"Yes, ask him in the parlour," said Miss Fanny, "and then go upstairs and tell Miss Margaret that some one wants to see her."
"Oh, yessum!" said the house-girl with a laugh; "it's Miss Marg'ret; I clean forgot her yuther name."
"The rascal certainly has impudence," remarked Miss Fanny. "Pulaski should know about this." Whereupon, she promptly called Neighbour Tomlin out of the library, and he came into the room just as Margaret came downstairs.
"Wait one moment, Margaret," he said. "It may be well for me to see what this man wants—unless——" He paused. "Do you know this Boring?"
"No; I have heard of him. I have never even seen him that I know of."
"Then I'll see him first," said Neighbour Tomlin. He went into the parlour, and those who were listening heard a subdued murmur of voices.
"What is your business with Miss Bridalbin?" Neighbour Tomlin asked, ignoring the proffered hand of the visitor.
"I am her father."
Neighbour Tomlin stood staring at the man as if he were dazed. Bridalbin's face bore the unmistakable marks of alcoholism, and he had evidently prepared himself for this interview by touching the bottle, for he held himself with a swagger.
Neighbour Tomlin said not a word in reply to the man's declaration. He stared at him, and turned and went back into the sitting-room where he had left the others.
"Why, Pulaski, what on earth is the matter?" cried Miss Fanny, as he entered the room. "You look as if you had seen a ghost." And indeed his face was white, and there was an expression in his eyes that Nan thought was most piteous.
"Go in, my dear," he said to Margaret. "The man has business with you." And then, when Margaret had gone out, he turned to Miss Fanny. "It is her father," he said.
"Well, I wonder what's he up to?" remarked Miss Fanny. There was a touch of anger in her voice. "She shan't go a step away from here with such a creature as that."
"She is her own mistress, sister. She is twenty years old," replied Neighbour Tomlin.
"Well, she'll be very ungrateful if she leaves us," said Miss Fanny, with some emphasis.
"Don't, sister; never use that word again; to me it has an ugly sound. We have had no thought of gratitude in the matter. If there is any debt in the matter, we are the debtors. We have not been at all happy in the way we have managed things. I have seen for some time that Margaret is unhappy; and we have no business to permit unhappiness to creep into this house." So said Neighbour Tomlin, and the tones of his voice seemed to issue from the fountains of grief.
"Well, I am sure I have done all I could to make the poor child happy," Miss Fanny declared.
"I am sure of that," said Neighbour Tomlin. "If any mistake has been made it is mine. And yet I have never had any other thought than to make Margaret happy."
"I know that well enough, Pulaski," Miss Fanny assented, "and I have sometimes had an idea that you thought too much about her for your own good."
"That is true," he replied. He was a merciless critic of himself in matters both great and small, and he had no concealments to make. He was open as the day, except where openness might render others unhappy or uncomfortable. "Yes, you are right," he insisted; "I have thought too much about her happiness for my own good, and now I see myself on the verge of great trouble."
"If Margaret understood the situation," said Miss Fanny, "I think she would feel differently."
"On the contrary, I think she understands the situation perfectly well; that is the only explanation of her troubles which she has not sought to conceal."
At that moment Margaret came to the door. Her face was very pale, almost ghastly, indeed, but whatever trouble may have looked from her eyes before, they were clear now. She came into the room with a little smile hovering around her mouth. She had no eyes for any one but Pulaski Tomlin, and to him she spoke.
"My father has come," she said. "He is not such a father as I would have selected; still, he is my father. I knew him the moment I opened the door. He wants me to go with him; he says he is able to provide for me. He has claims on me."
"Have we none?" Miss Fanny asked.
"More than anybody in the world," replied Margaret, turning to her; "more than all the rest of the world put together. But I have always said to myself," she addressed Neighbour Tomlin again, "that if it should ever happen that I found myself unable to carry out your wishes, sir, it would be best for me to leave your roof, where all my happiness has come to me." She was very humble, both in speech and demeanour.
Neighbour Tomlin looked at her with a puzzled and a grieved expression. "Why, I don't understand you, Margaret," said Neighbour Tomlin. "What wish of mine have you found yourself unable to carry out?"
"Only one, sir; but that was a very important one; you desired me to marry Mr. Bethune."
"I? Why, you were never more mistaken in your life," replied Neighbour Tomlin, with what Miss Fanny thought was unnecessary energy. "I may have suggested it; I saw you gloomy and unhappy, and I had observed the devotion of the young man. What more natural than for me to suggest that—Margaret! you are giving me a terrible wound!" He turned and went into the library, and Margaret ran after him.
It is probable that Nan knows better than any outsider what occurred then. It seems that Margaret, in her excitement, forgot to close the door after her, and Nan was sitting where she could see pretty much everything that happened; and she had a delicious little tale to tell her dear Johnny when she went home, a tale so impossible and romantic that she forgot her own troubles, and fairly glowed with happiness. But it is best not to depend too much on what Nan saw, though her sight was fairly good where her interests were enlisted.
Margaret ran after Neighbour Tomlin and seized him by the arm. "Oh, I never meant to wound you," she cried—"you who have been so kind, and so good! Oh, if you could only read my heart, you would forgive me, instantly and forever."
"I can read my own heart," said Neighbour Tomlin, "and it has but one feeling for you."
"Then kiss me good-bye," she said. "I am going with my father."
"If I kiss you," he replied, "you'll not go."
She looked at him, and he at her, and she found herself in the focus of a light that enabled her to see everything more clearly. She caught his secret and he hers, and there was no longer any room for misunderstanding. Her father, weak as he was, had been strong enough to provide his daughter with a remedy for the only serious trouble, short of bereavement, that his daughter was ever to know. She refused to return to the parlour, where he awaited her.
"Shall I go?" said Neighbour Tomlin.
"If you please, sir," said Margaret, with a faint smile. She could hardly realise the change that had so suddenly taken place in her hopes and her plans, so swift and unexpected had it been.
Neighbour Tomlin went into the parlour, and made Bridalbin acquainted with the facts.
"Margaret has changed her mind," said Neighbour Tomlin. "She thinks it is best to remain under the care and protection of those whom she knows better than she knows her father."
"Why, she seemed eager to go a moment ago," said Bridalbin; "and you must remember that she is my daughter."
"Her friends couldn't forget that under all the circumstances," Neighbour Tomlin remarked drily.
"I believe her mind has been poisoned against me," Bridalbin declared.
"That is quite possible," replied Neighbour Tomlin; "and I think you could easily guess the name of the poisoner."
"May I see my daughter?"
"That rests entirely with her," said Neighbor Tomlin.
But Margaret refused to see him again. Since her own troubles had been so completely swept away, her memory reverted to all the troubles her mother had to endure, as the result of Bridalbin's lack of fixed principles, and she sent him word that she would prefer not to see him then or ever afterward; and so the man went away, more bent on doing mischief than ever, though he was compelled to change his field of operations.
And then, after he was gone, a silence fell on the company. Nan appeared to be in a dazed condition, while Miss Fanny sat looking out of the window. Margaret, very much subdued, was clinging to Nan, and Neighbour Tomlin was pacing up and down in the library in a glow of happiness. All his early dreams had come back to him, and they were true. The romance of his youth had been changed into a reality.
Margaret was the first to break the silence. She left Nan, and went slowly to Miss Fanny, and stood by her chair. "What do you think of me?" she said, in a low voice.
For answer, Miss Fanny rose and placed her arms around the girl, and held her tightly for a moment, and then kissed her.
"But I do think, my dear," she said with an effort to laugh, "that the matter might have been arranged without frightening us to death."
"I had no thought of frightening you. Oh, I am afraid I had no thought for anything but my own troubles. Did you know? Did you guess?"
"I knew about Pulaski, but I had to go away from home to learn the news about you. Madame Awtry called my attention to it, and then with my eyes upon, I could see a great many things that were not visible before."
"Why, how could she know?" cried Margaret. "I have talked with her not more than a half dozen times."
"She is a very wise woman," Miss Fanny remarked, by way of explanation.
"Well, when I get in love, I'll not visit Madame Awtry," said Nan.
"My dear, you have been there once too often," Miss Fanny declared.
"Why, what has she been telling you?" inquired Nan, blushing very red.
"I'll not disclose your secrets, Nan," answered Miss Fanny.
"I would thank you kindly, if I had any," said Nan.
And then, suddenly, while Margaret was standing with her arms around Miss Fanny, she began to blush and show signs of embarrassment.
"Nan," she said, "will you take a boarder for—for—for I don't know how long?"
"Not for long, Nan. Say a couple of weeks." It was Neighbour Tomlin who spoke, as he came out of the library.
"Oh, for longer than that," protested Margaret.
"You must remember that I am getting old, child," he said very solemnly.
"So am I, sir," she said archly. "I am quite as old as you are, I think."
"This is the first quarrel," Nan declared, "and who knows how it will all end? You are to come and stay as long as you please, and then after that, you are to stay as long as I please."
"I declare, Nan, you talk like an old woman!" exclaimed Miss Fanny; whereupon Nan laughed and said she had to be serious sometimes.
And so it was arranged that Margaret was to stay with Nan for an indefinite period. "I hope you will come to see me occasionally, Mr. Tomlin, and you too, Aunt Fanny," she said with mock formality. "We shall have days for receiving company, just as the fine ladies do in the cities; and you'll have to send in your cards."
The two young women refused to go in the carriage.
"It is so small and stuffy," said Margaret to Neighbour Tomlin, "and to-day I want to be in the fresh air. If you please, sir, don't look at me like that, or I can never go." She went close to him. "Oh, is it all true? Is it really and truly true, or is it a dream?"
"It is true," he said, kissing her. "It is a dream, but it is my dream come true."
"I didn't think," she said, as she went along with Nan, "that the world was as beautiful as it seems to be to-day."
"Mr. Sanders says," replied Nan, "that it is the most comfortable world he has ever found; but somehow—well, you know we can't all be happy the same way at the same time."
"Your day is still to come," said Margaret, "and when it does, I want to be there."
"You say that," remarked Nan, "but you know you would have felt better if you hadn't had so much company. For a wonder Tasma Tid wouldn't go in the house with me. She said something was happening in there. Now, how did she know?" Tasma Tid had joined them as they came through the gate, and now Nan turned to her with the question.
"Huh! we know dem trouble w'en we see um. Dee ain't no trouble now. She done gone—dem trouble. But yan' come mo'." She pointed to Miss Polly Gaither, who came toddling along with her work-bag and her turkey-tail fan.
"Howdy, girls? I'm truly glad to see you. You are looking well both of you, and health is a great blessing. I have just been to Lucy Lumsden's, Nan, and she thinks a great deal of you. I could tell you things that would turn your head. But I'm really sorry for Lucy; she's almost as lonely as I am. They say Gabriel is sure to be dealt with; I'm told there is no other way out of it. Have you two heard anything?" Margaret and Nan shook their heads, but gestures of that kind were not at all satisfactory to Miss Polly. "They say that little Cephas was sent down to prepare Gabriel for the worst. But I didn't say a word about that to Lucy, and if you two girls go there, you must be very careful not to drop a word about it. Lucy is getting old, and she can't bear up under trouble as she used to could. She has aged wonderfully in the past few weeks. Don't you think so, Nan?"
She held up her ear-trumpet as she spoke, and Nan made a great pretence of yelling into it, though not a sound issued from her lips. Miss Polly frowned. "Don't talk so loud, my dear; you will make people think I'm a great deal deafer than I am. But you always would yell at me, though I have asked you a dozen times to speak only in ordinary tones. Well, I don't agree with you about Lucy. She has broken terribly since Gabriel was carried off; she is not the same woman, she takes no interest in affairs at all. I told her a piece of astonishing news, and she paid no more attention to it than if she hadn't heard it; and she didn't use to be that way. Well, we all have our troubles, and you two will have yours when you grow a little older. That is one thing of which there is always enough left to go around. The supply is never exhausted."
After delivering this truism, Miss Polly waved her turkey-tail fan as majestically as she knew how, and went toddling along home. Miss Polly was a kind-hearted woman, but she couldn't resist the inclination to gossip and tattle. Her tattle did no harm, for her weakness was well advertised in that community; but, unfortunately, her deafness had made her both suspicious and irritable. When in company, for instance, she insisted on feeling that people were talking about her when the conversation was not carried on loud enough for her to hear the sound of the voices, if not the substance of what was said, and she had a way of turning to the one closest at hand, with the remark, "They should have better manners than to talk of the afflictions of an old woman, for it is not at all certain that they will escape." Naturally this would call out a protest on the part of all present, whereupon Miss Polly would shake her head, and remark that she was not as deaf as many people supposed; that, in fact, there were days when she could hear almost as well as she heard before the affliction overtook her.
"I wonder," said Nan, whose curiosity was always ready to be aroused, "what piece of astonishing news Miss Polly has been telling Grandmother Lumsden. Perhaps she has told her of the events of the morning at Mr. Tomlin's."
"That is absurd, Nan," Margaret declared. "Still, it would make no difference to me. He was the only person that I ever wanted to hide my feelings from. I never so much as dreamed that he could care for me—and, oh, Nan! suppose that he should be pretending simply to please me!"
"You goose!" cried Nan. "Whoever heard of that man pretending, or trying to deceive any one? If he was a young man, now, it would be different."
"Not with all young men," Margaret asserted. "There is Gabriel Tolliver—I don't believe he would deceive any one."
"Oh, Gabriel—but why do you mention Gabriel?"
"Because his eyes are so beautiful and honest," answered Margaret.
But Nan tossed her head; she would never believe anything good about Gabriel unless she said it herself—or thought it, for she could think hundreds, yes, thousands, of things about Gabriel that she wouldn't dare to breathe aloud, even though there was no living soul within a hundred miles. And that fact needn't make Gabriel feel so awfully proud, for there were other persons and things she could think about.
Ah, well! love is such a restless, suspicious thing, such an irritating, foolish, freakish, solemn affair, that it is not surprising the two young women were somewhat afraid of it when they found themselves in its clutches.