Marget

“ There, perhaps, I have written as if I had grown sure of Marget, which I had no right to be, which no man can ever be of any Marget, else romance would perish. Typical of other youth and maid stories was ours, a story without a beginning, a middle, or an apparent ending; a sort of skein of hope and unspoken understanding such as links two people, until they come closer or drift apart, ships that pass in the night that should be the morning. ”

“ And so poor Marget began to have company again, and was as pleased as a cat. She was like 'most anybody else—just human, and happy in her prosperities and not averse from showing them off a little; and she was humanly grateful to have the warm shoulder turned to her and be smiled upon by her friends and the village again; for of all the hard things to bear, to be cut by your neighbors and left in contemptuous solitude is maybe the hardest. ”

“ Even collective work, such as harvest or hay, meant little more than just occasional speech. It was not association as Marget knew it, all garrulous mouths and empty, idle hands. And the crowds that he knew were real crowds, not two or three cronies hatless in the street. Many a time he had thought himself back in a crowd, sitting at Marget’s in that upstairs room. Sometimes it was a wrestling-ring he saw, with Bob as conqueror in every round. ”

“ I never knew of so young a child having such strong yet discerning affections. She wasn't in the least priggish; indeed, she could be naughty in a peculiarly impish way, and you children were always teaching her rude expressions, which she used to Marget, who adored her, but all Marget said was, 'D'ye think I'm gaun to quarrel wi' you, impident little thing that ye are?' She and Marget were great friends, and there was nothing she liked better than to help Marget work, and bake little dough rabbits with currants for eyes. ”

“ But tell me about Elsli; is Marget kind to her?"
"Well, this is how it is,"—and Heiri drew a little nearer the hedge and spoke in a confidential tone—"the little girl is more like me, and gives in easily and is not obstinate about having her own way, as her poor mother was. She does what she is bid, and never answers back when Marget scolds, nor ever complains, though she has to work from the time she gets home from school till she goes to bed; always carrying the baby, or doing something about the house." ”

“ It likes the half-lights of the dusk, to live in the shadow of its silvery clouds, and to arrive round corners, if only that it may have a safe way of escape, should it be frightened. Ever it likes running away, and, better still, it likes being pursued!
All this goes with one dark little story of my love for Marget, and I would only tell it under the compulsion of a full-breasted honesty, because I judge it to be sacred to her as well as to me. It was when I first felt as if something hitherto unknown to me had come into my life at Corgarff. ”

“ Marget flung herself on his breast and cried, and indeed everybody was moved almost to heartbreak. He recognized Marget, but could not understand why she should cry. He patted her on the shoulder and said:
“Don't do it, dear; remember, there are witnesses, and it is not becoming in the Crown Princess. Tell me your trouble—it shall be mended; there is nothing the Emperor cannot do.” Then he looked around and saw old Ursula with her apron to her eyes. ”

“ Marget made a point of telling him very soon that Thomas could have saved him if he had liked, but it passed Kit by like a wasp in a gale of wind. She was always abusing Thomas and Kit’s old friends on the marsh. All the things that were wrong about him came solely from living on the marsh. They were a low lot down there, so Marget said, living like savages all the week, and only at market seeing their fellow-men. They bred wastrels and do-nowts like himself, cracked on fiddling and the like, whom other folk had to keep in their last years. ”

“ Of course, they would miss the money to some extent, but there would be one mouth less to feed, as well as more room in the kitchen and less friction—perhaps—at meals. Marget would have no more tales to tell him at night of the bother his father had given her in the day. He would not have to lie in the dark and listen to his crimes—how he had torn his jacket or got lost, or sniffed at his pudding or broken a chair. He would not hear her beating the old man with her tongue, in default of the blows that she dealt her weaker prey. ”

“ Those had been hard years for the old priest and Marget. They had been favorites, but of course that changed when they came under the shadow of the bishop's frown. Many of their friends fell away entirely, and the rest became cool and distant. Marget was a lovely girl of eighteen when the trouble came, and she had the best head in the village, and the most in it. She taught the harp, and earned all her clothes and pocket money by her own industry. But her scholars fell off one by one now; she was forgotten when there were dances and parties among the youth of the village ”

“ Raising herself with a jerk, she flapped down the stair with the noise of a dozen carpet-beaters in full swing. Nobody ever expressed as much as Marget with a pair of down-trodden slippers loose at the heels; yet nobody would keep them when she was gone, pathetic and reverenced by a bed.... Kit thought of his winged thing she had beaten down, and looked to see feathers scattered under her feet. Her face was changed both in colour and shape by the unknown terrible things that lived in her brain. ”

“ He looked very tall in the low room, and, with bundle and fiddle, very ready to be gone. This was a bitter moment for Marget that snatched her bone from between her teeth. She was ragingly jealous of those who wanted him for himself—wanted before they had tried him, Marget said. They couldn’t really be glad of a burden in the house; they were only pretending, to make other folks look small. She despised them for saddling themselves with the [Pg 143] old man, and hated and mocked them because they did it with smiles. Also she hated Kit for his evident eagerness to go. ”

“ He always thought of backs when he thought of a crowd, and in thinking of people he generally thought of crowds. His life, like the lives of most on lonely farms, was divided between crowds and days spent more or less alone. The gossip that kept Marget so busy in the street did not belong to any method of living that he knew. ”

“ Marget observed, "but there's wan thing aboot him, he's no' ill-kinded to beasts."
"Marget," said Elizabeth, "you know quite well that in your heart you think him perfection."
"No' me," said Marget; "I think no man perfection. Are ye comin' to see aboot the denner the noo, or wull I begin to ma front-door?"
"Give me three minutes, Marget, to see the boys off."
Two small boys with school-bags on their backs came up the gravelled path. "Here comes Thomas—and Billy following after. Buff! Buff!—where is the boy?" ”

“ Marget, sitting beside him on the step of the porch, rested her arm upon his knee. Her brown, slender hand touched his great horny one. "Grandfather Morrowcombe!" she said. He answered her: "I see you as a nine-year-old, Marget, and I see you as a woman in Sweet Rocket Valley, and I see you as something that stands above child and woman. It isn't any more big than it is subtle-fine. It's puzzling to find words. ”

“ Marget, who was strong and resolute, stood watching breathless at the closed door of the dining-room, with a great plaid in her hands, which nobody understood the occasion for. No one else was to be seen, save a train of four black figures moving noiselessly up the stairs. At every step these midnight emissaries took, Marget held her breath harder, and the Mistress clasped her hand upon her heart with an agonizing idea that its throbs must be heard throughout the house. A single faint ray of light directed their way{36} to the room where the dead lay ”

“ Marget gave a disgusted snort. "Mebbe thae saft scented weemen, aggravatin' and clawin' at each other like cats, no' weemen wi' self-respect an' wark to do. A' the same, I'm no' sayin' I'll no' be glad when Maister Jimmie comes hame. I like a man aboot the hoose. It's kin o' hertless work cookin' for weemen; hauf the time they're no' heedin' what they're eatin'."
"Ah, Marget," said her mistress, "it's not like the days when the boys were all home from school and you couldn't make a pudding big enough." ”

“ And as we passed through the garden, there was Wilhelm Meidling sitting there waiting, for it was getting toward the edge of the evening, and he would be asking Marget to take a walk along the river with him when she was done with the lesson. He was a young lawyer, and succeeding fairly well and working his way along, little by little. He was very fond of Marget, and she of him. He had not deserted along with the others, but had stood his ground all through. His faithfulness was not lost on Marget and her uncle. ”

“ Douglas broke in. "If you begin with friends there will be no end to it."
"Then, perhaps, we had better have it privately printed and get about a hundred copies. Have we a hundred friends?"
"Liker twa hunner," Marget said gloomily. "To me it seems a queer like thing to print a body's life when she's still leevin'."
Ann quoted, "That horn is blowen for me," said Balin, "yet I am not dead," then, laughing at the expression on Marget's face, she said, "It's often done, Marget, only you call it 'reminiscences.' Mrs. Asquith wrote her reminiscences, and you can't accuse her of being dead." ”

“ And now to-night [Pg 139] they had somehow caught and held to the ether and were seeing what they wished to see. The influence, the individuality that was Marget and Richard strongly aided.
She was in Rome with Marget and Richard and Stuart Black. She did not question them nor him, and the boy did not question. They were there, and it was sunny weather, and they were strong and happy. They stayed in no hotel, they depended on no cab nor car, they needed no food of the old sort. When they looked at one another they saw body, since where is still multiplicity must still be body. ”

“ He nearly got it back, though, for a moment when Marget came and praised him and thanked him and couldn't keep him from seeing how proud she was of him. The astrologer went off dissatisfied and cursing, and Solomon Isaacs gathered up the money and carried it away. It was Father Peter's for good and all, now.
Satan was gone. I judged that he had spirited himself away to the jail to tell the prisoner the news; and in this I was right. Marget and the rest of us hurried thither at our best speed, in a great state of rejoicing. ”

“ Marget jumped up and ran and thanked us again, with tears in her eyes--this was the third time --for saving her and her uncle from being turned into the street, and we told her again we hadn't done it; but that was her way, she never could be grateful enough for anything a person did for her ”

“ He just stood there, fiddle and scone in hand, staring about him like a puzzled child. Then the parson came along and wished him a pleasant ride, and shook the hand that wasn’t holding the scone. Everybody seemed glad for him that he was going home, that he was getting away from Marget, after all. Folks were nearly always glad when they saw others going home. They felt kindlier towards them then than at any other time, he thought. Folks away from home were a kind of public trust. The world was worried about them until they were safely back. ”

“ So Marget’s new happiness died a quick death. No friends came to condole with her, and none were expected; an unsigned note withdrew her invitation to the party. There would be no scholars to take lessons. How could she support herself? She could remain in the house, for the mortgage was paid off, though the government and not poor Solomon Isaacs had the mortgage-money in its grip for the present. Old Ursula, who was cook, chambermaid, housekeeper, laundress, and everything else for Father Peter, and had been Marget’s nurse in earlier years, said God would provide. ”

“ Ye're wrang, Marget, for the joy hes gien ower the pain, an' a 've hed the greater gain. Luve roosed me tae wark an' fecht, wha micht hae been a ne'er-dae-weel. Luve savit me frae greed o' siller an' a hard hert. Luve kept me clean in thocht an' deed, for it was ever Marget by nicht an' day. If a'm a man the day, ye did it, though ye micht never hae kent it. It's little a' did for ye, but ye 've dune a'thing for me... ”

“ Margaret, thou must let Mary hear thee sing. I don't know about fine music myself, but folks say Marget is a rare singer, and I know she can make me cry at any time by singing 'Th' Owdham Weaver.' Do sing that, Marget, there's a good lass. ”

“ Ann began to laugh. "But, Marget," she protested, "I could put all the facts of Mother's life into one page—born, married, number of children, and so on; but that wouldn't be any sort of record to hand down to the children. You want all sorts of little everyday touches that will make them see the home that their father was brought up in."
"Everyday touches," Marget repeated; "d'ye mean what we hed for oor denners an' aboot washin' days? But thaes no things to write aboot. I could tell ye some rale fine things to pit in a book. ”

“ Settin’ down at de table, a-chawin’ an’ a-chawin’—not my good wittles, mine you, but his own heart—always his own heart. He better stop of it, too. It won’t ’gest, nor likewise ’gree wid him, nor udderwise fetch Miss Marget home one minit ’fore she thinks proper for to come.”
“Well, den, ennyways, t’ink it ’pears mon’ous strange your Miss Marget don’t come home ef our Marse Fillup wants her to come,” here put in old Neptune, one of the Helmstedt negroes.
“Set him up wid it,” indignantly broke in Aunt Hapzibah—“set you an’ your marse bofe up wid it. Who de sarpent! he? or you either? ”