FOOL'S PARADISE.
Shortly after the incidents narrated in the preceding chapter, Mr.
Baldwin left Davyntry. His sister maintained to the last the strong
constraint she had put upon herself. She had seen with a genuine
disinterested pleasure, for which the world in general might fairly
have been excused for not giving her credit, that her young favourite
had captivated her only brother.
Without being a very wise, a very witty, or in any marked way a very
superior woman, Eleanor Davyntry possessed certain admirable and
estimable qualities. Not the least remarkable, and perhaps the most
rare of these, was disinterestedness. This virtue was in her: it did
not arise from circumstances. She was not disinterested because she
was rich,--the amount of wealth in people's possession makes no
difference in their appreciation of and desire for wealth,--and Lady
Davyntry "had no nonsense about her."
She thoroughly understood the value of her money as a means towards
the enjoyment of the happiness which she acknowledged to be hers; but
it never occurred to her for a moment to consider her own interests in
the question of her brother's future. That he would probably marry at
some time she looked upon as certain; and the inheritance of the Deane
from one so much younger than herself would not have been a hopeful
subject of speculation, had she been a person who would have
speculated upon it at all. Even if she had had children, it would have
been all the same to Lady Davyntry. She would not have been covetous
for them any more than for herself. She had thought rather nervously,
since Sir Richard's death had left her more dependent on her brother
for the love and companionship without which life would have been
intolerable to a woman of her disposition, of the probabilities of Mr.
Baldwin's marriage.
Lady Davyntry had her prejudices; one of them was against Scotchwomen.
She hoped he would not marry a Scotchwoman, therefore she had never
encouraged her brother's residence at the Deane.
"It is not so much their ankles and wrists," she had assured Sir
Richard, when he had remonstrated with her for "snubbing" a florid
young lady who hailed from Aberdeen; and did it in a voice which set
Lady Davyntry's teeth on edge, and made her backbone quiver, "as it is
their minds and their ways. Of course, the way they speak is very
awful, and the way they move is worse; but I could stand all that, I
daresay. But what I cannot stand is their coarse way of looking at
things, and the hardness of them in general. And as for flirting!
_You_ may think it is not dangerous, because it is all romping and
hoydenism; but I don't want a sister-in-law of Miss MacAlpine's
pattern, and so I tell you."
"Hadn't you better tell Baldwin so, my dear Nelly," the reasonable
baronet had made answer. "_I_ don't want a MacAlpine importation into
the family either; but, after all, it's _his_ business, not mine."
"No, no," said the astute Nelly; "I am not quite so stupid as to warn
any man against a particular woman of whom he has hitherto taken no
special notice. That would be just the way to make him notice her, and
that would be playing her game for her. I am not really afraid of the
fair Jessie; Fitzwilliam can see her wrists, and her ankles too, quite
as plainly as I can; and I fancy he suffers rather more acutely from
her accent. I shall limit my interference to getting him away from the
Deane."
Other and sadder preoccupations soon after claimed Lady Davyntry, and
Miss Jessie MacAlpine was forgotten. And now, when her brother spoke
of leaving her to return to the Deane, she remembered the young woman
and her mosstrooper-like accomplishments without a shade of
apprehension.
"My darling Margaret has made my mind quite easy on _that_ point, at
all events," thought Eleanor, as Mr. Baldwin imparted to her some of
his intentions for the benefit of his tenantry and estate. "Whether
she cares for him or not, whether good or evil is to be the
result,--and I believe all will go well with them both,--he is safe in
such an attachment."
When her brother had left her, Eleanor thought long and happily over
it all. Of his feelings she did not entertain a doubt, and her keen
feminine perception had begun to discern in Margaret certain symptoms
which led her to hope that for her too the dawn of a fair day was at
hand. If she had known more of the young widow's inner life, if she
had had a clearer knowledge of her past. Lady Davyntry would have
hoped less and feared more. But her ignorance prevented the
discouragement of fear, and her natural enthusiasm aided the impulses
of hope; and she saw visions and dreamed dreams which were pure and
beautiful, for they were all of the happiness and the good of others.
Thus Margaret's sadness and silence, the gloom which sometimes settled
heavily over her, did not grieve her watchful friend. If only she
loved, or should come to love, Fitzwilliam Baldwin, all this should be
changed. All the darkness should pass away, and a life adorned with
all that wealth could lend, enriched with all that love could give,
should open before the woman whose feet had hitherto trodden such
weary ways. Lady Davyntry pleased herself with fancies of all she
should do to increase the happiness of that splendid visionary
household at the Deane.
If Lady Davyntry could have known what were Margaret's thoughts just
at the time when Mr. Baldwin went away, she would have felt some
discouragement, though not so much as a person less given to
enthusiasm, and to the raising of a fancy to the rank and importance
of a hobby. She had never realised any of the painful features of Mrs.
Hungerford's past life; she had never tried to realise them. Her mind
was not of an order to which the realisation of circumstances entirely
out of the sphere of her experience was possible, and she never
speculated upon them.
In a different way, and for quite another class of reason, Lady
Davyntry had arrived at a state of mind similar to that of Mr.
Carteret, who regarded the blissful feet of his son-in-law's death as
not only the termination, but the consignment to oblivion, of all the
misery his existence had occasioned.
"Of course she is low at times," thought Lady Davyntry; "that is only
natural. After all, she must feel herself out of her place at
Chayleigh, with that detestable woman. But that will not last; and she
will be all the brighter and the happier when Fitz has her safely at
home."
The world would have found it hard to understand that Mr. Baldwin's
only sister--the great, rich, enviable, to-be-captured-if-possible Mr.
Baldwin's sister--should desire so ardently the marriage of her
brother with a person who had no fortune, no claim to personal
distinction, and--_a story_. Horrible dowry for a woman! Better any
insignificance, however utter.
And Margaret? While Mr. Baldwin was attending to the long-neglected
demands, undergoing active persecution at the hands of a neighbourhood
resolved on intimacy, and longing, with all the strength of his heart,
for the sight of Margaret's pale face and the sound of her thrilling
voice--while his sister was building castles in the air for him to
tenant--what of Margaret? What of her who was the centre, so
unconsciously to herself, of all these hopes and speculations?
She was perhaps farther just then than she had ever been from a mood
which was likely to dispose her towards their realisation. She had
been disturbed rather than affected by the perusal of Hayes Meredith's
letter. It had immediately succeeded to the outburst of emotion to
which she had yielded in the presence of Mr. Baldwin, and for which
she had afterwards taken herself severely to task; and it had upset
her hard-won equanimity.
She was ashamed of herself, angry with herself, when she found out how
much she desired that the past should be utterly forgotten. She had
had to bear it all, and she had borne it, not so badly on the whole;
but she did not want any reference to it; she shrunk from any external
association with it as from a physical pain. Her reluctance to
encounter any such association had strangely increased within the past
few weeks.
She did not know, she did not ask herself, why. Was she ungrateful
because she had felt intense reluctance to read Hayes Meredith's
letter? Had she forgotten, had she ceased to thank him for all he had
done to lighten her lot? Was she so cold, so "shallow-hearted," as to
think, as many a vulgar-minded woman would have thought, that her
account with the man who had succoured her in a strange land was
closed with the cheque which her father had given her to be sent to
him, in payment of the money he had lent her?
No, Margaret Hungerford was not ungrateful; but there was a sore spot
in her heart which something--she did not ask what--was daily making
sorer; the letter had touched it, and she shrunk with keen unexplained
anguish from the touch. She lay awake the whole night after she had
read the letter from Melbourne, and it seemed to her that she lived
all the old agonies of despair, rage, humiliation, and disgust over
again.
It chanced that the next day James Dugdale was ill. This was so common
an occurrence that no one thought much about it. James was familiar
with suffering, and it was the inevitable penalty of fatigue. Not for
him was the healthy sense of being tired, and of refreshing rest.
Fatigue came to him with pain and fever, with racked limbs, and
irritable nerves, and terrible depression. His journey had tired him,
and he lay all day on the couch placed in the window of his room.
Hither came Mrs. Carteret frequently, fussily, but genuinely kind, and
Mr. Baldwin, to say some friendly words, and feel the truest
compassion for the strong man thus imprisoned in his weak frame.
Hither, later in the day, and much to the surprise of James Dugdale,
came Margaret. He had thought she had gone to Davyntry, and said so.
She reddened, a little angrily, as she replied,
"No: I have not been out. You seem to think I must always go to
Davyntry."
"Not _I_, indeed, Margaret," said James, with a smile; "but I think
_they_ do. Since I have been away, I understand you have been
constantly at Davyntry, and I am very glad to hear it; it is good for
you and for Lady Davyntry also."
"Perhaps so; she is very kind," said Margaret absently. "At all
events, I am not there to-day, as you see, and I am not going there,
or anywhere, but I will sit here with you, if I may."
She turned on him one of her rare, winning smiles--a smile far more
beautiful, he thought, than any her girlhood had been decked in. She
drew a low chair into the bow of the window, beside his couch, and sat
down. Between him and the light was her graceful figure, and her clear
pale face, with its strangely-contrasted look of youth and experience.
"Are you really going to give up all the afternoon to me?" said James,
in delight.
"I really am. I will read to you, or we can talk, just as you like. I
suppose you don't feel any great fancy for turning tutor to me over
again, though I see all my old school-books religiously preserved on
your book-shelves," she said, glancing round at the well-stocked walls
of the room, which had been the schoolroom in the days when Haldane
and she had been James's pupils.
"I have kept every remembrance of that time, Margaret," said James.
There was a tone in his voice which might have been a revelation to
her, had she heard it, but she did not. She smiled again, and said:
"You had a troublesome pupil. I am in a good mood to-day, as I used to
say long ago, and I want to talk to you about this."
She took Hayes Meredith's letter out of her pocket as she spoke.
James Dugdale kept silence, looking at her. "Is she going to tell me
the story of her life?" he thought. "Am I going at last to learn
something of the history of this woman whom I love?"
Margaret did not speak for some moments; she looked at the letter in
silence. Then she unfolded it, and said:
"I am glad you let me read this letter for myself, James" (she had
dropped into the habit of calling him by his name); "there are some
hard things in it, but they are true--and so, better spoken, no matter
how hard they may be. But let us pass them over, they are said of the
dead."
Her face hardened, and she turned it away from him. James Dugdale laid
his thin hand on her arm.
"Margaret," he said, "you know I would not have given you that letter
to grieve you. I was thinking so much of what Meredith says of himself
and his son that I forgot the allusion to--"
"I know, I know," she said hurriedly; "don't say his name; I never
do."
The admission was a confidence. She was breaking down the barrier of
reserve between them. She trusted him. She might come to like him yet.
The friendship at least of the woman he loved might yet come to gild
this man's lonely life. It would be much to him to know that she
forgave him; and there was something in her manner now so different
from anything that had ever been there formerly, that he began to hope
she had really forgiven him.
In his quiet life, James Dugdale had contrived to attain, with very
little aid from experience, to a tolerable amount of comprehension of
human nature, and he understood that Margaret's practically-enforced
conviction, that he had been unerringly right in all he had suspected
and predicted of the fate in store for her, in her marriage, had not
made her more inclined to pardon the interference on his part which
she had so bitterly resented. But this was all over now, he did not
know why; he felt it, he did not understand it.
Was it that the natural elasticity of youth was asserting its
power--that Margaret was regaining her spirits, was throwing off the
burden of the past, and, with it, all the feelings which had obscured
the brightness and injured the gentleness of her nature? This was the
most probable explanation; if, indeed, there was any other, it did not
present itself as an alternative to James Dugdale. While he was
thinking thus, she began to speak again in a hurried tone:
"I should like to tell you now, James, because I would rather not have
to refer to the matter again, that I know how kind you were to me, and
how right in everything you said, and how hard you tried to save me.
Yes, yes; let me speak," she went on, and tears, seldom seen in her
eyes, stood in them now. "I could not again; let me speak now. You
tried, James, I know; but you could not succeed. It was from myself I
needed to be saved. Never think that you could have done anything more
than you did; indeed you could not. Nothing could have saved me."
She was trembling now, even as the hand which he laid on hers,
unnoticed, was trembling. Her lustrous eyes were wet, and the emotion
in her face made it quite beautiful. James Dugdale did not attempt to
speak; he looked at her, and his heart was wrung with pity.
"It _had_ to be, James, and it is done with, as much as it ever can be
in this world, in which there is no release from consequences of our
own acts. And now"--she raised her head, she released her hand, she
was regaining her composure, the momentary expansion was past, as he
felt, and he had learned nothing!--"let us talk of your friend, who was
so kind to me, and retains so kind a recollection of me. What do you
think of all he says?"
"I think badly of it," said James, as he leaned back on his couch
again, and adopted the tone she had given to their conversation. "I
fear Robert Meredith is a bad boy."
"So do I," said Margaret. "I have seen him, though not often, and I
never saw a boy--almost a child--whom I disliked so much. He is a
handsome fellow, but selfish, heartless, and sly. His very cleverness
was revolting to me, and I suspect the feeling of dislike between us
was mutual; he has an American-like precocity about him which I
detest. His little brothers, rough colonial children as they are, are
infinitely more to be liked than he is. Of course you must do as Mr.
Meredith asks you; but if you will credit my judgment--and, all things
considered, I am rather daring in asking you to do so--you will not
undertake anything like personal charge of Robert Meredith."
"I will certainly take your advice in the matter, Margaret; you _know_
the boy. I fancy I had better urge Meredith to bring him to England
himself, if it is determined that he is to come. Tell me as much as
you remember about the boy, and all the family. I remember Mrs.
Meredith a pretty, active, pert kind of girl--strong and saucy--a
capital wife for him, I should think."
"I daresay," Margaret answered carelessly; "I did not know much of
her."
Then their conversation turned on the career and circumstances of
Hayes Meredith, with which this story has no concern. In aftertime
James Dugdale remembered that day as one of the happiest of his life.
They were quite uninterrupted until late in the evening. Mrs. Carteret
had carried off to a dinner-party her reluctant husband, who would
have infinitely preferred to superintend the dinner of a peculiarly
fine spider--whose proceedings he was watching just then, and whose
larder was largely provided with the last unwary flies of the expiring
autumn.
Margaret and James Dugdale dined alone. She was in good spirits on the
occasion; she had almost lost the painful impression produced by Hayes
Meredith's letter, by talking it over with James; and between herself
and him there reigned harmony and unreserve which had had no previous
existence. James had never seen her look so nearly beautiful; he had
never seen her so kind, so gentle to him.
The hours passed over him in a kind of trance-like spell of pleasure.
Margaret talked as he had never imagined she could talk. He had soon
recognised that her character was hardened and strengthened by the
trials she had endured; but until this day he had not known that her
intellect had grown and brightened in proportion.
They read together Haldane's letters to his old Mend, and Margaret
found in them many a kindly mention of her. Her brother would know of
her arrival in England at about this time.
"You must promise to tell me what he says, James, if it is not
something very disagreeable indeed."
And James promised.
From that day Margaret was a less unhappy woman than before. The first
effect produced on her by Meredith's letter returned when she went to
Davyntry, after Mr. Baldwin's departure, and was more than ever warmly
greeted by her friend.
"I don't think I could bear Fitzwilliam's absence if I had not your
society," Lady Davyntry said to her; and, fond and flattering as the
words were, there was, not in them, but in the mood in which she
listened to them, something that hurt Margaret.
The young widow's pride was for ever rebelling against the unshared
knowledge of the experiences through which she had passed. Eleanor
talked to her incessantly of her brother, of the Deane, of his
occupations, his neighbours, and his popularity. The theme did not
weary Margaret; and Lady Davyntry accepted her unflagging attention as
a delightful omen.
"She misses him; I am sure she misses him," was her pleased mental
comment.
"I hardly expected Margaret to remain so long at Davyntry _to-day_,"
said Mrs. Carteret to James Dugdale, as the family party were
assembled in the drawing-room at Chayleigh.
James observed the emphasis, and replied:
"Indeed; why not?"
"Mr. Baldwin is not there, you know, and I fancy he is the great
attraction."
James made her no reply. He fully understood the spiteful animus of
the observation, but he also admitted its terrible probability; not in
the present--he did not take so superficial a view of Margaret's
character as that would have implied--but a thrill of fear for the
future came over him, troubling his Fools' Paradise. In a little while
Margaret came in, looking as tranquil as usual, and, in her accustomed
manner of placid, unalterable calm,--the bearing she always
opposed to the masked battery of Mrs. Carteret's insinuations and
insolences,--answered the questions put to her.
When James Dugdale was alone that night he took himself to task, in no
gentle manner. He knew he had nothing to expect beyond the unexpected
boon of kindness and confidence she had already extended to him; and
yet the thought that another might again stand nearer to Margaret than
he, struck him with an anguish almost as keen as the first torment had
been. He had doubted that fate could bring him anything very hard to
bear again, and here was a faint sickening indication that fate
intended to resolve his doubt into a fatal certainty.
But no: he would not think of it; he would not let it near him; it
could not be. He knew he was weak in shrinking as he did, in striving
to shut out anything that might possibly be true--and, therefore,
ought to be faced--as he did; but the weakness would have its way,
like the fainting of the body, and, for the present time at least, he
would put the apprehension from him.
The days and the weeks passed by, and the external state of things
remained unchanged at Chayleigh. Uninterrupted friendship, and a
certain degree of confidence, were maintained between Margaret and
James. The health and spirits of the young widow improved; her
friendship with Lady Davyntry remained unimpaired. The correspondence
between Eleanor and her brother was frequent and lengthy, and the
letters from the Deane were imparted with great frankness by the elder
to the younger lady. They were vivid, amusing, and characteristic, and
invariably included a message of cordial remembrance to the household
at Chayleigh. Peace of mind was prevalent among all the parties
concerned in the little _drame intime_ with which we are dealing.
Lady Davyntry's mind was at peace, because she saw that Margaret's
interest in Mr. Baldwin's report of his doings at the Deane did not
flag; and, as she said to herself, "there was no one to interfere with
his chances."
James Dugdale's mind was at peace, because Margaret seemed happier and
calmer than he had ever again expected to see her; and, as Mr. Baldwin
remained away, he was not to be feared; and it was evident that the
source of her renewed content was to be found in her present sphere.
Mrs. Carteret's mind was at peace, because Margaret gave her no
trouble, and kept herself so quiet, so completely aloof from "the
neighbourhood," that that noun of moderate multitude,--having
satisfied its curiosity by observing how Mr. Carteret's daughter
looked in her "weeds,"--was content to forget her existence, or ready
to condole with Mrs. Carteret upon her stepdaughter's strange
unsociability, and to compliment the lady upon the contrast in that
respect which they presented.
Things had turned out so differently from Mrs. Carteret's first
apprehensive anticipations--she had been able to _exploiter_ Margaret
so successfully; her boasted intimacy at Davyntry had been so
complacently indorsed by Lady Davyntry, who would have gone more
directly against her conscience even than that to make Margaret's
position at home easier--that Mrs. Carteret had almost ceased to wish
for Margaret's departure--had even thought casually that it would
certainly _look_ better, and might possibly _be_ better, if she could
be induced to remain at her father's house.
"Perhaps she may settle herself advantageously yet," Mrs.
Carteret--whose ideas were eminently practical--said to herself; and
she even thought of consulting James as to whether she had not better
suggest such a solution of the problem of the future to Margaret.
Mr. Carteret's mind was at peace, because his mind had never been in
any other condition since Godfrey Hungerford's death had restored it
to ordinary equilibrium, and because his collections were getting on
splendidly.
When Margaret Hungerford had been five months at Chayleigh--when the
time was approaching which she had fixed upon as the period at which
she would commence her career of labour and independence--when eleven
months had elapsed since Godfrey Hungerford's death--when the snows of
February lay thick and white upon the earth--an event occurred which
disturbed the calm of Chayleigh.
Mrs. Carteret distinguished herself in a most unexpected manner. She
caught cold returning from one of the dull dinner-parties which her
soul loved, and which no inclemency of weather, or domestic crisis
which could be ignored with any decency, would have induced her to
forego. A second dinner-party was to come off within three days; so
Mrs. Carteret denied the existence of the cold, and attended that
solemn festival. That day week she was dead.