UNCLE AND NIECE
Mr. Bullsom was an early riser, and it chanced that, as was frequently
the case, on the morning following Brooks' visit he and Mary sat down
to breakfast together. But when, after a cursory glance through his
letters, he unfolded the paper, she stopped him.
"Uncle," she said, "I want to talk to you for a few minutes, if I may."
"Go ahead," he answered. "No fear of our being interrupted. I shall
speak to those girls seriously about getting up. Now, what is it?
"I want to earn my own living, uncle," she said, quietly.
He looked over his spectacles at her.
"Eh?"
"I want to earn my own living," she repeated. "I have been looking
about for a means of doing so, and I think that I have succeeded."
Mr. Bullsom took off his spectacles and wiped them carefully.
"Earn your own living, eh!" he repeated. "Well! Go on!"
Mary leaned across the table towards him.
"Don't think that I am not grateful for all you have done for me,
uncle," she said. "I am, indeed. Only I have felt lately that it was
my duty to order my life a little differently. I am young and strong,
and able to work. There is no reason why I should be a burden upon any
one."
She found his quietness ominous, but she did not flinch.
"I am not accomplished enough for a governess, or good-tempered enough
for a companion," she continued, "but I believe I have found something
which I can do. I have written several short stories for a woman's
magazine, and they have made me a sort of offer to do some regular work
for them. What they offer would just keep me. I want to accept."
"Where should you live?" he asked.
"In London!"
"Alone?
"There is a girls' club in Chelsea somewhere. I should go there at
first, and then try and share rooms with another girl."
"How much a week will they give you?"
"Twenty-eight shillings, and I shall be allowed to contribute regularly
to the magazine at the usual rates. I ought to make at least forty
shillings a week."
Mr. Bullsom sighed.
"Is this owing to any disagreement between you and the girls?" he asked,
sharply.
"Certainly not," she answered.
"You ain't unhappy here? Is there anything we could do? I don't want
to lose you."
Mary was touched. She had expected ridicule or opposition. This was
more difficult.
"Of course I am not unhappy," she answered. "You and aunt have been
both of you most generous and kind to me. But I do feel that a busy
life--and I'm not a bit domestic, you know would be good for me. I
believe, uncle, if you were in my place you would feel just like me. If
you were able to, I expect you'd want to earn your own living."
"You shall go!" he said, decidedly. "I'll help you all I can. You
shall have a bit down to buy furniture, if you want it, or an allowance
till you feel your way. But, Mary, I'm downright sorry. No, I'm not
blaming you. You've a right to go. I--I don't believe I'd live here if
I were you.
"You are very good, uncle," Mary said, gratefully. "And you must
remember it isn't as though I were leaving you alone. You have the
girls."
Mr. Bullsom nodded.
"Yes," he said, "I have the girls. Look here, Mary," he added,
suddenly, looking her in the face, "I want to have a word with you. I'm
going to talk plainly. Be honest with me."
"Of course," she murmured.
"It's about the girls. It's a hard thing to say, but somehow--I'm a bit
disappointed with them."
She looked at him in something like amazement.
"Yes, disappointed," he continued. "That's the word. I'm an uneducated
man myself--any fool can see that--but I did all I could to have them
girls different. They've been to the best school in Medchester, and
they've been abroad. They've had masters in most everything, and I've
had 'em taught riding and driving, and all that sort of thing, properly.
Then as they grew up I built this 'ouse, and came up to live here
amongst the people whom I reckoned my girls'd be sure to get to know.
And the whole thing's a damned failure, Mary. That's the long and short
of it."
"Perhaps--a little later on" Mary began, hesitatingly.
"Don't interrupt me," he said, brusquely. "This is the first honest
talk I've ever had about it, and it's doing me good. The girls'd like
to put it down to your mother and me, but I don't believe it. I'm
ashamed to say it, but I'm afraid it's the girls themselves. There's
something not right about them, but I'm blessed if I know what it is.
Their mother and I are a bit vulgar, I know, but I've done my best to
copy those who know how to behave--and I believe we'd get through for
what we are anywhere without giving offence. But my girls oughtn't to
be vulgar. It's education as does away with that, and I've filled em
chock-full of education from the time they were babies. It's run out of
them, Mary, like the sands through an hour-glass. They can speak
correctly, and I dare say they know all the small society tricks. But
that isn't everything. They don't know how to dress. They can spend
just as much as they like, and then you can come into the room in a
black gown as you made yourself, and you look a lady, and they don't.
That's the long and short of it. The only decent people who come to
this house are your friends, and they come to see you. There's young
Brooks, now. I've no son, Mary, and I'm fond of young men. I never
knew one I liked as I like him. My daughters are old enough to be
married, and I'd give fifty thousand pounds to have him for a son-in-law.
And, of course, he won't look at 'em. He sees it. He'll talk to you.
He takes no more notice of them than is civil. They fuss round him, and
all that, but they might save themselves the pains. It's hard lines,
Mary. I'm making money as no one knows on. I could live at Enton and
afford it. But what's the good of it? If people don't care to know us
here, they won't anywhere. Mary, how was it education didn't work with
them girls? Your mother was my own sister, and she married a
gentleman. He was a blackguard, but hang it, Mary, if I were you I'd
sooner be penniless and as you are than be my daughters with five
thousand apiece."
There was an embarrassed silence. Then Mary faced the situation boldly.
"Uncle," she said, "you are asking my advice. Is that it?"
"If there's any advice you can give, for God's sake let's have it. But
I don't know as you can make black white."
"Selina and Louise are good girls enough," she said, "but they are a
little spoilt, and they are a little limited in their ideas. A town
like this often has that effect. Take them abroad, uncle, for a year,
or, better still, if you can find the right person, get a companion for
them--a lady--and let her live in the house."
"That's sound!" he answered. "I'll do it."
"And about their clothes, uncle. Take them up to London, go to one of
the best places, and leave the people to make their things. Don't let
them interfere. Down here they've got to choose for themselves. They
wouldn't care about taking advice here, but in London they'd probably
be content to leave it. Take them up to town for a fortnight. Stay
at one of the best hotels, the Berkeley or the Carlton, and let them see
plenty of nice people. And don't be discouraged, uncle."
"Where the devil did you get your common-sense from?" he inquired,
fiercely. "Your mother hadn't got it, and I'll swear your father
hadn't."
She laughed heartily.
"Above all, be firm with them, uncle," she said. "Put your foot down,
and stick to it. They'll obey you.
"Obey me? Good Lord, I'll make 'em," Mr. Bullsom declared,
vigorously. "Mary, you're a brick. I feel quite cheerful. And,
remember this, my girl. I shall make you an allowance, but that's
nothing. Come to me when you want a bit extra, and if ever the young
man turns up, then I've got a word or two to say. Mind, I shall only be
giving you your own. My will's signed and sealed."
She kissed him fondly.
"You're a good sort, uncle," she said. "And now will you tell me what
you think of this letter?"
"Read it to me, dear," he said. "My eyes aren't what they were."
She obeyed him.
"41, BUCKLESBURY, LONDON, E. C.
"DEAR MADAM,
"We have received a communication from our agents at Montreal, asking us
to ascertain the whereabouts of Miss Mary Scott, daughter of Richard
Scott, at one time a resident in that city.
"We believe that you are the young lady in question, and if you will do
us the favour of calling at the above address, we may be able to give
you some information much to your advantage.
"We are, dear madam,
"Yours respectfully,
"JONES AND LLOYD."
Mr. Bullsom stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"Sounds all right," he remarked. "Of course you'll go. But I always
understood that your father's relations were as poor as church mice."
"Poorer, uncle! His father--my grandfather, that is--was a clergyman
with barely enough to live on, and his uncle was a Roman Catholic
priest. Both of them have been dead for years."
"And your father--well, I know there was nothing there," Mr. Bullsom
remarked, thoughtfully.
"You cabled out the money to bring me home," Mary reminded him.
"Well, well!" Mr. Bullsom declared. "You must go and see these chaps.
There's no harm in that, at any rate. We must all have that trip to
London. I expect Brooks will be wanting to go and see Henslow. We'll
have to give that chap what for, I know."
Selina sailed into the room in a salmon-coloured wrapper, which should
long ago have been relegated to the bath-room. She pecked her father on
the cheek and nodded to Mary.
"Don't you see Mr. Brooks, dear?" her father remarked, with a twinkle
in his eye and something very much like a wink to Mary.
Selina screamed, and looked fearfully around the room.
"What do you mean, papa?" she exclaimed. "There is no one here."
"Serve you right if there had been," Mr. Bullsom declared, gruffly.
"A pretty state to come down in the morning at past nine o'clock."
Selina tossed her head.
"I am going to dress directly after breakfast," she remarked.
"Then if you'll allow me to say so," her father declared, "before
breakfast is the time to dress, and not afterwards. You're always the
same, Selina, underdressed when you think there's no one around to see
you, and overdressed when there is."
Selina poured herself out some coffee and yawned.
"La, papa, what do you know about it?" she exclaimed.
"What my eyes tell me," Mr. Bullsom declared, sternly. "You've no
allowance to keep to. You've leave to spend what you want, and you're
never fit to be seen. There's Mary there taking thirty pounds a year
from me, and won't have a penny more, though she's heartily welcome to
it, and she looks a lady at any moment of the day."
Selina drew herself up, and her eyes narrowed a little.
"You're talking about what, you don't understand, pa," she answered with
dignity. "If you prefer Mary's style of dress"--she glanced with silent
disparagement at her cousin's grey skirt and plain white blouse--"well,
it's a matter of taste, isn't it?
"Taste!" Mr. Bullsom replied, contemptuously. "Taste! What sort of
taste do you call that beastly rug on your shoulders, eh? Or your hair
rolled round and just a pin stuck through it? Looks as though it hadn't
been brushed for a week. Faugh! When your mother and I lived on two
pounds a week she never insulted me by coming down to breakfast in
such a thing."
Selina eyed her father in angry astonishment.
"Thing indeed!" she repeated. "This wrapper cost me four guineas, and
came from Paris. That shows how much you know about it."
"From Paris, did it?" Mr. Bullsom retorted, fiercely. "Then up-stairs
you go and take it off. You girls have had your own way too much, and
I'm about tired of it."
"I shall change it--after breakfast," Selina said, doubtfully.
Mr. Bullsom threw open the door.
"Up-stairs," he repeated, "and throw it into the rag-bag."
Selina hesitated. Then she rose, and with scarlet cheeks and a poor
show of dignity, left the room. Mr. Bullsom drew himself up and beamed
upon Mary.
"I'll show'em a bit," he declared, with great good-humour. "I may be
an ignorant old man, but I'm going to wake these girls up."
Mary struggled for a moment, but her sense of humour triumphed. She
burst out laughing.
"Oh, uncle, uncle," she exclaimed, "you're a wonderful man."
He beamed upon her.
"You come shopping with us in London," he said. "We'll have some fun."