University of Virginia Library

20. XX.
AUNT JANE TO THE RESCUE.

THE thing that saves us from insanity during great grief is that there is usually something to do, and the mind composes itself to the mechanical task of adjusting the details. Hope dared not look forward an inch into the future; that way madness lay. Fortunately, it was plain what must come first, — to keep the whole thing within their own walls, and therefore to make some explanation to Mrs. Meredith, whose servants had doubtless been kept up all night awaiting Emilia. Profoundly perplexed what to say or not to say to her, Hope longed with her whole soul for an adviser. Harry and Kate were both away, and besides, she shrank from darkening their young lives as hers had been darkened. She resolved to seek counsel in the one person who most thoroughly distrusted Emilia, — Aunt Jane.

This lady was in a particularly happy mood that day. Emilia, who did all kinds of fine needle-work exquisitely, had just embroidered

for Aunt Jane some pillow-cases. The original suggestion came from Hope, but it never cost Emilia anything to keep a secret, and she had presented the gift very sweetly, as if it were a thought of her own. Aunt Jane, who with all her penetration as to facts was often very guileless as to motives, was thoroughly touched by the humility and the embroidery.

"All last night," she said, "I kept waking up, and thinking about Christian charity and my pillow-cases."

It was, therefore, a very favorable day for Hope's consultation, though it was nearly noon before her aunt was visible, perhaps because it took so long to make up her bed with the new adornments.

Hope said frankly to Aunt Jane that there were some circumstances about which she should rather not be questioned, but that Emilia had come there the previous night from the ball, had been seized with one of her peculiar attacks, and had stayed all night. Aunt Jane kept her eyes steadily fixed on Hope's sad face, and, when the tale was ended, drew her down and kissed her lips.

"Now tell me, dear," she said; "what comes first?"

"The first thing is," said Hope, "to have Emilia's absence explained to Mrs. Meredith in some such way that she will think no more of it, and not talk about it."

"Certainly," said Aunt Jane. "There is but one way to do that. I will call on her myself."

"You, auntie?" said Hope.

"Yes, I," said her aunt. "I have owed her a call for five years. It is the only thing that will excite her so much as to put all else out of her head."

"O auntie!" said Hope, greatly relieved, "if you only would! But ought you really to go out? It is almost raining."

"I shall go," said Aunt Jane, decisively, "if it rains little boys!"

"But will not Mrs. Meredith wonder —?" began Hope.

"That is one advantage," interrupted her aunt, "of being an absurd old woman. Nobody ever wonders at anything I do, or else it is that they never stop wondering."

She sent Ruth erelong to order the horses. Hope collected her various wrappers, and Ruth, returning, got her mistress into a state of preparation.

"If I might say one thing more," Hope whispered.

"Certainly," said her aunt. "Ruth, go to my chamber, and get me a pin."

"What kind of a pin, ma'am?" asked that meek handmaiden, from the doorway.

"What a question!" said her indignant mistress. "Any kind. The common pin of North America. Now, Hope?" as the door closed.

"I think it better, auntie," said Hope, "that Philip should not stay here longer at present. You can truly say that the house is full, and —"

"I have just had a note from him," said Aunt Jane severely. "He has gone to lodge at the hotel. What next?"

"Aunt Jane," said Hope, looking her full in the face, "I have not the slightest idea what to do next."

("The next thing for me," thought her aunt, "is to have a little plain speech with that misguided child upstairs.")

"I can see no way out," pursued Hope.

"Darling!" said Aunt Jane, with a voice full of womanly sweetness, "there is always a way out, or else the world would have stopped

long ago. Perhaps it would have been better if it had stopped, but you see it has not. All we can do is, to live on and try our best."

She bade Hope leave Emilia to her, and furthermore stipulated that Hope should go to her pupils as usual, that afternoon, as it was their last lesson. The young girl shrank from the effort, but the elder lady was inflexible. She had her own purpose in it. Hope once out of the way, Aunt Jane could deal with Emilia.

No human being, when met face to face with Aunt Jane, had ever failed to yield up to her the whole truth she sought. Emilia was on that day no exception. She was prostrate, languid, humble, denied nothing, was ready to concede every point but one. Never, while she lived, would she dwell beneath John Lambert's roof again. She had left it impulsively, she admitted, scarce knowing what she did. But she would never return there to live. She would go once more and see that all was in order for Mr. Lambert, both in the house and on board the yacht, where they were to have taken up their abode for a time. There were new servants in the house, a new captain on the yacht; she would trust Mr. Lambert's

comfort to none of them; she would do her full duty. Duty! the more utterly she felt herself to be gliding away from him forever, the more pains she was ready to lavish in doing these nothings well. About every insignificant article he owned she seemed to feel the most scrupulous and wife-like responsibility; while she yet knew that all she had was to him nothing, compared with the possession of herself; and it was the thought of this last ownership that drove her to despair.

Sweet and plaintive as the child's face was, it had a glimmer of wildness and a hunted look, that baffled Aunt Jane a little, and compelled her to temporize. She consented that Emilia should go to her own house, on condition that she would not see Philip, — which was readily and even eagerly promised, — and that Hope should spend the night with Emilia, which proposal was ardently accepted.

It occurred to Aunt Jane that nothing better could happen than for John Lambert, on returning, to find his wife at home; and to secure this result, if possible, she telegraphed to him to come at once.

Meantime Hope gave her inevitable music-lesson, so absorbed in her own thoughts that it

was all as mechanical as the métronome. As she came out upon the Avenue for the walk home, she saw a group of people from a gardener's house, who had collected beside a muddy crossing, where a team of cart-horses had refused to stir. Presently they sprang forward with a great jerk, and a little Irish child was thrown beneath the wheel. Hope sprang forward to grasp the child, and the wheel struck her also; but she escaped with a dress torn and smeared, while the cart passed over the little girl's arm, breaking it in two places. She screamed and then grew faint, as Hope lifted her. The mother received the burden with a wail of anguish; the other Irishwomen pressed around her with the dense and suffocating sympathy of their nation. Hope bade one and another run for a physician, but nobody stirred. There was no surgical aid within a mile or more. Hope looked round in despair, then glanced at her own disordered garments.

"As sure as you live!" shouted a well-known voice from a carriage which had stopped behind them. "If that isn't Hope what's-her-name, wish I may never! Here's a lark! Let me come there!" And the speaker pushed through the crowd.

"Miss Ingleside," said Hope, decisively, "this child's arm is broken. There is nobody to go for a physician. Except for the condition I am in, I would ask you to take me there at once in your carriage; but as it is —"

"As it is, I must ask you, hey?" said Blanche, finishing the sentence. "Of course. No mistake. Sans dire. Jones, junior, this lady will join us. Don't look so scared, man. Are you anxious about your cushions or your reputation?"

The youth simpered and disclaimed.

"Jump in, then, Miss Maxwell. Never mind the expense. It's only the family carriage; — surname and arms of Jones. Lucky there are no parents to the fore. Put my shawl over you, so."

"O Blanche!" said Hope, "what injustice —"

"I've done myself?" said the volatile damsel. "Not a doubt of it. That's my style, you know. But I have some sense; I know who's who. Now, Jones, junior, make your man handle the ribbons. I've always had a grudge against that ordinance about fast driving, and now's our chance."

And the sacred "ordinance," with all other

proprieties, was left in ruins that day. They tore along the Avenue with unexplained and most inexplicable speed, Hope being concealed by riding backward, and by a large shawl, and Blanche and her admirer receiving the full indignation of every chaste and venerable eye. Those who had tolerated all this girl's previous improprieties were obliged to admit that the line must be drawn somewhere. She at once lost several good invitations and a matrimonial offer, since Jones, junior, was swept away by his parents to be wedded without delay to a consumptive heiress who had long pined for his whiskers; and Count Posen, in his Souvenirs, was severer on Blanche's one good deed than on the worst of her follies.

A few years after, when Blanche, then the fearless wife of a regular-army officer, was helping Hope in the hospitals at Norfolk, she would stop to shout with delight over the reminiscence of that stately Jones equipage in mad career, amid the barking of dogs and the groaning of dowagers. "After all, Hope," she would say, "the fastest thing I ever did was under your orders."