Mrs Stumfold Interferes
On the morning following Miss Todd's tea-party, Mr Rubb called on
Miss Mackenzie and bade her adieu. He was, he said, going up to
London at once, having received a letter which made his presence
there imperative. Miss Mackenzie could, of course, do no more than
simply say good-bye to him. But when she had said so he did not even
then go at once. He was standing with his hat in hand, and had bade
her farewell; but still he did not go. He had something to say, and
she stood there trembling, half fearing what the nature of that
something might be.
"I hope I may see you again before long," he said at last.
"I hope you may," she replied.
"Of course I shall. After all that's come and gone, I shall think
nothing of running down, if it were only to make a morning call."
"Pray don't do that, Mr Rubb."
"I shall, as a matter of course. But in spite of that, Miss
Mackenzie, I can't go away without saying another word about the
money. I can't indeed."
"There needn't be any more about that, Mr Rubb."
"But there must be, Miss Mackenzie; there must, indeed; at least, so
much as this. I know I've done wrong about that money."
"Don't talk about it. If I choose to lend it to my brother and you
without security, there's nothing very uncommon in that."
"No; there ain't; at least perhaps there ain't. Though as far as I
can see, brothers and sisters out in the world are mostly as hard to
each other where money is concerned as other people. But the thing
is, you didn't mean to lend it without security."
"I'm quite contented as it is."
"And I did wrong about it all through; I feel it so that I can't tell
you. I do, indeed. But I'll never rest till that money is paid back
again. I never will."
Then, having said that, he went away. When early on the preceding
evening he had put on bright yellow gloves, making himself smart
before the eyes of the lady of his love, it must be presumed that
he did so with some hope of success. In that hope he was altogether
betrayed. When he came and confessed his fraud about the money,
it must be supposed that in doing so he felt that he was lowering
himself in the estimation of her whom he desired to win for his wife.
But, had he only known it, he thereby took the most efficacious step
towards winning her esteem. The gloves had been nearly fatal to him;
but those words,--"I feel it so that I can't tell you," redeemed the
evil that the gloves had done. He went away, however, saying nothing
more then, and failing to strike while the iron was hot.
Some six weeks after this Mrs Stumfold called on Miss Mackenzie,
making a most important visit. But it should be first explained,
before the nature of that visit is described, that Miss Mackenzie had
twice been to Mrs Stumfold's house since the evening of Miss Todd's
party, drinking tea there on both occasions, and had twice met Mr
Maguire. On the former occasion they two had had some conversation,
but it had been of no great moment. He had spoken nothing then of
the pleasures of love, nor had he made any allusion to the dove-like
softness of women. On the second meeting he had seemed to keep aloof
from her altogether, and she had begun to tell herself that that
dream was over, and to scold herself for having dreamed at all--when
he came close up behind and whispered a word in her ear.
"You know," he said, "how much I would wish to be with you, but I
can't now."
She had been startled, and had turned round, and had found herself
close to his dreadful eye. She had never been so close to it before,
and it frightened her. Then again he came to her just before she
left, and spoke to her in the same mysterious way:
"I will see you in a day or two," he said, "but never mind now;" and
then he walked away. She had not spoken a word to him, nor did she
speak a word to him that evening.
Miss Mackenzie had never before seen Mrs Stumfold since her first
visit of ceremony, except in that lady's drawing-room, and was
surprised when she heard the name announced. It was an understood
thing that Mrs Stumfold did not call on the Stumfoldians unless she
had some great and special reason for doing so,--unless some erring
sister required admonishing, or the course of events in the life of
some Stumfoldian might demand special advice. I do not know that any
edict of this kind had actually been pronounced, but Miss Mackenzie,
though she had not yet been twelve months in Littlebath, knew that
this arrangement was generally understood to exist. It was plain
to be seen by the lady's face, as she entered the room, that some
special cause had brought her now. It wore none of those pretty
smiles with which morning callers greet their friends before they
begin their first gentle attempts at miscellaneous conversation.
It was true that she gave her hand to Miss Mackenzie, but she did
even this with austerity; and when she seated herself,--not on
the sofa as she was invited to do, but on one of the square, hard,
straight-backed chairs,--Miss Mackenzie knew well that pleasantness
was not to be the order of the morning.
"My dear Miss Mackenzie," said Mrs Stumfold, "I hope you will pardon
me if I express much tender solicitude for your welfare."
Miss Mackenzie was so astonished at this mode of address, and at the
tone in which it was uttered, that she made no reply to it. The words
themselves had in them an intention of kindness, but the voice and
look of the lady were, if kind, at any rate not tender.
"You came among us," continued Mrs Stumfold, "and became one of us,
and we have been glad to welcome you."
"I'm sure I've been much obliged."
"We are always glad to welcome those who come among us in a proper
spirit. Society with me, Miss Mackenzie, is never looked upon as an
end in itself. It is only a means to an end. No woman regards society
more favourably than I do. I think it offers to us one of the most
efficacious means of spreading true gospel teaching. With these views
I have always thought it right to open my house in a spirit, as I
hope, of humble hospitality;--and Mr Stumfold is of the same opinion.
Holding these views, we have been delighted to see you among us, and,
as I have said already, to welcome you as one of us."
There was something in this so awful that Miss Mackenzie hardly knew
how to speak, or let it pass without speaking. Having a spirit of
her own she did not like being told that she had been, as it were,
sat upon and judged, and then admitted into Mrs Stumfold's society
as a child may be admitted into a school after an examination. And
yet on the spur of the moment she could not think what words might
be appropriate for her answer. She sat silent, therefore, and Mrs
Stumfold again went on.
"I trust that you will acknowledge that we have shown our good will
towards you, our desire to cultivate a Christian friendship with you,
and that you will therefore excuse me if I ask you a question which
might otherwise have the appearance of interference. Miss Mackenzie,
is there anything between you and my husband's curate, Mr Maguire?"
Miss Mackenzie's face became suddenly as red as fire, but for a
moment or two she made no answer. I do not know whether I may as
yet have succeeded in making the reader understand the strength as
well as the weakness of my heroine's character; but Mrs Stumfold
had certainly not succeeded in perceiving it. She was accustomed,
probably, to weak, obedient women,--to women who had taught
themselves to believe that submission to Stumfoldian authority
was a sign of advanced Christianity; and in the mild-looking,
quiet-mannered lady who had lately come among them, she certainly did
not expect to encounter a rebel. But on such matters as that to which
the female hierarch of Littlebath was now alluding, Miss Mackenzie
was not by nature adapted to be submissive.
"Is there anything between you and Mr Maguire?" said Mrs Stumfold
again. "I particularly wish to have a plain answer to that question."
Miss Mackenzie, as I have said, became very red in the face. When it
was repeated, she found herself obliged to speak. "Mrs Stumfold, I do
not know that you have any right to ask me such a question as that."
"No right! No right to ask a lady who sits under Mr Stumfold whether
or not she is engaged to Mr Stumfold's own curate! Think again of
what you are saying, Miss Mackenzie!" And there was in Mrs Stumfold's
voice as she spoke an expression of offended majesty, and in her
countenance a look of awful authority, sufficient no doubt to bring
most Stumfoldian ladies to their bearings.
"You said nothing about being engaged to him."
"Oh, Miss Mackenzie!"
"You said nothing about being engaged to him, but if you had I should
have made the same answer. You asked me if there was anything between
me and him; and I think it was a very offensive question."
"Offensive! I am afraid, Miss Mackenzie, you have not your spirit
subject to a proper control. I have come here in all kindness to warn
you against danger, and you tell me that I am offensive! What am I to
think of you?"
"You have no right to connect my name with any gentleman's. You can't
have any right merely because I go to Mr Stumfold's church. It's
quite preposterous. If I went to Mr Paul's church"--Mr Paul was a
very High Church young clergyman who had wished to have candles in
his church, and of whom it was asserted that he did keep a pair of
candles on an inverted box in a closet inside his bedroom--"if I went
to Mr Paul's church, might his wife, if he had one, come and ask me
all manner of questions like that?"
Now Mr Paul's name stank in the nostrils of Mrs Stumfold. He was
to her the thing accursed. Had Miss Mackenzie quoted the Pope, or
Cardinal Wiseman or even Dr Newman, it would not have been so bad.
Mrs Stumfold had once met Mr Paul, and called him to his face the
most abject of all the slaves of the scarlet woman. To this courtesy
Mr Paul, being a good-humoured and somewhat sportive young man,
had replied that she was another. Mrs Stumfold had interpreted the
gentleman's meaning wrongly, and had ever since gnashed with her
teeth and fired great guns with her eyes whenever Mr Paul was named
within her hearing. "Ribald ruffian," she had once said of him; "but
that he thinks his priestly rags protect him, he would not have dared
to insult me." It was said that she had complained to Stumfold; but
Mr Stumfold's sacerdotal clothing, whether ragged or whole, prevented
him also from interfering, and nothing further of a personal nature
had occurred between the opponents.
But Miss Mackenzie, who certainly was a Stumfoldian by her own
choice, should not have used the name. She probably did not know
the whole truth as to that passage of arms between Mr Paul and Mrs
Stumfold, but she did know that no name in Littlebath was so odious
to the lady as that of the rival clergyman.
"Very well, Miss Mackenzie," said she, speaking loudly in her wrath;
"then let me tell you that you will come by your ruin,--yes, by your
ruin. You poor unfortunate woman, you are unfit to guide your own
steps, and will not take counsel from those who are able to put you
in the right way!"
"How shall I be ruined?" said Miss Mackenzie, jumping up from her
seat.
"How? Yes. Now you want to know. After having insulted me in return
for my kindness in coming to you, you ask me questions. If I tell you
how, no doubt you will insult me again."
"I haven't insulted you, Mrs Stumfold. And if you don't like to tell
me, you needn't. I'm sure I did not want you to come to me and talk
in this way."
"Want me! Who ever does want to be reproved for their own folly? I
suppose what you want is to go on and marry that man, who may have
two or three other wives for what you know, and put yourself and your
money into the hands of a person whom you never saw in your life
above a few months ago, and of whose former life you literally know
nothing. Tell the truth, Miss Mackenzie, isn't that what you desire
to do?"
"I find him acting as Mr Stumfold's curate."
"Yes; and when I come to warn you, you insult me. He is Mr Stumfold's
curate, and in many respects he is well fitted for his office."
"But has he two or three wives already, Mrs Stumfold?"
"I never said that he had."
"I thought you hinted it."
"I never hinted it, Miss Mackenzie. If you would only be a little
more careful in the things which you allow yourself to say, it would
be better for yourself; and better for me too, while I am with you."
"I declare you said something about two or three wives; and if there
is anything of that kind true of a gentleman and a clergyman, I don't
think he ought to be allowed to go about as a single gentleman. I
mean as a curate. Mr Maguire is nothing to me,--nothing whatever; and
I don't see why I should have been mixed up with him; but if there is
anything of that sort--"
"But there isn't."
"Then, Mrs Stumfold, I don't think you ought to have mentioned two
or three wives. I don't, indeed. It is such a horrid idea,--quite
horrid! And I suppose, after all, the poor man has not got one?"
"If you had allowed me, I should have told you all, Miss Mackenzie.
Mr Maguire is not married, and never has been married, as far as I
know."
"Then I do think what you said of him was very cruel."
"I said nothing; as you would have known, only you are so hot. Miss
Mackenzie, you quite astonish me; you do, indeed. I had expected to
find you temperate and calm; instead of that, you are so impetuous,
that you will not listen to a word. When it first came to my ears
that there might be something between you and Mr Maguire--"
"I will not be told about something. What does something mean, Mrs
Stumfold?"
"When I was told of this," continued Mrs Stumfold, determined that
she would not be stopped any longer by Miss Mackenzie's energy; "when
I was told of this, and, indeed, I may say saw it--"
"You never saw anything, Mrs Stumfold."
"I immediately perceived that it was my duty to come to you; to come
to you and tell you that another lady has a prior claim upon Mr
Maguire's hand and heart."
"Oh, indeed."
"Another young lady,"--with an emphasis on the word young,--"whom he
first met at my house, who was introduced to him by me,--a young lady
not above thirty years of age, and quite suitable in every way to be
Mr Maguire's wife. She may not have quite so much money as you; but
she has a fair provision, and money is not everything; a lady in
every way suitable--"
"But is this suitable young lady, who is only thirty years of age,
engaged to him?"
"I presume, Miss Mackenzie, that in speaking to you, I am speaking to
a lady who would not wish to interfere with another lady who has been
before her. I do hope that you cannot be indifferent to the ordinary
feelings of a female Christian on that subject. What would you think
if you were interfered with, though, perhaps, as you had not your
fortune in early life, you may never have known what that was."
This was too much even for Miss Mackenzie.
"Mrs Stumfold," she said, again rising from her seat, "I won't talk
about this any more with you. Mr Maguire is nothing to me; and, as
far as I can see, if he was, that would be nothing to you."
"But it would,--a great deal."
"No, it wouldn't. You may say what you like to him, though, for the
matter of that, I think it a very indelicate thing for a lady to go
about raising such questions at all. But perhaps you have known him a
long time, and I have nothing to do with what you and he choose to
talk about. If he is behaving bad to any friend of yours, go and tell
him so. As for me, I won't hear anything more about it."
As Miss Mackenzie continued to stand, Mrs Stumfold was forced to
stand also, and soon afterwards found herself compelled to go away.
She had, indeed, said all that she had come to say, and though she
would willingly have repeated it again had Miss Mackenzie been
submissive, she did not find herself encouraged to do so by the
rebellious nature of the lady she was visiting.
"I have meant well, Miss Mackenzie," she said as she took her
leave, "and I hope that I shall see you just the same as ever on my
Thursdays."
To this Miss Mackenzie made answer only by a curtsey, and then Mrs
Stumfold went her way.
Miss Mackenzie, as soon as she was left to herself, began to cry.
If Mrs Stumfold could have seen her, how it would have soothed and
rejoiced that lady's ruffled spirit! Miss Mackenzie would sooner have
died than have wept in Mrs Stumfold's presence, but no sooner was the
front door closed than she began. To have been attacked at all in
that way would have been too much for her, but to have been called
old and unsuitable--for that was, in truth, the case; to hear herself
accused of being courted solely for her money, and that when in truth
she had not been courted at all; to have been informed that a lover
for her must have been impossible in those days when she had no
money! was not all this enough to make her cry? And then, was it the
truth that Mr Maguire ought to marry some one else? If so, she was
the last woman in Littlebath to interfere between him and that other
one. But how was she to know that this was not some villainy on the
part of Mrs Stumfold? She felt sure, after what she had now seen and
heard, that nothing in that way would be too bad for Mrs Stumfold to
say or do. She never would go to Mrs Stumfold's house again; that
was a matter of course; but what should she do about Mr Maguire? Mr
Maguire might never speak to her in the way of affection,--probably
never would do so; that she could bear; but how was she to bear the
fact that every Stumfoldian in Littlebath would know all about it?
On one thing she finally resolved, that if ever Mr Maguire spoke to
her on the subject, she would tell him everything that had occurred.
After that she cried herself to sleep.
On that afternoon she felt herself to be very desolate and much in
want of a friend. When Susanna came back from school in the evening
she was almost more desolate than before. She could say nothing of
her troubles to one so young, nor yet could she shake off the thought
of them. She had been bold enough while Mrs Stumfold had been with
her, but now that she was alone, or almost worse than alone, having
Susanna with her,--now that the reaction had come, she began to tell
herself that a continuation of this solitary life would be impossible
to her. How was she to live if she was to be trampled upon in this
way? Was it not almost necessary that she should leave Littlebath?
And yet if she were to leave Littlebath, whither should she go, and
how should she muster courage to begin everything over again? If only
it had been given her to have one friend,--one female friend to whom
she could have told everything! She thought of Miss Baker, but Miss
Baker was a staunch Stumfoldian; and what did she know of Miss Baker
that gave her any right to trouble Miss Baker on such a subject? She
would almost rather have gone to Miss Todd, if she had dared.
She laid awake crying half the night. Nothing of the kind had
ever occurred to her before. No one had ever accused her of any
impropriety; no one had ever thrown it in her teeth that she was
longing after fruit that ought to be forbidden to her. In her former
obscurity and dependence she had been safe. Now that she had begun
to look about her and hope for joy in the world, she had fallen into
this terrible misfortune! Would it not have been better for her to
have married her cousin John Ball, and thus have had a clear course
of duty marked out for her? Would it not have been better for her
even to have married Harry Handcock than to have come to this misery?
What good would her money do her, if the world was to treat her in
this way?
And then, was it true? Was it the fact that Mr Maguire was
ill-treating some other woman in order that he might get her money?
In all her misery she remembered that Mrs Stumfold would not commit
herself to any such direct assertion, and she remembered also
that Mrs Stumfold had especially insisted on her own part of the
grievance,--on the fact that the suitable young lady had been met by
Mr Maguire in her drawing-room. As to Mr Maguire himself, she could
reconcile herself to the loss of him. Indeed she had never yet
reconciled herself to the idea of taking him. But she could not
endure to think that Mrs Stumfold's interference should prevail, or,
worse still, that other people should have supposed it to prevail.
The next day was Thursday,--one of Mrs Stumfold's Thursdays,--and in
the course of the morning Miss Baker came to her, supposing that, as
a matter of course, she would go to the meeting.
"Not to-night, Miss Baker," said she.
"Not going! and why not?"
"I'd rather not go out to-night."
"Dear me, how odd. I thought you always went to Mrs Stumfold's.
There's nothing wrong, I hope?"
Then Miss Mackenzie could not restrain herself, and told Miss Baker
everything. And she told her story, not with whines and lamentations,
as she had thought of it herself while lying awake during the past
night, but with spirited indignation. "What right had she to come to
me and accuse me?"
"I suppose she meant it for the best," said Miss Baker.
"No, Miss Baker, she meant it for the worst. I am sorry to speak
so of your friend, but I must speak as I find her. She intended to
insult me. Why did she tell me of my age and my money? Have I made
myself out to be young? or misbehaved myself with the means which
Providence has given me? And as to the gentleman, have I ever
conducted myself so as to merit reproach? I don't know that I was
ever ten minutes in his company that you were not there also."
"It was the last accusation I should have brought against you,"
whimpered Miss Baker.
"Then why has she treated me in this way? What right have I given her
to be my advisor, because I go to her husband's church? Mr Maguire
is my friend, and it might have come to that, that he should be my
husband. Is there any sin in that, that I should be rebuked?"
"It was for the other lady's sake, perhaps."
"Then let her go to the other lady, or to him. She has forgotten
herself in coming to me, and she shall know that I think so."
Miss Baker, when she left the Paragon, felt for Miss Mackenzie more
of respect and more of esteem also than she had ever felt before. But
Miss Mackenzie, when she was left alone, went upstairs, threw herself
on her bed, and was again dissolved in tears.