AFTER THIS THERE ensued a moment of great quiet and pleasant domestic life. Miss Parker, who was the house-keeper, was a very legitimate member of the class which nobody had then thought of calling Lady-help, but which flourished in the shadow and protection of a family as Poor Relation. She was a distant cousin of Margaret’s mother, who, having no money and no talents of any serviceable sort, had been kindly provided for in this very natural domestic office; and the good woman took a great deal of interest in Margaret, and would not have at all disliked to inspire her with rebellion, and persuade her to make a stand for “her own place” in her own house. That the other family, the other side of the house, should be regnant at the Grange, making Margaret appear like the daughter rather than the mistress, offended her in every point; but as she was not a wicked woman, and Margaret not a rebellious girl, these little intentions of malice came to nothing, and Jean commenced an unquestioned and on the whole beneficent sway with little resistance. As for Margaret herself, the novelty of everything filled her life with fresh springs of enjoyment, and gave her a genuine new beginning, not counter to the natural, nor in any way antagonistic, but yet genuinely novel, fresh, and unconnected with any painful or disturbing recollection.
The soft unlikeness of the leafy English landscape round, to all she had been used to, was not more marked than the other differences of her life. When she went along the rural road the little girls courtesied to her, and so did the women at the cottage-doors; they stood obsequious in their own houses, when she went to see them, as if she had been the Queen; not like the cottagers about Earl’s-hall, to whom she was only Miss Margaret, who courtesied to nobody, and who were more likely to offer the little girl “a piece” or a “drink of milk” than to take the surreptitious shillings which Margaret at the Grange was so delighted to find herself able to give. “But they will be affronted!” she said, in horror, when this liberality was first suggested to her; such a difference was there between Fife and “the South.” Then, within reach, there lay a beautiful little church, in which there were monuments and memorial marbles without number to the Sedleys, the family of her mother, the owners of the Grange, and where an anxious new incumbent had established daily service, to which he was very anxious the Leslies at the Grange should come by way of setting a good example. To this admirable man, who thought that within the four seas there was no salvation except in the Anglican Communion, Margaret unguardedly avowed, knowing no harm in it, that she had been brought up in the Church of Scotland, and was not very familiar with the prayer-book. Oh, what daggers Jean looked at her, poor Margaret not knowing why! Mrs. Bellingham made haste to explain.
“My father was old-fashioned, Mr. St. John, and never would give up the old kirk. I think he thought it was right to go, to countenance the common people. I always say it is a disgrace, that it is they who have the parish churches in Scotland, just the set of people who are dissenters here; but I assure you all the gentry go to the English Church.”
Mr. St. John, though he was a little appalled by that generalization, and did not like to learn that “the common people” were dissenters, or that any church but the Anglican could be called “old,” yet nevertheless was not so shocked as he might have been, thinking, good man, that the common people in Fife probably spoke Gaelic, and that this was the reason why they had their service separate from the gentry. He began immediately to talk to Margaret about the beauty and pathos of Celtic music, which bewildered her extremely, for naturally Margaret Leslie, who had scarcely ever been out of the East Neuk till her father’s death, had never heard a word of Gaelic in her life.
And now at last Bell’s fondest desires were carried out. The little town which was near, and which the lessening limits of this history forbid us to touch upon, was a cathedral town full of music and with many educational advantages; for there were numerous schools in the neighborhood, and masters came from town to supply the demand two or three times a week. Margaret began to play upon the “piany,” as Bell had always longed to have her do, and to speak French. We cannot assert that she made very much progress in the former accomplishment with her untrained fingers and brief patience; but she had a pretty voice and learned to sing, which is perhaps a rarer gift, though it cannot be denied that she abused this privilege and went about the house and the garden, and even the park, singing at the top of her voice, till her sisters were provoked into expostulation. “What is the use of teaching you,” Jean cried, “when you go singing, singing — skirling they would call it in Fife — straining all your high notes? When I was a girl like you, I was never allowed to open my mouth except for practising, and when there was an occasion for it. It is all gone now, but I assure you when I was twenty I was considered to have a very pretty voice. I wish yours may ever be as good. It will not be so long if you go straining it in this way. Do you think the birds want to hear you singing?” cried Mrs. Bellingham, with scorn.
“Oh, dearest Jean! but dear Margaret has much more of a voice than we ever had. We used to sing duets—”
“Yes, Grace had a little chirp of a second — just what you will come to, Margaret,” said Mrs. Bellingham, “if you go on as you are doing, straining all your high tones.”
As for the French, they found fault with her pronunciation, which was natural enough; but perhaps it was not so natural that Mrs. Bellingham should find fault with the irreproachable accent of Monsieur Dubois, a Parisian, pur sang, who had taught princesses in his day. “No, Margaret, my dear; you may go on with him, for any kind of French is better than none, when you are so far behind with your education. But I am sure he is taking all these good people in with his fine certificates and testimonials. His French cannot be good, for I don’t understand a word he says!” Thus the autumn went on: the trees about the Grange got aglow, and began to blaze with glorious colors, and Margaret with her crape getting shabby (crape gets shabby so soon, heaven be praised!) ran about the house, the park, the country roads, and the village, scolded, petted, taken care of, watched over, teased and worried, and made much of, as she had never been before. She had been the child at Earl’s-hall, whose innocent faults everybody had smiled at, whose innocent virtues had met the same fate, who was indeed the spring of everybody’s happiness, the most cherished, the most beloved — but yet, so to speak, of no importance at all. Here it was different; here everything hinged on Margaret. Jean, though she was a despot, insisted loudly on the fact that she was but a despot-regent, and Margaret’s name was put to everything, and Margaret’s supremacy upheld, though Margaret herself was scolded.
What difference it might have made in this State of affairs, had little Margaret, Sir Ludovic’s orphan child, been dependent upon her sisters, as, but for that mother of hers of whom Margaret knew nothing, she well might have been, it would be impossible to say. They would have done her “every justice;” they would have taught her to sing and scolded her for singing; they would have called in Monsieur Dubois, and then declared his French could not be good; all these things would have happened all the same, and they would have meddled with and dictated to, and teased, and tried, their little sister. But whether the process would have been as bearable as it was under the present circumstances, who can tell? The dependent might have felt that insupportable which tempted the heiress into laughter, and disclosed a fund of mirth within which she did not know she possessed.
One thing, however, Jean would not have done had Margaret been penniless, which she did for Margaret as the young lady of the Grange. She certainly would not have invited Aubrey, after his return from Scotland, to come and see the new horse that had been bought for Margaret, and to superintend her instructions in that kind. The girl had ridden at home, cantering about the country, all unattended, on a gray pony, in a gray garment, which bore but a faint resemblance to the pretty habit in which she was now clothed; but she had never mounted anything like the prancing steed which was now to be called hers. The sisters were a great deal too careful of her to allow this fiery steed to be mounted until after Margaret and the horse had received all kinds of preparation for the conjunction; but when the ladies came out to superintend the start, and watched while Aubrey, newly arrived, put the slim light creature upon her horse, Jean and Grace felt a movement of pride in her, which made the more emotional sister cry, and swelled Mrs. Bellingham’s bosom with triumph. “Take care of her,” she said to her nephew with a meaning glance, “for you will not find many like her.”
“I will take care,” said Aubrey, returning the look. This Mrs. Bellingham would not have done had Margaret been only her little sister without any fortune, instead of the young lady of the Grange.
It was a very pleasant ride, and it was so different from all her former exercises of the kind that it became one of those points in Margaret’s life which tell like milestones when one looks back. She did not talk very much after the first delighted outbreak of pleasure; but in her heart went back to the stage of the gray pony, and with a startled sense of the change in everything round her, contemplated herself. What change had passed upon her? Was it only that she was a little taller, a little older, transplanted into new surroundings, separated altogether by death and distance from the group of old people who had been all her world? Not altogether that: there were other changes too important to be fully fathomed during a ride through the green lanes, and under the falling leaves. She rode along, hearing vaguely what Aubrey said to her, making only what response was necessary, wondering over this being who was, yet was not, herself. She had forgotten all about herself so far as that was possible in the novelty of this new chapter of her career. She had lived only from day to day, from moment to moment, not asking herself what she was doing, how she was changing; and lo she was changed. She found it out all in a moment. It bewildered and turned her head, and made her so giddy, that her companion thought she had taken a panic and was going to fall. He started and put out his hand to hold her.
“Oh, it is nothing,” Margaret said; “it is over now; it was all so strange.”
“What was strange? You are ill, you are giddy, you have got nervous.”
“Yes, I am giddy; but neither ill nor nervous. I am giddy to think — oh, how strange it is! Do you remember, Mr. Aubrey, when we were in the Highlands in August?”
“Nearly three months ago. Indeed, I remember very well. Do you think it is likely I should forget?”
“Oh, I don’t suppose it was much to you,” said Margaret, with an abstraction of tone which prevented him, though very willing, from accepting this as provocative of something like flirtation. “It was myself that I was thinking of, and it made me giddy. Since that time I am quite different. Since then I have grown up.”
“I don’t see very much difference,” said Aubrey, contemplating her with those pleased looks of unspoken admiration which he knew did not in general afford an ungrateful mode of homage.
“Oh! perhaps I have not grown much taller; but this is more than tallness. Do you remember Earl’s-hall, Mr. Aubrey? It is not really, is it, so very far away?”
“I should not say so — about fifteen or sixteen hours’ journey, if the railway went straight, without that horrid interval of the Firth.”
“Oh, that was not what I was meaning!” said Margaret, turning her head away a little coldly. And though he went on talking, she did not pay much attention. She came home with dreamy eyes, and suffered him to lift her off her horse, and went straight up to her room, leaving him. They had not ridden quite so far as they intended, and the ladies had not got home from their drive.
As Margaret went up-stairs, carrying her train over her arm, she met Miss Parker, her poor relation, on the stairs, who gave a jump at the sight of her, and uttered a cry.
“Oh, my dear, I thought you were a ghost!” she said.
“Why should I be a ghost? I don’t feel like a ghost. Come in and tell me,” said Margaret, opening the door of her room. Miss Parker had palpitations, and this was quite enough to bring one of them on.
“I never thought you were like your poor mamma before,” cried the house-keeper in her agitation, “not a bit like. You are just like the Leslies, not her features at all; but in that habit, and in the very same hat and feathers!” Margaret took off her hat at these words, and Miss Parker breathed a little more freely. “Ah, that is better, that is not so startling. You were as like her, as like her—”
“Why should not I be like her? Poor mamma, it is hard upon her having nothing but me to leave in the world, that I should be so unkind as not to be like her,” said Margaret, musing, half thinking through the midst of this conversation how strange it was that Earl’s-hall should seem so very far away.
“I remember her as well as if it were yesterday,” said Miss Parker, “coming up that very stair after her last ride with — oh, I should not speak of him to you! It was before she had ever seen Sir Ludovic, your papa.”
“Her last ride with — whom?” Margaret’s cheeks grew crimson. Somehow it seemed to be half herself about whom she was hearing — herself in her mother.
“Oh, my dear! I don’t know if I ought to tell you all that story. They were a sort of cousins, as I was to them both. He had no money, poor fellow; but otherwise so suitable! just of an age, brought up much the same — and she was an heiress, if he had nothing. They tried to put it into her head that he was not good enough for her. And then they put it into his head (they succeeded there) that a man ought not to owe his living to his wife. So he would go away, let her say what she pleased. Oh, I remember that night when they took their last ride together. She came up-stairs and met me in her riding-habit, in just such a hat and feathers, and her face pale with thinking, like yours, my dear. She changed color, too, like you (ah, there it goes!), all in a moment changing from white to red.”
“And what happened,” cried Margaret, breathless.
“Well, my dear, nothing more than this happened — He went away. He went to India with his regiment; he thought he might get on there, perhaps, and get his promotion, and come back for her (she was not of age then). But he never came back, poor fellow — he died in less than a year.”
“And she — she?” Margaret became breathless with anxiety and interest. She had not known her mother had any story; and how strange it was — half as if it might be herself!
“She felt it very much, my dear. She put on mourning for him — indeed, she had to do that, for he was her cousin. Memorial windows were just coming into fashion, and she put up a window to his memory in the church. Well, then! after a while, she went to Scotland, and met with Sir Ludovic. He was not young, but he was a most striking-looking gentleman — and — well, I need not tell you any more. You know, as well as I can tell you, that he was your papa.”
“Poor papa!” said Margaret, her eyes filling, though she had said “poor mamma” a moment before. “Did she care for him at all?”
“Oh, my dear! she was in love with him, a great deal more in love with him than she ever was with poor Edward. She would have him. Of course it was pointed out to her that he was poor, too, and living so far away, and a Scotchman, which is almost like a foreigner, and quantities of poor relations. She must have liked him more than she did poor Edward, for she would not listen, not for a moment; even when it was said that he was old, she cried, ‘What do I care?’ Oh, you must not think there was any doubt on that point. She was very fond of your papa. That is poor Edward’s picture in the corner,” said Miss Parker, crying a little, “he never had eyes for any one when she was there; but he was my cousin too.”
Margaret got up tremulously, and went to look at the portrait. It was a feeble little water-color: a young man in a coat which had once been intended to be red, but which had become the palest of pink. When she looked at his insignificant good-looking features, she could not but remember her father’s with a glow of pride. But Miss Parker was crying softly in the corner of the sofa. Why does it always happen that people are at cross-purposes in loving? Miss Parker would have been very happy with Edward: why was it not she but the other whom the young soldier loved? It made Margaret sad to think of it. And then all at once there came into her mind, like a pebble cast into tranquil water, Rob Glen. Something in the features of poor Edward, who had died in the jungle, recalled Rob to her mind. Her heart began to beat. Perhaps, no doubt, there was some one who would be very happy to have Rob, who would think him the noblest man in existence. And Margaret gave a little shiver. Suddenly it came to her mind with overpowering force that, notwithstanding all these changes, notwithstanding the difference in herself, notwithstanding the Grange and all its novel life, she, this new Margaret, who was so different from the old Margaret, was bound to Rob Glen. It seemed to her that she had never understood the position before. Miss Parker had gone away crying, poor, sentimental, middle-aged lady! and Margaret sat down on the sofa when she had left it, with dismay in her heart, and gazed at Edward’s water-color with blank discomfiture. There seemed to rise before her the little parlor in the farm — every detail of its homely aspect; the red and blue cloth on the table, the uncomfortable scratching of the pen with which she wrote her promise, the bit of paper smoothed out by Mrs. Glen’s hand, the little common earthenware ink-bottle.
She had not been aware before that she remembered all these things; but now they started to the light, as if they were things of importance, all visible before her, remade. How was it possible that she could have put them all away out of her memory so long? She had thought of him now and then, chiefly with compunctions, feeling herself ungrateful to him who had been so kind. But it was not with any compunction now that she remembered him, but with sudden alarm and sense of an incongruity beyond all words. Supposing Edward had not died, but had come back from the jungle after her mother had met Sir Ludovic, what would she have thought? how would she have felt? would she have welcomed him or fled from him? But then I — have never seen — any one, Margaret said to herself. She blushed, though she was alone. There was nothing in that — her color was always coming and going — and even this momentary change of sentiment relieved her a little. The horror was to have remembered, all of a sudden, in this calm and quiet — Rob Glen.
When such a sudden revelation as this occurs, it is astonishing how heaven and earth concur to keep the impression up. Next evening their dinner was more lively than usual. To keep Aubrey company over his wine, Mrs. Bellingham had invited Mr. St. John, the young rector (though they were in such deep mourning, your parish clergyman is never out of place, he is not company), to dine with them; and there was a little more care than usual about the flowers on the table (since the garden-flowers were exhausted, Jean had restricted the article of flowers), and a more elaborate meal than was ever put upon the table for the three ladies. Mr. St. John was High-Church, and had been supposed to incline toward celibacy for the clergy, but of late his principles had been wavering. The elder ladies at the Grange had given him no rest on the subject; they had declared the idea to be Popish, infidelistic, heathen. Not marry? Grace in particular had almost wept over this strange theory. What was to become of a parish without a lady to look after it; and by this time Mr. St. John had been considerably moved by one of two things, either by the arguments of Mrs. Bellingham and Miss Leslie, or by the consideration that the Grange was very near the rectory; that it was a very nice little property, the largest house in the parish, its inhabitants the most important family; and that its heiress was eighteen, and very pretty, though brought up a Presbyterian, and probably, therefore, quite unregenerate, and as good as unbaptized. He sat opposite Margaret at the table, while Aubrey Bellingham sat by her, and the young priest felt an unchristian warmth of enmity arise in his bosom toward the stranger. But this put him on his mettle, and the talk was very lively and sometimes amusing; it made Margaret forget the fright of recollection that had seized her. The two young men remained but a very short time in the dining-room after the ladies had left, and Mr. St. John had just managed to get possession of a seat beside Margaret and to resume the question of the Celtic music, which he had so skilfully hit upon at one of their earlier meetings, as a subject sure to interest her, when an incident occurred that threw back all her thoughts vividly into their former channel.
“Don’t you think that the invariably pathetic character of their music reflects the leading tendency of the race?” Mr. St. John had just said; and she was actually making what she felt to be a very foolish answer.
“I have heard the pipes playing,” she was saying, “but not often; and except reels, I don’t know any — Did you call me, Jean?”
“Here is a parcel for you, a large parcel by the railway,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “Yes, really; it is not for me, as I thought, but for you, Margaret. What can it be, I wonder? It has got Edinburgh on the ticket, and a great many other marks. Bland, will you please undo it carefully, and take away all the brown paper and wrappings. I dare say it is a present, Margaret; it looks to me like a present. I should say it was a picture; perhaps something Ludovic may have sent you from Earl’s-hall. Was there any picture you were fond of that can have been sent to you from Earl’s-hall?”
“Dearest Margaret, it will be one of the portraits. How kind of dear Ludovic to think of you. Surely you have a right to it,” said Miss Leslie; and even the young men drew near with the lively curiosity which such an arrival always creates. The very name of picture made Margaret tremble; she approached the large white square which Bland — Jean’s most respectable servant — had carefully freed from the rough sheets of card-board and brown paper in which it had been so carefully packed, with the thrill of a presentiment. Miss Leslie’s fingers quivered with impatience to cut the last string, to unfold the last enclosure, but a heroic sense of duty to Margaret kept her back. It was Margaret’s parcel: she it was who had the right to disclose the secret, to have the first exquisite flutter of discovery. Grace knew the value of these little sensations against the gray background of monotonous life. But it seemed to Margaret that she knew what it was, even although she had no recollection for the moment what it could be. She unfolded the last cover with a trembling hand.
Ah! It was Earl’s-hall, the old house, exactly as it had been that sunshiny morning before any trouble came — when little Margaret, thinking no evil, went skimming over the furrows of the potatoes, running up and down as light as air, hovering about the artist whose work seemed to her so divine. What an ocean of time and change had swept over her since then! She gave a tremulous cry full of wonder and anguish, as she saw at a glance what it was. They all gathered round her, looking over her shoulder. There it stood, with the sun shining full upon it, the old gray house: the big ivy leaves giving out gleams of reflection, the light blazing upon Bell’s white apron — for Bell, too, was there: he had forgotten nothing. Margaret’s heart gave a beat so wild that the little group round her must have heard it, she thought.
“Earl’s-hall!” said both the ladies together. “And, dear me, Margaret, where has this come from?” said Mrs. Bellingham; “Ludovic had no picture like this. It is beautifully mounted, and quite fresh and new; it must be just finished. It is very pretty. There is the terrace in the tower, you can just make it out — and there are the windows of the long room; and there, I declare, is my room, just a corner of it, and somebody sitting at the door — why, it is something like Bell! Who can have sent you such a beautiful present, Margaret? Who can it be from?”
Margaret gained a little time while her sister spoke; but she was almost too much agitated to be able to say anything, and she did not know what to say.
“It was a friend,” she said, with trembling lips. “It was done — before — It was not finished.” And then, taking courage from desperation, she added, “May I take it up-stairs?”
What so natural as that she should be overwhelmed by the sudden sight of her old home? Grace rushed to her with open arms. “Let me carry it for you; let me go with you, darling Margaret,” she said. But the girl fled from her, almost pushing her away in the nervous impatience of agitation. Even Jean was moved. She called back her sister imperatively, yet with a softened voice.
“Let her alone; let her carry it herself. Come here, Grace, and let the child alone,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “The sight of the old place has been too much for her, coming so suddenly — and not much wonder. After all, it is but four months. But I should like to know who did it, and who sent it,” she added. That was the thought that was foremost with Aubrey too.