At the Limes the position of affairs became more terrible every day for
Margaret. Mr. Drayton was always sullen, silent, and watchful, and the
incessant watchfulness broke down her nerves. She had long fits of
crying, without herself being aware of it. The women-servants had left,
and she could not replace them; the one woman who came by day to clean
and cook (and could do neither) was the only one besides her nurse, and
Margaret lived in dread of her leaving her.
There came a day when Mr. Drayton had a very terrible outbreak with the
man, who up till now had got on with him. And the scene ended in his
also going--telling Mrs. Drayton that he had been engaged to look after
an inebriate, and not a madman.
"You think him mad?" faltered Margaret, looking anxiously at him, a ray
of hope coming to her. If this man who had experience thought so, might
he not convince the doctors?
"I think so; at least I know he is mad at times. No man in his senses
would go on as he has done," and the man smoothed out his collar
regardless of Mrs. Drayton's presence. "You see he is very dangerous and
very cunning, and that's where it is. You might have any number of
doctors to see him, and before them he controls himself so that no one
would believe him to be what he is. I never was treated so before," and
he smoothed his hair and prepared to leave her.
"Can you not stop?" whispered Margaret, in greater agitation; "I--I am
frightened."
"I cannot stop because now he's took against me," he answered, "and he
shouts the moment he sees me. I've lost all control of him, and my
staying would do no good to you or to no one else."
Poor Margaret looked despairingly at him, and, a little moved by her
expression, he said briskly--
"Don't you be afraid, ma'am. I'll go straight to the doctor; he sent me
here, and he knows me, and I'll tell him exactly what it is, and he'll
come first thing and see him."
Margaret saw him go, with absolute despair. She had suffered very much
lately; her baby who slept with her had been so fretful and so very
sleepless.
The poor child herself had no experience, and the nurse she had was a
young woman who was good-tempered and kind, but not skilful. For several
nights the child had never slept except in Margaret's weary arms, as she
walked up and down, and up and down with it. Each time she tried to lay
it down it woke and cried, and, like all children accustomed to being
much fondled and carried about by its mother, it disliked being handed
over to the nurse when it was ill.
The want of sleep, the incessant terror she was in, all she went through
with those terrible tireless eyes always upon her, everything combined
to make her really ill.
The strain became intolerable, and Margaret recognised that something
must be done--some one must interfere in her behalf and take her and her
child away.
Only through her nurse could she hear of Grace. Jean went repeatedly to
the house, and never succeeded in baffling Mr. Drayton's watchfulness.
Now the man-servant had gone he never opened the door, and the bells
might ring all day long, he took no notice. More than once Margaret
glided to the door trusting to give a message, to hear a voice she knew,
only to feel a hard grip upon her shoulder, and to be thrust back.
The stone passage between the gate and the house was too long for her to
make herself heard. She could not understand why Grace sent no message
and why no letters reached her--and only found out long afterwards that
her cook, who not unnaturally found the place anything but what she
liked, spent her time in going to London and looking for another
situation, and never went near Grace at all.
It was as well that the poor thing did not know then what a broken reed
she was trusting to.
She hoped much from the man's statement to the doctor, and as she walked
up and down, and up and down through the long and weary night, she tried
to think that soon this terrible state of matters would end for her and
for her child.
From the nursery window she could look over the trees and shrubs, and
over the high wall into the distance, and she envied the people going to
and fro. She had committed no crime, and yet she was, to all intents and
purposes, a prisoner. She had no society, no friends, no books; and when
she made an effort over herself, and met her husband at the ill-served
dinner--he never spoke to her; when she encountered him occasionally in
the passage--he was equally silent, but the fierce expression of his
eyes terrified her, and she avoided those meetings, creeping back
sometimes with a fear of him that increased daily.
The warmer weather now kept her almost all day in the garden, where Mr.
Drayton never cared to come, and where she felt free.
But each day increased her trouble now about her child. It lay feverish
and breathless at times. If she roused it and tried to get it to play
with her it cried, and at length even her experienced eyes saw that it
was more than a passing indisposition.
Alarmed, she rushed to her husband's sitting-room. He was sitting as
usual near the window, and talking, she thought, to some one, but on
going up to the window she found he was alone and talking to himself.
There was something so terrible to her in the imaginary conversation he
was holding, that for one moment she drew back frightened, even more
than usual, but her mother's love gave her courage and she went up to
him.
"Baby is ill," she said, very earnestly. "Poor baby! I have no
experience. Will you let me have the doctor?"
"No," he answered, angrily. "No; it is only a trick, you played me a
trick the other day, and I allow no one to come here again. You are my
wife and no one shall come to see you."
"It is not to see me," she said, trembling, trying to humour him, "it is
baby. Oh! you will let me send for the doctor?"
"No doctor or other man shall come here," he said with fury; "I know you
now, you are full of tricks, and if a doctor came you would tell him."
"I would tell him about my baby!" she cried. "Oh, if ever you cared for
me, if ever you loved me, you will let me see a doctor for my child!"
He watched her for a moment or two, with half-closed eyes, cunningly,
triumphantly, and curiously, and then he pushed her out of the room.
She rushed to the front door and beat helplessly upon it with her hands,
and he heard her, and came out and tried to stop her, on her way
upstairs.
"If you try and leave the house I will lock you up," he said,
maliciously; "and your pretty baby may cry its eyes out, but you shan't
see it."
A new terror sent her flying upstairs to its side.
The nurse, frightened and grieved, volunteered to go, whatever happened.
"But he may not let me in when I come back," she added.
To Margaret, watching her child suffer, what did this matter?
"Go!" she exclaimed; "fly, and if you can tell my sister. My God!" she
exclaimed, "send some one to help me;" she sank on her knees, her arms
still round the child, and the woman vanished.
The moments seemed hours to her, to raise and fan its little face, to
try and get it to swallow a few drops to cool its parched mouth, to lull
it in her arms and shower kisses on the feet and hands. How long she was
with it alone she did not know, but she was startled by the door
opening. She had forgotten to lock herself in!
She knew it was her husband! He came and leaned against the wall,
looking at her.
"No one can come in," he said. "I am complete master of the situation,"
and then he gave one of his most terrible laughs.
The baby lying half soothed in a short slumber started violently and
convulsions came on. Margaret, driven to frenzy, threw open the window
and shrieked till the whole place rang with her despair.
"Help!" she screamed, "for my baby is dying."
Mr. Drayton still stood repeating the same terrible sentence, and then
laughing.
Help was hurrying towards her though she did not know it. The little
form clasped to her heart became suddenly still, and the wings of angels
swept through the room--those angels who come so often as a blessing
though they strike terror to our blinded eyes. Suddenly the baby's eyes
unclosed--a lovely smile came to the flushed face; stretching out its
arms, it said in its childish broken words, "Lovely, mother, lovely!"
and then, turning its head aside, went with them.
* * * * *
Four people, appalled by the stillness of the house, made an entrance.
Margaret's cries for help had been heard, but those cries had long
ceased, the intense quietness and still was not broken even by Mr.
Drayton.
_Something_ had subdued him. Even on his diseased brain the influence of
that dread presence was felt; he crouched in a corner, and wondered why
Margaret was so quiet, and why she did not speak to the child.
They found him so crouched. Jean and Mr. Stevens were first, Jean's warm
heart full of deepest compassion; then came the two medical men Mr.
Stevens had brought with him, one of whom had had charge of Mr. Drayton
in former days.
Margaret was still insensible when she was carried downstairs. Kindly
hands tended to her needs, and when she woke from this prolonged
unconsciousness it was to lie still and never speak. The shock had been
so appalling that it had apparently numbed her senses. She asked no
questions and never spoke even of her dead baby.
She took what was offered to her passively, but nothing elicited a
change of expression. They took her to cheerful rooms engaged by Mr.
Stevens for her and her sister. Grace, whose health seemed so much
better now that there was necessity for her exerting herself, was in
despair.
"Will she ever recover?" she asked, in anguish, of the kind and clever
man who visited her so regularly. "Will my sister ever know me again?"
"I believe she will. It would be a great matter if she could cry--a good
hearty cry might do much for her."
"I don't know how to make her," said Grace, in accents of despair.
"But I do, ma'am," said Jean. "I cut the poor bonny boy's hair off, and
we had him photographed. I will show her the picture, and then tears
will come."
"Give me the hair," said the doctor, hastily, and he took it quickly out
of the room with him.
When they next met Grace asked him about it.
"Why did you carry it off, doctor?"
"Because the poor child died of suppressed scarlet fever," he answered,
"and I took it to be disinfected."
"That's a new name for an ill deed," said Jean.
"It's quite true--the child's throat showed what it died of," he said.
"It died of neglect," said Jean, obstinately. "How was the poor young
thing to know how to deal with it? Fever or no fever, the man's a
cruel-hearted man, and shall never come near her again."
"You say a truthful thing in saying that," said the doctor, in a low
voice. "Mr. Drayton died this morning."
"No!" exclaimed Grace. "He seemed such a strong man when I last saw
him," and she shuddered, for since the days when she had laid ill and
had urged Margaret to marry him for her own selfish ends she had never
seen him to speak to, excepting once.
Jean was silent. There was a verse in her heart but she would not say it
out just then.
"He was a violent man," said the doctor. "It is quite dreadful to think
of that poor child in such a man's power. He had a terrible attack of
passion in the asylum--a blood-vessel in the brain gave way, and all was
over in a few minutes."
"There are so many things I cannot understand," said Grace, who felt
those last days too much to speak about them. "Surely Margaret must
have consulted a doctor. Why did he not interfere? He must have seen
that that wretched man was insane."
"Ah," said the doctor, rising, and not choosing to say to her what he
had said to Doctor Jones, "medical men are not always infallible."
"They are human creatures," said Jean--"poor erring mortals."
To Doctor Jones--the great man from London spoke plainly, albeit with a
politeness which was very chilling.
"We cannot understand, sir, your not having recognised the man as a
dangerous lunatic, but probably you have not had much experience of this
kind."
"I was beginning to be uneasy," stammered Doctor Jones, who had appeared
on the scene because the man he had sent there had warned him that there
would probably be murder, and that he would get into a scrape if he did
not interfere in some way.
"Were you?" said Doctor Plunkett, an Irishman, with all the sense of fun
of a typical Irishman of the best class; "were you really? You had begun
to think you had made a mistake." Then he added, in a more serious tone,
"Doctor Jones, it is a very serious matter."
"I think it is very serious."
"What made you so _determined_ not to see that the unfortunate man was
out of his mind?"
"How do you know I was determined, sir?" said Doctor Jones, anxiously.
"Because Miss Rivers, in stating the case, told me you had made up your
mind beforehand!"
"I--I thought that Mrs. Drayton was----well, not quite straightforward."
"That has nothing whatever to do with it. If we medical men are to judge
of a patient's condition because we like or dislike their relations
there is an end of everything," Doctor Plunkett said severely; "surely a
case must be judged on its own merits?"
"Of course, sir, of course. My wife, sir----"
Doctor Plunkett looked at him in amazement.
"You do not mean to say, sir," he said, in a tone of cutting contempt,
"that you allow your _wife_ to dictate to you upon a subject she can
know nothing about?"
Doctor Jones felt utterly crushed.
When Doctor Plunkett was leaving the room the unhappy little man got
near him and said, in a tone of abject entreaty,
"I do trust, sir, that, if you have conceived an unfavourable opinion of
me in this matter, you--will--perhaps, sir, you will not speak of it
anywhere. It would ruin me, sir, in the eyes of my wife."
"Sir," said Mr. Plunkett, "we medical men are supposed to stand by each
other, but a man who is in subjection to his wife has no business to be
a doctor, in my opinion." He added, "I think a henpecked man is an error
in existence. I do not think he has any right to exist at all," and he
left Dr. Jones to digest this speech as best he could.
It was getting much warmer, though the spring was not yet far on: That
wonderful promise of a coming fulness, which is one of the great charms
of spring, made itself felt, but as yet the days were not long, and
Grace, impatient and restless, wanted Margaret to know what had passed;
she wished her to know she was free.
Now that Mr. Drayton was dead, the sister who had been, for a time,
bowed with remorse, tried to shake it off. It had been terrible, and the
death of the little one, that perhaps might have been saved, was too
sad.
But now it was all over why should not Margaret revive? why could she
not speak and break a silence that was becoming so very terrible?
Grace had not much more comprehension now than she had had in old days
of the depths of her sister's nature; and she did not know in its
entirety what Margaret had suffered in those months of anguish and
seclusion.
Perhaps the person who best understood her was Jean, whose own deep warm
feelings taught her sympathy.
And Jean in those days was invaluable. She shielded Margaret from every
intrusion, she cared for her, tended her, and prayed for her; and she
sometimes thought as she stood beside her in the stillness of the
night--when with her head bowed and her hands clasped she prayed in the
old Bible words so familiar to her, and so strange to the poor prostrate
girl--that there was a look of tears in the dim, half-closed eyes, and
she had hope.
It was a quiet place where they were, and Margaret's room looked out
upon a wide flower-garden. As the trees began to show green, none of the
surrounding houses could be seen, and Grace used to bring in every
favourite flower she knew her sister had in old days loved.
The window was open, and as Jean sat near it, busy with her knitting, a
few birds, accustomed to be fed, came to the window-sill and pecked
cheerfully, if a little disdainfully, at food they no longer required.
A slight movement from the bed made her turn quickly, and she saw that
Margaret's eyes were more fully opened than they had yet been, and that
she was looking curiously and strangely at her.
Jean, with one of her inward and fervent prayers, went to the bed, and
laid within reach and sight of her the golden curls she had treasured
for her, and the photograph of the little child--then she turned away.
With the feeblest hand and a faint cry Margaret took these things up and
passed them through her fingers in an uncertain hesitating way, then she
looked at the picture....
The child lay in that stiller rest as though about to awaken, flowers
were around it, and on its face was the smile with which it had left
her.
In a moment Jean heard the welcome sound of tears and a sob, and rising
quietly she shut the window and left the room, knowing just then
solitude was best.
* * * * *
Margaret was saved: day by day she began now to rally, her words were
still whispers from the extremity of her weakness, but she began to
listen and notice and answered; still, to Grace's impatient eyes, the
progress was slow.
They told her of Mr. Drayton's death, but no one could fathom her
thoughts about it. Grace worried Jean every hour and every moment of the
day. "It seems so hard, Jean, now all is over, why can she not be as she
used to be?"
"She never will be that, my bairn," said the old woman, "she will bear a
scar all her days in her heart. It will heal, but there will be the
mark. A wound like that is not a thing that can be blotted out
altogether."
"You know, I never saw the baby," said Grace.
"It is not only the loss of the baby, that's sore, but a sense of having
sinned, that's helping to keep her down," said Jean; "she feels that she
has done evil that good may come, and we are commanded not to do that.
And her nerves are nearly gone. You do not realize, my dear, all that
poor thing has suffered. I tremble, myself, when I think of her, month
after month, in the power of the poor madman. It's awful, Miss Grace,
you must just be patient and pray for her too."
Mrs. Dorriman's letters were now addressed to Margaret, and showed to no
one.
But one day she said to Jean, "When the doctor next comes, Jean, we will
ask him when I may go to Scotland," and the old woman was delighted, for
to her to be so far from Mrs. Dorriman, and not a "kent face" near her,
was a trial.
Another subject that amazed Grace a good deal was the apparent desertion
of Sir Albert Gerald and Mr. Paul Lyons.
Sir Albert having effected poor Margaret's release was full of remorse
because that release had been so late, though he was conscious of not
having lost time when he had fully grasped the situation; he still
mourned over the death of the poor child, whose life might have been
saved under ordinary circumstances. He understood Margaret better than
most of those round her, and he knew that if ever, in the future, he
hoped to see her, he must keep away now.
Grace was exceedingly amazed when she received a letter from him--from
Spain; true he entreated her to write to him, but his having gone so far
off was tiresome.
Then Mr. Lyons, he neither came nor wrote, and altogether Grace thought
now, as she once had done before, it is always Margaret.
Still there were consolations in her present lot; she appreciated to the
full having the command of money, and this was supplied unsparingly by
Mrs. Dorriman at her brother's wish.
He was not, in any way, a man who grudged money, and he was one of the
men who had a vague idea that most things, even a broken heart, could be
mended by a cheque.
He was more relieved by Mr. Drayton's death than any one, and horrified
his sister by saying so.
"It is a terrible thing you say, Anne; now I call that humbug; what is
the use of pretending to grieve?"
"He might have recovered," she said, gently; "and brother, I do not
think it is right to rejoice over any one's death."
"Who says I rejoice?"
"You look as if you did."
"Well, it is a relief; and in this world so seldom the right person
seems to die...."
"Oh, hush!" she said, inexpressibly shocked and distressed.
"Anne, I know you try to be honest, but you have a crooked way of
looking at things."
"I do not think I have, and," she added, plucking up a little spirit,
"you have no right to say so; and the subject is so terribly painful to
me, I thought it would be equally painful to you."
"You don't understand the question," he said, with something of his old
violence. "I am ready to destroy myself when I think I ever gave that
man an opportunity of seeing poor Margaret, and now that he is gone I
cannot pretend to regret him. His death has ended a terrible
complication."
"I cannot follow your way of thinking," Mrs. Dorriman said, feeling
somehow that this did not sound right.
"Well, you had best leave me just now, and when you have quite
disentangled your ideas we can renew the subject. I never knew such a
brain as yours, it seems to be generally in a hopeless state of muddle
about everything." This complimentary speech nearly reduced her to
tears, and she hurried from the room only to be immediately called back.
"I am a brute and you must forgive me, Anne," he said; "and there is
another thing I want to speak to you about."
His voice sounded strange to her, and looking at him she saw that he was
agitated.
"Say nothing just now to distress or worry yourself, brother," she said,
quickly.
He took no notice of her, he tapped the table before him with a massive
paper-cutter, then he said in an odd tone,
"What were you saying to-day about Margaret's coming to Scotland?"
"The doctor wants her to have sea air and Scotch air, she wishes to
come."
"Here?"
"No, not here. Somewhere (she does not care where) she has never seen.
Some place, with no recollections clinging to it.
"Lornbay?"
"She has been there. No! not Lornbay."
"How would Inchbrae do?" her brother asked as he watched her face
closely.
Her colour came and went, then her eyes filled with tears.
"Alas! that is out of the question."
"Is it?" He seemed to speak with a sudden sense of difficulty.
"Anne," he said at length, "have you really never guessed, never
thought, that Inchbrae could not be sold? Do you know so little really
of any business matters as not to know that without your consent,
without many formalities, the place, which is your place, could not be
sold?"
"Not sold! and the place is really mine?" said the poor woman, feeling
naturally more bewildered than ever.
"Yes, it is yours," he said, trying to cover his sense of shame by
speaking carelessly. His feelings towards his sister were so much
altered now, that looking back upon the brutality and roughness with
which he had moulded her fate gave him a pang he never would have
believed in former days. And there was something else, there was a page
in his history which often haunted him now. The burden of knowing it
even, could not be anything but painful to him, and the pain grew now
each day more and more intolerable.
Mrs. Dorriman was essentially a woman who had no self-confidence, she
hesitated over even small matters, and was so afraid of presumption and
other sins that she said what she felt right at times, impelled by a
directness and a sincere love of truth to say it abruptly, and having
done this repented her sharpness with undue humility and apologised for
being obliged to say what she thought.
But living in the perpetual companionship of a woman who was so utterly
unselfish and so unworldly, a woman whose candour and transparency were
those of a child, was an experience that told even upon Mr. Sandford's
blunt perceptions.
He had learned to value her, and just as he knew that she had become
much to him he had to lower himself probably for ever in her eyes.
Mrs. Dorriman was at this moment perturbed, distressed, and excited
beyond conception. To have been peremptorily taken from her own home
and her people ... to have been deceived! Then swiftly came the
remembrance that she had been led to wrong her husband's memory.
Thoughts pressed upon her that were nearly intolerable to her, and she
left the room, going to her own, where she tried to bring her thoughts
into order.
Why had her brother done this? It was not then that he cared for her,
for she knew well that in those days (that now seemed so far away) he
had cared for her very little.
Poor woman! her new affection for him seemed suddenly swept away since
he could carry out so much deception towards her.
It was so cruel to leave her all this while blaming her husband; and
till lately, when he had spoken of his having "taken care" of her, she
had seen nothing but unkindness in the way she had been left dependent.
Sudden enlightenment came as a flash to her; those papers she had kept
were of real consequence, and opened up the history of her brother's
past. She had, as we know, more than once thought of this--or rather
nearly thought it out, and pushed the feeling back with a kind of
terror.
To be certain that she had no weapons to strike him with he had broken
up her home--to have her near him and watch her actions.
She rose suddenly from her chair: she felt suffocating with the pressure
upon her mind. How could she forgive him? She walked quickly up and down
her room, her hands clasped closely; then she said aloud, "My husband,
forgive me," and then cried, poor thing, till she exhausted herself.
The twilight came on; the factories, so grim by day, blazed out with
their myriad lights.
Mrs. Dorriman could not go down; she could not yet forgive. She had some
food sent to her, and then prepared to go to bed.
Taking up her Bible mechanically she read and took in nothing she saw;
she shut it again and tried to say her prayers. Was there not something
about forgiving trespasses that she said twice every day?
There was a severe mental struggle, and it was dark when it was over.
She went slowly to her brother's room. He was awake.
"Brother," she said, going up to him and laying her hand upon his, "I
have come to say that I forgive!"