Chapter XV: Conscience at Work

WHEN Mrs. Livesey parted with her husband at the railway station, she little thought that she would be a full month absent from her home and family. But so it proved.

It seemed that the daughter's visit produced a good effect on the sick mother, for after Margaret's arrival, Mrs. Allison brightened visibly. Those about her began to think that the patient would yet recover, in spite of the doctor's opinion to the contrary. The improvement did not, however, last, though it is probable that Mrs. Allison lingered longer, owing to the pleasure and comfort she derived from the sight of her youngest child.

Another feeling mingled with that of joy. She could not look at Margaret's changed face without pain and remorse, and an ever-present wish that she had not left her to herself. She thought that a selfish feeling on her own part had induced her to countenance Adam Livesey's addresses to pretty Maggie, and that the girl had never crossed her in any serious matter since she knew the difference between right and wrong, added to her own mental discomfort. Often did she draw Margaret's thin face down to hers, and whisper, "You don't feel vexed at your mother, do you, my dear?"

And the younger woman would smooth her pillow, and kiss her, denying stoutly the while that she was the least bit vexed about what had passed.

"You did it for the best, mother. It was no wonder you went away, for you never had any peace, what with me and the children. We were always at you, one or other of us; and when folks are getting on in years they can't stand things like young ones."

"I was not so very old then, Margaret, and I'm not to call a real aged woman now. Only just turned sixty-five. You see the being quiet and comfortable don't make folks live any longer."

"Maybe you'll get better yet," said Mrs. Livesey. "I'm sure I wish you may be spared for many a year to come. Why, for all you are so poorly, and have been a fortnight in bed, your face is fuller than mine, and you've more colour in it. Why, I expect if I go on as I'm doing till I'm sixty-five, I shall look a hundred years old at the least."

Margaret was giving her mother the best consolation she knew how to offer. Was not the hope of getting well again the only thing likely to cheer an invalid?

It would have been to herself, for life, with all its troubles, must, she thought, be better than death.

"You look sadly too old, my poor lass," said the sick woman. "No wonder, borne down as you've been. But I hope you will grow younger again yet."

"That would be going t'other way about from what one expects, mother. But don't you fret over spilt milk. I've had hard work, no mistake about that, and little to do with. Still, if you could ha' looked into our bit of a place as I left it, you would ha' said there wasn't a dirty corner. The children, poor things, haven't many clothes, but they've a change apiece of under things, and no holes or rags. Then, whether we've little or much, we pay as we go on. You taught me that lesson, mother; so we are never afraid, let who may knock at the door."

"You must ha' done wonders with such little wages."

"I've done my best, but then, you see, mother, I had all he earned to do it with. If I'd had to deal with some men, the house and children would ha' been lost in dirt and rags. But Adam is a real good 'un in his quiet way. Turning up every penny to me, and taking just what I could give him. Never drinking, nor grumbling, nor swearing, though he might have got mad with me many a time. I was always quick, you know, mother, and what I've had to go through has not made me sweeter-tempered. That poor fellow at home has had something to stand, specially these last years."

It will be seen that Margaret Livesey was not wanting in perception. She had a good deal of self-knowledge, and was frank enough in alluding to her own short-comings.

"I am glad Adam has been such a good husband," said Mrs. Allison. "In other ways, I know he wasn't good enough for you. I've blamed myself."

She could not finish her sentence, for Margaret interrupted, "Never blame yourself again about Adam, mother. He's too good all round for me. He's that patient and true, you wouldn't believe. I only wish I were more like him. But I expect I shall be a little spit-fire of a woman to the end o' my days. If I'd nothing to try me, I should make something to be sharp about. It's just in me. As it is, I have the one comfort of thinking that I've a little bit of excuse for being so short-tempered. But Adam does know that I care for him, and would give him the best and last mouthful I had. If I'd my time to bring over again, and knew all that was coming, I should take Adam. The little 'uns too. They just worship their father."

There was much in all this to comfort the invalid, and to confirm her in a resolution she had arrived at after much consideration. So far, she had not revealed her plan to Margaret, though, after regretting her neglect of the Liveseys, she had several times murmured, "I shall make amends. I shall make amends."

Poor Mrs. Allison! Her one thought of wrongdoing was in connection with Margaret, and on this score she was gradually receiving comfort. Things had not turned out so badly, after all, if her daughter could boldly declare that she would not have them otherwise.

Yet, though Mrs. Livesey said so much to cheer and comfort her mother, she did not the less feel that there were many things connected with her daily life which she would fain have altered. It was true that she would not like to part with Adam or any of those small people on whom she bestowed very uncomplimentary names when she was put out. "Little torments," "plagues of my life," "creatures who were always worritting for something," were no uncommon names for Margaret to bestow, together with slaps and other pains and penalties.

Despite such words, she would have liked to send them out as nicely clad as the best, even while she told her mother, with a sort of fierce pride, that the best dressed children in the school chose her Maggie for a companion, because she was "clean and wholesome, and pretty behaved."

Then she would have liked to dress up poor homely-looking Adam, and herself too, though not in the same sort of finery in which her youthful soul once delighted, but in "real good clothes," and to walk out, with him carrying baby, on fine Sunday evenings. Yes, there were many things she longed for, and the non-possession of which gave sharpness to tongue and temper, even whilst she toiled and turned to good account all that came into her hands. She would not tell Mrs. Allison about these daily conflicts.

"Where would be the good?" thought she, and kept silence, though it cost her an effort to do it.

Mrs. Livesey would not have had so much opportunity for quiet talk, but that Ann's husband happened to be ailing, and required more attention than usual, and she had no daughter to see to home matters. So Margaret was her mother's head nurse, and whilst acting as such, she was called upon to bring a visitor to her bedside. He was one whom Margaret had seen several times after her father's death, for he acted as executor under the will of the relative through whom the "bit of money" had come to him.

It will be remembered that in the early days of Adam's acquaintance with Mrs. Allison, the widow told him about a legacy which fortunately her husband had been unable to spend, because he died almost immediately after coming into possession of it. Also that one-fourth of it, about three hundred pounds, would come to Margaret at her mother's death. The executor under the first will had been induced to act as such for the dying legatee, and had since held the principal sum of twelve hundred pounds in trust for the widow and her daughters. The money had been well invested by Mr. Collinge, and Mrs. Allison justly deemed herself very fortunate in having so kind a friend in this worthy and upright gentleman.

"Mr. Collinge is coming to see me," said the widow to Mrs. Livesey. "It is about a bit of business, but I don't want Ann to know, or you either. She'll know soon enough," added the invalid with a wan smile, "and you too, for that matter. Bad news always travels too fast, and good is sure to come at the right time. Mind, Margaret, if Ann is here, Mr. Collinge will call again; if not, he must see me. Wake me, if I'm asleep. Let me have a few minutes to speak to him on the quiet. Ann may hear he has been, and ask you what he said; but I shall take care you have nothing to tell but what the town-crier would be free to repeat."

Mr. Collinge came. Not alone, though, for his daughter, a sweet-faced young lady, was with him, and accompanied him to the bedside of the sick woman.

Of what passed between Mrs. Allison and her visitors Margaret was told nothing. They exchanged a few kindly words with herself, and made inquiries after her husband and family, then took leave.

After the departure of Mr. Collinge and his daughter, Margaret returned to her mother's room, and found her with a look of great satisfaction on her face.

"Yes, I'm feeling better," she said. "I've settled the one thing that troubled me, and made amends. I'm glad Ann kept out of the way at the right time; but you can tell her when she comes that I have had these visitors. It's all you can tell." And she laughed a little laugh of triumph, which made her hearer feel very uncomfortable, she knew not why.

When Ann, otherwise Mrs. Bradford, returned to her mother's house, Margaret told her about Mr. Collinge's call, as she had been requested to do.

An angry flush mounted to her elder sister's face as she heard this, and she asked sharply, "What did he come here for? Mr. Collinge only calls when there's business to be done. What could mother want with him, I should like to know?"

"That's more than I can tell you, for mother wanted to speak to the gentleman and his daughter by themselves; so I came downstairs. I wasn't likely to cross her by stopping, or poking my nose in, if I wasn't wanted!" retorted Margaret, with her usual plainness of speech.

Her sister gave a searching, suspicious look at Mrs. Livesey, but learned nothing by it, as Margaret's face was openness itself.

"Do you mean to say then," she asked, "that you went straight down and never stopped to listen? You'll hardly make me believe you didn't want to know what Mr. Collinge came about."

The flush deepened on Margaret's face, and her tone was not only sharp, but scornful, as she answered, "You're measuring my corn in your skep, Ann. Nobody could ever say of me that I was fond of sneaking or listening to what wasn't meant for me to hear. I know what you were when I was only a little thing at home, and you were the oldest. You used to want me to pry and tattle then, but if I didn't learn then, I wasn't likely to learn after I'd lost my teacher. Whether you believe me or no, I did come straight downstairs after I'd shown Mr. Collinge and the young lady into mother's room, and I stood by the house door with baby till I heard them on the steps. Mr. Collinge never mentioned a thing, except that he was sorry mother was so ill, and was sure me coming would comfort her. Then he asked after Adam and the children at home, and went away. Believe me or no, as you like," repeated Margaret, with a look and tone which made her elder sister shrink before her.

Mrs. Bradford did believe her, though she did not say so. She only muttered something about Maggie's flare up, and that she was always so sharp that nobody could ask her a civil question without catching it back again. The fact was that the elder sister's disposition was entirely different from that of Mrs. Livesey. The latter was hasty in temper and frank almost to a fault, often speaking when silence would have been better and more likely to evoke a spirit of peace and good-will.

Ann was close, suspicious, mistrustful, ever imagining that others were planning to promote their own interests at her expense. Her husband's position in life was far above that of Adam Livesey, on whom she looked with almost contempt, and wondered how Margaret could ever marry such a one. This was one bone of contention, for we know that Mrs. Livesey would allow no human being to run her husband down, though she might give him what she called "sharp sauce" now and then.

Again, Mrs. Bradford had only two sons, one out of his time and doing well as a journeyman ironmonger, the other serving his behind a grocer's counter. She was also comparatively well off, and had helped her husband to save money, which they both loved rather too well.

Years before, this couple had induced Mrs. Allison to leave the neighbourhood of the Liveseys, having taken pains to make her believe that if she stayed beside those who were so poor, and with so many wants, she would soon be without a bed to lie on, or a roof over her head.

"Margaret will always be at you," Ann had said. "You will never have enough for her, let alone yourself, and with her tribe of children there will be no peace. They will never be off your doorstep. Now if you come to live beside us, you will be out of their way, and our boys will be no trouble to you, but a help."

We know how Mrs. Allison was over persuaded, and what were her feelings at this present time. But her youngest daughter knew nothing of what the mother's clearer sight had discovered respecting Ann's motives in persuading her to make the change of home.

Before her husband's death, Mrs. Allison had saved a little money, not from his earnings, but her own. An active woman in the prime of life, who had not "an idle bone in her body," and with a thorough knowledge of household work, notably high-class cookery, Mrs. Allison had plenty of employment for these talents, and was well paid for their exercise. All that she could spare from her earnings was placed in the savings bank in her own name, and though her husband spent his own money only too lavishly, he never tried to lay a finger on this little hoard of his wife's. Its existence had been kept a profound secret from his daughters.

"If they thought there was money to run at, they'd be wanting all sorts of things that they're content to do without now," was the mother's prudent comment. And as this was before the days of the legacy, the little store in the savings bank was the only provision for a rainy day.

After her husband's death, Mrs. Allison still strove to keep her secret, though, as she would sometimes say, "It's hard to have your thoughts to yourself when our Ann comes. She's such a ferret. She'd find out a thing if you hid it at the far end of a coal pit."

Somehow Ann had an inkling of her mother's little hoard. Nothing absolutely certain, either about the money or the place where it was kept, but constant watchfulness had convinced her of its existence, and from that time the main object of her life was to find out the rest, and to secure the reversion of it for herself.

This was at the bottom of Mrs. Bradford's anxiety to have her mother near her. This moved her to offer many little attentions, hitherto unthought of, and to be constantly sending dainty bits, or invitations to Mrs. Allison to come and partake of such at the Bradford table. She also hinted, again and again, that it would be less lonely and much cheaper for her mother to give up her separate home and live with her and her family.

But neither hints nor questionings brought her any nearer the knowledge she desired, and Mrs. Allison, who was shrewd enough, saw through both, and resolved to disappoint her daughter's expectations.

"No, no," said she to herself; "Ann thinks if she could get my bit of furniture and me under her roof, she would be sure of the things, and manage me and what I've got as she likes. It's herself she thinks about, not me. I haven't studied her ways for over forty years without knowing Ann up and down, though I was led by her in coming in here. Margaret is worth a dozen of her yet. Beside, an old neighbour of mine taught me a lesson. She gave up her good home and went to live with her son, and a nice time she had of it. They got all she had, and then grudged her the bit she ate and the bed—she'd only half a one—that she lay on. She wrote a book, as one may say, and I read it."

From all which observations, it will be seen that Mrs. Bradford had gained little by her selfish efforts, that she still only suspected the existence of a secret store of money, and that Mrs. Allison had wisely made Mr. Collinge her sole confidant, both as to its whereabouts and disposal.

Even on her death-bed, she quietly exulted in the thought of disappointing Ann, whilst making amends to Margaret, her youngest, once her prettiest, always her favourite daughter. Moreover, there was an extra grudge working in her mind. When the letter which summoned Margaret from Millborough had been written and duly read aloud to Mrs. Allison by her daughter, the invalid noticed that some addition was made to it, without being read.

Determined to know what it was, she managed to send Ann to a desk in the parlour to fetch the necessary stamp, feeling certain that before returning the key, her prying spirit would induce her to take at least a glance at its other contents.

Not that she would gain anything, for there was neither a line nor an article of any importance to be looked at.

But during her absence, Mrs. Allison managed to get hold of the letter and to read the postscript, in which Mrs. Bradford advised her sister to "buy a black bonnet, as it would be most useful after."

Needless to say this piece of advice was the "last hair" which is so often said to break the camel's back. Mrs. Allison could not forget and did not forgive this heartless message, and her regard for Margaret was increased in proportion, when she saw that the advice had not been followed.