Good Mrs Hypocrite/Chapter 11

by Eliza Margaret Jane Humphreys

Six months had produced in Catherine Macpherson a complete moral transformation, and many outward and visible signs of it.

She dressed fashionably, her hair was elaborately arranged, her bonnets were of the latest style, and she looked a good ten years younger than on the day when she had entered upon her duties at Strome Villa.

Household and domestic matters were still managed by Tibbie, whose frankness of speech and boldness of criticism had only increased with each month of service. If such an unchristian feeling as hate could have found root in the soil of Catherine Macpherson's pious soul, then assuredly she would have hated her tyrannical domestic. As it was, she put up with the nearest approach to such a feeling that her principles permitted, and disliked her with a measure "pressed down and running over" of dislike.

Meanwhile her brother's health was growing more and more feeble. The life he led was not one to raise existence beyond the importance of eating and drinking and sleeping. For fear of "exciting" his brain, Catherine Macpherson permitted it to stagnate. She even tried to drop the newspaper reading; but he stormed so violently at that, that she was obliged to bestow a sorely grudged halfhour on the politics and events of the day.

As for interesting or amusing him in any way, that she never thought of. She left him almost entirely to himself. The warp of selfishness was now so interwoven in the woof of her recognized self- importance that she conld no longer disguise it.

There is no tyrant so merciless as the slave who has thrown off his shackles to mount to power, and, after a long experience of servitude to others, Catherine Macpherson could not sufficiently revel in the delights of ruling in her turn.

For any one in the house to express a wish was quite enough to make her object to it. As "constant dropping wears away a stone," so did the "dropping" of her tongue and the nagging of her temper wear and fret her brother's very life. But he was not strong enough to resist her, and he never dreamt of complaining to his daughter. He hated letter-writings and, unfortunately, had permitted Catherine from the first to read his letters and answer them for him. His sight had become so bad during this past year that it was a matter of difficulty to get him to sign a check, and, at last, Catherine Macpherson persuaded her ally and crony, Dr. Buchie, to suggest that her brother should give her an authority to do this. She procured a form from his bank, and in an unguarded moment — when it was near "toddy time," and he was easy of persuasion — he signed it.

That was her crowning triumph. She had no longer need to ask him for money for expenses, but could draw on his account at will.

It would have been a dangerous liberty to allow any one less scrupulously honest and honorable than Catherine Macpherson, but she, of course, was above suspicion. However, she did not deem it necessary to inform Margaret Weimar of what she had done. There is no need to be too confidential to one's relatives, especially on matters where there might arise a difference of opinion.

At the end of this first year of Catherine's office, her niece suddenly announced that she was coming over for a month to London, and would stay with her father as a matter of course.

Catherine received the news with unconcealed dismay. She had dreaded above all things the daughter's reassumed influence over her father, her interference with many plans and comforts of her own. But there was nothing to be done. She had, of course, every right to come to the house, and to raise any objection might awaken a suspicion that all was not right.

She wrote a very cold and almost discourteous letter in reply, stating that, of course, the spare room was at her niece's service, but that she must expect a very dull and quiet time, as her father's health forbade any sort of excitement.

"Why couldn't she stop in her own house?" fumed Catherine, as she gave Tibbie the necessary orders. "Upsetting us all just as we had settled down so comfortably."

"Deed, then, the comfort may be your ain, but I doot there being a share o't for ony other body," answered Tibbie frankly ; " and why should you object to the gude leddy visiting you ? One would think ye were afraid o' her."

"Afraid!" Catherine Macpherson's sniff was portentous; but she did not argue the point. She contented herself with turning David out of the dining- room, and snapping at her brother every time he made a remark.

The answer to her letter was a telegram, giving the day and time of her niece's arrival.

Determined that there should be no meeting on that night between father and daughter, Catherine adopted her favorite plan of putting the clock on half an hour, thus expediting the time for toddy. Then she sent her brother off, by the hint of a fire in his room, and another glass when he was fairly in bed.

The poor old man was not sorry to leave the dull, "slacked" grate and the cheerless-looking room for his own comfortable quarters.

Tibbie had always a good supply of blankets, a warm flannel night-shirt, and a hot-water bottle at his service. So he went to bed, having been told his daughter might arrive that night, but that the time was uncertain.

As a matter of fact, the telegram said "about six o'clock," but it is surprising how easily six can be converted into eight with a lead pencil. The telegram lay on the mantel-shelf, if proof were needed of official carelessness.

Tibbie Minch had been forbidden to light a fire in the spare room, and Catherine had made it as stiff and forbidding a chamber as her own vivid recollections of Barnes and the institute permitted. She had nailed texts about the walls, hung stiff white curtains at the window, and removed the pretty portieres and draperies and dressing-table ornaments. Anything more comfortless than it looked to a tired traveler coming from the horrors of a channel-crossing and a cold railway journey, could not well be imagined.

Added to this, she had pretended to Tibbie that the visitor would not arrive till eight o'clock, and bidden her prepare supper at that hour. Consequently, even the kettle was not boiling, and the cup of tea for which poor Margaret begged, while she hung shivering over the dining- room grate, was fully half an hour in preparation.

Catherine herself was as frosty and as stiff as the room, and Margaret Weimar felt keenly that she was no welcome guest under her father's roof any longer.

"You have altered this room very much. Aunt Catherine," she said, as she looked around. " I can't say I admire your way of arranging the furniture. It looks so stiff."

"I like it, and my brother likes it," snapped her aunt. "I suppose he can have his house arranged to his own taste, if he pleases."

"Oh! certainly," said Margaret coldly. "But I doubt if it is his taste. I fancy it looks more like yours. I suppose you were never accustomed to anything artistic or fanciful while you were in the sisterhood, and it takes something more than chairs and tables to make a room pretty and liveable. However," she added, "I'll pull it together to-morrow, and make it look as it used to do. I hate to sit in a stiflF, ugly room."

"Indeed, then, Mrs. Weimar," said Catherine sharply, "I'll just thank you to leave the place as it is. The house is not yours, nor the furniture either — yet. When you come into possession it will be time enough for meddling and 'pulling things together,' as you call it. Up to that time I'd have you remember that I am mistress here by my brother's wish, and that my alterations are quite to his liking." Margaret Weimar stared at her plain- spoken relative in astonishment.

"I beg your pardon," she said haughtily. "Pray don't imagine I wish to interfere with any arrangement of yours if my father approves of it. But he must have altered strangely."

"Perhaps he has," said her aunt grimly. "But let me assure you, we thoroughly understand one another."

"You say he has been ill," observed Margaret; "why did you not tell me so at the time? I particularly asked you to let me know everything about him, his health, his employment, what exercise he took, and if his sight had improved; but your letters were of the briefest, I must say. This is not at all what I expected when I put you here in charge."

"I'll thank you not to speak of me as if I were a policeman or something of that sort," snapped her aunt. "I'm not used to dance to any tune that's whistled. I took this charge upon me because I heard the call of the Lord in it, and because of my affection for my brother, and for no other reason whatsoever. But here's your tea coming, and I'll thank ye not to be speaking of family matters before Tibbie Minch, for she's too much given to prying into the concerns o' her betters as it is."

"Why did you send Kate away?" asked Margaret.

"Because I did not approve of her," snapped Catherine. "She was an idle, vain, thriftless hussy."

The entrance of Tibbie with the tea cut short further adjectives. There was no silver tray, no best china, no Queen Anne service, for this visitor. Catherine Macpherson would have scorned to trouble herself to please her, now that there was nothing to be gained by it. Her footing was so sure, her power over her brother so absolute, that she knew perfectly well nothing but his death would ever give Margaret Weimar any place of authority. If she attempted to persuade him to dismiss her aunt, that good lady could at once call the doctor to her aid. He would certify that any change in his mode of life would be not only injurious, but dangerous, and as Margaret Weimar could not come and live here herself, the man's own sister was incontestably the right and proper person to look after him.

She felt so sure of her ground that she permitted herself the full privilege of discourtesy. She did not ardently desire a long visit from this obnoxious niece, and Catherine's hypocrisy was of the sort that scorns to waste itself on a useless object.

Margaret Weimar had quite enough of the Macpherson temper to resent such rudeness as had distinguished her reception. But still she made allowance for her aunt's well-known infirmities, and resolved to say as little as possible until she had an interview with her father.

She drank her tea, but could eat nothing, and then retired to her room to unpack. A natural indignation got the better of her when she saw the cold and comfortless chamber to which she was relegated.

She rang the bell furiously, and, when Tibbie Minch appeared, requested her to light a fire without loss of time.

"Deed, then, ma'am, I canna obleege ye," retorted that frank handmaiden. "I've the supper to prepare; and I ken weel what these bedroom grates are like. I'd be half an hour trying to get the wood to light. The master's is bad eno', but this would be waur, for the chimney's damp, and ye'd be just smothered wi' smoke."

"Do you mean to say," exclaimed Margaret indignantly, " that my aunt has had no fire here at all, not even to air the room?"

"Deed no, she hasn't. I'm thinkin' she didna care sae muckle aboot your comfort as ye think your due. Mebbe she's none too fond o' ye."

"If it wasn't for my father," exclaimed Margaret bitterly, "and that I don't wish to hurt his feelings, I would just call a cab, and put my box on it, and go to an hotel."

"Ah, weel, I wouldna do that, an I were you," advised Tibbie. " It would be just the verra thing she'd be wishin' ye to do. She's a queer body eno', and I ken ye'll no be the best o' freends, by all seeing. Deed, but she dings a'. I hae nae seen the equal o' her, Christian or no Christian 1 But just a word to ye, mem, and tak' it as ye please, for I canna bide longer, and my steak on the brander and the cold 'taties to fry. Just ye put yer fut doon, and keep her in her ain place, or she'll nae gi'e ye a minute's peace while ye bide in the hoose. And I'm sorry if ye' re cauld ; but ye'll just hae to hap yersel', and do the best you can, for ne'er a spud o' fire will ye see in that grate the nicht."

She closed the door and went down-stairs, and read Catherine a lecture on the duties of hospitality which lasted long enough to spoil the cooking of the steak, and that spoilt her temper.

Margaret Weimar went up to her room that night feeling that she had never in all her life hitherto recognized what discomfort and inhospitality really amounted to. She crept shivering into her cold bed, and laid her head on the chilly linen pillow- case, and finally cried herself to sleep like a cowed and miserable child. She could not even take any comfort from the thought of the morrow, and the prospect of seeing her father. She felt instinctively that he would prove but a reed in the hand of Aunt Macpherson, her echo and mouth-piece.

Oh ! what had possessed her to put this awful relative in a place of authority, and how could she ever get her out of it?