A House of Love

by Owen Oliver

A HOUSE OF LOVE.

By OWEN OLIVER.

IT is only fair to Aunt Caroline to record that she was not quite herself on the first evening of her visit to her nephew and his wife. Her nerves were none of the best, and the long railway journey had jarred them. She had left a little bag in the carriage, and that had jarred them still more, for there were relics in the bag that she held holy. Her nephew and niece-in-law bad jarred her nerves further. John was so different from the curly-headed boy of her memory; so undemonstrative compared with the little fellow who used to leap at her. Christine was not at all as she had expected John's wife to be. She had fair hair, and Aunt Caroline mistrusted fair-haired women. They were attentive enough, but a trifle formal. She felt herself a stranger among them, instead of one of the family. They pretended to be interested in the fate of the bag, and in her history of all its contents, but they stole from the room in turn to run upstairs and look at the two-months-old baby. When they were both present, they were always looking at each other. He called her "Girl," and she called him "Boy." They squeezed each other's fingers when they thought that Aunt Caroline would not notice. They did not realise how very little escaped Aunt Caroline's eyes. Her maids said that she had a spare pair in the back of her head. They were very silly young people, she thought, and she had made her pilgrimage in vain. She wanted relatives who were interested in her, and they were only interested in each other and the little, squealing, red-faced baby. She was not even sure that she liked the baby. It favoured its mother, and she wanted a grand-nephew who favoured John. So she felt disappointed and irritable. At ten o'clock she stated that she had a headache and would go to bed.

It was a warm night, and the bedroom window was open. She went and sat by it to soothe the jarred nerves. The window of the drawing-room below was open, too, and she heard the voices of the young couple distinctly. Her hearing was very acute.

"Oh, Boy," the girl cried, "I've got you to myself at last!"

"Bless you. Girl! " said the man.

"And they've been married fourteen months!" Aunt Caroline muttered.. "The young fools!" But her frown gradually relaxed into a smile, as the cool air and the quiet, starry night soothed her, and perhaps the happiness of the foolish young couple. She did not shape her thoughts in words, but they were very much like "Bless you. Boy and Girl!" She would win their affection to-morrow, she was fancying; and then she heard John's voice.

"We shall find the old lady a handful," he remarked.

Aunt Caroline stiffened to abnormal stiffness—and her maids always said that she "sat like a poker."

"Oh, dearie me, Boy!" cried the girl. "I shall! You'll be at office all day."

"Not a bit," John contradicted. "I shall be out looking for the bag."

There was a duet of laughter.

"I shall be hearing about it," the girl declared. "I believe I know everything in it, and who gave it to her, and what they said!" And then she mimicked Aunt Caroline: "'John, I've left my little bag in the train. Call a porter! Tell the station-master! Send a telegram! John-n-n!'"

There was another duet of laughter.

"She made a face like this," the girl said, struggling with her merriment.

"If you screw up your mouth like that, I'll——"

"So he shall, then! Is her hair her own, Boy?"

Aunt Caroline became absolutely rigid. Her hair was the one charm that the thief Time had left, and she wore it still in youthful style for the sake of someone who liked it—someone whom Time had taken, which had made all the difference to Aunt Caroline's story.

"Goodness knows! You'll see when Son and Heir gets hold of it! Her temper's her own, anyway! It's worse for you than for me, Girl. You'll have her all day."

"But I shall have Son and Heir to remind me why I put up with her. Really, Jack, if it weren't for him, I should be inclined to say, 'Let her go and keep her money,' though, goodness knows, we'd like some of it."

Aunt Caroline made a quick gesture with her hands, and then buried her face in them. The stiffness was all gone, and she huddled over the window-sill.

"Son and Heir is going to be a man," John said. "He must fend for himself, without sacrificing his little mother. I shall teach him that from the first."

"Son and Heir is a wee, wee, tiny man now," the girl's voice answered, "and he can't stop his little mother fending for him, and neither can his great big tyrant of a father. That's the delightful thing! I shall think of it when he's big and strong—my son and my man's son! Of course, he'd be a great man anyhow. Anyone can see that he'll be clever. Just think how he notices things! Oh, yes. Son and Heir will fend for himself, but it would give him such a good start if she left him her money."

Aunt Caroline bowed her head lower on her hands. She had thought to leave her money to John's son and to John.

"Yes," her nephew agreed. "I often think, if I'd had a little money to start with—money makes money, you know, Girl." He sighed.

"If you'd been a millionaire," his wife remarked, "you wouldn't have looked at me."

"Oh, wouldn't I? You're millions in real property! So is Son and Heir'!"

"Yes; he's—like his daddy! So I can put up with a disagreeable old lady for a few weeks."

"So can I. I'll hunt for the bag like a bloodhound to-morrow. That ought to appease the old dame; but we're going to have a rough voyage with her."

Aunt Caroline raised her face from her hands. It was very pale and curiously still.

"You are," she said very, very quietly. Anger is dangerous when it is so calm as that.

"Rough sailing or smooth sailing," the girl's voice said, "we're sailing together, dear skipper."

After that they spoke softly, and Aunt Caroline did not hear what they said, or want to hear. She sat staring steadily into the night till Son and Heir gave a squall, and the young mother rushed upstairs to him. She heard her calling him "little lump of delight" and "hungry little ogre," and a dozen other foolish names. It made her feel angrier that there was such a feast of love for this little squalling baby, and no crumbs of affection for herself. She looked out in the starry darkness without stirring, till the lights went out below, and John shut the doors and turned the keys, and slipped the bolts, and came upstairs humming softly.

"Well, Queen of Sheba?" she heard him say, and she knew that his wife was smiling at him from the bedroom door.

"Well, silly old Solomon?" said the girl laughingly.

She thought that she heard a kiss before their door closed. A house of love! And no crumbs for her! She closed the window and made a vow with clasped hands—registered it even in her prayers, and asked for strength to keep it. For she knew that she was encumbered with charity and mercifulness, in spite of her sharp tongue and eyes and ears; and John was the only child of her only sister, and she had forgiven many enemies in her time. "And, please God, I will forgive many more," she thought; "but this is not a question of mercy, only of justice. I shall keep my vow."

The vow was this—that she would make them serve her and bow to her for her money; make them humour her temper; alter their household to her fads; debase themselves for lucre; and then, when she had fooled them to the top of her bent, she would expose them, and tell them that she would not give or leave them or the red-faced, squealing infant a cent. She went to sleep planning out the distribution of her money among charities, and took a posthumous pleasure in the composition of inscriptions to be carved in stonework: "This institution was founded by the bequest of Caroline Smith, spinster";" The Caroline Smith Homes." Either would look well, she thought, over a front door, and she was doubtful which she preferred.

She carried out her vow, as those quiet, still resolutions are carried out; was peevish, unreasonable, sharp-spoken, and ungrateful. She harried John till he found the bag, and then she scarcely thanked him for it. She did not even offer to pay the expenses of his search, though she knew that they must have been considerable to one whose means were so limited. She overheard the Boy and Girl disputing who should sacrifice something to meet the shortage. They were always so considerate of each other, and they adored the greedy little baby. That made their behaviour to her all the worse, of course. They were not people who couldn't care for her, she argued, but people who wouldn't.

She displayed great ingenuity in finding speeches to annoy them. John, she discovered, was sore at his slow progress in business. He was, in fact, a zealous and able man, and only lacked opportunity, because the heads of his firm had sons and put them over him. This was the spectre at his feast. So she talked a deal about her young friends who had succeeded. Of course, she asserted, people succeeded just as much as they deserved, and the worst failures were those who whined. He told her that he did not whine for himself, anyhow. His great reason for desiring prosperity was to buy things for the Girl. Aunt Caroline became full of information about the way in which her successful young friends decked out their young wives. "John decks me out with love and kindness," the Girl said. Aunt Caroline remarked that that was not unusual while a wife was pretty and young.

Christine, she found, had several sore points. First and foremost, she was sore that John's talents—which she held to be of an astonishing magnitude—did not meet with due recognition; so that by annoying John on this subject Aunt Caroline could annoy his wife also. Secondly, Christine had extraordinary delusions upon the subject of the baby. Unfortunately, however, these delusions were seated so deeply as to be beyond the reach of Aunt Caroline's sarcasms, so she met with no success there. Christine did not even believe that Aunt Caroline meant them, and merely hugged the maligned infant closer and laughed.

"If he has a snub nose and odd eyes and a bad temper," she said, "his mummy must love him all the more! Little snub-nosed, odd-eyed, cross, lovely boy!"

Besides, Aunt Caroline found it impossible to quite dislike the baby. He would coo and grab at her hair. The hair was so much more substantial than his mother's fussy hair, and he regarded it as a highly superior plaything. He had not the least objection to going to her. She reminded him of an elderly lady who had been called Nurse. Aunt Caroline had much experience with friends' babies, and she nursed Son and Heir very comfortably. He was apt to go to sleep with one fist stuck in his mouth, and the other holding her finger. She had a conviction that Son and Heir liked her, and she thought it scarcely fair to blame him for his parents' offences.

Christine's third point of weakness was her housekeeping. She had not been well trained in household duties, and her management was open to criticism. Aunt Caroline criticised with great effect. Christine used to retire to her room after these attacks. When she reappeared, she had evidently washed her face in cold water. But she was a bright girl, and defended herself by improving, so that Aunt Caroline's shots became gradually harmless. The truculent old lady was unable to avoid a certain respect for her. There was another sore point, however, and this was a very sore one. Christine had a very wild brother, who had given all his family a deal of trouble, and had finally been packed off to South America. John had paid more than he could afford to get him out of a scrape, and the young couple were straitened in consequence. Aunt Caroline made many hits on this point. For, though Christine could see excuses for her brother, she blamed herself for letting the results of his recklessness fall upon John.

These annoyances were in addition to Aunt Caroline's disturbance of their ways. They had to give up little outings to humour her, to alter their meal hours, to change their menu—in fact, to change everything that was not connected with Son and Heir. They were immovable when they considered the welfare of that red-faced young ruffian to be concerned. They were model parents. Aunt Caroline had to confess, and a devoted husband and wife. Their failing was only as niece and nephew. She was only concerned with them in that relationship, she argued, and their other merits did not count. On the whole, she was satisfied with the result of her efforts to make them uncomfortable—so well satisfied that at times she felt ashamed.

This state of things went on for a month. John was evidently getting restive, and beginning to think that one could earn a legacy too dear. It was only Christine who kept him from rebellion. She found pleasure, as well as pain, in being a martyr to Son and Heir; and she bore with Aunt Caroline with wonderful patience. "She would do anything for money," was Aunt Caroline's way of looking at it. So she went on a little further and further in testing her. One night she went too far, and Jolm put down his paper and rose from his clhair.

"You are my mother's sister," he told Aunt Caroline sternly, "and I will not say what is in my mind, except this. You have insulted my wife, and you cannot stay in my house any longer. I am surprised that, holding the opinion of us that you do, you have stayed so long. I do not know if you realise how you have behaved to us."

"I realise very clearly how I have behaved," Aunt Caroline stated calmly. "I have made myself objectionable of set purpose. I wished to find out how much you would put up with for the sake of my money. I have found that you must have wanted it very much, John. You will not get it—neither you, nor your wife, nor your son!"

"I would not take it," John told her.

"She would."' Aunt Caroline pointed at Christine and laughed.

John's face flared, but his wife put her hand over his mouth.

"Hush, dear!" she said. "Aunt Caroline must know that I would not do anything that you did not wish. She must know that if I wanted her money, it was for my husband and my son."

"I shall leave to-morrow morning," said Aunt Caroline.

"Thank you," said John.

Aunt Caroline walked to the door, and there she turned.

"Christine has put up with much more than you," she remarked. "So I infer that she has no self-respect. I am glad that you keep a little, John!"

Then she closed the door and went upstairs. Her last shot, she felt, had scored. Yet her triumph went when she was in her bedroom. She sat by the open window and sobbed without tears. Her old hands clasped and unclasped. She was so lonely, and she felt her years. She felt the quarrel now that it was over, and she would always feel it. That was where they had the advantage of her. Christine was crying in the drawing-room below, it was true—she could hear her—but Christine was young, and doubtless she was in John's arms.

She heard John's deep voice presently.

"Don't cry any more, Girl," he begged.

"We'll provide for Son and Heir in a better way—bring him up a good, brave chap, who'll fend for himself."

"Yes,Boy … We'll do more than that … We'll bring him up to be a man like his father … I wasn't crying for him. Boy."

"Weren't you? … I suppose you mean—it doesn't look very nice the way we've acted, when you come to think of it."

"No … I wasn't crying for that, either, Boy. We did it for Son and Heir's sake, and that's excuse enough for me … Unless you remember that Son and Heir, if he was grown up, wouldn't wish it. I never thought of that. … But I'm not going to cry about it."

"But you are crying, Queen of Sheba."

There was a pause, and then the girl's voice came up in a wail.

"I'm crying for Aunt Caroline!" she declared. "Oh, Jack, she has no one to love her! I have you and baby, and you have baby and me, and baby has both of us. She hasn't anyone!"

"Oh! " cried John, and there was a choke in his big voice. "Good Girl! Good Girl! … Yes, it is hard on her. She used to be decent to me when I was a kid; but—there was a fellow she was engaged to, and he died in India. They said she never got over it. Perhaps I might have been kinder to her. … But you couldn't have been. Girl. She may say that you put up with it for her money, and you may think so; but you didn't. I know you better. After all, it's her own fault. Girl, if people don't like her. She doesn't like them."

"She likes baby, Boy," Christine protested. "She likes baby … The other afternoon she didn't see me look in the door. He was asleep, and she was nursing him; and she kissed and kissed him. Poor Aunt Caroline!"

"Poor Aunt Caroline!" murmured the woman above. She bent over the window-sill as if in prayer.

"Poor Aunt Caroline!" the man agreed with a sigh. "I suppose she took it into her head that we only wanted her money. Well, we did. You see, Girl, you can like people's money before you know them. You can't like them till you do. We couldn't like her when we did."

"I don't know," said the girl. "I don't know. She likes baby. I think I could like her. … You see. Boy, she's old, and she's had trouble. Perhaps if I'd grown old, and hadn't met you … I don't think you know quite what you are to me, dear!"

"Oh, Girl!" cried the man. "Oh, Girl! … Yes, I know. But you couldn't grow like that … Poor Aunt Caroline! … Well, we can't do anything now, dear."

"Perhaps, if I went to her "

"She'd only think it was for her money, Girl."

"I could try, Jack."

"She'd only insult you. Girl … No, it's no use coaxing. I won't have my little wife insulted."

"She's so lonely. Boy, and old. … Perhaps she's crying upstairs. … If I took baby and put him in her arms——"

"No, no! That would never do. Don't you see, Girl, she would think it was a clever bid for her money."

"Even then, whatever she thought of us, he would comfort her. Boy. Oh, I'm sure she's unhappy! Let me do it, Jack."

"You good woman … But I can't let you."

There was another pause.

"I think you are right. Boy," the young wife owned. "It would seem like that, if I took him; and she can say what she likes about me, but she shan't insult my baby!"

"Oh!" cried Aunt Caroline. "Oh!"

There might have been comfort, she felt.

The little baby m her old arms … The baby in her arms! And they would not trust her with the baby!

"Baby is going to be a man," John said. "He won't shirk his share of the unpleasant things. I shan't bring him up like that."

"But he isn't a man yet, dear. He is so very, very little; and you see, if she were unkind to him, I could never, never like her. I must go alone, Boy. … Let me go!"

"You shall go, little woman. … God bless you! I think—you are the way that He teaches me. Girl!"

"If I am ever good, it is because—because love makes me good, Boy!"

There was a silence that seemed to Aunt Caroline like a prayer. Then a step came up the stairs—a doubtful step of feet that generally ran. Aunt Caroline turned towards the door. The feet faltered, stopped.

"May I come in?" Christine's soft voice asked.

Aunt Caroline rose and walked steadily across the floor.

"Come in," she said, "my dear!"