That Unfortunate Marriage Volume Iii Part 5

"Yes; I have a great deal to do."

"Oh, I hear of you. Your praises are in every one's mouth. Lady Moppett declares you are rapidly becoming the first concert singer of the day.

She is as proud of you as if she had invented you! Indeed, she does say you are her 'discovery': as if you were a Polynesian island! I could find it in my heart to envy you, Clara. It must be so glorious to be independent, and earn one's own living!"

Clara smiled a faint little smile. "I am thankful to be able to earn something," she said. "But I don't think I should care so much about it if it were only for myself."

"No, of course, dear! I know," rejoined May quickly. She had been told that the young singer entirely supported an invalid father and sister.

Then she added, "Your voice is a great gift. There are so few things a woman can do to earn money."

"Why, one would suppose that _you_ wanted to earn money!" said Clara, smiling.

"Perhaps."

Clara looked more closely at her friend. The street lamps were now lighted, and she could see May's face distinctly. "You are not looking well, dear," she exclaimed. "You seem f.a.gged."

"I am sick of London. I want to go home to Granny and be at peace,"

answered May wearily. Then she went on quickly, to stave off any possible questionings as to her state of mind. "But I must return for the present to my aunt's house. Good-bye."

"Stay!" cried Clara. "Will you not get into the cab, and let me drive you home?"

"Drive! It is an affair of some two or three minutes at most."

"Well, then, if you have half an hour to spare, let me drive you round the square, and then drop you at home. I have been wanting for three or four days past to speak to you quietly. I can't bear to lose this rare opportunity. We do not meet very often." Then seeing that her friend hesitated, she asked, "Are you thinking about the cost of the cab for me?"

"Yes," answered May frankly.

"I thought so! That is just like you. But, indeed, you need have no scruples. The cab is engaged for the afternoon. When I sing at people's houses, unless they send a carriage for me, the cab-fare is 'considered in my wages.' Do come in!"

May complied, and the cab moved away slowly.

When they had proceeded a few yards, Clara said, "I wanted to tell you--I think it right to tell you--something I have learned on good authority. Your father--I hope it won't distress you--is really married."

May's first thought was that here again her Aunt Pauline had deceived her!

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes, I think I may say so."

"And how did you learn it?"

"From Valli."

"Oh, from Signor Valli! But you told me he was not to be trusted."

"In some ways not. But I do not doubt what he says on this subject. He has no motive to invent the information. He cares nothing about the matter--except that I think he rather likes La--Mrs. Cheffington than not."

"Is she a foreigner?" asked May, with a little more interest than she had hitherto shown. Her listless way of receiving the news had surprised her friend.

"Yes, an Italian. At least, she is Italian by language, if not by law; for she comes from Trieste. But she is almost Cosmopolitan; for she has travelled about the world a great deal. She is--or was--an opera-singer.

Her name in the theatre is Bianca Moretti. She was rather celebrated at one time." Clara paused a moment, and then added, "I hope this news does not grieve you, dear?"

"No," answered May dreamily, "it does not grieve me. If my father is content, why should I grieve? He and I have been parted--in spirit as well as body--for so many years, that his marriage can make but little difference to me."

"I was afraid you might feel----Of course, Captain Cheffington's family will look on it as a dreadful _mesalliance_."

May was silent for a few minutes. Then she said a very unexpected thing--

"Poor woman! I hope he is good to her!"

"I suppose," said Clara, rather hesitatingly, "that the reason why Captain Cheffington has not announced his marriage to his relations is that he thinks they would object to receive an opera-singer."

"Possibly," answered May. (In her heart she thought, "The reason is that he cares nothing for any of us.")

"It must be that," proceeded Clara. "For as far as I can make out there seems to be no concealment about it in Brussels."

Then they arrived at Mrs. Dormer-Smith's house, and May alighted and bade her friend farewell.

"Thank you, Clara," she said, "for telling me the truth. I loathe mysteries and concealments. When one thinks of it, they are despicable."

"Unless when one conceals something to shield others," suggested Clara gently.

She had told her friend what she believed to be the truth so far as the fact of her father's marriage was concerned. But she had not given her all the details and comments which Signor Valli had imparted to her on the subject. His view of the matter was not flattering to Captain Cheffington. Valli declared, with cynical plainness of speech, that Captain Cheffington had married La Bianca merely to have the right to confiscate her professional earnings. Latterly these had become very scanty. La Bianca did not grow younger, and her voice was rapidly failing her. A good deal of gambling had gone on in her house at one time. But it had been put a stop to--or, at least, shorn of its former proportions by the ugly incident of which Miss Polly Piper had brought back a version to Oldchester. Since that, things had not gone well with the Cheffington _menage_. Captain Cheffington had become insupportable, irritable, impossible! He was, moreover, a _malade imaginaire_; a querulous, selfish, tyrannous fellow; always bewailing his hard fate, and the sacrifice he had made in so far derogating from his rank as to marry an opera-singer. La Bianca was a slave to his caprices. To be sure she was not precisely a lamb. There were occasions when she flamed up, and made quarrels and scenes.

"But," said Signor Valli, "he is an enormous egoist, and, with a woman, the bigger egoist you are, the surer to subjugate her. La Bianca would have stabbed a man who loved her devotedly, for half the ill-treatment she endures from that cold, stiff ramrod of an Englishman."

Such was Vincenzo Valli's version of the case; and Clara Bertram, in listening to him, believed that, in the main, it was a true one. Valli had recently been in Brussels, where he had seen the Cheffingtons; and one or two other foreign musicians whom she knew had come upon them from time to time, and had given substantially the same account of them. As to persons in the rank of life to which Captain Cheffington still claimed to belong, they were no more likely to come across him now than if he were living on the top of the Andes.

May went into the house wearily. In the hall she met her uncle Frederick, who had just come in, and had seen the cab drive away.

"Who was that with you, May?" he asked, in some surprise.

"It was Miss Bertram," she answered. Then she asked her uncle to step for a moment into the dining-room. When he had done so, and closed the door, she said quietly, "My father is married to a foreign opera-singer; they are living in Brussels. Did you and Aunt Pauline know this?"

"Know it? Certainly not!"

May was relieved to hear this, and drew a long breath. The sensation of living in an atmosphere of deception had oppressed her almost with a feeling of physical suffocation. She then told her uncle all that Clara Bertram had said.

Mr. Dormer-Smith puckered his brows, and looked more disturbed than she had expected. "This will be another blow for your aunt," he said gloomily.

"I don't see why Aunt Pauline should distress herself," she answered coldly; "my father is not likely to trouble her. Married or unmarried, my father seems determined to keep aloof from us all." Then she went to her own room.

Mr. Dormer-Smith shrank from communicating this news to his wife, and as he went upstairs he antic.i.p.ated a disagreeable scene. He did not very greatly care about the matter himself, for he agreed with May that it was unlikely Augustus would trouble any of the family with his presence; and to keep away was all that he required of his brother-in-law. On entering his wife's room, he found her still in a morning wrapper, reclining on her long chair; but her hair had been dressed, and she announced her intention of coming down to dinner. Her countenance, too, wore an unexpected expression of placidity, almost cheerfulness. The country post had arrived, and there were several letters scattered on a little table by Mrs. Dormer-Smith's elbow.

Her husband went and placed himself with his back to the fire, which was burning with a pleasant glow in the grate. "Well," he said, in a sympathizing tone, to his wife, "how are you feeling now, Pauline?"

They had not met since his outburst about May, and he had been rather nervously uncertain of his reception. Pauline never sulked, never stormed, and rarely scolded. But when she felt herself to be injured, she would be overpoweringly plaintive. Her plaintiveness seemed to wrap you round, and damp you, and chill you to the bone, like a Scotch mist, and when used retributively was felt--by her husband, at all events--to be very terrible. But on this occasion, as has been said, there was a certain mild serenity in her face which was rea.s.suring.

"Thanks, Frederick," she answered. "There seems to be a _little_ less pressure on the brain. Smithson bathed my forehead for three-quarters of an hour after you were gone."