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Chapter 1
Aunt Becky's Levee
1
A dozen stories have been told about the old Dark jug. This is the true one.
Several things happened in the Dark and Penhallow clan because of it. Several other things did not happen. As Uncle Pippin said, this may have been Providence or it may have been the devil that certainly possessed the jug. At any rate, had it not been for the jug, Peter Penhallow might today have been photographing lions alone in African jungles, and Big Sam Dark would, in all probability, never have learned to appreciate the beauty of the unclothed female form. As for Dandy Dark and Penny Dark, they have never ceased to congratulate themselves that they got out of the affair with whole hides.
Legally, the jug was the property of Aunt Becky Dark, née Rebecca Penhallow. For that matter, most of the Darks had been née Penhallow and most of the Penhallows had been née Dark, save a goodly minority who had been Darks née Dark or Penhallows née Penhallow. In three generations sixty Darks had been married to sixty Penhallows. The resultant genealogical tangle baffled everybody except Uncle Pippin. There was really nobody for a Dark to marry except a Penhallow and nobody for a Penhallow to marry except a Dark. Once, it had been said, they wouldn't take anybody else. Now, nobody else would take them. At least, so Uncle Pippin said. But it was necessary to take Uncle Pippin's speeches with a large pinch of salt. Neither the Darks nor the Penhallows were gone to seed as far as that. They were still a proud, vigorous, and virile clan who hacked and hewed among themselves but presented an unbroken front to any alien or hostile force.
In a sense Aunt Becky was the head of the clan. In point of seniority Crosby Penhallow, who was eighty-seven when she was eighty-five, might have contested her supremacy had he cared to do so. But at eighty-seven Crosby Penhallow cared only about one thing. As long as he could foregather every evening with his old crony, Erasmus Dark, to play duets on their flutes and violins, Aunt Becky might hold the scepter of the clan if she wanted to.
It must be admitted frankly that Aunt Becky was not particularly beloved by her clan. She was too fond of telling them what she called the plain truth. And, as Uncle Pippin said, while the truth was all right, in its place, there was no sense in pouring out great gobs of it around where it wasn't wanted. To Aunt Becky, however, tact and diplomacy and discretion, never to mention any consideration for anyone's feelings, were things unknown. When she wanted to say a thing she said it. Consequently Aunt Becky's company was never dull whatever else it might be. One endured the digs and slams one got oneself for the fun of seeing other people writhing under their digs and slams. As Aunt Becky knew from A to Z all the sad or fantastic or terrible little histories of the clan, no one had armor which her shafts could not penetrate. Little Uncle Pippin said that he wouldn't miss one of Aunt Becky's "levees" for a dog-fight.
"She's a personality," Dr. Harry Penhallow had once remarked condescendingly, on one of his visits home to attend some clan funeral.
"She's a crank," growled Drowned John Penhallow, who, being a notorious crank himself, tolerated no rivals.
"It's the same thing," chuckled Uncle Pippin. "You're all afraid of her because she knows too much about you. I tell you, boys, it's only Aunt Becky and the likes of her that keeps us all from dry-rotting."
Aunt Becky had been "Aunt Becky" to everybody for twenty years. Once when a letter came to the Indian Spring post office addressed to "Mrs. Theodore Dark" the new postmaster returned it marked, "Person unknown." Legally, it was Aunt Becky's name. Once she had had a husband and two children. They were all dead long ago—so long ago that even Aunt Becky herself had practically forgotten them. For years she had lived in her two rented rooms in The Pinery—otherwise the house of her old friend, Camilla Jackson, at Indian Spring. Many Dark and Penhallow homes would have been open to her, for the clan were never unmindful of their obligations, but Aunt Becky would have none of them. She had a tiny income of her own and Camilla, being neither a Dark nor a Penhallow, was easily bossed.
