Aunt Plessington's descent was due to her sudden discovery that
Buryhamstreet was in close proximity to Summerhay Park, indeed only
three miles away. She had promised a lecture on her movement for Lady
Petchworth's village room in Summerhay, and she found that with a slight
readjustment of dates she could combine this engagement with her
promised visit to her husband's sister, and an evening or so of
influence for her little Madge. So she had sent Hubert to telegraph at
once, and "here," she said triumphantly on the platform, after a hard
kiss at Marjorie's cheek, "we are again."
There, at any rate, she was, and Uncle Hubert was up the platform seeing
after the luggage, in his small anxious way.
Aunt Plessington was a tall lean woman, with firm features, a high
colour and a bright eye, who wore hats to show she despised them, and
carefully dishevelled hair. Her dress was always good, but extremely old
and grubby, and she commanded respect chiefly by her voice. Her voice
was the true governing-class voice, a strangulated contralto, abundant
and authoritative; it made everything she said clear and important, so
that if she said it was a fine morning it was like leaded print in the
_Times_, and she had over her large front teeth lips that closed quietly
and with a slight effort after her speeches, as if the words she spoke
tasted well and left a peaceful, secure sensation in the mouth.
Uncle Hubert was a less distinguished figure, and just a little
reminiscent of the small attached husbands one finds among the lower
crustacea: he was much shorter and rounder than his wife, and if he had
been left to himself, he would probably have been comfortably fat in his
quiet little way. But Aunt Plessington had made him a Haigite, which is
one of the fiercer kinds of hygienist, just in the nick of time. He had
round shoulders, a large nose, and glasses that made him look
astonished--and she said he had a great gift for practical things, and
made him see after everything in that line while she did the lecturing.
His directions to the porter finished, he came up to his niece. "Hello,
Marjorie!" he said, in a peculiar voice that sounded as though his mouth
was full (though of course, poor dear, it wasn't), "how's the First
Class?"
"A second's good enough for me, Uncle Hubert," said Marjorie, and asked
if they would rather walk or go in the donkey cart, which was waiting
outside with Daffy. Aunt Plessington, with an air of great _bonhomie_
said she'd ride in the donkey cart, and they did. But no pseudo-twins or
Theodore came to meet this arrival, as both uncle and aunt had a way of
asking how the lessons were getting on that they found extremely
disagreeable. Also, their aunt measured them, and incited them with loud
encouraging noises to grow one against the other in an urgent,
disturbing fashion.
Aunt Plessington's being was consumed by thoughts of getting on. She was
like Bernard Shaw's life force, and she really did not seem to think
there was anything in existence but shoving. She had no idea what a lark
life can be, and occasionally how beautiful it can be when you do not
shove, if only, which becomes increasingly hard each year, you can get
away from the shovers. She was one of an energetic family of eight
sisters who had maintained themselves against a mutual pressure by the
use of their elbows from the cradle. They had all married against each
other, all sorts of people; two had driven their husbands into
bishoprics and made quite typical bishop's wives, one got a leading
barrister, one a high war-office official, and one a rich Jew, and Aunt
Plessington, after spending some years in just missing a rich and only
slightly demented baronet, had pounced--it's the only word for it--on
Uncle Hubert. "A woman is nothing without a husband," she said, and took
him. He was a fairly comfortable Oxford don in his furtive way, and
bringing him out and using him as a basis, she specialized in
intellectual philanthropy and evolved her Movement. It was quite
remarkable how rapidly she overhauled her sisters again.
What the Movement was, varied considerably from time to time, but it was
always aggressively beneficial towards the lower strata of the
community. Among its central ideas was her belief that these lower
strata can no more be trusted to eat than they can to drink, and that
the licensing monopoly which has made the poor man's beer thick,
lukewarm and discreditable, and so greatly minimized its consumption,
should be extended to the solid side of his dietary. She wanted to place
considerable restrictions upon the sale of all sorts of meat, upon
groceries and the less hygienic and more palatable forms of bread (which
do not sufficiently stimulate the coatings of the stomach), to increase
the present difficulties in the way of tobacco purchasers, and to put an
end to that wanton and deleterious consumption of sweets which has so
bad an effect upon the enamel of the teeth of the younger generation.
Closely interwoven with these proposals was an adoption of the principle
of the East Purblow Experiment, the principle of Payment in Kind. She
was quite in agreement with Mr. Pope that poor people, when they had
money, frittered it away, and so she proposed very extensive changes in
the Truck Act, which could enable employers, under suitable safeguards,
and with the advice of a small body of spinster inspectors, to supply
hygienic housing, approved clothing of moral and wholesome sort, various
forms of insurance, edifying rations, cuisine, medical aid and
educational facilities as circumstances seemed to justify, in lieu of
the wages the employees handled so ill....
As no people in England will ever admit they belong to the lower strata
of society, Aunt Plessington's Movement attracted adherents from every
class in the community.
She now, as they drove slowly to the vicarage, recounted to
Marjorie--she had the utmost contempt for Daffy because of her irregular
teeth and a general lack of progressive activity--the steady growth of
the Movement, and the increasing respect shown for her and Hubert in the
world of politico-social reform. Some of the meetings she had addressed
had been quite full, various people had made various remarks about her,
hostile for the most part and yet insidiously flattering, and everybody
seemed quite glad to come to the little dinners she gave in order, she
said, to gather social support for her reforms. She had been staying
with the Mastersteins, who were keenly interested, and after she had
polished off Lady Petchworth she was to visit Lady Rosenbaum. It was all
going on swimmingly, these newer English gentry were eager to learn all
she had to teach in the art of breaking in the Anglo-Saxon villagers,
and now, how was Marjorie going on, and what was _she_ going to do in
the world?
Marjorie said she was working for her final.
"And what then?" asked Aunt Plessington.
"Not very clear, Aunt, yet."
"Looking around for something to take up?"
"Yes, Aunt."
"Well, you've time yet. And it's just as well to see how the land lies
before you begin. It saves going back. You'll have to come up to London
with me for a little while, and see things, and be seen a little."
"I should love to."
"I'll give you a good time," said Aunt Plessington, nodding promisingly.
"Theodore getting on in school?"
"He's had his remove."
"And how's Sydney getting on with the music?"
"Excellently."
"And Rom. Rom getting on?"
Marjorie indicated a more restrained success.
"And what's Daffy doing?"
"Oh! _get_ on!" said Daffy and suddenly whacked the donkey rather hard.
"I beg your pardon, Aunt?"
"I asked what _you_ were up to, Daffy?"
"Dusting, Aunt--and the virtues," said Daffy.
"You ought to find something better than that."
"Father tells me a lot about the East Purblow Experiment," said Daffy
after a perceptible interval.
"Ah!" cried Aunt Plessington with a loud encouraging note, but evidently
making the best of it, "_that's_ better. Sociological observation."
"Yes, Aunt," said Daffy, and negotiated a corner with exceptional care.