“What the deuse!” exclaimed Mr. Walton, as he read the farewell billet
of our hero—“Margaret,”—and he suddenly looked enlightened on the
subject—“I hope _you_ are not the cause of this!”
“_I_, sir! _I_ the cause?” replied the conscious girl, with a very
demure look of surprise—“What have _I_ done?”
Her father could not well say _what_ she had done, so he said nothing;
but he looked annoyed and sorry, and he found fault with the dinner.
That night Vivian Russell had a strange, and, as he thought, a very
provoking dream. He thought he was toiling over brake and brier, in
pursuit of Margaret’s paper basket, which hovered like a “will o’ the
wisp” before him, and enticed him into all sorts of dangers, up hill and
down, through bog and stream, till at last, when, on the top of a high
mountain, he thought it just within his grasp, an angel-face gleamed for
a moment from a low cloud close by, and a white arm, reaching out,
snatched the treasure from his outstretched hand, and vanished with it
from his sight!
For a week afterwards, our hero, wretched and restless, tried hard to
forget the maiden and her folly, as he chose to term it; but her image
would not leave him. Sleeping or waking, he saw her destroying, to
conceal yet preserve, the billet-doux of the happy and handsome Sir
George Elwyn.
“What a shameful waste of time!” he exclaimed one day in a sudden fit of
virtuous indignation. “To be sure, she does a great deal else: She
writes, reads, draws, sews for the poor, &c., &c.; but then many a
moment, which might be more profitably employed, is squandered in this
preposterous occupation, which she really seems to make a business of.”
“What a shameful waste of time!” whispered conscience in return. “To be
sure you ride, lounge, sleep, eat, &c. &c., but then many a moment,
which might be more profitably employed, is squandered in these
preposterous reveries, which you really seem to make a business of.”
In one of his daily rides, Vivian felt himself irresistibly impelled
towards the Hall, and after wandering for some time within sight of the
house, in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of its fair inhabitant, he
strolled without any definite object into the village.
As he approached a low cottage, he saw a form, which he could not
mistake, entering the door, followed by a footman. The door closed after
them; but the window was open, and Vivian glanced in. It _was_ Margaret!
She was in the act of taking a pillow from the hand of her attendant.
“See!” she said to the poor woman of the cottage, who was lying on a
bed, looking very ill, “I have brought you another pillow. I hope it
will ease your poor shoulders; it is softer than the last, for I tore
the papers, with which it is stuffed, much finer;” and tenderly raising
the invalid, she placed the pillow beneath her.
“The papers, with which it is stuffed! and this, then, is their
destination! and Sir George’s note is in the old woman’s pillow! And I
called it a waste of time!”
Vivian was half wild with joy and surprise. He staid to hear no more,
but flew rather than walked back to the Hall, and contrived to make his
peace with Mr. Walton, and accept an invitation for dinner, before the
unconscious Margaret had returned from her errand of benevolence. As he
saw her approach from the window, he hurried out to meet her, his face
glowing with the joyous excitement of his discovery, and, hastily
drawing her arm through his, exclaimed,—“I’m so happy! It is all right!
I was quite mistaken; I’m so happy!” When she first recognized him,
Margaret’s beautiful features lighted up, for a moment, with
irrepressible joy; but the glow faded as she recalled the discourteous
manner of his departure, and though she did not withdraw the arm he had
taken, she received his protestations of happiness at their meeting,
with a quiet dignity and reserve, which amply punished our impetuous
lover for his fault. But though she would not deign to inquire in _what_
he was mistaken, by degrees the reserve wore off beneath the genial and
irresistible influence of Vivian’s frank and joyous demeanor, and for
the rest of the day she allowed herself to be as happy as her heart bade
her.
As our hero sat by her work-table after tea, a sudden thought came into
his head. “I will see if my writing will share the fate of others,” said
he to himself. And scribbling, upon some paper, the verse he had heard
her sing on his first visit—beginning with, “One only I love and
forever,” he cut it into small pieces and placed it on the table before
her, at the same time laughingly pointing to the fatal basket. Margaret
began to join the pieces, succeeded in the first line, colored, smiled
as she read, and making a playful feint of putting them in the basket,
threw them at last, with would-be carelessness, into a book, which lay
open on the table.
Vivian’s heart beat high! and higher still, when, gently taking his
pencil from his hand, she wrote on a card, and cut to pieces, the
following lines, which after much puzzling he placed correctly together.
“I sincerely congratulate the ‘one only.’ He or she, whichever it may
be, will be happy certainly in the _invariable_ devotion you display.”
Vivian bit his lip at the word “invariable;” for he remembered his fit
of ill-humor. But he did not despair, he wrote again, as follows,—
Nay! If this heart’s devotion changes,
’Tis only as the needle turns,
With trembling truth, howe’er it ranges,
To where the pole-star beams and burns:
Star of my life! howe’er I flee,
So Fate has linked _my_ love to thee!
Margaret seemed to become suddenly sensible that this at least was a
clandestine correspondence; for blushing again more deeply than before,
she rose and left the room, with the paper still in her hand. She did
not return that evening, and our hero began to fear that his half
playful, half in earnest declaration had offended her. They met at
breakfast, however, and save a slight additional shade of reserve, her
manner was the same as usual.
Vivian knew not what to think. He pined to be relieved, but he would
not, without further encouragement, hazard another and more formal
declaration.
Awaking from his reverie, he found himself alone in the breakfast-room,
turning, unconsciously, the key of Margaret’s work-box. Suddenly a
little secret door sprung open at his accidental touch, and there, on a
tiny shelf, lay a paper with “Vivian,” written on the outside, in a
delicate female hand! Bewildered with love and hope, he opened it ere he
thought of the dishonor of so doing, and found—(yes! it was no dream
and he was the happiest of the happy!)—the very bits of paper, which he
had laid before her the night previous, and which she had thrown so
carelessly into a book! Forgetting, in his passionate delight, the
impropriety, the indelicacy of allowing her to know that her secret was
betrayed, he hurriedly penciled on a card—
“Dearest Margaret; by a blessed accident, I have discovered the
secret shelf—its contents are a token to me that you have
rightly construed my earnest devotion of word and manner. Dare I
imagine it also a token that you approve that devotion? Tell me,
sweet Margaret, say but one word, but let that word be ‘yes,’
and I am yours only and forever,
Vivian.”
He placed it on the shelf, hastily closed the little door, and left the
house; after meeting Mr. Walton on the stairs, and promising to call the
next day.