Wild Margaret

Poor Margaret!

CHAPTER X

Austin Ambrose had chambers in the Albany. He was not a rich man, as he had remarked, but the rooms were comfortably, even luxuriously furnished, and the taste displayed in their ornamentation and decoration was of the best. There were good pictures, rare china, and bronzes, that, if not priceless, were curious enough to be reckoned as valuable.

How Mr. Austin Ambrose lived was a mystery, just as he himself was somewhat of a mystery. He was supposed to have a small income, and he was known to play an admirable hand at whist, and to wield a remarkably good cue at billiards.

He was also a capital judge of a horse, and it was conjectured that he added to his certain income by these usually uncertain adjuncts.

On the evening of Blair's avowal in the Leyton Woods, Austin Ambrose sat over the dessert which followed his modest dinner.

A bottle of very fine claret was on the table, and he was sipping this in silent abstraction, when the door burst open, and Lord Blair rushed in.

Austin Ambrose looked up without a particle of surprise, but with a faint smile of irony.

"House on fire?" he said.

"My dear old chappie!" exclaimed Blair, laying his strong hand on Austin's shoulder, "I've such a lot to tell you! Austin, I've seen her!"

"Seen her? Seen whom?" said Austin raising his brows as if trying to recollect, whereas he had been thinking of the "her" as Blair rushed in. "Oh, the young lady, Miss – Miss Hale."

"Of course, of course!" exclaimed Blair, pacing up and down the room. "Austin, old fellow, I don't know where to begin. I've only just come back from Leyton and from her! Austin, she is an angel!"

"I dare say," was the cool comment. "And so you have been to Leyton. Another fight, Blair?"

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Lord Blair. "Be serious, old fellow. My heart is bursting with it all."

"Perhaps it will burst all the easier – at any rate you will be more comfortable – if you sit down," said Austin Ambrose, dragging a chair forward without rising. "Sit down, man, and don't wear my carpet out. I'm not rich enough to afford another, you know."

Lord Blair sank into the chair and took the wine which the other man poured out for him.

"And so you have been down to Leyton, Blair, have you? 'Pon my word, I didn't think you were so hard hit!"

Lord Blair made a gesture of impatience.

"I told you that I loved her!" he said, almost savagely.

Austin Ambrose shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows.

"My dear fellow, you have made the same interesting remark about so many women!"

"No!" said Blair, vehemently. "I have never spoken about any other woman as I have spoken to you about her, because I have never felt for any other woman as I feel for her. Austin, if you could see her! She is the most beautiful creature you ever saw, and so modest, so sweet, so refined, so – there, if I were to rave about her from now till midnight I should not give you an idea of what she is like. Do you know that picture of Gainsborough, the girl gathering flowers – but there, what is the use of trying to describe her!"

"There is no use," said Austin, sipping his wine critically and lighting a cigar.

"No, and to you, especially!" said Lord Blair. "As well talk to a stone image. You know nothing of love or women."

Austin Ambrose smiled, a peculiar smile.

"Not the least," he said, cheerfully and placidly. "Love and women are not in my line. Wine and weeds and a good suit of trumps now – but tell me about her, for I know you are dying to. You saw her?"

"Yes, I saw her," assented Lord Blair, with a long sigh.

"And is that all?" asked Ambrose carelessly, but with a certain quick, attentive look in the corner of his cold gray eye. "Simply raised your hat and said 'good-day!'"

"No, by the Lord, no! I spent an hour with her – I think – I don't know – I lost all count of time, of everything."

"You talked to her? Did you mention that you had lost your senses – I mean your heart?"

"No chaffing about her, Austin," said Lord Blair, almost sternly, and with the look of passion that came so readily to his frank eyes. "Yes, I did tell her that I loved her!" he said, after a moment's pause.

Austin Ambrose looked over Blair's head without a particle of expression in his eyes.

"And may one ask how she took it?" he said, as carelessly as politeness would permit, but with his attention acutely on the alert. "What did she say?"

"I can't tell you all she said. I wouldn't if I could," said Blair, the color coming to his face, his eyes glowing with a rapt look. "She gave me no direct answer. I – I have to wait, Austin. Oh, how can I wait! The hours will seem years. Don't laugh, or I shall get up and kill you," he broke off blushing, but half in earnest. "Austin, if ever a man loved with all his heart, and mind, and body, and soul, I love her!"

"Yes," said Austin, slowly, almost gravely, "I think you do."

There was a moment's silence.

"And you propose – what do you propose?" he said, quietly; "do you mean to marry her?"

Blair sprung to his feet and his face turned white.

"Tut, tut, man," remarked Austin Ambrose, with perfect coolness, "you don't always marry them!"

Lord Blair sank back into his chair with a look of remorse and shame that was of more credit to him than any other expression could have been.

"You hit me fairly, Austin," he said, almost hoarsely. "But – but – all that has gone forever, I hope! I – I turn over a new leaf from to-day, please Heaven! Do I mean to marry her? Yes, yes! If she will have me! If she will stoop, the angel, to pick me out of the mud with her pure white hand, I mean to go to the earl and say – 'My lord, this is my future wife!'" and he sprung up and began to pace the floor.

Austin Ambrose sipped his wine.

"Hem!" he said, slowly. "I don't think I should do that, if I were in your place, Blair."

Lord Blair stopped.

"You wouldn't – why not?"

Austin Ambrose was silent for a moment, then he set down his glass and leant back in his chair, but still looked just over Blair's head, instead of into his eyes.

"Look here, Blair," he said; "I don't know that I have any right to intrude my advice, or even my opinion, upon you, but I am, as you know, your friend."

"I should think so!" exclaimed Lord Blair.

"Yes, I am your friend! I owe you my life! Ever since you picked me out of the Thames that August morning – "

"Oh, nonsense!" broke in Blair. "Any fellow would have done the same! You'd have picked me out if I'd had the cramp, and was going down instead of you."

"Well, we won't talk of it then," said Austin Ambrose; "but, of course, I don't forget it. When I look in the glass in the morning, I say to the not particularly handsome gentleman who regards me, 'My friend, but for Lord Blair's strong arm and good wind, you would not be outside the world's crust this morning.' Of course, I can't forget it, and as I owe you my life, I will continue to be a nuisance to you by offering my advice, and that is, 'Don't go to the earl and tell him you are going to make his housekeeper's granddaughter his future niece and the Countess of Ferrers!'"

CHAPTER XI

"What do you say?" said Lord Blair, staring at Austin Ambrose with astonishment. "You wouldn't tell the earl?"

"No," said Ambrose, lighting a cigarette and stretching out his legs with comfortable indolence. "I certainly should not."

"But – but why not?" demanded Lord Blair.

"Well," said Ambrose slowly, "you are awkwardly placed, you see. I imagined from all you have told me that you and the earl do not get on very well together as it is."

"You are right, we don't," admitted Lord Blair shortly.

"Just so. You have led – well, not to put it too plainly – you have been engaged in that branch of agriculture which is called sowing wild oats for a considerable period, and with a great deal of energy. You have had, I believe, rather a large sum of money from the earl?"

"Yes, I have," admitted Blair with a sigh and a frown.

"Not a penny of which he would regret, if you would only oblige him by marrying the woman he has chosen for you."

"Violet Graham?"

"Exactly; Violet Graham," assented Austin Ambrose, knocking the ash off his cigarette and keeping his eyes fixed upon it. "And that, I take it, you don't care to do?"

"You know I don't. And Violet doesn't either. Why, you yourself advised me to release her, you know that she doesn't care a brass farthing for me!" exclaimed Blair, pacing to and fro.

"Oh, as to knowing, I don't go so far as that. You asked me for my opinion, and I gave it to you. I don't think she cares for you. I don't think Miss Graham is the kind of woman to care very much for any one."

"Very well, then, how the deuce could I marry her?" said Blair. "But what's the use of talking about that? Whatever I might have done before I saw Margaret, I certainly couldn't marry any one but her now, not to save a dukedom!"

"All right," assented Austin Ambrose, without permitting the slightest expression of the thrill of satisfaction that ran through him. "I quite understand, and I must say I think you are acting wisely. The man who marries one girl while he loves another is worse than wicked – he is foolish. But, all the same, the earl remains disappointed and displeased. Do you think, Blair, that his disappointment and displeasure would be lessened if you were to go to him and say, 'I can't marry Violet Graham, the woman you have chosen for me, and whose money would set me straight; but behold the girl I intend to make my wife and the future Countess of Ferrers! – she is your housekeeper's niece!'"

"Grand-daughter," said Blair. "And what if she is? I tell you, Austin, Margaret is a lady, from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet!"

"I dare say. I am sure she is, if you say so. You are a very good judge. But, my dear Blair, you can't expect everybody to see her with your eyes, especially an old man who has outlived the age of romance! Miss Margaret, with all her beauty, and grace, and refinement, will be his housekeeper's granddaughter – and nothing more to him. He will, to put it plainly, be very mad, my dear Blair."

"Well!" said Blair, with the Leyton frown on his handsome face, and the firm look about his lips which when seen by his friends was understood by them to mean that he had made up his mind – "what then?"

Austin Ambrose raised his eyebrows and looked just over Blair's head with a smile.

"What then? Well, you ought to know better than I whether you can afford to quarrel right out with your uncle, the great earl."

Blair flushed.

"What can he do to me – or her?" he asked.

"He can't order you off to instant execution, as he would no doubt like to do," said Ambrose, "but he can injure your prospects very materially, my dear Blair. Oh, I know about the title and estate," he went on, as Blair opened his lips. "Those must come to you – lucky beggar that you are! But there is something more and beyond those. The earl has a large personal property, a vast sum of money, that he can leave as he pleases – "

"How do you know that?" demanded Blair, with a faint surprise.

The slightest flush rose to Austin Ambrose's face.

"Well," he replied, "I only imagine so. Like most people, I know that the earl has not lived up to a half, or a quarter of his income for years. And what an income it is! He must have saved an enormous sum of money – "

"Let him do what he likes with it!" exclaimed Blair, bluntly. "I have had more than my share already. Let him leave it to anybody he likes. It is his own."

"Whom is he to leave it to?" said Ambrose. "The Home for Lost Dogs?"

"Or Sick Cats. I don't care!" said Blair, impetuously.

"That is all very well, and very noble, and all that, my dear Blair," said the cool, quiet voice. "But – pardon me – you haven't only yourself to think about, you know. There is your wife – the fair Margaret – "

"Heaven bless her, my darling!" murmured Blair.

"Just so," retorted Ambrose, with a cynical smile. "But when you say Heaven bless her, you mean that you wish Providence to pour out the good things of this life upon her with a liberal hand, but at the same moment you declare your intention of depriving her and her children of a large sum of money. Rather inconsistent, isn't it?"

Blair stood and looked down at him.

"What a head you have, Austin!" he said. "You ought to have been a lawyer. All this never struck me. I – I – never look forward to the future."

Austin Ambrose shrugged his shoulders.

"If we don't look forward to the future, the future has an awkward knack of looking back upon us!" he said indolently. "Depend upon it, my friend, that if you let the earl's money slip, you'll live to be sorry for it, not for your own sake, I dare say; you don't care about money, but for your wife and children's!"

"We shouldn't be paupers exactly!" said Blair, with a laugh.

"No!" assented Ambrose; and he shot a glance of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness at the frank, handsome face. "No, you will be one of the richest men in England, but all the same – "

"And – and I hate anything like concealment and deceit," Blair broke in impatiently; "especially in connection with her."

Austin Ambrose nodded.

"Well, you asked for my opinion, and you are quite at liberty to reject it as per usual," he said carelessly. "But though I am not a rich man, I don't mind betting you fifty to one – in farthings – that if you declare your purpose of marrying this young lady to the earl, that before many years are over you will come to me and wish to Heaven you had taken my advice."

Blair bit at his cigar and fidgeted in the chair he had thrown himself into.

"I hate the idea of secrecy, Austin," he said at last; "and yet – but there! ten to one Margaret would refuse a clandestine marriage."

Austin Ambrose did not sneer, but he lowered his lids till they covered the cold gray eyes.

"Yes? I think not. Not if you told her all that you would lose by an open declaration. Women – forgive me, my dear fellow, but I know a little about them, though you think I don't – women have a better idea of the value of money than we men have. I think Miss Hale will consent to a quiet wedding when she knows that by so doing she will save several score of thousands to her husband, and to her future children."

There was silence for a moment, then Blair spoke. His fate and Margaret's, and more than theirs, had hung in the balance while he had hesitated.

"I think you're right, Austin," he said. "You always are, I know, and though I hate doing it, I'll take your advice. It – it will be only for a short time."

"Yes, the earl is quite an old man – "

"I didn't mean that," said Blair, quickly, "I don't want him to die, Heaven knows! I am not at all anxious to be the Earl of Ferrers. I shouldn't make half as fine an earl as he does."

"Just so," said Austin Ambrose. "But I am glad you intend to take my advice."

"Of course it all depends upon what Margaret says," said Lord Blair, gravely. "She may tell me that she – she will not marry me" – Austin Ambrose smoothed away a smile that was more than half a sneer – "but if she should say 'Yes,' then I will ask her to marry me quietly, though I hate the idea of any secrecy."

There was silence for a moment, then Austin Ambrose said, with a meditative smile:

"And are you going to turn over a new leaf, eh, Blair? What will the gay world do without you? What will they all say? – Lottie Belvoir, for instance."

Lord Blair colored and frowned.

"What has my marriage to do with Lottie Belvoir?" he said. "I have not seen her for months."

"Oh, nothing," assented Ambrose. "But you and she were so very thick, that I expect she will be a little heart-broken, you know."

Lord Blair made an impatient movement.

"I wish to Heaven I had never seen her or any of her kind," he said, remorsefully. "What fools men are, Austin! If we could only live our lives over again – but there, I mean to begin afresh now. And you will help me, old fellow!" and he laid his hand on the other man's shoulder. "You have always been the best friend I ever had, and you will help me now!"

"Of course, I'll help you; but I don't see what I can do," said Austin Ambrose, quietly. "If Miss Hale says 'Yes,' I should beg her to marry me as soon as possible. All you have to do then is to go down to some out-of-the-way place where there is a church – and there are churches everywhere – get the bans put up, or, better still, get a special license. You can be married as snugly as possible, and no one will be any the wiser. Such marriages are managed every day. Who knew that old Fortesque was married? We all thought him a bachelor, and yet he'd had a wife seven years! I'll help you all I can. I can't do less, having given you my advice to keep the thing a secret from the earl. Of course, I'd rather not have anything to do with it, but" – he shrugged his shoulders – "you can't refuse anything to a man who saved your life, you know! Have some more wine?"

"No, thanks; no more," said Lord Blair, jumping up; "I'll take a stroll in the park. I want to think it all over. I am to see her the day after to-morrow, to know if I am to be the happiest or the most miserable of men. Ah, Austin, if you could only see her!"

"I hope I may have the honor soon," he returned. "They say that when a man marries, his wife always hates his most intimate friend. I hope it won't be so with your wife, Blair, I must confess."

"Margaret is incapable of hating any one," said Blair; "she is an angel, and angels can't hate if they try! Austin, old fellow cynic and woman-hater as you are, you will admit that I have some reason in my madness when you see the girl I love."

"I dare say," said Ambrose. "Well, good-bye! Come and tell me how it all goes."

"Of course," said Blair, getting his hat and stick.

"By the way," said Ambrose indolently; "this is quite a secret at present, isn't it? You have not told any one but me that you have ever seen this young lady?"

"It is quite a secret if you like to call it so," said Blair. "I have told no one."

"I can't help thinking you were right," said Ambrose. "If I were you I would not open my lips to any one."

Lord Blair nodded, but his face grew overcast.

"I do hate all this mystery," he said; "but I suppose you are right. What I want to do is to take her hand and stand before the world and say, 'Look here, what a prize I have got!'"

"Yes; very nice of you," said Austin Ambrose, "but as we concluded that it is your duty and policy to keep the world in the dark for the present, the best thing you can do is to say nothing to anybody."

"Yes," said Blair; "very well," and he strode out of the room.

Austin Ambrose sat and listened to the firm, decided step as it died away on the stairs, then he rose and paced the room with slow and measured tread, his hard, cold face set like stone.

"It's risky!" he muttered at last. "It may fail, and then – But it will not fail! Blair is easy enough to manage, and the girl – well, she is like the rest, I suppose and, Heaven knows, they are easy enough to deceive! I'll chance it!"

He sat down and remained in thought for another quarter of an hour, then he rose, and putting a light overcoat over his dress clothes, he took his hat and went out.

Passing up one of the small streets, he reached a short row of houses, quiet, miniature boxes of residences, called Anglesea Terrace, and knocking at No. 9, inquired if Miss Belvoir were at home.

Before the maidservant could reply, a feminine voice called out through the open door in the narrow passage:

"Yes, she is. Is that you, Mr. Ambrose? Come in," and Austin Ambrose, passing through the little passage, which was lined with large photographs of Miss Belvoir in various costumes, entered the room from which the voice proceeded.

The room was a very small one – far too small to permit of that oft-mentioned performance – swinging a cat – and it was rather shabbily, though gaudily furnished. The furniture was old and palpably rickety, the carpet was threadbare, but there was a brilliant wall paper, and a pair of gay-colored cushions. An opera cloak, lined with scarlet, lay on one of the chairs, and on the sofa were a hat and a pair of sixteen-button kid gloves.

The owner of the hat, opera cloak, and gloves, sat at the table "discussing," as the old authors say, a lobster and a bottle of stout.

She was a girl of about two-and-twenty, neither pretty nor plain, but with a sharp, intelligent face – the sort of face one sees amongst the London street boys – and a pair of dark and wide-awake eyes, which were by far her best features. She wore a light-blue dressing grown – rather frayed at the sleeves, by the way, and trimmed with a cheap and – by no means slightly – dirty lace. But for all its sharpness and the vulgarity of its surroundings, it was not altogether a bad face.

This was Miss Lottie Belvoir. She was an actress. Not a famous one by any means – only a fifth-rate one at present; but she was waiting for a favorable opportunity to become a first-rate one. Perhaps the opportunity might come, perhaps it mightn't; meanwhile, Lottie Belvoir was content to work hard and wait. Some day, perchance, she would "fetch" the town, and then she would exchange the grimy back room in Anglesea Terrace for a house at St. John's Wood, the old satin dressing-gown for a costume of Worth, and the lobster and stout for pate de foie gras and champagne. Until that happy time arrived, she was perfectly content with minor parts in the burlesques at the Frivolity Theater.

"Oh, it is you, is it?" she said, without rising or stopping at the manipulation of one of the lobster claws; "I thought I recognized your voice. Who was it said that he never forgot a voice or a face? Some great man. Well, I'm like him. You have come just in time. Have some lobster?"

"No, thank you, Lottie," said Ambrose Austin; "I have only just dined."

"Of course, you swells dine later than ever, now, and that's why you can't turn up at the theater until we have got half through the piece. Well, sit down. Make yourself at home. Take care!" she exclaimed, as he sank into an arm-chair; "that chair's got a castor off. Here, take this," and she kicked and pushed another one toward him. "Don't put your cigar out; I'm just going to have a cigarette. Have some stout? No? Too heavy, I suppose? Well, here's some whisky. And how's the world treating you? You look very flourishing; but you always do."

"I might return the compliment," he said. "You are still on the Frivolity, Lottie?"

"Still at the Friv.," she assented, lighting a cigarette and throwing herself not ungracefully on the sofa. "Why don't you drop in some evening and give me a hand? You are too busy at your club with another kind of hand – a hand at cards, I suppose?" she added with charming candor.

He smiled.

"I'll look in some night," he said; "but I suppose they will soon be going on tour."

"Yes, in another fortnight," she said with a yawn, "and precious glad I shall be. London's getting too warm even for this child."

"And yet I want you to stay in London," he said quietly.

She looked across at him and blew out a ring of smoke scientifically.

"You do, do you? What for? Are you going to take a theatre and engage me as leading lady?"

"Do I look like it?" he retorted with a smile.

"Well, not much," she said, surveying him critically. "People might take you for a good many things, Mr. Ambrose, but they wouldn't take you for a fool, or if they did they would be taken in."

"Thanks, Lottie," he said. "That is something like a compliment."

"No, I don't think you are such an idiot as to take a theater," she said, "but what do you want me to stay in London for?"

"To assist me in a little business I'm engaged in," he said.

She regarded him with sharp scrutiny as she leant back and smoked her cigarette.

"You seem rather shy in mentioning it and coming to the point," she said dryly; "is it anything very bad?"

He laughed.

"Oh, no, something quite in your line. You know, Lottie, I always said you would turn out a great actress."

"You have said so a dozen of times," she said, "but whether you meant it – "

"I was quite serious, I assure you," he responded, "and in proof of my sincerity I am going to ask you to play a very difficult part."