“MISS TREVOR! I do hope you are not going to rush off again,” said Lord Ramblay. His tone was exasperated, but there was a trace of amusement in it.
Flushing, Maggie turned back in confusion.
“My lord?”
“I have had the devil of a time today, Cousin, chasing you about the countryside, and I do hope that now I have finally found you, you are not going to run away.” Lord Ramblay regarded her with an ironic smile.
“How—how did you know I was here?” she stammered in response, still with one foot upon the higher step and undecided whether she wished really to look into those eyes, for they seemed to have lost none of their power to discommode her.
“I shall be glad to tell you about it, if you will invite me to dine with you. What with riding to London and then riding halfway back again, I am devilish hungry, I confess.”
Maggie looked at him warily.
“You are free to do exactly as you please, your lordship. Only I had better tell you that not six hours ago I insulted your mother.”
“Ah, well!” Lord Ramblay did not seem much disturbed by this news. “As I imagine she gave you ample cause, I shall not hold it much against you. I ought not to say so, I suppose, but it has been the great ambition of my life to find a woman who was not frightened of my mother. Nearly everyone is, you know. But enough. If you will consent to coming down these last four steps, I will give you my arm into the supper room.”
Maggie was not much inclined to obey him, but seeing there was no alternative, she begrudgingly consented to do as she was told. In short order the cousins were established at the best table in the dining saloon. Maggie noted how quietly her relative had procured it, and how readily his instructions were obeyed, though, from hearing no one use his title, she imagined he had chosen to be anonymous. With some surprise she noticed that there was no servant to attend him, and remarking upon the fact, heard him reply. “It is quite true, Miss Trevor—I am sadly unattended. But I was in the greatest haste, you know, to find you.”
“To find me! Why should you be in a hurry to find me? On our last meeting, I supposed you hated me so much that never seeing me again would have been a blessing.”
Lord Ramblay smiled delightedly. “And I believe you felt the same.”
Maggie admitted she had not been overjoyed by her cousin’s treatment of her.
“And it was just on this account that I wished urgently to see you again. In short, I have come to apologize.”
“To apologize!”
Lord Ramblay smiled. “For having falsely accused you of hurting my son, when I know now it was not the case.”
Maggie stared at him, all amazed.
“He was not hurt, then. Oh! I am so happy! You cannot imagine how worried I have been, how ashamed of myself—indeed, I have been longing to know how he was, only, only——”
The Viscount gave her a deep look, and seemed graver than he had been since first laying eyes upon her. “Only you did not wish to inquire it of me—is that not the case?”
Maggie flushed, and looked into her lap. She felt her cousin’s intent gaze upon her, and was torn between the uneasiness she always felt when he regarded her, as if he could see clearly through her soul, and the questions which were still in her own mind about him. At last she made herself look up and meet his gaze squarely.
“No,” she said simply, with a faint smile, “I did not wish to inquire it of you. But now tell me, he did not suffer from playing with me?”
“Not from playing with you, no—but he did suffer. His nurse left him alone shortly after you saw him, and while she was gone, he must have fallen down from his bed, for she found him sobbing on the floor when she returned. He naturally took fright—for he is not strong, as you must have seen—and, with a chill he had developed already, began to be delirious. The woman was naturally afraid to tell me of her own negligence, and seized upon the first excuse she could think of to explain his tantrum to me. It was only by chance that that very afternoon you had come across them, which, deviating so far from his normal routine, seemed to her a sufficient reason for his illness.”
Maggie breathed a little sigh. Through all her other worries in the last days, this one matter had not ceased to torment her, and the guilt and shame she had felt on behalf of the child had not been diminished by a mounting suspicion of the father.
“Oh, I am very glad to hear it,” she said earnestly. “You cannot imagine how the idea of my causing him any harm has tormented me. Then the woman must have confessed the truth to you at last?”
“Only last evening, when we saw he was completely out of danger. So ashamed was she, that she did not stop at telling me the truth of the matter, but went so far as to add a forceful defense of your opinion of his illness.”
“My opinion! Why, what did she say?”
Now Lord Ramblay looked really grave. “Aside from praising your treatment of James, she informed me that the two of you were agreed upon the subject of his surgeons. I suppose she assumed I was about to send her packing in any case, and in the heat of the moment joined her own feelings to yours. She said you were of the opinion that the attention of so many surgeons was worsening his condition, rather than the contrary. She made a most eloquent speech upon the subject, saying that a normal childhood would be the best cure for his ailment and using as an example how much improved he had seemed after only half an hour with you.”
“Well, I hope you did not send her packing after expressing so sensible a view,” said Maggie, half mockingly.
Lord Ramblay smiled, but there was more in his look than even the gratitude of a father.
“Quite the contrary. I implored her to stay in my service, for the good of my child, as well as my own. There was one condition to her agreeing, however—do not you wish to know what it was?”
Maggie nodded.
“It was that the two of you together should be allowed to essay your own theory of medicine upon him for a little. As I meant in any case to ask your forgiveness for my hideous accusations that night, I promised that I should enjoin you to it.”
Lord Ramblay gazed at her attentively, waiting for a reply. But Maggie, feeling a sudden and unaccountable disappointment, did not answer at once. She had not known what she had expected, but it was not this. Now she said, in a firm voice, and looking him square in the eye,
“I really do not think I ought to return to Ramblay Castle, Lord Ramblay, despite my affection for your son and my very real wish to do him any good within my power. Your mother has already ample cause to hate me, and it would be adding insult to injury if I now accepted any further hospitality from you.”
“Allow me, if you will, Cousin, to determine that for myself. As for my mother, you need not worry—she and I have disagreed upon many subjects in the past. What becomes of my son, however, and what takes place within the walls of my own home, is for me to decide.”
It required some little persuasion to erase all of Maggie’s doubts upon this head, but at last, having heard Lord Ramblay as good as beseech her to comply, she agreed to go back to Ramblay Castle and attend the child. But she would not stay above a fortnight, upon this point she stood firm. A fortnight would be sufficient time to see if James responded at all to her own theory of healing. If, afterward, she thought he showed no signs of improvement, she would concede to her cousin and all the surgeons once more. Otherwise, any kind and gentle attendant might do as much as she could.
“Oh, I think not,” murmured Lord Ramblay with a smile, upon hearing this. “I think not, indeed.”
But Maggie, rising from the table, did not hear him. It had been agreed that she should continue to Essex that very night, in the same chaise which had brought her thus far, and which Lord Ramblay had succeeded in detaining in the yard. The Viscount himself would not accompany her—some pressing business in London required his attention for a day or two. He would return to the castle as soon as he could, however, though he said with a smile as he fastened the door of the chaise after Maggie, “I cannot conceive you will have any need of me, Cousin—for a woman less dependent upon the help of a gentleman I have never known.”
Maggie replied that this was untrue, for she had always stood in need of her father.
“Ah!” exclaimed Lord Ramblay, upon hearing this. “I had almost forgot!” And reaching into the pocket of his cape, drew forth a letter, which, from seeing one glimpse of the hand even in the flickering flame of the carriage lamp, Maggie knew was from Admiral Trevor. “It came in the post a day or two ago, and I thought you might like to have it straight away.”
The sight of the letter made Maggie remember the one she still had for Miss Haversham. She had taken it up when she left the private parlor to go downstairs to the supper room, with the intention of finding a servant to post it. When she had seen Lord Ramblay, she had slipped it into her reticule, and in the interval had forgotten all about it. Now she drew it forth, saying, “I wonder if you will deliver this letter to Miss Haversham when you are in London, Cousin? I know you are great friends, and are likely to meet her.”
Lord Ramblay looked surprised for a moment.
“Ah! She told you that, did she? I had meant to call upon her tomorrow, as a matter of fact, and should be glad to take your letter.”
“I would be very grateful if you would. It is something urgent, and I would be glad if she had it as soon as possible.”
Lord Ramblay seemed a little surprised at this, but saying nothing, took the letter from her and thrust it into the same pocket where Admiral Trevor’s had been. Having given the order to the coachman to take Miss Trevor and her maid to Ramblay Castle, Lord Ramblay thanked her and wished her a safe journey. After one last look at her, in which were mixed so many emotions and uncertainties that even he could not have said what he felt at that moment, he stood back to let the carriage pass.
Ensconced once more in the luxury of her cousin’s chaise, the extraordinary events of the day began to do their work upon Maggie. Until that moment, she had been kept going by false energy. First there had been her elation after the happy time she had spent riding in the park with Captain Morrison, and then the great rush of mad energy she had felt after her quarrel with Lady Ramblay. The first surges of anger had not died away before the shock of seeing Miss Haversham and the naval officer riding together in the lady’s landau had instantly dashed what certainties she had remaining as to the character and conduct of these people. And now Lord Ramblay’s unexpected appearance, his apology for their last meeting, and request for her help, had drained Maggie completely. The swaying of the carriage, the dark, the warmth of the moleskin rug over her lap, and extreme fatigue, all at once began to do their work. Shortly after the carriage drove away from Dartmoor, her head dropped back against the cushions, her lids closed over her eyes, and she was fast asleep, with her father’s letter still clutched in her hand.
It was not until some hours later, ensconced in her old apartments at Ramblay Castle, that she had the opportunity to open that letter. She took it up the more eagerly for the doubts she presently entertained about every other man she seemed to know. Lord Ramblay was complicated and difficult; his manner toward herself that afternoon had been radically different from his former style, but there was still no making him out, and Maggie felt, because of this, all the more irritation at herself for caring what he thought of her. She had always prided herself upon her knowledge of human nature, and yet here was a man she could not in the least fathom. Of all men on earth, he seemed the most upright, the most sensible of his duty to family and friends, the most incapable, if only out of a love of correctness, of any despicable action. Yet not eight hours before she had been convinced he had—if not actually committed murder, at least tormented his wife into an early grave. Of Captain Morrison, whose appearance and style were the most open and forthright imaginable, she dared not even think. Too many doubts and questions had risen in her mind upon seeing him so intimately conversing with Blanche Haversham. Those doubts and fears, she knew, must be put aside until her letter to that lady had its reply—till then she would not even think of him.
It was with a great relief that she now turned to her father’s letter, calling up in her mind as she did so a picture of that stern old face, so fearsome to his sailors when angry, and so dearly loved by everyone who knew him at every other moment. Even his hand—bold, large, and blunt—was a comforting sight. Laying every other thought aside, Maggie sank into an armchair and opened it up. With a fond smile she noted the several closely written pages, and knew, from her own familiarity with the Admiral’s usual epistolary brevity, that he must miss her sadly.
The first and the second pages of the letter were full of trivial news about all their friends and acquaintances in Sussex. The Admiral had progressed farther than he had hoped to do in his memoirs of the War, there was a new curate in the village, and the skill of the cook was not much improved since his daughter’s departure. He hoped Maggie was benefiting from her relations’ company, and enjoined her not to stay away too long. All this was predictable, and, to Maggie’s present state of mind, delightful. She read his phrases as if she could hear his voice, and felt instantly comforted. But all at once the style and tone of the letter changed, as if the Admiral, postponing by every means he could think of the disclosure of some awful secret, had at last reached the end of his resources.
“My dear (read the letter), I was sorry to discover, from the tone of your last letter to me, that you seemed still to hold a grudge against your cousin, the Viscount. From what you said, I gathered he had given you no reason to dislike him, and yet you persist in calling him haughty, proud, and arrogant. He has been kind to you, and yet you cannot find it in your heart to feel a genuine affection and respect for him. I am very sorry for this, Maggie, very sorry indeed, for I believe it is all due to me that you feel as you do. Had I told you the whole truth of our correspondence, I believe you should think altogether differently, and blame me for what you now suppose is Lord Ramblay’s fault. I should have remedied this unfortunate state long ago—indeed, I ought to have told you the whole truth at once, rather than letting you believe what you now do about him. I hope it is not too late for you to change your opinion of Lord Ramblay, for I have every reason to think him a fine, sensible, and generous man, as unlike his father as any son can be.
“When I showed you his letter, my dear, I am afraid I let you think it was his first attempt to correspond with me. I did so out of shame, and nothing more, for I had behaved very badly in ignoring an earlier letter, written nearly five years since, in which my old enemy’s son first expressed his eagerness to breach the gap made by our old feud. That letter was as different from the one you saw as day from night. It was three times as long, and positively begged me to forget our old quarrel. Of course it did not really beg, my dear, that is an exaggeration. Yet it went so far toward admitting his father’s mistake, and hoping I would put our old quarrel out of my mind, that, had I not been such a stubborn old termagant, I should have answered it at once. That I did not, Maggie, is a fact I shall regret all my life, the more so if it has affected your own relations with him. I could not hope for a more amiable friend than Lord Ramblay, nor a more sincere one. His letter was everything it ought to have been, and for his second communication being cold and reserved, I can only blame myself. Indeed, he had every reason to be cold, after the disdain with which his first overture was received. I shall speak no more upon this subject, but I hope you will forgive me for letting this untruth go so long unconfessed.”
The letter did not end here, but Maggie was too amazed to read any further. In disbelief she perused the last paragraph again, and again, until, with an exclamation, she stood up and began pacing up and down the room. Her promenade was punctuated now and then by a little self-inflicted slap upon the brow, which came with every fresh realization of her error.
“Oh, Papa!” she exclaimed out loud, “why indeed did you not tell me sooner? Oh, dear—I ought to have known it was not in your character to make the first attempt at a reconciliation! I ought to have known you would never, never humble yourself to your old enemy’s son! Lord, I have been a fool! To think—oh dear, to think what I almost was sure of!”
With every moment, Maggie’s confidence in her own powers of perception was weakening. She had been so positive from the first of her cousin’s character that she had not paused once to wonder if she was not mistaken. No, with the stubbornness of her nature (and, she thought now with a grimace, of her father’s) she had stumbled blindly on, blaming everything upon Lord Ramblay, and never questioning if some other person might have been at fault instead. In the matter of the letter, she had never weighed whether or not her own father might have been the instigator of the insult, and not his relative. At the posting house at Dartmoor, on her first sight of the Viscount, she had been quick to blame him for forgetting her, and leaving her without horses for her journey. Even when it was proved that horses had been sent, and a commodious carriage besides, she had supposed he meant to insult her, never once demanding of herself if perhaps his need was not more pressing, and the urgency of fetching the surgeon from London required a swifter team than one only destined for an easy ride over good roads with a vehicle made for easy pulling. Oh, no—in both these matters, it was clear to her, she now began to see, how it had been she herself who was mistaken and not her cousin. There was still the graver matter of her cousin’s wife to be considered, however. But had she any knowledge, other than her own inclination to suspect him, and Captain Morrison’s hints to go upon in blaming him for anything greater than an unhappy marriage? It was the latter gentleman’s tale which had started her off, and now her certainty of even his character was faltering. Her suspicions of the officer, whose word she had been so quick to trust, were founded upon seeing him in that strange conversation with Miss Haversham. Her maid had been right—one did not argue so passionately with mere friends! But if they were not friends, what closer relationship joined them? The idea that they were lovers, hiding from the world behind the guise of other friends and admirers, had rushed over her with a sickening force. But in an instant that thought, however awful, had been replaced by an even more terrible idea. Was not it possible—was not it altogether probable—that Captain Morrison was that same brother of whom Miss Haversham had spoken?
Every word that lady had said in description of her sibling now came back to Maggie with a ringing, jeering clarity. “You could not understand me, without seeing him—he could charm a stone into speaking.” Was not that almost exactly what she herself had thought about the officer? “His charm was so great that the world took it in lieu of more solid qualities.” He had been depicted to her as amiable, handsome, and popular in the ton; was not that an exact description of Captain Morrison? Miss Haversham had said he was clever, and a naval captain, besides. He was admired in the service, and circulated freely in the haute society of London. All these thoughts had come back to Maggie in the first few moments after she had seen her friend and the officer in Berkeley Street, and had inspired her letter to Miss Haversham. Indeed, she must be certain of the matter. So cruel a misunderstanding must be cleared up at once, for until she knew, for certain, she could not trust a word of the Captain’s.
Indeed, if she could not trust him on any other count, how could she believe his story of Lord Ramblay’s marriage? The link had been long in coming to her, for her brain had been too much muddled by events to allow her to think clearly. But now, standing stock-still in the middle of her bedroom, it dawned over her: Had not Captain Morrison been the only person who had said anything against the Viscount? Had not he, when she had related to him her morbid suspicions, been quick to take them up and to encourage them? All this was plain, and it broke over Maggie with the sudden force of a thunderclap. And yet, try as she might to make some sense of it, she could not comprehend what advantage it would be to the officer to have her think ill of her own cousin! To be sure, it was a most extraordinary, and most perplexing case.
Having turned the matter over in her mind until she was incapable of thinking any more, and so exhausted that she thought she would weep, she sank down into her armchair again with the thought, “I cannot consider this any more, until I have some proof of my suspicions. Indeed, my suspicions have already been the cause of too much trouble. Until I have a reply to my letter to Blanche Haversham, I shall not think about it, but make better use of my time. There is little Jamey to nurse, and a deal of other better occupations for my mind than senseless wondering.”
And with this very sensible intention (more sensible, in truth, than most of Maggie’s ideas of late), she took up the remainder of her father’s letter to read.
There was little left of it, only a paragraph. But this one paragraph, though brief, and written as if an after-thought to the principle subject of the document, was almost more interesting than Admiral Trevor’s admission of his mistake.
“My dearest child, I had almost forgot. You made some mention of having met a Captain Morrison. The name struck me as familiar, and by chance I remembered some business that was connected with it. I have since looked further into the matter, and having heard from my old friend Corning, in Portsmouth, hope that indeed you have not befriended a Captain Charles Morrison, if such is the fellow’s name. That gentleman, though well thought of in the service for his ability as a commander, has yet a most unsavory reputation among his fellow officers. It seems he is an incurable gambler, and is always in debt. Several duels have been fought over his refusal to pay, and one or two other matters, involving the wives of his comrades, which I shall not go into. There was a business some years ago which seems to have been hushed up, by whom I cannot say—but that it was very serious, and very detrimental to the Navy as a whole, I have reason to believe. I cannot comprehend why he retained his commission afterward, but suppose some very elevated personages must have interferred on his behalf. However the case, I hope you shall have a care in your dealings with him, and avoid him as much as possible. I have never met him, or if I have, have no recollection of the fact—you may tell him so if you see him again.”
Such was the end to this astounding letter, already overloaded with interesting information, and it was some time before Maggie could contrive to put it down. Suffice it to say, in respect to her thoughts upon the subject, that it was a most mortified young lady who that night lay down upon her bed.