Aunt Emma

“ This was quite enough to make Emmy miserable. She had done wrong. She had put Aunt Emma out. Aunt Emma did not love [217] her. She never would love her as she loved the other girls! These reflections passed through her mind as she sat before the glass door of the bookcase, not even trying to look up the story which Jean had recommended. Uncle Tom coming into the room noticed her melancholy attitude, and said in his hearty voice, "Well, my little maid, you look dumpy. All your contemporaries gone, heh! Never mind; they will all be back soon, and meanwhile you must cheer up the old folks." ”

“ Come, my dear Emma, let us be friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now."
"That's true," she cried—"very true. Little Emma, grow up a better woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited. Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. ”

“ Bella'll be better soon. Don't cry, Auntie Emma, or Margery'll cry too!" and two soft little hands tried to pull the work-worn ones away, and a gentle baby voice tried to bring comfort and cheer to the unhappy woman.
Aunt Emma, in a burst of real feeling, let the little hands uncover and gently pat her face, then, clasping the baby form to her, kissed her passionately again and again.
"You do care for your auntie, don't you, dear?" she sobbed, but softly and sorrowfully now. "You always will care for your poor auntie, won't you, dear?" ”

“ It may seem to the reader out of place to speak thus of Aunt Emma, but as she had much to do with my early life, and as her specialities must then be brought forward, there is really no object in concealing either her weaknesses or defects.
At the date to which I am referring, some forty years ago, there was a great taste in many private families for immoderate physicking. Aunt Emma possessed this taste in no small degree; that she believed in its efficacy there can be no doubt, because she used to physic herself with the same generous freedom that she bestowed on us children. ”

“ But "she could never get acquainted with her: she did not know how it was, but there was such coldness and reserve—such apparent indifference whether she pleased or not—and then, her aunt was such an eternal talker!—and she was made such a fuss with by every body!—and it had been always imagined that they were to be so intimate—because their ages were the same, every body had supposed they must be so fond of each other." ”

“ Can't I possibly go home to-morrow, Aunt Emma? Do say yes, or I can't live all night."
"There, dear, don't cry so hard," said Aunt Emma, wiping away her tears. "You will feel better to-morrow, Ruby darling. You will be so busy getting your lessons that you will not have time to think about anything else, and then when night comes again, you will remember that you have come away with me so that your dear mamma can get well and strong again, and the braver you are, the sooner she will improve. You had forgotten that, had n't you, dear? You know you are helping to make her well here at school. ”

“ Miss Emma’s papa is at the top of the table; Miss Emma’s mamma at the bottom; and beside the latter are Miss Emma herself and her husband,—admitted on all hands to be the handsomest and most interesting young couple ever known. All down both sides of the table, too, are various young ladies, beautiful to see, and various young gentlemen who seem to think so; and there, in a post of honour, is an unmarried aunt of Miss Emma’s, reported to possess unheard-of riches, and to have expressed vast testamentary intentions respecting her favourite niece and new nephew. ”

“ Perage sharply, and detailed her scheme to her nephew, who quite approved.
"Better be off with the old life, Owain, before you take on with the new," he said judicially. "Travel will heal all the old soreness, and will place a barrier between the disagreeable past and the pleasant future. Aunt Emma is a sensible woman."
"I always am!" said Aunt Emma. "Now, Jim, say what you have to say about this trouble, and let us bury the same for ever."
"There isn't much to say," said Vane carelessly. "The newspapers have dropped the matter, and everybody is forgetting the sensation. ”

“ If you go away bravely, and try to study and be a good girl, so that Aunt Emma can write home in each letter that you are doing just as mother would wish you to do, you will be helping her even more than I will. If you think only about yourself, you will cry about going, and fret to come home, until mother will be troubled about you, and perhaps think it best for you to come home again ”

“ Emma had outgrown the trundle-bed, and no one occupied it; but it remained in the old place. When they led her into the bedroom for the last time, she asked them to draw it out, that she might look upon Willie's pillow once more. Memories of her fair boy sleeping there in the moonlight came into her soul with the vividness of reality. Her eyes filled with tears, and she seemed to be occupied with inward prayer. At a signal from her, the husband and brother lifted her tenderly, and placed her in the bed, which Aunt Mary had prepared. ”

“ In this undecided state of mind, Emma started with her mother to see her aunt. They had not gone far before they met a poor woman, with some very pretty bunches of flowers for sale. She carried them on a tray. She stopped before Mrs Lee and her little girl, and asked if they would not buy some flowers.
"How much are they a bunch?" asked Emma.
"Sixpence," replied the woman.
"Mother! I'll tell you what I will do with my sixpence," said Emma, her face brightening with the thought that came into her mind. "I will buy a bunch of flowers for Aunt Mary. You know how she loves flowers. ”

“ But now we shall see a great deal of her I hope, for she lives just on the other side of the mountain from Uncle Richard’s house, in a dear old house, where I spent many, many happy days when I was small. Great-grandpapa and grandmamma were alive then. But now Aunt Emma lives there quite alone. Except for one creature, at least, an old gray poll-parrot, that chatters away, and behaves as if it were quite sensible, and knew all about everything.”
“Hasn’t she got any pussies, mother?” asked Olly. ”

“ Purdon is, though I don't hardly ever call her that. You see, Aunt Emma brought me up, and she and Aunt Em'line don't have anything to do with each other. They were twins, and when they were girls they got edgeways over 'Niram's father, when 'Niram was a baby and his father was a young widower and come courting. Then Aunt Em'line married him, and Aunt Emma never spoke to her afterward."
Occasionally, in walking unsuspectingly along one of our leafy lanes, some such fiery geyser of ancient heat uprears itself in a boiling column. I never get used to it, and started back now. ”

“ She’s a lovely girl, and you’re getting old enough to be serious now, and I think it would make a very distinguished marriage, and I know it would please your father—I believe he’ll propose to her himself if you don’t.” Aunt Emma was quite charmed with this naughtiness, giving the younger generation to understand that they needn’t be laying the old folks away on the shelf quite yet! ”

“ When the others understood what was the matter I think they told Robert what they thought of him.
‘We must take the train to Croydon,’ said Anthea, ‘and find Aunt Emma.’
‘Yes,’ said Cyril, ‘and precious pleased those Jevonses would be to see us and our traps.’
Aunt Emma, indeed, was staying with some Jevonses—very prim people. They were middle-aged and wore very smart blouses, and they were fond of matinees and shopping, and they did not care about children. ”

“ Then, quite dizzied with happiness, I hurried down off the platform and up the aisle. People smiled as I passed them and I smiled back, for once quite unconscious of my jaw. As I neared my seat I prepared to smile upon my mother, but for a moment she didn’t see me. Aunt Emma was saying something to her, something that I didn’t hear, something that made two red spots flame in my mother’s face.
'Isn’t it just like Martha to be a little fool! ”

“ It was not much past four o'clock by the time they reached the cottage, but Aunt Emma had finished all her scrubbing and cleaning, and had tidied herself, and got tea all spread ready for them, and she actually came out to meet them, seeming really glad to see them, and when they gave her the cinnamon rock it was plain to see that she was really pleased that they had thought of her.
"Now come in and take off your boots, and put on your old slippers to rest your feet; you must be tired out," she said kindly. ”

“ She was so lost in perplexity about Aunt Emma's future, that Mrs. Perry was left to entertain their guest,—to listen, at least, to the tale of her wanderings and sufferings, and the hardships she had endured all her life.
"I've never 'ad nobody to care for me, nor no kindness from anybody, so I haven't got to thank anybody for anything—that's one thing!" the poor foolish woman kept repeating, as though, instead of being ashamed of it, it was something to be proud of.
"As we sow, we reap," thought Aunt Martha ”

“ You can have no superior, but most true on mine.—She is a complete angel. Look at her. Is not she an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her throat. Observe her eyes, as she is looking up at my father.—You will be glad to hear (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) that my uncle means to give her all my aunt's jewels. ”

“ First Aunt Emma wouldn't speak to her sister because she'd married the man she'd wanted, and then when Aunt Emma made out so well farmin' and got so well off, why, then Mrs. Purdon wouldn't try to make it up because she was so poor. That was after Mr. Purdon had had his stroke of paralysis and they'd lost their farm and she'd taken to goin' out sewin'—not but what she was always perfectly satisfied with her bargain. She always acted as though she'd rather have her husband's old shirt stuffed with straw than any other man's whole body. ”

“ But he saw at once that he had shocked not her sense of the proper attitude about Aunt Emma but about himself. She had come over prepared to [Pg 194] “sympathize” with him. Mattie always had to go through the proper motions.
“How are you getting on, Lester?” she asked earnestly, with her best Ladies’ Guild flatness of intonation. “You can’t imagine how I have worried about you and poor Eva and the dear children. I’ve been sick to think I wasn’t here to help out in this sad time. Now I’m back you must let me do everything I can.” ”

“ Well, I believe they had some dispute about money, or whisky, and he informed on her, and told Aunt Emma that she kept a very thriving unlicensed ‘public’ at the lodge gate, and so, one day, when Juggy declared that she was dying of rheumatism and cold, and had sent up to her house for port wine and a little jam, Aunt Emma marched down to the lodge, about twelve o’clock at night, and made me go with her. ”

“ She's a useless old fool, Aunt Emma. Never did a valuable thing in her life. Goes in for charity—just like we go in for golf and what-not. Oh, well, to hell with Aunt Emma."
Hugo banged his glass on the table. "Garçon! Encore deux whiskey à l'eau and to hell with Aunt Emma."
"Like to play roulette?"
"Like to try."
They climbed into a taxi. Shayne gave an address and they were driven to another quarter of the town. In a room packed with people in evening clothes they played for an hour. Several people spoke to Shayne and he introduced Hugo to them. Shayne won and Hugo lost. ”

“ If she’s allowed to visit freely the places connected with her earlier life, it may all return again to her; and the ends of Justice may thus at last be served for us. I notice already one hopeful symptom: Miss Callingham speaks of going back to Woodbury.”
Aunt Emma looked up at him, horrified. All her firmness was gone now.
“It’s YOU who’ve put this into her head!” she exclaimed, in a ferment of horror. “She’d never thought of it herself. You’ve made her do it!” ”

“ Oh, not the Lerne of long ago, the companion of my Aunt Lidivine; no, but he was no longer the grim and bloodthirsty host, who had received me in the manner in which one shows people the door.
When he saw me up and about, my uncle brought Emma in, and said to her in my presence, that I was cured of a passing touch of lunacy, and that she might now adore me as much as she liked.
“For my part,” he continued, “I give up emotions no longer suitable to my age. You shall have Emma. All I ask of you is not to leave me. ”

“ It is they who have brought all this trouble upon them. How are they to be kept, I should like to know, now that your uncle is in prison, and can no longer work for them? I do not suppose your aunt has much money put away, and—"
"Mother, is there no God to take care of aunt and these children, that you talk like that?" asked Audrey, looking at her mother's anxious careworn face, and comparing it with her aunt's sweet placid countenance. "Whether aunt is a Quaker or not, she loves God, and of course God loves her, and will take care of her somehow, and I am going to help Him to do it." ”

“ He sat really lost in thought for the first few minutes; and when rousing himself, it was only to say,
"Of all horrid things, leave-taking is the worst."
"But you will come again," said Emma. "This will not be your only visit to Randalls."
"Ah!— (shaking his head) —the uncertainty of when I may be able to return!—I shall try for it with a zeal!—It will be the object of all my thoughts and cares!—and if my uncle and aunt go to town this spring—but I am afraid—they did not stir last spring—I am afraid it is a custom gone for ever."
"Our poor ball must be quite given up." ”