Nay more, he wrote a special letter commanding her to come; but she felt as if it would be a greater relief to her to remain quietly at home, entirely free from any responsibility whatever, and so to rest her mind and heart in a manner which she had not been able to do for more than two years past. When her father had driven off on his way to the railroad, Margaret felt how great and long had been the pressure on her time and her spirits. It was astonishing, almost stunning, to feel herself so much at liberty; no one depending on her for cheering care, if not for positive happiness;no invalid to plan and think for; she might be idle, and silent, and forgetful,--and what seemed worth more than all the other privileges--she might be unhappy if she liked. For months past, all her own personal cares and troubles had had to be stuffed away into a dark cupboard; but now she had leisure to take them out, and mourn over them, and study their nature, and seek the true method of subduing them into the elements of peace. All these weeks she had been conscious of their existence in a dull kind of way, though they were hidden out of sight. Now, once for all she would consider them, and appoint to each of them its right work in her life. So she sat almost motionless for hours in the drawing-room, going over the bitterness of every remembrance with an unwincing resolution. Only once she cried aloud, at the stinging thought of the faithlessness which gave birth to that abasing falsehood. She now would not even acknowledge the force of the temptation; her plans for Frederick had all failed, and the temptation lay there a dead mockery,--a mockery which had never had life in it; the lie had been so despicably foolish, seen by the light of the ensuing events, and faith in the power of truth so infinitely the greater wisdom! In her nervous agitation, she unconsciously opened a book of her father's that lay upon the table,--the words that caught her eye in it, seemed almost made for her present state of acute self-abasement:-- 'Je ne voudrois pas reprendre mon coeur en ceste sorte: meurs de honte, aveugle, impudent, traistre et desloyal a ton Dieu, et sembables choses;mais je voudrois le corriger par voye de compassion. Or sus, mon pauvre coeur, nous voila tombez dans la fosse, laquelle nous avions tant resolu d' eschapper. Ah! relevons-nous, et quittons-la pour jamais, reclamons la misericorde de Dieu, et esperons en elle qu'elle nous assistera pour desormais estre plus fermes; et remettons-nous au chemin de l'humilite.
Courage, soyons meshuy sur nos gardes, Dieu nous aydera.' 'The way of humility. Ah,' thought Margaret, 'that is what I have missed!
But courage, little heart. We will turn back, and by God's help we may find the lost path.' So she rose up, and determined at once to set to on some work which should take her out of herself. To begin with, she called in Martha, as she passed the drawing-room door in going up-stairs, and tried to find out what was below the grave, respectful, servant-like manner, which crusted over her individual character with an obedience that was almost mechanical. She found it difficult to induce Martha to speak of any of her personal interests;but at last she touched the right chord, in naming Mrs. Thornton. Martha's whole face brightened, and, on a little encouragement, out came a long story, of how her father had been in early life connected with Mrs. Thornton's husband--nay, had even been in a position to show him some kindness; what, Martha hardly knew, for it had happened when she was quite a little child;and circumstances had intervened to separate the two families until Martha was nearly grown up, when, her father having sunk lower and lower from his original occupation as clerk in a warehouse, and her mother being dead, she and her sister, to use Martha's own expression, would have been 'lost'
but for Mrs. Thornton; who sought them out, and thought for them, and cared for them. 'I had had the fever, and was but delicate; and Mrs. Thornton, and Mr.
Thornton too, they never rested till they had nursed me up in their own house, and sent me to the sea and all. The doctors said the fever was catching, but they cared none for that--only Miss Fanny, and she went a-visiting these folk that she is going to marry into. So, though she was afraid at the time, it has all ended well.' 'Miss Fanny going to be married!' exclaimed Margaret. 'Yes; and to a rich gentleman, too, only he's a deal older than she is.
His name is Watson; and his milk are somewhere out beyond Hayleigh; it's a very good marriage, for all he's got such gray hair.' At this piece of information, Margaret was silent long enough for Martha to recover her propriety, and, with it, her habitual shortness of answer.
She swept up the hearth, asked at what time she should prepare tea, and quitted the room with the same wooden face with which she had entered it.