THE ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE “TIMES.”
CAPTAIN BRADSHAW had not at first received the news which Frank,
on his return from his second visit to Staffordshire, had given
him of his engagement, with equanimity. Although he had outwardly
resigned himself to the failure of his favourite plan, he had never
quite given up hope that some day or other matters might come right.
Frank's engagement put an end to all this, and he could hardly
conceal his disappointment. Frank had, however, anticipated something
of this, and passed over the scarcely veiled ill-humour with which
his uncle had greeted the announcement that he was engaged to a young
lady down in Staffordshire. Frank had turned to Alice, secure that
there at least he should find a sympathising listener; and although
Alice had spoken but little at first, she presently became as
interested as Frank could have wished, and asked very many questions
as to her future cousin.
“And what may Miss O'Byrne's fortune be, Frank?” Captain Bradshaw
asked, rather grimly.
“‘Her face is her fortune, sir, she said,’” Frank laughed.
“I thought so,” Captain Bradshaw said. “That is just like you,
Frank—I could have sworn it. The present generation are going to the
deuce, I think. I married well, so did my father, and my grandfather,
and so on as far back as history tells us anything about it. Here
you are—a good-looking fellow, with every advantage—marrying a
young lady, of whom I will accept your description as to her personal
advantages, but altogether, as I understand you, without fortune.”
“It's very sad, uncle,” Frank said with comic humility, “but you see
we can't get all our wants. If Katie had been worth ten thousand a
year, perhaps she would have been married a year ago.”
“I don't think money has much to do with happiness,” Alice said.
“Pooh, nonsense, stuff,” Captain Bradshaw said irritably. “What do
you know about it, Alice?”
Alice had no answer ready, and, after a short pause, Captain Bradshaw
went on—
“There, Frank, I don't want to damp your ardour. I don't like it, and
it's no use pretending I do; but I dare say I shall like your Kate
very much when I see her, so you had better tell her to make up her
mind to like me. You have been very troublesome lately, Frank, but I
wish you every happiness, my boy.”
And so time had gone on, the four months the engagement lasted had
passed, and Frank went down to be married, taking Prescott with him,
to support him upon that arduous occasion.
It was three days later that Alice saluted her uncle on his coming
down to breakfast with,
“There is an announcement in the ‘Times’ of to-day which will
astonish you, uncle.”
“What is it, Alice?”
“Well, to begin with, uncle, here's Frank's marriage in—not that
that is astonishing. But what do you think of the one under it? 'On
Wednesday, at St. Peter's, Manchester, Frederick Bingham, of Hans
Place, London, to Margaret, only daughter of the late Charles Farrer,
Esq., of Oldham.'”
“Nonsense, Alice, you are joking.”
“It is a fact, uncle; here is the paper, look for yourself.”
“What the deuce does he mean by it, Alice? How dare he marry without
speaking to me first?”
“I don't know, I am sure, uncle, it seems strange, but there is a
letter on the table for you, and I think it is in his handwriting.”
Captain Bradshaw opened the letter.
“Yes, it is from him.”
“MY DEAR UNCLE,—
You will, I am sure, be surprised at the news that I am
married. Indeed, I am almost surprised myself. It has indeed
been rather a sudden affair at the end, although I have been
attached to the young lady for a considerable time.” (Captain
Bradshaw did not notice the little look of amused contempt upon
his niece's face.) “I should have spoken to you on the subject,
but I hate fuss, and I think one marriage in a family is quite
enough at a time. I did not, therefore, wish to bore you with
my domestic affairs. You will, I feel sure, uncle, excuse any
apparent disrespect in my not mentioning the matter to you, but
I did not even tell my father until two days ago. My wife is
just twenty-one years of age, is pretty, at least I suppose I
ought to think so, and has a snug little fortune, which, to a
man fighting his way in life, is of importance; and I cannot,
like my cousin Frank, afford to be romantic. I trust, my dear
uncle, that when I inform you of the particulars, and present
my wife to you, you will approve of the step I have taken.
“Your affectionate nephew,
“FRED BINGHAM.”
“He is a strange young fellow, Alice. Never does anything like anyone
else. It is just as well though; as he says, two marriages on the
cards would have been rather overpowering.”
“It is all a matter of opinion, uncle. I should not like a husband of
mine to marry me in that sort of way, as if he were ashamed of the
whole affair.”
“I don't suppose he's ashamed, Alice. I am afraid though, very much
afraid by the name, Oldham you see, that he has married into the
cotton mills. It doesn't matter much in his case. He's a railway
contractor, and I suppose not particular. Had it been Frank, it would
have been a serious matter. I shouldn't like to think of a cotton
spinner's daughter at Wyvern Hall. As it is, her money—you see he
says she has a snug fortune—will be very useful to him. There's no
romance about Fred.”
“I should think not,” Alice said scornfully.
“No,” her uncle went on, unheeding the tone, “not a bit. He's wide
awake, is Master Fred. You see she's no father, is just twenty-one,
and he married her suddenly. I shouldn't be at all surprised,” and he
laughed, “if there was no time to have settlements drawn out.”
“Oh, uncle,” Alice said impetuously, “how can you laugh? to me all
this is shocking.”
“Well, my dear, frankly it's not nice; and as I said, if Fred were
going to have Wyvern Hall, I shouldn't like it at all. Still, Alice,
I think you are inclined to be a little too hard upon Fred. He is
a shrewd man of the world, no doubt, but you see you don't know
anything about men of the world, and so these things go a little
against your grain. I like Fred Bingham very much; he's a pleasant,
amiable, chatty young fellow, although he has not been brought up, so
to speak, in the traditions of a gentleman. I like him, but I don't
do more. I shall, of course, leave him some money when I die, but I
confess I should never really care for him as I do for Frank, with
all his headstrong ways and the annoyance he has given me.”
Alice felt pleased.
“Thank you, uncle. There is, in my opinion, no more comparison
between my two cousins than between light and dark.”
“Yes, Alice, I know your opinions on the subject, but as I said, you
are not an impartial judge. Women never are when it is between a man
of birth who has a fortune and no work to do, and one who has to
fight his way.”
“But, my dear uncle, my cousins are equally well born, and equally
well educated; I do not see why there should be any difference
between them.”
“Yes, my dear, there is a very great difference,” Captain Bradshaw
said positively. “Frank was brought up with the idea that he should
never have to work for his living. Therefore he has no notion
whatever of business, is romantic in his ideas, would not do a mean
thing to save his life, and refused, even at the risk of losing my
favour, to do as I wanted him—in fact, is a gentleman. Fred has been
brought up in a different school. He was educated at some private
school or other; his father is, I have always heard—for I never saw
the man, and never want to—is a sharp man of business, and married
my silly sister for her money, and Fred has had it instilled into him
that money-making is the great end of life. He is a good-tempered,
off-hand young fellow, and this has not done him so much harm as
it would do most lads. He has been to college, certainly, but that
has not done him as much good as it should have done. He has turned
out a man of the world, and as such, though I like him very well, I
could never love him as I do Frank. You see the difference of their
marriages. Frank marries a little Irish girl without a halfpenny.
She, I have no doubt, to use his own expression, a most loveable
little woman; and he is as proud of his marriage as if he had made
the best match conceivable. Fred, on the other hand, without a tithe
of Frank's natural advantages, marries a girl with a fortune, and
without a father to look after her. I shall be interested, Alice, in
watching the different way in which the young couples will go on.”
“I know which will be the happiest, uncle.”
“You think you know, Alice, because you have not got rid of your
romance yet. From what I know of my two nephews, I should say they
would both make very good husbands in a different sort of way.”
Alice dissented very strongly from her uncle, but as she could not
have said so without adducing reasons which would have shaken what
belief her uncle had in Fred Bingham, which she was determined not to
do, she was silent.