Read Ebook: Mrs. Dorriman: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3 by Chetwynd Henry Wayland Mrs

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Ebook has 1101 lines and 54477 words, and 23 pages

She was extremely sorry for Mrs. Dorriman: to be alone as she was, to have to face the world without any backbone was to her, like expecting a fish to swim deprived of its fins.

Nothing more gracious, more kindly, can be conceived than her manner to the poor lady who so required it, and one slight effect of her influence was amusing enough. Instead of leaving the bank and going to fetch the pony-carriage, Mrs. Dorriman boldly sent for it to come and take her up there.

Mrs. Dorriman drove home, well wrapped-up, and in a glow of feeling which would have been difficult to analyse. To one who is, as a rule, in an undecided state of mind, the very fact of having come to a decision is a comfortable feeling: besides this, there had been friendliness and kindness just at the moment the poor woman had been sorely needing both--and, though directly opposed to poetical ideas, it may here be surely confessed that excellent food--daintily set before her, and proffered with that true hospitality which nowhere is more real than in Scotland, and was conspicuous in Mrs. Macfarlane--had its share.

Then the support a cheerful, honest, and direct person is capable of giving, had a most beneficial influence. Mrs. Dorriman's character had suffered in a long and weary contest against petty tyranny--just as a tender sapling may live and grow exposed to adverse and cruel winds, but it will be bent, and twisted, and gnarled, and finally grow stunted and fixed in one direction--an existing proof of the severity to which it was exposed when too young to stand against it.

Her father could barely speak, even inarticulately. She yet could recall his wondering touch upon her shabby gown, and how, almost as in a fairy-tale, she had suddenly found herself in possession of much she had never dreamed of having.

His one happiness seemed to be to see her, and to have her near him. A few months passed like this--very few. She had arrived poorly clad, and suffering from the acute cold and bitter wind, in late autumn; when the snowdrops were still blooming, and the earliest trees were yet in bud, he died suddenly; giving her just before his death a little case in which she saw a lovelier fairer likeness of herself--her mother.

She had loved him with all the love that had never before had an outlet. The days that followed were like a painful dream. What she had, what her position was--of all this she knew absolutely nothing. The one thing she clung to was the old grey house, with the great beech and plane trees, and silver firs, up which the squirrels ran so gracefully. The sea--the friend of all, giving society and music to the desolate, and rejoicing the hearts of those who are lighthearted enough to enjoy its sparkling moods--that sea was now her friend. To wander in the wood and look down upon it; to let its salt spray touch her face as it broke upon the rocks.--She loved it in every mood, and found there something of the comfort which the absence of any intimate religion deprived her of, the bald learning of a few verses, the chapters read in the morning in a dull tone by a shivering teacher in the fireless schoolroom; where, from motives of economy, the fire was never even allowed to have a match put to it till the girls were all assembled there.

This had been her religious instruction; and, as the church was very far from them, they seldom went, and, when they did go, the walk was too long for her, and most painful from the chilblains, which caused her much suffering; so that cold and pain were the chief impressions in connection with a sense of fatigue which left her half-awake in church, and employing all her energy in trying to conceal the fact of her drowsiness.

Then one day, while looking out on the sea, some few months after her father's death, her hat off, and a vague sense of wishing she had something to look forward to, pressing upon her, Mr. Dorriman had come, and her brother.

Instead of the usual sneering tone in which John Sandford addressed his sister, she was startled out of herself by hearing him speak with civility. The surprise gave her a brilliant glow, which touched her face with colour and lightened it up. Mr. Dorriman thought her lovely. Her gentle helplessness was another great attraction, an attraction which every day's acquaintance increased. Without fully understanding how it all came about she found herself Mrs. Dorriman, and content to be so and to get away from the roughness and unkindness which was all that she ever knew of the brotherly tie. At first she had not been unhappy. Mr. Dorriman was so fond of her and so carefully surrounded her with comforts and kindness that she was more than content, though she was not in the least in love with him. But soon shadows came. A man of some property, he was unfortunately surrounded by men of wealth. He argued that where those round him made gigantic fortunes he could do the same--putting upon one side the important fact that they had been trained to business and he had not. He plunged into every opening where he thought he saw a chance of success; losses only made him more certain of success in a new direction. He was upright, honourable, and kind-hearted to a fault. He knew really nothing of business, and imagined that in a few days he could master details other men had spent their whole lives in studying--and in this idea John Sandford confirmed him. After seven years of anxieties, and hopes, and fears, he found himself ruined in health from over-worry, broken in fortune, and not able to shield his wife from the consequences. That she had never loved him he knew and had long known. But he had learned from her something of her life and of the absence of happiness which had made her what she was. He also had many a score against John Sandford could he but live to pay them. There was much in the transactions between them he could not understand, and which, looking back upon now by the light of his failures, quite apart from his own speculations, he was certain, he had reason to know, had not been fair or right. But this conviction came to him too late; before he had done more than collect notes and tabulate letters he was struck down by fever, which his constitution could not stand, and Mrs. Dorriman found herself at twenty-five a widow, at the mercy of the world and her brother.

This little place of Inchbrae had been bought by her husband for her when he found how much the sea entered into her thoughts and how she loved it, and he went there to die, leaving her, he thought, a home, and a home she liked.

Mrs. Dorriman, however, after thinking that all was not lost, so she had it, only learned afterwards that she was there as a tenant at will; the place was hers, but all else had passed into her brother's hands in virtue of some claim he had on her husband's property, and she had not a penny!

The last blow completed that helpless feeling of indignation she had against her husband's incapacity for business. The test of a woman's love, as we have said, is adversity, and poor Mrs. Dorriman had never any love to begin with. She possessed her soul in patience before the world, but only before the world; in secret it was one long incessant protest against her fate. She felt in her heart of hearts, though even to herself she did not so plainly speak, that she had not received her share of the bargain. She had married to get out of her brother's power, and she had been a dutiful if not an affectionate wife, and now she was more in her brother's hands than ever! More because she was a proud woman, and her brother made her plainly understand that much that was painful as regarded her husband's transactions might be brought forward by him if he chose to do so.

It was just at that time, just when a helpless sense of loss every where filled her and made her very wretched, and that she was gathering everything together to go away, that Mrs. Dorriman came upon a whole box of papers, some letters all marked and arranged in order, receipts, and other things.

Poor Mr. Dorriman's great idea of business was keeping and docketing every line he ever received, and copies of much that he wrote.

His widow looked at these documents with something of the pang with which we see the relics of a hand no longer there. Indeed, since her husband's death, the faint affection she had had for him had undergone a change. She was indignant when she thought of his business incapacity, but she missed his kindness and she regretted him more each day, as each day taught her how much he had cared for her.

Should she burn these papers, or not? Timid as she was constitutionally--she looked round her, and at that moment she saw her brother coming up to the house. Afraid he might sneer at her sentimentality, or say something to vex her about her looking at them, she hastily pushed the box under the sofa, and sat down, not wishing to conceal anything, but merely from that one idea, that, if he saw her with the old letters before her, he might wound her in some way.

Her brother's visit taught her for the very first time that in that box might lie documents of importance to her husband and to her.

After sitting down for a moment or two, he rose and moved about restlessly, and then he said--

"I have to find some papers; where did your husband keep his papers?" Without expecting an answer, he said, "Oh, I know, in his writing-table drawers." And, without waiting for her to speak, he went into her husband's room, and she heard him lock the door.

Mrs. Dorriman rose, and, filling the skirt of her dress with some of the papers, she made silent and successive journeys to her own bedroom, where she concealed all, hastily throwing some skeins of worsted into the empty box, and once again sat down. She knew nothing--but there must be some reason for her brother's anxiety, and she had suffered so much at his hands that her whole instinct was alive in self-defence.

But a timid woman does not act in this way for the first time in her life without betraying something of the agitation into which it had thrown her.

When Mr. Sandford, with angry and baffled eyes, came back to her, he saw something in her face which roused his suspicions. To have put the suspicion into words would have perhaps roused hers, but from that moment the poor woman's dream of a peaceful life at Inchbrae with no one to dread, was a dream that had no foundation. He went away a day or two afterwards, and she lulled herself into a belief of contentment. So soon as Mr. Sandford's plans were made, though it took weeks and months to arrange them, he summoned her to his house. Certain in his own mind that she had concealed those papers, he determined to have such a hold over her as would give him the power of getting them into his own hands, if they were there.

In the meantime the fruits of her visits to the Macfarlanes appeared in the letter which she sent to Mr. Sandford next day.

"DEAR BROTHER," she wrote,

"I am quite willing to go and keep house for you for a time, but I will let my house and prefer not selling it; I like the place and do not wish to part with it.

"When I have made my arrangements I and my maid will go to you. I will write again when I know the day and hour on which I can leave.

"Your affectionate

"SISTER SUSAN."

She felt happier when she had thus boldly asserted her freedom of choice.

Two days came and went, two lovely autumnal days, during which poor Mrs. Dorriman, instead of preparing to depart, wandered over the little place, every nook and corner of which was sweet to her at all times, and was doubly dear to her now she was going away. Late in the afternoon of the third day she was walking down the burn-side, stopping ever and again to look with renewed admiration at the scenery round her, and watching the purple bloom upon the distant hills as the evening shadows came down, a purple tinge which was reflected in the sea except where a blaze of gold in the sky shone with more broken lights below; the sun was low behind the hills, and heavy clouds speaking of rain to come were lowering in fine contrast with the vivid light lying between them and the hills. The sea-birds were agitated and astir; from the open sea upon her left came that hoarse strange murmur hurrying up like a relentless fate across the bosom of the sea. The light faded, grew less and less as the clouds descended, the wind increased in violence, and everything spoke of a coming storm.

Mrs. Dorriman saw the rain-clouds burst and stream down in the distance; she could not move, that curious foreshadowing of coming evil which we call presentiment made her cling to the spot. She heard herself called, she would not turn, she knew if she turned she would all the sooner hear what she did not want to hear. Then her faithful maid, the creature who cared more for her than any one, came up to her and touched her.

"The boy is waiting," she said, breathless with the speed she had used. "Here is a telegram, and oh, my dear, there's nine whole shillings to pay. It's no mistake--it's marked on it. I hope it may be worth all that good money."

Mrs. Dorriman clutched the telegram in her hand, and went swiftly up the path and to her own room.

Before she got in the rain had come to them, and it came down with a violence which the wind seemed to increase as it dashed it against the windows. As her foot was on the stair Mrs. Dorriman's kindly nature made her say,

"Be good to the boy, Jean; he cannot face the storm for a bit."

Jean, who was one of those dear old women whose delight is in ministering to some one's wants, and who was never happier than when having the opportunity of doing so, went into the kitchen happy, and was soon busy heating "a fine sup of broth for him," and other things as well--when she heard a cry.

Setting the broth before him, and carefully shutting all the doors, that he, an outsider, should hear nothing, Jean hurried upstairs. Mrs. Dorriman was sitting on the sofa, and looking white and miserable. The open telegram lay on the ground. She had flung it away as we fling away something that hurts us, and when Jean came in she laid hold of her arm, and pointed to it.

Jean lifted it up, and read as follows:--

"I have sold the place, and you are to be here at six o'clock next Saturday--without fail. The new proprietor will be there that day. No maid or other servant can come here."

Jean read and re-read--she did not take it all in at first. Then an indignation and a whole storm of righteous wrath rose within her.

She put her arms round poor Mrs. Dorriman, and they mingled their tears together.

A few words went back in answer to Mr. Sandford's telegram:--

"I will come, as I must come, on Saturday."

This message did not go for many hours. The boy was in no great hurry to leave the comfortable quarters he was in, and got back too late for the message to leave that night.

Mr. Sandford, aware that his sister would not have asserted herself in so unwonted a manner had she not gained spirit and strength from some source unknown to him, had passed a sleepless and agitated night, after receiving her letter.

In his dealings with Mr. Dorriman there were so many things that might appear against him. He was too cautious and too clever a man to put upon paper himself a word that might at any time rise up against him. But he knew Mr. Dorriman's ways; he knew that the one business-like habit he had was the tidy and careful way he had of docketing and filing all his papers. How often had the poor man not pointed to those carefully-folded and initialed slips, as a proof of how entirely nature had intended him for a thorough man of business?

Though Mr. Sandford, with a flow of language, and great powers of speech, could always confute him in an argument, how often he himself had felt uncomfortable when some paper he had entirely forgotten re-appeared in a moment, with its initial letter and note, showing to what it referred, written in a fine clear style outside.

One book, and only one of any importance, had he found in the writing-table drawers. This book was a carefully drawn up list of the papers Mr. Dorriman considered valuable or of any importance. It was written in that curiously neat and precise hand to be found generally in those who have nothing to do, and do that methodically.

All Mr. Dorriman's conception of business lay in this orderly manner of keeping papers; his losses and his gains were to him all vagueness. He hoped to get something by taking shares in one or another company, and he believed implicitly in whatever it was at the moment; was not only enthusiastic, but tired out his friends by the manner in which at inappropriate moments he introduced the hobby of the hour, which was to make his own fortune so completely that his good heart wanted all his friends to become rich in a like manner.

The immediate cause of his failure had been a carpet manufactory. Needless to say, he did not know one carpet from another, but it was sufficient for him that other people did. Wool was all round him on the hills, and the same primitive dyes of our forefathers still existed on every muir.

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