"You'll have to lunch somewhere," Tom pleaded.
"Yes, but I must go to my lawyer's almost immediately, and one or two
other places, and don't quite know how much time they'll take up."
"Are you going alone?"
"Yes."
"Then look here," Tom exclaimed, delighted at his own audacity, "if you
are going to lawyers and people, couldn't I take Miss Vincent round and
show her something? Picture-galleries, Tower of London, British Museum,
Houses of Parliament, top of the Monument--that kind of thing, you know.
We'd take a hansom, and put half London into a couple of hours."
"Could I, father--could I?" she asked, eagerly.
Mr. Vincent looked from one to the other. They were boy and girl, he
thought--Tom was twenty-two and Margaret eighteen, a couple of wild
children, and before either of them was born their fathers had been old
friends. Why shouldn't they go out together?
"It's very kind of you," he said, "and it would prevent her from
spending a dull morning."
"It sha'n't be dull if I can help it," Tom answered, triumphantly.
"I may really go?" Margaret cried and kissed her father. "Oh, father,
you are a dear."
She was a dear, too, Tom thought, and so was the old man, as he
described Mr. Vincent in his thoughts.
The "old man" had an idea of his own. "Bring Margaret back here and
lunch with us," he said; "there might be just time enough for that, and
we will go and see you on another occasion."
"Good--good!" And Margaret presently found out that this was his
favorite expression. "It shall be as you say. Now, Miss Vincent, there's
hard work before us." Five minutes later Mr. Vincent watched them start.
They waved their hands to him from the hansom, and he turned away with
a smile.
"The real thing to do," Tom told Margaret, was to see the great green
spaces in the midst of a wonderful city, and the chestnuts which in
another month would be in bloom in Hyde Park, and the Round Pond and the
Serpentine. "But as, after all," he went on, "you probably have trees
and ponds at Chidhurst, we'll begin by going to St. Paul's. I'm afraid,
seeing the limited time at our disposal, that the Tower and the Monument
must be left alone." A brilliant thought struck him as they were driving
back down the Strand to the Houses of Parliament. "We'll take Miss
Hunstan a stack of flowers from Covent Garden--you must see Covent
Garden, you know. Hi! cabby, turn up here--Covent Garden; we want to get
some flowers."
"Oh, but I've brought no money with me."
"I have--heaps," he laughed, delighted at her innocence. "I had an idea
we might do something, you know. Now then, here we are. You must jump
out, if you don't mind."
They walked up and down the centre arcade, looking in at the shops, as
happy and as guileless as Adam and Eve in the first garden when the
world was all their own. They chose a stack of flowers, as Tom called
it; he filled Margaret's arms with them just for the pleasure of looking
at her.
"You make quite a picture loaded with them," he said. "Look here, I
should like to give you some roses, too, if you will have them?" he
said, almost humbly. "We get them in London, you see, before you do in
the country; and I want you to take some back with you."
"I should like to take my mother some," she answered, quite unconscious,
of course, of their value.
"Good! You shall take her a heap from us both--I should like to send her
some, if I may. But they shall meet you at Waterloo in a box, then
they'll be fresh at the last moment."
Margaret felt, as they drove on again, as if she had found a playfellow,
a comrade, some one who made life a wholly different thing. She had
never been on equal terms with any one young before--with any one at all
who laughed and chattered and looked at the world from the same
stand-point as she felt that she and Tom did, though till yesterday she
had not set eyes on him. It was a new delight that the world had
suddenly sprung upon her. This was what it was like to be a boy and girl
together, to have a brother, to have friends, what it would be like if
some day in the future she were married: people went about then laughing
and talking and delighting in being together. Oh, that wonderful word
together!
"We won't go to the Abbey," Tom said, "because you did that yesterday,
and before we inspect the House of Commons--"
"Some day you will be there!"
"Some day I shall be there," he echoed; "but before I show you the
identical seat in which it is my ambition to sit, we'll get rid of these
flowers. Great College Street is here, just round the corner. I wonder
if she's at home. Jolly little street, isn't it? with its low houses on
one side and the old wall on the other."
"And the trees looking over--"
"Here we are."
He flew out and knocked at the door. It was opened by a gray-haired
woman, middle-aged, and with a kindly face, overmuch wrinkled for her
years. Miss Hunstan had gone to rehearsal, she said.
"Oh--what a bore!" Tom was crestfallen. Then a happy thought struck him.
"Look here, Mrs. Gilman, we have brought her some flowers. Will you let
us come and stuff them into her pots?"
"To be sure," she answered. "I'll get you some water at once," and she
made off, leaving the street door open.
"Come in," he cried to Margaret. "Mrs. Gilman knows me, and she'll let
us arrange them." The hall of the little old-fashioned house was
panelled like Mrs. Lakeman's, but it was very narrow and painted white,
and there were no fripperies about. Miss Hunstan's sitting-room was on
the ground floor; it was small, and the walls matched the panelling
outside it. The two windows went up high and let in the light, and the
bygone centuries from over the way. In front of them were muslin
curtains, fresh and white, with frills to their edges. There were brass
sconces in the wall with candles and blue silk shades, but the
reading-lamp on the table suggested that they were seldom used. On one
side of the fireplace was a writing-table covered with papers, and over
it a bookshelf; here and there a photograph, above the mantelpiece an
autotype of the Sistine Madonna in a dark brown frame, and beneath it,
filled with white flowers, was a vase of cheap green pottery; there were
other pots of the same ware about the room, but they were all empty.
"We will fill them," Tom said, triumphantly.
Margaret looked at their handiwork with delight. "I like doing this,"
she said. "But it seems such an odd thing to be here in a stranger's
room among the things that help to make up a life--and the stranger
absent."
He looked at her for a moment. "Somehow she isn't a stranger," he
answered. "Lots of people are strangers, no matter how long you know
'em, but she isn't, even at the beginning, if she likes you. Let's put
these daffodils into this thing. Shall we?"
"They look as if they were growing out of the green earth," she said;
"pots should always be green, don't you think so? or else clear glass,
like water."
"Good," he said, and went on cramming the flowers in. At last there were
only the pale white roses left.
"We'll put them here," Margaret said, and set down the pot by the
photograph of a thin, sweet-looking woman on the left of the
writing-table.
"That's her mother," Tom said, half tenderly; Margaret pushed the roses
nearer to it, and loved him for his tone. Then when all the flowers were
placed about the little blue and white room, and the freshness of spring
was its own, they laughed again like the light-hearted children they
were, and went out to their cab.
"Good-bye, Mrs. Gilman," Tom cried, as he closed the doors. "Tell Miss
Hunstan we did it--Miss Vincent and I, and that we left her our
blessing."
X
The brown cart was waiting at the station, a successor to the heavy one
of former days, lighter and better built, and the cob--a new
cob--hurried along with it as though it were a cockle-shell. Hannah was
not there, only the boy who went out with the milk in the morning. He
sat up behind and took care of the luggage, while Mr. Vincent drove with
his daughter beside him, contented and happy. The visit to London had
drawn them closer together. To Margaret it had been a strange looking
back; for she had hardly realized till now that her father must have had
a history before the day when he had entered the farm gates and seen her
mother for the first time. She had heard Hannah speak of it--the coming
of the stranger, as it had remained in Hannah's mind through all the
years afterwards. Margaret thought, too, of her grandfather and uncle,
the relations of whom she had known nothing when she started yesterday.
She was glad they had been people of position, even though they had
spent their money or had done undesirable things, as something in her
father's manner seemed to imply; for it made her father's life appear a
more important thing, not to her, but in the world, that might otherwise
have thought it merely one of the details of the farm at Chidhurst. She
looked at the moor as they drove beside it. The clumps of broom and
gorse had come out since yesterday full and golden in the sunshine. The
fresh green of the whortleberries was showing itself, the bell-heather
was struggling into bloom; just so the possibilities of life had broken
into her imagination, and if some struck her with wonder, there were
others that filled her with joy. An unreasonable, undefinable happiness
that could not be put into words rose to her heart when she thought of
Tom Carringford. She could hear his laughter still, and his merry talk
as they made a bower of Miss Hunstan's room; she wanted to see him again
already, and something told her that he wanted to see her.
The farm-yard gates were wide open. It was good to see the corner of the
Dutch garden again, and in the porch, just as Margaret had known she
would be, her mother stood waiting. Mr. Vincent took his wife's hand
without a word, and looked into her face with a little smile.
"We have come home," he said. She gave him her hand for a moment, then
turned to Margaret, who saw with surprise that she was smarter than
usual. She wore her gray cashmere and the brooch with the topaz in it,
and one of her best hemstitched handkerchiefs was pushed into the front
of her dress. A smile came to her lips as she answered the question in
Margaret's eyes.
"Hannah didn't go to the station," she said, "for Mr. Garratt came over
this afternoon. Tea has been ready this hour and more, but we waited for
you."
A fresh cloth was on the table in the living-room, there was a vase of
flowers in the middle, the best china was put out, and fresh-cooked
scones and other good things were visible. Near the fireplace stood
Hannah, looking a little defiant and rather shamefaced. Margaret noticed
that her hair was brushed back tighter than ever and shone more than
usual. At her neck was a bow of muslin and lace, of which she seemed
uncomfortably conscious. Beside her, brisk and business-like, with a
happy, self-satisfied expression on his face, stood a youthful-looking
man of eight-and-twenty. He was fair and had a smart air with him. His
hair was carefully parted in the middle and curled a little at the tips.
He had a small mustache, which he stroked a great deal and pulled back
towards his ears. He wore a cutaway coat and a navy-blue tie with white
spots on it, and a gold watch-chain wandered over his waistcoat.
Margaret saw in a moment that he was altogether different from the men
who were her father's friends--from Mr. Carringford, for instance, or
Sir George Stringer, with whom she had felt natural and at home. There
was something about this man that made her haughty and on the defensive
even before she had spoken to him.
"Your train must have been late. Tea's been waiting this long time,"
Hannah said. "However, it's to be hoped you've enjoyed yourselves." Her
manner was quite amiable, but a little confused, as was only to be
expected.
"This is Mr. Garratt," Mrs. Vincent said. "You will like to meet him,
father; he has always known James's people at Petersfield."
"How do you do, sir; pleased to make your acquaintance, I'm sure," Mr.
Garratt said. "I hope you've had a pleasant visit to London?"
"How do you do?" Mr. Vincent answered, wondering whether this lively
young man could really be in love with the sedate Hannah.
"And Miss Vincent, I'm pleased to meet you," Mr. Garratt went on, in a
genial tone. "Have often heard of you, and hope you've enjoyed yourself
since you've been away."
"Yes, thank you," Margaret answered, distantly.
"I dare say you've come back ready for your tea." This was by way of a
little joke. "There's nothing like a railway journey, with the country
at the end of it, for starting an appetite," to which she vouchsafed no
reply, feeling instinctively that it would be wise to keep Mr. Garratt
at a distance.
Then the business of tea was entered upon, reflectively, and almost in
silence, as was the custom at Woodside Farm. The silence puzzled Mr.
Garratt a little, this being his first visit; then he wondered if it
were a compliment to himself, and whether these quiet people were shy
before him.
"Is there much doing in London?" he asked Mr. Vincent, thinking perhaps
that he was expected to lead the conversation.
"I suppose so," Mr. Vincent answered, a little coldly.
"I always think myself that it does one good to go up. I dare say you
find the same? Did you stay at one of the hotels in the Strand?"
"We stayed at the Langham."
"It's rather swagger there, you know." Mr. Garratt thought this would be
a pleasing remark.
"It's very quiet," Mr. Vincent said, haughtily.
"Did you go anywhere, father?" Mrs. Vincent asked.
"Yes; we went to Westminster Abbey."
"Magnificent building, Westminster Abbey," Mr. Garratt put in. "What did
you think of it, Miss Vincent?"
"I don't think I could say just yet," Margaret answered; "it was only
yesterday that I saw it."
"Quite right; it doesn't do to make up one's mind too soon," Mr. Garratt
remarked, cheerily, at which Hannah looked up a little sharply.
"For my part," she said, "I like people to know at once what they
think, and what they mean."
"Well, you see," he answered, looking back at her, "it isn't difficult
sometimes." Whereupon the color came to her face and amiability to her
expression. "What else did you see in London, Miss Vincent?" he turned
to Margaret again.
Something prompted Mr. Vincent to answer for her, and with extreme
gravity: "We went to the theatre."
"I'm sorry to hear it," Hannah said.
"And how did you like it?" Mr. Garratt asked Margaret, as if he had not
heard Hannah's remark.
"It was wonderful," she answered. "I long to go again."
"It's a place of iniquity," Hannah said, firmly.
Mr. Vincent looked across at her. A sharp answer rose to his lips, but
he remembered that the Petersfield young man was a suitor, and had been
long expected. Before he could speak Margaret struck in, quickly:
"It was one of Shakespeare's plays that we saw."
"I have read a good many of them," Hannah remarked, not in the least
pacified.
"Then, of course, you are aware, Miss Barton, that they are mostly
historical," Mr. Garratt said, in a conciliatory voice, "and it may be
said that to read him, or even to see him acted, makes us familiar with
historical knowledge;" a sentence at which Mr. Vincent gave a little
snort, but said nothing.
Hannah was delighted at the prospect of an argument. "History may teach
us some lessons, Mr. Garratt," she said, "but we can read them, just as
we can read other lessons. There is no occasion to do more; and as for
play-acting teaching us history, once people have taken to their graves
they might be left to lie in them and not be brought out and used as
puppets that dance to man's imagination." Mr. Vincent looked up; he was
becoming interested. "Moreover," continued Hannah, "it's making a mock
of God, for only He can bring the dead to life."
"What you say is very true, Miss Barton," Mr. Garratt answered, sending
another furtive look at Margaret, "and I never think myself that
Shakespeare is as interesting as a good modern piece."
"Do you go to the theatre then, Mr. Garratt?" she asked, quickly putting
down the teapot, but still keeping her hand on its handle.
"I don't make a practice of it, Miss Barton, but if one is in London one
is tempted to do as London does. Moreover, I believe in seeing the world
as it is, rather than in holding off because it is not as one wants it
to be," he added, with the air of a moralist, but an obvious capacity
for enjoyment lurking behind it.
"The world should be made a wilderness for the evil-doer--" Hannah
began, as if she were trying to remember a bit from a sermon.
"There should be a voice crying in the wilderness, Miss Barton--" Mr.
Garratt stopped, for it occurred to him that he might be going too far.
"Or what would be the good of the wilderness?" Mr. Vincent asked. "We
have finished tea, I think?" He rose and went to the best parlor. The
years he had spent out of the world, as he had once known it, made him a
little intolerant of many things, of this vulgar and good-tempered young
man with an eye to the main chance among them. But Mr. Garratt would do
well enough for Hannah--in fact, nothing could be better, for evidently
he was not narrow, and this might have a good effect upon her. For
himself and his daughter and for his wife there was a different plane, a
different point of view. The visit to London had made him see even more
clearly than before the manner of woman he had married, and for the
first time, after all these years and in the autumn of their days, he
was nearly being her lover.
Just as if his thought had brought her to him, she put her head inside
the door and asked, as she always did:
"Are you busy, father, or shall I come to you for a little while?"
He got up and went to her. "I wanted you," he said. "Come and sit by
the window; there are a good many things to say." She felt as if heaven
had flashed its joy into her heart; but only for a moment, then dread
took its place.
"Is the news bad from London?" she asked.
"It's not good," he said. "That is one reason why I want to talk to you,
dear wife." He stopped a moment before he went on. "I have told you two
or three times that you know nothing about me or my people. Now, that I
shall probably be going away very soon and that Margaret is grown up, I
think you ought to know about them: one can never tell what may happen.
There is not much to their credit to say--or to mine, I fear," he added,
and then, quite briefly, he gave her the points of the family history,
and made known to her the possibilities in the future. She was not
elated--he had known that she would not be; but she was surprised, and a
little offended.
"I didn't think there was this behind," she said; "I don't know what
people will say."
"Is there any occasion to tell them?"
"I don't suppose there is," she answered, absently, and then, with an
anxious look in her clear eyes, she said the one thing that hurt him in
all the years he knew her. "Father, you didn't hold it back because you
didn't think us good enough?"
He turned round quickly. "If it was anything of that sort," he
answered, "it was because I did not think myself good enough. My people
led useless, extravagant lives, and my own has not been much better. I
have felt ashamed that you should know anything concerning us, and it
wasn't necessary for our contentment here."
"No," she said, slowly, "it wasn't."
"Nor is it any more necessary to tell people our affairs now than it has
been hitherto. If Cyril dies I shall not alter my name--what good would
a title be to me? I have no son to come after me, no one at all to
inherit anything except Margaret, for whom this doesn't matter."
"I'm glad you've told Margaret," Mrs. Vincent answered. She was silent
for a moment, and then went on, thoughtfully: "She is changing in
herself; I can feel it. She'll not be content here always. She is
stretching her wings already, like a young bird that is waiting to fly."
"Well, at any rate, she had better stay quietly here till my return," he
said. "By-the-way, an old friend of mine has taken the vicarage
house--Sir George Stringer; he is sure to come over and see you."
"We are getting very grand, father," she said, ruefully, resenting it a
little in her heart. She had been so well content with her own station
in life, and had never wished to see it either lifted or lowered; the
first seemed undignified to her, the last would have meant humiliation.
"It doesn't make any difference, dear," he said. "We were a worthless,
ramshackling set, who put such privileges as we had under our feet; and
as for me, I haven't even enough grace to take me to church on Sunday. I
want to forget everything but the life of the last twenty years--you,
and Margaret."
She put her hands up slowly to his shoulders.
"Father," she said, "you will never know what you have been to me, never
in this world."
"I do," he answered; "I know--well."
"And I couldn't bear that you should be anything but just what you have
been always."
"I never shall be anything else," he answered, and stooped and kissed
her. "We won't tell Hannah about this," he went on, "and I don't suppose
Margaret will. There's no reason to make a mystery of it; if it comes
out, well and good, but if not we can be silent."
"I'd rather she didn't know," Mrs. Vincent answered, "unless she finds
it out; she'd only be talking and thinking things I wouldn't bear."
Meanwhile Towsey and Hannah were clearing away the tea things: Margaret
went out to the porch and looked at the garden and the beechwood she
loved rising high beyond it. Mr. Garratt cast a quick glance towards
the kitchen, and in a moment he was by her side.
"Are you inclined for a little stroll, Miss Vincent?"
His eyes said more than his words. She went a step forward and stood by
a lilac bush.
"No," she said, "I am going in directly."
The sunset with a parting shaft of gold touched her hair; a whispering
breeze carried a message from the roses to her cheek, and she was
young--young, the dawn was in her eyes, she seemed to listen to the song
of birds, to belong to the flowers that were springing from the earth.
She was different altogether from Hannah. A dozen possibilities darted
through his mind. His heart beat quicker, his usual ready speech failed
him, he stood tugging at his mustache and thinking that he had never
seen a girl like this before--but suddenly he was recalled to
common-sense.
"Mr. Garratt," Hannah said, her voice was severe and unflinching, "if
you want to see the grave of your aunt Amelia, I will take you."