THE PLOUGHMAN'S SON.
Two or three days after Margaret's visit to Gwynne Street, Janetta
availed herself of Mrs. Colwyn's temporary absence in Miss Burroughs'
company to pay a visit to the Red House. Her anxiety to know what was
occurring between Wyvis and Margaret had become almost uncontrollable
and, although she was not very likely to hear much about it from Wyvis
or his mother, she vaguely hoped to gather indications at least of the
state of affairs from her cousin's aspect and manners.
It was plain that Wyvis was not in a happy mood. His brow was dark, his
tone sarcastic; he spoke roughly once or twice to his mother and to his
little son. He evidently repented of his roughness, however, as soon as
the words were out of his mouth, for he went over to Mrs. Brand's side
and kissed her immediately afterwards, and gave some extra indulgence to
Julian by way of making up for his previous severity. Still the
irritation of feeling existed, and could not be altogether repressed
when he spoke; and when he was silent he fell into a condition of gloom
which was even more depressing than his sharpness. Janetta did her best
to be cheerful and talkative to Mrs. Brand, and she fancied that he
liked to listen; for he sat on with them in the blue room long after
Nora and Cuthbert had disappeared into the garden and the children were
romping in the wood. Certainly he did not say much to her, but he seemed
greatly disinclined to move.
After a time, Mrs. Brand and Janetta adjourned to the hall, which was
always a favorite place of resort on summer evenings. Traces of the
children's presence made the rooms more cheerful than they used to
be--to Janetta's thinking. Tiny's doll and Julian's ball were more
enlivening to the place than even Cuthbert's sketches and Nora's bunches
of wild flowers. And here, too, Wyvis followed them in an aimless,
subdued sort of way; and, having asked and obtained permission to light
a cigarette, he threw himself into a favorite chair, and seemed to
listen dreamily, while Janetta held patient discourse with his mother on
the ailments of the locality and the difficulty of getting the housework
done. Janetta glanced at him from time to time; he sat so quietly that
she would have thought him sleeping but for the faint blue spirals of
smoke that went up from his cigarette. It was six o'clock in the
evening, and the golden lights and long shadows made Janetta long to be
out of doors; but Mrs. Brand had a nervous fear of rheumatism, and did
not want to move.
"What is that?" said Wyvis, suddenly rousing himself.
Nobody else had heard anything. He strode suddenly to the door, and
flung it open. Janetta heard the quavering tones of the old man-servant,
an astonished, enraptured exclamation from Wyvis himself; and she
knew--instinctively--what to expect. She turned round; it was as she
had feared. Margaret was there. Wyvis was leading her into the room with
the fixed look of adoration in his eyes which had been so much commented
upon at Lady Ashley's party. When she was present, he evidently saw none
but her. Janetta rose quickly and withdrew a little into the back
ground. She wished for a moment that she had not been there--and then it
occurred to her that she might be useful by and by. But it was perhaps
better for Margaret not to see her too soon. Mrs. Brand, utterly
unprepared for this visit, not even knowing the stranger by sight, and,
as usual, quite unready for an emergency, rose nervously from her seat
and stood, timid, awkward, and anxious, awaiting an explanation.
"Mother, this is Margaret Adair," said Wyvis, as quietly as if his
mother knew all that was involved in that very simple formula. He was
still holding the girl by the hand and gazing in his former rapt manner
into her face. It was not the look of a lover, to Janetta's eye, half so
much as the worship of a saint. Margaret embodied for Wyvis Brand the
highest aspirations, the purest dreams of his youth.
As to Margaret, Janetta thought that she was looking exquisitely lovely.
Her thinness added to the impression of ethereal beauty; there was a
delicacy about her appearance which struck the imagination. Her color
fluctuated; her eyes shone like stars; and her whole frame seemed a
little tremulous, as if she were shaken by some strange and powerful
emotion to her very soul. Her broad-brimmed straw hat, white dress, and
long tan gloves belonged, as Janetta knew, only to her ordinary attire
when no visitors were to be seen; but simplicity of dress always seemed
to garnish Margaret's beauty, and to throw it into the strongest
possible relief. She was sufficiently striking in aspect to frighten
poor, timid Mrs. Brand, who was never happy when she found herself in
the company of "fashionable" people. But it was with a perfectly simple
and almost child-like manner that Margaret drew her finger away from
Wyvis' clasp and went up to his mother, holding out both hands as if in
appeal for help.
"I am Margaret," she said. "I ought not to have come; but what could I
do? They are going to take me away from the Court to-morrow, and I
could not go without seeing you and Wyvis first."
"Wyvis?" repeated Mrs. Brand, blankly. She had not taken Margaret's
hands, but now she extended her right hand in a stiff, lifeless fashion,
which looked like anything but a welcome. "I do not know--I do not
understand----"
"It is surely easy enough to understand," said Wyvis, vehemently. "She
loves me--she has promised to be my wife--and you must love her, too,
for my sake, as well as for her own."
"Won't you love me a little?" said Margaret, letting her eyes rest
pleadingly on Mrs. Brand's impassive face. She was not accustomed to
being met in this exceedingly unresponsive manner. Wyvis made a slight
jesture of impatience, which his mother perfectly understood. She tried,
in her difficult, frozen way, to say something cordial.
"I am very pleased to see you," she faltered. "You must excuse me if I
did not understand at first. Wyvis did not tell me."
Then she sank into her chair again, more out of physical weakness than
from any real intention to seat herself. Her hand stole to her side, as
if to still the beating of her heart; her face had turned very pale.
Only Janetta noticed these signs, which betrayed the greatness of the
shock; Margaret, absorbed in her own affairs, and Wyvis absorbed in
Margaret, had no eyes for the poor mother's surprise and agitation.
Janetta made a step forward, but she saw that she could do nothing. Mrs.
Brand was recovering her composure, and the other two were not in a mood
to bear interruption. So she waited, and meanwhile Margaret spoke.
"Dear Mrs. Brand," she said, kneeling at the side of the trembling
woman, and laying her clasped hands on her lap, "forgive me for
startling you like this." Even Janetta wondered at the marvelous
sweetness of Margaret's tones. "Indeed, I would not have come if there
had been any other way of letting Wyvis know. They made me promise not
to write to him, not to meet him in the wood where we met before you
know, and they watched me, so that I could not get out, or send a
message or anything. It has been like living in prison during the last
few days." And the girl sobbed a little, and laid her forehead for a
moment on her clasped hands.
"It's a shame--a shame! It must not go on," exclaimed Wyvis,
indignantly.
"In one way it will not go on," said Margaret, raising her head. "They
are going to take me away, and we are not to come back for the whole
winter--perhaps not next year at all. I don't know where we are going. I
shall never be allowed to write. And I thought it would be terrible to
go without letting Wyvis know that I will never, never forget him. And I
am only nineteen now, and I can't do as I like; but, when I am
twenty-one, nobody can prevent me----"
"Why should anybody prevent you now?" said Wyvis gloomily. He drew
nearer and laid his hand upon her shoulder. "Why should you wait? You
are safe: you have come to my mother, and she will take care of you. Why
need you go back again?"
"Is that right, Wyvis?" said Janetta. She could not keep silence any
longer. Wyvis turned on her almost fiercely. Margaret who had not seen
her before started up and faced her, with a look of something like
terror.
"It is no business of yours," said the man. "This matter is between
Margaret and myself. Margaret must decide it. I do not ask her to
compromise herself in any way. She shall be in my mother's care. All she
will have to do is to trust to me----"
"I think we need hardly trouble you, Mr. Brand," said another voice.
"Margaret will be better in the care of her own mother than in that of
Mrs. Brand or yourself."
Lady Caroline Adair stood on the threshold. Lady Caroline addressed the
little group, on which a sudden chill and silence fell for a moment, as
if her appearance heralded some portentous crash of doom. The door had
been left ajar when Margaret entered; it was not easy to say how much of
the conversation Lady Caroline had heard. Mrs. Brand started up;
Margaret turned very pale and drew back, while Wyvis came closer to her
and put his arm round her with an air of protective defiance. Janetta
drew a quick breath of relief. A disagreeable scene would follow she
knew well; and there were probably unpleasant times in store for
Margaret, but these were preferable to the course of rebellion, open or
secret, to which the girl was being incited by her too ardent lover.
Janetta never admired Lady Caroline so much as she did just then.
Margaret's mother was the last person to show discomposure. She sat down
calmly, although no one had asked her to take a chair, and smilingly
adjusted the lace shawl which she had thrown round her graceful figure.
There were no signs of haste or agitation in her appearance. She wore a
very elegant and becoming dress, a Paris bonnet on her head, a pair of
French gloves on her slender hands. She became at once the centre of the
group, the ornamental point on which all eyes were fixed. Every one else
was distressed, frightened, or angry; but Lady Caroline's pleasing smile
and little air of society was not for one moment to be disturbed.
"It is really very late for a call," she said, quietly, "but as I found
that my daughter was passing this way, I thought I would follow her
example and take the opportunity of paying a visit to Mrs. Brand. It is
not, however, the first time that we have met."
She looked graciously towards Mrs. Brand, but that poor woman was
shaking in every limb. Janetta put her arms round Mrs. Brand's
shoulders. What did Lady Caroline mean? She had some purpose to fulfil,
or she would not sit so quietly, pretending not to notice that her
daughter was holding Wyvis Brand by the hand and that one of his arms
was round her waist. There was something behind that fixed, agreeable
smile.
"No," said Lady Caroline, reflectively, "not the first time. The last
time I saw you, Mrs. Brand----"
"Oh, my lady, my lady!" Mrs. Brand almost shrieked, "for heaven's sake,
my lady, don't go on!"
She covered her face with her hands and rocked herself convulsively to
and fro. Wyvis frowned and bit his lip: Margaret started and
unconsciously withdrew her hand. It crossed the minds of both that Mrs.
Brand's tone was that of an inferior, that of a servant to a mistress,
not that of one lady to her equal.
"Why should I not go on?" said Lady Caroline, glancing from one to
another as if in utter ignorance. "Have I said anything wrong? I only
meant that I was present at Mrs. Brand's _first_ wedding--when she
married your father, Mr. Wyvis--not your adopted father, of course, but
John Wyvis, the ploughman."
There was a moment's silence. Then Wyvis took a step forward and
thundered. "_What?_" while the veins stood out upon his forehead and his
eyes seemed to be gathering sombre fire. Mrs. Brand, with her head bowed
upon her hands, still rocked herself and sobbed.
"I hope I have not been indiscreet," said Lady Caroline, innocently.
"You look a little surprised. It is surely no secret that you are the
son of Mary Wyvis and her cousin, John Wyvis, and that you were brought
up by Mr. Brand as his son simply out of consideration for his wife? I
am sure I beg your pardon if I have said anything amiss. As Mrs. Brand
seems disturbed, I had better go."
"Not until my mother has contradicted this ridiculous slander," said
Wyvis, sternly. But his mother only shook her head and wailed aloud.
"I can't, my dear--I can't. It's true every word of it. My lady knows."
"Of course I know. Come, Mary, don't be foolish," said Lady Caroline, in
the carelessly sharp tone in which one sometimes speaks to an erring
dependant. "I took an interest in you at the time, you will remember,
although I was only a child staying at Helmsley Court at the time with
Mr. Adair's family. I was fourteen, I think; and you were scullery-maid
or something, and told me about your sweetheart, John Wyvis. There is
nothing to be ashamed of: you were married very suitably, and if Wyvis,
the ploughman, had not been run over when he was intoxicated, and killed
before your baby's birth, you might even now have been living down at
Wych End, with half a dozen stalwart sons and daughters--of whom you,
Mr. Wyvis, or Mr. Wyvis Brand, as you are generally known, would have
been the eldest--probably by this time a potman or a pugilist, with a
share in your grandfather's public-house at Roxby. How ridiculous it
seems now, does it not?"
Astonishment had kept Wyvis silent, but his gathering passion could not
longer be repressed.
"That is enough," he said. "If you desire to insult me you might have
let it be in other company. Or if you will send your husband to repeat
it----"
"I said a pugilist, did I not?" said Lady Caroline, smiling, and putting
up her eye-glass. "Your thews and sinews justify me perfectly--and so, I
must say, does your manner of speech." She let her eye run over his
limbs critically, and then she dropped her glass. "You are really
wonderfully like poor Wyvis; he was a very strong sort of man."
"Will you be so good as to take your leave, Lady Caroline Adair? I wish
to treat you with all due courtesy, as you are Margaret's mother," said
Wyvis, setting his teeth, "but you are saying unpardonable things to a
man in his own house."
"My dear man, there is nothing to be ashamed of!" cried Lady Caroline,
as if very much surprised. "Your father and mother were very honest
people, and I always thought it greatly to Mark Brand's credit that he
adopted you. The odd thing was that so few people knew that you were not
his son. You were only a month or two old when he married Mary Wyvis,
however; for your father died before your birth; but there was no secret
made of it at the time, I believe. And it is nearly thirty years. Things
get forgotten."
"Mother, can this be true?" said Wyvis, hoarsely. He was forced into
asking the question by Lady Caroline's cool persistence. He was keenly
conscious of the fact that Margaret, looking scared and bewildered, had
shrunk away from him.
"Yes, yes, it is true," said Mrs. Brand, with a burst of despairing
tears. "We did not mean any harm, and nobody made any inquiries. There
was nothing wrong about it--nothing. It was better for you, Wyvis, that
was all."
"Is it better for anybody to be brought up to believe a lie?" said the
young man. His lips had grown white, and his brow was set in very
ominous darkness. "I shall hear more of this story by and by. I have to
thank you, Lady Caroline, for letting in a little light upon my mind.
Your opposition to my suit is amply explained."
"I am glad you take it in that way, Mr. Brand," said Lady Caroline, for
the first time giving him his adopted name, and smiling very amicably.
"As I happened to be one of the very few people who knew or surmised
anything about the matter, I thought it better to take affairs into my
own hands--especially when I found that my daughter had come to your
house. But for this freak of hers I should not, perhaps, have
interfered. As you are no doubt prepared now to resign all hope of her,
I am quite satisfied with the result of my afternoon's work. Come,
Margaret."