"Besides," she went on, "it is only that I am tired to-night; don"t think thatI am suffering from what you have done, dear papa. We can"t either ofus talk about it to-night, I believe," said she, finding that tears and sobswould come in spite of herself. "I had better go and take mamma up thiscup of tea. She had hers very early, when I was too busy to go to her,and I am sure she will be glad of another now."
Railroad time inexorably wrenched them away from lovely, belovedHelstone, the next morning. They were gone; they had seen the last ofthe long low parsonage home, half-covered with China-roses andpyracanthus--more homelike than ever in the morning sun that glitteredon its windows, each belonging to some well-loved room. Almostbefore they had settled themselves into the car, sent from Southamptonto fetch them to the station, they were gone away to return no more. Asting at Margaret"s heart made her strive to look out to catch the lastglimpse of the old church tower at the turn where she knew it might beseen above a wave of the forest trees; but her father remembered thistoo, and she silently acknowledged his greater right to the one windowfrom which it could be seen. She leant back and shut her eyes, and thetears welled forth, and hung glittering for an instant on the shadowingeye-lashes before rolling slowly down her cheeks, and dropping,unheeded, on her dress.
They were to stop in London all night at some quiet hotel. Poor Mrs.
Hale had cried in her way nearly all day long; and Dixon showed hersorrow by extreme crossness, and a continual irritable attempt to keepher petticoats from even touching the unconscious Mr. Hale, whom sheregarded as the origin of all this suffering.
They went through the well-known streets, past houses which they hadoften visited, past shops in which she had lounged, impatient, by heraunt"s side, while that lady was making some important andinterminable decision-nay, absolutely past acquaintances in the streets;for though the morning had been of an incalculable length to them, andthey felt as if it ought long ago to have closed in for the repose ofdarkness, it was the very busiest time of a London afternoon inNovember when they arrived there. It was long since Mrs. Hale hadbeen in London; and she roused up, almost like a child, to look abouther at the different streets, and to gaze after and exclaim at the shopsand carriages.
"Oh, there"s Harrison"s, where I bought so many of my wedding-things.
Dear! how altered! They"ve got immense plate-glass windows, largerthan Crawford"s in Southampton. Oh, and there, I declare--no, it is not-yes,it is--Margaret, we have just passed Mr. Henry Lennox. Where canhe be going, among all these shops?"
Margaret started forwards, and as quickly fell back, half-smiling atherself for the sudden motion. They were a hundred yards away by thistime; but he seemed like a relic of Helstone--he was associated with abright morning, an eventful day, and she should have liked to have seenhim, without his seeing her,--without the chance of their speaking.
The evening, without employment, passed in a room high up in anhotel, was long and heavy. Mr. Hale went out to his bookseller"s, and tocall on a friend or two. Every one they saw, either in the house or out inthe streets, appeared hurrying to some appointment, expected by, orexpecting somebody. They alone seemed strange and friendless, anddesolate. Yet within a mile, Margaret knew of house after house, whereshe for her own sake, and her mother for her aunt Shaw"s, would bewelcomed, if they came in gladness, or even in peace of mind. If theycame sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in a complicated trouble likethe present, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these houses ofintimate acquaintances, not friends. London life is too whirling and fullto admit of even an hour of that deep silence of feeling which thefriends of Job showed, when "they sat with him on the ground sevendays and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him; for they sawthat his grief was very great."
