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The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary by Anne Warner

A >> Anne Warner >> The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary




"They aren't getting up steam," said Mitchell, "they're getting up dinner.
It looks like a lot of smoke because of the shadow on the sail. And,
speaking of getting up dinner, reminds me that the topic before us now is,
how in thunder are we to get up Aunt Mary?"

"Put a rope around her and board her as if she was a cavalry horse,"
suggested Burnett.

"I scorn the suggestion," said their host; "if the worst comes to the
worst I can give her a back up, but I trust that Aunt Mary will rise to
the heights of the sail and the situation all at once and not make me do
any vertebratical stunts so early in the day."

They were running alongside of "Lady Belle" as he spoke, and the first
thing Aunt Mary knew she and her party were attached to the former by some
mysterious and not altogether solid connection.

"What do we do now?" she asked uneasily.

"I'll show you," laughed Burnett, and seizing two flapping ropes he went
skipping up a sort of stepladder and sprang upon the deck above.

Aunt Mary started to emulate his prowess and stood up at once. But the
next second she sat down extremely hard without knowing why she had done
so.

"Hold on, Miss Watkins," Mitchell cried hastily; "just you hold on until I
give you something to hold on to, and when you've got something to hold on
to, please keep holding on to it, until I tell you that the hour has come
in which to let go again."

"I didn't quite catch that," said Aunt Mary, "but I'm ready to do anythin'
you say if you only--" and again she sprang up and again was thrown down as
hard as before.

"Look out," cried Jack, springing to her side; and he got hold of his
valuable relative and held her fast while Mitchell grasped the ladder and
a sailor strove to keep the launch still.

"Now, Aunt Mary," cried the nephew, "hang on to me and hang on to those
ropes and remember I'm right back of you--"

"My Lord alive," cried Aunt Mary, turning her gaze upwards, "am I expected
to go alone all that way to the top?"

"It'll pay you to keep on to the top," screamed Clover; "you'll have,
comparatively speaking, very little fun if you hang on to the ladder all
day--and you'll get so wet too."

"There's more room at the top," cried Mitchell, "there's always room at
the top, Miss Watkins. Put yourself in the place of any young man entering
a profession and struggle bravely upwards, bearing ever in--"

"Oh, I never can," said Aunt Mary, recoiling abruptly; "I never could
climb trees when I was little--I never had no grip in my legs--and I just
know I can't. It's too high. An' it looks slippery. An' I don't want to,
anyhow."

"What rot!" yelled Jack, "the very idea! Why, Aunt Mary, you know you can
skin up there just like a cat if you only make up your mind to it. Here,
Mitchell, give her a boost and I'll plant her feet firmly. Now--have you
got hold of the ropes, Aunt Mary?"

"Oh, mercy--on--me!" wailed Aunt Mary, "the yacht is turnin' a-round an' the
harder I pull the faster it turns."

"Catch her from above, Burr," Clover called excitedly; "hook her with
anything if you can't reach her with your hand."

"Oh, my cap!" shrieked poor Aunt Mary, and the cap went off and she went
on up and was landed safe above.

"How on the chart do you suppose we'll ever unload her?" Jack asked,
wide-eyed, as he swung himself quickly after her.

"What man hath done man can do," quoted Mitchell sententiously, following
his lead.

"But no man ever unloaded Aunt Mary," Clover reminded him, as they brought
up the rear.

Then they were all on deck, a chair was brought for the honored guest, and
Mitchell introduced his sailing-master who had been drawn to gaze upon the
rather novel manner in which she had been brought aboard.

"I want Miss Watkins to have the sail of her life, Renfew," said Mitchell.
"We aren't coming back until night."

"We'll have sail enough sure, sir," said Renfew, touching his cap, and
then he walked away and the work of starting off began. A tug had been
engaged to tow them out into the breeze and Jack thought it would be nice
to show Aunt Mary around while they were being meandered through coal
barges, etc. They went below and Aunt Mary saw everything with a most
flattering interest.

"I d'n know but what I'd enjoy a little yacht of my own," she said to
Mitchell. "I think it's so amusin' the way everythin' turns over into
suthin' else. I suppose Joshua could learn to sail me--I wouldn't want to
trust no new man, I know."

"Why, of course," said Jack, "and we could all come and visit you, Aunt
Mary."

Aunt Mary smiled hospitably.

"I'd be glad to see you all any day," she said cordially; "and I shall
have a hole in the bottom of the boat for people to go in and out of, and
a nice staircase down to it, so you needn't mind the notion of how you'll
get on and off."

They all laughed and continued the tour below and Aunt Mary grew more and
more enthusiastic for quite a while. She liked the kitchen and she liked
the dining-room. She thought the arrangement for keeping the table level
most ingenious. Mitchell took her into the main cabin and told her that
that was hers for the day. On the dresser was a photograph of the "Lady
Belle" framed in silver, which the young host presented to his guest as a
souvenir of the "voyage."

Aunt Mary's pleasure was at its height. Oh, the pity of Fate which makes
the apex of everything so very limited as to standing room! Three minutes
after the presentation and acceptation of the photograph Aunt Mary's
glance became suddenly vague, and then especially piercing.

"What makes this up and down feeling?" she asked Mitchell.

"What up and down feeling?" he asked, secure in the good conscience and
pure living of an oatmeal breakfast. "I don't feel up and down."

"I do," said Aunt Mary abruptly; "I want to be somewhere else."

"You want to be on deck," said Burnett, suddenly emerging from somewhere;
"I know the symptoms. I always have 'em. Come on. And when we get up
there, I'll collar Jack for urging those six last griddle cakes on me this
morning."

"I ain't sure I want to be on deck," said Aunt Mary; "dear me--I feel as if
I wasn't sure of anythin'."

"What did I tell you?" said Burnett to Mitchell; "it's blowing fresh and
neither she nor I ought to have come. You know me when it blows."

"Shut up," said Mitchell, hurrying Aunt Mary up the companion-way and
shoving her into one chair and her feet into another; "there, Miss
Watkins, you're all right now, aren't you?"

"What's the matter?" said Jack, coming from somewhere aloft or astern.
"Heaven bless me, what ails you, Aunt Mary?"

"I don't wonder I'm pale," said Aunt Mary faintly, "oh--oh--"

"We must put our heads together," said Burnett, taking a drink from a
flask that he took out of his pocket; "I must soon put my head on
something, and your aunt looks to me to feel the same way. Mitchell, why
did you let me forget that vow I made last time to never come again?"

"Your vows to never do things again are about as stable as your present
hold on an upright position," said Clover, laying a steadying hand upon
his friend's waveringness. "Sit down, little boy, sit down."

Burnett sat down, Mitchell smiled, Jack laughed, and Aunt Mary groaned.

The boat was rising and falling rapidly now, and as she ran further and
further out into the ever freshening wind she kept on rising and falling
yet more rapidly. The more motion there was the more Aunt Mary seemed to
sift down in her two chairs.

"We'd better put back," said Jack; "this won't do, you know. How do you
feel now, Aunt Mary?" he added, leaning over her.

Aunt Mary opened her eyes and looked at him but made no reply.

"Ask me how I feel, if you dare," said Burnett, from where his chair was
drawn up not far away. "I couldn't kill you just now, but I will some day
I promise you."

He was very white and had a look about his mouth that showed that he meant
what he said.

Some bells rang somewhere.

"That's dinner," exclaimed Clover.

Aunt Mary gave a piercing cry.

"Oh, take me somewhere else," she said, throwing her hands up to her face;
"somewhere where there'll never be nothin' to eat again. I--I can't bear to
hear about eatin'."

"I'm going to take her down into one of the cabins," said Jack hastily,
"she belongs in bed."

"No, turn back the carpet and lay me in the bath-tub," almost sobbed the
poor victim. "I don't feel like I could get flat enough anywhere else."

"She has the proper spirit," said Burnett faintly, "only I don't feel as
if I could get flat enough anywhere at all. What in the name of the Great
Pyramid ever possessed me to come?"

Mitchell rose quickly to his feet.

"You put your aunt to bed, Jack," he said, "and I'll put my yacht to
backing. This expedition is expeditiously heading on to what might be
termed a failure. I can see that, even if we're only in a Sound."

"When do you suppose we'll get back?" the nephew asked anxiously.

"About four o'clock, if we don't lose time by having to tack."

"I didn't quite catch all that," said Aunt Mary, "but I knew suthin' was
loose all along. I felt it inside of me right off at first. And ever
since, too."

Jack gathered her up in his arms and bore her tenderly away to the
beautiful main cabin.

"I wanted to live to change my will," she said sadly, as he laid her down,
"but somehow I don't seem to care for nothin' no more."

He kissed her hand.

"They say being seasick is awfully _good_ for people, Aunt Mary," he
yelled contritely.

Aunt Mary opened her eyes.

"John Watkins, Jr., Denham," she said, "if you say 'food' to me again
_ever_, I'll never leave you a penny--so there!"

Jack went away and left her.

"Come on to dinner, Burnett," Clover called hilariously, "there's liver
with little bits of bacon--your favorite dish."

Burnett snarled the weakest kind of a snarl.

"I thought I'd suffered enough for one year last month," he murmured in a
voice too low to be heard, and then he knew himself to be alone on deck.

Down in the little dining-saloon the dishes were hopping merrily back and
forth and an agreeable odor of agreeable viands filled the air. Clover and
Jack sat down opposite their host and they all three ate and drank with a
zest that knew no breaking waves nor sad effects.

"Here's to our aunt," said Clover gayly, as the first course went around;
"of course, we all love her for Jack's sake, but at the same time I offer
two to odds that it is a pleasure to converse in under tones occasionally.
Who takes?"

"Aunt Mary being laid upon her bed," said Mitchell, "we will next proceed
to lay the motion of our honorable friend upon the table. We regret Aunt
Mary's ill-health while we drink to her good--quotation marks under the
latter word. Aunt Mary!--and may she arise and prosper all the way down
into the launch again."

"I'm troubled about her, really," said Jack soberly; "we ought to have
brought someone to look out for her."

"The maid," cried Mitchell, "the dainty, adorable maid! Here's to Janice
and--" his speech was brought to a sudden end by his two guests nearly
disappearing under the table.

Jack started up.

"Ginger! Did you feel that?" he asked.

"That's nothing," said Mitchell, calmly replacing the water-carafe which
in the excitement of the moment he had clasped to his bosom; "it's the
waves which are rising to the occasion--that's all." But Jack had hurried
out.

He found poor Aunt Mary writhing in an agony of misery. "Oh--oh--" she
cried, "I want to be still--I'm too much tipped--and all the wrong way! I
want to lay smooth--and I stand on my head--all the--"

"We're going back," said Jack, striving to soothe her; "lie still, Aunt
Mary, and we'll soon get there. Do you want some camphor to smell?"

"I don't feel up to smellin'," wailed Aunt Mary, "I don't feel up to
anythin'. Go 'way. Right off."

Jack went on deck. He found Burnett stretched pale and green upon the
chairs their lady guest had vacated.

"If you speak to me again," he said, in halting accents, "I'll never speak
to you again. Get out."

Jack went back to his place at dinner.

"How are they?" asked Clover.

"I don't know," he said quietly, "but there's a big storm coming up. The
sky's all dark blue and it looks bad."

"I don't care," said Mitchell, sawing into the game with vigor; "if we go
down we go down with Aunt Mary and if I were Uncle Mary I wouldn't feel
happier and safer as to all concerned. The ship that bore Caesar and his
fortune had nothing at all to bear compared to this which bears Jack and
his. Here's to Jack and his fortune, and may we all survive the dark blue
sky."

"I tell you it's serious," said Jack. As he spoke another ominous heaving
set the bottles tipping and nearly sent Clover backwards.

"And I'm serious," exclaimed Mitchell. "I'm always serious only I never
can get any girl to believe it. Here's to me, and may I grow more and more
serious each--"

A tremendous wave bore the yacht upright and then let her fall on her
forelegs again. Clover went over backwards and the dish of peas to which
he had just been helping himself followed after.

"You didn't say 'excuse me' when you left the table," said Mitchell, whom
the law of gravitation had suddenly raised to a pinnacle from which he
viewed his friends with mirthful scorn; "and if you've hurt yourself it
must be a judgment on you for leaving the table without saying 'excuse
me.' Here's to Clover, who has a judgment and a dish of peas served on him
at the same time for leaving the table without saying 'excuse me.'"

The sailing-master appeared at the door, his cap in his hand.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said respectfully, "but I fear it's
impossible to put back. We can't turn without getting into the trough of
the sea."

"All right, go ahead then," said Mitchell; "go where we must go, and do
what you've got to do. My motto is veni, vidi, vici, which freely
translated means I can sleep asea when I can't sleep ashore."

"But Aunt Mary?" cried Jack blankly.

"She's all right," said Mitchell; "she'll soon reach the cold burnt toast
stage and when she reaches the stage we'll all welcome her into any
chorus. Here's to choruses in general and one chorus girl in particular. I
haven't met her yet, but I shall know her when I do, for she will look at
me. Up to now they've all looked elsewhere and at other men. If my fortune
was only in my face it might draw some interest, but--"

"Lady Belle" careened violently and Clover went over backwards for the
second time with much in his wake.

"Oh, I say," said Mitchell, rising in disgust, "if you want everything on
the table at once why take it. Only I'm going on deck. After you've bathed
in the gravy you can have it. Ditto the other liquids. Jack and I are
going up to dance a hornpipe and sing for Burnett. He looked rather
ennuyed to me when we came down."

Along toward eight o'clock that night "Lady Belle" anchored somewhere in
the Sound and tugged vigorously at her cables all night.

With the dawn she headed back towards New York.

"As a success my entertainment has been a failure," said Mitchell to Jack
as they walked up and down the deck after breakfast; "but into each life
some rain must fall, and I offer myself as a sacrificial background to
Aunt Mary's glowing, living pictures of New York."

"I wish you hadn't, though," said Jack; "she'll never want a yacht of her
own now. And how under Scorpion are we ever going to land her?"

"In a sheet, my able-bodied young friend, in a sheet," said Mitchell
clapping him on the back. "Don't you know the 'Weigh the Baby' game? It
may double her up a bit, but the redoubtable Janice will straighten her
out again. Here's to the sheet, be it a wet sheet, a main sheet, or a
sheet with your Aunt Mary tied up in it."

Mitchell was as good as his word and they landed Aunt Mary in a sheet. The
very harbor-tugs stopped puffing and stood open-mouthed to stare at the
performance, but it was an unalloyed success, and Aunt Mary was gotten
onto dry land at last.

"I don't want to do nothin' for a day or two," she said, as they drove to
the house.

Janice had the bed open, and a hot-water bottle down where Aunt Mary's
feet might be expected, and all sorts of comfort ready to hand.

"I'm so glad to see you safe back," she said, almost weeping.

"I don't believe it's broke," said Aunt Mary, "but you might look and see.
Oh, Granite--I--" she stopped and looked an unutterable meaning.

"It stormed, didn't it?" said the maid.

"Stormed!" said Aunt Mary. "I guess it did storm. I guess it hurricaned. I
know it did. I'm sure of it."

"But you're safe now," said the girl, tucking her up as snugly as if she
had been an infant in arms.

"Yes, I'm safe now," said Aunt Mary, "but--" she looked very earnest--"but,
oh, my Granite, how I did need that white fuzzy stuff to drink this
morning. I never wanted nothin' so bad in all my life afore."

Janice stood by the bed, her face full of regret that Aunt Mary had known
any aching void.

Aunt Mary grew yet more earnest.

"Granite," she said, "you mind what I tell you. That ought to be
advertised. I sh'd think you could patent it. Folks ought to know about
it."

Then she laid herself out in bed. "My heavens alive!" she sighed sweetly,
"there's nothin' like home. Not anywhere--not nowhere!"





CHAPTER SIXTEEN - A REPOSEFUL INTERVAL


The next date upon the little gold and ivory memorandum card which hung
beside Aunt Mary's watch was that set for Burnett's picnic, but its
dawning found both host and guest too much attached to their beds to
desire any fetes champetre just then.

Burnett was in that very weak state which follows in the immediate wake of
only too many yachts,--and Aunt Mary was sleeping one of her long drawn out
and utterly restorative sleeps.

Jack went in and looked at her.

"It did storm awfully," he said to Janice, who was sitting by the window.
The maid just smiled, nodded, and laid her finger on her lip. She never
encouraged conversation when her charge was reposing.

Jack went softly out and turned his steps toward the room of the other
wreck.

"Well, how are stocks to-day?" he asked cheerfully on entering.

Burnett was stretched out pillowless and looked black under his hollow
eyes. But he appeared to be on the road to recovery.

"Jack," he said seriously, "what in thunder makes me always so ready to go
on the water? I should think after a while I'd learn a thing or two."

Jack leaned his elbows on the high carved footboard and returned his
friend's look with one of equal seriousness.

"What makes all of us do lots of things?" he asked. "Why don't we all
learn?"

Burnett sighed.

"That's a fact; why don't we?" he said weakly. And then he shut his eyes
again and turned his back to his caller.

Jack went down to lunch. Clover and Mitchell were playing cards in the
library.

"Well, how is the hospital?" Clover asked, looking up while he shuffled
the pack.

"Never mind about Burnett," said Mitchell, "but do relieve my mind about
Aunt Mary. Is the one sheet still taking effect, or has she begun to rally
on a diet of two?"

"She's asleep," said the nephew.

"God bless her slumber," declared Clover piously. "I very much approve of
Aunt Mary asleep. When our dearly beloved aunt sleeps we know we've got
her and we don't have to yell. Shall I deal for three?"

"They are bringing up lunch," said the latest arrival,--"no time to begin a
hand. Better stack guns for the present."

"So say I," said Mitchell, "with me everything goes down when lunch comes
up. It's quite the reverse with Burnett, isn't it?" He laughed brutally at
his own wit.

"To think how enthusiastic Burr was," said Clover, evening the cards
preparatory to slipping them into their holder on the side of the table.
"He's always so enthusiastic and he's always so sick. In his place I
should feel that, if a buoyant nature is a virtue, I didn't get much
reward."

The gong sounded just then, and they all went down to lunch, not at all
saddened by the sight of their comrade's empty chair.

"Now, what are we going to do next?" Clover demanded as they finished the
bouillon.

"Have a meat course, I suppose," said Mitchell.

"I don't mean that; I mean, what are we going to do next with Aunt Mary?"

"She hasn't but two days more," said Jack meditatively. "Of course--even if
she was all chipper--this storm has knocked any picnic endways."

"I am not an ardent upholder of picnics, anyhow," said Mitchell. "They
require a constant sitting down on the ground and getting up from the
ground to which I find our respected aunt very far from being equal.
Burnett mentioned that we should go to the scene on a coach. That also did
not meet my approval. Going anywhere on a coach requires a constant
getting up on the coach and getting down from the coach to which I also
consider the lady unequal. The events of yesterday have left a deep
impression on my mind. I--"

"Go on and carve," interrupted Clover, "or else shove me the platter. I'm
hungry."

"So'm I," said a voice at the door. A weak voice--but one that showed
decision in its tone.

They looked up and saw Burnett, dressed in a pink silk negligee with
flowing sleeves.

"I'm ravenous," he exclaimed explanatorily. "I haven't had anything since
day before yesterday at breakfast. I didn't know I wanted anything till I
smelt it,--then I dressed and came down."

"How sweet you look," said Clover. "The effect of your pajama cuffs and
collar where one greedily expects curves and contour is lovely. Where did
you find that bath-robe?"

"In the bureau drawer," said Burnett. "It appeared to have been hastily
shoved in there some time. I would have thought that it was a woman's
something-or-other, only I found one of Jack's cards in the pocket."

They all began to laugh--Clover and Mitchell more heartily than the owner
of the card.

"Sit down," said Mitchell finally with great cordiality. "You may as well
sit down while they mess you up some weak tea and wet toast."

"Tea and toast?" cried the one in pink. "I'm good for dinner. _Um
Gotteswillen_, what do you suppose I came down for?"

"I wasn't sure," said his friend mildly; "you must admit yourself that
your attire is misleading. My book on social etiquette says nothing as to
when it is correct to wear a pink silk robe over blue and white striped
pajamas. However, there's no denying your presence, and what can't be
denied must be supplied, so what will you have?"

"Everything."

Mitchell dived into the edibles generally and Burnett's void was provided
with fulfillment.

"We were talking about Aunt Mary," Clover said presently. "We were saying
that neither you nor she would be up to a coach or down to a picnic for
one while."

"Oh, I don't know," said Burnett. "I feel up to pretty nearly anything now
that I can eat again. Pass over the horseradish, will you?"

"You're one thing, my sweet pink friend," said Clover gently, "but Aunt
Mary's another. I'm not saying that New York has not had a wonderfully
Brown-Sequardesque effect on her, but I am saying that if she is to be
raised and lowered frequently, I want to travel with a portable crane."

"Hum, hum, hum!" cried Jack. "May I just ask who did most of the heavy
labor of Aunt Mary yesterday?--As the man in the opera sings twenty times
with the whole chorus to back him--''Twas I, 'twas I, 'twas I, 'twas I--'"

"Hand over the toast, Clover," said Burnett. "I don't care who it was--it
was a success anyhow, for she's upstairs and still alive, and I say she'd
enjoy coaching out Riverside way, and--" he choked.

"Slap him anywhere," said Mitchell. "On his mouth would be the proper
place. Such poor manners,--coming down to a company lunch in another man's
bath-robe and then trying to preach and eat dry toast at once."

Burnett gasped and recovered.

"There," said Clover, who had risen to administer the proposed slap, "he's
off our minds and we may again pick up Aunt Mary and put her back on."

"We want to send her home in a blaze of glory," said Jack thoughtfully. "I
want her to feel that the fun ran straight through."

"That's just what I mean," interposed his particular friend; "we want her
to go home on the wings of a giant cracker, so to speak."

"How would it do," said Clover suddenly, "to just make a night of it and
take her along? Stock up, stack up, and ho! for it. You all know the kind
of a time I mean."

"Clover," said Jack gravely, "does it occur to you that Aunt Mary belongs
to me and that I have a personal interest in keeping her alive?"

"Nothing ever occurs to him," said Mitchell. "Occasionally an idea bangs
up against him inadvertently, and as it splinters a sliver or two
penetrate his head--that's all."

"I don't see why the last sliver he felt wasn't to the point," said
Burnett, turning the cream jug upside down as he spoke. "I think she'd
enjoy it of all things. She enjoys everything so. I'll guarantee that when
she gets back home she'll even enjoy the yachting trip. Lots of people are
made like that. In the winter I always enjoy yachting, myself. Pass me the
hot bread."

"Burnett," said Mitchell warmly, "I wish that you would remember that a
collapse invariably follows an inflated market."

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