“And what may Miss O'Byrne's fortune be, Frank?” Captain Bradshaw asked, rather grimly.
“‘Her face is her fortune, sir, she said,’” Frank laughed.
“I thought so,” Captain Bradshaw said. “That is just like you, Frank—I could have sworn it. The present generation are going to the deuce, I think. I married well, so did my father, and my grandfather, and so on as far back as history tells us anything about it. Here you are—a good-looking fellow, with every advantage—marrying a young lady, of whom I will accept your description as to her personal advantages, but altogether, as I understand you, without fortune.”
“It's very sad, uncle,” Frank said with comic humility, “but you see we can't get all our [125] wants. If Katie had been worth ten thousand a year, perhaps she would have been married a year ago.”
“I don't think money has much to do with happiness,” Alice said.
“Pooh, nonsense, stuff,” Captain Bradshaw said irritably. “What do you know about it, Alice?”
Alice had no answer ready, and, after a short pause, Captain Bradshaw went on—
“There, Frank, I don't want to damp your ardour. I don't like it, and it's no use pretending I do; but I dare say I shall like your Kate very much when I see her, so you had better tell her to make up her mind to like me. You have been very troublesome lately, Frank, but I wish you every happiness, my boy.”
And so time had gone on, the four months the engagement lasted had passed, and Frank went down to be married, taking Prescott with him, to support him upon that arduous occasion.
It was three days later that Alice saluted her uncle on his coming down to breakfast with,
“There is an announcement in the ‘Times’ of to-day which will astonish you, uncle.”
[126]
“What is it, Alice?”
“Well, to begin with, uncle, here's Frank's marriage in—not that that is astonishing. But what do you think of the one under it? 'On Wednesday, at St. Peter's, Manchester, Frederick Bingham, of Hans Place, London, to Margaret, only daughter of the late Charles Farrer, Esq., of Oldham.'”
“Nonsense, Alice, you are joking.”
“It is a fact, uncle; here is the paper, look for yourself.”
“What the deuce does he mean by it, Alice? How dare he marry without speaking to me first?”
“I don't know, I am sure, uncle, it seems strange, but there is a letter on the table for you, and I think it is in his handwriting.”
Captain Bradshaw opened the letter.
“Yes, it is from him.”
“My dear Uncle,—
You will, I am sure, be surprised at the news that I am married. Indeed, I am almost surprised myself. It has indeed been rather a sudden affair at the end, although I have been attached to the young lady for a considerable time.” (Captain Bradshaw did not notice the [127] little look of amused contempt upon his niece's face.) “I should have spoken to you on the subject, but I hate fuss, and I think one marriage in a family is quite enough at a time. I did not, therefore, wish to bore you with my domestic affairs. You will, I feel sure, uncle, excuse any apparent disrespect in my not mentioning the matter to you, but I did not even tell my father until two days ago. My wife is just twenty-one years of age, is pretty, at least I suppose I ought to think so, and has a snug little fortune, which, to a man fighting his way in life, is of importance; and I cannot, like my cousin Frank, afford to be romantic. I trust, my dear uncle, that when I inform you of the particulars, and present my wife to you, you will approve of the step I have taken.
“Your affectionate nephew,
“Fred Bingham.”
“He is a strange young fellow, Alice. Never does anything like anyone else. It is just as well though; as he says, two marriages on the cards would have been rather overpowering.”
[128]
“It is all a matter of opinion, uncle. I should not like a husband of mine to marry me in that sort of way, as if he were ashamed of the whole affair.”
“I don't suppose he's ashamed, Alice. I am afraid though, very much afraid by the name, Oldham you see, that he has married into the cotton mills. It doesn't matter much in his case. He's a railway contractor, and I suppose not particular. Had it been Frank, it would have been a serious matter. I shouldn't like to think of a cotton spinner's daughter at Wyvern Hall. As it is, her money—you see he says she has a snug fortune—will be very useful to him. There's no romance about Fred.”
“I should think not,” Alice said scornfully.
“No,” her uncle went on, unheeding the tone, “not a bit. He's wide awake, is Master Fred. You see she's no father, is just twenty-one, and he married her suddenly. I shouldn't be at all surprised,” and he laughed, “if there was no time to have settlements drawn out.”
“Oh, uncle,” Alice said impetuously, “how can you laugh? to me all this is shocking.”
[129]
“Well, my dear, frankly it's not nice; and as I said, if Fred were going to have Wyvern Hall, I shouldn't like it at all. Still, Alice, I think you are inclined to be a little too hard upon Fred. He is a shrewd man of the world, no doubt, but you see you don't know anything about men of the world, and so these things go a little against your grain. I like Fred Bingham very much; he's a pleasant, amiable, chatty young fellow, although he has not been brought up, so to speak, in the traditions of a gentleman. I like him, but I don't do more. I shall, of course, leave him some money when I die, but I confess I should never really care for him as I do for Frank, with all his headstrong ways and the annoyance he has given me.”
Alice felt pleased.
“Thank you, uncle. There is, in my opinion, no more comparison between my two cousins than between light and dark.”
“Yes, Alice, I know your opinions on the subject, but as I said, you are not an impartial judge. Women never are when it is between a man of birth who has a fortune and no work to do, and one who has to fight his way.”
“But, my dear uncle, my cousins are equally well born, and equally well educated; I do not [130] see why there should be any difference between them.”
“Yes, my dear, there is a very great difference,” Captain Bradshaw said positively. “Frank was brought up with the idea that he should never have to work for his living. Therefore he has no notion whatever of business, is romantic in his ideas, would not do a mean thing to save his life, and refused, even at the risk of losing my favour, to do as I wanted him—in fact, is a gentleman. Fred has been brought up in a different school. He was educated at some private school or other; his father is, I have always heard—for I never saw the man, and never want to—is a sharp man of business, and married my silly sister for her money, and Fred has had it instilled into him that money-making is the great end of life. He is a good-tempered, off-hand young fellow, and this has not done him so much harm as it would do most lads. He has been to college, certainly, but that has not done him as much good as it should have done. He has turned out a man of the world, and as such, though I like him very well, I could never love him as I do Frank. You see the difference of their marriages. Frank marries a little Irish girl without a halfpenny. She, I have no doubt, to use his own expression, a most loveable little woman; and he is as proud of his marriage as if he had made the best match conceivable. Fred, on the other hand, without a tithe of Frank's natural advantages, marries a girl with a fortune, and without a father to look after her. I shall be interested, Alice, in watching the different way in which the young couples will go on.”
“I know which will be the happiest, uncle.”
“You think you know, Alice, because you have not got rid of your romance yet. From what I know of my two nephews, I should say they would both make very good husbands in a different [131] sort of way.”
Alice dissented very strongly from her uncle, but as she could not have said so without adducing reasons which would have shaken what belief her uncle had in Fred Bingham, which she was determined not to do, she was silent.