“Mentone? that is Italy!” said pale Margaret, with a little glow rising upon her face; and then she put her pale little hands together, which were as small as a child’s, and said to herself, inaudibly, “That is away!”
She got a little better from that hour. All the circumstances of her bondage, all the risk of discovery, the chance of agitating letters, such as those which had been the cause of the exposure that had ended in her illness, had come rushing back upon her memory. And it was a sudden intimation of some letters that had been put aside for her that had caused her faint, overpowering her, in her weakness, with sudden agitation. Letters! What might they be? She dared not ask for them. She dared not say anything about them in case of questions which she could not answer. He might be coming, for aught she knew, to haunt the neighborhood of the house, to watch for her, to waylay her, to claim and take possession of her, whether she liked or not. It is not to be described what a soft gush of ease and relief and quiet came over her, when she realized that she was now to be taken away. Away! out of reach of all painful visitors, where it would be too far for him to come after her, where she would be safe. Margaret mended from that hour. And when, by means of Miss Parker, of whom she was not afraid, she managed that evening, while Jean and Grace were at dinner, to get possession of the letters, and found one from Bell giving an account of the execution of her commission, and another from Randal, her heart threw off its burden, although Randal’s letter filled her with strange yet pleasant excitement. She was not frightened by it as she had been by Rob’s letter, but felt, on the contrary, a great thrill of eagerness and wonder. Would he say anything about Effie? This, however, was all Randal said:
“Dear Margaret,— If I may call my old playfellow so, I got your message, and thank you most cordially for it. I understood it, though I did not know what you wanted me to do. But I will tell you what I did. I saw him: he was anxious and complaining. I advised him to have patience, not to attempt to write, which would probably put you in a false position, and offered him a place in my uncle’s office. He has accepted, and he will take my advice. If this is not what you meant, let me know by one word. I thought it was for the best; but if silence is disagreeable to you, it is I that am to be blamed, not any one else. Thank you, with all my heart, for understanding that I would serve you, if there was any need, with my life. Yours ever,
“Randal Burnside.”
How her heart bounded! She seemed to have found some one who would set things right, who would manage those disturbed affairs for her. It did not occur to her that she had no right to put such a charge upon Randal, or make him her agent. That idea never entered her mind. How well he had divined what she wanted! The way in which he told her of it was very curt and brief, it is true, and she felt disposed to wonder why he had put it in such few words; but it relieved her of all her fears. It was in Randal’s hands now. Randal would not let him come to worry her. Randal would save her from all this trouble. Jean heard her laugh, as she was coming up-stairs—heard her laugh, the little monkey! and Mrs. Bellingham was so glad that she could not be angry, though had this outburst happened twenty-four hours sooner, she probably would not have taken her away.
And she was quite equal to the journey when the day came, though she was still weak and white. One incident occurred, however, before they started, which very much surprised Margaret. She was in the wainscot parlor, alone, reclining among her cushions, when Mr. St. John came in. The elder ladies were out, and Margaret had been left alone. Perhaps it was Miss Grace who had suggested this to the gentle Anglican. He came in and sat down beside her, with eyes enlarged by emotion and anxiety; and after he had told her how much sympathy her illness had brought out, and how many people had asked for her, and how fervently they had all thought of her when the prayer for sick persons came in the Litany, Mr. St. John startled Margaret beyond measure by suddenly telling her that he loved her, and asking if she would be his wife. “Me?” she cried, with wondering, questioning eyes, in profoundest bewilderment and surprise, and with her usual Scotch indifference to her pronouns. She grew paler than ever with horror. “Oh, it cannot be me!” she said, shaking her head. But this gave her a shock of surprise and pain. She did not want to hurt anybody’s feelings. Could it be anything in her that made this painful thing happen over again?
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Aubrey joined the travellers in London. It was very self-denying of him, very kind, to give up all the festivities at the Court, and all his many Christmas invitations, in order to accompany and take care of a party of ladies on a journey to Mentone, his aunt said; “I will not say that it is not a sacrifice to myself to give up Christmas at the Court. I don’t grudge the sacrifice, my dear, for your sake, and for the sake of your health; but I will not say it is nothing and does not matter, as Grace does. Don’t you believe, either, that it does not matter to Grace. She likes her amusement just as well as the rest of us, though, to be sure, our mourning would make a difference. But Aubrey is a young man, and has as many engagements as he can set his face to; and we are nothing but a couple of old aunts, and you a bit of a little girl. Yet when he can be of use he never hesitates. You ought to be very grateful, Margaret, for all he is doing for you.”
“And so I am,” said Margaret: it was very kind. And though Aubrey, when he arrived, scouted the notion, and declared that he would go anywhere to get rid of the festivities of the Court, this did not make any impression upon the ladies, who praised his self-denial to the echo. As for Margaret, there could be no doubt that his presence made the expedition very much more agreeable to her. Jean and Grace were very kind; but Jean was a little overpowering in her manifold arrangements, and Grace’s tenderness did not always fall in with the girl’s humor, who was apt to be impatient now and then. Margaret got better day by day; and there was so great a load lifted from her mind that she was able to enjoy everything as she had never done before. No chance now that she should be followed and pursued by any attendant of whom she would be afraid. Every step they took made that more impossible. She seemed to get out of the range of Rob Glen altogether when she crossed the Channel, not to say that Randal had already made her deliverance certain.
She dwelt upon this action of Randal in many a musing, with mingled admiration and gratitude. How clever it was of him to divine what she wanted to be done! The confusion of the moment had been partly to blame for the incoherent message she had sent; but it was not altogether the confusion of the moment. There had been, besides, a reluctance to mention the name of Rob Glen to Randal, a desire to imply, rather than to state distinctly, what she wanted him to do. The vagueness was at least partly voluntary, and partly she did not know what she wanted to be done. She wanted something, some one to interpose who should know better than herself, who should be able to see what was most expedient. What claim had she on Randal that he should have done so much for her? And what inspiration could it be that made him divine so exactly what she wanted—exactly what she wanted!—not to hurt Rob’s feelings? Oh no, very far from that. If she had not been unwilling to hurt Rob’s feelings, it would never have been in his power to give her so much alarm as he had done.