Mrs. Dorriman Volume Iii Part 25

"Her father was most kind to my poor boy. I know nothing of his people, but he was a thorough gentleman. I never could understand why you would never take the slightest notice of the girl. However the thing's done now and cannot be mended."

He did not tell his wife that he had sent Grace a magnificent bracelet, and a kind and fatherly letter, offering to be of use to her.

She understood though he said nothing about his wife; and, avoiding all mention of Lady Penryn, she thanked him warmly, and told him about the d.u.c.h.ess and her kindness. Paul Lyons took his wife to Scotland, and to Inchbrae.

Grace saw for herself the clearness of the sea, the beauty of colouring--all the fitful charm which makes the Highlands so very lovely and so dear to its people.

"I think I know why you care for me," she said to Paul one day when they had been for a ramble, she on pony-back and he on foot beside her. "I understand, since I came here, how delightful it is never to know what to expect. I look out of my window in the morning and I see sunshine and blue sky, and a sea in which a thousand delicate colours melt and blend.

Half-an-hour afterwards there are clouds, but all is still, light and the sun seem behind, and anxious to peep out again. Next comes darkness, the blue turns to indigo, the sea becomes grey and sullen. All is changed, and so it is ever new, and no one can ever be tired of it. Now, Paul, that is what I conceive to be my charm in your eyes; I am never quite the same, and therefore I hope you will never be tired of me!"

Margaret was in far better spirits, and looking so much more her old self, that Grace was happier about her; but not quite happy, she said to Paul,

"Till something happens which will happen----"

"And till that happens (which I know nothing about) I am to ask no questions?"

"You may ask hundreds--I shall answer none. Do you know, Paul, one thing in connection with our marriage weighed terribly on my mind, shall I tell you _that_?"

"Pray do, darling, unless it is something very uncomplimentary."

"I used to wonder what two people, bound to live together always, could ever find to talk about. I was so afraid I should find your conversation monotonous, and that I should not be able to rise to the occasion."

"I may tell you that long ago--before I knew you--I often wondered what married people could find to talk about all their lives; since I knew you I have only thought how delightful it would be to have you to talk to, all mine," said Paul simply.

Tears came into her eyes. "You are very good to me," she said; and then they went in.

To Mrs. Dorriman, Grace was "as nice as she could be," and the quartet were happy together, but the consequence of the old days left their trace in a certain constraint. Had Grace remained ill and lonely the kind little woman's heart would have gone out to her more, but she thought (as we often do think) that there was a certain injustice in Grace's being so happy, while Margaret, all for her (because of her impatient temper and other faults) was left to feel bitterly the consequences of a great mistake, entered into entirely from a false conception of what she owed her sister.

Margaret was forgetting, but there were many terrible moments to her. It is one of the many instances of that compensation which is the rule in life, in spite of all a.s.sertions to the contrary, that with a great gift--the great gift of poetry and imagination--comes often morbidness.

The high-strung note is oftenest the one that goes most out of tune; and the very vividness and gracefulness of fancy--that combination that makes a poet live in a world of his own--has often its darker side.

Margaret still, at times, lived through the old terrors, still fancied her child's voice called her. She was silent about these things. Every pang she suffered would be a remembrance to Grace. Grace, who was so softened and yet so bright, and who seemed to her to be so completely now the sister she had at one time imagined her to be.

Mrs. Macfarlane was always a friend they were glad to see, but it was Grace who spoke with satisfaction of their having no society, and perhaps nothing more thoroughly convinced Mrs. Dorriman how completely she was altered. They were not to stay long, those two; Paul had not very long leave of absence and wanted to get his wife south. Before they left, one day, Mrs. Dorriman, who had always that feeling about Margaret and the injustice of her suffering for Grace's fault, did want to say one word. She thought it was right, and she was resolved to do it.

"I am very glad you are happy, Grace," she began, the day before their departure.

"Thank you, auntie; you are very good to say so; I am very happy."

"It seems strange; of course we all know that whatever is, is right, but does it not seem strange that poor Margaret?..."

"What is strange about poor Margaret?"

"That you should be happy and that she ... should so suffer."

"Yes, every thing is strange in this world," Grace answered; "at least we think so."

"I am sure, sometimes, you must feel it all very much, though you look as though care and trouble had never touched you."

"Do you count that to me as a crime?" Grace asked in a peculiar tone.

"I sometimes wonder if you ever blame yourself." Mrs. Dorriman's tone was, for her, severe.

"I suppose we all do at times."

"Well, it seems hard."

"That we should blame ourselves?"

"You know I do not mean that."

"No," answered Grace very slowly, and looking at her with a sort of surprise in her face; "I know what all this means; you beat about the bush very badly, Mrs. Dorriman."

"Now I have offended you since you call me Mrs. Dorriman."

"You have offended me," said Grace, vehemently, "because you give me credit for being utterly heartless and cruel, and wanting in affection; you think that, because I am happy now, I have forgotten. I have forgotten nothing! I do blame myself! I know as well as you can tell me that my selfishness and impatience and everything else made Margaret wretched! Up till lately I was very very unhappy, and all her sufferings weighed upon me terribly, but now that I see happiness for her looming in the distance I do allow myself to be happy. It was not till I saw that quite clearly that I consented to marry Paul and to be happy myself!"

"Happiness for Margaret! I see nothing before her but the perpetual grief for her child."

"I see something more. She will always regret her child, but, though there is so much bitterness mixed up with the recollection of its death, she will learn to think more happily even about its loss. Has it never struck you that, had it lived, there must have been a horrible anxiety about it."

"She will never see it in that light."

"You are wrong, for last night I saw her reading something, and I saw it moved her strangely." Grace's own voice faltered for a moment; recovering herself quickly she said, "It was about the short-sightedness of mourning a loss too deeply and not reflecting that it was a veiled mercy, as it was often taken from the evil to come. We talked about it afterwards at night, and I know her thoughts, auntie, now."

"I hope you may be right," said Mrs. Dorriman, and let the conversation drop.

Grace thought she should never forget the night before, when she and Margaret had stood together in something of their old fashion. It had been wonderfully calm and still; the moon, so bright that they might have read by its light, was shining down upon the sea, turning its rippling surface to silver; the soft light, which yet makes such sharp, dark shadows, was on the hills. Every now and again came the curious little grumbling sound from below, where the waves lapped and splashed quietly against the rocks. These waves seemed held by a restraining hand, they were so quiet. A night-hawk gave its weird cry, and some owls hooted; the trees seemed to have nothing to say, their usual rustle was, for the time, stilled. The sisters, in their different ways, felt the great beauty of it all. Margaret had drawn closer to Grace, and the latter gave an affectionate caress. These nights touched a responsive chord in Margaret, that wonderful sympathy that exists between a poet and nature filled her heart to overflowing; and Grace, softened by the affection of her husband, a happier future to look forward to, was sufficiently enthusiastic to draw her out a little.

She began to talk of heaven and of her child.

"On such a night, Grace, there is undescribable peace, and yet these influences pa.s.s away and regrets press upon one."

"That is natural," said Grace, softly; "but I do sometimes feel that, in thinking of a little child, regrets must be softened to one. To leave the world before it has been tempted, before it has sinned, with the future in this world, the trials all unknown; you do not know, darling, what it may have been saved."

"You do not know how often that thought comforts me," said Margaret, very earnestly; "if it had lived there might have been perpetual dread of an hereditary curse. No, what troubles me now, in my sad moments, in those darker moods that I sometimes have to fight against, is my own self-reproach."

"And my own dear Margaret, if you suffer from self-reproach what must I do?" asked Grace, with the sincerest sorrow.

"Not about my marriage, Grace; wrong as it was, it brought its own retribution: but I reproach myself bitterly now for not having struggled against the position I was put into. Looking back now I cannot help seeing that there were many things I might have done. I was so afraid of my child being taken from me. I allowed that fear to paralyse my senses.

I might have appealed to Mr. Sandford, and done many things I know now I might have done: and it would have been better for _him_; but I simply lived for my little one; my senses seemed numbed in all directions except in that one. I made it my idol; I prayed for it alone; I dreaded things for it; I worshipped it, and it was taken from me.... If only I knew that the little life had not been sacrificed to neglect I could remember it more happily; but in that fear lies the bitterness of my loss."

"Then you may remember it more happily," said Grace, feelingly, "because that London doctor said to me that the little child could not have been saved; there was something very delicate about it, and it had a very oddly-shaped head."

"Then I can say G.o.d is very good," said Margaret, so low that Grace could hardly hear her.

She began to talk again soon, about the scenery round them, and of Mrs.