Margaret, inexperienced as she was in all the necessary matter-of-fact business to be got through, did not know to whom to apply for advice.
The cook and Charlotte worked away with willing arms and stout hearts at all the moving and packing; and as far as that went, Margaret's admirable sense enabled her to see what was best, and to direct how it should be done.
But where were they to go to?
In a week they must be gone.
Straight to Milton, or where?
So many arrangements depended on this decision that Margaret resolved to ask her father one evening, in spite of his evident fatigue and low spirits.
He answered:
'My dear!
I have really had too much to think about to settle this.
What does your mother say?
What does she wish?
Poor Maria!'
He met with an echo even louder than his sigh.
Dixon had just come into the room for another cup of tea for Mrs. Hale, and catching Mr. Hale's last words, and protected by his presence from Margaret's upbraiding eyes, made bold to say,
'My poor mistress!'
'You don't think her worse to-day,' said Mr. Hale, turning hastily.
'I'm sure I can't say, sir.
It's not for me to judge.
The illness seems so much more on the mind than on the body.'
Mr. Hale looked infinitely distressed.
'You had better take mamma her tea while it is hot, Dixon,' said Margaret, in a tone of quiet authority.
'Oh! I beg your pardon, miss!
My thoughts was otherwise occupied in thinking of my poor——of Mrs. Hale.'
'Papa!' said Margaret, 'it is this suspense that is bad for you both.
Of course, mamma must feel your change of opinions: we can't help that,' she continued, softly; 'but now the course is clear, at least to a certain point.
And I think, papa, that I could get mamma to help me in planning, if you could tell me what to plan for.
She has never expressed any wish in any way, and only thinks of what can't be helped.
Are we to go straight to Milton?
Have you taken a house there?'
'No,' he replied. 'I suppose we must go into lodgings, and look about for a house.
'And pack up the furniture so that it can be left at the railway station, till we have met with one?'
'I suppose so.
Do what you think best.
Only remember, we shall have much less money to spend.'
They had never had much superfluity, as Margaret knew.
She felt that it was a great weight suddenly thrown upon her shoulders.
Four months ago, all the decisions she needed to make were what dress she would wear for dinner, and to help Edith to draw out the lists of who should take down whom in the dinner parties at home.
Nor was the household in which she lived one that called for much decision.
Except in the one grand case of Captain Lennox's offer, everything went on with the regularity of clockwork.
Once a year, there was a long discussion between her aunt and Edith as to whether they should go to the Isle of Wight, abroad, or to Scotland; but at such times Margaret herself was secure of drifting, without any exertion of her own, into the quiet harbour of home.
Now, since that day when Mr. Lennox came, and startled her into a decision, every day brought some question, momentous to her, and to those whom she loved, to be settled.
Her father went up after tea to sit with his wife.
Margaret remained alone in the drawing-room.
Suddenly she took a candle and went into her father's study for a great atlas, and lugging it back into the drawing-room, she began to pore over the map of England.
She was ready to look up brightly when her father came down stairs.
'I have hit upon such a beautiful plan.
Look here—in Darkshire, hardly the breadth of my finger from Milton, is Heston, which I have often heard of from people living in the north as such a pleasant little bathing-place.
Now, don't you think we could get mamma there with Dixon, while you and I go and look at houses, and get one all ready for her in Milton?
She would get a breath of sea air to set her up for the winter, and be spared all the fatigue, and Dixon would enjoy taking care of her.'
'Is Dixon to go with us?' asked Mr. Hale, in a kind of helpless dismay.