A Modern Chronicle — Complete. Winston Churchill

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СКАЧАТЬ used to be great once upon a time, didn't they, Aunt Mary?”

      “Your Uncle Tom,” answered Aunt Mary, quietly, “is the greatest man I know, child.”

      “And my father must have been a great man, too,” cried Honora, “to have been a consul and drive coaches.”

      Aunt Mary was silent. She was not a person who spoke easily on difficult subjects.

      “Why don't you ever talk to me about my father, Aunt Mary? Uncle Tom does.”

      “I didn't know your father, Honora.”

      “But you have seen him?”

      “Yes,” said Aunt Mary, dipping her cloth into the whiting; “I saw him at my wedding. But he was very, young.”

      “What was he like?” Honora demanded. “He was very handsome, wasn't he?”

      “Yes, child.”

      “And he had ambition, didn't he, Aunt Mary?”

      Aunt Mary paused. Her eyes were troubled as she looked at Honora, whose head was thrown back.

      “What kind of ambition do you mean, Honora?”

      “Oh,” cried Honora, “to be great and rich and powerful, and to be somebody.”

      “Who has been putting such things in your head, my dear?”

      “No one, Aunt Mary. Only, if I were a man, I shouldn't rest until I became great.”

      Alas, that Aunt Mary, with all her will, should have such limited powers of expression! She resumed her scrubbing of the silver before she spoke.

      “To do one's duty, to accept cheerfully and like a Christian the responsibilities and burdens of life, is the highest form of greatness, my child. Your Uncle Tom has had many things to trouble him; he has always worked for others, and not for himself. And he is respected and loved by all who know him.”

      “Yes, I know, Aunt Mary. But—”

      “But what, Honora?”

      “Then why isn't he rich, as my father was?”

      “Your father wasn't rich, my dear,” said Aunt Mary, sadly.

      “Why, Aunt Mary!” Honora exclaimed, “he lived in a beautiful house, and owned horses. Isn't that being rich?”

      Poor Aunt Mary!

      “Honora,” she answered, “there are some things you are too young to understand. But try to remember, my dear, that happiness doesn't consist in being rich.”

      “But I have often heard you say that you wished you were rich, Aunt Mary, and had nice things, and a picture gallery like Mr. Dwyer.”

      “I should like to have beautiful pictures, Honora.”

      “I don't like Mr. Dwyer,” declared Honora, abruptly.

      “You mustn't say that, Honora,” was Aunt Mary's reproof. “Mr. Dwyer is an upright, public-spirited man, and he thinks a great deal of your Uncle Tom.”

      “I can't help it, Aunt Mary,” said Honora. “I think he enjoys being—well, being able to do things for a man like Uncle Tom.”

      Neither Aunt Mary nor Honora guessed what a subtle criticism this was of Mr. Dwyer. Aunt Mary was troubled and puzzled; and she began to speculate (not for the first time) why the Lord had given a person with so little imagination a child like Honora to bring up in the straight and narrow path.

      “When I go on Sunday afternoons with Uncle Tom to see Mr. Dwyer's pictures,” Honora persisted, “I always feel that he is so glad to have what other people haven't or he wouldn't have any one to show them to.”

      Aunt Mary shook her head. Once she had given her loyal friendship, such faults as this became as nothing.

      “And when” said Honora, “when Mrs. Dwyer has dinner-parties for celebrated people who come here, why does she invite you in to see the table?”

      “Out of kindness, Honora. Mrs. Dwyer knows that I enjoy looking at beautiful things.”

      “Why doesn't she invite you to the dinners?” asked Honora, hotly. “Our family is just as good as Mrs. Dwyer's.”

      The extent of Aunt Mary's distress was not apparent.

      “You are talking nonsense, my child,” she said. “All my friends know that I am not a person who can entertain distinguished people, and that I do not go out, and that I haven't the money to buy evening dresses. And even if I had,” she added, “I haven't a pretty neck, so it's just as well.”

      A philosophy distinctly Aunt Mary's.

      Uncle Tom, after he had listened without comment that evening to her account of this conversation, was of the opinion that to take Honora to task for her fancies would be waste of breath; that they would right themselves as she grew up.

      “I'm afraid it's inheritance, Tom,” said Aunt Mary, at last. “And if so, it ought to be counteracted. We've seen other signs of it. You know Honora has little or no idea of the value of money—or of its ownership.”

      “She sees little enough of it,” Uncle Tom remarked with a smile.

      “Tom.”

      “Well.”

      “Sometimes I think I've done wrong not to dress her more simply. I'm afraid it's given the child a taste for—for self-adornment.”

      “I once had a fond belief that all women possessed such a taste,” said Uncle Tom, with a quizzical look at his own exception. “To tell you the truth, I never classed it as a fault.”

      “Then I don't see why you married me,” said Aunt Mary—a periodical remark of hers. “But, Tom, I do wish her to appear as well as the other children, and (Aunt Mary actually blushed) the child has good looks.”

      “Why don't you go as far as old Catherine, and call her a princess?” he asked.

      “Do you want me to ruin her utterly?” exclaimed Aunt Mary.

      Uncle Tom put his hands on his wife's shoulders and looked down into her face, and smiled again. Although she held herself very straight, the top of her head was very little above the level of his chin.

      “It strikes me that you are entitled to some little indulgence in life, Mary,” he said.

      One of the curious contradictions of Aunt Mary's character was a never dying interest, which held no taint of envy, in the doings of people more fortunate than herself. In the long summer days, after her silver was cleaned and her housekeeping and marketing finished, she read in the book-club periodicals of royal marriages, embassy balls, of great town and country houses and their owners at home and abroad. And she knew, by means of a correspondence with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury and other intimates, the СКАЧАТЬ