shortly after the incidents narrated in the preceding chapter, mr. baldwin left davyntry. his sister maintained to the last the strong constraint she had put upon herself. she had seen with a genuine disinterested pleasure, for which the world in general might fairly have been excused for not giving her credit, that her young favourite had captivated her only brother.
without being a very wise, a very witty, or in any marked way a very superior woman, eleanor davyntry possessed certain admirable and estimable qualities. not the least remarkable, and perhaps the most rare of these, was disinterestedness. this virtue was in her: it did not arise from circumstances. she was not disinterested because she was rich,--the amount of wealth in people's possession makes no difference in their appreciation of and desire for wealth,--and lady davyntry "had no nonsense about her."
she thoroughly understood the value of her money as a means towards the enjoyment of the happiness which she acknowledged to be hers; but it never occurred to her for a moment to consider her own interests in the question of her brother's future. that he would probably marry at some time she looked upon as certain; and the inheritance of the deane from one so much younger than herself would not have been a hopeful subject of speculation, had she been a person who would have speculated upon it at all. even if she had had children, it would have been all the same to lady davyntry. she would not have been covetous for them any more than for herself. she had thought rather nervously, since sir richard's death had left her more dependent on her brother for the love and companionship without which life would have been intolerable to a woman of her disposition, of the probabilities of mr. baldwin's marriage.
lady davyntry had her prejudices; one of them was against scotchwomen. she hoped he would not marry a scotchwoman, therefore she had never encouraged her brother's residence at the deane.
"it is not so much their ankles and wrists," she had assured sir richard, when he had remonstrated with her for "snubbing" a florid young lady who hailed from aberdeen; and did it in a voice which set lady davyntry's teeth on edge, and made her backbone quiver, "as it is their minds and their ways. of course, the way they speak is very awful, and the way they move is worse; but i could stand all that, i daresay. but what i cannot stand is their coarse way of looking at things, and the hardness of them in general. and as for flirting! you may think it is not dangerous, because it is all romping and hoydenism; but i don't want a sister-in-law of miss macalpine's pattern, and so i tell you."
"hadn't you better tell baldwin so, my dear nelly," the reasonable baronet had made answer. "i don't want a macalpine importation into the family either; but, after all, it's his business, not mine."
"no, no," said the astute nelly; "i am not quite so stupid as to warn any man against a particular woman of whom he has hitherto taken no special notice. that would be just the way to make him notice her, and that would be playing her game for her. i am not really afraid of the fair jessie; fitzwilliam can see her wrists, and her ankles too, quite as plainly as i can; and i fancy he suffers rather more acutely from her accent. i shall limit my interference to getting him away from the deane."
other and sadder preoccupations soon after claimed lady davyntry, and miss jessie macalpine was forgotten. and now, when her brother spoke of leaving her to return to the deane, she remembered the young woman and her mosstrooper-like accomplishments without a shade of apprehension.
"my darling margaret has made my mind quite easy on that point, at all events," thought eleanor, as mr. baldwin imparted to her some of his intentions for the benefit of his tenantry and estate. "whether she cares for him or not, whether good or evil is to be the result,--and i believe all will go well with them both,--he is safe in such an attachment."
when her brother had left her, eleanor thought long and happily over it all. of his feelings she did not entertain a doubt, and her keen feminine perception had begun to discern in margaret certain symptoms which led her to hope that for her too the dawn of a fair day was at hand. if she had known more of the young widow's inner life, if she had had a clearer knowledge of her past. lady davyntry would have hoped less and feared more. but her ignorance prevented the discouragement of fear, and her natural enthusiasm aided the impulses of hope; and she saw visions and dreamed dreams which were pure and beautiful, for they were all of the happiness and the good of others.
thus margaret's sadness and silence, the gloom which sometimes settled heavily over her, did not grieve her watchful friend. if only she loved, or should come to love, fitzwilliam baldwin, all this should be changed. all the darkness should pass away, and a life adorned with all that wealth could lend, enriched with all that love could give, should open before the woman whose feet had hitherto trodden such weary ways. lady davyntry pleased herself with fancies of all she should do to increase the happiness of that splendid visionary household at the deane.
if lady davyntry could have known what were margaret's thoughts just at the time when mr. baldwin went away, she would have felt some discouragement, though not so much as a person less given to enthusiasm, and to the raising of a fancy to the rank and importance of a hobby. she had never realised any of the painful features of mrs. hungerford's past life; she had never tried to realise them. her mind was not of an order to which the realisation of circumstances entirely out of the sphere of her experience was possible, and she never speculated upon them.
in a different way, and for quite another class of reason, lady davyntry had arrived at a state of mind similar to that of mr. carteret, who regarded the blissful feet of his son-in-law's death as not only the termination, but the consignment to oblivion, of all the misery his existence had occasioned.
"of course she is low at times," thought lady davyntry; "that is only natural. after all, she must feel herself out of her place at chayleigh, with that detestable woman. but that will not last; and she will be all the brighter and the happier when fitz has her safely at home."
the world would have found it hard to understand that mr. baldwin's only sister--the great, rich, enviable, to-be-captured-if-possible mr. baldwin's sister--should desire so ardently the marriage of her brother with a person who had no fortune, no claim to personal distinction, and--a story. horrible dowry for a woman! better any insignificance, however utter.
and margaret? while mr. baldwin was attending to the long-neglected demands, undergoing active persecution at the hands of a neighbourhood resolved on intimacy, and longing, with all the strength of his heart, for the sight of margaret's pale face and the sound of her thrilling voice--while his sister was building castles in the air for him to tenant--what of margaret? what of her who was the centre, so unconsciously to herself, of all these hopes and speculations?
she was perhaps farther just then than she had ever been from a mood which was likely to dispose her towards their realisation. she had been disturbed rather than affected by the perusal of hayes meredith's letter. it had immediately succeeded to the outburst of emotion to which she had yielded in the presence of mr. baldwin, and for which she had afterwards taken herself severely to task; and it had upset her hard-won equanimity.
she was ashamed of herself, angry with herself, when she found out how much she desired that the past should be utterly forgotten. she had had to bear it all, and she had borne it, not so badly on the whole; but she did not want any reference to it; she shrunk from any external association with it as from a physical pain. her reluctance to encounter any such association had strangely increased within the past few weeks.
she did not know, she did not ask herself, why. was she ungrateful because she had felt intense reluctance to read hayes meredith's letter? had she forgotten, had she ceased to thank him for all he had done to lighten her lot? was she so cold, so "shallow-hearted," as to think, as many a vulgar-minded woman would have thought, that her account with the man who had succoured her in a strange land was closed with the cheque which her father had given her to be sent to him, in payment of the money he had lent her?
no, margaret hungerford was not ungrateful; but there was a sore spot in her heart which something--she did not ask what--was daily making sorer; the letter had touched it, and she shrunk with keen unexplained anguish from the touch. she lay awake the whole night after she had read the letter from melbourne, and it seemed to her that she lived all the old agonies of despair, rage, humiliation, and disgust over again.
it chanced that the next day james dugdale was ill. this was so common an occurrence that no one thought much about it. james was familiar with suffering, and it was the inevitable penalty of fatigue. not for him was the healthy sense of being tired, and of refreshing rest. fatigue came to him with pain and fever, with racked limbs, and irritable nerves, and terrible depression. his journey had tired him, and he lay all day on the couch placed in the window of his room.
hither came mrs. carteret frequently, fussily, but genuinely kind, and mr. baldwin, to say some friendly words, and feel the truest compassion for the strong man thus imprisoned in his weak frame. hither, later in the day, and much to the surprise of james dugdale, came margaret. he had thought she had gone to davyntry, and said so. she reddened, a little angrily, as she replied,
"no: i have not been out. you seem to think i must always go to davyntry."
"not i, indeed, margaret," said james, with a smile; "but i think they do. since i have been away, i understand you have been constantly at davyntry, and i am very glad to hear it; it is good for you and for lady davyntry also."
"perhaps so; she is very kind," said margaret absently. "at all events, i am not there to-day, as you see, and i am not going there, or anywhere, but i will sit here with you, if i may."
she turned on him one of her rare, winning smiles--a smile far more beautiful, he thought, than any her girlhood had been decked in. she drew a low chair into the bow of the window, beside his couch, and sat down. between him and the light was her graceful figure, and her clear pale face, with its strangely-contrasted look of youth and experience.
"are you really going to give up all the afternoon to me?" said james, in delight.
"i really am. i will read to you, or we can talk, just as you like. i suppose you don't feel any great fancy for turning tutor to me over again, though i see all my old school-books religiously preserved on your book-shelves," she said, glancing round at the well-stocked walls of the room, which had been the schoolroom in the days when haldane and she had been james's pupils.
"i have kept every remembrance of that time, margaret," said james.
there was a tone in his voice which might have been a revelation to her, had she heard it, but she did not. she smiled again, and said:
"you had a troublesome pupil. i am in a good mood to-day, as i used to say long ago, and i want to talk to you about this."
she took hayes meredith's letter out of her pocket as she spoke.
james dugdale kept silence, looking at her. "is she going to tell me the story of her life?" he thought. "am i going at last to learn something of the history of this woman whom i love?"
margaret did not speak for some moments; she looked at the letter in silence. then she unfolded it, and said:
"i am glad you let me read this letter for myself, james" (she had dropped into the habit of calling him by his name); "there are some hard things in it, but they are true--and so, better spoken, no matter how hard they may be. but let us pass them over, they are said of the dead."
her face hardened, and she turned it away from him. james dugdale laid his thin hand on her arm.
"margaret," he said, "you know i would not have given you that letter to grieve you. i was thinking so much of what meredith says of himself and his son that i forgot the allusion to--"
"i know, i know," she said hurriedly; "don't say his name; i never do."
the admission was a confidence. she was breaking down the barrier of reserve between them. she trusted him. she might come to like him yet. the friendship at least of the woman he loved might yet come to gild this man's lonely life. it would be much to him to know that she forgave him; and there was something in her manner now so different from anything that had ever been there formerly, that he began to hope she had really forgiven him.
in his quiet life, james dugdale had contrived to attain, with very little aid from experience, to a tolerable amount of comprehension of human nature, and he understood that margaret's practically-enforced conviction, that he had been unerringly right in all he had suspected and predicted of the fate in store for her, in her marriage, had not made her more inclined to pardon the interference on his part which she had so bitterly resented. but this was all over now, he did not know why; he felt it, he did not understand it.
was it that the natural elasticity of youth was asserting its power--that margaret was regaining her spirits, was throwing off the burden of the past, and, with it, all the feelings which had obscured the brightness and injured the gentleness of her nature? this was the most probable explanation; if, indeed, there was any other, it did not present itself as an alternative to james dugdale. while he was thinking thus, she began to speak again in a hurried tone:
"i should like to tell you now, james, because i would rather not have to refer to the matter again, that i know how kind you were to me, and how right in everything you said, and how hard you tried to save me. yes, yes; let me speak," she went on, and tears, seldom seen in her eyes, stood in them now. "i could not again; let me speak now. you tried, james, i know; but you could not succeed. it was from myself i needed to be saved. never think that you could have done anything more than you did; indeed you could not. nothing could have saved me."
she was trembling now, even as the hand which he laid on hers, unnoticed, was trembling. her lustrous eyes were wet, and the emotion in her face made it quite beautiful. james dugdale did not attempt to speak; he looked at her, and his heart was wrung with pity.
"it had to be, james, and it is done with, as much as it ever can be in this world, in which there is no release from consequences of our own acts. and now"--she raised her head, she released her hand, she was regaining her composure, the momentary expansion was past, as he felt, and he had learned nothing!--"let us talk of your friend, who was so kind to me, and retains so kind a recollection of me. what do you think of all he says?"
"i think badly of it," said james, as he leaned back on his couch again, and adopted the tone she had given to their conversation. "i fear robert meredith is a bad boy."
"so do i," said margaret. "i have seen him, though not often, and i never saw a boy--almost a child--whom i disliked so much. he is a handsome fellow, but selfish, heartless, and sly. his very cleverness was revolting to me, and i suspect the feeling of dislike between us was mutual; he has an american-like precocity about him which i detest. his little brothers, rough colonial children as they are, are infinitely more to be liked than he is. of course you must do as mr. meredith asks you; but if you will credit my judgment--and, all things considered, i am rather daring in asking you to do so--you will not undertake anything like personal charge of robert meredith."
"i will certainly take your advice in the matter, margaret; you know the boy. i fancy i had better urge meredith to bring him to england himself, if it is determined that he is to come. tell me as much as you remember about the boy, and all the family. i remember mrs. meredith a pretty, active, pert kind of girl--strong and saucy--a capital wife for him, i should think."
"i daresay," margaret answered carelessly; "i did not know much of her."
then their conversation turned on the career and circumstances of hayes meredith, with which this story has no concern. in aftertime james dugdale remembered that day as one of the happiest of his life. they were quite uninterrupted until late in the evening. mrs. carteret had carried off to a dinner-party her reluctant husband, who would have infinitely preferred to superintend the dinner of a peculiarly fine spider--whose proceedings he was watching just then, and whose larder was largely provided with the last unwary flies of the expiring autumn.
margaret and james dugdale dined alone. she was in good spirits on the occasion; she had almost lost the painful impression produced by hayes meredith's letter, by talking it over with james; and between herself and him there reigned harmony and unreserve which had had no previous existence. james had never seen her look so nearly beautiful; he had never seen her so kind, so gentle to him.
the hours passed over him in a kind of trance-like spell of pleasure. margaret talked as he had never imagined she could talk. he had soon recognised that her character was hardened and strengthened by the trials she had endured; but until this day he had not known that her intellect had grown and brightened in proportion.
they read together haldane's letters to his old mend, and margaret found in them many a kindly mention of her. her brother would know of her arrival in england at about this time.
"you must promise to tell me what he says, james, if it is not something very disagreeable indeed."
and james promised.
from that day margaret was a less unhappy woman than before. the first effect produced on her by meredith's letter returned when she went to davyntry, after mr. baldwin's departure, and was more than ever warmly greeted by her friend.
"i don't think i could bear fitzwilliam's absence if i had not your society," lady davyntry said to her; and, fond and flattering as the words were, there was, not in them, but in the mood in which she listened to them, something that hurt margaret.
the young widow's pride was for ever rebelling against the unshared knowledge of the experiences through which she had passed. eleanor talked to her incessantly of her brother, of the deane, of his occupations, his neighbours, and his popularity. the theme did not weary margaret; and lady davyntry accepted her unflagging attention as a delightful omen.
"she misses him; i am sure she misses him," was her pleased mental comment.
"i hardly expected margaret to remain so long at davyntry to-day," said mrs. carteret to james dugdale, as the family party were assembled in the drawing-room at chayleigh.
james observed the emphasis, and replied:
"indeed; why not?"
"mr. baldwin is not there, you know, and i fancy he is the great attraction."
james made her no reply. he fully understood the spiteful animus of the observation, but he also admitted its terrible probability; not in the present--he did not take so superficial a view of margaret's character as that would have implied--but a thrill of fear for the future came over him, troubling his fools' paradise. in a little while margaret came in, looking as tranquil as usual, and, in her accustomed manner of placid, unalterable calm,--the bearing she always opposed to the masked battery of mrs. carteret's insinuations and insolences,--answered the questions put to her.
when james dugdale was alone that night he took himself to task, in no gentle manner. he knew he had nothing to expect beyond the unexpected boon of kindness and confidence she had already extended to him; and yet the thought that another might again stand nearer to margaret than he, struck him with an anguish almost as keen as the first torment had been. he had doubted that fate could bring him anything very hard to bear again, and here was a faint sickening indication that fate intended to resolve his doubt into a fatal certainty.
but no: he would not think of it; he would not let it near him; it could not be. he knew he was weak in shrinking as he did, in striving to shut out anything that might possibly be true--and, therefore, ought to be faced--as he did; but the weakness would have its way, like the fainting of the body, and, for the present time at least, he would put the apprehension from him.
the days and the weeks passed by, and the external state of things remained unchanged at chayleigh. uninterrupted friendship, and a certain degree of confidence, were maintained between margaret and james. the health and spirits of the young widow improved; her friendship with lady davyntry remained unimpaired. the correspondence between eleanor and her brother was frequent and lengthy, and the letters from the deane were imparted with great frankness by the elder to the younger lady. they were vivid, amusing, and characteristic, and invariably included a message of cordial remembrance to the household at chayleigh. peace of mind was prevalent among all the parties concerned in the little drame intime with which we are dealing.
lady davyntry's mind was at peace, because she saw that margaret's interest in mr. baldwin's report of his doings at the deane did not flag; and, as she said to herself, "there was no one to interfere with his chances."
james dugdale's mind was at peace, because margaret seemed happier and calmer than he had ever again expected to see her; and, as mr. baldwin remained away, he was not to be feared; and it was evident that the source of her renewed content was to be found in her present sphere.
mrs. carteret's mind was at peace, because margaret gave her no trouble, and kept herself so quiet, so completely aloof from "the neighbourhood," that that noun of moderate multitude,--having satisfied its curiosity by observing how mr. carteret's daughter looked in her "weeds,"--was content to forget her existence, or ready to condole with mrs. carteret upon her stepdaughter's strange unsociability, and to compliment the lady upon the contrast in that respect which they presented.
things had turned out so differently from mrs. carteret's first apprehensive anticipations--she had been able to exploiter margaret so successfully; her boasted intimacy at davyntry had been so complacently indorsed by lady davyntry, who would have gone more directly against her conscience even than that to make margaret's position at home easier--that mrs. carteret had almost ceased to wish for margaret's departure--had even thought casually that it would certainly look better, and might possibly be better, if she could be induced to remain at her father's house.
"perhaps she may settle herself advantageously yet," mrs. carteret--whose ideas were eminently practical--said to herself; and she even thought of consulting james as to whether she had not better suggest such a solution of the problem of the future to margaret.
mr. carteret's mind was at peace, because his mind had never been in any other condition since godfrey hungerford's death had restored it to ordinary equilibrium, and because his collections were getting on splendidly.
when margaret hungerford had been five months at chayleigh--when the time was approaching which she had fixed upon as the period at which she would commence her career of labour and independence--when eleven months had elapsed since godfrey hungerford's death--when the snows of february lay thick and white upon the earth--an event occurred which disturbed the calm of chayleigh.
mrs. carteret distinguished herself in a most unexpected manner. she caught cold returning from one of the dull dinner-parties which her soul loved, and which no inclemency of weather, or domestic crisis which could be ignored with any decency, would have induced her to forego. a second dinner-party was to come off within three days; so mrs. carteret denied the existence of the cold, and attended that solemn festival. that day week she was dead.
