The Turn of the Tide
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor H. Porter
Chapter 30
The house-party at Hilcrest was not an entire success that Christmas. Even the guests felt a subtle something in the air that was not conducive to ease; while Mrs. Merideth and her brothers were plainly fighting a losing contest against a restlessness that sent a haunting fear to their eyes.
Margaret, though scrupulously careful to show every attention to the guests that courtesy demanded, was strangely quiet, and not at all like the merry, high-spirited girl that most of them knew. Brandon, who was again at the house, sought her out one day, and said low in her ear:
“If it were June and not December, and if we were out in the auto instead of here by the fire, I’m wondering; would I need to—watch out for those brakes?”
The girl winced.
“No, no,” she cried; “never! I think I should simply crawl for fear that under the wheels somewhere would be a child, a dog, a chicken, or even a helpless worm—something that moved and that I might hurt. There is already so much—suffering!”
Brandon laughed uneasily and drew back, a puzzled frown on his face. He had not meant that she should take his jest so seriously.
It was on the day after New Year’s, when all the guests had gone, that Margaret once more said to her guardian that she wished to speak to him, and on business. Frank Spencer told himself that he was used to this sort of thing now, and that he was resigned to the inevitable; but his eyes were troubled, and his lips were close-shut as he motioned the girl to precede him into the den.
“I thought I ought to tell you,” she began, plunging into her subject with an abruptness that betrayed her nervousness, “I thought I ought to tell you at once that I—I cannot go with you when you all go away next week.”
“You cannot go with us!”
“No. I must stay here.”
“Here! Why, Margaret, child, that is impossible!—here in this great house with only the servants?”
“No, no, you don’t understand; not here at Hilcrest. I shall be down in the town—with Patty.”
“Margaret!” The man was too dismayed to say more.
“I know, it seems strange to you, of course” rejoined the girl, hastily; “but you will see—you will understand when I explain. I have thought of it in all its bearings, and it is the only way. I could not go with you and sing and laugh and dance, and all the while remember that my people back here were suffering.”
“Your people! Dear child, they are not your people nor my people; they are their own people. They come and go as they like. If not in my mills, they work in some other man’s mills. You are not responsible for their welfare. Besides, you have already done more for their comfort and happiness than any human being could expect of you!”
“I know, but you do not understand. It is in a peculiar way that they are my people—not because they are here, but because they are poor and unhappy.” Margaret hesitated, and then went on, her eyes turned away from her guardian’s face. “I don’t know as I can make you understand—as I do. There are people, lots of them, who are generous and kind to the poor. But they are on one side of the line, and the poor are on the other. They merely pass things over the line—they never go themselves. And that is all right. They could not cross the line if they wanted to, perhaps. They would not know how. All their lives they have been surrounded with tender care and luxury; they do not know what it means to be hungry and cold and homeless. They do not know what it means to fight the world alone with only empty hands.”
Margaret paused, her eyes still averted; then suddenly she turned and faced the man sitting in silent dismay at the desk.
“Don’t you see?” she cried. “I have crossed the line. I crossed it long ago when I was a little girl. I do know what it means to be hungry and cold and homeless. I do know what it means to fight the world with only two small empty hands. In doing for these people I am doing for my own. They are my people.”
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