That Unfortunate Marriage Volume Iii Part 20

"It isn't that! I mean--I wanted to tell you something!"

He turned his head now quickly, and looked at her. Her eyes were cast down, and she was plucking nervously at the fur lining of the cloak which lay on the seat beside her.

"Is it something about that confidence that you made me, and that I look upon as an honour, and always shall? Well, now, if you're going to speak about that, I shall take it as a sign that you really mean to be friends with me, and trust me. And there's nothing in the world would make me so proud as that you should trust me, full and free."

Then she told him all the story of her engagement to Owen. How it had been kept secret for three months by her grandmother's express stipulation. How, when Owen returned to England, they had revealed it to Mrs. Dormer-Smith; how that lady had disapproved and forbidden Owen the house, and had written to Captain Cheffington requesting him to interpose his parental authority; how, finally, May had felt so miserable and lonely, that she had made up her mind to leave her aunt's house and take refuge with her grandmother.

Mr. Bragg sat like a rock while she told her story, hesitatingly and shyly at first, but gathering courage as she went on. When she first mentioned Owen's name, his brows contracted for a moment, in a way which might mean anger, or perplexity, or simply surprise. But he remained otherwise quite unmoved to all appearance, and perfectly silent.

When May had finished her little story, she said timidly, as she had said to him on that memorable day in her aunt's house, "You are not angry, Mr. Bragg?"

He answered nearly as he had answered then, but without looking at her, and keeping his gaze on the fire, "Angry, my child! No; how could I be angry with you? You have never deceived me. You have been true and honest from first to last."

"But I mean, you are not--you are not angry with Owen?"

The answer did not come quite so promptly this time; but after a few seconds, he said, "I don't know that I've the least right to be angry with Mr. Rivers. Only I should have liked it better if he had told me how things were, plain and straightforward, when we were talking about--something else." He brought his speech to an abrupt conclusion.

Upon this May a.s.sured him that Owen had never desired secrecy. The engagement had been kept secret in deference to "Granny." And as soon as her aunt knew it, Owen had urged her (May) to tell Mr. Bragg also, feeling himself in a false position until the truth was revealed.

"I ought to have written to you yesterday," she said guiltily. "It's my fault, indeed it is!"

Mr. Bragg got up from his chair, and muttering something about "getting a little air," walked out on to the long platform.

There was certainly no lack of air outside there. A damp raw wind was driving through the station, making the lamps blink. Mr. Bragg had no great coat, that garment having been rolled up to serve as May's pillow.

But he marched up and down the long platform with his hands behind his back, at a steady and by no means rapid pace, apparently insensible to the cold.

Owen Rivers! So the man May was engaged to was his secretary, Mr.

Rivers! That was very surprising. Mr. Rivers was not at all the sort of man he should have expected that exquisite young creature to care about.

But Mr. Bragg would have been puzzled to describe the sort of man he would have expected her to care about. He had never seen any man he thought worthy of her, and it might safely be predicted that he never would; seeing that Mr. Bragg was in love with May, and would certainly never be in love with May's husband, let him be the finest fellow in the world.

One suspicion he at once dismissed from his mind--that Owen had ever been in the least danger from Mrs. Bransby's fascinations. No; when a man was betrothed to a girl like May Cheffington he was safe enough from anything of that kind, argued Mr. Bragg. Indeed, his visit to the widow's house had given him a favourable impression of all its inmates.

It was impossible, he thought, to be in Mrs. Bransby's presence without perceiving her to be worthy of respect. Searching his memory, he discovered that the first hint of her having any designs on young Rivers had come from Theodore Bransby, and now the motive of the hint began to dawn upon him. Theodore, as he had long ago perceived, hated Rivers. Mr.

Bragg now understood why. He paced up and down the draughty platform, solitary and meditative, for full ten minutes. It was a dead time, and the whole station seemed nearly deserted.

Then he returned to the waiting-room, of which May was still the sole occupant. He stirred the fire into a blaze, and then sat down opposite to it as before. May looked at him nervously and anxiously. She did not venture to speak first.

"I'll tell you one thing, Miss Cheffington," said Mr. Bragg, all at once. "What you told me has been a relief to my mind in one way."

She looked up inquiringly.

"Yes, it has been a relief to my mind, and I'm bound to acknowledge it.

I was afraid at one time--indeed, I'd almost made up my mind, though terribly against the grain--that you was engaged to some one else."

"Some one else!" exclaimed May, opening great eyes of wonder, and speaking in a tone which conveyed her _naf_ persuasion that, in that sense, there did not exist any one else. "Why, whom can you mean?"

Mr. Bragg reflected an instant. Then he said, "I'll tell you. Yes, I'll tell you, for he's tried to thrust it in people's faces as far as he dared. Mr. Theodore Bransby."

May fell back on her seat with a gesture of mute astonishment.

"Ah, yes; you're wondering how I could be such a blockhead as to think that possible. But if it had been true, you'd ha' wondered how I could be such a blockhead as to think anything else possible," said Mr. Bragg.

It was the sole touch of bitterness which escaped him throughout the interview. After a brief pause he went on, "Not, you understand, that I mean to deny Mr. Rivers is far superior to young Bransby--out of all comparison, superior to him. I may, perhaps, consider Mr. Rivers fort'nate beyond his merits. That's a question we won't enter into, because you and me can't help but look at it from different points of view. But I must bear testimony that he's always behaved like a real gentleman in his duties with me; and, so far as I know, he's thoroughly upright and honourable."

May considered this to be but faint praise. But she graciously made allowances. Granny, however, knew better. When Mr. Bragg's words were repeated to Granny, she exclaimed, "Well done, Joshua Bragg! That was spoken like a generous-minded man."

By this time the engine which was to draw them to Oldchester was in readiness. Mr. Bragg inquired impatiently for the "good lady" of the waiting-room. And then May learned that that person was to accompany them on the journey, lest Miss Cheffington should need any attendance on the way.

"And, indeed," said Mrs. Tupp, afterwards, "if the young lady had been a princess royal, there couldn't have been more fuss made over her. S'loon carriage, and everything! Of course, it was an effort for me to go along with 'em at such short notice, and so entirely unexpected. But as they said to me, 'Mrs. Tupp,' they said, 'had it not have been for your kindness and attention, we don't know what we should have done.' And the gentleman certainly made it worth my while." As he certainly did!

At the present moment, however, Mrs. Tupp was by no means in a complacent frame of mind. She was seen hurriedly approaching from the extremity of the station, very breathless and exhausted, attired in her Sunday bonnet, and shawl to match, confronting Mr. Bragg, who stood, sternly, watch in hand, at the door of the carriage.

"I told you so, Miss Cheffington," said he to May, who was already made luxuriously comfortable within the carriage. "Now, ma'am! No, don't trouble yourself to explain, please. Because in exactly two seconds and a half we're off. _Would_ you be so kind?" This to a guard who stood looking on beside the station-master. In a moment they had taken Mrs.

Tupp between them, and, a.s.sisted from behind by a youthful porter, managed to hoist her into the carriage by main force. Mr. Bragg took his place opposite to May. The whistle sounded, and they glided from beneath the roof of the station, and at an increasing speed across the dark country through the streaming rain.

CHAPTER XII.

"And you got jealous! You actually were jealous of Owen and that poor, dear, pretty Mrs. Bransby?"

"Yes, Granny."

"And you were such a _goose_--I won't use a stronger word, though I could--as to pay any attention to what that idiot of an aunt of yours--Lord forgive me!--chose to say in her anger and disappointment?"

"Yes, Granny."

"And you let the jabber of poor Amelia Simpson--as kind a soul as ever breathed, but as profitable to listen to as the chirping of sparrows on the house-top--prey upon your mind, and bias your common sense?"

"Yes, Granny."

"Why, then, I'm ashamed of you, May! Downright ashamed--there now!"

"Oh, thank you, Granny!"

And May seized her grandmother's hands one after the other as the old woman drew them away impatiently, and kissed them in a kind of rapture.

This little scene, with but slight variations, had been enacted several times since May's arrival on the previous evening at Jessamine Cottage.

May had ceased to make any excuses for herself, or to endeavour to describe and account for her state of mind. She was only too thankful to have her doubts treated with supreme disdain. To be scolded and chidden, and told that she did not deserve such a true lover as Owen, was such happiness as she could not be grateful enough for!

"Jealous of Owen because a parcel of mischievous magpies had nothing better to do than to dig their foolish bills into a poor widow's reputation? Why, I think you must have had softening of the brain!" Mrs.

Dobbs would say. Whereupon May would kneel down, and bury her face in her grandmother's lap, and laugh and cry, and murmur in a smothered voice--

"Bless you, Granny darling!"

"Not but what," Mrs. Dobbs admitted afterwards in a private confabulation with Jo Weatherhead, "not but what I do think it's pretty well enough to soften any one's brain to undergo a long course of Mrs.

Dormer-Smith. I thought I knew pretty well what she was, and I told you so long ago, Jo Weatherhead, as you must well remember. But, mercy! I hadn't an idea! Her goings on, from what the child tells me, and that _fool_ of a letter she's written to me, display a wrongheadedness and an aggravating kind of imbecility that beats everything."