Mrs. Dorriman Volume I Part 14

He was conscious of a great wish that she should stay; but he could think of nothing more to say.

"There is no room for me, sir, and I am afraid you say it now, and will be sorry afterwards; and the end would then be worse than the beginning. It would hurt Mrs. Dorriman more."

"You can do as you like," he said, more determined she should stay, since she opposed his will, "but I cannot reconcile your affection for Mrs. Dorriman with your determination to leave her."

"Can you not?" said Jean, her blue eyes flas.h.i.+ng a little. "Can you not, sir? Can you not see that the bread of dependence is bitter to her and bitter to me? You took her from her own home, and her own quiet life--for some reason of your own--but I know it was ill done. If I am here, it is another weight upon the wrong side."

"Do as you like, and leave me, in Heaven's name!" he exclaimed, impatiently.

"Heaven had not much to do with her being taken away," said Jean, firmly, "but I do not wish to speak about what I know imperfectly after all. What I wish to speak about is just this--Do you really want me to stay, and is it all for her sake? or is there something else?"

"The woman will drive me mad!" said Mr. Sandford. "What else could there be? No! I do wish you to stay; and with regard to Inchbrae," he said, in a lower voice, "had I known she cared so much----"

"She did care," said Jean; "she greeted till I thought she would wear herself out; but she is getting over it a bit, and she knows that one day she will go back."

"Ah!" said Mr. Sandford, "what is that about going back? The place is sold."

"Yes, it is sold," said Jean composedly, "and can be bought back any time. Your sister knows the prophecy, and she'll go back to it in G.o.d's good time. Till then we are content--she and I."

"Some old woman's story," muttered Mr. Sandford. "Now you will be good enough to go and leave me."

"I will wish you good day, sir; it's not good-bye, till I know Mrs.

Dorriman's wishes."

Jean left the room, and Mr. Sandford took his hat and went out. Nothing Jean said held much meaning for him, but her manner impressed him; and he went off to look into some business matters, never for a moment thinking it curious that his changed feeling towards his sister had made him try to persuade her old servant to stay in his house.

When he went home Mrs. Dorriman's face was more cheerful than he had yet seen it.

"I should like to know how we are to get any dinner," he said, afraid of her thanks.

"Oh! brother, there is Jean."

"Well! what of that?"

"She is a first-rate cook, and she has agreed to stay; and she is getting on with everything; and it is like a dream," said the poor woman, in a perfect flutter of grat.i.tude, and relief, and happiness.

Her brother looked at her wonderingly.

"You are an odd little woman," he said, but not unkindly. "It does not take very much to upset you," but he was glad all the same.

He had always felt uncomfortable about Jean since he had found out how much his sister was wrapped up in her; and he now felt rather grateful to her for coming in to his plan so readily.

It was dark when Mr. Drayton arrived, and only Mrs. Dorriman was waiting to receive the two, who came in together.

Mr. Drayton was a pleasant-looking middle-aged man, with a countenance wanting expression, a manner very nearly as undecided as poor Mrs.

Dorriman's; fair curly hair, which was beginning to turn grey, and a child-like way of speaking. Any one judging him at first sight would have said at once he was one of the men who go through the world unsuccessfully. Sanguine to a fault, perpetually disappointed, only perpetually to spring up again.

He had a very absent manner, and frequently missed hearing important facts, because he was thinking of other things. Pa.s.sionate and kind-hearted, only believing in himself to a certain extent, led by any stronger mind than his own, and making mistakes he himself laughed at when it was too late to remedy them. He was tall, extremely slight, had very sloping shoulders, and was inconsistent in his dress--at one time wearing rough and ill-made country clothes, and at another particular to a fault about the cut of his things and the shape of his boots.

His father had made the money, and had left it all to him. He had been an affectionate son and a most disappointing partner. People said the business would not hold together two years; he had now held it together six since his father's death, because Mr. Drayton had a warm affection for the manager, Mr. Stevens, was guided by him, and did nothing of any importance without consulting him.

Mr. Sandford had, at that time, a great project in hand, a project requiring far more capital than he could furnish without disturbing his own investments.

He had met Mr. Drayton once or twice and looked upon him as a man through whom and by whom a great deal might be done.

He had urged his coming to Renton for two very different reasons; he intended him to marry Grace Rivers, and he arranged it so completely in his own mind that he never even put the case conditionally. He was beginning to dislike Grace extremely, she interfered in so many little things. It was all very well for Mrs. Dorriman to allow it; she was, and always had been, one of the women born to be ruled by every one round her, but he objected to the perpetual a.s.sertion of herself which forced Grace to be always, so to speak, on the disc of the family life, to the exclusion of the others.

She annoyed him, and he had, from the first moment of this discovery, resolved to marry her to some one who would take her off his hands, since, in these days, getting rid of her in any other way might lead to comment. He was resolved that Mr. Drayton, who always declared he _must_ marry, and who, in his lighter moments, declared himself to be too much bewildered by the enormous amount of beauty and accomplishment he met with to be able to choose, should have no such bewilderment now. What Grace Rivers would do, whether she would like or dislike the man, was to him a matter of no moment, he never thought of the marriage as affecting _her_ in any way; and had Mr. Drayton been repulsive and hideous, or even much older, it would not in any way have made the slightest difference in his arrangements. Grace out of the way, Margaret would be all by herself with his sister, and he was beginning to love Margaret; indeed, the society of the women round him was both softening his character and developing a certain kindness in him which no one had ever given him credit for. The one soft place in his hard heart had been his love for his wife, and since that time the only disinterested kindness had been shown to her orphan nieces. Though he told himself that it had all been for _her_ sake, and that it did not increase his happiness, yet, when he was coming home after a long and wearisome day, it was pleasant to know that there was some one to meet him, some one who looked after things for him. The gentle face of Margaret was always a pleasant thing to look forward to, and, even as regarded his sister, her even temper and great sweetness had taught him, as we have seen, a sort of respect, and his suspicions about her were lulled to rest. He had hurried home to be in time to go himself to the station and meet Mr.

Drayton.

Little did that individual know of the many plans made in connection with him. He was a little bored by the length of his journey and glad to get out of the train. He was too good-tempered a man to be cross, and he was flattered by the importance Mr. Sandford attached to his coming.

This was something like success, he said to himself, to be sought by a man of so much influence.

Sending his portmanteau on to the house, the two men walked up together, and soon Mr. Sandford was taking his guest upstairs, to find no one there but Mrs. Dorriman. This rather disconcerted him; he had intended to find a look of comfort and home and the three sitting as he usually found them, and there was only his sister.

"Where are Grace and Margaret?" he asked, with the frown upon his forehead which bespoke displeasure.

"They have gone to their room," she said, in a deprecating manner; "it is later than you think."

"Ah, you are punctual, I see," exclaimed Mr. Drayton, with an unrestrained laugh which accompanied most of his remarks. "I shall have to take care; I could fancy your brother a terrible tyrant in the household, so strict. I am right, eh?" and he laughed again, still more cheerfully than before, not having the vaguest idea that he had spoken that true word in jest which is often a painful enough truth.

Mrs. Dorriman found her conversation more terribly common-place than ever. She had made much of the slowness of the train and had been met with another laugh, as though some indescribably funny joke was wrapped up in its tediousness. She had asked if the country round Mr. Drayton's house was like Renton; was it equally smoky? and he, laughing as ever, a.s.serted it was worse, much worse, and then a pause had come. The poor woman was growing nervously aware of the silence and she resolved to break it, dreading to say something which would bring that laugh back, quite unaware that Mr. Drayton was himself shy, and that he laughed because it was the only way of concealing his shyness.

What terrible sufferings a man must go through afflicted with shyness; a woman may suffer but at any rate she is in her rights. She may be timid and shy and self-conscious, it is all part of a quality belonging to her, though in an exaggerated form--but a shy man!

There is, to begin with, a feeling as though it were not a misfortune but a fault; it is contrary to all preconceived notions of what a man's character should be; it is out of place, and the unfortunate man who is so afflicted seldom meets with pity or sympathy. With an inkling of this truth, Mr. Drayton concealed his shyness by an overpowering amount of cheerfulness. He was consistently, perpetually, oppressively cheerful; and having once a.s.sumed this character, it soon became a confirmed habit. After all, to be incessantly cheerful, and in apparently superabundant high spirits, is a less afflicting thing than the habit of looking at life through a smoky gla.s.s, and depressing every one round one by melancholy facts and a lengthened face.

Mr. Sandford came now to the rescue unintentionally, by carrying Mr.

Drayton off to dress, and, with a sigh of relief, the poor little woman went off to her own room.

Dinner was ready, the guest--with an immense expanse of s.h.i.+rt front, was standing on the rug, talking to Mr. Sandford, when the door opened, and Mrs. Dorriman and the two girls came in.

The moment they saw him all interest in him vanished. They saw only a prosperous middle-aged man, whose laugh was noisy and vulgar. He was Mr.

Sandford's friend, so they need have expected nothing better, they thought.

Mr. Drayton, who had never understood that the people living with Mr.

Sandford were young girls, was astonished. They took so little notice of him that he was piqued. He was a man accustomed to consideration from every one--especially from the young ladies he knew. The indifference he now met astonished him. His most amusing stories, which he told with tears in his eyes and roars of laughter afterwards, were received with rounded eyes, and not a smile in sight. The girls, indeed, thought him ridiculous, and Margaret's grave young face never relaxed for a moment.

From indifference, Grace's expression rose to disdain, and Mrs.

Dorriman, as usual, had the whole brunt upon her shoulders.

How that poor little woman tried to do her duty! to show a polite interest, and to smile, when smiles were expected; while the ungrateful man counted her interest and approbation as nothing, and tried to win, at any rate, attention from the other two.

Even to Mr. Sandford, not himself an acute observer, there was something strained in Mr. Drayton's laughter, something unfriendly in Grace's expression. The moment he discovered it--the instant he read tacit disapproval and opposition--he was the more resolved that these two should bow to his decision, and accept his arrangement.

He observed, also, that it was Margaret who attracted most of his guest's attention. That must, of course, not be allowed; he must give him to understand at first that Margaret was out of the question. He did not wonder at it, however. There was a winning sweetness in Margaret's expression that must please every one. Young as she was, there was a composure, a repose of manner, wanting in her sister. It was the difference between one character absolutely forgetful of self and one full of self-consciousness.

Conversation is never more difficult, than when it ought to be there, never more spasmodic than when people meet--who know nothing of each other's likings or dislikings--and who have none of that light talk which dwells on politics, great events, and the last new song in one and the same breath.