Mrs. Dorriman Volume Ii Part 9

Her attenuated figure and glistening eyes filled Mrs. Dorriman with compa.s.sion, and it was with a great effort she said, when Grace, panting a little, was once more on her sofa, "When did you hear from Margaret last, my dear?"

"A week ago; she is so lazy about writing, and when she writes she tells me nothing," said Grace, very pettishly.

"Where did she write from?"

"Some place in Austria--just imagine what luck for her going to Vienna, Paris, Berlin, and Constantinople."

"Did she give you any address?"

"Oh, she never does, because she never has the least idea where she is going to. Mr. Drayton keeps it all to himself, I fancy. I have written to her, but I send my letters on chance. Stay, I think I have her last letter here, you may see it if you like. Poor Margaret, she always takes life so very seriously, she has no sense of fun. I am sure with her opportunities I should have written a much longer and a more amusing letter!"

Mrs. Dorriman read the letter, and her eyes filled with tears. It was a letter written by one who has lost all the spring of youth--unhappiness was on its every page, and the craving to know that Grace was well and surrounded with comforts, and that she was happy. It was a beseeching cry to know if the step she had taken had been of use to her beloved sister.

"Grace," said Mrs. Dorriman, after a moment or two, "when you move, as the doctor hopes, have you money?"

"Money! My dear Mrs. Dorriman, what an odd question. I have no money--A few s.h.i.+llings, that is all."

"And will Margaret send you some? Will Mr. Drayton pay all your expenses?"

"Of course he will, now Margaret has married him. I see what you mean. I had better write to her about it."

"Yes, you had better write." Mrs. Dorriman's face flushed. "I wish, my poor child, it had been otherwise, but my brother is still offended with you. I am so very sorry, but he wants me to go home to him."

"Does he?" said Grace, indifferently, and Mrs. Dorriman noticed with a pang that this news she had thought necessary to break to the invalid did not affect her at all.

"He wants me at once. I do not like leaving you alone here, Grace, without your sister; it will be dull for you and lonely."

"It would be, but you see I am going too," said Grace. "If I do not hear from Margaret soon I shall go to London to their house and wait for them there."

She spoke so confidently that Mrs. Dorriman was much relieved. With all her compa.s.sion there was so little that was congenial to her that she never could be affectionate to Grace, and she herself being of a warm-hearted nature fancied that the girl must miss it in her. She was always trying to like her, and failing.

The letter Grace wrote at intervals, and with some difficulty, reached Margaret after some delay. She was on the Rhine at Mayence, tired out with incessant travelling, and most anxious about her sister. She waited impatiently for her husband's return, he had gone out on business.

"I have heard from Grace, written after she had walked across the floor by herself. She is able to travel now. When can we get home?" she asked, as he entered the little sitting-room.

He laughed a little. "So Miss Grace is able to travel. Where does she intend going to?" he asked blandly.

Margaret's face flushed. "She is coming to us--she is to live with us."

"This is indeed news," he said, laughing--and how she had grown to hate his laugh! "There are two sides to that statement."

"You cannot surely object to my sister coming to pay me a visit."

"I am afraid I do object--between such a devoted couple as you and I,"

he said, with a sneer. "No third person would find it pleasant. I do not intend trying it, at any rate."

"You do not mean to say that my own and only sister may not come to me?"

said Margaret, her voice faltering.

"I do mean it. I married you; I did not marry your sister also. She is not quite in my line, and the sooner you understand it the better."

"And poor child, she is ill, and ... penniless." Margaret's heart beat to suffocation. She had married for this one thing, and had not got what she had considered a certainty.

"It is cruel to keep us apart," she said, choking back her tears, feeling helpless and miserable.

"It is a sad position," he said, with his hateful little laugh. "But perhaps excellent Mr. Sandford will provide for her."

"And you know," said Margaret, indignantly, "you know that our being at Torbreck was because Grace could not bear the position he put her in.

She cannot bear him!"

"How unfortunate! Well, you see, I do not like her at all. Why should I?

She has never shown me decent civility, and I do not choose to have her.

It is better to be frank with you. I hate all her d----d airs and graces."

Margaret's tears were falling fast. Stifling her emotion she summoned up her courage. She said, "I have never asked you for money, will you give me some now?"

"To send to her--certainly not."

"You will not give any money," she exclaimed, in despair.

"No, I will do nothing of the kind. Now, Margaret, you had better understand me once for all. When I married you I intended to win your love. I did not expect you ever to give me what I gave you. You have never once given me a spontaneous mark of affection. You look as though you were brokenhearted, and a martyr. Do you suppose that I did not know that you only married me because that precious sister of yours had chosen to quarrel with her bread and b.u.t.ter? But I did not care. I thought kindness and affection would win something in return. I consider that, as you fail in your side of the bargain, I have every right to fail in mine." And with one of his detestable laughs he left her to think over his words.

Margaret went to the open window and looked on the garden and the river--brilliant in the suns.h.i.+ne and seeming to mock at her despair.

There was that painful grain of truth in his words that filled her with humiliation. Was she not justly punished? She had done wrong; could good ever come out of evil? She might live long, and all her life she was to have this terrible companions.h.i.+p.

She clasped her hands together, and tried to think calmly and prayerfully what she could do now, when the silence of humanity amidst the throb and ripple of the river was broken, and a well-remembered voice was calling her by name.

"Margaret, my Margaret, I have found you! I am free to tell you the end of my story. I tried to tell you the beginning. I love you! My darling, I love you! Can you love me in return!"

A faint cry burst from Margaret's lips. For a few moments the present and all the horrors of her position fell away from her memory. He stood beside her, and, reading nothing but the flood of joy with which she heard his words in her face, he clasped her in his arms.

For one delicious moment Heaven seemed to open to her. She forgot everything but that he loved her. Then with a cry she pushed him away from her, and stood hiding her face in her hands, too wretched, too utterly miserable, for tears or any outward expression. He stood aghast; he had seen the joy in her face and now what did this mean?

She turned towards him hurriedly; he must not stand there; he must not be left for one moment in ignorance. With suppressed pa.s.sion she told him all, how she had misinterpreted his words, and how she had tried to forget him; of her sister's illness, and of her own marriage. Once she began to speak the words rushed from her lips. She told him of her cruel and bitter disappointment about Grace, and she asked him wildly to help her. "What am I to do!" she cried. "Help me!"

He heard her with the bitterest feeling against the man who had used her love for her sister, only in the end to break faith with her. It was terrible to him to see Margaret, always so calm and so self-possessed, in such deep and terrible agitation. His grief for her was so powerful that his own sank into nothingness beside it. He had always thought her great unselfishness one of her greatest perfections, but the devotion to her sister was to him quite wonderful.

In calm tones that did not yet entirely hide the agitation he fain would conceal from her, he, upon his side, explained his promise to his mother, and his journey and her death. Through all her misery came the clearing away of a cloud. She had not erred, and he had loved her!

They stood side by side, silent after that lifting of the veil from both their hearts, he noting with agony the transparency which filled him with alarm.

She had asked him for help, and he would help her.

"Let me have your sister's address," he said; "there is only one thing I want now to understand, why did Mrs. Dorriman never tell you of my visit?"

"Mrs. Dorriman?"