"You remember what I told you?"
"You told me not to stay here," said Maggie.
"Yes, I did," said Miss Avies, "and I meant it. The matter with you is that you"ve been kept here all this time without any proper work to do and that"s been very bad for you and made you sit with your hands folded in front of you, your head filling with silly fancies."
Maggie couldn"t help smiling at this description of herself.
"Oh, you smile," said Miss Avies vigorously, "but it"s perfectly true."
"Well, it"s all right now." said Maggie, "because I am going away--as soon as ever I"m well enough." "What to do?" asked Miss Avies.
"I don"t quite know yet," said Maggie.
"Well, I know," said Miss Avies. "You"re going away to brood over that young man."
Maggie said nothing.
"Oh I know ... It seems cruel of me to speak of it just when you"ve had such a bad time, but it"s kindness really. If I don"t force you to think it all out and face it properly you"ll be burying it in some precious spot and always digging it up to look at it. You face it, my girl. You say to yourself--well, he wasn"t such a wonderful young man after all. I can lead my life all right without him--of course I can.
I"m not going to be dependent on him and sigh and groan and waste away because I can"t see him. I know what it is. I"ve been through it myself."
Then there was a pause; then Maggie suddenly looked up and smiled.
"But you"re quite wrong, Miss Avies. I"ve no intention of not facing Martin, and I"ve no intention either of having my life ruined because he"s not here. At first, when I was very ill, I was unhappy, and then I saw how silly I was."
"Why?" said Miss Avies with great pleasure. "You"ve got over it already! I must say I"m delighted because I never thought much of Martin Warlock if you want to know, my dear. I always thought him a weak young man, and he wouldn"t have done you any good. I"m delighted--indeed I am."
"That"s not true either," said Maggie quietly. "If by getting over it you mean that I don"t love Martin you"re quite wrong. I loved him the first moment I saw him and I shall love him in just the same way until I die. I don"t think it matters what he does or where he is so far as loving him goes. But that doesn"t mean I"m sitting and pining. I"m not."
Miss Avies looked at her with displeasure.
"It"s the same thing then," she said. "You may fancy you"re going to lead an ordinary life again, but all the time you"ll just be waiting for him to come back."
"No," said Maggie, "I shall not. I"ve had plenty of time for thinking these last weeks, and I"ve made up my mind to his never coming back--never at all. And even if he did come back he mightn"t want me.
So I"m not going to waste time about it. I shall find work and make myself useful somewhere, but I shall always love Martin just as I do now."
"You"re very young," said Miss Avies, touched in spite of herself.
"Later on you"ll find some one much better than young Warlock."
"Perhaps I shall," said Maggie. "But what"s the use of that if he isn"t Martin? I"ve heard people say that before--some one"s "better" or "stronger" or "wiser."--But what has that got to do with it? I love Martin because he"s Martin. He"s got a weak character you say. That"s why he wants me, and I want to be wanted more than anything on earth."
"Why, child," said Miss Avies, astonished. "How you"ve grown these last weeks!"
"Do you want to know how I love Martin," said Maggie, "so that there shall be no mistake about it? Well, I can"t tell you. I couldn"t tell any one. I don"t know how I love him, but I know that I shall never change or alter all my life--even though he never comes back again.
I"ve given over being silly," she went on. "There were days and days at first when I just wanted to die. But now I"m going to make my own life and have a good time--and never stop loving Martin for one single second."
"Supposing," said Miss Avies, "some one wanted to marry you? Would you?"
"It would depend," said Maggie; "if I liked him and he really wanted me and I could help him I might. Only, of course, I"d tell him about Martin first."
She went on after a little pause: "You see, Miss Avies, I haven"t been very happy with my aunts, and I always thought it was their fault that I wasn"t. But during these weeks when I"ve been lying in bed I saw that it was my own fault for being so gloomy about everything. Now that I"ve got Martin--"
"Got him!" interrupted Miss Avies; "why, you"ve only just lost him!"
"No, I haven"t," answered Maggie. "He didn"t go away because he hated me or was tired of me, he went away because he didn"t want to do me any harm, and I think he cared for me more just at that minute than he"d ever done before. So I"ve nothing to spoil my memory of him. I daresay we wouldn"t have got on well, together, I don"t think I would ever have fascinated him enough to keep him with me for very long--but now I know that he loved me at the very moment he went away and wasn"t thinking how ugly I was or what a nasty temper I had or how irritating I could be."
"But, my dear child," said Miss Avies, astonished. "How can you say you loved one another if you were always quarrelling and expecting to part?" "We weren"t always quarrelling," said Maggie. "We weren"t together enough, but if we had been it wouldn"t have meant that we didn"t love one another. I don"t think we"d ever been very happy, but being happy together doesn"t seem to me the only sign of love. Love seems to me to be moments of great joy rising from every kind of trouble and bother. I don"t call tranquillity happiness."
"Well, you have thought things out," said Miss Avies, "and all of us considering you so stupid--"
"I"m not going to squash myself into a corner any more," said Maggie.
"Why should I? I find I"m as good as any one else. I made Martin love me--even though it was only for a moment. So I"m going to be shy no longer."
"And here was I thinking you heart-broken," said Miss Avies.
"I"m going out into the world," said Maggie half to herself. "I"m going to have adventures. I"ve been in this house long enough. I"m going to see what men and women are really like--I know this isn"t real here.
And I want to discover about religion too. Since Martin went away I"ve felt that there was something in it. I can"t think what and the aunts can"t think either; none of you know here, but some one must have found out something. I"m going to settle what it all means."
"You"ve got your work cut out," said Miss Avies. "I"ll come and see you again one day soon."
"Yes, do," said Maggie.
When Miss Avies had gone Maggie realised that she had been talking with bravado--in fact she hid her head in the cushion of the chair and cried for at least five minutes. Then she sat up and wiped her eyes because she heard Aunt Anne coming. When Aunt Anne came towards her now she was affected with a strange feeling of sickness. She told herself that that was part of her illness. She did not hate Aunt Anne. For some weeks, when she had risen slowly from the nightmare that the first period of her illness had been, she hated Aunt Anne, hated her fiercely, absorbingly, desperately. Then suddenly the hatred had left her, and had she only known it she was from that moment never to hate any one again. A quite new love for Martin was suddenly born in her, a love that was, as yet, like the first faint stirring of the child in the mother"s womb. This new love was quite different from the old; that had been acquisitive, possessive, urgent, restless, and often terribly painful; this was tranquil, sure, utterly certain, and pa.s.sive. The immediate fruit of it was that she regarded all human creatures with a lively interest, an interest too absorbing to allow of hatred or even active dislike. Her love for Martin was now like a strong current in her soul washing away all sense of irritation and anger. She regarded people from a new angle. What were they all about? What were they thinking? Had they too had some experience as marvellous as her meeting with and parting from Martin? Probably; and they too were shy of speaking of it. Her love for Martin slowly grew, a love now independent of earthly contact and earthly desire, a treasure that would be hers so long as life lasted, that no one could take from her.
She no longer hated Aunt Anne, but she did not intend to live with her any more. So soon as she was well enough she would go. That moment of physical contact when Aunt Anne had held her back made any more relation between them impossible. There was now a great gulf fixed.
The loneliness, the sense of desperate loss, above all the agonising longing for Martin, his step, his voice, his smile--she faced all these and accepted them as necessary companions now on her life"s journey, but she did not intend to allow them to impede progress. She wondered now about everybody. Her own experience had shown her what strange and wonderful things occur to all human beings, and, in the face of this, how could one hate or grudge or despise? She had a fellowship now with all humanity.
But she was as ignorant about life as ever. The things that now she wanted to know! About Aunt Anne, for instance. How had she been affected by Mr. Warlock"s death and the disappointment of her expectations? The Chapel now apparently was to be taken over by Thurston, who had married Amy Warlock and was full of schemes and enterprises. Maggie knew that the aunts went now very seldom to Chapel, and the Inside Saints were apparently in pieces. Was Aunt Anne utterly broken by all this? She did not seem to be so. She seemed to be very much as she had been, except that she was in her room now a great deal.
Her health appeared, on the whole, to be better than it had been. And what was Aunt Elizabeth thinking? And Martha? And Miss Avies? And Caroline Smith? ...
No, she must get out into the world and discover these things for herself. She did not know how the way of escape would come, but she was certain of its arrival.
It arrived, and through her third visitor. Her third visitor was Mrs.
Mark.
When Katherine Mark came in Maggie was writing to Uncle Mathew. She put aside her writing-pad with a little exclamation of surprise. Mrs. Mark, the very last person in all the world whom she had expected to see! As she saw her come in she had a swift intuition that this was Destiny now that was dealing with her, and that a new scene, involving every sort of new experience and adventure, was opening before her. More than ever before she realised how far Katherine Mark was from the world in which she, Maggie, had during all these months been living. Katherine Mark was Real--Real in her beautiful quiet clothes, in her a.s.surance, her ease, the sense that she gave that she knew life and love and business and all the affairs of men at first hand, not only seen through a mist of superst.i.tion and ignorance, or indeed not seen at all.
"This is what I want," something in Maggie called to her.
"This will make me busy and quiet and sensible--at last--"
When Katherine Mark sat down and took her hand for a moment, smiling at her in the kindliest way, Maggie felt as though she had known her all her life.
"Oh! I"m so glad you"ve come!" she cried spontaneously; and then, as though she felt she"d gone too far, she blushed and drew back.
But Katherine held her hand fast.
"I wrote," she said, "some weeks ago to you, and your aunt answered the letter saying you were very ill. Then, as I heard nothing of you, I was anxious and came to see what had happened. You"ve not kept your word, Maggie, you know. We were to have been great friends, and you"ve never been near me."