THE HOUR OF RECKONING
The cheerless weather that had prevailed during the last few days had, as Margaret had foreseen it would, prevented Eleanor from spending her afternoons in the little summer-house, as had been her custom since she had come to Rose Cottage. For bad though the mist was in the town, it was worse on the downs, and the excessive rawness and chilliness of the atmosphere had laid poor Mrs. Murray low with a very bad attack of rheumatism.
As a rule, Eleanor slept soundly from the moment she laid her head on the pillow until she was roused in the morning, but a few nights ago she had been wakened by hearing Mrs. Murray moving about her room. Her first inclination had been to turn round and fall asleep again, but fearing that Mrs. Murray was ill, she had got rather reluctantly out of bed, put on her dressing-gown, and after tapping at Mrs. Murray's door, a useless proceeding, as the poor lady was far too deaf to hear her, had opened it and gone in. She had found Mrs. Murray sitting in her armchair, with her face twisted with pain, rubbing lotion into her rheumatic knee. The candles, which were burning low, showed that she had been awake for some hours.
When she perceived that she had wakened Eleanor, her distress was great, and she begged of her to go back to bed at once.
"My dear," she said, as she poured a fresh supply of embrocation into the hollow of her hand and set to work again, "I never disturb any one in the night if I can help it. Oh dear, how selfish it is of me to keep you out of your bed like this!" This last protest was uttered when Eleanor, taking the bottle from her hand, knelt down on the floor and began to rub the swollen knee.
For the sight of the deaf old lady sitting up in pain and alone, during the night had roused a sudden wave of pity in Eleanor's rather hard heart. A swift feeling of compunction smote her as she reflected how little thought she had taken of Mrs. Murray since she had come to live in her house. All her kindness had been accepted as a matter of course, and when Eleanor found that in return for that kindness no claim of any sort was made upon her, she had been conscious of a feeling of relief. She remembered how she had thought that her time would be far too fully occupied in taking advantage of all the lessons she was going to get to have any over to spend in providing companionship for Mrs. Murray.
For over half an hour Eleanor knelt and rubbed gently and steadily, first with one hand and then with the other, and though Mrs. Murray entreated her over and over again to go back to bed, Eleanor paid no heed to her.
"Think of your studies, my dear," Mrs. Murray said at last; "you won't feel fresh for them, and that will distress you so much to-morrow."
Eleanor winced. In what a selfish light must she have appeared to Mrs. Murray all these weeks if the latter could suppose that the fear of being too sleepy to do her lessons to-morrow would send her post-haste back to bed now!
"Bother my studies!" she said energetically, and Mrs. Murray seeing the uselessness of further protest said no more. But at last she declared that the pain was gone for the moment, and that if she got into bed quickly she might fall asleep before it returned. So Eleanor helped her into bed, and had the satisfaction of seeing her doze off before she left the room. It would be rather too much to say that Eleanor returned to her bed an hour and a half after she had left it with a totally changed character, but she did go back with a clearer recognition of her besetting sin of selfishness than she had ever had before.
"It's always been Eleanor Carson first, Eleanor Carson second, and Eleanor Carson third with me," she thought, "and the rest of the field nowhere. I take all and I give nothing. I am selfish and hard and narrow. Miss McDonald knew it. That was what she meant when she said one day that selfish people didn't know what they missed, and that I should be a happier girl if I thought more of others. Oh dear! there I go again; I don't seem able to leave myself out of consideration for a moment. And if I am only going to be unselfish for the sake of becoming a nicer character myself, I don't see where the true nobility of unselfishness comes in."
Eleanor fell asleep before she had worked that question out to her satisfaction, and all the next day she was too busy practising the quality to have much time to think about it. Madame Martelli had sent up in the morning to say that the sudden change in the weather had given her such a bad cold that she would be unable to receive her pupil until further notice, and as Mrs. Murray had wisely resolved to stay in bed for a few days, Eleanor, with a total disregard for her studies of which a few days ago she really would not have believed herself capable, devoted all her energies to nursing her. She carried all her meals up to her, sat with her, rubbed her knee, gave her her medicine, brought her hot bottles, and generally made a great fuss over her. And Mrs. Murray was so appreciative of all she did that Eleanor told her ruefully she was spoiling it all by being too grateful.
"For, you see," she explained as Mrs. Murray not unnaturally looked much perplexed at this remark, "I wanted to be unselfish and improve my character; but you make it such a pleasure to do anything for you, that if I was really to practise self-denial I would go away and leave you to Hannah."
"All the time I have been with you," she went on suddenly dropping her tone of half-whimsical complaint, and speaking very earnestly, "I have taken all and given nothing. And people who do that must have such hard, selfish natures that I feel dreadfully ashamed of myself."
"My dear, it has been an infinite pleasure to have you with me," said Mrs. Murray, when she had gathered the drift of Eleanor's remark. "Though, owing to my being so deaf, and you being always so busy, we have not perhaps been much together; still, I have enjoyed having you in the house more than I can say. You have been a fresh interest in my rather restricted life, and I shall feel parting with you dreadfully. Ah, how I wish your grandfather would let me keep you altogether! But that, of course, I cannot expect. Did he give you any idea how long he meant you to stay?"
"I—I don't remember," Eleanor said, flushing scarlet. And to herself she thought sadly how completely Mrs. Murray's good opinion of her would change when she knew how she had deceived her. That reflection was really her first step towards repentance, and she was astonished and not a little dismayed to find how rapidly her newly awakened conscience was driving her along to a point where confession would become essential to her own peace of mind. But she had some distance yet to travel before she reached it, and as it happened she missed for ever the opportunity of making a voluntary confession of her misdeeds, for on the afternoon of the day on which Margaret left The Cedars, Mr. Anstruther made a totally unexpected appearance at Rose Cottage.
Mrs. Murray had come downstairs for the first time, and she and Eleanor were sitting over the fire about half-past four enjoying a cosy tea, when the sound of wheels grating on the gravel was heard, and Eleanor saw a cab draw up at the front door. Visitors on such a day when the mist was so thick that even the other end of the lawn was shrouded from view, were totally unexpected, and Eleanor glancing out of the window wondered who the brave people might be who would venture up on to the downs in such weather. But when she saw that the cab was a station cab, and that its passenger was a tall, thin, elderly man, her heart gave a great jump, and then suddenly seemed to sink away into her shoes. She felt sure that this visitor was Mr. Anstruther. She looked at Mrs. Murray, who was just unfolding the Times and preparing herself for an hour or so of peaceful enjoyment. She had heard neither the wheels of the cab on the gravel, nor the ring at the bell, nor did she even look up until Hannah, who had ushered Mr. Anstruther into the room, crossed it herself, and bending over her mistress pronounced his name clearly in her ear.
Eleanor meanwhile stood immovable on the hearth-rug, bracing herself to meet the hour of reckoning that had come so swiftly and in such a totally unannounced manner upon her. She watched Mrs. Murray greet her old friend with mingled surprise and pleasure, and then saw her look with perplexity from him to herself as she stood motionless before the fire. Why, her face mutely asked, did they not greet one another? Why did he merely glance at his granddaughter and bow slightly in his stiff, old-fashioned way as if to a stranger? and why did she give no greeting at all to her grandfather?
"Margaret," she said at last, when the pause had lasted a full thirty seconds, "do you not see your grandfather, dear?"
Mr. Anstruther fairly jumped at that, and shot a keen glance at Eleanor, who still stood rigidly silent with the curious feeling strong on her that the direction of affairs did not lie with her at all. This stern old man who was eyeing her so severely would bring them to a crisis far more swiftly than she was capable of doing. From her expressionless face he looked straight into Mrs. Murray's puzzled, perturbed one. Obviously his first thought was that her mind was as deficient as her hearing. What he saw seemed to convince him that such was not the case, and very deliberately he bent down and spoke loudly and clearly in her ear.
"That girl," pointing a lean accusing finger at Eleanor, "is not my granddaughter Margaret. I never saw her before. Where is Margaret?"
