MARGARET'S FATHER.
The town of Wandsworth is not a gay place. There is an air of old-world
quiet in the old-fashioned street, though dashing vehicles drive
through it sometimes on their way to Wimbledon or Richmond Park.
The sloping roofs, the gable-ends, the queer old chimneys, the quaint
casement windows, belong to a bygone age; and the traveller, coming a
stranger to the little town, might fancy himself a hundred miles away
from boisterous London; though he is barely clear of the great city's
smoky breath, or beyond the hearing of her myriad clamorous tongues.
There are lanes and byways leading out of that humble High Street down
to the low bank of the river; and in one of these, a pleasant place
enough, there is a row of old-fashioned semi-detached cottages,
standing in small gardens, and sheltered by sycamores and laburnums
from the dust, which in dry summer weather lies thick upon the narrow
roadway.
In one of these cottages a young lady lived with her father; a young
lady who gave lessons on the piano-forte, or taught singing, for very
small remuneration. She wore shabby dresses, and was rarely known to
have a new bonnet; but people respected and admired her,
notwithstanding; and the female inhabitants of Godolphin Cottages, who
gave her good-day sometimes as she went along the dusty lane with her
well-used roll of music in her hand, declared that she was a lady bred
and born. Perhaps the good people who admired Margaret Wentworth would
have come nearer the mark if they had said that she was a lady by right
divine of her own beautiful nature, which had never required to be
schooled into grace or gentleness.
She had no mother, and she had not even the memory of her mother, who
had died seventeen years before, leaving an only child of twelve months
old for James Wentworth to keep.
But James Wentworth, being a scapegrace and a reprobate, who lived by
means that were a secret from his neighbours, had sadly neglected this
only child. He had neglected her, though with every passing year she
grew more and more like her dead mother, until at last, at eighteen
years of age, she had grown into a beautiful woman, with hazel-brown
hair, and hazel eyes to match.
And yet James Wentworth was fond of his only child, after a fashion of
his own. Sometimes he was at home for weeks together, a prey to a fit
of melancholy; under the influence of which he would sit brooding in
silence over his daughter's humble hearth for hours and days together.
At other times he would disappear, sometimes for a few days, sometimes
for weeks and months at a time; and during his absence Margaret
suffered wearisome agonies of suspense.
Sometimes he brought her money; sometimes he lived upon her own slender
earnings.
But use her as he might, he was always proud of her, and fond of her;
and she, after the way of womankind, loved him devotedly, and believed
him to be the noblest and most brilliant of men.
It was no grief to her to toil, taking long weary walks and giving
tedious lessons for the small stipends which her employers had the
conscience to offer her; they felt no compunction about bargaining and
haggling as to a few pitiful shillings with a music mistress who looked
so very poor, and seemed so glad to work for their paltry pay. The
girl's chief sorrow was, that her father, who to her mind was
calculated to shine in the highest station the world could give, should
be a reprobate and a pauper.
She told him so sometimes, regretfully, tenderly, as she sat by his
side, with her arms twined caressingly about his neck. And there were
times when the strong man would cry aloud over his blighted life, and
the ruin which had fallen upon his youth.
"You're right, Madge," he said sometimes, "you're right, my girl. I
ought to have been something better; I ought to have been, and I might
have been, perhaps, but for one man—but for one base-minded villain,
whose treachery blasted my character, and left me alone in the world to
fight against society. You don't know what it is, Madge, to have to
fight that battle. A man who began life with an honest name, and fair
prospects before him, finds himself cast, by one fatal error, disgraced
and broken, on a pitiless world. Nameless, friendless, characterless,
he has to begin life afresh, with every man's hand against him. He is
the outcast of society. The faces that once looked kindly on him turn
away from him with a frown. The voices that once spoke in his praise
are loud in his disfavour. Driven from every place where once he found
a welcome, the ruined wretch hides himself among strangers, and tries
to sink his hateful identity under a false name. He succeeds, perhaps,
for a time, and is trusted, and being honestly disposed at heart, is
honest: but he cannot long escape from the hateful past. No! In the day
and hour when he is proudest of the new name he has made, and the
respect he has won for himself, some old acquaintance, once a friend,
but now an enemy, falls across his pathway. He is recognized; a cruel
voice betrays him. Every hope that he had cherished is swept away from
him. Every good deed that he has done is denounced as the act of a
hypocrite. Because once sinned he can never do well. _That_ is the
world's argument."
"But not the teaching of the gospel," Margaret murmured. "Remember,
father, who it was that said to the guilty woman, Go, and sin no
more.'"
"Ay, my girl," James Wentworth answered, bitterly, "but the world would
have said, 'Hence, abandoned creature! go, and sin afresh; for you
shall never be suffered to live an honest life, or herd with honest
people. Repent, and we will laugh at your penitence as a shallow
deception. Weep, and we will cry out upon your tears. Toil and struggle
to regain the eminence from which you have fallen, and when you have
nearly reached the top of that difficult hill, we will band ourselves
together to hurl you back into the black abyss.' That's what the
_world_ says to the sinner, Margaret, my girl. I don't know much of the
gospel; I have never read it since I was a boy, and used to read long
chapters aloud to my mother, on quiet Sunday evenings; I can see the
little old-fashioned parlour now as I speak of that time; I can hear
the ticking of the eight-day clock, and I can see my mother's fond eyes
looking up at me every now and then. But I don't know much about the
gospel now; and when you, poor child, try to read it to me, there's
some devil rises in my breast, and shuts my ears against the words. I
don't know the gospel, but I _do_ know the world. The laws of society
are inflexible, Madge; there is no forgiveness for a man who is once
found out. He may commit any crime in the calendar, so long as his
crimes are profitable, and he is content to share his profits with his
neighbours. But he mustn't be found out."
Upon the 16th of August, 1850, the day on which Sampson Wilmot, the
banker's clerk, was to start for Southampton, James Wentworth spent the
morning in his daughter's humble little sitting-room, and sat smoking
by the open window, while Margaret worked beside a table near him.
The father sat with his long clay pipe in his mouth, watching his
daughter's fair face as she bent over the work upon her knee.
The room was neatly kept, but poorly furnished, with that old-fashioned
spindle-legged furniture which seems peculiar to lodging-houses. Yet
the little sitting-room had an aspect of simple rustic prettiness,
which is almost pleasanter to look at than fine furniture. There were
pictures,—simple water-colour sketches,—and cheap engravings on the
walls, and a bunch of flowers on the table, and between the muslin
curtains that shadowed the window you saw the branches of the sycamores
waving in the summer wind.
James Wentworth had once been a handsome man. It was impossible to look
at him and not perceive as much as that. He might, indeed, have been
handsome still, but for the moody defiance in his eyes, but for the
half-contemptuous curve of his finely-moulded upper lip.
He was about fifty-three years of age, and his hair was grey, but this
grey hair did not impart a look of age to his appearance. His erect
figure, the carriage of his head, his dashing, nay, almost swaggering
walk, all belonged to a man in the prime of middle age. He wore a beard
and thick moustache of grizzled auburn. His nose was aquiline, his
forehead high and square, his chin massive. The form of his head and
face denoted force of intellect. His long, muscular limbs gave evidence
of great physical power. Even the tones of his voice, and his manner of
speaking, betokened a strength of will that verged upon obstinacy.
A dangerous man to offend! A relentless and determined man; not easily
to be diverted from any purpose, however long the time between the
formation of his resolve and the opportunity of carrying it into
execution.
As he sat now watching his daughter at her work, the shadows of black
thoughts darkened his brow, and spread a sombre gloom over his face.
And yet the picture before him could have scarcely been unpleasing to
the most fastidious eye. The girl's face, drooping over her work, was
very fair. The features were delicate and statuesque in their form; the
large hazel eyes were very beautiful—all the more beautiful, perhaps,
because of a soft melancholy that subdued their natural brightness; the
smooth brown hair rippling upon the white forehead, which was low and
broad, was of a colour which a duchess might have envied, or an empress
tried to imitate with subtle dyes compounded by court chemists. The
girl's figure, tall, slender, and flexible, imparted grace and beauty
to a shabby cotton dress and linen collar, that many a maid-servant
would have disdained to wear; and the foot visible below the scanty
skirt was slim and arched as the foot of an Arab chief.
There was something in Margaret Wentworth's face, some shade of
expression, vague and transitory in its nature, that bore a likeness to
her father; but the likeness was a very faint one, and it was from her
mother that the girl had inherited her beauty.
She had inherited her mother's nature also: but mingled with that soft
and womanly disposition there was much of the father's determination,
much of the strong man's force of intellect and resolute will.
A beautiful woman—an amiable woman; but a woman whose resentment for a
great wrong could be deep and lasting.
"Madge," said James Wentworth, throwing his pipe aside, and looking
full at his daughter, "I sit and watch you sometimes till I begin to
wonder at you. You seem contented and most happy, though the monotonous
life you lead would drive some women mad. Have you no ambition, girl?"
"Plenty, father," she answered, lifting her eyes from her work, and
looking at him mournfully; "plenty—for you."
The man shrugged his shoulders, and sighed heavily.
"It's too late for that, my girl," he said; "the day is past—the day is
past and gone—and the chance gone with it. You know how I've striven,
and worked, and struggled; and how I've seen my poor schemes crushed
when I had built them up with more patience than perhaps man ever built
before. You've been a good girl, Margaret—a noble girl; and you've been
true to me alike in joy and sorrow—the joy's been little enough beside
the sorrow, poor child—but you've borne it all; you've endured it all.
You've been the truest woman that was ever born upon this earth, to my
thinking; but there's one thing in which you've been unlike the rest of
your sex."
"And what's that, father?"
"You've shown no curiosity. You've seen me knocked down and disgraced
wherever I tried to get a footing; you've seen me try first one trade
and then another, and fail in every one of them. You've seen me a clerk
in a merchant's office; an actor; an author; a common labourer, working
for a daily wage; and you've seen ruin overtake me whichever way I've
turned. You've seen all this, and suffered from it; but you've never
asked me why it has been so. You've never sought to discover the secret
of my life."
The tears welled up to the girl's eyes as her father spoke.
"If I have not done so, dear father," she answered, gently, "it has
been because I knew your secret must be a painful one. I have lain
awake night after night, wondering what was the cause of the blight
that has been upon you and all you have done. But why should I ask you
questions that you could not answer without pain? I have heard people
say cruel things of you; but they have never said them twice in my
hearing." Her eyes flashed through a veil of tears as she spoke. "Oh,
father,—dearest father!" she cried, suddenly throwing aside her work,
and dropping on her knees beside the man's chair, "I do not ask for
your confidence if it is painful to you to give it; I only want your
love. But believe this, father,—always believe this,—that, whether you
trust me or not, there is nothing upon this earth strong enough to turn
my heart from you."
She placed her hand in her father's as she spoke, and he grasped it so
tightly that her pale face grew crimson with the pain.
"Are you sure of that, Madge?" he asked, bending his head to look more
closely in her earnest face.
"I am quite sure, father."
"Nothing can tear your heart from me?"
"Nothing in this world."
"What if I am not worthy of your love?"
"I cannot stop to think of that, father. Love is not meted out in strict
proportion to the merits of those we love. If it were, there would be
no difference between love and justice."
James Wentworth laughed sneeringly.
"There is little enough difference as it is, perhaps," he said;
"they're both blind. Well, Madge," he added, in a more serious tone,
"you're a generous-minded, noble-spirited girl, and I believe you do
love me. I fancy that if you never asked the secret of my life, you can
guess it pretty closely, eh?"
He looked searchingly at the girl's face. She hung her head, but did
not answer him.
"You can guess the secret, can't you, Madge? Don't be afraid to speak,
girl."
"I fear I can guess it, father dear," she murmured in a low voice.
"Speak out, then."
"I am afraid the reason you have never prospered—the reason that so
many are against you—is that you once did something wrong, very long
ago, when you were young and reckless, and scarcely knew the nature of
your own act; and that now, though you are truly penitent and sorry,
and have long wished to lead an altered life, the world won't forget or
forgive that old wrong. Is it so, father?"
"It is, Margaret. You've guessed right enough, child, except that
you've omitted one fact. The wrong I did was done for the sake of
another. I was tempted to do it by another. I made no profit by it
myself, and I never hoped to make any. But when detection came, it was
upon _me_ that the disgrace and ruin fell; while the man for whom I had
done wrong—the man who had made me his tool—turned his back upon me,
and refused to utter one word in my justification, though he was in no
danger himself, and the lightest word from his lips might have saved
me. That was a hard case, wasn't it, Madge?"
"Hard!" cried the girl, with her nostrils quivering and her hands
clenched; "it was cruel, dastardly, infamous!"
"From that day, Margaret, I was a ruined man. The brand of society was
upon me. The world would not let me live honestly, and the love of life
was too strong in me to let me face death. I tried to live dishonestly,
and I led a wild, rackety, dare-devil kind of a life, amongst men who
found they had a skilful tool, and knew how to use me. They did use me
to their heart's content, and left me in the lurch when danger came. I
was arrested for forgery, tried, found guilty, and transported for
life. Don't flinch, girl! don't turn so white! You must have heard
something of this whispered and hinted at often enough before to-day.
You may as well know the whole truth. I was transported, for life,
Madge; and for thirteen years I toiled amongst the wretched, guilty
slaves in Norfolk Island—that was the favourite place in those days for
such as me—and at the end of that time, my conduct having been approved
of by my gaolers, the governor sent for me, gave me a good-service
certificate, and I went into a counting-house and served as a clerk.
But I got a kind of fever in my blood, and night and day I only thought
of one thing, and that was my chance of escape. I did escape,—never you
mind how, that's a long story,—and I got back to England, a free man; a
free man, Madge, _I_ thought; but the world soon told me another story.
I was a felon, a gaol-bird; and I was never more to lift my head
amongst honest people. I couldn't bear it, Madge, my girl. Perhaps a
better man might have persevered in spite of all till he conquered the
world's prejudice. But _I_ couldn't. I sank under my trials, and fell
lower and lower. And for every disgrace that has ever fallen upon
me—for every sorrow I have ever suffered—for every sin I have ever
committed—I look to one man as the cause."
Margaret Wentworth had risen to her feet. She stood before her father
now, pale and breathless, with her lips parted, and her bosom heaving.
"Tell me his name, father," she whispered; "tell me that man's name."
"Why do you want to know his name, Madge?"
"Never mind why, father. Tell it to me—tell it!"
She stamped her foot in the vehemence of her passion.
"Tell me his name, father," she repeated, impatiently.
"His name is Henry Dunbar," James Wentworth answered, "and he is the
son of a rich banker. I saw his father's death in the paper last March.
His uncle died ten years ago, and he will inherit the fortunes of both
father and uncle. The world has smiled upon him. He has never suffered
for that one false step in life, which brought such ruin upon me. He
will come home from India now, I dare say, and the world will be under
his feet. He will be worth a million of money, I should fancy; curse
him! If my wishes could be accomplished, every guinea he possesses
would be a separate scorpion to sting and to torture him."
"Henry Dunbar," whispered Margaret to herself—"Henry Dunbar. I will not
forget that name."