Bray

“ Bray came in about eight o’clock and a few minutes later I heard another man ascend the stairs. I was shaving at the time, but I quickly completed the operation and, slipping on a bathrobe, hurried up to the captain’s rooms. The younger brother had seen to the removal of the unfortunate man’s body in the night, and, aside from Bray and the stranger who had arrived almost simultaneously with him, there was no one but a sleepy-eyed constable there. ”

“ If only I can make you understand! I have walked my floor, deep in thought, in puzzlement, in indecision. Now I have made up my mind. There is no other way—I must tell you the truth. Despite the fact that Bray was Von der Herts; despite the fact that he killed himself at the discovery—despite this and that, and everything—Bray did not kill Captain Fraser-Freer! On last Thursday evening, at a little after seven o'clock, I myself climbed the stairs, entered the captain's rooms, picked up that knife from his desk, and stabbed him just above the heart! ”

“ She smiled drowsily up at old Mrs. Bray, beaming beneficently above; and remembered, in an odd flash, the pink china cup. This was her cup—full and running over.
"Come on out now, and let her sleep," ordered the dictatorial Nell. "Who'd a' thought, now, Myry had her little vanities? That lace cap now, and them ruffles—for Marvin! Some folks has the strangest notions."
"'Tain't notions!" protested old Mrs. Bray.
"Oh, yes, it is! And all right, if you feel that way—like you and your dishes, now."
"Myry and me both is powerful set on dishes," exulted old Mrs. Bray. ”

“ Bray. “I don't want that baby to die.”
“Would its mother know it if she saw it?” asked Pinky.
“No; for she never set eyes on it.”
“Then, if it dies, get another baby, and keep track of that. You can steal one from a drunken mother any night in the week. I'll do it for you. One baby is as good as another.”
“It will be safer to have the real one,” replied Mrs. Bray. “And now, Pinky that you have put this thing into my head, I guess I'll commission you to get the baby away from that woman.” ”

“ Bray had no collateral relations of his name after the death of his uncle and brothers within many generations. His ancestor, Sir Edward Bray, was the heir male of Edmund, Lord Bray, and succeeded to the family estates; but the title descended to Lord Bray’s daughters, and was in abeyance until obtained by the late Baroness Bray. Mr. Bray was one of the few descendants then living of Sir Thomas More, whose granddaughter, the daughter of Margaret Roper, married Sir Edward Bray. His two daughters, Mary and Catherine, were not married.
[32a] He was now getting into the society of literary men. ”

“ He soon had Miss Bray and Miss Jones and a lot of the girls out in the yard, and everybody was talking at once; and then I heard him say:
"But I tell you, Miss Bray, I put 'em here, right on this woodpile. And where are they? You run this place, and you are responsible for—"
"Not for pants." And Miss Bray's voice was so shrill it sounded like a broken whistle. "I'm responsible for no man's pants. When a man can't take care of his pants, he shouldn't have them. Besides, you shouldn't have left yours in the woodhouse when working in a Female Orphan Asylum." ”

“ And if I let a chance slip to worry Miss Bray I was sorry for it; but that was before I understood her, and before Miss Katherine came. Since Miss Katherine came I know it's yourself that matters most, not where you live or where you came from, and I'm thinking a little more of Mary Cary than I used to, though in a different way. As for Miss Bray, I truly try at times to forget she's living.
But she's taught me a good deal about Human Nature, Miss Bray has. About the side I didn't know. It's a pity there are things we have to know. I think I will make a special study of Human Nature. ”

“ Bray. “I was in hopes I should never see her again. We shall have trouble, I'm afraid.”
“In what way?”
“A bad woman who has you in her power can trouble you in many ways,” answered Mrs. Bray.
“She did not know my name—you assured me of that. It was one of the stipulations.”
“She does know, and your daughter's name also. And she knows where the baby is. She's deeper than I supposed. It's never safe to trust such people; they have no honor.”
Fear sent all the color out of Mrs. Dinneford's face. ”

“ Bray’s descendants; who will see in them a remarkable instance of a life of sociability and amusement, combined with great and successful industry.
More extracts would have only shewn the same activity and pursuits.
p. 5MEMOIR.
Mr. Bray was born at Shere, on the 15th of November, 1736. He was the youngest of the three sons who survived their father Edward Bray, Esq. George the eldest, who was in the Church, and the second son Edward, who was in the Army, both died unmarried ”

“ Mrs. Bray's finger went again to her lips. “No matter,” was replied. “You must go away until the coast is clear. Come back in half an hour.”
And she hurried Pinky out of the door, locking it as the girl retired. When Mrs. Dinneford came out of the room into which he had gone so hastily, the roll of bank-notes still lay upon the floor. Mrs. Bray had prudently slipped them into her pocket before admitting Pinky, but as soon as she was alone had thrown them down again. ”

“ John Bray is a sick man. Maybe he don’t know it himself, but the doctors know it, and you girls ought to know it. I’m plain-spoken, and there isn’t any use in making you believe he is on the road to recovery when he’s going just the other way. ”

“ Under these circumstances the family at Rosehill pressed her to make their home permanently hers, and for about a year, from 1850 to 1851, she became the member of a household in fullest sympathy with her. Here Mr. Bray's many-sided mental activity and genial brightness of disposition, and his wife's exquisite goodness of heart, must have helped to soothe and cheer one whose delicately strung nature was just then nearly bending under the excessive strain of thought and feeling she had gone through. ”

“ Bray sharply, and with a gleam of suspicion in her face.
“I don't know any other way, unless you go to the chief yourself,” replied Mrs. Bray, coolly. “There is no protection in cases like this except through the law. Without police interference, you are wholly in this woman's power.”
Mrs. Dinneford grew very pale.
“It is always dangerous,” went on Mrs. Bray, “to have anything to do with people of this class. A woman who for hire will take a new-born baby and sell it to a beggar-woman will not stop at anything. It is very unfortunate that you are mixed up with her.” ”

“ He had no idea even of doubling a decent fist, and said that only wild beasts fight without proper weapons. But once he took on Bray with single-sticks, and they chose a half-holiday and went into the wood by the cricket ground and fought well for two hours and a half; and a bruise on a Chinese skin is very interesting to see. Bray turned yellow, then blue, that deepened to black on the fourth day; but Tinned Cow, from the usual putty-like tint of his body, went lead-colour where Bray whacked his arm and leg. ”

“ Grandma, did you hear the latest? Young Jack Bray's been in another orange orchard and didn't do a get quick enough, and has got took up, and his father will have to pay money to keep him out of quod."
The old lady bristled.
"Didn't I tell you! Who knows how to receive these things best now? I've always believed in rarin' me family me own way, an' Mrs Bray is a fine woman, moral [197] and decent, but she's got too many stones to throw at others and doesn't see to it sharp enough that less stones can't be threw at her. ”

“ You are clever—it will not be hard.” She gave him a black look and went out. Bray got up from his desk. He and Colonel Hughes stood facing each other across a table, and to me there was something in the manner of each that suggested eternal conflict. “Well?” sneered Bray. “There is one possibility we have overlooked,” Hughes answered. He turned toward me and I was startled by the coldness in his eyes. “Do you know, Inspector,” he went on, “that this American came to London with a letter of introduction to the captain—a letter from the captain's cousin, one Archibald Enwright? ”

“ Bray handed it up, and Briggs examined it as if it was a botanical specimen or something.
“This,” he announced, “is not a necktie at all. You’re wearing a piece of Brussels carpet, wretched boy--a fragment of the new carpet laid down yesterday in the Doctor’s study. You will kindly take it to him immediately, say who sent you, and state the purpose to which you were putting it.”
So Bray, by the terms of the match, lost, and Corkey minimus won with the yard measure. ”

“ Miss Bray says she helps a powerful deal about house, and Amos don't swear so much now he sees it hurts her."
"She's a dear little thing," I interrupted, impatiently; "but, Miss Dinsmore, do you know Mr. Bray may have all the blacksmith-work to himself now? for I'm going to town for the rest of the summer and autumn."
"You don't say so, Sandy! Well, old Dr. Allen wasn't one of us, as I tell 'em, and there's no sort of reason why you should be; and your mother was a real born lady, though she was so gentle-spoken 't wasn't half the women could tell the difference between her and them." ”

“ Mrs. Gore owed her place in English letters to native wit and ability; Mrs. Bray owed hers to hard study and painstaking endeavour. She was one of the few women who followed the style of writing brought to perfection by Sir Walter Scott. [Pg 226]
Mrs. Bray became imbued with the historic spirit early in life. Her first husband was Charles Stothard, the author of Monumental Effigies of Great Britain, with whom she travelled through Brittany, Normandy and Flanders. ”

“ The asters are in full bloom in the garden at Canterbury. They are very beautiful—especially the white ones.” Bray grunted, and opened his little eyes. I took up the issue of the following day—the twenty-eighth: “Rangoon: We have been forced to sell father's stick-pin—the emerald scarab he brought home from Cairo.” I had Bray's interest now. ”

“ I mentioned him to Bray.
“Very good,” said the inspector. “You are free to go. But you must understand that you are an important witness in this case, and if you attempt to leave London you will be locked up.”
So I came back to my rooms, horribly entangled in a mystery that is little to my liking. I have been sitting here in my study for some time, going over it again and again. There have been many footsteps on the stairs, many voices in the hall.
Waiting here for the dawn, I have come to be very sorry for the cold handsome captain. After all, he was a man ”

“ It is remarkable that a young attorney of 22 should have been invited to the social meetings of elderly and middle-aged gentlemen of the highest position in the neighbourhood. His grandson, the late Mr. Edward Bray, inherited his companionable qualities, and was welcome in every house he visited. ”

“ Bray's greeting was decidedly grouchy. The stranger, however—a tall bronzed man—made himself known to me in the most cordial manner. He told me he was Colonel Hughes, a close friend of the dead man; and that, unutterably shocked and grieved, he had come to inquire whether there was anything he might do. “Inspector,” said I, “last night in this room you held in your hand four copies of the Daily Mail. You tossed them into that basket as of no account. May I suggest that you rescue those copies, as I have a rather startling matter to make clear to you?” ”

“ Bray her most intimate male friend, and the letters to them form an almost unbroken chain during all the remainder of George Eliot's life.
To us Miss Sara Hennell is the most important correspondent, for it is to her that Miss Evans mainly turns now for intellectual sympathy; to Mrs. Bray when she is in pain or trouble, and wants affectionate companionship; with Mr. Bray [83] she quarrels, and the humorous side of her nature is brought out. Every good story goes to him, with a certainty that it will be appreciated. ”

“ Bray remarked in a moment, his eyes still shifting about the room—“especially as England may soon have great need of men like the captain. Now, gentlemen, I want to say this: I am the Chief of the Special Branch at the Yard. This is no ordinary murder. For reasons I can not disclose—and, I may add, for the best interests of the empire—news of the captain’s tragic death must be kept for the present out of the newspapers. ”

“ He is the old chap Mrs Bray was sayin' ain't goin' to vote this time because the women has got one and the monkeys will be havin' one next. Just what the likes of him would say! He's a old crawler whose wife does all the work while he walks around an' tells how he killed the bear, an' that's the sort of man who's always to be heard sayin' woman is a inferior animal that ought to be kep' on a chain as he thinks fit. You'll never hear the kind of man like Bray (who is a man an' keeps his wife like a princess) sayin' that sort of thing—it's only the old Hollises and such. ”

“ At an early age he cultivated poetry, two small selections from his effusions circulating among his friends before he was twenty-three. Bray became a student at the Middle Temple in 1801 and was called to the bar in 1806. For some time he went the western circuit, but the profession of the law had from the first ill accorded with his disposition, and after five years of trial he abandoned it for the church. He was ordained by the Bishop of Norwich about 1811, and in the following year, by the favour of the Duke of Bedford, became the vicar of Tavistock and the perpetual curate of Brent Tor. ”