AFTERNOON TEA.
Molly had established the custom of afternoon tea in her orchard home,
and while she had been greatly teased by her brothers for introducing
this English custom into Kentucky country life, they one and all turned
up on her porch for tea if they were in the neighborhood.
"It is one place where a fellow can always find some talk and a place to
air his views," declared John, as he reached for another slice of bread
and butter. "It isn't the food so much as the being gathered together."
"Well, you are gathering a good deal of food together in spite of your
contempt for it," put in Paul. "That's the sixth slice! I have kept tab
on you."
"Why not? I always think plain bread and butter is about the best thing
there is."
"Yes, why not?" asked Molly, calling her little cook Kizzie to prepare
another plate of the desirable article. "Aunt Clay, you had better
change your mind and have some tea and bread and butter."
Mrs. Sarah Clay had driven over in state from her home when she heard
Kent had arrived. She wanted to hear the latest news, also to tender
her advice as to what he was to do now. She presented the same
uncompromising front as of yore, although her back had given way
somewhat to the weight of years. Judy Kean always said she had a hard
face and a soft figure. This soft figure she poured into tight basques,
evidently determined to try to make it live up to her face.
"Tea!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I never eat between meals."
"But this is a meal, in a way," said Molly hospitably bent, as was her
wont, on feeding people.
"A meal! Whoever heard of tea and bread and butter comprising a meal?"
and the stern aunt stalked to the end of the porch where the baby lay in
her basket, kicking her pink heels in the air in an ecstasy of joy over
being in the world.
"Molly, this baby has on too few clothes. What can you be thinking of,
having the child barefooted and nothing on but this muslin slip over her
arms? She is positively blue with cold."
Molly flew to her darling but found her glowing and warm. "Why, Aunt
Clay, only feel her hands and feet! She is as warm as toast. The doctor
cautioned me against wrapping her up too much. He says little babies are
much warmer than we are."
"Well, have your own way! Of course, although I am older than your
mother, I know nothing at all."
"But, Aunt Clay----"
"Never mind!"
Poor Molly! She could never do or say anything to suit her Aunt Clay.
She looked regretfully at the old lady's indignant back as she left her
and joined Kent, who was sitting on a settle with his mother, holding
her hand, both of them very quiet amidst the chatter around the tea
table. They made room for their relative, who immediately began her
catechism of Kent.
"Why did you not come home sooner?"
"Because I had some work to do, sketches illustrating an article on
French country houses."
"Humph! Did you get paid for them?"
"Yes, Aunt Clay!"
"Now, what are your plans?"
"I have landed a job in New York with a firm of architects, that is, I
had landed it, but I am not so sure now since----"
"Good! You feel that you had better stay at home and look after
Chatsworth."
"Oh, no! I am sure I could not be much of a farmer."
"Could not because you would not! If I were your mother, I would insist
on one of you staying at home and running the place."
"Ernest is thinking of coming back, giving up engineering and trying
intensive farming on Chatsworth."
"Ernest, indeed! And why should he have wasted all these years in some
other profession if he means to farm?"
"Well, you see," said Kent very patiently because of the pressure he
felt from his mother's gentle hand, "farming takes money and there
wasn't any money. Ernest always did want to farm, but it was necessary
for him to make some money first. Now he has saved and invested and has
something to put in the land, and he is devoutly hoping to get out more
than he puts in."
"If putting something in the land means expensive machinery, I can tell
him now that he will waste money buying it. But there is no use in
telling Ernest anything--he is exactly like Sue: very quiet, does not
answer back when his elders and betters address him, but, like Sue, goes
his own way. Sue is very headstrong and simply twists my husband's
nephew around her finger. I was very much disappointed in Cyrus Clay. I
thought he had more backbone."
Sue Brown, now Mrs. Cyrus Clay, had been the one member of the Brown
family who always got on with the stern Aunt Clay; and Kent and his
mother were sorry to hear the old lady express any criticism of Sue. It
seemed that Sue had done nothing more serious than to persuade Cyrus to
join the Country Club, but it was against Mrs. Sarah Clay's wishes, and
anything that opposed her was headstrong and consequently wicked.
"But to return to you----" Kent let a sigh escape him as he had hoped he
had eluded further catechism, "what are you going to do now?"
"Well, to-night I go back to New York, and day after to-morrow I take a
French steamer for Havre."
"Havre! Are you crazy?"
"I don't know."
"What are you going to do in France with this war going on?"
"I am not quite sure."
This was too much for the irate old lady, so without making any adieux,
she took her departure, scorning the polite assistance of her three
nephews. Professor Green called her coachman and helped her into the
great carriage she still held to, the kind seen now-a-days only in
museums.
"Kent, how could you?" laughed Mrs. Brown, in spite of her attempt to
look shocked.
"I think Kent was right," declared Molly. "How could he tell Aunt Clay
he was going to France to get Judy? She would never have let up on it.
I'm glad she has gone, anyhow! We were having a very nice time without
her."
"Molly!" and Mrs. Brown looked shocked. She always exacted a show of
respect from her children to this very difficult elder sister Sarah.
"Oh, Mumsy, we have to break loose sometimes!" exclaimed Molly. "The
idea of her saying Mildred was blue with cold! Criticising poor Sue,
too! Goodness, I'd hate to be the one that Aunt Clay had taken a shine
to. I'd almost rather have her despise me as she does."
"Not despise you, Molly,--you don't understand your Aunt Clay."
"Well, perhaps not, but she puts up a mighty good imitation of
despising. I think it is because I look so like Cousin Sally Bolling
and she never forgave the present Marquise d'Ochte for making fun of
her long years ago. And then to crown it all, Cousin Sally got the
inheritance from Greataunt Sarah Carmichael and married the Marquis, at
least she married the Marquis and then got the inheritance. It was too
much for Aunt Clay."
Mrs. Brown looked so pained that Molly stopped her tirade. Aunt Clay was
the one person whom Molly could not love. She had a heart as big as all
out doors but it was not big enough to hold Aunt Clay.
"Here comes Sue! How glad I am! She 'phoned she would be here before so
very long. What a blessing she missed Aunt Clay! See, she is running the
car herself and isn't it a beauty? Cyrus just got it for her and Sue
runs it wonderfully well already. I forgot to write you about it, Kent.
But best of all! What do you think? Cyrus has had the muddy lane that
was the cause of Sue's hesitating whether to take him or not all
drained and macadamized. The approach to Maxton is simply perfect now."
"Good for Cyrus!" said Kent, jumping up to meet his sister, who drove
her big car through the gate and up the driveway as though she had been
running an automobile all her life.
"Only think, five Browns together again!" exclaimed Paul, as they seated
themselves on the porch of the bungalow after duly admiring the new car.
Molly had Kizzie brew a fresh pot of tea and John was persuaded to eat
some more thin slices of bread and butter.
"Yes, five of you together again," said Mrs. Brown wistfully. "Ah, me! I
wish I could get all seven of you at Chatsworth once more. Indeed, I
wish I had all of you back in the nursery again."
"But where would I come in then?" said Edwin Green whimsically.
"And little Mildred?" from Molly, hugging her infant.
"And Sue's new car, not to mention Cyrus?" teased Kent.
"You are right, children. I should be more of a philosopher.
"'The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.'"
Molly stood over Kent with a cup of steaming tea and taking her cue from
her mother's quotation from the Rubaiyat and prompted by his knownothing
attitude with his Aunt Clay, she got off the stanza:
"Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where."