“Aunt Emmeline, for the last months it has rarely occurred to me to think of anything else!”
“Very well then, that’s all to the good. As I said to Aunt Eliza, let us leave her alone till Kathleen has gone. Evelyn is obstinate, and if you interfere she will only grow more pig-headed. Let her find things out for herself. Experience, Eliza, will do more than either you or I. Sooner or later, even Evelyn must realise that you can’t run a house, and garden, and stable, in the same way on half the ordinary income. Now that Kathleen is married, she naturally takes with her her own fortune.”
She looked at me expectantly, and I smiled, another stiff, marionette smile—and said:—
“How true! Curiously enough, that fact has already penetrated to my dull brain!”
“Now I do hope and pray, Evelyn, that you are not going to argue with me,” cried Aunt Emmeline, with a sudden access of energy which was positively startling. “It’s ridiculous saying that because there is only one mistress instead of two, expense will therefore be halved. I have kept house for thirty-three years, and have never once allowed an order at the door, so I may be supposed to know. Nonsense! The rent is the same, I suppose, and the rates, and the taxes. You must sit down to a decent meal even if you are alone, and it takes the same fire to cook four potatoes as eight. Your garden must be kept going, and if you do away with one horse, you still require a groom, I suppose, to look after the rest. Don’t talk to me of economising; you’d be up to your neck in debt before a year was over—if you weren’t in a lunatic asylum with nervous depression, living alone in that hole-in-a-corner old house, with not a soul but servants to speak to from morning till night. You have a nervous temperament, Evelyn. You may not realise it, but I remember as a child how you used to fidget and dash about. Dear Kathie sat still and sucked her thumb. I said at the time, ‘Evelyn is better-looking, but mark my words, Kathie will be married first!’ And you see! It’s because I love you, my dear, and you are my dear sister’s child that I warn you to beware of living alone in that house!”
“Thank you so much,” I said nastily. (When people presage a remark by saying that they only say it because they love you, you may lay long odds that it’s going to be disagreeable!) “It certainly sounds a gruesome prospect. Not even a choice between bankruptcy and mania, but a certainty of both! And within a year, too! Such a short run for one’s money! Aunt Eliza had some suggestion to make, then? And you evidently approved. Would you mind telling me exactly what it was?”
“That is what I am trying to do, but you will interrupt. Naturally, your home is with us, your mother’s sisters. You shall have the blue room over the porch. If you wish it, we are willing that you should bring your own pictures. The silver and valuables you can send to the bank, and the furniture can be sold. You shall pay us five guineas a week, and we will keep your horse, and house old Bridget if you don’t want to part from her. She can attend to your room, and sleep in the third attic. There would be no extras except washing, and a fire in your room. You know how we live; every comfort, but no excess. I disapprove of excess. Eliza and I have often regretted that you and Kathie have such extravagant ways. Early tea, as if you were old women, and bare shoulders for dinner. You may laugh, my dear, but it’s no laughing matter. One thing leads to another. You can’t wear an evening dress and sit down to a chop. Soup and fish and an entrée before you know where you are. We have high tea. You would save money on evening gowns alone. A dressy blouse is all that is required.”
Aunt Emmeline paused to draw breath, twitched, jerked, and resolutely braced herself to say a difficult thing.
“And—and we shall welcome you, my dear! We shall be p–pleased to have you!”
Through all her protestation of welcome, through all her effort at warmth, the plain, unflattering truth forced its way out. To entertain a young independent niece beneath their roof might seem to the two aunts a duty, but, most certainly, most obviously, it would not be a pleasure! I was quite convinced that for myself it would be a fiery trial to accept the offer; but it was a shock to realise that the aunts felt the same!