In a Quiet Village

by S. Baring-Gould

Auntie’s gowns were mostly of dark grey, but she had one for the evening of good silk that was silver-grey, and in that, at night, Auntie looked quite presentable. But Auntie rarely wore it. She could not dine out, as she had no carriage or conveyance of any sort, and the risk of marring her one silk evening dress, by going on foot in such an unsettled climate as is ours in England to the house where the festive board was spread, that was too serious to be undertaken. But she did, once, dine in it at the Hall, without having been fetched. Then she had hired a farmer’s butter-cart, that in which he sent some of the home produce to market. It was without springs, it was without seats, and it was sans steps. The cob that drew it was white and ungroomed, brought in for the occasion from the field in which it lay and rolled. Auntie’s maid had put a chair in the cart and a chair beside the cart. By this means the old lady mounted into it, without the necessity of scrambling up the spokes of the wheel, or leaping on to the shaft, and thence somersaulting into the cart.

But this conveyance of two wheels so shook up Auntie internally that she had no appetite for her dinner, and no enjoyment of the social evening. Mrs. Estcourt, after that, sent the carriage for her, but Auntie could rarely be prevailed on to accept it. She was poor in pocket and large in heart, and she tipped the coachman on such occasions half-a-crown, and half-a-crown to Auntie was a sum of money that she could ill afford to miss.

No one in the parish, rich or poor, secular or clerical, thought of calling the old lady by other name than “Auntie,” yet was she aunt to no single person there, nor indeed remotely connected with any. Those who wished to be respectful called her Miss Jane, or Miss Auntie. Yet was there a tie, not of blood, that bound her to all and all to her, a tie even stronger than that of blood—the tie of infinite charity.

Never was there a woman with a kinder, more unselfish heart than old Auntie. Her mind was ever active, but occupied only with thought of others.

Unhappily we know by experience that this world of ours is full of selfishness, that among a hundred persons we meet, scarce one is not infected with this vice; nevertheless there is a salt of fresh unselfishness to be discovered. But among the many of these elect, the very crown and acme of all was, I verily believe, Auntie.

The parish knew her story, yet no one ventured on an allusion to it in her hearing, except possibly Mrs. Estcourt, who had been her schoolfellow, and with whom she did sometimes speak of the past, and open that old, but unwithered, heart.

The story was this.

When Auntie was young and pretty and little, for a little body she had ever been, she had been engaged to a handsome young fellow in the service of the East India Company. He had come to England for a holiday, happened to see her, had been attracted by her, as well, perhaps, as by the fact that she had some money of her own, and he proposed to her to accept him and go out with him to India.

She certainly was greatly attached to Mr. Warnacre. She had never cared for any man previously, never had gone into a gentle flirtation even.

Her younger sister was at school, finishing her education, but when the day of the marriage was fixed, she was brought home that she might serve as bridesmaid to her sister.