Faithful Margaret Part 34

"My Julie will pity her poor slave in his new chains?" murmured back the colonel.

Margaret, waiting with beating pulses for his departure, heard with curling lip both question and answer.

A sly invitation to come often to see papa, followed from the lady, was chivalrously accepted by the gentleman, and her hand was once more caressed by way of farewell.

"Thanks for the pleasant surprise you have given me," said he, bending down to look into Margaret's face with an air of devilish exultation; "it was so delicately planned and so kindly meant that I shall not forget it in you. Good night."

She turned away her loathing face and bowed him out, and then came drearily up to my lady and looked at her.

"Is this man whom you met to-night changed from the man to whom you were engaged?"

"Oh! Of course he is changed. He looks ever so much older and not nearly so nice looking, and he is as grave as an undertaker, except when I make him laugh--but heigh, ho! It is no wonder, with such a burden as his grandmother placed upon him. He would soon look himself again if he had this magnificent castle, and the one whom he loves for his wife."

"You would be quite willing to marry _that_ person, would you, Lady Juliana?"

"Why do you ask? Is it only to tease me? You know that I never left off loving him."

"And yet how ign.o.ble was that love!" said Margaret, bitterly; "how shallow, that could so mistake its object! Oh, my lady, I might have remembered your skin-deep nature when I asked you to come here and help me."

"What now," cried my lady, fearing she had said too much and becoming alarmed. "Why should you talk that way to me? I can't help my love for St. Udo Brand."

"Try to help it, then, for the man is a villain," was the cold rejoinder.

"A villain!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the other, thoroughly startled. "What can you mean? That's a strange way to speak of the gentleman you are going to marry. I--I think it is dishonorable!"

"I am not going to marry _him_," returned Margaret; "oh, no, my lady--no, no!"

She burst into a wild laugh which became so violent that Lady Juliana got up uneasily and moved away.

"I must say that I am altogether mystified as to your affairs then," she remarked, sullenly; "I thought that I was summoned here to be your confidential adviser, or bride-maid, or some such thing. It seems I have come here to be laughed at."

"Pardon me," said Margaret, putting a violent strain upon herself. "I am not laughing for amus.e.m.e.nt; indeed, I am scarcely in a gay mood. I summoned you here, Lady Julie, because I hoped, through you, to settle a certain question; but I now see that it is not within your power."

Lady Juliana looked at her with intense curiosity. She had a vague idea that she had allowed something to slip through her fingers by her carelessness, and she determined, vindictively, that it should not be St. Udo Brand.

"I'll have him fast as ever bound to my sleeve," she inwardly vowed: "and I am very much mistaken if this eccentric creature does not give us Seven-Oak Waaste."

My lady drove away next morning from gloomy Castle Brand, had a coquettish half-hour of farewell at the station with Colonel Brand, who was lounging there casually, did as much mischief as she could to Margaret's cause, and went back to London, her head full of new ambitions.

And that was the end of Margaret's experiment.

It was some time after Lady Julie's useless visit, and Margaret was walking on the Waaste with Mrs. Chetwode.

She had discontinued her solitary walks since the evening by the mere, and invariably begged the housekeeper's company, or had a man-servant to keep her in sight whenever she took the air.

They wandered aimlessly over the frosty snow, side by side, and scarce speaking a word, a lowering sky overhead, and a bleak wind in their faces.

Margaret had mused over her next step until her thoughts were madness to her; and, as yet, no solution had come of the way out of her position.

She had not gathered bravery enough to set another snare for her enemy, and had nervously avoided seeing him since her last discomfiture; and, too, she had heard that he was away in London, basking in the smiles of Lady Juliana. But, while revolving the next step to be taken, she was doomed to meet her enemy face to face at a time she imagined him in London.

At a turn of the path the two women came full upon the colonel, shuffling along, with his head bent, and his eyes on a book.

He thrust it hastily in a breast-pocket of his overcoat, and accosted them with an insolent leer.

"How is the fair lady after her week's seclusion?" snarled he.

"Nothing bettered by this interruption to it," returned she, coming to a dead stop from sheer inability to support herself.

"Permit me," said the colonel, forcing Margaret to lean upon his arm, "this attack of agitation is so severe that I who have caused it should render my poor services in removing it."

He bent with an ogreish smile to look into her eyes.

"Leave me," breathed the wretched girl, attempting to wrench her hand from his grasp. "How dare you molest me sir?"

"Dear Margaret," sneered the man, bending near her dead white face, "why will you hold your slave at such a distance? I who hope to be co-heir of that goodly pile beyond us before this year is out? Ten days, my dearest--only ten days to wait, and then the month is out."

She could only look at him silently; her lips moved in haughty protest, but no words came to her aid; she walked by his side dumb as death.

The good old housekeeper kept by her other side and held her pa.s.sive hand, comforting her in her kindly fashion by patting and pressing it, or the poor girl's terror would have overcome her altogether.

Suddenly Margaret ceased the struggle of attempting to draw her hand from his arm, and turned her averted face toward him.

Her eyes stole over him attentively, she marked his dress and his manner with a fixed intensity--an idea bad taken possession of her which she could not drive away.

Again and again her eye returned to its scrutiny of the man, and the hand which Mrs. Chetwode was caressing, closed itself convulsively as if it held something it must keep, come life or come death. Her hand which lay upon his arm quivered against his heart as if there was something there she longed to seize.

When they reached the griffins now squatting on their snow-covered pedestals, Margaret broke her bitter silence by a forced request.

"Honor me by an interview, sir."

"Whom have I to meet this time?" he asked, with a boding smile.

"No one sir. Are you afraid of meeting strangers, Colonel Brand?"

He bowed sardonically, and followed her into the hall.

John came forward to relieve the colonel of his overcoat, and Margaret remained for some moments giving some directions to the housekeeper.

When the visitor was ready she accompanied him into the library, where before a glowing fire the lonely girl was accustomed to read through the long evenings, and bade him wait her return from her chamber.

"What a home-paradise we shall have," said Colonel Brand with ironical gallantry; "I know I shall be delighted by some new and strange side of my charmer's character. I always am."

"You may," answered Margaret with a strange look.

She went out, shutting the door carefully between her and the colonel, and looking round about the vast old hall.

There stood John, still hanging up the hat, cane, and coat of the visitor.

"Carry this light up to the third hall," said Margaret, pointing to a lamp in a bracket.