Lady Ball in Arundel Street
On Christmas Day Miss Mackenzie was pressed very hard to eat her
Christmas dinner with Mr and Mrs Buggins, and she almost gave way.
She had some half-formed idea in her head that should she once
sit down to table with Buggins, she would have given up the fight
altogether. She had no objection to Buggins, and had, indeed, no
strong objection to put herself on a par with Buggins; but she felt
that she could not be on a par with Buggins and with John Ball at
the same time. Why it should be that in associating with the man
she would take a step downwards, and might yet associate with the
man's wife without taking any step downwards, she did not attempt to
explain to herself. But I think that she could have explained it had
she put herself to the task of analysing the question, and that she
felt exactly the result of such analysis without making it. At any
rate, she refused the invitation persistently, and ate her wretched
dinner alone in her bedroom.
She had often told herself, in those days of her philosophy at
Littlebath, that she did not care to be a lady; and she told herself
now the same thing very often when she was thinking of the hospital.
She cosseted herself with no false ideas as to the nature of the work
which she proposed to undertake. She knew very well that she might
have to keep rougher company than that of Buggins if she put her
shoulder to that wheel. She was willing enough to do this, and had
been willing to encounter such company ever since she left the
Cedars. She was prepared for the roughness. But she would not put
herself beyond the pale, as it were, of her cousin's hearth, moved
simply by a temptation to relieve the monotony of her life. When the
work came within her reach she would go to it, but till then she
would bear the wretchedness of her dull room upstairs. She wondered
whether he ever thought how wretched she must be in her solitude.
On New Year's Day she heard that her uncle was dead. She was already
in mourning for her brother, and was therefore called upon to make no
change in that respect. She wrote a note of condolence to her aunt,
in which she strove much, and vainly, to be cautious and sympathetic
at the same time, and in return received a note, in which Lady Ball
declared her purpose of coming to Arundel Street to see her niece as
soon as she found herself able to leave the house. She would, she
said, give Margaret warning the day beforehand, as it would be very
sad if she had her journey all for nothing.
Her aunt, Lady Ball, was coming to see her in Arundel Street! What
could be the purpose of such a visit after all that had passed
between them? And why should her aunt trouble herself to make it
at a period of such great distress? Lady Ball must have some very
important plan to propose, and poor Margaret's heart was in a
flutter. It was ten days after this before the second promised note
arrived, and then Margaret was asked to say whether she would be at
home and able to receive her aunt's visit at ten minutes past two on
the day but one following. Margaret wrote back to say that she would
be at home at ten minutes past two on the day named.
Her aunt was old, and she again borrowed the parlour, though she was
not now well inclined to ask favours from Mrs Buggins. Mrs Buggins
had taken to heart the slight put upon her husband, and sometimes
made nasty little speeches.
"Oh dear, yes, in course, Miss Margaret; not that I ever did think
much of them Ballses, and less than ever now, since the gentleman was
kind enough to send me the newspaper. But she's welcome to the room,
seeing as how Mr Tiddy will be in the City, of course; and you're
welcome to it, too, though you do keep yourself so close to yourself,
which won't ever bring you round to have your money again; that it
won't."
Lady Ball came and was shown into the parlour, and her niece went
down to receive her.
"I would have been here before you came, aunt, only the room is not
mine."
In answer to this, Lady Ball said that it did very well. Any room
would answer the present purpose. Then she sat down on the sofa from
which she had risen. She was dressed, of course, in the full weeds
of her widowhood, and the wide extent of her black crape was almost
awful in Margaret's eyes. She did not look to be so savage as her
niece had sometimes seen her, but there was about her a ponderous
accumulation of crape, which made her even more formidable than she
used to be. It would be almost impossible to refuse anything to a
person so black, so grave, so heavy, and so big.
"I have come to you, my dear," she said, "as soon as I possibly could
after the sad event which we have had at home."
In answer to this, Margaret said that she was much obliged, but she
hoped that her aunt had put herself to no trouble. Then she said a
word or two about her uncle,--a word or two that was very difficult,
as of course it could mean nothing.
"Yes," said the widow, "he has been taken from us after a long and
useful life. I hope his son will always show himself to be worthy of
such a father."
After that there was silence in the room for a minute or two, during
which Margaret waited for her aunt to begin; but Lady Ball sat
there solid, grave, and black, as though she thought that her very
presence, without any words, might be effective upon Margaret as a
preliminary mode of attack. Margaret herself could find nothing to
say to her aunt, and she, therefore, also remained silent. Lady Ball
was so far successful in this, that when three minutes were over her
niece had certainly been weakened by the oppressive nature of the
meeting. She had about her less of vivacity, and perhaps also less of
vitality, than when she first entered the room.
"Well, my dear," said her aunt at last, "there are things, you know,
which must be talked about, though they are ever so disagreeable;"
and then she pulled out of her pocket that abominable number of the
Littlebath _Christian Examiner_.
"Oh, aunt, I hope you are not going to talk about that."
"My dear, that is cowardly; it is, indeed. How am I to help talking
about it? I have come here, from Twickenham, on purpose to talk about
it."
"Then, aunt, I must decline; I must, indeed."
"My dear!"
"I must, indeed, aunt."
Let a man or a woman's vitality be ever so thoroughly crushed and
quenched by fatigue or oppression--or even by black crape--there will
always be some mode of galvanising which will restore it for a time,
some specific either of joy or torture which will produce a return
of temporary energy. This Littlebath newspaper was a battery of
sufficient power to put Margaret on her legs again, though she
perhaps might not be long able to keep them.
"It is a vile, lying paper, and it was written by a vile, lying man,
and I hope you will put it up and say nothing about it."
"It is a vile, lying paper, Margaret; but the lies are against my
son, and not against you."
"He is a man, and knows what he is about, and it does not signify to
him. But, aunt, I won't talk about it, and there's an end of it."
"I hope he does know what he is about," said Lady Ball. "I hope he
does. But you, as you say, are a woman, and therefore it specially
behoves you to know what you are about."
"I am not doing anything to anybody," said Margaret.
Lady Ball had now refolded the offensive newspaper, and restored it
to her pocket. Perhaps she had done as much with it as she had from
the first intended. At any rate, she brought it forth no more, and
made no further intentionally direct allusion to it. "I don't suppose
you really wish to do any injury to anybody," she said.
"Does anybody accuse me of doing them an injury?" Margaret asked.
"Well, my dear, if I were to say that I accused you, perhaps you
would misunderstand me. I hope--I thoroughly expect, that before I
leave you, I may be able to say that I do not accuse you. If you
will only listen to me patiently for a few minutes, Margaret--which
I couldn't get you to do, you know, before you went away from the
Cedars in that very extraordinary manner--I think I can explain to
you something which--" Here Lady Ball became embarrassed, and paused;
but Margaret gave her no assistance, and therefore she began a new
sentence. "In point of fact, I want you to listen to what I say, and
then, I think--I do think--you will do as we would have you."
Whom did she include in that word "we"? Margaret had still sufficient
vitality not to let the word pass by unquestioned. "You mean yourself
and John?" said she.
"I mean the family," said Lady Ball rather sharply. "I mean the
whole family, including those dear girls to whom I have been in the
position of a mother since my son's wife died. It is in the name of
the Ball family that I now speak, and surely I have a right."
Margaret thought that Lady Ball had no such right, but she would not
say so at that moment.
"Well, Margaret, to come to the point at once, the fact is this. You
must renounce any idea that you may still have of becoming my son's
wife." Then she paused.
"Has John sent you here to say this?" demanded Margaret.
"I don't wish you to ask any such question as that. If you had any
real regard for him I don't think you would ask it. Consider his
difficulties, and consider the position of those poor children! If he
were your brother, would you advise him, at his age, to marry a woman
without a farthing, and also to incur the certain disgrace which
would attach to his name after--after all that has been said about
it in this newspaper?"--then, Lady Ball put her hand upon her
pocket--"in this newspaper, and in others?"
This was more than Margaret could bear. "There would be no disgrace,"
said she, jumping to her feet.
"Margaret, if you put yourself into a passion, how can you understand
reason? You ought to know, yourself, by the very fact of your being
in a passion, that you are wrong. Would there be no disgrace, after
all that has come out about Mr Maguire?"
"No, none--none!" almost shouted this modern Griselda. "There could
be no disgrace. I won't admit it. As for his marrying me, I don't
expect it. There is nothing to bind him to me. If he doesn't come
to me I certainly shall not go to him. I have looked upon it as all
over between him and me; and as I have not troubled him with any
importunities, nor yet you, it is cruel in you to come to me in this
way. He is free to do what he likes--why don't you go to him? But
there would be no disgrace."
"Of course he is free. Of course such a marriage never can take place
now. It is quite out of the question. You say that it is all over,
and you are quite right. Why not let this be settled in a friendly
way between you and me, so that we might be friends again? I should
be so glad to help you in your difficulties if you would agree with
me about this."
"I want no help."
"Margaret, that is nonsense. In your position you are very wrong to
set your natural friends at defiance. If you will only authorise me
to say that you renounce this marriage--"
"I will not renounce it," said Margaret, who was still standing up.
"I will not renounce it. I would sooner lose my tongue than let
it say such a word. You may tell him, if you choose to tell him
anything, that I demand nothing from him; nothing. All that I once
thought mine is now his, and I demand nothing from him. But when he
asked me to be his wife he told me to be firm, and in that I will
obey him. He may renounce me, and I shall have nothing with which to
reproach him; but I will never renounce him--never." And then the
modern Griselda, who had been thus galvanised into vitality, stood
over her aunt in a mood that was almost triumphant.
"Margaret, I am astonished at you," said Lady Ball, when she had
recovered herself.
"I can't help that, aunt."
"And now let me tell you this. My son is, of course, old enough to
do as he pleases. If he chooses to ruin himself and his children by
marrying, anybody--even if it were out of the streets--I can't help
it. Stop a moment and hear me to the end." This she said, as her
niece had made a movement as though towards the door. "I say, even
if it were out of the streets, I couldn't help it. But nothing shall
induce me to live in the same house with him if he marries you. It
will be on your conscience for ever that you have brought ruin on the
whole family, and that will be your punishment. As for me, I shall
take myself off to some solitude, and--there--I--shall--die." Then
Lady Ball put her handkerchief up to her face and wept copiously.
Margaret stood still, leaning upon the table, but she spoke no word,
either in answer to the threat or to the tears. Her immediate object
was to take herself out of the room, but this she did not know how to
achieve. At last her aunt spoke again: "If you please, I will get you
to ask your landlady to send for a cab." Then the cab was procured,
and Buggins, who had come home for his dinner, handed her ladyship
in. Not a word had been spoken during the time that the cab was being
fetched, and when Lady Ball went down the passage, she merely said,
"I wish you good-bye, Margaret."
"Good-bye," said Margaret, and then she escaped to her own bedroom.
Lady Ball had not done her work well. It was not within her power to
induce Margaret to renounce her engagement, and had she known her
niece better, I do not think that she would have made the attempt.
She did succeed in learning that Margaret had received no renewal
of an offer from her son,--that there was, in fact, no positive
engagement now existing between them; and with this, I think, she
should have been satisfied. Margaret had declared that she demanded
nothing from her cousin, and with this assurance Lady Ball should
have been contented. But she had thought to carry her point, to
obtain the full swing of her will, by means of a threat, and had
forgotten that in the very words of her own menace she conveyed to
Margaret some intimation that her son was still desirous of doing
that very thing which she was so anxious to prevent. There was no
chance that her threat should have any effect on Margaret. She ought
to have known that the tone of the woman's mind was much too firm
for that. Margaret knew--was as sure of it as any woman could be
sure--that her cousin was bound to her by all ties of honour. She
believed, too, that he was bound to her by love, and that if he
should finally desert it, he would be moved to do so by mean motives.
It was no anger on the score of Mr Maguire that would bring him to
such a course, no suspicion that she was personally unworthy of
being his wife. Our Griselda, with all her power of suffering and
willingness to suffer, understood all that, and was by no means
disposed to give way to any threat from Lady Ball.
When she was upstairs, and once more in solitude, she disgraced
herself again by crying. She could be strong enough when attacked by
others, but could not be strong when alone. She cried and sobbed upon
her bed, and then, rising, looked at herself in the glass, and told
herself that she was old and ugly, and fitted only for that hospital
nursing of which she had been thinking. But still there was something
about her heart that bore her up. Lady Ball would not have come to
her, would not have exercised her eloquence upon her, would not have
called upon her to renounce this engagement, had she not found all
similar attempts upon her own son to be ineffectual. Could it then
be so, that, after all, her cousin would be true to her? If it were
so, if it could be so, what would she not do for him and for his
children? If it were so, how blessed would have been all these
troubles that had brought her to such a haven at last! Then she tried
to reconcile his coldness to her with that which she so longed to
believe might be the fact. She was not to expect him to be a lover
such as are young men. Was she young herself, or would she like him
better if he were to assume anything of youth in his manners? She
understood that life with him was a serious thing, and that it was
his duty to be serious and grave in what he did. It might be that it
was essential to his character, after all that had passed, that the
question of the property should be settled finally, before he could
come to her, and declare his wishes. Thus flattering herself, she put
away from her her tears, and dressed herself, smoothing her hair, and
washing away the traces of her weeping; and then again she looked at
herself in the glass to see if it were possible that she might be
comely in his eyes.
The months of January and February slowly wore themselves away, and
during the whole of that time Margaret saw her cousin but once, and
then she met him at Mr Slow's chambers. She had gone there to sign
some document, and there she had found him. She had then been told
that she would certainly lose her cause. No one who had looked into
the matter had any doubt of that. It certainly was the case that
Jonathan Ball had bequeathed property which was not his at the
time he made the will, but which at the time of his death, in fact,
absolutely belonged to his nephew, John Ball. Old Mr Slow, as he
explained this now for the seventh or eighth time, did it without a
tone of regret in his voice, or a sign of sorrow in his eye. Margaret
had become so used to the story now, that it excited no strong
feelings within her. Her wish, she said, was, that the matter should
be settled. The lawyer, with almost a smile on his face, but still
shaking his head, said that he feared it could not be settled before
the end of April. John Ball sat by, leaning his face, as usual, upon
his umbrella, and saying nothing. It did, for a moment, strike Miss
Mackenzie as singular, that she should be reduced from affluence to
absolute nothingness in the way of property, in so very placid a
manner. Mr Slow seemed to be thinking that he was, upon the whole,
doing rather well for his client.
"Of course you understand, Miss Mackenzie, that you can have any
money you require for your present personal wants."
This had been said to her so often, that she took it as one of Mr
Slow's legal formulas, which meant nothing to the laity.
On that occasion also Mr Ball walked home with her, and was very
eloquent about the law's delays. He also seemed to speak as though
there was nothing to be regretted by anybody, except the fact that he
could not get possession of the property as quick as he wished. He
said not a word of anything else, and Margaret, of course, submitted
to be talked to by him rather than to talk herself. Of Lady Ball's
visit he said not a word, nor did she. She asked after the children,
and especially after Jack. One word she did say:
"I had hoped Jack would have come to see me at my lodgings."
"Perhaps he had better not," said Jack's father, "till all is
settled. We have had much to trouble us at home since my father's
death."
Then of course she dropped that subject. She had been greatly
startled on that day on hearing her cousin called Sir John by Mr
Slow. Up to that moment it had never occurred to her that the man of
whom she was so constantly thinking as her possible husband was a
baronet. To have been Mrs Ball seemed to her to have been possible;
but that she should become Lady Ball was hardly possible. She wished
that he had not been called Sir John. It seemed to her to be almost
natural that people should be convinced of the impropriety of such a
one as her becoming the wife of a baronet.
During this period she saw her sister-in-law once or twice, who on
those occasions came down to Arundel Street. She herself would not go
to Gower Street, because of the presence of Miss Colza. Miss Colza
still continued to live there, and still continued very much in
arrear in her contributions to the household fund. Mrs Mackenzie did
not turn her out, because she would,--so she said,--in such case get
nothing. Mrs Tom was by this time quite convinced that the property
would, either justly or unjustly, go into the hands of John Ball, and
she was therefore less anxious to make any sacrifice to please her
sister-in-law.
"I'm sure I don't see why you should be so bitter against her," said
Mrs Tom. "I don't suppose she told the clergyman a word that wasn't
true."
Miss Mackenzie declined to discuss the subject, and assured Mrs Tom
that she only recommended the banishment of Miss Colza because of her
apparent unwillingness to pay.
"As for the money," said Mrs Tom, "I expect Mr Rubb to see to that. I
suppose he intends to make her Mrs Rubb sooner or later."
Miss Mackenzie, having some kindly feeling towards Mr Rubb, would
have preferred to hear that Miss Colza was likely to become Mrs
Maguire. During these visits, Mrs Tom got more than one five-pound
note from her sister-in-law, pleading the difficulty she had in
procuring breakfast for lodgers without any money for the baker.
Margaret protested against these encroachments, but, still, the money
would be forthcoming.
Once, towards the end of February, Mrs Buggins seduced her lodger
down into her parlour in the area, and Miss Mackenzie thought she
perceived that something of the old servant's manners had returned to
her. She was more respectful than she had been of late, and made no
attempts at smart, ill-natured speeches.
"It's a weary life, Miss, this you're living here, isn't it?" said
she.
Margaret said that it was weary, but that there could be no change
till the lawsuit should be settled. It would be settled, she hoped,
in April.
"Bother it for a lawsuit," said Mrs Buggins. "They all tells me that
it ain't any lawsuit at all, really."
"It's an amicable lawsuit," said Miss Mackenzie.
"I never see such amicableness! 'Tis a wonder to hear, Miss, how
everybody is talking about it everywheres. Where we was last
night--that is, Buggins and I--most respectable people in the copying
line--it isn't only he as does the copying, but she too; nurses the
baby, and minds the kitchen fire, and goes on, sheet after sheet, all
at the same time; and a very tidy thing they make of it, only they do
straggle their words so;--well, they were saying as it's one of the
most remarkablest cases as ever was know'd."
"I don't see that I shall be any the better because it's talked
about."
"Well, Miss Margaret, I'm not so sure of that. It's my belief that if
one only gets talked about enough, one may have a'most anything one
chooses to ask for."
"But I don't want to ask for anything."
"But if what we heard last night is all true, there's somebody else
that does want to ask for something, or, as has asked, as folks say."
Margaret blushed up to the eyes, and then protested that she did not
know what Mrs Buggins meant.
"I never dreamed of it, my dear; indeed, I didn't, when the old lady
come here with her tantrums; but now, it's as plain as a pikestaff.
If I'd a' known anything about that, my dear, I shouldn't have made
so free about Buggins; indeed, I shouldn't."
"You're talking nonsense, Mrs Buggins; indeed, you are."
"They have the whole story all over the town at any rate, and in the
lane, and all about the courts; and they declare it don't matter a
toss of a halfpenny which way the matter goes, as you're to become
Lady Ball the very moment the case is settled."
Miss Mackenzie protested that Mrs Buggins was a stupid woman,--the
stupidest woman she had ever heard or seen; and then hurried up into
her own room to hug herself in her joy, and teach herself to believe
that what so many people said must at last come true.
Three days after this, a very fine, private carriage, with two
servants on a hammer cloth, drove up to the door in Arundel Street,
and the maid-servant, hurrying upstairs, told Miss Mackenzie that
a beautifully-dressed lady downstairs was desirous of seeing her
immediately.