'I have not the slightest wish to pry into the gentleman's secrets,' he said, with growing anger.
'My own interest in you is—simply that of a friend.
You may not believe me, Miss Hale, but it is—in spite of the persecution I'm afraid I threatened you with at one time—but that is all given up; all passed away.
You believe me, Miss Hale?'
'Yes,' said Margaret, quietly and sadly.
'Then, really, I don't see any occasion for us to go on walking together.
I thought, perhaps you might have had something to say, but I see we are nothing to each other.
If you're quite convinced, that any foolish passion on my part is entirely over, I will wish you good afternoon.' He walked off very hastily.
'What can he mean?' thought Margaret,—'what could he mean by speaking so, as if I were always thinking that he cared for me, when I know he does not; he cannot.
His mother will have said all those cruel things about me to him.
But I won't care for him.
I surely am mistress enough of myself to control this wild, strange, miserable feeling, which tempted me even to betray my own dear Frederick, so that I might but regain his good opinion—the good opinion of a man who takes such pains to tell me that I am nothing to him.
Come poor little heart! be cheery and brave.
We'll be a great deal to one another, if we are thrown off and left desolate.'
Her father was almost startled by her merriment this afternoon.
She talked incessantly, and forced her natural humour to an unusual pitch; and if there was a tinge of bitterness in much of what she said; if her accounts of the old Harley Street set were a little sarcastic, her father could not bear to check her, as he would have done at another time—for he was glad to see her shake off her cares.
In the middle of the evening, she was called down to speak to Mary Higgins; and when she came back, Mr. Hale imagined that he saw traces of tears on her cheeks.
But that could not be, for she brought good news—that Higgins had got work at Mr. Thornton's mill.
Her spirits were damped, at any rate, and she found it very difficult to go on talking at all, much more in the wild way that she had done.
For some days her spirits varied strangely; and her father was beginning to be anxious about her, when news arrived from one or two quarters that promised some change and variety for her.
Mr. Hale received a letter from Mr. Bell, in which that gentleman volunteered a visit to them; and Mr. Hale imagined that the promised society of his old Oxford friend would give as agreeable a turn to Margaret's ideas as it did to his own.
Margaret tried to take an interest in what pleased her father; but she was too languid to care about any Mr. Bell, even though he were twenty times her godfather.
She was more roused by a letter from Edith, full of sympathy about her aunt's death; full of details about herself, her husband, and child; and at the end saying, that as the climate did not suit, the baby, and as Mrs. Shaw was talking of returning to England, she thought it probable that Captain Lennox might sell out, and that they might all go and live again in the old Harley Street house; which, however, would seem very incomplete with-out Margaret.
Margaret yearned after that old house, and the placid tranquillity of that old well-ordered, monotonous life.
She had found it occasionally tiresome while it lasted; but since then she had been buffeted about, and felt so exhausted by this recent struggle with herself, that she thought that even stagnation would be a rest and a refreshment.
So she began to look towards a long visit to the Lennoxes, on their return to England, as to a point—no, not of hope—but of leisure, in which she could regain her power and command over herself.
At present it seemed to her as if all subjects tended towards Mr. Thornton; as if she could not for-get him with all her endeavours.
If she went to see the Higginses, she heard of him there; her father had resumed their readings together, and quoted his opinions perpetually; even Mr. Bell's visit brought his tenant's name upon the tapis; for he wrote word that he believed he must be occupied some great part of his time with Mr. Thornton, as a new lease was in preparation, and the terms of it must be agreed upon.
Chapter 40 Out of Tune
'I have no wrong, where I can claim no right, Naught ta'en me fro, where I have nothing had, Yet of my woe I cannot so be quite: Namely, since that another may be glad With that, that thus in sorrow makes me sad.'
WYATT.
Margaret had not expected much pleasure to herself from Mr. Bell's visit—she had only looked forward to it on her father's account, but when her godfather came, she at once fell into the most natural position of friendship in the world.
He said she had no merit in being what she was, a girl so entirely after his own heart; it was an hereditary power which she had, to walk in and take possession of his regard; while she, in reply, gave him much credit for being so fresh and young under his Fellow's cap and gown.
'Fresh and young in warmth and kindness, I mean.
I'm afraid I must own, that I think your opinions are the oldest and mustiest I have met with this long time.'
'Hear this daughter of yours, Hale Her residence in Milton has quite corrupted her.
She's a democrat, a red republican, a member of the Peace Society, a socialist—'
'Papa, it's all because I'm standing up for the progress of commerce.
Mr. Bell would have had it keep still at exchanging wild-beast skins for acorns.'
'No, no.
I'd dig the ground and grow potatoes.
And I'd shave the wild-beast skins and make the wool into broad cloth.
Don't exaggerate, missy.
But I'm tired of this bustle.
Everybody rushing over everybody, in their hurry to get rich.'
'It is not every one who can sit comfortably in a set of college rooms, and let his riches grow without any exertion of his own.
No doubt there is many a man here who would be thankful if his property would increase as yours has done, without his taking any trouble about it,' said Mr. Hale.
'I don't believe they would.
It's the bustle and the struggle they like.