That Unfortunate Marriage Volume I Part 23

Then, in an instant, the true state of the case flashed on Mrs.

Dormer-Smith, to her unspeakable consternation. This, then, was her model young man, whom she had p.r.o.nounced to be so "nice" and so "quiet;"

and who, moreover, had always expressed the most proper sentiments on the subject of unequal marriages! She felt herself to be of all ladies the most persecuted by fate.

"Oh," she said, coldly interrupting him; "it was scarcely necessary to say anything to Miss Cheffington on the subject."

But Theodore was beyond taking heed of any snub or check of that kind.

"One moment," he said, breathing quickly. "If you will allow me to finish what I was saying, you will see----I am, as you must have perceived, deeply attached to your niece."

"No, no," protested Mrs. Dormer-Smith faintly. "I never perceived it."

"Then that must have been because you were looking in a wrong direction.

You were misled about Constance Hadlow; otherwise, the nature of my attentions could scarcely have escaped you."

"And you say that you have been speaking to--to my niece?"

"I have this evening told her how devotedly I love her."

"Good heavens!" whispered Mrs. Dormer-Smith, letting her head sink back among the sofa-cushions. "And what was her reply?"

"Her reply was--well, practically, it was no reply at all. May was agitated and startled, and I think she had believed that foolish gossip about my engagement to Miss Hadlow. But I trust to you to explain----"

"Pray, Mr. Bransby, say no more. I regret extremely that this should have happened."

"Oh, but I don't know that I have any reason to despair," he answered navely.

This was almost more than Pauline could endure. She got up from the sofa, and plaintively murmuring, "Say no more; pray say no more. I really am not equal to it at present," fairly walked away from him.

That night when the guests were gone, Mrs. Dormer-Smith sent for her husband to her dressing-room, and revealed to him what young Bransby had said. His indignation at the young man's presumption was equal to her own: although not wholly on the same grounds.

"You will have to talk to him, Frederick," she said. "When he went away he said something about requesting an early interview. _I_ cannot stand any more of it. It upsets me too frightfully. Of course, you won't quarrel with him. Just give him politely to understand that it is out of the question. Fortunately, May appears to have been as much _outree_ by this preposterous proposal as I could desire. May behaved very nicely to-night altogether. I was pleased with her."

"H'm! Oh yes; but I thought she might have paid a little more attention to your uncle. She never went near him after we came upstairs. I think she talked to old Bragg more than to any one else."

"Frederick," said his wife slowly, "do you know that Lady Hautenville is making a dead set at Mr. Bragg for Felicia?"

"Is she?"

"Yes. Mrs. Griffin told me all about it. They are moving heaven and earth to catch him."

"Really? Well, _bonne chance_!"

"It would be _mauvaise chance_ for him, poor man! Felicia has a frightful temper, and incredibly extravagant habits. She must be over her eyebrows in debt. But I fancy Mr. Bragg has better taste."

Her meaning tone made her husband look at her with sudden earnestness.

"What do you mean?" he asked brusquely.

Mrs. Dormer-Smith put her hand to her forehead. "Let me entreat you not to raise your voice!" she said. "I have had quite enough to try my nerves this evening. I mean that I think Mr. Bragg is interested in May.

It would be a splendid match for her."

"_What?_" cried Frederick, disregarding his wife's request, and raising his voice considerably. "Old Bragg!"

Pauline turned on him impressively. "Frederick," she said, speaking with patient mildness, as one imparting higher lore to some untutored savage, "Mr. Bragg is barely fifty-four; and his income--entirely within his own control--is over sixty thousand a year."

CHAPTER XVI.

Theodore did not take his rejection meekly. In his interview with Mr.

Dormer-Smith he pressed hard to see May again, and insinuated that she was under undue influence. Moreover, he conveyed, with stiff civility, that he considered himself to have been badly treated by the whole family, who had first encouraged his attentions and then rejected them.

"He really is a fearful young man!" said May to her aunt on hearing the report of the interview. "What does he mean by insisting on 'an answer from my own lips'? Could he not believe what Uncle Frederick said?

Besides, he has had his answer from me. The truth is, he is so outrageously conceited that he can't believe any young woman would refuse him of her own free will."

"The idea of his dreaming for an instant that _I_ encouraged him is too preposterous," said Mrs. Dormer-Smith, shaking her head languidly. "I am sadly disappointed. I thought him quite a nice person. I fancied he had sufficient _savoir vivre_ to understand----However, it is one more proof that one can never reckon on half-bred people who don't know the world."

It was privately a great relief to May to know that her aunt took her part in this affair. Aunt Pauline's motives and views were still very mysterious to May on many points. She did not even now fully understand the grounds of her aunt's virtuous indignation against Theodore Bransby, although she was thankful for it. "Aunt Pauline thought him good enough for Conny," said May to herself innocently; "and Conny is so beautiful, and so much admired!"

It was true that--thanks, in the first place, to Mrs. Griffin--Constance had enjoyed a more brilliant season than she had ever ventured to dream of. Fashionable houses, of which she had read in the newspapers, but which had appeared to her as unattainable as though they were in another planet, had opened their doors to her; and old connections of her mother's family, finding her in the aforesaid houses, discovered that she was a charming girl, and were delighted to open _their_ doors to her. She had accepted several invitations to country houses, and would probably not be at home again until late in the autumn.

Mrs. Griffin watched this young lady's progress with considerable interest. She opined that Miss Hadlow was a shining instance of the advantages of "race."

"In spite of having been brought up in the pokiest way in some provincial town, as I understand, that girl has a thoroughbred self-possession quite remarkable," said Mrs. Griffin. "She never makes a blunder. You are never nervous about her. She has no trace of that loud, bouncing style, which I detest, and which so many underbred-people take up nowadays, mistakenly imagining it to be the proper thing. She doesn't 'go in' for anything. And," added Mrs. Griffin musingly, "there's a wonderful look of her grandfather, poor Charley Rivers, about the brow and eyes."

The season was rapidly drawing to a close when Mrs. Dobbs received two letters; one from her grand-daughter, and the other from Mrs.

Dormer-Smith. Jo Weatherhead, arriving one evening at his usual hour in Jessamine Cottage, was told by his old friend that she had had a letter from May, and that she meant to read him a portion of it. No proposition could have been more welcome to Mr. Weatherhead. He drew his chair up to the grate--filled now with fresh boughs instead of hot coals; but Jo kept his place in the chimney-corner winter and summer--and prepared to listen.

Mrs. Dobbs read as follows:--"You must know, dear granny, that I told Aunt Pauline yesterday that I really must go home at the end of this season. She has been very kind and so has Uncle Frederick; but granny is granny, and home is home."

Here Mr. Weatherhead slapped his leg with his hand, and took his pipe out of his mouth as though about to speak; but on Mrs. Dobbs holding up her hand for silence, he put his pipe back again, and slowly drew his forefinger and thumb down the not inconsiderable length of his nose.

Mrs. Dobbs read on: "To my amazement, Aunt Pauline answered that it was my father's wish that I should remain with her altogether! That is not my wish. And it isn't yours--is it, granny dear? And if we two are agreed, I cannot think my father would object. I mean to write to him about it. I should have done so already, but I have not his address, and Aunt Pauline can't or won't give it to me. Please send it. I shall tell my father just what I feel. I don't care for what Aunt Pauline calls Society. I was happy enough as long as it was only like being at the play, with the prospect of going home when it was over, and living my real life. But to go on with this sort of thing and nothing else, year in, year out--it would be like being expected to live on wax fruit, or those glazed wooden turkeys I remember in a box of toys you gave me long ago. Please answer directly, directly. There's an invitation for me to go in August to a place in the Highlands, where Mrs. Griffin's daughter has a shooting-box. At least, I suppose it is Mrs. Griffin's daughter's husband who has the shooting-box. Only n.o.body talks much about the duke, and everybody talks a great deal about the d.u.c.h.ess." ("Fancy our Miranda among the dukes and d.u.c.h.esses!" put in Jo Weatherhead, softly. And he smacked his lips as though the very sound of the words had a relish for him.) "Aunt Pauline wants to go to Carlsbad; Uncle Frederick is to join a fishing-party in Norway; the children are to be sent to a farmhouse; and Mrs. Griffin has offered to take care of me in the Highlands. But I would far, _far_ rather come back to dear Oldchester, and be amongst people who know me, and care for me, and whom I love with all my heart.

Do write and ask for me back, granny darling! And mind you give me papa's address. I am resolved to write to him, whatever Aunt Pauline may say. He is _my_ father, and I have a right to tell him my feelings."

"That's all of any consequence," said Mrs. Dobbs, slowly refolding the letter. "Oh, of course she writes at the end 'Love to Uncle Jo.' She never forgets that."

There was a brief silence. Mr. Weatherhead, who was very tender-hearted, blew his nose and wiped his eyes unaffectedly. "Of course you'll have the child down, Sarah," said he; "anyway, for a time. She's pining, that's where it is; she's pining for a sight of you."

Mrs. Dobbs sat choking down her emotion. She had cried privately over that letter herself, but she was resolved to discuss it now with judicial calmness; and it was provoking that Jo endangered her judicial tone of mind by that foolish, soft-hearted way of his, which was terribly catching. But she loved Jo for it, nevertheless, and scolded him so as to let him know that she loved him.

"It's a good thing your feelings are righter and kinder than most folks', Jo Weatherhead, for you're sadly led by 'em, my friend. If you'd wait and hear the whole case, you might help me with your advice." Then Mrs. Dobbs pulled another letter from her pocket, and handed it to her brother-in-law. This second epistle was from Mrs. Dormer-Smith, and ran thus:--

"DEAR MRS. DOBBS,

"I think it right to let you know how very important it is for May not to miss her visit to Glengowrie. There will be among the guests there a gentleman who has been paying her a good deal of attention--a man of princely fortune. I have some reason to think that May is disposed to look favourably on this gentleman; but he must be allowed time and opportunity to declare himself. No better opportunity could possibly be found than at Glengowrie; and I may tell you, _in confidence_, that the d.u.c.h.ess has, at my friend Mrs. Griffin's request, invited them both _on purpose_. I trust, therefore, that, in my niece's interests, you will induce her not to relinquish this chance.

As to her writing to her father, it is absurd, and would only irritate my brother after his giving me _carte blanche_ to do the best I can for her. If the visit to Glengowrie turns out as we hope, I shall have procured for her a settlement which many a peer's daughter will envy. My husband and I have such confidence in your good sense, that we are sure you will second our efforts as far as you can. Of course you will consider this letter _strictly private_, and will not, above all, mention it to May.

"I am, dear Mrs. Dobbs,