SIR MALCOLM LOFTDALE.
Meg had more than once explored the house and the grounds. She had
performed the pilgrimage under the expansive wing of Mrs. Jarvis; she
had wandered alone over the mansion and rambled through the park,
feeling delight in the old-world charm of the place. The touch of tragic
mystery brought into the atmosphere by the picture on which a ban had
been laid now added to the spell of its fascination. The lofty rooms,
with somber gilt or painted ceilings; the faded tapestries and brocaded
hangings; the dusky tones of the furniture, upon which the sunbeams fell
with an antique glow, appeared to her steeped in the mystery of
associations. Every room seemed a chapter in an unknown story, the
thought of which kindled her fancy. The park, with its lengthening
vistas, its sylvan retreats, and patriarchal trees, a branch of the
silver river sweeping through its stately alleys; the stretches of
lawns, the flower-gardens, the glass structures in which bloomed a
tropical vegetation, enchanted her.
It was like living in a picture, she thought, to live amid such
peaceful, beautiful, finely ordered surroundings, whose past haunted
them like a presence. After the crude and noisy bustle of immature
possibilities to which she was accustomed, the wearied splendors of this
domain came to her as a revelation of novel possibilities in the setting
of life.
A week had elapsed, Meg had almost grown accustomed to the place, and
yet she had not seen its owner. She had at first begun every morning by
asking Mrs. Jarvis if there was a probability of her seeing Sir Malcolm
Loftdale during the course of the day, but the housekeeper on each
occasion had given an evasive answer, and Meg now asked no more. She
might have felt wounded at this breach of hospitality had not the
behavior of the servants precluded all idea of a slight being offered to
her. They paid her obsequious attention, they obeyed her slightest
expressed wish. She might have imagined herself the queen of the domain.
The solitude, the homage paid to her, the regard for her comfort,
reminded her of a fairy tale where the host remains unseen and the
heroine lives in splendor and isolation. She wondered often why her
benefactor kept himself thus sternly secluded. She began to think it
could not be the old gentleman she had seen in her childhood; why should
he avoid her? If it were a stranger was it because of some unsightly
physical affliction, some form of mental derangement? was it a brooding
melancholy that caused him morbidly to shrink from contact with
outsiders? A longing to be of comfort mingled with the curiosity she
felt concerning her mysterious host.
One late afternoon as she rambled in the park she saw, framed in by
trees as in a picture, the figure of a tall, slender, white-haired
gentleman walking toward her. She recognized him at once. It was the
mysterious stranger, twice met in her childhood. He held his head high.
What a head it was! There was an eagle cast of physiognomy, a chill
expression in the eyes, a hardness on the lips. He wore a country suit
and carried a heavy gold-headed stick; a diamond stud on a jeweled seal
caught the light and shone. These little details curiously impressed
themselves upon Meg. She stopped, asking herself if this was the master
of the house?
The stranger glanced toward her, lifted his hat, and with an old-world
salute passed on. Meg determined not to look after him; but she could
not resist the temptation, and turning round she saw him ascending the
steps of the house. On questioning the housekeeper, Meg found that the
picturesque old gentleman was Sir Malcolm Loftdale.
Next morning Meg was standing arranging some flowers in the window of
the little room she had chosen for her morning retreat--it looked out on
a pleasant side alley of the grounds in the center of which stood a sun
dial--when the door suddenly opened, and the gentleman she had seen in
the park on the previous evening entered unannounced. He did not advance
beyond the threshold, but he closed the door after him and kept one hand
on the handle. He did not extend the other in greeting.
At sight of him Meg's heart fluttered, and she acknowledged by a
flurried inclination of her head his stately bow.
He was handsomer than she had imagined him to be; but the light of his
stern blue eye remained cold, and there was a remoteness in the steady
glance that he fixed upon her.
"I beg you, Miss Beecham, to excuse me for not having welcomed you
before," he said in a voice of cold courtesy. "I trust you will forgive
me for exercising a privilege age is apt freely to indulge near
youth--that of following the usual routine of life. I am a solitary, my
life is organized for loneliness."
"You have been most kind, sir," muttered Meg, in a tumult of timidity.
"My servants have received strict orders to attend to your comfort. I
hope they have been attentive?"
"They have been very attentive," replied Meg.
"I fear the days may seem to drag heavily for you, Miss Beecham," the
old gentleman resumed, without a shadow of softening in the coldness of
his voice or the scrutiny of his glance. "I have thought--to relieve
their tedium--that you might like a horse. I will have one broken for
your use. There are pretty rides about."
"I do not know how to ride, sir," said Meg, touched and bewildered by
the thoughtfulness and repellent manner of her host.
"My old groom would teach you; he is a most trustworthy and respectable
man," said Sir Malcolm.
"Thank you sir," said Meg. Then with desperate courage, as her
benefactor seemed about to retire, she added breathlessly: "I should not
feel lonely, sir--not--if you would let me be with you a little--if you
would let me read for you, or do something for you. You have been so
good to me all those years."
The old gentleman bowed hastily; the expression of his cold glance
seemed to grow colder as he replied: "I assure you, Miss Beecham, you
need feel yourself under no obligation to me for what I have done. It is
very little."
"Little! It was everything to me!" said Meg hurriedly, her voice
trembling with restrained emotion. "You twice saved me from a wretched
fate. But for you, sir, as you told me on that evening you took me back
to school, I would have been as uncared for as a workhouse child."
"I wish, if you will allow me distinctly to state my wishes, that
allusion to the past be dropped between us. I can repeat only that you
are under no obligation," replied her host, his thin lips remaining
tense in their cruel firmness of line, his glance courteously repellent.
"When the case was pointed out to me it became my plain duty to do what
I did."
"I do not understand; I only know that if you had not been good to me I
should have been ignorant and homeless," answered Meg with reckless
iteration.
There was a pause, Sir Malcolm frowned, then he said with the same
impassible frigidity:
"If you choose, Miss Beecham, to consider that you are under a debt of
gratitude to me, allow me to say that you will express it in the manner
most agreeable to me by never referring to the subject."
Bowing once more with that impassible fineness of mien, the old
gentleman opened the door and disappeared.
Meg felt crushed as by some physical blow. The gratitude that she had
harbored in her heart till it was filled to bursting all those years was
thrown back upon it, and the pain stifled her. She realized her
loneliness as she never had realized it before. She wandered blindly out
into the park, and for the first time, in the heart of nature, she felt
like an outcast. She rebelled against the isolation to which her
benefactor would condemn her. It felt like an insult.
To be grateful to those who are good to us is a sacred right. He had no
authority to take from her this God-given privilege. After awhile she
grew calmer, but a melancholy fell over her such as she had never known.
Day succeeded day, and the intercourse between Meg and her host remained
but little changed. She watched him curiously whenever she had the
opportunity. She came to know his habits. A young man was closeted with
him for some hours every morning. Mrs. Jarvis told Meg he was Sir
Malcolm's secretary, and read the papers to him, as the baronet's
eyesight was beginning to fail. He had lodgings in the village.
Sir Malcolm rode out alone, walked alone, took his meals alone, spent
his evenings alone. Occasionally some elderly country squires called at
the house; but there was apparently no intimacy between the baronet and
his neighbors. Meg often watched her host wandering about the park;
there was an alley he haunted. As he paced backward and forward, his
hands behind his back, his tall figure, slender almost to gauntness,
clothed in the somewhat old-fashioned costume he affected, his white
hair shining like spun glass about his pale, high-featured face, she
thought he looked like a ghost which had stepped down out of one of the
pictures. Little by little she grew to feel an intense interest in that
stately specter.
Whenever they met Sir Malcolm was courteous and cold. Sometimes he
passed her by with that old-world salute; oftener he stopped to inquire
after her comfort, to offer with distant interest suggestions for her
amusement. He recommended her books to read; he once pointed out to her
the parts of the house to which historical interest was attached.
He attracted and repelled Meg. She was always in a fright when she was
near him. His glance withered every impulse to pass the distance he
imposed between them. A chill air seemed around him, as might be round
an iceberg. The look of power on his face, the suggestion his appearance
gave of a strong, self-contained personality, possessed for her the same
sort of fascination as the flash and iridescence of an iceberg that will
not melt. The interest Meg felt for her host kept pace with her fear.
She always connected that picture turned to the wall with his history
and his character. There it was always in presence, and yet under
apparently some black disgrace.
Away from Sir Malcolm, she would indulge a zeal to win his regard, to
conquer it. Watching his solitary pacings to and fro, a pity would fill
her heart for the lonely man who had been so good to her. In his
presence came the chill, checking every expression of emotion. Sometimes
when she met his glance she fancied her benefactor disliked her.
The sadness deepened upon Meg--the sadness of a sensitive nature
condemned to isolation. The inaction of her days wearied her. She looked
back with a touch of nostalgia on the busy schooldays, and mourned anew
for Elsie, who had allowed her to give love. Meg's pride also rebelled
against eating the bread of idleness under her benefactor's roof: that
gentle independence had grown a sort of second nature with her.
One morning she was aware of a certain flurry through the house. Mrs.
Jarvis told her that Sir Malcolm's secretary had been called away
suddenly to London on important family business, and that the master was
left with his papers alone.
Meg received the information in silence. For a few moments after the
housekeeper left she stood still, thinking. Once or twice she walked to
the room and came back irresolute. She at last went determinedly out of
the room and made her way to the library, where Sir Malcolm spent the
greater part of his time indoors.
She knocked, but scarcely waited for permission to open the door.
Walking swiftly in before he could recognize her, she stood by Sir
Malcolm's chair.
"I have come to ask if I may read to you, sir, in the absence of Mr.
Robinson?" she said in the smooth, quick voice of mastered timidity.
He looked up surprised, and rose.
"I could not accept it of you," he said with a bow.
"Why not?" she asked with breathless gentleness.
"Did Mrs. Jarvis suggest to you to come?" he said with a quick frown,
an evidence of irritation he suppressed at once.
"No," said Meg. "I heard Mr. Robinson had left, and I hoped that you
would let me take his place."
"That would be impossible. I would not lay such a tax upon any lady," he
said with courteous definiteness of accent and manner.
"Why will you not let me read to you?" asked Meg pleadingly.
"Because," he answered, with an attempt at lightness of tone that did
not yet take from its distance and firmness, "young ladies do not care
for politics, and politics alone interest me."
"They would interest me if I read them for you," said Meg with timid
persistence.
"Allow me to beg you to put into the balance against this plea the
argument that it would be disagreeable to me," Sir Malcolm replied, with
a directness the brutality of which was veiled by the stately tone of
dismissal in his voice and manner. "And the spirit that impelled you to
undertake the task would make it all the more painful."
As Meg did not answer he continued:
"Excuse the frankness of my refusal. I thank you, nevertheless, for the
offer."
He glanced toward the door, and as she moved away he advanced to open
it for her; but Meg paused on her way. Her spirit was up; the fear that
hitherto had quelled her before him fell from her. She had grown
suddenly irritated at his invincible coldness. She would expose herself
to no more rebuffs.
"May I ask you, sir, to be so kind as to spare me a moment? I have a
request to make."
"Certainly," he replied, turning back; he sat down and pointed to a
chair near his. But Meg remained standing.
Embarrassment, resolution kept her motionless with a touch of angular
rigidity in her pose. Her voice, unsteady at first, grew more controlled
as she went on:
"Before leaving school I had an offer of a situation as governess to
three young children. You were kind enough, sir, to ask me on a visit. I
thank you for the hospitality you have shown me. I think my visit must
now come to an end. With your permission I shall inquire if the place is
still vacant, and take it if it be."
"Why do you want to go, Miss Beecham?" said Sir Malcolm. "Are you not
comfortable here?"
"Comfortable, yes," said Meg. She paused as if hesitating, then she
added brusquely, "I do not think I care much for comfort."
There was something primitive, almost childish, in Meg's manner; but it
gave the impression of the strength rather than of the weakness of
childhood. It came with a freshness that was as the scent of the flower
rather than that of the toilet perfume.
Meg's mood seemed to pique the old gentleman; he looked curiously at
her, almost as if for the first time he recognized in her an
individuality.
"You do not care for comfort. That is a great source of independence,"
he observed.
"I wish to be independent," said Meg with gentle spirit.
"You are proud. It is a spirit that should be repressed," he answered.
"I do not know if I am proud," replied Meg, her low, feeling voice under
evident restraint. "I know it pains me to be here receiving everything,
giving nothing in return."
"What could you give?" he asked with a slight contraction of his hard
lips.
"I could give proofs of what I feel--gratitude," she said.
"I have explained I do not want gratitude," he replied with chill
distinctness. "I do not either wish to receive it or to inspire it."
"You cannot help my feeling it," Meg broke out with spirit and with a
vivid glance; "that is beyond your control. You may condemn me to
silence and to apparent apathy, but the gratitude is here all the same;
and because I cannot express it, it becomes a burden and hurts me."
There was a pause, during which Sir Malcolm continued to look at Meg
with that new look of curiosity, as if for the first time he recognized
her as a personality.
"Am I to understand," he said slowly, "that you wish to leave my house
because I do not care for any allusion to be made between us of the part
I have taken in defraying the cost of your education?"
Meg made a quick gesture. "Because you will let me do nothing for you,
and also because I want to be independent. I would never wish to leave
you if I could be of service to you--never; but as you will not let me,
I ask you to let me go and earn my own living."
Sir Malcolm bowed his head. "I understand; you do not wish to be
dependent upon me for your maintenance."
"No, sir."
"Suppose," resumed her host after a pause, "I were to feel disposed to
accept the offer you just now made to me, to replace Mr. Robinson during
his absence, would you allow me to do so?"
Meg gave an exclamation of acceptance.
[Illustration: MEG READS THE MORNING PAPERS TO SIR MALCOLM.--Page 255.]
"Understand me," said the old man with deliberate distinctness,
looking full at Meg. "It is a business proposal. I still maintain my
point. I do not want gratitude. If I accept your services, it is on the
condition that you will accept a remuneration."
Meg colored. For a moment she knit her brows, then she said with effort,
"I shall accept the chance of being of service to you under any
condition, sir, that you may name."
"So be it, then," said the baronet.
At a sign from him Meg sat down and took up the _Times_. "Where shall I
begin, sir?" she asked.
"With the first leader, if you please," he replied with an inclination
of the head, crossing his knees, and composing himself to listen.
Meg read, mastering her nervousness with a strong effort of will. Once
or twice she looked up and caught his eyes fixed upon her, with that new
curiosity in their glance that seemed to humanize their expression.
After she had read the _Times_, the political leaders of the _Standard_,
and selections from its foreign correspondence under Sir Malcolm's
directions, a third paper remained--the local organ apparently--the
_Greywolds Mercury_. At the murmured injunction of her auditor, "The
leader, if you please," Meg once more set upon her task.
The article handled a book upon the rights of property which had lately
appeared and was making a stir. As Meg read the opening paragraph her
voice faltered and hesitated. She was reading a fierce attack upon Sir
Malcolm Loftdale.
She looked up distressed and flurried. The old man set his jaw. "Go on,"
he said, and Meg continued. She could scarcely follow the drift of what
she read for sympathy with the pain she was inflicting upon her
benefactor. She confusedly gathered that Sir Malcolm had raised rents in
order to get rid of certain tenants on his estate; that the compensation
he gave his ejected cottagers might appear to justify the proceeding,
which nevertheless remained in the eyes of the writer of the article an
infamous cruelty.
"I think this will suffice for to-day, Miss Beecham," said the baronet,
when she had read to the end.
She rose as he spoke. She noticed he looked paler. "Is there no letter,
sir, that I can write for you?" asked Meg.
"None this morning, I thank you," he replied with that fine air of
dismissal which awed Meg. He preceded her to the door, and held it open
for her to pass out.