Chapter VII: Margaret Takes the Helm

We now come to the day when Mr. Hart discovered the Silver Flagon, and met once more his old friend, Mr. Weston.

Mr. Hart rushed into the room where Lucy and Margaret were sitting, and blurted out the news most interesting to Margaret. He had found the Silver Flagon; he had been to the house, and had seen Philip's father, without, however, saying a word of Philip or Margaret.

"That can be done to-morrow or the next day," he said; "it is a matter that requires delicate handling."

"I think," said Margaret slowly, "that we will wait a little while before we go to him."

"No, no," exclaimed Mr. Hart, "we will go to-morrow. My child, it is for your good. Delays are dangerous. Ah, I know well how dangerous they are!"

This with a tender look at his daughter.

"We don't know how he will receive us," persisted Margaret.

"In what other way can he receive you, my dear child, than with open arms?"

"Still," said 'Margaret firmly, "I think we will wait for a little while. You will not turn me away, will you?"

"Child! child! I love you. Have I not two daughters?"

"And I love you," she said softly, "and I cannot bear the idea of separation."

She opened her arms to Lucy, who threw hers around her friend's neck, and rested her head on Margaret's shoulder.

"I'll not allow it! I'll not allow it!" cried Mr. Hart, pacing the room with agitated steps. "Duty--duty, before all!"

"No," responded Margaret; "love--love, before all! Lucy, go away; I must speak to this obstinate hard-hearted father alone."

"Ah! no," murmured Lucy, taking shelter now in her father's arms, who folded her to his heart, and held her there, and kissed her sad face many times "I have no hard-hearted father."

"Go out--go out!" exclaimed Margaret impetuously. "I'll not have two to one against me."

She pushed Lucy out of the room with affectionate force, kissing her first very, very tenderly. Then she began to cry, not quietly, but stormily; Mr. Hart was no less agitated than she, but he suppressed his emotion and observed her in silence.

"Now," she said, when she was sufficiently calm, "I am better, and can talk to you."

"What is the meaning of this?" questioned Mr. Hart, in a tone so low that he might have been speaking to himself.

"Dear friend," she said, drawing him to a seat by her side, and holding his hands in hers, "let me have my wilful way; I have a reason for it, a strong reason."

"Yes, yes," he muttered somewhat impatiently, "a woman's reason."

"A woman's reason, if you like," she said, humouring him; at another time she would have fired up, and have given him a Roland for his Oliver. "But apart from that, I love Lucy--and cannot you see that Lucy loves me?"

"I know, I know," he replied; "but I must not lose sight of your welfare. I am poor; I can place you at once in comfort; a plain duty is before me."

"Do you remember how my darling Philip, with his dying breath, asked you to be a father to me? And do you want now to drive me from you?"

"I do remember. I do not want to drive you from me. But our dear Philip, with his dying breath, bade me take you to his father. That was his charge to me, and I shall obey it."

"And you _shall_ obey it--by-and-by; not now; not now!"

"At once--without delay! I paltered with my own happiness by delaying; I will not palter with yours in the same way."

He spoke in a tone so firm and decided that she was driven almost to despair.

"Obstinate, obstinate!" she murmured: "hard and unkind!"

"Margaret--Margaret!" he cried, "do you want to break my heart?"

"No," she replied, with sudden vehemence; the words seemed to come from her without any will of her own; "I want to save it from breaking!"

Terror and doubt were expressed in his face.

"Speak plainly," he said, breathing quickly; "it is about Lucy?"

"It is about her. What is your dearest wish?"

"Her happiness."

"Drive me from her, and I'll not answer for the consequences. O, this is no piece of cunning on my part, so that I may have my own way! It is the truth. Do you not see that she is growing paler and thinner every day?"

"I have seen it--I have tried to believe it was a trick played upon me by my fears; but I see it now that it is as you say. It must be the confinement in this narrow street, in this close town----"

"It is not the confinement," interrupted Margaret; "Lucy would thrive in a cage if her heart were not disturbed. A secret sorrow is wearing her away--a sorrow that she keeps to herself, and which only one person in the world has the power to wean from her. No, that person is not you--it is I, Margaret! She has not told me yet, but she will! I want but to know the name of the man!"

"The name of the man!" echoed Mr. Hart in a bewildered tone. "In Heaven's name, what man?"

"The man she loves, and who has led her to believe that he loves her."

"You know all this?"

"By instinct only--a fine teacher; better than reason." (He had not the heart to play with her words, or he would have said, "None but a woman can utter them;" but this new grief was too deep for light thought.) "She is a woman, and wants a woman's heart to rest upon in this crisis. She has no mother or sister. Dear friend, that I love with all my strength! that I honour with all my soul! let me be sister and mother to your Lucy! You cannot deny me this! It may be in my power to repay you, in some small way, for your fatherly care of me, for your love and devotion to my darling Philip, and you will not rob me of the opportunity. If I can bring back the smile to your Lucy's lips, the roses to her cheek--if I can bring joy to her heart, I shall again taste happiness which I thought I had lost for ever."

If his stake had been smaller in her matter, he could not have resisted her pleading; as it was, he yielded without another word of remonstrance. He was so broken down by this disclosure that Margaret was compelled to entreat him to hide his sorrow from Lucy's eyes.

"She must not know or suspect that we have been speaking of her," said Margaret; "this sensitive flower that we both love so dearly must be dealt with very tenderly--and wisely too, and cunningly, if needs be."

His words in the conversation that followed showed that he had lost faith in himself, and that he placed his hope solely in this affectionate woman, to whom sorrow had come so early. Up to this point he had not told her of the strange meeting with his boyfriend, Richard Weston, and presently, when he was more composed, he related the incident to her.

"We are to go to his house to-morrow," he said, "Lucy and I."

"And I go with you of course," said Margaret. "I shall contrive to make myself welcome. Tell me. When you took Lucy away from the house of the person with whom she lived for so many years, did you let them know your present address?"

"No; I was anxious to sever all possible connection in the future with such false friends."

"Then," said Margaret, with a wise look, "how could _he_ (Lucy's _he_, I mean) come to see her, when you as good as hid her from him? There is hope--there is hope--I see hope already!" She kissed him blithely. "Another thing--about myself this time. Mr. Weston's son is named Gerald! Does not that strike you as strange?"

"It was a mark of affectionate remembrance of an old friend, my dear."

"I know that; but strange in another way. Have you forgotten the packet which my darling Philip confided to your care? The property of Gerald, and to be opened only by him. What if your Mr. Weston's Gerald should be Philip's Gerald? It isn't so very unlikely. Mr. Weston's house is not very far from the Silver Flagon, and my Philip was the equal of any man. This Gerald must be nearly Philip's age--a little younger perhaps. And my poor darling went to college. Do you not see?"

She spoke very excitedly, and Mr. Hart gazed at her in admiration.

"There is reason in what you say, Margaret. These broken links may form a chain."

"So now all is settled," she said, "and I am to have my own way in everything."

"Yes, my dear," he replied; "you are more fit to take the helm than I. I am breaking down fast--I feel it."

"Lucy, Lucy," cried Margaret, going to the door. "Here is our father threatening to become melancholy. Come and help me to cheer him up. Ah! I know what we'll do. First we'll have a kiss all round, and then I'll ask Mr. Nathan to take us out for a drive. He'll do it." She held up her little finger. "I can twist him round this, my dear."