Mrs. Dorriman

“ Mrs. Dorriman sighed.
"Is it not true that no good comes of doing anything wrong from however good a motive?"
"What do you mean," he said, angrily.
"I mean," she said, hopelessly, "that if Margaret had not wanted to give Grace a home she would not have married Mr. Drayton."
"Do you suppose I do not know that?" he said. "Can you not see that the horror of it all is almost overwhelming me? I have already told you this myself!"
"Oh, brother," said Mrs. Dorriman, remorsefully, "I did not mean ..." Mrs. Dorriman looked ready to cry.
"It is because you do not mean it that it makes it worse. ”

“ Dorriman oblivious to all that was going on. She would have young girls with her and so she would not be alone, and none but those who have tried it, know how depressing long-continued loneliness is, especially to one who (like Mrs. Dorriman) was by temperament, one of the women who cling to others, and to whom acting and thinking for herself was perpetual grief and pain.
From the bewilderment of this future, which looked so much brighter to her with those figures in the foreground, she was once more roused by hearing, this time, not her brother's but her own name mentioned. ”

“ Instead of the usual sneering tone in which John Sandford addressed his sister, she was startled out of herself by hearing him speak with civility. The surprise gave her a brilliant glow, which touched her face with colour and lightened it up. Mr. Dorriman thought her lovely. Her gentle helplessness was another great attraction, an attraction which every day's acquaintance increased. Without fully understanding how it all came about she found herself Mrs. Dorriman, and content to be so and to get away from the roughness and unkindness which was all that she ever knew of the brotherly tie. ”

“ Oh!" she exclaimed and a look of terror came into her eyes, "even this is wrong. I should not speak of it so. Dear!" she continued, turning to poor bewildered Mrs. Dorriman, "you must help me, and not let me feel that you do not understand me. I have thought about it and prayed about it, and I must go through with it." She paused to regain her self-command, and then added, "and there is no one else."
"There is no one else," repeated Mrs. Dorriman, vaguely; "I thought there was somebody else."
Had she too seen that dawning passion which Margaret had stifled so vehemently? ”

“ Dorriman spoke in innocence of making any chain. It is not given to us always to know when we are making history.
"My dear Paul," said Lady Lyons, when the mother and son were yawning through the remains of an evening shortly afterwards, "I think I have made a discovery; those two girls, the Rivers girls, are either rich or going to be very rich. That is why poor dear Mrs. Dorriman makes such a fuss about them, and herds them about so." ”

“ I am happier since I have learned how to make others happy!"
She paused, folding her hands, and looking to Mrs. Dorriman like some fair saint, with her unclouded eyes and the sweet folded lips that were both grave and tender.
"Here there is poverty, sickness, and often sorrow," said Mrs. Dorriman; "but somehow, with these surroundings, poverty does not seem so grim."
"Here there are springs of water, fresh air and this," said Margaret, pointing to the river; "but in London, water is taxed even to the very poor, the very kindling of their fires is a difficulty. ”

“ Wymans! Oh, do you know what you are saying!"
"You know nothing?"
"I know nothing about the child, and," taking sudden courage at the thought, "Jean, my old servant, wrote to me, and Grace—Miss Rivers—telegraphed, 'Mr. Drayton is ill,' that is all. There is nothing more."
"There is a great deal more. But, my dear Mrs. Dorriman, pray compose yourself; pray do not excite yourself. Mr. Drayton is ill, that is true, but has no one told you anything else?"
"What more can any one have to say?" Mrs. Dorriman asked, struggling for self-command, and feeling as though it was beyond her. ”

“ Grace was silent, kept silent by surprise and by a passionate and impatient remonstrance against the position she was placed in. It was intolerable to her to have this weight of obligation with no affection to lighten it.
"He weighs us down with the sense of obligation," she said at length; "if he were really generous he would make the load lighter."
"He is a human being and imperfect," said poor Mrs. Dorriman, who, while acknowledging the truth of this, felt it came ungratefully from the lips of Grace Rivers, who owed him so much. ”

“ Dorriman rose, and, filling the skirt of her dress with some of the papers, she made silent and successive journeys to her own bedroom, where she concealed all, hastily throwing some skeins of worsted into the empty box, and once again sat down. She knew nothing—but there must be some reason for her brother's anxiety, and she had suffered so much at his hands that her whole instinct was alive in self-defence.
But a timid woman does not act in this way for the first time in her life without betraying something of the agitation into which it had thrown her. ”

“ Shall I bring you some tea?"
"If you will," said Grace; her tone was indifferent, but Jean saw that her eyes had a wistful look in them.
"What is it, my bairn?" the old woman said, her kind heart warming towards the poor girl, so evidently hovering at the gates of death.
"It is nothing," said Grace, with a pitiful little laugh, "but no one has offered to do any thing for me for a long while."
Jean understood, and, when she took in the tea, Mrs. Dorriman accompanied her.
Some women are distinctly born with a gift for nursing, and Mrs. Dorriman was one of these women. ”

“ Poor Margaret, she always takes life so very seriously, she has no sense of fun. I am sure with her opportunities I should have written a much longer and a more amusing letter!"
Mrs. Dorriman read the letter, and her eyes filled with tears. It was a letter written by one who has lost all the spring of youth—unhappiness was on its every page, and the craving to know that Grace was well and surrounded with comforts, and that she was happy. It was a beseeching cry to know if the step she had taken had been of use to her beloved sister. ”

“ Mrs. Dorriman's delicate face flushed a little. "Margaret offers to come," she said after a little pause.
"I find business tires me more and more," he said, as it seemed to her, irrelevantly.
"I am sorry," she answered, looking a little anxiously in his direction.
"Why should we not all go to your house," he asked, as though putting the plainest and simplest question in the world.
"To Inchbrae! Oh, brother!" This sudden suggestion filled her with such intense happiness that she could get no further.
"I want Margaret to get well and I mean to resign my chairmanship and other things. ”

“ The last afternoon of her stay at Inchbrae had come. Mrs. Dorriman, under the impression she was working very hard, carried several things upstairs that ought to have remained down, and wandered about helplessly, a terrible sense of having an enormous deal to do and to arrange pressing upon her; mixed with that ever constant and depressing feeling which distinguished her, of not being up to the mark. Can anything be more dreadful than a consciousness that strength is not there whatever "the day" may be? and is it not as much a sin to crush and murder a spirit as to destroy a body? ”

“ Dorriman went to see the cook, outwardly calm but inwardly with very great trepidation.
She herself was one of those quiet people who have a genius for household management, and she was blessed with that happy absence of irritability and anxiety to domineer, which wins its own way without any violent commotion.
Mrs. Chalmers, for some years so completely her own mistress, was as ready to go off into a blaze as a well-laid fire. She had quite made up her mind to one thing, that if she was interfered with she would go. ”

“ Mr. Lyons laughingly said her youth was very self-evident. "How beautiful is youth!" he exclaimed, with mock solemnity, and Mrs. Dorriman was startled to hear them all on such a familiar footing already.
She and her friend parted with enthusiasm. Poor Lady Lyons really out of health, and having many, many troubles to bear, was unfeignedly pleased to meet Mrs. Dorriman again; and Mrs. Dorriman, while conscious of much short-coming in the matter of friendship, as she could look back only upon acquaintanceship, and nothing more, was much flattered to find herself of so much importance to another. ”

“ Dorriman, instead of preparing to depart, wandered over the little place, every nook and corner of which was sweet to her at all times, and was doubly dear to her now she was going away. Late in the afternoon of the third day she was walking down the burn-side, stopping ever and again to look with renewed admiration at the scenery round her, and watching the purple bloom upon the distant hills as the evening shadows came down, a purple tinge which was reflected in the sea except where a blaze of gold in the sky shone with more broken lights below ”

“ Sandford marched off with his sister.
Placing her at the head of the table, he said in his most pompous manner, "It is my wish that you act as mistress of my house, and that all should consider you in that light," and he glared round as though many were there to hear this, and not only two girls who already understood this.
Mrs. Dorriman, conscious of an action antagonistic to his wishes, sat silent, feeling as though she were a traitor; never was there any one more acutely self-tormenting, more sensitive about anything she did, than this poor lady. ”

“ Anne," he said, suddenly raising himself and looking at her, "if any one knew what the word remorse meant, I think there would be less wrong-doing in the world. It is the worm that never dies, and the fire that never is quenched." He spoke in a tone of despair and despondency, and Mrs. Dorriman endeavoured to console him. ”

“ My sister, Mrs. Dorriman, comes to-morrow, to be the mistress of this house; without her or some one like her, I could not have asked you here; and when she comes, it is my wish that you look up to her and obey her in all things."
Here was a thunder-clap. The girls looked at each other in dismay. His sister! she would then be a feminine edition of himself! All the poor children's dreams of having their time to themselves, and of being to all intents and purposes free, fell to the ground; the shock made Grace silent and Margaret's eyes filled with tears. ”

“ Dorriman brought a great increase of comfort to the place, everything was well looked after, and Mr. Sandford recognised that it was so, without exactly knowing in which way a change had been made.
The one restless and dissatisfied person was always Grace. The monotony of the days became to her absolutely terrible. She had all the discomfort of having put herself upon a pinnacle without any admiring crowd to make up for the isolation. It was difficult for her to come down. Advances of friendliness and proffered affection had been made in vain by Mrs. Dorriman and now no effort was made. ”

“ Dorriman was one of the women whose lives have been pursued by perpetual failure. Her childhood had been a neglected one, her youth had been the same; she was hurried into a marriage with a man much older than herself, whom, if she did not dislike, she had no real love for, and towards whom, when adversity came, she had nothing to draw her, for adversity is the highest test of love, and if there is no deep affection the breath of non-success kills it at once. ”

“ Dorriman introduced to Grace and Margaret Rivers. Every day now there was some walk undertaken, or some little expedition made in which Paul Lyons joined.
Lady Lyons had that motherly feeling that Paul, being her son, was such a safe and pleasant companion for every one. She was quite amused that Mrs. Dorriman considered it necessary to act as chaperon. "It is only Paul," she would say, with a little laugh.
"But he is not 'only Paul' to us; he is a young man and no relation. I do not want to be ridiculous, but I have the responsibility, and I want to do what is right." ”

“ I am sure, my dear Anne, for their sakes, you would throw your influence against such a step. At his time of life——"
"He is not an old man," said Mrs. Dorriman, very hastily, "and, as for influence—my dear, if my brother wished to marry any one I should probably hear nothing about it till he introduced his wife to me. When he makes up his mind he acts," said Mrs. Dorriman, thinking with a little shiver of her own marriage and other things.
"I am not sure that I think that quite nice in a man," and Lady Lyons unclasped a narrow bracelet that she wore, and clasped it with great care ”

“ Dorriman, with a certain pride in her unlimited powers. She had, never of her own free will, sent a telegram in all her life.
Then a brilliant idea came to Margaret. "Let us go South, and try one place first; if we do not like it we can try another."
Grace was enchanted.
"And now," said Margaret, who seemed to be taking up a new position that morning, "We owe you so much; what do you like best?"
"Oh, my dear!" said poor Mrs. Dorriman, her long self-repression giving way, and surprising the girl by her glistening eyes and brilliant flash of colour, "give me the sea and the hills;" ”

“ Dorriman, full of the delight of having Margaret's sympathy.
"It has a rushing mighty sound like the wings of a relentless fate," said Margaret, dreamily; "I never was so near a river before."
"Do you like being so near it? Some people think it disturbs them; that louder noise through all is the waterfall. Come and have some tea now, and, when you are rested, we will go by the river-walk."
"Everything is so lovely," she exclaimed, as she followed Mrs. Dorriman into the bright little drawing-room, and noticed the pretty freshness of everything. ”