Foolish Margaret. A novel

Front matter

FOOLISH MARGARET. % Sobtl. i;y THOMAS SPEIGHT. AUTHOR OF-BUOL-G-UT TO LIGHT.' IN THREE VOLUMES. VOLUME III. LONDON : CHARLES W. WOOD, 13, TAVISTOCK STREET, STRAND. 18B7. All rights r. PRINTED BY 3. E. TATLOB AND CO., LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN IIPLDS- CONTENTS OF VOL. III. CHAP. TAGE I. What Silas said and did I II. Trix in her New Home 24 III. A Little Cloud 11 IV. Margaret's Return 61 V. Missing 86 VI. A Friend in Need 110 VII. Eve Warriner 129 VIII. Found 150 IX. The Green Bottle on the Top Shelf . . . 171 X. Margaret and Esther 208 XI. Silas Ringe's Return 226 XII. The Reel wound up FOOLISH MAEGAEET.

Chapter I. What Silas Said And Did

The mother of Silas Ringe had been fading through the summer months, and when the cold winds of autumn set in, it was evident that she had not long to live. Esther Sarel was often with her, and to her the old woman would talk in a way that made Esther sometimes think that it did not so much matter whether one went through life as a great lady or as a poor washer woman, if only, when the end drew near, one could await its coming as cheerfully and as hopefully as did bedridden Mrs. Ringe. There had been some sort of an understanding VOL. III. s between Esther and Silas that they should be married in the course of the next spring, and visit the Great Exhibition together, at which huge toy shop Helsingham was to be represented by the sideboard carved by Silas's cunning fingers. Lat terly, however, the condition of Mrs. Ringe had been such that not a word about marriage had passed between Esther and Silas for several weeks ; but still Silas indulged his dream in silence of what next summer was to do for him, — it was to crown his love, and to render him famous.

Silas, on rising before daybreak one morning to go to work, went into his mother's room as usual to see how she was. She did not respond to his greeting with her customary " Good morning, lad." Silas bent over her with the candle, and saw, to his horror, that she was dead. She had died in the night, in silence and alone. Silas called in one or two neighbours, and then sat down to ponder over his loss, for he had loved his mother dearly. Of course, there was nothing now to hinder him from getting married next spring ; but, to do him justice, this was a thought that just then afforded him no elation. His first intention was to go up to Irongate House in the course of the morning, and tell Esther the news ; but he suddenly remembered that this was Miss Davenant's wedding-day, and that Esther was to have a new dress, and would be very busy, and full of the excitement caused by such an impor tant event.

"Poor girl!" said Silas to himself. " Her life is not such a gay one that I should spoil her pleasure to-day by being the bearer of bad news. What I have to tell will keep till 99 morning. When morning came, Silas put off his visit to Irongate House till afternoon. About eleven o'clock he went into the town to make some arrangements connected with his mother's funeral. As he was crossing a narrow bye-street, he was stopped by one of his acquaintances, a man whom Silas detested, an idle, drunken fel low who was always more intent upon his neighbours' business than his own. "Halloa! Silas," he shouted. "Thou'lt be too late to see her if thou dostn't make haste." " Too late to see whom ? I don't understand thee, Will French." " Why, see thy sweetheart, to be sure. I B thought thou was on thy way to see Esther Sarel before they took her back to prison."

" Art thou mad, or drunk, Will French ?" said Silas sternly. " What nonsense is it thon art talking ?" The man stared at Silas for a minute or two. " Dostn't thou know ? Hastn't thou heard the news ?" he gasped out. " Know what ? Heard what news ?" said Silas impatiently. "Why, about Esther Sarel. She's committed to the sessions for stealing a letter." " It's a lie — an infernal lie ! " said Silas savagely. " Is it ?" said Will French. " Well, then, I must have dreamed it : that's all. Why, man alive, it's hardly five minutes since I left the court-house, and heard old Bungay commit her. Little Dawkins found the thing out, and Stuffer fetched her from Irongate House last night in a cab, and she was put in quod till this morning, and now — Why, if he isn't off up the street as hard as he can tivy, pegging away with his game leg like one o'clock !

Talking' s dry work ; a dram wouldn't come amiss." A quarter of an hour later, Silas had heard the full details of the affair from a policeman with whom he was acquainted. All that he said when the policeman came to the end of his story was, " How can I get to see her ? I must see her." " You must get a magistrate's order," said the man in blue ; " and that won't admit you till after four o'clock." It was instinct rather than the exercise of any reasoning faculty that directed Silas towards the shop of his friend Van Nooden, the bookseller. Haggard and wild-eyed, he walked straight up to Van Nooden ; it was no time for the ordinary courtesies of society. " I want a magistrate's order to see the young woman who was committed this morning for stealing a letter," he said. " Will you get me one ?"

" I will," said the bookseller promptly, who had already heard the particulars of the case. And with that he stretched forth his hand and grasped the hand of Silas ; and Silas knew that the sympathy of one good man was with him in his trouble. Silas, utterly regardless of the business re specting which he had come out this morning, slunk back home through the outskirts of the town, as though he himself were a felon, and every eye that encountered him could see the brand. On reaching home, he shut himself up in the little outhouse at the bottom of the garden, in which was the famous sideboard, now close upon completion. He sat with his face buried in his hands, almost as immovable as one of his own carvings, till the deepening dusk of the Novem ber afternoon told him that the hour for seeing Esther was come.

" No lips but her own shall condemn her," he kept saying to himself. " If all the world should believe her guilty, and she herself told me that she was not guilty, I would believe her, and make her my wife in spite of everything." He found the order ready for him at Van Nooden's, and he walked thence to the prison like a man in a nightmare. He knocked, presented his Open Sesame, and was admitted through a little wicket, which snapped him up and shut its teeth upon him with cool indiffer ence, as though he were hardly worth the trouble of taking in. After further jingling of keys and undoing of bolts, he found himself on the inner side of a second door, and was then ushered into a great bare desolate-looking room, lighted with two flaring gas-jets, furnished with a deal table and benches, and having a set of chains and half-a-dozen ugly-looking blunderbusses by way of ornament over the fireplace.

He had not long to wait. Presently an inner door opened, and Esther Sarel stepped into the room, followed by a thin, silent, resolute-looking woman, who placed herself with her back to the door, and so stood during the interview that followed. They had not told Esther who it was that had come to see her, and with a wild glad cry of recognition she sprang forward to greet her lover. She sprang forward with outstretched arms, as though she would have nestled to his heart, and have rested her poor aching head on his breast, and have forgotten all her troubles in the light and warmth of his love. Knowing herself to be innocent, she forgot for the moment that Silas had nothing to guide him in the matter save her own confession to the contrary. She was within a yard of him, she almost f 8 FOOLISH MARGARET. touched him, when something in his face, some thing in the rigid immobility of his figure, struck a sudden chill to her heart, so that her arms fell stricken by her side : an invisible hand seemed to be interposed between them : she fell back a step or two, whispering, " Silas !"

Only a woman's faint whisper, but with such a depth of agony in it as shook Silas as a young tree is shaken by the wind. He took a moment or two to recover himself, and as his eyes met those of Esther, the thought flashed across him that he had never seen her look so beautiful be fore. She was very pale, and had large dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was unbound, and fell loosely down her shoulders. But already her face was refined and spiritualized by the fiery ordeal through which she had gone, and Silas's delicate artistic sense perceived the fact, and took intuitive note of it. There had always been a hidden fund of stern ness in the composition of the wood-carver, and he now called the whole of it to his aid to enable him to harden his heart against the influence of the pleading beautiful eyes fixed so earnestly upon him.

" Esther Sarel, how is it I find your here ?" he said. He had meant to speak very sternly, but his voice had an involuntary touch of tenderness in it. " Have you not heard, Silas ? Have they not told you for what reason I was brought here ?" " I have heard ; they have fold me," answered Silas ; " but I want to hear the story from your own lips." " " Oh, Silas, spare me !" pleaded Esther. "In deed, indeed, I cannot bear to tell it you." " I will spare you anything and everything," answered Silas sadly, " if you will only tell me th^t you are innocent." •He went a step nearer to her ; he looked at her eagerly, fondly ; but Esther's eyes fell before his, and she answered not a word. He waited a moment or two ; then he drew himself up to his full height, and gave a great sigh, and clasped one hand very tightly over the other.

" Esther Sarel, are you innocent or guilty ?" " Innocent, Silas ; innocent ! How could you believe me to be anything else ?" The last word was not out of her lips before he had her in his arms and was kissing her wildly and passionately. " Forgive me, Esther ! 0 my darling, say that you will forgive me ! They told me outside that you were guilty; that you had acknowledged yourself as guilty in open Court ; but I ought to have known better than believe their lies." He had his arms round Esther as he spoke, and was half supporting her. Her face was even paler than before, and on it there rested a faint sad smile as she listened to her lover's words. " My poor old Silas ! " she whispered ; and then she made a little moue as she had sometimes done in the happy days that seemed a hundred years ago, — sometimes, when Silas was in one of his nervous irritable moods, and she wanted to charm him back into good temper; and now, again, their lips met in a sweet lingering kiss.

Suddenly a fresh thought seemed to strike Silas. " But why are you here, Esther ?" he de manded almost fiercely, as he took his arms from round her. " What right have they to lock you up, if you are innocent ? Why are they keeping you in this place ?" " Because they believe me to be guilty, Silas. Because I confessed before them all that 1 took the letter." She felt that she was sealing her own doom in saying these words, but it was impossible any longer to hide the fact that she had acknow ledged her guilt before the magistrates. Her difficulty lay in reconciling to her lover's satisfaction the fact of her real innocence with the statement made by her in Court, and which she was still prepared to stand by at every risk. Silas's love for her might, perchance, carry him safely through the ordeal, but the hazard was a desperate one, and the chance of success infini tesimally small.

Silas stared like one petrified . " I don't rightly understand you, Esther," he said. " Say what you said just now over again." "I am here, Silas, because I confessed that I took the letter." " You confessed that you took the letter ! Why, only five minutes ago you told me you were in nocent ! What am I to believe ?" " I am innocent, Silas, and I want you to be lieve me so." " Now I understand. You were nervous and frightened in Court, and they bullied you into saying that you took the letter ; but you will tell them the truth to-morrow, and then they can't detain you any longer. Is not that so ?" " That is not so, Silas. I am innocent. I did not take the letter. I tell this to you, and to you alone. Before the world I shall abide by my false confession ; and the world will believe me guilty."

" Esther, are you mad ?" cried Silas, seizing her by the arm, aud gazing fixedly into her eyes as if looking there for some trace of insanity. " You set before me a riddle that is hard to read." " I am not mad," answered Esther sadly. " I was never more sane and sincere than I am at this moment. Oh, Silas ! you love me, and your love has made the happiness of my life. The riddle I have set before you may be hard to read ; but is not your love strong enough and deep enough to scorn the opinion of the world, even although that opinion be based on my own words, and to believe me innocent when I swear to you, and you alone, that I am so ? Is not your love strong enough to do all this ?" "Esther, I detest mystery; I hate concealments of every kind, as you know ; but show me your reasons, reveal to me your motives for this strange act, and then I shall know whether to applaud or condemn."

" My reasons are sacred, and cannot be told even to you, Silas. That they are all-sufficient you may well believe, otherwise you would not see me in this plight. Oh, Silas ! cannot you have faith in me ?" " Faith ! yes, up to a certain point. But the woman I make my wife must have no concealments from me. You must either tell me every particular of this strange affair, and allow me to judge for myself, or you and I must bid each other farewell for ever." He spoke very sternly, and when he had ended, Esther still stood before him with downcast eyes, in a sort of proud humility, neither looking up to his face nor answering him. He waited a few moments, as if expecting her to reply ; then he spoke again, more gently this time than before. " Do you not see, Esther," he said ; " cannot you understand how impossible it is for me to take as my wife a woman who has undergone a conviction for felony ? unless — mind you, I say unless — some adequate and powerful reason be furnished me, which convinces me of her inno cence, and at the same time proves to me that she had no choice left her but to act as she did act.

Furnish me with such adequate proof in the pre sent case, and I will laugh to scorn the opinion of the world, and make you my wife in spite of everything !" It was a sore temptation. She must either tell her lover everything — reveal to him who was the real culprit, and detail the reasons that had in duced her to shift the guilt on to her own shoul ders — or consent to lose him for ever. She was too well acquainted with Silas's disposition, not to feel sure that were he to know all, he would at once insist upon her stating the real facts of the case, and clearing herself in the eyes of the world ; and that if she refused to do so, he would do so for her, in spite of anything she might say to the contrary. It was, indeed, a sore temptation. On the one hand, she saw her happy married life — home, husband, children — all that, just then, seemed to make the future worth living for, slipping bodily away from her.

On the other hand, she felt that if she bought happiness at the price at which it was offered to her, it would be a happiness that would quickly turn to remorse ; that she should despise herself for ever for what she had done, and that for her life would have lost its savour. A few moments given to deep silent thought, and then her election was made. " Silas," she said very tenderly and veiy sadly, "what you have stated is quite true. It is not fit that you should take a woman with a prison-taint upon her as your wife. I cannot give you my reasons for acting as I have decided to act, and therefore, as you say, here we must part." She came a step or two nearer, and took one of his hands in both hers. "Silas," she went on, "we have loved each other very dearly, and it will be very, very hard to say farewell.

But there are worse things than a bleeding heart ; and Heaven, in time, will give peace to both of us. You will now be able to give yourself entirely to your carving, and a few years hence you will be a famous man. But you will think sometimes of your poor Esther, won't you, Silas ? And be sure of one thing, dear, that however long you may live, you will never find any one who will M love you more truly and devotedly than I have done. And now, darling, give me one last kiss, and then — farewell." Silas's lips were working convulsively, but by a great effort he mastered his emotion, and draw ing away his hand from Esther's loving grasp, he said hoarsely, " Esther Sarel, for the last time I ask you to read this riddle for me. How can you be innocent and guilty at the same time ? You have just asserted to me that you did not steal the letter ; will you make the same assertion in Court to-morrow ?"

" I cannot, Silas. In the eyes of the world I must remain guilty." " That will do," he said. " Not another word is needed. It is indeed fit that we should part. You have shattered the happiness of my life : let us hope that you are satisfied with your han diwork. No, touch me not !" he added, as Es ther tried to take his hand again. " I have loved you and cherished you. Oh, how I have loved you ! But like a viper you have turned and stung me. If I were to curse you, it would not be more than you deserve. But you will be wretched enough without that. You must go your way, and I must go mine ; but never, to my dying day, will I forgive the wrong you have done me. May your heart wither up from this hour, and may you never know what it is to be loved again ! Go ! I hate you !" He strode past her towards the door, at which the silent janitress was still standing.

" Silas !" A wild, shrill, agonizing cry that rang through the great bare room, and rang for many a weary day and night through the heart of him who heard it. He turned at the door. He saw Esther's white anguished face, and clasped hands, and straining eyes ; but all that he said was what he had said before. " Go ! I hate you !" Then he passed out into the courtyard of the gaol, and Esther fell senseless to the ground. Silas went home, to the home where lay his dead mother. How the next few days passed with him he never afterwards cared to recollect. Neighbours were kind, and under the double affliction that had fallen upon him, they took off his hands all the cares of the funeral, leaving him at liberty to brood in solitude over his own mi serable thoughts. Then came the day of the VOL. III. c funeral.

As Silas saw his mother's coffin low ered into the grave, he said to himself, " Now I am indeed alone on earth. I wish that I lay there, silent and cold, beside her !" Then with dry eyes he turned from the grave, and went back to his lonely home. Very lonely and very desolate it looked in the chill twilight of the November afternoon, and Silas shuddered as he crossed the threshold and went in. First one neighbour, and then another, came to inquire whether he was in want of anything — whether he would not go back to tea with them ; but Si las answered them out of the ghostly twilight that he needed nothing save quiet and rest, and bade each of them a kindly good-night. By-and-by he was left quite alone. The solitude seemed to deepen inside and outside the little house, and the darkness to brood over it with darker wings.

Then Silas's purpose grew strong within him. He took a bunch of keys and his hat, and went down the little garden path to the outhouse in which the sideboard was locked up. He went in, and lighted his lamp. No eye save his own would have discerned that a few last finishing touches were still needed to complete his work ; and, in truth, there was not much left to do at it. For several weeks past he had been lingering over it, elaborating, with loving, patient care, one minute point after an other, till even to his fastidious taste there seemed little left for him to alter. Every feather, every leaf, every bit of grass and weed, had been touched and retouched, so as to make the whole as close a copy of nature as the material in which he worked would admit of. The final polishing was still needed, after which it was to be exhi bited in Helsingham for a few weeks, and then packed up, preparatory to being sent to London for the Great Exhibition that was to open there in the spring of the following year.

But all Silas's hopes and plans and ambitious views were changed and broken now. There had always been something unstable and crotchety about him ; his mind seemed deficient in balance ; he was ruled too strongly by the impulses of the moment, and was wanting in foresight and decision of purpose. The love of Esther Sarel had given an element of steadfastness to his life, had lent concentration to his ambition, and shown him a clear purpose for which to strive. That c love was now broken, scattered into fragments, never to be pieced together in this world ; and Silas felt like a vessel without rudder or compass, drifting helplessly he neither knew nor cared whither. All he knew was, that he wanted to be revenged on something or somebody. A sort of blind, unreasoning fury filled his heart, which must find vent somehow, or would end in his taking his own life.

" What is the good of life ? Is there anything worth living for V he kept on asking himself; and hia heart an swered No to both questions. There was a strong nail behind the outhouse-door. If, now, he had only a bit of rope handy, he might end everything in a very short time. He smiled bit terly to himself as he thought thus, and putting his hand into his coat pocket, he brought out a piece of stout cord that might have been made for the very purpose. " How long, I wonder, will they be before they find me ? Not long, I hope," muttered Silas ; and with that he proceeded to take off his collar and cravat. Then he glanced up at the big black nail behind the door. " No fear of its giving way with me," he thought. The night was wild and eerie. The November wind piped shrilly through the denuded hedges, and tried the door and windows of the outhouse ; and its stormy lullaby suited well with the tem pest raging in Silas's heart.

He was making a slip noose in the rope with nervous, eager fin gers, afraid, apparently, lest his grim purpose might break down at the last moment, when he was startled by hearing the click of the gate at the opposite end of the garden. He stopped in his horrid task to listen. Next moment he heard the quick patter of little footsteps down the gra velled walk, and then some one kicking at the shut door. With a muttered execration he flung the rope out of sight under his work-bench, put on his coat, and opened the door. The intruder was a pretty, fair-haired girl of five, the child of a near neighbour, and an espe cial favourite with Silas when he was in his more amiable moods. " If oo please, Silas," she lisped out, " Mammy says will oo turn and have some supper ?" Silas stood like a drunken man, and stared at the child without speaking.

" What makes oo face so white, Silas ? Is it because oo mother's gone to heaven ?" With a wild exclamation, Silas stooped and seized the child in his arms, and half smothered her with kisses. " Tell thy Mammy I can't come to-night, my darling. And here's a big, bright ha'penny to put in thy money-box," and he pressed half-a-crown into the child's hand as she slid to the ground. She was hurrying off with her prize in high glee, but at the door she turned. " Sud oo like to be an angel, Silas? I sud. Dud night." Then she shut the door and went scampering up the gravel-walk, and Silas heard the click of the gate, and was again alone. He turned to the spot where he had flung his rope, and shuddered. " I cannot do it to-night," he muttered. " That child has made me feel like a fool. To-morrow I shall be my own man again, and then I'll do it," He sat down with a groan, and buried his face in his hands.

" I can't stop here," he said. " If I do, I shall go mad. With the old woman in the churchyard, and Esther in prison — ■ Curse her ! curse her !" he cried, starting up with clenched hands and frenzied eyes. " I must get away from this place — get away at once, or else I shall take to the rope, and finish myself off." He had reached the door of the shed and half opened it, when a fresh thought struck him. He went back to his sideboard and fell on his knees before it, and kissed it fondly a dozen times, and caressed it tenderly with his hands. " Good bye, darling child of my brain and fingers," he said. " Good-bye for ever ! Many happy hours have I spent in carving thee and fashioning thee to my fancy. And my Esther has praised thy beauty ; her hands have rested lovingly on thee ; her dress has touched thee.

Great Heaven ! let me get away from this before I am quite mad !" Ten minutes later, Silas Ringe was on the high-road to London. He left without a word of notice or farewell to any one.

Chapter II. Trix In Her New Home

Hugh and Trix were back from their wedding tour some weeks before Margaret's marriage. The house had been freshly painted and papered during their absence ; new carpets had been laid down, and sundry rooms entirely refurnished. The task of superintending the arrangements had been intrusted to Mrs. Sutton, who was never more in her element than when looking after workmen or servants, and seeing that what was set them to do was done thoroughly. She was quite reconciled to the marriage, and had taken wonderfully to Trix, looking upon her as a promising pupil, whom it would be a pleasure to induct into all the arts and mysteries of good housewifery. Charlotte Herne left home on a visit to some friends within a week after her introduction to Margaret and Trix at Mrs. Sutton' s, and did not return till a couple of days before the bride and bridegroom were expected back.