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_ CHAPTER XXXIII - PEACE
'Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed,
Never to be disquieted!
My last Good Night--thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake.'
DR. KING.
Home seemed unnaturally quiet after all this terror and noisy
commotion. Her father had seen all due preparation made for her
refreshment on her return; and then sate down again in his
accustomed chair, to fall into one of his sad waking dreams.
Dixon had got Mary Higgins to scold and direct in the kitchen;
and her scolding was not the less energetic because it was
delivered in an angry whisper; for, speaking above her breath she
would have thought irreverent, as long as there was any one dead
lying in the house. Margaret had resolved not to mention the
crowning and closing affright to her father. There was no use in
speaking about it; it had ended well; the only thing to be feared
was lest Leonards should in some way borrow money enough to
effect his purpose of following Frederick to London, and hunting
him out there. But there were immense chances against the success
of any such plan; and Margaret determined not to torment herself
by thinking of what she could do nothing to prevent. Frederick
would be as much on his guard as she could put him; and in a day
or two at most he would be safely out of England.
'I suppose we shall hear from Mr. Bell to-morrow,' said Margaret.
'Yes,' replied her father. 'I suppose so.'
'If he can come, he will be here to-morrow evening, I should
think.'
'If he cannot come, I shall ask Mr. Thornton to go with me to the
funeral. I cannot go alone. I should break down utterly.'
'Don't ask Mr. Thornton, papa. Let me go with you,' said
Margaret, impetuously.
'You! My dear, women do not generally go.'
'No: because they can't control themselves. Women of our class
don't go, because they have no power over their emotions, and yet
are ashamed of showing them. Poor women go, and don't care if
they are seen overwhelmed with grief. But I promise you, papa,
that if you will let me go, I will be no trouble. Don't have a
stranger, and leave me out. Dear papa! if Mr. Bell cannot come, I
shall go. I won't urge my wish against your will, if he does.'
Mr. Bell could not come. He had the gout. It was a most
affectionate letter, and expressed great and true regret for his
inability to attend. He hoped to come and pay them a visit soon,
if they would have him; his Milton property required some looking
after, and his agent had written to him to say that his presence
was absolutely necessary; or else he had avoided coming near
Milton as long as he could, and now the only thing that would
reconcile him to this necessary visit was the idea that he should
see, and might possibly be able to comfort his old friend.
Margaret had all the difficulty in the world to persuade her
father not to invite Mr. Thornton. She had an indescribable
repugnance to this step being taken. The night before the
funeral, came a stately note from Mrs. Thornton to Miss Hale,
saying that, at her son's desire, their carriage should attend
the funeral, if it would not be disagreeable to the family.
Margaret tossed the note to her father.
'Oh, don't let us have these forms,' said she. 'Let us go
alone--you and me, papa. They don't care for us, or else he would
have offered to go himself, and not have proposed this sending an
empty carriage.'
'I thought you were so extremely averse to his going, Margaret,'
said Mr. Hale in some surprise.
'And so I am. I don't want him to come at all; and I should
especially dislike the idea of our asking him. But this seems
such a mockery of mourning that I did not expect it from him.'
She startled her father by bursting into tears. She had been so
subdued in her grief, so thoughtful for others, so gentle and
patient in all things, that he could not understand her impatient
ways to-night; she seemed agitated and restless; and at all the
tenderness which her father in his turn now lavished upon her,
she only cried the more.
She passed so bad a night that she was ill prepared for the
additional anxiety caused by a letter received from Frederick.
Mr. Lennox was out of town; his clerk said that he would return
by the following Tuesday at the latest; that he might possibly be
at home on Monday. Consequently, after some consideration,
Frederick had determined upon remaining in London a day or two
longer. He had thought of coming down to Milton again; the
temptation had been very strong; but the idea of Mr. Bell
domesticated in his father's house, and the alarm he had received
at the last moment at the railway station, had made him resolve
to stay in London. Margaret might be assured he would take every
precaution against being tracked by Leonards. Margaret was
thankful that she received this letter while her father was
absent in her mother's room. If he had been present, he would
have expected her to read it aloud to him, and it would have
raised in him a state of nervous alarm which she would have found
it impossible to soothe away. There was not merely the fact,
which disturbed her excessively, of Frederick's detention in
London, but there were allusions to the recognition at the last
moment at Milton, and the possibility of a pursuit, which made
her blood run cold; and how then would it have affected her
father? Many a time did Margaret repent of having suggested and
urged on the plan of consulting Mr. Lennox. At the moment, it had
seemed as if it would occasion so little delay--add so little to
the apparently small chances of detection; and yet everything
that had since occurred had tended to make it so undesirable.
Margaret battled hard against this regret of hers for what could
not now be helped; this self-reproach for having said what had at
thetime appeared to be wise, but which after events were proving
to have been so foolish. But her father was in too depressed a
state of mind and body to struggle healthily; he would succumb to
all these causes for morbid regret over what could not be
recalled. Margaret summoned up all her forces to her aid. Her
father seemed to have forgotten that they had any reason to
expect a letter from Frederick that morning. He was absorbed in
one idea--that the last visible token of the presence of his wife
was to be carried away from him, and hidden from his sight. He
trembled pitifully as the undertaker's man was arranging his
crape draperies around him. He looked wistfully at Margaret; and,
when released, he tottered towards her, murmuring, 'Pray for me,
Margaret. I have no strength left in me. I cannot pray. I give
her up because I must. I try to bear it: indeed I do. I know it
is God's will. But I cannot see why she died. Pray for me,
Margaret, that I may have faith to pray. It is a great strait, my
child.'
Margaret sat by him in the coach, almost supporting him in her
arms; and repeating all the noble verses of holy comfort, or
texts expressive of faithful resignation, that she could
remember. Her voice never faltered; and she herself gained
strength by doing this. Her father's lips moved after her,
repeating the well-known texts as her words suggested them; it
was terrible to see the patient struggling effort to obtain the
resignation which he had not strength to take into his heart as a
part of himself.
Margaret's fortitude nearly gave way as Dixon, with a slight
motion of her hand, directed her notice to Nicholas Higgins and
his daughter, standing a little aloof, but deeply attentive to
the ceremonial. Nicholas wore his usual fustian clothes, but had
a bit of black stuff sewn round his hat--a mark of mourning which
he had never shown to his daughter Bessy's memory. But Mr. Hale
saw nothing. He went on repeating to himself, mechanically as it
were, all the funeral service as it was read by the officiating
clergyman; he sighed twice or thrice when all was ended; and
then, putting his hand on Margaret's arm, he mutely entreated to
be led away, as if he were blind, and she his faithful guide.
Dixon sobbed aloud; she covered her face with her handkerchief,
and was so absorbed in her own grief, that she did not perceive
that the crowd, attracted on such occasions, was dispersing, till
she was spoken to by some one close at hand. It was Mr. Thornton.
He had been present all the time, standing, with bent head,
behind a group of people, so that, in fact, no one had recognised
him.
'I beg your pardon,--but, can you tell me how Mr. Hale is? And
Miss Hale, too? I should like to know how they both are.'
'Of course, sir. They are much as is to be expected. Master is
terribly broke down. Miss Hale bears up better than likely.'
Mr. Thornton would rather have heard that she was suffering the
natural sorrow. In the first place, there was selfishness enough
in him to have taken pleasure in the idea that his great love
might come in to comfort and console her; much the same kind of
strange passionate pleasure which comes stinging through a
mother's heart, when her drooping infant nestles close to her,
and is dependent upon her for everything. But this delicious
vision of what might have been--in which, in spite of all
Margaret's repulse, he would have indulged only a few days
ago--was miserably disturbed by the recollection of what he had
seen near the Outwood station. 'Miserably disturbed!' that is not
strong enough. He was haunted by the remembrance of the handsome
young man, with whom she stood in an attitude of such familiar
confidence; and the remembrance shot through him like an agony,
till it made him clench his hands tight in order to subdue the
pain. At that late hour, so far from home! It took a great moral
effort to galvanise his trust--erewhile so perfect--in Margaret's
pure and exquisite maidenliness, into life; as soon as the effort
ceased, his trust dropped down dead and powerless: and all sorts
of wild fancies chased each other like dreams through his mind.
Here was a little piece of miserable, gnawing confirmation. 'She
bore up better than likely' under this grief. She had then some
hope to look to, so bright that even in her affectionate nature
it could come in to lighten the dark hours of a daughter newly
made motherless. Yes! he knew how she would love. He had not
loved her without gaining that instinctive knowledge of what
capabilities were in her. Her soul would walk in glorious
sunlight if any man was worthy, by his power of loving, to win
back her love. Even in her mourning she would rest with a
peaceful faith upon his sympathy. His sympathy! Whose? That other
man's. And that it was another was enough to make Mr. Thornton's
pale grave face grow doubly wan and stern at Dixon's answer.
'I suppose I may call,' said he coldly. 'On Mr. Hale, I mean. He
will perhaps admit me after to-morrow or so.'
He spoke as if the answer were a matter of indifference to him.
But it was not so. For all his pain, he longed to see the author
of it. Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of
that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant
circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in
his mind--a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed. He was
in the Charybdis of passion, and must perforce circle and circle
ever nearer round the fatal centre.
'I dare say, sir, master will see you. He was very sorry to have
to deny you the other day; but circumstances was not agreeable
just then.'
For some reason or other, Dixon never named this interview that
she had had with Mr. Thornton to Margaret. It might have been
mere chance, but so it was that Margaret never heard that he had
attended her poor mother's funeral. _
Read next: CHAPTER XXXIV - FALSE AND TRUE
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