Meg was courted now by her schoolfellows; but the attention lavished upon her wounded her pride. She measured by it the contempt that had so easily accused her of thieving. To her sensitive spirit this kindness seemed insulting. It said, "We thought you a thief, and we find you are not." She responded coldly to advances made to her by all but Ursula.
The girls did not reproach Elsie; a sense of fair play kept them from referring to the diamond episode, but they shunned her. They stuck to the letter of the promised forgiveness, but they did not forget that she was a little thief. Meg watched the small figure lying apart and solitary in the play-hours—a white drift upon the bench.
Her heart bled. The child had been so caressed before, and was now an outcast. She remembered how she, too, had been neglected and shunned; but she was strong, and had never known petting, and her anger was stirred against the girls.
She tried to make it up to Elsie; but a change had come over the child, and she shrank from her friend. Meg knew Elsie felt ashamed, and she busied herself about the child to prove that the sorrowful time was not forgiven only, but forgotten also. She watched her opportunities to help the little one at her lessons; to put away her books, pencils, and other belongings. Elsie refused help, and avoided giving Meg those opportunities. The old clinging ways were gone. The chattering voice was hushed. A circle of ice seemed to surround the child.
Meg felt lonely and blank; and pity mingled with her desolateness. All the graceful radiance of childhood had gone from Elsie. Meg knew the change was due to remorse; the shyness of guilt was upon Elsie's heart. She longed to make the child smile and prattle again. As Elsie had longed for that foolish diamond, so Meg longed for Elsie's smile and prattle.
April had come; there were violets and primroses in the woods about Moorhouse, and Miss Reeves announced that the Saturday half-holiday might be spent afield. Meg determined that to-day she would conquer her pet's shrinking—that she would win that laugh. She went to look for Elsie. She found her lying listlessly on a bench in the sunshine. As she approached Elsie turned her face away.
"We are going out into the country to pick flowers," said Meg, kneeling beside her.
Elsie did not answer, and made a little movement with her elbow as if to wave Meg away.
"We are not to walk two and two together like soldiers," Meg went on, taking no notice. "When we get to the woods we are to break up our ranks and run wild. You and I will hunt for violets together."
"I don't want to go," said Elsie.
"You are not well, my pet," said Meg, patting the little hand.
"I am quite well," said Elsie harshly. "I do not want to go, that is all."
"Then I will not go either. I will stop with you," said Meg determinedly.
"No, no, no. I don't want you to stop with me! I don't want you!" replied Elsie with hurried emphasis. "I want to be alone. Of all the girls you are the one I want most to be left alone by."
"Why do you hate me, Elsie?" asked Meg gently.
"I don't hate you," replied Elsie, after a pause, in a faint, quavering voice. Then she added with labored utterance: "I am ashamed. Every time you look at me, every time you come near me, I am ashamed." Her voice gathered energy, while her breast heaved with tearless sobs. "The other girls look at me as if they were always thinking 'She is a thief,' and I don't mind—their looks not half (sob, sob) so much—as—I mind—your kind look. It makes me think—of—my dreadful wickedness."
"I look at you like that because I love you so dearly," said Meg, seeking to draw the child to her.
Elsie struggled and sobbed, but at last she let Meg take her on her lap and lean her cheek down on her head. It seemed to Meg as if the circle of ice were broken. She did not know what to say that would soothe that stricken little conscience, and yet guide it. All she could do was to hold the sobbing child tight.
It was one of those beautiful days in spring when everything seems careless and fond. The trees rustled around them as if hushing the voice of sorrow. The flowers looked up with bright faces; the indulgent sunshine shed its broad light. Everything seemed so much in contrast with the grieving child that Meg could think of nothing but to set herself to make that little pale face smile again. The child used in her happier moments to be fond of playing a game of shop. Meg excelled in mimicking the various customers coming to buy. Taking her ribbon now from her throat she set it up for sale, and became in turns the querulous customer, the fat fussy customer, the French customer. As she gesticulated, shaking her fingers up in the air, shrugging her shoulders, and talking in French, bargaining, vowing it was trop cher, she acted her part so vividly that Elsie forgot her sorrow, and at last broke out into a laugh.
From that day Elsie clung to Meg. The girls continued to abstain from referring to the incident of the diamond, and Miss Pinkett was elaborately kind; but Elsie was reminded of her sin by the emphasis of absolution around her. She still shrank from the companionship of other girls. With Meg alone she was forgetful of the past. The tie between them was recognized, and during the constitutional walks of the schoolgirls Elsie was allowed to leave her place among the younger ones and walk with her friend. These walks now lay toward the country, away from the village, where an outbreak of scarlatina was raging. In the blue-rimmed land, with its misty embattlement of downs outlined against the sky, through the shade and flicker of woods, through lanes sweet with the bravery of floral walls, the girls walked; and to Elsie Meg became the mouthpiece of nature. Those walks in the countryside were at this time the happy hours of Meg's life. The sensitive little hand in hers, that responded so quickly to her own delight, helped the inspiration that came to her from the illusive cloudland overhead, from wooded aisles, spread with wild flowers, voiced with notes of birds and buzz of insects.
This part of Meg's school-life came to an abrupt conclusion. One morning Elsie did not come down to breakfast. That evening she had a little fever, and the child's throat was sore. The doctor came, and the word "scarlatina" was whispered. In a few days the school was empty of the girls. Meg alone remained as usual. Every precaution to prevent infection was taken by Miss Reeves, and Elsie was isolated.
A new anxiety now sprang up in Meg's heart. Her thoughts were ever in the room at the top of the house, with the heavy curtains drawn before the door, from which distilled an acrid smell of disinfectants. Often Meg crept upstairs and listened. She watched every day for the doctor, to ask how Elsie was. The answers were always vague. In a few days the crisis would come. There was a tantalizing mystery in these replies, always followed by the injunction not to go near the child.
"Does she ever ask for me?" asked Meg.
"She is delirious, she would not know you," was the invariable answer.
One morning the news came that the crisis was past—delirium was over. The news was good; yet the doctor's face looked grave. Meg overheard him say to Miss Reeves that Elsie might sink from weakness. The child's feebleness baffled him.
"When shall I see her?" asked Meg huskily.
"Not just yet," the doctor replied, patting her head.
That night a storm of wind raged outside. Meg listened to the howl of the wind, to the lashing of the trees bending their backs to the scourge. The doors creaked; Pilot was dragging at his chain. Meg's thoughts were with Elsie. The contrast of her feebleness and the force raging outside seemed to haunt her. She fell asleep, and she dreamed that Elsie was dead. She saw her distinctly, a white, piteous figure lying very still, beaten down by some pitiless assailant who had left her there. Meg awoke with a start. The storm was over, but Elsie had called her.
"Meg, Meg, come!"
Was that cry part of her dream? She sat up rigid, her ears strained, every nerve on the alert, listening. Through the silence the call came again:
"Meg, Meg, come!"
She could not have told if she heard it with her physical ears. Elsie wanted her; that was all she knew. She was out of bed in a moment. A determination strong as had been that former idea of flight impelled her. She would see her pet. If she caught the infection and died, what mattered it? She would go to Elsie, the child wanted her.
A pale light flickered through the space of windows left uncovered by the shutters. Meg made her way cautiously, yet swiftly. It seemed to her that Elsie knew she was coming, and that there was no time to be lost. A jet of gas was burning low in the passage at the end of which was the curtained door. Meg lifted the heavy drapery. The scent of the carbolic grew more acrid. She pushed her head through the door that stood slightly ajar. The nurse, lying on a couch, was asleep. Meg at first could not see Elsie, but when she made a few steps inside the room she perceived the child.
Elsie's eyes were turned toward the door, as if anxiously watching. As Meg entered she made a little ghostly gesture, as if trying to get up. Meg was by her bedside in a moment. She had an impression that it was Elsie and yet not Elsie who was there. The beautiful hair was all cut off. The face was shrunk, a distressed expression rumpled the brow. The eyes were very bright and wide open. They seemed to Meg Elsie's eyes looking at her from a distance. As she clasped the child in her arms she realized with despair that it was like clasping a small gasping phantom.
"I thought you would never come, Meg," Elsie murmured through her labored breathing.
"Oh, Elsie, I have wanted to come," whispered Meg, bringing her face close down to the pillow.
"I wanted you," whispered Elsie. "I kept saying, 'Meg, Meg, come!'"
"I heard you," said Meg.
"Heard me?" repeated the muffled voice. "How could you hear me? I only whispered it. 'Meg Meg, come!'"
"But I heard you," said Meg, "and here I am, darling; here I am, and I will never leave you."
"I said," continued Elsie in that labored whisper, "if Meg comes the dreadful diamond will go."
"The dreadful diamond?" repeated Meg.
"It was always there; and sometimes it grew big, big, like a shining mountain, and put itself here." The spectral hand placed itself on the tiny chest. "It was heavy and cold—it pressed me down."
"It was a bad dream, my pet; not reality," said Meg soothingly.
"I saw it always, shining red, blue, and green. It shone in the dark as in the light, and sometimes it was like a great bright eye looking at me—always looking at me. It moved when I moved, and seemed to say, 'You nearly had Meg turned away like a thief.'"
"No, no; it was not you, it was I—I who did it all of my own free will," cried Meg, kissing the cold face that had become the emblem round which gathered her tenderest emotions.
"But it won't come again, because you have kissed me. The kiss that is better than the diamond," said Elsie with a vague relief in her panting voice.
"It will never come again," repeated Meg, trying to still her sobs.
Elsie lay back apparently at peace. Suddenly she turned, and there was a flicker of the old trouble in her eyes.
"Do you think God, too, forgives me?"
"Yes," replied Meg with a bursting heart.
"Are you sure he does?" insisted the piteous, laboring voice.
"I am sure of it, I know it!" said Meg with a world of conviction.
Elsie sighed, closed her eyes, and there was a silence. Meg thought she was asleep, when she opened her eyes again and looked round with a troubled movement.
"It is very dark," she said. "Draw back the curtains and let in the light."
"It is not day yet," said Meg.
"Stay with me, it is so dark," gasped Elsie, her hands restlessly moving as if pushing back some weight.
"I will not stir from your side, my pet," said Meg, stilling her sobs.
The gray light was stealing in. The tired nurse still slept. Meg saw the remote expression in the sick child's eyes growing more remote.
Suddenly Elsie made another ghostly attempt to sit up.
"How sweet the lilac smells!" she said. "Here is London-pride, and there's thrift. I'll pluck these for Mamey."
She struggled to get out of bed, while Meg held her tight.
"Mamey calls to me—to—say—good-night—and say my prayers," she panted, and then dropped back.
The blue lips moved as if speaking; but Meg could not distinguish the words. A realization that the child was slipping away, that phantoms were about her as she stood on the threshold of the other world, came upon Meg with an anguish of awe.
"Our Father," she began softly, impelled to pray; but Elsie seemed to pay no heed. The little hands still stirred uneasily. The lips still moved. At last Meg distinguished some broken words: "Forgive us our trespasses—as—as—Meg forgives." There came a sigh, the lips stopped muttering, and only the waxen image of what had been Elsie lay on the bed.
Five years had elapsed. Meg was eighteen; she had distanced all her competitors, and she was the head-pupil of Miss Reeves' establishment.
During those years she still remained somewhat of a solitary in the school. The girls who had been her first schoolfellows had all left. By the succeeding girls, Meg was still called repellent by some, attractive by others.
As time went on the mystery of her origin, about which her schoolmates still busied themselves, pained and humiliated her with greater poignancy. She longed to be allowed to know and love her benefactor. When questioned as to who she thought she was—how she had come by the name of Beecham—she felt inclined to answer bitterly: "Do not call me by my name. It would be more convenient to call me by a number, as I am told the prisoners are called. Let me say I am number 18 or 24."
Mr. Standish still held an ever-present if somewhat dim place in the background of Meg's consciousness. It was a quaint half-goblin remembrance. The link between them seemed sundered forever. She had never heard from him since their parting. To Ursula alone she had spoken of that solitary time, of the friend who had been kind to her, and of the fashion-plate which had been sacred to her as her mother's portrait. To her alone she had shown her treasured presents. One day Ursula suggested that her mysterious protector was Mr. Standish. That the stern old gentleman was perhaps a guardian appointed by this friend in his absence. Meg had disclaimed the possibility. Yet the thought that he might be lingered in her mind. As a child loves wonderland, so she dwelt upon Ursula's suggestion. She reasoned herself out of it. She laughed at it, yet it remained. Was he not the only one who had cared for her in her unsheltered childhood?
"Describe him to me," Ursula had once asked.
"I cannot," Meg answered. "It is strange. I can remember a tie he wore—dark-blue, dotted over with tiny horseshoes; and I remember a pair of slippers he had, with big red roses on the toes. I remember his hands, and the color of his hair."
"And you can't remember his face?" Ursula said in tones of disappointment.
"Perhaps if I saw him I might," answered Meg reflectively. "It is so long ago, I have a very dim recollection of his features. They beamed with kindness, and he was kind to me." And then she would tell again the many kind things he had done, the memory of which she held sacred. "Ah," she continued, "I used to be unable to think and speak of those things without tears, but now you see my eyes are quite dry."
Once Meg asked Mr. Fullbloom if Mr. Standish was her guardian. The elderly lawyer she had once known was dead. His brother was now the representative of her unknown benefactor. He alone visited her from the outside world. The solicitor chuckled, as if he were amazingly tickled by this question, but he answered it neither in the affirmative nor the negative.
Mr. Horace Fullbloom was cheery and gray-headed; his sparkling brown eyes were surrounded by crinkles, suggestive of puckers made by laughter rather than by age. His appearance suggested a mischievous humor. Like his brother, he was a bit of a dandy. He also wore a frilled shirt, an impressive bloodstone ring on his little finger, and he sported a silver snuffbox. The solicitor was a favorite with the girls. His cynicism was the sunshine of cynicism. He chaffed them with paternal familiarity, watching them with amused benevolence. He seemed to regard them as belonging to a species not deserving any serious thought or treatment. Meg especially interested him. He always questioned her kindly about herself, and apparently relished the little tiffs that marked their intercourse.
These tiffs were caused by Meg's endeavors to find out the name of her mysterious benefactor, and by the humorous banter with which the solicitor evaded her curiosity. She had dreams of that human providence who stood between her and destitution. Every noble personality she heard or read of became associated in Meg's mind with the thought of her guardian hero. The banter with which Mr. Fullbloom met her inquiries did not prevent Meg from waiting and watching for the feverish moment when she would again question him. Was it the stern old gentleman she remembered who twice had appeared to her? If it were, what was his name? If it were not, who was it, then?
To the teasing humor with which the solicitor asked her why she wanted so much to know, she answered, "Because I am grateful."
"But gratitude, my dear," said Mr. Fullbloom, tapping his snuffbox, "wants an object. Suppose I were to tell you it was the big stone figure on the gate, or some old parchment will and testament that is your guardian. What then? Would you feel grateful to those bloodless patrons?"
"I would be grateful to one who remembered and thought of me were he living or dead," said Meg.
"Perhaps if he be alive he is a gruff, disagreeable old curmudgeon; you might be afraid of him—you might not like him!"
Meg was not to be baffled by such answers. She wanted to know who it was she had a right to love and be grateful to. It was such pain to her also to live among people who kept wondering who she was.
More than once she put into the solicitor's hands a letter, that she asked him to deliver to her unknown friend; but to these missives, that he invariably took away with him, Mr. Fullbloom never brought an answer. To her demand, had he delivered her letters, Mr. Fullbloom returned tantalizing answers. One day he admitted that he had put them all, every one, into the pillar post.
"But not as they were, without an address?" Meg asked in consternation.
"That was no concern of mine. I posted them," said Mr. Fullbloom.
"But where did my letters go?" she cried.
"Perhaps one went to Surrey; perhaps another found its way to York Minster; perhaps a third was carried by fate to its rightful owner," the solicitor replied with a chuckle, and eyes twinkling with the light of mischief. With a little burst of anger, Meg told him that if he would not tell her who her protector was she would rather not see him; it was so painful not to know to whom she owed all this gratitude.
After this scene a long interval elapsed, during which Mr. Fullbloom did not appear; till inconsistently Meg began to long for him to come and visit her again.
It was the eve of the Easter holidays. The school was breaking up. Meg had formed a resolution. This resolution helped her to bear the pain that always accompanied the approach of the holidays. The eager plans she heard her comrades discussing were ever an occasion of pain to her sensitive nature, bringing her loneliness home more keenly.
The gentle independence that now marked Meg's manner had grown upon her of late; the stern necessity of self-support that, since her childhood, had governed her thoughts and actions, had become the ruling instinct of her life. She had determined to be no longer a burden to her protector, and the resolve heightened her spirits. Dreaming is the employment of the idle, and Meg's life was one of action.
If something of the vividness that had distinguished her glance and expression in childhood seemed to have passed away, it was rather subdued or merged in a look, as of a habit of thought now usual to her. Meg's appearance was a matter of discussion in the school; some called her beautiful, others vowed she was plain. Her soft, silky "no color" hair—"mousey hair" Ursula called it—went charmingly with her complexion; it obtruded somewhat heavily over her forehead, for she was inclined to be careless about her dress. Her beauty was of the sort that you do not think of analyzing. It grew upon the beholder, who invariably discovered that her features possessed beauty of form, and that the whole physiognomy had the charm that is magnetic.
Meg had been contemplating writing to Mr. Fullbloom to tell him the resolve she had taken, when his presence was announced in the drawing-room.
"Well, my dear," said the solicitor, taking her two hands in his, "here I am. I did not dare to show myself before I could communicate news. You commanded me the last time I saw you not to appear in your presence until I brought you tidings of your guardian."
"I was sorry I said that," replied Meg. "I have missed you. I did not think you would obey me so implicitly."
"Not after such a definite command!" Eh? exclaimed the solicitor, jerking his head on one side and surveying her with his superficially smiling glance. "Well, now, what news of yourself, little lady?" he continued, leading her to a chair and sitting down beside her.
"I have passed my examination," said Meg. "I am now at the head of the school."
Mr. Fullbloom put his hand on his heart and bowed.
"A modern Aspasia!" he replied as Meg paused, and seemed to hesitate. "Come," he went on, "when is our tiff to begin? I must have my tiff about the great Unknown."
"No," said Meg gently, "we shall have no more tiffs. I have made up my mind I will ask no more questions; and if possible, I shall cease wondering concerning myself. Whoever my benefactor may be, I am grateful to him—grateful from my heart. I wish I could prove my gratitude to him. I wish it so much that I cannot but think it will be granted to me to do so some day."
"Perhaps it will—and sooner than you think," exclaimed Mr. Fullbloom. "Ha! ha!" he went on tantalizingly, the flicker of mischief alight in his eyes as Meg looked up inquiringly. "You have just been saying you would not wonder any more.
"You would not be curious. Ha! ha! Mrs. Blue Beard, you would pry into any forbidden closet—you know you would—to find out that secret."
"No," repeated Meg, "I will not be curious any more. There must be some reason—some reason that I ought to respect. You will, I know, tell my kind friend, who he or she may be, that I am grateful; also, that I have taken a great resolve."
"Indeed!" said Fullbloom with evident enjoyment. "May I ask what it is?"
"I will not be dependent any longer. I am going to earn my own livelihood," replied Meg.
"How valorous we are, all of a sudden!" said Mr. Fullbloom, chuckling as if immensely tickled by the idea of Meg earning her livelihood.
"No, not all of a sudden!" said Meg with energy. "I have long thought of it. My wishes, my dreams have long been to be independent; to be no longer a pensioner on the bounty of one whose very name is unknown to me. I am going to be a governess. Miss Reeves has heard of a situation, the duties of which she thinks I am fitted to undertake—to teach three little girls in the country. The salary is thirty pounds. I won't be dependent any longer," repeated Meg with concentration.
"Miss Reeves and the three little girls go to Jericho!" cried Mr. Fullbloom. Then taking Meg's two hands in his paternal grasp, "My dear child," he said, "you have long wished to know your benefactor's name. To-morrow you will know it. You will not only know it, but you will be on a visit to him. He sends me to invite you down to stay at his place in the country."
"To-morrow!" repeated Meg. "On a visit to him! Who, then, is he?"
"Ha! ha!" cried Mr. Fullbloom gleefully. "All that fine assumption of having laid curiosity aside, where is it? No, no, no; not till to-morrow will you know anything about it."
"But where am I to go? Who am I to ask for?" cried Meg.
"Listen, my dear," explained Mr. Fullbloom, giving an occasional emphasis to his words by a pressure of Meg's hands. "You are to go to London first, then to the station of the North-Western Railway. Miss Reeves will go with you thus far; she will take a first-class ticket for you. You must take the train that leaves London at a quarter to three. I will be at Greywolds Station to meet you at half-past five. It takes over three hours to get to Greywolds."
Meg felt a sudden recoil as she realized how near she was to the meeting she had dreamed of so long.
"Don't trouble your little head about money. All that is settled. Miss Reeves will make the necessary preparations. You have nothing to do but attend to the farewells. I must be off now. I am going to Greywolds to-night. I have an appointment with your mysterious patron."
Mr. Fullbloom's eyes were brimming over with elvish laughter, as with another pressure of Meg's two hands he turned away. He left her standing silent and chill, under the impression of that sudden revulsion of feeling.
Past stretches of meadowland and woodland, past undulating fields sleeping peacefully in the sunshine, past busy towns and reposeful hamlets sped the train bearing Meg to her unknown guardian's home. The solitude of the empty carriage oppressed her. The flurry of the farewells and the pain of sundered associations increased the timidity of her spirit, as she realized more vividly that she was hurrying she knew not whither to meet she knew not whom.
Meg had not yet recovered from the recoil she had experienced on hearing that she was so soon to meet her mysterious benefactor. As every moment lengthened the space that parted her from surroundings which, if not altogether sympathetic, had yet the sweetness of familiarity, the unknown future presented itself to her invested with a touch of fear. She combated this mood. Was she not hastening toward the human being who had shown solicitude toward her in her forlornness?
She felt almost sure that her protector would prove to be the stern stranger whom she had twice seen in her childhood, and yet there would drift up to her mind the possibility that Mr. Standish might turn out to be this unknown friend.
"I hope not," Meg said to herself, sudden shame overcoming her at the possibility of meeting so soon, and of owing so much to one upon whose personality her thoughts had dwelt so long. "I was a foolish sprite of a child when I cared for him. I am a young woman now," she murmured.
When she stepped out on the platform of the wayside station of Greywolds she looked about. Mr. Fullbloom was not there. No one appeared to be waiting for her. A farmer's cart and a private carriage were drawn up on the other side of the paling that separated the country station from the roadside. The single passenger who had alighted besides herself from the train got into the carriage and drove off; the cart after depositing a load of metal casks jogged away. Meg felt bewildered. If Mr. Fullbloom did not come for her, what was she to do? She had no money with which to pay her fare back. She did not know the name of the place to which to direct the porter to take her luggage after she had identified her modest trunk. The old sense of isolation so familiar to her in her schooldays paralyzed Meg, and her eyelids smarted, as if she were about to cry.
Suddenly a carriage drove up, the gate of the station was pushed open, and the dandified figure of Mr. Fullbloom came gayly forward.
"So, you have found your way," he said airily.
"I was afraid you had forgotten your appointment," Meg answered with dignity.
"I always associate this train and ladies with unpunctuality," the solicitor replied with unruffled equanimity.
Offering Meg his arm he led her out. Nervousness conquered every other feeling, even curiosity. She asked no questions as she perceived a carriage with two horses and liveried servants awaiting her. She stepped inside, sank back into the cushioned seat, with Mr. Fullbloom by her side. As she felt herself bowled along she gave a little gasp.
The solicitor was very chatty. He inquired after her journey. He asked details of the parting with schoolfellows. He pointed out pretty bits in the landscape. Meg could not follow what he said; a longing for silence was upon her. She wished with all her heart her companion would hold his tongue and let her think and realize.
Presently the carriage drove through gates, thrown open to let it pass in. The way lay under an avenue of trees. A park stretched to right and left. As Meg looked round she felt sure this stately domain could not belong to William Standish.
"This is Greywolds Manor," said Mr. Fullbloom with a chuckle, pointing to a solid gray pile flanked with turrets at either end. "What do you think of your new home?"
Meg did not answer. Now that she knew for certain it was not the friend of her childhood who would welcome her when she alighted she was aware of an inconsistent disappointment. There came a sudden chill in the air. The owner of this lordly place would not understand her. Everything seemed gigantic, repellent. The trees threw too much shadow, the sunshine was too bright, the massive house too large for homeliness.
"Sir Malcolm Loftdale is the proprietor of this place. Now the mystery is out. You know the name of your benefactor," chuckled Mr. Fullbloom, the signals of mischievous enjoyment alight in his eyes.
The carriage had drawn up before the door of the mansion. Meg descended; she was aware of a discreet-looking elderly man helping to gather together her loose traps, of a respectable-looking dame in an impressive black silk gown coming forward to meet her.
"This is Mrs. Jarvis, Sir Malcolm's trusty housekeeper. I cannot leave you in better hands. Good-by, my dear," said Mr. Fullbloom. Kissing his finger tips and spreading them in the air, he disappeared through a side door.
Meg followed the housekeeper up a softly-carpeted staircase, fragrant with the perfume of flowers. She was vaguely aware of statues in niches, of limpid pictures dreaming on the walls. A knight of old entering an enchanted castle could not have felt more strange and bewildered, or could not have summoned more desperate courage than did Meg as she moved up that grand staircase.
She was ushered into a pretty bedroom, hexagon shaped. Through the windows looking out on the park at different angles poured the mellow light of the late afternoon. Meg, at the request of a trim maid in a dark gown and dainty muslin cap and apron, gave up the key of her trunk, painfully realizing as she did so the slenderness and shabbiness of the wardrobe that would be exposed to this smart young woman's gaze. With brusque shyness she answered the housekeeper's bland expressions of hospitality and exhortations to rest. In a trice the deft-handed, nimble-footed attendant had disposed of the modest stock of wearing apparel in wardrobes and drawers, and arranged on the tables the books, desk, and cheap knickknacks—parting presents from some of Meg's school friends; after which she disappeared with the housekeeper, to return after a few moments carrying a delicate porcelain and silver five o'clock solitaire tea-service, which she deposited on a table by Meg's side. Then the trim attendant, in tones as respectful as if Meg's belongings had revealed her to be a duchess, asked if she could do anything more for Miss Beecham. On receiving a timorous negative she announced that dinner was served at seven-thirty; that the dressing bell would sound at seven. Could she help Miss Beecham to dress? "No, thank you," replied Meg hastily; "I am accustomed to dress myself."
With a sense of relief Meg heard the door close, and reflected that probably until dinner-time she would be left alone.
She poured herself out a cup of tea and looked round the room. It was a charming little chamber. Its shape showed that it was placed in a tower. On all sides she was surrounded by sky and trees. After awhile she set about making a journey of discovery. One of the windows was over the mantelpiece; she tried to find how the flue of the chimney went to allow of this quaint arrangement. A bookcase stood in a corner; its shelves held a delightful selection of books. A water-color drawing representing a stormy sea, another of a peaceful and Arcadian scene, hung on the walls. Two miniatures—one of Queen Elizabeth in an immense ruffle, another of Mary, Queen of Scots—adorned a recess. The bed was large, with two pillows; the coverlid and hangings, of delicate sea-blue damask, matched the curtains at the windows. An electric bell was placed near the bed. Meg thought it was the prettiest, coziest little chamber she had ever seen, and her spirits rose.
She was still in a kind of half reverie when the gong sounded, and looking at the clock, she perceived that the short hand pointed to seven.
Taking out her white muslin gown, Meg began to array herself with care. She had never devoted much thought to her toilet before, but she was eager to please her benefactor. She coiled her brown hair smoothly round her head, and fastened a red rose in her bodice. Then she waited till the gong sounded again.
Timidity once more overcame her as she descended the grand staircase; realizing at every step more keenly that the moment had come when she would be ushered into the presence of her benefactor. Two footmen in plush and gold lace stood on either side of an open door; this was the room in which her host awaited her.
Meg paused on the threshold. A somewhat short elderly man in evening dress stood near the table. This was no familiar figure; but she remained where she was, overwhelmed with emotion, looking dumbly at this protector of her forlorn youth. She could not speak for her beating heart. Her shyness was enhanced by the silence of her host. He did not advance to greet her; he did not stretch out a hand of welcome. He stood close to a chair in a somewhat deferential attitude. Then suddenly Meg recognized him to be the butler who had received her in the hall on her arrival. She had not identified him in her fright.
With a painful sense of the absurdity of her mistake she took the seat he placed for her and looked hurriedly round the table. The flower and fruit-decked expanse, the white cloth, the plate and delicate glass, glowed rosily under the crimson-shaded suspension lamp; no second cover was laid, no other chairs near the board. She was to dine alone.
Meg had scarcely realized this when a plateful of soup was placed before her, and she felt the two magnificent lackeys standing on either side of her chair, watching as she dipped the spoon and raised it to her lips. The thought that she was to eat her dinner under the inspection of this frigid and observant gaze struck her with palsied nervousness. She upset a tumbler as she stretched her hand for the salt-cellar; she helped herself to everything that was offered to her by her attendants; she allowed the butler without protest to fill the glasses at her side with claret, hock, and champagne, and let the beverages stand there untasted. In the awful silence she started when the door opened. After awhile the tension of her nervousness was relieved by a freakish fancy. What a good story it would make to tell the girls in the dormitory! How she had sat in a skimpy muslin dress in this splendid room, hung round with family portraits which seemed to be watching her; of the sumptuous repast served to her alone; of the obsequiousness of the servant men; how terrified she had been; with what clumsiness she had behaved, and with what attempts at dignity!
There came a moment at last when, every trace of heavier diet having been removed, the servants retired, after having placed the dessert and three decanters of wine before Meg. She drew a breath of relief as she made sure that she was alone. A girlish love of fruit came over her, and she helped herself to a bunch of grapes. She remembered she had once heard the story of a girl who for a day had been mistaken for a queen. The people cheered her, the courtiers obeyed her slightest wish. Meg smiled as she thought this girl must have felt as she felt to-night.
She glanced around as she ate her grapes. The table made a patch of brilliancy in the long room, the corners of which remained dusky. Gleaming frames caught the light of the suspension lamp, and here and there revealed the superb apparel of the dignified full-length men and women gazing down upon her from the walls. As Meg's eyes traveled slowly round this stately company she was vaguely revolving in her mind how she would summon up courage to leave this room and make her way back to her own.
Presently her eyes rested on what looked like a blank framed space at the furthest end of the apartment. She could not distinguish the cause of this effect. It puzzled her, so she rose from her chair and drew nearer. She found it was a picture with its face turned to the wall.
The discovery affected her like the touch of a spectral hand. That disgraced canvas riveted her attention. What did it mean? She looked away; but the spell continued to work, and once more she drew near. The sight of its disgrace brought a piteous feeling. It looked like an outcast in the midst of this painted pageantry of splendid men and women.
Whose face was it thus turned away? Was it that of a man or of a woman? Meg felt as if she would give anything to know. Everything else faded in interest near the story of that picture. She tried vainly to discover a trace of revealing outline. The fascination grew too strong. She got up on a chair and tried with all her strength to turn the picture round and get a glimpse. She had succeeded in moving it slightly when she heard behind her the door open.
Meg dropped her hold of the frame and turned round.
The housekeeper was standing on the threshold looking at her aghast.
"Miss Beecham, what are you doing?"
"I was trying to get a peep at this picture," said Meg, jumping down. "Why is its face turned to the wall?"
Mrs. Jarvis shook her head. "Why, miss, it would be worth a servant's place in this house to turn that picture round. Sir Malcolm Loftdale has forbidden the name of the person whose portrait that is to be mentioned. He never comes into this room. I am sure it is because of that picture."
"Indeed; I am sorry," said Meg in some confusion.
"I could tell you all about that picture, Miss Beecham. I have been in this house these thirty years, and I was there the day it was turned to the wall. It was a day I'll never forget—not so long as I live; but it's laid upon me not to tell," went on the housekeeper, who looked packed with mystery.
"Do not think I would wish you to tell me," exclaimed Meg hurriedly. "I would not—not on any account." Then she asked with abrupt transition: "Shall I see Sir Malcolm Loftdale to-night?"
"No, Miss Beecham, not to-night. Sir Malcolm sent me down to ask you to excuse him. He is old, miss, and not strong. He hopes that you will forgive his not welcoming you himself, and that you will make yourself at home."
"Thank Sir Malcolm Loftdale for me, and say that I feel very grateful to him for his hospitality," Meg replied, relieved yet vaguely nettled by her host's neglect.
"Coffee is served in the drawing-room, Miss Beecham."
"Thank you; but I think I shall return to my room," said Meg.
She hurried up the staircase. A confused pain seemed to haunt the surrounding splendor. It oppressed her as might the scent of flowers in a room of death.
When she opened the door of her pretty room, the sea-green silk curtains of which had been drawn, the daintiness and comfort contrasted pleasantly with the alien magnificence outside, saddened as it was by a jarring note of brooding grief. A black cat had found its way in, and came forward to meet Meg with tail uplifted and a welcoming purr. The homeliness of the scene revived her drooping spirits.
Meg had more than once explored the house and the grounds. She had performed the pilgrimage under the expansive wing of Mrs. Jarvis; she had wandered alone over the mansion and rambled through the park, feeling delight in the old-world charm of the place. The touch of tragic mystery brought into the atmosphere by the picture on which a ban had been laid now added to the spell of its fascination. The lofty rooms, with somber gilt or painted ceilings; the faded tapestries and brocaded hangings; the dusky tones of the furniture, upon which the sunbeams fell with an antique glow, appeared to her steeped in the mystery of associations. Every room seemed a chapter in an unknown story, the thought of which kindled her fancy. The park, with its lengthening vistas, its sylvan retreats, and patriarchal trees, a branch of the silver river sweeping through its stately alleys; the stretches of lawns, the flower-gardens, the glass structures in which bloomed a tropical vegetation, enchanted her.
It was like living in a picture, she thought, to live amid such peaceful, beautiful, finely ordered surroundings, whose past haunted them like a presence. After the crude and noisy bustle of immature possibilities to which she was accustomed, the wearied splendors of this domain came to her as a revelation of novel possibilities in the setting of life.
A week had elapsed, Meg had almost grown accustomed to the place, and yet she had not seen its owner. She had at first begun every morning by asking Mrs. Jarvis if there was a probability of her seeing Sir Malcolm Loftdale during the course of the day, but the housekeeper on each occasion had given an evasive answer, and Meg now asked no more. She might have felt wounded at this breach of hospitality had not the behavior of the servants precluded all idea of a slight being offered to her. They paid her obsequious attention, they obeyed her slightest expressed wish. She might have imagined herself the queen of the domain. The solitude, the homage paid to her, the regard for her comfort, reminded her of a fairy tale where the host remains unseen and the heroine lives in splendor and isolation. She wondered often why her benefactor kept himself thus sternly secluded. She began to think it could not be the old gentleman she had seen in her childhood; why should he avoid her? If it were a stranger was it because of some unsightly physical affliction, some form of mental derangement? was it a brooding melancholy that caused him morbidly to shrink from contact with outsiders? A longing to be of comfort mingled with the curiosity she felt concerning her mysterious host.
One late afternoon as she rambled in the park she saw, framed in by trees as in a picture, the figure of a tall, slender, white-haired gentleman walking toward her. She recognized him at once. It was the mysterious stranger, twice met in her childhood. He held his head high. What a head it was! There was an eagle cast of physiognomy, a chill expression in the eyes, a hardness on the lips. He wore a country suit and carried a heavy gold-headed stick; a diamond stud on a jeweled seal caught the light and shone. These little details curiously impressed themselves upon Meg. She stopped, asking herself if this was the master of the house?
The stranger glanced toward her, lifted his hat, and with an old-world salute passed on. Meg determined not to look after him; but she could not resist the temptation, and turning round she saw him ascending the steps of the house. On questioning the housekeeper, Meg found that the picturesque old gentleman was Sir Malcolm Loftdale.
Next morning Meg was standing arranging some flowers in the window of the little room she had chosen for her morning retreat—it looked out on a pleasant side alley of the grounds in the center of which stood a sun dial—when the door suddenly opened, and the gentleman she had seen in the park on the previous evening entered unannounced. He did not advance beyond the threshold, but he closed the door after him and kept one hand on the handle. He did not extend the other in greeting.
At sight of him Meg's heart fluttered, and she acknowledged by a flurried inclination of her head his stately bow.
He was handsomer than she had imagined him to be; but the light of his stern blue eye remained cold, and there was a remoteness in the steady glance that he fixed upon her.
"I beg you, Miss Beecham, to excuse me for not having welcomed you before," he said in a voice of cold courtesy. "I trust you will forgive me for exercising a privilege age is apt freely to indulge near youth—that of following the usual routine of life. I am a solitary, my life is organized for loneliness."
"You have been most kind, sir," muttered Meg, in a tumult of timidity.
"My servants have received strict orders to attend to your comfort. I hope they have been attentive?"
"They have been very attentive," replied Meg.
"I fear the days may seem to drag heavily for you, Miss Beecham," the old gentleman resumed, without a shadow of softening in the coldness of his voice or the scrutiny of his glance. "I have thought—to relieve their tedium—that you might like a horse. I will have one broken for your use. There are pretty rides about."
"I do not know how to ride, sir," said Meg, touched and bewildered by the thoughtfulness and repellent manner of her host.
"My old groom would teach you; he is a most trustworthy and respectable man," said Sir Malcolm.
"Thank you sir," said Meg. Then with desperate courage, as her benefactor seemed about to retire, she added breathlessly: "I should not feel lonely, sir—not—if you would let me be with you a little—if you would let me read for you, or do something for you. You have been so good to me all those years."
The old gentleman bowed hastily; the expression of his cold glance seemed to grow colder as he replied: "I assure you, Miss Beecham, you need feel yourself under no obligation to me for what I have done. It is very little."
"Little! It was everything to me!" said Meg hurriedly, her voice trembling with restrained emotion. "You twice saved me from a wretched fate. But for you, sir, as you told me on that evening you took me back to school, I would have been as uncared for as a workhouse child."
"I wish, if you will allow me distinctly to state my wishes, that allusion to the past be dropped between us. I can repeat only that you are under no obligation," replied her host, his thin lips remaining tense in their cruel firmness of line, his glance courteously repellent. "When the case was pointed out to me it became my plain duty to do what I did."
"I do not understand; I only know that if you had not been good to me I should have been ignorant and homeless," answered Meg with reckless iteration.
There was a pause, Sir Malcolm frowned, then he said with the same impassible frigidity:
"If you choose, Miss Beecham, to consider that you are under a debt of gratitude to me, allow me to say that you will express it in the manner most agreeable to me by never referring to the subject."
Bowing once more with that impassible fineness of mien, the old gentleman opened the door and disappeared.
Meg felt crushed as by some physical blow. The gratitude that she had harbored in her heart till it was filled to bursting all those years was thrown back upon it, and the pain stifled her. She realized her loneliness as she never had realized it before. She wandered blindly out into the park, and for the first time, in the heart of nature, she felt like an outcast. She rebelled against the isolation to which her benefactor would condemn her. It felt like an insult.
To be grateful to those who are good to us is a sacred right. He had no authority to take from her this God-given privilege. After awhile she grew calmer, but a melancholy fell over her such as she had never known.
Day succeeded day, and the intercourse between Meg and her host remained but little changed. She watched him curiously whenever she had the opportunity. She came to know his habits. A young man was closeted with him for some hours every morning. Mrs. Jarvis told Meg he was Sir Malcolm's secretary, and read the papers to him, as the baronet's eyesight was beginning to fail. He had lodgings in the village.
Sir Malcolm rode out alone, walked alone, took his meals alone, spent his evenings alone. Occasionally some elderly country squires called at the house; but there was apparently no intimacy between the baronet and his neighbors. Meg often watched her host wandering about the park; there was an alley he haunted. As he paced backward and forward, his hands behind his back, his tall figure, slender almost to gauntness, clothed in the somewhat old-fashioned costume he affected, his white hair shining like spun glass about his pale, high-featured face, she thought he looked like a ghost which had stepped down out of one of the pictures. Little by little she grew to feel an intense interest in that stately specter.
Whenever they met Sir Malcolm was courteous and cold. Sometimes he passed her by with that old-world salute; oftener he stopped to inquire after her comfort, to offer with distant interest suggestions for her amusement. He recommended her books to read; he once pointed out to her the parts of the house to which historical interest was attached.
He attracted and repelled Meg. She was always in a fright when she was near him. His glance withered every impulse to pass the distance he imposed between them. A chill air seemed around him, as might be round an iceberg. The look of power on his face, the suggestion his appearance gave of a strong, self-contained personality, possessed for her the same sort of fascination as the flash and iridescence of an iceberg that will not melt. The interest Meg felt for her host kept pace with her fear. She always connected that picture turned to the wall with his history and his character. There it was always in presence, and yet under apparently some black disgrace.
Away from Sir Malcolm, she would indulge a zeal to win his regard, to conquer it. Watching his solitary pacings to and fro, a pity would fill her heart for the lonely man who had been so good to her. In his presence came the chill, checking every expression of emotion. Sometimes when she met his glance she fancied her benefactor disliked her.
The sadness deepened upon Meg—the sadness of a sensitive nature condemned to isolation. The inaction of her days wearied her. She looked back with a touch of nostalgia on the busy schooldays, and mourned anew for Elsie, who had allowed her to give love. Meg's pride also rebelled against eating the bread of idleness under her benefactor's roof: that gentle independence had grown a sort of second nature with her.
One morning she was aware of a certain flurry through the house. Mrs. Jarvis told her that Sir Malcolm's secretary had been called away suddenly to London on important family business, and that the master was left with his papers alone.
Meg received the information in silence. For a few moments after the housekeeper left she stood still, thinking. Once or twice she walked to the room and came back irresolute. She at last went determinedly out of the room and made her way to the library, where Sir Malcolm spent the greater part of his time indoors.
She knocked, but scarcely waited for permission to open the door. Walking swiftly in before he could recognize her, she stood by Sir Malcolm's chair.
"I have come to ask if I may read to you, sir, in the absence of Mr. Robinson?" she said in the smooth, quick voice of mastered timidity.
He looked up surprised, and rose.
"I could not accept it of you," he said with a bow.
"Why not?" she asked with breathless gentleness.
"Did Mrs. Jarvis suggest to you to come?" he said with a quick frown, an evidence of irritation he suppressed at once.
"No," said Meg. "I heard Mr. Robinson had left, and I hoped that you would let me take his place."
"That would be impossible. I would not lay such a tax upon any lady," he said with courteous definiteness of accent and manner.
"Why will you not let me read to you?" asked Meg pleadingly.
"Because," he answered, with an attempt at lightness of tone that did not yet take from its distance and firmness, "young ladies do not care for politics, and politics alone interest me."
"They would interest me if I read them for you," said Meg with timid persistence.
"Allow me to beg you to put into the balance against this plea the argument that it would be disagreeable to me," Sir Malcolm replied, with a directness the brutality of which was veiled by the stately tone of dismissal in his voice and manner. "And the spirit that impelled you to undertake the task would make it all the more painful."
As Meg did not answer he continued:
"Excuse the frankness of my refusal. I thank you, nevertheless, for the offer."
He glanced toward the door, and as she moved away he advanced to open it for her; but Meg paused on her way. Her spirit was up; the fear that hitherto had quelled her before him fell from her. She had grown suddenly irritated at his invincible coldness. She would expose herself to no more rebuffs.
"May I ask you, sir, to be so kind as to spare me a moment? I have a request to make."
"Certainly," he replied, turning back; he sat down and pointed to a chair near his. But Meg remained standing.
Embarrassment, resolution kept her motionless with a touch of angular rigidity in her pose. Her voice, unsteady at first, grew more controlled as she went on:
"Before leaving school I had an offer of a situation as governess to three young children. You were kind enough, sir, to ask me on a visit. I thank you for the hospitality you have shown me. I think my visit must now come to an end. With your permission I shall inquire if the place is still vacant, and take it if it be."
"Why do you want to go, Miss Beecham?" said Sir Malcolm. "Are you not comfortable here?"
"Comfortable, yes," said Meg. She paused as if hesitating, then she added brusquely, "I do not think I care much for comfort."
There was something primitive, almost childish, in Meg's manner; but it gave the impression of the strength rather than of the weakness of childhood. It came with a freshness that was as the scent of the flower rather than that of the toilet perfume.
Meg's mood seemed to pique the old gentleman; he looked curiously at her, almost as if for the first time he recognized in her an individuality.
"You do not care for comfort. That is a great source of independence," he observed.
"I wish to be independent," said Meg with gentle spirit.
"You are proud. It is a spirit that should be repressed," he answered.
"I do not know if I am proud," replied Meg, her low, feeling voice under evident restraint. "I know it pains me to be here receiving everything, giving nothing in return."
"What could you give?" he asked with a slight contraction of his hard lips.
"I could give proofs of what I feel—gratitude," she said.
"I have explained I do not want gratitude," he replied with chill distinctness. "I do not either wish to receive it or to inspire it."
"You cannot help my feeling it," Meg broke out with spirit and with a vivid glance; "that is beyond your control. You may condemn me to silence and to apparent apathy, but the gratitude is here all the same; and because I cannot express it, it becomes a burden and hurts me."
There was a pause, during which Sir Malcolm continued to look at Meg with that new look of curiosity, as if for the first time he recognized her as a personality.
"Am I to understand," he said slowly, "that you wish to leave my house because I do not care for any allusion to be made between us of the part I have taken in defraying the cost of your education?"
Meg made a quick gesture. "Because you will let me do nothing for you, and also because I want to be independent. I would never wish to leave you if I could be of service to you—never; but as you will not let me, I ask you to let me go and earn my own living."
Sir Malcolm bowed his head. "I understand; you do not wish to be dependent upon me for your maintenance."
"No, sir."
"Suppose," resumed her host after a pause, "I were to feel disposed to accept the offer you just now made to me, to replace Mr. Robinson during his absence, would you allow me to do so?"
Meg gave an exclamation of acceptance.