David Elginbrod Part 90

"Who is it from?"

"Miss Cameron's maid."

"It does not look like a maid's production."

"It is though. Will you come with me? You know London ten thousand times better than I do. I don't think we ought to lose a chance."

"Certainly not. I will go with you. But perhaps she will not see me."

"Oh! yes, she will, when I have told her about you."

"It will be rather a trial to see a stranger."

"A man cannot be a stranger with you ten minutes, if he only looks at you;--still less a woman."

Falconer looked pleased, and smiled.

"I am glad you think so. Let us go."

When they arrived, Margaret came to them. Hugh told her that Falconer was his best friend, and one who knew London perhaps better than any other man in it. Margaret looked at him full in the face for a moment. Falconer smiled at the intensity of her still gaze.

Margaret returned the smile, and said:

"I will ask Miss Cameron to see yet."

"Thank you," was all Falconer's reply; but the tone was more than speech.

After a little while, they were shown up to Euphra's room. She had wanted to sit up, but Margaret would not let her; so she was lying on her couch. When Falconer was presented to her, he took her hand, and held it for a moment. A kind of indescribable beam broke over his face, as if his spirit smiled and the smile shone through without moving one of his features as it pa.s.sed. The tears stood in his eyes. To understand all this look, one would need to know his history as I do. He laid her hand gently on her bosom, and said: "G.o.d bless you!"

Euphra felt that G.o.d did bless her in the very words. She had been looking at Falconer all the time. It was only fifteen seconds or so; but the outcome of a life was crowded into Falconer's side of it; and the confidence of Euphra rose to meet the faithfulness of a man of G.o.d.--What words those are!--A man of G.o.d! Have I not written a revelation? Yes--to him who can read it--yes.

"I know enough of your story, Miss Cameron," he said, "to understand without any preface what you choose to tell me."

Euphra began at once:

"I dreamed last night that I found myself outside the street door.

I did not know where I was going; but my feet seemed to know. They carried me, round two or three corners, into a wide, long street, which I think was Oxford-street. They carried me on into London, far beyond any quarter I knew. All I can tell further is, that I turned to the left beside a church, on the steeple of which stood what I took for a wandering ghost just lighted there;--only I ought to tell you, that frequently in my dreams--always in my peculiar dreams--the more material and solid and ordinary things are, the more thin and ghostly they appear to me. Then I went on and on, turning left and right too many times for me to remember, till at last I came to a little, old-fas.h.i.+oned court, with two or three trees in it. I had to go up a few steps to enter it. I was not afraid, because I knew I was dreaming, and that my body was not there. It is a great relief to feel that sometimes; for it is often very much in the way. I opened a door, upon which the moon shone very bright, and walked up two flights of stairs into a back room.

And there I found him, doing something at a table by candlelight.

He had a sheet of paper before him; but what he was doing with it, I could not see. I tried hard; but it was of no use. The dream suddenly faded, and I awoke, and found Margaret.--Then I knew I was safe," she added, with a loving glance at her maid.

Falconer rose.

"I know the place you mean perfectly," he said. "It is too peculiar to be mistaken. Last night, let me see, how did the moon s.h.i.+ne?--Yes. I shall be able to tell the very door, I think, or almost."

"How kind of you not to laugh at me!"

"I might make a fool of myself if I laughed at any one. So I generally avoid it. We may as well get the good out of what we do not understand--or at least try if there be any in it. Will you come, Sutherland?"

Hugh rose, and took his leave with Falconer.

"How pleased she seemed with you, Falconer!" said he, as they left the house.

"Yes, she touched me."

"Won't you go and see her again?"

"No; there is no need, except she sends for me."

"It would please her--comfort her, I am sure."

"She has got one of G.o.d's angels beside her, Sutherland. She doesn't want me."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that maid of hers."

A pang--of jealousy, was it?--shot through Hugh's heart. How could he see--what right had he to see anything in Margaret?

Hugh might have kept himself at peace, even if he had loved Margaret as much as she deserved, which would have been about ten times as much as he did. Is a man not to recognize an angel when he sees her, and to call her by her name? Had Hugh seen into the core of that grand heart--what form sat there, and how--he would have been at peace--would almost have fallen down to do the man homage. He was silent.

"My dear fellow!" said Falconer, as if he divined his feeling--for Falconer's power over men and women came all from sympathy with their spirits, and not their nerves--"if you have any hold of that woman, do not lose it; for as sure as there's a sun in heaven, she is one of the winged ones. Don't I know a woman when I see her!"

He sighed with a kind of involuntary sigh, which yet did not seek to hide itself from Hugh.

"My dear boy," he added, laying a stress on the word, "--I am nearly twice your age--don't be jealous of me."

"Mr. Falconer," said Hugh humbly, "forgive me. The feeling was involuntary; and if you have detected in it more than I was aware of, you are at least as likely to be right as I am. But you cannot think more highly of Margaret than I do."

And yet Hugh did not know half the good of her then, that the reader does now.

"Well, we had better part now, and meet again at night."

"What time shall I come to you?"

"Oh! about nine I think will do."

So Hugh went home, and tried to turn his thoughts to his story; but Euphra, Falconer, Funkelstein, and Margaret persisted in sitting to him, the one after the other, instead of the heroes and heroines of his tale. He was compelled to lay it aside, and betake himself to a stroll and a pipe.

As he went down stairs, he met Miss Talbot.

"You're soon tired of home, Mr. Sutherland. You haven't been in above half an hour, and you're out again already."

"Why, you see, Miss Talbot, I want a pipe very much."

"Well, you ain't going to the public house to smoke it, are you?"

"No," answered Hugh laughing. "But you know, Miss Talbot, you made it part of the agreement that I shouldn't smoke indoors. So I'm going to smoke in the street."

"Now, think of being taken that way!" retorted Miss Talbot, with an injured air. "Why, that was before I knew anything about you. Go up stairs directly, and smoke your pipe; and when the room can't hold any more, you can open the windows. Your smoke won't do any harm, Mr. Sutherland. But I'm very sorry you quarrelled with Mrs.

Appleditch. She's a hard woman, and over fond of her money and her drawing-room; and for those boys of hers--the Lord have mercy on them, for she has none! But she's a true Christian for all that, and does a power of good among the poor people."