Mrs. W. K. Clifford

“ Margaret began.
"Darling, you must call me Lena."
"That Mr. Garratt comes here to see Hannah, my half-sister, and not to see me."
"Oh, but Tom said that you and he talked to each other all the time," Lena went on in her sugary voice.
"This is just what I expected, considering the goings on," Hannah cried, almost losing control over herself. "But it's not Margaret that he comes to see."
"No one could come and see any one else when she is here," Lena whispered to herself; but Hannah heard, and answered quickly:
"It's she that puts herself forward and forces herself upon him." ”

“ At heart you have been lovers, and you can't deny it. She has given you the one love of her life, dear"—Mrs. Lakeman was becoming sentimental—"and I never dreamed that you had not given her yours. You can go back to Margaret Vincent, if you like, but you have killed my child—my one, only child. You must see how ill she looks, how changed she is."
"But this is ghastly," he said; "I'm not a bit in love with Lena. I never cared for any one in that way but Margaret, and I want to marry her."
"Go and marry her," Mrs. Lakeman answered, in a low voice; "Lena will not be alive to see it. ”

“ Tom, too! Margaret thought.
"Well, they seem to think he's looking after Mabel Margetson," the woman answered.
"There'd be some money there," the man said.
"A good bit, no doubt," the woman answered; "but money isn't everything."
No, money isn't everything, Margaret's heart answered them. Money is nothing, after a certain point; nothing is anything except the love of your dearest, the sound of a living voice, the sight [Pg 303] of a dear face, the touch of a thin, gaunt cheek against your own. "Oh, she must live," she cried dumbly to herself, though never a sign or movement betrayed it. ”

“ She had imagined what London would be like from pictures, and from Guildford and Haslemere, and other places where there were shops and streets. It was what she had expected, and yet it was different. She felt herself so near to the heart of things, as if the people going to and fro were the pulse of the world; she could almost hear the throb of their [Pg 57] lives. She wanted to be in the whirl of things, too, to know what it was all like, to understand—oh, no, no! the farm was better, the Dutch garden and the best parlor and the mother who was thinking of her. ”

“ Tom has been ours—all his life," Mrs. Lakeman went on, vehemently; "he and she have grown up together; he has always loved her; he has done everything for us; they have never been three days apart till we went to Scotland the other day. She worships him, and it has been the one hope of my life to see them married. She has never dreamed of anything else; he is the air she breathes and the world she lives in. When that telegram came yesterday it struck her like a death-blow."
[Pg 284]
"Oh, but Tom and I love each other," Margaret cried, in despair. ”

“ An unreasonable, undefinable happiness that could not be put into words rose to her heart when she thought of Tom Carringford. She could hear his laughter still, and his merry talk as they made a bower of Miss Hunstan's room; she wanted to see him again already, and something told her that he wanted to see her.
The farm-yard gates were wide open. It was good to see the corner of the Dutch garden again, and in the porch, just as Margaret had known she would be, her mother stood waiting. Mr. Vincent took his wife's hand without a word, and looked into her face with a little smile. ”

“ Then all was still, and she knew that her mother had died.
"She is better off; God be merciful to her, a sinner," Hannah said, and sat down in the arm-chair at the bedside. It seemed to Margaret as if hours went by while she cowered and rocked in her hiding-place, hoping that presently the dead would be left alone for a little, and that then she might creep out and see her mother's face once more.
But this was not to be, for when Hannah rose she called down the staircase: "Towsey, you can come; we must make her ready." ”

“ There are deep ruts along the lane, suggesting that heavy carts come and go, and presently, on the right also, are the gates of Woodside Farm. Inside the farm gates there is another duck-pond; and there are haystacks and out-buildings, and all the signs of thriving agricultural life. Just beyond the wide, untidy drive you can catch a glimpse of the Dutch garden, with its green paths and yew hedges, its roses and sweet peas. The house is an old one; moss and ivy and lichen grown; a porch, with a seat in it, to the front door, and latticed panes to the window. ”

“ They called the beech wood their cathedral—the great elms and beeches and closely knit oak-trees made its roof and the columns of its aisles—and it seemed as if in their hearts they celebrated a silent service there to a mysterious God who had made joy and sorrow and all the beauty of the earth and given it to humanity for good or ill. In a sense, Margaret had no other religion. ”

“ Vincent answered, "and I hope he won't call himself by any other name than the one he has been known by. For my part, I never could see why people set so much store on titles. The biggest lord that lives only lies in one grave at last, and it isn't as if Gerald had a son to come after him, or was coming to big estates that had to be thought of. He'll live here again, and be just the same as he always was." She looked bravely at Mrs. Lakeman though her heart was sinking, for she knew that the old life at Woodside Farm was forever at an end. ”

“ For Margaret, her father's going brought all sorts of restrictions and limitations; but her mother was too much wrapped up in her own dreams to perceive it, or to draw closer to her than before, and so to make up for the loss of his companionship. Thus Hannah was free to show the dislike she had always felt and to worry her with petty tyrannies.
"The best parlor will be used by any one who likes till he returns," she promptly announced. "It has been kept apart long enough, as if the whole of the house wasn't fit for those who own it to live in, unless it was sometimes by way of a treat." ”

“ Margaret felt, as they drove on again, as if she had found a playfellow, a comrade, some one who made life a wholly different thing. She had never been on equal terms with any one young before—with any one at all who laughed and chattered and looked at the world from the same stand-point as she felt that she and Tom did, though till yesterday she had not set eyes on him. ”

“ He stood behind her in an attitude while Chopin's magnificent chords rolled upward—to Gerald Vincent's books, and down to the gray-haired woman in the chintz-covered chair, before they stole out of the open window into the Dutch garden and the indefinite wood beyond, as if they sought the cathedral.
"Margaret," cried Hannah, hurrying from the kitchen, "close the piano at once. Sunday is no time for playing." ”

“ He enjoyed every yard of it; up the hill and past the cottages, along the road beyond; beside the moor covered with ling, and through Chidhurst village, till he came in sight of the church, and the gates of Sir George Stringer's house just opposite the little gate that led across the fields to the farm. He looked at the box of roses and the basket of peaches and grapes on the driver's seat. "I hope my mother-in-law is better," he thought, with a happy laugh in his eyes. "I believe I shall be fond of her, and Vincent is a brick."
"You know there's a death at the farm, sir?" ”

“ Hannah began.
"Oh, but let me speak," Margaret went on, passionately; "it's being honest that matters, and doing right—trying to be all that Christ preached [Pg 329] —if we are only that we can leave the rest. It is not we who doubt God, but you who doubt Him when you think He could be hard and cruel to us. There are so many forms of religion in the world besides the one that you believe in; are all the people to be condemned who try to do right from different points of view? It's all a mystery and beyond our comprehension." ”

“ Margaret answered, fervently.
"Perhaps he didn't want you. We've only his word for it there is this brother in Australia—and what is that worth, I should like to know?"
Mrs. Vincent looked up quickly from her seat in the porch. "I'll have you speak with respect of the man who is my husband," she said, gently.
"And shame to you, mother, that he is. He has undermined your faith, and made you forget your first husband's child."
"Hannah, you will be silent," Mrs. Vincent answered, with some of her old dignity. "We have each kept to our own way of thinking, and neither has meddled with the other. ”

“ The best roses were cut for his writing-table, the ripest fruit for his dessert and breakfast, and once when she lingered in the best parlor, dusting it before he was down, she lifted a half-written slip and kissed it, knowing that his hand must have rested on it; for youth does not monopolize romance, and even eight-and-thirty can know its agitations. After a time Mr. Vincent became aware of her feeling for him ”

“ She looked up at the little stars that had been there thousands of years before she was born, and would be there thousands of years to come—at the stars and the black trees that made the shadows, at the woods in which she had never trodden and yet knew so well, at the deep gray sky, the rough fence that bounded the railway line—and everything seemed to know as she passed by that she was going to her mother, only to find that nothing, nothing in this wide world, can alter the inexorable law of nature and the great decree when it has once been given. ”

“ This was very awkward, he thought, but for the life of him he didn't believe in it.
"You have been very kind to me," he said; "but it's no good not telling the truth about a thing of this sort—I couldn't marry Lena. I'm very fond of her, but she isn't the kind of girl that I could fall in love with; she flops about and you never know where you have her, and as for her being desperately in love with me, why, I don't believe it. We should worry each other to death if we were married; besides, I mean to marry Margaret Vincent."
"If the grocer hasn't stolen a march on you." ”

“ Vincent. "But I have always found that there was more in silence than in talk. I hope you and Mr. Garratt will settle up soon, Hannah, for these quarrels make me miserable."
"It's Margaret's fault, not mine," Hannah answered, doggedly. "After all, mother, whatever's said, you know that I'm fond of you. If there had been no strangers about all these years, and I'd had the taking care of you by myself, I could have been content enough without any thought of marrying."
"Jealousy is such a poor thing, Hannah."
"We ourselves are poor things in the sight of the Lord, mother. ”

“ It was five o'clock when Margaret knocked at the street door in Great College Street again.
"There's a lady waiting for you," Mrs. Gilman said, as she let her in.
"A lady!" Margaret exclaimed, and hurried up-stairs. In the drawing-room sat Hannah. She wore her blue alpaca frock and black straw hat with the upstanding bow on one side; she had thrown aside her cape, and the moment she saw Margaret she took off her hat as if to prepare herself for the fray. ”

“ Vincent shook her head. "I'm better at home," she replied; "travelling is not for old people."
Then, not as if she had generated the thought in her own mind, but as if it had come stealing to her over the Surrey hills from the city far away, [Pg 122] Margaret wondered what it would feel like to go to London by herself, to be among the people there, to see the streets and hear the rumble of the traffic, to live alone, as Miss Hunstan did, in white-and-blue rooms in a quaint old street with a gray-haired woman to wait on her, and, above all, to do something outside in the open. ”

“ Lena said, turning to the others. "I can, as clearly as possible. Mrs. Vincent and Hannah look after the farm, and Margaret and her father sit together and read books. The farm carts rumble by, dogs bark, and chickens wander about; there are cows in the fields, honeysuckle in the hedges, and bees in the hives at the end of the garden. In my thoughts I can see them all jumbled up together, and hear the notes of the thrushes in the trees."
"Rubbish!" said Tom Carringford. "Your talk is a little too picturesque, you know. It always is. I can't think how you manage to invent it so quickly." ”

“ Lena was enjoying herself immensely. "I have made you angry again," she said; "but you look splendid, just as you did in London. Isn't she beautiful, Miss Barton?"
Hannah could hardly bear it. "I have never been able to see it," she said, as her mother and Mrs. Lakeman entered.
Dawson Farley was standing by the porch. "Are you likely to come to London again, Miss Vincent?" he asked.
"I hope I shall, and soon," Margaret answered; and then she went on eagerly, "I heard that you saw Miss Hunstan first when she walked on the stage holding up a princess's train?" ”

“ He does not love you—he loves her. He may have been infatuated with you during the last fortnight in which he has been parted from her. It's so like Tom," she added, with a little smile, for she found the tragic rôle a difficult one to maintain. "He has been infatuated so often."
"So often?" repeated Margaret, incredulously.
"Oh yes," Mrs. Lakeman answered, and the odd smile came to her lips. "You wouldn't believe how many times he has come to confess to me that he has made an idiot of himself. He is always falling in love, and getting engaged, and going to be married." ”