Mrs. Dorriman Volume Iii Part 11

"I do not see how you can word it so as to express your whole meaning,"

said Margaret; "and you really do not know, yourself, what you want."

Grace smiled.

"Oh, yes, I do. I want plenty of really good society. Why go over it all again?"

"Because you are asking what I fancy is an impossibility. If you were an heiress, then all would be easy enough; but with moderate means, I repeat, no one with a position will be troubled with such a charge."

Grace however persisted, and when the advertis.e.m.e.nt had been for some days staring her in the face she received two answers.

"Lady Turnbull will be glad to afford an interview to the young lady wis.h.i.+ng to go into society, and wishes to know what sum the young lady proposes to contribute in return for chaperonage, board, lodging, and anxiety of mind."

"The woman must be mad!" exclaimed Grace. "Anxiety of mind! I never heard anything so ridiculous."

The other letter was from a Mrs. Geoffrey Lansdowne Bill, who used her name in extenso through it, from end to end.

"Mrs. Geoffrey Lansdowne Bill, having rather a more roomy house than she requires, would resign two rooms to the young lady who advertised for a happy and refined home and chaperonage. Mrs. Geoffrey Lansdowne Bill, having married two of her daughters well, would be quite prepared to farther the young lady's views in that direction.

"The society among which she moves is mixed, partaking of the literary and fas.h.i.+onable equally. Mrs. Geoffrey Lansdowne Bill of course expects to be very handsomely remunerated for her trouble, and I wish to hear from the young lady at once."

Even Margaret laughed heartily over this effusion.

"A pity one of her literary friends did not help her to write her letter," she said, laughing, as she looked it over, "and keep her tenses in order."

"I should think the society was 'mixed,'" exclaimed Grace, wrathfully, "and I know what you are thinking--you think that these two failures will prove me to be quite wrong--you imagine that this will convince me that my plan is an impossible one--but I mean to do it somehow."

"Very well," said Margaret, very quietly.

Only two days after this Grace came into the room, with a rush, and announced that Mr. Stevens was there and wished to see her; and, in the same breath, she added, "I have seen Lady Lyons, and she is going to look after me, she has gone to London to see about rooms, and now nothing remains but for you to say how much money you can give me. I shall want plenty, you know, and do not keep me a moment in suspense."

Before Margaret could answer her she was gone.

There was always a bitter sense of humiliation to poor Margaret when the question of her husband's money had to be touched upon.

She had seldom seen Mr. Stevens, though they had a great deal of correspondence. He never could understand her views. Having married Mr.

Drayton for his money in the first instance, why did she refuse to benefit by his will afterwards?

This apparent inconsistency troubled him; he had judged her harshly before they had met, and now he had learned to like her so well that he wanted some explanation of her conduct that would satisfy him.

He came to see her, now, because some things had remained unexplained, and he felt that much trouble and correspondence might be saved by a personal interview.

Margaret never saw him without emotion. She had that sort of instinct, we most of us have, about the liking or disliking an acquaintance has for us, and she knew that, though he showed her civility and even compa.s.sion, she had not his approval.

How could he approve of her, knowing only the bare fact of her marriage?

Sometimes she longed to tell him at any rate so much as might set her right in his eyes, because the disapprobation of an essentially just man was painful to her.

But the circ.u.mstances that had led to her marriage, and which she had judged to be so important at the time, had been proved to possess no real importance. She had yielded to her sister's weak dread of a poverty she detested, and her hope of escaping to a more congenial atmosphere; and, when she found that Margaret's sacrifice had not altered her conditions, she calmly accepted them as the inevitable, and poor Margaret felt that all she had suffered had not been in reality demanded of her.

In this lay the sting of it all--and she could not now bring herself back to that excitement of feeling and agony of mind about Grace which had pushed her into an action she now so bitterly regretted.

"You have resigned all Mr. Drayton's money now, Mrs. Drayton," said Mr.

Stevens, after a long conversation. "This last cheque to the Children's Hospital is the last balance, as far as regards you. Of course your sister's remains untouched, and, I suppose, as the investment is a good one, she will not care to disturb it."

"My sister's?" inquired Margaret, wonderingly. "What money do you refer to?"

"Do you not remember? Mr. Drayton told me you made a great point of it--that you asked him to settle something on her--that in the event of his death she should be provided for."

Margaret did remember it now with a hot blush of shame. Yes, it had been part of her bargain.

"How much is there?" she asked in a low voice.

Mr. Stevens looked at her in surprise.

"There are fifteen thousand pounds; the life interest is left to you only; the money becomes hers at your death. You see, therefore, you cannot alienate this sum. You cannot give it away."

"I am sure my sister will think with me...." she began, and then stopped suddenly; she had a conviction that Grace would think very differently.

"I do not know if you can enter into my feeling about Mr. Drayton's money," she said, hurriedly. "It is no whim, no distaste for the comforts and luxuries of life, but I cannot!" she continued, with a tone of pa.s.sion surprising to him in one usually so quiet and impa.s.sive before him. A great sob broke her voice. She felt ashamed of betraying emotion before one she conceived to be unsympathetic, and in a moment or two she checked all signs of it, and said in a calmer tone: "I trust my sister will see all this as I do."

"I do not think she will," said Mr. Stevens, who felt intensely for her, and who liked her better than he had ever thought possible. "But I do not think that her action in the matter need disturb you, people are so differently const.i.tuted. I myself fully appreciate your feeling in the matter; it is honourable to you, if you will allow me to say so."

"I am so glad you understand," said Margaret, simply. "I have been afraid that you could not approve...."

She stopped short, afraid of again breaking down; and then, in a calmer voice, turned to the subject of those scenes she had so lately visited, and the wants of the poor children she was so interested in.

He was more and more charmed with her; here was no high-flown nonsense, no exaggerated sentiment, but all her schemes were practical and full of common sense.

He stayed long, then he said,

"The only thing to be settled now is, whether the interest from the fifteen thousand pounds you will have nothing to do with is to be applied to charitable purposes or paid to your sister?"

"I will write to you."

"Do; and Mrs. Dorriman, do you know, is trusting to me to see you safe through the perils of your long journey."

"But it will give you so much trouble."

"Not at all;" he spoke in such a kind tone that Margaret felt she had gained him as a friend.

"Dear Mrs. Dorriman," she said softly, "what a lesson she is to us all; so unselfish and so perfectly unconscious of all her own virtues!"

He was silent, and after a few moments he left her and she waited for Grace, full of a certain vague unrest, not knowing what she would do, more than half afraid that she would see nothing but satisfaction in the fact of having an income, unable to sympathise with the difference that lay between them, forgetting that Grace knew, after all, very little of those dreadful months, and that it was quite impossible for her to see things from her point of view.

She turned to pleasanter things. Lying on the table was a small parcel.

She well knew what it was, as she had a letter from the publisher that morning.

The proofs of her poem lay before her. Though she had concealed her name her first idea was one almost of fear. She had poured out her whole heart in these lines--her sorrows, her bitter mourning over the past.

Reading it all now, how vividly it all came back to her! The lines on her child's death touched her with fresh sorrow; again she felt the terribly blank feeling of loss, and stretched once more her empty arms towards an unanswering grave.