"A small piece of good fortune having fallen to Mrs. Thorpe's share,
it's really time that her old acquaintances should ask what has become
of her, isn't it?" said Mr. Sauls.
He was standing in Laura Ashford's drawing-room, whither he had come to
extract any knowledge she might possess as to her sister's whereabouts.
Unfortunately she knew nothing.
"I am very glad that my poor old uncle has left Meg that money," said
Laura; "and that you mean to see that she gets it. Her cause is in good
hands."
"Mr. Russelthorpe was uncommonly kind to me, and one has a foolish
superstition about carrying out a man's last wishes," said George. "It's
for his sake I am doing it. His widow means to dispute the will on the
ground of incompetency; but she won't gain much by that. It is odd what
a tendency women have for going to law. Of course it is fortunate for
the lawyers; quite a 'special dispensation,' as no doubt Barnabas Thorpe
would say."
There was a suppressed elation in his voice that was not lost on Laura.
"I wonder why he hates my aunt. How she must have snubbed him! This
clever gentleman would keep a stone in his pocket seven years, and turn
it, and keep it seven more, for the chance of hitting his enemy with it
at last, I fancy. Well, well! we all rather condescended to Mr. Sauls
before I married," she reflected; "but he has the laugh on his side now.
Meg had better have taken him."
Her thoughts flew back to the evening of the ball at Ravenshill long
ago, and she sighed.
"How pretty Meg had looked that night, and how set she had been on
living with their father, and how unreasonable, poor child!"
Laura had grown stout and matronly since then. The philosophy of
half-loaves had answered well enough apparently. If her husband was
somewhat of a fool, why, her own excellent sense served for two. Well
enough! But she would not recommend it to her own child as she had
recommended it to poor Meg.
Motherhood had softened Laura; and, on glancing at Mr. Sauls seated
under the lamplight, she recognised that he too had altered.
He had the ball at his feet now. He had always had plenty of
self-assurance, but during this last year he had proved his strength,
and justified his own belief in himself in the eyes of all men; he was
no longer on sufferance anywhere, and his manner showed that he knew it.
He was quieter and less eager than he had been; he looked successful,
but he no longer looked young.
"Will you take charge of a letter from me to my sister, and give it to
her, if you find her?" she asked.
"I will, _when_ I find her," said Mr. Sauls. "I do not expect much
difficulty. The preacher ought not to be hard to trace; for he certainly
is not given to hiding his light under bushels; besides, my news will be
to his advantage. We did our best to prevent his reaping inordinate
profits, and he can't actually pocket much. There are a good many
conditions, but, no doubt, he will live on her, and live in clover. Mr.
Russelthorpe was fond of your sister, wasn't he? I do not remember her
very clearly myself; I've a bad memory for faces. She had brown eyes and
a fresh complexion, hadn't she? No? Ah! I must have been thinking of
some one else. Well, if you'll write your letter I will deliver it."
"Meg's eyes are grey," said Laura shortly; and she turned to the
writing-table with a sigh.
Poor Meg! who had so often been sinned against, as well as sinning, whom
even her quondam admirer had forgotten!
Laura wrote her letter and folded it, then felt that it was
unsatisfactory and tore it up, and tried again.
Mr. Sauls looked at his watch, and she took yet another sheet and
scribbled a hasty postscript.
Her letter was stiff and rather cold, but in the postscript her heart
showed itself; it was a warmer after-thought, such as had made her long
ago turn back at the door to offer her silly little sister an unexpected
kiss.
She thrust the loose sheet, which was thinner and of a different colour
from the rest, into the envelope, and put her missive into Mr. Sauls'
hands.
"Grey eyes and pale! I'll try to recollect. Good-bye," he said. "Oh yes,
I'll give her your love, when I see her again."
"When I see her again!" His voice betrayed nothing this time; but he
repeated the words to himself on his way down the stairs, not quite so
calmly.
"When I see her again!" He would see her across a gulf; but, at least,
he would know at last whether Meg on the other side of it was in heaven
or hell. She was sure to be in one or the other; for there had never
been much debatable land for her.
* * * * *
A fortnight later he had redeemed his promise. He had found his way to
the preacher's house. It was, to Mr. Sauls' mind, the most God-forsaken
spot he had ever come across. Holding Margaret Thorpe's hand in his, he
tried to discover what had happened to Margaret Deane.
He was prepared for the meeting, and, even if he had not been, his
natural instinct for the expedient would have led him to behave as if
nothing very remarkable had occurred since he had last talked to her in
her aunt's drawing-room; as if this encounter were the most ordinary
thing in the world. But Meg, who was not prepared, started at sight of
him as though she had seen a ghost.
Tom Thorpe, whom he had met about a mile from the farm, stood staring at
them both from under his heavy eyebrows. Mrs. Tremnell hurried into the
kitchen, attracted by the sound of a strange voice, and peeped over
Meg's shoulder at the visitor, wondering in her own mind what Barnabas,
who didn't like gentlefolk, would have said to him. But Mr. Sauls talked
on in an even tone about his journey and the weather, to give Meg time
to recover herself.
"Is my father well?" she said at last. "Oh," with a smile of relief,
when he had reassured her, "then nothing else matters!" For a moment she
had feared that this messenger from the past had come to tell her that
her father was dead.
Mr. Sauls smiled a trifle bitterly. He had always known that Meg
expended an immense amount of affection on her father, and that she had
never had any sentiment to spare for himself; but familiarity does not
always blunt the sharp edge of a fact, and at that moment he would have
felt himself "less of a fool" if her emotion had been awakened on his
own account.
He sat down to the mid-day meal with them, Tom inviting him somewhat
unwillingly; and Meg, after the first shock of surprise, lost her
nervousness, and brightened up.
She had often in old days had reason to be grateful to Mr. Sauls for his
_savoir faire_; now she was once more thankful for it.
He made no allusion to her former life; looked as if he were accustomed
to dining in a kitchen at twelve o'clock, and discoursed on the breeding
of horses, as if that, of all subjects in the world, interested him
most. Tom talked with a broader accent than usual, and with an
underlying antagonism that puzzled Meg. Mrs. Tremnell's manner became
more superfine and her words longer; but, except for one moment at the
end of the meal, Mr. Sauls was his ordinary and imperturbable self. It
was a pleasure--Meg was ashamed to find how great a pleasure--to be
again with some one who did not drop his _h_'s, or answer with his mouth
full, or put his knife between his lips, and on whose tact she could
rely.
"What this poor lady must have suffered here passes a man's
understanding, I suspect," George reflected grimly; and, although he was
not a forgiving person, he forgave Margaret a good deal of the pain she
had most unwittingly brought on him, when he saw Tom Thorpe help her to
the dish in front of him with his own fork, and noticed that she tried
to "look as it she liked it". Possibly the things for which he pitied
her were not those which weighed most heavily on her; but even the
warmest sympathy is apt to be undiscriminating.
Margaret was thinner and paler and gentler than she used to be; he noted
each change with secret indignation. No doubt her short cropped hair and
black dress accentuated the difference, but he fancied that an ordinary
acquaintance would hardly recognise her.
There had often been a touch of defiance in her manner to Mrs.
Russelthorpe; she was not defiant now, but on the contrary, painfully
anxious to get on with her husband's relatives.
Meg had once believed that all her troubles were her aunt's fault; but,
since then, she had failed entirely on her own account--an experience
which, I suppose, comes to the majority of us sooner or later, and has a
wonderfully humbling effect.
George observed also that Tom Thorpe was rather fond of her. He could
not have explained how he knew it, but the fact irritated him.
"I wish ye'd coax dad to come and take a bite o' some'at," Tom said
presently. And she went at once, leaving Mr. Sauls racking his brains to
remember some remark he had heard about the preacher's father. Was it
that he was melancholy mad?
Dinner was nearly over when she came back.
"I have tried and tried," she said rather sadly; "but it is of no use
yet. I think he hardly knew I was there, and I could not get him to
attend to me to-day. He would do nothing but walk up and down, and quote
bits out of the 'Lamentations'. It is dreadful to see him like that.
I'll go and sing presently; sometimes that does it."
George looked up from his plate with the sudden dilating of his
short-sighted eyes that Meg remembered of old.
"It must be very bad for Mrs. Thorpe to try and try," he remarked
decidedly. "And you ought not to let her do it."
There was a moment's silence, then Tom laughed aggressively.
"Oh we allus bully her when th' husband's away," he said. "We mind
there's noan to look to her then, an' we make the moast on it: but
that's our business; which in this part we stick to, an' let other
foalk's affairs bide. Will 'ee have some more cider, sir?"
The preacher's wife looked from one man to the other in some anxiety.
"Why do you say that, Tom? it isn't true!" she cried. "You are all very
kind to me!" And Mr. Sauls, meeting the look, shrugged his shoulders,
and accepted the cider and the snub peaceably. He hadn't followed her in
order to make life harder for her, or even in order to quarrel with her
relatives-in-law.
She took him to a deserted mill after dinner, for he had hinted that he
had news he preferred giving her alone. And there, under the black walls
of the old ruin, with the marshes round them, he told her of her old
uncle's illness and death--with more feeling than, perhaps, most people
would have given George Sauls credit for.
"He slipped out of life, much as he used to slip out of a dinner-party,
with no fuss, giving no trouble to any one," George said. "I had been to
see him every day during the last week; for after--well, after you left,
the old fellow seemed to have a sort of liking for me. One afternoon I
found him on the sofa, instead of in his armchair, too feeble to sit up,
and only able to whisper. I insisted on fetching a doctor, but he would
not have his wife disturbed, and I saw no reason to send for her. She
was out driving, and expected back in time for dinner. Mr. Russelthorpe
fell into a doze, as the afternoon wore on. He was quite unable to read,
but he had begged me to take down one volume after another, and he kept
fingering them, and they were all piled round him on the sofa and on the
table by his side. Presently he opened his eyes. 'Plenty of company,' he
said; 'but you are the only bit of flesh and blood, Sauls, among them
all, except Meg, who cries to me--and I didn't help!' And then he slept
again. His hand was in mine (flesh and blood is what one clings to at
the end, I suppose, and books must give rather thin comfort); I felt it
grow cold while I held it; but he was often very cold. I stooped over
him to listen to his breathing, but not a sound was to be heard. He was
gone."
Mr. Sauls paused for a minute; his liking for Mr. Russelthorpe had been
closely bound up with the love that was--unfortunately, he told
himself--the love of his life. He saw Meg was touched by his story, and
especially by her uncle's self-reproach. Yet the old man _had_ done
nothing; and he, who would have done anything, who would have moved
heaven and earth for her in his youthful energy, had she only appealed
to him, would never touch her at all.
"That, however, is not the really important part of my news," he went
on, with a slight change of tone. "The point of it is that you have come
in for a fortune--though only on certain conditions."
He explained the conditions at some length; he generally spoke
concisely, but there was no need to hurry this interview.
"He was very good to me when I was a little girl," Meg softly said at
last, when every detail had been made clear. "When I grew up I fancied
he did not care what happened to me. I spoke to him unkindly the last
time I saw him. I wish! oh, how I wish I hadn't! So he remembered me
after all!"
"To some purpose," said George drily. It was like Meg to be more
impressed by the remembrance than by the actual money; and the dryness
of his tone made her smile.
"I can't help being grateful," she said; "as grateful as if I actually
possessed the fortune, which, of course, I never shall. Aunt
Russelthorpe need have no fears."
Her smile and the little gesture with which she put aside the notion of
benefiting by the legacy, filled him momentarily with the old
half-tender amusement with which he used to listen to Margaret Deane's
wildly unpractical utterances. Then the amusement was swamped in
bitterness against the man who had taken advantage of her.
If Margaret had been his wife, she might have been as loftily
unpractical as she chose, and she would have been no whit the worse for
it.
George saw how the pretty hands, whose delicacy he had admired, were
tanned and roughened; how the silver wedding ring on her finger, that
had taken the place of the pearls she had worn once, was much too loose
for her; how the dimples were gone that he had liked to watch for.
He had often said something to make his rather serious little lady smile
for the pleasure of seeing them. Now, inwardly, he cursed the preacher
with a vigour that would have startled his companion considerably if she
could have read his heart.
"The conditions are absurd on the face of them," she was saying.
"Barnabas could not agree to them; nor could I. To fulfil them would
mean going back to----"
"To your natural position," said George. "Perhaps Mr. Thorpe's scruples
might be overcome. Most men see the iniquity of wealth from a different
point of view if they have a chance of handling it--I mean no disrespect
to the preacher, naturally," he added hastily.
"I should hope not," said Meg; and her gravely surprised eyes made him
wonder whether Barnabas Thorpe still took the trouble to deceive her.
"I daresay you know best about most men, but _I_ know that Barnabas
could never see things differently for his own advantage. I will write
to him to-night, and you shall see his answer. I am quite sure of him."
"Ah! and you are not at all disappointed, and you are quite happy here,
and his relatives are all very kind to you? You look as if you had had a
remarkably easy time of it, don't you?" cried George. "I am glad you are
so fortunate----" he checked himself suddenly. "I ought to be going," he
said, with rather an abrupt pull up. He took out his watch and studied
it, not her, when he took his leave. "I don't know whether you care to
see me again? I had several things to tell you about--about your own
people--your father and----"
"About father! Come again and tell me all you can think of," she said.
"Come and talk to me about him; come soon."
"I'll come to-morrow," said George; and so he did, and for many
following morrows. So long as he talked on that subject her interest
never flagged; though it must be owned that he, on his part,
occasionally felt the situation strained.
"What a fool I am!" he said to himself more fiercely every time he saw
her. And afterwards, when he had left her and was back in London, those
hot days spent at the "other end of nowhere," at the side of the woman
who unconsciously played so large a part in his life, seemed to belong
to a part of himself that he hardly recognised. He was so eminently sane
as a rule, so little given to unprofitable expenditure, either of time
or feeling; and yet, if he had never met Meg, he would have been a
smaller man.
He wondered sardonically sometimes, between his pretty constant visits
to Meg, how all this would end. It couldn't go on for ever! Would the
climax come in his having the quarrel he was pining for with Margaret's
husband when that saint should see fit to return to his wife? Would Meg
herself wake up, and take fright, and bid him go? He knew perfectly well
that, at a word of love, she would fly horrified from him; and his
reverence for her kept his tongue within bounds. Had she been any one
else, he felt there would have been a third possibility; but Meg's ice
would never melt for him. It was, perhaps, some small consolation to
discover also that it hadn't melted for the preacher; and Mr. Sauls was
shrewd enough to arrive at that fact, even though Margaret Thorpe was
not quite so transparent as Margaret Deane had been.
They were walking together along the cart road to N----town when she
gave Mr. Sauls her husband's reply to her letter about the legacy.
The road was perfectly straight, flanked by a ditch on each side, and
beyond the ditch a low mud bank. The croaking of the marsh frogs filled
the pauses in their speech like a chorus. George took the letter
unwillingly. How he loathed the sight of that laboured handwriting! A
longing assailed him to toss it to the frogs; but, unfortunately, he
might not gratify the impulse.
"I should like you to read it," said Meg, with a touch of dignity;
"because you have imagined that the preacher would want me to take the
money. You have not understood the sort of man he is."
"No! You see, I am not a saint myself," said Mr. Sauls. He adjusted his
glass carefully. Ah, how he hated that man! "There's always a sort of
mist here. I should fancy these marshes were not healthy," he said
aloud.
("Don't stay a moment longer; come with me, away from these brutal
farmers and their pestilent country," said the voice in his heart.)
"My dear lass," he read ("the impudence of the fellow!"), "I was glad to
get a letter. I am glad you are well." ("Oh! curse his gladness!") "It
doesn't seem to me as there can be two minds about the money. It isn't
for us to be having a fine house and servants" ("for us! did he put
himself on a level with her?"); "besides, I wouldn't have you beholden
to any; and I would be 'shamed to have you live on another man's money,
even though he be dead, while I've strength to work. If Mrs.
Russelthorpe is oneasy, you can set her mind at rest. You are in my
heart by day and by night. God bless you, my girl!"
That last sentence had a pencil mark through it. He ought not to have
read it; he wished he had not; it was worse than all the rest; he wished
he could cram the preacher's "blessing" down the preacher's throat; it
made him feel sick.
"Have you read it?" said his companion. "I don't think that he 'sees
wealth from a different point of view' now that he has a chance of
possessing it after all, do you?"
"Apparently not. You have the best of that argument, Mrs. Thorpe," said
George. "And the preacher's reply is a model of disinterestedness, as
one might expect. Allow me to return it to you with many
congratulations."
"You are angry," said Meg; for the bitterness in his tone was hardly
concealed this time. "I wish you wouldn't be, for I was going to ask you
to do something for me. I remember" (with the pretty smile that was rare
now), "I remember that formerly you were often my friend when I was
always in trouble with my aunt."
"Was I? I don't think so," said George; and his sallow face flushed. "I
don't much believe in platonic friendships, you know--at least, not on
the man's side. I was never hypocrite enough for that; but (well, never
mind that) what do you want me to do?"
"It isn't a great thing," said Meg, "but I have no one else to ask." She
hesitated a moment. Mr. Sauls might have been more gracious, she
thought; but then she never quite understood him.
"It is a very small thing," she repeated deprecatingly. "It is only that
I want you to persuade my father that my husband is a good man and an
honest one. That was why I showed you the preacher's letter; that was
why I tried to prove to you that he is, as you say, disinterested. It
does not in the least matter what the world in general thinks. I don't
care! it's not worth minding," said Meg proudly; "but I do care--I can't
help it--I do care about my father. I shall never see him again, I
suppose, and I cannot even send him my love, because perhaps he may not
want it," she cried, trying to swallow the inconvenient lump in her
throat. "I shall never be able to explain everything to him; but tell
him, you who have seen me, that Barnabas is good to me; don't let him be
unhappy for me; don't let him fancy anything else. You think this isn't
necessary, perhaps, but I know father. He is so tender-hearted even when
people don't deserve it. He will try not to think about me oftener than
can be helped, and he has plenty of other interests. That was always the
difference between us: he had plenty of interests, but I had only him.
But, sometimes, he will suddenly remember, and then he will be sad;
though my aunt will tell him I am not worth it. When father is sad, he
is very sad," said the daughter who was most like him.
"Tell him, then, what I have told you. Do you understand?"
"Oh yes," said George slowly.
"And you will do it?" she entreated. She smiled again, but with eyes
that were full of tears; and the April expression reminded him of the
little girl who was always so easily moved to pleasure or pain.
"I'll make a bargain with you," said he. "I'll swear anything on earth
to your father, if you will tell _me_ the truth. My curiosity is--is
excessive, I admit; but I was always curious, and you must allow that
you gave your old acquaintance scope for conjecture. Tell me--are you
happy, or not?" He twirled his eyeglass rapidly, and looked hard at her.
"Has the venture been a success?"
Meg drew her breath quickly, and turned her head away.
"It is not fair," she said. "If any one had asked _me_ to do for him so
small and natural a service, I should not have bargained."
It was odd how this man always jarred on her when she felt most friendly
towards him. She had been pleased that he had taken the trouble to seek
her out, and to give her the details about her old uncle; but his
over-eagerness offended her.
"No," he said; "you wouldn't have condescended so far; but then, you
know, you wouldn't have cared. That's always such an advantage!" He
ended the sentence with a laugh. "Well, I think I have the answer in
your refusal to give it. I'll do my best for you when I see your
father."
"Don't make a mistake," said Meg. She turned, and faced him with a touch
of dignity, her confusion lost in something else. Meg had faults enough,
heaven knew; but she carried with them all a crystal-clear sincerity
that sometimes impressed him with a sense of awe. "Don't make a mistake.
I have asked you to say nothing but the truth. It is I only who have
failed. I thought I was better than I am. I fancied, for a little while,
that I could live as Barnabas does, always praying and preaching and
rescuing and healing. I was wrong--I am not good enough, or strong
enough. I have found that out, and--yes--it makes me unhappy. It is as
if one had fallen from a height; and I hardly know what to do, or where
to turn." She hesitated for a second; then she went on more firmly, and
an utterance that was on George Sauls' very lips was forced back. "But
this is my fault, not his," she resumed. "And the preacher has been
kinder to me than any one in the world, except--no, without exception.
My failures are my own. You have made me confess them, though I am
ashamed----"
"It is I who should be ashamed," said George thickly. "Well, I'll do
anything possible for you, Mrs. Thorpe, even to taking myself off, since
that's all I can do. I wanted to meet Barnabas Thorpe once, but--I'll
endeavour to renounce that pleasure, and bid you good-bye here and now.
So this is the end, eh?"
He held out his hand in a sudden revulsion of feeling, and Meg took it
rather puzzled.
"Did you want to meet Barnabas? I wish you could!" she said. "For then
you could not help being fairer to him. Good-bye, and good luck to you!"
she added as an after-thought, moved thereto by the suspicion that Mr.
Sauls was rather depressed; and he, lifting his hat, stood still and
watched her out of sight.
"So that's over!" he remarked. "And I've given up my chance of speaking
my mind to her precious husband. He'll get off scot free in this world,
I suppose. Really I hope there is another, if only for the pleasure of
seeing that astute humbug get his deserts. I think I could stand the
lower regions myself, if only I might find the preacher there. 'Good
luck! I am glad she wished it me. I am glad she is still the best woman
I have known. Pshaw! she'd have lifted me into I don't know what heights
of sentiment, if she had married me; and all one can say now is that
even her husband hasn't dragged _her_ down."
From which it may be opined that fairness to Margaret's husband was one
of the things not possible to George Sauls.
After all, however, he had not seen the last of that country.
The next day, while waiting in no very good humour for the London coach
at the market-place of N----, the landlord of the "Pig and Whistle" came
panting up to him with a letter. To his great surprise it was from Mr.
Deane, and written in a very shaky hand.
"I am tied to Lupcombe by an attack of hæmorrhage. I can't write long
explanations, but think I am rather bad. I hear you are at N----; if so,
can you come to me? There is business----"
The letter broke off there, and there was a postscript which George
gathered was from Mr. Bagshotte, the rector at Lupcombe, explaining that
Mr. Deane had been taken suddenly ill at the parsonage.
Well, if he could do Meg one good turn now, he would, if only for the
sake of having done something besides wasting time in that abominable
country; and afterwards he would go back, and be "sane".