The Turn of the Tide Part 24

"You cannot go with us!"

"No. I must stay here."

"Here! Why, Margaret, child, that is impossible!--here in this great house with only the servants?"

"No, no, you don't understand; not here at Hilcrest. I shall be down in the town--with Patty."

"Margaret!" The man was too dismayed to say more.

"I know, it seems strange to you, of course" rejoined the girl, hastily; "but you will see--you will understand when I explain. I have thought of it in all its bearings, and it is the only way. I could not go with you and sing and laugh and dance, and all the while remember that my people back here were suffering."

"Your people! Dear child, they are not your people nor my people; they are their own people. They come and go as they like. If not in my mills, they work in some other man's mills. You are not responsible for their welfare. Besides, you have already done more for their comfort and happiness than any human being could expect of you!"

"I know, but you do not understand. It is in a peculiar way that they are my people--not because they are here, but because they are poor and unhappy." Margaret hesitated, and then went on, her eyes turned away from her guardian's face. "I don't know as I can make you understand--as I do. There are people, lots of them, who are generous and kind to the poor. But they are on one side of the line, and the poor are on the other. They merely pa.s.s things over the line--they never go themselves.

And that is all right. They could not cross the line if they wanted to, perhaps. They would not know how. All their lives they have been surrounded with tender care and luxury; they do not know what it means to be hungry and cold and homeless. They do not know what it means to fight the world alone with only empty hands."

Margaret paused, her eyes still averted; then suddenly she turned and faced the man sitting in silent dismay at the desk.

"Don't you see?" she cried. "I _have_ crossed the line. I crossed it long ago when I was a little girl. I do know what it means to be hungry and cold and homeless. I do know what it means to fight the world with only two small empty hands. In doing for these people I am doing for my own. They are my people."

For a moment there was silence in the little room. To the man at the desk the bottom seemed suddenly to have dropped out of his world. For some time it had been growing on him--the knowledge of how much the presence of this fair-haired, winsome girl meant to him. It came to him now with the staggering force of a blow in the face--and she was going away. To Frank Spencer the days suddenly stretched ahead in empty uselessness--there seemed to be nothing left worth while.

"But, my dear Margaret," he said at last, unsteadily, "we tried--we all tried to make you forget those terrible days. You were so keenly sensitive--they weighed too heavily on your heart. You--you were morbid, my dear."

"I know," she said. "I understand better now. Every one tried to interest me, to amuse me, to make me forget. I was kept from everything unpleasant, and from everybody that suffered. It comes to me very vividly now, how careful every one was that I should know of only happiness."

"We wanted you to forget."

"But I never did forget--quite. Even when years and years had pa.s.sed, and I could go everywhere and see all the beautiful things and places I had read about, and when I was with my friends, there was always something, somewhere, behind things. Those four years in New York were vague and elusive, as time pa.s.sed. They seemed like a dream, or like a life that some one else had lived. But I know now; they were not a dream, and they were not a life that some one else lived. They were my life. I lived them myself. Don't you see--now?" Margaret's eyes were luminous with feeling. Her lips trembled; but her face glowed with a strange exaltation of happiness.

"But what--do you mean--to do?" faltered the man.

Margaret flushed and leaned forward eagerly.

"I am going to do all that I can, and I hope it will be a great deal. I am going down there to live."

"To live--not to live, child!"

"Yes. Oh, I _know_ now," she went on hurriedly. "I have been among them.

Some are wicked and some are thoughtless, but all of them need teaching.

I am going to live there among them, to show them the better way."

The man at the desk left his chair abruptly. He walked over to the window and looked out. The moon shone clear and bright in the sky. Down in the valley the countless gleaming windows and the tall black chimneys showed where the mill-workers still toiled--those mill-workers whom the man had come almost to hate: it was because of them that Margaret was going! He turned slowly and walked back to the girl.

"Margaret," he began in a voice that shook a little, "I had not thought to speak of this--at least, not now. Perhaps it would be better if I never spoke of it; but I am almost forced to say it now. I can't let you go like this, and not--know. I must make one effort to keep you.... If you knew that there was some one here who loved you--who loved you with the whole strength of his being, and if you knew that to him your going meant everything that was loneliness and grief, would you--could you--stay?"

Margaret started. She would not look into the eyes that were so earnestly seeking hers. It was of Ned, of course, that he was speaking.

Of that she was sure. In some way he had discovered Ned's feeling for her, had perhaps even been asked to plead his cause with her.

"Did you ever think," began Spencer again, softly, "did you ever think that if you did stay, you might find even here some one to whom you could show--the better way? That even here you might do all these things you long to do, and with some one close by your side to help you?"

Margaret thought of Ned, of his impulsiveness, his light-heartedness, his utter want of sympathy with everything she had been doing the last few weeks; and involuntarily she shuddered. Spencer saw the sensitive quiver and drew back, touched to the quick. Margaret struggled to her feet.

"No, no," she cried, still refusing to meet his eyes. "I--I cannot stay.

I am sorry, believe me, to give you pain; but I--I cannot stay!" And she hurried from the room.

The man dropped back in his chair, his face white.

"She does not love me, and no wonder," he sighed bitterly; and he went over word by word what had been said, though even then he did not find syllable or gesture that told him the truth--that she supposed him merely to be playing John Alden to his brother's Miles Standish.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

The household at Hilcrest did not break up as early as usual that year.

A few days were consumed in horrified remonstrances and tearful pleadings on the part of Mrs. Merideth and Ned when Margaret's plans became known. Then several more days were needed for necessary arrangements when the stoical calm of despair had brought something like peace to the family.

"It is not so dreadful at all," Margaret had a.s.sured them. "I have taken a large house not far from the mills, and I am having it papered and painted and put into very comfortable shape. Patty and her family will live with me, and we are going to open cla.s.ses in simple little things that will help toward better living."

"But that is regular settlement work," sighed Mrs. Merideth.

"Is it?" smiled Margaret, a little wearily. "Well, perhaps it is.

Anyway, I hope that just the presence of one clean, beautiful home among them will do some good. I mean to try it, at all events."

"But are you going to do nothing but that all the time--just teach those dreadful creatures, and--and live there?"

"Certainly not," declared Margaret, with a bright smile. "I've planned a trip to New York."

"To New York?" Mrs. Merideth sat up suddenly, her face alight. "Oh, that will be fine--lovely! Why didn't you tell us? Poor dear, you'll need a rest all right, I'm thinking, and we'll keep you just as long as we can, too." With lightning rapidity Mrs. Merideth had changed their plans--in her mind. They would go to New York, not Egypt. Egypt had seemed desirable, but if Margaret was going to New York, that altered the case.

"Oh, but I thought you weren't going to New York," laughed Margaret.

"Besides--I'm going with Patty."

"With Patty!" If it had not been tragical it would have been comical--Mrs. Merideth's shocked recoil at the girl's words.

"Yes. After we get everything nicely to running--we shall have teachers to help us, you know--Patty and I are going to New York to see if we can't find her sisters, Arabella and Clarabella."

"What absurd names!" Mrs. Merideth spoke sharply. In reality she had no interest whether they were, or were not absurd; but they chanced at the moment to be a convenient scapegoat for her anger and discomfiture.

"Patty doesn't think them absurd," laughed Margaret. "She would tell you that she named them herself out of a 'piece of a book' she found in the ash barrel long ago when they were children. You should hear Patty say it really to appreciate it. She used to preface it by some such remark as: 'Names ain't like measles an' relations, ye know. Ye don't have ter have 'em if ye don't want 'em--you can change 'em.'"

"Ugh!" shuddered Mrs. Merideth. "Margaret, how can you--laugh!"

"Why, it's funny, I think," laughed Margaret again, as she turned away.

Even the most urgent entreaties on the part of Margaret failed to start the Spencers on their trip, and not until she finally threatened to make the first move herself and go down to the town, did they consent to go.