第6章

"No," she said."I'm going to live with Aunt Anne and Aunt Elizabeth.We wouldn't be happy, Uncle, you and I.Our house would always be in a mess and there are so many things that I must learn that only another woman could teach me.I never had a chance with father."He had entered upon this little walk with every intention of settling the whole affair before their return.He had had no idea of any opposition--her ignorance of the world would make her easy to adapt.But now when he saw that she had already considered the matter and was firmly resolved, his arguments deserted him.

"Just consider a moment," he said.

"I think it will be best for me to live with the aunts," she answered firmly."They have wished it before.Of course then it was impossible but now it will do very well."He had one more attempt.

"You won't be happy there, my dear, with all their religion and the rest of it--and two old maids.You'll see no life at all.""That depends upon myself," she answered, "and as to their religion at least they believe in it.""Yes, your Aunt Anne is a very sincere woman," Uncle Mathew answered grimly.

He was angry and helpless.She seemed suddenly some one with whom it was impossible to argue.He had intended to be pathetic, to paint delightful pictures of uncle and niece sheltering snugly together defended by their affection against a cold and hostile London.His own eyes had filled with tears as he thought of it.What a hard, cold-hearted girl she was! Nevertheless for the moment he abandoned the subject.

That she should go and live with her aunts was not for Maggie in any way a new idea.A number of years ago when she had been a little girl of thirteen or fourteen years of age her father had had a most violent quarrel with his sister Anne.Maggie had never known the exact cause of this although even at that period she suspected that it was in some way connected with money.She found afterwards that her father had considered that certain pieces of furniture bequeathed to the family by a defunct relation were his and not his sister's.Miss Anne Cardinal, a lady of strong character, clung to her sofa, cabinet, and porcelain, bowls, and successfully maintained her right.The Reverend Charles forbade the further mention of her name by any member of his household.This quarrel was a grievous disappointment to Maggie who had often been promised that when she should be a good girl she should go and stay with her aunts in London.She had invented for herself a strange fascinating picture of the dark, mysterious London house, with London like a magic cauldron bubbling beyond it.There was moreover the further strangeness of her aunt's religion.Her father in his anger had spoken about "their wicked blasphemy," "their insolence in the eyes of God," "their blindness and ignorant conceit." Maggie had discovered, on a later day, from her uncle that her aunts belonged to a sect known as the Kingscote Brethren and that the main feature of their creed was that they expected the second coming of the Lord God upon earth at no very distant date.

"Will it really happen, Uncle Mathew?" she asked in an awe-struck voice when she first heard this.

"It's all bunkum if you ask me," said her uncle."And it's had a hardening effect on your aunts who were kind women once, but they're completely in the hands of the blackguard who runs their chapel, poor innocents.I'd wring his neck if I caught him."All this was very fascinating to Maggie who was of a practical mind with regard to the facts immediately before her but had beyond them a lively imagination.Her life had been so lonely, spent for the most part so far from children of her own age, that she had no test of reality.She did not see any reason why the Lord God should not come again and she saw every reason why her aunts should condemn her uncle.That London house swam now in a light struck partly from the wisdom and omniscience of her aunts, partly from God's threatened descent upon them.

Aunt Anne's name was no longer mentioned in St.Dreot's but Maggie did not forget, and at every new tyranny from her father she thought to herself--"Well, there is London.I shall be there one day."As they walked Maggie looked at her uncle.What was he really? He should be a gentleman and yet he didn't look like one.She remembered things that he had at different times said to her.

"Why, look at myself!" he had on earlier days, half-maudlin from "his drop at the 'Bull and Bush,'" exclaimed to Maggie, "I can't call myself a success! I'm a rotten failure if you want to know, and I had most things in my favour to start with, went to Cambridge, had a good opening as a barrister.But it wasn't quick enough for me.Iwas restless and wanted to jump the moon--now look at me! Same with your father, only he's put all his imagination into money--same as your aunts have put theirs into religion.We're not like ordinary people, us Cardinals.""And have I got a lot of imagination too?" Maggie had asked on one occasion.

"I'm sure I don't know," her uncle had answered her."You don't look to me like a Cardinal at all--much too quiet.But you may have it somewhere.Look out for a bad time if you have."Today Maggie's abrupt checking of his projects had made him sulky and he talked but little."Damn it all!" he had started out with the most charming intentions towards the girl and now look at her! Was it natural conduct in the day after she had lost her only protector?

No, it was not.Had she been pretty he might have, even now, forgiven her, but today she looked especially plain with her pale face and shabby black dress and her obstinate mouth and chin.He was uneasy, too, about the imminent arrival of his sister Anne, who always frightened him and made him think poorly of the world in general.No hope of getting any money out of her, nor would Charles have left him a penny.It was a rotten, unsympathetic world, and Uncle Mathew cursed God as he strutted sulkily along.Maggie also had fallen into silence.