A BONE OF CONTENTION.
Poor Janetta, plodding away at her music lessons and doing the household
work of her family, never guessed that she was about to become a bone of
contention. But such she was fated to be, and that between persons no
less distinguished than Lady Caroline Adair and Sir Philip Ashley--not
to speak of Sir Philip and Margaret!
Two days after Janetta's unexpected meeting with Sir Philip, that
gentleman betook himself to Helmsley Court in a somewhat warm and
indignant mood. He had seen a good deal of Margaret during the autumn
months. They had been members of the same house-party in more than one
great Scottish mansion: they had boated together, fished together,
driven and ridden and walked together, until more than one of Lady
Caroline's acquaintances had asked, with a covert smile, "how soon she
might be allowed to congratulate".... The sentence was never quite
finished, and Lady Caroline never made any very direct reply. Margaret
was too young to think of these things, she said. But other people were
very ready to think of them for her.
The acquaintance had therefore progressed a long way since the day of
Margaret's return from school. And yet it had not gone quite so far as
onlookers surmised, or as Lady Caroline wished. Sir Philip was most
friendly, most attentive, but he was also somewhat absurdly unconscious
of remark. His character had a simplicity which occasionally set people
wondering. He was perfectly frank and manly: he spoke without
_arrière-pensée_, he meant what he said, and was ready to believe that
other people meant it too. He had a pleasant and courteous manner in
society, and liked to be on friendly terms with every one he met; but at
the same time he was not at all like the ordinary society man, and had
not the slightest idea that he differed from any such person--as indeed
he did. He had very high aims and ideals, and he took it for granted,
with a really charming simplicity, that other people had similar aims
and similar (if not higher) ideals. Consequently he now and then ran his
head against a wall, and was laughed at by commonplace persons; but
those who knew him well loved him all the better for his impracticable
schemes and expectations.
But to Margaret he seemed rather like a firebrand. He took interest in
things of which she had never heard, or which she regarded with a little
delicate disdain. A steam-laundry in Beaminster, for example--what had a
man like Sir Philip Ashley to do with a steam-laundry? And yet he was
establishing one in the old city, and actually assuring people that it
would "pay." He had been exerting himself about the drainage of the
place and the dwellings of the poor. Margaret was sorry in a vague way
for the poor, and supposed that drainage had to be "seen to" from time
to time, but she did not want to hear anything about it. She liked the
pretty little cottages in the village of Helmsley, and she did not mind
begging for a holiday for the school children (who adored her) now and
then; and she had heard with pleasure of Lady Ashley's pattern
alm-houses and dainty orphanage, where the old women wore red cloaks,
and the children were exceedingly picturesque; but as a necessary
consequence of her life-training, she did not want to know anything
about disease or misery or sin. And Sir Philip could not entirely keep
these subjects out of his conversation, although he tried to be very
careful not to bring a look that he knew well--a look of shocked
repulsion and dislike--to Margaret's tranquil face.
She welcomed him with her usual sweetness that afternoon. He thought
that she looked lovelier than ever. The day was cold, and she wore a
dark-green dress with a good deal of gold embroidery about it, which
suited her perfectly. Lady Caroline, too, was graciousness itself. She
received him in her own little sitting-room--a gem of a room into which
only her intimate friends were admitted, and made him welcome with all
the charm of manner for which she was distinguished. And to add to her
virtues, she presently found that she had letters to write, and retired
into an adjoining library, leaving the door open between the two rooms,
so that Margaret might still be considered as under her chaperonage,
although conversation could be conducted without any fear of her
overhearing what was said. Lady Caroline knew so exactly what to do and
what to leave undone!
As soon as she was gone, Sir Philip put down his tea-cup and turned with
an eager movement to Margaret.
"I have been wanting to speak to you," he said. "I have something
special--something important to say."
"Yes?" said Margaret, sweetly. She flushed a little and looked down. She
was not quite ignorant of what every one was expecting Sir Philip Ashley
to say.
"Can you listen to me for a minute or two?" he said, with the
gentle eagerness of manner, the restrained ardor which he was
capable--unfortunately for him--of putting into his most trivial
requests. "You are sure you will not be impatient?"
Margaret smiled. Should she accept him? she was thinking. After all, he
was very nice, in spite of his little eccentricities. And really--with
his fine features, his tall stature, his dark eyes, and coal-black hair
and beard--he was an exceedingly handsome man.
"I want you to help me," said Sir Philip, in almost a coaxing tone. "I
want you to carry out a design that I have formed. Nobody can do it but
you. Will you help me?"
"If I can," said Margaret, shyly.
"You are always good and kind," said Sir Philip, warmly. "Margaret--may
I call you Margaret? I have known you so long."
This seemed a little irregular, from Miss Adair's point of view.
"I don't know whether mamma----" she began, and stopped.
"Whether she would like it? I don't think she would mind: she suggested
it the other day, in fact. She always calls me 'Philip,' you know:
perhaps you would do the same?"
Again Margaret smiled; but there was a touch of inquiry in her eyes as
she glanced at him. She did not know very much about proposals of
marriage, but she fancied that Sir Philip's manner of making one was
peculiar. And she had had it impressed upon her so often that he was
about to make one that it could hardly be considered strange if his
manner somewhat bewildered her.
"I want to speak to you," said the young man, lowering his earnest voice
a little, "about your friend, Miss Colwyn."
Now, why did the girl flush scarlet? Why did her hand tremble a little
as she put down her cup? Philip lost the thread of the conversation for
a minute or two, and simply looked at her. Then Margaret quietly took
down a screen from the mantel-piece and began to fan herself. "It is
rather hot here, don't you think?" she said, serenely. "The fire makes
one feel quite uncomfortable."
"It _is_ a large one," said Sir Philip, with conviction. "Shall I take
any of the coal off for you? No? Well, as I was saying, I wished to
speak to you about your friend, Miss Colwyn."
"She has lost her father lately, poor thing," said Margaret,
conversationally. "She has been very unhappy."
"Yes, and for more reasons than one. You have not seen her, I conclude,
since his death?"
"No, he died in August or September, did he not? It is close upon
December now--what a long time we have been away! Poor Janetta!--how
glad she will be to see me!"
"I am sure she will. But it would be just as well for you to hear
beforehand that her father's death has brought great distress upon the
family. I have had some talk with friends of his, and I find that he
left very little money behind."
"How sad for them! But--they have not removed?--they are still at their
old house: I thought everything was going on as usual," said Margaret,
in a slightly puzzled tone.
"The house belongs to them, so they might as well live in it. Two or
three of the family have got situations of some kind--one child is in a
charitable institution, I believe."
"Oh, how dreadful! Like Lady Ashley's Orphanage?" said Margaret,
shrinking a little.
"No, no; nothing of that kind--an educational establishment, to which he
has got a nomination. But the mother and the two or three children are
still at home, and I believe that their income is not more than a
hundred a year."
Sir Philip was considerably above the mark. But the mention of even a
hundred a year, though not a large income, produced little impression
upon Margaret.
"That is not very much, is it?" she said, gently.
"Much! I should think not," said Sir Philip, driven almost to
discourtesy by the difficulty of making her understand. "Four or five
people to live upon it and keep up a position! It is semi-starvation and
misery."
"But, Sir Philip, does not Janetta give lessons? I should have thought
she could make a perfect fortune by her music alone. Hasn't she tried to
get something to do?"
"Yes, indeed, poor girl, she has. My mother has been making inquiries,
and she finds that Miss Colwyn has advertised and done everything she
could think of--with very little result. I myself met her three or four
days ago, coming away from Miss Morrison's, with tears in her eyes. She
had failed to get the post of music-teacher there."
"But why had she failed? She can sing and play beautifully!"
"Ah, I wanted you to ask me that! She failed--because Miss Morrison was
a friend of Miss Polehampton's, and she had heard some garbled and
distorted account of Miss Colwyn's dismissal from that school."
Sir Philip did not look at her as he spoke: he fancied that she would be
at once struck with horror and even with shame, and he preferred to
avert his eyes during the moment's silence that followed upon his
account of Janetta's failure to get work. But, when Margaret spoke, a
very slight tone of vexation was the only discoverable trace of any such
emotion.
"Why did not Janetta explain?"
Sir Philip's lips moved, but he said nothing.
"That affair cannot be the reason why she has obtained so little work,
of course?"
"I am afraid that to some extent it is."
"Janetta could so easily have explained it!"
"May I ask how she could explain it? Write a letter to the local paper,
or pay a series of calls to declare that she had not been to blame? Do
you think that any one would have believed her? Besides--you call her
your friend: could she exculpate herself without blaming you; and do you
think that she would do that?"
"Without blaming _me_?" repeated Margaret. She rose to her full height,
letting the fan fall between her hands, and stood silently confronting
him. "But," she said, slowly--"I--I was not to blame."
Sir Philip bowed.
"You think that I was to blame?"
"I think that you acted on impulse, without much consideration for Miss
Colwyn's future. I think that you have done her an injury--which I am
sure you will be only too willing to repair."
He began rather sternly, he ended almost tenderly--moved as he could not
fail to be by the soft reproach of Margaret's eyes.
"I cannot see that I have done her any injury at all; and I really do
not know how I can repair it," said the girl, with a cold stateliness
which ought to have warned Sir Philip that he was in danger of
offending. But Philip was rash and warm-hearted, and he had taken up
Janetta's cause.
"Your best way of repairing it," he said, earnestly, "would be to call
on Miss Morrison yourself and explain the matter to her, as Miss Colwyn
cannot possibly do--unless she is a very different person from the one I
take her for. And if that did not avail, go to Miss Polehampton and
persuade her to write a letter----"
He stopped somewhat abruptly. The look of profound astonishment on
Margaret's face recalled him to a sense of limitations. "Margaret!" he
said, pleadingly, "won't you be generous? You can afford to do this
thing for your friend!"
"Go to Miss Morrison and explain! _Persuade_ Miss Polehampton!--after
the way she treated us! But really it is too ridiculous, Sir Philip. You
do not know my friend, Miss Colwyn. She would be the last person to wish
me to humiliate myself to Miss Polehampton!"
"I do not see that what she wishes has much to do with it," said Sir
Philip, very stiffly. "Miss Colwyn is suffering under an injustice. I
ask you to repair that injustice. I really do not see how you can
refuse."
Margaret looked as if she were about to make some mutinous reply; then
she compressed her lips and lowered her eyes for a few seconds.
"I will ask mamma what she thinks," she said at last, in her usual even
tones.
"Why should you ask her?" said Sir Philip, impetuously. "What
consultation is needed, when I simply beg you to be your own true
self--that noble, generous self that I am sure you are! Margaret, don't
disappoint me!"
"I didn't know," said the girl, with proud deliberateness, "that you had
any special interest in the matter, Sir Philip."
"I have this interest--that I love you with all my heart, Margaret, and
hope that you will let me call you my wife one day. It is this love,
this hope, which makes me long to think of you as perfect--always noble
and self-sacrificing and just! Margaret, you will not forbid me to
hope?"
He had chosen a bad time for his declaration of love. He saw this, and
his accent grew more and more supplicating, for he perceived that the
look of repulsion, which he knew and hated, was already stealing into
Margaret's lovely eyes. She stood as if turned into stone, and did not
answer a word. And it was on this scene that Lady Caroline broke at that
moment--a scene which, at first sight, gave the mother keen pleasure,
for it had all the orthodox appearance of love-making: the girl, silent,
downcast, embarrassed; the man passionate and earnest, with head bent
towards her fair face, and hands outstretched in entreaty.
But poor Lady Caroline was soon to be undeceived, and her castle in the
air to come tumbling down about her ears.