Part 4

She was glad to be alone for a little while, to get rid of the first excitement, the first strangeness of the journey, and of being at the hotel. She looked out at the hansoms setting down and driving on, at all the swift traffic along the roadway, at the people on the wide pavement. She had imagined what London would be like from pictures, and from Guildford and Haslemere, and other places where there were shops and streets. It was what she had expected, and yet it was different. She felt herself so near to the heart of things, as if the people going to and fro were the pulse of the world; she could almost hear the throb of their lives. She wanted to be in the whirl of things, too, to know what it was all like, to understand--oh, no, no! the farm was better, the Dutch garden and the best parlor and the mother who was thinking of her. She would sit down and write to her this very minute--it was an excellent chance while she was alone. On the writing-table in the corner there were paper and envelopes, with the name of the hotel stamped on them. Her mother would look at it and understand the strangeness of her surroundings. This was the first time they had been separated at all; and writing to her was like a door creaking on its hinges, suggesting that at some unexpected moment it might open wide to let her through.

When the letter was finished she took up one of the newspapers lying on the table. There was a war going on somewhere along the Gold Coast; she read about it, but she could not grasp the details. She looked at the speeches that had been made in the House the night before, and tried to be interested in them; but they were difficult. She read all the little odds and ends of news, even the advertisements; and these were oddly fascinating. There was one that set her thinking. It was of a dramatic agency in the Strand. Young ladies could be trained for the stage, it said, and engagements were guaranteed. She wondered what the training was like, and what sort of engagements they would be. Now that she was actually going to a theatre she felt that she ought to take an interest in everything; her outlook was widening every moment; and she would never be quite the same simple country girl again who had set out from Chidhurst that morning.

Mr. Vincent came back at a quarter-past one. He looked worried, and she was able to imagine reasons for it since their talk just now.

"Is the news bad?" she asked.

"It might be worse," he answered, with a shrug. "There is nothing definite to say just yet. We must go down and lunch; an old friend of mine is waiting--he wants to see you." Her father had put on the manner that was his armor--the grave manner of few words that made questions impossible. He opened the door with as much courtesy as a stranger would have done, and walked beside her down the wide staircase. "I have secured a table," he said as they entered the dining-room, forgetting that his remark would convey nothing to her.

The table was in an alcove; beside it a middle-aged man was waiting for them. He was tall and dark, and well set-up. A short, well-cut beard and mustache, grizzled like his hair, covered his mouth; his eyes were brown and alert, though time had made them dim and lines had gathered round them; his face was that of a man who lived generously, but with deliberation; his slow movements suggested tiredness or disappointment; his manner had a curious blending of indulgence and refinement.

"This is Sir George Stringer; we were at Oxford together," Mr. Vincent said to Margaret.

"I am delighted to meet you," Sir George said; "and it's very good of your father to put it in that way, for, as a matter of fact, he was five years my junior. I stayed up after taking my degree." Looking at him now, she saw that he was quite elderly, though in the distance she had taken him to be almost young. "I had not seen him for more than twenty years," he went on after they had settled themselves at the table, "till he walked into my office just now. I didn't even know that he was a married man till the other day, much less that he had a daughter."

"But he knew where to find you?"

"Of course he did," Sir George said. "I am a permanent official--a moss-grown thing that is never kicked aside unless it clamors, till the allotted number of years have passed and the younger generation comes knocking at the door."

"What do you think he has done, Margey?" Mr. Vincent asked, noticing with satisfaction that she was quite unembarrassed by her new surroundings. The people at the different tables put a pleasant curiosity into her eyes, or provoked a little smile; now and then she looked up at him when some strange dish or attention of the waiters puzzled her, but she was neither awkward nor over-elated.

"What has he done?" she asked.

"We saw that the house on the hill had been let when we passed this morning--"

"It's the most amazing thing that I should have hit upon it," Sir George said.

"You have taken it!" she exclaimed, and clasped her hands with delight. It would be like a little bit of London going to Chidhurst, she thought, and her mother would like him, she was sure of it, this friend of her father's, who would have been difficult to describe, for, though he was old--to her young eyes--he was so agreeable. And he would be some one else for her father to talk with; they would discuss all manner of things concerning the world that she was discovering to be a wonderful place, though Chidhurst, with its beauty and its silence, held aloof from it--and she would listen to them; it would be like hearing a fairy story told at intervals. If only her father did not have to go to Australia--that threat was beginning to make itself distinct, though she tried to forget it.

"It's very good of you to be pleased at the prospect of a grim old bachelor being near you," Sir George said, and looked at her critically. Her beauty had been taking him by surprise. How lucky Vincent was to have her, he thought. He remembered his own empty rooms in Mount Street, their luxury and loneliness, the precision with which everything kept to its place, their silence and dulness. Vincent had made a mull of his life, but he had a home, and a wife who, though no doubt she was homely enough--mended his socks and cooked his dinner herself, perhaps--was probably a handsome woman, since she was the mother of this beautiful creature. In spite of his opinions, and the manner in which he had kicked aside his prospects, Vincent had not done so badly for himself after all.

"Did father tell you that we lived at Woodside Farm?" Margaret asked.

"Of course he did. I wish I had known it the other day. By-the-way, Vincent," he went on to her father, "it was young Carringford who told me of the house. You remember his father? He was President of the Union just before your time. He died about a year ago worth a quarter of a million, and left two children--this boy, who is only two or three and twenty now, and a girl who married Lord Arthur Wanstead. They have a hundred thousand pounds each."

"It sounds as if it could never be counted," Margaret said.

"Only three thousand a year if they have the luck to get three per cent. for it, and income tax off that. Well, Master Tom has some friends living on Hindhead--in red-brick houses that ought to be blown up with gunpowder, especially when they have weather-cocks on their gables. Hindhead, as you probably know, is celebrated for its red-brick houses, philosophers, pretty young ladies, and afternoon parties at which games are played with astonishing energy."

"We are miles and miles from Hindhead," Margaret said, bewildered. But Sir George enjoyed talking, and took it for granted that others liked to listen.

"Of course you are," he answered, genially; "but one fine day he and the Lakemans were staying in the neighborhood. He rode over to Chidhurst, saw this house, and thought it might do for them, so they all went over to look at it--"

"She told me."

"Oh, you have heard from her? Mrs. Lakeman, as you probably know, is a lady who does not care for quite so much unadulterated nature as there is in your neighborhood, so the house didn't suit her. The other day Tom told me of it, and I took it on the spot. When did you see her last?"

"A good many years ago." Mr. Vincent's manner was a shade curt.

Sir George looked up quickly. "Why, of course, I remember--what an idiot I am!"

"Not at all. We are going there this afternoon. Who was Lakeman? I didn't know him."

"No one in particular; but he was good-looking and fairly well off." Sir George smiled to himself, and took a liqueur with his coffee. "She was a fascinating woman," he added; "and has had my scalp among others."

"I think you might go up-stairs, Margey. We'll follow you presently."

Sir George looked after her as she disappeared. "She is going to be a beautiful woman," he said. "Rather a shame to hide her on a farm at Chidhurst, though, for my part, I always think that the devil lives in town and God in the country."

Margaret felt that her father was embarrassed by his sense of responsibility when he joined her half an hour later. "You ought to be shown some of the things in London," he said again.

"I've seen the hansom cabs," she said, "and lunched at a little table at the hotel, and everything is a sight to me."

"I suppose it is. Still, we might do Westminster Abbey, at any rate. Hannah gave us leave, you know--and then we'll go to Mrs. Lakeman's."

"Who is she?"

"Her father was a bishop," Mr. Vincent said. He spoke as if the fact needed some contemplation, and to Margaret it did, since she had never seen a bishop in her life. She knew that he wore lawn sleeves and a shovel hat, and was a great man; she had a vague idea that he lived in a cathedral and slept in his mitre. "He died a good many years ago," Mr. Vincent continued, with a jerk in his voice. "He gave me a living when I was a young man; but I resigned it after a year or two, and differences of opinion caused quarrels and separations. Perhaps," he added, rather grimly, "Hannah would have called me a Papist then, and think it nearly as bad as being an unbeliever now."

VII

Mr. Vincent looked at Margaret two or three times as they drove down to Chelsea Embankment. A village dressmaker had made her frock, but it set well on her slim young figure, and the lace at her neck was soft and real; it belonged to her mother, who knew nothing of its value; her hat was perfectly simple, a peasant, or a woman of fashion might have worn it, and it seemed to him that Margaret would fall quite naturally into place with either. Then he thought of his wife at the farm; she had lived so simple a life among the growths of the earth and the changes of the sky that she was wholly untainted by the vulgarities of the world, and such as she was herself she had made her daughter.

The hansom stopped before a new-looking red-brick house.

"George Stringer would say it ought to be blown up with gunpowder," Mr. Vincent remarked, and Margaret, turning to give some trivial answer, saw that he was white and nervous.

The door was opened by a man servant. The hall was panelled; there were rugs and pictures and palms and old china about, and her heart beat quicker, for all this was part of the London show. The drawing-room was part of it, too, with its couches and screens, its pictures and Venetian glass and countless things of a sort that had no place at Woodside Farm. It was all still and dim, too, almost mysterious, and scented with early spring flowers put about in masses, or so it seemed to Margaret.

Some curtains separated a further room; they were drawn together, and against them, clutching them with one hand, as if she were waiting and half afraid, a woman stood. She was tall, and about forty-three. Her figure was still slight; her black dress trailed on the floor, and made her look graceful; the white cuffs at her wrist were turned back, and called attention to the small white hands below them. She had a quantity of dark hair, smoothly plaited, and pinned closely to the back of her head. Her eyes were a deep gray, long lashed, and curiously full of expression, that apparently she was not able to control. They seemed to belong to an inward being who looked on independently at things, and frequently thought and felt differently from the one that clothed it and tried to pass itself off as a real personality. She had never been pretty; but her face arrested attention. The lines on it suggested suffering; there was humor about the mouth, and tenderness in the deep tone of her voice. For a time and for some people she had a curious fascination; she knew it, and liked to watch its effect. Her head was small, and she carried it well, and the whiteness of the little ruffle round her throat gave it a setting and made it picturesque. She looked across quickly at Mr. Vincent. Then, as if she had gathered courage, she held out her hands and went forward.

"Gerald!" she exclaimed. Her voice appeared to be thickened by emotion. She stopped before him and let her hands drop.

He took them in his. "How do you do, Hilda?" he said, prosaically enough. "It is a long time since we met."

She raised her eyes; they were grave and pathetic, but somewhere at the back of them there was a glint of curiosity. She knew that he saw it, and tried to convince him that he was mistaken.

"More than twenty years," she answered. "I never expected to see you again."

"And now I have brought this tall girl to see you." He put his hand on his daughter's shoulder.

Mrs. Lakeman looked up curiously, almost ruefully. With something like a sob she whispered, "It's Margaret, isn't it?" and took her in her arms and kissed her. "I knew your father before your mother did, and I have loved him all my life," she said, and looked at the girl's face intently for a moment; then, as if she had had enough of that phase, she asked with a sudden touch of cynicism, "Did he ever talk to you about me--but I don't suppose he did?"

"I was never a very talkative person," Mr. Vincent said, grimly. She turned to him with a happy, humorous smile. She seemed to have swept all emotion from her; she had become animated and even lively.

"No, you never were. You were always as silent and as wise as a dear owl. I have a child, too," she went on. "You must see her--my Lena. She is all I have in the world--a splendid girl and a wonderful companion."

"Where is she?" Mr. Vincent asked.

"She is in there," nodding towards the curtains, "in her own sitting-room. You shall go to her, dear," she said, quickly turning to Margaret. "She knows all about you, and is longing to see you. Tom Carringford is there, too--he is always there," she added, significantly. "You remember old Tom Carringford, Gerald? This is his boy--awfully nice boy; I am never tired of him." She was gay by this time, and it was obvious that good spirits were natural to her. "I'll tell you who is with them," she went on. "Dawson Farley--I dare say Margaret would like to see him. He is a genius in my opinion--the only man on the stage fit to play a romantic part--and Louise Hunstan, the American actress, you know. She is playing just now in 'The School for Scandal' at the Shaftesbury--great fun to hear her do Lady Teazle with a little twang in her voice; it is an awfully pretty twang, though. We are devoted to the theatre, Lena and I." She appeared to be hurrying as much information as possible into her words, as if she wanted to give her listeners an impression of her life.

"We are going to the play to-night," Mr. Vincent said, but Mrs. Lakeman hardly heard him. Other lives only interested her so far as they affected her own. If the Vincents had been going with her she would have taken any trouble, shown any amount of excitement; but as it was, why it was nothing to her.

"You shall go to them," she said decisively to Margaret, evidently carrying on her own train of thought. She went towards the curtains as if to pull them aside. "Tell them we are coming in ten minutes, dear."

"Oh, but I don't know them," Margaret answered, appalled at being told to rush in among strangers.

"Of course you don't," Mrs. Lakeman said, in a sympathetic voice. "I'll take you. No, no, Gerald," as Mr. Vincent made a step to follow them; "we must have a little talk to ourselves after all these years."

She led Margaret into a second drawing-room, and beyond it into a still smaller room. There were pictures, and flowers again--quantities of flowers, the air was heavy with their scent. Silk draperies shaded the light that struggled through the small-paned windows, and bits of color and silver gleamed everywhere. It was like entering a dream, and dim figures seemed to rise from it--an indefinite number of them, it seemed to Margaret, though she soon made out that there were only four. She felt so strange as she stood hesitating just inside the room, like a little wayfarer, who knew only of green fields and a farm-house, straying into an enchanted world, for it was odd how the remembrance of her home never left her through all those first hours in London, and in her thoughts she sent it constant messages.

"Lena, my darling, this is Margaret Vincent. Be kind to her," Mrs. Lakeman said, in a low, thrilling voice. "You must love her, for I used to love her father--I do now." She turned to a young man who had come towards them. "Tom, your father knew this girl's father, too. I am coming back with him in a few minutes to tea. This is Tom Carringford, dear," she said to Margaret. Then, as if she had done enough, she went back with a look of amusement in her eyes and a gay little smile on her lips. "I have got rid of the girl," she thought. "I wonder what that old idiot will have to say for himself now she is out of the way."

Tom Carringford reassured Margaret in a moment. "How do you do?" he said, and shook her hand. "Don't be afraid of us; it's all right. My governor often spoke of yours, and I have always hoped I should see him some day."

Before she could answer, there stole towards her a girl with a thin, almost haggard, face and two sleepy, dark eyes that looked as if they might burn with every sort of passion. "I have been waiting for you," she said. "Mother has told me about your father. It was splendid of him to bring you." She spoke in a low tone, and, drawing Margaret to a seat near the window, looked at her with an anxious expression in her great eyes, as if she had been worn out with watching for her. "Stay, you don't know Mr. Dawson Farley yet, do you?" She turned towards a man who had risen to make room for them.

"Mrs. Lakeman told us about him just now."

"I'm not as famous as Miss Lakeman thinks." The clear pronunciation caught Margaret's ear, and she looked at him. He was clean-shaven, with a determined mouth and short, crisp hair. There was something hard and even cruel in the face, but there was fascination in it, too--there was fascination in all these new people; the magnetism of knowledge of the world perhaps, the world that had only burst upon her to-day.

"Oh, but I know nothing," she said, shyly. "I came from Chidhurst this morning--for the first time." Lena made a little sympathetic sound, and put her arms out as if to protect her.

"Do you mean that you have never been in London before?" Mr. Farley asked.

"No, never."

"What a wonderful thing!" The words came from a corner near the fireplace. Margaret was getting used to the dimness now, and could see through it. A woman moved towards her; she was not very young, but she was fair and graceful.

"It is Louise Hunstan, dear," Lena said. For some reason she did not know, Margaret recoiled from this girl, who had only known her five minutes, yet called her dear and was affectionate in her manner.

"You must let me look at you," Miss Hunstan said. The twang of which Mrs. Lakeman had spoken was faintly evident, but it gave her words a charm that made it impossible not to listen to them. "Now tell me, do you love it or hate it, or are you just bewildered with this great London?" She seemed to understand the stranger-mood better than the others.

"I think I am bewildered," Margaret answered. "Everything is so strange."

"Of course it is," Tom Carringford said, "and we stare at her as if she were a curiosity. What brutes we are! Never mind, Miss Vincent," he laughed, "we mean well, so you might tell us your adventures before Mrs. Lakeman returns."

He gave her courage again, and a sense of safety. She laughed back a little as she answered. "Adventures--do people have adventures in London? It sounds like Dick Whittington."

"Just like Dick Whittington," Lena answered. "You ought to carry a cat under your arm and marry a fairy prince. Isn't she beautiful?" she whispered to Dawson Farley.

The color rushed to Margaret's face. "Oh, please don't," she said. "I'm not a bit beautiful."

"Where have you come from, Miss Vincent?" the actor asked, as if he had not heard.

"From Woodside Farm at Chidhurst."

"I can tell you all about her," Lena said. "My mother was once engaged to her father, Gerald Vincent--" Margaret turned quickly as if to stop her. But she took no notice and went on. "He was a clergyman then, but he changed his opinions, left the Church, and wrote some articles that made a sensation. All his relations were furious, and mother couldn't marry him. A little cry came from Margaret.

"Oh! How could she tell you?" she exclaimed.

"You oughtn't to have told us, anyhow," Tom Carringford said, turning upon Lena: he was almost distressed. "It's an awful shame!"

"Miss Lakeman didn't mean any harm--she's not like any one else," Miss Hunstan said to Margaret, with a look in her eyes that counted for more than her words.

"It's history, dear--everybody knows it," Lena cooed, soothingly. "Besides, I always tell everything I know, about myself and every one else. It's much the best way; then one doesn't get any shocks in life, and isn't told any secrets."

"There's something in that," Mr. Farley agreed, and then he turned to Margaret; "I've read some of Mr. Vincent's articles. They are beyond my depth, but I recognized their brilliance."

"You see?" Lena said, with a shrug that implied it was impossible to cover up the history of a famous person. Mr. Farley looked at her impatiently and then at the stranger-girl: it was odd how different from themselves they all felt her to be.

"Are you going to any theatres?" he asked, trying to change the conversation. "There are all sorts of things to see in London."

"We are going to 'King John' to-night."

"Mr. Shakespeare and rather slow," Tom Carringford put in, gayly.

"Ah, that's what you young men think," Mr. Farley said--he himself was under forty.

"Tell me what you do in the country, little Margaret?" Lena asked, with the air of a culprit who loved her, and ignoring the fact that Margaret was a good five foot seven. "Do you bask in the sun all the summer, and hide beneath the snow all the winter, or do you behave like ordinary mortals?"

"We behave like ordinary mortals. Father and I read a great many books--" she began.

"And what does your mother do?"

"Mother and Hannah are generally busy with the farm and the house."

"Who is Hannah?"

"My half-sister. She is a good deal older than I am."

"Can't you see it all?" Lena said, turning to the others. "I can, as clearly as possible. Mrs. Vincent and Hannah look after the farm, and Margaret and her father sit together and read books. The farm carts rumble by, dogs bark, and chickens wander about; there are cows in the fields, honeysuckle in the hedges, and bees in the hives at the end of the garden. In my thoughts I can see them all jumbled up together, and hear the notes of the thrushes in the trees."

"Rubbish!" said Tom Carringford. "Your talk is a little too picturesque, you know. It always is. I can't think how you manage to invent it so quickly."