Mrs. Moffat smiled at this, and consented to take charge of the note, as Meg had no safe place in which to keep it, and to give it back by instalments, as the girl might require.
As Margaretta anticipated, Lady Longridge demanded a sight of her letter, and there was a look of grim satisfaction on her face as she mastered its contents. The girl thought she was pleased at the message to herself, and was glad it should reach her just as it was written. But Lady Longridge was saying to herself—
"So you are being paid out at last, my lady. You are finding out that the old are sometimes hale and hearty, whilst the young are broken down. I don't wish you to die. At my time of life one must not be too hard; but I hope it will be a good while before you come back to England, to put false notions into your daughter's head, or meddle between her and me. Everyone can see how well the girl is being trained. She will be a credit to an old woman's bringing up, and you, proud as you are, will have to own it."
To Margaretta she said—
"Never mind, child. If your mother is away, you have me to look after you. You will be well taken care of, never fear. These meetings are mere matters of habit. I know by experience how well many daughters get on without seeing their mothers for many years together."
Truly she did. The visits of her own daughters had become fewer and farther between, as well as shorter in duration than of old, and the fact did not distress Lady Longridge in the least. She had cared more for her son than for anyone else. Now if she cared for anyone it was for Margaretta and Thorley. Not both alike. Two persons never occupied equal positions in Lady Longridge's regard at the same time. It was first one and then the other who was favourite for a while.
The old lady was great at will-making. How many of such documents had been prepared by her lawyer, Mr. Melville, would be difficult to tell. How many that purported each to be the last will and testament of Dame Sophia Janet Longridge, had been torn to fragments or committed to the flames, only the testatrix and her much-worried legal adviser could say.
At present her ladyship was happy in the possession of two such. By virtue of one, which she mentally styled her "white will," she bequeathed the bulk of what she possessed to Margaretta and a legacy of one thousand pounds to Thorley, of whose worth time had convinced her. By the other, which was her "blue will," the bequests were exactly reversed. Each had been framed according to the humour or ill-humour of the time being, and owed its name to the colour of the paper on which it was written. So, though nobody knew this but Lady Longridge and her lawyer, she delighted in the thought that by burning one will she could in a few seconds dispossess either of those named therein. But neither Margaretta nor Thorley knew how much depended on the whim of a moment, or that Lady Longridge intended to bequeath even a legacy to either.
The girl never troubled her head about the matter, and if Thorley did, she entertained small expectations of receiving any benefit from the decease of her mistress.
"Likely enough she will wear me out, and if I outlive her, I shall miss her terribly. One gets used to being worrited till it becomes a second nature."