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.