FullReads

It was on one of these occasions that Aunt Sophy, coming unexpectedly into the living room from the kitchen, where she and Adele were foraging for refreshments after the game, beheld Julia Gold and Eugene, arms clasped about each other, cheek to cheek. They started up as she came in and faced her, the woman defiantly, the boy bravely. Julia Gold was thirty (with reservations) at that time, and the boy not quite twenty-one. “How long?” said Aunt Sophy, quietly. She had a mayonnaise spoon and a leaf of lettuce in her hand then, and still she did not look comic.

“I’m crazy about her,” said Eugene. “We’re crazy about each other. We’re going to be married.”

Aunt Sophy listened for the reassuring sound of Adele’s spoons and plates in the kitchen. She came forward. “Now, listen—-” she began.

“I love him,” said Julia Gold, dramatically. “I love him!”

Except that it was very white and, somehow, old-looking, Aunt Sophy’s face was as benign as always. “Now, look here, Julia, my girl. That isn’t love, and you know it. I’m an old maid, but I know what love is when I see it. I’m ashamed of you, Julia. Sensible woman like you, hugging and kissing a boy like that, and old enough to be his mother.”

“Now, look here, Aunt Sophy! If you’re going to talk that way—- Why, she’s wonderful. She’s taught me what it means to really—-“

“Oh, my land!” Aunt Sophy sat down, looking suddenly very ill.

And then, from the kitchen, Adele’s clear young voice: “Heh! What’s the idea! I’m not going to do all the work. Where’s everybody?”

Aunt Sophy started up again. She came up to them and put a hand– a capable, firm, steadying hand–on the arm of each. The woman drew back, but the boy did not.

“Will you promise me not to do anything for a week? Just a week! Will you promise me? Will you?”

“Are you going to tell Father?”

“Not for a week, if you’ll promise not to see each other in that week. No, I don’t want to send you away, Julia, I don’t want to. . . . You’re not a bad girl. It’s just–he’s never had–at home they never gave him a chance. Just a week, Julia. Just a week, Eugene. We can talk things over then.”

Adele’s footsteps coming from the kitchen.

“Quick!”

“I promise,” said Eugene. Julia said nothing.

“Well, really,” said Adele, from the doorway, “you’re a nervy lot, sitting around while I slave in the kitchen. Gene, see if you can open the olives with this fool can opener. I tried.”

There is no knowing what she expected to do in that week, Aunt Sophy; what miracle she meant to perform. She had no plan in her mind. Just hope. She looked strangely shrunken and old, suddenly. But when, three days later, the news came that America was to go into the war she had her answer.

Flora was beside herself. “Eugene won’t have to go. He isn’t old enough, thank God! And by the time he is it will be over. Surely.” She was almost hysterical.

Eugene was in the room. Aunt Sophy looked at him and he looked at Aunt Sophy. In her eyes was a question. In his was the answer. They said nothing. The next day Eugene enlisted. In three days he was gone. Flora took to her bed. Next day Adele, a faint, unwonted color marking her cheeks, walked into her mother’s bedroom and stood at the side of the recumbent figure. Her father, his hands clasped behind him, was pacing up and down, now and then kicking a cushion that had fallen to the floor. He was chewing a dead cigar, one side of his face twisted curiously over the cylinder in his mouth so that he had a sinister and crafty look.

“Charnsworth, won’t you please stop ramping up and down like that! My nerves are killing me. I can’t help it if the war has done something or other to your business. I’m sure no wife could have been more economical than I have. Nothing matters but Eugene, anyway. How could he do such a thing! I’ve given my whole life to my children—-“