Mrs. Dorriman Volume I Part 19

"Go at a reasonable hour, and why not?" she insisted. "What is the good of setting people's tongues wagging? they'll aye be speaking whether or no, but no harm comes if the things they say have no legs to stand on."

The early morning roused Grace and Margaret, and they went to the window and looked out.

The night had been bright, and, though the moon had not been visible, there had been that soft starlight which is so mysterious and beautiful.

With a vague hope of seeing a fine morning which would inspirit them they drew near, and gazed blankly at the scene before them.

A grey, leaden-coloured sky, a hopeless, pitiless rain, mud everywhere, and everything cheerless, drooping, and miserable.

Tears came into Grace's eyes, and she and Margaret clung together for a moment.

"We must go," said Margaret, to whom nothing else seemed possible.

"I suppose we must," said Grace, looking blankly before her.

Their spirits sank. Margaret, moving softly so as to disturb no one, dragged out first one then another of their boxes. She was resolved to go on with the preparations. She had been more deeply wounded than even Grace by those words of Mr. Sandford's about Mr. Drayton; and then came this terrible thought--was _his_ offer the consequence of something said by Mr. Sandford? If so, how doubly glad she was all had ended as it had.

Grace, always easily influenced by the aspect of things, was in a terrible state of depression.

She turned her head round once or twice and watched Margaret, but she never offered to help her. She did so hate discomfort! and the prospect of going out and facing the dirt and rain and cold broke her down. Her spirit had forsaken her, and sitting there with a plaid thrown over her she cried miserably.

Margaret was too much occupied to notice that her sister's face was persistently turned away from her. She was kneeling facing the door, while with hands trembling a little from cold and partly from agitation she was putting into the bottom of the boxes their heaviest possessions.

She would not take time to think of the future, of where they should go, or what they were to do. To get away--that was her thought, to be far from this hateful position for Grace, to s.h.i.+eld her from all chance of hearing anything so hard again....

Noiselessly she went on, and mechanically, trying how the little old work-box took up least room, placing it sideways and lengthways with that carefulness regarding detail which is often the outcome of great excitement, when she was startled by a knock at the door.

The sisters involuntarily drew together--Grace having dashed the tears away from her face. It was Jean, a tray in her hands and some hot tea for them. She took the whole thing in at a glance, saw the look of depression in Grace's face, and Margaret's expression of resolution.

"My bairns," said the good woman, "if without offence to you I may call you so--I heard you moving; work is ill on an empty stomach, and the morning cold. Take up your tea, it will do ye good. And now," she went on as the girls took her advice, "what is it all about?"

"Mr. Sandford has cruelly insulted us," said Margaret, reddening, "and we are going away."

"And where will ye go?"

"I--we do not know--but we _must_ go away from here," both the young voices chimed in.

"Well, it's no my place to preach--an insult's ill to put up with--but Mrs. Dorriman has one of her headaches, and I've to ask you to go and see her at a reasonable hour, ye ken. I trust she's sleeping now. She's been saer put about. She's going away too."

"Going away--Mrs. Dorriman is going away! then," said Margaret, "she has taken our part."

The sisters looked at each other.

"And did you ever know Mrs. Dorriman take any part but the part of the weakest?" asked Jean. "See how she stood by me--not but that your case and my case are two different ones--yes, bairns, they are very different. Mr. Sandford may have a rough tongue, I'm no denying it--whiles I myself am afraid of him--but you're no exactly kin till him, and he offered you a home, and has been good to you in many ways.

It's no my business to preach," insisted Jean, "but I think it's an ill return to him to set all the tongues wagging about him. Go! of course you can go, but you can leave his house decently, and not in a mad-like way, particularly as you do not seem to be expected anywhere else."

"He said very terrible things last night," said Margaret, "and we must go."

"I'm not saying anything against it," said Jean, coolly, "but you cannot go till you have seen my lady, and you cannot see her till a reasonable hour. She is going too, and she is going on your account, and you owe her that much. See," she continued, looking at Grace, who was knocked up and ill now from the agitation and want of sleep. "Your sister is ill--go back to bed, my bairns," she said, "and I'll bring you something by-and-bye, and you must see Mrs. Dorriman before you go away--before you make any plans."

Grace was too glad to lie down, never very strong; she was suffering now, and Margaret, vexed at heart, saw that Jean was right. Grace ill, it would be cruel to make her move,--cruel, if not impossible. She was herself too much excited to go back to bed. She went on when Jean left the room, arranging her things in the open boxes, moving quietly, as Grace, worn out with her crying and the emotions of the morning, sank into sleep.

As Margaret watched her, and noticed the swelled eyelids and look of unhappiness, she blamed herself for not having thought of her grief and sorrow before. Nothing she thought then would be too hard for her, no sacrifice too great for her to make on her behalf. She knelt down beside her sleeping sister and offered up her innocent and earnest morning prayer, and she went on making quite a solemn vow to make her happiness her chief object in life, never to think of herself, but to put Grace before her always.

She rose comforted, as we receive comfort from a great resolve--the decision seems to bring its own strength with it.

Turning to the window she saw that the day was more hopeless than ever; rain in the country pattering on the green leaves brings with it a refres.h.i.+ng and not altogether a melancholy sound; the effect of a heavy rain is to wash the gra.s.s into brilliancy, and leave glittering traces for the first sun-rays to turn into beautiful prismatic effects; but rain in the outskirts of a town where every pathway is of coal-dust and the mud is black from the same cause--when the rain brings down with it dirt and blacks and insoluble portions of the grimy smoke--is a dreary and wretched thing. Only those who do not live in their surroundings, whose imagination lifts them up and beyond these influences, or are too busy to heed them, are not weighed down by them.

She was startled to see a cab coming up to the house. She looked out, and with indescribable feelings in which relief was uppermost she saw Mr. Sandford and some luggage drive off towards the station.

It was breakfast time, and just as she was turning to go downstairs, and went to see if Grace was still sleeping, Mrs. Dorriman came to the door and Grace started up.

Margaret met her with a little misgiving. She only knew the fact as Jean had told it to her. Mrs. Dorriman was also going away, and on their account, and obeying her first impulse she said to her, "Is it true, you are going away also? Are you vexed with us? But you know we cannot stay."

"Children," said Mrs. Dorriman, and her soft sweet voice imposed silence upon them both, "you took my brother up wrongly. Mr. Drayton spoke first, and the sting is gone I think, then--had it not been so I could understand, and I can feel for you; but my brother said I might tell you the truth, and this is the truth. But he sees, and I see, that the life here is not suited to you--you cannot expect my brother to change his habits and his home for you. His business is here and here his home must be. But he has given me leave, he has given me the means, to go with you somewhere for a time. I think this wise--we will go somewhere and have a change and begin in a new way when we come back. The first question is where do you wish to go?"

Grace and Margaret heard this speech with an emotion and thrill of grat.i.tude. Grace felt as though she had never done Mrs. Dorriman justice. To go somewhere, anywhere away from this, and yet not have to regret it--to go as she had thought it impossible to go! Words failed her, and it was Margaret who thanked Mrs. Dorriman, and who expressed something of the relief and grat.i.tude they both felt.

Mrs. Dorriman was not insensible to the charm of Margaret's affection; but she was not a woman given to much demonstration. She closed the question at present by telling Grace to lie still. She would send her her breakfast, and, taking Margaret with her, they went downstairs. It was to a woman of her temperament a very strange bewilderment now, to have the world to choose from, and not know where to go.

One plan after another was discussed by her and Margaret between the demolition of one scone and the attack upon another. The question was not settled, but Margaret felt thankful in her heart of hearts, giving Mrs. Dorriman credit for the whole arrangement of the difficulty.

When Grace, refreshed, though still pale and bearing traces of agitation, in spite of her sleep, joined them, the great matter was again talked over.

"We cannot go from here," said Mrs. Dorriman, with unwonted firmness, "till we have settled where we are to go, and are sure of rooms."

"Will not that take very long?" asked Margaret.

"Once we agree about the place--writing and hearing in reply will take little time--we can telegraph," said Mrs. Dorriman, with a certain pride in her unlimited powers. She had, never of her own free will, sent a telegram in all her life.

Then a brilliant idea came to Margaret. "Let us go South, and try one place first; if we do not like it we can try another."

Grace was enchanted.

"And now," said Margaret, who seemed to be taking up a new position that morning, "We owe you so much; what do you like best?"

"Oh, my dear!" said poor Mrs. Dorriman, her long self-repression giving way, and surprising the girl by her glistening eyes and brilliant flash of colour, "give me the sea and the hills;" and though, as half ashamed of having shown her craving for both these things, she added, hastily, "Put me out of it, my dear; never mind me. I can be happy anywhere."

Their first move was soon decided upon now. To one of the lovely bays at the mouth of the Clyde they resolved to go, and with hearts fluttering with excitement, at one moment studying the Railway Guide, at another a map, they decided to go to Lornbay, and then hastily resumed their packing. Three days came and went swiftly, and satisfactory answers having been received about rooms in the best hotel, Mrs. Dorriman, not without various doubts as to her fitness for this great responsibility, found herself alone with the girls, leaving Renton with all its varied experiences behind them in its murky vale of smoke.

It often happens that the realization of a wish brings with it a certain fear as to whether the intensity of the wish has been altogether full of wisdom, particularly is this the case when we are conscious of having thought of ourselves, to the exclusion of any other consideration.

Of the trio who were whirling to the mouth of the Clyde, Grace was the most disturbed and the one least able to enjoy the change of scene, the one upon whose spirit lay the shadow of a reproach.

She was conscious of having from the first placed herself in a position of antagonism to Mr. Sandford. She had intended him to recognise her merits, and to allow her to influence him as she had influenced those school-companions to whom she had been as a superior being. But she had forgotten to take into account his temper, his prejudices, and his pa.s.sions; and, though she now recognised that she had failed, she blamed his obtuseness, and not her own powers, for the failure.

Margaret was evidently much to him; she was nothing, and the one person who had come there, though he fell far short of being a prince, had utterly also failed to see in her any attraction.

This also she imagined was due to some fault in him and not in her.

Margaret had a way of effacing herself, of putting herself so completely out of the question, that Grace's vanity was almost excusable. Reared in the belief of her possessing many gifts, flattered by the small world around her, it would require a much severer blow to her pride than Mr.

Sandford's rudeness and Mr. Drayton's blindness, before she learnt how wide a difference exists between the value we put upon ourselves and the value placed upon us by outsiders who are not bia.s.sed or prejudiced in any way in our favour. To the indifferent world poor Grace would simply be an ordinary-looking girl who gave herself airs. But she had this still to learn.

The beauty of the late spring was filling every copse and valley through which they pa.s.sed. Everywhere was the budding forth of those tender hues which bring a sense of quiet refreshment to the eye; on every sheltered bank the primroses were gazing at the pa.s.sers-by like faint stars from their deep leafy beds. The mountain torrents here and there were quivering with excitement as they raced down the hill-sides bubbling over with the joy of having escaped from the imprisonment of the winter's frosts. When the train stopped they could hear the twittering and singing of birds; all these things of everyday occurrence and of no importance in everyday life, perhaps; but to these three, who had felt the great want of the fresh beauty of country life, and had pa.s.sed some months without any of these cheering influences, they came as a breath of Paradise.