It needed the pretty light papering of the rooms to reconcile them toMilton. It needed more--more that could not be had. The thick yellowNovember fogs had come on; and the view of the plain in the valley,made by the sweeping bend of the river, was all shut out when Mrs.
Hale arrived at her new home.
Margaret and Dixon had been at work for two days, unpacking andarranging, but everything inside the house still looked in disorder; andoutside a thick fog crept up to the very windows, and was driven in toevery open door in choking white wreaths of unwholesome mist.
\"Oh, Margaret! are we to live here?\" asked Mrs. Hale in blank dismay.
Margaret\"s heart echoed the dreariness of the tone in which this questionwas put. She could scarcely command herself enough to say, \"Oh, thefogs in London are sometimes far worse!\"
\"But then you knew that London itself, and friends lay behind it. Here-well!
we are desolate. Oh Dixon, what a place this is!\"
\"Indeed, ma\"am, I\"m sure it will be your death before long, and then Iknow who\"ll--stay! Miss Hale, that\"s far too heavy for you to lift.\"
\"Not at all, thank you, Dixon,\" replied Margaret, coldly. \"The best thingwe can do for mamma is to get her room quite ready for her to go tobed, while I go and bring her a cup of coffee.\"
Mr. Hale was equally out of spirits, and equally came upon Margaretfor sympathy.
\"Margaret, I do believe this is an unhealthy place. Only suppose thatyour mother\"s health or yours should suffer. I wish I had gone into somecountry place in Wales; this is really terrible,\" said he, going up to thewindow.
There was no comfort to be given. They were settled in Milton, andmust endure smoke and fogs for a season; indeed, all other life seemedshut out from them by as thick a fog of circumstance. Only the day
before, Mr. Hale had been reckoning up with dismay how much theirremoval and fortnight at Heston had cost, and he found it had absorbednearly all his little stock of ready money. No! here they were, and herethey must remain.
At night when Margaret realised this, she felt inclined to sit down in astupor of despair. The heavy smoky air hung about her bedroom, whichoccupied the long narrow projection at the back of the house. Thewindow, placed at the side of the oblong, looked to the blank wall of asimilar projection, not above ten feet distant. It loomed through the foglike a great barrier to hope. Inside the room everything was inconfusion. All their efforts had been directed to make her mother\"s roomcomfortable. Margaret sat down on a box, the direction card uponwhich struck her as having been written at Helstone--beautiful, belovedHelstone! She lost herself in dismal thought: but at last she determinedto take her mind away from the present; and suddenly remembered thatshe had a letter from Edith which she had only half read in the bustle ofthe morning. It was to tell of their arrival at Corfu; their voyage alongthe Mediterranean--their music, and dancing on board ship; the gay newlife opening upon her; her house with its trellised balcony, and its viewsover white cliffs and deep blue sea.
Edith wrote fluently and well, if not graphically. She could not onlyseize the salient and characteristic points of a scene, but she couldenumerate enough of indiscriminate particulars for Margaret to make itout for herself Captain Lennox and another lately married officer shareda villa, high up on the beautiful precipitous rocks overhanging the sea.
Their days, late as it was in the year, seemed spent in boating or landpic-nics; all out-of-doors, pleasure-seeking and glad, Edith\"s life seemedlike the deep vault of blue sky above her, free--utterly free from fleck orcloud. Her husband had to attend drill, and she, the most musicalofficer\"s wife there, had to copy the new and popular tunes out of themost recent English music, for the benefit of the bandmaster; thoseseemed their most severe and arduous duties. She expressed anaffectionate hope that, if the regiment stopped another year at Corfu,Margaret might come out and pay her a long visit. She asked Margaretif she remembered the day twelve-month on which she, Edith, wrote-howit rained all day long in Harley Street; and how she would not puton her new gown to go to a stupid dinner, and get it all wet andsplashed in going to the carriage; and how at that very dinner they hadfirst met Captain Lennox.