Part 18 (1/2)

If he could only be sure that his outer oak was safely latched! He rose from his chair with wild ideas of rus.h.i.+ng to see, of retreating to his bedroom, and hiding under the bed until they had gone.

Too late! the dresses were rustling now in his very pa.s.sage; there was a pause evidently before his inner door, a few faint and smothered laughs, some little feminine coughs, then--two taps.

Flus.h.i.+ngton stood still for a moment, feeling like a caged animal; he had thoughts, even then, of concealment--was there time to get under the sofa? No, it would be too dreadful if the visitors, whoever they were, were to discover him in so unusual a situation.

So he ran back to his chair and sat down before crying 'Come in' in a faint voice. He _did_ wish he had been reading anything but the work of M. Zola, which was propped up in front of him, but there was no time to put it away.

Your mild man often has a taste for seeing the less reputable side of life in a safe and second-hand way, and Flus.h.i.+ngton would toil manfully through the most realistic descriptions without turning a hair; now and then he looked out a word in the dictionary, and when it was not to be found there--and it generally wasn't--he had a sense almost of injury.

But there was a strong fascination for him in experiencing the sensation of a kind of intellectual orgie, for he knew enough of the language to be aware that the incidents frequently bordered on the improper, even while it was not exactly clear in what the impropriety consisted.

As he said 'Come in,' the door opened, and his heart seemed to stop, and all the blood in it rushed violently up to his head, as a large lady came sweeping in, her face rippling with a broad smile of affection.

She horrified Flus.h.i.+ngton, who knew n.o.body with the smallest claim to smile at him so expansively as that, and he drank lemonade to conceal his confusion.

'You don't know me, my dear Frank,' she said easily; 'why of course you don't; how should you? Well, I'm (for goodness sake, my dear boy, don't look so dreadfully frightened, I don't want to eat you!) I'm your aunt--your Aunt Amelia, you know me now--from Australia, you know!'

This was a severe shock to Flus.h.i.+ngton, who had not even known he possessed such a relative anywhere; all he could say just then was, 'Oh, _are_ you?' which he felt at the time was not quite the welcome to give an aunt who had come all the way from the Antipodes.

'Yes, that I am!' she said cheerily, 'but that's not all. I've another surprise for you--the dear girls would insist upon coming up too, to see their grand college cousin; they're just outside. I'll call them in, shall I?'

And in another second Flus.h.i.+ngton's small room was overrun by a horde of female relatives, while he could only look on and gasp.

They were pretty girls too, most of them, but that only frightened him more; he did not mind plain women half so much; some of them looked bright and clever as well, and a combination of beauty and intellect always reduced him to a condition of hopeless imbecility.

He had never forgotten one occasion on which he had been captured and introduced to a charming young lady from Newnham, and all he could do was to back feebly into a corner, murmuring 'Thank you' repeatedly.

He showed himself to scarcely more advantage now, as his aunt proceeded to single out one girl after another. 'We needn't have any formal nonsense between cousins,' she said; 'you know all their names already, I dare say. This is Milly, and that's Jane; and here's Flora, and Kitty, and Margaret, and this is my little Thomasina, keeping close to mamma, as usual.'

Poor Flus.h.i.+ngton ducked blindly in the various directions at the mention of each name, and then collectively to all; he had not sufficient presence of mind to offer them chairs, or cake, or anything, and besides, there was not nearly enough for that mult.i.tude.

Meanwhile his aunt had spread herself comfortably out in his only arm-chair, and was untying her bonnet-strings, while she beamed at him until he was ready to expire with embarra.s.sment. 'I _do_ think, Frankie dear,' she observed at last, 'that when an old auntie all the way from Australia takes the trouble to come and see you like this, the least--the very _least_ you could do would be to give her one little kiss.'

She seemed so hurt by the omission, that Flus.h.i.+ngton dared not refuse; he staggered up and kissed her somewhere upon her face--after which he did not know which way to look, so terribly afraid was he that the same ceremony might have to be gone through with all the cousins, and he could _not_ have survived that.

Happily for him, however, they did not appear to expect it, and he balanced a chair on its hind legs and, resting one knee upon it, waited for them to begin a conversation, for he could not think of a single apposite remark himself.

His aunt came to his rescue. 'You don't ask after your Uncle Samuel--have you forgotten all the beetles and things he used to send you?' she said reprovingly.

'No,' said Flus.h.i.+ngton, to whom Uncle Samuel was another revelation.

'How is the beetle--I mean, how is Uncle Samuel? Quite well, I hope?'

'Only tolerably so, Frank, thank you; as well as could be expected after his loss.'

'I didn't hear of that,' said Flus.h.i.+ngton, catching at this conversational rope in despair. 'Was it--did he lose much?'

'I was not referring to a money loss,' she said, and her glance was stony for the moment; 'I was (as I think you might have guessed) referring to the death of your cousin John.'

And Flus.h.i.+ngton, who had begun to feel his first agonies abating, had a terrible relapse at this unhappy mistake; he stammered something about it being very sad indeed, and then, wondering why no one had ever kept him better posted as to his relations, he resolved that he would not betray his ignorance by any further inquiries.

But his aunt was evidently wounded afresh. 'I ought to have known,' she said, and shook her head pathetically; 'they soon forget us when we leave the old country--and yet I did think, too, my own sister's son would remember his cousin's death! Well, well, my loves, we must teach him to know us better now we have the opportunity. Frankie dear, the girls and I expect you to take us about everywhere and show us all the sights; or what's the use of having a nephew at Cambridge University, you know.'