Faithful Margaret: A Novel
swaggered to her side, with hands thrown up in deprecatory fervor.
"_Ma foi!_ Mademoiselle Marguerite!" he exclaimed, "accept the
consolation of your devoted admirer! Command me, your slave!"
"Leave me," murmured Margaret, gently. "Ask a servant to show
you--somewhere--the picture-gallery--I will summon you."
Monsieur Calembours protested that her tender heart did his eloquence
high honor, and slid, with many obeisances, to the door, leaving the
overwrought girl free at last to suffer the burden of her joy, and to
throw herself in an attitude of devotion, and to weep such tears as form
the specks of celestial blue in the drab cloud of life.
When in half an hour the French gentleman was conveyed back to Miss
Walsingham, he found her calm, serene, and happy-eyed, ready to consult
with intelligence and spirit equal to his own upon the course she meant
to pursue.
"You will scarcely be surprised to hear," she said, greeting him with, a
beaming smile, "that I purpose retiring wholly from my position of
heiress of Seven-Oak Waaste, and of offering it to Colonel Brand. I am
well aware of the pride which impelled him to scorn fighting for his
rights with an adventuress, and knowing this, I am sure that no letter
from the executors, or myself, would lead him to accept, amicably, his
rightful position. So, in order to leave him no room for
misunderstanding me, I propose going with one of my advisers to New York
and personally urging my determination upon him. He is weak and in bad
health, you say"--here the woman's yearning heart spoke out in her
glowing eyes--"and I think it in a measure my duty to go and take care
of him until he is safe at his own Castle Brand. What do you say to
this, sir?"
"Magnificent, Marguerite!" sighed the chevalier; "but, mademoiselle, let
me be your counsellor in this little thing. Duty before pleasure."
"What duty chevalier?"
"We must give our convict his dose of oakum sweet, _mi ladi_, before we
dig the murdered man out of his grave."
"No, no!" exclaimed Margaret, with a shudder. "How could you, when St.
Udo was not really slain by him?"
"Nothing easier," replied the young man, with a dull shrug. "We know not
this thing that Colonel Brand is alive until the murderer is no more,
and then we discover our mistake and the heir of Castle Brand at one and
the same time. Eh, mademoiselle?"
"Would you cause an innocent man to lose his life?"
"Innocent--_pouf!_ So is the weasel of rats! His _intention_ was not
innocent, _m'amie_, and it is too well for him that he should have the
return trip to Tasmania for nothing, and make some chain-gang miserable
for life. Bah! you Thoms, why did I not kick you oftener? _Mon Dieu!_
how blind we are."
"I scarcely suppose you are really in earnest with such a proposition,"
said Margaret, fixing her clear eyes incredulously upon him, "so I shall
proceed with my plans. I hope you will not object to my letting this
strange communication which you have made be fully known to the
executors, and putting myself wholly under their protection through all
my movements? My life has been so cruelly attempted, that, though I have
no misgivings with regard to you"--she smiled kindly upon her good
fairy--"I have been taught too severe a lesson to desire acting without
the express protection of my guardians, Mr. Davenport and Dr. Gay."
"Confide everything to your guardians, mademoiselle," rejoined the
chevalier, with a flourish of his hands outward, as if he was bailing
his heart dry, "and have them both with you if you wish--only do not
exclude me from the dear privilege of standing beside to see the
hand-grip of reconciliation, and to bless at the proper moment, and to
be the good _sorcier_."
"You shall accompany me," said Margaret, with bright tears in her eyes,
"and perhaps you shall see the reconciliation."
"By gar! you are von angel. Now, my satisfaction would be superb if you
would but wait until that leetle game was played out with Monsieur
Handcuff, and that I should stand by him at the proper moment to see the
noose grip, and the drop, and the juggling trick which turns a villain
into a human tassel. Hah!"--rubbing his hand with relish--"I think I see
him, the dog!"
"You will go to Mr. Seamore Emersham, who is counsel for the prosecution
against Mortlake and tell him, first, that the man has been arrested as
a runaway convict; second that his attempt to murder Colonel Brand has
proved a failure, and that Colonel Brand is now at New York. Then invite
him up to the castle this evening, where you and he will meet the
executors, and a consultation can be held upon the subject."
The chevalier seeing that the young lady was quite deaf to his rather
swindling plan of vengeance on Mortlake, smothered his inclinations as
if they had been expressed in joke, and agreed to her arrangements; and
after a very cordial interview they parted.
In due time the executors were put in possession of Calembour's story,
and, made wiser by former mistakes, they gave no signs of incredulity to
the florid narrator's wildest flight by which to enhance the value of
his services, but treated him as a gentleman; and even agreed in the
readiest manner to reward his kindness by the gift of a thousand pounds,
as soon as they should obtain St. Udo Brand's consent.
As this involved the speedy unearthing of that heroic treasure, the
chevalier became proportionally eager for them to start on their journey
of recovery.
Mr. Emersham, with almost a hideous knowledge of how deceitful and
desperately wicked the human heart can be, refused to give up his case
against Roland Mortlake for the murder of St. Udo Brand, until it was
proved beyond all doubt that the latter still lived.
One part of the chevalier's story was found to be quite true, namely,
the fact of Roland Mortlake's arrest as a runaway convict, at
Canterbury; and presently the rest of his story began to crop out in the
general press, and became the theme of conversation at every fireside
throughout the country; and the glad _furor_ that got up among the
tenants of Seven-Oak Waaste, and the farmers, and the resident gentry,
and the houses of rank, sounded in the ears of Margaret Walsingham, and
became to her sweet as music.
A fortnight after the chevalier's first appearance at the castle, Miss
Walsingham, accompanied by Davenport and the Frenchman, took passage at
Liverpool for New York.
CHAPTER XXVI.
UNEXPECTED MEETING.
Margaret Walsingham kept her own state-room so exclusively that the
passengers, many of whom had heard of the heroine of Castle Brand, had
no opportunity of meeting her; and to all their overtures she responded
with the same timid reserve, until it became a sort of ambition with the
ladies to become the friends of so retiring a creature.
Her state-room became a morning resort of such of the fair dames as were
impervious to sea-sickness; all kind, officious, and eager to be
considered her intimates.
They found nothing very singular, however, in the quiet, sweet-faced
girl to furnish an index of that bravery of which she had become
celebrated, but they all agreed that they felt more charmed by her
modesty and gentleness of demeanor than if she had the dash of an
Amazonian queen.
There was one young lady who came in frequently with a talkative old
dowager, and was wont to regard Margaret with keen but silent interest.
This young person, who was called "Dora dear," by old Mrs. de Courcy,
and "Lady Dora," by the other ladies, was a peculiarly blooming,
black-haired young damsel, whose eyes black as sloes, examined Margaret
for several interviews with an eager and scarcely friendly scrutiny. But
in the fourth visit Lady Dora threw off her reserve, and constituted
herself Margaret's chosen friend.
The day before their arrival at New York she came into Margaret's room,
and calmly shut the door as a hint to the stream of ladies who were
following her down the narrow passage.
"There, that's done!" she said laughing genially, "and now maybe I'll be
having you all to myself for a while without even a gossiping prig to be
the wiser of what we say. So now, Miss Walsingham dear, give me room on
the sofa there beside you, and well have a snug little chat together."
Margaret looked up at the pleasant, honest face, and made room as
requested.
"Of course you don't know what this friendly move of mine is meaning at
all. I'm an embassy from----no, that's wrong end first. There's a young
man on board the steamer who is desperately in love with you, and, poor
fellow, he's so worn to skin and bone about you that just to keep the
body and soul of him together I've come to plead his case.
"He says to tell you that it's not unmanly of him to hanker after you
now, seeing that circumstances have thrown you together without any of
his seeking, and it looks as if this thing was foreordained to be. I'm
afraid you'll say you're not, but don't if there's the ghost of a chance
when I ask you--are you open to offers?"
"What does all this mean?" inquired Margaret, whose hands were being
vehemently squeezed and patted by her Irish friend; "I have not even
seen any gentleman since I came on board except my friend Mr. Davenport,
and one occasion Colonel Calembours, who certainly did not appear to be
reduced by any visible passion."
"Pooh! little beast, he's gambling all the time. No, it's not he; it's a
brother of mine--there I've let the cat out of the bag, and I wasn't to
do it. We'll drop that and begin at the other end. I understand all
about your position in the Brand will, and I know exactly that you want
to do the thing that's generous, and I hear that you are on your way to
lay the whole of the fortune that you've been named heir for at the feet
of St. Udo Brand, and then you'll turn round and earn your bread. Now, I
say that that isn't the fate for a woman like you, and I'm here to tell
this message. Give every spick and span of the property to Colonel Brand
and then put these two dear hands in the outstretched hands of this
lover of yours, and say you will be his since he loves you still--that's
the message."
The warm-hearted girl threw her arms round Margaret and hugged her with
equal strength and warmth.
"Who is this generous man?" asked Margaret, much touched.
"Wait until I set his excellencies fair and square before you. In the
first place he's as steady a boy as ever put foot to ground, which
nobody ever said of St. Udo Brand."
"Why compare him with St. Udo Brand?" asked Margaret, with a sudden
flush overspreading her cheeks, vivid as carmine.
"Sure and is it St. Udo Brand I would compare with the likes of him!"
exclaimed Lady Dora scornfully, "and is it you, mavourneen, that I see
with the blush of shame on account of him? You don't mean to be so
insane as to marry him, Miss Walsingham, darling?"
"I don't expect to marry him," answered Margaret, gravely.
"He's not worthy of you," cried Lady Dora, holding her off at arm's
length and looking at her with dubious eyes. "I'll grant that he was a
gallant soldier and a handsome man but he's old in sin, and it's not for
you, my white dove, to nestle in the vulture's nest, and you won't--you
won't!" snatching her to her bosom and straining her close.
"I will hear nothing against St. Udo Brand," said Margaret, withdrawing
herself and standing erect so that the generous fire in her face and
voice invested her splendid figure with a dignity most queen-like; "I
cannot expect the world to believe in the true nobility of his
character, but I know it. Desperate he may have been--reckless,
scorning, but the crisis of his sinning has passed, and the man is noble
still; and Heaven will bless immeasurably the woman who marries him."
She clasped her hands in her generous excitement, and stood, a