Lady Davyntry's nature, like her brother's, was essentially sunny and cheerful; so she soon roused herself from the depression her discovery had caused her.
"If she does refuse him," thought Eleanor, after long cogitating with herself, "she cannot refuse to tell him why. She is too sincere--she will not deny that she loves him, and then she will be persuaded out of this morbid fancy by degrees. After all, it will only be a case of waiting. I must have patience, and Fitzwilliam must have patience too. Margaret is worth waiting for. I shall see her at the Deane yet."
It was a source of great satisfaction to Lady Davyntry to remember that Margaret was settled at Chayleigh, that Mr. Baldwin need not fear her removal--that, in fact, he had every external advantage on his side.
"How strangely things happen!" she thought. "Really, it seems as if that poor woman's death were quite providential. If she had lived, I don't see how Margaret could have possibly stayed at Chayleigh; and now she cannot get away. Even if she had remained, she could not have been in such a pleasant and independent position."
And then Lady Davyntry, who possessed in perfection the fine feminine facility for looking at every subject from exclusively her own point of view, came to the comfortable conclusion that poor Mrs. Carteret's death was "all for the best."
Haldane Carteret retained all his boyish affection for James Dugdale. His old tutor loved him, too, better than any one in the world save Margaret; and the young man's sojourn at home was a bright spot in the life of the older man, whose life had in it very little brightness. All that James knew of Margaret's story he had told Haldane by letter, and now the subject was but rarely revived between them.
Haldane was not a very acute observer. He rarely troubled himself with the reflective part of life; he had bright animal spirits, good health, and was now of an active temperament very different from the promise of his boyhood. The experiment of letting him follow his military inclinations had turned out admirably. His father was very fond of him, very proud of him, and kept out of his way as much as possible. His presence had the best possible effect on Margaret, who was beginning to bloom again, not only with the roses, but with the spirits of her girlish days.
Haldane was immensely delighted with Mr. Baldwin. It was a new experience to him that a man of such large fortune, such assured position, such high intellectual attainments, still young and flattered by the world, should be of so unworldly a spirit, so pure of heart and life, and so entirely unassuming. In modern parlance, Mr. Baldwin was an undeniable "swell," but he never seemed to remember the circumstance except when an act of generosity, or the exercise of privilege in the cause of good, was required.
"I'll tell you what, Dugdale," Haldane Carteret said to his old friend as they strolled together in the fields by the clump of beeches which Margaret had said she hated, "there are not many such fellows going as Baldwin!"
James Dugdale heartily concurred in his companion's estimate of Baldwin.