Mrs. Oliphant

“ I will not give up Margaret. She chose me as much as I chose her. She is frightened, and you may force her into abandoning her betrothed and breaking her word. Women are fickle, and she is afraid of you all; but she is mine, and I will never give her up.”
“Margaret,” said Sir Ludovic, taking her hand and drawing her forward, “give this man his answer. Tell him you will have none of him. You may have been imprudent—”
“But she can be prudent now,” said Rob Glen, with a smile; “she can give up, now that she is rich, the man that loved her when she was poor. Margaret! ”

“ He never said she should not cry, but kissed her hands and her cheek, and said soft caressing words: “My darling! my Margaret!” His heart was beating much more loudly than she could understand; but Rob, if he was not all good, had a certain tenderness of nature in him, and poetry of feeling which kept him from anything which could shock or startle her. At these moments, as the long summer day darkened and the soft gloaming spread over them, he was as nearly her true and innocent and generous lover as a man could be who was not always generous and true. ”

“ In grief, as in sickness, there is a moment when the burden is sensibly lightened, the bonds relax for the first time. This moment came to Margaret now. She was terrified to feel how light her heart was, and what an involuntary glow of exhilaration had come over her. Nothing had happened to make her glad. She was only rising again, in spite of herself, into the beauty of the common day, into the light and brightness of her youth. And indeed, but for the sense that she ought not to be happy, Margaret might well have felt the well-being of the moment enough for her. ”

“ Look what pictures of misery these people are! It is not rough, but they cannot believe that it may not be rough any moment: when there is a pitch—there—like that!” said Aubrey, himself looking a little queer. “They think, now it is coming! All their strength of mind, all their philosophy, if they have any, cannot resist one heave of that green water. Ugh—here’s another!” he cried, relapsing out of his fine moral tone into abject sensationalism. Margaret laughed as merrily, with her eyes dancing, as if there was no Rob Glen in the world. ”

“ Aubrey is a very good judge of such things; we can ask Aubrey to-morrow what he thinks the value should be. Now, Margaret, you are trembling from head to foot—you are as white as a sheet; you have a nervous look about your eyes that it always frightens me to see. My dear, what is to become of you,” cried Jean, “if you let every little thing upset you? It was in the course of nature that we should lose papa—he was an old man; and, I believe, though he was never a man who talked much about religion, that he was well prepared. And as for Earl’s-hall, you would not grudge that to Ludovic? ”

“ He had done it before many times; it was not the intense and real passion which now and then carries a man out of himself, the love that has no room in its heart for more than one image. But still it was what he knew as that sentiment; and it was quite genuine. A little mist came into Rob’s eyes, through which he saw Sir Ludovic in his chair, the task he had set before him; his heart beat in his ears, a soft confusion and excitement seized him. He did not know what he was doing, as he sat there with Margaret looking over his shoulder. ”

“ There were no young men, or, as Bell called them, “lauds,” about that could have caught her youthful eye. Bell knew that the romance of life begins early, and had some glimmering of recollection that before any “lauds” appear on the horizon in reality, there are flutters of anticipation in maiden souls, dreams of being wooed like the rest, “respectit like the lave.” But Margaret had seen none of the rural wooings which are a recognized institution in Scotland, those knocks at the window and whispers at the door, which add the charm of mystery to the never-ending romance. ”

“ But Miss Parker was crying softly in the corner of the sofa. Why does it always happen that people are at cross-purposes in loving? Miss Parker would have been very happy with Edward: why was it not she but the other whom the young soldier loved? It made Margaret sad to think of it. And then all at once there came into her mind, like a pebble cast into tranquil water, Rob Glen. Something in the features of poor Edward, who had died in the jungle, recalled Rob to her mind. Her heart began to beat. ”

“ Even John’s movements, the passing of himself or his shadow across the light, the sound of his heavy old leisurely footsteps, the slight clang of the silver and tinkle of the glass as it was put on the table, began to take a certain rhythm, and to lull the listener once more. “There must be something the matter with me,” Sir Ludovic said, as he roused himself once more with an effort, and got up to shake himself free, by movement, from the spell. Movement, that must be what he wanted—a little exercise, which he was aware he had neglected sadly. ”

“ Margaret had not the privilege of being untidy, which is allowed to most neglected heroines. Sir Ludovic required scrupulous neatness, hair that shone, and garments that were spotless, and ribbons as fresh as the day. Should not we all like just such a creature about us, fair as a new-blown rose, with a voice so toned and harmonious, a step with rhythm in it, a pair of eyes running over with understanding and interest, and no education to speak of? If only the creature would not arise upon us after and upbraid us for its want of knowledge! But of this risk Sir Ludovic never dreamed. ”

“ Was it a less sin in a woman than in a man to break a promise, to think nothing of a vow? A man would not be allowed to escape scathless from such a perjury, why should a girl? And as he walked along the street, mortified, humbled, breathing forth fumes of anger and pain, there even gleamed before Rob’s eyes the scrap of paper, the promise on which his mother counted, which was locked in the secretary in the farm-parlor. He had hated the vulgar sharpness which had exacted that promise from Margaret, he had scouted it as a means of keeping any hold upon her. ”

“ How different it had looked in the morning sunshine, with her father sitting among his books, and no evil near! All the color and light had gone out of it now; it was gray as death, pale, solemn—the old tower and gables rising against a sky scarcely less gray than they were, the trees swaying wildly about, the clouds rolling together in masses across the colorless sky.
It was not a time or a place to cheer any one. All the severity of aspect, which melts so completely out of a Scotch landscape with the shining of the sun, had come out in fullest force. ”

“ This occurrence gave him, not only Margaret, whom he was in love with, and whose society was for the time sweeter to him than anything in the world, but with her such a dazzling flood of advantages as might well have turned any young man’s head: a position such as he might toil all his life for, and never be able to reach: money, such as would make him admired and looked up to by everybody he knew: a life of intoxicating happiness and advancement, with no need to do anything he did not care to do, or take any further trouble about his living, one way or another. ”

“ He had found out how pretty Margaret was—how much prettier, day by day. It was not that there was any striking beauty in her that conquered with a glance; but every morning when she appeared down-stairs, with her color coming and going, with her brown eyes full of such eagerness and lovely wonder, “she grew upon you,” Aubrey said. He had thought her very tolerable even at first—no particular drawback to her income and her estate. But by this time he took a great deal of interest in her. She was never the same; always changing from serious to gay, from red to white, from quiet to eagerness. ”

“ How wide the world was, all full of infinite sky and sea, not to speak of the steady ground under foot, which was so much less great. Margaret looked out, her eyes straying far off to the horizon, the limit beyond which there was more and more water, more and more widening firmament. She was very reluctant to have it shut out. To draw down a blind, and retire within the little round of those walls, what a shrinking and lessening of everything ensued! “But it’s more sheltered like; it’s no so cold and so far,” said Bell, with a little shiver. ”

“ Why should there be any change? I like things to be as they are: you at the door, and John taking a look at the potatoes, and papa reading in the long room. And the summer nights so long, so long, as if they would never end.”
“But this ane is ending, and you must go to your bed,” said Bell. “The dew’s no so heavy to-night after the rain; but it’s time to go inbye and go to all our beds; it’s near upon ten o’clock.”
Margaret lingered to look at the soft brightness of the skies, those skies which never seemed to darken. ”

“ Jean believed in bed as a cure for most evils.
“You must not give way,” she said—“indeed, my dear, you must not give way; but a good night’s sleep will be the best thing for you; lie still and rest.”
“What a tender-hearted thing it is!” she said, going down-stairs again for a last word with Aubrey, after this agitating task was over. “I declare she has quite upset me, too; though it is scarcely possible, after being so long away from home, that I could feel as she does. She is a great deal too feeling for her own comfort. But, Aubrey, you must not lose your time, my dear boy; you must push on. ”

“ The sound of something coming was in her ears, a ringing, a singing, a general movement and flutter of she knew not what. To Bell the quiet was everything; to Margaret, she herself was the universe, and all the horizon was not too big to hold the rustling pinions and approaching foot-balls of the life to come.
“I think I will take a walk down the road,” she said, suddenly, over Bell’s head.
“Take a hap with you, in case it should get cauld. Sometimes there’s a wind gets up when the sun goes down. And you’ll no bide too long, Miss Margret,” Bell called after her as she ran lightly away. ”

“ What a thing it is to be out of pain when you have been suffering, and out of anxiety when you have been racked with that torture! Margaret leaned back in the corner, feeling the relief to the bottom of her heart. And it was a beautiful day, the country still all bright with the green of the early summer. When they had got a little way out of town, the faint little shade of disappointment in Miss Leslie’s mind over lost shopping and relinquished operas gave way to a sense of unusual exhilaration in being her own mistress, and even more than that, having an important trust in her hands. ”

“ Who could attempt to put that sky upon paper? There was all the fervor of first love in his enthusiasm for art, and as he pondered what color could give some feeble idea of such a sky, he thought no more of Margaret. What impossible combination could do it? And if it was done, who would believe in it? He looked at the growing glory with that despair of the artist which is in itself a worship. Rob was not an artist to speak of, yet he had something of the “feeling” which makes one, and all the enthusiasm of a beginner just able to make some expression of his delight in the beauty round him ”

“ The drawing itself was a memorial of the time when there was no trouble at all involved, when Rob, newly discovered, was a curiosity and delight to the young creature in quest of something new, to whom he was a godsend; and this it was which suddenly came before her now.
There is no such anguish of retrospection as that with which the very young look back upon moments in which they feel they have made themselves ridiculous, and given their fellow-creatures an inferior, inadequate representation of them. This it was which overwhelmed Margaret now. ”

“ She addressed herself to the ladies in the carriage, as was natural.
“If you please, ma’am,” she said, making a courtesy, “Miss Parker have gone to bed with a bad headache; but please there’s tea in the parlor, and all your rooms is ready.”
Margaret, however, scarcely saw the dark wainscoted room into which she followed her sisters, hearing their voices and exclamations as in a dream. It only seemed to Margaret to look very dark, very cold, with its gleams of reflections. Her little white-panelled room at home was far more cheerful than this dark place. ”

“ Oh, I wondered what dear Jean, with her own clever head, wanted Aubrey for—Jean, who can manage everything. But how can you tell whether you will love her, dear Aubrey? You cannot always love where you wish to; and I never would give my consent, never for a moment, to a match which was not—”
“What nonsense is she talking?” said Mrs. Bellingham. She had gone to get Margaret’s lace to exhibit, and this was why Grace had found the occasion to address Aubrey at such length, “a match which was not—something or other; I am sure, Aubrey, you will fall in love, as everybody does before they marry. ”

“ There was nothing to be done but to pity the poor girl, who had nobody to breathe the secret of her heart to, except Aunt Jean and Aunt Grace.
That night, however, after all the ladies had gone up-stairs, Lady Leslie appeared again in her dressing-gown in the long room, where her husband was sitting at his father’s table. The room was dark, except in the small space lighted by his lamp; and if the good man, though he had not much imagination, was startled by the sight of the white figure coming toward him through the dimness, he may be forgiven, so soon after a death in the family. ”

“ Jean had told him that he had better lose no time; and the fact of Mr. St. John’s evident intentions had quickened Aubrey’s. The good which another man was trying to secure became more valuable in his eyes. She was certainly very pretty, he said to himself, a delicate little creature, like a pale rose—not altogether a white rose, but that delicate blush which is not definable by any vulgar name of color; and her silky hair was piquant among all the frizzy unkempt heads that were more fashionable. On the whole, he had not the least objection to make what “running” he could for Margaret. ”

“ Margaret gathered it about her and put on her hat, with its thick black gauze veil—she did not know herself in all this panoply of woe—and went out. There was nobody about. John was showing the new Baronet his pigsty, and Bell, more comforted and cheerful than she had yet felt, stood in the door of the byre and talked to Lady Leslie about her favorite, her bonnie brown cow. The old people were amused and pleased; they were more near “getting over it” than they had felt yet; and even John began to feel that it might be possible, after a while, to say Sir Ludovic again. ”

“ It was Rob, perhaps, who had the most right to be excited by this unexpected vision; but Randal, who had no right, was also driven half wild by it, and altogether lost his head as he stood gazing blankly about him, and saw Margaret, rather dragging Aubrey after her than being conducted by him, thread through the crowd with such an eager impulse of flight. Few young men could have refused to be a little biassed and shaken from their equilibrium by the sweetness of such a reception as he had just received. ”

“ You need not think I will do anything wrong.”
“I must act according to my judgment, Margaret. You are too young to know what you are doing. I must save you from this adventurer. You do not even care about him. I know how a girl looks when she is in love: not as you do, Margaret, thank God for it; and that is the one thing of any importance. I must interfere.”
“I do not want to be disobedient,” she said; “but, Ludovic, you know there must be some things that are my own. You cannot judge for me always, nor Jean either. ”

“ But Sir Ludovic had a face of care when he made his appearance next day. The sense of what he had got to do hung heavy on his soul. Though his wife had entreated him not to be harsh, it was not of cruelty, but of weak indulgence, that the good man felt himself most capable. He almost hoped the girl would be saucy and impertinent, to put him on his mettle; but one glance at Margaret’s pale, subdued child’s face, which had been so happy and bright a little while ago, made this appear impossible. ”

“ Meanwhile, Sir Ludovic had gone up to Rob Glen in great agitation. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Why did you come here? I never thought you would have taken such a step as this. I gave you credit for more straightforwardness, more gentlemanly feeling—”
“There has been enough of this!” cried Rob. Exasperation is of kin to despair. Amidst all these bewildered faces looking at him, not one was friendly—not one looked at him as the future master of the house, as the man who was one day to be Margaret’s husband should have been looked at. ”

“ But you’ll be wanting a piece,” she added, turning to go in, “and, Miss Margret, there’s a cold air about. If I was you I would slip on a bit of a jacket or something. The earth’s damp amang the pitawties. I’ll send you out your piece.”
“I feel as if I were a boy again, fishing in the burn, when Bell speaks of a piece,” said Rob, in an undertone.
“I hope you are not angry,” said Margaret, humbly. “Bell always says whatever she pleases. She does not stand in awe of anybody—even my sister Jean, who is a grand lady—at least, I am sure she thinks she is very grand; but Bell never minds. ”