Part 44 (2/2)

”Good heavens, Claire, you aren't taking us to see Aunt Hatty, are you?”

wailed Mrs. Gilson.

”Oh yes, indeed. I knew the boys would like to meet her.”

”No, really, I don't think----”

”Eva, my soul, Jeff and you planned our tea party today, and a.s.sured me I'd be so interested in Milt's bachelor apartment---- By the way, I'd been up there already, so it wasn't entirely a surprise. It's my turn to lead.” She confided to Milt, ”Dear old Aunt Hatty is related to all of us. She's Gene's aunt, and my fourth cousin, and I think she's distantly related to Jeff. She came West early, and had a hard time, but she's real Brooklyn Heights--and she belongs to Gramercy Park and North Was.h.i.+ngton Square and Rittenhouse Square and Back Bay, too, though she has got out of touch a little. So I wanted you to meet her.”

Milt wondered what unperceived bag of cement had hardened the faces of Saxton and the Gilsons.

Silent save for polite observations of Claire upon tight skirts and lumbering, the merry company reached the foot of a lurching flight of steps that scrambled up a clay bank to a cottage like a hen that has set too long. Milt noticed that Mrs. Gilson made efforts to remain in the limousine when it stopped, and he caught Gilson's mutter to his wife, ”No, it's Claire's turn. Be a sport, Eva.”

Claire led them up the badly listed steps to an unpainted porch on which sat a little old lady, very neat, very respectable, very interested, and reflectively holding in one ivory hand a dainty handkerchief and a black clay pipe.

”h.e.l.lo, Claire, my dear. You've broken the relatives' record--you've called twice in less than a year,” said the little old lady.

”How do you do, Aunt Harriet,” remarked Mrs. Gilson, with great lack of warmth.

”h.e.l.lo, Eva. Sit down on the edge of the porch. Those chickens have made it awful dirty, though, haven't they? Bring out some chairs. There's two chairs that don't go down under you--often.” Aunt Harriet was very cheerful.

The group lugubriously settled in a circle upon an a.s.semblage of wind-broken red velvet chairs and wooden stools. They resembled the aftermath of a funeral on a damp day.

Claire was the cheerful undertaker, Mrs. Gilson the grief-stricken widow.

Claire waved at Milt and conversed with Aunt Hatty in a high brisk voice: ”This is the nice boy I met on the road that I think I told you about, Cousin Hatty.”

The little old lady screwed up the delicate skin about her eyes, examined Milt, and cackled, ”Boy, there's something wrong here. You don't belong with my family. Why, you look like an American. You haven't got an imitation monocle, and I bet you can't talk with a New York-London accent. Why, Claire, I'm ashamed of you for bringing a human being into the Boltwood-Gilson-Saxton tomb and expecting----”

Then was the smile of Mrs. Gilson lost forever. It was simultaneously torpedoed, mined, scuttled, and bombed. It went to the bottom without a ripple, while Mrs. Gilson snapped, ”Aunt Hatty, please don't be vulgar.”

”Me?” croaked the little old lady. She puffed at her pipe, and dropped her elbows on her knees. ”My, ain't it hard to please some folks.”

”Cousin Hatty, I want Milt to know about our families. I love the dear old stories,” Claire begged prettily.

Mrs. Gilson snarled. ”Claire, really----”

”Oh, do shut up, Eva, and don't be so bossy!” yelped the dear little old lady, in sudden and dismaying rage. ”I'll talk if I want to. Have they been bullying you, Claire? Or your boy? I tell you, boy, these families are fierce. I was brought up in Brooklyn--went through all the schools--used to be able to misplay the piano and misp.r.o.nounce French with the best of 'em. Then Gene's pa and I came West together--he had an idea he'd get rich robbing the Injuns of their land. And we went broke.

I took in was.h.i.+ng. I learned a lot. I learned a Gilson was just the same common stuff as a red-s.h.i.+rt miner, when he was up against it. But Gene's pa succeeded--there was something about practically stealing a fur schooner--but I never was one to tattle on my kin. Anyway, by the time Gene come along, his pa was rich, and that means aristocratic.

”This aristocracy west of Pittsburgh is just twice as bad as the sn.o.bbery in Boston or New York, because back there, the families have had their wealth long enough--some of 'em got it by stealing real estate in 1820, and some by selling Jamaica rum and n.i.g.g.e.rs way back before the Revolutionary War--they've been respectable so long that they know mighty well and good that n.o.body except a Britisher is going to question their blue blood--and oh my, what good blueing third-generation money does make. But out here in G.o.d's Country, the marquises of milling and the barons of beef are still uneasy. Even their pretty women, after going to the best hair-dressers and patronizing the best charities, sometimes get scared lest somebody think they haven't either brains or breeding.

”So they're nasty to all low pussons like you and me, to make sure we understand how important they are. But lands, I know 'em, boy. I'm kept pensioned up here, out of the way, but I read the social notes in the papers and I chuckle---- When there's a big reception and I read about Mrs. Vogeland's pearls, and her beautiful daughter-in-law, I remember how she used to run a boarding-house for miners----

”Well, I guess it's just as shoddy in the East if you go far enough back. Claire, you're a nice comforting body, and I hate to say it, but the truth is, your great-grandfather was an hostler, and made his first money betting on horses. Now, my, I oughtn't to tell that. Do you mind, dearie?”

”Not a bit. Isn't it delightful that this is such a democratic country, with no castes,” said Claire.

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