Volume Ii Part 21 (2/2)
”You really must tell me what you mean,” and Mrs. Dorriman, the gentlest of women, had so to speak all her feathers ruffled now.
”People say he drinks,” answered Mrs. Wymans, with that sudden misgiving as to the wisdom of her words which made her wish them unsaid immediately they had pa.s.sed her lips.
”That I am sure is not the case,” returned Mrs. Dorriman; she felt quite convinced that had there been any truth about this she would have heard it counted against him when her brother had been so incensed with her and had said many bitter things.
”I am so very glad to hear it,” and Mrs. Wymans lost her sense of discomfort, since it was not true.
”It was a curious marriage for a young girl to make,” she remarked abruptly, since she found Mrs. Dorriman's silence a little oppressive.
”I think it was; but, though my brother offered them a home, he had, of course, no real authority over them.”
”Ah,” said Mrs. Wymans, enchanted to have got at the root of the matter, ”people were rather puzzled at his having taken them up so much; do you very much mind telling me, dear Mrs. Dorriman, how it all was? What was the real bond of union?”
”Why should I mind telling you so simple a thing?” and Mrs. Dorriman's amused face was quite a little shock to her visitor; ”they are his wife's nieces: he is their uncle by marriage, and being, as you are probably aware, devoted to his wife's memory, he was glad to befriend them.”
”And is this really all?” exclaimed Mrs. Wymans, who could hardly get over her disappointment. ”Why we all thought--every one thought--and people said something else.”
”People are wrong,” said Mrs. Dorriman, with a laugh that was a very genuine one; ”I cannot myself understand the interest taken in these private matters, but that is the simple fact. Mr. Rivers and my brother married two sisters, who were devoted to each other. When Mrs. Rivers died she recommended her children to Mrs. Sandford, and at her death my brother promised to befriend them. It seems to me such a simple thing.”
”It certainly does,” and Mrs. Wymans rose to go, and bid farewell to Mrs. Dorriman, who was conscious only of one terrible speech; was it true that Mr. Drayton did----that----and, if it was true, were they right in taking all for granted and leaving Margaret at his mercy? But for the doctor's prohibition she would have gone straight to her brother and laid her new anxieties before him. But she remembered that he was not to be agitated or excited, and she resolutely sat still till all her own excited thoughts became calmer. She took up her knitting and worked on mechanically, while this new responsibility made her feel as though nothing in the world, of such moment, had ever come before her. It was an evil unknown to her; in the old days her father was a man both abstemious and refined in his surroundings, and since her marriage, though she saw terrible accounts in the papers, she had lived so little in any town, and had seen so little that was evil, that she considered people made almost unnecessary fuss about teetotalism; she could not imagine such a fearful thing as drinking touching her order, though she knew it obtained among some poor miserable creatures, of whom she seldom thought without a shudder of sorrow, mingled with disgust.
To think of Margaret, with all her great love of purity and peace, exposed to so horrible a thing, was something absolutely terrible to her; so perfectly appalling that she started up, feeling as though every moment was a cruel wrong to the girl she had learned to love so dearly.
She went to her brother's room; he was sitting up, and she sat down beside him in a flutter of spirits that made her incoherent.
”You have had a visitor,” he began, with a laugh in which there was not much mirth.
”Only Mrs. Wymans,” she answered, with indifference.
”If she could hear you! She is a person of great consequence in her own estimation.”
”I wonder why she called,” his sister said, absently, doubtful as to her capability of putting the question without causing any excitement.
”I'll tell you,” he answered; ”there is a great deal of curiosity about Drayton just now; before this attack of mine I was driven wild by all manner of questions about him. He is a great fool to make a mystery of his address; there is no reason he should do so; he answers no letters, he leaves every one to conjecture things, and in this beautiful world if a thing is not fully understood, the worst interpretation and not the best is the accepted one.”
”Then you think there is no reason for his shutting himself up?”
”There can be no reason. Margaret is not likely to give him cause for jealousy, and the man is in the possession of all his senses.”
”Always, and at all times?” and Mrs. Dorriman leaned forward, breathing quickly and watching his face very anxiously.
”Anne,” said Mr. Sandford, and this name from him was an especial sign of kindness towards her, ”has any one told you anything? Depend upon it it is only gossip.”
”It may be gossip, I trust it may be untrue; but why is Margaret, so to speak, shut up? She cannot go out even for a walk beyond the grounds; Jean says she has not been to see Grace for ever so long, and there must be some reason for his never answering any letter.”
”I never heard this before. What do you mean about Margaret? I think you are speaking great nonsense.”
”Jean says that the poor thing never gets out. At first she went out and he went with her--followed her like a shadow--now he does not go himself, and she is kept a perfect prisoner. No one is allowed to go near the house. I a.s.sure you, brother, I have been longing for you to be well to speak about it.”
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