ST. UDO BRAND NOT DEAD.
Margaret was sitting up at last in the bricklayer's doorway, muffled in shawls, and shuddering nervously at every jarring sound about her.
A chariot was approaching the bricklayer's cottage from the village of Lynthorpe, and on its panel glittered the arms of Castle Brand.
Already the coachman, Symonds, had seen the invalid at the door, and was talking to some one inside, and in the next minute the chariot was drawn up before the door, and the familiar figure of little Dr. Gay was stepping out.
"Found at last, my dear girl!" cried he, radiantly; "and a fine search we have had of it. Bless my soul, though, you aren't too strong yet! Don't be frightened, dear."
The thin, trembling hands were clasped nervously on the swelling breast.
Margaret looked piteously around, as if for succor.
"I need not be, I hope, sir," she said, faintly.
"No, I'm sure not," cried the doctor, pressing her hand; "although you have contrived to hide yourself from us for eight months, just as though you did fear your old friends. But, now that you have failed so signally in your endeavor to work for your own bread, perhaps you will see your duty plain before you, and won't refuse to fulfill the will which has been so long and uselessly withstood. Hey! my dear?"
The pale woman lifted her dark eyes resolutely, her delicate nostril quivered.
"Dr. Gay," said she, "you must see that I am in no state to discuss business matters with you."
"By the lord Harry! I should think not," cried the little doctor, "so we won't discuss 'em at all; we'll just quietly do as we are bid."
"You have sought me when I wished to be lost to you," said Margaret, "but that can't make much difference now. I have long made up my mind what I am to do. Dr. Gay, I tell you I shall not go to Seven-Oak Waaste."
"Miss Margaret," he said, reassuredly, "we sha'n't say another word about these affairs until you are stronger; but you can't stay here, you know, so just come along with me, and Mrs. Gay can take care of you for a while. Does that suit better?"
She calmed herself presently and thought over it with a forlorn feeling of helplessness.
"Thanks, you are very kind," said she, "but why can't I stay here? I hope to repay these kind friends when I am well again."
"Rubbish!" flouted the doctor, good-humoredly. "You don't feel it, perhaps, but for all that you must be an additional burden on the woman's time, which money can never repay. Come home with me, my dear, and get strong, and then talk over your affairs with Davenport and me like a sensible woman."
Her head drooped sadly on her breast, and a scarlet blush tinged her poor cheek. She felt the imputation keenly, although Mrs. Doane had crept close to her chair, and was eagerly whispering how little of a burden she had thought her dear, kind miss!
"I must be a Marplot no more," whispered Margaret to her humble friend, with a weary sigh. "I have done so much harm already to everybody that I must be very careful, dear Mrs. Doane."
The bright tears were dropping fast from her wistful, remorseful eyes, and her sensitive nature urged her hard to part from this faithful heart before she should do it a hurt; so that the little doctor had the satisfaction of gaining his point, after all, and wrapped her up from the autumn mists with a gratified glow.
How she wept as she tottered to the sumptuous close carriage and sank among the velvet cushions! Had she been leaving a prince's palace the tender soul could not have felt it more.
"Doant 'ee cry, dear miss," blurted the honest bricklayer, who had come home to dinner, and was wistfully watching the departure, "yer luck's took a fort'nate turn. Praise be blessed for't, so doant 'ee affront the Lord with them tears. God be wi' ye, dear miss, we woan't forgit ye, nor you us—that I kin bet on."
So she was forced to leave them, though her heart turned sadly toward them in their sordid hut, and fain would have sunned itself in that sweet love which never shone in her own dim path of life.
In the dusk of that November day Margaret Walsingham entered Dr. Gay's neat residence in Regis, ostensibly to be under his immediate care.
She was with him because, poor soul, she had no other home which she would enter. He took her there because he hoped to overcome her half-sick fancies about Castle Brand, and to send her forth to take possession of the fortune which was, to all intents and purposes, her own.
For a few days the guest kept her room, and her own counsel, but at the end of a week she came out to the parlor, with a grave, firm face, and declared herself quite recovered.
The doctor was sitting in his arm-chair, by a cozy, crackling fire, and was absently trotting a bouncing baby of ten months on his knee, while he anxiously pored over a huge medical book at his elbow; and Mrs. Gay was stitching a cambric frill in her easy chair opposite, and watching the clumsy nurse with a face of long-suffering patience.
And Margaret, gliding into the room in her thread-bare black robes, and, with a gentle yet resolute face, seemed like the apparition of some tragedy queen coming upon the stage where the farce was still enacting.
"Ah! Good-evening, good-evening, my dear Miss Walsingham!" cried the doctor, jumping up and dumping the baby unceremoniously into his wife's lap. "Take this chair and this footstool. Are you better?"
"Thanks. I am well now," said Margaret, quietly seating herself. "And I would like to confer with you and Mr. Davenport upon my future prospects."
"Never mind 'em now, Miss Margaret," said the doctor, kindly. "You are far from strong yet."
"Please summon Mr. Davenport," returned she.
"Stubborn as ever, my dear," grumbled he, laughing. "You're pretty quiet about it, but you will have your way."
"Yes, I must have my way," said Margaret, with a sad smile.
So Dr. Gay bustled off, and brought the lawyer back with him, and presented their ward, sitting alone by the fire; Mrs. Gay having sighed out her regrets that her poor health sent her to bed so early, and retired thither.
"Gad! Miss Walsingham," blurted Mr. Davenport, shaking hands. "Your adventures haven't agreed well with you. Why, you're about as gaunt as my walking stick!"
"I am quite well for all that," said she, somewhat eagerly, "and am, of course, anxious to arrange my future before me."
The executors sat down opposite her, full of expectation.
"It seems that you are aware of Captain Brand's reported death," said the lawyer, briskly: "therefore that obstacle is removed from your way, and you can hesitate no longer in taking possession of Seven-Oak Waaste. Is that what you wish to say?"
"I have decided what I shall do with the property," she said, in a melancholy voice, "and I have summoned you here to announce my wishes to you."
"Are they to be taken down in legal form?" sneered the lawyer.
"Yes," she replied, humbly. "I wish to do some good while I have the power, with money which would only be a curse to me, and would drag my soul down to despair. I am resolved to sell Seven-Oak Waaste, and found a charitable institution with the proceeds."
The executors stared aghast in her face, so cold and hopeless, but they read no faltering there.
"Good heavens!" ejaculated the little doctor, in a fright, "she'll do it, you see."
"Well, madam, of course your will is law," said the old lawyer, grimly, "but you can't have it obeyed immediately for all that. The year mentioned in the will is not finished yet; and that puts obstacle number one in the way of your scheme; and St. Udo Brand's death has not been proved yet, and that puts obstacle number two in the way of your scheme. You must wait four months yet, you see."
Her face fell, and she sank immediately into apathy, which neither of the executors sought to rouse her from, and soon she bade them good-night, and went to her room.
"Obstinate as a mule," muttered Mr. Davenport, as he and his colleague sat nearer the fire, and sipped their mild punch. "By George, I never was so angry at a woman before. What does she expect to end in?"
"I expect her to end in a mad house," returned the doctor, with an uneasy look toward the door. "She has all the symptoms of incipient insanity."
"Incipient tomfoolery!" growled the lawyer, contemptuously. "You don't catch a strong-willed woman like that turning crazy. She always was a mystery to me, you know."
Some weeks passed, the executors professed to be searching for the legal proofs of Colonel Brand's death. Davenport had written to Washington desiring particulars. In reality they were merely amusing their willful ward by these formalities, having not the slightest doubt of the colonel's decease; and impatiently hoping for some change of resolve in Margaret Walsingham.
But that aimless, hopeless period of Margaret's history quickly passed away, and it had fitted her well for the strange, pathetic, wondrous end to which she now was fast approaching with reluctant feet.
She sat with Mrs. Gay and the baby in the doctor's cozy parlor, one blustering evening in the end of November. The green curtains were drawn warmly over the misty panes, the little fire flickered cheerily in the brass-knobbed grate, and the baby crowed lustily in his languid mother's lap, almost forcing a smile from her dejectedly drooping lips in spite of her chronic melancholy, when the doctor's step was heard on the passage, and a shuffling sound, as of another arrival, and the doctor called in a strange voice for his wife.
"Harriet, will you come here?"
She slowly arose and placed the child in Margaret's eager arms, and shaking her head forebodingly, left the room. Margaret was happily unconscious of all save Franky's pretty face.
Presently the lady came back with uplifted eyebrows, and placed some wine upon the side-table, and brought her own vinaigrette and put it beside the decanter.
"The doctor has something to say to you. Miss Walsingham," said she, at last. "I will take Franky up-stairs for awhile, and Dr. Gay says that he is anxious that you should prepare your mind for a very unexpected turn of your affairs."
She took the child and vanished from the room, leaving Margaret gazing after her with a vague feeling of terror.
"What has occurred, I wonder?" thought she. "Something is wrong."
She half rose, intending to seek Dr. Gay, but he appeared at the door, and shutting it close, approached her with a manifest tremor of apprehension.
"My wife has told you that I have something strange to say to you," began the little doctor, seizing her hand and pressing it closely. "I would like you to endeavor to form some conception of it before I startle you with it."
She was watching him with a wondering eye. His perturbation, his anxiety, his eagerness amazed her—she had never seen the mild little man so violently agitated.
"I can form no conception of your meaning," said she; "be so kind as to explain it in a word."
"My dear girl, we've made a queer mistake, that's all," faltered he, smoothing her hand anxiously. "Now, do you think over every possibility, and pick out the most unlikely—I don't want to startle you."
"Nothing can startle me now that St. Udo Brand is——"
She stopped abruptly and gazed fixedly in his face where yet lingered the traces of a serious shock; and her great gray eyes grew black as midnight while her cheeks flashed forth a splendid carmine.
"You don't intend to say that he is not dead?" cried she, sharply.
The doctor continued smoothing her hand; she snatched it away and clasped both in an access of emotion.
"Tell me—tell me!" screamed Margaret wildly.
"St. Udo has come back, sure enough," said the doctor, putting his arm about her and trying to soothe her. "St. Udo Brand came home to-day and walked straight into Davenport's office."
Her great eyes drank in the assurance in his face, her parted lips quivered into almost a wild smile of triumph, and she clung to the little doctor, crying out:
"St. Udo is not dead—not dead! Oh, my heart, he is not dead!"
And then she sank on her chair and lifted her sparkling eyes, as it were, to Heaven, and whispered:
"Thank Heaven! thank Heaven! Oh, I can never grieve again."
"Come, that's a right pleasant way of taking it," cried the doctor, quite charmed. "I was so afraid that you would take up the old hatred as soon as he came back to dispute the will with you, especially as he was thought to be so well out of the way."
"Hush," smiled Margaret, with the same glad radiance. "I can think of nothing just now except my gratitude to Providence for giving him back to us instead of branding me with the mark of Cain. Poor, erring, noble St. Udo! I shall never cross his will again. He shall learn to-night how guiltless Margaret Walsingham was of his disappointment. Now I can sign away the Brand property, although the year is not out, and St. Udo Brand shall have it all."
She rattled on thus like a happy child. Her stern will was melted to tenderness, her timid nature was forgotten in joyful excitement. Had he been the chosen of her heart she could not have welcomed him with wilder rapture than this.
"By the lord Harry! you have a magnanimous soul," exclaimed Dr. Gay, delighted as he watched her. "Who would have expected this happy deliverance out of all our troubles? He can't help loving her in spite of himself," thought the sanguine Gay; "she's so gracious and upright. She will win his heart, I could bet ten pounds, in a week."
"Now I can hear how this wonderful miracle came to pass," said she, composing herself presently; "how did he escape, and how was it that the rumor of his death got abroad?"
"It seems that it was all a mistake about his being engaged in the general engagement on the first of September. He was traveling on a secret embassy from Washington to Virginia, and was set upon by a strong force at midnight. His guard was composed of but twenty men, and they were killed to a man. The colonel was left for dead on the field. In the morning the Southern soldiers came back to strip the dead, and finding some life in this fellow they carried him to Richmond, where his wounds were looked to, and he recovered. He has lain in prison ever since, and was only exchanged three weeks ago; and being disgusted with his adventures, he has come home again to try his luck here."
Margaret could only clasp her hands again and raise her thankful eyes to heaven, while a sweet smile quivered on her lips.
"How does he look?" whispered she, at last; "is he not very weak and ill?"
"Y—es," hesitated Dr. Gay; "he's almost as lank as a grayhound, I must confess, and tolerably bronzed. But he is a fine looking man for all that, Miss Margaret, and you must let old sores drop and be kind to him."
"I will be just to him," said she gleefully.
"Not too generous though, my dear," said Gay, anxiously. "However, Davenport will take care of that. He has your interest very much at heart, although he is so rough-and-tumble in his manners."
She turned away her calm, happy face. His warnings fell on deaf ears, for, as ever, she had chosen her own path and would not depart from it.
"Now," said Gay, "perhaps we had best get through with this affair at once; you have borne it thus far with far more fortitude than I had expected. Will you see the colonel to-night?"
She started, and flashed a quick look in his face.
"Is he here, Dr. Gay?" breathed she, with emotion.
"He came in with me," said the doctor; "He asked for you, and is waiting in the drawing-room."
The thin face of Margaret flushed hotly. One cannot doubt that a flicker of memory's lamp shone out in that moment, revealing the bitter past to her shrinking soul, but she dropped the curtain over that picture quickly, and bade the doctor bring him in.
So Dr. Gay went out with a satisfied smile, and brought the soldier in.
She rose to greet him, tall, majestic as a daughter of the gods, with her scarlet shawl draping her shoulders regally; and her quivering, spirited countenance seemed to glow with a new and beautiful effulgence, as if the glad soul illuminated each plain feature with rose lights. Her dark-fringed eyelids hid the beaming eyes for a moment of timid hesitancy, and she drooped before the stranger like a conquered empress; and then she flashed a full, sweet face upon him whom she had mourned as dead.
And the gaze grew fixed and troubled, the outstretched hand fell slowly to her side—she stood speechless. How often had her faithful memory held up to her the portrait of St. Udo Brand—grand, bold, fearless as she had beheld him in that hour of his fury; when the white lights of scorn were flashing from his straightly-leveled eyes, and the wrath of a king sat on his regal brow.
How was it that he cringed in the doorway there and with a forced stare met her gaze of bewilderment? Why did his lurid eyeballs shift and shrink, and grow small and hare-like, when they had ever met hers, with the full glare of an eagle? How had these thin lines of patient waiting, and anxiety, and craft, escaped her intent scrutiny when last she had lifted her outraged eyes to that face.
Was this the hero of her dreams, this evil-faced man who looked at her so insolently?
The roses faded out of her cheeks, the rich light fled from her eyes, her heart swelled wildly in her bosom and then turned to a heavier weight than lead.
She averted a white, cold face from Colonel Brand and sank upon her chair like one whose blood has oozed to the last drop through the secret wound.
"Good heaven! she has fainted!" cried Dr. Gay.