Маргарет Олифант
The Unjust Steward or The Minister's Debt
CHAPTER XIX.
A CATASTROPHE
Mrs. Mowbray was more restless than her maid, who had been with her for many years, had ever seen her before. She was not at any time a model of a tranquil woman, but ever since her arrival in St. Rule’s, her activity had been incessant, and very disturbing to her household. She was neither quiet during the day nor did she sleep at night. She was out and in of the house a hundred times of a morning, and even when within doors was so continually in motion, that the maids who belonged to the house, and had been old Mr. Anderson’s servants, held a meeting, and decided that if things went on like this, they would all “speak” when the appointed moment for speaking came, and leave at the next term. Mrs. Mowbray’s own maid, who was specially devoted to her, had a heavier thought on her mind; for the mistress was so unlike herself, that it seemed to this good woman that she must be “off her head,” or in a fair way of becoming so. There was no one to take notice of this alarming condition of affairs, for what was to be expected from Mr. Frank? He was a young man: he was taken up with his own concerns. It was not to be supposed that his mother’s state would call forth any anxiety on his part, until it went much further than it yet had gone. And there were no intimate friends who could be appealed to. There was no one to exercise any control, even if it had been certain that there was occasion for exercising control. And that had not occurred as yet. But she was so restless, that she could not keep still anywhere for half-an-hour. She was constantly on the stairs, going up and down, or in the street, taking little walks, making little calls, staying only a few minutes. She could not rest. In the middle of the night, she might be seen up wandering about the house in her dressing-gown, with a candle in her hand: though when any one was startled, and awakened by the sound of her nocturnal wanderings, she was always apologetic, explaining that she had forgotten something in the drawing-room, or wanted a book.
But on the day when she had spoken to Frank, as already recorded, her restlessness was more acute than ever. She asked him each time he came in, whether he had “taken any steps;” though what step the poor boy could have taken, he did not know, nor did she, except that one step of consulting the minister, which was simple enough, but which, as has been seen, was rendered difficult to Frank on the other side. The next day, that morning on which Frank lost all his time on the East Sands, with Johnny Wemyss, and his new beast, the poor lady could not contain herself at all. She sat down at the window for a minute, and gazed out as if she were expecting some one; then she jumped up, and went over all the rooms up-stairs, looking for something, she said, which she could not find. She could not keep still. The other servants began to compare opinions and to agree with the lady’s maid. At last before twelve o’clock Mrs. Mowbray put on her “things,” for the third or fourth time, and sallied forth, not dressed with her usual elaborate nicety, but with a shawl too heavy for the warm day, and a bonnet which was by no means her best bonnet. Perhaps there is no greater difference between these times and ours, than the fact of the bonnet and shawl, as opposed to the easier hat and jacket, which can be put on so quickly. Mrs. Mowbray generally took a long time over the tying of her bonnet strings, which indeed was a work of art. But in the hasty irregularity of that morning she could not be troubled about the bonnet strings, but tied them anyhow, not able to give her attention to the bows. It may easily be seen what an agitation there must have been in her bosom, when she neglected so important a point in her toilet. And her shawl was not placed carefully round her shoulders, in what was supposed to be the elegant way, but fastened about her neck like the shawl of any farmer’s wife. Nothing but some very great disturbance of mind could account for an outward appearance so incomplete.
“She’s going to see the minister,” said Hunter, her woman, to Janet, the cook. Hunter had been unable to confine her trouble altogether to her own breast. She did not indeed say what she feared, but she had confided her anxiety about her mistress’s health in general to Janet, who was of a discreet age, and knew something of life.
“Weel, aweel,” said Janet, soothingly, “she can never do better than speak to the minister. He will soothe down her speerits, if onybody can; but that’s not the shortest gait to the minister’s house.”
They stood together at the window, and watched her go up the street, the morning sunshine throwing a shadow before her. At the other end of the High Street, Johnny Wemyss had almost reached his own door, with ever a new crowd following at his heels, demanding to see the new beast. And Frank had started with his foursome in high spirits and hope, with the remembrance of Elsie’s smile warm around him, like internal sunshine, and the consciousness of an excellent drive over the burn, to add to his exhilaration. Elsie had gone home, and was seated in the drawing-room, at the old piano “practising,” as all the household was aware: it was the only practicable time for that exercise, when it least disturbed the tranquillity of papa, who, it was generally understood, did not begin to work till twelve o’clock. And Mrs. Buchanan was busy up-stairs in a review of the family linen, the napery being almost always in need of repair. Therefore the coast was perfectly clear, and Mrs. Mowbray, reluctantly admitted by the maid, who knew her visits were not over-welcome, ran up the stairs waving her hand to Betty, who would fain have gone before her to fulfil the requirements of decorum, and because she had received “a hearing” on the subject from her mistress. “It is very ill-bred to let a visitor in, and not let me or the minister know who’s coming. It is my desire you should always go up-stairs before them, and open the door.” “But how could I,” Betty explained afterwards, “when she just ran past me? I couldna put forth my hand, and pull her down the stairs.”
Mrs. Mowbray had been walking very fast, and she ran up-stairs to the minister’s study, which she knew so well, as rapidly and as softly as Elsie could have done it. In consequence, when she opened the door, and asked, breathless, “May I come in?” her words were scarcely audible in the panting of her heart. She had to sit down, using a sort of pantomime to excuse herself for nearly five minutes before she could speak.
“Oh, Mr. Buchanan! I have been so anxious to see you! I have run nearly all the way.”
The minister pushed away the newspaper, which he had been caught reading. It was the Courant day, when all the bottled-up news of the week came to St. Rule’s. He sighed to be obliged to give it up in the middle of his reading, and also because being found in no more serious occupation, he could not pretend to be very busy, even if he had wished to do so.
“I hope it is nothing very urgent,” he said.
“Yes, it is urgent, very urgent! I thought Frank would have seen you yesterday. I thought perhaps you would have paid more attention to him, than you do to me.”
“My dear Mrs. Mowbray! I hope you have not found me deficient in—in interest or in attention,” the minister said.
He had still kept hold of the Courant by one corner. Now he threw it away in a sort of despair. The same old story, he said to himself grievously, with a sigh that came from the bottom of his heart.
“Do you know,” said the visitor, clasping her hands and resting them on his table, “that Frank’s twenty-fifth birthday is on the fifth of next month?”
She looked at him as she had never done before. Her eyes might have been anxious on previous occasions, but they were also full of other things: they had light glances aside, a desire to please and charm, always the consciousness of an effort to secure not only attention, but even admiration, a consciousness of herself, of her fine manners, and elaborate dress, finer than anything else in St. Rule’s. Now there was nothing of all this about her. Her eyes seemed deepened in their sockets, as if a dozen years had passed over her since she last looked thus at the minister. And she asked him that question as if the date of her son’s birthday was the most tragic of facts, a date which she anticipated with nothing less than despair.
“Is it really?” said the perplexed minister. “No, indeed, I did not know.”
“And you don’t seem to care either,” she cried, “you don’t care!”
Mr. Buchanan looked at her with a suspicious glance, as if presaging some further assault upon his peace. But he said:
“I am very glad my young friend has come to such a pleasant age. Everything has gone well with him hitherto, and he has come creditably through what may be called the most perilous portion of his youth. He has now a little experience, and power of discrimination, and I see no reason to fear but that things will go as well with him in the future, as they seem–”
“Oh,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, raising her clasped hands with a gesture of despair, “is that all you have got to say, just what any old woman might say! And what about me, Mr. Buchanan, what about me?”
“You!” he cried, rather harshly, for to be called an old woman is enough to upset the patience of any man. “I don’t know what there is to think of about you, except the satisfaction you must have in seeing Frank–”
She stamped her foot upon the floor; her eyes, which looked so hollow and tragic, flamed up for a moment in wrath.
“Oh, Frank, Frank! as if it were only Frank!” She paused a moment, and then began again drawing a long breath. “I came to you in my despair. If you can help me, I know not, or if any one can help me. It is that, or the pierhead, or the Spindle rock, where a poor creature might slip in, and it would be thought an accident, and she would never be heard of more.”
“Mrs. Mowbray! For God’s sake, what do you mean?”
“Ah, you ask me what I mean now? When I speak of the rocks and the sea, then you begin to think. That is what must come, I know that is what must come, unless,” she said, “unless”—holding out her hands still convulsively clasped to him, “you can think of something. Oh, Mr. Buchanan, if you can think of something, if you can make it up with that money, if you can show me how I am to get it, how I can make it up! Oh, will you save me, will you save me!” she cried, stumbling down upon her knees on the other side of his table, holding up her hands, fixing her strained eyes upon his face.
“Mrs. Mowbray!” he cried, springing up from his chair, “what is this? rise up for Heaven’s sake, do not go on your knees to me. I will do anything for you, anything I can do, surely you understand that—without this–”
“Oh, let me stay where I am! It is like asking it from God. You’re God’s, minister, and I’m a poor creature, a poor nervous weak woman. I never meant to do any harm. It was chiefly for my boy, that he might have everything nice, everything that he wanted like a gentleman. Oh, Mr. Buchanan! you may think I spent too much on my dress. So I did. I have been senseless and wicked all round, but I never did more than other women did. And I had no expenses besides. I never was extravagant, nor played cards, nor anything. And that was for Frank, too, that he might not be ashamed of his mother. Mr. Buchanan!”
“Rise up,” he said, desperately, “for goodness’ sake, don’t make us both ridiculous. Sit down, and whatever it is, let us talk it over quietly. Oh, yes, yes, I am very sorry for you. I am shocked and distressed beyond words. Sit down rationally, for God’s sake, and tell me what it is. It is a matter, of course,” he cried, sharply, with some impatience, “that whatever I can do, I will do for you. There can be no need to implore me like this! of course I will do everything I can—of course. Mrs. Mowbray, sit down, for the love of heaven, and let me know what it is.”
She had risen painfully to her feet while he was speaking. Going down on your knees may be a picturesque thing, but getting up from them, especially in petticoats, and in a large shawl, is not a graceful operation at all, and this, notwithstanding her despair, poor Mrs. Mowbray was vaguely conscious of. She stumbled to her feet, her skirts tripping her up, the corners of her shawl getting in her way. The poor woman had begun to cry. It was wonderful that she had been able to restrain herself so long; but she was old enough to be aware that a woman’s tears are just as often exasperating as pathetic to a man, and had heroically restrained the impulse. But when she fell on her knees, she lost her self-control. That was begging the question altogether. She had given up her position as a tragic and dignified appellant. She was nothing but a poor suppliant now, at anybody’s mercy, quite broken down, and overmastered by her trouble. It did not matter to her any longer what anyone thought. The state of mind in which she had dared to tell the minister that he spoke like an old woman, was gone from her completely. He was like God, he could save her, if he would; she could not tell how, there was no reason in her hope, but if he only would, somehow he could, save her—that was all her thought.
“Now, tell me exactly how it is,” she heard him saying, confusedly, through the violent beating of her heart.
But what unfortunate, in her position, ever could tell exactly how such a thing was? She told him a long, broken, confused story, full of apology, and explanation, insisting chiefly upon the absence of any ill meaning on her part, or ill intention, and the fatality which had caught her, and compelled her actions, so often against her will. She had been led into this and that, it had been pressed upon her—even now she did not see how she could have escaped. And it was all for Frank’s sake: every step she had taken was for Frank’s sake, that he might want for nothing, that he might have everything the others had, and feel that everything about him—his home, his mother, his society—were such as a gentleman ought to have.
“This long minority,” Mrs. Mowbray said, through her tears, “oh, what a mistake it is; instead of saving his money, it has been the destruction of his money. I thought always it was so hard upon him, that I was forced to spend more and more to make it up to him. I spent everything of my own first. Oh, Mr. Buchanan! you must not think I spared anything of my own—that went first. I sold out and sold out, till there was nothing left; and then what could I do but get into debt? And here I am, and I have not a penny, and all these dreadful men pressing and pressing! And everything will be exposed to Frank, all exposed to him on the fifth of next month. Oh, Mr. Buchanan, save me, save me. My boy will despise me. He will never trust me again. He will say it is all my fault! So it is all my fault. Oh, I do not attempt to deny it, Mr. Buchanan: but it was all for him. And then there was another thing that deceived me. I always trusted in you. I felt sure that at the end, when you found it was really so serious, you would step in, and compel all these people to pay up, and all my little debts would not matter so much at the last.”
Mr. Buchanan had forgotten the personal reference in all this to himself. It did not occur to him that the money which rankled so at his own heart, and which had already cost him so much, much more than its value, was the thing upon which she depended, from which she had expected salvation. What was it she expected? thousands, he supposed, instead of fifties, a large sum sufficient to re-establish her fortunes. It was with a kind of impatient disdain that he spoke.
“Are these really little debts you are telling me of? Could a hundred pounds or two clear them off, would that be of real use?”
“Oh, a hundred pounds!” she cried, with a shriek. “Mr. Buchanan, a hundred pence would, of course, be of use, for I have no money at all, and a hundred is a nice little bit of money, and I could stop several mouths with it: but to clear them off! Oh no, no, alas, alas! It is clear that you never lived in London. A hundred pounds would be but a drop in the ocean. But when it is thousands, Mr. Buchanan, which is more like facts—thousands, I am sure, which you know of, which you could recover for Frank!”
“Mrs. Mowbray, I don’t know what can have deceived you to this point. It is absolute folly: all that Mr. Anderson lent to people at St. Rule’s was never above a few hundred pounds. I know of nothing more. There is nothing more. There was one of three hundred—nothing more. Be composed, be composed and listen to me. Mrs. Mowbray!”
But she neither listened nor heard him, her excitement had reached to a point beyond which flesh and blood overmastered by wild anxiety and disappointment could not go.
“It can’t be true,” she shrieked out. “It can’t be true, it mustn’t be true.” And then, with a shriek that rang through the house, throwing out her arms, she fell like a mass of ruins on the floor.
Mrs. Buchanan was busy with her napery at some distance from the study. She had heard the visitor come in, and had concluded within herself that her poor husband would have an ill time of it with that woman. “But there’s something more on her mind than that pickle siller,” the minister’s wife had said to herself, shaking her head over the darns in her napery. She had long been a student of the troubled faces that came to the minister for advice or consolation, and, having only that evidence to go upon, had formed many a conclusion that turned out true enough, sometimes more true than those which, with a more extended knowledge, from the very lips of the penitents, had been formed by the minister himself: for the face, as Mrs. Buchanan held, could not make excuses, or explain things away, but just showed what was. She was pondering over this case, half-sorry and, perhaps, half-amused that her husband should have this tangled skein to wind, which he never should have meddled with, so that it was partly his own fault—when the sound of those shrieks made her start. They were far too loud and too terrible to ignore. Mrs. Buchanan threw down the linen she was darning, seized a bottle of water from the table, and flew to her husband’s room. Already there were two maids on the stairs hurrying towards the scene of the commotion, to one of whom she gave a quick order, sending the other away.
“Thank God that you’ve come,” said Mr. Buchanan, who was feebly endeavouring to drag the unfortunate woman to her feet again.
“Oh, go away, go away, Claude, you’re of no use here. Send in the doctor if you see him, he will be more use than you.”
“I’ll do that,” cried the minister, relieved. He was too thankful to resign the patient into hands more skilful than his own.
CHAPTER XX.
CONFESSION
“Then it is just debt and nothing worse,” Mrs. Buchanan said. There was a slight air of disappointment in her face; not that she wished the woman to be more guilty, but that this was scarcely an adequate cause for all the dramatic excitement which had been caused in her own mind by Mrs. Mowbray’s visits and the trouble in her face.
“Nothing worse! what is there that is worse?” cried the minister, turning round upon her. He had been walking up and down the study, that study which had been made a purgatory to him by the money of which she spoke so lightly. It was this that was uppermost in his mind now, and not the poor woman who had thrown herself on his mercy. To tell the truth, he had but little toleration for her. She had thrown away her son’s substance in vanity, and to please herself: but what pleasure had he, the minister, had out of that three hundred pounds? Nothing! It would have been better for him a thousand times to have toiled for it in the sweat of his brow, to have lived on bread and water, and cleared it off honestly. But he had not been allowed to do this; he had been forced into the position he now held, a defaulter as she had said—an unjust steward according to the formula more familiar to his mind.
“Oh, yes, Claude, there are worse things—at least to a woman. She might have misbe– We’ll not speak of that. Poor thing, she is bad enough, and sore shaken. We will leave her quiet till the laddies come home to their lunch; as likely as not Rodie will bring Frank home with him, as I hear they are playing together: and then he must just be told she had a faint. There are some women that are always fainting; it is just the sort of thing that the like of her would do. If I were you, I would see Mr. Morrison and try what could be done to keep it all quiet. I am not fond of exposing a silly woman to her own son.”
“Better to her son than to strangers, surely—and to the whole world.”
“I am not so sure of that,” Mrs. Buchanan said, thoughtfully: but she did not pursue the argument. She sat very still in the chair which so short a time before had been occupied by poor Mrs. Mowbray in her passion and despair: while her husband walked about the room with his hands thrust into his pockets, and his shoulders up to his ears, full of restless and unquiet thoughts.
“There’s one thing,” he said, pausing in front of her, but not looking at her, “that money, Mary: we must get it somehow. I cannot reconcile it with my conscience, I can’t endure the feeling of it: if it should ruin us, we must pay it back.”
“Nothing will ruin us, Claude,” she said, steadily, “so long as it is all honest and above board. Let it be paid back; I know well it has been on your mind this many a day.”
“It has been a thorn in my flesh; it has been poison in my blood!”
“Lord bless us,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, with a little fretfulness, “what for? and what is the use of exaggeration? It is not an impossibility that you should rave about it like that. Besides,” she added, “I said the same at first—though I was always in favour of paying, at whatever cost—yet I am not sure that I would disappoint an old friend in his grave, for the sake of satisfying a fantastic woman like yon.”
“I must get it clear, I must get it off my mind! Not for her sake, but for my own.”
“Aweel, aweel,” said Mrs. Buchanan, soothingly; and she added, “we must all set our shoulders to the wheel, and they must give us time.”
“But it is just time that cannot be given us,” cried her husband, almost hysterically. “The fifth of next month! and this is the twenty-fourth.”
“You will have to speak to Morrison.”
“Morrison, Morrison!” cried the minister. “You seem to have no idea but Morrison! and it is just to him that I cannot speak.”
His wife gazed at him with surprise, and some impatience.
“Claude! you are just as foolish as that woman. Will ranting and raving, and ‘I will not do that,’ and ‘I will not do this,’ pay back the siller? It is not so easy to do always what you wish. In this world we must just do what we can.”
“In another world, at least, there will be neither begging nor borrowing,” he cried.
“There will maybe be some equivalent,” said Mrs. Buchanan, shaking her head. “I would not lippen to anything. It would have been paid long ago if you had but stuck to the point with Morrison, and we would be free.”
“Morrison, Morrison!” he cried again, “nothing but Morrison. I wish he and all his books, and his bonds, and his money, were at the bottom of the sea!”
“Claude, Claude! and you a minister!” cried Mrs. Buchanan, horrified. But she saw that the discussion had gone far enough, and that her husband could bear no more.
As for the unfortunate man himself, he continued, mechanically, to pace about the room, after she left him, muttering “Morrison, Morrison!” between his teeth. He could not himself have explained the rage he felt at the name of Morrison. He could see in his mind’s eye the sleek figure of the man of business coming towards him, rubbing his hands, stopping his confession, “Not another word, sir, not another word; our late esteemed friend gave me my instructions.” And then he could hear himself pretending to insist, putting forward “the fifty:” “The fifty,” with the lie beneath, as if that were all: and again the lawyer’s refusal to hear. Morrison had done him a good office: he had stopped the lie upon his lips, so that, formally speaking, he had never uttered it; he ought to have been grateful to Morrison: yet he was not, but hated him (for the moment) to the bottom of his heart.
Frank Mowbray came to luncheon (which was dinner) with Rodie, as Mrs. Buchanan had foreseen, and when he had got through a large meal, was taken up-stairs to see his mother, who was still lying exhausted in Elsie’s bed, very hysterical, laughing and crying in a manner which was by no means unusual in those days, though we may be thankful it has practically disappeared from our experiences now—unfortunately not without leaving a deeper and more injurious deposit of the hysterical. She hid her face when he came in, with a passion of tears and outcries, and then held out her arms to him, contradictory actions which Frank took with wonderful composure, being not unaccustomed to them.
“Speak to Mr. Buchanan,” she said, “oh, speak to Mr. Buchanan!” whispering these words into his ear as he bent over her, and flinging them at him as he went away. Frank was very reluctant to lose his afternoon’s game, and he was aware, too, of the threatening looks of Elsie, who said, “My father’s morning has been spoiled; he has had no peace all the day. You must see him another time.” “Speak to Mr. Buchanan, oh, speak to Mr. Buchanan,” cried his mother. Frank did not know what to do. Perhaps Mrs. Mowbray in her confused mind expected that the minister would soften the story of her own misdemeanours to Frank. But Frank thought of nothing but the previous disclosure she had made to him. And he would probably have been subdued by Elsie’s threatening looks, as she stood without the door defending the passage to the study, had not Mr. Buchanan himself appeared coming slowly up-stairs. The two young people stood silent before him. Even Elsie, though she held Frank back fiercely with her eyes, could say nothing: and the minister waved his hand, as if inviting him to follow. The youth went after him a little overawed, giving Elsie an apologetic look as he passed. It was not his fault: without that tacit invitation he would certainly not have gone. He felt the situation very alarming. He was a simple young soul, going to struggle with one of the superior classes, in deadly combat, and with nobody to stand by him. Certainly he had lost his afternoon’s game—almost as certainly he had lost, altogether lost, Elsie’s favour. The smiles of the morning had inspired him to various strokes, which even Raaf Beaton could not despise. But that was over, and now he had to go on unaided to his fate.
“Your mother has been ill, Frank.”
“I am very sorry, sir: and she has distressed and disturbed you, I fear. She sometimes has those sort of attacks: they don’t mean much, I think,” Frank said.
“They mean a great deal,” replied Mr. Buchanan. “They mean that her mind is troubled about you and your future, Frank.”
“Without any reason, I think,” said Frank. “I am not very clear about money; I have always left it in my mother’s hands. She thought it would be time enough to look after my affairs when I attained my Scotch majority. But I don’t think I need trouble myself, for there must be plenty to go on upon. She says the Scotch estate is far less than was thought, and indeed she wanted me to come to you about some debts. She thinks half St. Rule’s was owing money to old Uncle Anderson. And he kept no books, or something of that sort. I don’t understand it very well; but she said you understood everything.”
“There was no question of books,” said Mr. Buchanan. “Mr. Anderson was kind, and helped many people, not letting his right hand know what his left hand did. Some he helped to stock a shop: some of the small farmers to buy the cattle they wanted: some of the fishers to get boats of their own. The money was a loan nominally to save their pride, but in reality it was a gift, and nobody knew how much he gave in this way. It was entered in no book, except perhaps,” said the minister, with a look which struck awe into Frank, and a faint upward movement of his hand “in One above.” After a minute he resumed: “I am sure, from what I know of you, you would not disturb these poor folk, who most of them are now enjoying the advantage of the charity that helped them rather to labour than to profit at first.”
“No, sir, no,” cried Frank, eagerly. “I am not like that, I am not a beast; and I am very glad to hear Uncle Anderson was such a good man. But,” he added after a pause, with a little natural pertinacity, “there were others different from that, or else my mother had wrong information—which might well be,” he continued with a little reluctance. He was open to a generous impulse, but yet he wished to reserve what might be owing to him on a less sentimental ground.
“Yes, there are others different from that. There are a few people of a different class in St. Rule’s, who are just as good as anybody, as people say; you will understand I am speaking the language of the world, and not referring to any moral condition, in which, as we have the best authority for saying, none of us are good, but God alone. As good as anybody, as people say—as good blood so far as that counts, as good education or better, as good manners: but all this held in check, or indeed made into pain sometimes, by the fact that they are poor. Do you follow what I mean?”
“Yes, sir, I follow,” said Frank: though without the effusiveness which he had shown when the minister’s talk was of the actual poor.
“A little money to such people as these is sometimes almost a greater charity than to the shopkeepers and the fishermen. They are far poorer with their pride, and the appearance they have to keep up, than the lowest. Mind I am not defending pride nor the keeping up of appearances. I am speaking just the common language of the world. Well, there were several of these, I believe, who had loans of money from Mr. Anderson.”
