CHAPTER II

ROSES AND THORNS

’By the soft green light in the woody glade,
On the banks of moss where thy childhood played;
By the household tree, thro’ which thine eye
First looked in love to the summer sky.’ 
Mrs. Hemans.

Margaret was once more in her morning dress, travelling quietly home with her father, who had come up to assist at the wedding.  Her mother had been detained at home by a multitude of half-reasons, none of which anybody fully understood, except Mr. Hale, who was perfectly aware that all his arguments in favour of a grey satin gown, which was midway between oldness and newness, had proved unavailing; and that, as he had not the money to equip his wife afresh, from top to toe, she would not show herself at her only sister’s only child’s wedding.  If Mrs. Shaw had guessed at the real reason why Mrs. Hale did not accompany her husband, she would have showered down gowns upon her; but it was nearly twenty years since Mrs. Shaw had been the poor, pretty Miss Beresford, and she had really forgotten all grievances except that of the unhappiness arising from disparity of age in married life, on which she could descant by the half-hour.  Dearest Maria had married the man of her heart, only eight years older than herself, with the sweetest temper, and that blue-black hair one so seldom sees.  Mr. Hale was one of the most delightful preachers she had ever heard, and a perfect model of a parish priest.  Perhaps it was not quite a logical deduction from all these premises, but it was still Mrs. Shaw’s characteristic conclusion, as she thought over her sister’s lot:  ’Married for love, what can dearest Maria have to wish for in this world?’ Mrs. Hale, if she spoke truth, might have answered with a ready-made list, ’a silver-grey glace silk, a white chip bonnet, oh! dozens of things for the wedding, and hundreds of things for the house.’  Margaret only knew that her mother had not found it convenient to come, and she was not sorry to think that their meeting and greeting would take place at Helstone parsonage, rather than, during the confusion of the last two or three days, in the house in Harley Street, where she herself had had to play the part of Figaro, and was wanted everywhere at one and the same time.  Her mind and body ached now with the recollection of all she had done and said within the last forty-eight hours.  The farewells so hurriedly taken, amongst all the other good-byes, of those she had lived with so long, oppressed her now with a sad regret for the times that were no more; it did not signify what those times had been, they were gone never to return.  Margaret’s heart felt more heavy than she could ever have thought it possible in going to her own dear home, the place and the life she had longed for for years—­at that time of all times for yearning and longing, just before the sharp senses lose their outlines in sleep.