Part 31 (2/2)
Miss Mackenzie was not called upon to make any answer to this; for although she had lost a large sum of money by lending it to her brother, nevertheless she was still possessed of a larger sum of money than that which her brother Walter had received from Jonathan Ball.
”And what are they going to do, my dear--the children, I mean, and the widow? I suppose there'll be something for them out of the business?”
”I don't think there'll be anything, aunt. As far as I can understand there will be nothing certain. They may probably get a hundred and twenty-five pounds a-year.” This she named, as being the interest of the money she had lent--or given.
”A hundred and twenty-five pounds a-year. That isn't much, but it will keep them from absolute want.”
”Would it, aunt?”
”Oh, yes; at least, I suppose so. I hope she's a good manager. She ought to be, for she's a very disagreeable woman. You told me that yourself, you know.”
Then Miss Mackenzie, having considered for one moment, resolved to make a clean breast of it all, and this she did with the fewest possible words.
”I'm going to divide what I've got with them, and I hope it will make them comfortable.”
”What!” exclaimed her aunt.
”I'm going to give Sarah half what I've got, for her and her children. I shall have enough to live on left.”
”Margaret, you don't mean it?”
”Not mean it? why not, aunt? You would not have me let them starve.
Besides, I promised my brother when he was dying.”
”Then I must say he was very wrong, very wicked, I may say, to exact any such promise from you; and no such promise is binding. If you ask Sir John, or your lawyer, they will tell you so. What! exact a promise from you to the amount of half your income. It was very wrong.”
”But, aunt, I should do the same if I had made no promise.”
”No, you wouldn't, my dear. Your friends wouldn't let you. And indeed your friends must prevent it now. They will not hear of such a sacrifice being made.”
”But, aunt--”
”Well, my dear.”
”It's my own, you know.” And Margaret, as she said this, plucked up her courage, and looked her aunt full in the face.
”Yes, it is your own, by law; but I don't suppose, my dear, that you are of that disposition or that character that you'd wish to set all the world at defiance, and make everybody belonging to you feel that you had disgraced yourself.”
”Disgraced myself by relieving my brother's family!”
”Disgraced yourself by giving to that woman money that has come to you as your fortune has come. Think of it, where it came from!”
”It came to me from my brother Walter.”
”And where did he get it? And who made it? And don't you know that your brother Tom had his share of it, and wasted it all? Did it not all come from the b.a.l.l.s? And yet you think so little of that, that you are going to let that woman rob you of it--rob you and my grandchildren; for that, I tell you, is the way in which the world will look at it. Perhaps you don't know it, but all that property was as good as given to John at one time. Who was it first took you by the hand when you were left all alone in Arundel Street? Oh, Margaret, don't go and be such an ungrateful, foolish creature!”
Margaret waited for a moment, and then she answered--
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