Charles Garvice - Wild Margaret

"You are looking tired and pale," said the earl, in a gravely kind fashion.

"I am quite well, my lord," she said, standing with lowered lids under the piercing gaze of the dark-gray eyes.

"Yes, it is a very good copy," he said, returning to the picture. "I should have paid you a visit before; I have not lost my interest in art, but I have been engaged and indisposed. I have had my nephew with me," he continued, more to himself than to her – "Lord Leyton." He sighed. "You may not have seen him?"

"I have seen him, my lord," said Margaret, and for the life of her she could not help the tell-tale flush rising to her face.

His eyes rested on hers, and seemed to sink to the innermost depths of her soul.

"Have you spoken to him?" he asked, not angrily, but in the tones a judge might use.

Margaret's face grew pale again.

"I have spoken to him, my lord," she said.

The earl's face grew stern and he stood perfectly motionless, with his eyes fixed on her face.

"I am sorry for that."

"Sorry, my lord?" faltered Margaret.

"I am sorry," he repeated. "My nephew, Lord Leyton, is a wicked and unprincipled young man. He is not fit – "

"Oh, my lord!" said Margaret, all her womanly chivalry rising on behalf of the absent.

The earl looked at her, his eyes dark and severe.

"He is not fit to hold converse with such as you." Then the look of grief and surprise seemed to recall him to himself. "No matter. He has gone. It is not likely that you will see him again – "

"No, my lord," assented Margaret, with simple dignity.

"Let us say no more about him. He has nearly broken my heart; he is the one thorn in my side," he went on, notwithstanding that he had said no more should be spoken of the wicked young man. "He is a spendthrift and a gambler, and – " he stopped, suddenly. "If your work is done, permit me to walk with you on the terrace; the air is cool and inviting."

"I have finished for to-day, my lord," she said.

He went to the window and opened it wide for her, and held it open until she had passed out.

It was only to Lord Blair that he was rough and fierce.

"It is a lovely evening," he said, looking out upon the far-stretching lawns.

Margaret stood beside him in silence.

"What will you do with your Guido when you have finished it, Miss Hale?" he said, after a moment or two.

Margaret laughed softly.

"I don't know, my lord," she said at last.

"If you will sell it, I will buy it," he said.

Margaret flushed with gratification.

"I do not know its worth, but I will venture to offer you fifty pounds."

"That's a great deal too much, my lord," she said, decidedly.

"I think not," he responded, so quietly that she could say nothing else beyond "Thank you, my lord!"

"You shall paint another picture for me," he said; "not a copy this time." He paused a moment, then went on, "Choose some small piece of woodland scenery and paint it for me, if you will, Miss Hale."

"I will, my lord," said Margaret, gratefully.

Her simple response seemed to please him, and he looked at her thoughtfully, and with a sad regret. Why had not Heaven blessed him with a daughter like to this beautiful girl? was passing through his mind.

Then he said suddenly:

"You have no parents, Miss Hale?"

"No, my lord," said Margaret sadly.

"And you rely upon your own efforts?" he said gently.

"Yes," replied Margaret, "I depend entirely upon my painting, Lord Ferrers."

"It is not an ignoble dependence," said the stately old man. "You are happy in being able to rely upon yourself. And you delight in your work?"

"I am fonder of it than anything else, my lord," said Margaret, with a smile.

The earl paced toward the broad steps that lead from the terrace to the gardens, and Margaret, feeling that she must not go until she was dismissed, walked by his side.

At a turn in the path he stopped short.

"I must leave you now," he said. "Good-bye! Perhaps, some day, you will be kind enough to give me your company in another stroll. You will not forget the picture?"

"Oh, no, my lord," said Margaret, dropping a courtesy.

The earl paced slowly to his own apartments, and entering the library, sat down before the great carved writing-table.

For half an hour he sat musing.

"So young, so innocent, so much at the mercy of the cold, cruel world. Depends upon her art! Poor child, a frail dependence! Why should I not? I am rich beyond calculation, as they tell me. Why should I not do one act of common kindness, and make my money of some use to one deserving it? Hitherto it has passed, through Blair's hands to blacklegs and scoundrels."

He drew the paper toward him and took up the pen with an air of resolution and wrote a note to Messrs. Tyler & Driver, the family solicitors.

"Gentlemen," he wrote, "add a codicil to my will, bequeathing five thousand pounds to Margaret Hale, the granddaughter of Mrs. Hale, who acts as the Court housekeeper.

It was an important letter for Margaret, but it bore upon her future to an extent far greater than would be inferred even by the gift of so large a sum of money.

It was only when she had left the earl that Margaret noticed how kind and gracious he had been. He had not only bought the copy of the Guido, and commissioned another picture of her, but had walked by her side and smiled upon her, treating her almost as an equal, with a gentleness and deference indeed which seemed to indicate that he thought her a superior.

"I'll go into the woods and find a subject at once," she said to herself. "And it shall be my very best picture, or – I'll know the reason why. No wonder people are fond of lords and ladies, if they are all like the great Earl of Ferrers."

No doubt, if she had known the contents of the letter he had just written to Messrs. Tyler & Driver, she would have thought still more highly of him.

She had a sketch-block and pencil in her hand, and she went through to the woods that fringed the Court lawns on three sides.

They were lovely woods: there was no more beautiful place in England than Leyton Court, and Margaret almost forgot the purpose for which she had come, as she sat in a little bushy dell, through which ran a tiny stream, tumbling in silvery cascades over the bowlders rounded by the hand of Time.

But presently, when she had drank deep of its beauty, she began to make a sketch of the dell.

What a lucky girl she was! The possessor of the silver medal, an exhibitor in the Academy, and now commissioned by no less a personage than the Earl of Ferrers.

"I shall be really famous if I go on like this," she said to herself, with a soft laugh.

Then the laugh died out on her lips, for, with a sudden spring, a young man reached the rock she was at that moment sketching, and from it dropped to her side.

It was Lord Leyton.

Margaret was so startled that she let the sketch-block fall from her hand, and sat looking at him, with the color slowly fading from her face. She had succeeded in forgetting him for a short hour or two, and here he was at her side again.

And Lord Blair assuredly looked, if not startled, pale and haggard.

For the last two days, since he had left Margaret, overwhelmed by his passionate outburst, he had been living after his wildest and most reckless fashion, and two days of such dissipation and sleeplessness, added to passion, tell even upon such perfect physical specimens of humanity as Blair Leyton.

"Lord Leyton!" she said at last.

He picked up her sketch-block, but held it, still looking at her.

"I've frightened you," he said, remorsefully; "I – I am a brute. I did not know you were here until I jumped upon that stone, when I was close upon you."