The Mark Of Cain Part 7

Margaret only beckoned again and turned away, Janey following in silence and intense curiosity.

When they reached their room, where Margaret's portmanteau had already been placed, the girl began to put up such things as she would need for a short journey. She said nothing till she had finished, and then she sat down on a bed and told Janey what she had learned; and the pair "had a good cry," and comforted each other as well as they might.

"And what are you going to do?" asked Janey, when, as Homer says, "they had taken their fill of chilling lamentations."

"I don't know!"

"Have you no one else in all the world?"

"No one at all. My mother died when I was a little child, in Smyrna.

Since then we have wandered all about; we were a long time in Algiers, and we were at Ma.r.s.eilles, and then in London."

"But you have a guardian, haven't you?"

"Yes; he sent me here. And, of course, he's been very kind, and done everything for me; but he's quite a young man, not thirty, and he's so stupid, and so stiff, and thinks so much about Oxford, and talks so like a book. And he's so shy, and always seems to do everything, not because he likes it, but because he thinks he ought to. And, besides--"

But Margaret did not go further in her confessions, nor explain more lucidly why she had scant affection for Mait-land of St. Gatien's.

"And had your poor father no other friends who could take care of you?"

Janey asked.

"There was a gentleman who called now and then; I saw him twice. He had been an officer in father's s.h.i.+p, I think, or had known him long ago at sea. He found us out somehow in Chelsea. There was no one else at all."

"And you don't know any of your father's family?"

"No," said Margaret, wearily. "Ob, I have forgotten to pack up my prayer-book." And she took up a little worn volume in black morocco with silver clasps. "This was a book my father gave me," she said. "It has a name on it--my grandfather's, I suppose--'Richard Johnson, Linkheaton, 1837.'" Then she put the book in a pocket of her travelling cloak.

"Your mother's father it may have belonged to," said Janey.

"I don't know," Margaret replied, looking out of the window.

"I hope you won't stay away long, dear," said Janey, affectionately.

"But _you_ are going, too, you know," Margaret answered, without much tact; and Janey, reminded of her private griefs, was about to break down, when the wheels of a carriage were heard laboring slowly up the snow-laden drive.

"Why, here's some one coming!" cried Janey, rus.h.i.+ng to the window. "Two horses! and a gentleman all in furs. Oh, Margaret, this must be for you!"

CHAPTER V.--Flown.

Maitland's reflections as, in performance of the promise he had telegraphed, he made his way to the Dovecot were deep and distracted.

The newspapers with which he had littered the railway carriage were left unread: he had occupation enough in his own thoughts. Men are so made that they seldom hear even of a death without immediately considering its effects on their private interests. Now, the death of Richard s.h.i.+elds affected Maitland's purposes both favorably and unfavorably. He had for some time repented of the tacit engagement (tacit as far as the girl was concerned) which bound him to Margaret. For some time he had been dimly aware of quite novel emotions in his own heart, and of a new, rather painful, rather pleasant, kind of interest in another lady.

Maitland, in fact, was becoming more human than he gave himself credit for, and a sign of his awakening nature was the blush with which he had greeted, some weeks before, Barton's casual criticism on Mrs. St. John Deloraine.

Without any well-defined ideas or hopes, Maitland had felt that his philanthropic entanglement--it was rather, he said to himself, an entanglement than an engagement--had become irksome to his fancy.

Now that the unfortunate parent was out of the way, he felt that the daughter would not be more sorry than himself to revise the relations in which they stood to each other. Vanity might have prevented some men from seeing this; but Maitland had not vitality enough for a healthy conceit. A curious "aloofness" of nature permitted him to stand aside, and see himself much as a young lady was likely to see him. This disposition is rare, and not a source of happiness.

On the other hand, his future relations to Margaret formed a puzzle inextricable. He could not at all imagine how he was to dispose of so embarra.s.sing a _protegee_. Margaret was becoming too much of a woman to be left much longer at school; and where was she to be disposed of?

"I might send her to Girton," he thought; and then, characteristically, he began to weigh in his mind the comparative educational merits of Girton and Somerville Hall. About one thing only was he certain: he must consult his college mentor, Bielby of St. Gatien's, as soon as might be. Too long had this Ra.s.selas--occupied, like the famous Prince of Abyssinia, with _the choice of life_--neglected to resort to his academic Imlac. In the meantime he could only reflect that Margaret must remain as a pupil at Miss Marlett's. The moment would soon be arriving when some other home, and a chaperon instead of a school-mistress, must be found for this peculiar object of philanthropy and outdoor relief.

Maitland was sorry he had not left town by the nine o'clock train. The early dusk began to gather, gray and damp; the train was late, having made tardy progress through the half-melted snow. He had set out from Paddington by the half-past ten express, and a glance at the harsh and crabbed page of Bradshaw will prove to the most sceptical that Maitland could not reach Tiverton much before six. Half frozen, and in anything but a happy temper, he engaged a fly, and drove off, along heavy miserable roads, to the Dovecot.

Arriving at the closed and barred gates of that vestal establishment, Maitland's cabman "pulled, and pushed, and kicked, and knocked" for a considerable time, without manifest effect. Clearly the retainers of Miss Marlett had secured the position for the night, and expected no visitors, though Maitland knew that he ought to be expected. "The bandogs bayed and howled," as they did round the secret bower of the Lady of Brauksome; and lights flitted about the windows. When a lantern at last came flickering up to the gate, the bearer of it stopped to challenge an apparently unlooked-for and unwelcome stranger.

"Who are you? What do you want?" said a female voice, in a strong Devonian accent.

"I want Miss Marlett," answered Maitland.

There was some hesitation. Then the porter appeared to reflect that a burglar would not arrive in a cab, and that a surrept.i.tious lover would not ask for the schoolmistress.

The portals were at length unbarred and lugged apart over the gravel, and Maitland followed the cook (for she was no one less) and the candle up to the front door. He gave his card, and was ushered into the chamber reserved for interviews with parents and guardians. The drawing-room had the air and faint smell of a room very seldom occupied. All the chairs were so elegantly and cunningly constructed that they tilted up at intervals, and threw out the unwary male who trusted himself to their hospitality. Their backs were decorated with antimaca.s.sars wrought with gla.s.s beads, and these, in the light of one dip, shone fitfully with a frosty l.u.s.tre. On the round table in the middle were volumes of "The Mothers of England," "The Grandmothers of the Bible," Blair "On the Grave," and "The Epic of Hades," the latter copiously and appropriately ill.u.s.trated. In addition to these cheerful volumes there were large tomes of lake and river scenery, with gilt edges and faded magenta bindings, shrouded from the garish light of day in drab paper covers.

The walls, of a very faint lilac tint, were hung with prize sketches, in water colors or in pencil, by young ladies who had left. In the former works of art, distant nature was represented as, on the whole, of a mauve hue, while the foreground was mainly composed of burnt-umber rocks, touched up with orange. The shadows in the pencil drawings had an agreeably brilliant polish, like that which, when conferred on fenders by Somebody's Patent Dome-Blacklead, "increases the attractions of the fireside," according to the advertis.e.m.e.nts. Maitland knew all the blacklead caves, broad-hatted brigands, and pea-green trees. They were old acquaintances, and as he fidgeted about the room he became very impatient.

At last the door opened, and Miss Marlett appeared, rustling in silks, very stiff, and with an air of extreme astonishment.

"Mr. Maitland?" she said, in an interrogative tone.

"Didn't you expect me? Didn't you get my telegram?" asked Maitland.

It occurred to him that the storm might have injured the wires, that his message might never have arrived, and that he might be obliged to explain everything, and break his bad news in person.

"Yes, certainly. I got _both_ your telegrams. But why have you come here?"

"Why, to see Margaret s.h.i.+elds, of course, and consult you about her. But what do you mean by _both_ my telegrams?"

Miss Marlett turned very pale, and sat down with unexpected suddenness.

"Oh, what will become of the poor girl?" she cried, "and what will become of _me_? It will get talked about. The parents will hear of it, and I am ruined."

The unfortunate lady pa.s.sed her handkerchief over her eyes, to the extreme discomfiture of Maitland. He could not bear to see a woman cry; and that Miss Marlett should cry--Miss Marlett, the least melting, as he had fancied, of her s.e.x--was a circ.u.mstance which entirely puzzled and greatly disconcerted him.

He remained silent, looking at a flower in the pattern of the carpet, for at least a minute.

"I came here to consult you, Miss Marlett, about what is to become of the poor girl; but I do not see how the parents of the other young ladies are concerned. Death is common to all; and Margaret's father, though his life was exposed to criticism, cannot be fairly censured because he has left it And what do you mean, please, by receiving _both_ my telegrams? I only #sent _one_, to the effect that I would leave town by the 10.30 train, and come straight to you. There must be some mistake somewhere. Can I see Miss s.h.i.+elds?"

"See Miss s.h.i.+elds! Why, she's _gone!_ She left this morning with your friend," said Miss Marlett, raising a face at once mournful and alarmed, and looking straight at her visitor.

"She's _gone!_ She left this morning with my friend!" repeated Maitland.

He felt like a man in a dream.

"You said in your first telegram that you would come for her yourself, and in your second that you were detained, and that your friend and her father's friend, Mr. Lithgow, would call for her by the early train; so she went with _him_."

"My friend, Mr. Lithgow! I have no friend, Mr. lithgow," cried Maitland; "and I sent no second telegram."