When Mr. Bragg was gone, May felt a cowardly temptation to run away to
her own room, and there recover her composure in solitude. But she
reflected that that would be scarcely fair to her aunt, who, no doubt,
was waiting with some impatience to hear the result of the interview. So
she dried her eyes, and resolutely ascended the stairs to her aunt's
room.
The gentle, refined voice which had once so charmed her (but which, as
she had long since learned, could utter sentiments singularly at
variance with its own sweetness) answered her tap at the door by saying,
"Is that dear May? Come in." May entered, and saw her aunt reclining in
a lounging chair by the fireside. A book lay open beside her; but she
evidently had not been reading recently. She looked up at May's flushed
face and tear-swollen eyes, and these traces of emotion seemed to her
satisfactory indications of what had passed. "He has spoken! It's all
right!" she said to herself. Then aloud, with a tender smile, holding
out both her hands, "Well, darling?"
The softness of her tone had a perversely hardening effect on May. If
her aunt had expected her to accept Mr. Bragg--and May was not dull
enough to doubt this, now that her eyes were illumined by that dawn of
clear-sightedness which had been so amazing to her--the least she could
do was to be quiet and common-sensible about it. Any assumption of
sentiment seemed to May to be sickening under the circumstances. So she
answered dryly--
"Mr. Bragg desired me to tell you that he will have the honour of
calling on you again before long."
"Is he gone?" asked Mrs. Dormer-Smith, with a momentary twinge of
anxiety.
"Yes; he is gone. He had an appointment in the City, and was rather
pressed for time; so he could not stay to take leave of you."
"Oh!" exclaimed her aunt, sinking back among her cushions with a smile,
"I forgive him." Then seeing May turn away as if to leave the room, she
suddenly sat up again, and said with an air of gentle reproach, "And
have you nothing to say to me, dear May?"
"Nothing particular, Aunt Pauline."
"Nothing particular! I do not think that is very kindly said, May."
May's conscience told her the same thing. She had yielded to a movement
of temper. The most sensitive chords in her own nature had been jarred,
and were still quivering. But that was no reason why she should be
unkind or uncivil to her aunt; she repented, and, with her usual
impulsive candour, said--
"I beg your pardon, Aunt Pauline. I ought not to have answered you so."
"You have been agitated, dear child. Come here, and sit down by me. Now
tell me, May--you surely will tell _me_--Mr. Bragg has proposed to you,
has he not?"
"No, Aunt Pauline."
"_What?_"
Mrs. Dormer-Smith would have been shocked if she could have seen her own
face in the glass at that moment. The vulgarest market-woman's
countenance could not have expressed surprise and consternation more
unrestrainedly.
"I think he, perhaps, would have asked me to marry him: but I stopped
him."
"You stopped him?" echoed her aunt, with clasped hands. But a little
gleam of hope revived her. The matter had been mismanaged in some way.
May was so deplorably devoid of tact! All might yet be well. "And why,
for pity's sake, May, did you stop him?"
"Because, as I could not accept him, Aunt Pauline, I wished to spare him
as much as possible."
"Could not accept him! Good heavens, May, this is frightful! Have you
lost your senses? Do you know who and what Mr. Bragg is?"
"He is a good, honest man; and I esteem him and like him."
"And is not that enough? Do you know that there are girls of--I won't
say better family, but--higher rank than yours, who would give their
ears to be----But it can't be! You are a foolish, inexperienced child,
who don't understand your own good fortune. You cannot be allowed to
throw away this splendid opportunity. I will write to Mr. Bragg myself,
and----"
"Stay, Aunt Pauline. Please to understand that I will never, under any
circumstances, dream of marrying Mr. Bragg. He is quite persuaded of
this. He and I understand each other very well, and we mean to continue
good friends; but pray do not lower your own dignity by writing to him
on this subject!"
Mrs. Dormer-Smith burst into tears. "Go away, you ungrateful child," she
said, from behind her pocket-handkerchief. "I could not have believed
you would have behaved in this manner after all I have done for you!"
May would have been more distressed than she was had the spectacle of
her aunt's tears been rarer. But she had seen Mrs. Dormer-Smith weep
from, what seemed to her, very inadequate motives:--even once at the
misfit of a new gown. Nevertheless, she tried to soothe her aunt.
"Please don't cry, Aunt Pauline. I can't bear you to think me
ungrateful. But, after all, what have I done? I dare say--I am sure,
indeed, that you are only anxious for my welfare. And what sort of a
life could I expect if I married a man I could not love?"
"I beg you will not talk such nursery-maid's nonsense to me,
May," returned her aunt, sprinkling some rose-water on her
pocket-handkerchief, and dabbing her wet cheeks with it. "Could not
love, indeed! Why could you not love him? Do you expect to rant through
a _grande passion_ like a heroine on the stage? I am shocked at you,
May! Girls in your position owe a duty to society."
May knew that her aunt was unanswerable when she broached these
mysterious dogmas about "society"--unanswerable, at all events, by her.
She could as soon have attempted a theological argument with a devotee
of Mumbo Jumbo. So she held her peace, and stood still, anxious to
escape, and yet fearful of seeming to be unfeeling by going away at that
moment. One idea at length suggested itself to her as a possible
consolation for her aunt, and she proceeded to offer it with
unreflecting rashness.
"But, Aunt Pauline," she said, "after all, you know, Mr. Bragg is a very
low-born man. He was once a common artisan in Oldchester. And you
remember you even thought Theodore Bransby presumptuous----"
The immediate reply to this well-meant suggestion was a fresh burst of
tears. "You are too insupportable, May. One might suppose you to be an
idiot! What has been the use of all my care, and my endeavours to make
you look at things as a girl of your condition ought to look at them?
Mr. Bragg could have placed you in a brilliant position. Now, I dare
say, he will marry Felicia Hautenville. I have no doubt he will, and it
will serve you right if he does. You think of no one but yourself. What
do you suppose that worthy woman, Mrs. Dobbs, will say when she hears of
your behaviour? After all the money she has spent on sending you to
London!"
May turned round suddenly. "What do you say, Aunt Pauline?" she asked,
almost breathlessly. "Granny has spent money to send me to London?"
Mrs. Dormer-Smith caught at a forlorn hope. Might it not be possible,
even now, to influence May through her affection for her grandmother?
"Of course, May," she replied, with an injured air. "Where do you
suppose the money came from? Your uncle and I, as you must be well
aware, find it difficult enough to keep up our position in society, with
Cyril to place in the world, and those two little boys to provide for!"
"But papa!" gasped May. "I thought my father was paying----"
"You chose to assume it. I never told you so. Mrs. Dobbs particularly
wished us to keep the arrangement secret, and we did so. I appreciate
her wisdom _now_ in keeping it secret from you, May; for your conduct
to-day shows you to be destitute of the most ordinary tact and
prudence."
"And Granny--dear old Granny--has been depriving herself of money to
keep me in town!" exclaimed the girl, still entirely possessed with this
new revelation.
Mrs. Dormer-Smith gallantly tried to improve her opportunity. She raised
herself into an upright posture in her chair, and said solemnly, "Yes,
May; and a nice return you make for it! The good old creature, no doubt,
has been pinching herself for years on your account. She has paid for
your schooling, your dress, and everything; she even contrives, I dare
say, by enduring some privations" (Mrs. Dormer-Smith did not in the
least suppose this to be the case, but she felt it was a rhetorical
"point," and likely to affect her niece), "she even contrives to give
you a season in town, with charming toilettes from Amelie, and a
presentation dress that a duke's daughter might have worn, and
everything which a right-minded girl ought to appreciate--and this is
her reward! You refuse one of the finest matches in England! I cannot
believe you will persist in such _wicked_ perversity, May," continued
Pauline, rising to new heights of moral elevation. "No, I cannot believe
you will be so ungrateful to that good old soul, and, indeed, I may say,
to Providence! Really, there is something almost impious in it. Mrs.
Dobbs does all she can to counteract the results of your father's
unfortunate marriage--we _all_ do all we can; circumstances are so
ordered by a Superior Power as to give you the chance of catching--of
attracting the regard of a man of princely fortune--_you_, rather than a
dozen other girls whose people have been looking after him for the last
three seasons, and all this you reject! Toss it away, like a baby with a
toy! No, May; you _are_ a Cheffington--you _are_ my poor unfortunate
brother's own flesh and blood, and I will not believe it of you." Then,
sinking back in her chair, she added in a faint voice, "Go away now, if
you please, and send Smithson to me. I shall have to speak to your uncle
when he comes in, and I really dread it. He will be so shocked--so
astonished! As for me, I am utterly _hors de combat_ for the day, of
course."
May willingly escaped to her own room, and locked herself in. Her
thoughts were in a strange tumult, busied chiefly with this news about
Mrs. Dobbs. Why had she not guessed it before? Was there any one in the
world like that staunch, generous, unselfish woman? This explained her
giving up her old, comfortable home in Friar's Row. This explained a
hundred other circumstances. May thought, between laughing and crying,
of Jo Weatherhead's eccentric eulogy on her grandmother as compared with
classical heroines, and she longed to tell him that he was right. The
full tide of love and sympathy and gratitude towards "Granny" rose in
her breast above all other emotions, and, for the moment, even Mr.
Bragg's wonderful proposals, and her aunt's still more wonderful
reception of them, were forgotten. It even overflowed and temporarily
obliterated impressions and feelings far keener than any which poor Mr.
Bragg had power to awake in her heart.
What a fool's paradise had she been living in! And what a mistaken image
of her father she had been cherishing all this time! He had contributed
nothing to her support; he had coolly left the whole care of her to
others; he had been thoroughly selfish and indifferent. Every one seemed
selfish but Granny! One thing she hastily resolved on: not to remain
another week in London at her grandmother's expense.
When Mr. Dormer-Smith came home, and was duly informed by his wife of
May's incredible conduct, his dismay was nearly as great as Pauline's.
Perhaps his surprise was even greater; for he had accepted his wife's
assurances that May was quite prepared to give Mr. Bragg a favourable
answer. He could not bring himself to regard May's behaviour with such
lofty moral reprobation as his wife did, but he certainly thought the
girl had acted foolishly, and even blameably.
Mr. Dormer-Smith was extremely anxious not to offend or disgust Mr.
Bragg. To have a man of that wealth in the family might be the making of
all their fortunes. Already Mr. Bragg's advice and assistance had
profited him. He and his wife had even privately reckoned on Mr. Bragg's
doing something handsome (in a testamentary way) for their younger
children. May was very fond of her cousins, and what would a few
thousands be to Mr. Bragg? Now the unexpected news which met him broke
up all these glittering hopes, as a thaw melts the frost-diamonds.
"You must speak with her, Frederick. I have said all I can, and I really
am not equal to another scene," said Pauline.
She had subsided into an attitude of calm despondency, and seemed to be
supported chiefly by the sense of her own unappreciated merits. She did
not mention that she had already written a private and confidential
letter to Mr. Bragg, and despatched it by special messenger to the hotel
where he usually stayed when in London.
Mr. Bragg had no town house, and the choosing and furnishing of a
suitable mansion for him and his bride had been one of the rewards of
virtue which Mrs. Dormer-Smith had, for some time past, been
anticipating for herself. May was so young and inexperienced, and Mr.
Bragg--dear, good, rich man!--had so little knowledge of the fashionable
world, that Pauline confidently expected to be for some years to come
the presiding genius of the elegant entertainments to which they would
invite only the very best society. For--giving the rein to her
fancy--Pauline had resolved that Mr. and Mrs. Bragg were to be extremely
exclusive. A well-born girl who, without fortune or title, had succeeded
in marrying a millionnaire, might surely--if there were any poetical
justice at all in the world--indulge herself in the refined pleasure of
social selection, and quietly decline to receive those doubtful
"Borderers" who made society, as Mrs. Griffin often complained, so sadly
mixed!
All this was not to be relinquished without a struggle. Mrs.
Dormer-Smith would do her duty to the last. Duty had commanded her to
make an immediate appeal to Mr. Bragg not to take May's answer as final;
but duty did not, she considered, require her to tell her husband
anything about it until she saw how it turned out.
"You _must_ see her, Frederick," repeated Mrs. Dormer-Smith. And
Frederick accordingly sent for May to come and speak with him.
He awaited her in the drawing-room; and when May entered the room her
eye fell on the easy-chair which Mr. Bragg had placed for her, standing
out just where she had left it. The whole scene came back to her mind as
vividly as if she saw it in a picture before her bodily eyes; and the
colour rose to her forehead.
Her uncle went to her, and took her hand kindly. "Well, May," said he,
"what is all this I hear?" He was leading her towards the armchair; but
May avoided it, and took another seat, and Mr. Dormer-Smith dropped into
the armchair opposite to her, himself.
In considering what could have been the motives which had induced her to
reject Mr. Bragg, he had prepared himself to listen to some--perhaps
foolishly--romantic talk on May's part. Mr. Bragg certainly could not,
by any stretch of friendship, be considered romantic. But Uncle
Frederick would try to show his niece how much sounder and solider a
foundation for domestic happiness Mr. Bragg was able to offer her than
any amount of the qualities which go to make up a young lady's hero of
romance.
What he was not at all prepared for was May's saying earnestly, as she
leant forward with clasped hands, "Oh, Uncle Frederick what is all this
_I_ hear? My dear, good grandmother has been impoverishing herself to
pay for keeping me in London! Why did you not tell me the truth? Nothing
should have induced me to accept such a sacrifice!"
Mr. Dormer-Smith was not a ready or flexible man by nature; and it took
him a minute or so to alter the sight, so to speak, of the big gun he
had been getting into position to mow down May's resistance against
making a splendid marriage.
"Why--eh? Oh, Mrs. Dobbs's allowance! Oh yes. Well, my dear, you have
pretty well answered your own question. If you had known, you would not
have consented to come to town, and take your proper place in society.
Your aunt considered it most important that you should do so. And I'm
sure, May, you must allow that she has done her very best for you in
every way."
"_Her_ very best!" thought May; "yes, perhaps!" Then she said aloud,
"Aunt Pauline has been very kind to me. But how could there be any
'proper place' for me in society, unless I could honestly afford to take
it? To get it by imposing privations on my grandmother, who is not
bound, except by her own abundant goodness, to do anything for me at
all--this surely could not be right or just, could it?"
Mr. Dormer-Smith was not prepared with a cogent answer on the spur of
the moment. So he fell back on murmuring some faint echoes of his wife's
maxims about "duty to society." But he had not Pauline's sincere
convictions on the subject, and did it but feebly.
"And, oh, Uncle Frederick," proceeded May; "what a mean impostor I have
been all this time!"
"Impostor, my dear? No, no; that's nonsense, you know."
He was rather relieved to find May talking nonsense. That seemed much
more normal and natural in a girl of her age than being so deuced
logical and high-strung, and that sort of thing.
"That," he repeated firmly, "is really nonsense."
"But, Uncle Frederick, I was appearing before everybody under false
pretences. People thought--I thought myself--that my father supplied all
my expenses."
Mr. Dormer-Smith pursed up his mouth and puffed out his breath with a
little contemptuous sound. Then he answered--
"Your father! My dear May, your father hasn't paid a penny piece for you
since you were seven years old."
May was silent for a minute or so. She could not help some bitter
thoughts of her father, but it was not for her to utter them. At length
she said--
"I cannot go on accepting my grandmother's sacrifice, Uncle Frederick. I
will not."
It occurred to Mr. Dormer-Smith, as it had occurred to his wife, that
May's affection for Mrs. Dobbs might supply the fulcrum they wanted for
their lever. He answered--
"Well, my dear, I don't blame your feeling, though it is a little
overstrained, perhaps. But you have it in your own power to more than
pay back all Mrs. Dobbs has done for you."
"How?" asked May innocently.
"Why, I am sure Mr. Bragg would be only too delighted----"
"Oh, Mr. Bragg! I was not thinking of Mr. Bragg, and I would rather not
talk of him just now."
This was a little too much. Mr. Dormer-Smith's face assumed a very
serious, not to say severe, expression as he looked at his niece and
said--
"Excuse me, May, but you must think of him, and talk of him also. That
was the subject I sent for you to speak about. I don't know how we have
drifted away from it. Your aunt tells me that you have not actually
refused Mr. Bragg, but merely stopped him from proposing to you. Now, if
that is the case, the matter is not past mending. No doubt Mr. Bragg may
feel a little offended."
"He is not in the least offended," interposed May.
"Ah! Well, so much the better. But you can hardly expect me to believe
that he particularly enjoyed the interview! Mr. Bragg is a person of a
great deal of importance in the world, and not accustomed to be treated
as if he were of no consequence. However," proceeded Mr. Dormer-Smith,
relaxing into a milder tone, "I dare say he can make allowances for a
young lady taken by surprise--it seems you did not expect his proposal?"
"Expect it! How on earth could I have expected it?"
"Some girls would. However, let us stick to the point. I don't think it
is too late for you to make everything well again."
"Uncle Frederick, I am bound to assure you most positively that I can
never marry Mr. Bragg."
"Now, don't be obstinate, May. What is your objection to him?"
The girl hesitated. Then she replied, looking up with pleading eyes,
"How can I say, Uncle Frederick? One does not marry a man simply because
one has no particular objection to him. Mr. Bragg is old enough to be my
grandfather!"
"No; scarcely that. Look here, May, I have a great affection for you.
You have been very good and kind to my little boys, and they doat on
you. I am not ungrateful for all you have done for the children,
although I may not have said much about it."
May was melted in an instant by these words of kindness, and said
warmly, "And _I_ am not ungrateful, Uncle Frederick. I know you mean
well by me, and Aunt Pauline, too."
"Certainly we do. Naturally so! Well now, just listen to me, my dear. If
you were my own daughter I should give you just the same advice. I
should be very glad and thankful for a daughter of mine to marry Mr.
Bragg. I know a great deal more of the world than you do--or ever will,
please God!--for it isn't a very pleasant kind of knowledge--and I tell
you honestly, there are very few men, young or old, in the society we
frequent, whom I'd choose for your husband rather than Mr. Bragg. He is
a little uneducated, and unpolished, of course. We needn't pretend not
to know that. But he is a man of sound heart and sound principles--a man
whose private life will bear looking into. I'm talking to you as if I
really were your father, May; and I do assure you that I would not urge
you to marry a man twice as rich as he is, if I knew him to be--to be
what some men are, and what you in your innocence have no idea of. I
want you to believe that, May."
"I do believe it, Uncle Frederick," sobbed May, taking his hand, and
kissing it.
"There, there, my dear, don't cry! I couldn't talk in this way to many
girls of your age; but you have so much sense and right feeling! I
wanted you to understand that I'm not an altogether hard, worldly kind
of man, ready to offer you up to Mammon--eh? Look here, May; I would
stand by you against--against every one, if I thought you were going to
be sacrificed. But you must trust a little to the experience of those
older than yourself, my dear. Come, come, there now, don't distress
yourself! You are not to be pressed and hurried, you know. You will
think it all over quietly. Go to your own room and lie down a while. I
will take care that you are not disturbed or worried in any way."
He led her gently to the door. She was now sobbing uncontrollably. She
longed to tell her uncle the truth about her engagement, but she thought
that loyalty to Owen and to her grandmother forbade her to speak out
fully without their leave. As she was quitting the room, she turned
round, and, making a strong effort to speak firmly, said--
"Uncle Frederick, I shall never, as long as I live, forget the kind
words you have said to me. And, whatever happens, don't believe I am
ungrateful."
"Well, Frederick?" said Mrs. Dormer-Smith, when her husband re-appeared
in her room.
Frederick walked to the window, took out his pocket-handkerchief, and
answered from behind it, rather huskily--
"Well, I don't know. I almost hope it may come right."
"Do you? Do you really? Well, that is a feeble ray of comfort. But it is
rather too bad to have to undergo all this wear and tear of feeling, in
order to secure that perverse child's fortune in spite of herself!"
There was a long pause, during which Mr. Dormer-Smith continued to look
out of the window, and to blow his nose in a furtive kind of way. "I
wonder----" he began slowly, and then stopped himself.
"You wonder--Frederick? Pray speak out! I assure you I am not able to
stand much more suspense and anxiety."
"I was merely going to say, I wonder if there can be any one else."
"Any one else?"
"Any man she cares for."
"Good Heavens, Frederick, who should there be? Really, you are not very
considerate to startle me with such extraordinary suppositions without
the least preparation. There is no one, of course."
"You are sure?"
"I am sure there is no one _possible_. I know, of course, every man she
has danced with, or who has paid her the smallest attention, and there
is not one who could be thought of for a moment, even if Mr. Bragg did
not exist. I should not hesitate to speak very strongly if I suspected
her of any culpable folly of that kind. A girl without a farthing in the
world! And her father, my poor unfortunate brother Augustus, in Heaven
knows what dreadful position! That May, under all the circumstances, can
behave in this way, is too intolerable. The more one thinks of it the
more flagrant it seems. No sense of duty! No consideration for her
family! I shall be compelled to say to her----"
Suddenly, in the midst of these fluent, softly uttered sentences, Mr.
Dormer-Smith turned round, wiped his eyes, blew his nose defiantly, and
said, with an explosion of feeling--
"The girl's a fine creature, and, by God, I won't have her baited!"