Chapter 7

MARGERY.

Carson, with his usual amiable smile, came jauntily along the path, looking directly at Mallow and the Rector. He appeared to be amazed at the white and perturbed face of the latter, but, ignoring it, he held out his left hand in greeting to Laurence.

"Good morning," he said pleasantly. "I see you are an early bird like myself. I have been accustomed to rise at dawn in India, and to drop old habits is difficult, is it not? Yes?"

"India?" gasped the Rector, before Mallow could reply. "Do you come from India?"

"Yes. I arrived in England only a few weeks ago."

"Your name is Carson?"

"Angus Carson, at your service;" and the young man clicked his heels and bowed.

"The son of my old friend, Alfred Carson?" pursued the Rector, who was recovering his self-control somewhat.

"Yes. Are you Mr. Brock? Are you my father's friend? Yes?"

"I am," said the other, in a voice of emotion. "Ah! no wonder I felt queer when I saw your face. It was as if the dead were come to life."

"I am supposed to be very like my father," returned Carson, easily. "I don't wonder you were startled. My dear father often spoke to me of your devotion to him."

"Yes, yes; poor Alfred!" The Rector seated himself on a flat tombstone and fought down his natural feelings. "I wish I had known you were here, Angus; your great resemblance to your father has given me a shock. I feel ill--I--I feel very ill."

"Shall I go to the rectory and fetch you some brandy?" said Mallow, who was sorry for the old man.

"If--if you would be so kind," muttered Mr. Brock, burying his face in his handkerchief. "Poor Alfred!"--and his emotion again overcame him. Carson stood by and looked sympathetically on at this proof of a long-remembered friendship; but he made no remark, until Laurence returned from his errand.

"Thank you, Mr. Mallow; you are most kind," said Brock, gratefully, as he swallowed the brandy.

"Believe me, I am sorry my sudden appearance should have so alarmed you," said Carson, politely. "Did you know that I was coming to this place? No?"

"Certainly, I was aware of it," answered the Rector, in a stronger voice, "for Miss Slarge read me a letter from Mrs. Purcell. I also saw the communication you addressed to Olive from Bombay, advising her of your coming. But I have been absent, and I returned only last night; and the sight of your face--your extraordinary resemblance to your father--startled me not a little."

"Such emotion is natural," said Mallow; "the more so as you were so attached to Mr. Carson."

Mr. Brock rose and sighed. "He was my dearest friend," he said sadly; "and even thirty years have not banished his memory from my heart. I feel like a father to you, Angus--you must permit me to call you Angus?"

"I beg of you to do so," answered the young man, gracefully, giving his left hand to the Rector. "Who should do so, if not you, the oldest friend of my father, and the guardian of my dearest Olive."

Mallow bit his lip, and turned away to conceal his anger, for after all, being engaged to her, the man had every right to speak of Olive in affectionate terms. Angus, who had long since discovered that the Irishman was his rival, smiled blandly at this exhibition--for it did not escape him--of jealousy. But he had sufficient discretion to make no remark. With an inclusive nod to both men, Laurence walked away, and his feelings on climbing the hill on his way home were anything but enviable. He felt that fate was dealing hardly by him.

"Have you hurt your hand?" asked Brock, when the unnecessary third person had vanished through the gate.

"Yes, many months ago while shooting," replied Carson. "Indeed, it was this hand that detained me from paying my respects to Olive and yourself earlier. I arrived on the twenty-fourth of last month, and intended coming here at once; but my hand was so painful that I waited in London to see a surgeon about it."

"Where did you stay?" asked the Rector.

"With my friend, Major Semberry, in St. James's Street. Semberry took rooms there, and I made it my home. Indeed, my luggage is there at the present moment."

"St. James's Street!"

"Yes; that is, a little street off it--Duke Street, I believe it is called, No. 80B."

"No. 80B, Duke Street, St. James's," repeated Brock, slowly. "The first address you gave me was somewhat misleading."

"My ignorance of social customs in your large city," replied Mr. Carson, with a charming smile. "I am quite a barbarian, am I not? Yes?"

"Indeed, no; if Olive is not pleased with you she will be hard to satisfy."

"I think she likes me, Mr. Brock, but she does not love me."

"Oh, love is a matter of custom with young girls. You will gain it sooner or later--if not before marriage, then afterwards."

"I fear Olive has no love to give me," said Carson, shaking his head. "It is my impression that she has already given her heart to that gentleman who has just left us."

"To Mallow? Nonsense. She looks upon him as a friend."

"As a very dear friend, don't you think? Yes?"

"That may be," rejoined Mr. Brock, gravely. "She has known him for many years, for Mallow lived here a considerable time as tutor to Lord Aldean. But I am sure Olive is not the girl to disregard her father's dying wish. She will become your wife, Angus; be sure of that."

"I shall endeavour to deserve my good fortune, Mr. Brock."

"By the way, Angus, did your father send no message to me?"

"He spoke of you kindly and tenderly on his death-bed," replied Angus, gently; "but he sent no message."

"He gave you no letter for me?"

"None. Had he done so, I would have sent it on to you."

"I suppose he told you about our early friendship?"

"Well, no; he spoke always of you with affection, yet he gave me no details of your association with him."

"Yet Bellairs and I were his nearest and dearest," sighed the Rector; "but I should not complain. A man might forget many things in thirty years. Poor Alfred!--he was one of the best men I ever knew. I hope you will try to emulate his virtues, Angus."

"I shall do my best, Mr. Brock," said Carson, glancing at his watch. "It is getting near breakfast-time. I must return to the Manor House."

"No," said the Rector, taking the young man by the arm. "I cannot so readily part with the son of my old friend, who brings back all my youth to me. You must breakfast with me."

This invitation did not appear to please Carson over much, and he would fain have declined it, but the Rector was peremptory; so, in the end, he accepted. Mr. Brock was pleased, and showed his pleasure.

"I am a bachelor," he said, showing his young friend the way through the quick-set hedge; "but I have an excellent housekeeper and an admirable cook. You shall have a good breakfast, Angus."

"Well, sir, I bring a good appetite," answered Carson; and, arm-in-arm with his father's old associate, he passed into the rectory grounds, making himself as agreeable as he knew how.

Mr. Brock became rejuvenated in the presence of his old friend's son, and questioned the young man closely concerning the dead-and-gone companion of his youth. It was a merry breakfast enough in one way; yet in another it was sad. In the hereafter it afforded Mr. Brock much food for reflection. But, if a man will be so rash as to raise the ghost of a dead past, he cannot expect to be other than melancholy.

Honest enough to avow that his suspicions concerning Carson had proved baseless, Mallow was not patient or amiable enough to discuss the matter with Aldean. After a short explanation Laurence passed on to more agreeable subjects, and his friend was in no way unwilling to leave unprofitable argument for pleasant conversation. The Irishman concealed his disappointment, and, deciding that there was little sense in crying over spilt milk, made himself as entertaining as possible. He enjoyed his meal with Aldean, after which--in completion of his cure, as Mallow put it--they rode together. Returning late in the afternoon, they came upon the residence of Dr. Drabble. A slatternly-looking dwelling it was, on the outskirts of the village. Here Laurence announced his intention of paying a visit to the doctor's wife. Aldean expressed himself agreeable. He liked the doctor's children infinitely better than he liked the doctor. Beckoning two small boys to hold their horses, they went up to the door.

"As untidy as ever, I see," remarked Laurence, as they walked up an overgrown brick path, through a wilderness of neglected flower-shrubs.

Aldean shrugged his shoulders. "What can you expect?" he said. "The doctor is one of your world-reformers, who sweeps every doorstep but his own. Reformation never begins at home with these fanatics--more's the pity."

Had Mrs. Drabble heard this last statement she would probably have endorsed it. She was a weary-looking, white-faced woman, worn out with family cares and domestic worries. Seven children, one servant, and a neglectful and exacting husband, were enough to account for her aspect. The room into which the visitors were shown was as untidy as the garden, and Mrs. Drabble was as untidy as the room. She gave her hand to Lord Aldean with a wan smile, and greeted Mallow with an apologetic air.

"For, indeed, I am quite ashamed that you should find us in such a state," she complained languidly; "but I have so much to do that I can do nothing."

The epigram was, if unintentional, none the less true. The poor, weak head of this domestic martyr was literally dazed by the constant abuse of her neglectful husband and the burden of her clamorous children.

That Mrs. Drabble was a byeword in Casterwell for untidiness was not altogether her fault. In truth, she possessed neither the strength nor the capability necessary to reduce her domestic chaos to something like order. A more helpless, hopeless creature never lived. She had been a pretty girl enough when she had married Drabble, and that would-be reformer was largely, if not entirely, the cause of her degeneration.

"And how is my young friend Margery?" asked Aldean, who had known Mrs. Drabble and her household ever since he was a small boy in petticoats.

"Oh, Margery is well enough," sighed Mrs. Drabble (she naturally took a despondent view of life). "Her brain is too big for her body, and lately she has taken to writing poetry. As if that would help one? Then there is Cade, and Brutus, and Danton--all of them growing boys, who eat enormously and spoil their clothes dreadfully. I'm sure I often wish their father was more of a parent and less of a Radical," finished the poor lady. "I can't do everything; it's not to be expected--nobody can deny that."

A crowd of children--all named after notorious Republicans--at that moment surged past the sitting-room door, which would not shut. Giggling and whispering, they appeared and disappeared like rabbits in and out of their burrows. Shortly Margaret, the eldest, tripped into the room, and shook hands with precocious composure. She was a pretty little girl of some twelve years, with a nobly-formed head, a profusion of curly reddish hair, a complexion of cream, and dreamy grey eyes. Altogether a noticeable child. She already displayed considerable brain power, and, indeed, she was the only one of his children in whom Dr. Drabble took the smallest interest. The display of his affection took the form of inculcating her with pernicious Anarchistic doctrines, the meaning of which the poor child, intelligent as she was, was quite at a loss to understand. As Hamilcar made his son take an oath of eternal hatred for Rome, so did Dr. Drabble instil into his small daughter a detestation of the world and the world's social system. Poor little Margery innocently piped diatribes which would have done credit to the hags of the Revolution.

"Well, Margery Daw," said Mallow kindly, "have you forgotten who I am?"

"Oh no," answered the child in her pleasantly low voice, "you are the gentleman Olive is so fond of."

Lord Aldean laughed, Mallow coloured, and Mrs. Drabble, much shocked, apologized for her daughter's candour.

"But indeed she is such a sharp little thing that there is no keeping anything from her," wailed Mrs. Drabble; "and the doctor, I am sorry to say, tells her many things that a child should not hear."

"I am a Red Anarchist, like father," announced Margery, proudly. "We intend to make everybody equal."

"Do you, indeed?" laughed Aldean, drawing the child to his knee. "And what is to be done with me?"

"You are to be called Mr. Aldean, and made to work."

"You will indeed be clever if you can make Mr. Aldean work, Margery," said Mallow, smiling. "I have never been successful so far."

"Please excuse her, Lord Aldean," said the shocked Mrs. Drabble. "It is her father who puts these ideas into her head. Margery, how can you?"

"Oh, we all know that the doctor is working for the social millennium, Mrs. Drabble; the time when there will be neither rich nor poor, and we shall all practise communism."

"I'm sure I wish the doctor would practise his profession, Lord Aldean. But Mr. Dyke, that new man, gets all his best cases, whilst he is constantly in London working for the cause. As if preaching in Trafalgar Square is of any use to me. I never know the day when he may be in gaol; and then what shall I do with these seven children?"

"I'll support us all with my poetry, mother," said Margery, grandly.

"Poetry!" said Mallow, laughing. "And pray what kind of poetry do you write, young lady?"

"The poetry of Revolt; that is what father calls it;" and Margery, stretching out a lean arm, proceeded to recite these terrible lines:--

"Tyrants tremble in your beds,
We shall cut off all your heads,
Take your money and your land,
And as freemen take our stand;
This is not a foolish gabble,
But the word of Margery Drabble."

The young men roared, both at the poetry and the fierce attitude of the child.

"You are quite a Revolutionist, Margery," said Aldean, "and a poetess to boot. E. B. Browning; Sappho in a Phrygian cap, eh?"

The little girl shook her red curls. "I aspire to be like Louise Michel," she said solemnly, "the noblest of all women."

"Wouldn't you rather grow up like Miss Bellairs," said Mallow, persuasively.

"Ah!" groaned Mrs. Drabble, dismally, "where are the education and money to come from?"

"I love Olive. I am very fond of Olive," said Margery judiciously, "but I do not approve of her choice of a husband."

"Don't you indeed," laughed Mallow.

"No. I have advised her to marry either you or Lord Aldean."

"Margery, Margery, do not be so pert."

"I am not pert, mother, I am a Thinker."

"With a large T," said Aldean, rising. "Well, Margery, you must come and see me soon, and we will ravage the orchards."

"Apples, strawberries, peaches--oh my!" cried Margery, a child for the nonce, "I should like to have as many as I could eat."

"Well, I dare say we can satisfy even your appetite. Come soon, and bring us some more poetry with you. Mr. Mallow and I must be going now. There, dear, you won't refuse that, will you?" and he slipped a half-sovereign into the child's hand.

"No," replied Margery the Communist. "'What's yours is mine'--father says so--but thank you very much, Mr. Aldean."

"Lord Aldean, Margery," corrected her mother.

"Father says there are no lords, mother; this is plain Mr. Aldean."

"There is a reflection on your lordship's good looks," said Mallow. "Well, Margery, when you begin cutting off heads, I hope you will spare us, eh?"

"Fear not," said Margery, dramatically; "I'll stand by you in the day of trial."