CHAPTER IV.
It was Meg's twenty-first birthday. She woke early, and went into the garden while the dew was still thick on the grass, and there was a wet haze, precursor of a broiling day, over everything.
"How old I am growing!" she thought, as she shut the door softly behind her and smiled with pleasure, and a most youthful sense of adventure, at being out at that hour. She buried her nose in a cluster of seven-sister roses, and their fragrant wet little faces covered hers with dew. Meg was too fond of flowers to pick them.
How lovely it was! The earth smelt so sweet, the spider's webs sparkled like silver traceries.
It was an enchanted land, seen through the mist; even the stones on the gravel path showed wonderful colours, though they felt cold through thin slippers.
The girl looked as if she had stepped out of a fairy story herself, while she wandered along with a soft wonder in her eyes. Her mind was filled with guesses as to what would happen to her in the year to come. A birthday was a fresh turning-point to Meg, from which she tried to peep down a vista of possibilities.
She leant over the garden gate presently, resting her round white arms on it, and gazing idly up the quiet road.
The flickering shadows played on her face, and made leafy patterns on her white dress, and the honeysuckle touched her shoulder caressingly.
Meg bent her head, and just put her lips to the fresh dew-washed flower, then started violently, for a harsh laugh greeted her childish action.
"Why, my pretty lady; you ought to have something better worth the kissing!" cried some one.
Meg stood erect, both offended and frightened, but much too proud to run away.
"What are you?" she said. And then a thrill of recollection came to her; the voice was the voice of the hungry tramp who had begged from her on the Dover beach. The woman scrambled up from the deep shadow of the hedge under which she had spent the night, and stepped into the road.
There was something gipsy-like about her bearing, and her cold eyes scanned the young lady sharply.
"There's no mistaking the nest you come from, my pretty," said she. "You've your father—and a handsome gentleman he is too—written all over you. You've got his smile too," as Meg's mobile face involuntarily brightened at the compliment. "Sweet as sugar-sticks, and proud as the devil. Hold out your hand, my lady, and let the gipsy read your life for you. Why, you ain't scared, are you?"
Meg hesitated a second, then stretched out her hand over the gate. The woman was dirty, and too free in her speech to please the little lady, who was used to being treated to low curtsies and deepest respect by her father's tenants; but then there was a taste of excitement about the fortune-telling, and Meg was half superstitious and half amused.
Her hand looked very white and delicate in the tramp's grimy fingers. The woman glanced from it to the girl's fair face, and began to prophesy with an earnestness and apparent belief in her own words, which were perhaps not wholly simulated. The blue veins stood out too clearly, and the lines on Meg's palm were deeply cut.
"You've more than one lover already," said the prophetess. "But your heart's not touched yet. There's a dark man who is set on having you, but you'll only bring him ill-luck. There's a woman who hates you because she's jealous. Take care, or she'll do you a mischief. There's a great change coming in your life soon—and——" But Meg snatched her hand away and stood ashamed. The preacher of the beach was coming up the hill.
She stepped back into the shadow in order that he might go by without seeing her: she did not care to be caught having her fortune told like a silly servant girl. She knew of no reason in the world why he should stop at the Ravenshill gate; and yet an absolute certainty that he would so stop, and that he would speak to her, came over her. Perhaps it was because he was walking with an evident purpose, looking neither to the right nor left; but she was hardly surprised, only slightly dismayed, as at a fulfilled presentiment, when the man turned as she expected, and came straight towards her.
His hand was on the latch before he saw Meg; then he went to the point without any preamble.
"I've come to bring you this," he said. "Will ye take it? It's yours by rights."
He was not in the least astonished, as Meg observed, at finding her there. Barnabas Thorpe possibly did not know how seldom Miss Deane was out at five in the morning; besides, it took a good deal to move him to wonder. "The Lord had led her," he supposed, which was sufficient explanation for anything.
Meg was rather awe-struck. She felt as if it were highly probable that this miraculously gifted preacher, who looked like a fisherman, but spoke with the authority of inspiration, might deliver some supernatural sign into her keeping. He drew a handkerchief out of his pocket; it was rolled into a tight ball, and he handed it to her without more ado. She could feel something cold and hard through the cotton.
Her slim fingers trembled a little when they struggled with the knot; then she gave a scream of joyful surprise.
"Oh! it's father's locket!" she cried. There in her hand lay the diamond-circled miniature, her mother's face looking out from the midst of the shimmering stones, with the gentle wistful expression she remembered of old.
Meg had thought more of the setting than of the portrait, when it had lain in her baby hand; but the face had impressed itself on her memory all the same. Now it seemed to her like a birthday present from both parents.
Barnabas Thorpe watched her ecstasies disapprovingly; and when she lifted her beautiful eyes to his with a "Thank you, with all my heart," he said gravely:—
"You have not me to thank. I was only an instrument, and I'm thinking such stones as those are bought wi' too high a price."
"I don't understand you," said Meg.
In the pause that ensued, the tramp, who had been watching this curious episode with some interest, thought fit to put in her claim. "You must have been born with a caul, missy," said she. "For folk who lose diamonds don't generally get 'em back so easy. Let me just finish your fortune for you: it will be worth the telling."
"No, no," said Meg. "It was silly of me. I don't want to hear it now." She put her hand in her pocket, meaning to pay the woman and get rid of her; but, alas! it was empty.
"I'll wait here, honey, and you'll run in and fetch your purse, and then I'll tell you the rest," coaxed the gipsy, when the preacher interposed, "What do ye want playing with the devil?" he said. "I can't stand by and see a maid dabble wi' witchcraft. God has your fortune in His own hand. Leave it there. It's safe with Him."
"Oh, ay, you're one of the pious ones!" cried the woman angrily. "Down on a poor body for picking up a scrap here and there, while you're pocketing pounds yourself! Where did you get them diamonds from? What'll she give you for 'em? The pretty lady don't ask where you got 'em, 'cos for why, you're young and lusty, and she——"
"Off with you!" said Barnabas. And Meg was rather shocked to see him take her by the arms and march her down the hill. He did it good-naturedly enough, however.
When they reached the bottom, the woman wriggled out of his grasp, and shook her fist at Meg.
"Oh, it's all very fine! You may laugh, and welcome; but it's the wrong side of your mouth you'll laugh with one day," she shouted hoarsely, though Meg was in truth little inclined to be merry. "You'll leave your finery behind you. You'll run out of the garden into the highway. And you'll repent it every day of your life! You'll be cold and hungry and foot-sore; and you'll wish you were in your grave, and your people will say, 'She had better not have been born'. They love their name better than they love you; for there's none so cold-hearted as gentlefolk, and so you'll find. They will call you a disgrace to ——"
"That'll do!" said the preacher. "Let the lady be. Cursing is an ill trade, missus. Which way are ye going?"
"I've told her her fortune, though she cheated me out of my due," said the tramp; and she strode off grumbling. She was not half so irate with the preacher as with the "fine lady," though it had been he who had practically interfered with her. She could understand Barnabas Thorpe's forcibly expressed rebukes, but Meg's shilly-shallying she put down to a mean desire to escape payment. "Gentlefolk were very mean," she muttered.
Meg still stood with the diamonds in her hand, when the preacher returned to the gate.
She wondered whether she ought to offer him a reward, or whether he considered himself above that. She wished that she had not got up quite so early, no one was awake to consult. Barnabas Thorpe shook his head at her embarrassed suggestion. "No, thank you," he said. "I never take money for doing the Lord's work; and your trinket there was given me to ease a poor soul whom Satan had in his clutches. Will ye come with me and see her? She's sore afflicted, and I doubt it's as much mind as body."
"Who is she?" said Meg.
"I'll tell ye," said the preacher, "if ye'll not set the police on her." And Meg reddened, and drew herself up.
"It is not likely I should do that," she said haughtily. "I have not the least desire to know her name, if she would rather I did not. I only asked that I might thank her for returning my locket. I value it very much. Please thank her for me. Good-morning!"
"Stop!" said the preacher eagerly. "Don't turn away from one ye can help. I see I've angered ye, but it's not for me ye'll come. I'm not used to speaking to ladies. Happen I'm a bit rough. I didn't mean to be. But what can it matter what the messenger is? The message is the same. This woman asks your forgiveness in Christ's name. You can't refuse. Come to-morrow she may be gone to where she'll ask your forgiveness no more. Have ye so few sins of your own that ye can let her go unforgiven?"
"Oh, it wasn't that," said Meg, who, indeed, felt no difficulty in pardoning an unknown thief.
Barnabas opened the gate.
"It's not above a shortish walk," he said. "You'll come." And Meg stepped into the road. As the gate shut behind her with a click, she felt as if she had passed some invisible line, taken some more decisive step than she knew. The gipsy's prophecy touched the superstitious strain that was strong in her, but she would not turn back for all that. "I'll not give in to being afraid," thought she.
They walked on some way in silence, then Meg paused to take breath, and smiled in the midst of her earnestness, when she watched her conductor swinging along up the hill without noticing her defection, his head being fuller of the penitent he was hurrying to than of his strange companion.
Barnabas Thorpe had a tenderness for publicans and sinners, that had been broadened and deepened by much personal experience; but as for the rich and educated, his work had not lain in their direction, his warm human sympathy had had no chance of correcting his narrow theories there, and it is to be feared he looked upon them all as in very evil case, remembering always the saying about the rich man and the needle.
He was singularly illiterate considering his opportunities, for his father had been a great reader, and had sent or rather driven him to a good middle-class school.
He had read and re-read his Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress; but books in general had no charm for him, though the prophets of the Old Testament impressed him, and probably influenced his style in preaching. He would tramp miles over down or marsh, hill or dale, to speak a word, whether in or out of season, to some hesitating convert whom he had "almost persuaded". He never failed to know when his words had touched, or, as he would have put it, "when the spirit that spoke through him had drawn" any one.
He was a man of passionate temper, as the red tinge in his curly hair testified; but no mockery could hurt or opposition rebuff him in pursuit of his calling. All the superabundant vehemence of his nature was thrown into the fight for his "Master". The preacher was absolutely sincere, but he was also absolutely certain of his right to deliver his message when and wherever he felt "called". The sheer force of undoubting conviction impelled him, and coerced his hearers. Meg had felt that coercion on the beach; she was to see it again now.
He remembered her when he had reached the top of the hill, and paused. "I've been going too fast for ye," he said; "I clean forgot. I am sorry."
She noticed the burr in his speech, and the independence of his manner; but the frank honesty of his face disarmed her.
Children and women generally trusted the preacher, and she suddenly made up her mind to throw aside her shyness and talk to him.
"Why did you say my diamonds were bought with too high a price?" she asked.
The preacher turned and looked at her, as if half doubtful of the sincerity of the question. She expected a tirade on the wickedness of luxury; and perhaps such a sermon was on the tip of his tongue, but apparently he checked himself.
"I havena felt called to preach to the women who live in palaces and are clothed wi' fine linen," he said. "But I ha' seen ye before, and I believed the Master had called ye. If so, ye'll learn from Him that ye canna wear for an ornament what should be bread to the starving. If ye had seen what I have ye wouldna ha' asked me that."
"What have you seen?" said Meg; and the colour mounted to Barnabas Thorpe's high cheek bones, and his blue eyes lit up.
"I've seen the wicked flourish like a green bay tree," he said, "and I ha' seen the defenceless trodden down, and the bairns wailing for food. I ha' seen the rich man who tempts by his sinfu' waste, and the poor man who is tempted and falls, like the poor lass we are going to now."
"Where are we going?" asked Meg; "and how did you find her?"
It was a question that the generality of people would have asked before they set out. Meg had walked two miles, and her thin shoes were rubbed and her feet sore, before it occurred to her.
"Over to River. It's not more nor a mile on," said Barnabas Thorpe. "It was this way I was brought to her. I had been preaching on the Downs the other evening. It was getting to dusk, and I was going back to Dover, when a woman, who had been listening, followed me. 'Can you really cure diseases?' she asks, coming close behind. I said, 'Ay, if the Lord willed'. 'My daughter is sick,' she says, 'and I am not one that holds with doctors; for if a woman's to die she'll die, and if she's to live she'll live, and it stands to reason they can't do nothing against Them that's above.' 'And that's true,' I said."
Meg was startled into a faint exclamation at this wholesale condemnation of doctors, but he went on unheeding.
"'But if you come who don't mess about with physics, but just call on Them,' she said, 'perhaps They'll hear you and cure her.' So I went. I found the poor thing labouring for breath and sore afflicted, and in great terror of death, seein' her conscience was laden wi' heavy sin." He paused. "Ye'll no' be hard on her?" he said pleadingly.
"No, of course not," said Meg.
"She was nursery-maid in Mr. Russelthorpe's house sixteen years back. Her name is Susan Kekewich."
"I remember her," said Meg, her thoughts flying back to that far-away time. "She came up to London with us, and cried nearly as much as I did in the coach. She was quite young, and I think she was pretty. She was very kind to me."
"Ay, was she?" said Barnabas. "I could fancy so. She wasn't meant to go wrong. Poor maid! but there is many one's heart aches for. It seems she saw her master give you the trinket one night."
"I know the rest," said Meg; "and she came into my room at night, and put her hand under my pillow and stole it. I was too frightened to scream. I thought she was Lazarus."
"It was not for herself," said Barnabas eagerly. "Her lover was starving; he'd lost his place; they thought he was one of them that set fire to the ricks in Hampshire that winter; he was a poor creature, and afraid to stand a trial, tho' innocent as a baby of that piece of work; and he hung about in hiding in London, and came and begged at the kitchen door for scraps, and she had given him all she could, and hadn't a penny left, and he thought that if he could get beyond the sea, he might start again and make a home for her. She was anxious to get him off, and the devil tempted her. She knew the lad was sinking lower, loafing round, afeart o' the daylight, and wi' no decent place to put his head in that city of iniquity. She went out meaning to sell the diamonds, and to give him the price, and afore she was three paces fro' the door she got a message fro' her lad to say he was in gaol for stealing a loaf; but she didn't go back to the house. Happen she thought they'd ha' found her out, and couldn face it. Happen she was a bit mazed. She just lived on her savings till they were gone; an' ye can guess the rest. Her lover got the gaol-fever, and made no fight against it; he was dead within the week. She was afeared to sell your locket then, and afeared to give it back. She buried it once, and then got a fancy that the wind 'ud blow the earth away, and the rain 'ud wash it clear, and couldna keep hersel' fro' the place till she had it up again. She's a bit out o' her mind about it by now with the constant thinking; and her mother says as she believes her lover's death turned her queer for a time, an' she wasn't wholly responsible. She drifted away fro' the streets, and wandered home i' the end."
Meg shuddered. "It's a dreadful story," she said. "Too dreadful to think of."
"Do ye say so?" said the preacher. "Ay, ye scatter temptation i' the way o' the poor, ye rich, an' are too soft-hearted to hear tell o' their fall!" after which they both relapsed into silence.
The sun was beginning to beat down on their heads, when they reached the little hamlet of River.
It consisted of one chalk road, on either side of which were very white cottages, which had a deceptive air of comfort and prettiness. Pink china roses clustered against their walls, and low-thatched roofs shone gold in the morning light.
The villagers were out in the fields: only one old man, and a baby with sore eyes and an eruption all over its face, stared open-mouthed at the oddly matched pair. Barnabas stooped to pass through the doorway of one of the cottages; and Meg following him would have tumbled down the one step into the room, if he had not held out his hand to save her.
She never forgot the sudden plunge out of sunshine into that dark room, close and hot, and yet with a damp smell about it.
Labourers' cottages sixty years ago were so bad that one wonders, when one thinks of them, that the wave of revolution that was passing over Europe, did not utterly submerge us too!
Meg stood leaning against the door, watching the preacher; too shy to venture further. Her eyes dilated, and she turned whiter as she looked. The damp clay floor, the sickening odour, the room that was bedroom and sitting-room as well, horrified her. Yet Barnabas had been in many a worse place, and this was no exceptionally bad case; indeed, it was decent compared to many a cottage in Kent. But Meg lived before the day of district visiting, and the world of poverty was a new world to her.
A woman was lying on a press bed in the farthest corner, her eyes shut. Meg thought at first that she was dead. Her thin pinched little mother came hurrying from the inner room to meet them.
"She's had two more of them spasms since you left," she said to Barnabas. "I should think the next would about carry her off." She spoke in a querulous tone, as if the spasms were somehow the preacher's fault, but her face twitched nervously. She had small features like her daughter, and black eyes, and spoke with the south-country accent.
The woman on the bed stirred and then gave a quick choking sound, and Barnabas was by her side in an instant, supporting her in his arms. It was literally a fight for life!
The poor thing's eyes started, and the veins on her forehead swelled; Barnabas held her up with one arm, and fanned the air towards her mouth with the other hand.
"Open the window!" he shouted; but the window was apparently not made to open. Such a thing had never been done. "Take the poker and break the pane!" he said; and the woman hesitated. "I can't see as making a draught is good," she murmured; but Meg obeyed him at once. The green substance, grimed with dirt, did not break easily, but it gave at last; and Meg was thankful to turn her back on that awful sight.
When she looked again, Barnabas was blowing into Susan's lips, pausing every now and then to ejaculate, "Lord, help me!" The gasping breaths were getting easier, the grip of the clenched hands was relaxing; presently the patient fell back exhausted.
"She's going!" said the mother. "Lord, if I had a drop of brandy left, it might save her!"
The preacher covered his face with his hands a second,—he, perhaps, was a little exhausted too; then he stood upright, and put his hands on her forehead.
"Oh merciful Lord, heal her!" he cried. "Pour Thy strength into her! Pour Thy strength into her! Let it flow through me to her now while I pray." He repeated the same words again and again at intervals. It seemed to Meg that his face was as the face of some strong healing angel, so bright with undoubting faith.
Presently the patient opened her eyes, looked at him, and smiled. It might have been an hour that he had stood there. "I've got new life in me," she said. "I feel it;" and Barnabas fell on his knees.
"Now, the Lord be thanked," he said, "who has given us the victory over death, through Christ our Master." And Meg drew a breath of relief; she had felt as if he had been fighting some tangible enemy, and now the dreadful presence was routed—she almost fancied she saw it like a black shadow flee past her, out into the open air.
The fight was over.
"My maid," said Barnabas, "God has been good to you. You will not die, but live, and your sins are forgiven, both by Him and the woman you stole from: she has come to tell you so."
Meg came forward quickly and knelt by his side.
"Oh Susie," she said. "I am so sorry you have been unhappy all these years! and I would have forgiven you at once if I had only known. Why, I would lose all I have ten times over rather than that any one should be so unhappy!" And Susie looked at her with the black eyes that had such depths of sadness in them.
"It's Miss Meg! She always was a dear little lady, and so soft-hearted. I thought if she could understand she wouldn't mind," she said. "And he was so hungry, it went to my heart to feel him hungry! but God was against me, and sent him to gaol to punish me, though I would have given my soul to save him. I was a bad girl, and they punished him for it—to—to—how was it?—because I stole? They are uncommon hard up above, but it's just justice, I suppose!"
Meg took the wasted hands in hers; she could not preach, the problem was beyond her; but she laid her cheek against Susan's for a moment, and the preacher said gently, "You see she's not hard, and the Lord who made her merciful must be more merciful Himself. He's better nor the things He makes." Then he rose from his knees. "Good-bye," he said simply, "I'd keep that window open, and let the air in, Mrs. Kekewich. I've often noticed it's got a deal of healing in it."
Meg followed him out of the cottage; they were outside when Mrs. Kekewich regained the use of her tongue, and ran after them to pour out a volley of thanks to both. Meg blushed. Barnabas Thorpe took off his hat reverently when she said "God bless you".
Meg told her aunt exactly what had happened the moment she got home; she was too proud ever to stoop to petty concealments, but she knew that if she waited her courage would cool. Uncle Russelthorpe chuckled behind his newspaper (they were at breakfast) and Aunt Russelthorpe was, not unnaturally, very wroth.
"It's high time this sort of thing were stopped," she said. "As for her not going to balls, or wearing trinkets any more, she shall go!"
"Meg's much the most amusing of the three," said Uncle Russelthorpe; "and nothing makes a faith grow like a little persecution."
CHAPTER V.
So Margaret Deane was numbered amongst Barnabas Thorpe's converts; and of all the inexplicable miracles that the man was said to work, society counted that the most extraordinary.
Mrs. Russelthorpe was not a popular woman, and she was too proud to elicit much sympathy; but, on the whole, public opinion sided with her, rather than with her niece.
Barnabas Thorpe was essentially the people's preacher; and even his greatest admirers felt that it was unbecoming of him "to try and convert the gentry".
As a matter of fact he was less presumptuous than they fancied; and, far from being triumphant, experienced at times a most unusual qualm of pain at this unexpected result of his teaching.
Years ago in the days of his boyhood, long before he had, to use his own phrase, "been taken by religion," he had once plunged his hand into a spider's web with intent to save a butterfly that got entangled. He had broken the creature's wing in trying to free it, and the mishap had stuck in his memory, because both as child and man he had been unusually pitiful to physical suffering. That bygone episode was fantastically associated in his mind with Miss Deane.
There was no doubt to him that but one answer was possible to the "What shall I do to be saved?" of man or woman cursed by riches. "Leave all that thou hast" seemed the inevitable prelude to "Follow me".
He had quoted that reply on the Downs to a group in the midst of which stood Margaret, in the soft grey dress which was the most quakerish garment she possessed.
He had seen her wince at the words as if they startled or hurt her; and had had a quick feeling of compunction, such as he had experienced when he had found the butterfly's purple and gold down staining his over-strong and clumsy fingers.
No one in after days would have believed it, but it was none the less true, that Meg's evident sensitiveness rather deterred than encouraged him in his dealings with her, till an incident, grotesque enough in itself, changed his attitude, and he felt himself suddenly challenged by the world through the mouth of a worldly woman. The combative instinct was thoroughly roused then, and his doubts fled. It was a very small link in the chain that was to bind his life and Margaret's, but nevertheless it was a link.
Barnabas was one day sitting by the roadside carving, when Mrs. Russelthorpe, coming through the great gates of Ravenshill, saw, and made up her mind to deliver her opinion to this impertinent preacher.
Barnabas was chiselling a little chalk head with his pocket knife; he was intent on his occupation, his hair and beard were powdered with white dust, and he looked up only now and then to speak to a child who was eagerly watching him, and for whose benefit the image was being fashioned.
Mrs. Russelthorpe deliberately paused in front of him, and studied him through her gold eyeglass. Meg had never thought about the man, she had seen only the preacher, but the elder woman recognised that this was no weak opponent or hysterical babbler.
She lifted her silk skirt—she was never hurried or awkward in her movements,—and drew out of the pocket that hung round her waist a sovereign, which she held out to him.
"We are in your debt," she said, "for the trouble you had in returning my niece's locket. It was exceedingly honest of you. You had better take the money, my good fellow;" for the preacher had raised his head with an expression of utter amazement, which would have confused a less intrepid woman. "I am sure"—a little patronisingly—"that you quite deserve it."
"No—thanks," said Barnabas shortly. "In the part I come from we don't fancy it 'exceedingly honest' not to steal, nor look to be paid for not being rascals." And he went on with his work.
"Tut, tut!" said Mrs. Russelthorpe. "You cannot afford to fling away gold, I am sure." And she dropped the sovereign on to the man's hand.
The preacher started up as if the coin falling on his brown fingers had burnt them.
"Here, ma'am. Please take it back. I thought I'd made it clear, I'll ha' none o' et," he cried; and there was a ring in his voice, which sounded as if the "Old Adam" were not quite dead yet.
"I shall certainly not take it. I do not approve of unpaid services," said Mrs. Russelthorpe. And Barnabas with a quick movement drew back his arm, and pitched the sovereign over her head, far away into the park.
It span through the air like a flash of light, and Mrs. Russelthorpe's lips compressed as she saw it.
"That was a most insolent exhibition of temper for one who preaches to others," she said coldly; but the answer surprised her.
"Ay, an' that's true; so it was," he said, reddening.
Mrs. Russelthorpe was not generous enough to take no advantage of her adversary's slip.
"Your rudeness to me can only injure yourself," she went on, "and is certainly not worth remark; but I am glad to have this opportunity of saying that I believe you to be doing great harm by your preaching. Religious excitement is always bad, and I have had to remonstrate seriously with my niece, who is very young and foolish, about the ideas your unwise words have put into her head. She sees her mistake now," added Mrs. Russelthorpe, rather prematurely. "But had I not been at hand to guide her, you might have done an infinity of evil in attempting to dictate to her about the duties of a position which you cannot in the least be expected to understand."
An anxious look came over the preacher's face; his own pride was forgotten on the instant.
"Tell me," he said eagerly, "she is surely not turning back?"
"I do not understand your expression," said Mrs. Russelthorpe; "but Miss Deane will shortly accompany me to London, and take her part in society as usual. I am glad to say she recognises the folly of your teaching."
That last assertion was unfounded; but then, "If it is not true yet, it shall be," thought Mrs. Russelthorpe, and she couldn't resist a triumph.
She departed after that, with the last word and the best of the encounter, well pleased; but if she had known the preacher better she would not have told him that his disciple was "giving in".
"She is doing the devil's work, an' the poor maid is over weak," he reflected, "an' hard beset; an' what shall I do?"
He took his worn Bible from his pocket and laid it open on the road; the wind stirred the pages gently, and the man shut his eyes with a prayer for enlightenment. Then he opened them and picked the book up. He read in the bright glancing sunlight one sentence: "And He saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee and follow Me".
Mrs. Russelthorpe and Meg were sitting together in the drawing-room.
The girl looked ill and nervous. The constant strain of a conflict with a stronger willed antagonist told on her. She had slept little of late, she had suffered a veritable martyrdom in the carrying out of Barnabas Thorpe's principles.
All at once the blood rushed to her white face.
"I hear footsteps in the hall," she said.
"You are going crazy about 'footsteps'!" cried her aunt impatiently, and then lifted her eyebrows in some surprise. "Some one is coming upstairs. Who can be calling at this hour?"
"It is the preacher. They are his footsteps that I've heard coming nearer all the week," said Meg quietly, and before Mrs. Russelthorpe could say a word of reproof to this extraordinary statement, Barnabas Thorpe stood in the doorway.
"I ask pardon for interrupting you, but I ha' a message for this maid," he said. "I ha' been told that havin' put your hand to th' plough ye are in danger o' turning back. Is it true?"
"The man is mad!" cried Mrs. Russelthorpe, "or he is drunk!"
She stood upright, putting her frame aside without haste or flurry. She had never felt fear in her life, though her indignation was strong.
"Go at once, sir!" she said.
"Is it true?" said the preacher.
His eyes were fixed on Meg. He was too eager to be self-conscious. In the intensity of his effort to arrest and turn again a wavering soul, he did not even hear Mrs. Russelthorpe; and for a moment his absorption, his utter imperviousness to all that was "outside" his mission, impressed even her.
The preacher was as "one-ideaed" as a sleuth hound in pursuit of his quarry. The simile is not a pretty one, but it flashed across her mind, when her command fell futile and powerless.
"Is it true?" Then, while Meg, who had been sitting with dilated eyes staring at him, covered her face with her hands, his voice melted into entreaty.
"Perhaps it is so," he said. "But the Master is full of pity. Still He says 'Come'. He knows our backslidings. He bears wi' us again and again, as a mother wi' a bairn who stumbles running to her. His feet bear the bruises o' the stones by the way," cried Barnabas. And again, as on the beach, his blue eyes had the expression of eyes that see that of which they speak. "An' ye shall not be afeard o' th' path they trod! His hands are marked wi' th' nails o' Calvary, an' by those marks they shall lead us men, who are feeble and sore discouraged. Behold, I know"—and his voice rang through the room, making Meg wonder whimsically in the midst of her excitement whether the very chairs and tables were not startled in their spindle-legged propriety—"Behold, I know that it is sweeter to walk wi' Him through th' valley o' death, than to walk wi'out Him through th' sunshine o' the World."
"My good man," said Mrs. Russelthorpe, "whatever may be the case in 'the valley of death,' you are very much out of place in my drawing-room. We have had enough."
She pointed to the door while she spoke.
Outside in the road the man had had the worst of it when he had crossed swords with her; here, strangely enough, she had no more effect on him than a child's breath against a boat in full sail.
He was acting under authority now. He believed himself as much bound to testify as ever Moses before the Egyptian king.
"My Master has called this maid," he said; "who is it bids you hinder? Promise," and he turned again to Meg, "that ye will follow Him to the giving up of all He disallows. Promise! an' I will go my way in peace."
Meg let her hands drop on her lap, and looked at him with the saddest smile he had ever seen. The pathos of it touched the man as well as the apostle, though he wasn't himself aware of that fact; and his innermost thought of her was free from any taint of self-consciousness.
"I will promise nothing," she said; "I should only fail."
Her low voice sounded weary and dispirited, the very antithesis of his. This time she said to herself she would not let herself go.
His enthusiasm might carry her a little way by its own strength, but she knew what the end would be. This narrowly strong preacher, with his northern burr, his gesticulations, his intense conviction, came, after all, from another world. She envied his assurance, she admired his courage, but he could not "help her".
"I may be miserable, and know I am wrong, and yet give way at last, unless something happens," said Meg. The "something" meant support from her father. Then she was ashamed of her own words.
"I will try—but I won't promise," she said wistfully.
There was a tense silence. "I have a message for ye, an' I canna understand it," said Barnabas at last, "but the Lord will make it clear. Listen, these are the words, And the angel said unto him, Cast thy garment about thee and follow Me."
"The man is raving!" exclaimed Mrs. Russelthorpe. And she put her hand on the bell; but he had already turned to go.
He would add no words of his own to the inspired "mandate"; and he walked out of the room and out of the house unmolested, as he had come.
Mrs. Russelthorpe drew a deep breath, that was not so much of relief as of utter astonishment.
"I do not know why I allowed him to go on so long. He is the most extraordinary person I have ever set eyes on! Upon my word, I believe he has walked straight out of Bedlam; but, mad or sane, this is beyond a joke. Margaret! if you so much as look at him again, I'll wash my hands of you. I'll make an end to this."
"Will you?" said Meg dreamily. She did not speak in defiance, only doubtfully, with a vague sense that Barnabas Thorpe's especial Providence might be too strong even for Aunt Russelthorpe. Had he not said his say in spite of her?
"Will you, Aunt Russelthorpe? But I don't think one has really much to do with what happens."
"I've something to do with it," said Aunt Russelthorpe grimly; "and so he will find." And so indeed he did find,—though not in the way she meant.
Another and widely different acquaintance was at least as deeply interested in the change in her. Mr. Sauls was the very last person whom any one would have expected to champion an impracticable enthusiasm; yet he certainly stood up for Margaret at this time, to her immense surprise and rather perplexed gratitude.
This slip of a girl, who shrank from the least touch of love-making, but yet loved and hated so vehemently, who was more innocent than any other woman he had ever known, and who yet did such terribly rash things, who was full of shy dignity and sudden indiscreet revelations, was the first person who had inspired him with any awe of womanhood.
He laughed at himself a good deal, but thought of her, whom most people sneered at, with a sort of half-amused reverence. If in the first place he had been in love with Meg's good name and prospective fortune, his love for Meg's self was striking deeper roots than he should consistently have allowed; but we all of us fail to stick to our principles at times.
When the first faint rumour of a scandal reached him, Mr. Sauls went straight to Ravenshill to call.
He met Mr. Russelthorpe in the hall, and stopped to speak to him, being on very friendly terms with the old man, whose society he had cultivated of late.
"It is so long since I have met your niece anywhere, that I have come to inquire after her health," he said boldly.
"Hm! she has 'repented' and taken to religion, as I have no doubt you have heard," said the other; he held on to the banisters with one shrivelled hand, and peered up into George Sauls' strong dark face to see how his announcement was taken.
"Repented! but she was always a little saint!" cried Mr. Sauls.
"Ah! that's it," responded Meg's uncle. "It is the saints who repent; the sinners have other things to do."
Mr. Sauls stood twisting the cord of his eyeglass rapidly round his finger: he had a trick of apparently absorbing himself in some physical detail of the sort when he was more than usually interested.
"I want to be converted," he remarked. "Do you think that she would undertake me?"
Mr. Russelthorpe chuckled. This young Jew, with his keen eye to the main chance, always entertained him.
"There's no knowing. Young women are very hopeful," he said. "Go on—go on and try."
Mr. Sauls went on into the drawing-room.
A buzz of conversation greeted him. Mrs. Russelthorpe was entertaining about twenty ladies; Meg was standing apart in the bow window.
Mr. Sauls joined in the talk at once; he made smart speeches to his hostess, and conversed with every one: he was never in the least shy.
Presently some one mentioned the ball that was to be given at the Heights. "You are going, of course?" she said.
The question sounded innocent enough, but it sent a thrill through the atmosphere.
Mrs. Russelthorpe made a distinct pause, and then said, in clear decisive tones: "My niece sets all her elders to rights on that subject. You had better explain why we are not to go, Margaret; for your views are beyond me."
Mr. Sauls glanced at the girl's white face, and swore under his breath. "I'd like to duck Mrs. Russelthorpe," he said to himself; and then he threw down his glove, to the general astonishment.
"If Miss Deane does not choose to give us the pleasure of her company, it is so much the worse for us," he said. "But society would become unbearable if it were allowed to demand explanations each time any one stayed away from an entertainment. I can't see why we should bother Miss Deane with impertinent questions, and I protest against them on principle. They encroach on the sacred rights of the individual."
He had diverted attention from Meg anyhow. What did it matter what rhodomontade he was talking? It was curious how that little nervous shudder of hers affected him; it had seemed to run like fire through his veins. How durst they distress her? prying closely into the secrets of her sensitive conscience, frightening her (for he could see that she was frightened) by their irreverent curiosity. Reverence was not a quality that any one had suspected in him heretofore, but Meg had awakened it.
He did not quite know her, however, in spite of his sympathy: she was thin-skinned enough in all conscience; but she was something else as well. She lifted her head and faced Mrs. Russelthorpe: she was not going to take shelter behind Mr. Sauls, though she was grateful to him.
"I have explained to you over and over again," she said. "I don't go to balls because I don't think I ought. I like them so much I forget everything else when I do. I don't know about other people, I daresay that they are perfectly right to go."
Mrs. Russelthorpe laughed.
"Other people are on a lower level of sanctity evidently," she said. "Come! We are all of us waiting to be enlightened. Where does the iniquity lie? You of the young generation are wonderfully quick at seeing evil—where is it?"
George twirled his eyeglass furiously.
"Don't answer!" he cried, with assumed jocosity. "Miss Deane, your counsel advises you not to—this is a bad precedent—against all fairness."
Meg flushed painfully, there were tears in her eyes.
"In me, I suppose," she said softly, and left the room.
Mr. Sauls took up his hat.
"I think we ought all to feel pretty well ashamed of ourselves after that," he remarked; and he went out, shutting the door sharply after him.
He had burnt his boats, and he knew it. He had made an enemy, and forced his own hand; he had rebuked Mrs. Russelthorpe in her own drawing-room, and closed the Ravenshill gates against himself; and he shrugged his shoulders at his own rashness as he went downstairs. Meg was by no means won yet, and he had been bolder than he could well afford.
"I never guessed I was such a fool," he said to himself; and then he smiled in spite of his cooler after-thoughts.
"If, after all, my luck holds good, and I do get her, and I will," he reflected, "won't I make that aunt of hers feel the difference? I should like to see the woman who will bully my wife. I should like it immensely."
His sympathy for his shy lady was very genuine, but he felt a thrill of exhilaration all the same. Mrs. Russelthorpe's anger, the growing gossip, this very "religious mania," were all playing into his hands—they would drive the girl nearer to him.
He meant to be very patient; it was only once in a blue moon that his feelings got the better of him; he would wait, and watch; and when Meg's position became unbearable, he would step in and say, "Here am I! With me you shall do as you choose. Follow your very exacting conscience where you like; dip your pretty fingers into my purse, and dress in sackcloth if it pleases you." He would not bully Meg. She was none the worse for a touch of asceticism in his eyes.
Like many men who believe in little themselves, he held that the more beliefs a woman has the better—and the safer.
Let her be as saint-like as she chose; if he was of the earth (as he candidly allowed he was) his wife should be of heaven, a thing apart, set in a costly shrine which he would delight in decorating.
Her religion was a fitting ornament, a halo round her fair head! Far be it from him to wish to discrown her.
Women's pretty superstitions became them even better than their diamonds—he would grudge Meg neither.
He went to the ball at the Heights three weeks later, and found, as he had expected, that Mrs. Russelthorpe cut him, that Miss Deane was not present, and that Miss Deane's name was overmuch in people's mouths.
One little bit of innuendo, which he happened to overhear, made his blood boil, in spite of his conviction that it was unfounded.
Miss Deane in love with a canting tub-preacher! Miss Deane, who was only too fastidious! If Mr. Sauls' idea of a woman's position had just a tinge of Orientalism about it, at least his respect for Meg was true enough for him to be sure that that scandal was absurd on the face of it. But it showed how her innocence needed protection.
Poor Meg! He would have shielded her from every rough breath, yet the winds of heaven were to blow harder on her than on him; he would have lined her path with velvet, but for her the road was to be stony indeed. "Give our beloved peace and happiness," we pray—but they are given pain, and the stress of the battle. "Deliver them from evil"—but they fall.
"I will write soon, very soon," George Sauls decided, as he left the hot ball-room behind him, and walked towards the twinkling town, with the sound of the dance ringing in his ears.
He had actually rather a longing to turn up the road to Ravenshill, where Mrs. Russelthorpe's carriage was disappearing, and take a look at the shell which held his pearl; but a sense of the ridiculous withheld him, or, perhaps, the bad luck that dogged his footsteps where his love was concerned.
If he had followed his impulse, the upshot of that night's events might have been different.
If Meg had married him, he would have loved her long and well, for his was a grasp that never loosened easily; but for once in his life, George gave more than he received, and he certainly did not count the experience blessed.
The three weeks that had followed that scene in the drawing-room had been trying ones at Ravenshill. Meg's courage was of the kind that can lead a forlorn hope, but finds it very difficult to sustain a siege.
Poor child! it was hard enough that the first avowedly religious man she had met should be also a bit of a fanatic.
That our consciences have so little judgment is surely one of the oddest things in this queer world!
Martyrs go to the stake for false gods, as well as for the truth; men die heroically for mistakes, loyal to blundering leaders; and what is the end of it all, we ask? Is it a farce or a tragedy? or does the loyalty live somehow, though the error wither as chaff that has held the grain?
CHAPTER VI.
Uncle Russelthorpe sat alone in his library on the evening of the ball: the habit of shuffling out of family gatherings had grown on him, his queer slip-shod figure was seldom seen beyond its own precincts now. His distaste for his wife increased with increasing age, and her loud voice and rather aggressive strength jarred more on him.
Perhaps, after all, Meg's was not the saddest tragedy in that house; for it is better to burn than to rot, and it is doubtful whether the over-hasty actors who bring grief on themselves, and other people, in their attempts to make the world turn round the other way, do half the harm of the easy-going philosophers, who sit with their talents in napkins, and say, "Let be! why struggle against the inevitable?" Stagnant water is not a healthy feature in the landscape at any time.
It was late in the evening, the soft air came in at the window laden with dew, as well as with sweetness. The old man got up to close the shutters; he had a morbid dislike to intrusion, and the servants did not dare invade his sanctum. He lit his lamp, and fell back into the depths of his armchair with a sigh of relief, because that small effort was accomplished. He had grown weaker lately, though no one had noticed it. He no longer studied with the avidity of old, but sat often, as he sat to-night, with his hands on his knees, peering into the fire. Perhaps he saw shadows of the past there—ghosts of possibilities that were never realities, saddest of all ghosts are these "might-have-beens," pale phantoms that have never known life. He had started with rather more than the average share of brains and money, and come to the conclusion, now that his days were few and evil, that the game had hardly been worth playing, sorry fun at the best! Presently some one spoke behind him, and he frowned irritably.
"Who is it?" he asked rather crossly. "I'm busy. What do you want in here?"
"It is I—Margaret!" said a voice with a suspicion of tremor in it; and his niece walked round his chair, and after a moment's hesitation, sat down on a high-backed seat opposite him.
Uncle Russelthorpe straightened himself with a jerk. This was a most unprecedented visit, and his curiosity overcame his annoyance. Meg had hardly been in his study since the days when she had haunted it as a child. What could she want? It was not a house where the young ones ever intruded unnecessarily on their elders' leisure; and Mr. Russelthorpe, though he had a secret partiality for his youngest niece, did not consider her any "affair of his". His wife managed the girls, and "very funnily too," he sometimes thought.
Meg sat pressing her fingers together and looking straight at him. She had not taken this unusual step without a pretty strong motive.
"Uncle," she said, "I want advice! You used to be very kind to me when I was a little girl. Will you give it to me, please?"
"Eh? What?" said her uncle. "You'd better go to——" he was about to say "your aunt," but feeling that that counsel was rather a cruel mockery, seeing that Meg's relations with Mrs. Russelthorpe were more than usually strained just then, ended, "to your father for it."
"Yes, but I don't know how," said Meg; "he is somewhere in Greece, I suppose."
"Hm—wise man!" said Uncle Russelthorpe. "I don't, as a rule, think much of Charles' worldly wisdom; but that way he has of going off, without leaving an address, has always struck me as admirable; it secures such absolute immunity from worries."
"I suppose I am one of the worries," said Meg, with a smile that was more sad than merry. "Since I can't bother him, I'm worrying you!"
"Not at all!" said the old gentleman politely; but he drew his watch out of its fob and fidgeted.
"You see there is no one else," said Meg apologetically. "Uncle Russelthorpe, I mean to go away. I can't stay here any longer. Father promised me that he would write soon, and perhaps send for me. He has been gone nearly two months, and I have not heard from him. Perhaps,"—with her ungovernable desire to shift the blame from his shoulders—"perhaps, he is ill, or he may have sent a message that has not been given to me. Anyhow, I can't—oh I can't—wait much longer."
"Tut, tut!" interrupted Mr. Russelthorpe. "You are young and impatient. When you are my age, you will not say 'can' and 'can't' so easily. There are few things we can't endure, hardly any I should say; and our skins become toughened with age, fortunately, and our hearts colder, also most fortunately."
Meg shivered involuntarily.
"But I haven't begun to be old yet!" she cried. "That doesn't help me!"
The old man looked at her uneasily; he had something of the feeling that one of the audience of a play might have, if suddenly appealed to by an actor: he hated being dragged out of his safe place as spectator, and being asked for practical advice.
"I think the sort of life we lead is all wrong from beginning to end," said this inconvenient niece; and the corners of Mr. Russelthorpe's lips twitched a little, he was genuinely sorry for her unhappiness, but her revolutionary sentiments amused him.
"Father really thinks so too. I have never forgotten something he said when I was a child, about Dives preaching contentment to the starving across an over-loaded table."
Uncle Russelthorpe took snuff and shook his head.
"My dear young lady, don't you begin to talk cheap Chartist cant," he said. "One Whig in the family is enough, and Charles' harangues don't sound so well at second-hand; it is his voice and manner that makes any nonsense he chooses to spout go down; besides, he would be considerably deranged, I fancy, if you were to take upon yourself to put all his theories into practice; that's a very pernicious habit that you've contracted—not inherited—I doubt its being so pleasing to him as you imagine."
"But that's worse than anything, and I won't believe you!" cried Meg, with a passion that actually startled him. "Uncle, it makes me feel miserable when you say that; as if father were not ever in earnest! Aunt Russelthorpe tells me that too! She says he never really meant me to live with him, and that I'd taken everything too seriously. It isn't true. I want to go to him, and to hear him say it isn't true. Will you help me? I believe Aunt Russelthorpe knows where he is. Will you make her tell you? Will you give me the money, and send some one with me if I mustn't travel alone? I won't run away. It isn't wrong to want to go to my own father," cried poor Meg, with a rather pathetic pride. "I'll do it openly. My aunt will be angry, but he will understand. I am his child, and he always says I am to come to him in any difficulty. I know that he will be glad!"
There was a confidence in her tone, that made Mr. Russelthorpe wonder for a moment what sort of a man he would have been, if he had had a child with such unlimited faith in him. Really, it was a pity Charles didn't do more to justify it; and that reflection gave rise to another.
"It seems to me," he said, "that a more interesting and younger admirer than your old uncle would be charmed to point an obvious way out of your difficulties. There was a young sprig here the other day; it struck me that his interest in my coins had shot up rather suddenly, like Jack's bean-stalk. I shouldn't wonder if it withered when it's served its turn, eh? My old eyes are not so sharp as they were, but I'm not in my dotage yet. I don't see how I can interfere, my dear; but if you are anxious to leave us,—why, there's the church door conveniently near. Laura and Kate got out by it. I've no doubt the escort to Greece could be provided too."
"You mean Mr. Sauls," said Meg, with a calmness which boded ill for that gentleman's hopes. "I don't think he would be so silly; but, anyhow, I should hate a husband who let me believe what I liked, and do as I thought right because 'it didn't matter'. Mr. Sauls has been rather kind to me. I don't want my gratitude spoilt by that kind of nonsense; please." The last words were a protest against Mr. Russelthorpe's characteristic chuckle. Meg had an impatience of any approach to love-making, that was more boyish than girlish; and the least attempt at sentiment was enough to chill her rather doubtful liking for her father's quondam protégé.
"I really am in earnest!" she cried. "Don't laugh at me! Aunt Russelthorpe has been saying things I cannot repeat: she says other people say them too. I think," lifting her head proudly, "that they should all be ashamed of themselves, and I don't care in the very least—but"—with a sudden illogical break-down—"I must go away! No one will miss me, you see,—it isn't as if this were home, or as if I were any good to any one, or had any real place. It seems a waste of life to stay and make her angry, and fight every day because I don't any longer do the things she does. Besides," added Meg despairingly, "I don't know how to go on struggling for ever. Aunt Russelthorpe rather likes it, I believe, but I don't. Uncle, I'm so terribly afraid of giving in, and doing everything she wants, and feeling a shameful coward all the rest of my life."
"Dear, dear!" said Mr. Russelthorpe. "'The rest of life!' and, 'for ever and ever!' Eh! how tragic we are at twenty, to be sure!" But again he felt uneasy. The girl was unhappy. He knew she must have been hard pressed before she took the initiative and appealed to him—also there was no doubt that tongues were wagging too fast about her.
He sometimes shrewdly suspected that Augusta wouldn't be sorry to drive her niece into any decently good marriage; and he knew that the one plan her heart was set against was this of Meg's keeping house for Mr. Deane. Why were women such fools? Why, above all, did Meg bother him? He had given up contention on his own account so long ago. Yet it would be good for the poor child to get away; and if Charles understood how matters were, he would be indignant enough. Charles had plenty of spirit, though a baby could hoodwink him. Should he interpose for once, and tell his wife that——
"Margaret!" said a voice behind them. They both started like guilty conspirators; but Meg recovered herself in a second, and stood upright, white and defiant.
Mrs. Russelthorpe was in the doorway dressed for a ball, as she had been long ago when she and Meg had had their first pitched battle. She had an open letter in her hand, and a smile on her lips.
"I have been looking for you. What are you doing in here, I wonder?" said she. "Here is an answer from your father, Margaret; and now I hope you are satisfied."
Meg held out her hand without a word. Mrs. Russelthorpe gave her the letter over Mr. Russelthorpe's head, who peered up out of his deep armchair. "'So they two crossed swords without more ado,'" he quoted to himself.
Margaret read the letter all through before she spoke. A few months earlier she would have protested at her aunt's having broken the seal, and mastered the contents; now, rightly or wrongly, she felt that the issue of this contest was too serious for her to waste strength in resenting small grievances.
Mrs. Russelthorpe noted the change. Margaret was not quite so contemptible an adversary as she had been: she was growing more womanly.
Meg turned to her uncle when she had finished reading, as to a supreme court of appeal.
"If father had ever got my letter," she said, "he would not have written like this. Please judge for yourself, uncle."
"Charles' hand tries my eyes," murmured Mr. Russelthorpe fretfully.
"Then I will read it aloud," said Meg; and her aunt raised her eyebrows and laughed, but not very mirthfully.
"Margaret is determined on having a scene!"
The first part of the letter was all about the place Mr. Deane was staying in, and the people he was meeting. It was illustrated with pen-and-ink sketches, and was charmingly descriptive and good-naturedly witty. Then came a tender half-playful recommendation to his daughter not to addle her brains with overmuch thinking.
"Your aunt actually tells me that she can't persuade my Peg-top to spin any more!" he wrote. "Of course I only wish you to follow your own conscience, dearest; but don't, even for heaven's sake, turn into a severe old maid, or get crow's-feet and wrinkles before I come home again. I couldn't forgive you! As for that delightful plan which we concocted last time I was at Ravenshill, I fear, on thinking it over, that it is impossible to carry it out,—at least, for the next few years. There are many objections to it, which I lost sight of before; and I believe, that, after all, you are better and happier in your uncle's house, than you would be wandering about with me. Your aunt always writes most kindly of you. It is a long time since I have heard from you.
"Your very affectionate father,
"Charles Deane."
"That is all," said Meg; "and," looking at her aunt, "I am not in the least satisfied;" and then, with a sudden impulsive movement, she knelt down by the old man's chair, and the loose sheets of that rather unsatisfactory epistle floated aimlessly to the floor.
"Father is so far away, and nothing I do or say seems to reach him," she cried; and there were tears in her voice now. "Uncle, I am desperate! Do help me!"
Mr. Russelthorpe glanced nervously from her to his wife.
"Upon my word, Augusta," he began, when Mrs. Russelthorpe interrupted, her louder voice drowning his, as her quick decision mastered his slow championship.
"We've had enough theatricals!" she said. "Get up, Margaret, you are spoiling your dress and wasting your uncle's time, and mine too," with a glance at the clock. But Meg's eyes were still fixed on Uncle Russelthorpe; he had been kind to her when she was a child, and she had always consequently (though illogically) believed in him. Surely, surely he would take her part now.
He fidgeted, shifting his position as if to turn from her eager, pleading face. It was hard on him to be called so suddenly to espouse a side,—on him, who liked to smile at the fallibility of all causes. Prompt action, too, was almost impossible at seventy, when at sixty he had let the reins drop. Yes! it was hard on him, though Meg in her passionate youth couldn't see that.
"I—I don't see what you come to me for," he said feebly. "You are so violent, Meg. Nothing is probably so bad as you imagine, you know; and, if you wait long enough, grievances burn themselves out, like everything else. You may be mistaken too, and fancy—fancy——"
"Yes—I was mistaken," said Meg slowly. She had risen from her knees while the old man mumbled on; the eagerness had died out of her face and left it rather scornful. "I did fancy you would help me, but I shall not fancy it again. I was foolish to trouble you, uncle. I am sorry. I never will any more."
She went out of the library, holding her fair head very high, and without looking at either uncle or aunt; but when she got to her own room she threw herself down on her bed and sobbed, all her dignity vanishing.
"Oh father, father, I do so want you! I can't be good all alone!" she cried. "Why aren't you ever here?"