CHAPTER x.x.x.
HOME AT LAST.
"The saddest birds a season find to sing." SOUTHWELL.
"Never to fold the robe o"er secret pain, Never, weighed down by memory"s clouds again, To bow thy head! Thou art gone home!" MRS. HEMANS.
Mrs. Thornton came to see Mrs. Hale the next morning. She was much worse. One of those sudden changes--those great visible strides towards death, had been taken in the night, and her own family were startled by the gray sunken look her features had a.s.sumed in that one twelve hours of suffering. Mrs. Thornton--who had not seen her for weeks--was softened all at once. She had come because her son asked it from her as a personal favour, but with all the proud bitter feelings of her nature in arms against that family of which Margaret formed one. She doubted the reality of Mrs. Hale"s illness; she doubted any want beyond a momentary fancy on that lady"s part, which should take her out of her previously settled course of employment for the day. She told her son that she wished they had never come near the place; that he had never got acquainted with them; that there had been no such useless languages as Latin and Greek ever invented. He bore all this pretty silently; but when she had ended her invective against the dead languages, he quietly returned to the short, curt, decided expression of his wish that she should go and see Mrs. Hale at the time appointed, as most likely to be convenient to the invalid. Mrs. Thornton submitted with as bad a grace as she could to her son"s desire, all the time liking him the better for having it; and exaggerating in her own mind the same notion that he had of extraordinary goodness on his part in so perseveringly keeping up with the Hales.
His goodness verging on weakness (as all the softer virtues did in her mind), and her own contempt for Mr. and Mrs. Hale, and positive dislike to Margaret, were the ideas which occupied Mrs. Thornton, till she was struck into nothingness before the dark shadow of the wings of the angel of death. There lay Mrs. Hale--a mother like herself--a much younger woman than she was,--on the bed from which there was no sign of hope that she might ever rise again No more variety of light and shade for her in that darkened room; no power of action, scarcely change of movement; faint alternations of whispered sound and studious silence; and yet that monotonous life seemed almost too much! When Mrs. Thornton, strong and prosperous with life, came in, Mrs. Hale lay still, although from the look on her face she was evidently conscious of who it was. But she did not even open her eyes for a minute or two. The heavy moisture of tears stood on the eye-lashes before she looked up, then with her hand groping feebly over the bed-clothes, for the touch of Mrs. Thornton"s large firm fingers, she said, scarcely above her breath--Mrs. Thornton had to stoop from her erectness to listen,-- "Margaret--you have a daughter--my sister is in Italy. My child will be without a mother;--in a strange place,--if I die--will you"---- And her filmy wandering eyes fixed themselves with an intensity of wistfulness on Mrs. Thornton"s face For a minute, there was no change in its rigidness; it was stern and unmoved;--nay, but that the eyes of the sick woman were growing dim with the slow-gathering tears, she might have seen a dark cloud cross the cold features. And it was no thought of her son, or of her living daughter f.a.n.n.y, that stirred her heart at last; but a sudden remembrance, suggested by something in the arrangement of the room,--of a little daughter--dead in infancy--long years ago--that, like a sudden sunbeam, melted the icy crust, behind which there was a real tender woman.
"You wish me to be a friend to Miss Hale," said Mrs. Thornton, in her measured voice, that would not soften with her heart, but came out distinct and clear.
Mrs. Hale, her eyes still fixed on Mrs. Thornton"s face, pressed the hand that lay below hers on the coverlet. She could not speak. Mrs. Thornton sighed, "I will be a true friend, if circ.u.mstances require it Not a tender friend. That I cannot be,"--("to her," she was on the point of adding, but she relented at the sight of that poor, anxious face.)--"It is not my nature to show affection even where I feel it, nor do I volunteer advice in general. Still, at your request,--if it will be any comfort to you, I will promise you." Then came a pause. Mrs. Thornton was too conscientious to promise what she did not mean to perform; and to perform any-thing in the way of kindness on behalf of Margaret, more disliked at this moment than ever, was difficult; almost impossible.
"I promise," said she, with grave severity; which, after all, inspired the dying woman with faith as in something more stable than life itself,--flickering, flitting, wavering life! "I promise that in any difficulty in which Miss Hale"---- "Call her Margaret!" gasped Mrs. Hale.
"In which she comes to me for help, I will help her with every power I have, as if she were my own daughter. I also promise that if ever I see her doing what I think is wrong"---- "But Margaret never does wrong--not wilfully wrong," pleaded Mrs. Hale. Mrs. Thornton went on as before; as if she had not heard: "If ever I see her doing what I believe to be wrong--such wrong not touching me or mine, in which case I might be supposed to have an interested motive--I will tell her of it, faithfully and plainly, as I should wish my own daughter to be told."
There was a long pause. Mrs. Hale felt that this promise did not include all; and yet it was much. It had reservations in it which she did not understand; but then she was weak, dizzy, and tired. Mrs. Thornton was reviewing all the probable cases in which she had pledged herself to act. She had a fierce pleasure in the idea of telling Margaret unwelcome truths, in the shape of performance of duty. Mrs. Hale began to speak: "I thank you. I pray G.o.d to bless you. I shall never see you again in this world. But my last words are, I thank you for your promise of kindness to my child."
"Not kindness!" testified Mrs. Thornton, ungraciously truthful to the last. But having eased her conscience by saying these words, she was not sorry that they were not heard. She pressed Mrs. Hale"s soft languid hand; and rose up and went her way out of the house without seeing a creature.
During the time that Mrs. Thornton was having this interview with Mrs. Hale, Margaret and Dixon were laying their heads together, and consulting how they should keep Frederick"s coming a profound secret to all out of the house. A letter from him might now be expected any day; and he would a.s.suredly follow quickly on its heels. Martha must be sent away on her holiday; Dixon must keep stern guard on the front door, only admitting the few visitors that ever came to the house into Mr. Hale"s room down-stairs--Mrs. Hale"s extreme illness giving her a good excuse for this. If Mary Higgins was required as a help to Dixon in the kitchen she was to hear and see as little of Frederick as possible; and he was, if necessary to be spoken of to her under the name of Mr. d.i.c.kinson. But her sluggish and incurious nature was the greatest safeguard of all.
They resolved that Martha should leave them that very afternoon for this visit to her mother. Margaret wished that she had been sent away on the previous day, as she fancied it might be thought strange to give a servant a holiday when her mistress"s state required so much attendance.
Poor Margaret! All that afternoon she had to act the part of a Roman daughter, and give strength out of her own scanty stock to her father. Mr. hale would hope, would not despair, between the attacks of his wife"s malady; he buoyed himself up in every respite from her pain, and believed that it was the beginning of ultimate recovery. And so, when the paroxysms came on, each more severe than the last, they were fresh agonies, and greater disappointments to him. This afternoon, he sat in the drawing-room, unable to bear the solitude of his study, or to employ himself in any way. He buried his head in his arms, which lay folded on the table. Margaret"s heart ached to see him; yet, as he did not speak, she did not like to volunteer any attempt at comfort. Martha was gone. Dixon sat with Mrs. Hale while she slept. The house was very still and quiet, and darkness came on, without any movement to procure candles. Margaret sat at the window, looking out at the lamps and the street, but seeing nothing,--only alive to her father"s heavy sighs. She did not like to go down for lights, lest the tacit restraint of her presence being withdrawn, he might give way to more violent emotion, without her being at hand to comfort him. Yet she was just thinking that she ought to go and see after the well-doing of the kitchen fire, which there was n.o.body but herself to attend to when she heard the m.u.f.fled door-ring with so violent a pull, that the wires jingled all through the house, though the positive sound was not great. She started up, pa.s.sed her father, who had never moved at the veiled, dull sound,--returned, and kissed him tenderly. And still he never moved, nor took any notice of her fond embrace. Then she went down softly, through the dark, to the door. Dixon would have put the chain on before she opened it, but Margaret had not a thought of fear in her pre-occupied mind. A man"s tall figure stood between her and the luminous street. He was looking away; but at the sound of the latch he turned quickly round.
"Is this Mr. Hale"s?" said he, in a clear, full, delicate voice.
Margaret trembled all over; at first she did not answer. In a moment she sighed out, "Frederick!" and stretched out both her hands to Catch his, and draw him in.
"Oh, Margaret!" said he, holding her off by her shoulders, after they had kissed each other, as if even in that darkness he could see her face, and read in its expression a quicker answer to his question than words could give,-- "My mother! is she alive?"
"Yes, she is alive, dear, dear brother! She--as ill as she can be she is; but alive! She is alive!"
"Thank G.o.d!" said he.
"Papa is utterly prostrate with this great grief."
"You expect me, don"t you?"
"No, we have had no letter."
"Then I have come before it. But my mother knows I am coming?"
"Oh! we all knew you would come. But wait a little! Step in here. Give me your hand. What is this? Oh! your carpet-bag. Dixon has shut the shutters; but this is papa"s study, and I can take you to a chair to rest yourself for a few minutes; while I go and tell him."
She groped her way to the taper and the lucifer matches. She suddenly felt shy, when the little feeble light made them visible. All she could see was, that her brother"s face was unusually dark in complexion, and she caught the stealthy look of a pair of remarkably long-cut blue eyes, that suddenly twinkled up with a droll consciousness of their mutual purpose of inspecting each other. But though the brother and sister had an instant of sympathy in their reciprocal glances, they did not exchange a word; only, Margaret felt sure that she should like her brother as a companion as much as she already loved him as a near relation. Her heart was wonderfully lighter as she went up-stairs; the sorrow was no less in reality, but it became less oppressive from having some one in precisely the same relation to it as that in which she stood. Not her father"s desponding att.i.tude had power to damp her now. He lay across the table, helpless as ever; but she had the spell by which to rouse him. She used it perhaps too violently in her own great relief.
"Papa," said she, throwing her arms fondly round his neck; pulling his weary head up in fact with her gentle violence, till it rested in her arms, and she could look into his eyes, and let them gain strength and a.s.surance from hers.
"Papa! guess who is here!"
He looked at her; she saw the idea of the truth glimmer into their filmy sadness, and be dismissed thence as a wild imagination.
He threw himself forward, and hid his face once more in his stretched-out arms, resting upon the table as heretofore. She heard him whisper; she bent tenderly down to listen. "I don"t know. Don"t tell me it is Frederick--not Frederick. I cannot bear it,--I am too weak. And his mother is dying!"He began to cry and wail like a child. It was so different to all which Margaret had hoped and expected, that she turned sick with disappointment, and was silent for an instant. Then she spoke again--very differently--not so exultingly, far more tenderly and carefully.
"Papa, it is Frederick! Think of mamma, how glad she will be! And oh, for her sake, how glad we ought to be! For his sake, too,--our poor, poor boy!"
Her father did not change his att.i.tude, but he seemed to be trying to understand the fact.
"Where is he?" asked he at last, his face still hidden in his prostrate arms.
"In your study, quite alone. I lighted the taper, and ran up to tell you. He is quite alone, and will be wondering why--"
"I will go to him," broke in her father; and he lifted himself up and leant on her arm as on that of a guide.
Margaret led him to the study door, but her spirits were so agitated that she felt she could not bear to see the meeting. She turned away, and ran up-stairs, and cried most heartily. It was the first time she had dared to allow herself this relief for days. The strain had been terrible, as she now felt. But Frederick was come! He, the one precious brother, was there, safe, amongst them again! She could hardly believe it. She stopped her crying, and opened her bedroom door. She heard no sound of voices, and almost feared she might have dreamt. She went down-stairs, and listened at the study door. She heard the buzz of voices; and that was enough. She went into the kitchen, and stirred up the fire, and lighted the house, and prepared for the wanderer"s refreshment. How fortunate it was that her mother slept! She knew that she did, from the candle-lighter thrust through the keyhole of her bedroom door. The traveller could be refreshed and bright, and the first excitement of the meeting with his father all be over, before her mother became aware of anything unusual.
When all was ready, Margaret opened the study door, and went in like a serving-maiden, with a heavy tray held in her extended arms. She was proud of serving Frederick. But he, when he saw her, sprang up in a minute, and relieved her of her burden. It was a type, a sign, of all the coming relief which his presence would bring. The brother and sister arranged the table together, saying little, but their hands touching, and their eyes speaking the natural language of expression, so intelligible to those of the same blood. The fire had gone out; and Margaret applied herself to light it, for the evenings had begun to be chilly; and yet it was desirable to make all noises as distant as possible from Mrs. Hale"s room.
"Dixon says it is a gift to light a fire; not an art to be acquired."
"Poeta nascitur, non fit," murmured Mr. Hale; and Margaret was glad to hear a quotation once more, however languidly given.
"Dear old Dixon! How we shall kiss each other!" said Frederick. "She used to kiss me, and then look in my face to be sure I was the right person, and then set to again! But, Margaret, what a bungler you are! I never saw such a little awkward, good-for-nothing pair of hands. Run away, and wash them, ready to cut bread-and-b.u.t.ter for me, and leave the fire. I"ll manage it. Lighting fires is one of my natural accomplishments."
So Margaret went away; and returned; and pa.s.sed in and out of the room, in a glad restlessness that could not be satisfied with sitting still. The more wants Frederick had, the better she was pleased; and he understood all this by instinct. It was a joy s.n.a.t.c.hed in the house of mourning, and the zest of it was all the more pungent, because they knew in the depths of their hearts what irremediable sorrow awaited them.
In the middle, they heard Dixon"s foot on the stairs. Mr. Hale started from his languid posture in his great armchair, from which he had been watching his children in a dreamy way, as if they were acting some drama of happiness, which it was pretty to look at, but which was distinct from reality, and in which he had no part. He stood up, and faced the door, showing such a strange, sudden anxiety to conceal Frederick from the sight of any person entering, even though it were the faithful Dixon, that a shiver came over Margaret"s heart: it reminded her of the new fear in their lives. She caught at Frederick"s arm, and clutched it tight, while a stern thought compressed her brows, and caused her to set her teeth. And yet they knew it was only Dixon"s measured tread. They heard her walk the length of the pa.s.sage, into the kitchen. Margaret rose up.
I will go to her, and tell her. And I shall hear how mamma is." Mrs. Hale was awake. She rambled at first; but after they had given her some tea she was refreshed, though not disposed to talk. It was better that the night should pa.s.s over before she was told of her son"s arrival. Dr. Donaldson"s appointed visit would bring nervous excitement enough for the evening; and he might tell them how to prepare her for seeing Frederick. He was there, in the house; could be summoned at any moment.
Margaret could not sit still. It was a relief to her to aid Dixon in all her preparations for "Master Frederick." It seemed as though she never could be tired again. Each glimpse into the room where he sate by his father, conversing with him, about, she knew not what, nor cared to know,--was increase of strength to her. Her own time for talking and hearing would come at last, and she was too certain of this to feel in a hurry to grasp it now. She took in his appearance and liked it. He had delicate features, redeemed from effeminacy by the swarthiness of his complexion, and his quick intensity of expression. His eyes were generally merry-looking, but at times they and his mouth so suddenly changed, and gave her such an idea of latent pa.s.sion, that it almost made her afraid. But this look was only for an instant; and had in it no doggedness, no vindictiveness; it was rather the instantaneous ferocity of expression that comes over the countenances of all natives of wild or southern countries--a ferocity which enhances the charm of the childlike softness into which such a look may melt away. Margaret might fear the violence of the impulsive nature thus occasionally betrayed, but there was nothing in it to make her distrust, or recoil in the least, from the new-found brother. On the contrary, all their intercourse was peculiarly charming to her from the very first. She knew then how much responsibility she had had to bear, from the exquisite sensation of relief which she felt in Frederick"s presence. He understood his father and mother--their characters and their weaknesses, and went along with a careless freedom, which was yet most delicately careful not to hurt or wound any of their feelings. He seemed to know instinctively when a little of the natural brilliancy of his manner and conversation would not jar on the deep depression of his father, or might relieve his mother"s pain. Whenever it would have been out of tune, and out of time, his patient devotion and watchfulness came into play, and made him an admirable nurse. Then Margaret was almost touched into tears by the allusions which he often made to their childish days in the New Forest; he had never forgotten her--or Helstone either--all the time he had been roaming among distant countries and foreign people. She might talk to him of the old spot, and never fear tiring him. She had been afraid of him before he came, even while she had longed for his coming; seven or eight years had, she felt, produced such great changes in herself that, forgetting how much of the original Margaret was left, she had reasoned that if her tastes and feelings had so materially altered, even in her stay-at-home life, his wild career, with which she was but imperfectly acquainted, must have almost subst.i.tuted another Frederick for the tall stripling in his middy"s uniform, whom she remembered looking up to with such admiring awe. But in their absence they had grown nearer to each other in age, as well as in many other things. And so it was that the weight, this sorrowful time, was lightened to Margaret. Other light than that of Frederick"s presence she had none. For a few hours, the mother rallied on seeing her son. She sate with his hand in hers; she would not part with it even while she slept; and Margaret had to feed him like a baby, rather than that he should disturb her mother by removing a finger. Mrs. Hale wakened while they were thus engaged; she slowly moved her head round on the pillow, and smiled at her children, as she understood what they were doing, and why it was done.
"I am very selfish," said she; "but it will not be for long." Frederick bent down and kissed the feeble hand that imprisoned his.
This state of tranquillity could not endure for many days, nor perhaps for many hours; so Dr. Donaldson a.s.sured Margaret. After the kind doctor had gone away, she stole down to Frederick, who, during the visit, had been adjured to remain quietly concealed in the back parlour, usually Dixon"s bedroom, but now given up to him.
Margaret told him what Dr. Donaldson said.
"I don"t believe it," he exclaimed. "She is very ill; she may be dangerously ill, and in immediate danger, too; but I can"t imagine that she could be as she is, if she were on the point of death. Margaret! she should have some other advice--some London doctor. Have you never thought of that?"
"Yes," said Margaret, "more than once. But I don"t believe it would do any good. And, you know, we have not the money to bring any great London surgeon down, and I am sure Dr. Donaldson is only second in skill to the very best,--if, indeed, he is to them."
Frederick began to walk up and down the room impatiently.
"I have credit in Cadiz," said he, "but none here, owing to this wretched change of name. Why did my father leave Helstone? That was the blunder."
"It was no blunder," said Margaret gloomily. "And above all possible chances, avoid letting papa hear anything like what you have just been saying. I can see that he is tormenting himself already with the idea that mamma would never have been ill if we had stayed at Helstone, and you don"t know papa"s agonising power of self-reproach!"
Frederick walked away as if he were on the quarter-deck. At last he stopped right opposite to Margaret, and looked at her drooping and desponding att.i.tude for an instant.
"My little Margaret!" said he, caressing her. "Let us hope as long as we can. Poor little woman! what! is this face all wet with tears? I will hope. I will, in spite of a thousand doctors. Bear up, Margaret, and be brave enough to hope!"
Margaret choked in trying to speak, and when she did it was very low.
"I must try to be meek enough to trust. Oh, Frederick! mamma was getting to love me so! And I was getting to understand her. And now comes death to snap us asunder!"
"Come, come, come! Let us go up-stairs, and do something, rather than waste time that may be so precious. Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life. My theory is a sort of parody on the maxim of "Get money, my son, honestly if you can; but get money." My precept is, "Do something, my sister, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something.""
"Not excluding mischief," said Margaret, smiling faintly through her tears.
"By no means. What I do exclude is the remorse afterwards. Blot your misdeeds out (if you are particularly conscientious), by a good deed, as soon as you can; just as we did a correct sum at school on the slate, where an incorrect one was only half rubbed out. It was better than wetting our sponge with our tears; both less loss of time where tears had to be waited for, and a better effect at last."
If Margaret thought Frederick"s theory rather a rough one at first, she saw how he worked it out into continual production of kindness in fact. After a bad night with his mother (for he insisted on taking his turn as a sitter-up) he was busy next morning before breakfast, contriving a leg-rest for Dixon, who was beginning to feel the fatigues of watching. At breakfast-time, he interested Mr. Hale with vivid, graphic, rattling accounts of the wild life he had led in Mexico, South America, and elsewhere. Margaret would have given up the effort in despair to rouse Mr. Hale out of his dejection; it would even have affected herself and rendered her incapable of talking at all. But Fred, true to his theory, did something perpetually; and talking was the only thing to be done, besides eating, at breakfast.
Before the night of that day, Dr. Donaldson"s opinion was proved to be too well founded. Convulsions came on; and when they ceased, Mrs. Hale was unconscious. Her husband might lie by her shaking the bed with his sobs; her son"s strong arms might lift her tenderly up into a comfortable position; her daughter"s hands might bathe her face; but she knew them not. She would never recognise them again, till they met in Heaven.
Before the morning came all was over.
Then Margaret rose from her trembling and despondency, and became as a strong angel of comfort to her father and brother. For Frederick had broken down now, and all his theories were of no use to him. He cried so violently when shut up alone in his little room at night, that Margaret and Dixon came down in affright to warn him to be quiet: for the house part.i.tions were but thin, and the next-door neighbours might easily hear his youthful pa.s.sionate sobs, so different from the slower trembling agony of after-life, when we become inured to grief, and dare not be rebellious against the inexorable doom, knowing who it is that decrees.
Margaret sate with her father in the room with the dead. If he had cried, she would have been thankful. But he sate by the bed quite quietly; only, from time to time, he uncovered the face, and stroked it gently, making a kind of soft inarticulate noise, like that of some mother-animal caressing her young. He took no notice of Margaret"s presence. Once or twice she came up to kiss him; and he submitted to it, giving her a little push away when she had done, as if her affection disturbed him from his absorption in the dead. He started when he heard Frederick"s cries, and shook his head:--"Poor boy! poor boy!" he said, and took no more notice. Margaret"s heart ached within her. She could not think of her own loss in thinking of her father"s case. The night was wearing away, and the day was at hand, when, without a word of preparation, Margaret"s voice broke upon the stillness of the room, with a clearness of sound that startled even herself: "Let not your heart be troubled," it said; and she went steadily on through all that chapter of unspeakable consolation.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
"SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?"
"Show not that manner, and these features all, The serpent"s cunning, and the sinner"s fall?" CRABBE.
The chill, shivery October morning came; not the October morning of the country, with soft, silvery mists, clearing off before the sunbeams that bring out all the gorgeous beauty of colouring, but the October morning of Milton, whose silver mists were heavy fogs, and where the sun could only show long dusky streets when he did break through and shine. Margaret went languidly about, a.s.sisting Dixon in her task of arranging the house. Her eyes were continually blinded by tears, but she had no time to give way to regular crying. The father and brother depended upon her; while they were giving way to grief, she must be working, planning, considering. Even the necessary arrangements for the funeral seemed to devolve upon her.
When the fire was bright and crackling--when everything was ready for breakfast, and the tea-kettle was singing away, Margaret gave a last look round the room before going to summon Mr. Hale and Frederick. She wanted everything to look as cheerful as possible; and yet, when it did so, the contrast between it and her own thoughts forced her into sudden weeping. She was kneeling by the sofa, hiding her face in the cushions that no one might hear her cry, when she was touched on the shoulder by Dixon.
"Come, Miss Hale--come, my dear! You must not give way, or where shall we all be? There is not another person in the house fit to give a direction of any kind, and there is so much to be done. There"s who"s to manage the funeral; and who"s to come to it; and where it"s to be; and all to be settled: and Master Frederick"s like one crazed with crying, and master never was a good one for settling; and, poor gentleman, he goes about now as if he was lost. It"s bad enough, my dear, I know; but death comes to us all; and you"re well off never to have lost any friend till now."Perhaps so. But this seemed a loss by itself; not to bear comparison with any other event in the world. Margaret did not take any comfort from what Dixon said, but the unusual tenderness of the prim old servant"s manner touched her to the heart; and, more from a desire to show her grat.i.tude for this than for any other reason, she roused herself up, and smiled in answer to Dixon"s anxious look at her; and went to tell her father and brother that breakfast was ready.
Mr. Hale came--as if in a dream, or rather with the unconscious motion of a sleep-walker, whose eyes and mind perceive other things than what are present. Frederick came briskly in, with a forced cheerfulness, grasped her hand, looked into her eyes, and burst into tears. She had to try and think of little nothings to say all breakfast-time, in order to prevent the recurrence of her companions" thoughts too strongly to the last meal they had taken together, when there had been a continual strained listening for some sound or signal from the sick-room.
After breakfast, she resolved to speak to her father, about the funeral. He shook his head, and a.s.sented to all she proposed, though many of her propositions absolutely contradicted one another. Margaret gained no real decision from him; and was leaving the room languidly, to have a consultation with Dixon, when Mr. Hale motioned her back to his side.
"Ask Mr. Bell," said he in a hollow voice.
"Mr. Bell!" said she, a little surprised. "Mr. Bell of Oxford?"
"Mr. Bell," he repeated. "Yes. He was my groom"s-man."
Margaret understood the a.s.sociation.
"I will write to-day," said she. He sank again into listlessness. All morning she toiled on, longing for rest, but in a continual whirl of melancholy business.
Towards evening, Dixon said to her: "I"ve done it, miss. I was really afraid for master, that he"d have a stroke with grief. He"s been all this day with poor missus; and when I"ve listened at the door, I"ve heard him talking to her, and talking to her, as if she was alive. When I went in he would be quite quiet, but all in a maze like. So I thought to myself, he ought to be roused; and if it gives him a shock at first, it will, maybe, be the better afterwards. So I"ve been and told him, that I don"t think it"s safe for Master Frederick to be here. And I don"t. It was only on Tuesday, when I was out, that I met-a Southampton man--the first I"ve seen since I came to Milton; they don"t make their way much up here, I think. Well, it was young Leonards, old Leonards the draper"s son, as great a scamp as ever lived--who plagued his father almost to death, and then ran off to sea. I never could abide him. He was in the Orion at the same time as Master Frederick, I know; though I don"t recollect if he was there at the mutiny."
"Did he know you?" said Margaret, eagerly.
"Why, that"s the worst of it. I don"t believe he would have known me but for my being such a fool as to call out his name. He were a Southampton man, in a strange place, or else I should never have been so ready to call cousins with him, a nasty, good-for-nothing fellow. Says he, "Miss Dixon! who would ha" thought of seeing you here? But perhaps I mistake, and you"re Miss Dixon no longer?" So I told him he might still address me as an unmarried lady, though if I hadn"t been so particular, I"d had good chances of matrimony. He was polite enough: "He couldn"t look at me and doubt me." But I were not to be caught with such chaff from such a fellow as him, and so I told him; and, by way of being even, I asked him after his father (who I knew had turned him out of doors), as if they was the best friends as ever was. So then, to spite me--for you see we were getting savage, for all we were so civil to each other--he began to inquire after Master Frederick, and said, what a sc.r.a.pe he"d got into (as if Master Frederick"s sc.r.a.pes would ever wash George Leonards" white, or make "em look otherwise than nasty, dirty black), and how he"d be hung for mutiny if ever he were caught, and how a hundred pound reward had been offered for catching him, and what a disgrace he had been to his family--all to spite me, you see, my dear, because before now I"ve helped old Mr. Leonards to give George a good rating, down in Southampton. So I said, there were other families be thankful if they could think they were earning an honest living as I knew, who had far more cause to blush for their sons, and to far away from home. To which he made answer, like the impudent chap he is, that he were in a confidential situation, and if I knew of any young man who had been so unfortunate as to lead vicious courses, and wanted to turn steady, he"d have no objection to lend him his patronage. He, indeed! Why, he"d corrupt a sairt. I"ve not felt so bad myself for years as when I were standing talking to him the other day. I could have cried to think I couldn"t spite him better, for he kept smiling in my face, as if he took all my compliments for earnest; and I couldn"t see that he minded what I said in the least, while I was mad with all his speeches."
"But you did not tell him anything about us--about Frederick?"
"Not I," said Dixon. "He had never the grace to ask where I was staying; and I shouldn"t have told him if he had asked. Nor did I ask him what his precious situation was. He was waiting for a bus, and just then it drove up, and he hailed it. But, to plague me to the last, he turned back before he got in, and said, "If you can help me to trap Lieutenant Hale, Miss Dixon, we"ll go partners in the reward. I know you"d like to be my partner, now wouldn"t you? Don"t be shy, but say yes." And he jumped on the bus, and I saw his ugly face leering at me with a wicked smile to think how he"d had the last word of plaguing."
Margaret was made very uncomfortable by this account of Dixon"s.
"Have you told Frederick?" asked she.
"No," said Dixon. "I were uneasy in my mind at knowing that bad Leonards was in town; but there was so much else to think about that I did not dwell on it at all. But when I saw master sitting so stiff, and with his eyes so glazed and sad, I thought it might rouse him to have to think of Master Frederick"s safety a bit. So I told him all, though I blushed to say how a young man had been speaking to me. And it has done master good. And if we"re to keep Master Frederick in hiding, he would have to go, poor fellow, before Mr. Bell came."
"Oh, I"m not afraid of Mr. Bell; but I am afraid of this Leonards. I must tell Frederick. What did Leonards look like?"
"A bad-looking fellow, I can a.s.sure you, miss. Whiskers such as I should be ashamed to wear--they are so red. And for all he said he"d got a confidential situation, he was dressed in fustian just like a working-man."
It was evident that Frederick must go. Go, too, when he had so completely vaulted into his place in the family, and promised to be such a stay and staff to his father and sister. Go, when his cares for the living mother, and sorrow for the dead, seemed to make him one of those peculiar people who are bound to us by a fellow-love for them that are taken away. Just as Margaret was thinking all this, sitting over the drawing-room fire--her father restless and uneasy under the pressure of this newly-aroused fear, of which he had not as yet spoken--Frederick came in, his brightness dimmed, but the extreme violence of his grief pa.s.sed away. He came up to Margaret, and kissed her forehead.
"How wan you look, Margaret!" said he in a low voice. "You have been thinking of everybody, and no one has thought of you. Lie on this sofa--there is nothing for you to do."
"That is the worst," said Margaret, in a sad whisper. But she went and lay down, and her brother covered her feet with a shawl, and then sate on the ground by her side; and the two began to talk in a subdued tone.
Margaret told him all that Dixon had related of her interview with young Leonards. Frederick"s lips closed with a long whew of dismay.
"I should just like to have it out with that young fellow. A worse sailor was never on board ship--nor a much worse man either. I declare, Margaret--you know the circ.u.mstances of the whole affair?"