North and South
Page 200Margaret had all the difficulty in the world to persuade her
father not to invite Mr. Thornton. She had an indescribable
repugnance to this step being taken. The night before the
funeral, came a stately note from Mrs. Thornton to Miss Hale,
saying that, at her son's desire, their carriage should attend
the funeral, if it would not be disagreeable to the family.
Margaret tossed the note to her father.
'Oh, don't let us have these forms,' said she. 'Let us go
alone--you and me, papa. They don't care for us, or else he would
have offered to go himself, and not have proposed this sending an
empty carriage.' 'I thought you were so extremely averse to his going, Margaret,'
said Mr. Hale in some surprise.
'And so I am. I don't want him to come at all; and I should
especially dislike the idea of our asking him. But this seems
such a mockery of mourning that I did not expect it from him.'
She startled her father by bursting into tears. She had been so
subdued in her grief, so thoughtful for others, so gentle and
patient in all things, that he could not understand her impatient
ways to-night; she seemed agitated and restless; and at all the
she only cried the more.
She passed so bad a night that she was ill prepared for the
additional anxiety caused by a letter received from Frederick.
Mr. Lennox was out of town; his clerk said that he would return
by the following Tuesday at the latest; that he might possibly be
at home on Monday. Consequently, after some consideration,
Frederick had determined upon remaining in London a day or two
longer. He had thought of coming down to Milton again; the
temptation had been very strong; but the idea of Mr. Bell
domesticated in his father's house, and the alarm he had received
at the last moment at the railway station, had made him resolve
to stay in London. Margaret might be assured he would take every
precaution against being tracked by Leonards. Margaret was
thankful that she received this letter while her father was
absent in her mother's room. If he had been present, he would
have expected her to read it aloud to him, and it would have
raised in him a state of nervous alarm which she would have found
it impossible to soothe away. There was not merely the fact,
London, but there were allusions to the recognition at the last
moment at Milton, and the possibility of a pursuit, which made
her blood run cold; and how then would it have affected her
father? Many a time did Margaret repent of having suggested and
urged on the plan of consulting Mr. Lennox. At the moment, it had
seemed as if it would occasion so little delay--add so little to
the apparently small chances of detection; and yet everything
that had since occurred had tended to make it so undesirable.
Margaret battled hard against this regret of hers for what could
not now be helped; this self-reproach for having said what had at
the time appeared to be wise, but which after events were proving
to have been so foolish. But her father was in too depressed a
state of mind and body to struggle healthily; he would succumb to
all these causes for morbid regret over what could not be
recalled. Margaret summoned up all her forces to her aid. Her
father seemed to have forgotten that they had any reason to
expect a letter from Frederick that morning. He was absorbed in
one idea--that the last visible token of the presence of his wife
trembled pitifully as the undertaker's man was arranging his
crape draperies around him. He looked wistfully at Margaret; and,
when released, he tottered towards her, murmuring, 'Pray for me,
Margaret. I have no strength left in me. I cannot pray. I give
her up because I must. I try to bear it: indeed I do. I know it
is God's will. But I cannot see why she died. Pray for me,
Margaret, that I may have faith to pray. It is a great strait, my
child.' Margaret sat by him in the coach, almost supporting him in her
arms; and repeating all the noble verses of holy comfort, or
texts expressive of faithful resignation, that she could
remember. Her voice never faltered; and she herself gained
strength by doing this. Her father's lips moved after her,
repeating the well-known texts as her words suggested them; it
was terrible to see the patient struggling effort to obtain the
resignation which he had not strength to take into his heart as a
part of himself.