Part 18 (2/2)
”I have often been very unhappy,” Eleanor answered thoughtfully; ”but that, of course, is different to having had an unhappy life. Of course, my mother's and my father's death was a great grief to me, and when the sense of the awful loss their death was to me grew less the resentment I felt at my changed circ.u.mstances made me awfully bitter and unhappy for a time. For I can tell you it was a violent change. Up to the age of thirteen I lived as if I were going to be rich all my life and was the spoilt darling of my parents and of every one round me. After that I was a pupil teacher, taken in literally out of charity, in a second-rate suburban school. I am sure for a time I must have behaved too hatefully for words, and if Miss McDonald had sent me to the workhouse it would have served me right. But she knew that she was the only friend I had, and was awfully good to me. If I had only been older when the crash came I daresay I should have been better provided with friends; but at that age I wanted no friends except my own horses and dogs, and my father and mother were always too wrapped up in each other to care to make friends.
So that was really why at their death I was left so utterly stranded, and had Miss McDonald not come forward to my rescue I would have gone, I suppose, to a charity school. She was, as I say, awfully good to me. You see, she understood, and that made all the difference. She had gone through much the same sudden change of fortune herself, for she had never been brought up to work for her living either. Somehow she did not say much, but she made me see the utter uselessness of repining and taught me how much braver it was to accept things as they are and to make the best of them. And so I set my teeth and made the best of them, or rather tried to make the best of them, which isn't quite the same thing, but still the best I could do. And I was getting sort of resigned to my lot when the idea came to me that I had a voice, and I went to see Signor Vanucci. An unknown girl and a famous man like that! The utter cheek of it, Margaret!
But I have told you all about it and the hopes he raised, which were only to be dashed to the ground by his unexpected death. It took me months and months to get over it; in fact, in the sense of the word I never did get over it; even the gradual down-fall of the school and the awful struggle that Miss McDonald was going through never seemed to me as real as my own disappointment. I sometimes think, Margaret, that I must be horribly selfish and heartless. And then through you, Margaret, this second chance came, and though I held back at first, I seized it gladly and mean to hold it as long as I can, although I know,” she added, ”how very atrociously I am behaving to you and Mrs. Murray.”
”Oh!” said Margaret in surprise, for this was the very first time Eleanor had admitted as much.
”Of course, I always knew I was doing wrong,” Eleanor said, ”but I tried to hush my conscience up. I can't hush it up any longer, but,” she added with much vigour, ”it needn't think that I am going to pay any attention to what it says, for I am not.”
Margaret could scarcely help smiling at the defiant note in Eleanor's voice. The latter turned suddenly and laid her hand on Margaret's knee.
”Don't judge me too hardly, Margaret,” she said. ”I know you think me selfish and callous, and utterly without any decent feelings at all to be deliberately keeping you out of your own name, and to be taking everything that ought by rights to belong to you. But you don't know what this chance means to me. You can't even dimly conceive it. It is just the turning-point of my life.
”'There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune, Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.'
”There, Margaret, doesn't that fit our case exactly? Shallows and miseries are Hampstead and the school, and the full sea is the chance you are giving me.”
”You see, Margaret,” she went on earnestly, ”a voice is not quite like any other gift. If you don't train it when you are young you might as well not train it at all. It is too late when you are old, and then your gift is thrown away--wasted. Even as it is Madame Martelli says that I have no time to lose. She wants me to go to Milan next spring.”
”To Milan!” Margaret exclaimed.
”Or to Paris,” Eleanor went on half absently.
”To Paris!” Margaret echoed again.
”Don't remind me that I can't go!” Eleanor exclaimed fiercely, springing to her feet and beginning to pace up and down the path in front of the arbour, ”for, of course, I know it without being told. I won't look forward, I won't, I won't! I will go on living in the present which is giving me all I want. The future is too gloomy and uncertain to be thought of yet, and so, _hey presto_!” and her brow cleared as if by magic, ”I refuse to think of it.”
The end of one of Eleanor's rapid speeches, in the course of which she could pa.s.s with astounding swiftness from one mood to another, always left Margaret with a slight feeling of bewilderment. In the present instance she had been greatly moved by Eleanor's impulsive appeal to her not to think badly of her, and had just been about to a.s.sure her that indeed she had never judged her conduct hardly when Eleanor had gone on to justify herself, to speak of her future plans, and had wound up as suddenly by refusing to consider the future at all.
No wonder, then, that Margaret, with whom speech was never very ready, felt at a loss what to answer when Eleanor, pausing in her restless march to and fro, asked her abruptly what she was thinking of.
”You listen, listen, listen always so silently, my little pale Margaret,”
she said, ”and you look so grave and so wise, but never a word do you say.”
”It is because you talk so fast and tell me so much that I have not time to answer one thing before you go on to another,” said Margaret.
”Well, you never answered my question just now. Tell me, do you despise me for my selfishness?”
”No,” said Margaret, with sudden earnestness, ”I like you too much.”
”Really and truly, Margaret?”
”Really and truly,” Margaret made reply. ”You know I liked you from the first moment I saw you in the waiting-room. You were the first girl of my own age that I had ever spoken to, and I shall never forget how I stood by the window watching you as you did your exercise, and wished you were my friend.”
”And a pretty friend I have been to you,” interrupted Eleanor. ”I stole your name and everything that belongs to you, and, by the way, that reminds me----”
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