AUNT MARGARET AT HOME.
MY Aunt Margaret was what is termed a clever woman — that is to say, she was keen and resolute, prompt and active, and difficult to overreach in matters of money or business. Of the former she was, people said, a little too fond. At all events she hated waste, and lived frugally on a dietary which leaned much upon tea and eggs, and sometimes omitted dinner altogether. But though light, her housekeeping was neither beggarly nor altogether uncomfortable.
Aunt Margaret, as I remember her — dear me, how many years ago! — was rather tall, if anything, and decidedly slim and erect, with a countenance which, though shrewd and energetic, had yet something kindly in it Her features were small and nicely turned, and one could quite suppose that she might have been a pretty girl once on a time.
She held herself well, and stepped with a good, firm tred, and lightly withal. Hers was a rustic life, somewhat lonely, in a three-storied house, with three rooms on a floor, and a gable at front — steep-roofed and tiled, and with a great growth of jessamine and woodbine about the porch and the windows. Half a dozen tall, dark elms made a comfortable shadow about the house; and a white paling in front enclosed, by the road-side, the little flower garden, with an old mulberry tree in the centre.
In the rear was a lock-up yard with coach-house and stable, and a comfortable room in which old Tom Clinton slept with a blunderbuss and back-sword in case of robbers. On week-days Aunt Margaret dressed very plainly — stuff in winter, cotton in summer; but on Sundays she went to church in thick old satins or ancient brocades, so stiff that the squire’s lady across the aisle used to talk of them covetously for days after, and wonder why such things were not to be had now-a-days.
Aunt Margaret was always particularly neat She used to carry her keys in an old-fashioned way, man a ribbon by her side, a neat little pincushion, her scissors, and I forget what else. It was the tradition of that chatelaine which I saw revived lung after poor Aunt Margaret had gone to her rest She had long and very pretty hands — her years considered; and, in fact, the only thing I remember decidedly against her was her enamelled box of rappee, and the habit to which it ministered.
Her prime-minister was Winnifred Dobbs — fattish, rosy, ancient Time had thinned her flowing hair, and bleached it somewhat; but she smiled largely, and was good-humoured; although not very quick, was steady and sure, and chatted volubly, though not always much to the purpose; and Aunt Margaret gave her her tea in the drawing-room, which was an excuse for keeping her there for the rest of the evening; and so Aunt Margret was not quite so lonely as she might have been.
There was a young and stumpy girl beside, who washed, and did nearly everything, and must have found these young days rather dull. To her the view of the road from the kitchen window was a resource, and the occasional calls of the baker, butcher, and dairyman were precious. She talked and laughed with herself; she sang a great deal in the scullery, and joked with the cat in the kitchen.
Among Aunt Margaret’s sources of revenue was her moiety of what she called the Winderbrooke property. Everybody, of course, knows the old town of Winderbrooke. Three houses in the main street belonged to her and her sister. Of these, for convenience, they made a division, the best they could. Aunt Margaret had for her share a tobacconist and half a tailor. The latter was punctual; but the tobacconist owed a whole year’s rent, and was already some way in his third half-year. His letters were highly unsatisfactory. The tailor’s answers to her inquiries about his defaulting neighbour were reserved and evasive. But that Be had a wise terror of law and lawyers my Aunt would have retained an attorney forthwith.
“I’m not surprised, Winnie,” said my Aunt, snuffing her candle, as she and her confidential handmaid sat by the fire, in her diminutive drawing room, at their tea; “not the least. Did you ever know one man tell of another when a woman was concerned Î John Pendle has been my tenant eleven years and knows all about that roguish snuff-man; but he won’t tell me one iota about him. Not that Browning is anything on earth to him. I suppose he doesn’t care if Browning was hanged; but simply Browning is a man, and I a woman. That’s it, Winnie — that’s all — I’m to be robbed and no one to prevent it A conspiracy I call it. I tell you, Winnie, I never knew one man prevent another’s robbing a woman, except when he hoped to rob her himself.
Honest Dobbs’s fat face and round eyes looked distressed over her teacup at her mistress, while she discoursed; and she made answer only by that expressive but unspellable tick-tick-tick-ing made by the tip of the tongue at the back of the teeth.
“And rob me they would, Winnie, if I were half such a fool as you, for instance. But I’ll show them there are women who do know something of business.”
And she nodded mysteriously, but briskly, on her maid with a side-glance of her dark eye.
“I mean to start to-morrow morning, after breakfast, at eight o’clock. You come with me, Winnie, and we’ll sleep to-morrow night at Winderbrooke, and that, I think, will surprise