Two Daughters of One Race

Chapter I

A STRIP of coast in the extreme north-west of sea-girdled England, lying in warm ruggedness beneath the smile of a summer sun. Under this the sea dimples and twinkles as if it never knew the wild trouble of surge and storm ; and the little waves run up the beach with the advancing tide, wetting the faces of the pebbles, which twinkle and smile also. Rocky boulders strew the shore, fallen at some distant period from the cliff above ; up the face of which, precipitous though not over high, a narrow and steep footpath, looking better fitted for the mountain sheep than for the tread of man, leads to the upper level of moor, rolling purple and dun to the knees of the inland hills. The coast is desolate enough for a wilder country than our populous island ; and the farmhouse above the cliff must be a lonely abode for its inhabitants, if they have any yearning for the B multitudinous voice of the great world, and ears attuned to this rather than to the murmur of waves and the cry of seagulls.

A busier life and its storms had swept over Robert Haig, the owner, before the time of which I write; and he seemed sternly content to let it go by without him, and shelter his fallen fortunes and a certain recollection of burning dishonour in this lonely spot, the cradle of his yeoman race. The Edge farmhouse was grey with age and lichens ; very primitive in its design and appointments, and propping itself at one end against an older structure still, a border tower or fortalice, built of stone, the massive walls of which seemed to defy decay, and on the landward side boasted a green mantle of ivy. The lower storeys were lighted only by arrow slits ; but a spiral stair led up to one habitable room aloft, with a small lattice window looking seaward over the cliff; and here Haig occasionally slept when farming business was likely to call him abroad betimes, in the lambing and other seasons.

An iron studded door was the sole entrance to the tower, opening direct upon the moorland ; the garden enclosure surrounded the house only on the other side. This garden, of old fashioned borders enclosing the vegetable plots, was a favourite care of Margaret Haig ; the flowers seemed to love her and bloom their best to please her, and the storms that would now and again lay them low, were a real grief to their gentle mistress. In the midst of the long, low house was the front door, seldom opened to visitors, as comers and goers preferred the handier kitchen entrance from the farmyard. A latticed window to the left of it lighted the great house-place, running long and low across more than half its width, and filled with a row of pots containing Margaret's nursling plants, put there to benefit by its shelter and the western sun.

Walls dark with oak panelling, and ceiling, crossed with heavy beams sustaining the great bacon-rack and many pendant hams. A long table scrubbed white, and a dresser shining with pewter and blue dels ; a vast fireplace, on one side of which was the oaken settle, and on the other a curious primitive arm-chair, rush-seated and painted green — Haig's throne, of which he was generally left the undisturbed possessor. From the house-place opened a large unused room on the tower side, and two parlours : a small one to the south-east, very homely, but made cheerful by the tokens of frequent use. A great chair and couch covered with faded chintz, and a cushioned seat in the deep window, which looked on a narrow paved footway, shut in by a low wall from the straw-yard and its encircling barns and cow-sheds.

The best parlour was to the north-west, and further from the tower : a large room with windows looking seawards, orderly and prim, but very bare ; a strip of drugget occupying the centre of the dark oak floor, and chairs of old mahogany ranged with careful precision against the wall. A centre table, also of mahogany ; a smaller one against the wall, with a few books piled together, as if apologetic of their presence at all in so sacred an apartment. In the middle of the centre table, however, on an island of mat, was a huge bowl of rare china full of Margaret's rose leaves, cunningly mixed with spice. Dairy, back-kitchen and brewhouse occupied the further line of roofing ; and a staircase shut in with a door led to the upper regions, where more than half the rooms were untenanted ; some empty and echoing on occasional entrance, others stored with disused furniture, chests, and the debris accumulated by a century or two of hoarding.

Here Margaret loved to dream, turning over the clothes of bygone fashion, handling the spinning wheel and distaff ; and with a touch of remembered affection, the broken toys in the quaint oak cradle that had sheltered her babyhood. Her own room was at the southern end of the house, where it touched the tower ; and being at the extreme end of the passage, crossed it from front to back, with a window westwards, and another looking on to the strawyard and barn. It was a long, narrow strip of a room, with a high wooden wainscot painted blue, and corner cupboard to match ; the bare walls above washed with a paler tint. Margaret's girlish fancy had embellished it with all the small adornments she could gather together or invent ; and some hanging shelves were filled with her mother's books, collected here partly from love of them, and partly because the sight of them below stairs would often awaken pain and anger.

Romances many of them, with keepsakes and annuals ; a few volumes of poetry, bearing the initials of the donor ; old lesson books, French grammars and reading books, history, geography, and what not, in the Pinnock's Catechism style. Her little bed was pushed against the wall beside the western window, and a big elbow chair stood on the hearth seldom cheered by a fire — bedroom fires being unknown, except in case of sickness. Two vacant chambers separated Margaret's bower from the red room, sacred to Aunt Lois ; at the opposite end was the apartment Robert Haig occupied when neither whim nor occupation induced him to resort to his primitive lodging in the tower. The one farm-servant slept in an attic over the brewhouse. Outside, on the summer morning of which I have spoken, the warm sunshine was gilding the old place with a beauty of its own, and flattering the grey walls with a warmer tint.

On the steep roof the pigeons were promenading with small red feet, pluming and attitudinising in the welcome heat. Presently into the brightness comes a fairer vision ; a girl of seventeen or eighteen, fresh as the morning, and the bearer of a wide corn measure. She steps into the green croft outside the strawyard, lifting her voice in a musical call to the waiting poultry, which presently assemble from all quarters in undignified haste and eagerness, pushing and jostling their fellows in the primitive care for self, while Margaret scatters the morning meal around them and on their backs. The pigeons fly down to add to the crowd ; and for them some special handfuls are thrown a little apart. This is one of Margaret's favourite tasks, and she lingers over it, smiling well amused ; and not seeing that she has been followed from the house by an elderly man, stern of aspect and sinewy of frame suggestive of iron strength and enduring energy, despite his more than seventy years.

There is no fatherly indulgence or affection in his eyes as they fall upon Margaret ; if there is kindness in his heart for his near kinswoman, other and harsher feelings have pushed it well into the background. " Go to your Aunt Lois," he says, " and tell her I am going over the moors to Garthwaite, to see for myself about that hay I am offered in exchange. I shall not be back till supper-time, and shall probably be late for that." So saying, and scolding back the colley that would fain have followed him, he passed out of the further gate of the croft, following the cart road. As he strides over the lonely track, his eyes scan ning " moor and fell," rest upon them with no appreciation of their beauty; busy thought reigning within, and his brows knitting themselves into their usual stern frown, like a double gash between the brows, which approach each other too nearly in a grizzled line.

I should like this man to stand visible to the mind of the reader as to mine, for he is uncommon in character and history ; and it seems to me that the body which shelters the spirit bears always something of its stamp, trans lateable to the observer. A high, narrow head and large features, fine and regular in form in his youth, but now sunken and made gaunt by years and many lines of care ; grey hair that had once been brown, and was still abundant and bushy ; face clean shaven, and mouth drawn at the corners, looking as if it had long forgotten smiles. Born at the Edge Farm, the second son and youngest child of a family of three, he was early sent into the world to fight its battle on his own account ; perhaps the earlier that he was little amenable to parental control, and given to fits of sullen rebel lion that disturbed the family peace.

He had a passionate affection for the grey farmhouse and lonely moors ; but the inheritance was not for him, but for his elder brother, a complete contrast to him in disposition. In process of time he was transferred from W to Greenock, to the employ of a large shipping owner; and worked himself upward by steady perseverance and fair natural ability to a position of trust and the receipt of a good salary. During these years his communication with home was through his sister Lois, and she had twice made the journey by sea to visit him ; the chief events of her life. She was living at the farm as house mistress for her elder brother, as the father and mother were now dead and laid to rest in the little churchyard on the moor. Robert Haig was upwards of thirty years old before he met his fate, and his long-restrained and passionate nature burst forth into the fervour of a first love.

The object one would have thought to the last degree unlikely to attract him, as well as unsuitable as a partner — a delicate, refined girl, the orphan daughter of an English clergyman, left penniless to fight the world in the capacity of governess, for which an only moderate education had fitted her but poorly. Helen Lister taught the children of Haig's employer, and suffered much bullying at their hands, being altogether too gentle and timid to keep in check those riotous spirits — less evil-disposed than utterly thoughtless for others, and on whom a jovial and rather coarse mother had little influence for good. Robert Haig's position brought him into rather frequent contact with this family; and he watched Helen's servitude, at first with pity and indignation, and then with that warmer feeling to which pity is said to be akin.

He startled the girl unspeakably by his offer of marriage, which she at first declined, though with the tenderness of gratitude. Robert, however, had learnt to persevere, and by no means abandoned his intention ; and at last Helen flew to his arms, in distress at her mistress's arbitrary dis missal, and accepted the home he offered her, little as it realised her girlish dreams. She knew dimly that her husband was a man of limited education and narrow views ; but he had the merit of a passionate affection for herself, and she had been so long without love that her heart gratefully expanded to its influence. The two years which followed were the happiest of Robert Haig's life, and had Helen lived there is no doubt he would have been a different man ; love was teaching him gentleness, and the better side of his nature was developing fast in the genial atmosphere of home.

A little girl was born to them, and over this new treasure the delight and happiness of the young mother were exquisite. Then, alas ! came on this small household the shadow of an awful death — a light dress, worn carelessly by an unshielded fire, and a night and a day of such suffering that hope had no place, and the only prayer could be for a speedy release. I think, if Helen suffered, every pang was double in her husband's heart ; and with her death his better self died and was buried. The little daughter, unconscious in her cradle, could be no solace to the lonely man left to battle with his grief and fierce rebellion against God. His friends were fewer than ever, for during her short married life Helen had shrunk from associating with the people of her husband's class ; not from any pride of birth, but simply because she had not sufficient in common with any of them to form the basis of real friendship.

And Robert cared nothing for any society but hers. It was in these early days of utter desolation that letters arrived acquainting him that his brother's death intestate had left him owner of the Edge Farm. A pale glimmer of hope for the future was awakened in his breast ; he yearned for the Cumbrian home and the solitude of the moors ; and those finer threads did not exist in him that might have knit him to Helen's grave, and the little house about which the perfume of her presence might still linger. No ; the only picture it called up was one of unforgotten pain ; and he was eager in severing all connection with Greenock, and setting sail for the English seaport nearest to the Edge. A haggard man, prematurely grey, he crossed the familiar threshold that he had left as a boy, full of sullen anger at the fiat of exile that had gone forth against him.

Little Margaret, folded in a plaid, was in his arms ; and it was with the nearest approach to peace of heart that he had known for weeks, that he gave her up to the weeping Lois, and sank down into his father's chair, looking round at the well-remembered walls of the old house-place, on which side by side with the modern fowling-piece hung the steel breast plate, barret-cap and pike of an earlier age. Now7 for Lois Haig began a brighter life. Some two or three years older than her stern brother, she had always regarded him with affection ; but it was not his companionship that cheered her lot, but that of the little child given to her empty arms. The charge was a joy to the lonely woman, far more than a care, in those childish years when Margaret was all her own. Robert loved the child too, and would often silently watch her ; but his habit of settled melancholy — his occasional harshness, and absence of all tender demonstra tion, made him an object of fear rather than love to the little girl ; and Lois knew nothing of the tender wiles by which a wife and mother might have drawn the two into closer union.

But when Margaret reached her thirteenth year troubles began. It was a fixed idea of Robert's that his child should be made "a lady" of, as Helen would have wished ; he could afford to have her taught accomplishments and " schooling," therefore he opposed her initiation into the farmhouse work that Lois loved, and over which it was her daily habit to be diligent ; and exerted his authority to send her to an " establishment for young ladies " in Carlisle, under the shadow of the cathedral, and the wing of clerical patronage. Margaret was broken-hearted at first at this separation from her home, and Lois deeply indignant ; not that she grudged Margaret a tittle of advantage, but she was strong in her view that the best upbringing for this daughter of the Edge Farm was that which had been the lot of her predecessors ; and any departure from the former lines was of necessity a grievous error, and harmful to the girl.

Because this form of education was hardly successful in Margaret's case, I must not be understood as wholly condemning school life for girls ; for some it may be wholesome and advantageous, but much depends on natural disposition, and much upon the character of school ; and know, dear reader, that girls' schools in the earlier half of this century differed widely from what they have since become. Margaret was not unhappy when her first tears were dried ; and though she used to return at Christmas and Midsummer, somewhat pale and thin from the meagre diet and prim discipline, she liked her companions and the small class emulations, and was followed by the mistress's praises for " deportment and diligence." Robert fondly thought his girl was growing like her mother ; and though he said little, even to her, of her progress and acquirements, he nevertheless cherished a certain pride in both.

But to Lois's perceptions, quickened probably by prejudice, Mar garet was altering, and not for the better. Sundry small affectations and reserves were building up a barrier between them which it was not possible to overstep, and a pseudo-refinement made her shrink with increasing disgust from the homely life and surroundings at the Edge. Far dearer to her than Lois's warm but perhaps rather arbitrary affection, were the school-missish gossip and confidences, the Arden Lodge standard of the proper and the genteel ; and dearer than all, the contraband romances smuggled into the bare dormitories, and her broodings over the ideal hero of her dreams. At seventeen Margaret was "finished," and came home to the grey farmhouse, for which she had a great though secret disgust. Robert bought a piano for her — in those days no trifling expense — and its puckered red silk front, gathered into a rose of mother-of-pearl, was a grand innovation in the stiff north parlour.

There Margaret sat in lonely elegance, bending over impossible wool work creations in her frame, or copying long extracts from her favourite poets on to the tinted leaves of her album. Lois chafed at the waste of time, as she considered it, and tried hard to rouse her nursling to a more active life ; but the girl had her father to back her, and his anger, when on rare occasions she had been induced to soil her hands with household work, silenced Lois's objections. I would not have you think that Margaret was heartless, however ; far down under the veneer of fine-ladyism and gentility a naturally warm heart still beat, only for the time its affections and impulses were dormant, smothered by the artificial growth above. But the awakening of that heart was near at hand, though its affection was to be poured into a new channel.

One autumn day, as Robert was walking home across the moor by an unfrequented track, he overtook a man limping painfully along, with enforced halts and face whitened with suffering. His inquiry drew forth the stranger's story of a walking tour undertaken in the Lake district; and how in striking across country from Ennerdale to the coast he had missed his way, and stumbling over a hidden boulder in the heather had inflicted a severe sprain on his ankle. He showed his injured foot, with boot cut to relieve the swelling, and ineffectually bound up with strips of handkerchief. Haig at once pressed on him the hospitality of the farm, by a mile or so the nearest dwelling; and with the help of his arm the stranger managed to reach it, but only to faint away as soon as he was seated in the green chair in the house-place.

Great was the alarm of Lois and Margaret ; but after rather a long interval he recovered con sciousness ; pain and exhaustion had altogether overcome his strength, at best not great ; and the original damage to the ankle had been greatly increased by the effort to reach help and shelter. He was a man of a few years over thirty, but looked younger than his age ; slenderly built and dark-haired, with a pair of wonderful grey eyes, that at times would darken into positive blackness. Women admired him always, and had combined to spoil him from early youth ; he was less cor dially liked by his own sex, who thought his ultrarefinement bordered on effeminacy. Still, he was a fair rider and excellent shot, as well as artist and musician ; and his frame, slight as it was, was of full stature. His name he told them was Herbert Fane- Renshaw, and his errand in Cumberland to sketch and make studies of the mountain scenery ; he had carried through all his disasters his large sketch book, a silver-cornered portfolio of unusual appearance, and further decorated with his initials and griffin crest.

Haig was surgeon enough to bind the injured foot ; and then, Lois and the servant having meanwhile prepared an upstairs chamber, Mr. Fane-Renshaw was supported to it with great difficulty, and to a bed that he did not leave for two days. It was in a secret whirl of excitement that Margaret that night sought her pillow ; the stranger's sudden appearance was in itself a romance ; and he might well have sat for the portrait of the hero of her dreams. Not one of the Arden Lodge school friends had been placed in such a thrilling situation, and designs of becoming nurse and ministrant to the wounded guest floated through b s brain, and banished sleep. But for the next day or two she saw nothing of her hero ; Lois was head nurse and in command of the sick room, and it would not have suited her ideas that Margaret should enter it.

At the end of that time Renshaw grew impatient of restraint, and would rise and dress, and with the aid of a stick limp downstairs. He was installed, of course, in the best parlour ; and then Margaret's opportunities began ; Lois being far too much occupied to play chaperone and duenna, and Haig troubling him self little about the guest with whom he had nothing in common. Renshaw had hardly noticed Margaret that first evening, in his over-mastering pain and faintness ; but now his artistic fancy was captivated by her beauty, and his vanity titillated by her shy worship and admiration of himself. Much did he marvel to find so fair a flower blooming in the grey homestead ; and in the delightful excitement of this new interest, Margaret was at her best and sweetest, the old affectations and indolences put away.

Renshaw decided that his ankle might take its time in getting well ; it was certainly the prudent course not to hurry it, and in this his host and hostess fully concurred. So he sent for his portmanteau from the Penrith hotel, and a fortnight slipped by very pleasantly ; on wings of light to Margaret, who day by day was giving her heart away more and more entirely, and with less and less disguise. He played and sang to her, and corrected and encouraged her musical c efforts ; he drew for her and guided her pencil, and made many studies of the charming face and figure for a portrait to be given to her father ; he read aloud to her from her favourite poets, and gifts arrived of other volumes to add to her store. They were one morning in the best parlour, as usual, when something interrupted the flow of the lecture — some sentiment of the poet struck too keenly on their own hearts, after that bygone and memorable instance.

I think neither of them knew how it happened — Renshaw suddenly threw restraint to the winds, and the words of love were spoken, and Margaret had faltered on his breast only too happy a consent. Then in what an elysium of bliss she found herself as the betrothed wife of her idol ! And though Renshaw impressed on her the necessity of keeping their pledge a profound secret between themselves, her conscience did not trouble her about the deception — as, was not this quite the usual thing in her romances ? And he had pleaded the old story of rich relatives holding the purse-strings, and expectations and future to be blighted were an imprudent marriage to be known. Renshaw was far less happy at the turn things had taken. He had drifted with the stream of his inclination, without deliberate intention of evil ; and now he found what had begun as an amusement, had altered for him into the deepest earnest his nature was capable of.

He loved Margaret well enough at this time to have made her his wife before the world, with all her disadvantages of obscure birth ; but, alas ! there was an insurmount able obstacle in the shape of a Mrs. Fane-Ren shaw already enthroned in his home, little as she had ever reigned in his heart. He knew that duty and honour called him to confess all, and leave Margaret for ever ; but no, he could not, would not give her up. So it came about that when he left the Edge, he had planned a private marriage in London and a winter in the Riviera, whither he was in reality ordered for health ; and Margaret should accompany him under an assumed name, his supposed wife, which she should really believe herself to be. Margaret consented to this without hesitation, though with a pang at the complete separation from her father and Lois, which he im pressed on her was needful ; and their farewells left her bound to leave her home and join him at a given signal.

Whether his intention was ever to undeceive her as to her true position, I cannot say. I think he hardly faced that question to himself, but left the future to shape events as it might. So one moonlight night in late October, Mar garet stole from the home she was never to see again ; and with some tears and a heart fluttering with alarm and joy, sped to the appointed spot, where her lover waited with a dog-cart and powerful horse, impatiently watching for her approach. I need not dwell on the journey to London, throughout which she was treated with the most tender respect. It was a shock on her arrival to find their wedding could not be in a church ; but Renshaw assured her that his arrangements were made with every attention to legality, as well as the necessary secrecy. She was taken to the rooms of a confidential friend, who had assumed orders for the nonce at Renshaw's request, and the marriage service was read over them, and marriage ring placed on her finger. The next day they left for the Riviera, and Margaret found herself in a land of flowers.

Chapter II

The Edge household was astir at the usual early hour the morning after Margaret's flight, but her absence was not discovered immediately. It was not an uncommon thing for her to keep late hours; and Haig had set out on his morning rounds, and Lois had finished her own meal, before she thought of sending the farm-girl to tell Margaret to hasten down for the coffee kept warm for her at the fire. The girl went, but returned open-mouthed with the intelligence that Miss Margaret was not in her room, and the bed had not been slept in all night. Lois hastened upstairs with a dreadful foreboding of evil, and the room as she entered it, struck chill as a death-chamber to her trembling senses. Margaret's few possessions were scattered about, as if a hasty selection had been made among them for her flight ; and a letter was fastened to the pin cushion in front of the small toilet-glass.

This was directed to her father in the fine Italian hand he had been so proud for her to acquire ; and Lois took it down, and waited with inexpressible sinking of heart for Haig's return. He was quickly summoned, for the servant had flown out at once with that craving to impart bad news which distinguishes her class ; and finding a willing audience among the farm helpers, had despatched one of them in quest of her master. He came in white and silent with excess of feeling, to stand before Lois, who faltered out the story of the discovery, and tendered the unopened letter- Haig tore open the sealed paper, and read — " Dear Father and Aunt Lois, — Forgive me that I am going away, but it is to be a happy wife to one who loves me clearly, and who I am proud to love. Do not try to follow me, for it will be no use : I am going across the sea.

You must always think of me as happy, though says" (a name erased) " it will be a long time — years perhaps — before I can write to you or see you again ; but by-and-by we shall be rich, and it will be all right. We are to be married to morrow. " I have not meant to be an undutiful daughter, but one gives up everything for love. " Margaret Helen Haig." Then Haig burst forth with blazing eyes : " Who has taken my child ? What do you know of this ? Why have you not watched her better ? " Lois was overwhelmed with the reproach in the midst of her grief, but found voice to answer him : " I knew of nothing, saw nothing ; she never told me of any lover. Think you it was any one at Carlisle ? or is it that artist stranger you picked up on the moor ? " " Renshaw ? They were a good deal together. Had he been an honest man he would have asked me for her.