Part 15

"Only because I don't feel like marrying, dear friend," and she rolled some feeling into her voice. "Have you forgotten that I am an old frump with gray hair?" She took off the billycock hat and bent her head, just as she had done to Gerald Vincent.

"I don't care," he said, "I want you." He put an arm round her shoulder in a well-considered manner.

"I am very fond of you," she said; "I have a great affection for you, but I'm not going to be the laughing-stock of the town--a middle-aged frump marrying an actor a little younger than herself. Let's go on as we are, anyhow till Lena is married."

"Then what did you come up for?"

"It was quite time," she answered, dryly. "I suppose you know the Vincent girl is engaged to Tom Carringford?"

"She has just written to tell me, and thrown up the theatre business."

"She sha'n't have him, the little devil!" Mrs. Lakeman exclaimed. "I'll take good care of that; I have," she added, "for he's at Pitlochry by this time."

"At Pitlochry?" Farley exclaimed.

"Having breakfast with Lena. Lena, in a muslin morning gown lying on a sofa--Tom holding her hand--the rest you can imagine."

"This is madness! I don't understand."

Mrs. Lakeman's blue eyes were full of wickedness. "I knew something was wrong from his letters, so I have been careful to tell him that Lena wasn't well, and to make a few remarks about Margaret Vincent and the young grocer at Guildford, which I didn't think would please him altogether. As he didn't come and didn't write, I thought it as well yesterday morning to telegraph and let him know that she was dangerously ill."

"Which was strictly untrue, I suppose?"

"Strictly," she answered, with much relish. "But he answered at once that he would start at eight o'clock last night, and he's there this morning."

"He must have proposed to Miss Vincent yesterday afternoon. I didn't know that she had even seen Carringford till three days ago, when I came upon him at the stage door waiting for her in a hansom."

"It's a great pity. It shouldn't have gone so far, if I'd known in time."

"But, after all, why should you interfere?" he asked, thinking that, if Mrs. Lakeman were not going to marry him, he didn't take any particular interest in Lena's making a good marriage. "Carringford is a good fellow, and Miss Vincent's an uncommonly handsome girl. Why shouldn't they have each other?"

"And break Lena's heart?" she said, raising her eyes to his. "Besides, Tom belongs to us, and no one shall take him away."

"Still, it isn't quite fair to Miss Vincent, and I don't much care to help in the matter," he answered, quite pleasantly, but with determination; "besides, if you are not going to marry me, why should I--where do I come in?"

In a moment she saw the whole drift of his reasoning.

"I shall marry no one," she answered, "until Lena's future is settled."

"And if Lena marries Carringford?"

"Then you shall have your answer. You must see that a young man like you would look rather ridiculous going about with a middle-aged wife and a grown-up step-daughter."

He saw her policy; it was odd how well they saw through each other; he recognized her adroitness and her falseness, but it made no difference in his point of view; to marry her would be a worldly-wise transaction that he did not mean to forego if he could help it, and he wanted Lena out of the way. After all, he thought, if Margaret didn't marry Carringford, she would probably do still better--a handsome girl, well born, and probably well off when her father came back. And even if she were in love now, what did it matter? She would be all the better for a disappointment, perhaps: a woman who had not been made to suffer generally became a trifle heartless. Besides, what was the girl to him?

"Where is Margaret Vincent staying?" asked Mrs. Lakeman. "When I invited her to Scotland I telegraphed to the theatre, not knowing her private address, and she telegraphed back without giving it, which I thought rather impertinent. Tom, too, has only thought proper to send a telegram every other day lately."

"He has been too much occupied with other things," Farley said, with a little smile.

"Where is she staying?"

"In Louise Hunstan's house, in Great College Street. Louise is at Bayreuth."

"That's a good thing. I'm going"--and the tone of her voice showed that she meant to be victorious. "You may give me a kiss"--and she put up her face--"a matter-of-fact salute on my cheek would be highly appropriate to the situation."

"Stay a moment--when are you going back?" he asked, as he followed her to the door.

"To-night, at eight. I shall see Tom to-morrow morning at breakfast; he won't even know that I have been in London. I am supposed to be ill in my room," she laughed. "Violent neuralgia; not able to see anybody."

"You are a wonderful woman!" Farley said, as he let her out. "But I'm not sure that I could stand her," he thought as he went back to his letters; "she is a little too diplomatic for my taste."

"It was like Farley's impudence to think I should marry him," Mrs. Lakeman said to herself as she drove along. "He's not quite in my line, I can tell him. Still, he adds a little amusement to the occasion." She was full of pleasant excitement, curious to see how much her dramatic power would accomplish with Margaret, and resolved, at any rate, to thoroughly enjoy the interview.

XXVIII

Margaret meanwhile awoke full of happiness. She was engaged to Tom Carringford; she was going back to her mother to-day--it seemed too good to be true. A telegram came from Tom before she had finished her breakfast; he was safe at Perth, and just starting onward. She wondered how Lena was, and what her illness could be. It was dreadful for Mrs. Lakeman, she thought, and she was glad that Tom was gone. The post brought a letter from her mother; it was dated two days ago; but they were slow in posting things at Woodside Farm; probably it had been put on one side and forgotten. Mrs. Vincent was not very well, it was only a cold, but it had affected her heart, the doctor said, and she must be kept very quiet; there was not the least danger, and she would write again to-morrow. She begged Margaret not to think of coming, for Hannah was very bitter--she doubted if she would let her in, and Mr. Garratt had been there yesterday and made matters worse. "Hannah is fond of saying," Mrs. Vincent went on, "that the door is locked and barred against you, and shall remain so till she is forced to open it. She told Mr. Garratt so yesterday when he wanted your address. He said he should never care for anybody but you, and she told him not to come here again, and that if he did he should find the doors shut, as you would. Perhaps it will be better when we have had a letter from your father, for she was always in some fear of him."

While Margaret was still reading the letter there came the sound of wheels in the cobbled street. Something stopped in front of the house; a loud knock echoed through it and made Margaret start to her feet. For one horrible moment it struck her that Mr. Garratt had found her out. Then the door opened and Mrs. Lakeman entered. Her face was drawn, her lips were firmly shut, a strange, uncanny expression was in her eyes.

"Margaret!" she exclaimed. "Margaret Vincent, my old lover's child. I have come to throw myself on your mercy." She pushed Margaret back on the sofa, threw herself down by her, and burst into what sounded like hysterical tears.

Mrs. Lakeman had got her dramatic moment.

Margaret was aghast. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Is it Lena? Has anything happened to her?"

Mrs. Lakeman struggled for utterance; when she gained it her words were thick, her voice desperate. "I have come to ask you for her life!" she said.

"Me?"

"Your telegram has killed her."

"Oh!" Margaret's face blanched, for she saw what was coming. Mrs. Lakeman raised herself, and sat down on the sofa and took Margaret's hands, and looked at her with eyes as strangely blue as they were mocking.

"Margaret," she said, "I have done a desperate thing; but my child has been ill, she has been fretting and waiting for her lover--for the boy who has always been her lover. She can't bear separation from him. Yesterday morning I sent for him, and told him she was dangerously ill; at five o'clock your telegram--"

"It was Tom's telegram."

Mrs. Lakeman was impatient at the interruption. "Tom's telegram, then--came. By an accident it was given into her hands instead of mine, and a quarter of an hour later I was bending over her wondering if she would ever open her eyes again. Tom has been ours--all his life," Mrs. Lakeman went on, vehemently; "he and she have grown up together; he has always loved her; he has done everything for us; they have never been three days apart till we went to Scotland the other day. She worships him, and it has been the one hope of my life to see them married. She has never dreamed of anything else; he is the air she breathes and the world she lives in. When that telegram came yesterday it struck her like a death-blow."

"Oh, but Tom and I love each other," Margaret cried, in despair.

"No, dear," Mrs. Lakeman answered, impressively. "You must know the truth, for my child's life hangs on it. He does not love you--he loves her. He may have been infatuated with you during the last fortnight in which he has been parted from her. It's so like Tom," she added, with a little smile, for she found the tragic rôle a difficult one to maintain. "He has been infatuated so often."

"So often?" repeated Margaret, incredulously.

"Oh yes," Mrs. Lakeman answered, and the odd smile came to her lips. "You wouldn't believe how many times he has come to confess to me that he has made an idiot of himself. He is always falling in love, and getting engaged, and going to be married."

"I can't believe it! I won't believe it!" Margaret cried, passionately.

"It's quite true," Mrs. Lakeman answered, coolly. "Generally I have managed to conceal everything from Lena, and to get him out of his scrapes--I have known perfectly well that they were only boyish nonsense, for at the bottom of his heart, Margaret Vincent," she went on, resuming her solemnity, "he loves no one but my child; any other woman would be miserable with him. You won't give him any trouble?" she asked, insultingly; "you will give him up quietly, won't you?"

"I can't--I can't believe it."

"You would have believed it," Mrs. Lakeman said, slowly, opening her eyes wide, and this time contriving to keep the humor out of them, "if you saw her lying straight and still in her little room at Pitlochry, as she would have been now but for my presence of mind."

"What do you mean?" Margaret asked, a little scared by Mrs. Lakeman's manner.

"You mustn't ask me." She dropped her voice, and the words appeared to be dragged from her. "I can't tell you; it shall never pass my lips. I shouldn't dare to tell you," she whispered. "I have left her with a woman I can trust, more dead than alive. I told her I would come and ask her life of you, and I've come to ask it, Margaret. You are your father's child, and will do the straight and just thing by another woman?"

"I don't know what to do," Margaret said, desperately, and, rising quickly, she walked up and down, clasping her head in her hands, trying to think clearly. The whole thing was theatrical and unreal, and the mocking look in Mrs. Lakeman's eyes nearly drove her mad.

"It won't break your heart to give him up; it can't." Mrs. Lakeman's tone was a trifle contemptuous. "You were in love with the other young man only a few weeks ago."

"I was never in love with Mr. Garratt," Margaret answered, indignantly--"never for a moment."

"You may think so now, just as Tom thinks he cares for you; but you did care for him. George Stringer saw it directly, and Tom saw it the day he had tea with you all. In fact, he thought it was more on your side than on his," she added, watching the effect of her words with an amusement she could scarcely control. "He came and told us about it at once--he tells us everything--he was so funny when he described it all to us," Mrs. Lakeman added, as if the remembrance were highly diverting. Then recovering, she asked, in a deep voice: "What are you going to do, Margaret; are you going to give me back my child's life?"

"I am going to wait and see Tom, and hear what he says."

"I can't believe you will be so cruel."

"I don't understand," Margaret cried, desperately. "If Lena is so very ill, if she is dying, why have you left her?"

"Because I knew that there was only one thing that could save her."

"You must have started directly you got the telegram."

"I did--as soon as she recovered her senses. I told you she was with some one I could trust; I have been in the train all night." From her tone it might have been a torture-chamber. "I have come to throw myself on your mercy. I felt that for a fortnight's foolish infatuation you couldn't be so cruel as to wreck my child's whole life. Your father would not let you do it, Margaret. Be worthy of him, dear; be the noble woman you ought to be and give him up."

Mrs. Gilman entered with two telegrams. Mrs. Lakeman gave a little suppressed shriek; but there was unreality in it, and Margaret felt it at the back of her head.

"There's one for you, ma'am, and one for Miss Vincent," Mrs. Gilman said.

Mrs. Lakeman chattered her teeth till Mrs. Gilman had left the room. "I can't open it," she said, and tried to make her hand tremble. But Margaret had read hers already.

"_Forgive me, dear_," it ran, "_I am here with Lena_. _Better go home._--_Tom._" She stood rigid and scarcely able to believe her eyes. Was it true, then?

"Thank God!" exclaimed Mrs. Lakeman, holding out her telegram to Margaret. "_We are together again and happy, darling. Be gentle to little Margaret._--_Lena._"

"Now do you see?" said Mrs. Lakeman, triumphantly.

"Yes, I see," Margaret said. "You needn't have come," she added, with white lips that almost refused to move.

"I came partly out of love for you," Mrs. Lakeman began, and then seeing how ill this chimed in with her previous remarks, she added, lamely, "I couldn't let my child die, could I?"

"What do you want me to do?" Margaret was in despair.

"Will you go to Paris for a time as my guest. You might start to-night. A former maid of mine could go with you. It would do you a world of good. It would be better to go away for a time, dear."

"I won't," Margaret answered, quite simply and doggedly. "If Tom loves Lena better than he does me let him go to her, but I shall stay here."

Then Mrs. Lakeman had an inspiration, and, as usual, she was practical.

"Go out to your father," she said, "in Australia. A cousin of mine is a director of one of the largest lines of steamers; I'll make him put a state-room at your disposal. You'll come back in a vastly different position from your present one. Cyril can't live many months--I shouldn't be surprised if he's dead already--and you, of course, will be the daughter of Lord Eastleigh." She stopped, for Mrs. Gilman entered again with a cablegram. Perhaps the gods were listening and thought the moment an apt one for its arrival.

"It is from my father," Margaret said, with a quivering lip. "We cabled to him yesterday." She opened it, and the violent effort to keep back her tears brought the color to her face. It contained the one word--_delighted_.

"What does he say?" Mrs. Lakeman asked.

"It doesn't matter; it makes no difference," Margaret answered, crushing it in her hand; and then she said, gently and sweetly, so that it was impossible to take offence: "I will give up Tom, Mrs. Lakeman, but you must go away now, for I feel as if I can't bear any one's presence. And I can't go away; you must manage as you please, but I shall stay here."

"But there's something else I want you to do," Mrs. Lakeman said. "I want you to keep this visit of mine a secret from Tom--for Lena's sake."

"Doesn't he know that you have come?"

"He doesn't dream it; and I'm going back to Pitlochry this evening."

"But I don't understand! Where is Tom, and where does he think you are?"

"Tom is with Lena," Mrs. Lakeman said, with a confident smile, "and he doesn't miss me; he is too happy. I couldn't humiliate my child in her future husband's eyes"--Margaret quailed at the word--"by letting him know that I had come to beg her life of a woman for whom he had had a passing infatuation. Now," she added, and her manner showed her alertness for practical detail. "Why won't you go to Australia?"

"I don't wish to go," Margaret answered, positively. "I don't wish to leave my mother."

"Your dear mother," Mrs. Lakeman said, with a funny little twitch. "Go home to her, Margaret; let me drive you to the station and know that you are on your way back to the farm?"

"I can't go home now," Margaret answered. "I will do as you wish about Tom, and I will not tell him that you came to me; but you must leave the rest in my hands."

"But how is he to know?" said Mrs. Lakeman, feeling in a moment that her house of cards might fall. "How is he to know that you give him up?"

"I will write to him," she said, bitterly.

"You had better telegraph at once."

Margaret felt as if these telegrams were becoming a nightmare; but, at any cost, she must get rid of Mrs. Lakeman.

"Oh yes; I will telegraph if you like." She crossed over to the table at which Tom had sat so joyfully only yesterday.

"Tell him you are going away," Mrs. Lakeman said. "Oh, Margaret, you don't know how they have loved each other all these years."

"You said he'd been infatuated so often?"

"He has always laughed at it afterwards."

Margaret took up her pen and wrote: "_Stay with Lena; I do not want you. I am going away._--_Margaret._"

"You had better put your surname, too," Mrs. Lakeman said, and she wrote it. "I'll take it for you, dear," she said; "you don't want to go out just yet, and you don't want the landlady to see it. Now, tell me what you mean to do?" she asked, in a good, businesslike tone.

"I don't know," Margaret answered, gently. "I want to be alone and think. I have done all I could; it has been very hard to do, and I hope Lena will be happy. Please go; I feel as if I couldn't bear it any longer, unless I am alone."

Mrs. Lakeman took her in her arms and kissed her, and, though Margaret submitted, she could not help shuddering.

"It's rather a desperate game," Mrs. Lakeman thought, as she drove away; "but it's thoroughly amusing. The best way will be to insist on Tom marrying Lena at once--a special license. A man is often caught in a rebound."

XXIX

Margaret sometimes wondered how she lived through that day. Mr. Farley sent her a little note releasing her from her engagement, but saying that if at any time she wanted to come back he would gladly take her on again. Margaret felt it to be a kindly letter. Oddly enough, too, a note came from the agency in the Strand, asking her to call the next day. "I will," she thought, "if I have had a letter from my mother." At the bottom of her heart there was some uneasiness, and once or twice it occurred to her that she would go back to Chidhurst and ask a neighbor to take her in, but the inhabitants of Woodside Farm had always kept their affairs to themselves, and she did not want to give occasion for gossip in the village. She read her mother's letter again. No, there was nothing in it to be alarmed about; it was only her own miserable state of mind. She was desperate, maddened, ashamed every time she remembered Tom and his kisses, and her own protestations to him. She couldn't bear to think that he was with Lena--Lena who would never love him as she did. Somehow, too, at the bottom of her heart, she felt that there was trickery in the whole business. She didn't know how or where, only that Mrs. Lakeman's manner had not been very real; but everything in the world had become unreal and torturing. There was only one thing left that could comfort her--home and mother. She hungered and thirsted for her home. She wanted to see her mother's face, to sit on the arm of her chair in the living-room, to talk to her, even to hear Hannah scold. She wanted to go up to the wood and to think out the nightmare of the last few hours in her cathedral. She imagined the great rest of arriving at Haslemere Station, of walking the long six miles to Woodside Farm, of entering the porch and finding her mother sitting there. Oh! but it was no good; Hannah would not allow her to enter. Hannah was a firm woman who kept her word, and would think that she proved her religion by being cruel. As the day went on and no telegram came from Tom, the latent hope she had unconsciously cherished vanished. It was all true, then, and he really cared for Lena.

"I'm glad mother didn't know," she thought; "it would have made her so unhappy when this ending came; and I couldn't have borne Hannah's gibes." She longed desperately for some one to speak to, but there was no one; besides, her lips were closed; she had promised to be silent. Suddenly, she remembered Miss Hunstan; she would write to her. But no, it was impossible; she had left Bayreuth and the new address had not yet come. "And I don't know what to do, or what to say to father," she thought. "Oh, it's maddening. If it were a case of life and death I could bear it, but this is some trick, I know it--it is a case of sham life and death."

Late in the afternoon Sir George Stringer called. He entered awkwardly, as if he were afraid of meeting her; but the moment he saw her face he knew that something was the matter, and all his self-consciousness vanished.

"I told you I should come again," he said; "there is no reason why I shouldn't look after my old friend's girl, is there?"

"No, none," she answered, hardly able to collect her senses sufficiently to talk to him.

He looked at her sharply. "Something's the matter," he said; "you have been crying?"

"Oh no--yes, I have been crying; I am very homesick." He put his hand on hers as her father might have done.

"Take my advice and go home, my dear," he said. "Is the stage fever over?"

"Yes; I suppose that's over."

He looked at her again, then suddenly he asked: "Has Tom Carringford been playing fast and loose with you?"

"Don't ask me any questions, dear Sir George; I don't want to say anything at all. He is in Scotland with Lena Lakeman."

"He is a fool," he said, with conviction.

"So am I," she answered, ruefully.

"And I'm another. My dear, I'm not going to ask you to tell me anything you want to keep to yourself." He stopped for a moment, then he asked, awkwardly, "I suppose what I asked you the other day is impossible?" For answer she only nodded, and her eyes filled with tears. "Then we won't say anything more about it." He took her hands and held them tightly in his own. "But I should like to be your friend--your father, if you like, till your own returns. If you can't go home to your mother, or if that young bounder at Guildford worries, or if there is any reason of that sort, why shouldn't you go to my house by the church and shut yourself up there? You would be very comfortable. I thought of going there myself, but I could easily go somewhere else."

It seemed a good idea at first, and she caught at it, then she shook her head.

"No," she said; "people would know and they would talk."

"I suppose they would--damn them. I wish you'd tell me what Master Tom has been up to, dear."

"I can't talk about him to-day, Sir George; I can't talk about anything--my head is so bad. I wish you would go now," she said, but so very gently it was impossible that he could be hurt, "and come and see me to-morrow; my mother is not well and I am worried. To-morrow I shall have thought out plans and will gladly talk them over with you. I want some one's help and advice."

"I think you do," he answered, "and I'll come to-morrow, my dear."