Aunt Susan

“ From the living-room in the rear of our little house came the monotonous incessant clatter of Aunt Susan’s carpet loom. Through the window I could see the outlines of her figure and the back of her head as she sat on her high bench. It was to me the most familiar of all spectacles, this tireless woman bending resolutely over her work. She was there when I first cautiously ventured my nose out from under the warm blanket of a winter’s morning. Very, very often I fell asleep at night in my bed in the recess, lulled off by the murmur of the diligent loom. ”

“ Aunt Susan was a person much accustomed to having her own way and was dangerously skillful at persuading people to do her bidding.
"Think how lonely you will be," she began immediately.
Once this had been the single thought that made staying at home seem unendurable, but now even that difficulty, it seemed, could be faced. In one short afternoon at Miss Miranda's, Elizabeth had felt herself surrounded by such a warmth of friendliness that already she felt certain that here would be a refuge where she would be welcome and at home, no matter how empty and deserted her own house might seem. ”

“ As I recall this side of our life, the figure of my round-eyes, button-nosed, pink-and-white Aunt Susan tends always to the central position. We drove the car and sustained the car, she sat in it with a magnificent variety of headgear poised upon her delicate neck, and always with that faint ghost of a lisp no misspelling can render—commented on and illuminated the new aspects.
I’ve already sketched the little home behind the Wimblehurst chemist’s shop, the lodging near the Cobden statue, and the apartments in Gower Street. Thence my aunt and uncle went into a flat in Redgauntlet Mansions. ”

“ Oh, Aunt Susan, I don’t throw away his love or repudiate my debts. It is not fair to say that. Simply I can’t help it—I must. Something has come which is stronger{183} than everything else. Ah, Aunt Susan, you know what it is.”
Lady Susan’s delicate little china-looking face flushed suddenly.
“Yes, dear, I know,” she said. “At least I know some of it. We women are meant to be wives and mothers. I know half of what a woman longs to know. And the half I know, dear Helen, is so very fine that it is worth making some little sacrifice for it.” ”

“ Aunt Susan was a dear, kind, pious old lady, so fond of Ada Winton that she would do anything to please her, so she made Eva as welcome as a daughter to her homelike little house, with the neatness of a place inhabited by one woman alone. ”

“ I have told you about Aunt Susan."
"Ah, yes, have you not? I can picture her, the rich aunt with the generous heart, the aunt who is devoted to the niece, and small wonder, for you are a most attractive girl, Florence. The aunt who provides all the pretty dresses, and the pocket-money, and the good things, and who has promised to take you into society by and by, to make you a great woman, who will leave you her riches eventually. It is a large stake, my dear Florence, and worth sacrificing a great deal to win." ”

“ It bubbled forth again and again during the evening, and each time Miss Anthony received the demonstration with the same air of puzzled surprise. When we had returned to our hotel rooms I explained the matter to her. I do not remember now where I had acquired my own sinful knowledge, but that night I faced "Aunt Susan" from the pedestal of a sophisticated worldling.
"Don't you know what a right bower is?" I demanded, sternly.
"Of course I do," insisted "Aunt Susan." "It's a right-hand man—the kind one can't do without." ”

“ Ashton Parker is an aunt of mine, long a widow, and a most delightful, easy-going, wide-awake, and sympathetic old lady, who has made her home in Santa Barbara ever since her husband's death there. Her Spanish villa and gardens are famous, and her always kindly eccentricities scarcely less famous than they. I could imagine no one more certain to captivate Susan or to be instantly captivated by her; and though I had not seen Aunt Belle for more than ten years, I knew I could count on her in advance to fall in with my plan. ”

“ A week is a long time when anxiety governs the thoughts, and as Elizabeth grew more lonely she crept into Aunt Susan’s arms as well as into her heart. It became her custom to creep up to the older woman after the lamps were lighted and lay her head in her lap, while she would imprison one of Aunt Susan’s hands so as to be able to fondle it. ”

“ I am invited everywhere and lovely people call, but that is because I am the niece of a wealthy woman. And yet people's love for Aunt Susan seems so genuine—not as though they were toadying to her for her money. And Grandmamma, 'Mr. Tom,' as I call him,—Tom Harper—is the finest man I ever met. He is a man—not a man like Harvey Bigelow, mind you,—and people respect him and look up to him. He comes here every other night. He has a buckboard and on Sundays he takes me for long drives. Doesn't he love Aunt Susan though? ”

“ Aunt Susan sighed once more, and interrupted me to inspect the wick of the lamp. Then she turned again to her work, but less spiritedly now. She took up the cleaver with almost an air of sadness.
"You don't understand—yet," she said. "But don't make it any harder for me by talking. Just go along and say nothing to nobody. People will think more of you." ”

“ Aunt Susan is a very rich woman, and what you might call eccentric if you wanted to be particularly nice, and not use a harsher word. In fact, her nerves have gone back on her, and every little noise about sets her wild. ”

“ Aunt Susan sniffed delicately.
“I will stay with Mother,” she said with a virtuous air.
The old lady, stately in her black satin, with white diamonds gleaming on her veinous hands, glanced acutely at them. The next day, when her daughter Harriet insisted that the cross barred muslin was not too spoiled to wear to the inspection of curios, she declared that it was simply filthy, and that Annie must wear her blue, and that the little string of turquoise beads was not in the least too dressy for the occasion. ”

“ Susan said, fearfully.
"I don't see how," he reassured her. "Ella naturally can't give it to them, for she will think you are at your aunt's. Your aunt---"
"Oh, I shall write the truth to Auntie," Susan said, soberly. "Write her from Honolulu, probably. And wild horses wouldn't get it out of HER. But if the slightest thing should go wrong---"
"Nothing will, dear. We'll drift about the world awhile, and the first thing you know you'll find yourself married hard and tight, and being invited to dinners and lunches and things in New York!"
Susan's dimples came into view. ”

“ Nearly all the knowledge of our neighbors' sayings and doings which reached Aunt Susan came to her from me. She kept herself to herself with a vengeance, toiling early and late, rarely going beyond the confines of her yard save on Sunday mornings, when we went to church, and treating with frosty curtness the few people who ventured to come to our house on business or from social curiosity. For one thing, this Juno Mills in which we lived was not really our home. ”

“ With a gesture of amazing swiftness Aunt Susan threw her arm about me, and drew me close to her side, lamp and all. With her other hand she lifted and almost brandished the cleaver.
“No, you don’t!” she cried. “You don’t touch him! He’s mine! I’ve worked for him day and night ever since I took him from his dying mother’s breast. I closed her eyes. I forgave her. Blood is thicker ’n water after all. She was my sister. Yes, I forgave poor Emmeline, and I kissed her before she died. ”

“ Voluble, beyond the limits of discretion, yet rarely foolish; impulsive as a child; loving and hating with equal intensity; yet prudent, worldly-wise, humorous, and quick-sighted, it was not difficult to form an idea, more or less just, of Mrs. Frampton in five minutes' conversation. But then, as her nephew said, "Aunt Susan always lets herself go." It was that quality of "letting herself go" which made her so entertaining a companion.
She spoke rapidly, in a high but not unmusical voice, holding her niece out at arm's-length after embracing her, while she scanned the girl's countenance. ”

“ Besides which, what's the use of trying to be ladylike? You are a lady, child, and you couldn't help being one; why trouble to be like what nature made you? Tell Aunt Susan from me to put that in her pipe and smoke it!'
I did tell Aunt Susan by letter, giving Lady Georgina's authority for the statement; and I really believe it had a consoling effect upon her; for Aunt Susan is one of those innocent-minded people who cherish a profound respect for the opinions and ideas of a Lady of Title. ”

“ Aunt Susan made small talk laboriously. It distracted your mind. She had a strange delusion that one was avidly interested in one’s schoolbooks. She constantly dwelt upon the subject of school. It made things difficult, for school was over now and all its rigors happily forgotten. This morning, what with Aunt Susan’s talk and his excitement, Wilbur could hardly eat anything.
Breakfast was over. Aunt Susan and Rosa were in the pantry consulting on housekeeping matters. Wilbur sat down in a rocking-chair on the front porch and waited. He waited and waited, rocking violently. ”

“ If left poorly off, she has her own clothes to make and mend, and if not, surely there are plenty of claims upon her. There is her more fortunate sister, who married young, and is now a widow, with six children on her hands—think of the comfort and use her needle may be to them! Then her brothers are {742} most of them married with families, and Aunt Susan's work is invaluable, If she has no brothers or sisters, but is left entirely alone in the world, and so well off that she does not require to work for herself, let her turn to the poor, and give them the use of her needle ”

“ Susan sighed as she pushed her sticky needle in and out the doll’s frock she was making. Her mind was full of Aunt Enticknapp; if she was Mother’s aunt she must, of course, be very very old. Very old ladies always looked cross, and were nearly always deaf. Ought she to call her “aunt” when she spoke to her? What was her other name? Perhaps Freddie could tell her that, at any rate! She stood up and looked at him over the back of the sofa—there he was, reading as usual, with a frown on his white forehead, and all his thick black hair pushed up by his impatient hand. ”

“ A solemn and yet a comical sight, so Uncle George beckoned the others to come and look.
"My boy will give in first. See how beseechingly he looks at the little witch!" whispered Mrs. Ellen, laughing softly.
"No, he won't; she hurt his feelings very much by leaving him, and he won't relent until she goes back; then he'll forgive and forget like a man," said Cupid's papa.
"I hope my girl will remain true to her principles," began Aunt Susan.
"She'll be a miserable baby if she does," muttered Uncle George. ”

“ Grateful for past kindness she now made many small efforts to please Aunt Hannah, and would even sometimes check herself when most irritated by Nanna’s and Margaretta’s reproofs. Naughty or good, she had now become such a close companion to Susan that any pleasure or amusement unshared by her would have been blank and dull. Now Susan knew what it was to have a companion she did not like to think of the time when she should learn lessons alone, and play alone, and have no one to talk over things with and make plans. ”

“ Geoffrey Langford and her aunt, Lady Susan St. Leger, which had led Beatrice into a great lamentation for her mother’s absence, and from thence into a description of what Lady Susan exacted from her friends. “Aunt Susan is a regular fidget,” said she; “not such a fidget as some people,” with an indication of Mrs. Langford. “Some people are determined to make others comfortable in a way of their own, and that is a fidget to be regarded with considerable respect; but Aunt Susan’s fidgeting takes the turn of sacrificing the comfort of every one else to her own and her little dog’s.” ”

“ Emboldened by consciousness of a change in the emotional atmosphere, I was moved to lay my hand upon my Aunt’s shoulder. The action did not seem to displease her, and we remained thus for some minutes, watching together this strange addition to our family party.
Finally she told me to get on my cap, comforter, and mittens, and run over to Dr. Peabody’s and fetch him back with me. The purport of my mission oppressed me.
“Is he going to die then?” I asked.
Aunt Susan laughed outright. “You little goose,” she said; “do you think the doctors kill people every time?” ”

“ Rosamund's flashed angrily. Lucy felt that all the jealousy which she had promised Aunt Susan to bury for ever in a low grave was rising up stronger than before. Aunt Susan was in reality watching her niece, and was quite determined to have her way.
"Won't some one go into the house," she said, addressing the girls in a mass, "and ask Mrs. Merriman if you may yourselves carry down the cups and saucers and teapot, and jam and bread and butter, and whatever is required for a gipsy tea? ”

“ When they were together the reminiscences of the old days at Hollins, of the old friends and relations, of the quaint old customs still prevailing in the youthful days of the Misses Hamerton, and the great change since, were frequent topics of conversation. Aunt Susan was extremely intelligent, and her conversation was full of humor; she also wrote capital letters, and kept her nephew au courant of all that happened to their common friends. She shared in his great love and admiration for the beauties of nature, and her enjoyment of them was intense. ”