Miss Leslie was hospitality itself. This national virtue belonged to
all the Leslies, even when they had little means of exercising it;
and it was intensified in Grace’s case by the fact that she had so
seldom any power of independent action. She was like a school-girl
suddenly placed at the head of a household, and made absolute mistress
in a place where hitherto even her personal freedom had been limited.
And the pleasure of making a new acquaintance was doubled by the
consciousness that there was no brisk ruler behind her to limit her
kindness to the stranger. She insisted that he should come to dinner
that evening, since she heard that he was staying in the village. “Of
course dear Margaret will like to be able to talk to you about home,”
she said. It was not often that she had the opportunity of entertaining
any one; and though Rob, to do him justice, hesitated for a moment,
feeling that his acceptance of the unlooked-for opportunity should
depend upon Margaret, still it was scarcely to be expected that he
could refuse an invitation so manifestly advantageous to him. Margaret
said nothing. She would not reply to his look. She gave Grace a glance
of mingled horror and entreaty; but Grace scarcely noticed this, and
did not understand it. Margaret walked silently by their side to the
house, as if in a dream. She heard them talk, the voices coming to her
as through a mist of excitement and pain; but what could she do? When
Grace suggested that she should show Mr. Glen the house, she shrank
away and declared that she was tired, and was going to her room to
rest; but the only result of her defection was, that Grace herself took
the part of cicerone, and that Margaret, shutting herself up in her
room, heard them going up and down stairs, Grace’s voice leading the
way, as Mrs. Bellingham’s had done on the first night of their arrival.
“Dearest Margaret, do you know you are almost rude to Mr. Glen?” her
sister said, before dinner; “and such a pleasant young man, and so
clever and so agreeable. I am sure dear Jean will think him quite an
acquisition.”
“I hate him!” cried Margaret, with the fervor of despair. When she
heard the words which she had uttered in her impatience, a chill of
horror came over her. Was it true that she hated him, to whom she was
bound by her promise, who loved her and expected her to love him?
She went away to the other end of the room, pretending to look for
something, and shed a few hot and bitter tears. It was horrible, but in
the passion of the moment it seemed true. What was she to do to deliver
herself?
“I don’t want to see him,” she said, coming back, “and Jean would not
like to have him here: I know she would not like to have him here.”
“You will forgive me, darling Margaret,” said Miss Leslie, “but I think
I know what dear Jean would like: she would not neglect a stranger. She
is always very kind to strangers. How do you do again, Mr. Glen?”
And the evening that followed was dreadful to Margaret. Grace, who
liked to study what her companions would like, made a great many
little efforts to bring these two together. “They will like to have a
little talk,” she said, running up-stairs to consult Miss Parker about
something imaginary. “They are old friends, and they will like to have
a little talk.”
Margaret, thus left alone with Rob, grew desperate. She turned to him
with a pale face and flashing eyes, taking the initiative for the first
time.
“Oh, why did you come?” she cried; “do you think it is like a man to
drive a poor girl wild--when I told you that I wanted you to go away?
that it was all a mistake--all a mistake!”
“It was no mistake so far as I am concerned,” he said. “Margaret, you
have given me your hand and your promise; how can you be so cruel as to
deny me your heart now?”
“I did not give you anything; I was distracted. I did not know what you
were saying,” she said; “I did not give you anything. Whatever there
was, you took. It was not I--it was not I!”
“Margaret, my darling!” he said, coming close to her, “you cannot mean
to be so unkind. Do not let us spend all these precious moments in
quarrelling. Will you let me tell her when she comes back?”
Margaret’s voice seemed to fail in her throat, and a wild panic came
into her eyes. She was afraid of his vicinity; she could not bear any
appearance of intimacy, any betrayal of their previous relations. And
just then Miss Grace came back, profuse in apologies.
“I had something to say to the house-keeper, Mr. Glen. I thought that
dear Margaret, as an old friend, would be able to entertain you for a
little while, for I heard you were old friends.”
“From our cradles, I think,” said Rob, significantly. “Miss Margaret
used to go fishing with me when I was a boy, and she a tiny little
fairy, whom I thought the most wonderful creature on earth. There are
traditions of childhood to which one holds all one’s life.”
“Ah!” said Grace, “childish friendships are very sweet. At dear
Margaret’s age they are sometimes not so much appreciated; but as one
grows older, one understands the value of them. Are you going to stay
for some time in our village, Mr. Glen? And are you making some pretty
sketches? That was beautiful, that one of Earl’s-hall, that you sent to
dear Margaret, Dearest Jean was so much struck by it. I am sure it is a
great gift to be able to give so much pleasure.”
“I will make a companion sketch of the Grange for you, if you would
like it,” said Rob; “nothing would give me more pleasure. It is a
beautiful old house.”
“Oh, Mr. Glen! But you are a great deal too good--much too good! And
how could I ever repay--how could I ever thank you!”
Margaret rushed from the room while these compliments were being
exchanged. It seemed to her like a scene from some old play which
she had seen played before, save that the interest was too sharp and
intense, too close to herself, for any play. She felt herself insulted
and defied, provoked and wounded. What did he care for her or her
feelings? Had he felt the least real consideration for her, he could
not have done it. She rushed up the half-lighted stairs to her room,
with passion throbbing in her heart. Oh, that Jean were here to send
him away! though there was, in reality, nobody whom Margaret was more
alarmed for than Jean. Oh, that there was some one whom she could trust
in--whom she might dare to speak to! But to whom could she speak? If
she did betray this secret, would not she be thought badly of, as of
a girl who was not a good girl? How well she remembered the sense of
humiliation which had come over her when Randal Burnside took no notice
of her presence, and did not even take off his hat! Randal Burnside!
The name seemed to go through and through her, tingling in every vein.
Ah! was it because of this that he had looked at her so wistfully, when
he put her into the railway-carriage, to warn her perhaps of what was
coming? Could it be for this that he had told Grace where he was to be
found?
The breath seemed to stop on Margaret’s lips when this idea occurred
to her. She had appealed to Randal before, in her despair, and Randal
had helped her; should she appeal to him again? There was a moment’s
confusion in her brain, everything going round with her, a sound of
ringing in her ears. What right had she to call upon Randal? But yet
she knew that Randal would reply to her appeal; he would do what he
could for her; he would not betray, and, above all, he would not
blame her. That was a great deal to say, but it was true. Perhaps
(she thought) he would be more sorry than any one else in the world;
but he would not blame her. The only other person who _knew_ was
Ludovic; but to Ludovic she dared not appeal. He would think it was all
her own fault; but Randal would not think it was her fault. He would
_understand_. She stood for a moment undecided, feeling that she
must do something at once, that there was no time to lose; and then
she made a sudden dash at her writing-table, scattering the papers
on it, in her confusion. She must not think any longer; she must do
something, whatever it might be. And how could she write an ordinary
letter in such a crisis, with an ordinary beginning and ending, as if
there was nothing in it out of the common? She plunged at it, putting
nothing but what she was obliged to say.
“He has come here, and I don’t know what to do. Oh, could you get him
to leave me in peace, as you did before? I have no right to trouble
you; but if you have any power over him, oh, will you help me? will
you get him to go away? I know I ought not to write to you about this;
but I am very unhappy, and who can I go to Oh, Randal, if you have any
power over him, get him to go away!”
At first she did not sign this at all; then she reflected that he
might not know her handwriting, though she knew his. And then she
signed it timidly with an M. L. But perhaps he might not know who M.
L. was; other names began with the same letters. At last she wrote,
very tremulously, her whole name, the Leslie dying into illegibility.
She did not, however, think it necessary to carry this herself to the
post-office, as she had done the letter to Bell. Grace was not so
alarming as Jean, and the post-bag was safe enough, she felt. When she
had thus stretched out her hand for help, Margaret was guilty of the
first act of positive rebellion she had ever ventured upon. She refused
to go down-stairs. The maid who took her message said, apologetically,
that she had a headache; but Margaret herself made no such pretence.
She could not keep up any fiction of gentle disability when the crisis
was coming so near. And though she so shrank from confiding her griefs
to any one, the girl, in her desperation, felt that the moment was
coming in which, if need were, she would have strength to defy all the
world.
All was dark in Margaret’s room, when Grace, having parted from her
visitor, who had done his very best to be amusing, notwithstanding the
unsatisfactory circumstances, came softly into her little sister’s room
and bent over the bed.
“Poor darling!” Miss Leslie said, “how provoking, just when your old
friend was here. But he is coming again, dearest Margaret, to-morrow,
to begin his sketch. How nice of him to offer to make a sketch--and for
me! I never knew anything so kind; for he scarcely knows _me_.”
Thus fate made another coil round her helpless feet.
As for Rob, he went back to the inn in the village scarcely less
disturbed than Margaret. He had come to a new chapter in his history.
Her coldness, her manifest terror of him, her flight from the room in
which he was, provoked him to the utmost. He was less cast down than
exasperated by her desire to avoid him. He was not a man, he said to
himself, from whom girls generally desired to escape, nor was he one
with whom they could play fast and loose. He had not been used to
failure. Jeanie, who had a hundred times more reason to be dissatisfied
with him than Margaret could have, had been won over by his pleading
even at the last moment, and was waiting now in London for the last
interview, which he had insisted upon. And did Margaret think herself
so much better than everybody else that _she_ was to continue to
fly from him? He was determined to subdue her. She should not cast him
off when she pleased, or escape from her word. In the fervor of his
feelings he forgot even his own horror at the vulgar expedient his
mother had contrived, to bind the girl more effectually. Even that he
had made up his mind to use, if need were, to hold as a whip over her.
It was no fault of his, but entirely her own fault, if he was thus
driven to use every weapon in his armory. He had written to his mother
to send it to him before he came to the village, and now expected it
every day. Perhaps to-morrow, before he set out for the Grange, it
would arrive, and Margaret would see he was not to be trifled with. All
this did not make him cease to be “in love with” her. He was prepared
to be as fond, nay, more fond than ever, if she would but respond as
she ought. No one had ever so used him before, and he would not be
beaten by a slip of a girl. If he could not win her back as he had
won Jeanie, then he would force her back. She should not beat him.
Thus the struggle between them, which had been existing passive and
unacknowledged for some time back, had to his consciousness, as well as
Margaret’s, come to a crisis now.
Next morning she kept out of the way, remaining in her own room, though
without any pretence of illness. Margaret was too highly strung, too
sensible of the greatness of the emergency, to take refuge in that
headache which is always so convenient an excuse; she would not set
up such a feeble plea. She kept up-stairs in her room in so great a
fever of mental excitement that she seemed to hear and see and feel
everything that happened, notwithstanding her withdrawal. She heard
him arrive, and she heard Grace’s twitterings of welcome; and then she
heard the voices outside again, moving about, and divined that they
were in search of the best point of view. They found it at last, in
sight of Margaret’s window, where Rob established himself and all his
paraphernalia fully in her view. It was for this reason, indeed, that
he had chosen the spot, meaning, with one of his curious failures of
perception, to touch her heart by the familiar sight, and call her back
to him by the recollection of those early days at Earl’s-hall.
The attempt exasperated her; it was like the repetition of a familiar
trick--the sort of thing he did everywhere. She looked out from behind
the curtain with dislike and annoyance which increased every moment.
It seemed incredible to her, as she looked out upon him, how she could
ever have regarded him as she knew she had once done. All that was
commonplace in him, lightly veiled by his cleverness, his skill, his
desire to please, appeared now to her disenchanted eyes. The thought
that he should ever have addressed her in the tenderest words that one
human creature, can use to another; that he should ever have held her
close to him and kissed her, made her cheek burn, and her very veins
fill and swell with shame. But, notwithstanding all her reluctance, she
had to go down to luncheon, partly compelled by circumstances, partly
by the strange attraction of hostility, and partly by the distress of
Grace at the possibility of having to take her lunch “alone with a
gentleman!” Margaret went down; but she kept herself aloof, sitting up
stately and silent, all unlike her girlish self, at the table, where
Miss Leslie did the honors with anxious hospitality, pressing her guest
to eat, and, happily, leaving no room for any words but her own. Grace,
however, was too anxious that the young people should enjoy themselves,
not to perceive how very little intercourse there was between them,
and, after vain attempts to induce Margaret to show Mr. Glen the
wainscot parlor, she adopted the old expedient of running out of the
room and leaving them together as soon as their meal was over.
“I must just speak to Bland,” she said, hurriedly, “I shall not be a
moment. Margaret, you will take care of Mr. Glen till I come back.”
Margaret, who was herself in the very act of flight, was obliged to
stay. She rose from her chair and stood stiffly by it, while Grace
ran along the passage. Her heart had begun to beat so loudly that she
could scarcely speak, but speak she must; and before the sound of
her sister’s footsteps had died out of hearing, she turned upon the
companion she had accepted so reluctantly, with breathless excitement.
“Mr. Glen,” she said, trembling, “I must speak to you. We cannot go
on like this. Oh, why will you not go away? If you will not go away,
I must. I will not see you again; I cannot, I cannot do it. For God’s
sake go away!”
“Why should you be so urgent, Margaret?” he said. “What harm am I
doing? It is hard enough to consent to see so little of you; but even a
little is better than nothing at all.”
“Oh!” she cried, in her desperation, “do not stop to argue about it.
Don’t you see--but you must see--that you are making me miserable? If
there is anything you want, tell me; but oh, do not stay here!”
“What I want is easily enough divined. I want _you_, Margaret,”
he said; “and why should you turn me away? Let us not spend the little
time we have together in quarrelling. You are offended about something.
Somebody has been speaking ill of me--”
“No one has been speaking ill of you,” she cried, indignantly. “Oh, Mr.
Glen, even if I liked you to be here, it would be dishonorable to come
when my sister Jean was away, and to impose upon poor Grace, who knows
nothing, who does not understand--”
“Let me tell her,” he said, eagerly; “she will be a friend to us;
she is kind-hearted. Let me tell her. It is not I that wish for
concealment; I should like the whole world to know. I will go and tell
her--”
“No!” Margaret cried, almost with a scream of terror. She stopped him
as he made a step toward the door. “What would you tell her, or any
one?--that I--care for you, Mr. Glen? Oh, listen to me! It is not
that I have deceived you, for I never said anything; I only let you
speak-- But if I have done wrong, I am very sorry; if you told her that,
it would not be true!”
“Margaret,” he said, with forced calmness, “take care what you are
saying. Do you forget that you are my promised wife? Is that nothing
to tell her? Do you think that I will let you break your vow without
a word. There is more than love concerned, more than caring for each
other, as you call it--there is our whole life!”
“Yes,” she said. Her voice sank to a whisper, in her extreme emotion;
her face grew pallid, as if she were going to faint. She clasped her
hands together and looked at him piteously, with wide-open eyes. “Yes,”
she said, “I know; I promised, and I am false to it. Oh, will you
forgive me, and let me go free? Oh, Mr. Glen, let me go free!”
“Is this all I have for my love?” he said, with not unnatural
exasperation. “Let you go free! that is all you care for. What I feel
is nothing to you; my hopes, and my prospects, and my happiness--”
Margaret could not speak. She made a supplicating gesture with her
clasped hands, and kept her eyes fixed upon him. Rob did not know
what to do. He paced up and down the room in unfeigned agitation;
outraged pride and disappointed feeling, and an impulse which was half
generosity and half mortification tempting him on one side, while the
rage of failure and the force of self-interest held him fast on the
other. He could not give up so much without another struggle. He made a
hasty step toward her and caught her hands in his.
“Margaret!” he cried, “how can I give you up? This hand is mine, and
I will not let it go. Is there nothing in your promise--nothing in
the love that has been between us? Let you go free? Is that all the
question that remains between you and me?”
They stood thus, making a mutual appeal to each other, he holding her
hand, she endeavoring to draw it away, when the sound of a steady and
solemn step startled them suddenly.
“If you please, miss,” said Bland, at the door, “there is a gentleman
in the hall asking for Mr. Glen; and there is a person as says she’s
just come off a journey, and wants Mr. Glen too. Shall I show them into
the library, or shall I bring them here?”
Rob had dropped her hand hastily at the first sound of Bland’s
appearance; and Margaret, scarcely knowing what she did, her head
swimming, her heart throbbing, struggled back into a kind of artificial
consciousness by means of this sudden return of the commonplace and
ordinary, though she was scarcely aware what the man said.
“I am coming,” she answered, faintly; the singing in her ears sounded
like an echo of voices calling her. All the world seemed calling her,
assembling to the crisis of her fate. She did not so much as look at
Rob, from whom she was thus liberated all at once, but turned and
followed Bland with all the speed and quiet of great excitement,
feeling herself carried along almost without any will of hers.
The hall at the Grange was a sight to see, that brilliant summer day.
The door was wide open, framing a picture of blue sky and flowering
shrubs at one end; and the sunshine, which poured in through the
south window, caught the wainscot panels and the bits of old armor,
converting them into dull yet magical mirrors full of confused
reflections. There were two strangers standing here, as far apart as
the space would allow, both full of excitement to find themselves
there, and each full of wonder to find the other. They both turned
toward Margaret as she came in, pale as a ghost in her black dress.
Her eye was first caught by him who had come at her call, her only
confidant, the friend in whom she had most perfect trust. The sight of
him woke her out of her abstraction of terror and helplessness.
“Randal!” she cried, with a gleam of hope and pleasure lighting up her
face.
Then she stopped short and paled again, with a horrible relapse into
her former panic. Her voice changed into that pitiful “oh!” of wonder
and consternation, which the sight of a mortal passenger called forth,
as Dante tells us, from the spirits in purgatory. The second stranger
was a woman; no other than Mrs. Glen, from Earl’s-lee, in her best
clothes, with a warm Paisley shawl enveloping her substantial person,
who stood fanning herself with a large white handkerchief in the only
shady corner. These were the two seconds whom, half consciously, half
willingly, yet in one case not consciously or willingly at all, the two
chief belligerents in this strange duel had summoned to their aid.