East Angels Part 83

"It is natural that I should have been cold to her, perhaps, feeling as I did so keenly how unqualified she was to make a congenial home for Lanse. But, as you say, probably she cannot help it, it is her disposition. And now, to think what she must be feeling!--she has, in her way, a strict conscience, and to-day she faces the fact that, by her own utter want of sympathy (which I suppose she really cannot help), she has driven her husband away a _second_ time, sent him a _second_ time into bad courses! I realize, indeed, that it is the moment when I ought to do everything I can for her, when I should stifle my own feelings, and treat her with the greatest tenderness; don't you agree with me?"

"Fully. But even then I don't know that you can induce her to stay."

"Really--the more I think of it, the more sorry I feel for her, she is deeply to be pitied; I can imagine how crushed _I_ should have felt if Peter had deserted me! But if he _had_ done so, I should have gone immediately, of course, to stay with some older relative--it is the only proper way. You might represent to Margaret how much better it would look if she should continue, as before, to reside with me."

"Perhaps she won't take so much pains about the 'look' of anything, this time; perhaps she will let people know the real facts; she has always concealed them before."

"They would only be her own condemnation, in any case; everybody would perfectly understand that it was some lack in _her_," answered Aunt Katrina, with decision. "But I think you had better speak to her, and immediately; it _is_ so much more desirable, on her own account, that she should remain with me. I don't fancy she cares much for _you_, or she would never have tried to engage you to that odious Garda Thorne; still, you are a relative--- after a fas.h.i.+on, and she ought to listen to you; you might tell her," she added, her voice falling into a pathetic key, "that probably I shall not be left to her _long_."

"My dear aunt, you will outlive us all," said Winthrop, rising. "I will see her, and do what I can," he added, as he left the room.

At first he could not find Margaret, she was not in any of the usual places; he began to fear that she was in her own room, and that he should not find her at all. At last he met Celestine. "Do you know where Mrs. Harold is?" he said.

"Well, Mr. Evert, she's in the garden," Celestine answered, with some reluctance. "I've fixed her up nicely in an easy-chair on a rug, and I've told everybody to keep away, so that she can just rest--that's what she needs. I've let her have _one_ book--an easy-looking story that didn't seem exciting. And I'm going out after her in about an hour, to bring her in."

"I won't be any more exciting than the easy-looking story, Minerva; I promise you that."

Celestine watched him go, she was not pleased, but she could not help herself. She shook her head forebodingly, with her lips pursed up; then she went about her business--as she would herself have said.

Margaret was sitting under the rose-tree, in the easy-chair Celestine had mentioned, a rug spread under her feet. She had a parasol beside her, but the tree gave a sufficient shade; over her head Celestine had folded a Spanish veil.

"I thought perhaps we should see you to-day," she said.

"Yes, it hasn't been possible to come before. But of course you have had my letters--I mean about Mr. Moore? I have written twice a day. Is that the book Minerva said was an easy-looking one, not exciting--'Adam Bede?' What do you suppose she calls exciting?"

"The 'Wide, Wide World,' I presume."

He sat down on the bench near her. Carlos stalked out of the bushes, surveyed them, and then, with great dignity, secluded himself again.

"He misses Garda," Margaret said.

"I suppose Garda is still pursuing her triumphant career over there?"

"I don't know what you mean by triumphant. She is very happy."

"That's what I mean; it's extremely triumphant to be so happy, isn't it?"

"I am sure I don't know."

"You mean you have never been either?--Margaret, I have come to speak about your going away. Are you still thinking of going?"

"Yes; as soon as I am a little stronger."

"Aunt Katrina has sent me to plead with you; of course that's the last thing she calls it, but it's pleading all the same. I don't make any plea for her, because I don't think, as far as you are concerned, she deserves the least fragment of one; but I will say that I have told her the whole truth about Lanse at last, and that it has been a great blow to her, I have never seen her so much overcome. She has rallied however, she has taken her line; her line is the tenderest pity for you, _because_ you must feel it all to be so entirely your own fault!--you see how much that allows her? But she is so exceedingly anxious--abjectly anxious, to keep you with her, that I think you need fear no unpleasant manifestations of it."

"Aunt Katrina does not really need me. And for myself a change is indispensable."

"But it is so safe for you here--so quiet and protected. It is a species of home, after all. I like to see you, as you are at this moment, sitting in this old garden; it seems to me so much pleasanter for you--with this restful air to breathe--than that bustling, driving New York."

"It may be so. But I need change."

"You cling to that." He paused. "I believe you simply mean freedom."

"Yes, I do mean it. But we are going over the same ground we have already been over; that is useless."

"Everything is changed to me since then," said Winthrop, abruptly. "I have seen you brought back from the very threshold of death, I cannot pretend to be the same."

"I am the same."

"Yes; you didn't see _yourself_--"

"Don't talk about it, please. It is true that, personally, I do not realize it. But when I think of Mr. Moore, I do; and it makes me ill and faint."

"Why shouldn't you begin your freedom--yes; but begin it here?" he went on, returning to his argument. "Aunt Katrina has taken a new line about you. Why shouldn't you take one about her? And about everything? The people here are tiresome, of course; but people are tiresome everywhere, sooner or later, unless one leads a life of just dipping in, never staying long enough in any one place to get much below the surface. You could set up your own horses, your own servants; you could rearrange half the house to please yourself; you could carry it all out, as regards Aunt Katrina, with a high hand; she wouldn't make a murmur, I'm confident! And you could easily take some pleasant trips too from here--to New Orleans and Cuba; there's really a great deal to see. And if you are tired (as I should think you might well be) of always saying where you are going, and where you have been, how long you have stayed or intend to stay, and why, you could lay down a rule that no one should ask you a question. If they should continue to do it, you might throw something at them." His plan seemed to him so good as he unfolded it that it made him jocular.

She returned no answer.

"You don't care at all for what I think, or wish."

"No, I don't."

He looked at her as she sat there with face averted, his expression was that of angry helplessness. "All I want," he went on, trying to curb his irritation, "is to feel that you are safe."

"I shall be safe wherever I am."

"No, you won't, a woman like you cannot be, alone. Of course you will do all that is best and proper, but you are far too beautiful to be knocking about the world by yourself."

"Aren't you confusing me a little with Garda?"

"Your sarcasms have no effect; if I were as innocent in other matters as I am with regard to that effulgent young person, I should be quite perfect. But we won't speak of her; we'll speak of you."

"I am tired of the subject." She looked towards the gate as if in search of Celestine.

"She won't be here for some time yet. Bear with me a little, Margaret, don't be so impatient of the few minutes I have secured with you; what we're deciding now is important--your whole future."

"It is already decided."

He dashed his hand down upon his knee. "There's no use trying to argue with women! A woman never comprehends argument, no matter how strong it may be."

She was silent. Her face had a weary look, but there were in it no indications of yielding.

"You appear to be determined to go," he began again; "if you do go, Aunt Katrina will have the mental exercise of learning to get on without either of us."

She looked up quickly; his eyes were turned away now, straying over the tangled foliage of the c.r.a.pe-myrtles.

"I am sick of everything here," he went on--"East Angels, Gracias, the whole of it. If you are tired of seeing the same few people always day after day, what must I be? There are two spinster cousins of Aunt Katrina's who might come down here for a while, and I dare say they would come if I should ask them; with these ladies to manage the house, with Dr. Reginald and Betty, Celestine and Looth, Aunt Katrina ought to be tolerably comfortable."

Margaret had listened with keen attention. But she did not answer immediately; when she did reply, she spoke quietly. "Yes, I should think you would be glad to go north again, you have been tied down here so long. I am sure we can a.s.sume now that there is at least no present danger in Aunt Katrina's case; both of us certainly are not needed for her, and therefore, as you did not speak of going, I thought I could.

But now that you have spoken, now that I see you do wish to go, I feel differently, I give _you_ the chance. The change I wished for I will create here, I will create it by buying this house from you--that will be a change; I can amuse myself restoring it, if one can say that, when it's not a church."