When Margaret left Renton Place, and that Grace had seen her off, the
first real sense of having been to blame came to disturb her mind. That
intense belief in herself which, as a rule, shielded her from
uncomfortable feelings, deserted her now; she tried to argue herself
into some more cheerful vein, but found it hopeless. Was it that she was
weaker, and that her illness had shaken her nerves? When night fell and
the household slept, memory came to confront her. Her selfishness filled
her with remorse; how many things she could look back upon now, when
Margaret, her sweetness, and her devotion never failing, had been
counted as so little, tested by her own all-absorbing love of having her
own way?
After all, how petty a thing she had urged her sacrifice for, and how
easily the self-will that had in the end been obliged to give in might
have done so before, and saved her!
A recognition, dim as yet, came to her of the beauty of her sister's
character. How far apart they stood in feeling! How Margaret insisted on
not only truth, but the highest expression of truth, as the only thing
she cared for.
Tears chased each other down her face, and each morning found her pale
and unrefreshed.
Want of sleep and the incessant torment of a newly awakened conscience
made Grace unusually irritable, her gay spirits were fitful, and,
indeed, were only used as a mask to hide the perpetual pain she had to
bear, a pain so far, far, more agonizing than any bodily pain.
Mr. Sandford--who was, himself, out of health--had no affection to
enable him to support her provoking ways.
He was terribly annoyed and concerned about Margaret, he was upset and
mortified by other things.
It was impossible for Mr. Drayton to have lost, as he had lost, without
the fact being known far and wide, and Mr. Sandford's share was
universally condemned. He was accused openly of having made a cat's-paw
of the man whose genial laugh and careless ways had gained him the
epithet of a "good fellow" from men who had neither suffered through him
or known his counter-balancing want of attraction.
Mr. Sandford knew that had he not been a fool and a timid fool, just
when he ought to have been bold, he would not have lost, but there was
just that grain of truth in the accusation which made it sting.
The reputation of a man in business--who has not the root of honesty
where honesty must be a _sine quâ non_--if respect is to be given; is
like graceful species of fir trees to be found on Scottish hills and in
many a wood, where, instead of sending their roots well down into the
earth, as do the other kinds, they spread close to the surface, and the
first rough wind throws them over and exposes the shallow hold they have
of mother earth. Mr. Sandford's name, once holding so high a place,
began to be mentioned with a little reticence. A shake of the head or a
shrug of the shoulders says a good deal, though it cannot be repeated.
It has weight; gestures are often remembered when words, especially
vague words, are forgotten.
Once a little beginning is made how easy is it to go on! People began
again to remember that there was a great deal about poor Mr. Dorriman's
affairs that had never been properly understood.
This feeling made itself felt. The first time Mr. Sandford wanted to
carry through some measure with his usual heavy hand, the members of the
Company, of which he was chairman, demurred. No one accused him openly,
but there were certain things insinuated.
His quick sense of any failing towards himself made him instantly grasp
the position of matters; and, though he mastered himself sufficiently to
show no outward sign, he went home with rage in his heart, all the more
terrible that it had had no outlet. It was at this inopportune time that
Grace provoked him.
Mrs. Dorriman, in vain, tried to counsel the wilful girl, in private.
She heard her unmoved. Day after day there were scenes, in which her
provoking words stung him.
"Why should I not say what I think, my dear Mrs. Dorriman? I really
cannot hold my tongue."
"I do not believe you are saying what you think. You speak on purpose to
provoke my brother."
"And why should he not be provoked? Life gives me a great many trials. I
should, myself, prefer another home; but if I am obliged to live here I
am not going to speak or be silent according to Mr. Sandford's wishes,
and I do not intend being a hypocrite."
"No one wishes you to be a hypocrite, but you need not say what you have
to say disagreeably. You always make him angry, not so much by your
words but by the way you speak the words."
"Mr. Sandford is a tyrant, and the more you give in to him the less you
are likely to get. I hope I may never live to be as frightened and timid
as you are!"
"I am not too timid to say what I think, if it is right to say it."
"Yes, you are! you look frightened, and that is enough for a man like
your brother. Now I cannot really look frightened, because a man in a
rage is to me a ridiculous object. It amuses me."
"I cannot help saying you have had one lesson! You once provoked my
brother in such a way that you and Margaret went away, and poor Margaret
has now to suffer; you might see that you do harm and not good;" and
Mrs. Dorriman felt so angry she did not measure her words. "You do not
suffer, but she does, and but for you, but for your way of speaking to
my brother, she would be safe with us, poor child!"
She had effectually stopped her for the moment, and, herself moved by
this statement in words of thoughts often present to her, she rose and
left the room.
She had said nothing that Grace had not remorsefully said to herself,
but the very truth in her speech made her angry.
She heard Mr. Sandford's voice. He was calling his sister's name. He met
her on the stairs in tears.
She passed him quickly, and indignant, and in a mood full of
irritability, he strode into the drawing-room to Grace.
"I will have you know," he said in his angriest and loudest voice, "that
I will not allow you to bully my sister."
"No," said Grace, languidly, "you like to monopolise that privilege!"
"How dare you speak to me in that way?"
"I dare speak in any way to you. Why are you to be always studied? and
why is every one to treat you as though you were a being of another
sphere? You do bully your sister, and you would bully me if I were to be
in the very least afraid of you. But I am not. Your sister has been
trying to make me see that you ought to be humoured--she drew an
affecting picture and then wept over it."
He was white now, pale with rage.
"What do you know about my conduct to my sister? There is no one I more
respect."
"Well, you have the oddest way of showing it I ever knew," and Grace
made a provoking gesture of astonishment, and gave a laugh of derision.
This completely exhausted Mr. Sandford's very slight stock of patience.
He went into a most fearful rage and said things that made Grace shiver.
Pale in her turn she left the room, and for a second time left his house
in anger.
She left without her things, wrapping herself up in her cloak, and
resolved to go to her sister, and not to make a sign. She was quite,
quite sure Mr. Drayton would receive her at any rate for a time, and she
must make some new arrangement. Return here she never would.
Mrs. Dorriman heard the loud voice, and as soon as she had recovered her
composure she hurried to the scene of action, to find Mr. Sandford ill,
as he always was when passion got the mastery of him.
In her anxiety about him Grace was forgotten, and it was not till
dinner-time that her departure was discovered, and poor Mrs. Dorriman
felt as though troubles were indeed her portion.
Mr. Sandford did not rally as he usually did, and she on her own
responsibility sent for the doctor.
He came and administered remedies. Then he told her privately that her
brother had a serious complaint, and that agitation would one day be
fatal to him.
"You must keep him quiet; he really must not be either worried or
disturbed about anything," said the doctor, not unkindly, but anxious
professionally, and determined to insist on his patient's having the
only chance of living.
"If I can keep him quiet!" began poor Mrs. Dorriman, "but nothing I can
do is of any use. Oh! indeed it is not my fault."
"Of course I do not mean to say it is," he answered hastily, "but I
merely give you warning. This attack has been brought on by some violent
emotion, and a repetition of it, _any_ mental excitement, will put an
end to his life."
Mrs. Dorriman went to his side when the doctor had gone, a whole world
of remorse and pain in her heart.
She had been several months with him now, and, though she had never
really forgotten the unspoken suspicion, it had been put into a remote
corner of her memory. As she looked upon him and marked the careworn
face and look of struggle his attack had left, she had a sense of having
been treacherous towards him. What did it really matter? Supposing those
papers contained some proof against him, would it be of any use
confronting him with them?
She was conscious of two things--that the whole attitude of her mind had
changed towards him, and that it had also altered towards her husband.
The various scenes she had gone through at Renton had had the effect of
turning her thoughts gratefully towards the affection and the peace she
had had with her husband.
She began to think of him more tenderly, and to see other possible
conclusions than those she had arrived at.
This awakened tenderness, which could never comfort him now, made her
feel as though, if she did read those papers, she would see nothing
against her husband, and this conviction took a heavy load off her mind.
Then came the other part of the problem--If her husband had been
blameless what was her brother?
All the long years of neglect at school, all the harshness with which he
had treated her in former years, seemed to have faded now, she had
softened to him so much, and now as he slowly recovered she acknowledged
this.
It was just when she had recognised him as her first duty now that the
telegram imploring her, to go at once to Grace was put into her hand.
She was distressed beyond measure, but she could not do it, she could
not agitate or annoy him now. She _could_ not leave him.
It was indeed hard to her to send Jean from her but she had no
confidence in other help, and she had the strongest feeling of a
neglected duty if she now gave up helping the wayward girl.
Jean went unwilling. She had never been out of Scotland, and looked upon
London as a sink of iniquity. She had some misgivings about her
journey, and she went off with an idea fixed in her head that she was to
be always upon her guard against plausible pick-pockets, extortionate
cabmen, and civilities which might mean robbery in the end.
She pinned Grace's address inside her dress, concealed her purse there,
and was put into the train by Robert, who gave the guard charge of her,
very much to her own indignation, "as though I was a little parcel," she
said to herself.
She was in a second-class carriage and met with a few adventures; she
was so "stand-off" to the two or three strangers who got in or out that
they thought her a most disagreeable old woman, but Jean was only on her
guard.
When they changed carriages and Jean was once more seated, a young woman
passed and re-passed and finally got into the carriage and sat down
opposite to her. She was very fair and had a lovely pink colour in her
cheeks. She fidgeted a good deal, got up and shook her dress, and
finally said, in accents of dismay,
"Oh, what shall I do? I have lost my ticket and I have no money with
me!"
Jean, who was alone in the carriage, eyed her attentively but spoke not
a word.
The young woman began to cry.
"Help me!" she said; "help me! I am alone and friendless!"
Jean still said nothing; she noticed that as they stopped at a station
her sobs subsided and that she drew back into a corner and avoided
observation. This roused her suspicions, and, when they started again,
the person, hitherto in such despair, began to grow not a little
impertinent.
"I wonder if people pay by weight in this train?" she said, airily,
determined to unlock the silent lips of the stout and much wrapped-up
figure in front of her.
This taunt about her size did rouse Jean.
"If you've _paid_ for your ticket you probably know," she said, in her
best English, and extremely indignant.
This answer completely extinguished all wish for conversation on the
part of her opposite neighbour, but she still fidgeted about, trying
first one seat and then another, and, sitting down beside Jean, she
fumbled about and pressed against her, altogether making herself most
objectionable.
The journey came to an end; the ticket-collector came to the door and
Jean put her hand in her pocket--her purse was safe, luckily, in the
front of her dress--the ticket was gone! Greatly to her surprise the
young woman immediately produced one.
Jean hunted in vain, her ticket was nowhere to be found, and her dismay
was great. She had a confused notion that she was in some way breaking
the law, and, though outwardly she kept calm, she was in a most fearful
state really, and she did not know what to do.
The guard fortunately came up to see what the stoppage was, and was
accompanied by a policeman.
"What was the matter?" he asked.
Before Jean could answer, the policeman stretched out his hand and
touched the young woman, who had been vainly trying to get out. She
turned pale--through what Jean now saw was paint.
"You are wanted," and, turning to Jean, he said, "has she taken anything
of yours, ma'am?"
Looking at the ticket the guard laughed and answered,
"She has taken your ticket, old lady. '_From Renton to London._' She
only got in an hour ago."
Poor Jean! all her life long she will believe in policemen from
henceforward. Indeed, when she went from St. Pancras to the station for
Wandsworth she refused to pay her cab till the policeman standing near
told her what the fare was, amusing the bystanders not a little by her
determined attitude and the suspicious look she gave the cabman.
When she reached Grace, her fatigue, her adventures, everything gave way
to compassion. For Grace was very ill, and needed good nursing and
care, and, to poor Jean's eyes, the lodging and all belonging to it was
not fit for any Christian, certainly not for a Scotchwoman.
She wondered a good deal that Margaret never came near her sister, and
made up her mind to go and look her up: Mrs. Dorriman had charged her to
be a mother to both bairns, and she fully intended keeping her promise.
In the meantime Margaret's little poem had been published, and she had
received three golden sovereigns for her work. She knew so little of the
value of literary work that she was not in the very least surprised; she
felt only the deepest thankfulness that, if she had a gift, she could
turn it to account for her beloved sister.
Her poem was very touching, full of the faults of one whose education
had never been extensive, but when she saw it in print she noticed a few
alterations she considered improvements, and took for granted that
these alterations were made as a matter of course by the editor. This
was evidently the use of having an editor. Then she began calculating
how many of these poems she could write in a week. Say she wrote four.
Why there was at once twelve guineas a week; a livelihood, a large
income! Why, oh why, had she not thought of this before?
The impressions of her mind flowed naturally into rhyme. There was great
beauty of thought, though much sameness in its delivery on paper. Her
reading with Mrs. Dorriman had not been thrown away, and she began to be
able to concentrate her thoughts on her work. The happiness of her life
which she had missed, set all to a minor key, but it made her poems more
beautiful. To touch the feelings of others, to appeal to their hearts,
there must be reality, and reality only can exist from personal
experience.
Sometimes the extraordinary dreariness of her life appalled her. To rise
day after day, knowing that a secret dread of a possible tragedy,
enacted in her house, pursued her; to see no one, to go nowhere, since
she was not allowed to cross the threshold. She had no idea that these
facts, told to any one, would have immediately brought her release, and
that any one, knowing what her life was, would have formed a juster
conclusion of the state her husband was in.
But the fear of having to leave, and to be parted from her child, made
all else nothing to her, and when she met her husband, he hardly spoke
to her. She never saw him without his servant being present, and she
could not bear appealing to her husband before him. She could not bear
discussing her sister's illness in his hearing.
Every possible opportunity she tried to get that key of the front door,
or permission to go out, but each time was met by peals of laughter, of
_senseless_ laughter, and refusal.
Her husband's last idea was the most frantic jealousy of the doctor, who
had been a little won over by Mrs. Drayton's youth and grace and charm
of manner.
Before him Mr. Drayton was always perfectly quiet, and even well-bred, a
little sullen, which was, the doctor thought, natural since he must
resent the deprivation of any stimulants; but he was satisfied from his
observations that he was really kept from them, and saw nothing to point
suspicion in another direction.
He regretted never seeing the young wife now, and expressed his regret
to Mr. Drayton.
He was surprised to see an angry flush rise in his face, but concluded
that perhaps there had been some conjugal difference, and that she did
not choose to appear.
When Margaret first contrived to send her little poem to good Mr. Skidd,
the editor of the "Industrious Workman," she had done it through her
nurse, who had grown warmly attached to her mistress. She was quite
young--this was her first place, and she came to the conclusion that if
this was the life led by rich people, the poor had many more pleasures.
Margaret read her poem to her, which she but vaguely took in, and she
also read her the note she wrote to the editor.
She had no knowledge of him except that at first the doctor had told her
she could get books there, when she had asked him, he had also spoken
highly of him as a cultivated and intellectual man, who had done a great
deal towards spreading wholesome cheap literature, and that he edited a
weekly paper of much merit.
Her idea, now, was to write something longer and more important. She had
two great incentives to write: she had that something to say, without
which all writing falls so flat; and she wished to get money for her
sister.
Mr. Skidd received her proposal to write a book of poetry with some
amusement.
The unknown gentleman who brought out her little poems at his own
expense, after they had appeared in the paper, and who received for her
the few shillings Mr. Skidd considered them worth, might not stretch his
generosity so far as to embark in a larger book--but he would see. He
spoke, therefore, rather vaguely to the young woman who came as
messenger, so vaguely that Margaret imagined she _must_ try, in some
way, and have an interview with the man herself.
But how to accomplish this? True, there was a back door, but she could
not bear going out through the connivance of the servant, who was cook
and who was a disagreeable woman at all times. Fortune favoured her,
however, in a few days. She was walking in the garden one afternoon with
her nurse and baby when some one came to the front door with a message,
which caused the grumpy man-servant to go into the house for a few
seconds. Quick as thought, Margaret slipped out of her prison, and
hurried along the road.
She was dizzy with excitement and the sense of freedom--to see
Grace--and to arrange about her book.
Her face was glowing as she moved along. She must first see Grace, and
then hurry on to do her business.
When she reached Grace's lodgings she was met by a homelike, kindly
face; and Jean, forgetting everything but that she had a hard life of
it, took her to her arms as though she had been a bairn of her own.
Margaret's tears were never very near the surface, but she had lived a
life so unnatural and so repressed, she had been so entirely without
kindness or sympathy for so long, that she broke down now, and sobbed
upon good, honest, Jean's broad shoulder, sensible only of the sweetness
and comfort of the relief.
"My poor bairn, my poor bairn!" Jean kept on saying, and then,
recollecting that she ought not to allow her to give way, she said, "but
you'll no be fit to see Miss Grace, and you just a blurred objick," and
this reflection also stopped Margaret's tears and caused her to lift up
her head and try to compose herself.
"How is my sister? How is Grace, dear Jean?"
"She's no just fit to dance the houlachan," said Jean, gaily, who had
her own private way of pronouncing most words, "but she's not that bad.
Eh, my dear, come and see her; she's been wearying for you, sair, sair."
Margaret went upstairs, and in another moment the sisters were once more
together.
Grace was lying on the sofa, and Margaret found her looking better than
she expected. She was a softened edition of the old Grace, still fitful,
capricious, but full of tenderness for her sister, whose life she had so
completely spoiled.
"Why, darling, have you never been here before?" she asked; "I have sent
you so many notes and have had such scanty answers. You never tell me of
yourself; you never tell me what I want to know."
"I have so little to say of myself. My husband has been ill, and, since
his illness, he cannot bear my going out, and I came to-day because I
could slip away."
"But tell me one thing, darling, only one. Why stay with him? Why not
leave him?"
"Because of baby; I cannot desert my little one, Grace: and if I left
him merely because he is unkind and allows me no liberty and is 'odd,'
he would have the right to keep baby, not I, its mother."
"Then if that is the law it is abominable!" exclaimed Grace.
"I think it _is_ terrible," said Margaret; "even if he was cruel, if he
struck me, if he were in other ways infamous, I might leave him; I
should be free; but even then it is doubtful if I might have my child."
"And we boast of English justice!" exclaimed Grace.
"It is cruelly unjust," said Margaret. "Oh darling, how often we have
laughed at women wanting their 'rights,' and made fun of those who made
a stir about having votes: but this one thing, this one frightful
injustice, makes me feel that women should, in some way, be able to make
their great needs felt; surely a mother should have equal rights with
the father, and have something to say in a child's destiny!"
"And we have to submit, and I, _I_ have brought you into this position!"
and Grace burst into tears.
Jean hurried into the room.
"Bairns, my dear bairns, whist, for any sake. You'll make me feel I did
wrong in leaving the two of you together."
"We were talking of an unjust law," said Margaret; "we were talking of
my child, Jean, and that _if_ I ever left my husband, he would have it
probably, and not me."
"It's a man made that law," said Jean, "and it's a real cruel one and
not Christian. I never had any opinion of men, they're just poor
creatures all round, poor selfish creatures--except, maybe, the police,"
she added, with a sense of ingratitude for the way in which a policeman
had helped her in her hour of need.
"Tell me of your baby, Margaret," said Grace, turning with real interest
to her sister; "it is more than a year old now, is it not?"
"My little darling is a year and almost three months old, in five days
now it will be fifteen months old. It can run about, and calls me so
prettily. Oh, darling, I wish, I wish it were with me at this moment. I
feel so anxious if I am away from it; only once before, since its birth,
have I been away."
"And does that man shut you up, darling? Do you mean to say that those
smoky trees and that walled-in place, looking like a prison, is all you
have? Oh, your life is one long trial!"
Margaret did not speak; her life was so utterly wretched, so utterly
devoid of hope, that she could not speak of it.
"I have baby," she said, softly, "and, Gracie, dearest, when one is very
wretched God is very near."
The sisters parted with all the anguish of a vagueness about their next
meeting, which filled them both with a sense of having nothing to look
forward to, and Margaret tore herself away and hurried into Mr. Skidd's
presence.
Mrs. Dorriman had boldly authorised Jean to look to Mr. Sandford for all
expenses, so that she no longer cared about the money so much.
But this lessened sense of requirement did not in any way make her
gratitude to the editor for his kindness, less. With no real knowledge
to guide her she did not know that everything must bear the test of
criticism, and that it would have been false kindness to encourage her
to write without any merit in sight.
But Mr. Skidd had discovered real merit in all Margaret did; there was
the impress of truth, and no fictitious feeling. The cry was the cry of
a starved, human soul pining for sympathy and an outlet, under a life of
great misery and repression, haunted by a never-ending fear.
He was so amazed when Margaret stood before him--at her youth and the
graceful way she expressed her thanks, that he was dumb before her.
Next a vivid colour blushed over his bald head, for he remembered that
he stood in his shirt-sleeves.
He was too honest a man to accept her thanks for more than he had done,
and he puzzled her considerably by his allusion to the great
appreciation of a gentleman from London.
"But you published my little poem," she asked, not a little perplexed by
his statements.
"Certainly, madam! In the first instance I did, but this gentleman, a
literary gentleman, happened to call the very day I was reading your
first poem, and he liked it, and he brought it out afterwards and took
charge of the trifle I sent you for it; I hope that was all right and
that you received it. I hold his receipt, and I imagined he was
authorised by you."
"Oh, thank you! Yes. I got the money all right," said Margaret, much
bewildered, and wondering who this could have been.
She found also that Mr. Skidd could not promise anything about her poem
in an enlarged form till he had seen it, and had time to consult this
mysterious friend, who by his account appreciated her short poems so
much.
It was delightful to think she might have a larger audience and command
a public who might be equally appreciative. Mr. Skidd began to discuss
her poetry with her, and he gave her many useful hints.
"The fault of your poetry, madam, is that it wants variety. People get
tired of perpetual sorrow and all that sort of thing. You write very
prettily. Give us something cheerful, make the birds twitter and the sun
shine, cultivate brightness, people do not like always being in
mourning."
"But if I am not happy I cannot write what I do not feel," objected
Margaret.
"Oh, yes you can; you get the trick of the thing and you will easily do
it."
Margaret knew this to be impossible, but before she had time to repeat
her negative a well-remembered face came before her, and Sir Albert
Gerald, filled with happiness at meeting her so unexpectedly, came up
with an outstretched hand. Mr. Skidd was immensely annoyed.
"And you make believe not to know who buys your poem," he exclaimed; "I
call that humbug--and you," he said sharply, turning to Sir Albert, "why
could you not be open about it?"
"But did _you_ buy my poems? Are you the literary man from whose
appreciation I have received so much encouragement?" and Margaret,
mortified and disappointed, turned to go away.
At any rate _she_ knew nothing, and Mr. Skidd was ashamed of the
momentary suspicion that had filled him.
"No, this lady was acting on the square; as for the man...."
The little man felt as he looked at them that a whole drama was being
played out before his eyes, the air was full of some secret thing in
connection with these two.
Sir Albert, deferential and respectful, was evidently quite absorbed in
the tall, graceful figure before him, who stood cold and apparently
determined to show no satisfaction in his presence.
Mr. Skidd was a good judge of character.
"I'll be bound there is no harm in _her_," he said, and so saying left
them to themselves.