May Cheffington went back to her grand-mother's house, very eager to
understand the origin of the rumours about herself which she had heard
at the Hadlows'. Mrs. Dobbs had not calculated on this, and would have
preferred to break the project to May herself, and in her own fashion.
However, as it had been mentioned, she spoke of it openly. She merely
cautioned her grand-daughter against rashly jumping at any conclusions:
the future being very vague and unsettled.
"There's one conclusion I _have_ jumped at, granny," said the girl, "and
that is, that I don't mean to give you up for any aunts, or uncles, or
cousins of them all. They are strangers to me, and I don't care a straw
about them--how should I?--whilst _you_ are--granny!"
"There is no question of giving me up, May. Perhaps I should not like
that much better than you would. But if your father should think it
right for you to stay for a while with his family, we mustn't oppose
him. And I must tell you that I should think it right, too."
"Oh, if it's only staying 'for a while'----!"
"Well, at all events we needn't look beyond a 'while' and a short while,
for the present."
Mrs. Dobbs found it more difficult than she had anticipated to put
before May the prospect of being removed from Oldchester altogether,
and, now that the idea of losing May out of her daily life fully
presented itself, she felt a grip at the heart which frightened her. But
she had one of those strong characters whose instinct it is to hide
their wounds and suffer silently; and she resolutely put aside her own
pain at this prospect--or rather, put it off to the solitary hours to
come.
During the four years since her father had left her at Oldchester, May's
life had been passed between her school at Brighton and her holidays in
Oldchester. These had certainly been the happiest years she could
remember in all her young life. Her grand-mother's house had been the
first real home she had ever known. Her recollections of their life on
the Continent were dim and melancholy. She remembered fragmentary scenes
and incidents in certain dull Flemish towns; their strong-smelling
gutters, their toppling gables, the _carillons_ sounding high up in some
ancient cathedral belfry. She had a vision of her mother's face, very
pale and thin, with large bright eyes, and streaks of gray in the brown
hair. May, as the youngest of Susan Cheffington's children, had come in
for the worst part of their Continental life. The earlier years, when
there was still some money to spend, and fewer debts to be run away
from, had not been quite devoid of brightness. But poor little May's
conscious observation had little to take note of at home save poverty,
sickness, domestic dissensions, and frequent migrations from one shabby
lodging to another. Then her mother died, and some six or eight months
afterwards she was brought to England, and--Fate and the dowager so
willing it--was sent to school to Mrs. Drax in Brighton. The choice of
this school proved to be a very fortunate one for the little motherless
stranger. And perhaps the credit of it ought fairly to be assigned
rather to Destiny than the dowager. The latter would have selected a
more fashionable, pretentious, and expensive establishment had she
consulted merely her idea of what was becoming and suitable for Miss
Miranda Cheffington. But she soon found out that whatever was paid for
that young lady's schooling must, sooner or later, come out of her own
pocket, and she therefore preferred to honour Mrs. Drax with her
patronage, rather than Madame Liebrecht, who had been governess for
years in a noble family, and was supposed to accept no pupil who could
not show sixteen quarterings; or, of course, their equivalent in cash.
The choice made was, as has been said, very fortunate for May. Mrs. Drax
had the manners of a gentlewoman, and more amiability than could perhaps
have been reasonably expected to survive a long struggle with her
special world--a world of parents and guardians, who held, for the most
part, a liberal view of her duties and a niggardly one of her rights.
Here little May Cheffington remained as a pupil for nearly eight years.
During the first half of that time she sometimes spent her holidays with
the dowager at Richmond, and sometimes in Brighton under the care of
Mrs. Drax. She preferred the latter. Old Mrs. Cheffington did not treat
the child with any active unkindness; but she showed her no tenderness.
The little girl was usually left to the care of her grand-mother's
maid--an elderly woman, to whom this young creature was merely an extra
burthen not considered in her wages. The child passed many a lonely hour
in the garden, or beside the dining-room fire with a book, unheeded. Her
aunt Pauline she only saw at rare intervals. She had a confused sense of
innocently causing much sorrow to Mrs. Dormer-Smith, who seemed always
to be afflicted (why, May did not for several years understand) by the
sight of her clothes; and who used to complain softly to the dowager
that "the poor dear child was lamentably dressed." But, on the whole,
she retained a rather agreeable impression of her aunt, as being pretty
and gentle, and kissing her kindly when they met.
Then came the dowager's death, the sudden journey to Oldchester, and the
first acquaintance with that unknown Grandmother Dobbs, whose very name
she had heard uttered only in a reproachful tone by the dowager, or in a
hushed voice by the dowager's elderly maid, speaking as one who names a
hereditary malady. And to this _taboo_ Grandmother Dobbs the neglected
child soon gave the warm love of a very grateful and affectionate
nature. May did not know or guess that she was a burthen on her
grand-mother's means, nor would the knowledge have increased her
gratitude at that time. It was the fostering affection which the child
was thankful for. She nestled in it like a half-fledged bird in the warm
shelter of the mother's wing. She was not timid or reserved by
temperament; but the circumstances of her life had given her a certain
repressed air. That disappeared now like hoar-frost in the sunshine. She
was like a young plant whose growth had been arrested by a too chilly
atmosphere. She burgeoned and bloomed into the natural joyousness of
childhood, which needs, above all things, the warmth of love, and cannot
be healthily nurtured by any artificial heat.
In her school there was no influence tending to diminish May's
attachment to her grandmother, or her perfect contentment with the
simple _bourgeois_ home in Oldchester. Plain Mrs. Dobbs, who paid her
bills punctually, and listened to reason, stood far higher in the
schoolmistress's esteem than the Honourable Mrs. Cheffington, who was
never contented, and required to be dunned for the payment of her just
debts. As to her noble relations, May had no acquaintance with them, and
never sighed to make it. She was ignorant of the very existence of many
of them. When, at seventeen years of age, she was removed from school,
she looked forward to living in the old house in Friar's Row, and she
certainly desired no better home. Mrs. Drax, it has been said, had the
manners of a gentlewoman, and she had not vulgarized May's natural
refinement of mind by misdirecting her admiration towards ignoble
things. The provincialisms in her grand-mother's speech, and the homely
style of her grand-mother's household--although she clearly perceived
both--neither shocked nor mortified May. On the other hand, she accepted
it as a quite natural thing that she should be invited to Canon Hadlow's
house as a guest on equal terms. As Mrs. Dobbs had said to Jo
Weatherhead, May was very much of a child still, and understood nothing
of the world. Her unquestioning acceptance of the situation as her
grandmother presented it to her had something very child-like. She did
not inquire how it came to pass that her aunt Pauline, who had taken
very little notice of her during the past four years, should now desire
to have her as an inmate of her home. She did not ask why her father,
after so long a torpor on the subject, had suddenly awakened to the
necessity of asserting his daughter's position in the world; neither did
she, even in her private thoughts, reproach him for having delegated all
the care and responsibility of her education to "granny." A
healthy-minded young creature has deep well-springs of unquestioning
faith in its parents, or those who stand in the place of parents.
But there was one person not so easily contented with the first
statement offered; and that person was Mr. Joseph Weatherhead. Mr.
Weatherhead was very fond of May, and admired her very much. His social
and political theories ought logically to have made him regard her with
peculiar interest and consideration as coming of such very blue
blood--at least on one side of the house. But it so happened that these
theories had nothing on earth to do with his attachment to May. That
arose, firstly, from her being Sarah Dobbs's grandchild (Jo would have
loved and championed any creature, biped or quadruped, that belonged to
Sarah Dobbs), and, secondly, from her being very lovable. The poor man
was often embarrassed by the conflict between his curiosity and his
principles. His curiosity, which was as insatiable and omnivorous as the
appetite of a pigeon, would have led him to cross-question May minutely
about all she knew or guessed respecting her own future, and the
probable behaviour of her father's family towards her; but his
conscience told him that it would not be right to put doubts and
suspicions into the girl's trusting young soul. Certainly he himself
cherished many doubts and suspicions as to the future conduct of May's
papa. He questioned Mrs. Dobbs, indeed; but there was neither sport nor
exercise for his sharp inquisitiveness in that. When Mrs. Dobbs did not
choose to answer him, she said so roundly, and there was an end. She had
told him that she was in correspondence with Captain Cheffington, and
that she believed he would share her views about his daughter. Jo,
however, entertained a rooted disbelief as to Captain Cheffington's
holding any "views" which had not himself for their supreme object.
"And this Mrs. Dormer-Smith, now, Sarah," said he. "What reason have you
to suppose that she will be willing to take charge of her niece now,
when she would have nothing to say to her before?"
"A pretty girl of seventeen is a different charge from a lanky child of
twelve, Jo. Mrs. Dormer-Smith couldn't have taken a schoolgirl in short
frocks out into the world with her."
"Humph! You don't _know_ that she will take May out into the world with
her?"
"I have written. I shall have an answer in a few days, I dare say. I
don't expect matters to be settled like a flash of greased lightning, as
Mr. Simpson says. There's a deal to be considered. Hold your tongue,
now; here's May."
Similar conversations took place between them nearly every day. And when
they were not interrupted by any external circumstance, Mrs. Dobbs would
resolutely put an end to them by declining to pursue the subject.
One afternoon, about a week after May's return from her visit to the
Hadlows', the young girl was seated at the old-fashioned square
pianoforte, singing snatches of ballads in a fresh, untrained voice; Mr.
Weatherhead had just taken his accustomed seat by the fireside; and Mrs.
Dobbs was opposite to him in her own armchair, with the old tabby
purring in the firelight at her feet, when Martha opened the parlour
door softly, shut it quickly after her, and announced, with a slight
tone of excitement in her usually quiet voice, that there was a
gentleman in the passage asking for Miss May.
"For me, Martha?" exclaimed May, turning round at the sound of her own
name, with one hand still on the keys of the pianoforte. "Who is he?"
"He said 'Miss Cheffington.' I don't know him, not by sight. But here's
his card."
Mrs. Dobbs took the card from the servant, and put on her spectacles,
bending down to read the name by the firelight. "Bun--Brun--oh, Bransby!
Mr. Theodore Bransby. Ask the gentleman to walk in, Martha."
As Martha left the room, Mr. Weatherhead pointed to the door with one
thumb, and whispered, "Wonder what _he_ wants!" To which Mrs. Dobbs
replied by lifting her shoulders and slightly shaking her head, as much
as to say, "I'm sure I can't guess." The next moment Mr. Theodore
Bransby was ushered into the parlour.
The room was rather dim, and Theodore did not immediately perceive May,
who still sat at the piano. "Miss Cheffington?" he said interrogatively,
with a stiff little gesture of the head towards Mrs. Dobbs, which might
pass for a bow.
Mrs. Dobbs had risen from her chair, and now motioned her visitor to be
seated. "My grand-daughter is here. Pray sit down, Mr. Theodore
Bransby," she said. Then May got up, and came forward, and shook hands
with him.
"I don't think you know my grandmother, Mrs. Dobbs," she said,
presenting him.
Theodore, upon this, began to hold out his hand rather slowly; but, as
Mrs. Dobbs made no answering gesture, but merely pointed again to a
chair, he was fain to bow once more--a good deal more distinctly, this
time--and to sit down with the sense of having received a little check.
"I hope I have not interrupted you, Miss Cheffington?" said he, clearing
his throat and settling his chin in his shirt-collar. "You were
singing."
"Oh no; you haven't interrupted me at all. And, even if you had, it
wouldn't matter. My singing is not worth much."
"Pardon me if I decline to believe that. From some sounds which reached
me through the door, I am sure you sing charmingly."
May laughed. "Ah," said she, "the other side of the door is the most
favourable position for hearing me. I really don't know how to sing. Ask
granny."
"No; May doesn't know how to sing," said Mrs. Dobbs quietly, but very
decisively. (For she had caught an expression on Mr. Theodore Bransby's
pale, smooth face, which seemed to wonder superciliously what on earth
_she_ could know about it.) Whereupon his pale, smooth eyebrows raised
themselves a hair's breadth more, but he said nothing.
"My grandmother is a great judge of singing, you must know," went on May
innocently. "She has heard all the best singers at the Oldchester
Musical Festivals for years and years past, and she used to sing herself
in the choruses of the oratorios."
"Oh, I see!" said Theodore, with a little contemptuous air of
enlightenment.
Jo Weatherhead looked across at him uneasily. He had a half-formed
suspicion that this young spark with the smooth, rather closely-cropped
blonde head, severe shirt-collar, faultlessly-fitting coat, and slightly
pedantic utterance, showed a tendency to treat Mrs. Dobbs with
impertinence. But he checked the suspicion, for, he argued with himself,
young Bransby had had the training of a gentleman. And what gentleman
would be impertinent to a worthy and respected woman, and in her own
house, too? He thought, as he looked at him, that Theodore bore very
little resemblance to his father, Martin Bransby, who was altogether of
a different and more massive type.
"You don't favour your father much, sir," said Jo blandly.
The young man turned his pale blue eyes upon him with a look studiously
devoid of all expression. "I had the honour of knowing your worthy
father well, some five-and-twenty--or it may be thirty--years ago."
Theodore, continuing to stare at him stonily, said, "Oh, really?" in a
low monotone.
"Yes; I knew him in the way of business. He was a customer of mine when
I was in the bookselling business at Brummagem, as we called it. Your
father was, even at that time, very highly thought of by some of the
leading legal luminaries. We had no assizes at Birmingham, as no doubt
you're aware; but I used to go over to Warwick Assizes pretty reg'larly
in those days, having some dealings there in the stationery line--which
I afterwards gave up altogether, though that isn't to the point--and I
used to frequent a good deal of legal company. Mr. Martin Bransby was
thought a good deal of, among 'em, I can tell you, and was taken a great
deal of notice of by some of the county families--quite the real old
gentry," added Mr. Weatherhead, pursing up his mouth and nodding his
head emphatically, like a man enforcing a statement which his hearers
might reasonably hesitate to accept.
"Oh, how is Mr. Bransby?" asked May.
"Thanks; my father is going on very well indeed. He has driven out
twice, and, in fact, is nearly himself again. He purposes asking some
friends to dine with him next week. Indeed, that furnishes the object of
my visit here. I--Mrs. Bransby--of course, you understand that my
father's long illness has given her a great deal to do."
"Truly it must!" broke in Mrs. Dobbs, thinking at once sympathetically
of the wife and mother threatened with so cruel a bereavement, and now
almost suddenly relieved from overwhelming anxiety. "I'm sure most folks
in Oldchester have been feeling greatly for Mrs. Bransby."
"And so," continued Theodore, addressing himself exclusively to May,
"she has not really been--been able to see as much of you as she would
have liked, Miss Cheffington."
May looked at him in surprise. "Why of course?" said she. "Mrs. Bransby
hasn't been thinking about _me_! How should she?"
"That is the reason--I mean my father's illness, and all the occupations
resulting from it--which has induced Mrs. Bransby to make me her
ambassador on this occasion."
As he spoke, Theodore took a little note from his pocket-book, and
handed it to May. She glanced at it, and exclaimed with open
astonishment, "It's an invitation to dinner! Look, granny!"
Mr. Weatherhead poked forward his head to see. It was, in fact, a formal
card requesting the pleasure of Miss Cheffington's company at dinner on
the following Saturday. Mrs. Dobbs once more put on her spectacles and
read the card.
"I hope you will be disengaged," said Theodore, severely ignoring
"granny."
"Oh, I couldn't go to a grand dinner-party. It would be ridiculous!"
"May! That's not a gracious fashion of receiving an invitation, anyhow,"
said Mrs. Dobbs, smiling a little.
"It's very kind indeed of Mr. and Mrs. Bransby, but I would much rather
not, please," said May, endeavouring to amend her phrase.
"Oh, that's dreadfully cruel, Miss Cheffington!"
"You don't think I ought to go, do you, granny?"
"That," replied Mrs. Dobbs, "depends on circumstances."
"I assure you," said Theodore, turning round with his most imposing air,
"that it would be quite proper for Miss Cheffington to accept the
invitation. I should certainly not urge her to do so unless that were
the case."
Jo Weatherhead's suspicions as to this young spark's tendency to
impertinence were rather vividly revived by this speech, and his
forehead flushed as dark a red as his nose. But Mrs. Dobbs, looking at
Theodore's fair young face made up into an expression of solemn
importance, smiled a broad smile of motherly toleration, and answered in
a soothing tone--
"No, no; to be sure, you mean to do what's right and proper; only young
folks don't look at everything as has to be considered. But youth has
the best of it in so many ways, it can afford to be not quite so wise as
its elders."
This glimpse of himself, as Mrs. Dobbs saw him, was so totally
unexpected as completely to dumfounder Theodore for a moment. Never,
since he left off round jackets, had he been so addressed: for the
behaviour of our acquaintances towards us in daily life is generally
modified by their idea of what we think of ourselves.
"I--I can assure you," he stammered; and then stopped, at a loss for
words, in most unaccustomed embarrassment.
"There, there, we ain't bound to say yes or no all in a minute," pursued
Mrs. Dobbs. "Any way, we couldn't think of making you postman. That's
all very well for your step-mother, of course; but May must send her
answer in a proper way. Meanwhile, will you stay and have a cup of tea,
Mr. Bransby? It's just our teatime. The tray will be here in a minute."
Theodore had risen as if to go. He now stood hesitating, and looking at
May, who certainly gave no answering look of encouragement. She wanted
him gone, that she might "talk over" the invitation with her
grandmother.
With a pleasant clinking sound, Martha now brought in the tea-tray; and
in another minute had fetched the kettle and placed it on the hob,
where, after a brief interval of wheezing and sputtering, consequent on
its sudden removal from the kitchen fire, it resumed its gurgling sound,
and made itself cheerfully at home.
If Mrs. Dobbs had urged him by another word,--if she had shown by any
look or tone that she thought it would be a condescension in him to
remain, Theodore would have refused. But she began placidly to scoop out
the tea from the caddy, and awaited his reply with unfeigned equanimity.
There was an unacknowledged feeling in his heart that, to go away then
and so, would be to make a flat kind of exit disagreeable to think of.
He would like to leave this obtuse old woman impressed with a sense of
his superiority; and apparently it would still require some little time
before that impression was made.
"Thanks," he said. "If I am not disturbing you----"
"Dear no! How could it disturb me? Martha, bring another cup and
saucer."
And then Theodore, laying aside his hat and gloves, drew a chair up to
the table and accepted the proffered hospitality.
Having found the method of supercilious reserve rather a failure, the
young man now adopted a different treatment for the purpose of awaking
Mrs. Dobbs, and that objectionably familiar person with the red nose, to
a sense of his social distinction and general merits. He talked--not
volubly, indeed: for that would have been out of his power, even had he
wished it, but he talked--in a succession of short speeches, beginning
for the most part with "I." His efforts were not, however, exclusively
aimed at Mrs. Dobbs and Jo Weatherhead. He watched May a good deal, and
spoke to her of the Dormer-Smiths as though that were a topic between
themselves, from which the profane vulgar (especially profane
ex-booksellers, with red noses) were necessarily excluded. As the others
said very little--with the exception of an occasional question from Jo
Weatherhead--Theodore's talk assumed the form of a monologue spoken to a
dull audience.
He was conscious, as he walked away from Friar's Row, of being a little
surprised at his own conversational efforts, and half-repentant of his
condescension. He had been obliged to take his leave without obtaining
any definite answer to the dinner invitation. But, perhaps, the feeling
uppermost in his mind was irritation at May's perfectly simple
acceptance of her position as Mrs. Dobbs's grand-daughter, and her
perfectly filial attachment to her grandmother. "It is really too bad!
Cheffington ought never to have allowed his daughter to be got hold of
by those people. Mrs. Dormer-Smith cannot have the least idea what sort
of a _milieu_ her niece lives in!" he said to himself.
The worst was that May was so evidently contented! If she had been at
all distressed by her surroundings, Theodore could have better borne to
see her there.