Chapter IX: The Five Margarets

"They're only truly great, who are truly good."—Chapman.

"AND now," said Sunnie, when the singing was over, and all had withdrawn except the doctor and Jean, "now you're going to have tea with me, Miss Desmond. It's to be a Sabbath treat, and Cousin Leslie will have it, too. Mother and Cousin Meta have each other downstairs, and we'll have ourselves up here."

Jean was delighted to stay. Dr. Fergusson drew up another chair to the fire, and nurse presently wheeled a round tea-table up to the couch. It was daintily laid; hot scones were there, home-made jam and honey, and several varieties of cake and bread and butter. Sunnie poured out the tea with important pride.

"Now isn't this good!" exclaimed Dr. Fergusson. "I always say you are a born tea-maker, Sunnie. No tea downstairs tastes like this."

The child flushed all over with pleasure.

"Now," she said, clapping her hands, "we'll pretend—" Her face fell—"I forgot it was the Sabbath."

"We won't pretend anything. We'll be real, and be thankful for what we are," said the doctor.

Sunnie looked down at her little legs under the fur rug.

"Yes," she said, "I might have had my hands and arms cut off, then what should I have done?"

"And I," said the doctor, "might be sweeping a crossing in Edinburgh, with a cough shaking me to pieces, and only a cellar to sleep in, a crust of bread soaked in hot water for my tea, and twopence in my pocket to keep me from the workhouse."

"And I," remarked Jean, "might be a prisoner shut in for life, with only a cell to pace up and down day and night, and without a sound or sight of any human being but my gaoler."

Sunnie's face became grave.

"And there are prisoners, and crossing-sweepers, and children with hands cut off. That isn't pretence. Can't we do anything for them?"

"Yes," said Dr. Fergusson, "you can knit a scarf for an old crossing-sweeper that I know. You are always knitting for somebody, are you not?"

"That will be lovely. I will begin to-morrow."

Sunnie's face was beaming again.

"Have you many patients amongst the poor?" asked Jean, turning to the doctor.

"Yes, a good many. Would you like to visit some?"

"Oh, goodness, no!" said Jean hastily. "I can't bear to see suffering, and when dirt and poverty accompany it, it must be awful."

"It is sometimes. I suppose your artistic nature can only see beauty in beautiful surroundings?"

Jean looked at him.

"You mean that for sarcasm? It is my selfishness, I suppose, and not my artistic nature, as you call it, that makes me shrink from the disagreeables in life. But I haven't been called to do it, so I don't see why I should."

"You would agree with my mother. She thinks that everything ugly should be put out of sight and kept there."

Sunnie broke in eagerly.

"Cousin Leslie, tell Miss Desmond the story of Margaret Gordon."

"I think you tell that story best. We will listen. Go ahead."

"She was a beautiful lady and very good. We've got her picture in the hall downstairs, and she was a—a—an—"

"Ancestor," prompted the doctor.

Sunnie planted herself well back amongst her cushions, and brought the long word out with much emphasis.

"Ancestor. She used to wear a grey gown and a snood of pearls and muslin apron, and doves always flew about her, because she was so good. She used to take baskets of food to every one who was hungry, and she walked with her hands in God's. And one day, her husband came tearing into the yard on his black horse."

"'Margaret, my enemies are after me. It is a false charge of high treason. I am a dead man if they take me.' So she hid him away in this very house as quick as she could."

"And the soldiers came up, and the officer called out, 'Give up your traitor husband!' and Margaret stood still and calm."

"'He is no traitor, but loyal and true.'"

"Then they searched the house, but couldn't find him. 'We shall stay here till we do,' said the officer, 'and you, madam, shall be our prisoner.' So they lived in the house and guarded her night and day."

"But her doves flew in and out of the window, and under their wings they carried messages that she wrote to her husband and he wrote to her, and she sent nearly all her food to her husband by them, too. And she got thin and ill, for she wasn't having enough food. Then one day, they called her out of her room, and said she must tell them where her husband was, or they would burn the house down over her head. She looked at them and said, 'I could no more be a traitor to my husband than my husband could be to his king.'"

"So they locked her in the house and set fire to it. But Margaret looked up to God, and asked Him to help her, and He sent a storm and the rain put the fire out, and Margaret never came out of the house, and the soldiers thought she and her husband were starved to death. But they weren't, for Margaret went into the secret room, and took her husband along an underground passage, into the pine-woods, and they crossed the sea until it was safe for them to come back again. There, wasn't she a brave woman?"

"She was," said Jean warmly. "That's a very nice story, Sunnie, only I think she had the easiest part to play."

"Why?" asked the doctor.

"Think of her husband shut up in that secret room. How could he stand it? I would rather have died than been imprisoned! It is not a man's part to play—that of hiding and letting a woman bear the brunt of his enemies' anger. I don't admire him for it; one pities him, that is all!"

"Have you ever been imprisoned? You speak so emphatically on the subject."

"Yes," said Jean with warmth. "For two years after I left school, I was shut up in an old house with a grandfather who tried to crush the life out of me."

"Oh!" said Sunnie, with big eyes. "What a cruel man!"

"I must be free!" said Jean earnestly. "I would rather be a beggar in the streets than confined in a palace."

"I must add a sequel to Sunnie's story," said Dr. Fergusson. "When the exiles came back, Margaret's husband carved these lines over the front door in Latin—"

"'Loyal and true in trial was she,
Margaret saved this house and me.'"

"And are they there now?" asked Jean, with interest.

"Yes; I will show them to you if you like."

"I am glad he knew her worth."

Dr. Fergusson looked at her with a twinkle in his eye.

"Yet you think he had the hardest part to play, and certainly it was a part that brought him no renown."

"I have no patience with him," Jean said shortly.

"Where did he hide? Is the secret room still in existence?"

"It has never been found."

"How interesting! Have you not looked for it?"

"Many and many a time."

"The exit was in the pine-woods," said Jean thoughtfully. "So the saying is."

"And Margaret's picture is in the hall," said Sunnie. "That's where my picture will be when you've done it, Miss Desmond. I shall be the fifth Margaret there."

"Are you her namesake, then?" Jean asked.

"Yes," said Sunny dreamily, "and all the Margarets have done something brave, except me. People will say by and by, 'And who is this little Margaret, and what did she do?' And the answer will be, 'She did nothing, but lie on a sofa.'"

Jean glanced quickly at her. The sweet merry eyes were swimming with tears.

Dr. Fergusson laid his hand on the little white one that was struggling to extricate a handkerchief from under the cushions.

"They will say—"

"'Patient and cheery in trial was she,
Margaret brightened this house and me.'"

The tears ran over, but a rippling laugh rang out Sunnie's face was a picture of an April shower.

"Oh, you clever man!" she said. "How quick you make rhymes! Shall I tell Miss Desmond about the other Margarets?"

"Please do," said Jean.

She felt already keen pain when Sunnie's radiant spirits deserted her, if only for a moment, and longed to keep the sunshine for ever on her face.

"The first Margaret was a martyr," said Sunnie, with big eyes. "You will see her downstairs dressed like a Puritan. She was burned at a stake, because she wouldn't give up her Bible. The second one was a lovely lady. She is dressed in white satin and pearls, and she helped her husband to defend their castle against their enemies. The third is the old lady with white hair. She rode forty miles to see the king, and get a pardon for her son. And then comes my Margaret that I told you about. I like her best, because an old book says, 'Her hands were in God's.' And that's where I want mine to be."

Sunnie folded her own small hands and looked at them.

Dr. Fergusson looked at them too, then he said—

"With her hands in God's, and her heart at rest,
Perfectly sure that all's for the best."

"There!" said Sunnie, with shining eyes, "that makes a beautiful verse, and I'll write it down in my rhyme book. Only it's too good for me."

"Well," said the doctor, jumping up, "I must be off. When I next come, Miss Desmond, I shall ask to look at the picture."

"I'm longing for to-morrow," said Sunnie.

"You say that every day," laughed Dr. Fergusson.

The little party broke up. Nurse came back to her charge, and Jean went down to the drawing-room. On her way, she paused in the big square hall, and looked up at the family portraits.

"All beautiful women," she commented. "But if I do her justice, Sunnie will eclipse them all. They seem to want soul, their faces are so wooden. I wonder if I shall be able to paint the wonderful charm in the child's sweet face."

In a very short time, Jean had settled down in her new surroundings. When she was not painting Sunnie, she was out of doors. The keen bracing Scotch air, and bright clear atmosphere exhilarated and stimulated her, after London fog and mud. She loved the pine-woods, and wrapping her thick cloak round her, would spend an hour or so sitting on a fallen tree, and learning from Nature's book.

One day, Mrs. Gordon took her into the library, and seeing the girl's glistening eyes, asked—

"Are you fond of reading?"

"Devoted to it," said Jean breathlessly. "I was debarred from reading after I left school, and I think that is the very time one pants for book knowledge. In London, I felt it wrong to read too much, though Miss Lorraine encouraged me to do it. I wanted to devote all my time to art."

"But I should think book knowledge would help art, not hinder it."

"Yes, it does."

"Then do use this library as you like. No one comes here now."

Mrs. Gordon's low even voice never faltered, but Jean's thoughts at once flew to the master of the house, who had once used this room. She looked up gratefully.

"Thank you so much. It will indeed be a treat to me."

And after that, she divided her leisure time between the library and the pine-woods.

But the time she loved best was when she was painting Sunnie. She did this now in the afternoons before the light entirely failed, and when the firelight was at its best. Occasionally Dr. Fergusson would come up and go to the piano, and then it was that Sunnie's face became rapt and absorbed in the music. Jean painted away then as hard as she could at her face alone, leaving all else for a less auspicious time. The child's quaint fancies, and the doctor's humorous fun, helped rather than hindered her in her work. Sometimes the doctor would criticise the portrait, and Jean learnt to value his criticism, for it was always just and true.

"That Sunnie!" he exclaimed one day. "Now, Miss Desmond, we will have you up for libel! The only thing the sun has touched in your picture is her hair; you must make it peep out of the corners of her eyes, be lurking in the corners of her lips, her very nose must be quivering with it. If her face belies her name, how can she take her place amongst the family portraits! Get your brushes full of sunshine, and lay it on thick."

"Between sunshine and firelight I feel rather mixed," said Jean, ruefully.

"I don't think your eye has been properly educated," Dr. Fergusson went on. "There are two sorts of sunshine—that which shines on the surface and penetrates inwards, and that which dwells within and radiates outwards. I consider that Sunnie has within her a battery—shall I call it?—fully charged with sufficient sunshine to warm herself and others."

"But," said Jean, smiling, "she does not need to turn it on or off, it is perpetually leaking out."

"Exactly. Can't you catch it as it does so?"

"I am not a genius."

Jean's tone was dispirited.

"If you don't succeed at first—you know the old saying. Let me see that face on your canvas alive. At present it is calm and dead. It—it reminds me of her mother!"

He turned sharply away, and left Jean to ponder over his words.

If she had not genius, she had perseverance, and she worked at her picture as she had never worked before. She put her whole heart and soul into it, and then one day the flash of inspiration came, the touches were added that before had been wanting, and Sunnie's little face shone out in all its pathos and winsomeness.

Her mother, looking at it, said quietly—

"Don't touch her face again, Miss Desmond. It wants nothing more."

And the doctor said—

"Well done!"

Meta Worth did not often come to the nursery.

"I don't understand children," she confided to Jean, "and least of all do I understand Sunnie. I don't know how to talk to children, they are so serious over imaginary creations of their own, and so utterly indifferent to all that interests me. I am too matter of fact, I suppose. I always think it shows weakness in Leslie's character, the way he talks and goes on with that child. Do you like men who fuss over children? I don't. They are very well as play-things now and then, but Leslie seems to prefer Sunnie's friendship to any one else's. It's ridiculous!"

Jean laughed.

"Do you feel piqued?" she asked.

"Yes," said Meta with perfect gravity. "I think he ought to prefer talking to us in the drawing-room to spending all his time with that child. It isn't as if he hasn't brains. He belongs to no end of 'ological societies, and is supposed to be a very scientific man. His brains can't be satisfied with Sunnie, if his humour is. I wish you would come and see his mother with me one day, will you?"

"With pleasure, if you think she would like to see me?"

"Oh, you're her sort. Every one, according to her, ought to have a Purpose or Plan in their life with a capital P. And one Purpose is better than a hundred, strange to say. She doesn't approve of me because I have so many, and change them so often. A person of one idea is the one she commends. I hate such a creature, for they bore you to death, and have only one subject of conversation."

"Do I bore you to death?" asked Jean. "I think art is my one idea at present."

"No; I'm interested in you, for as you say it is only a temporary hobby, and I am quite certain that you will try another line soon. I think if I were to begin to philosophise, you live too fast. It's like a race. If a runner puts his whole strength and runs his swiftest the first start off, he'll never keep it up."

Jean looked thoughtful.

"I can't help being in earnest," she said; "but I was nearly put off my art altogether before I came here. I had got a sickening of it in Paris."

"And what were you going to do?"

"Nothing. Life seemed a blank."

"You're very young!"

Meta's tone had pity in it.

"And I think you old," retorted Jean. "Have you got beyond everything?"

Meta shook her head and laughed.

"Come with me to see Mrs. Fergusson," she said; "then I will tell you one of my many purposes. We will go to-morrow, if Aunt Helen approves."

"I don't know Mrs. Gordon any better to-day," said Jean thoughtfully, "than the first day I came."

"She doesn't care to be known," said Meta conclusively.

The next day came. Jean ran up to the nursery the last thing before she went out. It had been one of Sunnie's bad days. She did not often get them, but now and then, headache and backache laid her low, and Jean had been told that her painting must be put aside for that day. She found the day nursery empty. Nurse came out from the bedroom beyond.

"Come in and speak a word to the poor bairn," she said with her homely smile. "Ye'll no stay long, for she's that low to-day, an' the doctor has not been. His voice be more to her than his physic."

Jean went into the darkened room with softened footstep, but Sunnie looked up and smiled at her. Her small face looked pinched and white, and there were dark circles of pain and weariness round her eyes. Yet her words were characteristic of her.

"I'll be better to-morrow," she said. "I'm longing for it to come."

"My darling, I wish I could bear your pain for you."

Jean's voice was full of pity as she stooped and kissed the child.

Sunnie put her little hand up and stroked her cheek. "I'm saying Cousin Leslie's rhyme over—"

"'With her hands in God's, and her heart at rest,
Perfectly sure that all's for the best.'"

"But I want to hear him play it on the piano. I'm longing for him to come. It would make my head better."

"I am going to see his mother."

Sunnie's eyes brightened.

"She came to see me a little time ago. She's like a fairy godmother."

"Goodbye, I mustn't stop. I do hope you will be better."

Sunnie moved her head a little restlessly. Then her eyes twinkled.

"If I cut off my head and took away my back, I think the other part of me would be nice and comfortable, but what would I look like? Could you draw me?"

"Yes," said Jean laughing, "I will make a picture of you, and bring it to you to-morrow morning."

She went, and was relieved when she heard the child's low chuckle of delight.