The correspondence between Mrs. Dobbs and Mrs. Dormer-Smith on the
subject of May's removal to London was not voluminous. It consisted of
three letters: number one, written by Mrs. Dobbs; number two, written by
Mrs. Dormer-Smith; and number three, Mrs. Dobbs's reply to that. Mrs.
Dobbs always went straight to the point, both with tongue and pen; and
Mrs. Dormer-Smith, although by no means so forcibly direct in her
dealings, had a dislike to letter-writing, which caused her to put her
meaning tolerably clearly on this occasion, so as to avoid the necessity
of writing again.
Mrs. Dobbs had proposed that May should become an inmate of her aunt's
house in London--at all events for a time--in consideration of an annual
sum to be paid for her board and dress. The said sum was to be
guaranteed by Mrs. Dobbs, and was so ample as to make Pauline say
plaintively to her husband, "Just fancy, Frederick, how deplorably
imprudent Augustus has been in offending and neglecting this old woman
as he has done! You see she has plenty of money. I had no idea what her
means were; but it is clear that, for a person in her rank of life, she
may be called rich. And Augustus might have obtained solid pecuniary
assistance from her, I've no doubt, if he had played his cards with
ordinary prudence. But there never was any one so reckless of his own
interests as Augustus--beginning with that unfortunate marriage."
Whereunto Mr. Frederick Dormer-Smith thus made reply, "I don't know what
you may call 'solid pecuniary assistance,' but it seems to me pretty
solid to keep Augustus's daughter, and clothe her, and pay for her
schooling, for four years and upwards. As to Augustus's disregard of his
own interests, it does not at any rate lie in the direction of
refraining from borrowing money, or remembering to pay it back; that
much I can vouch for."
Pauline put a corner of her handkerchief to her eyes. "Oh, Frederick,"
she said, "it pains me to hear you speak so harshly. Remember, Augustus
is my only brother."
"Mercifully! By George, if there was another of 'em I don't know what
_would_ become of us."
Mrs. Dormer-Smith declined to consider this hypothesis, but contented
herself with saying that she should like to do something for poor
Augustus's girl, and asking her husband if he didn't think they could
manage to receive her. Mr. Dormer-Smith thought they could on the terms
proposed, which, he frankly said, were handsome. And Pauline added
softly--
"Yes; and it is satisfactory that she offers to keep the arrangement
strictly secret. It would scarcely do to let it be known that Mrs. Dobbs
pays for May. It would be _inconvenable_. People would ask all sorts of
questions. It would put the girl herself in an awkward position.
'Grandmother!' people would say. 'What grandmother?' and the whole story
of that wretched marriage would be raked up again. But, on the
conditions proposed, I do think, Frederick, it could do no harm to
receive May. I am glad you consent. It will be a comfort to me to feel
that I am doing something for poor Augustus's girl, and acting as mamma
would have wished."
So a favourable reply was dispatched to Mrs. Dobbs's application. Mrs.
Dormer-Smith suggested that May should come to town a little before the
beginning of the season, so as to give time for preparing her
wardrobe--a task to which her aunt looked forward with _dilettante_
relish. And in answer to that, Mrs. Dobbs wrote the third and last
letter of the series, assenting to the date proposed for May's arrival,
and entering into a few minor details.
She had also, meanwhile, received a letter from Captain Cheffington,
elicited, after a long delay, by three successive urgent appeals for an
immediate answer. It was a scrawl in a hasty, sprawling hand, and ran
thus:
"Brussels, Nov. 1, 18--.
"DEAR MRS. DOBBS,
"I think it would be very desirable for Miranda to be presented
by her aunt, if she is to be presented at all, and to be
brought out properly. I have no doubt that my sister will
introduce her in the best possible way. Since you seem to press
for my consent, you have it herewith, although I hardly feel
that I can have much voice in the matter, being separated, as I
have been for years, from my country, my family, and my only
surviving child. I am a mere exile. It is not a brilliant
existence for a man born and brought up as I have been.
However, I must make the best of it.
"Yours always,
"A. C."
This was sufficient for Mrs. Dobbs. She had made a point of obtaining
Augustus's authority for his daughter's removal to town; not because she
relied on his judgment, but because she knew him well enough to fear
some trick, or sudden turn of feigned indignation, if, from any motive
of his own, he thought fit to disapprove the step. As to the tone of his
reply, that neither troubled nor surprised her. But Mr. Weatherhead was
moved to great wrath by it. Mrs. Dobbs had tossed the note to him one
day, saying--
"There; there's my son-in-law's consent to May's going to town, in black
and white. That's a document."
Mr. Weatherhead eagerly pounced on it. "What a disgusting production!"
he exclaimed, looking up over the rim of the double eyeglass which he
had set astride his nose to read the note.
"Is it?" returned Mrs. Dobbs carelessly.
"Is it? Why, Sarah, you surprise me, taking it in that cool way. It is
the most thankless, unfeeling, selfish production I ever read in my
life."
"Oh, is that all? Well, but that's just Augustus Cheffington. We know
what _he_ is at this time of day, Jo Weatherhead. It 'ud be a deal
stranger if he wrote thankfully, and feelingly, and unselfishly."
But Mr. Weatherhead refused to dismiss the matter thus easily. He
belonged to that numerous category of persons who, having established
and proclaimed a conviction, appear to be immensely astonished at each
confirmation of it. He had years ago pronounced Augustus Cheffington to
be a heartless scoundrel. Nevertheless he was shocked and amazed
whenever Augustus Cheffington did anything to corroborate that opinion.
The letter from Mrs. Dormer-Smith was not shown to him. Mrs. Dobbs meant
to keep the amount she was to pay for May a secret even from her
faithful and trusted friend Jo. He might guess what he pleased, but she
would not tell him. The means, too, by which she meant to raise the
money would not, she knew, meet with his approval. And, since she had
resolved to use those means, she thought it best to avoid vain
discussion beforehand, and therefore said nothing about them.
Accident, however, revealed a part of the secret in this way:
Mr. Weatherhead, calling one afternoon at Laurel Villa to see Mrs.
Simpson, who had been kept at home by a cold, found other visitors
there. Miss Polly and Miss Patty Piper were drinking tea out of Mrs.
Simpson's best cups and saucers, and chatting away with their usual
cheerfulness and volubility. The Miss Pipers, as they would themselves
have expressed it, "moved in a superior sphere" to that of the
music-teacher and his wife; but they did not consider that they
derogated from their gentility by occasionally drinking tea and having a
chat with the Simpsons. They liked to condescend a little, and
opportunities for condescension were rather rare. Then, too, they had a
certain interest in Sebastian Bach Simpson, inherited from the long-ago
days when Sebastian Bach's father played the organ in their father's
church, and Miss Polly and Miss Patty wore white frocks and blue sashes
at evening parties, and were the objects of a good deal of attention
from the Reverend Reuben's curates. Besides the sisters there was
present Dr. Hatch, who had come to pay a professional visit to Mrs.
Simpson, and who was just going away. It was a peculiarity of Dr. Hatch
to be always just going away. He had a very large practice, and was wont
to aver that his professional duties scarcely left him time to eat or
sleep. Yet Dr. Hatch's horses stood waiting through many a quarter of an
hour during which their master was engaged in conversation not of a
strictly professional nature.
When Mr. Weatherhead entered the best parlour of Laurel Villa, Dr. Hatch
had a cup of tea in one hand, and his watch in the other, and greeted
the new arrival with a friendly nod, and the assurance that he was "just
off." Mrs. Simpson shook hands with Mr. Weatherhead, and the Miss Pipers
graciously bowed to him. He, too, was connected in their minds with old
times. Miss Polly specially remembered seeing him on her visits to the
Birmingham Musical Festivals, when her father would take the opportunity
of turning over Weatherhead's stock of books, and making a few
purchases. And once the Pipers had lodged during a Festival week in the
rooms over Weatherhead's shop.
"Glad to see you better, Mrs. Simpson," said Jo, taking a seat after
having saluted the company.
"Oh yes, thank you, I'm quite well now. I know Dr. Hatch will scold me
if he hears me say so"--(with an arch glance baulked of its effect by
the unsympathetic spectacles)--"because he tells me I still need great
care. But my cough is gone. It is, really!"
Mrs. Simpson girlishly shook back her curls, and proceeded to pour out a
cup of tea for Mr. Weatherhead.
"And how is Simpson?" asked the latter.
"Bassy is very well, only immensely busy. He has three new pupils for
pianoforte and harmony; the daughters of Colonel ----,--tut, I forget
his name,--recommended by that kind Major Mitton. Or at least it would
be more proper to say that Major Mitton recommended Bassy to them! Not
very polite to say that the young ladies were recommended--oh dear! I
beg pardon. I'm afraid I've over-sweetened your tea?"
She had, in fact, put in half a dozen lumps, one after the other. But
Mr. Weatherhead fished the greater part of them out again with his
teaspoon, and deposited them in the saucer, saying it was of no
consequence.
"I am so sadly absent-minded!" said Mrs. Simpson, smiling sweetly.
"Bassy would scold me if he were here."
"Serve you right, if he did!" said Dr. Hatch, rising from the table.
"You should pay attention to what you're doing. I expect to hear that
you have swallowed the embrocation and anointed your throat with syrup
of squills."
"Oh, doctor! You do say the drollest things!" exclaimed the amiable
Amelia, with an enjoying giggle.
"Ah, no; not the drollest! Thank Heaven, I hear a great many droller
things than I say! That's what mainly supports me in my day's practice."
Mrs. Simpson, not in the least understanding him, giggled again. Dr.
Hatch had the reputation of being a wag; and Amelia Simpson was not the
woman to defraud him of a laugh on any such selfish ground as not seeing
the point of his joke.
"Well, Mr. Weatherhead," said Miss Patty Piper, blandly, "so we are to
have your sister-in-law for a neighbour, I hear."
Jo poked his nose forward, and pursed up his mouth. "O-ho! my
sister-in-law, Mrs. Dobbs? How do you mean, ma'am, 'as a neighbour'?"
"We understand that Mrs. Dobbs has been looking after Jessamine Cottage;
the little white house with a garden on the Gloucester Road," returned
Miss Patty. Dr. Hatch paused with his hand on the latch of the parlour
door to hear.
"Oh dear no," said Jo Weatherhead decisively. "Quite a mistake. Sarah
Dobbs is too wedded to her old home. Nothing would induce her to leave
Friar's Row. You must have been misinformed, ma'am."
"As to leaving Friar's Row," put in Miss Polly, "she must do that in any
case; for she has let the premises as offices; and at a high rent, too,
I hear. Friar's Row is considered a choice position for business
purposes."
Jo had opened his mouth to protest once more, when a sudden idea made
him shut it again without speaking. "Oh!" he gasped, and then made a
little pause before proceeding. "Ah, well--she--it wasn't quite settled
when I heard last. Would you mind stating your authority, ma'am?"
"The best--Mr. Bragg told us himself. His managing man at the works has
made the arrangement. Mr. Bragg has been looking out for a more central
office for some time."
"I told Mrs. Dobbs long ago that she was living at an extravagant rental
by sticking to Friar's Row," observed Dr. Hatch, turning the handle of
the door. "Depend on it, she has let it at a swinging rent; and quite
right, too. Now I really _am_ off."
Jo Weatherhead sat very still after the doctor's departure, with his cup
of tea in his hand, and a pondering expression of face. The Miss Pipers
were not sufficiently interested in him to observe his demeanour very
closely. If they did chance to notice that he was unusually silent, that
was accounted for by his sense of the superior company he found himself
in. They always spoke of him as "a good, odd creature, with sound
principles--a very respectable man, who knew his station." As for Amelia
Simpson, she was habitually unobservant, with an inconvenient faculty,
however, of suddenly making clear-sighted remarks when they were least
expected.
"I'm sure this is very good news for us!" she exclaimed. "Jessamine
Cottage is so near! At least, it _was_ quite close to us when we lived
in Marlborough Terrace."
"It will be a good move for Mrs. Dobbs. The air in our neighbourhood is
so much better than in her part of the town," said Miss Patty, with a
certain complacency, as who should say, "The merit of this atmospheric
superiority is all our own; but we are not proud."
"And yet I am surprised, too, at Mrs. Dobbs moving," replied Amelia.
"She always declared that she hated the suburbs, with their little
slight-built houses."
"That cannot apply to _our_ house," said Miss Polly. "Garnet Lodge stood
in its own ground many a long year before those new houses sprung up
between Greenhill Road and the Gloucester Road."
"But Mrs. Dobbs isn't going to live in Garnet Lodge!" returned Amelia,
with one of her sudden illuminations of common sense. "And Jessamine
Cottage is a mere bandbox."
"I remember Mrs. Dobbs among the trebles in 'Esther,'" observed Miss
Polly. "She had a fine clear voice, and could take the B flat in alt
with perfect ease."
"And her husband sold capital ironmongery. We have a coal-scuttle in the
kitchen now which was bought at his shop--a thoroughly solid article,"
added Miss Patty.
These appreciative words about the Dobbses, which at another time would
have gratified Jo Weatherhead, now fell on an unheeding ear. He took his
leave very shortly, and walked straight to Friar's Row.
"Well, Sarah Dobbs," said he, on entering the parlour, "I didn't think
you would steal a march on me like this! I did believe you'd have
trusted me sooner than a parcel of strangers, after all these years!"
He did not sit down in his usual place by the fireside, but remained
standing opposite to his old friend, looking at her with a troubled
countenance. Mrs. Dobbs gave him one quick, keen glance, and then said--
"So you've heard it, Jo? Well, I didn't mean that you should hear it
from any one but me. But who shall stop chattering tongues? They rage
like a fire in the stubble. And the poorer and lighter the fuel, the
bigger blaze it makes. It was settled only this very morning, too."
"It _is_ true, then, Sarah? I had a kind of a hankering hope that it
might be only trash and chit-chat."
"You mean about my letting my house, don't you? Yes; that's true."
"And me never to know a word of it!--To hear it from strangers!"
"Now look here, Jo; let us talk sensibly. Sit down, can't you?"
But Jo would not sit down; and after a minute's pause, Mrs. Dobbs went
on--
"I'll tell you the truth. I didn't say a word to you of my plan
beforehand, because I was afraid to--there!"
"Afraid! You, Sarah Dobbs, afraid of _me_! That's a good one!" But his
face relaxed a little from its pained, fixed look.
"Yes; afraid of what you'd say. I knew you wouldn't approve, and I knew
why. You wouldn't approve for my sake. But, thinks I, when once it's
done, Jo may scold a little, but he'll forgive his old friend. And I
never thought of chattering jackdaws cawing the matter from the
house-tops. I meant to tell you myself this very afternoon; I did
indeed, Jo."
Jo drew a little nearer to his accustomed chair, and put his hand on the
back of it, keeping his face turned away from Mrs. Dobbs. "Of course,
you're the mistress to do what you like with your own property," he
muttered.
"Nobody's mistress, or master either, to do what's wrong with their own
property. I mean to do what's right if I can. I was never one to heed
much what outside folks think of me; but I do heed what you think, Jo,
and reason good. And I want you to know my feeling about the matter once
for all, and then we can leave it alone."
Mr. Weatherhead here slid quietly into the armchair, and sat with his
face still turned towards the fire.
"You know," continued Mrs. Dobbs, "I told you some weeks ago that I was
troubled about the child's position here. She is a real lady, and ought
to be acknowledged as such. That's the only good that can come now from
poor Susy's marriage, and I do hold to it. There was only one way, that
I could see, of managing what I wanted. I could do it at a
sacrifice--after all, a very small sacrifice."
Jo Weatherhead shook his head emphatically.
"Yes, really and truly a very small sacrifice," persisted Mrs. Dobbs. "I
don't see why I shouldn't be just as happy and comfortable in Jessamine
Cottage as here--provided, of course, that my old friends don't cut me
and sulk with me. I shall be lonely enough when once the child's gone;
and you and me'll have to cheer each other up, and keep each other
company, as well as we can. You won't refuse to do that, will you, Jo?
Come, shake hands on it!"
Jo slowly put out his hand and grasped her proffered one. He then took
out, filled, and lighted his meerschaum, and smoked in silence for some
quarter of an hour, Mrs. Dobbs, meanwhile, knitting in equal silence.
All at once she said--
"Hark! There's May's step coming downstairs. Now you'll please to
understand that when my moving from this house is mentioned to the
child, it's because I find Friar's Row too noisy, and think the air in
Greenhill Road will agree better with my health. I trust you for that,
Jo Weatherhead, mind!"
May at this moment came gaily into the room, and Mr. Weatherhead thus
solemnly addressed her: "Miranda Cheffington, you have been to a
first-rate school, and have read your Roman history and all that,
haven't you?"
"Not much, I'm afraid, Uncle Jo."
"You have read about Lucretia, and Portia, and the mother of the
Gracchi" (pronounced "Gratch-I;" for Jo's instruction had been chiefly
taken in by the eye rather than the ear, in the shape of miscellaneous
gleanings from his own stock-in-trade), "and other distinguished women
of classical times, whose virtues were, in my opinion, not wholly
unconnected with bounce?"
Mary laughed and nodded.
"Well, allow me to tell you that there are Englishwomen at the present
day whom I consider far superior, in all that makes a real good woman,
to any Roman or Grecian of them all. Englishwomen to whom bounce in
every form is foreign and obnoxious. Englishwomen who do good by stealth
and never blush to find it Fame, because Fame is a great deal too busy
with rascals and hussies ever to trouble herself about _them_! Your
grandmother, Mrs. Sarah Dobbs, whom I'm proud to call my friend, is one
of those women. And what's more--and I'll have you bear it in mind,
Miranda Cheffington--I believe you'd be puzzled to find her equal in
Europe, Asia, Africa, or America--not to mention Australasia and the
'ole of the islands in the Pacific Ocean."
With that, Mr. Weatherhead walked gravely out; his nose somewhat redder
than usual, and his eyes glistening.