Read Ebook: That Unfortunate Marriage Vol. 1 by Trollope Frances Eleanor

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Ebook has 848 lines and 57273 words, and 17 pages

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

"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 brass! 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 circumstances 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."

"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."

"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."

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."

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, Bassy?"

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!"

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.

"And how are you, dear Mrs. Dobbs?" asked Mrs. Simpson, taking her hostess's hand between both her own. "And dear May--where's May?"

"May has been away from home on a visit since yesterday morning. She won't come back before Monday."

"And may one ask where she is? It is not, I presume, a Mystery of Udolpho!"

"She is at the Hadlows'."

An earnest whist player would have been outraged by the performances of the four persons who met weekly in Mrs. Dobbs's parlour. They chatted, they misdealt, they even revoked sometimes; and they overlooked each other's misdemeanours with unscrupulous laxity. In a word, they regarded the noble game of whist merely as a means and not as an end, and were scandalously bent on amusing themselves regardless of Hoyle. The only one of the party who had any pretensions to play tolerably was Mr. Weatherhead. But even his attention was always to be diverted from his cards by a new piece of gossip. And perhaps, it was as well that he did not take the game too much to heart--especially on the present occasion; for the fair Amelia fell to his lot as a partner, and her performances with the cards were calculated to drive a zealous player into a nervous fever.

The first hand or two proceeded in decorous silence. But by degrees the players began to talk, throwing out first detached sentences, and at last boldly entering into general conversation.

"A nice business at Sheffield with those Trades Unions," said Mr. Weatherhead. "Some severe measures ought to be taken; but they won't be. That's what your precious Liberalism comes to!--Your lead, Simpson."

"Nonsense about Liberalism, Jo Weatherhead," replied Mrs. Dobbs. "I believe you'd like to accuse the Liberals of the bad weather. There!--Did you ever see such a hand? One trump! and that fell. Mrs. Simpson playing out her knave misled me."

"What Bransby is that?" asked Mr. Weatherhead, thrusting his head forward inquiringly.

"Cadell and Bransby, Solicitors to the Dean and Chapter."

"Oh-o! He has been ill, then?"

"Very ill. But I hear he was pronounced out of danger on Wednesday."

"Is it not good news?" cried Mrs. Simpson. "Such a misfortune for his young family! I mean if he had died, you know."

"But I suppose he's a warm man, isn't he? Cadell and Bransby--it's a fine business, isn't it?" asked Mr. Weatherhead.

"It had need be," rejoined the organist, "to maintain that tribe of boys and girls, and an extravagant young wife into the bargain."

This ingenuous speech might have called forth some remonstrance from Mrs. Simpson's partner, but that the latter was too much interested in the subject of the Bransbys to attend to it.

"The eldest son is provided for by his mother's fortune, isn't he?" he inquired.

"Well--'provided for;' I don't know that it is very much. But it was all tightly settled. Otherwise Bransby's second marriage would have been a greater misfortune for the young man than it is," replied the organist.

"I don't see that it is any misfortune at all," observed Mrs. Dobbs. "Theodore Bransby is quite well enough off for a young fellow. And why shouldn't his father marry again if he liked it?"

"Is Theodore Bransby in Oldchester now?" asked Mrs. Dobbs, sorting her cards.

"Oh yes," replied Mr. Simpson. "I wonder you didn't know, for he is a great deal at Canon Hadlow's. They say he's making up to Miss Hadlow."

"I should think young Rivers had better dangle after an employment that will give him bread and cheese. Miss Constance Hadlow won't have a penny."

"Oh, Bassy, but where there's real affection mercenary considerations must give way. True love--true love is above all!" As she uttered these words with great fervour, Mrs. Simpson flourished her arm enthusiastically, and in so doing swept off the table several coins which had served as counters to register her opponent's score. The silver discs rolled swiftly away into various inaccessible corners of the room, with the perversity usually observed in such cases. Fortunately the game had just come to an end, and Martha had announced that the supper was ready. This circumstance, and the fact that her husband was a winner, spared Mrs. Simpson a sharp reprimand.

When the supper was set on the table, three of the party, at least, were in high good humour, and disposed to enjoy it. Mr. Simpson had won, and was content. Mr. Weatherhead paid his losses without a murmur, conscious, no doubt, that they were due as much to his own wandering attention as to his partner's aberrations. As for Mrs. Simpson, the sweetness of her disposition was proof against far more souring circumstances than having spoiled Jo Weatherhead's game. She was not the least out of humour with him. Mrs. Dobbs alone was a little more silent and a little less genial than usual. The talk that evening with her old friend had awakened painful thoughts of the past and anxieties for the future. She very rarely mentioned her son-in-law's name, even to Mr. Weatherhead, who was thoroughly in her confidence; and, whenever she did speak of him, the result was invariably to irritate and depress her. However, her hospitable instincts roused her to shake off her cares in some degree, and to make her friends welcome to the fare set before them.

"Well, I'm sure it will be very gratifying to Mrs. Dormer-Smith when she hears that dear May has been invited to the Hadlows'."

"H'm! I don't think Mrs. Dormer-Smith will lose her wits with joy," answered Mrs. Dobbs drily.

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