Aunt Kezia

“ My Aunt Kezia has an awful way of looking round at us. She begins with Sophy—she is our eldest—then she goes to Fanny, then to Hatty, and ends up with me. As I am the youngest, I have to be ended up with. She generally lays down her work to do it, too; and sometimes she settles her spectacles first, and that makes it feel more awful than ever. ”

“ But, my dear, we do give our lives, always, for some cause. Unfortunately, it is very often a false one.”
“What do you mean, Aunt?” said Amelia.
“Why, when you give your life to a cause, is it not the same thing in the end as giving it for one?” answered my Aunt Kezia. “I do not see that it matters, really, whether you give it in twenty minutes or through twenty years. The twenty years are the harder thing to do—that is all.”
“Duncan Keith says—” Flora began, and stopped.
“Let us hear it, my dear, if it be anything good,” quoth my Aunt Kezia. ”

“ And is this Miss Annas Keith, your friend? I am glad to see you, my dear. Don’t mind an old woman’s freedom: I call all girls ‘my dear’.”
Annas smiled, and said she was very pleased to feel as though my Aunt Kezia reckoned her among her friends.
“My friends’ friends are mine,” saith my Aunt Kezia. “Well, Cary, I have brought you all the things in your minute, save your purple lutestring scarf, which I could not find. ”

“ My Aunt Kezia laughed. “My dear,” said she, “if you were a little older I might reason with you. But you are just at that age when girls take up with every silly notion they come across, and carry it ever so much farther, and just make regular geese of themselves. ’Tis a comfort to hope you will grow out of it. Ten years hence, if we are both alive, I shall find you making pies and cutting out bodices like other sensible women. At least I hope so.”
“Never!” cried Amelia. “I never could demean myself to be just an every-day creature like that!” ”

“ Brocklebank without my Aunt Kezia! It sounded like hearing that the sun was going out of the sky. I could not imagine such a state of things.
“Is Sophy to be mistress, then?” said Fanny, blankly.
“Aunt Kezia, are you going to be married?” our impertinent Hatty wanted to know.
“No, Hester,” said my Aunt Kezia, shortly. “At my time of life a woman has a little sense left; or if she have not, she is only fit for Bedlam. I do not think Sophy will be mistress, Fanny. Somebody else is going to take that place. ”

“ Caroline, you may go also, if you desire it.”
Thus benignantly dismissed, we carried off my Aunt Kezia as if she had been a casket of jewels. And as to what the fine folks said behind our backs, either of her or of us, I do not believe either Hatty or I cared a bit. I can answer for one of us, anyhow.
“Now sit down and rest yourself, Aunt Kezia,” said I, when we reached our chamber. “Oh, how delightful it is to have you! Is Father well? Are we to go home?”
And then it flashed upon me—to go home, leaving Colonel Keith in prison, and Annas and Flora in such a position! Must we do that? ”

“ Some men will give their lives for a cause, but you don’t often see a woman do it. Mostly, with women, it is father or brother, lover or husband, that carries the day: at least, if you have seen women of another sort, they haven’t come my way.”
“But, Aunt, that is so ignoble a way of acting!” cried Amelia, as though she wanted to show that she was one of the other sort. “Love and devotion to a holy or chivalrous cause should be free from all petty personal considerations.”
“You can get yours free, my dear, if you like—and find you can manage it,” said my Aunt Kezia. ”

“ I did not think you were going to be the old maid of the family!” said my Aunt Kezia.
“I did not, either, once,” was Hatty’s answer, in a low tone, but not a sad one. “Perhaps I was the best one for it, Aunt. At any rate, you and Father will always have one girl to care for you.”
We did not see Flora till the next morning. I knew that my Uncle Drummond’s letter must be that in which he answered the news of Angus’s escape, and I did not wonder if it unnerved her. She let me read it afterwards. The Laird and Lady Monksburn had plainly given up their son for ever when they heard what he had done. ”

“ She will grow out of most of her nonsense. But Cecilia Osborne never will. It is ingrain. She is an older woman at this moment than Mrs Kezia.”
“Older than my Aunt Kezia!” I am afraid I stared.
“I do not mean by the parish register, Cary,” said Ephraim, with a smile. “But she is old in Satan’s ways and wiles, in the hard artificial fashions of the world, in everything which, if I had a sister, I should pray God she might never know anything about. Such women are dangerous. I speak seriously, Caroline.” ”

“ I have been feeling for some weeks past as if I had the world on my shoulders.”
“Your shoulders are not strong enough for that, child,” replied my Aunt Kezia. “There is but one shoulder which can carry the world. ‘The government shall be upon His shoulder.’ You may well look poor if you have been at that work. Where are Flora and Miss Keith?—and what has become of their brothers, both?”
“Annas and Flora have just come back to London,” said Hatty. “But Angus is in dreadful trouble, Aunt; and I do not know where Colonel Keith is—with the Prince, I suppose.” ”

“ We are just a set of silly babes, my dear—the best of us.”
“My Aunt Dorothea once told me,” said I, “that the Papists have what they call ‘exercises of detachment.’ Perhaps you would think them good things, Aunt Kezia. For instance, if an abbess sees a nun who seems to have a fancy for any little thing particularly, she will take it from her and give it to somebody else.”
“Eh, poor foolish things!” said Aunt Kezia. “Bits of children playing with the Father’s tools! They are more like to hurt themselves a deal than to get His work done. ”

“ I don’t believe she cares a pin for him, though I dare say she likes well enough to be the Squire’s lady, and queen it at Brocklebank. Somehow, I cannot trust those tawny eyes, with their sidelong glances. Am I very wicked, or is she?
Will things never give over happening?
This morning, just after I came down—there were only my Aunt Kezia, Mr Keith, Flora, and me in the dining-parlour—we suddenly heard the great bell of Brocklebank Church begin to toll. My Aunt Kezia set down the chocolate-pot.
“It must be somebody who has died suddenly, poor soul!” cried she. ”

“ Flora was the first of us to speak.
“Thank you, indeed, Aunt Kezia for taking so much trouble for us. If we govern ourselves by your rules, we can hardly go far wrong.”
I tried to say something of the same sort, but I am afraid I bungled it.
“I cannot tell when we shall meet again, my lassies,” saith my Aunt Kezia. “Only it seems likely to be some time first. Of course, if things fall out ill, and Mrs Desborough counts it best to remove from London, or to send you elsewhere, you must be ruled by her, as you cannot refer to your father. ”

“ And you see I shall have to give in my account some day, and I want it to be as free from blots as I can.”
“I suppose you thought you were doing a good work for your own soul!” said my Aunt Dorothea, sneeringly.
“Eh, no, poor soul!” was my Aunt Kezia’s sorrowful reply. “My soul’s beyond my saving, but Christ has it safe. And knowing that, Madam, makes one very pitiful to unsaved souls.”
“Upon my word, Madam!” cried my Aunt Dorothea. “You take enough upon you! ‘Unsaved souls,’ indeed! Well, I am thankful I never had the presumption to say that my soul was safe. ”

“ I seem bound to get into fights with Miss Newton. I do not mean quarrels, but arguments. She is a pleasant, good-humoured girl, but she has such queer ideas. I dare say she thinks I have. I do not know what my Aunt Kezia would say to her. She does not appear to see the right and wrong of things at all. It is only what people will think, and what one likes. ”

“ My Aunt Dorothea, who stood in the door, said acidly,—“I think, Madam, it would have been as well to keep such remarks till you were alone with my mother. I do not know how it may be in Cumberland, but they are not thought becoming to a gentlewoman here. Believe me, I am indeed sorry to be forced to the discourtesy of saying so; but you were the first offender.”
“Ay,” said my Aunt Kezia. “Folks that tell the naked truth generally meet with more kicks than halfpence. ”

“ Cary Courtenay, you are growing horribly vain and selfish! I wonder at you!
It is settled now that we go home the week after Easter Day. We, means my Aunt Kezia, and Flora, and Hatty, and me. I do not know how four women are to travel without a gentleman, or even a serving-man: but I suppose we shall find out when the time comes. I said to my Aunt Kezia that perhaps Grandmamma would lend us Dobson.
“Him!” cried she. “Dear heart, but I’d a vast deal liever be without him! He would want all the coach-pockets for his silk stockings, and would take more waiting on than Prince Charlie himself. ”

“ Molly, in valiant endeavours to help her aunt, hid everything she specially wanted, and poked things she didn't want into her box, till she was banished from the room. When Miss Kezia had at last taken her departure, Nell made her way to the kitchen, smiling over Denis's last words, "I say, Nell, make us some cakes for tea to celebrate the hap—mournful occasion!"
Sheila Pat queried earnestly:—
"Is the friend very ill?"
"No; influenza—low-spirited—wants Aunt Kezia."
"Aren't these Scotch people queer?" mused Sheila Pat. ”

“ Poor dear Fanny, I hope she will be happy!
“I dare guess she will, in her way,” says my Aunt Kezia. “She does not keep a large cup for her happiness. ’Tis all the easier to fill when you don’t; but a deal more will go in when you do. There are advantages and disadvantages on each side of most things in this world.”
“Is there any advantage, Aunt Kezia, in my having just pricked my finger shockingly?”
“Yes, Cary. Learn to be more careful in future.”
Note 1. The white ribbon, like the white cockade, distinguished a Jacobite; the red ribbon and the black cockade were Hanoverian. ”

“ For a sister of mine to say such a thing to a clergyman—I declare it makes my hair stand on end!”
“Your hair may lie down again, Brother. I’ve done,” said my Aunt Kezia, coolly. “As to where I got it, I should think you might know. It runs in the blood. And I suppose Deborah Hunter was your grandmother as well as mine.”
Father’s reply was full of the words I do not want to write, but it was not a compliment to his grandmother.
“Come, Mrs Kezia,” said Mr Bagnall, “let us make it up by glasses all round, and a toast to the sweet Puritan memory of Mrs Deborah Hunter.” ”

“ And Grandmamma took two pinches, one after the other.
“Well, you see, I am,” coolly said my Aunt Kezia. “Seems to me, Madam, that going to Heaven is every bit as much my business as going to Gloucester; and I have not left that for the clergy to see to, nor do I see why I should the other. Folks don’t always remember what you trust them with, and sometimes they can’t manage the affair. ”

“ Now don’t you go saying to yourselves that Aunt Kezia is an old country woman who knows nothing of grand town folks. As I was beginning to say when you interrupted me, Cary—there, don’t look abashed, child; I am not angry with you—manners change, but natures don’t. Dress men and women how you will, and let them talk what language you please, and have what outside ways you like, they are men and women still. Wherever you go, you will find human nature is unchanged; and the Devil that tempts men is unchanged ”

“ I found my Aunt Kezia there now, and I was glad, for I knew that both Cecilia and Hatty would be on their best behaviour in her presence. Ephraim was talking with Fanny, as he generally does, and there was that “hawid” creature Mr Parmenter, with his drawl and his eyeglass and all the rest of it.
“Indeed, it is very trying!” he was saying, as I came in; but he never sounds an r, so that he said, “vewy twying.” I don’t know whether it is that he can’t, or that he won’t. “Very trying, truly, Madam, to see men give their lives for a falling cause. ”

“ There's that 'Adventures of an Irish R.M.' you're halfway through. You can read that."
He opened the door for her.
"I can hear my acushlum," he said.
CHAPTER XXIV
"Aunt Kezia says she hopes to be home in a few days, and that she trusts we are all behaving ourselves, and she hopes I'm looking after Sarah, and seeing that she uses up all the crusts and bits of bread for bread-puddings and bread-crumbs, and that she doesn't go up into Aunt Kezia's bedroom to look out of the window at her young man—"
"By Jove, I never knew Aunt Kezia had a young man!" ”

“ I found there all whom I had left, and Hatty and Flora as well. When tea came, and my jumballs with it, my Aunt Kezia says very calmly,—
“Pass me those jumballs, my dear, will you? Amelia won’t want any; she is an uncommon woman, and does not care what she eats. You may give me some, because I am no better than other folks.”
“O Aunt Kezia, but I like jumballs!” said Amelia.
“You do?” says my Aunt Kezia. “Well, but, my dear, they don’t grow on trees. Somebody has to make them, if they are to be eaten ”

“ I had to listen to a lecture on Irish thriftlessness, but perhaps I deserved that. Poor Aunt Kezia, she's very dry and hard, and very opposite to all of you. But she is a good woman, and wants to make you all comfortable. But she doesn't approve of Christmas presents. A twinkle comes into your mother's eye (but she sternly represses the dimple you used to dig your baby fingers into) when I conjecture over her aspect on Christmas day this year! For we're a very Christmasy lot, aren't we, asthore? ”

“ Aunt Kezia’s hood was a hood, too, and was tied under her chin as if she meant it to be some good. And her elbow-ruffles were plain nett, with long dark doe-skin gloves drawn up to meet them. Cecilia wore white silk mittens. I hate mittens; they are horrid things. If you want to make your hands look as ugly as you can, you have only to put on a pair of mittens.
The wedding-dinner, which was at noon, was a very grand one. It should have been, for didn’t my arms ache with beating eggs and keeping pans stirred! Hatty said we were martyrs in a good cause. ”