They were very polite, and soon saw that the best thing to do was to ignore Aunt Tessie as far as possible, and pretend not to hear when she talked, and not to see when she shuffled about the room, upsetting ornaments here and there, and every now and then whisking round suddenly to look behind her as though she expected someone or something to be following her. Once she shouted very loud, “Get out, I tell you! I can smell the poison from here!...” But after the first involuntary, startled silence, everyone began simultaneously to talk again, and very soon after that, luncheon was announced.
Mrs. Lambe saw that her husband, talking to his principal guest and smiling a great deal, kept on all the time turning an anxious eye towards Aunt Tessie, and this emboldened her to do what she had never done before.
She put her hand on the old lady’s arm, and detained her whilst the others were all going into the dining-room.
“Dear auntie,” she said, speaking low and very gently, “I’m sure you’re not well. You look so flushed and tired. All these people are really too much for you. Do let Emma carry your lunch upstairs on a tray and have it comfortably in your own room.”
But it was of no use.
Aunt Tessie, her looks and her manner stranger than ever, vociferated an incoherent refusal, mixed up with something about Emma, to whom she had taken a violent fancy.
“A good girl—the only one you can trust. She never plots against people!” Aunt Tessie shouted, nodding her head with wild emphasis, and rolling her eyeballs round in their sockets.
Mrs. Lambe could do nothing. She dared not let Aunt Tessie sit next to any of the visitors, and of course she herself had to have one of the important clients upon either side of her, but she made Ena and Evelyn, who were lunching downstairs in honour of the godfather’s presence, take their places one on each side of their extraordinary old relative.
Evelyn, who was very little, began to whine and protest, but Mrs. Lambe pretended not to hear. She knew that Evelyn’s attention was always very easily distracted. She felt much more afraid of Ena, and her heart sank when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aunt Tessie officiously trying to put Ena’s long curls away from her shoulders.
The little girl’s fair, pretty face turned black with scowls in an instant, and she twitched herself away from the big, heavy, mottled hand fumbling clumsily at her neck, and sat with her back as nearly as possible turned to Aunt Tessie.