MARGARET roamed about the house, unable to take any comfort or find any. Jeanie found her crying in the long room when she went to remove the remains of the dinner; for John had a hundred things to do, and showed his excitement by an inability to keep to his ordinary work.
“Oh, Miss Margret, dinna be so cast down!” Jeanie said, with tender sympathy, brushing the tears from her own eyes.
“What can I be but cast down,” she cried, “when papa is— Oh, Jeanie, what does Bell say? Does Bell think he is—” Dying, the girl meant to say, but to pronounce the word was impossible to her.
“Oh, Miss Margret,” said Jeanie; “what does it matter what Bell says; how can she ken? and the doctor he says quite different—”
This was a betrayal of all that Margaret had feared; Bell, too, was then of the same opinion. The poor girl stole to the door of her father’s room, and stood there for a moment listening to the easy flow of Mrs. Bellingham’s dogmas, and Grace’s sigh of “Dearest papa!” and she heard him laugh, and say something in his own natural tone. Would he laugh if he were—dying?
“Come in, Miss Margret,” said John, coming through the dressing-room, this time with some extra pillows (for he might want to have his head higher, John thought).
“Oh, I cannot— I cannot bear it!” cried Margaret, turning away. He put his large old hand softly upon her arm.
“My bonnie leddy!” he said. He would not have said it, Margaret felt, if there had been any hope. Then she went out in her despair, restless, not knowing where to seek relief from the pain in her heart, which was so sore, and which could not be shaken off. She said to herself that she could not bear it. It was her first experience of the intolerable. The fine weather had broken which had so favored the drawing, and the wind was moaning about the old house, prophesying rain. With another pang in her heart—not that she was thinking of Rob, but only of the contrast between that light-heartedness and her present despair, she stumbled through the potato furrows, past the place where she had spent so many pleasant hours, thinking no evil—though the evil she remembered must have been in existence all the same—and made her way into the wood. There was shelter there, and no one would see her. The trees were all vocal with those sighings of melancholy cadence that are never long absent from the Scotch fir-woods. The wind came sweeping over them, with one great sigh after another, like the waves of the sea: and she sighed, too, in heaviness. Oh, if she could but sigh deep enough, like the wind, to get that burden off her breast! Margaret sat down on a damp knoll, with all the firs rising up round her like a congregation of shadows, and the wind sweeping with long complaint, sadder and sadder over their melancholy branches: and gazed at the gray old house through her tears. How different it had looked in the morning sunshine, with her father sitting among his books, and no evil near! All the color and light had gone out of it now; it was gray as death, pale, solemn—the old tower and gables rising against a sky scarcely less gray than they were, the trees swaying wildly about, the clouds rolling together in masses across the colorless sky.
It was not a time or a place to cheer any one. All the severity of aspect, which melts so completely out of a Scotch landscape with the shining of the sun, had come out in fullest force. The trees looked darker in their leafage, the house paler in its grayness, than houses and trees are anywhere else. But Margaret did not make any comparisons. She knew no landscape half so well. She was not disposed to find fault with it, or wish it more lovely. And for this moment she was not thinking of the landscape, but of what was going on in that room, where she could see a little glimmer of fire-light at the window. Both John and Bell thought it natural and seemly, when there was illness in the house, that there should be a fire. Dying! oh, the chill and mysterious terror of the word; lying there smiling, but soon, perhaps at any moment, Margaret thought, in her inexperience, to be gone out of reach, out of sight! he who had always been at hand to be appealed to in every difficulty, to be greeted morning and evening! he who was always smiling at her, “making a fool of her,” as she had so often complained. Perhaps there is no desolation so complete as the shrinking and gasp of the young soul when it first comes thus within sight, within realization, of death. If it had been she who had to die, Margaret would not have found it so hard. She would have been ineffably, childishly, consoled by the thought of the flowers with which she would be covered, and the weeping of “all the house,” and the broken hearts of those whom she would leave behind; but nothing of this comforted her now. For the first time in her life, misery took hold upon her—a thing that would not be shaken off, could not be staved aside. She sat at the foot of the big fir-tree, gazing with wide eyes at the gray old house which was like her father, who was dying. The tears gathered and fell, minute by minute, from her eyes, blinding her, then showing clearer than ever, as they fell, the old pale outline, the ruddy glimmer in that window where he was lying. Why did she not rush to him, to be with him every moment that remained? But she could not bear it. She could not go and watch for that coming. To have it over, to get through the unimaginable anguish anyhow, at any cost, seemed the best thing, the only thing that remained for her. She had not heard any one coming, being too much rapt in her own thoughts to pay attention to what was going on around her; and indeed the moaning of the trees and the sweep of the wind were enough to silence all other sounds.
Thus Margaret was taken entirety by surprise, when a well-known voice over her head suddenly addressed her.
“Miss Margaret!” Rob Glen said. He was greatly surprised and very glad, having heard of the arrival, which he feared would put a stop to the possibility of his visits. But then he added, in anxious tones, “What is the matter? you are crying. What has happened?” He thought, so miserable were her looks, that Sir Ludovic was dead, and it was with a natural impulse of tenderness and pity that the young man suddenly knelt down beside her and took her hand quietly between his own.
“Oh no,” said Margaret, with a sob; “not that, not yet! but they tell me—they tell me—” She could not go any farther for tears.
Rob did not say anything, but he put his lips to her hand, and looked anxiously in her face. Margaret could not look at him again—could not speak. She was blind and inarticulate with tears. She only knew that he wept too, and that seemed to make them one.
“Did you hear that?” she said; “is that what everybody says? I think it will kill me too!”
Rob Glen had no premeditated plan. His heart ached for her, so desolate, so young, under the moaning firs. He put his arm round her unconsciously, holding her fast.
“Oh, my poor darling!” he said, “my love! I would die to keep any trouble from you!”
Margaret was entirely overpowered with the sorrow and the sympathy. She leaned her head upon him unawares; she felt his arm support her, and that there was a vague comfort in it. She cried and sobbed without any attempt to restrain herself. No criticism was here, no formal consolations, nothing to make her remember that now she was a woman, and must not abandon herself like a child to her misery. He only wept with her, and after a while began to kiss her hair and her pale cheeks, murmuring over her, “My Margaret, my poor darling!” She did not hear or heed what he said. She was conscious of nothing but anguish, with a vague, faint relief in it, a lessening of the burden, a giving way of the iron band that had seemed to be about her heart.
When this passion of weeping was spent, the evening had fallen into dusk. The house had become grayer, paler than ever; the glimmer of the window more red; the trees about were like ghosts, looming indistinctly through the gloom; and Rob was kneeling by her with his arms round her, her head pillowed against him, his face close to hers. There did not seem anything strange in it to poor Margaret. He was very, very kind; he had wept, too, breaking his heart like her; it seemed all so natural, so simple. And she was a little relieved, a little consoled.
“Darling,” he was saying, “I don’t think it can be quite true. The doctor would not deceive me, and he did not say so. Who should know best—they who have just come, or we who have been here all the time? Oh, my sweet, don’t break your dear heart!—that would break mine too. I don’t think it can be so bad as they say.”
“Oh, do you think so? do you think there is any hope?” said Margaret.
This gave her strength to stir a little, to move from the warm shelter in which she found herself. But he kept her close to him with a gentle pressure of his arm.
“Yes, let us hope,” he said; “he is not so old, and he is not very ill. You told me he was not suffering—”
“No—he ought to know better than they do; he said he was not ill. Oh, I do not think it can be so bad,” said Margaret, raising herself up, “and you—don’t think so, Mr. Glen?”
“Do you call me Mr. Glen still?” he said, with his lips close to her ear. “Oh, my darling, don’t tempt me to wish harm to Sir Ludovic. If I may only comfort you when you are in trouble—if I am to be nothing to you when you are happy—”
“Oh!” said Margaret, with a deep sigh, “do you think I am happy yet? I am not quite so wretched, perhaps; but I shall never be happy till papa is out of danger, till he is well again, sitting in his chair with his books. Oh, you do not say anything now! You think that will never be—”
“And I working at my drawing,” he said. He did not want to deceive her, and his voice was husky; but he could not do other than humor her, whatever shape her fancy might take. “I finishing my drawing, and making it more like him; and my sweet Margaret sitting by me, not trying to escape from me: and her kind father giving us his blessing—”
“Oh,” Margaret cried, starting away from him, “it is quite dark, it is quite late, Mr. Glen.”
“Yes, darling,” he said, rising reluctantly, “I must take you in now; it is too cold and too late for you, though it has been better than the brightest day to me.”
“I thought you were sorry for me,” said Margaret. “I thought you were unhappy too. Oh, were you only glad because I was in trouble, Mr. Glen?”
There was a poignant tone of pain in the question which encouraged Rob. He caught her hand in his, and drew it through his arm and held her fast.
“You don’t know,” he said, “because you are so young, and love is new to you. You don’t know that a man can be happy in his worst misery if it brings him close, close to the girl he loves.”
Margaret did not say a word. She did not understand: but yet did not she feel, too, a vague bliss that overwhelmed her in the midst of her sorrow? The relief that had stolen over her, was it real hope, or only a vague sense that all must be well because something had come into her life which made her happy? She was willing to go with Rob, when he led her, the long way round, through the wood, and by the other side of the house. He did not want to be circumscribed in his good-night by the possible inspection of old John or Bell. “This is the best way for you,” he said, leading her very tenderly along the margin of the wood. All the way he talked to her in a whisper, saying, Margaret could not tell what, caressing words that were sweet, though she did not realize the meaning of them; nor did she in the least resist his “kindness.” She suffered him to hold her hand and kiss it, and call her all the tender names he could think of. It seemed all quite natural. She was half stunned by her sorrow, half intoxicated by this strange sweet opiate of tender reassurances and impassioned love. It did not occur to her to make any response, but neither did she repulse him. She trembled with the strangeness and the naturalness, the consolation, the tremor; but her mind was so much confused between pain and relief that she could not realize what this new thing was.
They had come round to the door in the court-yard wall, which was the chief entrance to the house, and here Rob reluctantly parted with her, saying a hundred good-byes, and venturing again, ere he let her go, to kiss her cheek. Margaret was much more startled now than she had been before, and made haste to draw her hands from his. Then she heard him utter a little sharp, short exclamation, and he tried to hold her back. But she was not thinking of spectators. She stepped on through the door-way, which was open, and came straight upon some one who was coming out. It did not occur to her to think that he had seen this parting, or what he had seen. She did not look at the stranger at all, but went on hurriedly into the court-yard. Rob had dropped her hand as if it had been a stone. This surprised her a little, but nothing else. Any necessity for concealment, any fear of being seen, had not entered into Margaret’s confused and troubled mind, troubled with more than grief now, with a kind of bewilderment, caused by this something new which had come upon her unawares, and which she did not understand.
The two young men stood together outside. There was no possibility of mistake, or chance that they might be unable to recognize each other. There had been a moment’s intense suspense, and then Randal Burnside, coming out from his evening inquiries after Sir Ludovic, had discovered, in spite of himself, the discomfited and abashed lover. Randal’s surprise was mingled with a momentary pang of disappointment and pain to think so young a creature as Margaret, and so sweet a creature, should have thus been found returning from a walk with, evidently, her lover, and capable of dalliance at such a moment, when her father was dying. It hurt his ideal sense of what was fit. He had scarcely renewed his childish acquaintance with her, and had no right to be disappointed. What did it matter to him whom she walked with, or what was the fashion of her wooing? But it wounded him to class this delicate Margaret with the village lasses and their “lads.” He tried not to look at the fellow, not to surprise her secret. Heaven knows, he had no desire to surprise anybody’s secret, much less such a vulgar one as this. But his eyes were quicker than his will, and he had seen Rob Glen before he was aware. This gave him a greater shock still. He stared with a kind of consternation, then gave his old acquaintance a hasty nod, and went on much disturbed, though why he should be disturbed he could not tell. She was nothing to him—why should he mind? Poor girl, she had been neglected; there had been no one to train her, to tell what a lady should do. But Randal felt vexed as if she had been his sister, that Margaret had not known by instinct how a lady should behave. He went on more quickly than usual to drive it out of his mind.
But Rob had the consciousness of guilt in him, and could not take it so lightly. He thought Randal would betray him; no doubt Randal had it in his power to betray him; and, on the whole, it might be better to guard the discovered secret by a confidence. He went hastily after the other, making his way among the trees; but he had called him two or three times before Randal could be got to stop. When at last he did so, he turned round with a half-angry “Well!” Randal did not want the confidence; he did not care to play the part of convenient friend to such a hero; he was angry to find himself in circumstances which obliged him to listen to an explanation. Rob came panting after him through the gathering dark.
“Mr. Burnside,” he said, breathless, “I must speak to you. I am sure you could not help seeing who it was that went in as you came out, or what was between her and me.” Rob could not help a movement of pride, a little dilation and expansion of his breast.
“I had no wish to notice anything, or any one,” Randal said; “pray believe me that I never pry into things which are no business of mine.”
“I am sure you are the soul of honor,” said Rob, “but it is better you should know the circumstances. Don’t think she had come out to meet me. She had been driven out by despair about her father, and I was in the wood by chance— I declare to you, by chance. I might have gone there to see the light in her window, that was all. But she did not come with any idea of meeting me.”
“This is quite unnecessary,” said Randal; “I expressed no opinion, and have no right to form one. I didn’t want to see, and I don’t want to know—”
“I perceive, however,” said Rob, “that you do not approve of me, and won’t approve of me; that you think I had no right to do what I have done, to speak to Mar—”
“Hold your tongue,” said Randal, savagely; “what do you mean by bringing in a lady’s name?”
Rob blushed to his very shoes; that he should have done a thing which evidently some private rule in that troublesome unwritten code of a gentleman, which it was so difficult to master in all its details, forbade, was worse to him than a crime. The annoyance with which he felt this took away his resentment at Randal’s tone.
“Of course you are right,” he said; “I made a mistake; but, Mr. Burnside, you must not judge us too harshly. We have been thrown in each other’s way all day long, and almost every day. They have allowed us to be together so much, that we were encouraged to go a little farther. And she was very unhappy,” he added, with a little tremor in his voice; “not to console her was beyond the strength of man.”
How Randal would have liked to pitch him over the hedge-row into a flourishing bed of nettles which he knew to be thereabout! But he restrained himself, and made a stiff bow instead.
“This is very interesting,” he said, “no doubt; but I fail to see what I have to do with it. It was not my fault that my coming was at so indiscreet a moment.”
“Then I may ask you not to betray us,” said Rob; “the circumstances are peculiar, as you will easily perceive. I should not wish—”
“Really this is doubly unnecessary,” said Randal, angrily; “I am not a gossip, nor would it occur to me to betray any one. Is not this enough?”
“I should have liked to take you into my confidence,” said Rob, “to ask your advice—”
“My advice? It could not be of much use.” But why should he be angry? Other love affairs had been confided to him, and he had not rejected the confidence; but this fellow was not his friend, and it was a dastardly thing to take advantage of a poor little girl in her trouble. “I am no more a judge than I am a gossip,” he said; “take my assurance that what I saw shall be precisely as if I had not seen it. Good-night,” he added, abruptly, turning on his heel. Rob found himself alone in the middle of the road, feeling somehow shrunken and small, he could not tell why. But presently there burst upon him the recollection, the realization of all that had happened, and Randal Burnside’s implied contempt (if it was not rather envy) ceased to affect him. He turned down the path across the fields where he had first met Margaret, in a kind of half-delirious triumph. He was “in love” too, and had that delight quite honestly, if also superficially, to fill up the measure of his happiness. To be in love with the girl who can make your fortune, who can set you above all slights and scorns, and give you all the good things the world contains—is not that the most astounding piece of good-fortune to a poor man? A mercenary courtship is always despicable; but to woo the girl whom you love, notwithstanding that she has the advantage of you in worldly goods, is permissible, nay, laudable, since it shows you to have a mind far above prejudice. Rob felt, too, that he had got this crowning gift of fortune in the most innocent and disinterested way. Had it been Jeanie whom he had met in trouble— Jeanie, who was but a poor servant-lass, and no heiress, and with whom he had been once in love, as he was now in love with Margaret—his tenderness would all have come back to him, and he would have exerted himself to console her in the self-same way. He would have done it by instinct, by nature, out of pure pity and affectionateness, and warm desire to make her happy, if he had not done so out of love. The weeping girl would have been irresistible to him. “And thus I won my Genevieve,” he said to himself, as he turned homeward in an intoxication of happiness. His success went to his head like wine. He could have danced, he could have sung, as he went along the darkling path through the fields. He had won his Margaret, the prettiest, the sweetest of all his loves. His heart was all aglow with the thought of her, and melting with tenderness over her tears and her grief. His beautiful little lady, Margaret! The others had been but essays in love. He did not forget them; not one of them but Rob had a kind thought for, and would have been kind to had occasion served, Jeanie among the rest. He did not suppose for a moment that it had ever occurred to him to marry Jeanie. She would have been as unsuitable a wife for a minister as for a prince. He had not meant very much one way or other; but he had been very fond of Jeanie, and she of him. He was very fond of her still; and if he had seen her cry would have been as ready to comfort her as if Margaret did not exist. But Margaret! Margaret was the queen of all. That white, soft, lady’s hand! Never any like it had lingered in Rob’s before. He was as happy as kings very seldom are, if all tales be true, and was no more ashamed of himself than if he had been a young monarch giving a throne to his chosen, as soon as he had got clear of Randal Burnside.