Mrs. Dorriman Volume I Part 9

"You should know about things. I do not know how it was done, but there was some comfort in the old place, and I suppose you had something to do with that."

"Of course I did see about things. I do not know if they were very comfortable."

"They were," he said, emphatically, "and you will find they want stirring up in this house. The morning I was taken ill there was not one soul out of bed. I rang and rang and only a wretched girl answered. You must alter all that. I expect you to keep everyone and everything in order, and in good order too; and," he added--looking round, not at the girls but well above their heads--"if any one gives trouble, they go!"

Mrs. Dorriman felt her heart sink. The old manner, the old hard-handed way of laying down the law, brought to her mind times when in almost these very words she had read changes distasteful and unfortunate for her; something of that helpless feeling of her childhood came to her, when she had been left to struggle on without care or affection, when her nurse had been banished, and she had to put on her clothes, and perform for herself all that, till then, had been done by kindly hands.

For, though we live to forgive many wrongs, and time mercifully softens our regrets, and blunts the edge of our sensibilities, there are two things we may learn to forgive, but we never learn to forget--a wrong done to us in childhood, when we were too helpless and too young to protect ourselves, and a wound to our self-love in later life.

There was a prolonged silence, which became at length a noticeable one.

Then Grace, feeling that it lay with her to show how little the purport of Mr. Sandford's words affected her, said in a light tone,

"Do you ever see people here, Mr. Sandford?"

"See people!" he echoed; "you can see plenty of people whenever you look out of the window. See people! why it would be a pleasanter place if there were not so many to see."

"Of course I do not mean in that sense," said Grace, with dignity; "I mean, do people call here?"

"I have no doubt plenty of people will call now," he said, with mock solemnity, which for the moment took her in, as he gave an old-fas.h.i.+oned bow in her direction.

Grace bridled a little; her influence was beginning to make itself felt even on this rough man, she thought.

"I am not sure that the callers are just in your line," he said, after a momentary pause. "Some are I doubt beneath your level, and some I fancy a good bit above it."

"No one can be above Grace's level," exclaimed Margaret, "she is so clever, and----"

"Tut, tut," he said, "I wish every one had so good a trumpeter, but Grace is nothing very wonderful--I have not seen any proof of her cleverness. Come now, Margaret, what can she do? Can she sew a seam, knit a stocking, turn her hand to any useful thing, eh?"

"Grace could do everything of the kind if she chose."

"Then she had better try; it's worse to have talents and let them lie idle than to be born with none."

"If it is necessary," said Grace, still speaking in a measured tone. "I think I could do these things. I do not think knitting a stocking requires a great deal of intellect I must say."

"But it requires industry, and I think you are not industrious; however, my sister, Mrs. Dorriman there, will arrange what you are to do," and, rising in his usual abrupt fas.h.i.+on, he left the room, leaving Grace in a state of mind which is difficult to describe.

Next day, breakfast over, Mrs. Dorriman went to see the cook, outwardly calm but inwardly with very great trepidation.

She herself was one of those quiet people who have a genius for household management, and she was blessed with that happy absence of irritability and anxiety to domineer, which wins its own way without any violent commotion.

Mrs. Chalmers, for some years so completely her own mistress, was as ready to go off into a blaze as a well-laid fire. She had quite made up her mind to one thing, that if she was interfered with she would go. She valued her place or rather had valued it because she was entirely her own mistress, free to get up and go out and come in without any let or hindrance from any one. She did not mind having these people, for the extra work fell more upon her underling than upon herself, but interference she would not have.

She had put on her best cap and ap.r.o.n, ready to be summoned, and she would then and there give out her mind--perhaps resign her place; but, instead of being summoned, Mrs. Dorriman came down, looking so quiet and yet so evidently resolved to do what she felt to be right and with such a friendly air and so much politeness, that Mrs. Chalmers's unaccustomed knees bent, and before she had time to take her stand she was talking respectfully to Mrs. Dorriman and evidently anxious to please her.

Mrs. Dorriman was shown all the lower part of the house. What a contrast she thought it to the wide pa.s.sages and large rooms of the old home. She gave her meed of praise, made Mrs. Chalmers propose the dinner, made a few suggestions, and went upstairs, leaving Mrs. Chalmers comfortably satisfied that she need not give up her place--indeed, anxious to surpa.s.s herself and please the new mistress.

Such is the charm of manner, even down to those who do not in the least understand why they are charmed or in what way it affects them.

Mrs. Dorriman's next step was one which required much more courage. She felt that Margaret at sixteen could not have completed her education, to use the stereotyped phrase--for when is our education complete? She called the girl to her and began, in the low voice which, to a close observer, would have betrayed effort and a great shyness, to speak to her about her work and her idle hours.

"You are young to have left school; too young to give up steady work,"

she said gently; "shall we talk it over together?"

"Grace knows so much. Grace can help me," said Margaret, terribly inclining to this kindly woman and held back by her sister's words.

"Has Grace any plan? Suppose you call her," said Mrs. Dorriman gently.

"Grace," she began, "about Margaret; are you going to read with her, have you made any plan? Because she is too young, and, indeed, you are too young, to leave off all work."

"I think, as I was at the top of my cla.s.s _always_," said Grace, bristling up, "that you may safely leave this question to me. I think it so much better, Mrs. Dorriman, to make you understand at once that neither Margaret or I will stand any interference."

"I am afraid, without what you call interference, I cannot do my duty,"

said Mrs. Dorriman, quietly, but with a flush of colour in her pale face that rose and died away again immediately. "What do you do in the mornings? We do not know each other, my dear Grace; we are to live together; will it not be for our mutual comfort and happiness if we agree to try and like each other?"

Grace was a little moved by this appeal, but she was unused to be put in the wrong and could not accept the situation gracefully.

"There is nothing but that horrid old piano with jingling keys. I cannot play upon it, or I should play to you."

Mrs. Dorriman went towards it, opened it, and struck a few chords; they responded with harsh discords. She let the lid down with a little sigh, music was to her a second nature.

"No, you cannot play upon that," she said, "but books. What books have you both read? Do you like reading?"

Grace and Margaret looked at each other. A few pages of history each, read as a task; a few biographies of excellent people as Sunday reading; a few poetical extracts learned by heart: this was the sum total of their knowledge--all else in their empty minds a barren waste.

"If you will help me to unpack my books, we may perhaps find something we might like to read together," said Mrs. Dorriman; "and if you would like to prove to my brother that you are industrious," she added, laughing a little, "we can easily get some wool and produce a stocking."

Margaret looked a little eagerly at her sister; she was just at the age when she missed the regularity of the school life, and when time hung heavily upon her hands. The new feeling of interest and occupation held out by Mrs. Dorriman was very pleasant and gave her the first home-feeling she had in that house.

But a glance at Grace again threw her back, and she said with some hesitation that it would be nice to unpack the books, and appealed to Grace for some sign of consent.

Grace, however, was in no mood to be pleased with any suggestion of poor Mrs. Dorriman's, and, muttering something about having something to do in her own room, she went off alone there, in stately silence and a very bad temper.

Mrs. Dorriman led the way to her room upstairs; where, by her wish, her heavy luggage had been placed, and the lids were unscrewed, and they set to work doing their spiriting gently but very slowly, as the girl opened many volumes, and desired to know the history of each. But she knew too little to be interested, really interested, in anything. Grace would have concealed her ignorance and merely pa.s.sed everything over, but Margaret was more natural, and Mrs. Dorriman was by turns amazed and amused. The girl seemed to have heard of no one, and to know so little on every conceivable subject that, every now and again, her questions were absolutely ridiculous.

A rare edition of Spenser, exquisitely bound, was handled reverently by Mrs. Dorriman. It had been a favourite book of her father's, and Mr.

Dorriman had had it rebound for her.

"What is that?" asked Margaret, very innocently; "oh, I see, the man who wrote in what is called black-letter writing."

"My dear," said the amazed Mrs. Dorriman, "surely you cannot have been taught that."

"Well, there is something funny about his writing, so that trying to read it was no use."

"I hope to convince you of the contrary," said Mrs. Dorriman with suppressed merriment; not for worlds would she have hurt the girl's feelings by laughing at her, and Margaret went away.

Then she seemed to see herself with certainly more education, but very ignorant still at the age of seventeen, thrown so much upon herself and her own resources for all amus.e.m.e.nts and happiness--turning to these books, and losing herself in silent delight as one treasure after another opened to her enraptured eyes.

Her husband, himself fond of reading and anxious to win her love in any way, had spent a great deal in filling her library with books. She had editions which were priceless of various old authors, and the most perfect possible collection of poetical works, including many of those tender French poets from whom in these days it is so easy to borrow without detection, so completely are they out of date and forgotten; and, who living lives apart from their fellows, seem to have kept their old words and chivalrous sentiments pure and free from the worldliness and the grossness of their time.

But she was recalled to the present by Grace's voice, and then she looked round to see where she could put her books. There was but one little bookshelf in her room. She filled that and then went into the drawing-room to see what could be done there.