When her father had driven off on his way to the railroad,
Margaret felt how great and long had been the pressure on her
time and her spirits. It was astonishing, almost stunning, to
feel herself so much at liberty; no one depending on her for
cheering care, if not for positive happiness; no invalid to plan
and think for; she might be idle, and silent, and forgetful,--and
what seemed worth more than all the other privileges--she might
be unhappy if she liked. For months past, all her own personal
cares and troubles had had to be stuffed away into a dark
cupboard; but now she had leisure to take them out, and mourn
over them, and study their nature, and seek the true method of
subduing them into the elements of peace. All these weeks she had
been conscious of their existence in a dull kind of way, though
they were hidden out of sight. Now, once for all she would
consider them, and appoint to each of them its right work in her
life. So she sat almost motionless for hours in the drawing-room,
going over the bitterness of every remembrance with an unwincing
resolution. Only once she cried aloud, at the stinging thought of
the faithlessness which gave birth to that abasing falsehood.
She now would not even acknowledge the force of the temptation;
her plans for Frederick had all failed, and the temptation lay
there a dead mockery,--a mockery which had never had life in it;
the lie had been so despicably foolish, seen by the light of the
ensuing events, and faith in the power of truth so infinitely the
greater wisdom!
In her nervous agitation, she unconsciously opened a book of her
father's that lay upon the table,--the words that caught her eye
in it, seemed almost made for her present state of acute
self-abasement:-'Je ne voudrois pas reprendre mon coeur en ceste sorte:
meurs de honte, aveugle, impudent, traistre et desloyal a
ton Dieu, et sembables choses; mais je voudrois le corriger
par voye de compassion. Or sus, mon pauvre coeur, nous
voila tombez dans la fosse, laquelle nous avions tant
resolu d' eschapper. Ah! relevons-nous, et quittons-la pour
jamais, reclamons la misericorde de Dieu, et esperons en
elle qu'elle nous assistera pour desormais estre plus
fermes; et remettons-nous au chemin de l'humilite. Courage,
soyons meshuy sur nos gardes, Dieu nous aydera.' 'The way of humility. Ah,' thought Margaret, 'that is what I have
missed! But courage, little heart. We will turn back, and by
God's help we may find the lost path.' So she rose up, and determined at once to set to on some work
which should take her out of herself. To begin with, she called
in Martha, as she passed the drawing-room door in going
up-stairs, and tried to find out what was below the grave,
respectful, servant-like manner, which crusted over her
individual character with an obedience that was almost
mechanical. She found it difficult to induce Martha to speak of
any of her personal interests; but at last she touched the right
chord, in naming Mrs. Thornton. Martha's whole face brightened,
and, on a little encouragement, out came a long story, of how her
father had been in early life connected with Mrs. Thornton's
husband--nay, had even been in a position to show him some
kindness; what, Martha hardly knew, for it had happened when she
was quite a little child; and circumstances had intervened to
separate the two families until Martha was nearly grown up, when,
her father having sunk lower and lower from his original
occupation as clerk in a warehouse, and her mother being dead,
she and her sister, to use Martha's own expression, would have
been 'lost' but for Mrs. Thornton; who sought them out, and
thought for them, and cared for them.