Mrs. Dorriman Volume I Part 2

The last blow completed that helpless feeling of indignation she had against her husband's incapacity for business. The test of a woman's love, as we have said, is adversity, and poor Mrs. Dorriman had never any love to begin with. She possessed her soul in patience before the world, but only before the world; in secret it was one long incessant protest against her fate. She felt in her heart of hearts, though even to herself she did not so plainly speak, that she had not received her share of the bargain. She had married to get out of her brother's power, and she had been a dutiful if not an affectionate wife, and now she was more in her brother's hands than ever! More because she was a proud woman, and her brother made her plainly understand that much that was painful as regarded her husband's transactions might be brought forward by him if he chose to do so.

It was just at that time, just when a helpless sense of loss every where filled her and made her very wretched, and that she was gathering everything together to go away, that Mrs. Dorriman came upon a whole box of papers, some letters all marked and arranged in order, receipts, and other things.

Poor Mr. Dorriman's great idea of business was keeping and docketing every line he ever received, and copies of much that he wrote.

His widow looked at these doc.u.ments with something of the pang with which we see the relics of a hand no longer there. Indeed, since her husband's death, the faint affection she had had for him had undergone a change. She was indignant when she thought of his business incapacity, but she missed his kindness and she regretted him more each day, as each day taught her how much he had cared for her.

Should she burn these papers, or not? Timid as she was const.i.tutionally--she looked round her, and at that moment she saw her brother coming up to the house. Afraid he might sneer at her sentimentality, or say something to vex her about her looking at them, she hastily pushed the box under the sofa, and sat down, not wis.h.i.+ng to conceal anything, but merely from that one idea, that, if he saw her with the old letters before her, he might wound her in some way.

Her brother's visit taught her for the very first time that in that box might lie doc.u.ments of importance to her husband and to her.

After sitting down for a moment or two, he rose and moved about restlessly, and then he said--

"I have to find some papers; where did your husband keep his papers?"

Without expecting an answer, he said, "Oh, I know, in his writing-table drawers." And, without waiting for her to speak, he went into her husband's room, and she heard him lock the door.

Mrs. Dorriman rose, and, filling the skirt of her dress with some of the papers, she made silent and successive journeys to her own bedroom, where she concealed all, hastily throwing some skeins of worsted into the empty box, and once again sat down. She knew nothing--but there must be some reason for her brother's anxiety, and she had suffered so much at his hands that her whole instinct was alive in self-defence.

But a timid woman does not act in this way for the first time in her life without betraying something of the agitation into which it had thrown her.

When Mr. Sandford, with angry and baffled eyes, came back to her, he saw something in her face which roused his suspicions. To have put the suspicion into words would have perhaps roused hers, but from that moment the poor woman's dream of a peaceful life at Inchbrae with no one to dread, was a dream that had no foundation. He went away a day or two afterwards, and she lulled herself into a belief of contentment. So soon as Mr. Sandford's plans were made, though it took weeks and months to arrange them, he summoned her to his house. Certain in his own mind that she had concealed those papers, he determined to have such a hold over her as would give him the power of getting them into his own hands, if they were there.

In the meantime the fruits of her visits to the Macfarlanes appeared in the letter which she sent to Mr. Sandford next day.

"DEAR BROTHER," she wrote,

"I am quite willing to go and keep house for you for a time, but I will let my house and prefer not selling it; I like the place and do not wish to part with it.

"When I have made my arrangements I and my maid will go to you. I will write again when I know the day and hour on which I can leave.

"Your affectionate

"SISTER SUSAN."

She felt happier when she had thus boldly a.s.serted her freedom of choice.

Two days came and went, two lovely autumnal days, during which poor Mrs.

Dorriman, instead of preparing to depart, wandered over the little place, every nook and corner of which was sweet to her at all times, and was doubly dear to her now she was going away. Late in the afternoon of the third day she was walking down the burn-side, stopping ever and again to look with renewed admiration at the scenery round her, and watching the purple bloom upon the distant hills as the evening shadows came down, a purple tinge which was reflected in the sea except where a blaze of gold in the sky shone with more broken lights below; the sun was low behind the hills, and heavy clouds speaking of rain to come were lowering in fine contrast with the vivid light lying between them and the hills. The sea-birds were agitated and astir; from the open sea upon her left came that hoa.r.s.e strange murmur hurrying up like a relentless fate across the bosom of the sea. The light faded, grew less and less as the clouds descended, the wind increased in violence, and everything spoke of a coming storm.

Mrs. Dorriman saw the rain-clouds burst and stream down in the distance; she could not move, that curious foreshadowing of coming evil which we call presentiment made her cling to the spot. She heard herself called, she would not turn, she knew if she turned she would all the sooner hear what she did not want to hear. Then her faithful maid, the creature who cared more for her than any one, came up to her and touched her.

"The boy is waiting," she said, breathless with the speed she had used.

"Here is a telegram, and oh, my dear, there's nine whole s.h.i.+llings to pay. It's no mistake--it's marked on it. I hope it may be worth all that good money."

Mrs. Dorriman clutched the telegram in her hand, and went swiftly up the path and to her own room.

Before she got in the rain had come to them, and it came down with a violence which the wind seemed to increase as it dashed it against the windows. As her foot was on the stair Mrs. Dorriman's kindly nature made her say,

"Be good to the boy, Jean; he cannot face the storm for a bit."

Jean, who was one of those dear old women whose delight is in ministering to some one's wants, and who was never happier than when having the opportunity of doing so, went into the kitchen happy, and was soon busy heating "a fine sup of broth for him," and other things as well--when she heard a cry.

Setting the broth before him, and carefully shutting all the doors, that he, an outsider, should hear nothing, Jean hurried upstairs. Mrs.

Dorriman was sitting on the sofa, and looking white and miserable. The open telegram lay on the ground. She had flung it away as we fling away something that hurts us, and when Jean came in she laid hold of her arm, and pointed to it.

Jean lifted it up, and read as follows:--

"I have sold the place, and you are to be here at six o'clock next Sat.u.r.day--without fail. The new proprietor will be there that day. No maid or other servant can come here."

Jean read and re-read--she did not take it all in at first. Then an indignation and a whole storm of righteous wrath rose within her.

She put her arms round poor Mrs. Dorriman, and they mingled their tears together.

A few words went back in answer to Mr. Sandford's telegram:--

"I will come, as I must come, on Sat.u.r.day."

This message did not go for many hours. The boy was in no great hurry to leave the comfortable quarters he was in, and got back too late for the message to leave that night.

Mr. Sandford, aware that his sister would not have a.s.serted herself in so unwonted a manner had she not gained spirit and strength from some source unknown to him, had pa.s.sed a sleepless and agitated night, after receiving her letter.

In his dealings with Mr. Dorriman there were so many things that might appear against him. He was too cautious and too clever a man to put upon paper himself a word that might at any time rise up against him. But he knew Mr. Dorriman's ways; he knew that the one business-like habit he had was the tidy and careful way he had of docketing and filing all his papers. How often had the poor man not pointed to those carefully-folded and initialed slips, as a proof of how entirely nature had intended him for a thorough man of business?

Though Mr. Sandford, with a flow of language, and great powers of speech, could always confute him in an argument, how often he himself had felt uncomfortable when some paper he had entirely forgotten re-appeared in a moment, with its initial letter and note, showing to what it referred, written in a fine clear style outside.

One book, and only one of any importance, had he found in the writing-table drawers. This book was a carefully drawn up list of the papers Mr. Dorriman considered valuable or of any importance. It was written in that curiously neat and precise hand to be found generally in those who have nothing to do, and do that methodically.

All Mr. Dorriman's conception of business lay in this orderly manner of keeping papers; his losses and his gains were to him all vagueness. He hoped to get something by taking shares in one or another company, and he believed implicitly in whatever it was at the moment; was not only enthusiastic, but tired out his friends by the manner in which at inappropriate moments he introduced the hobby of the hour, which was to make his own fortune so completely that his good heart wanted all his friends to become rich in a like manner.

The immediate cause of his failure had been a carpet manufactory.

Needless to say, he did not know one carpet from another, but it was sufficient for him that other people did. Wool was all round him on the hills, and the same primitive dyes of our forefathers still existed on every muir.

The Cluny Macpherson plaid is the first and most primitive of all tartans, having only the natural colours of the wool--the bloom and the root of the heather in its manufacture.

Mr. Dorriman was fired with the ambition of producing carpets on the same principle, where only black and white, purple and yellow, were to be combined.

His first expense was, of course, machinery; his second storehouses; his third was in experimenting how to extract the purple from the hills in a satisfactory manner, and at small expense. Then it occurred to him that growing the wool himself would be such a splendid idea! and quant.i.ties of sheep were bought--without much reference to their keep--and his first experience in connection with them was, that not having sufficient turnips of their own they not unnaturally laid siege to those of their neighbours, and so effectually, that heavy damages had to be met. Then he had not taken into consideration that there was no railway near him--and he had to procure carts to carry fuel to feed his engines.

Here he is spoken of in the singular number, but five people joined him in this enterprise. There were some carpets made upon the principle of primitive colours of no particular pattern; they were made of the best wool, and would probably wear for a long time, but their ugliness was their most salient feature; they cost an enormous sum of money to produce, and the result of a struggling existence for three years was to carpet his own house, much against his wife's inclinations, to provide certain carpets for the other members, to sell a few at a loss, and to collapse. Mr. Dorriman was not one of those men who, because they are extremely sanguine at one moment, are proportionately depressed at another. He bore disappointment with unflinching good humour, and was so immediately interested in a new scheme that the sense of failure never rested long upon him. In this instance, however, whether from failing health or from some cause not evident, he was seriously affected. Though he did not know it--he was the only one of the six investors who had any real property, and the consequence was that the whole loss fell upon his unfortunate shoulders.

To Inchbrae, his wife's little property, his thoughts turned. There he went and there he died; and it was only then, as before said, that a glimmer of reproach at her want of understanding touched his wife, and she had kissed him tenderly.

The record in his book that troubled Mr. Sandford's peace was not any written record, it was what was left blank. After detailing various papers there came this:--

LETTERS FROM JOHN SANDFORD.