That Unfortunate Marriage Volume Iii Part 25

On the wedding morning a letter arrived for Mrs. Dobbs from Mr. Bragg.

Mr. Bragg was about to sail for Buenos Ayres on a twelve-months' visit to his son. Before going away, he thought it would be agreeable to May and her husband, he wrote, to be the means of communicating something to Mrs. Bransby, which he hoped would be to her advantage. The new premises which he had taken for his office, now removed from Friars' Row, were to be furnished throughout, and a couple of rooms reserved for Mr. Bragg's use whenever he wished to come into Oldchester from his country house.

Under these circ.u.mstances, a resident housekeeper would be required to look after the place and govern the servants. Mr. Bragg hoped that Mrs.

Bransby would do him the favour to accept this post, and that she would find herself more comfortable among her old friends in Oldchester, than in the wilderness of London. Moreover, he enclosed a cheque for a handsome sum of money, as to the disposal of which he thus wrote:--

"The cheque I would ask Mr. Rivers to apply to paying young Martin Bransby's school fees for the ensuing year. And any little matter that may be over can be used for the boy's books, and so on. He is a fine boy, I think, and worth helping. Learning is a great thing. I never had it myself, but I don't undervalue it for that. I have thought that this would perhaps be the best way I could find of what you might call testifying my appreciation of Mr. Rivers's services to me. I hope he will accept it as a wedding present."

To May he sent no gift.

"I could offer her nothing but dross," he wrote, "and I don't want her thoughts of me to be mixed up with gold and diamonds, and such poor things as are oftentimes the best a rich man has to give. Some young ladies would be disappointed at this. I don't believe she will. When she's dressed and ready to go to church, just you please kiss her forehead with a blessing in your mind, and--you needn't say anything to her, but just say to yourself, 'this is from Joshua Bragg.'"

Of the wedding, it may be said that, although it was no doubt in many respects like other weddings, yet in several it was peculiar. And its peculiarities were in such flagrant violation of the regulations of society, that it was almost providential Mrs. Dormer-Smith escaped witnessing it.

In the first place, although Uncle Frederick was present, a welcome and an honoured guest, May insisted that Mr. Weatherhead should give her away. And, perhaps, nothing she had ever done in her life had caused Granny more heartfelt satisfaction. As to "Uncle Jo," the honour nearly overpowered him. His appearance in wedding garments, with an enormous white waistcoat, and a bright rose-coloured tie, was an abiding joy to all the little boys of the neighbourhood who were lucky enough to behold him.

Then the Miss Pipers fluttered into the church in such extremely bridal attire, with long white veils attached to their bonnets, as utterly to eclipse May, in her quiet travelling dress. May, however, wore two ornaments of considerable value: a pearl bracelet and brooch, which had arrived the previous evening. Inside each morocco case had been found a slip of paper bearing respectively the inscriptions:--"To Miranda Cheffington, with the good wishes of her great-uncle;" and "To dear May, with the love of her affectionate friend, Constance Castlecombe."

Lastly, Amelia Simpson was so florid in her raiment, and so exuberant in her delight, as to be the observed of all observers. In her excitement, she backed heavily upon people behind her, and trod upon the gowns of people before her; knelt down at the wrong moment, and then, discovering her mistake, jumped up again at the very instant when the rest of the congregation were sinking on to their knees; dropped her metal-clasped prayer-book with a crash in a solemn pause of silence; lost her pocket-handkerchief, and, in her near-sightedness and confusion, seized on Miss Polly Piper's long white veil to wipe her tear-dimmed spectacles; and was, altogether, a severe trial to the nerves of the officiating clergyman.

Many other friends were there. Major Mitton, with his amiable face, and erect, soldierly figure; Dr. Hatch, who said he doubted whether he could s.n.a.t.c.h a moment to witness the ceremony, but who remained to the very last, to wish the young couple G.o.d speed! when they drove away from the door of the church on their honeymoon trip. Even Sebastian Bach Simpson was in a softened mood. The entire absence of pretension about the whole affair conciliated his good will; and he played Mendelssohns' "Wedding March" as a voluntary, when the bride and bridegroom walked down the church arm-in-arm, with unusual spirit and heartiness. And so May and Owen began their voyage of life together, followed by many good wishes, and by less of envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness, than perhaps fall to the lot of most mortals.

Marriage, which is the end of most story-books, is but the beginning of many stories; but this chronicle cannot follow the personages who have figured in it much beyond that fateful chapter of the wedding-day.

One or two facts may, however, be told, and a few outlines sketched in, to indicate the course of future events on a more or less distant horizon.

For a long time Pauline clung, with the soft pertinacity which was part of her character, to the hope that "poor dear Augustus" might yet inherit the Castlecombe acres, and resume his place in society. Uncle George could not live for ever! But one fine day the bells of Combe St.

Mildred's rang a merry peal, and the news spread like wildfire through the village that an heir was born in a foreign city called Naples; and that my lord and my lady--who was doing extremely well--and the all-important baby were coming home to Combe Park as soon as ever my lady was strong enough to travel.

Then, indeed, Pauline felt that Providence had decided against her brother, and that her own duty to society lay plain and clear before her.

During the following year or two she suffered considerable persecution in the shape of appeals for money from Augustus. The first were in a haughty strain, but before long they sank into the whine of the regular begging-letter writer. She gave him what she could, for to the last she had a soft place in her heart for her brother. But her husband, finding the case hopeless, forbade her to give any more, and, as far as he could, prevented Augustus's letters from reaching her.

Captain Cheffington then brought his wife to London. He had little fear of his creditors, having by this time sunk so low as not to be worth powder and shot. He got his wife engaged, under her real name, at a music-hall of the third cla.s.s, and caused paragraphs to be inserted in sundry sporting and theatrical prints to the effect that "the Mrs.

Augustus Cheffington, whose Italian bravura-singing was so successful a feature in the nightly entertainment," etc., etc., was the niece by marriage of a peer of the realm--Viscount Castlecombe of Combe Park; and he furnished his relations liberally with copies of these papers.

Probably he had some hope that they would buy him off to save the honour of the family, but in this he was totally at fault. The old lord who, in the joy of his little son's birth seemed to have taken a new lease of life, merely chuckled at "Gus's making such a confounded a.s.s of himself," and cared not a snap of the fingers for anything he could say or do.

Owen Rivers privately supplied his father-in-law with all the necessaries, and some of the comforts, of life, on condition that he was never to annoy May by making any kind of appeal to her; on the first infringement of this condition the supplies would be withdrawn. And in order to secure its not being all lost at the gaming-table, Owen paid the money into the hands of La Bianca, who, according to her lights, was by no means a bad wife, and was certainly a much better one than her selfish and graceless husband deserved.

Mrs. Bransby gratefully accepted the position offered to her, and fulfilled its duties entirely to Mr. Bragg's satisfaction. Indeed, when the latter returned from Buenos Ayres, he took the habit of spending a good deal of time in the apartment reserved for him over the office. The house--one of the roomy, old-fashioned mansions in Friar's Row--contained ample accommodation for Mrs. Bransby's family. Miss Enid completed, and maintained, her conquest of Mr. Bragg; and some persons thought that it was this young lady's personal attractions which caused him to spend so much of his time in Friar's Row; but other observers thought differently. And, indeed, quite latterly, Mrs. Dormer-Smith has had her ill-opinion of Mrs. Bransby strengthened by certain rumours touching the likelihood of that lady's promotion to a higher position in Mr. Bragg's household than that of paid housekeeper.

"If _that_ should ever come off," says Mrs. Dormer-Smith, "I suppose poor dear foolish May's eyes will be opened at last; and she may repent when it is too late having thrown away her magnificent opportunity, to be picked up by that _designing_ woman."

When these mysterious forecasts are imparted to Lady Castlecombe, she only smiles faintly, and says in her quiet, well-bred way, "Well, but why not?" My lady has her own views on the subject--views in which the discomfiture and mortification of Theodore Bransby form a conspicuous and pleasing feature. But hitherto nothing has happened to justify the previsions of either lady on this score.

Theodore is not often seen in Oldchester now. The place is full of disagreeable a.s.sociations for him. His political candidature was a failure: the Castlecombe influence on his behalf having been suddenly withdrawn after his lordship's marriage--greatly to the perplexity of his lordship's agent!

Nevertheless, Mr. Theodore Bransby by no means despairs of being able to write M.P. after his name at some future time. But if he ever does enter Parliament, it will probably be on what our Continental neighbours term "the extreme Left of the Chamber." For Theodore's political opinions have undergone a great revulsion, and he is now loftily contemptuous of the territorial aristocracy. In fact, he has been heard to support advanced theories of an almost Communistic complexion--stopping short, however, at the confiscation of other people's property, and maintaining the inviolability of Government Stock, of which he is a large holder.

This sort of theory he finds to be quite compatible with the pursuit of fashionable society.

Although surrounded by every luxury which can minister to his personal comfort, he is not at all extravagant, and, indeed, saves more than half his annual income. This he does, not from positive avarice, but because he feels ever more and more strongly that money is power. Moreover, it will be well to have a handsome sum in hand whenever he marries: for he is still firmly minded to find a wife who will devote herself to taking care of him. Quite recently a paragraph has appeared in the Oldchester newspaper announcing the probability of a marriage between "our distinguished townsman, Mr. Theodore Bransby, whose career at the Bar is being watched with pride and pleasure in his native city, and the Lady Euphemia Haggistown, daughter of the Earl of Cauldkail, etc., etc., etc."

Lady Euphemia is a faded, timid, gentlewoman of some five or six-and-thirty years of age, with neither money nor beauty. She is sometimes haunted by the ghost of a romantic attachment to a penniless young navy officer lost at sea hard upon twenty years ago. But she has a soft, submissive desire to win the kindly regard of the remarkably stiff and cold young gentleman whom her father has decided she is to marry whenever he shall see fit to ask her. But poor Lady Effie does not succeed in softening the implacable correctness of her suitor's demeanour into anything very humanly sympathetic. Theodore is quite certain to make the most of his wife's t.i.tle and social standing in dealing with the world in general, but it is to be feared that he may think fit to balance matters by tyrannizing over her in private with some rigour.

Mrs. Dormer-Smith often moralizes her family history, entangling herself in many metaphysical knots in the course of her cogitations as to what would have happened if something else had happened which never did happen!

Of course, if poor dear Augustus had not thrown himself away on Susan Dobbs things would have been very different. But even in spite of that, much might have been retrieved had he not made a second and still more shocking _mesalliance_ with a strolling Italian singer; because, probably, if Augustus had come home after the death of his cousin Lucius in a proper spirit, and under not discreditable circ.u.mstances, and had conducted himself so as to conciliate his uncle, the old man would never have thought of marrying again. Constance Hadlow would never have become Viscountess Castlecombe, and no heir would have appeared to thrust Augustus from his inheritance.

There was an ever-recurring difficulty in fixing the exact point at which "poor dear Augustus's misfortunes" had become irretrievable. So that, although Pauline was on perfectly civil terms with the Castlecombes, and although Frederick was asked down to Combe Park for the shooting every season, and although my lady was happy to receive the Dormer-Smiths (with the least little indefinable touch of condescension) whenever she was at her house in town; yet, in her confidential moments, Pauline's intimate friends were never quite sure to which of the three momentous alliances she was alluding, when she talked plaintively of "That Unfortunate Marriage."

THE END.