Aunt Olivia told Peggy and me about him on the afternoon we went over
to help her gather her late roses for pot-pourri. We found her strangely
quiet and preoccupied. As a rule she was fond of mild fun, alert to hear
East Grafton gossip, and given to sudden little trills of almost girlish
laughter, which for the time being dispelled the atmosphere of gentle
old-maidishness which seemed to hang about her as a garment. At
such moments we did not find it hard to believe--as we did at other
times--that Aunt Olivia had once been a girl herself.
This day she picked the roses absently, and shook the fairy petals into
her little sweet-grass basket with the air of a woman whose thoughts
were far away. We said nothing, knowing that Aunt Olivia’s secrets
always came our way in time. When the rose-leaves were picked, we
carried them in and upstairs in single file, Aunt Olivia bringing up
the rear to pick up any stray rose-leaf we might drop. In the south-west
room, where there was no carpet to fade, we spread them on newspapers on
the floor. Then we put our sweet-grass baskets back in the proper place
in the proper closet in the proper room. What would have happened to us,
or to the sweet-grass baskets, if this had not been done I do not know.
Nothing was ever permitted to remain an instant out of place in Aunt
Olivia’s house.
When we went downstairs, Aunt Olivia asked us to go into the parlour.
She had something to tell us, she said, and as she opened the door a
delicate pink flush spread over her face. I noted it, with surprise, but
no inkling of the truth came to me--for nobody ever connected the idea
of possible lovers or marriage with this prim little old maid, Olivia
Sterling.
Aunt Olivia’s parlour was much like herself--painfully neat. Every
article of furniture stood in exactly the same place it had always
stood. Nothing was ever suffered to be disturbed. The tassels of the
crazy cushion lay just so over the arm of the sofa, and the crochet
antimacassar was always spread at precisely the same angle over the
horsehair rocking chair. No speck of dust was ever visible; no fly ever
invaded that sacred apartment.
Aunt Olivia pulled up a blind, to let in what light could sift finely
through the vine leaves, and sat down in a high-backed old chair that
had appertained to her great-grandmother. She folded her hands in her
lap, and looked at us with shy appeal in her blue-gray eyes. Plainly she
found it hard to tell us her secret, yet all the time there was an air
of pride and exultation about her; somewhat, also, of a new dignity.
Aunt Olivia could never be self-assertive, but if it had been possible
that would have been her time for it.
“Have you ever heard me speak of Mr. Malcolm MacPherson?” asked Aunt
Olivia.
We had never heard her, or anybody else, speak of Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson; but volumes of explanation could not have told us more about
him than did Aunt Olivia’s voice when she pronounced his name. We knew,
as if it had been proclaimed to us in trumpet tones, that Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson must be Aunt Olivia’s beau, and the knowledge took away our
breath. We even forgot to be curious, so astonished were we.
And there sat Aunt Olivia, proud and shy and exulting and shamefaced,
all at once!
“He is a brother of Mrs. John Seaman’s across the bridge,” explained
Aunt Olivia with a little simper. “Of course you don’t remember him.
He went out to British Columbia twenty years ago. But he is coming home
now--and--and--tell your father, won’t you--I--I--don’t like to tell
him--Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and I are going to be married.”
“Married!” gasped Peggy. And “married!” I echoed stupidly.
Aunt Olivia bridled a little.
“There is nothing unsuitable in that, is there?” she asked, rather
crisply.
“Oh, no, no,” I hastened to assure her, giving Peggy a surreptitious
kick to divert her thoughts from laughter. “Only you must realize, Aunt
Olivia, that this is a very great surprise to us.” “I thought it would
be so,” said Aunt Olivia complacently. “But your father will know--he
will remember. I do hope he won’t think me foolish. He did not think Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson was a fit person for me to marry once. But that
was long ago, when Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was very poor. He is in very
comfortable circumstances now.”
“Tell us about it, Aunt Olivia,” said Peggy. She did not look at me,
which was my salvation. Had I caught Peggy’s eye when Aunt Olivia said
“Mr. Malcolm MacPherson” in that tone I must have laughed, willy-nilly.
“When I was a girl the MacPhersons used to live across the road from
here. Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was my beau then. But my family--and your
father especially--dear me, I do hope he won’t be very cross--were
opposed to his attentions and were very cool to him. I think that was
why he never said anything to me about getting married then. And after
a time he went away, as I have said, and I never heard anything from him
directly for many a year. Of course, his sister sometimes gave me news
of him. But last June I had a letter from him. He said he was coming
home to settle down for good on the old Island, and he asked me if I
would marry him. I wrote back and said I would. Perhaps I ought to have
consulted your father, but I was afraid he would think I ought to refuse
Mr. Malcolm MacPherson.”
“Oh, I don’t think father will mind,” said Peggy reassuringly.
“I hope not, because, of course, I would consider it my duty in any case
to fulfil the promise I have given to Mr. Malcolm MacPherson. He will be
in Grafton next week, the guest of his sister, Mrs. John Seaman, across
the bridge.”
Aunt Olivia said that exactly as if she were reading it from the
personal column of the Daily Enterprise.
“When is the wedding to be?” I asked.
“Oh!” Aunt Olivia blushed distressfully. “I do not know the exact date.
Nothing can be definitely settled until Mr. Malcolm MacPherson comes.
But it will not be before September, at the earliest. There will be so
much to do. You will tell your father, won’t you?”
We promised that we would, and Aunt Olivia arose with an air of relief.
Peggy and I hurried over home, stopping, when we were safely out of
earshot, to laugh. The romances of the middle-aged may be to them as
tender and sweet as those of youth, but they are apt to possess a good
deal of humour for onlookers. Only youth can be sentimental without
being mirth-provoking. We loved Aunt Olivia and were glad for her
late, new-blossoming happiness; but we felt amused over it also. The
recollection of her “Mr. Malcolm MacPherson” was too much for us every
time we thought of it.
Father pooh-poohed incredulously at first, and, when we had convinced
him, guffawed with laughter. Aunt Olivia need not have dreaded any more
opposition from her cruel family.
“MacPherson was a good fellow enough, but horribly poor,” said father.
“I hear he has done very well out west, and if he and Olivia have a
notion of each other they are welcome to marry as far as I am concerned.
Tell Olivia she mustn’t take a spasm if he tracks some mud into her
house once in a while.”
Thus it was all arranged, and, before we realized it at all, Aunt Olivia
was mid-deep in marriage preparations, in all of which Peggy and I were
quite indispensable. She consulted us in regard to everything, and we
almost lived at her place in those days preceding the arrival of Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson.
Aunt Olivia plainly felt very happy and important. She had always
wished to be married; she was not in the least strong-minded and her
old-maidenhood had always been a sore point with her. I think she looked
upon it as somewhat of a disgrace. And yet she was a born old maid;
looking at her, and taking all her primness and little set ways into
consideration, it was quite impossible to picture her as the wife of Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson, or anybody else.
We soon discovered that, to Aunt Olivia, Mr. Malcolm MacPherson
represented a merely abstract proposition--the man who was to confer on
her the long-withheld dignity of matronhood. Her romance began and ended
there, although she was quite unconscious of this herself, and believed
that she was deeply in love with him.
“What will be the result, Mary, when he arrives in the flesh and she
is compelled to deal with ‘Mr. Malcolm MacPherson’ as a real, live
man, instead of a nebulous ‘party of the second part’ in the marriage
ceremony?” queried Peggy, as she hemmed table-napkins for Aunt Olivia,
sitting on her well-scoured sandstone steps, and carefully putting all
thread-clippings and ravellings into the little basket which Aunt Olivia
had placed there for that purpose.
“It may transform her from a self-centered old maid into a woman for
whom marriage does not seem such an incongruous thing,” I said.
The day on which Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was expected Peggy and I went
over. We had planned to remain away, thinking that the lovers would
prefer their first meeting to be unwitnessed, but Aunt Olivia insisted
on our being present. She was plainly nervous; the abstract was becoming
concrete. Her little house was in spotless, speckless order from top to
bottom. Aunt Olivia had herself scrubbed the garret floor and swept the
cellar steps that very morning with as much painstaking care as if she
expected that Mr. Malcolm MacPherson would hasten to inspect each at
once and she must stand or fall by his opinion of them.
Peggy and I helped her to dress. She insisted on wearing her best black
silk, in which she looked unnaturally fine. Her soft muslin became her
much better, but we could not induce her to wear it. Anything more prim
and bandboxy than Aunt Olivia when her toilet was finished it has never
been my lot to see. Peggy and I watched her as she went downstairs, her
skirt held stiffly up all around her that it might not brush the floor.
“‘Mr. Malcolm MacPherson’ will be inspired with such awe that he will
only be able to sit back and gaze at her,” whispered Peggy. “I wish he
would come and have it over. This is getting on my nerves.”
Aunt Olivia went into the parlour, settled herself in the old carved
chair, and folded her hands. Peggy and I sat down on the stairs to
await his coming in a crisping suspense. Aunt Olivia’s kitten, a fat,
bewhiskered creature, looking as if it were cut out of black velvet,
shared our vigil and purred in maddening peace of mind.
We could see the garden path and gate through the hall window, and
therefore supposed we should have full warning of the approach of Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson. It was no wonder, therefore, that we positively
jumped when a thunderous knock crashed against the front door and
re-echoed through the house. Had Mr. Malcolm MacPherson dropped from the
skies?
We afterwards discovered that he had come across lots and around the
house from the back, but just then his sudden advent was almost uncanny.
I ran downstairs and opened the door. On the step stood a man about
six feet two in height, and proportionately broad and sinewy. He had
splendid shoulders, a great crop of curly black hair, big, twinkling
blue eyes, and a tremendous crinkly black beard that fell over his
breast in shining waves. In brief, Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was what one
would call instinctively, if somewhat tritely, “a magnificent specimen
of manhood.”
In one hand he carried a bunch of early goldenrod and smoke-blue asters.
“Good afternoon,” he said in a resonant voice which seemed to take
possession of the drowsy summer afternoon. “Is Miss Olivia Sterling in?
And will you please tell her that Malcolm MacPherson is here?”
I showed him into the parlour. Then Peggy and I peeped through the crack
of the door. Anyone would have done it. We would have scorned to excuse
ourselves. And, indeed, what we saw would have been worth several
conscience spasms if we had felt any.
Aunt Olivia arose and advanced primly, with outstretched hand.
“Mr. MacPherson, I am very glad to see you,” she said formally.
“It’s yourself, Nillie!” Mr. Malcolm MacPherson gave two strides.
He dropped his flowers on the floor, knocked over a small table, and
sent the ottoman spinning against the wall. Then he caught Aunt
Olivia in his arms and--smack, smack, smack! Peggy sank back upon the
stair-step with her handkerchief stuffed in her mouth. Aunt Olivia was
being kissed!
Presently, Mr. Malcolm MacPherson held her back at arm’s length in his
big paws and looked her over. I saw Aunt Olivia’s eyes roam over his arm
to the inverted table and the litter of asters and goldenrod. Her sleek
crimps were all ruffled up, and her lace fichu twisted half around her
neck. She looked distressed.
“It’s not a bit changed you are, Nillie,” said Mr. Malcolm MacPherson
admiringly. “And it’s good I’m feeling to see you again. Are you glad to
see me, Nillie?”
“Oh, of course,” said Aunt Olivia.
She twisted herself free and went to set up the table. Then she turned
to the flowers, but Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had already gathered them up,
leaving a goodly sprinkling of leaves and stalks on the carpet.
“I picked these for you in the river field, Nillie,” he said. “Where
will I be getting something to stick them in? Here, this will do.”
He grasped a frail, painted vase on the mantel, stuffed the flowers in
it, and set it on the table. The look on Aunt Olivia’s face was too much
for me at last. I turned, caught Peggy by the shoulder and dragged her
out of the house.
“He will horrify the very soul out of Aunt Olivia’s body if he goes on
like this,” I gasped. “But he’s splendid--and he thinks the world of
her--and, oh, Peggy, did you EVER hear such kisses? Fancy Aunt Olivia!”
It did not take us long to get well acquainted with Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson. He almost haunted Aunt Olivia’s house, and Aunt Olivia
insisted on our staying with her most of the time. She seemed to be very
shy of finding herself alone with him. He horrified her a dozen times in
an hour; nevertheless, she was very proud of him, and liked to be teased
about him, too. She was delighted that we admired him.
“Though, to be sure, he is very different in his looks from what he used
to be,” she said. “He is so dreadfully big! And I do not like a beard,
but I have not the courage to ask him to shave it off. He might be
offended. He has bought the old Lynde place in Avonlea and wants to
be married in a month. But, dear me, that is too soon. It--it would be
hardly proper.”
Peggy and I liked Mr. Malcolm MacPherson very much. So did father. We
were glad that he seemed to think Aunt Olivia perfection. He was as
happy as the day was long; but poor Aunt Olivia, under all her surface
pride and importance, was not. Amid all the humour of the circumstances
Peggy and I snuffed tragedy compounded with the humour.
Mr. Malcolm MacPherson could never be trained to old-maidishness, and
even Aunt Olivia seemed to realize this. He never stopped to clear his
boots when he came in, although she had an ostentatiously new scraper
put at each door for his benefit. He seldom moved in the house without
knocking some of Aunt Olivia’s treasures over. He smoked cigars in her
parlour and scattered the ashes over the floor. He brought her flowers
every day and stuck them into whatever receptacle came handiest. He sat
on her cushions and rolled her antimacassars up into balls. He put
his feet on her chair rungs--and all with the most distracting
unconsciousness of doing anything out of the way. He never noticed Aunt
Olivia’s fluttering nervousness at all. Peggy and I laughed more than
was good for us those days. It was so funny to see Aunt Olivia hovering
anxiously around, picking up flower stems, and smoothing out tidies, and
generally following him about to straighten out things. Once she even
got a wing and dustpan and swept the cigar ashes under his very eyes.
“Now don’t be worrying yourself over that, Nillie,” he protested. “Why,
I don’t mind a litter, bless you!”
How good and jolly he was, that Mr. Malcolm MacPherson! Such songs as he
sang, such stories as he told, such a breezy, unconventional atmosphere
as he brought into that prim little house, where stagnant dullness had
reigned for years! He worshipped Aunt Olivia, and his worship took the
concrete form of presents galore. He brought her a present almost every
visit--generally some article of jewelry. Bracelets, rings, chains,
ear-drops, lockets, bangles, were showered upon our precise little aunt;
she accepted them deprecatingly, but never wore them. This hurt him a
little, but she assured him she would wear them all sometimes.
“I am not used to jewelry, Mr. MacPherson,” she would tell him.
Her engagement ring she did wear--it was a rather “loud” combination
of engraved gold and opals. Sometimes we caught her turning it on her
finger with a very troubled face.
“I would be sorry for Mr. Malcolm MacPherson if he were not so much in
love with her,” said Peggy. “But as he thinks that she is perfection he
doesn’t need sympathy.”
“I am sorry for Aunt Olivia,” I said. “Yes, Peggy, I am. Mr. MacPherson
is a splendid man, but Aunt Olivia is a born old maid, and it is
outraging her very nature to be anything else. Don’t you see how it’s
hurting her? His big, splendid man-ways are harrowing her very soul
up--she can’t get out of her little, narrow groove, and it is killing
her to be pulled out.”
“Nonsense!” said Peggy. Then she added with a laugh,
“Mary, did you ever see anything so funny as Aunt Olivia sitting on ‘Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson’s’ knee?”
It WAS funny. Aunt Olivia thought it very unbecoming to sit there before
us, but he made her do it. He would say, with his big, jolly laugh,
“Don’t be minding the little girls,” and pull her down on his knee and
hold her there. To my dying day I shall never forget the expression on
the poor little woman’s face.
But, as the days went by and Mr. Malcolm MacPherson began to insist on
a date being set for the wedding, Aunt Olivia grew to have a strangely
disturbed look. She became very quiet, and never laughed except under
protest. Also, she showed signs of petulance when any of us, but
especially father, teased her about her beau. I pitied her, for I think
I understood better than the others what her feelings really were. But
even I was not prepared for what did happen. I would not have believed
that Aunt Olivia could do it. I thought that her desire for marriage in
the abstract would outweigh the disadvantages of the concrete. But one
can never reckon with real, bred-in-the-bone old-maidism.
One morning Mr. Malcolm MacPherson told us all that he was coming up
that evening to make Aunt Olivia set the day. Peggy and I laughingly
approved, telling him that it was high time for him to assert his
authority, and he went off in great good humour across the river field,
whistling a Highland strathspey. But Aunt Olivia looked like a martyr.
She had a fierce attack of housecleaning that day, and put everything in
flawless order, even to the corners.
“As if there was going to be a funeral in the house,” sniffed Peggy.
Peggy and I were up in the south-west room at dusk that evening, piecing
a quilt, when we heard Mr. Malcolm MacPherson shouting out in the hall
below to know if anyone was home. I ran out to the landing, but as I
did so Aunt Olivia came out of her room, brushed past me, and flitted
downstairs.
“Mr. MacPherson,” I heard her say with double-distilled primness, “will
you please come into the parlour? I have something to say to you.”
They went in, and I returned to the south-west room.
“Peg, there’s trouble brewing,” I said. “I’m sure of it by Aunt Olivia’s
face, it was GRAY. And she has gone down ALONE--and shut the door.”
“I am going to hear what she says to him,” said Peggy resolutely. “It is
her own fault--she has spoiled us by always insisting that we should be
present at their interviews. That poor man has had to do his courting
under our very eyes. Come on, Mary.”
The south-west room was directly over the parlour and there was an open
stovepipe-hole leading up therefrom. Peggy removed the hat box that
was on it, and we both deliberately and shamelessly crouched down and
listened with all our might.
It was easy enough to hear what Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was saying.
“I’ve come up to get the date settled, Nillie, as I told you. Come now,
little woman, name the day.”