AUNT JOSEPHINE'S LETTER
Bettina came into the room and handed me a letter.
"Mrs. Harborough!"--my mother drew herself up on the pillow with an
animation I had not thought to see again.
I opened and read: "My dear niece----"
"Ah!" my mother brought out the ejaculation with an effect of having
doubted if the relationship would be owned.
That introductory phrase turned out to be the most comprehensible part
of the first half of Aunt Josephine's letter. As for me, I was
completely floored by "the Dynamism of Mind," after I had stumbled over
a cryptic reference to my mother's state--"which you must not expect me
to call sickness. There is no such thing. There is only harmony or
unharmony, whether of the so-called body or the soul."
On the third page, the writer descended from these Alpine heights, to
say that it had been "inspirationally borne in upon" her that the time
was come for her brother's daughters to widen their horizon, and
incidentally, to see something of their father's world.
The implied slur upon our mother's world was, to my surprise, not
resented.
"Go on. Go on."
The letter ended by saying that, in spite of very grave and urgent
preoccupations, Aunt Josephine would endeavour to draw a little of the
old life round her, if her nieces would come and stay with her in
Lowndes Square for a few weeks.
"A London season!" Bettina cried.
I looked up from the letter and saw my mother watching with hungry
delight Bettina's face of rapture. Bettina had not looked like that
since the Helmstones went away.
But the most marked change, after all, was in my mother herself.
When Eric came he was staggered. "I'll believe in miracles after
this!"--and we joked about the Dynamism of Mind.
My mother had taken for granted that both Bettina and I would accept
Aunt Josephine's invitation, though I said at once _I_ could not leave
home. My mother put this aside with: "Bettina go alone! A wild idea."
When the question came up again in Eric's presence I did not press it
far. But, going downstairs, I asked him how _was_ I to put it to my
mother?
"Put what?" he asked.
"Why, the fact that we can't leave her. Or, at least, that I can't." I
agreed Betty must go.
"So must you," he said. My heart beat faster. His villeggiatura was near
the end. London, for me, meant Eric. "You need the change," he said,
"more than Betty does."
"You forget," I said, a little sadly, "what we've been facing here. The
specialist coming----"
"Well, he will find she has rallied."
Nevertheless, she was in no condition, Eric said, to be crossed. Had she
not told me herself that my first duty was to take care of Betty? That
was not how he would put it--all the same, the change would do me good.
Then a word about our "trustworthy servants." In any event I was not to
say any more about not going, till we had seen the "London chap."
* * * * *
She went on quite wonderfully.
We were positively gay again--she and I and Bettina--the three of us
laying plans.
We talked about clothes, and planned how we should look very nice on
very little money.
When the great specialist came, he found my mother sitting up in a bed
covered with old evening-gowns, old laces, and embroidered muslins;
things she had worn long ago in India, and which should help to make us
brave for our first London season. Smart little blouses, morning-gowns
and afternoon-gowns, could be made in the house or in the village. But
who was worthy to make an evening-frock fit for London? My mother was
much more concerned about this than about the great specialist, whom she
received rather as a friend of Eric's. He echoed all that Eric had said.
* * * * *
My mother had made me write to Aunt Josephine on the evening of the same
day that brought her letter. I did not tell anyone, but I put off
posting my answer till the London doctor had gone.
My letter was not only thanks and acceptance. I felt I ought, in common
civility, to try to make some more or less intelligent rejoinder to the
odd part of my aunt's letter. And this modest effort seemed not to
displease her. For she replied in eight pages of cloudy metaphysic and a
highly lucid cheque. The cheque alone supported us in our attempt to
grapple with those eight bewildering pages. The first introduced us, by
way of the Psychology of the Solar Plexus, to the Self-Superlative:
"If this view-point interests you, I will later explain to
you--in terms of inclusiveness and totalism--the mystical
activities of the Ever-Creative Self."
"Isn't she awfully learned!" said Bettina in a scared voice.
"On your return home, having 'contacted,' as we say, the
talents and the tranquillity of others--instead of contacting
things of lack and fear--you will be able to think happily and
sweetly about matters that formerly disturbed you. All the ills
of life are curable from within. Complete health is wisdom. I
do not go so far as to predict that you will find yourself
instantly able to adopt the bio-vibratory sympathism which
habitualises thought to the Majesty of Choice. But I _do_ say
that after giving the deeper and sweeter Self a chance to unite
the self of common consciousness, constructively, with the
Powers Within, that you, too, may find yourself a Healer--that
is, Harmoniser--clothed in the Regal Now."
After that plunge, Aunt Josephine came to the surface for breath, so to
speak, and to say that she thought it only fair to tell us that she
herself had seen almost nothing of general society for the past ten
years. She had her work. She had her classes in which we might take some
interest. I was to tell "the musical one" that Self-Expression, through
voice-culture and pianoforte playing, was one of the Keys to the
Biosophian System.
Aunt Josephine had already taken opera-tickets for the season. And we
should go to as many concerts as we liked. We should see pictures and we
should see people. We should "learn to use the plus sign in thought." We
should "recognise the cosmic truth that ALL IS GOOD."
This concluding phrase was underscored three times. And still, despite
its provokingly obvious aspect, I felt that I had not a notion what
Aunt Josephine meant by it. My mother said the reason was that I knew
nothing of mysticism. Eric said neither did he. But he knew stark,
staring lunacy when he saw it. And he was more than doubtful if we ought
to be entrusted to this demented step-aunt.
My mother reproved Eric's flippancy. Either she really did see daylight,
and most excellent meaning, in the Biosophical Theory, or she concerned
herself to make out a case for the defence of Aunt Josephine. She told
Eric she was surprised that a man of science should at this time of the
day cast ridicule on the doctrine of an essential harmony between "soul
states" and the health of the body. For her part, she felt the
attraction of this idea of ceasing the little lonely personal fight
against overwhelming odds--this putting oneself into direct relation
with the Infinite.
Eric stared.
Yes, my mother maintained, there was much to be said for Mrs.
Harborough's idea that each individual should learn to think of his life
in connection with this underlying force. If, instead of denying God we
affirmed Him ... refusing to accept or to believe in evil----
"All very jolly for us," Eric said, "but what about the poor cancerous
devils in our hospital? I see us looking in on them and saying: 'Oh,
you're all right! Three cheers for harmony. Come out and play golf with
the staff.'"
* * * * *
After Eric had gone my mother lay back on the pillow, her shining eyes
on Bettina pirouetting noiselessly about the room. I begged Bettina to
stop her gyrating.
She explained she was doing the cheque dance. Mercifully there was this
antidote--I mean postscript to Aunt Josephine's letter. "Nearer the
time" she would send us the money for our tickets. The enclosed L40 was
for clothes.
Now the way was clear!
No.
The question still was, Who, this side of London, could be trusted to
make our frocks? The seriousness of the consideration brought the cheque
dance to an end. We sat and thought.
The precise date of this visit was not yet fixed. Aunt Josephine had
asked what time would suit us best.
With one voice, Betty and I cried, "_June!_"
But we were promptly told (and we agreed) that to suggest June would be
too grasping. Aunt Josephine would have other, more important, guests
eager to come to her for the Coronation month. So we answered: Any time
convenient to her.
Then that admirable Aunt wrote back: "Would next month do?" And would we
stay for the Coronation?
In spite of the breathless shortness of the time of preparation, Bettina
composed Coronation dances and practised curtseying to the Queen, though
she knew quite well that she would only see Her Majesty at a distance
driving by in her golden coach.
The one consideration that sobered Bettina was who, _who_--on this short
notice, with all the feminine world crying passionately for frocks--who
could be found to make ours? The more plain and simple, the more
important was style and cut. Nobody in the country-side was competent
for such an undertaking.
Brighton? Very dear, and not first-rate.
Suddenly Bettina clapped her hands.
"The little French dressmaker Hermione told us about."
The very person! Only, wouldn't she be up to the eyes in work? We
remembered, too, she was said to be "not strong." She didn't care, as a
rule, to work out of London. But she had come to sew for those horrid
people Lord Helmstone let the Pond House to the year before. The people
turned out to be badly off, and, after doing some damage, they had gone
away without paying their rent. A law-suit was pending between them and
Lord Helmstone. We had never known them, but we could not help noticing
their clothes. They were beautiful. Even my mother said so.
Hermione had played golf once or twice with the boy and girl. One day
she had admired openly something the girl was wearing.
"Yes, looks quite Bond Street, doesn't it?" the girl said. "And all done
at home by a little dressmaker at four-and-six a day."
Hermione had got the woman's address, specially for us, she
said--meaning for Bettina. Hermione was always advising Bettina about
her clothes and making the child discontented with what she had.
We had not wanted any "little tame dressmaker" at the time, but we were
enchanted now, when Bettina turned up the card inscribed:
"MADAME AURORE,
"87, CRUTCHLEY STREET,
"LEICESTER SQUARE."
"Madame Aurore!" my mother echoed. "No doubt a cockney of the cockneys!"
* * * * *
She was not a cockney. And she was a great surprise.