AUNT MARIA
"A letter from Aunt Maria," announced Graham, appearing at the door of
his mother's little sitting room, a large, square lavender envelope in
his hand. He carried it gingerly between a thumb and finger, and as far
as he could from his upturned nose, "I'd suggest, mother, that you put
on my gas-mask before you open it!"
Gyp and Tibby laughed uproariously at his wit. Mrs. Westley reached for
the envelope.
"Poor Aunt Maria, she must be so glad that the war is over and she can
get her favorite French sachet."
Isobel perched herself upon the arm of her mother's chair.
"Hurry, read it, mother."
"I'll bet she's coming to visit us," groaned Gyp.
"Don't expect us to throw away money, sis! She never writes 'cept when
she _is_ coming. Break the news, mum; is it to be a little stay of a
year or more?"
Mrs. Westley lifted laughing eyes from the open letter.
"She says she will come next Wednesday to spend a few days with us. She
is very sorry that that must be all--she is on her way to New York to
consult a famous nerve specialist. She sends love to 'the beautiful
children.'"
Jerry was very curious--no one had ever mentioned an Aunt Maria! So Gyp
and Graham hastened to explain that Aunt Maria wasn't a _real_ aunt but
was "only" Isobel's godmother and something of a nuisance--to the
younger Westleys.
"She doesn't give us presents," Graham concluded.
"She's forgotten all the things she 'did promise and vow' when Isobel
was baptized. She had a fad, then, for godchildren; she used to go
around picking out the girl babies who had blue eyes. She was a friend
of Grandmother Duncan's and mother couldn't refuse her. She has nine
altogether and always gives them the same things."
"And every time you see her she has a new fad," added Graham. "Once she
was a suffragist but she switched because the suffs didn't serve tea at
their meetings and the antis did. One time she was building a home for
Friendless Females and another time she was organizing the poor
underpaid shop girls, and the next----"
"Mother, listen," broke in Isobel. She had taken the letter from her
mother and had been re-reading it. "She says she's going to France next
spring and she's thinking about taking one of her godchildren with her.
She's studying French and she wants us to talk French to her while she
is here----"
"Well, I guess _not_! _I'll_ eat in the kitchen," vowed Graham.
Gyp commenced to chuckle. "Let's say a whole lot of funny things in
French--like when Sue Perkins translated 'the false teeth of the young
man' and Mademoiselle sent her out of class."
"Mother!" Isobel's brain was working rapidly. "_I_ ought to be the
goddaughter she picks out." She did not consider it necessary to explain
to her family the process of reasoning by which the other eight were
eliminated. "Wouldn't it be wonderful?" But her beautiful vision was
threatened by the mischief written in every line of Gyp's and Graham's
faces. "Mother, _won't_ you make the children promise to behave?"
"_Children_----" snorted Graham.
"----if they act dreadful the way they always do when Aunt Maria's here,
they'll spoil all my chances!" Isobel was sincerely distressed.
"My dear," her mother laughed. "Don't build your castles in Spain--or
France--quite so fast. I am not sure I would _let_ you go over with Aunt
Maria. But Gyp and Graham must promise to be very nice to Aunt Maria
because she is an old lady----"
"But, mother, she's not exactly old; she's just--funny!"
"Anyway, Gyp, she will be our guest."
"_Make_ them promise, mother----"
"Oh, you're just thinking of yourself----" declared Graham.
"Children, let's not spoil this Saturday by worrying over Aunt Maria.
Even though, sometimes, she is very trying, I know each one of you will
help make her visit pleasant and we'll overlook her little oddities. Who
wants to drive down to the market with me?"
Gyp and Jerry begged eagerly to go; Tibby had to take a swimming lesson;
Graham was going out to Highacres to practice football; Isobel said she
preferred to stay home; "one of the girls" had promised to call up, she
explained, a little evasively.
Mrs. Westley smothered the tiniest of sighs behind a smile; Isobel was
living so apart from the rest of the family, she never seemed, now, to
want to share the activities of the others. Her mother had always
enjoyed, so much, taking her biggest girl everywhere with her; she had
not believed that the time could come when Isobel would refuse to go.
Driving through the city with Jerry and Gyp beside her, Mrs. Westley,
still thinking of Isobel, turned suddenly to Jerry.
"_How_ your mother must miss _you_, dear," she said. Jerry was startled.
"Oh, do you think so?" she answered, anxiously.
"I mean--I was just thinking--mother love is such a _hungry_ love,
dear."
"Well----" Jerry, very thoughtful, tried to recall the exact words her
mother had once used. "When I was little, mother used to tell me a
story. She said that her heart was a little garden with a very high wall
built of love and that I lived there, as happy as could be, for the sun
was always shining and everything was bright and the wall kept away all
the horrid things. But there was a gate in the wall with a latch-way
high up; I had to grow big before I could lift the latch and go through
the wall--and she made lovely flowers grow over the little gate, too, so
that perhaps I might not find it! I always liked the story, but once I
asked mother what she'd do if I found the gate and went out of the
garden for just a little while and she answered me that the garden would
be very quiet, but the sun would go on shining because our love was
there. Now I'm older I think I understand the story, and maybe coming
here was like going through the gate. But if it _is_ like the story,
then mother knows how much I love her, so she won't be _dreadfully_
lonely--only a little bit, maybe."
"What a beautiful story," Mrs. Westley's eyes glistened. "I would like
to hear her tell it! Some day I want to know your mother, Jerry."
That was such a pleasant thought--her dear mother meeting Mrs. Westley,
who was almost as nice as her mother--that Jerry's face grew bright
again. She answered the pressure of Mrs. Westley's fingers with an
affectionate squeeze.
Except for the first dreadful ordeal of facing her schoolmates and the
hurt of Isobel's unkindness, Jerry had suffered little from the ignominy
of the debate. And she had found that the girls, instead of laughing at
her, envied her because Dana King had so gallantly come to her rescue!
"You should have seen Isobel Westley's face--she was _furious_," Ginny
Cox had confided to her. And Jerry would not have been human if she had
not felt a momentary thrill of satisfied revenge.
The attention of the younger Westleys was centered, during the
intervening days, on Aunt Maria's approaching visit. Isobel was much
disturbed over the dire hints which Gyp and Graham dropped at different
times. One of Graham's friends had a pet snake and Graham had asked to
borrow it "just over Wednesday."
"It'll strengthen her nerves better'n any old doctor," Graham declared,
loftily.
"Mother, _do_ you hear them----" appealed Isobel, almost in tears.
Isobel had been building for herself a rosy dream; she had even,
casually, told a few of the girls at school that "in June I'm going
abroad with my godmother, Mrs. Cornelius Drinkwater--you know her mother
was a second cousin to the Marquis of Balencourt and the family has a
beautiful chateau near Nice. Of course we'll stay there part of the
time----" A very little fib like that, Isobel had decided, could hurt no
one! She had lain awake at night, staring into the half-darkness of her
room, picturing herself sauntering beside Aunt Maria through long hotel
corridors, to the Opera, to the little French shops, driving beside Aunt
Maria through the Bois de Boulogne and walking on the Champs Elysees,
admired everywhere, envied, too. And perhaps, through Aunt Maria's
relatives (it was very easy in the dark to pretend that there _was_ a
Marquis of Balencourt) she might meet a handsome, dashing young
Frenchman who would go quite crazy about her, and it would be such fun
writing home to the girls----
"Graham," and Mrs. Westley made her voice very stern. "You must not play
a single trick on Aunt Maria!"
"But, mother, she may stay on and on----"
"If you'll be very good," Mrs. Westley blushed a little, for she knew
she was "buying" her children, "while Aunt Maria's here I'll take you
all to see 'The Land o'Dreams.'"
"We promise! We promise!" came in an eager assent.
"I'll tell Joe I don't want his snake," said Graham.
"I won't laugh all the while she's here," declared Gyp.
"We'll be angelic, mother," they chorused, and they really meant it.
Aunt Maria's arrival, an hour before dinner, was nothing short of
majestic. The taxi-driver (by a slight effort of the imagination easily
transformed into a uniformed lackey) unloaded a half-dozen bags and
boxes; next there alighted from the taxi a trim little maid in black
with a rug over her arm, a hamper in one hand, a square leather box,
books and magazines in the other. Then, by degrees, Aunt Maria emerged,
first a purple hat, covered with nodding purple plumes, then a very red
face, turned haughtily away from the driver, whom she was calling
"robber"; yards and yards of purple velvet hung and swished about her,
while a wide ermine mantle, set about her shoulders, added the royal
touch without which the picture would have been spoiled!
"Isn't she _gor-ge-ous_?" whispered Gyp to Jerry as they peeped over
Mrs. Westley's shoulder.
Jerry thought Aunt Maria very grand--she was like the picture of the
Duchess in her old Alice in Wonderland, only much more regal. It seemed
to her that the entire Westley family should bow their heads to the
floor--instead Mrs. Westley was embracing the purple and ermine in the
most informal sort of a way!
"----_such_ a train--a _disgrace_ to the government, but then the
government is going _all_ to pieces, I believe! And that miserable
_robber_ of a taxi man! _Mon Dieu!_" She suddenly remembered her French,
"Ma chere amie Beaux Infants!" She sputtered her newly-acquired phrases
with little guttural accents. She beamed upon them all, graciousness (as
became a duchess) in every nod of the purple plumes. With the tips of
her fat, jeweled fingers she touched Isobel's cheek. "Plus jolie que
jamais, ma chere!"
"Nous sommes si heureux de vous avoir ici, chere Aunt Maria," answered
Isobel, falteringly.
"Aunt _Marie_, my dear. I have forsaken the good name that was given to
me in baptism. One _must_ keep apace with the times, and though Maria
might be good enough for my greatgrandmother, my parents did not foresee
that it was scarcely suitable for _me_!" The purple folds swelled
visibly. "Peregrine, carry my bags upstairs."
That was plainly more than one Peregrine could do. It was the welcome
signal for a general movement--none too soon; one glance at Gyp and
Graham told that a moment more must have broken their pretty manner!
Peregrine took one bag, Graham seized two, Gyp and Jerry tugged one
between them. The procession marched up the stairway to the guest-room.
Gyp and Jerry heard Aunt Maria, behind them, explaining that Peregrine's
name was really Sarah!
"I changed it--Peregrine is so much more 'chic.' I'm teaching her French
myself; in a little while she'll pass as a French maid and she will have
all the plain common-sense of her Hoosier bringing-up which those
fly-by-night French maids don't. A _very_ good arrangement--_I_ think."
Thereafter, Peregrine, to the girls, was always Peregrine-Sarah.
Mrs. Westley, at dinner, looking down the table at the prim, sober faces
of her youngsters, had an irresistible desire to laugh. Graham's solemn
eyes were glued to his plate, Gyp, spotlessly groomed, spoke only in
hoarse whispers, Jerry looked a little frightened--what would she do if
the Duchess should speak to _her_. (Not that there was much danger; Aunt
Maria, except for a "from the wilds of our mountains, how interesting,"
had scarcely noticed her.) Isobel sat next to Aunt Maria and was
nervously attentive.
Aunt Maria was more "duchessy" than ever in her dinner dress. Jewels
shone in the great puff of snowy hair that lay like a crown about her
head. (Graham had always wanted to poke his finger into this marvel to
see if it would burst and flatten like a toy balloon.) Jewels shone in
the laces of her dress and on her fingers. She sat very straight, as
even a make-believe duchess should, and led the conversation. To do so
was very easy, for everyone agreed with everything she said, remarked
Isobel with pathetic enthusiasm. Behind her smile Mrs. Westley was
thinking that Maria Drinkwater was a very silly woman!
Aunt Maria spent most of her time berating the "government." That was
why, she explained, she was going to France. The officials in Washington
were just sitting there letting everything go to the dogs! "_Look_ at
the prices! We're being _robbed_ by Labor--actually robbed, every moment
of our lives!" She clasped her hands and rolled her eyes tragically
upward. "A crepe de chine chemise--hardly good enough for
Peregrine--_fifteen dollars_! And Congress just talking about the League
of Nations! Ah, mon Dieu!"
Graham, catching a fleeting glint of laughter in his mother's eyes,
slowly and solemnly winked, then dropped his glance back to his plate.
"Let's say we have to study," whispered Gyp to Jerry, when the family
moved toward the library. Even Graham welcomed the suggestion. As they
approached Aunt Maria to say good-night, she poked each in the cheek.
"Not going to wait to have coffee with us? _So_ sensible--it hurts the
complexion! _Nice_ children! Bon soir, Editha. Bon soir, Elizabeth.
What's _your_ name, child? Jerauld? A _nice_ name. Bon soir, Graham!"
"She's the only creature in the whole world that calls me Editha and
Tibby Elizabeth," cried Gyp disgustedly. "_That's_ why I just can't
endure her!"
Safe in Jerry's room, Gyp cast off her "company" manner by a series of
somersaults on the pink-and-white bed.
"Hurray, Jerry, we needn't see her again until to-morrow night! That
Peregrine-Sarah will take her breakfast up on a tray. Wasn't Isobel
funny, trying to be a nice little goddaughter? For goodness' sake,
what's _that_?"
For there was a wild rush through the hall, then sharp shrieks from the
library!
Out of consideration for Aunt Maria, Pepperpot had been shut on the
third floor. He would have found the separation from his beloved master
and mistress most irksome if he had not discovered, on Graham's table,
the box of white mice which Graham had brought from the garage during
the afternoon. To pass the time Pepper amused himself by tormenting the
imprisoned mice. When Graham startled him at his pleasant occupation he
jumped so hurriedly from the table that he sent the box tumbling to the
floor. The fall broke the box; the poor mice, mad to escape from their
persecutor, went scampering down the stairs and through the hall, Pepper
in pursuit and Graham frantically trying to catch them all. Of course
the chase led straight to the library!
Aunt Maria, at the startling interruption, dropped a precious vase she
had been examining to the floor, where it lay in a hundred pieces. With
a shriek and an amazing agility she climbed to the safety of the
davenport. The mice circled the room and fled through another door,
Pepper and Graham after them. In the pantry Graham caught Pepper; Mrs.
Hicks, aided by her broom, succeeded in capturing two of the mice, but
the third escaped. Gyp and Jerry listening from the banisters, their
hands clapped over their mouths to suppress their laughter, heard Isobel
and Mrs. Westley in the library, trying to quiet poor Aunt Maria!
"We didn't promise we'd make _Pep_ behave," grumbled Graham as they shut
Pepperpot, for punishment--and protection--in Jerry's clothes closet.
An hour later Jerry heard Isobel, outside of the guest-room door,
bidding Aunt Maria good-night. Jerry thought that she did not blame
Isobel for wanting to go abroad with Aunt Maria; it would be very
wonderful to travel with such a fine lady and with Peregrine! She hoped
Pepper had not spoiled everything!
Quiet settled over the Westley home. A door opened and shut and
uncertain footsteps came down the hall. Jerry, half asleep, thought it
must be the faithful and sensible Peregrine-Sarah, groping her way to
the third floor after having put the Duchess to bed. Then, across the
quiet pierced the wildest shrieking--a shrieking that brought back a
frightened Peregrine-Sarah, Graham, leaping in two bounds down the
stairway, Isobel, Mrs. Westley, Gyp and Jerry to the guest-room door!
In the middle of the room, her hands clasped tragically over her heart,
her mouth open for another shriek, stood Aunt Maria, trembling. Stripped
of her regal trappings she made an abject picture; the snowy puff lay on
her bureau and from under a nightcap, now sadly awry, straggled wisps of
yellow-gray hair. Her round body was warmly clad in a humble flannelette
nightdress, high-necked and long-sleeved. And, strangest of all, her
face was covered with squares and strips of courtplaster!
"Sarah!" (It was not Peregrine now.) "_Stupid_--standing there like an
_idiot_--my smelling salts! Won't _anyone_ call a doctor? My heart----"
She shrieked again. "This _miserable_ place! These--_brats_!"
"Maria Drinkwater, will you calm yourself enough to tell us what has
happened?" Mrs. Westley shook ever so slightly the flanneletted
shoulders.
"_Happened_----" snapped Aunt Maria. "Is it not _enough_ to have my
digestion spoiled by dogs and mice and boys but--oh, my poor heart, to
find a _mouse_ under my pillow----"
If the children had not been struck quite dumb by Aunt Maria's grotesque
face, with its wrinkles, they must surely have shouted aloud! The third
little mouse had sought refuge in Aunt Maria's bed!
Peregrine-Sarah and Mrs. Westley spent most of the night ministering
vainly to Aunt Maria's nerves. The next day, unforgiving, she departed,
bag and baggage.
Poor Isobel, thus burst the pretty bubble of her dreams! "I don't care,
they've spoiled my whole life," she wailed, tears reddening her eyes.
"_Who_ spoiled it--who did anything?" laughed Graham.
"What's this all about?" asked Uncle Johnny coming in at that moment.
Gyp told him what had happened. She talked too fast to permit of any
interruption; her story was Gyp-like.
"_You_ say, Uncle Johnny, _did_ we break our promise just 'cause a poor
little mouse hid under her pillow?"
"If it hadn't been for that miserable dog----" Isobel saw an opportunity
for sweet revenge. "Mother, why don't you send it away? You made Graham
give back that Airedale puppy Mr. Saunders sent him; I don't think it's
fair to keep this horrid old mongrel!"
Jerry's face darkened. Graham came hotly to Pepper's rescue.
"He's _not_ a mongrel--he's better'n _any_ old Airedale! He's got more
sense in his _tail_ than Aunt Maria's got in her whole body! If he goes
I'll--I'll--go, too!"
"Children," protested Mrs. Westley, giving way to the laughter that had
been consuming her from the first moment of Aunt Maria's arrival. "Let's
all feel grateful to Pepper. She's a poor, silly, selfish, vain old
woman, and if she ever comes here again I'm afraid that _I_ won't
promise to be good myself! Isobel Westley, dry your eyes--do you think
I'd let any girl of mine go to France with her? She can take her eight
other goddaughters, if they want to stand her quarreling with every
single person in authority--I won't let her have _my_ girl. Why," she
turned to John Westley and her face was very earnest, "she's such a
_waste_--of human energy, of brains--of just breath! How terrible to
grow old and be like--that."
Gyp was furtively feeling of her firm cheeks. "I'd rather be ugly,
mother, than wear those funny things. _Look_, mummy," she ran to her
mother's chair and touched her cheek. "_You've_ got a wrinkle! But--I
love it." With passionate tenderness she kissed the spot.
"I'll take you to France myself some day," laughed Uncle Johnny, patting
Isobel's hand.
"And can we go to see the 'Land o' Dreams'?" asked Graham, anxiously.
"Indeed we will--as a celebration," assented his mother.