Margaret Vincent: A Novel

by Mrs. W. K. Clifford

The months went by without alarms till Margaret was eighteen. It was mid-spring at Woodside Farm; the early flowers were up in the Dutch garden, the first green was on the trees, the sowers were busy in the fields, and all the earth smelled sweet. In the house spring cleaning was rife; it told, together with the non-coming of Mr. Garratt, on Hannah's temper, and Hannah's temper told on the rest of the family.

"I don't think he has behaved well," Mrs. Vincent said to her husband. "A man has no right to send a letter saying he hopes to get over soon and pay his respects to her mother, and then not be as good as his word. It isn't even as if he hadn't sent her a card at Christmas, showing he still thought of her. You see, Hannah's getting on, and she isn't satisfied at holding herself over for a chance." What else Hannah could possibly do she didn't explain.

Mr. Vincent shrewdly suspected that Mr. Garratt's courage had failed him, or perhaps that he regarded matrimony as a sober investment to be made in middle age rather than as an exhilaration for youth, and so was just keeping an eye open without committing himself. But whatever the reason, Mr. Garratt had not yet appeared, and the effects were obvious. Hannah brushed her hair back more tightly than formerly, her movements became jerky, a little pink settled itself at the tip of her nose, and her tongue took a freer range.

The hours were earlier at Woodside Farm as the spring advanced. By nine o'clock Mr. Vincent had gone to his study, and Hannah was busy in the dairy or out among the chickens. Then it was that Mrs. Vincent and Margaret allowed themselves the luxury of a little foolish talk together in the living-place. It was only possible when Hannah was not about, for she had no patience with a great girl, who might be making better use of her time, sitting on the arm of a chair. So Mrs. Vincent and Margaret stole their little interviews together with the happy craftiness of lovers.

The postman came into the porch one morning while they were talking. Mrs. Vincent always listened for him now, knowing well that one day he would bring the message she dreaded. There were two letters for her husband, and her heart stood still when she saw that one was from Australia. But she recovered in a moment; after all, there had been many letters now, and this might be only one added to the number. The strange thing was that she never asked a question. When he had to go he would tell her, she thought; what was the use of worrying him? The other letter was an English one—a woman's handwriting in violet ink on pale-gray paper. She looked at it curiously, and felt that this, too, was connected with his history—that part of his history of which she knew nothing.

"You can take them to him, Margaret," she said, and sat down again.

"Father started when he saw the one directed with violet ink," Margaret told her when she returned.

Mrs. Vincent looked at her daughter wonderingly, and tried to divert her own thoughts. "I can't believe you are growing up," she said; "we sha'n't be able to keep you much longer."

Margaret lifted the hair from her mother's forehead and kissed beneath it—soft hair, with a crinkle in it that had of late grown gray. "What is going to happen to me?" she asked, and thought of the blue distance on the Surrey hills. It was beginning to attract her.