Is not Margaret the heiress?' whispered Edith to her husband, as they
were in their room alone at night after the sad journey to Oxford. She
had pulled his tall head down, and stood upon tiptoe, and implored him
not to be shocked, before she had ventured to ask this question. Captain
Lennox was, however, quite in the dark; if he had ever heard, he had
forgotten; it could not be much that a Fellow of a small college had to
leave; but he had never wanted her to pay for her board; and two
hundred and fifty pounds a year was something ridiculous, considering
that she did not take wine. Edith came down upon her feet a little bit
sadder; with a romance blown to pieces.
A week afterwards, she came prancing towards her husband, and made
him a low curtsey:
'I am right, and you are wrong, most noble Captain. Margaret has had a
lawyer's letter, and she is residuary legatee—the legacies being about two
thousand pounds, and the remainder about forty thousand, at the
present value of property in Milton.'
'Indeed! and how does she take her good fortune?'
'Oh, it seems she knew she was to have it all along; only she had no idea
it was so much. She looks very white and pale, and says she's afraid of it;
but that's nonsense, you know, and will soon go off. I left mamma
pouring congratulations down her throat, and stole away to tell you.'
It seemed to be supposed, by general consent, that the most natural
thing was to consider Mr. Lennox henceforward as Margaret's legal
adviser. She was so entirely ignorant of all forms of business that in
nearly everything she had to refer to him. He chose out her attorney; he
came to her with papers to be signed. He was never so happy as when 461
teaching her of what all these mysteries of the law were the signs and
types.
'Henry,' said Edith, one day, archly; 'do you know what I hope and expect
all these long conversations with Margaret will end in?'
'No, I don't,' said he, reddening. 'And I desire you not to tell me.'
'Oh, very well; then I need not tell Sholto not to ask Mr. Montagu so
often to the house.'
'Just as you choose,' said he with forced coolness. 'What you are thinking
of, may or may not happen; but this time, before I commit myself, I will
see my ground clear. Ask whom you choose. It may not be very civil,
Edith, but if you meddle in it you will mar it. She has been
very farouchewith me for a long time; and is only just beginning to thaw
a little from her Zenobia ways. She has the making of a Cleopatra in her,
if only she were a little more pagan.'
'For my part,' said Edith, a little maliciously, 'I am very glad she is a
Christian. I know so very few!'
There was no Spain for Margaret that autumn; although to the last she
hoped that some fortunate occasion would call Frederick to Paris,
whither she could easily have met with a convoy. Instead of Cadiz, she
had to content herself with Cromer. To that place her aunt Shaw and the
Lennoxes were bound. They had all along wished her to accompany
them, and, consequently, with their characters, they made but lazy
efforts to forward her own separate wish. Perhaps Cromer was, in one
sense of the expression, the best for her. She needed bodily
strengthening and bracing as well as rest.
Among other hopes that had vanished, was the hope, the trust she had
had, that Mr. Bell would have given Mr. Thornton the simple facts of the
family circumstances which had preceded the unfortunate accident that
led to Leonards' death. Whatever opinion—however changed it might be
from what Mr. Thornton had once entertained, she had wished it to be
based upon a true understanding of what she had done; and why she had
done it. It would have been a pleasure to her; would have given her rest
on a point on which she should now all her life be restless, unless she
could resolve not to think upon it. It was now so long after the time of 462
these occurrences, that there was no possible way of explaining them
save the one which she had lost by Mr. Bell's death. She must just
submit, like many another, to be misunderstood; but, though reasoning
herself into the belief that in this hers was no uncommon lot, her heart
did not ache the less with longing that some time—years and years
hence—before he died at any rate, he might know how much she had
been tempted. She thought that she did not want to hear that all was
explained to him, if only she could be sure that he would know. But this
wish was vain, like so many others; and when she had schooled herself
into this conviction, she turned with all her heart and strength to the life
that lay immediately before her, and resolved to strive and make the best
of that.
She used to sit long hours upon the beach, gazing intently on the waves
as they chafed with perpetual motion against the pebbly shore,—or she
looked out upon the more distant heave, and sparkle against the sky, and
heard, without being conscious of hearing, the eternal psalm, which went
up continually. She was soothed without knowing how or why. Listlessly
she sat there, on the ground, her hands clasped round her knees, while
her aunt Shaw did small shoppings, and Edith and Captain Lennox rode
far and wide on shore and inland. The nurses, sauntering on with their
charges, would pass and repass her, and wonder in whispers what she
could find to look at so long, day after day. And when the family gathered
at dinner-time, Margaret was so silent and absorbed that Edith voted her
moped, and hailed a proposal of her husband's with great satisfaction,
that Mr. Henry Lennox should be asked to take Cromer for a week, on
his return from Scotland in October.
But all this time for thought enabled Margaret to put events in their right
places, as to origin and significance, both as regarded her past life and
her future. Those hours by the sea-side were not lost, as any one might
have seen who had had the perception to read, or the care to understand,
the look that Margaret's face was gradually acquiring. Mr. Henry Lennox
was excessively struck by the change.
用戶評論