Anthony Trollope

“ Then they parted, and Margaret was left alone to congratulate herself over her success.
"Sir John," said Mrs Mackenzie, calling him into the drawing-room; "you must hear my congratulations; you must, indeed."
"Thank you," said he, looking foolish; "you are very good."
"And so is she. She is what you may really call good. She is as good as gold. I know a woman when I see her; and I know that for one like her there are fifty not fit to hold a candle to her. She has nothing mean or little about her—nothing. They may call her a lamb, but she can be a lioness too when there is an occasion." ”

“ Why was Rubb, junior, from Rubb and Mackenzie's, such a pleasant fellow? After all, he retailed oilcloth at so much a yard; and little as she knew of the world, she knew that she, with ever so much good blood in her veins, and with ever so many hundreds a year of her own, was entitled to look for acquaintances of a higher order than that. She, if she were entitled to make any boast about herself—and she was by no means inclined to such boastings—might at any rate boast that she was a lady. Now, Mr Rubb was not a gentleman. He was not a gentleman by position. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But she did not conquer Margaret Mackenzie. The poor creature lying there, racked, in truth, with pain and sorrow, altogether incapable of any escape from her aunt's gripe, would not say a word that might tend to ease Lady Ball's mind. If she had told all that she knew, all that she surmised, how would her aunt have rejoiced? That the money should come without the wife would indeed have been a triumph! And Margaret in telling all would have had nothing to tell of those terribly foolish thoughts which were then at work in the City. ”

“ She had looked at her glass and had perceived that years had improved her, whereas years had not improved Harry Handcock. She had gone back over her old aspirations, aspirations of which no whisper had ever been uttered, but which had not the less been strong within her, and had told herself that she could not gratify them by a union with Mr Handcock. She thought, or rather hoped, that society might still open to her its portals,—not simply the society of the Handcocks from Somerset House, but that society of which she had read in novels during the day, and of which she had dreamed at night. ”

“ Who was it first took you by the hand when you were left all alone in Arundel Street? Oh, Margaret, don't go and be such an ungrateful, foolish creature!"
Margaret waited for a moment, and then she answered—
"There's nobody so near to me as my own brother's children."
"As to that, Margaret, there isn't much difference in nearness between your uncle and your nephews and nieces. But there's a right and a wrong in these things, and when money is concerned, people are not justified in indulging their fancies. Everything here has been told to you. You know how John is situated with his children. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She was a woman with square jaws, and a big face, and stout shoulders: but she was not, of her own unassisted height, very tall. But of that tiara and its altitude she was proud, and as she stood in the midst of the stalls, brandishing her umbrella-sized parasol in her anger, the ladies, as they entered, might well be cowed by her presence.
"When ladies say half-past two," said she, "they ought to come at half-past two. Where is the Duchess of St Bungay? I shall not wait for her."
But there was a lady there who had come in behind the Mackenzies, whom nothing ever cowed. ”

“ It is astonishing the harm that an old woman may do when she goes well to work, and when she believes she can prevail by means of her own peculiar eloquence. Lady Ball had so trusted to her own prestige, to her own ladyship, to her own carriage and horses, and to the rest of it, and had also so misjudged Margaret's ordinary mild manner, that she had thought to force her niece into an immediate acquiescence by her mere words. ”

“ I should have put myself in some place where no thought of marrying him should ever have come again to me."
"Margaret, you are wrong throughout."
"Am I? Everybody always says that I am always wrong."
"If I can understand anything of the matter, Sir John Ball has not changed."
"Then, why—why—why?"
"Ah, yes, exactly; why? Why is it that men and women cannot always understand each other; that they will remain for hours in each other's presence without the power of expressing, by a single word, the thoughts that are busy within them? ”

“ Who does Miss Todd love?"
"Miss Baker."
"Does she? And yet they live apart, and rarely see each other. They think differently on all subjects. That is not the love of which I am speaking. And you, Miss Mackenzie, are you sure that you love anyone with that perfect all-trusting, love?"
"I love my niece Susanna best," said she.
"Your niece, Susanna! She is a sweet child, a sweet girl; she has everything to make those love her who know her; but—"
"You don't think anything amiss of Susanna, Mr Maguire?"
"Nothing, nothing; Heaven forbid, dear child! ”

“ If a single life will suit her best, she shall have half of all that she ever thought to be her own."
"And do you wish it to be so?"
"I have not said that, Mrs Mackenzie. But it may be that I should wish her to have the choice fairly in her own power."
"Then I can tell you at once which she would choose. Your offer is very generous. It is more than generous. But, Sir John, a single life will not suit her; and my belief is, that were you to offer her the money without your hand, she would not take a farthing of it." ”

“ The duchess gave one jump, and then remained quiet and undismayed. If Lady Hartletop heard it, she did not betray the hearing. Lady Glencora for a moment put her hands to her ears as she laughed, but she did it as though the prettiness of the motion were its only one cause. The fine nerves of Mrs Conway Sparkes, the poetess, bore it all without flinching; and Mrs Chaucer Munro with her bevy rushed forward so that they might lose nothing of what was coming.
"What are they going to do?" said Margaret to her cousin, in alarm.
"It's the play part of the thing. Have you not seen the bills?" ”

“ Whereupon Mrs Mackenzie, without further speech to her cousin on the subject, went out and purchased a muslin covered all over with the prettiest little frecks of black, and sent a milliner to Margaret, and provided a bonnet of much the same pattern, the gayest, lightest, jauntiest, falsest, most make-belief-mourning bonnet that ever sprang from the art of a designer in bonnets—and thus nearly broke poor Margaret's heart.
"People should never have things given them, who can't buy for themselves," she said, with tears in her eyes, "because of course they know what it means." ”

“ So saying, she pulled the papers out of her desk,—the desk in which still lay the torn shreds of her poetry,—and handed them to him. "After that, what right had he to come here and make such a statement as he did to my aunt? How can he be a gentleman, and say what was so false?"
"No one says that he is a gentleman," replied John Ball, as he took the proffered papers.
"I have told you all now," said she; and as she spoke, a gleam of anger flashed from her eyes, for she was not in all respects a Griselda such as she of old. ”

“ There were moments in which her dear son John could be very foolish, in spite of that life-long devotion to the price of stocks, for which he was conspicuous. She still remembered, as though it were but the other day, how he had persisted in marrying Rachel, though Rachel brought nothing with her but a sweet face, a light figure, a happy temper, and the clothes on her back. To all mothers their sons are ever young, and to old Lady Ball John Ball was still young, and still, possibly, capable of some such folly as that of which she was thinking. ”

“ This question she asked, not in the least as desirous of obtaining from him any assurance of assistance, but in the agony of her spirit, and in sheer dismay as to her prospects.
"We must hope for the best," he said. "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." He had often thought of the way in which he had been shorn, but he did not, at this moment, remember that the shearing had never been so tempered as to be acceptable to his own feelings.
"And in God only can I trust," she answered. As she said this, her mind went away to Littlebath, and the Stumfoldians, and Mr Maguire. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Margaret, when she heard this, blushed up to her forehead, and in her confusion forgot all about the paper-knife and the money. Sir John, I fancy, was almost as much confused himself, and was quite unable to make any fitting reply. But, just at that moment, there came across two harpies from the realms of Mrs Chaucer Munro, eagerly intent upon their prey.
"Here are the lion and the lamb together," said one harpy. "The lion must buy a rose to give to the lamb. Sir Lion, the rose is but a poor half-crown." ”

“ Margaret, indeed, had commenced her packing, and did not know when she went to bed whether she was to go or not. She rather hoped that she might be allowed to go, as her aunt would doubtless be disagreeable; but in that, and in all matters now, she would of course be guided implicitly by Mr Ball. He had told her to be firm, and of her own firmness she had no doubt whatever. Lady Ball, with all her anger, or with all her eloquence, should not talk her out of her husband. She could be firm, and she had no doubt that John Ball could be firm also. ”

“ They are less shocked by dishonesty when they find it, and are less clear in their intellect as to that which constitutes honesty. Where is the woman who thinks it wrong to smuggle? What lady's conscience ever pricked her in that she omitted the armorial bearings on her silver forks from her tax papers? What wife ever ceased to respect her husband because he dealt dishonestly in business? ”

“ He, a man of fifty, of slow habits, with none of the buoyancy of youth left in him, apt to regard himself as older than his age, who had lived with his father and mother almost on an equality in regard to habits of life, the father of a large family, of which the eldest was now himself a man! Could it be endured that such a one as he should enter upon matrimony amidst the din of public trumpets and under a halo of romance? ”

“ Miss Todd had said to Miss Baker, "because I like to do something that won't hurt my old eyes of an evening, I don't see the justice of it. As for calling it gambling, it's a falsehood, and your Mr Stumfold knows that as well as I do. I haven't won or lost ten pounds in ten years, and I've no more idea of making money by cards than I have by sweeping the chimney. Tell me why are cards wicked? Drinking, and stealing, and lying, and backbiting, and naughty love-making,—but especially backbiting—backbiting—backbiting,—those are the things that the Bible says are wicked. ”

“ The Incharrow Mackenzies were great people who saw much company, and it was, she thought, quite out of the question that she should go to their house. At no time of her career would she have been, as she conceived, fit to live with such grand persons; but at the present moment, when she grudged herself even a new pair of gloves out of the money remaining to her, while she was still looking forward to a future life passed as a nurse in a hospital, she felt that there would be an absolute unfitness in such a visit. ”

“ She had known—she had told herself that she knew—that no man would so sacrifice himself; certainly no such man as John Ball, with all his children and his weary love of money! But now the poetry had come to be fact, and the romance had turned itself into reality, and the picture formed by her imagination had become a living truth. ”

“ Mrs Mackenzie could not understand what Mr Rubb had meant by saying that that old maid was soft and pleasant, nor could she understand Susanna's love for her aunt. "I suppose men will put up with anything for the sake of money," she said to herself; "and as for children, the truth is, they'll love anybody who indulges them."
"Aunt is so kind," Susanna said. "She's always kind. If you wake her up in the middle of the night, she's kind in a moment. And if there's anything good to eat, it will make her eyes quite shine if she sees that anybody else likes it. ”

“ Who then was more fit to take a stall, or part of a stall at the Negro Soldiers' Orphan Bazaar, than our Griselda? When the thing loomed so large, lady patronesses began to be aware that mere nobodies would hardly be fit for the work. There would have been little or no difficulty in carrying out a law that nobody should take a part in the business who had not some handle to her name, but it was felt that such an arrangement as that might lead to failure rather than glory. The commoner world must be represented but it should be represented only by ladies who had made great names for themselves. ”

“ People can't break any bones by their talking."
"Wouldn't you think it very unpleasant, Mrs Mackenzie, to have your name brought up in the newspapers?"
"Upon my word I don't think I should care about it as long as my husband stood by me. What is it after all? People say that you and Margaret are the Lion and the Lamb. What's the harm of being called a lamb or a lion either? As long as people are not made to believe that you have behaved badly, that you have been false or cruel, I can't see that it comes to much. One does not, of course, wish to have newspaper articles written about one." ”

“ Mariana's solitude in the moated grange was as nothing to hers. In granges, and such like rural retreats, people expect solitude; but Miss Mackenzie had gone to Littlebath to find companionship. Had she been utterly disappointed, and found none, that would have been bad; but she had found it and then lost it. Mariana, in her desolateness, was still waiting for the coming of some one; and so was Miss Mackenzie waiting, though she hardly knew for whom. For me, if I am to live in a moated grange, let it be in the country. ”