Chapter X: Golden Chains

MEG soon grew to like the luxury of living in a comfortable house and among people who really cared for her.

At first she had felt stifled by the soft carpets, rich curtains, and closed doors; and there were times when she had had to run out into the garden and breathe the pure air of heaven to satisfy the cravings of her nature.

Sheila began to understand these sudden movements on the part of her protégé. As the Autumn drew to a close and winter set in, bringing with it warm fires and closed windows and doors, she noticed that the girl grew restless, and often when in the act of reading to her, Meg would spring up, catching her breath. "I must have air," she would say, and before there was time to answer she would have left the room and escaped into the garden. Then Sheila who had forgotten the necessity of air for her protégé would fling open all the windows in the hope of tempting her back again.

But those sudden movements on the part of Meg became less frequent, and the girl gradually got reconciled to all the comforts of the house, and to really like its luxuries. Her past life began to seem a long way off, and as every day she grew to love Sheila more, even the thought of Jem was thrown into the background, and she strove as hard as she could to do Sheila credit, and to drop all that was out of place in the behaviour and conversation of a gentlewoman.

Sheila had been right in assuring Peter that the girl was extraordinarily quick to adapt herself to her environment. Miss Gregson was touched again and again to see how Meg studied her friend's behaviour and attitudes, and copied them. She was her ideal in everything.

Miss Gregson herself was greatly loved by the girl for taking such pains with her education, for Sheila soon tired of teaching reading and writing, and passed her over to her kind old friend who was glad of this piece of work; it gave her the opportunity of teaching Meg more than mere earthly knowledge. Gradually she taught the girl to understand that there was One above Who rules our lives, and that "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights, with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

"You must remember, my dear child," she would say, "that change is our portion here, as you have indeed found, change in our lives and in our friends; but supposing everything should change and every person we know and love cease to care for us, we still have God, Who changes not."

Miss Gregson could never forget when talking to her eager pupil, now so happy and contented with the good things which were being showered upon her, that the day might not be far distant when Sheila, notwithstanding all her good intentions, might tire of her new hobby, and she determined to do all she could to prepare the girl for that day should it ever come, so that Meg should not be anchorless or rudderless when the storms of life swept over her.

Meg proved herself an adept pupil as far as reading, writing, and arithmetic were concerned. Moreover, because she wanted to do credit to Sheila, she spent hours over her lessons and took immense pains with her voice and grammar.

At the close of her first year at Friars Court few would have imagined had they seen and heard the girl for the first time, what had been her origin, or under what circumstances she had come to live at the Court. It was only when she was entirely off her guard that she would relapse into her old way of speaking, and use the expressions to which Sheila so objected.

Meanwhile Meg was growing more and more accustomed to her new life, and thought as rarely as she could of the old. In fact her past seemed to her a kind of nightmare. She could hardly believe that she was the same girl who used to tramp the lanes footsore and weary, and be thankful if she had a bed of clean straw to sleep upon. At times she would dream that she was back again in the van enduring all the hardships and rough treatment of those days, dreading to hear the tap, tap of the wooden leg of her 'father,' and the oath that would be flung at her if she had earned no money by her singing. She would wake trembling, to find herself lying in her little white bed with the scent of lavender around her, and the roses nodding in at the window.

There were other times, however, in which the longing for freedom took possession of her, and these times occurred as a rule after some mark of Sheila's disapproval had been evident, for at the close of the second year, Meg was conscious that her friend was not as easy to please as formerly. Any slight trip in the matter of words or manner on her part quickly called down the wrath of her patroness.

Meg did not know that as the newness of the situation wore off, Sheila found it difficult to be patient with her mistakes, neither did she know that the very fact of her showing so plainly her love and devotion had the effect of irritating her friend. Meg supposed the irritation that would sometimes arise was due to her own stupidity in not more quickly adapting herself to circumstances, and determined to make still greater efforts to please.

But the very efforts had the opposite effect, for they made her unnaturally careful in her pronunciation and manner, and this Sheila felt at times unbearable. Meg did not know that the only way to keep her friend's affection was never to show signs of weakness or to knock under to her. Sheila had to be dealt with as a nettle, which unless grasped fearlessly, stings. Her protégé's very anxiety to please or rather not to offend, provoked her; in plain words she was growing tired of her newest hobby.

Her change of front towards Meg had the effect at times of making the latter pant for freedom. The effort to please robbed her of the ability to live her own life and to be herself. She felt tied and bound, and yet she would not for the world have obtained freedom if it would mean leaving Friars Court. She could not contemplate that for a moment. The longer that she was there the more passionately she grew to love it and all that it meant. But for all that, she felt at times like a bird beating its wings against the bars of its golden cage. And yet had the cage been opened she would not have flown away.

One morning in the early summer Meg came down to breakfast looking rather sad. She did not enter much into the conversation, and when she had finished breakfast she sat looking out into the garden with a wistful expression of face.

Sheila was in very good spirits, talking over with Miss Gregson a garden party that she meant to give soon. She was going to procure a band from London, but the chief item of the programme was to be a song from Meg. Sheila had given her singing lessons, and the girl's voice had grown both in power and sweetness. No one but Miss Gregson had ever heard her sing; not even Peter, as Sheila was bent on giving him a surprise.

She was vexed at Peter's very sparse praise of her protégé.

She could hardly get him to talk about Meg, and took his silence to mean that he had not forgiven her for adopting the girl without asking his advice. She felt sure he had expected some terrible consequences, and perhaps was annoyed that his pessimistic prognostications had not come to pass. No harm whatever had happened from her action. It had all turned out as she had hoped it would, and Peter must be aware of this, she thought to herself, but manlike would be slow in acknowledging that an unusual proceeding on the part of a woman had turned out so thoroughly satisfactory.

She was triumphant at the thought of the surprise she was bent upon giving. Peter was musical, and would at once acknowledge that Meg's voice was as good as any professional's.

Meg took no part in the discussion that was going on between her companions. She sat gazing out of the window wistfully.

Suddenly Sheila became aware that the girl was not listening. "What are you thinking of?" she asked.

Meg started.

"I've had a dream," she said colouring.

"A dream? Let's hear it. Was it anything very tragic?"

"It was about Jem," faltered the girl.

"Jem? Who's Jem?" Sheila had quite forgotten that Meg had told her on first arriving about this friend of hers.

"He was my pal—I mean," she added hastily, "my friend."

Sheila coloured with vexation at the unlucky word that had slipped out so naturally from Meg's lips, notwithstanding all her lectures; but she did not interrupt the girl, as she was anxious to hear what the dream was about.

"I was in the cage with Bostock's lions," continued Meg, still looking away from her companions, "when I caught sight of a face that I knew. It was Jem's face."

"Well?" questioned Sheila. She was feeling irritated with the girl for recalling those old days. She wanted them to be forgotten. But she was curious also as to the end of the dream. "Well?" she asked.

But Meg's tears began to fall, and knowing how Sheila disliked want of self-control she left the room.

Miss Gregson rose to follow her.

"Don't go," said Sheila irritably. "I can't think why she should be so stupid as to mind a dream about those horrid people. They are nothing to her now and never will be. Besides, she ought to have learnt by this time to control herself. If I have told her once I have told her a dozen times that she must never show her feelings in that way."

But Miss Gregson, though she considered Sheila's wishes at the time, before long found an opportunity to knock at Meg's door. The girl was sitting by the table, her face hidden in her folded arms. She looked up as Miss Gregson came in.

"What is it, my dear, that is troubling you?" she asked.

"It's Jem," she sobbed.

"What about Jem?"

Meg sat up drying her tears.

"I was in the cage all among Bostock's beasts," she explained gazing at her companion with sad eyes, "and I looked up and saw Jem. He was trying to tear down the bars of the cage and calling out to me, but I wouldn't listen or look at him again. I didn't want to see him, you see." Meg hid her face again and shook with sobs.

"My dear child you must remember it was only a dream," said Miss Gregson kindly. She put her hand on the bowed head and gave it a kind little pat.

"But," sobbed the girl, "if Jem came now and I heard him call to me I'm not quite sure that I'd go.''

"But I don't suppose Jem is ever likely to come, and if he did I'm not at all sure that it would not be right for you to run away from him."

Meg raised her head and looked at her companion.

"You don't know Jem," she said softly, "nor how good he was to me."

No, Miss Gregson did not know Jem, but she knew enough of the world to believe that no event could probably be worse for the girl before her than to find her old companion and chum. She did not suppose that he was unlike other tramps. But she kept her thoughts to herself.

"Well, dear child, I think you had better put your dream quite out of your head, and get something to occupy your mind at once," and with a kind smile she left the room.

But Meg could not so easily forget her dream. All through the day she kept asking herself the question, "Do I love Jem less just because I have now so much more? Could I possibly share the old life again with him? the hardships, the squalor, the hunger? And yet Jem was my best and only friend in those days, and if it had not been for him I should never have lived to have the good things that I now have." The question worried and harassed her, and took away from the pleasure of motoring, in the afternoon, to a place twenty miles away which was famed for its ruined castle and lovely view, an expedition to which she had looked forward eagerly.

"If you think of that young man any more," said Sheila severely, after some time of silence, "I shall turn back. You are most uninteresting this afternoon."

So the girl had to pull herself together and banish thoughts of Jem and his voice calling her.