Nobody said anything against this sentence. There are days when the wind is more keen than usual, when the rain is wetter, and the mud muddier. This was one of these days. It came down in torrents in the middle of the journey; and before the hood of the carriage could be got up a large piece of Mrs. Bellingham’s crape on the side next the wind had been soaked and ruined forever. This, her sister thought, was her own fault, in that she had incautiously thrown aside her water-proof; but she herself held it to be Effie’s, who had thrown a shawl over that water-proof, “carefully concealing it,” the aggrieved lady said. To have your crape ruined when you have just gone into mourning is a grievance enough to upset any lady’s temper, and it cannot be said that any of the party enjoyed the drive on this ill-fated day.
After this the pleasure of the expedition grew less and less. Sir Ludovic, who met the party in Glasgow, took an opportunity to take Margaret aside, and talked to her with a grave face.
“I hope you will see how wrong you are, Margaret,” he said, “about that lad. I have seen him, and he is as firm as a rock because of your encouragement. Do you think it is a right thing for a young girl like you to give such a man encouragement, and dispose of yourself without the knowledge of one of your friends? I told him I would never give my consent; but he as good as said he did not care a pin for my consent; that he had got yours, and that was all he wanted. But there is one thing I must insist upon, Margaret, and that is that you will hold no clandestine intercourse with him. It would not be—delicate, and it would not be honorable. It is only to save you that I don’t tell Jean. Jean would be neither to hold nor to bind. I don’t know what Jean might not do; but unless you will promise me that there shall be no correspondence, it is my duty to tell Jean.”
“I don’t wish to have any correspondence,” said Margaret, drooping her head, with a burning blush. Oh, if they would but let her forget it all! But this was what they would not do.
“If you will give me your promise to that”—he said; and in his pleasure at what seemed to him his little sister’s dutifulness, Sir Ludovic took her hand into his and gave a fatherly kiss on her forehead; all which his sisters contemplated with wondering eyes.
“Dear Ludovic, how kind you are to darling Margaret!” cried Miss Grace, running to him and bestowing a kiss of her own by way of thanks.
“I see no need for all this kissing,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “what is the meaning of it? I hope, Ludovic, you are not encouraging Margaret to make you her confessor, and to have secrets and mysteries from Grace and me, who are her natural guardians and her best friends!”
CHAPTER XXXII.
It was on a bright day in the end of August that Margaret Leslie arrived at the Grange, which was her own house, her mother’s birthplace, and her future home. They had been rather more than a month on the way, and had last come from Mrs. Bellingham’s house, which was in the neighborhood of Bellingham Court—not the great house of her district, but very near and closely related to that reigning mansion. Mrs. Bellingham had not been without grievances in her life. Indeed, had one of two events happened which she had every reason to expect would happen, her present position would have been different and much more satisfactory. Had her husband lived only a year longer, she would have been Lady Bellingham of the Court, the foremost lady in the county; and had she been the mother of a son, that son would have been Sir Somebody, and his mother would still have been—during his inevitably long minority at least—the mistress of the great house. But these two natural events did not happen. Jean was the mother of neither son nor daughter, and her husband, the eldest son—old Sir Anthony’s heir—had cheated her effectually out of all share in the splendors of the house—which splendors, indeed, had been much more attractive than himself—by dying most spitefully a year before his father. If it had been a year after, she would not have minded so much. But as it was, there was nothing for it but to retire to the Dower House, and to see her next sister-in-law, with whom she had not been on very affectionate terms, become Lady Bellingham, and enter into possession of everything. It may be supposed that this was no slight trial; but Jean, every one allowed, had behaved like a heroine. In the moment of deep and real affliction which followed old Sir Anthony’s death, she had taken the situation under review, and considered it very deeply. The first suggestion naturally had been that she should return home, or at least settle in the neighborhood of her father’s house. But Jean reflected that her father was not only old but poor, that his house was very limited in accommodation, and that when her present gloom and crape were over, there was neither amusement nor occupation to be had at Earl’s-hall, such as might oil the wheels of life and enable everything to go smoothly. Fife was not lively, nor was Earl’s-hall attractive; whereas in the neighborhood of the Court, though it would be hard to see another woman reigning there, there was always likely to be something going on, and the family was of the first consequence in the district, not shabby and worn-out like the poor Leslies. Having come to this decision, Mrs. Bellingham had taken her measures accordingly. She had thrown off at once the natural air of grievance which everybody had excused in her after such disappointments. Instead of troubling the new Lady Bellingham in her arrangements, she had thrown herself heartily into the work, and aided her in every way in her power. “I don’t mean to say that it is not a disappointment,” she said; “I hoped, of course— I don’t deny it—to be mistress here myself. I have worked for it: through all Sir Anthony’s illness, I am sure, I never was less attentive to him because I knew I should be turned out as soon as he was released from his sufferings.”
“No, I am sure you never were,” said the new Sir Anthony, warmly.