It was past seven when Margaret came in from posting her letter; she had walked on almost unconsciously for an hour or two—into the city, deserted after the business of the day, and back by the Embankment, to avoid the traffic near the theatres.
The last few hours had been so full of events they had changed the whole current of her life; but as yet she was hardly able to take in all the meanings attached to them. She was like a woman in a dream struggling to awake; it seemed as if everything that had happened concerned some one else rather than herself. Oh, if she could feel more acutely—she even longed for pain, for anything that would make her realize that she was still alive.
Mrs. Gilman let her in, evidently full of pleasant excitement. "Miss Hunstan is coming back," she exclaimed. "I have just had a letter, and knew you would like to be told. She expects to be here in a day or two. She will be pleased about you and Mr. Carringford."
Margaret stopped, dumfounded; but Mrs. Gilmanwould have to know. She thought it would be better to get it over. "But perhaps we are not going to be married, after all—Mr. Carringford and I," she said, lamely. "We made up our minds too quickly."
"Oh no, miss, I couldn't think that; and, if I know anything about it, he loves the ground you walk on. There was a glow in his face whenever I let him in, or whenever he was with you, that did one good to see."
But Margaret was on her way up-stairs and answered nothing.
Mrs. Gilman called after her: "Oh, Miss Vincent, I forgot to say there's a letter for you—you'll find it on the drawing-room table."
A letter! She went almost headlong into the room, while her heart beat quickly with hope and wonder.
The letter had the Chidhurst postmark; it was directed in an uneducated hand, and inside there was written, almost illegibly:
"I think mother is very ill, but Hannah will not have it. Do not say I wrote. Better come at once. From"Towsey."
"I think mother is very ill, but Hannah will not have it. Do not say I wrote. Better come at once. From
"Towsey."
A cry escaped from Margaret's lips; pain had come to her now acutely enough.
"Oh, mother, mother, if you should die! How could I think of anything else in the world whenyou were ill; but I didn't know, darling, I never dreamed it."
In ten minutes she was on her way to Waterloo. The hansom went so slowly she beat the doors with her fists in her impatience. All thought of Tom had vanished or been pushed into the background of her life; the older love asserted itself, and every thought was concentrated on the dear life at Chidhurst. She had just time to catch the train—it went at 7.45. It wanted two minutes to the quarter when she reached the station. She flew out of the cab almost before it had stopped, handed the fare to the man, and hurried to the booking-office. It seemed as if the clerk gave her a ticket with deliberate slowness; she snatched it, and ran to the platform. The doors were being closed; she had just time to enter an empty carriage before the train started. Thank Heaven, she was alone. She could walk up and down and wring her hands or throw herself upon the seat, or lean her head against the side of the carriage and pray—to any power that existed and was merciful. "Let her live—let her live! She mustn't die while father is away; it would be so cruel. Mother—mother, darling, you mustn't die. Father is on his way back, and I am coming to you; don't you feel that I am coming?"
Oh, the misery of it, and the slow, slow plodding of a train that goes towards a house over whichdeath hovers. It seemed to Margaret as if it were hours before she even reached Woking; but it was something to be in the dear Surrey country once again. The door opened when the train stopped and two people got in; they looked like man and wife. Margaret locked her hands and clinched her teeth, as she had done in the morning in order to bear the presence of Mrs. Lakeman, and presently in her dim corner she shut her eyes and pretended to sleep, though every sense was throbbing with impatience. She heard the woman say to the man—and it made her start, for Annie was her mother's name, though they, of course, had nothing to do with her:
"I think Annie's growing taller; don't you?"
"I dare say," the man answered; "she's a girl I never cared for myself." He stopped a moment as if considering. "Do you think Tom means anything by it?"
Tom, too! Margaret thought.
"Well, they seem to think he's looking after Mabel Margetson," the woman answered.
"There'd be some money there," the man said.
"A good bit, no doubt," the woman answered; "but money isn't everything."
No, money isn't everything, Margaret's heart answered them. Money is nothing, after a certain point; nothing is anything except the love of your dearest, the sound of a living voice, the sightof a dear face, the touch of a thin, gaunt cheek against your own. "Oh, she must live," she cried dumbly to herself, though never a sign or movement betrayed it. "I wish I could send my own life into your heart, darling; but live—live till father comes. Oh, dear Christ, if You can see into our hearts, as people say, let my mother live, or, if she must die soon, still let her live till my father comes—or till I get to her," she added, in despair, for in her heart she felt as if the rest must be denied. "We love her, love her best on earth, as she does us."
"Why, it's Guildford already," the woman said. "I declare, this train is in a hurry." She reached down the basket that was in the rack, the man rose, they opened the carriage door, and again Margaret was left alone.
The oil in the lamp burned low and flickered; she opened the window at the other end—they were both open—and the soft darkness of the summer night came in. She knelt by the carriage door, and rested her arms on the window-frame and her face down on them; it gave her a devotional feeling; it made her love the land and trees and the great sky above them; they had always seemed to understand everything; she felt as if they did now. The scent of the pines came to her; she could see the fir-trees black and dim as the train rushed past; but all nature seemed toknow the misery in her heart—it soothed her and made her able to bear it calmly. She looked up at the little stars that had been there thousands of years before she was born, and would be there thousands of years to come—at the stars and the black trees that made the shadows, at the woods in which she had never trodden and yet knew so well, at the deep gray sky, the rough fence that bounded the railway line—and everything seemed to know as she passed by that she was going to her mother, only to find that nothing, nothing in this wide world, can alter the inexorable law of nature and the great decree when it has once been given.
There were three little stations to pass before she reached Haslemere. The station-master's gardens were bright with flowers; she could see plainly the patches of color in the darkness, and the scent of late sweet-peas was wafted to her. She could see the cottages of Surrey as the train went on, here and there a light shone from an upper window—lattice windows generally, like her mother's. Behind them people were going to bed; they were not ill, not dying, as perhaps her mother was, in the big bed at Woodside Farm. A brook, some trees, a house built up high on the bank a little way back from the road, the slackening of the train—and Haslemere at last. The train seemed to hurry to the farthest end of the platform on purpose, and she was impatient at every yardshe had to tread. She gave up her ticket and passed through the narrow doorway of the station-house and out again on the other side. It was ten o'clock—late hours for the country-side. The inn on the high bank opposite was closed.
"Is it too late for a fly?" she asked the porter.
"Too late to-night, miss, unless it's ordered beforehand," and he turned out an extra gas-light. Almost before the words were said she had darted forward; she was young and strong, and her feet were swift. She hurried up the hill on the right, past the inn at the top—she could see the white post and the little dark patch above that constituted the sign. On and on past the smithy and the wheelwright's, and the little cottages with thatched roofs and white fenced-in gardens. She could have walked a hundred miles—flung them behind her with disdain. It was the time, it was the time! Life hurried away so at the last; it might not stay even for her longing or her praying. She turned off from the main road, over a bridge on the right—a narrow road just wide enough for two carriages to pass—the oaks and plane-trees leaned out above the hedges, she could see the trailing outline, against the sky, of a little clump of larches—a deep blue sky now in which the stars had gathered closer.
Nearly three miles were behind her. She was near the outbuildings of a farm that washalf-way to Chidhurst; she smelt the newly garnered grain in them as she passed. Another quarter of a mile and she had come to the edge of the moor. Along the white road beside it—the road she had driven with her father the day she returned from London, and that Mr. Garratt had trotted along so often with his fat, gray pony or on his mare, pleased and jaunty, with his hunting-crop in his right hand. The bell heather was dead, the gorse was turning brown, she knew that there must be patches of ling, but it was too dark to see them.
On she hurried, the white road was stretching behind her instead of in front. Another quarter of a mile and she had come to Chidhurst village; it was still and sleeping. How strange it seemed to skurry through it at this hour! A few minutes more and the square tower of the church stood out before her. The darkness had lifted so well that she could see the clock; it had stopped, of course—at a quarter-past three; a lump came to her throat and her heart stood still, for low on the ground beneath the church tower she saw the whiteness of the tombstones round the church. She turned her head quickly away; on the other side of the road were the gates of Sir George Stringer's house—the sight of them gave her comfort—and on her right, at last, was the little gate that led into the fields that made the short cut to the farm. She gave a cry of thankfulness as she went throughit, and stood on her mother's land once more. It was only a month since she had slept on the green ground beneath her feet, and kissed it and wondered when she would walk over it again. She had not thought it would be so soon. Across the field by one of the pathways that made a white line leading to the stile, over the stile and into the second field, and she ran now, for she knew that in a moment she would see the house.
Margaret stood in sight of her mother's window and could have cried with joy, for there was a light in it. She lifted up her heart in thankfulness, feeling as if Heaven had heard her. Then another fear presented itself, one that had been haunting her all through the journey, but that in the overwhelming dread of not finding her mother alive she had not stayed to consider—Hannah. What would Hannah do? Would she refuse to let her enter the house while her mother was ill—perhaps dying? The letter which she had written was still in the post; it would not arrive till the morning; there was not yet the chance of that softening her. She had no right to keep Margaret out; but it was no good considering any question of right now; she dreaded high words and Hannah's rasping voice. Her feet flagged as she went down the green path of the Dutch garden; she stood irresolute at the bottom of it, looking up at the dimly lighted window, wondering what to do. The front door was certain to be bolted at this time of night, and probably everyone was up-stairs, so that no one would hear her if she tapped, and she was afraid to ring lest she should disturb her mother. She went softly past the house, beside the flower-bed against the wall, and beneath her own bedroom window, round to the back door by which she had left the house a month ago, and cautiously tried the latch, but it was fastened on the inside, as she knew it would be. Then suddenly a light came from the kitchen window; evidently some one had entered with a candle; perhaps Towsey had come down, or Hannah—she was afraid to knock lest it should be Hannah. A thick muslin blind was drawn over the window, which was so high that Margaret was not tall enough to look in. She remembered the four-legged stool painted gray—it generally stood between the wood-house and the back door; the postman used to sit on it sometimes and talk to Towsey while he rested. If she stood on that she might see into the kitchen. She found it, and, still not making a sound, put it down beneath the window, mounted, and looked in. Through the muslin curtain she could see Towsey by the fireplace; she had put a little saucepan on the fire, and was beginning to stir something that was in it, and there was no one else in the kitchen. Margaret tapped gently, and Towsey started as if she divined that it was Margaret; she came to the window and, lifting the curtain, looked out. Margaret put her head closeto the glass so that in the darkness there could be no mistake of her identity.
Then Towsey signed to her to go to the back door, and went and softly unbarred it. She only opened it a little way and put out her head as if she were afraid that even a whisper might be heard inside the house.
"Miss Margaret," she said, "I knew you would be here."
"Is she better?" Margaret asked, breathlessly.
Towsey shook her head. "She's never going to be better," she whispered; "but she's always been a healthy woman, and it may take a deal of dying to bring her to the end."
The words smote Margaret, and she held on to the doorway to support herself.
"Is Hannah with her?" she asked.
"Ay, she is with her; you may be sure of that."
"Has she said nothing about me? Didn't she mean to send for me?"
"Not a word. You see it has all been so sudden; she was only took worse last night."
"Did she get a telegram yesterday?"
"Ay, late yesterday afternoon. She said I wasn't to say anything to Hannah about it; she looked as if she were pleased. Hannah had gone over to Petersfield for the afternoon when it came and didn't get back till half an hour after."
"What is the matter with mother?—is it her heart, or what?"
"Yes, it's her heart, I expect; we sent Daddy for the doctor at nine o'clock last night, and he came again this morning. He hadn't been since last week. He said she was better; but he didn't seem to think well of her."
"Has Hannah said nothing about me?"
"I asked her if she'd wrote after he had gone, but she told me to mind my work and leave her to mind other things."
"And then?"
"And then I just got George Canning to write those lines and post them in Haslemere when he went for the physic. I thought if he posted it before twelve you'd likely get it to-night."
"I did—I did!" and Margaret put her hand on Towsey's arm in token of gratitude. Towsey turned her head back for a moment as if she were listening, but all was still above.
"Has mother asked for me?" Margaret whispered.
"Ay, every hour."
"I must come in, I will come in!" she said, desperately.
"You have a right to," Towsey answered; "but after she came from London she said she would turn me from the door if I ever opened it to you."
"I must see my mother!" Margaret said, and asob came to her throat. "She has no right to keep me from her."
"That's true enough, Miss Margaret. But she's that bitter I believe she'd shut the door on you if your mother was lying dead."
"I would insist," said Margaret, in despair; "but it would be so terrible to have a quarrel now, and it might kill her. She's my mother, Towsey," Margaret added, in a heart-broken whisper.
"And Hannah may say what she pleases, you shall enter," whispered Towsey with determination, and opened the door wide. Margaret went swiftly past her into the kitchen, and Towsey shut the door softly and followed her. "You'll be tired with the journey," she said, tenderly; "let me get you something to eat and drink."
"I don't want anything to eat or drink, Towsey, dear; I want to creep up and be near mother even if I can't see her. Oh, I wonder if Hannah would prevent my seeing her?"
"Ay, that she would," said Towsey, with conviction. "You'd better sit a bit," and she led Margaret to a chair very carefully, so that the sound of their footsteps should not be heard above, and still they spoke in whispers.
"Is there no hope?" Margaret asked, chokingly.
Towsey shook her head. "Hannah won't believe she's going, but I can see it. I have seen plenty go, and know the signs. The pain's gone—it's never been very bad—but it's all gone now. She's just waiting for death, though, somehow, I don't think it will come till she's seen you."
"But doesn't Hannah know she's dying?"
Towsey shook her head. "She doesn't see it, and you can never make Hannah believe anything she doesn't think inside her."
"Is Hannah likely to come down?"
"Likely she'll be down presently for the arrow-root. Look you, Miss Margaret, I'll make an excuse and go up for something. You take off your shoes and walk softly by me, keeping well to the side of the staircase. There's only the little lamp in the room, and there's no light outside; she'll not see, even if she looks out."
"But what shall I do when I get up?" Margaret asked, too dazed to think for herself. She took off her hat as she spoke and put it on the table. Towsey lifted it gently and hid it in the settle where she kept her own things.
"As I go into the room you can slip into the cupboard outside the door—you'll find it open—and hide among the things hanging up. I'll try and get Hannah down and keep her to eat a bit of supper; then, perhaps, you could steal in and look at her for a moment without any one knowing you are there."
"But if it did her harm—if it excited her?"
"It won't," said Towsey, firmly; "it'll make herhappy before she goes. It would be terrible if she died without seeing you or her husband, when she's waiting and longing for you both that badly she can scarce breathe."
"Let us go at once," whispered Margaret.
They crept out of the kitchen together, Margaret's hand on Towsey's shoulder. The tears came into the old woman's eyes as they crossed the threshold. "I nursed you a lot of times when you were a baby," she whispered; "and now you are such a beauty—she said it," and she nodded upward, "only yesterday."
They went along the passage and stopped near the foot of the stairs that were between the kitchen door and the door of the best parlor. They could hear Hannah's voice. She was sitting by her mother's bedside reading the Bible. Towsey went up a few steps and stopped and craned her neck, and came back.
"The door's nearly to," she whispered. "Hannah won't see."
Margaret softly followed Towsey up-stairs, keeping close to the wall till she reached the landing, then she slipped into the cupboard that was next her mother's room. She remembered how she had looked into it the day that Tom Carringford came to the farm four months ago; her mother's long cloak and best dress had been hanging there then, and they were there now. Margaret knew thefeel of them so well—it gave her a thrill to touch them. It was quite dark within the cupboard; even if the door were open and Hannah passed, she would not be likely to see her. She was afraid to move the door lest it should be noticed, but she hid a little way behind it. Towsey, seeing she was safe, looked in at Hannah, who, perhaps, made some sign to her, for she went softly down to the kitchen again. Then, as Margaret stood hidden and listening, out of her mother's bedroom door there came still the sound of Hannah reading of love and mercy; but her voice told that neither had entered her own heart.
Presently Mrs. Vincent asked feebly, "Has any one come, Hannah?"
"Did she know?" Margaret wondered.
"The doctor said he wouldn't be here again to-day—he thought you better this morning," Hannah answered.
"I feel sure I am dying, Hannah. I shall never see him again."
"She is thinking of my father," Margaret thought, and could hardly keep herself from crying out.
"You don't know how to do with illness," Hannah said; "you've not had any for so long. We are all in God's hands, remember that."
"I want you to send for Margaret—she's so young," Mrs. Vincent pleaded; "I can't bear to think of her away from home."
But Hannah answered firmly: "She has disgraced us, mother."
"She has done nothing wrong," Mrs. Vincent answered; "nothing could make me believe that."
"She has disgraced us with her play actors and her forwardness. Would you have an unbeliever beside your sick-bed?"
"But I want her," Mrs. Vincent said. "I want her and her father," she moaned. "I can't die without seeing them again."
"You are making too much of the illness," Hannah answered, anxiously. "People have more of it before they die."
"Tell Towsey to send for Margaret," Mrs. Vincent said, as if her mind were detaching itself from Hannah's argument.
"She shall not cross the doorstep," Hannah said; "and, if you were dying, it would be for your salvation's sake that I would still say it; for one must have fear of God as well as love of God. Let us go on with the reading, mother."
"I can't listen; I want Margaret and her father. There is the sea between him and me, but you can send for Margaret."
"You are tired and had better sleep a little," Hannah said for answer, and, for all her firmness, her voice was kind and even gentle, as though she were striving to save a soul at bitter cost to her own heart. No answer came to her last words,and five minutes went by; they seemed like hours to Margaret; then Hannah spoke again, and her voice was different—there was something like fear in it.
"Mother," she asked, "mother, why do you look round so; do you see anything?"
"I'm looking for Margaret," the faint voice said.
"You'd better try to sleep; you'll be stronger if you sleep a little." But for answer there was only a little moaning whisper that Margaret's heart told her was her own name, and in agony she rocked to and fro and clung to her mother's skirt hung against the wall, and kissed it, and the tears came into her eyes and scalded them.
"I will go and get you a cup of arrow-root," she heard Hannah say; "it is past midnight, and time that you had nourishment." She pushed back the chair on which she had been sitting and came out of the room and, passing the door of the cupboard in which her sister was hiding, went down-stairs. Then Margaret slipped softly into her mother's room and knelt by the bedside.
"Mother!—mother!" she whispered, and put her face down on the thin hands and covered them with kisses. "Mother, darling, I am here—beside you."
A look of fright and joy came into Mrs. Vincent's dulling eyes. "Margaret?" she gasped."Thank God, I've seen you! Hannah won't believe that I am dying. Did Towsey—"
"Yes, darling, yes," Margaret whispered; "and I love you so—I love you so. Get well, darling; father is coming back—he is coming back immediately; get well for him," she whispered between the kisses she rained on the thin face and the hands that had a strange chill on them.
"I shall never see him," Mrs. Vincent said; "but tell him that I thought of him and of you all the time."
"Oh, mother—mother—"
"Bless you, dear, bless you," Mrs. Vincent said. A happy smile came for a moment over her face, though fear quenched it. "If Hannah finds you she will drive you out. You must go—I couldn't bear it, dear. I entreat you to go."
"I will hide, darling; Towsey will manage everything," Margaret said.
"Hannah is very hard," the dying woman whispered, anxiously; "but she doesn't mean it—and she's been very good to me—it's only because she's strict. Tell your father he will come to me, and I'll be waiting. Go, dear—go—I couldn't have died without seeing you." With a last effort Mrs. Vincent kissed her again, but her lips would hardly move, though a cry of fear came through them, for Hannah had quickly crossed the hall below and begun to ascend thestairs; and Margaret knew that if she left the room she would meet her on the threshold. Mrs. Vincent's eyes turned in terror towards the door and remained fixed; a strange expression came to them, as if she saw many waiting and was satisfied, knowing why they had come.
In a moment Margaret was on the other side of the bed and had hidden behind the screen that was partly round the top and down one side of it. She could not stand for trembling; she crouched down on her knees and held her breath.
"Mother, I thought I heard you cry," Hannah said as she entered, but there came no sound for answer. "Mother," she said again, and waited; but all was still. Then Hannah went to the door and called: "Towsey, Towsey, come here!" and Towsey, startled by her tone, came running in haste, and Margaret knew that they were standing together at the bedside. The moments went by with a strange stillness, dragging and terrible, as though an unseen host held on to them. She heard Towsey whisper, "She is going"; she heard her mother's quick breathing, she heard her try to speak, but the words were only half articulated, and still she did not dare to move.
Hannah said: "Mother, mother, Christ will save you; pray to Him," and her mother whispered once more:
"Tell father and Margaret—and there will beJames, too." Then the breathing grew quicker, and the death-rattle came in her throat, and Margaret put her hands to her own throat and covered her mouth, and crouched lower and lower towards the floor, so that she might not cry out in her agony. Then all was still, and she knew that her mother had died.
"She is better off; God be merciful to her, a sinner," Hannah said, and sat down in the arm-chair at the bedside. It seemed to Margaret as if hours went by while she cowered and rocked in her hiding-place, hoping that presently the dead would be left alone for a little, and that then she might creep out and see her mother's face once more.
But this was not to be, for when Hannah rose she called down the staircase: "Towsey, you can come; we must make her ready." Then she came back into the room, and it seemed as if some spirit had whispered to her, for she walked round the bed and moved the screen behind which Margaret was hidden. She started back almost in horror when she saw the crouching figure.
"Margaret! is it you that have dared?"
Margaret stood up and faced her, and even Hannah saw that the young face was drawn with misery, and that her lips trembled.
"It is you that dared not to send for me," she said, in an agonized voice.
Hannah turned to the bed and drew the sheet over their mother's face.
"I wrote to you this afternoon, telling you that she was ill, though you had no right to be here." So the sisters had both written, and neither letter had reached its destination in time.
"But she was my mother, and called for me," Margaret answered. "It was my right as well as yours to be by her."
"You gave up your right," Hannah said, doggedly, "and the place is mine." But she took care not to look at Margaret, and her hands were twitching.
Then Towsey came forward. "For shame, Hannah!" she said; "this is your mother's child you're speaking to, and in the presence of the dead. You can't mean that she's not to stay here."
"Oh, you can't mean that I am not to stay while she is here?" Margaret said, passionately, looking towards the bed. "I think that the agony I have borne this last hour will set me free of hell, if it is true. You can think, if you like, that God has sent it me for punishment, but we needn't speak of these things," she pleaded; "I only want to stay in peace till she has gone forever."
"And it's peace that God gives," said Towsey, "to them that have suffered."
"You can stay," Hannah said. "It's truethat she was the mother of us both, and I'd rather you had been beside her when she died than hidden there." She turned her head away quickly. "It's that I can't forgive," she added, with a break in her voice.
"Hannah," said Margaret, and went a step forward, for Hannah's voice even more than her words overcame her—"Hannah, I was afraid you wouldn't let me in; you said I shouldn't enter the door."
"She wasn't dying then," said Hannah, with grim sadness, "and I didn't think it would be yet; besides, one often says things—I even said them to her; but I wouldn't have had this happen for all I could see."
Margaret put her hand on Hannah's arm, but Hannah stood quite rigid and stern, with her face turned towards the still form that was hidden from them.
The dawn came soon in those late August days, but it seemed as if the darkness would never be at an end that night. Margaret sat in the living-room in the big chair by the fireplace; it faced the one that had been her mother's, and she looked at the arm on which she had perched herself so often in the happy morning talks of old—the mornings that were all at an end for ever and ever. She had set the door wide open and the sweet air came in, chilly, and with a strange sense of what had happened.
Towsey found her presently. "We wondered where you'd got to," she said.
"I went to the garden, and through the field—I wanted to think for a little while."
"I made the bed in your room ready, but I suppose when you looked in it was still covered up, and you didn't feel like staying there."
"I don't like staying anywhere," Margaret answered, with the restlessness that cannot find expression keen upon her.
"You had better come into the kitchen—there's a cup of hot milk ready; you must want something.Hannah's just gone to lie down; she's been anxious and wondering what had become of you; but she thought you had gone to the wood, and it was no good looking for you."
They sat down in the kitchen opposite each other by the table, the old woman, whose eyes were swollen with weeping, and the girl with the scared, white face, who had just seen death for the first time.
"I am thinking of my father," she said to Towsey; "he doesn't know yet—probably he's grieving for Uncle Cyril, but looking forward to coming back to mother. It is so dreadful to think that he'll never see her more."
"Life's a queer thing," Towsey answered, "and difficult to make the best of, and worse when one's old, for then one knows; but when one's young one hopes."
"There's nothing left to hope for."
"There is for you, Miss Margaret. When any one's first gone one feels adrift, and doesn't see the good of living one's self, but when one's young others come along after a bit. Just you go and lie down, poor lamb; you look worn enough."
"Is Hannah asleep?"
"Maybe—she's in her room. She's been pretty bad, but she doesn't like any one to see."
Margaret put down the milk she could not finish. "I'll go up-stairs," she said. "Rest a bityourself; you look so tired, Towsey, dear." She crept up again, past her mother's closed door, and towards her own room. Hannah's door was open; she hesitated, then went softly towards it and looked in.
Hannah was lying on the bed in her clothes, asleep, or appearing to be asleep. The dawn shed a blue light into the room. Margaret, standing by the bed, could see that Hannah had been crying; her face was red and blotched with it. Her cheeks were hollow, her poor nose was very pink, her dull, light hair seemed to be more scanty than ever, and she looked so forlorn and sad as she lay there that Margaret could hardly bear it; she realized, as she watched her, how little the world had given Hannah, how little it promised her. Slipping off her shoes, she lay down very softly beside her—a little lower, so that she could nestle her head on Hannah's breast, and put her arm round the square, thin shoulder. Hannah opened her eyes and looked at Margaret and closed them again, and, as if in sleep, drew closer to her with weary satisfaction, and so, for the first time in their lives, they rested an hour together. But neither slept, and, when it was impossible to feign it longer, they looked at each other, and Margaret knew that Hannah was softened.
"I wrote to you yesterday," she began, a little grimly, as if ashamed of being anything else."I didn't want Towsey to know—I would not even let mother know—for I'd said you shouldn't come back so often. I went out and posted it myself. It will be there this morning. I didn't think the end was coming, or I would have sent before. I'm not as hard as that."
"You wrote to me!" Margaret exclaimed. "Why, Hannah, I wrote to you yesterday—yesterday afternoon; our letters will cross on the way, and both will arrive at the same time."
"It must have been the Lord drawing us to each other."
"If it had only been in time," Margaret whispered.
"I must have seemed harder than I was," Hannah went on; "but I didn't forget that she was the mother of us both, and I didn't think it'd be so soon. I'll never forgive myself while I live."
"I ought to have known you were not so hard as you seemed. And, of course, you didn't know what was going to happen."
"It was the man that came between," said Hannah, bitterly; "it's always a man that comes between women."
Then Margaret pulled herself up on the bed and sat there beside Hannah, looking at her tortured face.
"Mother is lying in the next room," she said, "and can never know, but for her sake let us tryand make things better between us. I want you to believe me, Hannah, when I say solemnly that I never liked Mr. Garratt, or wanted him, or could help anything that he did."
"It doesn't matter," Hannah said. "He's a base and sordid man, and I've done with him forever. He's been here lately, and I've told him so. He only came after me because his mother had heard that the farm would be mine. If the truth's to be told, I never thought much of him, and as for taking a man, caring as he does for theatres and races, for I've found out that he goes to both, why, I'd rather die. But we needn't talk him any more; he'll never come here again."
Then Margaret drew a little closer to her, for even through her own sorrow and the horror of the night her heart was aching for Hannah and clung to her.
"What have you done about the play-acting?" Hannah asked, after a minute or two.
"I have given it up," and there was another silence. Then, grim and forlorn-looking, and with the tears welling into her eyes, Hannah spoke in a low voice, as if she had brought herself to it.
"Margaret," she said, "I've been very hard on you, often and often."
Margaret bent her head and kissed her sister's dress and said nothing, for it was true enough, though she forgave it.
"But I'd like you to understand it," Hannah went on, "then you won't think so bad of me. You see, father came when I was old enough to know, and took mother from me. I felt that he took her, and there was the way he thought about religion and the way that you thought."
"Hannah," said Margaret, "let us speak of it—it's better to do so now while death seems to have broken down the barriers between us. I understand what you mean about father's coming, I do, indeed—I should have felt it, too. But about the religion—you think it a crime that he doesn't believe as you do, but can't you see that if God has given him intellect to think and feel, and he has used them quite conscientiously, and so come to the conclusions that are his now, he is an honest man? He proved his honesty by giving up a great deal—all sorts of worldly advantages, and some one he loved very much before he saw our mother, and, if he came to a wrong conclusion, don't you think that God—God whom you say is a God of love and very just—will at least honor him for being courageous and not making a pretence?"
"If one doesn't believe in the Lord—" Hannah began.
"Oh, but let me speak," Margaret went on, passionately; "it's being honest that matters, and doing right—trying to be all that Christ preached—if we are only that we can leave the rest. It is not we who doubt God, but you who doubt Him when you think He could be hard and cruel to us. There are so many forms of religion in the world besides the one that you believe in; are all the people to be condemned who try to do right from different points of view? It's all a mystery and beyond our comprehension."
"I'd like to know what it is you think?" said Hannah.
"I think that one should be thankful to the Unseen Power that has put all the beauty and happiness into the world; that one should try never to think unkindly or judge harshly, and that we should help each other all we can, and leave the rest to the Power one doesn't understand. Some one wrote once, 'I want to accept the facts as they are, however bitter or severe, to be a lover and a student, but never a lawgiver,' which means that we should not judge others, but only love them and help them and do our work as best we can."
"I think you mean well; but I wish you felt more about religion," Hannah said, a little grudgingly. She looked down at her again, for Margaret had crept back into her arms. It was a new sensation to feel any one there, and she felt almost ashamed of the comfort it gave her. "I'm sorry if I seemed hard," she said, gently. "You knowthe Bartons were always strict. But you won't go away again? I can't bear to think of you in London."
"I don't want to go away again," Margaret answered; "I want to stay here with you and father; I feel as if I could never go anywhere else as long as I live."
"There hasn't been anything wrong?" Hannah asked, with a note of alarm. "You haven't done anything you shouldn't?"
"No, Hannah, nothing; but I wish I had never gone."
"There's always something to be sorry for; we have to bear it as the penalty of our weakness. I'd give all I had in the world to remember that we'd both stood by mother at the last," Hannah answered, with a sigh, and then she said—almost tenderly, "You had better try and sleep a little; you look worn out, and there's father to tell yet. It'll be bad for him; I don't know how he'll take it." She held Margaret closer in her arms and watched her, and gradually, worn out with the long night and weeping and excitement, they fell asleep.
Towsey came in a couple of hours later and looked at them.
"I never thought to see them like that together," she said, and went softly out again. "I wish she had seen it; but there, perhaps she does—she may be standing by looking on for all we know."
Sir George Stringer went to Great College Street early that afternoon; the expression of Margaret's face haunted him, and he could not rest till he had seen her again. Mrs. Gilman had told him of Margaret's sudden departure the night before and the reason of it.
"Poor thing! poor thing!" he said to himself as he walked away. "I think I'll go to Chidhurst for the week-end. I might be of some use to her—that young scoundrel, Tom, is in Scotland, and she has only the grim half-sister to look after her."
He walked across the fields in the evening to the farm, and stopped, hesitating in the porch, afraid to enter or to ring and disturb the silence that death consecrates.
Hannah saw him and came forward, grim as usual, but gaunt and sad.
"Did you want to see any one?" she asked.
"I heard that your mother was dead," he answered, awkwardly; "I came to see if I could be of any use. I have known her husband all my life—where is Margaret?"
"She's lying down; she's made her head bad with fretting."
"What have you done about her father?"
"We haven't told him yet. Margaret says he's coming back. It will be bad for him then."
"But he ought to be told."
"We'll send a telegram to-morrow. It'll be time enough; it's no good hurrying sorrow on him. He'll have had a day longer to think he'll see her again."
Sir George looked at her shrewdly. "A kind woman at heart," he thought, and then he said aloud, "You know that he is Lord Eastleigh now?"
"Yes, I know; but I can't see that it matters. It won't make any difference to the end."
"You are quite right"; and he shook her hand. "Give my love to Margaret," he said, and turned away. "It would be a good thing," he thought, as he went back across the fields to his house, "if we all lived in the country; people get spoiled when they congregate in cities; that woman looked quite indifferent to Vincent's title. Upon my soul, I liked her to-night."
When Tom had travelled all night and driven five miles by the edge of a forest at the foot of a chain of hills, he found himself at the place the Lakemans had taken near Pitlochry. A lovely house, with a wood round it, and through it a view of a glen, and a stream that hurried white and frothing towards the distance. He asked how Miss Lakeman was in a whisper, half expecting to hear that she was dead.
"Miss Lakeman hasn't been very well, sir," the servant answered, and showed him into a charming room where there was a divine view from the open windows. Near the farther window there was a breakfast-table laid daintily for two, with fresh fruit and late roses in a bowl. Lena was lying on a sofa beside it in a muslin gown, just as Mrs. Lakeman had told Dawson Farley she would be. Her face looked thin and pale, her eyes large and restless; she seemed weak and worried, but there was not a sign of dangerous illness about her. She tried to raise herself as he entered, but apparently was not able to do so.
"Tom, dear," she said, "I have been waiting for you—I knew you would come."
"Of course," he answered; "but what is the matter?"
"I have been ill—very ill, but I'm better. I shall be well, now you have come."
"I thought you were dying," he said, a little resentfully, thinking that he had been hurried away from Margaret for nothing.
"I should have died if you hadn't come," she answered. "Sit down—there," and she signed to a chair close to the sofa.
"Where's Mrs. Lakeman?" he asked, looking round uneasily.
"She has one of her bad attacks of neuralgia. You are glad to come to us?" She turned up her great eyes almost imploringly at him.
"Yes; but I don't understand." He looked out at the glen beneath the windows, and followed the course of the stream with his eyes. "That sort of telegram shouldn't be sent without a good deal of reason."
"But I have been very ill, Tom, dear; and I have wanted you so." She held out her hands; he looked at her uneasily, but he did not take them. Somehow her manner was different from the one to which he was accustomed, and a misgiving, he did not know of what, rose in his heart."I felt that no one else could make me well," she added, in a pathetic voice.
"Good! We'll see what can be done. Now, are you going to give me some breakfast?"
"It will be here directly. Tell me about naughty little Margaret. Is her lover with her?"
"Why, of course not; I have just come away."
He didn't like being called a lover. "She and I are engaged; I telegraphed yesterday—"
"Oh, but it was only a little joke, Tom, dear; you wouldn't be so unkind to Mr. Garratt."
"It's all nonsense about Mr. Garratt—" He stopped, for the breakfast was brought in. "Look here; I'd better pour out the coffee," he said; and when he had done so, and given her some toast and buttered a scone and helped himself to kidneys and bacon, he felt distinctly better. "Now, then," he said; "it's all nonsense about Mr. Garratt, and she and I are going to get married—soon as possible."
"No, no, Tom, dear, it's not nonsense," Lena said, with one of her usual wriggles. "She told me all about him, and I saw them meet in the wood, you know."
But he refused even to discuss it.
"That's all nonsense," he repeated, firmly. "What's the matter with Mrs. Lakeman?"
"It's only neuralgia," Lena said; "you know she has a bad, black day now and then. Youdon't mind being with me, Tom, dear? We always like being together?" She was beginning to feel that she couldn't hold him; that she had attempted more than she could carry out. She almost wished she had left him to Margaret; her power over him seemed gone, and she was handicapped by her mother's absence.
With a puzzled air he ate his breakfast. "What have you done to yourself?" he asked, when he had finished; "have you caught a cold, or overtired yourself, or just given in and taken to a sofa for no particular reason?"
"I'm not strong," she said, looking up at him; "and I felt as if I couldn't bear the waiting. We expected you every day; why didn't you come?"
"I was with Margaret," he answered, at which Lena turned and buried her face in the cushions and sobbed softly to herself.
"Oh, but I say, what is the matter?" he asked, in dismay; "there's something behind all this; tell me what it means."
"It means that I am going to die," she said. "I must die, I can't live." She held out her hands to him again, and almost against his will he felt himself going towards her till he had taken them in his. "I want you, dear," she said, and twined her arms round his neck. "I can't let you go to little Margaret. She has Mr. Garratt, remember,and I shall only live a little while. You must stay with me till I die—you will, won't you?"
"This is all nonsense," he said again; and in a kindly, affectionate manner, as a brother might have done, he gave her a kiss for the simple reason that he didn't know what else to do. "You are ill and played out."
"Yes, I'm ill," she said, and wriggled more completely into his arms.
He sincerely wished she wouldn't, but he held her for a few minutes rather awkwardly and then laid her back on the sofa.
"Look here," he said, "I should like to go and unpack and all that, and you ought to rest for a bit."
Of all the days that Tom had ever lived, that was the strangest—that day alone with Lena, who was ill and not ill; with Mrs. Lakeman invisible, he couldn't tell why; and with something at the back of—he couldn't tell what. He wrote out some telegrams before he went up-stairs. When he came down they had gone, and some instinct told him there was a reason for their disappearance; that the answer that came from Margaret later in the day was somewhat juggled, but how or why he didn't know. Lena wriggled and looked in his face and talked in low tones and called him "dear," but she had always done that. She did it to most people, and, though it made himuncomfortable, he couldn't bring himself to attach importance to it; he didn't even like being puzzled by it. Perhaps Mrs. Lakeman would be down to-morrow, he thought, and then things would explain themselves. Meanwhile he comforted himself by writing a long letter to Margaret, and with hoping that the morning would bring him one from her, but when it came there was not a sign. Then he felt uneasy, and determined that unless there was some good reason to the contrary he would go back to London that night.
Mrs. Lakeman appeared as naturally as possible at the Pitlochry breakfast-table the next morning. She looked haggard and ill with her two nights' travel; and now that the excitement of getting Tom away from London, and of the interview with Margaret was over, she asked herself once or twice whether the game had been worth the candle. After all, she thought Tom had only three or four thousand a year, and she didn't believe he would ever do much in politics. It was the dread of losing him that had roused her, the dramatic situation that had interested her, but now that she had created the situation she didn't know what to do with it; she was even a trifle bored. But everything bored her. She was a woman of humor and enterprise rather than of passion and sentiment, so that nothing kept a lasting hold upon her when once it had lost its novelty. In some sort of fashion she knew herself to be a sham, always experimenting with effects and make-believe feelings, but, try as she would, she could never drive realities home into her heart. In a sense Lena was like her, always wantingthe thing beyond her reach, and experiencing a curious sense of satiety as soon as she possessed it. Even the presence of Tom after the long interviews of yesterday had lost some of its fascination.
"I don't think I want him," she told her mother, "but I don't want to let him go."
"It's my opinion that I made a fool of myself in going up to London," Mrs. Lakeman said. Her energy had flagged, and she wondered at her own nerve in going to Margaret; she scoffed at Dawson Farley and his proposal of marriage; she felt Tom to be in the way at Pitlochry. There were some people staying at Kingussie—she had heard of them from an acquaintance she met on the platform at Euston—she wanted to get over to Pitlochry. They were rich people and full of enterprise; a couple of grown-up sons, too; the elder infinitely better off than Tom Carringford. It was quite possible that he would fall in love with Lena. The worst of it was that Tom was here; besides, she had set herself a task and had to go through with it. After all, it might afford her some amusement, and she was always eager for that; better begin and get it over. She took him into the garden after breakfast to a seat in a secluded corner under a pear-tree; the glen and the rushing, gurgling brook were behind it, and made an accompaniment to their interview.
"Well, what about Margaret Vincent?" she asked him.
"I have had no letter from her. I don't understand it."
"I didn't think there would be one," she answered, significantly, and with an insolence in her manner that put him on the defensive.
"Why didn't you?"
Mrs. Lakeman smiled and said nothing.
"You got my telegram," he inquired—"telling you we were engaged?" Lena had spoken of it two or three times yesterday, but he could hardly believe that so important a communication had been received in the cavalier fashion in which it was apparently treated.
"Of course."
"I can't think what your telegram meant," he said. "Lena isn't dangerously ill, or anything like it."
Then Mrs. Lakeman tried to pump up a little dramatic energy. "Tom Carringford," she said, "do you know that I am the best friend you ever had?"
"I know that you have been awfully good to me."
"Shall I tell you why I telegraphed as I did?"
"I wish you would, for I can't make it out."
"Dawson Farley told me about Margaret Vincent—I have heard a great deal about MargaretVincent lately, from a good many sources. Tom," she went on, in a suddenly tragic voice, "I loved Gerald Vincent; I have never really cared for anybody else, but this girl is different; she has been brought up by a common mother."
"She is not at all common," he answered, indignantly. "I saw her—"
"And a half-sister who, twenty years ago, would have been in respectable service instead of wasting her time at home, for the mother looks after the farm herself. Margaret belongs to her mother's people and not to her father's; you can hear that in her provincial accent"—the accent, of course, was invented on the spur of the moment—"and she was quite content to marry her Guildford grocer, or whatever he is, until she became stage-struck."
"Look here," said Tom; "you are a good soul, and have been very kind to me, but you mustn't talk to me in this way, for I'm engaged to Margaret, and I mean to marry her."
"You'll pay dearly for it if you do." She stopped a minute, then she lowered her voice, but she was becoming excited; after all, there was some interest left in the situation, and she offered up her child's dignity to its dramatic possibility. "There was something more in the telegram than I have told you," she said. "You are killing Lena, and not behaving as an honorable gentleman."
"What do you mean?" he asked, bewildered, but remembering uncomfortably Lena's manner of yesterday.
"I mean," said Mrs. Lakeman, indignantly—for it was a theory of hers that a claim was always stronger than a plea, and gained more consideration—"that you have no right to marry Margaret Vincent, or anybody else. I mean that you have made my child love you, that you are all the world to her, and you made her believe that she was all the world to you."
"We have never been anything but friends!" He was aghast.
"Outwardly. At heart you have been lovers, and you can't deny it. She has given you the one love of her life, dear"—Mrs. Lakeman was becoming sentimental—"and I never dreamed that you had not given her yours. You can go back to Margaret Vincent, if you like, but you have killed my child—my one, only child. You must see how ill she looks, how changed she is."
"But this is ghastly," he said; "I'm not a bit in love with Lena. I never cared for any one in that way but Margaret, and I want to marry her."
"Go and marry her," Mrs. Lakeman answered, in a low voice; "Lena will not be alive to see it. Do you suppose that I would give away my own child's secret, or bring myself to speak to you as I'm doing now, if it were not a case of life and death?" She said the last words with a thrill.
He looked at her in despair.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, after a pause.
He turned away and followed the course of the stream with his eyes as it rushed through the glen. This was very awkward, he thought, but for the life of him he didn't believe in it.
"You have been very kind to me," he said; "but it's no good not telling the truth about a thing of this sort—I couldn't marry Lena. I'm very fond of her, but she isn't the kind of girl that I could fall in love with; she flops about and you never know where you have her, and as for her being desperately in love with me, why, I don't believe it. We should worry each other to death if we were married; besides, I mean to marry Margaret Vincent."
"If the grocer hasn't stolen a march on you."
"Look here," he answered, turning very red, "if you say that sort of thing we shall quarrel."
"I don't care," she answered, defiantly; "if you can't behave like a gentleman, it doesn't matter whether we quarrel or not."
"You know," he said, "I don't believe in this business—I mean in Lena's being in love with me."
"I should have thought you might have seen it yesterday." She stopped for a moment, then almost demanded, "What are you going to do?"
"I am going back to town at once; but it's nogood not being straight in a matter of this sort, and first I shall have it out with Lena."
"It will be thoroughly indecent of you."
"Can't help it; I'm going," and he marched towards the house and into the morning-room again.
Lena was lying on the sofa; he went up to her and sat down on the chair beside her, determined to have it over and be done with it.
"Look here, I want to talk to you," he said; "this place has become a sort of nightmare, and I want you to wake me up from it like a sensible girl."
"Tell me about it, Tom, dear," she said, and wriggled towards the edge of the sofa. "You wouldn't say things to me yesterday."
"Too much worried. Now, then," he went on, drawing back a little and looking her well in the face, "I have fallen in love with Margaret Vincent. She has been in London for the last three weeks, and we have seen each other every day—perhaps you didn't know that? It's all nonsense to suppose that she's in love with Mr. Garratt; I have found out the truth of that business. He is merely a bounder who went to look after Hannah, the half-sister, then found out he liked Margaret better—I don't wonder. Hannah bothered her about it, and she went up to town. Louise Hunstan wired me from Bayreuth that Margaret was in Great College Street, and I went and looked afterher. If this hadn't happened—your wires, I mean—I dare say I should have got a special license by this time. I want you to be good to Margaret," and he put his hand affectionately on Lena's. "I love her and don't mean to marry anybody else. Now, then, how is it going to be?"
"Poor little Margaret; I shall love her," said Lena, "because you do."
Tom blinked his eyes to make sure he was awake; either Mrs. Lakeman was as mad as a March hare, he thought, or he was dreaming, for there was not a sign of disappointment in Lena's manner.
"Oh," he said, helplessly.
"It will be nice for her to marry you, dear," she went on; "you are so different from Mr. Garratt."
"Mr. Garratt has nothing to do with it. But unless you take kindly to the marriage, of course we shall have to cut each other afterwards. Well, then, is it all right?"
"Of course it is," she said, and wriggled closer to him.
"Good, good! Now I am going," he said, with determination.
"But where are you going?" she asked, anxiously.
"Over to Aviemore; I know some people there. But I shall take the train back to London this evening. It's all right," he said to Mrs.Lakeman, who had sauntered up to the window with a newspaper in her hand; "Lena's a sensible girl; I knew she was."
Mrs. Lakeman looked at him almost vacantly; she had ceased to take the slightest interest in his love affairs. "Have you seen theScotsman?" she asked; "the boy has just come with it."
"No; why?"
"Cyril is dead, and Gerald is Lord Eastleigh."
"Good! he'll be coming back," Tom answered; "I'm off in half an hour," he added.
"Oh!" She was too much preoccupied even to ask him to stay; but when he had gone, as if with a jerk she remembered the excitement of the morning. "We made a nice fiasco over Tom," she said to Lena; "I don't know which is the greater idiot, you or I."
"It was very interesting," Lena answered. "But I should never have energy enough for the life he likes. I can't bear coarse effects or strong lights or exercise, or any of the things he cares for—people should always be restful."
"You had better marry a minor poet," Mrs. Lakeman answered, grimly, "or an inferior painter, and live in a Chelsea studio."