interests of existence, the exercises of mutual love and trust! Thank God! it was not too late. Margaret lived to be cherished, to be consoled for her private griefs, as far as consolation might be possible; to have her innocent affections redeemed from the waste to which they now seemed doomed,--gathered gradually up again, and knit into the interests of the home life in which she was externally bearing her part. Full of these thoughts, and forgetting how often her best feelings had melted away beneath the transient heats kindled by the little provocations of daily life, Hester now believed that Margaret would never have to suffer from her more,--that their love would be henceforth like that of angels,--like that which it would have been if Margaret had really died yesterday. It was yet early, when, in the full enjoyment of these undoubting thoughts, Hester stood by her sister's bedside.
Margaret was still sleeping, but with that expression of weariness in her face which had of late become too common. Hester gazed long at the countenance, grieving at the languor and anxiety which it revealed. She had not taken Margaret's suffering to heart,--she had been unfeeling,-- strangely forgetful. She would minister to her now with reverent care.
As she thus resolved, she bent down, and kissed her forehead. Margaret started, shook off sleep, felt quite well, would rise;--there was no reason why she should not rise at once.
When she entered the breakfast-room, Hester was there, placing her chair by the fire, and inventing indulgences for her, as if she had been an invalid. It was in vain that Margaret protested that no effects of the accident remained,--not a single sensation of chill: she was to be taken care of; and she submitted. She was touched by her sister's gentle offices, and felt more like being free and at peace, more like being lifted up out of her woe, than she had yet done since the fatal hour which rendered her conscious and wretched. Breakfast went on cheerfully. The fire blazed bright: the rain pelting against the windows gave welcome promise of exemption from inquiries in person, and from having to relate, many times over, the particulars of the event of yesterday. Hester was beautiful in all the glow of her sensibilities, and Edward was for this morning in no hurry. No blue or yellow backed pamphlet lay beside his plate; and when his last cup was empty, he still sat talking as if he forgot that he should have to go out in the rain.
In the midst of a laugh which had prevented their hearing a premonitory knock, the door opened, and Mrs Grey's twin daughters entered, looking half-shy, half-eager. Never before had they been known to come out in heavy rain: but they were so very desirous to see cousin Margaret after she had been in the water!--and Sydney had held the great gig umbrella over himself and them, as papa would not hear of Sydney not coming:--he was standing outside the door now, under the large umbrella, for he said nothing should make him come in and see cousin Margaret--he would never see her again if he could help it. Sydney had said another thing,--such a wicked thing! Mamma was quite ashamed of him. Mr Hope thought they had better not repeat anything wicked that any one had said: but Hester considered it possible that it might not appear so wicked if spoken as if left to the imagination. What Sydney had said was, that if cousin Margaret had been really drowned, he would have drowned himself before dinner-time. Mary added that she heard him mutter that he was almost ready to do it now. Mr Hope thought that must be the reason why he was standing out at present, to catch all this rain, which was very nearly enough to drown anybody; and he went to bring him in. But Sydney was not to be caught. He was on the watch; and the moment he saw Mr Hope's coat instead of his sisters' cloaks, he ran off with a speed which defied pursuit, and was soon out of sight with the large umbrella.
His cousins were sorry that he felt the event so painfully, and that he could not come in and confide his trouble of mind to them. Hope resolved not to let the morning pass without seeing him, and, if possible, bringing him home to dinner, with William Levitt to take off the awkwardness.
"What are we to do?" exclaimed Sydney's little sisters. "He has carried off the great umbrella."
"I cannot conveniently send you, just at present," said Hester; "so you had better put off your cloaks, and amuse yourselves here till the rain abates, or some one comes for you. We will speak to Miss Young to excuse your not being with her."
"Oh, cousin Margaret," said the children, "if you will speak to Miss Young, she will give us any sort of a holiday. She minds everything you say. She will let us stop all day, and dine here, if you ask her."
Hester said she could not have them stay all day,--she did not mean to have them to dinner: and the little girls both looked up in her face at once, to find out what made her speak so angrily. They saw cousin Margaret glancing the same way too.
"Do you know, Mary," said Fanny, "you have not said a word yet of what Miss Young bade you say?"
Mary told cousin Margaret, that Miss Young was wishing very much to see her, and would be pleased if Margaret would mention what evening she would spend with her,--a nice long evening, Mary added, to begin as soon as it grew dark, and on till--nobody knew when.
"Maria had better come here," observed Hester, quickly; "and then some one else besides Margaret may have the benefit of her conversation. She seems to forget that anybody cares for her besides Margaret. Tell Miss Young she had better fix an evening to come here."
"I do not think she will do that," said both the little girls.
"Why not?"
"She is very lame now," replied Mary, "and she cannot walk further than just to school and back again."
"And, besides," remarked Fanny, "she wants to talk with cousin Margaret alone, I am sure. They have such a great deal of talk to do whenever they are together! We watch them sometimes in the schoolroom, through the window, when we are at play in the garden; and their heads nod at one another in this way. I believe they never leave off for a minute.
We often wonder what it can be all about."
"Ah, my dears, you and I had better not ask," said Hester. "I have no doubt it is better that we should not know."
Margaret looked beseechingly at her sister. Hester replied to her look: "I mean what I say, Margaret. You cannot but be aware how much more you have to communicate to Maria than to me. Our conversation soon comes to a stand: and I must say I have had much occasion to admire your great talent for silence of late. Maria has still to learn your accomplishments in that direction, I fancy."
Margaret quietly told the little girls that she would write a note to Maria, with her answer.
"You must not do that," said Fanny. "Miss Young said you must not.
That was the reason why she sent you a message instead of a note--that you might not have to write back again, when a message would do as well."
Margaret, nevertheless, sat down at the writing-table.
"You go to-day, of course," said Hester, in the voice of forced calmness which Margaret knew so well. "The little girls may as well stay and dine, after all, as I shall otherwise be alone in the evening."
"I shall not go to-day," said Margaret, without turning her head.
"You will not stay away on my account, of course."
"I have said that I shall go on Thursday."
"Thursday! that is almost a week hence. Now, Margaret, do not be pettish, and deny yourself what you know you like best. Do not be a baby, and quarrel with your supper. I had far rather you should go to-night, and have done with it, than that you should wait till Thursday, thinking all day long till then that you are obliging me by staying with me. I cannot bear that."
"I wish I knew what you could bear," said Margaret, in a voice which the children could not hear. "I wish I knew how I could save you pain."
The moment the words were out, Margaret was sorry for them. She was aware that the best kindness to her sister was to take as little notice as possible of her discontents--to turn the conversation--to avoid scenes, or any remarks which could bring them on. It was hard-- sometimes it seemed impossible--to speak calmly and lightly, while every pulse was throbbing, and every fibre trembling with fear and wretchedness; but yet it was best to assume such calmness and lightness.
Margaret now asked the little girls, while she sealed her note, how their patchwork was getting on--thus far the handsomest patchwork quilt she had ever seen.
"Oh, it will be far handsomer before it is done. Mrs Howell has found up some beautiful pieces of print for us--remnants of her first morning-gown after she was married, and of her poor dear Howell's last dressing-gown, as she says. We were quite sorry to take those; but she would put them up for us; and she is to see the quilt sometimes in return."
"But Miss Nares's parcel was the best, cousin Margaret. Such a quantity of nankeen for the ground, and the loveliest chintz for the centre medallion! Is not it, Mary?"
"Oh, lovely! Do you know, cousin Margaret, Miss Nares and Miss Flint both cried when they heard how nearly you were drowned! I am sure, I had no idea they would have cared so much."
"Nor I, my dear. But I dare say they feel kindly towards anyone saved from great danger."
"Not everybody," said Fanny; "only you, because you are a great favourite. Everybody says you are a great favourite. Papa cried last night--just a little tear or two, as gentlemen do--when he told mamma how sorry everybody in Deerbrook would have been if you had died."
"There! that will do," said Hester, struggling between her better and worse feelings--her remorse of this morning, and her present jealousy-- and losing her temper between the two. "You have said quite enough about what you do not understand, my dears. I cannot have you make so free with your cousin's name, children."
The little girls looked at each other in wonder; and Hester thought she detected a lurking smile.
"I see what you are thinking, children. Yes, look, the rain is nearly over; and then you may go and tell Mrs Howell and Miss Nares, and all the people you see on your way home, that they had better attend to their own concerns than pretend to understand what would have been felt if your cousin had been drowned. I wonder at their impertinence."
"Are you in earnest, cousin Hester? Shall we go and tell them so?"
"No; she is not in earnest," said Margaret. "But before you go, Morris shall give you some pieces for your quilt--some very pretty ones, such as she knows I can spare."
Margaret rang, and Morris took the children up-stairs, to choose for themselves out of Margaret's drawer of pieces. When the door had closed behind them, Margaret said--"Sister, do not make me wish that I had died under the ice yesterday."
"Margaret, how dare you say anything so wicked?"
"If it be wicked, God forgive me! I was wretched enough before--I would fain have never come to life again: and now you almost make me believe that you would have been best pleased if I never had."
At this moment Hope entered. He had left them in a far different mood: it made him breathless to see his wife's face of passion, and Margaret's of woe.
"Hear her!" exclaimed Hester. "She says I should have been glad to have lost her yesterday!"
"Have mercy upon me!" cried Margaret, in excessive agitation. "You oppress me beyond what I can bear. I cannot bear on as I used to do.
My strength is gone, and you give me none. You take away what I had!"
"Will you hear me spoken to in this way?" cried Hester, turning to her husband.
"I will."
Margaret's emotion prevented her hearing this, or caring who was by.
She went on--"You leave me nothing--nothing but yourself--and you abuse my love for you. You warn me against love--against marriage--you chill my very soul with terror at it. I have found a friend in Maria; and you poison my comfort in my friendship, and insult my friend. There is not an infant in a neighbour's house but you become jealous of it the moment I take it in my arms. There is not a flower in your garden, not a book on my table, that you will let me love in peace. How ungenerous--while you have one to cherish and who cherishes you, that you will have me lonely!--that you quarrel with all who show regard to me!--that you refuse me the least solace, when my heart is breaking with its loneliness! Oh, it is cruel!"
"Will you hear this, Edward?"
"I will, because it is the truth. For once, Hester, you must hear another's mind; you have often told your own."
"God knows why I was saved yesterday," murmured Margaret; "for a more desolate creature does not breathe."
Hope leaned against the wall. Hester relieved her torment of mind with reproaches of Margaret.
"You do not trust me," she cried; "it is you who make me miserable. You go to others for the comfort you ought to seek in me. You place that confidence in others which ought to be mine alone. You are cheered when you learn that the commonest gossips in Deerbrook care about you, and you set no value on your own sister's feelings for you. You have faith and charity for people out of doors, and mistrust and misconstruction for those at home. I am the injured one, Margaret, not you."
"Margaret," said Hope, "your sister speaks for herself. I think that you are the injured one, as Hester herself will soon agree. So far from having anything to reproach you with, I honour your forbearance,-- unremitting till this hour,--I mourn that we cannot, if we would, console you in return. But whatever I can do shall be done. Your friendships, your pursuits, shall be protected. If we persecute your affections at home, I will take care that you are allowed their exercise abroad. Rely upon me, and do not think yourself utterly lonely while you have a brother."
"I have been very selfish," said Margaret, recovering herself at the first word of kindness; "wretchedness makes me selfish, I think."
She raised herself up on the sofa, and timidly held out her hand to her sister. Hester thrust it away. Margaret uttered a cry of agony, such as had never been heard from her since her childhood. Hope fell on the floor--he had fainted at the sound.
Even now there was no one but Morris who understood it. Margaret reproached herself bitterly for her selfishness--for her loss of the power of self-control. Hester's remorse, however greater in degree, was of its usual kind, strong and brief. She repeated, as she had done before, that she made her husband wretched--that she should never have another happy moment--that she wished he had never seen her. For the rest of the day she was humbled, contrite, convinced that she should give way to her temper no more. Her eyes filled when her husband spoke tenderly to her, and her conduct to Margaret was one act of supplication. But a lesser degree of this same kind of penitence had produced no permanent good effect before; and there was no security that the present paroxysm would have a different result.
Morris had seen that the children were engaged up-stairs when she came down at Margaret's silent summons, to help to revive her master. When she saw that there had been distress before there was illness, she took her part. She resolved that no one but herself should hear his first words, and sent the ladies away when she saw that his consciousness was returning. All the world might have heard his first words. He recovered himself with a vigorous effort, swallowed a glass of wine, and within a few minutes was examining a patient in the waiting-room. There the little girls saw him as they passed the half-open door, on their way out with their treasure of chintz and print; and having heard some bustle below, they carried home word that they believed Mr Hope had been doing something to somebody which had made somebody faint; and Sophia, shuddering, observed how horrid it must be to be a surgeon's wife.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
WARNINGS.
Maria Young's lodging at the farrier's had one advantage over many better dwellings;--it was pleasanter in Winter than in Summer. There was little to find fault with in the tiny sitting-room after candles were lighted. The fire burned clear in the grate; and when the screen was up, there were no draughts. This screen was quite a modern improvement. When Fanny and Mary Grey had experienced the pleasure of surprising Sophia with a token of sisterly affection, in the shape of a piece of India-rubber, and their mother with a token of filial affection, in the form of a cotton-box, they were unwilling to stop, and looked round to see whether they could not present somebody with a token of some other sort of affection. Sophia was taken into their counsels; and she, being aware of how Miss Young's candle flared when the wind was high, devised this screen. The carpenter made the frame; Sydney covered it with canvas and black paper for a ground; and the little girls pasted on it all the drawings and prints they could muster. Here was the Dargle, an everlasting waterfall, that looked always the same in the sunny-coloured print. There was Morland's Woodcutter, with his tall figure, his pipe, his dog, and his faggot, with the snow lying all around him. Two or three cathedrals were interspersed; and, in the midst of them, and larger than any of them, a silhouette of Mr Grey, with the eyelash wonderfully like, and the wart upon his nose not to be mistaken. Then there was Charles the First taking leave of his family; and, on either side of this, an evening primrose in water-colours, by Mary, and a head of Terror, with a square mouth and starting eyes, in crayon, by Fanny. Mrs Grey produced some gay border which the paper-hanger had left over when the attics were last furnished; and Sydney cut out in white paper a huntsman with his whip in the air, a fox, a gate, and two hounds. Mr Grey pleaded, that, having contributed his face, he had done all that could be expected of him: nevertheless, he brought home one day, on his return from market, a beautiful Stream of Time, which made the children dance round their screen. It was settled at first that this would nobly ornament the whole of one side; but it popped into Sydney's head, just as he was falling asleep one night, how pretty it would be to stick it round with the planets. So the planets were cut out in white, and shaded with Indian ink. There was no mistaking Saturn with his ring, or Jupiter with his moons. At length, all was done, and the cook was glad to hear that no more paste would be wanted, and the little girls might soon leave off giggling when Miss Young asked them, in the schoolroom, why they were jogging one another's elbows. Mr Grey spared one of his men to deposit the precious piece of handiwork at Miss Young's lodging; and there, when she went home one cold afternoon, she found the screen standing between the fire and the door, and, pinned on it, a piece of paper, inscribed, "A Token of friendly Affection."
This was not, however, the only, nor the first, gift with which Maria's parlour was enriched. Amidst all the bustle of furnishing the Hopes' house, Margaret had found time to plan and execute a window-curtain for her friend's benefit; and another person--no other than Philip Enderby-- had sent in a chaise-longue, just the right size to stand between the fire and the table. It had gone hard with Maria to accept this last gift; but his nephew and nieces were Philip's plea of excuse for the act; and this plea cut her off from refusing: though in her heart she believed that neither the children nor ancient regard were in his thoughts when he did it, but rather Margaret's affection for her. For some time, this chaise-longue was a couch of thorns; but now affairs had put on a newer aspect still, and Maria forgot her own perplexities and troubles in sympathy with her friend.
There was nothing to quarrel with in the look of the chaise-longue, when Margaret entered Maria's room in the twilight, in the afternoon of the appointed Thursday.
"Reading by fire-light?" said Margaret.
"I suppose I am: but it had not occurred to me--the daylight went away so softly. Six o'clock, I declare! The days _are_ lengthening, as we say every year. But we will have something better than firelight, if you will be so kind as to set those candles on the table."
The time was long put when Maria thought of apologising for asking her friend to do what her lameness rendered painful to herself. Margaret laid aside her bonnet and cloak behind the screen, lighted the candles, put more coals on the fire, and took her seat--not beside Maria, but in a goodly armchair, which she drew forward from its recess.
"Now," said she, "we only want a cat to be purring on the rug to make us a complete winter picture. The kettle will be coming soon to sing on the hob: and that will do nearly as well. But, Maria, I wonder _you_ have no cat. We have set up a cat. I think I will send you a kitten, some day, as a token of neighbourly affection."
"Thank you. Do you know, I was positively assured lately that I had a cat? I said all I could in proof that I had none; but Mrs Tucker persisted in her inquiries after its health, notwithstanding."
"What did she mean?"
"She said she saw a kitten run into the passage, and that it never came out again: so that it followed of course that it must be here still.
One day, when I was in school, she came over to satisfy herself; and true enough, there had been a kitten. The poor thing jumped from the passage window into the yard, and went to see what they were about at the forge. A hot horse-shoe fell upon its back, and it mewed so dolefully that the people drowned it. So there you have the story of my cat, as it was told to me."
"Thank you, it is a good thing to know. But what does Mrs Grey say to your setting up a cat?"
"When she heard Mrs Tucker's first inquiries, she took them for an imputation, and was vexed accordingly. `Miss Young!' said she, `You must be mistaken, Mrs Tucker. Miss Young cannot afford to keep a kitten!'"
"Oh, for shame!" said Margaret, laughing. "But what is the annual expense of a kitten--can you tell us? I am afraid we never considered that."
"Why, there is the breast of a fowl, once a year or so, when your cook forgets to shut the larder-door behind her. Cats never take the drumsticks when there is a breast, you are aware. You know best how Mr Hope looks, when the drumsticks and side bones come to table, with an empty space in the middle of the dish where the breast ought to have been."
"I will tell you, the first time it happens." And Margaret sank into an absent fit, brought on by the bare suggestion of discontent at home.
Hester had made her uncomfortable, the last thing before she left the house, by speaking sharply of Maria, without any fresh provocation.
Undisciplined still by what had happened so lately, she had wished Maria Young a hundred miles off. Margaret meditated and sighed. It was some time before Maria spoke. When she did, she said: "Margaret, do not you think people had better not persuade themselves and their very intimate friends that they are happy when they are not?"
"They had better not think, even in their own innermost minds, whether they are happy or not, if they can help it."
"True: but there are times when that is impossible--when it is far better to avoid the effort. Come--I suspect we may relieve each other just now, by allowing the truth. I will own, if you will, that I am very unhappy to-night. Never mind what it is about."
"I will, if you will," replied Margaret, faintly smiling.
"There now, that's right! We shall be all the better for it. We have quite enough of seeming happy, God knows, beyond these doors. We can talk there about kittens and cold fowl. Here we will not talk at all, unless we like; and we will each groan as much as we please."
"I am sorry to hear you speak so," said Margaret, tenderly. "Not that I do not agree with you. I think it is a terrible mistake to fancy that it is religious to charm away grief, which, after all, is rejecting it before it has done its work; and, as for concealing it, there must be very good reasons indeed for that, to save it from being hypocrisy. But the more I agree with you, the more sorry I am to hear you say just what I was thinking. I am afraid you must be very unhappy, Maria."
"I'm in great pain to-night; and I do not find that pain becomes less of an evil by one's being used to it. Indeed, I think the reverse happens; for the future comes into the consideration."
"Do you expect to go on to suffer this same pain? Can nothing cure it?
Is there no help?"
"None, but in patience. There are intermissions, happily, and pretty long ones. I get through the summer very well; but the end of the winter--this same month of February--is a sad aching time; and so it must be for as many winters as I may have to live. But I am better off than I was. Last February I did not know you. Oh, Margaret, if they had not brought you up from under the ice, the other day, how different would all have been to-night!"
"How strange it seems to think of the difference that hung on that one act!" said Margaret, shivering again at the remembrance of her icy prison. "What, and where, should I have been now? And what would have been the change in this little world of ours? You would have missed me, I know; and on that account I am glad it ended as it did."
"And on no other?" asked Maria, looking earnestly at her friend.
"My sister would have grieved sadly at first--you do not know what care she takes of me--how often she is thinking of my comfort. And Edward is fond of me too: I know he is; but they live for each other, and could spare every one else. You and Morris would have been my mourners, and you two are enough to live for."
"To say nothing of others who may arise."
"I hope nothing more will arise in my life, Maria. I want no change. I have had enough of it."
"You think so now. I understand your feeling very well. But yet I can fancy that when you are twice as old as you are--when a few grey hairs peep out among all that brown--when this plump little hand grows thin, and that girlish figure of yours looks dignified and middle-aged, and people say that nobody thought when you were young that you would turn out a handsome woman--I can fancy that when all this has happened, you may be more disposed to look forward, and less disinclined to change, than you feel at this moment. But there is no use in saying so now.
You shake your head, and I nod mine. You say, `No,' and I say, `Yes,' and there is an end of it."
"Where will you be then, I wonder?"
"I do not wish to know, nor even to inquire of my own judgment. My health is very bad--worse than you are aware of. I cannot expect to be able to work always; some of my present pupils are growing very tall; and no strangers will take me if I do not get much better; which is, I believe, impossible. The future, therefore, is all a mystery; and so let it remain. I am not anxious about that."
"But I am."
"Here comes tea. Now you will be doing a finer thing in making us a good cup of tea, than in settling my future ever so satisfactorily-- seeing that you cannot touch it with so much as your little finger. The tea is wholly in your power."
"You look forward to other people's grey hair and sedateness of face, though you will not to your own."
"Mere grey hair is as certain as futurity itself; and I will allow you to prophesy that much for me or for anybody."
"Why should we not prophesy about your pupils too? They seem to be improving very much."
"They certainly are; and I am glad you have lighted upon the pleasantest subject I ever think about. Oh, Margaret, you do not know what encouragement I have about some of those children! Their lot is and will be a hard one, in many respects. It will be difficult for them to grow kindly, and liberal, and truthful, with such examples as they have before their eyes. They advance like the snail on the wall, creeping three inches on in the day, and falling back two at night. They get out of a pretty mood of mind in the morning, and expand and grow interested in things out of Deerbrook; and then, in the evening, the greater part of this is undone, and they go to bed with their heads full of small, vile notions about their neighbours."
"And when they grow too wise to have their heads so filled, their hearts will be heavy for those who are not rising like themselves."
"That is unavoidable, and they must bear the sorrow. We must hope that they will disperse from Deerbrook, and find their way into a more genial society than they can ever know here. I must keep the confidence of my children sacred even from you, Margaret: but you may believe me when I tell you, that if you knew all that we have to say to one another, you would find some of these children animated with really noble thoughts, and capable of really generous acts."
"`Some of them.' Mary, in particular, I venture to conjecture to be in your thoughts."
"Yes: Mary in particular; but she had always a more gentle and generous temper than her sisters. Fanny, however, is improving remarkably."
"I am delighted to hear it, and I had begun to suspect it. Fanny, I observe, lays fewer informations than she did; and there is more of thought, and less of a prying expression, in her face. She is really growing more like Mary in countenance. The little Rowlands--the younger ones--seem simple enough; but Matilda, what a disagreeable child she is!"
"The most that can be done with her is to leave her only a poor creature--to strip her of the conceit and malice with which her mother would overlay her feeble intellect. This sounds deplorably enough; but, as parents will not speak the plain truth to themselves about their charge, governesses must. There is, perhaps, little better material in Fanny: but I trust we may one day see her more lowly than she can at present relish the idea of being, and with energy enough to improve under the discipline of life, when she can no longer have that of school. She and Mary have been acknowledging to-day a fine piece of experience. Mr Grey is pleased with their great Improvement in Latin.
He finds they can read, with ease and pleasure, some favourite classical scraps which he used to talk about without exciting any interest in them. They honestly denied having devoted any more time to Latin than before, or having taken any more pains; and no new methods have been tried. Here was a mystery. To-day they have solved it. They find that all is owing to their getting up earlier in the morning to teach those little orphans, the Woods, to read and sew."
"Not a very circuitous process," said Margaret; "love and kind interest, energy and improvement--whether in Latin or anything else. But what did you mean just now about truth? What should make the Greys otherwise than truthful?"
"Oh, not the Greys! I was thinking of the other family when I said that. But that is a large subject: let us leave it till after tea.
Will you give me another cup?"
"Now; shall we begin upon our large subject?" said she, as the door closed behind the tea-tray and kettle, and Margaret handed her her work-bag.
"I am aware that I asked for it," replied Margaret; "but it is a disagreeable topic, and perhaps we had better avoid it."
"You will take me for a Deerbrook person, if I say we will go into it, will not you?"
"Oh, no: you have a reason, I see. So, why should not the little Rowlands be truthful?"
"Because they have so perpetual an example of falsehood before them at home. I have made some painful discoveries there lately."
"Is it possible you did not know that woman long ago?"
"I knew her obvious qualities, which there is no need to specify: but the depth of her untruth is a new fact to me."
"Are you sure of it, now?"
"Quite sure of it in some particulars, and strongly suspecting it in others. Do not tell your sister anything of what I am going to say, unless you find it necessary for the direction of her conduct. Let your disclosures be rather to Mr Hope. That is settled, is it? Well, Mrs Rowland's ruling passion just now is hatred to your household."
"I suspected as much. But--the untruth."
"Wait a little. She dislikes you, all and severally."
"What, my brother?"
"Oh, yes; for marrying into the Grey connection so decidedly. Did you ever hear that before?"
Margaret laughed; and her friend went on-- "This capture and imprisonment of her mother (for the poor old lady is not allowed to see whom she pleases) is chiefly to get her from under Mr Hope's care. I fancy, from her air, and from some things she has dropped, that she has some grand _coup-de-theatre_ in reserve about that matter; but this is merely suspicion: I will now speak only of what I know to exist. She is injuring your brother to an extent that he is not, but ought to be, aware of."
"What does she say? She shudders at his politics, I know."
"Yes; that might be ignorance merely, and even conscientious ignorance: so we will let that pass. She also hints, very plainly and extensively, that your brother and sister are not happy together."
"She is a wicked woman," said Margaret, with a deep sigh. "I half suspected what you tell me, from poor George's errand that unhappy day."
"Right. Mr Rowland's irony was intended to stop his wife's insinuations before the children. She says the most unwarrantable things about Mrs Grey's having made the match--and she intimates that Hester has several times gone to bed in hysterics, from Mr Hope having upbraided her with taking him in."
"What _is_ to be done?" cried Margaret, throwing down her work.
"Your brother will decide for himself whether to speak to Mr Rowland, or to let the slander pass, and live it down. Our duty is to give him information; and I feel that it is a duty. And now, have you been told anything about Mr Hope's practice of dissection?"
Margaret related what she had heard on the bank of the river, and Hope's explanation of it.
"He knows more than he told you, I have no doubt," replied Maria. "The beginning of it was, your brother's surgery-pupil having sent a great toe, in a handsome-looking sealed packet, to some lad in the village, who happened to open it at table. You may imagine the conjectures as to where it came from, and the revival of stories about robbing churchyards, and of prejudices about dissection. Mrs Rowland could not let such an opportunity as this pass by; and her neighbours have been favoured with dark hints, as to what has been heard under the churchyard wall, and what she herself has seen from her window in sleepless nights.
Now, Mr Hope must take notice of this. It is too dangerous a subject to be left quietly to the ignorance and superstitions of such a set of people as those among whom his calling lies. No ignorance on earth exceeds that of the country folks whom he attends."
"But they worship him," cried Margaret.
"They have worshipped him; but you know, worship easily gives place to hatred among the extremely ignorant; and nothing is so likely to quicken