Chapter III: Mrs. Malony's Wedding-Ring

Poor Mrs. Mackenzie's story had been a very sad one. And it was one that is, alas! too common. It does not take long to tell.

She had been well educated and delicately reared in the lap of wealth and luxury. She was an old man's only child, and her father considered there was nothing on earth too good for her. When the girl was about sixteen, her father was in the heyday of success in life. A speculator he was, and lived in a beautiful house on the Borders, and on the banks of the winding Tweed. He was very much looked up to, as wealthy men generally are, simply because they are wealthy. But to have seen Mr. Noble's house and grounds, his retinue of servants and his carriages and horses, would have caused you to think, as everybody else thought, "Here is a man that can never be moved."

At this time, or soon after, he had a winter establishment in Edinburgh, and used to give as good parties as any lord in the city; and Euphemia--his daughter, and she had no mother--used to be the presiding goddess. She was very beautiful; she is beautiful even as we know her now, though poverty and want have hollowed her cheeks, and given a lustre to her dark eyes that her good neighbours on the stair say is hardly "canny."

Euphemia, when only seventeen, had several suitors for her hand, and might have made what is called a very good match. But there was one she cared for above them all. He was a dashing young officer of a Highland regiment at that time stationed in the Castle.

The two became engaged.

Lieutenant Mackenzie was of very good family, and would one day be wealthy; only just at that time he had nothing but his pay, his prospects, and the allowance his mother made him. He couldn't afford to marry for some time. What did that matter? they were both young, and could wait.

So away went the gallant 93rd to India, and with it went Lieutenant Donald Mackenzie, with hope and love to buoy up his heart.

He had not been away a year before a crisis came, and then a crash--oh, such a terrible crash! I suppose Mr. Noble had got too daring, or too something or other, in his speculations. I really do not know all the outs and ins of the matter, but I do know that his house and all his property, down even to Euphemia's pet canaries, were sold, and that after this poor Mr. Noble--poor now indeed--had barely enough to pay the passage-money for himself and daughter to America, where, with the help of some friends or distant relatives, he intended to start afresh. Just think of it--an old man of seventy starting life afresh!

Well, the end seemed to have come, indeed, when Euphie's father died. She was a brave Scotch lassie, however, and would not give in; so she wrote to India to Donald--her Donald now no longer--releasing him from his engagement, then she hired herself out as a governess.

Donald's regiment fought in Afghanistan and the borders of India, and he was wounded. He lost his left arm, brave fellow, and was sent home to be invalided, and retired.

A whole year passed away, and Donald lived at his mother's Highland home--Drumglen--an estate that had been left entirely to her, to will or to do with it as she pleased. Donald was the only son, and a very great favourite. She, the mother, too, was exceedingly jealous of his attentions to any fair maiden that she did not approve of. In fact, she had her eye upon a lady who would make a capital wife for her son. A little older, it is true. What did that matter, the mother told herself; she would be all the more fitted to advise and guide her son through life. Rather dark and stately, too, she was, not to say forbidding. But she owned broad Highland acres, and moorlands, forests, and glens. The absence of beauty, Donald's mother thought, would be an advantage rather than otherwise, for Donald could not well be jealous of a wife ugly enough to stop the church clock.

But, woe is me! Donald still languished and prayed for Euphemia Noble. And one day in Glasgow, lo, he met her! She was only a governess to some very young children. What of that? All Donald's love returned in double force, and he determined to marry her.

It is the old story: the girl consented at last. Then Donald tried to win his mother over. But that stern Highland dowager was inexorable. If he married this wretched governess--doubtless some designing minx and hussy--he should never again darken the doors of Drumglen.

Donald looked at her in sadness and sorrow, and though one sleeve was empty, a very gallant and soldierly man he was. But there was no relenting in his tall, stern, and dignified mother.

"Good-bye."

That was all Donald either said or sighed. He just turned on his heel and walked away as he was--and never once looked back.

The mother gazed after him through the window, till the trees hid him from her view; then she shut herself up in her rooms for days, and no one, not even her maid, knew all that proud woman suffered during this time.

After her marriage with her one-armed soldier, Euphemia and he lived in a tiny cottage down the Clyde. They were so poor that it was difficult indeed to get ends to meet, even in a semi-genteel kind of way. But they were rich in each other's love. And so they struggled on and on for years.

Alas that I should have to tell it! Lieutenant Mackenzie in an evil hour was induced to enter the betting ring. From that hour his downfall may have been dated. It is too sad a story to tell. Instead of the pretty little cottage on the banks of the romantic Clyde, his wife and he were soon occupying rooms in a somewhat squalid quarter of great Glasgow.

How it happened I do not know, but one evening Donald was missing, and he did not return all the next day; but in the gloom of the gloaming a strange man called on Mrs. Mackenzie, and when she saw him she burst at once into an agony of grief that cannot easily be described.

It ended in her leaving her two children to the charge of a neighbour and going away in a cab with the stranger--to a mortuary.

Yes, that was he--that was Donald, pale and draggled and dead; her Donald, with his poor, empty sleeve pinned across his breast!

Oh the pity of it! oh the anguish! But there, the curtain drops on that act, and I am glad it does. Let me just add that ill-health after this reduced Mrs. Mackenzie more and more, till we find her living in this one room, her boy and girl alone to cheer her, and give her some little excuse for hanging on to life.

But compared with many of the large houses in many parts of Glasgow, No. 73 Summer Loaning was very quiet.

Yes, it was quiet, except perhaps on a Saturday night, when, it must be conceded, one or two working-men did come up the long stone stair singing to themselves. Although a lady by birth and education, Mrs. Mackenzie, in her one room, did not keep all her neighbours at bay. They called her the "shuestress," which is a kind of Scotch for dressmaker. They knew she had seen far better days, and that she was poorer now than any of them, because she was unable to do much work. As the song says,--

"The poor make no new friends,
But ah! they love the better far
The few the Father sends."

Now, it might be thought by some that, for sake of her children, Mrs. Mackenzie ought to have written to her late husband's mother or rich relations, and asked for help.

Asked for help? No, a thousand times no; that would have been begging! Mrs. Mackenzie was far too proud to do that. Sooner would she die. But her pride did not forbid her from courting the companionship of the neighbours on the stair. If they were, like herself, poor, or not so poor, they were honest. And really neighbours like these need to be friendly. If you are in the grip of grim poverty, and sick and ill, you will find few more attentive to you, and few whose attentions you will more readily suffer, than those of neighbours who are just as poor as you.

Well-meaning ladies sometimes called upon the Mackenzies with bundles of tracts and Pharisaical advice, and out of politeness Mrs. Mackenzie suffered them. When, however, about a year and two months after little Jack's adventure at the Morgans', his poor mother fell sick, and was confined for weeks to bed, it wasn't to her rich visitors in sealskin sacks and gloves of kid she had to look for comfort and help.

Luckily, in expectation of just such an illness as this, Mrs. Mackenzie had saved a little money. But there lived on the stair immediately below a Mrs. Malony, whose husband was a blacksmith, who sometimes, sad to say, took a dram. He wasn't by any means a bad fellow, however, and often took Johnnie Greybreeks off with him for a whole day to the smithy to see the sparks fly, and always shared his dinner with Johnnie. The blacksmith had no family, and his wife used sometimes to go out charing, so her hands were hard and rough. But her heart wasn't.

Mrs. Malony would often come up to borrow a flat-iron or a "brander," or even a red herring for her man's supper, when hard up. On the other hand, if she happened to make a good bargain down town on a Saturday night, she would never forget to bring "the shuestress" some portion of it--a piece of fish, a few potatoes, a couple of sausages, or a bundle of greens. Often, too, in the long, dreary winter forenights, Mrs. Malony would spend hours in her neighbour's room. She would at times bring her husband also, when he was washed and tidied up; and he did nothing but sit in a corner and smoke and smile. But Johnnie and his sister would "hurkle" down by the fire, nursing the cat between them while they listened to Mrs. Malony's wonderful tales of Ireland and the down-trodden Irish. Evenings like these passed pleasantly enough away.

The children had a younger neighbour, though, a pale-faced, roll-shouldered boy who lived in the garret with his old mother, and used to play the fiddle on the street to support her. Very sweetly he did play, too, though his airs were very sad.

Little Peter, as he was called, used to come downstairs frequently to tea, and bring his fiddle. Well, the tea was almost an imaginary entertainment. It was a delightful sort of a make-belief. To be sure, there was bread and a scraping of butter, and thin, thin tea, with but little milk and less sugar; but then there were oyster-shells and round "chuckie-stanes" to take the place of cakes and currant-buns and all kinds of nice things. And with Maggie presiding in such a dignified and lady-like way, it was quite easy for Little Peter to imagine that an oyster-shell was a slice of delicious tea-cake, or a "chuckie-stane" a pasty.

Then there were really more laughing and fun at these make-believe tea-parties than if everything had been edible.

But that fiddle of Little Peter's was real. There was no mistake about the musical part of the entertainment. But when poor Mrs. Mackenzie fell ill, the sealskin-sack people came but seldom. It might be something catching, you know. The young minister was kind, however, though somewhat too solemn for a sick-room.

It would have been a sad and dreary time, then, for the little family but for their kindly neighbours. Poor Mrs. Malony, with her rough, red hand and her plain face, became a sort of a saint. She allowed Malony to take his "pick" of dinner out of doors, and made him always take Johnnie Greybreeks with him, and keep him all day--there were no Board schools in those days, you know. Malony had also to make his own cup of coffee when he returned at night, buying a polony and a roll on the way to eat with it. But Malony had his pipe, and took things very easy. How gentle Mrs. Malony was with the poor invalid; how softly she spread the bed and softened the hard, small pillows! Ah, it was indeed a treat to have her there. She was very plain-spoken, however. Here, for example, was a specimen of the kind of verbal comfort she used to give Mrs. Mackenzie:--

"An' sure, Mrs. Mackenzee, ye needn't be throublin' yourself aboot dyin' at all. For whin ye're dead and in the soilent grave, it's meself and Malony will be lookin' after the childer. Indade I'll bring thim up as me own, and it's the beautiful blacksmith that Johnnie will make; so niver be grievin', but die whin ye plaze wid an aisy mind, an' sure it's the angels will be waitin' for ye evermore."

Was it any wonder that as she listened to consolation like this, and her mind reverted to her father's beautiful home, or to her life with Donald in the wee cottage by the banks of the bonnie Clyde, tears stole down her pale cheeks? But then she would say to herself, "Oh, how ungrateful I am!" and so she would seize and press Mrs. Malony's kindly hand, and cry,--

"O dear Mrs. Malony, how good you are to me! I'm sure I don't deserve it."

"Is it good ye're sayin', Mrs. Mackenzee? Sure I need all me goodness. An' after all, isn't it the same you'd be doin' for me if I was sick and ill? There now, don't cry. Indade it's just as wake [weak] as a baby ye are."

* * * * *

The young doctor was very attentive, but one evening he left the bedside looking more thoughtful than usual. Mrs. Mackenzie seemed to be dozing, so after keeping his fingers on her pale wrist for a time, he had let the hand drop gently on the coverlet. He looked at Mrs. Malony as he passed out, and she followed him to the landing.

"I don't think," he said, "we can keep her."

"Och and och!" cried Mrs. Malony, with her rough apron to her eyes. "Och and och, dhoctor dear, is it come to this?--so soon and sudden."

"I fear," he said, "she cannot last long."

"And is there no physic ye can think av at all, at all, that--"

"Oh, hang physic!" cried the doctor. "It isn't physic she wants, Mrs. Malony, but good wine and beef-tea."

"An' would the tay and the wine take her from the bhrink av the grave, dhoctor dear?"

"It would give her a chance. Don't leave her, Mrs. Malony; don't leave her! I fear I can do little more."

Mrs. Malony went back to the quiet room. Her patient seemed sleeping, and so she moved about like a mouse, lest she should disturb her.

The spring sun was shining in through the window and falling on a bunch of early flowers that Little Peter had brought the invalid, because he knew she loved them. It fell also on the canary's cage. Even Dick had given up singing lately, as if he knew there was sadness and grief in the air.

Mrs. Malony drew the blind a little way down, then left the room. She stole downstairs on tiptoe. Maggie was there, keeping house.

"Go up," said Mrs. Malony, "as quate as a weasel, and sit by your mother till I come back."

Poor Maggie had been crying, but she now did as she was told.

Mrs. Malony went straight to her cupboard, now her clothes-cupboard, and very soon made up a bundle.

"Och and och," she said to herself, "they won't go far at all, at all."

They were the woman's Sunday clothes for all that, and she meant to take them to the poor man's banker at the sign of the three golden balls.

Then her eyes fell upon her stubby left hand.

"Set you up wid a gold ring indade, Mrs. Malony," she said, "when a brass one would do for a toime! Ill-luck? I won't belave it."

A tear fell on the ring nevertheless, for it brought back memories of happy days of the half-forgotten past. No wonder then she sighed as she screwed it off.

"You've been crying, Mrs. Malony," said the burly pawnbroker as she laid the ring on the counter.

Then the tears sprang afresh to her eyes, and she told him all the story.

"Put that ring back on your finger again this moment, Mrs. Malony," said the man. "I'm going to let you have just double on the dresses. Oh yes, they're worth it. I won't lose by it. Now off you go and buy the wine."

"Lord love you, Mr. Grant," said the poor woman as she picked up the money. "An' I belave it's yourself that's saved a loife this blissid day."

* * * * *

When Mrs. Malony returned, she found Maggie silently weeping by her mother's bed. Then a great fear got possession of her heart. Had her sacrifice been all in vain? Was the invalid gone? She hastily deposited her purchases on the little table and approached the bed.

Mrs. Mackenzie looked very still and beautiful. She might have been made of wax, or her features chiselled from purest marble.

Mrs. Malony touched her hand that still lay on the coverlet. It was cold. She bent over her, and could hear no breathing.

Was as this indeed death?