Erb/Chapter 10

T is the ingenious habit of Kentish railways directly that hop-picking is over and pay-day is done, to advertise excursions to London at a fare so cheap that not to take advantage of it were to discourage Providence in its attempts to make the world pleasant. Country folk, who make but one visit a year to town, seize this September opportunity; some avail themselves not only of this but of the Cattle Show trip later on; a few also take the pantomime excursion in February, and these are counted in quiet villages as being, by frequent contact with town, blades of the finest temper, to whom (if they would but be candid) no mysteries of the great town are unknown. Erb's Aunt Emma, giving herself reward for a month's hard work in the hop-garden, came up every year by the September excursion. It happened on this occasion that the day could not have made a more awkward attempt to fit in with Erb's convenience.

“Well,” said Aunt Emma, in the 'bus, desolately, “I'm not surprised! It's what comes of looking forward to anything. When I heerd as you may say, you'd left the railway, I said to the party that comes in on Mondays to help me do my week's washing, 'I don't know,' I says, 'what to think 'bout all this.'”

“Any other day, almost,” urged her nephew, “I could have arranged for the day off, but I've got important work to do that'll take me up to nine o'clock.”

“Whenever I find a bit of a lad giving up a honest living, I always say to Mrs. Turley, I say, 'Dang it all, this won't do!' And when it 'appened to my brother's own boy I turned round at once, I did, and I said, 'I don't know what to'”

“If Louisa had been quite herself, why, of course, she could have looked after you.”

“I'll get back to Lonnon Bridge,” said Aunt Emma grimly. “Reckon I shall be some'ing like Mrs. Turley's eldest. He come up one November, he did—first time he'd been to Lonnon—and it were a bit foggy, so he kep' in the station all day; when he come home, he says, 'Mother,' he says, 'it's a fine big place, Lonnon is, but it dedn't quite come up to my expectations.'” The parchment-faced old lady was pleased by Erb's reception of this anecdote, and, gratified also to get a smile from other passengers, she relaxed in manner; Erb saw the opportunity.

“Tell you what we've arranged, Aunt Emma. Louisa and me talked it over as soon's ever we made out your letter”

“I don't perfess,” remarked the old lady, “to be first-class in me spellin'. 'Sides, I got someone else to write it.”

“And we decided that we'd get a friend of mine—a friend of ours to look after you for the day.”

“What's he like?” asked the old lady, with reluctant show of interest.

“It's a she!”

“Your young 'oman?”

“I don't go in for anything of that kind,” said Erb, looking round the 'bus apprehensively. “Too busy for such nonsense.”

“Never knew the man yet,” said Aunt Emma, “that couldn't make time to get fond of somebody.”

Arrived at the office at Grange Road, Erb was showing the aunt some of his newspaper notices, when he heard on the stairs the swish of skirts. He lost the remaining half of his remark.

“And you've been fairly walking out, then, as you may say, with our Lady Frances?”

“You can't call it that, Aunt. I've only just been paying her polite attention.”

“I know what you mean,” remarked the old lady acutely. “Her grandmother—I'm speaking now of forty year ago, mind you—her grandmother ran off with a—let me see! Forget me own name next.”

Erb answered the quiet tap at the open door.

“Good girl!” he cried cheerfully. “Welcome to our baronial hall! Aunt Emma, this is the young lady that's going to pilot you round. Almost makes you seem,” he said to Rosalind, “like one of the family.”

“I only had to put off three pupils,” said Rosalind quickly. “How do you do?”

“I'm going downstairs to fetch coffee and scones for you two,” announced Erb. “Try not to come to blows whilst I'm away.”

“My sciatica is just beginning to wake up, as you may say,” replied Aunt Emma.

“So sorry,” said Rosalind sympathetically. “It must interfere with getting about.”

“Thank you,” replied Aunt Emma coldly. “I'm able to set up and take nourishment.”

“I expect your nephew has a lot of callers,” she said with determination. “He knows a good many people.”

“Are you acquainted with our Lady Frances,” asked the aunt in a mysterious whisper.

“I have just seen her,” flushing a little.

“These upper classes, they don't stand at nothing, as you may say, when” Erb returned, and the aunt, with the wink of a diplomatist, raised her voice. “They paid eight to the shillin' this year; it ought to've been seven. I said so straight, all through the hopping, I did, to Mrs. Turley.”

The doors were to open at two for the afternoon's entertainment, and the aunt's idea was that it were well to get there by noon, and thus ensure the best value in seats for a shilling; Rosalind gently overruled this, and they went first to Westminster Abbey, at which the aunt sneered, saying it was not her idea of a place of worship, and to the National Gallery, in regard to the contents of which the old lady hinted that they compared badly with a rare set of illuminated almanacks which she had at home, issued yearly by Deane, the grocer; the almanacks, it appeared, had the advantage of giving the date of jolly nigh every month you could think of. Trafalgar Square, looked on as a square, the aunt thought not much better than middling; the Embankment, in her opinion, lacked many of the attractions that she remembered once to have found at Ramsgate. But when, later, they were seated in the front row of the gallery in a small hall, and the curtain went up disclosing a crescent of black-faced men, with instrumentalists behind them, and similarly coloured gentlemen, with befrilled shirtfronts, at either end asked riddles of the gentlemanly man at the centre, riddles of which the gentlemanly man almost alone in the Hall knew not the answer, able only to repeat the question in a sonorous manner, then Aunt Emma relinquished all attempt at criticism, and gave herself up to pure delight. “Can you tole me, Mithter Johnthon, how a woman differth from an umbrella?” “Can I tell you,” repeated the gentlemanly man very distinctly, “how a woman differs from an umbrella?”

“Now 'ark for the answer!” whispered Aunt Emma, nudging her young companion gleefully.

“No, sir,” said the gentlemanly man, “I cannot tell you how a woman differs from an umbrella.”

“You can't tole me how a woman differth from an umbrella? Why,” explained the corner-man, “you can shut an umbrella up!”

“How in the world they think of all these things!” said Aunt Emma exhaustedly. “Dang my old eyes if it 'ent a miracle!”

Aunt Emma wept when a thin-voiced youth sang, “Don't neglect your mother 'cause her hair is getting grey,” became hysterical with amusement over, “I'm a gay old bachelor widow.”

Rosalind enjoyed the enjoyment of the old lady, and when they came out into daylight, and went across the way to a noble establishment, where they had high tea, the two were on excellent terms with each other, and information regarding small scandals of Penshurst was placed freely at Rosalind's disposal. The old lady spoke in an awed whisper when she came to the people at the Court, arresting a slice of ham on her fork, as though sensible of the demands of etiquette when dealing with the upper classes.

“You're not married, my dear,” said Aunt Emma, loosening the strings of her bonnet and allowing it to fall to the back of her head in an elegant way, “or else I could speak more free, as you may say, on the subject. That grandmother of hers” The old lady pursed her lips, and glanced at her reflection in the mirrored walls with a pained shake of the head.

“But,” urged Rosalind, perturbed by the aunt's confident manner of prophecy, “Lady Frances, I understand, is engaged to a lieutenant out in North Africa.”

“Sooner he comes back,” shaking a spoon threateningly, “sooner he comes back the bedder. I don't want to go opening my old mouth too wide, or else like enough I shall go and putt my foot in it. I've said all I want to say, and I don't want folk to turn round arterwards and say to me, 'Why didn't you give us warnin'?' Strikes me, my dear, we might have drop more hot water with this yere tea.”

“Do you know her uncle at all?”

“I know of him. I used to be upper housemaid at the Court.”

“And what”

“I don't think no worse of him,” said Aunt Emma in a slow, careful, and judicial manner, “I don't think no worse of him than what he's thought worse of.”

“I see,” said Rosalind doubtfully. The girl was silent for a few moments. She looked at the walnut face of Erb's aunt, at the elderly dimple beside the mouth, she watched the old lady's cautious way of munching food.

“What you thinking of, my dear?”

“Nothing, nothing,” said Rosalind, arousing herself.

“You won't 'spect me to finish up these yere bits I hope,” said Aunt Emma, looking at the crusts by the side of her plate. “My teeth ain't what they was when I was your age. Ah,” with a sigh, “that seems long time ago.”

“You have never been married, have you?”

“Could ha' been,” said the old lady shortly. “'Twarnt for want of being asked.”

“Why, of course not.”

“Only chap I ever wanted,” she said reminiscently, “I let him go and get snapped up by someone else; silly bit of a gel that I was. I tell ye what 'tis!”

People at the neighbouring tables were listening, and Rosalind touched her wrinkled hand gently to call her attention to the fact.

“Once you've made up your mind, as you may say, about a young man, you've got to be jeggerin' well careful you don't go and lose him. Makes all the difference whether you get the right man or the wrong man, or no man at all. Now what about this Drury Lane? We'd bedder be too soon than too late.”

A wonderful old person for her age, and Rosalind, made rather thoughtful for some reason by the conversation, had much ado to keep up with her as they walked through Leicester Square and Long Acre in the direction of Autumn Melodrama. When the doors opened, Erb's aunt fought her way in with the best of them, securing two seats in the second row, and keeping strong men and insurgent women at bay until Rosalind came up; she ordered a very tall man in the front row to sit down, and when he replied that he was sitting down Aunt Emma suggested that he should lie down. Then the old lady loosened her elastic-sided boots slightly, and prepared to meet enjoyment.

A great evening. Aunt Emma confessed to Rosalind, as they came out, that, say what you liked, there was no place like London, and, but for the fact that she wanted to save the bit of money she had put away, she would willingly bid good-bye to Penshurst and come up to town, spending every afternoon at Moore and Burgess', and every evening at Drury Lane. Outside the theatre was Erb.

“Nice young 'oman, if ever there was one,” whispered Aunt Emma to her nephew. “Superior manner, and all that.”

“Thought you'd get along all right with her,” remarked Erb.

“I've been giving her advice.”

“Trust you.”

“Won'erful to see such qualities of people about,” said the old lady, hailing Rosalind into the discussion as they walked along the crowded Strand. “Nothing like this down where I live.”

“Have you far to walk at the other end?” asked the girl solicitously.

“Not fur,” replied the wonderful old lady. “Ony 'bout three mile and h'af.”

The excursion train was nearly ready to start, and Erb, finding an old acquaintance in the guard, arranged for an appropriate finish to a great day by placing his aunt in a first-class compartment. She remarked gleefully that this would be something to tell Mrs. Turley.

“God bless ye, my dear,” she said, kissing Rosalind. “And don't forget what I told you. Erb, take care of her.”

Rosalind wanted to go into the Strand telegraph office opposite the station for a moment, if Erb did not mind. Erb did not mind, and he waited.

“As much as that?” said Rosalind to the clerk. “Seems a lot of money.”

“Well, you see, miss,” replied the clerk, apologetically, “people don't telegraph to these distant parts unless it's about something important.”