‘Well, mother, putting it off till the afternoon is not putting it off for ever,’ said sensible Mab.
And when Lady William went to get her hat, Mab, who had always a hundred things to do within as well as outside the house, in the course of her moving about as she put things straight upon the table, saw her mother’s letter upon the blotting-book, which Lady William had left open. Mab had no idea that she did anything wrong in looking at it. She had had no hesitation in all her life before, about anything that was her mother’s, and why now? It began, ‘Gentlemen,’ which was a queer mode of address, Mab thought, and this was how it went on:
‘I had already heard of Lord John Pakenham’s death, and expected your letter accordingly. I have no certificates to send you, as it never occurred to me to provide myself with anything of the kind, and circumstances, as I hear from my brother, have occurred to make it somewhat difficult to obtain them but you will perhaps know better how to act in the matter than I do. I was married on the 13th May, in St. Alban’s Proprietary Chapel, Stone Street, Marylebone, by the Rev. Mr. Gepps, who is since dead. And I am informed by my brother that the Chapel was burnt down some years ago. It seems an unfortunate concatenation of accidents, but I don’t doubt that you will know how to proceed in the matter. There is no witness of the marriage still alive—except——’
Here the writing broke off, and Mab stopped short with a curious sensation as if she had been pulled up suddenly. It startled her a little; she could scarcely tell why. What did people mean, inquiring into matters so long past? Her mother’s marriage! Why, everybody knew all about her mother’s marriage. ‘Am not I a proof of it? Mab said to herself. ‘I hope they don’t mean to suggest that I am not my mother’s child!’ It disturbed her a little, though she could not have told why. Poor mother! she never liked talking about her marriage. Why should she be troubled? Mab had long ago made up her mind that it could not have been a happy marriage, though natural piety (which was strong in her) prevented her from blaming her father. They did not understand each other, she supposed. Many married people failed in that: strange to think how anybody could fail to understand mother, who was so very easy to get on with, not jealous or touchy, or any of those things! And that anybody should worry her about her marriage after all this time when she had been a widow for such years and years! Mab could not bear that her mother should be worried in this or any other way.
‘Mother,’ she said, when they set out, ‘I want to say something to you. I read your letter, you know, in the writing-book——’
‘You read my letter, Mab?’
‘Well, you never said I mustn’t; I never thought you could be writing anything you did not want me to see.’
‘And you are quite right, my dear,’ said Lady William seriously; but all the same, she asked herself with a shudder, ‘How far she had gone, what she had said?’
‘And, mother, if they are raking up everything, all those things you prefer not to talk of, that you have never even told me—because of this money that might or should come to me—mother, I don’t want their money. Let them keep it to themselves. I will not have you worried or get that look over the eyes for anything of the kind. I ought to have a say in it, if it is for me.’
‘My love, it is very sweet of you to say that—and quite what I might have expected from my Mab; but unfortunately they, if you mean the lawyers, won’t keep it to themselves, nor can they keep it from you, if—— The family would keep it willingly, I have no doubt, but then it is not in their hands.’