Faithful Margaret Part 21

Margaret was sitting up at last in the bricklayer's doorway, m.u.f.fled in shawls, and shuddering nervously at every jarring sound about her.

A chariot was approaching the bricklayer's cottage from the village of Lynthorpe, and on its panel glittered the arms of Castle Brand.

Already the coachman, Symonds, had seen the invalid at the door, and was talking to some one inside, and in the next minute the chariot was drawn up before the door, and the familiar figure of little Dr. Gay was stepping out.

"Found at last, my dear girl!" cried he, radiantly; "and a fine search we have had of it. Bless my soul, though, you aren't too strong yet!

Don't be frightened, dear."

The thin, trembling hands were clasped nervously on the swelling breast.

Margaret looked piteously around, as if for succor.

"I need not be, I hope, sir," she said, faintly.

"No, I'm sure not," cried the doctor, pressing her hand; "although you have contrived to hide yourself from us for eight months, just as though you did fear your old friends. But, now that you have failed so signally in your endeavor to work for your own bread, perhaps you will see your duty plain before you, and won't refuse to fulfill the will which has been so long and uselessly withstood. Hey! my dear?"

The pale woman lifted her dark eyes resolutely, her delicate nostril quivered.

"Dr. Gay," said she, "you must see that I am in no state to discuss business matters with you."

"By the lord Harry! I should think not," cried the little doctor, "so we won't discuss 'em at all; we'll just quietly do as we are bid."

"You have sought me when I wished to be lost to you," said Margaret, "but that can't make much difference now. I have long made up my mind what I am to do. Dr. Gay, I tell you I shall not go to Seven-Oak Waaste."

"Miss Margaret," he said, rea.s.suredly, "we sha'n't say another word about these affairs until you are stronger; but you can't stay here, you know, so just come along with me, and Mrs. Gay can take care of you for a while. Does that suit better?"

She calmed herself presently and thought over it with a forlorn feeling of helplessness.

"Thanks, you are very kind," said she, "but why can't I stay here? I hope to repay these kind friends when I am well again."

"Rubbis.h.!.+" flouted the doctor, good-humoredly. "You don't feel it, perhaps, but for all that you must be an additional burden on the woman's time, which money can never repay. Come home with me, my dear, and get strong, and then talk over your affairs with Davenport and me like a sensible woman."

Her head drooped sadly on her breast, and a scarlet blush tinged her poor cheek. She felt the imputation keenly, although Mrs. Doane had crept close to her chair, and was eagerly whispering how little of a burden she had thought her dear, kind miss!

"I must be a Marplot no more," whispered Margaret to her humble friend, with a weary sigh. "I have done so much harm already to everybody that I must be very careful, dear Mrs. Doane."

The bright tears were dropping fast from her wistful, remorseful eyes, and her sensitive nature urged her hard to part from this faithful heart before she should do it a hurt; so that the little doctor had the satisfaction of gaining his point, after all, and wrapped her up from the autumn mists with a gratified glow.

How she wept as she tottered to the sumptuous close carriage and sank among the velvet cus.h.i.+ons! Had she been leaving a prince's palace the tender soul could not have felt it more.

"Doant 'ee cry, dear miss," blurted the honest bricklayer, who had come home to dinner, and was wistfully watching the departure, "yer luck's took a fort'nate turn. Praise be blessed for't, so doant 'ee affront the Lord with them tears. G.o.d be wi' ye, dear miss, we woan't forgit ye, nor you us--that I kin bet on."

So she was forced to leave them, though her heart turned sadly toward them in their sordid hut, and fain would have sunned itself in that sweet love which never shone in her own dim path of life.

In the dusk of that November day Margaret Walsingham entered Dr. Gay's neat residence in Regis, ostensibly to be under his immediate care.

She was with him because, poor soul, she had no other home which she would enter. He took her there because he hoped to overcome her half-sick fancies about Castle Brand, and to send her forth to take possession of the fortune which was, to all intents and purposes, her own.

For a few days the guest kept her room, and her own counsel, but at the end of a week she came out to the parlor, with a grave, firm face, and declared herself quite recovered.

The doctor was sitting in his arm-chair, by a cozy, crackling fire, and was absently trotting a bouncing baby of ten months on his knee, while he anxiously pored over a huge medical book at his elbow; and Mrs. Gay was st.i.tching a cambric frill in her easy chair opposite, and watching the clumsy nurse with a face of long-suffering patience.

And Margaret, gliding into the room in her thread-bare black robes, and, with a gentle yet resolute face, seemed like the apparition of some tragedy queen coming upon the stage where the farce was still enacting.

"Ah! Good-evening, good-evening, my dear Miss Walsingham!" cried the doctor, jumping up and dumping the baby unceremoniously into his wife's lap. "Take this chair and this footstool. Are you better?"

"Thanks. I am well now," said Margaret, quietly seating herself. "And I would like to confer with you and Mr. Davenport upon my future prospects."

"Never mind 'em now, Miss Margaret," said the doctor, kindly. "You are far from strong yet."

"Please summon Mr. Davenport," returned she.

"Stubborn as ever, my dear," grumbled he, laughing. "You're pretty quiet about it, but you will have your way."

"Yes, I must have my way," said Margaret, with a sad smile.

So Dr. Gay bustled off, and brought the lawyer back with him, and presented their ward, sitting alone by the fire; Mrs. Gay having sighed out her regrets that her poor health sent her to bed so early, and retired thither.

"Gad! Miss Walsingham," blurted Mr. Davenport, shaking hands. "Your adventures haven't agreed well with you. Why, you're about as gaunt as my walking stick!"

"I am quite well for all that," said she, somewhat eagerly, "and am, of course, anxious to arrange my future before me."

The executors sat down opposite her, full of expectation.

"It seems that you are aware of Captain Brand's reported death," said the lawyer, briskly: "therefore that obstacle is removed from your way, and you can hesitate no longer in taking possession of Seven-Oak Waaste.

Is that what you wish to say?"

"I have decided what I shall do with the property," she said, in a melancholy voice, "and I have summoned you here to announce my wishes to you."

"Are they to be taken down in legal form?" sneered the lawyer.

"Yes," she replied, humbly. "I wish to do some good while I have the power, with money which would only be a curse to me, and would drag my soul down to despair. I am resolved to sell Seven-Oak Waaste, and found a charitable inst.i.tution with the proceeds."

The executors stared aghast in her face, so cold and hopeless, but they read no faltering there.

"Good heavens!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the little doctor, in a fright, "she'll do it, you see."

"Well, madam, of course your will is law," said the old lawyer, grimly, "but you can't have it obeyed immediately for all that. The year mentioned in the will is not finished yet; and that puts obstacle number one in the way of your scheme; and St. Udo Brand's death has not been proved yet, and that puts obstacle number two in the way of your scheme.

You must wait four months yet, you see."

Her face fell, and she sank immediately into apathy, which neither of the executors sought to rouse her from, and soon she bade them good-night, and went to her room.

"Obstinate as a mule," muttered Mr. Davenport, as he and his colleague sat nearer the fire, and sipped their mild punch. "By George, I never was so angry at a woman before. What does she expect to end in?"

"I expect her to end in a mad house," returned the doctor, with an uneasy look toward the door. "She has all the symptoms of incipient insanity."

"Incipient tomfoolery!" growled the lawyer, contemptuously. "You don't catch a strong-willed woman like that turning crazy. She always was a mystery to me, you know."