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A Prince of Sinners, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Part 1 - Chapter 16. Uncle And Niece |
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_ PART I CHAPTER XVI. UNCLE AND NIECE Mr. Bullsom was an early riser, and it chanced that, as was frequently the case, on the morning following Brooks' visit he and Mary sat down to breakfast together. But when, after a cursory glance through his letters, he unfolded the paper, she stopped him. "Uncle," she said, "I want to talk to you for a few minutes, if I may." "Go ahead," he answered. "No fear of our being interrupted. I shall speak to those girls seriously about getting up. Now, what is it? "I want to earn my own living, uncle," she said, quietly. He looked over his spectacles at her. "Eh?" "I want to earn my own living," she repeated. "I have been looking about for a means of doing so, and I think that I have succeeded." Mr. Bullsom took off his spectacles and wiped them carefully. "Earn your own living, eh!" he repeated. "Well! Go on!" Mary leaned across the table towards him. "Don't think that I am not grateful for all you have done for me, uncle," she said. "I am, indeed. Only I have felt lately that it was my duty to order my life a little differently. I am young and strong, and able to work. There is no reason why I should be a burden upon any one." She found his quietness ominous, but she did not flinch. "I am not accomplished enough for a governess, or good-tempered enough for a companion," she continued, "but I believe I have found something which I can do. I have written several short stories for a woman's magazine, and they have made me a sort of offer to do some regular work for them. What they offer would just keep me. I want to accept." "Where should you live?" he asked. "In London!" "Alone? "There is a girls' club in Chelsea somewhere. I should go there at first, and then try and share rooms with another girl." "How much a week will they give you?" "Twenty-eight shillings, and I shall be allowed to contribute regularly to the magazine at the usual rates. I ought to make at least forty shillings a week." Mr. Bullsom sighed. "Is this owing to any disagreement between you and the girls?" he asked, sharply. "Certainly not," she answered. "You ain't unhappy here? Is there anything we could do? I don't want to lose you." Mary was touched. She had expected ridicule or opposition. This was more difficult. "Of course I am not unhappy," she answered. "You and aunt have been both of you most generous and kind to me. But I do feel that a busy life--and I'm not a bit domestic, you know would be good for me. I believe, uncle, if you were in my place you would feel just like me. If you were able to, I expect you'd want to earn your own living." "You shall go!" he said, decidedly. "I'll help you all I can. You shall have a bit down to buy furniture, if you want it, or an allowance till you feel your way. But, Mary, I'm downright sorry. No, I'm not blaming you. You've a right to go. I--I don't believe I'd live here if I were you. "You are very good, uncle," Mary said, gratefully. "And you must remember it isn't as though I were leaving you alone. You have the girls." Mr. Bullsom nodded. "Yes," he said, "I have the girls. Look here, Mary," he added, suddenly, looking her in the face, "I want to have a word with you. I'm going to talk plainly. Be honest with me." "Of course," she murmured. "It's about the girls. It's a hard thing to say, but somehow--I'm a bit disappointed with them." She looked at him in something like amazement. "Yes, disappointed," he continued. "That's the word. I'm an uneducated man myself--any fool can see that--but I did all I could to have them girls different. They've been to the best school in Medchester, and they've been abroad. They've had masters in most everything, and I've had 'em taught riding and driving, and all that sort of thing, properly. Then as they grew up I built this 'ouse, and came up to live here amongst the people whom I reckoned my girls'd be sure to get to know. And the whole thing's a damned failure, Mary. That's the long and short of it." "Perhaps--a little later on" Mary began, hesitatingly. "Don't interrupt me," he said, brusquely. "This is the first honest talk I've ever had about it, and it's doing me good. The girls'd like to put it down to your mother and me, but I don't believe it. I'm ashamed to say it, but I'm afraid it's the girls themselves. There's something not right about them, but I'm blessed if I know what it is. Their mother and I are a bit vulgar, I know, but I've done my best to copy those who know how to behave--and I believe we'd get through for what we are anywhere without giving offence. But my girls oughtn't to be vulgar. It's education as does away with that, and I've filled em chock-full of education from the time they were babies. It's run out of them, Mary, like the sands through an hour-glass. They can speak correctly, and I dare say they know all the small society tricks. But that isn't everything. They don't know how to dress. They can spend just as much as they like, and then you can come into the room in a black gown as you made yourself, and you look a lady, and they don't. That's the long and short of it. The only decent people who come to this house are your friends, and they come to see you. There's young Brooks, now. I've no son, Mary, and I'm fond of young men. I never knew one I liked as I like him. My daughters are old enough to be married, and I'd give fifty thousand pounds to have him for a son-in-law. And, of course, he won't look at 'em. He sees it. He'll talk to you. He takes no more notice of them than is civil. They fuss round him, and all that, but they might save themselves the pains. It's hard lines, Mary. I'm making money as no one knows on. I could live at Enton and afford it. But what's the good of it? If people don't care to know us here, they won't anywhere. Mary, how was it education didn't work with them girls? Your mother was my own sister, and she married a gentleman. He was a blackguard, but hang it, Mary, if I were you I'd sooner be penniless and as you are than be my daughters with five thousand apiece." There was an embarrassed silence. Then Mary faced the situation boldly. "Uncle," she said, "you are asking my advice. Is that it?" "If there's any advice you can give, for God's sake let's have it. But I don't know as you can make black white." "Selina and Louise are good girls enough," she said, "but they are a little spoilt, and they are a little limited in their ideas. A town like this often has that effect. Take them abroad, uncle, for a year, or, better still, if you can find the right person, get a companion for them--a lady--and let her live in the house." "That's sound!" he answered. "I'll do it." "And about their clothes, uncle. Take them up to London, go to one of the best places, and leave the people to make their things. Don't let them interfere. Down here they've got to choose for themselves. They wouldn't care about taking advice here, but in London they'd probably be content to leave it. Take them up to town for a fortnight. Stay at one of the best hotels, the Berkeley or the Carlton, and let them see plenty of nice people. And don't be discouraged, uncle." "Where the devil did you get your common-sense from?" he inquired, fiercely. "Your mother hadn't got it, and I'll swear your father hadn't." She laughed heartily. "Above all, be firm with them, uncle," she said. "Put your foot down, and stick to it. They'll obey you. "Obey me? Good Lord, I'll make 'em," Mr. Bullsom declared, vigorously. "Mary, you're a brick. I feel quite cheerful. And, remember this, my girl. I shall make you an allowance, but that's nothing. Come to me when you want a bit extra, and if ever the young man turns up, then I've got a word or two to say. Mind, I shall only be giving you your own. My will's signed and sealed." She kissed him fondly. "You're a good sort, uncle," she said. "And now will you tell me what you think of this letter?" "Read it to me, dear," he said. "My eyes aren't what they were." She obeyed him. "41, BUCKLESBURY, LONDON, E. C. "DEAR MADAM, "We have received a communication from our agents at Montreal, asking us to ascertain the whereabouts of Miss Mary Scott, daughter of Richard Scott, at one time a resident in that city. "We believe that you are the young lady in question, and if you will do us the favour of calling at the above address, we may be able to give you some information much to your advantage. "We are, dear madam, "Yours respectfully, "JONES AND LLOYD." Mr. Bullsom stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Sounds all right," he remarked. "Of course you'll go. But I always understood that your father's relations were as poor as church mice." "Poorer, uncle! His father--my grandfather, that is--was a clergyman with barely enough to live on, and his uncle was a Roman Catholic priest. Both of them have been dead for years." "And your father--well, I know there was nothing there," Mr. Bullsom remarked, thoughtfully. "You cabled out the money to bring me home," Mary reminded him. "Well, well!" Mr. Bullsom declared. "You must go and see these chaps. There's no harm in that, at any rate. We must all have that trip to London. I expect Brooks will be wanting to go and see Henslow. We'll have to give that chap what for, I know." Selina sailed into the room in a salmon-coloured wrapper, which should long ago have been relegated to the bath-room. She pecked her father on the cheek and nodded to Mary. "Don't you see Mr. Brooks, dear?" her father remarked, with a twinkle in his eye and something very much like a wink to Mary. Selina screamed, and looked fearfully around the room. "What do you mean, papa?" she exclaimed. "There is no one here." "Serve you right if there had been," Mr. Bullsom declared, gruffly. "A pretty state to come down in the morning at past nine o'clock." Selina tossed her head. "I am going to dress directly after breakfast," she remarked. "Then if you'll allow me to say so," her father declared, "before breakfast is the time to dress, and not afterwards. You're always the same, Selina, underdressed when you think there's no one around to see you, and overdressed when there is." Selina poured herself out some coffee and yawned. "La, papa, what do you know about it?" she exclaimed. "What my eyes tell me," Mr. Bullsom declared, sternly. "You've no allowance to keep to. You've leave to spend what you want, and you're never fit to be seen. There's Mary there taking thirty pounds a year from me, and won't have a penny more, though she's heartily welcome to it, and she looks a lady at any moment of the day." Selina drew herself up, and her eyes narrowed a little. "You're talking about what, you don't understand, pa," she answered with dignity. "If you prefer Mary's style of dress"--she glanced with silent disparagement at her cousin's grey skirt and plain white blouse--"well, it's a matter of taste, isn't it? "Taste!" Mr. Bullsom replied, contemptuously. "Taste! What sort of taste do you call that beastly rug on your shoulders, eh? Or your hair rolled round and just a pin stuck through it? Looks as though it hadn't been brushed for a week. Faugh! When your mother and I lived on two pounds a week she never insulted me by coming down to breakfast in such a thing." Selina eyed her father in angry astonishment. "Thing indeed!" she repeated. "This wrapper cost me four guineas, and came from Paris. That shows how much you know about it." "From Paris, did it?" Mr. Bullsom retorted, fiercely. "Then up-stairs you go and take it off. You girls have had your own way too much, and I'm about tired of it." "I shall change it--after breakfast," Selina said, doubtfully. Mr. Bullsom threw open the door. "Up-stairs," he repeated, "and throw it into the rag-bag." Selina hesitated. Then she rose, and with scarlet cheeks and a poor show of dignity, left the room. Mr. Bullsom drew himself up and beamed upon Mary. "I'll show'em a bit," he declared, with great good-humour. "I may be an ignorant old man, but I'm going to wake these girls up." Mary struggled for a moment, but her sense of humour triumphed. She burst out laughing. "Oh, uncle, uncle," she exclaimed, "you're a wonderful man." He beamed upon her. "You come shopping with us in London," he said. "We'll have some fun." _ |
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