Part 4 (1/2)
And yet it was a grand picture of desolation, that lofty countenance in its wrath. The fires of a thousand pa.s.sions had graved these deep curves of bitterness, and marred the once genial mouth with the never absent sneer, and perverted an intellect once pure and stately.
No wonder that the two men, who were watching him in silence as he deliberately slashed down lilies with his cane, shuddered when they thought of the poor girl who stood between him and Castle Brand.
Margaret sat in her room, dumbly enduring the first humiliation of her life. Her humble soul had been outraged--disgraced. That cruel, insulting laugh still rang in her ears. Her cheeks flamed with shame; her eyes were suffused with hot tears. She could do nothing but sit in a trance, and busy-brained, revolve it over and over until she trembled with the agony of wounded pride.
Her sense of womanly honor had been trampled upon; her unapproachable self-respect had been bandied about by impure hands. Margaret felt that she was forever disgraced. To have been thrown at his feet, to suffer his eyes to scorn her, to see the wicked mouth sneer--the reckless head thrown back--to hear the muttered ”Ye G.o.ds! what a Medusa!” to be stunned by the loud ”ha! ha!” to be consorted with a monster of dissipation, such as he was--and to be scorned. Oh, cruel Ethel Brand: to force a friendless girl into such a position! Why had she not rather turned her from these castle doors, four years ago, than reserve her for such a fate as this?
Margaret began to see that she was terribly in Captain Brand's power--that if he were rascal enough to propose to her, she could scarcely in honor refuse him, and keep him out of his property. She also saw, with vague, prophetic eyes, a vision in the distance, of _stealthy hands stretching toward her life in either case_.
The ruddy sun, slipping down behind the cliffs two hours later, looked in at Margaret, who, with her door securely locked, sped about with motions of nervous energy, packing a small valise of clothes to take with her upon a sudden journey.
She had determined to blot herself by her own act out of Ethel Brand's will, by disappearing alike from friend and enemy, and hiding herself in some far distant corner of England, until Captain Brand had stepped into secure possession of Castle Brand.
She believed her life to be in danger, for she had wit enough to know that there were a thousand ways of quietly putting her out of the way before the twelve months were over, provided that St. Udo Brand was villain enough to avail himself of them, and of that she had little doubt; so she made all haste to leave him master of the field.
At ten o'clock of the night she flitted down the broad oak and walnut stairs, with her valise under her cloak, and stole out of the library gla.s.s door, under the very nose of sleepy Symonds, the footman, and under the night shades of the Norman oaks.
A man met her on the broad Waaste, where the somber pines stood one by one like specters, and Margaret sharply screamed when he came close to her and peered into her face.
”I think this is Miss Walsingham?”
”Oh, yes.”
He was the letter-carrier from Regis, and held a white missive in his hand.
”Special, it says, miss, so I took it over to-night, instead of waiting for to-morrow's batch, for, says I to myself, 'Young wimmen likes to get their letters.' Night, miss.”
”Good-night, Mr. Wells. Thank you for taking so much trouble this dark night.”
She stood listening to his retreating footsteps, and fingering the embossed seal of the letter. It seemed to be the Brand coat of arms; and yet who would use this crest when all the Brands were dead but one?
A light still burned in the lodge, down by the great gates, and she hung her valise on the iron railing and lifted the latch.
”Let me come in a moment?” she asked, putting in her pale, disturbed face.
”Lord! is that you, Miss Margaret!” cried the lodge-keeper, pus.h.i.+ng his horn gla.s.ses upon his forehead to look at her with his watery eyes.
”Come in, and welcome.”
”I was out walking, and met the letter-carrier, he gave me a letter, which I cannot wait longer to read. Let me read it here?”
She sat down, with the tallow candle between her and these bleared old eyes, and opened her letter. Yes, it bore the Brand crest with its fierce inscription. There was but one surviving Brand in the world, and his name signed Margaret's letter:
”MADAM:--Accept, with my profound congratulations, Ethel Brand's bequest of Seven-Oak Waaste, and all acres attached, and my bequest of your own choice of a master to the place mentioned. I have withstood the exquisite temptation of sharing your bliss, lest I should revive the pretty drama of 'Paolo Osini,' who strangled his wife in his first embrace; and with a pious blessing on the manes of poor Madam Brand, who likely enough got choked by a parasite, I depart to a land where oracles do say there are no fortune-hunters.
”Yours, admiringly,
”ST. UDO BRAND.”