Aunt Emily

“ Suddenly Emily, with tears glistening on her cheeks, wrote a line in an imaginary account book.
“Aunt Elizabeth is cold and hawty; and she is not fair.”
Next morning, while Cousin Jimmy was tying the boxes at the back of the double-seated buggy, and Aunt Elizabeth was giving Ellen her final instructions, Emily said good-bye to everything—to the Rooster Pine and Adam-and-Eve—“they’ll miss me so when I’m gone; there won’t be any one here to love them,” she said wistfully—to the spider crack in the kitchen window—to the old wing-chair—to the bed of striped grass—to the silver birch-ladies. ”

“ Great-Aunt Nancy and Caroline Priest were wont to colour their grey days with the remembered crimsons of old, long-past delights and merry-makings, but they went further than this and talked over any number of old family histories before Emily with a total disregard of her youth. Loves, births, deaths, scandals, tragedies—anything that came into their old heads. ”

“ In her innocent love of mystery and intrigue Aunt Emily reminds one of Stevenson. She would have played at "lantern bearers" with him, and given the stealthy countersign under her breath, as no other living urchin!
She was "eternally preoccupied with death" as any of Pater's giant Florentines, but though the supernatural had the supreme hold on her imagination and conjecture, every lesser mystery was a panic and an ecstasy. If she could contrive to outwit domestic vigilance and smuggle a box of fresh-laid eggs to my Mother, on the sly, it savored to her of piracy and brigandage. ”

“ Pictures and epitaphs are never to be trusted. Where’s your bang gone, Emily?”
“Aunt Elizabeth combed it back.”
“Well, you comb it down again while you’re in my house. There’s something of your Grandfather Murray about your eye-brows. Your grandfather was a handsome man—and a darned bad-tempered one—almost as bad-tempered at the Priests,—hey, Caroline?”
“If you please, Great-Aunt Nancy,” said Emily deliberately, “I don’t like to be told I look like other people. I look just like myself.” ”

“ Nobody who was loved as much as he was could be a failure. I don’t believe anybody ever loved you. So it’s you that’s a failure. And I’m not going to die of consumption.”
“Do you realize what a shameful thing you’ve been guilty of?” demanded Aunt Ruth, cold with anger.
“I wanted to hear what was going to become of me,” cried Emily. “I didn’t know it was such a dreadful thing to do—I didn’t know you were going to say such horrid things about me.”
“Listeners never hear any good of themselves,” said Aunt Elizabeth impressively. “Your mother would never have done that, Emily.” ”

“ Aunt Laura did not say that she had tiptoed several times to the spare-room door and had been racked with anxiety over the silence behind it. Was the child from fright? Not even while the thunderstorm was going on would relentless Elizabeth allow that door to be opened. And here was Miss Emily walking unconcernedly in out of the twilight after all this agony. For a moment even Aunt Laura was annoyed. But when she heard Emily’s tale her only feeling was thankfulness that Juliet’s child had not broken her neck on that rotten ladder.
Emily felt that she had got off better than she deserved. ”

“ The memory of this moment would always be with Emily—she could never forget that she had knelt in abasement. Emily felt this as clearly as Miss Brownell did and remained stubbornly on her feet.
“Aunt Elizabeth, please let me tell my side of the story,” she pleaded.
“I have heard all I wish to hear of the matter. You will do as I say, Emily, or you will be outcast in this house until you do. No one will talk to you—play with you—eat with you—have anything to do with you until you have obeyed me.” ”

“ She adored us, her three Child-Lovers, talked to us as if we were grown up and our opinions of importance, our secrets portentous, though always keeping herself our playmate with such art that she remains in my memory as a little girl herself. Once, when my brother Ned, as a child, stood looking up at the evening star, he said wistfully, "I want to go up there. Aunt Emily." "All right," she cried, "Go get your horse and buggy and we'll go tonight!" Often quoting afterward his grave rebuke of her levity—"Aunt Emily,—you can't go up there in a horse and buggy!" ”

“ Sleeping with Aunt Elizabeth seemed a very formidable thing. But she dared not protest. They went up to Aunt Elizabeth’s big, sombre bedroom where there was dark, grim wallpaper that could never be transformed into a fairy curtain, a high black bureau, topped with a tiny swing-mirror, so far above her that there could be no Emily-in-the-glass, tightly closed windows with dark-green curtains, a high bedstead with a dark-green canopy, and a huge, fat, smothering feather-bed, with high, hard pillows. ”

“ I hit twice as hard as the attacker if possible. If Aunt Emily were here, I should say I give a dickens of a smack; but as she isn't, it is not worth while." She came forward with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. "Poor dear Aunt Emily! I sometimes have her conscience very much on my mind; but there ... I can bear it." And her comical enunciation in the poor lady's exact tones set both Meryl and van Hert off laughing. ”

“ Face and head disappeared in a flash, leaving Miss Brownell staring foolishly at the ceiling.
“You have been behaving disgracefully in school,” said Aunt Elizabeth, who had not seen this by-play. “I am ashamed of you.”
“It was not as bad as that, Aunt Elizabeth,” said Emily steadily. “You see it was this way—”
“I don’t want to hear anything more about it,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
“But you must,” cried Emily. “It isn’t fair to listen only to her side. I was a little bad—but not so bad as she says—”
“Not another word! I have heard the whole story,” said Aunt Elizabeth grimly. ”

“ I guess I must obey Aunt Elizabeth because she’s the head of the family.”
“Where do you get such notions?” said Aunt Laura.
“Out of my head. Aunt Laura, Ilse Burnley and I are going to be chums. I like her—I’ve always felt I’d like her if I had a chance. I don’t believe I can ever love any girl again, but I like her.”
“Poor Ilse!” said Aunt Laura, sighing.
“Yes, her father doesn’t like her. Isn’t it dreadful?” said Emily. “Why doesn’t he?”
“He does—really. He only thinks he doesn’t.” ”

“ She was likewise tall, stately, and dominant, with an early Victorian face to which a mid-Victorian wig, kept in place by a band of plaits around the brow, was not unbecoming. Nevertheless, Aunt Emily was entirely modern, modern with that up-to-date femininity which with regard to men takes its key from the bee's impulse toward the drone, stinging him to death once he has fulfilled his functions.
It was a help to Edith that Aunt Emily could enter into the sufferings entailed by an outraged love without being hampered by the weaknesses inherent in the love itself. ”

“ Aunt Elizabeth had spent the day in Shrewsbury and went home after supper. She shook hands with Emily on the doorstep and told her to be a good girl and do exactly as Aunt Ruth bade her. She did not kiss Emily, but her tone was very gentle for Aunt Elizabeth. Emily choked up and stood tearfully on the doorstep to watch Aunt Elizabeth out of sight—Aunt Elizabeth going back to dear New Moon. ”

“ One of these in which we most delighted was of how Aunt Emily as a young lady, having been decorously driven to a funeral in Hadley, in the family barouche lined with cream-colored broadcloth, ran from the grave with a dashing cousin from Worcester, via a skittish black horse and worldly buggy, capping her infamy by returning through Sunderland and being in her room with the door locked when the family got home. ”

“ Listening to Aunt Emily's conversation over her stocking darning, about the commonplace happenings of the household, was not half so entertaining as letting her thoughts stray back to the moonlight ride, to the smile in Phil's eyes as he showed her the locket, or the sound of his voice as he sang, "From the desert I come to thee." There were a [300] dozen such memories, so pleasant to dwell upon that a girl of less will-power would not have pushed them aside. Even Lloyd found it difficult to do.
"It's like trying to drive away a flock of cherry birds," she thought. ”

“ But in the photographer’s dressing-room, Aunt Elizabeth grimly proceeded to brush back her bang and pin it with hairpins.
“Oh, please, Aunt Elizabeth, let me have it down,” Emily begged. “Just for the picture. After this I’ll brush it back.”
Aunt Elizabeth was inexorable. The bang was brushed back and the photograph taken. When Aunt Elizabeth saw the finished result she was satisfied.
“She looks sulky; but she is neat; and there is a resemblance to the Murrays I never noticed before,” she told Aunt Laura. “That will please Aunt Nancy. She is very clannish under all her oddness.” ”

“ Aunt Ruth said afterwards that she had never seen a child so absolutely devoid of all natural feeling.
When the service was over the Murrays rose and marched around the coffin for a dutiful look of farewell. Aunt Elizabeth took Emily’s hand and tried to draw her along with them but Emily pulled it back and shook her head. She had said her good-bye already. Aunt Elizabeth seemed for a moment to be on the point of insisting; then she grimly swept onward, alone, looking every inch a Murray. No scene must be made at a funeral. ”

“ I’ll take you back from the wilderness at least—I don’t know that I’ll venture to Wyther Grange to-night. I don’t want Aunt Nancy to take the edge off you. And so you don’t think me handsome?”
“I didn’t say so,” cried Emily.
“Not in words. But I can read your thoughts, Star—it won’t ever do to think anything you don’t want me to know. The gods gave me that gift—when they kept back everything else I wanted. You don’t think me handsome but you think me nice. Do you think you are pretty yourself?”
“A little—since Aunt Nancy lets me wear my bang,” said Emily frankly. ”

“ Why, I know a woman in Shrewsbury who has dogs on her posts that are ten times stonier than your aunt’s!”
But next morning Ilse was over to bid Emily good-bye and entreat her to write every week. Emily was going to drive to Priest Pond with Old Kelly. Aunt Elizabeth was to have driven her but Aunt Elizabeth was not feeling well that day and Aunt Laura could not leave her. Cousin Jimmy had to work at the hay. It looked as if she could not go, and this was rather serious, for Aunt Nancy had been told to expect her that day and Aunt Nancy did not like to be disappointed. ”

“ Elizabeth turned as pale as Emily herself.
“Emily, is this some play-acting of yours?” she demanded sternly.
“No,” cried Emily, quite indignantly. “It’s the truth. Do you suppose a dying person would be play-acting? And oh, Aunt Elizabeth, please will you give this letter to Ilse—and please forgive me for being naughty—though I wasn’t always naughty when you thought I was—and don’t let any one see me after I’m dead if I turn black—especially Rhoda Stuart.”
By this time Aunt Elizabeth was herself again.
“How long ago is it since you ate that apple, Emily?” ”

“ Betsy spoke. “You know we are always glad to have you. Uncle Rob [247] is devoted to you, and aunt Emily likes you, too; I know she does.”
This was comforting to hear, for to be actually disliked by anyone was a novel experience for Elizabeth. With the exception of Corinne Barker, she did not know of another who felt toward her as did this hitherto unknown aunt. “I am awfully sorry your aunt doesn’t like me, mother,” she said.
“She is your aunt, too, dear, your great-aunt. I am sorry, myself, for I should like her to be fond of myself and my children.” ”

“ Laura, after all, was right. Emily had grown, taller and older, in soul, if not in body. It was this change which Laura felt, as close and tender affection swiftly feels. The Emily who returned from Wyther Grange was not the Emily who had gone there. She was no longer wholly the child. Aunt Nancy’s family histories over which she had pondered, her enduring anguish over the story of Ilse’s mother, that terrible hour when she had lain cheek by jowl with death on the cliffs of the bay shore, her association with Dean Priest, all had combined to mature her intelligence and her emotions. ”

“ The coffin was taken into the parlour and the Murrays as mourners sat stiffly and decorously all round it, Emily among them, pale and prim in her black dress. She sat between Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Wallace and dared not move a muscle. No other Starr was present. Her father had no near living relatives. The Maywood people came and looked at his dead face with a freedom and insolent curiosity they would never have presumed on in life. Emily hated to have them looking at her father like that. ”

“ It’s my soul that’s on fire,”’ said Emily with an inscrutable smile. She shut the door behind her and at once forgot Aunt Ruth and every other disagreeable thing and person. How beautiful the world was—how beautiful life was—how wonderful the Land of Uprightness was! The young firs along the narrow path were lightly powdered with snow, as if, thought Emily, a veil of aërial lace had been tricksily flung over austere young Druid priestesses foresworn to all such frivolities of vain adornment. Emily decided she would write that sentence down in her Jimmy-book when she went back. ”

“ And one spring day, Aunt Elizabeth, housecleaning in the garret while Emily played happily with Teddy at the Tansy Patch, found the bundle of letters on the sofa shelf, sat down, and read them all.
Elizabeth Murray would never have read any writing belonging to a grown person. But it never occurred to her that there was anything dishonourable in reading the letters wherein Emily, lonely and—sometimes—misunderstood, had poured out her heart to the father she had loved and been loved by, so passionately and understandingly. ”