SISTER-IN-LAW

Otago Witness, Issue 3889, 25 September 1928, Page 80

SISTER-IN-LAW

By

Margaret Moore.

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witness.) The kitehen shone with order ami cleanliness, and although Frank, the young man of the house, was not expected for at least another hour, the tea table was set ready—only the butter and eatables likely to attract flies were left under the muslin curtain on the dresser in the corner. Mattie Sinclair, Frank's aunt, sat upright on a broad, cupboard box with her back resting against the wall and her hands folded in her lap. The fowls had been fed, an:', she would milk the cow presently. Usually she employed this time in gardening, but a lassitude of mind and body had descended upon her this afternoon, making her content to sit stil' instead of working. Rose Sinclair, Frank’s mother, on the contrary, was very restless. She darted about, fingering things and making unnecessary journeys from the dresser to the table, and all the time singing to herself in an undertone. After a time the droning sound made Mattie want to snap angrily at her, and to save herself she spoke quietly. “’ Frank might find it very quiet here now,” she said. Rose stopped her low singing at once, and the floodgates of speech were opened. She seemingly liked this interruption that gave her the chance to speak, with out apology, of the one person filling her mind, and Mattie soon found that she had only exchanged the sound of singing for that of talking; but at least it was not nerve racking. She listened calmly to her sister-in-law’s plans for the boy’s occupation 'at home. She had heard them all before was responsible for some of them herself. But what was it Rose was now saying’ She would like to take I 1 rank for a trip when his examinations were over to Sydney, perhaps; she had enough money saved. Mattie continued still, but her heart was pounding She is planning for him without me; she wants him all to herself,” she said to herself, dumbfounded. She wanted to say playfully, “ Where do I come in ? but she was too stunned to say a word. “\ou could get someone to stav with you for company, and to do the work while we are away,” Rose said, talking ran idly and with a heightened colour. Was it the proprietary “we” that filled Mattie with fear’ ‘ She suddenly felt jealous and lonely. He may have his own ideas for the future. He will want young people that laugh and make plenty of noise. Wc are old and quiet,” she found herself s-" mg in a hard voice. “He might even be thinking of getting married—his father was only 22 when he married He won’t take a trip with you then,” she went on cruelly. “ Why do you say such nasty things? Is it because you are not going with us?” said Rose, sensing the cause of Mattie s irritation. “ You know, we could not both go away together. And I. don t think he will want to get married,” she continued hotly. “He is not the kind that bothers with girls—besides, there are not any to meet where he is,” she said, answering the fear in her own heart. The sharpness in her voice sobered Mattie, and she remained silent. Her sister-in-law sat down listlessly enough now, and the misery of her look touched Mattie. She was distressed by it, and by their hot words, which were unusual. But all day the nerves of both had been on edge. To-day the son of the one and the nephew of the other, the darling of both, was coming home after a twoj ears absence. He was a surveying cadet, and the one holiday that had been his in that time he had spent in Rotorua, as so many days would have been taken up in travelling to Wellington.. He was coming home now, not for a mere fortnight’s holiday, but for a year at least that he might be near the university and study for his degree. Waiting for him now his mother and aunt suffered the reaction of exhaustion from the excitement they had felt ever since they first heard jf his intention, weeks before. This scheme of his mother’s, no doubt always present in her subconsciousness, was given voice to only in this disturbed hour. Mattie gazing dully before her slowly realised this, and recognised the 'fairness of the idea, but the continuity of their thoughts had been broken, and she could not just yet begin another conversation. “ I will go and milk the cow,” she said after a little time, and rose wearily. The two women got on well together. They were close friends before Richard Sinclair married Rose, and little Frank was Mattie’s child in spirit if he belonged to the others in the flesh. When Dick was killed in the early days of the war Mattie went to live with her sister-in-law, and ran the little farm. She leased out the hills on which her

brother used run his cows, and concentrated on poultry keeping. The returns, with the money from the hills and Rose's pensions, kept them in the comfort they needed, with money to spare. Rose managed the house, and between them they cared for little Frank. His happiness was the goal towards which they both worked. It was because of him that the little farm was up to date and stocked with the best fowls. He was to have a good education, and there was to be money for whatever calling he chose. He repaid them for their trouble. All through his sunny boyhood he did not give them a real caie. He even worked hard at school—a surprising fact whei you consider that any bright boy learns at a very earh age that he can wriggle out of much when he is dealing with doting womenfolk. He won a Trentham soldiers’ scholarship, and finished his school course gloriously. Later, when he spoke of being a surveyor he fulfilled their desire for him in choosing out-of-door work. Secretly his mother was proud that she would be able to spe k of her son, the surveyor, in b’s progressive manhood. She was very ambitious—for him. For herself she did not crave much. In a hustling age the two women were almost uncanny in their simplicity. They had passed the whole of their lives in this little country place, but when they were growing up one wont to the front door at the sound of cart wheels on the road to see who was passing, so seldom was the quiet disturbed, and though only 15 miles from Wellington a trip to town—made either liy trap along the circuitous and often steep road, or a slow train—was not an excursion lightiy undertaken. It was made only if there was something to be bought or urgent business to be transacted. The habits formed then remained. A trip to town was still planned witii the old deliberation, though buses now passed the door daily. They had electric light installed because the whole district was being fitted with it, and it would have been senseless, besides being difficult of explanation, ti refuse the benefit. The wireless was erected for Frank’s benefit, and if he littered a wish for a telephone it would be fitted in, but for themselves the women never thought of the convenience even of having these things. Anyone hearing of them and not meeting them might have imagined them simple, but they were no such thing. The fact that they could make sufficient money to satisfy their own wants and educate and gratify, within reason, whatever fastidious tastes the boy might cultivate proved they were shrewd and businesslike, but their tastes were naturally simple. Had one of them been introspective she might have analysed their lives as dull, and set them both on a way of living that might have been more exciting, but could not have been happier or fuller than the life they led. The' eastern hills, visible through the kitchen window, were reflecting the purplish pink look of evening when they hea - 1 Frank's step. His mother, her face pale enough now, stood at the back door ready to embrace him, but Mattie, still suffering a little sense of isolation, stood well back in the kitchen The boy descended on her quickly though, and in his tight embrace the last of her soreness disappeared, and she remembered only the little lad who had filled her life with so much joy. He was like a wanderer returned after years of exile. He turne<’ his laughing face from one woman to the other. “ Y"ou are looking well, mum,” he said, and, looking quizzically at Lis aunt, “ You have got a bit fatter, Auntie Matt. Gee, doesn’t the little old place look small, and I used think it was so big,” he said, gazing round. Standing in the middle of the room his great height did seem to dwarf it. He snapped on and off the electric light button as .though it were the greatest novelty. “ Fancy having the electric light—no more smelly old lamps to fill, eh, inum ? ” He looked at a new picture hung in his absence. “ You’ve taken down old Thompson’s calendar at last.” “ The frame came to pieces, and it fell down.” They laughed together telling it. They sat down one on each side of him at the table as he commenced eating his tea, and plied him with questions. “ What was the country like ? ” “ Was the work hard?” “Did they always get enough to eat?”—this from his mother anxiously. “ Gee, mum, of course, though sometimes, pooh, it was awful! ” He grimaced and held his nose as at some odorous recollection. “We always make a bee line for the accommodation house when we went to Waikaremoana for supplies or tackle. They give you good feeds there. . There’s a very nice little girl up that way,” he said after a slight pause.

“ Yes? ” It was Mattie who managed to put in the interested question.

But that was all there was to that, lie recounted a story of the trip down; of their dismal wait in the early morning at Wairoa, where they had had a fruitless search for a shop that supplied breakfast. "You are a young animal, Frank, thinking only of your food.” " Gosh, so would you, auntie, if you came from a place where you had to eat the butter even if it was crying to heaven for vengeance. But it’s a great life, he added hastily, as he saw his mother about to protest, “and you get so hungry you could eat anything—almost,” he said, with a roguish twinkle in his eye, and a dravl on .the last word. lie was a nice boy. His mother, who had been eyeing him hungrily, relaxed and folded her arms on the table. / \\ ell, really, you look as though you got plenty to* cat. and it has not afleeted your present appetite. Thev said that in England after the war the people could not eat hearty i als because their stomachs had contracted through eating so much poor stuff. Whv, look, auntie! he has eaten all thr cold ham, and we thought there z woUid bo enough for to-morrow’s tea.” Rose held up the large, empty plate in mock distress. “ Ah, you’ve got a man to feed now, old girl,” Frank gave her a gentle push with his strong arm. “ And eggs—l have dreamt eggs until I < oufif sen yellow. You know, the nice soft yellow : vou see frizzling in the pan, or trickling all over the egg cup when vou cut the top down too far? Now, don’t say, Martha. Y’ou can't have three eggs for breakfast every morning, because its the oil season for laying, or Thompson’s want 20 dozen this week, and I have only got 19 dozen and 9.” He shook his finger at his aunt, and changed his voice to an absurd mimicry of what her s, upraised and stern, might be. They laughed at him. All three laughed—at almost nothing—at everything—for happiness. He ate a juicy peach in two or three bites, and pushed back his plate. Then “ You know the little girl I told you about, mum? Do you think she could come down here after Christmas? She is to have a holiday then—and she has never seen a town, only Wairoa, and that s a one-horse show. It would be fun showing her Lambton quay and the wharves.” The laughter dropped like a sudden, high wind. “ Of course, Frank, anyone you want is welcome to come here,” his mother said quietly. “ Would you write her a little note, then. It would be better coming from you. She is a decent little sport,” he went on eagerly, without waiting for his mother’s nodding assent. His eye brightened, and he became incoherently confidential, nor did he notice the changed atmosphere of the kitchen. His mother was sitting upright again, and Mattie looked pityingly at her as she tried to give Frank her attention. “ Have another peach, Frank,” she said. Anything to stop the stream of talk, and change that strained look on Rose’s face. He ate two, and then turned again to his mother. “ When I am through with my exams. I think I’ll try and get into a town office. The class of work there, is quite different—much finer, you know.” “ Yes, of course,” said Rose, “ more civilised too.” “ Land-surveying is all right in its way, but it has its drawbacks—you mav have to go miles from nowhere for months at a time. That’s no good to a chap, say, if he wanted to get married. “ Don’t talk of getting married, baby,” Mattie wanted to say, lightly, but the heavy lassitude had descended upon her again. Rose made a brave attempt. “ Surely you are not talking of getting married yet, Frank, you are only a little boy.”

“ I am 21, and I have saved quite a lot_of money, but of course I am not thinking of getting married.” He stood up and leant over his mother, and caressed hex - chin with his fingers. “ All the same, you’ll write that little note to sweet gentle Annie, won’t you? ” Before she could reply he had reached out and snapped on the electric light. “ You two old things still like dreaming in the dark, 1 see.”