Faithful Margaret: A Novel

Captain Brand wrote a polite and indifferent reply to Margaret Walsingham, expressing regrets, sympathy, and excuses, and promising to run down to Surrey some day next week. Margaret wrote an entreating note, setting forth the urgency of the case and the certainty that Mrs. Brand was dying; and Captain Brand telegraphed a dry, "Very well, I will be at Regis to-night." And all day long the dying woman sank lower, and forgot ere long the things of earth, and hour after hour went past, bringing only wilder grief and anxiety to the hapless Margaret. So she was still tied to the wehr-wolf of her loathing fancy, and until St. Udo Brand chose to come to his grandmother that tie was indissoluble. Margaret Walsingham was aroused from her hopeless meditations by the appearance of Symonds driving Mr. Davenport, Mrs. Brand's lawyer, into the court-yard, and she descended swiftly to meet him in the library. Mr. Davenport entered--a tall, thin, wiry man, with beetling brows and irascible eyes--and cautiously shut the door. "Is Mrs. Brand conscious yet?" he asked. "She is asleep," said Margaret. "We fear that she will not live to see the heir. Now, Mr. Davenport, I have asked you to come here that when Captain Brand arrives you may be upon the ground to change the will legally. Dr. Gay hopes that she may awake to consciousness for a few minutes before death. Wait here, if you please, until you are summoned." Without another word she left the library, followed to the door by the lawyer's keen eyes, and ascended to the death-chamber. Dr. Gay sat by the dying woman, wiping the death-dews from her brow; her eyes were open and were eagerly fixed upon the door. Margaret entered, they flickered up into a transient brightness, her cold lips faintly smiled. "You know me, do you not?" murmured Margaret, kneeling beside her and laying her cheek fondly on the pillow beside her friend's. The cold lips framed an eager "Yes," the groping hand sought hers and pressed it gratefully. Margaret Walsingham's tears fell fast; she kissed the wan cheek of her dying patroness and smoothed her white tresses back from her clammy brow. "God be with you, my good Margaret!" muttered the old lady, brokenly, "you have been a good friend to a lonely woman. You shall be rewarded when I am gone." A wave of anguish swept over Margaret's plain, proud face, her voice grew beautiful with the soul's voiceless eloquence, her soft eyes pleaded wistfully, her shy lips quivered beseechingly. The old dowager's glaring eyes dwelt on her with gloating admiration. "You will make a noble lady," muttered Mrs. Brand, with a fond smile. "Come, tell me you are satisfied with my arrangements for you?" "No, no, I cannot meet St. Udo Brand--and I will not stand between him and his own property. I cannot, indeed!" cried Margaret, with a heart-rending sob. The words rang out sharply in the hushed death-chamber, and the little doctor shifted uneasily in his chair, and stopped stirring the stimulant he was preparing, to gaze from one to the other--the lady and her companion. Twice Mrs. Brand essayed to speak, but her trembling lips refused to articulate a word, and her faint eyes sought Margaret's in dumb appeal. "Say but one word before Dr. Gay and Mr. Davenport," pleaded Margaret, wildly. "Say that you wish the will to be canceled, and your grandson to come into his inheritance without incumbrance. For the sake of the love we have borne each other, grant my request." "Unsay those words, my darling," wailed Mrs. Brand. "You give me a parting stab I never thought to receive from you. Oh, my darling, can't you save St. Udo from ruin for my sake?--do you grudge to do something for my sake?" "No, dear madam, I would be glad to die for your sake," cried Margaret, lifting up a brave, love illumined face; "but not this--oh, Heaven! not this." Mrs. Brand closed her eyes with a pang of mortal anguish. "Have I been mistaken in my Margaret?" she uttered, brokenly. "Is she not the high, heroic soul I deemed her?" Tears rose from the heart that thought never to feel another earthly pang, and rushed from the eyes which she thought to have closed in peace; and Margaret's tender heart accused her sternly for her own self-care in this most pitiful hour. "Do not fear for your grandson," said she, eagerly, "I shall not suffer him to be defrauded." Mrs. Brand turned a piercing gaze upon her. "You must do your best to win St. Udo's love," she whispered, earnestly, "else you will defraud him of his rights, and his ruin will be at your door." Poor Margaret's head sank on her breast, her heart grew heavy as lead. Her last supplications had been made, and vainly. Death was stealing closer to his feeble victim. Where, where was St. Udo Brand that he came not in time to save her and himself from this fatal chain which his grandmother's death was to rivet round them both? The trampling of horses hoofs reached her ear. She started to her feet and listened breathlessly. Yes, through the still April eve stole those welcome sounds, nearer and clearer. An arrival at Castle Brand. Margaret took her dying friend in her arms and tenderly kissed her cold, trembling mouth, and laid her on her pillow again. "Captain Brand has arrived," said she, softly. "I shall bring him in at once." She stepped to the doctor's side--he was still stirring the stimulant with a nervous hand. "Give it to her quickly," she whispered; "the heir has come." She left the chamber, her pulses throbbed with a vague sense of evil, her limbs seemed heavy as lead; and as she crept down the great vaulted staircase, lit by pale, flickering tapers, she thought that her own tall shadow writhed and shuddered before her like the phantom of a deadly tear. The great hall-door stood open, the servants were waiting decorously in the hall to greet the heir, and Purcell, the old steward, stood out on the threshold bare-headed, his silvery locks glistening in the broad moon's light. Margaret Walsingham stepped beside him and eagerly looked for St. Udo Brand. Two horsemen were cantering across the Waaste; the night wind bore the fragment of a gay _chanson_ to the doors of Castle Brand. Under the Norman oaks they rode softly over the velvet turf, now snatched from view by the dense hazel coppice, anon seen plainly on the brow of this gentle curve. Nearer, nearer--home at last to Seven-Oak Waaste. They slackened their pace as they approached, and gazed admiringly at the ancient castle, then observing a lady in the doorway, curved into the court and dismounted. "Is this St. Udo Brand?" whispered Margaret to the steward. A tall man had approached to the foot of the granite steps, leaving his companion standing between the pawing horses, holding a bridle of each, and serenely smoking a cigar--a tall man wrapped in a Spanish riding-cloak, who gazed about him with a dark, lowering eye. "Can't say, Miss Margaret," muttered the steward; "if it is, he's a sight the worse for wear; but I haven't seen him for well nigh onto seven years." The old man descended stiffly to greet the heir. "Welcome to the Castle, captain," said he, sourly. "It's well you come at last, you're but just in time to see her alive." The stranger removed his hat and disclosed a thin, wary face, just now wreathed in courtly smiles. "I have not the honor to be Captain Brand," he said. "I am merely his messenger." "What? Heh? Captain Brand didn't come after all?" cried Mr. Purcell, recoiling from the dark, smiling face. "Yes, he came; he will remain in Regis to-night, and when less fatigued will pay his devoirs to Mrs. Brand. He made me the bearer of a note to Miss Walsingham. Can I see her?" The steward turned; the man looked up, his black, flashing eyes rested upon her. She stood not three feet away, looking down upon him, her white, electric face startling him in the chill radiance of the summer moon, her long garments sweeping in regal folds about her magnificent person, her blue-black hair curving in rich waves under the lace mantilla she had thrown over her head--a woman to mark, to remember. She stretched forth a long, white hand, with a vehement gesture. "Give it to me," she said. "I am Miss Walsingham." The man forgot his courtly smile and his wary watchfulness; his artificial polish cracked in all directions and exposed a terribly startled man. He gazed at Margaret Walsingham with arrested eye, and his hands strayed unconsciously to his wrists as if they would find spectral shackles there. The envelope he held dropped to his feet, he stooped with a muttered oath, and recovering it, reached it to her outstretched hand. She did not retire to read the missive, the moonlight saved her the necessity, and the man stood awaiting an answer, as she tore the note from its crested envelope, and in a moment had mastered its contents. A blaze of indignation spread over her brow and cheek. "Heartless trifler!" ejaculated she, bitterly, and read these words aloud to the steward: "St. Udo Brand presents his compliments to Miss Walsingham, and his thanks for her tearful invitations to join her in the melancholy duties of sick-nurse. Feeling that his vocation does not lie in soothing the nervous sufferings of the aged, he begs Miss Walsingham's disinterested heart to hold him excused; and confidently commends his dear grandmother to the delicate care of her pet and _protegee_ until such time as she can assure him that his presence will not bring on another attack of the vapors upon Madam Brand. Hoping that you will both enjoy a good night's rest, and that you may feel justified in receiving me some time to-morrow, I remain yours, "ST. UDO BRAND." "Captain Brand must come instantly," cried Margaret, and turned sharply upon the quailing ambassador. "Do you hear, sir?" She paused with a lady's instinct--a lady's aversion to address an unknown man. "Roland Mortlake, Miss Walsingham," murmured the stranger coming out of his fog. "Go tell Captain Brand that Mrs. Brand is dying--that she has but a few minutes to live, and that he must come instantly if he would hear her last words. You will remember, Mr. Mortlake? And say the will must be changed, or Captain Brand will be ruined. Tell him that. Now go, for Heaven's sake!" The stranger turned his wrapt scrutiny of herself into a keen and crafty attention of her words. He repeated them after her, with a significant pause after each clause, as if he longed to wrest the uttermost moiety of a meaning from her scant expressions. "Symonds shall accompany you with the carriage, and bring Captain Brand," said Margaret. "Send him, Purcell." The steward trotted away to dispatch the coachman, and the pair were left with each other. The man on the lowest step and the woman on the highest gazed fixedly in each other's faces. His fierce, envious, and inquisitive; hers cold, distrustful, and unflinching. In that silent interview their souls stood forth, each revealing to the other, and doomed to future recognition under the most perfect masking which rascality could assume to compass its end, or purity devise to hide from peril. Then Roland Mortlake bowed to the earth, and, striding back to his horse and his companion, uttered a terrible execration. The other tossed his cigar over the low stone wall into a tulip bed, and, springing to his horse, followed his angry comrade as he galloped away. "_Gardez-tu_, my friend," cried he, breezily. "You English take great news sourly, _ma foi!_ you curse Mademoiselle Fortune herself when she smiles upon you the blandest." His clipped English rang out gaily on the summer breeze, and those