CHAPTER XXVII.
[AN OBDURATE DAUGHTER].
Margaret had a bad quarter of an hour that afternoon, when the lawn-tennis was over. She felt no misgiving as she went up-stairs. The danger had been got over, she thought, on Sunday morning, when her mother started off in full career upon the other scent. What a happy circumstance was Uncle Joseph's engagement! She positively loved Rosa now for having accepted him. And Rose herself was so dear a girl, the very nicest aunt whom Joseph could have found her; binding him closer to them, if that were possible, instead of estranging him as another might have done. It was therefore an altogether unexpected shock when her mother, following her into her room, closed and fastened the door, and in a voice which shook with anger, demanded of her what she meant.
"Mean, mother dear? I do not understand you."
"You know perfectly what I mean, you double, deceitful girl!"
Margaret understood now. The tempest, delayed for a while, was upon her. She hung her head, and bent like a willow before the blast.
"You may well cower," her mother cried, pacing up and down. Her spirit boiled, to think that she had been so duped--she, the wise one, the manager--and she could neither sit nor stand still, in her vehement indignation.
"That I should be mother of a girl whose name can be mentioned as I have heard you spoken of this day! Shameless, deceitful, unwomanly--oh!" Words failed her as she stood with clenched hands and eyes of wrath, which might have turned the other to stone, had she dared look up and meet them.
"Say that it is not true! Tell me that woman has lied!--that there was no man with you on the island but your uncle and her detestable son!
"You do not answer me? Speak! Let me hear that there is not a word of truth in her horrid insinuations. I will even say that I am not sorry you would have none of such a woman's son;" and here her voice veered round into the minor key. "I shall not press you to think of him. His mother is no better than a common scold. Do you hear me, Margaret?
"You will not speak? Is it that you cannot deny the scandalous things she has been saying?--that you could plan a surreptitious meeting, upon a lonely island, with a man?
"What will people say? It could have been but a chance that your uncle was there to save appearances. Have you no thought for your character? Is every scurrilous beldame to bandy your name about?--and have the right to do it? Have you no womanly pride? and will you drag your innocent young sister in the mire with you?--and your too trusting mother? What have we done that you should expose us to public scorn?
"Ah me! that I should have lived for this! How could you do it? To dig your mother's grave before her eyes! Say that you did not mean it!--that it was thoughtlessness!--that you listened to the voice of a tempter!--that you will not do it again! He is a serpent, Margaret.
"You do not answer me? Ah! my poor heart! How it throbs!" and she pressed her side, and sank into a chair. "You will kill me, Margaret, with shame and grief. A mother cannot survive such undutifulness. My blood will cry at you from the ground! What peace can you ever hope to know, when you have killed your mother?" and here her handkerchief came into use. She covered her face and sobbed.
Margaret was greatly moved. Her eyes were full. She durst not speak, even if she would; she must have broken down had she attempted it. She was distressed to see her mother shedding tears. To be threatened with her early death was terrible. She would do anything to calm her--anything else, at least, whatever it might cost herself. But she had given her promise to Walter--poor Walter! whom her mother used to be so fond of. How could she take it again? It was no longer hers. She could only stand in despair and shame, and see her mother weep herself back into composure.
Mrs Naylor's composure returned all the sooner, that nothing seemed likely to come of her having yielded to her feelings. She pulled the handkerchief from her reddened eyes, and with a concluding sob which was partly a sniff of impatience, put it back in her pocket.
"I declare, Margaret," she cried, "you are harder than flint! One might as well cry at a slate roof as you. It just runs off without softening you in the least. You are obdurate. You have no feeling, and no heart. The momentary indulgence of a headstrong whim is all you think of. Consequences to your family, or even yourself, you never dream of considering. But you shall not ruin yourself, however much you may desire it, even if I have to lock you up. You will please to understand that you are to remain by me from this time on, and not to leave me without permission. You have made me ill enough with your undutifulness to enable me to tell people quite honestly that I am poorly, and need your care. Now, understand! If you leave my side without my sending you, I shall follow and bring you back before the assembled company; and I fancy, although you are impervious to higher considerations, you will not wish to be the laughing-stock of the hotel. If you leave me, I shall come and fetch you back, and there will be a scene, I promise you.
"Now do not stand there biting your lips in dumb rebellion; I am not done yet. I do not insist on your encouraging Mr Wilkie; in fact, after the setting down I have given his mother, I do not suppose he will venture to intrude on us. But mind what you are about with young Mr Petty. I will not have him repulsed or trifled with. It was pitiful to see how forlornly he crept about the steamboat on our return from the island, after your outrageous behaviour in leaving him all alone. If he should be willing to overlook the slight, I insist on your behaving properly to him for the future. With his talents and his interest, he will be Attorney-General one day; so mind what you are about."
Margaret felt too well sat upon to venture a reply. She had dared say nothing while her mother held forth at large, and now that she had talked herself out of breath, she feared to tempt her to break out anew; but like others who have been silenced without being convinced, she only wanted time and opportunity to return to her old paths. Though sat upon, she was neither broken nor crushed. It is a state of things which in the present day is not unfrequent. Rulers having grown to take things easily, allow the subject to have his head, until he goes too far. Then they put on authority with a spurt, find it irksome to themselves, and take it off again too soon. It is only systematic repression which need hope to prevail, and the arm which applies that, must never grow weary or relax.
Margaret sat disconsolately at her mother's elbow that evening, and felt like a martyr, while her fancies flew away in pursuit of Walter Blount. "Poor fellow! he was thinking of her, no doubt--walking the streets of Lippenstock, and feeling so lonely. How dreadful this separation must be to him! But she would be true. She could never love another. She would not try. She would never marry any one else, however they might try to force her. No; she would pine--she was sure she would--grow pale and thin; and nobody would mind her after that. By-and-by she would grow old, and have poor health; and she would still be single, with nothing to think about but her own faithfulness, and how happy she might have been if her misguided friends would have allowed it. And then her mother would be sorry, when it was too late; but she would forgive her, and tend her declining years to the last. What a beautiful touching martyr life it would all make! but so terribly dull." She pictured to herself a desolate hearth, with not a creature to keep her company but a stupid cat upon a footstool blinking at the fire, and herself in spectacles and a cap, knitting or making clothes for the poor, beneficent to everybody, but sadly moped herself--and all for Walter! She grew consoled in thinking about it. It was as good as a play--at least a dull one. The others were beginning to dance, now; but she would not dance, though her mother had given her leave when Walter Petty came to ask her. She had a headache, she said; and now she knew she must refuse every one else that evening. What of that? It was making a sort of commencement of the life she saw in store for her in the future. Poor girl!
A mood so doleful does not last, however, when we are young and healthy. It grew tantalising to Margaret to see the others enjoying themselves, and made her feel neglected; and she welcomed Rosa when Joseph brought her to sit beside his family, and accustom Mrs Naylor to the prospect of a sister-in-law. The jeweller's clerk having divulged that he had ordered a magnificent ring for a lady, it was useless to affect reserve. He accepted the people's congratulations calmly, as his due; and his sister-in-law, making a virtue of necessity, endeavoured to do so likewise. Mrs Deane was in the little knot by Mrs Naylor's sofa--good-natured people who did not believe in her ailments, but had no objection to humouring her, and found the fixed centre of an invalid's couch convenient in that fortuitous concourse of atoms. Mrs Naylor engrossed herself with Mrs Deane, Rose's chaperon, that her feeling towards Rose herself might be less apparent. It was oppressive to go on talking pleasantly to one whom she would have liked to address in quite other terms, had it been permissible. Wherefore Rose fell out of the conversation and turned to Margaret, with whom she had more in common.
"How are you here, Margaret? You have neither sung, played, nor danced. What is the matter?"
"Mamma is poorly. She needs some one by to fetch her smelling-bottle and keep her company when other people go away." She said it with much sobriety and demureness of manner, but the act of saying appeared to dissolve the little which remained of her self-restraint. She bent forward and took Rose's hand, adding in an undertone, "She knows. She has been told about the island. She is coming between us. Wants to break off everything. But she can't! I will not give him up. I will have nothing to say to any one else. Oh Rose! what am I to do? I cannot live if I do not see him sometimes. What shall I do?"
Rose's eyes were roving far away, as were her thoughts; she was looking over Margaret's head, as Margaret leant forward and whispered. By a distant doorway stood a group of men, and her eyes turned dreamily and of themselves in that direction. The group parted to let two ladies enter, an elder and a younger one. The latter addressed a gentleman in passing, and carried him away between herself and her friend from his fellow-loungers. Rose coloured and started, then, meeting Margaret's look of surprise, she controlled herself--
"Forgive me, Margaret. My thoughts were wool-gathering; I scarcely caught your words."
Margaret repeated her words without surprise. She had observed how absent-minded Rose had grown, her varying moods, her starts and flushings, and sudden growings pale; but then she was engaged to Uncle Joseph, and doubtless these were symptoms of the delightful malady she laboured under herself, though she hoped that she concealed her own little tumults of the spirit more successfully.
Rose was all attention and eager interest now--quite vehemently interested, it really seemed.
"Your happiness for life is at stake, Margaret. I will not stand by and see you robbed of the man of your choice. And he is so nice! Joseph thinks all the world of him, I know. I see Joseph coming this way. We must devise something for you. My own idea is that you should get married at once. It will be easier to reconcile your mother afterwards. But here he is."
Joseph sat down beside his affianced, and she was so eager to speak to him that he was delighted. He too had observed her fits of absence, and had attributed them to the same cause as Margaret; but he wondered that they did not begin to subside as the idea of her engagement grew familiar. She was eager enough now. How pleasant it was! And it was in Margaret she was interesting herself, which was "nice" in her.
Mrs Naylor observed the eagerness, and was disgusted. It was positively indelicate, she thought, for a girl not yet married to make such open advances before a roomful of people. "Poor Joseph! What a fool he was! And how he would suffer for it by-and-by! A bold, forward girl!"
Joseph and Rose went on talking, regardless of that same Susan and anything she might think. Joseph was averse to interfering; but Rose talked him over, which, as this was the first time she had asked him to do her a favour, was not difficult. And then, his views on many subjects were different now from what they had been not long before. True love had grown more precious in his eyes, and poor Susan's wisdom perhaps less so, since she had expressed her disapproval of his matrimonial scheme.
"Well, Margaret," he said, sitting down between her and Rose, with a hand laid upon the hands of each, "we have made up our minds to help you if we can; but I think you should try and get away quietly, and avoid fuss. I will try and smooth matters with your mother after you are gone. So try and manage it quietly."