CHAPTER XLIV.
Ormebar Castle presented a gay and festive scene--such as had not been beheld within its walls since the time of the first Charles. A number of the neighboring nobility and gentry had been invited to pass a few days there, in a sport already beginning to fall into disuse, although it had been revived for a short time by the favor of Charles the Second. A mew had long been attached to the castle; and the hawks of Ormebar were famous throughout the country. The merry monarch himself had even considered the present of a couple of pair of well-reclaimed birds of that breed as a great gift; and a grand hawking party at Ormebar was sure to attract all that was gay and graceful in the county. Two facts were remarked as strange by the guests: that the young Lord Coldenham was not present at the castle, for which various unsatisfactory reasons were assigned; and that Margaret Woodhall, publicly announced as the affianced bride of her cousin Robert--though in the castle with her father, and appearing occasionally at meal-time in the hall--shared not in any of the sports or amusements which were going on, and when seen, came with a pale cheek and sorrowful brow, self-involved in her own thoughts, and smiling not at the gayest jests or most pleasant amusements. She seemed to take no interest in any thing. She hardly appeared to notice aught around her. She looked like a person walking in a dream, and that a sad one; and vain was every effort to call her attention, or to awaken her interest. Lady Coldenham for several days seemed to take no heed of this conduct--let it pass as if it were undeserving a thought; but at length, one day, as Margaret sat alone in her room, the imperious woman entered, and seated herself with an air of proud disdain.
"I come," she said, "to inquire what you mean, my pretty cousin, by your treatment of my son."
"Me, madam," said Margaret, gazing at her with a look of abhorrence; "I have no particular meaning in my conduct."
"Then I wish you would have," replied Lady Coldenham, bitterly; "and a very different meaning from that which every one puts upon your demeanor. I wish you would mean to please your promised husband--to show him some sort of courtesy, if not respect."
Margaret was roused. "Respect!" she said; "what should I respect in Robert Woodhall?"
"You should respect him whom you have promised to marry," said Lady Coldenham; "you should respect the house from which he springs."
"My promise to marry him," replied Margaret, with cold calmness, "was cruelly wrung from me in a moment of the greatest agony. It is sufficient that I keep it, without exacting more. He can not make me more than his slave. Knowing that I abhorred him, he persisted in a suit which he ought to have felt could only make me abhor him more--obtained from my poor father, by what means I know not, a solemn promise that I should be his--instigated my father to take advantage of the most terrible circumstances to obtain a pledge from me. And now, Lady Coldenham, my father will redeem his vow. I will redeem my pledge. My hand shall be his; the estates, which he covets more than my hand, will be his likewise; but ask nothing further. My heart never can be his--my esteem, my respect, my love, he can never obtain."
"Impudent girl!" exclaimed Lady Coldenham; "this to his mother?"
"Ay, to any one, to every one, to all who question me on the subject," answered Margaret. "I am no longer the timid child whom you once knew, to quail at your presence, and to shrink from your proud eye. You and yours have taken from me all hope and all fear. You have strengthened me by misery. You have made life valueless--death a blessing to be coveted, and not far off, I trust. My father has brought me here, Lady Coldenham, against my will; but I trust at least that the privacy of my own chamber will be allowed to me."