Margaret felt that her father was embarra.s.sed by his sense of responsibility when he joined her half an hour later. "You ought to be shown some of the things in London," he said again.
"I"ve seen the hansom cabs," she said, "and lunched at a little table at the hotel, and everything is a sight to me."
"I suppose it is. Still, we might do Westminster Abbey, at any rate.
Hannah gave us leave, you know--and then we"ll go to Mrs. Lakeman"s."
"Who is she?"
"Her father was a bishop," Mr. Vincent said. He spoke as if the fact needed some contemplation, and to Margaret it did, since she had never seen a bishop in her life. She knew that he wore lawn sleeves and a shovel hat, and was a great man; she had a vague idea that he lived in a cathedral and slept in his mitre. "He died a good many years ago," Mr.
Vincent continued, with a jerk in his voice. "He gave me a living when I was a young man; but I resigned it after a year or two, and differences of opinion caused quarrels and separations. Perhaps," he added, rather grimly, "Hannah would have called me a Papist then, and think it nearly as bad as being an unbeliever now."
VII
Mr. Vincent looked at Margaret two or three times as they drove down to Chelsea Embankment. A village dressmaker had made her frock, but it set well on her slim young figure, and the lace at her neck was soft and real; it belonged to her mother, who knew nothing of its value; her hat was perfectly simple, a peasant, or a woman of fashion might have worn it, and it seemed to him that Margaret would fall quite naturally into place with either. Then he thought of his wife at the farm; she had lived so simple a life among the growths of the earth and the changes of the sky that she was wholly untainted by the vulgarities of the world, and such as she was herself she had made her daughter.
The hansom stopped before a new-looking red-brick house.
"George Stringer would say it ought to be blown up with gunpowder," Mr.
Vincent remarked, and Margaret, turning to give some trivial answer, saw that he was white and nervous.
The door was opened by a man servant. The hall was panelled; there were rugs and pictures and palms and old china about, and her heart beat quicker, for all this was part of the London show. The drawing-room was part of it, too, with its couches and screens, its pictures and Venetian gla.s.s and countless things of a sort that had no place at Woodside Farm.
It was all still and dim, too, almost mysterious, and scented with early spring flowers put about in ma.s.ses, or so it seemed to Margaret.
Some curtains separated a further room; they were drawn together, and against them, clutching them with one hand, as if she were waiting and half afraid, a woman stood. She was tall, and about forty-three. Her figure was still slight; her black dress trailed on the floor, and made her look graceful; the white cuffs at her wrist were turned back, and called attention to the small white hands below them. She had a quant.i.ty of dark hair, smoothly plaited, and pinned closely to the back of her head. Her eyes were a deep gray, long lashed, and curiously full of expression, that apparently she was not able to control. They seemed to belong to an inward being who looked on independently at things, and frequently thought and felt differently from the one that clothed it and tried to pa.s.s itself off as a real personality. She had never been pretty; but her face arrested attention. The lines on it suggested suffering; there was humor about the mouth, and tenderness in the deep tone of her voice. For a time and for some people she had a curious fascination; she knew it, and liked to watch its effect. Her head was small, and she carried it well, and the whiteness of the little ruffle round her throat gave it a setting and made it picturesque. She looked across quickly at Mr. Vincent. Then, as if she had gathered courage, she held out her hands and went forward.
"Gerald!" she exclaimed. Her voice appeared to be thickened by emotion.
She stopped before him and let her hands drop.
He took them in his. "How do you do, Hilda?" he said, prosaically enough. "It is a long time since we met."
She raised her eyes; they were grave and pathetic, but somewhere at the back of them there was a glint of curiosity. She knew that he saw it, and tried to convince him that he was mistaken.
"More than twenty years," she answered. "I never expected to see you again."
"And now I have brought this tall girl to see you." He put his hand on his daughter"s shoulder.
Mrs. Lakeman looked up curiously, almost ruefully. With something like a sob she whispered, "It"s Margaret, isn"t it?" and took her in her arms and kissed her. "I knew your father before your mother did, and I have loved him all my life," she said, and looked at the girl"s face intently for a moment; then, as if she had had enough of that phase, she asked with a sudden touch of cynicism, "Did he ever talk to you about me--but I don"t suppose he did?"
"I was never a very talkative person," Mr. Vincent said, grimly. She turned to him with a happy, humorous smile. She seemed to have swept all emotion from her; she had become animated and even lively.
"No, you never were. You were always as silent and as wise as a dear owl. I have a child, too," she went on. "You must see her--my Lena. She is all I have in the world--a splendid girl and a wonderful companion."
"Where is she?" Mr. Vincent asked.
"She is in there," nodding towards the curtains, "in her own sitting-room. You shall go to her, dear," she said, quickly turning to Margaret. "She knows all about you, and is longing to see you. Tom Carringford is there, too--he is always there," she added, significantly. "You remember old Tom Carringford, Gerald? This is his boy--awfully nice boy; I am never tired of him." She was gay by this time, and it was obvious that good spirits were natural to her. "I"ll tell you who is with them," she went on. "Dawson Farley--I dare say Margaret would like to see him. He is a genius in my opinion--the only man on the stage fit to play a romantic part--and Louise Hunstan, the American actress, you know. She is playing just now in "The School for Scandal" at the Shaftesbury--great fun to hear her do Lady Teazle with a little tw.a.n.g in her voice; it is an awfully pretty tw.a.n.g, though. We are devoted to the theatre, Lena and I." She appeared to be hurrying as much information as possible into her words, as if she wanted to give her listeners an impression of her life.
"We are going to the play to-night," Mr. Vincent said, but Mrs. Lakeman hardly heard him. Other lives only interested her so far as they affected her own. If the Vincents had been going with her she would have taken any trouble, shown any amount of excitement; but as it was, why it was nothing to her.
"You shall go to them," she said decisively to Margaret, evidently carrying on her own train of thought. She went towards the curtains as if to pull them aside. "Tell them we are coming in ten minutes, dear."
"Oh, but I don"t know them," Margaret answered, appalled at being told to rush in among strangers.
"Of course you don"t," Mrs. Lakeman said, in a sympathetic voice. "I"ll take you. No, no, Gerald," as Mr. Vincent made a step to follow them; "we must have a little talk to ourselves after all these years."
She led Margaret into a second drawing-room, and beyond it into a still smaller room. There were pictures, and flowers again--quant.i.ties of flowers, the air was heavy with their scent. Silk draperies shaded the light that struggled through the small-paned windows, and bits of color and silver gleamed everywhere. It was like entering a dream, and dim figures seemed to rise from it--an indefinite number of them, it seemed to Margaret, though she soon made out that there were only four. She felt so strange as she stood hesitating just inside the room, like a little wayfarer, who knew only of green fields and a farm-house, straying into an enchanted world, for it was odd how the remembrance of her home never left her through all those first hours in London, and in her thoughts she sent it constant messages.
"Lena, my darling, this is Margaret Vincent. Be kind to her," Mrs.
Lakeman said, in a low, thrilling voice. "You must love her, for I used to love her father--I do now." She turned to a young man who had come towards them. "Tom, your father knew this girl"s father, too. I am coming back with him in a few minutes to tea. This is Tom Carringford, dear," she said to Margaret. Then, as if she had done enough, she went back with a look of amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes and a gay little smile on her lips. "I have got rid of the girl," she thought. "I wonder what that old idiot will have to say for himself now she is out of the way."
Tom Carringford rea.s.sured Margaret in a moment. "How do you do?" he said, and shook her hand. "Don"t be afraid of us; it"s all right. My governor often spoke of yours, and I have always hoped I should see him some day."
Before she could answer, there stole towards her a girl with a thin, almost haggard, face and two sleepy, dark eyes that looked as if they might burn with every sort of pa.s.sion. "I have been waiting for you,"
she said. "Mother has told me about your father. It was splendid of him to bring you." She spoke in a low tone, and, drawing Margaret to a seat near the window, looked at her with an anxious expression in her great eyes, as if she had been worn out with watching for her. "Stay, you don"t know Mr. Dawson Farley yet, do you?" She turned towards a man who had risen to make room for them.
"Mrs. Lakeman told us about him just now."
"I"m not as famous as Miss Lakeman thinks." The clear p.r.o.nunciation caught Margaret"s ear, and she looked at him. He was clean-shaven, with a determined mouth and short, crisp hair. There was something hard and even cruel in the face, but there was fascination in it, too--there was fascination in all these new people; the magnetism of knowledge of the world perhaps, the world that had only burst upon her to-day.
"Oh, but I know nothing," she said, shyly. "I came from Chidhurst this morning--for the first time." Lena made a little sympathetic sound, and put her arms out as if to protect her.
"Do you mean that you have never been in London before?" Mr. Farley asked.
"No, never."
"What a wonderful thing!" The words came from a corner near the fireplace. Margaret was getting used to the dimness now, and could see through it. A woman moved towards her; she was not very young, but she was fair and graceful.
"It is Louise Hunstan, dear," Lena said. For some reason she did not know, Margaret recoiled from this girl, who had only known her five minutes, yet called her dear and was affectionate in her manner.
"You must let me look at you," Miss Hunstan said. The tw.a.n.g of which Mrs. Lakeman had spoken was faintly evident, but it gave her words a charm that made it impossible not to listen to them. "Now tell me, do you love it or hate it, or are you just bewildered with this great London?" She seemed to understand the stranger-mood better than the others.
"I think I am bewildered," Margaret answered. "Everything is so strange."
"Of course it is," Tom Carringford said, "and we stare at her as if she were a curiosity. What brutes we are! Never mind, Miss Vincent," he laughed, "we mean well, so you might tell us your adventures before Mrs.
Lakeman returns."
He gave her courage again, and a sense of safety. She laughed back a little as she answered. "Adventures--do people have adventures in London? It sounds like d.i.c.k Whittington."
"Just like d.i.c.k Whittington," Lena answered. "You ought to carry a cat under your arm and marry a fairy prince. Isn"t she beautiful?" she whispered to Dawson Farley.
The color rushed to Margaret"s face. "Oh, please don"t," she said. "I"m not a bit beautiful."
"Where have you come from, Miss Vincent?" the actor asked, as if he had not heard.
"From Woodside Farm at Chidhurst."