"And down the sunny beach she paces slowly,With many doubtful pauses by the way;Grief hath an influence so hush"d and holy."
HOOD.
"Is not Margaret the heiress?" whispered Edith to her husband, as theywere in their room alone at night after the sad journey to Oxford. Shehad pulled his tall head down, and stood upon tiptoe, and implored himnot to be shocked, before she had ventured to ask this question. CaptainLennox was, however, quite in the dark; if he had ever heard, he hadforgotten; it could not be much that a Fellow of a small college had toleave; but he had never wanted her to pay for her board; and twohundred and fifty pounds a year was something ridiculous, consideringthat she did not take wine. Edith came down upon her feet a little bitsadder; with a romance blown to pieces.
A week afterwards, she came prancing towards her husband, and madehim a low curtsey:
"I am right, and you are wrong, most noble Captain. Margaret has had alawyer"s letter, and she is residuary legatee--the legacies being abouttwo thousand pounds, and the remainder about forty thousand, at thepresent value of property in Milton."
"Indeed! and how does she take her good fortune?"
"Oh, it seems she knew she was to have it all along; only she had noidea it was so much. She looks very white and pale, and says she"safraid of it; but that"s nonsense, you know, and will soon go off. I leftmamma pouring congratulations down her throat, and stole away to tellyou."
It seemed to be supposed, by general consent, that the most naturalthing was to consider Mr. Lennox henceforward as Margaret"s legaladviser. She was so entirely ignorant of all forms of business that innearly everything she had to refer to him. He chose out her attorney; hecame to her with papers to be signed. He was never so happy as whenteaching her of what all these mysteries of the law were the signs andtypes.
"Henry," said Edith, one day, archly; "do you know what I hope andexpect all these long conversations with Margaret will end in?"
"No, I don"t," said he, reddening. "And I desire you not to tell me."
"Oh, very well; then I need not tell Sholto not to ask Mr. Montagu sooften to the house."
"Just as you choose," said he with forced coolness. "What you arethinking of, may or may not happen; but this time, before I commitmyself, I will see my ground clear. Ask whom you choose. It may notbe very civil, Edith, but if you meddle in it you will mar it. She hasbeen very farouche with me for a long time; and is only just beginningto thaw a little from her Zenobia ways. She has the making of aCleopatra in her, if only she were a little more pagan."
"For my part," said Edith, a little maliciously, "I am very glad she is aChristian. I know so very few!"
There was no Spain for Margaret that autumn; although to the last shehoped that some fortunate occasion would call Frederick to Paris,whither she could easily have met with a convoy. Instead of Cadiz, shehad to content herself with Cromer. To that place her aunt Shaw and theLennoxes were bound. They had all along wished her to accompanythem, and, consequently, with their characters, they made but lazyefforts to forward her own separate wish. Perhaps Cromer was, in onesense of the expression, the best for her. She needed bodilystrengthening and bracing as well as rest.
Among other hopes that had vanished, was the hope, the trust she had had, that Mr. Bell would have given Mr. Thornton the simple facts ofthe family circumstances which had preceded the unfortunate accidentthat led to Leonards" death. Whatever opinion--however changed itmight be from what Mr. Thornton had once entertained, she had wishedit to be based upon a true understanding of what she had done; and whyshe had done it. It would have been a pleasure to her; would have givenher rest on a point on which she should now all her life be restless,unless she could resolve not to think upon it. It was now so long afterthe time of these occurrences, that there was no possible way ofexplaining them save the one which she had lost by Mr. Bell"s death.
She must just submit, like many another, to be misunderstood; but,though reasoning herself into the belief that in this hers was nouncommon lot, her heart did not ache the less with longing that sometime--years and years hence--before he died at any rate, he might knowhow much she had been tempted. She thought that she did not want tohear that all was explained to him, if only she could be sure that hewould know. But this wish was vain, like so many others; and when shehad schooled herself into this conviction, she turned with all her heartand strength to the life that lay immediately before her, and resolved tostrive and make the best of that.
She used to sit long hours upon the beach, gazing intently on the wavesas they chafed with perpetual motion against the pebbly shore,--or shelooked out upon the more distant heave, and sparkle against the sky,and heard, without being conscious of hearing, the eternal psalm, whichwent up continually. She was soothed without knowing how or why.
Listlessly she sat there, on the ground, her hands clasped round herknees, while her aunt Shaw did small shoppings, and Edith and CaptainLennox rode far and wide on shore and inland. The nurses, saunteringon with their charges, would pass and repass her, and wonder inwhispers what she could find to look at so long, day after day. Andwhen the family gathered at dinner-time, Margaret was so silent andabsorbed that Edith voted her moped, and hailed a proposal of herhusband"s with great satisfaction, that Mr. Henry Lennox should beasked to take Cromer for a week, on his return from Scotland inOctober.
But all this time for thought enabled Margaret to put events in theirright places, as to origin and significance, both as regarded her past lifeand her future. Those hours by the sea-side were not lost, as any onemight have seen who had had the perception to read, or the care tounderstand, the look that Margaret"s face was gradually acquiring. Mr.
Henry Lennox was excessively struck by the change.
"The sea has done Miss Hale an immense deal of good, I should fancy,"
said he, when she first left the room after his arrival in their family circle. "She looks ten years younger than she did in Harley Street."
