He heard his wife's footsteps pass the door. He rose and looked out. She was standing in the porch with her back to him and her face towards the garden, for she and Nature were so near akin that on grave and silent days they seemed to need each other's greetings. He stood beside her, and looked silently down at her face with a little sense of thankfulness, of gratitude, for all the peaceful years he owed her, and he saw with a pang the deep lines on her face and the grayness of her hair, as Margaret had done only an hour before.
"Why, father," she said, with a little smile, "what is it?" Then, with sudden dread, she asked, "Is he worse? Does he want you yet?"
"I'm afraid it won't be long," he answered; "but I shall be able to tell you better when we come from town."
Hannah grumbled, of course, when she heard of the journey. Then, grumbling being useless, she busied herself in seeing that Mr. Vincent's portmanteau was dusted out, and that the key, which was tied to one of the handles by a bit of string, turned properly in the lock. And a strange old bag, made of brown canvas and lined with stuff that looked like bed-ticking, was found to carry the few things that Margaret was to take. It was the one that Hannah herself often used when she went to Petersfield, and therefore obviously good enough for any other member of thehousehold. But Mr. Vincent looked at it with surprise; he remembered in his youth seeing the under-gardener's son set off for Liverpool, and the bag he carried was just like this one.
"I think we must buy something else for you in London, Margey," he said.
"Oh, I dare say you'll do a great deal when you get there," Hannah struck in, sharply. "It's to be hoped you'll take her to see Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, to say nothing of the City Temple and the Tabernacle and Exeter Hall. It would be as well for her to see that, in one way or another, people have thought a good deal of religion, though you and others like you put yourselves above it." She waited, but Mr. Vincent showed no sign of having heard her. "I'm afraid that one day you'll find you have made a mistake," she went on. He pulled out a little pouch and rolled up a cigarette.
"Are you going to drive us to the station yourself?" he asked.
"I suppose I'd better," she answered. "I don't know what's come to that boy lately. If I send him over to Haslemere he never knows when to get back."
So the cart came round on Monday morning. Mr. Vincent and Hannah got up in front, and Margaret behind, with the portmanteau and the canvas bag on either side of her. Mrs. Vincentstood waving her handkerchief till they were out of sight, then went with a sigh to the best parlor, thinking it would be as well to take advantage of her husband's absence and give it an extra tidying.
The postman came a little later. He trudged round to the back door, where he sat down on a four-legged stool that the boy had painted gray only last week, and prepared for a little talk with Towsey.
"Have you heard that the house on the hill is let?" he was saying. "Some one from London has taken it for the whole summer."
"What have you brought, postman?" Mrs. Vincent asked. He handed her a letter for Hannah. A smile came to her lips when she saw it. "It's the hand that directed the Christmas card," she said to herself. "And it's my belief that Mr. Garratt's coming at last."
Margaret was in the seventh heaven when they reached London. The drive from Waterloo to the Langham—the bridge, the stream of people, the shops—were all bewildering. She could have sung for joy as they drove along in the hansom.
"It appears to please you," Mr. Vincent said, with a little smile.
"It does! It does!" she exclaimed. "Only I should like to walk along the pavements—"
"You shall presently."
"And look into all the windows—"
"I'm afraid I couldn't stand that."
"I wish we had to buy something, then we should go into a shop."
"We will," he said, and presently put his hand through the little door at the top of the hansom, which was in itself an excitement to her. They stopped at a trunk shop.
"But, father—" She was breathless.
"We must get you a Gladstone bag," he explained.
She tripped into the shop after him. It was like entering the ante-room of an enchanted land,for did not great travellers come here before they started for the North Pole or the South, to fight battles, or to go on strange missions to foreign courts? No one guesses the happy extravagance of a young girl's heart on all the first times in her life—the dreams that beset her, the pictures she sees, the strange songs that ring in her ears.
"That's a great improvement," Mr. Vincent said when they re-entered the cab and a good, serviceable, tan-colored Gladstone had been safely put on the top. "We will throw the other away when you have taken out your things."
"Oh no, father—it's Hannah's."
"True. She can take it away as part of her trousseau." Mr. Vincent laughed at his own little joke. He looked young, he was almost gay, as if he, too, felt that they had come out on a wonderful journey in this simple one to town. But he had suddenly discovered a new pleasure in life; for it had not occurred to him that Margaret was so unsophisticated, or that there could be so much that was new to her.
Everything was a joy, even the little sitting-room at the Langham. This, she thought, was what rooms in London looked like—rooms in hotels, at any rate. But though a new experience came upon her every moment, all the time at the back of her head she saw a white road with clumps of heather and gorse beside it, and a church on ahill; a mile farther there was a duck-pond and a lane that led to Woodside Farm; already, even through her impatience to see more of this wonderful London, she looked forward to the first glimpse of her mother's face watching for them on the morrow.
"I'm afraid I shall have to leave you here for an hour or two. I have come to London on business," Mr. Vincent said. "But I must try and show you some sights presently, though I'm not good at that sort of thing. Perhaps we might go to a theatre to-night—"
"Oh! But what would Hannah say?" At a safe distance it was amusing to think of Hannah's wrath.
"I don't know." It amused him, too. "But it shall be something that won't hurt us very much. I believe "King John" is going on still. I will try and get places for it while I am out."
"Couldn't I go with you now—I mean about your business?"
He considered for a moment. It was one of his characteristics that he always thought out his words before answering even trivial questions. "It would be better not. I want to arrange some family matters."
"But I am family," she pleaded.
"That's true." He hesitated again before he went on. "You know that my brother—he isyour uncle Cyril, of course—is ill, and I may possibly go out to him?"
"Yes, father, I know."
"I want to find out how ill he is, if it is possible, from the account he gives of himself. A specialist may know."
"You never told me anything about him. Is he older than you?"
"Of course. That is why he inherited the title."
"Oh!" She looked up rather amused. Chidhurst folk had none of the snobbishness of London, but titles are picturesque and even romantic to a young imagination. "What title?"
"He is Lord Eastleigh," Mr. Vincent answered, reluctantly, "as my father was before him; but a title without property to keep it up is not a very praiseworthy possession. It generally suggests that there has been extravagance or bad management, or something of the sort." He stopped again, and then went on quickly: "After his marriage he went to Australia, and we knew nothing of each other for years till he wrote some months ago."
"Mother told me. Are you rich, father—can you afford to go to him?"
"I have two hundred a year and a legacy of five hundred pounds—it came in some time ago, and will pay the expenses of the journey."
"I see." Gradually she was grasping the family position. "It must be dreadful for his wife, to beall that way off alone with him, and he going to die."
He looked up in surprise. It had not occurred to him to feel any sympathy for his brother's wife. He liked Margaret for thinking of her. "Yes, I suppose it is," he said; "though I believe she wasn't a very desirable person. I don't know whether I'm wise to give you these details. They are not necessary to our life at Chidhurst."
"But I'm growing older," she said, eagerly, and held out her hands to him as if she were groping her way through the world with them. "I want to know things. Don't keep them from me."
He looked at her in dismay. It was the old cry—the cry of his own youth. "I won't," he said, and kissed her forehead.
She was glad to be alone for a little while, to get rid of the first excitement, the first strangeness of the journey, and of being at the hotel. She looked out at the hansoms setting down and driving on, at all the swift traffic along the roadway, at the people on the wide pavement. She had imagined what London would be like from pictures, and from Guildford and Haslemere, and other places where there were shops and streets. It was what she had expected, and yet it was different. She felt herself so near to the heart of things, as if the people going to and fro were the pulse of the world; she could almost hear the throb of theirlives. She wanted to be in the whirl of things, too, to know what it was all like, to understand—oh, no, no! the farm was better, the Dutch garden and the best parlor and the mother who was thinking of her. She would sit down and write to her this very minute—it was an excellent chance while she was alone. On the writing-table in the corner there were paper and envelopes, with the name of the hotel stamped on them. Her mother would look at it and understand the strangeness of her surroundings. This was the first time they had been separated at all; and writing to her was like a door creaking on its hinges, suggesting that at some unexpected moment it might open wide to let her through.
When the letter was finished she took up one of the newspapers lying on the table. There was a war going on somewhere along the Gold Coast; she read about it, but she could not grasp the details. She looked at the speeches that had been made in the House the night before, and tried to be interested in them; but they were difficult. She read all the little odds and ends of news, even the advertisements; and these were oddly fascinating. There was one that set her thinking. It was of a dramatic agency in the Strand. Young ladies could be trained for the stage, it said, and engagements were guaranteed. She wondered what the training was like, and what sort of engagementsthey would be. Now that she was actually going to a theatre she felt that she ought to take an interest in everything; her outlook was widening every moment; and she would never be quite the same simple country girl again who had set out from Chidhurst that morning.
Mr. Vincent came back at a quarter-past one. He looked worried, and she was able to imagine reasons for it since their talk just now.
"Is the news bad?" she asked.
"It might be worse," he answered, with a shrug. "There is nothing definite to say just yet. We must go down and lunch; an old friend of mine is waiting—he wants to see you." Her father had put on the manner that was his armor—the grave manner of few words that made questions impossible. He opened the door with as much courtesy as a stranger would have done, and walked beside her down the wide staircase. "I have secured a table," he said as they entered the dining-room, forgetting that his remark would convey nothing to her.
The table was in an alcove; beside it a middle-aged man was waiting for them. He was tall and dark, and well set-up. A short, well-cut beard and mustache, grizzled like his hair, covered his mouth; his eyes were brown and alert, though time had made them dim and lines had gathered round them; his face was that of a man who livedgenerously, but with deliberation; his slow movements suggested tiredness or disappointment; his manner had a curious blending of indulgence and refinement.
"This is Sir George Stringer; we were at Oxford together," Mr. Vincent said to Margaret.
"I am delighted to meet you," Sir George said; "and it's very good of your father to put it in that way, for, as a matter of fact, he was five years my junior. I stayed up after taking my degree." Looking at him now, she saw that he was quite elderly, though in the distance she had taken him to be almost young. "I had not seen him for more than twenty years," he went on after they had settled themselves at the table, "till he walked into my office just now. I didn't even know that he was a married man till the other day, much less that he had a daughter."
"But he knew where to find you?"
"Of course he did," Sir George said. "I am a permanent official—a moss-grown thing that is never kicked aside unless it clamors, till the allotted number of years have passed and the younger generation comes knocking at the door."
"What do you think he has done, Margey?" Mr. Vincent asked, noticing with satisfaction that she was quite unembarrassed by her new surroundings. The people at the different tables put a pleasant curiosity into her eyes, or provokeda little smile; now and then she looked up at him when some strange dish or attention of the waiters puzzled her, but she was neither awkward nor over-elated.
"What has he done?" she asked.
"We saw that the house on the hill had been let when we passed this morning—"
"It's the most amazing thing that I should have hit upon it," Sir George said.
"You have taken it!" she exclaimed, and clasped her hands with delight. It would be like a little bit of London going to Chidhurst, she thought, and her mother would like him, she was sure of it, this friend of her father's, who would have been difficult to describe, for, though he was old—to her young eyes—he was so agreeable. And he would be some one else for her father to talk with; they would discuss all manner of things concerning the world that she was discovering to be a wonderful place, though Chidhurst, with its beauty and its silence, held aloof from it—and she would listen to them; it would be like hearing a fairy story told at intervals. If only her father did not have to go to Australia—that threat was beginning to make itself distinct, though she tried to forget it.
"It's very good of you to be pleased at the prospect of a grim old bachelor being near you," Sir George said, and looked at her critically. Her beauty had been taking him by surprise. Howlucky Vincent was to have her, he thought. He remembered his own empty rooms in Mount Street, their luxury and loneliness, the precision with which everything kept to its place, their silence and dulness. Vincent had made a mull of his life, but he had a home, and a wife who, though no doubt she was homely enough—mended his socks and cooked his dinner herself, perhaps—was probably a handsome woman, since she was the mother of this beautiful creature. In spite of his opinions, and the manner in which he had kicked aside his prospects, Vincent had not done so badly for himself after all.
"Did father tell you that we lived at Woodside Farm?" Margaret asked.
"Of course he did. I wish I had known it the other day. By-the-way, Vincent," he went on to her father, "it was young Carringford who told me of the house. You remember his father? He was President of the Union just before your time. He died about a year ago worth a quarter of a million, and left two children—this boy, who is only two or three and twenty now, and a girl who married Lord Arthur Wanstead. They have a hundred thousand pounds each."
"It sounds as if it could never be counted," Margaret said.
"Only three thousand a year if they have the luck to get three per cent. for it, and income taxoff that. Well, Master Tom has some friends living on Hindhead—in red-brick houses that ought to be blown up with gunpowder, especially when they have weather-cocks on their gables. Hindhead, as you probably know, is celebrated for its red-brick houses, philosophers, pretty young ladies, and afternoon parties at which games are played with astonishing energy."
"We are miles and miles from Hindhead," Margaret said, bewildered. But Sir George enjoyed talking, and took it for granted that others liked to listen.
"Of course you are," he answered, genially; "but one fine day he and the Lakemans were staying in the neighborhood. He rode over to Chidhurst, saw this house, and thought it might do for them, so they all went over to look at it—"
"She told me."
"Oh, you have heard from her? Mrs. Lakeman, as you probably know, is a lady who does not care for quite so much unadulterated nature as there is in your neighborhood, so the house didn't suit her. The other day Tom told me of it, and I took it on the spot. When did you see her last?"
"A good many years ago." Mr. Vincent's manner was a shade curt.
Sir George looked up quickly. "Why, of course, I remember—what an idiot I am!"
"Not at all. We are going there this afternoon. Who was Lakeman? I didn't know him."
"No one in particular; but he was good-looking and fairly well off." Sir George smiled to himself, and took a liqueur with his coffee. "She was a fascinating woman," he added; "and has had my scalp among others."
"I think you might go up-stairs, Margey. We'll follow you presently."
Sir George looked after her as she disappeared. "She is going to be a beautiful woman," he said. "Rather a shame to hide her on a farm at Chidhurst, though, for my part, I always think that the devil lives in town and God in the country."
Margaret felt that her father was embarrassed by his sense of responsibility when he joined her half an hour later. "You ought to be shown some of the things in London," he said again.
"I've seen the hansom cabs," she said, "and lunched at a little table at the hotel, and everything is a sight to me."
"I suppose it is. Still, we might do Westminster Abbey, at any rate. Hannah gave us leave, you know—and then we'll go to Mrs. Lakeman's."
"Who is she?"
"Her father was a bishop," Mr. Vincent said. He spoke as if the fact needed some contemplation, and to Margaret it did, since she had neverseen a bishop in her life. She knew that he wore lawn sleeves and a shovel hat, and was a great man; she had a vague idea that he lived in a cathedral and slept in his mitre. "He died a good many years ago," Mr. Vincent continued, with a jerk in his voice. "He gave me a living when I was a young man; but I resigned it after a year or two, and differences of opinion caused quarrels and separations. Perhaps," he added, rather grimly, "Hannah would have called me a Papist then, and think it nearly as bad as being an unbeliever now."
Mr. Vincent looked at Margaret two or three times as they drove down to Chelsea Embankment. A village dressmaker had made her frock, but it set well on her slim young figure, and the lace at her neck was soft and real; it belonged to her mother, who knew nothing of its value; her hat was perfectly simple, a peasant, or a woman of fashion might have worn it, and it seemed to him that Margaret would fall quite naturally into place with either. Then he thought of his wife at the farm; she had lived so simple a life among the growths of the earth and the changes of the sky that she was wholly untainted by the vulgarities of the world, and such as she was herself she had made her daughter.
The hansom stopped before a new-looking red-brick house.
"George Stringer would say it ought to be blown up with gunpowder," Mr. Vincent remarked, and Margaret, turning to give some trivial answer, saw that he was white and nervous.
The door was opened by a man servant. The hall was panelled; there were rugs and picturesand palms and old china about, and her heart beat quicker, for all this was part of the London show. The drawing-room was part of it, too, with its couches and screens, its pictures and Venetian glass and countless things of a sort that had no place at Woodside Farm. It was all still and dim, too, almost mysterious, and scented with early spring flowers put about in masses, or so it seemed to Margaret.
Some curtains separated a further room; they were drawn together, and against them, clutching them with one hand, as if she were waiting and half afraid, a woman stood. She was tall, and about forty-three. Her figure was still slight; her black dress trailed on the floor, and made her look graceful; the white cuffs at her wrist were turned back, and called attention to the small white hands below them. She had a quantity of dark hair, smoothly plaited, and pinned closely to the back of her head. Her eyes were a deep gray, long lashed, and curiously full of expression, that apparently she was not able to control. They seemed to belong to an inward being who looked on independently at things, and frequently thought and felt differently from the one that clothed it and tried to pass itself off as a real personality. She had never been pretty; but her face arrested attention. The lines on it suggested suffering; there was humor about the mouth, and tendernessin the deep tone of her voice. For a time and for some people she had a curious fascination; she knew it, and liked to watch its effect. Her head was small, and she carried it well, and the whiteness of the little ruffle round her throat gave it a setting and made it picturesque. She looked across quickly at Mr. Vincent. Then, as if she had gathered courage, she held out her hands and went forward.
"Gerald!" she exclaimed. Her voice appeared to be thickened by emotion. She stopped before him and let her hands drop.
He took them in his. "How do you do, Hilda?" he said, prosaically enough. "It is a long time since we met."
She raised her eyes; they were grave and pathetic, but somewhere at the back of them there was a glint of curiosity. She knew that he saw it, and tried to convince him that he was mistaken.
"More than twenty years," she answered. "I never expected to see you again."
"And now I have brought this tall girl to see you." He put his hand on his daughter's shoulder.
Mrs. Lakeman looked up curiously, almost ruefully. With something like a sob she whispered, "It's Margaret, isn't it?" and took her in her arms and kissed her. "I knew your father before your mother did, and I have loved him allmy life," she said, and looked at the girl's face intently for a moment; then, as if she had had enough of that phase, she asked with a sudden touch of cynicism, "Did he ever talk to you about me—but I don't suppose he did?"
"I was never a very talkative person," Mr. Vincent said, grimly. She turned to him with a happy, humorous smile. She seemed to have swept all emotion from her; she had become animated and even lively.
"No, you never were. You were always as silent and as wise as a dear owl. I have a child, too," she went on. "You must see her—my Lena. She is all I have in the world—a splendid girl and a wonderful companion."
"Where is she?" Mr. Vincent asked.
"She is in there," nodding towards the curtains, "in her own sitting-room. You shall go to her, dear," she said, quickly turning to Margaret. "She knows all about you, and is longing to see you. Tom Carringford is there, too—he is always there," she added, significantly. "You remember old Tom Carringford, Gerald? This is his boy—awfully nice boy; I am never tired of him." She was gay by this time, and it was obvious that good spirits were natural to her. "I'll tell you who is with them," she went on. "Dawson Farley—I dare say Margaret would like to see him. He is a genius in my opinion—the only man on the stage fit to play a romantic part—and Louise Hunstan, the American actress, you know. She is playing just now in 'The School for Scandal' at the Shaftesbury—great fun to hear her do Lady Teazle with a little twang in her voice; it is an awfully pretty twang, though. We are devoted to the theatre, Lena and I." She appeared to be hurrying as much information as possible into her words, as if she wanted to give her listeners an impression of her life.
"We are going to the play to-night," Mr. Vincent said, but Mrs. Lakeman hardly heard him. Other lives only interested her so far as they affected her own. If the Vincents had been going with her she would have taken any trouble, shown any amount of excitement; but as it was, why it was nothing to her.
"You shall go to them," she said decisively to Margaret, evidently carrying on her own train of thought. She went towards the curtains as if to pull them aside. "Tell them we are coming in ten minutes, dear."
"Oh, but I don't know them," Margaret answered, appalled at being told to rush in among strangers.
"Of course you don't," Mrs. Lakeman said, in a sympathetic voice. "I'll take you. No, no, Gerald," as Mr. Vincent made a step to follow them; "we must have a little talk to ourselves after all these years."
She led Margaret into a second drawing-room, and beyond it into a still smaller room. There were pictures, and flowers again—quantities of flowers, the air was heavy with their scent. Silk draperies shaded the light that struggled through the small-paned windows, and bits of color and silver gleamed everywhere. It was like entering a dream, and dim figures seemed to rise from it—an indefinite number of them, it seemed to Margaret, though she soon made out that there were only four. She felt so strange as she stood hesitating just inside the room, like a little wayfarer, who knew only of green fields and a farm-house, straying into an enchanted world, for it was odd how the remembrance of her home never left her through all those first hours in London, and in her thoughts she sent it constant messages.
"Lena, my darling, this is Margaret Vincent. Be kind to her," Mrs. Lakeman said, in a low, thrilling voice. "You must love her, for I used to love her father—I do now." She turned to a young man who had come towards them. "Tom, your father knew this girl's father, too. I am coming back with him in a few minutes to tea. This is Tom Carringford, dear," she said to Margaret. Then, as if she had done enough, she went back with a look of amusement in her eyes and a gay little smile on her lips. "I have got rid of the girl," she thought. "I wonder what that oldidiot will have to say for himself now she is out of the way."
Tom Carringford reassured Margaret in a moment. "How do you do?" he said, and shook her hand. "Don't be afraid of us; it's all right. My governor often spoke of yours, and I have always hoped I should see him some day."
Before she could answer, there stole towards her a girl with a thin, almost haggard, face and two sleepy, dark eyes that looked as if they might burn with every sort of passion. "I have been waiting for you," she said. "Mother has told me about your father. It was splendid of him to bring you." She spoke in a low tone, and, drawing Margaret to a seat near the window, looked at her with an anxious expression in her great eyes, as if she had been worn out with watching for her. "Stay, you don't know Mr. Dawson Farley yet, do you?" She turned towards a man who had risen to make room for them.
"Mrs. Lakeman told us about him just now."
"I'm not as famous as Miss Lakeman thinks." The clear pronunciation caught Margaret's ear, and she looked at him. He was clean-shaven, with a determined mouth and short, crisp hair. There was something hard and even cruel in the face, but there was fascination in it, too—there was fascination in all these new people; the magnetism of knowledge of the worldperhaps, the world that had only burst upon her to-day.
"Oh, but I know nothing," she said, shyly. "I came from Chidhurst this morning—for the first time." Lena made a little sympathetic sound, and put her arms out as if to protect her.
"Do you mean that you have never been in London before?" Mr. Farley asked.
"No, never."
"What a wonderful thing!" The words came from a corner near the fireplace. Margaret was getting used to the dimness now, and could see through it. A woman moved towards her; she was not very young, but she was fair and graceful.
"It is Louise Hunstan, dear," Lena said. For some reason she did not know, Margaret recoiled from this girl, who had only known her five minutes, yet called her dear and was affectionate in her manner.
"You must let me look at you," Miss Hunstan said. The twang of which Mrs. Lakeman had spoken was faintly evident, but it gave her words a charm that made it impossible not to listen to them. "Now tell me, do you love it or hate it, or are you just bewildered with this great London?" She seemed to understand the stranger-mood better than the others.
"I think I am bewildered," Margaret answered. "Everything is so strange."
"Of course it is," Tom Carringford said, "and we stare at her as if she were a curiosity. What brutes we are! Never mind, Miss Vincent," he laughed, "we mean well, so you might tell us your adventures before Mrs. Lakeman returns."
He gave her courage again, and a sense of safety. She laughed back a little as she answered. "Adventures—do people have adventures in London? It sounds like Dick Whittington."
"Just like Dick Whittington," Lena answered. "You ought to carry a cat under your arm and marry a fairy prince. Isn't she beautiful?" she whispered to Dawson Farley.
The color rushed to Margaret's face. "Oh, please don't," she said. "I'm not a bit beautiful."
"Where have you come from, Miss Vincent?" the actor asked, as if he had not heard.
"From Woodside Farm at Chidhurst."
"I can tell you all about her," Lena said. "My mother was once engaged to her father, Gerald Vincent—" Margaret turned quickly as if to stop her. But she took no notice and went on. "He was a clergyman then, but he changed his opinions, left the Church, and wrote some articles that made a sensation. All his relations were furious, and mother couldn't marry him. A little cry came from Margaret.
"Oh! How could she tell you?" she exclaimed.
"You oughtn't to have told us, anyhow," TomCarringford said, turning upon Lena: he was almost distressed. "It's an awful shame!"
"Miss Lakeman didn't mean any harm—she's not like any one else," Miss Hunstan said to Margaret, with a look in her eyes that counted for more than her words.
"It's history, dear—everybody knows it," Lena cooed, soothingly. "Besides, I always tell everything I know, about myself and every one else. It's much the best way; then one doesn't get any shocks in life, and isn't told any secrets."
"There's something in that," Mr. Farley agreed, and then he turned to Margaret; "I've read some of Mr. Vincent's articles. They are beyond my depth, but I recognized their brilliance."
"You see?" Lena said, with a shrug that implied it was impossible to cover up the history of a famous person. Mr. Farley looked at her impatiently and then at the stranger-girl: it was odd how different from themselves they all felt her to be.
"Are you going to any theatres?" he asked, trying to change the conversation. "There are all sorts of things to see in London."
"We are going to 'King John' to-night."
"Mr. Shakespeare and rather slow," Tom Carringford put in, gayly.
"Ah, that's what you young men think," Mr. Farley said—he himself was under forty.
"Tell me what you do in the country, littleMargaret?" Lena asked, with the air of a culprit who loved her, and ignoring the fact that Margaret was a good five foot seven. "Do you bask in the sun all the summer, and hide beneath the snow all the winter, or do you behave like ordinary mortals?"
"We behave like ordinary mortals. Father and I read a great many books—" she began.
"And what does your mother do?"
"Mother and Hannah are generally busy with the farm and the house."
"Who is Hannah?"
"My half-sister. She is a good deal older than I am."
"Can't you see it all?" Lena said, turning to the others. "I can, as clearly as possible. Mrs. Vincent and Hannah look after the farm, and Margaret and her father sit together and read books. The farm carts rumble by, dogs bark, and chickens wander about; there are cows in the fields, honeysuckle in the hedges, and bees in the hives at the end of the garden. In my thoughts I can see them all jumbled up together, and hear the notes of the thrushes in the trees."
"Rubbish!" said Tom Carringford. "Your talk is a little too picturesque, you know. It always is. I can't think how you manage to invent it so quickly."
"Are you eager, now that you have come into the world?" Lena asked, taking no notice of Tom'scrushing remark. "Do you long to run all over it, and feel as if you could eat it up?"
"Rubbish!" said Tom again. "She doesn't feel anything of the sort."
"Everybody does who is really alive."
"All right," he said, imperturbably. "I am a babe unborn, or a mummy." Then he turned to Margaret: "I have to go now; but I wish I had seen your father, Miss Vincent. Where are you staying?"
"At the Langham Hotel—it's in Regent Street."
"Oh yes, we know; we have been in London for some time, you see," Mr. Farley laughed. He liked this girl; she was fresh and unspoiled, he thought. He had a curious hatred of Lena Lakeman, which had just been intensified by her treatment of Margaret. There were times when he felt that he should like to strangle her, just for the good of the community. He hated her wriggling movements, her low tones, her sugary manner, and the outrageous things she said and did with an air of unconsciousness.
Tom Carringford stood talking with Miss Hunstan before he departed. They appeared to be making some arrangement together, for, as he wished her good-bye he said, "All right, then; I will if I can. Anyhow, may I look in at tea-time to-morrow?"
"You may look in at any time you like," MissHunstan said, and then she explained to Margaret: "Mr. Carringford and I are old friends, and always have a great deal to say to each other." She got up when he had gone. "I'm going, too," she said; "but I wish I could stay longer." She held out her hand to Margaret. "I am a stranger to you," she said; "but I should like you to know that I am an American woman, and an actress—who was once a stranger, too, here in London. I hope to stay for some time, and if you come up again and would come and see me, either at the theatre or at my home, I'd be more glad than I can say, for you remind me of a girl I knew in Philadelphia, and she was the sweetest thing on earth."
"I should like it so very much," Margaret said, gratefully.
"Write to me if you can, for I wouldn't like to miss you. Anyway, just remember that I live in Great College Street, Westminster; and you will easily find it, for it's quite near the Abbey. No, thank you, Miss Lakeman, I won't stay for tea. Good-bye."
"I'll walk with you, Louise," Mr. Farley said. "Miss Hunstan is an old friend of mine, too," he told Margaret. "We knew each other in America."
Then, when they were alone, Lena went up to Margaret. "I am glad they are gone," she said. "Now we shall understand each other so muchbetter, and you must tell me"—she stopped to ring the bell—"all about yourself. We ought to know each other, when we remember—" She had been speaking in an intense tone, but the servant entered, and in quite an ordinary one she asked for tea to be brought at once; then turned and immediately resumed the intensity—"when we remember that your father and my mother were lovers."
"Oh, don't say that," Margaret answered, almost vehemently, but with a sweetness of which her listener was uneasily sensible. "It was all finished and done with before we were born. I couldn't bear you to speak of it, nor of my father's opinions, as you did when the others were here; and I can't now, for we have only known each other an hour. There are some things we should only say to those who are nearest to us, and very seldom even then."
Lena wriggled a little closer. "You beautiful thing! Imagine your knowing that. But don't you know that some people are never strangers? And when mother brought you in just now I felt that I had known you for years. You must love mother and me, Margaret. People always do; we understand so well."
"You don't—you can't—or you would not have spoken as you did before those strangers."
"Didn't you hear what I said? I am one ofthose people who think that everything we do and feel should be spread out under the light of heaven. There should be no dark corners or secret places in our lives."
"But why did you say that my father and your mother were lovers once? I didn't want to know that he had ever cared for any one but my own dear mother." Margaret was indignant still.
Lena looked at her with a bewildered smile. "How sweet you are, and how unspoiled by the world," she said. "I wish I could come and live on your farm, dear. Tell me about your mother."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"I shouldn't like to talk about her to any one I don't know."
"Do you love her very much?"
"I love her with all my heart. That is why—"
"Tell me what she is like."
"I can't. I don't want to talk about her to you."
"Do you feel that I am not worthy?" Lena asked, with a gleam of amusement in her eyes.
"I don't think you worthy or unworthy," Margaret answered; "but I don't want to talk about her to you."
"You are very curious, little Margaret. I am glad we have met." Lena leaned forward, as if she were trying to dive into the innermost depthsof the soul before her, but Margaret felt half afraid of her, as of something uncanny.
"I don't think I am glad," she whispered, and shuddered.
"But you mustn't struggle against me, dear—you can't," she whispered back; "because I understand people—mother and I do. The tea is ready; I will go and bring your father here." She rose and slipped softly through the curtains.
Mrs. Lakeman looked at her old lover triumphantly. "I felt," she said, "that I must have you to myself for a little while. I couldn't bear the presence even of that dear child." Her listener fidgeted a little, but said nothing. "Gerald," her voice trembled, but in the tail of her eye there lurked amusement, "have you hated me all these years?"
"Why should I? You did what you thought was right, and so did I." There was a shade of impatience in his manner, though it was fairly polite.
She felt in an instant that tragedy would be thrown away upon him; she changed her note and tried a suspicion of comedy. "I would have stuck to you through anything else," she said, with a shake of her head and a smile that she meant to be pathetic. "I would have gone to perdition for you with pleasure—in this world."
"Quite so."
"I often think you people who do away with the next get a great pull over us. You see it's going to be such a long business, by all accounts."
"Yes." He looked bored: this sort of joke did not amuse him.
"I couldn't help myself. I couldn't break my father's heart and bring a scandal on the diocese; I was obliged to do what I did," she said, with a little burst.
"Of course, I quite understand that," he answered; "and, to be frank, I think it would be better not to discuss it any more."
"You will always be dear to me," she went on, as if she had not heard him; "and when Cyril told me you were at Chidhurst, I felt that I must write and ask you to come and see me. I nearly took a house there, but it fell through." Mr. Vincent remembered Sir George Stringer's remark, and said nothing. "Perhaps I should have been more eager if I had known—and yet I don't think I could have borne it; I don't think I could have spent a summer there with you and—and—your wife"—she stopped, as if the last word were full of tragedy, and repeated, in a lower tone—"with you and your wife only a mile off. I couldn't bear to see her," and quite suddenly she burst into tears.
Mr. Vincent looked at her awkwardly. She meant him to soothe her, to say something regretful, perhaps to kiss her if he still knew how—she doubted it. But he made no sign, he sat quite still, while she thought him a fool for his pains. Aftera moment's silence he put out his hand and touched her arm.
"It's a good thing you didn't take the house, then," he said, and that was all.
She brushed her tears away, and wondered for a moment what to do with this wooden man, who seemed incapable of response to any interesting mood of hers.
"Tell me what she is like," she half whispered.
He considered for a moment. "I don't think I am good at describing people," he answered, in quite an ordinary tone.
"I imagine her"—she began and stopped, as though she were trying to keep back just the ghost of a mocking tone that would come into her voice—"a dear, good, useful creature, a clever, managing woman, who looks after everything and makes you thoroughly comfortable."
"I believe I am pretty comfortable," he answered, thoughtfully.
"Oh! And do you help with the farm?" she asked, with a possibility of contempt—it depended on his answer.
"No, I fear I don't do that. I leave it to her and to Hannah. Hannah is her daughter by her first husband."
"I dare say he was very different from you," and her lip curled.
"I don't know whether he was or not—I neversaw him." His manner was beginning to be impatient again.
"Tell me one thing more," she said, after a moment's hesitation; "do you love her very much?"
He looked at her almost resentfully. "I fail to see your right to ask that question," he said; "but, since you have done so, I will certainly tell you that I care for her more than I do for any other woman in the world."
"Gerald!" she cried, and burst into tears again; "I feel that you have never forgiven me—that you will always despise me."
"This is nonsense," he said; "and I don't understand what you are driving at. We broke off with each other years ago. You married another man, and presumably you were very happy with him. I married another woman, and am very happy with her, and there is nothing more to be said."
She got up and stood with her back to the dull, smouldering fire; it had been allowed to get low, for the day had been like a summer one.
"Just like you men," she exclaimed, with a little laugh and a sudden change of manner. "You are curious creatures; sometimes I wonder if you are anything more than superior animals. Shake hands, old boy, and let us be friends. We are middle-aged people, both of us. Look at my gray hair." She bent her head almost gayly,and put her finger along a narrow line—"Rather too late for sentiment, isn't it?"
"Yes, I think it is," he was surprised, but distinctly relieved. "Now perhaps you'll tell me when it was that Cyril wrote to you?"
"About two months ago. Poor old chap, his marriage wasn't up to much—ei—ther." She checked the last word and finished it with a gasp. "Awful pity, you know, to marry a woman from a music-hall. Lucky they haven't any children, isn't it?"
"Perhaps it is, on the whole."
"I don't like the account of his health; it sounds as if he is in a bad way."
"I'm afraid he is," Mr. Vincent assented, reluctantly; and then he added, slowly, for he always disliked making any statement concerning himself. "I shall probably go out to him."
"I knew you would," she cried, with a little glow of approval. But he was unresponsive to this, too. "Of course, if anything happened, the title would come to you?"
He looked up with quick indignation. But before he could speak the curtain was drawn and Lena appeared.
"Are you coming to tea?" she asked, taking them both in with a long look. "That sweet thing you brought to me just now and I are waiting for you." She went up to Mr. Vincent and held outher hand. "I have heard so much of you," she said, with perfect self-possession, "and often wished to see you." She opened her large, dark eyes as if to show that they were full of appreciation.
"This is your daughter, I suppose?" he asked her mother.
The question was so like Gerald, Mrs. Lakeman thought; he always made sure of even his most trivial facts.
"Yes, this is my daughter—my ewe lamb, my Lena." She put her arm round Lena's shoulders, and once more there was a thrill in her voice; but still he failed to respond. He looked at them both with a little embarrassment, dramatic situations were beyond him, and he had not the faintest notion what to do next.
Mrs. Lakeman smiled inwardly. The man was a perfect idiot, she thought. "Go, darling," she said, "we are coming."
Lena gave Mr. Vincent another of her long, intense looks as she turned away. "Do come," she said; "I am longing to hear you talk."
"It's very kind of you, but I don't know that I have anything to say." The suspicion of patronage in her manner amused him, but it irritated him too, and he wanted to get out of the house. Mrs. Lakeman made a step towards the curtains through which her daughter had disappeared, then stopped, and, as if with a last great effort she hadgathered courage, said, "Tell me one thing—is Margaret like her mother?"
He considered for a moment before he answered. "I think she is," he said, slowly. "She has the same eyes and mouth, and the same distinction of carriage."
"Oh!" The exclamation was almost ironical. Then they went to the dim room with the overpowering scent of flowers. Lena was making tea, while Margaret surveyed the arrangements with great interest. They were so different from any she had seen before. At Woodside Farm a cloth was spread over the oak table in the middle of the room, a loaf and a large pat of butter, a substantial cake, jam, and such other things as might help to make a serviceable meal were set out. Occasionally a savory dish of ham and eggs appeared, or of chicken fried in batter, of which the cooking was a matter of pride to Hannah; plates and knives were put round for each person, and chairs drawn up; altogether it was a much more business-like but far less elegant affair than this dainty one over which Lena presided.
"Good-bye, Margaret dear," Mrs. Lakeman said to her ten minutes later; "you don't know what it has been to me to see you," and she kissed her on either cheek. "You must come and stay with us some day. Gerald, you will let her come, won't you?"
"Certainly, if she wishes it."
"She and Lena must be friends; our children ought to be friends. And you and I," she said, with deeper feeling in her voice, "must not lose sight of each other again."
"Of course not," he answered, and this time he managed to look at her with his old smile, in which there had always been a charm. It went to her heart and made her a natural woman. With something like a sigh she watched him as he descended the stairs.
"I could love him now," she thought, "and go to the devil for him too, with all the pleasure in the world. But he's so abominably good that he will probably be faithful to his farmer woman till the breath is out of his body."
"Well, would you like to go and stay there some day?" Mr. Vincent asked Margaret.
"No," she answered, quickly, and then she added, reluctantly, and because she couldn't help it; "I don't know why it is, father, but I feel as if I never wanted to go there again."
"That's right," he said. What the answer meant she didn't quite understand, but she rubbed her shoulder against his in sheer sympathy. A hansom gives little scope for variety in caresses, but this did well enough.
At ten o'clock next morning Tom Carringford appeared at the Langham.
"Miss Vincent said you were staying here, so I made bold to come," he explained, with a boyish frankness that immediately won over Mr. Vincent. "Please forgive me, and don't think it awfully cool of me to come so early. I was afraid I should miss you if I waited."
"I'm very glad to see you," Mr. Vincent said. "I knew your father well." And in a moment Tom was quite at his ease.
"What did you think of 'King John?'" he asked Margaret.
"It was splendid; and a theatre is a wonderful place. How can people call it wicked?"
"Well, they don't," he laughed, "unless they are idiots, then they do, perhaps," at which she laughed too, and thought of Hannah. "I expect the scenes with Arthur gave you a few bad moments, didn't they?" he asked.
"She wept," her father said, evidently amused at the recollection.
"That's all right." Tom beamed withsatisfaction. She was a nice girl, he thought, so of course she wept; she ought to weep at seeing that sort of thing for the first time. Then he turned to Mr. Vincent. "My father would be glad to think I had seen you at last," he said; "he often wondered why you never turned up."
"I have not turned up anywhere for more than five-and-twenty years," Mr. Vincent answered. "If I had he would have seen me." He was looking at Tom with downright pleasure, at his six feet of growth and broad shoulders, at his frank face and clear blue eyes. This was the sort of boy that a man would like to have for a son, he thought; and then, after a moment's characteristic hesitation, he said: "Stringer told us that you went to Hindhead sometimes; perhaps one day you would get over and see us?"
"Should like it," said Tom, heartily.
"You have left Oxford, of course?"
"Oh yes, last year."
"Any ambitions?"
"Plenty. But I don't know whether they'll come to anything. I believe there'll be an unpaid under-secretaryship presently, and by-and-by I hope to get into the House. Politics are rather low down, you know, Miss Vincent, so they'll suit me. What did you think of Miss Hunstan? I saw her last night; she had fallen in love with you."
"Had she?" Margaret exclaimed, joyfully. "I'm so glad. I love her, though I only saw her for a moment."
"I'll tell her so. Every one does. My mother was devoted to her; that's one reason why I am. She's great fun, too, though, of course, she's getting on a bit," he added, with the splendid insolence of youth. "There's something more at the back of this visit," and he looked at Mr. Vincent. "I have been wondering if you are really going to-day?"
"By the 2.50 from Waterloo. We can't stay any longer."
"Well—I know this is daring; but couldn't you both come and lunch with me? I have my father's little house in Stratton Street, and should like to think you had been there. It would be very good of you."
Mr. Vincent shook his head. "No time."
"You'll have to lunch somewhere," Tom pleaded.
"Yes, but I must go to my lawyer's almost immediately, and one or two other places, and don't quite know how much time they'll take up."
"Are you going alone?"
"Yes."
"Then look here," Tom exclaimed, delighted at his own audacity, "if you are going to lawyers and people, couldn't I take Miss Vincent round and show her something? Picture-galleries, Towerof London, British Museum, Houses of Parliament, top of the Monument—that kind of thing, you know. We'd take a hansom, and put half London into a couple of hours."
"Could I, father—could I?" she asked, eagerly.
Mr. Vincent looked from one to the other. They were boy and girl, he thought—Tom was twenty-two and Margaret eighteen, a couple of wild children, and before either of them was born their fathers had been old friends. Why shouldn't they go out together?
"It's very kind of you," he said, "and it would prevent her from spending a dull morning."
"It sha'n't be dull if I can help it," Tom answered, triumphantly.
"I may really go?" Margaret cried and kissed her father. "Oh, father, you are a dear."
She was a dear, too, Tom thought, and so was the old man, as he described Mr. Vincent in his thoughts.
The "old man" had an idea of his own. "Bring Margaret back here and lunch with us," he said; "there might be just time enough for that, and we will go and see you on another occasion."
"Good—good!" And Margaret presently found out that this was his favorite expression. "It shall be as you say. Now, Miss Vincent, there's hard work before us." Five minutes later Mr. Vincent watched them start. They waved theirhands to him from the hansom, and he turned away with a smile.
"The real thing to do," Tom told Margaret, was to see the great green spaces in the midst of a wonderful city, and the chestnuts which in another month would be in bloom in Hyde Park, and the Round Pond and the Serpentine. "But as, after all," he went on, "you probably have trees and ponds at Chidhurst, we'll begin by going to St. Paul's. I'm afraid, seeing the limited time at our disposal, that the Tower and the Monument must be left alone." A brilliant thought struck him as they were driving back down the Strand to the Houses of Parliament. "We'll take Miss Hunstan a stack of flowers from Covent Garden—you must see Covent Garden, you know. Hi! cabby, turn up here—Covent Garden; we want to get some flowers."
"Oh, but I've brought no money with me."
"I have—heaps," he laughed, delighted at her innocence. "I had an idea we might do something, you know. Now then, here we are. You must jump out, if you don't mind."
They walked up and down the centre arcade, looking in at the shops, as happy and as guileless as Adam and Eve in the first garden when the world was all their own. They chose a stack of flowers, as Tom called it; he filled Margaret's arms with them just for the pleasure of looking at her.
"You make quite a picture loaded with them," he said. "Look here, I should like to give you some roses, too, if you will have them?" he said, almost humbly. "We get them in London, you see, before you do in the country; and I want you to take some back with you."
"I should like to take my mother some," she answered, quite unconscious, of course, of their value.
"Good! You shall take her a heap from us both—I should like to send her some, if I may. But they shall meet you at Waterloo in a box, then they'll be fresh at the last moment."
Margaret felt, as they drove on again, as if she had found a playfellow, a comrade, some one who made life a wholly different thing. She had never been on equal terms with any one young before—with any one at all who laughed and chattered and looked at the world from the same stand-point as she felt that she and Tom did, though till yesterday she had not set eyes on him. It was a new delight that the world had suddenly sprung upon her. This was what it was like to be a boy and girl together, to have a brother, to have friends, what it would be like if some day in the future she were married: people went about then laughing and talking and delighting in being together. Oh, that wonderful word together!
"We won't go to the Abbey," Tom said,"because you did that yesterday, and before we inspect the House of Commons—"
"Some day you will be there!"
"Some day I shall be there," he echoed; "but before I show you the identical seat in which it is my ambition to sit, we'll get rid of these flowers. Great College Street is here, just round the corner. I wonder if she's at home. Jolly little street, isn't it? with its low houses on one side and the old wall on the other."
"And the trees looking over—"
"Here we are."
He flew out and knocked at the door. It was opened by a gray-haired woman, middle-aged, and with a kindly face, overmuch wrinkled for her years. Miss Hunstan had gone to rehearsal, she said.
"Oh—what a bore!" Tom was crestfallen. Then a happy thought struck him. "Look here, Mrs. Gilman, we have brought her some flowers. Will you let us come and stuff them into her pots?"
"To be sure," she answered. "I'll get you some water at once," and she made off, leaving the street door open.
"Come in," he cried to Margaret. "Mrs. Gilman knows me, and she'll let us arrange them." The hall of the little old-fashioned house was panelled like Mrs. Lakeman's, but it was very narrow and painted white, and there were no fripperies about.Miss Hunstan's sitting-room was on the ground floor; it was small, and the walls matched the panelling outside it. The two windows went up high and let in the light, and the bygone centuries from over the way. In front of them were muslin curtains, fresh and white, with frills to their edges. There were brass sconces in the wall with candles and blue silk shades, but the reading-lamp on the table suggested that they were seldom used. On one side of the fireplace was a writing-table covered with papers, and over it a bookshelf; here and there a photograph, above the mantelpiece an autotype of the Sistine Madonna in a dark brown frame, and beneath it, filled with white flowers, was a vase of cheap green pottery; there were other pots of the same ware about the room, but they were all empty.
"We will fill them," Tom said, triumphantly.
Margaret looked at their handiwork with delight. "I like doing this," she said. "But it seems such an odd thing to be here in a stranger's room among the things that help to make up a life—and the stranger absent."
He looked at her for a moment. "Somehow she isn't a stranger," he answered. "Lots of people are strangers, no matter how long you know 'em, but she isn't, even at the beginning, if she likes you. Let's put these daffodils into this thing. Shall we?"
"They look as if they were growing out of the green earth," she said; "pots should always be green, don't you think so? or else clear glass, like water."
"Good," he said, and went on cramming the flowers in. At last there were only the pale white roses left.
"We'll put them here," Margaret said, and set down the pot by the photograph of a thin, sweet-looking woman on the left of the writing-table.
"That's her mother," Tom said, half tenderly; Margaret pushed the roses nearer to it, and loved him for his tone. Then when all the flowers were placed about the little blue and white room, and the freshness of spring was its own, they laughed again like the light-hearted children they were, and went out to their cab.
"Good-bye, Mrs. Gilman," Tom cried, as he closed the doors. "Tell Miss Hunstan we did it—Miss Vincent and I, and that we left her our blessing."