He startled Margaret, one evening as she sate at her work, by
suddenly asking: 'Margaret! had you ever any reason for thinking that Mr. Thornton
cared for you?' He almost blushed as he put this question; but Mr. Bell's scouted
idea recurred to him, and the words were out of his mouth before
he well knew what he was about.
Margaret did not answer immediately; but by the bent drooping of
her head, he guessed what her reply would be.
'Yes; I believe--oh papa, I should have told you.' And she
dropped her work, and hid her face in her hands.
'No, dear; don't think that I am impertinently curious. I am sure
you would have told me if you had felt that you could return his
regard. Did he speak to you about it?' No answer at first; but by-and-by a little gentle reluctant
'Yes.' 'And you refused him?' A long sigh; a more helpless, nerveless attitude, and another
'Yes.' But before her father could speak, Margaret lifted up her
face, rosy with some beautiful shame, and, fixing her eyes upon
him, said: 'Now, papa, I have told you this, and I cannot tell you more; and
then the whole thing is so painful to me; every word and action
connected with it is so unspeakably bitter, that I cannot bear to
think of it. Oh, papa, I am sorry to have lost you this friend,
but I could not help it--but oh! I am very sorry.' She sate down
on the ground, and laid her head on his knees.
'I too, am sorry, my dear. Mr. Bell quite startled me when he
said, some idea of the kind--' 'Mr. Bell! Oh, did Mr. Bell see it?' 'A little; but he took it into his head that you--how shall I say
it?--that you were not ungraciously disposed towards Mr.
Thornton. I knew that could never be. I hoped the whole thing was
but an imagination; but I knew too well what your real feelings
were to suppose that you could ever like Mr. Thornton in that
way. But I am very sorry.' They were very quiet and still for some minutes. But, on stroking
her cheek in a caressing way soon after, he was almost shocked to
find her face wet with tears. As he touched her, she sprang up,
and smiling with forced brightness, began to talk of the Lennoxes
with such a vehement desire to turn the conversation, that Mr.
Hale was too tender-hearted to try to force it back into the old
channel.
'To-morrow--yes, to-morrow they will be back in Harley Street.
Oh, how strange it will be! I wonder what room they will make
into the nursery? Aunt Shaw will be happy with the baby. Fancy
Edith a mamma! And Captain Lennox--I wonder what he will do with
himself now he has sold out!' 'I'll tell you what,' said her father, anxious to indulge her in
this fresh subject of interest, 'I think I must spare you for a
fortnight just to run up to town and see the travellers. You
could learn more, by half an hour's conversation with Mr. Henry
Lennox, about Frederick's chances, than in a dozen of these
letters of his; so it would, in fact, be uniting business with
pleasure.' 'No, papa, you cannot spare me, and what's more, I won't be
spared.' Then after a pause, she added: 'I am losing hope sadly
about Frederick; he is letting us down gently, but I can see that
Mr. Lennox himself has no hope of hunting up the witnesses under
years and years of time. No,' said she, 'that bubble was very
pretty, and very dear to our hearts; but it has burst like many
another; and we must console ourselves with being glad that
Frederick is so happy, and with being a great deal to each other.
So don't offend me by talking of being able to spare me, papa,
for I assure you you can't.' But the idea of a change took root and germinated in Margaret's
heart, although not in the way in which her father proposed it at
first. She began to consider how desirable something of the kind
would be to her father, whose spirits, always feeble, now became
too frequently depressed, and whose health, though he never
complained, had been seriously affected by his wife's illness and
death. There were the regular hours of reading with his pupils,
but that all giving and no receiving could no longer be called
companion-ship, as in the old days when Mr. Thornton came to
study under him. Margaret was conscious of the want under which
he was suffering, unknown to himself; the want of a man's
intercourse with men. At Helstone there had been perpetual
occasions for an interchange of visits with neighbouring
clergymen; and the poor labourers in the fields, or leisurely
tramping home at eve, or tending their cattle in the forest, were
always at liberty to speak or be spoken to. But in Milton every
one was too busy for quiet speech, or any ripened intercourse of
thought; what they said was about business, very present and
actual; and when the tension of mind relating to their daily
affairs was over, they sunk into fallow rest until next morning.
The workman was not to be found after the day's work was done; he
had gone away to some lecture, or some club, or some beer-shop,
according to his degree of character. Mr. Hale thought of trying
to deliver a course of lectures at some of the institutions, but
he contemplated doing this so much as an effort of duty, and with
so little of the genial impulse of love towards his work and its
end, that Margaret was sure that it would not be well done until
he could look upon it with some kind of zest.