Chapter 10 A Bunch of Cherries by L. T. Meade
AUNT SUSAN
Florence slept soundly that night, and awoke the next morning in the highest of spirits and the best of health.
"It is wonderful, Mummy," she said, "how you and I can squeeze into this camp bed, but there, I never moved all night; it was delicious to have you so close to me. I cannot understand why I love you as I do, for you are a very plain, ordinary sort of woman."
"I never was anything else," replied Mrs. Aylmer, by no means offended by Florence's frank remarks. "Your poor father always said, 'It's your heart, not your face, that has won me, Mabel.' Your poor father had a great deal of pretty sentiment about him, but I am matter-of-fact to the backbone. There, child, jump up now and get dressed, and I'll go down and prepare the breakfast. Sukey is rather cross this morning, and I always make the coffee myself."
Mrs. Aylmer bustled out of the room, and Florence slowly rose and dressed.
"I wonder what mother would think of me," she said to herself, "if she knew how I really secured my present position as one of the lucky three; I wonder what mother would think about it. Would she be terribly shocked? I doubt if the little Mummy has the highest principles in the world; in fact, I don't doubt, for I am quite certain that the Mummy's principles are a little lax, but there, she is the Mummy, and I love her. What a queer thing love is, for Mummy is not the highest-souled woman, nor the most beautiful in the world. Still, she is the Mummy, and I love her."
So Florence finished dressing and ran downstairs, and enjoyed a hearty breakfast of brown bread and butter, honey, and delicious coffee.
"I can't do much for you in the meat line, my dear," said her parent. "I don't indulge in meat more than once a week myself, but we'll take it out in fish. Fish is cheap and plentiful in Dawlish, and we can get dear little crabs for fourpence apiece."
"Oh, lovely," said Florence; "I adore crabs."
"We will go down to the fishwife after breakfast, and get her to boil some for us in time for supper," said the mother; "and now, Florence, if you are quite disposed to listen, I may as well get over this bad business."
"You allude to Aunt Susan, of course?" said Florence.
"Yes, my dear child, to her last letter. I could not read it to you, for really the tone is that aggravating it would make milk turn, and I know the contents by heart."
"What are they, mother? You may as well tell me; I am pretty well accustomed to bad news. Is she going to make your screw still smaller?"
"No, she says nothing about that. Florence, child, I wish it had been the will of Providence to have spared my brother, for if your Uncle Tom had lived I would not be in the sordid state I am now. If one of them had to go, why wasn't it your Aunt Susan?"
"She is not my real aunt, you know," said Florence.
"That's just it, dear, but she owns the money. Now, if she had left it to Tom he would have had me to live with him. I doubt, after his experience with your Aunt Susan, if he would ever have taken a second wife, and you and I would have had plenty."
"Dear me, mother," said Florence, frowning slightly, "what is the good of going over that now? Uncle Tom has been in his grave for the last six years, hasn't he? and Aunt Susan rules the roost. It's Aunt Susan we have got to think about. What did she say in that unpleasant letter?"
"Something about stocks and shares and dividends, dear—that her dividends are not coming in as well as usual, and that in consequence her income is not so large, and she finds it a great strain keeping you, Florry, at that expensive school."
"Oh, well, that's all arranged," said Florence, in a somewhat nervous voice.
"My dear Florry, don't you bear yourself up with false hopes and false ideas, for it seems, according to your Aunt Susan's letter, that the thing is not arranged at all. In fact, she declares positively that she won't keep you at Cherry Court School longer than another term."
"What, mother?"
"She says so, my love. I am sorry to have to tell you, but it is a fact. She says that you are going on sixteen, and that at sixteen you ought to be a very good pupil teacher at another school, where your services would be given in lieu of payment. She says she knows a school in the country where you would be taken, a place called Stoneley Hall, where there are sixty girls. It is up amongst the Yorkshire moors, in the dreariest spot, I make no doubt. Well, in her letter she said that she had arranged that you are to go to Stoneley Hall at Christmas, and that the next term is your last at Cherry Court School."
"If I win the Scholarship I need not do that," said Florence.
"No, no, dear, that's just it; and she says also that when she removes you from Cherry Court School she will allow me fifteen pounds a year more than I have at present, which will make my income of sixty-five pounds instead of fifty. I mean to give you that fifteen pounds a year to buy your clothes with, Florry. You shall have that, my poor dear child, whatever happens. I think you can dress yourself quite neatly on that."
"I should judge from the sort of clothes I have now," said Florence, giving her foot a pettish kick against the obnoxious blue serge, "I should judge they did not cost five pounds a year. Yes, the fifteen pounds would be delicious; and you would give it to me, Mummy?"
"Well, of course, darling, because you would have no income of your own at Stoneley Hall for the first two years, and after that it depends altogether on what you can do. You are not half educated yet, are you Florence?"
"Of course not, mother; a girl of fifteen is not educated, as a rule."
"That's just it, but your Aunt Susan does not care a bit. She reminds me in her horrid letter, that you are not her own niece at all, and that very few women would be as kind to her husband's people as she is to you and me. She says frankly——"
"Oh, what an odious frank way she has!" interrupted Florence.
"She says frankly," pursued Mrs. Aylmer, wiping the moisture from her brow as she spoke, "that we are the greatest worry to her, both of us, and that she does not care a pin for either of us, but that she does not want to have it said that her husband's people are in the workhouse, and that is why she is doing what she is doing."
"Oh, Mummy," said Florence, "can you bear her? When you tell me those sort of things I just long to throw her gifts in her face and to say boldly, 'We won't take another halfpenny from you, we will go to the workhouse to spite you, we'll tell every one we can that we are connected with you. Yes, we'll go to the workhouse to spite you.'"
"That's all very well, Florence," replied Mrs. Aylmer, rising as she spoke and shaking the crumbs from her dress outside the window. "I doubt if it would vex your Aunt Susan very much, and it would vex us a considerable deal, my love. Your Aunt Susan's relations might not even hear of it, and we would be miserable and disgraced for ever. No, we must swallow our pride and take her money; there is no help for it. But if you get the Scholarship, Flo, she is the kind of woman who would be proud of you, she is really. If she thought you had any gift she would turn round in jiffy and begin to spend money properly on you. She asked me in her last letter what sort of girl you were growing up, and if you had a chance of being handsome, for, said she, 'if Florence is really handsome, I might take a house in London and give her a season. I enjoy taking handsome girls about, and I am a right good matchmaker.' That is what she said, the horrid old cat. But you are not handsome, Florry, not a bit."
"I know," replied Florence, "I know. Well, mother, we must make the best of things. You may be certain I won't leave a stone unturned to get the Scholarship."
"You will get it, dear, and then your education will be secured, and by and by you will get a post as governess, a good post in some fashionable family, and perhaps you would meet a nice young man who would fall in love with you. They do over and over in the story-books—the nice young man, the heir to big properties, meets the governess girl and falls in love with her, and then she gets a much higher position than her employer's daughters. That is what I would aim for if I were you, Florry."
"Oh, dear me, mother," said Florence. She stared very hard at the round face of her parent, and wondered down deep in her heart why she was so very fond of Mummy. "Let us go out and have a walk," she said, restlessly; "let us visit the little shrimp-woman; I'd like to see her and all the old haunts again."
"But before we go," said Mrs. Aylmer, "tell me, my darling, why are you nervous, why you fear you may not get the Scholarship."
"I told you last night, mother—can't you understand? I am your one pet chicken, but I am not anything at all really in the eyes of the world. I am not beautiful and I am not specially clever."
"But you got amongst the lucky three, as you call them; you must be clever to have done that."
Florence stared very hard at her mother; her face went a little pale and then red.
"What is the matter, Flo? Why do you stare at me like that?"
"I am going to tell you something if you will never tell back again."
"What is it, dear? Really, Flo, you make me quite uncomfortable; you have got a very bold way of staring, love."
"I am going to tell you something," repeated Florence; "I got into the lucky three because I was mean. I did a mean, shabby, low thing, Mummy."
"Oh, no, no," said Mrs. Aylmer, restlessly, "no, no, darling."
"I did, mother," said Florence, and now her lips trembled. "I did something very mean, and I did it to the girl who gave me those lovely cherry ribbons."
"That spoilt chit—Kitty Sharston you call her?"
"Yes, that girl. I opened her desk and looked at an answer which she put to a certain question in English History which I did not know myself. If I had not answered that question I make no doubt I should not have been included in the lucky three."
"Well, well," said Mrs. Aylmer. She looked restless and disturbed. She went again to the little window and looked out. "I don't see how you can help yourself," she said.
"But it was a mean thing, wasn't it, mother?"
"Poor people cannot help themselves," said the widow, in a restless voice, "but I wish you hadn't told me, Florence; it was—it was the sort of thing that your poor father would not have done; but there, you couldn't help yourself, of course."
"Then you don't think, mother, that I ought to tell Mrs. Clavering?" said Florence.
"Tell and give up your chance! No, no, no; that is the disadvantage of being so poor, one has to stoop sometimes. Your father would not have done it, but you could not help yourself. Come out, child, come out."
The mother and daughter wandered along the beach. They visited the shrimp-woman and then sat under the shade of a big rock and looked at the dancing waves, and talked of Florence's chance of winning the coming Scholarship.
By tacit consent they neither of them alluded to that shabby deed which Florence had done; they were both in their hearts of hearts uncomfortable about it, but both equally resolved to carry the thing through now.
"For it is too important," thought Mrs. Aylmer.
And Florence also thought, "It is too important, it means too much; I must take every chance of securing the Scholarship."
The two ladies returned home rather late, and there, to their astonishment, they found a telegram waiting them. It was addressed to Mrs. Aylmer. She tore it open eagerly and uttered an exclamation.
"There, Florry," she said, "read that."
Florence took the thin pink sheet and read the following words:
"Staying at Torquay. Going back to London to-morrow. Will put up at the hotel at Dawlish for one night on purpose to see Florence.—SUSAN."
"There," said the mother, "there's a chance for you, Flo; I hope you have brought a decent dress. Perhaps she will do something now that she sees you; it is a wonderful chance. Dear, dear, dear! I have not seen Susan for three or four years. She was a stylish woman in her day; perhaps she'll give me one or two of her cast-offs."
"Mother," said Florence, "we must make the best of things. You must look nice and I must look nice, and we won't plead poverty. I feel proud in the presence of Aunt Susan. I am sorry she is coming; I may as well say so frankly."
"But it's a great chance, child," said the widow; "what do you think about inviting her here to tea?"
"Nonsense, mother," replied the daughter; "she ought to invite us to tea."
"I wonder if she will. I wonder which hotel she'll go to. There is a splendid one on the beach, the 'Crown and Garter.' It would be very stylish to be seen going there, and Sukey would think a great deal more of me and also my friends, the Pratts, if they knew that we had tea'd or lunched at the 'Crown and Garter.' I hope she will ask me. But then, on the other hand, to see Susan in the cottage—she would probably drive up in a carriage and pair—I really wonder which would be best. It would have a great effect on the neighbors. I have spoken to them of my grand relations, but somehow, seeing is believing. It's wonderfully exciting—her coming, isn't it, Flo?"
But Florry had walked to the window and was looking out with a shade of disgust on her brow. The Mummy was the Mummy, but she certainly needed repression. Even if you had those sort of sentiments, if you were educated at all you would keep them to yourself.
The rest of the evening was spent in considerable excitement on the part of Mrs. Aylmer. Much as she professed to dislike her sister-in-law, Susan Aylmer, the thought of seeing her caused much more commotion than she had experienced at the thought of welcoming Florence home.
Florence was a dear old thing and her own daughter, but then she depended on Susan for her bread. Early on the following morning she was seen to put on her best and much-turned dress.
She went to the shop and even committed the great extravagance of getting a new white widow's front for her bonnet, and also a pair of new black silk gloves, and then she waited restlessly until the arrival of Mrs. Aylmer.
Mrs. Aylmer arrived in state by a train which reached Dawlish about noon, and the other Mrs. Aylmer—the poor one—and her daughter Florence watched her from afar.
"There she is," said Mrs. Aylmer the less, as she might truly be called, "there she is, Flo. She's grown stouter than ever, she promises to be a very large woman in her old age; and what a pompous way she does walk! I do declare—well, that beats everything—she is walking to the hotel, not even taking a carriage. That's just like Susan. Come, Flo, we'll go toward and speak to her; there's no good in having relations and keeping one's self in the background. Follow me, my dear, and pull yourself up and look as nice as you can. Everything depends on your aunt's first impression of you. Just push your hat straight—there, that's better; now come along."
Mrs. Aylmer and Florence pushed their way through a crowd of people who had just arrived, and a moment later Mrs. Aylmer the less and Mrs. Aylmer the great were shaking hands in greeting.
"How do you do, Mabel?" said Mrs. Aylmer the great, "and is this your daughter?" A pair of light blue eyes traveled all over Florence from the crown of her head to the sole of her foot. "I'll see you both at the hotel," said Mrs. Aylmer, in a gracious tone, "after I have had lunch. I shall want a little rest immediately after, but don't keep me waiting. I shall expect you at three o'clock."
"Come home, Flo," said Mrs. Aylmer the less. "We must not disturb you, of course, Susan, and we'll be punctual to the moment. What do you think of her, Flo?" said the widow, as soon as she and her daughter were out of sight.
"I think she looks horrid, mother, just as she always did. How well I remember going to see her shortly after poor father died, and how she used to make you cry, and how cold she always was, and what miserable tea she gave us! We had better ask her to a meal unless we want to be starved, Mummy, dear."
"I can't afford it really, Flo, and she would remark upon every luxury we had at the table. She would write to me afterwards and say, 'From the style of your meal,' etc."
"Oh, don't mother; I wish she hadn't come," said Florence. "You and I could have been quite happy and cosy alone, but now she will contrive to make us truly miserable."
"She has come for a reason," said Mrs. Aylmer, solemnly, "and it behooves you, Flo, to put your best foot foremost. I have got a nice little white jacket for you to wear this afternoon, and white becomes you very much."
"A white jacket! What sort?" said Florence.
"One that your aunt sent me two years back, and which I altered by a pattern of yours. You can wear it with that serge dress, and you will look quite cool and nice. Now then, darling, let us have our own dinner, because we must be punctual; it would never do to keep Susan waiting."
Neither of the ladies did keep Aunt Susan waiting. They arrived at the hotel, which turned out to be the "Crown and Garter," just as the great clock in the hall struck three.
Mrs. Aylmer had never been inside the "Crown and Garter," and she now looked around her with intense pleasure, and when one of the waiters came forward asked him in a pompous voice for "my sister-in-law, Mrs. Aylmer."
The man withdrew, to return in a moment or two to say that Mrs. Aylmer was in her private sitting-room, number 24, and would see the ladies immediately.