That Unfortunate Marriage, Vol. 3

by Frances Eleanor Trollope

Upon that she managed to walk out of the room with dignity and dry eyes. But the poor child, for all her brave words, did take her aunt's hint so seriously as to throw herself on the bed in her own room, and lie sobbing there for an hour.

To her husband, Mrs. Dormer-Smith had reported the interview with Owen as accurately as she could. She did, indeed, declare her belief that the young man was a Nihilist. But that was said genuinely enough. A man of gentle birth, who deliberately stated—apparently with sympathetic approval—that there were mechanics who would be ashamed to own Captain Cheffington as a father-in-law, was, in her opinion, evidently prepared to demolish the existing bases of human society.

Mr. Dormer-Smith was very sorry for his niece: more sorry than he thought it necessary to express at that moment to Pauline. But still he agreed with his wife that every effort ought to be made to prevent her marrying so disastrously. It might have been supposed, perhaps, that Mr. Dormer-Smith, not having found his own mode of life productive of unalloyed felicity, in spite of a fair income, aristocratic connections, and a wife devoted to keeping up their position in society, would have been not unwilling to let May try her fate in a different fashion. But it is a common experience that, although the possession of certain things gives them not the smallest gleam of happiness, yet, to a large class of minds, the thought of doing without these things suggests misery. The unusual is a terrible scarecrow, and keeps many weak-minded birds from the cherries.

Mr. Dormer-Smith was to go down to Combe Park to attend the funeral of his deceased cousin-in-law. He had some liking for Lucius, and thought, as he sat in the railway carriage speeding down to the little wayside station beyond Oldchester, where he was to alight, that it was a truly inscrutable dispensation which took away Lucius—a man at least harmless, and of honourable principles—and left Augustus alive; and he could not help regretting the death of Lucius on May's account. Lucius had been, in his dry, peculiar manner, very kind towards his young cousin. He had resented her father's neglect of her; and he treated her, when they met, with a certain air of protection, and almost tenderness, such as one might assume towards a child or an animal that one knew to have been hardly used. Frederick thought it not impossible that, had Lucius lived, his influence might have been brought to bear on May for her good. But Lucius was gone; and Augustus remained to disgrace the family and annoy his relations more than ever.

This, however, was not Pauline's idea. Although her brother's second marriage had, apparently, receded into the background, in consequence of these new troubles about May, yet it had really been occupying many of Mrs. Dormer-Smith's thoughts. She certainly considered it to be not quite so terrible a business now that Lucius—poor dear Lucius!—was out of the way, as it would have been had he lived. A Viscountess Castlecombe might be floated, Pauline said to herself, where a Mrs. Augustus Cheffington would stick in the mud. They could live chiefly abroad—not, of course, in a shabby street in Brussels; but on the Riviera, for instance. A warm climate had always suited Augustus. And as for herself, she, Pauline, would never willingly pass an hour in England between the first of November and the last of April. It really would not be at all disagreeable to spend one or two of the winter months with one's brother and sister-in-law—thank Heaven that, at least, she was not English! So many deviations from "good form" might be got over on the plea of foreign manners—at some charming, sunny place, say St. Raphael! That was not so far from Nice as to preclude the enjoyment of some little gaiety and society. They would have a villa of their own, of course. Perhaps, Augustus might build himself one. That sort of life would enable them to catch a good many travellers on the wing. And, with sufficient tact and savoir faire (which Pauline flattered herself she could supply), it might be possible to fill their house with a succession of "nice" people. The "nicest" people were sometimes rather less exigent on the other side of the Channel! At any rate, there would be less difficulty in "floating" Lady Castlecombe on the stream of society abroad than at home. Augustus would be rich; Uncle George could not prevent that, let him do what he would with his savings and his investments. For the estates were strictly entailed; and Uncle George had nursed them into something like treble their value when he succeeded to the property. Mrs. Griffin heard from Lady Mary, the Dean of Oldchester's wife, who had it from the Rector of Combe, that Lord Castlecombe was crushed by the loss of Lucius. Augustus might not have to wait very long for his inheritance. How strangely things turn out! Well, she would write very kindly and gently to her brother. There was the excuse of addressing him about May; and she would take the opportunity of sending a civil word to his wife. It must be done delicately, of course. But Augustus should see that there was no disposition to be hostile, on the part of his sister, at any rate.

It was in the forenoon of the day after Owen's visit that Mrs. Dormer-Smith was thus meditating. Her husband had started for Combe Park. The house was very quiet; the fire in her dressing-room was very warm; several budgets of gossip had arrived by the post from various country houses, and lay unopened within reach of her hand. Mrs. Dormer-Smith felt that there was a certain "luxury of woe" in a family affliction which justified one in saying "not at home," and sitting in a wadded dressing-gown, without causing one either heart-ache or anxiety. And she had been softly rocking herself in the day-dreams recorded above, when they were interrupted as suddenly, if not as fatally, as those of La Fontaine's milkmaid. James stood before her with a visiting card on a salver, and a cloud of depression—which was the utmost revelation of ill-humour his well-trained visage ever allowed itself, above-stairs—on his shaven countenance.

"What is this, James? What do you mean by bringing me cards here—and now?"

"I said 'not at home,' ma'am, but the—the party didn't seem to understand; and, unfortunately, Miss Cheffington happening to pass through the hall at that moment——"

"Who is it? Where is the person?"

Mrs. Dormer-Smith took the card and examined it through her eyeglass with a sinking heart. Could that subversive young man have returned? Or was there, perchance, some other suitor in the field? An anarchical shoemaker, possibly! Pauline's confidence in Mrs. Dobbs had been completely blown into the air by learning that she had approved and encouraged May's engagement to a young man who calmly avowed that he possessed one hundred and fifty pounds a year of his own; and she felt that any dreadful revelation might be made at any moment. But the name on the card was not a masculine one, at any rate. Mrs. Something-or-other Simpson, she read on it.