Fernley House Part 19

The good man was glowing with pleasure and good will; but for once he met no response from Hugh, who, pale and gloomy, stared before him as if he had seen a ghost.

"My dear fellow," cried Mr. Montfort, changing his tone at once, "you are not well. How pale you are! or--you have had no bad news, Hugh?

n.o.body ill at home, eh? Your father--"

"No, no, sir, all well! Father is in perfect trim; I have just been reading a letter from him, Uncle John; you must hear it, sometime when you are not busy. Don't look at me like that, Margaret! I--my head aches a little, if I must confess. Did you never see any one with a headache before?"

Was it possible that Hugh was out of temper? Neither Mr. Montfort nor Margaret could believe it at first; both gazed at him, expecting the usual kindly smile to begin in his eyes and break gradually over his face; but no smile came. Mr. Montfort, who had lived many years and seen many things, was the first to recover himself; he pa.s.sed Hugh with a friendly pat on the shoulder, and, nodding to Margaret, went out of the room. Margaret remained still, looking earnestly in her cousin's face, unconscious of offence.

"Dear Hugh," she said, affectionately, "I am so sorry! Let me get you something--one of those tablets that relieved you last time."

"No, no!" said Hugh. "It is nothing, Margaret, nothing at all. So Miss Wolfe is a rich woman, is she, and spoilt for life? And you are glad, you and Uncle John! Well, I am sorry, for my part; sorry from the bottom of my heart. It is an iniquity."

"Hugh!"

"It is! She will grow into an idle fine lady, like this very Mrs.

Peyton, who throws about her gewgaws at every whim. Her life will be frittered away over dresses and frippery and fas.h.i.+on. Instead of a worker, a real woman, with a woman's work and aims, you will have a b.u.t.terfly, pretty and useless, fluttering about in the suns.h.i.+ne, unable to bear rough weather. A fine piece of work it will be, the ruining of a girl like that."

Margaret stood aghast, and for a few moments found no words. Her cousin's face showed that he was only too deeply in earnest; his eyes glowed with sombre fire, and a dark red spot burned in his cheek. When Margaret did speak at last, her eyes were tender, but her voice was grave, almost stern. "Hugh," she said, "I hardly know you; and I see that you do not know Grace in the least. I thought--I thought you did--understand her, better perhaps than any one else did; but if you can say such things as these, I see I was utterly mistaken. She, spoiled by a little prosperity? Oh, how can you? For shame, Hugh!"

Hugh looked up at her suddenly. "Oh, Margaret!" he said. "Margaret, have patience with me! I--I am not myself to-day. My head--there is something wrong with me."

"Yes, dear," said Margaret, tenderly. "Go and lie down, Hugh, won't you?

And I'll bring you some cracked ice. That always helps a little."

"I don't want to lie down, and I don't want any cracked ice; thank you all the same, good little sister-cousin! I'll go out into the garden, I think. The trees will be the best thing for me to-day.

And--Margaret--forget what I said, will you? It is none of my business, of course; only--good-by, little girl!"

CHAPTER XVII.

IN THE GARDEN

"But, Grace--"

"But-ter, Margaret!"

"My dear, please don't be absurd!"

"My angel, I am not half so absurd as you are. Why, in the name of all that is incongruous, should I take this lady's money? Is thy servant a dog, that she should do this thing?"

"Listen, Grace! You are wholly, utterly wrong. Listen to me! Let us sit down here by the summer-house and have it out. No, you have said enough; it is my turn now. You talk about yourself, and your independence and freedom, and I don't know what. My dear, I want you to forget yourself, and think of her."

"Of her? What difference does it make to her?"

"All the difference in the world, it may be. What is that noise?"

"It is I!" said Hugh, emerging from the summer-house. "I seem fated to be an eavesdropper, and yet I am not one by nature. Pardon me, young ladies!"

He was about to pa.s.s them with a formal bow, but Margaret, with a sudden inspiration, caught his arm. "No!" she cried, "I want you to hear what I am going to say. You, too, misunderstand--sit down, Hugh, and listen!

Please!" she added, in the tone that seldom failed to win any heart.

Hugh hesitated, but finally sat down, looking very grim, and stared at the box-tree in front of him. Margaret went on, hurriedly, moved for once out of her gentle calm.

"This lady--I must speak plainly, though she is my friend--has lived a selfish, empty, idle life. She was very beautiful and very rich, really one of the great beauties and heiresses, and--and that was all. She was brought up by a worldly aunt--her mother died when she was little--and married to some one whom she cannot have cared for very much, I am afraid; and she never had any children. Then came all this ill health.

Oh, Grace, I can't help it if it wasn't all real, she certainly has suffered a great deal; and through it all she has been alone, loving no one, and with no one to love her. She will not see any of her own people, cousins--she has no one nearer; she says they are all mercenary.

I don't know, of course, but it is one of the terrible things about having a great deal of money, that you think everybody wants it, whether they do or not. Now, at last, before it was too late,--oh, I am so thankful for that,--the change has come. She has waked up, and it is all owing to you, Grace. Yes, it is! I have been fond of her, and she has petted me, and been very good to me, and given me things, but I never could open her eyes, try as I would. Now, you have done it, dear. You not only saved her life actually--yes, you did, Grace; she told me all about it; she never would have got out of that room alive but for you--you not only saved her life, but you have given her some idea of how to live. She wants to do something in return. It is the first time, I do believe, that she has wanted _really_ to help some one else. When she gave me prettinesses, it was because it amused her to do it, not because I needed them, nor because she was thinking specially about me.

"Grace, if you refuse this; if you shut back the kindly impulse, the desire to help some one, I tell you you will be doing a wrong thing. It is nothing in the world but pride, selfish pride, that is speaking in you. Tell me again--tell Hugh, what Mrs. Peyton said to you when she went away."

"She said--" Grace's voice had not its usual cool evenness, but was husky, and faltered now and then--"she said, 'Do not refuse my last wis.h.!.+ I do not tell you what it is, for fear you should refuse at once, and shut me up with myself again. Do not refuse, for the sake of Christian kindness, of which I have known nothing hitherto, but which I mean to learn something about if I can.'"

"And then?"

"And then--she kissed me--Margaret, it is brutal of you to make me tell this!--she kissed me twice, and said--" Grace's voice broke.

"I--cannot!" she faltered.

Margaret rose to her feet with a sudden impulse. "Hark!" she said. "Is that Uncle John calling me? Wait here, please, both of you!" and she ran off, never looking behind her. It was the first and last deceitful act of Margaret Montfort's life.

There was a long silence. Hugh Montfort stared at the box-tree. Grace cried a little, quietly; then wiped away her tears, not noticing them much, and observed an ant running along the path. At last, "Well?" said Hugh.

"Well!" said Grace. "I am sorry to have made such a spectacle of myself.

Is there anything to say?"

Hugh plucked a box-leaf and scrutinized it carefully.

"They make these things so even!" he said.

"Machinery never could--Let me tell you a story. Do you mind? Once upon a time there was a man--or--well, call him a man! He was part of one, anyhow, as much as accident allowed. He was not strong, but he could work, and he meant to work, and do things he cared about, and lead as good a life as he knew how. He had been a good deal alone, somehow, though he had dear good people of his own; he was an odd stick, I suppose, as odd as the one he walked with."

He stopped, glanced at his stick, with its handle worn smooth as gla.s.s; then he went on.

"He had never seen much of women, except his own family; never thought about them much as individuals, though always in his mind there was a dream--I suppose all men have it--of some one he should meet some day, who would turn the world from gray to gold. One day--he saw a vision; and--after that--he learned, not all at once, but little by little, that life was not full and rounded, as he had thought it, but empty and one-sided and unprofitable, if this vision could not be always before his eyes; if this one woman could not come into his life, to be his star, his light, his joy and happiness. She was poor, like himself. He thought of working for her, of sharing with her the honest, laborious, perhaps helpful life he had planned, the life of a Western forester, living among the woods and mountains, studying the trees he loved, learning the secrets of nature at first hand, teaching his beloved all the little he knew, and learning more, a thousandfold more, from every look of her eyes, every tone of her wonderful voice.

"Well--while he dreamed--something happened. Suddenly, by a wave of a wand, as in the fairy tales, his maiden was transformed. Instead of the orphan girl, working bravely with her brave hands to earn her bread, he saw--a rich woman! saw the woman he loved condemned by the idle whim of an idle pleasure-seeker to sit with folded hands, or play with toys and trinkets. He was filled with rage; he hated the very sound of the word money, because--it seemed to him that this money would rob him of his darling. I--he--"

Hugh broke off suddenly. "I am the greatest fool in the world!" he said.

"Grace, do you understand me? Do you know what I am trying to say?"

It was the merest whisper that replied, "I don't--know--"

"Yes, you do." Hugh caught the slender hands, and held them close. "You know, you must know, that I have cared for you ever since that first wonderful moment, when you broke through the leaves like suns.h.i.+ne, and I saw the face I had dreamed of all my life. You must have felt it, all these weeks. Oh, Margaret is right, I suppose. All she says is true enough; if you can help this poor woman by taking her wretched money, I suppose you will have to do it. But--but I lose my princess, before ever I could win her. I can't ask a rich woman to be my wife."

While Hugh was speaking, Grace's head had drooped lower and lower, as if she shrank under the weight that was laid upon her; but now she looked up bravely, with a lovely light in her eyes. "Can't you, Hugh?" she said. "It's a pity you can't, Hugh, because--you could have her for the asking."