The house-party at Hilcrest was not an entire success that Christmas.
Even the guests felt a subtle something in the air that was not
conducive to ease; while Mrs. Merideth and her brothers were plainly
fighting a losing contest against a restlessness that sent a haunting
fear to their eyes.
Margaret, though scrupulously careful to show every attention to the
guests that courtesy demanded, was strangely quiet, and not at all like
the merry, high-spirited girl that most of them knew. Brandon, who was
again at the house, sought her out one day, and said low in her ear:
"If it were June and not December, and if we were out in the auto
instead of here by the fire, I'm wondering; would I need to--watch out
for those brakes?"
The girl winced.
"No, no," she cried; "never! I think I should simply crawl for fear that
under the wheels somewhere would be a child, a dog, a chicken, or even a
helpless worm--something that moved and that I might hurt. There is
already so much--suffering!"
Brandon laughed uneasily and drew back, a puzzled frown on his face. He
had not meant that she should take his jest so seriously.
It was on the day after New Year's, when all the guests had gone, that
Margaret once more said to her guardian that she wished to speak to him,
and on business. Frank Spencer told himself that he was used to this
sort of thing now, and that he was resigned to the inevitable; but his
eyes were troubled, and his lips were close-shut as he motioned the girl
to precede him into the den.
"I thought I ought to tell you," she began, plunging into her subject
with an abruptness that betrayed her nervousness, "I thought I ought to
tell you at once that I--I cannot go with you when you all go away next
week."
"You cannot go with us!"
"No. I must stay here."
"Here! Why, Margaret, child, that is impossible!--here in this great
house with only the servants?"
"No, no, you don't understand; not here at Hilcrest. I shall be down in
the town--with Patty."
"Margaret!" The man was too dismayed to say more.
"I know, it seems strange to you, of course" rejoined the girl, hastily;
"but you will see--you will understand when I explain. I have thought of
it in all its bearings, and it is the only way. I could not go with you
and sing and laugh and dance, and all the while remember that my people
back here were suffering."
"Your people! Dear child, they are not your people nor my people; they
are their own people. They come and go as they like. If not in my mills,
they work in some other man's mills. You are not responsible for their
welfare. Besides, you have already done more for their comfort and
happiness than any human being could expect of you!"
"I know, but you do not understand. It is in a peculiar way that they
are my people--not because they are here, but because they are poor and
unhappy." Margaret hesitated, and then went on, her eyes turned away
from her guardian's face. "I don't know as I can make you understand--as
I do. There are people, lots of them, who are generous and kind to the
poor. But they are on one side of the line, and the poor are on the
other. They merely pass things over the line--they never go themselves.
And that is all right. They could not cross the line if they wanted to,
perhaps. They would not know how. All their lives they have been
surrounded with tender care and luxury; they do not know what it means
to be hungry and cold and homeless. They do not know what it means to
fight the world alone with only empty hands."
Margaret paused, her eyes still averted; then suddenly she turned and
faced the man sitting in silent dismay at the desk.
"Don't you see?" she cried. "I _have_ crossed the line. I crossed it
long ago when I was a little girl. I do know what it means to be hungry
and cold and homeless. I do know what it means to fight the world with
only two small empty hands. In doing for these people I am doing for my
own. They are my people."
For a moment there was silence in the little room. To the man at the
desk the bottom seemed suddenly to have dropped out of his world. For
some time it had been growing on him--the knowledge of how much the
presence of this fair-haired, winsome girl meant to him. It came to him
now with the staggering force of a blow in the face--and she was going
away. To Frank Spencer the days suddenly stretched ahead in empty
uselessness--there seemed to be nothing left worth while.
"But, my dear Margaret," he said at last, unsteadily, "we tried--we all
tried to make you forget those terrible days. You were so keenly
sensitive--they weighed too heavily on your heart. You--you were morbid,
my dear."
"I know," she said. "I understand better now. Every one tried to
interest me, to amuse me, to make me forget. I was kept from everything
unpleasant, and from everybody that suffered. It comes to me very
vividly now, how careful every one was that I should know of only
happiness."
"We wanted you to forget."
"But I never did forget--quite. Even when years and years had passed, and
I could go everywhere and see all the beautiful things and places I had
read about, and when I was with my friends, there was always something,
somewhere, behind things. Those four years in New York were vague and
elusive, as time passed. They seemed like a dream, or like a life that
some one else had lived. But I know now; they were not a dream, and they
were not a life that some one else lived. They were my life. I lived
them myself. Don't you see--now?" Margaret's eyes were luminous with
feeling. Her lips trembled; but her face glowed with a strange
exaltation of happiness.
"But what--do you mean--to do?" faltered the man.
Margaret flushed and leaned forward eagerly.
"I am going to do all that I can, and I hope it will be a great deal. I
am going down there to live."
"To live--not to live, child!"
"Yes. Oh, I _know_ now," she went on hurriedly. "I have been among them.
Some are wicked and some are thoughtless, but all of them need teaching.
I am going to live there among them, to show them the better way."
The man at the desk left his chair abruptly. He walked over to the
window and looked out. The moon shone clear and bright in the sky. Down
in the valley the countless gleaming windows and the tall black chimneys
showed where the mill-workers still toiled--those mill-workers whom the
man had come almost to hate: it was because of them that Margaret was
going! He turned slowly and walked back to the girl.
"Margaret," he began in a voice that shook a little, "I had not thought
to speak of this--at least, not now. Perhaps it would be better if I
never spoke of it; but I am almost forced to say it now. I can't let you
go like this, and not--know. I must make one effort to keep you.... If
you knew that there was some one here who loved you--who loved you with
the whole strength of his being, and if you knew that to him your going
meant everything that was loneliness and grief, would you--could
you--stay?"
Margaret started. She would not look into the eyes that were so
earnestly seeking hers. It was of Ned, of course, that he was speaking.
Of that she was sure. In some way he had discovered Ned's feeling for
her, had perhaps even been asked to plead his cause with her.
"Did you ever think," began Spencer again, softly, "did you ever think
that if you did stay, you might find even here some one to whom you
could show--the better way? That even here you might do all these things
you long to do, and with some one close by your side to help you?"
Margaret thought of Ned, of his impulsiveness, his light-heartedness,
his utter want of sympathy with everything she had been doing the last
few weeks; and involuntarily she shuddered. Spencer saw the sensitive
quiver and drew back, touched to the quick. Margaret struggled to her
feet.
"No, no," she cried, still refusing to meet his eyes. "I--I cannot stay.
I am sorry, believe me, to give you pain; but I--I cannot stay!" And she
hurried from the room.
The man dropped back in his chair, his face white.
"She does not love me, and no wonder," he sighed bitterly; and he went
over word by word what had been said, though even then he did not find
syllable or gesture that told him the truth--that she supposed him merely
to be playing John Alden to his brother's Miles Standish.