Miss Mackenzie Goes to Littlebath
I fear that Miss Mackenzie, when she betook herself to Littlebath,
had before her mind's eye no sufficiently settled plan of life. She
wished to live pleasantly, and perhaps fashionably; but she also
desired to live respectably, and with a due regard to religion. How
she was to set about doing this at Littlebath, I am afraid she did
not quite know. She told herself over and over again that wealth
entailed duties as well as privileges; but she had no clear idea what
were the duties so entailed, or what were the privileges. How could
she have obtained any clear idea on the subject in that prison which
she had inhabited for so many years by her brother's bedside?
She had indeed been induced to migrate from London to Littlebath by
an accident which should not have been allowed to actuate her. She
had been ill, and the doctor, with that solicitude which doctors
sometimes feel for ladies who are well to do in the world, had
recommended change of air. Littlebath, among the Tantivy hills, would
be the very place for her. There were waters at Littlebath which she
might drink for a month or two with great advantage to her system. It
was then the end of July, and everybody that was anybody was going
out of town. Suppose she were to go to Littlebath in August, and stay
there for a month, or perhaps two months, as she might feel inclined.
The London doctor knew a Littlebath doctor, and would be so happy to
give her a letter. Then she spoke to the clergyman of the church she
had lately attended in London who also had become more energetic in
his assistance since her brother's death than he had been before,
and he also could give her a letter to a gentleman of his cloth at
Littlebath. She knew very little in private life of the doctor or of
the clergyman in London, but not the less, on that account, might
their introductions be of service to her in forming a circle of
acquaintance at Littlebath. In this way she first came to think of
Littlebath, and from this beginning she had gradually reached her
decision.
Another little accident, or two other little accidents, had nearly
induced her to remain in London--not in Arundel Street, which was to
her an odious locality, but in some small genteel house in or about
Brompton. She had written to the two baronets to announce to them
her brother's death, Tom Mackenzie, the surviving brother, having
positively refused to hold any communication with either of them.
To both these letters, after some interval, she received courteous
replies. Sir Walter Mackenzie was a very old man, over eighty, who
now never stirred away from Incharrow, in Ross-shire. Lady Mackenzie
was not living. Sir Walter did not write himself, but a letter came
from Mrs Mackenzie, his eldest son's wife, in which she said that
she and her husband would be up in London in the course of the next
spring, and hoped that they might then have the pleasure of making
their cousin's acquaintance. This letter, it was true, did not come
till the beginning of August, when the Littlebath plan was nearly
formed; and Margaret knew that her cousin, who was in Parliament, had
himself been in London almost up to the time at which it was written,
so that he might have called had he chosen. But she was prepared to
forgive much. There had been cause for offence; and if her great
relatives were now prepared to take her by the hand, there could be
no reason why she should not consent to be so taken. Sir John Ball,
the other baronet, had absolutely come to her, and had seen her.
There had been a regular scene of reconciliation, and she had gone
down for a day and night to the Cedars. Sir John also was an old man,
being over seventy, and Lady Ball was nearly as old. Mr Ball, the
future baronet, had also been there. He was a widower, with a large
family and small means. He had been, and of course still was, a
barrister; but as a barrister he had never succeeded, and was now
waiting sadly till he should inherit the very moderate fortune which
would come to him at his father's death. The Balls, indeed, had not
done well with their baronetcy, and their cousin found them living
with a degree of strictness, as to small expenses, which she herself
had never been called upon to exercise. Lady Ball indeed had a
carriage--for what would a baronet's wife do without one?--but it did
not very often go out. And the Cedars was an old place, with grounds
and paddocks appertaining; but the ancient solitary gardener could
not make much of the grounds, and the grass of the paddocks was
always sold. Margaret, when she was first asked to go to the Cedars,
felt that it would be better for her to give up her migration to
Littlebath. It would be much, she thought, to have her relations near
to her. But she had found Sir John and Lady Ball to be very dull, and
her cousin, the father of the large family, had spoken to her about
little except money. She was not much in love with the Balls when she
returned to London, and the Littlebath plan was allowed to go on.
She made a preliminary journey to that place, and took furnished
lodgings in the Paragon. Now it is known to all the world that the
Paragon is the nucleus of all that is pleasant and fashionable at
Littlebath. It is a long row of houses with two short rows abutting
from the ends of the long row, and every house in it looks out upon
the Montpelier Gardens. If not built of stone, these houses are built
of such stucco that the Margaret Mackenzies of the world do not know
the difference. Six steps, which are of undoubted stone, lead up to
each door. The areas are grand with high railings. The flagged way
before the houses is very broad, and at each corner there is an
extensive sweep, so that the carriages of the Paragonites may be
made to turn easily. Miss Mackenzie's heart sank a little within her
at the sight of all this grandeur, when she was first taken to the
Paragon by her new friend the doctor. But she bade her heart be of
good courage, and looked at the first floor--divided into dining-room
and drawing-room--at the large bedroom upstairs for herself, and two
small rooms for her niece and her maid-servant--at the kitchen in
which she was to have a partial property, and did not faint at the
splendour. And yet how different it was from those dingy rooms in
Arundel Street! So different that she could hardly bring herself to
think that this bright abode could become her own.
"And what is the price, Mrs Richards?" Her voice almost did fail her
as she asked this question. She was determined to be liberal; but
money of her own had hitherto been so scarce with her that she still
dreaded the idea of expense.
"The price, mem, is well beknown to all as knows Littlebath. We never
alters. Ask Dr Pottinger else."
Miss Mackenzie did not at all wish to ask Dr Pottinger, who was at
this moment standing in the front room, while she and her embryo
landlady were settling affairs in the back room.
"But what is the price, Mrs Richards?"
"The price, mem, is two pound ten a week, or nine guineas if taken by
the month--to include the kitchen fire."
Margaret breathed again. She had made her little calculations over
and over again, and was prepared to bid as high as the sum now named
for such a combination of comfort and splendour as Mrs Richards was
able to offer to her. One little question she asked, putting her lips
close to Mrs Richards' ear so that her friend the doctor should not
hear her through the doorway, and then jumped back a yard and a half,
awe-struck by the energy of her landlady's reply.
"B---- in the Paragon!" Mrs Richards declared that Miss Mackenzie did
not as yet know Littlebath. She bethought herself that she did know
Arundel Street, and again thanked Fortune for all the good things
that had been given to her.
Miss Mackenzie feared to ask any further questions after this, and
took the rooms out of hand by the month.
"And very comfortable you'll find yourself," said Dr Pottinger, as
he walked back with his new friend to the inn. He had perhaps been
a little disappointed when he saw that Miss Mackenzie showed every
sign of good health; but he bore it like a man and a Christian,
remembering, no doubt, that let a lady's health be ever so good, she
likes to see a doctor sometimes, especially if she be alone in the
world. He offered her, therefore, every assistance in his power.
"The assembly rooms were quite close to the Paragon," he said.
"Oh, indeed!" said Miss Mackenzie, not quite knowing the purport of
assembly rooms.
"And there are two or three churches within five minutes' walk." Here
Miss Mackenzie was more at home, and mentioned the name of the Rev.
Mr Stumfold, for whom she had a letter of introduction, and whose
church she would like to attend.
Now Mr Stumfold was a shining light at Littlebath, the man of men, if
he was not something more than mere man, in the eyes of the devout
inhabitants of that town. Miss Mackenzie had never heard of Mr
Stumfold till her clergyman in London had mentioned his name, and
even now had no idea that he was remarkable for any special views in
Church matters. Such special views of her own she had none. But Mr
Stumfold at Littlebath had very special views, and was very specially
known for them. His friends said that he was evangelical, and his
enemies said that he was Low Church. He himself was wont to laugh at
these names--for he was a man who could laugh--and to declare that
his only ambition was to fight the devil under whatever name he might
be allowed to carry on that battle. And he was always fighting the
devil by opposing those pursuits which are the life and mainstay of
such places as Littlebath. His chief enemies were card-playing and
dancing as regarded the weaker sex, and hunting and horse-racing--to
which, indeed, might be added everything under the name of sport--as
regarded the stronger. Sunday comforts were also enemies which he
hated with a vigorous hatred, unless three full services a day, with
sundry intermediate religious readings and exercitations of the
spirit, may be called Sunday comforts. But not on this account should
it be supposed that Mr Stumfold was a dreary, dark, sardonic man.
Such was by no means the case. He could laugh loud. He could be very
jovial at dinner parties. He could make his little jokes about little
pet wickednesses. A glass of wine, in season, he never refused.
Picnics he allowed, and the flirtation accompanying them. He himself
was driven about behind a pair of horses, and his daughters were
horsewomen. His sons, if the world spoke truth, were Nimrods; but
that was in another county, away from the Tantivy hills, and Mr
Stumfold knew nothing of it. In Littlebath Mr Stumfold reigned over
his own set as a tyrant, but to those who obeyed him he was never
austere in his tyranny.
When Miss Mackenzie mentioned Mr Stumfold's name to the doctor, the
doctor felt that he had been wrong in his allusion to the assembly
rooms. Mr Stumfold's people never went to assembly rooms. He, a
doctor of medicine, of course went among saints and sinners alike,
but in such a place as Littlebath he had found it expedient to have
one tone for the saints and another for the sinners. Now the Paragon
was generally inhabited by sinners, and therefore he had made his
hint about the assembly rooms. He at once pointed out Mr Stumfold's
church, the spire of which was to be seen as they walked towards the
inn, and said a word in praise of that good man. Not a syllable would
he again have uttered as to the wickednesses of the place, had not
Miss Mackenzie asked some questions as to those assembly rooms.
"How did people get to belong to them? Were they pleasant? What did
they do there? Oh--she could put her name down, could she? If it was
anything in the way of amusement she would certainly like to put her
name down." Dr Pottinger, when on that afternoon he instructed his
wife to call on Miss Mackenzie as soon as that young lady should be
settled, explained that the stranger was very much in the dark as to
the ways and manners of Littlebath.
"What! go to the assembly rooms, and sit under Mr Stumfold!" said Mrs
Pottinger. "She never can do both, you know."
Miss Mackenzie went back to London, and returned at the end of a week
with her niece, her new maid, and her boxes. All the old furniture
had been sold, and her personal belongings were very scanty. The
time had now come in which personal belongings would accrue to her,
but when she reached the Paragon one big trunk and one small trunk
contained all that she possessed. The luggage of her niece Susanna
was almost as copious as her own. Her maid had been newly hired, and
she was almost ashamed of the scantiness of her own possessions in
the eyes of her servant.
The way in which Susanna had been given up to her had been
oppressive, and at one moment almost distressing. That objection
which each lady had to visit the other,--Miss Mackenzie, that is, and
Susanna's mamma,--had never been overcome, and neither side had given
way. No visit of affection or of friendship had been made. But as it
was needful that the transfer of the young lady should be effected
with some solemnity, Mrs Mackenzie had condescended to bring her to
her future guardian's lodgings on the day before that fixed for the
journey to Littlebath. To so much degradation--for in her eyes it was
degradation--Mrs Mackenzie had consented to subject herself; and Mr
Mackenzie was to come on the following morning, and take his sister
and daughter to the train.
The mother, as soon as she found herself seated and almost before she
had recovered the breath lost in mounting the lodging-house stairs,
began the speech which she had prepared for delivery on the occasion.
Miss Mackenzie, who had taken Susanna's hand, remained with it in her
own during the greater part of the speech. Before the speech was done
the poor girl's hand had been dropped, but in dropping it the aunt
was not guilty of any unkindness. "Margaret," said Mrs Mackenzie,
"this is a trial, a very great trial to a mother, and I hope that you
feel it as I do."
"Sarah," said Miss Mackenzie, "I will do my duty by your child."
"Well; yes; I hope so. If I thought you would not do your duty by
her, no consideration of mere money would induce me to let her go
to you. But I do hope, Margaret, you will think of the greatness of
the sacrifice we are making. There never was a better child than
Susanna."
"I am very glad of that, Sarah."
"Indeed, there never was a better child than any of 'em; I will
say that for them before the child herself; and if you do your duty
by her, I'm quite sure she'll do hers by you. Tom thinks it best
that she should go; and, of course, as all the money which should
have gone to him has come to you"--it was here, at this point that
Susanna's hand was dropped--"and as you haven't got a chick nor a
child, nor yet anybody else of your own, no doubt it is natural that
you should wish to have one of them."
"I wish to do a kindness to my brother," said Miss Mackenzie--"and to
my niece."
"Yes; of course; I understand. When you would not come up to see us,
Margaret, and you all alone, and we with a comfortable home to offer
you, of course I knew what your feelings were towards me. I don't
want anybody to tell me that! Oh dear, no! 'Tom,' said I when he
asked me to go down to Arundel Street, 'not if I know it.' Those were
the very words I uttered: 'Not if I know it, Tom!' And your papa
never asked me to go again--did he, Susanna? Nor I couldn't have
brought myself to. As you are so frank, Margaret, perhaps candour is
the best on both sides. Now I am going to leave my darling child in
your hands, and if you have got a mother's heart within your bosom, I
hope you will do a mother's duty by her."
More than once during this oration Miss Mackenzie had felt inclined
to speak her mind out, and to fight her own battle; but she was
repressed by the presence of the girl. What chance could there be of
good feeling, of aught of affection between her and her ward, if on
such an occasion as this the girl were made the witness of a quarrel
between her mother and her aunt? Miss Mackenzie's face had become
red, and she had felt herself to be angry; but she bore it all with
good courage.
"I will do my best," said she. "Susanna, come here and kiss me. Shall
we be great friends?" Susanna went and kissed her; but if the poor
girl attempted any answer it was not audible. Then the mother threw
herself on the daughter's neck, and the two embraced each other with
many tears.
"You'll find all her things very tidy, and plenty of 'em," said Mrs
Mackenzie through her tears. "I'm sure we've worked hard enough at
'em for the last three weeks."
"I've no doubt we shall find it all very nice," said the aunt.
"We wouldn't send her away to disgrace us, were it ever so; though of
course in the way of money it would make no difference to you if she
had come without a thing to her back. But I've that spirit I couldn't
do it, and so I told Tom." After this Mrs Mackenzie once more
embraced her daughter, and then took her departure.
Miss Mackenzie, as soon as her sister-in-law was gone, again took the
girl's hand in her own. Poor Susanna was in tears, and indeed there
was enough in her circumstances at the present moment to justify her
in weeping. She had been given over to her new destiny in no joyous
manner.
"Susanna," said Aunt Margaret, with her softest voice, "I'm so glad
you have come to me. I will love you very dearly if you will let me."
The girl came and clustered close against her as she sat on the sofa,
and so contrived as to creep in under her arm. No one had ever crept
in under her arm, or clung close to her before. Such outward signs of
affection as that had never been hers, either to give or to receive.
"My darling," she said, "I will love you so dearly."
Susanna said nothing, not knowing what words would be fitting for
such an occasion, but on hearing her aunt's assurance of affection,
she clung still closer to her, and in this way they became happy
before the evening was over.
This adopted niece was no child when she was thus placed under
her aunt's charge. She was already fifteen, and though she was
young-looking for her age,--having none of that precocious air of
womanhood which some girls have assumed by that time,--she was a
strong healthy well-grown lass, standing stoutly on her legs, with
her head well balanced, with a straight back, and well-formed though
not slender waist. She was sharp about the shoulders and elbows, as
girls are--or should be--at that age; and her face was not formed
into any definite shape of beauty, or its reverse. But her eyes were
bright--as were those of all the Mackenzies--and her mouth was not
the mouth of a fool. If her cheek-bones were a little high, and the
lower part of her face somewhat angular, those peculiarities were
probably not distasteful to the eyes of her aunt.
"You're a Mackenzie all over," said the aunt, speaking with some
little touch of the northern burr in her voice, though she herself
had never known anything of the north.
"That's what mamma's brothers and sisters always tell me. They say I
am Scotchy."
Then Miss Mackenzie kissed the girl again. If Susanna had been sent
to her because she had in her gait and appearance more of the land of
cakes than any of her brothers and sisters, that at any rate should
do her no harm in the estimation of her aunt. Thus in this way they
became friends.
On the following morning Mr Mackenzie came and took them down to the
train.
"I suppose we shall see you sometimes up in London?" he said, as he
stood by the door of the carriage.
"I don't know that there will be much to bring me up," she answered.
"And there won't be much to keep you down in the country," said he.
"You don't know anybody at Littlebath, I believe?"
"The truth is, Tom, that I don't know anybody anywhere. I'm likely to
know as many people at Littlebath as I should in London. But situated
as I am, I must live pretty much to myself wherever I am."
Then the guard came bustling along the platform, the father kissed
his daughter for the last time, and kissed his sister also, and our
heroine with her young charge had taken her departure, and commenced
her career in the world.
For many a mile not a word was spoken between Miss Mackenzie and her
niece. The mind of the elder of the two travellers was very full of
thought,--of thought and of feeling too, so that she could not bring
herself to speak joyously to the young girl. She had her doubts as to
the wisdom of what she was doing. Her whole life, hitherto, had been
sad, sombre, and, we may almost say, silent. Things had so gone with
her that she had had no power of action on her own behalf. Neither
with her father, nor with her brother, though both had been invalids,
had anything of the management of affairs fallen into her hands. Not
even in the hiring or discharging of a cookmaid had she possessed
any influence. No power of the purse had been with her--none of
that power which belongs legitimately to a wife because a wife is a
partner in the business. The two sick men whom she had nursed had
liked to retain in their own hands the little privileges which their
position had given them. Margaret, therefore, had been a nurse in
their houses, and nothing more than a nurse. Had this gone on for
another ten years she would have lived down the ambition of any more
exciting career, and would have been satisfied, had she then come
into the possession of the money which was now hers, to have ended
her days nursing herself--or more probably, as she was by nature
unselfish, she would have lived down her pride as well as her
ambition, and would have gone to the house of her brother and have
expended herself in nursing her nephews and nieces. But luckily for
her--or unluckily, as it may be--this money had come to her before
her time for withering had arrived. In heart, and energy, and desire,
there was still much of strength left to her. Indeed it may be said
of her, that she had come so late in life to whatever of ripeness was
to be vouchsafed to her, that perhaps the period of her thraldom had
not terminated itself a day too soon for her advantage. Many of her
youthful verses she had destroyed in the packing up of those two
modest trunks; but there were effusions of the spirit which had
flown into rhyme within the last twelve months, and which she still
preserved. Since her brother's death she had confined herself to
simple prose, and for this purpose she kept an ample journal. All
this is mentioned to show that at the age of thirty-six Margaret
Mackenzie was still a young woman.
She had resolved that she would not content herself with a lifeless
life, such as those few who knew anything of her evidently expected
from her. Harry Handcock had thought to make her his head nurse; and
the Tom Mackenzies had also indulged some such idea when they gave
her that first invitation to come and live in Gower Street. A word
or two had been said at the Cedars which led her to suppose that
the baronet's family there would have admitted her, with her eight
hundred a year, had she chosen to be so admitted. But she had
declared to herself that she would make a struggle to do better with
herself and with her money than that. She would go into the world,
and see if she could find any of those pleasantnesses of which she
had read in books. As for dancing, she was too old, and never yet
in her life had she stood up as a worshipper of Terpsichore. Of
cards she knew nothing; she had never even seen them used. To the
performance of plays she had been once or twice in her early days,
and now regarded a theatre not as a sink of wickedness after the
manner of the Stumfoldians, but as a place of danger because of
difficulty of ingress and egress, because the ways of a theatre were
far beyond her ken. The very mode in which it would behove her to
dress herself to go out to an ordinary dinner party, was almost
unknown to her. And yet, in spite of all this, she was resolved to
try.
Would it not have been easier for her--easier and more
comfortable--to have abandoned all ideas of the world, and have put
herself at once under the tutelage and protection of some clergyman
who would have told her how to give away her money, and prepare
herself in the right way for a comfortable death-bed? There was much
in this view of life to recommend it. It would be very easy, and
she had the necessary faith. Such a clergyman, too, would be a
comfortable friend, and, if a married man, might be a very dear
friend. And there might, probably, be a clergyman's wife, who would
go about with her, and assist in that giving away of her money.
Would not this be the best life after all? But in order to reconcile
herself altogether to such a life as that, it was necessary that she
should be convinced that the other life was abominable, wicked, and
damnable. She had seen enough of things--had looked far enough into
the ways of the world--to perceive this. She knew that she must go
about such work with strong convictions, and as yet she could not
bring herself to think that "dancing and delights" were damnable.
No doubt she would come to have such belief if told so often enough
by some persuasive divine; but she was not sure that she wished to
believe it.
After doubting much, she had determined to give the world a trial,
and, feeling that London was too big for her, had resolved upon
Littlebath. But now, having started herself upon her journey, she
felt as some mariner might who had put himself out alone to sea in
a small boat, with courage enough for the attempt, but without that
sort of courage which would make the attempt itself delightful.
And then this girl that was with her! She had told herself that it
would not be well to live for herself alone, that it was her duty to
share her good things with some one, and therefore she had resolved
to share them with her niece. But in this guardianship there was
danger, which frightened her as she thought of it.
"Are you tired yet, my dear?" said Miss Mackenzie, as they got to
Swindon.
"Oh dear, no; I'm not at all tired."
"There are cakes in there, I see. I wonder whether we should have
time to buy one."
After considering the matter for five minutes in doubt, Aunt Margaret
did rush out, and did buy the cakes.