Mrs. Dorriman Volume Ii Part 21

That home was indeed changed to him now. The cheerfulness and serenity, the evenness of Mrs. Dorriman's temper made him look forward to going home, where his most trifling wishes were attended to, and when he had that _certainty_ of being met in the same quiet way, of having no fluctuations in manner, which gives the real home feeling.

Mrs. Dorriman was not perfect, she was a woman who possessed no great gifts, and she was const.i.tutionally timid, and not much fitted to form an opinion about subjects outside those of domestic interest; but she did understand that a man, tired and worried by affairs outside his home, required rest and refreshment in it, and she knew how to give both.

The dreariness that had once obtained had long vanished. All inside the house was light and bright and cheerful for him now, and each day sent him home with this recognition deeper in his heart, and more remorseful because of certain acts of his which now never could be undone.

Mrs. Wymans, when she made her appearance at Renton, had rehea.r.s.ed her apology, and then found that it must be put differently.

The extreme quiet of Mrs. Dorriman's manner was a check she had hardly counted upon. When they had that encounter in the railway carriage the poor little lady had been troubled and nervous, her manner was agitated; and Mrs. Wymans, who was a shrewd observer, saw that she stopped the conversation about her brother from a sense of right, and that she was evidently not resenting it in a sisterly fas.h.i.+on.

From this she drew several inferences, everyone of which had to be laid aside now.

"Your brother, I hear, has been so ill we did not like to intrude, and before--you went away----" she said, which was not in the least what she had meant to say.

"Yes," said Mrs. Dorriman, "we went away, and had you been so kind as to call before this I could not have seen you, my brother has been so very ill."

"And you have no nurse?" said Mrs. Wymans, betraying her knowledge of the internal economy of the household. "You must find the nursing very troublesome and most fatiguing. I know of an excellent woman who could come at a moment's notice."

"Thank you, but I am happy to say that the fatigue, like the illness, lies in the past. My brother is quite well again, and out and about his usual business."

"Of course he likes his business, he is so successful; the trial is where hard work is not successful," and Mrs. Wymans spoke feelingly.

"I think my brother meets with some success and probably some trials also, but these are only words too; we never talk of business together, and I know nothing about his."

"Really! Forgive me, dear Mrs. Dorriman, but then where is the sympathy?

And a woman has such sharp eyes. I never rest till I know every single thing that is going on--that is my way of showing sympathy."

"But it must tire your husband, does it not? A woman can see only one side, and then she cannot help in the way of advice. Her advice cannot be useful."

"That is only a notion of yours," said Mrs. Wymans, a little nettled, "and why should a woman only know one side of a thing?"

"Because she only hears her husband's views; of course his private affairs cannot be talked over with another person, therefore the wife's views must be a little one-sided."

"Oh no, mine are not. I hear a thing and see a great many sides all at once."

"Perhaps you are cleverer than I am," said Mrs. Dorriman, in all humility, glad that at any rate the question of the Rivers girls had not cropped up.

Mrs. Wymans eyed her keenly, anxious to make out whether she was speaking satirically or not. Somewhat rea.s.sured on that point by Mrs.

Dorriman's placid face, she drew a little nearer her and said confidentially,

"What a sad thing Mrs. Drayton's position is!"

"In what way?" Mrs. Dorriman received a dreadful shock by this sudden touch upon the subject.

"Why, her husband being poor instead of rich, and some other things."

"Do you mind telling me what other things?" and Mrs. Dorriman was alarmed as well as annoyed.

"Why, if you do not know of any thing, ... but if it is not true, I had better not repeat it."

"You really must tell me what you mean," and Mrs. Dorriman, the gentlest of women, had so to speak all her feathers ruffled now.

"People say he drinks," answered Mrs. Wymans, with that sudden misgiving as to the wisdom of her words which made her wish them unsaid immediately they had pa.s.sed her lips.

"That I am sure is not the case," returned Mrs. Dorriman; she felt quite convinced that had there been any truth about this she would have heard it counted against him when her brother had been so incensed with her and had said many bitter things.

"I am so very glad to hear it," and Mrs. Wymans lost her sense of discomfort, since it was not true.

"It was a curious marriage for a young girl to make," she remarked abruptly, since she found Mrs. Dorriman's silence a little oppressive.

"I think it was; but, though my brother offered them a home, he had, of course, no real authority over them."

"Ah," said Mrs. Wymans, enchanted to have got at the root of the matter, "people were rather puzzled at his having taken them up so much; do you very much mind telling me, dear Mrs. Dorriman, how it all was? What was the real bond of union?"

"Why should I mind telling you so simple a thing?" and Mrs. Dorriman's amused face was quite a little shock to her visitor; "they are his wife's nieces: he is their uncle by marriage, and being, as you are probably aware, devoted to his wife's memory, he was glad to befriend them."

"And is this really all?" exclaimed Mrs. Wymans, who could hardly get over her disappointment. "Why we all thought--every one thought--and people said something else."

"People are wrong," said Mrs. Dorriman, with a laugh that was a very genuine one; "I cannot myself understand the interest taken in these private matters, but that is the simple fact. Mr. Rivers and my brother married two sisters, who were devoted to each other. When Mrs. Rivers died she recommended her children to Mrs. Sandford, and at her death my brother promised to befriend them. It seems to me such a simple thing."

"It certainly does," and Mrs. Wymans rose to go, and bid farewell to Mrs. Dorriman, who was conscious only of one terrible speech; was it true that Mr. Drayton did----that----and, if it was true, were they right in taking all for granted and leaving Margaret at his mercy? But for the doctor's prohibition she would have gone straight to her brother and laid her new anxieties before him. But she remembered that he was not to be agitated or excited, and she resolutely sat still till all her own excited thoughts became calmer. She took up her knitting and worked on mechanically, while this new responsibility made her feel as though nothing in the world, of such moment, had ever come before her. It was an evil unknown to her; in the old days her father was a man both abstemious and refined in his surroundings, and since her marriage, though she saw terrible accounts in the papers, she had lived so little in any town, and had seen so little that was evil, that she considered people made almost unnecessary fuss about teetotalism; she could not imagine such a fearful thing as drinking touching her order, though she knew it obtained among some poor miserable creatures, of whom she seldom thought without a shudder of sorrow, mingled with disgust.

To think of Margaret, with all her great love of purity and peace, exposed to so horrible a thing, was something absolutely terrible to her; so perfectly appalling that she started up, feeling as though every moment was a cruel wrong to the girl she had learned to love so dearly.

She went to her brother's room; he was sitting up, and she sat down beside him in a flutter of spirits that made her incoherent.

"You have had a visitor," he began, with a laugh in which there was not much mirth.

"Only Mrs. Wymans," she answered, with indifference.

"If she could hear you! She is a person of great consequence in her own estimation."

"I wonder why she called," his sister said, absently, doubtful as to her capability of putting the question without causing any excitement.

"I'll tell you," he answered; "there is a great deal of curiosity about Drayton just now; before this attack of mine I was driven wild by all manner of questions about him. He is a great fool to make a mystery of his address; there is no reason he should do so; he answers no letters, he leaves every one to conjecture things, and in this beautiful world if a thing is not fully understood, the worst interpretation and not the best is the accepted one."

"Then you think there is no reason for his shutting himself up?"

"There can be no reason. Margaret is not likely to give him cause for jealousy, and the man is in the possession of all his senses."

"Always, and at all times?" and Mrs. Dorriman leaned forward, breathing quickly and watching his face very anxiously.

"Anne," said Mr. Sandford, and this name from him was an especial sign of kindness towards her, "has any one told you anything? Depend upon it it is only gossip."

"It may be gossip, I trust it may be untrue; but why is Margaret, so to speak, shut up? She cannot go out even for a walk beyond the grounds; Jean says she has not been to see Grace for ever so long, and there must be some reason for his never answering any letter."

"I never heard this before. What do you mean about Margaret? I think you are speaking great nonsense."

"Jean says that the poor thing never gets out. At first she went out and he went with her--followed her like a shadow--now he does not go himself, and she is kept a perfect prisoner. No one is allowed to go near the house. I a.s.sure you, brother, I have been longing for you to be well to speak about it."