Miss Mackenzie Part 36

"I would not do it to-day if I were you."

"But I must, John; this very day. If I am not home by dinner, tell them that I had to go to Gower Street. I shall at any rate be there in the evening. Do not you mind coming back with me."

They were then at the gate leading into the New Square, and she turned abruptly round, and hurried away from him up into Holborn, pa.s.sing very near to Mr Slow's chambers. John Ball did not attempt to follow her, but stood there awhile looking after her. He felt, in his heart, and knew by his judgment, that she was a good woman, true, unselfish, full of love, clever too in her way, quick in apprehension, and endowed with an admirable courage. He had heard her spoken of at the Cedars as a poor creature who had money. Nay, he himself had taken a part in so speaking of her. Now she had no money, but he knew well that she was a creature the very reverse of poor.

What should he do for her? In what way should he himself behave towards her? In the early days of his youth, before the cares of the world had made him hard, he had married his Rachel without a penny, and his father had laughed at him, and his mother had grieved over him. Tough and hard, and careworn as he was now, defiled by the price of stocks, and saturated with the poison of the money market, then there had been in him a touch of romance and a dash of poetry, and he had been happy with his Rachel. Should he try it again now? The woman would surely love him when she found that he came to her in her poverty as he had before come to her in her wealth. He watched her till she pa.s.sed out of his sight along the wall leading to Holborn, and then he made his way to the City through Lincoln's Inn and Chancery Lane.

Margaret walked straight into Holborn, and over it towards Red Lion Square. She crossed the line of the omnibuses, feeling that now she must spend no penny which she could save. She was tired, for she had already walked much that morning, and the day was close and hot; but nevertheless she went on quickly, through Bloomsbury Square and Russell Square, to Gower Street. As she got near to the door her heart almost failed her; but she went up to it and knocked boldly.

The thing should be done, let the pain of doing it be what it might.

"Laws, Miss Margaret! is that you?" said the maid. "Yes, missus is at home. She'll see you, of course, but she's hard at work on the furniture."

Then she went directly up into the drawing-room and there she found her sister-in-law, with her dress tucked up to her elbows, with a cloth in her hand, rubbing the chairs.

"What, Margaret! Whoever expected to see you? If we are to let the rooms, it's as well to have the things tidy, isn't it? Besides, a person bears it all the better when there's anything to do."

Then Mary Jane, the eldest daughter, came in from the bedroom behind the drawing-room, similarly armed for work.

Margaret sat down wearily upon the sofa, having muttered some word in answer to Mrs Tom's apology for having been found at work so soon after her husband's death.

"Sarah," she said, "I have come to you to-day because I had something to say to you about business."

"Oh, to be sure! I never thought for a moment you had come for pleasure, or out of civility, as it might be. Of course I didn't expect that when I saw you."

"Sarah, will you come upstairs with me into your own room?"

"Upstairs, Margaret? Oh yes, if you please. We shall be down directly, my dear, and I dare say Margaret will stay to tea. We tea early, because, since you went, we have dined at one."

Then Mrs Tom led the way up to the room in which Margaret had watched by her dying brother's bed-side.

"I'm come in here," said Mrs Tom, again apologising, "because the children had to come out of the room behind the drawing-room. Miss Colza is staying with us, and she and Mary Jane have your room."

Margaret did not care much for all this; but the solemnity of the chamber in which, when she last saw it, her brother's body was lying, added something to her sadness at the moment.

"Sarah," she said, endeavouring to warn her sister-in-law by the tone of her voice that her news was bad news, "I have just come from Mr Slow."

"He's the lawyer, isn't he?"

"Yes, he's the lawyer. You know what I promised my brother. I went to him to make arrangements for doing it, and when there I heard--oh, Sarah, such dreadful news!"

"He says you're not to do it, I suppose!" And in the woman's voice and eyes there were signs of anger, not against Mr Slow alone, but also against Miss Mackenzie. "I knew how it would be. But, Margaret, Mr Slow has got nothing to do with it. A promise is a promise; and a promise made to a dying man! Oh, Margaret!"

"If I had it to give I would give it as surely as I am standing here.

When I told my brother it should be so, he believed me at once."

"Of course he believed you."

"But Sarah, they tell me now that I have nothing to give."

"Who tells you so?"

"The lawyer. I cannot explain it all to you; indeed, I do not as yet understand it myself; but I have learned this morning that the property which Walter left me was not his to leave. It had been given away before Mr Jonathan Ball died."

"It's a lie!" said the injured woman,--the woman who was the least injured, but who, with her children, had perhaps the best excuse for being ill able to bear the injury. "It must be a lie. It's more than twenty years ago. I don't believe and won't believe that it can be so. John Ball must have something to do with this."

"The property will go to him, but he has had nothing to do with it.

Mr Slow found it out."

"It can't be so, not after twenty years. Whatever they may have done from Walter, they can't take it away from you; not if you've spirit enough to stand up for your rights. If you let them take it in that way, I can't tell you what I shall think of you."

"It is my own lawyer that says so."

"Yes, Mr Slow; the biggest rogue of them all. I always knew that of him, always. Oh, Margaret, think of the children! What are we to do?

What are we to do?" And sitting down on the bedside, she put her dirty ap.r.o.n up to her eyes.

"I have been thinking of them ever since I heard it," said Margaret.

"But what good will thinking do? You must do something. Oh! Margaret, after all that you said to him when he lay there dying!" and the woman, with some approach to true pathos, put her hand on the spot where her husband's head had rested. "Don't let his children come to beggary because men like that choose to rob the widow and the orphan."

"Every one has a right to what is his own," said Margaret. "Even though widows should be beggars, and orphans should want."

"That's very well of you, Margaret. It's very well for you to say that, who have friends like the b.a.l.l.s to stand by you. And, perhaps, if you will let him have it all without saying anything, he will stand by you firmer than ever. But who is there to stand by me and my children? It can't be that after twenty years your fortune should belong to anyone else. Why should it have gone on for more than twenty years, and n.o.body have found it out? I don't believe it can come so, Margaret, unless you choose to let them do it. I don't believe a word of it."

There was nothing more to be said upon that subject at present. Mrs Tom did indeed say a great deal more about it, sometimes threatening Margaret, and sometimes imploring her; but Miss Mackenzie herself would not allow herself to speak of the thing otherwise than as an ascertained fact. Had the other woman been more reasonable or less pa.s.sionate in her lamentations Miss Mackenzie might have trusted herself to tell her that there was yet a doubt. But she herself felt that the doubt was so small, and that, in Mrs Tom's mind, it would be so magnified into nearly a certainty on the other side, that she thought it most discreet not to refer to the exact amount of information which Mr Slow had given to her.

"It will be best for us to think, Sarah," she said, trying to turn the other's mind away from the coveted income which she would never possess--"to think what you and the children had better do."

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!"

"It is very bad; but there is always something to be done. We must lose no time in letting Mr Rubb know the truth. When he hears how it is, he will understand that something must be done for you out of the firm."

"He won't do anything. He's downstairs now, flirting with that girl in the drawing-room, instead of being at his business."

"If he's downstairs, I will see him."

As Mrs Mackenzie made no objection to this, Margaret went downstairs, and when she came near the pa.s.sage at the bottom, she heard the voices of people talking merrily in the parlour. As her hand was on the lock of the door, words from Miss Colza became very audible.

"Now, Mr Rubb, be quiet." So she knocked at the door, and having been invited by Mr Rubb to come in, she opened it.

It may be presumed that the flirting had not gone to any perilous extent, as there were three or four children present. Nevertheless Miss Colza and Mr Rubb were somewhat disconcerted, and expressed their surprise at seeing Miss Mackenzie.

"We all thought you were staying with the baronet's lady," said Miss Colza.

Miss Mackenzie explained that she was staying at Twickenham, but that she had come up to pay a visit to her sister-in-law. "And I've a word or two I want to say to you, Mr Rubb, if you'll allow me."

"I suppose, then, I'd better make myself scarce," said Miss Colza.

As she was not asked to stay, she did make herself scarce, taking the children with her up among the tables and chairs in the drawing-room.

There she found Mary Jane, but she did not find Mrs Mackenzie, who had thrown herself on the bed in her agony upstairs.