out on the park.

“Have Amy bring our breakfast in here,” said Gloria, and then Ruth saw that George was standing in the doorway of the room they had just entered, though she had not heard her aunt call him. Later she observed the same thing many times, that George always appeared as if by magic and seemingly without being called whenever her aunt wanted him.

The room was full of comfortable, low, cushioned chairs, and seated on two of them with a table between, on which George had laid a white cloth, 18Ruth and her aunt Gloria gave each other that full scrutiny which surprise and embarrassment had previously denied them.

18

Ruth could see now that her aunt was not really so young as she had at first appeared. There were fine lines around her large eyes and art, not nature had painted her lashes black. Her fine brows had been “formed” and there were little, pale freckles gleaming on her white nose and across her long, cleanly moulded hands. Ruth saw all these things and they only strengthened her belief that Aunt Gloria was the most beautiful and charming woman in the world. She hoped very much that her aunt would like her, but she was not sanguine about it. She tried to tell herself that this woman was only her father’s sister, but it was hard to believe.

“Now, tell me all about it,” said Gloria.

“There’s very little to tell. Mother died on the tenth—your letter arrived on the same day. Of course it wasn’t unexpected. She had been an invalid for almost ten years, so it wasn’t a shock. I was the only relative at the funeral, but Mother had ever so many friends—”

She paused, wondering if she ought to tell Aunt Gloria about the flowers, the Eastern Star wreath, and—

“I don’t mean that,” Gloria interrupted her thoughts. “I mean how your mother happened to suggest that you come here. You know Jack’s wife didn’t approve of me—refused to meet me even, 19and I can’t understand. Was there some sort of deathbed forgiveness, or what?”

19

There was the faintest trace of mockery in her voice, but somehow Ruth could not be angry, though she knew that this woman, her father’s sister, was laughing at her dead mother and her dead mother’s conventions and moralities. She decided that she would be as frank as her aunt.

“No, Aunt Gloria, I don’t 

 Prev. P 11/169 next