Books: The Professional Aunt
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Mary C.E. Wemyss >> The Professional Aunt
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Your loving
DIANA
Zerlina's:
Dearest Betty, -- I know how difficult you are to find disengaged,
but do try and come to Cornwall with us. The children would love
to have you, and I know you enjoy tearing about after them on the
sands! Nurse must go home for her holiday, and the nursery-maid
is so useless. But you shall do exactly as you like. I know you
wouldn't mind if I left you for a day or two. Jim is so keen that
I should go to the Cross-Patches, being in the neighborhood, more
or less. Do write and say you will come. I do get such headaches
at the seaside, and I look so awful when I get sun burnt, but it
suits you.
Yours,
ZERLINA
Julia's:
Betty dear, -- You have simply got to come. Diana tells me she is
asking you to Cornwall, and that, I know, you will not refuse,
because for some extraordinary reason you can't refuse her
anything. Oh! for Diana's charm for one day a week! What
wouldn't I do! That woman wastes her life; I've always said so.
But go to Cornwall, blazes, or anywhere you like, but come here on
your way back -- everywhere is on the way back from Cornwall.
Because the house is to be full of William's friends and he is
never perfectly at ease unless there is a bishop among them, and a
bishop drives me to desperate deeds of wickedness. They always
like me! Betty, in your capacity of professional something, think
of me. I want helping more than any one. I don't ask you to give
up Cornwall, but afterwards, don't disappoint your
JULIA.
A girl's:
Dear Miss Lisle, -- I wonder if you will remember me. I am almost
afraid to hope so. But I met you last summer at the Anstells'
garden-party, and you passed me an ice, vanilla and strawberry
mixed! I have never forgotten it. It was not so much passing the
ice, lots of people did that, as the way you did it. I was very
unhappy at the time, and there was something in your expression as
you did it that made me feel you were unlike any one else I had
ever met. I wore green muslin!
I am wondering whether you would come to Cornwall, to stay with
us. The coast is lovely, and in its wildness one can forget one's
self, and that, I think, is what one most wants to do! I know
what a help you would be to me, if you could come, and I will tell
you all my troubles when we have been together some days. One
gets to know people by the sea very quickly, I think, don't you?
Although I feel as if I had known you all my life. My hat was
brown, mushroom.
Your sincere friend and admirer,
VERONICA VOKINS
P. S. -- I forgot to say that my father and mother will be
delighted to see you. I have ten brothers and sisters, but there
is miles of coast, and I and my five sisters have a sitting-room
all to ourselves. Father says "he" must pass his examinations
first. I tell you this because you will then understand. "He"
won the obstacle race at the Anstells', but he was in a sack, so I
expect you did not notice him!
The big, sad Thomas:
Dear Miss Lisle, -- For months, in fact since the day you restored
the screw to my small son, I have been trying to write to you on a
subject that may or may not be distasteful to you. That it will
come as a surprise I feel sure. My love for my boy must be my
excuse; nothing else could justify my writing to any woman as I am
about to write to you. Will you be a mother to my Thomas? It
would not be honest on my part to pretend that I can offer you in
myself anything but a very sad and lonely man, the best of me
having gone. No one could ever, -- or shall ever, take the place
of my beloved wife in my heart, the remains of which I offer
unreservedly to you. For the sake of my boy I am prepared to
sacrifice myself, and I can at least promise you that you shall
never regret by any action of mine whatever sacrifice it may
entail on your part. I shall not insult you by the mention of
money matters or any such things, for I feel sure that the fact of
my being a rich man will make no difference in your decision as to
whether or no you will be a mother to my Thomas.
Yours very sincerely,
THOMAS GLYNNE
Lady Glenburnie's:
Dear Betty, -- If you should be in the North, -- and why not make
a certainty of it? -- don't forget us! A line to say when and
where to meet you is all we want, and you will find the warmest of
welcomes awaiting you, and your own favorite room in the turret.
Don't mention nephews or nieces in answering this.
Your affectionate
MARY GLENBURNIE
Brother Archie's:
Angel Betty, -- Help a brother in distress. I'm desperately in
love. First of all, -- how long do you suppose it will last?
Forever, I think. But I can't live at this pitch for long, and my
summer plans depend on it. She is lovely. Makes me long to sing
hymns on Sunday evenings; you know the kind of thing --feeling, I
should say! She's like Pauline, only more beautiful, I think. I
will tell you all about it when we meet. There are complications.
My first trouble is this: I have taken a small place in Skye with
Coningsby. Now it is perfectly impossible to live with Con when
one is in love; of all the unsympathetic, dried-up old crabs, he
is the worst. Now the question is, can I buy him out? Have you
to stay instead, ask my beloved too, save her from drowning, which
in Skye should be easy, and then live happily ever afterwards. I
am consumed with a desire to save her from something. It is a
symptom, I know, but, Betty dear, it is serious this time. Her
eyes look as if they saw into another world, which makes me feel
hopeless! I don't mind you hinting something about it to Julia,
if you should see her. You needn't enter into details!
Yours ever,
ARCHIE
Of all the letters, Diana's was the most tempting.
Zerlina's had no power to lure. Dear Archie's little -- he had so
often written the same -- sort of letters. Veronica Vokins' less,
and the sad, big Thomas! What a curious letter! I hardly knew
whether to laugh or to cry. How careful he was to point out the
sacrifice on his part entailed in his offer. It was hardly
flattering to me, except that he refrained from mentioning his
worldly goods, or the advantages to me accruing from the bestowal
thereof. I had at least looked unworldly when I had visited the
small Thomas in bed; of that I was glad. And, after all, why
should I mind? It is something, perhaps, to be asked to be a
mother to a small fat Thomas. I wrote, refusing as kindly as I
could. I dare say there are women who would accept the position.
Let us hope, if one be found to do so, that she will not forget
the mother part!
Dear Lady Glenburnie's letter had something of temptation lurking
in it somewhere. The turret room, commanding its views of purple
hills and sunsets, and the warmest of welcomes! But, again, the
most aching of memories. I could not go there again under
circumstances so different. If ever it could be again as it had
been, how I should love it! So that invitation I declined, saying
I should be in Cornwall with Diana. Lady Glenburnie would forgive
the mention of Diana, I knew, and of Betty, Hugh, and Sara I said
nothing, as she had stipulated.
Then I wrote to Julia saying I would go to her after I had been to
Cornwall. She might need consoling by then, should Archie have
proved himself recovered of the wounds inflicted by her. This I
did not tell her. If I waited a little, there might be nothing to
tell.
Chapter XIV
So to Cornwall I went, and found the sands and the coves and the
rocks and the sea, just as Diana had said, nor was I disappointed
in the back view of Sara with her petticoats tucked into her
bathing-drawers. It was divine. She was delicious, too,
paddling, and there were enough nurses to prevent her doing more,
if necessary, and Diana and I could, if we liked, lie on the sands
and watch the children. But it so happens that I love building
castles and making puddings, and, curiously enough, Diana does
too, and we were children once more with perhaps less hinge in our
backs than formerly, but still we enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Betty, the first day, full of faith, tried to walk on the sea, and
was pulled out very wet and disappointed, and her faith a little
shaken, perhaps, for the moment. Hugh told her she didn't have
faith hard enough. "You must go like this," and he held his
breath, threatening to become purple in the face.
"Could you now?" said Betty wistfully, when Hugh was at his
reddest.
"No!" he said, "because I burst. Aunt Woggles looked at me when I
was just believing very hard."
Betty forgot that trouble in her infinite delight at discovering
where Heaven really was. She knew if she could just row out to
the silver pathway across the sea, it would lead straight to
Heaven. "I know it would," she said.
Hugh objected because Heaven was in the sky, that he knew! Betty
said how did he know?
"Well, look," said Hugh; "you can see it's all bright and blue and
shining, and angels fly, and you can't fly on the sea, so that
shows."
Betty wasn't sure of that because of flying-fish; she'd seen them
in a book where "F" was for flying-fish, so she knew. But Hugh
knew that angels weren't fish, because fish is good to eat and
angels aren't. I was glad the culinary knowledge of Hugh and
Betty didn't extend to "angels on horseback," or where should we
have been in the abysses of argument?
We made expeditions which, as expeditions, were not a success.
Sara objected to leaving the object of her passing affections, a
starfish perhaps, and Hugh and Betty also always found treasures
of their very own, which they must just watch for just a little
time, in case they did something exciting. These things hinder!
But still we did sometimes reach another cove, and one day, in a
very secluded one, I caught sight of a pair of lovers. One can
tell the most discreet of them at a glance, and more than a glance
I should never have given this pair had not the girl, so much of
her as I could see under a brown mushroom hat, been very pretty.
Her dress too was green muslin, which was in itself compelling,
and the boy with her, I felt sure, had passed no examinations.
And yet they were deliriously happy, that I could tell. So the
father wasn't so cruel, after all, and I doubted whether I should
have been the comfort to Veronica that she had anticipated. In
fact, I could easily imagine how greatly in the way I should have
been. Poor professional friend! That I had at least been spared
from becoming.
Veronica, no less than Betty, had discovered where Heaven really
was, and the boy had a clearer definition of angels than Hugh.
Hugh was right so far -- they were in no way related to, or bore
any resemblance to, fish. They were angels pure and simple, and
the most beautiful of them, the most enchanting of them, wore a
green muslin and a brown mushroom hat.
If I had been that young man, I should have objected to the
dimensions of that hat, but he didn't, I suppose. Not having
passed his examinations may have made a difference. He would
later on, no doubt. It is a pity, perhaps, that men have to pass
examinations; it robs them of much of their simplicity.
Chapter XV
Zerlina discovered, to her immense surprise, that she was near
enough to bring all her party to play with ours, and it was
arranged that she should do so on the first fine day.
It so happened that all the days were fine, so every day Diana and
I watched for the small cloud in the distance that should herald
their approach, and one day it appeared, no bigger than a man's
hand. When it came nearer it was considerably bigger, and it
finally assumed the dimensions of Zerlina, Hyacinth, the twins,
Teddy, and a small nursery-maid. Betty was immensely delighted
with the twins, her one ambition in life being to have twins of
her own. Failing that, and every birthday only brought fresh
disappointment in its wake, the care of somebody else's was the
next best thing.
They really were delicious people, so round and so solemn. Hugh,
for the moment, was engrossed in Teddy; Teddy having, among other
things, a knife with "things in it," most of which he was
mercifully unable to open. It was the certainty of being able to
do so on the part of Hugh, which made him so deliriously busy.
Sara was out of it, having no one as yet to play with, and she was
proud and disdainful in consequence. I knew that Betty would
shortly have one twin to spare, perhaps two, but this Sara could
not guess, knowing nothing of twins.
"Now, Sara," I said, "we will build a castle all for our very own
selves."
"Our velly, velly own selves," said Sara, hugging her spade with
ecstasy. "A velly, velly big castle."
"Very, very big," I replied.
"A bemormous castle?"
"An enormous castle," I said, starting to dig the foundations.
"Dat's a velly, velly vitty hole," said Sara.
"It's going to be a castle, darling."
"For Yaya to live in?"
"Perhaps."
And Nannie and Aunt Woggles and Hugh and Betty and muvver?"
Sara danced with joy at the prospect, and Sara dancing in bathing-
drawers was distracting. I dug industriously, however, and it was
very hot. Sara looked on, occasionally watering the castle and me
too.
"Not too much water, darling," I said, "because it makes Aunt
Woggles so wet."
Sara subsided for the moment. "Is it a velly big castle?" she
asked every now and then with evident anxiety.
"It's going to be, darling," I said.
"It's a velly, velly small castle now," she said sadly.
I dug harder and harder, and it seemed to me that the castle was
becoming quite a respectable size, but Sara's interest had
flagged.
"Aunt Woggles," she said.
"Yes, darling," I answered.
"Sall we dig a velly, velly deep hole, velly, velly deep, for all
ve cwabs, and all ve vitty fish, and Nannie and Aunt Woggles?"
"A very big hole," I said; "but look at the lovely castle!"
"Yaya doesn't yike 'ollid ole castles," she said.
I began to dig a hole. One does these things, I find, for the
Saras of this world, and Sara was for the moment enchanted, but it
didn't last long.
"Yaya's so sirsty," she said. "Yaya wants a 'ponge cake."
"I think you would rather have some milk, darling," I said.
"Yaya's so sirsty," she said in a very sad voice. "Yaya would
yike a 'ponge cake!"
"Very well, darling; but don't you want to dig any more?"
"No," she said. "Yaya doesn't yike digging."
Now was that fair? -- digging, indeed, when it was the poor aunt
who had been digging all the time. When I told Diana of this she
shook her head and said, -- Betty, it frightens me. Do you think
Sara will grow up that sort of woman?"
"What sort of woman?"
"Like Polly in Charles Dudley Warner's 'My Summer in a Garden.'
You remember when the husband says, 'Polly, do you know who
planted that squash, or those squashes?'"
"'James, I suppose.'
"Well, yes, perhaps James did plant them, to a certain extent.
But who hoed them?'
"We did.'"
"Well, it seems to me," I said, "that she was rather a delightful
person."
"In a book, absolutely delightful. I am only thinking of Sara's
husband, poor man! You see Polly's husband was an American, and
that makes all the difference. You remember I told you of a man I
met who in decorating his house wanted to have red walls as a
background to his beautiful pictures, and his wife wanted to have
green. I asked him what he did, and he said he made a compromise.
I said how clever of him, how did he do it? and he said, 'We had
green!' You see, Betty, what an American husband means!"
"Well, to return to Sara's, you need not worry. I think he will,
in all probability, be in such raptures over the possession of
anything so delicious as Sara promises to be, that he will
overlook these little pluralities on her part."
"Yes, Betty, of course; but does that sort of thing last?"
"You ought to know, to a certain extent."
"Ah! but then David is such a dear."
"I think it is quite likely that Sara will find a dear too."
"I hope so, oh! how I hope so!" said Diana. "I often wonder what
it must be to find you have given your daughter to some one who is
unkind to her. I can hardly imagine so great a sorrow! I dare
not even think of David the day Betty marries. He says he thinks
it must be worse for a father than a mother."
"I wonder," I said. "I think a mother perhaps has a greater
belief in the goodness of men; a woman, a happy woman certainly,
has so little knowledge of men, other than her own."
"Yes," said Diana, "a good father and a good husband give one a
very deep rooted faith and belief in the goodness of mankind
generally. How we are prosing, Betty!"
Zerlina meanwhile sat on a rock, of the hardness of which she
complained. She found fault with our cove, the sun was too hot
and the wind was too strong. But then she had driven ten miles in
a wagonette under Teddy and the twins, so it was no wonder she
grumbled a little.
"I can't think," she said plaintively, "why my hair doesn't look
nice when it blows about in the wind, and I hate myself sun burnt.
I can't bear seeing my nose wherever I look. You and Betty are
the stuff martyrs are made of. It would be comparatively easy to
walk to the stake if you had the right amount of hair hanging down
behind; without it, no amount of religious conviction would avail.
Oh dear, I used to have such lots, before I had measles! I hardly
knew what to do with it!"
"That's rather what we find with Betty's," said Diana; "we plait
it up as tight as we can, don't we, darling?" she said, re-tying
the ribbon which secured Betty's very thick pigtail.
"I had twice as much as Betty, at her age, I'm sure," said
Zerlina, forgetting a photograph which stands on Jim's dressing-
table, of a small fat girl with very little hair and that rather
scraggy. But what does it matter? These are the sort of
traditions women cling to.
Someone suggested building a steamship in the sand, grown-ups,
children, and all, and Hugh was told to go and make a second-class
berth. He retired to a short distance, and no sound coming from
his direction, we looked round and saw him in ecstatic raptures,
rocking himself backward and forward.
"What are you doing, Hugh? " we said.
"Well," said Hugh, "I was told to make a second-class berth. I
suppose that means twins, and I 'm nursing them."
Zerlina took it quite well, and was easily persuaded that there
was no insult intended to her twins in particular.
A few minutes later Sara appeared, triumphant, having apparently
found a small child to play with.
"Who is your little friend, Sara?" I asked.
She shook her head. She didn't know, but he was delicious to play
with for all that, and she bore him off in triumph.
He was not long unsought, for a young girl came anxiously towards
us and said, "Have you seen a little boy?"
It reminded me a little of the story, the other way round, of a
lost boy who asked a man, "Please, sir, have you seen a man
without a little boy, because if you have, I'm the little boy."
She looked as anxious and as distraught as that little boy must
have looked, I am sure.
"I think," said Diana, "you will find him behind that rock. --
Sara," called Diana, "bring the little boy here."
A small portion of Sara's person appeared round the rock: --
"We're velly busy," she said.
So rapidly do women make friendships!
"He's quite safe," said Diana; "your little brother, I suppose?"
The girl blushed. "No, I'm his mother," she said.
She looked so young and so pretty, and her hair must have moved
Zerlina to tears, it was so beautiful, and grew so prettily on her
forehead. But she looked too young to be searching for lost
babies all by herself.
"How old is he?" asked Diana.
"He's three," she said; then added, "his father never saw him; he
went to the war soon after we were married, and he was killed.
Baby is just like him," and she unfastened a miniature she wore on
a chain round her neck and handed it to Diana.
I am sure Diana saw nothing but a blur, but she managed to say,
"You must be glad! Come and see my little girl, she is very much
the same age."
"What an extraordinarily communicative person!" said Zerlina as
they walked off. "Just imagine telling strangers the whole of
your history like that. I wonder if her husband left her well
off."
"Can't you see he did?" I said.
"No; I don't think she is very well dressed, but you never can
tell with that picturesque style of dressing. It may or may not
be expensive; even that old embroidery only means probably that
she had a grandmother. It is a terrible thing for a girl of that
age to be left with a boy to bring up. I know, Betty, just what
you are thinking -- cold, heartless, mercenary Zerlina! But I'm
practical."
When Diana came back, I could see in her face that she knew all
about the poor little widow. It is wonderful what a comfort it
seems to be even to strangers to confide in Diana. For one thing
I feel sure they know that she won't tell, and that makes all the
difference. It is a relief sometimes to tell some one, although
some things can be better borne when nobody knows. But I imagine
there was little bitterness in the sorrow of this girl widow. She
too had learned something from Diana, for she turned to me and
said, "Are you a relation of Captain Lisle?"
"If his name is Archie," I said, "I am his sister."
"I've met him," and she blushed.
This, then, was the girl Archie longed to save from drowning, and
who inspired him with a desire to sing hymns on Sunday evenings.
Dear old Archie! I could imagine his tender, susceptible heart
going out to the little widow. But I said to myself, "It's no
good, Archie dear, not yet at all events, not while she looks as
she does over the sea," for I was sure it was far away in a grave
on the lonely veldt that her heart was buried.
"He is so devoted to children, isn't he?" she said. "He was so
good to my baby. I find that men are so extraordinarily fond of
children. I am afraid they will spoil him."
Whereupon the baby burst into a long dissertation on a present he
had lately received. It sounded something like this: --
"Mormousman give boy a yockerile an a epelan, anye yockerile yanan
yan all over de jurnmer yunder de hoha an eberelyyare."
He then proceeded to turn bead over heels, or try to, and was
sharply rebuked by Sara, who rearranged his garments with stern
severity, and then was about to show him the right method, when
she in turn was stopped by Nannie.
One of the twins arrived at this moment to say that Hugh had
called him bad names. Betty the peacemaker explained that Hugh
had called him a wicket keeper, and the twin had thought he bad
called him a wicked keeper. So that was all right. We suggested
that, in any case, the twin wasn't the best person to be wicket
keeper. But he went in twice running to make up, and Hugh gave
him several puddings as well. "Puddings," the nursery-maid
explained, were first balls, and didn't count.
"Betty," I said, "you've got a hole in your stocking!"
"I hope it 's not a Jacob's ladder," said Betty.
"Hush, darling, hush," said Hugh; "you know we mustn't be
irreverent!"
It was during an interval when we rested and drank milk and ate
cake, those of us who would or could, that we discovered that the
little widow was staying with a very old friend of my father's and
mother's.
"And where does Lady Mary live?" asked Diana.
"Just over there. Do come and see her; she will be so delighted
to see you and to show you the garden, which is quite famous."
Chapter XVI
The following day Diana got a delightful letter from Lady Mary
asking us to go to luncheon, or to tea, or to both, or whatever we
liked best, so long as it was at once, and that we stayed a long
time, and brought all the children. She offered to send for us,
but going in a donkey-cart was a stipulation on the part of the
children, otherwise they could not or would not tear themselves
away from the sand and all its fascinations. Sara was
particularly offended at having to get out to tea, and more so at
not being allowed to go in her bathing-drawers. But a mushroom hat
trimmed with daisies appeased her, and even at that early age she
saw the incongruity of that hat and those nether garments. They
were packed, Hugh, Betty, Sara, and the nursery-maid, into the
donkey-cart. Betty was supposed to drive, but Hugh and Sara had
so large a share in the stage direction of that donkey, that I
wonder we ever arrived. We did. Our approach was not dignified.
The donkey would eat the lawn at the critical moment, and neither
the stern rebukes of Sara, nor the gentle persuasion of Betty, had
any effect; neither, to tell the truth, had the chastisements of
Hugh. Of Diana's efforts and mine it is unnecessary to speak;
they only made us very hot. As to Nannie, she said she would
rather have ten children to deal with.
There were horribly tidy and beautifully dressed people walking
about on the lawn, people who had never, I felt sure, been called
upon to speak unkindly to a donkey. It was a little tactless of
them, I thought, in view of our flushed cheeks, to appear so calm
and cool, but they were quite kind, and I noticed that Diana as
usual held a little court of her own, not entirely as the mother
of Sara, either. Hugh and Betty too made friends, and hearing
shouts of laughter coming from Hugh's audience, I went, aunt-like,
to see what was happening, and I heard Hugh saying: --
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