A LESSON IN GEOGRAPHY.
"Margaret!"
"Yes, uncle."
"Can you come here a moment, my dear?"
"Surely, Uncle John. I was looking for you, and could not find you."
Margaret came running in from the garden. Her uncle was sitting in his
private study, which opened directly on the garden, and communicated by
a staircase in the wall with his bedroom. The study was a pleasant room,
lined with books for the most part, but with some valuable pictures, and
a great table full of drawers, and several presses or secretaries,
filled with papers and family documents of every kind. Mr. John
Montfort, recluse though he was, was the head of a large and important
family connection. Few of his relatives ever saw him, but most of them
were in more or less constant correspondence with him, and he knew all
their secrets, though not one of them could boast of knowing his. He was
the friend and adviser, the kindly helper, of many a distant cousin who
had never met the kind, grave glance of his brown eyes. Peggy Montfort
used to say, in the days when it had pleased him to appear as John
Strong, the gardener, that it "smoothed her all out," just to look at
him; and many people experienced the same feeling on receiving one of
his letters. No one had it, however, so strongly as Margaret herself, or
so she thought; and it was with a sensation of delightful relief that
she answered his call this morning. Mr. Montfort turned round from the
great table at which he was sitting, and held out his hand
affectionately.
"Come here, my child," he said, "and let me look at you. Look me
straight in the eyes; yes, that will do. You are feeling well, Margaret?
You look well, I must say."
"Well? Of course, Uncle John! Am I ever anything else? I have never had
a day's illness since I came here."
"You do not feel the load of responsibility too much for your young
shoulders?" Mr. Montfort went on. "It--it is not too dull for you here,
alone month after month with an elderly man, and a hermit, and one who
has the reputation of a grim and unfriendly old fellow? What do you say,
Margaret?"
The quick tears sprang to Margaret's eyes. She looked up at her uncle,
and saw in his eyes the quizzical twinkle that always half puzzled and
wholly delighted her. "Oh, uncle!" she cried; "you really deceived me
this time! I might have known you were in fun,--but you were so grave!"
"Grave?" said Mr. Montfort. "Never more so, I assure you. I may not have
very serious doubts, in my own mind; nevertheless, I want your
assurance. Do you, Margaret Montfort, find life a burden under existing
circumstances, or do you find it--well, endurable for awhile yet?"
"I find life as happy as I can imagine it," said Margaret, simply; and
then, being absolutely truthful, she added, "That is,--I did find it
so, Uncle John,--until these last two weeks."
"Precisely!" said Mr. Montfort. "Not a word, my dear! I understand you.
You are fond of children, I think, Margaret?"
"Very fond," said Margaret, thinking that Uncle John was strange indeed
to-day.
"Get on well with them, I should suppose. You had a great deal of
influence over Peggy, Margaret."
"Dear, good Peggy! She was so ready to be influenced, Uncle John. She
was just waiting to--to be helped on a little, don't you know?"
"Yes; so Rita thought, if I remember aright!" said Mr. Montfort, dryly.
"But with younger children, eh? You have had some experience of them,
perhaps, Margaret?"
Was he still joking? Margaret had not much sense of humour, and she was
sadly puzzled again.
"I--I love little children," she said. "Of course I do, Uncle John!"
"Little children,--yes. But how about boys? Active, noisy,
happy-go-lucky boys? Boys that smash windows, and yell, and tear their
clothes on barbed-wire fences? How about those, Margaret?"
"Is that the kind of boy you were, Uncle John?" asked Margaret, smiling.
"Because if so, I am sure I shall like them very much."
"Very well, my dear child!" he said. "You are well and happy, and we
understand each other, and that is all right, very right. Now,
Margaret,--I ask this for form's sake merely,--have you been in this
room before, to-day?"
"No, Uncle John," said Margaret.
"Of course you have not. Knew it before I asked you. Do you notice
anything unusual in the appearance of the room, my dear?"
Margaret looked about her, wondering. It produced an impression
of--well, not just the perfect order in which it was generally to be
found. Several drawers were half open; a sheaf of papers lay on the
floor, as if dropped by a startled hand. The writing things were
disarranged, slightly, yet noticeably; for Mr. Montfort always kept them
in one position, which was never changed save when they were in actual
use.
"Why, it looks--as if--as if you had been in a hurry, Uncle John," she
said at last.
"It looks as if _some one_ had been in a hurry," said Mr. Montfort,
significantly. "I have not been in this room before, to-day; I found it
in this condition. Never mind, my dear! I am going to write a letter
now. Don't let me keep you any longer."
Margaret went away, wondering much; her uncle joined her soon, and they
looked at the roses together, and chatted as usual, and were happy, till
Cousin Sophronia rapped on the window with her thimble, and asked
whether they were coming in, or whether she should come out and join
them.
She was trying that evening, Cousin Sophronia. Nothing on the tea-table
suited her, to begin with. She declared the beef tea unfit to touch, and
desired Mr. Montfort to taste it, which he politely but firmly refused
to do. "But it is not fit to eat!" cried the lady. "I insist on your
tasting it, my dear John."
"My dear Sophronia, I am extremely sorry it is not to your taste. If it
is not good, I certainly do not want to taste it. Send it away and ask
me to taste something that is good."
The chicken was tough. "You should change your butcher, John. Or are
these your own fowls? Chickens I will not call them; they must be two
years old at least. Nothing disagrees with me like tough poultry. Nobody
to look after the fowls properly, I suppose. I must take them in hand;
not that I have had any experience myself of fowls, but an educated
person, you understand. So important, I always say, to bring educated
intelligence to bear on these matters. And then, these knives are so
dull! Even if the fowls were tender, impossible to make an impression
with such a knife as this. Elizabeth, what do you use for your knives?"
Elizabeth used Bristol brick, as she always had done.
"Ah, entirely out of date, Bristol brick. You must send for some of the
preparation that William uses, John. Nothing like it. Something or
other, it's called; somebody's--I can't remember now, but we will have
it, never fear, dearest John. Shameful, for you to be subjected to dull
knives _and_ tough poultry. What are these? Strawberries? Dear me! I did
hope we could have raspberries this evening. One is so tired of
strawberries by this time, don't you think so?"
"I am sorry," said Mr. Montfort. "The raspberries will be ripe in a day
or two, Sophronia; Willis thought they would hardly do to pick to-day."
"Oh, but I assure you, my dearest John, Willis is entirely wrong. I
examined the bushes myself; I went quite through them, and found them
quite--entirely ripe. That was just Willis's laziness, depend upon it.
These old servants" (Elizabeth had gone to get more cream, the lady
having emptied the jug on her despised strawberries) "are too lazy to be
of much use. Depend upon it, John, you will know no peace until you get
rid of them all, and start afresh; I am thinking very seriously about
it, I assure you, my dear fellow. Yes, I have been longing for days for
a plate of raspberries and cream. I have so little appetite, that
whenever I _can_ tempt it a little, the doctor says, I must not fail to
do so. No more, dear, thank you! It is of no consequence, you know,
really, not the least in the world; only, one can be of so much more
use, when one keeps one's health. Ah, you remember what health I had as
a child, John! You remember the dear old days here, when we were
children together?"
"I remember them very well, Sophronia," said Mr. Montfort, steadily.
"And speaking of that, I am expecting some young visitors here in a day
or two."
Cousin Sophronia looked up with a jerk; Margaret looked at her uncle in
surprise; he sipped his tea tranquilly, and repeated: "Some young
visitors, yes. They will interest you, Sophronia, with your strong
family feeling."
"Who--who are they?" asked Miss Sophronia. "Most ill-judged, I must say,
to have children here just now; who did you say they were, John?"
"Cousin Anthony's children. They lost their mother some years ago, you
remember; I fancy Anthony has had rather a hard time with them since.
Now he has to go out West for the rest of the summer, and I have asked
them to come here."
For once Miss Sophronia was speechless. After a moment's silence,
Margaret ventured to say, timidly, "How old are the children, Uncle
John?"
"Really, my dear, I hardly know. Two boys and a girl, I believe. I don't
even know their names; haven't seen their father for twenty years. Good
fellow, Anthony; a little absent-minded and heedless, but a good fellow
always. I was glad to be able to oblige him."
Miss Sophronia recovered her speech.
"Really, my dear John," she said, with an acrid smile; "I had no idea
you were such a philanthropist. If Fernley is to become an asylum for
orphan relations--"
"Sophronia!" said Mr. Montfort.
His tone was quiet, but there was something in it that made the lady
redden, and check herself instantly. Margaret wondered what would
become of her, if her uncle should ever speak to her in that tone.
"I am sure I meant nothing!" said Miss Sophronia, bridling and rallying
again. "I am sure there was no allusion to our dearest Margaret. Absurd!
But these children are very different. Why, Anthony Montfort is your
second cousin, John. I know every shade of relationship; it is
impossible to deceive me in such matters, John."
"I should not attempt it, my dear cousin," said Mr. Montfort, quietly.
"Anthony _is_ my second cousin. I will go further to meet you, and admit
boldly that these children are my second cousins once removed, and
Margaret's third cousins. Where shall we put them, Margaret?"
"My dearest John," cried Miss Sophronia, in her gayest tone, "you are
not to give it a thought! Is he, Margaret? No, my dear fellow! It is
noble of you--Quixotic, I must think, but undeniably noble--to take in
these poor little waifs; but you shall have no further thought about
providing for them. Everything shall be arranged; I know the house from
garret to cellar, remember. I will make every arrangement, dearest John,
depend upon me!"
The evenings were not very gay at Fernley just now. Miss Sophronia could
not keep awake while any one else read aloud; so she took matters into
her own hands, and read herself, for an hour by the clock. Her voice was
high and thin, and kept Mr. Montfort awake; she was apt to emphasise the
wrong words, which made Margaret's soul cry out within her; and she
stopped every few minutes to chew a cardamom seed with great
deliberation. This simple action had the effect of making both her
hearers extremely nervous, they could not have explained why. Also, she
was afflicted with a sniff, which recurred at regular intervals,
generally in the middle of a sentence. Altogether the reading was a
chastened pleasure nowadays; and this particular evening it was
certainly a relief when she declared, before the hour was quite over,
that she was hoarse, and must stop before the end of the chapter. On the
whole, she thought it might be better for her to go to bed early, and
take some warm drink. "It would never do for me to be laid up, with
these children coming to be seen after!" she declared. So she departed,
and Margaret and her uncle sat down to a game of backgammon, and played
slowly and peacefully, lingering over their moves as long as they
pleased, and tasting the pleasure of having no one say that they should
play this or that, "of course!"
The game over, Mr. Montfort leaned back in his chair, with an air of
content.
"This is pleasant!" he said, slowly. "Margaret, my dear, this is very
pleasant!" Margaret smiled at him, but made no reply. None was needed:
the uncle and niece were so much alike in tastes and feelings, that they
hardly needed speech, sometimes, to know each other's thoughts. Both
were content to sit now silent, in the soft, cheerful candle-light,
looking about on the books and pictures that they loved, and feeling the
silence like a cordial.
Suddenly Mr. Montfort's air of cheerful meditation changed. He sat
upright, and leaned slightly forward. He seemed to listen for
something. Then suddenly, softly, he rose, and with silent step crossed
the room and stood a moment beside the wall. It was a very different
face that he turned to Margaret the next instant.
"My dear," he said, "there is some one in my study."
"In your study, Uncle John? What do you mean? That is,--how can you
tell, uncle?"
"Come here, and listen!" said her uncle. Margaret stole to his side, and
listened, her head, like his, near the wall. She heard the crackling of
paper; the sound of a drawer pulled softly out; the clank, muffled, but
unmistakable, of brass handles. What did it mean? She looked to her
uncle for explanation. He shook his head and motioned her to be silent.
Then, taking her hand in his, he led her softly from the room. Margaret
followed, greatly wondering, across the wide hall; through the low door
that led to the White Rooms, now her own; into her own sitting-room, or
Aunt Faith's room, as she still loved to call it. Here Mr. Montfort
released her hand, and again motioned her to be silent.
"I will explain by and by, my dear," he said. "Follow me, now, and learn
another lesson in Fernley geography; I was keeping it for a surprise
some day, but never mind. Where is this place?"
Margaret noticed, in all her confusion of surprise, that the great white
chair was pushed away from its usual place. Her uncle stepped in behind
the table near which it always stood, and passed his hand along the
smooth white panel of the wall. Noiselessly it swung open, revealing a
dark space. Margaret obeyed his gesture, and following, found herself in
a narrow passage, carpeted with felt, on which her feet made no sound.
They went forward some way; it was quite dark, but she followed her
uncle's guidance, and he trod as surely as if it were broad daylight.
Presently he stopped, and, with a pressure of the hand, bade her listen
again. The rustling of paper sounded very clear now; there was another
rustle, too, the rustle of silk. Suddenly, light flashed upon them;
Margaret felt herself drawn swiftly forward; there was a smothered
exclamation in her uncle's voice, followed by a scream from another.
They were standing in Mr. Montfort's study. The room was lighted by a
single candle, that stood on the writing-table; beside this table,
backed against it in an attitude of terror and surprise, stood Miss
Sophronia Montfort, her hands full of documents, her eyes glaring. There
was a moment of silence, and Margaret counted her heart-beats. Then--
"Can I be of any assistance to you, my dear Sophronia?" asked Mr.
Montfort, blandly. "You seem in distress; allow me to relieve you of
some of these." He took the papers quietly, and laid them on the table.
Miss Sophronia gasped once, twice; opened and shut her eyes several
times, and swallowed convulsively; when she spoke, it was with a
fluttering voice, but in something like her ordinary tone.
"My dear John! How you startled me! A--a--little surprise for you, my
dear fellow. Such a shocking condition as your papers were in. I
thought--a kindness--to bring a little order out of chaos; he! he!
ahem! my throat is troublesome to-night. A warm drink! Yes, my dear
John, I remembered the old passage, you see. I said, why should I
disturb the dear fellow, to ask him for the key to the outer door? And
really, John, these papers are too--too bad!"
She shook her head in a manner that was meant to be playful; but
suddenly the smile dropped from her face like a mask; for Mr. Montfort
did a singular thing. He bent his head forward slightly; fixed his eyes
on his cousin with a peculiar expression, and advanced slowly, one step.
"Sophronia!" he said.
Miss Sophronia began to tremble.
"Don't, John!" she cried. "John Montfort, don't do it! I am your own
cousin. Your father and mine were brothers, John. I hope I know my
duty--ah, don't! I will not, John Montfort!"
Margaret looked from one to the other in blank amazement. The lady
seemed in the extremity of terror. Her uncle--was this her uncle?
Instead of the grave, dignified gentleman, she seemed to see a boy; a
boy intent on mischief, every motion of him alive with power and
malice. Step by step he advanced, his hands clenched, his head bent
forward, his eyes still fixed, bright and strong, on his cousin.
"Sophronia!" he said, "I am coming! Sophronia! Sophronia! Sophronia!"
Each time he quickened voice and step. He was almost upon her; with one
wild shriek Miss Sophronia turned and fled. Her skirts whisked along the
secret passage; they heard the door bang. She was gone.
Mr. Montfort sat down in his study chair and laughed long and silently.
"Don't look so frightened, my dear!" he said, at last. "It was a scurvy
trick, but she deserved it. I--I used to run Sophronia up-stairs,
Margaret, when she was a troublesome girl. It always frightened her. I'd
have done it in another minute, if she had not run, but I knew she
would. Poor Sophronia! I suppose something of the boy stays in us, my
dear, as long as we live. I--I am afraid I should rather have enjoyed
running Sophronia up-stairs."