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Spring Days

by George Moore · English · Gutenberg #6029 · 544,468 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Spring Days

Author: George Moore


        
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6029]
                Most recently updated: March 16, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING DAYS ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team







SPRING DAYS

By George Moore




PREFACE


When Henry Vizetelly, that admirable scholar, historian, and journalist,
was sent to prison for publishing Zola's novels mine were taken over by
Walter Scott, and all were reprinted except “Spring Days.” This book was
omitted from the list of my acknowledged works, for public and private
criticism had shown it no mercy; and I had lost faith in it. All the
welcome it had gotten were a few contemptuous paragraphs scattered
through the Press, and an insolent article in _The Academy_, which I did
not see, but of which I was notified by a friend in the Strand at the
corner of Wellington Street.

“Was the article a long one?”

“No, I don't think they thought your book worth slashing. All I can tell
you is that if any book of mine had been spoken of in that way I should
never write another.”

I left my friend, hoping that the number of _The Academy_ would not fall
into the hands of the editor of the great London review, to whom I had
dedicated the book after a night spent listening to him quoting from the
classics, Greek, English, and Latin. “A very poor testimony, one which
he won't thank me for,” I muttered, and stopped before St. Clement Danes
to think what kind of letter he would write to me. But he did not even
acknowledge through his secretary the copy I sent to him, and I accepted
the rebuff without resentment, arguing that the fault was mine. “The
proofs should have been submitted to him, but the printers were calling
for them! There's no going back; the mischief is done,” and I waited,
putting my trust in time, which blots out all unfortunate things, “even
dedications,” I said.

Three months later, on opening my door one day, I found him standing
with a common friend on the landing. I remember wondering what his
reason was for bringing the friend, whether he had come as a sort of
chaperon or witness. He left us after a few minutes, and I sat watching
the great man of my imagination, asking myself if he were going to speak
of “Spring Days,” hoping that he would avoid the painful subject. The
plot and the characters of my new book might please him. If he would
only allow me to speak about it he might be persuaded to accept a second
dedication as some atonement for the first.

“You were kind enough to dedicate your novel---”

“'Spring Days'?”

“Yes, 'Spring Days.' I know that you wished to pay me a compliment, and
if I didn't write before it was because----”

“Was it so very bad?”

A butty little man raised Oriental eyes and square hands in protest.

“You have written other books,” he said, and proposed that we should go
out together and walk in the Strand.

“Yes, 'The Confessions of a Young Man' was much liked here and in
France. Will you let me give it to you?” We stopped at a book shop. “It
will please you and help you to forget 'Spring Days.'” He smiled. “Never
mention that book again,” I added. “I wonder how I could have written
it.”

We were in a hansom; he turned his head and looked at me without
attempting to answer my question; and from that day till six months ago
my impulse was to destroy every copy that came my way. A copy of “Spring
Days” excited in me an uncontrollable desire of theft, and whenever I
caught sight of one in a friend's house I put it in my pocket without
giving a thought to the inconvenience that the larceny might cause; the
Thames received it, and I returned home congratulating myself that there
was one copy less in the world of “Spring Days.”

When the Boer War drove me out of London I said: “Dublin doesn't contain
a copy of that book;” and for nearly eight years I was left in peace,
only Edward Martyn teasing me, saying that one of these days he must
read the book.

“R---- always says, 'I like “Spring Days”.'”

“Insolent little ass,” I answered, “I'll cut him dead when we meet
again.”

But Edward was not joking as I thought he was, and some time afterwards
he told me that after a good deal of advertising he had succeeded
in obtaining a copy of “Spring Days.” The moment he left the room I
searched the table and bookcase for it, but he kept it at Tillyra, else
it would have gone into the Liffey, which receives all things.

“My dear George, I like the book better than any of your novels,” he
said one day on his return from Galway. “It is the most original, it is
like no other novel, and that is why people didn't understand it.”

Of course it was impossible to quarrel with dear Edward, but I wondered
if I ever should find pleasure in speaking to him again; and when A. E.
told me a few weeks later that he had come upon a novel of mine which he
had never read before--“Spring Days,” I said.

“Edward gave it to you?”

“No,” he answered, “I haven't seen him for many months.”

“The worst book I ever wrote.” A. E. did not answer. “What do you think
of it?” To my surprise I found him of the same opinion as Edward.

“My dear A. E., you know how I rely on your judgment. For twenty-five
years I have refused to allow this book to be reprinted. Shall I
relent?”

A. E. did not seem to think the book unworthy of me, and pressed me to
read it.

“I'll lend you my copy.”

I received it next day, but returned it to him unread, my courage having
failed me at the last moment.

A few months later I met Richard Best, one of the librarians at the
National Library. He had just returned from his holidays; he had been
spending them in Wales for the sake of the language.

“By the way,” he said, “I came across an old novel of yours--'Spring
Days.'”

“You didn't like it?”

“On the contrary, I liked it as well, if not better, than any novel you
have written. It is so entirely original. My wife... I think you value
her opinion--”

“She liked it?”

“Come home with me, and she'll tell you how it struck her.”

“I will, on one condition, that you don't mention that you spoke to me
about the book.”

Best promised, and we had not been many minutes in the house before
Mrs. Best interrupted my remarks about the weather to tell me what she
thought of “Spring Days.”

“The matter is important. Sooner or later I shall have to think about a
collected edition. Is it to be included?”

Mrs. Best, like A. E., offered to lend me her copy, but I could not
bring myself to accept it, and escaped from the book till I came to live
in London. Then Fate thrust it into my hands, the means employed being a
woman to whom I had written for “Impressions and Opinions.” She had lost
her copy; there was, however, an old book of mine which she had never
heard me speak of--“Spring Days”--and which, etc., she was sending me
the book.

“Omens are omens,” I muttered, “and there's no use kicking against the
pricks eternally;” and cutting the string of the parcel I sat down
to read a novel which I had kept so resolutely out of my mind for
twenty-five years, that all I remembered of its story and characters was
an old gentleman who lived in a suburb, and whose daughters were a great
source of trouble to him. I met the style of the narrative as I might
that of an original writer whose works I was unacquainted with. There
was a zest in it, and I read on and on; I must have read for nearly two
hours, which is a long read for me, laying the book aside from time to
time, so that I might reflect at my ease on the tenacity with which it
had clung to existence. Every effort had been made to drown it;
again and again it had been flung into the river, literally and
metaphorically, but it had managed to swim ashore like a cat. It would
seem that some books have nine hundred and ninety and nine lives, and
God knows how long my meditation might have lasted if the front door
bell had not rung.

“Are you at home, sir, to Mr.--?”

“Yes.”

There is time for one word more, dear reader, and whilst my visitor lays
his hat and coat on the table in the passage I will beseech you not
to look forward to a sentimental story; “Spring Days” is as free from
sentiment or morals as Daphnis and Chloe.

G. M.




I



“Miss, I'll have his blood; I will, miss, I will.”

“For goodness' sake, cook, go back to your kitchen; put that dreadful
pair of boots under your apron.”

“No, miss; I'll be revenged. He has insulted me.”

“You can't be revenged now, cook; you see he has shut himself in; you
had better go back to your kitchen.”

The groom, who was washing the carriage, stood, mop in hand, grinning,
appreciating the discomfiture of the coachman, who was paying the
penalty of his joke.

“Cook, if you don't go back to your kitchen instantly, I'll give you
notice. It is shameful--think what a scandal you are making in the
stable-yard. Go back to your kitchen--I order you. It is half-past six,
go and attend to your master's dinner.”

“He has insulted me, he has insulted me. I'll have your blood!” she
cried, battering at the door. The rattling of chains was heard as the
horses turned their heads.

“Put those boots under your apron, cook; go back to your kitchen, do as
I tell you.”

The woman retreated, Maggie following. At intervals there were
stoppages, and cook re-stated her desire to have the coachman's blood.
Maggie did not attempt to argue with her, but sternly repeated her order
to go back to her kitchen, and to conceal the old boots under her apron.

“What business had he to rummage in my box, interfering with my things;
he put them all along the kitchen table; he did it because I told you,
miss, that he was carrying on with the kitchenmaid. He goes with her
every evening into the wood shed, and a married man, too! I wouldn't be
his poor wife.”

“Go back to your kitchen, cook; do as I tell you.”

With muttered threats cook entered the house, and commanded the
kitchenmaid to interfere no more with the oven, but to attend to her
saucepans.

“What a violent woman,” thought Maggie, “horrid woman. I am sure she's
Irish. I'll get rid of her as soon as I can. The place is filthy, but I
daren't speak to her now. She's stirring the saucepan with her finger.”

At that moment quick steps were heard coming down the corridor, and
Sally entered.

“Cook, cook, I want you to put back the dinner half an hour. I have to
go down the town.”

“O Sally, I beg of you, what will father say?”

“Father isn't everybody. I daresay the train will be a little late; it
often is. He won't know anything about it, that is if you don't tell
him.”

“What do you want to go down the town for?”

“Never you mind. I don't ask you what you do.”

“You want to go down the slonk,” whispered Maggie.

The cook stopped stirring the saucepan, and the kitchenmaid stood
listening greedily.

“Nothing of the kind,” Sally answered defiantly. “You're always trying
to get up something against me. Cook, will you keep back the dinner
twenty minutes?”

“Cook, I forbid you. I'm mistress here.”

“How dare you insult me before the servants! Grace is mistress here, if
it comes to that.”

“Grace has given me over the housekeeping. I am mistress when she is too
unwell to attend to it.”

“Nothing of the sort. Grace is the eldest, I would give way to her, but
I'm not going to give way to you. Cook, the dinner won't be ready for
another half hour, will it?”

“I don't know when the dinner will be ready, and I don't care.”

“It is a quarter to seven now, dinner won't be ready before seven, will
it, cook? Keep it back a bit. Now I must be off.”

And, as Maggie expected, Sally ran past the glass houses and the pear
and apple trees, for there was at the end of the vegetable garden a
door in the brick wall that enclosed the manor house. It was used by the
gardeners, and it communicated with a path leading through some corn and
grass land to the high road. There were five acres of land attached
to the manor house, tennis lawn, shady walks, flower garden, kitchen
garden, stables, and coach house at the back, and all this spoke in
somewhat glaring fashion the wealth and ease of a rich city merchant.

“There she goes,” thought Maggie, flaunting her head. “What a fool she
is to bully father instead of humouring him. We shall never hear the
end of this. His dinner put back so that she may continue her flirtation
with Meason! I shall have to tell the truth. Why should I tell a lie?”

“Please, miss,” said the butler as Maggie passed through the baize door,
“I think it right to tell you about cook. We find it very hard to put
up with her in the servants' hall. She is a very violent-tempered woman;
nor can I say much for her in other respects. Last week she sold twenty
pounds of dripping, and it wasn't all dripping, miss, it was for the
most part butter.”

“John, I really can't listen to any more stories about cook. Has the
quarter-to-seven come in yet?”

“I haven't seen it pass, miss, but I saw Mr. Willy coming up the drive a
minute ago.”

Willy entered, and she turned to him and said: “Where have you been to,
Willy?”

“Brighton. Has father come in yet?”

“No. You came by the tramcar?”

“Yes.”

With shoulders set well back and toes turned out, Willy came along the
passage. His manner was full of deliberation, and he carried a small
brown paper parcel under his arm as if it were a sword of state. Maggie
followed him up the steep and vulgarly carpeted staircase that branched
into the various passages forming the upper part of the house. Willy's
room was precise and grave, and there everything was held under lock and
key. He put the brown paper parcel on the table; he took off his coat
and laid it on the bed, heaving, at the same time, a sigh.

“Did you notice if the quarter-to-seven has been signalled?”

“Yes, but don't keep on worrying; the train is coming along the
embankment.”

“Then there will be a row to-night.”

“Why?”

“Sally told cook to keep the dinner back; she has gone down the slonk to
speak to Meason.”

“Why didn't you tell cook that she must take her orders from you and no
one else?”

“So I did, but Sally said I was no more mistress here than she was. I
said Grace had given me charge of the house, when she could not attend
to it; but Sally will listen to no one, she'll drive father out of his
mind. There's no one he hates like the Measons.”

“What is the matter with Grace? Where is she?”

“She's in her room, lying on the bed crying. She says she wants to die;
she says that she doesn't care what becomes of her. She'll never care
for another man, and father will not give his consent. What's-his-name
has nothing--only a small allowance; he'll never have any more, he isn't
a working man. I know father, he'll never hear of any one who is not a
working man. I wish you'd speak to her.”

“I've quite enough to do with my own affairs; I've had bad luck enough
as it is, without running into new difficulties of my own accord.”

“If she refuses Berkins, father'll never get over it. I wish you would
speak to her.”

“No, don't ask me. I never meddle in other people's affairs. I've had
trouble enough. Now I want to dress.”

When Maggie went downstairs, she found her father in the drawing-room.

“The train was a little late to-night. Has Willy come back from
Brighton?”

“Yes, father.”

“I've been looking over his accounts and I find he has lost nearly two
thousand pounds in Bond Street, and I don't think he is doing any good
with that agency in Brighton. I never approved of one or the other. I
approve of nothing but legitimate city business. Shops in the West End!
mere gambling. Where is Grace?”

“She's in her room.”

“In her room? I suppose she hasn't left it all day? This is very
terrible. I don't know what to do with you. Since your poor mother died
my life has been nothing but trouble and vexation. I can't manage you,
you are too strong for me. So she hasn't left her room; crying her eyes
out, because I won't consent to her marrying a penniless young officer!
But I will not squander my money. I made it all myself, by my own
industry, and I refuse to keep young fellows in idleness.”

“I don't give you any trouble, father.”

“You are the best, Maggie, but you encourage your sister Sally. I hear
that you, too, were seen walking with young Meason.”

“It is not true, I assure you, father. I met him as I was going to the
post-office. I said, 'How do you do?' and I passed on.”

“Where is Sally?”

“She went out a few minutes ago.”

“Didn't she know the time? She ought to be dressing for dinner. Do you
know where she's gone?”

“I think she went down the slonk.”

His children had inherited his straight, sharp features and his small,
black, vivid eyes. Their hair was of various hues of black. Maggie's was
raven black and glossy; Sally's was coarse and of a hue like black-lead;
Grace's was abundant and relieved with sooty shades; Willy's hair
was brown. He was the fair one of the family, and his hair was always
closely cut in military fashion, and he wore a long flowing military
moustache with a tinge of red in it. His father and he were built on the
same lines--long, spare bodies, short necks and legs, and short, spare
arms, and if the father's white hair were dyed the years that separated
him from his son would disappear, for although the son had only just
turned thirty, he was middle-aged in face and feeling.

Sally and Grace were both thickly built, the latter a little inclined
to fat. Maggie was thin and elegantly angular, and often stood in
picturesque attitudes; she stood in one now, with her hands linked
behind her back, and she watched her father, and her look was subtle and
insinuating.

“When I came here,” he said, speaking rapidly, and as if he were
speaking to himself, “the place was well enough; there was nothing but
those wretched cottages facing the sea, the green, and a few cottages
about it; but since those villas have been put up, Southwick has become
unbearable. All my troubles,” he murmured, “originated in the Southdown
Road.”

Maggie turned aside, smiled, and bit her lip; she did not speak,
however, for she knew her father did not care to be interrupted in his
musings.

“A hateful place--glass porticoes, and oleographs on the walls.” Here
Mr. Brookes stopped in his walk to admire one of his favourite Friths.
“Those ridiculous haberdashers, with a bas-relief of the founder of
their house over the doorway. The proprietors of the baths, the Measons,
poor as church mice, the son a mate of a merchant vessel--these are not
proper associates for my daughters. I will not know them; I will not
have them in my house.”

“The Measons are quite as good as we are, father. They may be poor, but
as far as family goes--”

“You are just the same as the others, Maggie; once there is a young man
to flirt with, you don't care what he is or where he comes from. When
there are no young men, you will snub the old ladies fast enough; and as
for Sally, she is downright rude. I didn't want to see the haberdashers,
but while they were in my house I was polite to them.”

“It was the Horlocks who told them to call.”

“I know it was. If Mrs. Horlock likes to know these people, let her know
them; but what does she want to force them upon us for? That's what I
want to know. We might never have known any one in the Southdown Road; I
mean we never should, we never could have known any one in the Southdown
Road if Mrs. Horlock hadn't come to live there. We had to call upon
her.”

“Every Viceroy in India called upon her. She was the only woman whom
every Viceroy did call upon.”

“I know she was. Of course we had to call upon her. Most interesting
woman; the General is very nice, too. I like them exceedingly. I often
go to see them, although the smell of that mastiff is more than I can
bear in the hot weather, especially if lilies or strong smelling flowers
are in the room.”

“She feeds the mice, she won't let them be destroyed, she lets the traps
down at night.”

“Don't let us go into the animal question. The constant smell of dogs
is unpleasant, but I could put up with it--what I can't stand are her
acquaintances in the Southdown Road, and when I think that we should not
have known any of them if it hadn't been for her! Indirectly--I do not
say directly--she is the cause of all my difficulties. It was at her
house Sally met young Meason; it was at her house Grace met that
young officer for whom she is crying her eyes out; and it was at her
house--yes, I hadn't thought of it before--it was at her house that
Willy met that swindler who induced him to put two thousand pounds into
the Bond Street shop. The Southdown Road might have remained here for
the next five hundred years, and we should have known nothing of it had
it not been for Mrs. Horlock; if she likes to know these people let her
know them, but why force them upon us? It was only the other day she was
talking to me about calling on some new friends of hers who have come
to live there. I dare say it is the custom to call on every one at
Calcutta, but I say that Calcutta etiquette is not Southwick etiquette,
and I don't care how many Viceroys called upon her, I will not know the
Southdown Road.”

The enunciation of this last sentence was deliberate and impassioned.
Mr. Brookes walked twice across the room; then he stood, his hands
crossed behind his back, looking at his admired Goodall. His anger
melted, and he mused on the price he had paid, and the price he thought
it was now worth. Fearing he would return to the Southdown Road trouble,
Maggie said: “I am afraid we shall be obliged to get rid of the
new cook. She is Irish. Just before you came in I found her in the
stable-yard threatening to break Holt's head with a pair of dreadful old
boots.”

“I don't want to hear about the cook. The money you spend in
housekeeping is enormous. Since your poor mother died I haven't had
a day's peace. If it isn't one thing it is another. You are fit for
nothing but pleasure and flirtation; there isn't a young man in the
place or within ten miles you haven't flirted with. I am often ashamed
to look them in the face at the station. It is past seven; why isn't
dinner ready?”

“Sally told the cook to put the dinner back half an hour.”

“Sally told the cook to put my dinner back half an hour!”

Mr. Brookes's face grew livid. The end of all things was at hand; his
dinner had been put back half an hour! This was a climax in the affairs
of his life, which for the moment he failed to grasp or estimate. Was a
father ever cursed with such daughters as his? He had been in the City
all day working for them; he did not marry because he wished to leave
them his money, and this was the return they made to him. His dinner had
been put back half an hour! Passion sustained him for a while; but he
gave way, and, pulling out a silk handkerchief, he sank into a chair.

“Don't cry, father, don't cry. Sally is thoughtless; she didn't mean
it.”

Mr. Brookes wept for a few minutes; Maggie strove to soothe him; he
waved her away, he wiped his eyes and in a voice broken with anguish,
“Ah, well,” he said, “I suppose it will be all the same a hundred
years hence.” In moments of extreme trouble he sought refuge in such
philosophy, but now it seemed inadequate and superficial, and Maggie had
begun to fear the violence of the storm she had brewed. She did not
mind stimulating ill-feeling, but she did not wish Sally to provoke her
father recklessly.

The possibility of his marrying again and having a second family was the
one restraining influence Mr. Brookes still retained over his daughters,
so Maggie, who was always keenly alive to the remotest consequences of
her actions, took care that his home never became quite unbearable to
him; and when Sally entered the room, dark and brilliant in red velvet,
and in no way disposed to admit she had been guilty of heinous wrong in
countermanding the dinner, Maggie attempted a gentle pouring of oil
on the waters. But waving aside her sister's gentle interposition, she
said: “You mustn't think of yourself only, father. I admit I told the
cook to put back the dinner a few minutes. What then?”

“You did it that you might finish your conversation with young Meason,”
 said Mr. Brookes, but his words were weak, it being doubtful if even
Meason could add to the original offence, so culminating and final did
it seem to him.

“Maggie didn't tell you that last week she met him on the sea road, and
walked with him into Portslade.”

“Father, father, I beg of you, now, don't cry; think of the servants.”

And it was in such unity of mind and feeling that this family sat down
to dinner in the great dining-room, rich with all comforts and adorned
with pictures by Frith and Goodall. Sally, who unfortunately knew
no fear, talked defiantly; she addressed herself principally to her
brother, and she questioned him persistently, although the replies
she received were generally monosyllabic. As he chewed his meat
with reflection and precaution, broke his bread with deliberate and
well-defined movements, and filled his mouth with carefully chosen
pieces, he gradually ventured to decide that he would not speak to his
father that evening of the scheme he had been hatching for some months.
It was one of his strictest rules not to think while eating, so it may
be said that it was against his will that he arrived at this conclusion.
Willy suffered from indigestion, and he knew that any exercise of the
brain was most prejudicial at meal times.

After dinner Mr. Brookes and his son retired to the billiard-room to
smoke.

“Your sisters are a great trouble to me--a very great anxiety. Since
your poor mother died I've had no peace, none whatever. Poor Julia,
she's gone; I shall never see her again.”

Willy made no answer. He was debating; he was still uncertain whether
the present time could be considered a favourable one to introduce his
scheme to his father's notice, and he had made up his mind that it was,
when he was interrupted by Mr. Brookes, who had again lapsed into one of
his semi-soliloquies.

“Your sisters give me a great deal of trouble, a very great deal of
anxiety. I am all alone. I have no one to help me since the death of
your poor mother.”

“My sisters are fitted for nothing but pleasure,” Willy replied
severely.




II



Mr. Brookes went to London every day by the five minutes to ten; Willy
walked into Brighton. There he had been for some time striving to found
an agency for artificial manures, and in the twilight of a small office
he brooded over the different means of making money that were open to
him. The young ladies worked or played as it struck their fancy. Sally
admitted that she infinitely preferred walking round the garden with
a young man to doing wool-work in the drawing-room. Maggie shared this
taste, although she did not make bold profession of it. Grace was the
gentlest of the sisters, and had passed unnoticed until she had fallen
in love with a penniless officer, and tortured her father with tears
and haggard cheeks because he refused to supply her with money to keep
a husband. The doctor had ordered her iron; she had been sent to
London for a change, but neither remedy was of much avail, and when
she returned home pale and melancholy she had not taken the keys from
Maggie, but had allowed her to usurp her place inthe house. Sally was
supposed to look after the conservatories, but beyond her own special
flowers she left everything to the gardeners.

On Sundays Mr. Brookes walked through the long drawing-rooms aimlessly.
Sometimes he would stop before one of his pictures. “There, that's a
good picture, I paid a lot of money for it, I paid too much, mustn't do
so again.” Passing his daughters, sometimes without speaking, he then
stopped before one of the big chimney-pieces, and, pulling out his large
silk pocket handkerchief, dusted the massive clocks and candlesticks.

In the billiard-room, at a table drawn up close to the coke fire, Willy
slowly and with much care made pencil notes, which he slowly and with
great solemnity copied into his diary.

“Your sisters are a great source of trouble to me, a source of deep
anxiety,” said Mr. Brookes, and he flicked the rearing legs of a bronze
horse with his handkerchief.

“My sisters are only fit for pleasure,” said Willy and he finished the
tail of the y, passed the blotting paper over, and prepared to begin a
fresh paragraph.

“I am afraid Grace is scarcely any better; she will not leave her room.
I hear she is crying. It is too ridiculous, too ridiculous. What she can
see in that man I can't think; he is only a man of pleasure. I've told
her so, but somehow she can't get to see why I will not settle
money upon her--money that I made myself, by hard work, judicious
investments.”

“That's a smack at the shop,” thought Willy, as he placed his full stop.

“I'll not settle my money upon her,” said Mr. Brookes, as he resumed his
dusting; “and for what? to keep an idle fellow in idleness. No, I'll not
do it. She'll get over it--ah, it will be all the same a hundred years
hence. But tell me, have you noticed--no, you notice nothing--”

“Yes, I do; what do you want me to say, that she is looking very ill?
I can't help it if she is. I've quite enough troubles of my own without
thinking of other people's. I'm sure I am very sorry. I wish she'd never
met the fellow.”

“That's what I say, I wish she'd never met the fellow, and she never
would had it not been for that horrible Southdown Road. Southwick has
never been the same since those villas were put up.”

“I know nothing about them; I won't know them. I don't go to the
Horlocks because I may meet people there I don't want to know. If you
hadn't allowed the girls to go there, she never would have met him.”

“But we had to call on the Horlocks. Every Viceroy that ever came to
India called upon her, and they're excellent people--titled people
come down from London to see them: but I daresay their banking accounts
wouldn't bear looking into. She walks about the green with the chemist's
wife, and has the people of the baths to dinner. Mostextraordinary
woman. I like her, I enjoy her society; but I can't follow her in her
opinions. She says that only men are bad; that all animals are good;
that it is only men who make them bad. Her views on hydrophobia are most
astonishing. She says it is a mild and easy death, and sees no reason
why the authorities should attempt to stamp it out. She quite frightened
me with the story she told me of a mad dog that died in her arms. But
that by the way. The point is not now whether she is right to feed mice
in her bedroom instead of getting rid of them, but whether we should
call on people we don't want to know because she asks us to do so. I say
we should not. When she spoke to me the other day about the lady whose
mother was a housemaid, I said, 'My dear Mrs. Horlock, it is very well
for you to call on those people. I approve of, I admire magnanimity; but
what you can do I cannot do. You have no daughters to bring out; every
Viceroy that ever came to India called on you, your position in the
world is assured, your friends will not think the less of you no matter
how intimately you know the chemist's wife, but you could not do these
things if you had daughters to bring out.'”

“What did she say to that?”

“She was just going out to walk with her pugs. Angel began to--you know,
and for the moment she could think of nothing else; when the little
beast had finished I had forgotten the thread of my argument. However,
I spoke to her about Grace; and she promised that she shouldn't meet
the fellow again. I can't think of his name, I get lost in the different
names, and they are all so alike I scarcely know one from the other. I
have had nothing but trouble since your poor mother died. Your sisters
give me a great deal of trouble, and you have given me a great deal
of trouble. We couldn't get on in business together on account of your
infernal slowness. No man is more for keeping his accounts and letters
straight than I, but your exactitude drives me mad; it drives me mad;
there you are at it again. I should like to know what you are copying
into that diary. One would think you were writing an article for the
_Times_, from the care with which you're drawing out every letter; 'pon
my word it isn't writing at all, it's painting. You can't write for a
pair of boots without taking a copy of the letter, entering it into this
book, and entering it into that book; 'pon my word it is maddening.”

Willy laughed. “Each person has his own way of doing business; I don't
see how it interferes with you, or what difference it makes to you, if I
spend three minutes or three days writing a letter.”

“Perhaps not, perhaps not; but I am terribly upset about Grace,” said
Mr. Brookes, and he walked slowly across the room and stood looking at
his Bouguereau; “she'll get over it, but in any case she'll miss her
chance of marrying Berkins; that is what distresses me. The man stinks
of money. I hear that he has been appointed manager of a colliery, that
alone will bring him another thousand a year. His business is going up,
he must be worth now between seven and eight thousand a year. And he
began as an office boy, he hadn't a penny piece, made it all himself.”

“So I should think; a purse-proud ass!”

“Never mind, his eight thousand is as good an eight thousand as any in
the land, better than a great many. I wouldn't give a snap of my fingers
for your broken-down landowners; Berkins has always made excellent
investments, and I hear he is now getting as much as fifteen per cent.
for money invested.”

Willy had been to Oxford, and the arrogance and pomposity of this
purse-proud man shocked his sense of decorum. Berkins's vulgarity was
more offensive than that of Mr. Brookes. Mr. Brookes was a simple,
middle-class man, who had made money straightforwardly and honestly,
and he had cultivated his natural taste for pictures to the limit of
his capacities and opportunities. Berkins, however, had been born a
gentleman, but had had to shift for himself, even when a lad, and he had
caught at all chances; he was more sophisticated, he was a gentleman
in a state of retrograde, and was in all points inferior to him whom he
crossed in his descent. Berkins had bought a small place, a villa with
some hundred acres attached to it, on the other side of Preston Park.
There he had erected glass houses, and bred a few pheasants in the
corner of a field, and it surprised him to find that the county families
took no notice of him. Mr. Brookes had sympathised, but the young people
laughed at him and Willy had told a story how he had been to shoot at
----, and when a partridge got up right in front of his gun, Berkins
turned round and shot it, exclaiming: “That's the way to bring them
down!”

And now whenever his name was mentioned, Willy thought of this incident,
so very typical did it seem to him of the man, and he liked to twit his
father with it. But Mr. Brookes could not be brought to see the
joke, and he fell back on the plausible and insidious argument that,
notwithstanding his manners, Berkins was worth eight thousand a year.

“And very few girls get the chance of catching eight thousand a year;
and she'll miss it, she'll miss it if she doesn't take care.”

“You talk of it as if it were an absolute certainty; you don't know that
Berkins wants to marry Grace; he hasn't been here for the last month.”

“Mr. Berkins is not like the young good-for-nothings your sisters waste
their time with, he is a man of means, of eight thousand a year; you
don't expect him to come round here every evening to tea, and to play
tennis, and to walk in the moonlight and talk nonsense. Berkins is a man
of means, he is a man who can make a settlement.”

“Has he spoken to you on the subject, then?”

“No, Mr. Berkins is a man of tact, however you may laugh at him for
having shot your partridge. He spoke to your Aunt Mary, or rather
she spoke to him. Ah, clever woman, your Aunt Mary, wonderful manner,
wonderful will, when she wants a thing done it must be done. Your poor
mother--I mean no disparagement--but I must say she couldn't compare
with her for determination; Sally reminds me of her, but Sally's
determination is misdirected, deplorably misdirected; it is directed
against me, entirely against me. She must be made submissive; when I
spoke to Aunt Mary about her, she said her spirit must be broken; and
if she were here she'd break it. If she were here things would be very
different, your sisters wouldn't be flirting with all the little clerks
in the Southdown Road; but I am alone. I have no one to turn to.”

“You were telling me that Berkins had spoken to Aunt Mary about Grace.”

“Your Aunt Mary spoke to Berkins about Grace; she told him he ought to
be thinking of marrying; that he wanted a wife. Then the conversation
turned on my daughters, and Mary no doubt mentioned that at my death
they would all have large fortunes.”

“Ah, so it is the money that Berkins is after.”

“Money comes first. If a man can make a settlement he will naturally
demand a--that is to say he will naturally look forward, he will
consider what her prospects are; not her immediate prospects, that would
be mercenary, but her future prospects.”

Willy smiled. “And what did Berkins say?”

“He said he wanted to marry, and he spoke of Grace; he said he admired
her. I shouldn't be surprised if we saw him at church to-day.”

“Are you going to ask him to lunch?”

“Certainly, if he's there.” Then, after a long silence, Mr. Brookes
said: “He'll come in here to smoke. Of course you'll leave us alone. Do
you mind leaving out your cigars?”

“I have only half a box left; I think really you might keep some in the
house to supply your own guests with. You always object if I interfere
with your things.”

“I am out of my best cigars--it is so hard to remember. He won't smoke
more than one.”

“I'll put one in the cigar case then.”

“You had better fill it; it will look so bad if there is only one; he
won't take it.”

“He'll take all he can get; he took my bird, I know that!”

“This is a matter of great importance.”

“To you and to Grace, not to me,” said Willy, and with very bad grace he
unlocked a drawer, and placed a box of cigars on the table.

“Thank you. Now what time is it? Half-past ten. By Jove! we must be
thinking of starting; I suppose you aren't coming?”

“I am afraid I've too much to do this morning.”

The young ladies appeared in new dresses, and with prayer-books in their
hands. Mr. Brookes took his hat and umbrella, and Willy watched them
depart with undisguised satisfaction. “Now I shall be able to get
through some work,” he said, untying a large bundle of letters. He wrote
a page in his diary, tied up the letters, diary, and notebook in brown
paper, and, with a sigh, admitting that he did not feel up to much work
to-day, he took up the envelopes that had contained his letters and
began tearing off the stamps, and he did this very attentively as if
he did not trust his dry thick fingers. Somebody had told him that
ten thousand old stamps were worth--he had forgotten the price of old
stamps, and wondering he dozed off. When he awoke he cried: “Half-past
twelve, they must be on their way back; I wonder if Berkins is with
them!” And he strolled out on the gravel.

A few spring flowers marked the brown earth about the trees, and a
beautiful magnolia, white as a bride, shed its shell-like petals in an
angle beneath a window; the gold of the berberis glowed at the end of
the path; and the greenery was blithe as a girl in clear muslin and
ribbons. The blackbirds chattered and ran, and in turn flew to the pan
of water placed for them, and drank, lifting their heads with exquisite
motion. The trees rustled in the cold wind; the sky was white along the
embankment, where an engine moved slowly up and down the line.

Willy was sensible that the scene was pleasant and pretty, and
remembering he was fond of birds, he thrust his hands deeper in his
pockets and walked slowly down the drive, his toes well turned out.
“I wonder if they met Berkins at church?” was the question he put to
himself gravely. “What a cad he is! No wonder the county people fight
shy of us; a fellow like that is enough to close their doors against
us for ever. My father pooh-poohs everything but riches; he positively
flies in their faces, so what can I do? I don't care to ask my Oxford
friends down here; one never knows how he will receive them. He can
talk of nothing but his business. Had I a free hand, had I not been
so hampered, we might have known all the best county families, even
theduke.”

The latch of the gate clicked, and Mr. Brookes and his family appeared.
Maggie and Sally walked on the right and left of their father; Grace
came on behind with Berkins, and it seemed to Willy that the city
magnate bore himself with something even more than his usual dignity.
At first sight he suggested that anomalous creature--a footman with a
beard; and the slow, deliberate enunciation marked him as one accustomed
to speak in public. His manner of sitting at a table suggested letters
and dictation of letters, his manner of moving his glasses on his nose
accounts, and at no moment would it have been surprising to see him
place his strong finger at the bottom of a line of figures, and begin
“Gentlemen,” etc.

During lunch, Sally and Maggie spoke in undertones; they glanced
occasionally at Grace, who sat by and received Berkins's bald remarks
with deference. The girls trembled with excitement; they had pressed and
extorted from Grace a hurried statement of what had happened. Berkins
had proposed to her, he had told her he had never seen any one except
her whom he would care to make his wife. What had she said? She didn't
know. She couldn't really remember. She had been taken so suddenly, she
was so upset, that she hadn't known what to say. She thought she had
said something about the honour--but she really had not had time to say
much, for at that moment they were at the gate. Did she intend to accept
him? She didn't know; she could not make up her mind. It was a terrible
thing to throw over poor Jack; she didn't think she could do it--no
matter what father might say. However, she knew he would never give his
consent, so it was no use thinking.

“I hope she won't begin to cry,” whispered Sally, who had followed
Maggie to the sideboard.

“Father looks as if he were going to cry,” replied Maggie, moving the
decanters and pretending to look for a glass.

Seven thousand a year, ten thousand a year! Would Grace have him? What
would father settle on her? The sum he settled on her he must settle
on them when they married. As Berkins's wife Grace would have servants,
jewels, rich dresses, and a house in London, and they thought of the
advantage this marriage would be to them.

The knives clattered; cheese and celery were being eaten. Mr. Brookes
had drunk several glasses of port, and was on the verge of tears.
Berkins's high shoulders and large voice dominated the dining-table;
he was decidedly more than usually impressed by his own worth, and the
worth of the money of which he was the representative. Willy chewed
his cheese; there were many wrinkles about his eyes--deep lines turning
towards the ears; and when he lifted his tumbler one noticed the little
nails, almost worn away, of his lean hands.

At last Mr. Brookes said: “I daresay you would like a cigar,
Berkins--will you come into the billiard-room?”

Berkins inclined to this suggestion. Willy, who had not quite finished,
remained at table. The girls watched each other, and as soon as the
elderly men turned their backs they fled upstairs to their rooms.

“Will you try one of these?” said Mr. Brookes, offering a box of choice
havannas.

“Thank you. My tobacconist--I must ask you to visit his shop--receives
just a few cases of a very special cigar; I have at least two-thirds of
them, sometimes more; when you dine with me I'll give you one. This is
Chartreuse, I think. My wine merchant knows a man whose cousin is one of
the monks. Now the monks set aside the very cream of the liqueur, if I
may so speak, for themselves. This liqueur cannot be bought in the
open market. You may go up to London prepared to write a cheque for
any figure you may like to name, and I will defy you to buy a bottle.
I never have any other. It is really quite delicious. I daresay I could
get you some.”

Mr. Brookes expressed thanks for the amiable offer, and both men smoked
on in silence.

“Do you play billiards?”

“No. Do you?”

“No.”

Inwardly they congratulated themselves. Presently Mr. Brookes said:
“I hear you have been staying with my sister, Mrs. Haltom. You were
shooting there, were you not?”

“Yes, they were kind enough to ask me. Very nice shooting they have,
too.”

“I hear that you have gone in for rearing pheasants.”

“Yes; we shot a hundred brace last year.”

The conversation dropped, and in an impressive silence both men wondered
what they had better say to lead honourably up to the subject they had
come to speak on.

“Is your house your own design? Did you build it entirely yourself?
Iforget. I ought to know; you told me all about it when I dined with
you.”

“There was a house there, but I altered it considerably after my own
idea, and not a bad idea, I flatter myself. I spent a good deal of money
in laying out the grounds, putting up conservatories, and so forth.”

“You are a single man?”

“For a single man the house is, of course, too large; but I do not
intend to remain always single, and--and now, Mr. Brookes, as we are on
the subject, I had better tell you that I have asked Miss Brookes to be
my wife.”

Mr. Brookes grasped at the first words. “I am sure I am very pleased to
hear it, Mr. Berkins, and I hope the answer was a favourable one.”

“Miss Brookes is a modest girl. She has been well brought up, as a girl
who is, I hope, to be my wife should be, and she was naturally a little
overcome. I did not exactly catch what she said, and I didn't like to
press her for an immediate answer. But suppose we assume for the moment
that Miss Brookes's reply will be a favourable one--I have, I confess,
much faith in her good sense--we might consider the business side.”

Notwithstanding his admiration of a man who had made three thousand a
year more than he had succeeded in doing, Mr. Brookes could not but feel
irritated at Berkins, who, with increasing gravity, continued to assume
all things to his own advantage. It had not occurred to him to consider
that Grace might refuse him. Why should she refuse him? She could not
hope to do better. She appeared to him as a very nice girl indeed,
one entirely fitted for the position for which he intended her. He
understood that all girls, at least those in society, were innocent and
virtuous; he understood that when they married they made faithful and
dutiful wives; and he had chosen her not because he had fallen in love,
nor yet because he had noticed she was likely to make a better wife than
her sisters, but because she was the eldest. Even so he would be twenty
years his wife's senior, and he had chosen to marry one of the Brookes
girls because he knew them and saw them constantly; because he knew that
at their father's death his fortune would be divided between them. Grace
was, therefore, an heiress in perspective. The prospect was agreeable,
but he foresaw that it would be put forward as an excuse for fixing the
sum of marriage settlements as low as possible. It would, however, be
difficult for Brookes to settle less on his daughter than he, Berkins,
was willing to settle on his wife; so partly in the hopes of forcing
Mr. Brookes, and partly because of the pleasure it gave him to speak of
himself, he continued talking of his position and possessions.

“In dealing with me,” he said, “you are dealing, as you know, Mr.
Brookes, with a man of means, a man who can afford to do the thing
properly; you will not misunderstand me--you remember you told me that
you had great difficulty in keeping the little folk who live here out of
your house.”

“The neighbourhood has never been the same since they put up that row of
villas. A lot of indigent fortune-hunters, they know my girls will have
large fortunes at my death, so they come sneaking round the place like
so many wolves.”

“I can readily sympathise with you; one doesn't make money to keep idle
young fellows in the luxuries of life.”

“That is what I say.”

“But you aren't sufficiently firm, Mr. Brookes; had you been brought
up in the hard school that I was you would be more firm; firmness is
everything. You married early, I couldn't afford to do that. At sixteen
I had to shift for myself. I was three years a clerk at two pounds a
week, and not many chances to rise come in the way of a clerk at two
pounds a week; he must be pretty sharp, and if he doesn't seize the
little chance when it comes, he will remain a little clerk all his life.
It is the first steps that are difficult, the rest are nothing. You
don't know what the first steps are; I do. Once you've made a thousand
pounds you can swim along a bit, but the first hundred, I shall never
forget it! Afterwards it is just the same; the proportions are changed,
that is all. The first twenty thousand is very uphill work, the second
is on the flat, the third is going downhill--it brings itself along.”

“A very good simile indeed. There's no doubt that it is money that makes
money. When you have none you cannot make it. It is like corn; give
a man a handful, and he must be a fool if he can't fill his barn. The
beginnings are hard; none knows that better than I. But for the last ten
years I've been doing fairly well.”

“I had never intended to get married, but when money really begins to
accumulate it pushes you along. It is curious how money takes you along.
It is like a tide. You first begin thinking of a little place in the
country where you can stay from Saturday till Monday. The little place
grows; it is extraordinary how it grows. You find you want flowers, and
you put up a glass house; then you begin to get interested in orchids or
roses, and you put up two, maybe half a dozen glass houses. Suddenly you
find the rabbits are breeding in the hedgerows, and you go out yonder
ferretting, but the coachman does not know how to manage the ferrets,
and you start a keeper. The keeper says one morning, 'It wouldn't
require much to get up a stock of pheasants in that little wood.' You
say, 'Very well;' and there you are before you know it, with glass
houses, rabbit-shooting, and a pheasant preserve. You have friends
to stay with you for the shooting, you get talked about in the clubs,
people ask why you aren't married--the place where the wife ought to be
stares you in the face: a man of money, of real money, must get married.
The friends who come and stay with you suggest a little dance, you think
it would be very pleasant; but you know no one in the neighbourhood,
the county people won't visit you, so the thing comes about, and you are
head over heels in settlements before you know where you are.”

“Do you find the county people very standoffish over Preston Park way?”

“I am not in a position to judge; they could not very well call on me
situated as I am, a young--well, I will say, a marriageable--man, known
to be wealthy; but I have no doubt when I am married they will call on
us.”

“Twirl them round my little finger, stuck-up lot; I should like to know
what they have to be proud of, half of them are broken--their land is
worthless. Give me good sound investments, five or six per cent. For
some money I am getting seven; the waterworks pays fourteen.”

The conversation suddenly dropped, they looked at each other blankly;
they felt they had talked a good deal, but without approaching any
nearer the subject they had met to speak on.

“Our intention was,” said Berkins, in his most solemn and professional
manner, “assuming that Miss Brookes is not averse from my suit,
to discuss the business side, for there is a business side to all
questions, as you, Mr. Brookes, will be the first to see.”

Mr. Brookes had begun to anger; he would have liked to have answered
that such a discussion was altogether premature, but he yielded before
Berkins's authoritative manner, and he replied instead that he would be
glad indeed to hear whatever proposal Mr. Berkins had to make.

“I should like to say, then--I will assume that we stand as man to
man, equal; you have probably more money invested than I; I am making
possibly a larger income--you will forgive me if I am mistaken, but you
told me the other day as we went up in the train that you had had a very
bad year.”

“Three thousand dead loss. It does not matter so much to me, my money is
invested, but it would have gone hard with many a man who was relying on
his business. Three thousand pounds dead loss!”

“How was that? I suppose the temperance societies affect you; they must
have had a great effect on the sale of liquor.”

“No one who was not in the trade would believe in the falling off in the
quantity of whisky drunk. But it was not that.”

“What then?”

“Trade generally, trade depression affects every one; the failure of one
makes bad debts for the other. It was bad debts that did it. It was very
stupid of me, but I was worried at home: those fortune-hunters from the
villas--my daughters are very young, and since their poor mother died
they have had no one to look after them. Willy, too, is a great trial
to me. Poor boy, he is most anxious to do something, but things don't
go right with him; he thought he was going to do a good thing in a Bond
Street shop that was converted into a company, but he lost two thousand
pounds.”

“I thought he was in the distillery with you.”

“He was for a while, but he irritated me; he is so confoundedly
methodical, everything must go into his diary, he spends half the day
filling it up. Besides after you have conducted a business so many years
you don't want a partner; you have your own way of doing things, and
don't want to be interfered with. He draws a certain income, but he has
nothing now to do with the business. We were talking of settlements.”

“You do not act as I should regarding the villa residences. I would
put them down. I would not have it; but, as you say, we were talking
of settlements. I think I said we stood as man to man. In round numbers
your fortune equals mine, mine equals yours--very well, let us act
equally. I will settle five hundred a year on Miss Brookes, do you
likewise; what do you say to that?”

“Pooh, pooh! I couldn't think of such a thing. Five hundred a year!”
 said Mr. Brookes, and throwing his cigar into the fireplace, he walked
up the room indignantly. “I was wrong to consent to discuss the matter;
to say the least, it is premature; I never heard of such a thing. Five
hundred a year! This is worse than the Southdown Road, many degrees
worse.”

“Sir, such insinuations are most uncalled for; I must beg of you to
withdraw them. I must ask you to remember you are talking to one at
least in the same position as yourself, to a man of seven thousand a
year!”

“Pooh, pooh! seven thousand a year--you are making that to-day,
to-morrow you mayn't be making three. Yours isn't invested money.”

Berkins had risen from the great leather armchair, and he stood
expressionless as a piece of office furniture, his grave face divided
by the green shade of the billiard lamp; Mr. Brookes remained with his
back--his straight fat back bound in a new frock coat that defined the
senile fatness of the haunches--turned to his guest. He stooped as if to
examine his favourite Linnell, but, in his passion, he did not see it.
The table, covered with a grey cloth, lay like an account spread out
between the moneyed men.

“Taking your words into due consideration, I think I had better wish you
good-morning, Mr. Brookes.”

“Mr. Berkins, I would not wish you to misunderstand me,” said Mr.
Brookes, whom the prospect of losing seven thousand a year had suddenly
cooled. “My daughter will have--my children, I should say--will have my
fortune divided amongst them at my death, and when we come to go into
figures you will find--”

“But in the meantime, what do you propose to settle on her?”

Mr. Brookes hesitated. He was angry at being pressed. Berkins's
domineering tone irritated him; he would have liked to bundle him from
the house.

Presently he said: “I think, considering the very large sums of money my
daughters will come into at my death, that a settlement of two hundred a
year is ample.”

“Very well, in that case I shall settle the same.”

“I could not, I will not, consent to any such arrangement. The man my
daughter marries must settle on her a sum of money equivalent--”

“To what you settle on her.”

“To her position, to her expectations,” replied Mr. Brookes, growing
more and more angry.

“But I don't know what her expectations are; you may marry again.”

“I do not intend to marry again.”

“Very possibly, but I know nothing of that; business is business, and I
should be a fool if I settle five hundred to your two hundred.”

Mr. Brookes stopped in his walk, and he looked at Berkins, who stood,
his hand laid upon the billiard table as upon a huge balance sheet. The
word business had carried the men back to their offices in London,
and, quite forgetful of the subject of their bargaining, each strove to
obtain an advantage over the other.

“Well, let us say two hundred and fifty, that is my last word.”

“Then, Mr. Brookes, I will not take your daughter.”




III



“Willy, make haste, I beg of you; I shall miss my train. It is now
exactly half-past nine.”

“You had better go without me; I cannot start now. I haven't nearly got
my things together.”

“Very well, very well.”

Willy walked from room to room tying and untying brown paper parcels in
his most methodical and most dilatory manner. His sisters stood watching
him from the drawing-room door.

“Did father tell you nothing when Berkins left? They had a row, hadn't
they? It isn't off, is it?”

“I wish you would not speak so loud, Sally; you can be heard all over
the house.”

“Do tell us.”

“But I don't know. Father was very much upset. I couldn't speak to him
about my own business, I know that.”

“Well, I suppose we shall hear about it to-night. You are going to meet
Frank in Brighton, aren't you?”

“Yes; he is coming to lunch with me.”

“Don't keep him all day; send him on here, we might have a game of
tennis.”

Willy did not answer; and he thought as he went upstairs, what a trouble
young girls were in a house. “They think of nothing but pleasure,
nothing but pleasure.”

One, two, or three more delays, and he was ready, and with his brown
paper parcel tucked under his arm he set forth. Upon the young blue of
the sky, the fresh green of the buds melted. There were a few elms, but
hardly enough to constitute an avenue. The house looked as if it had
been repeatedly altered. It ran into unexpected corners and angles; but
it was far enough from the road to justify a gate lodge. The swards were
interspersed with shrubs in the most modern fashion, and the sumptuous
glass-houses could be seen gleaming in the sun. It was a hot day,
and the brick wall was dappled with hanging foliage, and further out,
opposite the windows of the “Stag and Hounds,” where Steyning's ales
could be obtained, the over-reaching sprays of a great chestnut tree
fell in delicate tracery on the white dust. The road led under the
railway embankment, and looking through the arched opening, one could
see the dirty town, straggling along the canal or harbour, which runs
parallel with the sea. A black stain was the hull of a great steamer
lying on her side in the mud, but the tapering masts of yachts were
beautiful on the sky, and at the end of a row of slatternly houses
there were sometimes spars and rigging so strange and bygone that they
suggested Drake and the Spanish main.

Southwick is half a suburb, half a village. In the summer months the
green seems a living thing. It is there the children talk and tumble
when school is over. They are told to go to the green, they are
forbidden to go to the green, and it is from the green the eldest girl
leads the naughty boy howling. When they are a little older they avoid
the green, it is too public then. It is to the green that elevens come
from far and near to play their matches. All the summer through the
green is a _fete_ of cricket. It is to the green the brass bands come on
Saturday. On the green, bat and trap is played till the ball disappears
in shadow. The green is common; horses and cows are turned out there.
All profit by the green. It is on the edge of the green the housewives
come to talk in the limpid moonlight. It is on the green the fathers
smoke when the little cottage rooms are unbearable with summer heat. It
is on the green that Mrs. Horlock walks with her pugs and the chemist's
wife, to the enormous scandal of the neighbourhood.

To the right, facing the embankment, and overlooking some fields, is
the famous Southdown road, and parallel with the green is Mr. Brookes's
property--a solid five acres, with all modern improvements and
embellishments, and surrounded by a brick wall over six feet high.

Willy hated Southwick. He thought it ugly and vulgar; he regretted
deeply that his father would make no advances, and that they were as far
from county society to-day as when they came to live in the place thirty
years ago. “I knew the best people when I was at Oxford, why can I
not know them now? Here we are doing the same thing from year's end
to year's end; why, with our money we ought to be hob-nobbing with
the duke.” In moments of dejection this was one of Willy's commonest
thoughts. “I did my best, but I was opposed. Father doesn't care, and
as for the girls, they'll take up with any man so long as he is young.
Still, in spite of them I should have got on if I hadn't lost my nerve
and had to give up hunting; and without hunting there is no way of
making acquaintances.”

Willy had relied on a hunter as Berkins had on pheasants and
glass-houses. But he hated hunting, and finding he got no further than a
few breakfasts, he had told a story of a heavy fall and sold his horses.
He had then insisted on dinner-parties, and some few people more or less
“county” had been collected; the pretext was politics, but Willy and
politics were but a doleful mixture, and the scheme collapsed. The
family was not endowed with any social qualifications, Willy least of
all, and having failed to advance himself individually, and his family
collectively, he threw up the game.

We rarely cultivate for long things in which we may not succeed in--the
lady with a small waist pinches it, the man with pretty feet wears
pretty shoes, and in no circumstances could Willy have shone in society.
He failed to interest the ladies he met on the King's Road, he knew
this; and to sum up his deficiencies, let us say he was lacking in “go.”
 He was too timid to succeed with the more facile loves whom he met in
the evenings on the pier. All the same he had had his love affair.

Oh! men of inferior aspect and speech, often in you a true heart abides;
you, and you only, are faithful to the end.

To this unromantic person a shred of pure romance was attached.
None knew the whole story, and none spoke of it now; but his sisters
remembered that Willy had fallen in love with a girl whom he had seen
play “Sweet Anne Page.” They remembered long letters, tears and wild
looks. He had sent her diamonds; and one night he had attempted suicide.
All was now forgotten; at least it was the past, and nothing remained
but one little melody which he had heard her sing, and which he
sometimes whistled out of tune.

But sooner or later a man's talents, and if not his talents, his tastes,
appear through the mists of youth, and henceforth they lead him. Willy's
efforts in society had resulted in abortive dinner-parties, his efforts
in sport had been cut short by nerves, his efforts in dissipation had
left him with a tolerably well-filled wardrobe, his efforts in love
had brought him tears and a commonplace mistress, whom he kept in the
necessaries of life in various lodging-houses. So his youth had passed;
but in all this mediocrity a certain spirit of resistance endured.
His taste for figures grew more pronounced; he surrounded himself with
account books, letter books, and diaries; he took note of every
penny that passed through his hands. Money-making, profitable
investments--that was to be his aim in life; and as each year closed his
thoughts fixed themselves more definitely and entirely on it; and it was
natural that it should be so, since all other outlets for the passion of
life were barred to him. His forced retirement from the distillery did
not worry him. No one could please his father in business; his uncle
had once threatened to throw his brother out of the window. Besides, the
business was a declining one, and twelve thousand pounds for a junior
partnership was not bad. Nor did his failure to make a success of the
manure agency discourage him; the shop was a different matter, that was
his own idea, he had thought of a fortune, and had lost two thousand
pounds. It had crippled him for life. True enough, there were other
things to do. Some stockbrokers make twenty per cent. on their money,
not in wild speculation, but in straightforward genuine business. He
might go up to London and learn the business--he had heard that it would
not take more than six months or a year to pick it up--and start on his
own account. A thousand pounds would be sufficient to begin with; or he
might buy a partnership--he could do that for three or four thousand.
Either of these courses would suit him, the latter for preference, but
a certain amount of capital would be necessary before he could take
either, and that he hadn't got, and to all appearances it would be very
difficult to persuade his father to consent to drawany more money out of
the distillery.

So Willy's thoughts ran as he ascended the flight of wooden steps that
led to the platform of the little country station. “The folk down here
think there is nothing in me, that I am good for nothing but walking up
and down the King's Road, but they little know what I have in my head.
I'll make them open their eyes one of these days.” The sting of vanity
is in us all. Our heads may be greed, our bellies lust, our limbs
charity, faithfulness, truth, and goodwill, but in some cranny of our
tails vanity always lies, only it may be marvellously well hidden, as in
Willy. The keenest observer would not have detected it in him, and
when he came out of his habitual reserve and lamented that bad luck had
always followed him and spoke of his projects, one might have suspected
him of greed, but hardly of vanity. Now he stood leaning on the wooden
paling, and his movements showed the back and loins in strong outline,
marking the thick calves. Without taking any heed, his eyes followed the
cricket ball, which was in turn slogged into the horse-pond and cottage
gardens. Through long familiarity, the green had faded from his notice,
nor did the burnt-up crops on the Downs attract his thoughts, nor yet
the sinuous lines of the hills. From the platform one saw the whole of
Southwick. The green with its cricket match, Mrs. Horlock and her dogs,
the forge, the stile, the various cottages, the long fields full of
green wheat, and, far away, the carriages passing like insects along
the road under the Downs; then on the right were the back gardens of the
cottages, a large inscription announcing the different branches of the
grocery business, a few fields with cows leaning their muzzles over the
rough palings, some more cottages, a barn, and then the magnificent five
acres of the Manor House, rich with glass-houses, and beautiful in a
cloud of trees. From the platform of the station one could see the sea,
not much of it, but one could see the sea; the slates of the street that
went along the water's edge did not quite bar the view. The very small
presence of Southwick contrived to hide the sea; even when one walked to
the water's side the great mass of shingle which forms the outer bank of
the canal allowed only one narrow rim of blue to appear. The inhabitants
forget they live by the sea, and when the breeze fills their gardens
with a smell of boats and nets they think of the sea with surprise.

Tired of the monotonous running to and fro of the cricket players, Willy
walked up the platform. Arrow-like, the line lay in front of him, and
in the tinted distance, in faint lines and flashes of light and shade,
Brighton stretched from hill to hill. Morning was still in the sky, and
the sea was deep blue between the yellow chimney-pots. A puff of steam
showed up upon a distant field, and the train came along from Portslade,
one of the links of the great chain of towns that binds the south coast.
“I hope Frank won't arrive in Brighton before me,” thought Willy.

They had been big boy and little boy at school. The vivacity of the Celt
amused the good-natured south Saxon, and when Lord Mount Rorke called to
see his nephew, he found him talking with Brookes. Once Willy had been
invited to spend part of his holidays at Mount Rorke. Afterwards they
visited each other's rooms, and so their friendship had been decided,
and, in spite of--or, perhaps, on account of--a very marked difference
in their characters and temperaments, gathered strength as it matured.
Another link between the men was that Escott had accompanied Willy to
the theatre when he went to see the actress whom he had loved so madly.
Frank had heard her sing the song which Willy whistled when his thoughts
went wandering. Willy confided in no one--great sorrows cannot be and
never are confided; but Frank had seen her, and he played her songs on
the piano, and that was enough for Willy.

The young men had not seen each other for two years. Frank had shown
some taste for painting, and his uncle, whose heir he was, had sent him,
if not to study, at least to think about art in Italy. From Italy he had
gone to Greece and Russia, he had returned home through Germany, he had
visited Holland and France.

“Is the London train come in?” Willy asked when he arrived in Brighton.

“Yes, sir, just come in, about five minutes,” said the man as he opened
the door. Willy waited until the train had stopped dead, he got out
carefully, and, looking through the confusion of luggage and bookstall
trade, he saw Escott questioning a porter and hailing a carriage. “By
Jove! I shall miss him,” cried Willy, and he hastened his steps and
broke into a sharp trot. “Frank! Frank!” he cried.

“Oh, there you are!” cried Frank, and he lifted his stick, and called
sharply to a large black and white bull-dog that paddled about on its
bow legs, saliva dripping from its huge jaws, looking in its hideousness
like something rare and exquisite from Japan. He dismissed the porter
and the carriage, which he had hailed with an arrogant wave of his
stick. He was tall and he was thin. His trousers were extremely elegant,
a light cloth, black and white check, hung on his legs in graceful
lines, and he wore tiny boots with light brown cloth tops. The jacket
and waistcoat were in dark brown cloth, and the odour of the gardenia
in his buttonhole contrasted with that of the sachet-scented silk
pocket-handkerchief which lay in his side pocket. His throat showed
white and healthy in the high collar tied with a white silk cravat in a
sailor's knot, fastened with a small diamond. His hands were coarse and
brown; he wore two rings, and a bracelet fell out of his cuff when he
dropped his arm. His chest was broad and full, but the shoulders were
too square; the coat was padded. There was little that could be called
Celtic in his face or voice, the admixture of race was manifested in
that dim blue stare, at once vague and wild, which the eyes of the Celt
so often exhibit. The nose was long, low, and straight, the nostrils
were cleanly marked, the mouth was uncertain, the chin was uncertain,
the face was long, deadly pale, rather large, the forehead was high,
receding at the temples. The hair (now he removes his hat, for the air
is heavy and hot, and the sun falls fiercely on the pavement) is pale
brown, and it waves thinly over the high forehead, so expressive of a
vague and ill-considered idealism. Frank Escott was of Saxon origin on
his father's side, but the family had been in Ireland for the last two
hundred years, and had married into many Irish families that had at
different times received direct contributions of Celtic blood. Long
residence in England had removed all Irish accent and modes of
speech; but in hook, and book, and cook he lengthened the vowel sound.
Occasionally a something strange grated on the ear, and declared him not
of the south of England, suggested the north, and insinuated
Cumberland; an actor could not reproduce these trifling differences with
caricaturing them. He was absolutely good-looking, and he was too well
dressed. He laughed a good deal, and his conversation was sprinkled with
cynical remarks and cutting observations.

“You don't seem to go in for dress now as you used to.”

“I haven't the money to spend on it; but tell me, don't you like this
suit?”

“Well, pretty well; whose is it? Did Walpole make it? Do you deal with
him still?”

“Yes, it is one of Walpole's, but I have had it turned.”

“Had it turned? I have heard of turning an overcoat, but a morning coat!
I did not know it could be done; that's what makes it look so shaky.”

“Now don't you get laughing at my coat, it looks very well indeed. I
suppose you think I am not fit to walk with you. I daresay it doesn't
look as smart as yours, which has just come out of Walpole's shop.”

The young men had so much to say, and were so genuinely glad to see each
other, that their thoughts hesitated and they were embarrassed.

“I suppose you enjoyed your trip abroad very much,” Willy said drily and
punctiliously; “you were more than a year away--nearly eighteen months,
I think.”

“About that. I enjoyed myself. I think I liked Italy best; it has
been more painted and described than any country, and yet it is quite
different from what one imagines; it is grey and dim and green and
dusty. It looks--how shall I put it?--it looks worn out and faded.”

“The women aren't worn out and faded if all one hears is true,” said
Willy, with a short laugh.

“The women are right enough. I must tell you about them one of these
days, lots of stories. There was a little Italian girl I met at Milan.
It was a job to get away from her; she followed me, 'pon my word, she
did; she declared she would commit suicide. I was awfully frightened.
Naples is really too shocking. I'm not a prude, but Naples is really--”

“I suppose it is the same all over the Continent. One of these days I
must go abroad and have a look round. You were a long time in Rome?”

“No, only a few weeks, but I was too taken up with the pictures to think
of anything else. The Michael Angelos are beyond anything any one can
imagine. He is the only one who can compare with the Greeks, and I don't
see why one shouldn't say he is as great. Of course there are things,
the daughters of--I forget the name--the group of two women leaning back
in each other's arms in the British Museum. But I don't know, Michael
Angelo is quite different, and I can't see that anything can be said
to be finer than the figures of Day and Night--how often I have drawn
them--the figure of Night, the heavy breasts to show that she has
suckled the Day.”

“But which way are we going? I must go to Truefitt's to have my hair
cut.”

“You haven't forgotten the old place, I see. Do you still keep up your
subscription?”

“I suppose mine has run out, I have been abroad so long. Nothing like a
good shampoo; for a guinea a year you can have it done as often as you
like.”

“I haven't subscribed lately. There used to be such a pretty girl at the
counter. Do you remember?”

“You dog, always thinking of them,” and laughing loudly they passed
through the shop, and it was Frank that stared most at the young lady.
They read _Punch_ aloud to each other; they cracked jokes with the
hairdressers; they snorted and laughed through the soap and jets of hot
and cold water. Frank allowed scent and ivories to be pressed upon him
by the young lady at the counter; Willy declined to be led into such
extravagances.

As he stepped out into the shine of the street, and took step from his
friend, he said: “By George! it makes me feel young again. It is just
like old times.”

“Yes, it does make one feel jollier, doesn't it?”

“How jolly it is here; not too warm, just nice. What shall we do? Sit
down on that bench in front of the pier?”

“I'm agreeable. How jolly it is. Just look at those boats! One could
make a picture of that.”

Over the sea hung a white veil of mist, but the sun glowed through and
melted into it, and harmonised it with the water green and translucent.
The sea sucked about the shingle with little sudden sighs; the sails
of the pleasure boat waved in the fairy-like depths, and all the
little brown fishing-boats lay becalmed, heaving tremulously like
tired butterflies upon the breast of a blue flower. The nursemaids lay
together on the shingle, and their novels slipped down the stones to
their feet. The children played with the tide and the sand. There were
crowds of women--Jewesses with loud dresses: and the strange world of
bath chairs! Ladies so old that they seem certain to fall to pieces when
they are taken out; ladies with chestnut curls soft and fresh--why were
they in bath chairs? General officers, mounted on white Arabs; acrobats
and songs.

The young men sat facing the sea. Frank called, “Triss, Triss. Splendid
dog that is. If I were to let him he would guzzle the other dog in about
two minutes.”

“He looks a ferocious brute.”

“You don't like dogs? You couldn't see a handsomer dog than that;
unfortunately, he's the wrong colour; if he were brindle or white, he'd
take a first prize. Come here, you brute.”

Amid some little excitement and anxious looks, Triss came up, growling
and showing his teeth. Frank explained that it was only his manner.
Frank took the paw that was extended to him, but Triss's friendliness
seemed somewhat dubious, for he still further uncovered his formidable
fangs.

“I really don't care to sit here with that ferocious brute.”

“I assure you he won't bite, it is only his manner. Isn't it, Triss?
Kiss me, kiss me at once,” and amid many growls of almost subterranean
awfulness, the dog licked his master's face.

“I wish you would tie him up--to oblige me.”

Highly pleased at the fear and wonder his dog had struck in the gaudy
Jewesses and the shaky generals, Frank threatened and finally forced
the dog to lie down. He continued to expatiate on the dog's points--the
number of wrinkles, the bandiness of the legs, etc. The conversation
dropped in heat and glare, and the picturesqueness of the sea.

“How horribly out of tune you do whistle--you go into a different key;
this is more like it.”

“Yes, how sweetly she used to sing it. Do you remember the night we went
to see her, the last time the piece was played? I threw her a bouquet,
a splendid one it was, too, cost me three guineas in Covent Garden. We
went afterwards and had supper at Scott's in the Haymarket. How jolly
those days were. I don't seem to be able to enjoy myself now as I used
to then.”

“What has become of her? One never hears of her.”

“She died soon after.”

“I am sorry I spoke of her; I didn't know.”

“Oh, it doesn't matter.” Then after a long silence, Willy said: “I hear
your engagement is broken off.”

“Yes.” Frank drew a long and expressive breath, and, with melodramatic
movements of the shoulders, he sighed. “I have not seen you since. Oh,
I had terrible scenes with the father. They had a house up the river.
I followed them, and put up at the Angler's Hotel. She told her father
that I must be allowed to come to the house, and he had to give way. You
don't know the river? Well, it is wonderful to awake at Maidenhead in
the morning and hear the sparrows twittering in a piece of tangled vine;
to see that great piece of water flowing so mildly in all the pretty
summer weather. We used to live in flannels, and spent long afternoons
together in the boat--we had such a spiffing boat, as light and as clean
in the water as a fish--and we used to linger in the bulrushes, and come
back when the moon was rising with our hands full of flowers.”

“But why was it broken off?”

“My uncle, old Mount Rorke, wants me to marry an heiress, and I have
nothing except what he allows me, or scarcely anything. She used to wear
a broad-brimmed straw hat, and the shadow fell over her face. I made a
lot of sketches. I must show them to you one of these days when you come
up to town, and I filled an album with verses. I used to write them at
night. My window was right in front of the river, and the moon used
to sail past, and in the morning I used to read her the poems I made
overnight beneath the branches of the cedar, where we used to run the
boat. But the father was a brute. I got the best of him once though. It
was a private view day at the Academy, and he had forbidden Nellie to
speak to me--even to notice me. I went straight up to her, and took her
away under his very nose before he could stop us. We walked about all
day. Oh! he was mad.”

“If she was willing to brave her father in that way, why was your
engagement broken off?”

“My uncle was so very difficult to deal with. I didn't see her for some
time.” Frank did not say--perhaps, he did not know--that his engagement
had been broken off through his own instability and weakness of
character. The young lady, whom he called Nellie, had told him she would
wait if he would elect a profession and work for a place in it. But
Frank had not been able to forego late hours and restaurants, and Nellie
had married some one who could. “You know I converted her. Doesn't her
father hate me for that! We used to go to high mass at the oratory. I
explained to her the whole of the Catholic religion.”

“But I thought you didn't believe in it yourself?”

“I am talking of some time ago; besides, a woman, it isn't quite the
same thing; and if I have saved her soul! I don't know if I told you
that I was writing a novel; I don't think I did. The idea of it is
this: A young man has loved three women. The first charmed him by her
exceeding beauty; he lives with her for a time. The second captivates
him, or rather holds him through his senses; his love for her is merely
a sensuality; then he falls in love with a fair young girl as pure as
falling snow of any stain in deed or in thought; he is engaged to marry
her--or, I don't know, I haven't made up my mind on that point, perhaps
it would be better if he did marry her. Well, the woman whom he has
loved with a merely sensual passion comes back, and to revenge herself
she tries to tempt the good girl to go wrong; she talks to her of men
and pleasures; this is a good idea, I think, for I feel sure it is women
far more than men who lead women astray. Then the first woman whom
he has loved for her beauty merely, comes along and continues
the diabolical work of the first, by suggesting--I don't know,
anything--that the young girl should go in for dress; the young man
finds out the scheme, and to save the girl he murders her, he is thrown
into prison, he is tried, and in the crowded Court he makes a great
speech--he tells how he murdered her to save her from sin, he tells the
judge that on the Judgment Day a pure white soul will plead for him.
What an opportunity for a piece of splendid writing! The Court would be
filled with fashionable women, that weep and sob, they cannot contain
themselves, the judge would wish to stop the young man, but he cannot.
What a splendid scene to describe! And the young man goes to execution
confident, and assured that he has done well. What do you think of it?”

“It is really difficult for me to say; I never like giving an opinion on
a subject I don't understand.”

“I know; but what do you think?”

Fortunately for Willy's peace, the conversation was at this moment
violently interrupted by Triss. He rushed forth, and Frank was only in
time to prevent a pitched battle. He returned leading the dog by his
silk handkerchief, amid the murmur of nurse-maids and Jewesses.

“That's the worst of him; he never can see a big dog without wanting to
go for him. Down, sir, down--I won't have you growl at me.”

“I can't see what pleasure you can find in a brute like that.”

“I assure you he's very good-tempered; he has a habit of growling, but
he does not mean anything by it. What were we talking about?”

“I think we were talking about the ladies. Have you seen anything nice
lately? What's the present Mrs. Escott like, dark or fair?”

“There isn't one, I assure you. I met rather a nice woman at my uncle's,
about two months ago, a Lady Seely. I don't know that you would call her
a pretty woman; rather a turned-up nose, a pinched-in waist, beautiful
shoulders. Hair of a golden tinge, diamonds, and dresses covered with
beads. She flirted a great deal. We talked about love, and we laughed at
husbands, and she asked me to come and see her in rather a pointed way.
It is rather difficult to explain these things, but I think that if I
were to go in for her--”

“That you would pull it off?”

The young men laughed loudly, and then Frank said: “But somehow I don't
much care about her. I met such a pretty girl the other day at the
theatre. There were no stalls, and as I wanted to see the piece very
much, I went into the dress circle. There was only one seat in the
back row. I struggled past a lot of people, dropped into my place, and
watched the piece without troubling myself to see who was sitting next
to me. It was not until the _entr'acte_ that I looked round. I felt my
neighbour's eyes were fixed upon me. She was one of the prettiest girls
you ever saw in your life--a blonde face, pale brown hair, and such
wonderful teeth--her laughter, I assure you, was beautiful. I asked her
what she thought of the piece. She looked away and didn't answer. It
was rather a slap in the face for me, but I am not easily done. I
immediately said: 'I should have apologised before for the way I
inconvenienced you in crushing into my seat, but, really, the place is
so narrow that you don't know how to get by.' This rather stumped her,
she was obliged to say something. The girl on the other side (not half a
bad looking girl, short brown curly hair, rather a roguish face) was the
most civil at first. She wasn't as pretty as the one next to me, but
she spoke the more willingly; the one next to me tried to prevent her.
However, I got on with them, one thing led to another, and when the
piece was over, I fetched their hats and coats and we walked a little
way up the street together. I tried to get them to come to supper; they
couldn't do that, for they had to be in at a certain time, so we went
to Gatti's and had some coffee. I couldn't make out for a long time what
they were; they were evidently not prostitutes, and they did not seem to
me to be quite ladies. What do you think they were?”

“I haven't an idea--actresses?”

“No. They wouldn't tell me for a long time. I got it out of them at
last; they're at the bar in the Gaiety Restaurant.”

“Bar girls?”

“Yes.”

“Some of those bar girls are very pretty; rather dangerous, though, I
should think.”

“They seemed to me to be very nice girls; you would be surprised if you
heard them talk. I assure you the one that sat next to me spoke just
like a lady. You know in these hard times people must do something. Lots
of ladies have to buckle to and work for their bread.”

Frank lapsed into silence. Willy sat apparently watching the blue and
green spectacle of the sea. Frank knew that it interested him not the
least, and he wondered if his friend had heard what he had been saying.
Triss, seeing that smelling and fighting were equally vain endeavours,
had laid himself out in the sun, and he returned his master's caresses
by deep growls. One more menacing than the others woke Willy from his
meditation, and he said: “What's the time? It ought to be getting on to
lunch time.”

“I daresay it is.”

“Where shall we go? Do you know of a good place? What about that
restaurant opposite the pier?”

“Well,” said Willy, with a short, abrupt laugh, “the fact is, I must
lunch at my office; but I shall be very glad if you will come.”

“I didn't know you had an office--an office for what?”

“I started an agency at the beginning of the year for artificial manure,
but I think I shall drop it. I am arranging to go on the Stock Exchange.
The difficulty is whether I shall be able to get my father to allow me
to take enough money out of the business.”

“What business?”

“The distillery.”

“Oh, but what about this office? Why are you obliged to lunch at your
office? Are you expecting customers? I know nothing about that sort of
thing.”

“No, I wish I were. The fact is, my missis is staying in Brighton for a
few weeks. The child has been ailing a good deal lately, and the doctor
ordered change of air.”

“Child! Missis! I know nothing of this.”

“A very nice woman, I think you'll like her. She is devoted to me. We've
been together now two years or more, I can't say exactly, I should have
to refer to my diary.”

“But the child?”

“The child isn't mine. She had the child before I knew her.”

“And what is the matter with it?”

“Curvature of the spine. The doctor says she will outgrow it. Cissy will
be quite strong and healthy although she may never have what you would
call a good figure. But there is a matter on which I want to speak to
you. The fact is, I am going to be married.”

“To whom?”

“To the lady whom you will see at lunch, Cissy's mother.”

Frank said: “If you really love her I have nothing to say against it.”
 Willy did not answer. Frank waited for an answer and then broke the
silence: “But do you love her?”

“Yes, I am very fond of her; she is a very good sort.”

Frank was implacable. “Do you love her like the other one?” The question
wounded, but Frank was absorbed in his own special sentimentalities.

“I was younger then, it is not the same; I am getting old. How many
years older am I than you--seven, I think? You are three-and-twenty, I
am thirty. How time flies!”

“Yes, I am three-and-twenty--you don't look thirty.”

“I feel it, though; few fellows have had so much trouble as I have. Your
life has been all pleasure.”

“If a man really loves a woman he is always right to marry her. Why
should we suppose that a woman may not reform--that true love may
not raise her? I was talking to a novelist the other day; he told me
thestory of a book he is writing. It is about a woman who leaves the
husband she has never loved for the man she adores; she goes away with
him, he marries her, and she sinks lower and lower, until she becomes a
common prostitute.”

“You are quite mistaken. I am sure that when you see the missis--”

“My dear fellow, pray do not misunderstand me. I would not for worlds.
I am only telling you about a book, if you will only listen. I told him
that I thought the story would be ten times as interesting if, instead
of being degraded, the woman were raised by the love of the man who
took her away from her husband. He made the husband a snivelling little
creature, and the lover good-looking--that's the old game. I would have
made the lover insignificant and the husband good-looking. Nevertheless
she loved the lover better. I know of nothing more noble than for a man
to marry the woman he loves, and to raise her by the force of his love;
he could teach her, instruct her. Nellie will never forget me. I gave
her a religion, I taught her and explained to her the whole of the
Catholic faith--”

“I hope you won't try to convert my sisters.”

“You do pull me up so! Don't you understand that I was very young then?
I was only twenty, not much more; besides, I was engaged to Nellie.”

“Come back to what we were talking about.”

“Well, I have said that if you love her I believe you are quite right to
marry her. But do you love her?”

“Yes, I do; how many times more do you want me to say I do?”

“Of _course_ if you are going to be rude--”

“No--you understand what I mean, don't you? I am very fond of the
missis; if I weren't I shouldn't marry, that goes without saying, but
one likes to have things settled. I have been with her now more thantwo
years. I've thought it out. There's nothing like having things settled.
I'm sure I'm right.”

The young men looked at each other in silence--Frank quite at a loss;
he could nowise enter into the feelings of a man whom an undue sense of
order and regularity compelled to marry his mistress, as it did to waste
half his life in copying letters and making entries in a diary.

“Then why did you consult me?” he said, for he came to the point sharply
when his brain was not muddled with sentiment.

“I am not heir to an entailed estate, like you.”

“I am not heir to an entailed estate. Mount Rorke might marry
to-morrow.”

“He is not likely to do that. It is an understood thing that you are
heir. My father might cut me off with a shilling if he were to hear
I had married without his consent, and I should be left with the few
hundreds which I draw out of the distillery, a poor man all my life.”

“If that is so, why marry? You are not in love with her--at least not
what I should call being in love.”

“But can't you understand--”

“No, I can't, unless you mean that you are down with marriage fever.”

“I have considered the matter carefully, and am convinced I am right,”
 he answered, looking at Frank as if he would say, but didn't dare,
“don't let's talk about it any more, it only distresses me.” “The
marriage must be kept a secret. If my father were to hear of it I should
be ruined, whereas if Mary will consent to go on living as we are living
now, one of these days she will be a rich woman. I daresay my share of
his money will come to at least fifteen hundred a year, and then I shall
be able to recompense her for the years she has waited for it. Do you
understand?”

“Perfectly. The only thing I don't see is how I am to influence
her. You've no doubt told her and fully explained to her what the
consequences would be if you were to publish the banns.”

“I have, but it would strengthen my hand if you were to tell her all you
know of my father. Tell her that he is very obstinate, pig-headed, and
would certainly cut me off; tell her that he is sixty-six, that it is
a hundred to one against his living till he is eighty, even if he did
there would be only fourteen years to wait for fifteen hundred a year;
tell her if she tells that I have married her it is just as if she threw
fifteen hundred a year out of the window.”

“And when shall I tell her all this?”

“Now. We are going to have lunch at my offices, she'll be there. We'll
talk the matter over after lunch.”

“Very well, let's start. Come along, Triss.”

With Triss tugging dangerously at the silk handkerchief whenever he saw
a likely pair of legs or a dog that he fancied, the young men sauntered
up West Street.

“But tell me: how do you manage to have so many people to lunch in your
office; your premises must be pretty extensive?”

“I have the whole house; I was obliged to take it. I couldn't get
another place that would suit me, and I thought I should be able to
let the upper part; I did have a tenant for a little while, but he was
obliged to leave. I believe I am the unluckiest fellow alive. Here's the
place.”

“Agency for Artificial Manure” was printed over the door. Willy asked
the office-boy if there were any letters, and they went upstairs. The
windows of the front room were in view of a church spire, and overlooked
a little shadowy cemetery; and at one window Cissy sat, the little
crutches by her side, watching the children playing amid the tombs.

“Where's your mother, Cissy?”

“In the back room cooking herrings, uncle.”

Mrs. Brookes was a homely, honest-eyed woman, with dingy yellow hair.

“Let me introduce you. This is my friend, Mr. Escott, you have often
heard me speak of him.”

“You must excuse my shaking hands with you, sir, I have been cooking.”

“She is an excellent cook, too. Just you wait and see. What have we
got?”

“Some herrings and a piece of steak.”

“Is that good enough for you?”

“I love herrings.”

“I am glad of that, these are quite fresh; they were caught this
morning. You must excuse me, I must go back; they want a deal of
attending to.” Presently she appeared with a tray and a beer jug. Willy
called to the office-boy. “We have no cheese,” said Mrs. Brookes.

Cissy begged to be allowed to fetch the cheese and beer.

“No, dear, I am afraid you aren't well enough.”

“Yes, I am, uncle; give me a shilling, and let me go with Billy.” Then,
breaking off with the unexpected garrulity of children, she continued:
“I am getting quite strong now; I was down on the beach this morning,
and watched the little boys and girls building mounds. When I am quite
well, uncle, won't you buy me a spade and bucket, and mayn't I build
sand mounds, too?”

“We'll see when the time comes.”

“Well, let me go with Billy and fetch the cheese.”

“No, you can't go now, dear, there are too many people about; this is
not like London.”

Cissy had the long sad face of cripples, but beautiful shining curls
hung thickly, hiding the crookedness of the shoulders. She was nine
years old, and was just beginning to awake to a sense of the importance
of her affliction.

After lunch she was sent downstairs to the office-boy. Willy sat rubbing
his hands slowly and methodically. After some hesitation he introduced
the subject they had come to speak on. “Mr. Escott will tell you, Mary,
how important it is that our marriage should be kept secret; he will
tell you how the slightest suspicion of it would ruin my prospects.”
 He then spoke of his position in the county, and the necessity of
sustaining it. Frank thought this rather bad taste; but he assured Mrs.
Brookes, with much Celtic gesticulation, that her marriage must be kept
a secret till her father-in-law's death. The young men and Mrs. Brookes
remained talking till the rays trailed among the green grass of the
graves, and the blue roofs that descended into the valley, and clung
about the sides of the opposite hill. It had been arranged that Willy
and Mrs. Brookes should go to London to-morrow to be married. Frank was
convinced that she would not break her promise, and he hoped they would
be very happy. She had only raised one objection. She had said: “What
is the use of my being married if I shall have to live with him as his
mistress?”

“A great deal of good. Your position will be secured. Willy will not be
able to leave you, even if he felt inclined, and you will know that only
one life, that of an old man, stands between you and fifteen hundred a
year.”

“I want no assurance that my dear Willy will not leave me,” she said,
going over and putting her arms about him; “but as you like. I shall
never say anything about the marriage till Willy tells me. I hope I
shall never do anything but what he tells me.” And she went over and sat
on his knees.

“You are a dear old thing,” he said, squeezing and planting a vigorous
kiss on her neck.

Frank's eyes filled with hot tears, his heart seemed like bursting.
“What a beautiful thing love is!” he said to himself, and the world
melted away from him in the happiness he drew from the contemplation of
these who were about to bind themselves together for life.

“Be most careful what you say to my sisters. I would not trust them.
The temptation to get me cut out of everything might--I ought not to say
that, but one never knows. I dare say no such accident could happen to
any one else, but if I leave the smallest thing to chance I am sure to
come to grief. They will question you. They will want to know what we
did all day.”

“I'll say we sat on the beach.”

“That's it. Good-bye. I shall be home the day after to-morrow.”




IV



When the young ladies at the Manor House did not get their dresses from
London, a dressmaker came from Brighton to help them, and all together
they sat sewing and chattering in the work-room. Maggie would take a
bow or a flower, and moving it quickly, guided by the instinct of a bird
building its nest, would find the place where it decorated the hat or
bonnet best. Neither Sally nor Grace could do this, nor could they drape
a skirt or fit a bodice, but they could work well and enjoy their
work. But what they enjoyed more was the opportunity these working days
afforded for gossip. Mrs. Wood had the Brighton scandal at her tongue's
tip, and what she would not tell, her niece told them when her aunt left
the room. Secrecy was enjoined, but sometimes they forgot, and in Mrs.
Wood's presence alluded too pointedly to stories that had not yet found
their way beyond the precincts of the servants' hall, and then the
dressmaker raised her mild eyes, and looked through large spectacles at
Susan, who sat biting her lips. Susan told the young ladies of her love
affairs; they told Susan of theirs; and the different codes of etiquette
gave added zest to the anecdotes, in themselves interesting. The story
of the young man who had said, “I am afraid that parcel is too heavy for
you, miss,” and had been promised a walk in the twilight on the cliff,
evoked visions of liberty, and the story of the officer at the Henfield
ball, with whom Sally had discovered a room that none knew of, did not
fail to impress the little dressmaker. They talked a great deal
about Frank. His face and manner called up the name, and after a few
hesitations they used his Christian name as they did when he came to see
them years ago.

“He is a very good fellow--I don't say he isn't. No one could say he
wasn't nice-looking, but somehow he doesn't make you feel--you know,
right down, you know, through and through.”

“Electricity,” said Maggie, with a low, subtle laugh, and her thread
cracked through the straw of the hat.

“Yes,” cried Sally boisterously. “Electricity, I never heard it called
that before; but it isn't a bad name for it; it is like electricity.
When a man looks at you--you know, in a peculiar way, it goes right down
your back from the very crown of your head.”

“No, not down my back; I feel it down my chest, just like forked
lightning. Isn't it horrid? You know that it is coming and you can't
help it. Some men fix their eyes on you.”

“It is just when you meet a man's eyes--a man you like, but haven't seen
much of.”

“I don't think liking has anything to do with it. I hate it; don't you?”

“No, I don't know that I do. I can't see anything so disagreeable as
that in it. 'Tis rather a shock, a sort of pang.”

Mrs. Wood raised her mild face and looked surprised through her thick
spectacles; the merry niece bit her lips, and strove to stay her
laughter. Then Maggie said: “Sue, have you ever felt electricity?”

“Oh, miss! I don't think I understand,” and she glanced at her aunt over
the hem she was running.

“Now, come, tell the truth. You mean to say you never felt electricity?”

“I don't think I ever did, miss.”

“I don't believe you. Not when that nice young man you were telling us
about looked at you? Come, now, tell the truth.”

“Well, miss, I don't know--I thought it was very revolting.”

Mrs. Wood said nothing; with her hand in suspended gesture and her
spectacles a-glimmer with round surprise, she sat looking at Miss
Maggie. Her reveries, however, were soon cut short, for Sally not
only asked her if she had ever experienced the doubtful pleasure of
electricity, but advised her when she returned home to try if her
husband's looks could thrill her.

“I don't think the conversation at all nice,” said Grace, who had up to
the present taken no part either by looks, or words, or laughter.

“Who cares what you think? You used to be fond enough of sitting out
dances with him. You mean to say he never gave you electricity?”

“No, never.”

“Then I hope Berkins will,” said Sally, with a coarse laugh.

The association of Berkins with electricity proved so generally
ludicrous that Mrs. Wood, conscious of the respect she owed Miss
Brookes, pretended to look for her handkerchief, and it was for a moment
doubtful if the spectacles would preserve their gravity. Tears started
to Grace's eyes, and she bent over her work to hide them from her
sisters, which was unnecessary, for Maggie and Sally were absorbed in
past experiences.

“What about Frank?” Sally asked, and Susan looked up curious to hear
Maggie's answer.

“Well,” said Maggie, staring at the window, “Frank is very good-looking,
but I don't think that he electrifies one... he did once.”

“And when was that?” said Sally.

“You remember the first time he came to stay here? Willy brought him
down from London. We went to bed early and left them playing billiards;
I lay awake waiting to hear them come up the stairs, and as he passed my
room Frank stopped and I thought he was coming in. I felt it all down my
spine, but never afterwards. You see, I didn't know him much then.”

“And Jimmy?”

“I never liked Jimmy.”

“If you don't like him why trouble about him?” Sally replied in her
usually defiant manner. “You always take good care to trouble about my
men. You tried all you could to get Jimmy away from me, yet you pretend
to father that you never flirted with him.”

“I didn't flirt with him; once a young man looks at you you think no one
must speak to him but yourself. If young Meason asks me to dance with
him, I cannot refuse; I am not going to make myself ridiculous though
you were to look all the daggers in the world at me, but as for flirting
with him, I never cared enough about him.”

“And what about meeting him in London?”

Maggie coloured a little, and repudiated the accusation.

“You told him you were going to London, and you asked him if he were
going, and what he would be doing that day. I don't know what more you
could say.”

“I never said any such thing.”

“I have it from his own lips.”

“It isn't true; I will ask him to your face if he ever said such a
thing; I will tell father that.”

“Well, there's no use in quarrelling,” said Grace, “and I wouldn't
advise you to worry father about it. You know he can't stand the name
of Meason. It seems to me that neither of you care much whom you flirt
with, you like so many young men.”

“It is better to like a dozen young men than one old one.”

“I shan't marry Mr. Berkins, no matter what you say. However, you can't
accuse me of interfering in your affairs.”

“No, _you_ don't.”

“No more do I. If you want Frank, take him, only don't come sneaking
after Charley. I don't want Frank; I don't care twopence about him. If
you want to see it out with him, I shan't interfere; only don't you come
interfering with me and Jimmy, or Charley either.”

Maggie did not like the idea of Sally getting two to her one. She would
have liked to have introduced a proviso about Alfred, but the title
Mount Rorke slipped between her thoughts, and she refrained. She knew
the present treaty secured her immunity from Sally only so long as
the affections and attentions of Jimmy and Charley showed no signs of
declension, and she was aware that her promise would only hold good so
long as Frank interested and Charley remained away in London.

The canary that had been twittering, now burst forth into long and
prolonged shrillings. Grace folded up her work along her knees; and
holding it in her hand like a roll of music, she said that they would
never hear the end of this tennis party.

“I don't see why father should ever know anything about it, he has taken
that horrid old Joseph with him, he never says more than a few words
to the footman, and he never sees the cook or housemaid. We have all
to-morrow to get the house straight.”

“It is not certain that he is going to stay the night in London.”

“Yes it is. Don't fidget. Have you got the wine out? We should have a
dozen of champagne. Mind you make no mistake; '80, that is the wine you
must get. Jimmy is most particular what he drinks, and Alfred has the
most frightful headaches if he drinks anything but the very best. I hope
he'll find the '80 all right.”

“That's father's favourite wine; you mean to say that he won't miss
it? Then the port and Burgundy and cherry brandy--I won't take the
responsibility.”

“Nobody asked you. All you have to do is to return the keys to Maggie
that you took from her.”

“I don't think father will be as angry as you think, Grace; besides
there's no drawing back now the invitations are out. I think it would be
better to tell him that we had a few friends in for tennis. We needn't
tell him who was there--we will suppress the name of the Southdown Road
people; and we can take the bottles out from the back. The wine won't
be missed for a long time, and we will invent some better excuse before
then. We will say that two bottles were drunk at this party and three at
that; and further than that we can't remember.”

“And what about the peaches? There are only a few ripe, and Sally says
she'll want them all. Father has been looking forward to them for weeks
and weeks.”

“He'll have to do without them; if he wants peaches, he had better bring
some down from Covent Garden.”

A knock was heard at the door. “Please Miss, Mr. Escott is in the
drawing-room.”

“Tell him I will be downstairs in a moment,” cried Maggie.

“Now off you go, my Lady Mount Rorke,” said Sally, who had already begun
to regret her promises, and to consider if she had not better break
them.

Maggie asked him what train he came down by, then she called the dog;
“Come here, my beautiful boy, come and kiss me.” The bull-dog growled
and wagged his tail.

“He won't hurt you; 'tis only his way of talking.”

Maggie laughed, and they walked out on the green sward. “I suppose
you've been to a great many balls this season?”

“I don't know that I have; a few, perhaps. I am glad to get away from
town. I like no place like this. I don't know if it is the place or the
associations.”

“You are used to much finer places. I can fancy Mount Rorke--the lakes
and the mountains; somehow I think I can see it. Isn't it strange,
there are certain things and places you can realise so much better than
others, and for no very understandable reason?”

“Yes, that is so,” said Frank, obviously pleased by the remark. Then,
after a pause, “Mount Rorke is a pretty place, and I don't think I could
live long away from it. After a time I always find myself sighing for
the bleakness and barrenness of the West. The hedgerows of England are
pretty enough; but I hate the brick buildings.”

“What kind of buildings do you have in Ireland?”

“Everything is built of grey stone, a cold grey tint on a background of
green pasture lands and blue mountains. I daresay you wouldn't like it.
It would recall nothing to you, but when I think of it, much less see
it, I re-live my childhood all over again. I am a great person for old
times. That is the reason I like coming down here. I knew you all so
long ago; how well I can remember you--three dark little things. You
used to sit on my knee.”

“And do you find nothing nice in the present?”

“Of course I do; it is nice to walk in the garden with you, but it seems
to me you have all moved away from me a little. Grace is engaged, you
are engaged--”

“Who said I was engaged?”

“Ha, ha, you see I hear everything. What is his name--Alfred?”

“I suppose Sally told you.”

“I won't tell you who told me, I never betray secrets. You had a
desperate flirtation two years ago, and the man had to go away, and you
promised to wait for him.”

“I don't mind telling you--I did meet a man about two years ago whom I
rather liked; I used to see a great deal of him at tennis parties and
balls; he used to ask me to marry him. He wanted me to engage myself to
him, and I told him it would be much better to wait and see what father
would say.”

“And what did your father say?”

“Father, he never knew anything about it. You may as well tell me, I
know it was Sally. I suppose she told you I was very much in love with
him?”

“She said, at least, the person who told me said, that you would never
care for any one else.”

“So you've been talking about me though you promised you wouldn't talk
any more,” Maggie said to herself, “All right, my lady--very well, we
shall see.”

“Grace is waving her parasol to us. Lunch must be ready.”

Maggie and Grace had calculated that if they could limit the champagne
to half a dozen bottles they would be able to hide the deficit from
their father's scrutiny; but the servants seemed to be always filling
the glasses of the Southdown Road people, and lunch was not half over
when they heard the fourth bottle go pop. Maggie looked at Sally across
the pile of peaches, but Sally had no ears for the report, only for
Jimmy's voice. Her head wagged as she talked, and Maggie wondered if
they were exchanging napkins or rings beneath the table.

At that moment the servant handed a letter on a salver to Maggie,
saying, “From Mrs. Horlock; the servant is waiting an answer, miss.”
 Grace trembled. Sally whispered to Jimmy, “What can she want?” In a
reassuring voice Maggie said, “She has heard we are having a few people
in to tennis, and she wants to know if she may send us round a young
man; she will come round herself with the General some time during the
afternoon.” At the mention of a young man many eyes gleamed, and Sally
said, “You had better go at once and write a note and say that we shall
be delighted.” When they went into the verandah coffee was handed
round, and Maggie, as the gentlemen lit their cigarettes, said to Grace,
“Nothing could have happened better; father is sure to hear of this,
we couldn't have kept it from him: now we can say Mrs. Horlock was our
chaperon. None will know when she came, or when she went away.” Then
turning to her company, Maggie said, “Now gentlemen, as soon as you have
finished your cigarettes we will begin.”

Sally not only insisted on playing, but on playing with Jimmy; and
Grace, who was striving to struggle into the position of Miss Brookes,
could do nothing but set the girl in the florid dress and the man who
stood next to her to play against them. The garden seemed to absorb the
girls, but Maggie, catching sight of Mrs. Horlock, went to meet her.

Mrs. Horlock was sixty, but her figure was like a girl's. She led a
blind pug in a complicated leading apparatus, and several other pugs
in various stages of fat and decrepitude followed her. It was not long
before she raised a discussion on hydrophobia, defending the disease
from all the charges of horror and contagion that had been urged against
it, narrating vehemently how a mad dog had died in her arms licking her
hands and face, and appealing to the General, who denounced muzzling;
but when the mangy mastiff came near him he whispered to Frank, “I wish
they were all shot. You must come and see us; you must come and see us;
I have a pretty little place in the Southdown Road (dreadful place to
mention here, they don't like it; of course the people there aren't
all quite the thing, but what are you to do, you know?). Lunch at two,
dinner at eight--old Indians, you know. I have everything I want. Too
many animals, perhaps, but that can't be helped.”

“Do you live here all the year?”

“Yes, all the year round. We don't go away much. We have everything
here--coach-houses, horses, you'll see when you come. The only thing
I want is a little occupation, a little something to bring me out,
you know. I read the _Morning Post_ every morning, and I have the _St
James's_ in the evening; but then there is the middle of the day,” and,
with laughter full of genial kindness and goodwill, the General repeated
this phrase: “I want a little something to bring me out, you know.”

Forty years of Indian sun! Balls in the Government House in Calcutta!
Viceroys, tigers, horse-racing, elephants, jealousies, flirtations,
deaths, all now forgotten, and if not forgotten, at rest; and now glad
to watch life unfolding itself again in an English village, this old
couple sat in the calm sunlight of an English garden, relics of another
generation, emblems of an England drawing to a close.

At five o'clock Grace was busy at the tea-table; and very hot and moist
Sally threw herself into a cane chair. Maggie, who had suddenly appeared
upon the scene, arranged some fresh sets in which she and Frank did not
take part--she having promised to walk with him; and they went towards
the shade of the sycamores. She had neglected him nearly the whole day,
and he was vexed with her. But she excused herself volubly, accusing
Sally of indifference to all things except her own pleasures, and
impressed upon him that it was her duty to show some politeness to Mrs.
Horlock's friend.

“Sally would play tennis, she played two sets, three if I am not
mistaken, and she never left Jimmy's side. She took no notice of any
one; for that reason I hate having people to the house when she is here;
everything devolves upon Grace and me. It is really too bad. Father
wouldn't mind our giving this party at all, if it weren't for him. If he
hears that he was here, well, I don't know what will happen.”

“He doesn't look quite a gentleman, does he? He is a ship's mate, isn't
he?”

“Yes, but it isn't that; father cannot bear those Southdown Road people.
A lot of young men live there--quite as good as ourselves, no doubt, but
they are all so poor, and father thinks of nothing but money. And Sally
meets them. When she goes out driving in the cart she picks them up, and
they go off together. Father doesn't know any of them, and he says they
laugh at him when he goes to the station in the morning. 'Tisn't
true, it is only his imagination; but I can quite well understand his
feelings. You know Sally won't give way in anything. Once she ran into
the kitchen, and told cook to put back the dinner, so that she might run
down the slonk to finish her conversation with him. Of course father
was mad at that, coming home tired from the City, and finding that his
dinner had been put back. You saw the way they went on at lunch, sitting
close together.”

“We were all sitting close together.”

“Yes, but not like they were. And all that nonsense with their napkins
under the table. If you didn't see it, so much the better. I thought
everybody saw it. I wish Sally wouldn't do it. Father, as you know, has
a lot of money to leave, and if she did really go too far, I fear he
would cut her off.”

“But she never would go too far.”

“No, I don't think so; I am sure Sally wouldn't do anything that was
really wrong, but she is very imprudent.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don't know that I ought to tell you.”

“I promise not to tell any one--you know you can trust me.”

“Well, she brings people up to her room.”

“You don't mean to her bedroom?”

“She says you can't call it a bedroom, but she sleeps there for all
that. She covers up the bed and makes it look like a couch; she keeps
birds and dogs there; Flossie had her puppies there. That's her room,”
 said Maggie, lifting one of the boughs. “I shouldn't be surprised if
Jimmy were there with her now.”

The foliage glinted in the sunset, and as Maggie stood pointing, still
holding the bough, the picture flashed upon Frank, and he said: “Oh, how
pretty you are now! How I should like to paint you!” And a moment
after he said, interested, solely interested in sentimental affection,
“Sally's ideas of love seem to me very funny; if she really loves
Meason, why doesn't she marry him?”

“He has no money, and father would never hear of it.”

“Never hear of it! If I loved a girl, nothing in the world would prevent
my marrying her.”

“I wonder if that's true,” said Maggie, and she let go the bough and
stood facing him, her hands clasped behind her back.

“Of course it is. What is life for if it isn't to get the woman we
love?”

“It is nice to hear you say so; but I am afraid very few young men think
like you nowadays. One woman is the same as another to them.”

“I cannot understand any one thinking so. If it were so, the whole charm
would be lost.”

So the young people talked, and lost in the charm of each thrilling
minute, they walked through the shadows and darkening leaves. The soft
garden echoed with the sound of a girl's voice crying, “Cuckoo, cuckoo,”
 and the white dresses flew over the sward, and the young men ran after
them and caught them. They were playing hide and seek. Excited
beyond endurance, Triss barked loudly, and forms were seen flying
precipitately.

“Tie him up to this tree,” said Maggie.

“No, no, better take him to the house,” said Frank; “it would make him
savage to tie him up.”

When the ninth bottle of champagne had been opened, and the supper table
was noisy, Frank whispered to Maggie, “Did you ever see _Macbeth_?”

“Yes, but why?”

“Because I can't help thinking what a splendid occasion it would be for
Banquo's ghost to appear.”

Maggie pressed his hand and laughed.

Soon after the sound of wheels was heard. Grace turned pale, Sally said:
“Who would have thought it?” A moment after Mr. Brookes, with Berkins
and Willy behind him, entered. He stood amazed, and seeing that the
tears were mounting to his eyes, Maggie said: “Father, how tired and
faint you look. We thought you wouldn't be coming home to-night. Do sit
down and have a glass of wine.” But neither winning words nor ways could
soothe this storm, and in reply to a question from Berkins, Mr. Brookes
declared passionately that he knew none of the young men who came to his
house.




V



“Father's just gone downstairs. I think we had better wait a minute or
two. In that way we shall escape a scolding. Father won't miss the ten
o'clock.”

“Not a bad idea. You are always up to some cunning dodge. What's the
time?”

“Twenty minutes to nine. I'll slip down the passage and tell Grace to go
down and give him his breakfast. He won't say anything to her; he knows
well that since Fatty went to India she wouldn't see a soul if she could
help it.”

“Father never says anything to you either; you tell him a lot of lies,
and leave him to understand that I do everything.”

“That's not true; I never speak against you to father; but at the same
time I must say that if it weren't for you we could do as we liked. You
don't try to manage father.”

“Manage him, indeed! that's what I can't bear in you, you're always
trying to manage some one; I hate the word.”

“You got out of bed the wrong side this morning. However, I must go and
tell Grace to go down at once, or father will be ringing for us.”

“What did she say?” said Sally, when Maggie returned.

“'Tis all right; I got her to go, and she said she was always being made
a cat's-paw of. I assure you it wasn't easy to persuade her to go down
to father, but I told her she might be the means of averting a very
serious row.”

“I suppose you said there was no counting on what answers I might make
to father?”

This was exactly what Maggie had said.

“Very well; you are always objecting to what I do, and the way I do it.
I wish you would go and do things yourself. You think of nothing but
yourself, or some young man you are after. I wouldn't do what you did
yesterday. I wouldn't go sneaking round the garden with a young man I
had never seen before.”

Maggie shrugged her shoulders and went on dressing. Sally, who had taken
a seat on the bed, watched her. She thought how she might best pursue
the quarrel, but her stomach called her thoughts from her sister, and
she said: “I don't know how you feel, but I am dying of hunger. What
time is it now?”

“Nine o'clock.”

“Another half-hour. I suppose he won't start before the half-hour.”

“Miss,” said the maid, knocking at the door, “Mr. Brookes wants to know
if you are coming down to breakfast.”

“Say that we are not nearly ready; that there's no use waiting for us.”

“I think I had better go back to my room,” said Sally.

“I think you had. I wish you wouldn't bring that horrid little dog into
my room. She made a mess here the other day.”

“That I am sure she didn't. Flossie is the cleanest dog in the world.”

“Clean or unclean, I would rather not have her in my room. There she is
trying to drink out of my jug. Get away, you little beast!”

Sally caught up her dog, and marched out of the room, slamming the door
after her.

“At last I have got rid of her,” thought Maggie, and she rolled and
pinned up the last plait of her black hair, but she did not go down to
breakfast until the wheels grated on the gravel and the carriage was
heard moving away. Then she begged Grace to tell her what her father had
said.

“He said his children were persecuting him, that he had not had an
hour's peace since their poor mother died.”

“Fudge! Mother knew how to keep him in order. Do you remember when she
threw the carving knife?”

“Sally, for shame! How can you speak of poor mother so?”

“You know it is true, Hypocrisy. There is no harm in coming to the
point.”

“It was very nearly coming to the point,” said Maggie, giggling.

“Well, what else did he say?”

“He said he didn't know what course he should adopt, but that things
couldn't go on as they were; he thought he should write to Aunts Mary
and Hester, and just as he was going out of the door he said that he'd
prefer to sell the whole place up than continue living here and be the
laughing-stock of the neighbourhood.”

At these words all looked frightened, even Sally. She flaunted her head,
however, and said disdainfully: “I wonder he didn't speak of marrying
again.”

“Did he say nothing more?” asked Maggie, who determined to know how
matters stood.

“He spoke of Sally; he said it must be put a stop to. I don't know what
he has found out, but I am sure he has found out something.”

“Why didn't you ask him?”

“I did. He said the way you were carrying on with young Meason was
something too disgraceful, and that every one was talking of it; he said
that you had been seen crossing the canal locks, and that you had spent
hours with him on the beach, and he spoke about the cart and Bamber--I
don't know if you ever drove there to meet him; I couldn't get anything
more out of him, for he began to cry.”

“Didn't he speak of the party?”

“Oh, yes, a great deal. He said that henceforth he would have none of
the Southdown Road people, male or female, at the Manor House. I thought
he was going to curse the Horlocks; but I reminded him of the Viceroys.
As for the Measons, I don't know what he would have said if he hadn't
been crying.”

“The Measons are just as good as we are, though they mayn't be so rich.
I should like to know who has been talking to him about me; I wonder
who told him I spent hours on the beach with Jimmy; I met him once there
quite by accident, and we sat down for ten minutes. I daresay it was
Berkins.”

“No, Sally, don't,” said Grace, clasping her hands. “Father said that
Maggie was nearly as bad, and was a great deal too much disposed towards
young men.”

“I should think she is indeed; I wonder what father would say if he had
seen her walking round the garden out of sight of every one with that
fellow, a man she had never seen before.”

“There is no harm in walking round the garden with a man, but I should
like to know what father would say if he knew that you brought Jimmy up
to your bed-room.”

“My bed-room isn't a bed-room. How dare you make such accusations, how
dare you? I should not be surprised if you were at the bottom of all
this. I know you are mad with jealousy. Do you think I don't know how
you flirted with Jimmy? Do you think I didn't see how you shifted Frank
on to me so that you might walk with Jimmy to the station? But I'll tell
you what, I'll not stand it, and if you try to come between me and him
I'll knock you down.”

Sally sprang from her place and raised her fist. Maggie rushed from the
room, or, more correctly speaking, into the arms of Willy.

“What the deuce are you up to?” cried this staid young man, who had been
twisted round and thrown against the wall.

“Oh, save me! Sally says she'll knock me down,” cried the girl, clinging
for a moment to her brother's shoulder, but as if conscious of the
dubiousness of his protection, she loosed him and fled upstairs to her
room.

“What damned nonsense this is! The trouble young girls are in a
house!--Nothing but pleasure; from one year's end to another, it is
nothing but pleasure. I am sick of it.”

Having by such unusual emphasis of manner reduced his sisters to
silence, Willy sat down, and chewed with gravity and deliberation. Grace
and Sally watched him. After a long and elaborate silence he put some
brief questions, and appeared to devote to them the small part of his
attention not already engaged in the judicious breaking of his bread.
He did not answer nor did he comment; and when he had finished eating he
commenced packing up his diary and letters in a brown paper parcel, and
for three-quarters of an hour he walked up and down stairs collecting
and forgetting; finally he left the house with many parcels.

As some days are sweet and fugitive, others are obtuse, complex, and
tortuous as nightmares--difficult to understand and well-nigh impossible
to relate. And the day after the tennis party was such a day in the
Brookes household, nor did its tumult cease when the lights were turned
out in the billiard-room. It was revived with fierce gusts of passion
and despair during several succeeding days.

In the afternoon both Sally and Maggie wanted to go out in the cart. The
wrangle was a long one, but the argument of the fist eventually brought
it to a close, and Maggie was obliged again to shut herself into her
room. Thence Grace's solicitations could not move her, and she remained
there until she saw her father coming up the drive; then she ran down to
meet him, and made a frank accusation of Sally's treatment of her.
But he was enthralled by his own woes, and without even promising her
protection and immunity, at least from her sister's right arm, the old
gentleman launched forth into more than usual lamentations.

He had had a stormy interview with Berkins going up in the train, and
Berkins had so upset him that he had not been able to get through any
business in the City. Berkins admitted of no equivocation. He had told
him that he would not allow the young lady that was going to be his
wife to spend her days feasting and skylarking with a lot of vulgar and
penniless young men from the Southdown Road. He had declared that it was
time to settle definitely the terms and the day of the marriage. He had
been engaged now more than two months, and was prepared to do his share;
Mr. Brookes must be prepared to do his, viz., to settle four hundred a
year on his daughter.

The idea of parting for ever with so much of his money convulsed Mr.
Brookes. He burst into tears, and their bitterness was neither assuaged
nor softened by Grace's rather haughty statement that she didn't care at
all for Mr. Berkins, and was not at all sure whether she would have him
or not.

“So, father, you may be able to keep your money.”

“But did any one ever know me to think of myself?” and he drew his silk
handkerchief forth. In the new trouble, suddenly created, all
other considerations were lost, and Grace became the centre of many
conflicting interests; everybody asked if this marriage so long looked
forward to was going to tumble into ruin among so many ruins? At dinner
Willy seemed to consider himself called from the problem of perfect
mastication, and he said a few words intended to allay this new family
excitement; but his efforts were vain, for it had occurred to Mr.
Brookes that he might find calm in a bottle of '34 port. There were a
few bottles left which he appreciated at their right value. He rang
for the wine, and old Joseph announced, with all the intolerable
indifference of a well-trained servant, that the young gentleman had
drunk it all up yesterday. Mr. Brookes kept his temper better than
the girls anticipated, and it was not until he had drunk a bottle of a
latter-day wine that he seemed to realise the wrong that had been
done to him. He begged of Willy to listen to him, and he talked so
vehemently, and cried so bitterly, and laughed so joyously, and declared
so often that it would be all the same a hundred years hence, that
letters and diary had to be packed away in the brown paper parcel, and
all work abandoned for that evening. The next day and the next passed
in continual quarrel and argument, and at the end of the week the aunts
were summoned.

Aunt Mary's features were sharp, her eyes were bright and she sat bolt
upright on the sofa, her hands crossed over a shawl drawn tightly about
her.

“Now, my dear James,” she said, “I am very sorry for you; of course
I am. I know it is very trying, but there is no use in sitting there
lamenting. Put up your silk handkerchief and come to the point. We all
know it will be the same a hundred years hence, but in the meantime
you don't want your dinner put back, so that Sally may continue her
flirtations in the slonk,” and Aunt Mary burst into a merry peal of
laughter.

“You are most unsympathetic, I never knew one so unsympathetic; you were
always so, you'll never change.”

“Unsympathetic,” said Aunt Mary, shaking with laughter; “how can you
say so? I have never done anything all my life but listen to you and
sympathise with you. When you were a boy and sold my books to the boys
at your school, and when you were a young man and took my poor husband
to oyster shops--you remember the stories you used to tell me?”

Mr. Brookes waved his handkerchief, and Aunt Hester, who was a spinster,
cast down her eyes and fidgeted with some papers which she had taken
from her hand-basket.

“Of course, if my afflictions are only a subject for laughter--”

“I am not laughing at your afflictions, my dear James. I laughed because
you said I was not a sympathetic listener. You used to think me so
once.” Then becoming instantly serious, Aunt Mary said: “Of course I
think this is a matter of great importance--the health, the welfare of
my dear nieces, and your happiness.”

“And their salvation,” murmured Aunt Hester.

“If I did not think it important, do you think I would have left home,
and at such a time, when I am most wanted? I always said that that big
place would kill me, I never wanted to leave the Poplars; a little place
like that is no trouble--my greenhouse, a few servants, and just as I
had got everything to look nice--I could do it all in a few hours; but
now I am never still, there is always something to be done. No one can
take up my work. I am behindhand; oh, I assure you when I go back I
shall be afraid to go into the greenhouse. I am worn out, I really am;
it never ends. In a big house like Woborn one is always behindhand. The
days aren't long enough, that's the fact of it; when one thinks one is
getting through one thing one is called away to another. 'Please, mum,
the cook would like to speak with you for a moment.' 'There is no tea in
the house, mum.' 'What! is all the tea I gave out last week gone?' 'Yes,
mum. There was, you remember, the dressmaker here three days, and we had
Mrs. Jones in to help. And we shall want another piece of cheese for
the servants' hall.' I don't know how it is with you, but at Woborn the
cloth is never off the table in the servants' hall. They have five meals
a day--breakfast at eight, and they won't eat cold bacon, they must have
it hot; of course the waste is something fearful; at eleven they have
beer and cheese; at one there is dinner; at five they have tea; and at
nine supper. Five meals a day--it really is terrible, it is wicked,
it really is! You have had none of these troubles, Hester, and you may
think yourself very lucky.

“We have just got rid of our cook; the trouble she gave us, it really
is beyond words. She said she was troubled with fits, hysteria, or
something of that sort--at least that is the reason she gave for her
conduct. I knew there was something wrong, I could see it in her eyes.
I said: 'This is not right; it can't be right.' One night she left the
dinner half cooked and went roaming all over the country; she came back
the next afternoon, and I found her baking. Then there was Robinson. Do
you remember the pretty housemaid? You saw her when you were at Woborn.
I am sure she must have had gentle blood in her veins; she wasn't a bit
like a servant, so elegant and graceful. Those soft blue eyes of hers. I
often used to look at them and think how beautiful they were. Well, she
fell madly in love with West. Notwithstanding his bandy legs, there
was something fascinating about him. He had a way about him that
the maid-servants used to like; Robinson wasn't the first. Well, she
completely lost her head, perfectly frantic--frantic; her eyes on fire.
I saw it at once; you know I am pretty sharp. I just look round, one
look round; I see it all, I take it all in. I said: 'This is not right;
this cannot be right. Robinson is a respectable girl.' Her people I knew
to be most respectable people in Chichester; I had heard all about them
through the Eastwicks. I said, 'Robinson, you must go, I will give you
a month's wages, but you must go back to your people. You know why I am
sending you away; it is for your own good, otherwise I am sorry to part
with you; but you must go.'

“Robinson didn't say much, she was always rather haughty, a reserved
sort of girl; but soon after--I always hear everything--I heard that she
had not gone back to her people, but was living in lodgings in Brighton,
and that West used to go and see her. I didn't say anything about it to
West, but he saw there was something wrong. When I told him to put the
carriage to, he said, 'Yes, mum, where to, mum?' 'Brighton.' I could
see he saw there was something wrong, and when I told him not to put the
carriage up, but to drive up and down the King's Road, and that I would
meet him in about an hour at the bottom of West Street, he looked so
frightened that I could hardly help laughing; he did look so comical,
for he knew now that I was going to see Robinson. (Here the remembrance
of West proved too much for Aunt Mary, and she shook with laughter.)
Of course if I had let him put up the horses he would have run round to
Robinson's and warned her that I was coming. Oh, I shall never forget
that day! It was broiling, the sun came down on the flagstones in those
narrow little back streets, and there was I toiling, toiling up that
dreadful hill, inquiring out the way. I found the street, it was on the
very top of the hill: such a poor, miserable place you never saw. Such a
dreadful old woman opened the door to me, and I said, 'Is Miss Robinson
in?' She said, 'Yes.' I could hear Robinson whispering over the
banisters, saying, 'No, no, no, say I am out.' And then I said, 'It is
no use, Robinson, I must see you, and I will not leave this place until
I have seen you.' I went upstairs to her room. At first she was rather
haughty, rather inclined to impertinence. She said, 'Mum, you have no
right to come after me--you sent me away; I am looking out for a place
in Brighton--I don't want to go back to my people.' I said, 'Robinson,
it is no use trying to deceive me, I know very well why you are in
Brighton; no good can come of this, it is nothing but wickedness.
You must try to be good, Robinson. West has, as you know, a wife and
children, and you must not think of him any more. You have taken this
lodging so that you may see him. You must think of your future; this
can't last.'”

“No, indeed, this life is but a moment,” sighed Aunt Hester. “I wish you
had had one of these books to give her.”

“I did better, Hester. I told her some plain truths, and she put off her
high and mighty airs and began to cry. I shall never forget it. Oh, how
hot it was in that little room just under the slates, with one garret
window and the sun pouring in. There was scarcely any furniture, and I
was sitting on her bed. I said, 'Now, Robinson, you must give me back
the presents West made you, and you must promise me to go back to
Chichester.' And I didn't leave her until she promised me to go home
next day.

“When I stepped into the carriage you should have seen West's face. He
didn't know what had happened; I didn't speak to him till next day. As
I was going into the garden I called him. I said, 'West, I want to speak
to you.' 'Yes, mum.' We went into the back garden; I was planting there.
Edward was out riding, so I knew we shouldn't be disturbed. I said,
'West, I saw Robinson yesterday, and I have a parcel for you; she has
promised me not to see you, and you must promise me not to see her.'
'Very well, mum, since you say it.' 'This is a very sad affair, West.'
'A bad business, mum--a bad business, mum.' There was always something
in West's stolid face that used to amuse me. You should have heard him.
'I don't think she could help it, mum; she never loved another man--I
really don't. But I was going to tell you, mum, I once knew a servant,
a married man, he was in love with a young woman, and they waited long
years, and when the wife died they married, mum.' 'That was all very
well long ago, West, but wives don't die nowadays.'”

So Aunt Mary talked, realising and giving expression to both the pathos
and the comedy of her story. Then, feeling that she wasdigressing at
too great length, she strove to generalise from the particular incident
which she had related, and get back to the theme of the conversation.

“I don't know what we shall do, I don't know what we are coming to;
servants are getting too strong for us. My last cook gave us no end of
trouble; the butler used to have to lock himself up in the pantry; and
yet I had to give her a character. Of course it was very wrong of me to
enable her to thrust herself upon another family, but what was I to do?
I couldn't deprive her of the means of earning her living. She'll give
trouble wherever she goes. There is no remedy, there really isn't; I
don't know what's to be done unless we ladies combine and refuse to give
them characters.”

Here Aunt Mary's thoughts and words began to fail her, for she felt she
was not getting back to the point where she had entered on her various
digressions, and without further ado, and quite undisconcerted, she
said, “But I forget where I was; what were we talking about?”

“We were talking about dear Sally and Maggie, and the need they stand of
counsel and help. Their conduct is to be deeply regretted; but theirs is
only youthful folly. They have not done anything, I am sure, that--”

“Quite so, Hester; of course. But at the same time a stop must be put
to all this nonsense; it cannot be allowed. I have only to look round
to take it all in. They are worrying their father into his grave. His
position is a very trying one. He has no one whom he can depend on--no
one.”

“I am alone since poor Julia--”

Aunt Mary and Aunt Hester looked at each other, and they wondered if the
terrors of the carving knife were completely forgotten.

“Poor James,” said Aunt Mary, recrossing her hands, “is obliged to go to
London every morning, from ten till, I may say, half-past six.”

“I am never home before seven.”

“These girls are their own mistresses; they go out when they like, they
order the carriage whenever they like, and they invite here every one it
pleases their fancy to invite without consulting their father. I believe
he doesn't even--”

“I know none of the young men who come to my house. All I know of them
is that they come from the Southdown Road.”

“Don't be so silly, James, put up that handkerchief. Of course, the
Southdown Road is one of the great disadvantages of the place. Those
villa residences have brought into Southwick a host of people that a man
living in a big place like the Manor House cannot know--little people
who have--”

“Not two hundred pounds invested--no, nor yet a hundred.”

“Well, I don't wish to offend them, I'll say small incomes. They are all
devoured with envy, and all they think of is what goes on at the Manor
House.”

“A lot of penniless young jackanapeses. Every morning I see them at the
station watching me over the tops of their newspapers.”

“You must understand, Hester, poor James up in London, toiling, not
knowing what is going on in his own home; feasting and pleasure going
on morning, noon, and, I may say, night, for when James returned home
unexpectedly about ten o'clock at night, he found them--how many were
there?”

“About a dozen, the others had gone.”

“Feasting, drinking his champagne--his very best.”

“The last few bottles of '34 port were drunk; the peaches, that the
gardener has been forcing so carefully for months past, were all eaten.
I returned home unexpectedly; I had intended to spend the night in
London--you know I went there to see about starting Willy on the Stock
Exchange; he has drawn three thousand more out of the distillery; I hope
he won't lose it. Well, I met Berkins in Pall Mall, and he said if I
would return by the late train that he would spend the night here, and
we would go up to town together in the morning. I suspected nothing; I
went into my dining-room, and there I found them all at supper. Had it
not been for Berkins it wouldn't have mattered. He was indignant when
he saw one of those jackanapeses with his arm round the back of Grace's
chair; he says that such company is not fit for the lady that is going
to be his wife; and he now insists on fixing the day, the settlements,
and everything, or of breaking off the match.”

“Then why don't you fix the day and the settlements?”

“Grace is not willing; she is quite undecided. She says she doesn't know
whether she will have him or not. Sally tries to set her against him;
she laughs at him, says he is pompous, and imitates him. Of course, it
is quite true that he thinks everything he has is betterthan anybody
else's. She says he is old, and says that kissing him would be like
rubbing your face in a mattress.”

“The fact is,” said Aunt Mary, “Sally ought to have been a man; had she
been a man, it would have been all right.”

Aunt Hester, who had spent her life in a vicarage, glanced uneasily at
her sister, and fidgeted with the papers in her satchel.

“I suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence.”

“No, James, it will not,” replied Aunt Hester, with unusual
determination.

The conversation dropped, and the speakers stared at each other at a
loss how to proceed.

“She is a very difficult girl to manage. If it were not for her we could
get on very well; it is she who upsets everything. She can't agree
with Maggie; they are always quarrelling. The day after the party she
threatened to knock her down if she interfered with her young man.”

“Is it possible! Did she say that? Well, when it comes to young ladies
knocking each other down! Young ladies were very different in my young
days. It only proves what I said about Sally--she ought to have been a
man, she really ought to have been a man. I see it all; I have only to
give one look round to take it all in one glance. When she came to meet
me in Brighton I understood it all at once; I saw she could not restrain
herself, no powers of self-restraint. Her eyes fixed on every man as
if she couldn't see enough of him; her black eyes flashing. I wanted no
telling--I saw it all; the moment a young man went by her eyes flashed.
Here she was--'Aunt Mary, Aunt Mary, there's Meason, there's Meason,
Aunt Mary, Meason, Meason, Aunt Mary.' It is not right, it can't be
right; and to my thinking Maggie is just as bad--a little more sly
perhaps.”

“No, not dear Maggie.”

“I say it is not right; girls in good health could not go on like
that. If I were you, James, I would take them up to a first-rate London
physician, the very best that can be had for money. Those girls are
highly organised, highly sensitive; their nerves are highly strung. They
want something to bring them down,” said Aunt Mary; but catching at that
moment sight of her sister's face, she laughed consumedly, and, speaking
through her laughter, said, “So-and-so, a first-rate man, I can't think
of his name--he will give you the very best advice.”

“I think if our dear nieces could be brought to understand the
sinfulness of their disobedience. I have here one or two little books
which I think it would be advisable for them to read.”

“Later on, my dear Hester; the best thing that James can do is to see
to their health. No girls in good health could act as they do; it is
radically impossible.”

“I suppose that is what I must do; I don't know if I shall succeed, but
I will try to get them to come up to London and have medical advice.
Since the death of poor Julia I have been all alone; my position is a
very hard one. I have no one to talk to, to assist me, to take my place
in any way. I am obliged to go to London every day, and I assure you my
heart is all of a flutter in the morning when I take the train, for I
don't know what may happen before I return. The girls can do what they
like; they are mistresses of this big house, they take the carriage into
Brighton when they like, Sally takes the cart. I have thought of getting
rid of that cart.”

Although passionately fond of talking, Aunt Mary would with patience,
and even with pleasure, cross her hands and settle herself down to
listen to one of Uncle James's interminable lamentations, but Aunt
Hester, a nervous and timid creature who talked but little, not only
declared that she could not bear to hear the same stories over and over
again, but interrupted her brother with firmness and determination.
Indeed, it was only on occasion of Uncle James's soliloquies that she
had ever shown any strength of will.

“We know very well, James, that your position is a trying one--that
since the death of poor Julia you have no one whom you can look to.
There is no use in telling us this over again; it is mere waste of time.
What we have to do now is by all means in our power to convince dear
Sally of the sinfulness of her conduct, and so strive to bring her back
to a state of grace.”

“Her spirit must be broken, she must be subdued,” interjected Aunt Mary.

“Christ is the real healer, prayer is the true medicine, and by it alone
is the troubled spirit soothed.”

It being impossible to contravene these opinions, the conversation came
to a pause, which was at length interrupted by Mr. Brookes, who through
the folds of his handkerchief declared again that it would be all the
same a hundred years hence. Even Aunt Mary's realism did not offend Aunt
Hester as did this un-Christian philosophy; she gathered her strength
for a grave reproof, but was cut short by her sister's laughter. All the
teeth were glittering now, and peal after peal of laughter came. Aunt
Hester's courage died, and her long, freckled face drooped like a sad
flower.

“Now let us hear something about Grace. What about this marriage?
Is Berkins as amorous as ever? That man does amuse me--his waistcoat
buttons are better than any other man's.”

“Mary, Mary, I beg of you to remember Mr. Berkins is a man of eight
thousand a-year.”

“He may make eight thousand a-year, but he has very little money
invested,” said Aunt Mary.

“That is true,” Mr. Brookes replied reflectively, and he was about to
rush off into a long financial statement when his sister, who already
regretted her joke, checked him with an abrupt question.

“My dear James, is this marriage to be or not to be? That is what I want
to know.”

“I really can't say, Mary; Sally has contrived to upset her sister; she
would have been, I feel sure, glad to marry Mr. Berkins if she had not
been upset by Sally.”

“Upset by Sally, what do you mean?”

“I told you that Sally tries to turn Berkins into ridicule, laughs at
his beard among other things.”

“I must see Grace about this,” said Aunt Mary; “you must excuse my
laughing, but Sally is often very droll.”

Choosing the first occasion when Maggie and Sally were absent from the
room, Aunt Mary said, “Come, Gracie, dear, tell me about this marriage.
I hear that your mind is not made up--that you are not at all decided.
This is not acting fairly towards your father. You are placing him in a
very false position.”

“I don't think so, aunty. No one, so far as I can make out, is either
decided or satisfied. Mr. Berkins is not satisfied with the society we
see.”

“The Southdown Road you mean,” interrupted Mr. Brookes, “and very
properly, too.”

“And father and he cannot agree upon money matters, and I don't like a
beard--”

“You never objected to a beard until Sally put you against it.”

“Yes, I did, father; I always told you--”

“Never mind the beard, tell me about the money matters that your father
and Mr. Berkins can't agree upon.”

“Mr. Berkins has offered to settle twelve thousand pounds upon me if
father will settle the same amount. But father won't agree to this; he
wants Mr. Berkins to settle twelve, but does not want to settle more
than seven himself upon me.”

“Is this so, James?” asked Aunt Mary.

Mr. Brookes avoided answering the question, and entered into a long and
garrulous statement concerning himself and his money: he had made it
all himself! he spoke of his investments with pride, and pathetically
declared that he would not marry again because he would not deprive his
dear children of anything. Aunt Mary crossed her hands over her shawl,
and set herself to listen to the old gentleman's rigmarole. Aunt Hester
tried several times to cut him short, but this time he would not be
silenced.

Then Aunt Mary started the story of a girl whom she had known intimately
in early life, which she no doubt thought would help Grace to a better
comprehension of her difficulties; but the dear lady lost herself in
the domestic entanglement of many families, on the subject of which she
contributed much curious information, without, however, elucidating the
matter in hand. She wandered so far that at length all hope of return
became impossible, and she was obliged to pull up suddenly and ask what
she had been talking about.

“What was I talking about, James; you have been listening to me--what
was I talking about?”

Mr. Brookes made no attempt to give the information necessary for the
blending of her many narratives, and she was forced to seek unaided for
the lost thread. Soon after the girls came in with their gin and water.
They drank their grog, kissed their relations, and retired to bed.

And the next evening, and the next, and the next, so long as Aunt Mary
and Aunt Hester remained at the Manor House, the evenings passed in
a similar fashion; and, notwithstanding the doleful faces they
occasionally assumed, they found pleasure in lamenting the follies of
the young people. The same stories were told, almost the same words
were uttered. The only malcontent was Willy. He had no interest in
his sisters, and the hours after dinner in the billiard-room when
his sisters were in the drawing-room were those he devoted to looking
through his letters and filling up his diary; so when Sally's name was
mentioned he caught at his short crisp hair and gnashed his teeth.




VI



“My dear fellow, just as I'm settling down to do some work, Aunt Mary
comes along the passage; I know her step so well. And then it begins,
the old story that I have heard twenty times before, all over again. You
have no idea how worrying it is.”

Frank laughed, and talked of something else. These discussions of
Sally's character and general behaviour did not appeal to him in either
a comic or serious light, and the havoc they made of Willy's business
hours did not perceptibly move him; he was full of his good looks, his
clothes, his affections, his bull-dog, and the fact that his youth was
going by, as it should go by, among girls, in an old English village, in
a garden by the sea.

Aunt Mary was a woman that a rarer young man would have been attracted
by; indeed the delicacy of a young man may be tested by the sympathy
he may feel for women when age has drawn a veil over, and put sexual
promptings aside. Her bright teeth and eyes, the winsome little face, so
glad, would have at once charmed and led any young man not so brutally
young as Frank Escott. It would have pleased another to watch her, to
wait on her, to listen to her rambling stories all so full of laughter
and the sunshine of kindness and homely wit; it would have pleased him
to note that she was gratified by the admiration of a young man; it
would please him to hear himself called by his Christian name, while he
must address her as Mrs. So-and-so, and in maintaining this difference
they would both become conscious of pleasing restraint.

His comprehension of life was invariably a sentimental one, so the aunts
were to him merely middle-aged women--uninteresting, and useful only
so far as their efforts contributed to render the lives of young people
easy and pleasurable. In abrupt and passing impressions he concluded
that Aunt Mary was bright and pleasant, but tediously voluble, given
to wasting that time which he would have liked to spend talking to the
young ladies of poetry and Italy.

He scorned poor Aunt Hester. She shrank from him, frightened by his
harsh, blunt manners; she was afraid he led a sinful life in London.
Aunt Mary had few doubts on the subject, and her comments made her
sister tremble. She spoke of him as a most desirable husband for Maggie.
“He will be a peer, my dear James. Lord Mount Rorke will never marry
again. He is the acknowledged heir to the title and estates.”

And the young man went as he came--full of himself, his clothes, his
good looks; bumptious and arrogant, effusive in his love of his friends,
and yet sincere. He looked out of the railway carriage window to seize
a last look of the green, with its horse pond and its downs, and the
cricketers all in white, running to and fro (young Meason had just made
a three, and Sally was applauding). The porches of the Southdown Road
he could just see over the fields, and Mr. Brooke's glass glittered amid
the summer foliage. At that moment he loved the ugly little village,
with its barren downs and all its anomalous aspects of town and country.
He thought of his friends there, and his life appeared to be theirs, and
theirs his, and he wished it might flow on for ever in this quiet place.
He seemed to understand it all so well, and to love it all so dearly.
He accepted it all, even its vulgarest aspects. Even pompous Berkins
appeared to him under a tenderer light--the light of orange-flowers and
married love. For Aunt Mary had smoothed away all difficulties, hirsute
and monetary, and the wedding had been fixed for the autumn. The gaiety
of the day he had spent with the girls, its feasting and its flirtation,
arose, memorised in a soft halo of imagination--a day of fruit, wine,
and light words, and the dear General, with his St James's politics and
his only desire--“a little something to do--something to bring me out,
you know.” The pugs, the mangy mastiff, the hospitable house always
open, its ready welcome, and, above all, the air which it held of the
lives of its occupants; its pictures of white arab horses, and elephants
richly caparisoned; the wonderful goats in the field, and the tropical
birds and animals in the back garden! Above all, the walks on the green
with the chemist's wife, and the annoyance such familiarity caused Mr.
Brookes--how funny, how charming, how amusing! He was smiling through
the tears that rose to his eyes when the train rolled into Brighton.

On arriving in London he drove straight to the Temple. The creaking,
disjointed staircases, with the lanterns of old time in the windows,
jarred his thoughts, which were still of Southwick; and when he entered
his rooms their loneliness struck him with a chill. He pictured Maggie
sitting in the arm-chair waiting for him, and he imagined how she would
lay her book aside and say, “Oh, here you are!” He sat down to read his
letters. One was from Lord Mount Rorke, enclosing a cheque, another a
daintily cut envelope, smelling daintily, came from Lady Seveley.

“DEAR MR ESCOTT,--I have not seen anything of you for a very long time;
you promised to lunch with me before you left town, but I suppose amid
the general gaieties and friends of the season you were carried far away
quite out of my reckoning. However, I hope when you return you will come
and see me. I got your address from Mr. ----, but you need not tell
him that I wrote to you; he is, as you know, a dreadful chatterbox,
and somehow or other, without meaning it, contrives to make gossip and
mischief out of everything.

“The weather here is delicious--perhaps a trifle too hot; and sometimes
I envy you your cool sea-side resort. I wonder what the attraction is?
It must be a very special one to keep you out of London in June.

“Should you be in town next Thursday, come and dine; I have a box for
the theatre. And as an extra inducement I will tell you that I have
two very nice girls staying with me, who will interest you.--Yours very
truly, HELEN SEVELEY.”

Some men of thirty would have instantly understood Lady Seveley's
letter. But age gives us nothing we do not already possess, the years
develop what is latent in us in youth, and it is certain that Frank at
thirty would have understood the letter as vaguely and incompletely as
he did to-day. We read our sympathies and antipathies in all we look
upon, and Frank read in this letter an old woman with diamonds and dyed
hair. He had met her twice. The first time was at a ball where he knew
nobody; the second was at a dinner party. She had fixed her eyes upon
him; she had prevented him from talking after dinner to a young girl
whom he had admired across the table during dinner. He did not like her,
and he thought now of the young girls he would meet if he accepted
her invitation. Lady Seveley was a shadow; and when the shadow defined
itself he saw the slight wrinkling of the skin about the eyes, the
almost imperceptible looseness of the flesh about the chin; but, worse
to him than these physical changes, were the hard measured phrases in
which there is knowledge of the savour and worth of life. He unpacked
his portmanteau, and, dallying with his resolutions, he wondered if
he should go to Lady Seveley's: conclusions and determinations were
constitutionally abhorrent, self-deception natural to him. Were he asked
if he intended to turn to the right or the left, although he were
going nowhere and an answer would compromise him in nothing, he would
certainly say he did not know; and if he were expostulated with, he
would reply rudely, arrogantly. This is worthy of notice, for what was
special in his character was the combination it afforded of
degenerate weakness and pride, complicated with a towering sense of
self-sufficiency. Youth's illusions would not pass from him easily; in
his eyes and heart the hawthorn would always be in bloom, young girls
would always be beautiful, innocent, true to the lovers they had
selected; nor was there of necessity degradation nor forced continuance
in any state of vice. Love could raise and purify, love could restore,
love could make whole; if one woman were faithless, another would be
constant; if to-day were dark, to-morrow would be bright. Life had
no deep truth for him, no underlying mysteries; it was not a problem
capable of demonstration, capable of definition; it was not a thing
of limitations and goals and ends; he could feel nothing of this--the
philosophic temperament was absent in him. Life had no deep truth for
him, no underlying mysteries; he did not dream of past times, and he
placed few hopes in the future; life was a thing to be enjoyed in the
moment of living, and the present moment was a very pleasant one. He
leaned over the doors of the hansom resting his gloved hand upon his
crutched stick. He was struck with the pride we feel when we are dressed
for amusement and contemplate those in workaday garb; and in these
sensations of pride he leaned forward, proud of his good looks, his
shirt front, his shirt cuffs, his glazed shoes; he pleasured in the
knowledge that many saw he was going to elegant company, to amusement.
He was full of scorn for the women loitering, for the clerks hurrying,
and especially for the crowds pressing about the entrances of the
theatres.

London opened up upon a little black space of asphalt; crimson clouds
moved over the many windowed walls of the great hotels, the black
monumented square foamed with white water, children played, and the gold
of the inscriptions over the shops caught the eye. London was tall on
the heavens. Regent Street was full of young men as elegant as himself
driving to various pleasures, and Frank wondered what sort of dinners
they would eat, what kind of women they would sit by. Then as he drove
through Mayfair he thought of his own party. He wondered what the girls
would think of him.

Lady Seveley lived in Green Street. When he had rung the bell he
listened impatiently for approaching steps, for he tingled with
presentiment that he would somehow be disappointed, and he dreaded
dinner by himself and his lonely lodgings. Nor was he wholly wrong. The
butler who opened the door seemed surprised at seeing him, and in reply
to his question if Lady Seveley was at home, replied hesitatingly:

“Her ladyship is at home, but she is not at all well, sir. She is, I
think, in her room lying down, sir.”

“Oh, but did she not expect me? I was to have dined here to-night.”

“I heard nothing about it, sir; but I'd better ask. Will you come in,
sir?”

Lady Seveley's house was a house of scent and soft carpets. The
staircase was covered with pink silk, and in the recess on the first
landing, or rather where the stairs paused, there was an aviary in which
either hawks screeched or owls blinked; generally there was a magpie
there, and the quaint bird now hopped to Frank's finger, casting a
thievish look on his rings. The drawing-room was full of flowers. There
was a grand piano, dark and bright; the skins of tigers Lord Seveley
had shot carpeted the floor, and on their heads, Helen rested her
feet, showing her plump legs to her visitors. On the walls there were
indifferent water-colours, there were gold screens, the cabinets were
full of china, there were three-volume novels on the tea-table--it was
the typical rich widow's house, a house where young men lingered. Frank
stood examining a portrait on china of Lady Seveley, it was happily
hung with blue ribbon from the top of the mirror. It represented a woman
inclined to stoutness, about three and thirty. The chestnut hair was
piled and curled with strange art about the head. Above the face there
was a mask, roses wreathed, and a swallow carrying a love missive,
butterflies and arrows everywhere, and below the face there was a skull
profusely wreathed and almost hidden in roses. This portrait would have
stirred the imagination of many young men, but Frank thought nothing
of it--the theatrical display displeased him, it seemed to him even a
little foolish. He crossed over to the flowers.

“Lady Seveley will be down in a moment, sir,” said the maid. A few
minutes after the door opened.

“How do you do? I am so glad to see you. Won't you sit down? I have been
suffering terribly to-day--neuralgia; nothing for it but to lie down in
a dark room.”

“I hope you are better now.”

“Oh, when I have had some champagne I shall be quite well. Now tell me
something; talk to me.”

Helen was sitting thrown back on the little black satin sofa; she had
crossed her legs, and her foot was set on a tiger's head. The ankle was
too thick, the foot slightly fat, but stocking and shoe were perfect,
and these drew Frank's eyes too attentively. Helen noticed this and was
glad.

“So you like Maggie the best?”

“Oh, yes, I like her the best, Sally is too rough. How those girls do
worry their father. He has to go up to town every day; he is in the
City, and the girls give tennis parties, and drink his best wine. There
was an awful row there the other day about the peaches; he had been
going in for forcing, and was counting the days when they would be ripe.
The young men ate them all.”

Helen laughed. “A sort of comic King Lear.”

“Just so, the girls will have large fortunes at their father's death. I
have known them all my life. I used to spend my holidays with them when
I was a small boy.”

“And you haven't seen them for a long time?”

“No, I was in Ireland two years, and then I went to Italy. This was the
first time I saw them since they were really grown up.”

“And you say they are beautiful girls and will have large fortunes.”

“Yes, I suppose Maggie is a good-looking girl; she is more a fascinating
girl than a beautiful girl.” A sudden remembrance of Lizzie Baker
dictated this opinion of Maggie Brookes.

“Dinner is on the table, my lady.”

“I think you said in your letter that you were going to have two young
girls staying with you.”

“Yes, but they could not come; they were to have been here on Monday.
I am very sorry; had I known for certain that you were coming, I would
have arranged to have some one to meet you.”

“I am very glad you didn't.” The conversation dropped. “You said you
were going to the theatre. What theatre are you thinking of going to?”

“My neuralgia put all thoughts of the theatre out of my head. I have a
box for the Gaiety. We will go if you like.”

The name of the theatre reminded him of Lizzie Baker, and he compared
the pale, refined face of the bar girl with the over-coloured woman--his
hostess. He had not seen Lizzie for a long time. Why had he not gone to
the bar room the last time he was in London?

“You have not answered me--would you like to go to the Gaiety?”

“I am sure I beg your pardon,” and then, in a sudden confusion of
memories and desires, he said: “I don't know that I care much about
going to the theatre. You are not feeling well.”

“My neuralgia is almost all gone. There's nothing like champagne for it.
Hardwick, Mr. Escott will take some more champagne.”

There were engravings after Burne Jones and Rossetti on the walls, and
Frank stopped to look at them as he followed Lady Seveley upstairs. She
went straight to the piano.

“Are you fond of music?” she said.

“Yes; there is nothing I like more than fiddling at the piano.”

“Then do play something.”

“Oh, no, not for worlds. I only strum, I don't know my notes. I strum on
the piano as I strum on the violin.”

“Do you play the violin?”

“I can't call it playing, I was never taught.”

“How did you learn, then? It is a most difficult instrument; I couldn't
get on with it at all; I will get mine out if you will play something.”

“If you promise not to laugh, I will try, but I assure you I know
nothing about it. I borrowed a violin once, and I taught myself to play
a tune; then I bought a violin, and I amuse myself when I am alone.”

“How very clever of you. There, you will find it under the piano behind
that music; do play something, it will be so good of you.”

“What shall I play?”

“Anything you like.”

Frank had no knowledge of the instrument, but his ear was exquisitely
just and appreciative; his artistic desire was febrile and foolish, but
you thought less of this in his music than in his painting and poetry.
His soul went out in the strain of melody sentimentally; and it leaned
him in varying and beautiful attitudes. The sweeping, music-evoking arm
was beautiful to behold, and the music seemed to cry for love; all about
him was shadow; only the light fell on the long throat, so like a fruit
to the eye; the charm was enervating and nervous. Helen looked at him
again, and shuddering, she rose from the piano.

“What did you break off like that for? Was I playing so badly?”

“No, no--come and sit down here, come and sit by me. I want you to talk
to me.” She stretched herself in a low wicker chair by the open window.
There was a church opposite, the painted panes were now full of mitre
and alb, and the vague tumult of the service came in contrast with the
summer murmur of London and the light of the evening skies. The woman's
body moved beneath the silk, and the faint odour of her person dilated
the nostrils of the young man. “Talk to me.”

“I don't know what to talk to you about. You would not care for my
conversation any more than you do for my music--one is as bad as the
other.”

“No, pray--I assure you--I would not have you think that, no.” Helen
made a movement as if she were going to lay her hand on his arm;
checking herself, she said: “I do not think your playing bad; on the
contrary, perhaps I think it too good. How shall I explain? There are
times when I cannot bear music; the pleasure it brings is too near, too
intense, too near to pain; and that 'Chanson d'Eglise' seems to bear
away your very brain; you play it with such fervour, on the violin each
phrase tears the soul.”

“But it is so religious.”

“Yes, that is just it; no sen--no; well, there is no other word; no
sensuality is so terrible as religious sensuality.”

“I don't know what you mean. I can understand any one saying that
Offenbach is sensual, but I don't see how the term can be applied to a
hymn.”

“Perhaps not to a hymn, although--but 'La Chanson d'Eglise' is not a
hymn.”

Her arm hung along the chair, the flesh showing through the silk as soft
as a flower. He might take it in his hands and bear it to his lips and
kiss it; he might lean and loll and kiss her. He wondered if he might
dare it; but her air of ladyhood was so marked that it seemed impossible
that she would not resent. He could not quite realise what her looks and
words would be afterwards.

“I do not wish to flatter you, but I think you play beautifully. I
do not mean to say that I have never heard any one play the violin
better--that would be ridiculous. Your playing is full of emotion. That
lovely passage thrilled me; I do not know why, nor can I exactly explain
my feeling--nerves perhaps. Now I come to think of it I am ashamed. It
was the summer evening, the perfume of those flowers; it was--” Helen
fixed her eyes on Frank, as if she would like to say, “It was you.”
 With a sigh she said: “It was the music.” Then as if she feared she was
showing too plainly what was passing in her mind, she said: “But it is
nearly nine o'clock. Perhaps you would like to go to the theatre, the
ticket for the box is on the table. I should not be more than a few
minutes changing my dress. Would you like to go?”

“I don't much mind, just as you like. I heard that the new burlesque was
very amusing.”

“Then let us go.”

Both regretted their words; and, embarrassed, each waited for the
other to say No, let us stay here, it is far sweeter here. But it was
difficult to draw back now without avowal. Helen had rung for her maid.
She put on a white satin. Her opera cloak was edged with deep soft fur,
and she came into the room putting on her long tan gloves.

“Were you ever in love?” Helen asked, and she leaned back behind the
curtain of the box out of sight of the audience.

“I suppose I have been in love; but why do you ask?”

“It just occurred to me.”

“I have never been in love with a ballet girl, if you mean that.”

In blue tights and symmetrical rows the legs of the chorus ladies were
arranged about the stage; the low comedians cracked jokes close to the
footlights; the stalls laughed, the pit applauded.

“Haven't you? Is that really so? I shouldn't think it would be nice. And
yet, if all we hear is true, young men do make love to low women; I'm
not speaking now of ballet girls, but of cooks and housemaids. A lady,
a friend of mine, cannot keep a housemaid under fifty in her house on
account of her son, and she sent him to Eton.”

“Yes, I know; I have heard of such things, but I never could
understand.”

“I am glad. But you say you have been in love. Tell me all about it. I
want to know. What was she like? Was she fair or dark?”

“Fair. She used to wear a Gainsborough hat.”

“Did you like those great hats?”

“I did on her.”

“I suppose she was tall, then.”

“No, she was short.”

“Then I don't see how she would wear a Gainsborough hat.”

“She did, and looked exquisite in it too.”

“I suppose you were very much in love with her?”

“Yes; we were engaged, and going to be married.”

“Why was it broken off?”

“Her father was a brute.”

“Fathers generally are brutes on such occasions, and there are generally
excellent reasons for their brutality.”

“Husbands, too, are brutes, and if all I have heard is correct, there
are excellent reasons for their brutality.”

Lady Seveley turned pale. “I did not come to the theatre to be
insulted,” she said, hesitating whether she should rise from her
seat. Frank Escott was constantly guilty of such indelicate and stupid
speeches, and it would be easy to cite instances in which his conduct
was equally unpractical. Were friends to speak ill of any one he was
especially intimate with, he would answer them in the grossest manner,
forgetful that he was making formidable enemies for himself without
in the least advancing the welfare of him or her whose defence he had
undertaken. With some words and looks the storm was allayed, and they
felt that the wind that might have capsized had carried their craft
nearer the port where they were steering. Their eyes met, and for a
moment they looked into each other's souls. Her arm hung by her side,
white and pure, could he take it and press it to his lips the worst
would be over--he would have admitted his desire. But the box curtain
did not hide him, and the faces opposite seemed to watch; and then
she spoke, and with her words brought a sense of distance, of
conventionality.

“Tell me, did you fall in love with her the first time you saw her?”

“I think so.”

“Tell me all about it. When did you see her for the first time?”

“It was on the Metropolitan Railway. We were in the same carriage,
she sat opposite to me; for some time we were alone, and I thought of
speaking to her, but was afraid of offending her.”

“Are you always afraid of offending people?”

“I don't know--I don't think I am.” Then it struck him that she was
alluding to his rudeness, which she declared she had forgiven, and he
said: “I am sure I can't do more, I told you I was sorry--that I did not
mean--”

“Oh, never mind, that is forgiven; tell me about her.”

A little perplexed, he continued: “She was dressed in white, and her
face was like a flower under the great hat.”

“It is clear that you can admire no one who doesn't wear a Gainsborough
hat. What will you do now that they have gone out of fashion? I am sure
I can't gratify you.”

“I wondered where she was going. I wished I was going to the same house,
I imagined what it would be like, and so the time went till we got to
Kensington. She turned to the right, so did I; I hoped she did not think
I was following her--”

“You were both going to the same house?”

“Yes. There were some carnations behind her in a vase, and you know
how I love the perfume of a carnation--so did she. She told me of the
flowers they had in their cottage at Maidenhead. I love the river,
so did she, and we spoke of the river all the afternoon. And when the
season was over I went up to Maidenhead too. I had my boat there (I must
show you my boat one of these days, one of the prettiest boats on the
river). We used to go out together, and, tying the boat under an alder,
I used to read her Browning. Oh, it was a jolly time.” The conversation
came to a pause, then Frank said “Were you ever in love?”

“I suppose I was.”

“With your husband?”

“No, I was not in love with my husband, he was twenty years older than
I. When I was eighteen I was very much in love with a young fellow who
used to come to play croquet at our place. But my parents wouldn't hear
of it. I was not at all strong when I was a girl; they said I wouldn't
live, so I didn't care what became of me. Lord Seveley admired me; it
was a very good match, I was anxious to get away from home, so I married
him. You are quite wrong in supposing I treated him badly.”

“Forgive me, don't say any more about that.”

“We had rows, it is true; he said horrible things about my mother, and I
wouldn't stand that, of course.”

“What things?”

“Oh, I can't tell you--no matter. Once I said that I wouldn't have
married him only I thought I was going to die. He never forgave me that.
It was, I admit, a foolish thing to say.”

At that moment the curtain came down, and the young men moved out of the
stalls. “There are two men I know,” she said, fixing her glass. “Do you
see them? The elder of the two is Harding, the novelist, the other is
Mr. Fletcher, an Irishman.”

“I know Fletcher--or, rather, I know of him. His father was a shopkeeper
in Gort, the nearest town to Mount Rorke Castle.”

“He is a journalist, isn't he? I hear he is doing pretty well.”

“In London, I know, you associate with that class, but in Ireland we
wouldn't think of knowing them.”

“I thought you were more liberal-minded than that. If they come up here,
what shall I do? I mustn't introduce you?”

“I don't mind being introduced. I should like to know Harding.”

“I can't introduce you to Harding and not to his friend.”

“I don't mind being introduced to Fletcher; I'll bow and slink off
to smoke a cigarette. Is it true what they say about him, that he
is irresistible, that no woman can resist him? I don't think he is
good-looking--a good figure, that's all.”

“He has the most lovely hands and teeth.”

“I see; perhaps you are in love with him?”

A knock came at the door; the young men entered. Lady Seveley introduced
them to Frank; he bowed coldly, and addressed Harding. But Lady Seveley
said: “O Mr. Harding, I want to speak to you about your last novel; I
have just finished reading it.”

“What do you think of this piece?” Fletcher asked Escott, in a
hesitating and conciliatory manner.

“I am afraid he will not be able to tell you; he hasn't ceased talking
since we came into the theatre.”

“I should have done the same had I been in his place.”

Lady Seveley smiled, Frank thought the words presumptuous. “Who the
devil would care to hear you talk--and that filthy accent.” And at
that moment he remembered Lizzie Baker. Fletcher and Harding were now
speaking to Lady Seveley, and taking advantage of the circumstance he
slipped out, and, lighting a cigarette, entered the bar room. Behind
the counter the young ladies stood in single file, and through odours of
cigarettes and whisky their voices called “One coffee in order,” and
the cry was passed on till it reached the still-room. Frank remembered
having read a description of the place somewhere, he thought for a
moment, and then he remembered that it was in one of Harding's novels.
He could detect no difference in the loafers that leaned over the
counter talking to the barmaids; they were dingy and dull, whereas the
young men from the stalls of the theatre were black and white and clean;
but the keenest eye could note nothing further, and a closer inspection
showed that even a first division rested on no deeper basis than the
chance of evening dress. Civilisation has given us all one face and
mind. He walked to where Lizzie was serving; soldiers were ordering
drinks of her, so he was obliged to apply to the next girl to her for
his brandy and soda. He drank slowly, hoping her admirers would
leave her, but one soldier was stationery, and this spot of red grew
singularly offensive in Frank's eyes, from the clumsy, characterless
boots, to the close-clipped hair set off with the monotonously jaunty
cap. The man sprawled over the counter drinking a glass of porter.
Frank tried to listen to what he was saying. Lizzie smiled, showing many
beautifully shaped teeth, so beautifully shaped that they looked like
sculpture. Behind her there were shelves charged with glasses and
bottles, gilt elephants, and obelisks, a hideous decoration; she passed
up and down with cups of coffee, she filled glasses from various taps,
she saluted Frank.

“How are you this evening? Come to see the piece again?”

“Come to see you.”

“Get along; I don't believe you,” she said, and she passed back to her
place, and continued talking to the soldier as steadily as her many
occupations would allow her.

A few moments after the bell rang, and Frank went upstairs annoyed.

“Oh, so it is you; you have come back,” said Helen, turning; “sit down
here. Nellie Farren has just sung such an exquisitely funny song; they
have encored it; just listen to it, do,” and Helen fixed her opera glass
on the actress. The light and shadow played about her neck andarm in
beautiful variations, but noticing nothing, Frank leaned forward.

“Isn't it funny; isn't it delightfully funny?”

“Yes, it is funny.”

Having heard one song they listened to the rest of the act. “Now give
me my cloak. Thank you, and now give me your arm.” Frank complied. “You
will come home to Green Street with me, and have some supper?”

“I am afraid, I am sorry I can't; I must get home early to-night.”

“You have a key, you surely can get in at any hour.”

“Yes, but I am afraid--the fact is I am dreadfully tired.”

“Oh, just as you like.”

Then at the end of an irritating silence, “I am afraid you will have to
wait, I do not think I shall be able to get your carriage yet awhile; in
a few minutes this crowd will disperse. No use getting crushed to death!
What became of Harding and Fletcher? Did they remain long with you?”

“No, not very, they went away just before you came. There is Mr.
Harding. How did you like the piece, Mr. Harding?”

“I always enjoy these pieces, they are so conscientiously illiterate;
what I can't bear is unconscientious illiterateness. Nellie Farren has
caught something of the jangle of modern life; she has something of the
freshness of the music-hall about her that appeals to me very sharply.”

“Do you like music-halls? I have always heard they were so vulgar.”

“Vulgarity is surely preferable to popularity. The theatre is merely
popular.”

While Harding was thus exerting himself with epigram, Fletcher stood
tall and slender, with a grey overcoat hanging over his arm, and his
intense eyes fixed on Lady Seveley. His gaze troubled her, and when he
withdrew his eyes she looked at him, anticipant and fearing. He spoke
to her until Frank, feeling that he was receding out of all interest and
attention, said abruptly, “If you will come now, Lady Seveley, I think
I shall be able to get you your carriage. May I see you home?” he said,
holding the door.

“No thank you, I will not take you out of your way. Go home at once and
get rested, and come and see me one of these days; don't forget.” Lady
Seveley smiled, but Frank felt that she was annoyed.

“I wonder if she wanted me to go home with her. That impertinent brute
Fletcher daring to come up to speak to us! I was very nearly telling him
to go and fetch the carriage.”

He pushed open the swinging doors with violence, nearly upsetting the
fat porter. The bar was nearly empty, and he found Lizzie disengaged.

“You look very vexed. Has any one been pinching you?”

“I am not vexed.”

“What will you have to put you straight?”

“Well, that is a question. Let me see. I don't care about another brandy
and soda, and if I have coffee it may keep me awake.”

“Have half milk.”

“Very well.” He hesitated, but the inclination to speak soon overpowered
him. “I call it bad form, when you are with a lady for another fellow to
come up and speak to her.”

“Three of Irish, miss.”

“Why, didn't he know her?”

“Of course he knew her, but that doesn't give him a right to come up and
enter into a long conversation when I am with her. I wish I had knocked
him down.”

“He might have knocked you down.”

“A glass of bitter, miss.”

“I should have had to take my chance of that. In London people don't
seem to me to mind whom they speak to--a low-bred Irishman, who never
spoke to a lady until he left his own country.”

“Oh! what a rage we are in.”

“No, I am not in a rage,” said Frank, who at that moment felt the folly
of these confidences. “I don't care a hang. It isn't as if it were a
woman I cared about. Had it been you--”

“Get along, don't you tell me.”

“I assure you I speak only in a general way, and you must admit that if
you go out with a fellow it would not be nice of you to begin talking to
some one else.”

“Oh! I never do that.”

“There, then you admit I was right, I was sure you would; I don't care
a hang for the lady I was with, but I don't intend to allow any one to
insult me. But I wonder how you can speak to soldiers.”

“They are no worse than the others. Besides, in our business we have to
be polite to every one.”

“Polite, yes--but I wanted to speak to you, I came down from my box on
purpose to speak to you, and I couldn't, you were so engaged with that
soldier.”

“He was here before you; you would not like it if you were talking to
me, and I were to rush off to speak to some one else.”

“One Scotch and three Irish, miss, and out of the bottle please,
our friend here's most particular, he would like it in a thin glass,
too--wouldn't you, Ted? and if he could have a go at that pretty mouth
he would like it better still. A rare one after the ladies is Teddy.
Aren't you, old chap?”

Full of scorn Frank watched this noisy group. Lizzie remained talking
with them for some little time, and she did not return until he called
to her twice for a cigar.

“How very impatient you are,” she said, handing him the box.

“You were talking to me, and you go away to talk to those cads.”

“I must serve the customers, you naughty man. You can't have me all to
yourself. I believe you would like to.”

“That I should. I wish you would come out with me. I wish you would come
to dinner.”

“And what would the lady say who you went to the theatre with to-night,
and were so mad because some one spoke to her?”

“I assure you she is nothing to me, a mere acquaintance. I was angry
because I thought it a piece of impertinence of the fellow to come
intruding his conversation when it wasn't wanted; but as for the woman
I don't care a snap for her; never did, I assure you: she is nothing to
me. I suppose you don't get out much here.”

“We are off duty for so many hours every day; but we must be in at a
certain time.”

“But you have got Sundays.”

“We get Sunday in our turn.”

“When will your turn come?”

“I am going out next Sunday.”

“I wish you would come with me; I would take you up the river. You know
the river?”

“No, I don't know even what you mean.”

“You mean to say you have never been up the river, not even so far as
Twickenham?”

“No.”

“Well, then, you have a treat. The most beautiful thing in England is
the Thames--perhaps in the world. Last year I spent nearly three months
at Marlow and Maidenhead--we positively lived in a boat. I have a
beautiful boat. I should like to take you out--you would enjoy it. Are
you fond of boating?”

“I love it. I haven't been in a boat since I left Wales.”

“So you are a Welsh girl. My boat is now at Reading. If you could get
away early in the morning we might manage to catch the nine o'clock
express that takes us down in a little over the hour. I'd have the
hamper packed, and we would have our lunch up in Pangbourne Woods. It
would be so jolly. I wish you would come.”

“I should like it immensely; I don't know if I could manage it.”

“Do you say you will come, do.”

Lizzie stood hesitating, her finger on her lip. A girl entered the bar
and whispered something to her as she passed.

“I must go away now, I'm off duty.”

“Say you will come.”

“I can't say yet; I shall see you again.”

As Frank turned to go he caught sight of Harding and Fletcher. He did
not see that they had been watching him, and when they called him he
went over to their table.

“What will you have?” said Harding.

“Nothing, thanks, I could not drink anything more.”

“Have a cigarette.”

“Thanks, I will; I cannot smoke this beastly cigar. I do not know why I
asked for it.”

“Sit down.”

The conversation turned on the play, but at the first pause in the
conversation, Harding said: “Pretty girl, that girl you were talking to
at the bar.”

“Yes; is she not? I think she is one of the prettiest girls I ever saw
in my life.”

“Far better looking than Lady Seveley.”

“I should rather think so; Lady Seveley is over thirty.”

“The choice would be a nice test of a young man's moral character.”

“Did you write that this morning, or are you going to write it to-morrow
morning?”

“You have not told me which, when you do--”

“I see you are not in a hurry to bring your book out.”

Harding laughed, and Frank was pleased at the idea of getting the better
of Harding; Fletcher sat with his eyes glittering and his lips slightly
parted. Who would hesitate between a lady of rank and a barmaid? She
might be a pretty girl, but what of that? There are hundreds as pretty.
He had never been the lover of a lady, and his heart was aflame. Soon
after the men parted in the street, and Frank went from them, fearful of
his lonely rooms, and longing for his friends at Southwick.

He lunched every day at the Gaiety, and he at length succeeded in
persuading Lizzie to come to Reading with him.

Town was miserably Sunday when he drove up to Paddington at a quarter
past eight. “If it should rain, if it should turn out a pouring wet day,
what should I do? That would be too terrible!” He felt the boat alive
beneath his oars, the river placid and gentle, and all the charm of
the rushes, the cedars, the locks, and the blonde beautiful girl in the
stern with the parasol he had bought her aslant. Let him have this day,
and he didn't care what happened! He wanted to show her the river, he
wanted to joy for a day in her presence.

He was more than a half an hour in advance. Would she come? She had
promised, but she might disappoint. That would be worse than the rain.
He would wait till ten o'clock. There was another train at ten, but if
they missed the ten to nine the day would be spoilt, lost. Supposing she
did not come, what would he do?--drive back through dingy London and eat
a lonely breakfast in that horrible brick Pump Court? He could scarcely
do that. Would he go to Reading by himself? The light of the flowing
stream, the secrets of the rushes and murmuring woods died; nature
became voiceless.

“It will be a pity if she doesn't come. We shall have a fine day, I
am sure it is going to be a fine day, but we shall miss that train. I
wonder if I can see anything of her. I don't know what side she will
come from. I suppose she'll take a cab. Perhaps she won't come at all;
will she come?--she promised me. By Jove, twenty minutes to nine. If she
isn't here in five minutes we shall miss the train.” His passion grew in
intensity, and hope was dead, when he heard sounds of running footsteps,
and saw the great girl holding her hat with one hand and her dress with
the other. The torture of expectation was worth the rapture of relief,
and he said, delighted: “So you have come, have you? One minute more and
you would have been late.”

“Why, were you going?”

“No, but the train is. We have three minutes. I'll run and get the
tickets. How is it that you are so late?”

“I just missed the train.”

“What train?”

“The Metropolitan.”

“The Metropolitan? What nonsense! Why didn't you take a cab?”

She had been afraid of spending the money, fearing she might not see him
after all; and out of breath she followed him along the platform. “No,
not in there; I don't like travelling alone with gentlemen.” Frank
looked at her in amazement, and they got into a carriage where an old
gentleman was sitting.

“So you thought I wouldn't come, you naughty boy?”

“Oh, I should have been so disappointed. I don't know what I should have
done.”

Lizzie watched the young aristocratic face; his earnestness drew her
towards him, and she wondered she did not like him better. “Now tell me
what we are going to do. I had such difficulty in getting away. It is
against the rules; and the manageress (the fat woman who stands at the
end of the bar and goes round and collects the money) hates me. She
would have stopped me if she could, but I went to the manager; he is a
friend of mine.”

“That fellow with the long fair moustache that walks about at the rate
of seven miles an hour, with his frock-coat all unbuttoned. Harding the
novelist--the fellow I was sitting with the other night, said such a
good thing--he said he was a sort of apotheosis of sherry and bitters.
I don't know why it is good, but it is; whether it is the colour of his
face and moustache--”

“He is very proud of his moustache, and your friend is quite right; he
is very fond of sherry and bitters--too fond. I have served him with as
many as three in an afternoon, and I am sure he wouldn't have refused
another if he could have found any one to stand it. Oh, look at the
country! How pretty it is!--the cows, the corn growing, the birds and
all the light clouds; we are going to have a lovely day. Shall we see
much of the country at Reading? Tell me, where are you going to take me?
Shall we go for a walk in the woods? Are there any woods? I hope there
are.”

“The most beautiful woods in England--Pangbourne Woods. We shall arrive
in Reading about a quarter to ten. We'll walk down to the river, or
drive if you like; it is only a few minutes to walk to the boat-house.
My boat is there--such a beauty! We'll row up to the--and that reminds
me, I ordered the luncheon basket at the best place in London, you know;
it was to have been at my place last night at eight o'clock, and they
never sent it. We shall have to lunch at the hotel. Such a beautiful
hotel, high up, overlooking the river; I hope you are not disappointed,
it really wasn't my fault. We shall have an excellent lunch, I assure
you, at the hotel.”

The miles fled away, and in the comfort and speed of the broad
gaugeline, an hour and a half seemed to them like a minute.

“What kind of town is Reading?” said Lizzie, springing from the
carriage.

“Not much more than a biscuit manufactory. A lot of red brick pill-box
looking buildings scattered over a flat piece of ground. We shan't see
the town. It is a mile from here. Huntley and Palmer, you know--”

“Oh, yes, we deal with them.”

“Catch hold of this rug while I get the tickets out. Shall we walk or
drive?”

“Let's walk.”

They stepped along gaily, and they were soon standing on the wharf,
Frank criticising the boats and the rowing, Lizzie all white in the
sunlight, a little dumbfounded and astonished. Then he turned into the
boat-house, and reappeared soon after, his arms bare, the sun on his
neck.

“You got my telegram? My boat is ready?”

“Yes, sir, we got her out this morning.”

“I suppose a lot of people wanted to have her, they all went for her,
I'll bet.”

“Yes, sir, a good many gentlemen asked if they could have her.”

It seemed to please Frank that he had caused so many to be disappointed.
“Well, get her out, we have no time to lose.”

The man stepped from one fleet of skiffs to another, he caught at
several boats with his boat-hook, but Frank's boat could not be found.
He shouted to his man who was sculling towards an island opposite: “What
has become of Mr. Escott's boat? I took her out myself this morning.”

“I should like to know what is the use of my sending you telegrams if I
am delayed in this way?”

“My man will be here in a second, sir.”

“Now, then, do be quick, stir yourself, I don't want to stand about here
all day.”

The assistant scratched

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