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MY UNCLE AND AUNT.
We were a curious household. I remembered neither father nor mother;
and the woman I had been taught to call auntie was no such near
relation. My uncle was my father's brother, and my aunt was his cousin,
by the mother's side. She was a tall, gaunt woman, with a sharp nose
and eager eyes, yet sparing of speech. Indeed, there was very little
speech to be heard in the house. My aunt, however, looked as if she
could have spoken. I think it was the spirit of the place that kept her
silent, for there were those eager eyes. She might have been expected
also to show a bad temper, but I never saw a sign of such. To me she
was always kind; chiefly, I allow, in a negative way, leaving me to do
very much as I pleased. I doubt if she felt any great tenderness for
me, although I had been dependent upon her care from infancy. In
after-years I came to the conclusion that she was in love with my
uncle; and perhaps the sense that he was indifferent to her save after
a brotherly fashion, combined with the fear of betraying herself and
the consciousness of her unattractive appearance, to produce the
contradiction between her looks and her behaviour.
Every morning, after our early breakfast, my uncle walked away to the
farm, where he remained until dinner-time. Often, when busy at my own
invented games in the grass, I have caught sight of my aunt, standing
motionless with her hand over her eyes, watching for the first glimpse
of my uncle ascending from the hollow where the farm-buildings lay; and
occasionally, when something had led her thither as well, I would watch
them returning together over the grass, when she would keep glancing up
in his face at almost regular intervals, although it was evident they
were not talking, but he never turned his face or lifted his eyes from
the ground a few yards in front of him.
He was a tall man of nearly fifty, with grey hair, and quiet meditative
blue eyes. He always looked as if he were thinking. He had been
intended for the Church, but the means for the prosecution of his
studies failing, he had turned his knowledge of rustic affairs to
account, and taken a subordinate position on a nobleman's estate, where
he rose to be bailiff. When my father was seized with his last illness,
he returned to take the management of the farm. It had been in the
family for many generations. Indeed that portion of it upon which the
house stood, was our own property. When my mother followed my father,
my uncle asked his cousin to keep house for him. Perhaps she had
expected a further request, but more had not come of it.
When he came in, my uncle always went straight to his room; and having
washed his hands and face, took a book and sat down in the window. If I
were sent to tell him that the meal was ready, I was sure to find him
reading. He would look up, smile, and look down at his book again; nor,
until I had formally delivered my message, would he take further notice
of me. Then he would rise, lay his book carefully aside, take my hand,
and lead me down-stairs.
To my childish eyes there was something very grand about my uncle. His
face was large-featured and handsome; he was tall, and stooped
meditatively. I think my respect for him was founded a good deal upon
the reverential way in which my aunt regarded him. And there was great
wisdom, I came to know, behind that countenance, a golden speech behind
that silence.
My reader must not imagine that the prevailing silence of the house
oppressed me. I had been brought up in it, and never felt it. My own
thoughts, if thoughts those conditions of mind could be called, which
were chiefly passive results of external influences--whatever they
were--thoughts or feelings, sensations, or dim, slow movements of
mind--they filled the great pauses of speech; and besides, I could read
the faces of both my uncle and aunt like the pages of a well-known
book. Every shade of alteration in them I was familiar with, for their
changes were not many.
Although my uncle's habit was silence, however, he would now and then
take a fit of talking to me. I remember many such talks; the better,
perhaps, that they were divided by long intervals. I had perfect
confidence in his wisdom, and submission to his will. I did not much
mind my aunt. Perhaps her deference to my uncle made me feel as if she
and I were more on a level. She must have been really kind, for she
never resented any petulance or carelessness. Possibly she sacrificed
her own feeling to the love my uncle bore me; but I think it was rather
that, because he cared for me, she cared for me too.
Twice during every meal she would rise from the table with some dish in
her hand, open the door behind the chimney, and ascend the winding
stair.
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