Another aunt, Anna by name, suggested that as I was at Fullfield, I
might take the opportunity of paying her a visit at Manwell, why because
I was at Fullfield I don't know, as they are miles apart, counties apart
I should say. However, I went because it is difficult to refuse Aunt
Anna anything; she accepts no excuses. It is as well for any one who
wishes to see Aunt Anna at her best to see her in her own home. She,
according to Aunt Cecilia, does best in her own soil. Moreover, she is
nothing without her family, it so thoroughly justifies her existence.
Aunt Anna is one of those jewels who owe a certain amount to their
setting.
Her husband calls her a jewel, and as such she is known by the family
in general which recalls to my mind an interesting biennial custom which
was said to hold good in the Manwell family. Every time a lesser jewel
made its appearance, the mother-jewel was presented with a diamond and
ruby ornament of varying magnificence, with the words "The price of a
good woman is far above rubies" conveniently inscribed thereon.
Aunt Anna took it all very seriously, from the tiara downward, and if
diamond and ruby shoe-buckles had not involved twins, I think she would
have hankered after those, but even as it was, she came in time to
possess a very remarkable collection of rubies and diamonds.
Aunt Anna is very prosperous, very happy, very rich, and very contented.
She prides herself on none of these things, but only on the unprejudiced
state of her maternal mind.
"Of course," she says, "I cannot help seeing that my children are more
beautiful than other people's. It would be ludicrously affected and
hypocritical of me if I pretended otherwise. If they were plain, I
should be the first to see it, and--"
I think she was going to add "say it," but she stopped short; she
invariably does at a deliberate lie, because she is a very truthful
woman, and thinks a lie is a wicked thing unless socially a necessity.
I arrived at tea-time which is a thing Aunt Anna expects of her guests.
I noticed that she looked a little less contented than usual, and that
she even gave way to a gesture of impatience when Mrs. Blankley asked
for a fifth cup of tea. Mrs. Blankley is a great advocate of temperance.
In connection with which, Aunt Anna once said that she thought there
should be temperance in all things beginning with "t." Which vague
saying, as illustrative of her wit, was treasured up by her indulgent
husband and quoted "As Anna so funnily said."
Now as Aunt Anna, we know, never says witty things unless under strong
provocation, she rarely says them, for she is of an amazingly even
temperament. She often says she considers cleverness a very dangerous
gift. It is not one I seek for either myself or my children. It is so
easy to say clever, unkind things. Every one can do it if they choose;
the difficulty is not to say them.
It is evident that Aunt Anna chooses the harder part.
Mrs. Blankley, having disposed of the fifth cup of tea, expressed a
desire to see the pigs. Aunt Anna never goes to see pigs, nor demands
that sacrifice of Londoners, for which act of consideration I honor her;
not but what I am fond of pigs, black ones and small. Aunt Anna knows
that there are such things because of the continual presence of bacon
in her midst. She also knows that pigs are things that get prizes.
She still clings to her childish belief that streaky bacon comes from
feeding the pigs one day and not the next.
Every one, like Mrs. Blankley, had a thirst to see something, and I
was left alone with Aunt Anna, to discuss Pauline's wedding. As a
rule, there is nothing Aunt Anna would sooner discuss, but I saw that
something was worrying her, and I guessed that the unburdening of a
rarely perturbed mind was imminent. It was.
"Is anything wrong?--" I asked. "Any of the children worrying you?" She
nodded and pointed to a diamond and ruby brooch and said plaintively.
"This one, Claud, just a little worrying."
I tried to hide a smile. "Oh, that's Claud, is it? I get a little
mixed."
"I dare say, dear," she said; "but it's quite simple, really. Jack was
the tiara, and so on."
"What has Claud been doing?" I asked. "Oh, nothing he can help, I feel
sure. He has a temperament, I believe. What it is I don't quite know;
people grow out of it, I am told. It's not so much doing things as
saying them; and his friends are odd, decidedly odd. They wear curious
ties, have disheveled hair, and are distinctly decollete. I don't know
if I should apply the word to men, but they are."
I suggested that these little indiscretions on the part of extreme youth
need not worry her. But she said they did, in a way, because her
other children were so very plain sailing. They never took any one by
surprise. She then told me of poor Lady Adelaide, a near neighbor, at
least as near as it was possible for any neighbor to be, considering
the extent of the Manwell property, one of whose boys had written a book
without her knowledge, and the other had married under exactly similar
conditions.
I said I thought the writing of a book a minor offense compared to
the matrimonial venture. She agreed, but said they were both upsetting
because unexpected. As an instance, did I remember when Lady Victoria
was butted by her pet lamb, when she was showing the Prince her white
farm? It wasn't the upsetting she minded, so much as the unexpectedness
of it, because the lamb had a blue ribbon round its neck!
"A black sheep in a white farm, Aunt Anna!" I said.
"No, dear, it was white, and it was a lamb."
But to return to Lady Adelaide. Now that Aunt Anna came to think of it,
the marriage was the better of the two shocks, because financially it
was a success, and the book wasn't. "Books aren't," She added.
"Is that all Claud does, or, rather, his friends do?" I asked.
"No, it's not," she said. "Ever since he went to Oxford he has changed
completely. He has got into his head that we are a self-centered family,
and that I am a prejudiced mother, when it is the only thing I am not.
I may be everything else for all I know, I may be daily breaking all
the commandments without knowing it! But a prejudiced mother I am not!
Before he went to Oxford he came into my bedroom one morning, and he
said that he thought Maud and Edith were quite the most beautiful girls
he had ever seen, and he had sat behind some famous beauty in a theatre
a few nights before. I didn't ask him! I was suffering from neuralgia at
the time, I remember, and he might, under the circumstances, have agreed
just to soothe me, but he said it of his own accord, and he wondered if
they would go up to London and walk down Bond Street with him. I said
it should be arranged. They walked with him three times up and down Bond
Street; he only asked for once. I am only telling you this because you
will then realize what this change in him means to me. He came back
from Oxford after one term and he said nothing about the girls' beauty,
although I thought them improved. I didn't say so; I made some little
joke about Bond Street, which he pretended not to understand. So I just
said I thought the girls improved, or rather were looking very pretty,
and he said, 'My dear mother, we must learn to look at these things from
the point of view of the outsider. Place yourself in the position of a
man of the world seeing them for the first time.'"
To begin with, Aunt Anna proceeded to explain, she could never place
herself in a position to which she was not born; she did not think it
right. She said that Claud then urged her to look at it from stranger's
point of view, since that of man of the world was impracticable, which
Aunt Anna said was a thing no mother could do, nor would she wish to do
it. She left such things to actresses. Talking of actresses reminded her
that Claud had even found fault with Maud as an actress, when every
one knew how very excellent she was. Several newspapers, the Southshire
Herald in particular, had alluded to her as one of our most talented
actresses.
"We had a professional down to coach her, and he said there was really
nothing he could teach her. He was a very nice man, and had all his
meals with us. I went," continued Aunt Anna, "to see the great French
actress who was in London in the spring, you remember? And if ever a
mother went with an unprejudiced mind, I was that mother. I was prepared
to think she was better than Maud, and if she had been, I should have
been the first to say it. But she was not, at least not to my mind! Maud
is always a lady, even on the stage, and that woman was not."
I ventured to suggest that she was perhaps not supposed to be a lady in
the part. Aunt Anna said, "Perhaps not, but that does not matter;
Maud would be a lady under any circumstances, whatever character she
impersonated, laundress or lady. Claud says she will never act till
she learns to forget herself I trust one of my daughters will never do
that!"
I strove to pacify Aunt Anna, but her tender heart was wounded and she
was hard to comfort.
"Claud must admire Edith's violin playing," I ventured.
Aunt Anna shook her head. "He begged me to eliminate from my mind all
preconceived notions and to judge her from the unprejudiced point of
view. I told Edith to put away her violin. Claud says I must call it a
fiddle. I could not bear to see it. I never thought there could be such
dissension in our united family."
By way of distraction, I asked if the young man at tea with the
disheveled hair and startlingly unorthodox tie was a friend of Claud's,
and she said, "His greatest!"
At that moment Claud came into the room, wearing a less earnest
expression than usual and Aunt Anna held out a hand of forgiveness. He
warmly clasped it. "Mother," he said, "Windlehurst has just told me, in
strict confidence, that he considers Maud's the most beautiful face he
has ever seen, except, of course, in the best period of ancient Greek
art. I knew you wanted to hear the unprejudiced opinion of an unbiased
outsider."
I wondered how Windlehurst would like the description! Claud went on: "I
think Edith every bit as good looking, more so in some ways. Now that
I have heard an unprejudiced opinion I can express mine, which you have
known all along. You see, mother, people say we are a self-centered and
egotistical family. I have proved that we are not."
"Dear, dearest Claud, your tie is disarranged," murmured his mother,
struggling to reduce it to the dimensions of the orthodox sailor knot.
"Do wait and listen to all dear Betty is telling me of dearest Pauline's
wedding. So interesting. Go on, dear Betty; where had we got to?"