A Loose End and Other Stories

by S. Elizabeth Hall

The light slowly dawned on my amazed intelligence. Could this—this be the formidable, grey-haired woman, with whom I had been expecting, and somewhat dreading, sooner or later, an encounter? Could this be the spectacled Committee-woman—the rampant bicyclist—the corrupter of the youth of Tabitha? I looked at her immaculate dress, and pretty, neat hair; I noted the winning expression of her eyes, and her sweetness of manner; and instead of entrenching myself in the firm, though unspoken hostility, which I had secretly cherished towards the idea of Aunt Rennie, I felt myself yielding to the charm of a personality, whose richness and sweetness were to me like a new experience of life.

I thought I had grasped the outlines of that personality in the first interview, as we often do on forming a new acquaintance; but surprises were yet in store for me. Aunt Rennie needed but little pressing to stay the night, and then to add a second and a third day to her visit: she was staying with some friends in the neighbourhood, and, it appeared, could easily transfer herself to us. And as the time went on, I began to feel that she had some secondary object in coming and in staying: I thought I perceived a kind of diplomatic worldliness in Aunt Rennie, which jarred with my first impression of her. I felt sure that her purpose was in some way connected with Tabitha and John. She had, of course, heard of Tabitha's friendship for him from her own letters, and John she had known before we did. Well, it was on the fourth day that Aunt Rennie, sitting cosily beside me, startled me by suddenly and lightly remarking, that if I would consent, she wished to take Tabitha back with her, at any rate for a time, to her home in the South of England; she was almost necessary to her in her work at the present juncture: no one could act as her Secretary so efficiently as Tabitha could.

"Besides, to tell you a little secret," she added, with a charming air of confidence and humour, "there is someone besides me that wants Tabitha back: there is an excellent prospect for her, if she could only turn her thoughts in that direction. You have heard of Horace Wetherell, my second cousin—a rising barrister? Ah, well, a little bird has whispered things to me. His prospects are now very different from what they were when she was with me before, or I don't think she would ever have come to you, to say the truth! We must not let her get involved in anything doubtful. As you know, I have been acquainted with this John Chambers and his family all my life. He is a good fellow enough, but will never set the Thames on fire. She is exactly suited to my cousin, who is a man of the highest and noblest character, and could not fail to make her happy. It is only to take her away for a time, and I feel sure all will be well. I knew, my dear friend, that a word to you was enough, for Tabitha's sake: and so we will settle it between us."

I said little in reply, for I was suffering keenly. I felt as if this fair, clever woman had struck a deliberate blow at my happiness, and in a way to leave me resistless. I could not deny that it might be for Tabitha's good to go away. Certainly John was poor, and in fact I had thought lately that that might be the reason the engagement was delayed. Tabitha was only twenty-two, and she might change her mind. I murmured that I would leave it to Tabitha to decide; and as Aunt Rennie turned away, I remember thinking that she was rather young to decide another woman's destiny in such a matter. She was only six years older than Tabitha.

Tabitha often says that she owes her present happiness to Aunt Rennie, for if it had not been for the misery of the approaching separation, John, oppressed by the sense of his poverty and humble prospects, would never have had courage to tell her of his love. And I have sometimes amused myself by reflecting how Aunt Rennie's shrewdness, intelligence and determination, instead of working out her own ends, were all the time furthering the thing that was most opposed to her wishes.

When, after those few days that followed—days for me of heart-breaking conflict of feeling, and for my two children of tears, silent misery and struggling passion, culminating at last, when the storm burst, in complete mutual understanding, and a joint determination that carried all before it—when, I say, Aunt Rennie, defeated, prepared to take her leave, she said a word to me which I often thought of afterwards. "She is choosing blindfold, tinsel for gold." I thought of it, not on account of the expression, but of Aunt Rennie herself. There was something in the pallor of her face, and in her tone, that made me ask myself whether there could be anything in this matter that concerned Aunt Rennie herself more closely than we thought—and, for the moment, a new and motherly feeling rose up in my heart towards her.

Well, she has left me my two children, and though John is only "in business," and they live on three hundred a year, they are very happy, and I am happy in their happiness.

It was a year after their marriage, that the news came that Aunt Rennie was engaged to be married to her cousin. Horace Wetherell. And, as I pondered on it. I doubted whether I had, after all, quite understood the nobility of Aunt Rennie's character.

Horace Wetherell has become an M.P., and he and his wife write books together on social problems.

Poor John will never be an M.P., but I am glad that Tabitha loved him.