The Lifting of a Finger/Chapter 5
UPON reaching home Margaret found the other members of the family at breakfast. There were no comments on her late appearance or the fact that she had chosen to go for a walk so early. Since her trouble she had come and gone as she pleased, and apparently no notice was taken of her movements.
Her relatives were a little afraid of Margaret in these days, she was so changed. From a happy young girl with a nature that was bright and sunny she had become a proud, cold woman, with a woman's capacity for suffering and a woman's power to hide her pain.
A few moments after Margaret had taken her place at the table Mrs. Winthrop said to her husband, "Do you remember my telling you that Margaret was to dance a minuet last night with—with Somers?"
As she spoke the name Mrs. Winthrop cast a furtive glance at her daughter, but the girl's expression did not change.
"Why, yes, I think I do," Mr. Winthrop answered vaguely. "Wasn't that why you asked me for money for a new gown in addition to all her wedding finery?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Winthrop somewhat impatiently. "Well, Margaret danced that minuet, and whom do you suppose she danced it with?"
"I don't know, I'm sure."
"Francis Bellamy," announced Mrs. Winthrop with the manner of a person who expects to create a sensation.
"My dear!" ejaculated Margaret's father; "not James Westlake's brother-in-law?"
Mrs. Winthrop nodded her head and leaned back in her chair, satisfied with the effect of her news. "John," she said, "I wish you would speak to Margaret. Tell her what you know about Francis Bellamy, and request her to avoid him in future."
Mr. Winthrop rose and went to his daughter's side. "My dear," he said, with a hand on her shoulder, "I know nothing good of Bellamy, and you must have as little as possible to say to him."
"Out of regard for his sister and Mr. Westlake people do not cut him altogether," put in Mrs. Winthrop, "but everyone avoids him."
"Avoids whom?" asked Margaret's brother Jack, coming in at this moment.
"Francis Bellamy," answered his mother.
"I should say they did," Jack asserted; "even the men fight shy of him. Last night I ran against him coming out of the smoking-room. He had evidently been cheating at cards."
"Did you see your sister dancing a minuet with him?" inquired Mrs. Winthrop, unwilling to lose a chance to repeat her sensation.
"Madge dancing with Francis Bellamy!" cried Jack. "But then," he added, "I suppose she did not know No, I was playing billiards, and did not go downstairs for those old-fashioned dances."
"Well, Margaret danced a minuet with him in the dining-room with Mrs. Westlake's guests looking on, and I suppose this morning people are talking of nothing else. Not for worlds would I have had Margaret add to the notoriety that other affair has given her. Oh, I wish that wretched Somers had gone away before the wedding-day was quite so near."
"So do I," echoed Mr. Winthrop fervently.
Margaret hurried out of the room to hide her tears. She knew that the elaborate preparations for her marriage had almost beggared her father. It had been her mother's doing, for Margaret would have been quite content with a simple wedding, but now she felt, none the less, that she had robbed her family, and she shed bitter tears over her costly trousseau. Her heart ached with regret that so much of her father's scanty money had been thrown away. Margaret's affection for her mother was dictated in a measure by duty, but her father she could not have helped loving.
To her surprise, Margaret found that to avoid Francis was not to be an easy matter, for that young man suddenly took to frequenting the haunts of the fashionable world, and neglected no opportunity to be by her side.
When she went with her mother to call upon Mrs. Westlake, shortly after the latter's dance, Mrs. Westlake's handsome brother was lounging in the drawing-room.
His listlessness vanished at their entrance, and as soon as Mrs. Westlake came into the room he took a chair by Margaret's side, leaving his sister to entertain the irate Mrs. Winthrop, who was by his presence prevented from speaking her mind to her hostess on the subject of the minuet Margaret and Bellamy had danced together.
Margaret saw that Bellamy divined her mother's dislike and disapproval of him, and that this was why he took pains, when the conversation became general, to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Winthrop.
The girl smiled bitterly when she learned that Bellamy's exertion of his charm had not been without effect. After they had left the house Mrs. Winthrop remarked,—
"It is a pity that brother of Mrs. Westlake's is such a black sheep; he is really a delightful man to talk with."
Margaret thought of her former lover. That such charm of manner as both these men possessed could exist in the utter absence of moral worth seemed to her at this time one of the saddest problems ethics had to offer.
Whenever he encountered Margaret, Bellamy contrived to find out what her engagements were for the next few days, and in this way he managed to see her often. Had not her mind been so full of her trouble she would have discerned that these meetings were not due wholly to chance, but just at that time she felt her unfortunate position too keenly to think of anything else.