Mrs. Dorriman Volume Iii Part 8

Margaret was infinitely pained. Apart as she was in feeling from Grace, she yet was conscious of a perpetual disappointment in connection with her character that seemed to chill her. And it was very wonderful, she thought, because Grace had been very ill and near the gates of the eternal life, and such an illness must be, in some ways, like a great sorrow, and must surely have made the trivial vanities of life seem trivial indeed. But, as she spoke of wealth, she must make her understand that she could not use any of _his_ money, except in some way to help others in need of help.

"Grace," she said, sitting down and drawing her sister towards her, "I want you to listen to me, and I wish you to understand."

"I will not listen," answered Grace, still sobbing violently, "if you are going to be horrid. You cannot imagine my disappointment! I thought, once you got better and ... forgot, that it would be all right again, and that I should do what I like and go where I liked, and all that, and how can I if you will not give me any money?"

"Nothing will induce me to spend any of my husband's money on myself or upon you, Grace. You do not know my feeling about it. I sinned in marrying him, and I should perpetuate the sin if I spent his wealth upon me and mine. I cannot go through what I once did, and now that I see everything more clearly I cannot act against my conviction."

"Then what is the use of your having sacrificed yourself?" asked Grace, in a tone in which anger and contempt were mingled; "really, Margaret, you are so high-flown and so ridiculous! Of course, taking it in that way, one would not expect you to do the thing again. I never should dream of asking you, but, having done it, what is the use of undoing all the good of it?"

"The good of it! Oh, Grace, do not speak of it; it cuts me to the heart, dear, that you, my own sister, cannot understand me better, that you cannot see that evil, and not good, came of it!"

"Of course," said Grace drying her eyes, "the poor little child's death is an evil to you, and I a.s.sure you whenever I think of it I could cry.

Don't think, because I don't want to wear black, that I am not as sorry as I can be: but now that dreadful man is dead why should you not be comfortable again?"

Margaret sprang from her seat and stood opposite her sister; her countenance was lit up with a sort of pa.s.sionate sorrow and regret.

"Do you not understand something--a little of what I feel? Do you know, Grace, that when that little life was given to me I thought nothing signified. I neglected that poor, unhappy man; I kept away from him; I avoided him; I lived but for my child. Then, when the end came, and I had to stand by and see it die--die because the help extended to many other children was withheld from it; then I saw that I had made it my idol, and that in every particular I had failed towards the man I had vowed to...."

"But how could you when he was mad?" asked Grace; "it was quite impossible."

"I also said that to myself, Grace, but I knew that when I stood beside him and took those terrible vows--vows I never realised till I heard them slowly and solemnly p.r.o.nounced before G.o.d's altar--Oh, Grace, you are very dear to me, but, when you talk of my sacrifice being thrown away, I think of my child's life sacrificed. Oh, Grace, can you not see that I sinned? What could I expect? How is it that girls so thoughtlessly take those awful things upon themselves, say those words, and yet do not mean them: and yet I did it!"

"But you did it for me, darling--for me--and it does seem different. You did not do it for yourself."

"G.o.d knows I did not," said poor Margaret, upon whose fragile and delicate frame this scene was acting feverishly. "But I did it. We need not argue about it, dear; we need not discuss it any more, we should never think of it alike! We are different, dear, and we see things differently--very very differently."

"Then you have quite--quite made up your mind to remain poor all your life, and to let these things slip away from you?" asked Grace, in a tragical tone.

"I will not use that money," said Margaret firmly, "either for you or myself."

"It is too hard," and Grace again dissolved in tears.

Margaret sat down again. She was not yet very strong, and she felt all this cruelly. She let Grace alone for a few moments, then she said--

"If I knew exactly what you wanted, Grace, I might see if it could not be done in another way."

Her voice was cold, with all her tenderness and kindness. She was deeply wounded by her sister's utter inability to understand something of the past.

"Now you are angry, Margaret, and it is a little unreasonable of you.

Because you have done with your life, and cannot think about pleasant things any more, why may I not look forward?"

Margaret started. Had she done with her life? She was not yet twenty; was everything really over for her? As regarded marriage or love, of course there was an end; but in her own way she meant to fill her life with happiness, even though a cloud of regret must ever dim its brightness. Her whole being craved for something to give her a full life--interest in some one thing. All the poetical side of her nature began once more to thrill her. The world had much that was sad in it, but there were yet depths unsounded of which she was vaguely aware, and till she knew them she would not proclaim all was over for her even here. The glow of returning health, the beauty of the noontide of summer, began to a.s.sert influences she could not totally disregard. As love invests the most homely personal attributes with indefinite charm, so poetry, in its highest, widest, and largest sense, throws a halo over the common-place phases of existence, touches everything with a golden light, and makes it beautiful.

Nothing was more curious than the swift thoughts which carried the one sister above and beyond the present, and the concentration of the other upon a matter so essentially mundane as a brown velvet dress, for Grace counted it as one of her claims to merit that she had tenacity of purpose--which tenacity, if applied to higher purposes, might have deserved commendation.

She watched Margaret's countenance eagerly, and brought her down to worldly matters very soon by her anxiety to know how Margaret proposed arranging matters.

"What do you think of doing?" she asked, eagerly; "and, if you are going to arrange matters, can you not arrange about my clothes also?"

She leaned forward as she spoke, and watched her sister's face intently.

"Grace, it is very foolish of me to forget that you and I have always thought differently about dress and other things. Of course, if I do manage to carry out my plan, you must have clothes and things; if I can arrange it all I will arrange it quite comfortably for you; but you must be patient, dear."

"I hate the conditional tense," said Grace, and then, as she brightened a little, she said, cheerfully--"I believe you will manage it, and you are really a great darling."

"There is one thing more, one caution I want to give you, Grace. Will you be careful about your health? You are marvellously well just now, but you know yourself, dear, how delicate you are. If you do not take care you will be in a sick room again."

"Oh! please don't croak and be horrid now you are just beginning to be nicer again."

"Poor Grace!" said Margaret, with a little sigh.

She went to her own room, and, drawing her chair near the window, sat down to think over the plan she had made. She was resolved to be indebted to no one. If her sister went to London the necessary money should come from no one but herself.

She opened her despatch-box, and looked through her papers. She wanted to find the address of the publisher who had expressed his appreciation of her writing in so substantial a manner.

She looked in vain. She could find it nowhere. Then she recollected that Sir Albert Gerald had carried out all the arrangements for her, and that she had corresponded through him.

She had no hesitation in writing to him since he was a friend now and only a friend. The tragedy of her child's death had blotted out the remembrance of what had been, and she had pa.s.sed through so much trial, she was so much changed, that she never for one moment doubted but that the change would be equal as regarded him. Her letter was direct, simple, and free from all allusion to her sorrow. She said she wanted to be put into direct communication with the friendly publisher--then she added, "I want to make some money. This may surprise you, as I believe I am supposed to be very rich, but I think you will understand that money must come in an acceptable way or be rejected. I do not intend using the money which has been left me for myself, and I want, if possible, to owe it to no one but myself."

Then she waited patiently.

In her letters to Mrs. Dorriman she wrote fully about her own plans. "I wish to start certain things, to see and judge for myself, and to use the money, which has come to me, for helping little children and others.

When I have arranged everything, may I come to you and Uncle Sandford. I shall not be very poor because I believe I have it in my power to make money. I have already done so, but Grace cannot go to Scotland. As soon as I can arrange it for her, she is going to London to stay there with some one, at any rate, for a time."

Mrs. Dorriman read this letter with the most intense satisfaction.

Margaret had grown very dear to her, and in her letter she gave Mr.

Sandford the name he had always wished to hear from her. The fact of her offering to come back must show him how completely she had forgiven him.

Ever since that marvellous revelation about Inchbrae, Mrs. Dorriman's manner to her brother had been both tender and affectionate. She tried to prove that her forgiveness was complete, and she could not understand why, now this burden was off his mind, he still made allusion to a weight there.

Often when he came in and she rose to greet him she caught him watching her as though something was still between them, and that helpless feeling of not being able fully to understand pressed upon her again.

He came in one day, looking tired, and she saw that he sank wearily into his chair.

Tea was there, and she gave him some, and made one of those trivial remarks people are apt to make when wandering thoughts are the order of the day.

"Anne, I do not think Margaret will care to come here," he said suddenly, "and you think so too."

Mrs. Dorriman's delicate face flushed a little. "Margaret offers to come," she said after a little pause.

"I find business tires me more and more," he said, as it seemed to her, irrelevantly.

"I am sorry," she answered, looking a little anxiously in his direction.

"Why should we not all go to your house," he asked, as though putting the plainest and simplest question in the world.

"To Inchbrae! Oh, brother!" This sudden suggestion filled her with such intense happiness that she could get no further.