THE relations between Harry Thornleigh and Margaret had never come to any distinct explanation. They had known each other not much more than a fortnight, which was quite reason enough, on Margaret’s side, at least, for holding back all explanation, and discouraging rather than helping on the too eager young lover.
During all the time of Edgar’s absence, it would be useless to deny that Harry’s devotion suggested very clearly to the penniless young widow, the poor doctor’s sister, such an advancement in life as might well have turned any woman’s head. She who had nothing, who had to make a hard light to get the ends to meet for the doctor and herself, who had for years exercised all the shifts of genteel poverty, and who, before that, had been trained to a homely life anything but genteel—had suddenly set open to her the gates of that paradise of wealth, and rank, and luxury, which is all the more ecstatic to the poor for being unknown. She, too, might “ride in her carriage,” might wear diamonds, might go to Court, might live familiarly with the great people of the land, like Lady Mary; she who had been bred at the Castle Farm on Loch Arroch, and had known what it was to “supper the beasts,” and milk the kye; she who had not disdained the household work of her own little house, in the days of the poor young Glasgow clerk whom she had married. There had been some natural taste for elegance in the brother and sister, both handsome young people, which had developed into gentility by reason of his profession, and their escape from all the associations of home, where no one could have been deceived as to their natural position. But Dr. Charles had made no money anywhere; he had nothing but debts; though from the moment when he had taken his beautiful sister to be his housekeeper and companion, he had gradually risen in pretension and aim. Their transfer to England, a step which always sounds very grand in homely Scotch ears, had somehow dazzled the whole kith and kin. Even Robert Campbell, at Loch Arroch Head, had been induced to draw his cautious purse, and contribute to this new establishment. And now the first fruits of the venture hung golden on the bough—Margaret had but to put forth her hand and pluck them; nay, she had but to be passive, and receive them in her lap. She had held Harry back from a premature declaration of his sentiments, but she had done this so sweetly that Harry had been but more and more closely enveloped in her toils; and she had made up her mind that his passion was to be allowed to ripen, and that finally she would accept him, and reign like a princess, and live like Lady Mary, surrounded by all the luxuries which were sweet to her soul.
It is not necessary, because one is born poor, that one should like the conditions of that lowly estate, or have no taste for better things. On the contrary, Margaret was born with a love of all that was soft, and warm, and easy, and luxurious. She loved these things and prized them; she felt it in her to be a great lady; her gentle mind was such that she would have made an excellent princess, all the more sweet, gracious, and good the less she was crossed, and the more she had her own way.
I am disposed to think, for my own part, that for every individual who is mellowed and softened by adversity, there are at least ten in the world whom prosperity would mollify and bring to perfection; but then that latter process of development is more difficult to attain to. Margaret felt that it was within her reach. She would have done nothing unwomanly to secure her lover; nay, has it not been already said that she had made up her mind to be doubly prudent, and to put it in no one’s power to say that she had “given him encouragement?” But with that modest reserve, she had made up her mind to Harry’s happiness and her own. In her heart she had already consented, and regarded the bargain as concluded. She would have made him a very sweet wife, and Harry would have been happy. No doubt he was sufficiently a man of the world to have felt a sharp twinge sometimes, when his wife’s family was brought in question; but he thought nothing of that in his hot love, and I believe she would have made him so good a wife, and been so sweet to Harry, that this drawback would have detracted very little from his happiness.
So things were going on, ripening pleasantly towards a dénouement which could not be very far off, when that unlucky letter arrived from Loch Arroch, touching the re-appearance of Jeanie’s brother, the lost sailor, who had been Margaret’s first love. This letter upset her, poor soul, amid all her plans and hopes. If it had not, however, unluckily happened that the arrival of Edgar coincided with her receipt of the letter, and that both together were followed by the expedition to Loch Arroch, to the grandmother’s deathbed, I believe the sailor’s return would only have caused a little tremulousness in Margaret’s resolution, a momentary shadow upon her sweet reception of Harry, but that nothing more would have followed, and all would have gone well. Dear reader, forgive me if I say all would have gone well; for, to tell the truth, though it was so much against Edgar’s interests, and though it partook of the character of a mercenary match, and of everything that is most repugnant to romance, I cannot help feeling a little pang of regret that any untoward accident should have come in Margaret’s way. Probably the infusion of her good, wholesome Scotch blood, her good sense, and her unusual beauty, would have done a great deal more good to the Thornleigh race than a Right Honourable grandfather; and she would have made such a lovely great lady, and would have enjoyed her greatness so much (far more than any Lady Mary ever could enjoy it), and been so good a wife, and so sweet a mother! That she should give up all this at the first returning thrill of an old love, is perhaps very much more poetical and elevating; but I who write am not so young or so romantic as I once was, and I confess that I look upon the interruption of the story, which was so clearly tending towards another end, with a great deal of regret. Even Edgar, when he found her ready to accompany him to Scotland, felt a certain excitement which was not unmingled with regret. He felt by instinct that Harry’s hopes were over, and this thought gave him a great sense of personal comfort and relief. It chased away the difficulties out of his own way; but at the same time he could not but ask himself what was the inducement for which she was throwing away all the advantages that Harry Thornleigh could give her?—the love of a rough sailor, captain at the best, of a merchant-ship, who had been so little thoughtful of his friends as to leave them three or four years without any news of him, and who probably loved her no longer, if he had ever loved her. It was all to Edgar’s advantage that she should come away at this crisis, and what was it to him if she threw her life away for a fancy? But Edgar had never been in the way of thinking of himself only, and the mingled feelings in his mind found utterance in a vague warning. He did not know either her or her circumstances well enough to venture upon more plain speech.
“Do you think you are right to leave your brother just at this moment, when he is settling down?” Edgar said.
A little cloud rose upon Margaret’s face. Did not she know better than anyone how foolish it was?
“Ah!” she said, “but if granny is dying, as they say, I must see her,” and the ready tears sprung to her eyes.
Edgar was so touched by her looks, that, though it was dreadfully against his own interest, he tried again.
“Of all the women in the world,” he said, “she is the most considerate, the most understanding. It is a long and an expensive journey, and your life, she would say, is of more importance than her dying.”
He ventured to look her in the face as he spoke these words, and Margaret grew crimson under his gaze.
“I do not see how it can affect my life, if I am away for a week or two,” she said lightly, yet with a tone which showed him that her mind was made up. Perhaps he thought she was prudently retiring to be quit of Harry—perhaps withdrawing from a position which became untenable; or why might it not be pure gratitude and love to the only mother she had known in her life? Anyhow, whatever might be the reason, there was no more to be said.
I will not attempt to describe the feelings of Harry Thornleigh, when he found that Margaret had gone away, and gone with Edgar. He came back to Lady Mary raving and white with rage, to pour out upon her the first outburst of his passion.
“The villain!—the traitor!—the low, sneaking rascal!” Harry cried, foaming. “He has made a catspaw of Gussy and a fool of me. We might have known it was all a lie and pretence. He has carried her off under our very eyes.”
Even Lady Mary was staggered, strong as was her faith in Edgar; and Harry left her doubtful, and not knowing what to make of so strange a story, and rushed up to town, to carry war and devastation into his innocent family. He went to Berkeley Square, and flung open the door of the morning-room, where they were all seated, and threw himself among them like a thunderbolt. Gussy had received Edgar’s note a little while before, and she had been musing over it, pensive, not quite happy, not quite pleased, and saying to herself how very wrong and how very foolish she was. Of course, if his old mother were dying, he must go to her—he had no choice; but Gussy, after waiting so long for him, and proving herself so exceptionally faithful, felt that she had a certain right to Edgar’s company now, and to have him by her side, all the more that Lady Augusta had protested that she did not think it would be right to permit it in the unsettled state of his circumstances, and of the engagement generally. To have your mother hesitate, and declare that she does not think she ought to admit him, and then to have your lover abstain from asking admission, is hard upon a girl. Lord Granton (though, to be sure, he was a very young man, with nothing to do) was dangling constantly about little Mary; and Gussy felt that Edgar’s many businesses, which led him here, and led him there, altogether out of her way, were inopportune, to say the least.
Harry assailed his mother fiercely, without breath or pause. He accused her of sending “that fellow” down to Tottenham’s, on purpose to interfere with him, to be a spy upon him, to ruin all his hopes.
“I have seen a change since ever he came!” he cried wildly. “If it is your doing, mother, I will never forgive you! Don’t think I am the sort of man to take such a thing without resenting it! When you see me going to the devil, you will know whose fault it is. Her fault?—no, she has been deceived. You have sent that fellow down upon her with his devilish tongue, to persuade her and delude her. It is he that has taken her away. No, it is not her fault, it is your fault!” cried Harry. “I should have grown a good man. I should have given up everything she did not like; and now you have made up some devilish conspiracy, and you have taken her away.”
“Harry, do you remember that you are talking to your mother?” cried Lady Augusta, with trembling lips.
“My mother! A mother helps one, loves one, makes things easy for one!” he cried. “That’s the ordinary view. Excuses you, and does her best for you, not her worst; when you take up your rôle as you ought, I’ll take mine. But since you’ve set your mind on thwarting, deceiving, injuring me in my best hopes!” cried Harry, white with rage, “stealing from me the blessing I had almost got, that I would have got, had you stopped your d——d interference!”
His voice broke here; he had not meant to go so far. As a gentleman at least, he ought, he knew, to use no oath to ladies; but poor Harry was beside himself. He stopped short, half-appalled, half-satisfied that he had spoken his mind.
“Harry, how dare you?” cried Gussy, facing him. “Do you not see how you are wounding mamma? Has there ever been a time when she has not stood up for you? And now because she is grieved to think that you are going to ruin yourself, unwilling that you should throw yourself away——”
“All this comes beautifully from you!” cried Harry, with a sneer—“you who have never thought of throwing yourself away. But I am sorry for you, Gussy. I don’t triumph over you. You have been taken in, poor girl, the worst of the two!”
Gussy was shaken for the moment by his change of tone, by his sudden compassion. She felt as if the ground had suddenly been cut from under her feet, and a dizzy sense of insecurity came over her. She looked at her mother, half frightened, not knowing what to think or say.
“When you have come to your senses, Harry, you will perhaps tell us the meaning of this!” cried Lady Augusta. “Girls, it is time for you to keep your appointment with Elise. Ada will go with you to-day, for I don’t feel quite well. If you have anything to say to me another time,” she added with dignity, addressing her son, “especially if it is of a violent description, you will be good enough to wait until Mary has left the room. I do not choose that she should carry away into her new family the recollection of brutality at home.”
Lady Augusta’s grand manner was known in the household. Poor Gussy, though sad and sorry enough, found it difficult to keep from a laugh in which there would have been but little mirth. But Harry’s perceptions were not so lively, or his sense of the ridiculous so strong. He was somehow cowed by the idea of his little sister carrying a recollection of brutality into so new and splendid a connection as the Marquis of Hauteville’s magnificent family.
“Oh, bosh!” he said; but it was almost under his breath. And then he told them of Edgar’s departure from Tottenham’s, and of the discovery he had made that Margaret had gone too. “You set him on, I suppose, to cross me,” said Harry; “because I let you know there was one woman in the world I could fancy—therefore you set him on to take her from me.”
“Oh! Harry, how can you say so? I set him on!” cried Lady Augusta. “What you are telling me is all foolishness. You are both of you frightening yourselves about nothing. If there is anyone dying, and they were sent for, there is no harm in two cousins travelling together. Harry, did this lady—know what your feelings were?”
“I suppose,” said Harry, after a moment’s hesitation, “women are not such fools but that they must know.”
“Then you had said nothing to her?” said his mother, pursuing the subject. Perhaps she permitted a little gleam of triumph to appear in her eye, for he jumped up instantly, more excited than ever.
“I am going after them,” he said. “I don’t mean to be turned off without an answer. Whether she has me or not, she shall decide herself; it shall not be done by any plot against us. This is what you drive me to, with your underhand ways. I shall not wait a day longer. I’ll go down to Scotland to-night.”
“Do not say anything to him, Gussy,” cried Lady Augusta. “Let him accuse his mother and sister of underhand ways, if he likes. And you can go, sir, if you please, on your mad errand. If the woman is a lady, she will know what to think of your suspicions. If she is not a lady——”
“What then?” he cried, in high wrath.
“Probably she will accept you,” said Lady Augusta, pale and grand. “I do not understand the modes of action of such people. You will have had your way, in any case—and then you will hear what your father has to say.”
Harry flung out of the house furious. He was very unhappy, poor fellow! He was chilled and cast down, in spite of himself, by his mother’s speech. Why should he follow Margaret as if he suspected her? What right had he to interfere with her actions? If he went he might be supposed to insult her—if he stayed he should lose her. What was he to do? Poor Harry!—if Dr. Murray had not been so obnoxious to him, I think he would have confided his troubles to, and asked advice from, Margaret’s brother; but Dr. Charles had replied to his inquiry with a confidential look, and a smile which made him furious.
“She will be back in a week or two. I am not afraid just now, in present circumstances, that she will forsake me for long,” he had said. “We shall soon have her back again.”
We!—whom did the fellow mean by we? Harry resolved on the spot that, if she ever became his wife, she should give up this cad of a brother. Which I am glad to say, for her credit, was a thing that Margaret would never have consented to do.
But the Thornleigh family was not happy that day. Gussy, though she had never doubted Edgar before, yet felt cold shivers of uncertainty shoot through her heart now. Margaret was beautiful, and almost all women exaggerate the power of beauty. They give up instinctively before it, with a conviction, which is so general as to be part of the feminine creed, that no man can resist that magic power. No doubt Edgar meant to do what was best; no doubt, she said to herself, that in his heart he was true—but with a lovely woman there, so lovely, and with claims upon his kindness, who could wonder if he went astray? And this poor little scanty note which advised Gussy of his necessary absence, said not a word about Margaret. She read it over and over again, finding it each time less satisfactory. At the first reading it had been disappointing, but nothing more; now it seemed cold, unnecessarily hurried, careless. She contrasted it with a former one he had written to her, and it seemed to her that no impartial eye could mistake the difference. She sympathized with her brother, and yet she envied him, for he was a man, and could go and discover what was false and what was true; but she had to wait and be patient, and betray to no one what was the matter, though her heart might be breaking—yes, though her heart might be breaking! For, after all, might it not be said that it was she who made the first overtures to Edgar, not he to her? It might be pity only for her long constancy that had drawn him to her, and the sight of this woman’s beautiful face might have melted away that false sentiment. When the thoughts once fall to such a catastrophe as this, the velocity with which they go (does not science say so?) doubles moment by moment. I cannot tell you to what a pitch of misery Gussy had worn herself before the end of that long—terribly long, silent, and hopeless Spring day.