Books: The Professional Aunt
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Mary C.E. Wemyss >> The Professional Aunt
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"And I've brought you one of my very own bantam eggs," said Betty.
"I've kept it ever so long for you."
Then it will be bad, said Hugh.
"Oh, not so long as to be bad," said Betty. "You will eat it,
won't you, Aunt Woggles?"
Nannie was radiantly happy at tea that day, but I think her
happiness was supreme when she fetched me later to look at the
children asleep. We stole into Betty's room together, and Nannie
shaded the candle as she held it, for me to look at what is
assuredly the loveliest thing on God's earth -- a sleeping child.
Nannie, in an eloquent silence, pointed to the chair on which lay
Betty's clean clothes, folded ready for the morning, and to her
hairy horse which she had brought for company. Her blue slippers
were beside the bed. Then we went into Hugh's room. He, too, lay
peaceful and beautiful, his clothes folded ready for the morning,
and his pistol beside him in case he was "attacked." His slippers
were red, and Nannie, at the sight of them, cried quietly. To
some happy mothers a child's slippers mean nothing more than size
two or three, and serve only to remind her how quickly children
grow out of things!
But to Nannie they brought back memories of years of happiness,
through which little feet, in just the same sort of slippers, had
pattered, stumbling here, falling there, picked up, and guided by
her. But she thought most of the little feet in just that sort of
slippers, that had stopped still forever early on their life's
journey. It is the voices that are hushed that call most
distinctly, the footsteps that stop that are most carefully
traced. It is the children who have gone that stand and beckon!
Chapter XI
Pauline's wedding-day dawned gloriously bright and beautiful. The
whole village was up and doing, very early, putting the finishing
touches to the decorations.
The widower shoemaker and his children, and the woman who washed
them -- the children, I mean -- on Saturdays, had all combined to
erect a triumphal arch of, great splendor, and the woman showed
such sensibility in the choice of mottoes, and such a nice
appreciation of the joys of matrimony, together with a decided
leaning towards the bridegroom's side of the arch, that the
shoemaker suggested that she should suit her actions to her words
-- that was how he expressed it -- and marry him, which she agreed
to do. But she afterwards explained, in breaking the news to her
friends, that they could have knocked her down with a leaf!
Whether this was due to the weakened state of her heart, or to her
precarious position on the ladder, I do not know.
Everybody and everything was in a bustle, with the exception of
Aunt Cecilia, who sat through it all as calm and as beautiful as
ever. Not that she did not feel parting with Pauline, but her
love for everybody and everything was of a nature so purely
unselfish that it never occurred to her to count the cost to
herself.
I have never met any one who so completely combines in her
character gentleness and strength as does Aunt Cecilia: so gentle
in spirit and judgment, and so strong in her fight for principles
and beliefs. If she has a weakness, and I could never wish any
one I love to be without one, it lies in her love for Patience.
She does not think it right to play in the morning, but sometimes,
being unable to withstand the temptation of so doing, she plays it
in an empty drawer of her writing-table, and if she hears any one
coming, she can close the drawer!
Her greatest interest in life, next to her husband and children,
is her garden and other people's gardens. In fact, she looks at
life generally from a gardening point of view, and is apt to
regard men as gardeners, possible gardeners, or gardeners wasted.
As gardeners they have their very distinct use, and as such
deserve every consideration, but if a man will not till the soil,
he is a cumberer thereof. She, at least, inclines that way in
thought. Life, she says, is a garden, children the flowers,
parents the gardeners. "If we treated children as we do roses,
they would be far happier. We don't call roses naughty when they
grow badly and refuse to flower as they ought to; we blame the
gardeners or the soil."
"But, Aunt Cecilia," I say, "one can recommend an unsatisfactory
gardener to a friend, but one can't so dispose of unsatisfactory
parents."
"You must educate them, dear."
Now all this sounds very convincing when said by Aunt Cecilia,
because, for one thing, she says it very charmingly, and for
another, she is still a very beautiful woman. She is too fond,
perhaps, of extinguishing her beauty under a large mushroom hat,
and is given to bending too much over herbaceous borders, and so
hiding her beautiful face. But I dare say the flowers love to
look at it, and to see mirrored in it their own loveliness.
Aunt Cecilia wears a bonnet sometimes, and thereby hangs a tale.
So few aunts wear a bonnet nowadays that the fact of one doing so
is almost worth chronicling. She doesn't wear it very often, only
at the christenings of the head gardener's babies. From a
christening point of view that is very often, but from a bonnet
point of view I suppose it might be called seldom -- once a year?
I know that bonnet well, because it has been sent to me often for
renovation. On one particular occasion it arrived in a cardboard
box. On the top of the bonnet was a bunch of flowers, beautiful
enough to make any bonnet accompanying it welcome, in whatever
state of dilapidation. Aunt Cecilia has a knack of sending just
the right sort of flowers, and they always bring a message, which
everybody's flowers don't do.
The bonnet I renovated to the best of my ability and sent it back.
In the course of a few days I received a slightly agitated note
from Aunt Cecilia. "It doesn't suit me, dearest, and after all
the trouble you have taken!"
Knowing Aunt Cecilia, I wrote back, "Did you try it on in bed with
your hair down?"
She answered by return, "Dearest, I did! It really suits me very
well now that I have tried it on in my right mind. I am going to
wear it at the last little Shrub's christening, this afternoon.
It is just in time."
When David and Diana were singled out by night for the particular
attention of a burglar, Aunt Cecilia wrote to sympathize and said,
"I am so thankful, dearest, David did not meet the poor, misguided
man!"
May we all be judged as tenderly!
This is a digression, but it perhaps explains Pauline and
Pauline's wedding, and the joy with which all the people in the
village entered into it.
The strangest people kept on arriving the morning of the wedding.
It was verily a gathering of the halt, the lame, and the blind --
all friends of Pauline's. Whenever Uncle Jim was particularly
overcome, it was sure to mean that some old soldier, officer or
otherwise, had turned up, who had served with him in some part of
the world, long before Pauline was born. Aunt Cecilia welcomed
them all in her inimitable manner, which made each one feel that
he was the one and most particularly honored guest. For all her
apparent absent-mindedness, she knew exactly who belonged to Mrs.
Bunce's department and who not.
Mrs. Bunce, the old housekeeper, was very busy, every button doing
its duty! A wedding didn't come her way every day. The sisters-
in-law, of course, came with their belongings.
Zerlina was distressed at the nature of many of the presents; and
wondered if Pauline would have enough spare rooms to put them in;
which showed how little she knew her. If Pauline had told her
that she valued the alabaster greyhound under a glass case,
subscribed for by the old men and women in the village, over
seventy, Zerlina wouldn't have believed her any more than did old
Mrs. Barker when Diana told her Sara was named after a dear old
housemaid and not after the Duchess.
Betty and Hugh were among the bridesmaids and pages, and Hugh
shocked Betty very much by saying, in the middle of the service
"When may I play with my girl?"
Some one described Uncle Jim as looking like one of the Apostles,
and Aunt Cecilia certainly looked like a saint. Ought I, by the
way, to bracket an apostle and a saint? But nothing was so
wonderful or so beautiful as the expression on Pauline's face. I
am sure that, as she walked up the aisle, she was oblivious to
everything and every one except God and Dick.
It is assuredly a great responsibility for a man to accept such a
love as hers.
A wedding is nearly always a choky thing, and Pauline's was
particularly so. As she left the church, she stopped in the
churchyard to speak to her friends, and for one old woman she
waited to let her feel her dress.
"Is it my jewels you want to feel, Anne?" she said, as the old
hands tremblingly passed over her bodice. "I have on no jewels."
The old hands went up to Pauline's face and gently and reverently
touched it. "God bless her happy face," said the old woman. "I
had to know for sure." Pauline kissed the old fingers gently. We
all knew for sure, but then we had eyes to see.
Pauline went away in the afternoon, and the villagers danced far
into the evening, and there was revelry in the park by night.
After Pauline and Dick had gone away, I walked across the park to
the post office to send a telegram to Julia, who was kept at home
by illness, to her very great disappointment. There is nothing
she adores like a wedding. I was glad to escape for a few
minutes. I wrote out the telegram and handed it to the
postmaster, who, reading it, said, I'm glad it went off so well.
"There's nobody what wouldn't wish her well." Then he counted the
words. "Julia Westby?" he said. "Um-um-um-um. Eleven, miss.
You might as well give her the title." I laughed and added, or
rather he added, the "Lady."
Julia is not a sister-in-law really, but she likes to call herself
so, since she might have been one, having been for one ecstatic
week in Archie's life engaged to him. She is wont now to lay her
hand on his head, in public, for choice, and say, "He was almost
mine." She says she still loves him as a friend. "But, you see,
dearest Betty, there is everything that is delightful in the
relationship of a poor friend, but a poor husband! That is
another thing. To begin with, it is not fair to a man that he
should have to deny his wife things. It is bad for his character
and, of course, for hers. He becomes a saint at her expense,
whereas the expense should always be borne by the husband.
William is so delightfully rich, but he is not an Archie, of
course! But then husbands are not supposed to be."
Hugh, going to bed, wondered if the angels would bring Pauline a
baby that night, a darling little baby!
And Betty said, in her great wisdom, "Oh, darling, I think it
would be too exciting for Pauline to be married and have a baby
all on one day."
Then Hugh suggested the glorious possibility of the angels
bringing it to Fullfield, whereupon Hyacinth said that was not at
all likely, because she knew that when a baby was born, it was
usual for one or other parent to be present!
We stayed for a few days at Fullfield, and Hugh and Betty enjoyed
themselves immensely. Hyacinth said it was just like staying for
a week at the pantomime, and Betty said, with a deep sigh, that it
was much nicer, a billion times nicer.
Pauline's brother Jack most nearly resembled any one in a
pantomime, and the children loved him. One day at lunch he went
to the side-table to fetch a potato in its jacket, and coming back
he laid it on Uncle Jim's slightly bald head and said, "Am I
feverish, father?"
"It Good Heavens, my boy!" exclaimed Uncle Jim; "you must be in an
awful state!"
After that, the eyes of the children never left Jack during any
meal at which they happened to be present, and whenever he got up
to fetch anything, Hugh began dancing with joy and saying in a
loud whisper, "He's going to do something funny"; and if Jack
remained silent, Hugh was sure he was thinking of something to do.
It is difficult to live up to those expectations.
One morning at breakfast Hugh said suddenly, "Aunt Woggles, have
you got a mole?"
I said I believed I had.
"It's frightfully lucky. I have," he said, pulling up his sleeve
and disclosing a mole on his very white little arm. "It is
lucky."
"I've got one too," said Betty, diving under the table.
"All right, darling," I said, "you needn't show us."
"I couldn't, Aunt Woggles, at least not now. If you come to see
me in my bath, you can; but it's truthfully there."
I said I was sure it was.
"I 'spect she's sitting on it," said Hugh in aloud whisper;
"that's why."
"We asked Mr. Hardy once if he had a mole, and he got redder and
redder;" we asked him at lunch, said Betty.
"He got redder and redder," said Hugh, by way of corroboration.
"Mother said moles weren't good things to ask people about, so we
asked him if he had any little children, and he hadn't; then we
didn't know what to ask."
"We only asked about moles because we wanted him to be lucky,"
said kindhearted Betty.
"Last time I went to the Zoo," said Hugh, "I gave all my bread to
one animal. He was a lucky animal, wasn't he?"
It was the hippopotamus, I think; he was lucky."
"Perhaps he has a mole, Hugh," I said.
We'll look, said Hugh. "I 'spect he has."
The proverbial difficulty of finding a needle in a haystack seemed
child's play compared to that of finding a mole on a hippopotamus.
Chapter XII
Another aunt, Anna by name, suggested that as I was at Fullfield,
I might take the opportunity of paying her a visit at Manwell, why
because I was at Fullfield I don't know, as they are miles apart,
counties apart I should say. However, I went because it is
difficult to refuse Aunt Anna anything; she accepts no excuses.
It is as well for any one who wishes to see Aunt Anna at her best
to see her in her own home. She, according to Aunt Cecilia, does
best in her own soil. Moreover, she is nothing without her
family, it so thoroughly justifies her existence.
Aunt Anna is one of those jewels who owe a certain amount to their
setting.
Her husband calls her a jewel, and as such she is known by the
family in general which recalls to my mind an interesting biennial
custom which was said to hold good in the Manwell family. Every
time a lesser jewel made its appearance, the mother-jewel was
presented with a diamond and ruby ornament of varying
magnificence, with the words "The price of a good woman is far
above rubies" conveniently inscribed thereon.
Aunt Anna took it all very seriously, from the tiara downward, and
if diamond and ruby shoe-buckles had not involved twins, I think
she would have hankered after those, but even as it was, she came
in time to possess a very remarkable collection of rubies and
diamonds.
Aunt Anna is very prosperous, very happy, very rich, and very
contented.
She prides herself on none of these things, but only on the
unprejudiced state of her maternal mind.
"Of course," she says, "I cannot help seeing that my children are
more beautiful than other people's. It would be ludicrously
affected and hypocritical of me if I pretended otherwise. If they
were plain, I should be the first to see it, and --"
I think she was going to add "say it," but she stopped short; she
invariably does at a deliberate lie, because she is a very
truthful woman, and thinks a lie is a wicked thing unless socially
a necessity.
I arrived at tea-time which is a thing Aunt Anna expects of her
guests. I noticed that she looked a little less contented than
usual, and that she even gave way to a gesture of impatience when
Mrs. Blankley asked for a fifth cup of tea. Mrs. Blankley is a
great advocate of temperance. In connection with which, Aunt Anna
once said that she thought there should be temperance in all
things beginning with "t." Which vague saying, as illustrative of
her wit, was treasured up by her indulgent husband and quoted "As
Anna so funnily said."
Now as Aunt Anna, we know, never says witty things unless under
strong provocation, she rarely says them, for she is of an
amazingly even temperament. She often says she considers
cleverness a very dangerous gift. It is not one I seek for either
myself or my children. It is so easy to say clever, unkind
things. Every one can do it if they choose; the difficulty is not
to say them.
It is evident that Aunt Anna chooses the harder part.
Mrs. Blankley, having disposed of the fifth cup of tea, expressed
a desire to see the pigs. Aunt Anna never goes to see pigs, nor
demands that sacrifice of Londoners, for which act of
consideration I honor her; not but what I am fond of pigs, black
ones and small. Aunt Anna knows that there are such things
because of the continual presence of bacon in her midst. She also
knows that pigs are things that get prizes. She still clings to
her childish belief that streaky bacon comes from feeding the pigs
one day and not the next.
Every one, like Mrs. Blankley, had a thirst to see something, and
I was left alone with Aunt Anna, to discuss Pauline's wedding. As
a rule, there is nothing Aunt Anna would sooner discuss, but I saw
that something was worrying her, and I guessed that the
unburdening of a rarely perturbed mind was imminent. It was.
"Is anything wrong? -- I asked. "Any of the children worrying
you? She nodded and pointed to a diamond and ruby brooch and said
plaintively. "This one, Claud, just a little worrying."
I tried to hide a smile. "Oh, that's Claud, is it? I get a little
mixed."
"I dare say, dear," she said; "but it's quite simple, really.
Jack was the tiara, and so on."
"What has Claud been doing?" I asked. "Oh, nothing he can help, I
feel sure. He has a temperament, I believe. What it is I don't
quite know; people grow out of it, I am told. It's not so much
doing things as saying them; and his friends are odd, decidedly
odd. They wear curious ties, have disheveled hair, and are
distinctly décolleté. I don't know if I should apply the word to
men, but they are."
I suggested that these little indiscretions on the part of extreme
youth need not worry her. But she said they did, in a way,
because her other children were so very plain sailing. They never
took any one by surprise. She then told me of poor Lady Adelaide,
a near neighbor, at least as near as it was possible for any
neighbor to be, considering the extent of the Manwell property,
one of whose boys had written a book without her knowledge, and
the other had married under exactly similar conditions.
I said I thought the writing of a book a minor offense compared to
the matrimonial venture. She agreed, but said they were both
upsetting because unexpected. As an instance, did I remember when
Lady Victoria was butted by her pet lamb, when she was showing the
Prince her white farm? It wasn't the upsetting she minded, so
much as the unexpectedness of it, because the lamb had a blue
ribbon round its neck!
"A black sheep in a white farm, Aunt Anna!" I said.
"No, dear, it was white, and it was a lamb."
But to return to Lady Adelaide. Now that Aunt Anna came to think
of it, the marriage was the better of the two shocks, because
financially it was a success, and the book wasn't. "Books
aren't," She added.
"Is that all Claud does, or, rather, his friends do?" I asked.
"No, it's not," she said. "Ever since he went to Oxford he has
changed completely. He has got into his head that we are a self-
centered family, and that I am a prejudiced mother, when it is the
only thing I am not. I may be everything else for all I know, I
may be daily breaking all the commandments without knowing it!
But a prejudiced mother I am not! Before he went to Oxford he
came into my bedroom one morning, and he said that he thought
Maud and Edith were quite the most beautiful girls he had ever
seen, and he had sat behind some famous beauty in a theatre a few
nights before. I didn't ask him! I was suffering from neuralgia
at the time, I remember, and he might, under the circumstances,
have agreed just to soothe me, but he said it of his own accord,
and he wondered if they would go up to London and walk down Bond
Street with him. I said it should be arranged. They walked with
him three times up and down Bond Street; he only asked for once.
I am only telling you this because you will then realize what this
change in him means to me. He came back from Oxford after one
term and he said nothing about the girls' beauty, although I
thought them improved. I didn't say so; I made some little joke
about Bond Street, which he pretended not to understand. So I
just said I thought the girls improved, or rather were looking
very pretty, and he said, "My dear mother, we must learn to look
at these things from the point of view of the outsider. Place
yourself in the position of a man of the world seeing them for the
first time."
To begin with, Aunt Anna proceeded to explain, she could never
place herself in a position to which she was not born; she did not
think it right. She said that Claud then urged her to look at it
from stranger's point of view, since that of man of the world was
impracticable, which Aunt Anna said was a thing no mother could
do, nor would she wish to do it. She left such things to
actresses. Talking of actresses reminded her that Claud had even
found fault with Maud as an actress, when every one knew how very
excellent she was. Several newspapers, the Southshire Herald in
particular, had alluded to her as one of our most talented
actresses.
"We had a professional down to coach her, and he said there was
really nothing he could teach her. He was a very nice man, and
had all his meals with us. I went," continued Aunt Anna, "to see
the great French actress who was in London in the spring, you
remember? And if ever a mother went with an unprejudiced mind, I
was that mother. I was prepared to think she was better than
Maud, and if she had been, I should have been the first to say it.
But she was not, at least not to my mind! Maud is always a lady,
even on the stage, and that woman was not."
I ventured to suggest that she was perhaps not supposed to be a
lady in the part. Aunt Anna said, "Perhaps not, but that does not
matter; Maud would be a lady under any circumstances, whatever
character she impersonated, laundress or lady. Claud says she
will never act till she learns to forget herself I trust one of my
daughters will never do that!"
I strove to pacify Aunt Anna, but her tender heart was wounded and
she was hard to comfort.
"Claud must admire Edith's violin playing," I ventured.
Aunt Anna shook her head. "He begged me to eliminate from my mind
all preconceived notions and to judge her from the unprejudiced
point of view. I told Edith to put away her violin. Claud says I
must call it a fiddle. I could not bear to see it. I never
thought there could be such dissension in our united family."
By way of distraction, I asked if the young man at tea with the
disheveled hair and startlingly unorthodox tie was a friend of
Claud's, and she said, "His greatest!"
At that moment Claud came into the room, wearing a less earnest
expression than usual and Aunt Anna held out a hand of
forgiveness. He warmly clasped it. "Mother," he said,
"Windlehurst has just told me, in strict confidence, that he
considers Maud's the most beautiful face he has ever seen, except,
of course, in the best period of ancient Greek art. I knew you
wanted to hear the unprejudiced opinion of an unbiased outsider."
I wondered how Windlehurst would like the description! Claud went
on: "I think Edith every bit as good looking, more so in some
ways. Now that I have heard an unprejudiced opinion I can express
mine, which you have known all along. You see, mother, people say
we are a self-centered and egotistical family. I have proved that
we are not."
"Dear, dearest Claud, your tie is disarranged," murmured his
mother, struggling to reduce it to the dimensions of the orthodox
sailor knot. "Do wait and listen to all dear Betty is telling me
of dearest Pauline's wedding. So interesting. Go on, dear Betty;
where had we got to?"
Chapter XIII
My correspondence regarding my summer plans was varied, and the
suggestions contained therein numerous. Here are some of the
letters.
Diana's:
Darling Betty, -- What do you say to the Cornish coast, coves,
cream, and children! As much of the coast and cream, and as
little of the children as you like! David has a bachelor shoot in
view, and I think sea air would do the children good. I do not
propose leaving any nurses at home, or sending them away; they
shall all come and run after Sara should she get into the sea,
when she ought not to, but you and I will have the joy of watching
her. She really is delicious paddling. Think of the rocks, and
the coves, and the sands, and not of the wind or of other
disadvantages that may strike you. As much as you like you shall
read, and whatever you like, so long as you will, at intervals,
look up and smile at me. I shall love to feel you are there, so
do come, not as a professional aunt, as you sometimes describe
yourself, but as your own dear self.
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