Meg's Friend Part 9

"If you are sent to school," resumed the stranger sternly, bending on the child a glance that seemed to her to be one of aversion, "you must promise never to speak of that time spent in the boarding-house. You are to forget everything that happened there, and everybody you met there."

"I'll not forget every one. There is one person I will never forget--never," replied Meg with energy.

"Mr. Standish, the young man who was her friend. Can't ask her to forget him yet--can't do that," put in Mr. Fullbloom in a tone of jaunty conciliation, shaking his head. "I feel sure Meg will not speak about him."

"I don't want to talk about him," said Meg, her voice instinct with the sacredness of her affection.

"Do you know how to read?" asked the old gentleman.

"Yes," replied Meg briefly.

Her mysterious questioner opened a volume, turned rapidly over the pages until he came to one where a chapter ended. He pa.s.sed his forefinger over the page with a heaviness that widened the delicate nail.

"When a chapter is done, it is done--you turn the page." He suited the action to the words and brought his palm down upon the book. "You understand?" Meg nodded. "You begin another chapter--the first chapter of your life is finished--you understand?" Again Meg nodded. "It was an ugly chapter--it remains with you to make the next chapter a better and a finer one."

"I will not talk of anybody or of anything; but I will always think of one person," persisted Meg, intent upon making the conditions of the bargain clear between her and this stranger.

"I cannot dictate to your thoughts," he replied. "I want you to promise not to speak about the past. What will you say when you are questioned concerning it by teachers, schoolfellows, or servants?"

"I'll tell them it's none of their business, that's what I will tell them," said Meg, with spirit and a relapse into a p.r.o.nunciation that savored more of Mrs. Browne's than of Mr. Standish's influence.

Mr. Fullbloom chuckled, but the old man remained smileless.

"I have nothing more to add; take the child away," he said.

Mr. Fullbloom put out his hand to Meg. She hesitated, looking toward the old gentleman to say good-by.

Once more the child encountered a glance that seemed to freeze her with its mysterious dislike and she went out in silence.

CHAPTER VI.

MISS REEVES' ESTABLISHMENT FOR YOUNG LADIES.

Moorhouse was a red brick mansion of Elizabethan architecture, standing on the outskirts of the old-fas.h.i.+oned town of Greyling, nestling under a misty embattlement of distant downs. Tracts of ferny solitudes and clumps of woodland lay beyond, cloven by the long straight road that led Londonward. It was difficult to imagine that such rural peacefulness could be found at thirty miles distance from the big metropolis.

Moorhouse was a boarding-school for young ladies. It had gained a high reputation under the direction of its present head-mistress, Miss Reeves, a middle-aged lady of dignified appearance.

It was to Moorhouse Mr. Fullbloom was taking Meg. The child had never gone on a railway journey. The shriek and whistle of the engine as the train dashed along startled her. She felt whirled forward as by a demoniac force, and the pant of the engine seemed to her like the audible heart-beat of some dread monster. She sat rigid and silent in the corner by the window as she pa.s.sed out of the station across the bridge-spanned river, past squalid streets and roofs crowding below. At last she emerged into more airy and peaceful surroundings. The speed and pant still filled the limpid daylight with terror; but Meg fought against her unstrung nerves and compelled herself to look out of the window. She was pa.s.sing through a pageantry of meadows lying in the mild suns.h.i.+ne of the March afternoon; of cows grazing, of a pallid golden light in the sky, veiled with fleecy purple clouds. She heard the pa.s.sing chirp of birds; she caught glimpses of leafless woods spreading a tracery of boughs against the brightness of the sky. There were banks flickering with suggestions of primroses under the hedges; undulating greenswards losing themselves in blue distances. Through the terror of that ride the influence of nature brought comfort to her heart. An exhilarating sense that she was traveling to a better land overcame fear. A house in the distance, perched on a height, with the sunlight on its windows, appeared to her a type of that school to which she was journeying; a sort of magic academy where she would grow worthy of becoming Mr. Standish's friend.

Mr. Fullbloom coughed and Meg turned her head. She caught the amused glance of her traveling companion fixed upon her. The solicitor had been dividing his attention between his paper and the child by his side. Meg had been unconscious of his investigation.

"Reach the school soon now," said the lawyer with his accustomed airy nod.

"I am glad of it," replied Meg.

"Want to be a learned little lady, eh?"

"Yes, that is just what I want to be," Meg answered in an eager tone; "learned as a lady."

"Well, so you will be--excellent school that of Miss Reeves--learn to dance, play the piano, to speak French, German--any amount of accomplishments. Bless me, there will be no talking to you in a year or two. Have to study hard, though."

Meg nodded in token of her readiness to face any amount of study.

"Don't forget your name--Beecham--it is not Browne. Madam was not your mother, or for the matter of that any relation," said the lawyer.

"I knew she was not my mother," said Meg in a low voice.

"No, indeed; light and darkness could not be more unlike."

"You knew my mother?" cried Meg, a flush kindling her cheeks.

"I knew her a little," replied the lawyer guardedly. "You are like her about the mouth and eyes."

"I am not a bit like her," Meg answered in a tone of offense. "She was beautiful--like an angel."

"Yes, she was beautiful," acquiesced Mr. Fullbloom.

Meg looked at the lawyer with a new expression. A halo surrounded his brow, for he had seen her mother.

"Did the old gentleman I saw to-day know her too?" she asked softly.

The lawyer put up his finger and wagged his head.

"Little girls must not ask questions. They must be seen, not heard," he replied, taking up his paper and growing absorbed in its contents.

He did not speak again until the train shortly after stopped at Greyling station.

Before long they had reached Moorhouse, and the door had opened for Meg.

As she pa.s.sed through the portal of the red brick mansion she felt as if she stood upon the threshold of a sanctuary. This sense deepened when, a few moments later, she was confronted by a majestic lady, whom the lawyer introduced to her as Miss Reeves, who looked at her kindly and scrutinizingly. After a low-voiced colloquy with Mr. Fullbloom at the other end of the room, Miss Reeves took her by the hand, saying:

"Your guardian has confided you to my care. I hope, my dear child, that we may both learn soon to love and trust each other."

Meg took with confidence the extended hand. Shortly after, Mr. Fullbloom bade her an airy farewell, and she followed Miss Reeves into a room where a meal was going on.

"Miss Grantley and Madame Vallaria," said the head-mistress addressing the two ladies sitting at either end of the table, "let me introduce to you a new pupil, and to you, young ladies, a new school-fellow--Miss Margaret Beecham. Ursula Grey, let her sit beside you; look after her, she is a stranger."

The room swam around Meg as she took her seat near a girl with a pleasant rosy face and bright eyes s.h.i.+ning behind a pair of clever-looking spectacles. The child fancied she detected m.u.f.fled exclamations, and that on all sides a stare was turned upon her which was not friendly.

The young ladies appeared to her beautifully dressed. They wore pretty brooches and necklaces of colored beads; their s.h.i.+ning hair fell about their necks, and they had delicate bits of lace round their throats and wrists. One girl appeared to Meg so beautiful that she forgot everything in the delight of looking at her.

She was roused by a nudge of the elbow.

"Miss Grantley is speaking to you," said her spectacled neighbor. The young lady's lips were quivering with restrained smiles.

"Miss Beecham, will you take a gla.s.s of milk or a cup of cocoa?" said the lady at the head of the table.