More Cloudy Jewel.
GLH knows how to do filler. There's a lot here with the snotty neighbor lady who happens to be friends with Ellen, Julia's evil sister. Never mind it, it's not important. We'll cut to the chase and have the two children that the Angel of the House is supposed to be... I don't know, hovering for. A car pulls up in front of Julia's house.
But out from the front seat and the back as if ejected from a catapult shot two figures, and flew together up the front walk, a tall boy and a little girl, just as the sun dropped low and swung a deep red light into the sky, flooding the front yard with glory, and staining the heavens far up into the blue.
They get a bright heavenly spotlit entrance. But! Guess the ages!
Julia Cloud got herself to her front door in a tremor of delight, and instantly four strong young arms encircled her, and nearly smothered the life out of her.
“O you dear Cloudy Jewel! You look just the same. I knew you would. Only your hair is white and pretty,” Leslie gurgled.
“Sure, she is just the same! What did I tell you?” cried Allison, lifting them both and carrying them inside.
Young enough to have no restraint. So young the girl sounds about four, down to the gurgling. So old that the boy is picking both of them up at once. How? Over his shoulders? Around their waists? Smashed together? How is he getting them both through the door? The girl is a fashion-plate in a silk dress with suede boots and gloves and a little cap with beads, and the boy is... not wearing anything Grace cares to describe in detail, just tall and handsome. They explain their guardian, Mr. Luddington, drove them down and a chauffeur took them the rest of the way. Leslie continues to talk, and her age continues to be indeterminate at best.
"I’ve just dreamed of those cookies all these years. I’m so anxious to see if they’ll taste as they did when I was a child. May I come with you and see if I remember where the cooky-jar is? Oh, joy, Allison! Just look! A whole crock and a platter full! Isn’t this peachy?"
The boy comes back and once more bearhugs his aunt until she has to plead to be let go. It's a scene of happiness and good food that GLH spends a little time describing, and recieves its counterpart with Ellen's household:
“Better wait one more night,” said Herbert stolidly. “Let her get her fill of staying alone nights. It’ll do her good. We don’t want her to be high and mighty when she gets here. I’m boss here, and she’s got to understand that. She’s so mighty independent, you know, it’s important she should find that out right at the start. I’m not going to have her get bossy with these children, either. They aren’t her children.”
Four pairs of keen little Robinson eyes took in this saying with quick intelligence, and four stolid sets of shoulders straightened up importantly with four uplifted saucy chins. They would store these remarks away for future reference when the aunt in question arrived on the scene. They would come in well, they knew, for they had had experience with her in times past.
And we know that her living with this family will not work. So we cut to the new life Grace is setting up as her nephew explains his scheme:
We haven’t decided which college it’s to be yet, but it’s to be co-ed, we know that much, because we’re tired of being separated. When one hasn’t but two in the family and has been apart for five years, one appreciates a home, I tell you that. And so we’ve decided we want a home. We’re not just going to college to live there in the usual way; we’re going to take a house, live like real folks, and go to school every day. We want a fireplace and a cooky-jar of our own; a place to bring our friends and have good times. But most of all we want a mother, and we’ve come all this way to coax you to come and live with us, play house, you know, as you used to do down on the mossy rocks with broken bits of china for dishes and acorns for cups and saucers.
Those damned cookies seem to be mind-control cookies. The children's ages are in flux once more. Their thoughts of living with this woman are based not off memories of her as an aunt, but memories of her playing house.
We told him we didn’t want any housekeeper at all, we wanted a mother. He said you couldn’t pick mothers off trees, but we told him we knew where there was one if we could only get her. So he let us come and ask; and, if you say you’ll do it, he’s coming down to see you and fix it up about the money part. He said you’d have to have a regular salary or he wouldn’t consider it, because there were things he’d have to insist upon that he had promised mother;
Well, you may not be able to pick mothers off trees, but you sure can swap 'em out. The two had a coded agreement to pick her as mother or not and both picked her the moment they laid eyes on her. Complete with childlike descriptions. And either things have changed very much since Grace was a girl, or they aren't that serious about college.
If there isn’t the right kind of a house in town, we’ll choose some other college. There are plenty of colleges, but you can have only one home
So basically, they're playing house and playing school at the same time.
The children continue to act very, very strange. It turns midnight, and Julia has to send them to bed, but first they demand she tell them a story. Then, in the morning:
She awoke in the broad morning sunlight to find both children done up in bath-robes and slippers, sitting one each side of her on the bed, laughing at her and tickling her chin with a feather from the seam of the pillow.
These are very odd characters. GLH has had experience meeting all kinds of people, but you'd never know it. It's like GLH has never seen a child older than four or a person younger than twenty-five, and after being told of the strange doings of "young people" just threw them all in a pan, put it in the oven, and pulled out these two. It is not made any better when:
“There isn’t much time, and Guardy Lud will be down upon us by to-morrow or the next day at least.”
“Guardy Lud!” exclaimed Julia Cloud bewildered. “Who is that?”
“That’s our pet name for Mr. Luddington,” explained Leslie, wrinkling up her nose in a grin of merriment. “Isn’t it cute? Wait till you see him, and you’ll see how it fits. He’s round and bald with a shiny red nose, and spectacles;
"Guardy" goes with "Guardian" and "Lud" is short for "Luddington," but he sounds like a Dr. Suess spinoff and they are in college. It's not clear when their parents died, but it seems fairly recent. Things continue to go on with bear-hugs, gurgling, assurances, and those damned cookies popping up yet again. We are on chapter four now. Julia Cloud has done nothing, besides worry about what Ellen will say. The kids are laying the plans, coaxing her to agree to this or that, and demanding she do various small domestic things and go for drives with them.
Ellen herself, having done little for the plot so far, swings by and breaks into the house by way of the neighbor lady's second-floor-climbing son. She and the neighbor search the house with the intention of telling Julia that she can't spend all her money and then come live on Herbert. Why is not clear, since they weren't going to pay her anyway but were going to feed her and give her a place to sleep. Nobody is there since they are all on a drive. She leaves again, and the neighbor is forced to go over yet again and let herself into the house, this time by way of the front door. She finds Julia being carried to the couch and put there by Allison while the two describe how they'll do all the work. The neighbor crashes in.
“Your sister’s been here all morning waiting for you!” she said accusingly. She gave a significant glance at the unwashed breakfast dishes, only part of which had been removed to the kitchen. “She couldn’t imagine where you’d gone at that hour an’ left your beds and your dishes.”
A wave of indignation swept over Julia Cloud’s sweet face.
“So you have been in my house during my absence!” she said quietly. “That seems strange since Ellen has no key!”
There was nothing in her voice to indicate rebuke, but Mrs. Perkins got very red.
“I s’pose your own sister has a right to get into the house where she was born,” she snapped.
“Oh, of course,” said Julia Cloud pleasantly. “And Ellen used to be a good climber before she got so fat. I suppose she climbed in the second-story window, although I hadn’t realized she could. However, it doesn’t matter. I suppose you have had to leave your dishes and beds once in a while when you were called away on business. You have a cup there; did you want to borrow something?”
And that was how Angels of the House do battle, if you missed it. But since Leslie calls the neighbor "an old cat" on the way out and hopes she hears it, it leads to moralizing.
“Why, children! That didn’t really hurt me any; it just stirred up my temper a little; but I’m ashamed that I let it, and I don’t want you to talk like that. It isn’t a bit right. It distresses me to have you think it’s right to answer back that way and take vengeance on people.”
So they table the subject for later and the two go to do dishes. She worries that she can't teach these children Christian ways.
A little pucker grew between her brows, and a tired, troubled tear stole softly between her lashes. When the children, tiptoeing about and whispering, came to peek in at the door and see whether she was asleep, they discovered her expression at once, and, drawing near, sighted the tear. Then they went down upon their knees beside her couch, and noisily demanded the cause thereof.
Little by little they drew her fears from her.
This is the first conflict. The children don't want to respect her neighbor, and she wants them to be charitable and well-mannered. She is exhausted and crying. They are childish and concerned.
“Why, Cloudy, dear! We’ll do what you want. We’ll let all the old cats in the community walk over you if that will make you happy,” declared Leslie, patting her face.
“No, we won’t!” put in Allison; “we’ll keep ’em away from her, but we won’t let ’em know how we despise ’em. Won’t that do, Cloudy?
Leslie is about six, treating Julia as if she were four. Allison is ascendant. This does not bode well for future conflicts.
We’re anything but angels, I admit, but we’re going to try to do what you want us to if it busts the eye-teeth out of us, because we want you. And you always have been such a good scout. As for the church dope and all that, why, it’s like that guy in the Bible you used to tell us about when we were children--or was she a lady? It’s a case of ‘Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God,’ or words to that effect. If we don’t agree on our own account, we’ll do it because you want it.
This is a Cinderella story, with fairy godchildren. Julia is being rewarded because of a life of virtue, this thin cover propped up by claims of happy childhood memories. Into this crashes the story of Ruth, in which two desperate people pledge to stick together. Julia is granted total authority not because the children recognise it's best for them, or they need her to lead them, but because it ruins the game when she is sad. We are on muddled emotional ground. And our Angel of the House is definitely not an angel anywhere else, just a virtuous woman with no power. They're not agreeing because they think it's good for them, or because they think she's a good leader. They're agreeing because it makes them sad when she's sad. They get her to agree to come on another car ride, this time ending at Ellen's after Ellen told her to stay at home and wait for her visit.
It was the first time in her long life of self-sacrifice that Julia Cloud had been able to rise above her anxiety about her sister’s tantrums and go calmly on her way. It is scarcely likely that she would have managed it now if it hadn’t been that she felt that Allison and Leslie ought not to be sacrificed.
She never did anything just for herself. It was not in her.
By refusing to take care of herself, she's let them get into a very unhealthy situation, ending with her sister breaking into the house while she's gone and wandering around criticizing her housekeeping to the neighbor lady. It's not very angelic.
“Where were you this morning, Jule? It certainly seems queer for you to be gadding around having a good time so soon after poor mother’s death. And the dishes not washed, either! Upon my word, you have lost your head! You weren’t brought up that way. I stood up-stairs and looked around on those unmade beds, and thought what poor mother would have said if she could see them. Such goings-on! I certainly was ashamed to have Mrs. Perkins see it.”
Two rosy spots bloomed out on Julia Cloud’s cheeks, and a tremble came in her lips, though one could see she was making a great effort to control herself; and the two long breaths that Leslie and Allison drew simultaneously were heavily threatening, much like the distant rumble of thunder.
“I’m sure I don’t see what occasion Mrs. Perkins had to see it,” she answered steadily.
“Well, she was there!” said her sister dryly...
“Yes, so she told me,” said Julia Cloud significantly. “But that was not what I came over to talk about, Ellen; I wanted to let you know that I’ve rented the house, and the tenant wants possession next week. I thought you might like to pick out some of mother’s things to bring over here before I pack up."
They haven't really sorted this out at all. In fact, Julia is avoiding this conflict by running away.
“You’ve rented the house!” screamed Ellen as soon as she got breath from her astonishment to interrupt. “You’ve rented the house without consulting me? Who to, I’d like to know? I had a tenant already for that house, I told you... Well, you certainly are blossoming out and getting independent! I should think mere decency would have made you consult us before you did anything. What do you know about business? Herbert will be mad as anything when I tell him; and like as not you’ll get into no end of trouble with a strange tenant, and we’ll have to help you out. Herbert always says women make all the trouble they can for him before they call on him for assistance.”
The tenant proves to be the endlessly respectable school superintendent. There are two prongs of issues here. The first is that Ellen and her husband are trying to run Julia's household business. More importantly, Ellen wanted Julia to move out of the house that Ellen feels free to break into so that Ellen's tenant can move in. Since they will not pay Julia for her work, but she's not family, either, it seems very awkward for them to place a rent-paying person into Julia's home. Probably, it's fiscally predatory. GLH has created a real problem here, but this is the only time it's aired and it will not be further pursued.
The children break out their gifts for Ellen's children. Ellen snubs Julia, and for a moment it looks like Leslie is about to have an outburst, but Allison takes action to speak before she can.
“That’s the reason she’s such a good scout, Aunt Ellen. That’s why we want her to come and take care of us. Because she knows how to stay young.”
He suddenly seemed to have grown very tall and quite mature as he spoke, and there was something about his manly bearing that held Ellen Robinson’s tongue in check as he looked at his watch with a polite “Excuse me,"
This explains the children's perfection and their wildly fluctuating ages. The children are alien shapeshifters.
Ellen is furious that Julia has made all these plans without consulting her, and Herbert is very ferocious about the loss of a possible unpaid servant and promises it won't be easy for Julia to come back when the whole venture falls through. Since Julia described what she would do next as "play Mother," it's easy to see why they see it as a castle in the air. The problem with all of this is that Julia is running away from it, so really it doesn't matter if they're all right with it or in high dudgeon.
All of this has taken five chapters, and they haven't left yet. As I said, Grace knows how to do filler.