E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
MISS MACKENZIE
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
First published in book form in 1865
CONTENTS
I. The Mackenzie Family
II. Miss Mackenzie Goes to Littlebath
III. Miss Mackenzie's First Acquaintances
IV. Miss Mackenzie Commences Her Career
V. Showing How Mr Rubb, Junior, Progressed at Littlebath
VI. Miss Mackenzie Goes to the Cedars
VII. Miss Mackenzie Leaves the Cedars
VIII. Mrs Tom Mackenzie's Dinner Party
IX. Miss Mackenzie's Philosophy
X. Plenary Absolutions
XI. Miss Todd Entertains Some Friends at Tea
XII. Mrs Stumfold Interferes
XIII. Mr Maguire's Courtship
XIV. Tom Mackenzie's Bed-Side
XV. The Tearing of the Verses
XVI. Lady Ball's Grievance
XVII. Mr Slow's Chambers
XVIII. Tribulation
XIX. Showing How Two of Miss Mackenzie's Lovers Behaved
XX. Showing How the Third Lover Behaved
XXI. Mr Maguire Goes to London on Business
XXII. Still at the Cedars
XXIII. The Lodgings of Mrs Buggins, Nee Protheroe
XXIV. The Little Story of the Lion and the Lamb
XXV. Lady Ball in Arundel Street
XXVI. Mrs Mackenzie of Cavendish Square
XXVII. The Negro Soldiers' Orphan Bazaar
XXVIII. Showing How the Lion Was Stung by the Wasp
XXIX. A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed
XXX. Conclusion
CHAPTER I
The Mackenzie Family
I fear I must trouble my reader with some few details as to the early
life of Miss Mackenzie,--details which will be dull in the telling,
but which shall be as short as I can make them. Her father, who had
in early life come from Scotland to London, had spent all his days in
the service of his country. He became a clerk in Somerset House at
the age of sixteen, and was a clerk in Somerset House when he died at
the age of sixty. Of him no more shall be said than that his wife had
died before him, and that he, at dying, left behind him two sons and
a daughter.
Thomas Mackenzie, the eldest of those two sons, had engaged himself
in commercial pursuits--as his wife was accustomed to say when she
spoke of her husband's labours; or went into trade, and kept a shop,
as was more generally asserted by those of the Mackenzie circle who
were wont to speak their minds freely. The actual and unvarnished
truth in the matter shall now be made known. He, with his partner,
made and sold oilcloth, and was possessed of premises in the New
Road, over which the names of "Rubb and Mackenzie" were posted in
large letters. As you, my reader, might enter therein, and purchase
a yard and a half of oilcloth, if you were so minded, I think that
the free-spoken friends of the family were not far wrong. Mrs Thomas
Mackenzie, however, declared that she was calumniated, and her
husband cruelly injured; and she based her assertions on the fact
that "Rubb and Mackenzie" had wholesale dealings, and that they sold
their article to the trade, who re-sold it. Whether or no she was
ill-treated in the matter, I will leave my readers to decide, having
told them all that it is necessary for them to know, in order that a
judgement may be formed.
Walter Mackenzie, the second son, had been placed in his father's
office, and he also had died before the time at which our story is
supposed to commence. He had been a poor sickly creature, always
ailing, gifted with an affectionate nature, and a great respect for
the blood of the Mackenzies, but not gifted with much else that was
intrinsically his own. The blood of the Mackenzies was, according to
his way of thinking, very pure blood indeed; and he had felt strongly
that his brother had disgraced the family by connecting himself with
that man Rubb, in the New Road. He had felt this the more strongly,
seeing that "Rubb and Mackenzie" had not done great things in their
trade. They had kept their joint commercial head above water, but
had sometimes barely succeeded in doing that. They had never been
bankrupt, and that, perhaps, for some years was all that could be
said. If a Mackenzie did go into trade, he should, at any rate, have
done better than this. He certainly should have done better than
this, seeing that he started in life with a considerable sum of
money.
Old Mackenzie,--he who had come from Scotland,--had been the
first-cousin of Sir Walter Mackenzie, baronet, of Incharrow, and
he had married the sister of Sir John Ball, baronet, of the Cedars,
Twickenham. The young Mackenzies, therefore, had reason to be proud
of their blood. It is true that Sir John Ball was the first baronet,
and that he had simply been a political Lord Mayor in strong
political days,--a political Lord Mayor in the leather business; but,
then, his business had been undoubtedly wholesale; and a man who gets
himself to be made a baronet cleanses himself from the stains of
trade, even though he have traded in leather. And then, the present
Mackenzie baronet was the ninth of the name; so that on the higher
and nobler side of the family, our Mackenzies may be said to have
been very strong indeed. This strength the two clerks in Somerset
House felt and enjoyed very keenly; and it may therefore be
understood that the oilcloth manufactory was much out of favour with
them.
When Tom Mackenzie was twenty-five--"Rubb and Mackenzie" as he
afterwards became--and Walter, at the age of twenty-one, had been
for a year or two placed at a desk in Somerset House, there died one
Jonathan Ball, a brother of the baronet Ball, leaving all he had in
the world to the two brother Mackenzies. This all was by no means a
trifle, for each brother received about twelve thousand pounds when
the opposing lawsuits instituted by the Ball family were finished.
These opposing lawsuits were carried on with great vigour, but with
no success on the Ball side, for three years. By that time, Sir John
Ball, of the Cedars, was half ruined, and the Mackenzies got their
money. It is needless to say much to the reader of the manner in
which Tom Mackenzie found his way into trade--how, in the first
place, he endeavoured to resume his Uncle Jonathan's share in the
leather business, instigated thereto by a desire to oppose his Uncle
John,--Sir John, who was opposing him in the matter of the will,--how
he lost money in this attempt, and ultimately embarked, after
some other fruitless speculations, the residue of his fortune in
partnership with Mr Rubb. All that happened long ago. He was now a
man of nearly fifty, living with his wife and family,--a family of
six or seven children,--in a house in Gower Street, and things had
not gone with him very well.
Nor is it necessary to say very much of Walter Mackenzie, who had
been four years younger than his brother. He had stuck to the office
in spite of his wealth; and as he had never married, he had been
a rich man. During his father's lifetime, and when he was quite
young, he had for a while shone in the world of fashion, having been
patronised by the Mackenzie baronet, and by others who thought that a
clerk from Somerset House with twelve thousand pounds must be a very
estimable fellow. He had not, however, shone in a very brilliant way.
He had gone to parties for a year or two, and during those years had
essayed the life of a young man about town, frequenting theatres and
billiard-rooms, and doing a few things which he should have left
undone, and leaving undone a few things which should not have been
so left. But, as I have said, he was weak in body as well as weak
in mind. Early in life he became an invalid; and though he kept his
place in Somerset House till he died, the period of his shining in
the fashionable world came to a speedy end.
Now, at length, we will come to Margaret Mackenzie, the sister, our
heroine, who was eight years younger than her brother Walter, and
twelve years younger than Mr Rubb's partner. She had been little more
than a child when her father died; or I might more correctly say,
that though she had then reached an age which makes some girls young
women, it had not as yet had that effect upon her. She was then
nineteen; but her life in her father's house had been dull and
monotonous; she had gone very little into company, and knew very
little of the ways of the world. The Mackenzie baronet people had not
noticed her. They had failed to make much of Walter with his twelve
thousand pounds, and did not trouble themselves with Margaret, who
had no fortune of her own. The Ball baronet people were at extreme
variance with all her family, and, as a matter of course, she
received no countenance from them. In those early days she did not
receive much countenance from any one; and perhaps I may say that she
had not shown much claim for such countenance as is often given to
young ladies by their richer relatives. She was neither beautiful
nor clever, nor was she in any special manner made charming by any
of those softnesses and graces of youth which to some girls seem to
atone for a want of beauty and cleverness. At the age of nineteen,
I may almost say that Margaret Mackenzie was ungainly. Her brown
hair was rough, and did not form itself into equal lengths. Her
cheek-bones were somewhat high, after the manner of the Mackenzies.
She was thin and straggling in her figure, with bones larger than
they should have been for purposes of youthful grace. There was
not wanting a certain brightness to her grey eyes, but it was a
brightness as to the use of which she had no early knowledge. At
this time her father lived at Camberwell, and I doubt whether the
education which Margaret received at Miss Green's establishment for
young ladies in that suburb was of a kind to make up by art for that
which nature had not given her. This school, too, she left at an
early age--at a very early age, as her age went. When she was nearly
sixteen, her father, who was then almost an old man, became ill, and
the next three years she spent in nursing him. When he died, she was
transferred to her younger brother's house,--to a house which he had
taken in one of the quiet streets leading down from the Strand to
the river, in order that he might be near his office. And here for
fifteen years she had lived, eating his bread and nursing him, till
he also died, and so she was alone in the world.
During those fifteen years her life had been very weary. A moated
grange in the country is bad enough for the life of any Mariana, but
a moated grange in town is much worse. Her life in London had been
altogether of the moated grange kind, and long before her brother's
death it had been very wearisome to her. I will not say that she
was always waiting for some one that came not, or that she declared
herself to be aweary, or that she wished that she were dead. But the
mode of her life was as near that as prose may be near to poetry, or
truth to romance. For the coming of one, who, as things fell out in
that matter, soon ceased to come at all to her, she had for a while
been anxious. There was a young clerk then in Somerset House, one
Harry Handcock by name, who had visited her brother in the early days
of that long sickness. And Harry Handcock had seen beauty in those
grey eyes, and the straggling, uneven locks had by that time settled
themselves into some form of tidiness, and the big joints, having
been covered, had taken upon themselves softer womanly motions,
and the sister's tenderness to the brother had been appreciated.
Harry Handcock had spoken a word or two, Margaret being then
five-and-twenty, and Harry ten years her senior. Harry had spoken,
and Margaret had listened only too willingly. But the sick brother
upstairs had become cross and peevish. Such a thing should never
take place with his consent, and Harry Handcock had ceased to speak
tenderly.
He had ceased to speak tenderly, though he didn't cease to visit the
quiet house in Arundel Street. As far as Margaret was concerned he
might as well have ceased to come; and in her heart she sang that
song of Mariana's, complaining bitterly of her weariness; though the
man was seen then in her brother's sickroom regularly once a week.
For years this went on. The brother would crawl out to his office in
summer, but would never leave his bedroom in the winter months. In
those days these things were allowed in public offices; and it was
not till very near the end of his life that certain stern official
reformers hinted at the necessity of his retiring on a pension.
Perhaps it was that hint that killed him. At any rate, he died
in harness--if it can in truth be said of him that he ever wore
harness. Then, when he was dead, the days were gone in which Margaret
Mackenzie cared for Harry Handcock. Harry Handcock was still
a bachelor, and when the nature of his late friend's will was
ascertained, he said a word or two to show that he thought he was not
yet too old for matrimony. But Margaret's weariness could not now be
cured in that way. She would have taken him while she had nothing, or
would have taken him in those early days had fortune filled her lap
with gold. But she had seen Harry Handcock at least weekly for the
last ten years, and having seen him without any speech of love, she
was not now prepared for the renewal of such speaking.
When Walter Mackenzie died there was a doubt through all the
Mackenzie circle as to what was the destiny of his money. It was well
known that he had been a prudent man, and that he was possessed of a
freehold estate which gave him at least six hundred a year. It was
known also that he had money saved beyond this. It was known, too,
that Margaret had nothing, or next to nothing, of her own. The old
Mackenzie had had no fortune left to him, and had felt it to be a
grievance that his sons had not joined their richer lots to his
poorer lot. This, of course, had been no fault of Margaret's, but it
had made him feel justified in leaving his daughter as a burden upon
his younger son. For the last fifteen years she had eaten bread to
which she had no positive claim; but if ever woman earned the morsel
which she required, Margaret Mackenzie had earned her morsel during
her untiring attendance upon her brother. Now she was left to her
own resources, and as she went silently about the house during those
sad hours which intervened between the death of her brother and
his burial, she was altogether in ignorance whether any means of
subsistence had been left to her. It was known that Walter Mackenzie
had more than once altered his will--that he had, indeed, made many
wills--according as he was at such moments on terms of more or less
friendship with his brother; but he had never told to any one what
was the nature of any bequest that he had made. Thomas Mackenzie had
thought of both his brother and sister as poor creatures, and had
been thought of by them as being but a poor creature himself. He had
become a shopkeeper, so they declared, and it must be admitted that
Margaret had shared the feeling which regarded her brother Tom's
trade as being disgraceful. They, of Arundel Street, had been idle,
reckless, useless beings--so Tom had often declared to his wife--and
only by fits and starts had there existed any friendship between
him and either of them. But the firm of Rubb and Mackenzie was not
growing richer in those days, and both Thomas and his wife had felt
themselves forced into a certain amount of conciliatory demeanour by
the claims of their seven surviving children. Walter, however, said
no word to any one of his money; and when he was followed to his
grave by his brother and nephews, and by Harry Handcock, no one knew
of what nature would be the provision made for his sister.
"He was a great sufferer," Harry Handcock had said, at the only
interview which took place between him and Margaret after the death
of her brother and before the reading of the will.
"Yes indeed, poor fellow," said Margaret, sitting in the darkened
dining-room, in all the gloom of her new mourning.
"And you yourself, Margaret, have had but a sorry time of it." He
still called her Margaret from old acquaintance, and had always done
so.
"I have had the blessing of good health," she said, "and have been
very thankful. It has been a dull life, though, for the last ten
years."
"Women generally lead dull lives, I think." Then he had paused for
a while, as though something were on his mind which he wished to
consider before he spoke again. Mr Handcock, at this time, was bald
and very stout. He was a strong healthy man, but had about him, to
the outward eye, none of the aptitudes of a lover. He was fond of
eating and drinking, as no one knew better than Margaret Mackenzie;
and had altogether dropped the poetries of life, if at any time any
of such poetries had belonged to him. He was, in fact, ten years
older than Margaret Mackenzie; but he now looked to be almost twenty
years her senior. She was a woman who at thirty-five had more of the
graces of womanhood than had belonged to her at twenty. He was a man
who at forty-five had lost all that youth does for a man. But still I
think that she would have fallen back upon her former love, and found
that to be sufficient, had he asked her to do so even now. She would
have felt herself bound by her faith to do so, had he said that such
was his wish, before the reading of her brother's will. But he did no
such thing. "I hope he will have made you comfortable," he said.
"I hope he will have left me above want," Margaret had replied--and
that had then been all. She had, perhaps, half-expected something
more from him, remembering that the obstacle which had separated them
was now removed. But nothing more came, and it would hardly be true
to say that she was disappointed. She had no strong desire to marry
Harry Handcock whom no one now called Harry any longer; but yet, for
the sake of human nature, she bestowed a sigh upon his coldness, when
he carried his tenderness no further than a wish that she might be
comfortable.
There had of necessity been much of secrecy in the life of Margaret
Mackenzie. She had possessed no friend to whom she could express her
thoughts and feelings with confidence. I doubt whether any living
being knew that there now existed, up in that small back bedroom in
Arundel Street, quires of manuscript in which Margaret had written
her thoughts and feelings,--hundreds of rhymes which had never met
any eye but her own; and outspoken words of love contained in letters
which had never been sent, or been intended to be sent, to any
destination. Indeed these letters had been commenced with no name,
and finished with no signature. It would be hardly true to say that
they had been intended for Harry Handcock, even at the warmest period
of her love. They had rather been trials of her strength,--proofs
of what she might do if fortune should ever be so kind to her as to
allow of her loving. No one had ever guessed all this, or had dreamed
of accusing Margaret of romance. No one capable of testing her
character had known her. In latter days she had now and again dined
in Gower Street, but her sister-in-law, Mrs Tom, had declared her
to be a silent, stupid old maid. As a silent, stupid old maid, the
Mackenzies of Rubb and Mackenzie were disposed to regard her. But how
should they treat this stupid old maid of an aunt, if it should now
turn out that all the wealth of the family belonged to her?
When Walter's will was read such was found to be the case. There
was no doubt, or room for doubt, in the matter. The will was dated
but two months before his death, and left everything to Margaret,
expressing a conviction on the part of the testator that it was his
duty to do so, because of his sister's unremitting attention to
himself. Harry Handcock was requested to act as executor, and was
requested also to accept a gold watch and a present of two hundred
pounds. Not a word was there in the whole will of his brother's
family; and Tom, when he went home with a sad heart, told his wife
that all this had come of certain words which she had spoken when
last she had visited the sick man. "I knew it would be so," said Tom
to his wife. "It can't be helped now, of course. I knew you could not
keep your temper quiet, and always told you not to go near him." How
the wife answered, the course of our story at the present moment does
not require me to tell. That she did answer with sufficient spirit,
no one, I should say, need doubt; and it may be surmised that things
in Gower Street were not comfortable that evening.
Tom Mackenzie had communicated the contents of the will to his
sister, who had declined to be in the room when it was opened. "He
has left you everything,--just everything," Tom had said. If Margaret
made any word of reply, Tom did not hear it. "There will be over
eight hundred a year, and he has left you all the furniture," Tom
continued. "He has been very good," said Margaret, hardly knowing how
to express herself on such an occasion. "Very good to you," said Tom,
with some little sarcasm in his voice. "I mean good to me," said
Margaret. Then he told her that Harry Handcock had been named as
executor. "There is no more about him in the will, is there?" said
Margaret. At the moment, not knowing much about executors, she had
fancied that her brother had, in making such appointment, expressed
some further wish about Mr Handcock. Her brother explained to her
that the executor was to have two hundred pounds and a gold watch,
and then she was satisfied.
"Of course, it's a very sad look-out for us," Tom said; "but I do not
on that account blame you."
"If you did you would wrong me," Margaret answered, "for I never once
during all the years that we lived together spoke to Walter one word
about his money."
"I do not blame you," the brother rejoined; and then no more had been
said between them.
He had asked her even before the funeral to go up to Gower Street and
stay with them, but she had declined. Mrs Tom Mackenzie had not asked
her. Mrs Tom Mackenzie had hoped, then--had hoped and had inwardly
resolved--that half, at least, of the dying brother's money would
have come to her husband; and she had thought that if she once
encumbered herself with the old maid, the old maid might remain
longer than was desirable. "We should never get rid of her," she had
said to her eldest daughter, Mary Jane. "Never, mamma," Mary Jane had
replied. The mother and daughter had thought that they would be on
the whole safer in not pressing any such invitation. They had not
pressed it, and the old maid had remained in Arundel Street.
Before Tom left the house, after the reading of the will, he again
invited his sister to his own home. An hour or two had intervened
since he had told her of her position in the world, and he was
astonished at finding how composed and self-assured she was in the
tone and manner of her answer. "No, Tom, I think I had better not,"
she said. "Sarah will be somewhat disappointed."
"You need not mind that," said Tom.
"I think I had better not. I shall be very glad to see her if she
will come to me; and I hope you will come, Tom; but I think I will
remain here till I have made up my mind what to do." She remained in
Arundel Street for the next three months, and her brother saw her
frequently; but Mrs Tom Mackenzie never went to her, and she never
went to Mrs Tom Mackenzie. "Let it be even so," said Mrs Tom; "they
shall not say that I ran after her and her money. I hate such airs."
"So do I, mamma," said Mary Jane, tossing her head. "I always said
that she was a nasty old maid."
On that same day,--the day on which the will was read,--Mr Handcock
had also come to her. "I need not tell you," he had said, as he
pressed her hand, "how rejoiced I am--for your sake, Margaret."
Then she had returned the pressure, and had thanked him for his
friendship. "You know that I have been made executor to the will," he
continued. "He did this simply to save you from trouble. I need only
promise that I will do anything and everything that you can wish."
Then he left her, saying nothing of his suit on that occasion.
Two months after this,--and during those two months he had
necessarily seen her frequently,--Mr Handcock wrote to her from his
office in Somerset House, renewing his old proposals of marriage. His
letter was short and sensible, pleading his cause as well, perhaps,
as any words were capable of pleading it at this time; but it was not
successful. As to her money he told her that no doubt he regarded it
now as a great addition to their chance of happiness, should they
put their lots together; and as to his love for her, he referred her
to the days in which he had desired to make her his wife without a
shilling of fortune. He had never changed, he said; and if her heart
was as constant as his, he would make good now the proposal which she
had once been willing to accept. His income was not equal to hers,
but it was not inconsiderable, and therefore as regards means they
would be very comfortable. Such were his arguments, and Margaret,
little as she knew of the world, was able to perceive that he
expected that they would succeed with her.
Little, however, as she might know of the world, she was not prepared
to sacrifice herself and her new freedom, and her new power and her
new wealth, to Mr Harry Handcock. One word said to her when first
she was free and before she was rich, would have carried her. But an
argumentative, well-worded letter, written to her two months after
the fact of her freedom and the fact of her wealth had sunk into
his mind, was powerless on her. She had looked at her glass and
had perceived that years had improved her, whereas years had not
improved Harry Handcock. She had gone back over her old aspirations,
aspirations of which no whisper had ever been uttered, but which had
not the less been strong within her, and had told herself that she
could not gratify them by a union with Mr Handcock. She thought, or
rather hoped, that society might still open to her its portals,--not
simply the society of the Handcocks from Somerset House, but that
society of which she had read in novels during the day, and of which
she had dreamed at night. Might it not yet be given to her to know
clever people, nice people, bright people, people who were not heavy
and fat like Mr Handcock, or sick and wearisome like her poor brother
Walter, or vulgar and quarrelsome like her relatives in Gower Street?
She reminded herself that she was the niece of one baronet, and the
first-cousin once removed of another, that she had eight hundred
a year, and liberty to do with it whatsoever she pleased; and she
reminded herself, also, that she had higher tastes in the world than
Mr Handcock. Therefore she wrote to him an answer, much longer than
his letter, in which she explained to him that the more than ten
years' interval which had elapsed since words of love had passed
between them had--had--had--changed the nature of her regard. After
much hesitation, that was the phrase which she used.
And she was right in her decision. Whether or no she was doomed to be
disappointed in her aspirations, or to be partially disappointed and
partially gratified, these pages are written to tell. But I think
we may conclude that she would hardly have made herself happy by
marrying Mr Handcock while such aspirations were strong upon her.
There was nothing on her side in favour of such a marriage but a
faint remembrance of auld lang syne.
She remained three months in Arundel Street, and before that period
was over she made a proposition to her brother Tom, showing to what
extent she was willing to burden herself on behalf of his family.
Would he allow her, she asked, to undertake the education and charge
of his second daughter, Susanna? She would not offer to adopt her
niece, she said, because it was on the cards that she herself might
marry; but she would promise to take upon herself the full expense
of the girl's education, and all charge of her till such education
should be completed. If then any future guardianship on her part
should have become incompatible with her own circumstances, she
should give Susanna five hundred pounds. There was an air of business
about this which quite startled Tom Mackenzie, who, as has before
been said, had taught himself in old days to regard his sister as a
poor creature. There was specially an air of business about her
allusion to her own future state. Tom was not at all surprised that
his sister should think of marrying, but he was much surprised that
she should dare to declare her thoughts. "Of course she will marry
the first fool that asks her," said Mrs Tom. The father of the large
family, however, pronounced the offer to be too good to be refused.
"If she does, she will keep her word about the five hundred pounds,"
he said. Mrs Tom, though she demurred, of course gave way; and when
Margaret Mackenzie left London for Littlebath, where lodgings had
been taken for her, she took her niece Susanna with her.