts whether they would or no; and she thinks it is perhaps by
way of protest against such usage that they so shamefully neglect
their duties in that walk of life to which their bothers and
sister-in-law have seen fit to call them.
Of course, when an aunt marries, she loses at once all the
perfecting of the properly constituted aunt; and that is a thing
to be seriously considered. Is she wise in leaving a profession
for which all her sisters-in-law think she is admirably fitted,
for one which the most experienced pronounce a lottery?
This is all of course written from Zerlina's point of view. She
requires of a professional aunt many things. She must, to begin
with, remember the birthdays of all her nephews and nieces, of
Zerlina's children in particular. If she remembers their
birthdays, it stand to reason, Zerlina's reason, that the sequence
of thought is - presents.
The really successful aunt knows the particular taste of each
nephew and niece. She knows, moreover, the exact moment at which
the taste changes from a love for woolly rabbits to a passion for
steam engines. Instinct tells her at what age a child maybe
promoted, with safety, from wool to paint, and she knows the
critical moment in a boy's life when a Bible should be bestowed.
It usually, or perhaps I should say my experience is that it
usually, follows the first knife, an ordinary two-bladed knife,
and comes the birthday before a knife -- with things in it." The
real boy must have a knife with things in it: a corkscrew,-- I
wonder why a corkscrew? -- a buttonhook, a thing to take stones
out of horses' hoofs, a thing to mend traces with -- I know I am
ignorant of the technical terms -- but the hardest-hearted shop-
assistant will never fail to help a professional aunt in the
choice of a knife, unless by chance he should be unhappy enough
never to have been a boy, and such cases are rare.
I used often to wonder why boys wanted all these things. Now I
know, bemuse I asked Dick and he said, You see, Aunt Woggles, I
use them for other things." I am not sure that most of us don't
do the same thing with many of our most cherished possessions in
life.
As regards steam-engines Zerlina lays down a distinct law. They
must never burst-that is an injury no sister-in-law would ever
forgive - and paint must never come off. If Zerlina had known and
loved the taste of crimson lake in the days of her youth, she
would never draw so hard and fast a line.
From the earliest moment in a baby's career, the professional aunt
takes upon herself serious responsibilities. She may not, for
instance, like any ordinary aunt, pass the baby in his
perambulator, out walking. Any other aunt may, with perfect
propriety, say, "Hullo, duckie, where's auntie?" and pass on. She
knows the danger of stopping, and seeks to avoid it. Not so the
professional aunt. She realizes the danger and faces it. She
knows she will have to wait, for the sake of the child's
character, until he shall choose to say, "Ta-ta."
He will probably, if he is a healthy child, say everything he
knows but that. He will go through his limited vocabulary in a
pathetically obliging manner, making the most beautiful "moo-moos
" and "quack-quacks," but he will not say, "Ta-ta." Why should
he? On persuasion, and more especially if the interview should
take place at a street-corner on a windy March day, he will repeat
the "moo-moos" and "quack-quacks" even more successfully than
before, and he will wonder in what way they fall short of
perfection, since he earns no praise. He likes to be rewarded
with, "Kevver boy." We all do, just as a matter of form, if
nothing else. Surely ordinary politeness demands it.
He will not say, "Ta-ta," though. Who knows but what it is innate
politeness on his part and his way of saying, "Oh, don't go! What
a flying visit!"
However, the professional aunt cannot be sure of this, although
she can guess; so she must wait patiently, for the sake of
Baby's morals and nurse's feelings, until he does say, "Ta-ta."
We may suppose that he at last loses his temper and says it,
meaning, no doubt, "For goodness sake, go!" if not something
stronger. The nurse is satisfied, the aunt is released, and the
conscientious objector is wheeled away.
Besides ministering to the soul of a baby the aunt must tend to
its bodily needs, and for this reason she must be a good
needlewoman.
Before the arrival of the first nephew or niece, when she is very
unprofessional, she will hastily put her work under the sofa or
behind the cushion when any one comes into the room. As she grows
older and more professional, and the nephews and nieces become
more numerous, she will give up hiding her work. People who are
intimately connected with the family will show no surprise, and to
inquisitive strangers, unless she is very religious, she can
murmur something about a crèche, so long, of course, as Zerlina is
not there.
The really successful aunt, one who is at the top of her
profession, can perfectly well be trusted to take all the children
to the Zoo alone; that is to say, without a nurse, and of course
without the mother. The mother knows how pleased and gratified an
aunt feels on being given the entire charge of the children. The
nurse is gratified too; in fact every one is pleased, with perhaps
the exception of the aunt. But it is against professional
etiquette for her to say so. She only wonders why mothers think a
privilege they hold so lightly -- taking the children to the Zoo -
- should be so esteemed by other women. But as the old story goes,
"Hush, darling, hush, the doctor knows best," so must we say, --
Mothers know best."
Another qualification in a professional aunt, desirable if not
indispensable, is tact. If she should be possessed of ever so
little, it will save her a considerable amount of bother. She
won't, in a moment of mental aberration, praise dark-eyed children
to Zerlina, whose children have blue eyes. Should she do so, by
some unlucky chance, it would take several expeditions to the Zoo,
and probably one to Kew, before things were as they were. If
Zerlina, however, should, by the expedition of the aunt and
children to Kew, be enabled to do something she very much wanted
to do, and couldn't, because the nurse's father was ill, and the
nursery-maid anemic, the little misunderstanding will have
disappeared by the time the aunt returns from Kew, and Zerlina
will say, after carefully counting the children, -- it is this
mathematical tendency in mothers that hurts an aunt, -- "I do
trust you implicitly with the children, dear. You know that; it
isn't every one I could trust; you are so capable! I wish I were,
but one can't be everything. Of course you don't understand a
mother's feelings."
I sometimes wonder why Zerlina always says this to me. I have
never pretended to be anything but an aunt.
But to return to my profession. As the children grow older the
duties of the aunt become more arduous. For the benefit of
schoolboy nephews with exeats, she must have an intimate
acquaintance with the Hippodrome, any exhibition going, every
place of instruction, of a kind, or amusement. She must be
thoroughly up in matinees,, and know what plays are frightfully
exciting, and she must have a nice taste in sweets. She need not
necessarily eat them; it is perhaps better if she does not. But
she must know where the very best are to be procured. She must
never get tired. She must love driving in hansoms and going on
the top of 'buses. She must know where the white ones go, and
where the red ones don't, although a mistake on her part is
readily forgiven, if it prolongs the drive without curtailing a
performance of any kind. This requires great experience. She
must set aside, moreover, a goodly sum every year for professional
expenses.
The foregoing are a few of the qualifications which Zerlina thinks
essential in aunts. There are others, and the greatest of them is
love. Zerlina forgot to mention that.
Chapter II
But Diana! That is another story. Open the windows wide, let in
the fresh air, the whispering of trees, the song of the birds, and
all that is good and beautiful in nature. The very thought of
Diana is sunshine. She is as God meant us to be, happy and good,
believing in the goodness of others, slow to find evil in them,
quick to forgive it, infinitely pitiful of the sorrows of the
suffering. This is Diana, and she has three children, Betty,
Hugh, and Sara. Allah be praised!
You do not imagine that I dislike Zerlina, do you? I should be
sorry to give that impression. But a professional aunt must be
above all things absolutely straightforward and truthful.
I had been engaged for weeks to go to Hames for the first shoot,
and an urgent telegram from Zerlina, followed by a feverish
letter, failed to move me from my purpose. The telegram, by the
way, ran as follows: "Can you Tuesday for fortnight. Do. Urgent.
ZERLINA." I wondered why Zerlina elected to leave out "come." If
I had been strictly economizing, I should have saved on the "do."
The letter followed in due course of time: -
Dear Betty, I have just sent a wire in frantic haste asking you to
come [that was exactly what she had not done] on Tuesday for a
fortnight. I should so much like you to see something of the
children, and Baby really is very fascinating. She is such a fat
child, much fatter than Muriel's baby, who is six months older.
The fact is, Jim is rather run down; nothing much, of course, but
I think a change would do him good, and the Staveleys have asked
us to go to them, and I don't like to refuse, and we thought it
would be such a good opportunity to have my bedroom re-papered and
painted. I don't believe you would smell the paint, and in any
case I believe there is some new kind of paint which smells
delicious, like stephanotis, I am told, so I will order that. I
would not ask you to come just as we are going away, because I
should like to be at home to see you, but I could go away so
happily if you were with the children; I often think for a woman
without children, you are so wonderfully understanding, about
children, I mean. You could manage nurse, too, I am sure. She is
in one of her moods just now, and I feel I must get away from all
worries for a little.
Yours,
ZERLINA
P. S. -- Jim is so well, and would send his love if he were here.
I telegraphed back, of course, directly I got Zerlina's telegram,
saying I could not come, and answered the letter at leisure. It is
as a sister-in-law in relation to the aunt that Diana particularly
shines. This aunt she looks upon as something more than useful, and
asks her to stay at other times than when the children have measles,
and whooping-cough, or the bedroom is to be re-papered. Zerlina
perhaps is unfortunate. She says, "Have you ever noticed how the
children always have something when you come to stay?" Zerlina is
quite pretty when she puts her head on one side. I answer, "Yes,
Zerlina, I have noticed it curiously enough," but I do not say that
I suspect that at the very first sound of a cough, at the very first
appearance of a rash, this aunt is urged to come and stay.
Diana accepts such services; the mother of such creatures as
Betty, Hugh, and Sara is forced to do so by very reason of their
existence. But those services she accepts with generous
appreciation; not that an aunt wants thanks, but being human,
pitifully so, even the most professional of them, she is conscious
where they are not expressed, in some form or other. A smile is
enough.
So to Hames I went, in spite of Zerlina's appeal, with treasures
deep down in my box for Betty, Hugh, and Sara. Sara is of all
babes in the world the most fascinating, say sisters-in-law other
than Diana what they will. As a tribute to this fascination, the
largest white rabbit, woolly to a degree undreamed of -- at least
I hoped so -- in Sara's world, was carefully packed in my box,
wrapped cunningly in tissue-paper, and guarded on all sides by
clothing of a soft description. I have known a chiffon skirt put
to strange uses in the interests of Sara.
I found the carriage waiting for me, and was touched to see that
Croft, the old coachman, had come to meet me himself. It is an
honor he does the family with perhaps two or three exceptions.
When he comes to meet me,, there is a regular program to be gone
through. It varies only in a very slight degree and begins like
this: --
I say, "Well, Croft, it is very nice to see you," and he says,
"The same to you, miss, and many of them." He then begins to
"riminize"; the word is his own. He begins with the auspicious
day on which I was born, and describes how he himself went to
fetch the doctor in the dead of the night. He describes minutely
his costume and the part the elements played on the occasion; they
were evidently very much upset. He then goes on to say how he
held me on my first pony, and taught me to ride and drive. Having
finally certificated me as competent to drive a pair of horses
under any circumstances, I ask how the children are, Sara in
particular. Here Croft looks heavenward, and says she looks a
picture, and adds that she looks very like me. The footman knows
that here the program is at an end, Croft having no greater
praise to bestow on mortal woman, and he opens the carriage door
and I get in.
Diana knows what it is to travel t he distance of three miles in
the suffocating embraces of Hugh and Betty; otherwise she would
probably have sent the children to meet me.
The smell of the brougham brought my childhood vividly back to me.
I shut my eyes and instinctively put out my hand; and that hand
that was always held out to us as children took mine in its loving
clasp, and I was a child again, home from a visit, so glad to feel
that hand again and to see that mother from whom it was agony to
be parted, for even a short space of time.
Chapter III
When I arrived at Hames, Diana, tall, fair, and beautiful as a
Diana should be, was on the doorstep to meet me. Diana, by the
way, had been christened "Diana Elizabeth," in case she should
have turned out short and dumpy and, by some miraculous chance,
dark. I looked for Sara in the tail of Diana's gown, -- I am
afraid this is a literary license, as Diana does not wear tails to
her gowns in the country as a rule, -- but Sara was not there.
"She is not there, said Diana. "The children are in the wildest
state of excitement, and will you faithfully promise to go up and
see them directly you have had tea?"
I would willingly have gone then and there, and murmured something
about my box, and Diana said she hoped I had not brought them
anything.
"Oh! nothing," I said; "only the smallest things possible";
knowing all the time that the woolly rabbit was, of its kind,
unrivaled. But these are professional expenses, and what I spend
does not afterwards give me a moment's worry. I have seen David,
on the other hand, speechlessly miserable after buying a
mezzotint, for the time being only, of course; the joy cometh in
the morning, when Diana proves to him that it was the only thing
to do, and that it was really quite wonderful, the way in which he
was led to buy it. He had had no idea of doing so. Not the
slightest! And yet something within him urged him to buy it.
Absolutely urged him!
Then, Diana said, it was clearly meant. If a man deliberately set
out on a fine morning, bent on spending more than he could afford,
then --! Diana's "then" is always so comforting.
I am so afraid you will spoil the children, she said; "they expect
presents, which is so dreadful. Hugh bet sixpence at lunch that
you would bring him something, and he said to poor Mr. Hardy, You
didn't."
"But he will next time, Diana," I said.
"Of course he will; that is the dreadful part of it."
It is right that Diana should feel like that. A mother's point of
view and another's, an aunt's, for instance, are totally different
things, and I told Diana that, while fully appreciating her
anxieties regarding the characters of her children, considered
that to destroy a child's faith in an aunt was little short of
criminal. But I promised that the next time I came I would,
perhaps, not bring them anything. "But I shall give them fair
warning."
Diana admitted the justice of this, and she said, with a sigh of
relief, "I can't bear the children to be disappointed; a
disappointed Sara is --"
"Diana," I interrupted, "is it wise to begin Saraing at this time
of day?"
In reality the woolly rabbit was tugging at my heartstrings and
clamoring to be unpacked. After a hurried tea, which I was
obliged to have for the sake of Bindon's feelings, I went
upstairs, resolved to disinter at all costs, without delay, the
rabbit. I felt great anxiety lest in transit the machinery which
made the rabbit squeak in a way that surely no rabbit, mechanical
or otherwise, - particularly the otherwise, I hoped, - had ever
squeaked before, might be impaired; happily it was not.
Having carefully shut the door and silenced the attendant
housemaid, I took the precaution of burying the rabbit partially
under the eider-down quilt before testing the squeak, so that no
noise should reach the children. I am afraid I "mothered" the
squeak of that rabbit if I imagined it could reach anywhere so
far; it was in reality such a very small one. But such as it was,
it was perfect, in spite of the deadening effect of the quilt, and
I pictured Sara's dimples dimpling. How she would love it! The
treasure was carefully wrapped up again, and I tried hard to make
it look like anything rather than a rabbit, in case Sara should
try, by feeling it, to discover its nature.
Jane, the housemaid, said that no one could tell, no matter how
much they tried; if they tried all day, they wouldn't, that she
knew for sure; which was very consoling.
I then examined Hugh's train and Betty's cooking-stove, and found
them intact, with, the exception of a saucepan lid. This, after a
search, we found under the wardrobe. Why do things always go
under things? Jane didn't know - she only knew they did. Then I
opened the door and called.
Suddenly I heard a noise unearthly in its shrillness: it was Hugh
calling his Aunt Woggles. He threw himself into my arms, keeping
one eye, I could not help noticing, on the parcels. During the
hug, which gave him plenty of time to make up his mind, he
evidently decided which was for him; for he relaxed his hold and
went to the table by the window, on which the parcels lay,
whistling in as careless a manner as a boy bursting with
excitement could do. First of all he stood on one leg, then on
the other, and looked knowingly at me out of the corner of his
eye. He was too honest to pretend that he thought the parcel was
for some other boy, since there was no other. When the excitement
became more than he could bear, he sang in a sing-song voice, "I
see it, I see it!"
"Open it, then," I said, which he proceeded to do with great
energy, if with little success.
"I b'lieve it's a knife with things in it," he said.
My heart sank. "Oh, it's much too big for a knife, Hugh," I
replied.
"I 'spect it is, all the same," he said with a nod; "you've made
it big on purpose; I positively know you have."
At last it was opened, and I said, aunt-like, "Do you like it,
Hugh?"
"Awfully, thanks." Then he added a little wistfully, "Tommy's got
a knife with things in it, a button'ook."
Perhaps he saw I looked disappointed, for he added magnanimously,
"I like trains next best, Aunt Woggles; only you see I didn't
exactly pray for a train, that's why. What's Betty's?"
"Betty must open it herself."
"Don't you suppose," he said, "that she would like me to open it
for her, because it is a hard thing opening parcels -- and Betty
says I may always open all her parcels when she is out."
"Hugh!" I exclaimed.
He rushed to the door. "Come on, Betty," he shouted. "Aunt
Woggles wants you."
If Betty's entrance was less tempestuous than Hugh's, her embrace
was not less ecstatic. She put her arms round my neck and took
her legs off the ground, -- a quite simple process, and known to
most aunts, I expect. The ultimate result would, no doubt, be
strangulation. No one knows, of course, but among aunts it is a
very general belief. Unlike Hugh, Betty kept her eyes religiously
away from parcels, and she got very pink when I drew her attention
to the very nobly one which was hers. Hugh stood by, urging her
to open it, and offering to help her; but this Betty would not
allow, and she opened it, her lips trembling with excitement.
"Is it for my very own?" she whispered.
"Absolutely for your very own, Betty," I answered.
"Oh!" said Betty. "Hugh, it's all for my very, very own; Aunt
Woggles says so; but you may play with it when you are very good."
This in Hugh's eyes seemed so remote a contingency as to be
scarcely worth consideration.
When the cooking-stove stood revealed in all its glory, Betty was
silent for a moment; then she said in a voice choked with emotion,
"I shall cook dinners for you, all for your very own self --
nobody else."
My heart sank. "You will eat the things, won't you?" she asked,
"if I make proper things, just like real things?"
"Of course," I said. "Where's Sara?"
"She wouldn't have her face washed," said Betty, "so she's waiting
till she's good."
Poor Sara! A strict disciplinarian is Betty!
The regeneration of Sara was evidently a matter of moments only,
for the words were hardly out of Betty's mouth when Sara, in all
her clean, delicious dumpiness, appeared in the doorway. If there
is one thing more delicious than a grubby Sara, it is a clean
Sara. Sara after gardening is delicious, but Sara clean is
assuredly the cleanest thing on God's earth. I have never seen a
child look so new, and so straight out of tissue-paper, as Sara
can look. She stared solemnly at her Aunt Woggles, and then
proceeded to walk away in the opposite direction, which was an
invitation on her part to me to follow and snatch her up in my
arms. She bore the hug stoically for a reasonable time, and then
said, "Oo 'urt."
I realized, with the agony of remorse, that a very large aunt can
by means of a brooch inflict exquisite torture on a very small
niece.
She wriggled herself free and began to rearrange her ruffled
garments. "Yaya's got noo soos," she announced; "ved vuns."
"No, blue, darling," I said.
"Ved," said Sara.
"No, sweetest, blue," I repeated in a somewhat professional but
wholly affectionate manner.
"Ved," said Sara with great decision; so I gave it up.
"Sara always thinks blue is red," said Betty; "don't you,
darling?"
"No, boo," replied Sara; so the matter dropped.
"Oo's tummin' to see Yaya's toys," said Sara.
"Am I, darling? When?"
"Now."
"But Aunt Woggles has got something for you," I said in a
triumphant voice.
Sara showed no interest and pulled me by the hand toward the door.
"Hand me that, Betty," I said, pointing to the parcel on the
table.
Betty handed it to me.
"Here, Sara, I said, "I have got a darling white rabbit for you!
Sara! A bunny!"
"Yaya's got a blush upstairs, a lubbly blush," she said,
disdaining even to look at the parcel. I held it toward her,
undid it, I squeaked the squeak, I called the rabbit endearing
names; but to no purpose. Sara looked the other way. A look I
at last persuaded her to bestow upon the rabbit; but she gazed
at its charms, unmoved.
"Yaya doesn't yike nasty bunnies, only nice blushes," she said.
"It's a hearth-brush dressed up," whispered Betty, "and it's
dressed up in my dolly's cape, at least in one of my dolly's
capes; she loves it. Aunt Woggles, do you think it is a good
thing to make hearth-brushes say their prayers? Sara does."
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