Mrs. Shaw and her maid found plenty of occupation in restoring Margaret's wardrobe to a state of elegant variety.
Captain Lennox was easy, kind, and gentlemanly; sate with his wife in her dressing-room an hour or two every day; played with his little boy for another hour, and lounged away the rest of his time at his club, when he was not engaged out to dinner.
Just before Margaret had recovered from her necessity for quiet and repose—before she had begun to feel her life wanting and dull—Edith came down-stairs and resumed her usual part in the household; and Margaret fell into the old habit of watching, and admiring, and ministering to her cousin.
She gladly took all charge of the semblances of duties off Edith's hands; answered notes, reminded her of engagements, tended her when no gaiety was in prospect, and she was consequently rather inclined to fancy herself ill.
But all the rest of the family were in the full business of the London season, and Margaret was often left alone.
Then her thoughts went back to Milton, with a strange sense of the contrast between the life there, and here.
She was getting surfeited of the eventless ease in which no struggle or endeavour was required.
She was afraid lest she should even become sleepily deadened into forgetfulness of anything beyond the life which was lapping her round with luxury.
There might be toilers and moilers there in London, but she never saw them; the very servants lived in an underground world of their own, of which she knew neither the hopes nor the fears; they only seemed to start into existence when some want or whim of their master and mistress needed them.
There was a strange unsatisfied vacuum in Margaret's heart and mode of life; and, once when she had dimly hinted this to Edith, the latter, wearied with dancing the night before, languidly stroked Margaret's cheek as she sat by her in the old attitude,—she on a footstool by the sofa where Edith lay.
'Poor child!' said Edith.
'It is a little sad for you to be left, night after night, just at this time when all the world is so gay.
But we shall be having our dinner-parties soon—as soon as Henry comes back from circuit—and then there will be a little pleasant variety for you.
No wonder it is moped, poor darling!'
Margaret did not feel as if the dinner-parties would be a panacea.
But Edith piqued herself on her dinner-parties; 'so different,' as she said, 'from the old dowager dinners under mamma's regime;' and Mrs. Shaw herself seemed to take exactly the same kind of pleasure in the very different arrangements and circle of acquaintances which were to Captain and Mrs. Lennox's taste, as she did in the more formal and ponderous entertainments which she herself used to give.
Captain Lennox was always extremely kind and brotherly to Margaret.
She was really very fond of him, excepting when he was anxiously attentive to Edith's dress and appearance, with a view to her beauty making a sufficient impression on the world.
Then all the latent Vashti in Margaret was roused, and she could hardly keep herself from expressing her feelings.
The course of Margaret's day was this; a quiet hour or two before a late breakfast; an unpunctual meal, lazily eaten by weary and half-awake people, but yet at which, in all its dragged-out length, she was expected to be present, because, directly afterwards, came a discussion of plans, at which, although they none of them concerned her, she was expected to give her sympathy, if she could not assist with her advice; an endless number of notes to write, which Edith invariably left to her, with many caressing compliments as to her eloquence du billet; a little play with Sholto as he returned from his morning's walk; besides the care of the children during the servants' dinner; a drive or callers; and some dinner or morning engagement for her aunt and cousins, which left Margaret free, it is true, but rather wearied with the inactivity of the day, coming upon depressed spirits and delicate health.
She looked forward with longing, though unspoken interest to the homely object of Dixon's return from Milton; where, until now, the old servant had been busily engaged in winding up all the affairs of the Hale family.
It had appeared a sudden famine to her heart, this entire cessation of any news respecting the people amongst whom she had lived so long.
It was true, that Dixon, in her business-letters, quoted, every now and then, an opinion of Mr. Thornton's as to what she had better do about the furniture, or how act in regard to the landlord of the Crampton Terrace house.
But it was only here and there that the name came in, or any Milton name, indeed; and Margaret was sitting one evening, all alone in the Lennoxes's drawing-room, not reading Dixon's letters, which yet she held in her hand, but thinking over them, and recalling the days which had been, and picturing the busy life out of which her own had been taken and never missed; wondering if all went on in that whirl just as if she and her father had never been; questioning within herself, if no one in all the crowd missed her, (not Higgins, she was not thinking of him,) when, suddenly, Mr. Bell was announced; and Margaret hurried the letters into her work-basket, and started up, blushing as if she had been doing some guilty thing.
'Oh, Mr. Bell!
I never thought of seeing you!'
'But you give me a welcome, I hope, as well as that very pretty start of surprise.'
'Have you dined?
How did you come?
Let me order you some dinner.'
'If you're going to have any.
Otherwise, you know, there is no one who cares less for eating than I do.
But where are the others?
Gone out to dinner?
Left you alone?'
'Oh yes! and it is such a rest.
I was just thinking—But will you run the risk of dinner?
I don't know if there is anything in the house.'
'Why, to tell you the truth, I dined at my club.
Only they don't cook as well as they did, so I thought, if you were going to dine, I might try and make out my dinner.
But never mind, never mind!
There aren't ten cooks in England to be trusted at impromptu dinners.
If their skill and their fires will stand it, their tempers won't.
You shall make me some tea, Margaret.
And now, what were you thinking of? you were going to tell me.
Whose letters were those, god-daughter, that you hid away so speedily?'
'Only Dixon's,' replied Margaret, growing very red.
'Whew! is that all?
Who do you think came up in the train with me?'
'I don't know,' said Margaret, resolved against making a guess.