THIS incident completed the painful process which was going on in Margaret’s mind. The little visionary link of kindness, tenderness, gratitude, which had existed between herself and Rob Glen had been really broken by the shock administered to her on the evening when she pledged herself to him forever; but she had never attempted to realize her feelings, or inquire into them—rather had been glad to forget them, to push away from her and postpone all consideration of the subject which all at once had become so painful, so full of difficulty and confusion. She had avoided even the idea of any communication with him. When Ludovic spoke to her of correspondence, it had seemed impossible that the pledge he asked for could be necessary, or that there should be any question of correspondence. She had never thought of it, never meant it. There was her promise against her which sometime or other must be redeemed. There was the fact that Rob had parted from her like a lover, a thing which it now made her blush hotly to recollect, but which then had seemed part of the confused strangeness of everything—a proof of his “kindness,” that kindness for which she had never been so grateful as she ought to have been. These were appalling certainties which overshadowed her life; but then, nothing could come of them for a long time, that was certain; three immense lifetimes of years stood between her and anything that could be done to her in consequence.
And how familiar we all become with the Damocles sword of an impending, but uncertain event!— Margaret had been able to escape for a long time, and had put all thought of it aside. But her mother’s story had recalled one aspect of her own, and here was another, bursting upon her distinct and vivid, which could not be pushed aside, which must be faced, and even explained. Heaven help her! She carried away the big drawing in her arms, her heart thumping against the card-board wildly with suffocating force, her head throbbing, her mind in the most violent commotion. Had there been nothing else, no doubt the sudden recalling of all her thoughts to her old home, without any warning, in a moment, must have had a certain effect upon her. Even Jean had fully acknowledged this. It was natural that she should feel it. But something much more agitating, something more even than the bewildering thought of all that had happened in the last few weeks of her stay at Earl’s-hall, came upon her with the first glimpse of the picture. Recollections rushed upon her like a torrent, recollections even more confusing, more painful than these. The drawing itself was a memorial of the time when there was no trouble at all involved, when Rob, newly discovered, was a curiosity and delight to the young creature in quest of something new, to whom he was a godsend; and this it was which suddenly came before her now.
There is no such anguish of retrospection as that with which the very young look back upon moments in which they feel they have made themselves ridiculous, and given their fellow-creatures an inferior, inadequate representation of them. This it was which overwhelmed Margaret now. She had acquired a little knowledge, if from nothing else, from the conversation of Mrs. Bellingham, which had modified her innocence. She had heard of girls who “flung themselves at the heads” of men. She had heard of those who gave too much “encouragement,” who “led on” reluctant wooers. This talk had passed lightly enough over her head, always full of dreams; but yet it had left a deposit as so much light talk does.
When first her eyes fell upon the picture, this was the thought that rushed upon her. Almost before the ready tear had formed which came at the sight of Earl’s-hall, before the quick pang of grief for the loss of all which the old house represented to her, before the sense of fatal bondage and entanglement which was her special burden, had time to make itself felt—came, with a flood of agony and shame, a realization of herself as she had been when Rob Glen had seated himself at the end of the potato field to make this drawing.
Other things that had happened to her had not involved any fault of hers; she did not even feel that she was seriously to blame for the forging of the chain that bound her—but this, this had been her own doing. She it was who had wooed him to Earl’s-hall; she had asked him to come, and to come again; she had persuaded him to a hundred things he never would have thought of by himself. But for her he would not have returned day by day, getting more and more familiar. When she rushed about everywhere for the things he wanted, when she admired everything he did with such passionate enthusiasm, when she could hang over his shoulder watching every line he drew, what had she been doing? “Flinging herself at his head,” “leading him on,” “encouraging him,” oh, and more than encouraging him! as Ludovic had said. This was worse even than the bondage in which it had resulted. Her face was covered with burning blushes; her soul overflowed with shame.
Oh, how well she recollected the ridiculous ardor with which she had taken up her old playfellow; the sense of some new delightful event which had come into her life when she met him, and discovered his sketches, and appropriated him, as it were, to her own amusement and pleasure! What a change he had made in the childish monotony and quiet! She remembered how she had brought him to the house, how she had coaxed her father for him, how she had fluttered about him as he sat there beginning his drawing. If he said he wanted anything, how she flew to get it. How she watched every line over his shoulder; how she praised him with all simple sincerity. (Margaret still thought the picture beautiful, more beautiful than anything she had ever seen.) She seemed to see herself, oh, so over-eager, over-bold, unmaidenly! Was it wonderful that he should think her ready to do everything he asked her—ready to make any sacrifice, to separate herself from all belonging to her for his sake?
There is always a certain consolation, a certain power which upholds and supports, in the consciousness of suffering for something which is not one’s own fault. To have been the victim of some wonderful combination of circumstances, to have been caught in some snare, which all your skill was not able to elude, that is far from being the worst that can befall any one. But to see in your conduct the germ of all your sufferings, to perceive how you have yourself led lightly up, dancing and singing, to the precipice over which you are about to be pitched—this is the most appalling ordeal of all. Margaret grew hot all over, with a blush that tingled to her finger points, and seemed to scorch her from head to foot. Whose fault was it, all the self-betrayal that followed, the horrible bond that bound her soul, and which she did not even venture to think of; whose fault was it but her own?
“Margaret, dear Margaret, dearest Jean has sent me to ask, are you not coming down-stairs again? We all feel for you, darling—and oh, do you think it is nothing to us? Dear Jean puts great force upon herself, she has such a strong will, and commands it; but we all feel the same. Oh, what a beautiful picture it is! What a dear, dear old house! How it brings back our youth, and dearest, dearest papa!”
Miss Leslie put her nose to the picture as if she would have kissed it. She felt in the depths of her artless soul that this was her duty to old Sir Ludovic, of whom poor Grace had known little enough for twenty years before. The tear came quite easily, which she dried with her white handkerchief, pressing it to her eyes. Not for anything in the world would she have failed of this duty to her dearest papa. Jean thought chiefly of crape, and was content with that way of expressing her sentiments; but within the first year, within, indeed, the first six months, to mention her father without the tear he had a right to, would have been to Grace a cruel dereliction from natural duty. After a twelve-month, when the family put off crape, it would no doubt cease to be necessary—though always, she felt, a right thing—to pay that tribute of tears.
Margaret stood by, and looked on with a dreary helplessness. She had no tears for her father, no room for him even in her overladen and guilty soul. And this she felt acutely, with a pang the more, feeling as if all love had died out of her heart, and nothing but darkness and confusion, and ingratitude and insensibility, was in her and about her. She took up the picture with a slight shudder, as she touched it, and put it away in the corner where hung the faded portrait of her mother’s young lover.
This touch of contact with the story of one who had gone before her, whom somehow—she scarcely knew how—she could not help identifying with herself, gave her a little fanciful consolation. Margaret did not long, as so many girls have done, to have a mother to flee to, and in whom to confide all her troubles; but it seemed to her, in some confused way, that it must have been but a previous chapter in her own life, which had passed under this same roof, in this same house, twenty years ago. She seemed almost dimly to recollect it, as she recollected (but far more vividly) that time of folly in which she had “encouraged” and “led on” Rob Glen.
It was better for her to obey Jean’s call, to go down-stairs and try to forget it all, for a moment, than to stay here and drive herself wild, wondering what he might do next, and what, oh what! it would be necessary for her to do. Grace, who was a little disappointed not to find her dissolved in tears, recommended that she should bathe her eyes, and brought her some water, and took a great deal of pains to obliterate the traces of weeping which did not exist. She tucked Margaret’s hand under her arm, and patted it and held it fast.
“My poor darling!” she said, cooing over the unresponsive girl. Jean, too, who was not given to much exhibition of feeling, received her, when she came back, with something like tenderness.
“Put a chair for Margaret by the fire, Aubrey,” she said, “the child will be cold coming through all those passages; that is the worst of an old house, there are so many passages, and a draught in every one of them. I would not say a word against old houses, which are of course all the fashion, and very picturesque, and all that; but I must say I think you suffer from draughts. And what good is the fireplace in the hall? the heat all goes up that big chimney. It does not come into the house at all. I would like hot-water pipes, but they are a great expense, and of course you would all tell me they were out of keeping. So is gas out of keeping. Oh, you need not cry out; I don’t mean in the drawing-room, of course, which is a thing only done in Scotland, and quite out of the question; but to wander about those passages in the dark, and never to stir a step without a candle in your hand! I think it a great trouble, I must allow.”
“Your ancestral home, Miss Leslie,” said Mr. St. John, who had secured a place in front of the fire, “must be a true mediæval monument. I am very much interested in domestic architecture. And so I am sure you must be, familiar with two such houses—”
“People who possess old houses seldom care for them,” said Aubrey, taking up a position on the other side. “You know what my aunt says about gas and hot-water pipes. Tell me,” he said, half whispering, stooping over her, to the great indignation of the clergyman, “what I must call you. I must reserve the endearing title of aunt for the family circle, but I can’t say Miss Leslie, you knew, for you are not Miss Leslie; and Margaret, tout court, would be a presumption.”
“Everybody calls me Margaret,” she said.
“That man did at Killin. I felt disposed to pitch him into the loch when I heard him; but probably,” said Aubrey, laughing, “there might have been two words to that, don’t you think? Perhaps, if it had come to a struggle, it would have been I who was most likely to taste the waters of the loch.”
“Oh, Randal is very good-natured,” said Margaret, making an effort to recover herself, “and perhaps he would not have known what you meant if you had spoken about a loch. I never saw this house till just a little while ago,” she added to Mr. St. John, anxious to be civil. “I never was out of Fife.”
“And the Northern architecture is different from ours; more rude, is it not? I have heard that people often get confused, and attach an earlier date to a building than it really has any right to.”
“It is kind of you to say the man at Killin was good-natured,” said Aubrey, on the other side; “of course, you think I would not have given him much trouble. It seemed to me that everybody showed an extraordinary amount of confidence in that man at Killin. He pretended to be fishing, but he never fished. I suspect his fishing related to—who shall we say—your little cousin? Nay, I am making a mistake again; I always forget that you belong to the previous generation—your niece.”
“Effie!” cried Margaret, completely roused, so great was her surprise. “Oh! but it was always—it was never—Effie—” Here she made a pause, bewildered, and caught Mr. St. John’s eye. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she cried, with a sudden blush; “I—don’t know about architecture. I have not had—very much education,” she answered, looking piteously at her sisters for aid.
“Oh, dearest Jean! I think I must really go and tell Mr. St. John—”
“Hold your tongue!” said Mrs. Bellingham, holding her sister fast by her dress; “let the child make it out for herself. Do you think they mind about her education? Who cares for education? Men always like a girl to know nothing. Just keep out of the way and stop meddling.”
This aside was inaudible to the group round the fire; though Mr. St. John’s admirable enunciation made all he said quite distinct to them, and Mrs. Bellingham’s sharp ears were very conscious of Aubrey’s whispering—which was ill-bred, but of no effect—on the other side of Margaret’s chair.
Mr. St. John gave a little laugh of respectful derision and flattery.
“In the present age of learned ladies it is quite a relief to hear such a statement,” he said, “though I should not like to trust in your want of education. But this country is very rich architecturally, and I should be delighted to offer my humble services as cicerone. I should like to convert you to the pure English Elizabethan—”
“It must have been Miss Effie,” said Aubrey; “who else? for Aunt Grace, though charming— And it stands to reason that a man who says he has gone to a certain place for fishing, yet never touches a rod, must have ulterior motives. And Aunt Jean is of opinion that these two would make a very pretty pair.”
Why Aubrey said this it would be hard to tell; whether from malice, as meaning to prick her into annoyance, or whether out of simple mischief, anyhow it roused Margaret.
“Oh, I do not know if Jean would care— I am sure you are—very kind,” she said, vacantly, to Mr. St. John; then more rapidly to the other hand: “I am almost sure you are mistaken. Neither Jean nor Effie knew Randal—that is, to call knowing; he was—quite a stranger. I don’t think he knew Effie at all.”
“These are just the most favorable circumstances for a flirtation,” said Aubrey; “but look, they are all on the alert, and Aunt Jean is making signs to me. It is evident they mean you to talk to him, not me. When he goes away, let us return to Miss Effie and the man at Killin.”
“Oh, I don’t want to talk about them!” cried Margaret—here at least there was nothing to make her shrink from Jean’s inspection; she said this quite out loud, so that all the company heard. Because she had one thing to conceal, was it not natural that she should take particular pains to show that there was nothing to conceal? She did not want any one to whisper to her. And there was besides, there could be no doubt, a certain tone of pique and provoked annoyance in Margaret’s voice.
“I was saying,” said Mr. St. John, mildly, “that in our own church there is a great deal that is interesting; and if you would allow me to take you over it some day, you and Mrs. Bellingham or Miss Leslie, I should not despair of interesting you. Besides, there are so many of your ancestors commemorated there. I hope we may succeed in making your mother-country very interesting to you,” he said, lowering his tone. It was a great relief to the young clergyman when “that fellow” went away from the heiress’s side.
“Oh, I like it very well,” Margaret said.
“But I am very ambitious, Miss Leslie; very well is indifferent. I want you to like it more than that; I want you to love it, to prefer it to the other,” he said, with fervor in his voice. “And now I must say good-night.” He held out his hand bending toward her, and Margaret, looking up, caught his eye: she gave a little start, and shrank backward at the very moment of giving him her hand. Why should he look like that—like him whom she was so anxious to forget? She dropped his hand almost before she touched it, in the nervous tremor which came over her. Why should he look like Rob Glen? Was he in the conspiracy against her to make her remember? She could scarcely keep in a little cry which rose to her lips in her sudden pain. Poor Mr. St. John! anything farther from his mind than to make her think of any other suitor could not be. But Mrs. Bellingham, who was more clear-sighted, saw the look, and put an interpretation upon it of a different kind. When Mr. St. John had gone, attended to the door by Aubrey at his aunt’s earnest request, Mrs. Bellingham came and placed herself where Mr. St. John had been, in front of the fire.
“That man,” she said, solemnly, when he was gone, “is after Margaret too. Oh! you need not make such signs to me, Grace; I know perfectly well what I am saying. I never would speak about lovers to girls in an ordinary way; the monkeys find out all that for themselves quite fast enough—do you think there is anything that I could teach Effie on that point? But Margaret’s is a peculiar case: she ought to know how to distinguish those who are sincere—she ought to know that it is not entirely for herself that men make those eyes at her. Oh, I saw him very well; I perceived what he meant by it. You have a very nice fortune, my dear, and a very nice house, and you will have to pay the penalty like others. You will very soon know the signs as well as I do; and I can tell you that that man is after you too.”
“Dearest Jean!” said Grace, “he may be a little High-Church, more high than I approve, but he is a very nice young man. Whom could Margaret have better than a good, nice-looking, young clergyman? They are more domestic and more at home, and more with their wives—”
“Fiddle-faddling eternally in a drawing-room,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “always in a woman’s way wherever she turns. No, my dear, whoever you marry, Margaret, don’t marry a clergyman; a man like that always purring about the fireside would drive me mad in a month.”
“Is it St. John who is in question?” said Aubrey, coming back. “Was he provided for my amusement? or is he daily bread at the Grange already? I don’t see how so pretty-behaved a person could drive any one mad; he is a great deal safer than your last protégé, the man at Killin.”
“I don’t mean to discuss such questions with you, Aubrey,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “it is late, and I think if you will light our candles for us, we will say good-night. And I will go with you, Margaret, and look at that picture again; it was a very pretty picture. I must have it framed for you; there is a place in the wainscot parlor where it would hang very well. Who did you say sent it to you? or did you tell me? I did not know that there ever was anybody at Earl’s-hall that could draw so well.”
“Dear Jean,” said Grace, thinking it a good opportunity to appear in Margaret’s defence, “let her alone, let the poor child alone to-night; she is too tired for anything. Are you not too tired, darling Margaret? I am sure you want to go to bed.”
“I hope I know better than to overtire her,” said Jean, with some offence; “there is no need for you to come, Grace. Where have you put the picture, Margaret? Why, you have put it with its face to the wall! Is that to save it from the dust, or because you don’t like to see it? My dear, I don’t want to be unkind, but this is really carrying things too far. You don’t mean to say you have taken a dislike to Earl’s-hall?”
“No,” Margaret said, under her breath; though it seemed to her that to look at the picture again was more than she could bear.
“And it is a very pretty picture,” said Jean, turning it round and sitting down on the sofa to look at it—“a very pretty picture! By-and-by you will be very glad to have it. And who was it you said did it? I never thought Randal Burnside was an artist. Perhaps he got one of the people to do it who are always at Sir Claude’s. But, my dear, if that is so, I can’t let you take a present from a young man like Randal Burnside.”
“It was not Randal”— Margaret was eager to clear him: “he never sent me anything in a present; he would not think of me at all. It was—once when he came to make a picture of papa, which is beautiful— He was a young man from the farm.”
“A young man from the farm!”
“Rob Glen,” said Margaret, almost choked, yet forcing herself to speak. “Papa said he might do it. I did not know anything about it, but I suppose he must have finished it; and here it is.” It seemed a simple statement enough, if she had not been so breathless, and changed color so continually, and looked so haggard about the eyes.
Mrs. Bellingham heard this account with a blank face.
“Rob Glen!” she said; “Rob Glen! where have I heard the name before? Was it the servants at Earl’s-hall, or was it Ludovic, or—who was it? Papa said he might do it? Dear me! papa might have known better, Margaret, though I am sure I don’t want to blame him. It will have to be paid for, I suppose; and how very strange it should have been sent like this, without a word! He will send a bill, most likely. How strange I should not have heard anything about this artist! Was there any price mentioned that you remember, Margaret? They ask such sums of money for one of those trifling sketches. It is nice enough, but I am sure it is not worth the half of what we shall have to give for it. When there is no bargain made beforehand, it is astonishing the charges they will make; and papa really had no money for such nonsense: he ought not to have ordered it; but perhaps he thought it would be a gratification to you. Can you remember at all, Margaret, if anything was said about the price?”
“Oh no, no—there was to be no price. It was not like that. He asked to do it, and papa let him do it. Nobody thought of any money.”
“But, my dear!” said Jean—“my dear! you are a little simpleton; but you could not think, I hope, of taking the man’s work and giving him nothing for it? That is out of the question—quite out of the question. I never heard of such a thing,” said Mrs. Bellingham. The words seemed to penetrate through all Margaret’s being. She trembled, notwithstanding all her efforts to control herself. What could she reply? Take a man’s work and give him nothing for it; but it was not money that Rob would take.
“Of course it could not be expected that you should know anything of business,” said Jean, “and poor papa was already feeling ill, perhaps, and out of his ordinary way. I dare say a letter will come by the next post to explain it. And if not, you must give me the young man’s address, and I will write and ask, or we might send word to Ludovic. Aubrey is a very good judge of such things; we can ask Aubrey to-morrow what he thinks the value should be. Now, Margaret, you are trembling from head to foot—you are as white as a sheet; you have a nervous look about your eyes that it always frightens me to see. My dear, what is to become of you,” cried Jean, “if you let every little thing upset you? It was in the course of nature that we should lose papa—he was an old man; and, I believe, though he was never a man who talked much about religion, that he was well prepared. And as for Earl’s-hall, you would not grudge that to Ludovic? It is his right as the only son. It shows great weakness, my dear, both of body and mind, that you should be upset like this only by a picture of Earl’s-hall.”
Margaret listened with all that struggle of conflicting feelings which produces hysteria in people unused to control themselves. The choking in the throat, the burning of those unshed tears about her eyes, the trouble in her heart, was more than she could bear. She could not make any reply. She could not even see her sister’s face; the room reeled round with her; everything grew dark. To save her balance, she threw herself suddenly upon the firm figure before her, clutching at Jean’s support, throwing her arms round her with a movement of desperation. Few people had ever clung wildly to Mrs. Bellingham in moments of insufferable emotion. She was quite overcome by this involuntary appeal to her. She took her young sister into her arms, all unconscious of the cause of her misery, and caressed and soothed her, and stayed by her till she had calmed down, and was able to escape from her trouble in bed. Jean believed in bed as a cure for most evils.
“You must not give way,” she said—“indeed, my dear, you must not give way; but a good night’s sleep will be the best thing for you; lie still and rest.”
“What a tender-hearted thing it is!” she said, going down-stairs again for a last word with Aubrey, after this agitating task was over. “I declare she has quite upset me, too; though it is scarcely possible, after being so long away from home, that I could feel as she does. She is a great deal too feeling for her own comfort. But, Aubrey, you must not lose your time, my dear boy; you must push on. It would be the greatest ‘divert’ to her, as they say in Scotland, if you could only get her to fall in love with you. I have the greatest confidence in falling in love.”
“And so have I—when they will do it,” said Aubrey, puffing out a long plume of smoke from his cigar.