Volume I Part 19 (1/2)

”Go at a reasonable hour, and why not?” she insisted. ”What is the good of setting people's tongues wagging? they'll aye be speaking whether or no, but no harm comes if the things they say have no legs to stand on.”

The early morning roused Grace and Margaret, and they went to the window and looked out.

The night had been bright, and, though the moon had not been visible, there had been that soft starlight which is so mysterious and beautiful.

With a vague hope of seeing a fine morning which would inspirit them they drew near, and gazed blankly at the scene before them.

A grey, leaden-coloured sky, a hopeless, pitiless rain, mud everywhere, and everything cheerless, drooping, and miserable.

Tears came into Grace's eyes, and she and Margaret clung together for a moment.

”We must go,” said Margaret, to whom nothing else seemed possible.

”I suppose we must,” said Grace, looking blankly before her.

Their spirits sank. Margaret, moving softly so as to disturb no one, dragged out first one then another of their boxes. She was resolved to go on with the preparations. She had been more deeply wounded than even Grace by those words of Mr. Sandford's about Mr. Drayton; and then came this terrible thought--was _his_ offer the consequence of something said by Mr. Sandford? If so, how doubly glad she was all had ended as it had.

Grace, always easily influenced by the aspect of things, was in a terrible state of depression.

She turned her head round once or twice and watched Margaret, but she never offered to help her. She did so hate discomfort! and the prospect of going out and facing the dirt and rain and cold broke her down. Her spirit had forsaken her, and sitting there with a plaid thrown over her she cried miserably.

Margaret was too much occupied to notice that her sister's face was persistently turned away from her. She was kneeling facing the door, while with hands trembling a little from cold and partly from agitation she was putting into the bottom of the boxes their heaviest possessions.

She would not take time to think of the future, of where they should go, or what they were to do. To get away--that was her thought, to be far from this hateful position for Grace, to s.h.i.+eld her from all chance of hearing anything so hard again....

Noiselessly she went on, and mechanically, trying how the little old work-box took up least room, placing it sideways and lengthways with that carefulness regarding detail which is often the outcome of great excitement, when she was startled by a knock at the door.

The sisters involuntarily drew together--Grace having dashed the tears away from her face. It was Jean, a tray in her hands and some hot tea for them. She took the whole thing in at a glance, saw the look of depression in Grace's face, and Margaret's expression of resolution.

”My bairns,” said the good woman, ”if without offence to you I may call you so--I heard you moving; work is ill on an empty stomach, and the morning cold. Take up your tea, it will do ye good. And now,” she went on as the girls took her advice, ”what is it all about?”

”Mr. Sandford has cruelly insulted us,” said Margaret, reddening, ”and we are going away.”

”And where will ye go?”

”I--we do not know--but we _must_ go away from here,” both the young voices chimed in.

”Well, it's no my place to preach--an insult's ill to put up with--but Mrs. Dorriman has one of her headaches, and I've to ask you to go and see her at a reasonable hour, ye ken. I trust she's sleeping now. She's been saer put about. She's going away too.”

”Going away--Mrs. Dorriman is going away! then,” said Margaret, ”she has taken our part.”

The sisters looked at each other.

”And did you ever know Mrs. Dorriman take any part but the part of the weakest?” asked Jean. ”See how she stood by me--not but that your case and my case are two different ones--yes, bairns, they are very different. Mr. Sandford may have a rough tongue, I'm no denying it--whiles I myself am afraid of him--but you're no exactly kin till him, and he offered you a home, and has been good to you in many ways.

It's no my business to preach,” insisted Jean, ”but I think it's an ill return to him to set all the tongues wagging about him. Go! of course you can go, but you can leave his house decently, and not in a mad-like way, particularly as you do not seem to be expected anywhere else.”

”He said very terrible things last night,” said Margaret, ”and we must go.”

”I'm not saying anything against it,” said Jean, coolly, ”but you cannot go till you have seen my lady, and you cannot see her till a reasonable hour. She is going too, and she is going on your account, and you owe her that much. See,” she continued, looking at Grace, who was knocked up and ill now from the agitation and want of sleep. ”Your sister is ill--go back to bed, my bairns,” she said, ”and I'll bring you something by-and-bye, and you must see Mrs. Dorriman before you go away--before you make any plans.”

Grace was too glad to lie down, never very strong; she was suffering now, and Margaret, vexed at heart, saw that Jean was right. Grace ill, it would be cruel to make her move,--cruel, if not impossible. She was herself too much excited to go back to bed. She went on when Jean left the room, arranging her things in the open boxes, moving quietly, as Grace, worn out with her crying and the emotions of the morning, sank into sleep.

As Margaret watched her, and noticed the swelled eyelids and look of unhappiness, she blamed herself for not having thought of her grief and sorrow before. Nothing she thought then would be too hard for her, no sacrifice too great for her to make on her behalf. She knelt down beside her sleeping sister and offered up her innocent and earnest morning prayer, and she went on making quite a solemn vow to make her happiness her chief object in life, never to think of herself, but to put Grace before her always.