Margaret meanwhile awoke full of happiness. She was engaged to Tom
Carringford; she was going back to her mother to-day--it seemed too good
to be true. A telegram came from Tom before she had finished her
breakfast; he was safe at Perth, and just starting onward. She wondered
how Lena was, and what her illness could be. It was dreadful for Mrs.
Lakeman, she thought, and she was glad that Tom was gone. The post
brought a letter from her mother; it was dated two days ago; but they
were slow in posting things at Woodside Farm; probably it had been put
on one side and forgotten. Mrs. Vincent was not very well, it was only a
cold, but it had affected her heart, the doctor said, and she must be
kept very quiet; there was not the least danger, and she would write
again to-morrow. She begged Margaret not to think of coming, for Hannah
was very bitter--she doubted if she would let her in, and Mr. Garratt
had been there yesterday and made matters worse. "Hannah is fond of
saying," Mrs. Vincent went on, "that the door is locked and barred
against you, and shall remain so till she is forced to open it. She
told Mr. Garratt so yesterday when he wanted your address. He said he
should never care for anybody but you, and she told him not to come here
again, and that if he did he should find the doors shut, as you would.
Perhaps it will be better when we have had a letter from your father,
for she was always in some fear of him."
While Margaret was still reading the letter there came the sound of
wheels in the cobbled street. Something stopped in front of the house; a
loud knock echoed through it and made Margaret start to her feet. For
one horrible moment it struck her that Mr. Garratt had found her out.
Then the door opened and Mrs. Lakeman entered. Her face was drawn, her
lips were firmly shut, a strange, uncanny expression was in her eyes.
"Margaret!" she exclaimed. "Margaret Vincent, my old lover's child. I
have come to throw myself on your mercy." She pushed Margaret back on
the sofa, threw herself down by her, and burst into what sounded like
hysterical tears.
Mrs. Lakeman had got her dramatic moment.
Margaret was aghast. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Is it Lena? Has anything
happened to her?"
Mrs. Lakeman struggled for utterance; when she gained it her words were
thick, her voice desperate. "I have come to ask you for her life!" she
said.
"Me?"
"Your telegram has killed her."
"Oh!" Margaret's face blanched, for she saw what was coming. Mrs.
Lakeman raised herself, and sat down on the sofa and took Margaret's
hands, and looked at her with eyes as strangely blue as they were
mocking.
"Margaret," she said, "I have done a desperate thing; but my child has
been ill, she has been fretting and waiting for her lover--for the boy
who has always been her lover. She can't bear separation from him.
Yesterday morning I sent for him, and told him she was dangerously ill;
at five o'clock your telegram--"
"It was Tom's telegram."
Mrs. Lakeman was impatient at the interruption. "Tom's telegram,
then--came. By an accident it was given into her hands instead of mine,
and a quarter of an hour later I was bending over her wondering if she
would ever open her eyes again. Tom has been ours--all his life," Mrs.
Lakeman went on, vehemently; "he and she have grown up together; he has
always loved her; he has done everything for us; they have never been
three days apart till we went to Scotland the other day. She worships
him, and it has been the one hope of my life to see them married. She
has never dreamed of anything else; he is the air she breathes and the
world she lives in. When that telegram came yesterday it struck her like
a death-blow."
"Oh, but Tom and I love each other," Margaret cried, in despair.
"No, dear," Mrs. Lakeman answered, impressively. "You must know the
truth, for my child's life hangs on it. He does not love you--he loves
her. He may have been infatuated with you during the last fortnight in
which he has been parted from her. It's so like Tom," she added, with a
little smile, for she found the tragic role a difficult one to maintain.
"He has been infatuated so often."
"So often?" repeated Margaret, incredulously.
"Oh yes," Mrs. Lakeman answered, and the odd smile came to her lips.
"You wouldn't believe how many times he has come to confess to me that
he has made an idiot of himself. He is always falling in love, and
getting engaged, and going to be married."
"I can't believe it! I won't believe it!" Margaret cried, passionately.
"It's quite true," Mrs. Lakeman answered, coolly. "Generally I have
managed to conceal everything from Lena, and to get him out of his
scrapes--I have known perfectly well that they were only boyish
nonsense, for at the bottom of his heart, Margaret Vincent," she went
on, resuming her solemnity, "he loves no one but my child; any other
woman would be miserable with him. You won't give him any trouble?" she
asked, insultingly; "you will give him up quietly, won't you?"
"I can't--I can't believe it."
"You would have believed it," Mrs. Lakeman said, slowly, opening her
eyes wide, and this time contriving to keep the humor out of them, "if
you saw her lying straight and still in her little room at Pitlochry, as
she would have been now but for my presence of mind."
"What do you mean?" Margaret asked, a little scared by Mrs. Lakeman's
manner.
"You mustn't ask me." She dropped her voice, and the words appeared to
be dragged from her. "I can't tell you; it shall never pass my lips. I
shouldn't dare to tell you," she whispered. "I have left her with a
woman I can trust, more dead than alive. I told her I would come and ask
her life of you, and I've come to ask it, Margaret. You are your
father's child, and will do the straight and just thing by another
woman?"
"I don't know what to do," Margaret said, desperately, and, rising
quickly, she walked up and down, clasping her head in her hands, trying
to think clearly. The whole thing was theatrical and unreal, and the
mocking look in Mrs. Lakeman's eyes nearly drove her mad.
"It won't break your heart to give him up; it can't." Mrs. Lakeman's
tone was a trifle contemptuous. "You were in love with the other young
man only a few weeks ago."
"I was never in love with Mr. Garratt," Margaret answered,
indignantly--"never for a moment."
"You may think so now, just as Tom thinks he cares for you; but you did
care for him. George Stringer saw it directly, and Tom saw it the day he
had tea with you all. In fact, he thought it was more on your side than
on his," she added, watching the effect of her words with an amusement
she could scarcely control. "He came and told us about it at once--he
tells us everything--he was so funny when he described it all to us,"
Mrs. Lakeman added, as if the remembrance were highly diverting. Then
recovering, she asked, in a deep voice: "What are you going to do,
Margaret; are you going to give me back my child's life?"
"I am going to wait and see Tom, and hear what he says."
"I can't believe you will be so cruel."
"I don't understand," Margaret cried, desperately. "If Lena is so very
ill, if she is dying, why have you left her?"
"Because I knew that there was only one thing that could save her."
"You must have started directly you got the telegram."
"I did--as soon as she recovered her senses. I told you she was with
some one I could trust; I have been in the train all night." From her
tone it might have been a torture-chamber. "I have come to throw myself
on your mercy. I felt that for a fortnight's foolish infatuation you
couldn't be so cruel as to wreck my child's whole life. Your father
would not let you do it, Margaret. Be worthy of him, dear; be the noble
woman you ought to be and give him up."
Mrs. Gilman entered with two telegrams. Mrs. Lakeman gave a little
suppressed shriek; but there was unreality in it, and Margaret felt it
at the back of her head.
"There's one for you, ma'am, and one for Miss Vincent," Mrs. Gilman
said.
Mrs. Lakeman chattered her teeth till Mrs. Gilman had left the room. "I
can't open it," she said, and tried to make her hand tremble. But
Margaret had read hers already.
"_Forgive me, dear_," it ran, "_I am here with Lena_. _Better go
home._--_Tom._" She stood rigid and scarcely able to believe her eyes.
Was it true, then?
"Thank God!" exclaimed Mrs. Lakeman, holding out her telegram to
Margaret. "_We are together again and happy, darling. Be gentle to
little Margaret._--_Lena._"
"Now do you see?" said Mrs. Lakeman, triumphantly.
"Yes, I see," Margaret said. "You needn't have come," she added, with
white lips that almost refused to move.
"I came partly out of love for you," Mrs. Lakeman began, and then seeing
how ill this chimed in with her previous remarks, she added, lamely, "I
couldn't let my child die, could I?"
"What do you want me to do?" Margaret was in despair.
"Will you go to Paris for a time as my guest. You might start to-night.
A former maid of mine could go with you. It would do you a world of
good. It would be better to go away for a time, dear."
"I won't," Margaret answered, quite simply and doggedly. "If Tom loves
Lena better than he does me let him go to her, but I shall stay here."
Then Mrs. Lakeman had an inspiration, and, as usual, she was practical.
"Go out to your father," she said, "in Australia. A cousin of mine is a
director of one of the largest lines of steamers; I'll make him put a
state-room at your disposal. You'll come back in a vastly different
position from your present one. Cyril can't live many months--I
shouldn't be surprised if he's dead already--and you, of course, will be
the daughter of Lord Eastleigh." She stopped, for Mrs. Gilman entered
again with a cablegram. Perhaps the gods were listening and thought the
moment an apt one for its arrival.
"It is from my father," Margaret said, with a quivering lip. "We cabled
to him yesterday." She opened it, and the violent effort to keep back
her tears brought the color to her face. It contained the one
word--_delighted_.
"What does he say?" Mrs. Lakeman asked.
"It doesn't matter; it makes no difference," Margaret answered, crushing
it in her hand; and then she said, gently and sweetly, so that it was
impossible to take offence: "I will give up Tom, Mrs. Lakeman, but you
must go away now, for I feel as if I can't bear any one's presence. And
I can't go away; you must manage as you please, but I shall stay here."
"But there's something else I want you to do," Mrs. Lakeman said. "I
want you to keep this visit of mine a secret from Tom--for Lena's sake."
"Doesn't he know that you have come?"
"He doesn't dream it; and I'm going back to Pitlochry this evening."
"But I don't understand! Where is Tom, and where does he think you are?"
"Tom is with Lena," Mrs. Lakeman said, with a confident smile, "and he
doesn't miss me; he is too happy. I couldn't humiliate my child in her
future husband's eyes"--Margaret quailed at the word--"by letting him
know that I had come to beg her life of a woman for whom he had had a
passing infatuation. Now," she added, and her manner showed her
alertness for practical detail. "Why won't you go to Australia?"
"I don't wish to go," Margaret answered, positively. "I don't wish to
leave my mother."
"Your dear mother," Mrs. Lakeman said, with a funny little twitch. "Go
home to her, Margaret; let me drive you to the station and know that you
are on your way back to the farm?"
"I can't go home now," Margaret answered. "I will do as you wish about
Tom, and I will not tell him that you came to me; but you must leave the
rest in my hands."
"But how is he to know?" said Mrs. Lakeman, feeling in a moment that her
house of cards might fall. "How is he to know that you give him up?"
"I will write to him," she said, bitterly.
"You had better telegraph at once."
Margaret felt as if these telegrams were becoming a nightmare; but, at
any cost, she must get rid of Mrs. Lakeman.
"Oh yes; I will telegraph if you like." She crossed over to the table at
which Tom had sat so joyfully only yesterday.
"Tell him you are going away," Mrs. Lakeman said. "Oh, Margaret, you
don't know how they have loved each other all these years."
"You said he'd been infatuated so often?"
"He has always laughed at it afterwards."
Margaret took up her pen and wrote: "_Stay with Lena; I do not want you.
I am going away._--_Margaret._"
"You had better put your surname, too," Mrs. Lakeman said, and she wrote
it. "I'll take it for you, dear," she said; "you don't want to go out
just yet, and you don't want the landlady to see it. Now, tell me what
you mean to do?" she asked, in a good, businesslike tone.
"I don't know," Margaret answered, gently. "I want to be alone and
think. I have done all I could; it has been very hard to do, and I hope
Lena will be happy. Please go; I feel as if I couldn't bear it any
longer, unless I am alone."
Mrs. Lakeman took her in her arms and kissed her, and, though Margaret
submitted, she could not help shuddering.
"It's rather a desperate game," Mrs. Lakeman thought, as she drove away;
"but it's thoroughly amusing. The best way will be to insist on Tom
marrying Lena at once--a special license. A man is often caught in a
rebound."