'I don't think it can be true,' said Mrs. Hale, at length. 'He
would surely have told me before it came to this.' It came strongly upon Margaret's mind that her mother ought to
have been told: that whatever her faults of discontent and
repining might have been, it was an error in her father to have
left her to learn his change of opinion, and his approaching
change of life, from her better-informed child. Margaret sat down
by her mother, and took her unresisting head on her breast,
bending her own soft cheeks down caressingly to touch her face.
'Dear, darling mamma! we were so afraid of giving you pain. Papa
felt so acutely--you know you are not strong, and there must have
been such terrible suspense to go through.' 'When did he tell you, Margaret?' 'Yesterday, only yesterday,' replied Margaret, detecting the
jealousy which prompted the inquiry. 'Poor papa!'--trying to
divert her mother's thoughts into compassionate sympathy for all
her father had gone through. Mrs. Hale raised her head.
'What does he mean by having doubts?' she asked. 'Surely, he does
not mean that he thinks differently--that he knows better than
the Church.' Margaret shook her head, and the tears came into her
eyes, as her mother touched the bare nerve of her own regret.
'Can't the bishop set him right?' asked Mrs. Hale, half
impatiently.
'I'm afraid not,' said Margaret. 'But I did not ask. I could not
bear to hear what he might answer. It is all settled at any rate.
He is going to leave Helstone in a fortnight. I am not sure if he
did not say he had sent in his deed of resignation.' 'In a fortnight!' exclaimed Mrs. Hale, 'I do think this is very
strange--not at all right. I call it very unfeeling,' said she,
beginning to take relief in tears. 'He has doubts, you say, and
gives up his living, and all without consulting me. I dare say,
if he had told me his doubts at the first I could have nipped
them in the bud.' Mistaken as Margaret felt her father's conduct to have been, she
could not bear to hear it blamed by her mother. She knew that his
very reserve had originated in a tenderness for her, which might
be cowardly, but was not unfeeling.
'I almost hoped you might have been glad to leave Helstone,
mamma,' said she, after a pause. 'You have never been well in
this air, you know.' 'You can't think the smoky air of a manufacturing town, all
chimneys and dirt like Milton-Northern, would be better than this
air, which is pure and sweet, if it is too soft and relaxing.
Fancy living in the middle of factories, and factory people!
Though, of course, if your father leaves the Church, we shall not
be admitted into society anywhere. It will be such a disgrace to
us! Poor dear Sir John! It is well he is not alive to see what
your father has come to! Every day after dinner, when I was a
girl, living with your aunt Shaw, at Beresford Court, Sir John
used to give for the first toast--"Church and King, and down with
the Rump."' Margaret was glad that her mother's thoughts were turned away
from the fact of her husband's silence to her on the point which
must have been so near his heart. Next to the serious vital
anxiety as to the nature of her father's doubts, this was the one
circumstance of the case that gave Margaret the most pain.