Miss Mackenzie Part 59

"No, I don't. He'll have a disagreeable scene with his mother, and I don't pretend to guess what will be the end of that; but when he has done with his mother, he'll come here. He must do it. He has no alternative. And when he does come, I want you to look your best.

Believe me, my dear, there would be no muslins in the world and no starch, if it was not intended that people should make themselves look as nice as possible."

"Young people," suggested Margaret.

"Young people, as you call them, can look well without muslin and without starch. Such things were intended for just such persons as you and me; and as for me, I make it a rule to take the goods the G.o.ds provide me."

Mrs Mackenzie's philosophy was not without its result, and her prophecy certainly came true. A few days pa.s.sed by and no lover came, but early on the Friday morning after the bazaar, Margaret, who at the moment was in her own room, was told that Sir John was below in the drawing-room with Mrs Mackenzie. He had already been there some little time, the servant said, and Mrs Mackenzie had sent up with her love to know if Miss Mackenzie would come down. Would she go down? Of course she would go to her cousin. She was no coward. Indeed, a true Griselda can hardly be a coward. So she made up her mind to go to her cousin and hear her fate.

The last four-and-twenty hours had been very bitter with Sir John Ball. What was he to do, walking about with that man's letter in his pocket--with that reptile's venom still curdling through his veins?

On that Thursday morning, as he went towards his office, he had made up his mind, as he thought, to go to Margaret and bid her choose her own destiny. She should become his wife, or have half of Jonathan Ball's remaining fortune, as she might herself elect. "She refused me," he said to himself, "when the money was all hers. Why should she wish to come to such a house as mine, to marry a dull husband and undertake the charge of a lot of children? She shall choose herself."

And then he thought of her as he had seen her at the bazaar, and began to flatter himself that, in spite of his dullness and his children, she would choose to become his wife. He was making some scheme as to his mother's life, proposing that two of his girls should live with her, and that she should be near to him, when the letter from Mr Maguire was put into his hands.

How was he to marry his cousin after that? If he were to do so, would not that wretch at Littlebath declare, through all the provincial and metropolitan newspapers, that he had compelled the marriage?

That letter would be published in the very column that told of the wedding. But yet he must decide. He must do something. They who read this will probably declare that he was a weak fool to regard anything that such a one as Mr Maguire could say of him. He was not a fool, but he was so far weak and foolish; and in such matters such men are weak and foolish, and often cowardly.

It was, however, absolutely necessary that he should do something. He was as well aware as was Mrs Mackenzie that it was essentially his duty to see his cousin, now that the question of law between them had been settled. Even if he had no thought of again asking her to be his wife, he could not confide to any one else the task of telling her what was to be her fate. Her conduct to him in the matter of the property had been exemplary, and it was inc.u.mbent on him to thank her for her generous forbearance. He had pledged himself also to give his mother a final answer on Sat.u.r.day.

On the Friday morning, therefore, he knocked at the Mackenzies'

house door in Cavendish Square, and soon found himself alone with Mrs Mackenzie. I do not know that even then he had come to any fixed purpose. What he would himself have preferred would have been permission to postpone any action as regards his cousin for another six months, and to have been empowered to use that time in crus.h.i.+ng Mr Maguire out of existence. But this might not be so, and therefore he went to Cavendish Square that he might there decide his fate.

"You want to see Margaret, no doubt," said Mrs Mackenzie, "that you may tell her that her ruin is finally completed;" and as she thus spoke of her cousin's ruin, she smiled her sweetest smile and put on her pleasantest look.

"Yes, I do want to see her presently," he said.

Mrs Mackenzie had stood up as though she were about to go in quest of her cousin, but had sat down again when the word presently was spoken. She was by no means averse to having a few words of conversation about Margaret, if Sir John should wish it. Sir John, I fear, had merely used the word through some instinctive idea that he might thereby stave off the difficulty for a while.

"Don't you think she looked very well at the Bazaar?" said Mrs Mackenzie.

"Very well, indeed," he answered; "very well. I can't say I liked the place."

"Nor any of us, I can a.s.sure you. Only one must do that sort of thing sometimes, you know. Margaret was very much admired there. So much has been said of this singular story about her fortune, that people have, of course, talked more of her than they would otherwise have done."

"That has been a great misfortune," said Sir John, frowning.

"It has been a misfortune, but it has been one of those things that can't be helped. I don't think you have any cause to complain, for Margaret has behaved as no other woman ever did behave, I think. Her conduct has been perfect."

"I don't complain of her."

"As for the rest, you must settle that with the world yourself. I don't care for any one beyond her. But, for my part, I think it is the best to let those things die away of themselves. After all, what does it matter as long as one does nothing to be ashamed of oneself?

People can't break any bones by their talking."

"Wouldn't you think it very unpleasant, Mrs Mackenzie, to have your name brought up in the newspapers?"

"Upon my word I don't think I should care about it as long as my husband stood by me. What is it after all? People say that you and Margaret are the Lion and the Lamb. What's the harm of being called a lamb or a lion either? As long as people are not made to believe that you have behaved badly, that you have been false or cruel, I can't see that it comes to much. One does not, of course, wish to have newspaper articles written about one."

"No, indeed."

"But they can't break your bones, nor can they make the world think you dishonest, as long as you take care that you are honest. Now, in this matter, I take it for granted that you and Margaret are going to make a match of it--"

"Has she told you so?"

Mrs Mackenzie paused a moment to collect her thoughts before she answered; but it was only for a moment, and Sir John Ball hardly perceived that she had ceased to speak.

"No," she said; "she has not told me so. But I have told her that it must be so."

"And she does not wish it?"

"Do you want me to tell a lady's secret? But in such a case as this the truth is always the best. She does wish it, with all her heart,--as much as any woman ever wished for anything. You need have no doubt about her loving you."

"Of course, Mrs Mackenzie, I should take care in any case that she were provided for amply. If a single life will suit her best, she shall have half of all that she ever thought to be her own."

"And do you wish it to be so?"

"I have not said that, Mrs Mackenzie. But it may be that I should wish her to have the choice fairly in her own power."

"Then I can tell you at once which she would choose. Your offer is very generous. It is more than generous. But, Sir John, a single life will not suit her; and my belief is, that were you to offer her the money without your hand, she would not take a farthing of it."

"She must have some provision."

"She will take none from you but the one, and you need be under no doubt whatsoever that she will take that without a moment's doubt as to her own future happiness. And, Sir John, I think you would have the best wife that I know anywhere among my acquaintance." Then she stopped, and he sat silent, making no reply. "Shall I send to her now?" said Mrs Mackenzie.

"I suppose you might as well," said Sir John.

Then Mrs Mackenzie got up and left the room, but she did not herself go up to her cousin. She felt that she could not see Margaret without saying something of what had pa.s.sed between herself and Sir John, and that it would be better that nothing should be said. So she went away to her own room, and dispatched her maid to send the lamb to the lion. Nevertheless, it was not without compunction, some tw.a.n.g of feminine conscience, that Mrs Mackenzie gave up this opportunity of saying some last important word, and perhaps doing some last important little act with regard to those nicenesses of which she thought perhaps too much. Mrs Mackenzie's philosophy was not without its truth; but a man of fifty should not be made to marry a woman by muslin and starch, if he be not prepared to marry her on other considerations.

When the message came, Margaret thought nothing of the muslin and starch. The bonnet that had been worth its weight in gold, and the black-freckled dress, were all forgotten. But she thought of the words which her cousin John had spoken to her as soon as they had got through the little gate into the grounds of the Cedars when they had walked back together from the railway station at Twickenham; and she remembered that she had then pledged herself to be firm. If he alluded to the offer he had then made, and repeated it, she would throw herself into his arms at once, and tell him that she would serve him with all her heart and all her strength as long as G.o.d might leave them together. But she was quite as strongly determined to accept from him for herself no other kind of provision. That money which for a short while had been hers was now his; and she could have no claim upon him unless he gave her the claim of a wife. After what had pa.s.sed between them she would not be the recipient of his charity. Certain words had been written and spoken from which she had gathered the existence, in Mr Slow's mind, of some such plan as this.

His client should lose her cause meekly and graciously, and should then have a claim for alms. That had been the idea on which Mr Slow had worked. She had long made up her mind that Mr Slow should be taught to know her better, if the day for such offering of alms should ever come. Perhaps it had come now. She took up a little scarf that she wore ordinarily and folded it tight across her shoulders, quite forgetful of muslin and starch, as she descended to the drawing-room in order that this question might be solved for her.

Sir John met her almost at the door as she entered.

"I'm afraid you've been expecting me to come sooner," he said.

"No, indeed; I was not quite sure that you would come at all."

"Oh, yes; I was certain to come. You have hardly received as yet any official notification that your cause has been lost."

"It was not my cause, John," she said, smiling, "and I received no other notification than what I got through Mrs Mackenzie. Indeed, as you know, I have regarded this law business as nonsense all through.

Since what you and Mr Slow told me, I have known that the property was yours."

"But it was quite necessary to have a judgment."

"I suppose so, and there's an end of it. I, for one, am not in the least disappointed,--if it will give you any comfort to know that."

"I don't believe that any other woman in England would have lost her fortune with the equanimity that you have shown."

She could not explain to him that, in the first days of dismay caused by that misfortune, he had given her such consolation as to make her forget her loss, and that her subsequent misery had been caused by the withdrawal of that consolation. She could not tell him that the very memory of her money had been, as it were, drowned by other hopes in life,--by other hopes and by other despair. But when he praised her for her equanimity, she thought of this. She still smiled as she heard his praise.

"I suppose I ought to return the compliment," she said, "and declare that no cousin who had been kept so long out of his own money ever behaved so well as you have done. I can a.s.sure you that I have thought of it very often,--of the injustice that has been involuntarily done to you."