Volume Iii Part 33 (1/2)
”You know everything, I think,” said Mrs. Dorriman.
CHAPTER XI.
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 relations.h.i.+p 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 selfis.h.!.+ My dear Margaret, you only think so because you have not many other people to think of just now. Selfis.h.!.+ 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 a.s.sured 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 pa.s.s from you, who are so like _her_, before you know my story. Will you forgive?”