THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.
The communication which James Dugdale made to Mr. Carteret on his
arrival at Chayleigh was received by that gentleman not altogether
without agitation, but with more pleasure than the ex-tutor had
expected.
Mr. Carteret had missed his daughter, in his quiet way, and had
occasionally experienced something which approached remorse during her
absence, when he pondered on the probabilities of her fate, and found
himself forced to remember how different it might have been had he
"looked after" the motherless girl a little more closely, had he
extended some more sympathy to her and exerted himself to understand
her, instead of confining his fatherly-fondness to occasional petting
and careful avoidance of being bored by her.
Mr. Carteret was easily reconciled to most things, but he had never
succeeded in reconciling himself thoroughly to Margaret's marriage and
her exile, and he heard of her return with equal pleasure and relief.
These feelings expanded into positive joy when he learned the
delightful fact of Godfrey Hungerford's death.
In the first vague apprehension of James Dugdale's news, he had
imagined that Margaret had left her husband and come home, and even
that he hailed with satisfaction. But to know that his son-in-law was
safely dead was an element of unmitigated good fortune in the matter.
And so strongly and unaffectedly did Mr. Carteret feel this, that he
departed from his usual mild method of speech on the occasion, and
delivered himself of some very strong language indeed.
"The infernal scoundrel!" he said; "he made her miserable, I've no
doubt. She'll never tell us anything about it, James, if I am not much
mistaken in her, or she is not very much changed; and so much the
better. I don't want to hear anything about him; I should like to
think I should never hear his name mentioned again as long as I live!"
"Most likely you never will hear it mentioned, sir," said James. "If
you like, I'll tell Margaret you would rather she did not talk about
him."
"Do, do," said Mr. Carteret eagerly. He hated explanations, and would
never encounter anything he disliked if he could at all decently avoid
doing so. "The only good or pleasant thing that could be heard in
connection with the fellow, I heard when you told me he was under the
sod, and there is no use in hearing bad and unpleasant things. Of
course, the child knows she is welcome home; and the very best thing
she can do is to forget the scoundrel ever existed."
The ignorance of human nature, and the oblivion of his wife's
peculiarities, which this speech betrayed, were equally characteristic
of Mr. Carteret; but James Dugdale could not smile at them when
Margaret was concerned.
He determined to say nothing to the young widow's father about her
expressed resolution of leaving Chayleigh again, but to abandon that
issue to circumstances and the success of the mode of argument he
intended to pursue with Mrs. Carteret. He would go and fetch Margaret
home presently, when he had spoken to his cousin. He thought it better
her father should not accompany him, and Mr. Carteret, who had some
very choice beetles to unpack and prepare, thought so too.
He delightedly anticipated Margaret's pleasure in exploring the
extended treasures of his collection, and was altogether in such an
elated state of mind that he had consigned the whole of Margaret's
married life as completely to oblivion as he had forgotten the partner
of that great disaster, by the time James Dugdale passed before the
windows of his study on his way to fulfil his mission of peace and
reconciliation.
It never occurred to him to think about how his wife was likely to
take the news of Margaret's return. Mrs. Carteret had not given him
any trouble herself, or permitted other people to give him any
trouble, since Margaret and Haldane had gone their own way in life,
and he was not afraid of her departing now from that excellent rule of
conduct.
"Margaret is not a child now, and they are sure to get on together,"
said the mild and inexperienced elderly gentleman, as he daintily
handled some insect remains as reverently as if they had been mummies
of the Rameses; "each can have her own way." He had forgotten
Margaret's "own way," and he knew very little about Mrs. Carteret's.
It was rather odd that his wife did not come to talk about the news
that James Dugdale had communicated to her. He wondered at that a
little. He would go and find her, and they should talk it over
together, presently, when he had put this splendid scarabaeus all
right--a great creature!--how fortunate he had secured it, just as old
Fooster was on the scent of it too!
And so Mr. Carteret went on, and the minutes went on, and he had not
yet completed his arrangements for the adequate display of the
scarabaeus, when two figures, one in heavy black robes, passed quickly
between him and the light. A window-sash was thrown up from the
outside, and Margaret Hungerford's arms were round her father's neck.
Under the roof of Chayleigh, on that bright autumn night, there was
but one tranquil sleeper. That one was Mr. Carteret. He was thoroughly
happy. Margaret had come home, Godfrey Hungerford was dead, and she
had never mentioned his name.
He felt some tepid gratitude towards Hayes Meredith: of course he
should at once repay him the sums advanced to Margaret, and it would
be a good opportunity of extending his correspondence and his
scientific investigations--the Australian fauna had much to disclose.
He had experienced a slight shock at observing the change in
Margaret's appearance; but that had passed away, and when Mr. Carteret
fell asleep that night he acknowledged that everything was for the
best in the long-run.
Mrs. Carteret had behaved very well. She had met Margaret kindly, with
as much composure as if she had been away from home on a week's visit;
had inquired whether "her maid" would remain at Chayleigh; had added
that "her things" should be placed in her "former" room; and had
evinced no further consciousness of the tremendous change which had
befallen her stepdaughter than was implied in the remark that "widow's
caps were not made so heavy now," and that Margaret's "crape skirt
needed renewal."
The evening had passed away quietly. To two of the four individuals
who composed the little party it had seemed like a dream from which
they expected soon to awaken. Those two were Margaret Hungerford and
James Dugdale.
One slight interruption had occurred. A note had been handed to Mrs.
Carteret from Lady Davyntry. She had heard of the return of her former
"pet" to Chayleigh--the expression was as characteristic of Lady
Davyntry as it was unsuitably applied to Margaret, who was an
unpromising subject for "petting"--and hoped to see her soon. Mr.
Meriton Baldwin would forego the pleasure of calling at Chayleigh that
evening, as he could not think of intruding so soon after the arrival
of Mrs. Hungerford.
Mrs. Carteret threw down the letter with rather an ill-tempered jerk,
and her face bore an expression which Margaret remembered with painful
distinctness, as she said,
"Very absurd, I think. I don't suppose that Margaret would object to
our seeing our friends because she is here."
The speech was not framed as a question; but Margaret answered it,
lifting up her head and her fair throat as she spoke, after a fashion
which one observer, at least, thought infinitely beautiful.
"Certainly not, Mrs. Carteret. Pray do not allow me to interfere with
any of your usual proceedings."
And then she went on talking to her father about the habits of the
kangaroo.
The thoughts which held Mrs. Carteret's eyes waking that night were
anything but agreeable. She did not exactly know how she stood with
regard to her stepdaughter. If she determined on making the house too
unpleasant for her to bear it, she might find herself in collision
with her husband and her cousin at once, unless she could contrive
that the unpleasantness should be of a kind which Margaret's
pride--which she detected to be little, if at all, subdued by the
experiences of her married life--would induce her to hide from the
observation of both.
Margaret should not live at Chayleigh if Mrs. Carteret could prevent
it; but whatever means she used to carry her purpose into effect must
be such as James Dugdale could not discover or thwart. The thing would
be difficult to do; but Mrs. Carteret had well-grounded confidence in
her own power of carrying a point, and this was one which must be held
over for the present. It was agreeable to be able to decide that, at
all events, Margaret was no beauty, that she was decidedly much less
handsome than she had been as what Mrs. Carteret called "a raw girl."
And this was true, to the perception of a superficial observer.
Margaret looked very far from handsome as she sat in a corner of the
bow-window of the drawing-room, her small thin hands folded and
motionless, her head, with its hideous covering, bent down; her pale
face, sharpened by the angle at which the light struck it, and her
whole figure, in its deep black dress, unrelieved by the slightest
ornament or grace of form, pervaded by an expression of weariness and
defeat. She might have been a woman of thirty years old, and who had
never been handsome, to the perception of any stranger who had then
and thus seen her.
But, three hours later in the night, when Margaret Hungerford was
alone in the room which had been the scene of her girlish dreams and
hopes, of the fond and beautiful delusion so terribly dissipated--in
the room where her dead mother had watched her in her sleep, where she
had read and yielded to the lover's prayer which lured her from her
home--when she was quite alone, and was permitting the waves of memory
to rush over her soul;--no one would have said, who could then have
seen her, that Margaret was not handsome. Her face was one capable of
intensity of expression in every mood of feeling, and as mobile as it
was powerful. The wakeful hours of that night passed over her while
another crisis in her life was lived through--another crisis somewhat
resembling, and yet differing from, that which had marked the first
hours of her voyage.
She had sent Rose Moore away as soon as she could, but not before the
girl had imparted to her her conviction that English people, always
excepting Margaret, were "square." She could not understand the
tranquillity of the widowed daughter's reception at Chayleigh. The
reception awaiting her in the "ould country" would be of a very
different kind, "plase God," she added internally; and the extent and
importance of the business of eating and drinking among the servants
had gone nigh to exasperate her.
Rose was devoted to Margaret, but she thought the sooner she and her
mistress turned their back on a place where servants sat down to four
regular meals a day, and did not as much as know the meaning of the
"Mass," the better.
"She'll never do for these people," the girl thought, as she waited
for Margaret in her room; "she's restless with sorrow, and it's not a
nice nate place, like this, with the back parlour full of spiders laid
out in state, as if they were wakin' them, and little boxes full of
bones--nor yet the drawin'-room, all done out with bades, and a
mother, by way of, sittin' in it that 'ud think more of one of her
tay-cups bein' chipped than of the young crayture's heart bein'
broken--that'll ever bring comfort or consolation to the likes of
her."
The thoughts which had put themselves into such simple words in the
Irish girl's mind had considerable affinity with Margaret's own, but
in her they took more tumultuous form. The strong purpose, half
remorse, half vain-longing, which had brought her home, was fulfilled.
She had seen the place she had left, and thoroughly realised that her
former self had been left with it.
The few hours which had passed had made her comprehend that her life,
her nature, were things apart from Chayleigh; she could not, if she
would, take up the story of her girlhood where she had closed the
book. Between her and every former association, the dark and miserable
years of her married life--unreal as they seemed now--almost as unreal
as the illusion under which she had entered upon them--had placed an
impassable gulf.
Wrapped in a dressing-gown, and with her dark hair loose upon her
shoulders, Margaret paced her room from end to end, and strove with
her thoughts. She was a puzzle to herself. What discord there was
between her--a woman who had suffered such things, seen such sights,
heard such words as she had seen, and heard, and suffered--and the
calm, well-regulated, comfortable household here! If she had ever
contemplated remaining an inmate of her father's house, this one
night's commune with herself would have forced her to recognise the
impossibility of her doing so. The stain and stamp of her wanderings
were upon her; she could not find rest here, or yet.
Her father's dreamy ways; the selfishness, heartlessness,
empty-headedness of Mrs. Carteret; the distaste she felt for James
Dugdale's presence, though she persuaded herself she was striving to
be grateful;--all these things, separately and collectively, she felt,
but they did not present themselves to her as the true sources of her
present uncontrollable feelings: she knew how utterly she was changed
now only when she knew--for it was knowledge, not apprehension--that
the home to which she had found her way of access so much easier than
she had thought for, could never be a resting-place for her.
Was there any resting-place anywhere? Had she still to learn that
life's lessons are not exhausted by one or two great shocks of
experience, but are daily tasks until the day, "never so weary or
long," has been "rung to evensong"? She was a puzzle to herself in
another respect. No grief for the dead husband, the lover for whom she
had left the home which could not be restored, had come back to her.
No gentle tender chord had been touched in her heart, to give forth
his name in mournful music.
In this, the truth, the intellectual strength of her nature, unknown
to her, revealed themselves. No sentimentality veiled the truth from
Margaret. She had said to herself that it was well for her her husband
was dead, no matter what should come after, and she never unsaid
it,--not even in the hours of emotional recollection and mental strife
which formed her first night under her father's roof.
Standing by the window at which James Dugdale had first caught sight
of her the day before, Margaret clasped her hands over her head and
looked out drearily. The moon was high, the light was cold and
ghastly. She thought how she had seen the same chill gleam upon the
shimmering sea, and upon the grassy wastes of the distant land she had
left; and the fancy came to her that it was to be always moonlight
with her for evermore.
"No more sunshine; no more of the glow, and the glitter, and the
warmth--that is done with for me. There's no such thing as happiness,
and I must only try to find, instead, hard work."
There was another wakeful head at Chayleigh that night. James
Dugdale was but too well accustomed to sleepless nights, companioned
by the searching, mysterious pain which so often attends upon
deformity--pain, as if unseen fingers questioned the distorted limbs
and lingered among the disturbed nerves; but it was not that which
kept him waking now.
It was that he, too, was face to face with his fate, questioning it of
its past deeds and its intentions for the future--a little bitterly
questioning it, perhaps, and yet with more resignation than rancour
after all, considering what the mind of the man was, and what a
prison-house it tenanted. Among the innumerable crowd of thoughts
which pursued and pressed upon each other, there was one all the more
distinct that he felt and strove against its unworthiness.
"I am so thankful she is at home--so glad for her sake. Nothing could
be so well for her, since the past is irrevocable; but nothing could
be so bad, at least nothing could be worse for me. No, nothing,
nothing."
And James Dugdale, happily blind to the further resources of his
destiny, felt something like a dreary sense of peace arising within
him as he assured himself over and over again of the finality to which
it had attained.