That Unfortunate Marriage Volume I Part 2

"A very nice position, I should say."

"A very nice position!" exclaimed Mrs. Dobbs, who seemed determined to repeat all poor Mr. Weatherhead's speeches in a tone of disdainful irony. "That's so like you, Jo! _She_ thinks it a very nice position, too, poor lamb. She knows nothing of the world, bless her innocent heart. And, for all her seventeen years, she is the merest child in some things. But you might know better. You are not seventeen years old, Jo Weatherhead."

"Certainly not," a.s.sented he emphatically.

"The fact of the matter is that, whether by good luck or bad luck, May does not belong to my sphere or my cla.s.s. She's a Cheffington. She has the ways of a lady, and the education of a lady, and she has a right to the position of a lady. If that father of hers gives her nothing else he might give her that; and he shall, if I can make him."

"Perhaps it might have been better, after all, if you had not sent the child back to her old school, but just brought her up here, under your own eye, in a plain sort of way. It would have been better for _you_, anyhow."

"I don't know that."

"Why, you'd have been spared a good many sacrifices. There's not another woman in England would have done what you've done, Sarah."

"Nonsense; there are plenty of women in England as big fools as me. Even that wooden old figurehead of a dowager--Lord forgive me, she's dead and gone!--had the grace to pay the child's schooling as long as she lived."

"She!" exclaimed Jo Weatherhead, firing up suddenly, and tapping his meerschaum sharply against the hob. "That's a very different pair of shoes. She could afford it a precious sight better than you. What did _she_ ever deprive herself of? I say there's not another woman in England would have done what you've done, and it's no good your contradicting."

"There, bless the man! Don't let us quarrel about it."

"But I shall quarrel about it, unless you give in. Here's the case fairly put:--A young spark runs away with your only daughter, and pretty well breaks your heart. He takes her wandering about into foreign parts, and you only get news of her now and then, and never good news. He's too fine a gentleman to do a stroke of work for his family, but as soon as he has run through his bit of money he's not too fine a gentleman to fall into disreputable ways of life, nor yet to let who will look after his motherless little girl, and feed, and clothe, and educate her. When his own mother dies--leaving two quarters' school-bills unpaid, which you have to settle, by-the-by--the rest of the family, including his own sister, refuse to advance a sixpence to save the child from the workhouse."

"I say, Jo, that's putting it a little too strong, my friend! There was no talk of the workhouse."

"Let me finish summing up the case. I say they wouldn't spend sixpence to save that child from _starvation_--there, now! When the dowager is dead, and the rest of them b.u.t.ton up their breeches' pockets, and the schoolmistress sends away the poor little girl because she can't afford to keep her and teach her for nothing, what does my gentleman do? Does he try in any one way to do his duty by his only child? Not he. He coolly shuffles off all trouble and responsibility on other folks'

shoulders. He hasn't taken any notice of you for years, except writing once to borrow fifty pounds----"

"Which he didn't get, Jo."

"Which he didn't get because an over-ruling Providence had ordained that you shouldn't have it to lend him. Well, after years of silence and neglect, he turns up in Oldchester one fine morning, and walks into your house bringing his little girl 'on a visit to her dear grandmother.'

Talk of bra.s.s! What sort of a material do you suppose that man's features are composed of?"

"Gutta percha, very likely," returned Mrs. Dobbs, who now sat resting her head against the cushions of her chair, and listening to Mr.

Weatherhead's eloquence with a half-humorous resignation; "that's a good, tough, elastic kind of stuff."

"Tough! He had need have some toughness of countenance to come into this house as he did. And that's not the end. He swaggers about Oldchester for a week or two, using your house as an inn, neither more nor less--except that there's no bill;--and then one day he starts off for the Continent, leaving little May here, and promising to send for her as soon as he gets settled. From that day to this, and it's four years ago, you have had the child on your hands, and her precious father has never contributed one shilling towards her support. You sent the child back to school. You pinched, and saved, and denied yourself many little comforts to keep her there. You have never let her feel or guess that she has been a burthen on you in your old age. And I say again, Sarah Dobbs, that, considering all the circ.u.mstances of the case, there's not another woman in England would have done what you've done. No, nor in Europe!"

"Well, having come to that, I hope you've finished, Jo Weatherhead."

"I hope I have," returned Mr. Weatherhead, mopping his flushed face with a very large red pocket-handkerchief. "I hope I have, for the present.

But if you attempt to contradict a word of what I have been saying, I'll begin again and go still further!"

"There, there, then that's settled. But I am thinking of the future.

Supposing I died to-morrow, what's to become of May? I have nothing to leave her. My bit of property goes back to Dobbs's family, and all right and fair, too. I've nothing to say against my husband's will. But people like the Hadlows, who invite May, and make much of her, have no idea that she has no one to look to but me. I don't say they'd give her the cold shoulder if they did know it; but it would make a difference. As it is, they talk to her about her aunt, Mrs. Dormer-Smith, and her cousin, Lord This, and her connection, Lady T'other, and a kind of a--what shall I say?--a sort of atmosphere of high folks hangs about her. She's Miss Miranda Cheffington, with fifty relations in the peerage. If she was known only as the grandchild of Mrs. Dobbs, the ironmonger's widow, she would seem mightily changed in a good many eyes. Sometimes it comes over me as if I was letting May go on under false pretences."

"Why, she _has_ got fifty relations in the peerage, hasn't she?"

"A hundred, for all I know. But folks are not aware that her father's family take no notice of her. She hardly knows it herself."

"But her aunt, Mrs. Dormer-Smith, writes to her, doesn't she?"

"Oh, a line once in a blue moon, to say she's glad to hear May is well, and to complain of the great expense of living in London."

"The selfish meanness of that woman is beyond belief."

"Well--I don't know, Jo. She's a poor creature, certainly. But I feel more a sort of pity for her than anything else."

"_Do_ you? It's only out of contradiction, then."

"Not altogether," said Mrs. Dobbs, laughing good-humouredly. "I made her out pretty well that time I took May up to London before she went back to school."

"Ah! I remember. You tried if the aunt would do anything to help."

"Yes, I tried. It was right to try. But I very soon saw that there was nothing to be hoped for from that quarter. Mrs. Dormer-Smith has been brought up to live for the world and the world's ways. To be sure her world is a funny, artificial little affair compared with G.o.d Almighty's: pretty much as though one should take a teaspoonful of Epsom salts for the sea. But, at any rate, I do believe she sincerely thinks it ought to be worshipped and bowed down to. It's no use to tell such a woman that she could do without this or that useless finery, and spend the money better. She'll answer you with tears in her eyes that it's _impossible_; and, what's more, she'll believe it. Why, if some Tomnoddy or other, belonging to what she calls "the best people," was to ordain to-morrow that n.o.body should eat his dinner unless he was waited on by a man with a long pigtail, that poor creature would know no peace, nor her meat would have no relish until a man with a pigtail stood behind her chair.

That's Mrs. Dormer-Smith, Jo Weatherhead."

Mr. Weatherhead drew up his lips into the form of a round O, as his manner was when considering any matter of interest, and appeared to meditate a reply. But the reply was never spoken; for a brisk ring at the street door gave a new turn to his thoughts and those of his sister-in-law.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Dobbs, putting up her hands to settle her cap, and stretching out her feet with a sudden movement which made the old tabby on the hearthrug arch her back indignantly. "Why, that must be the Simpsons! I didn't think it was so late. Just light the candles, will you, Jo? I hope Martha has remembered the roasted potatoes."

CHAPTER III.

The Simpsons were old friends of Mrs. Dobbs. Mr. Simpson was organist of the largest parish church in Oldchester, where his father had been organist before him. To this circ.u.mstance he owed his singular Christian name. The elder Simpson, whose musical enthusiasm had run all into one channel, insisted on naming his son Sebastian Bach. Some men would have felt this to be a disadvantage for the profession of organist and music-teacher, as involving a suggestion of ridicule. But Mr. Sebastian Bach Simpson was not apt to be diffident about any distinguishing characteristic of his own. His wife had been a governess, and still gave daily lessons in sundry respectable Oldchester families. By an arrangement begun during her late husband's lifetime, this couple came every Sat.u.r.day evening to sup with Mrs. Dobbs, and to play a game of whist for penny points before the meal.

The two guests entered the parlour just as Mr. Weatherhead was lighting the candles.

"Dear me," exclaimed Mrs. Simpson, "are we too early? I had no idea!

Surely the choir practice was not over earlier than usual, Ba.s.sy?"

She was a large stout woman of forty, with a pink-and-white complexion and filmy brown curls; and she wore spectacles. She had once been very slim and pretty, and still retained a certain girlishness of demeanour.

It has been said that a man is as old as he feels, and a woman as old as she looks. Mrs. Simpson had innocently usurped the masculine privilege; and, not feeling herself to be either wiser or less trivial than she was at eighteen, had never thought of trying to bring her manners into harmony with her appearance. Her husband was a short, dark man, with quick black eyes, and thick, stubby, black hair. His voice was singularly rasping and dissonant, which seemed an unfortunate incongruity in a professor of music. Such as he was, however, his wife had a great admiration for him, and considered his talents to be remarkable. Her marriage, she was fond of saying, had been a love-match, and she had never got beyond the romantic stage of her attachment.

"Good evening, Mrs. Dobbs," said the organist, advancing to shake hands, and taking no notice of his wife's inquiry.

"How are you, Weatherhead? I suppose you were napping--having forty winks in the twilight, eh?"

"No, Mr. Weatherhead and I were chatting," said Mrs. Dobbs.

"Chatting in this kind of blind man's holiday, were you? I should have thought you could hardly see to talk!"

"See to talk! Oh, Ba.s.sy, what an expression! You do say the drollest things!" exclaimed Mrs. Simpson with a giggle. "Doesn't he, Mrs. Dobbs?

Did you ever hear----?"

Mrs. Dobbs, for all reply, hospitably stirred the fire until it blazed, helped Mrs. Simpson to remove her bonnet and cloak, and placed her in a chair near her own. Mr. Simpson took his accustomed seat, and the four persons drew round the fire, whilst Martha, Mrs. Dobbs's middle-aged servant, set out a little card-table, and disposed the candles on it in two old-fashioned, spindle-shanked, silver candlesticks. It was all done according to long-established custom, which was seldom deviated from in any particular.