"I ask Thee for a thoughtful love,Through constant watching wise,To meet the glad with joyful smiles,And to wipe the weeping eyes;And a heart at leisure from itselfTo soothe and sympathise."
ANON.
Margaret made a good listener to all her mother"s little plans for addingsome small comforts to the lot of the poorer parishioners. She could nothelp listening, though each new project was a stab to her heart. By thetime the frost had set in, they should be far away from Helstone. OldSimon"s rheumatism might be bad and his eyesight worse; there wouldbe no one to go and read to him, and comfort him with little porringersof broth and good red flannel: or if there was, it would be a stranger,and the old man would watch in vain for her. Mary Domville"s littlecrippled boy would crawl in vain to the door and look for her comingthrough the forest. These poor friends would never understand why shehad forsaken them; and there were many others besides. "Papa hasalways spent the income he derived from his living in the parish. I am,perhaps, encroaching upon the next dues, but the winter is likely to besevere, and our poor old people must be helped."
"Oh, mamma, let us do all we can," said Margaret eagerly, not seeing theprudential side of the question, only grasping at the idea that they wererendering such help for the last time; "we may not be here long."
"Do you feel ill, my darling?" asked Mrs. Hale, anxiously,misunderstanding Margaret"s hint of the uncertainty of their stay atHelstone. "You look pale and tired. It is this soft, damp, unhealthy air."
"No--no, mamma, it is not that: it is delicious air. It smells of thefreshest, purest fragrance, after the smokiness of Harley Street. But I amtired: it surely must be near bedtime."
"Not far off--it is half-past nine. You had better go to bed at dear. AskDixon for some gruel. I will come and see you as soon as you are inbed. I am afraid you have taken cold; or the bad air from some of thestagnant ponds--"
"Oh, mamma," said Margaret, faintly smiling as she kissed her mother, "Iam quite well--don"t alarm yourself about me; I am only tired."
Margaret went upstairs. To soothe her mother"s anxiety she submitted toa basin of gruel. She was lying languidly in bed when Mrs. Hale cameup to make some last inquiries and kiss her before going to her ownroom for the night. But the instant she heard her mother"s door locked,she sprang out of bed, and throwing her dressing-gown on, she began topace up and down the room, until the creaking of one of the boardsreminded her that she must make no noise. She went and curled herselfup on the window-seat in the small, deeply-recessed window. Thatmorning when she had looked out, her heart had danced at seeing thebright clear lights on the church tower, which foretold a fine and sunnyday. This evening--sixteen hours at most had past by--she sat down, toofull of sorrow to cry, but with a dull cold pain, which seemed to havepressed the youth and buoyancy out of her heart, never to return. Mr.
Henry Lennox"s visit--his offer--was like a dream, a thing beside heractual life. The hard reality was, that her father had so admittedtempting doubts into his mind as to become a schismatic--an outcast; allthe changes consequent upon this grouped themselves around that onegreat blighting fact.
She looked out upon the dark-gray lines of the church tower, square andstraight in the centre of the view, cutting against the deep bluetransparent depths beyond, into which she gazed, and felt that she mightgaze for ever, seeing at every moment some farther distance, and yet nosign of God! It seemed to her at the moment, as if the earth was moreutterly desolate than if girt in by an iron dome, behind which theremight be the ineffaceable peace and glory of the Almighty: those never-ending depths of space, in their still serenity, were more mocking to herthan any material bounds could be--shutting in the cries of earth"ssufferers, which now might ascend into that infinite splendour ofvastness and be lost--lost for ever, before they reached His throne. Inthis mood her father came in unheard. The moonlight was strongenough to let him see his daughter in her unusual place and attitude. Hecame to her and touched her shoulder before she was aware that he wasthere.
"Margaret, I heard you were up. I could not help coming in to ask you topray with me--to say the Lord"s Prayer; that will do good to both of us."
Mr. Hale and Margaret knelt by the window-seat--he looking up, shebowed down in humble shame. God was there, close around them,hearing her father"s whispered words. Her father might be a heretic; buthad not she, in her despairing doubts not five minutes before, shownherself a far more utter sceptic? She spoke not a word, but stole to bedafter her father had left her, like a child ashamed of its fault. If theworld was full of perplexing problems she would trust, and only ask tosee the one step needful for the hour. Mr. Lennox--his visit, hisproposal--the remembrance of which had been so rudely pushed asideby the subsequent events of the day--haunted her dreams that night. Hewas climbing up some tree of fabulous height to reach the branchwhereon was slung her bonnet: he was falling, and she was strugglingto save him, but held back by some invisible powerful hand. He wasdead. And yet, with a shifting of the scene, she was once more in theHarley Street drawing-room, talking to him as of old, and still with aconsciousness all the time that she had seen him killed by that terriblefall.
Miserable, unresting night! Ill preparation for the coming day! Sheawoke with a start, unrefreshed, and conscious of some reality worseeven than her feverish dreams. It all came back upon her; not merely thesorrow, but the terrible discord in the sorrow. Where, to what distanceapart, had her father wandered, led by doubts which were to hertemptations of the Evil One? She longed to ask, and yet would not haveheard for all the world.
The fine Crisp morning made her mother feel particularly well andhappy at breakfast-time. She talked on, planning village kindnesses,unheeding the silence of her husband and the monosyllabic answers ofMargaret. Before the things were cleared away, Mr. Hale got up; heleaned one hand on the table, as if to support himself: