Mr. Stevens, before he left Inchbrae, made Anne Dorriman give him a solemn promise—a promise that she gave him smiling till, she saw him grave.
"Promise me, Anne, that, come ill or good fortune, nothing will turn you from marrying me!"
"I promise."
She said it thoughtfully, and then insisted on his repeating the words.
"Now," he said, "if every shilling of your brother's has gone, if you are left without one, still you will be my wife?"
"You are speaking as though you knew," she said, looking at him inquiringly; but he turned her words aside, and she forgot them.
"What have I done to deserve this happiness?" she asked of Margaret later, when the two went to their rooms.
"Much," said Margaret, gently. "Have you ever lived for yourself?—never since I knew you! I was thinking only to-day that it was not good for me to be with you, because you make so much of me and so little of yourself, that I am growing narrow and selfish."
"Nonsense! my dear," answered Mrs. Dorriman. "Oh! Margaret, if you knew how I hate being alone and having to decide things myself—now think of the comfort of having some one to go to!"
"And so able to help you," said Margaret, feelingly.
She also felt this burden of loneliness; felt it all the more because of the contrast between her own life and that of others.
Christie was much moved when the news was told her.
"It is coming near, my dear," she said to Margaret, "in the Lord's good time."
Margaret did not comprehend her.
Jean was most amusing upon the subject.
"And what for no!" she asked, when Mrs. Dorriman told her. "You have never had real true love, though Mr. Dorriman, poor man, was aye fond of you in his way; but he was a crookit stick, with no pith in him. This man's a man to be proud of. There's stuff in him, and you will be able to lean on him. It's not a light puff of wind will blow him down!"
Mrs. Dorriman wrote to her brother, and, in a few words which she found difficult to write, told him of her engagement.
She also said that she trusted Margaret would fill her place and live with him. "I think Margaret will be more to you than I could ever be." She wound up by saying, "You have been kind, but I have always felt that you were disappointed in me. I am not strong-minded enough to be a good companion for one so accustomed to more intelligence."
Had she deliberately steeped her pen in gall she could not have given him a bitterer moment.
He was physically unfit for any excitement or worry. His illness had gained rapidly upon him, and he suffered terribly at times.
He received a letter from Margaret which also troubled him greatly.
Knowing him to be well off, and that he did not care about money for its own sake, she wrote with confidence to him about Grace.
"She has given up the money left to her after me which I refused to take. I am afraid that giving it up will embarrass her and Paul. You have often offered to settle money upon me—to give me much that I did not want—will you do something for my sister? will you arrange something to make up to her for what she has given up? I think you feel with me, that accepting that money would humiliate me whether it was accepted by Grace or by myself."
A few days and then came the answer.
"Dear Margaret,"I have nothing to give. I have no right to give anything, and I have not got it in my power. I am ill, and I am miserable. When I can I am going to Inchbrae. I have something to say to my sister. I think your ideas about that overstrained."
"Dear Margaret,
"I have nothing to give. I have no right to give anything, and I have not got it in my power. I am ill, and I am miserable. When I can I am going to Inchbrae. I have something to say to my sister. I think your ideas about that overstrained."
To say Margaret was disappointed is to say little. She doubted now whether the stand she had taken was the right one. All at once she seemed to see everything differently; for a moment or two she felt as though her sensitiveness on this subject had led Grace to disaster.
But, on re-reading her sister's letter, she saw that her objections had had no weight; it was Paul who thought as she did; it was because of her husband that Grace had yielded.
Before she had time to arrange in her own mind whether it would be wise or not to let Mrs. Dorriman know about Mr. Sandford's illness and his loss of fortune, Mrs. Dorriman had come up to her and recognised her brother's writing.
At first when Margaret tried to put her off with the convenient word "business," Mrs. Dorriman was ready to believe it, but Margaret's countenance was expressive; and the little woman, anxious at any rate about her brother, got so hysterical that she was only pacified by its being given her.
"I must go to him!" she exclaimed as she saw the tremulous handwriting; "he must be very ill."
"You had better ask Mr. Stevens what he thinks," said Margaret, gently.
"My dear, yes. What a comfort it is to have some one with a good head on his shoulders who will advise me what is best to be done. It is such a comfort! But I am very unhappy about my brother; I must write at once."
"Why not telegraph? Mr. Stevens lives near Renton; if you telegraphed and asked him to find out if your brother is seriously ill, and if he advises you to go to him, you would have the answer much sooner. We might easily drive in ourselves with the telegram and wait for the answer, or go and wait at Mrs. Macfarlane's."
"My dear Margaret, what a practical person you are; and I know exactly where Mr. Stevens is just now. He told me how he mapped out his day, and at this moment he is in the counting-house at Renton, and will be there till three."
"Then we will lose no time," said Margaret.
They had long ago invested in a pony and pony-carriage of their own, and were soon speeding on their way, Mrs. Dorriman thoughtful and anxious, sustained by a consciousness of that help she had so recently become possessed of; Margaret silent, wondering a little what her life was really going to be, noticing, with a little pang, that even Mr. Sandford, lonely and suffering though he was, said not one single word about her going to him.
Something in the scenery brought Sir Albert Gerald to her mind. She wondered if he ever thought of her now; it seemed strange that he had dropped so completely out of her acquaintance—for months she had heard nothing of him. More than once she had said something about him in her letters to Grace, but she never took any notice, evidently, thought Margaret, not understanding how much she was interested in him as a friend, since it was only natural after what had passed between them. She seemed to herself to have missed happiness all through her life. Had either her father or mother lived, or had she understood what Sir Albert meant about being free? Where was the use of this going back to old regrets? She blamed herself because she had thought he would, before now, have made some sign. After all, there were many other girls in the world, and no one could have had so sad a history; she had no right to be disappointed, and yet she knew she was bitterly disappointed.
They went straight to the little post-office, and, while Mrs. Dorriman despatched the telegram, Margaret sent the pony to the inn-stables, and then went to ask for letters.
There was one from Grace. After dwelling rapturously upon a new cloak, which, she said, she should call charity, because it covered so many sins in the shape of old-fashioned garments, telling of a bonnet she had fallen in love with and could not afford, recounting trifling adventures that had befallen her, she said,
"Do you know of any grand passion Sir Albert is likely to have? I hear he has left London to go and offer himself, his fastidiousness, his fine place, and his treacherous heart, to some one he has long secretly loved. I cannot help feeling angry because, because, because.... I hoped some one I knew had attracted him. Pray do not swear at me or say anything disagreeable, but it is horrid: and I think men are a mistake generally, always excepting, of course, Paul, with the biggest P you can imagine, and I am not sure I would say that did I not feel that he may look over my letter."
A great weight settled upon poor Margaret's spirits. This was the solution she had feared, and yet how far more painful is the story told by a friend than the one we tell ourselves. The world suddenly became dark to her; she was conscious of Mrs. Dorriman's joy and satisfaction on receiving Mr. Stevens's telegram. Her brother was better, but would like them both to go to him towards the end of the week. "You cannot possibly make the troublesome journey alone, but I will go for you and Mrs. Drayton," was the substance of his telegram, and the poor little woman remembered vividly how, with far less experience, she had had to make this very journey alone, and how she felt forlorn and unhappy and received no comfort from any one.
They lunched with Mrs. Macfarlane, who was delighted Mrs. Dorriman was going to have such a nice husband. She was in such good spirits, so cheerful, and so overflowing with prosperity, that poor Margaret felt her, for the first time, oppressive. She exerted herself on the way home to enter into Mrs. Dorriman's satisfaction, but every word uttered in most innocent self-gratulation gave her companion an additional pang.
"To be so cared for, for the first time in all my life! Not possible to make that troublesome journey alone! What have I done, Margaret, to deserve it all? How can I be thankful enough?"
The afternoon was still only half over when they got home to Inchbrae. The day's brightness was as yet undimmed, and yet on the far-off hills lay soft shadows. The sun was capricious as a youthful beauty, now shining in all its glory and turning the rippling sea to gold, and then veiling himself behind those fleecy clouds that floated over the various peaks and crags. Margaret, throwing off the bonnet she only wore when she made expeditions to the little town, went bareheaded down the burn-side, anxious to face out her trouble and fight that battle with herself which her sister's letter rendered necessary.
The influences of such an afternoon should by rights have soothed her. A temperament such as hers, keenly susceptible as it was, should have become more in harmony with the glowing, peaceful, and brilliant scene around. But when the soul is deeply wounded the very fairness and serenity of lovely scenery jars upon it, and the cry is akin to one bereaved who has lost its all here, and feels the day garish and the sunshine a mockery.
There was that ever-trembling whisper of the burn, that sounded not long ago to her telling her a love story. Now she would have given worlds to stop it since it told her lies. Everything, she thought, was happy but herself; the very bees had a heartless hum as they rejoiced over a bed of golden crowsfoot and wild thyme close at hand; and when from a little fishing-boat came a cheery Gaelic song, cheery and yet melancholy because of its minor key, Margaret's self-restraint gave way, and, covering her face with her hands, she cried quietly, but quite heart-brokenly.
On the hill-side came a rapid footstep, that yet was not heard on the short, well-nibbled grass; a few hill-sheep raised their heads and looked with a certain wonder at the intruder, not moving a step, since they knew no fear. Margaret only heard the slight rustle, when some one stood close to her; she had not time to wipe away her tears; startled, she rose, and there calling her softly, and with outstretched hands, was Sir Albert Gerald.
"What has distressed you?" he said, noting with quick sympathy her tearful face.
How could she tell him? He was here, and the look in his eyes, the whole expression of his face, told her that he had come to seekher. Grace's story was true, why had she made herself miserable? How stupid she was! Blushing, she answered part of his question, and he was content.
"I thought that you would never come again."
What change had come over everything?
Margaret thought the day brighter, softer, more enchanting than ever before known. She moved as in a dream, outwardly quiet, a whole world of passion, and love, and gratitude, swelling her heart.
"I am afraid of my happiness," she said that evening to Mrs. Dorriman, when Sir Albert had gone out with his cigar, and the two friends had gone upstairs to bed. "I am so intensely, so perfectly, happy! God is very good to me!"
"My dear," said Mrs. Dorriman, "I am nearly as happy about you as I am about myself, and I think Mr. Stevens is right (he is always right). He says we need not question why we are happy, but enjoy it, and be thankful for it. I like Sir Albert very much indeed, and if he cannot quite compare with ... older men just now, I dare say when he comes to be older——"
"He will be a second Mr. Stevens," said Margaret, laughing, as she said good-night.
Next day brought Mrs. Dorriman a letter from her brother, the contents of which puzzled her and bewildered her very nearly as much as the famous letter had done more than two years and a half ago, when we first made her acquaintance.
She was to come to Renton with Margaret, and she was also to bring Christie with her. Jean of course would be welcome, but he wished to see Christie particularly.
Mr. Stevens not having arrived, Mrs. Dorriman took her perplexities to Margaret.
"Why he should want to see Christie is so very remarkable," said she, in something of the old puzzled and plaintive tone.
"Did he know her in old days?"
"Of course he must have seen her, as a young man he must have known her, because she lived on the place, and it was our way to know everybody; but all these years she has been here and he has never taken any notice of her. I believe she would hardly know him by sight now."
"Perhaps she is connected with some memory of his youth."
"Yes! of course that may be it."
Mrs. Dorriman went herself to tell Christie about it; wishing to prepare the old woman, doubtful as to her consenting to go on a railway for the first time in all her life.
But when she reached Christie's cottage she found her in her Sunday's clothes—her best mutch[1]on, and all the small possessions she wished to take with her ready packed.
"How did you know, Christie?" she asked in great amazement.
"When I heard Mr. Sandford was ill and not likely to mend, I wanted to go and see him. I made ready; I have something to say to him, for your sake, my dear!"
Mrs. Dorriman sat down to rest.
"For my sake!" she repeated. "Oh! Christie, I want nothing from him."
"But I do for you, and for myself I would die in the old place; for you, I'd best keep quiet a bit longer."
She said no more of her hopes and wishes, but her parting words were:
"When you're ready I'm ready; not but what railways are fearful things to be sent about the world, with nothing but a screech and a puff of smoke."
Mr. Stevens in the meantime entered into various details with Mrs. Dorriman, even helping her to settle what things she would take with her or leave behind.
"There is one thing you must take, as Sandford expressly wishes you to do so." He spoke looking at her a little curiously.
A flash of recollection came to her.
"The box and papers," she exclaimed.
"Abox and papers. Never again shall I say that all women are full of curiosity! I know differently now."
"You know everything, I think," said Mrs. Dorriman.
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 becausehewas 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 likeher, 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 completelycouleur 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 thinksheknew, 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 Imusthave known this. The facts had been so impressed on his own mind that he imagined Imustsomehow 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!"
[1]Highland married woman's cap.
[1]Highland married woman's cap.