FORGET-ME-NOTS.
Lady Caroline, always mindful of her daughter's moods, could not quite
understand Margaret's demeanor when she returned home that afternoon.
She fancied that some news about Sir Philip might have reached the
girl's ear and distressed her mind. But when she skilfully led the
conversation in that direction, Margaret said at once, with a complete
absence of finesse that rather disconcerted her mother--
"No, mamma, I heard nothing about the Ashleys--mother or son."
"Dear Margaret," thought Lady Caroline, "is surely not learning
_brusquerie_ and bad manners from that tiresome Miss Colwyn. What a very
unlucky friendship that has been!"
She did not seize the clue which Margaret unconsciously held out to her
in the course of the same evening. The girl was sitting in a shady
corner of the drawing-room holding a feather fan before her face, when
she introduced what had hitherto been, at Helmsley Court, a forbidden
topic--the history of the Brands.
"Papa," she said, quietly, "did you never know anything of the Red House
people?"
Lady Caroline glanced at her husband. Mr. Adair seemed to find it
difficult to reply.
"Yes, of course, I did--in the old days," he answered, less suavely than
usual. "When the father was alive, I used to go to the house, but, of
course, I was a mere lad then."
"You do not know the sons, then?" said Margaret.
"My dear child, I do not hunt. Mr. Brand's only appearance in society is
on the hunting field."
"But there is another brother--one who paints, I believe."
"He teaches drawing in some of the schools of the neighborhood," Lady
Caroline interposed, rather dryly. "I suppose you do not want drawing
lessons, dear?"
"Oh, no," said Margaret, indifferently. "I only thought it seemed odd
that we never met them anywhere."
"Not very suitable acquaintances," murmured Lady Caroline, almost below
her breath. Mr. Adair was looking at an illustrated magazine and did not
seem to hear, but, after a moment's pause, Margaret said,
"Why, mamma?"
Lady Caroline hesitated for a moment. Mr. Adair shrugged his shoulders.
Then she said slowly:
"His father married beneath him, my love. Mrs. Brand is a quite
impossible person. If the young men would pension her off and send her
away, the County would very likely take them up. But we cannot receive
the mother."
"That is another of what Sir Philip Ashley would call
class-distinctions, is it not?" said Margaret, placidly. "The sort of
thing which made Miss Polehampton so anxious to separate me from poor
Janetta."
"Class-distinctions are generally founded on some inherent law of
character or education, dear," said Lady Caroline, softly. "They are not
so arbitrary as young people imagine. I hope the day will never come
when the distinction of class will be done away with. I"--piously--"hope
that I may be in my grave before that day comes."
"Oh, of course they are very necessary," said Margaret, comfortably.
"And, if old Mrs. Brand were to go away, I suppose her sons would be
received everywhere?"
"Oh, I suppose so. The property is fairly good, is it not, Reginald?"
"Not very," said Mr. Adair. "The father squandered a good deal, and I
fancy the present owner is economizing for the sake of his boy."
"His boy?" A faint color stole into Margaret's cheeks. "Is he married,
papa?"
"Oh, the wife's dead," said Mr. Adair, hastily. It was part of Lady
Caroline's system that Margaret should not hear more than was absolutely
necessary of what she termed "disagreeable" subjects. Elopements,
separation and divorce cases all came under that head. So that when Mr.
Adair, who knew more of Mr. Brand's domestic history than he chose to
say, added immediately--"At least I heard so: I believe so," he did not
think that he was actually departing from fact, but only that he was
coloring the matter suitably for Margaret's infant understanding. He
really believed that Mrs. Wyvis Brand was divorced from her husband, and
it was "the same thing as being dead, you know," he would have replied
if interrogated on the subject.
Margaret did not respond, and Lady Caroline never once suspected that
she had any real interest in the matter. But the very fact that Wyvis
Brand was represented to her as a widower threw a halo of romance around
his head in Margaret's eyes. A man who has "loved and lost" is often
invested with a peculiar kind of sanctity in the eyes of a young girl.
Wyvis Brand's handsome face and evident admiration of herself did not
prepossess Margaret in his favor half so much as the fact that he had
known loss and sorrow, and was temporarily ostracized by County society
because his mother was "an impossible person." This last deprivation
appealed to Margaret's imagination more than the first. It seemed to her
a terrible thing to remain unvisited by the "County." What a good thing
it would be, she reflected, if Mr. Brand could marry some nice girl, who
would persuade him to send his mother back to France, and for whose sake
the County magnates would extend to him the right hand of fellowship. To
reinstate him in his proper position--the position which Margaret told
herself he deserved and would adorn--seemed to her an ambition worthy of
any woman in the world. For Margaret's nature was curiously mixed. From
her father she had inherited a great love of the beautiful and the
romantic--there was a thoroughly unworldly strain in him which had
descended to her; but, then, it was counteracted by the influences which
she had imbibed from Lady Caroline. Margaret used sometimes to rebel
against her mother's maxims of worldly wisdom, but they gradually
permeated her mind, and the gold was so mingled with alloy that it was
difficult to separate one from the other. She thought herself a very
unworldly person. We all have ideals of ourselves; and Margaret's ideal
of herself was of a rather saint-like creature, with high aspirations
and pure motives. Where her weakness really lay she had not the faintest
notion.
It was strange even to herself to note the impression that Wyvis Brand
had produced on her. He was certainly of the type that tends to attract
impressionable girls, for he was dark and handsome, with the indefinable
touch of melancholy in his eyes which lends a subtler interest to the
face than mere beauty. The little that she knew of his history had
touched her. She constructed a great deal from the few facts or fancies
that had been given to her, and the result was sufficiently unlike the
real man to be recognizable by nobody but Margaret herself.
It has already been said that the Adair property and that of Wyvis Brand
lay side by side. The Adair estate was a large one: that of the Brands'
comparatively small; but at one point the two properties were separated
for some little distance only by a narrow fishing stream, on one side
of which stretched an outlying portion of Mr. Adair's park; while on the
other side lay a plantation, approached through the Beaminster woods,
and not very far from the Red House itself. It was in this
plantation--which was divided from the woods only by a wire fence--that
Janetta had found little Julian and had afterwards encountered Wyvis
Brand.
In spring the plantation was a particularly pleasant place. It was
starred with primroses and anemones in the earlier months of the year,
and blue with hyacinths at a later date. At a little distance the
flowers looked like a veil of color spread between the trees. The brook
between the park and the plantation was a merry little stream, dancing
gaily over golden pebbles, and brightly responsive to the sunshine that
flickered between the lightly-clothed branches of the trees bordering it
on either side. It was famous in the neighborhood for the big blue
forget-me-nots that grew there; but it could hardly have been in search
of forget-me-nots that Margaret Adair wandered along its side one
morning, for they were scarcely in season, and her dreamy eyes did not
seem to be looking for them on the bank.
From amongst the trees of the plantation there appeared suddenly a man,
who doffed his cap to Miss Adair with a look of mingled pleasure and
surprise.
"Oh, good-morning, Mr. Brand."
"Good-morning, Miss Adair." No greeting could have been more
conventional. "May I ask if you are looking for forget-me nots? There
are some already out lower down the stream. I will show you where they
are if you will turn to the left."
"Thank you," said Margaret.
They moved down the slight slope together, but on different sides of the
stream. At last they reached the spot where a gleam of blue was visible
at the water's edge.
"It is on your side," Margaret said, with a little smile.
"I will get them for you," he replied. And she stood waiting while he
gathered the faintly-tinted blossoms.
"And now," she said, as he rose to his feet again, "how will you give
them to me? I am afraid I cannot reach across."
"I could come over to you," said Wyvis, his dark eyes resting upon her
eagerly. "Will you ask me to come?"
She paused. "Why should I ask you?" she said, with a smile, as if
between jest and earnest.
"You are standing on your ground, and I on mine. I have never in my life
been asked to cross the boundary."
"I ask you then," said Margaret coloring prettily. She was
half-frightened at the significance of her own words, when she had
spoken them. But it was too late to retract. It took Wyvis Brand a
moment only to leap the brook, and to find himself at her side. Then,
taking off his hat and bowing low, he presented her with the flowers
that he had gathered. She thanked him with a blush.
"Will you give me one?" he asked, his eyes fixed upon her lovely face.
"Just one!----"
"Why did you not keep one?" she said, bending over her nosegay as if
absorbed in its arrangement. "They are so rare that I hardly know how to
spare any." Which was a bit of innocent coquetry on Margaret's part.
"Just one," he pleaded. "As a reward. As a memento."
"A memento of what?" she asked, separating one or two flowers from the
bunch as she spoke.
"Of this occasion."
"It is such an important occasion, is it not?" she said, with a sweet,
mocking little laugh.
"A very important occasion to me. Have I not met you?"
"That is a most charming compliment," said Margaret, who was not unused
to hearing words of this kind in London drawing-rooms, and was quite in
her native element. "In reward for it I will give you a flower--which of
course you will throw away as soon as I am out of sight."
"No, not when you are out of sight: when you are out of mind," he said,
significantly.
"The two are synonymous," said Margaret.
"Are they? Not with me. Throw it away? I will show you that it shall not
be thrown away."
He produced a little pocket-book and put the forget-me-nots into it,
carefully pressing them down against a blank page.
"There," he said, as he made a note in pencil at the bottom of the page,
"that will be always with me now."
"The poor forget-me-not!" said Margaret, smiling. "What a sad fate for
it! To be torn from its home by the brook, taken away from the sun and
the air, to languish out its life in a pocket-book."
"It should feel itself honored," Said Wyvis, "because it is dying for
you."
As we have said, this strain of half-jesting compliment was not
unfamiliar to Margaret; but she could hardly remain unconscious of the
fact that a deeper note had crept into his voice during the last few
words, and that his eyes glowed with a fire more ardent than she usually
saw. She drew back a little, and looked down: she was not exactly
displeased, but she was embarrassed. He noticed and understood the
expression of her face; and changed his tone immediately.
"This is a pretty place," he said, indicating the park and the distant
woods by a wave of his hand. "I always regret that I have been away from
it so long."
"You have lived a great deal in France, I believe?"
"Yes, and in Italy, too. But I tired of foreign lands at last, and
persuaded my mother to come home with me. I am glad that I came."
"You like the neighborhood?" said Margaret, in a tone of conventional
interest.
Wyvis laughed. "I don't see much of my neighbors," he said, rather
drily. "They don't approve of my family. But I like the scenery--and I
have a friend or two--Miss Colwyn, for instance, who is a kinswoman of
mine, you know."
"Oh, yes!" said Margaret, eagerly. Her momentary distrust of him
vanished when she remembered Janetta. Of course, Janetta's cousin _must_
be "nice!"--"I am so fond of Janetta: she is so clever and so good."
"It is a great thing for her to have a friend like you," said Wyvis,
looking at her wistfully. In very truth, she was a wonderment to him;
she seemed so ethereal, so saint-like, so innocent! And Margaret smiled
pensively in return: unlimited admiration was quite to her taste.
"Do you often walk here?" he inquired, when at last she said that she
must return home.
And she said--"Sometimes."
"Sometimes" is a very indefinite and convenient word. It may mean
anything or nothing. In a very short time, it meant that Margaret took a
book out with her and walked down to the boundary stream about three
times a week, if not oftener, and that Wyvis Brand was always there to
bear her company. Before long a few stepping-stones were dropped into
the brook, so that she could cross it without wetting her dainty feet.
It was shadier and cooler in the closely-grown plantation than in the
open park. And meetings in the plantation were less likely to be
discovered than in a more public place.