A True Friend Part 45

company to pay a visit to the Red House. Her anxiety to know what was occurring between Wyvis and Margaret had become almost uncontrollable and, although she was not very likely to hear much about it from Wyvis or his mother, she vaguely hoped to gather indications at least of the state of affairs from her cousin's aspect and manners.

It was plain that Wyvis was not in a happy mood. His brow was dark, his tone sarcastic; he spoke roughly once or twice to his mother and to his little son. He evidently repented of his roughness, however, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, for he went over to Mrs. Brand's side and kissed her immediately afterwards, and gave some extra indulgence to Julian by way of making up for his previous severity. Still the irritation of feeling existed, and could not be altogether repressed when he spoke; and when he was silent he fell into a condition of gloom which was even more depressing than his sharpness. Janetta did her best to be cheerful and talkative to Mrs. Brand, and she fancied that he liked to listen; for he sat on with them in the blue room long after Nora and Cuthbert had disappeared into the garden and the children were romping in the wood. Certainly he did not say much to her, but he seemed greatly disinclined to move.

After a time, Mrs. Brand and Janetta adjourned to the hall, which was always a favorite place of resort on summer evenings. Traces of the children's presence made the rooms more cheerful than they used to be--to Janetta's thinking. Tiny's doll and Julian's ball were more enlivening to the place than even Cuthbert's sketches and Nora's bunches of wild flowers. And here, too, Wyvis followed them in an aimless, subdued sort of way; and, having asked and obtained permission to light a cigarette, he threw himself into a favorite chair, and seemed to listen dreamily, while Janetta held patient discourse with his mother on the ailments of the locality and the difficulty of getting the housework done. Janetta glanced at him from time to time; he sat so quietly that she would have thought him sleeping but for the faint blue spirals of smoke that went up from his cigarette. It was six o'clock in the evening, and the golden lights and long shadows made Janetta long to be out of doors; but Mrs. Brand had a nervous fear of rheumatism, and did not want to move.

"What is that?" said Wyvis, suddenly rousing himself.

n.o.body else had heard anything. He strode suddenly to the door, and flung it open. Janetta heard the quavering tones of the old man-servant, an astonished, enraptured exclamation from Wyvis himself; and she knew--instinctively--what to expect. She turned round; it was as she had feared. Margaret was there. Wyvis was leading her into the room with the fixed look of adoration in his eyes which had been so much commented upon at Lady Ashley's party. When she was present, he evidently saw none but her. Janetta rose quickly and withdrew a little into the back ground. She wished for a moment that she had not been there--and then it occurred to her that she might be useful by and by. But it was perhaps better for Margaret not to see her too soon. Mrs. Brand, utterly unprepared for this visit, not even knowing the stranger by sight, and, as usual, quite unready for an emergency, rose nervously from her seat and stood, timid, awkward, and anxious, awaiting an explanation.

"Mother, this is Margaret Adair," said Wyvis, as quietly as if his mother knew all that was involved in that very simple formula. He was still holding the girl by the hand and gazing in his former rapt manner into her face. It was not the look of a lover, to Janetta's eye, half so much as the worship of a saint. Margaret embodied for Wyvis Brand the highest aspirations, the purest dreams of his youth.

As to Margaret, Janetta thought that she was looking exquisitely lovely.

Her thinness added to the impression of ethereal beauty; there was a delicacy about her appearance which struck the imagination. Her color fluctuated; her eyes shone like stars; and her whole frame seemed a little tremulous, as if she were shaken by some strange and powerful emotion to her very soul. Her broad-brimmed straw hat, white dress, and long tan gloves belonged, as Janetta knew, only to her ordinary attire when no visitors were to be seen; but simplicity of dress always seemed to garnish Margaret's beauty, and to throw it into the strongest possible relief. She was sufficiently striking in aspect to frighten poor, timid Mrs. Brand, who was never happy when she found herself in the company of "fashionable" people. But it was with a perfectly simple and almost child-like manner that Margaret drew her finger away from Wyvis' clasp and went up to his mother, holding out both hands as if in appeal for help.

"I am Margaret," she said. "I ought not to have come; but what could I do? They are going to take me away from the Court to-morrow, and I could not go without seeing you and Wyvis first."

"Wyvis?" repeated Mrs. Brand, blankly. She had not taken Margaret's hands, but now she extended her right hand in a stiff, lifeless fashion, which looked like anything but a welcome. "I do not know--I do not understand----"

"It is surely easy enough to understand," said Wyvis, vehemently. "She loves me--she has promised to be my wife--and you must love her, too, for my sake, as well as for her own."

"Won't you love me a little?" said Margaret, letting her eyes rest pleadingly on Mrs. Brand's impa.s.sive face. She was not accustomed to being met in this exceedingly unresponsive manner. Wyvis made a slight jesture of impatience, which his mother perfectly understood. She tried, in her difficult, frozen way, to say something cordial.

"I am very pleased to see you," she faltered. "You must excuse me if I did not understand at first. Wyvis did not tell me."

Then she sank into her chair again, more out of physical weakness than from any real intention to seat herself. Her hand stole to her side, as if to still the beating of her heart; her face had turned very pale.

Only Janetta noticed these signs, which betrayed the greatness of the shock; Margaret, absorbed in her own affairs, and Wyvis absorbed in Margaret, had no eyes for the poor mother's surprise and agitation.

Janetta made a step forward, but she saw that she could do nothing. Mrs.

Brand was recovering her composure, and the other two were not in a mood to bear interruption. So she waited, and meanwhile Margaret spoke.

"Dear Mrs. Brand," she said, kneeling at the side of the trembling woman, and laying her clasped hands on her lap, "forgive me for startling you like this." Even Janetta wondered at the marvelous sweetness of Margaret's tones. "Indeed, I would not have come if there had been any other way of letting Wyvis know. They made me promise not to write to him, not to meet him in the wood where we met before you know, and they watched me, so that I could not get out, or send a message or anything. It has been like living in prison during the last few days." And the girl sobbed a little, and laid her forehead for a moment on her clasped hands.

"It's a shame--a shame! It must not go on," exclaimed Wyvis, indignantly.

"In one way it will not go on," said Margaret, raising her head. "They are going to take me away, and we are not to come back for the whole winter--perhaps not next year at all. I don't know where we are going. I shall never be allowed to write. And I thought it would be terrible to go without letting Wyvis know that I will never, never forget him. And I am only nineteen now, and I can't do as I like; but, when I am twenty-one, n.o.body can prevent me----"

"Why should anybody prevent you now?" said Wyvis gloomily. He drew nearer and laid his hand upon her shoulder. "Why should you wait? You are safe: you have come to my mother, and she will take care of you. Why need you go back again?"

"Is that right, Wyvis?" said Janetta. She could not keep silence any longer. Wyvis turned on her almost fiercely. Margaret who had not seen her before started up and faced her, with a look of something like terror.

"It is no business of yours," said the man. "This matter is between Margaret and myself. Margaret must decide it. I do not ask her to compromise herself in any way. She shall be in my mother's care. All she will have to do is to trust to me----"

"I think we need hardly trouble you, Mr. Brand," said another voice.

"Margaret will be better in the care of her own mother than in that of Mrs. Brand or yourself."

Lady Caroline Adair stood on the threshold. Lady Caroline addressed the little group, on which a sudden chill and silence fell for a moment, as if her appearance heralded some portentous crash of doom. The door had been left ajar when Margaret entered; it was not easy to say how much of the conversation Lady Caroline had heard. Mrs. Brand started up; Margaret turned very pale and drew back, while Wyvis came closer to her and put his arm round her with an air of protective defiance. Janetta drew a quick breath of relief. A disagreeable scene would follow she knew well; and there were probably unpleasant times in store for Margaret, but these were preferable to the course of rebellion, open or secret, to which the girl was being incited by her too ardent lover.

Janetta never admired Lady Caroline so much as she did just then.

Margaret's mother was the last person to show discomposure. She sat down calmly, although no one had asked her to take a chair, and smilingly adjusted the lace shawl which she had thrown round her graceful figure.

There were no signs of haste or agitation in her appearance. She wore a very elegant and becoming dress, a Paris bonnet on her head, a pair of French gloves on her slender hands. She became at once the centre of the group, the ornamental point on which all eyes were fixed. Every one else was distressed, frightened, or angry; but Lady Caroline's pleasing smile and little air of society was not for one moment to be disturbed.

"It is really very late for a call," she said, quietly, "but as I found that my daughter was pa.s.sing this way, I thought I would follow her example and take the opportunity of paying a visit to Mrs. Brand. It is not, however, the first time that we have met."

She looked graciously towards Mrs. Brand, but that poor woman was shaking in every limb. Janetta put her arms round Mrs. Brand's shoulders. What did Lady Caroline mean? She had some purpose to fulfil, or she would not sit so quietly, pretending not to notice that her daughter was holding Wyvis Brand by the hand and that one of his arms was round her waist. There was something behind that fixed, agreeable smile.

"No," said Lady Caroline, reflectively, "not the first time. The last time I saw you, Mrs. Brand----"

"Oh, my lady, my lady!" Mrs. Brand almost shrieked, "for heaven's sake, my lady, don't go on!"

She covered her face with her hands and rocked herself convulsively to and fro. Wyvis frowned and bit his lip: Margaret started and unconsciously withdrew her hand. It crossed the minds of both that Mrs.

Brand's tone was that of an inferior, that of a servant to a mistress, not that of one lady to her equal.

"Why should I not go on?" said Lady Caroline, glancing from one to another as if in utter ignorance. "Have I said anything wrong? I only meant that I was present at Mrs. Brand's _first_ wedding--when she married your father, Mr. Wyvis--not your adopted father, of course, but John Wyvis, the ploughman."

There was a moment's silence. Then Wyvis took a step forward and thundered. "_What?_" while the veins stood out upon his forehead and his eyes seemed to be gathering sombre fire. Mrs. Brand, with her head bowed upon her hands, still rocked herself and sobbed.

"I hope I have not been indiscreet," said Lady Caroline, innocently.

"You look a little surprised. It is surely no secret that you are the son of Mary Wyvis and her cousin, John Wyvis, and that you were brought up by Mr. Brand as his son simply out of consideration for his wife? I am sure I beg your pardon if I have said anything amiss. As Mrs. Brand seems disturbed, I had better go."

"Not until my mother has contradicted this ridiculous slander," said Wyvis, sternly. But his mother only shook her head and wailed aloud.

"I can't, my dear--I can't. It's true every word of it. My lady knows."

"Of course I know. Come, Mary, don't be foolish," said Lady Caroline, in the carelessly sharp tone in which one sometimes speaks to an erring dependant. "I took an interest in you at the time, you will remember, although I was only a child staying at Helmsley Court at the time with Mr. Adair's family. I was fourteen, I think; and you were scullery-maid or something, and told me about your sweetheart, John Wyvis. There is nothing to be ashamed of: you were married very suitably, and if Wyvis, the ploughman, had not been run over when he was intoxicated, and killed before your baby's birth, you might even now have been living down at Wych End, with half a dozen stalwart sons and daughters--of whom you, Mr. Wyvis, or Mr. Wyvis Brand, as you are generally known, would have been the eldest--probably by this time a potman or a pugilist, with a share in your grandfather's public-house at Roxby. How ridiculous it seems now, does it not?"

Astonishment had kept Wyvis silent, but his gathering pa.s.sion could not longer be repressed.

"That is enough," he said. "If you desire to insult me you might have let it be in other company. Or if you will send your husband to repeat it----"

"I said a pugilist, did I not?" said Lady Caroline, smiling, and putting up her eye-gla.s.s. "Your thews and sinews justify me perfectly--and so, I must say, does your manner of speech." She let her eye run over his limbs critically, and then she dropped her gla.s.s. "You are really wonderfully like poor Wyvis; he was a very strong sort of man."

"Will you be so good as to take your leave, Lady Caroline Adair? I wish to treat you with all due courtesy, as you are Margaret's mother," said Wyvis, setting his teeth, "but you are saying unpardonable things to a man in his own house."

"My dear man, there is nothing to be ashamed of!" cried Lady Caroline, as if very much surprised. "Your father and mother were very honest people, and I always thought it greatly to Mark Brand's credit that he adopted you. The odd thing was that so few people knew that you were not his son. You were only a month or two old when he married Mary Wyvis, however; for your father died before your birth; but there was no secret made of it at the time, I believe. And it is nearly thirty years. Things get forgotten."

"Mother, can this be true?" said Wyvis, hoa.r.s.ely. He was forced into asking the question by Lady Caroline's cool persistence. He was keenly conscious of the fact that Margaret, looking scared and bewildered, had shrunk away from him.

"Yes, yes, it is true," said Mrs. Brand, with a burst of despairing tears. "We did not mean any harm, and n.o.body made any inquiries. There was nothing wrong about it--nothing. It was better for you, Wyvis, that was all."

"Is it better for anybody to be brought up to believe a lie?" said the young man. His lips had grown white, and his brow was set in very ominous darkness. "I shall hear more of this story by and by. I have to thank you, Lady Caroline, for letting in a little light upon my mind.

Your opposition to my suit is amply explained."

"I am glad you take it in that way, Mr. Brand," said Lady Caroline, for the first time giving him his adopted name, and smiling very amicably.

"As I happened to be one of the very few people who knew or surmised anything about the matter, I thought it better to take affairs into my own hands--especially when I found that my daughter had come to your house. But for this freak of hers I should not, perhaps, have interfered. As you are no doubt prepared now to resign all hope of her, I am quite satisfied with the result of my afternoon's work. Come, Margaret."

CHAPTER x.x.xII.