Mrs. Dorriman Volume I Part 15

Grace was intent upon the impression she was making. He was uninteresting, but, all the same, her silent disapproval of his noisy manner would put her in the position of being superior to all this uncalled-for merriment.

Margaret watched Grace, and felt sorry for the unconscious Mr.

Drayton--so sorry that she began to talk to him--listening with a sense of completely missing the jokes when his laugh broke into his speech.

There was one subject of satisfaction to Mr. Sandford, the dinner was excellent; and this fact went far to soothe him. Men, though superior beings, are apt to feel this important affair, and Mr. Sandford was one of the men who felt any failure in this direction with great acuteness.

After discussing with playful heaviness those topics of conversation started by Margaret, Mr. Drayton threw a bomb-sh.e.l.l down by saying to Mrs. Dorriman--

"I saw a pretty little place you lived at till lately. I went over to see a boat I had heard of. A pretty place, but lonely. I dare say you got tired of the sea. The sea is a very dreary thing to me; I am ill when on it; cold when near it, and I hate it when I see it. Ah! ah! ah!"

"I love the sea," said Mrs. Dorriman; "it is to me a friend and a companion. There is always something grand to me in its monotony, as in its angry moods. I love it best when it sends showers of spray up into the air, and comes dashing in in all its might."

"Then what made you----My dear Mr. Sandford, are you aware that you gave me a violent and painful kick just then? I wish to goodness you would take care, if you knew what a start you gave me!"

"I am sorry," said Mr. Sandford, as the ladies rose and left them.

"I am sorry I hurt you, but you must not speak of Inchbrae to my sister.

She lost her husband there, and altogether it is a painful subject."

"But she did not seem to dislike my talking about it."

"She conceals her feelings, but it is, I a.s.sure you, not a subject she cares to discuss."

"All right! I'll accept your view, but upon my word your kick is still painful."

"I had no other way of stopping you."

"Then you did it on purpose!" and this new light upon the subject sent Mr. Drayton into the loudest and longest fit of laughter he had yet indulged in.

It was not till next day that Mr. Sandford had an opportunity of saying that word to Mr. Drayton which should make him understand that Margaret was out of his reach.

Mr. Drayton's idea of making himself pleasant to the young ladies was buying some of those endless and useless trifles to be found in what are called fancy warehouses; and Mr. Sandford, meeting him when his own work was done, found him surveying with much satisfaction some gilt goats dragging a wobbling mother-o'-pearl sh.e.l.l car all on one side, with gilt wire wheels.

"I think Miss Margaret will like this," he said, his face beaming with satisfaction.

Mr. Sandford's face was a study. That a rational being with money waiting for investments, which fact alone was sufficient to fill any man's mind, could be enchanted with a trumpery toy, and actually spend money upon it, was an amazing idea to him, and he looked at Mr. Drayton closely, as though he might see something in his countenance calculated to explain it to him.

"You need not trouble to take gifts to my nieces," he began, gruffly, "especially not to Margaret."

"Why especially not to Margaret?" asked Mr. Drayton, as he once more looked at his purchase with admiring eyes.

"Because Margaret's a mere child, and her life is pretty well arranged for her."

"Well, that is a pity. I think she is a great deal the nicest of the two. I doubt Miss Grace has a touch of pride in her. She looks as if she thought a deal of herself; always begging your pardon for saying so," he added, laughing heartily.

"I am not sure I think pride unbecoming in a girl," said Mr. Sandford, after a moment's reflection, "Miss Rivers is good-looking."

"Now, I don't think her a patch on Miss Margaret," said Mr. Drayton.

"Well, it's just as well you told me that _her_ future is settled; I am not at all sure, not at all sure, I might not have been hit."

They left the subject and plunged into other matters, but Mr. Sandford quite forgot to take into account one thing, that the very way to encourage any one to like or care for anything is to put it out of his reach--forbidden fruit is as tempting now as in the days of our first parents, and he never, as far as his own wishes were concerned, did a more unwise thing than in adding this incentive to the slight dawning of admiration Mr. Drayton had for Margaret Rivers.

In the meantime the girls discussed him with all the intemperate feelings of youth, added to the disappointment of his being so exactly the opposite of that coming prince who was to rescue poor Grace from the uncongenial home.

"His laugh goes quite through my head," said Grace, pettishly, as she sat in front of the little mirror, and unplaited her hair for Margaret to brush. "What an odious man he is."

"No, not odious, for he is good-natured," said Margaret, gently, "but I wish he did not laugh so; it makes me feel so melancholy; and oh, Grace, how difficult he is to talk to."

"Difficult! say impossible. And Margaret, we thought it might be the prince," and Grace folded her hands, laid her chin upon them, and stared at herself in the gla.s.s.

"The prince will come, Grace; you will see."

"No, Margaret! I do not believe in him. I believe in nothing now. All my hopes are dead. What have they to live on? We shall go on living here for ever till we are quite old and grey, and we shall never see any one younger than Mr. Sandford and his friends, and never see the world, or know any other life," and she lowered her head in a fit of despair.

"Grace, darling! you do not really think that all your many perfections were given to you only to be thrown away; this despair is unlike your usual bright brave spirit; and we are not so unhappy now. You are not so miserable here, now, Grace?"

"Yes," said Grace, fiercely, "I am miserable. I am sick of my life here; of the ugliness of everything. I hate it, Margaret. I hate it more than I can say."

"And I was growing contented," said poor Margaret, with a little suppressed sob; "I am so much less gifted than you, darling, so much less full of restless life; you must forgive my being so different, so easily satisfied--it was selfish, I might have thought of you." She put her arms round Grace affectionately.

The sisters sat in silence and then Grace spoke again--

"The only good thing I know about Mr. Drayton is that he lives in the South; I envy him that, I envy his being near London; it is the only merit he has."

"When I said he was good-tempered," rejoined poor Margaret, anxious as ever to bring her own conclusions, even about trifles, into harmony with those held by her sister, "I think he is good-tempered as a rule, but I fancy if he were to be vexed or disappointed in any way he would be persistently angry. I do not think he would forgive easily."

"In other words you think him vindictive. Well, Margaret, I think you are right. And I also think him not worth talking about, I think him hateful," and Grace rose and stood before her dressing-table again.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands together, "what it would be, to me, to leave this place, to go away, once again to England; though school was tiresome, it was better than this. I would give all I am worth in the world to get away. Sometimes I dream, Margaret--I dream of floating away--of hearing beautiful music and lovely voices. I am so happy! Then I wake--and I am _here_!"

CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Drayton, in the meantime, took greater pains to talk to Margaret, to discover how he could please her, with no particular object in view; but she interested him, in the first place, and the fact of her life being "arranged for" made her still more interesting. Besides, paying marked attention to all she said and did enabled him to leave Grace alone. He was not a sensitive man, but Grace's impertinence was much too open not to go home to him. She despised him and showed she did so far too openly, and from pa.s.sive disapprobation he began to dislike her heartily. The girls were right, his was a character that was vindictive. He was wrapped up in a thick skin of self-esteem; he was good-humoured and cheery so long as he was admired and his vanity satisfied by flattery, direct or indirect, but once his self-love was pierced or wounded it rankled, and woe to the person who had inflicted the wound.

His visit was drawing to a close; he had been with Mr. Sandford for some days, and so far nothing had come of it. Grace was out of the question, and Mr. Sandford saw it. The investments he wished him to make were equally undecided; Mr. Drayton would do nothing without consulting his manager, and was waiting to hear from him. He extended his visit for two days, and he spent those two days in trying to make Margaret understand something of his feeling for her. Mr. Sandford was at his office all day and Mrs. Dorriman said nothing; and though Mr. Drayton's way of looking at Margaret and his fits of absence might have enlightened him he thought he had made all that so impossible that it never gave him any uneasiness, and in two days he would be gone.

But the old story was repeated in this instance. Mr. Drayton, in hurrying home to have a word with Margaret, managed to slip, and, falling the whole length of the flight of stairs at the office, came down on the stone flags at the bottom with a bruised shoulder and a sprained leg, and of course had to remain at Renton.

Mr. Sandford had to go to his office daily with the full consciousness that his unwelcome guest was making the most of his opportunities. Still he hoped things might come right in the end.

Poor Mr. Drayton hardly regretted his accident since it placed him near _her_, Margaret, the lady of his dreams. For love had come to him in a violent fashion, and he acknowledged to himself that if she would not listen to him he would be miserable all his life.

Love plays such strange pranks in its flight. In this case it gave the self-confident man timidity; his noisy laugh was modified, his manner softened. He was very much in earnest.

Margaret never for one moment thought of his meaning anything. She was very sorry for him, as any kind-hearted girl might be for the sufferings of any one or even any _thing_, and this pity gave her voice a still more dangerous softness. Each day found him longing to speak to her and losing courage when she came near him. He was longing to know what the _arrangement_ meant that Mr. Sandford had dwelt upon. Longing to hear from her, about herself and her future, because, once he knew that, his course would be plain. If there was really nothing in which her heart was interested would it not be possible to alter things? She was so young she could not already have met her fate.