A Modern Chronicle — Complete. Winston Churchill
dear,” said Aunt Mary, sadly.
“Why, Aunt Mary!” Honora exclaimed, “he lived in a beautiful house, and owned horses. Isn't that being rich?”
Poor Aunt Mary!
“Honora,” she answered, “there are some things you are too young to understand. But try to remember, my dear, that happiness doesn't consist in being rich.”
“But I have often heard you say that you wished you were rich, Aunt Mary, and had nice things, and a picture gallery like Mr. Dwyer.”
“I should like to have beautiful pictures, Honora.”
“I don't like Mr. Dwyer,” declared Honora, abruptly.
“You mustn't say that, Honora,” was Aunt Mary's reproof. “Mr. Dwyer is an upright, public-spirited man, and he thinks a great deal of your Uncle Tom.”
“I can't help it, Aunt Mary,” said Honora. “I think he enjoys being—well, being able to do things for a man like Uncle Tom.”
Neither Aunt Mary nor Honora guessed what a subtle criticism this was of Mr. Dwyer. Aunt Mary was troubled and puzzled; and she began to speculate (not for the first time) why the Lord had given a person with so little imagination a child like Honora to bring up in the straight and narrow path.
“When I go on Sunday afternoons with Uncle Tom to see Mr. Dwyer's pictures,” Honora persisted, “I always feel that he is so glad to have what other people haven't or he wouldn't have any one to show them to.”
Aunt Mary shook her head. Once she had given her loyal friendship, such faults as this became as nothing.
“And when” said Honora, “when Mrs. Dwyer has dinner-parties for celebrated people who come here, why does she invite you in to see the table?”
“Out of kindness, Honora. Mrs. Dwyer knows that I enjoy looking at beautiful things.”
“Why doesn't she invite you to the dinners?” asked Honora, hotly. “Our family is just as good as Mrs. Dwyer's.”
The extent of Aunt Mary's distress was not apparent.
“You are talking nonsense, my child,” she said. “All my friends know that I am not a person who can entertain distinguished people, and that I do not go out, and that I haven't the money to buy evening dresses. And even if I had,” she added, “I haven't a pretty neck, so it's just as well.”
A philosophy distinctly Aunt Mary's.
Uncle Tom, after he had listened without comment that evening to her account of this conversation, was of the opinion that to take Honora to task for her fancies would be waste of breath; that they would right themselves as she grew up.
“I'm afraid it's inheritance, Tom,” said Aunt Mary, at last. “And if so, it ought to be counteracted. We've seen other signs of it. You know Honora has little or no idea of the value of money—or of its ownership.”
“She sees little enough of it,” Uncle Tom remarked with a smile.
“Tom.”
“Well.”
“Sometimes I think I've done wrong not to dress her more simply. I'm afraid it's given the child a taste for—for self-adornment.”
“I once had a fond belief that all women possessed such a taste,” said Uncle Tom, with a quizzical look at his own exception. “To tell you the truth, I never classed it as a fault.”
“Then I don't see why you married me,” said Aunt Mary—a periodical remark of hers. “But, Tom, I do wish her to appear as well as the other children, and (Aunt Mary actually blushed) the child has good looks.”
“Why don't you go as far as old Catherine, and call her a princess?” he asked.
“Do you want me to ruin her utterly?” exclaimed Aunt Mary.
Uncle Tom put his hands on his wife's shoulders and looked down into her face, and smiled again. Although she held herself very straight, the top of her head was very little above the level of his chin.
“It strikes me that you are entitled to some little indulgence in life, Mary,” he said.
One of the curious contradictions of Aunt Mary's character was a never dying interest, which held no taint of envy, in the doings of people more fortunate than herself. In the long summer days, after her silver was cleaned and her housekeeping and marketing finished, she read in the book-club periodicals of royal marriages, embassy balls, of great town and country houses and their owners at home and abroad. And she knew, by means of a correspondence with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury and other intimates, the kind of cottages in which her friends sojourned at the seashore or in the mountains; how many rooms they had, and how many servants, and very often who the servants were; she was likewise informed on the climate, and the ease with which it was possible to obtain fresh vegetables. And to all of this information Uncle Tom would listen, smiling but genuinely interested, while he carved at dinner.
One evening, when Uncle Tom had gone to play piquet with Mr. Isham, who was ill, Honora further surprised her aunt by exclaiming: “How can you talk of things other people have and not want them, Aunt Mary?”
“Why should I desire what I cannot have, my dear? I take such pleasure out of my friends' possessions as I can.”
“But you want to go to the seashore, I know you do. I've heard you say so,” Honora protested.
“I should like to see the open ocean before I die,” admitted Aunt Mary, unexpectedly. “I saw New York harbour once, when we went to meet you. And I know how the salt water smells—which is as much, perhaps, as I have the right to hope for. But I have often thought it would be nice to sit for a whole summer by the sea and listen to the waves dashing upon the beach, like those in the Chase picture in Mr. Dwyer's gallery.”
Aunt Mary little guessed the unspeakable rebellion aroused in Honora by this acknowledgment of being fatally circumscribed. Wouldn't Uncle Tom ever be rich?
Aunt Mary shook her head—she saw no prospect of it.
But other men, who were not half so good as Uncle Tom, got rich.
Uncle Tom was not the kind of man who cared for riches. He was content to do his duty in that sphere where God had placed him.
Poor Aunt Mary. Honora never asked her uncle such questions: to do so never occurred to her. At peace with all men, he gave of his best to children, and Honora remained a child. Next to his flowers, walking was Uncle Tom's chief recreation, and from the time she could be guided by the hand she went with him. His very presence had the gift of dispelling longings, even in the young; the gift of compelling delight in simple things. Of a Sunday afternoon, if the heat were not too great, he would take Honora to the wild park that stretches westward of the city, and something of the depth and intensity of his pleasure in the birds, the forest, and the wild flowers would communicate itself to her. She learned all unconsciously (by suggestion, as it were) to take delight in them; a delight that was to last her lifetime, a never failing resource to which she was to turn again and again. In winter, they went to the botanical gardens or the Zoo. Uncle Tom had a passion for animals, and Mr. Isham, who was a director, gave him a pass through the gates. The keepers knew him, and spoke to him with kindly respect. Nay, it seemed to Honora that the very animals knew him, and offered themselves ingratiatingly to be stroked by one whom they recognized as friend. Jaded horses in the street lifted their noses; stray, homeless cats rubbed against his legs, and vagrant dogs looked up at him trustfully with wagging tails.
Yet his goodness, as Emerson would have said, had some edge to it. Honora had seen the light of anger in his blue eye—a divine ray. Once he had chastised her for telling Aunt Mary a lie (she could not have lied to him) and Honora had never forgotten it. The anger of such a man had indeed some element in it of the divine; terrible, not in volume, but in righteous intensity. And when it had passed there was no occasion for future warning. The memory of it lingered.