Part 9 (2/2)
”Grandma wishes to see you, Maggie, in her room,” said Theo to her sister one morning, three days after the departure of their guests.
”Wishes to see me! For what?” asked Maggie; and Theo answered, ”I don't know, unless it is to talk with you about Arthur Carrollton.”
”Arthur Carrollton!” repeated Maggie. ”Much good it will do her to talk to me of him. I hate the very sound of his name;” and, rising, she walked slowly to her grandmother's room, where in her stiff brown satin dress, her golden spectacles planted firmly upon her nose, and the Valenciennes border of her cap shading but not concealing the determined look on her face, Madam Conway sat erect in her high-backed chair, with an open letter upon her lap.
It was from Henry. Maggie knew his handwriting in a moment, and there was another too for her; but she was too proud to ask for it, and, seating herself by the window, she waited for her grandmother to break the silence, which she did ere long as follows:
”I have just received a letter from that Warner, asking me to sanction an engagement which he says exists between himself and you. Is it true? Are you engaged to him?”
”I am,” answered Maggie, playing nervously with the ta.s.sel of her wrapper, and wondering why Henry had written so soon, before she had prepared the way by a little judicious coaxing.
”Well, then,” continued Madam Conway, ”the sooner it is broken the better. I am astonished that you should stoop to such an act, and I hope you are not in earnest.”
”But I am,” answered Maggie; and in the same cold, decided manner her grandmother continued: ”Then nothing remains for me but to forbid your having any communication whatever with one whose conduct in my house has been so unpardonably rude and vulgar. You will never marry him, Margaret, never! Nay, I would sooner see you dead than the wife of that low, mean, impertinent fellow!”
In the large dark eyes there was a gleam decidedly ”Hagarish” as Maggie arose, and, standing before her grandmother, made answer: ”You must not, in my presence, speak thus of Henry Warner. He is neither low, mean, vulgar, nor impertinent. You are prejudiced against him because you think him comparatively poor, and because he has dared to look at me, who have yet to understand why the fact of my being a Conway makes me any better. I have promised to be Henry Warner's wife, and Margaret Miller never yet has broken her word.”
”But in this instance you will,” said Madam Conway, now thoroughly aroused. ”I will never suffer it; and to prove I am in earnest I will here, before your face, burn the letter he has presumed to send you; and this I will do to any others which may come to you from him.”
Maggie offered no remonstrance; but the fire of a volcano burned within, as she watched the letter blackening upon the coals; and when next her eyes met those of her grandmother there was in them a fierce, determined look which prompted that lady at once to change her tactics and try the power of persuasion rather than of force. Feigning a smile, she said: ”What ails you, child? You look to me like Hagar. It was wrong in me, perhaps, to burn your letter, and had I reflected a moment I might not have done it; but I cannot suffer you to receive any more. I have other prospects in view for you, and have only waited a favorable opportunity to tell you what they are. Sit down by me, Margaret, while I talk with you on the subject.”
The burning of her letter had affected Margaret strangely, and with a benumbed feeling at her heart she sat down without a word and listened patiently to praises long and praises loud of Arthur Carrollton, who was described as being every way desirable, both as a friend and a husband. ”His father, the elder Mr. Carrollton, was an intimate friend of my husband,” said Madam Conway, ”and wishes our families to be more closely united, by a marriage between you and his son Arthur, who is rather fastidious in his taste, and though twenty-eight years old has never yet seen a face which suited him. But he is pleased with you, Maggie. He liked your picture, imperfect as it is, and he liked the tone of your letters, which I read to him. They were so original, he said, so much like what he fancied you to be. He has a splendid country seat, and more than one n.o.bleman's daughter would gladly share it with him; but I think he fancies you. He has a large estate near Montreal, and some difficulty connected with it will ere long bring him to America. Of course he will visit here, and with a little tact on your part you can, I'm sure, secure one of the best matches in England. He is fine-looking, too. I have his daguerreotype;” and opening her workbox she drew it forth and held it before Maggie, who resolutely shut her eyes lest she should see the face of one she was so determined to dislike.
”What do you think of him?” asked Madam Conway as her arm began to ache, and Maggie had not yet spoken.
”I haven't looked at him,” answered Maggie; ”I hate him, and if he comes here after me I'll tell him so, too. I hate him because he is an Englishman. I hate him because he is aristocratic. I hate him for everything, and before I marry him I'll run away!”
Here, wholly overcome, Maggie burst into tears, and precipitately left the room. An hour later, and Hagar, sitting by her fire, which the coolness of the day rendered necessary, was startled by the abrupt entrance of Maggie, who, throwing herself upon the floor, and burying her face in the old woman's lap, sobbed bitterly.
”What is it, child? What is it, darling?” asked Hagar; and in a few words Maggie explained the whole. ”I am persecuted, dreadfully persecuted! n.o.body before ever had so much trouble as I. Grandma has burned a letter from Henry Warner, and would not give it to me.
Grandma said, too, I should never marry him, should never write to him, nor see anything he might send to me. Oh, Hagar, Hagar, isn't it cruel?” and the eyes, whose wrathful, defiant expression was now quenched in tears, looked up in Hagar's face for sympathy.
The right chord was touched, and much as Hagar might have disliked Henry Warner she was his fast friend now. Her mistress' opposition and Maggie's tears had wrought a change, and henceforth all her energies should be given to the advancement of the young couple's cause.
”I can manage it,” she said, smoothing the long silken tresses which lay in disorder upon her lap. ”Richland post office is only four miles from here; I can walk double that distance easy. Your grandmother never thinks of going there, neither am I known to anyone in that neighborhood. Write your letter to Henry Warner, and before the sun goes down it shall be safe in the letter-box. He can write to the same place, but he had better direct to me, as your name might excite suspicion.”
This plan seemed perfectly feasible; but it struck Maggie unpleasantly. She had never attempted to deceive in her life, and she shrunk from the first deception. She would rather, she said, try again to win her grandmother's consent. But this she found impossible; Madam Conway was determined, and would not listen.
”It grieves me sorely,” she said, ”thus to cross my favorite child, whom I love better than my life; but it is for her good, and must be done.”
So she wrote a cold and rather insulting letter to Henry Warner, bidding him, as she had done before, ”let her granddaughter alone,”
and saying it was useless for him to attempt anything secret, for Maggie would be closely watched, the moment there were indications of a clandestine correspondence.
This letter, which was read to Margaret, destroyed all hope, and still she wavered, uncertain whether it would be right to deceive her grandmother. But while she was yet undecided, Hagar's fingers, of late unused to the pen, traced a few lines to Henry Warner, who, acting at once upon her suggestion, wrote to Margaret a letter which he directed to ”Hagar Warren, Richland.”
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