Miss Mackenzie Part 10

"I wish we could make you think better of it."

"Of course I should like to stay, but--"

"Yes, there's always a but. I should have thought that, of all people in the world, you were the one most able to do just what you please with your time."

"We have all got duties to do, John."

"Of course we have; but why shouldn't it be your duty to make your relations happy? If you could only know how much I like your being here?"

Had it not been that she did not dare to do that for the son which she had refused to the mother, I think that she would have given way.

As it was, she did not know how to yield, after having persevered so long.

"You are all so kind," she said, giving him her hand, "that it goes to my heart to refuse you; but I'm afraid I can't. I do not wish to give my brother's wife cause to complain of me."

"Then," said Mr Ball, speaking very slowly, "I must ask this favour of you, that you will let me see you alone for half an hour after dinner this evening."

"Certainly," said Miss Mackenzie.

"Thank you, Margaret. After tea I will go into the study, and perhaps you will follow me."

CHAPTER VII

Miss Mackenzie Leaves the Cedars

There was something so serious in her cousin's request to her, and so much of gravity in his mode of making it, that Miss Mackenzie could not but think of it throughout the day. On what subject did he wish to speak to her in so solemn and special a manner? An idea of the possibility of an offer no doubt crossed her mind and fluttered her, but it did not do more than this; it did not remain fixed with her, or induce her to resolve what answer she would give if such offer were made. She was afraid to allow herself to think that such a thing could happen, and put the matter away from her,--uneasily, indeed, but still with so much resolution as to leave her with a conviction that she need not give any consideration to such an hypothesis.

And she was not at a loss to suggest to herself another subject. Her cousin had learned something about her money which he felt himself bound to tell her, but which he would not have told her now had she consented to remain at the Cedars. There was something wrong about the loan. This made her seriously unhappy, for she dreaded the necessity of discussing her brother's conduct with her cousin.

During the whole of the day Lady Ball was very courteous, but rather distant. Lady Ball had said to herself that Margaret would have stayed had she been in a disposition favourable to John Ball's hopes.

If she should decline the alliance with which the b.a.l.l.s proposed to honour her, then Lady Ball was prepared to be very cool. There would be an ingrat.i.tude in such a proceeding after the open-armed affection which had been shown to her which Lady Ball could not readily bring herself to forgive. Sir John, once or twice during the day, took up his little sarcasms against her supposed religious tendencies at Littlebath.

"You'll be glad to get back to Mr Stumfold," he said.

"I shall be glad to see him, of course," she answered, "as he is a friend."

"Mr Stumfold has a great many lady friends at Littlebath," he continued.

"Yes, a great many," said Miss Mackenzie, understanding well that she was being bullied.

"What a pity that there can be only one Mrs Stumfold," snarled the baronet; "it's often a wonder to me how women can be so foolish."

"And it's often a wonder to me," said Miss Mackenzie, "how gentlemen can be so ill-natured."

She had plucked up her spirits of late, and had resented Sir John's ill-humour.

At the usual hour Mr Ball came home to dinner, and Miss Mackenzie, as soon as she saw him, again became fluttered. She perceived that he was not at his ease, and that made her worse. When he spoke to the girls he seemed hardly to mind what he was saying, and he greeted his mother without any whispered tidings as to the share-market of the day.

Margaret asked herself if it could be possible that anything was very wrong about her own money. If the worst came to the worst she could but have lost that two thousand five hundred pounds and she would be able to live well enough without it. If her brother had asked her for it, she would have given it to him. She would teach herself to regard it as a gift, and then the subject would not make her unhappy.

They all came down to dinner, and they all went in to tea, and the tea-things were taken away, and then John Ball arose. During tea-time neither he nor Miss Mackenzie had spoken a word, and when she got up to follow him, there was a solemnity about the matter which ought to have been ludicrous to any of those remaining, who might chance to know what was about to happen. It must be supposed that Lady Ball at any rate did know, and when she saw her middle-aged niece walk slowly out of the room after her middle-aged son, in order that a love proposal might be made from one to the other with advantage, she must, I should think, have perceived the comic nature of the arrangement. She went on, however, very gravely with her knitting, and did not even make an attempt to catch her husband's eye.

"Margaret," said John Ball, as soon as he had shut the study door; "but, perhaps, you had better sit down."

Then she sat down, and he came and seated himself opposite to her; opposite her, but not so close as to give him any of the advantages of a lover.

"Margaret, I don't know whether you have guessed the subject on which I wish to speak to you; but I wish you had."

"Is it about the money?" she asked.

"The money! What money? The money you have lent to your brother? Oh, no."

Then, at that moment, Margaret did, I think, guess.

"It's not at all about the money," he said, and then he sighed.

He had at one time thought of asking his mother to make the proposition for him, and now he wished that he had done so.

"No, Margaret, it's something else that I want to say. I believe you know my condition in life pretty accurately."

"In what way, John?"

"I am a poor man; considering my large family, a very poor man. I have between eight and nine hundred a year, and when my father and mother are both gone I shall have nearly as much more; but I have nine children, and as I must keep up something of a position, I have a hard time of it sometimes, I can tell you."

Here he paused, as though he expected her to say something; but she had nothing to say and he went on.

"Jack is at Oxford, as you know, and I wish to give him any chance that a good education may afford. It did not do much for me, but he may be more lucky. When my father is dead, I think I shall sell this place; but I have not quite made up my mind about that;--it must depend on circ.u.mstances. As for the girls, you see that I do what I can to educate them."

"They seem to me to be brought up very nicely; nothing could be better."

"They are good girls, very good girls, and so is Jack a very good fellow."

"I love Jack dearly," said Miss Mackenzie, who had already come to a half-formed resolution that Jack Ball should be heir to half her fortune, her niece Susanna being heiress to the other half.

"Do you? I'm so glad of that." And there was actually a tear in the father's eye.

"And so I do the girls," said Margaret. "It's something so nice to feel that one has people really belonging to one that one may love.

I hope they'll know Susanna some day, for she's a very nice girl,--a very dear girl."

"I hope they will," said Mr Ball; but there was not much enthusiasm in the expression of this hope.

Then he got up from his chair, and took a turn across the room. "The truth is, Margaret, that there's no use in my beating about the bush.

I shan't say what I've got to say a bit the better for delaying it.

I want you to be my wife, and to be mother to those children. I like you better than any woman I've seen since I lost Rachel, but I shouldn't dare to make you such an offer if you had not money of your own. I could not marry unless my wife had money, and I would not marry any woman unless I felt I could love her--not if she had ever so much. There! now you know it all. I suppose I have not said it as I ought to do, but if you're the woman I take you for that won't make much difference."

For my part I think that he said what he had to say very well. I do not know that he could have done it much better. I do not know that any other form of words would have been more persuasive to the woman he was addressing. Had he said much of his love, or nothing of his poverty; or had he omitted altogether any mention of her wealth, her heart would have gone against him at once. As it was he had produced in her mind such a state of doubt, that she was unable to answer him on the moment.