Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles. Ellen Wood
did not reply: only drew her hand between his, and kept it there.
"You shall have supper at once," said Jane, glancing at the tray which stood ready on the table. "I am sure you must want it. And it is not right to indulge Margaret every night by waiting for her."
"Scarcely, when she does not come in until ten or half-past," said Mr. Halliburton. "Jane," he added confidentially, "do you think it well that Margaret should be out so frequently in an evening?"
"She is with Robert."
"She may not always be with Robert alone."
Jane felt her face flush. She knew her husband; knew that he was not one to speak unless he had some reason for doing so. "Edgar! why do you say this? Do you know anything? Have you seen Margaret?"
"I saw her a quarter of an hour ago——"
"With Robert?" interrupted Jane, more impulsively than she was in the habit of speaking.
"Robert was by her side. But she was walking arm in arm with Mr. Murray."
Jane did not much like the information. This Mr. Murray was in the same house as Robert, holding a better position. Robert had occasionally brought him home, and he had taken tea with them. Mrs. Halliburton felt surprised at Margaret: it appeared, to her well-regulated mind, very like a clandestine proceeding. What would she have said, or thought, had she known that Margaret and Mr. Murray were in the habit of thus walking together constantly? Robert's being with them afforded no sufficient excuse.
Later they saw Margaret coming home with Robert alone. He left her at the door as usual, and then hastened away to his own home. Jane said nothing then, but she went to Margaret's room that evening.
"Oh, Edgar has been bringing home tales, has he?" was Margaret's answer, when the ice was broken; and her defiant tone brought Jane hardly knew what of dismay to her ear. "I saw him staring at us."
"Margaret!" gasped Jane, "what can have come to you? You are completely changed; you—you seem to speak no longer as a lady."
"Then why do you provoke me, Jane? Is it high treason to take a gentleman's arm, my brother being with me?"
"It is not right to do it in secret, Margaret. If you go out ostensibly to walk with Robert——"
"Jane, I will not listen," Margaret said, with flashing eyes. "Because you are Mrs. Halliburton, you assume a right to lecture me. I have committed no grievous wrong. When I do commit it, you may take your turn then."
"Oh, Margaret! why will you misjudge me?" asked Jane, her voice full of pain. "I speak to you in love, not in anger; I would not speak at all but for your good. If the Chevasneys were to hear of this, they might think you an unsuitable mistress for their children."
"Compose yourself," said Margaret, scoffingly. Never had she shown such a temper, so undesirable a disposition, as on this night; and Jane might well look at her in amazement, and hint that she was "changed." "I shall be found sufficiently suitable by the Chevasney family—when I consent to enter it."
Her tone was strangely significant, and Jane Halliburton's heart beat. "What do you imply, Margaret?" she inquired. "You appear to have some peculiar meaning."
Margaret, who had been standing before the glass all this time twisting her hair round her fingers, turned and looked her sister full in the face. "Jane, I'll tell you, if you will undertake to make things straight for me with mamma. I am not going to the Chevasneys—or anywhere else—as governess."
"Yes,"—said Jane faintly, for she had a presentiment of what was coming.
"I am going to be married instead."
"Oh, Margaret!"
"There is nothing to groan about," retorted Margaret. "Mr. Murray is coming to speak to mamma to-morrow, and if any of you have anything to say against him, you can say it to his face. He is a very respectable man, and has a good income; where's the objection to him?"
Jane could not say. Personally, she did not very much like Mr. Murray; and certain fond visions had pictured a higher destiny for handsome, accomplished Margaret. "I hope and trust you will be happy, if you do marry him, Margaret!" was all she said.
"I hope I shall. I must take my chance of that, as others do. Jane, I beg your pardon for my crossness, but you put me out of temper."
As others do. Ay! it was all a lottery. And Margaret Tait entered upon her hastily-chosen married life, knowing that it was so.
CHAPTER VI.
IN SAVILE-ROW.
Several years went on; and years rarely go on without bringing changes with them. Jane had now four children. William, the eldest, was close upon thirteen; Edgar, the youngest, going on for nine; Jane and Frank were between them. Mrs. Tait was dead: and Francis Tait was the Reverend Francis Tait. By dint of hard work and perseverance, he had succeeded in qualifying for Orders, and was half starving upon a London curacy, as his father had done for so many years before him. In saying "half starving," I don't mean that he had not bread and cheese to eat; but when a clergyman's stipend is under a hundred a year, the expression "half starving" is justifiable. He hungers after many things that he is unable to obtain, and he cannot maintain his position as a gentleman. Francis Tait hungered. Over one want, especially, he hungered with an intensely ravenous hunger; and that was, the gratification of his taste for literature. The books he coveted to read were expensive; impossibilities to him; he could not purchase them, and libraries were then scarce. Had Francis Tait not been gifted with very great conscientiousness, he would have joined teaching with his ministry. But the wants of his parish required all his time; and he had inherited that large share of the monitor, conscience, from his father. "I suppose I shall have a living some time," he would think to himself: "when I am growing an old man, probably, as he was when he gained his."
So the Reverend Francis Tait plodded on at his curacy, and was content to await that remote day when fortune should drop from the skies.
Where was Margaret? Margaret had bidden adieu to old England for ever. Her husband, who had not been promoted in his house of business as rapidly as he thought he ought to have been, had thrown up his situation, home and home ties, and gone out to the woods of Canada to become a settler. Did Margaret repent her hasty marriage then? Did she find that her finished education, her peculiar tastes and habits, so unfitted for domestic life, were all lost in those wild woods? Music, drawing, languages, literature, of what use were they to her now? She might educate her own children, indeed, as they grew up: the only chance of education it appeared likely they would have. That Margaret found herself in a peculiarly uncongenial atmosphere, there could be no doubt; but, like a brave woman as she proved herself, not a hint of it, in writing home, ever escaped her, not a shadow of complaint could be gathered there. It was not often that she wrote, and her letters grew more rare as the years went on. Robert had accompanied them, and he boasted that he liked the life much; a thousand times better than that of the musty old warehouse.
Mr. Halliburton's teaching was excellent—his income good. He was now one of the professors at King's College; but had not yet succeeded in carrying out his dream—that of getting to Oxford or Cambridge. Edgar Halliburton had begun at the wrong end of the ladder: he should have gone to college first and married afterwards. He married first: and to college he never went. A man of moderate means, with a home to keep, a wife, children, servants, to provide for, has enough to do with his money and time, without spending them at college. He had quite given up the idea now; and perhaps had grown not to regret it very keenly: his home was one of refinement, comfort, and thorough happiness.
But about this period, or indeed some time prior to it, Mr. Halliburton had reason to believe that he was overtaxing his strength. For a long, long while, almost ever since he had been in London, he was aware that he had not felt thoroughly well. Hot weather affected him and rendered him languid; the chills of winter gave him a cough; the keen winds