THE RHODESIAN PROJECT
Aunt Emily represented what Diana was pleased to call "the family skeleton in the flesh." She was Henry Pym's only sister, and there had been a time when she shared a pound a week with him in a tiny cottage in Cornwall, while he worked as a miner in order to teach himself all he could about mining. After that she had taken a situation as housekeeper, while he went out to South Africa to make his fortune. Later she had spent a year or two with him, sharing his struggles in the new country, and then he had married, and she was once more left to take care of herself; for at that stage Henry's finances would barely keep himself and his wife. Three years afterwards, when his genius for finance was bearing fruit, his wife died, and at twenty-seven he found himself a childless widower just becoming prosperous. He again offered his sister a home, but her recollections of Africa were none to draw her back thither, and she chose to continue life in the comfortable situation she had procured as companion to an invalid lady. So Henry devoted himself entirely to the science of money-making, and at thirty-five he was a rich man. He married a second time, choosing for his wife among the gentlest-born Johannesburg could offer, and winning the sweet woman who was Meryl's mother. About the same time his brother came out from England and joined him, and in fifteen years they were two of Johannesburg's wealthiest millionaires. A few years later both were widowers, and very shortly afterwards John Pym died, leaving his only daughter and all the wealth that would be hers to his brother's care. Thus the household became as we have seen it, for Henry, remembering gratefully how his sister had stood by him in his days of struggle, now insisted upon her sharing his luxurious homes and acting as chaperon to the two girls. That she was a little trying he knew perfectly, but his sense of fair play and kinship resolutely turned a deaf ear to the half-spoken pleas of the girls, that he would give her instead a cosy home of her own, and procure a younger and brighter chaperon for them; and she had now become a fixture.
But what irritated Diana so was the fact that had the good lady consulted her own taste, she would infinitely have preferred the cosy, independent home; but just as Henry's sense of fair play offered her a place in his, so her sense of duty to the two motherless girls made her accept it in spite of her inclination.
"If people would but consult their comfort instead of their duty," quoth poor Diana, "how much nicer it would be all round! Uncle doesn't really want her here, and she doesn't really want to come, and we'd give our heads to be rid of her; but just because Old Man Duty loves to make people supremely uncomfortable, here we all are!" and her expressive gesture made further comment unnecessary.
But, as a matter of fact, she made a very easy and good-natured chaperon, and it was only some of her irritating little ways that troubled them. Without being really deaf, she usually failed to hear any opening speech, and this Diana coped with very summarily. "Aunt Emily," she would begin. "Eh ... eh ... eh ... eh ... ah," and when Aunt Emily had duly enquired, "What did you say, my dear?" she would speak her sentence for the first time. Or, again, with reference to her propensity to get exceedingly worked up upon a subject of very little general interest, she would say, "The great point is, not to start her off, and not to give her a chance to start herself off. A little perspicacity will soon tell you what subject to nip in the bud, or when to talk as hard and fast as you can about something else."
"And as for her mournfulness," declared the matter-of-fact young heiress, "well, that's genuinely funny. If I've got a bit of a hump myself, and I hear Aunt Emily, with a face of heroic resignation, say, 'I can bear it,' I begin to feel quite chirpy at once."
But when the Rhodesian project came seriously under discussion, they were all a good deal surprised to hear Aunt Emily take part in it as one who must inevitably be of the party. Henry Pym was a reserved, undemonstrative man, and when Meryl begged him to let them accompany him on his travels, though he said very little, he was secretly a good deal gratified and pleased. His own early hardships had taught him the inestimable value of learning self-dependence and plucky endurance, and it was not without some regret he viewed a future for the girls entirely of rose leaves. Yet how could it very well be otherwise? When, however, Meryl pleadingly asked him to take them to Rhodesia with him, he perceived that the trip might be beneficial in more ways than one.
"You probably don't understand," he told her quietly, "that I am going on a business, prospecting trip. I am going right away from hotels and railways to see mines, and I don't intend to be bothered with anything elaborate in the way of an outfit. I suppose I shall take a tent, and travel in a travelling ambulance, but certainly nothing out of the way in food or equipment. You would have to do the same, and as you know absolutely nothing in the world about 'roughing it,' you probably wouldn't like it at all."
"But that is just what we should like," Meryl urged. "That is one reason why we want to come."
They were sitting in the smoke-room with him, as was often their habit in the evening, preferring it, as he did, to the stately drawing-room.