"No, you cannot, thank you. For Mr Rowland's sake, no one must be by; and none of you can testify to the facts. No; leave me alone. By this time to-morrow night it will be done. What knock is that? No one ever knocks on my account. Surely it cannot be your servant already. It is only now half-past eight."

"I promised Hester I would go home early."

"She cannot want you half so much as I do. Stay another hour."

Margaret could not. Hester made a point of her returning at this time.

When the cloaking and final chat were done, and Margaret was at the door, Maria called her. Margaret came skipping back to hear her friend's whisper.

"How is your wretchedness, Margaret?"

"How is yours?" was Margaret's reply.

"Much better. The disburdening of it is a great comfort."

"And the pain--the aching?"

"Oh, never mind that!"

Margaret shook her head; she could not but mind it--but wish that she could take it upon herself sometimes. She had often thought lately, that she should rather enjoy a few weeks of Maria's pain, as an alternative to the woe under which she had been suffering; but this, if she could have tried the experiment, she would probably have found to be a mistake. When she saw her friend cover her eyes with her hand, as if for a listless hour of solitude, she felt that she had been wrong in yielding to her sister's jealousy of her being so much with Maria; and she resolved that, next time, Maria should appoint the hour for her return home.

When Maria was thus covering her eyes with her hand, she was thinking--"Now, half this task is over. The other half to-morrow--and then the consequences!"

When Margaret entered the drawing-room at home, where her brother was reading aloud to Hester, he exclaimed--

"We beat all Deerbrook for early visiting, I think. Here are you home; and I dare say Mr Tucker has still another pipe to smoke, and the wine is not mulled yet at the Jameses."

"It is quite time Margaret was giving us a little of her company, I am sure," said Hester. "You forget how early she went. If it was not for the school, I think she and Maria would spend all their time together.

I have every wish not to interfere: but I cannot think that this friendship has made Maria less selfish."

"It would, I dare say, my dear, but that there was no selfishness to begin upon. I am afraid she is very unwell, Margaret?"

"In much pain, I fear."

"I will go and see if I can do her any good. You can glance over what we have read, and I shall be back in a quarter of an hour, to go on with it."

"I wonder you left Maria, if she is so poorly."

"I determined that I would not, another time; but this time I had promised."

"Pray, do not make out that I am any restraint upon your intercourse with Maria. And yet--it is not quite fair to say that, either."

"I do not think it is quite fair."

"But you should warn me--you should tell me, if I ask anything unreasonable. When are you going again? An old patient of my husband's has sent us a quarter of a chest of very fine oranges. We will carry Maria a basketful of oranges to-morrow."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

LONG WALKS.

The unhappy are indisposed to employment: all active occupations are wearisome and disgusting in prospect, at a time when everything, life itself, is full of weariness and disgust. Yet the unhappy must be employed, or they will go mad. Comparatively blessed are they, if they are set in families, where claims and duties abound, and cannot be escaped. In the pressure of business there is present safety and ultimate relief. Harder is the lot of those who have few necessary occupations, enforced by other claims than their own harmlessness and profitableness. Reading often fails. Now and then it may beguile; but much oftener the attention is languid, the thoughts wander, and a.s.sociations with the subject of grief are awakened. Women who find that reading will not do, will obtain no relief from sewing. Sewing is pleasant enough in moderation to those whose minds are at ease the while; but it is an employment which is trying to the nerves when long continued, at the best; and nothing can be worse for the hara.s.sed, and for those who want to escape from themselves. Writing is bad. The pen hangs idly suspended over the paper, or the sad thoughts that are alive within write themselves down. The safest and best of all occupations for such sufferers as are fit for it, is intercourse with young children. An infant might beguile Satan and his peers the day after they were couched on the lake of fire, if the love of children chanced to linger amidst the ruins of their angelic nature. Next to this comes honest, genuine acquaintanceship among the poor; not mere charity-visiting, grounded on soup-tickets and blankets, but intercourse of mind, with real mutual interest between the parties. Gardening is excellent, because it unites bodily exertion with a sufficient engagement of the faculties, while sweet, compa.s.sionate Nature is ministering cure in every sprouting leaf and scented blossom, and beckoning sleep to draw nigh, and be ready to follow up her benignant work. Walking is good,--not stepping from shop to shop, or from neighbour to neighbour; but stretching out far into the country, to the freshest fields, and the highest ridges, and the quietest lanes.

However sullen the imagination may have been among its griefs at home, here it cheers up and smiles. However listless the limbs may have been when sustaining a too heavy heart, here they are braced, and the lagging gait becomes buoyant again. However perverse the memory may have been in presenting all that was agonising, and insisting only on what cannot be retrieved, here it is first disregarded, and then it sleeps and the sleep of the memory is the day in Paradise to the unhappy. The mere breathing of the cool wind on the face in the commonest highway, is rest and comfort which must be felt at such times to be believed. It is disbelieved in the shortest intervals between its seasons of enjoyment: and every time the sufferer has resolution to go forth to meet it, it penetrates to the very heart in glad surprise. The fields are better still; for there is the lark to fill up the hours with mirthful music; or, at worst, the robin and flocks of fieldfares, to show that the hardest day has its life and hilarity. But the calmest region is the upland, where human life is spread out beneath the bodily eye, where the mind roves from the peasant's nest to the spiry town, from the school-house to the churchyard, from the diminished team in the patch of fallow, or the fisherman's boat in the cove, to the viaduct that spans the valley, or the fleet that glides ghost-like on the horizon. This is the perch where the spirit plumes its ruffled and drooping wines, and makes ready to let itself down any wind that Heaven may send.

No doubt Margaret found the benefit of exercise, and the solitary enjoyment of the country; for, during the last few weeks, walking seemed to have become a pa.s.sion with her. Hester was almost out of patience about it, when for a moment she lost sight of what she well knew must be the cause of this strong new interest. Every doubtful morning, Margaret was at the window exploring the clouds. Every fine day she laid her watch on the table before her, impatiently waiting the approach of the hour when her brother was to come in for Hester, and when she might set off by herself, not to return till dinner-time. She became renowned in Deerbrook for the length of her excursions. The grocer had met her far out in one direction, when returning from making his purchases at the market town. The butcher had seen her in the distant fields, when he paid a visit to his grazier in the pastures. Dr Levitt had walked his horse beside her in the lane which formed the limit of the longer of his two common rides; and many a neighbour or patient of Mr Hope's had been surprised at her declining a cast in a taxed-cart or gig, when there was only a long stretch of plain road before her, and the lanes and fields were too miry to enable her to seek any variety in them, in her way home.

These were, in fact, Margaret's times of refreshing--of practical worship. These were the times when she saw what at other moments she only repeated to herself--that all things are right, and that our personal trials derive their bitterness from our ignorance and spiritual inexperience. At these times she could not only pity all who suffered, but congratulate all who enjoyed, and could afford feelings of disinterested regard to Philip, and of complacency to Miss Bruce. She remembered that Miss Bruce was unconscious of having injured her--was possibly unaware even of her existence; and then she enjoyed the luxury of blessing her rival, and of longing for an opportunity to serve her secretly and silently, as the happy girl's innocence of all wrong towards her deserved.

Margaret's desire for a long solitary walk was as strong as ever, the day after she had visited Maria. No opportunity had occurred of speaking to her brother without alarming Hester; and she had almost determined merely to refer him to Maria, instead of telling the story herself. She should not see him again till dinner. He was gone into the country: the day was gloomy and cold, and Hester was not disposed to leave the fireside: so Margaret issued forth, with thick shoes, umbrella, and m.u.f.f--guarded against everything that might occur overhead and under foot. She had generally found hope, or at least comfort, abroad; to-day, when she ought to have been much happier, she found anxiety and fear. The thought, the very words, would incessantly recur, 'If he is not engaged to Miss Bruce, it does not follow...' Then she seriously grieved for her brother, and the troubles which she feared awaited him; and then she reproached herself with not grieving enough-- not having attention enough to spare from her own concerns. While she was walking along on the dry causeway, looking straight before her, but thinking of far other things than the high-road, she was startled by the stroke of a horse's foot against a stone close by her side, and a voice speaking almost in her ear. It was only Edward. He was going a couple of miles forward, and he brought his horse beside the raised causeway, so that they could converse as if walking together.

"There is n.o.body to overhear us, I think," said Margaret, looking round.

"I have been wanting, since yesterday evening, to speak to you alone-- about something very disagreeable, which I would not disturb Hester with. You, of course, can do as you please about telling her."

She related to him the whole story of Mrs Rowland's imputations and proceedings--her reports of the hysterics and their origin, the body-s.n.a.t.c.hing, and the cause and mode of Mrs Enderby's removal.

Margaret had always considered her brother as a man of uncommon nerve; and her surprise was therefore great at seeing him change colour as he did.

"We shall agree," said she, "that the worst of all this is, that there is some truth at the bottom part of it."

"Oh, Heavens!" thought Hope, "is it possible that Mrs Grey can have told the share she had in my marriage?" It was but a momentary fear.

Margaret went on.

"I have never hoped--I never hoped at Birmingham, and much less here-- that Hester could escape the observation of her neighbours--that her occasional agitation of spirits should not excite remark and speculation. As we are not quite whole and sound in our domestic peace--(I must speak plainly, brother, at such a time as this) I should think it would be better to take no notice of that set of imputations.

I trust we shall live them down."

"You gave me great comfort in a few words once," said Hope. "Do you remember saying, 'When the time for acting comes, see how she will act!'

You know her well, and you judge her rightly: and you will, perhaps, be the less sorry to hear that the time seems coming when we may all have to act--I scarcely see how--but against adversity."

"She will come out n.o.bly then. I fear nothing for her but too much prosperity."

"There is no fear of that, I a.s.sure you," said Hope, smiling somewhat sadly.

"You find the effect of this woman's slanders?"

"My situation has, from one cause or more, totally changed since you first knew me. It would break Hester's heart to hear what I am subjected to in the discharge of my daily business. I tell her a trifle now and then, to prepare her for what may happen; but she and you do not know a tenth part, of what is inflicted upon me."

"And what may happen?"

"I cannot see the extent of it myself: but I am losing my practice every day. No; not through any failure; not through any of the accidents which will happen in all medical practice. There are reports of such abroad, I believe; but nothing is commoner than those reports. The truth is, no patient of mine has died, or failed to do well, for an unusually long s.p.a.ce of time. The discontent with me is from other causes."

"From Mrs Rowland's tongue, I doubt not, more than from your politics."

"The ignorance of the people about us is the great evil. Without this, neither Mrs Rowland, nor any one else, could persuade them that I rob the churchyard, and vaccinate children to get patients, and draw good teeth to sell again."

"Oh, monstrous!" said Margaret, who yet could not help laughing. "You never draw teeth, do you?"

"Sometimes; but not when I can get people to go to the dentist at Blickley. Mrs Grey used to boast to you of my popularity; but I never liked it much. I had to be perpetually on the watch to avoid confidences; and you see how fast the stream is at present running the contrary way. I can hardly get on my horse now, without being insulted at my own door."

"Must you submit to all this?"