“And really, Harold,” she would add, “the boys would be so different if you were to show just a little more parental authority.”
This always made dear daddie laugh. I don’t know why. The “parental authority” somehow tickled him, for, as mother used to say, he looked more a boy himself than a wise old parent.
But father loved auntie as much as any of us did, and looked up to her too. As she was his sister-in-law he needn’t have done that, only she was ever so much older, and, as father would add, “wiser as well.”
Here is one proof that she had a deal of power over him:
Father did not hate his uniform; no real soldier does, although I have heard some say they did; but he did not see the fun, as he called it, of wearing it when off duty. He was off duty going to church on Sundays, but he went in uniform, nevertheless. Why? Because auntie like to see him dressed so.
Mother did not always go to church, because she was delicate; but father and auntie and we boys invariably did.
Let me think a moment. How old would we have been then? Oh, about nine. Dressed exactly alike—black jackets alike, broad white collars alike, tall silk hats alike—the hats were auntie’s notion of the severely genteel—and little rattan canes alike.
Faces and eyes and hair all alike. So much alike were we, indeed, on a Sunday morning, that if any one, except mamma and auntie, who I daresay had their own private marks, called us by our correct names, it was just guesswork or merely chance.
Father made no attempt at distinguishing us on Sundays and holidays. If, for example, he had given Jill a penny with a view to lollipops, and I came round soon after, he would say:
“Let me see, now—I gave you a penny before, didn’t I?”