A True Friend Part 24

"My darling child," she said, "you must not agitate yourself. You shall hear nothing that you do not want to hear. Sir Philip would never say anything that would pain you."

"I have asked her to be my wife," said Sir Philip, very quietly, "and I hope that she will not refuse to hear me say that, at least."

"But that was not all," said Margaret, suddenly turning on him her grieving eyes--eyes that always looked so much more grieved than their owner felt--and her flus.h.i.+ng, quivering face: "You told me first that I was wrong--selfish and unjust; and you want me to humiliate myself--to say that it was my fault----"

"My dearest Margaret!" exclaimed Lady Caroline, in amaze, "what can you mean? Philip, are we dreaming?--Darling child, come with me to your room: you had better lie down for a little time while I talk to Sir Philip. Excuse me a moment, Sir Philip--I will come back."

Margaret allowed herself to be led from the room. This outbreak of emotion was almost unprecedented in her history; but then Sir Philip had attacked her on her tenderest side--that of her personal dignity.

Margaret Adair found it very hard to believe that she was as others are, and not made of a different clay from them.

Some little time elapsed before Lady Caroline's return. She had made Margaret lie down, administered sal volatile, covered her with an eiderdown quilt, and seen her maid bathing the girl's forehead with eau de Cologne and water before she came back again. And all this took time.

She apologized very prettily for her delay, but Sir Philip did not seem to heed her excuses: he was standing beside the fire, meditatively tugging at his black beard, and Lady Caroline had some difficulty in thinking that she could read the expression of his face.

"I do not quite understand all this," she said, with her most amiable expression of countenance, as she seated herself on the other side of the soft white hearthrug. "Margaret mentioned Miss Colwyn's name: I am quite at a loss to imagine how Miss Colwyn comes to be mixed up in the matter."

"I am very sorry," said Sir Philip, ruefully. "I never thought that there would be any difficulty. I seem to have offended Margaret most thoroughly."

Lady Caroline smiled. "Girls soon forget a man's offences," she said, consolingly. "What did you say?"

And then Sir Philip, with some hesitation, told the story of his plea for Janetta Colwyn.

The smile was frozen on Lady Caroline's lips. She sat up straight, and stared at her visitor. When he had quite ended his explanation, she said, as icily as she knew how to speak--

"And you asked my daughter to justify Miss Colwyn at the cost of her own feelings--I might almost say, of her own social standing in the neighborhood!----"

"Isn't that a little too strong, Lady Caroline? Your daughter's social standing would not be touched in the least by an act of common justice.

No one who heard of it but would honor her for exculpating her friend!"

"Exculpating! My dear Philip, you are too Quixotic! n.o.body accuses either of the girls of anything but a little thoughtlessness and defiance of authority----"

"Exactly," said Philip, with some heat, "and therefore while the report of it will not injure your daughter, it may do irreparable harm to a girl who has her own way to make in the world. The gossip of Beaminster tea-tables is not to be despised. The old ladies of Beaminster are all turning their backs on Miss Colwyn, because common report declares her to have been expelled--or dismissed--in disgrace from Miss Polehampton's school. The fact that n.o.body knows exactly _why_ she was dismissed adds weight to the injury. It is so easy to say, 'They don't tell why she was sent away--something too dreadful to be talked about,' and so on. My mother tells me that there is a general feeling abroad that Miss Colwyn is not a person to be trusted with young girls. Now that is a terrible slur upon an innocent woman who has to earn her own living, Lady Caroline; and I really must beg that you and Margaret will set yourselves to remove it."

"Really, Philip! Quite a tirade!"

Lady Caroline laughed delicately as she spoke, and pa.s.sed a lace handkerchief across her lips as though to brush away a smile. She was a little puzzled and rather vexed, but she did not wish to show her true opinion of Sir Philip and his views.

"And so," she went on, "you said all this to my poor child; harrowed her feelings and wounded her self-respect, and insisted on it that she should go round Beaminster explaining that it was her fault and not Janetta Colwyn's that Miss Polehampton acted in so absurdly arbitrary a manner!"

"You choose to put it in that way," said Sir Philip, drawing down his brows, "and I cannot very well contradict you; but I venture to think, Lady Caroline, that you know quite well what I mean."

"I should be glad if you would put it into plain words. You wish Margaret--to do--what?"

"I very much wish that she would go to Miss Morrison and explain to her why Miss Colwyn left school. There is no need that she should take any blame upon herself. You must confess that it was she who took the law into her own hands, Lady Caroline; Miss Colwyn was perfectly ready to submit. And I think that as this occurrence has been made the ground for refusing to give Miss Colwyn the work that she urgently needs, it is Miss Adair's plain duty to try at least to set the matter right. I do not see why she should refuse."

"You have no pride yourself, I suppose? Do you suppose that Mr. Adair would allow it?"

"Then you might do it for her, Lady Caroline," said Sir Philip, turning round on her, with his winning, persuasive manner, of which even at that moment she felt the charm. "It would be so easy for you to explain it quietly to Miss Morrison, and ask her to give that poor girl a place in her school! Who else could do it better? If Margaret is not--not quite strong enough for the task, then will you not help us out of our difficulty, and do it for her?"

"Certainly not, Sir Philip. Your request seems to me exceedingly unreasonable. I do not in the least believe that Miss Morrison has refused to take her for that reason only. There is some other, you may depend upon it. I shall not interfere."

"You could at least give her a strong recommendation."

"I know nothing about the girl except that she sings fairly well," said Lady Caroline, in a hard, determined voice. "I do not want to know anything about her--she has done nothing but make mischief and cause contention ever since I heard her name. I begin to agree with Miss Polehampton--it was a most unsuitable friends.h.i.+p."

"It has been a disastrous friends.h.i.+p for Miss Colwyn, I fear. You must excuse me if I say that it is hardly generous--after having been the means of the loss of her first situation--to refuse to help her in obtaining another."

"I think I am the best judge of that. If you mean to insinuate, Sir Philip, that your proposal for Margaret's hand which we have talked over before, hinges on her compliance with your wishes in this instance, you had better withdraw it at once."

"You must be aware that I have no such meaning," said Sir Philip, in a tone that showed him to be much wounded.

"I am glad--for your own sake--to hear it. Neither Mr. Adair nor myself could permit Margaret to lower herself by going to explain her past conduct to a second-rate Beaminster schoolmistress."

Sir Philip stood silent, downcast, his eyebrows contracting over his eyes until--as Lady Caroline afterwards expressed it--he positively scowled.

"You disagree with me, I presume?" she inquired, with some irony in her tone.

"Yes, Lady Caroline, I do disagree with you. I thought that you--and Margaret--would be more generous towards a fatherless girl."

"You must excuse me if I say that your interest in 'a fatherless girl'

is somewhat out of place, Sir Philip. You are a young man, and it is not quite seemly for you to make such a point of befriending a little music governess. I am sorry to have to speak so plainly, but I must say that I do not think such interest befits a gentleman, and especially one who has been asking us for our daughter."

"My love for Margaret," said Sir Philip, gravely, "cannot blind me to other duties."

"There are duties in the world," rejoined Lady Caroline, "between which we sometimes have to choose. It seems to me that you may have to choose between your love for Margaret and your 'interest' in Janetta Colwyn."

"I hardly think," said her guest, "that I deserve this language, Lady Caroline. However, since these are your opinions, I can but say that I deeply regret them--and take my leave. If you or Miss Adair should wish to recall me you have but to send me a word--a line: I shall be ready to come. Your daughter knows my love for her. I am not yet disposed to give up all hope of a recall."

And then he took his leave with a manner of punctilious politeness which, oddly enough, made Lady Caroline feel herself in the wrong more than anything that he had said. She was more ruffled than Margaret had ever seen her when at last she sought the girl's room shortly before the ringing of the dressing-bell.

She found Margaret looking pale and a little frightened, but perfectly composed. She came up to Lady Caroline and put her arms round her mother's neck with a caressing movement.

"Dear mamma," she said, "I am afraid I was not quite polite to Sir Philip."

"I think, dear, that Sir Philip was scarcely polite to you. I am not at all satisfied with his conduct. He is quite unreasonable."

Margaret slowly withdrew her arms from her mother's neck, looked at her uneasily, and looked down again.

"He thinks that I ought to do something for Janetta--to make people think well of her, I suppose."

"He is utterly preposterous," said Lady Caroline.

"Do you think I ought to go to Miss Morrison about Janetta, mamma?"

"No, indeed, my dearest. Your father would never hear of it."

"I should like to do all that I could for her. I am very fond of her, indeed I am, although Sir Philip thinks me so selfish." And Margaret's soft hazel eyes filled with tears, which fell gently over her delicate cheeks without distorting her features in the least.

"Don't cry, my darling; please don't cry," said her mother, anxiously.

"Your eyelids will be red all the evening, and papa will ask what is the matter. Have you any rose water?--Of course you will do all you can for your poor little friend: you are only too fond of her--too generous!--Sir Philip does not understand you as I do; he has disappointed me very much this afternoon."