Mrs. Dorriman Volume I Part 24

But, as in the most perfect characters there is a flaw, and as in armour there is a vulnerable place, in business relations there is sometimes a weak point.

He was not large-minded enough ever to own himself wrong. He could not bear to be suspected of having made a mistake; and he sometimes found himself on the horns of a dilemma, and found the horns were very pointed.

He was so fond of power, of dictating and directing, of leading with a hard and heavy hand, that he sometimes took a wrong view of a matter, and then sacrificed his own interests rather than be proved wrong.

At this moment he was confronted by a terrible mistake. He thought and thought till he was tired how to face it and get out of it. He could not disturb his other investments, except at a ruinous loss. He had been so certain, that he had locked up for a time the floating capital he could generally fall back upon, and he found himself for the very first time almost stranded.

It was not only the possibility of heavy loss, but the fact he knew so well, that, when all was known, as it must be known--unless he could manage to tide it all over--it would shake his position all round.

Cold drops stood out upon his forehead as he rapidly considered all these possibilities. He saw, as in a long vista, all he cared for, all he had toiled for, swept away, and himself standing there, without a friend, the laughing-stock of the very people who now flattered him, and tried to benefit by his superior understanding on financial questions.

He seized a train-book. There was just one chance--Mr. Drayton.

His sister had mentioned him, and he felt quite certain that, as he had seen his nieces at Lornbay, he would make his way there again.

He would go there and he would manage it. There was no ruin to Mr.

Drayton, and no loss of position. Supposing he lost--all the world looked upon him as an amiable fool as regarded business matters. He had no position to lose; it would not be a fall such as his own would be; and there would be no loss. It was only a temporary embarra.s.sment.

He rang once more, and Jean saw that he was now in quite his old peremptory, masterful mood.

"Let me have something to eat at once, and tell Robert to pack my things again. Why he does not answer my bell I cannot make out. What is the use of him?"

"Not knowing you would be home so soon, Robert went to do some messages; but I expect him in in a moment or two. Then I'll not sheet your bed?"

She spoke in an inquiring tone; her thrifty soul anxious not to crumple the linen now airing, if not required.

"I have to go at once. I am going to Lornbay. I suppose you have no message?"

"I'll no trouble you with messages. I aye use my pen when need be," she said, very calmly, and hurried off to get him that something to eat which is never a great difficulty in the hands of an experienced cook.

It may be said that she did write to her mistress, as she always called Mrs. Dorriman, that very night, and gave a graphic description of Mr.

Sandford's arrival.

As frequently is the case, the pith of her letter lay in the postscript.

"You will be glad to hear, mem, that, though he was most fas.h.i.+ous and pernickity, he was not just very rampageous, and he drank his tea and eat up all the toast," wrote Jean, who had never before known him condescend to such simple fare.

After all, Mr. Sandford did not start that night. He reflected, that, as he was anxious, he must not show his anxiety; and also that feeling of indisposition which he did not recognise made him put off his journey till the following day, a postponement which met with Jean's fullest approval. Why people should spend their nights, rumbling and tumbling along, when they might be in their beds, was one of the most surprising things in life to her, and she thought it "wise like" not to do it.

But this postponement made one difference, instead of bursting upon them all as a surprise, Mr. Sandford was expected. The trio were alone, and no one, so far as he could ascertain, was staying there interesting to him.

Mrs. Dorriman was glad he had come. She was always thankful to share any responsibility; and she thought him looking ill--which fact always softened her towards him.

Her feeling for him had, indeed, much changed, and she never thought bitterly of his old misdoings towards her. Time, which softens a grief, heals many a difference; and, though she always had the consciousness of having been hardly used, she constantly found herself making allowances for him, and compa.s.sion was beginning to tone down all her sources of irritation against him.

Jean's letter, posted over-night, arrived just after breakfast; the girls were dismayed; they had parted from him with angry feelings, and now, how were they to meet? Margaret, calling Grace in vain to accompany her, set off for a long expedition among the lower hills that crowned the heights behind Lornbay. From high up she obtained a larger view, and, with Tennyson in her hands, with whom she spent all her happiest moments, she prepared to wander far, not sorry to be alone, and feeling secure from the companions.h.i.+p of Mr. Paul Lyons or of any of those common-place, if friendly, women who had by degrees gathered round Mrs.

Dorriman and who tried Margaret's patience sorely.

Would a day ever come to her, she often thought with girlish impatience, when the interests of life would be narrowed to a new pattern in cross-st.i.tch or crewel-work, and to the want of taste in some person's way of setting a bow on the side of a cap. These trivial matters lay so far outside anything that contained possible interest to her, that she despised the people who evidently considered them of consequence.

Margaret also was beginning to make another discovery, and one that filled her with pain and even terror. She had too candid a mind not to own a truth to herself, however unwillingly, and the truth which frightened her and dismayed her was the wide difference existing between her sister and herself. She had all her life looked up to Grace, admired her and wors.h.i.+pped her. Every day now showed her that Grace had, in all ways, a lower standard than she had. She was contented to spend her time in perfect and complete idleness; she would no longer even talk upon matters of any importance with her sister. All those questions of religious thought which crowd upon a young girl when her mind begins to draw its own conclusions and she shakes off those boundaries and lines which have, up till then, been the accepted guides for all her belief, were too evidently distasteful to Grace to be persisted in. We feel it as irreverent to allow a careless hand to touch our holiest and highest thoughts as we do if a scoffer enters a church with us. Poor Margaret, often perplexed, asking herself questions that have always baffled the wisest men, blamed her own want of perception for not understanding. She had a high ideal, a desire for the best, and she was often miserable because of a supposed short-coming of a faith that was not unwavering.

To turn to Grace, who was, she thought, so far her superior in point of cleverness, would have been such an endless comfort to her.

But it was not only in these deeper things that the sisters differed.

Grace, full of vanity, was insatiable in her appet.i.te for applause. She took endless trouble to obtain attention, conceiving attention invariably to mean admiration. Not all Margaret's love for her could conceal the fact from her widely-opening eyes, and to the higher character of the severe young sister this intense vanity was almost a worse fault than one perhaps of a stronger type. It seemed to her to be so absolutely beneath the dignity of a woman, and of such a woman as Grace.

In the room they shared together every candle was brought to bear upon the gla.s.s, and the time Grace took to curl and crimp and crisp her hair left Margaret none. Luckily, by chance, her long, thick hair was simply smoothed back and twisted in a coil that required but a few moments to arrange.

Those moments, during which Margaret's grave young eyes were fixed wonderingly upon her sister, were full of grief to her. Then Grace's habit of laughing off a question, her little transparent caprices and deceits, filled the younger sister with apprehension. Imaginative as she was, the truth exaggerated itself to her inexperienced eyes, and she saw her sister drifting from her and slipping each day down to a lower level, while she stood by helpless. These thoughts filled her mind, to the exclusion of other things; she tried to read, she tried to enjoy the great stretch of water, the faint, blue hills with the varying lights, but her heart was heavy, and she sat down at the foot of a sharp and rocky gorge and gave herself up to melancholy reflections.

Then something happened--what, she never rightly knew--but there was a sudden shout, a rus.h.i.+ng and falling of the rock under which she was sitting, and a figure vainly endeavouring to protect itself came cras.h.i.+ng down and lay helpless a few yards from where, with the instinct of self-preservation, Margaret had sprung. For one second she stood breathless, trembling all over with the sudden shock and fright, then she rallied and went quickly up to the prostrate form, lying so still that she was afraid death would confront her.

She took courage, and moved the checked deer-stalker's cap that had fallen over the face, and she saw a man, not very young, his eyes closed and his teeth clenched, a look of agony impressed upon his features.

With the necessity for help came strength; she flew down to the burn and dipped her handkerchief in water, bathed his mouth and eyes and forehead, and then, seeing how he lay, all of a heap, she gently moved him so that he might breathe more easily, then she knelt and prayed with all her heart. It seemed long before he showed any signs of life, and the poor child was getting very nervous and very anxious; she could not leave him alone there, she thought, till she knew how it would be; and she went on dabbing his face and hands, with a very faint hope of his responding to her efforts. But at last life, that had been so nearly shaken out from the great ma.s.sive frame, began to tingle once more through his veins, and, after a long shuddering sigh and a smothered exclamation of pain, his eyes opened and stared back at hers in complete bewilderment. He had heard her praying.

"I saw you fall; there was no one else; are you very much hurt?" said Margaret, anxiously, all in one breath.

"I am afraid I am," he answered, and the deep tones of his voice were full of suppressed pain.

"Can you move at all? Should you be afraid of being left? Shall I go for help?"

He struggled for self-command; it was evident the pain was almost overmastering him, and Margaret's heart was so full of compa.s.sion she had no longer room for nervousness. She was touched beyond measure when she noticed that in the midst of all his suffering he thought of her, and that he was trying to suppress all signs of what he was enduring. He could not speak for a moment or two, then he said hurriedly,

"My men are looking out for me. If you can, tie a handkerchief to my stick. They were to pick me up here." In a moment or two he said, "If you do not mind staying--till--they come--" and to poor Margaret's dismay he went off again into insensibility.

She acted as he had told her and had the comfort of seeing a boat come off. She did not notice from which s.h.i.+p it came, but she hurried back to his side, and renewed her efforts with her dripping pocket-handkerchief.

Then, when the men were landing, she went down to the sh.o.r.e towards them and told them there had been an accident; and, in a moment or two, the unfortunate hero of the adventure was surrounded by strong arms, and evidently anxious helpers, and Margaret glided away. She felt very tired as she walked homewards. Anxiety is always a much greater fatigue than physical exertion, and she drooped as she reached the hotel. Then she dragged herself upstairs and was pleased to find herself alone with Mrs.

Dorriman.

Mrs. Dorriman was placidly engaged in doing up her accounts, and was satisfied to find that her brother, if he wished to do so, might inspect them without being able to find fault. But Mr. Sandford was not at all either stingy or exacting, as far as money matters went; and Mrs.

Dorriman, as she wrote out the conclusion, could not help giving a sigh when she thought how entirely the method and neatness of it all was thrown away, since no other eye would probably ever see this well-kept book save her own.

She looked up to see Margaret--pale to her lips--sink wearily into a chair; and she was up and alarmed directly.

"An accident," murmured poor Margaret. "Oh, no, not to me," she went on as Mrs. Dorriman's alarm increased; and then the fright and fatigue and all else broke her down, and she cried; and the poor bewildered woman was even more at her wit's end than usual.

Margaret could not go down to luncheon; as usual with her whenever unduly excited, her head throbbed violently, but she refused to go to bed. "I have had no accident, I am not hurt," she said, laughing a little hysterically, "but I thought he had been killed. It was so dreadful."

Mrs. Dorriman petted her, and made her have some soup, and left her on the sofa, while she went to find Grace and go downstairs.

Later on, there was a commotion downstairs, a bustle as of a new arrival. Margaret heard it without connecting it with her adventure.

That apathetic feeling of languor which generally succeeds excitement had come over her, and she lay quiet, not sleeping, not even thinking, all her senses lulled into absolute repose. Into this came Grace, excited, bubbling over with news.

"Margaret!" she exclaimed, rus.h.i.+ng up to her sister's side, and speaking in her high clear treble voice, "a poor man, the owner of that lovely yacht we saw come in last night, has been nearly smashed to pieces, and they have brought him here. His name is Sir Albert Gerald, and I saw him carried in. He is wonderfully handsome, and it was quite romantic to see him on his boat-cus.h.i.+ons all carefully arranged, and carried shoulder-high by his boatmen."

"I know," said Margaret, putting her hand up to her aching head, "I saw him fall, Grace. He fell beside me, where I was sitting, and I thought he was killed."