Part 33 (2/2)
Margaret turned to him with genuine grat.i.tude and admiration, for he had borne himself as few men could or would have done.
”You have saved my life,” she said, ”and I am very grateful. It was very brave of you.” And she held out her hand to meet his, now trembling violently from the fierce strain.
”Oh, not at all; it was really nothing,” he said, bowing low. But the deep wrinkle that scored Barker's successes in life showed plainly round his mouth. He knew what his advantage was, and he had no thought of the danger when he reflected on what he had gained. Not he! His heart, or the organ which served him in place of one, was full of triumph. Had he planned the whole thing with the utmost skill and foresight he could not have succeeded better. Such a victory! and the very first day after Claudius's departure--Ye G.o.ds! what luck!
And so it came to pa.s.s that by the time the harness had been tied together and the conveyance got without accident as far as the first stable on the outskirts of the town, where it was left with the groom, Barker had received a goodly meed of thanks and praise. And when Margaret proposed that they should walk as far as the hotel, Barker tried a few steps and found he was too lame for such exercise, his left leg having been badly bruised by the pole of the carriage in his late exploit; which injury elicited a further show of sympathy from Margaret. And when at last he left her with a cab at the door of her hotel, he protested that he had enjoyed a very delightful drive, and went away in high spirits. Margaret, in her grat.i.tude for such an escape, and in unfeigned admiration of Barker's daring and coolness, was certainly inclined to think better of him than she had done for a long time. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that he was more in her thoughts than he had been; for, in the reign of Claudius, Barker had dwindled to a nearly insignificant speck in the landscape, dwarfed away to nothing by the larger mould and stronger character of the Swede.
Margaret saw the Duke in the evening. He gave her a doc.u.ment, unsealed, in a huge envelope, bidding her keep it in a safe place, for the use of their mutual friend, in case he should need it. She said she would give it to Claudius when he came back; and then she told the Duke about her drive with Barker and the accident. The Duke looked grave.
”Of course,” he said, ”I introduced Barker to you, and it would seem very odd if I were to warn you against him now. All the same, Countess, I have had the honour of being your friend for some time, and I must say I have sometimes regretted that I brought him to your house.” He reddened a little after he had spoken, fearing she might have misunderstood him. ”I wish,” he added, to make things clearer, ”that I could have brought you Claudius without Barker.” Then he reddened still more, and wished he had said nothing. Margaret raised her eyebrows.
Perhaps she could have wished as much herself, but she dropped the subject.
”When are you coming back from the West, Duke,” she asked, busying herself in arranging some books on her table. The hotel sitting-room was so deadly dreary to the eye that she was trying to make it look as if it had not been lately used as a place of burial.
”It may be two months before I am here again. A--about the time Claudius comes over, I should think.”
”And when do you go?”
”Next week, I think.”
”I wish you were going to stay,” said Margaret simply, ”or Lady Victoria. I shall be so lonely.”
”You will have Miss Skeat,” suggested his Grace.
”Oh, it's not that,” said she. ”I shall not be alone altogether, for there is poor Nicholas, you know. I must take care of him; and then I suppose some of these people will want to amuse me, or entertain me--not that they are very entertaining; but they mean well. Besides, my being mixed up in a Nihilist persecution adds to my social value.” The Duke, however, was not listening, his mind being full of other things--what there was of it, and his heart had long determined to sympathise with Margaret in her troubles; so there was nothing more to be said.
”Dear me,” thought Miss Skeat, ”what a pity! They say she might have had the Duke when she was a mere child--and to think that she should have refused him! So admirably suited to each other!” But Miss Skeat, as she sat at the other end of the room trying to find ”what it was that people saw so funny” in the _Tramp Abroad_, was mistaken about her patroness and the very high and mighty personage from the aristocracy. The Duke was much older than Margaret, and had been married before he had ever seen her. It was only because they were such good friends that the busybodies said they had just missed being man and wife.
But when the Duke was gone, Margaret and Miss Skeat were left alone, and they drew near each other and sat by the table, the elder lady reading aloud from a very modern novel. The Countess paid little attention to what she heard, for she was weary, and it seemed as though the evening would never end. Miss Skeat's even and somewhat monotonous voice produced no sensation of drowsiness to-night, as it often did, though Margaret's eyes were half-closed and her fingers idle. She needed rest, but it would not come, and still her brain went whirling through the scenes of the past twenty-four hours, again and again recurring to the question ”Why is he gone?” unanswered and yet ever repeated, as the dreadful wake-song of the wild Irish, the ”Why did he die?” that haunts the ear that has once heard it for weeks afterwards.
She tried to reason, but there was no reason. Why, why, why? He was gone with her kiss on his lips and her breath in his. She should have waited till he came back from over the sea before giving him what was so very precious. More than once, as she repeated the words he had spoken at parting, she asked herself whether she doubted him after all, and whether it would not be wiser to speak to the Duke. But then, the latter so evidently believed in Claudius that it comforted her to think of his honest faith, and she would dismiss every doubt again as vain and wearying. But still the eternal question rang loudly in her soul's ears, and the din of the inquisitive devil that would not be satisfied deafened her so that she could not hear Miss Skeat. Once or twice she moved her head nervously from side to side, as it rested on the back of the chair, and her face was drawn and pale, so that Miss Skeat anxiously asked whether she were in any pain, but Margaret merely motioned to her companion to continue reading, and was silent. But Miss Skeat grew uneasy, feeling sure that something was the matter.
”Dear Countess,” she said, ”will you not retire to rest? I fear that this horrid accident has shaken you. Do go to bed, and I will come and read you to sleep.” Her voice sounded kindly, and Margaret's fingers stole out till they covered Miss Skeat's bony white ones, with the green veins and the yellowish lights between the knuckles.
Miss Skeat, at this unusual manifestation of feeling, laid down the book she held in her other hand, and settled her gold-rimmed gla.s.ses over her long nose. Then her eyes beamed across at Margaret, and a kindly, old-fas.h.i.+oned smile came into her face that was good to see, and as she pressed the hot young hand in hers there was a suspicion of motherliness in her expression that would have surprised a stranger. For Miss Skeat did not look motherly at ordinary times.
”Poor child!” said she softly. Margaret's other hand went to her eyes and hid them from sight, and her head sank forward until it touched her fingers, where they joined Miss Skeat's.
”I am so unhappy to-night,” murmured Margaret, finding at last, in the evening hours, the sympathy she had longed for all day. Miss Skeat changed her own position a little so as to be nearer to her.
”Poor child!” repeated Miss Skeat almost in a whisper, as she bent down to the regal head that lay against her hand, smoothing the thick hair with her worn fingers. ”Poor child, do you love him so very dearly?” She spoke almost inaudibly, and her wrinkled eyelids were wet. But low as was her voice, Margaret heard, and moved her head in a.s.sent, without lifting it from the table.
Ah yes--she loved him very, very much. But she could not bear to confess it, for all that, and a moment afterwards she was sitting upright again in her chair, feeling that she had weathered the first storm. Her companion, who was not ignorant of her ways, contented herself then with patting Margaret's hand caressingly during the instant it remained in her own, before it was drawn away. There was a world of kindness and of gentle humanity in the gaunt gentlewoman's manner, showing that the heart within was not withered yet. Then Miss Skeat flattened the book before her with the paper-cutter, and began to read. Reading aloud had become to her a second nature, and whether she had liked it or not at first, she had learned to do it with perfect ease and indifference, neither letting her voice drag languidly and hesitatingly when she was tired, nor falling into that nerve-rending fault of readers who vainly endeavour to personate the characters in dialogue, and to give impressiveness in the descriptive portions. She never made a remark, or asked her hearer's opinion. If the Countess was in the humour to sleep, the reading was soporific; if she desired to listen, she felt that her companion was not trying to bias her judgment by the introduction of dramatic intonation and effect. With an even, untiring correctness of utterance, Miss Skeat read one book just as she read another--M. Thiers or Mr. Henry James, Mark Twain or a Parliamentary Report--it was all one to her. Poor Miss Skeat!
But to Margaret the evening seemed long and the night longer, and many days and evenings and nights afterwards. Not that she doubted, but that she thought--well--perhaps she thought she ought to doubt. Some cunning reader of face and character, laughing and making love by turns, had once told her she had more heart than head. Every woman knows she ought to seem flattered at being considered a ”person of heart,” and yet every woman cordially hates to be told so. And, at last, Margaret began to wonder whether it were true. Should she have admitted she loved a man who left her a moment afterwards in order to make a voyage of two months for the mere furthering of his worldly interest? But then--he told her he was going before he kissed her. What could be the ”other reason”?
CHAPTER XVII.
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