Wild Margaret

CHAPTER VIII

Margaret had never been in love. If any one had asked her why not, she would have said that she was too busy, and hadn't time. Young men had admired her, and some few, the artists whom she met now and again, had fallen in love with her, but no one had ever spoken of the great mystery to her, for there was something about Margaret, with all her wildness, an indescribable maiden dignity which kept men silent.

Lord Blair had been the first to speak to her in tones hinting at passion, and it is little wonder that his words clung to her, and utterly refused to be dismissed from her mind, though she tried hard and honestly to forget them; even endeavored to laugh at them, as the wild words of a wild young man, who would probably forget that he had ever spoken them, and forget her, too, an hour or two after he had got to London.

But she could not. She said not a word of what had occurred to old Mrs. Hale, for she felt that she could not have borne the flow of talk, and comment, and rebuke which the old lady would pour out. It would have been better if she had spoken and told her all; a thing divided becomes halved, a thing dwelt upon grows and gets magnified.

Margaret brooded over the wild words Lord Blair had said until every sentence was engraved on her mind; even the expression of his face as he stood before her, defiant as a Greek god, got impressed upon her memory so that she could call it up whenever she pleased, and, indeed, it rose before her when she did not even wish it.

"This is absurd and – and nonsensical!" she exclaimed on the second day after his departure, when she suddenly awoke to the fact that she had been sitting, brush in hand, staring before her and recalling Lord Blair's handsome, dare-devil eyes, as they had looked into hers. "I am behaving like a foolish, sentimental idiot!" she told herself, dabbing some color on her canvas with angry self-reproach. "What on earth can it matter to me what such a person as Viscount Leyton said to me? I shall never see him again, and he has probably forgotten, by this time, that such a person as myself exists! I am an idiot not to be able to forget him as easily. He behaved like a savage to the very last, and I would not speak to him again if – if we were cast alone on a desert island!"

She sprung to her feet with an exclamation of annoyance, and began bundling her painting materials together, and was in the midst of clearing up, when she heard a step behind her, and saw the earl.

It was near the dinner hour, and he was in evening dress, for, though he dined alone, he always assumed the regulation attire; and Margaret, as she looked at him, could not help noticing the vague likeness between him and Lord Blair.

"Do I disturb you?" he said, in his low, grave voice, and he paused with the knightly courtesy for which he was famous.

"No, my lord. I have just finished for to-day," said Margaret, rather shyly, for she felt his greatness, which spoke in the tone of his voice, and proclaimed itself even in his gait, and the way he held himself.

With a slight inclination of his head he came and stood before the canvas.

A slight expression of surprise came over his face.

"You have made an excellent copy," he said. "I think you are capable of higher work – original work."

Margaret's face flushed with pleasure, but she said nothing. It was not for so humble an individual as herself to bandy compliments with so great a personage as the Earl of Ferrers.

"You have worked hard," he said, looking at her; "not too hard, I hope."

Now Margaret had grown rather pale during these last two days. It had been one of the results of Lord Blair's passionate words. She did not sleep much at night, and what with this and dwelling upon the scene that had passed between them, the roses which Mrs. Hale wished to see had vanished from her face.

"You are looking tired and pale," said the earl, in a gravely kind fashion.

"I am quite well, my lord," she said, standing with lowered lids under the piercing gaze of the dark-gray eyes.

"Yes, it is a very good copy," he said, returning to the picture. "I should have paid you a visit before; I have not lost my interest in art, but I have been engaged and indisposed. I have had my nephew with me," he continued, more to himself than to her – "Lord Leyton." He sighed. "You may not have seen him?"

"I have seen him, my lord," said Margaret, and for the life of her she could not help the tell-tale flush rising to her face.

His eyes rested on hers, and seemed to sink to the innermost depths of her soul.

"Have you spoken to him?" he asked, not angrily, but in the tones a judge might use.

Margaret's face grew pale again.

"I have spoken to him, my lord," she said.

The earl's face grew stern and he stood perfectly motionless, with his eyes fixed on her face.

"I am sorry for that."

"Sorry, my lord?" faltered Margaret.

"I am sorry," he repeated. "My nephew, Lord Leyton, is a wicked and unprincipled young man. He is not fit – "

"Oh, my lord!" said Margaret, all her womanly chivalry rising on behalf of the absent.

The earl looked at her, his eyes dark and severe.

"He is not fit to hold converse with such as you." Then the look of grief and surprise seemed to recall him to himself. "No matter. He has gone. It is not likely that you will see him again – "

"No, my lord," assented Margaret, with simple dignity.

"Let us say no more about him. He has nearly broken my heart; he is the one thorn in my side," he went on, notwithstanding that he had said no more should be spoken of the wicked young man. "He is a spendthrift and a gambler, and – " he stopped, suddenly. "If your work is done, permit me to walk with you on the terrace; the air is cool and inviting."

"I have finished for to-day, my lord," she said.

He went to the window and opened it wide for her, and held it open until she had passed out.

It was only to Lord Blair that he was rough and fierce.

"It is a lovely evening," he said, looking out upon the far-stretching lawns.

Margaret stood beside him in silence.

"What will you do with your Guido when you have finished it, Miss Hale?" he said, after a moment or two.

Margaret laughed softly.

"I don't know, my lord," she said at last.

"If you will sell it, I will buy it," he said.

Margaret flushed with gratification.

"I do not know its worth, but I will venture to offer you fifty pounds."

"That's a great deal too much, my lord," she said, decidedly.

"I think not," he responded, so quietly that she could say nothing else beyond "Thank you, my lord!"

"You shall paint another picture for me," he said; "not a copy this time." He paused a moment, then went on, "Choose some small piece of woodland scenery and paint it for me, if you will, Miss Hale."

"I will, my lord," said Margaret, gratefully.

Her simple response seemed to please him, and he looked at her thoughtfully, and with a sad regret. Why had not Heaven blessed him with a daughter like to this beautiful girl? was passing through his mind.

Then he said suddenly:

"You have no parents, Miss Hale?"

"No, my lord," said Margaret sadly.

"And you rely upon your own efforts?" he said gently.

"Yes," replied Margaret, "I depend entirely upon my painting, Lord Ferrers."

"It is not an ignoble dependence," said the stately old man. "You are happy in being able to rely upon yourself. And you delight in your work?"

"I am fonder of it than anything else, my lord," said Margaret, with a smile.

The earl paced toward the broad steps that lead from the terrace to the gardens, and Margaret, feeling that she must not go until she was dismissed, walked by his side.

At a turn in the path he stopped short.

"I must leave you now," he said. "Good-bye! Perhaps, some day, you will be kind enough to give me your company in another stroll. You will not forget the picture?"

"Oh, no, my lord," said Margaret, dropping a courtesy.

The earl paced slowly to his own apartments, and entering the library, sat down before the great carved writing-table.

For half an hour he sat musing.

"So young, so innocent, so much at the mercy of the cold, cruel world. Depends upon her art! Poor child, a frail dependence! Why should I not? I am rich beyond calculation, as they tell me. Why should I not do one act of common kindness, and make my money of some use to one deserving it? Hitherto it has passed, through Blair's hands to blacklegs and scoundrels."

He drew the paper toward him and took up the pen with an air of resolution and wrote a note to Messrs. Tyler & Driver, the family solicitors.

"Gentlemen," he wrote, "add a codicil to my will, bequeathing five thousand pounds to Margaret Hale, the granddaughter of Mrs. Hale, who acts as the Court housekeeper.

Very truly yours,Ferrers."

It was an important letter for Margaret, but it bore upon her future to an extent far greater than would be inferred even by the gift of so large a sum of money.

CHAPTER IX

It was only when she had left the earl that Margaret noticed how kind and gracious he had been. He had not only bought the copy of the Guido, and commissioned another picture of her, but had walked by her side and smiled upon her, treating her almost as an equal, with a gentleness and deference indeed which seemed to indicate that he thought her a superior.

"I'll go into the woods and find a subject at once," she said to herself. "And it shall be my very best picture, or – I'll know the reason why. No wonder people are fond of lords and ladies, if they are all like the great Earl of Ferrers."

No doubt, if she had known the contents of the letter he had just written to Messrs. Tyler & Driver, she would have thought still more highly of him.

She had a sketch-block and pencil in her hand, and she went through to the woods that fringed the Court lawns on three sides.

They were lovely woods: there was no more beautiful place in England than Leyton Court, and Margaret almost forgot the purpose for which she had come, as she sat in a little bushy dell, through which ran a tiny stream, tumbling in silvery cascades over the bowlders rounded by the hand of Time.

But presently, when she had drank deep of its beauty, she began to make a sketch of the dell.

What a lucky girl she was! The possessor of the silver medal, an exhibitor in the Academy, and now commissioned by no less a personage than the Earl of Ferrers.

"I shall be really famous if I go on like this," she said to herself, with a soft laugh.

Then the laugh died out on her lips, for, with a sudden spring, a young man reached the rock she was at that moment sketching, and from it dropped to her side.

It was Lord Leyton.

Margaret was so startled that she let the sketch-block fall from her hand, and sat looking at him, with the color slowly fading from her face. She had succeeded in forgetting him for a short hour or two, and here he was at her side again.

And Lord Blair assuredly looked, if not startled, pale and haggard.

For the last two days, since he had left Margaret, overwhelmed by his passionate outburst, he had been living after his wildest and most reckless fashion, and two days of such dissipation and sleeplessness, added to passion, tell even upon such perfect physical specimens of humanity as Blair Leyton.

"Lord Leyton!" she said at last.

He picked up her sketch-block, but held it, still looking at her.

"I've frightened you," he said, remorsefully; "I – I am a brute. I did not know you were here until I jumped upon that stone, when I was close upon you."

Margaret tried to smile.

"It does not matter," she said. "Give me my block, please," and she held out her hand.

He drew a little nearer, and gave her the block.

"You are sketching?" he said, his eyes fixed on her face with a wistful eagerness.

She inclined her head.

"Yes; I am painting a picture for the earl."

"For the earl!" he repeated dully, as if her voice, and not the words she said, were of importance to him.

"Yes; if you wish to see him, you will find him at home; he has just left me."

"Just left you!" he repeated as before. "No; I don't want to see him."

Margaret raised her eyes and looked at him.

"You have not come down to see him?" she said with faint surprise.

"No!" he responded. "He wouldn't see me if I had. But I didn't come to see him; I came – " then he stopped for a second. "Miss Margaret, I am afraid to tell you why I came."

"Then don't tell me," said Margaret, trying to force a smile. "It sounds as if you had come for no good purpose, my lord."

He stood silent for a second, then he flung himself at her feet, and leaning on his elbow, looked up at her with the same eager wistfulness in his handsome eyes.

"Yes, I will tell you," he said; "I came to see you!"

"To see me?" said Margaret, flushing. Then the straight brows came together. "Lord Leyton, you should not have said that!"

"Why should I not?" he demanded, "if it's true – and it is true! Miss Margaret, I have been the wretchedest man in London these last two days."

"I doubt that," said Margaret quietly, and going on with her sketch.

"It's the truth. If there was a man condemned to be hanged, I'll wager he wasn't more wretched than I have been."

"Wicked people are always wretched – or should be, my lord," said Margaret coolly.

"And I am wicked. Yes, I know," he said; "I am the vilest of the vile, in your eyes. But it isn't for what I've done in the past that I'm so miserable, it is for what I said to you in the picture gallery the other morning. Miss Margaret, I behaved like a brute! I – I – said words that – that have made me wish I were dead – "

"That will do, Lord Leyton," said Margaret, interrupting him. "If you are so sorry there need be no more said excepting that I forgive you, and will forget them. I knew that you did not mean them at the time."

His face crimsoned, and his eyes grew almost fierce.

"Stop," he said; "I don't say that. I won't. I'm sorry I was rough; I'm sorry I behaved like a bear and blared and shouted, but I did mean what I said, and mean it still."

"I don't care whether you meant it or not, it is not of the least consequence, Lord Leyton," said Margaret, and she put her pencil in its case, and closed her sketch-block.

"Wait – do wait!" he explained. "Don't go yet. I have so much to say to you, so much, and I don't know how to say it! Miss Margaret, I came down on the chance of seeing you, and all the way down I prepared a speech, but the sight of you so suddenly has driven it all out of my head, and I can think of nothing but three words of it, and – and those I dare not say."

"I must go, my lord," said Margaret, trying to speak calmly and indifferently, but feeling her heart beginning to throb and quiver under the sound of his voice and the passionate regard of his dark eyes.

"Wait – wait five minutes," he implored. "Miss Margaret, don't send me back to London feeling that you despise me. Don't do that! I'm bad enough as it is, but I shall be worse if you do that."

Margaret sank down on the stones again, and listened with her eyes guarded by their long lashes; but she still could see his face.

He drew himself a little nearer.

"Miss Margaret, are you a witch?"

"A witch?" she faltered.

"Yes," he said. "I think you must be one, for you have bewitched me."

"Lord Leyton – "

"Am I not bewitched?" he said, holding out his hands appealingly; "isn't a man bewitched when he can only think of one thing, day and night, and can get no rest or sleep from thinking of it? And that is how it is with me. I can think of nothing but you."

Margaret made a motion to get up, but he laid his hand on the edge of her skirt imploringly.

"That is how it is with me," he went on. "I tell you the simple truth. I – I have never felt like it before. None of the women I ever met made me feel like this! What is it you have done to me to steal the heart out of my body? for I feel that it is gone – gone!" and he touched his breast with his finger.

Margaret tried to smile, but there is a tragedy in real passion which, however wild the language, forbids laughter, and Lord Leyton's passion was real.

"I see your face all day, I hear your voice. I go over every word you said to me – and some of them were hard words! – and – and to-day I felt that I must get near to you, that I must come down to Leyton if I died for it. Do you believe what I say?"

"I know that I should not listen to you, my lord," she said, in a low voice.

"Why not?" he said. "It is true. Miss Margaret, you have stolen my heart; what is there left to me? I have come because I must, and now I am here I am no better, for I feel that I must tell you more, all that there is to tell, even if you send me away. But don't do that if you can help it, for Heaven's sake don't do that!" and she saw that his lips were quivering. "Margaret, you know what I would say," he went on, in the low, thrilling tones of a young and strong man's passion. "I love you!"

Margaret did not start, but a red flush rose and covered her face, then left it pale even to whiteness, and she sat as if turned to stone.

"I love you! Dear, I love you!" he murmured. "Do you – will you not believe me?"

She opened her lips, but he put up his hand.

"No, don't speak – not yet. I know what you were going to say. You were going to say that it is impossible, that we only met a few days ago, that we are strangers. Yes, I know that is what you would say. But it is of no use to say that. Do you think people can get to love by knowing each other a certain number of months – years? Margaret, I think I loved you when I saw you in the village the first time; I know I loved you when you sat by my side in the garden and let me put the rose in your dress! Only a few days ago! Why, it seems years to me – it is years! Oh, Margaret, don't be hard and cruel, and you can be so hard, so cruel! See here; I lay all my life at your feet! It's a bad lot, I know! Why, I told you so, didn't I? But – but I'll change all that! You shall see! Let me go on loving you; let me hope that, some day, you'll try and love me a little in return, and I'll turn over a new leaf! I can never be worthy of you. Oh, I know that. Why, where is there a man in all the world who could be worthy to touch the edge of your dress?" and as he spoke he raised her skirt to his lips, and far from touching herself as his lips were, she seemed to feel them. "But every day, every hour, if you will let me love you, I'll tell myself that I'm of some consequence to someone in the world, and that will keep me straight! Margaret – " he paused and crept a little nearer – "Margaret, you are an angel, and I am a – well, just the other thing; but I ask you to be my guardian angel! Dear, if you knew how I love you! I cannot get your face from before my eyes; every word you have uttered sings in my heart! I am bewitched, bewitched! And – and all I can say is, let me love you all my life, and try and love me a little!"

Pale, trembling, Margaret listened, her eyes downcast, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

It was all so new, so strange, so unexpected that her heart throbbed and her brain whirled. His words, in their passionate assertion and entreaty, seemed to penetrate to her soul, and with it all a sense of ineffable joy and delight suffused her whole being and ran through every vein.

"You won't speak to me?" he said, with a quick sigh that was almost like a sob. "I see how it is! I am not fit; yes, I know! And I have offended you worse than I did the other morning. I – I am a fool, and I have destroyed my only chance! I meant to be so quiet and – and gentle with you, but I can't teach myself to keep quiet and soft-spoken when my heart is all on fire, and I long to clasp you in my arms and hear you tell me that you love me! Margaret, my good angel! Margaret, won't you say one little word to me? Not to send me away, but to tell me that, bad as I am, you will – well, think a little kindly of me!"

He had drawn himself still closer, so that his face almost touched the lace of her sleeves, and she could see the quiver of his lips under the thick mustache.

He waited a moment, then his head drooped.

"All right," he said; "don't speak. I see how it is. No, I'd rather you didn't speak. I might have known that you wouldn't listen to me, that you wouldn't give me any kind of hope. Good Lord, why should you? Well, I'll take myself off; I'll get out of your sight."

He had raised himself, but Margaret's hand stole out and fell, light as a feather, on his arm.

He seized it as a man dying of thirst in the desert seizes the cup of water that will save him, and covered it with hot passionate kisses.

"No, no!" she breathed, trying to draw it away. "You – you have unnerved me, Lord Leyton!"

"Go on!" he said. "I can bear it better if you will let me keep your hand!" and he pressed it to his lips again "What are you going to say, Margaret? Don't be hard upon me."

"Hard! – how can I be hard?" she faltered, and the tears came thickly into her sweet eyes. "How could anybody be hard, after such – such things as you have said? But – but – oh, my lord – isn't it all a mistake? You – you cannot lov – it is impossible!"

"Just what I told myself!" he exclaimed almost triumphantly. "I said it was impossible! But a starving man won't persuade himself that he isn't hungry by telling himself that he had something to eat a week ago. Margaret, I love you – I do love you!" and he pressed her hand against his heart, which throbbed passionately under her fingers like an imprisoned bird. "You know that it is true – do you not?"

"I – I think it is true!" she faltered in all modesty, in all honesty, but with a strange look in her face; "I do not know! No one has ever spoken to me as you have spoken; no one – no one!"

"Thank God for it!" he exclaimed. "I couldn't bear to think that any other man had been before me, Margaret! And will you try – oh, my dear, be good to me! – will you try and love me – "

She turned her eyes upon him with a grave, touching appeal which rendered her face angelic in its perfect maidenly innocence and trustfulness.

"I – I will try," she murmured in so low a voice that it is wonderful that he should have heard it.

But he did hear it, and leaning forward, caught her in his arms and drew her to him until her head rested on his shoulders, her face against his.

Then, as his lips clung to hers in the first love kiss that man had ever imprinted there, she drew back, startled and trembling.

"Margaret, dearest!" he exclaimed, in tender reproach, attempting to take her in his embrace again.

"No, no!" she panted. "Not yet – not yet! I am not sure – "

"Of me, of my love, dearest? Not sure?" he murmured reproachfully.

"Not sure of myself!" she said, locking her hands together. "I – I must think, I cannot think now. Ah, you have bewitched me– " and she put her hand to her brow, and looked down at him with a far-away, puzzled look. "I want to be alone, to think it all over. It seems too – too wild and improbable – "

"Think now, dearest. Give me your hand. I will not speak, I will not look at you!" he said, soothingly.

"No, no!" she said, almost fearfully, drawing her hand from him; and rising, she stood as if half giddy.

"You will leave me," he said, piteously, "with only – "

"I have said I – I will try!" she answered. "I will go now."

He sprung to his feet.

"Let me come with you – to the house, my dearest," he pleaded.

But she put up her hand.

"No; go now! We shall meet again – perhaps – soon."

"Yes, yes!" he responded, catching at the slightest straw of encouragement, like a drowning man. "I won't hurry you, or harass you, Margaret! I will try and be gentle with you. I will be a changed man from now. You shall see. But you will let me come again soon? You will meet me here to-morrow, Margaret?" he added, anxiously.

"The – the day after," she faltered. "Good-bye!"

He took her hand and held it to his lips, then she drew it away, and seemed to vanish from his sight.

At twenty paces she stopped, however, and holding up the hand he had kissed and pressed against his heart, she looked at it with a curious look, then laid her lips where his had touched it.