MRS. CARTERET IS CONGRATULATED.
"I am positively dying to see her--I am indeed; you have no notion
what a darling she is. I am sure you would be delighted with her,
Fitzwilliam!"
These gushing sentiments were uttered by Lady Davyntry, and addressed
to her brother, Mr. Fitzwilliam Meriton Baldwin, while they were at
breakfast together, on the morning after Lady Davyntry's note had been
received at Chayleigh.
Lady Davyntry was given to gushing. She was a harmless, emotional kind
of woman, who had led a perfectly discreet and comfortable life, and
had never known a sorrow until the death of her husband.
Lady Davyntry was a very pretty woman--as pretty at her present age,
thirty-five, as she had been at any time since she had turned the
corner of extreme youth. Her mild, lambent blue eyes were as bright as
they had ever been, and her fair, rather thick skin had lost neither
its purity nor its polish.
She had been rich, well cared for, and happy all her life; she had
never had any occasion to exert herself; the "sorrows of others" had
cast but light and fleeting "shadows over" her; and her
sentimentalism, and the romance which had not been much developed in
the course of her prosperous uneventful life, were quite ready for any
demands that might be made upon them by an event of so much local
interest as the return of Mr. Carteret's daughter, whose marriage was
generally understood to have been very unfortunate.
She was interested in the occurrence for more than the sufficient
reason that she had liked and pitied Margaret in her neglected
girlhood. Perhaps the strongest sentiment of dislike which had ever
been called forth in the amiable nature of Lady Davyntry had been
excited by, and towards, Mrs. Carteret.
The two women were entirely antagonistic to each other; and Lady
Davyntry felt a thrill of gratification on hearing of Margaret's
return, in which a conviction that that event had taken place without
Mrs. Carteret's sanction, and would not be to her taste, had a decided
share.
She had favoured her brother--to whom she was very much attached, and
who was so much younger than she that he did not inspire her with any
of the salutary reserve which induces sisters to disguise their
favourite weaknesses from brothers--with a full and free statement of
her feelings on this point, and he had not strongly combated her
antipathy to Mrs. Carteret. The truth was, he shared it.
Mr. Baldwin had risen from the breakfast-table, and was standing,
newspaper in hand, by a large window which commanded an extensive
view, including the precise angle of the little demesne of Chayleigh
in which the rear of the house and the window of Margaret's room, with
its frame of passion-flowers, could be seen--not distinctly, but
clearly enough to induce the eyes of any one gazing forth upon the
scene to rest upon it mechanically.
His sister rose also, as she repeated her assurance that Margaret was
"a darling," and joined him.
"Look," she said; "you have sharp eyes, I know. There is some one
leaning out of the centre window. I see a figure, don't you?"
"Yes," said Mr. Baldwin; "I see a figure, all in black,--there's a
flutter of something white. Who is it?"
"I'm sure it's Margaret," said Lady Davyntry, "and the white thing
must be the strings of her widow's cap, poor child. How horrid it will
be to see her sweet, pretty little face in it! Ah, dear! to think that
she and I should meet under such similar circumstances!" and Lady
Davyntry sighed, and a tear made its appearance in each of her calm
blue eyes.
"Similar circumstances!" repeated her brother, in some surprise. "Ah,
yes! you are both widows, to be sure; but the similarity stops there;
if what Dugdale said, or rather implied, be true,--as of course it
is,--you and Mrs. Hungerford wear your rue with a difference."
"We do, indeed," said Lady Davyntry. "Give me that field-glass, Fitz.
I must make out whether that really is Margaret." And then she added,
as she adjusted the glass to her sight, "And I pity her for that too.
I cannot fancy any lot more pitiable than being forbidden by one's
reason to feel grief. Yes," she went on, after a minute, "it is
Margaret. I can see her figure quite plainly now. Look, look, Fitz!"
and she held out the glass to him. But Mr. Baldwin did not take it
from her hand; he smiled, and said:
"No, no, Nelly, I could not take the liberty of peeping
surreptitiously at Mrs. Hungerford. You forget you are renewing your
acquaintance with her; mine has to be made."
"That's just like your punctilio," said his sister. "I declare I feel
the strongest impulse to nod to her, this glass brings her so near;
and you are a goose for your pains. However, when you do see her, I
prophesy you will agree with me that she is a darling, a delightful
girl."
"Well, but," said Mr. Baldwin, who was amused by his sister's
enthusiasm, "you forget how long it is since you have seen this
paragon, and that she is not a girl at all, but an unhappy and
ill-treated wife, who has lately had the good fortune to become a
widow."
"That's true," said Lady Davyntry; "but I'll not believe that any
change could interfere with Margaret's being a darling. At all events,
I am going to see for myself this very day."
"So soon?" asked Mr. Baldwin, in a surprised tone.
"So soon! why not? You don't suppose Margaret has any tender
confidences with Mrs. Carteret which must not be broken in upon, and,
as for her father, I am sure he is as much accustomed to her being
there, since yesterday, as if she were one of those horrid specimens
_en permanence_."
Mr. Baldwin laughed. "I don't suppose the meeting has been very
demonstrative," he said, "considering the parties to it whom I _do_
know, and Dugdale's account of the party whom I _do not_. According to
the little he said, Mrs. Hungerford's firmness and reserve are
wonderful--more wonderful than pleasing, _I_ should consider them."
"Never mind Mr. Dugdale, Fitz," replied his sister. "He never liked
Margaret either I believe: I know she quarrelled with him at the time
of her love-affair. It is very likely he does not like her coming
home; she may make things unpleasant for him now, you know, which she
could not when quite a girl. Don't you mind _him_. Take my word for
it, the young widow is a darling."
"Take care, Nelly; that is rather a dangerous thing to insist
upon so strongly, except that you know I have a prejudice against
widows--always excepting _you_, he added, as she raised a warning
finger.
"Nonsense," said Lady Davyntry; and then she left the room, and her
brother resumed his newspaper; but, as he folded it and prepared to
read the leading articles leisurely, he thought, "I wonder if she is
really nice. Certainly Dugdale did not convey to me any impression
that he did not like her, or that her coming was contrary to his
convenience,--rather the opposite, I think. This must be a fancy of
Nelly's."
"Am I right? Did I say too much of Margaret, you incredulous Fitz?"
asked Lady Davyntry of her brother, when the gates of Chayleigh had
closed upon them at the termination of an unusually protracted visit,
during which Mrs. Carteret had endured the mortification of seeing
Lady Davyntry in a character of affectionate neighbourliness, which
had never been evoked by all her own strenuous and unrelaxed efforts.
"Did you ever see a nicer creature?" persisted the impulsive Nelly,
"and though of course she's changed, I assure you I never thought her
so handsome when she was quite a girl; and her quiet manner--so
dignified and ladylike--not cold though: you didn't think it cold, did
you, Fitz?"
"Not cold to _you_, certainly," replied Mr. Baldwin, who was glad to
escape, by answering this one, from the more direct question his
sister had put to him at first.
"No, no," she went on; "quite cordial; and I told her how I looked at
her with the glass this morning, and how you were quite too proper
and precise to follow my example; and she blushed quite red for a
moment--her pale face looked so pretty--and just glanced at you for an
instant: it was when Mr. Carteret was bothering you about the
articulations of something--and I'm sure she thought you very nice and
gentlemanly, and----"
"What _I_ thought of Mrs. Hungerford is more to your present purpose,
Nelly," said her brother, in an embarrassed voice. "I quite agree with
you in thinking her very charming, but she looks as if she had gone
through a great deal."
"Yes; doesn't she, poor dear?" said Lady Davyntry, who simply did not
possess the power to comprehend even the outlines of Margaret's life;
"but now that she is at home, it will be all right; I shall have her
with me as much as possible, and she will soon forget all her
troubles."
Mr. Baldwin did not reply. There was something in Mrs. Hungerford's
face which forbade him to believe that Davyntry and its mistress would
prove a panacea for whatever was the source of that expression. It was
not grief, as grief is felt for the dead who have been worthily loved
and are fitly mourned.
It was an utter forlornness, combined with suppressed energy. It was
the expression of one who had been utterly deceived and disappointed,
and was now crushed by the sense of bankruptcy and defeat in life. The
quiet manner which had been so satisfactory to the shallow perceptions
of Lady Davyntry did not impress her brother in the same way.
"That is a woman," he thought, "who has gone perilously near to the
confines of despair."
When he had seen Lady Davyntry into the house, Mr. Baldwin turned away
from the door, and went a long ramble through the fields. His
wanderings did not take him out of Chayleigh; and once he stood still,
looking towards the window where Margaret's figure had been dimly seen
by him that morning, and thought,
"What does this woman mean to me? Not a mere passing interest in my
life! What does this woman mean?"
"I suppose you don't see much change in Lady Davyntry?" Mrs. Carteret
said to Margaret, after the visitors had departed. "She is as
nice-looking, in a common way, and as full of herself as usual."
"Lady Davyntry was always very kind to me," replied Margaret gravely.
"In that she is certainly unchanged."
"O yes, she's kind enough, in her empty way," said Mrs. Carteret; "but
for my part I don't care about those violent intimacies. I never would
be led into them--they are quite in her way. If I would have
responded, there would have been perpetual running back and forward
between Davyntry and Chayleigh; but that sort of thing does not suit
me--I consider it vulgar and insincere."
Margaret did not exactly know, but she suspected, quite correctly,
that her stepmother was endeavouring to disguise a considerable amount
of pique under this depreciation of undue intimacy. She therefore made
no reply, and Mrs. Carteret continued:
"I daresay she will be taking you up violently, for a while, until she
tires of you. The fuss she makes with her brother is quite absurd. He
is a nice-looking young man, and nothing more. Don't you think so,
Margaret?"
"He is nice-looking, certainly," said Margaret; "but I have seen too
little of him to pronounce any further."
"He has the great attraction of being very rich," said Mrs. Carteret,
in a sharp tone; Margaret's cautious and reasonable reply irritated
her. "If he dies without heirs, his sister will have all the Scotch
property; it is worth fifteen thousand a-year, and entailed on heirs
general. It is a wonder some manoeuvring mother has not made a prize
of him long ago. He's rather a soft party, I should say."
"Should you?" said Margaret. "Mr. Baldwin looks firm as well as
gentle, I think--not the sort of man to be married by anybody without
his own unqualified consent."
"Of course he's a great catch," said Mrs. Carteret, "and I understand
he is terribly afraid of ladies. He thinks every woman who looks at
him is in love with himself or his acres."
"Indeed," said Margaret--and there was a tone of polite incredulity in
her voice--"I should not have taken Mr. Baldwin to be a vulgar-minded
man."
"I daresay not," returned Mrs. Carteret; "he is rather prepossessing
than otherwise to strangers; but then, you know, Margaret, your
judgment of men has been rather rash than infallible hitherto. Dear
me! I had no notion it was so late--time to dress for dinner!"
Mrs. Carteret rose, laid aside her everlasting fancy-work, and left
the room. Margaret rose also, but lingered for a few moments. As she
stood with her hands pressed upon her temples, and her pale face drawn
into a look of pain, she thought:
"I wonder, if James Dugdale had heard that speech, would he think I
could possibly stay here."