THE strangers made their salutations very briefly; as for Randal, he did not approach Margaret at all. He made her a somewhat stiff bow, which once more, in her simplicity, wounded her, though the sight of him was such a relief; but even the comfort she had in his presence was sadly neutralized by this apparent evidence that he did not think so charitably of her as she had hoped. Amidst all the pain and bewilderment of the moment, it was a pang the more to feel thus driven back upon herself by Randal’s disapproval. She gave him an anxious, questioning look, but he only bowed, looking beyond her at Rob Glen; and it was Mrs. Glen who hurried forward with demonstration to take and shake between both her own Margaret’s reluctant hand.
“Eh, but I’m glad to see you, Miss Margret!” Mrs. Glen said. “What a heat! I thought I would be melted, coming from the station, but a’s weel, now I’m safe here.”
“Will you forgive me, Miss Leslie,” said Randal, “if I ask leave to speak to Glen on business? I took the liberty of coming when I heard he was here. I should not have ventured to disturb you but for urgent business. Glen, I have heard of something that may be of great importance to you. Will you walk back with me to the station, and let me tell you what it is? I have not a moment to spare.”
“Na, na, ye’ll gang wi’ nobody to the station. How’s a’ with ye, Rob, my man?” cried Mrs. Glen; “you’re no going to leave me the first moment I’m here?”
Rob stood and gazed, first at one, then at the other. The conjunction did not seem to bode him any good, though he did not know how it could harm him. He looked at them as if they had dropped from the clouds, and a dull sense that his path was suddenly obstructed, and that he was being hemmed in by friends as well as by foes, came over him. “What do you want?” he said, hoarsely. The question was addressed chiefly to his mother, to whom he could relieve himself by a savage tone not to be endured by any stranger.
“Me?” said Mrs. Glen; “I want nothing but a kindly welcome from you and your bonnie young lady; that’s a’ I’m wanting. But I couldna trust yon intil a letter,” she added, in a lower tone—“I thought it was a great deal safer just to bring it myself.”
“But I,” said Randal, quickly, “have come upon business, Glen. Miss Leslie will excuse me for bringing it here, though I had not meant to do so. I have a very advantageous offer to tell you of. It was made to me, but it will suit you better. There is pleasant work and good pay, and a good opening. Could you not put off this happy meeting for a little, and listen to what I have to say?”
“Good pay, and a good opening? Rob, my man,” said Mrs. Glen, “leave you me with Miss Margret—we were aye real good friends—and listen like a good lad to what Mr. Randal says. A good opening, and good pay—eh! but you’re a kind lad when there’s good going no to keep it to yourself.”
“If Glen will not give me his attention, I may be tempted to keep it to myself,” said Randal, with a smile—“and there is not a moment to lose.” He had meant what he said when he pledged himself to serve her, to do anything for her that his power could reach. Nobody but himself knew what a sacrifice it was that he was prepared to make. And there was not a moment to lose. It was evident by the look of all parties, and by the unexplained appearance of Mrs. Glen, that the crisis was even more alarming, more urgent than he thought. The only thing he could do was to insist upon the prior urgency of his business. Could he but get Rob away! Randal knew that Margaret’s natural protectors were on the way to take charge of her: he made another anxious appeal. “Pardon me if I have no time for explanations or apologies,” he said; “you may see how important it is, when I have come from London to tell you of it. Glen, you ought not to neglect such an opportunity. Miss Leslie will excuse you—it may make your fortune. Won’t you come with me, and let me tell you? I can’t explain everything here—”
“Eh, Rob,” said Mrs. Glen, who had pressed forward anxiously to listen. “What’s half an hour, one way or another? I would gang with him, and I would hear what he’s got to say. We’re none so pressed for time, you and me. What’s half an hour? and me and your bonnie Miss Margret will have our cracks till ye come back. Gang away, my man, gang away!”
Rob stood undecided between them, looking from one to another, distrusting them all, even his mother. Why had she come here? They seemed all in a plot to get him away from this spot, where alone (he thought) he could insist upon his rights. “How did he know I was here?” he said, between his teeth.
As for Margaret, everything was in a confusion about her. She did not comprehend why Randal should stand there without a word to her, scarcely looking at her. Was this the way to serve her? And yet was it not for her sake that he was trying to take the other claimant—this too urgent suitor—away? As she stood there, passive, confused, and wondering, Margaret, standing with her face to the door, was the first to perceive, all at once detaching themselves from the background of the sky, two figures outside, whose appearance brought a climax to all the confusion within. In the pause within-doors, while they all waited to see what Rob would do, a brisk voice outside suddenly took up and occupied the silence:
“I think most likely they don’t expect us at all. You never can be sure of Grace. Her very letters go astray as other people’s letters never do. The post itself goes wrong with her. If they had expected me, they would have sent the carriage. But I declare, there are people in the hall! I wonder,” said Mrs. Bellingham, in a tone of wonder, not unmingled with indignation, “if they have been having visitors—visitors, Grace and Margaret, while I have been away?”
No one said a word. Randal, who had been standing with his back to the door, turned round hastily, and the others stood startled, not knowing what was about to happen, but with a consciousness that the end of all things was drawing near. Mrs. Bellingham marched in, with mingled curiosity and resolution in her face. She came in, as the head of a house had a right to come, into a place where very high jinks had been enacted in his or her absence. She looked curiously at Rob Glen and his mother, who faced her first, and said “Oh!” with a slight swing of her person—a half bow, a half courtesy, less of courtesy than suspicion; but Jean was always aware what was due to herself, and could not be rude. When the third stranger caught her eye, she gave way to a little outcry of genuine surprise—“You here, Randal Burnside!”
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “You must think it very strange; but I will explain everything to you afterward.”
“Oh, I am sure there is no need for explanations; your father’s son can never be unwelcome,” said Mrs. Bellingham, guardedly. “Well, Margaret, my dear, so this is you! I think either you or Grace might have thought of sending the carriage; but you have been having company, I see—where is Grace?”
“Oh, dearest Jean!” cried Miss Leslie, rushing forward, “to think that you should arrive like this without any one expecting you! And oh, dear Ludovic, you too! I am sure—”
“You have been having company, I see,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “I trust we are not interrupting anything. I will take a seat here for a little; I think it is the coolest place in the house. You had better ask your friends to take chairs, Grace.”
“Oh, dearest Jean, it is Mr. Glen, the clever artist, you know, who—but I don’t know the—the—” What should Miss Leslie have said? To call Mrs. Glen a lady was not practicable, and to call her a woman was evidently an offence against politeness. “I assure you,” she said in her sister’s ear, “I don’t know in the least who she is.”
Mrs. Bellingham sat down in the great chair which stood by the fireplace, a great old carved throne in black wood, which looked like a chief-justice’s at least. It was close to the door, and served to bar all exit. Sir Ludovic had come in a minute after her, and he had been engaged in greeting his little sister Margaret, and shaking hands with Randal Burnside, whom he was very glad to see, with a little surprise, but without arrière-pensée. But when the salutations were over he looked round him, and with a sudden, sharp exclamation, discovered Rob Glen by his side.
“Margaret,” he said at once, “you had better retire; my dear, you had better retire. I don’t think this is a place for you.”
“I beg your pardon, Ludovic,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “where her brother and her sisters are is just the right place for Margaret. I have not the pleasure of knowing the Miss Leslies’ friends—neither do you, I suppose; but Margaret will just remain, and I dare say everything will be cleared up. It is a very fine day,” Jean said, with a gracious attempt to conciliate everybody, “and very good for bringing on the hay.”
After this there was a slight pause again; but Mrs. Glen felt that this was a tribute to her own professional knowledge; and as no one else took up the rôle of reply, she came forward a step, with a little cough and clearing of her throat.
“England’s a great deal forwarder in that respeck than we are in our part of the world,” she said. “It’s no muckle mair than the spring season wi’ us, and here it’s perfit simmer. We’ll no be thinking o’ the hay for this month to come; but I wouldna wonder if it was near cutting here.”
Meanwhile, Sir Ludovic had gone up to Rob Glen in great agitation. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Why did you come here? I never thought you would have taken such a step as this. I gave you credit for more straightforwardness, more gentlemanly feeling—”
“There has been enough of this!” cried Rob. Exasperation is of kin to despair. Amidst all these bewildered faces looking at him, not one was friendly—not one looked at him as the future master of the house, as the man who was one day to be Margaret’s husband should have been looked at. And Margaret herself had no thought of standing by him. She had shrunk away from him into the background, as if she would have seized the opportunity to escape. “There has been enough of this,” he said; “I do not see any reason why I should put up with it. If I am here, it is because there is no other place in the world where I have so much right to be. I have come to claim my rights. Margaret can tell you what right I have to be here.”
“Margaret!” repeated Mrs. Bellingham, wondering, in her high-pitched voice.
“Glen!” cried Randal, interrupting him with nervous haste—“I told you I had an important proposal to make to you. When you know that I came down expressly to bring it, I think I might have your attention at least. Will you come with, me and hear what it is? I beg your pardon, Mrs. Bellingham; I do not want to interfere with any other explanation; but I came down on purpose, and Glen ought to give me an answer, while I have time to stay—”
“Eh, bide a moment, bide a moment, Mr. Randal; gie him but a half-hour’s grace,” cried Mrs. Glen. “Speak up, Rob, my bonnie man.”
Randal, though he felt his intervention useless, made one last effort. “I must have my answer at once,” he cried, impatient. “I tell you it is for your interest, Glen—”
“I don’t think, gentlemen,” said Sir Ludovic, “that this is a place to carry on an argument between yourselves, with which the ladies of this house, at least, have nothing to do.”
“If you will not come, I at least must go!” Randal cried, with great excitement. He gave her an anxious glance, which she did not even see, and threw up his hands with a gesture of despair. “I can do no good here,” he said.
Rob glared round upon them all—all looking at him—all hostile, he thought. He had it in his power, at least, to frighten these people who looked down upon him, who would think him not good enough to mate with them. He turned toward Margaret, who still stood behind him, trembling, and called out her name in a voice that made the hall ring.
“Margaret! it is you that have the first right to be consulted. Sir Ludovic, you know as well as I do that Margaret is pledged to be my wife.”
“His wife!” Mrs. Bellingham sat bolt-upright in her chair, and Miss Leslie, with a little shriek, ran to Margaret’s side, with the instinct of supporting what seemed to her the side of sentiment against tyranny. “Darling Margaret! lean upon me—let me support you; I will never forsake you!” she breathed, fervently, in her young sister’s ear.
“Silence!” cried Sir Ludovic; “how dare you, sir, make such a claim upon a young lady under age? If you had the feelings of a gentleman—”
At this moment. Mrs. Glen stepped forward to do battle for her son.
“You may think it fine manners, Sir Ludovic, to cast up to my Rob that he’s no a gentleman; but it doesna seem fine manners to me. Ay, that she is! troth-plighted till him, as I can bear witness, and by a document, my ladies and gentlemen, that ye’ll find to be good in law.”
“Mother, hold your tongue!” cried Rob. A suppressed fury was growing in him; he felt himself an alien among these people whom he was claiming to belong to, but of whom nobody belonged to him, except the mother, whose homeliness and inferiority was so very apparent to his eyes. He was growing hoarse with excitement and passion. “Sir Ludovic knows so well what my position is,” he said, with dry lips, “that he has asked me to give it up; he has tried before now to persuade me that I was required to prove myself a gentleman by giving it up. A gentleman! what does that mean?” cried Rob. “How many gentlemen would there be left if they were required to give up everything that is most dear to them, to prove the empty title? Do gentlemen sacrifice their interests and their hopes for nothing?—or do you count it honorable in a gentleman to abandon the woman he loves? If so, I am no gentleman, as you say. I will not give up Margaret. She chose me as much as I chose her. She is frightened, and you may force her into abandoning her betrothed and breaking her word. Women are fickle, and she is afraid of you all; but she is mine, and I will never give her up.”
“Margaret,” said Sir Ludovic, taking her hand and drawing her forward, “give this man his answer. Tell him you will have none of him. You may have been imprudent—”
“But she can be prudent now,” said Rob Glen, with a smile; “she can give up, now that she is rich, the man that loved her when she was poor. Margaret! yes, you can please them and leave me because I have nothing to offer you. They say such lessons are easily learned; but I would not have looked for it from you.”
Margaret stood in the centre, in face of them all, with her brain reeling and her heart wrung. She had a consciousness that Randal was there too, looking at her, which was a mistake, for he had left the hall hastily when his attempt was foiled; but all the others were round her, making a spectacle of her confusion, searching her with their eyes. What had she to do but to repeat the vehement denial which she had given to Rob himself not half an hour ago? She wrung her hands. The case was different: here he was alone, contending with them all for her. Her heart ached for him, though she shrank from him. She gave a low cry and hid her face in her hands: how could she desert him? how could she cast him off, when he stood thus alone?
“You see,” said Rob, triumphantly, with a wonderful sense of relief, “she will not cast me off as you bid her. She is mine. You will never be able to separate us if we are true to each other. Margaret, my darling, lift your sweet face and look at me. All the brothers in the world cannot separate us. Give me your hand, darling, for it is mine.”
“Stand off, sir!” cried Sir Ludovic, furious; and Mrs. Bellingham, coming down from her chair as from a throne, came and stood between them, putting out her hand to put the intruder away. Jean was all but speechless with wonder and rage. She put her other hand upon Margaret’s shoulder and pushed her from her, giving her a shake, as she did so, of irrepressible wrath. “What is the meaning of all this? Put those people out, Ludovic! put this strange woman, I tell you, to the door!”
“Put us out!” cried Mrs. Glen. “I’ll daur ye to do that at your peril! Look at what I’ve got here. I have come straight from my ain house to bring this, that has never left my hands since that frightened lassie there wrote it out. It’s her promise and vow before God, that is as good as marriage in Scots law, as everybody kens. Na, you’ll no get it out of my hands. There it is! You may look till you’re tired. You’ll find no cheatery here.”
“Did you write this, Margaret?” said her brother, in tones of awful judicial severity, as it seemed to her despairing ears. They all gathered round, with a murmur of excitement.
“Marriage in Scots law! good Lord, anything is marriage in Scots law,” Mrs. Bellingham said, under her breath, in a tone of horror. Grace burst out into a little scream of excitement, wringing her hands.
“Did you write this, Margaret?” still more solemnly Sir Ludovic asked again. Margaret uncovered her face. She looked at them all with her heart sinking. Here was the final moment that must seal her fate. It seemed to her that after she had made her confession there would be nothing for her to do but to go forth, away from all she cared for, with the two strangers who had her in their power. She clasped her hands together, and looked at the group, which was all blurred and indistinct in her eyes. She could not defend herself, or explain herself at such a moment, but breathed out from her very soul a dismal, reluctant, almost inaudible “Yes!” which seemed the very utterance of despair.
“Ay, my bonnie lady,” said Mrs. Glen, triumphant, “you never were the one to go against your ain act and deed. Me and my Rob, we ken you better than all your grand friends. Weel I kent that whatever they might say, you would never go against your ain hand of write.”
Rob had been standing passive all this time, with such a keen sense of the terror in Margaret’s eyes, and the contempt that lay under the serious trouble of the others, as stung him to the very centre of his being. The unworthiness of his own position, the bewildered misery of the girl whom he was persecuting, the seriousness of the crisis as shown by the troubled looks of the brother and sister who were bending their heads over the paper which his mother held out so triumphantly—all this smote the young man with a sudden, sharp perception. He was not of a mean nature altogether. The quick impulses which swayed him turned as often to generosity as to self-interest; and all this while there had been films about this pursuit of the young heiress which had partially deceived him as to its true nature.
What is there in the world more hard than to see ourselves as we appear to those on the other side? A sudden momentary overwhelming revelation of this came upon him now. He did not hear the whispers of “compromise it”—“offer him something—offer him any thing,” which Jean, utterly frightened, was pouring into her brother’s ear. He saw only the utter abandonment of misery in Margaret’s face, the vulgar triumph in his mother’s, the odious position in which he himself stood between them. In a moment his sudden resolution was taken: he pushed in roughly into the group, in passionate preoccupation, scarcely seeing them, and snatched the scrap of paper she held out of his mother’s hands. “Margaret!” he cried, loudly, in his excitement, “look here! and here! and here!” tearing it into a thousand fragments. He pushed his mother aside, who rushed with a shriek upon him to save them, and tossed the little white atoms into the air. “I asked for your love,” he said, his eyes moistening, his face glowing, “not for papers or promises. Give me that, or nothing at all.”
Sudden tears rushed to Margaret’s eyes; she did not know what had happened, but she felt that she was saved.
“Oh, Rob!” she cried, turning to him, putting out her hands.
Sir Ludovic sprang forward and took both these hands into his.
“Margaret, do you want to marry him?” he cried.
“Oh no, no, no; but anything else!” the girl said. “It was never he that did that. He was always kind—kinder than anybody in the world: I am his friend! Let me go, Ludovic! Rob,” she said, going up to him, giving him her hand, the tears dropping from her eyes, “not that; but I am your friend; I will always be your friend, whatever may happen, wherever we may be. I will never forget you, Rob. Good-bye! You are kind again, you are like yourself; you are my old Rob that always was my friend.”
Rob took her hands into his. He stooped over her and kissed her on the forehead: he would not give in without a demonstration of his power. Then he flung her hands away from him almost with violence, and turned to the door.
“It seems my fate never to be able to do what is best for myself,” he said, looking back with a wave of his hand and an irrepressible burst of self-assertion, as he turned and disappeared among the flowering bushes outside the open door.