[Cover Illustration]
AUNT ANNE.
_By Mrs. W. K. Clifford_,
_Author of “Mrs. Keith’s Crime,” etc._
“As less the olden glow abides,
And less the chillier heart aspires,
With driftwood beached in past spring-tides
We light our sullen fires.”
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
In Two Volumes.
Vol. I.
London:
Richard Bentley & Son,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1892.
(All rights reserved.)
[Illustration]
AUNT ANNE.
CHAPTER I.
Mr. and Mrs. Walter Hibbert had been married just four months when Aunt
Anne first appeared on the scene. They were at Brighton, whither they
had gone from Friday to Tuesday, so that Mr. Hibbert might get braced up
after a hard spell of work. Besides doing his usual journalism, he had
been helping a friend with a popular educational weekly, and altogether
“had slaved quite wickedly,” so his wife said. But he had declared that,
though he found matrimony, as far as he had gone, very delightful, it
had to be paid for, especially at the beginning of its career, when it
ran into furniture, linen, plate, and expensive presents to a dear
little wife, though the expensiveness of the last he generously kept to
himself. So it resulted in the visit to Brighton. They spent the
happiest four days in the world there, and felt quite sad when Tuesday
morning arrived. But they wisely did their best to forget that the
evening train would take them back to London, and resolved that their
last day should pass merrily.
“Suppose we have a long drowsy morning on the pier,” she suggested;
“nothing is nicer or more restful than to listen to the band and look
down into the water. We needn’t see the horrid people—indeed, if we sit
on one of the end seats and keep our faces turned seawards, we can
forget that they even exist.”
Mr. Hibbert solemnly considered the proposal.
“The only drawback is the music, it makes so much noise—that’s the
worst of music, it always does,” he said sadly. “Another thing is, that
I cannot lie full length on the pier as I can on the beach.”
“Very well, then we’ll go to the beach. The worst of the beach is, that
we can’t look down into the water, as we can from the end of the pier.”
“That’s true; and then there are lots of pretty girls on the pier, and I
like to see them, for then I know that there are some left—for the
other fellows,” he added nobly.
So they went to the pier, and sat on one of the side seats at the far
end and looked down into the water, and blinked their happy eyes at the
sunshine. And they felt as if all the beautiful world belonged to them,
as if they two together were being drawn dreamily on and on into the
sky, and sea, and light, to make one glorious whole with happy nature;
but a whole in which they would be for ever conscious of being together,
and never less sleepy or blissful than now. This was Walter’s idea, and
he said it all in his dear romantic way that generally ended up with a
laugh. “It would never do, you know, because we should get nothing to
eat.”
“Don’t,” she said. “That is so like you; you always spoil a beautiful
idea, you provoking thing,” and she rubbed her chin against the back of
the seat and looked down more intently at the water. Without any one in
the least suspecting it, he managed to stoop and kiss her hand, while he
pretended to be trying to see something, that of course was not there,
at the top of a wave.
They were having a delightful morning, they lived in every moment of it,
and wished it would never come to an end; still, when it did, there
would be a delicious luncheon to go back to—very large prawns, roast
chicken and green peas, and an enormous dish of ripe figs, which both
their souls loved. After all, Walter thought, the world was not a bad
place, especially when you had a wife who adored you and thought that
everything you did bore the stamp of genius.
The band was playing a waltz, though to this day they do not know it.
All manner of people were passing to and fro, but they did not notice
them.
“I should like to stay here for ever,” Mrs. Hibbert said, with a sweet
sigh of content. “Do you know, Walter,” she went on suddenly after a
pause, “it will be four months to-morrow since we were married? Time
seems to have flown.”
“By Jove! it really is a miracle what those four months have done with
themselves,” he answered, looking up for a moment; as if to be sure that
Time was not a conjurer standing before him about to hand the four
months from beneath a handkerchief, with a polite bow and the remark
that they would have to be lived through at the ordinary rate.
A spare-looking old lady, dressed in black, passed by, but he did not
notice her.
“You see,” he went on, with his eyes fixed on a sailing boat in the
distance, “if things were always going to be——”
At the sound of his voice the lady in black, who was only a few yards
off, stopped, listened, hesitated, and, turning back, stood before him.
He recognized her in a moment.
“Aunt Anne!” he exclaimed. His voice was amiable, but embarrassed, as if
he did not quite know what to do next.
“My dear Walter,” she said, with a sigh and in a tone of great relief,
“I am so glad to find you; I went to your lodgings, I saw your name and
address in the visitors’ list yesterday, but you were out; then I
thought I might find you here. And this is your wife? My dear Florence,
I am so glad to see you.”
Till that moment Mrs. Walter Hibbert had never heard of the existence of
Aunt Anne, but Aunt Anne had evidently heard of Mrs. Hibbert. She knew
her Christian name, and called her by it as naturally as if she had been
at her christening. She stretched out a small hand covered with a black
thread glove as she spoke, and held Florence’s fingers affectionately in
hers. Florence looked at her a little wonderingly. Aunt Anne was slight
and old, nearly sixty perhaps. All over her face there were little lines
that crossed and re-crossed, and branched off in every direction. She
had grey hair, and small dark eyes that blinked quickly and nervously;
there appeared to be some trifling affection of the left eye, for now
and then, as if by accident, it winked at you. The odd thing was that,
in spite of her evident tendency to nervous excitement, her shabby black
satin dress, almost threadbare shawl, and cheap gloves, there was an air
of dignity about the spare old lady, and something like determination in
her kindly voice that, joined to her impulsive tenderness, made you
quickly understand she would be a very difficult person to oppose.
“Dear boy,” she said gently to Walter, “why didn’t you write to me when
you were married? You know how glad I should have been to hear of your
happiness.”
“Why didn’t you write to me, Aunt Anne?” he asked, gaily turning the
tables.
“Yes, I ought to have done so. You must forgive me, dears, for being so
remiss,” she said, looking at them both, “and believe me that it was
from no lack of affection. But,” she went on quickly, “we must not waste
our time. You are coming to Rottingdean with me, and at once. Mr. Baines
is longing to see you both.”
“But we can’t go now, Aunt Anne,” Walter declared in his kindest manner;
“we must get back to the lodgings. We told them to have luncheon ready
at one o’clock, and to-night we go home. You must come and lunch with
us.”
“That is impossible, dear Walter; you are coming back with me.”
“It can’t be done to-day,” he said regretfully.
“My dear Walter,” she answered, with a look of dismay and in a voice
that was almost pained, “what would your uncle say if he heard you? I
could not possibly return without you.”
“But he has never seen me, Aunt Anne.”
“That is one reason why he would never forgive me if I did not take you
back.”
“But it is so far, and we should be all day getting there,” Walter
objected a little helplessly, for he felt already that Aunt Anne would
carry her point.
“It is only to Rottingdean”—she spoke with hurt surprise—“and we will
drive. I saw a beautiful fly as I was coming on to the pier, and engaged
it. I know you too well, my darling, to think that you will refuse me.”
Her manner had changed in a moment; she said the last words with soft
triumph, and looked at Florence. The sight of the young wife seemed to
be too much for her; there was something like a tear in the left eye,
the one that winked, when she spoke again.
“I must give her a kiss,” she said tenderly, and putting out her arms
she gathered the girl to her heart. “But we must make haste,” she went
on quickly, hurrying over the fag end of her embrace, as if she had not
time to indulge in her feelings much as she desired to do so. “Mr.
Baines will wonder what has happened to us. He is longing to see you;”
and without their knowing it, she almost chased them along the pier.
Then Walter, thinking of the prawns and the chicken and the large dish
of ripe green figs, made a wild struggle to get free.
“But really, Aunt Anne,” he said firmly, “we must go back to the
lodgings. Come and lunch with us now, and let us go and see Mr. Baines
another time; I dare say we shall be at Brighton again soon. We will
make a point of coming now that we know you are here, won’t we,
Floggie?” and he appealed feebly to his wife.
“Yes, indeed we will,” Florence assured her.
“Dear children,” Aunt Anne laughed, “I shall not take any excuse, or
think of letting you escape now that I have found you.” There was an
unexpected brightness in her manner, but there was no intention of
letting them go.
“Besides, there may be important letters at the lodgings, and I ought to
do a bit of work;” but there was evident invention in Walter’s voice,
and she did not slacken her pace. Still, as if she wanted him to know
that she saw through his excuses, she looked at him reproachfully, and
with a determination that did not falter.
“It would be impossible for me to return without you,” she said, with
extreme gravity; “he would never forgive me. Besides, dear children, you
don’t know what a pleasure it is to see you. I could not let you go just
yet. My heart gave a bound as I recognized Walter’s voice,” she went on,
turning to Florence; “he is so like what his dear father used to be. I
knew him directly.”
They were already by the turnstile. They felt helpless. The old lady
with the thin shoulders and the black shawl loosely floating behind
seemed to be their master: they were like children doing as they were
told.
“Here is the fly. Get in, my darlings,” she said triumphantly, and
Florence meekly took her place. “Get in, dear Walter,” she repeated with
decision, “I will follow; get in,” and he too obeyed. Another moment and
they were going towards Rottingdean.
The old lady looked relieved and pleased when they were well on their
way.
“It is a lovely drive,” she said, “and it will do you far more good than
sitting on the pier. I am so glad to have you with me, dear children.”
She seemed to delight in calling them children, and it was odd, but each
time that she said the word it seemed to give her a stronger hold on
them. She turned to Florence.
“Are your father and mother quite well, my dear?” she asked, and waited
with polite eagerness for a reply.
Walter put his hand on his wife’s.
“She only has a mother,” he said gently.
Aunt Anne looked quite penitent. She winked with her left eye and was
silent for a moment or two, almost as if she meditated shedding a tear
for the defunct father of the niece by marriage whom she had never seen
in her life before to-day. Suddenly she turned the subject so
grotesquely that they nearly laughed.
“Are you fond of chocolates, my darling?”
“Yes——” Florence hesitated a minute and then said softly, “Yes, Aunt
Anne, very”—she had not had occasion to give the old lady any name in
the few words she had spoken previously.
“Dear child, I knew you would be,” Aunt Anne said, and from under her
shawl she produced a box covered with white satin paper and having on
its lid a very bright picture of a very smart lady. “I bought that box
of chocolates for you as I came along. I thought Florence would be like
the picture on the lid,” she added, turning to her nephew; “and she is,
don’t you think so, Walter dear?”
“Yes, Aunt Anne, she is—it is a most beautiful lady,” he answered, and
he looked fondly at his wife and drew up his lips a little bit in a
manner that Florence knew meant, in the language only she and he in all
the wide world understood, that in his thoughts he kissed her.
Aunt Anne was a dear old lady, Florence thought, and of course she
liked, and always would like, any relation of Walter’s; still, she did
so wish that on this particular day, their last by the sea together,
Aunt Anne had kept her distance. Walter was so pale when they left town,
but since Friday, with nothing to do but to get brown in the sun, he had
been looking better and handsomer every day, and this last one they had
longed to enjoy in their own lazy way; and now all their little plans
were spoilt. To-morrow he would be at his office: it was really too bad,
though it was ungrateful to think it, perhaps, with the remembrance of
Aunt Anne’s embrace fresh upon her, and the box of chocolates on her
lap. Still, after all, she felt justified, for she knew that Walter was
raging inwardly, and that if they were alone he would use some short but
very effective words to describe his own feeling in respect to the
turning up of Aunt Anne. Only he was so good, so gentle and considerate,
that, no matter what his thoughts might be, of course he would not let
Aunt Anne feel how much her kindness bothered him.
Meanwhile, they jogged along in the open fly towards Rottingdean. A
long, even road, with a view on the right of the open sea, on the left
alternate high hedges and wide meadows. The grass on the cliffs was
green; among the grass were little footpaths made by wandering feet that
had diverged from the main road. Florence followed the little tracks
with her eyes; she thought of footpaths like them far away, not by the
sea, but among the hanging woods of Surrey. She and Walter had sauntered
along them less than a year ago. She thought of home, of the dear mother
busy with her household duties, but making time between to write to the
boys in India; of the dear, noisy boys who suddenly grew to be young men
and vanished into the whirl of life; of the dirty old pony carriage in
which she had loved to drive her sweetheart; and when she got to this
point her thoughts came to a full stop to think more particularly of the
pony. His name was Moses, and he had liked being kissed and eating
sugar. She remembered, with a pang of self-reproach, that in the last
months before her marriage she used to forget to kiss Moses, though she
often stood absently stroking his patient nose. She had sometimes even
forgotten his morning lump of sugar in the excitement of reading the
letter that the early post never failed to bring.
“Are you fond of scenery, dear?” Aunt Anne asked.
With a start Florence looked round at the old lady, at Walter, at the
shabby lining of the fly.
“Yes, very,” she answered.
“I knew it by the expression of your face when you looked at the sea.
Mr. Baines says it is a lovely view.”
Why should Mr. Baines be quoted? Florence wondered. She looked again—an
open sea, a misty horizon, a blue sky, and the sun shining. A fine
sea-view, certainly, and a splendid day, but scenery was hardly the term
to apply to the distance beside them.
“Is Mr. Baines very fond of the sea?” she asked. She saw that Aunt Anne
was waiting for her to speak, and she said the first words that
presented themselves.
“Yes, my love, he delights in scenery. You must call him Uncle Robert,
Florence. He would be deeply wounded to hear you say Mr. Baines. Neither
he nor I could think of Walter’s wife as anything but our niece. You
will remember, won’t you, my love?” Aunt Anne spoke in the gentle but
authoritative voice which was, as they had already found, difficult to
resist.
“Yes, Aunt Anne, of course I will if you wish it; it was only because as
yet I do not know him.”
“But you soon will know him, my love,” the old lady answered
confidently; “and when you do, you will feel that neither he nor I could
think of Walter’s wife except to love her. Dear child, how fond he will
be of you!” And she put her hand affectionately on Florence’s while she
turned to Walter and asked suddenly—
“Walter dear, have you got a white silk handkerchief for your neck?”
He looked at her for a moment, almost puzzled, wondering whether she
wanted to borrow one.
“No, Aunt Anne, I fear I have not.”
She dived down into her pocket and pulled out a little soft packet. “I
thought it possible you hadn’t one,” she said joyfully, “so I bought
this for you just now;” and she tucked the little parcel into his hand.
It took him by surprise, he did not know what to say. He felt like the
schoolboy she seemed to take him for, and a schoolboy’s awkwardness
overtook him; he smiled, nodded mysteriously, and put the handkerchief
into his pocket. His manner delighted Mrs. Baines.
“He is just the same,” she said to Florence; “I remember him so well
when he was only ten years old. He had the most lovely eyes I ever saw.
Walter, do you remember my visit to your father?—Ah! we have reached
the hill, that’s why he’s going so slowly,” she exclaimed excitedly. “We
shall be there in five minutes. Now we are close to the village. Drive
through the street, coachman,” she called out, “past the church, and a
little way on you will see a house standing back from the road with a
long garden in front and a white gate. Florence dear,” she asked, still
keeping her eyes fixed on the driver, “do you like preserve?”
“Like—do you mean jam?” Florence asked, bewildered by another sudden
question.
“Yes, my love, preserve,” Aunt Anne answered pointedly, as if she
resented the use of the shorter word.
“Yes, I like it very much,” her newly found niece said humbly, feeling
that she had been rebuked.
“We have quantities of fruit in our garden, and have been preserving it
all the week. It is not very firm yet, but you must have some to take
back with you.”
“I am afraid we shall hardly be able to carry it,” Florence began
timidly, feeling convinced that if she were made to carry jam to London
it would be fatal to the rest of her luggage.
“I will pack it for you myself,” Aunt Anne said firmly. She was watching
the driver too intently to say more. She did not speak again till they
had driven down the one street of Rottingdean, past the newly built
cottages and the church, and appeared to be getting into another main
road. Then suddenly she rose triumphantly from her seat. “There it is,
coachman, that little cottage to the left. Dear Walter—how pleased your
uncle will be! Here it is, dears,” and all her kindly face lighted up
with satisfaction as they stopped before a small whitewashed cottage
with a long garden in front and a bed of lupins at the side. Florence
noticed that the garden, stretching far behind, was full of fruit-trees,
and that a pear-tree rubbed against the sides of the house.
The old lady got out of the fly slowly, she handed out her niece and
nephew; the latter was going to pay the driver, but she pushed away his
hand, then stood for a moment feeling absently in her pocket. After a
moment she looked up and said in an abstracted voice, “Walter dear, you
must settle with the flyman when you go back to Brighton; he is paid by
the hour and will wait for you, my darlings;” and she turned towards the
gate. “Come,” she said, “I must present you to your uncle.—Robert,” she
called, “are you there?” She walked along the pathway with a quick
determined step a little in advance of her visitors: when she reached
the house she stood still, looking in, but hesitating to enter. Florence
and Walter overtaking her saw that the front door opened into a room
simply, almost poorly, furnished, with many photographs dotted about the
walls, and a curious arrangement of quartz and ferns in one corner.
While Mrs. Baines stood irresolute, there came round the house from the
right a little shabby-looking maid-servant. Her dress was dirty, and she
wore a large cap on her untidy head.
“Emma,” said Aunt Anne in the condescending voice of one who struggled,
but unsuccessfully, to forget her own superior condition in life, “where
is your master?”
“I don’t know, mum, but I think he’s tying up the beans.”
“Have you prepared luncheon?”
The girl looked up in surprise she evidently did not dare express, and
answered in the negative.
“Then go and do so immediately.”
“But please, mum, what am I to put on the table?” asked the girl,
bewildered.
“Put!” exclaimed the old lady; “why, the cold bacon, and the preserved
cranberries, of course, and the honey and the buns.”
Florence thought that it sounded like the oddest meal in the world.
“I think we had better return, I do indeed, Aunt Anne, if you will
kindly let us,” urged Walter, thinking regretfully of the chicken.
Aunt Anne waved her hand.
“Walter,” she answered grandly, “you shall not go until you have
partaken of our hospitality. I wish it were a thousand times better than
it is,” she added, with a pathetic note in her voice that found their
hearts directly.
Walter put his hand on her shoulder like the simple affectionate fellow
he was, and Florence hastened to say heartily—
“It sounds delightful, dear Aunt Anne; it is only that we——” And then
there came slouching round the left side of the house a tall
ungainly-looking man of about sixty, a man with a brown beard and brown
trousers, carrying in his hand a newspaper. He looked at Walter and at
Florence in almost stupid surprise, and turned from them with a grunt.
“Anne,” he said crossly, “where have you been? I have wasted all my
morning looking for you; you knew those scarlet runners wanted tying up,
and the sunflowers trimming. Who are these?” he asked, nodding at his
visitors as coolly as if they had been out of hearing; “and what is that
fly doing at the gate?”
“Why, I have been to Brighton, of course,” Aunt Anne answered bravely,
lifting her head and looking him in the face, but there was a quaver of
something like fear in her voice; “I told you I was going: I went by the
omnibus.”
“What did you go to Brighton for? you were there only last week.” He
lowered his voice and asked again, “Who are these?”
“Robert, I told you yesterday that Walter Hibbert’s name was in the
visitors’ list in the paper, and that I was longing to see him and his
wife,” she answered sharply, but still with dignity—it was doubtful
which of the two was master—“so of course I went off this morning to
fetch them. I knew how glad you would be to see them.”
Mr. Baines gave a grunt.
The maid, laying the cloth in the whitewashed sitting-room, stopped
clattering the forks and spoons to hear what was going on and to look
through the open window. Aunt Anne noticed it in a moment, and turning
round said sternly—
“Emma, proceed with your work. I told you,” she went on, again speaking
to her husband, “that these dear children were at Brighton. I have
brought them back, Robert, to introduce them to you. They have been
looking forward to it.”
He gave another grunt, and shook his awkward shoulders in what was meant
to be a civil manner.
“Oh, that’s it,” he said; “well, you had better come in and have
something to eat.” And he led the way into the cottage.
Aunt Anne entirely recovered herself the moment she was under her own
roof. “He is so forgetful,” she said softly, “but he has really been
longing to see you;” and she touched his arm: “I told them how glad you
would be to see them, Robert,” she said appealingly, as if she felt
quite certain that he would remember his gladness in a moment or two,
and wondered if it was yet flowing into his heart. “Dear Florence, you
must ask him to show you his botanical specimens; he has a wonderful
collection.”
“We will,” said Walter, good-humouredly.
“And now you must excuse me for a few minutes, dears. I know how much
your uncle will enjoy a talk with you;” and, to the dismay of the
Hibberts, Aunt Anne vanished, leaving them alone with the brown man.
Mr. Baines sat slowly down on the arm-chair, the only really comfortable
one in the room, and stretched out his left leg in a manner that showed
it was stiff. Then he looked at his visitors grimly, yet with a
suggestion of odd amusement on his face, as if he knew perfectly how
embarrassed they felt.
“Sit down, Mrs. Hibbert,” he said, nodding towards an ordinary chair,
and including Walter in the nod. “I dare say you’ll be glad of your food
before you look at specimens. I shall,” and he gave a lumbering laugh.
“I have done a hard morning’s work.”
“I am sure you must be very tired,” Florence said politely, wishing Aunt
Anne would return.
He seemed to know her thoughts, and answered them in an explanatory
manner: “Anne won’t be long. She always dresses before we have dinner.
Great nonsense, living as we do; but it’s no use my speaking. Do you
make a long stay in Brighton, Mr. Hibbert?”
“No, we go back to town to-night.”
“A good thing,” he said, with another lumbering laugh; “Brighton is a
horrible place to my mind, and the sooner one leaves it the better. That
pier, with its band and set of idle people, with nothing else to do but
to walk up and down;—well, it’s my opinion that railways have done a
vast deal of mischief and mighty little good to make up for it. The same
thing can be said of newspapers. What good do they do?”
Walter felt that this sudden turn upon the Press was a little hard on
him, but he looked up over his moustache with laughter in his eyes, and
wondered what would come next. Florence was almost angry. Aunt Anne’s
husband was very rude, she thought, and she determined to come to the
rescue.
“But you were reading a paper,” she said, and tried to see the name of
one that Mr. Baines had thrown down beside his chair.
“Oh, yes; I like to try and find out what mischief they are going to do
next. If I had my way they should only be published monthly, if at all.
All they do is to try and set people by the ears.”
“But they tell us the news.”
“Well, and what better are we for that? I don’t want to know that a man
was hanged last week, and a prince will be married to-morrow; I only
waste my time reading about them when I might be usefully employed
minding my own business.”
“Walter writes for a paper,” Florence said distantly, determined to find
out if Mr. Baines was being rude on purpose. A little dull curiosity
came into his eyes, as he looked up and asked—
“Walter—who’s Walter?”
“I am,” laughed the owner of the name; “but she needn’t have betrayed
me.” Mr. Baines was in no way disconcerted.
“Oh! you write for a paper, do you? Well, I am sorry for you; you might
do something much better. Oh, here’s Anne; now we had better go and
eat.” With the aid of a stick, he shuffled out of the chair, refusing
Walter’s offered help. “I didn’t know you wrote for a paper, or I would
have held my tongue,” he said, as a sort of apology. “No, thank you, I
am all right once I am on my feet.”
Florence and Walter were astonished when they looked at Aunt Anne. They
hardly knew her again. The shabby black shawl had vanished, the dusty
bonnet was replaced by a soft white cap; there was lace at her throat
fastened by a little crinkly gold brooch that had a place for hair in
the middle: her satin dress trailed an inch or two on the ground behind,
and she had put a red carnation in her bosom almost coquettishly.
“Now, dears,” she said, with a smile of welcome that was fascinating
from its absolute genuineness, “I shall be truly hurt if you fail to do
justice to our simple repast”—and she sat down with an air of
old-fashioned stateliness as if she were heading a banquet table. “Sit
down, dears. Robert, you must have Florence on your right hand.”
The Hibberts took their places merrily, their spirits reviving now that
they were no longer alone with their host. Aunt Anne, too, looked so
picturesque sitting there in the little summer-like room, with the
garden beyond, that they could not help being glad they had come. They
felt that they were living a distinct day in their lives, and not one
that afterwards in looking back they would find difficult to sort out
from a hundred others like it.
Even Mr. Baines grew less grumpy, and offered presently to show them the
garden.
“And the plum-trees and the pear-trees,” said Aunt Anne; “and the view
from the summer-house in the corner.”
“Oh yes,” her husband said, “we’ll show them all;” and he helped to do
the honours of the table with what he evidently intended to be genial
courtesy.
“It does my heart good to see you, dears,” Aunt Anne said, as she
insisted on helping them to an enormous quantity of stewed cranberries.
“And it does us good to be here,” they answered, forgetting all their
vexation at losing a day by the sea; forgetting even the poor chicken
that was being roasted in vain, and the waiting fly to be paid for at so
much an hour.
“Walter dear,” Mrs. Hibbert said, as they drove back to Brighton,
carefully balancing on their knees four large pots of jam, while they
also kept an eye on an enormous nosegay badly tied up, that wobbled
about on the back seat, “Mr. Baines didn’t seem to know you when we
arrived.”
“He had never set eyes on me before. Aunt Anne only set eyes on him five
years ago. He was rather a grumpy beggar. I wonder who the deuce he was?
We none of us ever knew.”
“He didn’t know you were a journalist, I think.”
“No, I suppose not. I wonder if he ever did anything for a living
himself?” Then, as if he repented saying anything that sounded unkind of
a man whose salt he had just eaten, he added, “But you can never tell
what people are from their talk the first time you see them. He is not
unlike a man I knew some years ago, who was a great inventive genius. He
used to shuffle about in shoes too big for him, just as this beggar
did.”
“I felt quite frightened when he first came round the corner.”
“You see it was rough upon him having his morning spoilt. A man who
lives in the country like that generally gets wrapped up in his
surroundings. I suppose I must have known that Aunt Anne was at
Rottingdean,” he went on; “but if so, I had forgotten it. She quarrelled
with my father and every one else because she was always quite unable to
keep any money. There was a great deliberation in the family a few years
ago, when it was announced that Aunt Anne was destitute and no one
wanted to keep her.”
“But had she no money of her own?”
“She had a little, but she lived on the capital till it was gone, and
there was an end of that. Then suddenly she married Mr. Baines. I don’t
know who he was, but she met him at a railway station. He had a bad
headache, I believe, and she thought he was ill, and went up and offered
him some smelling-salts.”
“Why, it was quite romantic,” Florence exclaimed.
Walter had a curious way of looking up when he was amused, and he looked
up in that curious way now.
“Yes,” he said, “quite romantic.”
“Do go on.”
“I don’t know any more except that somehow they got married, and she
turned up to-day as you saw; and I wish she hadn’t given us any jam,
confound it. I say, darling, let’s throw it over that hedge.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t for the world,” Florence said. “It would be so unkind.
She was a dear old lady, Walter, and I am glad we went to see her. She
asked for our address in London, and said she should write to us.”
* * * * *
But Aunt Anne did not write for a long time, and then it was only to
condole with Walter on the death of his father. The first year after
their visit to Rottingdean she sent a large Christmas card inscribed to
“My dear Walter and Florence, from Aunt Anne;” but the second year even
this was omitted. It was not until Mr. and Mrs. Hibbert had been married
nearly seven years that Aunt Anne again appeared before them.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]