Mrs. Dorriman Volume Iii Part 6

"The doctor wants her to have sea air and Scotch air, she wishes to come."

"Here?"

"No, not here. Somewhere (she does not care where) she has never seen.

Some place, with no recollections clinging to it.

"Lornbay?"

"She has been there. No! not Lornbay."

"How would Inchbrae do?" her brother asked as he watched her face closely.

Her colour came and went, then her eyes filled with tears.

"Alas! that is out of the question."

"Is it?" He seemed to speak with a sudden sense of difficulty.

"Anne," he said at length, "have you really never guessed, never thought, that Inchbrae could not be sold? Do you know so little really of any business matters as not to know that without your consent, without many formalities, the place, which is your place, could not be sold?"

"Not sold! and the place is really mine?" said the poor woman, feeling naturally more bewildered than ever.

"Yes, it is yours," he said, trying to cover his sense of shame by speaking carelessly. His feelings towards his sister were so much altered now, that looking back upon the brutality and roughness with which he had moulded her fate gave him a pang he never would have believed in former days. And there was something else, there was a page in his history which often haunted him now. The burden of knowing it even, could not be anything but painful to him, and the pain grew now each day more and more intolerable.

Mrs. Dorriman was essentially a woman who had no self-confidence, she hesitated over even small matters, and was so afraid of presumption and other sins that she said what she felt right at times, impelled by a directness and a sincere love of truth to say it abruptly, and having done this repented her sharpness with undue humility and apologised for being obliged to say what she thought.

But living in the perpetual companions.h.i.+p of a woman who was so utterly unselfish and so unworldly, a woman whose candour and transparency were those of a child, was an experience that told even upon Mr. Sandford's blunt perceptions.

He had learned to value her, and just as he knew that she had become much to him he had to lower himself probably for ever in her eyes.

Mrs. Dorriman was at this moment perturbed, distressed, and excited beyond conception. To have been peremptorily taken from her own home and her people ... to have been deceived! Then swiftly came the remembrance that she had been led to wrong her husband's memory.

Thoughts pressed upon her that were nearly intolerable to her, and she left the room, going to her own, where she tried to bring her thoughts into order.

Why had her brother done this? It was not then that he cared for her, for she knew well that in those days (that now seemed so far away) he had cared for her very little.

Poor woman! her new affection for him seemed suddenly swept away since he could carry out so much deception towards her.

It was so cruel to leave her all this while blaming her husband; and till lately, when he had spoken of his having "taken care" of her, she had seen nothing but unkindness in the way she had been left dependent.

Sudden enlightenment came as a flash to her; those papers she had kept were of real consequence, and opened up the history of her brother's past. She had, as we know, more than once thought of this--or rather nearly thought it out, and pushed the feeling back with a kind of terror.

To be certain that she had no weapons to strike him with he had broken up her home--to have her near him and watch her actions.

She rose suddenly from her chair: she felt suffocating with the pressure upon her mind. How could she forgive him? She walked quickly up and down her room, her hands clasped closely; then she said aloud, "My husband, forgive me," and then cried, poor thing, till she exhausted herself.

The twilight came on; the factories, so grim by day, blazed out with their myriad lights.

Mrs. Dorriman could not go down; she could not yet forgive. She had some food sent to her, and then prepared to go to bed.

Taking up her Bible mechanically she read and took in nothing she saw; she shut it again and tried to say her prayers. Was there not something about forgiving trespa.s.ses that she said twice every day?

There was a severe mental struggle, and it was dark when it was over.

She went slowly to her brother's room. He was awake.

"Brother," she said, going up to him and laying her hand upon his, "I have come to say that I forgive!"

CHAPTER III.

Nothing could exceed Grace's disappointment when she found that, though Margaret rallied, got up, moved about, went out, and in all ways seemed to be her old self as far as bodily health went, she remained grave, quiet, and apparently indifferent to the various plans and arrangements proposed by her sister.

Grace began to know what we most of us live to find out, that something we have longed for--perhaps unduly--is given to us in a manner that makes us often regret the time and thoughts we have wasted upon it.

From the time she had been old enough to wish for anything, she had wished to be in or near London to see and be seen. First, she had been very ill herself, and now, here was Margaret, a widow and childless, and her dreams must equally vanish. At the beginning she had been filled with remorse, then she got a little weary of trying to sympathise, knowing that it was only trying, now she got very impatient.

Margaret had heaps of money, why could she not drive a little, or do something more than pace that tiresome little garden, read dull books, and go to a little grave?

Her joy may be conceived when one day Margaret was asked if she would see Lady Lyons. It was, at all events, some one who was neither a doctor or a nurse.

Lady Lyons, unaccustomed to more than a general friendliness on the part of her friends, from being a little deaf and not a little tiresome, was immensely flattered by the excuses Grace made for Margaret, and her evident pleasure at her visit; her one unflattering reflection being that she trusted this open satisfaction had nothing to do with her son and any advances he might have made in this direction.

Margaret had been her desire previously, when her inheritance was only problematical. Imagine what her wishes were now when every one knew that Margaret was a very rich widow.

She endeavoured to meet Grace with a friendliness that committed her to nothing, and her talk was of Margaret, and ever Margaret. Was she getting over the sad, she might say the mysterious, death of the child?

"There was nothing very mysterious about it. It died of suppressed scarlet fever, poor little thing. I never saw it. No, Margaret is not getting over it. She never smiles, and at night she cries often. Lady Lyons, I do wish she would get over it; I do find it so terribly dull."

"I dare say," said Lady Lyons, without any show of sympathy.

"Day after day not a soul, save and except the doctor, and he is always in too great a hurry to be pleasant," and Grace gave a long sigh. "When I heard your name it was such a G.o.dsend. Do you know I positively have not spoken to a soul for days and days, except Margaret and that old Scotchwoman, who is stark staring mad on religious subjects."

"But you have the comfort of being with your sister," said Lady Lyons, a little stiffly.

"She does not want me in the very least," said Grace, eagerly, a plan developing itself quite suddenly in her fertile brain; "not in the very least. No, Lady Lyons, what I mean to do is----How long must I wear this?" she said, suddenly touching the c.r.a.pe on her dress.

"Oh, Miss Rivers! You being Scotch makes such a difference; in England mourning is less and less worn as it used to be, and now people take to kilting c.r.a.pe it takes away from the blackness of it somehow. In Scotland you would have to wear it months and months, and as you are Scotch----"

"I am only Scotch on one side of my house," exclaimed Grace, "and I do not intend to shut myself up for months and months. No, Lady Lyons, I have a plan, but I do not see much use in telling it to you, if you think I am going to dress like a mute at a funeral."

"I am sure I do not wish to hear your plan," said Lady Lyons, irritated by Grace's manner and by her words, "I came to call upon your sister; will you be so good as to say that sincere sorrow for _her_ made me lay aside my invalid habits and come out."

"Please don't go," said Grace, "and for goodness sake don't talk about being an invalid. I have not a lung left, so they say, or only a little bit of one, and I will not be ill or anything. Now I will tell you what I mean to do. I mean to go to London, and pay a good deal of money to some great lady, and go about with her as soon as I decently can."

"My dear Miss Rivers, no very great lady would care to do this; they want nothing you can give them."