"What will people say? It could have been but a chance that your uncle was there to save appearances. Have you no thought for your character? Is every scurrilous beldame to bandy your name about?--and have the right to do it? Have you no womanly pride? and will you drag your innocent young sister in the mire with you?--and your too trusting mother? What have we done that you should expose us to public scorn?
"Ah me! that I should have lived for this! How could you do it? To dig your mother's grave before her eyes! Say that you did not mean it!--that it was thoughtlessness!--that you listened to the voice of a tempter!--that you will not do it again! He is a serpent, Margaret.
"You do not answer me? Ah! my poor heart! How it throbs!" and she pressed her side, and sank into a chair. "You will kill me, Margaret, with shame and grief. A mother cannot survive such undutifulness. My blood will cry at you from the ground! What peace can you ever hope to know, when you have killed your mother?" and here her handkerchief came into use. She covered her face and sobbed.
Margaret was greatly moved. Her eyes were full. She durst not speak, even if she would; she must have broken down had she attempted it. She was distressed to see her mother shedding tears. To be threatened with her early death was terrible. She would do anything to calm her--anything else, at least, whatever it might cost herself. But she had given her promise to Walter--poor Walter! whom her mother used to be so fond of. How could she take it again? It was no longer hers. She could only stand in despair and shame, and see her mother weep herself back into composure.
Mrs Naylor's composure returned all the sooner, that nothing seemed likely to come of her having yielded to her feelings. She pulled the handkerchief from her reddened eyes, and with a concluding sob which was partly a sniff of impatience, put it back in her pocket.
"I declare, Margaret," she cried, "you are harder than flint! One might as well cry at a slate roof as you. It just runs off without softening you in the least. You are obdurate. You have no feeling, and no heart. The momentary indulgence of a headstrong whim is all you think of. Consequences to your family, or even yourself, you never dream of considering. But you shall not ruin yourself, however much you may desire it, even if I have to lock you up. You will please to understand that you are to remain by me from this time on, and not to leave me without permission. You have made me ill enough with your undutifulness to enable me to tell people quite honestly that I am poorly, and need your care. Now, understand! If you leave my side without my sending you, I shall follow and bring you back before the assembled company; and I fancy, although you are impervious to higher considerations, you will not wish to be the laughing-stock of the hotel. If you leave me, I shall come and fetch you back, and there will be a scene, I promise you.
"Now do not stand there biting your lips in dumb rebellion; I am not done yet. I do not insist on your encouraging Mr Wilkie; in fact, after the setting down I have given his mother, I do not suppose he will venture to intrude on us. But mind what you are about with young Mr Petty. I will not have him repulsed or trifled with. It was pitiful to see how forlornly he crept about the steamboat on our return from the island, after your outrageous behaviour in leaving him all alone. If he should be willing to overlook the slight, I insist on your behaving properly to him for the future. With his talents and his interest, he will be Attorney-General one day; so mind what you are about."
Margaret felt too well sat upon to venture a reply. She had dared say nothing while her mother held forth at large, and now that she had talked herself out of breath, she feared to tempt her to break out anew; but like others who have been silenced without being convinced, she only wanted time and opportunity to return to her old paths. Though sat upon, she was neither broken nor crushed. It is a state of things which in the present day is not unfrequent. Rulers having grown to take things easily, allow the subject to have his head, until he goes too far. Then they put on authority with a spurt, find it irksome to themselves, and take it off again too soon. It is only systematic repression which need hope to prevail, and the arm which applies that, must never grow weary or relax.
Margaret sat disconsolately at her mother's elbow that evening, and felt like a martyr, while her fancies flew away in pursuit of Walter Blount. "Poor fellow! he was thinking of her, no doubt--walking the streets of Lippenstock, and feeling so lonely. How dreadful this separation must be to him! But she would be true. She could never love another. She would not try. She would never marry any one else, however they might try to force her. No; she would pine--she was sure she would--grow pale and thin; and nobody would mind her after that. By-and-by she would grow old, and have poor health; and she would still be single, with nothing to think about but her own faithfulness, and how happy she might have been if her misguided friends would have allowed it. And then her mother would be sorry, when it was too late; but she would forgive her, and tend her declining years to the last. What a beautiful touching martyr life it would all make! but so terribly dull." She pictured to herself a desolate hearth, with not a creature to keep her company but a stupid cat upon a footstool blinking at the fire, and herself in spectacles and a cap, knitting or making clothes for the poor, beneficent to everybody, but sadly moped herself--and all for Walter! She grew consoled in thinking about it. It was as good as a play--at least a dull one. The others were beginning to dance, now; but she would not dance, though her mother had given her leave when Walter Petty came to ask her. She had a headache, she said; and now she knew she must refuse every one else that evening. What of that? It was making a sort of commencement of the life she saw in store for her in the future. Poor girl!
A mood so doleful does not last, however, when we are young and healthy. It grew tantalising to Margaret to see the others enjoying themselves, and made her feel neglected; and she welcomed Rosa when Joseph brought her to sit beside his family, and accustom Mrs Naylor to the prospect of a sister-in-law. The jeweller's clerk having divulged that he had ordered a magnificent ring for a lady, it was useless to affect reserve. He accepted the people's congratulations calmly, as his due; and his sister-in-law, making a virtue of necessity, endeavoured to do so likewise. Mrs Deane was in the little knot by Mrs Naylor's sofa--good-natured people who did not believe in her ailments, but had no objection to humouring her, and found the fixed centre of an invalid's couch convenient in that fortuitous concourse of atoms. Mrs Naylor engrossed herself with Mrs Deane, Rose's chaperon, that her feeling towards Rose herself might be less apparent. It was oppressive to go on talking pleasantly to one whom she would have liked to address in quite other terms, had it been permissible. Wherefore Rose fell out of the conversation and turned to Margaret, with whom she had more in common.