Chapter 15

Aunt Mary En Fête

Aunt Mary descended the stairs about half-past nine; she thought it was about a quarter to eight, but the difference between the hour that it was and the hour that she thought that it was will be all the same a hundred years from now.

Jack came out of the Louis XIV. drawing room when he heard her step in the hall. There was another young man with him.

“This is my friend Burnett, Aunt Mary,” her nephew roared. “You must excuse his not bowing lower, but you know he broke his collarbone recently.”

Aunt Mary shook hands warmly; she knew all about the ribs and the collarbone, because they had formed big items in the testimony which had momentarily and as momentously relegated Jack to the comradeship of the devil himself, in her eyes. However, she recalled them merely as facts now—not at all in a disagreeable way—and gave Burnett an extra squeeze of good-fellowship, as she said:

“You had a narrow escape, young man.”

“I didn’t have any escape at all,” said Burnett. “The escape went down at the back, and I had to jump from a cornice.”

“Burnett is going out to dine with us, Aunt Mary,” said Jack. “There’s so little he can eat on account of his ribs that he’s a good dinner guest for me.”

Jack’s aunt felt vaguely uncomfortable over this allusion to her grand-nephew’s circumstances, and coughed in slight embarrassment.

Burnett opened the door, and the carriage lamp shone below. (Is there ever anything more delightfully suggestive than a carriage lamp shining down below?) They took her down and put her in, and the carriage rolled away.

It was that June when “Bedelia” covered nearly the whole of the political horizon; it was the date of June when West Point, Vassar, the Blue, the Red, the Black and Yellow and every known device for getting rid of young and growing-up America are all cast loose at once on our fair land. The streets were a scene of glorious confusion, and but for Aunt Mary no considerations could have kept Burnett’s collarbone and Jack’s melancholia cooped up in a closed carriage. As it was, they were both fidgeting like two youthful Uncle Sams in a European railway coupé, when the latter suddenly exclaimed: “Here we are!” and threw open the door as he spoke. Then he got out and Burnett got out and between them they got Aunt Mary out.

Aunt Mary regarded the awning and carpet and general glitter with a more or less appalled gaze.

“Looks like—” she began; and was interrupted by a voice at her side:

“Hello, Jack!”

“Hello, Clover!”

She turned and saw him of the pale mustache whom we once met in Mrs. Rosscott’s drawing room. He was in no wise altered since that occasion except that his attire was slightly more resplendent and he had on a silk hat.

Jack shook hands warmly and then he turned to his relative.

“Aunt Mary, this is my friend Clover; he’s often heard me speak of you.”

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Rover,” said Aunt Mary, cordially, and she, too, shook hands with that cordiality that flourishes beyond city limits.

Her nephew bent over her ear-trumpet.

“Clover!” he howled, with all the strength he owned.

“I heard before,” said Aunt Mary, somewhat coldly.

“Come on and dine with us, Clover,” said Jack; “that’ll make four.” (By the way, isn’t it odd how many people ask their friends to dinner for the simple reason that, arithmetically considered, each counts as one!)

“All right, I will,” said Clover, in his languid drawl.

Aunt Mary saw his lips.

“It’s no use my deceivin’ you as to my bein’ a little hard of hearin’,” she said to him, “because you can see my ear-trumpet; so I’ll trouble you to say that over again.”

“All right, I will,” Clover wailed, good-humoredly.

“What?” asked Aunt Mary. “I didn’t—”

Jack cut her short by leading the party inside.

The scene within was as gorgeous with golden stucco as the dining-room of a German liner. Aunt Mary was so overcome that she traversed half the room before she became aware of the mighty attention which she and her three escorts were attracting. In truth, it is not every day that three good-looking young men take a tiny old lady, a bunch of violets and an ear-trumpet out to dine at ten o’clock.

“Everyone’s lookin’,” she said to Jack.

“It’s your back, Aunt Mary,” he replied, in a voice that shook some loose golden flakes from the ceiling. “I tell you, not many women of your age have a back like yours, and don’t you forget it.”

The compliment pleased Aunt Mary, because she had all her life been considered round-shouldered. It also pleased her because she never had received many compliments. The Aunt Marys of this world love flattery just as dearly as the Mrs. Rosscotts; the sad part of life is that they rarely get any. The women like Mrs. Rosscott know why the Aunt Marys go unflattered, but the Aunt Marys never understand. It’s all sad—and true—and undeniable.

They went to a table, and were barely seated when another man came up.

“Hello, Jack!”

“Hello, Mitchell!”

It was he of Scotch ancestry. Jack sprang up and greeted him with warmth, then he turned to Aunt Mary.

“Aunt Mary,” he screamed, “this is my friend”—he paused, put on all steam and ploughed right through—“Herbert Kendrick Mitchell.”

“I didn’t catch that at all,” said Aunt Mary, calmly, “but I’m just as glad to meet the gentleman.”

Mitchell clasped her hand with an expression as burning as if it was real.

“I declare,” he yelled straight at her, “if this isn’t what I’ve been dreaming towards ever since I first knew Jack.”

Aunt Mary fairly shone.

“Dear me,” she began, “if I’d known—”

“You’d better dine with us, Mitchell,” said Jack; “that’ll make five.”

“It won’t make but three for me,” said Mitchell. “I haven’t had but two dinners before to-night.”

Clover smiled because he heard, and Aunt Mary smiled because she didn’t, but was happy anyway. She had altogether forgotten that she had demurred at dining out. They all sat down and shook out their napkins. Mitchell and Clover shook Aunt Mary’s for her and gave it a beautiful cornerways spread across her lap.

Then the waiter laid another plate for Mitchell, and brought oyster cocktails for everyone. Aunt Mary eyed hers with early curiosity and later suspicion; and she smelled of it very carefully.

“I don’t believe they’re good oysters,” she said.

“Yes, they are,” cried Mitchell reassuringly. His voice, when he turned it upon her, was pitched like a clarionet. The blind would surely have seen as well as the deaf have heard had there been any candidates for miracles in his immediate vicinity. “They’re first-class,” he added, “you just go at them and see.”

The reassured took another whiff.

“You can have mine,” she said directly afterwards; and there was an air of decision about her speech which brooked no opposition. Yet Mitchell persisted.

“Oh, no,” he yelled; “you must learn how. Just throw your head back and take ’em quick—after the fashion that they eat raw eggs, don’t you know?”

“But she can’t,” said Clover. “There’s too much, particularly as she isn’t used to them. I’ll tell you, Miss Watkins,” he cried, hoisting his own voice to the masthead, “you eat the oysters, and leave the cocktail. That’s the way to get gradually trained into the wheel.”

Aunt Mary thought some of obeying; she fished out one oyster, wiped it carefully with a bit of bread, regarded it with more than dubious countenance, and then suddenly decided not to.

“I’d rather be at home when I try experiments,” she said, decidedly; and the waiter carried off her cocktail and gave her food that was good beyond question thereafter.

The dinner went with zest. It was an enlivening party that consumed it, and what they consumed with it enlivened them still more. The gentlemen soon reached the point where they could laugh over jokes they could not understand, and the one lady member became equally merry over wit that she did not hear. She forgot for the nonce that there were any phases of life in which she was not a believer, and whether this was owing to the surrounding gayety or to the champagne which they persuaded her to taste it is not my province to explain.

“Now we must lay our lines for events to come,” Jack said, when they advanced upon the dessert and prepared to occupy an extensive territory of ices, fruit, and jellied something or other. “It would be a sin for Aunt Mary to leave this famous battlefield without a few honorable scars! We must take her out in a bubble for one thing and—”

“In mine!” cried Clover. “To-morrow! Why can’t she?—I held up my hand first?”

“All right,” said Jack; “to-morrow she’s your’s. At four o’clock.”

“She must have goggles,” cried Mitchell. “She must have goggles and be all fixed up, and when you have got her the goggles and she has been all fixed up, I ask, as a last boon, that I may go along, just so as to see everyone who sees her.”

“We’ll all go,” Clover explained. “I’ll ‘chuff’ her myself and then there’ll be room for everyone.”

“To the auto and to to-morrow!” cried Burnett, hastily pouring out a fresh toast, which even Aunt Mary applauded, not at all knowing what she was applauding.

“And now for the next day,” said Jack. “I think I’ll give her a box-party. Don’t you want to go to the theater in a box, Aunt Mary?”

“Go where in a box?” said Aunt Mary, starting a little. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“To the theater,” Jack yelled.

“To the theater,” repeated his aunt a trifle blankly, “I—”

“And the next day,” said Mitchell suddenly (he had been reflecting maturely), “I’ll take you all up the sound in my yacht.”

“Oh, hurrah,” cried Burnett, “that’ll be bully! And the day after I’ll give her a picnic.”

“Time of your life, Aunt Mary,” Jack shrieked in her ear-trumpet; “time of your life!”

“Dear me!” said Aunt Mary, “I don’t just—”

“Aunt Mary! glasses down!” cried Clover; “may she live forever and forever.”

“To Aunt Mary, glasses up,” said Mitchell. “Glasses up come before glasses down always. It’s one of the laws of Nature—human nature—also of good nature. Here’s to Aunt Mary, and if she isn’t the Aunt Mary of all of us here’s a hoping she may get there some day; I don’t just see how, but I ask the indulgence of those present on the plea that I have indulged quite a little myself to-night. Honi soit qui mal y pense; ora pro nobis, Erin-go-Bragh. Present company being present, and impossible to except on that account, we will omit the three cheers and choke down the tiger.”

They all drank, and the dinner having by this time dwindled down to coffee grounds and cheese crumbs a vote was taken as to where they should go next.

Aunt Mary suggested home, but she was over-ruled, and they all went elsewhere. She never could recollect where she went or what she saw; but, as everyone else has been and seen over and over again, I won’t fuss with detailing it.

The visitor from the country reached home in a carriage in the small hours in the morning, and Janice received her, looking somewhat nervous.

“This is pretty late,” she ventured to remind the bearers; but as they didn’t seem to think so, and she was a maiden, wise beyond her years, she spoke no further word, but went to work and undressed the aged reveller, got her comfortably established in bed, and then left her to get a good sleep, an occupation which occupied the weary one fully until two that afternoon.

When she did at last open her eyes it was several minutes before she knew where she was. Her brain seemed dazed, her intellect more than clouded. It is a state of mind to which those who habitually go about in hansoms at the hour of dawn are well accustomed, but to Aunt Mary it was painfully new. She struggled to remember, and felt helplessly inadequate to the task. Janice finally came in with a glass of something that foamed and fizzed, and the victim of late hours drank that and came to her senses again. Then she recollected.

“My! but I had a good time last night!” she said, putting her hand to her head. “What time is it now, anyhow?”

“Breakfast time,” cried the handmaiden. “You’ll have just long enough to eat and dress leisurely before you go out.”

“Oh!” said Aunt Mary blankly; “where ’m I goin’? Do you know?”

“Mr. Denham told me that you had promised to attend an automobile party at four.”

“Oh, yes,” said Aunt Mary hastily. “I guess I remember. I guess I do. I saw Jack wanted to go, so I said I’d go, too. I’m a great believer in lettin’ the young enjoy themselves.”

She looked sharply at Janice as she spoke, but Janice was serene.

“I didn’t come to town to do anything but make Jack happy,” continued Aunt Mary, “and I see that he won’t take any fresh air without I go along—so I shall go too while I’m here. Mostly. As a general thing.”

“Mr. Mitchell called and left these flowers with his card,” Janice said, opening a huge box of roses; “and a man brought a package. Shall I open it?”

Aunt Mary’s wrinkles fairly radiated.

“Well, did I ever!” she exclaimed. “Yes; open it.”

Janice proceeded to obey, and the package was found to contain an automobile wrap, a pair of goggles and a note from Clover.

“My gracious me!” cried Aunt Mary.

“Mr. Denham sent the violets,” Janice said, pointing to a great bowl of lilac and white blossoms.

Just then the doorbell rang, and it was a ten-pound box of candy from Burnett.

Aunt Mary collapsed among her pillows.

“I _never_ did!” she murmured feebly, and then she suddenly exclaimed: “An’ to think of me livin’ up there all my life with plenty of money—” she stopped short. I tell you when you come to New York on a mission and stay for the Bacchanalia it is hard to hold consistently to either standard.

But Janice had gone for her lady’s breakfast, and after the lady had eaten it and had herself dressed for the day’s joys, Jack knocked at the door.

“Well, Aunt Mary,” he roared, when he was let in, “if you don’t look fine! You’re the freshest of the bunch to-day, sure. You’ll be ready for another night to-night, and you’ve only to say where, you know.”

“Granite did my hair,” said his aunt; “you must praise her, not me.”

“And you’ve got your goggles all ready, too,” he continued. “Who sent ’em?”

“Oh, I shan’t wiggle,” said Aunt Mary “although I can’t see how it could hurt if I did.”

“Come on and let’s dress her up,” said Jack to the maid, “Glory! what fun!”

Thereupon they went to work and rigged the old lady out. She was certainly a sight, for she stood by her own bonnet, and that failed to jibe with the goggles.

Burnett was summoned in to view the proceedings, but just as he caught the first glimpse he was taken with a fearful cramp in his broken ribs and was forced to beat the hastiest sort of a retreat.

“I hope he’ll get over it and be able to go out with us,” said Aunt Mary anxiously.

“I guess he’ll recover,” Jack yelled cheerfully. “Oh, there’s Clover!”

A sort of dull, ponderous panting sounded in the street without, and let all the neighbors know that “The Threshing Machine” (as Clover had christened his elephantine toy) was waiting for someone.

Its owner came in for a stirrup cup; Mitchell was with him. Both were togged out as if entered for the annual Paris-Bordeaux.

Burnett brought out the cut-glass jugs.

“Ye gods and little fishes! Sapristi! Sacre bleu!” he said to his friends. “Just you wait till you see our Aunt Mary!”

“Has she got ’em all on?” Clover asked.

“Has she got ’em all on!” said Burnett. “She has got ’em all on; and how Jack held his own in the room with her I cannot understand. I took one look, and if mine had been a surgical case of stitches the last thread would have bust that instant. I don’t believe I dare go out with you. This is a life and death game to Jack, and I won’t risk smashing his future by not being able to keep sober in the face of Aunt Mary.”

“Oh, come on,” Clover urged in his wiry voice. “You needn’t look at her; or, if you do look at her, you can look the other way right afterwards, you know.”

“I’ll sit next to her,” Mitchell explained. “As a sitter by Aunt Mary’s side I shone last night; and where a man has sat once, the same man can surely sit again.”

Burnett hesitated, and just then voices were heard in the hall. Jack and Janice were convoying Aunt Mary below.

Mitchell went out into the hall.

“Well, Miss Watkins,” he said, in a tone such as one would use to call down Santos-Dumont, “I’m mighty glad to see you looking so well.”

Aunt Mary turned the goggles full upon him.

“A present from Mr. Clover,” she said smiling.

“I never knew him to take so much trouble for any lady before,” said Mitchell; and as she arrived just then at the foot of the staircase he pressed her proffered hand warmly and forthwith led her in upon the two men in the library.

She looked exactly like a living edition of one of the bug pictures, and Clover had to think and swallow fast and hard to keep from being overcome. But he was true blue, and came out right side up. Aunt Mary was acclaimed on all sides, and escorted to the “bubble.”

Burnett couldn’t resist going, too, at the last moment; but, as his ribs were really tender yet, he sat in front with Clover. Jack and Mitchell sat behind, and deftly inserted the honored guest between them.

“It’s an even thing as to which is the ear-trumpet side,” Mitchell said, as they all stood about preparatory to climbing in. “Of course, that side don’t need to holler quite so loud; but then, to balance, he may get his one and only pair of front teeth knocked out any minute.”

“I’ll take that side,” said Jack. “I’m used to fighting under the inspiration of the trumpet.”

“And God be with you,” said his friend piously. “May he watch over you and bring you out safe and whole—teeth, eyes, etc.”

“Come on,” said Clover impatiently; “don’t you know this thing’s getting up power and you’re wasting it talking.”

“Curious,” laughed Burnett. “I never knew that it was gasolene that men were consuming when they kept an automobile waiting.”

And then they got in and were off—a merry load, indeed.

“Dear me, but it’s a-goin’!” Aunt Mary exclaimed, as the thing began to whiz and she felt suddenly impelled to clutch wildly at her flanking escorts. “Suppose we met a dog.”

“We’d leave a floor mat,” shrieked Mitchell. “Oh, but isn’t this great—greater—greatest?”

“Time of your life, Aunt Mary!” Jack howled, as they went over a boarded spot in the pavement, and the old lady nearly went over the back in consequence. “You’re in for the time of your life!”

“How do you like it?” yelled Clover, throwing a glance over his shoulder.

Aunt Mary started to answer, but they came to four car tracks one after another, and the successive shocks rendered her speechless.

“Where are we going?” Burnett asked.

“Nowhere,” said Clover. “Just waking up the machine.” And he turned on another million volts as he spoke.

“Oh, my bonnet!” cried poor Aunt Mary, and that bit of her adornment was in the street and had been run over four times before they could slow up, turn around, and get back to the scene of its output.

It speaks volumes for the permeating atmosphere of “having the time of your life” that its owner laughed when the wreck was shown to her.

“I don’t care a bit,” she said. “I can go down to Delmonico’s an’ get me another to-morrow mornin’, easy.”

“What a trump you are, Aunt Mary!” said Jack admiringly. “Here, Burnett, fish her out that extra cap from the cane rack; there’s always one in the bottom. There—now you won’t take cold, Aunt Mary.”

The cap, with its fore-piece, was the crowning glory of Aunt Mary’s get-up. The brain measurements of him who had bought the cap being to its present wearer’s as five is to three, the effect of its proportions, in addition to the goggles and the ear-trumpet, was such as to have overawed a survivor of Medusa’s stare.

“Oh, I say,” said Mitchell, “it’s a sin to keep as good a joke as this in the family! We must drive her around town until the night falls down or the battery burns out.”

“I say so too,” said Burnett. “This is more sport than oiling railroad tracks and seeing old Tweedwell brought up for it. Say, set her a-buzzing again. It’s a big game, isn’t it?”

Clover thought so, with the result that they speeded through tranquil neighborhoods and churned leisurely where the masses seethed until countless thousands were wondering what under the sun those four young fellows had in the back of their car.

The sad part about all good fun is that it has to end sooner or later; and about six o’clock the whole party began to be aware that, if refreshments were not taken, their end was surely close at hand. They therefore called a brief halt somewhere to get what is technically known as a “sandwich,” and the results were thoroughly satisfactory to everyone but Aunt Mary. She took one bite of her sandwich, and then opened it with an abruptness which merged into disgust when it proved to be full of fish eggs.

“Why didn’t you tell me what it was made of?” she asked in annoyance. “I feel just as if I’d swallowed a marsh—a green one!”

“That’s a shame!” said Clover indignantly. “I’ll get you something that will take that taste out of your mouth double quick. Here!” he called to a waiter, and then he gave the man certain careful directions.

The latter nodded wisely, and a few minutes later brought in a tiny glass containing a pousse-café in three different colors.

“It’s a cocktail. Drink it quick,” Clover directed.

Aunt Mary demurred.

“I never drank a cocktail,” she began.

“No time like the present to begin,” said Clover, “you’ll have to learn some day.”

“Cocktails,” said Mitchell, “are the advance guard of a newer and brighter civilization. They—”

“If she’s going to take it at all she must take it now,” said Clover authoritatively. “The green and the yellow are beginning to run together. Quick now!”

His confiding guest drank quick and became the three different colors quicker yet.

“What’s the matter?” Jack asked anxiously.

Aunt Mary was speechless.

“He mixed it wrong,” said Clover in a sad, discouraged tone. “What she ought to have got first she got last, that’s all. The cocktail is upside down inside of her, and the effect of it is upside down on the outside of her.”

“Feel any better now, Aunt Mary?” Jack yelled.

“I can’t seem to keep the purple swallowed,” said the poor old lady. “I want to go home. I’ve always been a great believer in going home when you feel like I do now. In general—as a rule.”

“I would strongly recommend your obeying her wishes,” said Mitchell, with great earnestness. “There’s a time for all things, and, in my opinion, she’s had about all the queer tastes that she can absorb for to-day. Things being as they are and mainly as they shouldn’t be, I cast my vote in with what looks as if it would soon become the losing side, and vote to bubble back for all we’re worth.”

There was a general acquiescence in his view of the case, which led them all to pile into “The Threshing Machine” with unaffected haste and rush Aunt Mary bedward as rapidly as was possible considering the hour and the policemen.

Janice received her mistress with the tender welcome that every prodigal may count on and was especially expeditious with tea and toast and a robe de nuit. Aunt Mary sighed luxuriously when she felt herself finally tucked up.

“After all, Granite,” she said dreamily, “there’s nothin’ like gettin’ stretched out to think it over—is there?”

But Janice was turning out the lights.