“I never thought you were like your poor mamma before,” cried the house-keeper in her agitation, “not a bit like. You are just like the Leslies, not her features at all; but in that habit, and in the very same hat and feathers!” Margaret took off her hat at these words, and Miss Parker breathed a little more freely. “Ah, that is better, that is not so startling. You were as like her, as like her—”
“Why should not I be like her? Poor mamma, it is hard upon her having nothing but me to leave in the world, that I should be so unkind as not to be like her,” said Margaret, musing, half thinking through the midst of this conversation how strange it was that Earl’s-hall should seem so very far away.
“I remember her as well as if it were yesterday,” said Miss Parker, “coming up that very stair after her last ride with—oh, I should not speak of him to you! It was before she had ever seen Sir Ludovic, your papa.”
“Her last ride with—whom?” Margaret’s cheeks grew crimson. Somehow it seemed to be half herself about whom she was hearing—herself in her mother.
“Oh, my dear! I don’t know if I ought to tell you all that story. They were a sort of cousins, as I was to them both. He had no money, poor fellow; but otherwise so suitable! just of an age, brought up much the same—and she was an heiress, if he had nothing. They tried to put it into her head that he was not good enough for her. And then they put it into his head (they succeeded there) that a man ought not to owe his living to his wife. So he would go away, let her say what she pleased. Oh, I remember that night when they took their last ride together. She came up-stairs and met me in her riding-habit, in just such a hat and feathers, and her face pale with thinking, like yours, my dear. She changed color, too, like you (ah, there it goes!), all in a moment changing from white to red.”
“And what happened,” cried Margaret, breathless.
“Well, my dear, nothing more than this happened— He went away. He went to India with his regiment; he thought he might get on there, perhaps, and get his promotion, and come back for her (she was not of age then). But he never came back, poor fellow—he died in less than a year.”
“And she—she?” Margaret became breathless with anxiety and interest. She had not known her mother had any story; and how strange it was—half as if it might be herself!
“She felt it very much, my dear. She put on mourning for him—indeed, she had to do that, for he was her cousin. Memorial windows were just coming into fashion, and she put up a window to his memory in the church. Well, then! after a while, she went to Scotland, and met with Sir Ludovic. He was not young, but he was a most striking-looking gentleman—and—well, I need not tell you any more. You know, as well as I can tell you, thathewas your papa.”
“Poor papa!” said Margaret, her eyes filling, though she had said “poor mamma” a moment before. “Did she care for him at all?”
“Oh, my dear! she was inlovewith him, a great deal more in love with him than she ever was with poor Edward. Shewouldhave him. Of course it was pointed out to her that he was poor, too, and living so far away, and a Scotchman, which is almost like a foreigner, and quantities of poor relations. She must have liked him more than she did poor Edward, for she would not listen, not for a moment; even when it was said that he was old, she cried, ‘What do I care?’ Oh, you must not think there was any doubt on that point. She was very fond of your papa. That is poor Edward’s picture in the corner,” said Miss Parker, crying a little, “he never had eyes for any one when she was there; but he was my cousin too.”
Margaret got up tremulously, and went to look at the portrait. It was a feeble little water-color: a young man in a coat which had once been intended to be red, but which had become the palest of pink. When she looked at his insignificant good-looking features, she could not but remember her father’s with a glow of pride. But Miss Parker was crying softly in the corner of the sofa. Why does it always happen that people are at cross-purposes in loving? Miss Parker would have been very happy with Edward: why was it not she but the other whom the young soldier loved? It made Margaret sad to think of it. And then all at once there came into her mind, like a pebble cast into tranquil water, Rob Glen. Something in the features of poor Edward, who had died in the jungle, recalled Rob to her mind. Her heart began to beat. Perhaps, no doubt, there was some one who would be very happy to have Rob, who would think him the noblest man in existence. And Margaret gave a little shiver. Suddenly it came to her mind with overpowering force that, notwithstanding all these changes, notwithstanding the difference in herself, notwithstanding the Grange and all its novel life, she, this new Margaret, who was so different from the old Margaret, was bound to Rob Glen. It seemed to her that she had never understood the position before. Miss Parker had gone away crying, poor, sentimental, middle-aged lady! and Margaret sat down on the sofa when she had left it, with dismay in her heart, and gazed at Edward’s water-color with blank discomfiture. There seemed to rise before her the little parlor in the farm—every detail of its homely aspect; the red and blue cloth on the table, the uncomfortable scratching of the pen with which she wrote her promise, the bit of paper smoothed out by Mrs. Glen’s hand, the little common earthenware ink-bottle.
She had not been aware before that she remembered all these things; but now they started to the light, as if they were things of importance, all visible before her, remade. How was it possible that she could have put them all away out of her memory so long? She had thought of him now and then, chiefly with compunctions, feeling herself ungrateful to him who had been so kind. But it was not with any compunction now that she remembered him, but with sudden alarm and sense of an incongruity beyond all words. Supposing Edward had not died, but had come back from the jungle after her mother had met Sir Ludovic, what would she have thought? how would she have felt? would she have welcomed him or fled from him? But then I—have never seen—any one, Margaret said to herself. She blushed, though she was alone. There was nothing in that—her color was always coming and going—and even this momentary change of sentiment relieved her a little. The horror was to have remembered, all of a sudden, in this calm and quiet—Rob Glen.
When such a sudden revelation as this occurs, it is astonishing how heaven and earth concur to keep the impression up. Next evening their dinner was more lively than usual. To keep Aubrey company over his wine, Mrs. Bellingham had invited Mr. St. John, the young rector (though they were in such deep mourning, your parish clergyman is never out of place, he is not company), to dine with them; and there was a little more care than usual about the flowers on the table (since the garden-flowers were exhausted, Jean had restricted the article of flowers),and a more elaborate meal than was ever put upon the table for the three ladies. Mr. St. John was High-Church, and had been supposed to incline toward celibacy for the clergy, but of late his principles had been wavering. The elder ladies at the Grange had given him no rest on the subject; they had declared the idea to be Popish, infidelistic, heathen. Not marry? Grace in particular had almost wept over this strange theory. What was to become of a parish without a lady to look after it; and by this time Mr. St. John had been considerably moved by one of two things, either by the arguments of Mrs. Bellingham and Miss Leslie, or by the consideration that the Grange was very near the rectory; that it was a very nice little property, the largest house in the parish, its inhabitants the most important family; and that its heiress was eighteen, and very pretty, though brought up a Presbyterian, and probably, therefore, quite unregenerate, and as good as unbaptized. He sat opposite Margaret at the table, while Aubrey Bellingham sat by her, and the young priest felt an unchristian warmth of enmity arise in his bosom toward the stranger. But this put him on his mettle, and the talk was very lively and sometimes amusing; it made Margaret forget the fright of recollection that had seized her. The two young men remained but a very short time in the dining-room after the ladies had left, and Mr. St. John had just managed to get possession of a seat beside Margaret and to resume the question of the Celtic music, which he had so skilfully hit upon at one of their earlier meetings, as a subject sure to interest her, when an incident occurred that threw back all her thoughts vividly into their former channel.
“Don’t you think that the invariably pathetic character of their music reflects the leading tendency of the race?” Mr. St. John had just said; and she was actually making what she felt to be a very foolish answer.
“I have heard the pipes playing,” she was saying, “but not often; and except reels, I don’t know any— Did you call me, Jean?”
“Here is a parcel for you, a large parcel by the railway,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “Yes, really; it is not for me, as I thought, but for you, Margaret. What can it be, I wonder? It has got Edinburgh on the ticket, and a great many other marks. Bland, will you please undo it carefully, and take away all the brown paper and wrappings. I dare say it is a present, Margaret; it looks to me like a present. I should say it was a picture; perhaps something Ludovic may have sent you from Earl’s-hall. Was there any picture you were fond of that can have been sent to you from Earl’s-hall?”
“Dearest Margaret, it will be one of the portraits. How kind of dear Ludovic to think of you. Surely you have a right to it,” said Miss Leslie; and even the young men drew near with the lively curiosity which such an arrival always creates. The very name of picture made Margaret tremble; she approached the large white square which Bland—Jean’s most respectable servant—had carefully freed from the rough sheets of card-board and brown paper in which it had been so carefully packed, with the thrill of a presentiment. Miss Leslie’s fingers quivered with impatience to cut the last string, to unfold the last enclosure, but a heroic sense of duty to Margaret kept her back. It was Margaret’s parcel: she it was who had the right to disclose the secret, to have the first exquisite flutter of discovery. Grace knew the value of these little sensations against the gray background of monotonous life. But it seemed to Margaret that she knew what it was, even although she had no recollection for the moment what it could be. She unfolded the last cover with a trembling hand.
Ah! It was Earl’s-hall, the old house, exactly as it had been that sunshiny morning before any trouble came—when little Margaret, thinking no evil, went skimming over the furrows of the potatoes, running up and down as light as air, hovering about the artist whose work seemed to her so divine. What an ocean of time and change had swept over her since then! She gave a tremulous cry full of wonder and anguish, as she saw at a glance what it was. They all gathered round her, looking over her shoulder. There it stood, with the sun shining full upon it, the old gray house: the big ivy leaves giving out gleams of reflection, the light blazing upon Bell’s white apron—for Bell, too, was there: he had forgotten nothing. Margaret’s heart gave a beat so wild that the little group round her must have heard it, she thought.
“Earl’s-hall!” said both the ladies together. “And, dear me, Margaret, where has this come from?” said Mrs. Bellingham; “Ludovic had no picture like this. It is beautifully mounted, and quite fresh and new; it must be just finished. It is very pretty. There is the terrace in the tower, you can just make it out—and there are the windows of the long room; and there, I declare, is my room, just a corner of it, and somebody sitting at the door—why, it is something like Bell! Who can have sent you such a beautiful present, Margaret? Who can it be from?”
Margaret gained a little time while her sister spoke; but she was almost too much agitated to be able to say anything, and she did not know what to say.
“It was a friend,” she said, with trembling lips. “It was done—before— It was not finished.” And then, taking courage from desperation, she added, “May I take it up-stairs?”
What so natural as that she should be overwhelmed by the sudden sight of her old home? Grace rushed to her with open arms. “Let me carry it for you; let me go with you, darling Margaret,” she said. But the girl fled from her, almost pushing her away in the nervous impatience of agitation. Even Jean was moved. She called back her sister imperatively, yet with a softened voice.
“Let her alone; let her carry it herself. Come here, Grace, and let the child alone,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “The sight of the old place has been too much for her, coming so suddenly—and not much wonder. After all, it is but four months. But I should like to know who did it, and who sent it,” she added. That was the thought that was foremost with Aubrey too.
Thisincident completed the painful process which was going on in Margaret’s mind. The little visionary link of kindness, tenderness, gratitude, which had existed between herself and Rob Glen had been really broken by the shock administered to her on the evening when she pledged herself to him forever; but she had never attempted to realize her feelings, or inquire into them—rather had been glad to forget them, to push away from her and postpone all consideration of the subject which all at once had become so painful, so full of difficulty and confusion. She had avoided even the idea of any communication with him. When Ludovic spoke to her of correspondence, it had seemed impossible that the pledge he asked for could be necessary, or that there should be any question of correspondence. She had never thought of it, never meant it. There was her promise against her which sometime or other must be redeemed. There was the fact that Rob had parted from her like a lover, a thing which it now made her blush hotly to recollect, but which then had seemed part of the confused strangeness of everything—a proof of his “kindness,” that kindness for which she had never been so grateful as she ought to have been. These were appalling certainties which overshadowed her life; but then, nothing could come of them for a long time, that was certain; three immense lifetimes of years stood between her and anything that could be done to her in consequence.
And how familiar we all become with the Damocles sword of an impending, but uncertain event!— Margaret had been able to escape for a long time, and had put all thought of it aside. But her mother’s story had recalled one aspect of her own, and here was another, bursting upon her distinct and vivid, which could not be pushed aside, which must be faced, and even explained. Heaven help her! She carried away the big drawing in her arms, her heart thumping against the card-board wildly with suffocating force, her head throbbing, her mind in the most violent commotion. Had there been nothing else, no doubt the sudden recalling of all her thoughts to her old home, without any warning, in a moment, must have had a certain effect upon her. Even Jean had fully acknowledged this. It was natural that she should feel it. But something much more agitating, something more even than the bewildering thought of all that had happened in the last few weeks of her stay at Earl’s-hall, came upon her with the first glimpse of the picture. Recollections rushed upon her like a torrent, recollections even more confusing, more painful than these. The drawing itself was a memorial of the time when there was no trouble at all involved, when Rob, newly discovered, was a curiosity and delight to the young creature in quest of something new, to whom he was a godsend; and this it was which suddenly came before her now.
There is no such anguish of retrospection as that with which the very young look back upon moments in which they feel they have made themselves ridiculous, and given their fellow-creatures an inferior, inadequate representation of them. This it was which overwhelmed Margaret now. She had acquired a little knowledge, if from nothing else, from the conversation of Mrs. Bellingham, which had modified her innocence. She had heard of girls who “flung themselves at the heads” of men. She had heard of those who gave too much “encouragement,” who “led on” reluctant wooers. This talk had passed lightly enough over her head, always full of dreams; but yet it had left a deposit as so much light talk does.
When first her eyes fell upon the picture, this was the thought that rushed upon her. Almost before the ready tear had formed which came at the sight of Earl’s-hall, before the quick pang of grief for the loss of all which the old house represented to her, before the sense of fatal bondage and entanglement which was her special burden, had time to make itself felt—came, with a flood of agony and shame, a realization of herself as she had been when Rob Glen had seated himself at the end of the potato field to make this drawing.
Other things that had happened to her had not involved any fault of hers; she did not even feel that she was seriously to blame for the forging of the chain that bound her—but this, this had been her own doing. She it was who had wooed him to Earl’s-hall; she had asked him to come, and to come again; she had persuaded him to a hundred things he never would have thought of by himself. But for her he would not have returned day by day, getting more and more familiar. When she rushed about everywhere for the things he wanted, when she admired everything he did with such passionate enthusiasm, when she could hang over his shoulder watching every line he drew, what had she been doing? “Flinging herself at his head,” “leading him on,” “encouraging him,” oh, and more than encouraging him! as Ludovic had said. This was worse even than the bondage in which it had resulted. Her face was covered with burning blushes; her soul overflowed with shame.
Oh, how well she recollected the ridiculous ardor with which she had taken up her old playfellow; the sense of some new delightful event which had come into her life when she met him, and discovered his sketches, and appropriated him, as it were, to her own amusement and pleasure! What a change he had made in the childish monotony and quiet! She remembered how she had brought him to the house, how she had coaxed her father for him, how she had fluttered about him as he sat there beginning his drawing. If he said he wanted anything, how she flew to get it. How she watched every line over his shoulder; how she praised him with all simple sincerity. (Margaret still thought the picture beautiful, more beautiful than anything she had ever seen.) She seemed to see herself, oh, so over-eager, over-bold, unmaidenly! Was it wonderful that he should think her ready to do everything he asked her—ready to make any sacrifice, to separate herself from all belonging to her for his sake?
There is always a certain consolation, a certain power which upholds and supports, in the consciousness of suffering for something which is not one’s own fault. To have been the victim of some wonderful combination of circumstances, to have been caught in some snare, which all your skill was not able to elude, that is far frombeing the worst that can befall any one. But to see in your conduct the germ of all your sufferings, to perceive how you have yourself led lightly up, dancing and singing, to the precipice over which you are about to be pitched—this is the most appalling ordeal of all. Margaret grew hot all over, with a blush that tingled to her finger points, and seemed to scorch her from head to foot. Whose fault was it, all the self-betrayal that followed, the horrible bond that bound her soul, and which she did not even venture to think of; whose fault was it but her own?
“Margaret, dear Margaret, dearest Jean has sent me to ask, are you not coming down-stairs again? We all feel for you, darling—and oh, do you think it is nothing to us? Dear Jean puts great force upon herself, she has such a strong will, and commands it; but we all feel the same. Oh, what a beautiful picture it is! What a dear, dear old house! How it brings back our youth, and dearest, dearest papa!”
Miss Leslie put her nose to the picture as if she would have kissed it. She felt in the depths of her artless soul that this was her duty to old Sir Ludovic, of whom poor Grace had known little enough for twenty years before. The tear came quite easily, which she dried with her white handkerchief, pressing it to her eyes. Not for anything in the world would she have failed of this duty to her dearest papa. Jean thought chiefly of crape, and was content with that way of expressing her sentiments; but within the first year, within, indeed, the first six months, to mention her father without the tear he had a right to, would have been to Grace a cruel dereliction from natural duty. After a twelve-month, when the family put off crape, it would no doubt cease to be necessary—though always, she felt, a right thing—to pay that tribute of tears.
Margaret stood by, and looked on with a dreary helplessness. She had no tears for her father, no room for him even in her overladen and guilty soul. And this she felt acutely, with a pang the more, feeling as if all love had died out of her heart, and nothing but darkness and confusion, and ingratitude and insensibility, was in her and about her. She took up the picture with a slight shudder, as she touched it, and put it away in the corner where hung the faded portrait of her mother’s young lover.
This touch of contact with the story of one who had gone before her, whom somehow—she scarcely knew how—she could not help identifying with herself, gave her a little fanciful consolation. Margaret did not long, as so many girls have done, to have a mother to flee to, and in whom to confide all her troubles; but it seemed to her, in some confused way, that it must have been but a previous chapter in her own life, which had passed under this same roof, in this same house, twenty years ago. She seemed almost dimly to recollect it, as she recollected (but far more vividly) that time of folly in which she had “encouraged” and “led on” Rob Glen.
It was better for her to obey Jean’s call, to go down-stairs and try to forget it all, for a moment, than to stay here and drive herself wild, wondering what he might do next, and what, oh what! it would be necessary for her to do. Grace, who was a little disappointed not to find her dissolved in tears, recommended that she should bathe her eyes, and brought her some water, and took a great deal of pains to obliterate the traces of weeping which did not exist. She tucked Margaret’s hand under her arm, and patted it and held it fast.
“My poor darling!” she said, cooing over the unresponsive girl. Jean, too, who was not given to much exhibition of feeling, received her, when she came back, with something like tenderness.
“Put a chair for Margaret by the fire, Aubrey,” she said, “the child will be cold coming through all those passages; that is the worst of an old house, there are so many passages, and a draught in every one of them. I would not say a word against old houses, which are of course all the fashion, and very picturesque, and all that; but I must say I think you suffer from draughts. And what good is the fireplace in the hall? the heat all goes up that big chimney. It does not come into the house at all. I would like hot-water pipes, but they are a great expense, and of course you would all tell me they were out of keeping. So is gas out of keeping. Oh, you need not cry out; I don’t mean in the drawing-room, of course, which is a thing only done in Scotland, and quite out of the question; but to wander about those passages in the dark, and never to stir a step without a candle in your hand! I think it a great trouble, I must allow.”
“Your ancestral home, Miss Leslie,” said Mr. St. John, who had secured a place in front of the fire, “must be a true mediæval monument. I am very much interested in domestic architecture. And so I am sure you must be, familiar with two such houses—”
“People who possess old houses seldom care for them,” said Aubrey, taking up a position on the other side. “You know what my aunt says about gas and hot-water pipes. Tell me,” he said, half whispering, stooping over her, to the great indignation of the clergyman, “what I must call you. I must reserve the endearing title of aunt for the family circle, but I can’t say Miss Leslie, you knew, for you are not Miss Leslie; and Margaret,tout court, would be a presumption.”
“Everybody calls me Margaret,” she said.
“That man did at Killin. I felt disposed to pitch him into the loch when I heard him; but probably,” said Aubrey, laughing, “there might have been two words to that, don’t you think? Perhaps, if it had come to a struggle, it would have been I who was most likely to taste the waters of the loch.”
“Oh, Randal is very good-natured,” said Margaret, making an effort to recover herself, “and perhaps he would not have known what you meant if you had spoken about a loch. I never saw this house till just a little while ago,” she added to Mr. St. John, anxious to be civil. “I never was out of Fife.”
“And the Northern architecture is different from ours; more rude, is it not? I have heard that people often get confused, and attach an earlier date to a building than it really has any right to.”
“It is kind of you to say the man at Killin was good-natured,” said Aubrey, on the other side; “of course, you thinkIwould not have given him much trouble. It seemed to me that everybody showed an extraordinary amount of confidence in that man at Killin. He pretendedto be fishing, but he never fished. I suspect his fishing related to—who shall we say—your little cousin? Nay, I am making a mistake again; I always forget that you belong to the previous generation—your niece.”
“Effie!” cried Margaret, completely roused, so great was her surprise. “Oh! but it was always—it was never—Effie—” Here she made a pause, bewildered, and caught Mr. St. John’s eye. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she cried, with a sudden blush; “I—don’t know about architecture. I have not had—very much education,” she answered, looking piteously at her sisters for aid.
“Oh, dearest Jean! I think I must really go and tell Mr. St. John—”
“Hold your tongue!” said Mrs. Bellingham, holding her sister fast by her dress; “let the child make it out for herself. Do you think they mind about her education? Who cares for education? Men always like a girl to know nothing. Just keep out of the way and stop meddling.”
This aside was inaudible to the group round the fire; though Mr. St. John’s admirable enunciation made all he said quite distinct to them, and Mrs. Bellingham’s sharp ears were very conscious of Aubrey’s whispering—which was ill-bred, but of no effect—on the other side of Margaret’s chair.
Mr. St. John gave a little laugh of respectful derision and flattery.
“In the present age of learned ladies it is quite a relief to hear such a statement,” he said, “though I should not like to trust in your want of education. But this country is very rich architecturally, and I should be delighted to offer my humble services as cicerone. I should like to convert you to the pure English Elizabethan—”
“It must have been Miss Effie,” said Aubrey; “who else? for Aunt Grace, though charming— And it stands to reason that a man who says he has gone to a certain place for fishing, yet never touches a rod, must have ulterior motives. And Aunt Jean is of opinion that these two would make a very pretty pair.”
Why Aubrey said this it would be hard to tell; whether from malice, as meaning to prick her into annoyance, or whether out of simple mischief, anyhow it roused Margaret.
“Oh, I do not know if Jean would care— I am sure you are—very kind,” she said, vacantly, to Mr. St. John; then more rapidly to the other hand: “I am almost sure you are mistaken. Neither Jean nor Effie knew Randal—that is, to call knowing; he was—quite a stranger. I don’t think he knew Effie at all.”
“These are just the most favorable circumstances for a flirtation,” said Aubrey; “but look, they are all on the alert, and Aunt Jean is making signs to me. It is evident they mean you to talk tohim, not me. When he goes away, let us return to Miss Effie and the man at Killin.”
“Oh, I don’t want to talk about them!” cried Margaret—here at least there was nothing to make her shrink from Jean’s inspection; she said this quite out loud, so that all the company heard. Because she had one thing to conceal, was it not natural that she should take particular pains to show that there was nothing to conceal? She did not want any one to whisper to her. And there was besides, there could be no doubt, a certain tone of pique and provoked annoyance in Margaret’s voice.
“I was saying,” said Mr. St. John, mildly, “that in our own church there is a great deal that is interesting; and if you would allow me to take you over it some day, you and Mrs. Bellingham or Miss Leslie, I should not despair of interesting you. Besides, there are so many of your ancestors commemorated there. I hope we may succeed in making your mother-country very interesting to you,” he said, lowering his tone. It was a great relief to the young clergyman when “that fellow” went away from the heiress’s side.
“Oh, I like it very well,” Margaret said.
“But I am very ambitious, Miss Leslie; very well is indifferent. I want you to like it more than that; I want you to love it, to prefer it to the other,” he said, with fervor in his voice. “And now I must say good-night.” He held out his hand bending toward her, and Margaret, looking up, caught his eye: she gave a little start, and shrank backward at the very moment of giving him her hand. Why should he look like that—likehimwhom she was so anxious to forget? She dropped his hand almost before she touched it, in the nervous tremor which came over her. Why should he look like Rob Glen? Was he in the conspiracy against her to make her remember? She could scarcely keep in a little cry which rose to her lips in her sudden pain. Poor Mr. St. John! anything farther from his mind than to make her think of any other suitor could not be. But Mrs. Bellingham, who was more clear-sighted, saw the look, and put an interpretation upon it of a different kind. When Mr. St. John had gone, attended to the door by Aubrey at his aunt’s earnest request, Mrs. Bellingham came and placed herself where Mr. St. John had been, in front of the fire.
“That man,” she said, solemnly, when he was gone, “is after Margaret too. Oh! you need not make such signs to me, Grace; I know perfectly well what I am saying. I never would speak about lovers to girls in an ordinary way; the monkeys find out all that for themselves quite fast enough—do you think there is anything that I could teach Effie on that point? But Margaret’s is a peculiar case: she ought to know how to distinguish those who are sincere—she ought to know that it is not entirely for herself that men make those eyes at her. Oh, I saw him very well; I perceived what he meant by it. You have a very nice fortune, my dear, and a very nice house, and you will have to pay the penalty like others. You will very soon know the signs as well as I do; and I can tell you thatthatman is after you too.”
“Dearest Jean!” said Grace, “he may be a little High-Church, more high than I approve, but he is a very nice young man. Whom could Margaret have better than a good, nice-looking, young clergyman? They are more domestic and more at home, and more with their wives—”
“Fiddle-faddling eternally in a drawing-room,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “always in a woman’s way wherever she turns. No, my dear, whoever you marry, Margaret, don’t marry a clergyman; a man like that always purring about the fireside would drive me mad in a month.”
“Is it St. John who is in question?” said Aubrey, coming back. “Was he provided for my amusement? or is he daily bread at the Grange already? I don’t see how so pretty-behaved a person could drive any one mad; he is a great deal safer than your lastprotégé, the man at Killin.”
“I don’t mean to discuss such questions with you, Aubrey,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “it is late, and I think if you will light our candles for us, we will say good-night. And I will go with you, Margaret, and look at that picture again; it was a very pretty picture. I must have it framed for you; there is a place in the wainscot parlor where it would hang very well. Who did you say sent it to you? or did you tell me? I did not know that there ever was anybody at Earl’s-hall that could draw so well.”
“Dear Jean,” said Grace, thinking it a good opportunity to appear in Margaret’s defence, “let her alone, let the poor child alone to-night; she is too tired for anything. Are you not too tired, darling Margaret? I am sure you want to go to bed.”
“I hope I know better than to overtire her,” said Jean, with some offence; “there is no need for you to come, Grace. Where have you put the picture, Margaret? Why, you have put it with its face to the wall! Is that to save it from the dust, or because you don’t like to see it? My dear, I don’t want to be unkind, but this is really carrying things too far. You don’t mean to say you have taken a dislike to Earl’s-hall?”
“No,” Margaret said, under her breath; though it seemed to her that to look at the picture again was more than she could bear.
“And it is a very pretty picture,” said Jean, turning it round and sitting down on the sofa to look at it—“a very pretty picture! By-and-by you will be very glad to have it. And who was it you said did it? I never thought Randal Burnside was an artist. Perhaps he got one of the people to do it who are always at Sir Claude’s. But, my dear, if that is so, I can’t let you take a present from a young man like Randal Burnside.”
“It was not Randal”— Margaret was eager to clear him: “he never sent me anything in a present; he would not think of me at all. It was—once when he came to make a picture of papa, which is beautiful— He was a young man from the farm.”
“A young man from the farm!”
“Rob Glen,” said Margaret, almost choked, yet forcing herself to speak. “Papa said he might do it. I did not know anything about it, but I suppose he must have finished it; and here it is.” It seemed a simple statement enough, if she had not been so breathless, and changed color so continually, and looked so haggard about the eyes.
Mrs. Bellingham heard this account with a blank face.
“Rob Glen!” she said; “Rob Glen! where have I heard the name before? Was it the servants at Earl’s-hall, or was it Ludovic, or—who was it? Papa said he might do it? Dear me! papa might have known better, Margaret, though I am sure I don’t want to blame him. It will have to be paid for, I suppose; and how very strange it should have been sent like this, without a word! He will send a bill, most likely. How strange I should not have heard anything about this artist! Was there any price mentioned that you remember, Margaret? They ask such sums of money for one of those trifling sketches. It is nice enough, but I am sure it is not worth the half of what we shall have to give for it. When there is no bargain made beforehand, it is astonishing the charges they will make; and papa really had no money for such nonsense: he ought not to have ordered it; but perhaps he thought it would be a gratification to you. Can you remember at all, Margaret, if anything was said about the price?”
“Oh no, no—there was to be no price. It was not like that. He asked to do it, and papa let him do it. Nobody thought of any money.”
“But, my dear!” said Jean—“my dear! you are a little simpleton; but you could not think, I hope, of taking the man’s work and giving himnothingfor it? That is out of the question—quite out of the question. I never heard of such a thing,” said Mrs. Bellingham. The words seemed to penetrate through all Margaret’s being. She trembled, notwithstanding all her efforts to control herself. What could she reply? Take a man’s work and give himnothingfor it; but it was not money that Rob would take.
“Of course it could not be expected that you should know anything of business,” said Jean, “and poor papa was already feeling ill, perhaps, and out of his ordinary way. I dare say a letter will come by the next post to explain it. And if not, you must give me the young man’s address, and I will write and ask, or we might send word to Ludovic. Aubrey is a very good judge of such things; we can ask Aubrey to-morrow what he thinks the value should be. Now, Margaret, you are trembling from head to foot—you are as white as a sheet; you have a nervous look about your eyes that it always frightens me to see. My dear, what is to become of you,” cried Jean, “if you let every little thing upset you? It was in the course of nature that we should lose papa—he was an old man; and, I believe, though he was never a man who talked much about religion, that he was well prepared. And as for Earl’s-hall, you would not grudge that to Ludovic? It is his right as the only son. It shows great weakness, my dear, both of body and mind, that you should be upset like this only by a picture of Earl’s-hall.”
Margaret listened with all that struggle of conflicting feelings which produces hysteria in people unused to control themselves. The choking in the throat, the burning of those unshed tears about her eyes, the trouble in her heart, was more than she could bear. She could not make any reply. She could not even see her sister’s face; the room reeled round with her; everything grew dark. To save her balance, she threw herself suddenly upon the firm figure before her, clutching at Jean’s support, throwing her arms round her with a movement of desperation. Few people had ever clung wildly to Mrs. Bellingham in moments of insufferable emotion. She was quite overcome by this involuntary appeal to her. She took her young sister into her arms, all unconscious of the cause of her misery, and caressed and soothed her, and stayed by her till she had calmed down, and was able to escape from her trouble in bed. Jean believed in bed as a cure for most evils.
“You must not give way,” she said—“indeed, my dear, you must not give way; but a good night’s sleep will be the best thing for you; lie still and rest.”
“What a tender-hearted thing it is!” she said, going down-stairs again for a last word with Aubrey, after this agitating task was over. “I declare she has quite upset me, too; though it is scarcely possible, after being so long away from home, that I could feel as she does. She is a great deal too feeling for her own comfort. But, Aubrey, you must not lose your time, my dear boy; you must push on. It would be the greatest ‘divert’ to her, as they say in Scotland, if you could only get her to fall in love with you. I have the greatest confidence in falling in love.”
“And so have I—when they will do it,” said Aubrey, puffing out a long plume of smoke from his cigar.
Curiouslyenough, Margaret’s first thought, when she woke in the morning, was not of the picture nor of all the consequences which it seemed to threaten. Sometimes the most trifling matter will thrust itself in, before those giant cares, which generally wait by our bedsides, to surprise us when we first open our eyes. And the first thing she thought of, strangely enough, was Aubrey’s suggestion of last night—Effie! What could he mean by it? Effie had been his own companion, not Randal’s. Randal had not walked or talked with, or sought any one, except— It was very strange, indeed, how any one could suppose that Effie— He did notknowher. Of all the party, the one he knew best was certainly herself. She must certainly be best aware of what his feelings were—of what he had been thinking about! It annoyed her to think that Aubrey should have so little perception, should know so little about it, though Jean had such confidence in him. There was a little irritation in her mind about this point, which quite pushed to the front and made itself appear more important than it was. She could not help making a little survey of the circumstances, of all that had happened—and it had just occurred to her to recollect the offer of service and help that Randal had made her. This had made her half smile at the moment, and since then she had smiled more than once at the idea that she could want his help. She had said, “Jean will manage everything;” and yet he had said it with fervid meaning, with a look of anxious concern.
Ah! she sprang up in her bed, and clasped her hands together. The occasion had come; but she could not consult Randal, nor any one. She must struggle through it by herself, as best she could, holding her peace, saying nothing. That was the only safety for her. But Margaret was surprised to find that when she turned the picture round again, and looked at it trembling, as though it had been capable of doing her bodily harm, she did not feel so much power in it as she had done the day before. It did not sting her the second time. She looked at it almost tranquilly, seeing in it no dreadful accuser, bringing before her all her own past levity and folly, but only a memorial of a time and a place which indeed made her heart beat with keen emotion and with pain, but not with the overwhelming, sickening passion of misery which had been like death to her last night.
She could not understand how this was, for the circumstances had not changed in any way; and there was still evidently before her the difficulty of making Jean understand how it was that this picture could be accepted without payment, and keeping her, energetic as she was, from interfering in her own person. There was still this difficulty; and all that made the future so alarming, the dread of other surprises that might follow this, was undiminished; but yet, instead of turning the picture to the wall again, in sick horror of it and fear of it as of a ghost, Margaret left it in the recess, uncovered, the corner of the broad rim of white touching the little faded water-color portrait. That touch gave her a certain soothing and consolation. It was not the same kind of trouble as her own; probably the other girl who had been engaged to that poor fellow without loving him had not been at all to blame; but yet there his portrait stood, a memorial of other uneasy thoughts that had gone on in this same chamber. Probablysheblamed herself too, though not as Margaret was doing. But certainly, anyhow, she must have sat thinking, and cried in the same corner of that sofa, and looked at the pale painted face. Margaret leaned the cause of her trouble against the frame of that dead and gone one, which the other girl had lived through, and felt that there was consolation in the tomb. What so visionary, so painful, so foolish even, that will not console at eighteen when it happens to offer a parallel to our own distresses?
And it was with renewed courage and a great deal more composure than she could have hoped for, that Margaret went down-stairs. They all came to meet her with kindly questions how she was. “But I, for one, think it quite unnecessary to put any such question,” said Aubrey. He looked at her with a lingering look of pleasure. He did not object to Margaret. She was not “his style;” but still he did not object to her, and this morning he admired her, as she came down-stairs in her morning freshness, her black dress bringing out the delicate tints of her complexion. Jean had told him that he had better lose no time; and the fact of Mr. St. John’s evident intentions had quickened Aubrey’s. The good which another man was trying to secure became more valuable in his eyes. She was certainly very pretty, he said to himself, a delicate little creature, like a pale rose—not altogether a white rose, but that delicate blush which is not definable by any vulgar name of color; and her silky hair was piquant among all the frizzy unkempt heads that were more fashionable. On the whole, he had not the least objection to make what “running” he could for Margaret. She was worth winning, with her beautiful old house, and her pretty little income, though she was not quite his style.
“Here is a fat letter for you,” he said; “we have all been grumbling over our letters. Aunt Jean, I think, would like to read them all, to see if they were fit to be delivered to us; she takes all the charge of our moral as well as of our physical well-being. I saw her look at thisvery narrowly, as if she had the greatest mind to break the seal.Thatis of course a figure of speech nowadays. I mean to open the envelope; it is very fat and tempting to the curious spectator. I should like myself to know what was in it; it must be from some dear confidential young lady friend.”
Margaret looked at the letter with a little thrill of alarm. She did not get many letters, and every one that came was a slight excitement; but when she had looked at it she laid it down very calmly. “It is from Bell,” she said. She knew very well what Bell would say to her. She would tell her about the brown cow and the chickens, and how John was with his rheumatism; and there was no great hurry to read it for a few minutes, until they had ceased to take so much notice of her. Margaret knew that after a minute or two her sisters would be fully occupied with their own concerns.
“Aubrey is talking nonsense, Margaret, as he generally does,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “The idea that I would open anybody’s letter! not but what I think it a very right thing of young people to show their letters to their parents, or to those who stand in the place of parents; it shows a right sort of confidence, and I confess, for my part, I always like to see it; but I am not the sort of person that would ever force confidence. It is nothing, I always say, unless it comes spontaneously. I wonder if Bell will tell you anything about that picture that arrived last night, Margaret! I saw your letter was from Bell, and that is what made me look at it, as Aubrey says, though he always exaggerates. Of course, I knew Bell and you had no secrets, Margaret. I really think if you had been out of the way I should have done violence to my own feelings and gone the length of opening it, just to see if there was anything to explain what that young man could mean by sending it without a word.”
“Oh!” said Aubrey, “it was a young man, then, was it, who made the drawing? it is satisfactory to know that it was a young man.”
“Why is it satisfactory to know that he is a young man? I can’t say that I see that at all; it is neither satisfactory nor unsatisfactory: it is not a person in our condition of life, so that it does not matter in the least to Margaret. Why do you say it is satisfactory to know that he is a young man?”
“Well, because then there is hope that he will do better when he is older,” said Aubrey. “You all seemed to like it so much that I did not venture to say anything; but it is not great in point of art. I have no doubt it is a most faithful representation of the place, but it is nothing to speak of, you know, in the point of art.”
“Oh, really, do you think so?” cried Mrs. Bellingham; “then you would not think it worth a very high price, Aubrey? I am very glad of that—for I thought we might be obliged to offer a large sum—”
“It is a beautiful picture,” said Margaret, hotly; she could not bear anything to be said against this rooted belief of hers: its presence alarmed and troubled her, but she would not have it undervalued. “If it were to be sold it would be worth a great deal of money—it is a beautiful picture; but there is nothing about selling it,” she cried, a flush rising into her cheeks. “It was done for—papa: money would not buy it—and him that painted it was not thinking about money.” Her pronouns, poor child, were wrong, but her heart was right. Rob Glen was her greatest terror on earth, but she would be just to him all the same.
“But that is just what I cannot be satisfied about,” said Jean. “If you pay a man for his work, why there you are! but if you don’t pay him, or give him anything as an equivalent, why where are you? Every man must be paid one way or another. Open Bell’s letter, Margaret, and tell me if she says anything about it. I shall have to write to Ludovic, or to the young man himself, if we do not know what he means.”
Margaret opened Bell’s letter with a hand that trembled a little. She did not expect to find anything there on the subject which had so deeply occupied her; but still, to open this thick enclosure before Jean, whose mind was so much set upon it that something was to be found there, and who would watch her while she read it, and ask to see Bell’s humble epistle, was very alarming. She opened it with a tremulousness which she could scarcely disguise. Bell had folded her letter, which was written on a large sheet of paper, in the way in which letters had been folded before the days of envelopes, and consequently it was with some little delay and difficulty that a trembling hand opened the big folds. But Margaret was suddenly petrified, frozen to her very heart with terror, when she saw another letter lying enclosed—a tiny letter of a very different aspect from Bell’s. She dared not move—she dared not do anything to show the greatness of the shock she had received. The danger was not of a kind that she dared disclose. The paper shook in her hands convulsively, and then they became preternaturally still and steady. She did not know Rob Glen’s handwriting, but she knew that this was from him by instinct, by inspiration of her terror. What was she to do? Her face she felt grow crimson, then fell into a chill of paleness; and when she lifted her eyes in a momentary glance of panic to see if Jean was looking at her, she met the eyes of Aubrey, and without knowing what she did, in a kind of delirium made a terrified, instantaneous appeal to him. Her thoughts were too hurried, her desperation too complete even to make her conscious that the appeal was unreasonable, or, indeed, aware that she had made it, till the thing was done; and next moment all became dim before her eyes, though she still kept her balance desperately upon her seat, and held the papers firmly in her hands.
Aubrey was not insensible or unkind: he was startled by the look; for whatever Margaret’s emotion might mean it was evidently something very real and terrible for the young, inexperienced creature who put this involuntary trust in him. He said instantly:
“Have you finished breakfast, Aunt Jean?—for if so, I want you to look at some things of mine—a parcel I received this morning. Christmas is coming, and with all that crew of children at the Court, a man is put to his wit’s end: come into my room and give me your advice about them. Oh yes, of course they arerubbish; what can I buy but rubbish on my little scrap of money? But come and give me your opinion.”
“Wait a minute, my dear boy, wait a minute; you shall have my opinion with the greatest of pleasure; but I want to hear what Bell says.”
Upon this he got up, and walking solemnly to her, offered his arm. “Who is Bell? I decline to yield thepasto Bell. Come now with me, and Bell will do afterward; if it takes so long to read as it promises from the size of it, I should have to wait till to-morrow, and that does not suit me at all. Whisper! there is a scrap of Sèvres, Rose du Barri, and one or two small rags of lace.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Bellingham uttered a cry. She made a little dart toward Margaret to inspect the letter over her shoulder, thus hoping to secure both the advantages offered; but before she could carry out her intention, her hand was caught fast in Aubrey’s arm. “I wantyouto see them allfirst,” he whispered in her ear.
“I do think dear Aubrey might have asked me too,” said Miss Grace, querulously; “I don’t know that there is so much difference, though it is Jean, to be sure, who is his real aunt. But then, perhaps, dearest Margaret, you know, he might not like to ask me, an unmarried lady, to go into his room. Yes, yes, dear Aubrey, I see exactly what he meant—he gave me a look as he went away, as much as to say, I will explain it all afterward. Naturally, you know, he would not ask me, being an unmarried lady, to go into his room. Where are you going, my dear—where are you going? You have not eaten anything, darling Margaret; you have not even taken your tea.”
But it was not difficult to escape from Grace; and Margaret, with a sense of desperation, snatched a cloak from the hall and stole out, wending her way among the shrubbery to the most retired spot she could think of. She would not go to her room, where her sister would inevitably come after her. She had thrust Bell’s big letter—innocent production, penned out of the fulness of Bell’s heart, which was as big as the letter—into her pocket. And she dared not look at the other till she had got safe into some corner where nobody would see her, some covert where she would be free from inspection. The cold wind revived her, and a little spiteful rain came damp upon her face, bringing back a little of its color; but she was unconscious of both wind and rain. She went to a little breezy summer-house in a corner of the grounds; and then she bethought herself that the gravel-paths were dry there, and Jean might easily follow; so she retraced her steps hurriedly, and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head, and ran across the little bridge over the stream, to the park, where all the ground was still thickly sprinkled with the autumn carpet of yellow leaves. The grass was wet, the rain came spitefully in her face, but she did not mind. When she was in the midst of the big clump of elms, where the leaves were almost gone, she stopped and paused a moment to rest, with her back against a tree. Jean would never follow her there; the wet grass and universal dampness spreading round her made her safe. She opened her fingers in which she had held it fast, the innocent-looking little missive. With what a beating heart she opened it! Oh, how foolish, foolish she had been to bind all her life, for ever and ever, and she not eighteen! And here it was that she read her first love-letter—her heart beating, but not with pleasure; her bosom heaving with terror, and dismay, and pain.
“Margaret, my own darling, where have you gone from me? Why do you not send me a word in charity? It is three months since you went away! Is it possible that in all that time you have never thought of me, nor thought how miserable I was, deprived of you and of all knowledge of you? You have put my love to a tremendous test, though it is strong enough to bear that, and a great deal more. But oh, my love, don’t make me so unhappy! Shake me off, you cannot; make me forget, you cannot. My love is too tender and too constant to fail; but you can make me very wretched, Margaret, and that is what you are doing. I have waited and waited, and looked every day for a letter—the merest little scrap would have made me happy. I knew you could not write often or much; but one word, surely I might have had one word. I am just finishing the drawing you liked, the view of Earl’s-hall, hoping that, notwithstanding all changes, you may like it still, and that it may remind you of the happy time when we first knew each other, when nobody thought of parting us. Your dear old father would never have parted us; he would have preferred your happiness to everything. He would rather have chosen a loving husband to take care of his little Peggy, than all the world could give her. Your brother thinks otherwise, my darling, and I don’t blame him; but I know what old Sir Ludovic would have thought. And you will not let them turn you against me, my sweetest Margaret? you will not give me up because I am poor? That is a thing I would scarcely believe, if you said it with your own dear lips. Margaret Leslie give up her betrothed husband because he had nothing! I never would believe it. But I know your delicate sense of honor, my own dear girl. You do not like to write to me in secret for the sake of the people you are living among. I understand how you feel, and you are right— I know you are right; but, my sweet love, remember that to please them you are killing me, and I don’t feel that I can bear it much longer. The silence is becoming too much; it is making an end of me. One word—one sweet loving word, my own Margaret, just to keep me alive! I feel that I am getting desperate. If I do not have one word from you I cannot answer for myself, even if it be for my own destruction: if I do not hear of you, I must come and see you. I must get sight of you. Three months without a word—without a message, is enough to kill any one who loves as I do. I say to myself, she cannot have forgotten me, she cannot have forsaken me, she is too true, too faithful to her word; and then another day comes, and I get desperate. Half a dozen times I have been ready to start off to go after you, to watch about your house, only to get a glimpse of you. Write to me, my Margaret, put me out of my misery—only one word—!”
Then, in a postscript, it was added that he had asked Bell to send this for once, in order that her friends, her unkind friends, who wanted toseparate her from him, might not find out he had written, and that he had sent the drawing—and that once more he begged for one word, only one word in reply. It was written under two dates, one some weeks before the other. Margaret stood with her back against the elm-tree, and read it with a flatter of terror. Oh, what would she do if he were to carry out his threat, if he were to come and watch about the house, and look for her! Was that a thing that might happen any time, when she was walking through the lanes, even here in her own little park under her elm-trees? Might he come at any moment and do as he used to do at Earl’s-hall? Oh! Margaret started from her shelter and clinched her hands, and stamped her foot on the wet, yielding grass! Oh! should it ever have to be gone through again, all that it made her blush so hotly to think of? The blush that was usually so evanescent got fixed in hot crimson of excitement on her cheek. If he came, it seemed to her that it was she who must fly—anywhere—to the end of the world: but yet he had a right to come, and some time he would come, and she would not be able to say a word against it. “Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do?” cried Margaret to herself. Would he not let her even have her three years to herself? He might wait, surely he might wait for three years!
But it would be impossible to give any idea of the confused muddle of pain and helpless, instinctive resistance in her thoughts. A hot flush of resentment against him for daring to use the name her father had ever called her by—a kind of speechless fury and indignation, burst out in the midst of all her other excitements. How dared he do it, Rob Glen, who was nobody, who was not even a gentleman? And then she covered her face with her hands, and cried out with horror and bewilderment to think that this was her opinion of one to whom she had pledged herself, to whom she would belong almost more than to her father himself. And she had no one to go to, no one she could confide in, no one whose help she could ask. And what help would avail her? She must keep her word, she must fulfil her promise—at the end of three years.
She never even contemplated the possibility of breaking her word; but at present why could he not let her alone? Had she not begged him to let her alone? She sank down by the foot of the elm, not even noting the wet, and cried. Crying could do no good, she knew that; but yet it relieved her mind. She was hemmed in and encompassed with danger. Perhaps he might come, might appear suddenly in her path, with arms ready to take hold of her, with those caresses which made her shrink, even in imagination, with shame and pain. There had never been a time—except the first moment when she was too broken-hearted, too miserable to care what happened to her—that she had not shrunk from his tenderness. And how could she bear it now? Terror came upon her breathless and speechless; here even, under these very trees, he might appear suddenly. A stifled shriek came out of her oppressed heart at the thought. It seemed to her that she could never move anywhere with safety, without a sense of terror again.
And then there were lesser but very apparent dangers. Jean would ask her what Bell had said; she would ask, perhaps, to see Bell’s letter, in which there was a sentence which was as bad as telling all. Bell wrote: “I am sending to you, my dear Miss Margret, a note that Rob Glen—him that you had to come so much to Earl’s-hall before my dear old maister died—has asked me to send. Lothe, lothe was I to do it! It may be something misbecoming the like of you to receive. But I will send it this one time. For a young lady like you to be writing of letters with a young gentleman of her own kind is a thing I would not encourage; but Rob Glen is more a match for your maid, Miss Margret, than he is for you. And it’s real impudent of him to ask me; but as he says it’s something about one of his pictures, I do it for this one time.” If Jean asked to see Bell’s letter, would not this betray her? So that her path was surrounded by perils both great and small. After a while, weary, wet, and draggled, with her dress clinging to her, and her cloak dripping, she returned across the sodden grass. Jean, she knew, would be busy for the moment with household cares, and it seemed to Margaret that, if she lost no time, she might still make an attempt to avert the fate that threatened. She went to her own room, holding up as best she could her poor black dress with its spoiled crape, and, still crimson and hot with her excitement, wrote two letters in the time which she ordinarily took to arrange the preliminaries of one. She wrote to Rob as follows, with a terseness of expression partly dictated by the terror of him that had taken possession of her mind, partly by the headstrong haste in which she wrote.