Mrs. Thompson: A Novel

by W. B. Maxwell

But in fact Mrs. Marsden had given her daughter no money. And this was not because Enid had refrained from asking for it. Compelled to do so by Kenion, she had more than once reluctantly sued for substantial assistance.

"Enid dear, don't ask me again. Truly, it is impossible."

Mrs. Marsden stood firm in the attitude that she had adopted when pestered by old Mrs. Kenion at the christening. Of course she gave presents to little Jane. The trifling aid that a young mother needs in rearing a beloved child Enid might be sure of obtaining; but the source of supply for a husband's selfish extravagance had run dry.

"Enid, my darling, I can't do it—I simply can't. He should not send you to me. I told his mother that it was useless to expect more from me."

Enid hugged Mrs. Marsden, said she felt a wretch, begged for forgiveness; but soon she had to confess that Charles bore these rebuffs very badly, and that it would be better for Mrs. Marsden never to come any more to the farmhouse. If she came, Charles might insult her.

And now Richard had hinted that he would not allow Enid to come to St. Saviour's Court. It seemed that soon the mother and daughter would be able to meet only by stealth and on rare occasions.

If the barrier was shattered and broken in front of Enid, it was completely down between Mrs. Marsden and Mr. Prentice. No further pretence was possible to either of them: the strenuous pressure of open facts had forced both to speak more or less plainly when they spoke of Marsden.

Although Marsden always abused the solicitor behind his back, he ran to him for help every time he got into a scrape; and during the last year one might almost say that he had kept Mr. Prentice busily employed. A horrid mess with London book-makers; two rows with the railway company, about cards in a third-class carriage, and no ticket in a first-class carriage; a fracas with the billiard-marker at his club—one after another, stupid and disgraceful scrapes. Mr. Prentice, doing his best for the culprit, each time found it necessary to obtain Mrs. Marsden's instructions, and to put things before her plainly.

The club committee had eventually desired their obstreperous member to forward a resignation; and, on his refusal to do so, had removed his name from their list. Mr. Marsden, who in his boastful pride once considered himself eligible for the select company of the County gentlemen, had thus been ignominiously expelled from the large society of petty tradesmen, clerks, tag, rag, and bobtail, known as the Mallingbridge Conservative.

At last, after a discussion concerning one of these scrapes, Mr. Prentice abandoned the slightest shadow of pretence, and gave his old client the plainest conceivable advice.