"How can I most suitably thank Miss Blair for her services to my daughter?"
"Papa," interposed Lady Juliana, seeing Margaret stand pale and embarra.s.sed before her pseudo-patron, "may she come to Hautville Park instead of Madam Beneant, whom I am so tired of? She would be a more suitable companion than that chattering widow--I am so sick of her flirtations! And I am sure I should be perfectly happy with the generous creature who saved my life."
"Shall you consider her ladyship"s proposal?" asked the marquis, turning again to Margaret. "Madam Beneant has been my daughter"s companion for a year and a half, but she is too old. Her salary was two hundred a year.
Yon shall have two hundred and fifty if you decide to come. What do you say?"
She stood wavering between conflicting impulses. She longed to go with this dove-like creature whom she had saved from death; her heart clung to her--how could she leave her? But again, would she be concealed from the terrible St. Udo Brand"s possible persecutions at the Marquis of Ducie"s residence?
Who would think to look for her in Lady Juliana"s companion? Her heart pleaded.
"Stay--oh, stay!"
So, all blinded to the future stealing surely on, Margaret flung herself back into the whirlpool which, gradually circling inward, would inevitably bring her face to face with that which she most dreaded.
"I will go with you, Lady Juliana," she said.
When the bricklayer came home to dinner he found the grand people all gone, after showing but meager grat.i.tude for his kindness.
Hautville Park was near Lambeth, within pleasant distance of London; and in due time, in the dying crimson of departed sunlight, the carriage arrived at its stately gates, and Margaret found herself introduced as companion to its spotless mistress, Lady Juliana Ducie.
She had not been there more than three weeks, when one day the maid brought in a letter to my lady"s boudoir. My lady was lying _a la_ convalescent on her sofa, and Margaret was reading to her. My lady had taken her time to get over her railway fright, and had taxed her companion"s strength considerably, by her exactions, but she professed herself very fond of Miss Blair for all her trouble, and they agreed excellently together thus far.
"Hand me that letter, Bignetta. No, give it to Miss Blair and go away, she can read it to me."
Margaret took the letter, inserted her finger to break the seal; glanced at the seal, and withdrew her finger as if it had been stung, glanced at the writing, and slowly became stern and pale.
"Why don"t you open it and read its contents?" cried my lady. "Are you tired of reading all the condolence that comes to me, or do you think it is some insolent bill?"
"Lady Juliana," said Margaret, "I cannot read this letter. I--I know the writer."
She covered her face with her hands.
"Why, what can you mean?" exclaimed my lady, getting upon her elbows to possess herself of the letter, and to look curiously at her companion.
"Who is it?"
She looked at her own name on the back, and gave a delighted cry.
"Captain Brand! So he deigns to remember me at last! Ah, won"t I make him suffer, for being so derelict in his duty these last three weeks!
Careless creature! he never thinks of me, except when he sees me."
She laid down the letter and returned to the charge.
"How came you, Miss Blair, to be so well informed about Captain Brand"s writing?" she demanded.
Margaret was eyeing her in speechless consternation.
She had thought at first that this missive was an inquiry from the writer concerning herself; she had feared she was found out. But what darker suspicion was this which was entering her mind.
"Tell me first, dear lady Julie," she exclaimed, "if Captain Brand is a friend of yours?"
"Bring me that casket, if you please."
Margaret brought the casket and placed it before her.
"Do you see this ring," rapidly tossing rare chains, jewel cases and bracelets. "Yes, here it is. I am not superst.i.tious about such things, but I don"t like to be labelled "out of the market," so I do not wear it often; but it is my engagement ring--is it not magnificent? This ring was given to me by Captain St. Udo Brand six months ago, and some day I shall be mistress of Seven Oak Waaste."
Margaret clasped her hands and gasped.
To think of the hungry kestrel pouncing upon this innocent bird! To fancy the terrible Captain Brand wooing the affections of her Lady Julie!
"I did not know it," was all she could articulate.
"Of course you did not; how should you? But you have not told me how you came to know Captain Brand"s writing?" insisted her ladyship.
Margaret saw that exposure was coming; she expected it to be in that letter.
"Read what your fiance says, and then listen to my explanation," she murmured, turning away.
My lady, slightly irritated, tore off the seal and began to skim over the contents.
"Heavens!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "what is this? He writes from New York, saying that he has left England, he hopes, forever; that he is going to get a commission in the Federal army, and win his spurs, and he gives his reasons: "At present, my Julie, your fiance is a penniless man, with only a pedigree, and it is to win something more substantial that I have left England. My grandmother has died, and contrary to all expectations, the estate of Seven Oak Waaste has departed out of the family and gone to my grandmother"s companion. If I had been obedient to the injunctions of my hood-winked relative, Mrs. Brand, I would have married the clever adventuress, Miss Margaret Walsingham, who I firmly believe plotted to supplant me as she has done, and I would have thus shared the estate.
But love, one thing held me back. I have pinned my faith in woman"s purity to Juliana Ducie"s sleeve, for I think, my child, you are about the best of your s.e.x; and honor forbade me to retract my faith to you.
So the future I offer you is this: Will you wait patiently and constantly for the man you swore to be true to forever? Don"t say yes, without knowing your own strength. If you can be brave, patient, wise, unselfish, you will be the first woman I ever met who deserves the much travestied t.i.tle of "woman." My little darling, you know that I love you, and that I would become a good man if your hands cared to beckon me, and I place my future life at your feet. Make it bright and pure by your constancy, or make it black and sullied by the universal peculiarity of your s.e.x--treachery!""
"What can he be thinking of?" cried the reader, with a burst of angry tears. "Why should he expect such an unheard of thing from me, if he has lost Castle Brand and Seven Oak Waaste?"
Margaret listened as in a dream.
This was a new light upon St. Udo Brand"s movements. Did his character suffer by it? He had gone away and given up his lands to one whom he considered a greedy schemer; and he had flung himself into another life, for the sake of her whom he loved. How had she wronged him by her terror of him?
Quick as light her feelings underwent a change, and my lady gazed in astonishment as her quiet companion threw off the guise which she had worn for security.
"Dear Lady Juliana," panted Margaret, "do not blame Captain Brand, who has been honorable to his engagement with you where meaner men have failed. Perhaps--who knows? yours may be the hand which will lead him into a higher way. Oh, my darling, do not hold lightly your power."
"Why should you espouse Captain Brand"s cause?" demanded my lady. "What can Miss Blair have to do with Captain Brand?"
Tears burst from the eyes of the quiet companion, and rushed in a volcanic shower down her cheeks, as she answered,
"I am Margaret Walsingham."
"_You!_" exclaimed my lady, after a stare of unutterable astonishment.
"My darling Lady Julie!" cried Margaret, catching my lady"s hands and holding them in her own. "I am that unfortunate, that wretched _protegee_ of Mrs. Brand"s unwise affection; but never think that I would accept the Brand estates when obtained in such a way, or that I would willingly defraud St. Udo Brand. I thank Heaven that these hands,"
proudly holding them out, "are yet unsullied by such sin."
"How is it that you are here under the name of Blair."
"I left Castle Brand to win my bread, and did not wish to be traced."