the process as to talk about violating graves. Do not be frightened; I tell you this to prevent mischief, not to prophesy it. Mr Hope will take what measures he thinks fit: and I shall tell Mr Rowland, tomorrow morning, that I am the source of your information. I was just going to warn him to-day that I meant to speak to you in this way; but I left it till to-morrow, that I might not be prevented."
"Dear Maria, this will cost you your bread."
"I believe not; but this consideration belongs to that future of time on which, as I was saying, we cannot lay our little fingers. The present is clear enough--that Mr Hope ought to know his own case."
"He shall know it. But, Maria, do you mean that Mrs Rowland talks of all these affairs before her children?"
"When Mr Rowland is not present to check it. And this brings me to something which I think ought to be said, though I have no proof to bring. Having found of late what things Mrs Rowland can say for a purpose--how variously and how monstrously untrue--and seeing that all her enterprises are at present directed against the people who live in a pleasant little corner-house--" "But why? You have not yet fully accounted for this enmity."
"I have not, but I will now. I think she joins your name with her brother's, and that she accordingly hates you now as she once hated Hester. But mind, I am not sure of this."
"But how--? Why--?"
"You will divine that I have changed my opinion about Mr Enderby's being engaged to Miss Bruce, since you asked me for my judgment upon it.
I may very possibly be mistaken: but as Mr Enderby lies under censure for forming and carrying on such an arrangement in strange concealment from his most intimate friends, I think it due to him at least to put the supposition that he may not be guilty."
Margaret could not speak, though a thousand questions struggled in her heart.
"I am aware," continued Maria, "with what confidence she has everywhere stated the fact of this engagement, and that Mrs Enderby fully believes it. But I have been struck throughout with a failure of particularity in Mrs Rowland's knowledge. She cannot tell when her brother last saw Miss Bruce, nor whether he has any intention of going to Rome. She does not know, evidently, whether he was engaged when he was last here; and I cannot get rid of the impression, that his being engaged now is a matter of inference from a small set of facts, which will bear more than one interpretation."
"Surely she would not dare--." Margaret paused.
"It is a bold stroke (supposing me right), but she would strike boldly to make a quarrel between her brother and his friends in the corner-house: and if the device should fail at last, she has the intermediate satisfaction of making them uncomfortable."
"Horrid creature!" said Margaret, feeling, however, that she would forgive all the horridness for the sake of finding that Mrs Rowland had done this horrid thing.
"We must not forget," said Maria, "that there is another side to the question. Young men have been known to engage themselves mysteriously, and without sufficient respect to the confidence of intimate friends."
"This must be ascertained, Maria;" and again Margaret stopped short with a blush of shame.
"By time, Margaret; in no other way. I cannot, of course, speak to Mr Rowland, or any one, on so private an affair of the family; nor, under the circumstances, can Mr Hope stir in it. We must wait; but it cannot be for long. Some illumination must reach Deerbrook soon--either from Mr Enderby's going to Rome, or coming here to see his mother."
"Mrs Rowland said he would come here, she hoped, for his wedding journey."
"She did say so, I know. And she has told plenty of people that her brother is delighted that Mrs Enderby is settled with her; whereas some beautiful plants arrived this morning for Mrs Enderby's conservatory, by his orders (the Rowlands have no conservatory you know). The children were desired not to mention the arrival of these plants to grandmamma; and Mrs Rowland wrote by return of post--I imagine to inform him for the first time of his mother's removal."
Margaret thought these things were too bad to be true.
"I should have said so, too, some time ago: and as I cannot too earnestly repeat, I may be wrong now. But I have done my duty in giving you reason for suspending your judgment of Mr Enderby. This being done, we will talk of something else.--Now, do not you think there may be some difficulty in preserving my pupils from a habit of untruth?"
"Yes, indeed."
But the talking of something else did not operate so well as it sounded.
The pauses were long after what had passed. At length, when Margaret detected herself in the midst of the speculation, "if he is not engaged to Miss Bruce, it does not follow--," she roused herself, and exclaimed-- "How very good it is of you, Maria, to have laid all this open to me!"
Maria hung her head over her work, and thought within herself that her friend could not judge of the deed. She replied-- "Thank you! I thought I should get some sympathy from you in the end, to repay me for the irksomeness of exposing such a piece of social vice as this poor lady's conduct."
"Yes, indeed, I ought to have acknowledged it before, as I feel it; but you know there is so much to think over! it is so wonderful--so almost inconceivable!"
"It is so."
"Is it quite necessary, Maria--yes, I see it is necessary that you should speak to Mr Rowland to-morrow? You are bound in honesty to do so; but it will be very painful. Can we not help you? Can we not in some way spare you?"
"No, you cannot, thank you. For Mr Rowland's sake, no one must be by; and none of you can testify to the facts. No; leave me alone. By this time to-morrow night it will be done. What knock is that? No one ever knocks on my account. Surely it cannot be your servant already. It is only now half-past eight."
"I promised Hester I would go home early."
"She cannot want you half so much as I do. Stay another hour."
Margaret could not. Hester made a point of her returning at this time.
When the cloaking and final chat were done, and Margaret was at the door, Maria called her. Margaret came skipping back to hear her friend's whisper.
"How is your wretchedness, Margaret?"
"How is yours?" was Margaret's reply.
"Much better. The disburdening of it is a great comfort."
"And the pain--the aching?"
"Oh, never mind that!"
Margaret shook her head; she could not but mind it--but wish that she could take it upon herself sometimes. She had often thought lately, that she should rather enjoy a few weeks of Maria's pain, as an alternative to the woe under which she had been suffering; but this, if she could have tried the experiment, she would probably have found to be a mistake. When she saw her friend cover her eyes with her hand, as if for a listless hour of solitude, she felt that she had been wrong in yielding to her sister's jealousy of her being so much with Maria; and she resolved that, next time, Maria should appoint the hour for her return home.
When Maria was thus covering her eyes with her hand, she was thinking--"Now, half this task is over. The other half to-morrow--and then the consequences!"
When Margaret entered the drawing-room at home, where her brother was reading aloud to Hester, he exclaimed-- "We beat all Deerbrook for early visiting, I think. Here are you home; and I dare say Mr Tucker has still another pipe to smoke, and the wine is not mulled yet at the Jameses."
"It is quite time Margaret was giving us a little of her company, I am sure," said Hester. "You forget how early she went. If it was not for the school, I think she and Maria would spend all their time together.
I have every wish not to interfere: but I cannot think that this friendship has made Maria less selfish."
"It would, I dare say, my dear, but that there was no selfishness to begin upon. I am afraid she is very unwell, Margaret?"
"In much pain, I fear."
"I will go and see if I can do her any good. You can glance over what we have read, and I shall be back in a quarter of an hour, to go on with it."
"I wonder you left Maria, if she is so poorly."
"I determined that I would not, another time; but this time I had promised."
"Pray, do not make out that I am any restraint upon your intercourse with Maria. And yet--it is not quite fair to say that, either."
"I do not think it is quite fair."
"But you should warn me--you should tell me, if I ask anything unreasonable. When are you going again? An old patient of my husband's has sent us a quarter of a chest of very fine oranges. We will carry Maria a basketful of oranges to-morrow."
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
LONG WALKS.
The unhappy are indisposed to employment: all active occupations are wearisome and disgusting in prospect, at a time when everything, life itself, is full of weariness and disgust. Yet the unhappy must be employed, or they will go mad. Comparatively blessed are they, if they are set in families, where claims and duties abound, and cannot be escaped. In the pressure of business there is present safety and ultimate relief. Harder is the lot of those who have few necessary occupations, enforced by other claims than their own harmlessness and profitableness. Reading often fails. Now and then it may beguile; but much oftener the attention is languid, the thoughts wander, and associations with the subject of grief are awakened. Women who find that reading will not do, will obtain no relief from sewing. Sewing is pleasant enough in moderation to those whose minds are at ease the while; but it is an employment which is trying to the nerves when long continued, at the best; and nothing can be worse for the harassed, and for those who want to escape from themselves. Writing is bad. The pen hangs idly suspended over the paper, or the sad thoughts that are alive within write themselves down. The safest and best of all occupations for such sufferers as are fit for it, is intercourse with young children. An infant might beguile Satan and his peers the day after they were couched on the lake of fire, if the love of children chanced to linger amidst the ruins of their angelic nature. Next to this comes honest, genuine acquaintanceship among the poor; not mere charity-visiting, grounded on soup-tickets and blankets, but intercourse of mind, with real mutual interest between the parties. Gardening is excellent, because it unites bodily exertion with a sufficient engagement of the faculties, while sweet, compassionate Nature is ministering cure in every sprouting leaf and scented blossom, and beckoning sleep to draw nigh, and be ready to follow up her benignant work. Walking is good,--not stepping from shop to shop, or from neighbour to neighbour; but stretching out far into the country, to the freshest fields, and the highest ridges, and the quietest lanes.
However sullen the imagination may have been among its griefs at home, here it cheers up and smiles. However listless the limbs may have been when sustaining a too heavy heart, here they are braced, and the lagging gait becomes buoyant again. However perverse the memory may have been in presenting all that was agonising, and insisting only on what cannot be retrieved, here it is first disregarded, and then it sleeps and the sleep of the memory is the day in Paradise to the unhappy. The mere breathing of the cool wind on the face in the commonest highway, is rest and comfort which must be felt at such times to be believed. It is disbelieved in the shortest intervals between its seasons of enjoyment: and every time the sufferer has resolution to go forth to meet it, it penetrates to the very heart in glad surprise. The fields are better still; for there is the lark to fill up the hours with mirthful music; or, at worst, the robin and flocks of fieldfares, to show that the hardest day has its life and hilarity. But the calmest region is the upland, where human life is spread out beneath the bodily eye, where the mind roves from the peasant's nest to the spiry town, from the school-house to the churchyard, from the diminished team in the patch of fallow, or the fisherman's boat in the cove, to the viaduct that spans the valley, or the fleet that glides ghost-like on the horizon. This is the perch where the spirit plumes its ruffled and drooping wines, and makes ready to let itself down any wind that Heaven may send.
No doubt Margaret found the benefit of exercise, and the solitary enjoyment of the country; for, during the last few weeks, walking seemed to have become a passion with her. Hester was almost out of patience about it, when for a moment she lost sight of what she well knew must be the cause of this strong new interest. Every doubtful morning, Margaret was at the window exploring the clouds. Every fine day she laid her watch on the table before her, impatiently waiting the approach of the hour when her brother was to come in for Hester, and when she might set off by herself, not to return till dinner-time. She became renowned in Deerbrook for the length of her excursions. The grocer had met her far out in one direction, when returning from making his purchases at the market town. The butcher had seen her in the distant fields, when he paid a visit to his grazier in the pastures. Dr Levitt had walked his horse beside her in the lane which formed the limit of the longer of his two common rides; and many a neighbour or patient of Mr Hope's had been surprised at her declining a cast in a taxed-cart or gig, when there was only a long stretch of plain road before her, and the lanes and fields were too miry to enable her to seek any variety in them, in her way home.
These were, in fact, Margaret's times of refreshing--of practical worship. These were the times when she saw what at other moments she only repeated to herself--that all things are right, and that our personal trials derive their bitterness from our ignorance and spiritual inexperience. At these times she could not only pity all who suffered, but congratulate all who enjoyed, and could afford feelings of disinterested regard to Philip, and of complacency to Miss Bruce. She remembered that Miss Bruce was unconscious of having injured her--was possibly unaware even of her existence; and then she enjoyed the luxury of blessing her rival, and of longing for an opportunity to serve her secretly and silently, as the happy girl's innocence of all wrong towards her deserved.
Margaret's desire for a long solitary walk was as strong as ever, the day after she had visited Maria. No opportunity had occurred of speaking to her brother without alarming Hester; and she had almost determined merely to refer him to Maria, instead of telling the story herself. She should not see him again till dinner. He was gone into the country: the day was gloomy and cold, and Hester was not disposed to leave the fireside: so Margaret issued forth, with thick shoes, umbrella, and muff--guarded against everything that might occur overhead and under foot. She had generally found hope, or at least comfort, abroad; to-day, when she ought to have been much happier, she found anxiety and fear. The thought, the very words, would incessantly recur, `If he is not engaged to Miss Bruce, it does not follow...' Then she seriously grieved for her brother, and the troubles which she feared awaited him; and then she reproached herself with not grieving enough-- not having attention enough to spare from her own concerns. While she was walking along on the dry causeway, looking straight before her, but thinking of far other things than the high-road, she was startled by the stroke of a horse's foot against a stone close by her side, and a voice speaking almost in her ear. It was only Edward. He was going a couple of miles forward, and he brought his horse beside the raised causeway, so that they could converse as if walking together.
"There is nobody to overhear us, I think," said Margaret, looking round.
"I have been wanting, since yesterday evening, to speak to you alone-- about something very disagreeable, which I would not disturb Hester with. You, of course, can do as you please about telling her."
She related to him the whole story of Mrs Rowland's imputations and proceedings--her reports of the hysterics and their origin, the body-snatching, and the cause and mode of Mrs Enderby's removal.
Margaret had always considered her brother as a man of uncommon nerve; and her surprise was therefore great at seeing him change colour as he did.
"We shall agree," said she, "that the worst of all this is, that there is some truth at the bottom part of it."
"Oh, Heavens!" thought Hope, "is it possible that Mrs Grey can have told the share she had in my marriage?" It was but a momentary fear.
Margaret went on.
"I have never hoped--I never hoped at Birmingham, and much less here-- that Hester could escape the observation of her neighbours--that her occasional agitation of spirits should not excite remark and speculation. As we are not quite whole and sound in our domestic peace--(I must speak plainly, brother, at such a time as this) I should think it would be better to take no notice of that set of imputations.
I trust we shall live them down."
"You gave me great comfort in a few words once," said Hope. "Do you remember saying, `When the time for acting comes, see how she will act!'
You know her well, and you judge her rightly: and you will, perhaps, be the less sorry to hear that the time seems coming when we may all have to act--I scarcely see how--but against adversity."
"She will come out nobly then. I fear nothing for her but too much prosperity."
"There is no fear of that, I assure you," said Hope, smiling somewhat sadly.
"You find the effect of this woman's slanders?"
"My situation has, from one cause or more, totally changed since you first knew me. It would break Hester's heart to hear what I am subjected to in the discharge of my daily business. I tell her a trifle now and then, to prepare her for what may happen; but she and you do not know a tenth part, of what is inflicted upon me."
"And what may happen?"
"I cannot see the extent of it myself: but I am losing my practice every day. No; not through any failure; not through any of the accidents which will happen in all medical practice. There are reports of such abroad, I believe; but nothing is commoner than those reports. The truth is, no patient of mine has died, or failed to do well, for an unusually long space of time. The discontent with me is from other causes."
"From Mrs Rowland's tongue, I doubt not, more than from your politics."
"The ignorance of the people about us is the great evil. Without this, neither Mrs Rowland, nor any one else, could persuade them that I rob the churchyard, and vaccinate children to get patients, and draw good teeth to sell again."
"Oh, monstrous!" said Margaret, who yet could not help laughing. "You never draw teeth, do you?"
"Sometimes; but not when I can get people to go to the dentist at Blickley. Mrs Grey used to boast to you of my popularity; but I never liked it much. I had to be perpetually on the watch to avoid confidences; and you see how fast the stream is at present running the contrary way. I can hardly get on my horse now, without being insulted at my own door."
"Must you submit to all this?"
"By no means. I have called two or three men to account, and shaken my whip over one or two more--with excellent effect. If there were none but bullies among my enemies, I could easily deal with them."
"But cannot we go away, and settle somewhere else?"
"Oh, no! Wherever I might go, it would soon be understood that I had been obliged to leave Deerbrook, from being detected in body-snatching and the like. I owe it to myself to stay. We must remain, and live down all imputations whatever, if we can."
"And if we cannot?"
"Then we shall see what to do when the time comes."
"And having managed the bullies, how do you propose to manage Mrs Rowland? What do you think of speaking to Mr Grey?"
"I shall not do that. The Greys have no concern with it; but they will think they have. Then there will be a partisan warfare, with me for the pretext, and the two families have had quite warfare enough for a lifetime already. No, I shall not bring the Greys into it. I am sorry enough for Mr Rowland, for I am sure he has no part in all this. I shall go to him to-day. I should confront the lady at once, and call her to account, but that Miss Young must be considered. The more courageous and disinterested she is, the more care we must take of her."
"Perhaps she is at this moment telling Mr Rowland what we talked about last night. How very painful! Do you know she thinks--(it is right to tell the whole for other people's sake)--she thinks that what Mrs Rowland says is not to be trusted, in any case where she feels enmity.
Maria even doubts whether Mr Enderby has treated you and his other friends so very negligently--whether he is engaged to Miss Bruce, after all."
Mr Hope was so much engaged about one of his stirrups while Margaret said this, that he could not observe where and how she was looking.
"Very likely," replied Hope, at length. "Hester has thought all along that this was possible. We shall know the truth from Enderby himself, one of these days, by act or word. Meantime, I, for one, shall wait to hear his own story."
There was another pause, at the end of which Mr Hope clapped spurs to his horse, and said he must be riding on. Margaret called him back for a moment, to ask what he wished her to do about informing Hester of the state of affairs. Mr Hope was disposed to tell her the whole, if possible; but not till he should have come to some issue with Mr Rowland. He hated mysteries--any concealments in families; and it was due both to Hester and to himself that there should be no concealment of important affairs from her. The only cautions to be observed were, to save her from suspense, to avoid the appearance of a formal telling of bad news, and to choose an opportunity when she might have time, before seeing any of the Rowlands, to consider the principles which should regulate her conduct to them, that she might do herself honour by the consistency and temper, of which she was capable under any circumstances, when she was only allowed time.
This was settled, and he rode off with almost his usual gaiety of air.
He saw Mr Rowland before night. The next day but one, a travelling-carriage from Blickley was seen standing at Mr Rowland's door; and before the clock struck nine, it was loaded with trunks and band-boxes, and crowded with people. As it drove down the village street, merry little faces appeared at each carriage window. Mr Rowland was on the box. He was going to take his family to Cheltenham for the spring months. Miss Rowland was rather delicate, and Deerbrook was cold in March. Mrs Enderby was left behind; but there was Phoebe to take care of her; and Mr Rowland was to return as soon as he had settled his family. It seemed rather a pity, to be sure, that the old lady had been moved out of her own house just before she was to be left alone in her new residence; but, between Mr Rowland and her maid, she would be taken good care of; and the family would return when the warm weather set in.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
DISCLOSURES.
The whole village seemed relieved by the departure of the Rowlands.
Mrs Grey, who had always been refused admission to her old friend on one pretence or another, was joyfully welcomed by Phoebe, and was plunged into all the delights of neighbourly chat before the clock struck twelve, on the very first morning, Fanny and Mary Grey voluntarily offered to go to Miss Young, now that they were her only pupils, to save her the trouble of the walk to the schoolroom. This was a great relief to Maria, and her little parlour held the three very nicely; and when the girls had sufficiently admired the screen over again,--their father's profile, the planets, and the Dargle, they settled quite as well as at home. There was still a corner left for cousin Margaret, when she chose to come with her German books, or her work, and her useful remarks on what they were doing. No immediate consequences had happened to Maria from her plain-dealing with Mr Rowland; and she was quite ready to enjoy the three months of freedom, without looking too anxiously towards the end of them. The very gardener at the Rowlands' seemed to bestir himself with unusual alacrity to put the garden into spring trim; and the cook and housemaid might be seen over the hedge, walking arm-in-arm on the gravel-walks, smelling at the mezereon, and admiring Miss Anna's border of yellow crocuses, as the gardener said, as much as if they had been fine plants out of a conservatory. The birds themselves seemed to begin their twittering in the trees, and the cows their lowing in the meadow, from the hour that Mrs Rowland went away. In other words, there were many whom that event left free and at ease to observe the harmonies of nature, who were usually compelled to observe only the lady, and the discords of her household.
It was only the second day after the departure of the family that Margaret took her seat in the offered corner of Maria's parlour. She laid down her book, and took up her work, when the question arose, which has probably interested all intelligent school-girls for many a year-- What made so many Athenians,--so many, that there must have been some wise and good men among them,--treat such a person as Socrates in the way they did? Margaret was quite occupied in admiring the sort of Socratic method, with which Maria drew out from the minds of her pupils some of the difficult philosophy of Opinion, and the liberality with which she allowed for the distress of heathen moralists at having the sanction of Custom broken up. Margaret was thus quite occupied with the delight of seeing a great subject skilfully let down into young minds, and the others were no less busy with the subject itself, when Mary started, and said it made her jump to see Sydney bring Fairy close up to the window. Fanny imperiously bade her mind what she was about, and let Sydney alone: but yet, in a minute or two, Fanny's own eyes were detected wandering into the yard where Sydney still remained. "He is getting Fairy shod," she said in a soliloquising tone. Every one laughed,--the idea of shoeing a fairy was so ridiculous!--and some witticisms, about Bottom the Weaver, and his ass's head, were sported.
It was evident that Socrates had no more chance this day, and Maria changed the subject.
"Sydney looks very much as if he wanted to come in," observed Mary.
Sydney did particularly wish to come in; but he saw that cousin Margaret was there: and he had felt an unconquerable awe of cousin Margaret ever since the day of his conveying her over the ice. So he stood irresolutely watching, as nail after nail was driven into Fairy's hoof, casting glances every minute at the window.
"Shall I see what he wants?" asked Margaret, perceiving that lessons would not go on till Sydney had got out what he wished to say. "May I open the window for a moment, Maria, to speak to him?"
"What do you think?" cried Sydney, taking instant advantage of the movement, and carrying off his awkwardness by whipping the window-sill while he spoke. "What _do_ you think? Mr Enderby is come by the coach this morning. I saw him myself; and you might have met our Ben carrying his portmanteau home, from where he was put down, half an hour ago.
We'll have rare sport, if he stays as long as he did last summer. I do believe," he continued, leaning into the room, and speaking with a touch of his mother's mystery, "he would have come long since if Mrs Rowland had not been here. I wish she had taken herself off two months ago, and then I might have had a run with the harriers with him, as he promised I should."
"Now you have said just a little too much, Sydney; so you may go," said Maria. "Shut down the window, will you?"
It was well for Margaret that there was the recess of the window to lean in. There she stood, not speaking a word. It was not in nature for Maria to refrain from casting a glance at her,--which glance grew into a look of intelligence.
"You do not quite wink as mamma does," observed Fanny, "but I know very well what you mean, Miss Young."
"So people always fancy when they observe upon nothing, or upon what they know nothing about, Fanny. But I thought you were convinced, some time ago, that you should not watch people's countenances, to find out what they are thinking, any more than--" "I should read a letter they are writing," interrupted Fanny. "Well, I beg your pardon, Miss Young; but I really thought I saw you looking at cousin Margaret's face. However, I dare say everybody supposes the same,--that Mr Enderby would not have been here now if Mrs Rowland had not gone away. You need not mind Mary and me, Miss Young; you know we hear all about Mrs Rowland at home."
"I know you are apt to fancy that you understand all about Mrs Rowland, my dear; but perhaps Mrs Rowland herself might happen to differ from you, if she could look into your mind. It is for you to settle with yourself, whether you think she would be satisfied that you have done by her as you would have her do by you. This is your own affair, Fanny; so now, without any one trying to see in your face what you think of yourself, we will go to our business."
The scratching of pens in the exercise-books, and the turning over of the dictionary, now proceeded for some time in profound silence, in the midst of which Margaret stole back to her corner.
"There goes twelve!" softly exclaimed Mary. "Mamma said we might go with her to call at cousin Hester's, if we were home and ready by half-past twelve. We shall not have nearly done, Miss Young."
Miss Young did not take the hint. She only said-- "Is your mamma going to call on Mrs Hope? Then, Margaret, do not let us detain you here. You will wish to be at home, I am sure."
Never, as Maria supposed, had Margaret more impatiently desired to be at home. Though accustomed to go in and out of Maria's abode, with or without reason assigned, she had not now ventured to move, though the little room felt like a prison. An awkward consciousness had fixed her to her seat. Now, however, she made haste to depart, promising to visit her friend again very soon. The little girls wanted her to arrange to come every morning, and stay all the time of lessons: but Margaret declined making any such engagement.
As she went home, she scarcely raised her eyes, for fear of seeing _him_; and yet she lingered for an instant at her brother's door, from a feeling of disappointment at having met no one she knew.
She had fully and undoubtingly intended to tell Hester of Philip's arrival; but when she had taken off her bonnet, and settled herself beside her sister in the drawing-room, she found that it was quite impossible to open the subject. While she was meditating upon this, the entrance of the Greys seemed to settle the matter. She supposed they would make the disclosure for her: but she soon perceived that they had not heard the news. Mrs Grey went on quoting Mrs Enderby and Phoebe, and Sophia remarked on the forsaken condition of the old lady, in a way which was quite incompatible with any knowledge of the new aspect which affairs had assumed this morning. It was a great relief to Margaret to be spared the discussion of a fact, on which so much was to be said; but lo! in the midst of a flow of talk about fomentations, and the best kind of night-light for a sick room, there was a knock at the door, every stroke of which was recognised to a certainty by Margaret. While the other ladies were pushing back their chairs, to break up the appearance of a gossip, and make room for another party of visitors, Margaret was wholly occupied with contriving to sit upright, notwithstanding the dimness that came over her sight.
It was he. He entered the room quickly, looked taller than ever, as Sophia thought to herself, and more than ever like a Polish Count, now that his blue great-coat was buttoned up to the chin. He stopped for half a moment on seeing ladies in cloaks and bonnets, and then came forward, and shook hands with everybody. Hester observed that he looked full at Margaret as he held out his hand to her; but Margaret did not see this, for, though she commanded herself wonderfully, she could not meet his eye. Of course, he was asked when he arrived, and had to answer the question, and also the remarks which were made on the length of his absence, and on the expectations of everybody in Deerbrook that he would have visited the old place at Christmas or New Year. He was then pitied on account of the state of his mother's health. To this he made no reply whatever; but when Mrs Grey inquired how he found Mrs Enderby, he briefly--somewhat abruptly--answered that he thought her very ill. It was equally impossible for Margaret to sit totally silent while all this was going on, and to address herself to him: she therefore kept some conversation with Sophia on the greenhouse, and the fate of the evergreens in the shrubbery, in consequence of the severity of the frost in January--which laurestinus had been lost, and how the arbutus had suffered, and how long it would be before the laurels on the grass could grow up to their former size and beauty. While Sophia was telling that the greenhouse occupied a great deal of time, and that she had therefore turned over her interest in it to Sydney, and begged the little girls to divide her garden between them, Mr Enderby was seen to take Hester into the window, and after remarking upon the snowdrops beneath, to speak privately to her. Margaret was afraid Mrs Grey would take the hint, and go away. Her presence now appeared a sort of protection, which Margaret exerted herself to retain, by not allowing the conversation to flag. She need not have feared; Mrs Grey was turning over in her mind how she might best introduce her congratulations on Mr Enderby's engagement, and her inquiries after Miss Bruce's welfare--topics on which she conceived that good manners required her to enter. Meantime, Mr Enderby had been saying to Hester: "You will excuse the offer of my good wishes on your settlement here being briefly and hastily made; but I am at this moment in great anxiety. Is Hope at home?"
"No: he is some miles off in the country."
"Then I must charge you with a message to him. I think my mother very ill; and I find it is some time since Hope has seen her. Will you beg him to come to her without loss of time, when he returns?"
"Certainly; he will be home within two or three hours, I have no doubt."
"And then ask him whether he will not prescribe a visit from you to my mother. It will do her good, I am confident. You know she is all alone now with her maid."
"I am aware of that. It is not from negligence or disinclination, I assure you, that we have seen so little of Mrs Enderby for some time past."