Chapter 13
“Put my bag in the front bedroom, Calpurnia,” was the first thing Aunt Alexandra
said. “Jean Louise, stop scratching your head,” was the second thing she said.
Calpurnia picked up Aunty’s heavy suitcase and opened the door. “I’ll take it,”
said Jem, and took it. I heard the suitcase hit the bedroom floor with a thump. The
sound had a dull permanence about it. “Have you come for a visit, Aunty?” I
asked. Aunt Alexandra’s visits from the Landing were rare, and she traveled in
state. She owned a bright green square Buick and a black chauffeur, both kept in
an unhealthy state of tidiness, but today they were nowhere to be seen.
“Didn’t your father tell you?” she asked.
Jem and I shook our heads.
“Probably he forgot. He’s not in yet, is he?”
“Nome, he doesn’t usually get back till late afternoon,” said Jem.
“Well, your father and I decided it was time I came to stay with you for a while.”
“For a while” in Maycomb meant anything from three days to thirty years. Jem
and I exchanged glances.
“Jem’s growing up now and you are too,” she said to me. “We decided that it
would be best for you to have some feminine influence. It won’t be many years,
Jean Louise, before you become interested in clothes and boys—”
I could have made several answers to this: Cal’s a girl, it would be many years
before I would be interested in boys, I would never be interested in clothes… but
I kept quiet.
“What about Uncle Jimmy?” asked Jem. “Is he comin‘, too?”
“Oh no, he’s staying at the Landing. He’ll keep the place going.”
The moment I said, “Won’t you miss him?” I realized that this was not a tactful
question. Uncle Jimmy present or Uncle Jimmy absent made not much difference,
he never said anything. Aunt Alexandra ignored my question.
I could think of nothing else to say to her. In fact I could never think of anything
to say to her, and I sat thinking of past painful conversations between us: How are
you, Jean Louise? Fine, thank you ma’am, how are you? Very well, thank you,
what have you been doing with yourself? Nothin‘. Don’t you do anything? Nome.
Certainly you have friends? Yessum. Well what do you all do? Nothin’.
It was plain that Aunty thought me dull in the extreme, because I once heard her
tell Atticus that I was sluggish.
There was a story behind all this, but I had no desire to extract it from her then.
Today was Sunday, and Aunt Alexandra was positively irritable on the Lord’s
Day. I guess it was her Sunday corset. She was not fat, but solid, and she chose
protective garments that drew up her bosom to giddy heights, pinched in her
waist, flared out her rear, and managed to suggest that Aunt Alexandra’s was once
an hour-glass figure. From any angle, it was formidable.
The remainder of the afternoon went by in the gentle gloom that descends when
relatives appear, but was dispelled when we heard a car turn in the driveway. It
was Atticus, home from Montgomery. Jem, forgetting his dignity, ran with me to
meet him. Jem seized his briefcase and bag, I jumped into his arms, felt his vague
dry kiss and said, “‘d you bring me a book? ’d you know Aunty’s here?”
Atticus answered both questions in the affirmative. “How’d you like for her to
come live with us?”
I said I would like it very much, which was a lie, but one must lie under certain
circumstances and at all times when one can’t do anything about them.
“We felt it was time you children needed—well, it’s like this, Scout,” Atticus
said. “Your aunt’s doing me a favor as well as you all. I can’t stay here all day
with you, and the summer’s going to be a hot one.”
“Yes sir,” I said, not understanding a word he said. I had an idea, however, that
Aunt Alexandra’s appearance on the scene was not so much Atticus’s doing as
hers. Aunty had a way of declaring What Is Best For The Family, and I suppose
her coming to live with us was in that category.
Maycomb welcomed her. Miss Maudie Atkinson baked a Lane cake so loaded
with shinny it made me tight; Miss Stephanie Crawford had long visits with Aunt
Alexandra, consisting mostly of Miss Stephanie shaking her head and saying,
“Uh, uh, uh.” Miss Rachel next door had Aunty over for coffee in the afternoons,
and Mr. Nathan Radley went so far as to come up in the front yard and say he was
glad to see her.
When she settled in with us and life resumed its daily pace, Aunt Alexandra
seemed as if she had always lived with us. Her Missionary Society refreshments
added to her reputation as a hostess (she did not permit Calpurnia to make the
delicacies required to sustain the Society through long reports on Rice Christians);
she joined and became Secretary of the Maycomb Amanuensis Club. To all
parties present and participating in the life of the county, Aunt Alexandra was one
of the last of her kind: she had river-boat, boarding-school manners; let any moral
come along and she would uphold it; she was born in the objective case; she was
an incurable gossip. When Aunt Alexandra went to school, self-doubt could not
be found in any textbook, s