This incident completed the painful process which was going on in
Margaret’s mind. The little visionary link of kindness, tenderness,
gratitude, which had existed between herself and Rob Glen had been
really broken by the shock administered to her on the evening when she
pledged herself to him forever; but she had never attempted to realize
her feelings, or inquire into them--rather had been glad to forget
them, to push away from her and postpone all consideration of the
subject which all at once had become so painful, so full of difficulty
and confusion. She had avoided even the idea of any communication
with him. When Ludovic spoke to her of correspondence, it had seemed
impossible that the pledge he asked for could be necessary, or that
there should be any question of correspondence. She had never thought
of it, never meant it. There was her promise against her which sometime
or other must be redeemed. There was the fact that Rob had parted
from her like a lover, a thing which it now made her blush hotly to
recollect, but which then had seemed part of the confused strangeness
of everything--a proof of his “kindness,” that kindness for which
she had never been so grateful as she ought to have been. These were
appalling certainties which overshadowed her life; but then, nothing
could come of them for a long time, that was certain; three immense
lifetimes of years stood between her and anything that could be done to
her in consequence.
And how familiar we all become with the Damocles sword of an impending,
but uncertain event!-- Margaret had been able to escape for a long
time, and had put all thought of it aside. But her mother’s story had
recalled one aspect of her own, and here was another, bursting upon
her distinct and vivid, which could not be pushed aside, which must
be faced, and even explained. Heaven help her! She carried away the
big drawing in her arms, her heart thumping against the card-board
wildly with suffocating force, her head throbbing, her mind in the most
violent commotion. Had there been nothing else, no doubt the sudden
recalling of all her thoughts to her old home, without any warning,
in a moment, must have had a certain effect upon her. Even Jean had
fully acknowledged this. It was natural that she should feel it. But
something much more agitating, something more even than the bewildering
thought of all that had happened in the last few weeks of her stay
at Earl’s-hall, came upon her with the first glimpse of the picture.
Recollections rushed upon her like a torrent, recollections even more
confusing, more painful than these. The drawing itself was a memorial
of the time when there was no trouble at all involved, when Rob, newly
discovered, was a curiosity and delight to the young creature in quest
of something new, to whom he was a godsend; and this it was which
suddenly came before her now.
There is no such anguish of retrospection as that with which the
very young look back upon moments in which they feel they have made
themselves ridiculous, and given their fellow-creatures an inferior,
inadequate representation of them. This it was which overwhelmed
Margaret now. She had acquired a little knowledge, if from nothing
else, from the conversation of Mrs. Bellingham, which had modified her
innocence. She had heard of girls who “flung themselves at the heads”
of men. She had heard of those who gave too much “encouragement,” who
“led on” reluctant wooers. This talk had passed lightly enough over her
head, always full of dreams; but yet it had left a deposit as so much
light talk does.
When first her eyes fell upon the picture, this was the thought that
rushed upon her. Almost before the ready tear had formed which came
at the sight of Earl’s-hall, before the quick pang of grief for the
loss of all which the old house represented to her, before the sense
of fatal bondage and entanglement which was her special burden, had
time to make itself felt--came, with a flood of agony and shame, a
realization of herself as she had been when Rob Glen had seated himself
at the end of the potato field to make this drawing.
Other things that had happened to her had not involved any fault of
hers; she did not even feel that she was seriously to blame for the
forging of the chain that bound her--but this, this had been her own
doing. She it was who had wooed him to Earl’s-hall; she had asked him
to come, and to come again; she had persuaded him to a hundred things
he never would have thought of by himself. But for her he would not
have returned day by day, getting more and more familiar. When she
rushed about everywhere for the things he wanted, when she admired
everything he did with such passionate enthusiasm, when she could hang
over his shoulder watching every line he drew, what had she been doing?
“Flinging herself at his head,” “leading him on,” “encouraging him,”
oh, and more than encouraging him! as Ludovic had said. This was worse
even than the bondage in which it had resulted. Her face was covered
with burning blushes; her soul overflowed with shame.
Oh, how well she recollected the ridiculous ardor with which she had
taken up her old playfellow; the sense of some new delightful event
which had come into her life when she met him, and discovered his
sketches, and appropriated him, as it were, to her own amusement and
pleasure! What a change he had made in the childish monotony and
quiet! She remembered how she had brought him to the house, how she
had coaxed her father for him, how she had fluttered about him as he
sat there beginning his drawing. If he said he wanted anything, how
she flew to get it. How she watched every line over his shoulder; how
she praised him with all simple sincerity. (Margaret still thought the
picture beautiful, more beautiful than anything she had ever seen.)
She seemed to see herself, oh, so over-eager, over-bold, unmaidenly!
Was it wonderful that he should think her ready to do everything he
asked her--ready to make any sacrifice, to separate herself from all
belonging to her for his sake?
There is always a certain consolation, a certain power which upholds
and supports, in the consciousness of suffering for something which
is not one’s own fault. To have been the victim of some wonderful
combination of circumstances, to have been caught in some snare, which
all your skill was not able to elude, that is far from being the worst
that can befall any one. But to see in your conduct the germ of all
your sufferings, to perceive how you have yourself led lightly up,
dancing and singing, to the precipice over which you are about to be
pitched--this is the most appalling ordeal of all. Margaret grew hot
all over, with a blush that tingled to her finger points, and seemed to
scorch her from head to foot. Whose fault was it, all the self-betrayal
that followed, the horrible bond that bound her soul, and which she did
not even venture to think of; whose fault was it but her own?
“Margaret, dear Margaret, dearest Jean has sent me to ask, are you not
coming down-stairs again? We all feel for you, darling--and oh, do you
think it is nothing to us? Dear Jean puts great force upon herself, she
has such a strong will, and commands it; but we all feel the same. Oh,
what a beautiful picture it is! What a dear, dear old house! How it
brings back our youth, and dearest, dearest papa!”
Miss Leslie put her nose to the picture as if she would have kissed
it. She felt in the depths of her artless soul that this was her duty
to old Sir Ludovic, of whom poor Grace had known little enough for
twenty years before. The tear came quite easily, which she dried with
her white handkerchief, pressing it to her eyes. Not for anything in
the world would she have failed of this duty to her dearest papa. Jean
thought chiefly of crape, and was content with that way of expressing
her sentiments; but within the first year, within, indeed, the first
six months, to mention her father without the tear he had a right to,
would have been to Grace a cruel dereliction from natural duty. After
a twelve-month, when the family put off crape, it would no doubt cease
to be necessary--though always, she felt, a right thing--to pay that
tribute of tears.
Margaret stood by, and looked on with a dreary helplessness. She had
no tears for her father, no room for him even in her overladen and
guilty soul. And this she felt acutely, with a pang the more, feeling
as if all love had died out of her heart, and nothing but darkness and
confusion, and ingratitude and insensibility, was in her and about her.
She took up the picture with a slight shudder, as she touched it, and
put it away in the corner where hung the faded portrait of her mother’s
young lover.
This touch of contact with the story of one who had gone before her,
whom somehow--she scarcely knew how--she could not help identifying
with herself, gave her a little fanciful consolation. Margaret did not
long, as so many girls have done, to have a mother to flee to, and
in whom to confide all her troubles; but it seemed to her, in some
confused way, that it must have been but a previous chapter in her own
life, which had passed under this same roof, in this same house, twenty
years ago. She seemed almost dimly to recollect it, as she recollected
(but far more vividly) that time of folly in which she had “encouraged”
and “led on” Rob Glen.
It was better for her to obey Jean’s call, to go down-stairs and try
to forget it all, for a moment, than to stay here and drive herself
wild, wondering what he might do next, and what, oh what! it would
be necessary for her to do. Grace, who was a little disappointed not
to find her dissolved in tears, recommended that she should bathe
her eyes, and brought her some water, and took a great deal of pains
to obliterate the traces of weeping which did not exist. She tucked
Margaret’s hand under her arm, and patted it and held it fast.
“My poor darling!” she said, cooing over the unresponsive girl. Jean,
too, who was not given to much exhibition of feeling, received her,
when she came back, with something like tenderness.
“Put a chair for Margaret by the fire, Aubrey,” she said, “the child
will be cold coming through all those passages; that is the worst of an
old house, there are so many passages, and a draught in every one of
them. I would not say a word against old houses, which are of course
all the fashion, and very picturesque, and all that; but I must say I
think you suffer from draughts. And what good is the fireplace in the
hall? the heat all goes up that big chimney. It does not come into
the house at all. I would like hot-water pipes, but they are a great
expense, and of course you would all tell me they were out of keeping.
So is gas out of keeping. Oh, you need not cry out; I don’t mean in the
drawing-room, of course, which is a thing only done in Scotland, and
quite out of the question; but to wander about those passages in the
dark, and never to stir a step without a candle in your hand! I think
it a great trouble, I must allow.”
“Your ancestral home, Miss Leslie,” said Mr. St. John, who had secured
a place in front of the fire, “must be a true mediæval monument. I am
very much interested in domestic architecture. And so I am sure you
must be, familiar with two such houses--”
“People who possess old houses seldom care for them,” said Aubrey,
taking up a position on the other side. “You know what my aunt says
about gas and hot-water pipes. Tell me,” he said, half whispering,
stooping over her, to the great indignation of the clergyman, “what
I must call you. I must reserve the endearing title of aunt for the
family circle, but I can’t say Miss Leslie, you knew, for you are not
Miss Leslie; and Margaret, _tout court_, would be a presumption.”
“Everybody calls me Margaret,” she said.
“That man did at Killin. I felt disposed to pitch him into the loch
when I heard him; but probably,” said Aubrey, laughing, “there might
have been two words to that, don’t you think? Perhaps, if it had come
to a struggle, it would have been I who was most likely to taste the
waters of the loch.”
“Oh, Randal is very good-natured,” said Margaret, making an effort to
recover herself, “and perhaps he would not have known what you meant if
you had spoken about a loch. I never saw this house till just a little
while ago,” she added to Mr. St. John, anxious to be civil. “I never
was out of Fife.”
“And the Northern architecture is different from ours; more rude, is it
not? I have heard that people often get confused, and attach an earlier
date to a building than it really has any right to.”
“It is kind of you to say the man at Killin was good-natured,” said
Aubrey, on the other side; “of course, you think _I_ would not
have given him much trouble. It seemed to me that everybody showed an
extraordinary amount of confidence in that man at Killin. He pretended
to be fishing, but he never fished. I suspect his fishing related
to--who shall we say--your little cousin? Nay, I am making a mistake
again; I always forget that you belong to the previous generation--your
niece.”
“Effie!” cried Margaret, completely roused, so great was her surprise.
“Oh! but it was always--it was never--Effie--” Here she made a pause,
bewildered, and caught Mr. St. John’s eye. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she
cried, with a sudden blush; “I--don’t know about architecture. I have
not had--very much education,” she answered, looking piteously at her
sisters for aid.
“Oh, dearest Jean! I think I must really go and tell Mr. St. John--”
“Hold your tongue!” said Mrs. Bellingham, holding her sister fast by
her dress; “let the child make it out for herself. Do you think they
mind about her education? Who cares for education? Men always like a
girl to know nothing. Just keep out of the way and stop meddling.”
This aside was inaudible to the group round the fire; though Mr. St.
John’s admirable enunciation made all he said quite distinct to them,
and Mrs. Bellingham’s sharp ears were very conscious of Aubrey’s
whispering--which was ill-bred, but of no effect--on the other side of
Margaret’s chair.
Mr. St. John gave a little laugh of respectful derision and flattery.
“In the present age of learned ladies it is quite a relief to hear such
a statement,” he said, “though I should not like to trust in your want
of education. But this country is very rich architecturally, and I
should be delighted to offer my humble services as cicerone. I should
like to convert you to the pure English Elizabethan--”
“It must have been Miss Effie,” said Aubrey; “who else? for Aunt Grace,
though charming-- And it stands to reason that a man who says he has
gone to a certain place for fishing, yet never touches a rod, must have
ulterior motives. And Aunt Jean is of opinion that these two would make
a very pretty pair.”
Why Aubrey said this it would be hard to tell; whether from malice, as
meaning to prick her into annoyance, or whether out of simple mischief,
anyhow it roused Margaret.
“Oh, I do not know if Jean would care-- I am sure you are--very kind,”
she said, vacantly, to Mr. St. John; then more rapidly to the other
hand: “I am almost sure you are mistaken. Neither Jean nor Effie knew
Randal--that is, to call knowing; he was--quite a stranger. I don’t
think he knew Effie at all.”
“These are just the most favorable circumstances for a flirtation,”
said Aubrey; “but look, they are all on the alert, and Aunt Jean is
making signs to me. It is evident they mean you to talk to _him_,
not me. When he goes away, let us return to Miss Effie and the man at
Killin.”
“Oh, I don’t want to talk about them!” cried Margaret--here at least
there was nothing to make her shrink from Jean’s inspection; she said
this quite out loud, so that all the company heard. Because she had one
thing to conceal, was it not natural that she should take particular
pains to show that there was nothing to conceal? She did not want any
one to whisper to her. And there was besides, there could be no doubt,
a certain tone of pique and provoked annoyance in Margaret’s voice.
“I was saying,” said Mr. St. John, mildly, “that in our own church
there is a great deal that is interesting; and if you would allow me
to take you over it some day, you and Mrs. Bellingham or Miss Leslie,
I should not despair of interesting you. Besides, there are so many of
your ancestors commemorated there. I hope we may succeed in making your
mother-country very interesting to you,” he said, lowering his tone. It
was a great relief to the young clergyman when “that fellow” went away
from the heiress’s side.
“Oh, I like it very well,” Margaret said.
“But I am very ambitious, Miss Leslie; very well is indifferent. I
want you to like it more than that; I want you to love it, to prefer
it to the other,” he said, with fervor in his voice. “And now I
must say good-night.” He held out his hand bending toward her, and
Margaret, looking up, caught his eye: she gave a little start, and
shrank backward at the very moment of giving him her hand. Why should
he look like that--like _him_ whom she was so anxious to forget?
She dropped his hand almost before she touched it, in the nervous
tremor which came over her. Why should he look like Rob Glen? Was he
in the conspiracy against her to make her remember? She could scarcely
keep in a little cry which rose to her lips in her sudden pain. Poor
Mr. St. John! anything farther from his mind than to make her think
of any other suitor could not be. But Mrs. Bellingham, who was more
clear-sighted, saw the look, and put an interpretation upon it of a
different kind. When Mr. St. John had gone, attended to the door by
Aubrey at his aunt’s earnest request, Mrs. Bellingham came and placed
herself where Mr. St. John had been, in front of the fire.
“That man,” she said, solemnly, when he was gone, “is after Margaret
too. Oh! you need not make such signs to me, Grace; I know perfectly
well what I am saying. I never would speak about lovers to girls in
an ordinary way; the monkeys find out all that for themselves quite
fast enough--do you think there is anything that I could teach Effie
on that point? But Margaret’s is a peculiar case: she ought to know
how to distinguish those who are sincere--she ought to know that it is
not entirely for herself that men make those eyes at her. Oh, I saw
him very well; I perceived what he meant by it. You have a very nice
fortune, my dear, and a very nice house, and you will have to pay the
penalty like others. You will very soon know the signs as well as I do;
and I can tell you that _that_ man is after you too.”
“Dearest Jean!” said Grace, “he may be a little High-Church, more high
than I approve, but he is a very nice young man. Whom could Margaret
have better than a good, nice-looking, young clergyman? They are more
domestic and more at home, and more with their wives--”
“Fiddle-faddling eternally in a drawing-room,” said Mrs. Bellingham;
“always in a woman’s way wherever she turns. No, my dear, whoever
you marry, Margaret, don’t marry a clergyman; a man like that always
purring about the fireside would drive me mad in a month.”
“Is it St. John who is in question?” said Aubrey, coming back. “Was he
provided for my amusement? or is he daily bread at the Grange already?
I don’t see how so pretty-behaved a person could drive any one mad; he
is a great deal safer than your last _protégé_, the man at Killin.”
“I don’t mean to discuss such questions with you, Aubrey,” said Mrs.
Bellingham; “it is late, and I think if you will light our candles for
us, we will say good-night. And I will go with you, Margaret, and look
at that picture again; it was a very pretty picture. I must have it
framed for you; there is a place in the wainscot parlor where it would
hang very well. Who did you say sent it to you? or did you tell me? I
did not know that there ever was anybody at Earl’s-hall that could draw
so well.”
“Dear Jean,” said Grace, thinking it a good opportunity to appear in
Margaret’s defence, “let her alone, let the poor child alone to-night;
she is too tired for anything. Are you not too tired, darling Margaret?
I am sure you want to go to bed.”
“I hope I know better than to overtire her,” said Jean, with some
offence; “there is no need for you to come, Grace. Where have you put
the picture, Margaret? Why, you have put it with its face to the wall!
Is that to save it from the dust, or because you don’t like to see it?
My dear, I don’t want to be unkind, but this is really carrying things
too far. You don’t mean to say you have taken a dislike to Earl’s-hall?”
“No,” Margaret said, under her breath; though it seemed to her that to
look at the picture again was more than she could bear.
“And it is a very pretty picture,” said Jean, turning it round and
sitting down on the sofa to look at it--“a very pretty picture!
By-and-by you will be very glad to have it. And who was it you said did
it? I never thought Randal Burnside was an artist. Perhaps he got one
of the people to do it who are always at Sir Claude’s. But, my dear, if
that is so, I can’t let you take a present from a young man like Randal
Burnside.”
“It was not Randal”-- Margaret was eager to clear him: “he never sent me
anything in a present; he would not think of me at all. It was--once
when he came to make a picture of papa, which is beautiful-- He was a
young man from the farm.”
“A young man from the farm!”
“Rob Glen,” said Margaret, almost choked, yet forcing herself to speak.
“Papa said he might do it. I did not know anything about it, but I
suppose he must have finished it; and here it is.” It seemed a simple
statement enough, if she had not been so breathless, and changed color
so continually, and looked so haggard about the eyes.
Mrs. Bellingham heard this account with a blank face.
“Rob Glen!” she said; “Rob Glen! where have I heard the name before?
Was it the servants at Earl’s-hall, or was it Ludovic, or--who was
it? Papa said he might do it? Dear me! papa might have known better,
Margaret, though I am sure I don’t want to blame him. It will have
to be paid for, I suppose; and how very strange it should have been
sent like this, without a word! He will send a bill, most likely. How
strange I should not have heard anything about this artist! Was there
any price mentioned that you remember, Margaret? They ask such sums
of money for one of those trifling sketches. It is nice enough, but
I am sure it is not worth the half of what we shall have to give for
it. When there is no bargain made beforehand, it is astonishing the
charges they will make; and papa really had no money for such nonsense:
he ought not to have ordered it; but perhaps he thought it would be a
gratification to you. Can you remember at all, Margaret, if anything
was said about the price?”
“Oh no, no--there was to be no price. It was not like that. He asked to
do it, and papa let him do it. Nobody thought of any money.”
“But, my dear!” said Jean--“my dear! you are a little simpleton; but
you could not think, I hope, of taking the man’s work and giving him
_nothing_ for it? That is out of the question--quite out of the
question. I never heard of such a thing,” said Mrs. Bellingham. The
words seemed to penetrate through all Margaret’s being. She trembled,
notwithstanding all her efforts to control herself. What could she
reply? Take a man’s work and give him _nothing_ for it; but it was
not money that Rob would take.
“Of course it could not be expected that you should know anything of
business,” said Jean, “and poor papa was already feeling ill, perhaps,
and out of his ordinary way. I dare say a letter will come by the
next post to explain it. And if not, you must give me the young man’s
address, and I will write and ask, or we might send word to Ludovic.
Aubrey is a very good judge of such things; we can ask Aubrey to-morrow
what he thinks the value should be. Now, Margaret, you are trembling
from head to foot--you are as white as a sheet; you have a nervous look
about your eyes that it always frightens me to see. My dear, what is to
become of you,” cried Jean, “if you let every little thing upset you?
It was in the course of nature that we should lose papa--he was an old
man; and, I believe, though he was never a man who talked much about
religion, that he was well prepared. And as for Earl’s-hall, you would
not grudge that to Ludovic? It is his right as the only son. It shows
great weakness, my dear, both of body and mind, that you should be
upset like this only by a picture of Earl’s-hall.”
Margaret listened with all that struggle of conflicting feelings which
produces hysteria in people unused to control themselves. The choking
in the throat, the burning of those unshed tears about her eyes, the
trouble in her heart, was more than she could bear. She could not make
any reply. She could not even see her sister’s face; the room reeled
round with her; everything grew dark. To save her balance, she threw
herself suddenly upon the firm figure before her, clutching at Jean’s
support, throwing her arms round her with a movement of desperation.
Few people had ever clung wildly to Mrs. Bellingham in moments of
insufferable emotion. She was quite overcome by this involuntary appeal
to her. She took her young sister into her arms, all unconscious of the
cause of her misery, and caressed and soothed her, and stayed by her
till she had calmed down, and was able to escape from her trouble in
bed. Jean believed in bed as a cure for most evils.
“You must not give way,” she said--“indeed, my dear, you must not give
way; but a good night’s sleep will be the best thing for you; lie still
and rest.”
“What a tender-hearted thing it is!” she said, going down-stairs again
for a last word with Aubrey, after this agitating task was over. “I
declare she has quite upset me, too; though it is scarcely possible,
after being so long away from home, that I could feel as she does. She
is a great deal too feeling for her own comfort. But, Aubrey, you must
not lose your time, my dear boy; you must push on. It would be the
greatest ‘divert’ to her, as they say in Scotland, if you could only
get her to fall in love with you. I have the greatest confidence in
falling in love.”
“And so have I--when they will do it,” said Aubrey, puffing out a long
plume of smoke from his cigar.