The woman who opened the door at his knock stood before him a living
link with that dreamlike past, unchanged except in minor details, a
little more spare perhaps and grayer for the years he had been gone, but
dressed in the same dull black, with the same spotless apron, the same
bit of a white lace cap over her thin hair, the same pince-nez astride a
high bony nose.
Aunt Lavina did not know him in his uniform. He made himself known. The
old lady gazed at him searchingly. Her lips worked. She threw her arms
about his neck, laughing and sobbing in the same breath.
"Surely, it's myself," Thompson patted her shoulder. "I'm off to the
front in a few days and I thought I'd better look you up. How's Aunt
Hattie?"
Aunt Lavina disengaged herself from his arms, her glasses askew, her
faded old eyes wet, yet smiling as Thompson could not recall ever seeing
her smile.
"What a spectacle for the neighbors," she said breathlessly. "Me, at my
time of life, hugging and kissing a soldier on the front step. Do come
in, Wesley. Harriet will be so pleased. My dear boy, you don't know how
we have worried about you. How well you look."
She drew him into the parlor. A minute later Aunt Harriet, with less
fervor than her sister perhaps, made it clear that she was unequivocally
glad to see him, that any past rancor for his departure from grace was
dead and buried.
They were beyond the sweeping current of everyday life, living their
days in a back eddy, so to speak. But they were aware of events, of the
common enemy, of the straining effort of war, and they were proud of
their nephew in the King's uniform. They twittered over him like fond
birds. He must stay his leave out with them.
At this pronunciamento of Aunt Lavina's a swift glance passed between
the two old women. Thompson caught it, measured the doubt and uneasiness
of the mutual look, and was puzzled thereby.
But he did not fathom its source for a day or two, and only then by a
process of deduction. They treated him handsomely, they demonstrated an
affection which moved him deeply because he had never suspected its
existence. (They had always been so precise, almost harsh with him as a
youngster.) But their living was intolerably meager. Disguise it with
every artifice, a paucity of resource--or plain niggardliness--betrayed
itself at every meal. Thompson discarded the theory of niggardliness.
And proceeding thence on the first conclusion stood his two aunts in a
corner--figuratively, of course--and wrung from them a statement of
their financial status.
They were proud and reluctant. But Thompson had not moved among and
dealt with men of the world to be baffled by two old women, so presently
he was in possession of certain facts.