Miss Mackenzie. Anthony Trollope
Todd in the street, but beyond that there was no friendly intercourse between those ladies.
At the beginning of December there came an invitation to Miss Mackenzie to spend the Christmas holidays away from Littlebath, and as she accepted this invitation, and as we must follow her to the house of her friends, we will postpone further mention of the matter till the next chapter.
CHAPTER VI
Miss Mackenzie Goes to the Cedars
About the middle of December Mrs. Mackenzie, of Gower Street, received a letter from her sister-in-law at Littlebath, in which it was proposed that Susanna should pass the Christmas holidays with her father and mother. "I myself," said the letter, "am going for three weeks to the Cedars. Lady Ball has written to me, and as she seems to wish it, I shall go. It is always well, I think, to drop family dissensions." The letter said a great deal more, for Margaret Mackenzie, not having much business on hand, was fond of writing long letters; but the upshot of it was, that she would leave Susanna in Gower Street, on her way to the Cedars, and call for her on her return home.
"What on earth is she going there for?" said Mrs. Tom Mackenzie.
"Because they have asked her," replied the husband.
"Of course they have asked her; but that's no reason she should go. The Balls have behaved very badly to us, and I should think much better of her if she stayed away."
To this Mr. Mackenzie made no answer, but simply remarked that he would be rejoiced in having Susanna at home on Christmas Day.
"That's all very well, my dear," said Mrs. Tom, "and of course so shall I. But as she has taken the charge of the child I don't think she ought to drop her down and pick her up just whenever she pleases. Suppose she was to take it into her head to stop at the Cedars altogether, what are we to do then?—just have the girl returned upon our hands, with all her ideas of life confused and deranged. I hate such ways."
"She has promised to provide for Susanna, whenever she may not continue to give her a home."
"What would such a promise be worth if John Ball got hold of her money? That's what they're after, as sure as my name is Martha; and what she's after too, very likely. She was there once before she went to Littlebath at all. They want to get their uncle's money back, and she wants to be a baronet's wife."
The same view of the matter was perhaps taken by Mr. Rubb, junior, when he was told that Miss Mackenzie was to pass through London on her way to the Cedars, though he did not express his fears openly, as Mrs. Mackenzie had done.
"Why don't you ask your sister to stay in Gower Street?" he said to his partner.
"She wouldn't come."
"You might at any rate ask her."
"What good would it do?"
"Well; I don't know that it would do any good; but it wouldn't do any harm. Of course it's natural that she should wish to have friends about her; and it will only be natural too that she should marry some one."
"She may marry whom she pleases for me."
"She will marry whom she pleases; but I suppose you don't want to see her money go to the Balls."
"I shouldn't care a straw where her money went," said Thomas Mackenzie, "if I could only know that this sum which we have had from her was properly arranged. To tell you the truth, Rubb, I'm ashamed to look my sister in the face."
"That's nonsense. Her money is as right as the bank; and if in such matters as that brothers and sisters can't take liberties with each other, who the deuce can?"
"In matters of money nobody should ever take a liberty with anybody," said Mr. Mackenzie.
He knew, however, that a great liberty had been taken with his sister's money, and that his firm had no longer the power of providing her with the security which had been promised to her.
Mr. Mackenzie would take no steps, at his partner's instance, towards arresting his sister in London; but Mr. Rubb was more successful with Mrs. Mackenzie, with whom, during the last month or two, he had contrived to establish a greater intimacy than had ever previously existed between the two families. He had been of late a good deal in Gower Street, and Mrs. Mackenzie had found him to be a much pleasanter and better educated man than she had expected. Such was the language in which she expressed her praise of him, though I am disposed to doubt whether she herself was at all qualified to judge of the education of any man. He had now talked over the affairs of Margaret Mackenzie with her sister-in-law, and the result of that talking was that Mrs. Mackenzie wrote a letter to Littlebath, pressing Miss Mackenzie to stay a few days in Gower Street, on her way through London. She did this as well as she knew how to do it; but still there was that in the letter which plainly told an apt reader that there was no reality in the professions of affection made in it. Miss Mackenzie became well aware of the fact as she read her sister's words. Available hypocrisy is a quality very difficult of attainment and of all hypocrisies, epistolatory hypocrisy is perhaps the most difficult. A man or woman must have studied the matter very thoroughly, or be possessed of great natural advantages in that direction, who can so fill a letter with false expressions of affection, as to make any reader believe them to be true. Mrs. Mackenzie was possessed of no such skill.
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