Aunt Maria

“ Her voice trembled as she answered, "Yes, Phœbe, you can call me Mother Bab. I have no little girl so you may fill that place. Now ask Aunt Maria if you should wash your face and get fixed right again."
"Shall I, Aunt Maria?"
"Yes. Go get cleaned up. Fold all them clothes right and put 'em in the trunk and put your hair in two [107] plaits again. If you're big enough to do such dumb things you're big enough to comb your hair." And Aunt Maria, peeved and hurt at the child's behavior, went back to her quilting while Phœbe hurried from the room alone. ”

“ Then she heard her aunt's voice at her door, opened a narrow crack.
“Are you warm enough in here?” asked Aunt Maria.
“Yes, plenty warm enough.”
“You'd better not light a lamp,” said Aunt Maria, coolly; “I just told that Merrill girl that you had gone out.”
“But I hadn't,” said Maria.
“I knew it; but there are times when a lie ain't a lie, it's only the truth upside-down. I knew that you didn't want that doll-faced thing over here again. She had better stay at home and wait for her new beau. She was all prinked up fit to kill. ”

“ So I am going to-morrow morning by the carrier’s cart.”
“Going?” gasped Anthony. “Where to?”
“To London first, then to Paris, then to Italy, to winter at Rome, and then goodness knows where. You see, my Aunt Maria has wanted to travel all her life, but Uncle Samuel, who was born in Putney, feared the sea, and lived and died in the very house in which he was born. Now Aunt Maria wants a change, and means to have it.”
Then Anthony broke out. “Damn the old woman! Why can’t she take her change wherever it is she wants to go to, and leave you alone?” ”

“ If my father died, Anthony, or even was taken ill—and he is not very strong—what would become of us? Unless Aunt Thompson chose to help, we should all have to go to the workhouse, for girls who have not been specially trained can earn nothing, except perhaps as domestic servants, if they are strong enough. I don’t want to go away and read to Aunt Maria, and take the pug-dog out walking, although it is true I should like to see Italy, but I must—can’t you understand?—I must. ”

“ The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed. What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively by and watched a game of cards? After a little while I asked Virginia whether I could write a letter to Aunt Maria and tell her of my safe arrival. I just had to get out of that room! I don't [219] know if she saw through my ruse but she smiled as she put her arm around me and led me to the stairs. "There's a desk in your room, Phœbe. ”

“ Lucy danced along, enchanted with her new play, and soon reached Aunt Maria’s house, where she called again, with might and main. Now, Aunt Maria was slightly deaf, and when she [141] heard her own name resounding in a clear, shrill scream, “Aunt Mari-i-i-i-ia!!” ”

“ I don't see any slot marked "cawfy-colour."
Aunt Maria. Never you mind what colour my 'air is—it's a pity you can't find a better use for your pennies.
Dolph. (inserting a penny in a slot marked "Light Brown") . 'Ere goes, the oracle's working. (The machine emits a coloured card.) Listen to what it says about Aunt MARIA. She is—"tender-'arted." Jest what I've always said of her! "A little 'asty in her temper"—'ullo, must be a 'itch in the machinery, there!—"neither obstinate nor 'aughty"— (A snort from Aunt MARIA at this) —"her inclination to love never unreasonable." 'Ow like her! ”

“ Apparently she had had hysterics at Folkestone originally—did you have them when you married, Mamma? I never thought of such a thing when Harry and I—but I did not mean to speak of him again. Aunt Maria wears the same shaped bonnet now as she did then, and strangely enough it is exactly like my new lovely chinchilla motor one Caroline sent for me to travel in. We have the car open all the time and in the noise Aunt Maria hears much better, so one has only to speak in an ordinary voice down the trumpet. ”

“ Eva had just got the girl into good ways, and all was going smoothly, when Aunt Maria came in and broke everything up. I must say, I think Aunt Maria is a nuisance."
"Oh, Alice, how can you talk so, when you know that your aunt is thinking of nothing so much as how to serve and advance you girls?"
"She is thinking of how to carry her own will and pleasure; and we girls are like so many ninepins that she wants to set up or knock down to suit her game. Now she has gone and invited those Stephenson girls to spend the holidays with her." ”

“ I know some folks would be ashamed of not thinking much of Shakespeare. As for me, I say what I mean.” Aunt Maria tossed her head as she spoke.
She grew daily more like her brother Henry. The family traits in each became more accentuated. Each posed paradoxically as not being a poser. Aunt Maria spoke her mind so freely and arrogantly that she was not much of a favorite in Amity, although she commanded a certain measure of respect from her strenuous exertions at her own trumpet, which more than half-convinced people of the accuracy of her own opinion of herself. ”

“ I'm tired, for my part. I've worked like a dog all day. Your father has got his key, an' he can let himself in when he gets through his courtin'.”
Maria crept miserably—she was still in a sort of daze—up-stairs after Aunt Maria.
“Well, good-night,” said Aunt Maria. “You might as well make up your mind to it. I suppose it had to come, and maybe it's all for the best.” Aunt Maria's voice sounded as if she were trying to reconcile the love of God with the existence of hell and eternal torment. She closed her door with a slam. There are, in some New England women, impulses of fierce childishness. ”

“ Aunt Maria was, for the moment, too occupied with her own personal grievances and disappointments to pay much attention to her little niece. “Yes, courtin',” she said, harshly. “I've been suspectin' for some time, an' now I know. A man, when he's left a widower, don't smarten up the way he's done for nothin'; I know it.” Aunt Maria nodded her head aggressively, with a gesture almost of butting.
Maria continued to gaze at her, with that pale, almost idiotic expression. It was a fact that she had thought of her father as being as much married as ever, even although her mother was dead. ”

“ She even admitted to her secret self that in time to come—far, far-off time to come,—she would like to become like Aunt Maria in this respect and cast aside her own impetuous, storm-tossed ways. At seventy one ought to be calm and slow to wrath, but at fifteen! Who could expect a poor little flapper of fifteen to be anything but fire and flame! ”

“ Wind thread around stitches
[Pg 162]
“Oh, dear Aunt Maria, how perfectly grand!” kissing the old lady again and again. “Have you had lunch? Grandma always takes an outing on Wednesday afternoons, and she’ll be so sorry not to be home to welcome you!”
“But I feel very welcome,” laughed Aunt Maria, “and I have had lunch, thank you, my dear.”
“Then you can come right up-stairs,” said Mary Frances, leading the way to the guest-room. ”

“ Aunt Maria and Jacob were eating supper in the big kitchen when Phœbe reached home.
"Well," greeted the aunt, "did you come once! We thought that Feast of Roses would been out long ago. But when you didn't come for so long and supper was made we sat down a while. Did you sing?"
"Yes," the girl said as she removed her hat and gloves and drew a chair to the table.
"Now," cautioned the aunt, "put your apron on! That light goods in your dress is nothin' for wear; everything shows on it so. And if you spill red-beet juice or something on it it'll be spoiled." ”

“ I did apologise as well as I could, and there was such an awkward pause; and after dinner we had coffee in the drawing-room, and then in a little time tea, and between times they sat down to whist, all but Aunt Maria—so they had to have a dummy. She wanted to hear all about you, she said, and my going to visit in France; and so I had to bellow descriptions of your neuralgia, and about Mme. de Croixmare being my godmother, &c., and Aunt Maria says, "Tut, tut!" as well as "Eh! what?" to everything. ”

“ The possibility occurred to her that Harry might ask her to take her departed sister's place. She was older than that sister, much older than he, but she looked in her glass and suddenly her passed youth seemed to look forth upon her. The revival of hopes sometimes serves as a tonic. Aunt Maria actually did look younger than she had done, even with her scanty frizzes. She regarded other women, not older than herself, with pompadours, and aspiration seized her.
One day she went to New York shopping. ”

“ O! my dear Aunt Mary, how you would love that man, and we need not be afraid of loving him, for he is near eighty. But it is impossible to believe that he is so old when one either hears him speak, or sees him move. He has all the vivacity, and feeling, and wit of youth, and all the gentleness that youth ought to have. His conversation is delightful, nothing too much or too little; sense, and gaiety, and learning, and reason, and that perfect knowledge of the world which mixes so well but so seldom with a knowledge of books. He invited us to breakfast, and this morning we spent with him. ”

“ Just now, every one is overwhelmed with business, and the days go off very fast.
Aunt Maria is in her glory, as generalissimo of the forces and dictator of all things. It is for just such crises that she was born; she has now fairly enough to manage to keep her contented with everybody, and everybody contented with her—which, by-the-bye, is not always the case in her history.
It is decreed that the wedding is to be a morning one, in Mr. St. John's little chapel; and that, after the reception at mamma's, Jim will start with Alice to visit his family friends, and Angie and St. ”

“ Harry laughed again, but softly, for he was afraid of Aunt Maria overhearing. “Nonsense, dear,” he said again. Then he kissed Maria in a final sort of way. “It will be all for the best,” he said, “and we shall all be happier. Father doesn't think any the less of you, and never will, and he is never going to forget your own dear mother; but it is all for the best, the way he has decided. Now, good-night, darling, try to go to sleep, and don't worry about anything.” ”

“ Aunt Maria was very shrewd, and that long interview with Nurse Bundle in her own room was hardly needed to acquaint her with the condition of domestic politics in our establishment. She [21] "took in" the Burtons with one glance. The ladies "fell out" the following evening. The Burtons left Dacrefield the next morning, and at lunch Aunt Maria "pulled them to pieces" with as little remorse as a cook would pluck a partridge. I never saw Miss Eliza Burton again.
Aunt Maria did not fondle or spoil me. She might perhaps have shown more tenderness to her brother's only and motherless child ”

“ Aunt Maria would mildly observe that, next time Uncle Podger was going to hammer a nail into the wall, she hoped he’d let her know in time, so that she could make arrangements to go and spend a week with her mother while it was being done. ”

“ My father and Aunt Maria both opened their mouths at once.
"Dinner's on the table, sir," the butler announced. My father lacked a subject for his vexation, and turned upon old Bowles:
"Take the dinner to ——"
"—the kitchen," said I, "and keep it warm for ten minutes; we are not ready. Now, my dear father, come to my room, for I have something to tell you."
There was no need for Polly to ask Aunt Maria to go with her. That lady drove her daughter before her to her bedroom, with a severity of aspect which puzzled and alarmed poor Leo, whom they passed in the corridor. ”

“ Name the day, my dear aunt, which will be the least inconvenient if you can, and Molly or John Langan shall bring him in the old or new chaise to your door, where I hope he will not salute you with a cry, but if he does do not be surprised.
You see, my dear aunt, that I am in a great hurry by my writing, but no hurry, believe me, can drive out of my mind the remembrance of all the kindness I received at Black Castle. Oh, continue to love your niece; you cannot imagine the pleasure she felt when you kissed her, and said you loved her a thousand times better than ever you did before. ”

“ That morning Aunt Maria had prepared an extra treat, a platter of golden slices of fried mush.
The two older people partook heartily of the food before them but the child ate listlessly. Her aunt soon exclaimed, "Now, Phœbe, you must eat or you'll get hungry till recess. You know this is the first day of school and you can't run for a cookie if you get hungry. You ain't eatin'; you feel bad?" ”

“ It might be a little wrong of Maria thus to mystify her aunt; but she was a dear, good girl, notwithstanding; and, accustomed to pet Lady Fleetwood from her own childhood, she well knew there was only one way of managing her, and what that way was. She even went farther than saving her good aunt's income for her by taking the greater share of all her expenses upon herself: she calculated that one of two events--one very common, and one universal--might occur to herself: that she might die, or that she might marry ”

“ She decided Captain Beaufort and her niece to make her happy by completing their union, and letting her feel that she did not prevent the felicity of the two persons she loves best now in the world. She remains with us.
The marriage is to take place next Tuesday or Thursday, and my Aunt Mary will go to church with her niece and give her away. I must tell you a little characteristic trait of this aunt, the least selfish of all human beings. She has been practising getting up early in the morning, which she has not done for two years—has never got up for breakfast. ”