Into the Highways and Hedges Part 26

Her smile and the little gesture with which she put aside the notion of benefiting by the legacy, filled him momentarily with the old half-tender amus.e.m.e.nt with which he used to listen to Margaret Deane's wildly unpractical utterances. Then the amus.e.m.e.nt was swamped in bitterness against the man who had taken advantage of her.

If Margaret had been his wife, she might have been as loftily unpractical as she chose, and she would have been no whit the worse for it.

George saw how the pretty hands, whose delicacy he had admired, were tanned and roughened; how the silver wedding ring on her finger, that had taken the place of the pearls she had worn once, was much too loose for her; how the dimples were gone that he had liked to watch for.

He had often said something to make his rather serious little lady smile for the pleasure of seeing them. Now, inwardly, he cursed the preacher with a vigour that would have startled his companion considerably if she could have read his heart.

"The conditions are absurd on the face of them," she was saying.

"Barnabas could not agree to them; nor could I. To fulfil them would mean going back to----"

"To your natural position," said George. "Perhaps Mr. Thorpe's scruples might be overcome. Most men see the iniquity of wealth from a different point of view if they have a chance of handling it--I mean no disrespect to the preacher, naturally," he added hastily.

"I should hope not," said Meg; and her gravely surprised eyes made him wonder whether Barnabas Thorpe still took the trouble to deceive her.

"I daresay you know best about most men, but _I_ know that Barnabas could never see things differently for his own advantage. I will write to him to-night, and you shall see his answer. I am quite sure of him."

"Ah! and you are not at all disappointed, and you are quite happy here, and his relatives are all very kind to you? You look as if you had had a remarkably easy time of it, don't you?" cried George. "I am glad you are so fortunate----" he checked himself suddenly. "I ought to be going," he said, with rather an abrupt pull up. He took out his watch and studied it, not her, when he took his leave. "I don't know whether you care to see me again? I had several things to tell you about--about your own people--your father and----"

"About father! Come again and tell me all you can think of," she said.

"Come and talk to me about him; come soon."

"I'll come to-morrow," said George; and so he did, and for many following morrows. So long as he talked on that subject her interest never flagged; though it must be owned that he, on his part, occasionally felt the situation strained.

"What a fool I am!" he said to himself more fiercely every time he saw her. And afterwards, when he had left her and was back in London, those hot days spent at the "other end of nowhere," at the side of the woman who unconsciously played so large a part in his life, seemed to belong to a part of himself that he hardly recognised. He was so eminently sane as a rule, so little given to unprofitable expenditure, either of time or feeling; and yet, if he had never met Meg, he would have been a smaller man.

He wondered sardonically sometimes, between his pretty constant visits to Meg, how all this would end. It couldn't go on for ever! Would the climax come in his having the quarrel he was pining for with Margaret's husband when that saint should see fit to return to his wife? Would Meg herself wake up, and take fright, and bid him go? He knew perfectly well that, at a word of love, she would fly horrified from him; and his reverence for her kept his tongue within bounds. Had she been any one else, he felt there would have been a third possibility; but Meg's ice would never melt for him. It was, perhaps, some small consolation to discover also that it hadn't melted for the preacher; and Mr. Sauls was shrewd enough to arrive at that fact, even though Margaret Thorpe was not quite so transparent as Margaret Deane had been.

They were walking together along the cart road to N----town when she gave Mr. Sauls her husband's reply to her letter about the legacy.

The road was perfectly straight, flanked by a ditch on each side, and beyond the ditch a low mud bank. The croaking of the marsh frogs filled the pauses in their speech like a chorus. George took the letter unwillingly. How he loathed the sight of that laboured handwriting! A longing a.s.sailed him to toss it to the frogs; but, unfortunately, he might not gratify the impulse.

"I should like you to read it," said Meg, with a touch of dignity; "because you have imagined that the preacher would want me to take the money. You have not understood the sort of man he is."

"No! You see, I am not a saint myself," said Mr. Sauls. He adjusted his gla.s.s carefully. Ah, how he hated that man! "There's always a sort of mist here. I should fancy these marshes were not healthy," he said aloud.

("Don't stay a moment longer; come with me, away from these brutal farmers and their pestilent country," said the voice in his heart.)

"My dear la.s.s," he read ("the impudence of the fellow!"), "I was glad to get a letter. I am glad you are well." ("Oh! curse his gladness!") "It doesn't seem to me as there can be two minds about the money. It isn't for us to be having a fine house and servants" ("for us! did he put himself on a level with her?"); "besides, I wouldn't have you beholden to any; and I would be 'shamed to have you live on another man's money, even though he be dead, while I've strength to work. If Mrs.

Russelthorpe is oneasy, you can set her mind at rest. You are in my heart by day and by night. G.o.d bless you, my girl!"

That last sentence had a pencil mark through it. He ought not to have read it; he wished he had not; it was worse than all the rest; he wished he could cram the preacher's "blessing" down the preacher's throat; it made him feel sick.

"Have you read it?" said his companion. "I don't think that he 'sees wealth from a different point of view' now that he has a chance of possessing it after all, do you?"

"Apparently not. You have the best of that argument, Mrs. Thorpe," said George. "And the preacher's reply is a model of disinterestedness, as one might expect. Allow me to return it to you with many congratulations."

"You are angry," said Meg; for the bitterness in his tone was hardly concealed this time. "I wish you wouldn't be, for I was going to ask you to do something for me. I remember" (with the pretty smile that was rare now), "I remember that formerly you were often my friend when I was always in trouble with my aunt."

"Was I? I don't think so," said George; and his sallow face flushed. "I don't much believe in platonic friends.h.i.+ps, you know--at least, not on the man's side. I was never hypocrite enough for that; but (well, never mind that) what do you want me to do?"

"It isn't a great thing," said Meg, "but I have no one else to ask." She hesitated a moment. Mr. Sauls might have been more gracious, she thought; but then she never quite understood him.

"It is a very small thing," she repeated deprecatingly. "It is only that I want you to persuade my father that my husband is a good man and an honest one. That was why I showed you the preacher's letter; that was why I tried to prove to you that he is, as you say, disinterested. It does not in the least matter what the world in general thinks. I don't care! it's not worth minding," said Meg proudly; "but I do care--I can't help it--I do care about my father. I shall never see him again, I suppose, and I cannot even send him my love, because perhaps he may not want it," she cried, trying to swallow the inconvenient lump in her throat. "I shall never be able to explain everything to him; but tell him, you who have seen me, that Barnabas is good to me; don't let him be unhappy for me; don't let him fancy anything else. You think this isn't necessary, perhaps, but I know father. He is so tender-hearted even when people don't deserve it. He will try not to think about me oftener than can be helped, and he has plenty of other interests. That was always the difference between us: he had plenty of interests, but I had only him.

But, sometimes, he will suddenly remember, and then he will be sad; though my aunt will tell him I am not worth it. When father is sad, he is very sad," said the daughter who was most like him.

"Tell him, then, what I have told you. Do you understand?"

"Oh yes," said George slowly.

"And you will do it?" she entreated. She smiled again, but with eyes that were full of tears; and the April expression reminded him of the little girl who was always so easily moved to pleasure or pain.

"I'll make a bargain with you," said he. "I'll swear anything on earth to your father, if you will tell _me_ the truth. My curiosity is--is excessive, I admit; but I was always curious, and you must allow that you gave your old acquaintance scope for conjecture. Tell me--are you happy, or not?" He twirled his eyegla.s.s rapidly, and looked hard at her.

"Has the venture been a success?"

Meg drew her breath quickly, and turned her head away.

"It is not fair," she said. "If any one had asked _me_ to do for him so small and natural a service, I should not have bargained."

It was odd how this man always jarred on her when she felt most friendly towards him. She had been pleased that he had taken the trouble to seek her out, and to give her the details about her old uncle; but his over-eagerness offended her.

"No," he said; "you wouldn't have condescended so far; but then, you know, you wouldn't have cared. That's always such an advantage!" He ended the sentence with a laugh. "Well, I think I have the answer in your refusal to give it. I'll do my best for you when I see your father."

"Don't make a mistake," said Meg. She turned, and faced him with a touch of dignity, her confusion lost in something else. Meg had faults enough, heaven knew; but she carried with them all a crystal-clear sincerity that sometimes impressed him with a sense of awe. "Don't make a mistake.

I have asked you to say nothing but the truth. It is I only who have failed. I thought I was better than I am. I fancied, for a little while, that I could live as Barnabas does, always praying and preaching and rescuing and healing. I was wrong--I am not good enough, or strong enough. I have found that out, and--yes--it makes me unhappy. It is as if one had fallen from a height; and I hardly know what to do, or where to turn." She hesitated for a second; then she went on more firmly, and an utterance that was on George Sauls' very lips was forced back. "But this is my fault, not his," she resumed. "And the preacher has been kinder to me than any one in the world, except--no, without exception.

My failures are my own. You have made me confess them, though I am ashamed----"

"It is I who should be ashamed," said George thickly. "Well, I'll do anything possible for you, Mrs. Thorpe, even to taking myself off, since that's all I can do. I wanted to meet Barnabas Thorpe once, but--I'll endeavour to renounce that pleasure, and bid you good-bye here and now.

So this is the end, eh?"

He held out his hand in a sudden revulsion of feeling, and Meg took it rather puzzled.

"Did you want to meet Barnabas? I wish you could!" she said. "For then you could not help being fairer to him. Good-bye, and good luck to you!"

she added as an after-thought, moved thereto by the suspicion that Mr.

Sauls was rather depressed; and he, lifting his hat, stood still and watched her out of sight.

"So that's over!" he remarked. "And I've given up my chance of speaking my mind to her precious husband. He'll get off scot free in this world, I suppose. Really I hope there is another, if only for the pleasure of seeing that astute humbug get his deserts. I think I could stand the lower regions myself, if only I might find the preacher there. 'Good luck! I am glad she wished it me. I am glad she is still the best woman I have known. Pshaw! she'd have lifted me into I don't know what heights of sentiment, if she had married me; and all one can say now is that even her husband hasn't dragged _her_ down."

From which it may be opined that fairness to Margaret's husband was one of the things not possible to George Sauls.

After all, however, he had not seen the last of that country.

The next day, while waiting in no very good humour for the London coach at the market-place of N----, the landlord of the "Pig and Whistle" came panting up to him with a letter. To his great surprise it was from Mr.

Deane, and written in a very shaky hand.

"I am tied to Lupcombe by an attack of haemorrhage. I can't write long explanations, but think I am rather bad. I hear you are at N----; if so, can you come to me? There is business----"

The letter broke off there, and there was a postscript which George gathered was from Mr. Bagshotte, the rector at Lupcombe, explaining that Mr. Deane had been taken suddenly ill at the parsonage.

Well, if he could do Meg one good turn now, he would, if only for the sake of having done something besides wasting time in that abominable country; and afterwards he would go back, and be "sane".