Chapter 12. Mrs Stumfold Interferes

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_ CHAPTER XII. 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. _

Read next: Chapter 13. Mr Maguire's Courtship

Read previous: Chapter 11. Miss Todd Entertains Some Friends At Tea

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