AUNT CRETE’S EMANCIPATION
[Illustration: “SHE WATCHED LUELLA’S DISMAYED FACE WITH GROWING
ALARM”]
Aunt Crete’s Emancipation
BY
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL-LUTZ
Author of “The Girl from Montana,”
“The Story of a Whim,” Etc.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CLARA E. ATWOOD
THE GOLDEN RULE COMPANY
TREMONT TEMPLE
BOSTON, MASS.
_Copyright, 1911_
BY THE GOLDEN RULE COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A TELEGRAM AND A FLIGHT 11
II. THE BACKWOODS COUSIN 25
III. A WONDERFUL DAY 39
IV. AUNT CRETE TRANSFORMED 61
V. LUELLA AND HER MOTHER ARE MYSTIFIED 79
VI. AN EMBARRASSING MEETING 96
VII. LUELLA’S HUMILIATION 117
VIII. AUNT CRETE’S PARTNERSHIP 132
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“SHE WATCHED LUELLA’S DISMAYED FACE WITH GROWING
ALARM” _Frontispiece_
“HE HELPED WITH VIGOR” 31
“DONALD WATCHED HER WITH SATISFACTION” 52
“SHE BEAMED UPON THE WHOLE TRAINFUL OF PEOPLE” 63
“‘SOMEWHERE I HAVE SEEN THAT WOMAN,’ EXCLAIMED LUELLA’S
MOTHER” 81
“THEY STOOD FACE TO FACE WITH THE WONDERFUL LADY IN
THE GRAY GOWN” 102
“‘IT’S A LIE! I SAY IT’S A LIE!’” 123
“AUNT CRETE WAS AT LAST EMANCIPATED” 143
Aunt Crete’s Emancipation
CHAPTER I
A TELEGRAM AND A FLIGHT
“WHO’S at the front door?” asked Luella’s mother, coming in from
the kitchen with a dish-towel in her hand. “I thought I heard the
door-bell.”
“Luella’s gone to the door,” said her sister from her vantage-point at
the crack of the sitting-room door. “It looks to me like a telegraph
boy.”
“It couldn’t be, Crete,” said Luella’s mother impatiently, coming to
see for herself. “Who would telegraph now that Hannah’s dead?”
Lucretia was short and dumpy, with the comfortable, patient look of the
maiden aunt that knows she is indispensable because she will meekly
take all the burdens that no one else wants to bear. Her sister could
easily look over her head into the hall, and her gaze was penetrative
and alert.
“I’m sure I don’t know, Carrie,” said Lucretia apprehensively; “but I’m
all of a tremble. Telegrams are dreadful things.”
“Nonsense, Crete, you always act like such a baby. Hurry up, Luella.
Don’t stop to read it. Your aunt Crete will have a fit. Wasn’t there
anything to pay? Who is it for?”
Luella, a rather stout young woman in stylish attire, with her mother’s
keen features unsoftened by sentiment, advanced, irreverently tearing
open her mother’s telegram and reading it as she came. It was one of
the family grievances that Luella was stout like her aunt instead
of tall and slender like her mother. The aunt always felt secretly
that they somehow blamed her for being of that type. “It makes one so
hard to fit,” Luella’s mother remarked frequently, and adding with a
disparaging glance at her sister’s dumpy form, “So impossible!”
At such times the aunt always wrinkled up her pleasant little
forehead into a V upside down, and trotted off to her kitchen, or her
buttonholes, or whatever was the present task, sighing helplessly. She
tried to be the best that she could always; but one couldn’t help one’s
figure, especially when one was partly dependent on one’s family for
support, and dressmakers and tailors took so much money. It was bad
enough to have one stout figure to fit in the family without two; and
the aunt always felt called upon to have as little dressmaking done
as possible, in order that Luella’s figure might be improved from the
slender treasury. “Clothes do make a big difference,” she reflected.
And sometimes when she was all alone in the twilight, and there was
really nothing that her alert conscience could possibly put her hand to
doing for the moment, she amused herself by thinking what kind of dress
she would buy, and who should make it, if she should suddenly attain a
fortune. But this was a harmless amusement, inasmuch as she never let
it make her discontented with her lot, or ruffle her placid brow for an
instant.
But just now she was “all of a tremble,” and the V in her forehead was
rapidly becoming a double V. She watched Luella’s dismayed face with
growing alarm.
“For goodness’ sake alive!” said Luella, flinging herself into the most
comfortable rocker, and throwing her mother’s telegram on the table.
“That’s not to be tolerated! Something’ll have to be done. We’ll have
to go to the shore at once, mother. I should die of mortification to
have a country cousin come around just now. What would the Grandons
think if they saw him? I can’t afford to ruin all my chances for a
cousin I’ve never seen. Mother, you simply must do something. I won’t
stand it!”
“What in the world are you talking about, Luella?” said her mother
impatiently. “Why didn’t you read the telegram aloud, or why didn’t you
give it to me at once? Where are my glasses?”
The aunt waited meekly while her sister found her glasses, and read the
telegram.
“Well, I declare! That is provoking to have him turn up just now of
all times. Something must be done, of course. We can’t have a gawky
Westerner around in the way. And, as you say, we’ve never seen him. It
can’t make much difference to him whether he sees us or not. We can
hurry off, and be conveniently out of the way. It’s probably only a
‘duty visit’ he’s paying, anyway. Hannah’s been dead ten years, and
I always heard the child was more like his father than his mother.
Besides, Hannah married and went away to live when I was only a little
girl. I really don’t think Donald has much claim on us. What a long
telegram! It must have cost a lot. Was it paid for? It shows he knows
nothing of the world, or he would have put it in a few words. Well,
we’ll have to get away at once.”
She crumpled the telegram into a ball, and flung it to the table
again; but it fell wide of its mark, and dropped to the floor instead.
The aunt patiently stooped and picked it up, smoothing out the crushed
yellow paper.
“Hannah’s boy!” she said gently, and she touched the yellow paper as if
it had been something sacred.
“Am taking a trip East, and shall make you a little visit if
convenient. Will be with you sometime on Thursday.
DONALD GRANT.”
She sat down suddenly in the nearest chair. Somehow the relief from
anxiety had made her knees weak. “Hannah’s boy!” she murmured again,
and laid her hand caressingly over the telegram, smoothing down a torn
place in the edge of the paper.
Luella and her mother were discussing plans. They had decided that they
must leave on the early train the next morning, before there was any
chance of the Western visitor’s arriving.
“Goodness! Look at Aunt Crete,” said Luella, laughing. “She looks as if
she had seen a ghost. Her lips are all white.”
“Crete, you oughtn’t to be such a fool. As if a telegram would hurt
you! There’s nobody left to be worried about like that. Why don’t you
use your reason a little?”
“Hannah’s boy is really coming!” beamed Aunt Crete, ignoring their
scorn of herself.
“Upon my word! Aunt Crete, you look as if it were something to be glad
about, instead of a downright calamity.”
“Glad; of course I’m glad, Luella. Wouldn’t you be glad to see your
oldest sister’s child? Hannah was always very dear to me. I can see
her now the way she looked when she went away, so tall and slim and
pretty——”
“Not if she’d been dead for a century or so, and I’d never seen the
child, and he was a gawky, embarrassing creature who would spoil the
prospects of the people I was supposed to love,” retorted Luella. “Aunt
Crete, don’t you care the least bit for my happiness? Do you want it
all spoiled?”
“Why, of course not, dearie,” beamed Aunt Crete, “but I don’t see how
it will spoil your happiness. I should think you’d want to see him
yourself.”
“Aunt Crete! The idea! He’s nothing to me. You know he’s lived away out
in the wild West all his life. He probably never had much schooling,
and doesn’t know how to dress or behave in polite society. I heard
he went away off up in the Klondike somewhere, and worked in a mine.
You can imagine just what a wild, ignorant creature he will be. If
Clarence Grandon should see him, he might imagine my family were all
like that; and then where would I be?”
“Yes, Crete, I’m surprised at you. You’ve been so anxious all along for
Luella to shine in society, and now you talk just as if you didn’t care
in the least what happened,” put in Luella’s mother.
“But what can you do?” asked Aunt Crete. “You can’t tell him not to
come—your own sister’s child!”
“O, how silly you are, Crete!” said her sister. “No, of course we can’t
very well tell him not to come, as he hasn’t given us a chance; for
this telegram is evidently sent on the way. It is dated ‘Chicago,’ and
he hasn’t given us a trace of an address. He doesn’t live in Chicago.
He’s very likely almost here, and may arrive any time to-morrow. Now
you know we’ve simply got to go to the shore next week, for the rooms
are all engaged at the hotel, and paid for; and we might as well hurry
up and get off to-night or early in the morning, and escape him. Luella
would die of mortification if she had to cousin that fellow and give
up her trip to the shore. As you weren’t going anyway, you can receive
him. It will keep him quietly at home, for he won’t expect an old
woman to go out with him, and show him the sights; so nobody will
notice him much, and there won’t be a lot of talk. If he looks very
ridiculous, and that prying Mrs. Brown next door speaks of it, you
might explain he’s the son of an old school friend who went out West to
live years ago——”
“O Carrie!” exclaimed Aunt Crete, “that wouldn’t be true; and, besides,
he can’t be so very bad as that. And even if he is, I shall love
him—for he’s Hannah’s boy.”
“Love him all you want to,” sniffed her sister, “but for pity’s sake
don’t let the neighbors know what relation he is.”
“That’s just like you, Aunt Crete,” said Luella in a hurt tone. “You’ve
known me and pretended to love me all your life. I’m almost like your
own child, and yet you take up with this unknown nephew, and say you’ll
love him in spite of all the trouble he’s making me.”
Aunt Crete doubled the V in her forehead, and wiped away the beads of
perspiration. Somehow it always seemed that she was in the wrong. Would
she be understood in heaven? she wondered.
Luella and her mother went on planning. They told off what Aunt Crete
was to do after they left.
“There’s the raspberries and blackberries not done up yet, Crete, but
I guess you can manage alone. You always do the biggest part of the
canning, anyway. I’m awfully sorry about your sewing, Crete. I meant to
fit your two thin dresses before we went away, but the dressmaker made
Luella’s things so much more elaborate than I expected that we really
haven’t had a minute’s time, what with all the lace insertion she left
for us to sew on. Perhaps you better run down to Miss Mason, and see if
she has time to fit them, if you think you can’t wait till we get back.
You’ll hardly be going out much while we’re gone, you know.”
“O, I’ll be all right,” said Aunt Crete happily. “I guess I can fix up
my gray lawn for while Donald’s here.”
“Donald! Nonsense! It won’t matter what you wear while he’s here. He’ll
never know a calico from a silk. Now look here, Crete, you’ve got to be
awfully careful, or you’ll let out when we went off. There’s no use in
his finding out we didn’t want to see him. You wouldn’t want to hurt
his feelings, you know. Your own sister’s child!”
“No, of course not,” agreed Aunt Crete, though there was a troubled
look in her eyes. She never liked prevarication; and, when she was left
with some polite fabrication to excuse her relatives out of something
they wanted to shirk, she nearly always got it twisted so that it was
either an out-and-out lie, which horrified her, or else let the whole
thing “out of the bag,” as Luella said.
But there was little time for discussion; for Luella and her mother had
a great deal of packing to do, and Aunt Crete had the dinner to get and
the house to set in order, surreptitiously, for the expected guest.
They hurried away the next morning in a whirl of bags and suitcases and
parasols and umbrellas. They had baggage enough for a year in Europe,
although they expected to stay only two or three weeks at the shore
at most. Aunt Crete helped them into the station-cab, ran back to
the house for Luella’s new raincoat, back again for the veil and her
sister’s gloves, and still a third time to bring the new book, which
had been set aside for reading on the journey. Then at last they were
gone, and with one brief sigh of satisfaction Aunt Crete permitted
herself to reflect that she was actually left alone to receive a dear
guest all her own.
Never in all her maiden existence had she had this pleasure before. She
might use the best china, and have three kinds of pie at once, yes, and
plum-cake if she chose. Boys like pie and cake. Donald would be a big,
nice boy.
What did it matter to her if he was awkward and from the West? He was
in a large sense her own. Hannah was gone, and there was no one else to
take a closer place. Who but his mother’s sister should have the right
to mother him for a while? He would be her own as Luella never had
been, because there was always Luella’s mother to take the first place.
Besides, Luella had been a disappointing baby. Even in her infancy
she had developed an independence that scorned kissing and cuddling.
Luella always had too many selfish interests on hand to have time for
breathing out love and baby graces to admiring subjects. Her frown was
always quicker than her smile. But somehow Aunt Crete felt that it
would be different with this boy, and her heart swelled within her as
she hurried into the house to make ready for his coming.
The front hall was littered with rose-leaves. Luella had shaken a
bunch of roses to get rid of the loose leaves, and had found they were
all loose leaves; therefore she flung them down upon the floor. She had
meant to wear them with her new pongee travelling-suit. It looked well
to wear roses on a journey, for it suggested a possible admirer. But
the roses had not held out, and now Aunt Crete must sweep them up.
A glance into the parlor showed peanut-shells scattered over the floor
and on the table. A few of Luella’s friends had come in for a few
minutes the evening before, and they had indulged in peanuts, finishing
up by throwing the shells at one another amid shouts of hilarious
laughter. Aunt Crete went for the broom and dust-pan. If he came early,
the hall and parlor must be in order first.
Luella and her mother had little time to waste, for the tickets were
barely bought and the trunks checked before the train thundered up.
It was a through vestibuled train; and, as Luella struggled up the
steps of one car with her heavy suitcase, a tall young man with dark,
handsome eyes and a distinguished manner swung himself down the steps
of the next car.
“Hello, Luella!” called a voice from a pony-cart by the platform.
“You’re not going away to-day, are you? Thought you said you weren’t
going till next week.”
“Circumstances made it necessary,” called Luella from the top step of
the car while the porter held up the suitcase for her to take. “I’m
running away from a backwoods cousin that’s coming to visit. I’ll write
and tell you all about it. Good-by. Sorry I can’t be at your house
to-morrow night, but it couldn’t be helped.”
Then Luella turned another gaze upon the handsome stranger, who was
standing on the platform just below her, looking about interestedly.
She thought he had looked at her more than casually; and, as
she settled herself in the seat, she glanced down at her pongee
travelling-suit consciously, feeling that he could but have thought she
looked well.
He was still standing on the platform as the train moved out, and
Luella could see the girl in the pony-cart turn her attention to him.
She half wished she were sitting in the pony-cart too. It would be
interesting to find out who he was. Luella preened herself, and settled
her large hat in front of the strip of mirror between the windows,
and then looked around the car that she might see who were her fellow
passengers.
“Well, I’m glad we’re off,” said her mother nervously. “I was afraid as
could be your cousin might come in on that early through train before
we got started. It would have been trying if he’d come just as we were
getting away. I don’t know how we could have explained it.”
“Yes,” said Luella. “I’m glad we’re safely off. He’ll never suspect
now.”
It was just at that moment that the grocery-boy arrived at the back
door with a crate of red raspberries.
“Land alive!” said Miss Crete disappointedly. “I hoped those wouldn’t
come till to-morrow.” She bustled about, taking the boxes out of the
crate so that the boy might take it back; and before she was done the
door-bell rang.
“Land alive!” said Miss Crete again as she wiped her hands on the
kitchen towel and hurried to the front door, taking off her apron as
she went. “I do hope he hasn’t come yet. I haven’t cleared off that
breakfast-table; and, if he should happen to come out, there’s three
plates standing.”
But the thought had come too late. The dining-room door was stretched
wide open, and the table in full view. The front door was guarded only
by the wire screen. The visitor had been able to take full notes, if he
so desired.