New dignity and confidence had come to Jane. She sang snatches of songs as she went about the house.
Married life was indeed good and Jane was very happy.
AND ONE summers day in the year 1505 Margaret came into the world.
2
MARGARET WAS FOUR YEARS OLD WHEN SHE FIRST KNEW the meaning of fear. Until then her world had been a merry place, ruled by the person she loved best: her father.
The only times when she was unhappy were when he was not at home. Then the old house with its dark staircases, its odd nooks and alcoves, seemed a different place. Margaret would sit in the window seat watching for his return, looking out on the shops of the apothecaries and grocers, thinking that they were not quite the same shops which she had passed, her hand in her fathers, while he explained to her the uses of spices and drugs, the scent of which filled the air. Nothing could be quite right in Margaret's eyes unless her father was with her.
When she heard his laughter—and she almost always heard his laughter before she heard him speak—she would feel as though she had found the right answer to a problem which had bothered her in her lessons. She would run to him and stand before him, waiting for him to lift her up.
He would say: “And what has my Meg learned today?”
Eagerly she would tell him, and draw back to see the effect of her answer. Pleasing him was the most important thing in the world to her. She longed to be able to speak to him in Latin; that, she believed, would please him more than anything she could do.
“Meg,” he once said to her when an answer she had given him had especially pleased him, “to think that when you were born we hoped for a boy!”
“And you would rather have me than any boy, would you not, Father?”
“Rather my girls than any boys in the world.”
She believed that he meant: rather his Meg than any boys; but he would think of the others—Elizabeth who was three and Cecily who was two—and he would tell himself that it was not right for a father to love one child more than the others. And he was a man who must always do right; she knew that. She was a child and not good like he was; and she could love one member of her family so much that if all the affection she had for the others were rolled into one heap it would be as the moon to the great sun of her affection for him. But she would not ask him if he loved her best; she knew he did; and he knew of her love for him. That was their secret.
Sometimes she would go into that room in which he sat with his friends, and he would take her on his knee or sit her on the table. Then the old, solemn-faced men would look at her, and her father would say: “Margaret will prove to you that I am right. She is young yet, but you will see … you will see.”
Then he would ask her questions and she would answer him. They would say: “Can this be a maid so young?”
“A maid who will show you, my friend, that a woman's brain is equal to a man's.” Then he would bring his smiling face close to hers. “Meg, they do not believe that you can learn your lessons. They say that because you are a girl this headpiece of yours will not be equal to the task. Meg, you must prove them wrong. If you do not, they will say that I am right named. For Mows… that is Greek for fool, Meg; and it will seem that I shall be worthy of the name if I am wrong. Meg, thou wilt not let them laugh at thy father?”
“Nay, Father,” she said scowling at the men. “They shall not laugh at thee. We will show them who are the fools.”
They laughed and talked to her, and she answered as best she could, with her heart beating fast for fear she should behave like a very little girl instead of a learned young woman of nearly five years old. She was determined to save her father from the mockery of his friends.
So her lessons were more than a task to her; they were a dedication. She must master them.
“It is not natural to sit so long with your books,” said her mother. “Come … play with Bessy.”
But if she played with Bessy it was but to teach her; for, she thought, Father will like all his daughters to be clever. It will not do for one of us to be wise and the rest ignorant.
Yet she hoped that Elizabeth and Cecily would not be able to learn as easily as she could, for she wished to remain the cleverest of her father's daughters.
Thus Margaret, even at the age of four, had become an unusually learned little girl.
One day her father brought home a girl of her own age—a shy sad little girl.
Margaret heard his voice and rushed down to meet him; she flung her arms about his knees; then she stood solemnly regarding the little girl who stood beside him, her hand in his.
Her father crouched down so that the three of them were all of a size. He put an arm about each of them.
“Margaret,” he said, “I have brought a playmate for you.”
Margaret wanted to say that she had no wish for a playmate. Her lessons absorbed her; and she had two sisters with whom she could play. If she wanted a new addition to their household it would have been a boy, so that she could have proved to those friends of her fathers how right he was when he said girls could learn as much as boys.
But she knew that she must not make the little girl feel unwanted, for that would surely displease her father.
“This,” he went on, “is another Margaret. Margaret is my favorite name.”
That made Margaret smile and look with new interest at the little girl who had the same name as herself.
“This Margaret is coming to live with us, Meg.”
“We cannot have two Margaret's in one house,” Margaret pointed out. “If you called me she would think you called her.”
“My wise little daughter!” His laughter was merry but she knew that he had sensed her resentment, and she blushed because she knew it must displease him.
“One of us would have to be given a new name,” she said quickly.
“What other names are there for Margaret?” he asked. “There is Peg. There is Daisy. There is Meg and Marget. Ah, but we already have a Meg and Marget in our own Margaret. There is Mercy. One of you will have to change her name, will she not?”
“Yes,” said Margaret, her lips trembling slightly. She knew what he expected of her, and she knew that she could not bear to hear him call another Margaret. He knew it too; that was why he expected her to give her name to this girl.
“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Often he had told them that. He often said: “Ah, my Meg, if only men and women would realize that it is the unselfish acts that bring most pleasure, then the world would become full of unselfish people; and perhaps the very act of unselfishness would become a selfish one.”
She knew, with his eyes upon her, that she must make the sacrifice now.
“I… I will be Daisy or Mercy,” she said.
He kissed her then. “My Meg … my dearest Meg,” he said; and she thought that if that was the last time he called her by her name she would always remember his voice at that moment.
“Mercy is a beautiful name,” he said, “for mercy is one of the most beautiful of all qualities.”
“Do you like Mercy?” asked Margaret of the newcomer.
“Yes,” she answered. “I will be Mercy, because this is your house first, and you were the first Margaret in it.”