For the next three months Jill and I were wild. It was just like
reading a serial story to watch Dick and Aunt Tommy. One day when Dick
came Aunt Tommy wasn't quite ready to come down, so Jill and I went in
to the parlour to help things along. We knew we hadn't much time, so
we began right off.
"Aunt Tommy is the jolliest girl I know," I said.
"She is as beautiful as a dream," Jill said.
"She can play games as good as a boy," I said.
"She does the most elegant fancy work," Jill said.
"She never gets mad," I said.
"She plays and sings divinely," Jill said.
"She can cook awfully good things," I said, for I was beginning to run
short of compliments. Jill was horrified; she said afterwards that it
wasn't a bit romantic. But I don't care--I believe Dick liked it, for
he smiled with his eyes I just as he always does when he's pleased.
Girls don't understand everything.
* * * * *
But at the end of three months we began to get anxious. Things were
going so slow. Dick and Aunt Tommy didn't seem a bit further ahead
than at first. Jill said it was because Aunt Tommy didn't encourage
Dick enough.
"I do wish we could hurry them up a little," she said. "At this rate
they will never be married this year and by next I'll be too big to be
a flower girl. I'm stretching out horribly as it is. Mother has had to
let down my frocks again."
"I wish they would get engaged and have done with it," I said. "My
mind would be at rest then. It's all Dick's fault. Why doesn't he ask
Aunt Tommy to marry him? What's making him so slow about it? If I
wanted a girl to marry me--but I wouldn't ever--I'd tell her so right
spang off."
"I suppose ministers have to be more dignified," said Jill, "but three
months ought to be enough time for anyone. And Aunt Tommy is only
going to be here another month. If Dick could be made a little
jealous it would hurry him up. And he could be made jealous if you had
any spunk about you."
"I guess I've got more spunk than you have," I said.
"The trouble with Dick is this," said Jill. "There is nobody else
coming to see Aunt Tommy and he thinks he is sure of her. If you could
tell him something different it would stir him up."
"Are you sure it would?" I asked.
"It always does in novels," said Jill. And that settled it, of course.
Jill and I fixed up what I was to say and Jill made me say it over and
over again to be sure I had it right. I told her--sarcastically--that
she'd better say it herself and then it would be done properly. Jill
said she would if it were Aunt Tommy, but when it was Dick it was
better for a man to do it. So of course I agreed.
I didn't know when I would have a chance to stir Dick up, but
Providence--so Jill said--favoured us. Aunt Tommy didn't expect Dick
down the next night, so she and Father and Mother all went away
somewhere. Dick came after all, and Jill sent me into the parlour to
tell him. He was standing before the mantel looking at Aunt Tommy's
picture. There was such an adoring look in his eyes. I could see it
quite plain in the mirror before him. I practised that look a lot
before my own glass after that--because I thought it might come in
handy some time, you know--but I guess I couldn't have got it just
right because when I tried it on Jill she asked me if I had a pain.
"Well, Jack, old man," said Dick, sitting down on the sofa. I sat down
before him.
"Aunt Tommy is out," I said, to get the worst over. "I guess you like
Aunt Tommy pretty well, don't you, Mr. Richmond?"
"Yes," said Dick softly.
"So do other men," I said--mysterious, as Jill had ordered me.
Dick thumped one of the sofa pillows.
"Yes, I suppose so," he said.
"There's a man in New York who just worships Aunt Tommy," I said. "He
writes her most every day and sends her books and music and elegant
presents. I guess she's pretty fond of him too. She keeps his
photograph on her bedroom table and I've seen her kissing it."
I stopped there, not because I had said all I had to say, but because
Dick's face scared me--honest, it did. It had all gone white, like it
does in the pulpit sometimes when he is tremendously in earnest, only
ten times worse. But all he said was,
"Is your Aunt Bertha engaged to this--this man?"
"Not exactly engaged," I said, "but I guess anybody else who wants to
marry her will have to reckon with him."
Dick got up.
"I think I won't wait this evening," he said.
"I wish you'd stay and have a talk with me," I said. "I haven't had a
talk with you for ages and I have a million things to tell you."
Dick smiled as if it hurt him to smile.
"I can't tonight, Jacky. Some other time we'll have a good powwow, old
chap."
He took his hat and went out. Then Jill came flying in to hear all
about it. I told her as well as I could, but she wasn't satisfied. If
Dick took it so quietly, she declared, I couldn't have made it strong
enough.
"If you had seen Dick's face," I said, "you would have thought I made
it plenty strong. And I'd like to know what Aunt Tommy will say to all
this when she finds out."
"Well, you didn't tell a thing but what was true," said Jill.
The next evening was Dick's regular night for coming, but he didn't
come, although Jill and I went down the lane a dozen times to watch
for him. The night after that was prayer-meeting night. Dick had
always walked home with Aunt Tommy and us, but that night he didn't.
He only just bowed and smiled as he passed us in the porch. Aunt Tommy
hardly spoke all the way home, only just held tight to Jill's and my
hands. But after we got home she seemed in great spirits and laughed
and chatted with Father and Mother.
"What does this mean?" asked Jill, grabbing me in the hall on our way
to bed.
"You'd better get another novel from the cook and find out," I said
grouchily. I was disgusted with things in general and Dick in
particular.
The three weeks that followed were awful. Dick never came near
Owlwood. Jill and I fought every day, we were so cross and
disappointed. Nothing had come out right, and Jill blamed it all on
me. She said I must have made it too strong. There was no fun in
anything, not even in going to church. Dick hardly thumped the pulpit
at all and when he did it was only a measly little thump. But Aunt
Tommy didn't seem to worry any. She sang and laughed and joked from
morning to night.
"She doesn't mind Dick's making an ass of himself, anyway, that's one
consolation," I said to Jill.
"She is breaking her heart about it," said Jill, "and that's your
consolation!"
"I don't believe it," I said. "What makes you think so?"
"She cries every night," said Jill. "I can tell by the look of her
eyes in the morning."
"She doesn't look half as woebegone over it as you do," I said.
"If I had her reason for looking woebegone I wouldn't look it either,"
said Jill.
I asked her to explain her meaning, but she only said that little boys
couldn't understand those things.
Things went on like this for another week. Then they reached--so Jill
says--a climax. If Jill knows what that means I don't. But Pinky
Carewe was the climax. Pinky's name is James, but Jill and I always
called him Pinky because we couldn't bear him. He took to calling at
Owlwood and one evening he took Aunt Tommy out driving. Then Jill came
to me.
"Something has got to be done," she said resolutely. "I am not going
to have Pinky Carewe for an Uncle Tommy and that is all there is about
it. You must go straight to Dick and tell him the truth about the New
York man."
I looked at Jill to see if she were in earnest. When I saw that she
was I said, "I wouldn't take all the gems of Golconda and go and tell
Dick that I'd been hoaxing him. You can do it yourself, Jill Gordon."
"You didn't tell him anything that wasn't true," said Jill.
"I don't know how a minister might look upon it," I said. "Anyway, I
won't go."
"Then I suppose I've got to," said Jill very dolefully.
"Yes, you'll have to," I said.
And this finishes my part of the story, and Jill is going to tell the
rest. But you needn't believe everything she says about me in it.
_Jill's Side of It_
Jacky has made a fearful muddle of his part, but I suppose I shall
just have to let it go. You couldn't expect much better of a boy. But
I am determined to re-describe Aunt Tommy, for the way Jacky has done
it is just disgraceful. I know exactly how to do it, the way it is
always done in stories.
Aunt Tommy is divinely beautiful. Her magnificent wealth of burnished
auburn hair flows back in amethystine waves from her sun-kissed brow.
Her eyes are gloriously dark and deep, like midnight lakes mirroring
the stars of heaven; her features are like sculptured marble and her
mouth is like a trembling, curving Cupid's bow (this is a classical
allusion) luscious and glowing as a dewy rose. Her creamy skin is as
fair and flawless as the inner petals of a white lily. (She may have a
weeny teeny freckle or two in summer, but you'd never notice.) Her
slender form is matchless in its symmetry and her voice is like the
ripple of a woodland brook.
There, I'm sure that's ever so much better than Jacky's description,
and now I can proceed with a clear conscience.
Well, I didn't like the idea of going and explaining to Dick very
much, but it had to be done unless I wanted to run the risk of having
Pinky Carewe in the family. So I went the next morning.
I put on my very prettiest pink organdie dress and did my hair the new
way, which is very becoming to me. When you are going to have an
important interview with a man it is always well to look your very
best. I put on my big hat with the wreath of pink roses that Aunt
Tommy had brought me from New York and took my spandy ruffled parasol.
"With your shield or upon it, Jill," said Jacky when I started. (This
is another classical allusion.)
I went straight up the hill and down the road to the manse where Dick
lived with his old housekeeper, Mrs. Dodge. She came to the door when
I knocked and I said, very politely, "Can I see the Reverend Stephen
Richmond, if you please?"
Mrs. Dodge went upstairs and came right back saying would I please go
up to the study. Up I went, my heart in my mouth, I can tell you, and
there was Dick among his books, looking so pale and sorrowful and
interesting, for all the world like Lord Algernon Francis in the
splendid serial in the paper cook took. There was a Madonna on his
desk that looked just like Aunt Tommy.
"Good evening, Miss Elizabeth," said Dick, just as if I were grown up,
you know. "Won't you sit down? Try that green velvet chair. I am sure
it was created for a pink dress and unfortunately neither Mrs. Dodge
nor I possess one. How are all your people?"
"We are all pretty well; thank you," I said, "except Aunt Tommy.
She--" I was going to say, "She cries every night after she goes to
bed," but I remembered just in time that if I were in Aunt Tommy's
place I wouldn't want a man to know I cried about him even if I did.
So I said instead "--she has got a cold."
"Ah, indeed, I am sorry to hear it," said Dick, politely but coldly,
as if it were part of his duty as a minister to be sorry for anybody
who had a cold, but as if, apart from that, it was not a concern of
his if Aunt Tommy had galloping consumption.
"And Jack and I are terribly harrowed up in our minds," I went on.
"That is what I've come up to see you about."
"Well, tell me all about it," said Dick.
"I'm afraid to," I said. "I know you'll be cross even if you are a
minister. It's about what Jack told you about that man in New York and
Aunt Tommy."
Dick turned as red as fire.
"I'd rather not discuss your Aunt Bertha's affairs," he said stiffly.
"You must hear this," I cried, feeling thankful that Jacky hadn't come
after all, for he'd never have got any further ahead after that snub.
"It's all a mistake. There is a man in New York and he just worships
Aunt Tommy and she just adores him. But he's seventy years old and
he's her Uncle Matthew who brought her up ever since her father died
and you've heard her talking about him a hundred times. That's all,
cross my heart solemn and true."
You never saw anything like Dick's face when I stopped. It looked just
like a sunrise. But he said slowly, "Why did Jacky tell me such
a--tell me it in such a way?"
"We wanted to make you jealous," I said. "I put Jacky up to it."
"I didn't think it was in either of you to do such a thing," said Dick
reproachfully.
"Oh, Dick," I cried--fancy my calling him Dick right to his face!
Jacky will never believe I really did it. He says I would never have
dared. But it wasn't daring at all, it was just forgetting. "Oh, Dick,
we didn't mean any harm. We thought you weren't getting on fast enough
and we wanted to stir you up like they do in books. We thought if we
made you jealous it would work all right. We didn't mean any harm. Oh,
please forgive us!"
I was just ready to cry. But that dear Dick leaned over the table and
patted my hand.
"There, there, it's all right. I understand and of course I forgive
you. Don't cry, sweetheart."
The way Dick said "sweetheart" was perfectly lovely. I envied Aunt
Tommy, and I wanted to keep on crying so that he would go on
comforting me.
"And you'll come back to see Aunt Tommy again?" I said.
Dick's face clouded over; he got up and walked around the room several
times before he said a word. Then he came and sat down beside me and
explained it all to me, just as if I were grown up.
"Sweetheart, we'll talk this all out. You see, it is this way. Your
Aunt Bertha is the sweetest woman in the world. But I'm only a poor
minister and I have no right to ask her to share my life of hard work
and self-denial. And even if I dared I know she wouldn't do it. She
doesn't care anything for me except as a friend. I never meant to tell
her I cared for her but I couldn't help going to Owlwood, even though
I knew it was a weakness on my part. So now that I'm out of the habit
of going I think it would be wisest to stay out. It hurts dreadfully,
but it would hurt worse after a while. Don't you agree with me, Miss
Elizabeth?"
I thought hard and fast. If I were in Aunt Tommy's place I mightn't
want a man to know I cried about him, but I was quite sure I'd rather
have him know than have him stay away because he didn't know. So I
spoke right up.
"No, I don't, Mr. Richmond; Aunt Tommy does care--you just ask her.
She cries every blessed night because you never come to Owlwood."
"Oh, Elizabeth!" said Dick.
He got up and stalked about the room again.
"You'll come back?" I said.
"Yes," he answered.