“Oh no, no—there was to be no price. It was not like that. He asked to do it, and papa let him do it. Nobody thought of any money.”
“But, my dear!” said Jean—“my dear! you are a little simpleton; but you could not think, I hope, of taking the man’s work and giving him nothing for it? That is out of the question—quite out of the question. I never heard of such a thing,” said Mrs. Bellingham. The words seemed to penetrate through all Margaret’s being. She trembled, notwithstanding all her efforts to control herself. What could she reply? Take a man’s work and give him nothing for it; but it was not money that Rob would take.
“Of course it could not be expected that you should know anything of business,” said Jean, “and poor papa was already feeling ill, perhaps, and out of his ordinary way. I dare say a letter will come by the next post to explain it. And if not, you must give me the young man’s address, and I will write and ask, or we might send word to Ludovic. Aubrey is a very good judge of such things; we can ask Aubrey to-morrow what he thinks the value should be. Now, Margaret, you are trembling from head to foot—you are as white as a sheet; you have a nervous look about your eyes that it always frightens me to see. My dear, what is to become of you,” cried Jean, “if you let every little thing upset you? It was in the course of nature that we should lose papa—he was an old man; and, I believe, though he was never a man who talked much about religion, that he was well prepared. And as for Earl’s-hall, you would not grudge that to Ludovic? It is his right as the only son. It shows great weakness, my dear, both of body and mind, that you should be upset like this only by a picture of Earl’s-hall.”
Margaret listened with all that struggle of conflicting feelings which produces hysteria in people unused to control themselves. The choking in the throat, the burning of those unshed tears about her eyes, the trouble in her heart, was more than she could bear. She could not make any reply. She could not even see her sister’s face; the room reeled round with her; everything grew dark. To save her balance, she threw herself suddenly upon the firm figure before her, clutching at Jean’s support, throwing her arms round her with a movement of desperation. Few people had ever clung wildly to Mrs. Bellingham in moments of insufferable emotion. She was quite overcome by this involuntary appeal to her. She took her young sister into her arms, all unconscious of the cause of her misery, and caressed and soothed her, and stayed by her till she had calmed down, and was able to escape from her trouble in bed. Jean believed in bed as a cure for most evils.
“You must not give way,” she said—“indeed, my dear, you must not give way; but a good night’s sleep will be the best thing for you; lie still and rest.”
“What a tender-hearted thing it is!” she said, going down-stairs again for a last word with Aubrey, after this agitating task was over. “I declare she has quite upset me, too; though it is scarcely possible, after being so long away from home, that I could feel as she does. She is a great deal too feeling for her own comfort. But, Aubrey, you must not lose your time, my dear boy; you must push on. It would be the greatest ‘divert’ to her, as they say in Scotland, if you could only get her to fall in love with you. I have the greatest confidence in falling in love.”
“And so have I—when they will do it,” said Aubrey, puffing out a long plume of smoke from his cigar.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Curiously enough, Margaret’s first thought, when she woke in the morning, was not of the picture nor of all the consequences which it seemed to threaten. Sometimes the most trifling matter will thrust itself in, before those giant cares, which generally wait by our bedsides, to surprise us when we first open our eyes. And the first thing she thought of, strangely enough, was Aubrey’s suggestion of last night—Effie! What could he mean by it? Effie had been his own companion, not Randal’s. Randal had not walked or talked with, or sought any one, except— It was very strange, indeed, how any one could suppose that Effie— He did not know her. Of all the party, the one he knew best was certainly herself. She must certainly be best aware of what his feelings were—of what he had been thinking about! It annoyed her to think that Aubrey should have so little perception, should know so little about it, though Jean had such confidence in him. There was a little irritation in her mind about this point, which quite pushed to the front and made itself appear more important than it was. She could not help making a little survey of the circumstances, of all that had happened—and it had just occurred to her to recollect the offer of service and help that Randal had made her. This had made her half smile at the moment, and since then she had smiled more than once at the idea that she could want his help. She had said, “Jean will manage everything;” and yet he had said it with fervid meaning, with a look of anxious concern.
Ah! she sprang up in her bed, and clasped her hands together. The occasion had come; but she could not consult Randal, nor any one. She must struggle through it by herself, as best she could, holding her peace, saying nothing. That was the only safety for her. But Margaret was surprised to find that when she turned the picture round again, and looked at it trembling, as though it had been capable of doing her bodily harm, she did not feel so much power in it as she had done the day before. It did not sting her the second time. She looked at it almost tranquilly, seeing in it no dreadful accuser, bringing before her all her own past levity and folly, but only a memorial of a time and a place which indeed made her heart beat with keen emotion and with pain, but not with the overwhelming, sickening passion of misery which had been like death to her last night.