It was five o'clock when Margaret knocked at the street door in Great
College Street again.
"There's a lady waiting for you," Mrs. Gilman said, as she let her in.
"A lady!" Margaret exclaimed, and hurried up-stairs. In the drawing-room
sat Hannah. She wore her blue alpaca frock and black straw hat with the
upstanding bow on one side; she had thrown aside her cape, and the
moment she saw Margaret she took off her hat as if to prepare herself
for the fray.
"Well," she said, "this is a pretty thing to do, isn't it? You'll just
come home with me this very moment."
Margaret stood with her back to the door. "It's very kind of you to come
up, Hannah, but I'm going to stay here," she answered.
"You'll do nothing of the sort."
The determination in Hannah's voice put the bit between Margaret's
teeth. "I am going to stay here," she repeated.
"Either you come home this minute," replied Hannah, who had made up her
mind that a firm policy was the right one to use with Margaret, "or you
don't come at all."
"Then I don't come at all--till my father returns."
"And that won't be for another year, if then. There was a letter this
morning which showed it plain enough."
"Then I'll come back when you are married, to take care of our mother."
Hannah turned pale with rage. "Now look here, Margaret," she said, "and
understand that I don't want any taunts from you. You've taken good care
to put an end to all that forever. It's my belief that you think Mr.
Garratt is going to follow you up to London." At which Margaret raised
her head quickly, but she only half convinced Hannah.
"I don't want Mr. Garratt," she said, "and I won't let him know where I
am, I promise you that, and if he finds out he shall not enter the
house. He lost his temper yesterday, but he didn't mean any of the
things he said, and now that I'm away he'll come back to you."
"I'll take good care he never enters the place," said Hannah. "Perhaps
you don't know that he's written you a letter? I could tell his
handwriting on the envelope, though he has tried to alter it."
"You can open it and read it, or give it back to him, or put it in the
fire," Margaret answered. "It's such a long way for you to have come;
won't you have some tea, Hannah?"
"I don't want any tea. If that's where you sleep," she added, nodding
towards the other room, "you had better go and pack up your things at
once. We shall have time to catch the 6.50; I don't mind taking a cab to
the station."
"It's no use; I'm not coming," Margaret, answered, firmly.
"And what do you think you are going to do in London?" asked Hannah,
beginning to lose her temper again. "And what sort of a house is this
you're in, I should like to know, with an actress lodging down-stairs?
I've found that out already."
"I hope I shall be an actress, too, soon."
"You!" Hannah almost screamed. "You that have no religion now want to be
an actress; where do you think it will all end?"
"I am not going to discuss it with you," Margaret answered, loftily, "it
was very kind of you to come, but if you won't have any tea you had
better go home again. I have written to father, and I know that my
mother will trust me. I have not got any of the religion that makes you
narrow and hard; you have made me afraid of even thinking about that;
and I'm going to be an actress. But I won't do anything wrong--"
"We are all weak--" Hannah began, in consternation.
"I will be as strong as I can," Margaret cried, passionately. "Go back,
Hannah, and think things over. If there can be peace at home, and Mr.
Garratt is not a bone of contention between us--I don't want him, you
understand--presently I will come home again."
"You return with me to-night," Hannah insisted, "or you shall not enter
the house again."
"I shall not return with you to-night," Margaret answered, doggedly.
"It's what I always knew would come of it. Understand now, Margaret,
once for all, that unless you go back with me I'll have the door closed
against you. I'd turn the key and close the bolts myself, though it were
the coldest night in winter."
"But remember I have a right to come," Margaret said, blazing a little.
"You have no right to lock me out of my mother's house."
"Right or not right, you shall not enter till I'm forced to let you in.
I've had unbelievers long enough about the place, but when it comes to
actresses, too, it's time I made a stand, and I'll make it. Now, then,
are you coming?" she asked, in a threatening voice.
"No, I'm not."
"Very well, then, the rest is on your own head." Hannah opened the door
and hesitated. "I'm sure I've had enough of you," she said, as she went
down the stairs. Margaret flew after her.
"Oh, tell my mother that I love her," she cried, entreatingly.
"Pretty love!" said Hannah, scornfully, as she stalked along the little
hall and out into the street.
"Hannah--"
"Pretty love!" repeated Hannah from the pavement, "I've no patience with
it," and, with her head in the air, she marched up the street.
Margaret went back to the drawing-room and threw herself down on her
knees beside the sofa. "Oh, what can I do?" she cried. "If I had only
some one to help me! This is what it means--this is why they want it
so," she went on incoherently to herself. "Human beings are not strong
enough to manage their lives alone--it is why all the mistakes are made.
I must write to her at once. Oh, my dear, dear mother." She went to the
writing-table on one side of the room. There was a worn-out old
blotting-book, and in it a sheet of crumpled note-paper. She smoothed
it, and with a wretched, spiky pen poured out her heart in a letter, and
felt better for it. Her mother would understand, her mother always did,
and would trust her and wait. How she wished that she had never left the
farm, that she had borne Hannah's scoldings, borne anything rather than
deserted the dear home of all her life. She only realized, too, now that
she was away from her, that her mother was growing old--how foolish it
seemed to miss any time at all with her. But Hannah was not to be
borne. Day after day, week after week, since her father went she had
tormented Margaret, and save by fits and starts her mother had been too
well lost in her own dreams even to notice it, except, of course, when
there had been scenes, and these were almost as trying to Mrs. Vincent
as to Margaret. After all, she had done a wise thing, especially since
Mr. Garratt had written, and her father was not coming home just yet.
"It's only the beginning that is so difficult," she said to herself,
"presently it will be better." She looked at the clock on the
mantel-piece. The Lakemans must be safe in Scotland by this time; Hannah
was on her way back to Chidhurst. She wondered whether Tom Carringford
was in London, and if he had thought of her at all yesterday when he
went to the house on the hill to dine--if he had looked across even once
at Woodside Farm.