AUNT SUSAN.
Florence slept soundly that night, and awoke the next morning in the
highest of spirits and the best of health.
"It is wonderful, Mummy," she said, "how you and I can squeeze into
this camp bed, but there, I never moved all night; it was delicious to
have you so close to me. I cannot understand why I love you as I do,
for you are a very plain, ordinary sort of woman."
"I never was anything else," replied Mrs. Aylmer, by no means offended
by Florence's frank remarks. "Your poor father always said, 'It's your
heart, not your face, that has won me, Mabel.' Your poor father had a
great deal of pretty sentiment about him, but I am matter-of-fact to
the backbone. There, child, jump up now and get dressed, and I'll go
down and prepare the breakfast. Sukey is rather cross this morning,
and I always make the coffee myself."
Mrs. Aylmer bustled out of the room, and Florence slowly rose and
dressed.
"I wonder what mother would think of me," she said to herself, "if she
knew how I really secured my present position as one of the lucky
three; I wonder what mother would think about it. Would she be
terribly shocked? I doubt if the little Mummy has the highest
principles in the world; in fact, I don't doubt, for I am quite certain
that the Mummy's principles are a little lax, but there, she is the
Mummy, and I love her. What a queer thing love is, for Mummy is not
the highest-souled woman, nor the most beautiful in the world. Still,
she is the Mummy, and I love her."
So Florence finished dressing and ran downstairs, and enjoyed a hearty
breakfast of brown bread and butter, honey, and delicious coffee.
"I can't do much for you in the meat line, my dear," said her parent.
"I don't indulge in meat more than once a week myself, but we'll take
it out in fish. Fish is cheap and plentiful in Dawlish, and we can get
dear little crabs for fourpence apiece."
"Oh, lovely," said Florence; "I adore crabs."
"We will go down to the fishwife after breakfast, and get her to boil
some for us in time for supper," said the mother; "and now, Florence,
if you are quite disposed to listen, I may as well get over this bad
business."
"You allude to Aunt Susan, of course?" said Florence.
"Yes, my dear child, to her last letter. I could not read it to you,
for really the tone is that aggravating it would make milk turn, and I
know the contents by heart."
"What are they, mother? You may as well tell me; I am pretty well
accustomed to bad news. Is she going to make your screw still smaller?"
"No, she says nothing about that. Florence, child, I wish it had been
the will of Providence to have spared my brother, for if your Uncle Tom
had lived I would not be in the sordid state I am now. If one of them
had to go, why wasn't it your Aunt Susan?"
"She is not my real aunt, you know," said Florence.
"That's just it, dear, but she owns the money. Now, if she had left it
to Tom he would have had me to live with him. I doubt, after his
experience with your Aunt Susan, if he would ever have taken a second
wife, and you and I would have had plenty."
"Dear me, mother," said Florence, frowning slightly, "what is the good
of going over that now? Uncle Tom has been in his grave for the last
six years, hasn't he? and Aunt Susan rules the roost. It's Aunt Susan
we have got to think about. What did she say in that unpleasant
letter?"
"Something about stocks and shares and dividends, dear--that her
dividends are not coming in as well as usual, and that in consequence
her income is not so large, and she finds it a great strain keeping
you, Florry, at that expensive school."
"Oh, well, that's all arranged," said Florence, in a somewhat nervous
voice.
"My dear Florry, don't you bear yourself up with false hopes and false
ideas, for it seems, according to your Aunt Susan's letter, that the
thing is not arranged at all. In fact, she declares positively that
she won't keep you at Cherry Court School longer than another term."
"What, mother?"
"She says so, my love. I am sorry to have to tell you, but it is a
fact. She says that you are going on sixteen, and that at sixteen you
ought to be a very good pupil teacher at another school, where your
services would be given in lieu of payment. She says she knows a
school in the country where you would be taken, a place called Stoneley
Hall, where there are sixty girls. It is up amongst the Yorkshire
moors, in the dreariest spot, I make no doubt. Well, in her letter she
said that she had arranged that you are to go to Stoneley Hall at
Christmas, and that the next term is your last at Cherry Court School."
"If I win the Scholarship I need not do that," said Florence.
"No, no, dear, that's just it; and she says also that when she removes
you from Cherry Court School she will allow me fifteen pounds a year
more than I have at present, which will make my income of sixty-five
pounds instead of fifty. I mean to give you that fifteen pounds a year
to buy your clothes with, Florry. You shall have that, my poor dear
child, whatever happens. I think you can dress yourself quite neatly
on that."
"I should judge from the sort of clothes I have now," said Florence,
giving her foot a pettish kick against the obnoxious blue serge, "I
should judge they did not cost five pounds a year. Yes, the fifteen
pounds would be delicious; and you would give it to me, Mummy?"
"Well, of course, darling, because you would have no income of your own
at Stoneley Hall for the first two years, and after that it depends
altogether on what you can do. You are not half educated yet, are you
Florence?"
"Of course not, mother; a girl of fifteen is not educated, as a rule."
"That's just it, but your Aunt Susan does not care a bit. She reminds
me in her horrid letter, that you are not her own niece at all, and
that very few women would be as kind to her husband's people as she is
to you and me. She says frankly----"
"Oh, what an odious frank way she has!" interrupted Florence.
"She says frankly," pursued Mrs. Aylmer, wiping the moisture from her
brow as she spoke, "that we are the greatest worry to her, both of us,
and that she does not care a pin for either of us, but that she does
not want to have it said that her husband's people are in the
workhouse, and that is why she is doing what she is doing."
"Oh, Mummy," said Florence, "can you bear her? When you tell me those
sort of things I just long to throw her gifts in her face and to say
boldly, 'We won't take another halfpenny from you, we will go to the
workhouse to spite you, we'll tell every one we can that we are
connected with you. Yes, we'll go to the workhouse to spite you.'"
"That's all very well, Florence," replied Mrs. Aylmer, rising as she
spoke and shaking the crumbs from her dress outside the window. "I
doubt if it would vex your Aunt Susan very much, and it would vex us a
considerable deal, my love. Your Aunt Susan's relations might not even
hear of it, and we would be miserable and disgraced for ever. No, we
must swallow our pride and take her money; there is no help for it.
But if you get the Scholarship, Flo, she is the kind of woman who would
be proud of you, she is really. If she thought you had any gift she
would turn round in jiffy and begin to spend money properly on you.
She asked me in her last letter what sort of girl you were growing up,
and if you had a chance of being handsome, for, said she, 'if Florence
is really handsome, I might take a house in London and give her a
season. I enjoy taking handsome girls about, and I am a right good
matchmaker.' That is what she said, the horrid old cat. But you are
not handsome, Florry, not a bit."
"I know," replied Florence, "I know. Well, mother, we must make the
best of things. You may be certain I won't leave a stone unturned to
get the Scholarship."
"You will get it, dear, and then your education will be secured, and by
and by you will get a post as governess, a good post in some
fashionable family, and perhaps you would meet a nice young man who
would fall in love with you. They do over and over in the
story-books--the nice young man, the heir to big properties, meets the
governess girl and falls in love with her, and then she gets a much
higher position than her employer's daughters. That is what I would
aim for if I were you, Florry."
"Oh, dear me, mother," said Florence. She stared very hard at the
round face of her parent, and wondered down deep in her heart why she
was so very fond of Mummy. "Let us go out and have a walk," she said,
restlessly; "let us visit the little shrimp-woman; I'd like to see her
and all the old haunts again."
"But before we go," said Mrs. Aylmer, "tell me, my darling, why are you
nervous, why you fear you may not get the Scholarship."
"I told you last night, mother--can't you understand? I am your one
pet chicken, but I am not anything at all really in the eyes of the
world. I am not beautiful and I am not specially clever."
"But you got amongst the lucky three, as you call them; you must be
clever to have done that."
Florence stared very hard at her mother; her face went a little pale
and then red.
"What is the matter, Flo? Why do you stare at me like that?"
"I am going to tell you something if you will never tell back again."
"What is it, dear? Really, Flo, you make me quite uncomfortable; you
have got a very bold way of staring, love."
"I am going to tell you something," repeated Florence; "I got into the
lucky three because I was mean. I did a mean, shabby, low thing,
Mummy."
"Oh, no, no," said Mrs. Aylmer, restlessly, "no, no, darling."
"I did, mother," said Florence, and now her lips trembled. "I did
something very mean, and I did it to the girl who gave me those lovely
cherry ribbons."
"That spoilt chit--Kitty Sharston you call her?"
"Yes, that girl. I opened her desk and looked at an answer which she
put to a certain question in English History which I did not know
myself. If I had not answered that question I make no doubt I should
not have been included in the lucky three."
"Well, well," said Mrs. Aylmer. She looked restless and disturbed.
She went again to the little window and looked out. "I don't see how
you can help yourself," she said.
"But it was a mean thing, wasn't it, mother?"
"Poor people cannot help themselves," said the widow, in a restless
voice, "but I wish you hadn't told me, Florence; it was--it was the
sort of thing that your poor father would not have done; but there, you
couldn't help yourself, of course."
"Then you don't think, mother, that I ought to tell Mrs. Clavering?"
said Florence.
"Tell and give up your chance! No, no, no; that is the disadvantage of
being so poor, one has to stoop sometimes. Your father would not have
done it, but you could not help yourself. Come out, child, come out."
The mother and daughter wandered along the beach. They visited the
shrimp-woman and then sat under the shade of a big rock and looked at
the dancing waves, and talked of Florence's chance of winning the
coming Scholarship.
By tacit consent they neither of them alluded to that shabby deed which
Florence had done; they were both in their hearts of hearts
uncomfortable about it, but both equally resolved to carry the thing
through now.
"For it is too important," thought Mrs. Aylmer.
And Florence also thought, "It is too important, it means too much; I
must take every chance of securing the Scholarship."
The two ladies returned home rather late, and there, to their
astonishment, they found a telegram waiting them. It was addressed to
Mrs. Aylmer. She tore it open eagerly and uttered an exclamation.
"There, Florry," she said, "read that."
Florence took the thin pink sheet and read the following words:
"Staying at Torquay. Going back to London to-morrow. Will put up at
the hotel at Dawlish for one night on purpose to see Florence.--SUSAN."
"There," said the mother, "there's a chance for you, Flo; I hope you
have brought a decent dress. Perhaps she will do something now that
she sees you; it is a wonderful chance. Dear, dear, dear! I have not
seen Susan for three or four years. She was a stylish woman in her
day; perhaps she'll give me one or two of her cast-offs."
"Mother," said Florence, "we must make the best of things. You must
look nice and I must look nice, and we won't plead poverty. I feel
proud in the presence of Aunt Susan. I am sorry she is coming; I may
as well say so frankly."
"But it's a great chance, child," said the widow; "what do you think
about inviting her here to tea?"
"Nonsense, mother," replied the daughter; "she ought to invite us to
tea."
"I wonder if she will. I wonder which hotel she'll go to. There is a
splendid one on the beach, the 'Crown and Garter.' It would be very
stylish to be seen going there, and Sukey would think a great deal more
of me and also my friends, the Pratts, if they knew that we had tea'd
or lunched at the 'Crown and Garter.' I hope she will ask me. But
then, on the other hand, to see Susan in the cottage--she would
probably drive up in a carriage and pair--I really wonder which would
be best. It would have a great effect on the neighbors. I have spoken
to them of my grand relations, but somehow, seeing is believing. It's
wonderfully exciting--her coming, isn't it, Flo?"
But Florry had walked to the window and was looking out with a shade of
disgust on her brow. The Mummy was the Mummy, but she certainly needed
repression. Even if you had those sort of sentiments, if you were
educated at all you would keep them to yourself.
The rest of the evening was spent in considerable excitement on the
part of Mrs. Aylmer. Much as she professed to dislike her
sister-in-law, Susan Aylmer, the thought of seeing her caused much more
commotion than she had experienced at the thought of welcoming Florence
home.
Florence was a dear old thing and her own daughter, but then she
depended on Susan for her bread. Early on the following morning she
was seen to put on her best and much-turned dress.
She went to the shop and even committed the great extravagance of
getting a new white widow's front for her bonnet, and also a pair of
new black silk gloves, and then she waited restlessly until the arrival
of Mrs. Aylmer.
Mrs. Aylmer arrived in state by a train which reached Dawlish about
noon, and the other Mrs. Aylmer--the poor one--and her daughter
Florence watched her from afar.
"There she is," said Mrs. Aylmer the less, as she might truly be
called, "there she is, Flo. She's grown stouter than ever, she
promises to be a very large woman in her old age; and what a pompous
way she does walk! I do declare--well, that beats everything--she is
walking to the hotel, not even taking a carriage. That's just like
Susan. Come, Flo, we'll go toward and speak to her; there's no good in
having relations and keeping one's self in the background. Follow me,
my dear, and pull yourself up and look as nice as you can. Everything
depends on your aunt's first impression of you. Just push your hat
straight--there, that's better; now come along."
Mrs. Aylmer and Florence pushed their way through a crowd of people who
had just arrived, and a moment later Mrs. Aylmer the less and Mrs.
Aylmer the great were shaking hands in greeting.
"How do you do, Mabel?" said Mrs. Aylmer the great, "and is this your
daughter?" A pair of light blue eyes traveled all over Florence from
the crown of her head to the sole of her foot. "I'll see you both at
the hotel," said Mrs. Aylmer, in a gracious tone, "after I have had
lunch. I shall want a little rest immediately after, but don't keep me
waiting. I shall expect you at three o'clock."
"Come home, Flo," said Mrs. Aylmer the less. "We must not disturb you,
of course, Susan, and we'll be punctual to the moment. What do you
think of her, Flo?" said the widow, as soon as she and her daughter
were out of sight.
"I think she looks horrid, mother, just as she always did. How well I
remember going to see her shortly after poor father died, and how she
used to make you cry, and how cold she always was, and what miserable
tea she gave us! We had better ask her to a meal unless we want to be
starved, Mummy, dear."
"I can't afford it really, Flo, and she would remark upon every luxury
we had at the table. She would write to me afterwards and say, 'From
the style of your meal,' etc."
"Oh, don't mother; I wish she hadn't come," said Florence. "You and I
could have been quite happy and cosy alone, but now she will contrive
to make us truly miserable."
"She has come for a reason," said Mrs. Aylmer, solemnly, "and it
behooves you, Flo, to put your best foot foremost. I have got a nice
little white jacket for you to wear this afternoon, and white becomes
you very much."
"A white jacket! What sort?" said Florence.
"One that your aunt sent me two years back, and which I altered by a
pattern of yours. You can wear it with that serge dress, and you will
look quite cool and nice. Now then, darling, let us have our own
dinner, because we must be punctual; it would never do to keep Susan
waiting."
Neither of the ladies did keep Aunt Susan waiting. They arrived at the
hotel, which turned out to be the "Crown and Garter," just as the great
clock in the hall struck three.
Mrs. Aylmer had never been inside the "Crown and Garter," and she now
looked around her with intense pleasure, and when one of the waiters
came forward asked him in a pompous voice for "my sister-in-law, Mrs.
Aylmer."
The man withdrew, to return in a moment or two to say that Mrs. Aylmer
was in her private sitting-room, number 24, and would see the ladies
immediately.