That Unfortunate Marriage Volume Iii Part 18

The gentleman turned his head sharply, and peered at her where she sat in the darkness of her corner-seat. He could not distinguish her face; for, before his entrance, she had drawn the movable shade half across the lamp in the roof of the carriage. Thinking he had not heard, or had not understood her, she repeated the question--

"What is the name of that last station, if you please?"

Upon which the gentleman, instead of making any such reply as might have been expected, exclaimed, "Lord bless my soul!" and leaving his place at the other extremity of the carriage, he came and seated himself opposite to her. "It _is_ Miss Cheffington!" he said, in a tone of the utmost wonder. And then May recognized Mr. Bragg.

"My dear young lady, how come you to be travelling alone--by this train?

Is anything the matter?"

His tone was so sincere and earnest, his face and manner so gentle and fatherly, that May at once felt she could trust him fully and fearlessly.

"I am so glad it's you, Mr. Bragg, and not a stranger!" she said, putting her hand out to take his.

"Thank you," said Mr. Bragg simply. "I'm glad it _is_ me, if I can be of any use to you." Then he asked again, "Is anything the matter?"

"N--no; nothing very serious. I have run away from Aunt Pauline----"

"Run away!"

"And I'm going to Granny. You won't feel it your duty to give me up as a fugitive from justice, will you?" she said, trying to smile, with very tremulous lips.

"Mrs. Dormer-Smith has never been treating you bad or cruel?" said Mr.

Bragg wonderingly. "No, no; she _couldn't_."

"No, truly, she could not be consciously cruel to me, or to any one; but she has ideas which--she tried to persuade me----We don't understand one another, that's the truth."

Mr. Bragg all at once remembered a certain private note despatched to his hotel in town by Mrs. Dormer-Smith, wherein she had a.s.sured him that May was an inexperienced child, who didn't know her own mind, and begged him not to take her too absolutely at her word. He had never replied to that note, having, indeed, nothing to say which it would be agreeable to his correspondent to hear. But he recalled other instances in which ladies of the highest gentility had hunted him (or, rather, not _him_--he had no illusions of vanity on that point--but his large fortune) with a ruthless unscrupulosity which had amazed him, and a gallant perseverance in the teeth of discouragement which almost extorted admiration. And the question stole into his mind, "Could Mrs.

Dormer-Smith have been persecuting May on _his_ account?" The idea was inexpressibly painful to him. But, anyway, he was relieved and thankful to find that the girl did not shrink from him, but was sweet and gracious as ever.

"Well, to be sure," he said in his slow, pondering way, "'tis a strange chance that we should meet just now, isn't it? For I've just come from your family place, you know."

"From where?"

"From the home of your ancestors, as Mr. Theodore Bransby calls it. You asked me the name of that station I got in at. Well, it's Combe St.

Mildred's, the station for Combe Park you know."

"Is it? Then we cannot be far from Oldchester."

"Not very far in miles; but this is an uncommon slow train--stops everywhere. Stops just now at Wendhurst Junction; the express runs through. I'm afraid you're very tired, Miss Cheffington." He could not see her at all distinctly, but her voice betrayed great weariness, he thought.

"Not very--yes, rather. It does not matter now; we shall soon be there."

"Yes," went on Mr. Bragg, "I've been attending the funeral."

"Oh yes. Poor Lucius! I had forgotten that it was for to-day," said May, with a self-reproachful feeling. "He was very kind to me, although, at first, he seemed so dry and eccentric. I think he liked me. I know I liked him."

"Yes; no doubt but what he liked you. _That_ can't be disputed. And it does him honour, in my opinion. I suppose I ought to congratulate you, Miss Cheffington--although congratulating may seem out of place with a c.r.a.pe band round your hat. And yet I don't know!"

"Congratulate me! Do you mean because my father is the heir? I think there is more sorrow in Lord Castlecombe's heart than there can be satisfaction in any one else's?" answered May. She was surprised at this manifestation of coa.r.s.eness of feeling in Mr. Bragg. It was the first she had ever observed in him.

"Your father? Lord bless me, no! Nothing to do with your father. I was alluding to your cousin's last will and testament. I was present when it was read, by Lord Castlecombe's desire, although having no particular claim that I know of. Still, when we came back from the old churchyard, his lordship invited me into the library, and the will was read out then by Wagget, the lawyer, poor Martin Bransby's successor."

"But what has all that to do with me?" asked May, sitting upright, and holding on by the elbows of the seat. As she did so, everything seemed to waver and swim before her eyes. The cushions on which she sat seemed to be sinking down through the earth. The long fast, her broken sleep on the previous night, the tears she had shed, and all the emotions of this journey, which to her was an adventure fraught with all kinds of anxieties, were telling upon her. But she made a desperate effort to listen--not to be ill, not to give trouble. The train was to stop shortly. She would hold up her courage until then. Had not the gloom caused by the lamp-shade baffled Mr. Bragg's observation, he would have been startled by her countenance.

As it was, he merely answered, "Well, because your cousin has left you all the little property he inherited from his mother. It isn't a great fortune--a matter of four hundred and fifty, or five hundred pound a year, as well as I can make out. But it's all in sound investments--mostly Government securities--and it's settled on you every penny of it."

But May, struggling against a sick sensation of faintness, was scarcely able to grasp the meaning of what was said to her. Her eyes grew dim; she half-rose up from her seat, made a vague movement with her hands, such as one makes in falling and clutching at whatever is nearest, and then sank down in a heap on the floor of the carriage, like a wounded bird. She was in a dead swoon, and her young face looked piteously white and wan under the crude glare of the gas, as the train moved slowly, with much resounding clangour, into the big station at Wendhurst Junction.

CHAPTER XI.

With that indescribably dreadful rushing, whirling sensation in the brain, which can never be forgotten by whoever has once experienced it, May Cheffington recovered out of her swoon, and her senses returned to her.

She was lying on a cushioned seat in the ladies' waiting-room at Wendhurst Junction. Her dress had been loosened, her own warm cloak had been spread over her as a coverlet, a woollen shawl was thrown across her feet, and an elderly woman was sprinkling water on her forehead. She opened her eyes, and then shut them again lazily. The glare of the gas made her blink, and the sense of rest was, for the moment, all she wanted.

"She'll do now," said the elderly woman, wiping May's wet forehead with a handkerchief. Then she went to the door of the room, and half opening it, said to some one outside, "Coming round beautiful, sir; she'll be all right now."

"Who's there?" asked May, in a little feeble, drowsy voice.

"Your pa, dear. He _has_ been in a taking about you. But I'm telling him you're as right as right can be. So you are, ain't you? There's a pretty!"

Every second that pa.s.sed was bringing more clearness to May's mind, more animation to her frame. By the time the elderly woman had finished speaking, May said--

"Oh, ask him to come in. Ask him, pray, to come here and speak to me!"

This message being transmitted, the door was opened, and in walked Mr.

Bragg, with a most disturbed and anxious countenance.

May was lying with her head supported on a pillow formed of a great coat hastily rolled up, which the attendant had covered with her own white ap.r.o.n. The pretty soft brown hair, dabbled here and there with water, was hanging in disorder. Her eyes looked very large and bright in her pale face. Mr. Bragg came and stood beside her, and looked at her with a sort of tender, pitying trepidation: as an amiable giant might contemplate Ariel with a broken wing: longing to help, but fearing to hurt, the delicate creature.

May put out her hand and took hold of Mr. Bragg's as innocently as little Enid might have done. "Oh, I am so sorry!" she said.

"Yes," returned Mr. Bragg, in a subdued voice. "And I'm so sorry, too.

But you are feeling better now, ain't you?"

"Oh, but I mean I am sorry for _you_. Sorry to frighten you and to give you so much trouble."

"Trouble! Well, I don't know about that. This good lady here has been taking what trouble there was to take. Not such a vast deal, was it, ma'am?"

The "good lady" who had begun to doubt the correctness of her a.s.sumption that these two were father and daughter, smoothed the shawl over May's feet, and murmured that they were not to mention it.

Mr. Bragg pulled out his watch impatiently.

"What! haven't they found anybody yet?" he said. "I sent off a man in a fly ten minutes ago."

The attendant observed apologetically that the first doctor they'd gone to might not have been at home, and then they'd have to go on a goodish bit further.