Chapter V: Brighter Days for Margaretta

MRS. MOFFAT took no second charge. Margaretta was her only pupil, and it is just probable that the letter which moved Lady Longridge to decide so quickly was not really intended to be acted upon, though the writer was thoroughly in earnest in making the offer.

What a little paradise Clough Cottage was to Margaretta, after the bare, comfortless rooms to which she was accustomed at Northbrook! How delightful it was to be addressed in terms such as her mother used in old days, and to find that this charming, cultured woman, to whose care she was consigned, was ready to open her heart to sympathise with a girl so untaught, as she now felt herself to be in comparison.

Mrs. Moffat wanted a young creature to love, and to whom she might impart a share of the mental treasures to which she was daily adding. She made a study of Margaretta, as a mother studies the nature of a child whom, by God's help, she aspires to mould into a noble woman. She won the girl's heart—that was an easy matter. She won her confidence, and used the knowledge she gained of the girl's inner nature to give her wise advice and lead her in the right way. How it touched Mrs. Moffat to receive the girl's communications, to know that little secret about the two humble friends who called her "Meg," when no one was at hand to overhear! And how she rejoiced that, despite the difference in their social position, these two friends, Thorley and the little seamstress, were not unwisely chosen, but deserved the name!

"I should never have known you but for Nelly Corry; and oh, how happy you have made me!" said Margaretta, as she held Mrs. Moffat's hand in her own, and caressed it from time to time in her childish fashion. "I owe her more than words can tell."

"And I owe her a great deal also, Meg, my darling. You have cheered my loneliness and given me a new interest in life," replied Mrs. Moffat, adding a loving kiss.

It would be waste of words to enter more fully into details. Meg was happy beyond expression. She worked with all her heart—so hard, indeed, that Mrs. Moffat was obliged to restrain her eagerness and insist on proper time being given to outdoor exercise and rest. As to music, the girl simply revelled in it.

At the end of two years her wonderful voice was the talk of the neighbourhood. Even old Lady Longridge became sensible that excellent value had been given for the money she had expended, and she began to take a grim pleasure in being called "grandmother" by this graceful girl who, though older, was infinitely more manageable than the wild young creature who roamed the woods at pleasure, yet felt all the while like an imprisoned bird, when first consigned to her guardianship. Alas! There was no summer holiday or visit to the seaside for the girl, who longed to be like others in this respect.

Lady Longridge had many more callers after Margaretta was taken in hand by Mrs. Moffat. Many of the neighbours would have liked to show kindly attentions to the girl of whom her teacher spoke so warmly, but their advances met with little encouragement. "I am too old to go out with Margaretta, and she is too young to take care of herself. She gets as much change as is good for her at Clough Cottage, and she has work to do both there and at home."

Mrs. Moffat, however, contrived little pleasures for her young charge, whom she was learning to love like a daughter, and occasionally invited other girls to meet her, when she could obtain permission for her to spend a night at the Cottage. But to strangers Margaretta was shy at first, and she did not meet any of these young people often enough to strike up a schoolgirl friendship with one of them.

She had Mrs. Moffat, whose sympathetic nature fitted her to fill the places of teacher, mother, friend, and sister to Margaretta, who, in possessing her affection, felt abundantly contented—nay, rich beyond expression.

Her days were no longer a weary blank, with nothing to vary their monotony. She had work and loved it, and though still living in such a retired fashion, she felt with unspeakable satisfaction that she was daily becoming better fitted for the society into which, when she returned to her darling mother, she should certainly be introduced.

It was well for Margaretta that there was one who sympathised with her on the subject which lay nearest to her heart, and which she dared not even mention in the presence of Lady Longridge. This was her separation from her mother. Mrs. Norland, who from the moment of her marriage disclaimed all wish to reserve the title by which she might still have been addressed had she chosen, liked her mother-in-law as little as she did after that first meeting at Northbrook. She had twice visited her daughter, but not at the Hall, having declared, when she left it just after her widowhood, that the same roof should never again cover Lady Longridge and herself.

Next Margaretta heard of the birth of a baby brother, whose coming prevented a third visit to which she was looking forward. It was a terrible disappointment, for Margaretta hoped that her mother and her beloved Mrs. Moffat would also meet, and that this would create a new bond between them. But this was not to be, and though Mrs. Moffat had been the tenant of Clough Cottage for five years past, she and Sir Philip's wife had only seen each other at church.

It has been said that Sir Philip seldom remained long at Northbrook, and Mrs. Moffat having no home ties, was often absent during the short time that they were nominal neighbours before his death. Now Mrs. Moffat's affection for Margaretta kept her much more at the Cottage. When she left it for a few weeks she would fain have taken the girl with her. But to this Lady Longridge would never consent, though she would have had nothing to pay for her granddaughter.

"Where I stay, Margaretta, remains also. I cannot go elsewhere, so she must content herself at Northbrook. I will never part with her whilst I live. If I die before she is of age, that will be another matter, though I do not think I shall. My head is clear, my memory good—oh yes, very good; too good sometimes, is it not, Thorley?" Appealing to her inseparable attendant, and looking so wickedly knowing and wide-awake to everything, that Mrs. Moffat felt that there was every prospect of her expectations being fulfilled.

It was of no use to ask, so Mrs. Moffat sorrowfully left her favourite behind, and returned the sooner for her sake.

A few weeks after that disappointment with regard to her mother's visit, Margaretta received the most loving of letters from her, together with a fresh consignment of pretty things for her wardrobe, and unmade materials.

"My dear child," she wrote, "I am extremely grieved to think that I shall have to leave England without seeing you, and I cannot quite say when I shall return. I have been less strong since little Hugh was born, and the doctors say that it will be necessary for me to winter in a warmer climate. I long to see you and kiss your dear face, my precious girl, but it is useless to ask Lady Longridge for you to visit me, and I cannot bear an extra three hundred miles of travelling to and from Northbrook, when the saving of every mile is important. So I can only pray, 'May God bless and keep you, and grant us a happy meeting on my return!'"

"Baby is very like you, and I am so glad of it, for in his, I seem to see your baby face again, and I give him double caresses on that account—one set for you. When I was lying very ill, I thought of Lady Longridge, and I wished we had been better friends. If you have an opportunity tell your grandmother this. I would send her a kinder message, but I am afraid she would misconstrue my motives. When a time of weakness comes, and the end of an illness is doubtful, the little jealousies and quarrels of the past seem so contemptible, and there is so much that one would like to undo if possible."

There was much more in the letter that need not be quoted, and with it came a supply of foreign stamps, notepaper, and various articles of everyday use, besides those in the way of dress. Also a ten-pound note, to which no allusion was made, and which, Margaretta judged, was to meet any special need which might arise during her mother's absence. She told Mrs. Moffat about this, and asked her to take care of it for her, saying, "Do you not think mamma avoided naming it, so that if grandmother makes me show her the letter, as she always does, she might not know about the money?"

"I do, dear Meg. If it were sent by any one but your mother it would be different, but she has a right to trust you alone, if she thinks proper. Have you any money?"

"I have a sovereign and some silver left of what mamma gave me the last time. I do not spend much, but I like to have a trifle to give at church, and so on. It looks odd to put a threepenny-bit in always, does it not? And grandmother never gives me more for collections. She says it is enough for me, and she forgets that it is for her too, seeing that she does not go herself."

Mrs. Moffat smiled at this, and consented to take charge of the note, as Meg had no safe place in which to keep it, and to give it back by instalments, as the girl might require.

As Margaretta anticipated, Lady Longridge demanded a sight of her letter, and there was a look of grim satisfaction on her face as she mastered its contents. The girl thought she was pleased at the message to herself, and was glad it should reach her just as it was written. But Lady Longridge was saying to herself—

"So you are being paid out at last, my lady. You are finding out that the old are sometimes hale and hearty, whilst the young are broken down. I don't wish you to die. At my time of life one must not be too hard; but I hope it will be a good while before you come back to England, to put false notions into your daughter's head, or meddle between her and me. Everyone can see how well the girl is being trained. She will be a credit to an old woman's bringing up, and you, proud as you are, will have to own it."

To Margaretta she said—

"Never mind, child. If your mother is away, you have me to look after you. You will be well taken care of, never fear. These meetings are mere matters of habit. I know by experience how well many daughters get on without seeing their mothers for many years together."

Truly she did. The visits of her own daughters had become fewer and farther between, as well as shorter in duration than of old, and the fact did not distress Lady Longridge in the least. She had cared more for her son than for anyone else. Now if she cared for anyone it was for Margaretta and Thorley. Not both alike. Two persons never occupied equal positions in Lady Longridge's regard at the same time. It was first one and then the other who was favourite for a while.

The old lady was great at will-making. How many of such documents had been prepared by her lawyer, Mr. Melville, would be difficult to tell. How many that purported each to be the last will and testament of Dame Sophia Janet Longridge, had been torn to fragments or committed to the flames, only the testatrix and her much-worried legal adviser could say.

At present her ladyship was happy in the possession of two such. By virtue of one, which she mentally styled her "white will," she bequeathed the bulk of what she possessed to Margaretta and a legacy of one thousand pounds to Thorley, of whose worth time had convinced her. By the other, which was her "blue will," the bequests were exactly reversed. Each had been framed according to the humour or ill-humour of the time being, and owed its name to the colour of the paper on which it was written. So, though nobody knew this but Lady Longridge and her lawyer, she delighted in the thought that by burning one will she could in a few seconds dispossess either of those named therein. But neither Margaretta nor Thorley knew how much depended on the whim of a moment, or that Lady Longridge intended to bequeath even a legacy to either.

The girl never troubled her head about the matter, and if Thorley did, she entertained small expectations of receiving any benefit from the decease of her mistress.

"Likely enough she will wear me out, and if I outlive her, I shall miss her terribly. One gets used to being worrited till it becomes a second nature."

From this faithful woman Lady Longridge knew that she had received what money could never repay, but she did not know how glad Thorley would have been if from her mistress's lips she could once have heard a few kindly approving words.

In her younger days Thorley had been eager to accumulate money, and infected, though in a less degree, with her mistress's passion for saving. But as the years went by the maid had seen how little happiness Lady Longridge's hoards were able to confer on herself, whilst they were utterly useless to others. What she had followed as an example she now felt to be a warning, and she gave more from her little than her lady did out of her abundance. Better still, she had been led to seek and to find a peace the world could neither give nor take away, but which our Saviour has promised to all who trustfully yield themselves to Him.