Mrs. Dorriman Volume Ii Part 26

"Considerably less than nothing. One question was asked--introductions--references, and, as I had never thought of an introduction, and could refer to no one as to my ability--I was bowed out. I met with civility, I will say; I had on my best coat, and that tells," he said, in a tone of satisfaction.

"Perhaps something may turn up," Grace answered brightly.

"I hope so; you see, I never could do much more than sign my name--my handwriting is simply abominable. It has happened to me to have my address and signature cut out of my own letter and pasted on as the only way of solving the problem of where I lived, and then it sometimes wandered about a good deal before it reached me;" and he laughed at the recollection. Grace laughed with him.

"But what is your plan as regards Margaret, my poor darling sister?"

she asked, and her countenance changed.

"If I was agent to something in which Mr. Drayton was interested I could ask to see him on business, and if I could only get a recommendation or introduction to him all would be easy; once in the house I am not afraid." The young man drew up his head and looked quite ready for anything that might happen.

Grace clasped her hands. "I think it is a very good plan," she exclaimed, "and I can help you a little myself. What do you call a manufactory that turns out horrible smells, and kills trees and plants and things."

"Artificial manures?" he said, pulling a list out of his pocket and referring to it.

"Oh, dear no," said Grace, impatiently, "it makes all the trees look like skeletons. Who ever heard of manure killing anything? it makes them grow."

"I spoke without thinking, only remembering that that made an appalling smell, quite enough to kill everything."

"Well, think, with all your might, or, still better, think, and give me your list--and if I saw the name I should know it--and you can think in the meantime," said Grace, speaking very quickly.

"I have it!" she exclaimed, joyfully pointing with her finger to it and holding out the paper to him. "Chemical works! now do not forget, chemical, chemical, chemical--say it over and over again, for fear of forgetting it. Well, Mr. Lyons, at Renton there is a huge large chemical work, and Mr. Drayton used to go there constantly. I remember his saying one day that he had invested money--a quant.i.ty of money--in these things."

"That will do then," he said. "I will boldly ask for Mr. Drayton to-morrow morning, and ask if he is still interested in the Renton chemical works. You will see, all will go well."

"I pray that it may. I shall write a long letter to my poor darling and entreat her to tell me exactly the state of the case. She has so much cleverness that I _cannot_ understand her not coming to see me. She must have some difficulty to contend with we know nothing of."

"Ask her to suggest some plan herself, if she requires help of any kind," said young Lyons.

"Yes, only she is so horribly conscientious, she may make difficulties.

Her spirit seems so broken."

"Hearing that man laugh is quite enough to make one wish never to laugh again. However, now that I have something definite to do I feel happier.

Oh! if all only goes well.

"I hope Lady Lyons is not uneasy about your being so much away."

"No, she is quite accustomed to my erratic movements. Good-bye, and if...."

He stopped, turned very red, and went swiftly out of her presence.

CHAPTER X.

Margaret found the days pa.s.s on with a monotony which was very terrible to her. At times her husband joined her at dinner, but she never knew when to expect him. Sometimes he came into the nursery, when he would sit watching her and the child, in whom her love (starved in every other direction) centred so completely.

She learned to be horribly afraid of him. She could not understand how the doctor could reconcile it to his conscience to speak of him as sane; there was such a wildness in his eyes, and a vagueness in his laughter, which made her s.h.i.+ver with fright.

She forgot the great cunning that forms so great a feature in some kind of insanity, and, always viewing him with nervous eyes, she heard him speak rationally at times without noticing it, because her mind was always on the stretch, and mental anxiety is apt to distort everything.

He had generally, however, fits of silence when she was only conscious of his eyes gleaming at her from under the s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, and these prolonged periods of silence were far, far more acceptable to her than his terrible laugh. Each day she prayed with all her soul for health and strength--she tried, poor child, to do her duty, and, sometimes full of pity for his evident supreme unhappiness, she tried to talk to him and to interest him in their child. He watched her unceasingly. In the garden, where now spring flowers were coming out, where the birds began to chirp and twitter, and where the trees showed green, and another spring had come to gladden the earth.

It brought no rejoicing to her heart, because there must be a responsive chord somewhere, and to enter into the fair happiness of spring the pulses must be able to beat a little quickly, and some sympathy between the great new birth of the year and the soul must be possible. The cheerfulness of outside nature seemed almost a mockery to her--just as the overflowing mirth of a casual acquaintance jars upon one in sorrow.

Her writing began to be noticed, and at times her nurse, who had been unsympathetic and suspicious at first, but who had grown to love her, managed to bring her carefully-written letters from Grace, and news from the outside world, though Margaret seldom dared to ask her to make the attempt, she was so afraid that this one human being in whom she had begun to have trust might be taken from her. She dreaded night because, though locked in with her child, the nurse sleeping in an adjoining room, she would often wake in a paroxysm of terror, thinking that in some way her husband had gained an entrance to her room, and that he was threatening her and her child.

She was walking in the garden with her sorrowful thoughts, watching her little darling, when the front doorbell rang loudly, a sound so seldom heard as to be startling to her.

Mr. Drayton, who used to sit in a room off the front hall, of which the window commanded the garden, went as usual into the hall to see that no one went out or came in, and heard his own name mentioned by a peremptory and loud-voiced man, who demanded instant admission, to see him on urgent business.

"Tell him I have done with business, I refuse to see him."

"But you will be extremely sorry if you do not see me," said the stranger in a still louder tone. "You thought you had made a mess of those chemical work shares, but you have been a far, far cleverer man than we gave you credit for. Those shares Mr. Sandford laughed at...."

"Come in here, come in here," said Mr. Drayton, rubbing his hands with glee. "So I was right, and that old fool was wrong, hah! hah! hah!" and he laughed uproariously.

The stranger walked into the small room; he could hardly believe, he said, that Mr. Drayton's acute intelligence had been laughed at. What shares had he had in those works; what papers had he to show? Perhaps that was a matter of no moment. If the shares had been sold ... why it was a misfortune, unless he could buy them back before the discovery, the great discovery, was made known.

"What discovery?" asked Mr. Drayton, in a moment suspicious.

"That you were right and every one else wrong."

"How has that discovery been made?"

"By experiment."

"Yes; but who made the experiment?"

The stranger leaned forward and said in a low voice, "You remember your manager, the man who left you?"

"Remember him! You do not mean to say he is in the thick of this--the scoundrel, the--the rascal." Then suspicion came to him again.

"What interest in all this have you?" he asked, very angrily, and glaring at the stranger fiercely.

"Interest? you do not suppose I have come to you for nothing; that would be rather a good joke," and he laughed heartily.

"Of course not, of course not. But from what motive? No one does anything for nothing," and Mr. Drayton put on an air of wisdom, in which cunning was very visible.

"I should think not, indeed; and I am not working for nothing, I can tell you. In the first place, a friend of mine has been most abominably treated--shockingly, shamefully treated!"

"By whom?"

"By some one connected with these works," (and I am sure that is true, said Paul Lyons to himself, since he, this man, has been connected with them).

"Can't you tell his name?"

"No, I can't, it would spoil all my plans if I did," (and so it would, he thought).