HOW MARGARET STARTS AS A SPECIAL PLEADER, AND IS MUCH WORSTED IN HER
ARGUMENT; AND HOW A SIMPLE KNOCK AT THE HALL DOOR SCATTERS ONE BEING
WHO DELIGHTS IN WAR.
"I think you ought to see your husband," says Margaret.
It is a bombshell! Tita withdraws her arms from round Margaret's
neck and looks at her like one seeing her for the first time. It is
plain to Margaret that she is very angry.
Poor Margaret! She feels torn in twain. Rylton, as has been said,
had called twice during the past ten days, but on neither of those
occasions had seen Tita. Tita, indeed, had obstinately refused to
come downstairs, even though Margaret had gone up to fetch her.
Margaret had not forgotten that occasion. She had found the girl in
her room.
"Never, never, never!" said Tita, in answer to all her entreaties,
who had screwed herself into the farthest corner of her room between
a wardrobe and a table--a most uncomfortable position, but one
possessed of certain advantages. It would be difficult, for example,
to dislodge her from it. And she gave Margaret the impression, as
she entered the room, that she thought force was about to be
resorted to.
"It is your duty to come downstairs and see him," Margaret had said.
She always brought in poor Duty, who certainly must have been fagged
to death at that time.
"I hate him!" said Tita rebelliously, and now with increased venom,
as she saw that Margaret only had come to the assault. "Go down and
tell him that."
"This is dreadful," said poor Margaret, going to the door.
But even now the little miscreant wedged in between the furniture
was not satisfied.
"Tell him I hope I'll never see him again!" said she, calling it out
loudly as though afraid Margaret might not hear and deliver her
words.
"I shall certainly deliver no such message," said the latter,
pausing on the threshold and waxing wroth. Even the worm will turn,
they say, though I confess I never saw one that did. "You can tell
him that yourself, some day, when you see him!"
But this parting shaft had only made Tita laugh. _"See him!_ She
would die first!"
Margaret had gone down with a modified edition of this _rencontre_
to Rylton, and Rylton had shrugged his shoulders. He could not
disguise from Margaret the fact, however, that he was chagrined. He
had seen through the modifying, of course, and had laughed--not very
merrily--and told Margaret not to ruin her conscience on _his
_account. He had lived with Tita long enough to know the sort of
message she would be sure to send.
Margaret mumbled something after that, never very clear to either of
them, and Rylton had gone on to say that he was going down to the
country for a month. He was starting on Monday next. He had said all
that on Thursday, and this is Tuesday. There is a sense of relief,
yet of regret, in Margaret's heart as she tells herself that he is
well out of town. But _now,_ certainly, is the time to work on
Tita's sense of right and wrong. Rylton will come back at the end of
the month, and when he does, surely--surely his wife should be
willing to, at all events, receive him as a friend. The gossip
surrounding these two people, so dear to her, is distressing to
Margaret, and she would gladly have put an end to it. The whole
thing, too, is so useless, so senseless. And as for that affair of
Marian's Bethune's--she has no belief in that. It has blown over--is
dead. Killed--by time.
"See him?" says Tita at last, stammering.
"Yes, when he comes back. You have a month to think about it. He has
gone to the country."
"A very good thing too," says Tita, with a shrug of her shoulders.
"I hope he will stay there."
"But he won't," says Margaret in despair. "He returns to town in
June. Tita, I hope--I do hope you will be sensible, and consent to
see him then."
"Does he want to see me?" asks Tita.
Here Margaret is posed. Rylton had certainly _known,_ that day she
had gone up to Tita's room to bring her down, what her errand was,
but he had not asked her to go upon it. He had expressed no desire,
had shown no wish for a meeting with his wife.
"My dear--I----"
"Ah, you make a bad liar, Meg!" says Tita; "you ought to throw up
the appointment. You aren't earning your salary honestly. And,
besides, it doesn't matter. Even if he were _dying _to see me, I
should still rather die than see him."
"That is not a right spirit, to----"
"I expect my spirit is as right as his," says Tita rebelliously,
"and," with a sudden burst of indignation that does away with all
sense of her duty to her language, "a thousand times righter for the
matter of that. No, Margaret! No--no--no! I will _not_ see him. Do
you think I ever forget----"
"I had hoped, dearest, that----"
"It is useless to hope. _What_ woman would forgive it? I knew he
married me without loving me. That was all fair! He told me that.
What he did not tell me was the vital thing--that he loved someone
else."
"You should never have married him when he told you he did not love
you."
"Why not?" warmly. "I knew nothing of love; I thought he knew
nothing of it either. Love seemed to me a stupid sort of thing (it
seems so still). I said to myself that a nice strong friendship
would be sufficient for me----"
"Well?"
"Well, so it would--only he felt no friendship. He felt nothing but
his love for that odious woman! I couldn't stand that."
"You stood it for a long time, Tita--if it ever existed."
"Yes; I know. I didn't seem to care much at first, but when he grew
rude to me about Tom---- Well, I knew what _that_ meant."
"If you knew, you should have kept your cousin at a greater
distance."
"Nonsense, Margaret! what do you mean by that?" Tita has turned a
pair of lustrous eyes upon her--eyes lit by the fire of battle--not
battle with Margaret, however, but with memory. "You honestly think
that he believed I was in love with Tom?"
"I do. And I think he was jealous."
Tita bursts out laughing. There is little music in her mirth.
"And now I'll tell you what _I_ think. That he was _glad_ to pretend
to believe I was in love with Tom, because he hoped to get rid of
me, and after that to marry his cousin."
"Tita! I shall not listen to you if you say such things. How dare
you even think them? Maurice is incapable of such a design."
"In my opinion, he is capable of anything," retorts Maurice's wife,
without a trace of repentance. She looks long at Margaret, and then
dropping gracefully upon a _pouf_ at Margaret's feet, says sweetly,
"He's a beast!"
"Oh, Tita! I don't know _why_ I love you," says Margaret, with
terrible reproach.
At this Tita springs to her feet, and flings her arms round Miss
Knollys. Presently she leans back and looks at her again, still,
however, holding her with her arms. Her small face, so woeful a
while ago, is now wreathed in smiles; it even suggests itself to
Margaret that she is with difficulty suppressing a wild outbreak of
mirth--a suppression meant, no doubt, as a concession to Margaret's
feelings.
"I'll tell you," whispers she. "You love me because you would be the
most ungrateful wretch on earth unless you did. You give me _some_
of your love; I give you all mine. I have no one else."
"That is your own fault," says Margaret, still trying to scold her,
actually believing she is doing it, whilst with her eyes and mouth
she is smiling at her.
"Not another word, not one," says Tita. "And promise me you won't
ask me to see him again. I hate him! He sets my nerves on edge. I
think he is actually _ugly."_
"I think you must have forgotten what he is like by this time."
"No, I don't. One doesn't forget a nightmare in a hurry."
"Tita, really----"
"There! I'll be good. I'll consign him to the lowest depths and
never dig him up again. And so he has left town? What a blessed
relief! Now I can go out and enjoy myself. _Let_ us go out, Meg! Let
us----_what's that?"_
She stands transfixed in the middle of the room, Margaret opposite
her. Both seem stricken into marble.
A knock at the door, loud, sharp, resounding--a knock well known to
both.
"And you _said_ he was gone to the country," says Tita, in a low
whisper filled with deepest suspicions.
"He said so. I believed it. It must be a mistake," says Margaret.
"He _certainly_ said so."
They have lost some moments over their fear and astonishment. The
sound of a rapidly approaching footstep, quite as well known to them
as the knock, rouses both to a sense of desperation.
"What on earth shall I do?" says Tita, who is now as white as a
sheet.
"Stay and see him," says Margaret, with sudden inspiration.
"Stay! Do you think I should stay for one moment in the room with
him? No! I shall go in there," pointing to the next room that opens
out of this with folding-doors, "and wait until he goes away."
She has hardly time to reach this seclusion when the door is thrown
wide, and Sir Maurice is announced.
"Nobody with you?" says he, glancing somewhat expectantly around
him. "I fancied I heard someone. _So_ glad to find you alone!"
"Yes--yes--perhaps it is better," says Margaret vaguely, absently,
thinking always of the little firebrand in that room beyond, but so
near, so fatally near.
"Better? You mean----"
"Well, I mean that Tita has only just left the room," says Margaret
desperately.
"She--is in there, then?" pointing towards the folding-doors.
"Yes. _Do_ speak low. You know she--I can't disguise from you,
Maurice, that she----"
Margaret hesitates.
"Hates me? I'm quite aware of that." A long pause. "She is well, I
hope?" frigidly.
"I think so. She looks well, lovely indeed--a little pale, perhaps.
Maurice," leaning across and whispering cautiously, "why don't you
try to make a reconciliation of some sort? A beginning might lead to
the happiest results, and I am sure you do care for her--and--_do_
try and make up with her."
"You must be out of your mind!" says Maurice, springing to his feet,
and to poor Margaret's abject fear speaking at the top of his lungs.
"With _her,_ when she deliberately deserted me of her own
accord--when----"
"Oh, hush, hush!" says Margaret in an agony. She makes wild signs to
him, pointing towards the closed doors as she does so. A nice girl,
we all know, would rather _die_ than put her ear to a keyhole, even
if by doing so she could save her neck from the scaffold; but the
very best of girls might by chance be leaning against a door through
the chinks of which sounds might enter from the room beyond it.
"She'll _hear_ you!" gasps Margaret.
"I don't care if she does," says Maurice indignantly, but he calms
down for all that, and consents to sit in a chair as far from the
folding-doors as possible. "You have misjudged me all through," says
he.
"I think not--I hope not. But I will say, Maurice, that I think you
began your marriage badly, and--you should not have----"
"Have what?"
"Asked Marian to stay with you."
"That was"--gloomily--"a mistake. I admit that. But have _I_ nothing
to complain of?"
"Nothing, I honestly believe."
Her tone is so honest (Margaret herself is so sweetly honest all
through) that he remains silent for a moment. It is, however, a
constrained silence. The knowledge that Tita is standing or sitting,
laughing or frowning, behind those boards over there, disturbs him
in spite of himself.
"Well, I have often thought that, too," says he, "and yet I have
often thought--the other thing. At all events, you cannot deny that
_he_ was in love with her."
"Why should I deny that? To me"--with a reproachful glance at
him--"she seems like one with whom many might be in love."
"Oh, you are a partisan!" says he irritably, rising abruptly, and
preparing to pace the room.
Margaret catches his coat as he goes by her.
"I entreat, I implore you to be quiet. It is so _slight_ a
partition," says she. "Do sit down like a dear boy and talk softly,
unless"--wistfully and evidently hopefully--"you want to go away."
"Well, I don't," says he grimly.
He reseats himself. An extraordinary fascination keeps him in this
room, even in face of the fact that the mistress of it is plainly
longing for his departure. She has even openly hinted at it. And the
fascination? It lies there behind the folding-doors. There is no
romance in it, he tells himself; it is rather the feeling of an
enemy who knows his foe to be close by. He turns to Margaret.
"Why did she refuse that money?"
"Why did you refuse hers?"
"Pshaw! You're evading the question. To take half of her little
pittance! I wonder you can even suggest the thing. It--it is almost
an insult," says he, reddening to his brows.
"I didn't mean it," says Margaret quickly, the more so that she
thinks he is going to walk the room again. "Of course you could not
have taken it."
"And yet I did take her money," says he miserably; "I wish to heaven
now I hadn't. _Then_ it seemed a fair exchange--her money for my
title; it is done every day, and no one thinks anything of it--but
now---- It was a most cursed thing," says he.
"It would have been nothing--nothing," says Margaret eagerly, "if
you had been heart-whole. But to marry her, loving another, that was
wrong--unpardonable----"
"Unpardonable!" He looks at her with a start. What does she mean? Is
he beyond pardon, indeed? Pardon from---- "That's all over," says
he.
"It wasn't over _then!"_
"I don't know----" He gets up and walks to the window in an agitated
fashion, and then back again. "Margaret, I don't believe I ever
loved her."
Margaret stares at him.
"You are talking of Marian?"
"Yes; Marian. If I did love her, then there is no such thing as
love--love the eternal--because I love her no longer."
"It is not that," says Margaret; "but love can be killed. Poor
love!" she sighed. "Marian of her own accord has killed yours."
There is a long pause; then: "Well, I'm glad of it," says he.
He lifts his arms high above his head, as a man might who yawns, or
a man might who has all at once recognised that he is rid of a great
encumbrance.
"I suppose you did not come here to discuss your love affairs with
Marian," says Margaret, a little coldly.
In a strange sort of way she had liked Marian, and she knew that
Marian, in a strange sort of way, clung to _her_. And, besides, to
say love could be killed! It was tantamount to saying love could
die! Has _her_ love died? Colonel Neilson had been with her a good
deal since her return to town, and there had been moments of
heart-burning, when she had searched her heart indeed, and found it
wanting--wanting in its fixed determination to be true for ever to
the dear dead beloved. And such a miserable wanting, a mere craving
to be as others are--to live in the life of another, to know the
warmth, the _breath_ of the world's sunshine--to love, and be loved
again.
No wonder Margaret is angry with Rylton for bringing all these
delinquencies into the light of certainty.
"No," says Sir Maurice moodily. "I came here to see you."
"You told me you intended leaving town yesterday."
"Yes, I know. I meant it. But I've changed my mind about stopping in
the country--at least, I'm running down to The Place for the night
to see after some business with the agent, but I'll be back
to-morrow."
"Really, you must forgive me if I say I don't think much of your
mind," says Margaret, who is still a little sore over her own
reflections.
"I don't think much of it myself," says Rylton, with increasing
gloom.
At this abject surrender Margaret's tender heart relents.
"I believe all you have told me," says she; "and I suppose I'm glad
of it, although--Well, never mind that. Marian deserves no pity, but
still----"
"Pshaw!" says he. "What has Marian got to do with it? Marian never
cared _that_ about me." He makes an expressive movement with his
fingers--a little snap. "I know now that Marian only played with me.
I amused her. I was the plaything of an hour."
"You wrong her there, Maurice."
"Do I? How? They tell us"--with a bitter smile--"that if a woman
loves a man she will cling to him through all things--poverty,
ill-repute, even crime. But poverty, the least of these things,
daunted _her."_
"She had known so _much_ poverty----"
"Are you pleading _her_ cause now?" says Maurice, with a slight
smile. "You plead it badly. The very fact of her knowing it so well
should not have deterred her from trying it again with the man she
loved. I offered to throw up everything for her, to go abroad, to
work, to wrestle with fortune for her sake, but she----" He stops,
and draws a long breath. "Well, it is over," says he.
"That is. But your future life----"
"I'm not a favourite of gods, am I?" says he, laughing. "My future
life! Well, I leave it to them. So Tita is looking well?"
"Yes; quite well. A little pale, I said."
"She never had much colour. She never speaks of me, I suppose?"
"Sometimes--yes."
Rylton looks down at the carpet, and then laughs a little awkwardly.
"I expect I had better not inquire into it," says he. "It is a
general remark, yet it is _all _question."
"Of course, she remembers things," says Margaret nervously.
If he were to make another scene, to prance up and down the room,
and talk at the top of his lungs, there is no knowing _what_ may not
happen, considering who is standing behind those folding-doors.
"We can all remember things," says Sir Maurice, rising and holding
out his hand. He bids her good-bye. As he gets to the door he looks
back. "Tell her I didn't like to keep her in durance vile longer
than was necessary," says he.
With this parting shot, he goes down the stairs and out of the
house.