'Mr. Bell!
Oh, did Mr. Bell see it?'
'A little; but he took it into his head that you—how shall I say it?—that you were not ungraciously disposed towards Mr. Thornton.
I knew that could never be.
I hoped the whole thing was but an imagination; but I knew too well what your real feelings were to suppose that you could ever like Mr. Thornton in that way.
But I am very sorry.'
They were very quiet and still for some minutes.
But, on stroking her cheek in a caressing way soon after, he was almost shocked to find her face wet with tears.
As he touched her, she sprang up, and smiling with forced brightness, began to talk of the Lennoxes with such a vehement desire to turn the conversation, that Mr. Hale was too tender-hearted to try to force it back into the old channel.
'To-morrow—yes, to-morrow they will be back in Harley Street.
Oh, how strange it will be!
I wonder what room they will make into the nursery?
Aunt Shaw will be happy with the baby.
Fancy Edith a mamma!
And Captain Lennox—I wonder what he will do with himself now he has sold out!'
'I'll tell you what,' said her father, anxious to indulge her in this fresh subject of interest,
'I think I must spare you for a fortnight just to run up to town and see the travellers.
You could learn more, by half an hour's conversation with Mr. Henry Lennox, about Frederick's chances, than in a dozen of these letters of his; so it would, in fact, be uniting business with pleasure.'
'No, papa, you cannot spare me, and what's more, I won't be spared.'
Then after a pause, she added: 'I am losing hope sadly about Frederick; he is letting us down gently, but I can see that Mr. Lennox himself has no hope of hunting up the witnesses under years and years of time.
No,' said she, 'that bubble was very pretty, and very dear to our hearts; but it has burst like many another; and we must console ourselves with being glad that Frederick is so happy, and with being a great deal to each other.
So don't offend me by talking of being able to spare me, papa, for I assure you you can't.'
But the idea of a change took root and germinated in Margaret's heart, although not in the way in which her father proposed it at first.
She began to consider how desirable something of the kind would be to her father, whose spirits, always feeble, now became too frequently depressed, and whose health, though he never complained, had been seriously affected by his wife's illness and death.
There were the regular hours of reading with his pupils, but that all giving and no receiving could no longer be called companion-ship, as in the old days when Mr. Thornton came to study under him.
Margaret was conscious of the want under which he was suffering, unknown to himself; the want of a man's intercourse with men.
At Helstone there had been perpetual occasions for an interchange of visits with neighbouring clergymen; and the poor labourers in the fields, or leisurely tramping home at eve, or tending their cattle in the forest, were always at liberty to speak or be spoken to.
But in Milton every one was too busy for quiet speech, or any ripened intercourse of thought; what they said was about business, very present and actual; and when the tension of mind relating to their daily affairs was over, they sunk into fallow rest until next morning.
The workman was not to be found after the day's work was done; he had gone away to some lecture, or some club, or some beer-shop, according to his degree of character.
Mr. Hale thought of trying to deliver a course of lectures at some of the institutions, but he contemplated doing this so much as an effort of duty, and with so little of the genial impulse of love towards his work and its end, that Margaret was sure that it would not be well done until he could look upon it with some kind of zest.
Chapter 41 The Journey's End
'I see my way as birds their trackless way—
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet, or stifling snow,
In some time—his good time—I shall arrive;
He guides me and the bird.
In His good time!'
BROWNING'S PARACELSUS.
So the winter was getting on, and the days were beginning to lengthen, without bringing with them any of the brightness of hope which usually accompanies the rays of a February sun.
Mrs. Thornton had of course entirely ceased to come to the house.
Mr. Thornton came occasionally, but his visits were addressed to her father, and were confined to the study.
Mr. Hale spoke of him as always the same; indeed, the very rarity of their intercourse seemed to make Mr. Hale set only the higher value on it.
And from what Margaret could gather of what Mr. Thornton had said, there was nothing in the cessation of his visits which could arise from any umbrage or vexation.
His business affairs had become complicated during the strike, and required closer attention than he had given to them last winter.
Nay, Margaret could even discover that he spoke from time to time of her, and always, as far as she could learn, in the same calm friendly way, never avoiding and never seeking any mention of her name.
She was not in spirits to raise her father's tone of mind.
The dreary peacefulness of the present time had been preceded by so long a period of anxiety and care—even intermixed with storms—that her mind had lost its elasticity.
She tried to find herself occupation in teaching the two younger Boucher children, and worked hard at goodness; hard, I say most truly, for her heart seemed dead to the end of all her efforts; and though she made them punctually and painfully, yet she stood as far off as ever from any cheerfulness; her life seemed still bleak and dreary.