no time was lost by james dugdale in acting upon the resolution which had been arrived at by him and his friend. the task of writing to mr. baldwin was one of the most painful which it had ever been his lot to fulfil, and as his pen traced the lines destined to carry such dismay, to cause such irremediable grief to his friend, and to the woman whom he had loved so well and so patiently, he thought somewhat bitterly of the strangeness of his fate. twice he had been destined to traverse margaret's path in the bright hours of her existence, twice he had been appointed to convey to her words of disappointment, of bitterness, of doom. life had given him little, he thought, in proportion to that which he had been called upon to suffer. only one human creature was very precious to him, and he was so little to her that she would never even comprehend the misery he had to suffer, and must still suffer, through her. a general sort of sympathy she would expect from him and recognise, but she would never know that he would cheerfully have borne anything in the shape of suffering that could have been debased, to save her from the knowledge of the facts which his hand was then recording on the paper so soon to meet and blast fitzwilliam baldwin's eyes. he had sometimes thought, just before her marriage, that margaret had divined and partly penetrated his secret; but she did not think of it now, he felt assured, even if she had. all the fulness and beauty of life, all its best and brightest possibilities, had been opened to her, had been given to her in such lavish abundance, that her mind had no room for anything outside its own felicity.
thus james thought; but in thus thinking he did not rightly understand margaret. her mind was more capacious, her nature was more stedfast, than he knew, and she had measured the depth and the strength of his love for her more accurately than he guessed, and held it in more dear, grateful, and compassionate remembrance than he would have dared to hope. at the very time when he was writing to her, margaret, in her sunny italian home, was thinking and talking of james to her husband and to lady davyntry, who had always entertained much regard for mr. dugdale of an unintelligible nature, for she admitted readily that she did not understand him.
"nothing could be more acceptable to gerty's godfather," margaret was saying, "than a portrait of gerty--and of me. he shall have the small one we have ordered; and the large one for papa must be begun as soon as we get his answer to my last letter."
"you ought to have heard from him before this about it, madge, should you not?" asked lady davyntry, looking up from her work; "it is time for a letter."
"not quite, according to papa's measurement, nelly. he generally takes a fortnight to make up his mind about any question he is asked, and then another fortnight to put the result on paper. i had a letter from james, you know, but he said nothing about the picture."
"we'll have it begun at once, margaret," said mr. baldwin, who was standing by the verandah, looking out upon the shining, blue, foam-flecked sea. "i don't like a thing of that kind being put off. i wonder dugdale does not answer for your father. and, by the bye," he continued, crossing the room, and taking a seat beside his wife, "they are tolerably busy just now at chayleigh; it must be about the time of mr. meredith's arrival. what date did dugdale mention?"
"he thought about the 25th," said margaret.
as she spoke, the colour in her cheek waned, and there was a slight change in the expression of her face, which was a bright face now, but always mobile and a sure index to her feelings; a change which indicated to her husband, on whom no look of hers was ever lost, that the mention of hayes meredith's name had a disturbing effect upon her. he saw it, and understood it, and it vexed him, for, not with, her.
this was the one weakness in margaret which troubled her perfect peace and happiness, and through them his. not all the unequalled contentment of her lot had power to obliterate the past for her so completely as to deprive association of its power to wound.
there was one evil which all her husband's love and care could not keep quite away from her--the dark shadow of the bad bygone days when he as yet had no place in her life. she tried hard to fulfil her promise to her husband; she lived for him as truly and completely as ever any woman lived for any man, and she was a wonderfully happy human being.
but this one weakness clung to her still. the feeling of dread, misgiving, reluctance with which she had heard at first of hayes meredith's intention of coming to england, had never changed or lessened. she tried to escape from it, to forget it; she condemned her own weakness much more severely than mr. baldwin condemned it, but there it remained all the same, as present as if she had not condemned it at all. she had felt that she escaped much by being abroad when mr. meredith should arrive, she had blushed for her ingratitude in feeling it, she had persuaded herself that when he should have arrived, and she should know that he was in england, this strange, for the present unconquerable, feeling might wear off. it must be in a great measure nervous, she thought; it had come upon her so often and oppressively before her child's birth--surely it would vanish then. time had brought her such immeasurably rich compensation, "good measure, pressed down, and running over," she had but this one thing more to ask of time, and that would come.
it was on a glorious day, even for naples, that fitzwilliam baldwin, happily alone when it arrived, received james dugdale's letter. margaret, her child, and lady davyntry had gone out, intending to remain away for some hours, to the villa of friends of eleanor's, who rejoiced immensely in the society of the english family. mr. baldwin was to join them in the afternoon, a sociable arrangement tending to rescue the ladies from boredom, without subjecting the gentleman to the same.
the writing of the letter which came to the beautiful villa by the sea, that glorious day, had been attended with difficulties which are not easily described. partly from his knowledge of the man, and partly from the gift of insight and sympathy which he possessed in a rare degree, james dugdale could enter into the perplexity and intricacy of the trouble of which he was the harbinger, and could follow the inevitable workings of mr. baldwin's mind under the circumstances. meredith had at first proposed that the truth should not be told to baldwin, that he should only be prepared for important news of an unpleasant character, and urged to return as speedily as possible. but james would not agree to this.
"no," he said, "the truth must be told, and borne somehow; and a plain simple statement of it to a man like baldwin is the best thing to be done, and will enable him to bear it best. if he is kept in suspense, he will be unable to keep her from suspicion, and that is the great point for him to secure."
that mr. baldwin would exert himself to the utmost to conceal his feelings until they reached england, james did not doubt; and that he would acquiesce in their view of the case he felt assured. with this view, and in this spirit, the terrible letter was written; how it was read, how the full knowledge of the meaning of its contents was endured, no human being ever knew.
in the midst of the great bewilderment which fell upon fitzwilliam baldwin, while he sat with his eyes fixed upon dugdale's letter, in the midst of the rush of wildly-varying but all-painful feeling which took possession of him, two things were uppermost in his mind: the one that the news which had reached him might be hidden until their arrival in england from margaret, the other that the birth of a son would set this dreadful matter right, as far as it was capable of rectification.
as the hours during which he was absorbed in deep and agonising reverie wore away, he saw these two points more and more clearly, and began to take comfort from them. dugdale had laid so much stress in his letter upon the certainty of the truth being known to no one but meredith and himself, upon the feasibility of such prompt and ready action, that it would be necessary only to let margaret learn the need of the second marriage ceremony just before the time of its performance, and upon the fortunate circumstance that the little one so unintentionally wronged would be placed beyond the reach of injury when the expected event should have taken place, that the heart-stricken reader could not but see the force of his arguments.
he thought very little of himself in all this. a swift sharp pang of regret when he felt that he had failed in the great task he had set himself, the high privilege he had striven for--that the woman whom he loved with such love as his experience told him men very rarely had to bestow, was not placed by that love, and all the defences with which it had surrounded her, beyond the reach of the stings of fortune--a piercing, agonising sense of defeat, of failure,--and all he suffered in his own person, on his own account, was finished and over. but for her, for margaret--she who, in the midst of her happiness, in the summertide of her pride, and the security of her good fortune, dreaded the slightest, most passing reference to the past, whose sensitiveness and delicacy was tortured even now with a sense of degradation in the clinging of the old associations of the past--for her, he suffered as much as it was in his nature--which had largely the faculty of pain--to suffer.
when the time drew near at which he must prepare to meet margaret, to find himself under her calm, but, where he was concerned, keen observation, forced to deceive her in fact, and to feign a state of spirits utterly foreign to the truth, he started up with a sudden fear that the havoc which had been at work within him might have made its mark upon his face. he knew that his wife--and when the dear familiar word came into his thoughts, he shuddered at the sudden realisation it forced upon him of the awful truth, she was not his wife--that margaret would detect trouble in his face with unerring keenness and certainty.
he must devise a pretext for their sudden return, dugdale had said in the letter. of course, and it must be found, must be decided upon, at once. he stood still before a mirror and looked at his face. it was pale and haggard, as though he had gone through a long illness, and had grown suddenly older in it. the pretext which would account to margaret for this face of his must needs be a serious one. and if it must, why not make it the true pretext? could he devise to tell her any trouble, loss, or calamity affecting him which she would not share to the full? were they not, indeed, and in the holiest truth of that mysterious tie of love, one? would she not grieve as much for an imaginary evil, if it could thus affect him, as for the real cross which she would have to carry? at first, his wondering gaze upon his own changed face in the glass, fitzwilliam baldwin thought--"yes, i may as well tell her the truth; she cannot take it worse than she will take anything affecting me only!"
but, again, a little reflection stopped him. if the truth were revealed to margaret now, it would be so far different from any trouble that could come to them in the ordinary course of their united life, that it must sever them. from the instant that margaret should know that she was not his wife there would be no more liberty for her, but restraint between them, and the action of a feeling which would take strong root in her delicate and sensitive mind. no, he must guard her, as her warmhearted but cool-judging friends had decided, against the discovery--he should win her forgiveness afterwards for a small deception involving so much to be gained in this terrible crisis of their fate.
he roamed from room to room of the beautiful villa overhanging the sea, and looked drearily around him on all the familiar objects associated with their everyday life. they were all familiar, true, and yet they were so strange. on them all there was the impress of the dreariness and the desolation which sweeps in the wake of a great shock, of a sudden event after which life can never again be the same, over all the soulless things in the midst of which we live. these were margaret's rooms, and she was flitting about them when he saw her and them last, and they could never look the same again--neither they nor margaret. could it be true? was it real, or a dream?
he stopped and pulled out james's letter, and read it again; and once more the full terrible reality struck him as with a palpable physical blow. this, then, was the fulfilment of that vague dread which margaret confessed to having felt, that "superstitious terror" which had pursued her often when her life was fullest of blessings and happiness. james dugdale had not erroneously estimated the confidence which he believed to exist between fitzwilliam baldwin and margaret. it was thorough, perfect, absolute. there had not been a thought of her heart hidden from her husband, and therefore he was fully able to comprehend all the depth and bearing, the full weight and severity, of the calamity which had come upon them.
what a mockery was the beauty of the scene on which he looked! what warmth or light was there in the sunshine now--what music was there in the play of the bright waves upon the curving coast? then he took himself to task for weakness. he ought to have stood the shock of even such intelligence better than this. where were the strength and manliness which never before had failed him? in other straits and trials of his life he had always manifested and been proud, after a fashion, of manifesting strength and composure; but in this they failed him. strength had forsaken his limbs, and there was no composure in the ashen face he looked at in the glass; for the chief weight of this crushing sorrow must fall, not on himself, but on one much dearer--on her whose happiness he had set before him as the chief aim and effort of his life.
there was a common-sense practical point of view in which he ought to look at it--the point of view in which dugdale's letter had placed it, the point of view which was so much more clearly perceptible to hayes meredith than to james. after all, the evil was transient, if irreparable; and the proposed precautions, taken with good will and with good sense, could not fail. but fitzwilliam baldwin was not quite master of himself in this crisis; a touch of the same presentiment which had haunted margaret came now to him, and made him tremble before an undefined dread dimly looming behind the clear and ascertained truth.
when he set himself seriously to decide upon the pretext by which he should account to margaret for the sudden change of all their plans, mr. baldwin was not slow about finding one.
margaret knew little in detail of the management and circumstances of the large property of which she was the mistress. this ignorance arose neither from incapacity nor from lack of interest, but came solely from a little of the "lady-burleigh" feeling, combined with the full occupation of her mind in the delights of her home and her household, and the idea that she always had time before her for the acquisition of a knowledge of what she called "fitzwilliam's office business." lady davyntry was not much wiser; indeed, she rather trusted to her brother's knowing all about her affairs, and transacting all business relating to davyntry, than troubled herself with inquiry into matters regarding the deane.
the pretext, then, should be a letter from the factor at the deane, and urgent interests of the property at stake, requiring the master's presence. lady davyntry, he knew, would immediately propose that she and margaret should remain at naples until mr. baldwin should have transacted his business, to which he must be careful to lend a sufficiently unpleasant aspect, and be able to rejoin them. but mr. baldwin knew he might make his mind easy on that score. certain as he was that his sister would make this proposition--which, under the circumstances, and especially in consideration of margaret's situation, would be eminently and palpably reasonable--he was at least as certain that margaret would not consent to remaining at naples if he had to leave her. he might safely trust to the gently-maintained but perfectly-assured self-will of margaret under such circumstances; and this confidence reduced the difficulties of his task very considerably.
his plan was all arranged, and the first rush of the sea of his troubles had subsided, when he mounted his horse (mr. baldwin's horses were famous in naples) and rode slowly away from the home in which he had been so happy,--so marvellously happy it seemed to him, now that the disturbing element had come in,--to meet margaret, feeling like a man in a dream.
"something has happened! what is it?" said margaret in a whisper to her husband, as soon as he had gone through the formalities of the occasion, and she could approach him without being remarked. "is there any bad news from home? is anything wrong with papa?"
"nothing, my darling. i have been upset by some unpleasant intelligence from curtis. it is only a matter of business; you shall hear all about it when we get home."
"only a matter of business. thank god! but you look very ill, fitzwilliam. is it anything very wrong?"
"yes; it may involve me in much annoyance. but i cannot say more now. don't look so anxiously at me; i am not ill, only worried over the affair. can you get away soon?"
"yes, immediately. i have only to gather up eleanor and baby."
she smiled faintly as she spoke, and he returned the smile more faintly still.
"gather them up, then, and let us go."
the few minutes consumed in leave-taking were very tedious to fitzwilliam baldwin, and his pale face and uncontrollably absent manner did not pass unnoticed by the lady of the house.
"i am sure there is something the matter with mr. baldwin," said mrs. sinclair to her husband, when the visitors had departed, a strange sort of gloom accompanying their leave-taking. "did you notice, william, how ill he looked?--just like a man who had seen a ghost."
"nonsense," was the uncompromising reply of mr. sinclair; "i daresay he is not well. you should not say such things before the children, minnie; you'll see now we shall have them gravely demanding to be informed what is a ghost. what shall you do then?"
"refer them to you, sir, as the source and dispenser of universal knowledge. and it's all very well for you to say 'nonsense;' but i am certain something is very wrong with mr. baldwin. however, if there is, we shall soon know it. i am sure i hope not, for his sister's sake."
"and his wife's, surely; she is a very sweet creature."
"i prefer lady davyntry," said mrs. sinclair shortly; and the conversation dropped.
mr. baldwin was perfectly right in his anticipation of the manner in which the communication he had to make to his "womankind" would be received by them. lady davyntry was very voluble, margaret was very silent and closely observant of her husband.
"what a horrid nuisance, my dear fitz!" said lady davyntry; "and i must say i think it is extremely stupid of curtis. of course i don't pretend to understand mining business, and rights and royalties, and all the rest of it; but i do wonder he needs must bother you about it just now, when we are all so comfortable here, and madge getting ever so much better. i suppose writing to these odious people would not do?"
"no, eleanor, certainly not," replied her brother; "i must go to them, there's nothing else for it; i saw that at once."
"dear, how tiresome! and how long shall you be away, fitz?"
"it is impossible to tell, nelly; and i must start as soon as possible.--how soon can you be ready, margaret?"
there was an extraordinary tenderness in his tone, something beyond the customary unfailing sweetness with which he invariably addressed her; a compassionate unconscious deference in his manner which thrilled her sensitive nerves. she had not removed her gaze from her husband's face since he had made the communication which he had promised; but she had not spoken a word. now she said simply, still looking at him:
"i can be ready to start to-morrow, if you are."
"to start to-morrow, madge!" exclaimed lady davyntry in half-angry, half-incredulous astonishment. "you cannot mean it. there was never such an idea entertained by fitz, i am certain, as your going.--of course you don't mean it?" and she turned anxiously to her brother.
"i certainly did think margaret would come with me," returned mr. baldwin.
"i assure you, nelly," said margaret, "nothing could induce me to remain here without him."
lady davyntry was very good-humoured, as she always was, but very voluble and eager in her remonstrances. the discussion was somewhat of a relief to mr. baldwin, and it ended as he had foreseen it would end. margaret and her little daughter would accompany him to england, and his sister would remain at naples. the servants, with the exception of the child's nurse, were to be left at the villa. mr. baldwin had remembered that the absence of attendants on margaret and himself would materially contribute to the maintenance of that secrecy which was so necessary. the simplicity of the personal habits of both rendered their travelling without servants a matter of surprise to no one.
"you are quite sure you will be back in a month, fitz?" lady davyntry said at the close of the discussion, when she had accepted the inevitable with her usual unfailing cheerfulness, and was actually almost ready to think the plan a very pleasant variety. "you must, you know, for i don't believe it would be safe for margaret to travel after a longer time; and you know what cooper said about march in england for her chest. and a month will give you time to settle all this bothering business. i really think i should get rid of curtis, if i were you, and give madge plenty of time to see mr. carteret. i have some lovely lava to send him; and, madge, i will let you have the flat knife signor lanzi gave me, you know--the one they found in pompeii. they say it belonged to sallust's cook, and he used to slap it on the dresser when dinner was ready to be served. mr. carteret would be delighted to have it; don't you think so?"
"i am sure he would," margaret answered absently.
lady davyntry went on: "you mustn't worry about this business, fitz; it is not like you to bother so about any mere matter of money."
"it is more than a mere matter of money, nelly," said mr. baldwin hastily. "but there, don't let us talk of it any more.--you will get ready to start on wednesday, margaret; and, please god, we shall all be here together again before long."
he left the women together, and went away, pleading letters to be written for the mail in the morning. as he closed the door, margaret's quick ear caught the sound of a heavy sigh. in her turn she thought what eleanor had said, "it is not like him to think so much of a mere matter of money;" for his explanation had not made it clear to her that anything more than money was concerned.
her sister-in-law talked on and on to her, growing more excited by and better pleased with the occurrences of the day as she did so, until she finally persuaded herself that no real harm, or even permanent unpleasantness, could come out of them to her brother. margaret hardly heard her. her heart was heavy and troubled; and that night, as she and her husband stood by the bed where their child was sleeping, watching the infant's happy slumber, as was their invariable custom, she gathered confirmation of her shapeless misgiving from the expression of his face, from the infinite tenderness of his tone to her, and the deep melancholy of the look he turned upon the child.
"is there a shadow, a dread, a skeleton in his past too?" margaret mused, when she was alone; "and am i about to find it out? i thought there was nothing in all his noble history which needed an hour's concealment, or could bring a cloud to his face. but i must, as surely i can, trust him. if there be more to tell than he has told,--and i think there must be, for what is a money risk to him and me?--it is my part to wait patiently until the time comes for me to know it. when he thinks it right, he will tell me; until then i ought to be satisfied, and i will. he said the chief part of his business would be in london; i shall hear all about it there."
calling to her aid her former habit of self-control,--a little fallen into disuse in the new and perfect happiness of her life, in which it was seldom needed,--margaret did not embarrass mr. baldwin by a question, by the slightest betrayal that she suspected any concealment on his part; but she said to herself very frequently, in the brief interval before the commencement of their journey, "i shall learn the truth in london."
the old presentiment which had once haunted her so constantly, which had been so readily awakened by the merest chimerical cause, of which she had felt guilty, ashamed, combating its influence by reasoning upon its ingratitude, its weakness, its unworthiness, had left her, it seemed, at this time. no shadow from the brooding wings of the terrific truth swept across her soul.
the journey was commenced at the appointed time, and safely accomplished, with as much celerity as was possible nearly thirty years ago.
on their arrival in london, the travellers went to a hotel in bond-street, and margaret, much tired by the journey, fell almost immediately into a sound sleep. they had reached london at noon, and it was quite dark when she awoke. the glimmering firelight showed her mr. baldwin's figure seated beside her bed, and she awoke to the consciousness that he was looking at her with terrible intentness.
"are you quite rested, my darling?" he said.
"quite."
she answered only one word. the time had come, and she was afraid, though still no shadow from the brooding wings of the terrific truth swept across her soul. he kissed her on the forehead, and rose. then he said,
"come down as quickly as you can. i asked dugdale and mr. meredith to meet us in london, and they are here."
