And they walked through the garden back to the house, with scarcely a word spoken between them. One way or the other way, both were equally uncomfortable modes of managing such a crisis. She had hurt his feelings! It was better than all that followed the episode of Rob Glen; but still it was not a pleasant way.
CHAPTER XL.
And it was true that the very next morning Aubrey declared his intention of going away. “My chief finds that the office cannot get on without me,” he said, pretending to have had letters by the morning mail; while Margaret sat, not daring to look up, feeling more guilty than she could say. Her consciousness that she was to blame even carried the day over her determined belief in the sincerity and absolute truthfulness of every one about her. Twenty-four hours since she would have accepted Aubrey’s statement as a matter-of-fact which left no room for doubt or comment. But now she could not but feel that she had something to do with it, that she had hurt his feelings, which made Margaret feel very guilty and wretched. He had been so kind to them, to her and her sisters, and sacrificed a great many pleasant things to come with them: and this was all her gratitude! She did not like to lift her eyes. When Jean and Grace both rushed into wailing and lamentations, she said nothing. She tried to swallow her tea, though it nearly choked her, but she could not speak.
As for Mrs. Bellingham, she said not half so much to her nephew then as she did after breakfast, when she had him to herself.
“You can’t be going to do anything so foolish, Aubrey, my dear Aubrey!” she said; “why, you are making progress day by day! If ever a girl was delighted with a young man, and pleased to be with him, and happy in his society, Margaret is that girl. And you know how anxious I am, and how it would please everybody at the Court to see you provided for.”
“You are very kind, Aunt Jean,” he said, with a flush of angry color. “I know you mean nothing that is not amiable and kind; but I think, all the same, I might be provided for in some other way.”
Jean, though she was so strong-minded, felt very much disposed to cry at this failure of all her wishes.
“I don’t understand you at all,” she said; “I am sure there was nothing meant that was the least disagreeable to your feelings. Margaret, though I say it that perhaps shouldn’t, is as nice a girl as you will find anywhere; and though her education has been neglected, nobody need be ashamed of her. And you seemed to be quite pleased; and I am sure she is really fond of you.”
“Yes, that is one of your Scotticisms,” he said; “you mean that as long as I am serviceable, and don’t ask too much, Margaret likes me well enough. I don’t say anything against that—”
This time Mrs. Bellingham really did put up her handkerchief to her eyes. “I never expected to hear of my Scotticisms from you, Aubrey,” she said. “Of course I am Scotch—there is no doubt about it—and I would never be one to deny my country. But I did think that, after spending by far the greater part of my life in England, I might have been free of any such abuse as that.”