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                          FAITHFUL MARGARET.

                              _A Novel._

                       ROBERTSON'S CHEAP SERIES

                   POPULAR READING AT POPULAR PRICES.

                          BY ANNIE ASHMORE.


    "Vengeance for any cruel wrong
      Bringeth a dark renown;
    But fadeless wreaths to her belong
      Who calmly bears it down;
    Who, scorning every mean redress,
      Each recreant art abjures,
    Safe in the noble consciousness,
    _She conquers who endures_."


    TORONTO:
    J. ROSS ROBERTSON,
    CORNER KING AND BAY STREETS.

    1880.




FAITHFUL MARGARET.




CHAPTER I.

A DYING WOMAN'S COMMAND.


She was dying--good old Ethel Brand, the mistress for half a century of
the hoary castle which stood like an ancient cathedral in the midst of
the noble estate in Surrey, Seven-Oak Waaste.

No need now of these whispering attendants, and that anxious little
physician; she would not trouble them more. No need for these grim
medicine vials, marshaled upon the little table near her couch; she was
past mortal needs or mortal help; her face, set in cold repose, seemed
glistening with supernal light, while waiting for the fatal kiss of
death.

And over her bent a woman, breathless, pulseless, motionless, as if
carved from stone, listening, with straining ear, for each slow,
rattling breath; watching, with great, glistening eyes, for each
darkening shadow over the noble face--Margaret Walsingham.

No high-born dame was she; no fortunate next-of-kin, watching with
decorous lament for the moment of emancipation from her weary wait for a
dead woman's shoes. Only Mrs. Brand's poor companion, Margaret
Walsingham.

Four years had she ministered to the whims, the caprices, the erratic
impulses of that most erratic of all creations, an eccentric old woman;
and exalting the good which she found, and pardoning the frailties she
could not blind her eyes to, her presence had become a sweet necessity
to the world-weary dowager, who repaid it by unceasing exactions and
doting outbursts of gratitude; and there had been much love between
these two.

Paler waxed the high patrician face, darker grew the violet circles
beneath her heavy eyes.

Margaret clasped her hands convulsively.

"Will she go before seven?" whispered she.

Old Dr. Gay stooped low and listened to the labored inspiration.

"Going--going fast," he said, with faltering lips.

A wail burst from the crowd of servants standing by the door; sobs and
tears attested to the love they had borne their dying mistress.

"Hush!" whispered Margaret. "Do not awake her."

"They'll never wake her more," said Dr. Gay, mournfully.

She turned at that with terror in her eyes; she laid a small, strong
hand upon the doctor's arm and clung to it convulsively.

"She must live to see St. Udo Brand," said she, in a low, thrilling
voice. "She must, I tell you--it is her dearest, her last wish--it is my
most earnest prayer. Surely you will not let her die before that wish is
fulfilled?"

She gazed with passionate entreaty in the little doctor's face, and her
voice rose into a wail at the last words. He regarded her with helpless
sympathy and shook his head.

"She can't live half an hour longer," said Dr. Gay. "She'll not see St.
Udo Brand."

A fierce shudder seized Margaret Walsingham from head to foot. The blood
forsook her lips, the light her eyes--she stood silent, the picture of
heart-sick despair.

She had often appealed to Dr. Gay's admiration by her faithfulness, her
kindness, her timidly masked self-sacrifices; she appealed straight to
his heart now by her patient suffering, unconscious as he was of its
cause.

"I will do what I can to keep up her strength," he said, approaching the
bed to gaze anxiously again at the slumberer. "I will try another
stimulant, if I can only get her to swallow it. Perhaps the London train
may be here by that time."

"Thank you! oh, thank you!" murmured Margaret; gratefully. "You little
know the desperate need there is for Mrs. Brand seeing her grandson
before she dies."

Tears welled to her eloquent eyes, her lips trembled distressfully, she
waved the servants from the room and followed them out.

"Symonds, I wish you to hasten immediately to Regis for Mr. Davenport,
the lawyer," said she, when she had dismissed the other servants down
stairs. "Give him this note and drive him back here as quickly as you
can drive."

She dropped her note into the groom's hand, and watched him from the
oriel hall window, as he hurried from the court below, out into the
deepening twilight, from the road which went to the pretty little
village of Regis, some two miles distant.

She stood in the waning light, watching for the lawyer's coming, and her
thoughts were wild and bitter.

She had a _doom_ to confront, as terrible to her as unsought martyrdom
is to the quailing victim of a blinded hate; a _doom_ from which she
fain would court grim death himself if he would open his gates to let
her escape; a humiliating and revolting _doom_ from which she recoiled
with vehement dislike, every nerve in her high-strung frame quivering
with horror.

Ethel Brand had ever been capricious in her life, but of all the mad,
impulsive freaks which her lonely heart had led her into, her last
caprice was the most ill-advised, the most disastrous.

Margaret Walsingham had answered Mrs. Brand's advertisement for a
companion four years previously, when she was a pale, timid girl of
twenty, clad in orphan's weeds, and scarce lifting her deep, earnest
eyes to the inquisitive gaze of her patroness; but her quiet, grave,
soulful character had strangely fascinated the haughty old lady, and
from the humble post which she had gone to Castle Brand to fill, she
quickly rose to be the prime object of all its mistress' dreams, to be
beloved, and indulged, and admired as no living mortal had ever been by
that closely-guarded heart, save St. Udo Brand. Margaret Walsingham was
a sea-captain's daughter. Up to her twelfth year she had sailed the seas
in his ship and looked to him for society; and not till then was she
sent on shore to be educated. Still the stout captain had been ambitious
for his daughter, and had taken care that her education, when it did
commence, should be thorough, comprehensive and elegant in all its
branches; so that when after eight years of ceaseless learning on her
part, and ceaseless voyaging on his, he proposed going home to England
and retiring with his daughter upon a handsome fortune, she was well
f