Wee Wifie Part 4

She was sitting alone in the morning-room, the next afternoon, when Sir Wilfred Redmond was announced, and the next moment the old man entered the room.

A faint blush came to Margaret's cheeks as she rose to greet him. This visit meant recognition of her as his son's _fiancee_; and yet, why did he come alone--why was not Hugh with him? Hugh's father was almost a stranger to her. He was a man of reserved habits, who had never been very sociable with his neighbors, and Margaret had seen little of him in her girlish days.

"It is very good of you to come so soon, Sir Wilfred," she said, blus.h.i.+ng still more rosily under his penetrating glance. "I am so sorry that my brother is out; he has gone over to Pierrepoint."

"I came here to see you and not your brother," returned Sir Wilfred; but he did not look at her as he spoke, and Margaret noticed that he seemed rather nervous. "My business is with you, Miss Ferrers; I have just heard strange news--that you and my son are engaged; is that true?"

Margaret bowed her head. She thought Sir Wilfred's manner rather singular--he had met her with coldness; there was certainly no trace of warmth, no cordiality in the loose grasp of her hand. She wondered what made him speak in that dry, measured voice, and why, after his first keen glance at her, he had averted his eyes. He looked older than he had done yesterday, and there was a hara.s.sed expression in his face. "It is rather strange," he went on, "that Hugh should have left me in ignorance all these months, but that"--as Margaret seemed about to speak--"is between me and him, I do not include you in the blame.

On the contrary,"--speaking now with some degree of feeling--"I am sorry for you, Miss Ferrers, for I have come to tell you, what Hugh refuses to do, that I can not consent to my son's marrying you."

Margaret started, and the proud indignant color rose to her face; but she restrained herself.

"May I ask your reason, Sir Wilfred?"

"I have a very good, sufficient reason," returned the old man, sadly; "Hugh is my only son."

"I do not understand--"

"Perhaps not, and it is my painful task to enlighten you, Miss Ferrers," hesitating a little, "I do not wonder at my son's choice, now I see you; I am quite sure that you are all he represents you to be; that in all respects you are fitted to be the wife of a wealthier man than Hugh. But for my boy's sake I am compelled to appeal to your generosity, your sense of right, and ask you to give him up."

"I can not give your son up," returned Margaret, with n.o.ble frankness; "I am promised to him, and we love each other dearly."

"I know that," and for a moment Sir Wilfred's eyes rested on the beautiful face before him with mingled admiration and pain, and his voice softened insensibly. "My dear, I know how my boy loves you, how his whole heart is centered on you. I can do nothing with him--he will not listen to reason; his pa.s.sion for you is overmastering, and blinds him to his best interest. I have come to you to help me save him in spite of himself."

At this solemn adjuration Margaret's face grew pale, and for the first time her courage forsook her.

"I can not bear this," she returned, and her young voice grew thin and sharp. "Why do you not speak plainly and tell me what you mean? Why do you ask me to save Hugh--my Hugh--when I am ready to give up my whole life to him? You speak as if his marriage with me would bring him a curse."

"As it most surely would to him and to his children, Miss Ferrers.

Margaret--I may call you Margaret, for I knew you as a child--it is no fault of yours if that be the truth. My dear, has no one told you about your mother?"

She looked at him with wide-open, startled eyes. "My mother, Sir Wilfred! no, I was only seven when she died. I think," knitting her white brows as though she were trying to recall that childish past, "that she was very ill--she had to go away for a long time, and my poor father seemed very sad. I remember he cried dreadfully at her funeral, and Raby told me I ought to have cried too."

"I loved your mother, Margaret," returned the old man, and his mouth twitched under his white mustache. "You are not like her; she was dark, but very beautiful. Yes, she was ill, with that deadly hereditary illness that we call by another name; so ill that for years before her death her husband could not see her."

"You mean--" asked Margaret, but her dry white lips refused to finish the sentence. Sir Wilfred looked at her pityingly, as he answered--

"She was insane. It was in the family--they told me so, and that was why I did not ask her to marry me. She was beautiful, and so many loved her--your father and I among the number. Now you know, Margaret, that while my heart bleeds for you both, I ask you to release my son."

CHAPTER IV.

"WHEN WE TWO PARTED."

Nay--sometimes seems it I could even bear To lay down humbly this love-crown I wear, Steal from my palace, helpless, hopeless, poor, And see another queen it at the door-- If only that the king had done no wrong, If this my palace where I dwelt so long Were not defiled by falsehood entering in.

There is no loss but change; no death but sin; No parting, save the slow corrupting pain Of murdered faith that never lives again.

MISS MULOCK.

The following evening Margaret walked down the narrow path leading to the sh.o.r.e. It was a glorious evening, warm with the dying sunset, gorgeous with red and golden light.

Broad margins of yellow sands, white headlands, mossy cliffs, with the scarlet poppies and pink-eyed convolvuli growing out of the weedy crevices; above, a blue ineffable sky scored deeply with tinted clouds, and a sea dipping on the sh.o.r.e with a long slow ripple of sound; under a bowlder a child bathing her feet in a little runlet of a pool, while all round, heaped up with coa.r.s.e wavy gra.s.ses, lay seaweed--brown, coralline, and purple--their salty fragrance steeping the air; everywhere the sound of cool splashes and a murmur of peace.

The child sat under the bowlder alone, a small brown creature in picturesque-looking rags, a mere waif and stray of a child, with her feet trailing in the pool; every now and then small mottled crabs scrambled crookedly along, or dug graves for themselves in the dry waved sand. The girl watched them idly, as she flapped long ribbons of brown seaweed, or dribbled the water through her hollowed hands, while a tired sea-gull that had lowered wing was skimming slowly along the margin of the water.

Another time Margaret would have paused to speak to the little waif of humanity before her, for she was a lover of children, and was never happier than when she was surrounded by these little creatures--the very babies crowed a welcome to her from their mother's arms. But this evening Margaret's eyes had a strange unseeing look in them; they were searching the winding sh.o.r.e for some expected object, and she scarcely seemed to notice the little one at her play.

Only four-and-twenty hours had pa.s.sed since Sir Wilfred had paid that ill-omened visit to the Grange, and yet some subtle mysterious change had pa.s.sed over Margaret. It was as though some blighting influence had swept over her; her face was pale, and her eyes were swollen and dim as though with a night's weeping, and the firm beautiful mouth was tremulous with pain.

"I thought I should have met him by now," she murmured; "I am nearly at the boat-house; surely Sir Wilfred must have given him my message."

But the doubt had hardly crossed her mind before a tall figure turned the corner by the lonely boat-house, and the next moment Hugh was coming rapidly toward her.

"Margaret!" he exclaimed, as he caught hold of her outstretched hands, "what does this mean? why have you kept me away from you all these hours, and then appointed this solitary place for our meeting?" Then, as she did not answer, and he looked at her more closely, his voice changed: "Good heavens! what has happened; what has my father done to you? How ill! how awfully ill you look, my darling!"

"It is nothing; I have not slept," she returned, trying to speak calmly. "I am unhappy, Hugh, and trouble has made me weak."

"You weak," incredulously; then, as he saw her eyes filling with tears, "sit down on this smooth white bowlder, and I will place myself at your feet. Now give me your hand, and tell me what makes you so unlike yourself this evening."

Margaret obeyed him, for her limbs were trembling, and a sudden mist seemed to hide him from her eyes; when it cleared, she saw that he was watching her with unconcealed anxiety.

"What is it, Margaret?" he asked, still more tenderly; "what is troubling you, my darling?" But he grew still more uneasy when she suddenly clung to him in a fit of bitter weeping and asked him over and over again between her sobs to forgive her for making him so unhappy.

"Margaret," he said at last, very gently but firmly, "I can not have you say such things to me; forgive you who have been the blessing of my life; whose only fault is that you love me too well."

"I can not be your blessing now, Hugh;" and then she drew herself from his embrace. "Do you remember this place, dear? It was on this bowlder that I was sitting that evening when you found me and asked me to be your wife. We have had some happy days since then, Hugh, have we not?

and now to-night I have asked you to meet me here, that you may hear from my lips that I shall never be any man's wife, most certainly not yours, Hugh--my Hugh--whom I love ten thousand times more than I have ever loved you before."

A pained, surprised look pa.s.sed over Hugh's handsome face. It was evident that he had not expected this. The next moment he gave a short derisive laugh.

"So my father has made mischief between us; he has actually made you believe it would be a sin to marry me. My darling, what nonsense; I know all about your poor mother--many families have this sort of thing; do you think that ever keeps people from marrying? If we had known before, as I told my father, well, perhaps it might have made a difference, but now it is too late, nothing would ever induce me to give you up, Margaret; in my eyes you are already as bound to me as though you were my wife. My father has nothing to do with it--this is between you and me."

"Hugh, listen to me; I have promised Sir Wilfred that I will never marry you."

"Then your promise must be null and void; you are mine, and I claim you, Margaret."

"No, no!" she returned, shrinking from him; "I will never be any man's wife. I have told Raby so, and he says I am right."

"Margaret, are you mad to say such things to me? I am not a patient man, and you are trying me too much," and Hugh's eyes flashed angrily.

"Do you want me to doubt your love?"

"Do not make it too hard for me," she pleaded. "Do you think this costs me nothing--that I do not suffer too? You will not be cruel to me, Hugh, because I am obliged to make you unhappy. It is not I, but the Divine Will that has interposed this barrier to our union. Ah, if Raby or I had but known, all this would have been spared you."

"It is too late," returned Hugh, gloomily; "you have no longer the right to dispose of yourself, you are mine--how often am I to tell you that? Do you think that I will ever consent to resign you, that I could live my life without you. What do I care about your mother? Such things happen again and again in families, and no one thinks of them.

If I am willing to abide by the consequences, no one else has a right to object."

Poor Hugh! he was growing more sore and angry every moment. He had antic.i.p.ated some trouble from Margaret's interview with his father; he knew her scrupulous conscience, and feared that a long and weary argument might be before him, but he had never really doubted the result. Life without Margaret would be simply insupportable; he could not grasp the idea for a moment.