a month had elapsed since margaret hungerford's return to her father's house, and had brought with it certain changes in the situation of things at chayleigh, which, though they could not have been understood by outsiders, were very keenly appreciated by the actors in the small domestic drama there.
it had brought to margaret more calm and peace. it had not changed her intention of leaving chayleigh, of seeking some independent means of providing for herself; but it had decreased her anxiety to put this intention into immediate, or even into very early, execution. the main element in this alteration was her perception of her father's pleasure in her society.
"it is not much to bear for his sake," she said to herself, "to put up with mrs. carteret. i have had worse things than that to endure without the power or the prospect of escaping from them either, and i will stay for six months with papa. james dugdale thinks it the right thing, and, if mrs. carteret is convinced that it is to be only for six months, she will see that her best policy, in pursuit of her favourite plan of making things pleasant for papa, in order to have her own way thoroughly in things she really cares about, is by behaving properly to me. i will take care she shall labour under no delusive fears about my having come to take up my abode here; and then i am much out of my calculations, and egregiously mistaken in my amiable stepmother, if she does not change her tactics altogether."
the result justified margaret's calculations. she took an early opportunity of informing mrs. carteret that she did not contemplate a long stay at chayleigh.
the intimation was received by her stepmother with much propriety of manner, but without the slightest warmth. she designed to let margaret perceive that while she (mrs. carteret) was too ladylike, too perfectly trained and finished in the polished proprieties of life to fail in the fulfilment of the exact laws of hospitality, it had never occurred to her to consider margaret in any other light than that of a guest; and that she therefore regarded the communication as merely relating to the duration of her visit.
margaret clearly perceived her meaning, but she did not resent it, nor did it grieve her. the peace of a settled resolution had come to her. mrs. carteret condescended to express her approbation of margaret's determination, and her readiness to assist her in carrying it into effect.
"nothing is more admirable in young people than an independent spirit," said the approving lady; "and, notwithstanding your unfortunate marriage, margaret, i consider you as a young person still. you are quite right in considering it unjust that your father should be expected to provide for you twice over--first, in handing over the money you were not really entitled to, to that unpleasant person, mr. hungerford, and a second time, by having you to live here."
"my father is not expected, either by me or by any one that i know of, to do anything of the kind," interrupted margaret, with a slight quivering of the lips and a transient accession of colour to the pale cheeks.
"that is just what i am saying, my dear. i highly commend your very proper view. it would be quite my own. indeed, i am sure, were i in your position, i could not endure dependence, even if my father were a much richer man than yours is. i cannot understand any one not doing anything to secure independence."
margaret smiled, rather a hard kind of smile, as she thought there was one thing she certainly would not do to attain independence, and that one thing was precisely what miss martley had done in becoming mrs. carteret.
the elder lady continued to talk for some time longer in the same strain, and at length she asked margaret how she intended to procure occupation.
"i have not thought about that part of it yet," she replied.
then mrs. carteret allowed the truth to slip out; then she betrayed her real consciousness of the meanness she was perpetrating. she shifted her eyes uneasily away from margaret's face, as she said,
"i should not mention the matter to any one about here if i were you, margaret. people talk so oddly, and your father might not like it. i always think, when anything of the kind is to be done, it had better be away from home, and among a different connection."
margaret answered her with hardly-disguised contempt:
"your warning comes rather late. i have already told lady davyntry of my intention, which she approves as much as you do. she has been good enough to promise me her friendship and interest in settling matters to my satisfaction. as for papa, he will not mind how i do it, when i can succeed in reconciling him to my doing it at all."
mrs. carteret felt strongly tempted to get into a violent rage, and relieve her vexation, which was intense, by saying anything and everything which anger might suggest to her, to margaret.
that lady davyntry, who had taken no notice of the advances she had made towards an intimacy which would have been a social triumph to mrs. carteret--lady davyntry who, since margaret's return, had gone so near ignoring her stepmother's existence as was consistent with the observance of the commonest civility--that she should be admitted behind the scenes, that margaret should instruct her in the dessous des cartes, was gall and wormwood to her. she had never been very far off hating margaret hitherto; her quiet stealthy dislike to the girl now deepened into the darker feeling; and though she merely replied, "o, then, in that case, it cannot be helped," margaret knew that that minute marked an era in mrs. carteret's feelings towards her.
"never mind," she said to herself, as though she had been encouraging another person; "never mind, it is only for six months. she will always be civil to me, and it can't last."
she was right; mrs. carteret always was civil to her. she was a woman in whom cunning and caution were at least as strong as temper, and she took counsel of both in this instance. she was by no means free from an uneasy suspicion that, if margaret had formed a contrary determination, her influence with her father would have outweighed that which she herself could have exerted.
it behoved her, therefore, to be thankful that the occasion for testing that unpleasantly-important point had not arisen, and to confine her tactics to such consistently-ceremonious treatment of margaret as should keep her position as only a guest constantly before her eyes, and maintain her resolution by the aid of her pride; while all should be so contrived as to avoid attracting the attention of her absent-minded husband.
mrs. carteret conquered her temper, therefore--an operation in which she found the counting of the stitches of her everlasting fancy-work afforded her a good deal of assistance--and, after a short pause, took up a collateral branch of the same subject.
margaret had dismissed rose moore, and the girl had gone on her journey with a weight at her heart which she would have hardly believed possible, seeing that she was going home. but she had come to love margaret very much, and she was very imperfectly consoled for parting with her by the distant hope which the young widow held out of a future meeting.
"you will be married, and away in a house of your own, my dear girl, very soon, and you will not care much about anything else then; but i promise you, if ever i want you very much, rose, i will send for you. i don't think i ever can want you, in all my life, as much as i wanted you when you came to me; and of course you never can want me; your life is laid out for you too securely for that."
"none of us can tell that," said rose moore; "who knows?"
"well, of course no one knows," said margaret; "but it looks like it. however, we shall never forget one another, rose, and if either can help the other, the one who can will." and with this understanding they parted.
mrs. carteret had never taken any notice of rose moore, who, in her turn, had held the lady of the house in slight reverence. mrs. carteret had a constitutional aversion to the irish. she considered them half-civilised beings, with a natural turn for murder, a natural unfitness for domestic service, and an objectionable predilection for attending the ceremonial observances of their religion.
as an irishwoman, then. rose moore was antipathetic to her; and as a devoted though humble friend of her stepdaughter's, she was something more. the irish girl's bright-hearted love and sympathy for the young widow was positively repulsive to mrs. carteret, because there was a reproach in it.
but when rose was actually gone, mrs. carteret found herself in a difficulty. she disliked the idea of a successor to rose being found, because her narrow, grasping nature was of the small tyrant order, and she could not endure that in her house there should be any one who did not owe allegiance to her.
another reason was to be found in mrs. carteret's parsimony. she was as avaricious as she was despotic, and both these passions were stirred within her when she asked margaret, in the most distant and uninterested tone which even she could assume, whether she had yet made any arrangements about replacing rose moore. "moore," she called her, after the english fashion, which had been a deadly offence to rose.
"calling you as if you were either a man or a dog," the indignant damsel had said.
"it's the english fashion, rose," margaret had pleaded in mitigation.
"then it's like more of their fashions, and they ought to be ashamed of it, and would if they were christians. however, i suppose english servants put up with that, or anythin' else, for their four meals a-day, and snacks into the bargain, and their beer, and the liberty their clargy gives them to backbite their masters and mistresses."
margaret tried to explain that neither in this nor in any other particular were the objects of rose's indignant scorn in the habit of applying to their "clargy:" but this was an enormity which she found the girl's mind was quite incapable of receiving as a truth.
mrs. hungerford replied to mrs. carteret's question, that she had no intention of providing a successor for rose moore.
"i should have thought it quite unnecessary to tell you so," she said, rather angrily. "you can hardly suppose i am in a position to keep a maid. even if i were for the present, to accustom myself to any luxury which i must lose at the end of six months would be unpardonable folly and weakness."
"you are quite right, my dear," said mrs. carteret, with a cordial tone in her voice, and a side-glance in her eye of intense dislike of the speaker. "i admire your correct and self-denying principle, but i am not sure that your father will like it. while you stay with us, i am sure he would not wish you to be without a maid."
margaret did not take much trouble to conceal the contempt which animated the smile that she permitted to pass slowly over her face as she replied:
"pray do not trouble yourself about that, mrs. carteret. if papa thinks about it at all, which is very unlikely, he will know how little personal attendance i have been accustomed to. but you and i know the fact of there being a servant more or less in the house will never present itself to his notice. pray make your mind easy on that point."
"but there's--" said mrs. carteret hesitatingly--"there's james, you know; he is sure to know that moore has left you, and to find out whether you have got any one to replace her."
"make your mind easy about that, too, mrs. carteret," said margaret; and the confidence in her tone was particularly displeasing. "i will take care that mr. dugdale understands my wishes in this matter."
so mrs. carteret carried three points. she avoided having a servant in the house who should not be her servant; she escaped an additional expense; and she was exempted, by margaret's express disclaimer, from offering her the services of her own maid--an offer which, had she found herself obliged to make it, mrs. collins would probably have declined to carry into execution. there was one person in the world of whom mrs. carteret was afraid, and that individual was mrs. collins.
when the conversation between margaret and mrs. carteret had come to an end, to their mutual relief, margaret went to her father. as she approached the study, she heard voices, and knew she should not find him alone.
"i suppose it is james," she thought, and entered the room. but it was not james; it was mr. baldwin, who held a large old-looking volume in his hand, and was discussing with mr. carteret a passage concerning the structure of crustacea. he closed the book, and replaced it on the table with great alacrity, as margaret came in and spoke to him. then she turned to her father. "i was going to talk to you for a little while, papa; but as mr. baldwin is here--"
"never mind that, margery," said her father; "mr. baldwin was just going to the drawing-room to see sibylla and you. he has a message for you from lady davyntry."
mr. baldwin confirmed mr. carteret's statement, and took from his waistcoat-pocket a tiny note, folded three-cornerwise. this was before the invention of square envelopes and dazzling monograms; and female friendship, confidences, and general gushingness usually expressed themselves in the three-cornered form.
margaret took the note, and, passing before the "specimen"-laden table, went to the window and seated herself on the low, wide, uncushioned ledge. she held the twisted paper in her hand, and looked idly out of the window, before she broke the seal, unconscious that mr. baldwin was looking at her with an eager interest which rendered him singularly inattentive to the arguments addressed to him by mr. carteret in pursuance of the discussion which margaret's entrance had interrupted.
the girlish gracefulness of her attitude contrasted strangely with her sombre heavy dress; the soft youthfulness of her colourless face made the harsh lines of the close crimped cap an odious anachronism.
"my darling margaret,"--this was the note,--"i have such a cold, i cannot get to you. do be charitable, and come to me. my brother will escort you, and will see you home at night, unless you will stay.
"always your devoted
"eleanor."
the renewed acquaintance with lady davyntry was at this time an event of a fortnight old, and the irrepressible eleanor had to a certain extent succeeded in thawing the frozen exterior of the young woman's demeanour. kindness, if even it were a little silly and over-demonstrative, was a refreshing novelty to margaret, and she welcomed it.
at first she had been a little hard, a little incredulous towards lady davyntry; she had been inclined to treat her rapidly-developed fondness for herself as a caprice de grande dame. but she soon abandoned that harsh interpretation; she soon understood that, though it was exaggerated in its expression, the affection with which she had inspired lady davyntry was perfectly sincere. hence it came that margaret had told her friend what were her views for her future; but she had not raised the veil which hid the past. of that dreadful time, with its horrid experience of sin and misery, with its contaminating companionship, and the stain which it had left of such knowledge of evil and all the meanness of vice as never should be brought within the ken of pure womanhood at any age, margaret never spoke, and lady davyntry, though inquisitive enough in general, and by no means wanting in curiosity in this particular instance, did not seek to overcome her reticence.
she had considerable delicacy of mind, and, in margaret's case, affection and interest brought her not-naturally-bright intelligence to its aid. she had noticed and understood the changeableness of margaret's moods. she had seen her, when animated and seemingly happy in conversation with her or mr. baldwin (what a treat it was to hear those two talk! she thought), suddenly lapse into silence, and all the colour would die out of her cheeks, and all the light from her eyes--struck away from them doubtless by the stirring of some painful memory, aroused from its superficial slumber by some word or phrase in which the pang of association lurked.
she had seen the expression of weariness which margaret's figure had worn at first come over it again, and then the drooped head and the listless hands had a story in them, from even trying to guess at which the kind-hearted woman, whose one grief had no touch of shame or dread or degrading remembrance in it, shrunk with true delicacy and keen womanly sympathy.
lady davyntry had been a daily visitor at chayleigh since margaret's return. she treated mrs. carteret with civility; but she made it, as she intended, evident that the attraction was margaret, and mrs. carteret had to endure the mortifying conviction as best she could. her best was not very good, and she never allowed an opportunity to pass of hitting margaret's friend as hard as her feeble powers of sarcasm, which only attained the rank of spite, enabled her to hit her. lady davyntry was totally unconscious, and margaret was profoundly indifferent.
it happened, however, on this particular day, after the conclusion of mrs. carteret's conversation with her stepdaughter, and while she was superintending the interesting operation, performed by collins, of altering the trimmings of a particularly becoming dress, that she came to a determination to alter her tactics. she had not to dread a permanent invasion of her territory, a permanent usurpation of her place by margaret; she would therefore profit by the temporary evil, and so entangle lady davyntry in civilities that it would be impossible for her to withdraw from so affiché an intimacy when margaret should have left chayleigh.
in all this there was not a particle of regard for lady davyntry, of liking for her society, of a wish that the supposed intimacy should become real. it would be quite enough for her that the croftons and the crokers, the willises, the wyngroves, and the savilles should know that lady davyntry was on the most familiar terms with the carterets, and quite beyond those to which any other family in the neighbourhood could lay claim.
mrs. carteret's busy small brain began to entertain an idea that margaret's stay might be made profitable, in a social point of view, to her future position.
the writing of the note of which mr. baldwin was the bearer had been the subject of some doubt and discussion between lady davyntry and her brother.
"do you think it would do to ask her here, to dinner and all that, without asking mrs. carteret, and making a regular business of it?" said eleanor.
"of course it would," returned mr. baldwin. "if you want to have mrs. hungerford here, and do not want to have mrs. carteret, as i understand you that you do, you could not have a better opportunity. now is your time. you have a cold, you can't go out, and you certainly cannot see company. write your note, nelly, and i'll take it. i want to see mr. carteret. you cannot have a better opportunity."
"let me see," said lady davyntry, biting the top of her pen contemplatively; "mr. dugdale is down at oxford, isn't he?"
"yes," said her brother; "gone to see his old tutor,--a fellow he is, but i forget his name,--and won't be back for three weeks."
"well, then, i will ask margaret alone. i thought, if mr. dugdale had been at home, we might have asked him to come to dinner. but you won't mind seeing mrs. hungerford home, fitz, will you? she could have the carriage, of course, and go round by the road; but i am sure she would not like that."
mr. baldwin was exceedingly complaisant and agreeable. so far from growling an assent in an undertone, sounding much more like a protest than an acquiescence, as is the usual manner of men with regard to the bosom friends of their sisters, he expressed his readiness to undertake the task of seeing margaret home with a cheerful readiness quite beyond suspicion of its sincerity.
when margaret had read the note, she twisted it in her fingers without speaking. mr. baldwin's attention wandered a little, though mr. carteret had opened one of the glass cases, and taken out a horrid object like an old-fashioned brooch with an areole of long spikes, and was expatiating upon it with great fervour.
he looked at margaret; but her eyes were turned from him, straying over the garden. at last he moved to where she was sitting.
"you will grant my sister's prayer," he said. "i know what is in the note. she really has a cold, mrs. hungerford. it will be a charity if you will go to her.--what do you say, sir?"
mr. carteret said nothing, for the ample reason that he had not the remotest idea of what mr. baldwin was talking about. when, however, that gentleman explained the matter, he gave it as his decided opinion that margaret ought to go for lady davyntry's sake and her own. a little change would do her good. she must not mope, the kind gentleman said; and he and sibylla were but dull company now. she must find it dismal enough now that james was away. by the bye, did margaret know how mr. fordham was? had james found him any better than he expected when he arrived at oxford? yes, yes, margery must go--she moped too much; she did not even care for the specimens so much as she used to do.
"indeed i do, papa," said margaret, rising suddenly from her seat and laying her hand on her father's shoulder; "i care for them a great deal more--for everything that interests you, and that you care for."
her luminous eyes were softer and brighter than mr. baldwin had ever seen them. she had evidently been thinking of something in the past with which her father's words had chimed in. he was waiting her decision with a strange feeling of suspense and anxiety, considering that the matter involved was of no greater moment than the question whether his sister's friend, who had seen her yesterday, and would in all probability see her to-morrow, should make up her mind to refrain from the luxury of seeing her to-day.
"do you, my dear?" said mr. carteret. "that's right; you will go, of course, then, and foster shall fetch you this evening.--no, indeed, mr. baldwin, i could not think of your taking the trouble."
but mr. baldwin insisted, subject to mrs. hungerford's permission, that he would see her home. this permission she carelessly gave, and then left the room to prepare for her walk. the two men stood silent for a minute; then mr. carteret said, with a deep sigh,
"poor margery! she has had plenty of trouble in her time. i often wonder whether she is going to have peace now. we can't give that to our sons and daughters, baldwin, or get it from them either."
there was a sad desponding tone in mr. carteret's voice. now he was beginning to understand something of the meaning and extent of the sorrow that had befallen his daughter--now, when the indelible stamp of its effect was set upon her changed face, upon her shrinking figure, upon her slow and unelastic movements.
she had had time now to feel the repose, the comfort, the respectability of the home to which she had come back, and yet there was no change in her beyond the release from mere bodily fatigue. the wan weariness which he had not seen at first, but had seen when james dugdale directed his attention to it, was there still, unaltered; indeed, to the eye of a keen observer, it was deepened. in some cases, mere respite from physical labour does not produce the effect of mental repose. margaret's case was one of those.
mr. baldwin did not reply to mr. carteret's observation; he walked towards the window, and looked dreamily out, as margaret had done. presently she came back, wearing her sombre mantle and the close widow's bonnet of a period when grand deuil, in the mary-stuart fashion, was unknown.
"you will tell mrs. carteret, if you please, papa, i could not find her."
"i will be sure to tell her," said mr. carteret; "and, margery, i want you to observe lady davyntry's angora cat very carefully, and bring me word whether she has one ring or two round the top of her tail. don't forget this, my dear, for it is really an important point."
"i'll be sure to remember it, papa," said margaret; and then she and mr. fitzwilliam meriton baldwin went out through the french window of mr. carteret's study, and took their way across the grassy terrace, through the lawn, to the little iron gate which opened into the meadow-lands, through which the "short cut" between chayleigh and davyntry lay.
in the first field beyond this gate a noble clump of beeches stood.
"that is a favourite point of view of dugdale's," said mr. baldwin. "i have two sketches he made of those forest lords. splendid trees they are. i love them."
"and i hate them," said margaret.
he glanced at her in surprise. her tone was bitter, and her face wore an angry scornful look. but it was scorn of herself that margaret was feeling. there, under the shade of those trees, she had come suddenly upon her brother and godfrey hungerford; there the first incense of her worship of the false god had been offered up. she felt his glance, and instantly began to talk of lady davyntry's cold.
"the idea," she thought indignantly, "of saying such a thing as that--of my betraying feelings to a stranger which it is impossible to explain."
the first visit made by margaret to davyntry was the beginning of a series which contributed not a little to bringing about the changed aspect of things at chayleigh, at the end of the first month of margaret's residence there. she was beginning to feel something like a revival of her youth. the cheerful society, the sense of being loved and valued; the action of time, so mighty, so resistless, when one is young; the future dim, indeed, but still in a great measure within her own control: these were all telling on the young widow.
at first she had suffered keenly from the remembrance of the past episodes in her life, which seemed to set a barrier between her and the well-regulated, spotlessly respectable social circle to which she was restored; a social atmosphere in which shifts, contrivances, shady expedients for the procuring of shabby ends, were as unknown, as inconceivable, as the more violent roisterous vice with which she had also, and only too frequently, been brought into contact. at first, this sense of an existence, separate and apart from her present associates, oppressed margaret strangely, and caused her to shrink away from the manifestations of lady davyntry's friendship with sudden coldness, quite inexplicable to the impulsive eleanor, whose life was all so emphatically aboveboard.
there were times when, in the luxurious and picturesque drawing-room at davyntry, whose treasures of old china and ivory caused mrs. carteret acute pangs of envy, margaret felt the whole scene fade from before her eyes like a stage transformation, and some squalid room which she had once inhabited rise up in its place, with its mingled wretchedness and recklessness; a horrid vision of dirty packs of cards, of whisky-bottles, and the reek of coarse tobacco; and the refined tones of mr. baldwin's voice would mingle strangely in her ears with the echo of loud oaths and coarse laughter.
at such times her face would harden, and the light would fade out of her eyes, and the grace would leave her form in some inexplicable way; and, if the cloud settled heavily, and she knew it was going to last, she would make some excuse to get away and return to her father's house and the society of mrs. carteret, to whom her moods, or indeed those of any human being in existence, except herself, were matters of perfect indifference.
mr. baldwin thought he understood the origin of these sudden changes in margaret hungerford; and, though he had no knowledge of the past, he discerned the spirit of the young widow with the marvellous skill which has its rise in very perfect sympathy. when his sister spoke to him about her friend's strange manner at times, he entreated her not to notice it in any way.
"she has had such troubles in her life, as, thank god, neither you nor i can understand, nelly; and when this cloud comes over her, depend upon it, it is because the remembrance of them returns to her, made all the more real by the contrast here. take no notice of it, and it will wear away in time."
"she seems to me, fitzwilliam, as if she had some painful secret pressing on her mind. i don't mean, of course, any secret concerning herself, anything in her own life; but margaret constantly gives me the impression of being a person in possession of some knowledge unshared by any one else, and which she sometimes forgets, and then suddenly remembers."
"it may be so," said mr. baldwin slowly, and looking very uncomfortable. "i hope not; i hope it is only the effect of the early trouble she has gone through."
"i wonder how she will get on when she leaves chayleigh," said lady davyntry.
"when she leaves chayleigh!" repeated her brother, surprised, for the intentions of margaret had never been discussed in his presence.
then lady davyntry told him what margaret had said to her, and how she had asked her advice and her aid.
"i could not possibly advise her to remain all her life with that dreadful stepmother of hers, could i, fitz? you can understand what mrs. carteret is in that relation, civil as she is to you. i really think she imagines you entertain a profound sentiment for her; perfectly proper and platonic, you know, but still profound; and i don't think margaret's naturally active mind could endure the idleness of the life at chayleigh, even if mrs. carteret were out of the question."
"idleness!" said mr. baldwin, "what idleness? there is just the same kind of life to be had at chayleigh, i suppose, as women, as ladies, lead everywhere else--the kind of life margaret was born to. i can't see the matter in that light."
"i daresay not, fitz," said lady davyntry, rather proud of the chance of offering a suggestion to this infallible and incomparable younger brother of hers. "but i can. margaret certainly was, as you say, born to lead the kind of life which all women of her position get through somehow; but then she was taken out of it very young, and, whatever it was she did or suffered, you may be sure that it gave her mind a turn not to be undone. of course, i don't mean to say she wants to go back to that again, whatever it was; but i am sure she must have some settled occupation to be happy. i do not think, when one's heart has been once crammed quite full of anything, be it joyful or sorrowful, one can stand a vacuum." from which speech it will be made plain that lady davyntry did not cultivate her emotions at the expense of her good sense.
"you are right, nelly; i see you are quite right. but what does her father say?"
"that i really cannot tell you; but i suppose what mr. carteret usually says, in any matter unconnected with birds, beasts, fishes, or insects--nothing. he and margaret have a tacit understanding that mrs. carteret and she are not exactly sympathetic, and he has a feeble desire that his daughter should be happy. beyond that he really thinks nothing, and would have as much notion of the new life she wants to enter upon, as of the old life she has escaped from."
"what does dugdale think?"
"that i cannot tell you. margaret never said a word about his opinion in connection with the matter. i don't think she likes him."
"no," said mr. baldwin, "i don't think she does."
"i asked her to come to me," lady davyntry continued, "and tried very hard to persuade her that i required the services of a dame de compagnie. but she laughed at me, and would not listen to me for a moment, though she told me she had once suggested to mr. dugdale that she should ask me to take her, for the commendable purpose of spiting mrs. carteret. 'do you think i want to play at independence?' she said. 'if you do, you are much mistaken. i won't have any more shams, please god, in my life. no, i am going to work in earnest.' so i could not say any more. she may change her mind in six months, though i do not think she will."
mr. fitzwilliam meriton baldwin left his sister to entertain a selection of the croftons and the crokers and the willises, and betook himself to a solitary ramble. the question which he had asked himself when he had seen margaret hungerford but once had recurred to him very often since then. now he asked himself if he might dare to hope that he had found the answer.
he did not deny to himself now that he loved margaret hungerford. he was quite clear on that point; and he knew, too, that it was with an immortal and a worthy love. what did she mean? was she to mean to him happiness--the realisation of a man's best and wisest dreams? was she to mean this to him in time, or did that sombre past in her life, of which he knew nothing, interpose an impassable barrier between her and him? he thought of margaret's frank unembarrassed manner towards him without discouragement; he never fancied she could feel anything for him yet; he perfectly comprehended that nothing was so utterly dead for her as love.
but he would have patience, he would wait; a resurrection morning might come; he would try to win such a prize as she would be, not by a coup de main, but by slow degrees, if so it might be. in the true humility of his mind, in the perfect nobility of his soul, it never occurred to mr. baldwin to think of himself as a prize also worth the winning.
he had often laughed with his sister about the "man-traps" set for him; but it was always lady davyntry, and not he, who had detected the devices prepared for the captivation and capture of mr. baldwin of the deane.
it rarely happened that fitzwilliam baldwin thought about his wealth; his habits and tastes were simple, and his large property was well administered. he had been a rich man ever since he had come to years of manhood, and the fact had not the same significance for him which it assumes for those who come late to a long-looked-for inheritance, whose attractions are exaggerated by the aid of fancy.
but he began to think complacently of his wealth now; he began to see visions, and to dream dreams; to think of the power he had to reverse all the former conditions of margaret's life, let them have been what they might. at least he knew she had been unhappy; he could give her happiness, if unbounded love and respect, if the guarding her from every ill and care, if the holding her a sacred being, apart, to be seated in a shrine and worshipped, could give her happiness. this he could do, if she would but let him.
he knew that she had been poor, that she had now no means of her own. there was his wealth, which had never been very important to him before, and could never be important again if she would not in time take it from him. how he would lavish it upon her; how he would try, without annoying her in any way, to find out some of the features of her past experience, and efface them by the luxury and honour in which he would envelop her! fitzwilliam baldwin had advanced very far in a dream of this kind before the end of the month. he had no longer any doubt of what this woman meant to him.
shortly after, and sooner than his return was looked for, james dugdale came back to chayleigh, and found a letter awaiting him. it was from hayes meredith.
