"I"m not what you think I am!" she sobbed out, incoherently. "I"m not different from other women; I"m just as selfish and bad and mean as the worst of them! And I"m not worthy to t-tie my m-mother"s shoes!"
"Margaret!" John Tenison said unsteadily. And in a flash her drooping bright head was close to his lips, and both his big arms were about her. "You know I love you, don"t you Margaret?" he said hoa.r.s.ely, over and over, with a sort of fierce intensity. "You know that, don"t you?
Don"t you, Margaret?"
Margaret could not speak. Emotion swept her like a rising tide from all her familiar moorings; her heart thundered, there was a roaring in her ears. She was conscious of a wild desire to answer him, to say one hundredth part of all she felt; but she could only rest, breathless, against him, her frightened eyes held by the eyes so near, his arms about her.
"You do, don"t you, Margaret?" he said more gently. "You love me, don"t you? Don"t you?"
And after a long time, or what seemed a long time, while they stood motionless in the summer night, with the great branches of the trees moving a little overhead, and garden scents creeping out on the damp air, Margaret said, with a sort of breathless catch in her voice:--
"You know I do!" And with the words the fright left her eyes, and happy tears filled them, and she raised her face to his.
Coming back from the train half an hour later, she walked between a new heaven and a new earth! The friendly stars seemed just overhead; a thousand delicious odors came from garden beds and recently watered lawns. She moved through the confusion that always attended the settling down of the Pagets for the night, like one in a dream, and was glad to find herself at last lying in the darkness beside the sleeping Rebecca again. Now, now, she could think!
But it was all too wonderful for reasonable thought. Margaret clasped both her hands against her rising heart. He loved her. She could think of the very words he had used in telling her, over and over again. She need no longer wonder and dream and despair: he had said it. He loved her, had loved her from the very first. His old aunt suspected it, and his chum suspected it, and he had thought Margaret knew it. And beside him in that brilliant career that she had followed so wistfully in her dreams, Margaret saw herself, his wife. Young and clever and good to look upon,--yes, she was free to-night to admit herself all these good things for his sake!--and his wife, mounting as he mounted beside the one man in the world she had elected to admire and love. "Doctor and Mrs. John Tenison "--so it would be written. "Doctor Tenison"s wife"--"This is Mrs. Tenison"--she seemed already to hear the magical sound of it!
Love--what a wonderful thing it was! How good G.o.d was to send this best of all gifts to her! She thought how it belittled the other good things of the world. She asked no more of life, now; she was loved by a good man, and a great man, and she was to be his wife. Ah, the happy years together that would date from to-night,--Margaret was thrilling already to their delights. "For better or worse," the old words came to her with a new meaning. There would be no worse, she said to herself with sudden conviction,--how could there be? Poverty, privation, sickness might come,--but to bear them with John,--to comfort and sustain him, to be shut away with him from all the world but the world of their own four walls,--why, that would be the greatest happiness of all! What hardship could be hard that knitted their two hearts closer together; what road too steep if they essayed it hand in hand?
And that--her confused thoughts ran on--that was what had changed all life for Julie. She had forgotten Europe, forgotten all the idle ambitions of her girlhood, because she loved her husband; and now the new miracle was to come to her,--the miracle of a child, the little perfect promise of the days to come. How marvellous--how marvellous it was! The little imperative, helpless third person, bringing to radiant youth and irresponsibility the terrors of danger and anguish, and the great final joy, to share together. That was life. Julie was living; and although Margaret"s own heart was not yet a wife"s, and she could not yet find room for the love beyond that, still she was strangely, deeply stirred now by a longing for all the experiences that life held.
How she loved everything and everybody to-night,--how she loved just being alive--just being Margaret Paget, lying here in the dark dreaming and thinking. There was no one in the world with whom she would change places to-night! Margaret found herself thinking of one woman of her acquaintance after another,--and her own future, opening all color of rose before her, seemed to her the one enviable path through the world.
In just one day, she realized with vague wonder, her slowly formed theories had been set at naught, her whole philosophy turned upside down. Had these years of protest and rebellion done no more than lead her in a wide circle, past empty gain, and joyless mirth, and the dead sea fruit of riches and idleness, back to her mother"s knees again? She had met brilliant women, rich women, courted women--but where among them was one whose face had ever shone as her mother"s shone to-day?
The overdressed, idle dowagers; the matrons, with their too-gay frocks, their too-full days, their too-rich food; the girls, all crudeness, artifice, all scheming openly for their own advantage,--where among them all was happiness? Where among them was one whom Margaret had heard say--as she had heard her mother say so many, many times,--"Children, this is a happy day,"--"Thank G.o.d for another lovely Sunday all together,"--"Isn"t it lovely to get up and find the sun shining?"--"Isn"t it good to come home hungry to such a nice dinner!"
And what a share of happiness her mother had given the world! How she had planned and worked for them all,--Margaret let her arm fall across the sudden ache in her eyes as she thought of the Christmas mornings, and the stuffed stockings at the fireplace that proved every childish wish remembered, every little hidden hope guessed! Darling Mother--she hadn"t had much money for those Christmas stockings, they must have been carefully planned, down to the last candy cane. And how her face would beam, as she sat at the breakfast-table, enjoying her belated coffee, after the cold walk to church, and responding warmly to the onslaught of kisses and bugs that added fresh color to her cold, rosy cheeks! What a mother she was,--Margaret remembered her making them all help her clear up the Christmas disorder of tissue paper and ribbons; then came the inevitable bed making, then tippets and overshoes, for a long walk with Dad. They would come back to find the dining-room warm, the long table set, the house deliciously fragrant from the immense turkey that their mother, a fresh ap.r.o.n over her holiday gown, was basting at the oven. Then came the feast, and then games until twilight, and more table-setting; and the baby, whoever he was, was tucked away upstairs before tea, and the evening ended with singing, gathered about Mother at the piano.
"How happy we all were!" Margaret said; "and how she worked for us!"
And suddenly theories and speculation ended, and she knew. She knew that faithful, self-forgetting service, and the love that spends itself over and over, only to be renewed again and again, are the secret of happiness. For another world, perhaps, leisure and beauty and luxury--but in this one, "Who loses his life shall gain it."
Margaret knew now that her mother was not only the truest, the finest, the most generous woman she had ever known, but the happiest as well.
She thought of other women like her mother; she suddenly saw what made their lives beautiful. She could understand now why Emily Porter, her old brave little a.s.sociate of school-teaching days, was always bright, why Mary Page, plodding home from the long day at the library desk to her little cottage and crippled sister, at night, always made one feel the better and happier for meeting her.
Mrs. Carr-Boldt"s days were crowded to the last instant, it was true; but what a farce it was, after all, Margaret said to herself in all honesty, to humor her in her little favorite belief that she was a busy woman! Milliner, manicure, butler, chef, club, card-table, tea table,--these and a thousand things like them filled her day, and they might all be swept away in an hour, and leave no one the worse.
Suppose her own summons came; there would be a little flurry throughout the great establishment, legal matters to settle, notes of thanks to be written for flowers. Margaret could imagine Victoria and Harriet, awed but otherwise unaffected, home from school in midweek, and to be sent back before the next Monday. Their lives would go on unchanged, their mother had never b.u.t.tered bread for them, never schemed for their boots and hats, never watched their work and play, and called them to her knees for praise and blame. Mr. Carr-Boldt would have his club, his business, his yacht, his motor-cars,--he was well accustomed to living in cheerful independence of family claims.
But life without Mother--! In a sick moment of revelation, Margaret saw it. She saw them gathering in the horrible emptiness and silence of the house Mother had kept so warm and bright, she saw her father"s stooped shoulders and trembling hands, she saw Julie and Beck, red eyed, white-cheeked, in fresh black,--she seemed to hear the low-toned voices that would break over and over again so cruelly into sobs. What could they do--who could take up the work she laid down,--who would watch and plan and work for them all, now? Margaret thought of the empty place at the table, of the room that, after all these years, was no longer "Mother"s room--"
Oh, no--no--no!--She began to cry bitterly in the dark. No, please G.o.d, they would hold her safe with them for many years. Mother should live to see some of the fruits of the long labor of love. She should know that with every fresh step in life, with every deepening experience, her children grew to love her better, turned to her more and more! There would be Christmases as sweet as the old ones, if not so gay; there would come a day--Margaret"s whole being thrilled to the thought--when little forms would run ahead of John and herself up the worn path, and when their children would be gathered in Mother"s experienced arms! Did life hold a more exquisite moment, she wondered, than that in which she would hear her mother praise them!
All her old castles in the air seemed cheap and tinselled to-night, beside these tender dreams that had their roots in the real truths of life. Travel and position, gowns and motor-cars, yachts and country houses, these things were to be bought in all their perfection by the highest bidder, and always would be. But love and character and service, home and the wonderful charge of little lives,--the "pure religion breathing household laws" that guided and perfected the whole,--these were not to be bought, they were only to be prayed for, worked for, bravely won.
"G.o.d has been very good to me," Margaret said to herself very seriously; and in her old childish fashion she made some new resolves.
From now on, she thought, with a fervor that made it seem half accomplished, she would be a very different woman. If joy came, she would share it as far as she could; if sorrow, she would show her mother that her daughter was not all unworthy of her. To-morrow, she thought, she would go and see Julie. Dear old Ju, whose heart was so full of the little Margaret! Margaret had a sudden tender memory of the days when Theodore and Duncan and Rob were all babies in turn. Her mother would gather the little daily supply of fresh clothes from bureau and chest every morning, and carry the little bath-tub into the sunny nursery window, and sit there with only a bobbing downy head and waving pink angers visible from the great warm bundle of bath ap.r.o.n.... Ju would be doing that now.
And she had sometimes wished, or half formed the wish, that she and Bruce bad been the only ones--! Yes, came the sudden thought, but it wouldn"t have been Bruce and Margaret, after all, it would have been Bruce and Charlie.
Good G.o.d! That was what women did, then, when they denied the right of life to the distant, unwanted, possible little person! Calmly, constantly, in all placid philosophy and self-justification, they kept from the world--not only the troublesome new baby, with his tears and his illnesses, his merciless exactions, his endless claim on mind and body and spirit--but perhaps the glowing beauty of a Rebecca, the buoyant indomitable spirit of a Ted, the st.u.r.dy charm of a small Robert, whose grip on life, whose energy and ambition were as strong as Margaret"s own!
Margaret stirred uneasily, frowned in the dark. It seemed perfectly incredible, it seemed perfectly impossible that if Mother had had only the two--and how many thousands of women didn"t have that!--she, Margaret, a p.r.o.nounced and separate ent.i.ty, travelled, ambitious, and to be the wife of one of the world"s great men, might not have been lying here in the summer night, rich in love and youth and beauty and her dreams!
It was all puzzling, all too big for her to understand. But she could do what Mother did, just take the nearest duty and fulfil it, and sleep well, and rise joyfully to fresh effort.
Margaret felt as if she would never sleep again. The summer night was cool, she was cramped and chilly; but still her thoughts raced on, and she could not shut her eyes. She turned and pressed her face resolutely into the pillow, and with a great sigh renounced the joys and sorrows, the lessons and the awakening that the long day had held.
A second later there was a gentle rustle at the door.
"Mark--" a voice whispered. "Can"t you sleep?"
Margaret locked her arms tight about her mother, as the older woman knelt beside her.
"Why, how cold you are, sweetheart!" her mother protested, tucking covers about her. "I thought I heard you sigh! I got up to lock the stairway door; Baby"s gotten a trick of walking in his sleep when he"s overtired. It"s nearly one o"clock, Mark! What have you been doing?"
"Thinking." Margaret put her lips close to her mother"s ear.
"Mother-" she stammered and stopped. Mrs. Paget kissed her.
"Daddy and I thought so," she said simply; and further announcement was not needed. "My darling little girl!" she added tenderly; and then, after a silence, "He is very fine, Mark, so unaffected, so gentle and nice with the boys. I--I think I"m glad, Mark. I lose my girl but there"s no happiness like a happy marriage, dear."
"No, you won"t lose me, Mother," Margaret said, clinging very close.
"We hadn"t much time to talk, but this much we did decide. You see, John--John goes to Germany for a year, next July. So we thought--in June or July, Mother, just as Julie"s was! Just a little wedding like Ju"s. You see, that"s better than interrupting the term, or trying to settle down, when we"d have to move in July. And, Mother, I"m going to write Mrs. Carr-Boldt,--she can get a thousand girls to take my place, her niece is dying to do it!--and I"m going to take my old school here for the term. Mr. Forbes spoke to me about it after church this morning; they want me back. I want this year at home; I want to see more of Bruce and Ju, and sort of stand by darling little Beck! But it"s for you, most of all, Mother," said Margaret, with difficulty.
"I"ve always loved you, Mother, but you don"t know how wonderful I think you are--" She broke off pitifully, "Ah, Mother!"
For her mother"s arms had tightened convulsively about her, and the face against her own was wet.
"Are you talking?" said Rebecca, rearing herself up suddenly, with a web of bright hair falling over her shoulder. "You said your prayers on Mark last night--" said she, reproachfully, "come over and say them on me to-night, Mother."