Aunt Crete's Emancipation (6 page)

CHAPTER IV

AUNT CRETE TRANSFORMED

THEY locked the house early one morning when even the dusty bricks had a smell of freshness to them before the hot sun baked them for another day. The closed blinds seemed sullen like a conquered tyrant, and the front door looked reproachfully at Aunt Crete as she turned the key carefully and tried it twice to be sure it was locked. The lonesome look of the house gave the poor old
lady
a pang as she turned the corner in her softly rustling silk coat and skirt. She felt it had hardly been right to put on a new black silk in the morning, and go off from all the cares of the world, just leave them, boldly ignore them, like any giddy girl, and take a vacation. She regarded herself with awe and a rising self-respect in every window she passed.
Somehow
the look of dumpiness had passed away mysteriously. It was not her old self that was passing along the street to the station bearing a cut-steel
hand-bag
, while Donald carried her new satchel, and her new trunk bumped on a square ahead in the
expressman's
wagon.

It was a hot morning, and the great city station seemed close and stuffy; but Aunt Crete mingled with the steaming crowd blissfully. To be one with the world, attired irreproachably
;
to be on her way to a great hotel by the sea, with new clothes, and escorted devotedly by some one that was her very own, this indeed was happiness. Could
any one
desire more upon the earth?

Donald put her into a cab at the station, and she beamed happily out at the frightful streets that always made her heart come into her mouth on the rare occasions when she had to cross them. The ride across the city seemed a brief and distinguished experience. It was as if everybody else was walking and
they
only had the grandeur of a carriage. Then the
ferry-boat
was delightful to the new
traveller
, with its long, white-ceiled passages, and its smell of wet timbers and tarred ropes. They had a seat close to the front, where they could look
out and watch their own progress
and see the many puffing monsters laboriously plying back and forth, and the horizon-line of many masts, like fine brown lines against the sky. Aunt Crete felt that at last she was out in the
world. She could not have felt it more if she had been starting for Europe.

The seashore train, with its bamboo seats and its excited groups of children bearing tin pails and shovels and tennis-rackets, filled her with a fine exhilaration. At last, at last, her soul had escaped the bounds of red brick walls that she had expected would surround her as long as she lived. She drew deep breaths, and beamed upon the
whole
trainful
of people, yelling baby and all. She gazed and gazed at the fast-flying Jersey scenery, grown so monotonous to some of the
travellers
,
and admired every little white and green town at which they paused.

Donald put her into a carriage when they reached the shore. Half an hour off they had begun to smell the sea, and to catch glimpses of low-lying marshes and a misty blueness against
the sky. Now every friendly
hackman
at the station seemed a part of the great day to Aunt Crete. So pretty a carriage, with low steps and gray cushions and a fringe all around the canopy, and a white speckled horse, with long, gentle, white eyelashes. Aunt Crete leaned back self
-
consciously on the gray cushions, and enjoyed the creak of her silk jacket as she settled into place. She felt as if this was a play that would soon be over; but she would enjoy it to the very end, and then go back to her
dish-washing
and cellar
-
cleaning, and being blamed, and bear them all in happy remembrance of what she had had for one blissful vacation.

She did not know that Donald had telephoned ahead for the best apartments in the hotel. She was engaged in watching for the first blue line of the great mysterious ocean; and, when it came into sight, billowing suddenly above the line of
board walk
as they turned a corner, her heart stood still for one moment, and then bounded onward set to the time of wonder.

Two obsequious porters jumped to assist Aunt Crete from the carriage. The hand-baggage drifted up the steps as if by magic, and awaited them in the apartments to which they arose in a luxurious elevator. Aunt Crete noticed several old
ladies
with pink and blue wool knitting, sitting in a row of large rocking-chairs, as she glided up to the second floor. It gave her rest on one point, for they all wore white dresses. She had been a little dubious about those white dresses that Donald had insisted
upon
.
But now
s
he might enjoy them unashamed. O
, what would Luella say?

She glanced around the room, half-fearfully expecting to find Luella waiting there. Somehow, now she was here, she wanted to get used to it and enjoy it all before Luella came. For Luella was an uncertain quantity. Luella might not like it, after all!
Dreadful thought!
And
after Donald had taken so much trouble and spent so much money all to surprise them!

The smiling porter absorbed the goodly tip that Donald handed him, and went his way. Aunt Crete and Donald
were left
alone. They looked at each other and smiled.

"Let's look around and see where they've put us," said Donald, pushing the swaying curtains aside; and there before them rolled the blue tide of the ocean. Aunt Crete sank into a chair, and was silent for a while; and then she
said:
"It's just as big as I thought it would be. I was so afraid it
wouldn't
be. Some folks next door went down to the shore last year, and they said it didn't look big enough to what they'd expected; and I've been afraid ever since."

Donald's eyes filled with a tender light that was beautiful to see. He was enjoying the spending of his money, and it was yielding him a rich reward already.

The apartments that
had been assigned
to them consisted of a parlor and two large bedrooms with private baths. Donald discovered a few moments later, when he went down to the office to investigate, that Luella and his aunt occupied a single room on the fourth floor back, overlooking the kitchen court. It was not where he would have placed them, had they chosen to await his coming and
be taken down
to the shore in style.
But now
that they had r
un away from him, and were too
evidently ashamed of him, perhaps it was as well to let them remain where they were, he reflected.

"Aunt Carrie and Luella have gone out with a party in a carriage for an all-day drive to Pleasure Bay," ann
ounced Donald when he came up.
"Aunt Carrie's ankle must be better."

"Well, that's real nice!" exclaimed Aunt Crete with a smile, turning from her view of the sea, where she had been ever since he left her. "I'm glad Luella is having a good time, and we
sha'n'
t
miss
her a
mite. You and I’ll
have the ocean all to ourselves to-day."

Donald smiled approvingly. He was not altogether sure he cared to meet that other aunt and cousin at all. He was not sure but he would like to run away from them, and carry Aunt Crete with him.

"Very well," he said, "I'm glad you're not disappointed.
We'll
do just whatever we want to. Would you like to go in bathing?"

"O, my!
Could I?
I've
always thought I'd like to see how it would feel, but I guess I'm too old. Besides,
there's
my
figger
. It
wouldn't
look nice in a bathing-suit. Luella
wouldn't
like it a bit, and I don't want to disgrace her, now I'm here. She always makes a lot of fun of old people going in and sitting right on the edge of the water. I guess it won't do."

"Yes, it will do, if you want to. Didn't I tell you this was my party, and Luella
isn't
in it?
That's
ridiculous.
I'll
take you in myself, Aunt Crete, and we'll have the best time out; and you
sha'n't
be scared, either. I can swim like a fish. You shall go in every day. Would you like to begin at once?"

"I should," said Aunt Crete, rising with a look of resolution in her face. She felt that Luella would condemn the amusement for her; so, if she was to dare it, it
must be done
before her niece appeared.

They went down to the beach, and for a few
minutes surveyed the bathers as they came out to the water. Then with joy and daring in her face Aunt Crete went into the little bath-house with wildly beating heart, arrayed herself in the gay blue flannel garb provided for her use, and came timidly out to meet Donald, tall and smiling in his blue jerseys.

They had a wonderful time. It was almost better than shopping. Donald led her down to the water, and very gently accustomed her to it until he had led her out beyond the roughness, where his strong arms lifted her well above the swells until she felt as if she was a bird. It was
marvellous
that she was not afraid, but she was not. It was as if she
had that morning been transferred
back over forty years to her youth again, and was having the good times that she had longed for, such as other girls had—the swings, and the rides, and the
skatings
, and
bicyclings
.
How many such things she had watched through the years, with her heart palpitating with daring to do it all herself!
Her petulant sister and the logy Luella never dreamed that Aunt Crete desired such un-
auntly
indulgences. If they had, they would have taken it out of her, scorched it out with scorn.

The white hair with its natural waves fluffed out beautifully, like a canary's feathers, after the bath, and Aunt Crete was smiling and charming at lunch in one of her fine new white dresses. She had hurried to put it on before Luella appeared, lest they might all be spirited away from her if Luella discovered them. She reflected with a sigh that they would likely fit Luella beautifully, and that that would probably be their final destination, just as Luella's discarded garments came to her.

But
there was nothing to mar the lunch-time and the beautiful afternoon, wherein, after a delicious nap to the accompaniment of the music of the waves, she was taken to drive in the fringed carriage again, while a bunch of handsome ladies, old and young, sat on the hotel piazza in more of those abundant rockers, and watched her approvingly. She felt that she was of some importance in their eyes.
She had suddenly blossomed out of her insignificance, and was worth looking at.
It warmed her heart with humble pleasure. She felt that she had won approval, not
through any merit of her own, but through Donald's loving
kindness. It was wonderful what a charm clothes could work.

"Put on your gray silk for dinner," said Donald with malice aforethought in his heart.

"O
," gasped Aunt Crete, "I think I ought to keep that for parties,
don't
you?"

"If ever there was a party, it's going to be tonight," said Donald. "It's going to be a surprise
party. You want to see if Aunt Carrie and Luella will know you, you know."

So
with trembling fingers Aunt Crete arrayed herself in her purple and fine linen, very materially assisted by a quiet maid, whom Donald had ordered sent to the room, and who persuaded Aunt Crete to let her arrange the pretty white hair.

It was surprising to see, when the coiffure was complete, that she looked quite like the other old
ladies
, who were not old at all, only playing old.

"I don't believe they will know me," whispered Aunt Crete to herself as she stood before the
full
length
mirror and surveyed the effect. "And I didn't think I could ever look like that!" she murmured after a more prolonged gaze, during which she made the acquaintance of her new self. Then she added half wistfully: "I wish I had known it before. I think perhaps they'd have—liked me— more if I'd looked that way all the time." She sighed half regretfully, as if she were bidding good-by to this new vision, and went out to Donald, who awaited her. She felt that the picnic part of her vacation was almost over now, for Carrie and Luella would be sure to manage to spoil it someway.