Volume I Part 24 (1/2)

But, as in the most perfect characters there is a flaw, and as in armour there is a vulnerable place, in business relations there is sometimes a weak point.

He was not large-minded enough ever to own himself wrong. He could not bear to be suspected of having made a mistake; and he sometimes found himself on the horns of a dilemma, and found the horns were very pointed.

He was so fond of power, of dictating and directing, of leading with a hard and heavy hand, that he sometimes took a wrong view of a matter, and then sacrificed his own interests rather than be proved wrong.

At this moment he was confronted by a terrible mistake. He thought and thought till he was tired how to face it and get out of it. He could not disturb his other investments, except at a ruinous loss. He had been so certain, that he had locked up for a time the floating capital he could generally fall back upon, and he found himself for the very first time almost stranded.

It was not only the possibility of heavy loss, but the fact he knew so well, that, when all was known, as it must be known--unless he could manage to tide it all over--it would shake his position all round.

Cold drops stood out upon his forehead as he rapidly considered all these possibilities. He saw, as in a long vista, all he cared for, all he had toiled for, swept away, and himself standing there, without a friend, the laughing-stock of the very people who now flattered him, and tried to benefit by his superior understanding on financial questions.

He seized a train-book. There was just one chance--Mr. Drayton.

His sister had mentioned him, and he felt quite certain that, as he had seen his nieces at Lornbay, he would make his way there again.

He would go there and he would manage it. There was no ruin to Mr.

Drayton, and no loss of position. Supposing he lost--all the world looked upon him as an amiable fool as regarded business matters. He had no position to lose; it would not be a fall such as his own would be; and there would be no loss. It was only a temporary embarra.s.sment.

He rang once more, and Jean saw that he was now in quite his old peremptory, masterful mood.

”Let me have something to eat at once, and tell Robert to pack my things again. Why he does not answer my bell I cannot make out. What is the use of him?”

”Not knowing you would be home so soon, Robert went to do some messages; but I expect him in in a moment or two. Then I'll not sheet your bed?”

She spoke in an inquiring tone; her thrifty soul anxious not to crumple the linen now airing, if not required.

”I have to go at once. I am going to Lornbay. I suppose you have no message?”

”I'll no trouble you with messages. I aye use my pen when need be,” she said, very calmly, and hurried off to get him that something to eat which is never a great difficulty in the hands of an experienced cook.

It may be said that she did write to her mistress, as she always called Mrs. Dorriman, that very night, and gave a graphic description of Mr.

Sandford's arrival.

As frequently is the case, the pith of her letter lay in the postscript.

”You will be glad to hear, mem, that, though he was most fas.h.i.+ous and pernickity, he was not just very rampageous, and he drank his tea and eat up all the toast,” wrote Jean, who had never before known him condescend to such simple fare.

After all, Mr. Sandford did not start that night. He reflected, that, as he was anxious, he must not show his anxiety; and also that feeling of indisposition which he did not recognise made him put off his journey till the following day, a postponement which met with Jean's fullest approval. Why people should spend their nights, rumbling and tumbling along, when they might be in their beds, was one of the most surprising things in life to her, and she thought it ”wise like” not to do it.

But this postponement made one difference, instead of bursting upon them all as a surprise, Mr. Sandford was expected. The trio were alone, and no one, so far as he could ascertain, was staying there interesting to him.

Mrs. Dorriman was glad he had come. She was always thankful to share any responsibility; and she thought him looking ill--which fact always softened her towards him.

Her feeling for him had, indeed, much changed, and she never thought bitterly of his old misdoings towards her. Time, which softens a grief, heals many a difference; and, though she always had the consciousness of having been hardly used, she constantly found herself making allowances for him, and compa.s.sion was beginning to tone down all her sources of irritation against him.

Jean's letter, posted over-night, arrived just after breakfast; the girls were dismayed; they had parted from him with angry feelings, and now, how were they to meet? Margaret, calling Grace in vain to accompany her, set off for a long expedition among the lower hills that crowned the heights behind Lornbay. From high up she obtained a larger view, and, with Tennyson in her hands, with whom she spent all her happiest moments, she prepared to wander far, not sorry to be alone, and feeling secure from the companions.h.i.+p of Mr. Paul Lyons or of any of those common-place, if friendly, women who had by degrees gathered round Mrs.

Dorriman and who tried Margaret's patience sorely.

Would a day ever come to her, she often thought with girlish impatience, when the interests of life would be narrowed to a new pattern in cross-st.i.tch or crewel-work, and to the want of taste in some person's way of setting a bow on the side of a cap. These trivial matters lay so far outside anything that contained possible interest to her, that she despised the people who evidently considered them of consequence.

Margaret also was beginning to make another discovery, and one that filled her with pain and even terror. She had too candid a mind not to own a truth to herself, however unwillingly, and the truth which frightened her and dismayed her was the wide difference existing between her sister and herself. She had all her life looked up to Grace, admired her and wors.h.i.+pped her. Every day now showed her that Grace had, in all ways, a lower standard than she had. She was contented to spend her time in perfect and complete idleness; she would no longer even talk upon matters of any importance with her sister. All those questions of religious thought which crowd upon a young girl when her mind begins to draw its own conclusions and she shakes off those boundaries and lines which have, up till then, been the accepted guides for all her belief, were too evidently distasteful to Grace to be persisted in. We feel it as irreverent to allow a careless hand to touch our holiest and highest thoughts as we do if a scoffer enters a church with us. Poor Margaret, often perplexed, asking herself questions that have always baffled the wisest men, blamed her own want of perception for not understanding. She had a high ideal, a desire for the best, and she was often miserable because of a supposed short-coming of a faith that was not unwavering.