A WOMAN FACE TO FACE WITH THE WORLD.
CHAPTER I.
A PICTURE AND A FACE.
There was a woman, beautiful as morning,
Sitting beneath the rocks upon the sand
Of the waste sea—fair as one flower adorning
An icy wilderness—each delicate hand
Lay crossed upon her bosom, and the band
Of her dark hair had fallen, and so she sat
Looking upon the waves.
London and May. What visions of gayety and beauty, of life and brightness, the conjunction of those two words brings before the mind! London in May, when, as it might almost seem, the first gleam of sunshine had called forth, from the essential nothing of obscurity, gay flutterers of a million colored hues, to spread their wings and float joyously in an atmosphere of hope.
For, let who will speak of the balmy breezes and deep azure skies of the children of the South, there are some who would maintain that in the resurrection of the fashionable corners of England's great city from their winter sleep, in the sometimes keen wind that rouses the island spirit of opposition and braces the nerves of the idlers, even in the rapid changes that pass over the sky, there is more exhilaration, more strong incitement to courage and hope, than in the full flush of radiant summer which May often brings in climes held to be more highly favored by Nature.
London, in May, when the streets are filled with gay equipages, whose prancing steeds seem to rejoice in the dignity of their position, taking a part in the great saturnalia of rank and fashion—when the dresses of the ladies are only eclipsed by the brilliancy of the shop-windows which they daily haunt—when the artist and musician bring forth their choicest wares to delight the senses and gratify the perceptions of the great and the little who throng busy London in this fairest season of the year.
It was in London, then, and the month was May. So much being said, little more description is needful: like bold divers, we must leave the coast, and plunge at once into the great sea of humanity, drawing thence, it may be, a pearl which but for our efforts had remained there still. For all this humanity, which our vast London so fitly represents, is composed of individuals; each individual has a separate tale to tell, though all have not the voice to tell it; and in the tale of the hidden life there is sometimes a beauty and pathos, a dignity and wonder, that the dramatist and poet might do well to seize. But it is seldom that they are caught and transferred. Beside the hidden tragedies and heartrending emotions of the every-day life of humanity these transcripts are often pale and colorless—a body that waits for the breath of life to kindle it into beauty.
It was early in the afternoon of a bright May day. Even for that season London seemed unusually crowded. In Regent street the difficulty was to move forward at all, and in Pall Mall and the Strand matters were not much better. Woe to the unlucky foreigners or country cousins who found crossing the street an absolute necessity! They might have been seen generally at the most crowded spots, shivering on the brink of what for the moment was worse than the vague, shadowy Jordan of the pilgrims, and too often submitting ignominiously to the guidance of that being almost superhuman in his callous indifference to rattling wheels and horses' heads—the policeman.
But in and about a certain corner of Charing Cross the crowd seemed to culminate. To tell of the pedestrians of every shade and hue, the carriages, the omnibuses, which kept up a constant stream in this direction, would take volumes, for the Exhibition of the Royal Academy had only been open a week, and had not, therefore, lost the first charm of novelty.
Thither many were hastening, mostly ladies of the fashionable class, gayly dressed in all the freshness of early summer coloring. But those who thronged to the Royal Academy on this May afternoon were not all of the fashionable class; there were besides some who went from a true love of art, a patient thirst for the beautiful—pale students, whose eyes had long grown used to dusky streets, and to whom the yearly vision of the something that always lies beyond was a revelation and a power; governesses and female artisans who had taken a holiday for the express purpose of enjoying the image of that which hard reality had denied to them. Many of these were shabbily dressed, and pallid from the wasting effects of hard work and care; they enjoyed, however, more perhaps than their brilliant sisters, who could glibly criticise this style and that, with the true art-jargon and an appearance of intimate knowledge, but to whom this, that charmed those others, was only a matter of course, a somewhat tiresome routine, that must of necessity be performed as a part of the season's work.
On a corner of a seat in a central hall one seemingly of this latter class had found a place. She could not certainly have belonged to the fashionable world, for her scanty black dress was made with no pretension to style, and she wore a close bonnet, from under which a plain white border, that resembled a widow's cap, was peeping. There was one detail, however, in her dress that drew the attention of some who passed her. She wore, fastened gracefully round her shoulders in rather a foreign style, a silk Indian scarf of the richest coloring and workmanship. It harmonized strangely with the rest of her dress and her general appearance, but it was not unbecoming. Those who, attracted by this incongruity, looked at her attentively, saw a face that was almost startling in its pure beauty of outline, and a form whose refined grace did not require the assistance of the toilet to add to its charms.
"That woman could wear anything," was the reflection of one or two who glanced at her in passing.
She knew nothing of their criticism. Hour after hour passed away, and still she remained in the same place—a solitude to her, peopled by the multitude of thoughts to which the sight of one small picture had given rise. And that picture was, to many of those who had admired her in their rapid transit from one flower of art to another, a very commonplace affair. We see with such different eyes, for is not the perception of beauty a birthright of spirit? Where soul illumines there beauty lies, but only for the soul that sees.
Her eyes saw the picture, and her spirit saw beyond it. Hence the beauty that drew and enchained her. Besides, the picture had a history. From her own consciousness she translated its meaning.
Probably few will remember the picture, for it did not write its name on the art-history of the period, and its author is unknown to fame; but it certainly possessed power. Perhaps it was one of those flashes thrown off in the fire of youth by what might have been a grand genius if it had not been swamped in the great ocean of modern realism, thus losing for ever the divine breath of imaginative power. The picture was small. In its quiet corner it lived its life unnoticed by the crowd.
This is what it represented. In the background a sea just tinged with the gold of sunset, and skirting it a barren, rocky shore; on the shore a woman in an attitude of eager, waiting expectation; in the far distance a sail that has gathered on its whiteness some of the bright evening coloring; overhead a deepening sky, in which faint stars seem to be struggling into sight. The woman's face is traced sharply against the sky. It is beautiful, the blessed dawning of a new-born hope seeming to glimmer faintly from the deep horrors of a past despair. She leans over a projecting ledge of rock, not heeding in her rapt eagerness the sharp point that seems to pierce her tender hand, only gazing, as if her soul were in her eye, at the white point in the distance, which holds, as she imagines, the object of her hope.
There were pictures in the close neighborhood of this one that, to the art-critic, possessed far greater claims to admiration, but the woman with the shabby dress saw none of them. She sat on her crimson-covered seat, her hands folded and her eyes fixed, looking at the one picture that had touched her; she looked at it until she saw it no longer; a film gathered over her eyes; the picture, the room, the crowds, all her surrounding, had vanished. She was living in the region of thought alone, busying herself with the problem which the picture had evoked.
And as she sat rooted to the one spot, herself a fairer picture than any which that roof covered, the afternoon waned away and the galleries thinned. The fashionable crowd were beginning to think of their dinner-toilet. The woman was left alone on her seat in the centre of one of the halls, a somewhat conspicuous object, for her singular style of dress and her strange beauty would have gained her observation anywhere.
It was at about this time that a young gentleman dressed in the height of fashion, with an eye-glass carefully adjusted in his right eye, strolled leisurely through the hall. He was evidently a very young man, one who had not yet been aroused from the delusion so pleasing while it lasts of his own vast superiority to—almost everything; it is scarcely necessary to particularize—his own sex, with perhaps a few exceptions, certainly all women and lesser creatures. His walk revealed this small weakness to any one who chose to take the trouble of observing him closely and the carriage of his head, which was held very erect, the chin being slightly elevated.
He held a catalogue in his hand, but he very seldom consulted it. To have compared the number of the picture with that of its description would have been, to use a pet phrase with young men, an awful bore. And an awful bore he seemed to find the whole affair as he walked through the picture-lined galleries, smothering a yawn from time to time. He was evidently looking out for some one who had appointed this place as a rendezvous, and as evidently he was rather more indignant than disappointed at not finding directly the object of his search.
At last, as it seemed, he had enough of it. Considering himself a sufficiently conspicuous object not to be lightly passed by by any who had once been favored with the honor of his acquaintance, he threw himself on one of the seats, fully determined to take no more trouble in the matter, but to leave the dénouement to fate.
There was one other on the seat he had chosen, but our young gentleman, in spite of his small vanities, was too truly a gentleman to honor the solitary woman who occupied it with that supercilious stare which, unconsciously to herself, had more than once been cast on her that day. In sheer idleness, and for want of something better to do, he looked rather attentively at the picture which faced him, and presently he too had fallen under its spell.
The beauty of the woman by the sea-shore, her sadness, her desolation, attracted him powerfully. Before many moments had passed he found himself tracing every line of her face and form, and dreaming out the tragedy which her face revealed.
He was awoke from his reverie by a faint sobbing sigh, and looking round he discovered that the woman who shared his seat was struggling with a faintness that seemed gradually to be overpowering her. Before he could rise to offer her assistance her head had fallen back upon the crimson cushion, the little close bonnet had dropped off, and the white face, in its chiselled beauty, lay stricken with a death-calm close to his shoulder.
[CHAPTER II.]
ADÈLE AND MARGARET.
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Very young men are not, as a rule, passionate admirers of the fair sex. They like to be flattered and caressed by women, they delight in imaginary conquests, treating the sex generally with a sort of compassionate condescension. Their chief cultus is the ego that is to do and to dare such great things in the untried future.
There are some who cherish this pet delusion through life, who are always superior. Should such have women dependent upon them the fate of those women is scarcely enviable. They are expected to walk through life inferior. But in the lives of most men there is an awakening. Sometimes the favorite pursuit—science, art, literature—rising gradually into vaster proportions as it is more ardently followed, dwarfs the man in his own estimation by contrast with what he seeks. The ideal being ever so far in advance, he begins to take a truer estimate of his powers and to try to enlarge them. Sometimes it is the world of life, contact with other minds and the feeling of their superiority; sometimes it is the world of nature, its beauty and its mystery. These are the majority.
To a few perhaps—a very few—the awakening comes from another power. It is a power, whatever may be said to the contrary, a great power for good or for evil—the power of beauty, as it rests brooding on God's last and fairest gift to man—woman.
The mind, the imagination, the heart, all that had lain hidden under the crust of self-seeking, rises into play in a moment, and the man is changed. Such a man can never despise woman, for the one particular star—distant, unattainable in all probability—sheds its lustre upon all that partake of its nature.
If the woman who has gained this power can only use it, not selfishly, but grandly, truly, the change for the man is a resurrection into new life. If not—Who shall say how many young souls have been ruined, perhaps for ever, by this same "if not"?
To return to the May afternoon and the scene in the picture-gallery. If any painter had been near he could scarcely have chosen a more powerful subject. The young man who had first discovered the fainting woman did not consider himself a very emotional person, but for a moment he was absolutely staggered. He had risen hastily to his feet and stooped over her unconsciously. There he remained, helpless as a child in the presence of a mystery it is unable to solve. It was only for a moment that the stupor held him; then, with a feeling that was very strange and new, he summoned courage to raise her head upon his arm, and with trembling fingers to loosen her scarf and bonnet-strings.
What was to be done next? Water, smelling-salts, a fan—he had not one of these appliances to restore her, and he shrank painfully from gathering a crowd by asking assistance; for as yet the back of the seat had hidden her from the very few who were still walking through the galleries, those few being mostly lovers of art, and too much absorbed in the pictures to have ears or eyes for anything beyond them.
If he could only manage the matter alone! and rapidly the various modes of treating fainting-fits passed through his mind. He lifted the beautiful head and laid it down upon the seat, raising her feet to the same level; then, kneeling beside her, he opened her white fingers and rubbed the palms of her hands, watching eagerly for a sign of life. But it would not do: the dark eyelashes rested still on the pale, calm face, no quivering of the eyelids showed dawning consciousness. If he could have imparted to her some of his own exuberant life—for the warm blood was throbbing and tingling through his veins till his very finger-tips seemed instinct with consciousness—he would have stooped and breathed into her lips; but he dared not: there was a majesty in her helpless beauty that only a very coarse mind could have resisted.
It takes long to relate, but in reality only a few moments had passed from the time of the woman's first faintness to the instant when the young man, finding his efforts fruitless, turned with a sigh to seek assistance from any lady who might be passing through the gallery. The first face that greeted him was one he knew. It was that of a young girl, very bright and pleasant in appearance, decked out in the brilliancy of light muslin and fluttering ribbons. She saw him instantly, and went smilingly across the room with extended hand. "Oh, Arthur, you naughty boy!" she began, but catching sight of the fainting woman, she broke off hastily: "Some one in a faint? Heavens! what a lovely face! Poor thing! it is the heat. Go off quickly and get some water, Arthur; I should think you could get it at the door: you boys are such helpless beings."
She was down on her knees as she spoke, fluttering her fan gently and applying her smelling-salts; but her volubility had already collected in a little crowd the few people who remained in the galleries. She put them off with pretty gestures and ready wit: "My friend wants air; I assure you it is only a fainting-fit—nothing to alarm."
But she was relieved when Arthur's appearance with the water put the lookers-on to a sudden flight, and they were once more left to themselves.
"Oh, Arthur," said the young girl earnestly, "how beautiful she is! I must give her a little kiss before she awakes, as she will, I am sure, with the water. There, there, my beauty!" for the kiss seemed to be the most effectual remedy. Her eyelids quivered, causing thereby such excitement to Arthur that part of the contents of the glass of water he held fell over her feet, and Adèle—for that was the name of the young lady who had given such timely assistance—told him with mock indignation to go off, and not come again till he was called. Without a word Arthur turned away. He would scarcely have been so obedient the day before, but the incident of that afternoon seemed to have robbed him of his power. He stood in the entrance of the hall, watching until he should be sent for by the ladies.
For the first time in his life Arthur wished he had been a girl. His thoughts, to tell the truth, were rapidly becoming very sentimental. Adèle, happy Adèle! he thought of her with a new respect. She could carry on these gentle ministries impossible to the rougher hands of men. With what tenderness and skill she had used her remedies! And then the kiss! Yes, women, after all, possessed certain advantages. And her first look would be for Adèle. If he had been more expert, it might have been for him. Had any one told Arthur, even an hour before, that he could ever have been jealous of his cousin, he would certainly have scorned the idea: he had always considered himself so vastly superior to women in general, and his pretty little playmate in particular. He had not much time, however, to indulge in these brilliantly novel ideas, for before many moments had passed Adèle appeared. "You may offer her your arm," she said. "I want to get her out of this place as quickly as possible."
"Have you found out anything about her?"
"Only that her name is Margaret Grey. A letter dropped out of her pocket, and I saw the signature, or rather she pointed it out to me as I handed it back to her. I fancy she is a widow, though she has not actually told me so. She is staying in lodgings at some distance. Poor thing! I am afraid she is very poor."
Adèle's pretty face was clouded as she spoke, but she said no more, for they were very near the spot where Margaret had been left.
"Margaret!" thought Arthur, "Margaret!" and the one word seemed to cling about his brain like a sweet, indefinable music as awkwardly enough, it must be confessed, he approached her to offer his arm.
She rose when she saw him, a slight blush on her cheek, but as she looked up at his frank young face the blush faded and her composure returned.
"I have to thank you for great kindness, sir," she said with a gentle dignity. "I cannot think what came over me just now. It must have been the heat of the place; but I feel much stronger now, and if you will add to your goodness the further favor of giving me your arm for the length of the galleries, I can find my way home without any more assistance."
Her voice was almost as overpowering to Arthur as her face had been. He tried to stammer out a reply, when Adèle came happily to his assistance. Taking one of the lady's hands in her own, she said with gentle earnestness, "Pray allow me to manage for you. My cousin will tell you how much I like to arrange everything for my neighbors; it is my pet weakness. Then, you know, you are my patient, and I expect you to be obedient. Mamma has sent the carriage for me, for she was not quite certain that I should meet Arthur. We can drive you to any point you like to mention. Please do not deny me this pleasure."
The lady blushed again, but Adèle's gentle delicacy triumphed. She bowed her head in acquiescence, and took Arthur's arm, leaning on it somewhat heavily, for she was still weak. Adèle walked on her other side, slightly supporting her from time to time; and so they passed through the gallery, with not many thoughts for the pictures, just as the daylight was beginning to wane.
"—— street, Islington," said Arthur to the stately coachman when, having at last emerged from the galleries, the trio stood beside a small, well-appointed carriage.
The coachman looked dignifiedly astonished. He took note of an exceedingly shabby person who was evidently connected with this strange fancy. Had his young lady been alone, he might have respectfully demurred; but as Mr. Arthur was a trusted person in the establishment—one, moreover, whom it was not safe to offend—he hazarded no remark, and after one protest in the shape of repetition, in an inquiring key, of the obnoxious address, turned his horses' heads in this very unwonted direction.
He had to ask his way several times before he could find the out-of-the-way street indicated by Arthur's brief order; but for at least one of those inside the carriage the drive could not have been too long. Arthur Forrest would have found it extremely difficult to explain his feelings, even to himself. Happily, for the moment it was not necessary. To analyze our enjoyment or its sources would be very often to rob it of its charm.
Why is the transparent greenness of spring or its first balmy breeze so delicious to the senses? Why does a certain melody echo and re-echo in the brain with a sweetness we cannot fathom? Why does beauty—pure outline, graceful form, rich coloring—awaken a thrill of gladness in our being? We cannot tell. We can only rejoice that such things are.
And Arthur was very young, full of the freshness of youth and inexperience. He would have been highly indignant could he have heard such a remark applied to him, for he looked upon himself as a man of the world whom it would be difficult to astonish in any way; but nevertheless it was true. The very novelty of his sensations as he sat on the back seat of the brougham, looking anywhere rather than in the fair face before him, proved this.
It was well for him that the vision came when it did, when his heart was young and his life vigorous, when the chivalry of youth had not passed away, with other beautiful things, in the numbing surroundings of a fashionable life.
At last the carriage stopped at the entrance of a dingy street in a region where "apartments" looked out from almost every window. The lady would not suffer her new friends to take her to her own door, and they possessed sufficient refinement of feeling to refrain from pressing the point. She seemed even to shrink from the prospect of any further acquaintance.
"We live in different worlds," she said with a sad smile when Adèle, in her girlish enthusiasm, pressed her to allow them at least to inquire after her. For Adèle was almost as much in love as her cousin, certainly more gushingly so; but there was no possibility of resisting the quiet firmness with which all efforts after further intimacy were set aside by the lady they had helped.
With warm thanks she bade them farewell, but they both noticed, with youth's sympathetic insight, that her eyelids drooped as though she had been weary, and her lips slightly quivered before she turned away.
Adèle's eyes filled with tears, and Arthur had to swallow a most uncomfortable lump that seemed to impede his utterance. Then the cousins became more sympathetic than they had ever been before in discussing their adventure and forming theory after theory about the mysterious stranger.
But Adèle was the talker, Arthur the listener, and perhaps his cousin's conversation had never before been so much to his mind.
[CHAPTER III.]
A WOMAN FACE TO FACE WITH THE WORLD.
How tedious, false, and cold seem all things! I
Have met with much injustice in this world.
Choking back the tears that seemed as if they would well forth from a fountain that had long been sealed, Margaret Grey turned from her companions of an hour to go home. To a very desolate home in truth. Walled in and bricked out from the fair sights and sounds of Nature, even the sunbeams as they touched it seemed only to reveal its dinginess.
But four walls cannot make a home, any more than a casket can enrich its jewelled contents. The most desolate exterior may be endeared by what it holds. It might be so with Margaret's home, yet no light came into her pale face as she caught sight of her dwelling. For a moment she even hesitated—it seemed bitter to meet its dull blankness—only a moment; then with a half smile at her own weakness she walked languidly up a few dirty steps and rang the bell.
It was answered by a servant in keeping with the steps, and passing her by, Margaret went into her rooms. They consisted of a bed- and sitting-room, separated by folding doors. The sitting-room was very much what the exterior of the house had promised—very dull, very shabby. A cracked mirror was over the chimney-piece, its frame carefully veiled by yellow muslin that had lost its primal brightness. A chandelier in the centre of the room was also enveloped with the same dingy covering. A few shells and gay china ornaments were scattered about on unsteady stands. On a table beside the window was a group of dusty-looking paper flowers.
Tea was laid, the one cup and saucer telling their pathetic tale of a lonely life. Margaret had left her lodgings that morning, desperate with the feeling that either her eyes and her senses must have some relief or her mind must give way. When she returned and looked round her once more, she began to fear that her experiment had been worse than useless. The force of contrast had increased the bitterness of her lot.
She sank wearily into a stiff pretence of an arm-chair, and began again thinking out the problem that beauty and dreariness alike presented to her mind—the uncertain future. And then came over her like a flood the vision of days and years without hope, without joy. Burying her face in her hands, she gave way for a few moments to unrestrained weeping. It was an unwonted exercise, for Margaret was brave, and none of the last and deepest bitterness, that of remorse, cast its shadow on her retrospect of the past. Thoughtless she might have been, sinning she was not: of this thing the secret court of her inner consciousness, so pitiless to the true offender, had freely acquitted her.
It would be a long story to tell what it was that overcame Margaret Grey till she sobbed out her sadness alone in the stillness of the May evening. Partly, perhaps, the squalor of her present surroundings, for the beautiful face and form encased a soul attuned to highest harmonies; partly the sweet womanly sympathy, which she had looked upon only and then put resolutely away from her; partly the daily pinpricks of disappointment and repulse that she had encountered in prosecuting the business which had led her to London. For, like a multitude of helpless women, Margaret was on the look-out for employment.
She had one little girl, a child about six years of age. With such a sweet tie children-lovers might wonder at her utter desolation. Strange to say, this tie, so sweet to many, was to her more of a care than a pleasure. The future of her little one weighed heavily on her mind.
In the lonely seaside village where she had left her it would be scarcely possible to educate her to fill the position that might be hers in the future. Margaret's scanty means did not allow her to think of a residence in town, or of the expenses of a school education for her daughter, unless, indeed, she could earn the necessary money.
Hence her visit to London. She had been well educated herself; of course her first thought was that by educating others she could pay for the education of her child. If she had loved her little one very much, perhaps she would have judged differently. She might have thought it better to make a home for her child in any spot, however lonely, feeling that the lack of some accomplishment would be well compensated by the refining influence of a mother's constant love and care.
But Margaret did not love her child so deeply as to find her presence a sweet necessity. There was a cloud over her motherhood, which robbed it of some of its fair charm. Duty to her child, not pleasure in her, was her one idea of the tie that alone, at this period of her history, bound her to life. It was this made her anxiety that, whatever her own lot might be, Laura should have every advantage in the way of education and training. And with the anxiety came the need for exertion. Up to the moment when the child's growth and development made the mother think of that bugbear of mothers—her education—Margaret had not been troubled with any money difficulties. She had lived in her retirement, the one trouble of her life wrapping her in its gloomy folds, but with no care for the provision of herself and her child in the future. Suddenly, inexplicably, one source of income had failed. Margaret had not been accustomed to trouble herself about money: the sufficient came to her—that was all she required to know—and this poverty was a new and dreadful thing which she found it very difficult to realize.
She tried to fathom the mystery, but it eluded her; only this remained as a hard fact: eighty pounds a year was all she received or seemed likely to receive, and Laura had to be educated.
The spirit of self-sacrifice is strong in some women; it was very strong in Margaret. She had loved her solitude by the great sea, and had succeeded in making it almost pleasant. There she pondered and wept and hoped; there, if anywhere, she thought that her trial must end. She would not enter the great world, to be swamped and lost in its multitude. Hiding her loss where none could know and none would blame, she would live in the midst of a savage loneliness which seemed almost sympathetic to her mood.
This suited her, but would it do for Laura? Was she a fit companion for her child, already dreamy and imaginative beyond her years? No, Margaret told herself; and, leaving the little one in the care of the woman from whom she hired their little cottage, she went to London alone, to try and find some occupation for herself.
She had been directed to Islington as a cheap neighborhood; and there she had stayed in a wretched lodging-house for about three weeks—three ages to poor Margaret, filled with dismal memories of humiliation and disappointment. She was reviewing it all that evening—the rudeness, the repulses, the cruel cross-examinations; for with these came the fresher scenes which that day had brought—the chivalrous admiration that had shone out of Arthur's young eyes, the gentle, womanly tenderness of Adèle.
Employers—so it seemed to poor Margaret; they were a very new class to her—were cast in a different mould. It was their duty to ask disagreeable questions and to probe unhealed wounds; it was their duty to be stiff and cross, and not at all impressed with the outward advantages which Margaret knew she possessed. It seemed very hopeless, but she felt it necessary to persevere, at least for a little while longer. The thought aroused her. She raised her head, and became suddenly conscious of the fact of hunger. She had not eaten a morsel since breakfast. No wonder, she thought, that faintness had overpowered her. So she went into her bedroom and washed away the traces of tears, that the dirty maid-of-all-work might not read her weakness, then rang the bell to order an egg or something a little more substantial than usual for her tea.
The girl came in, holding out a card that had not been improved, in point of coloring, by its transit through her fingers. She informed Margaret that a lady had left it half an hour ago with a message.
The message, not very lucidly delivered, was to the effect that the lady whose name appeared in minute letters on the card would, in all probability, call again in the course of the evening.
Poor Margaret! she looked at the card. "Mrs. Augustus Brown." It had not a very encouraging sound, but it might mean business, and business meant provision for Laura's needs. But the thought of the impending interview had robbed her of all appetite; so, after hastily swallowing a cup of tea with a dry biscuit, she again rang the bell, had the tea-apparatus cleared away, and then sat by the window trying to read.
The apparition of a yellow chariot which seemed to fill the narrow street interrupted her, and before many minutes a thundering rap at the door made her aware of the fact that the dreaded visitor was at hand. Margaret's cheek burned. For one moment she longed desperately for a refuge where she could hide her head from these intrusions, then she remembered that she had invited them, and strove to brace her nerves to endurance. When, therefore, the door was thrown open to its fullest extent by the servant, who, never having seen so grand a person in her life as Mrs. Augustus Brown, thought it necessary to give her plenty of room, Margaret was herself again—the heightened color the struggle had called forth alone testifying to her recent emotion.
Mrs. Augustus Brown was a little round individual, almost as broad as she was long, decked out in flounces and laces and ribbons: it was one of the chief trials of her life that none of these things made her look important. Mrs. Augustus Brown was governess-hunting, for she possessed no less than seven small likenesses of herself, who began to be unruly, and to require, as she would have expressed it, a stricter hand over them.
And this governess-hunting was by no means an uncongenial occupation to Mrs. Brown. It could not but be pleasing, especially as the yellow chariot and its attendant luxuries were of comparatively recent origin, to dash up to registry-offices and through quiet streets, and to watch the effect produced on the untutored minds of inferior persons by her brilliant tout ensemble. But as yet she had not suited herself. In a governess, as she said, "tong" was essential; her children would have to be brought up suitably, that they might adorn the position Providence had evidently prepared for them, and "tong" seemed to be a rare article in the market of female labor.
On the previous day Mrs. Augustus had dilated very largely upon this point at a registry-office. She had been directed, in consequence, to Mrs. Grey—a prize, as she was assured, in point of appearance and manner. Curiosity was strong in Mrs. Brown. Certain allusions and hints about Mrs. Grey's antecedents attracted her, and she lost no time in looking her up; hence the apparition of the yellow chariot.
But Mrs. Augustus Brown has been left in the doorway to introduce herself to Mrs. Grey. As she entered Margaret rose, with the true instinct of a lady, and went forward to meet her, with a bow to which her visitor did not deign to respond.
Mrs. Augustus Brown flattered herself that she had tact enough to put people in their own places and keep them there—a notable piece of wisdom, truly; the only difficulty being as to certain doubts about what is the "own place." Were those rightly solved, perhaps a few fine ladies would be slightly astonished by finding a level at some unexpected layer of the social crust.
It was not Mrs. Brown's way to trouble herself with doubts. She waddled across the room with great satisfaction to herself, but in a manner that to the uninitiated could hardly have been called dignified, sank down on a chair which directly faced Margaret, and began divesting herself quietly of some of her wraps.
Never to appear too eager with any of these people was, in the code of Mrs. Augustus, an essential point in their management. When this business had been performed, and she had settled herself as comfortably as might be in a not very luxurious arm-chair, Mrs. Brown felt for a pair of gold-rimmed eye-glasses, adjusted them and looked Margaret over from head to foot. "Bless me, how handsome!" was her mental ejaculation: "my word for it, she's no good."
It was not wonderful that this coarse mind found it difficult to understand the strange anomaly, for Margaret was one of those rarely beautiful beings who seem only made for the tenderest handling. Her face might have been a poet's ideal, for the traces of suffering and conflict it only too plainly revealed had removed it far from the meaningless glory of mere form and coloring; and yet she was too young perhaps for these to have bereft her of any charm; they rather endowed her pale fair beauty with a certain refinement, an appealing pathos, which spoke powerfully to the imagination.
She possessed a form, too, whose every line was perfect, well developed, yet fragile—womanly, yet full of grace. And the deep crimson which Mrs. Brown's studied rudeness had called to her face heightened the effect of her beauty.
She sat before her visitor, her eyes cast down, her hands crossed in her lap, like a fair Greek slave in the barbarian's market-place, waiting for the decree of fate.
It was a relief when Mrs. Augustus Brown began to give her attention to the ponderous carriage-bag in her hand. Some of its fastenings, being the latest patents and the height of convenience, were difficult to manage.
"Your name," she said, hunting for a letter—"ah, here it is!—Mrs. Grey."
Margaret bowed, shivering slightly. That fatal emphasis. This was the way in which the inquisitions generally began.
Mrs. Augustus here coughed slightly, and looked over her gold-rimmed spectacles in a way intended to be severe. Alas! how we deceive ourselves! The look was only comic. "A married woman, I presume?"
Margaret bowed again.
Here Mrs. Brown consulted a set of ivory tablets: "With one little girl, I am told, and small income, anxious to make enough for her education. Is this correct?"
"Perfectly so, madam."
"A very laudable object: then, Mrs. Grey, you are, I presume, a widow?"
There was a moment's hesitation. Margaret pressed her hand to her side as if she were in pain, and Mrs. Augustus eyed her suspiciously: "My question, Mrs. Grey, is a simple one."
"And my answer, madam, can be equally simple. I am not a widow."
"Not a widow!" Mrs. Brown drew back her chair and took another long look—one that expressed incredulous horror. "Not a widow! And pray, Mrs. Grey, where is your husband?"
In spite of herself, Margaret smiled feebly, but the smile was a nervous one. She looked up and shook her head: "I am sorry to say, madam, that I cannot tell."
"Then," and Mrs. Brown again receded, as if to put as much space as possible between herself and this naughty person—"then, Mrs. Grey, you are separated from your husband?"
"I am."
The answer was spoken in a low, clear voice, very calmly, but with a certain intonation of sadness that would have struck upon a more sensitive ear. To Mrs. Augustus Brown this very quietness of demeanor was in the highest degree brazen. She fluttered her fan, drew herself up to her full height, and looked virtuous as a Roman matron (in her own opinion, be it said parenthetically).
"You seem strangely forgetful, Mrs. Grey, of the importance of the position which you seek to fill in my household. With the utmost coolness you describe yourself as a woman living separated from her husband. Goodness knows why. For all I can tell, you may have done something very wrong." Here Mrs. Brown coughed and hid an imaginary blush behind her fan. "And yet," she continued, when the blush had been given time to fade, "you wish to take the entire charge of little innocents, the eldest of whom is only ten, and seven of them. I had my children so quick." Here Mrs. Brown lost her thread. To mothers of large families these reminiscences are always bewildering.
Margaret's eyes were looking very weary; she filled up the pause: "Perhaps it would be better then to inquire no farther. From what you say I fear that I shall scarcely suit you." She rose as she spoke.
Mrs. Brown did not take the hint; she remained where she was, rooted to the place by sheer astonishment. For a young woman to make so light of such a position as that of governess in her family was an unheard-of thing. But Mrs. Grey rose in her estimation from that moment. Then she was curious. "Sit down again, my dear," she said in a manner that was intended to be gracious. "Mrs. Townley spoke highly of you, and you certainly look a respectable person. I'm not one always to blame my own sex. I believe in these affairs the men are very often in fault. You may not be aware that Mr. Augustus Brown and myself consider salary no object, and masters for every branch. Rudiments and style, Mrs. Grey, and of course character with children, you understand. If it were as my confidential maid, now, I might not be so particular; but, unfortunately, the young person I have I brought from Paris, and can't get rid of her under three months. Not half so handy as I was given to understand."
She fluttered her fan again, and waited for an answer. Margaret hesitated. Had she consulted her own inclinations she would have refused decidedly to have anything further to do with this vulgar woman. Already she felt by anticipation what the yoke of servitude in such a house as hers would be; but Laura—the high salary. The servitude, though bitter, might be shortened. It ended in a compromise. "Will you be kind enough to allow me a day or two's delay?" she asked. "I have friends who will certainly not refuse to give me the necessary references; but I have not seen many of them for some time, and they do not know of my present position."
Mrs. Augustus Brown got up, her dignity gone for the time in her anxiety to make this striking-looking person one of her household.
"Yes, yes," she said, "that's the best plan; I'm sick of looking up governesses—one more pasty-looking and unstylish than the other—and I fancy you'll suit. Let me hear soon, for the children get more headstrong every day. I'm too gentle with them. And then so much in society. Why, we have three engagements of an evening sometimes, turning night into day, I say. And the servants can no more manage them than fly. I shall lose my health, as I tell Mr. Brown, if I'm referred to every hour of the day by servants and children. Too great a strain, Mrs. Grey. Well, good-bye, my dear."
She waddled off to the yellow chariot, and Margaret was left alone—headstrong children, references, explanations, pictures and unexpected kindness making one great riot in her brain. She went to bed early that night, and the events of the day grouped themselves together into fantastic dreams.
In the brain of Mrs. Augustus Brown one thought was pre-eminent; it haunted her among the cream-colored cushions of the yellow chariot, was present in the drawing-room, slightly interfering with her mild contemplation of the sleeping face of a sandy-haired individual on the sofa; it followed her even to the marital couch, mingling with her dreams.
"She's mighty handsome: I hope to goodness Brown won't fall in love with her."
Brown was calmly unconscious of this want of conjugal trust. Had he known to what it bore reference, he might have been slightly excited, for Mr. Augustus, though his hair was sandy and his nose a decided snub, was an admirer of female beauty, and considered himself highly irresistible. Mrs. Brown was totally unaware of this fact.
"After years of life together" they were, on this point at least, "strangers yet."
Sentimental young ladies, who croon over these pathetic words, thinking perhaps, with an approach to soft melancholy, of the desolation reserved for themselves in the future, when, their finest feelings unappreciated, they must shut themselves up in mystery, might learn a lesson from Mr. and Mrs. Augustus.
To be "strangers yet" on some points with that nearest and dearest, the unappreciative husband of the future, may possibly be conducive to harmony rather than desolation.
[CHAPTER IV.]
MORNING THOUGHTS—A RESOLVE TAKEN.
Soul of our souls and safeguard of the world,
Sustain—Thou only canst—the sick of heart!
Restore their languid spirits, and recall
Their lost affections unto Thee and Thine.
Margaret awoke early the next morning. It was a sad waking. For the first moment she could have wished to shut her eyes again, never to open them more in this world. Life looked so blank. And what wonder?
However brave the spirit, it must be affected by its surroundings, and to open one's eyes in a stifling room, with the consciousness that the raised blind will show nothing but a dingy yard, and beyond and on every side of it deserts of dingy yards, the yards shut in by black-looking houses, in all of which the like stifling rooms may reasonably be expected to be found, is, to say the least of it, disheartening.
Margaret's troubles in the little cottage by the seaside, of which she fondly thought as home, had not been less; but there was something in the wide breadths of sea, in its fresh curling waves and in the grand expanse of sky to soothe the dull aching of heart and brain, to give scope to the great doctrine of possibilities, and freedom to dreams that sometimes appeared wild and unreal.
Here it was different. In the narrowness of wall and enclosure life itself was narrowed down till it seemed nothing but a dreary blank of good; in the dull monotony of wood and brick what had been melancholy became bitterness, what had been prayers for help and guidance became one passionate outcry against Providence—one bitter complaint against what the tortured heart too often calls cruel fate.
Young curates are fond of preaching about resignation, notifying to their aged friends the desirability of persevering to the end. I think if ever they come to feel this, that Fate and all her myrmidons are against them, that life is cruel beyond measure, that even faith itself can find no standing-point, they will speak less on this strange, sad theme; but when the victory has been won, when fate and necessity have taken a true place for them in the economy of nature, what they say will be worth far more.
The first discouragement gone by, Margaret felt that she must act, and then came the consciousness that something very disagreeable was before her. She had promised Mrs. Brown to set herself right with her as far as character was concerned, and for this it would be necessary to give references.
A new trouble, and, strange to say, unthought of before. Margaret was little used to the ways of the world: she had hitherto cherished a vague notion that to present herself would be sufficient for the attainment of her object. That she was a lady she imagined (and in this she was not mistaken) could be seen at a glance.
That a lady's character should be looked into like a servant's had not entered into her mind as a necessary part of that to which those who seek for employment must subject themselves. And yet her common sense told her, as she thought it all over in the gray of early morning, that this was perfectly right, and only what she ought to have expected.
The necessity might certainly have been more delicately revealed than by Mrs. Augustus Brown; but Margaret, in her morning review of ways and means, thoroughly recognized the justice of the demand. To answer it was none the less a great difficulty to one of her nature. The long separation from all her friends, who before and after her marriage had been very numerous; the solitary nature of her life during the last four years; above all, that cloud, barely acknowledged even to herself, which rested on her fair fame (she could not tell if it had affected her in the opinion of her former world, if many-tongued Rumor had magnified it),—all these things made her task a very difficult one, and as she thought she felt inclined to give up the struggle, to return to her lonely lot and do her best for her child herself.
She had almost come to this conclusion, even the note refusing Mrs. Brown's magnanimous offer was written in her mind, when suddenly an idea flitted across her brain which caused her to hesitate. The thought was of one who in all probability would stand her friend, whose word was worth something, and who knew enough of the circumstances of her history to render it unnecessary for her to enter into painful details.
The friend was a lawyer, the man who managed her affairs. He was well known to her, not so much personally as in a business capacity, and she felt great confidence in his friendliness and judgment. Then she knew that he held a high position, especially in the religious world. Before she rose she had decided at least to consult Mr. Robinson.
If he thought his reference would be sufficient guarantee of respectability to ensure her an entrance into the carefully guarded fold of Mrs. Augustus Brown, she would try to obtain the position; if not, she would make no further effort.
[CHAPTER V.]
FOUND—A FRIEND.
Most delicately hour by hour
He canvassed human mysteries,
And trod on silk, as if the winds
Blew his own praises in his eyes,
And stood aloof from other minds
In impotence of fancied power.
Mr. Robinson was a man whom women trusted almost instinctively, for, in the first place, he was tall and well made, possessing the advantage of strong, square shoulders and straight, capable-looking legs.
A rogue, especially in the lawyer world, is apt to be thought of as a man of small type, with sharp features, sallow complexion and little, piercing eyes.
Mr. Robinson was florid in complexion, large and muscular in type, fair and frank in manner. He had a way of speaking about business as if everything he did might, with no drawback to himself, remain open for the inspection of men and angels; perhaps best of all, at least so far as ladies and clergymen were concerned, was the pleasing habit he possessed of throwing religion into everything: testamentary dispositions, settlements, conveyancing, chancery suits, all could be conveniently ticketed with a text, and laid away in the capacious recesses of Mr. Robinson's memory, to be brought out on some suitable occasion as notable proofs of his own high position in the favor of Providence.
Mr. Robinson was married. He had thought it incumbent on him to leave progeny on the earth when, to use his lightly-spoken phrase, "himself should be gathered to his fathers." That he possessed, or had once possessed, a father, was a self-evident fact. With regard to the plural number some might be tempted to ejaculate, "The fathers! where are they?" but these were skeptical individuals, verging no doubt on infidelity, for Mr. Robinson considered faith a cardinal virtue, and possessed a genealogical tree which threw its branches far and wide, and traced back to unknown antiquity, or at least to William the Conqueror and Rollo the Norman, the ancestors of the Robinson family, and of those who had been so happy as to form any connection with it.
This famous specimen of art hung up in Mr. Robinson's office, and was frequently exhibited in all its fulness of detail to lady-clients. They were often obliging enough to interest themselves specially in the lowest branch, where Mr. Robinson had written in a small clear handwriting the names of six boys, happy fruit of wedlock, destined no doubt to be illustrious, and—not elevate; that would scarcely be possible, considering their antecedents, but—preserve the character of the Robinson family and honor its traditions.
"In the mean time," Mr. Robinson would say, opening the account-book, settlement or will which his lady-client had come to consult, and laughing out a clear hearty laugh which told of no arrière-pensée, "I keep the young beggars in good order."
Mr. Robinson was always very busy. If clients, ladies principally, did not happen to be with him during the whole morning, he had a vast arrear of letters to finish. He therefore possessed a large gloomy-looking room, where applicants for the favor of admission to a private interview generally waited until he could be disengaged.
It was into this room that Margaret was shown when, her determination having outlasted dressing and breakfast, she presented herself to ask if she might see Mr. Robinson.
The clerk said that a gentleman was with Mr. Robinson, but no doubt he would be disengaged presently. He took up her card, and Margaret sat down in the waiting-room, rather glad of the opportunity afforded her of collecting her thoughts, and considering how she could open the subject, for, now that she was actually bound on the errand of asking a guarantee of respectability from the man she had hitherto looked upon simply as the person who sent her money and transacted her business, it seemed rather harder than she had imagined.
She had a longer time for preparation than she could have desired. Mr. Robinson, as he afterward informed her, was literally overwhelmed with work.
He rose when she entered, set a chair for her, then resumed his own. His manner was nonchalant, even, some might have said, unpolished in its freedom, as he expressed his pleasure at seeing Mrs. Grey, and his hope that nothing unpleasant had brought her so far from home.
Mr. Robinson was much commended for his easy natural manners, but on this occasion, as on a few others, an acute observer might have detected something of nervousness underlying his expansive gestures.
When he had exhausted his vocabulary, Mrs. Grey spoke. Lifting her veil, she fixed her soft brown eyes on Mr. Robinson's face. "I have come to consult you," she said.
"Most happy, I am sure," he replied briskly—"any assistance in my power. It was an unfortunate business. Happily, we secured enough for maintenance."
"You allude to my losses, Mr. Robinson. I am, unfortunately, no woman of business, so I have scarcely understood how it comes that my income is so diminished; but I assure you that I have full confidence in your judgment. Perhaps, as I have come, you will be able to explain these matters to me."
"And delighted," he answered with some eagerness; "it is one of my peculiar crotchets in business to keep all my clients very conversant with their own affairs. Others act differently, but 'Do unto others,' you know, is one of my chief rules. I live by rule, Mrs. Grey—the highest of all rules, I hope. See here, now," and he laid his hand on a pile of account-books, "this is a case in point. Mrs. Herbert, a widow, large estates, before consulting me scarcely knew what she possessed; now looks regularly over the books, spends an hour here once a month. Danvers, again: young lady about to be married, sent for me to draw up the settlement. 'You know all about me, Mr. Robinson,' she said; 'draw it up as you like.' 'Excuse me, Miss Danvers,' said I. 'I should prefer you to use your own judgment in the matter.' She has done so, and in the course of conversation on the subject has made some very sensible suggestions."
Mr. Robinson did not say to how many different interviews the sensible suggestions had given rise; certainly, however, he had been no loser by them.
"I could quote hundreds of instances, all tending the same way," he continued.
Poor Margaret shook her head: "I am afraid I should find it very difficult to understand."
"Not at all, not at all. Look here, now. What are you anxious to know? I venture to say I'll make it clear to you before you leave this room."
Margaret smiled. This man's frankness pleased her. His manner, though a little unpolished, was, she thought, anything but displeasing; then he seemed to understand business thoroughly. Perhaps he would show that, after all, her affairs were not so desperate as they seemed.
"I am first anxious to know what you mean by writing to me that one of the mortgages has turned out badly," she said.
"Easy to explain," he answered, with a self-satisfied smile. "Only, perhaps, by the bye, I shall have to begin with the A B C, as one may say, and acquaint you with the nature of a mortgage."
"If you please, Mr. Robinson; I am afraid I am ignorant even to that extent."
"So much the better, Mrs. Grey, so much the better: 'A little knowledge'—you know the proverb. Ladies take up such ideas when they know, as they imagine, something of business! I had far rather deal with total ignorance on these points; but don't be discouraged. We must begin at the very beginning. Forsaking business terms altogether for the moment, I will, if you please, put this to you simply. You take me, Mrs. Grey?" He smiled with a frankness that was charming to behold. "Do at Rome as Rome does. With ladies talk of business as they are able to understand."
Mrs. Grey smiled her acquiescence.
"Agreed," cried the lawyer effusively. "Well, then, to work. Say now, by way of illustration"—he took a pencil as he spoke and drew a line, writing A at the one end, B at the other and C in the centre—"A represents a person who has a landed estate, houses, what not; B has no landed property, but the value of A's estate in money. B wants to put out his money in some safe way; A, who does not care to sell his property, wants money; steps in C, the intermediate person—a lawyer, we shall say—known to both parties. He negotiates between them, finally arranging for B to lend his money to A on the security of A's property. A deed of mortgage is then drawn up, which makes the agreement binding. A has B's money, pays a half-yearly interest, and if, after a six months' notice, the sum originally lent is not forthcoming, A's property may be sold to make good the default. Do you follow me, Mrs. Grey?"
"Perfectly, Mr. Robinson. You have made clear to me what I never understood before; but under these circumstances I cannot see how my money was actually lost. The property would always be there."
"True, Mrs. Grey." Mr. Robinson gave a somewhat peculiar smile. "I am glad to see that you understand me so thoroughly; your suggestion is in the highest degree practical; there is one consideration, however, which we have not taken into account. Land, unfortunately, depreciates in value, so that at times it would be highly dangerous to the interests of the mortgagee to press a sale. At other times the title of the mortgagor is not perfectly clear. All these things should be carefully looked into beforehand. In your case everything was done, but one cannot be always certain. However, excuse me for correcting your slight inaccuracy. I think I never said that this sum of money was lost. I like to be perfectly certain on these points. Perhaps you can refer to the passage in my letter in which I announced this unfortunate business."
He looked at her with some anxiety—nervousness perhaps an acute observer might have said, but Margaret was not an acute observer.
She smiled and shook her head: "Quite impossible, Mr. Robinson. I never keep my letters, especially business ones. I have been told that this habit is a bad one; but à quoi bon? It is really too much trouble."
The lawyer showed his teeth. "A lady's view of matters," he said briskly; "and, after all, full of common sense. Why should you trouble yourself? However, to return à nos moutongs, as the French would say" (Mr. Robinson had spent a year in a French school, and considered himself a perfect master of the language), "I am happy to say that your affairs are likely to take a favorable turn. I have a hold on the fellow for another little matter; indeed, I may say that he is completely in my power. With your permission I will open proceedings against him."
Mr. Robinson always spoke the truth—at least, as some one said in the House of Commons lately, "what he thought the truth." But, though his affairs were open to the inspection of men and angels, he did not consider mental reservation a sin, even where it would seriously affect the character of a truth which he had ingenuously stated. He guarded himself from telling Mrs. Grey that the other little business was a large sum owed to himself by Mrs. Grey's debtor, and that he was fully determined to screw this out of him before another debt should be paid.
The knowledge of want or of something approaching it—want rather of the refinements of life than of its necessities—had made Margaret look with far more interest on money than she had ever done before. Formerly, it had been a certain something that always came at the right moment—for Mr. Robinson was as regular as clockwork in the transaction of his business—and that came in amounts amply sufficient to meet every need. What wonder that she thought little of how it came, and was tolerably lavish in its expenditure?
Now, everything was changed. Money meant education for Laura, the refinements and amenities of life for herself; above all, independence. The want of it meant servitude, drudgery, perhaps even the squalor of poverty. But she was not sufficiently acquainted with business to imagine that some one might be to blame for the failing mortgage—that it could be possible to call her solicitor to account.
She trusted Mr. Robinson implicitly. For was he not a good man? Righteous overmuch, some people said; one who conducted his business in an open, off-hand kind of way, which savored more of the harmlessness of the dove than of the wisdom of the serpent? Did not his frank smile and cheerful greeting speak of a quiet conscience? Did not worthy people of all denominations consult him in the management of their affairs?
Margaret could not have suspected Mr. Robinson, and his cheerful way of suggesting proceedings and their mysterious effect filled her with new hope. She looked up eagerly: "Oh, Mr. Robinson, then you really think there is hope?"
"My dear lady," he answered in his peculiarly lively way, "I have not the smallest doubt of it. Be content, for the time being, with your small income, and, take my word for it, before six months have passed over our heads we shall (by the Divine assistance—of course, we must never forget that, Mrs. Grey) be able to pay back into your account the larger part, if not all, of the sum in question."
The tears filled Margaret's eyes. Had she grown so very mercenary, then? I scarcely think so. Her delight was that of the escaped captive. There would be no necessity now to prosecute her painful search for employment. The yoke that already, by anticipation, was galling her might be thrown off with a clear conscience. Mr. Robinson's word meant more than that of most people, and he gave six months as the duration of her penury. During that time her little daughter would scarcely require more instruction than she could give; they had still sufficient to enable them to live quietly; and even should she be a loser to some extent, there would no doubt be sufficient left for Laura's education. If not, it would be time enough then to think of ways and means.
She gave a sigh of intense relief, then looked up, smiling through a mist of gathering tears: "I am very foolish, Mr. Robinson, but your words have taken such a load from my mind! I had come here to-day to consult you about taking a situation as governess. They wanted—that is, I mean," she blushed as she spoke, "a reference, you know, was necessary, so I came to you about it."
"To give you a reference," replied he, with a smile that made Margaret wince, there was so much assurance in its cordiality. "You could not have come to a better person. My connection is very large, and, I may say without unduly boasting (these earthly gifts must all be looked upon as coming from above), where the name of Robinson is known it is respected. A curious proof of this occurred yesterday." Here Mr. Robinson was interrupted by one of his clerks, who brought up the intimation that Lord —— was waiting to see him. "Say I am with a lady-client; beg his lordship to wait a few moments." Then, as the clerk went down with the message, "You see," he continued, turning to Mrs. Grey, "all my clients stand on the same footing. If the prince of Wales came here to consult me on business-matters, I should request him to wait his turn. But as we need not keep any one unnecessarily in suspense, my little anecdote must be narrated on another occasion. Remarkable circumstance, too—fresh proof, if that were needed, of the existence of an overruling Providence."
Margaret rose from her seat, scarcely perhaps so impressed as she might have been with the noble impartiality of her solicitor.
"One moment," he said, drawing out his cheque-book. Now, Mr. Robinson loved his cheque-book. It was his sceptre, the insignia of his power. He always produced it with a certain consciousness of superiority, and made over the trifling pieces of paper which his name had rendered valuable as if they had been princely gifts.
"While this affair is pending," he continued pompously, "you are no doubt somewhat straitened. I shall be glad to relieve you from undue embarrassment. I will write out a cheque for twenty pounds. And you may draw upon me—from time to time—always in moderation, of course."
A blush dyed Margaret's cheek. For a moment she felt disinclined to put herself under any obligation to this man, whose style of offering assistance was not very palatable to her high spirits. Then she remembered that this was business—a thing, no doubt, done every day. And his manner—Well, it was simply that of a man not quite accustomed to polite society. It arose from ignorance, and was a proof, if any were needed, of his honesty. His worst faults lay evidently on the surface, covering over, as in many cases, a good and noble nature.
These, allow me to say, were Margaret's reflections; it does not, therefore, follow that they were absolutely correct. Women have a trick of rushing to conclusions. A man weighs and balances, sets this quality against that, thinks out the effect of one upon the other, and in many cases comes to a conclusion slowly and with difficulty. It is well. He is not so often deceived. A woman has generally a preconceived idea, a prejudice for or against. This being so, it is more than natural that some expression of countenance, some tone of voice, some trick of manner, should fall in with her preformed judgment, and cause, in the shortest time imaginable, a conclusion which scarcely anything will shake. She believes even against proof self-evident to the rest of the world. This, no doubt, is partly the reason why helpless, lonely women are so often cheated and robbed.
Margaret was in this position. I do not mean to say that she had been cheated and robbed. Her position was that of full confidence in the man who transacted her business. She had thought of him as a friend: she had found him frank and honest, no suspicion of the legal rogue in his face or manner. Therefore she came to this conclusion: Mr. Robinson was her friend, he looked after her interests very carefully, he would set her affairs right if any one could. This being so, what mattered a little want of polish? She could very well afford to dispense with it.
"Thank you," she said as Mr. Robinson handed her the cheque; "I cannot deny that this will be of present assistance to me."
Mr. Robinson then rose in his turn, shook his fair client's hand with perhaps more than necessary empressement, and escorted her to the door.
[CHAPTER VI.]
THE YOUNG HEIR.
But the ground
Of all great thoughts is sadness.
Arthur Forrest was certainly developing a taste for art—not at all a bad taste, his friends said one to the other, for a young man who had amply sufficient to live upon. It would fill up his time, keep him from the dangers of idleness, give him, in fact, something to think about. For art could easily be pursued in a most gentlemanlike manner. A person who fills the position, not of an artist indeed, but of an intelligent patron of the fine arts, is not only a useful member of society, but one who is held in some estimation by the world.
There were many who took a very close interest in the affairs of young Arthur Forrest, for he was, or would be in a few weeks—that was all the period that divided him from his majority—a young man of property. Then he was an orphan. What more natural than that tender, sympathetic young ladies and pious, well-conducted matrons should watch his proceedings with affectionate interest, and strive to do what lay within their power to save him from the evil influences which were popularly supposed to be immediately surrounding him?
Unfortunately for the pious matrons and sympathetic young ladies, Arthur was well taken care of.
Mrs. Churchill was his aunt. She had tended him in his infancy, as she often said pathetically to a circle of admirers; she had the first claim on his love and gratitude. The gratitude Mrs. Churchill was anxious to keep as her inalienable right in Arthur: the love she had already passed on to her daughter and representative, pretty Adèle.
And hitherto Arthur had shown himself dutifully content with the arrangement. He did not think much of girls as a class, and certainly Adèle was as good a specimen of them as he had ever met. Then he was accustomed to her; she generally knew how to keep him amused; she was pretty, lively and well dressed. Till Arthur met Margaret he had never admired a shabby person. In fact, he was languidly grateful to Aunt Ellen and the Fates for having arranged matters so comfortably, because matters were actually arranged.
Mrs. Churchill knew the world she lived in too well to allow such a thing as a tacit understanding between the cousins, which a young man's whim could break through in a moment. She did not intend that her daughter's first youth and beauty should be spent in a devotion which was destined to meet with no adequate return. Adèle was rich and pretty—she would have no difficulty in meeting with a suitable partner; only to keep Arthur and his money in the family was desirable. Besides, he was young; he would make an amenable son-in-law; then he was already accustomed to the yoke—no small point this, in Mrs. Churchill's estimation.
When, therefore, Adèle had reached the age of eighteen and Arthur that of twenty—events which had happened almost simultaneously shortly before my story opens—Mrs. Churchill, as she fondly hoped and believed, put the finishing stroke to the edifice she had been forming. It had been her aim, during the few years that had passed since Arthur had emerged into young manhood, to make her house the most agreeable place in the world to him, and in this she had been eminently successful. Adèle had ably assisted her, for she, poor child! had always cherished affection for her handsome cousin—an affection which the dawn of womanhood and her mother's fostering influence ripened without much difficulty into a tenderer feeling.
She found it not easy, then, when wise eighteen had arrived, to understand her mother's tactics, for Arthur the welcome guest began from that date to be less warmly received, and obstacles were thrown in the way of their meetings, which had been so delightfully frequent and unembarrassed. They came notably from Mrs. Churchill, and yet her personal affection for her nephew seemed only to have increased; there was a tinge of gentle regret in her manner even while she appeared to be sending him from them.
It was almost more inexplicable to Arthur than to Adèle and at last he could bear it no longer.
With the love of universal popularity so common to his age, he hated the idea of being in his relative's bad graces; besides, the charms of his cousin's society increased tenfold in his imagination as difficulties cropped up to interfere with his quiet enjoyment of them.
"By Jove!" he said to himself in the course of a cigar-fed meditation, "I must have it out with Aunt Ellen at once."
That was a memorable moment in his history. With the impulsiveness of youth he extinguished his cigar and repaired in haste to Mrs. Churchill's handsome residence. He found her alone in her drawing-room, pensive but loftily kind, and soon extracted from her what she would so much rather have kept to herself—that she was acting in Adèle's interests; the dear girl was impressionable, the relationship dangerous; much as she loved her nephew, she must not forget that a mother's first duty was to watch over her child; and much more of a like nature, to all of which Arthur listened dutifully. Of course he was no match for his aunt; before the evening of that day had arrived he occupied the position of an accepted lover, blessed by a happy parent, and possessed what perhaps, on some future day, he might possibly be led to imagine the dear-bought privilege of a free entrée into Aunt Ellen's house. Since then matters had progressed satisfactorily, as far as Mrs. Churchill was concerned, though Adèle, who took almost a motherly interest in her lover and future husband, was inclined to lament the absolute aimlessness of his life.
Women, generally speaking, have a quicker mental growth than men. The mind of a girl of eighteen is in many cases more mature than that of a man of twenty. Arthur had passed his twenty years without much thought beyond himself. Adèle, with the like luxurious surroundings, had already begun to look past herself—to feel that there was a world of which she knew nothing, but with which, nevertheless, she was very closely connected—a world of want and suffering, where wrong was too often triumphant.
She was fond of reading. Perhaps some of these thoughts had crept in through the medium of poet and historian. For Adèle's insight told her that there were many higher and nobler lives for a man and woman to lead than that of self-pleasing. She sometimes longed to be a man, that she might do something worth doing in a world that wanted the active and the strong. But the little she could do she did, and had she known how many blessed her for her gentle words and timely aid, she might have been less desponding about a woman's ability to take some place in the world.
For the rest she looked to Arthur, the hero of her imagination. Poor Adèle! Her hero did not quite see as she did the necessity for exertion. He took life languidly, and could not conceive why people should excite themselves about what did not concern them; at least this was what he always said when she tried to instill into him some of her ideas about human wrongs and human service.
But Adèle did not despair; she had a woman's supreme faith in "the to-come." Something would arouse Arthur's dormant energies and bring out the latent fire of his nature.
In the mean time she, with the rest of his world, was pleased to notice his growing interest in the fine arts, though she, wiser than they, felt inclined to put down his constant haunting of the picture-galleries to a growing restlessness that meant uneasiness with the aimless life of self-gratification he was leading and a stretching-out after something higher.
And Adèle was partially right. Arthur was changed. Perhaps it was more the sadness than the beauty of that fair woman's face which haunted him so strangely, mingling with all his thoughts a certain self-reproach which he found it very difficult to understand.
It may have been that in the pale, calm face, resolute in endurance, he saw for one moment what was going on for ever around him; he read the mystic law of nature—sacrifice of self. For life is glad; where gladness is not life may be borne, but not loved or rejoiced in, and in the calm surrender of life's gladness to the call of life's necessity there is a surrender of life itself, the most beautiful part of life.
Something of this he had seen in Margaret's pale face. A joy put away, surrendered, a burden taken up and patiently borne. This it was that filled his mind when the first impression of her loveliness had in a manner passed. He saw the suffering, and beside the suffering he saw himself, self-indulgent, careless, free of hand, light of spirit, with no thought, in a general way, beyond the enjoyment of the present hour.
Often before Arthur had expressed something of this: lolling in a luxurious arm-chair with his feet on the fender, while Adèle amused him by a song or read to him something that had been charming her, he would say with a comfortable sigh, "What a good-for-nothing sort of fellow I am, Adèle!"
But then he had scarcely felt it, or if he had it had been only with a kind of impression that the good-for-nothingness sat elegantly on the shoulders of a young man of property.
Clever Mrs. Churchill rather encouraged the impression. Young men with ideas are apt to become unmanageable, and she was earnestly desirous of keeping Arthur in her invisible leading-strings.
But this time Arthur felt it. There was suffering, sorrow, wrong in the world; he was doing nothing but vegetate on its surface, keeping his comforts, his gladness, his fresh young life for his own selfish gratification. And the worst of it all was that he did not see a way out of it. In the days of chivalry young knights went out armed to fight for defenceless women and redress human wrongs. Arthur felt sure that his mysterious lady had been in some way cruelly wronged, and he longed to constitute himself her protector and knight; but in the first place she had persistently denied herself to him; in the second place her wrongs might prove to be such as he would find himself utterly unable to redress.
He was bound to Adèle, and if it had not been so he felt instinctively that he was scarcely a suitable husband for the beautiful widow. (Arthur had made up his mind that Margaret was a widow.) Under such circumstances, even if so minor an evil as poverty were her trouble, there would be a certain incongruity in offering her half his fortune, and she would probably resent such a step. He could offer it anonymously, but even in such case it would be quite possible that she might think it right to decline acceptance, and Mrs. Churchill would reasonably consider Adèle and any children she might have wronged by the proceeding. Arthur, in fact, had wandered into a maze whence there really seemed to be no exit. His only hope was to see Margaret again. One more glimpse of her fair face might do more toward unravelling the mystery than hours of lonely pondering. This, then, it was, rather more than love of art, that led him to haunt the picture-galleries, and especially the one where he had first seen her.
But if it were this that led him, something else kept him. Wandering hither and thither by these trophies of mind, with this new earnestness in his spirit, he began to feel in them a power unsuspected in his former languid visits. They represented work, conflict, triumph. Each picture had its history, into each were wrought the mingled threads of human experience. In the dim glory that shone from one or two of these transcripts of Nature Arthur read the struggle of soul to express itself worthily, and his young spirit was stirred within him.
In the loving detail, all beautiful of its kind, with which the artist surrounded the fair queen of his homage, he saw the earnestness of genius, and bowing his head he worshipped in the great temple of Humanity.
The young man's thoughts began to run, not on his own elegance and superiority, but on the great problems of Nature and Art. Self was removed from its lofty pedestal. What the fair woman's face had begun human genius carried on. Arthur Forrest was changed.
CHAPTER VII.
A CUNNING TEMPTER.
Thou art woman;
And that is saying the best and worst of thee.
Margaret's business in London was over. The more she thought about her visit to Mr. Robinson, the more certain she felt that her affairs were in capable hands, and that her money difficulties would very soon disappear.
She wrote, therefore, to Mrs. Augustus Brown, declining the honor of becoming a member of her household.
That lady was considerably annoyed at first. Afterward she consoled herself by the reflection that her own presence of mind had saved her sweet innocents from a terrible danger. It was only too evident, she remarked to the passive Brown, that Mrs. Grey's antecedents would not bear looking into. It was a fresh instance of the danger to which the inexperienced were subjected in London. Had she not been very watchful she might have been misguided by that woman's remarkable appearance.
Mr. Augustus pricked up his ears at this.
"In what way was she remarkable, my love?" he blandly inquired.
To which civil question Mrs. Brown, recalling her former uneasiness, only replied by shaking her fat shoulders and descanting volubly on the fruitful theme of male curiosity.
It is highly probable that Margaret had a happy escape, in spite of "salary no object, and masters for every branch."
As soon as the letter had been despatched she began to think of home and Laura, and to lay her plans for return. But, first, various articles of wearing apparel would have to be procured, for Margaret was not at all fond of shabbiness for its own sake, and her little girl's wardrobe was, she knew, sadly in need of replenishment.
So she put off her departure for a day or two, that this business, so much more pleasing than what had hitherto been occupying her, might be satisfactorily accomplished. Between shopping and needlewomen the next few days passed by with considerable rapidity and far more brightness of spirit; and then Margaret thought that before leaving London she might pay a farewell visit to the pictures, and, especially, to the one which had so powerfully attracted her.
Dressing herself with far more care than on the previous occasion—for the black stuff was replaced by silk, and over it the rich Indian scarf, for which Margaret seemed to cherish a peculiar affection, looked more in keeping—she started on a bright afternoon in an omnibus that took her to the very door of the Exhibition.
For this once Margaret wished to enjoy without fatigue. And she certainly did enjoy. Coming from the brightness and life of the May day into the cool shade of the galleries (it was too early in the day for the fashionable crowd), with the wealth of coloring and suggestive beauty on every side, nothing to do but to wander from one gem of art to the other,—all this was really delightful to Margaret. It was easy work at first, but as the day wore on the usual crowds began to pour into the galleries, and moving about became somewhat more difficult.
Margaret was there to see the pictures and refresh herself with their beauty. She did not, therefore, pay much attention to the many who were coming and going, and was in consequence perfectly unconscious of the notice she herself attracted; for many who caught a glimpse of her fair face in passing turned instinctively and looked again. There was one who admired her specially.
He was a little sandy-haired individual who had been wandering about rather disconsolately with his wife. Having at last been able to escort her to a seat, he was venturing to look round when he caught sight of Margaret Grey. It was a happy moment. She was looking up at one of Millais' suggestive pieces; the full appreciation of its meaning gave a certain spirituality to her face, and her lips were parted in a smile of calm enjoyment.
He was struck dumb with astonishment. Had it not been for the presence of his wife and a snub-nosed olive-branch he would have improved the occasion by trying to find out something about this new beauty.
As it was, he turned away his eyes from beholding vanity, and looked down on the opposite virtue, his wife, whose eyes, strange to say, were beholding vanity too. With the assistance of her eye-glasses they were scanning the object that had previously attracted the attention of her lord.
The heart of the sandy-haired throbbed with unusual excitement, but (oh the treachery of the male sex!) he smothered excitement under an appearance of utter indifference.
"Do you know that lady, my love?" he inquired in his blandest tones.
"Lady, indeed!" replied Mrs. Brown, for the moment forgetting her prudence in her indignation. "It's Mrs. Grey, who was to have been my children's governess, Mr. Brown. Now I hope you see!"
Mr. Augustus did not precisely see, but for the sake of peace and quietness he professed to be very much enlightened, and proceeded with a man's temerity to make some other trifling observation about the pseudo-governess.
He met with a smart rebuke for his pains, and then Mrs. Brown, feeling no doubt that the locality was dangerous, requested that her carriage should be found.
When the unhappy Brown returned dutifully to escort her to where it was in waiting for its dainty burden the vision of female loveliness had vanished, and though he paid more visits to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy than he had ever done before, the vision never returned. Alas, the cruelty of human nature as exemplified by watchful wives!
Margaret did not know what mischief she was causing. She had found her way to the little sea-piece which had already spoken so powerfully to her imagination. And there it was that at last Arthur Forrest's eyes were gladdened once more with a sight of the face that had haunted him.
He was standing near the entrance of the room, lost in the crowd, which was every moment increasing, when she passed by him so closely that her silk dress touched him. He had been watching for her daily, but at the fateful moment her appearance took him by surprise.
He had formed plans without number for addressing her, without showing himself obtrusive or inquisitive. The very words of polite inquiry after her health, the manner in which, by courtesy and chivalrous deference, all her fears would be set at rest, had been rehearsed again and again in colloquy between himself and a Margaret evoked by his dream; but when the moment had come, when the real Margaret was near, all his plans vanished like mists before the sun—he was bashful and timid as a young débutante. Instead of emerging from the crowd which seemed to swallow up his identity and claiming acquaintance with her, he drew farther back into its friendly shelter. He could not address her yet, he said to himself; he must seize the opportunity of gazing once more on her fair face.
He saw her walk quietly through the gallery and pause near one of the seats, the scene of their memorable rencontre only a few days previously. It was full, so she stood beside it, gazing with dreamy pleasure at the picture of the westering sea.
She looked at the picture, and Arthur in his safe retirement looked at her; indeed, he was so absorbed in the contemplation that it needed a very smart tap on the shoulder from a gentleman who had come up behind him, and who had already addressed one or two remarks to him utterly in vain, to awake him to a sense of things as they were, and to the consciousness of the existence of some few people in the world besides himself and Margaret Grey.
As he looked round he reddened with annoyance, and yet Captain Mordaunt, the gentleman who had broken in upon his reverie, was a man with whom most young men liked to be seen. Not that he was particularly attractive, for his hair was turning gray, his face was blotchy, his neck red and long, and his nose beginning to take the hue of the purple grape. Then, too, his manner was apt to be snappish and sarcastic, especially to young men. But what was all this when it was a certain fact that he knew, as they would have said, "an awful lot;" that he was the fashion; that he counted his intrigues by the hundred? Indeed it was whispered, and not without foundation, some said, that not only actresses and inferior people of that description were concerned in them; the names of ladies of high rank had been associated with that of Alfred Mordaunt. But this of course may have been only rumor, for rumor is thousand-tongued and not particularly charitable. In any case, the gallant captain did not seem to care to deny the soft imputations. He considered it his chief mission in life to be a lady-killer.
Arthur was not above the weaknesses of his day and generation; he had often courted Captain Mordaunt in the past. The past! How soon those few days had become the past, the great blank of existence, when he had lived without having seen her!
What annoyed Arthur so particularly was this. He saw in a moment that he had betrayed his secret by his own folly—that Captain Mordaunt, the last person in the world to whom he would have spoken of his romantic devotion, had traced the direction of his glance, and with eye-glass fixed was taking a look on his own account. The look was followed by another tap, a congratulatory one, on Arthur's shoulder. "By Jove, Master Arthur! you have taste! The finest woman I've seen for some time, 'pon my solemn word and honor! And beauties are something in my line too. Not of the pink-and-white sort either, that generally goes down with you young fellows. There's refinement, intelligence, and what d'you call it, that painters make a fuss about, in that face."
His comments sent the indignant blood to the very roots of young Arthur's hair. He made an heroic effort at indifference. "I am really at a loss to understand you, Captain Mordaunt," he stammered.
The gallant captain laughed, holding his sides as if the merriment overpowered him utterly.
"Very good! Very good!" he cried between the paroxysms. "Sly boy! Didn't know you were so deep. Want to keep all to yourself, eh? I'll warrant the fair cousin knows nothing."
The color faded from Arthur's face, but there came a dangerous light into his eyes. "I wish you would keep your remarks and your ill-timed jokes to yourself, Captain Mordaunt," he said sullenly.
The captain looked astonished, and whistled softly for a moment. "Gently, gently, young spitfire!" he said lightly. "But come, who is she? Let an old friend into the secret. Why, I declare, ——" (mentioning a lady of more repute for beauty than character) "couldn't hold a candle to her."
This was almost too much for Arthur. He turned round with flashing eyes, and there was a subdued force in his voice as he answered, using the first rash words that came to his lips, "How dare you speak of her in such a connection? I am a younger man than you, but, by Heaven! if you should repeat such an insult I could strike you down where you stand."
The captain laughed again, with a trifle of uneasiness this time, and he turned a little pale. Rumor said that he was a coward, but probably his fear in the present instance was of a row in this public place. However that might be, he certainly took Arthur's challenge rather coolly. "Calm yourself, young man," he said more seriously than he had yet spoken. "I scarcely knew I was treading on such dangerous ground, and certainly could not mean to insult any friend of yours. You know this lady, I presume, since you are so hot in her defence?"
Again Arthur blushed. What a fool he felt himself! Captain Mordaunt in this mood was less easy to escape than in his former one. "I know her," he answered after a pause, "only very slightly."
"Very slightly, I imagine so," replied the other satirically. "It is not the first time I have seen her, though," he added sotto voce.
Arthur was all attention in a moment: "Where have you met her, Captain Mordaunt?"
"Oh, that is my secret. We can all be close when it suits our turn. A word in your ear, young man. Ultra modesty, faith in the immaculate—you take me?—never goes down with women. I know something of them, and they're all alike. There! don't look indignant. Follow up your advantage, if you've gained any, and before long you may find out that I am right, and thank me for the hint."
Margaret had found a place at last on the crimson seat. As the last words were spoken she was leaning forward, her head resting on one of her hands, from which she had taken the glove. There was marvellous grace in her position. The long white fingers, the flushed cheek, the dark weary eyes and the slender bowed form made such a picture as few could have looked upon unmoved.
Captain Mordaunt, whose eyes had never stirred from her face, smiled softly (a smile that made Arthur writhe mentally), and clapped his thumb-nails together as though he had been applauding some favorite actress.
"Bravo!" he said in a low tone to his companion: "there's a pose for you—knows she's being admired. Bless you, lad! it's women's way; and so innocent all the time, the pretty pets! By ——, I'd like awfully to follow this up on my own account. But," and he gave a deep sigh, "I've too many on hand already—won't do. Like the Yankee, I shall be 'crowded out.' I leave the field clear for a younger knight. By-bye, old fellow—best wishes. I must be off—was due at Lady ——'s an hour ago."
In another moment he was gone, but before he left the hall he turned and looked at his young companion, and as he looked his lips curled. Arthur did not see him, nor did he hear his muttered comment: "Poor fool! he'll have his wings singed for him, but serve him right for his impertinence. Knock me down, indeed!"
In Arthur's mind very different thoughts and feelings were struggling for ascendency. Indignation, disgust, loathing of this world-sated man and his wisdom—these the better side of his nature prompted, rejecting with spiritual insight the unholy poison; but there was a lurking demon within him, the ego Arthur had been striving to trample upon, and to it all this was sympathetic.
Perhaps, after all, Captain Mordaunt was right. Chivalry and its attendant virtues belonged rather to the region of the imagination than to the matter-of-fact life of humanity. It was the way of the world for men to amuse themselves while they could. It had been Captain Mordaunt's way, and what a pleasant life he led! Petted, caressed, flattered, at home in some of the noblest mansions in England, his word law in all matters of etiquette, grand ladies considering it an honor to entertain him. He had not gained this position by squeamishness: that point he allowed every one to know.
Arthur's heart told him that all this was false—that whatever or whoever the light loves of Captain Mordaunt might have been, the lady whom he admired was pure, true, unconscious of evil. He felt instinctively, with the insight lively sympathy often gives to the young, that to take advantage in any way of her lonely position would be to shut himself out from the place he had been so happy as to gain in her kindly remembrance, and to preclude himself from all hope of rendering her any further assistance in the future.
But the demon of self is strong, and the voice of the heart when opposed to it is weak. The pathetic voice of Arthur's heart was soon silenced by the echo which self-love gave to Captain Mordaunt's words of falsest wisdom. He looked at his fair ideal, but his feelings had changed. The animal within him was loudly asserting its right to be heard; the self-indulgent nature, which a life of luxury had fostered, persuaded itself easily that all was right, and his fair woman only as others. Cherishing such feelings, he could not look calmly on her face. With a new fire in his veins he turned away to wait outside the building until Margaret should make her appearance.
The waiting seemed long, but it did not cool his ardor or recall his former wisdom. Backward and forward he paced, up and down, with careful observation of all who left the building, until at last he began to fear either that he had suffered her to escape him, and thus lost all chance of finding out more about her—this was the vague way in which his plans were laid—or that something had delayed her, another fainting-fit perhaps. The bare idea maddened him; he put his hand to his head, he felt dizzy; this was very different from his nonchalant waiting for Adèle a few days previously, even from that daily hope—calm through all its earnestness—of looking once more on the face of his ideal.
That fatal tree! How many young souls are lost by the passionate craving for its fruit! The man of the world had held its beautiful poison to the young man's lips, and he could not tell that beneath the glory lay dust and ashes.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
ARTHUR FALLS INTO THE SNARE.
Let me not think I have thought too well of thee.
Be as thou wast.
She came out at last. Arthur saw her, and began with feverish anxiety to trace every line of her face and form. Her veil was thrown back, he noticed that, and even while he did so hated himself for his suspicion. "She knows her beauty," said the false self within him; "it will not be difficult to show her that others know it too."
But he noticed something more, something that aroused the warm sympathies of his nature: the face that a few moments ago had glowed with excitement was very pale, and the sweet lips were quivering slightly—it might be with fatigue, it might be with nervousness. A woman feels so lonely in great London, and loneliness in a crowd is the bitterest kind of loneliness to a sensitive nature.
In a very few moments Arthur's measures were taken. Waiting until she had passed on her way, he hailed a hansom, shouted out to the driver the address of the shabby street which he had visited with his cousin a few days previously, and was presently on his way to Margaret's temporary home.
With what view? She had requested him expressly not to follow up the acquaintanceship—she was living by herself in close retirement. She might very probably be offended at his visit.
Arthur was young and impulsive: he said nothing of all this to himself, or rather, with Captain Mordaunt's hateful hints in his mind, he persuaded himself that it would be only too easy to gain her forgiveness for his disobedience. As he was whirled along through the streets the young man's heart throbbed. Be it remembered that he was inexperienced in the world's ways, and had lived up to this time under strict petticoat-government. The very breaking free was exhilarating to his senses—so much so, indeed, that he did not even stop to reflect on the course he should pursue when, as he hoped and trusted, he would meet her face to face.
And Margaret in the mean time, knowing nothing of the temporary madness her face had caused, was making her way as quickly as she could through the throng and bustle of London to her lodgings in Islington.
Arthur had purposely delayed, and she arrived at the house before him. As the hansom dashed into the street, the young man caught a glimpse of her black dress disappearing behind one of the dingiest doors.
Now first he began to tremble a little at the thought of his own impulsive folly. He stood irresolute; he half made up his mind to return at once. But the voice of the tempter, "I know something of women, and they're all alike," rang in his ear.
"I will at least try," said the foolish young man to himself, and with a certain tremor at his heart he rang the door-bell.
The dirty maid-servant looked at him in astonishment. Mrs. Grey had received some distinguished visitors, notably the brilliant owner of the yellow chariot, but as yet no handsome, fashionably-dressed young gentleman had presented himself.
Margaret, as we know, had only one sitting-room. Judging from the elegance of his appearance that this visitor would be surely welcome, the girl took upon herself, without waiting for Mrs. Grey's permission, to usher the young gentleman into the dingy parlor.
Margaret was seated there. She had thrown off her bonnet, and smiling half pleasantly, half sadly, was examining a little frock, which had just been sent home by the dressmaker she employed.
Instinctively, Arthur paused on the threshold. This rapid crowning of his hopes was so unexpected as almost to take his breath away. But looking at her he dared not presume. There was in the solitary woman's face at the moment that beautiful mother-look, that calm Madonna tenderness, which makes the human charm of Raphael's divine conceptions of the Virgin. Feeling that he had been presumptuous and vain, Arthur would fain have turned and fled from this calm woman's presence, but now it was too late.
The opening of the door had disturbed Margaret's dream. She turned round, the tender mother-look changed into utter astonishment. Poor Arthur! She did not even seem to know him. Certainly, the room was rather dark, and his appearance had taken her completely by surprise; still, this swift forgetfulness was a terrible blow to his youthful vanity.
Scarcely knowing what to do with himself or how to account for his visit, he advanced, awkwardly enough, into the little dull room, and Margaret rose from her seat. To the excited imagination of the young man the lonely, shabby woman had passed suddenly into a stately queen of society.
As if awaiting his explanation she stood, but now his lips were sealed, his fine phrases deserted him, he could not stammer out a word of explanation.
It was Margaret who broke the embarrassing silence: "Sir, to what do I owe—"
He broke her short: "Mrs. Grey, you are cruel. Surely you must remember, you must know, I mean—understand—the interest, the enthusiasm—"
She was looking at him fixedly as he spoke, and at last his confusion became so overpowering that he stopped short. Then he could have bit out his tongue for his audacity, for the astonishment in her face was replaced by a keen and bitter pain.
"I remember you now," she said very slowly. "Yes, you are the young gentleman who some few days ago received the fervent thanks of a lonely woman for his chivalrous kindness."
The red blood mounted to Arthur's cheek. Unable longer to bear the gaze of those mournful eyes, he threw himself down on the nearest chair and covered his face with his hands.
"You did not understand me then," she continued very sadly; "you thought that—"
"Stop, for pity's sake, stop!" cried the young man, lifting up an agitated face. "I know all you would say. I am a weak, miserable fool, not worthy of having even been allowed to assist you; but if you only knew."
His penitence seemed to subdue her indignation. "Foolish boy!" she said with one of her rarely beautiful smiles. "I know perfectly well, and therefore it is that I forgive this impertinence. A little experience of the world will teach you your mistake. Three days ago I read in your young frank face that you judged me rightly, and I thanked you in my heart. I will not retract the judgment I formed of you then; but remember, what you have done is foolish and ought never to be repeated."
"I know it—I know it," moaned Arthur; "but may I never see you again? Ah! if by any service, however hard, I could make you happier than you are!"
She put out her hand, smiling kindly into his earnest face: "The best service you can render me now is to shake hands and say good-bye. As I said to you before, we move in different worlds. You will soon forget this infatuation, or only remember it as a warning against taking any advantage, however slight, of an unprotected woman. In that case I shall have rendered you a service."
Where was Captain Mordaunt's wisdom? Banished by a few words from a weak but noble woman. Happy for Arthur that the fair face hid a fairer soul! The poison was drawn out of his heart, and youth's own chivalry took its right place in his nature.
Bowing low over the offered hand, he answered in a broken voice, "I obey you, and I thank you. I cannot promise to forget, but from this time all my thoughts of you shall be tinged by the deep respect which is your due."
[CHAPTER IX.]
ARTHUR'S SECRET.
And I loved her—loved her, certes,
As I loved all heavenly objects, with uplifted eyes and hands—
As I loved pure inspiration, loved the Graces, loved the Virtues,
In a love content with writing his own name on desert sands.
A luxurious drawing-room, furnished with all the taste and elegance that money can command; flowers here, there and everywhere—flowers in the deep recesses of lace-veiled windows, flowers on the multitude of tables that stood in every corner, flowers—and these the sweetest of them all—in the lap of a young fair-haired girl who filled a corner of one of the sofas.
She was paying no great attention to the flowers, only bathing one of her hands in them from time to time, as though to refresh herself with their cool fragrance. The other hand, her eyes and her whole soul appeared to be given to the book she held, an elegant little volume bound in fawn-colored calfskin.
She was so deeply engrossed that she did not hear the door open, and her cousin had time to cross the long room, sit down by her side and take possession of the hand that was trifling with the flowers before she was aware of his presence.
Then she looked up, blushed charmingly and closed her book: "Arthur dear, how delightful! I began to think you were never coming near us again, and I wanted particularly to speak to you about something that has been in my head ever since our visit to the Academy."
"Four days!" answered Arthur, languidly, throwing himself back on the sofa—"an enormous time, as young ladies would say, for one subject to engross them, especially in this age of progress."
"I suppose it would be absurd to imagine that you even remember, Master Arthur," replied Adèle, quite equal to the occasion—"boys, as mamma always says, are so volatile."
"Boys!" Arthur shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "You are very polite to-day, Adèle."
There was a shade of annoyance in his voice, which made Adèle look up at him, for she was a kind little lady who never carried her jokes too far. The result of the look was a rapid movement from her side of the sofa to Arthur's, and an earnest inquiry: "Arthur dear, something is wrong with you, you must surely be ill."
For Arthur's face was pale, and there was a wan, anxious contraction on his broad white brow.
His only answer was a faint smile. Then, after a pause, "You were reading, Adèle. Oh!" lifting the book from the small reading-table that stood conveniently near the sofa, "The Faërie Queene. I thought it would be something of the kind. Read some of it aloud, like a good girl; I'm too done up with this hot weather to talk just now."
"Poor old fellow!" Adèle smoothed back his curly hair and imprinted a kiss, that did not seem to excite her cousin particularly, between his temples. "Your forehead is so hot, dear, let me bathe it with eau-de-cologne for you."
She opened a little bottle of richly-cut, ruby-colored glass, and pouring some of its sweet contents on her handkerchief pressed it again and again to his brow, Arthur submitting with the delicate grace of an invalid.
"There," he said at last, "that'll do, dear; you can read now."
And the obedient Adèle, having first carefully lowered one of the Venetian blinds that no glare might offend her cousin's eyes, proceeded to read her favorite book in a soft, measured cadence that suited it admirably. There was no stumbling over the old English words. Adèle was so thoroughly acquainted with the style that the quaint language came naturally from her lips, even with a kind of delicate grace. Love had given her the art, for she loved, more than any book she had ever read, this dreamy, old-world poem, with its fair women, its armed knights, its dragons and its myths. Perhaps the force of contrast made these things specially dear to the young girl's soul, for there was not much romance in the fashionable life her mother taught her to think the best and wisest of all lives for a nineteenth-century young lady to lead.
Her voice sounded like the echo of a dream in the wide room, and she herself, in her light summer dress, might well have answered to the description of one of the fair "maydes" whose woes and joys the gentle poet of another age has illumined with his silvery pen, while Arthur, as he rested on the sofa in an attitude of careless grace, his dark, lazy-looking eyes half closed, his head thrown back upon the cushions, might have been one of the brave young knights refreshing himself in his lady's bower after some terrible encounter with the many-headed, many-handed monster from whom it was his grand mission to free humanity in general, fair womankind in particular.
But the afternoon wore away. Adèle had just finished the account of a mighty encounter between Arthur of the magic sword and three unknightly knights who had attacked him together.
It had apparently aroused Arthur, for he rose suddenly and stood by her side, looking down upon her with a certain earnestness.
"Shut the book for the present, Adèle," he said, "I am ready to talk now; it has awoke me."
"What has awoke you, dear?"
"Your favorite poet, I suppose, my little cousin; but come, what were you so anxious to say to me when I came in just now?"
"Oh, Arthur, you cannot surely have forgotten. I wanted to speak to you about that beautiful fainting lady in the Academy."
"Perhaps I have not forgotten, Adèle." Arthur turned away from his cousin as he spoke, for he did not wish her to see the sudden flush which not all the proud consciousness of manhood and superiority had been strong enough to restrain.
"Well," he continued after a pause, as his cousin remained thoughtfully silent, "I do remember; but what of her?"
"I have been thinking of her, Arthur." Adèle's eyes looked sorrowful. "And whenever I think of her I remember those miserable houses, the shabby black dress and the quiet sadness in her face. Oh, Arthur, do you think it would be possible to help her in any way?"
"For you it might be," said Arthur with an appearance of sudden interest. "Unfortunately," he added bitterly, "women have the habit of looking upon any attempt at friendliness in one of the opposite sex as a species of insult."
This was rather too much for Adèle. With every respect for her cousin and fiancé, he was still too young, in her estimation, to be capable of exciting indignation in the breast of any woman. She laughed merrily: "I like your vanity, sir. As if any one could be insulted with you! You would have to pin on a false moustache, draw your hat over your brows to hide those ingenuous-looking eyes of yours, and button an enormous rough great coat up to your chin, before any one—any stranger, I mean—could imagine you even grown up. Why I look ages older than you!"
Adèle got up and looked at herself in the mirror.
"Yes, ages!" she repeated, with provoking emphasis and in eager expectation of a delightful torrent of self-vindication from her cousin. They often indulged in this kind of wordy war, and Adèle's feminine volubility and quickness of wit generally gave her the advantage.
No answer came from Arthur to the rash challenge. He was standing behind her, not looking into the mirror, but, as though utterly unconscious of her light words, gazing away into vacancy. Adèle caught sight of his face in the mirror, and a sudden silence seized her, for even as she spoke she saw that in her young cousin's face which warned her he was a boy no longer.
He had drawn himself up to his full height, and stood seemingly rapt in earnest thought, for his brows were slightly contracted, and his ingenuous-looking eyes had taken a deep, fixed look that strangely moved his cousin. With the quickness of a woman's insight she saw that her jest had been ill-timed, that a certain indescribable change, perhaps that for which she had hoped and longed, had come to the beautiful boy whom she had loved and caressed with almost maternal tenderness, for manhood's strength of purpose was written on his face. Her first feeling was a sense of foreboding. If Arthur was indeed changed, would he be changed to her?
The next was a determination, strong as the womanhood which with her love the young girl had put on early, to share his secret, whatever it might be.
She was too young and too inexperienced to understand all that this change, which she certainly felt, might mean; she could not reason about the new earnestness, nor trace it to any cause which he might think it well to hide, for Adèle was eminently generous and unsuspicious. She was accustomed to her cousin's light, boyish affection, and did not expect him to be a passionate lover; she was therefore ready with all her soul to rejoice in anything that would make him less frivolous, less absorbed in self and the mere enjoyment of life.
For a few moments she stood silently at the mirror, looking into it, but looking absently, for her mind was engaged in the problem of how to approach him, how to gain his confidence at this time which the young girl instinctively felt to be critical in her cousin's history. If he had ambitious dreams, was it not right that she should share them? She had always been his confidante; the bare idea, indeed, of being shut out from any of Arthur's secrets gave Adèle keen pain.
Deciding at last that frankness was her best policy, she turned to her cousin and putting both hands on his shoulders looked earnestly into his eyes. "Arthur," she said with a slight tremor in her voice, "what are you thinking about? Tell me."
He might have been called from a distant land, so great was the interval that separated his mind from hers at that moment, and at first he seemed even to have difficulty in recalling his scattered ideas.
She repeated the question, with an added earnestness that lent pathos to her voice.
Then he looked down upon her:
"Why do you wish so much to know, Adèle?"
"Oh, Arthur, how can you ask?" Her voice trembled, she was very near tears. "Dear," she continued in a lower voice, taking his hand in hers, "if I thought you had one corner in your heart of which I knew nothing, I scarcely know what I should do. 'Trust me all in all,' Arthur. I say it in all sincerity." She smiled faintly. "I promise not to be like that naughty Vivien, wrapping you up in spells, even if—if you should have any secret—"
"That would pain you very much to know, little cousin."
Adèle looked up bravely: "I should prefer to know it, Arthur—indeed I should; I think, dear—I think—I could put myself out of the question altogether, and help you as a sister might."
He did not notice the tremulousness, the slight choking of voice with which her brave little sentence ended.
"I wish with all my heart that you were my sister, Adèle: then I could tell you without any hesitation."
Adèle turned a little pale: "I am your sister, Arthur. Tell me."
He looked down upon her kindly: "I will tell you, Adèle, for in these matters I believe frankness to be the best policy; and, after all, it may be only a dream. I was thinking of Margaret Grey."
[CHAPTER X.]
HOW ADÈLE RECEIVES THE DISCLOSURE.
The woman who loves should indeed
Be the friend of the man that she loves. She should heed
Not her selfish and often mistaken desires,
But his interest whose fate her own interest inspires.
And this, then, was the awakening? Like almost every thing in this wayward world of ours, it scarcely chimed in with the ideas and plans that had been formed concerning it.
Adèle had often mourned her cousin's frivolity, but she was young and hopeful. He was only a boy, she had told herself. Some of the great things in the world—its art, its literature, its science, the grand sphere of politics or the grander field of benevolence—would sooner or later throw chains about his spirit, so that, following where it led, he too, with herself perhaps as a twin attendant star, like the "Laon and Laone" of Shelley, might take a place in the poet's divine temple of genius, and live a life not utterly in vain in its influences on humanity.
She had even thought to arouse him herself, that by love he might rise, as others had done before him, to something higher than the fashionable life of self-pleasing. But of this she had never thought—that love indeed, but the love of another woman, should be the motive-power rousing his soul to earnestness. For she could not be mistaken. The change that had come to him—which change, she could not but remember as she cast her thoughts over the past few days, had dated from that memorable afternoon at the Academy—the impressive way in which he had told her of his thought, the quiet earnestness of his manner, all tended to the revelation of a fact—one that she would have put away indignantly had she not been forced to look it in the face. Arthur was in love, and not with her.
The beautiful woman whom in her youthful enthusiasm she had admired—loved even for her very loveliness—had won her cousin's heart. He loved Margaret Grey as he had never loved her, his cousin, the friend of his youth and childhood: with her he had remained a boy; her beautiful rival had roused the dormant fire within him, and suddenly the boy had put on his manhood.
These were some of the thoughts that crowded bewilderingly on Adèle's brain as they sat together on the sofa—she and her cousin—with his strange confession between them. He was waiting to hear what she would say; she was for the first few moments unable to speak. On the table before them lay the forgotten volume of the Faërie Queene; at their feet, in sweet confusion, were the scattered flowers fallen from Adèle's lap. She sat perfectly still, her hands crossed and her eyes cast down; he looked at her with some earnestness, and perhaps a little surprise.
Arthur's affection for Adèle was of a calm, brotherly kind, and he had always imagined that she cared for him in very much the same manner.
Hitherto, indeed, he had not been in a position to gauge the heights and depths of that mysterious, volatile essence which young mortals dignify by the fair name of love. But now, with this new light in his own heart, he was better able to understand his cousin's, and in her downcast face he thought he read her secret.
It made him tender instantly. Young men and old men are alike in this. Whether loving or not themselves, they are pleased when they find out, by indubitable signs, that they have inspired the sentiment; and this knowledge makes them, for the moment, strangely gentle and sympathetic.
Arthur drew nearer to his cousin, and put his arm around her waist. To his surprise again, she pushed his arm gently aside.
"Not now, dear Arthur!" she said, in a soft, clear voice, lifting her blue eyes to his face; "I want you to tell me all about it."
"About what?" said Arthur, somewhat taken aback at the result of his impulsive frankness.
"Your love for Margaret Grey," she said gently, but not without a faint tremor in her voice.
"Did I say I loved her, Adèle?" It was Arthur's turn to speak with a trembling voice and flushed face, but these told his tale only too eloquently.
"Not in so many words," replied Adèle; "but, dear, you have revealed your secret, and I am glad. It was like yourself, Arthur—frank and true. I might have guessed it before, for she is beautiful as a dream, like the lady Una; and I can imagine so well how a man's heart would go out to that kind of sadness and helplessness. I wish I had been a man;" Adèle sighed as she spoke; "but, perhaps, as a woman I shall be able to help you more. Strange—isn't it?—I was thinking of her, her face haunted me so, and longing to find out more about her—all for her own sake; now I will do it for yours."
The words were spoken very quietly and with a certain determination, that Arthur found it very difficult to understand.
"But, Adèle," he stammered out, "you forget—"
"That you and I are betrothed in a kind of way—is that what you mean? Thank you for thinking of it; but I should be grieved for that to stand in your way." She smiled a rather watery smile. "I promised not to be like Vivien, so, rather than make a prison of my spells, I shall cast them all to the winds." Then, more gravely, "We were too young, Arthur—I told my mother so—too young to know our own minds, as people say—at least you were." Here Adèle stopped suddenly; she was on the point of betraying the secret which—brave little maiden!—she thought she had preserved so well. But her calmness had reassured Arthur.
"You are right, Adèle," he answered gravely—and for the moment, with the unreasoning impulse of womanhood, she hated him for his quick acquiescence—"we were both too young; we had seen too little of the world; and even now I scarcely know how we ought to act. Our engagement has been announced; then my aunt—"
Adèle smiled faintly: "It will be best to say nothing to mamma at present, nor to anybody; we can surely be what we have been to one another—brother and sister; we have never been more—we could not wish to be less."
There was a tinge of bitterness in Adèle's voice as she said the last words, but the ears of very young men, when not quickened by any stronger feeling than brotherly affection, are not swift to catch these slight intonations.
"You must let me be your friend and confidante, Arthur," she continued more gently; "I shall still like to be the first to know everything that nearly concerns you."
Her gentleness touched Arthur. He took one of her hands in his: "You shall always be what you are to me, Adèle—my dearest friend and counsellor. I shall come to you for advice and sympathy."
She rose, and stooping began to collect the fallen flowers—a pretext only, for the tears were beginning to force their way to her eyes, and she was determined to show no weakness in her cousin's presence.
"My poor flowers!" she said lightly, "they have been forgotten: go and fetch another vase from the breakfast-room, like a good old fellow. I have filled all here, and I want these up stairs."
By the time her cousin had returned with the vase Adèle was herself again. Grouping the flowers delicately, with clever fingers well accustomed to this kind of work, she began her gentle catechism: "Have you seen her again, Arthur?"
Perhaps it was a relief to him to unburden himself, to pour out to another the torrent of self-condemnation that had been oppressing him.
"Don't ask me, Adèle," he said, pacing the room excitedly. "I am a wretch—a fool—an idiot! I mistook her—think of it! I wonder will she ever be able to bear the sight of me again? I took the advice of a villain, who knows nothing whatever about women like her."
"What can you mean, Arthur?" broke in Adèle, whose flowers had fallen from her hands in her astonishment.
He did not seem to hear the interruption. "I did knowingly what I knew would offend her," he continued, clenching his fists and drawing his brows together, as though challenging himself for his misconduct.
Adèle sighed: "I wish you would explain yourself, dear."
"Explain myself!" Arthur came suddenly down from the heroic with a little laugh: "Ah, yes, by the bye, you don't know, and really it's not a very creditable story. Well—to make a clean breast of it—I went to the Academy yesterday. She was there, and I had the happiness of seeing her. She didn't see me, but while I was looking at her with feelings that you can imagine, Captain Mordaunt came up behind me."
"Not at all a good companion for you, dear," interrupted Adèle with the wise air of a little mother, but blushing, girl like, as she spoke, for Captain Mordaunt was an admirer of hers: he had once or twice seized a quiet opportunity of looking into her blue eyes in a way that offended as much as it bewildered her. "Please have nothing to do with him, Arthur," she continued pleadingly.
"Why, Adèle, what have you against Captain Mordaunt? I thought you had only met him once or twice."
"That once or twice was enough. He is one of those men who believe in nothing good, who seem to delight in the wickedness of the world. I always think such people must be particularly bad themselves. But it's no use reasoning about it. I dislike Captain Mordaunt."
"A case, in fact, of 'I do not like you, Doctor Fell,'" put in Arthur provokingly. "I shall send him to you when he wants a character, Adèle; but, do you know, amongst ladies your opinion would be considered rather singular? I certainly have never been able to see what they find to admire in him."
"Nor I, and I must say I pity their taste; he's ugly and conceited. But what did he say about her—Margaret Grey, I mean?"
Arthur's manner grew excited again: "What he said was not so bad as what he implied with his odious hints. I was idiot enough to listen to him, to believe him partially. I disobeyed her, Adèle, and called on her in that wretched place at Islington."
Adèle looked up bewildered: "But I can't see why that should offend her. Of course you were never properly introduced, but then the circumstances were peculiar, and she must have seen that we were tolerably respectable people."
"What a simple, innocent little girl you are, Adèle!" said Arthur rather grandly. "You see what I say is quite true—with all your romantic notions you know nothing whatever of the world. I can't very well explain, as you don't seem to understand; but, anyway, what I did was very stupid and wrong, and she showed me that in a moment. Oh, if I could tell you how she looked—so beautiful, so sad!"
The remembrance was overpowering. Arthur hid his burning face in both his hands, and Adèle was silent. To her pure young heart this passion, which an older and more experienced woman would certainly have laughed to scorn, was a sacred thing.
"She forgave me," he continued after a pause. "She said I would soon forget the infatuation."
There was a mournful incredulity in the boy's voice to which the young girl's heart responded. That he could ever forget the infatuation seemed, for the moment, as impossible to one cousin as to the other.
Neither of them spoke for some minutes, then Adèle raised to her cousin a face that was streaming with tears. "I can't help it, Arthur," she said simply, "and please don't think it's for myself. I have everything to make me happy. I was thinking of you and of her. You know they say women's wits are sharper than men's in these matters. I will try and help you in some way, for you must meet her again, dear; but just now everything seems confused. Mamma expects you to dinner, so you had better go home at once and dress. I can easily arrange for a quiet talk in the course of the evening, and then perhaps I shall have thought of some plan, for we must lose no time, as I know she is only staying temporarily in London."
She said it all in a broken way through the tears she could not keep back. He tried to kiss her then, but she slipped out of his arms.
Poor child! The aching at her heart was too great to be borne any longer. She finished her cry in her own room, but what she had said was true—it was not all for herself.
The beautiful lonely stranger and her cousin's passion, which her woman's insight told her was not very hopeful, had their share in causing her sorrow. She could not indulge long, however, in the luxury of tears. She too had to make her dinner-toilet, and that evening her mother was not the only person at the dinner-table who thought she looked even fairer than usual.
[CHAPTER XI.]
A FACE AT THE WINDOW.
Sympathy
Must call her in love's name, and then, I know,
She rises up and brightens as she should,
And lights her smile for comfort, and is slow
In nothing of high-hearted fortitude.
Adèle kept her word. She set her wits to work with such good effect that the next morning found her and her cousin in the carriage, under the conduct of the stately coachman, on their way to that unfashionable locality, the neighborhood of Islington.
They had started, presumably, on a shopping excursion, the delusion being maintained by two or three stoppages in Regent street, after which, by Arthur's direction, they drove to the vicinity of The Angel, where carriage and coachman were left in waiting, the remainder of the way being made on foot for the sake of the preservation of their secret.
It had been agreed between them that Adèle should pay a visit to Margaret, Arthur waiting for her at the entrance of the narrow street where she lodged. The object of her visit was in the present instance only to inquire after Mrs. Grey's health, to take a kindly interest in her welfare, and to try and persuade her to accept their offer of friendship: it had been decided between them that upon this occasion Arthur's name should not be mentioned. Adèle had taken upon herself the office of simply paving the way for further intercourse—of preventing Mrs. Grey from escaping them altogether. This, with her quiet tact and gentle sympathy, she did not despair of accomplishing, if fate would only be commonly propitious, for Adèle was really in earnest. Putting self out of the way, she had thrown herself heart and soul into her cousin's scheme, and all the more readily, it may be, from the affection which had arisen spontaneously in her own heart at the sight of Margaret's pure, calm beauty.
Adèle was only eighteen, and eighteen is an impressionable age, open not only to accesses of what is called the tender passion, but to feelings perhaps much tenderer and fairer, for the souls of the very young, especially among women, are keenly susceptible to the subtle influences of beauty and grace; it is not uncommon for a young girl to be deeply, jealously enamored of one of her own sex; to experience the delights, the tremors, the anxieties of love itself, and far more palpably than in any of the necessary flirtations that diversify her budding womanhood. Beauty is the embodiment of the young girl's dream, and beauty she finds more visibly in her own sex than in the other.
The first loving emotion of Milton's Eve was for the fair watery image that represented herself in all the radiant charms of female loveliness. It was only afterward that she discovered
"How beauty is excelled by manly grace,
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair."
Adèle was in this first stage, and Margaret seemed to her the living embodiment of all that had so often won and fascinated her in poetry and romance. The evident mystery that surrounded the fair stranger, her sadness, her lonely friendless position, all added to the spell.
The first emotion of wounded self-love over, Adèle ceased to wonder at Arthur's desertion, or even to grieve over it, and was ready to go through fire and water for their common divinity.
In spite of her grand resolutions, however, she felt rather nervous when, Arthur having been left at the top of the dull-looking row of houses, she stood alone on the doorstep of the one indicated by him, inquiring for Mrs. Grey.
Mrs. Grey was at home. The servant-girl threw open the door of the small sitting-room without previous warning, and showed Margaret herself on her knees before an obstinate trunk, which apparently refused to be fastened. At the sound of the opening door she rose in some embarrassment, looked at the card which the girl had thrust into her hand, and then at Adèle, who was standing, with some hesitation in her manner, on the threshold of the room. The card had been an enigma, but Adèle's pleasant girlish face solved it in a moment.
"Come in," she said warmly, going forward to meet her. "It is exceedingly kind of you to have thought of paying me a visit; but you find me in great disorder. Let me see," looking round the room; "I must try and find you an unoccupied chair."
"Forgive me," said Adèle with gentle courtesy. "I know it is too early for a call, but ever since we met the other day I have been so anxious to see you once more, and this is the only time in the day when I can manage to come so far."
She blushed as she spoke, and Margaret was too kind to add to her embarrassment by any expression of surprise at her unexpected visit. She smiled pleasantly, and sat down by her side. "I am only too delighted to see you, my dear Miss Churchill; my visitors are never numerous, and they do not always come on such pleasant errands as yours. You see I am preparing for flight; I can really stand London no longer."
Adèle's sympathetic eyes were fixed on Margaret's face. She gave a little sigh: "Yes, I am sure it must be very lonely for you, living all by yourself here."
"Sometimes it is, I must confess. In my present home, a seaside village, I know most of the country-people, and I have my little Laura to go about with me. Then (at least this is my feeling) the loneliness of the country is very different from the loneliness of towns."
"I can quite understand that," said Adèle earnestly, "although I have very little experience of loneliness of any kind. I sometimes wish, indeed, to have a little more time to myself. But I must not forget what specially brought me here to-day. My cousin and I have been very anxious about you, Mrs. Grey, for your fainting-fit lasted so long we feared it was the commencement of a serious illness."
Margaret smiled: "Thanks to your timely help, my dear Miss Churchill, I have felt no after ill effects whatever. I scarcely know how it might have been with me had I had to find my way home alone; but it all arose from my own stupidity. The time passed so rapidly in the picture-galleries that I forgot all about lunch. When I reached home I remembered that breakfast had been my only meal that day. My faintness must have been caused by want of food, so you see it was not very interesting after all."
She spoke the words lightly, but Adèle wondered with a sudden pang whether the want of food had anything to do with her poverty, for the interior of the shabby-looking house confirmed her worst fears. To put up with such a miserable place could be the result of nothing but dire necessity.
Her voice was very tender as she spoke again after a little pause, laying her hand affectionately on Margaret's arm and looking up earnestly into her pale, sad face: "Dear Mrs. Grey, you look very delicate, indeed you do; you should take more care of yourself."
Perhaps it was the sympathy that shone out of the young girl's glistening eyes, a human longing for something like this warm young love, that seemed to be offering itself so spontaneously, or a sudden sickness of the self-contained life she had been leading, for Adèle's gentle words and gestures broke the crust of calm reserve with which Margaret had striven to surround herself. "Ah, child," she said, tears in her eyes and in her voice, "it is for the young and happy to take care of themselves; their lives are precious. From mine too much of the sweetness has gone to make it worthy of preservation. How strange it is! I used to live and to enjoy life; now, even pleasures are like apples of Sodom—they turn to dust and ashes in my mouth. I feel inclined to write 'Vanity of vanities' upon everything." She smiled through her tears: "I should not speak of such things to you."
But tears, real, large, glistening tears, were in Adèle's eyes. "Why not?" she said impetuously. Then, after another pause, for though the young can give tears to sorrow, they are helpless very often to give words (if they only knew it, how much more eloquent those tears are than the after commonplaces with which the world teaches them to treat suffering!), "Oh, Mrs. Grey, I wish I could help you in some way. Will you let me be your friend?"
Margaret smiled: "You have done me good already, dear; your sympathy is very sweet, and especially, I think, to me, for it brings back to my mind a time when sympathy was never wanting. I had a friend once, but she has gone, like other beautiful things, out of my life."
"Tell me about her," said Adèle.
Margaret shook her head: "No, no; enough of miseries for one day. I scarcely know when I have talked so much about myself; and do you know I am the least bit in the world curious?"
"What about, Mrs. Grey?"
"I want you to tell me honestly what brought you here to-day."
Adèle blushed. "Please don't be vexed with me, or think that my visit was from idle curiosity. What I say is really true," her admiration shone out of her eyes as she spoke: "ever since I saw you in the Academy, your face has haunted me. You know one reads of those kinds of attraction. Have you any spells, Mrs. Grey? I could not rest, in fact, until I had seen you once more."
Margaret was sitting near the window, a faint smile, half of pleasure, half of surprise, on her lips as she listened to Adèle's impulsive words, but before she could frame an answer they both became aware by a sudden intuition—the effect of that inexplicable mesmeric power which the human eye possesses—that they were being watched. Instinctively they looked out. A tall, dark-looking man, somewhat of an élégant in his appearance, was leaning quietly on the small iron railings that skirted the area and kitchen steps. In this position his chin was on a level with the top of the muslin blind; he could have a full view of all that took place in the room.
He was availing himself without stint or scruple of the advantage.
[CHAPTER XII.]
FLIGHT.
Next a lover—with a dream
'Neath his waking eyelids hidden,
And a frequent sigh unbidden,
And an idlesse all the day,
And a silence that is made
Of a word he dares not say.
Adèle gave a little scream. She looked at Margaret. Her face had turned as pale as ashes. She had not generally much color, but this was no ordinary pallor: a gray, livid look seemed to spread itself gradually over her features till even her lips were blanched. For a moment she seemed to be stunned. Then she rose, apparently with difficulty, and leaning forward on the window-sash seized the blind to put it between themselves and the audacious watcher.
He did not wait for it to be drawn down. Turning slowly, he passed away down the quiet street, but before he did so, Adèle saw that his lips curled themselves into a mocking smile. Astonishment and a vague sense of alarm had rendered her helpless for the moment. When the blind was drawn down and the man had gone, she leapt to her feet and threw both her arms round Margaret's waist, for, leaning still as if for support against the window-sash, Adèle saw that her friend was tottering, and that in her widely-opened eyes there was a dazed, bewildered look. She drew her down gently to the nearest seat, then, kneeling by her side, rubbed one of her cold hands in both her own. "Mrs. Grey, what is it?" she cried almost piteously. "Can I do anything for you?"
Her voice seemed to arouse Margaret. She passed one of her hands over her forehead. "Was it a dream?" she said in a faint, low voice. "I thought I saw him; and I had vowed, sworn that he should never set eyes on me again; and he was smiling, I thought, a mocking, triumphant smile, such as—" Then suddenly she caught sight of the lowered blind: "Why did I draw down the blind? the sun is not on the street. Ah yes," with a heavy sigh, "I remember now. He was standing there—he has tracked me; but, thank God! I am not at home. I am in big, endless London. He shall find out no further; I will leave this place at once. Oh! Maurice, Maurice!"
It might have been the cry of a tormented spirit passed away for ever from hope and peace and joy. The misery of those last words was so deep and poignant that the young girl shuddered.
She could not speak: she knelt helpless by her friend's side, not even attempting consolation, while Margaret, covering her face with both hands, wept hot tears, that streamed through her fingers and on to Adèle's hand, which rested still upon her knees. And so they remained for a few moments—moments that seemed ages to poor Adèle; then, unable to bear it longer, she rose to her feet, and putting her arms round Margaret's neck kissed her on the brow. It was the impulsive movement of a helpless sympathy, a girl-like action. She could not help, but she could comfort.
Mrs. Grey had forgotten her presence. The touch aroused her. She looked up suddenly, and shaking off the flowing tears took the young girl's hands in hers. "Poor child!" she said gently, "it is too bad of me to frighten you like this. I fear I am very selfish and forgetful; but you know nothing—God grant you never may!—of miseries like mine. And now—will you think me ungrateful?—I fear I must ask you to leave me. It is necessary for me to go from here at once. And yet," she continued meditatively, "if you could stay till the last; he might return—"
"I shall not think of leaving you till I see you out of this place, Mrs. Grey," said Adèle authoritatively. "Listen," she continued, more rapidly; "I can arrange it all. I told you before of my talent for management, and now it has all come into my head quite suddenly. Ah, I should have made a first-rate diplomatist. You want to escape this rude man, and no wonder. If you do as I say we shall be off in a quarter of an hour. Leave your boxes with their address; I can see to their being sent after you. I see they are nearly packed. My cousin is at the end of the street waiting for me; he will fetch the carriage, which is only a few yards distant, and we can drive you to any station you like to mention. There you can take a ticket—not, if you like, to your own village, but to some place at no great distance, in case this man should follow us, and to-morrow you can go on to your own home."
There was something enlivening in Adèle's energy. Margaret's face brightened, she wiped away the remaining tears, and turning aside renewed the struggle which Adèle's entrance had interrupted with the obstinate trunk.
"Your plan would be perfection but for one thing," she said with the quiet dignity which had characterized her before this excitement had come. "My dear Miss Churchill, forgive me, you are young. I am a total stranger to you. Your mother, your friends—would they not be displeased? Is it right for you to do this?"
"It is, it is," said Adèle eagerly; "indeed, dear Mrs. Grey, mamma allows me to go everywhere with Arthur. She has full confidence in him."
"And Arthur?"
"Is my cousin. You saw him the other day. He is waiting for me now." In spite of herself Adèle blushed as she spoke.
Margaret looked at her in some surprise, but the ingenuous young face told its own tale. In her turn she was filled with admiration and love. She held out her hand. "Thank you," she said. That was all for a moment, as the tears were ready to flow; then after a pause, "What you have seen to-day will tell you more eloquently than I could that neither you nor your friends need have any fear on my account. If Arthur should become unmanageable at any future time, send him to me; I promise to cure him. And now, dear, I suppose we must be setting to work; I will accept your kind offer: it seems, after all, the best course to pursue."
It was done without the slightest awkwardness.
Margaret might have been a queen accepting a favor from one of her courtiers, and it was in this light that Adèle thought of the service she was rendering to her friend, for Margaret was, in her young, inexperienced eyes, a very queen by means of her beauty and charm. And then they set themselves to work without further delay. In a very few moments Margaret's hasty toilette was complete—a black shawl, the little close bonnet, a crape veil, the bright Indian scarf, from which she did not seem to care to separate herself, a tiny morocco-leather case, which might contain valuables of some kind, and a carpet-bag, which by Adèle's aid had been hastily filled with a few necessaries,—these were all; then the boxes were locked and labelled, the landlady's account was settled, and orders given to her to keep the boxes until they should be called for, Adèle promising that Arthur should perform this little service. It did not take very long. Adèle had scarcely been half an hour in the house when they left it together, Margaret closely veiled and not venturing to look around, Adèle gazing right and left to assure herself that they were not followed. Not a person was in sight on either side of the way, and she breathed more freely.
Arthur meanwhile had been pacing the thoroughfare upon which the street in which Mrs. Grey had been lodging opened out. He was not very impatient, for his head had been full of Margaret; he had been forming and reforming, always unsuccessfully to himself, her image in his brain, and dreaming all kinds of mad dreams about the services he would render her in the future, and the sweet returns of love and gratitude he might be blest enough to gain. Adèle's concurrence in his plans was, he felt, a grand step in the right direction; thenceforth everything would go swimmingly, for it was not possible that she could set aside Adèle's offered friendship—indeed, the very length of time that was elapsing was a favorable sign.
But, not even in his wildest dreams, had he imagined that he should see her again that very day, that the means of doing her a service would immediately be put into his hands; when, therefore, he saw two ladies instead of one emerging from —— street, he was beyond measure astonished.
They stopped to let him reach them, and, rather embarrassed through all his delight, he offered his greeting to Margaret Grey. She was herself calm and quiet, only the heightened color in her beautiful face betraying in any way a sign of her recent emotion.
Adèle was by far the more excited of the two. "Fetch the carriage, Arthur," she said, "as quickly as ever you can. We shall follow slowly to the place where we left it; you can come back with it to meet us. Don't stop to ask why, like a good old fellow. There's no time to lose."
It was evidently for Margaret, so Arthur started off at such headlong speed that many of the foot-passengers stood still to look after him, wondering at his excitement. If some of his languid friends in that other world, London of the West, could have seen him, I greatly fear he would have been degraded for ever in their estimation; undue activity or a public display of ultra eagerness is not among the list of fashionable failings; in fact, it is bad form. But Arthur did not think at the moment of his position in the world of fashion, and it was not likely that any of his friends would have been benighted enough to put such a space as that which separates Islington from Hyde Park between themselves and their daily haunts.
Breathless he hailed the coachman, who crossed the street with unusual alacrity. He could only imagine from Mr. Arthur's state of excitement that Miss Adèle had fallen down in a fit or that some similar misfortune had happened. He was an old servant, and took, as he often said in the servants' hall, "a deep hinterest in the family."
"Nothing wrong sir, I 'ope," he said, stooping down confidentially from his exalted position on the top of the coach-box.
"No," replied Arthur impatiently. "Drive me along this road until I tell you to stop."
He jumped in, and the mystified coachman obeyed, stopping instinctively at the sight of his young mistress with a person carrying a carpet-bag. Even if Arthur had not used the check-string vigorously, astonishment would have brought the worthy man to a stand-still. Imagination was not his strong point, and it was difficult for him even to conceive what all this meant.
"The Great Northern Station, and then home," said Adèle, not wishing to mystify him too far; "and please drive quickly."
He obeyed, and as easily and rapidly they drove along the streets Margaret leant back among the cushions, closed her eyes and sighed deeply. It was a sigh of intense relief. "To-morrow," she said—"to-morrow I shall be at home."
Very little more passed between the three until the carriage stopped before the station; there Adèle held out her hand very reluctantly. "I am afraid I must say good-bye," she said gently; "I ought to be at home. Mamma will be expecting me. I shall leave Arthur to take care of you and see you into your carriage." With a glance Margaret thanked Adèle for her noble trustfulness.
"We shall meet again?" said the young girl earnestly.
"I trust so, dear; you know my address. If anything should bring you in my direction I shall be only too delighted to see you; but," and her voice grew low and tender, "if we never should meet again, remember this—I shall never cease to thank you in my heart for the way in which you have acted to-day."
She had got out of the carriage and was standing near the door, one hand still in Adèle's, who seemed to wish to retain it to the last moment. Arthur was beside them, looking interested but helpless, and once more tempted to indulge in that very vain and foolish wish that Providence had made him a woman.
Here was his cousin already Margaret Grey's dear friend: he was nothing to her—a lacquey who might be permitted to see after luggage, to get her ticket, to wait upon her. Nothing! Was that nothing? he asked himself suddenly as Adèle closed the carriage door, waved her last farewell and left him alone with Margaret in the busy station. Alone and in a crowd, he her protector, she dependent upon him, he was a man at once, gentle, thoughtful, considerate, ready for any emergency. Only there was one drawback. All his attentions were received so pleasantly, in such a matter-of-fact way—not as a something that was offered personally, a tribute of homage to her whom he admired above all other women, but as the most commonplace thing in the world, a lady's right from the gentleman who has taken upon himself the task of helping her.
The fact was that Margaret Grey knew more of the world than her shabby black dress and general want of style might have seemed to indicate. Certain it is that she had hit upon the very best method of keeping her young knight in his true place.
His heart was burning to show in some way the enthusiasm that devoured him as he stood by her side on the platform, only venturing to glance at her furtively from time to time, but abundantly laden with her small items of property, of all of which she had allowed him to possess himself without the smallest demur. None of this did he dare to show. He could feel in anticipation the look of quiet surprise with which she would greet any presumptuous speech.
Curious glances were cast on them by those who were not too busy in the important stages of arrival and departure to give a thought to anything but their own concerns, for Margaret was one of those women who always attract notice, and once or twice, when she became conscious of such observation, Arthur saw that she started painfully and turned to scan the watcher. He cast his scowls to the right hand and to the left, being quite ready to pick a quarrel with any one for the sake of his divinity; but his scowls were shed abroad in vain; they did not seem to have the slightest effect upon the situation, and at last all necessity for such exercise of his faculties was over. The train, longed for so eagerly by the one, dreaded by the other of these two companions of an hour, came slowly, with majestic quiet, into the station; porters, with anything but majestic quiet, began to bundle and bustle the unfortunate luggage into the vans, lady passengers rushed madly from various corners of the station, gentlemen passengers walked leisurely with a defiant look at the engine (it could not start without them) from the refreshment-rooms, where they had been taking in a stock of strength that might enable them to live through the ennui of a six hours' journey; parties that were about to part gathered woefully together, tears in the eyes of some, an appearance of put-on sadness, covering satisfaction, in the faces of others, and sounding along the line came the voice of the stately guard, "Take your places, ladies and gentlemen."
Then Margaret put out her hand. They had stopped together before a second-class carriage, in which, with all the deference of a young courtier, Arthur had taken her seat, arranged her parcels, placed everything she might need within her reach, even to the little packet of delicate ham sandwiches, flask of sherry and magazine of light reading which he had obtained surreptitiously to add to her comfort during the journey.
She smiled when she got in and saw what he had done. "Thank you," she said, still in the same easy, pleasant way, a queen addressing her subject; "I chose my knight well; and now good-bye. Tell your cousin that I will send her a few lines to let her know of my safe arrival."
Arthur pressed the hand she held out to him. He could not resist it, and then, shriek! puff! the waving of a flag, and the train was gone, carrying her away from his lingering gaze. He turned aside with a sigh and a singular contraction of heart; she, looking round at his thoughtful arrangements, smiled faintly, then, leaning back on the hard seat, closed her eyes and murmured almost audibly, "Thank God! escaped!"
Her thanksgiving, perhaps, was premature, for in her late dwelling-place this was what was happening in the mean time.
She and Adèle had scarcely reached the top of —— street before the landlady, anxious to lose no time, ordered "Apartments" to be hoisted in its usual place, the front-parlor window.
A tall, dark-looking man, who was walking in a leisurely manner down the street with a cigar in his mouth, stopped suddenly and looked at it with some attention. From below the landlady looked at him, and feeling his earnestness prophetic arrayed herself hastily in clean cap and apron, and smoothed from her brow the unquiet look which Betsy's awkwardness had caused. She did not get herself up in vain; he rang the bell and asked to see her rooms.
The landlady dropped a curtsey. This was a grand-looking gentleman in her opinion, with a fine commanding manner—"looked a militairy hofficer retired," she said afterward to a neighbor, describing the interview. "They're not in the best of horder, sir," she said deprecatingly—"not for a gentleman the likes of you to see; but there," fearful of losing a lodger, "it hain't all gold as glitters, and if so be has you'll make hallowances, the lady—quite a lady and lived very quiet, not gone above half an hour—says she, a going out of that door, and a givin' me of her hand—"
"Show me the rooms as they are," broke in the gentleman, frowning with impatience; but even this did not check the flow of the landlady's eloquence.
"The lady as has gone—" she began.
"Show me the rooms, woman, without any more jabber," interrupted he so fiercely that, as Mrs. Jones said afterward to a neighbor, "she was all of a tremble, and her feet as nigh as possible giv' way under her from fright."
She did not hazard another remark, but threw open the door of Margaret's sitting-room, still warm, as it were, with the evidences of her presence. The sight appeared to excite the gentleman; he breathed hard and his eyes sparkled; then, not appearing to notice the landlady, who stood respectfully in the doorway, he cast round the room one searching glance.
It seemed to satisfy him. He turned to the landlady, took out his pocket-book and pencil, as if to make a note of her answers, and asked, "Your name, Mrs.—"
"Jones, sir, at your service," she answered, curtseying.
"Mrs. Jones? ah!" He wrote down something in his pocket-book, then looked at her again: "Your rent?"
"Thirty shillin's hand hextras," she replied, audaciously clapping on ten shillings for the military appearance.
"Ah!" he answered once more, nothing else; no bargaining, as Mrs. Jones informed her next-door neighbor, nothing of the kind; he only shut up his pocket-book with a snap and turned aside, apparently quite satisfied. Mrs. Jones flattered herself that his satisfaction arose from prepossession with her rooms and her personal appearance. Quite other was the consideration that caused the prospective lodger such a pleasant glow of satisfaction.
Something indeed was written down in his note-book by that busy-looking pencil. It was not Mrs. Jones's name and address, nor even her exceedingly moderate terms.
If the solitary lady who was leaving London that day to hide her sorrow and loneliness could only have known what was written there, her satisfaction would have flown, for she had left her secret behind her, tacked in large letters to the boxes that were to follow her the next day, and the secret had been transferred to the pocket-book of the man she thought she had escaped.
Poor Adèle's diplomacy! It had given way at only one point, but unhappily that point was all important.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
LESSONS IN WORLD-WISDOM.
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart;
They were dangerous guides, the feelings: she herself was not exempt.
"Well, Adèle, what have you done with Arthur?"
The speaker was a comely, elderly lady who had sailed, in the full magnificence of brocade and lace, into the dining-room of her handsome house. A substantial lunch was on the table, an obsequious butler was in waiting, a fair-haired girl was seated in one of the arm-chairs, her head resting on her hand.
At the sound of her mother's voice she looked up. "Dropped him en route, mamma," she said pleasantly.
"And why did you not bring him in?"
"He had business, I believe, in town."
"Business, indeed! You should be his first business. Mark my words, Adèle—though it seems impossible to instill worldly wisdom into your brain—boys are volatile and require keeping in hand. A girl ought to be tolerably exigeante if she would either make or keep a conquest, especially when a boy of Arthur's age and character is in question." Then to the butler: "Take the covers, James; after that you can go down stairs. Miss Churchill and I will wait upon ourselves to-day. One always forgets James," she continued as he retired, "he is so quiet and unobtrusive; but then—faithful creature!—I feel very sure he could make no mischief of anything he hears."
"I wish, all the same, mamma," said Adèle rather fretfully, "that you would not always talk of my affairs and Arthur's before the servants. Burton, James, Elizabeth, it seems not to matter at all before which of them you speak."
"My dear Adèle, you are a child. These people know your character and mine, and are pretty well acquainted with all our affairs, without our taking the trouble of informing them. I wonder who leaves Arthur's letters about sometimes."
"Arthur's letters?" Adèle shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly. "All the world is at liberty to see them."
"There it is again, my dear; we return to the subject we were discussing a few minutes ago. When do you intend to make a lover of your cousin? You know you cannot possibly remain in this brother-and-sisterly stage. You must give him one or two lessons or he'll slip through your fingers yet."
Adèle was accustomed to her mother's style of conversation, so it did not particularly shock her; she only smiled rather strangely: "Arthur wants no lessons from me, mamma."
"Ah! then you are further advanced than I thought; but really, Adèle, you have been brought up so simply I wonder sometimes if you know at all what it means to have a lover. I was very different with my first lover, a cousin too, though we didn't marry after all. A very good thing; he was poor and idle: I should have been a wretched woman. Now, Arthur is well off, and not at all extravagant; no strong tastes either; just the kind of man whom a woman can mould to her will; but then she must know how, and I fear, Adèle, you are a sad baby in these matters."
"It's not for want of instruction, mamma," said Adèle rather maliciously.
But the good-natured Mrs. Churchill scarcely saw the point of her daughter's satire. "You are right," she said. "I have done my very best to instill into your mind some knowledge of the world you live in, Adèle. I considered it a duty," she sighed faintly. "Had your poor father been alive, the case might have been different. Women who are thrown on their own resources, like you and me, my child, must be equal to the task of taking care of themselves."
It was a task in which, apparently, Mrs. Churchill had never failed: she did not certainly look the worse for care and anxiety. She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes—a habit, simply, for not the faintest moisture was there to remove, but to mention the departed Mr. Churchill without paying this tribute of regard to his dear memory would have been most unseemly. A pause for this trivial operation then Mrs. Churchill continued: "I have wished for some time to speak to you about this matter, Adèle. I have managed for you so far; I can do so no further."
The last words seemed to astonish the young girl. She looked up: "You have managed, mamma? What can you mean?"
"Why, little goose! to whom do you think you owe your lover? Not to Arthur, certainly. He would have gone on droning about the house for ever, without the slightest consideration for your feelings or mine, engrossing you and shutting out others. I brought him to book and showed him his duty." (The fond mother showed her white teeth at the remembrance.) "When they were all laying themselves out to entrap him, too! Lady Lacy and her pretty nieces, Mrs. Campbell and her ugly daughters; even gaunt Mr. Godolphin, with that extensive motherless child of his. Ha! ha! it was too good!"
But Adèle did not seem to join in her mother's mirth. She had dropped her knife and fork in a kind of despair, while a sudden pallor, quickly succeeded by a vivid flush, showed her distress.
"Good gracious, child! what is wrong?" cried her mother.
Her answer was given through a flood of tears: "Oh, mamma! mamma! how could you? And I was so happy, and I thought he liked me a little—only a very little—and that, in spite of everything, it might be all right some day? Now—now—"
The last part of the sentence was lost in the folds of her pocket-handkerchief.
Poor Adèle was rather upset with the events of the morning, following as they did upon the knowledge of what she looked upon as Arthur's desertion; to hear now that even their engagement, in which she had rejoiced as a proof of his real affection for her, as a kind of pledge for his return, was due not to his own unbiassed freedom of choice, but to her mother's machinations,—this was a kind of finishing-stroke to her misfortunes. She continued to sob, somewhat to her mother's annoyance.
"What a perfect baby you are still, Adèle!" she said; "it's well, after all, that I sent James out of the room. Come, dry up your eyes, and tell me what is the meaning of this. To say that anything I told you just now could have caused such an outburst is perfectly absurd. What has Arthur been saying or doing? I shall have to take him in hand."
Adèle lifted up her glistening eyes and carmine cheeks from the grateful shade of her pocket-handkerchief. "You must do nothing of the kind, mamma," she said indignantly—she was quite unlike herself for the moment—"you have done mischief enough already."
"Mischief enough!" Mrs. Churchill's glass paused half-way between the table and her lips; she was absolutely petrified with surprise. Adèle was an only daughter, and something of a spoilt child; but hitherto she had always been gentle and obedient, for she was naturally docile; then she and her mother had such different tastes that their wills very seldom clashed. This vigorous assertion of personality was a new thing, and for the moment clever, good-natured Mrs. Churchill, with all the knowledge of human nature upon which she plumed herself, scarcely knew how to treat it.
"This is what comes of romantic notions," she said severely. "I always thought the poetry-reading bad; if this kind of thing goes on I shall have to put a stop to it altogether. Now-a-days it seems to be the idea for young ladies and gentlemen to fall desperately in love, indulge in pretty poetic love-scenes and do a little wasting away for the benefit of one another. I suppose something of this has got into your silly little head, Adèle. You and Arthur should have been moved spontaneously to fall into one another's arms, like the hero and heroine of a play. Bah, child! there's a behind-the-scenes to life as well as the stage, and lovers are generally only puppets; they act the drama and other people pull the strings. Don't look so very woebegone: I tell you more than half the marriages in the world would never have taken place without some such helping hand as mine. You ought to be grateful instead of indignant."
Adèle had dried her eyes. She was rather ashamed of her outburst; she ought to have known long ago that her mother's matter-of-fact nature and keen common sense would never chime in with her own ultra-refined, high-flown notions of life and action; and hers, after all, were the ideas of a young girl to whom the great world was still a land of visions and dreams; her mother's were those of a woman who knew something of the world, who had passed through very varied experiences, who, with all her good-nature—for Mrs. Churchill was what might have been called a comfortable matron—had grown a little hard and unsympathetic by reason of the rubs and raps she had encountered, making some of her fine gold dim.
"We need not discuss the matter," said Adèle; "what is done is done, and after all perhaps it makes very little difference in the end. I am sorry if I was rude to you, mamma, as no doubt you do what you think best for me; but in these matters I do wish that you would let me have some voice. If I had known Arthur's proposal was brought about by you, I should have certainly refused him without any hesitation."
"So I supposed, my dear; therefore I was wise enough not to let either of the wise young people see my hand. Why, you romantic child! without me you would soon float on to misery. Grand notions are all very well in their way, but they can scarcely carry one through the world with any satisfaction to one's self, Adèle; you'll find that out sooner or later. But come, enough of worldly wisdom for one day. Wash your eyes and make yourself look nice; I want you to pay some visits with me this afternoon."
Poor little Adèle! she obeyed, but it was with a languid step. A few days before her life had been all sunshine; her love, her pleasant tastes, her bright hopes—everything had combined to make her happy; now, a change seemed impending—unreality was around her; what she had thought to be a firm standing-point turned out only shifting quicksands; the love was departing, and the revelation of how it had come robbed its past of all charm; even her pleasant tastes seemed deceptive, for if her mother's views of life were correct, farewell to the Faërie Queene, farewell to poetic imagery: it was the mirage that betrays the unwary soul, and in spite of the poet's vision the sad knowledge which that day's glimpse of another life had brought showed too clearly that beauty and joy were only too often divorced.
Adèle appeared in the drawing-room in the course of half an hour dressed in pale silk, a rose-colored bonnet crowning her fair hair and pink-tinted gloves on her small hands, but nothing for the moment could remove the gloomy veil through which she viewed life and its surroundings.
Her mother was obliged to reprove her a little sharply. "My dear Adèle," she said as they left one of the houses to which they had been bound, "you must really make an effort to be more agreeable and sprightly; melancholy does not suit you. Dark girls, with chiselled features and creamy complexions, may be allowed to move through society like beautiful mutes, but with golden hair and bright blue eyes like yours vivacity, let me tell you, is the only rôle. Sulking makes you look absolutely plain."
No girl likes to look "absolutely plain," and although Adèle loudly disclaimed any sort of regard for what would or would not suit her style, she made an effort, and that evening Arthur, who came back, pale and exhausted, from the parting scene at the station, and who looked to Adèle for sympathy, was rather hurt with what he was pleased to term her frivolity. Young men are so selfish!
Mrs. Churchill saw the little by-play—Adèle's forced gayety, Arthur's sentimental-looking eyes following her inquiringly, and somewhat reproachfully, round the room. She congratulated herself on the success of her lesson.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
LAURA.
Thou art a dew-drop which the morn brings forth,
Not framed to undergo unkindly shocks,
Or to be trailed along the soiling earth—
A gem that glitters while it lives.
Margaret was at home. In a little village on the coast of Yorkshire, far from any town, not fashionable even in the season, and somewhat dull at all times, was the cottage to be found which she fondly looked upon as home. The village consisted of one street running up into the land, where butcher and baker and grocer, who all of them sold a medley of articles, displayed their small wares; a collection of fisher-huts on the coast, and some few respectable little houses, whitewashed and green-shuttered, which were only tenanted in the summer months. It was not even a particularly pretty place. Of course there was the sea, the grand wide ocean, stretching its interminable breadths away to the horizon, and it crept up upon yellow sands that were a perfect delight to the eye and to the feet, they were so bright and clean and smooth. But for this the scenery was somewhat monotonous; no mountains or hilly grounds were to be seen far or near, save, indeed, the few sand-cliffs that rose up gradually from the borders of the sea to a vast table-land of moor and meadow, stretching into the distance with scarcely a tree to break the line. A few huge boulders carved by time and water into fantastic shapes, a little scanty herbage on the sandhills, some stunted shrubs and trailing yellow flowers,—these were all that broke the monotony of sea and moor; in fact, it was a desolate place, but its desolation in no way resembled that of a city like London, the dreary monotony of a human desert. It was Nature's desolation, grand and weird, and, to the soul that could understand, full of ever-varied mystery and charm.
The sunrise over the moor when, itself purple with the rich tints of autumn coloring, it blushed into mistlike dreamy splendor; the mellower sunset over the ocean, and after the sunset the pale streaks of horizon-light and the broad ribbons of silvery moonbeams; the black mystery of a winter night, space above, space around, space infinite on every side; the clash and flash of foam-crowned waves shining through the darkness,—these were some of the charms this little seaside village possessed, these were what Margaret had missed in her miserable visit to great, lonely London. She slept at a hotel in York on the first night after leaving town. On the next day, partly by rail, partly by carriage, she reached her own home.
They did not expect her. She wondered plaintively as she drove in the little chaise, hired at the nearest station, along the low road that skirted the sea, whether her little Laura would be pleased to see her again—would have found the time long without her. Laura was not so dear to her mother as she might have been, but she was her only tie to life, the one creature who was dependent on her, to whom she was, in a certain sense, a necessity. In the course of that long drive Margaret began to reproach herself for having loved her child so little. Her heart yearned over the tiny creature whose fate was bound up with her own, fatherless, or worse than fatherless, in the tender dawning of life—mysteries around her that her poor little soul might perhaps already be trying to fathom, and trying in vain; for, as Margaret recalled with a sudden pang, it was not an ordinary child's soul that had looked at her once or twice out of Laura's dark, pensive eye. It was a soul upon which the shadow seemed to have fallen—the shadow that so early falls upon some, chilling their life in its first glad spring. Margaret had shrunk from looking into this mystery; she had answered the inquiring earnestness with which her little daughter had seemed to look into her sadness by sweetmeats, toys and diversions, and the child had gone back upon herself, dreaming her dreams alone.
Perhaps it is little known in the wise, busy world of grown-up people how keen and sensitive are the sympathies and feelings of a child, how easily the little soul can be driven in upon itself, and in some cases, rare it may be, how great the suffering that follows.
Margaret had a vague consciousness of all this, but there was something so bitter in her sadness that it shrank even from the light touch of her child, and then the dark, pensive eyes that sometimes looked so melancholy under their deep fringe veiled a memory—a memory that cut and wounded, and that in some moods she felt herself absolutely powerless to bear. So had another pair of eyes, dark too, and wistful and infinitely sad, looked out at her on a stormy night long ago—the night when her trouble had begun. Long ago—it looked long ago, yet as mortals reckon time perhaps it could only have been said to be short—one, two, three, four, long years. The remembrance of that strange sadness in her little daughter's face had brought Margaret to this again, as what did not? She reckoned the time and marvelled at its flight.
As she pondered the little chaise progressed, with abundant clacking of the whip and plunges forward and vigorous shouts from the boy-driver, and scarcely a corresponding rate of speed, for Middlethorpe was an out-of-the-way village, and no very stately vehicle of the hired species would have been permitted, under some very large gratuity, to explore its wilds. Evening was beginning to fall before the outskirts of the village had been sighted, and between the jolting of the carriage, the energy of the driver and the haunting thoughts that tormented her, Margaret began to feel that any change would be a relief.
Her little cottage was rather out of the village. It lay at some little distance, near the edge of one of the sandhills. When they entered the village she stopped her driver and told him to take on her carpet-bag; she would do the remainder of the way on foot. The boy listened to her directions, nodded his head good-humoredly, and leaving her upon the sands, started off in the direction indicated—to a little white point at some distance reached by a road winding up through the village. Margaret proceeded leisurely along the coast toward a narrow path that led up the cliff to her cottage by a nearer way.
She gazed over the wide sea, for the gray which had been its abiding characteristic through the not very brilliant May day was blushing gradually into golden brightness under the magic touch of sunset, and Margaret paused in the full enjoyment of its rich coloring. Then, with the light still in her eyes, she looked landward on to the sandhills.
There was a little figure crouching under one of them, evidently that of a child, and a child in sorrow, for the face was hidden by a pair of tiny hands and the little frame was shaken with sobs. It looked like a blot in the dazzle the sunset radiance had cast over Margaret's sight. But the child was at her feet; her heart was moved for its little trouble. She stooped to ask about the sorrow, and with a sudden shock recognized in the weeping little one her own Laura. The child's dress was in disorder; the pretty, fair hair was uncovered by hat or bonnet and flying wildly over her face and neck; her cheeks were stained with tears which seemed to have been flowing abundantly; her little hands were red and sore.
She looked up, and a faint smile came into her weary little face as she recognized her mother. "I thought you were never coming back, mamma," she said in a voice so sad and low that it pierced her mother's heart. "I am glad you're come, because now perhaps I sha'n't always be naughty."
"Naughty! my little Laura naughty? Who says so?" The tears were in Margaret's eyes, and a passion of penitence and love was welling up in her heart. It was like the opening of a sealed-up fountain. All the sweet motherliness that untoward circumstances seemed to have stifled in Margaret's heart awoke suddenly at the sight of her daughter's sorrow. She kissed the little flushed face, smoothed back the disordered hair, and lulled the child to rest in her arms with the pretty baby-language that mothers know. And at first the little Laura looked surprised, then her tears ceased, she clasped her arms round her mother's neck, and into the dark, wide-open, pensive eyes there came a look of rest.
So they remained for a few moments—the mother and the child, with the soft, cool yellow sand around them and the westering seas before them; Margaret thinking only of these little clinging arms, of this sweet child-love—of the blessing that was still left her; the little one rejoicing, with the unreasonable delight of childhood, in the soft pressure of her mother's arms. She had always been given a morning and evening kiss, but this warm, protecting tenderness was, she could not tell why, something new to her.
She looked up languidly at last from her mother's breast where her head had been resting. "Jane says I've been very naughty, mamma," she murmured; "she whipped me for telling a story, but I know I didn't take the sugar."
Laura's tears began to break out afresh at the remembrance, but her little simple story had aroused her mother, and indignation began to mingle with sorrow in her heart. She started up: "Who whipped you, Laura? Jane? How could she have dared to do such a thing? There! there! my sweet," for her vehemence had alarmed the child, "dry your eyes. Mamma will never leave her little darling again; no one else shall have anything to do with Laura."
Laura's tears gave place to a smile of contentment. "Yes, mamma dear, it will be nice. I cried the day you went to London, a long time ago, and Jane said it was naughty, and she locked the door and left me by myself—oh, such a long time! And she said you had gone away because I was tiresome, and you didn't love me one little bit; and I thought"—Laura wound her arms tightly round her mother's neck—"I thought perhaps you'd never come back, and I was always to stay with Jane. And oh, mamma, I was looking at the sea to-night—you know gardener's little boy fell in, and when he came out I saw him; he was white and quite cold, and they put him in the churchyard—and I thought it would be better to fall in like poor little Jimmy than to live with Jane."
"Poor little darling!" Margaret's tears were flowing fast. She rose from her seat, but she would not loosen the pressure of those tiny arms.
Laura put her hand up to her mother's face: "Mamma, you're crying now. Is it about Jane? Poor mamma! never mind."
"Mamma is crying because they told her little daughter such dreadful things," said Margaret as quietly as she could. "Listen, my child: you must never believe them. I love my Laura more than I can say. You are all that is left me, dear. It was for you I went to London, that you might grow up wise and good, and learn like other little girls; and I was going to such a wretched, miserable place or I would have taken my child with me; but I will never leave her behind again, wherever I may go."
Perfectly satisfied and with a little sigh of full content, Laura put down her head again, and so they went back to the house, the child in her mother's arms.
Jane Rodgers met them on the threshold of the front door. She had looked forward to something like this when the boy had arrived with the carpet-bag, notifying that the mistress was to follow, and she blamed herself severely for her short-sightedness, which had arisen in this way.
She had been shrewd enough to see that although Mrs. Grey never neglected her daughter, yet there was none of that warm devotion which mothers so often cherish for an only child; in fact, that the very presence of her little one was sometimes a burden to her. The circumstances of her lodger being peculiar and utterly unknown, so far as she could learn, to any of her neighbors, Jane had come to certain conclusions not very creditable to her ordinary good sense or knowledge of human nature. When, therefore, for three weeks Mrs. Grey had remained absent from her daughter, although her rent was fully paid up, and amply sufficient had been left for the little Laura's maintenance, Jane Rodgers, acting on her previous supposition, had come to this conclusion: "The mother had left her child altogether. It would fall to her" (Jane Rodgers's) "lot to take care of her and bring her up."
Now, Jane was by no means a cruel woman. Had any one told her that even under such untoward circumstances she could have been absolutely unkind to any child of seven years old, she would have indignantly repelled the accusation. But Jane was a scrupulously conscientious woman (that is, she thought herself so); she was unmarried, and hard by nature. She had been a fine-looking girl in her youth—had been disappointed in love, and as a domestic servant had perhaps had her full share of the temptations incident to her position. She had preserved her respectability, saved her money, and some years before the time when my story opens had returned to her native village, the owner of a small furnished house. Her living she was given in return for the service she rendered, and the rent of the house was ample to keep her in clothes and pocket-money, with a small sum accumulating year by year at the savings bank.
Jane was a highly respectable person, and in this consisted her pride. How people could ever be brought into the world the wrong way, or how the hundred and one wicked actions so common in all societies, high and low, could ever come to be committed, she professed herself wholly unable to understand. She had no sympathy for the tempted: her theory was, that if they suffered in consequence of error, so much the better—it served them right.
When, therefore, the little Laura was left on her hands—for Mrs. Grey had scarcely been gone a week before Jane had made up her mind that she would never return—a strict and stern course of education was begun. That evil was very specially rooted in the heart of her self-imposed charge was Jane's theory—that no indulgence should ever be permitted her was the fit corrective. Laura very naturally resented this treatment. She had been allowed to wander about as she liked; she had never in her life been struck, and seldom punished. When she found herself watched, corrected and snapped-up—her little sayings, that had been admired and thought clever, snubbed and reproved—Laura became first very angry, and then very miserable. The anger was punished by whipping and bed—such perfectly new experiences to the lonely child that her little heart throbbed with the agony of humiliation; the misery was treated as sulkiness, and at last poor little Laura began to think it was all true. As she plaintively said to her mother, she was always naughty.
Jane had done it in good faith. She thought she was acting well, taking a mother's part with the child—that when the evil in her heart had been rooted out by strict discipline, she might in spite of her pretty face and form, and the bad precedent of a mother whose antecedents were not precisely known, turn out a good woman and a useful member of society.
In the mean time she took the child into her own part of the house, cleaned out Mrs. Grey's apartments, and was ready to offer them in the summer time on moderate terms to that portion of the bathing public who might find Middlethorpe a desirable watering-place.
These being her plans and ideas, the arrival of the boy and carpet-bag on this May evening was somewhat disconcerting to Jane Rodgers. The child was out sulking. She was ready with a rod in pickle, as she would have said, to chastise her for running away without hat or bonnet after she had been ordered to her room; but Mrs. Grey, should she find her on the sands, might probably fail to take Jane's view of matters.
There would be time for revelations too, and Jane could scarcely explain to her lodger all the reasons that had moved her to the mode of treatment she had employed with her daughter in her absence. However, matters being so, it was best to put a bold face on them. Jane prided herself on her independence. Mrs. Grey was certainly a yearly lodger—a rare kind of article at the seaside, and especially at Middlethorpe; still, if she should choose to take offence she might go.
None of these latter reflections appeared in her face as she went forward to meet Mrs. Grey, white-capped and aproned, the very picture of quiet respectability.
"Glad to see you back, ma'am," she said respectfully, "and sorry you should find Miss Laura in such a plight. She run out when my back was turned. I was in such a fidget about putting on my bonnet to look after her, when—"
"That will do, Jane," said Margaret quietly. "Bring up our tea and pay the boy. When I have put Miss Laura to bed I will speak to you in the parlor."
"As you please, ma'am."
Jane turned away with a slight toss of the head, quite determined to let her lodger go. She was not a servant, she said to herself, to be treated in such a way. But the sight of her comfortable kitchen and the hour of delay brought calmer and more prudent thoughts to Jane's mind. Instinctively she recalled the fate of Mrs. Brown and Miss Simpson, two ladies of her calling, who, after trying in vain to make a living out of their houses, had been obliged finally to sell their furniture and take to service again; Mrs. Short, who let, indeed, in the summer, but generally to large families, and had her things knocked about in such a way that no charge for breakages could cover the necessary outlay which followed their departure; Mrs. Dodd, who had taken in unaware a lady recovering from the small-pox, and whose servant had taken the disease, thus necessitating a general turn-out and white-washing before her rooms could be considered habitable.
Whatever the antecedents or private history of her lodger might be, Jane Rodgers could not but recognize that she lived a quiet life and gave wonderfully little trouble. Then, though she paid her rent monthly, she was in reality a yearly lodger; she had already taken Jane's house for more than a year, her rent having been all the time regularly paid. It would manifestly be a pity to give her up by any over-hastiness.
Jane resolved upon a compromise. She took up the tea, arranged the bedrooms scrupulously, and then sat down in her kitchen to await Mrs. Grey's summons.
Some time passed before it came, for Margaret would not leave her child that evening until she had seen her in the quiet, peaceful sleep that ought to come so readily at her age; and she noted with ever-increasing indignation that her little daughter was feverish and restless, that she started painfully now and then, and clung nervously to her hand.
Nothing calmed her like her mother's voice; so, after trying various other methods, Margaret sang to her in a low, sweet undertone some of the children's hymns she had taught her at different times.
It was long, long since Margaret had lifted her voice in song of any kind, and tears once or twice almost choked her utterance as the "Sweet Story of Old" and "Gentle Jesus" came falteringly from her pale lips.
She had sung them at her child's cradle with all the proud joy of a young mother happy and beloved. Now all was changed—she and her child were alone in the wide world. But the sweet old words were suggestive. As she sang the spirit of the lonely woman grew calmer and her voice faltered less.
Then—in that fair long ago—she had loved the words for their music, their sweet, pleasant harmony; now she loved them for themselves, for the healing rest they seemed to bring to her. Like the cool touch of a loving mother on the fevered brow of a sick little one were the words of these child-utterances to Margaret that evening. She grew calmer and her daughter slept.
[CHAPTER XV.]
A DREAM OF THE SEA.
We dream what is
About to happen to us.
The language in which Margaret condemned Jane Rodgers's conduct to her daughter was not very bitter, but it was effective. She would listen to no excuses, no recapitulation of the grievous faults of children in general, and of Miss Laura (Jane was very respectful when addressing her mother) in particular—of the urgent necessity for some kind of discipline. All this she set aside with a quiet dignity that severely impressed Jane.
"No one but myself," she said, "shall have power to correct my child. If you cannot make up your mind to promise never to attempt anything of the kind for the future, I will leave your house to-morrow, and you know very well that under the circumstances I might refuse even a month's notice."
"I only acted for the best," replied Jane. "Miss Laura was that unmanageable! For the future I won't try to look after her."
"That's all I require, Jane. I need not tell you that my confidence in you is severely shaken: I could never trust you with such an important charge again. I cannot even tell you whether I shall be able to make up my mind to remain in your house. But I shall narrowly watch your behavior, and may hope to be convinced that ignorance rather than downright badness of heart was the cause of your cruelty to my little daughter."
Jane's mouth was open to reply, but Margaret stopped her: "You have said quite enough; you may leave me now. Only remember this: I must never be forced to complain of you in this way again."
She turned to her writing-table as she spoke, and Jane with heightened color walked to the door.
She did not attempt to answer, for Margaret's severity of manner awed her; but if Mrs. Grey had looked her way she might have seen an ominous frown on her brow and a gleam of anger in her cold gray eye.
Jane prided herself on her spirit. It was next to respectability in her estimate of necessary virtues, but she seldom displayed it imprudently. When the door was between her and her mistress she clenched her fist and shook it at the senseless boards. "Her and her beggar's brat!" she muttered; "but mayhap I'll teach them yet." And with that she retired to the kitchen, leaving Margaret, very spent and sad, undisputed mistress of the field.
Perhaps it was a dear-bought victory. It might have been better for herself and Laura if she had acted upon her first determination, and left Jane Rodgers's house on the next day. But we cannot know all our kind, its varieties are so infinite, and Margaret believed in Jane still to a great extent; then the difficulties of a change of residence were very great.
Moving was an expensive business, one she could not well afford, and so far as that village was concerned (she had a certain repugnance to going elsewhere) she did not know of another place that would suit them; so the matter was decided. Margaret went to bed fully determined to remain where she was. Her bedroom window commanded the sea. She lifted the blind that night, as her habit was, and looked away wistfully over the waters. How she longed sometimes for the freedom of the white sea-gull, that skims those restless waves and passes on, on, through the light and through the darkness till it reaches the haven where it would be!
There was a haven for which she longed so passionately that at times the longing was a bitter pain: her haven was not in the heavenly country. In those days Margaret seldom thought of that, for even the passing away from things visible might not possibly put an end to her pain. It was a haven in which she had once rejoiced, but from which she had passed out into the black darkness of a dreary, shoreless ocean. The love and confidence of one poor human heart—that was the whole of her desire; and day by day, night by night, the wished-for haven seemed drifted farther away, till even hope died down, and she ceased to think she could ever reach it.
She had a dream that night: with the strange perversity of nightly visions it seemed to mingle in one and confuse inextricably the experiences and thoughts of those last few days. She saw the sea as she had seen it that evening, streaked with night-born radiance, and on it a small boat—in the boat the dark form of the man she dreaded; in her dream she loved him, and was stretching out her arms for a place by his side in the tiny skiff. Then a gradual change: the gleaming silver passed into ruddy gold, which tinged ocean and sands and rock, and she knew that it was the hour of sunset. She was sitting on the yellow sands gazing out to sea, and suddenly as she looked into the flood of color a white speck rose from its midst—a sail, which grew larger and whiter till she saw that it was no sail, but the vast wings of a gigantic bird that was leisurely skimming the water till it rested at last at her feet. And its eyes were dark and lustrous, full of love and confidence. Ah, how well she knew them! Another change: she thought that she looked up again, and the bird was gone, but in its place Laura's father stood before her stretching out his arms to her longingly. And then she woke with a start and a shiver, to see the gray dawning begin to struggle with the darkness, and to feel at her heart a cold, cold chill.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
UNEXPECTED VISITORS AT MIDDLETHORPE.
And in pleading for life's fair fulfilment, I plead
For all that you miss and all that you need.
After this the days passed on in the little village by the sea somewhat slowly and lingeringly. Spring blushed into summer, the bright early freshness of grass and foliage deepened into summer's maturity, the gray ocean wore a mild blue appearance as it rolled in on the yellow sands, and began to reveal its depths to those who skimmed it in the boats—some bound on pleasure and some on business—that left the shore from time to time. Over the dim, vast distance Summer cast her misty veil, shutting in earth and sea with her soft halos and vapors, and to the yellow sands came women and children, vanguard of the great army that later in the season would swoop down upon this village and others of the same type.
Margaret was often there with a book in her hand or a piece of work, and her child by her side; but generally she was unoccupied, her hands listless, her eyes growing daily deeper and more weary. For the strain on heart and spirit was rapidly becoming more than her physical strength could bear. She was fading visibly, but there was no loving eye near to note how her step grew more languid and her white fingers thinner, and her beautiful face more worn and sad till its very beauty seemed to be passing away. One noted the change, however, and took full advantage of it.
Jane Rodgers was becoming a kind of household tyrant; not that she ever again attempted the management of Laura—that would have aroused what little spirit Margaret still possessed; her tyranny was exhibited in other ways. She would do precisely what she chose, leaving everything else undone—would spend days visiting her friends under the plea of change being an absolute necessity, and leave Mrs. Grey, who could not afford extra help, to manage matters for herself in the house; she would even reply insolently at times to some simple request made by her lodger, for she saw her power. A kind of indifference to life and its comforts was creeping gradually over Margaret, a numbing sense of weakness, a languid desire for rest—only rest. In such a frame she could scarcely have roused herself to undertake the exertion of moving. She felt that between herself and her landlady matters were not so pleasant as they had formerly been, but Laura was happy, and for herself she cared very little. The one great sorrow, like an open wound whose throbbing engrosses every sense, made her comparatively indifferent to the little pin-pricks of her daily life.
She had one joy in these dark days. It was in the clinging affection of her daughter. Since the day of her return Laura and her mother had been far more to one another than ever before. The child opened her heart to her mother, told of all her little dreams and fancies, and Margaret began to talk to the little one even about the long sealed-up subject; not indeed her trouble and its origin—that would have been impossible as yet—but about the vague hope toward which in her darkness her thoughts ever turned. She spoke to Laura about her father, drew from her the story of her recollections, and tried to awaken and nourish in her young heart a reverent love for the parent she might perhaps never see.
For sometimes when Margaret felt her strength failing, a sudden fear for Laura's future would take possession of her. If—if—God should take her too from the little one! But that was a possibility at which she dared not glance. To live as she was living, lonely, unloved, was bad enough, but through all its darkness was a gleam of something bright, the hope of a vague, dim to-come, that might possibly bring back her joy. To die was to shut even this out, and for ever; to pass away unforgiven, misunderstood, a stain on her fair fame.
Would not that be past endurance?
Margaret could not face the idea of death, but with the bitter consciousness that it might come she did her duty to her child, and, though painful at first, it became sweet after a time. She trained her to think of the father who seemed to have cast her off—to love his memory, to look forward to his return: then, in any case, if indeed he too were in the land of the living, Laura would have a refuge. She would not pass from her mother's care and tenderness to the protection of one of whom she knew nothing; her father would be her father, the longed, the looked-for, and perhaps in after days (it was seldom Margaret had strength to carry her thoughts so far), when she would have long been cold, he might hear from the lips of his daughter the tale of her ever-faithful love.
It was one of those warm, languid June days. The very sea seemed lazy as ripple after ripple crept in sighing to the shore. There was a blue, hazy vapor on even the near horizon, and scarcely a breath of air was stirring.
Margaret and Laura had found an approach to shelter from the fierce midday sun far up on one of the sand-cliffs, under a stunted shrub. They were sitting there together, the little Laura rather stiller than usual.
She had been running about on the sands with some small friends picked up among the visitors, and the heat had tired her. She sat at her mother's feet, with her head buried in her lap to hide it from the sun.
"Mamma," she cried from her safe retreat, "I had such fun just now."
Margaret's thoughts were far away. She recalled them to interest herself in her child's amusements: "Had you, darling? Who were you playing with?—those little children in blue frocks?"
"One of them's bigger than me, mamma," said Laura reprovingly. "You saw me then, but you didn't see the tall gentleman with a big dog, for we were far away along the sands. He made his dog go in the water for his stick, oh, ever so many times! and then—Mamma, are you listening?"
"Yes, dear; what then?"
"He took me up on his shoulder and carried me a long way."
Margaret smiled languidly: "He must have taken a fancy to my little girl."
"But wasn't it funny?" said Laura meditatively; then starting up suddenly in her eagerness: "Mamma, do you know what I thought when he was so kind?"
"No, darling, how can I?"
"I thought"—Laura's eyes were sparkling with excitement—"that perhaps it was papa come back."
Her eager voice roused Margaret from her languor. She rose from her improvised couch among the branches, and resting one hand on the child's shoulder said as quietly as she could, "What brought such an idea into your little head?"
"Why, mamma, don't you see? I always think papa will come like that; he'll want to surprise us and see if we remember him. This gentleman asked me about my papa, and if he lived here. And when I said no, but he was coming back, he looked at me so funnily; then, before he let me go, he kissed me—a big kiss, mamma, like my papa used to give me long ago, when he lived here."
Margaret's heart had been swelling as the little voice flowed on. She could never have told why the childish fancy took such a hold upon her mind, but so it was; with Laura, she could not help feeling that the gentleman took more than a common interest in her. Was it true, then? Had he come back to them? Was her trouble to end? for she did not fear her Maurice; one short half hour, face to face, would be sufficient for them both—sufficient to break the icy barrier that lay between them, and to make them one again.
"Laura," she said, still with that forced quiet in her voice, "try and tell me what the gentleman was like."
This was a difficult task for the little one. She looked up to the sky for inspiration. "He was tall, mamma," she said at last, "and I think—I think there was something funny about his eyes; but he looked kind, and I haven't seen anybody like him before. Of course I don't remember what papa was like. He had a great big dog—so big" (she extended both her arms by way of illustration)—"with a curly black coat and brown eyes, and a tail that wagged so funnily."
The dog was evidently easier to describe than the gentleman. Perhaps Laura was not singular in finding it rather difficult to string together his merits and demerits, even physically considered. He had been a puzzle to more than one in his transit through the world.
Margaret smiled at her child's enthusiasm. She was not much clearer about the identity of the stranger than she had been before, but a longing came over her to unravel the little mystery. She was ready to ridicule her own folly for seeing any mystery in the matter. Probably the gentleman was only some stray visitor at Middlethorpe's small hotel who had been pleased with Laura's fair, childish beauty; and yet the feeling was there. She must find him out and satisfy herself that he was a stranger.
"Run home, darling," she said to her little girl, "and tell Jane to give you your dinner; afterward sit quietly in the parlor with your new story-book; before tea-time I shall be at home."
Laura hesitated: "You won't go to London, mamma?"
"Certainly not, my little daughter; now run away like a good child."
There was no disputing this. Laura returned to the little cottage, and Margaret remained alone on the cliff. She was anxious to find out her daughter's friend, and thus put out of her mind at once the haunting thoughts that Laura's simple fancy had implanted there.
It could not be a difficult task; there were few gentlemen with big dogs at Middlethorpe, for the lords of creation had not begun to indulge in the luxury of seaside idleness. They had sent some of their womenkind before; themselves were still busy on the world's highways. The gentleman who had taken so kindly an interest in her little daughter would certainly be identified with ease.
With a view to his discovery Margaret looked below. The sands, so busy a few minutes before, were dull and silent, for the flocks of little ones, with their nurses and mammas, had gone in for the early dinner, a necessary part of seaside life, and Middlethorpe might have been perfectly empty.
It was the stillness of a summer noontide, strangely oppressive to a restless heart. This way and that Margaret looked, up and down the sands, across the sea; no gentleman or big dog was in sight, and with a little sigh she turned to look for the book that had been lying by her side, to while away in its company the hour of forced inaction.
She turned, and became suddenly conscious of the startling fact that she was not alone—that while she had been looking down at the sands and across over the sea she had been joined by an unlooked-for companion, and he must have been there some minutes, for he had found time to settle himself satisfactorily. He looked perfectly at his ease, very near her in a reclining posture, his elbows on the sands and his head in his hand; he was not looking at her. He seemed to be watching the feathery clouds that were passing over the blue depths above or counting the insects that flitted past unceasingly; but she, when she caught sight of him, was not so calm. Her face blanched suddenly; she covered it with her hands, and a low cry—it might be of anger, it might be of dismay—came from her quivering lips.
At the sound he turned his gaze in her direction, showing as he did so a broad square brow, deep-set eyes and a dark, strongly-lined face, its plainness only relieved by the mouth, which was full yet delicately formed, the lips soft and ripe as those of any woman. It was partially veiled by a dark moustache, contrasting rather strangely with his head, which was covered by a crop of short gray hair. He did not look an Englishman; indeed, there was something strange in his appearance which would have rendered the classification of his type a difficult matter to the most skilful physiognomist. Only one point seemed to be tolerably evident: he belonged to the ardent South rather than the cold North, for even at the moment of her discovery, when he was striving, with all the strength of a strong nature, to show nothing but cool indifference, his breath was coming quick and hot, his eyes were sparkling, his fine mouth was quivering with excitement, and in his voice there was an unmistakable quiver as he spoke after a few moments' silence, spent by her in averting her face from his gaze, by him in watching curiously her every movement: "Marguerite!"
A deep musical voice and a slightly foreign accent. It seemed to excite her. She trembled from head to foot, and tried to rise from her seat. He put out his hand to detain her. "Not yet," he said sternly. "I must know first what all this means."
She looked up wonderingly.
"Ah! you know well," he continued more rapidly, and his voice taking a firmer timbre. "Why have you hid yourself? Why have you fled to the outskirts of creation to avoid me? Why are you shocked, terrified, when in my tenderest voice I speak the dear name you used to love to hear from my lips? Have I grown so very monstrous, or do you wish to kill yourself with this savage loneliness that your English nation so dearly loves? Speak! speak!—or rather speak not at all. Let me sit here for ever and feast my eyes on the loveliness a woman's whim has hid from me so long. Marguerite! Marguerite! my white pearl, it will be difficult for you to hide from me again."
She had risen to her feet, the angry color coming and going on her fair face, but, crouching before her, he held her by the dress and refused to let her stir.
"Marguerite," he cried, bitter pain in his voice, "I know I speak folly; you are not one of my warm race; you are a cold daughter of proud England. But see, love, I will be patient. Sit down again. I am not near you now; only," and his brow contracted into a frown so fierce that it might mean a menace, "I am here now, and I must and will be heard."
Margaret reseated herself, but her face grew pale with suppressed anger. "If it is the manner of your race to insult the unprotected," she said bitterly, "I must congratulate myself on the fact that I do not belong to it."
His face kindled. "Spoken like yourself, ma reine," he said softly. "I kiss your hands. I am, what I have ever been, your devoted servitor."
"If so, Mr. L'Estrange," she said, slowly and distinctly, but as if speaking with some difficulty, "I must beg you to leave me at once."
He smiled—a smile that irradiated his face like sunshine: "I was rash, ma belle; sometimes obedience is an impossibility. But see! what are you afraid of? Look at me, devoted to you body and soul, your friend, ready to do you the smallest service; only asking this in return, that I may be permitted to stay where I can see you, can offer you kindly greeting from time to time—a common acquaintance, nothing more."
She would not look at him. Her eyes were fixed on a distant speck on the horizon—the sail of a ship or the long line of smoke from a passing steamer.
"You have forced yourself upon me," she said in a low, constrained voice; "you know your presence is distasteful, and you know why. But for you these years of what you are pleased to call savage loneliness would never have been."
He did not seem to hear her; he was carrying on a kind of soliloquy. "She is changed," he said, gazing at her still, "yes, and fading. The rich bloom in her cheek, the laughing sparkle in her eye, the fair roundness of form, it is passing—passing; but, hélas! mon Dieu! is she not fairer than ever in her pure, sad whiteness? Ah, Marguerite, my pearl! how could he ever have doubted you?"
Almost fiercely she answered, the fire of indignation giving back to her eyes the sparkle of the olden days: "And you can ask that—you from whom all the misery came? He knew what had passed between you and me before our marriage. He trusted me, my life was blest; you came between us and destroyed my happiness."
"Gently, gently, my fair Marguerite," he said, pleadingly; "you English are a justice-loving people. Is it not your law that allows what they call extenuating circumstances? That meeting between you and me need never have taken place. If you remember, I warned you. I received no answer. Silence gives consent. Was I less or more than human not to avail myself of it?"
It was true—too true. Margaret hid her face in her hands, and when she next spoke her voice was low and pleading: "Mr. L'Estrange, you are cruel. Yes—God forgive me!—I was to blame, and He has punished me sorely; but have pity on me—leave me here."
A smile played over his lips, but she could not see it; he drew nearer to her and touched the folds of her dress with a hand that was burning.
"It is time it should end," he said, trying to gaze into her hidden face, "It was all a mistake, a grand mistake. I should never have allowed it, only I wanted faith. I dared not drag you into any uncertain future. Ah, my white pearl! who understands you so well as I? Do you remember—shall I, can I, ever forget?—those few blessed days? We were happy, Margaret—happy as children to whom the present is all; the future was not even named between us, for when a cloud, born of the North, your childhood's home, passed over your gentle mind, I was able to dispel it. Those moonlight excursions on the silver water of fair Venice—your friends were with us, yet we were alone, for the kindly darkness made us almost forget their presence; the serenades—ah! I see your memory is no worse than mine; the soft harmonies dying away in the far distance as we sat together in our gondola, our hands clasped, our souls rapt to ecstasy; the lessons in astronomy on those clear spring evenings when you and notre chère fillette scanned in turns the deep, star-spangled sky; that day spent in exploring, Margaret—your pretty coquetry had vexed me, but the soft golden radiance of pictured glass, the sculptured marbles in that beautiful church, the Scalzi, soothed my soul and I was at rest, your softly gleaming eyes telling of your sympathy in my joy; the pictures, Margaret—our delight when we were able to trace the hand of the greatest masters, and pronounce, without guide or cicerone, on the authorship of one of our favorites,—yes, these were pleasures. I sometimes think that they were pleasures too pure, too high, for any but the gods, and in their jealousy they dashed the cup of bliss from our lips. But," his voice deepened; he drew so near to her that his hot, passionate breath fanned her cheek, "they have given us one more chance. Shall we be wise and seize it? Ah, ma belle! I see it passing. Happiness! think what that is; it is not often offered to the dull sons and daughters of humanity, and, Margaret, we have once rejected it."
He spoke, and gradually the bitterness seemed to pass from Margaret's face. There came into her eyes a lustrous shining to replace the fierce light with which she had greeted his first words; she even leant over toward him and allowed him to touch her pale face with his strong, nervous hand. For all was on his side for the moment. The strange, wellnigh overpowering fascination he possessed—memory, imagination, present loneliness and a certain bitter rising of indignation which the readiness of her husband's mistrust and desertion could not but cause her at times.
He saw his advantage. "It is not all forgotten, then, ma bien-aimée?" he whispered tenderly. "That past beautiful time is still there—there in the shrine of your pure heart. Tell me once for all, shall it return? He has forsaken you, insulted you by his mistrust; you owe him no duty; and what is it that I ask of you? The restoration of your friendship—nothing more."
The voice was soft, thrilling, full of an unspeakable pathos, and at first as she heard her brain felt dizzy and a delicious languor seemed to steal over her senses. It would be so sweet to yield, to renew in her dull prime some of the fair joys of youth. Could she not accept his friendship, for that, after all, is an every-day matter? He knew her too well to presume.
And while she pondered, with a weakness utterly new to this fair, proud woman, he stood before her, looking down upon her fixedly. Her eyes fell before his. What met them? Nothing more novel than the Indian scarf she usually wore. It had dropped from her shoulders and was hanging on her arm.
A trifle at such a time, but do not life and its issues hang sometimes on a thread? The scarf recalled Margaret to herself, for it brought another past to her mind. It had been her husband's gift to her—presented on the occasion of the little Laura's birth—and as she glanced on it there came to her mind a host of gentle memories. His words, his looks, his pride in her, the glad confidence of his strong, young manhood,—she felt them once more around her like the pale ghosts of a happy time gone by for ever; but they had been real once, warm, living flesh and blood; and with their holy power they warded off the tempter's influence.
Her first feeling was of burning shame and penitence. Was she then so absolutely weak? Should it be possible for misery and loneliness even to degrade her, to take from her that in which, through all her misery, she had rejoiced—the proud consciousness of unshaken rectitude? For even to listen to this man's blandishments was infinite degradation, the dragging down of her white soul to the base level of his.
Thoughts like these rushed tumultuously into her mind as she looked down still upon her husband's gift; and suddenly she drew herself back shivering, as one might do who had been standing unconsciously close to the edge of a great abyss.
He did not understand her gesture. The soft look was still in his eyes, and he made a movement to take her in his arms. But the new strength of her soul, born of the agonizing penitence for that one weak thought, seemed to have given to her the power she needed. She thrust out both her hands before her, pushing him back so rudely that he stumbled some steps down the sand-cliff; but he soon recovered his footing. With a look in which pleading and indignation were mingled he tried to approach her; she kept him off still.
"Leave me! leave me!" she cried "What have I said, what have I done, that you should look at me like this?" And then she covered her face with both hands. "My God! my God!" she moaned, piteously; "has even good forsaken me?"
Middlethorpe dinner-hour was over. The sun had passed its meridian height, the shadows of shrub and cliff were beginning to lengthen, and with the drawing on of evening came a moaning, sighing wind that ruffled the pale waters at their feet. It seemed an echo of Margaret's wail.
Her persecutor had turned from her; apparently he could control himself no longer. Taking a stone, he threw it far out into the sea: it was the angry gesture of a child whose will has been crossed. He walked a few steps along the path that skirted the cliff, but it seemed as if he could not go finally. He went back to where he had left her sitting mute and helpless.
"I thought you had gone," she said, flashing up at him a glance that was not pleasant to meet.
He looked down upon her with apparent calmness, though all his pulses were quivering with rage and disappointment: "I have not much more to say, ma belle, for I fear you are in earnest this time. What a fool I was to imagine for one moment that you possessed a heart! Go your own way, then; starve yourself of all happiness, die, for the sake of your husband, the man who has cast you off. But—you remember the old days; I was always something of a prophet, and my predictions came to pass—I tell you this: a trouble—one I could have averted—is hanging over you still. You shake your head, you have suffered to the extent of suffering. Bah! in all hearts there is one assailable point. You are not superhuman, ma reine. It is possible that your husband, the man who loved you once, may be nearer than you dream, and thinking other thoughts than yours."
What could he mean? Margaret looked up wildly, for he was turning from her to the winding path that led down the sand-cliff to the sea. "Stay, stay!" she cried.
He looked round at her. "Madam," he said politely, with the bow of a courtier, "it is my turn to be obdurate. I would fain obey you—I cannot: your refusal of all friendly offices has sealed my lips, and time presses. Farewell! The humblest of all your devotees kisses your hands and wishes you joy."