That Unfortunate Marriage Volume I Part 12

Mr. Weatherhead, calling one afternoon at Laurel Villa to see Mrs.

Simpson, who had been kept at home by a cold, found other visitors there. Miss Polly and Miss Patty Piper were drinking tea out of Mrs.

Simpson's best cups and saucers, and chatting away with their usual cheerfulness and volubility. The Miss Pipers, as they would themselves have expressed it, "moved in a superior sphere" to that of the music-teacher and his wife; but they did not consider that they derogated from their gentility by occasionally drinking tea and having a chat with the Simpsons. They liked to condescend a little, and opportunities for condescension were rather rare. Then, too, they had a certain interest in Sebastian Bach Simpson, inherited from the long-ago days when Sebastian Bach's father played the organ in their father's church, and Miss Polly and Miss Patty wore white frocks and blue sashes at evening parties, and were the objects of a good deal of attention from the Reverend Reuben's curates. Besides the sisters there was present Dr. Hatch, who had come to pay a professional visit to Mrs.

Simpson, and who was just going away. It was a peculiarity of Dr. Hatch to be always just going away. He had a very large practice, and was wont to aver that his professional duties scarcely left him time to eat or sleep. Yet Dr. Hatch's horses stood waiting through many a quarter of an hour during which their master was engaged in conversation not of a strictly professional nature.

When Mr. Weatherhead entered the best parlour of Laurel Villa, Dr. Hatch had a cup of tea in one hand, and his watch in the other, and greeted the new arrival with a friendly nod, and the a.s.surance that he was "just off." Mrs. Simpson shook hands with Mr. Weatherhead, and the Miss Pipers graciously bowed to him. He, too, was connected in their minds with old times. Miss Polly specially remembered seeing him on her visits to the Birmingham Musical Festivals, when her father would take the opportunity of turning over Weatherhead's stock of books, and making a few purchases. And once the Pipers had lodged during a Festival week in the rooms over Weatherhead's shop.

"Glad to see you better, Mrs. Simpson," said Jo, taking a seat after having saluted the company.

"Oh yes, thank you, I'm quite well now. I know Dr. Hatch will scold me if he hears me say so"--(with an arch glance baulked of its effect by the unsympathetic spectacles)--"because he tells me I still need great care. But my cough is gone. It is, really!"

Mrs. Simpson girlishly shook back her curls, and proceeded to pour out a cup of tea for Mr. Weatherhead.

"And how is Simpson?" asked the latter.

"Ba.s.sy is very well, only immensely busy. He has three new pupils for pianoforte and harmony; the daughters of Colonel ----,--tut, I forget his name,--recommended by that kind Major Mitton. Or at least it would be more proper to say that Major Mitton recommended Ba.s.sy to them! Not very polite to say that the young ladies were recommended--oh dear! I beg pardon. I'm afraid I've over-sweetened your tea?"

She had, in fact, put in half a dozen lumps, one after the other. But Mr. Weatherhead fished the greater part of them out again with his teaspoon, and deposited them in the saucer, saying it was of no consequence.

"I am so sadly absent-minded!" said Mrs. Simpson, smiling sweetly.

"Ba.s.sy would scold me if he were here."

"Serve you right, if he did!" said Dr. Hatch, rising from the table.

"You should pay attention to what you're doing. I expect to hear that you have swallowed the embrocation and anointed your throat with syrup of squills."

"Oh, doctor! You do say the drollest things!" exclaimed the amiable Amelia, with an enjoying giggle.

"Ah, no; not the drollest! Thank Heaven, I hear a great many droller things than I say! That's what mainly supports me in my day's practice."

Mrs. Simpson, not in the least understanding him, giggled again. Dr.

Hatch had the reputation of being a wag; and Amelia Simpson was not the woman to defraud him of a laugh on any such selfish ground as not seeing the point of his joke.

"Well, Mr. Weatherhead," said Miss Patty Piper, blandly, "so we are to have your sister-in-law for a neighbour, I hear."

Jo poked his nose forward, and pursed up his mouth. "O-ho! my sister-in-law, Mrs. Dobbs? How do you mean, ma'am, 'as a neighbour'?"

"We understand that Mrs. Dobbs has been looking after Jessamine Cottage; the little white house with a garden on the Gloucester Road," returned Miss Patty. Dr. Hatch paused with his hand on the latch of the parlour door to hear.

"Oh dear no," said Jo Weatherhead decisively. "Quite a mistake. Sarah Dobbs is too wedded to her old home. Nothing would induce her to leave Friar's Row. You must have been misinformed, ma'am."

"As to leaving Friar's Row," put in Miss Polly, "she must do that in any case; for she has let the premises as offices; and at a high rent, too, I hear. Friar's Row is considered a choice position for business purposes."

Jo had opened his mouth to protest once more, when a sudden idea made him shut it again without speaking. "Oh!" he gasped, and then made a little pause before proceeding. "Ah, well--she--it wasn't quite settled when I heard last. Would you mind stating your authority, ma'am?"

"The best--Mr. Bragg told us himself. His managing man at the works has made the arrangement. Mr. Bragg has been looking out for a more central office for some time."

"I told Mrs. Dobbs long ago that she was living at an extravagant rental by sticking to Friar's Row," observed Dr. Hatch, turning the handle of the door. "Depend on it, she has let it at a swinging rent; and quite right, too. Now I really _am_ off."

Jo Weatherhead sat very still after the doctor's departure, with his cup of tea in his hand, and a pondering expression of face. The Miss Pipers were not sufficiently interested in him to observe his demeanour very closely. If they did chance to notice that he was unusually silent, that was accounted for by his sense of the superior company he found himself in. They always spoke of him as "a good, odd creature, with sound principles--a very respectable man, who knew his station." As for Amelia Simpson, she was habitually un.o.bservant, with an inconvenient faculty, however, of suddenly making clear-sighted remarks when they were least expected.

"I'm sure this is very good news for us!" she exclaimed. "Jessamine Cottage is so near! At least, it _was_ quite close to us when we lived in Marlborough Terrace."

"It will be a good move for Mrs. Dobbs. The air in our neighbourhood is so much better than in her part of the town," said Miss Patty, with a certain complacency, as who should say, "The merit of this atmospheric superiority is all our own; but we are not proud."

"And yet I am surprised, too, at Mrs. Dobbs moving," replied Amelia.

"She always declared that she hated the suburbs, with their little slight-built houses."

"That cannot apply to _our_ house," said Miss Polly. "Garnet Lodge stood in its own ground many a long year before those new houses sprung up between Greenhill Road and the Gloucester Road."

"But Mrs. Dobbs isn't going to live in Garnet Lodge!" returned Amelia, with one of her sudden illuminations of common sense. "And Jessamine Cottage is a mere bandbox."

"I remember Mrs. Dobbs among the trebles in 'Esther,'" observed Miss Polly. "She had a fine clear voice, and could take the B flat in alt with perfect ease."

"And her husband sold capital ironmongery. We have a coal-scuttle in the kitchen now which was bought at his shop--a thoroughly solid article,"

added Miss Patty.

These appreciative words about the Dobbses, which at another time would have gratified Jo Weatherhead, now fell on an unheeding ear. He took his leave very shortly, and walked straight to Friar's Row.

"Well, Sarah Dobbs," said he, on entering the parlour, "I didn't think you would steal a march on me like this! I did believe you'd have trusted me sooner than a parcel of strangers, after all these years!"

He did not sit down in his usual place by the fireside, but remained standing opposite to his old friend, looking at her with a troubled countenance. Mrs. Dobbs gave him one quick, keen glance, and then said--

"So you've heard it, Jo? Well, I didn't mean that you should hear it from any one but me. But who shall stop chattering tongues? They rage like a fire in the stubble. And the poorer and lighter the fuel, the bigger blaze it makes. It was settled only this very morning, too."

"It _is_ true, then, Sarah? I had a kind of a hankering hope that it might be only trash and chit-chat."

"You mean about my letting my house, don't you? Yes; that's true."

"And me never to know a word of it!--To hear it from strangers!"

"Now look here, Jo; let us talk sensibly. Sit down, can't you?"

But Jo would not sit down; and after a minute's pause, Mrs. Dobbs went on--

"I'll tell you the truth. I didn't say a word to you of my plan beforehand, because I was afraid to--there!"

"Afraid! You, Sarah Dobbs, afraid of _me_! That's a good one!" But his face relaxed a little from its pained, fixed look.

"Yes; afraid of what you'd say. I knew you wouldn't approve, and I knew why. You wouldn't approve for my sake. But, thinks I, when once it's done, Jo may scold a little, but he'll forgive his old friend. And I never thought of chattering jackdaws cawing the matter from the house-tops. I meant to tell you myself this very afternoon; I did indeed, Jo."

Jo drew a little nearer to his accustomed chair, and put his hand on the back of it, keeping his face turned away from Mrs. Dobbs. "Of course, you're the mistress to do what you like with your own property," he muttered.

"n.o.body's mistress, or master either, to do what's wrong with their own property. I mean to do what's right if I can. I was never one to heed much what outside folks think of me; but I do heed what you think, Jo, and reason good. And I want you to know my feeling about the matter once for all, and then we can leave it alone."

Mr. Weatherhead here slid quietly into the armchair, and sat with his face still turned towards the fire.

"You know," continued Mrs. Dobbs, "I told you some weeks ago that I was troubled about the child's position here. She is a real lady, and ought to be acknowledged as such. That's the only good that can come now from poor Susy's marriage, and I do hold to it. There was only one way, that I could see, of managing what I wanted. I could do it at a sacrifice--after all, a very small sacrifice."

Jo Weatherhead shook his head emphatically.