Faithful Margaret: A Novel
Her money had leaked away somewhere--there were plenty who were quite
willing to rid her of the scant burden, and now, as she looked into her
purse, she found but one silver-piece upon which to exist through as
much of the murky future as her anxious eyes could pierce.
The Marquis of Ducie, with the prodigality of a great mind, had been
pleased to send the sum of five pounds to the Lambeth express office for
Miss Walsingham, with the promise of a payment at some future time of
what salary was still due.
The five pounds had weathered fourteen days of traveling, extortion, and
inexperience, but it had come to its last shilling now, and Margaret was
desperately in earnest as she held the lean purse in her hand and asked
herself the question, "What shall I do now?"
She looked about the smoky houses, and down at the broad river, where
the forest of masts bristled between her and the dappled horizon.
She wandered down to one of the docks, and seating herself upon a coil
of rope, gazed absently at the green-tinged water below. Poor Margaret's
heart was so absorbed in her musings, that she did not notice that the
man who was stumbling over a length of tarry chain, in his eagerness to
reach her, was his grace, the Duke of Piermont.
CHAPTER XI.
UNREQUITED LOVE.
"Good gracious, Miss Walsingham! Is it possible that this can be you?"
He seized her hand with a pressure which told of his delight; his tones
were thrilling with glad excitement; his face was beaming with joy at
this queer meeting.
He drew her up from her rough seat, and, still retaining her hand, made
her walk with him, as if he was determined not to lose her again, and he
feasted his eyes upon her face, utterly heedless of the group of
gayly-dressed people he had left, and rattled on with a storm of
inquiries.
"Where did you disappear to? No one could give me any satisfaction about
you, and I sought you in every direction. Come away from this confounded
dock. What are you doing here alone? Will you walk with me, and let me
have a conversation with you? Don't deny me this time, Miss Walsingham.
We're not at Hautville Park."
They walked through the crooked lanes of the town, and took a road which
led anon to mown fields, and to furze commons, and to holts of scrawny
hazel, where the red clouds of evening could gaze upon their deeper
reflections, unbroken by toiling barge, or floating timber, or
stationary ships; and where pleasant willows made flickering shadows,
and dipped into the rippling current.
"Now," said the young duke, when nothing but the bleating of lambs or
the lowing of oxen was likely to interrupt them, "tell me why you left
Hautville Park, and what you are doing here?"
"Why do you put me through such an inquisition?" asked Margaret. "When I
left Hautville Park I wished to be dropped by Lady Juliana's friends.
Your grace will confer an obligation by remembering this."
"I do not aspire to the honor of being Lady Juliana Ducie's friend,
therefore beg to be considered exempt from your prohibition."
"On your own behalf, then, your grace, I am compelled to forbid any
further interest in my movements. My sphere in life utterly removes me
from your attention, and my path will probably never cross yours after
to-day."
"Miss Walsingham," cried the young duke, fervently, "I will not let you
away this time without hearing me. I want to tell you that I formed an
opinion concerning you when my eyes first picked you out at the marquis'
dinner-table, which each hurried interview since has only strengthened,
and I have wished to tell you ever since that evening what a profound
impression your graces of mind have made upon me. Whatever wrongs the
world may accuse you of, I have the utmost confidence in you. I know
that you will pursue none but a noble, unselfish course--that you are
the purest, ay, and the bravest woman whom I ever met."
Margaret was quite silenced by this outburst, and walked on almost
frightened by the novelty of her position.
It struck her that the man walking by her side and gazing so eagerly
into her face was the only stanch friend she had on earth.
For a brief moment she had a glimpse of the sweetness which gladdens the
life of a woman beloved, and then she woke to calmer reality, and put
the vision from her firmly.
"I am afraid that you think all this very premature," resumed his grace,
again taking up the tale, "and so I suppose it is, to you. But it is not
so to me. I could not have a deeper devotion and admiration for you
years hence than I have now. Dear Miss Walsingham, will you make me
immeasurably happy by bestowing your hand upon me?"
"I am compelled to reject your grace's proposal."
The pair walked mechanically on for some minutes, the young man whirling
his cane furiously, Margaret eyeing with tear-laden eyes the dusty
turnpike before her.
"I think you had better take a rest for a few minutes," said his grace,
when he had whirled the gold top of his cane and had nothing else to do;
"we have been walking quite fast, and are at least a mile and a quarter
from the village."
He spread his perfumed handkerchief on a flat stone, and Margaret,
obeying an impulse the very opposite of that which she intended, sank
down wearily upon it.
"I am not surprised that you have refused my offer so decidedly," said
the young duke, returning to the attack as he paced restlessly back and
forth in front of her "when I remember how utterly unknown my temper and
disposition are to you, and how recent our acquaintanceship still is. I
am ready to admit my own presumption in addressing you. But Miss
Walsingham dear Miss Walsingham, may I hope that when you know me
better, when you have studied me long enough, and have completely made
up your mind about all that is bad or good in me, you will then permit
me to address you as I have done to-night, and say yes or no, with more
justice to me."
"Why do you come to me with this request? Have you not been paying court
to the Marquis of Ducie's daughter all summer? I ask you this before I
can assure myself that your avowal is an honor to me. Your answer cannot
influence in the slightest my decision."
"I give you my word of honor, Miss Walsingham, that I have not been
paying court to Lady Juliana Ducie; if you wish to know why, I found
that her heartless desertion of St. Udo Brand, after he lost his
property, outweighed with me her fascination; and, having accidentally
become acquainted with the whole story, I naturally preferred to shun
the fawning lip and clasping hand, and the craven heart of a Judas in
woman's lovely seeming, that I might find her contrast in Margaret
Walsingham."
"Do not mention the dead," said Margaret, deeply moved. "I can never,
never forget that I was the unwilling cause of his early death."
She was weak and exhausted, though as yet she did not know it, and she
bowed her head to weep in an abandonment of grief, which came upon her
unawares and would not be set aside.
His grace stopped with folded arms to look at her. Here was the woman
who was enriched by the death of a man who had insulted her, mourning
his untimely end with bitter tears. A vision of the woman who had
plighted him her troth rose up to confront this grief-shaken figure with
decorous sighs, and shallow regrets, and heartless unconcern, and he put
away the red-lipped siren from his thoughts with an execration of scorn,
and clung anew to faithful Margaret.
"Should it be ten years hence that you relent, let me try my fate a
second time," he cried, grasping her hand in his increased fervor of
admiration.
"Leave me," murmured Margaret. "I have given you my answer--crown your
acts of kindness by leaving me."
The wind swept over the flat moors with a bleaker sound; she gathered
her mantle closer, and rose to face the east--sad-colored as her own
future.
"And where are you going?" asked the Duke of Piermont. "Surely you are
not going to hide yourself from all your friends? You will let me know
where you purpose residing until you procure the situation you are in
search of?"
I wonder what his grace would have said, had he known how utterly
destitute she was--that she had but one shilling at that moment in her
pocket--that the only friend to whom she could or would apply was her
Father in Heaven?
"I cannot answer your questions," said Margaret, holding out her hand to
him; "but since you are so generous with your interest, I shall let you
into the secret of my future movements, always with the understanding
that the Marquis of Ducie and his friends shall not know. Now, my lord,
I have nothing more to say to you, except to thank you for the intended
honor which it would be ridiculous in me to accept. See, there is a
shower coming up, and you will get wet before you can return to the
village. Good-by."
"But you--Good Heaven! Miss Walsingham, where are you to go?"
She waved her hand toward a farm-house, and walked swiftly away as if
she would seek shelter there.
And the last that he saw of her, was her black garments like a speck on
the murky road, seeming to walk in between two great thunderous clouds,
and to be swallowed up.
Margaret kept hurrying on, so absorbed in her musings that she passed
the farm-house, where she might have found a hospitable shelter for the
night, and hurried down the lonely road away from the river, where the
rising wind waited for her at sudden corners, and the black clouds
descended nearer with the darkening night.
And she hurried on faster, and her eyes pierced the gathering blackness,
with the sad and weary gaze of one whose heart carries a secret sorrow,
and tears fell slowly from them, which blurred the way, and blotted out
the lowering sky.
Where had she wandered to?
There was no friendly light from any cottage window to guide her, no
sheep-bell or halloo of herd-boy. Her clothes were heavy with moisture,
and she was very tired and very desolate.
How her head ached, and her arms!
Oh! if she could just be so blessed as to sink upon some kind woman's
bed this very moment, and sleep!
Perhaps she would fall in some lime-pit, or ditch, or into the slimy
lock of some canal, and die miserably.
Who would weep for her if she died? Who cared for Margaret Walsingham?
And the thought of her utter desolation overcome her, as weariness,
hunger, and storm had failed to do.
She crouched down beneath a furze-bush, and, resting her hot and beating
head upon her hands, wept, poor soul!
And then came unconsciousness and utter oblivion.
* * * * *
"I declare, John, she knows me! Here, take a sup o' this barley-water,
my lamb. Dear heart! she's sensible once more. Ain't there another drop
than this, John? Mayhap it's plenty." Margaret looked with languid eyes
upon the rugged figure of a man, clad in dingy red-dust habiliments, who
was standing between her and a small window, with his head sunk in a
curious way between his hands.
His brawny shoulders were heaving, and his rough shock of hair trembled
like sea-grass in a hurricane, while a gurgling sort of noise issued
from him.
Had a fit of laughter seized him, or was the man crying?
Whose bed was she lying in, hung with red calico curtains?
Where had she seen that figure in the clay-colored smock before?
And then Margaret saw a sallow-faced woman of spare figure bending over
her, with a tin cup in her hand, and a glistening channel down each
cheek.
"Mrs. Doane!" she breathed, in wonder.
"There I knowed it! Hark to that, John!" cried the woman, with an
exultant chuckle, which threatened to be strangled by a sob.
"Didn't she call me by name, the blessed lamb?"
She raised the blessed lamb in her arms, who, truth to say, scarcely