Mrs. Dorriman was very quiet all the long journey, with the tedious
changes going to Renton. Her heart was overflowing. Her sweet
disposition, which had enabled her so completely to forgive the wrong
done her about Inchbrae by the brother she was going to see, made her
fearful lest some disclosures now might give Mr. Stevens an unfavourable
idea of Mr. Sandford.
She knew that there was no liking to begin with, and that the man she
was learning every day to love more and more resented for her, more than
she did now for herself, the unfair treatment she had met with at her
brother's hands.
Mr. Stevens was very upright and very honourable, and he conceived, as
most people would, that for any man to take advantage of a woman's
ignorance of business matters, and deceive her for his own particular
benefit, was iniquitous; and Mrs. Dorriman, with her great unselfishness
and humility, her anxiety to do right at any cost to herself, ought to
have been sacred.
The nearness of the relationship only made it all the worse; and he
could not bear to hear his Anne--as he now called her--extenuating and
pleading for this brother.
She learned to understand this, and to shun the subject; but it was
impossible for her, now that she was whirling along this same road, not
to feel intensely the contrast between then and now. The comfort of
having everything so quietly arranged for her--to have no anxieties
because _he_ was looking after everything--was quite indescribable. One
terrible Junction, where she had formerly stood in despair, and had
been shouted at by porters, and pushed here and there, lived in her
memory as a sort of gulf, out of which the kind hand of Providence alone
sent her in the right direction, now seemed a quiet enough station, as,
with her hand underneath his arm, he went quietly round and ordered the
porters about in a manner she never would have dared to do.
Then they arrived at Renton, and went on, leaving Jean, by her own wish,
to follow on foot with Christie, who proclaimed herself tired to death
of sitting still, and longing to take "a bit walk."
"And this was the place, and this the house, Mr. Sandford brought her to
when he got her to leave Inchbrae?" said Christie, looking at the square
unpretending ugly house in front of her. "Jean, my woman, you did not
say a word too much, you did na say enough."
"It is comfortable inside," said Jean.
"Like enough," answered Christie; "but you do not know, and I do know,
the home she came from."
Arrived at the house, Jean's air of being at home was very amusing, even
to Margaret, who had that indefinable sense of something impending which
comes to us all at times.
She was conscious herself of understanding nothing fully, and she was
trying to guard herself against drifting into a selfish self-absorption.
To her the place was full of very painful memories. Here she had first
seen Mr. Drayton, and, with Grace, had laughed over those shattered
dreams about a coming prince--who presented himself in middle-aged
plainness. It seemed to her that nothing was changed, and she half
expected to see Grace flutter downstairs, with saucy speeches and
careless wilful disregard of Mr. Sandford's wishes.
By-and-bye they had dinner. Mrs. Dorriman had seen Mr. Sandford, who was
not suffering that night, and who wished to see Margaret after dinner.
Mr. Stevens had seen them to the door, and had gone home to the place
he had taken, with the works, in which formerly Mr. Drayton had been
mixed up.
"Margaret, my dear," said Mrs. Dorriman, when the quiet dinner had come
to an end, "Mr. Stevens wants us to go and see his house to-morrow. He
is so kind; he wants to know if I should like to alter things--fancy its
having come to this! that I am to alter things if I like--it is quite
wonderful!"
"It is wonderful that you take all this as you do," said Margaret,
kindly. "I wish I could put a little conceit into you, or a little of my
own selfishness. I should be better with less."
"You selfish! My dear Margaret, you only think so because you have not
many other people to think of just now. Selfish! Why a selfish woman
would have kept all that money. How much good you have done with it!"
"That is not the same thing, auntie dear; parting with money I disliked
using, while I was assured of all comforts and necessaries without it,
did not involve any sacrifice. It is like giving away when you are so
rich you cannot miss it; but I know that I am inclined to think
constantly of myself and of my own convictions about things; even your
example has not cured me, though I own it has done me good."
"My example? My dear Margaret, I never thought of setting an example to
any one!"
"No, you never think of yourself in any way, and that is why you are so
delightfully unselfish," and Margaret, not demonstrative as a rule, rose
and kissed her.
Mr. Sandford did not seem so much changed to Margaret's inexperienced
eyes; his voice, much lower than before, was still harsh. He looked long
at Margaret, and said, as though more to himself than her,
"I was right; the likeness is there."
Margaret tried to talk to him, but there was something so mournful, so
terribly sad in his expression, that she was more than half frightened,
and was herself nearly moved to tears.
"I wish you to say 'Forgive,'" he said, in a very hesitating manner,
"and I wish you to say good-bye. I want to pass from you, who are so
like _her_, before you know my story. Will you forgive?"
"I do forgive." said Margaret; "do not think that I blame you for all.
Grace was very wilful, and I ... made an idol and dashed myself nearly
to pieces against it; my judgment was obscured and I also did wrong."
"You are kind to say this--there is some justice in it; but I have never
forgiven myself; I have ruined your life; what is there now to do? I
have nothing in my power; I cannot make amends!"
"Have you not heard?" said Margaret, while a lovely colour stole into
her face and made it still more beautiful; "I have love offered me and I
have love to give. Sir Albert...."
"Thank God!" he said, fervently, and, exhausted by his own emotion, he
closed his eyes.
Margaret stood up and looked down upon him; the intensest pity for a man
so lonely and so despairing filled her.
"Oh!" she said, in a low, penetrating voice, "take comfort; I am weak
and very full of faults, and I forgive. There is a Higher to look to, to
ask forgiveness from. If I can forgive, who am like yourself----" she
paused, frightened; watching his face, she saw an expression of agony
pass over it.
"I will come again," she said, hurriedly, and went to call his servant.
She waited late that night but only heard of his being better, and then
went herself to rest.
Next day Mr. Stevens came, and remained talking to Mrs. Dorriman. Mr.
Sandford was much better, and they were to go and see Mrs. Dorriman's
future home.
It was certainly an instance of there being two sides to every question.
Margaret, who had never driven far while at Renton, and who only knew
the grimy streets outside Mr. Sandford's circumscribed grounds, was
astonished to find herself driving out into the country, with a broad
river full of ships, life, colour, and movement. The carriage turned
into a broad avenue of trees, and the grounds were well kept and large,
the house charming and full of lovely things. Mrs. Dorriman was quite
delighted with it all. She had a womanly element of loving good domestic
arrangements, and thought she had never seen a house more conveniently
planned or more thoroughly delightful. Even the smoke did not seem to
penetrate so far as this abode of bliss, though Mr. Stevens, who was
nothing if not honest, assured her it did under the influence of certain
winds.
"You cannot expect otherwise so near a manufacturing town."
"Then," said Mrs. Dorriman, in so delighted a state of mind, and seeing
everything so completely _couleur de rose_, "before very long there
will very likely not be any smoke, it will all be consumed," a
supposition proving clearly enough that she was unreasonably hopeful,
since doing it is economical and is said to be easy, and is never done.
They were a little alarmed to see that the doctor was watching for their
arrival.
"Mr. Sandford had rather a bad attack but is better again. He wishes to
see you all if you will go to his room. If he is much agitated I have
some drops I should like to give myself, so I will wait here, if you
please."
He said all this in a matter-of-fact tone, strangely different from the
state of excitement poor Mrs. Dorriman was in.
"Does Mr. Sandford wish to see me?" asked Mr. Stevens.
"You were particularly mentioned," answered the doctor.
Mr. Sandford was sitting in front of his writing-table, his right hand
shading his face.
"I am sorry you have been ill, brother," said Mrs. Dorriman, gently.
He took no notice, and did not raise his head.
"Is Christie here?" he asked.
There was a pause, and the three stood full of a suppressed agitation.
Even Mr. Stevens, as he looked on the terrible signs of suffering on the
haggard and miserable face before him, was conscious of a far softer and
more forgiving spirit.
Christie came at once and stood near the door, a triumphant expression
upon her features.
Still keeping his hand so, partly screening his face, Mr. Sandford began
to speak in a low clear distinct voice, without inflections or
emphasis--a voice that seemed hardly to belong to him.
"Anne, I have wronged you most. I must speak to you, and the others must
hear.
"You have sometimes, in old days ... you used often to ask me who my
father's first wife was--you remember? Who my mother was?"
"I remember."
"My father, our father, was only married once, Anne, and your mother was
the only wife he ever had."
There was a breathless silence--Mrs. Dorriman not fully understanding
the purport of his words.
"Therefore," continued Mr. Sandford in a hard tone, speaking almost as
one under the influence of some powerful narcotic, "I have no rights, no
name. I am not the heir, I never was the master of Sandford!"
"But you are my father's son?" exclaimed Mrs. Dorriman in a tone of
intense suspense.
"I am--but, Anne, I am his nameless son. He never married my mother. Now
do you understand?"
Mrs. Dorriman turned to Mr. Stevens, her face pale, she was trembling.
She was evidently intensely surprised. He took her hand in his and spoke
to her, in a low voice, reassuring words.
"Before you all judge me, hear me!" continued the unhappy man, "for my
temptation was great and my trial a terrible one!
"As the only son--brought up unchecked and with power in my hands--it
was not till I was nearly twenty-five, madly in love with my wife, that
my father told me the truth.
"My God! how I suffered! My father always intended to tell me but he
dreaded a scene and put it off always. I think _she_ knew, and I was
afraid of her!"--he indicated Christie with his hand.
"Do you think that if I had known I would have stood by and seen ill
done till her?" and Christie's wrinkled old face glowed with passion. "I
had no proof, but I thought my own thoughts. Your mother was a neighbour
on the hill-side and she went away; she came back with her bairn at her
breast and never a wedding-ring, and she greeted and greeted. A happy
wife is proud of her man, she never spoke of hers, she just dwined and
died; and your father, a young young man, came home and saw her on her
death-bed. 'I'll care for the bairn,' he kept saying in my hearing, and
you was moved to the big house. He grieved, for he was kind-hearted
enough--but weak, weak as a bracken-bough." Christie stopped short, and
a dead silence reigned in the room.
"When I went to my father and told him that I loved Margaret Rivers (and
Heaven knows how I loved her!) he answered that I _must_ have known
this. The facts had been so impressed on his own mind that he imagined I
_must_ somehow have known them.
"Day after day I renewed my prayers--only to be refused. The strain upon
him, the incessant agitation, all acted unfavourably upon him, and the
last violent scene we had together ended in his having a paralytic
shock, so severe that he lost all power of speech. The terror and misery
of it all I still remember, then suddenly it came before me that, as no
one knew this dread secret, I might take possession. I spent hours
looking through his papers, but I found no proof against me.
"Colonel Rivers had gone to India with his daughters. I followed him
there, and married the only woman I ever loved, only to lose her a short
time afterwards. I went about nearly mad. I threw up the appointment in
a merchant's house I had, and I came back. My father had grown feebler,
but at times I was afraid he might rally sufficiently to tell you, Anne,
about it. For this reason I sent you from home, and, as we always hate
where we have injured, I hated you, and hurried your marriage to get you
safe and away from my sight--you were a perpetual reproach to me.
"Then one day your husband found some papers. He was embarrassed and
hampered, and I lent him money. He was not a good man of business, and I
found it easy to lead him to do what I thought best--but it was equally
easy for the next comer to make him do exactly the reverse. In all his
difficulties his ruling wish was to put you beyond the reach of
adversity, to make you independent. But he only succeeded partly. When
he found those papers he came to me and said he had found some curious
letters. They were letters from my father to my mother, and, had he read
them, he would have known all; but he was an honourable fellow, and,
having accidentally seen one and been amused by the spelling, he did not
read any more. I was afraid of being too eager, and, before he could
give them, he was taken ill and died, and you have those letters now,
Anne; they are in that box some instinct, I suppose, made you keep."
He lay back now exhausted--nothing save Mr. Stevens's sustaining hand
had kept Mrs. Dorriman quiet. She was fearfully agitated: the cruel
wrongs heaped upon her, the long years of a dependence which had galled
her so terribly--everything came before her. Mr. Stevens, passing his
arm round her, took her out of the room; he saw she could bear no more,
she was overwrought.
"Mr. Sandford opened his eyes, and saw her going.
"Ah!" he said, bitterly, "at last I have driven her from my side, even
her patient spirit is at length roused. Margaret."
"Yes," she answered, in a constrained voice.
"You are condemning me also."
She could not speak.
The times without number that she had seen him violent and abusive to
poor Mrs. Dorriman, the cruel sting that being at his mercy had always
been to the poor woman, the imposture, everything bewildered and shocked
her.
Mr. Stevens went back, Christie still leaned against the door like a
statue.
"How your fraud was successful, I cannot understand," he said, curtly.
"Who was there to ask any questions? Who was to know what had passed?"
asked Mr. Sandford; "I had nothing to prove. The result of my father's
deception was to make all easy. As I had lived with him, been accepted
as his legitimate son during his lifetime, during the time when he might
have spoken, why should I not be accepted as his legitimate son when
speech was denied him? There were no papers to prove or disprove
anything, I was asked to produce no baptismal certificate, and no one
thought of questioning me about my mother's marriage certificate.
"But now you know all, take what steps you like to proclaim me to the
world an impostor--what signifies it to me? No one can deny me the six
feet of earth which is all I shall want directly."
"Sir," said Christie, "when you sold the place was it for fear of a
judgment if you lived in it?"
"Sold the place! How could I live in the place to be reminded at every
turn that it was not really mine? Every tree, every shrub, seemed to be
a witness against me. I grew to loathe the place."
"And what made you think I knew anything?"
"Because your father was so much with mine," he answered slowly; "I
never was sure, but I sometimes fancied he knew something."
"He knew nothing, but he did guess; he said, when you sold the place, it
was strange, that a man that was well-to-do would not sell a
family-place without a strong reason.... But my father was right in what
he said," she exclaimed, her eyes becoming brilliant as she saw the
fulfilment of his prophecy coming nearer and nearer; "he said you would
have your own, my dear, and you have it now!"
She spoke as though Mrs. Dorriman were still present.
Margaret saw that Mr. Sandford was almost past consciousness, and she
hurried them away leaving him alone with the doctor, whom she summoned.
Mrs. Dorriman, who for so long now had been kept out of her rights, was
quite overwhelmed by this sudden reversion of all her accustomed
conclusions; all the long years of her dependence had so nearly crushed
her spirit that it was difficult for her mind to grasp her present
position. Mr. Stevens was full of patience.
"And the place is sold!" she said, with a sudden sense of not being able
to have it, in spite of all.
"I think we can get the man who bought it to give it up," said Mr.
Stevens; "we will try at any rate."
She was crying bitterly; she remembered her father's gentle indecision,
even about trifles, and indeed her youth would have been far, far
happier had he only been able to stand against his son's overbearing
temper; but the knowledge of the wrong he had done him made him give in
to him. He had been a man who hated anything that disturbed his
tranquillity, and only when obliged and forced to do so had he told his
son the truth. The effect of this blow was terrible. To have been
allowed to grow up looking upon his position as certain, and, just when
he was most anxious to have a fair future to offer to the Margaret
Rivers he worshipped, to have everything swept away from under his feet,
nearly turned his brain.
Mrs. Dorriman could not see her brother at any rate then, and Mr.
Stevens did not press her to do so. He knew that the doctor did not
think there was any immediate danger, he was to escort her to Inchbrae,
fully understanding that she had received too great a shock to recover
from immediately.
When she asked Margaret to return with her, as a matter of course, she
was surprised, almost hurt, by her refusal.
"I feel that you have happiness in prospect, auntie darling," Margaret
answered; "but this most unhappy man! Oh, do not look so grieved! I must
do what I feel right. I cannot leave him to face this remorse, and all
alone."
"I cannot think of him! I could not see him!" said poor Mrs. Dorriman,
with a vehemence utterly foreign to her nature. "Oh, Margaret, if you
knew all I suffered in old days!" she stopped, with a sudden sob.
"Do not think that I do not sympathise with you fully and entirely; it
is a terrible position; he has injured you, and it has been most cruel;
but, auntie, do not let him do you further injury, for there is a
further injury that this may do you, a greater wrong!"
Mrs. Dorriman hurriedly swept away her tears that were blinding her, and
gazed at Margaret with blank astonishment.
"A further injury, Margaret! What further injury can be left? I have
suffered surely enough at his hands?"
"Oh!" exclaimed Margaret, passionately. "Do you not see--can you not
feel--that if you allow this to rankle in your mind; if you allow the
sweetness of your nature to be turned to gall; if your soul suffers, and
that you say it is not possible to forgive--there will be a deeper
injury?"
She stopped and left her, and poor Mrs. Dorriman stood looking after
her, as though expecting her to return.
Once before she had had a bitter struggle, and she had forgiven. She
went to her room, where all was ready for her departure, and she shut
herself in....
Blank and desolate was Mr. Sandford's room. He allowed no one to come
near him. He sent away Margaret, though she had insisted on bringing him
food, and had tried to talk to him.
He sat long hours suffering acutely both physically and mentally. He
seemed only now more fully to realise what a crime his was. His sister's
character, in his eyes so feeble, was, he had conceived, unfitted for
the position she should have held; and this was his own excuse to
himself when conscience asserted itself, or rather tried to do so.
They had all left him, he thought. There had been a bustle and a
movement in the hall, and he had heard wheels.
The light was waning fast over the room, by the shadow of twilight, in
which his face looked wan and white.
He knew that his hours were numbered, and he wished to pray; but he had
no habit of prayer; he had always been afraid....
How he was suffering! His heart beat as though each stroke would burst
it.
The door opened very slowly, and he started up. Who was the intruder?
Who was it that came to mock his sufferings?
Then a gentle voice spoke out of the dim and fading light--"Brother!"
and Mrs. Dorriman came up and knelt down by his side.
"I have been wrong," she said. "I thought only of myself, and I did not
realise your wrongs. Once again I come to say forgive, as I hope for
forgiveness myself."
Her voice died away. She heard him say fervently, in a very low voice,
"Thank God!" and she went on--
"But while I do wish you to know this--to try and forget the wrong done
to me--there is another to turn to, to ask for forgiveness from."
She felt his hand clasp hers; and as in a dream came from his lips that
first prayer of childhood--"Our Father!"
She left him after a while; but she did not go away that night.
Next day his servant, who slept in the little ante-room, saw that he had
been busy writing, and then laid down and was now sleeping.
The doctor came and saw him, and directed that some one should stay
beside him.
The hours went on, but Christie sitting there saw no change, only a
greater stillness seemed to fill the room.
Then suddenly she saw that the sleep was the eternal sleep which knows
no waking here.
* * * * *
Mrs. Dorriman at Inchbrae once more suffered long from the effects of
all the agitation she had gone through. The last night of Mr. Sandford's
life was spent in writing to her, but even to Mr. Stevens she said
nothing of the contents of his letter, only comforted by the whispered
prayer which was her last remembrance of him. One point she was anxious
upon: the recovery of the old place, and whether there was any necessity
for letting the world know this painful chapter in the family history.
Mr. Stevens arranged both matters for her. Mr. Sandford, having by will
left everything to his sister, she paid the legacy duty for the money,
which was found to have accumulated enormously.
Sandford was bought back and refurnished, and, under Mrs. Macfarlane's
wing, Mrs. Dorriman again changed her name, and Mr. and Mrs. Stevens
Sandford went to the old house. By her express wish there were no great
rejoicings--in her heart would remain for a long time that sense of a
terrible past, which time only could soften and heal.
But, as a tree nipped and blighted under cruel exposure and an
unfavourable soil revives and blossoms when transplanted into genial
air, so Mrs. Dorriman's character (we must still call her Dorriman) grew
firmer and stronger.
She had much to forget, but love is a great factor, and, as the subject
was one which, after the first, Mr. Stevens Sandford would not allow her
to dwell upon or talk about, it passed out of her mind by degrees.
She had now a fuller life, sons and daughters clustered round her, and
gave her the love she had craved for.
* * * * *
Margaret and her husband were content to live a quiet useful happy life.
Her other children did not banish the first from her memory, and her
spirits were never high. But she was happy and cheerful. The one
constant ruffle on the surface of her smoother sea was her sister.
Grace was always the same Grace--at one moment passionately fond of her
husband and lavishing affection and endearment upon him, and the next
quarrelling violently with him, and accusing him of almost every sin
mentioned in the Decalogue.
Still she kept his affection! She was one of the provoking, irritating,
and yet charming people that could sway the passion of a man at will,
and she had that strongest claim on the forbearance of a generous
man--ill health.
She was a perpetual astonishment to her sister, and often a terrible
anxiety.
Margaret's poems were no longer passionate, or even powerful. It has
been said, and with a good deal of truth, that the grandest poem, like
the sublimest music, springs from human wretchedness, but this applies
to poetry set in a minor key.
Margaret's husband gives another reason for her silence. The constant
care and thought lavished upon every creature within her radius--she is
one of the women who finds her truest happiness in giving it to others.
Christie did not live long; she saw her beloved mistress installed in
her old home, and died soon afterwards, happy now right was done.
And Jean? Jean took every one by surprise, and married a hard-working,
steady good mechanic at Renton.
They all exclaimed when she announced her marriage, and Mrs. Dorriman
said:
"And you, Jean, who think it so dreadful to live near all that smoke,
and found it so different to what you had been used to?"
"Eh, ma'am," answered Jean, grinning from ear to ear, "it's no the
place, it's the man!"
THE END.