that noun of multitude, "the neighbourhood," was at first disposed to take it very ill that the wedding of the eldest miss crofton should be despoiled of any of its contemplated gaiety and display, by what it was pleased to call the "airs which mrs. baldwin gave herself." it bethought itself of margaret's marriage, and arrived at the very probable conclusion that she was disposed to be a little jealous of her sister-in-law elect, and not disposed to allow her to "have a fuss made about her" if she could help it.
poor mrs. crofton found her explanations and apologies coldly received; which distressed her, for she was a slave to conventional observances, and visited and received visits with exasperating regularity, and mrs. baldwin's popularity declined. but not permanently; when it was understood that her return to the deane was desirable for a reason which every one understood, and whose force all recognised, opinions were modified, and general good-humour was restored.
the preparations for the wedding went on, and nothing was wanting to the cheerfulness and content of all concerned, except less inquietude regarding margaret. they remembered afterwards that it happened so frequently that, when they came to think of it, they were amazed that the circumstance had not impressed them more deeply at the time: that when any two of the small party at chayleigh met, one would say to the other, "how ill margaret looks to-day!" or, "she is looking better to-day;" or, "she seems hardly so well, i think;" the phrases varying widely, but each conveying the fact that margaret's looks and health, margaret's spirits and general demeanour, were in some form or other the objects of general attention, and were altered from their ordinary condition.
mr. carteret's solicitude about her was fitful, and easily tranquillised. he would question her anxiously enough when she came down to breakfast in the morning, and be so uneasy and unhappy if she did not come down, that, perceiving that circumstance, she was rarely absent from the breakfast-table. but when the day advanced, and margaret began to look brighter, he would remark that she "had got some colour now, and looked quite herself again," and, with the inconsequence which is frequently observable among persons who are constantly in the presence of even the most beloved objects, he failed to notice how often she required to "look quite herself again," in order to remove his transient uneasiness.
she looked very handsome at this time; handsomer than she had ever looked, even at the period when people had first found out that there was no great exaggeration in calling mrs. baldwin "a beauty." the broad brow, the sweet serious lips, which kept all their firmness, but had less severity than in the old time, the large sensible gray eyes, the delicate face, which had never had much colour, and now had permanently less, wore a spiritualised expression which made itself felt by those who never thought of analysing it.
among the number were the croftons, hayes meredith, and lady davyntry. mr. baldwin was not so blind. he saw that a change, which impressed him painfully, had come over the face and the spirit of the woman whom he loved more and more with every day of the union which had hitherto surpassed the hopes he had built upon it in happiness, and the only mistake he made was in believing that he quite understood that change, its origin, its nature, and its extent. he knew margaret too well, had been too completely the confidant of her misgivings and hesitations previous to their marriage, and of the relief, the peace, the rehabilitation which had come to her since, to under-estimate the severity of the blow which had fallen upon her; but there was one aspect of her trouble in which he had never regarded it, in which it was her earnest desire, her constant effort, that he should never see it.
he had no knowledge of the presentiment under which margaret laboured; he had never suspected her of such a weakness; and if it had been revealed to him, he would have unhesitatingly referred it to the condition of her health, have pronounced it a passing nervous affection, and dismissed it from his thoughts. he had never heard her express any of the vague, formless, but unconquerable apprehension with which she had learned the probability of hayes meredith's coming to england; he had no idea that a foregone conclusion in her mind lent the truth which had been revealed to her an additional power to wound and torture her, which was doing its work, unrecognised, before his eyes.
one of the most sympathetic, generous, unselfish of men, fitzwilliam baldwin united cheerfulness of disposition with good sense to a degree not so frequently attained as would be desirable in the interests of human nature; and while he comprehended to the utmost the realities of the misfortune which had befallen margaret, himself, and their child, he would have been slow to appreciate, had he been aware of its existence, the imaginary evil with which margaret's morbid fancy had invested it. when this wedding, with all its painful associations--so painful for them both that they never spoke of the subject when they were alone--should be over, margaret would be quite herself again; and she would find so much to occupy and interest her at the deane, she would be able to throw off the impressions of the past, and to welcome the new interest which was so soon to be lent to her life with nearly all the gladness it would have commanded had the incident they had to deplore never occurred.
he had a keen perception, though he did not care to examine its origin very closely, that margaret would find it a relief to be rid of the presence of meredith and his son. they were associated with all that had been most painful, most humiliating, in the old life; they had brought the evil tidings which had cast a heavy gloom over the calm sunny happiness of the new, and she could not be happy or oblivious in their presence--could not, that is to say, at present, in her abnormal state of sensitiveness and nervousness.
fitzwilliam baldwin did not cordially like robert meredith. he felt that he did not understand the boy, and his frank nature involuntarily recoiled, with an unexplained antipathy, from contact with a disposition so voilée, so little open, so calculating, as his observation convinced him that of robert meredith was. quite unselfish, and very simple in his habits and ideas, mr. baldwin was none the less apt to discover the absence or the opposite of those qualities, and it was very shortly after their return to chayleigh that he said to his wife,
"meredith intends to make a lawyer of his son, he tells me."
"yes," said margaret, "it is quite decided, i understand. i daresay he will do well, he has plenty of ability."
"he has, and a few other qualifications, such as cunning and coolness, and a grand faculty for taking care of himself, which people say are calculated to insure success in that line of life."
"you don't like lawyers," said margaret.
"i don't like robert meredith; do you? said her husband.
"no," she replied promptly, "i do not; more than that, i ought to be ashamed of myself, i suppose, and yet i can't contrive to be; but i dislike the boy extremely, more than i could venture to tell; the feeling i have about him troubles me--it is difficult for me to hide it."
"i don't think you do hide it, margaret," said baldwin; "i only know you did not hide it from me. i never saw you laboriously polite and attentive to any one before; your kindness to every one is genuine, as everything else about you, darling; but to this youngster you are not spontaneous by any means."
"you are right," she said, "i am not. there is something hateful to me about him. i suppose i am afflicted with one of those feminine follies which i have always despised, and have taken an antipathy to the boy. very wrong, and very ungrateful of me," she added sorrowfully.
"neither wrong nor ungrateful," her husband answered in a tone of remonstrance. "you are ready to do him all the substantial benefit in your power, as i am, for his father's sake. there is no ingratitude in that, and as for your not liking him being wrong--"
"ah, but i don't stop at not liking him," said margaret; "if i did, my conscience would not reproach me as it does. i hope his father does not perceive anything in my manner."
"nothing more unlikely. meredith does not observe you so closely or understand you so well as i do; and i don't think any one but myself could find out that you dislike the boy; and i was assisted, i must acknowledge, by a lively fellow-feeling. i should not wonder if robert was perfectly aware that he is not a favourite with you."
"i am sure there is nothing in my manner or that of any one else," said margaret, "which in any way touches himself, that he fails to perceive."
"fortunately it does not matter. he loses nothing material by our not happening to take a fancy to him, and i don't think he is a person to suffer from any sentimental regrets. more than that, margaret--and enough to have made me dislike him--i don't think he likes you."
"like me! he hates me," she said vehemently. "i catch his eye sometimes when he looks at me, and wonder how so young a face can express so much bad feeling. i have seen such a diabolical sneer upon his face sometimes, particularly when either my father or his father spoke affectionately to me, as almost startled me--for my own sake, i mean."
"for your own sake?" said mr. baldwin in a tone of some annoyance. "how can you say such a foolish thing? why on earth should you give such a thing a moment's thought? what can it possibly matter to you that you are the object of an impertinent dislike to a boy like young meredith?"
"nothing indeed," answered margaret, "and i will never think of it again. you are all in a conspiracy to spoil me, i think, and thus i am foolish enough to be surprised and uncomfortable when any one dislikes me without a reason."
no more was said then on this subject, and mr. baldwin dismissed it from his mind. the conversation he had had with his wife had just so much effect upon him and no more, that he took very little notice of robert, and displayed no more interest than politeness demanded in the discussions concerning him and his future, which just then shared the attention of the family party at chayleigh with captain carteret's rapidly approaching marriage.
this circumstance the young gentleman was not slow to notice, and it had the effect of intensifying the feeling with which he regarded margaret.
"she has put her fine husband up to snubbing me, has she?" he said to himself one day, when mr. baldwin had taken less notice of him than usual. "now i wonder what that's for. perhaps she's afraid of the goodness of my memory. i daresay she has told him a whole pack of lies about the time she was in melbourne, and she's afraid, if i walked or rode out with him, i might get upon the subject. and i only wish he would give me a chance, that's all."
but nothing was more unlikely than that mr. baldwin should give robert meredith such a "chance," and that the boy's natural quickness soon made him understand. the only person with whom he associated at this time, who afforded him any opportunity for his spiteful confidences, was the bride-elect.
lucy was still pleased by the unrepressed admiration of the only male creature within the sphere of mrs. baldwin's influence who was wholly unimpressed by her attractions. the "great friend's" project, though, according to miss lucy crofton's somewhat shallow perceptions, triumphantly successful, did not in the least interfere with so thoroughly legitimate a development of feminine proclivities.
to be sure, the subject of margaret's first marriage, and her disastrous life in melbourne, was one which lucy had never heard touched upon, even in the most intimate conversations among the family at chayleigh. her affianced haldane had never spoken to her, except in the briefest and most general terms, of that painful episode in the family history. but that did not constitute, according to lucy's not very scrupulous or refined code of delicacy, any barrier to her talking and hearing as much about it in any other available manner as she could.
she even persuaded herself that it was her "place" and a kind of "duty" to learn as much about her future sister-in-law as possible; people would talk, and it was only proper and right, when certain subjects were introduced, that she, in her future capacity of mrs. haldane carteret (the cards were printed, and very new, and shiny, and important they looked), should know exactly "how things stood," and what she should have to say. which was a reflection full of foresight on the part of the eldest miss crofton, and partaking somewhat of the nature of prophecy, as, from the hour of mrs. baldwin's marriage, the subject of her colonial life had never been revived in the coteries of "the neighbourhood."
robert meredith had method in his mischief. he did not offend the amour propre of lucy by speaking contemptuously of mrs. baldwin, or betraying the dislike which he entertained towards her; he dexterously mingled in the revelations which he made to lucy an affected compassion for margaret's past sorrows, and a congratulatory compassion of her present enviable position, with artful insinuations of the incongruity between the mrs. baldwin of the present and the mrs. hungerford of the past, and a kind of bashful wonder, which he modestly imputed to his colonial ignorance of the ways of society, how any person could possibly consider miss lucy crofton other than in every respect superior to mrs. baldwin.
the boyish flattery pleased lucy's vanity, the boyish admiration pleased her, and she entirely deprecated the idea that robert's manners and ideas were not on a par with those of other people born on this side of the ocean.
"you must remember," she said with much coquetry, and a smile which she intended to be immensely knowing, "that mrs. baldwin is a great lady in her way, and i am not of anything like so much importance. i fancy that would make as much difference in your part of the world as here."
and then they talked a great deal of his part of the world; and robert acknowledged that his most earnest desire was that he might never see australia again. and lucy crofton confessed that she was very glad haldane could not be sent there, at least on that odious "foreign service," which she thought a detestable and absurd injustice, devised for the purpose of making the wives and families of military men miserable. she was quite alive to the fact that they were highly ornamental, but could not see that soldiers were of the slightest use at home--and as to abroad, they never did anything there, since war had ceased, but die of fevers and all sorts of horrors. so the pair pursued an animated and congenial conversation, of which it is only necessary to record two sentences.
"i suppose you have no one belonging to you in australia?" robert meredith asked miss crofton, in a tone which implied that to so exceptionally delightful a being nothing so objectionable as a colonial connection could possibly belong.
"no one that i know anything about; there is a cousin of papa's--much younger than papa, he is--who got into trouble, and they sent him out there; but none of us ever saw him, and i don't know what has become of him. i don't even know his name rightly; it is something like oldham, or otway, or oakley."
"how do you feel, madge? are you sure you are equal to this business?" said lady davyntry to margaret, as she came into her sister-in-law's room on the morning of haldane's marriage. "haldane is walking about the hall in the most horrid temper, your father is lingering over the last importation of bats, as if he were bidding them an eternal farewell, and the carriage is just coming round, so i thought i would come and look after you two. i felt sure you would be with the child. what a shame not to bring her to the wedding!--isn't it, gerty?" and lady davyntry, looking very handsome and stately in her brave attire, took the little girl out of her mother's arms, and paused for a reply.
margaret was quite ready. she was very well, she said, and felt quite equal to the wedding festivities.
"that's right; i like weddings, when one isn't a principal; they are very pleasant. how pale you are, margaret! are you really quite well?"
"she is really quite well," said mr. baldwin; "don't worry her, eleanor."
the slightest look of surprise came into eleanor's sweet-tempered face, but it passed away in a moment, and they all went down to the hall, where margaret received many compliments from her father on her dress and appearance, and where haldane on seeing them first assumed a foolish expression of countenance, which he wore permanently for the rest of the day.
the carriages were announced. margaret and her husband, lady davyntry and mr. carteret, were to occupy one; the other was to convey haldane, hayes meredith and his son, and james dugdale.
"where is james?" asked mr. carteret. "i have not seen him this morning."
nobody had seen him but haldane, who explained that he had preferred walking on to the church.
"just like him," said haldane, "he is such an odd fellow; only fancy his asking me to get him off appearing at breakfast. could not stand it, he said, and was sure he would never be missed. of course i said he must have his own way, though i couldn't make him out. he could stand margaret's wedding well enough."
the last day of margaret's stay at chayleigh had arrived. all arrangements had been made for the departure of mr. and mrs. baldwin and mr. carteret. an extraordinary event was about to take place in the life of the tranquil old gentleman. he was about to be separated from the collection for an indefinite period, and taken to the deane, a place whose much-talked-of splendours he had never even experienced a desire to behold, having been perfectly comfortable in the knowledge that they existed and were enjoyed by his daughter.
that her father should be induced to accompany her to scotland, that she should not be parted from him, had been so urgent a desire on margaret's part, that her husband and james dugdale had set themselves resolutely to obtain its realisation, and they had succeeded, with some difficulty. the collection was a great obstacle, but then mr. baldwin's collection--whose treasures the old gentleman politely and sincerely declared his eagerness to inspect, while he secretly cherished a pleasing conviction that he should find them very inferior to those of his own--was a great inducement; besides, he had corresponded formerly with a certain professor bayly, of glasgow, who had some brilliant theories connected with bos primus, and this would be a favourable opportunity for seeing the professor, who rarely "came south," as he called visiting england.
he was not at all disturbed by margaret's eager desire that he should accompany her; he did not perceive in it the contradiction to her usual unselfish consideration for others, which james dugdale saw and thoroughly understood, and which mr. baldwin saw and did not understand, but set down to the general account of her "nervousness." he had been rather unhappy at first about the journey and the change; but james's cheerful prognostications, and the unexpected discovery that foster, his inseparable servant, whose displeasure was a calamity not to be lightly incurred, so far from objecting to the tremendous undertaking, "took to" the notion of a visit to the deane very kindly, was a relief which no false shame interfered to prevent; mr. carteret candidly admitting, and the whole family thankfully recognising.
"i don't know how i should have got through this day," margaret said to james, as they stood together on the terrace under the verandah, and she plucked a few of the tender young leaves which had begun to unfold, under the persuasion of the spring time--"i don't know how i should have got through this day, if papa had not agreed to come with us. it is bad enough as it is; a last day"--she was folding the tiny leaves now, and putting them between the covers of her pocket-book--"is always dreadful--dreadful to me, i mean. it sounds stupid and commonplace to talk of the uncertainty of life, but i don't think other people live always under the presence of the remembrance, the conviction of it, as i do. it is always over me, and it makes everything which has anything of finality about it peculiarly impressive to me."
her hand was resting on his arm now, and they turned away from the house-front and walked down the grassy slope.
"do you--do you mean that this sense of uncertainty relates to yourself?" he asked her, speaking with evident effort, and holding her arm more closely to him.
"yes," she replied calmly; "i am never tortured by any fears about those i love now; the time was when i was first very, very happy; when the wonderful, glorious sense of the life that had opened to me came upon me fully; when i hardly dared to recognise it, because of the shadow of death. then it hung over my husband and my child; over my father--and--you."
he shook his head with an involuntary deprecatory movement, and a momentary flicker of pain disturbed his grave thoughtful eyes.
"and it lent an intensity which sometimes i could hardly bear to every hour of my life--my wonderfully happy life," she repeated, and looked all around her in a loving solemn way which struck the listener to the heart. "but then the thing i had dreaded, though i had never divined its form, though it had gradually faded from my mind, came upon me--you know how, james, and how rebellious i was under my trial; no one knows but god and you--and then, then the shadow was lightened. it never has fallen again over them or you; it hangs only over me, and--james, look at me, don't turn away--i want to remember every look in your face to-day; it is not a shadow at all, but only a veil before the light whose glory i could not bear yet awhile. that is all, indeed."
he did not speak, and she felt that a sharp thrill of pain ran through his spare form.
"don't be angry with me," she went on in soft pleading tones, "don't think i distress you needlessly, i do so want you to hear me--to leave what i am saying to you in your mind. when i first told you that i had a presentiment that i had suffered my last sorrow, that all was to be peace for me henceforth, except in thinking of my child, you were not persuaded; you imputed it to the shock my nerves had received, and you think so still. it is not so indeed, even with respect to my child. i am tranquil and happy now; i don't know why, i cannot account for it. nothing in the circumstances is susceptible of change, and i see those circumstances as clearly as i saw them when they first existed; but i am changed. i feel as if my vision had been enlarged; i feel as if the horizon had widened before me, and with the great space has come great calm--calm of mind--like what travellers tell us comes with the immense mountain solitudes, when all the world beneath looks little, and yet the great loneliness lifts one up nearer to heaven, and has no fear or trembling in it. i am ne her god not unquiet now, james, not even for the child. the wrong that i have done her god will right."
james dugdale said hastily, "you have done her no conscious wrong, and all will be righted."
"yes, i know; i am saying so; but not in our way, james, not as we--" she paused a very little, almost imperceptibly--"not as you would have it. but that it will be righted i have not the smallest doubt, not the least fear. you will remember, james, that i said to you the wrong i did my child will be righted."
"remember!" he said in keen distress. "what do you mean, margaret? have you still the same presentiment? is this your former talk with me over again?"
"yes," she replied, "and no. when i talked with you before, i was troubled, sad, and afraid. now i am neither sad, troubled, nor afraid."
"you are ill. there is something which you know and are hiding from us which makes you think and speak thus."
"no, indeed."
there was conviction in her tone, and he could but look at her and wait until she should speak again. she did not speak for a few moments, and then she resumed in a firm voice:
"i want to say to you all that is in my mind--at least as far as it can be said. i am not ill in any serious way, and i am not hiding anything which ought to be made known; and yet i do believe that i am not to live much longer in this world, and i acknowledge with a full heart that the richest portion of happiness ever given to a woman has been, is mine. when this trouble, the only one i have had in my new life, came to me, it changed me, and changed everything to me for a time; but the first effect is quite past, and the wound my pride received is healed. i don't think about that now; but i do think of the wonderful compensation, if i may dare to use a word which sounds like bringing god to a reckoning for his dealings with one of his creatures, which has been made to me, and i feel that i have lived all my days. the old presentiment that i had of evil to come to me from australia, and its fulfilment, and the suffering and struggle, all are alike gone now, quieted down, and the peace has come which i do not believe anything is ever to disturb more."
"margaret, margaret!" he said, "i cannot bear this; you must not speak thus; if you persist in doing so, there must be some reason for it. it is not like you to have such morbid fancies."
"and it is not like you to misunderstand me," she interrupted gently. "can you not see that i am telling you what is in my mind on what i believe will be my last day in my old home, because, if i am right, it will make you happy in the time to come to remember it?"
"happy!" he repeated with impatience.
"yes, happy! and if i am not right, and this is indeed but a morbid fancy, it will have done you no harm to hear it. you have listened to many a fancy of mine, dear old friend."
tears gathered in her eyes now, and two large drops fell from the dark eyelashes unheeded.
"i have, i have," he said, "but to what fancies! how can you speak thus, margaret? how can you think so calmly of leaving those who love you so much, those in whose love you confess you have found so much happiness? your husband, your child, your father!"
"i cannot tell you," she said; "i cannot explain it, and because i cannot i am forced to believe it, to feel that it is so. the world seems far away from me somehow, even my own small precious world. you remember, when i spoke to you before, i told you how much i dreaded the effect of what had happened on myself, on my own feelings--how strangely the sense i have always had of being so much older than my husband, the dread of losing the power of enjoying the great happiness of my life, had seized hold of me?"
"i remember."
"well," she continued, "all this fear has left me now--indeed, all fear of every kind, and the power of suffering, i think. when i think of the grief of those i shall have to leave, if my presentiment is realised, i don't shrink from it as i did when the first thought of the possible future came to me. after all, it is for such a little, little time."
her eyes were raised upwards to the light, and a smile which the listener could not bear to see, and yet looked at--thinking, with the vain tenderness so fruitful in pangs of every kind and degree of intensity, that at least he never, never should be unable to recall that look--came brightly over her face, and slowly faded.
"o, no, margaret; life is awfully long--hopelessly long."
"it seems so sometimes, but it has ceased to seem so to me. you must not grieve for what i am saying to you. if all is what you will think right with me, and we are here together again, you will be glad to think, to remember how i told you all that was in my heart; if it is otherwise, you will be far more than glad, james."
in his heart there arose at that moment a desperately strong, an almost irresistible longing to tell her now, for the first time and the last, how he had loved her all his life. but he resisted the longing--he was used to self-restraint--and said not a word which could trouble her peace.
they returned to the house shortly after, and went in by the drawing-room window. at the foot of the green slope margaret paused for a minute, and looked with a smile at the open window of her room. a white curtain fluttered about it; there was a stir as of life in the room, but there was no one there.
"you will take care of the passion-flower, james?" she said. "i think the blossoms will be splendid this year."
a few hours later, and the house was deserted by all but james dugdale. hayes meredith and his son had escorted lady davyntry to her own house, and gone on from thence to dine with the croftons.
the first letter which james dugdale received was from margaret. she wrote in good spirits, and gave an amusing account of her father's delight with the deane, and admiration--a little qualified by the difficulty of acknowledging at least its equality with his own--of mr. baldwin's collection, and his frequent expressions of surprise at finding the journey by no means so disagreeable or portentous an undertaking as he had expected. she was very well, except that she had taken cold.
a day or two later lady davyntry heard from her brother. margaret was not so well; the cold was obstinate and exhausting; he deeply regretted her return to scotland; only for the risk of travelling, he should take her away immediately. the next letter was not more reassuring, and lady davyntry made up her mind to go to scotland without delay. in this resolution james dugdale, with a sick and sinking heart, confirmed her. not a word of actual danger was said in the letters which reached davyntry daily, but the alarm which james felt was not slow to communicate itself to eleanor.
"she has been delicate for a long time," said lady davyntry to james, "and very much more so latterly than she ever acknowledged."
in reply to her proposal to go at once to the deane, eleanor had an urgent letter of thanks from her brother. margaret was not better--strangely weak indeed. lady davyntry was to start on the next day but one after the receipt of this letter, and james went over to davyntry on the intervening day. he had a long interview with eleanor, and, having left her, was walking wearily towards home, when he saw hayes meredith and robert rapidly advancing to meet him. he quickened his pace, and they met where the footpath wound by the clump of beech-trees, once so distasteful in margaret's sight. there was not a gleam of colour in meredith's face, and as james came up the boy shrunk back behind his father.
"what's the matter?" said james, coming to a dead stop in front of meredith.
"my dear fellow, you will need courage. baldwin's valet has come from the deane."
"yes!" said james in a gasping voice.
"margaret was much worse after baldwin wrote, and the child--a girl--was born that afternoon. the child--"
"is dead?" james tore his coat open as he asked the question, as if choking.
"no, my dear fellow"--his friend took his arm firmly within his own--"the poor child is alive, but margaret is gone."
