Two Maiden Aunts

by Mary H. Debenham

'I can't drink this whole bottle by myself. May I pour you out a glass?'

Betty could do nothing but burst out laughing, and Angel, in spite of her dismay, joined in, and as to Captain Maitland, he laughed out more heartily than any of them, and from that moment there was no more stiffness between them. The captain, though he seemed quite old to Godfrey, and indeed to his aunts too, was not thirty, for he had attained his promotion rapidly for courage and coolness in an encounter off the French coast. He had the frank cheery manners of a sailor too, so that it was not difficult to feel at home with him; besides, as Betty said afterwards, where was the use of pretending they didn't remember that he had had Penny in his arms, and that he had been on his knees under the table picking up the sweet biscuits?

He would be at home for about a fortnight, he said; he had not been to Oakfield for nearly seven years, not since his mother's death; and Angel thought the bright sunburnt face looked a little wistful, and felt sorry for him having no one to welcome him. But he smiled again directly as he said how glad he was to find the place so little changed; and then he asked if he might see the garden, he remembered being brought there when he was a very little boy; did the clove pinks still grow in the border under the yew hedge? So they all went out together, and the captain had forgotten nothing and greeted Miss Jane as an old friend; there had been a ship in the squadron off the Spanish coast, he said, whose figurehead always reminded him of her. And he remembered the view from the paddock, and missed the big elm that had been blown down two winters ago, and said what a good thing it was the storm had spared Sir Godfrey's tree; it would be a misfortune indeed if anything happened to that, but it seemed all right at present, as stout a heart of oak as the Admiral's flag-ship. And he heard that Cousin Crayshaw was coming down for Christmas, and said he remembered him and should do himself the honour of calling upon him. And then they all walked with him to the end of the lane.

'Do you know,' Betty said as they turned, back, 'I keep on forgetting that he is Kiah's captain, and yet I like to think he is.'

Angel and Godfrey felt much the same. It did seem so impossible that this cheery, simple man, who had laughed over the gooseberry wine, and been so interested in the garden, could be the hero who would perhaps be in the history books of the future. Why, they had been talking the whole time, telling him about the great gale which had blown the elm down, when he knew what a storm at sea was like, with waves mountains high, and mighty ships and brave men swallowed up among them, and he had asked about the bees and the best way of layering pinks as if he really cared to know. Could he have room in his thoughts for such simple things when strife and danger and bloodshed and the life-and-death struggle of nations were familiar to him?

As Betty said, they found it hard to believe, and yet it was very nice to think of, and seemed to mean that being a hero need not take one quite away from everything that other people loved and cared about, just as the good Admiral Collingwood noted on the eve of a great sea-fight that it was his little Sarah's birthday, and remarked while the French were pouring their broadside into his ship that his wife would be just going to church. And gentle Angel said to herself that perhaps after all, when Godfrey was a great man, he might be her Godfrey still if he could manage to copy Captain Maitland. And, meanwhile, she felt very glad and thankful on her boy's account for the captain's coming; for here at last, she said to herself, was what she had wanted so long, some one whom he could look up to and admire and try to copy. What a happy thing it was that he should have learnt from his first hero that lesson that the beginning of victory is the conquest of self.

Cousin Crayshaw was to arrive two days before Christmas, and Godfrey and his aunts had been busy decorating the cottage with holly for the occasion. Cousin Crayshaw was not a particularly interesting visitor certainly, but Betty, from the top of the stepladder, told Godfrey, with all the more emphasis because she didn't quite feel it herself, that they ought to be very thankful they had somebody to welcome.

Martha said that welcoming kept people's hearts warm. The two aunts and the nephew all had their own delightful Christmas secrets, and there was much whispering and great excitement and solemn taking of pennies out of Godfrey's money-box when Pete went to the county town with some hay. It was a very serious matter, for of course he could not consult the aunts, and he felt very important when he ran down to meet Pete, and waited at the end of the lane, jingling the pennies and listening to the sound of approaching cart-wheels. Peter saw the little figure waiting, and jumped down at once.

'Anything I can do in town for you, Master Godfrey?' he asked.

'Yes,' said Godfrey, very seriously, 'I am going to give you some money to spend, Pete, to spend on presents. I want two very beautiful presents for two ladies, and a little one that would suit an old nurse.'