"MEN MAY COME AND MEN MAY GO," BUT I STAY ON FOR EVER.
WHEN Lady Longridge found that her daughter-in-law had promptly
accepted the position, and that Millward went straight to her own
domain instead of returning to her for the orders which she had felt
quite certain she would have to give as usual, she was extremely angry.
What added fuel to the fire was that she had brought about this state
of things by her own act. But she never dreamed that her words would
be taken in earnest. She only suggested that Florence should give the
orders, as a means of humiliating the young wife, who could have had no
experience of housekeeping in a place like Northbrook Hall.
She appealed to Sir Philip, who merely reminded her that Millward had
gone to his with by her express wish.
"It was your doing, not mine," he said.
"I was not in earnest," she replied. "Was it likely that I should
expect that mere girl to take command here at a moment's notice?"
"Then it was a pity you said it, mother. I took it for granted that
since you made the suggestion it must be the right thing to do, though
I am sure Florence would have been in no hurry to assert herself. The
change must have come, of course, and perhaps it is as well that it
should be effected without any needless fuss, especially as you were
the first to propose it."
Yes, those incautious words, spoken ironically, but taken in earnest,
had done mischief which could never be repaired. She was deposed
without even a struggle, and yet had she not always resolved that
should Philip marry, she would show a brave fight before yielding the
chief place at Northbrook to a daughter-in-law?
It would take too long to tell how the two ladies were brought
together, outwardly as friends, but really as far asunder as the
poles. The young wife was the nominal head and mistress, but old Lady
Longridge remained at the Hall, in spite of all efforts to dislodge her.
She talked of going, but objected to more than one removal, and said
that she would reside at her own house when the present tenant's lease
was out; it would be only a matter of six months. Surely Philip and
Florence would not grudge her a shelter for so long. It would be trial
enough to leave a place which had been her home for five-and-forty
years, but a little delay would soften it to her. So this was agreed to.
Lady Longridge knew how to utilise the advantage, and laughed
triumphantly to herself, as she set to work to regain lost ground.
"I made one mistake," she thought. "I will not repeat it. Philip's wife
has not got rid of the mother-in-law. I know him yet better than she
does. Phil is infatuated with her at present, but one gets accustomed
to the fairest face, and after a while the old roving temperament will
reassert itself. He has never stayed long in a place since he became
his own master, and he never will."
The astute old woman judged rightly. The restless fit came on again
before the end of three months. The young wife would not be left
behind; the time for the mother's removal had not arrived, so the pair
departed on their travels and left Lady Longridge, senior, at the Hall,
but with the understanding that she would vacate it as arranged.
"When we return we shall have our house to ourselves," said Sir Philip
to his wife. He felt that whilst she and his mother preserved an
appearance of friendliness, and the elder lady carefully abstained from
interfering in household matters, there was no real goodwill between
them.
"I doubt it, Philip. Your mother will not move from Northbrook if she
can help it."
"But she agreed to go at the six months' end, and considered it a
favour to be allowed to stay so long."
"You will see when the time is up. I only hope you may be right."
It was a month past the six when the pair came back, and they found
Lady Longridge, senior, still at the Hall. "Too ill to be moved," she
said.
At any rate she had kept her room for several weeks, and still
professed her inability to leave it.
"Have the Wilmotts left Graylands?" asked her son.
"No, Philip. They are staying on as yearly tenants. I shall not have
a house to myself when I leave here. My health is quite broken. The
thought of turning my back on Northbrook has been quite too much for
me, and I shall not again trouble myself with housekeeping cares.
Rooms will suffice for me and Thorley, and be much better suited to
my income. I can move about, ringing the changes on Brighton, St.
Leonards, or Scarborough in summer, and Torquay or Bournemouth in
winter. It will matter little to me; only I shall see fresh faces, and
be the same lonely old woman everywhere, away from Northbrook. You will
take me in for a week or two now and then, if Florence is agreeable? Or
I can stay at one of the farms."
Sir Philip said something about his mother finding it pleasant to visit
her daughters also.
"Never," she replied. "They went their way, and I shall go mine. How
much have I seen of them in more than twenty years? I have only my
son." And Lady Longridge wiped her eyes, but the light was dim, and
tears were strange to them, so perhaps there was no real moisture
there. At any rate, Sir Philip could discern none.
Many a date was fixed for the old lady's departure, but something
always prevented it.
Sixteen years had come and gone between the homecoming of Sir Philip
Longridge with his bride and the fair spring morning when Thorley
was sent to silence the too-tuneful Margaretta. But during the whole
time Lady Longridge had not spent a night under any roof but that of
Northbrook Hall. And now she reigned supreme there, for her son was
dead, his widow married a second time, and Margaretta lived with her
grandmother. There was no grandson, so the baronet of to-day was a
far-away cousin, who had a finer place elsewhere, and Lady Longridge
occupied her old home, for which she paid a rent which was little more
than nominal, but which she made a cause for infinite grumbling.
Of personal property Sir Philip had not much to leave. The two hundred
a year belonging to his wife was not doubled by what he could bequeath,
but what there was became hers absolutely. He never believed she would
marry again, but in case of her so doing, he willed that his mother was
to have the guardianship of Margaretta, and he trusted to her to make a
suitable provision for his child, knowing that she was well able to do
so.
Margaretta was twelve years old when her father died, and Northbrook
was no longer even a temporary refuge for the widow and her child.
Sir Philip had never cared to stay long at the Hall, and where he
went his wife accompanied him, but the child was usually there under
suitable guardianship, her nurse first, then a capable governess being
answerable to her parents for their charge's well-doing.
Old Lady Longridge and her daughter-in-law had not become better
friends, and the former was altogether more impracticable at
seventy-eight than she had been at sixty-five. One roof could not
shelter the two, and the young widow was as eager to leave Northbrook
as the older was to get rid of her.
Florence Longridge was a proud woman, and it was a trial for her to
give up the surroundings she had been used to as Sir Philip's wife,
and to live on a narrow income, with a daughter to educate in a manner
befitting her birth. She would have died sooner than ask help from her
mother-in-law, even had she expected to receive it for the asking. At
thirty-four she was almost more beautiful than in her girlish days, and
no less attractive for her intellectual gifts.
After two years' widowhood she accidentally met an old friend of her
husband, one for whom Sir Philip ever expressed the greatest esteem. He
was a man of forty, with wealth, position, and an honoured name. When
he asked her to be his wife she hesitated, only on her child's account.
"If I marry, I must part with Margaretta," she said. "I am her guardian
only whilst I am a widow."
"Only for a few years, and though she may go to her grandmother, I will
help you still to guard and care for her until she is of age, though,
considering all things, she may return to you before then."
The marriage took place; Lady Longridge claimed her ward, and having
got possession of Margaretta, succeeded in keeping her out of her
mother's presence, except for a short time at the end of every six
months, when she was obliged to permit a meeting by the terms of her
son's will. Probably if Sir Philip could have foreseen events, he
would have rather rejoiced to leave his child in such worthy hands as
those of his friend Hugh Norland, in his position of stepfather to
Margaretta. But the thought of his wife's second marriage was one he
could not endure, so he had ordered matters otherwise, and the girl was
with her grim old kinswoman.
"Thorley," said Lady Longridge, after Margaretta's arrival, "we have
caged our bird once more, and we shall keep her safely, never fear. The
thought of having the charge of her for—let me see—six years to come,
will help to keep me alive. I dare say her mother will count my years
and say, 'She will not last till Margaretta is of age.' But plenty of
people live to eighty-seven, and why not I. I come of a long-lived
race; at least the females live long. I am only angry at one thing.
Mrs. Hugh Norland has far too much money now. I hate to think of her
being rich—far richer than she ever was as Philip's wife. And she will
not give a penny towards Margaretta's maintenance, shame on her!"
It was true that Mrs. Norland declined to relieve Lady Longridge's
purse, unless she were permitted to have a say in her daughter's
education and in spending the money. This granted, she would have given
any reasonable amount. But much as the old lady loved to save, she
liked still better to punish the daughter-in-law who had once made her
fill a secondary position, and she availed herself to the utmost of her
powers as the legally appointed guardian of Margaretta.
The girl had a sorry time at Northbrook. She had no companions of her
own age, and indeed, visitors of any age were few and far between at
the Hall. The rector, a new one in Dr. Darley's place, came, as in duty
bound, and always felt, as the door closed behind him, that the most
disagreeable of his pastoral calls was over for the time being.
Now and then a carriage would pass along the neglected drive, and
ladies would alight from it and spend a short time with Lady Longridge,
who, however, never returned such visits.
"I am too old for gadding about, so each call you are good enough to
pay will only add to my debts," she would say. "However, it is some
comfort to know that nobody cares to see an old lady like me. It is not
likely. I hear nothing, so I have nothing to tell, and I miss one-half
of what people say through not hearing. Then I repeat the tale wrongly
to the next comer, and get into trouble; so you see it would have been
better not to hear or speak."
An inquiry after Margaretta usually made the old lady eloquent.
"My granddaughter! I never know where she is, except at meal-times, for
she is here, there, and everywhere between-whiles. I hear her often
enough—too often, for she is always making a noise which she calls
singing. It is a dreadful trial for an old woman like me to be burdened
with the charge of a girl. But Philip would not leave her to the tender
mercies of a stepfather, and that devoted wife of his would not keep
single for the sake of her 'darling child.' Oh no."
It was always the same. No kind word fur any one, no messenger sent to
bring the lonely girl into the presence of a visitor who might have
been inclined to make her life a little brighter.
Yet Margaretta was not wholly friendless. She had, after a time, three
persons on whose affection she could rely, and all within her reach at
Northbrook.
First of these was Thorley, who had known her from her birth, and
who, in spite of all her mistress could do to the contrary, had never
missed an opportunity of showing her devoted love for the girl. When
Margaretta was a baby, Thorley used to steal away to the nursery and
satisfy the hunger of a loving woman's heart by spending her few spare
moments with the child. She was full of devices for her amusement,
having been herself "the eldest of nine and used to nursing," and was
in consequence the little one's first favourite.
So when Margaretta came back to Northbrook after the interval between
her father's death and her mother's second marriage, Thorley's was the
only familiar face she saw there beside her grandmother's.
Lady Longridge's first act on finding herself sole mistress of the Hall
had been to make "a clean sweep" of all the servants, Thorley excepted.
"Not one who ever received orders from Florence shall stay in my
service," she said, and carried out her resolution.
This change rendered it easy for her to reduce her establishment.
"Half the servants ought to be enough to wait on one old woman," she
said next, and then she decided to spare her purse further by giving
less wages for less trained domestics. No wonder that, inside and out,
the appearance of Northbrook had changed for the worse since its old
mistress resumed her absolute rule there.
"Things will last my time. Let those who follow renew. There are
gewgaws enough that Florence put in and that are not worth house-room,
only that as my landlord took them at a valuation, and I have nothing
to fill their places if they were removed, they may as well stay where
they are."
The gewgaws were all the dainty screens, needlework, elegant
lamp-shades and artistic trifles with which Sir. Philip's wife had
beautified the barrenness of the rooms. All the more substantial
articles were old-fashioned, the last possessor having had no spare
money to spend on refurnishing the Hall.
Margaretta's second and only young friend was a little village
seamstress named Ellen Corry, by whose deft fingers the garments of
the growing girl were remodelled let out and lengthened, as occasion
required.
It was fortunate for Margaretta that she brought with her a good stock
of clothes, and that the materials were admirably chosen both as to
colours and quality—soft, beautiful, girlish, and not likely to become
conspicuous, owing to the changes of fashion. Each garment had been
carefully planned so as to permit of enlargement, and a length of new
material was folded with it for future renovation.
Lady Longridge grunted indignantly as she caused Thorley to pass
Margaretta's wardrobe in review before her. It was in one sense
satisfactory to find that no expenditure of money would be needed for a
long time.
"I should have bought nothing new in any case," snapped out the old
lady. "There are coloured gowns enough of mine laid away that would
have done for the girl, and they will come in when these are worn
out. Take all this frippery away," and she waved off Thorley and the
garments with an impatient gesture.
The maid retired, murmuring a thanksgiving that her darling Miss
Margaretta would be preserved from the ancient horrors laid up by her
mistress, professedly for future wear, but never likely to be needed.
"A lady's maid," muttered Thorley, "is supposed to get good pickings
out of her mistress's clothes, but I never had any that were worth
selling, much less wearing. However, it is some comfort to think that,
while she goes on hoarding her rubbish, I never feel to covet any of
and one may be thankful not to be tempted. As to Miss Margaretta, Nelly
Corry will keep her right for a couple of years, let her grow as fast
as she likes."
Nelly Corry's aid was soon needed, and in her joy at the sight of a
young face, Margaretta, albeit an unskilful seamstress, determined to
help her in her work.
"I can unpick the seams, if I cannot put them together," she said, and
this she did with her grandmother's approval, qualified, however, by
the remark that it would be a change to see her occupied in anything
but mischief. Nelly was a good, pure-minded little creature, the staff
of her widowed mother, and the child of careful training and many
prayers. No fear that from her Margaretta would receive harm, or that
the dingy nursery, now used as a workroom, would be the scene of gossip
or idle tattle. The baronet's child and the seamstress a few years
older were just a couple of innocent-minded girls, very happy only to
be together, because they were young, and each had no friend of like
age under the roof she called home.
Nelly's home was a real one, and the girl was eloquent always about her
mother's goodness and the wealth of loving care she bestowed on the
only child left her there. The rest were married and gone out into the
world. Only the one ewe lamb was left.
How different with Margaretta! She could only say that she wished
she could ever please her grandmother, who did not, and she thought
never would, love her. That she longed for the mother from whom she
was parted, and was sure that if only she could be with her and Mr.
Norland, he would love her too. For she had known him when she was a
little thing, and he was—oh, so nice always!
"I want the days to go twice as fast, and they pass so slowly here. I
used to think lessons a nuisance, and wish I had only half as many. Now
I should be glad to be properly taught again. My old governess would
not live with grandmother if she might, and grandmother would not have
her or pay her. She thinks anything spent on me is thrown away, and
says I know more than I ought already. She hates music. Mamma's piano
is gone, and the old one here is horrible, no two notes in tune. It
must be a hundred years old, I should think. And grandmother is glad it
is so bad, for she says if it were a good instrument, I should be at it
always, as mamma used to be at hers, and there would be no peace. It is
just the same if I sing. I went out of doors to-day, and thought she
could not hear me, but she did, and sent Thorley to say I was to stop
that screaming, for it was worse than a railway-whistle."
"Did Miss Thorley say that?" asked Nelly, who had a profound veneration
for Lady Longridge's maid, and thought it impossible for her to say a
harsh word.
"No. She came to me with such a heartbroken look, for she loves to
hear me sing, and says my voice is the only pleasant thing she hears.
I had just put myself in a comfortable place, leaning against a tree,
and she stole up to me looking miserable when I was in the midst of
a fresh song. 'Don't tell me the message,' I said, 'I will tell you.
Grandmother has sent you to bid me stop screeching. I am right, am I
not?'"
"'Yes, my darling. That is just what my lady did say. It seems as if
you cannot get out of hearing, so as to sing in peace, and yet she is
always complaining of being deaf, and turning what people say into
nonsense. She hears well enough. She only pretends to misunderstand
them, so that she may catch things that were never meant for her ears
at all.'"
"Then I wished I were a bird, and that I could fly out of hearing. I
sometimes think I shall run away, Nelly, for life here is so dreadful.
And to have to live it for six long years, or five and a half, for I
have been here a few months already! Thorley was quite shocked, and
said, 'Oh, dear Miss Margaretta, you make me tremble, and I am just as
nervous as I can be to begin with, through your grandma scolding.'"
"'If you don't call me "Meg," I will start off this minute,' I said. 'I
can run so fast that I should be out of reach before you could begin to
follow.'"
"Then Thorley gasped out, 'Oh, Meg, do not,' and I laughed until I
forgot my grandmother's cross message. You see I make Thorley call me
'Meg,' because it was my poor father's pet name for me, and mamma got
into the way of using it too. No one but those who loved me ever used
it, so I ask Thorley to say it, because I want to feel loved yet, and
she does care for me."
"She does indeed. And, dear Miss Longridge, so do I. There isn't a
thing you could ask me to do that I would not do for you."
"Then call me 'Meg' this minute, you dear little nice thing," said
Margaretta, and then she flung her arm round the little seamstress's
neck and kissed her with such energy that Nelly was half frightened at
the suddenness of the embrace.
"Kiss me back again. Kiss me, Nelly," cried Margaretta. "Don't you
see I am hungering for love and kindness? Thorley is an old dear, but
I want a young one. I will have you for a friend. I like you, and
grandmother gives me no choice."
So on that day a compact was entered into, and Nelly returned
Margaretta's somewhat tempestuous affection with an almost worshipping
devotion, calling her "Meg" in a whisper, as Thorley did when no one
was within hearing, and resolving that if ever she in her humble way
could help the lonely young lady, she would do it with all her might.
One thing she succeeded in making Margaretta promise when, from time
to time, she threatened to run away, and that was that she would go
straight to Nelly's home, and no further, to begin with.
To this Margaretta agreed, and both Nelly and Thorley, whom she
informed of the arrangement, were content.
It was through the little seamstress that Meg gained her third friend,
and the one who was likely to be of the most service to her.