Part 42 (1/2)
”It is a great change to you, no doubt; and, of course, that is the point on which I wish to speak to you most especially. I have told John that something must be done for you.”
This jarred terribly on poor Margaret's feelings. Her cousin had said nothing, not a word as to doing anything for her. The man who had told her of his love, and asked her to be his wife, not twelve months since,--who had pressed her to be of all women the dearest to him and the nearest,--had talked to her of her ruin without offering her aid, although this ruin to her would enrich him very greatly. She had expected nothing from him, had wanted nothing from him; but by degrees, when absent from him, the feeling had grown upon her that he had been hard to her in abstaining from expressions of commiseration.
She had yielded to him in the whole affair, a.s.suring him that nothing should be done by her to cause him trouble; and she would have been grateful to him if in return he had said something to her of her future mode of life. She had intended to speak to him about the hospital; but she had thought that she might abstain from doing so till he himself should ask some question as to her plans. He had asked no such question, and she was now almost determined to go away without troubling him on the subject. But if he, who had once professed to love her, would make no suggestion as to her future life, she could ill bear that any offer of the kind should come from her aunt, who, as she knew, had only regarded her for her money.
”I would rather,” she replied, ”that nothing should be said to him on the subject.”
”And why not, Margaret?”
”I desire that I may be no burden to him or anybody. I will go away and earn my bread; and even if I cannot do that, my relations shall not be troubled by hearing from me.”
She said this without sobbing, but not without that almost hysterical emotion which indicates that tears are being suppressed with pain.
”That is false pride, my dear.”
”Very well, aunt. I daresay it is false; but it is my pride. I may be allowed to keep my pride, though I can keep nothing else.”
”What you say about earning your bread is very proper; and I and John and your uncle also have been thinking of that. But I should be glad if some additional a.s.sistance should be provided for you, in the event of old age, you know, or illness. Now, as to earning your bread, I remarked to John that you were peculiarly qualified for being a lady's companion.”
”For being what, aunt?”
”For being companion to some lady in the decline of life, who would want to have some nice mannered person always with her. You have the advantage of being ladylike and gentle, and I think that you are patient by disposition.”
”Aunt,” said Miss Mackenzie, and her voice as she spoke was hardly gentle, nor was it indicative of much patience. Her hysterics also seemed for the time to have given way to her strong pa.s.sionate feeling. ”Aunt,” she said, ”I would sooner take a broom in my hand, and sweep a crossing in London, than lead such a life as that. What!
make myself the slave of some old woman, who would think that she had bought the power of tyrannising over me by allowing me to sit in the same room with her? No, indeed! It may very likely be the case that I may have to serve such a one in the kitchen, but it shall be in the kitchen, and not in the drawing-room. I have not had much experience in life, but I have had enough to learn that lesson!”
Lady Ball, who during the first part of the conversation had been unrolling and winding a great ball of worsted, now sat perfectly still, holding the ball in her lap, and staring at her niece. She was a quick-witted woman, and it no doubt occurred to her that the great objection to living with an old lady, which her niece had expressed so pa.s.sionately, must have come from the trial of that sort of life which she had had at the Cedars. And there was enough in Miss Mackenzie's manner to justify Lady Ball in thinking that some such expression of feeling as this had been intended by her. She had never before heard Margaret speak out so freely, even in the days of her undoubted heiress-s.h.i.+p; and now, though she greatly disliked her niece, she could not avoid mingling something of respect and something almost amounting to fear with her dislike. She did not dare to go on unwinding her worsted, and giving the advantage of her condescension to a young woman who spoke out at her in that way.
”I thought I was advising you for the best,” she said, ”and I hoped that you would have been thankful.”
”I don't know what may be for the best,” said Margaret, again bordering upon the hysterical in the tremulousness of her voice, ”but that I'm sure would be for the worst. However, I've made up my mind to nothing as yet.”
”No, my dear; of course not; but we all must think of it, you know.”
Her cousin John had not thought of it, and she did not want any one else to do so. She especially did not want her aunt to think of it.
But it was no doubt necessary that her aunt should consider how long she would be required to provide a home for her impoverished niece, and Margaret's mind at once applied itself to that view of the subject. ”I have made up my mind that I will go to London next week, and then I must settle upon something.”
”You mean when you go to Mr Slow's?”
”I mean that I shall go for good. I have a little money by me, which John says I may use, and I shall take a lodging till--till--till--”
Then she could not go on any further.
”You can stay here, Margaret, if you please;--that is till something more is settled about all this affair.”
”I will go on Monday, aunt. I have made up my mind to that.” It was now Sat.u.r.day. ”I will go on Monday. It will be better for all parties that I should be away.” Then she got up, and waiting no further speech from her aunt, took herself off to her own room.
She did not see her aunt again till dinner-time, and then neither of them spoke to each other. Lady Ball thought that she had reason to be offended, and Margaret would not be the first to speak. In the evening, before the whole family, she told her cousin that she had made up her mind to go up to London on Monday. He begged her to reconsider her resolution, but when she persisted that she would do so, he did not then argue the question any further. But on the Sunday he implored her not to go as yet, and did obtain her consent to postpone her departure till Tuesday. He wished, he said, to be at any rate one day more in London before she went. On the Sunday she was closeted with her uncle who also sent for her, and to him she suggested her plan of becoming nurse at a hospital. He remarked that he hoped that would not be necessary.
”Something will be necessary,” she said, ”as I don't mean to eat anybody's bread but my own.”
In answer to this he said that he would speak to John, and then that interview was over. On the Monday morning John Ball said something respecting Margaret to his mother which acerbated that lady more than ever against her niece. He had not proposed that anything special should be done; but he had hinted, when his mother complained of Margaret, that Margaret's conduct was everything that it ought to be.