The Late Miss Hollingford Part 3

"No, no," I said, "you must not say that. I never was so happy in my life as I have been here."

I spoke more eagerly than I meant to do, and my voice broke a little in spite of me. John left his seat and bent down beside me, so that he could see my face, which could not escape him.

"Margery," said he, "I have seen that you have made yourself happy, and I have been sometimes wild enough to hope that you would be content to spend your life amongst us. When you came first I feared to love you too well, but your sweet face and your sweet ways have been too much for me.

It may be ungenerous in me to speak, seeing that I only have to offer you a true love, truer maybe than you will meet with in the gay world, a tarnished name, and a very humble home. I have debts to pay, and a soil to wash off my name; but still, Margery, will you be my wife? With your love nothing will be dark or difficult to me."

It was very hard. My heart was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with a joyous reply to this appeal; but Mrs. Hollingford's uneasy face was vividly before my eyes all the time, and I could only say distressedly, "It cannot be, John. It cannot, cannot be."

"Why?" he asked, almost sternly, and he rose up and stood above me.

"Tell me that you cannot love me--tell me you would rather save yourself for more honour, more prosperity, and I will never trouble you again.

Were I differently circ.u.mstanced I might plead, but I could not live to see you discontented, ashamed. Why can it not be, Margery?"

I clasped my hands in my lap, and tried to speak firmly. "For a reason that I cannot give to you, John. Let us be good friends."

"Friends!" he echoed bitterly. "Well! I was wrong to think of my own happiness before your worldly advantage. Good-bye, Margery. I am going to London in the morning. Perhaps you may be gone before I come back."

And with this he abruptly walked out of the room. But afterwards I sat there an hour, wondering if what had pa.s.sed so quickly were true, and I had really refused to be John Hollingford's wife.

After tea he left us early, saying he must start for Hillsbro' at four in the morning. Mopsie fell asleep, and Jane absorbed herself in her books. Mrs. Hollingford and I held some embroidery in our hands, but my fingers trembled so that the st.i.tches went all wrong. Now and again, glancing up, I encountered long troubled looks from Mrs. Hollingford.

She had seen that something was amiss between me and John, and I guessed that her mind was at work with fears. I could not bear it; I thought it was not fair after what I had done. For the first and last time I felt angry and impatient with the dear old lady. Would she herself, in her own young days, have sacrificed as much? Jane shut up her books at last, and carried Mopsie off with her to bed, and Mrs. Hollingford and I were left sitting facing one another.

"Mrs. Hollingford," I said, dropping my work with almost a sob, "don't look at me like that. I cannot bear it, and I do not deserve it."

What made me say it I cannot think. The moment before I spoke I had no intention of speaking. Mrs. Hollingford dropped her work in dismay.

"My love," she said, "what do you mean? I do not understand. What do my looks say that you cannot bear?"

"Oh, Mrs. Hollingford," I said, covering my burning cheeks with my hands, "you must know what I mean. You look at me, and look at me, and I see what is in your mind. How can I help it?"

"My dear," said she, "is it anything about John?"

"Yes," said I desperately, "it is about John. You think I want to take him from you, and I do not, and I never will, and I have told him so. I am going away to London with my friends the Tyrrells, and I will never trouble you any more."

I was rather blind by this time, and I was not sure of what part of the room I was in; but Mrs. Hollingford had come to my side, and she put her arms round about me and fondled my head on her breast.

"My dear," she said, "and is this the secret that has made the trouble between us? I never thought that you wanted to take him from me; on the contrary, I feared that you might be too young to understand his worth.

I dreaded sorrow and suffering for my son, nothing else."

My face was hidden in her motherly embrace. I could not speak for some moments, and I thought my heart had stopped beating. At last I whispered:

"Oh, Mrs. Hollingford, I have made a great mistake. Can it be that you really--"

"Will have you for a daughter?" she asked, smiling. "Gladly, thankfully, my darling, if it be for your happiness. But you must not decide hastily; there are great disadvantages which you must consider, and I, as your guardian and friend, must point them out to you. I must forget my son's interests in the faithful discharge of my trust. John has a cloud upon his name."

"Don't, don't!" I said, "if he had a hundred clouds upon his name it would be all the same to me."

"Then you love him well?" she said tenderly, sighing and smiling at the same time.

"I think I do," I said; "but that is only a misfortune, for you know I have refused him."

"Well," she said cheerfully, "perhaps it is for the best. You must go to London with your friends, and test your feeling by absence and the society of others. If you remain unattracted by those who are better placed in the world, I think John will try again, in spite of his pride.

I know I should in his place," she said, lifting up my disturbed face, and looking in it with a half quizzical fondness.

I answered by throwing my arms round her neck in a long tearful embrace, and after that we sat long by the fireside talking the matter over. The consequence was, oddly enough, that I went upstairs to bed feeling so extremely sober that, before I laid my head upon my pillow, I had begun to doubt whether I cared for John Hollingford at all. It was not that I shrank from what his mother had called the "sacrifices" I should make in becoming his wife. I never even thought of them. I had found too much happiness at Hillsbro' Farm to be able to realise their existence. But I had a superst.i.tion that I ought to feel very joyfully excited about all I had learned that evening; first, that John really loved me, and, secondly, that his mother was ready to take me to her heart. Yet I only felt sobered to the last degree, and exceedingly afraid of seeing John again. I heard him driving away from the door before daybreak, and I found myself hoping that he might not come back for a week.

The next day I was in the same mood. I felt so grave and quiet that I made up my mind I could not have that wonderful love for John which I believed to be the duty of a wife. I thought I had better write to Grace, and arrange about going with her to London. Then I grew miserable at the thought of leaving the farm, and wished I had never seen it. For three days I tormented myself thus, and then there came a shock which brought me cruelly to my senses.

On the fourth day after John had left us, I was walking up and down the frosty avenue just as the evening was coming on. The sun was setting redly behind the brown wood, and blushing over the whitened fields and hedgerows. A man came up the avenue and pulled off his hat as he approached me. I recognised in him an Irish labourer whom I had seen working in the gardens at the Hall.

"Beg pardon, miss!" said he, "but be you Miss Margery Dacre?"

"Yes, Pat," said I. "This is a fine evening, is it not? What do you want with me?"

"Oh then, a fine evenin' it is; glory be to G.o.d!" said Pat; "but all the same, Mrs. Beatty is mortial anxious for you to step over to the Hall the soonest minute ye can, as she has somethin' very sarious to say to ye."

"Step over to the Hall?" I exclaimed. "Do you know what o'clock it is, Pat?"

"Oh yis, miss!" said Pat; "it's three o'clock, an' the sun low, but niver fear; I'll walk behind ye ivery step o' the way, an' if as much as a hare winks at ye, he'll rue the day. Mrs. Beatty would ha' come over here to spake to ye, only for fear o' hersel' at the farm," said Pat, jerking his thumb in the direction of the house. "G.o.d keep sorrow from her door; but I'm feared there's throuble in the wind!"

I did not quite understand whether the threatened trouble was for Mrs.

Beatty or Mrs. Hollingford. I guessed the latter, and thought immediately of the absent husband and father. I felt that I could not do better than obey the summons. Pat promised to wait for me at the gate, and I hastened into the house to prepare for my journey.

"I am going for a walk, Jane," I said, looking in at the school-room door. "Don't be surprised if I am not in before dark."

"But, Margery!" I heard her beginning, and did not wait to hear any more.

How I racked my brains during that walk to try and guess the cause of my sudden summons. The only thing I could think of was that Mr. Hollingford was in prison. I never fancied anything approaching to the truth.

Mrs. Beatty was anxiously watching at the door for my arrival. She had tea waiting for me, and began pulling off my bonnet and boots at her fireside. But her hands were shaking, and her eyes red and watering.

"Never mind me, Mrs. Beatty," I said, imploringly; "tell me what is the matter."

"Take a sup of tea first, my dear young lady," said she; "ill news is heard soon enough."

"I won't taste it," I said, pushing it away. "Tell me this instant!" I said, as a dim fear of the truth came across my brain.

"Well, my dear," she said, beginning to cry outright, "you see there has been a terrible smash of the coach from London. The horses fell crossing a bridge, and the coach was overturned into the river; and they do say everybody was killed or drowned. And poor young Mr. Hollingford was in the coach; and, oh! that I should have to say it, he's met a cruel death. I sent for you, dear young lady, that you might break the news gently to his mother; for there's not a soul in the country side dare carry the story to her door, and they'll maybe be bringing home the bodies."

"Stop!" said I. "Mrs. Beatty--are you sure--"

And the next thing I knew was a sensation of coldness and wetness upon my face, and a smell of vinegar and wine, and a sound of murmuring and crying.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARGERY HEARS OF THE ACCIDENT.]

"Dear heart, dear heart! to think of her taking on so!" I heard the good woman saying, and I crept to my feet, and began tying on my bonnet in spite of her entreaties that I would lie still.

"No, no, I must get home!" I said, shuddering. "Some one else will come and tell her, and it will kill her. Let me go at once! Let me go!"

At the door in the frosty dusk Pat was waiting with a horse and gig.