Faithful Margaret: A Novel
"what brings you here? I hope nothing annoying has occurred; but you do
look very ill."
"Mr. Davenport, will you send for Dr. Gay? I have something of
importance to communicate to you both."
"Certainly--certainly. I'll send immediately. No, I'll go myself. You
won't object to sitting by my nice warm fire here until I come back? And
I'll lock you in, if you like."'
"I don't object."
In a very short time the two executors entered, both breathing hard, and
each having an anxious air about him.
"Good day, my dear Miss Walsingham," said the little doctor, drawing a
chair close beside her; "I hear you have something on your mind to tell
us. I think you might have sent for us, instead of walking here in your
state of health; it scarcely looks well, my dear, especially--especially
as it is you, my dear."
"I cannot help it. What I have to say outweighs in importance the
trivial question of whether I come to you, or you visit me. You both, I
have no doubt, were surprised at the manner in which I insisted on
leaving your house, Dr. Gay, and taking up my abode at Seven-Oak
Waaste?"
Both executors admitted that they had been surprised, very much
surprised, the lawyer amended.
"I had a secret reason for my course of action," continued the ward,
looking from one to the other, "which I did not feel at liberty to
divulge until I had assured myself whether the motives that actuated me
were just or not. I am now assured that they were, and I desire to
divulge them to you, that you may prevent a fraud."
"My dear," said the lawyer, "isn't all this going to lead us to Colonel
Brand?"
"It is going to lead you to the man whom I left at Seven-Oak Waaste."
"Is the colonel at Seven-Oak Waaste?"
"Yes."
"And you here?"
"In spite of etiquette--yes."
The two executors looked at each other as if prepared to hear any
insanity after this.
"Have you made a deed of gift of Seven-Oaks to St. Udo, and are you here
for more testimonials?" asked Mr. Davenport, helping himself to snuff.
"You have not fathomed my secret at all," answered Margaret, in a
repressed tone, though she was in a state of high excitement; "when I
willfully left the shelter and the protection of your house, Dr. Gay, it
was to fulfil that clause of the will, which says, 'Should St. Udo Brand
or Margaret Walsingham die within the year, the property shall revert to
the survivor.' I left your house to take possession of Castle Brand."
The executors stared.
"But, my dear girl, St. Udo is not dead!" said Dr. Gay, imploringly.
"Good gracious, what do you mean?" sputtered the lawyer. "You may take
the property by refusing to marry the colonel, or you may keep the
property by quarreling with him and making him glad to leave you, but
you can't take the property on the plea of his death, when he is by your
own showing sitting in Castle Brand at this moment."
"That brings me to my accusation," cried Margaret, almost wildly; "I
have convinced myself that the person who has come here in the semblance
of St. Udo Brand, to woo me, and to be in time the master of Seven-Oak
Waaste, is a villain who has weighed well the risks he runs, is, in
short, an _impostor_!"
"Good Heavens!" gasped the physician.
"Your proofs, madam," demanded the lawyer, with another, and a larger
pinch of snuff.
CHAPTER XV.
A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
"My proofs are these," answered Margaret, forcing herself to speak
quietly. "He acts exactly as a man would act who was personating some
one else. He knows the true St. Udo's history to a certain extent, and
cleverly acts upon it; but go beyond the part he has rehearsed, and he
betrays the most extraordinary confusion. When first I saw him I was
astonished at the change which a few months in America had made. The
longer I studied him the more palpable became his disguise to my eyes;
and I am now morally convinced that my suspicions are well founded."
"All this is nothing," said Mr. Davenport. "You have advanced no proofs,
except to show that from the first day of his return you conceived a
dislike to him."
"I made him commit himself wholly to-day," continued Margaret,
anxiously. "The first time he betrayed his ignorance of the contents of
that letter which St. Udo Brand wrote me upon leaving the castle; the
second time he was so puzzled by the fastening of the library glass
door, that he could not open it. That door, Mr. Davenport, which Mrs.
Brand's grandson used exclusively."
"And would you condemn a man upon such accidents of memory as these?"
"Had St. Udo Brand that cowardly glance, that crime-darkened visage,
that crawling, scheming softness?" cried Margaret, with flashing eyes.
"Ugh! he is a serpent drawing his slimy folds into our midst--he is a
travesty on the dead hero of yonder battle-field."
"You did not always think so well of Captain Brand," retorted the
lawyer, with another exchange of glances with Gay; "and I should think
that seeing him once--and that under circumstances rather damaging to
him--you would hardly be capable of judging of his heroism or other good
qualities, in comparison with any one."
"I am not deceived," said Margaret; "and, if you will watch this man,
you cannot be deceived either."
The executors remained eying each other with a dubious frown.
This charge was leaving a very disagreeable impression on their minds.
The physician remarked the gleaming eyes beside him with a speculation
as to the sanity of his ward.
The lawyer ruminated over her communication with a speculation as to her
honesty.
"Be careful, Miss Walsingham, not to get yourself into trouble," said
Mr. Davenport.
"It might prove very damaging to your character to defame the man who
was to have shared with you Mrs. Brand's estates."
"Would it not be more damaging to my character and to yours, Mr.
Davenport, as retainer of the Brand estates, to allow an impostor a
foothold at Seven-Oak Waaste?"
"Fair and softly, madam. He can't have a foothold unless you are pleased
to accept him as your husband. Why attempt any exposure at all? Why not
suffer his attentions until he proposes, and then dismiss him as if you
were dismissing the veritable St. Udo. Be he who he may, he can't gain a
foothold after that."
Margaret's face waxed paler.
Gazing in turn at each of the executors she might expect little sympathy
from the half cajoling regards of the one, or from the impassive scowl
of the other.
"If he is an adventurer, come here with the carefully-prepared plot by
which he hopes to win the Brand estates," she said, slowly, "he will not
be likely to stop at his efforts because a woman stands in the way. He
will have worked too hard and risked too much to be lightly turned from
his purpose. He will have weighed well the chances of a refusal. The
woman who stands in his way will be removed if she refuses to be his
stepping-stone."
"A parcel of moonshine!" cried Davenport, hotly.
"I implore you to believe otherwise. Do you think I would have come to
you on mere suspicion? I am perfectly convinced in my own mind, sir."
"But you must convince others as well as yourself. You must bring
proofs. Why, we can think nothing but that that ancient pique of yours
against the captain has touched your brain, and made you really take up
this unworthy suspicion against a man who is the same as ever he was. I
see no difference in him, except that he looks the worse for wear."
"Which his hard usage makes very natural," said Dr. Gay.
"You refuse to help me, then?"
"What would you like us to do, Miss Margaret?"
"I would like you to force this man into proving his identity; confront
him with such circumstances as must unmask his plot, if he has one; you
have the power and I have not."
"I don't see that we are authorized to molest any man upon such crazy
foundations as those you have advanced; indeed, I can't consent to take
one step of an unfriendly nature against the colonel. I have been a
faithful solicitor for the Brands these many years, and it is late in
the day to turn against them now. Give it up, Miss Walsingham."
"I shall not give it up," retorted Margaret rising; "if I must work
single-handed, I will, but remember, you have left me to battle with a
dangerous and desperate foe."
She left the office without another word, and slowly retraced her steps
toward Seven-Oak Waaste.
She was imbued with as profound a sense of her own defenseless condition
as any woman under the sun.
She invoked the help of her only protectors, and they had indignantly
refused to be alarmed. If she would unmask a bold and determined
villain, she must do it alone.
"I am going to have a hard struggle," she thought; "and it may be a
struggle for my life."
No wonder that she stood still in her walk, to turn this thought about
her mind with a horrible earnestness: it took its weird and awful shape
from a passing memory of those murderously treacherous eyes which had
surely taken her in more than once in the library that morning; it
loomed larger and larger as she pondered, and the chill shadow of death
seemed to be over her.
"For my life," she repeated, gazing with dilated eyes into the warning
future.
Castle Brand appeared grayly before her from among its bare armed oaks;
the brown Waaste stretched far and wide, and a black pool lay in a
gloomy hallow, deep and inky, as if its stormy face kept impassively
calm over secrets of murder and violence.
For a time the natural instinct of self was strong in the heart of the
lonely girl; she quailed before the dangers of her course, and almost
persuaded herself to turn and fly; but her inborn courage came to her
aid; a something in the soul of this naturally weak woman rose in fierce
protest against allowing an impostor to triumph; her fears faded away
out of sight, as implacable anger succeeded the brief emotion.
"Let _him_ wear the dead St. Udo's honors?" she ejaculated. "Let _him_
be Ethel Brand's heir? No--not while I, the sworn keeper of the wishes
of her who was to me a benefactress, can raise a hand to balk him. You
wretch! you shall find Margaret Walsingham no coward."
The rattle of a gig aroused her, and she looked round to behold Dr. Gay
approaching.
"What are you standing there for, rooted to the spot?" he asked, drawing
up beside her. "Are you surveying, or inveighing?"
"The latter term is the most appropriate. I was mentally measuring my
courage with that of the subject of our afternoon's consultation."
"Step up beside me; I would like a few words with you. You left us in
such a hurry that I felt it necessary to follow you."
She obeyed him, and they leisurely approached the gates.
"Davenport and I have been thinking that it is our duty to warn you how
you give wind to this extraordinary suspicion of yours; it may prove
embracing, perhaps dangerous for you, and would create a great deal of
needless scandal."
"You wish me to be utterly silent on the subject?"
"Well, yes, my dear; it is by far the safest plan."
She pondered deeply for a few minutes.
"I promise to keep my convictions to myself, until I have found such
proofs against him as will satisfy you and Mr. Davenport."
"Has Colonel Brand left the castle?" asked the doctor, as the
lodge-keeper opened the gates.
"No sir: there he is"--pointing under the trees--"him and his doag. It
comed tearing oop from the village like a mad thing, an hour agone, and
yelped like a frog until its maister comed to it."
There under the naked trees, kicking up the withered leaves in the
little clouds, shuffled the colonel, with head dropped on his breast,
and folded arms; so deep in reverie that he seemed unconscious of all
outside of his own brain.
Round and round he walked in an idle circle upon the leaf padded park