That Unfortunate Marriage Volume Ii Part 22

Phoebe was their one servant, a housemaid from their Oldchester home--who had volunteered to remain with them and follow their fortunes.

"Poor Phoebe! I dare say she is tired," said Mrs. Bransby.

"I should think she _was_ rather. She has been working like a brick all day," returned Martin.

There was a little silence, during which Mrs. Bransby dried her eyes, put up her dishevelled hair, and replaced her cap.

"Ought you not to go to bed, my boy?" she said, looking wistfully at him.

"I want to stay and talk to you quietly a little, mother."

Mrs. Bransby hesitated. "I should dearly like you to stay awhile, Martin," she answered; "but I'm afraid it would not be right. You look pale and worn out. You and I must help each other now to do what is right;--and what--what _he_ would have wished," she added with quivering lips.

"Yes, mother," answered the boy eagerly. "That's just what I want; and I know he would have wished me to spare you all the bother I can. So now just listen, mother; indeed, indeed I couldn't sleep if I went to bed now--and it's far wearier work to lie awake than to sit up and talk.

Look here, mother; Theodore has offered to send me to school, hasn't he?"

"Yes, Martin. I am very thankful for that. I don't see how I could have afforded it."

"Well, but now, I've been thinking that it would be better if Theodore would give you that money, instead of paying for my schooling, and for me to get a situation and earn something."

"Earn! My darling boy, how could you earn anything?"

"Why, mother, I could do all that the office boy did at Oldchester. Old Tuckey told me once that he earned fifteen s.h.i.+llings a-week. Just fancy, mother! That's a good lot, isn't it?"

It looked a very childish face that he turned towards his mother: a face with frank, sparkling eyes and rounded cheeks, to which the excitement of making this proposition had brought back the roses.

"Oh, Martin, my dearest boy, it is sweet of you to think of this! But you are too young, darling."

"I'm going on for thirteen, mother!" interrupted Martin.

"Yes, dear; but still even that is very, very young," answered his mother gravely, although the phantom of a smile flitted across her pale face.

Martin looked disappointed, and, for a moment, almost angry. He had a naturally hot temper. But he battled down the temptation, and merely said, "Well, mother, you need not decide anything to-night. You can think it over. I believe I could earn something; and I'm sure that if I can, I ought."

"But your education, Martin!"

"I might, perhaps, go on learning a little at home--in the evenings," he rejoined, but more slowly, and less confidently than he had spoken before.

"You know, Martin, _he_ wished you to study. He was so proud of your abilities--so fond of you----" Her voice broke, and she turned away her head.

"Yes, mother; but he was fonder of you," answered Martin simply. "I know quite well that if father could speak to me now, this minute, he would say, 'Martin, take care of your mother.' That's what he _did_ say one day when I was alone with him, only a week before----" The boy paused, made a violent struggle to master his emotion, and then went on bravely, though his young face grew white to the lips, "And I'm going to do it, please G.o.d!"

The tears that poured down his mother's cheeks as she embraced him and kissed his forehead were not all bitter. "Not desolate--not wholly desolate," she murmered, "while I have you, my precious, precious son!"

They sat awhile, talking of their means, and their plans, and their prospects. Mrs. Bransby felt that although many of Martin's notions were, of course, crude and childish, yet there was a strain of firm manliness in him on which she could rely; and the boy had a quick intelligence. Before parting from his mother for the night, he proposed that she should write to Owen Rivers and ask his advice. "You'll believe what Mr. Rivers says, mother, if you don't believe me. And I think you'll find that _he_ will consider it my duty to earn something if I can; anyway, he's such a good fellow, and has such a thundering lot of sense, he's sure to give us good advice."

The widow caught at the suggestion; she had almost as implicit faith in Owen as her children had. She promised that Martin should enclose a letter of his own in hers to Mr. Rivers; and when she bade the boy "good night" at the door of his poor little chamber, she was surprised to find her heart somewhat lightened of its load.

"I say, look here, mother!" whispered Martin, beckoning her in from the open door. "Don't those young shavers sleep like one o'clock?" He pointed to Bobby and Billy, who occupied one large bed--a relic from the Oldchester nursery--while Martin's little camp-bedstead was squeezed into a corner of the same room. The two little fellows were sleeping the profound sleep of healthy childhood. Bobby had a smile on his parted lips, and Billy lay with one fat hand doubled up under his cheek, and the other buried in the thick ma.s.ses of his brother's curly hair.

"This isn't half a bad room when the window's wide open," went on Martin cheerfully. "I can see a tree--quite a good-sized elm--from my bed. Good night, mother dear; I hope you'll sleep. I think this'll turn out an awfully nice little house, when we get used to it."

The two letters to Owen Rivers--Martin's and his mother's--were written the next morning. Mrs. Bransby sent them under cover to Mr. Bragg, addressed to Oldchester, to be forwarded, and with a line from herself to Mr. Bragg, begging that he would let Mr. Rivers have them without delay. She had written very fully and frankly to Owen, telling him, without reserve, what her means were. Only on one point had she been reticent--Theodore's conduct. In her heart she thought Theodore cruelly cold and hard towards her and the children. But she would not complain of him; he was her dear husband's son, and she felt as if it would be disloyal to that honoured husband's memory to paint Theodore to others as she saw him.

Theodore's recommendation to his step-mother, to "take good, steady, paying lodgers," was in the nature of those vague counsels we are all apt to proffer freely to our neighbours; such as, to "cheer up;" not to "yield to weakness;" to "look on the bright side;" to "dismiss disagreeable thoughts;" to "set to work briskly and earn money," and the like. That is to say, it was easier said than done. When, after the family had been somewhat over a week in town, Theodore came again to see them, and found that no steps had been taken to carry out this suggestion, he showed considerable displeasure, and said a sharp word or two about the difficulty of helping unpractical people.

This word, "unpractical," was, in fact, a favourite reproach to apply to poor Mrs. Bransby on the part of a great many persons. Mrs. Dormer-Smith caught it up from Theodore. Constance Hadlow echoed the same phrase when, at length, in answer to some private inquiries of Mrs.

Dormer-Smith's, she wrote about the Bransby family.

May's first eager proposal to go and see Mrs. Bransby was met by her aunt with an absolute refusal; but she was so urgent, and appealed so strongly to her uncle, that Mrs. Dormer-Smith, making a virtue of necessity (for she feared that if leave were refused May might go without it), graciously consented that her niece should pay one visit to Mrs. Bransby.

"One visit will be enough, May," said Aunt Pauline. "Quite enough to show that you feel kindly towards her, and that sort of thing. It is really stretching a point. However, if it must be, it must be. I only implore you not to talk about these people in society. Pray, _pray_ do not _poser_ as a district visitor, or whatever it is called."

May shrugged her shoulders, and was silent. She knew how vain it was to reason with Aunt Pauline on a point of this kind; but she comforted herself by looking forward to the time--very near now--when Owen would return, and when, in some mysterious way, not explicable to her head, but quite sufficing to her heart, all her difficulties would vanish before his presence. And that same afternoon she set off to Collingwood Place, Barnsbury Road, in a cab, attended by Smithson.

Mrs. Bransby received her affectionately, and thanked her for her visit; but she did not ask her to repeat it. She perceived, far more quickly than May had perceived it, that Mrs. Dormer-Smith would not like her niece to keep up any intimacy with a family who lived in Barnsbury, and were served by one maid-of-all-work. When the children clung round May, and clamoured to know when she was coming to see them again, Mrs.

Bransby interposed. She told them that May could not be running in and out of their house in London as she had done in Oldchester; and they must understand she could not take up the time of her aunt's maid in making long journeys to Barnsbury. And she said privately to May--

"Don't get into trouble with your aunt by coming here, my dear. I know you would help us if you could; but you cannot. But I ought not to say that! It is helpful to know you are unchanged, and warm-hearted as ever.

Some day, please G.o.d, we may be able to see each freely."

"Yes; some day!" cried May joyfully, thinking of him who would help to make that and all the other good things possible. And then she coloured vividly, as though she had betrayed a secret.

Mrs. Bransby, however, did not notice this. She went on pensively, "And yet I am almost afraid to look forward to any pleasant thing lest it should be s.n.a.t.c.hed away from me. Misfortune makes one a sad coward. I have had a disappointment just lately--about Mr. Rivers. He is not coming back so soon as was expected."

"He is coming back at the end of this month," said May in a quick, almost breathless way.

"No. He _was_ to have returned to England at the end of December, but that is altered. His present engagement is prolonged for some weeks. I had a letter from him last evening from Barcelona, and he does not expect to be in England before the latter part of January at the soonest."

May drove homeward much depressed and out of spirits. It was not only that Owen's return was postponed, but that she had not been the first to hear of it! To be sure, his weekly letter was not yet due, and he was rigidly scrupulous in keeping his promise to Mrs. Dobbs about corresponding with May. But need he have volunteered to give this news to Mrs. Bransby before writing it to her? A dull feeling of discontent seemed to oppress her; but on reaching home she tried to shake it off, and to forget it in fighting her friend's battle against Aunt Pauline.

Aunt Pauline had constructed for herself an image of Mrs. Bransby founded on Theodore's hints. She had decided in her own mind that Mrs.

Bransby was a weak-minded, lounging, lazy woman, who, no longer able to adorn herself with fine clothes, would sink into slattern-hood, and throw herself and her family as a dead weight on to any shoulders who would carry them.

"A woman belonging to the provincial middle-cla.s.s, who thinks of nothing but dress," said Mrs. Dormer-Smith, shaking her head mournfully. "One knows what _that_ must come to!"

"But Mrs. Bransby thought of a great many things besides dress!" cried May. "She thought of her household, and her children, and, above all, of her husband."

Mrs. Dormer-Smith merely shook her head again, with an air of mild martyrdom, as though some one were unjustly accusing _her_.

"And I a.s.sure you, Aunt Pauline," May continued, "that the little house she is living in--poor and humble, of course, in comparison with her old home--is a pattern of neatness."

"You say 'poor and humble,' May; but do you not think that a house at forty-five pounds a year is quite as good as she has any right to expect, under the circ.u.mstances? _I_ do. And that poor young Bransby has to be responsible for the rent."

"I am sure Mrs. Bransby won't let him be out of pocket, if she can possibly help it."

"I dare say. But she is a sadly unpractical person."