The last afternoon of her stay at Inchbrae had come. Mrs. Dorriman,
under the impression she was working very hard, carried several things
upstairs that ought to have remained down, and wandered about
helplessly, a terrible sense of having an enormous deal to do and to
arrange pressing upon her; mixed with that ever constant and depressing
feeling which distinguished her, of not being up to the mark. Can
anything be more dreadful than a consciousness that strength is _not_
there whatever "the day" may be? and is it not as much a sin to crush
and murder a spirit as to destroy a body? and her spirit had been
crushed. She sat down upstairs in the favourite corner from where she
could see the river rushing into the sea; she took her Bible from a hope
of finding comfort--but her spirits were so fluttered that she read the
words without taking in their sense.
The river suggested to her, as it does to all--the resistlessness of
fate--she was inexpressibly affected by this new and terrible
disappointment. After having known so little happiness she had got into
so quiet a haven; and once more, after feeling safe and happy, she was
dragged out into the rough waves of life to commence a battle again. It
crossed her mind that there might be some appeal--some one might help
her to avert this; she was a widow and no longer a girl; how was it that
she was so much in her brother's hands? Could Mr. Macfarlane not unravel
it. She had a secret dread giving up her husband's papers--perhaps
something might be found in them that might harm his memory, and since
his death she thought so much more tenderly of him, and remembered him
with so much more affection than she had done during his life, in spite
of her contempt for his abilities.
But still she blamed him for not having kept her safe out of this
position of dependence which had been her great hope when she had
married him. She forgave him now his want of success, but that--it was
so hard and it was so unfair to her.
She was deep in these thoughts when she was roused by the crunching of
the gravel under her window, and she went down to the room looking so
bare and desolate, stripped of its flowers, its quaint bits of china, of
everything that made it homelike--to receive Mr. and Mrs. Macfarlane.
Mrs. Macfarlane was a cheerful and a pleasant woman, but was much too
warm-hearted to be overpoweringly and oppressively cheerful when it
would have been hard for another to respond. She had the tact of a
kind-hearted woman, which is a much more reliable thing than the tact
acquired from the constant friction of society.
In a few moments they were all three having tea, the fire was making up
for other deficiencies, and, though Jean made an apology about the best
cups, no one had thought of anything as missing. Mrs. Dorriman had been
very greatly troubled about the papers; she herself had never dared to
go into them thoroughly as we know--she was afraid of seeing something
in those records that might distress her, about her husband. But for
this dread, she felt sometimes curious to know how these papers affected
her brother, and she did not know what to do about them. She did not
dare take them with her because she knew that if she did her brother
would soon make himself master of them; she could not lock them up as
the place was sold, and when she thought of that she always had a lump
in her throat.
All the time she was drinking her tea she was wondering what to do, and
longing to consult Mr. Macfarlane about it, kept back by her
overpowering timidity.
He himself came to the rescue: he asked her if she wished to leave
anything behind, and said he and his wife would be glad to take charge
of anything for her.
He was quite astonished at her gratitude, which seemed so far beyond the
slight service he offered her. She thanked him with tears in her
eyes--there was some china and----
Mrs. Macfarlane's shrewd eyes saw that in some way this offer meant more
than appeared, and she rose with Mrs. Dorriman to go and see how much
room the things would take, and how best to take them over.
Mrs. Dorriman stood before the boxes holding the household treasures,
her colour coming and going, and her evident hesitation and uncertainty
quite pitiable to see. Her friend looked at her in amazement--she saw
tears standing in her eyes, and she laid her hand softly upon hers, and
said, "It is all very painful for you, you will feel better when it is
over."
"It is all pain--it is not that----" and poor Mrs. Dorriman's tears
overflowed. Then, as the sound of Mr. Macfarlane's carriage announcing
her impending departure struck her ear, she stooped suddenly and drew
out a box which she was unable to lift, and she said in an agitated
whisper, "I do not know what they are, or what secrets they hold, I am
afraid of looking--my brother wants those papers--Mrs. Macfarlane they
were my husband's, they are mine. You will never give them up?"
"I will never give them up, save at your own expressed wish."
"It is safer for my brother not to know that you have them. He is not
sure they exist, but he is very anxious--so anxious to find them that I
know they are of consequence to him."
"But, dear Mrs. Dorriman, why not look through them? An evil guessed at,
is worse than one confronted."
"You do not know--I am afraid. No! I cannot look at them--a day may
come--Mrs. Macfarlane, if you knew all. In looking I may do my husband
injury. I cannot do it--I have not courage."
"You may on the contrary find out much that puzzled people at the time
of his death. No one understands how he managed to lose all his money;"
and then being a discreet woman she stopped short--she must not say a
word to set Mrs. Dorriman against her brother.
"Do you think it might do good?" the poor woman said, with a flash in
her eyes--a ray of hope--that gleamed there for a moment and faded
again. "No!" she repeated, "I cannot do it now. I cannot risk it."
Mrs. Macfarlane felt she had no right to urge her to pursue any course
of action, when she was ignorant of the real history of her past, and
could not foresee the consequences; but she went to summon her husband.
Mr. Macfarlane was not quite so willing as his wife to throw himself
into the situation. Her warm heart often led her to take
responsibilities his caution would rather have done without.
As usual, his reluctance did away with any doubts still lingering in
Mrs. Dorriman's mind; the moment a thing is difficult or unattainable it
becomes desirable.
He accepted the trust, however, and then suddenly said, "Are your
marriage settlements in your brother's hands?"
"My marriage settlements? I never had any that I know of," she answered,
helplessly.
"Never had any marriage settlements?" He could hardly believe her.
"No, at least I never knew of any. I suppose I should know all about
anything affecting me in that way."
"I suppose so." He mused for a moment. The same thought that had
occurred to his wife came to him in a still stronger shape. He must say
nothing that would raise her suspicions about her brother, or that in
any way would make her going to his house more painful than it evidently
was.
"I strongly advise you, Mrs. Dorriman, to read through those papers.
They may throw a great deal of light upon your position. You may be in a
better, a far better position, than you think."
"I cannot," she said, in a low voice. "I am afraid. I may some day bring
myself to do so, but I cannot do it now. Will you keep them for me? Oh,
do! and never let _any_ one, never let my brother know you have them.
Some day if I am in great difficulty, and cannot see my way, I will ask
you to read them."
She stopped for a moment, and then, turning towards them with a passion
they had hardly credited her with, she said, with tears rolling over her
face, "You do not know, how can you! But I was so hard. I could not
forgive my husband for his want of success. He loved me dearly, and I--I
had no love to give him. Then when he died I forgave him, and he knew
it; but I never thought of this, that I was to be dependent again and
lose my home and all.... I am beginning to think hardly of him again. I
am afraid of seeing something in those papers ... something that may
make me hate...."
She paused, broken down by the overpowering emotion that had taken
possession of her, and Mr. Macfarlane was moved, and went over to her
and took her hand. "Forgive me," he said, "I will urge you no more; but
before taking this with me," he added, laying his hand upon the box, "we
will seal it up together." He got some packing-paper and some rope, and
he made her seal it up with her own seal. She obeyed him quietly; her
sudden and unwonted burst of emotion having left her calmer, quieter,
and paler than usual.
When she had parted from these real friends she felt as though she was
losing all she cared for; in her repressed life so little affection had
ever come to her, save and except that her husband had given her.
The papers were safe and out of her hands. This was a fact she dwelt on
with great satisfaction when the last sound of the carriage broke
through the quiet. Mrs. Dorriman went out. She was going up the hills to
say farewell to the old people to whom her going was a real grief, and
before going went to give Jean orders to prepare something against her
return, and something for the following day.
Jean was looking full of importance, and her mistress, well accustomed
to her ways, knew that she had something to tell, had something to
reveal, and that she intended to be questioned. "What are you going to
do, my poor Jean, when we part to-morrow? You have not yet told me."
"We are not going to part here," said Jean, a look of triumph on her
face.
"No," said Mrs. Dorriman, who felt this coming parting sorely. "I
supposed you would go to the station and see me off. I am glad of
that."
"Further than that," said Jean, emphatically.
Mrs. Dorriman looked up at her. What did she mean?
"I am going all the way to Renton itself," said Jean, in a tone of
determination.
"But my dear Jean--my brother...."
"Your brother's not mine, and I have nothing to do with him, nor he with
me. I'm going to the town of Renton, and I've got a situation there; do
you suppose I would let you go where I could never see you--or you me?
No! no! I settled it first in my own mind and then I arranged it with
other people, and the same train that takes you takes me, and my kist's
just away with your things, in the same cart."
Mrs. Dorriman could not speak, but the forlorn woman kissed the ruddy
face before her--half her trouble seemed lightened--and Jean, touched
and awkward under so strange a demonstration, patted her back with a
hard and hearty hand and disappeared from her mistress's eyes.
Mrs. Dorriman walked up the river-side with a happier heart than she had
had lately. With one friend near her in the shape of Jean she felt as
though nothing mattered quite so much; she needed some comfort. With all
the enthusiastic love for the beauty of the home she was leaving for
ever, she was also leaving the little self-made duties that had become
pleasant to her. She had to face the sorrow of those who had become her
friends; she could promise them nothing from a distance--she had nothing
of her own; she did not suppose her brother would continue to give her
an income; she must guard against making promises she could not fulfil.
The same words met her all round, "What a pity you're going! It's we
that will miss you, my dear. Oh, what is it for? Is it for company's
sake?"
They could not get over it, her hands were shaken till they tingled
again. When she was going home one of the eldest of the old women stood
out from her doorway like an old prophetess. Her grey hair was smoothed
back under her _mutch_, her black eyes sparkled, and her wrinkled face
showed up white in the gloaming.
She was the daughter of a man famous in his day, a man who had had the
gift of second sight, and though she had not inherited his gift she was
looked up to, she had so many of her father's sayings at her fingers'
ends, and she had much of his manner.
"Come here," she said, "and set ye down." Mrs. Dorriman could not do
this, but she asked her to go towards home with her. It was getting
late, and the light was fading fast. Christie was attached to Mrs.
Dorriman especially because she and her forbears had lived near the old
home on old Mr. Sandford's property, and she had a great deal to say
about the way the sale of the place had been predicted and foreseen long
years before by her father.
This evening, not unnaturally, she was full of it all. "I mind weel,"
she began in the solemn tone appropriate to the subject, "hearing my
father tell what he saw, and he knew he had seen what meant evil to the
place and to the Laird, and he grieved about it, indeed he did."
"Was that when he saw a light?" asked Mrs. Dorriman.
"It was a light and it was not a light, my dear, it was something of
fire."
"Tell me about it again, Christie. I get confused about it sometimes."
"You see, my dear, the common folks, some of them have ghosts and see
spirits, and so on, but the gentry, the real old gentry, they have a
different kind of ghost, there are _things that happen_--you'll
understand."
At all events, Mrs. Dorriman understood what Christie meant to express,
and even at that moment and time of unhappiness the idea presented to
her of the superior ghosts bestowed upon the gentry made her smile.
"Well, Christie, it may be so," she said, "but the idea is new to me."
"It is not new to us, and it was not new to my father. I do not mean
that spirits are different, though we all know that spirits take
different shapes; but when the head of a house goes, or any misfortune
comes nigh him, there will be strange things seen. My father saw these
things--it has not been given to me to see them--perhaps so is best. My
father had many dark hours, those that have these gifts must go through
great anguish. I have seen him sitting up at night and looking
wild--wild. I have heard him say strange things. It was awful...."
"And about this fire?" asked Mrs. Dorriman, a little anxious to get home
now the darkness was making the footpath difficult to see.
"Ah," said Christie, "many and many a time I have heard that story. He
was in his house, the house high up the hill under the wood, and was
restless; the hour was coming upon him, and he could not breathe. He
threw open the door and stepped out in the darkness. You'll mind the
steep hill that went up to the house, and how the old house itself stood
up away from everything?"
Mrs. Dorriman made a gesture of assent. The recollection of her old
home, and the way in which it had been sold to the first bidder, was
inexpressibly bitter to her. She was depressed and sad, and felt as
though she had small need of other and painful memories, on this, her
last evening here.
"From the east and the west, from the north and the south, gathered
darkness--so black was the night that not a thing was to be seen--the
hill where your father's house stood was but a shadow, and the lights in
the windows shone out with a wonderful power.
"The heavens were in gloom from a gathering storm, and the wind was
howling up and down, and up and down--none but my father, who understood
things, would have stood as he stood and faced it. Then the clouds
opened, and a great ball of fire came down; it broke over the house, my
dear, over the house, and divided itself into three pieces--only three;
and a piece went on the east corner, and one flame touched the south and
one the north, and only the one corner, the one from the west, was left
untouched, and that meant a great deal, and then the fire met and fell
on the house itself." Christie's voice was so impressive, her manner so
solemn, that Mrs. Dorriman, though the story was one she had often heard
before, felt as though she was hearing it for the first time.
"What did it mean?" she asked breathlessly.
"It meant, my dear, what happened. Your father lost the lady (she came
from the south), and that was one misfortune, and a very great one; then
he lost his suit--the law-suit about some land in the North. Then he
died himself, poor man, and that was the third thing--and the house was
sold."
"So the misfortunes were complete?" and Mrs. Dorriman pressed forward a
little and shivered. It was impossible not to be uncomfortably impressed
by Christie--her tall figure and commanding gestures looming large
beside her in the ever-increasing darkness.
"Not complete, my dear--not ended. No, that was what my father always
said, he talked often and often about it, that is why it is written upon
my brain. All he said came true, and why should this not come true? He
saw it all to the end and he read it, and he was meant to read it." She
dropped her voice in saying this, and once more was silent.
The two came to the little gate and bridge that spanned the burn and led
to Mrs. Dorriman's place. She turned and took Christie's hand: "I feel
it is the end," she said, speaking with that sob in the voice which is
more pathetic than weeping; "you know this place is gone from me, and
that I shall never, never see it again!"
"Yes, you will," said Christie, firmly; "my father said what I will tell
you now--though I was not to speak of it to all. That night I told you
of--when the fire-ball divided and fell--there was one corner of the
house untouched; and when the fire and its great redness died away, he
saw a silvery light rise, and it came from that corner and spread and
spread like a flood of moonlight over everything, and the light was just
above where you lay, my dear, a baby not many weeks old, and I shall
live to see you do as you please, and live here or there, or in the old
house, at your pleasure."
She raised Mrs. Dorriman's hands to her lips, kissed them fervently,
and, uttering an impassioned prayer in Gaelic, she left her and moved up
the hill. Mrs. Dorriman went home; she blamed herself for taking comfort
from words which were the wild visions of a superstitious woman, but she
did take comfort. By nature easily impressed, easily held up and as
easily lowered by passing influences--the conversation with Christie had
filled her with a sort of courage.
To live as she pleased and where she pleased, to go back to the old
home, every corner of which was so dear to her! Such a dream filled her
with unreasonable happiness; she threw out her hands as though she was
throwing off a burden, and she said softly, though aloud: "I will
believe it! I do believe it! it will help me!"
Jean announced the dinner, and was pleased to see her mistress looking
brighter and happier than she had looked since she knew that she had to
leave Inchbrae. Her satisfaction was extreme, for the thought, not very
unnaturally, came to her, that the fact of her going with her mistress
was sufficient to account for it, and she scrupulously performed the
small services required of her with an increased attention. She always
felt as though she had charge of her mistress--now she felt as though in
some way that charge was increased.
The morning was unpromising. The wind was high, and the rain, only for
that reason, was not a downpour, but blew in fitful gusts against "all
corners of the house at once," Jean declared. She was meditating the
possibility of putting off the journey, and spoke to Mrs. Dorriman about
it.
Mrs. Dorriman was standing irresolutely at one of the windows when a
dogcart appeared in the short avenue, and in another moment two men
dismounted, rang the bell, and walked into the little hall.
Jean with all the air of outraged dignity appeared upon the scene, and
was greeted by these words,
"We have come to take possession for the new proprietor; send some one
to take the horse round and get some breakfast ready immediately."
Jean would not trust herself to speak; she went past them straight up to
Mrs. Dorriman's room. She found her mistress pale but composed, dressed
for her journey with her bonnet on. She began to speak but was hushed by
an uplifted hand.
"Come, Jean, we will go," she said.
The noise of the two descending the wooden staircase brought the men
into the hall, and Mrs. Dorriman's pale composure awed them a little.
Before they had time to speak she spoke to them.
"Sir," she said, turning to the elder of the two men, "you are here by
my brother's orders, not mine. I am leaving just now, but I protest
against the sale of this place, which is mine, and I intend one day
returning to it."
With a slight bend of her head she went out into the rain, and before
the two men could recover themselves she was seated in a waggonette
which had been ready for some time, and, accompanied by Jean, was soon
whirling along the road; her heart so hot with indignation that the pain
and sorrow of going away was merged in that feeling.
At the station were the Macfarlanes with many a thoughtful gift for poor
Mrs. Dorriman, and it was not till the train steamed out of the
station, not till the last wave of the friendly hands grew dim in the
distance, that the poor woman's fortitude gave way, and that, seated
alone with no prying eye upon her, she wept, and the soreness of her
heart grew better as the tension gave way to this feminine luxury.
The journey was troublesome more than long, there were two or three
changes, and at one station two travellers got in accompanied by a
bright-eyed middle-aged woman. At first Mrs. Dorriman was too much
wrapped up in her own sad thoughts to take heed of what was passing, but
she was at length roused by hearing her brother's name mentioned.
"John Sandford is coming out in a new light," said the lady, laughing
and showing a row of pretty teeth. "Fancy his adopting two girls!"
"I am sorry for the girls. Who are they?" asked the elder of the two
men.
"I have not an idea--but I should think he had some strong reason for
going out of his usual way."
"I am very sorry for the girls too," laughed the lady, who looked as
though she had never had any acquaintance with sorrow herself.
"They are probably in some way a charge upon him. John Sandford's not a
man to do anything for nothing, it's not in him."
Mrs. Dorriman knew she ought to say something, but she literally had not
the courage to throw such discomfiture among them.
"He's had a nasty illness, and the doctor thinks he may have more
attacks of the kind. He does not think him the strong man he looks."
"Then perhaps he is doing some act of charity as a compromise with
Providence," said the lady; "just as some men who have never been
charitable or even just leave their wealth to some charity, as a sort of
make-up."
So her brother was ill! This, perhaps, was why he had sent for her. But
the two girls, who could they be? These two new ideas so suddenly
presented to her made Mrs. Dorriman oblivious to all that was going on.
She would have young girls with her and so she would not be alone, and
none but those who have tried it, know how depressing long-continued
loneliness is, especially to one who (like Mrs. Dorriman) was by
temperament, one of the women who cling to others, and to whom acting
and thinking for herself was perpetual grief and pain.
From the bewilderment of this future, which looked so much brighter to
her with those figures in the foreground, she was once more roused by
hearing, this time, not her brother's but her own name mentioned.
"About Mrs. Dorriman; no one really knows the rights of that story.
Dorriman was as good a man as ever lived, and he had heaps of money when
Sandford lost his. How it all changed hands is more than any one knows,
but Dorriman died poor, and Sandford lives rich. One day the truth may
get known."
"The widow lives, does she not? I think some one said so," and the lady
smiled as though there was something amusing in the fact of Mrs.
Dorriman's existence.
Poor Mrs. Dorriman, shrinking from it and yet impelled by a sense of
right to speak, feeling that she ought to have spoken before, now leaned
forward and said in her sweet, clear, timid voice, "I am sorry; I should
have told you before. I am Mrs. Dorriman. I am going to my brother Mr.
Sandford's house."
Then, with a heightened colour, she leaned back again.
The three talkers, who were a neighbouring manufacturer, his wife, and a
friend, were naturally taken aback and made profuse apologies to her.
Then the lady, a Mrs. Wymans, said, with her usual smile,
"It was really your own fault; it was really very wrong of you to let us
talk, really wrong. I hope we have not said anything bad."
And Mrs. Dorriman made no answer. She gave a slight bow, feeling too
heart-sore and too unhappy to speak. Yes, how did all that money change
hands? How was it that she was left so poor and allowed to drift
wherever her brother chose to make her drift? For the hundredth time
this question, which she now heard asked in a careless voice by a
stranger, started up before her. Was it true that one day she would
know? This last conversation drove the words of Christie into the
background for a time, and when she arrived at the station she was in a
whole whirl of mingled feelings, in which doubt and grief and
indignation and hope all seemed struggling together.
Jean, helpful and alert, saw her into a cab and her luggage arranged on
it and then bravely said,
"Only for to-day. I will be down seeing you to-morrow."
Then the tie between her and her mistress seemed quite broken as she
lost sight of her, and, sitting down upon her kist, heedless of the
curious looks of the "fremd folk" she had come amongst, good-hearted,
brave Jean burst into bitter tears and _would_ cry, she said, to
herself. Yes, now Mrs. Dorriman was not there to see it she would cry,
it would do her good.
She was sitting on her big box--the kist that contained all her worldly
wealth--the tears streaming down her face and her pocket-handkerchief
crammed into her mouth, when a porter came to her, too busy to be fully
sympathetic, and yet with a certain gruff friendliness that was very
comforting to her.
"And where are you bound for, my bonny woman?" he said, wisely ignoring
her tears; "are you going to bide in the toon or are you going on by
another train?"
Jean, called back to self-command, rose, and, fumbling in the bosom of
her gown, where she kept her birth certificate, her money, her keys, and
other valuables, drew out, after some false attempts, the address of the
place she was going to, and, in a short space of time, her kist was put
upon a hurly and she was following it thither.