a bright soft day in the autumn--a day which appealed to all who dwelt in houses to come forth and taste the last lingering flavour of the summer in the sweet air--a day so still and peaceful that the sudden rustle of the leaves, as a few of their number (ennuyés leaves, tired of life sooner than their fellows) detached themselves, and came, gently wafted by the imperceptible air, to the ground, made one look round, as though at an intrusion upon its perfect repose--a day which appealed to memory, and said, "am i not like some other day in your life, on which you have pondered many things in your heart, and looked far back into the past without the agony of regret, and on into the future undisturbed by dread--a restful day, when life has seemed not bad to have, but very, very good to leave?"--a day on which any settled, stern, inexorable occupation seemed harder, more unbearable than usual, even to the least reasonable and most moderate idler--a day on which the house which margaret carteret had forsaken looked particularly beautiful, tranquil, and inviting.
the orderliness of chayleigh was delightful; it was not formal, not oppressive; it was eminently tasteful. inside the house and outside it order reigned, without tyrannising. the lawn was always swept with extreme nicety, and the flower-beds, though not pruned down to a tantalising precision, bore evident signs of artistic care.
the house stood almost in the centre of the small grounds, and long wide french windows in front, and bow windows in the rear, opened on smooth grassy terraces, which fell away by gentle inclines towards the flower-garden in front, and at the back towards a pleasaunce, with high prim alleys, and bosquets which in the pride of summer were thickset with roses; and so, to some clumps of noble forest-trees, behind which, and hidden, was the neat wire-fence which bounded the small demesne.
on this soft autumnal day, the three bow windows which opened on the terrace at the back of the house were open, and every now and then the white curtains faintly fluttered, and the leaves of the creepers which luxuriously festooned the window-frames gently rustled. far above the height of the central window, an aspiring passion-flower, rich in the stiff, majestic, symbolical blossom, stretched its branches, until they wreathed the window just above the centre bow, and aided an impertinent rose to look into the room. they had looked in ever since the one had blossom and the other leaves, but they had seen nothing there that lived or moved.
the middle room, above the suite of drawing-rooms--whose rosewood furniture, whose ambusson carpets, and whose sparkling girandoles formed the chief delight and pride of mrs. carteret's not particularly capacious heart--had not been used since margaret carteret had left her home to follow the fortunes of her lover.
that such was the case was not due to any sentiment on mr. carteret's part, or any spite on that of his wife. if the former had happened to want additional space for any of his drying or "curing" processes, he would have invaded his daughter's forsaken room without the slightest hesitation, and, indeed, without recalling the circumstance of her former occupation, of his own accord; while it was quite safe from interference on the part of the latter for another and a different reason.
mrs. carteret's rooms were perfectly comfortable and sufficient, and she never had "staying company." she knew better. she was quite sufficiently hospitable without inflicting that trouble on herself, and she had no notion of it. indeed, she never had any notion of doing anything which she did not thoroughly like, or of putting up with any kind of inconvenience for a moment if it were possible to free herself from it; and she had generally found it very possible. life had rolled along wonderfully smoothly, on the whole, for mrs. carteret. she possessed one advantage which does not always fall to the lot of supremely selfish and heartless people--she had an easy temper.
it is refreshing sometimes to observe how much utterly selfish people, whose sole object in life is to secure pleasure and to banish pain, suffer by the infliction upon themselves of their own temper. but mrs. carteret was bucklered against fate, even on that side. she took excellent and successful care that no one else should annoy her, and she never annoyed herself. it would have afforded a philosophic observer, indeed, some congenial occupation of mind to divine from what possible quarter, save that of severe bodily pain, discomfiture could reach mrs. carteret. she was very well off, perfectly healthy, wholly indifferent to every existing human being except herself and her cousin, had everything her own way as regarded both objects of affection, had got rid of her stepdaughter, and had a very comfortable settlement "in case anything should happen"--according to the queer formula adopted in speaking of the only absolute certainty in human events--to mr. carteret.
this seemingly-invulnerable person had no need of margaret's room then, and when james dugdale said to her,
"if you don't want that middle room over the drawing-room for any particular purpose, i should be glad to have the use of it for mounting my drawings, and so on; the light is very good," she said at once,
"o yes; you mean margaret's room, do you not? i don't want it in the least. i will have it put to rights for you at once; it is full of all her trumpery."
no third person listening to the two would ever have discerned that any matter of feeling, or even embarrassment, had any connection with the subject under mention, still less that the "margaret" in question had so lately left the home of her girlhood on a desperate quest, which the woman who spoke of her complacently believed to be desperate.
"yes, i mean that room," said james dugdale in a careless tone; "but pray don't have anything in it touched. i will see to all that myself; in fact, presuming on your permission, i have put a lot of my things in there, and the servants would play the deuce if they meddled with them. i may keep the key, sibylla, i suppose?"
"of course," replied mrs. carteret; and from that moment she never gave the matter a thought, and james dugdale had the key of margaret's room, and he did put some sketch-books, some sheets of bristol board, and other adjuncts of his favourite pursuit on a table, and thus formally constituted his possession and his pretext. but he seldom unlocked the door; he rarely entered the apartment, even at first, and more and more rarely as time stole on, and all his worst fears and forebodings about margaret hungerford had been realised.
sometimes, when all the house was quiet, on moonlight nights, his pale face and bent figure might have been seen, framed in the window, between the branches of the passion-flower which he had trained. there he would stand awhile, leaning against the woodwork and gazing into the sky, in whose vastness, whose distance, whose sameness over all the world, there is surely some vague comfort for the yearnings of absence, uncertainty, even hopeless separation, or why is the relief of it so often, so uniformly sought?
sometimes, but not often, he wrote in margaret's room; one letter which he had written there had exerted a great influence upon her fate, how great he little knew. all the girl's little possessions were in the room, just as she had left them.
tidy housemaids, with accurate ideas of the fitness of things, had come to and gone away from chayleigh since the sole daughter of the house had taken her perilous way, according to her headstrong will, and had been disturbed, and even mutinous, in their minds concerning the "middle room." but on the whole they had obeyed orders; and james dugdale, who had long ceased to be the "tutor," and was supposed to be mrs. carteret's stepbrother by the servants of late date in the establishment, enjoyed undisturbed possession of the trumpery water-colour sketches; the little desk with a sloping top, with "souvenir" engraved in flourishes on a mother-o'-pearl heart inserted over the lock; the embroidery-frame, the bead-worked watch-pocket, and the little library which occupied two hanging shelves, and chiefly consisted of the "beauties" of the poets, and a collection of "friendship's offerings" and "forget-me-nots."
james dugdale's thoughts were busy with margaret hungerford that sweet autumn day--more busy with her than usual, more full of apprehension. the time that had elapsed had not deadened the feelings with which he regarded the wilful girl, who had scorned his interference, scoffed at and resented his advice, but been obliged to avail herself of his aid.
he knew that she had done so, but he knew nothing more. and as he roamed about the garden, and the terrace, and the pleasaunce, and rambled away to where the forest-trees stood stately, idly treading the fallen leaves under his listless feet, so lately in their green brightness far above his head, he sickened with longing to know more definitely the fate of the absent girl.
"she hated me then," he said with a sigh, as he turned once more towards the house; "and she is just the woman to hate me more because she has found out for herself that i was right."
he little knew how fully, to how far greater an extent than he had discovered it, margaret had learned the worthlessness of godfrey hungerford.
as he crossed the garden, a woman-servant came towards him, and asked him for the key of "the middle room." the request jarred upon him somehow, and he asked rather sharply what it was wanted for.
"we are getting the cleaning done, sir; master and missus is to be home on saturday."
james dugdale handed the key to the housemaid, and entered the drawing-room through the open window.
"i may as well write to haldane," he muttered. "the canadian mail leaves tomorrow."
when james dugdale had written his letter, he went out again; but this time he took his way to the village, intending to post the packet, and then pursue his way to a "bit" in the vicinity from which he was making a water-colour drawing.
as he passed the inn which occupied the place of honour in the hilly little street, the coach which ran daily from a large town on the south coast to london was drawn up before the door, and the process of changing horses was being accomplished to the lively satisfaction of numerous bystanders, to whom this event, though of daily occurrence, never ceased to be exciting and interesting.
james dugdale glanced carelessly at the clustering villagers and the idlers about the inn-door, of whom a few touched their hats or pulled their hair in his honour; observed casually that two female figures were standing in the floor-clothed passage, and that one of the ostlers was lifting a heavy trunk, of a seafaring exterior, down from the luggage-laden top of the coach; and then passed on, and forgot all these ordinary occurrences. he took his way to the scene of his intended sketch, and was soon busily engaged with his work.
when the autumnal day was drawing to its close, and the growing keenness of the air began to make itself felt, quickly too, by his sensitive frame, james dugdale turned his steps homewards, and, taking the lower road, without again passing through the village, he skirted the clumps of forest-trees, and entered the little demesne by a small gate which led into the pleasaunce.
he had almost reached the grassy terrace, when, glancing upwards, as was his frequent custom,--it had been his habit in the time gone by, when margaret's light figure and girlish face had often met the upturned glance,--he saw that the window was wide open, and some one was in the room; saw this with quick impatience, which made him step back a little, so as to get a clearer view of the intruder, and to mutter, as he did so,
"those confounded servants! what can they be doing there up to this time?"
but, as he murmured the words, james dugdale started violently, and then stood in fixed, motionless, incredulous amazement. the window of the middle room was wide open, and against the woodwork, framed by the blossoms and foliage of the passion-flower, leaned a slight figure, in a heavy black dress.
the slender hands were clasped together, and showed white against the sombre garb; the pale, clear-cut, severe young face, lighted by the last rays of the quickly-setting autumn sun, looked out upon the tranquil scene; but on every feature sat the deepest abstraction. the eyes were heedless of all near objects, fixed apparently upon the trees in the distance; they took no heed of the figure standing in rapt astonishment upon the terrace.
not until james dugdale uttered her name with a faltering, with an almost frightened voice, as one might address a spirit, did the face in the window droop, and the eyes search for the speaker. but then margaret hungerford leaned forward, and said, quite calmly,
"yes, mr. dugdale, it is i."
