MY FAITHFUL JANET.
"Good blood," they say, "does not lie." Margaret was true to her
traditions. She did not faint, she did not weep, over what was complete
ruin to her expectations, if not of her hopes. She held her head a
little more erect than usual, and looked Sir Philip quietly in the face.
"I am very glad to hear it," she said--it was a very excusable lie,
perhaps. "I hope you will be happy."
Strange to say, her calmness robbed Sir Philip of his self-possession.
He flushed hotly and looked away, thinking of some words that he had
spoken many months ago to Margaret's mother--a sort of promise to be
"always ready" if Margaret should ever change her mind. Had she changed
it now? But she was not going to leave him in doubt upon this point.
"You have only just forestalled a similar announcement on my part," she
said, smiling bravely. "I dare say you will hear all about it soon--and
I hope that you will wish me joy."
He looked up with evident relief.
"I am exceedingly glad. I may congratulate you then?"
"Thank you. Yes, we may congratulate each other."
She still smiled--rather strangely, as he thought. He wondered who the
"happy man" could be? But of that, to tell the truth, Margaret was as
ignorant as he. She had invented her little tale of an engagement in
self-defence.
"Ah, Margaret," he said, with a sudden impulse of affection, "if only
you could have seen as I saw--two years ago!"
"But that was impossible," she answered quietly. "And I think it would
be undesirable also. I wanted you to know, however, that I agree with
you about Janetta--I think that you were right."
"And you have nothing more to tell me?"
For the moment he was willing to throw up his appointment in Australia,
to fly from the wealthy and sensible Miss Adela Smithies and incur any
odium, any disappointment, and any shame, if only Margaret Adair would
own that she loved him and consent to be his wife. For, although he
liked and esteemed Miss Smithies, who was a rather plain-faced girl with
a large fortune, he was perfectly conscious that Margaret had been the
one love of his life. But Margaret was on her guard.
"To tell you?" she echoed, as if in mild surprise. "Why no, I think not,
Sir Philip. Except, perhaps, to ask you not to speak--for the present,
at least--of my own prospects, they are not yet generally known, and I
do not want them mentioned just now."
"Certainly. I will respect your confidence," said Sir Philip. He felt
ashamed of that momentary aberration. Adela was a very suitable wife for
him, and he could not think without remorse that he had ever proposed to
himself to be untrue to her. How fortunate, he reflected, that Margaret
did not seem to care!
"Will you come in?" she said graciously. "Mamma will be so pleased to
see you, and she will be glad to congratulate you on your good fortune."
"Thank you very much, but I fear I must be off. I am very busy, and I
really have scarcely any time to spare."
"I must thank you all the more for giving me some of your valuable
time," said Margaret sweetly. "Must you go?"
"I really must. And--" as he held out his hand--"we are friends, then,
from henceforth?"
"Oh, of course we are," she answered. But her eyes were strangely cold,
and the smile upon her lips was conventional and frosty. The hand that
he held in his own was cold, too, and somewhat limp and flabby.
"I am so glad," he said, growing warmer as she grew cold, "that you have
resolved to renew your acquaintance with Miss Colwyn. It is what I
should have expected from your generous nature, and it shows that what I
always--always thought of you was true."
"Please do not say so," said Margaret. She came very near being natural
in that moment. She had a choking sensation in her throat, and her eyes
smarted with unshed tears. But her training stood her in good stead. "It
is very kind of you to be so complimentary," she went on with a light
little laugh. "And I hope that I shall find Janetta as nice as she used
to be. Good-bye. _Bon voyage._"
"I wish you every happiness," he said with a warm clasp of her hand and
a long grave look into her beautiful face; and then he went away and
Margaret was left alone.
She stole up to her room almost stealthily, and locked the door. She
hoped that no one had seen Sir Philip come and go--that her mother would
not question her, or remark on the length of his visit. She was
thoroughly frightened and ashamed to think of what she had done. She had
been as near as possible to making Sir Philip what would virtually have
been an offer of marriage. What an awful thought! And what a narrow
escape! For of course he would have had to refuse her, and she--what
could she have done then? She would never have borne the mortification.
As it was, she hoped that Sir Philip would accept the explanation of the
little note of summons which she had despatched to him that morning,
and would never inquire what her secret motive had been in writing it.
She set herself to consider the situation. She did not love Sir Philip.
She was not capable of a great deal of love, and all that she had been
capable of she had given to Wyvis Brand. But the years of girlhood in
her father's house were beginning to pall upon her. She was conscious of
a slight waning of her beauty, of a perceptible diminution in the
attentions which she received, and the admiration that she excited. It
had occurred to her lately, as it had occurred to her parents, that she
ought to think seriously of getting married. The notion of spinsterhood
was odious to Margaret Adair. And Sir Philip Ashley would have been, as
her mother used to say, so _suitable_ a man for her to marry! Margaret
saw it now.
She wept a few quiet tears for her lost hopes, and then she arrayed
herself becomingly, and, with a look of purpose on her face, went down
to tea.
"Do you know, mamma," she said, "that Sir Philip Ashley is going to
marry Miss Smithies, the great brewer's daughter, and that he has
accepted a post in Victoria?"
"Margaret!"
"It is quite true, mamma, he told me so himself. Why need you look
surprised? We could hardly expect," said Margaret, with a pretty smile,
"that Sir Philip should always remain unmarried for my sake."
"It is rather sudden, surely!"
"Oh, I don't think so. By the bye, mamma, shall we not soon feel a
little dull if we are here all alone? It would be very nice to fill the
house with guests and have a little gaiety. Perhaps--" with a faint but
charming blush--"Lord Southbourne would come if he were asked."
Lord Southbourne was an exceptionable viscount with weak brains and a
large rent-roll whom Margaret had refused six months before.
"I am sure he would, my darling; I will ask him," said Lady Caroline,
with great satisfaction. And she noticed that Margaret's watch for an
unknown visitor had now come to its natural end.
It was not more than a month later in the year when Janetta Colwyn,
walking in the plantation near the Red House, came face to face with a
man who was leaning against the trunk of a fir-tree, and had been
waiting for her to approach. She looked astonished; but he was calm,
though he smiled with pleasure, and held out his hands.
"Well, Janetta!"
"Wyvis! You have come home at last!"
"At last."
"You have not been up to the house yet?"
"No, I was standing here wishing that I could see you first of all; and,
just as I wished it, you came in sight. I take it as a good omen."
"I am glad you are back," said Janetta earnestly.
"Are you? Really? And why?"
"Oh, for many reasons. The estate wants you, for one thing," said
Janetta, coloring a little, "and Julian wants you----"
"Don't you want me at all, Janetta?"
"Everybody wants you, so I do, too."
"Tell me more about everybody and everybody's wants. How is Julian?"
"Very well, indeed, and longing to see you before he goes to school."
"Ah yes, poor little man. How does he like the idea of school?"
"Pretty well."
"And how do you like the idea of his going?"
Janetta's face fell. "I am sure it is good for him," she said rather
wistfully.
"But not so good for you. What are you going to do? Shall you live with
Mrs. Burroughs, Janet?"
"No, indeed; I think I shall take lodgings in London, and give lessons.
I have saved money during the last few months," said Janetta with
something between a tear in the eye and a smile on the lip, "so that I
shall be able to live even if I get no pupils at first."
"And shall you like that?"
She looked at him for a moment without replying, and then said
cheerfully:
"I shall not like it if I get no pupils."
"And how are Cuthbert and Nora?"
"Absorbed in baby-worship," said Janetta. "You will be expected to fall
down and worship also. And your little niece is really very pretty."
Wyvis shook his head. "Babies are all exactly alike to me, so you had
better instruct me beforehand in what I ought to say. And what about
our neighbors, Janet? Are the Adairs at home?"
"Yes," said Janetta, with some reserve of tone.
"And the Ashleys?"
"Old Lady Ashley. Sir Philip has married and gone to the Antipodes."
"Married Margaret? I always thought that would be the end of it."
"You are quite wrong. He married a Miss Smithies, a very rich girl, I
believe. And Margaret is engaged to a certain Lord Southbourne--who is
also very rich, I believe."
"Little Southbourne!" exclaimed Wyvis, with a sudden burst of laughter.
"You don't say so! I used to know him at Monaco. Oh, there's no harm in
little South; only he isn't very bright."
"I am sorry for Margaret," said Janetta.
"Oh she will be perfectly happy. She will always move in her own circle
of society, and that is paradise for Margaret."
"You are very hard on her, Wyvis," Janetta said, reprovingly. "She is
capable of higher things than you believe."
"Capable! Oh, she may be _capable_ of anything," said Wyvis, "but she
does not do the things that she is capable of doing."
"At any rate she is very kind to me now. She wrote to me a few days ago,
and told me that she was sorry for our past misunderstanding. And she
asked me to go and stay with her when she was married to Lord
Southbourne and had a house of her own."
"Are you sure that she did not add that it would be such an advantage to
you?"
"Of course she did not." But Janetta blushed guiltily, nevertheless.
"And did you promise to accept the invitation?"
She smiled and shook her head.
"I thought you were such a devoted friend of hers!"
"I always tried to be a true friend to her. But you know I think, Wyvis,
that some people have not got it in their nature to be true friends to
anyone. And perhaps it was not--quite--in Margaret's nature."
"I agree with you," said Wyvis, more gravely than he had spoken
hitherto. "She has not your depth of affection, Janetta--your strength
of will. You have been a very true and loyal friend to those you have
loved."
Janetta turned away her face. Something in his words touched her very
keenly. After a pause, Wyvis spoke again.
"I have had reason since I saw you last to know the value of your
friendship," he said seriously. "I want to speak to you for a moment,
Janetta, before we join the others, about my poor Juliet. I had not, as
you know, very many months with her after we left England. But during
those few months I became aware that she was a different creature from
the woman I had known in earlier days. She showed me that she had a
heart--that she loved me and our boy after all--and died craving my
forgiveness, poor soul (though God knows that I needed hers more than
she needed mine), for the coldness she had often shown me. And she said,
Janetta, that _you_ had taught her what love meant, and she charged me
to tell you that your lessons had not been in vain."
Janetta looked up with swimming eyes. "Poor Juliet! I am glad that she
said that."
"She is at peace now," said Wyvis, in a lower voice, "and the happiness
of her later days is due to you. But how much is not due to you,
Janetta! Your magic power seemed to change my poor wife's very nature:
it has made my child happy: it gave all possible comfort to my mother on
her dying bed--and what it has done for me no words can ever tell! No
one has been to me what you have been, Janetta; the good angel of my
life, always inspiring and encouraging, always ready to give me hope and
strength and courage in my hours of despair."
"You must not say so: I have done nothing," she said, but she let her
hand lie unresistingly between his own, as he took it and pressed it
tenderly.
"Have you not? Then I have been woefully mistaken. And it has come
across me strangely, Janetta, of late, that of all the losses I have
had, one of the greatest is the loss of my kinship with you. No doubt
you have thought of that: John Wyvis, the ploughman's son, is not your
cousin, Wyvis Brand."
"I never remembered it," said Janetta.
"Then I must remind you of it now. I cannot call you Cousin Janet any
longer. May I call you something else, dear, so that I may not lose you
out of my life? I want you to be something infinitely closer and dearer
and sweeter than a cousin, Janetta; will you forgive me all my errors
and be my wife?"
And when she had whispered her reply, he took her in his arms and called
her, as her father used to call her--
"My faithful Janet!"
And she thought that she had never borne a sweeter name.
THE END.