Aunt Julia
I
LADY MARDEN—‘Aunt Juli-ah, help!’ as Dinah invariably called her—widow of that famous statesman, Sir John Marden, was a weather-beaten woman in the sixties. No doubt the weather of the British Isles is detestable at times, but Lady Marden always seemed to have been out in the worst of it. It may be that when, as commonly reported in the papers, a cyclone was ‘approaching from the North-West of Ireland,’ Lady Marden travelled with it, thus benefiting all the way from its rigours. Even were she shown into your drawing-room on a hot August afternoon, you would say to yourself, ‘How damnable it must be outside,’ and order the fire to be lit. ‘If she had been whaling for sixty years in the Arctic,’ said Dinah bitterly, ‘she couldn’t look more like it than she does.’
She had done her duty by the late President of the Local Government Board as wife and mother. Three daughters she had given him, in spite of the inevitable interference on each occasion with the hunting season, and those three girls she had brought up on the best principles of fresh air, cold water, and exercise. ‘Look at Marion!’ she would say to George, when urging upon him, in his niece’s presence, a more Spartan method with Dinah, and Dinah would say unkindly, ‘Well, look at her!’ Marion Marden, Muriel Marden and Matilda Marden were the names which she had given to her three lean greyhounds from the Marden stock; good fellows all, but Dinah had no wish to compete with them.
George’s marriage was a great disappointment to his Aunt Julia. It was essential that he should bring home a wife some day, pleasant though it was meanwhile to mother—if you can call it mothering—the girl for him, and order about his servants, but Olivia was not the wife she would have chosen. A widow of no family!—such as might be expected, perhaps, to excite the callow affections of a boy fresh from school, but to win the love of a healthy, well-exercised, well-tubbed man of affairs like George, never! However, he was the head of the house; it was not her business to interfere. She knew George; she knew him well enough to feel that, whatever Olivia might have been in the past, he would see to it that from the day of their marriage she would be nothing more nor less than Marden.
Aunt Julia lunched at Marden House once a week. This being so, there should have been six days a week, three hundred and twelve in the year, when Aunt Julia did not lunch at Marden House. To Dinah it hardly seemed so many. If she had to wait until she was twenty-one before she could marry Brian, the intervening two years would appear ridiculously short reckoned as only a hundred and four more lunches for Aunt Julia. Why, that was nothing; Aunt-Julia-help would work that off in no time. The weeks flashed into a succession of milestones engraved ‘Lady Marden.’
She could make this claim as guest, that she presented no terrors to the housewife. Cold beef and pickles, my dear George, with a tankard of ale and a good ripe cheese was enough for any man or woman. Cold beef it was, whenever she came to lunch, and Olivia and Dinah could peck away at French fal-lals if they pleased. But not entirely without comment. Her duty to her country impelled Aunt Julia to point out once a week that the Spanish Armada (to take a case) had been defeated by British beef and beer, and she still seemed to hope that, at the last moment, one or other of the weaklings might swerve aside from the ragoût out of respect for those early heroes. In vain. They only passed her the mustard. . . .
But why did she choose to-day, of all days, to come to lunch?
‘Excellent beef this, George.’
‘What?’ He came back to her with a start. ‘Oh yes, yes, excellent.’ He returned to his thoughts again.
Dinah looked at her uncle wonderingly, and then to Olivia at the other end of the table, asking for information. But Olivia was in the same case. Her thoughts were as far away as George’s. What had happened? It was no simple quarrel about herself, her engagement to Brian. This was not George’s manner when he was being the determined head of the house who had said his last word on the subject. ‘No, I believe it’s Mr. Pim,’ said Dinah to herself.
‘You ought to try a slice of this beef, Olivia.’
‘Beef?’ said Olivia vaguely. ‘Oh, no thank you, Aunt Julia.’ She looked across at Dinah. Was it an appeal for help, for relief from interruption of her thoughts? Dinah took it as that; and, with a warning pressure of Brian’s foot, and a twinkle at him when he looked round inquiringly, she plunged in.
‘I’m giving up beef, Aunt Julia,’ she said. ‘I’ve decided to be a vegetarian.’
‘Vegetarian? Rubbish! What’s the matter with the girl?’
‘Nothing’s the matter with me, but I think it’s so cruel.’
‘Cruel! God bless us!’ She turned to her nephew. ‘George, what’s this nonsense?’
‘Uncle George doesn’t know yet. It has been coming over me for some weeks, but I haven’t said anything to anybody. I want to talk quietly to a clergyman first. Anne, some more beans, please.’
Lady Marden looked at her with her hard bright eyes and snorted.
‘You’ve been reading some Radical rubbish in a book. Cruel! Why, bless the girl, what d’you suppose God put animals into the world for?’
‘To sing to us,’ said Dinah gently.
Brian dived hastily under the table for his napkin. . . .
And there she sat, Olivia, his wife, but his wife no longer. What was Dinah talking about? ‘Of course not, Aunt Julia, of course not.’ What was it she said? . . . Telworthy alive—then Olivia had never been his wife at all. How beautiful she was. But not his wife—Telworthy’s. What an awful thing to have happened! What were they going to do? What could they do? What an endless meal it was. . . . ‘No thank you.’ They must talk it over after lunch together, after this endless meal. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Aunt Julia.’ Good God, she wanted some more.
‘And you’d better give yourself some, George, and keep me company.’
Well, perhaps he had. It was something to do. . . Oh, eat, Aunt Julia, eat, don’t waste time talking. Dinah, hold your tongue, you’re interrupting her. . . . Oh, Olivia! Get rid of them somehow, and talk to me.
Olivia looked across at her husband, read the torment in his face, and gave a little reassuring smile. Poor George! How hateful it was going to be for him. And it was just her mischief in talking to Mr. Pim about Australia which had brought it all about. Even if Telworthy had stayed in England, he would never have found out; they would never have met again. Even if Mr. Pim had told his anecdote at the Trevors’ or the Brymers’, nobody would have associated a drunken convict with her first husband. She had brought it on them herself; it was her own fault. ‘Oh, George, I am so sorry.’
Brian and Dinah were at the gooseberry-tart stage.
‘I wonder you don’t think it cruel eating the poor gooseberries, Dinah,’ said Lady Marden sarcastically.
‘Oh, it isn’t cruel eating gooseberries,’ explained Dinah. ‘It’s very cruel eating raspberries and blackberries, because they’ve always got little animals on them, but gooseberries are quite safe. I’m giving up blackberries altogether.’ She turned to Brian. ‘I hope you will too, Mr. Strange. You would never forgive yourself if you bit into a honeymoon suddenly. They may be small, but they feel it just as deeply as we do.’ She paused, and then added thoughtfully: ‘None of my gooseberries have shaved for a long time.’
Poor George! How hateful it was going to be for him. What would happen? They would have to get married again or something. How silly the law was. What was going on inside George’s head? Handsome George, clean, handsome George . . . let me put my arms round you, dear, and comfort you. It’s nothing to worry about. He will go back to Australia; he will want to go back. England isn’t safe for him. Oh, George, George, he’s a horrible man—you don’t know him—I’ve never told you. But he will go back. You will send him back.
‘Excellent Stilton this, George.’
‘What? . . . Oh, yes, yes, Aunt Julia. Glad you like it. Have some more, won’t you?’
‘No, thanks.’
Thank God!
‘Some cheese, Mr. Strange?’ said Dinah.
Dinah, don’t be a confounded little idiot. If that fellow Strange has any cheese, I’ll never let him marry Dinah—never, never, never, if he lives to be a hundred.
Brian’s fate is in the balance. Will he get George’s consent when he is ninety-nine?
He will.
‘No cheese, thank you, Miss Marden.’
Saved!
‘Shall we have coffee outside, Aunt Julia?’
Oh, bless you, Olivia! To be outside where one can think properly! And we’ll send Aunt Julia off to look at the pigs, and then ——
‘Thank you, Olivia. If I had my way, I’d have every meal outside, only the servants don’t like it.’
She is wiping her mouth. Another minute now and we shall be out.
‘Well, that’s what I call a sensible lunch.’
She is getting up. Lunch is over. Thank God, it’s over. There is still coffee to be got through, but now we can smoke a pipe and think it out properly.
But—what the devil are we going to do?
II
Brian saw Dinah only, heard only Dinah. To him this lunch was no different from other lunches at which he and Dinah had sat side by side; or different only in this, that now he could slide his hand underneath the table and be sure of meeting, of saying, ‘How do you do?’ and ‘Good-bye, I must be going now,’ to a warm friendly little hand which was always ready for him.
On the terrace hands were not easy to hold. Wasn’t it about time that they got away from all these other people? He caught Dinah’s eye, answered her nod, and stood up.
‘Oh, Lord, I’ve forgotten my cigarettes,’ he murmured, and drifted back into the house. Presently Dinah joined him.
‘Good girl!’ He smiled at her.
‘Have you found them?’ she asked loudly.
‘Found what?’
‘That was for their benefit.’ She indicated the terrace. ‘I said I’d help you find them. It is your cigarettes we are looking for, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ He grinned, and took out his case. ‘Have one?’
‘No thanks, darling. Aunt Julia still thinks it’s unladylike.’
‘She would.’
‘Have you ever seen her beagling?’
‘No. Is that very ladylike?’
‘Very. You ought to see her.’
‘I shall look forward to it immensely. Any great-aunt of yours beagling——’
‘We’ll get her to bring the beagles to tea with us in Chelsea one day,’ said Dinah carelessly.
To tea with us in Chelsea! Brian looked at her with all his heart in his eyes. Oh, happy, happy days to come!
Dinah interrupted his reverie.
‘I say, Brian, what has happened, do you think?’
‘Everything,’ said Brian with conviction. ‘I love you, and you love me.’
‘Silly! I mean between George and Olivia. Didn’t you notice it at lunch?’
‘I noticed that you seemed to be doing most of the talking, but then I’ve noticed that before sometimes. I say, did you hear me agreeing with Lady Marden that Landseer was one of the world’s greatest painters? I thought that might do me a bit of good with your uncle.’ He expanded his chest proudly. ‘Tact!’
‘I asked you,’ said Dinah sternly, ‘whether you noticed George and Olivia at lunch?’
‘Yes. No. I mean I noticed that they were there, but—I say, do you think they have quarrelled because of us?’
‘Of course not. George may think he has quarrelled, but I’m quite sure Olivia hasn’t. She never does. No, I believe that Mr. Pim’s at the bottom of it. I suspected that man from the first.’
‘Yes, you’re quite right,’ agreed Brian, nodding his head wisely. ‘I remember him now. He’s Pimlico Pim, the notorious cracksman.’
‘No, no, that’s his uncle. No, our Pim is just a messenger of evil. He has brought some terribly sad news about George’s investments. Ah me! The old home will have to be sold up.’
‘Good,’ said Brian callously. ‘Then your uncle will be only too glad to find somebody to marry you.’
‘Yes, darling, but you must be more dramatic about it than that.’
‘All right. I’ll be more dramatic.’
Dinah pushed him out of the way so as to give herself a little more room in which to be dramatic, and went on:
‘“George,” you must say, with tears in your eyes, “George, I cannot pay off the whole of the mortgage for you; I have only two and ninepence——”’
‘Two and tenpence,’ said Brian, bringing out his money from his trousers-pocket.
‘“Two and tenpence. But at least let me take your niece off your hands.” And then George will thump you on the back and say, “You’re a good fellow, Brian, a damn good fellow,” and he’ll blow his nose very loudly for fear of breaking down altogether, and say, “Confound this cigar, it won’t draw properly.”’ Brian looked at her with a foolish proprietary smile.
‘Dinah, you’re a heavenly idiot, and I love you. And you’ve simply got to marry me, uncles or no uncles.’
She bumped down beside him on the sofa.
‘It will have to be “uncles”, I’m afraid, because, you see, I’m his ward, and I can be sent to Coventry or Chancery or somewhere beastly if I marry without his consent.’ She looked at him regretfully. ‘Haven’t you got anybody who objects to your marrying me?’
‘Nobody, thank Heaven. I am alone in the world.’
‘Well, that’s very disappointing of you. I saw myself fascinating your aged father, at the same time that you were fascinating George. I should have done it much better than you.’ She shook her head at him sadly. ‘As a George-fascinator you aren’t very successful, sweetheart. You lack something. A je ne sais quoi.’
Brain pulled at his tie, smoothed his eye-brows, and smiled fatuously at her.
‘What am I like as a Dinah-fascinator?’ he asked.
‘Plus six, darling,’ she said promptly.
‘Good. Then I’ll stick to that, and leave George to Olivia.’
‘Oh, I expect she’ll manage him all right. I have great faith in Olivia.’ She turned to him impetuously. ‘But you’ll marry me, anyhow, won’t you, Brian?’
‘I will.’
‘Even if we have to wait until I am twenty-one?’
‘Even,’ said Brian firmly, ‘if we have to wait until you are fifty-one.’
‘Darling!’ she cried, flinging her arms round his neck.
He disengaged himself hastily.
‘No, no, don’t do that. Please!’
‘Why not? What’s the good of being engaged if you can’t do that?’
‘I promised your uncle that I wouldn’t kiss you. You mustn’t tempt me, Dinah, you really mustn’t.’
‘Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr. Strange.’ She turned her back to him.
‘Conceded, Miss Marden.’
‘Would it be breaking your word of honour as an English gentleman if you sent me a kiss? You can look the other way, as if you didn’t know that I was here.’
Brian considered this carefully.
‘No, I think I might do that,’ he said at last. ‘Are you there?’
‘Yes!’ She got ready to catch it.
‘Then look out.’ He gave a kiss to the tips of his fingers and flicked it in her direction. She snapped it as it went past, and put it to her lips.
‘Oh, well caught!’
‘Now then, here’s one coming for you.’
It was a high dropping one, but Brian negotiated it safely. He rose and bowed.
‘Madam, I thank you.’
She curtsied to him.
‘Your servant, sir.’
III
George was in the library writing a note and giving instructions to the waiting servant. At last there was something to be done; why hadn’t he thought of it before? It was necessary that they should get hold of Mr. Pim. They must hear from his own lips that fatal word again—Telworthy. You’re sure his name was Telworthy, Mr. Pim? Quite sure, Mr. Marden. And you knew him in Sydney, a convict, a fraudulent company-promoter, a drinker? Yes, Mr. Marden, that is so. And he is alive now? Alive now, Mr. Marden. . . . George rehearsed to himself the conversation which would inevitably take place, yet felt that he must make certain of it. They must see Mr. Pim once more.
‘I want one of the men to drive over to the Trevors’,’ he said as he sealed up the note to Mr. Pim, ‘deliver this letter, and then bring Mr. Pim back here. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He handed over the letter and went back to the terrace. Lady Marden and Olivia were talking in an uninterested and desultory way, and his aunt shook herself off with a sigh of relief as soon as George appeared.
‘Well, are we going down to see the pigs?’
No, that was something that George would not do.
‘Take Dinah down, won’t you, Aunt Julia? There’s a little business, I have to discuss with Olivia. I’ll join you later.’
‘Very well. Where is the girl?’
Where was she? Gone off with that fellow Strange somewhere. This was damnable. ‘Dinah!’ he called threateningly.
‘Hallo!’ from the morning-room.
Thank heavens!
Dinah came out, followed by Brian.
‘Do you want me?’
‘Aunt Julia wants to see the pigs, dear,’ said Olivia. ‘I wish you would take her down. Your uncle has some business to attend to, and’—she smiled adorably at Dinah—‘I’m rather tired.’
‘Right-o.’
‘I’ve always said that you don’t take enough exercise, Olivia,’ put in Lady Marden. ‘Look at me!—sixty-five and proud of it.’
Brian looked at her wonderingly.
‘Yes, Aunt Julia, you’re marvelous,’ said Olivia gently.
But Dinah was not going to stand any criticism of her deity.
‘How old would Olivia be if she did take exercise?’ she asked innocently.
The maddened George broke in.
‘Don’t stand about asking silly questions, Dinah. Your aunt hasn’t too much time.’
Brian asked if he might come, too—the first sensible thing which George had heard him say at Marden House.
‘Well, a little exercise wouldn’t do you any harm, Mr. Strange.’ She looked him over with a professional eye. ‘You’re an artist, ain’t you?’
‘Well, I try to paint.’
Dinah hastily explained that he had sold a picture last March for——
‘Yes, yes, never mind that now,’ shouted George.
‘Unhealthy fife,’ was Lady Marden’s comment on the profession. She strode down the steps of the terrace, throwing the invitation ‘Well, come along!’ over her shoulder at them. They came along.
‘At last!’ said George.
‘Poor George!’ said Olivia tenderly. She gave a little reassuring pat to his arm, and walked into the morning-room. He followed her. . . .
But what were they going to do?