Mrs. Dorriman Volume Iii Part 12

It was into this wave of feeling that Grace's voice broke, and it jarred upon her even more than usual.

With a hurried knock, as though a formality she might dispense with, and without waiting for an answer, Grace came in, all her clothes and her light fluffy hair in a state of discomposure.

"Margaret!" she exclaimed, "I am going away; either I leave the house or Jean--that most tiresome, provoking, aggravating, old Scotchwoman. I will not stay here if she remains!"

"What in the world has happened now?" said poor Margaret, worried and troubled, and speaking with a certain sharpness not habitual to her.

"You need not speak to me like that. Of course you will take her part; but she has been so impertinent I will not stand it!"

"I ask you again," said Margaret, "what has she done? She nursed you faithfully and most kindly. What offence has she given you now?"

"She called me a Jezebel, and then said I had a leg in the grave."

"I doubt her saying this, and--oh, Grace, how can you?" and Margaret got up and looked steadily at her sister, her own face flushing red as she spoke.

"It is nothing to make a fuss about," said Grace, trying to laugh it off, "and it is you yourself who are to blame; you do not know how trying it is to hear you say one day I am looking very pale and am I well, and another day something of the same kind. I will not be ill, Margaret, do you hear?"

"I hear," said poor Margaret, in a low voice, shocked and distressed. To her primitive ideas the fact of Grace using rouge was a degradation she could not get over.

"You are as bad as Jean," said Grace, angrily: "and I have been waiting for that tiresome man to be gone to tell you my plans. What in the world had he to talk about to-day?"

"His business referred more to you than to me," and Margaret, still annoyed and ruffled, spoke very coldly.

Grace was in one of her most provoking moods; she was trying to hide any discomposure she felt by an air of bravado, and she resented Margaret's sharpness as though her sister was injuring her deeply by her tone.

"Did he come to offer me his hand?" she asked, drawing herself up and looking at Margaret with raised eyebrows; "perhaps, middle-aged as he is, he may think as one sister----Oh, forgive me, darling Margaret! I am hateful and detestable! No one but you would have patience with me! I will go and ask Jean's pardon! I will do anything only don't look so!"

She flung herself upon her knees by Margaret, weeping pa.s.sionately.

"Grace, there are only we two; let us love each other, and not drift into unkindness," whispered Margaret, and Grace checked her weeping and got up.

"Now tell me," she said, "what you mean, darling. In what way did his visit refer to me?"

"Mr. Drayton, it seems, to please me," began Margaret.... "No," she said, "I must put it to _you_ truthfully. When I agreed to marry him I stipulated that out of his wealth he should provide for you in such a way that if I died or he died you should be beyond want."

"And what did he do?" asked Grace, breathlessly, her eyes sparkling with eagerness.

"He left fifteen thousand pounds to you and the life interest to me, Grace."

"And he left nothing to me outright! What a shame!" and Grace's eyes filled with angry tears.

"He knew that so long as I lived you would share anything I had," said Margaret, gently.

"Which it seems is little enough, as you are reducing yourself to a state of pauperism by degrees," said Grace, bitterly.

"You have all you want, and Mr. Sandford's liberal allowance is more than sufficient for us both."

"And as I do not wish you to die, darling, and you are stronger than I am, it is a very empty compliment."

"I do not wish to touch this money, Grace. I hope you will not touch it either."

"How can I touch it if it is yours?"

"But if I do not take the income it will either acc.u.mulate for you or I believe you could have the interest now."

"Delightful!" exclaimed Grace. "Now, Margaret, you may spare yourself any remarks. I have this money within my reach and I intend to take it,--there!"

CHAPTER V.

If Margaret had continued to have any hopes of her sister's seeing matters as she saw them she would soon have been undeceived. Grace's spirits were a real trial to her, but this was nothing compared to the congratulations that poured in from Lady Lyons, and even from Jean.

Grace announced to every one that she had succeeded to a fortune, and made no secret of its having been a legacy from her brother-in-law.

If any thing could have added to Margaret's feeling about it, it was being congratulated upon her husband's having done the right thing.

Lady Lyons was quite bewildered by Grace's impetuous confidences--though with all her questioning she could not make out exactly what the fortune was. Grace's expression 'heaps of money' might mean any thing.

How tiresome it was that she had definitely refused her chaperonage! How stupidly she had acted--it was really very provoking that sometimes people could not look forward and see more clearly what lay behind the veil of futurity.

Just as she was extremely provoked with herself, Margaret, for the first time since her trouble, came to see her.

She looked very fair and sweet in the plain black dress she wore, and Lady Lyons, who was kind-hearted, was touched by the signs of sorrow so easily read in her countenance, and received her with a momentary forgetfulness of her own position as an invalid.

Margaret knew nothing of what had pa.s.sed between her sister and Lady Lyons, and she had come because she was really anxious to arrange something soon. She was urged by Mrs. Dorriman to hurry north that she might have the heat of the summer by the sea, and she could not go till her sister was safely placed with some one in whom she had some confidence.

Before Lady Lyons could arrange her ideas, and say what she wished about the legacy, Margaret had asked her point-blank if she would undertake the charge of Grace.

Lady Lyons was flattered and pleased, and, for a moment or two, did nothing but talk incoherently about the compliment.

"I do not think you need consider it a great compliment," said Margaret, smiling, "unless you feel that my good opinion is one. It is best to be frank, Lady Lyons; my sister is not strong, she is not equal to all she wishes to do, and I shall be much happier leaving her under your care than with a stranger."

"I am not a stranger, certainly, and I have friends, but I am not certain they will please your sister. I am not fashionable, and I do not know fashionable people."

"I do not think Grace will mind that," said Margaret, innocently.

Lady Lyons looked at her rather curiously. "You and your sister are not at all like each other, Mrs. Drayton; when she spoke to me she distinctly gave me to understand I was not good enough and did not know any but fossils. Yes, that was the word, _fossils_!"

There was an offended tone--it was evident she had not forgiven Grace yet.

"Grace talks nonsense sometimes, Lady Lyons; you can afford to laugh at these things. I did not know she had already asked you to take her to London, or I should not have troubled you."

"Oh! she did not ask me; we put a supposit.i.tious case to each other,"

said Lady Lyons, afraid now that things might still not come to a happy conclusion. "Frankly, dear Mrs. Drayton, I should, myself, like to go to London for a while. I often feel one of those good London doctors would set me up after a bit. I have often wished to be nearer them. Now, from here, by the time I get to the station, and then get to their houses, and then back again, I am quite worn out, and then there is the expense."

"Yes, there is the expense." Margaret spoke a little dreamily; she could not help thinking that if Lady Lyons spent her time running after doctors Grace would hardly have what she bargained for.