A Bride from the Bush by E. W. Hornung Read Free Book Online

you should wish to make me.’
    â€˜For no reason,’ said Granville, shrugging his shoulders, and also looking hurt; ‘for no kind of reason, except that it did strike me that my father’s character had never—never, that is, in his home life—come out more strongly or more generously. Why, I should like to lay ruinous odds that he never refers to the matter again, even to you; while, you shall see, his manner to her will not suffer the slightest change in consequence of what has happened.’
    â€˜It would be a terrible thing if it did,’ said Lady Bligh; and she added after a pause: ‘She is so beautiful!’
    Granville drummed with his fingers upon the chimney-piece. His mother wanted a reply. She wanted sympathy upon this point; it was a very insignificant point, the Bride’s personal beauty; but as yet it seemed to be the only redeeming feature in Alfred’s unfortunate marriage.
    â€˜You can’t deny that, Gran?’ she persisted.
    â€˜Deny what? The young woman’s prepossessing appearance? Certainly not; nobody with eyes to see could deny that.’
    â€˜And after all,’ said Lady Bligh, ‘brought up as she evidently has been, it would be astonishing indeed if her ways were not wild and strange. Consequently, Gran, there is every hope that she will fall into our ways very soon; is there not?’
    â€˜Oh, of course there is hope,’ said Gran, with an emphasis that was the reverse of hopeful; ‘and there is hope, too, that she will ultimately fall into our way of speaking: her own “mannerisms,” in that respect, are just a little too marked. Oh, yes, there is hope; there is hope.’
    Lady Bligh said no more; she seemed to have no more to say. Observing this, Granville consulted his watch, said something about an engagement in town, and went to the door.
    â€˜Going to London?’ said Lady Bligh. ‘You might have gone with them, I think.’
    â€˜I think not,’ said Granville. ‘I should have been out of place. They were going to Madame Tussaud’s, or the Tower of London, or the Zoological Gardens—I don’t know which—perhaps to all three. But the Bride will tell us all about it this evening and how the sights of London compare with the sights of Melbourne; we may look forward to that; and, till then—good-bye.’
    So Lady Bligh was once more alone. She did not at once resume her correspondence, however. Leaning back in her chair, she gazed thoughtfully through the open window at her side, and across the narrow lawn to where the sunlit river was a silver band behind the trunks and nether foliage of the trees. Lady Bligh was sad, and no wonder; but in her heart was little of the wounded pride, and none of the personal bitterness, that many mothers would feel—and do feel every day—under similar circumstances. What were the circumstances? Simply these: her eldest son had married a wife who was beautiful, it was true, and good-tempered, it appeared; but one who was, on the other hand, both vulgar and ignorant, and, as a daughter, in every way impossible. These hard words Lady Bligh pronounced deliberately in her mind. She was facing the fact, as Granville had said that it should be faced. Yet Granville had used no such words as these; if he had, he would have been given reason to regret them.
    For, as has been said already, Lady Bligh had a tolerably just estimate of her son Granville; she thought him only rather more clever, and a good deal more good-natured, than he really was. She knew that a man of any cleverness at all is fond of airing his cleverness—and, indeed, must air it—particularly if he is a young man. For this reason, she made it a rule to listen generously to all Granville had to say to her. But there was another reason: Lady Bligh was a woman who valued highly the confidence and companionship of her sons. Sometimes, it is true, she thought Granville’s