Good Mrs Hypocrite/Chapter 9
Any one who has had the good fortune
to live in the house with an extremely
Christian person may have observed that
that person is usually more trying on a
Sunday than on any other day of the week.
Whether the fact is due to the arduous
nature of religious services, which brook
no excuse if principles go for anything,
or the effort to maintain a demeanor corresponding to the day, it is certainly undeniable.
If an exception to this rule does exist, that exception was certainly not to be found in the person of Catherine Macpherson.
She usually rose half an hour earlier on Sunday morning. Why — was not clear to any one, unless it was because the general rule of the work-a-day world is to rise later, and, therefore, it became her duty to show the household that she, at least, was guiltless of the sin of self-indulgence.
She usually prepared herself for the day by reading a portion of Paley's "Evidences," a chapter of the Bible, and another of the "Pilgrim's Progress." Then she put on her Sunday gown of black silk, a rustling, noisy, aggravating sort of silk, tied an apron carefully over the skirt, and went down to breakfast.
The morning after that skirmish with Tibbie Minch was the Sabbath morning. She rose at her usual hour, but the new style of hair-dressing took up a much longer time than her plain bands had done. Then it behoved her to have a sort of dress-rehearsal with her bonnet. The effect was not satisfactory. It was painfully apparent that to alter your way of dressing your hair meant also altering your style of head-gear.
Catherine Macpherson surveyed her- self with dismay. The bonnet obstinately refused to " set " on the cushion, and yet she could not allow Tibbie to triumph over her by returning to her former fashion. That presumptuous person would believe that the new style had been abandoned for fear of her criticism!
What with pulling and twisting the refractory bonnet, and fixing up her disarranged locks again and again, the breakfast bell sounded before she was ready, and she had not had time to open one of her books.
She threw the bonnet down on the bed beside her mantle, and hurried into her brother's room to see how he was. He declared himself better, but Tibbie had persuaded him to stay in bed, and have his breakfast sent up.
All this meant delay ; and when Catherine Mcpherson was hurried or worried, she was apt to be overcome by a "shortness" of temper that was disastrous to all who came near her.
" Ye needna be snappin' the head off me," observed Tibbie Minch, waiting tray in hand for her master's breakfast. " But ye're aye ta'en like that on a Sabbath morning, I've obsairved. It's a pity ye canna take things easy like. If ye hadna been sae crammed with vanity over yer new-fangled fashion o' hairdressing, ye'd have been doon in the parlor at the proper time."
" Tibbie," said Catherine Macpherson, in her most awful voice — the voice that had struck terror into the youth of Barnes and the sick poor of her district, " I'll just thank you not to be so free with your remarks. I'll not stand impertinence from a servant. Remember that."
" Deed, then, if ye call a bit o' plain speaking impertinence ye may just as weel sit doon at once," said Tibbie; "for I'm one that would scorn not to speak out my mind, and no respecter of persons; and what the bonnie young minister will think of ye looking like a daft body in the kirk the morn is mair than I can say, but verily there's nae fule like to an auld ane; and so good-day to ye, and, mind ye, this is my Sunday evening, and you'll just hae to bide wi' the maister yersel'. Dinna forget that."
She left the room, and a cloud settled blackly upon Catherine Macpherson's virgin brow.
"The insolent, impertinent woman!" she muttered. "What possessed me to get the like of her ? She would try the patience of an angel. I must get rid of her. She makes my life perfectly unbearable; and James is such a fool, he never says a word. I believe he's frightened of her."
She finished her breakfast, and then resumed the struggle with the bonnet. By dint of pins and a veil she managed to make it keep in position. All the same, she resolved on getting a new one the very next day — out of the housekeeping money.
She contrived to get out of the house without coming in contact with Tibbie Minch again, though that worthy person was watching her from her master's window, and gave him so humorous a description of the worthy spinster's appearance that he declared it did him more good than his medicine.
Meanwhile, Catherine made her way to the kirk and dnly listened to the expounding of the law and the prophets by the Rev. John M'Farlane.
His sermon on that special morning was on " Sins of Temper."
Catherine wondered if her neighbors found it edifying, and was conscious of a keen regret that Tibbie Minch was not present, the discourse was so strangely applicable to her. She treasured up a few of the pithy, plain-dealing sentences for repetition, and got great store of comfort from them. It is always pleasant to see the failings of others held up to the light of day and riddled by bullets of home-truths.
Glancing round once she discovered that her new friend. Dr. Buchie, was in the church. Then, neither sermon nor hymn nor collection seemed of any special importance.
When the service was over, and she walked down the aisle, she found herself just behind him. At the door he saw her, and they walked home together dicussing the sermon, and discovering the usual faults of omission and commission that Scotch worshipers are so keen at finding with their ministers and their preaching.
" I was thinking I would take a look in at your brother, Miss Macpherson," said the little doctor, as they approached Strome Villa. "Maybe this afternoon would suit you? I've an appointment just at present, or I would have called now."
" The afternoon will suit me very well," said Catherine Macpherson, her mind rushing off to the prospect of a cosy chat and a cup of tea in such agreeable company. " I shall expect you about — "
She hesitated and looked down at him. He was considerably shorter than herself.
" Will four o'clock do ? " he asked.
" Yes, very well indeed," she said, rejoiced to think that Tibbie would be out of. the way. She was such an unsafe person to have coming and going about a room. You never knew whether she would not join in the conversation, or make inappropriate remarks, that were odiously and incontestably true.
Then they shook hands, and Catherine felt that the style of her hair-dressing must have attracted his notice, he had looked at her so earnestly.
Had she been less hurried in removing her bonnet and veil, she might have noticed that the wind had given her headgear a little rakish tilt to one side. It gave a curious effect to her Sabbath-day expression and stem features.
But she was only eager now to get dinner over, and Tibbie Minch out of the house ; so the fact of the troublesome bonnet being two inches, at least, out of the line of the perpendicular did not attract her attention.
James Macpherson was much better, but weak, and inclined to be very irritable. He wanted to get up and come down-stairs, and she had infinite difficulty in persuading him to remain where he was.
She did not think it necessary to tell him the doctor was coming. It might have excited him, and also he might have informed Tibbie of the fact, and that conscientious handmaiden might have considered it right to stop at home and open the door, and see that the visit was conducted on strictly professional lines.
It was half-past three o'clock before Tibbie did really go, by which time Catherine Macpherson had worked herself into a perfect frenzy of impatience.
Fortunately it was a Sunday habit to have a fire in the drawing-room. So when the door closed on Tibbie's red head and tartan ribbons she hastily set about her preparations.
The little tea-table was wheeled up near the fire ; the silver tray and its service put ready, and the spirit-stand for the kettle filled, so that the tea could be made at once on the arrival of the visitor.
Then she rearranged the frilled art muslin curtains over the windows, so as to soften the harsh light of the cold spring afternoon, and took a survey of the room with eminent satisfaction.
There was still ten minutes to spare. She turned to the glass and examined her hair, and then went up-stairs and changed her stiff linen collar for a lace fichu, that had belonged to her sister-in-law, and had been left in a drawer unobserved or forgotten by Margaret Weimar. The effect greatly pleased her. It gave an "old- picturish" look to her face and figure, hitherto a stranger to any presentment of that respectable and severe personality.
Sharp at four the bell rang. She went down and answered the door, explaining that the servant was out. Then she took the doctor into the drawing-room, and noted his pleased glance at the bright fire, the hissing spirit-kettle, and the comfortable saddle-bag armchair standing by the tiled hearth.
Outside a sharp east wind was blowing, and he had come from a cantankerous patient who had strong opinions on the subject of drugs, and always gave up fires at the end of February. He had been obliged to remain for half an hour in a cold, sunless room, and to bear with arguments as to the suitability of iodine and bromide of potassium to the case of the said patient.
He rubbed his hands and dropped into the soft depths of the chair with a sigh of content.
"Indeed, then. Miss Macpherson, you know well how to make a house comfortable," he said. " You've a bonnie room here," he added with a glance at the tables, the cosy chairs, the velvet draperies, and the pretty trifles scattered about on mantel-shelf and brackets and cabinets.
" It is well enough," said Catherine, measuring out the tea from a quaint little silver caddy that had belonged to her niece's grandmother, and been locked away in the nlate chest by Margaret Weimar.
"A man never feels how lonely he is till he conies into a room that speaks of a woman's presence and a woman's taste," continued the little doctor. " By the way, Miss Macpherson, what about my patient ?"
" He's asleep just now," said Catherine unblushingly. "Let me give you a cup of tea, and just sit and warm yourself, doctor. I'll run up to his room in a minute or two, and see if he's waking yet."
"Oh, I'm in no hurry," said Dr. Buchie; "and a cup of tea is no such an unwelcome thing on a cold day. Miss Macpherson."
So he sat on, and drank his tea, and partook of brown bread and butter, and cake, and gossiped as agreeably as any old woman could have done; and the heart of Catherine Macpherson rejoiced within her, for she saw great things to be attained in the future did she but get a few more such opportunities.
It was half an hour before the doctor went up to see his patient. He found him much better in health, but gained a good deal of insight into the Macpherson temper.
He left the house compassionating the " worthy, good-hearted soul " who had to put up with a cantankerous old dotard, whom nothing seemed to satisfy, and whose days were assuredly numbered.
This was the way in which the astute brains from Banffshire diagnosed a case and read a character.