THE INEFFECTUAL AUNT
The two women had hardly reached the limousine before the vials of
Hermia's wrath were opened.
"What a dreadful person! Olga, how could you have stood him all the
while he painted you?"
"We made out very nicely, thank you."
"Hilda was right. He _is_ a gorilla. Do you know he never even
offered me a chair?"
"I suppose he thought you'd have sense enough to sit down if you wanted
to."
"O Olga, don't quibble. He's impossible."
The Countess shrugged.
"It's a matter of taste."
"Taste! One doesn't want to be affronted. Is he like this to every
one?"
"No. That's just the point. He isn't. I think, Hermia, dear," and
she laughed, "that he didn't like _you_."
"Me! Why not?"
"He doesn't like Bath-buns. He once told me so. Besides, I don't
think he's altogether in sympathy with the things you typify."
"How does he know what I typify--when I don't know myself? I don't
typify anything."
"Oh, yes, you do, to a man like Markham. From the eyrie where his soul
is wont to sit, John Markham has a fine perspective on life--yours and
mine. But I imagine that you make the more conspicuous silhouette. To
him you represent 'the New York Idea'--only more so. Besides that
you're a vellum edition of the Feminist Movement with suffrage
expurgated. In other words, darling, to a lonely and somewhat morbid
philosopher like Markham you're a horrible example of what may become
of a female person of liberal views who has had the world suddenly laid
in her lap; the spoiled child launched into the full possession of a
fabulous fortune with no ambition more serious than to become the
'champeen lady-aviator of Madison Avenue--'"
"Olga! You're horrid," broke in Hermia.
"I know it. It's the reaction from a morning which began too
cheerfully. I think I'll leave you now, if you'll drop me at the
Blouse Shop--"
"But I thought we were going--"
"No. Not this morning. The mood has passed."
"Oh, very well," said Hermia.
The two pecked each other just below the eye after the manner of women
and the Countess departed, while Hermia quizzically watched her
graceful back until it had disappeared in the shadows of the store.
The current that usually flowed between them was absent now, so Hermia
let her go; for Olga Tcherny, when in this mood, wore an armor which
Hermia, clever as she thought herself, had never been able to
penetrate.
Hermia continued on her way uptown, aware that the change in the
Countess Olga was due to intangible influences which she could not
define but which she was sure had something to do with the odious
person whose studio she had visited. Could it be that Olga really
cared for this queer Markham of the goggled eyes, this absent-minded,
self-centered creature, who rumpled his hair, smoked a pipe and
growled his cheap philosophy? A pose, of course, aimed this morning
at Hermia. He flattered her. She felt obliged for the line of
demarcation he had so carefully drawn between his life and hers. As
if she needed the challenge of his impudence to become aware of it!
And yet I her heart she found herself denying that his impudence had
irritated her less than his indifference. To tell the truth, Hermia
did not like being ignored. It was the first time in fact, that any
man had ignored her, and she did not enjoy the sensation. She
shrugged her shoulders carelessly and glanced out of the window of her
car--and to be ignored by such a personas this grubby painter--it was
maddening! She thought of him as "grubby," whatever that meant,
because she did not like him, but it was even more maddening for her
to think of Olga Tcherny's portrait, which, in spite of her flippant
remarks, she had been forced to admit revealed a knowledge of feminine
psychology that had excited her amazement and admiration.
One deduction led to another. She found herself wondering what kind
of a portrait this Markham would make of her, whether he would see, as
he had seen in Olga--the things that lay below the surface--the dreams
that came, the aspirations, half-formed, toward something different,
the moments of revulsion at the emptiness of her life, which, in spite
of the material benefits it possessed, was, after all, only material.
Would he paint those--the shadows as well as the lights? Or would he
see her as Marsac, the Frenchman, had seen her, the pretty,
irresponsible child of fortune who lived only for others who were as
gay as herself with no more serious purpose in life than to become, as
Olga had said, "the champeen lady-aviator of Madison Avenue."
Hermia lunched alone--out of humor with all the world--and went
upstairs with a volume of plays which had just come from the
stationer. But she had hardly settled herself comfortably when Titine
announced Mrs. Westfield.
It was the ineffectual Aunt.
"Oh, yes," with an air of resignation, "tell Mrs. Westfield to come up."
She pulled the hair over her temples to conceal the scars of her
morning's accident and met Mrs. Westfield at the landing outside.
"_Dear_ Aunt Harriet. So glad," she said, grimacing cheerfully to
salve her conscience. "What _have_ I been doing now?"
"What _haven't_ you been doing, child?"
The good lady sank into a chair, the severe lines in her face more than
usually acidulous, but Hermia only smiled sweetly, for Mrs. Westfield's
forbidding aspect, as she well knew, concealed the most indulgent of
dispositions.
"Playing polo with men, racing in your motor and getting yourself
talked about in the papers! Really, Hermia, what will you be doing
next?"
"Flying," said Hermia.
Mrs. Westfield hesitated between a gasp and a smile.
"I don't doubt it. You are quite capable of anything--only your wings
will not be sent from Heaven--"
"No--from Paris. I'm going to have a Bleriot."
"Do you actually mean that you're going to--O Hermia! Not _fly_--!"
The girl nodded.
"I--I'm afraid I am, Auntie. It's the sporting thing.
You know I never could _bear_ having Reggie Armistead do anything I
couldn't. Every one will be doing it soon."
"I can't believe that you're in earnest."
"I am, awfully."
"But the danger! You must realize that!"
"I do--that's what attracts me." She got up and put her arms around
Mrs. Westfield's neck. "O Auntie, dear, don't bother. I'm absolutely
impossible anyway. I can't be happy doing the things that other girls
do, and you might as well let me have my own way--"
"But flying--"
"It's as simple as child's play. If you'd ever done it you'd wonder
how people would ever be content to motor or ride--"
"You've been up--?"
"Last week at Garden City. I'm crazy about it."
"Yes, child, crazy--mad. I've done what I could to keep your
amusements within the bounds of reason and without avail, but I
wouldn't be doing my duty to your sainted mother if I didn't try to
save you from yourself. I shall do something to prevent this--this
madcap venture--I don't know what. I shall see Mr. Winthrop at the
Trust Company. There must be some way--"
The pendants in the good lady's ears trembled in the light, and her
hand groped for her handkerchief. "You _can't_, Hermia. I'll not
permit it. I'll get out an injunction--or something. It was all very
well when you were a child--but now--do you realize that you're a
woman, a grown woman, with responsibilities to the community? It's
time that you were married, settled down and took your proper place in
New York. I had hoped that you would have matured and forgotten the
childish pastimes of your girlhood but now--now--"
Mrs. Westfield, having found her handkerchief, wept into it, her
emotions too deep for other expression, while Hermia, now really
moved, sank at her feet upon the floor, her arms about her Aunt's
shoulders, and tried to comfort her. "I'm not the slightest use in
the world, Auntie, dear. I haven't a single homely virtue to recommend
me. I'm only fit to ride and dance and motor and frivol. And whom
should I marry? Surely not Reggie Armistead or Crosby Downs! Reggie
and I have always fought like cats across a wire, and as for Crosby--I
would as life marry the great Cham of Tartary. No, dear, I'm not
ready for marriage yet. I simply couldn't. There, there, don't cry.
You've done your duty. I'm not worth bothering about. I'm not going
to do anything dreadful. And besides--you know if anything _did_
happen to me, the money would go to Millicent and Theodore."
"I--I don't want anything to happen to you," said Mrs. Westfield,
weeping anew.
"Nothing will--you know I'm not hankering to die--but I don't mind
taking a sporting chance with a game like that."
"But what good can it possibly do?"
Hermia Challoner laughed a little bitterly. "My dear Auntie, my life
has not been planned with reference to the ultimate possible good.
I'm a renegade if you like, a hoyden with a shrewd sense of personal
morality but with no other sense whatever. I was born under a mad
moon with some wild humor in my blood from an earlier incarnation and
I can't--I simply _can't_ be conventional. I've tried doing as
other--and nicer--girls do but it wearies me to the point of
distraction. Their lives are so pale, so empty, so full of
pretensions. They have always seemed so. When I used to romp like a
boy my elders told me it was an unnatural way for little girls to
play. But I kept on romping. If it hadn't been natural I shouldn't
have romped. Perhaps Sybil Trenchard is natural--or Caroline Anstell.
They're conventional girls--automatic parts of the social machinery,
eating, sleeping, decking themselves for the daily round, mere things
of sex, their whole life planned so that they may make a desirable
marriage. Good Lord, Auntie! And whom will they marry? Fellows like
Archie Westcott or Carol Gouverneur, fellows with notorious habits
which marriage is not likely to mend. How could it? No one expects
it to. The girls who marry men like that get what they bargain
for--looks for money--money for looks--"
"But Trevelyan Morehouse!"
Hermia paused and examined the roses in the silver vase with a
quizzical air.
"If I were not so rich, I should probably love Trevvy madly. But, you
see, then Trevvy wouldn't love me. He couldn't afford to. He's
ruining himself with roses as it is. And, curiously enough, I have a
notion when I marry, to love--and be loved for myself alone. I'm not
in love with Trevvy or any one else--or likely to be. The man I
marry, Auntie, isn't doing what Trevvy and Crosby and Reggie Armistead
are doing. He's different somehow--different from any man I've ever
met."
"How, child?"
"I don't know," she mused, with a smile. "Only he isn't like Trevvy
Morehouse."
"But Mr. Morehouse is a very promising young man--"
"The person I marry won't be a promising young man. Promising young
men continually remind me of my own deficiencies. Imagine
domesticating a critic like that, marrying a mirror for one's foibles
and being able to see nothing else. No, thanks."
"Whom will you marry then?" sighed Mrs. Westfield resignedly.
Hermia Challoner caught her by the arm. "Oh, I don't know--only he
isn't the kind of man who'd send me roses. I think he's something
between a pilgrim and a vagabond, a knight-errant from somewhere
between Heaven and the true Bohemia, a despiser of shams and vanities,
a man so much bigger than I am that he can make me what he is--in
spite of himself."
"Hermia! A Bohemian! Such a person will hardly be found--"
"O Auntie, you don't understand. I'm not likely to find him. I'm not
even looking for him, you know, and just now I don't want to marry
anybody."
"I only hope when you do, Hermia, that you will commit no imprudence,"
said Mrs. Westfield severely.
Hermia turned quickly.
"Auntie, Captain Lundt of the _Kaiser Wilhelm_ used to tell me that
there were two ways of going into a fog," she said. "One was to go
slow and use the siren. The other was to crowd on steam and go like
h--."
"Hermia!"
"I'm sorry, Auntie, but that describes the situation exactly. I'm too
wealthy to risk marrying prudently. I'd have to find a man who was a
prudent as I was, which means that he'd be marrying me for my money--"
"That doesn't follow. You're pretty, attractive--"
"Oh, thanks. I know what I am. I'm an animated dollar mark, a
financial abnormity, with just about as much chance of being loved for
myself alone as a fox in November. When men used to propose to me I
halted them, pressed their hands, bade them be happy and wept a tear
or two for the thing that could not be. Now I fix them with a cold
appraising eye and let them stammer through to the end. I've learned
something. The possession of money may have its disadvantages, but it
sharpens one's wits amazingly."
"I'm afraid it sharpens them too much, my dear," said Mrs. Westfield
coldly. She looked around the room helplessly as if seeking in some
mute object tangible evidence of her niece's sanity.
"Oh, well," she finished. "I shall hope and pray for a miracle to bring
you to your senses." And then, "What have you planned for the spring?"
"I'm going to 'Wake-Robin; first. By next week my aerodrome will be
finished. My machine is promised by the end of May. They're sending a
perfectly reliable mechanician--"
"Reliable--in the air! Imagine it!"
"--and I'll be flying in a month."
The good lady rose and Hermia watched her with an expression in which
relief and guilt were strangely mingled. Her conscience always smote
her after one of her declarations of independence to her Aunt, whose
mildness and ineptitude in the unequal struggle always left the girl
with an unpleasant sense of having taken a mean advantage of a
helpless adversary. To Hermia Mrs. Westfield's greatest effectiveness
was when she was most ineffectual.
"There's nothing more for me to say, I suppose," said Mrs. Westfield.
"Nothing except that you approve," pleaded her niece wistfully.
"I'll never do that," icily. "I don't approve of you at all. Why
should I mince matters? You're gradually alienating me,
Hermia--cutting yourself off from the few blood relations you have on
earth."
"From Millicent and Theodore? I thought that Milly fairly doted on
me--"
Mrs. Westfield stammered helplessly.
"It's I--I who object. I don't like your friends. I don't think I
would be doing my duty to their sainted father if--"
"Oh, I see," said Hermia thoughtfully. "You think I may
pervert--contaminate them--"
"Not you--your friends--"
"I was hoping that you would all come to 'Wake-Robin' for June."
"I--I've made other plans," said Mrs. Westfield.
Hermia's jaw set and her face hardened. They were thoroughly
antipathetic now.
"That, of course, will be as you please," she said coldly. "Since
Thimble Cottage burned, I've tried to make you understand that you are
to use my place as your own. If you don't want to come I'm sorry."
"It's not that I don't want to come, Hermia. I shall probably visit
you as usual. Thimble Cottage will be rebuilt as soon as the plans are
finished. Meanwhile, I've rented the island."
"And Milly and Theodore?"
"They're going abroad with their Aunt Julia."
"I think you are making a mistake in keeping us apart, Aunt Harriet."
"Why? You are finding new diversions and new friends."
"I must find new friends if my relations desert me." And then after a
pause: "Who has rented Thimble Island?"
"An artist--who will occupy the bark cabin. My agents thought it as
well to have some one there until the builders begin--a Mr. Markham--"
"Markham!" Hermia gasped.
"Do you know him?"
"Oh--er--enough to be sure that he is not the kind of person I shall
care to cultivate."
And then as her Aunt wavered uncertainly. "Oh, of course I shall get
along. I can't protest. It's your privilege to choose Milly's
friends, even if you mean to exclude me. It's also my privilege to
choose my friends and I shall do so. If this means that I am taboo at
your houses, I shall respect your wishes but I hope you'll remember
that you are all welcome at 'Wake-Robin' or here whenever you see fit
to visit me."
Having delivered herself of this speech, Hermia paused, sure of her
effect, and calmly awaited the usual recantation and reconciliation.
But to her surprise Mrs. Westfield continued to move slowly toward the
door, through which, after a formal word of farewell, she presently
disappeared and was gone.
Hermia stared at the empty door and pondered--really on the verge of
tears. The whole proceeding violated all precedents established for
ineffectual aunts.