“Not that I wish you to desert your old quarters, still less to feel like a stranger with us,” said Mrs. Aylett graciously, while she affixed shining brass labels to the keys of closets, sideboards, and store-rooms—the keys Aunt Rachel could distinguish from one another, and all others in the world, in the darkest night, without any labels whatever; which had grown smooth and bright by many years' friction of her nimble fingers. “But Mr. Aylett wishes me to assume the real, as well as nominal, government of the establishment”—Mrs. Aylett was fond of the polysyllable as conveying better than any other term she could employ the grandeur of her position as Baroness of Ridgeley. “He insists that the servants are growing worthless and refractory under the rule of so many. Hereafter—this is his law, not mine—hereafter, those attached to the house department are to come to me about their orders, and the plantation workmen to him. I shall undoubtedly have much trouble in curing the satellites appointed to me of their irregular habits, and reducing them to something resembling system; but Winston's extreme dissatisfaction with the anarchy that prevailed under the ancien regime moves me to the undertaking.”
“They have always—for generations back, I may say—been called excellent servants; faithful in the discharge of their duties, and attached to their owners,” returned Mrs. Sutton tremulously. “And since I have been in charge—ever since my dear sister's death, I have done my best with them, as with everything else committed by my nephew to my care. But of course I have nothing to urge against your plan. If I can help you in any way”—-
“Thank you! You are extremely kind, my dear madam,” honeyedly. “But I should be ashamed and sorry to be compelled to call upon you for assistance in performing what you have done so easily and successfully for fifteen years. I must learn confidence in my own powers, if I would be respected by underlings. They would be quick to detect the power behind the throne; let me hold counsel with you ever so secretly, and my authority would be weakened by the discovery. I have not the vanity to believe that my maiden attempt at housewifery will be attended by the distinction that has crowned yours, but practice will perfect in this, as in other labors. And my dear Mrs. Sutton, Mr. Aylett bids me say, in his name, as it gives me pleasure to do in my own, that although your occupation is gone, you are ever welcome to a home at Ridgeley, free of all expense. It is our hope that you may still content yourself here, even if Mabel has gone from the nest. I suppose, however, nothing will satisfy her, when she goes to housekeeping, but having you with her as a permanent institution. My brother intimated as much to me before his marriage.”
Declining with mild hauteur, that gave great, but secret amusement to her would-be benefactress, the handsome offer of a free asylum, Mrs. Sutton went to live with a cousin of her late husband's, whose snug plantation was situated about twelve miles from the Aylett place, and in the neighborhood of the Tazewells. It was a pleasant, but not a permanent arrangement, she gave out to her numerous friends, any of whom would have accounted themselves favored by an acceptance of a home for life in their families.
“Ridgeley was changed and lonely since Mabel's departure, and her own habits were too active to be conformed to those of so small a household. Indeed, there was nothing for her to do there any longer, so she was glad to avail herself of Mrs. William Sutton's invitation to stay a while with her. The children made the house so lively. In the fall, the house Mr. Dorrance was having built for his Southern bride would be ready for them, and Mabel's claim upon her aunt's society and services must take precedence of all others.”
The fall came, and Mabel wrote detailed descriptions of the beautiful home Herbert had prepared for her; wrote, moreover, with more feeling and animation, of the new and precious hopes of happiness held out to her loving heart in the prospect of what the spring would give into her arms, but said nothing of her aunt's coming to her for the winter, or for an indefinite period, the bounds of which were to be set only by her beloved relative's wishes. The omission was trying enough to the foster-mother's heart and patience, even while she believed the knowledge of it to be confined to herself. She could still hold up her head bravely among her kindred and acquaintances, and talk of the “dear child's” good fortune and contentment with it; how popular and beloved she was among them, and what an elegant house her generous husband had bestowed upon her; could still hint at the instability of her own plans, and the possibility that she might, at any day or hour, determine to leave her native State and follow her “daughter” into what the latter represented was not an unpleasant exile.
An end was put to this innocent deception—for, if any deception can be termed innocent, it is surely that by which he who practises it is himself beguiled—the blameless guile was then arrested by a story repeated to her by her indignant hosts, as having emanated directly from Mrs. Aylett. She had given expression, publicly, at a large dinner-party, to her amazement and pity at the self-delusion under which “poor, dear Mrs. Sutton” labored, in expecting to take up her residence with Mr. and Mrs. Dorrance.
“My brother laments her hallucination as much, if not more than his wife does,” she said, in her best modulations of creamy compassion. “But, indeed, my dear Mrs. Branch, they are not accountable for it. Not a syllable has ever escaped either of them which a reasonable person could construe into a request that she should become an inmate of their household. So careful have they been to avoid exciting her expectations in this regard, that they have refrained from extending to her an invitation for even a month. Those who are most familiar with the poor lady's peculiarities do not require to be told how ill-advised would be the arrangement she desires. Mabel is a thoroughly sensible woman, and too devoted a wife to advocate anything so injudicious, while her husband is naturally jealous for her dignity and the inviolability of her authority in her own house. Mrs. Sutton left Ridgeley in opposition to our earnest entreaties that she would spend the evening of her days with us. I was assured then, as I am now, that she would receive the same love and respect nowhere else. But she could not brook the semblance of interference with her rule where she had reigned so long and irresponsibly. And while we may deplore, we can hardly find fault with this weakness. It must have been a trial—and not an ordinary one—to be obliged, at her age, to resign the sceptre she had swayed for upward of fifteen years.”
“'Their words are smoother than oil, but in their mouths is a drawn sword,'” quoted Mrs. Sutton, in meek protest against the sugared malice of this slander when it was told to her. “This is none of Mabel's doings. She loves me dearly as ever, but one might as well hope to move the Blue Ridge as to teach that pragmatical husband of hers to consult her wishes and her good, before he does his own. His head is hard as a flint, and his heart—never mind! Heaven forgive me if I am unjust to him! I should be thankful that he does not really mean to misuse my darling. Now, my dears, you see how undesirable an inmate of any house I am rated to be. If you wish to retract your offer of a hiding-place for my old head, I shall not take it amiss. Thanks to Providence and my dear Frederic I have enough, to maintain me decently anywhere in this country. I shall never be chargeable to anybody for my food, victuals, and lodgings. If you are willing to let me board here and do odd stitches for the children when they tear their aprons and rub out the knees of their trowsers—just to keep me out of mischief, you understand!—I promise to be as little officious in housewifely concerns as it is in my nature to be.”
William Sutton and his wife—a woman who was both sagacious and amiable—reiterated their assurances that she could not confer a greater boon upon them than by remaining where she was, and with them she had stayed until Mr. Aylett sent over the Ridgeley carriage, one day in the third week in February, with a note from Mabel, begging her aunt to present herself, without needless delay, at the homestead, since she was not reckoned sufficiently strong to attempt the uneven and muddy roads that still separated them. Mrs. Aylett also dispatched a billet by the coachman, the graceful burden of which was the same as that of Mabel's petition, and the two long-sundered friends were speedily together; fellow-partakers of a bountiful and painstaking hospitality, which kept them continually in mind that they were guests, and not at home.