Margaret Vincent: A Novel

by Mrs. W. K. Clifford

"Of course. That is why he inherited the title."

"Oh!" She looked up rather amused. Chidhurst folk had none of the snobbishness of London, but titles are picturesque and even romantic to a young imagination. "What title?"

"He is Lord Eastleigh," Mr. Vincent answered, reluctantly, "as my father was before him; but a title without property to keep it up is not a very praiseworthy possession. It generally suggests that there has been extravagance or bad management, or something of the sort." He stopped again, and then went on quickly: "After his marriage he went to Australia, and we knew nothing of each other for years till he wrote some months ago."

"Mother told me. Are you rich, father—can you afford to go to him?"

"I have two hundred a year and a legacy of five hundred pounds—it came in some time ago, and will pay the expenses of the journey."

"I see." Gradually she was grasping the family position. "It must be dreadful for his wife, to be all that way off alone with him, and he going to die."

He looked up in surprise. It had not occurred to him to feel any sympathy for his brother's wife. He liked Margaret for thinking of her. "Yes, I suppose it is," he said; "though I believe she wasn't a very desirable person. I don't know whether I'm wise to give you these details. They are not necessary to our life at Chidhurst."

"But I'm growing older," she said, eagerly, and held out her hands to him as if she were groping her way through the world with them. "I want to know things. Don't keep them from me."

He looked at her in dismay. It was the old cry—the cry of his own youth. "I won't," he said, and kissed her forehead.

She was glad to be alone for a little while, to get rid of the first excitement, the first strangeness of the journey, and of being at the hotel. She looked out at the hansoms setting down and driving on, at all the swift traffic along the roadway, at the people on the wide pavement. She had imagined what London would be like from pictures, and from Guildford and Haslemere, and other places where there were shops and streets. It was what she had expected, and yet it was different. She felt herself so near to the heart of things, as if the people going to and fro were the pulse of the world; she could almost hear the throb of their lives. She wanted to be in the whirl of things, too, to know what it was all like, to understand—oh, no, no! the farm was better, the Dutch garden and the best parlor and the mother who was thinking of her. She would sit down and write to her this very minute—it was an excellent chance while she was alone. On the writing-table in the corner there were paper and envelopes, with the name of the hotel stamped on them. Her mother would look at it and understand the strangeness of her surroundings. This was the first time they had been separated at all; and writing to her was like a door creaking on its hinges, suggesting that at some unexpected moment it might open wide to let her through.