Margaret Capel, vol. 3

The Trevors had for some time been in possession of Ashdale. They were very nice people, and already extremely popular with the neighbours. They were particularly civil to Margaret, took care to call upon her and to invite her, and to express a great deal of pleasure in her intended marriage. They little knew that they owed to Margaret's forbearance the estate they were now enjoying; for a word from her would have caused Mr. Grey to alter again, before his death, the distribution of his property; and they rather grudged her the ten thousand pounds which her uncle did bequeath to her—for very nice people are sometimes niggardly in their ideas; they thought her own ten thousand pounds ample for a single woman, and now that she was about to make a grand marriage, it was still less needful to her; but as no means occurred to them of getting this money back again, they contented themselves with feeling the injury, and with fixing on little Richard, as the one of their children who would be sure to have had it, if Margaret had not robbed him of it.

But there were little private family feelings, which these nice people took care to keep to themselves. They were invited to the breakfast, very reluctantly, on the part of Harriet; who superintended everything, and who hated them because they happened to have five very plain children.

"Don't tell me, Uncle Gage, that it is not their fault!" she exclaimed, when Captain Gage ventured to remonstrate with her for her dislike. "Good people, always have handsome children. Your children were all handsome!"

Captain Gage was silenced by this logical inference, "his children were good looking, he must confess."

"Little sinners!" cried Harriet, "I'll have them all five to the breakfast, that I may make them ill for a fortnight. I know they are greedy by the look of them. I know they will eat as long as I choose to stuff them."

And little Mrs. Trevor, when she yielded to Harriet's earnest entreaties, that the five darlings should see the wedding and appear at the breakfast, little thought of the fate in store for them.

Harriet was now in the very midst of business, to the great contentment of her unquiet spirit. She assumed the direction of every thing; as Elizabeth was not in spirits to take an active share in such matters. But Harriet was in her element, inviting the company and arranging the breakfast, and holding secret committees, with Captain Gage.

And then the trousseau. She was a Queen among milliners and ladies' maids; and samples of gowns and bonnets. Her taste was admirable and most imperative; she would not allow an opinion but her own on the subject. Not a silk could be decided upon, unless she approved the colour; not a bonnet, unless she pronounced the shape to be faultless. Margaret submitted passively to all her directions, and bade Mrs. Mason to be equally submissive. This was difficult, because then Mrs. Thompson began to triumph over Mrs. Mason, and to intrude her advice upon matters with which, as Mrs. Mason said, she had nothing to do.

Then Harriet selected the bridesmaids, which was a matter of some nicety. She meant to have had six; but as she insisted upon their all being handsome, she soon found herself obliged to limit the number to four.

Whenever Mr. Gage was within hearing, she took care to regret over and over again that the untoward circumstance of her own marriage prevented her from offering herself in that capacity.

"You see," said Mr. Gage to Margaret, on occasion of one of these attacks, "what you are to expect; when you have been married six months, you will wish yourself single, that you may be bridesmaid to some of your friends."

"No, she will not!" cried Harriet, "you don't see the difference. Do you think, if I had married dear Mr. Haveloc, I should now wish I was single?"

Mr. Gage laughed, and said "that altered the case, he had no doubt; but people with a very little imagination might conjecture the degree of peace that would have been enjoyed by both parties, if Harriet had married 'dear Mr. Haveloc.'"

However, though she was not married to him; she enjoyed the great satisfaction of teazing him to her heart's content. She would come in with a solemn face, and assure him that his lawyer had died suddenly, and the settlements must be transferred into other hands; that his coach-maker had absconded, and he must send elsewhere for his carriage; or that Margaret was up-stairs ill with the influenza, and the doctor was sure it would prove a very tedious attack.

This was the last time she succeeded in mystifying him, for before she had finished speaking, he rushed past her, and up the stairs in search of Margaret, whom he met quietly coming down, in perfect health. Harriet declared that a very affecting meeting took place on the staircase, and made Captain Gage laugh very much with her account of it; but she could not get Mr. Haveloc to believe any more of her provoking tales.

But she could not let him entirely alone. She affirmed that with regard to ladies' dress, he had one single idea, an idèe fixe, which she was anxious to reason him out of.

This idea was a perfect mania for shawls. He presented Margaret with one costly shawl after another, till Harriet said, it was plain he thought ladies' dress consisted of nothing else; and she vowed, that Margaret should go to church on the day, clothed in every single shawl he had ever given her. And then she would draw such a lively picture of Margaret's appearance in this singular costume, as would set every one present laughing.

Then she was always alluding to Mr. Humphries, though this was partly to plague Margaret. She would mention the songs Mr. Humphries liked, and she would sing them of an evening with a great deal of pathos, directing the expression particularly to Margaret. If she happened to wear any thing particularly pretty, she would ask if it was not something of that sort that Mr. Humphries used to admire so much?

Mr. Haveloc was not of a more curious disposition than men in general, but it was natural he should wish to know why Harriet laid so much stress on this Mr. Humphries, and why Margaret should always colour when she did so.

Mr. Gage, who was present one evening when Harriet made one of these allusions, told him that Humphries was a country squire, who lived near Mr. Singleton; a good sort of man, whom he believed Miss Capel had refused when she was at Singleton Manor; that the poor fellow had a large property, but really was such a boor, that you could not be surprised at any woman refusing him.

Fortunately Harriet did not overhear this explanation, or she would have little thanked Mr. Gage for interfering with her concerns.

Mr. Casement was a good deal at Chirke Weston. He came sometimes on business, with Mr. Haveloc, but much more often because he had no where else to bestow himself.

He took an amazing fancy to Mrs. Gage, and, to Margaret's surprise, she seemed equally pleased with his society. He made Margaret very angry by saying the first morning he called, "I say, little woman, what a famous match Bessy Gaze will be for me now. I little thought she would have such an estate as Sherleigh, when I first engaged her for my second."

But when he repeated this jest to Elizabeth, she did not seem at all ruffled; she merely hoped that she should never have any more serious pretenders to her estate than Mr. Casement.

But the old man certainly admired Harriet the most. If she was not in the way when he called, he always asked where that handsome woman, Mrs. Gage was? And if she was in the garden, he would stand at the window watching her movements, and pointing out to Margaret how well she walked.

For Harriet, who darted about like lightening when she was in a hurry, walked with all the slow and undulating grace of a Spanish woman. Harriet used to question Mr. Casement very minutely respecting Margaret's early acquaintance with Mr. Haveloc.

"I advised the match, in the first instance," said Mr. Casement, "I told old Grey, (you did not know Grey, a worthy old soul, he left me a thousand pounds) I told Grey, that if he made up a match between his ward and Miss Peggy, he would be rid of the trouble of her."

"Then he made the match?" inquired Harriet.

"Not he! Grey was a child in such affairs. Miss Peggy was shy; Master Claude was sulky, and nothing came of it for a long time."

"And how did they understand each other?" asked Harriet.

"Why that, to tell you the truth, I don't know. I believe he hung so long about the house, that Master Grey asked him his intentions. And then, you know, the young man was obliged to speak out."

"But, then, Mr. Casement, what put it off so long?"

"Ah! that I can't tell exactly; but I suppose it was Master Claude's temper. He is a dreadful temper. Besides, he went off with a married woman in Italy."

"But that was before this affair," said Harriet.

"Was it? I don't know. I am rather sorry for Miss Peggy; she is a well-behaved little girl, upon the whole; but as people brew, so they must bake. Some people say that old Grey turned him out of the house, and would not hear of the match. I know this, that I caught him one evening making love; and the next day he was off. But old Grey was very close, in some things: he had his secrets. He rather wished her to marry Hubert Gage."

There was one thing in which Mr. Casement and Harriet cordially sympathised. He hated the Trevors.

"Nice people, ah! very nice, indeed," he exclaimed. "Everybody speaks well of them; 'so much the worse,' as the man says, in the 'School for Scandal.' A mean family, depend on it. A very attached couple; attached, because they have one interest in common; to scrape and save every farthing they can lay their hands upon. And the children; straggling all over Ashdale, and spoiling the furniture. Poor old Grey never liked children. 'I like 'em when they grow old enough to talk to,' he used to say. I will tell you when I like 'em—never! I should like to see Trevor begging about the streets, like a Manchester weaver, with his five children behind him."

When Harriet confided to Mr. Casement how she meant to serve the five children at the breakfast, his delight knew no bounds.

"Have 'em! cram 'em! the avaricious little villains!" he exclaimed. "Have them all, down to the stuffed pillow case on two legs, that they call baby! See, if I don't do 'em a good turn. I'll drown 'em in sack! I'll make 'em all drunk, or my name is not Roger Casement!"

And Mr. Casement, when the time came was as good as his word.

Lady d'Eyncourt, Margaret and Harriet, were walking on the lawn beneath the broad light of the harvest moon. It was the evening before the marriage.

"Do feel nervous, little one, please," said Harriet; "I can't bear heroines. Do be frightened! I assure you, I tremble for you. He is a fire eater—your Mr. Haveloc."

"You will make her nervous, Harriet," said Elizabeth, gently.

"I tell you what, Margaret," said Harriet, "I hope you and Mr. Haveloc, will not turn too religious, that is all. I expect, when I come to Tynebrook, to find you grown into two old hermits, with beards down to your waists."

"Pray exempt me from the beard, Harriet," said Margaret smiling.

"I say, the next time you go to Tynebrook church, you will think of your first visit," said Harriet.

"Do not remind me of it, Harriet."

"What a number of little lies you did tell," exclaimed Harriet; "but I suppose it is natural, is it not, Bessy?"

"Do you remember whether I told many during my noviciate?"

"Oh! a great many, Harriet."

"I will call you out, child! Why, what in the world can Mr. Haveloc want with us? To go and sign the settlements? I am quite agreeable. I assure you, Margaret, I signed my own death-warrant in a fine flowing hand, that will prove to future ages how valiant I was."

Margaret signed hers too steadily, Harriet thought. She crept near her at the last signature, and gave her arm such a push, as sent her pen across the parchment. Just to keep up appearances, Harriet told Mr. Haveloc, and to make people believe she felt some little regret at the very unguarded step she was about to take.

Elizabeth, being still in weeds, did not go to church with Margaret. Every one was delighted with the delicate, and faultless beauty of the bride when she appeared, looking radiant in her white lace and orange blossoms. Even Harriet was contented with the numerous cortége that she had contrived to assemble in honour of the occasion.

Lady d'Eyncourt was the first to welcome Margaret and wish her joy, when Mr. Haveloc led her back into the drawing-room, calm—silent—with just a few tears upon her blushing cheek.

"But I dare not ask, that your lot may be as happy as mine," she whispered, "lest it should be as brief."

"Ah, I could die now!" said Margaret, as she rested her head on Elizabeth's shoulder—feeling as Othello did; and as all those who feel deeply, must sometimes feel, in this unstable world.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Lady d'Eyncourt, stood together at the window watching the carriage which bore away Mr. and Mrs. Haveloc.

"I have not a fear for her," said Elizabeth, turning to her companion, "hers was a love match, and I have no faith in any other."

"Nor I," returned Mrs. Fitzpatrick with a smile.

"For Love is Lord of Truth and Loyalty,Lifting himself out of the lowly dust,In golden plumes up to the purest sky."THE END