the eighteen months that followed—for the end came sooner than we had expected—were, i think, the happiest days my father and mother had ever known; or if happy be not altogether the right word, let me say the most beautiful, and most nearly perfect. to them it was as though god in his sweet thoughtfulness had sent death to knock lightly at the door, saying: “not yet. you have still a little longer to be together. in a little while.” in those last days all things false and meaningless they laid aside. nothing was of real importance to them but that they should love each other, comforting each other, learning to understand each other. again we lived poorly; but there was now no pitiful straining to keep up appearances, no haunting terror of what the neighbours might think. the petty cares and worries concerning matters not worth a moment's thought, the mean desires and fears with which we disfigure ourselves, fell from them. there came to them broader thought, a wider charity, a deeper pity. their love grew greater even than their needs, overflowing towards all things. sometimes, recalling these months, it has seemed to me that we make a mistake seeking to keep death, god's go-between, ever from our thoughts. is it not closing the door to a friend who would help us would we let him (for who knows life so well), whispering to us: “in a little while. only a little longer that you have to be together. is it worth taking so much thought for self? is it worth while being unkind?”
from them a graciousness emanated pervading all around. even my aunt fan decided for the second time in her career to give amiability a trial. this intention she announced publicly to my mother and myself one afternoon soon after our return from devonshire.
“i'm a beast of an old woman,” said my aunt, suddenly.
“don't say that, fan,” urged my mother.
“what's the good of saying 'don't say it' when i've just said it,” snapped back my aunt.
“it's your manner,” explained my mother; “people sometimes think you disagreeable.”
“they'd be daft if they didn't,” interrupted my aunt. “of course you don't really mean it,” continued my mother.
“stuff and nonsense,” snorted my aunt; “does she think i'm a fool? i like being disagreeable. i like to see 'em squirming.”
my mother laughed.
“i can be agreeable,” continued my aunt, “if i choose. nobody more so.”
“then why not choose?” suggested my mother. “i tried it once,” said my aunt, “and it fell flat. nothing could have fallen flatter.”
“it may not have attracted much attention,” replied my mother, with a smile, “but one should not be agreeable merely to attract attention.”
“it wasn't only that,” returned my aunt, “it was that it gave no satisfaction to anybody. it didn't suit me. a disagreeable person is at their best when they are disagreeable.”
“i can hardly agree with you there,” answered my mother.
“i could do it again,” communed my aunt to herself. there was a suggestion of vindictiveness in her tones. “it's easy enough. look at the sort of fools that are agreeable.”
“i'm sure you could be if you tried,” urged my mother.
“let 'em have it,” continued my aunt, still to herself; “that's the way to teach 'em sense. let 'em have it.”
and strange though it may seem, my aunt was right and my mother altogether wrong. my father was the first to notice the change.
“nothing the matter with poor old fan, is there?” he asked. it was one evening a day or two after my aunt had carried her threat into effect. “nothing happened, has there?”
“no,” answered my mother, “nothing that i know of.”
“her manner is so strange,” explained my father, “so—so weird.”
my mother smiled. “don't say anything to her. she's trying to be agreeable.”
my father laughed and then looked wistful. “i almost wish she wouldn't,” he remarked; “we were used to it, and she was rather amusing.”
but my aunt, being a woman of will, kept her way; and about the same time that occurred tending to confirm her in her new departure. this was the introduction into our small circle of james wellington gadley. properly speaking, it should have been wellington james, that being the order in which he had been christened in the year 1815. but in course of time, and particularly during his school career, it had been borne in upon him that wellington is a burdensome name for a commonplace mortal to bear, and very wisely he had reversed the arrangement. he was a slightly pompous but simpleminded little old gentleman, very proud of his position as head clerk to mr. stillwood, the solicitor to whom my father was now assistant. stillwood, waterhead and royal dated back to the georges, and was a firm bound up with the history—occasionally shady—of aristocratic england. true, in these later years its glory was dwindling. old mr. stillwood, its sole surviving representative, declined to be troubled with new partners, explaining frankly, in answer to all applications, that the business was a dying one, and that attempting to work it up again would be but putting new wine into worn-out skins. but though its clientele was a yearly diminishing quantity, much business yet remained to it, and that of a good class, its name being still a synonym for solid respectability; and my father had deemed himself fortunate indeed in securing such an appointment. james gadley had entered the firm as office boy in the days of its pride, and had never awakened to the fact that it was not still the most important legal firm within the half mile radius from lombard street. nothing delighted him more than to discuss over and over again the many strange affairs in which stillwood, waterhead and royal had been concerned, all of which he had at his tongue's tip. could he find a hearer, these he would reargue interminably, but with professional reticence, personages becoming mr. y. and lady x.; and places, “the capital of, let us say, a foreign country,” or “a certain town not a thousand miles from where we are now sitting.” the majority of his friends, his methods being somewhat forensic, would seek to discourage him, but my aunt was a never wearied listener, especially if the case were one involving suspicion of mystery and crime. when, during their very first conversation, he exclaimed: “now why—why, after keeping away from his wife for nearly eighteen years, never even letting her know whether he was alive or dead, why this sudden resolve to return to her? that is what i want explained to me!” he paused, as was his wont, for sympathetic comment, my aunt, instead of answering as others, with a yawn: “oh, i'm sure i don't know. felt he wanted to see her, i suppose,” replied with prompt intelligence:
“to murder her—by slow poison.”
“to murder her! but why?”
“in order to marry the other woman.”
“what other woman?”
“the woman he had just met and fallen in love with. before that it was immaterial to him what had become of his wife. this woman had said to him: 'come back to me a free man or never see my face again.'”
“dear me! now that's very curious.”
“nothing of the sort. plain common sense.”
“i mean, it's curious because, as a matter of fact, his wife did die a little later, and he did marry again.”
“told you so,” remarked my aunt.
in this way every case in the stillwood annals was reviewed, and light thrown upon it by my aunt's insight into the hidden springs of human action. fortunate that the actors remained mere mr. x. and lady y., for into the most innocent seeming behaviour my aunt read ever dark criminal intent.
“i think you are a little too severe,” mr. gadley would now and then plead.
“we're all of us miserable sinners,” my aunt would cheerfully affirm; “only we don't all get the same chances.”
