CLEMENT AUSTIN'S WOOING.
For the third time Margaret Wilmot was disappointed in the hope of
seeing Henry Dunbar. Clement Austin had on the previous evening told
her of the banker's intended visit to the office in St. Gundolph Lane,
and the young music-mistress had made hasty arrangements for the
postponement of her usual duties, in order that she might go to the
City to see Henry Dunbar.
"He will not dare to refuse you," Clement Austin said; "for he must
know that such a refusal would excite suspicion in the minds of the
people about him."
"He must have known that at Winchester, and yet he avoided me there,"
answered Margaret Wilmot; "he must have known it when he refused to see
me in Portland Place. He will refuse to see me to-day, if I ask for an
interview with him. My only chance will be the chance of an accidental
meeting with him. Do you think that you can arrange this for me, Mr.
Austin?"
Clement Austin readily promised to bring about an apparently accidental
meeting between Margaret and Mr. Dunbar, and this is how it was that
Joseph Wilmot's daughter had waited in the office in St. Gundolph Lane.
She had arrived only five minutes after Mr. Dunbar entered the
banking-house, and she waited very patiently, very resolutely, in the
hope that when Henry Dunbar returned to his carriage she might snatch
the opportunity of speaking to him, of seeing his face, and discovering
whether he was guilty or not.
She clung to the idea that some indefinable expression of his
countenance would reveal the fact of his guilt or innocence. But she
could not dispossess herself of the belief that he was guilty. What
other reason could there be for his persistent avoidance of her?
But, for the third time, she was baffled; and she went home very
despondently, haunted by the image of her dead father; while Henry
Dunbar went back to the Clarendon in a common hack cab, which he picked
up in Cornhill.
Margaret Wilmot found one of her pupils waiting in the pretty little
parlour in the cottage at Clapham, and she was obliged to sit down to
the piano and listen to a fantasia, very badly played, keeping sharp
watch upon the pupil's fingers, for an hour or so, before she was free
to think her own thoughts.
Margaret was very glad when the lesson was over. The pupil was a very
vivacious young lady, who called her music-mistress "dear," and would
have been glad to waste half an hour or so in an animated conversation
about the last new style in bonnets, or the shape of the fashionable
winter mantle, or the popular novel of the month. But Margaret's pale
face seemed a mute appeal for compassion; so Miss Lamberton drew on her
gloves, settled her bonnet before the glass over the mantel-piece, and
tripped away.
Margaret sat by the little round table, with an open book before her.
But she could not read, though the volume was one that had been lent
her by Clement, and though she took a peculiar pleasure in reading any
book that was a favourite of his. She did not read; she only sat with
her eyes fixed, and her face very pale, in the dim light of two candles
that flickered in the draught from the window.
She was aroused from her despondent reverie by a double knock at the
door below, and presently the neat little maid-servant ushered Mr.
Austin into the room.
Margaret started up, a little confused at the advent of this unexpected
visitor. It was the first time that Clement had ever called upon her
alone. He had often been her guest; but, until to-night, he had always
come under his mother's wing to see the pretty music-mistress.
"I am afraid I startled you, Miss Wilmot," he said.
"Oh, no; not at all," answered Margaret; "I was sitting here, quite
idle, thinking——"
"Thinking of your failure of to-day, I suppose?"
"Yes."
There was a pause, during which Margaret seated herself once more by
the little table, while Clement Austin walked up and down the room
thinking.
Presently he stopped suddenly, with his elbow leaning upon the corner
of the mantel-piece, opposite Margaret, and looked down at the girl's
thoughtful face. She had blushed when the cashier first entered the
room; but she was very pale now.
"Margaret," said Clement Austin,—it was the first time he had called
his mother's _protégée_ by her Christian name, and the girl looked up
at him with a surprised expression,—"Margaret, that which happened
to-day makes me think that your conviction is only the horrible truth,
and that Henry Dunbar, the sole surviving kinsman of those two men whom
I learnt to honour and revere long ago, when I was a mere boy, is
indeed guilty of your father's death. If so, the cause of justice
demands that this man's crime should be brought to light. I am
something of Shakspeare's opinion; I cannot but believe that 'murder
will out,' somehow or other, sooner or later. But I think that, in this
business, the police have been culpably supine. It seems as if they
feared to handle the case to closely, lest the clue they followed
should lead them to Henry Dunbar."
"You think they have been bribed?"
"No; I don't think that. There seems to be a popular belief, all over
the world, that a man with a million of money can do no wrong. I don't
believe the police have been culpable; they have only been
faint-hearted. They have suffered themselves to be discouraged by the
difficulties of the case. Other crimes have been committed, other work
has arisen for them to do, and they have been obliged to abandon an
investigation which seemed hopeless. This is how criminals escape—this
is how murderers are suffered to be at large; not because discovery is
impossible, but because it can only be effected by a slow and wearisome
process in which so few men have courage to persevere. While the
country is ringing with the record of a great crime—while the murderer
is on his guard night and day, waking and sleeping—the police watch and
work: but by-and-by, when the crime is half forgotten—when security has
made the criminal careless—when the chances of detection are
ten-fold—the police have grown tired, and there is no eye to watch the
guilty man's movements. I know nothing of the science of detection,
Margaret; but I believe that Henry Dunbar was the murderer of your
father; and I will do my uttermost, with God's help, to bring this
crime home to him."
The girl's eyes flashed with a proud light, as Clement Austin finished
speaking.
"Will you do this?" she said; "will you bring to light the mystery of
my father's death? Will you bring punishment upon his murderer? It
seems a horrible thing, perhaps, for a woman to wish detection to
overtake any man, however base; but surely it would be more horrible if
I were content to let my father's murder remain unavenged. My poor
father! If he had been a good man, I do not think it would grieve me so
much to remember his cruel death: but he was not a good man—he was not
a good man."
"Let him have been what he may, Margaret, his murderer shall not go
unpunished if I can aid the cause of justice," said Clement Austin.
"But it was not to say this alone that I came here to-night, Margaret.
I have something more to say to you."
There was a tenderness in the cashier's voice as he said these last
words, that brought the blushes back to Margaret's pale cheeks.
"You know that I love you, Margaret," Clement said, in a low, earnest
voice; "you must know that I love you: or if you do not, it is because
there is no sympathy between us, and in that case my love is indeed
hopeless. I have loved you from the first, dear—yes, from the very
first summer twilight in which I saw your pale, pensive face in the
dusky little garden at Wandsworth. The tender interest which I then
felt in you was the first mysterious dawn of love, though I, in my
infinite wisdom, put it down to an artistic admiration for your
peculiar beauty. It was love, Margaret; and it has grown and
strengthened in my heart ever since that summer evening, until it leads
me here to-night to tell you all, and to ask you if there is any hope.
Ah, Margaret, you must have known my love all along! You would have
banished me had you felt that my love was hopeless: you could not have
been so cruel as to deceive me."
Margaret looked up at her lover with a frightened face. Had she done
wrong, then, to be happy in his society, if she did not love him—if she
did not love him! But surely this sudden thrill of triumph and delight
which filled her breast, as Clement spoke to her, must be in some
degree akin to love.
Yes, she loved him; but the bright things of this world were not for
her. Love and Duty fought for the mastery of her pure Soul: and Duty
was the conqueror.
"Oh, Clement!" she said, "do you forget who I am? Do you forget that
letter which I showed you long ago, a letter addressed to my father
when he was a transported felon, suffering the penalty of his crime? Do
you forget who I am, and the taint that is in my blood; the disgrace
that stains my name? I am proud to think that you have loved me,
Clement Austin; but I am no fitting wife for you!"
"You are a noble, true-hearted woman, Margaret; and as such you are a
fitting wife for a king. Besides, I am not such a grandee that I need
look for high lineage in the wife of my choice. I am only a working
man, content to accept a salary for my services; and looking forward
by-and-by to a junior partnership in the house I serve. Margaret, my
mother loves you; and she knows that you are the woman I seek to win as
my wife. Forget the taint upon your dead father's name as freely as I
forget it, dearest; and only answer me one question: Is my love
hopeless?"
"I will never consent to be your wife, Mr. Austin!" Margaret answered,
in a low voice.
"Because you do not love me?"
"Because I will never cause you to blush for the history of your wife's
girlhood."
"That is no answer to my question, Margaret," said Clement Austin,
seating himself by her side, and taking both her hands in his. "I must
ask you to look me full in the face, Miss Wilmot," he added,
laughingly, drawing her towards him as he spoke; "for I begin to fancy
you're addicted to prevarication. Look me in the face, Madge darling,
and tell me that you love me."
But the blushing face would not be turned towards his own. Margaret's
head was still averted.
"Don't ask me," she pleaded; "don't ask me. The day would come when you
would regret your choice. I could not endure that. It would be too
bitter. You have been very kind to me; and it would be a poor return
for your kindness, if——"
"If you were to make me unutterably happy, eh, Margaret? I think it
would be only a proper act of gratitude. Haven't I run all over
Clapham, Brixton, and Wandsworth—to say nothing of an occasional
incursion upon Putney—in order to procure you half-a-dozen pupils? And
the very first favour I demand of you, which is only the gift of this
clever little hand, you have the audacity to refuse me point-blank."
He waited for a few moments, in the hope that Margaret would say
something; but her face was still averted, and the trembling hand which
Mr. Austin was holding struggled to release itself from his grasp.
"Margaret," he said, very gravely, "perhaps I have been foolish and
presumptuous in this business. In that case I fully deserve to be
disappointed, however bitter the disappointment may be. If I have been
wrong, Margaret; if I have been deceived by your sweet smile, your
gentle words; for pity's sake tell me that it is so, and I will forgive
you for having involuntarily deceived me, and will try to cure myself
of my folly. But I will not leave this room, I will not abandon the
dear hope that has brought me here to-night, until you tell me plainly
that you do not love me. Speak, Margaret, and speak fearlessly."
But Margaret was still silent, only in the silence Clement Austin heard
a low, sobbing sound.
"Margaret darling, you are crying. Ah! I know now that you love me, and
I will not leave this room except as your plighted husband."
"Heaven help me!" murmured Joseph Wilmot's daughter; "Heaven lead me
right! for I do love you, Clement, with all my heart."