Good Mrs Hypocrite/Chapter 12
Margaret Weimar came down to
breakfast next morning with a bad cold in
her head, and corresponding depression
of spirits.
Her father was in the room, but his greeting was neither so warm nor so natural as it had been on the occasion of her last visit. He looked pinched and old, and his temper seemed as irritable as that of her Aunt Macpherson.
Everything was changed she felt. In one short year a gulf of difference had been dug between her old home and herself. The very arrangements of the breakfast-table seemed to have become sordid and meager. Her father took coffee ; her aunt tea. He had a small tin coffee-pot beside him ; she a small black tea-pot. His slice of bacon was put on a plate before him, a.nd covered over with a britannia- metal cover. Two other slices were cooling themselves on a china dish set before her aunt. There was nothing else — no eggs, or preserve, or toast. A couple of rolls were planted in the middle of the table, and the butter was in two separate saucers — one for James Macpherson, and the other for his sister and the visitor.
Margaret Weimar felt her face grow crimson as she noted all this. Her aunt took the head of the table as a matter of course, and poured out two cups of weak tea — one of which she handed to her niece.
" No, thank you ; I always take coffee in the morning," said Margaret.
" There's only enough for your father," was the gracious response. " Ye'll have to put up with tea while you're here."
"There's a larger coffee-pot than that," said Margaret. "Why cannot it be used?"
"It's too wasteful; besides, it's plated, and Tibbie has none too much time to spare from her work for cleaning silver," said her aunt. " So I've locked it away," she added.
Margaret bit her lip and swallowed the weak tea. There would be a battle pres- ently, she knew, but she had old-fash- ioned ideas of respect to one's elders, and she did not wish to lose her temper in her father's presence.
After the miserable breakfast was over, Tibbie removed the things and brought the " books," and family worship began.
It amazed Margaret Weimar more than anything yet had amazed her, to hear her aunt reading and expounding and praying with every appearance of heart-felt piety, while her every action seemed a direct contradiction to Christian principles.
She listened to a whirlwind of denunciation against sin, against vanity, ungodliness, and uncharitableness. She heard requests for all sorts of spiritual graces — petitions that the enemy of mankind might be kept from insidious intrusion into that peaceful household ; that nothing idle or frivolous or worldly should find a place in the hearts of this family of the Lord's servants ; that it might be given to all among them to know their place, and strictly perform their various duties (this probably for Tibbie's benefit) ; that every trial might be sanctified unto them ; and that finally they might be all brought into the kingdom of glory prepared for the elect saints of the Lord.
When they rose from their knees, Margaret Weimar looked at her aunt with a keen and critical glance. She noted the alteration in her hair and dress, the new "smartness " of the well-cut gown, the undeniable existence of corsets, such as had been eschewed as vanity in the days of Barnes and the Christian sisterhood.
"I see. Aunt Macpherson," she observed, " that you take an interest in the fashions at last. That sleeve is the very latest thing. Where do you go for your gowns now?"
"I bought this at a shop," replied her aunt shortly.
"It must have been a very good shop," said Margaret. "Ready-made dresses rarely fit like that."
" I'm not one who concerns myself about earthly vanities," answered Catherine loftily. " I needed a dress and I bought one. And now, as I have my household duties to look after, I'll e'en leave you to yourself for a while."
Margaret Weimar heaved a sigh of relief. She stirred the fire into a blaze, drew up her chair beside it, and then prepared for a talk with her father.
But it takes two people to talk, and the old man was petulant and trying. He wanted his paper read to him, and the moment his daughter alluded to domestic matters, declared he could not be troubled with any such discussion. He was an old man, and all he wanted was to be left in peace. His sister managed well enough for him, and Tibbie Minch was an excel- lent body, and looked sharp enough after his comforts.
"But the house is so changed, father," remonstrated Margaret. " Look at this room ! it is like a barracks. Where are all the beautiful palms and ferns gone ? And the window is a sight with those stiff curtains ; they should never have been starched. And then the table, — we always had flowers or the little silver fern- pots on it, and a table center — not just the bare cloth. And why do you let your food be served to you on a plate, as if you were a dog or a child ? It's horrible ! Why, the breakfast this morning was only fit for a kitchen. For goodness sake, don't let yourself get out of the ways of decent civilized life altogether! "
"Tut-tut, Margaret," said the old man, "it does well enough for me. I want no fripperies and nonsense at my time of life ! As long as my room is warm and comfor- table, and I get my dram in the morning, and my glass of toddy in the afternoon, and the food is soft for my old teeth, I wouldn't be troubling these women folk as to how they set a cloth, or what way they fix the chairs and tables. Don't bother your head, lassie, and don't ask me to bother mine. It's not as if you were living here yourself, and Catherine's a dour body to deal with. She has her cantrips like the rest of the family. She's best left alone. . . . And now, Maggie, read me the leading article, and let the house take care of itself."
This was evidently all the satisfaction to be got from the old man.
He was too broken in mind and body to combat his strong-willed sister. As long as he was made comfortable in his own fashion, he cared little for the general condition of affairs.
There is no selfishness at once so intense and so hopeless as the selfishness of old age. It holds all the exactions of childhood, and entails none of its penalties.
You can punish a child for insisting on having its own way, grasping at all that pleases it, and generally upsetting do- mestic comfort, but you cannot punish an old person — especially a relative. You can only put up with him, and wish in your distraction that the second age of childhood might be dealt with as the first — by a little wholesome correction.
A sort of hopelessness seized upon Margaret Weimar. She felt as if she had taken a once familiar road, and found herself confronted half-way by a newly erected wall which barred her progress. She read the leading article between in- tervals of sneezing and coughing, and by the time it was finished, her aunt entered with a work-basket in her hand.
She deposited it on the table, and commenced darning socks and stockings. Margaret offered to help her, but met with an ungracious refusal. So she returned to the paper, and tried to carry on a conversation with her father.
When the time for the early dinner approached, Catherine Macpherson put away her basket, and began to lay the table. Margaret watched her curiously.
"Why do you do that, Aunt Catherine?" she asked. "When Kate was here she was always dressed by this time, and ready to lay the cloth. Surely there's not more for a servant to do now than there was then?"
"I have my own reasons," snapped Catherine. "I'm not one to make beasts of burden of my servants."
"Indeed," said Margaret sharply, " I think your Scotch treasure would not be easily made into a beast of burden. It strikes me that she does pretty much what she pleases here. I never came across such a very plain-spoken person. Which reminds me, Aunt Catherine, that I should feel obliged by your ordering her to make a fire in my room this evening; it is as cold as a vault. I was shivering the whole night."
"The present price of coals," said Catherine Macpherson, " is seven-and-twenty shillings a ton, and, on a small income, it is a wasteful extravagance to have fires in the bedrooms. I have never done it myself, and I'm an older woman than you, Margaret."
A flush rose to her niece's brow.
"I have always heard a great deal about Scotch hospitality," she said, " but you seem a direct contradiction to all its principles ; unless," she added pointedly , " you have some special object to gain by making my visit as uncomfortable as it lies in your power to do."
"You've a fine short temper of your own, Margaret," answered Catherine coolly. "It was no thought respectful, in my time, for any daughter, married or single, to be setting up her own opinions in her father's house. Surely what's good enough for him is good enough for you ; and you cannot expect foreign ways and foreign fashions under this roof, so don't think ye'll get them."
"I expect nothing of the sort," said Margaret. "Nothing but a little courtesy and the consideration that one usually extends to a visitor, even if she has the misfortune to be a relation."
"Come, come!" snapped the old man, putting down his newspaper. "I'm not going to have you women-folk squabbling and fighting like this; I'll have peace and quietness here, or else I'll bundle you all out, neck and crop. Tibbie Minch is worth a hundred of you ! She's just a quiet, easy-going body, who does her duty and takes care of her poor old master, and — ah ! is that you, Tibbie ? " and he dropped into Scotch, as was often his way. " I was just saying the auld man would fare badly an' it were not for you. Here's this sister and daughter o' mine squabbling and fighting like two bubbly-jocks[1] in a farmyard. Deed, then it's a poor time I'm likely to have wi' three women- folk in the house ! "
Margaret Weimar rose from her seat, smarting with indignation.
It was bad enough to be insulted by her aunt, but to have her own father con- fidentially complaining of her to his ser- vant, and classing her with that aunt in the common sense of " disturbers," — this was really more than flesh and blood could stand.
" I certainly did not expect to find my- self treated as an intruder here," she said. " I cannot understand it ! But I will not force myself on any one, father. I will return to my own home to-morrow."
" Hoot-toots ! what a family ! " exclaimed Tibbie Minch, as the door closed on an indignant exit. " Why, ye canna be twelve hours togither without bickering with ane anither. Ah weel, sirs, the Lord made us a', and I suppose. He kens our inf airmities ! She was a nice bit body yon, though, and I'm sorry ye fell out sae soon. It's nae Christian, ye know, leav- ing the manners o' the case out o' it alto- gither. Ye may haver as much as ye like, but ye shouldna be neglectfu' o' the duties o' hospitality. Didna St. Paul say — "
"Tibbie, I smell something burning," interrupted Catherine Macpherson. " Run ye down to the kitchen, and I'll place the forks and glasses."
The old man looked up. There was a shrewd smile on his lips.
" Aye, but she's a character yon," he said. " Is that Scotch broth I'm smelling, Catherine ? "
" It is, Jamie, and not amiss this cold day, I'm thinking."
The soup tureen was brought in, and they both sat down to the table. Cathe- rine Macpherson said grace, and helped her brother and herself to the steaming broth.
Margaret did not appear, and no bell was rung, nor any message sent to her. Catherine had no patience with the " can- trips" of any other Macpherson except herself.
Notes
[edit]- ↑ Turkeys