"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 grat.i.tude 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MEG READS THE MORNING PAPERS TO SIR MALCOLM.--Page 255.]
"Understand me," said the old man with deliberate distinctness, looking full at Meg. "It is a business proposal. I still maintain my point. I do not want grat.i.tude. If I accept your services, it is on the condition that you will accept a remuneration."
Meg colored. For a moment she knit her brows, then she said with effort, "I shall accept the chance of being of service to you under any condition, sir, that you may name."
"So be it, then," said the baronet.
At a sign from him Meg sat down and took up the _Times_. "Where shall I begin, sir?" she asked.
"With the first leader, if you please," he replied with an inclination of the head, crossing his knees, and composing himself to listen.
Meg read, mastering her nervousness with a strong effort of will. Once or twice she looked up and caught his eyes fixed upon her, with that new curiosity in their glance that seemed to humanize their expression.
After she had read the _Times_, the political leaders of the _Standard_, and selections from its foreign correspondence under Sir Malcolm"s directions, a third paper remained--the local organ apparently--the _Greywolds Mercury_. At the murmured injunction of her auditor, "The leader, if you please," Meg once more set upon her task.
The article handled a book upon the rights of property which had lately appeared and was making a stir. As Meg read the opening paragraph her voice faltered and hesitated. She was reading a fierce attack upon Sir Malcolm Loftdale.
She looked up distressed and flurried. The old man set his jaw. "Go on,"
he said, and Meg continued. She could scarcely follow the drift of what she read for sympathy with the pain she was inflicting upon her benefactor. She confusedly gathered that Sir Malcolm had raised rents in order to get rid of certain tenants on his estate; that the compensation he gave his ejected cottagers might appear to justify the proceeding, which nevertheless remained in the eyes of the writer of the article an infamous cruelty.
"I think this will suffice for to-day, Miss Beecham," said the baronet, when she had read to the end.
She rose as he spoke. She noticed he looked paler. "Is there no letter, sir, that I can write for you?" asked Meg.
"None this morning, I thank you," he replied with that fine air of dismissal which awed Meg. He preceded her to the door, and held it open for her to pa.s.s out.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE EDITOR OF THE "GREYWOLDS MERCURY."
Morning after morning Meg appeared at her post. She was punctual. As the clock struck ten her knock sounded at the library door, and she glided in. The greeting between her employer and herself was always the same--a formal and courtly bow from him, an inclination of the head and low "Good morning, sir," from her. Then she would begin to read. She knew the order in which he liked to listen to the contents of the various journals. Sometimes also Meg remained to write letters. She had rebelled at first against the business contract her benefactor had proposed to her; she liked it well enough now that she had entered upon it. The touch of frigidity it brought into the more emotional relationship of grat.i.tude with which she regarded him imparted definiteness to their intercourse. The somewhat elaborate courtesy with which he treated her lent a charm to service.
On Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day the _Greywolds Mercury_ appeared among the papers to be read. Its columns usually contained an attack, covert or personal, against Sir Malcolm Loftdale. Sometimes he was mentioned by name; sometimes he was alluded to in pointed and unmistakable terms as "a large landed proprietor living in unsympathetic isolation." In his dealings toward his tenants he was represented as a tyrant, not so much actively as pa.s.sively; and "pa.s.sive injustice," the writer maintained, "is worse than active, for it leaves no hope behind."
Meg felt a flame of indignant protest rising against this persistent abuse. She would have skipped the censure so relentlessly pursuing the old man, who listened in silence with jaw set and lips compressed; but he always detected the attempt, and bade her "go on" in a voice so stern that its tone stopped the reluctant quaver in hers. Meg knew that her auditor, who never offered a word of remonstrance or vouchsafed an exclamation as she read, suffered from these scathing attacks. He looked paler and feebler, she thought, during the day, and wandered with more piteous aimlessness about the park.
One hot Wednesday afternoon she came upon him asleep in a garden chair in the sunshine. The feebleness of his aspect strangely appealed to Meg. He looked so frail and pale. The pride of his appearance was relaxed. The colorless features, the delicate hands loosely crossed, might have been modeled in wax. In the immobility of sleep the face had a tragic cast. Meg thought it looked like that of one dead, who in life had suffered beyond the ordinary lot of man. Pity and indignation that one so old and stricken should be made to suffer stirred Meg"s heart.
For a moment she looked upon her benefactor, and then she turned away with moistened eyes.
Meg was no dreamer. She was of an active nature. As she walked feverishly about the grounds she found herself remonstrating in imagination with this venomous persecutor of one who had cast a spell of interest over her, and to whom she owed so much. She sometimes stopped in her walk to complete some angry appeal. Suddenly a daring thought arose in her mind. She would call upon this man, and in the strength of a just cause she would meet him face to face without anger, and tell him the injury he was doing to an old man"s life. Would she dare to do it?
She did not know the editor"s name, but she had noticed that letters published in the paper were simply addressed to him in his official capacity. She knew where to find the office of the _Greywolds Mercury_.
She had seen it one day that she had had occasion to visit the market town two miles distant. After the first flash of courage her spirit failed as she approached the gate. She hesitated. She thought of that newspaper in the library, and went back and read the article again.
Again her indignation blazed up. Holding the paper in her hand she set out on her mission. As she walked she read over portions of the article to keep her zeal warm. Thus she proceeded on her way, filled with her theme, yet faltering.
She reached the town, and turned into the High Street where the office stood. She easily recognized it by the posters outside and the advertis.e.m.e.nts in the windows. Meg entered the shabby interior with a desperate effort, and while trembling, yet full of moral courage, impelled to act by what seemed to be a duty. A clerk sat at a desk; a small boy was posting and rolling up the papers. It was the dingiest corner from which a thunderbolt could be launched.
"I want to see the editor," she said brusquely.
"He is busy, miss," answered the clerk, surveying her slowly over his spectacles.
"I want to see him on important business," said Meg determinedly, trying to look unabashed.
"What name shall I say?" asked the clerk.
"Miss Beecham; but he will not know me," replied Meg.
The clerk disappeared, and returned after a moment to say the editor would be glad to see the lady.
They climbed a narrow, dusty flight of stairs that led to a gla.s.s door.
It was opened by her guide, who ushered her into a room that impressed her as a medley of papers and books. A man, who had been sitting before a large table, rose at her entrance. She perceived that he was tall and broad-shouldered, that his countenance was energetic and expressive, and his glance brilliant. The lower part of his face was hidden by a reddish beard; the closely-cropped hair was of a darker and less ruddy hue. He bowed to her.
"Are you the editor of the _Greywolds Mercury_?" she asked, making another desperate effort to conquer her shyness.
"I am," he answered.
"If anything appears in the paper that is unjust it is to you one must appeal?"
"Certainly. I hope nothing of this kind has appeared," he answered. His tone was curt, his voice deep and not inharmonious.
"It is because something unjust has appeared, and has been repeated, that I have called upon you," said Meg.
"Indeed! Would you tell me the particulars? Pray, sit down," said the editor. If his manner had a certain _brusquerie_ it was that of self-possession; it was characteristic of a man accustomed to speak to business men, and who could listen as well as talk.
He was dressed with a certain negligence, but with great neatness. Meg noticed, she knew not why, his large, well-shaped hand.
"There have been a number of articles upon Sir Malcolm Loftdale," began Meg.
The editor acknowledged the truth of this statement by an inclination of the head.