“Don’t scold, Margaret. It was all because of you. If she had not shown you every change with such evident exultation in their superior sense, in perceiving what an improvement this and that would be, I could have behaved well. But if you must go on preaching, keep it till after dinner, when it will send me to sleep, and help my digestion.”
They were both of them tired, and Margaret herself so much so, that she was unwilling to go out as she had proposed to do, and have another ramble among the woods and fields so close to the home of her childhood. And, somehow, this visit to Helstone had not been all—had not been exactly what she had expected. There was change everywhere; slight, yet pervading all. Households were changed by absence, or death, or marriage, or the natural mutations brought by days and months and years, which carry us on imperceptibly from childhood to youth, and thence through manhood to age, whence we drop like fruit, fully ripe, into the quiet mother earth. Places were changed—a tree gone here, a bough there, bringing in a long ray of light where no light was before—a road was trimmed and narrowed, and the green straggling pathway by its side enclosed and cultivated. A great improvement it was called; but Margaret sighed over the old picturesqueness, the old gloom, and the grassy wayside of former days. She sat by the window on the little settle, sadly gazing out upon the gathering shades of night, which harmonized well with her pensive thought. Mr. Bell slept soundly, after his unusual exercise through the day. At last he was roused by the entrance of the tea-tray, brought in by a flushed-looking country-girl, who had evidently been finding some variety from her usual occupation of waiter, in assisting this day in the hayfield.
“Hallo! Who’s there! Where are we? Who’s that—Margaret? Oh, now I remember all. I could not imagine what woman was sitting there in such a doleful attitude, with her hands clasped straight out upon her knees, and her face looking so steadfastly before her. What are you looking at?” asked Mr. Bell, coming to the window, and standing behind Margaret.
“Nothing,” said she, rising up quickly, and speaking as cheerfully as she could at a moment’s notice.
“Nothing indeed! A bleak background of trees, some white linen hung out on the sweetbriar hedge, and a great waft of damp air. Shut the window, and come in and make tea.”
Margaret was silent for some time. She played with her teaspoon, and did not attend particularly to what Mr. Bell said. He contradicted her, and she took the same sort of smiling notice of his opinion as if he had agreed with her. Then she sighed, and putting down her spoon, she began, apropos of nothing at all, and in the high-pitched voice which usually shows that the speaker has been thinking for some time on the subject that they wish to introduce—“Mr. Bell, you remember what we were saying about Frederick last night, don’t you?”
“Last night. Where was I? Oh, I remember! Why, it seems a week ago. Yes, to be sure, I recollect we talked about him, poor fellow.”
“Yes—and do you remember that Mr. Lennox spoke about his having been in England about the time of dear mamma’s death?” asked Margaret, her voice now lower than usual.
“I recollect. I hadn’t heard of it before.”
“And I thought—I always thought that papa had told you about it.”
“No! he never did. But what about it, Margaret?”
“I want to tell you of something I did that was very wrong, about that time,” said Margaret, suddenly looking up at him with her clear honest eyes.
“I told a lie;” and her face became scarlet.
“True, that was bad I own; not but what I have told a pretty round number in my life, not all in downright words, as I suppose you did, but in actions, or in some shabby circumlocutory way, leading people either to disbelieve the truth, or believe a falsehood. You know who is the father of lies, Margaret? Well! a great number of folk, thinking themselves very good, have odd sorts of connection with lies, left-hand marriages, and second-cousins-once-removed. The tainting blood of falsehood runs through us all. I should have guessed you as far from it as most people. What! crying, child? Nay, now we’ll not talk of it, if it ends in this way. I dare say you have been sorry for it, and that you won’t do it again, and it’s long ago now, and in short I want you to be very cheerful, and not very sad, this evening.”
Margaret wiped her eyes, and tried to talk about something else, but suddenly she burst out afresh.
“Please, Mr. Bell, let me tell you about it—you could perhaps help me a little; no, not help me, but if you knew the truth, perhaps you could put me to rights—that is not it, after all,” said she, in despair at not being able to express herself more exactly as she wished.
Mr. Bell’s whole manner changed. “Tell me all about it, child,” said he.
“It’s a long story; but when Fred came, mamma was very ill, and I was undone with anxiety, and afraid, too, that I might have drawn him into danger; and we had an alarm just after her death, for Dixon met someone in Milton—a man called Leonards—who had known Fred, and who seemed to owe him a grudge, or at any rate to be tempted by the recollection of the reward
