“Let us hope that Margaret will come back often; and I am sure she will always find her brother’s house a home,” said Lady Leslie, still holding her hand and patting her shoulder kindly. All these words came into her mind in a confusion which prevented her from realizing what they meant. She saw Jean shake her head, and demand sadly how that could be, if Ludovic were to sell the house, as he had just been saying? But even this extraordinary suggestion did not wake Margaret’s preoccupied mind. They all said “Hush!” looking at her. It was supposed among them that the only one who would really suffer by the sale of Earl’s-hall was Margaret, and that to hear of the idea would be more than she could bear. But in her confused condition she took no notice of anything. She did not seem to care for Earl’s-hall, or for the family trouble, or for anything in the world except this strange thing which absorbed her, and which none of them knew. The lamps and the circle of faces were like a phantasmagoria before her eyes, a wreath of white sparks in the darkness, all pale, all indistinct against the dim background. Randal only became a little more real to her by dint of what seemed to her the reproachful look he gave her. She thought it was a reproachful look. He had seen her out-of-doors, though he had not taken any notice of her. She remembered now that he had not even showed her the civility of taking off his hat.
“He has no respect for me any more,” Margaret said to herself; and this thought went deep, with a pang, to her very heart.
Bell was waiting for her in her room, where already her boxes were packed, and most of her preparations made; and poor Margaret, her mind all confused with a sense that what was supposed to occupy and engross her was scarcely in her thoughts at all, gave herself up into the old woman’s hard yet tender hands, as passive as a child, with all the ease that perfect confidence gives. She was not afraid of Bell, nor did she feel the guilt of keeping from her that uncomfortable secret which was no happiness to her, poor child, and which she would so gladly have pushed aside from her own mind had it been possible. “Eh, I wonder if onybody will over take the pride in it that I have done,” Bell said, taking down her young mistress’s hair, and letting it fall in long, soft undulation of silky brown over her hands. She turned her head away while she brushed, that no tear might drop upon it. “Na, naebody will take the same pride in it as me: for I’ve been a’ ye’ve had to bring ye up from a bairn, my bonnie, bonnie darlin’: and nae ither woman can ever be that. It’s like taking the heart out o’ my breast to see you turn your back on Earl’s-hall.”
The same words had been said to her not very long before, and in a way which ought to have touched her more deeply. Margaret trembled a little with the recollection. “But I will come back again, Bell, and see you,” she said, with a far more ready response. She pulled down the old woman’s arms about her neck, and clung to her. “Oh, I will come back!” she cried; “Bell, there will never be anybody in the world like you.”
“You maunna say that, my bonnie lamb. Many, many there are in the world better worth thinking upon than the like o’ me. I am no sae selfish a creature as that; but you’ll keep a corner for your old Bell, Miss Margret, ay, and auld John too. He’s just speechless with greetin’: but he canna yield to shed a tear—and a temper like the auld enemy himsel’. But it’s no temper, it’s his heart that’s breaking. You’ll no forget the auld man? and whiles ye’ll write us a word to say you’re well and happy, and getting up your heart?”
“How will I ever get up my heart,” cried Margaret, “in a strange place, with nobody, nobody—not one that cares for me?”
“Whisht, whisht, my darling! You’ll find plenty that will care for you—maybe ower many, my bonnie doo—for you’ll be a rich lady and have a grand house, far finer than puir Earl’s-ha’. And oh, Miss Margret, above a’ take you great care wha you set your heart on. There’s some that are fair to see and little good at the heart, and a young creature is easy deceived. You mustna go by looks, and you mustna let your heart be tangled with the first that comes. Eh, if Sir Ludovic had but lived a little longer, and gotten you a good man afore he slippit away!”
Margaret was silenced, and could not say a word. If he had known this, what would he have thought of it? Would he have handed his little Peggy over to the first that came? Would he have chosen for her, and made this confusing harassing bondage into something legitimate and holy? Margaret received the thought of that possibility with a gasp, not of wishing, but of terror. It seemed to her as if she had escaped something from which there could have been no escape.
“But that’s far from your thoughts as yet,” said Bell, “and it’s no me that will trouble your bonnie head with the like o’ that before the time; and the ladies will take great care— I’m no feared but what they will take great care. They will keep poor lads away, and poor lads are aye the maist danger. Here I’m just doing what I said I wouldna do! But eh, we’re silly folk; we canna see how the bairns are to be guided that gang from us: as if God would bide in Fife as well as the like o’ me: as if he wasna aye there to hand my darlin’ by the hand!”
Bell paused to dry her eyes, and to twist in a knot for the night the long locks of the pretty hair in which nobody again would ever take so much pride.