CHAPTER X.

MARGARET AGAIN A WANDERER.

Heavily passed the days of Margaret Walsingham, having, as we know, that

secret apprehension on her mind which the vision of the battle-field had

cast, and waiting with sick anxiety for news from the war, which might

explain to her what that vision might mean.

Heavily pass the days, and October's brown era came sighing down to

strip the trees.

Lady Juliana was having her last ball at Hautville Park before her

visitors should throng back to the city for the opening season, and for

the second time she insisted upon her companion being present. She was

so determined to have her way that Margaret had perforce to obey, all

unconscious of the trap which was making ready for her. The mighty rooms

of the chateau glittered with a thousand wax tapers; garlands of richest

flowers festooned the walls; bewildering strains of music intoxicated

the senses.

My lady, the loveliest being there, shimmered about here and there, the

beauty of the ball, the adored of half the gentlemen.

Miss Walsingham, seeing no reason why she should be among the revelers,

when her heart was so heavy with cares for the last of the Brands, soon

glided into a small Saracenic cloister, which was lighted dimly by a

single iron lamp, and from it watched with wistful and still tender

interest the fairy-like figure of her Lady Julie.

She had not been there a quarter of an hour, when the Duke of Piermont,

passing through hurriedly, as if late for some engagement, caught sight

of her, and stopped short before her.

"My dear Miss Walsingham! To see you among us is a pleasure indeed.

You'll waltz with me?"

"I am strictly a spectator, your grace--thanks."

"What! Not even walk through the Polonaise with me? Well, I shall

forswear the mazes also. Will you come to the conservatory? I think

there is some amazing flower of Lady Juliana's out--blooms once in a

hundred years or so. Come and see it."

"I think that your presence is expected in the ball-room. Lieutenant

Falconcourt has been dispatched to seek for you."

His grace glanced at his tablets and frowned.

"Too late to keep my promise now," he muttered, "so I may as well follow

my own inclinations. I shall remain conveniently invisible, with your

permission, Miss Walsingham."

"Your grace must not count upon my permission."

"Hulloa!" cried a voice "Cousin Julie is on the tenterhooks of

impatience for you, Piermont. You are too late to open the ball with

her. Oh, do I see Miss Walsingham?"

Lieutenant Falconcourt joined the pair with looks of curiosity, and

rendered his respects to my lady's companion.

"Remain here a few moments, while I see Lady Juliana," said the young

duke, hurriedly pressing her hand.

In a moment he was gone, and Harry Falconcourt was in his place by her

side.

"My dear Miss Walsingham," he said, half gayly, but with a slight

appearance of anxiety in his manner, which did not escape her notice,

"do you know that you have cast a spell over our duke, which he seems

inclined to wear under the very eyes of my Cousin Julie?"

"You cannot surely mean----"

"He is perfectly bewitched; and as I know you are quite unconscious of

it, I fore warn you."

Margaret sat silent for some time, plunged in an uneasy reverie. This

thing gave her a disagreeable shock for which she was not prepared. She

inwardly reviewed her position at Hautville Park, and a cold chill of

disappointment crept into her heart.

Must she leave her giddy darling, Lady Julie?

"I cannot believe it--I will not!" she exclaimed, with momentary fire.

"His grace is not so foolish as to intend this thing. You exaggerate his

emotions in regard to me."

The fairy-like form of my lady floated past the draperied door on the

arm of Piermont, and as she passed, her eyes sought the pair in the

cloister with visible triumph; then she turned to his grace again.

"You see," said Margaret, eagerly clinging to the first straw of hope,

"they perfectly understand each other, and your warning is superfluous."

Falconcourt smiled, but dropped the subject, and applied himself with

considerable relish to the task of entertaining my lady's companion.

As long as she could see his grace, the duke, and Lady Juliana amicably

promenading, or revolving in each other's arms, she spoke well and

admirably, but the instant that they parted, she became quite

_distrait_, and nervously dreaded the appearance of the duke.

So agitated did she become with this threatened return before her eyes,

that her face became white as chalk and her tones husky and indistinct.

"Excuse me if I leave you," she said, at last, desperately.

"I may return, if I overcome this faintness."

She had just sufficient strength to slip through the outer door, of the

cloister into the cool hall, and to make her way to a balcony, where

night breezes swept crisply over her, and the upper edge of the round,

red moon smote her face with the glow of one of Raphael's angels.

There she stood, gazing down upon the dark trees, her heart a chaos of

troubled reverie.

"On the first of September, at the battle of Chantilly, it is feared."

Voices of men in eager colloquy; two figures lounging on the terrace

steps beneath.

"Where did you see it?"

"In the last _War Gazette_--Colonel Brand's company almost cut to

pieces, and the colonel killed.

"Poor fellow! Do they know it here?"

Margaret turned and walked with a steady step to her own room, stabbed

through the heart with this sudden dagger.

On the first of September!

The tidal swell of memory broke over her reeling senses with a dull

admonition of something more dreadful than death.

It was not a gallant death in the midst of battle she had to mourn; it

was not a brave end to a brilliant day of heroism. No--by the murk of

that ghastly vision, by the shadow of the skulker among the dead, it was

murder!

Late at night she was disturbed in her chamber by a visit from her Lady

Julie.

"I want to say a few words to you, Miss Walsingham."

Margaret looked at the flushed face, the unsmiling lips, with wonder.

"I have been listening to an extraordinary list of your perfections from

the Duke of Piermont," she commenced, trembling, "and I find from the

intimate terms in which he mentions you, that you are no strangers to

each other. As I never anticipated the possibility of being rivaled by

my companion, I wish you distinctly to understand that I intend to brook

no intermeddling of any one of that class. You came between me and my

betrothed before, and drove him to his death; you shall not mar my

prospects again for want of a distinct understanding on the subject. If

I had known that Miss Blair was the woman who had come into possession

of St. Udo Brand's property, no inducement would have betrayed me into

taking her as my companion, and thus laying myself open to her

machinations a second time."

"Lady Julie," said Margaret, whose face had grown terribly pale, "I am

not worthy of these ungenerous imputations. Reconsider what you have

said and treat me more justly."

"Did I bring you here to be my mentor?" cried my lady. "Did I ever

suppose that you could meddle with my destiny? Here is the Duke of

Piermont, who was ready to kiss my foot-prints, openly setting me aside

and searching for a woman who acts as my private attendant or companion,

and raving over her perfections. Have I employed you here to be my

rival, Miss Walsingham? Have I set you over myself?"

She stood confessed at last; her grudging and jealous soul looked forth

from her sapphire eyes, and recognized Margaret Walsingham as her mental

superior, and consequently her enemy.

No twinges of gratitude deterred her from her jealous rage; no love,

begot by her patient Margaret's goodness and devotion, stirred her

small, chill heart.

The spiteful blow was struck upon the woman who had saved her life.

"As long as I could be a solace or a help to you, Lady Julie," faltered

Margaret, pale as death, "I wished for no greater happiness than to be

with you, and to serve you faithfully, _faithfully_, my lady, whatever

you may in your anger say; but now, I see that my influence has passed

away, and my duty is to leave you."

"You leave too late," cried my lady, tauntingly. "You have caught your

fish and can afford to leave the fish-pond now, I suppose. Really, I

think it no bad thing for a sea-captain's daughter to become the Duchess

of Piermont and the mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste."

"Lady Julie! Lady Julie!" cried Margaret, turning away with an

unutterable heart-pang, "I have loved you well, and should not be

treated thus. I desire to be neither the wife of the Duke of Piermont

nor the mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste."

She opened her wardrobe and began, with trembling hands, to array

herself in her bonnet and cloak, and to arrange a few things in her

small travelling-bag, tears dripping slowly all the time.

"What are you going to do?" sneered my lady, watching her movements with

incredulity.

"To go away--to find another home, Lady Julie."

"What! so suddenly? Without bidding his grace farewell? How cruel of

Miss Walsingham to treat her enamored admirer so."

Margaret took no further notice of my lady, but hastened her movements

toward departure.

"Had you not better wait till the morning?" said Lady Juliana,

fretfully, "and see my father before you go? Or are you anxious to go in

this absurd manner so that you may blason to the whole world how badly I

have treated you?"

"This interview is safe with me," said Margaret, turning on the stairs;

"and you may smooth over my departure as you please."

"And where is Bignetta to send your boxes, and where is my father to

send your salary?"

"To the Lambeth express office until I send for them. Farewell, my

lady."

With a sigh in which there was no bitter resentment, though her injuries

had not been slight, poor Margaret Walsingham flitted down the silent

staircase, and, heedless of the servants, who were putting out the

lights, and who stared curiously at her, she went out into the park.

The night wind moaned drearily among the stately trees; a Brazilian bird

in my lord's aviary uttered a piercing shriek of warning, as a hoarse

baying of a hound broke from the kennels.

Down by the gray stone fountain, where a laughing naiad flung jets of

water from her golden comb, Margaret turned back and looked upon my

lady's lighted windows as Eve looked upon guarded Paradise.

How she had filled her whole heart and fed her boundless love with this

girl.

Was it Heaven's will that all whom she loved should sting her thus? She

was a waif sent wandering through a world which shrank from her as if

Cain's mark burned upon her brow?

So Margaret Walsingham turned again and drifted down into the world

which had never a beating pulse for her, and went to find--she knew not

where--a place to work in, a sphere to fill, a duty to perform.

She was friendless, and heart-hungered, and despitefully wronged; but

God was her keeper.

* * * * *

Poor Margaret had been travelling about from place to place for the past

fortnight, in the vain hope of finding a situation.

Her money had leaked away somewhere--there were plenty who were quite

willing to rid her of the scant burden, and now, as she looked into her

purse, she found but one silver-piece upon which to exist through as

much of the murky future as her anxious eyes could pierce.

The Marquis of Ducie, with the prodigality of a great mind, had been

pleased to send the sum of five pounds to the Lambeth express office for

Miss Walsingham, with the promise of a payment at some future time of

what salary was still due.

The five pounds had weathered fourteen days of traveling, extortion, and

inexperience, but it had come to its last shilling now, and Margaret was

desperately in earnest as she held the lean purse in her hand and asked

herself the question, "What shall I do now?"

She looked about the smoky houses, and down at the broad river, where

the forest of masts bristled between her and the dappled horizon.

She wandered down to one of the docks, and seating herself upon a coil

of rope, gazed absently at the green-tinged water below. Poor Margaret's

heart was so absorbed in her musings, that she did not notice that the

man who was stumbling over a length of tarry chain, in his eagerness to

reach her, was his grace, the Duke of Piermont.