But the survivors were old men now ... at least callow young Dr. Parsons thought they were. One of the sons of one of them was also thought to have a liking for Zoe. She was very popular. But he thought he had the inside track ... not to mention the fact that it was whispered that Dr. and Mrs. Blythe had no great liking for the affair. And gossip again ... confound it ... said he had dropped Zoe because she had once laughed at Susan Baker. Or was it Gilbert Ford?
Well, it didn’t matter. The whole yarn was unlikely. As if any man in his senses would “drop” Zoe Maylock! Even Gilbert Ford with his Toronto airs!
Well, thank goodness ... young Dr. Parsons stole a sly look at his watch ... old Ursula Anderson was dead ... or as good as dead. He was sure the John Andersons in their secret souls would be very glad ... and he did not blame them in the least. Trouble and expense was all she had meant to them for years. Though she had earned her way as a dressmaker until late in life, he understood. The idea made him laugh secretly. It was more than funny to think of anyone wearing a dress made by Ursula Anderson, he thought. The wearer must have looked as if she had stepped out of one of those awful faded photo-graphs or crayon enlargements he was so often called upon to admire.
Would that old woman overhead ever die? He wished he had invented some excuse for going long ago. One could carry obligement too far. And it was too late to go to Zoe now. Perhaps Walter Blythe ... named after his uncle, of course ... had been spending the evening with her. Well, let the best man win! Dr. Parsons had little doubt who it would be. Zoe might be angry ... or pretend to be ... but a doctor could always think up a good excuse. And Gilbert Ford, of whom he was secretly more afraid than of Walter Blythe, had gone back to Toronto.
Zoe, with her wonderful eyes and lovely white hands and cooing voice! It seemed so absurd to think that Zoe and old Aunt Ursula belonged to the same sex.
Well, they didn’t ... they couldn’t ... that was all there was about it. Ursula Anderson could never have been a young girl, with softly curving flesh and ripe lips. If it had not been for Mrs. Anderson’s fussiness he might just as well have spent the evening with Zoe instead of sitting here in this stuffy Anderson room, waiting for a tiresome old woman, who had never been of the slightest importance to anyone, to die, and wondering how on earth Mrs. Anderson managed to live with such a carpet in the house.
He fell to planning the house he and Zoe would have if ... when ... he won her. There was nothing in Lowbridge that suited him ... he would have to build. A house something like Ingleside ... more up-to-date, of course. Though it was strange how up-to-date Ingleside always seemed. Dr. Parsons had to admit that. Nor could he tell just why. Was it because it was generally overflowing with children? No, it was just the same when it was empty. Well, he and Zoe would have the very latest in everything, at all events. As for children ... they would have to wait a while for them. Big families had gone out of fashion with many other things. And, thank heaven, such carpets!
Mrs. John Anderson was really very proud of her carpet ... which a Charlottetown uncle had given her from an out-of-date stock. But just now she was feeling very fretful and irritable. It was such an inconvenient time for Aunt Ursula to go and die, with Emmy’s wedding to be planned and Phil’s outfit for Queen’s to be got ready. And all the expense of the funeral. Well, people would just have to wait for their bills. Dr. Parsons, now. Of course they had to have him because he was a distant relative. But she would much rather have had Dr. Blythe from Glen St. Mary ... or even old Dr. Parker. What did old quarrels matter now? And why was Dr. Parsons hanging round when he could do no good? Of course she had asked him to out of politeness ... but he must have known he wasn’t wanted.
And Aunt Ursula was so maddeningly deliberate about dying. Well, she had been that about everything all her life. Likely that was why she had never got a husband. Men liked girls with some dash to them.
She might even live till morning ... she had known a woman who lived for a week after the doctor had said she could only last a few hours. Doctors knew very little after all. She had told John they should have an older doctor. None of them might get a wink of sleep that night and John was half dead now, he had been up so many nights. You couldn’t trust Maggie McLean. And of course she had to have some sleep.
To be sure, John was at present snoring on the sofa. It wasn’t just the proper thing, she supposed, but she hadn’t the heart to wake him. If that goof of a Dr. Parsons only had enough sense to go she might get a wink, too.
As for Emmy and Phil, they had been looking forward so delightedly to Bess Rodney’s dance tonight. And now they hadn’t been able to go after all. No wonder they were disgruntled, poor darlings! And what earthly difference would it have made to anyone? Talk about gossip! It was the most powerful thing in the world and always would be.
Mrs. Anderson yawned and hoped Dr. Parsons would take the hint. But he showed no signs of doing so. An older doctor would have had more gumption.
She wondered drowsily if there was really anything between him and Zoe Maylock. If there was she pitied him. Everyone knew what Zoe’s temper was. Dr. and Mrs. Blythe had done well to stop Walter’s going there. As for Gilbert Ford, everyone said he was engaged to a girl in Toronto and was just amusing himself with Zoe Maylock. Thank goodness, Phil was of a different type. He was not a flirt. And if he had a bit of the Anderson temper he knew how to control it. She supposed she ought to go up and see if Maggie McLean had fallen asleep. But she might wake poor John.
Emmy and Phil Anderson were very much disgruntled. It seemed positively absurd to them that they had to stay home from the dance because old Great-aunt Ursula was dying. She was eighty-five and for fifteen years she had been exactly the same ... an ugly old woman who hardly ever talked, though she was given to mumbling when she was alone. She belonged to a dead and forgotten generation ... the generation of those dreadful crayon enlargements on the walls which mother wouldn’t have taken down ... pictures of bearded gentlemen and high-collared women. They could never have been human either, Emmy reflected.
But at least they were dead and out of the way. How very stern and proper Grandfather Anderson looked, the embodiment of unbending rectitude, whose great pride had been that there had never been any scandal in the Anderson family. And yet hadn’t she heard something about his brother, David Anderson? He had not been a model, according to Susan Baker. But it was all old stuff. Who cared now? They had been Aunt Ursula’s brothers. How funny to think of Aunt Ursula having brothers! She couldn’t imagine her feeling any family affection.
“I’m sure she has never liked any of us,” thought Emmy. “And we have been so good to her!”
Uncle Alec, who had come in from his farm at Glen St. Mary because it was the proper thing to do, was the only one who was not bored. He rather enjoyed occasions like these, though of course it would never have done to admit it. How many things it would never do to admit!
But you couldn’t deny that there was something “dramatic” about deaths and funerals. To be sure, there was nothing very dramatic about poor old Aunt Ursula’s death, any more than there had been about her life. Her sisters had been gay enough in their youth, if gossip spoke truly, but Ursula had been the quiet, retiring one.
Still, death was death: and the night with its wailing winds and its vicious spits of rain was quite in keeping with it. Uncle Alec always thought that a moonlit summer night, with flower fragrances, was very incongruous with death. Though people died every day and night of the year, if it came to that.
John and Katherine were calm and dignified as became the occasion ... at least, John had been before he went to sleep. But the young folks couldn’t quite hide that they were jittery with impatience. He didn’t blame them. Of course it never occurred to them that they would die sometime, too.
But Aunt Ursula wouldn’t die till the tide went out. She had been brought up by the sea and when you had lived by the sea for eighty-five years you couldn’t die till the tide went out, no matter how far away from it you
were. He had heard Dr. Parker laughing at that “old superstition” ... Dr. Blythe had not laughed but Uncle Alec knew he did not believe in it either.
“If he’d kept records he’d know,” murmured Uncle Alec.
Ursula was quite a ways from the sea now but that didn’t matter a mite.
“Think of being an old maid for eighty-five years,” said Emmy suddenly. She shuddered.
“Poisonous,” agreed Phil.
“Children,” said their mother rebukingly. “Remember she is dying.”
“What difference does that make?” said Emmy impatiently.
“You must remember she wasn’t always an old maid,” said Uncle Alec. “They used to say twenty-five was the first corner. But Aunt Ursula has always been just a commonplace woman ... a forgotten woman ...” He liked the phrase. People were always talking about the “forgotten man.” Why not a forgotten woman? She was a creature even more to be pitied ... and despised. For Uncle Alec despised old maids. And it was said Aunt Ursula had never even had a beau. Though he really did not know much about her. After all, she was only a poor old soul about whom nobody ever talked. Certainly she did not rouse gossip. And she was a little long in dying. But of course the tide was late tonight. He almost envied John his nap. Poor John! He had made rather a mess of things. Most of the Andersons made money if they made nothing else. Old Uncle David now ... he had been a rich man in his day. But his son had soon made ducks and drakes of his inheritance. It was generally the way. And he remembered the queer stories that were afloat when Uncle David died. Who in the world had started them? He had been a most irreproachable character.
“If I had to live a dull colourless life like Aunt Ursula,” said Emmy, “I’d kill myself.”
“Emmy!” said Uncle Alec rebukingly. “That is a wicked speech. We have to wait until our time comes.”
“I don’t care,” went on Emmy flippantly. Who cared what Uncle Alec thought or said? There was no need of his being there at all. “Eighty-five years and never a thing happen to you! Dad says she never had a beau, as he calls it. Well, of course, you couldn’t imagine anyone ever being in love with her ... you simply couldn’t.”
“You can’t imagine any old person being in love,” said Uncle Alec. “Me, now. You know in your heart you think just the same of me. Yet I was quite a gay blade in my youth. You’ll be old yourself some day, Emmy, and people will think the same of you. Perhaps Aunt Ursula did have some beaus.”
“Not she.” Emmy shrugged her shoulders. How dreadful never to have been loved! Never to have known love!
“She just spent her life in other people’s houses sewing, till she got so queer and old-fashioned nobody would have her. I wonder they ever did. Fancy Aunt Ursula making dresses! I never saw her do any sewing except patching trousers. She did enough of that, poor old soul.”
“Oh, I believe she wasn’t a bad dressmaker in her day,” said Uncle Alec. “Twenty years from now your fashions will seem just as funny.”
“People won’t have any fashions twenty years from now,” grinned Phil. “They won’t be wearing clothes at all.”
“Phil!” said his mother in absent rebuke. She didn’t believe in Alec’s nonsense about the tide but certainly old Aunt Ursula ... perhaps Maggie had fallen asleep. She supposed she ought to go up and see. But her bones ached enough now with rheumatism. As for the old maid talk, she didn’t like it. She had been an old maid when John married her.
“Aunt Ursula was the best hand at a sponge cake I ever knew,” said Uncle Alec.
“What an epitaph!” said Emmy.
Dr. Parsons laughed. But her mother rebuked her again, because she thought it was her duty. Yet she had quite a pride in Emmy’s way of saying things.
“She is dying,” said Uncle Alec, because he felt he ought to say it.
“And taking hours about it,” grumbled Phil. “Oh, I know your theories about the tide, Uncle Alec, but I don’t believe in them. Dr. Parsons, haven’t you seen scores of people die when the tide was coming in?”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever thought about it,” evaded Dr. Parsons. “I suppose, Phil, you hold with Osler’s theory that everyone should be chloroformed at sixty?”
“Well, it would rid the world of a lot of nuisances,” yawned Phil.
“Phil, I won’t have you talk so. I will be sixty in three more years,” said his mother severely.
“Can’t you take a joke, mums?”
“Not with death in the house,” said Mrs. Anderson, still more severely.
“What do you think of the Osler idea, doc?” said Phil.
“I don’t think he really said just that,” said Dr. Parsons. “What he did say was that a man’s best work was over at sixty. Of course there are exceptions. You and I are still far enough from sixty not to have to worry about that,” he added, remembering that John Anderson and this queer old Uncle Alec were both over sixty. One must not offend people. Sometimes they remembered the smallest things when they wanted a doctor.
Phil subsided. After all, there was nothing to do but wait. It couldn’t last forever. Aunt Ursula would die and be buried ... as cheaply as possible. And then let the under-taker whistle for his bill. Parsons, too, for that matter. Aunt Ursula would be taken out of the house for the first time in ten years and buried in the Anderson plot ... there would just be room to squeeze her in. And there was room on one of the monuments to say when she had been born and when she had died.
God, what an existence! But that was all there was to say about her life. She probably had never had enough pep in her to be rebellious at it. People of her generation accepted every-thing as the will of God, didn’t they? They just vegetated. And why did they have to take her in when she ceased to have earning power? There were plenty of richer Anderson families. But they had never given a cent to her keep. Well, he, Phil, was not going to be such a sap. When he got old there would be no useless relatives hanging round his neck. The poorhouse for them, if they hadn’t enough to keep them. He felt sure Dr. Parsons would agree with him ... though he didn’t have any especial liking for the fellow.
“It’s strange what a liking that old dog has for Aunt Ursula,” said the doctor abruptly, partly by way of making conversation. He didn’t care much for Phil, and was certainly not going to argue about Osler’s theories with him.
Somehow, he couldn’t say, “It is strange how that old dog loves her.” Imagine even a dog loving Ursula Anderson! It was comical. Probably she had given him bones. “He will hardly leave the room for a minute. He just lies by her bed and stares at her.”
“She always seemed glad to have him near her ever since he was a pup,” said Uncle Alec. “I suppose she felt he was a sort of protection for her when she was alone. She was alone a good deal.”
“Well, I’m sure we couldn’t stay home all the time,” said Mrs. Anderson peevishly. “She was quite well ... and she said she didn’t want company.”
“I know ... I know,” said Uncle Alec soothingly. “You’ve all been very kind to Aunt Ursula, Kathie.”
“I should hope so,” said Mrs. Anderson in an aggrieved tone. “I know we took her in and gave her a home when others on whom she had more claim, one would suppose, never even offered her a week’s lodging.”
“She was a very fortunate woman to have such a good home to come to in her old age,” said Dr. Parsons placatingly. “I ... I suppose ... she won’t leave much behind her.” He was thinking about his bill.
“She won’t leave anything,” said Mrs. Anderson, still preserving her aggrieved tone. “She has never had a cent since she came to live with us ...” (“Otherwise you wouldn’t have taken her in,” thought the doctor sarcastically.) “It surprised us, I will admit. She must have made a good deal of money in all those years she sewed. What did she do with it? That is the question the Andersons have always been asking. Certainly she never spent any of it on herself. I never remember seeing her in a decent rag even when I was a little girl and she was no more than middle-aged ... though, of c
ourse, like all young people” ... with a resentful glance at Emmy and Phil ... “I thought anyone ten years older than myself was Methuselah.”
“Perhaps she had a hoard of it somewhere,” suggested Phil. “What a jolly thing it would be to come across a box or roll of it when we go through her things!”
Mrs. Anderson, who had “gone through” old Aunt Ursula’s few “things” many times, frowned majestically. What a thing to say before Dr. Parsons! Of course he would tell Zoe Maylock and that was equivalent to telling all the countryside. She would give Phil a good talking-to when she got him alone. Though what good would that do now that it had been said?
“Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I’ve always thought she may have helped Brother Will out a bit,” said Uncle Alec, with a deprecatory glance at the doctor. It was not just the thing, maybe, to hint that any Anderson was hard up, even before a distant relative. “He had a big family so you know he was chronically hard up.”
“Then some of his family should have looked after Aunt Ursula when she got past work. Or at least have helped a bit,” snapped Mrs. Anderson.
But she instantly composed herself. There was death in the house. And Dr. Parsons was there, too, which was about the same thing as Zoe Maylock being there. It was all nonsense having a doctor for old Aunt Ursula anyhow. No doctor could do her any good.
But then how people would have talked!
Yes, death was in the house ... a welcome guest to all and to none more welcome than to Ursula Anderson. She had longed for him for many years and now she knew he was near. Never was a bridegroom more welcome. She knew no living soul would regret her but that did not matter either.
The bare, dingy room, that had always been thought good enough for old Aunt Ursula, was full of shadows from the winking candle on the little stand by the bed. Aunt Ursula would never have anything but a candle. Lamps were dangerous and electric light something she could not or would not understand. The John Andersons had fixed the room up a little when they had to call in a doctor but it was very shabby still. A vaseful of faded artificial flowers on the bureau cast strange, exotic shadows of enormous blossoms and sprays on the stained, unpapered plaster above the bed. Emmy had been thankful that at last something had induced her mother to remove them from the niche in the wall on the stairway. She had always been so ashamed of them ... especially when Zoe Maylock came to the house. She had heard Zoe make fun of people who cherished artificial flowers.
The Blythes Are Quoted Page 39
