There was a great deal of trouble and some very genuine sorrow in the attorney's house at Dillsborough during the first week in December. Mr. Masters had declared to his wife that Mary should go to Cheltenham and a letter was written to Lady Ushant accepting the invitation. The £20 too was forthcoming and the dress and the boots and the hat were bought. But while this was going on Mrs. Masters took care that there should be no comfort whatever around them and made every meal a separate curse to the unfortunate lawyer. She told him ten times a day that she had been a mother to his daughter, but declared that such a position was no longer possible to her as the girl had been taken altogether out of her hands. To Mary she hardly spoke at all and made her thoroughly wish that Lady Ushant's kindness had been declined. "Mamma," she said one day, "I had rather write now and tell her that I cannot come."
"After all the money has been wasted!"
"I have only got things that I must have had very soon."
"If you have got anything to say you had better talk to your father. I know nothing about it."
"You break my heart when you say that, mamma."
"You think nothing about breaking mine;—or that young man's who is behaving so well to you. What makes me mad is to see you shilly-shallying with him."
"Mamma, I haven't shilly-shallied."
"That's what I call it. Why can't you speak him fair and tell him you'll have him and settle yourself down properly? You've got some idea into your silly head that what you call a gentleman will come after you."
"Mamma, that isn't fair."
"Very well, miss. As your father takes your part of course you can say what you please to me. I say it is so." Mary knew very well what her mother meant and was safe at least from any allusion to Reginald Morton. There was an idea prevalent in the house, and not without some cause, that Mr. Surtees the curate had looked with an eye of favour on Mary Masters. Mr. Surtees was certainly a gentleman, but his income was strictly limited to the sum of £120 per annum which he received from Mr. Mainwaring. Now Mrs. Masters disliked clergymen, disliked gentlemen, and especially disliked poverty; and therefore was not disposed to look upon Mr. Surtees as an eligible suitor for her stepdaughter. But as the curate's courtship had hitherto been of the coldest kind and as it had received no encouragement from the young lady, Mary was certainly justified in declaring that the allusion was not fair. "What I want to know is this;—are you prepared to marry Lawrence Twentyman?" To this question, as Mary could not give a favourable answer, she thought it best to make none at all. "There is a man as has got a house fit for any woman, and means to keep it; who can give a young woman everything that she ought to want;—and a handsome fellow too, with some life in him; one who really dotes on you,—as men don't often do on young women now as far as I can see. I wonder what it is you would have?"