Faithful Margaret: A Novel
poor miss, you must drink something before you go to strengthen you, and
eat a bite."
"Nothing in this house--no!" cried Margaret, shuddering; "I cannot be
sure of even the food!"
"Don't let them put you in a hasylum, deary love; be careful what you
say, now won't you?"
"No fear of that with these papers," replied Margaret, holding up the
satchel exultingly.
By dint of perseverance the housekeeper prevailed upon her to drink a
glass of wine.
It is doubtful if she could have walked down stairs, and borne the
ordeal of her terror, but for this stimulant. But she reached the lower
door, and entered the carriage safely.
The colonel, after all his watching, was strangely derelict now, when he
had most cause for vigilance, and seemed quite unconscious that his
enemy was escaping to her friends, out of his reach.
Margaret's eyes traveled once over the towers and battlements of gloomy
Castle Brand, as they left it behind. They seemed to look a long
farewell--perhaps a farewell which would last forever; and then a turn
in the narrow stable-road brought a grim brick wall between her and her
castle, and she sank back upon the carriage-seat.
Ten minutes after her departure Colonel Brand came out of the library,
with his slouching dog at his heels, and called the housekeeper.
"Here's a note to Dr. Gay, informing him of Miss Walsingham's state. Can
you send a messenger with it to the village immediately?"
Chetwode turned livid and then gray; held out her hand for the note and
drew it back again.
The colonel's eyes scintillated in a way that made her blood run cold,
and his boding smile was a failure as far as reassuring her went.
"What's the matter, woman? Have you the presumption to refuse to send a
messenger at my request?"
"I couldn't help it," stammered the old woman, bursting into sobs; "she
wouldn't hear to one word, and she--she's off to Regis."
"Who? Miss Walsingham? Have you let her leave the castle after all?"
"Lor', master, she was set to go. I thought it wouldn't make much
difference whether she was took from Dr. Gay's to the mad-house or from
here."
"You are right," muttered the colonel, grimly. "It makes no difference."
He tore his note in two, pushed the housekeeper rudely out of his way,
and strode out to the solitary Waaste.
The Brand carriage stopped opposite Lawyer Davenport's office door, and
Symonds dismounted.
"Why," exclaimed Miss Walsingham, opening the window, "I do believe the
door is locked. Surely he has gone away very early in the morning."
Symonds rapped and tried the door--peeped through the dusty window, and
found that Miss Walsingham was right.
"We shall go up to his house," she said, pulling up the window.
Arriving at Mr. Davenport's neat and commodious bachelor's abode,
Symonds, after inquiry, reported that the lawyer had left on "sudden
business this morning for Wales; they don't know where or when he's
coming back, but you will hear all about it from Dr. Gay; which was the
message left for you."
Again Margaret leaned back in her seat. A look of bitter disappointment
and even terror was depicted upon her face.
Once more they rolled into Regis over the slushy snow, and paused at the
doctor's house.
Former disappointments had made her so nervous and fearful that she
dropped the window and bent forward the better to hear the report.
"Here's Miss Walsingham, to see Dr. Gay. Is he in?"
"No," answered the boy in buttons, "he's away."
"What hour will yer master be at home?"
"Dunno. He was called away very sudden, on a journey; mistress knows."
"What?" cried Margaret, shrilly.
"He says the doctor was called away, on a sudden, too, and that he don't
know where."
"Heaven help me, what does this mean?" said the poor girl, alighting and
confronting the boy like a pale ghost risen out of its grave.
"When did he go--you surely know that?"
"I'll call mistress," said the boy, backing. "Come in, miss, and wait."
In a few moments the doctor's wife joined her, melancholy as usual.
"Oh, Mrs. Gay, it cannot be possible that the doctor has gone away
without letting me know?"
"I do not know, my dear young lady, but it is quite certain that he went
away somewhere without letting me know. I had precisely fifteen minutes
to pack his valise in."
"Don't you know where he has gone?" asked Margaret, the gloom of death
descending upon her heart.
"Not exactly; he vouchsafed to mutter 'Wales,' as he ran down the steps,
without even a farewell to his boy, far less to his wife, and for what,
or what he can mean by it is a mystery to me."
"Did he leave no message for me?"
"I believe he did. I do seem to recall that he said you were to go to
Mr. Davenport for explanations. Yes, that was the message."
"Good heaven! And Mr. Davenport left word that I was to come to your
husband for explanations! They must have gone away together! And I am
left alone to fight for my life and to stem the tide of fraud!" moaned
poor Margaret, bursting into tears; "and oh, what shall I do? What shall
I do?"
CHAPTER XXI.
WAS IT A RUSE?
The tide of horror was mounting higher, the waters gurgled to her lips,
and her own feeble hands must raise a footway from out of the hissing
waves to bear her safely over.
"Where now, miss?" asked Symonds, holding the coach door in his hand.
"Drive to the office of Seamore Emersham, the lawyer," said Margaret.
The coachman mounted to the box, turned the carriage, and rolled down
the street again.
"Can it be doubted that my guardians have been purposely sent out of the
way, that I may not appeal to them for protection?" she thought. "No, I
am not deceived; Mortlake is too talented a plotter to leave a door of
safety open for his victim. With what plausible excuse can he have duped
the suspicious Davenport, and the humane Gay, that they have both left
me in his power? No doubt he expected to keep me a prisoner in the
castle until I had either capitulated or fallen a victim to his rage.
But I have escaped him, and am free to seek protection where I please,
and since my friends have allowed themselves to be cheated by the
villain, I shall lay my case before this other lawyer, Mr. Emersham. I
have only to disclose the outrage attempted last night, and my enemy
shall be arrested. Oh! you arch fiend! you did not expect this chapter
in the story, did you? No, you wretch, you do not know that Margaret
Walsingham is posting to sure victory, and your certain destruction!"
Symonds drew up before Mr. Emersham's windows, and the lawyer himself
looked out at this unwonted vision of a carriage at his door, and drew
back with a smirk of satisfaction!
Margaret had her foot on the step, her hand on the servant's shoulder,
and was about to alight, when a triviality stayed her steps, an incident
changed her purpose--she sat down again and waited.
Through the drab-colored mire of the village street, a man was trudging,
his scarlet coat the one object of interest in the lonely street, an
envelope in his outstretched hand shining like a flag of truce--he
hurried eagerly toward the Castle Brand carriage--the village postman.
Reaching the pavement before the lawyer's door, he handed Margaret a
letter, and touched his hat deferentially.
"Thought I couldn't catch yer in time," panted the old man to Symonds,
"and there's 'immediate' on the letter. I saw yer pass the post office,
and knew it would save me the tramp to the Waaste if I could catch up.
Good-day, sir."
He trudged away, and the coachman lounged about the pavement awaiting
his mistress' pleasure.
The letter was written in the welcome hand of Dr. Gay, and Margaret
devoured its contents with sparkling eyes.
Thus the good old doctor wrote:
"MY DEAR MISS MARGARET:
"I am writing this from----, in Berks, where I have stopped for
an hour to dine. I have been very unexpectedly called away to
Llandaff, to follow out this extraordinary case of yours, and
am anxious to run it through before I agitate you; hence my
sudden departure.
"When the worry of starting off was over, and I had time to
think over your position, I realized how uncomfortable you
would be under the sole charge of Davenport, who is always
rather hard upon you, considering that you are in a precarious
state of mind, so I thought of a very good plan for you. I
require to stay in Wales for a week or so, and will stop at
Caerlyon's Hotel, a very nice house, in Llandaff, where you
might be quite comfortable. Suppose then, you run off from the
colonel and come to me?
"I hope you will be pleased with the idea, for you need a
change badly. You can take Purcell with you and come by rail as
far as Cirencester, where you take the coach. Depend upon it, I
shall look for you every day. Think of it, and start to-morrow.
"Your obedient servant,
"RUFUS GAY."
Margaret laid down the letter with a trembling hand, and put that hand
to her forehead wildly. A dark suspicion had assailed her from the
moment she began to read, and now she sat wrapped in perplexity and
terror.
"Is this a snare for me also?" thought she. "Is this letter forged?"
She seized it again and pored over it with keen eyes; but its neat,
cramped chirography revealed nothing. She had had many notes from Dr.
Gay in precisely these finical characters.
The postmarks were all there upon the envelope, the sentences in the
letter echoed the doctor's every day speech. The whole missive seemed
too _bona fide_ to doubt for a moment.
And yet she doubted and hesitated, and longing frantically to obey the
welcome request which was couched in the familiar language of her old
friend, she thrust the hope from her with suspicion and loathing.
Torn between two opinions she gazed with stony eyes into vacancy; while
the sharp young lawyer eyed her inquisitively from his office window,
and Symonds lounging about the pavement, ventured to whistle a few
dreary notes to remind his mistress of his existence, and beat his arms
across his breast, to suggest to her the bitterness of the wintry wind.
She looked at him at last, with a resolute face, and commanded him to
see whether Mr. Emersham was alone.
"I have nothing to hope for but death, if I stay here," mused Margaret,
almost calmly, "and I can meet no worse if I obey this letter, and go
away. I may as well have the benefit of the doubt, and go to Llandaff,
since there is a possibility that this Letter is not forged. Yes, I can
fear no worse fate than death, and that menaces me here every moment of
my guardians' absence. I will obey the letter and go."
A dingy office boy, answering Symonds' knock, announced that Mr.
Emersham was entirely disengaged, and Margaret alighted, and entered the
office.
The lawyer hastened to salute her, and had her seated, and the door shut
with much alacrity. She bestowed upon him one piercing glance; the
shallow eyes answered her appeal for wise counsel in the negative; the
_blase_ mouth answered her hopes for protection also in the negative.
The fast young lawyer was clearly not the man to whom she could trust
her secret or in whom she could place confidence.
The fast young lawyer's smartly furnished office and diamond ring, spoke
of a thriving practice; but his old office-coat, his idle hands clasped
behind him, his reckless swagger and his insincere face spoke more
reliable of shams, and shifts, and unscrupulous quirks to fill the empty
purse. Clearly, Mr. Seamore Emersham was a man to be bought with money;
and Roland Mortlake was the man to buy him; no disclosures must be made
by Margaret Walsingham before him.
"Dr. Gay's letter said to me 'start to-morrow,'" thought she, "but this