DAWNING.
"You cannot conceive anything more perfect than the way Margaret is
behaving," wrote Lady Davyntry to her brother, when the first novelty
and shock of Mrs. Carteret's death had somewhat subsided, "in this sad
affair. Her conduct to her father is most admirable. He, poor man, is
in a wretched state--more, perhaps, of bewilderment than grief, but
altogether unhinged.
"Master's put out terrible," was the account I had from one of the
Chayleigh servants, and, odd and horrid as it sounds, I really think
that is the best description of poor Mr. Carteret's state of mind.
Anything he is not used to "puts him out," and he is singularly little
used to trouble or emotion of any kind.
"He wanders about in a way distressing to behold, and cannot be
induced to occupy himself. 'There ain't no keeping him in the study,'
Foster said to me; 'and as much as stick a pin in a butterfly, Mr.
James nor Miss Margaret can't indoose him to do.'
"He seems to have lost all his taste for his specimens, but Margaret
has hit upon a great idea for his relief and amusement. This is no
other than to talk to her father about the interest which the poor
woman who is gone took in his pursuits, and how much she would have
regretted his abandonment of them.
"There is a touch of pious fraud in this, for no one can possibly know
better than Margaret that Mrs. Carteret never took any interest in
anything but herself, and was rather more indifferent to her husband's
pursuits than to any other matters; but the fraud is pious and
successful.
"I have just had a note from her telling me he is more cheerful, and
has been watching her dusting specimens this morning. She also
says--but, on second thoughts, I enclose the note.
"With all this, my darling Madge has been very candid and sincere. She
has felt the awfulness and the import of the event most deeply, but
she has not pretended to a personal sorrow which it is impossible she
should feel, and I honour her for that--indeed, I honour her for
everything, and love her better every day.
"Mr. Dugdale has taken Mrs. Carteret's death to heart terribly. She
was sincerely attached to him, I believe, and I fancy he was the only
person in the world who loved her, while he managed her perfectly, and
quite understood her queer disposition. I have seen very little of
him, but Margaret has told me a good deal about him.
"If you remember, we used to think that he and she did not get on well
together--that she did not like him. With all her reserve, Margaret is
not difficult to understand; she may keep facts to herself, but she
does not disguise feelings, and I am glad to think she and Mr. Dugdale
get on nicely now that they are in such responsible charge at
Chayleigh.
"If my letter bores you, my dear Fitz, I really cannot help it, for my
head and my heart are both full of Margaret. The Martleys and Forbeses
sent a strong contingent down to the funeral, and two of the Martleys
stayed a week: very handsome young men, not in the least like their
sister, who was very much older.
"I could not help thinking how vexed the poor woman would have been if
she could have seen Henry Hartley so captivated by her stepdaughter.
He fell in love with Margaret with quite old-fashioned celerity, but
she calmly ignored him and his love. Mr. Dugdale saw it plainly, and
did not like it by any means. They have all had enough of the
Martleys, I fancy.
"The young men took their sister's death very easily; the eldest was
evidently glad to get away; and I cannot be very much surprised or
very angry. This event will make a great difference to Margaret. I
have always had a presentiment--_I have_, how ever you may laugh--that
she would not have to leave Chayleigh. Of course, she cannot think of
doing so now; she must remain with her father.
"Captain Carteret is on his way home, Mr. Dugdale came here yesterday
with Margaret for the first time. I believe something was said about
his leaving Chayleigh and going back to Oxford, but Mr. Carteret would
not hear of it; he clings to Mr. Dugdale more even than to Margaret.
So they will settle down together, no doubt. It is a good thing
Captain Carteret was not here sooner; the gloom will have pretty well
dispersed before he comes.
"Your account of the Deane is delightful. I think you are quite right
not to refurnish the drawing-rooms just yet. Perhaps I might screw up
my courage to going there in summer, and then I could choose colours,
and so on, for you. You do not really want drawing-rooms at present,
and I should not mind anything of the kind if I were you. You may not
remain at the Deane long. Indeed, I hope you are thinking of coming
back to me; I want to consult you about such a lot of things; and I
hate letter-writing, and explain myself so badly."
For a lady who hated letter-writing, Lady Davyntry indulged in it a
good deal; and, with singular self-denial, devoted herself to keeping
her brother thoroughly well informed concerning affairs in the
neighbourhood.
She would, priding herself on her astuteness and believing herself
inscrutably clever in the performance, send him pages of gossiping
details about other people than the dwellers at Chayleigh; she would
tell him about the Croftons, the Crokers, and the Willises, about
friends in town and friends in foreign parts, whenever it appeared to
her that her insistence upon Chayleigh was becoming too marked.
By such artful dodges did she seek to divert Mr. Baldwin's suspicions
that she cherished the profound design of marrying him to her friend.
Her brother, on his part, carefully forbore to point out the
inconsistency between her dislike of letter-writing and the frequency
of her correspondence. He understood the guileless and amiable Eleanor
thoroughly, and smiled over her letters as he thought how charmingly
transparent the artifice was, and how easily he could have disposed of
it all, had it not precisely coincided with his own wishes.
Time hung heavily on Mr. Baldwin's hands in the midst of his great
possessions, and in the presence of his popularity with an assiduous
neighbourhood. He had set his heart, he was ready to stake his whole
future, upon winning the wearied heart of the pale-faced girl who had
brought something into his life which had never been there before, and
the hours and days lingered until the time should come which he had
set before himself as fitting for the attempt.
Her first year of widowhood would soon have elapsed, and then he
might, without offence, tell her that he loved her. So he named that
time, in his own mind, for his return to Davyntry.
When Mrs. Carteret's death occurred, Mr. Baldwin did not alter his
plan. The change in Margaret's prospects, the necessity for her
remaining with her father, the fact that her sphere of duty was
strictly defined now, gave him no uneasiness.
He would never ask her to leave her father. He knew Mr. Carteret well.
It did not take much time or pains to acquire that knowledge, and he
knew he had no strong attachment to Chayleigh. If he could but
persuade Margaret to come and reign at the Deane, he had no doubt her
father would readily go there too.
He had a conviction, which, after all, was not presumptuous for a man
of his fortune and station to entertain, that in Margaret's brother he
should find a friend. James Dugdale had told him a little of the
family history--had given him a vague notion of the part Haldane had
taken in the circumstances which had led to Margaret's disastrous
marriage; and he felt that the young man would naturally rejoice that
such a total change should be wrought in the life of his sister, who
had paid so dearly for her imprudence.
A man of peculiarly simple tastes and habits, of unaffected ways of
thinking about himself and other people, it rarely occurred to
Fitzwilliam Baldwin to take his wealth into account; but he did so
now, very reasonably. "It would not weigh with her for a minute," he
thought; "but it will with them, and it will be pleasant to have them
all for, and not against, me."
Life at Chayleigh had settled down again. The delusive appearance of
immutability which human affairs assume--human affairs which are but a
shifting quicksand--had established itself. The establishment,
presided over by Margaret, went on in the ordinary way, the servants
highly appreciating the change of _régime_; and Mr. Carteret was
beginning to dispose of the days after his old fashion, when Mr.
Baldwin returned to Davyntry, and Haldane Carteret arrived at
Chayleigh.
The meeting between the brother and sister was frankly affectionate;
the renewal of their companionship was delightful to both. Margaret
thought her brother wonderfully improved. He was a handsome, manly,
soldierly fellow, who had no trace of likeness to his gentle,
studious, feeble father, but whose face, despite its bronzed skin and
its thick dark moustache, awakened strange memories in Mr. Carteret's
placid breast.
A curious mental phenomenon took place in the experience of Haldane's
father. A little while ago, and he was fretting for Mrs. Carteret--if
he had said he was wretchedly uncomfortable it would have been a more
correct description of his state of mind; but he chose to call
himself, to himself, profoundly miserable--and now, since Haldane came
home, he had almost forgotten her.
True, he still sat mopingly in his chair, and stared vacantly out of
the window, when they left him alone; but the reverie which filled
those hours was no longer what it had been. With his son in his bright
strong manhood, with his daughter in her womanhood--early shadowed,
indeed, but beautiful--beside him, his heart turned to the past, and a
gentle figure, a fair delicate face, long since turned to dust, kept
him ghostly company in his solitude.
Margaret was much surprised when, shortly after Haldane's return, Mr.
Carteret began to talk to her one day about her mother, and spoke of
her with a cheerful freshness of remembrance which she had never
supposed him to entertain.
"The colours she preferred, the books she liked, the places they had
visited together, certain fancies she had in her illness--the smallest
things, I assure you--is it not wonderful?" Margaret had asked of Lady
Davyntry, as she was telling her this strange circumstance. "I never
was more surprised, and, I need not say, delighted; I don't think poor
Mrs. Carteret's fancies and sayings remain so fresh in his memory.
After so many years, too! The fact is, I don't believe she ever really
filled my mother's place at all."
Margaret was seated on a cushion in the bay of a great window in the
drawing-room at Davyntry as she spoke thus. Her heavy bonnet and veil
were thrown on the floor beside her, her pale, clear, speaking face,
the eyes bright and humid, the lips parted eagerly, and the flickering
light, which emotion always diffused over her face, playing on her
features. Lady Davyntry stood in the window, and looked down upon her.
"I am sure she never did," said the impulsive Eleanor; "how could she?
It is all very well for a man to marry again, as your father did, when
he has little children, and no one but servants to look after them;
but, of course, a second marriage never can be the same thing. All the
romance of life is over, you know, and one knows how much fancy there
is in everything; and, in fact, I can't understand it myself--not for
a woman, I mean, who has been happy. A man is different."
And then Lady Davyntry suddenly discovered that, in proclaiming her
general opinion, she was saying exactly the opposite to what she
thought in the particular case in which she was most deeply
interested, and stopped, very abruptly and awkwardly, and blushing
painfully. But Margaret did not seem to perceive her embarrassment.
Her hands were pressed together; her eyes looked out strangely,
eagerly; her words came as though she had no control of them.
"And do you think an unhappy woman--one who has found nothing in her
marriage but misery and degradation--one who has nothing of the dreams
and fancies of her youth left for retrospection but sickening deceit
and a horrible cheating self-delusion--one who has no good, or pure,
or gentle, or upright recollection to cherish of a past which was all
a lie, a base infamous lie--do you think a woman with a story like
that in her life ought to marry again? Do you think--you, Eleanor, who
are truth and honour themselves, and who, I suppose, in all your life
never said, or did, or saw, or heard anything for which you have a
right to blush or ought to wish to forget--do you think that a woman
with a story like that in her life ought to marry? Do you think she
ought to link her life to that of any man, however he might love her
and pity her, and be prepared to bear with her, while she had to look
back upon such a past, however guiltless she might be in it--do you
think this, Eleanor? Tell me plainly the truth."
She put her hand up, and caught one of her friend's hands in hers.
Lady Davyntry still stood and looked at her, and, laying her
disengaged hand on her shoulder, answered her passionate question.
"Do I? Indeed I do, Margaret. Tell me, are you asking me this for
yourself? Are you asking me if I think, because you have had the
least-deserved misfortune to have been the wife of a bad man, and you
have been released from him, you are to carry the chain in fancy which
has been taken off you in reality? It's unlike you; it is morbid to
ask, to think of such a thing. What are you but a young girl still?
Are you to do penance all your life for the sins of another? No, no,
Margaret; silent as you are about your past, you are asking me this
question in reference to yourself. Is it not so? Do not place a
half-confidence in me. Do not let a delusion like this take possession
of your mind, and blight your future as your past has been blighted."
"There is nothing in my question," said Margaret, drawing her hand
away from Lady Davyntry, and rising; "nothing in the sense you mean.
My future seems plain and clear enough now. My place in the world is
fixed, I fancy; but sometimes, Eleanor, sometimes the past, of which I
have never spoken to you, of which I cannot speak, comes back to me,
not only in its own dreadful shape, but with a dim undefined threat in
it, and makes me afraid. You don't understand me; well for you that
you do not. I trust you never may."
She picked up her bonnet and tied it on, and was folding her shawl
round her, while Lady Davyntry stood by, longing to speak out all that
was in her mind, and yet fearing to damage her own hopes by doing so
and learning the worst, when the door opened, and Haldane Carteret and
Mr. Baldwin came into the room.
Margaret was standing with her back towards the door, and facing a
mirror, in which Lady Davyntry saw her face reflected. It was
startlingly pale, and there was a wild look of pain in the eyes, quite
other than sadness--sometimes a little stern--which was their usual
expression.
Lady Davyntry could hardly reply to the cheery greeting of Haldane, so
much was she struck by Margaret's change of countenance. Margaret
spoke hurriedly to Mr. Baldwin. The only one of the four who did not
know that there was a consciousness on the part of all the others that
something unusual had taken place was Haldane.
"I have come to fetch you home, Madge," he said, "and then I'm going
out for a ride with Baldwin, and we dine with the Croftons, so you
won't see much of me to-day. Are you ready?"
"Quite ready," said Margaret; and she kissed Lady Davyntry, and took
so hurried a leave of her that her friend had not time to ask her a
question. She was about to give Mr. Baldwin her hand, and bid him
good-bye too, but he said he was going their way--his horses might be
taken to Chayleigh.
When she was left alone, Lady Davyntry tried to disentangle her
impressions of what had occurred. At last she thought she saw the
meaning of it all. Margaret had found out Mr. Baldwin's
not-carefully-preserved secret, even as she (Eleanor) had found it
out, and she loved him. Yes, his sister was sure of it. She had all
the acuteness which keen feeling and true sympathy give, and which is
truer in emergencies than that of mere intellectual cleverness, and
she knew that a sharp and severe struggle was raging in the young
widow's heart.
She understood it all now--she understood that Margaret shrank from
the avowal to herself that she had learned to love and trust again,
that she had not been able to carry out the expiatory process
which she had resolved--the process of loneliness and labour of
self-repression, and the abnegation of the true happiness to be had
even in this world, because she had been beguiled by the false. She
understood that Margaret, however believing and trusting in
Fitzwilliam Baldwin's love, would feel that there was no equality
between them, and that the serene and beautiful fancies of a happy
girl were not for her, while all the illusion and gladness of life's
early days still were his. Intuitively Lady Davyntry understood it
all; the face she had seen in the glass, when her brother's entrance
had surprised Margaret in one of her rare moments of emotion, had made
it all plain to her.
"She will refuse him," Eleanor thought; "she will refuse him. These
two, the most suited to one another, the best calculated to be happy
of any people I ever knew--the very ideal of a well-matched pair--will
be kept apart by a chimera. So the evil of that vile man's life lives
after him, and he has the power to make her and others miserable,
though he is in his grave. Shall I speak openly to Fitzwilliam? I
cannot do harm now. No man could be more bent upon anything than he is
on marrying Margaret. I may as well let him know--if, indeed, he has
not guessed it--how much I wish it too."
Lady Davyntry's nature, like her brother's, was essentially sunny and
cheerful; so she soon roused herself from the depression her discovery
had caused her.
"If she does refuse him," thought Eleanor, after long cogitating with
herself, "she cannot refuse to tell him why. She is too sincere--she
will not deny that she loves him, and then she will be persuaded out
of this morbid fancy by degrees. After all, it will only be a case of
waiting. I must have patience, and Fitzwilliam must have patience too.
Margaret is worth waiting for. I shall see her at the Deane yet."
It was a source of great satisfaction to Lady Davyntry to remember
that Margaret was settled at Chayleigh, that Mr. Baldwin need not fear
her removal--that, in fact, he had every external advantage on his
side.
"How strangely things happen!" she thought. "Really, it seems as if
that poor woman's death were quite providential. If she had lived, I
don't see how Margaret could have possibly stayed at Chayleigh; and
now she cannot get away. Even if she had remained, she could not have
been in such a pleasant and independent position."
And then Lady Davyntry, who possessed in perfection the fine feminine
facility for looking at every subject from exclusively her own point
of view, came to the comfortable conclusion that poor Mrs. Carteret's
death was "all for the best."
Haldane Carteret retained all his boyish affection for James Dugdale.
His old tutor loved him, too, better than any one in the world save
Margaret; and the young man's sojourn at home was a bright spot in the
life of the older man, whose life had in it very little brightness.
All that James knew of Margaret's story he had told Haldane by letter,
and now the subject was but rarely revived between them.
Haldane was not a very acute observer. He rarely troubled himself with
the reflective part of life; he had bright animal spirits, good
health, and was now of an active temperament very different from the
promise of his boyhood. The experiment of letting him follow his
military inclinations had turned out admirably. His father was very
fond of him, very proud of him, and kept out of his way as much as
possible. His presence had the best possible effect on Margaret, who
was beginning to bloom again, not only with the roses, but with the
spirits of her girlish days.
Haldane was immensely delighted with Mr. Baldwin. It was a new
experience to him that a man of such large fortune, such assured
position, such high intellectual attainments, still young and
flattered by the world, should be of so unworldly a spirit, so pure of
heart and life, and so entirely unassuming. In modern parlance, Mr.
Baldwin was an undeniable "swell," but he never seemed to remember the
circumstance except when an act of generosity, or the exercise of
privilege in the cause of good, was required.
"I'll tell you what, Dugdale," Haldane Carteret said to his old friend
as they strolled together in the fields by the clump of beeches which
Margaret had said she hated, "there are not many such fellows going as
Baldwin!"
James Dugdale heartily concurred in his companion's estimate of
Baldwin.
"Knocking about the world teaches a fellow to appreciate a man like
that," continued Haldane. "It's very strange to remember how one has
been taken in by people. There was that ruffian Hungerford, for
instance. By the bye,"--and Haldane stood still, and looked into
James's face to make his words more emphatic,--"I think Baldwin is
uncommonly attentive to Madge, don't you?"
"N-no," said James hesitatingly; "I can't say I noticed anything of
the kind."
"Look out, then, and you will notice it. You're not an observing
person, you know--not a lady's man exactly--neither am I; but I think
I know the symptoms of that sort of thing when I see them; and I don't
think Baldwin is staying at Davyntry altogether on account of his
sister. I say, James, what a grand thing it would be, wouldn't it?"
"What a grand thing _what_ would be?" asked Dugdale in an impatient
tone.
"If Madge likes him, and he likes her, and they make a match of it. It
would be a fine marriage for any girl, and it would be a great thing
to have all the past put out of her mind. Fate owes her a good turn,
poor girl!"
And James? Did not Fate owe him a good turn? If so, he thought sadly,
the debt was not likely to be paid. The change in Margaret's manner,
the increased frankness, the ready kindness she showed him now, had
ceased to bring him any happiness. He did not deceive himself now as
to its source.
He was nothing more to her than he had ever been; but, instead of the
old bitterness, a root of sweetness was springing up in her heart, and
its natural outcome was the oblivion of her former feelings, the
remission of all past and gone offences from those who would but be
doubly indifferent to her under the influence of this new motive in
her life.
For a time James Dugdale yielded to the weakness which this new keen
suffering produced. He felt that life had been always bitter for
him--there was no mercy, no gentleness in it at all.
When he looked at Margaret and noted the change in her face--saw how
the light had come back into the eyes, the roundness to the clear pale
cheeks, the softness to the square brow and the small lips, and
interpreted the change aright, notwithstanding the fits of heavy
sadness which still came over her--he would feel very tired of life.
Impossible not to envy the lot which was never to be his--the destiny
of those who are dowered with love.
Never to be, never to have been, the first object in life to any one
is a melancholy fate, he would think--one for which no general
affection, or appreciation, not even the most intoxicating gift of
fame, could ever compensate.
This was his lot, and he knew it, and did not attempt to persuade
himself that it was not very hard and bitter to submit to. After a
time he should be able to look at the matter from the unselfish point
of view of Margaret's happiness; but not yet. He had never quite
realised the nature and extent of his own fears, until Haldane's words
had put the truth before him in the airy and cheerful manner related.
Of course he was right; of course it would be a "great match," and a
"fine thing:" of course it would be the most complete reparation of
all that Fate had wrought against Margaret--the most total reverse of
her life which could be devised.
The love of such a man--as James, rigidly just in all his pain,
acknowledged Fitzwilliam Baldwin to be--had in itself such elements of
dignity and honour, such power of rehabilitation for the wounded
spirit of the woman he loved, that it was an act of utter oblivion.
From the unassailable height of her position, as Mr. Baldwin's wife,
Margaret might look down upon the pigmy cares of coarse remark and
prying curiosity, as on all the sordid and common anxieties of
material life from which she had once suffered so keenly.
He knew all this--he who would, he believed, have suffered anything in
the cause of her welfare. Yes, and so he would, anything but just the
thing he was appointed to suffer; and he could not bring himself to
bear it, not yet. He forgot how he had acknowledged, when she returned
to Chayleigh, that she could not continue to live there, that the dead
level of life there would be intolerable to her who had breathed the
atmosphere of storm and been tossed on the waves of trouble. She was
too young to find refuge in calm; the peace which is the paradise of
age which has suffered, is the prison of suffering youth.
He knew all this, and yet he murmured against the destiny that was
going to release her, without penalty or price--that was going to
crown her life with happiness. He murmured, he revolted, he raged; and
then he submitted, as we all must, to everything.
From this state of feeling to an intense longing to know the truth, to
have it all over and done with--to be quite certain that Margaret had
put the old life from her, and with it all the ties which existed
between her and him; that she was going into a sphere in which he
could have no place--was a natural transition for James Dugdale's
feverish, sensitive temperament.
He watched Margaret and her friend; he understood Lady Davyntry's
feelings perfectly, and owed her no grudge for them; he rather
honoured her as more large-minded and disinterested than most women.
Of course she coveted such a prize as Margaret for her brother. To the
rich, treasures, was the judgment and the way of the world.
He watched Margaret and her lover. Yes, her lover--he forced himself
to give him that kingly title in his thoughts, and he thought, he
knew, he hoped it might soon come--that suspense, at least, would be
over, and nothing would remain for him but to accustom himself to the
new order of things.
Full of these thoughts, he sought Margaret, one beautiful day in May,
in the pleasaunce. He had seen her walking on the lawn. She had
exchanged a few sentences with him as she passed the windows of Mr.
Carteret's study, where James was sitting, and he had promised to join
her presently, when her father released him. He was anxious to tell
her that he had heard again from Hayes Meredith. When he joined her he
held a letter in his hand.
"Papa has been bothering you about those dreadful bats, hasn't he,
James?" asked Margaret with a smile; "I will take my turn at them this
afternoon."
"O no," he said; "but I wanted to see you before you went out, because
I have a letter from Melbourne."
She changed colour slightly, and glanced nervously at the letter.
"It is very short. Meredith merely says he cannot come to England, or
send his son for some time--not for a year, indeed. There is a money
difficulty out there, and Mrs. Meredith is in delicate health."
"Indeed! I am sorry for that. So master Robert must put up with
colonial life for a little longer."
"Yes," replied James; "and I am not sorry. The longer my
responsibility as regards that young gentleman is deferred the better.
Still, I should like to see Meredith. Shouldn't you, Margaret?
"No," she said quickly, and in a tone of decision, "I should not,
James. Not because I am ungrateful--no, indeed--but because anything,
any one connected with that dreadful time I would shun by any lawful
means. You don't know how I dread any mention of it, how I shrink from
any thought of it. You don't--you can't--it is like a curse from which
I never can escape. If"--she continued vehemently--"if Hayes Meredith
came into this house, if any one from that place came, I should feel
it was an evil omen--I should be sure it could only be to bring me
misery. Very superstitious, very wrong, very weak,--is it not,
James?--I know; but it is perfectly true, and stronger than I--"
She shuddered as she spoke, and was quite pale now.
James looked at her in agitated surprise, and put the letter, which
she had made no motion to take from him, into his pocket.
At that moment the footman approached them, coming from the house.
James glanced at Margaret's white face and tearful eyes, and went
forward to intercept the servant before he should be near enough lo
discover them also.
"A letter from Davyntry, for Mrs. Hungerford, sir," said the man.
"Is there any answer required?"
"I don't know, sir."
James brought the letter--a very thick one--to Margaret.
"Just open this," he said, "and see if there's an answer."
She broke the seal of the envelope, which was directed in Lady
Davyntry's hand, and drew out, not a letter from her friend, but a
second sealed envelope, with her name upon it. The writing was well
known to her; it was Mr. Baldwin's. The outer cover fell to the
ground, as she stood with the enclosure in her hand, James looking at
her and at it.
"There's--there's no answer," she said. She had not made the slightest
attempt open the missive.
James Dugdale delivered the message to the servant, who went back to
the house, and then he turned away down another path and struck into
the fields.
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON: ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Righted Wrong, Volume 1 (of 3), by Edmund Yates