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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6029-0.txt b/6029-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f287fa6 --- /dev/null +++ b/6029-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11263 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Spring Days, by George Moore + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Spring Days + +Author: George Moore + + +Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6029] +This file was first posted on December 10, 2002 +Last Updated: March 16, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS 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 his head. Finally it transpired that that party +down the river--that party just gone away--must have had the boat. He +didn't know anything about it, it wasn't his fault. They said they had +engaged that boat over-night. + +“My boat let out for hire! How dare you do this? I never heard of such a +thing; I shall write to the papers.” + +“I will give you just as good a boat, sir--” + +“As good a boat! You haven't a boat like it. How do I know you don't let +my boat out for hire every day?” + +“No danger of that, sir; I will give you another boat, one that you will +be pleased with.” + +“My boat knocked about by some cad! He won't be back till nine o'clock +to-night, perhaps. I never heard of such a thing. Which is it?” + +“That one with the lady in the stern--the red parasol.” + +“He must be caught up, he must. Have you got an outrigger?” Assuring +Lizzie that he would be back in less than half an hour, Frank bent to +his work. + +“If he rows like that he will run down some one,” muttered the boatman. +“Confound him and his boat!” + +The outrigger shot through the water; the various craft paused, +surprised at such furious rowing. Lizzie watched the race, asking the +boatman if there was danger. + +“Danger? No; but he'd better not say too much to that gent when he does +catch him up, or there'll be a row, I expect. He's going round the bend; +if he doesn't run into something, he'll catch them,” said the boatman. +“Would you like to look through my glass, miss? They'll be coming back +presently.” + +Angry language was indulged in, but the apologies of the boatmen saved +the young men the unpleasantness of blows, and, elated at his success, +Frank handed Lizzie into the truant boat and paddled out into the +stream. When he had got out of earshot and out of the notice of the +boat-house he rested on his oars. “Did you see me overhaul them?” + +“No, you passed out of sight round the bend.” + +“Yes, by George! I had a good pull for it. There are a lot of red +parasols up higher, and I had to look out for my boat. What did they say +about my rowing?” + +“They said you'd catch them if you didn't run into something.” + +“Did they? I was wild; and--would you believe it?--when I did catch +them up the fellow began to object; he didn't want to come back, if you +please. He said he had hired the boat, that he did not know the boat was +mine--no proof. I said, 'I will give you proof,' and so I would have.” + +“I was afraid. I began to regret that I had come out with you.” + +“What nonsense! Done the fellow good if I had punched his head. Well, it +has taken it out of me a bit. I had to put on a bit of a spurt to catch +them; they had such a start, and they were going along a pretty fair +pace, too. It has made me feel a bit peckish, a pull like that on an +empty stomach; it must be close on twelve o'clock. What do you say, are +you beginning to feel that it is lunch time?” + +“I am not very hungry, and you forgot the luncheon basket. I ought to +have reminded you to get some sandwiches at the railway station.” + +“Sandwiches! I don't want sandwiches; I want something more substantial +than sandwiches. I'll paddle on; we aren't more than a tenminutes' +paddle from the 'Roebuck,' a ripping nice hotel, I can tell you.” + +“Couldn't we have something to eat without going to an hotel?” + +“I don't think so. I want a bottle of fizz, and the fizz there is +excellent; one of the best hotels on the river; splendid gardens and +tennis grounds, a great room overlooking the river; the best people go +there; sometimes one can't get a table.” + +“I don't think I am well dressed enough.” + +“You look charming, a cotton dress and a parasol is all one wants for +the river.” + +“You are not ashamed of me, then; you'll take me as I am?” + +“Ashamed of you! Steer straight for that post--that's it, bravo!” Frank +shipped the oars, and when he felt the girl's arm laid on his as he +helped her to land, it seemed to him that all the world was happiness. +The spirit of the river, the fields and sky, leaped to his eyes. He +assisted her to ascend the steps cut in the hillside. She laughed and +laughed again, and stopped to rest. At last they stood on the railway +line. It swept round another hill all overshadowed and dark with cedars. + +“Here comes a train, let's wait. I must see it go round the curve.” + +“You should see the Bath express come along the broad gauge at the rate +of sixty miles an hour.” + +“This is not an express?” + +“No.” + +The luggage train came with an interminable rumble and jingle, and +Lizzie waited till the last truck passed under the branches. Then they +went to an hotel full of daylight and stained wood, with glimpses of +barmaids far away, and waiters running about; the rooms glistened +with table linen; the waiters carved at a sideboard covered with pies, +sirloins, hams, tongues. Only one table was occupied, and the waiters +were lavishing all attention upon it. Lady Seveley leaned back smoking a +cigarette. Fletcher sat next to her, alternately affecting indifference +and fixing her with his eyes. Harding was voluble and observant. There +was about them an air of thirty and the dissipations of thirty. And, +not in the least ashamed of Lizzie, Frank bowed to Lady Seveley; she +returned his bow by a slight nod; and Lizzie, very much embarrassed, +nodded to the men; they smiled in return. + +“Who is that lady you saluted?” + +“Lady Seveley; the lady I told you about, who I went to the theatre with +the other night.” + +“Fancy a lady like that smoking a cigarette!” + +A waiter approached with the bill of fare. “We had better not have +anything hot, we shall lose the whole day. What do you say?” + +“Cold sirloin of beef is excellent, sir; pigeon pie is also very +good--young birds.” + +“Shall we try the pigeon pie? Get me the wine list. Take off your hat, +Lizzie, do.” + +“I am afraid my hair will come down.” + +“Never mind, so much the better.” + +With some difficulty she extracted her hat from the hairpins, and the +bright hair hung loose about her white plump face. Frank drank a glass +of champagne; he was proud of her beauty. + +“By Jove, how this does pick one up! not half bad tipple, is it?” + +They hastened through their lunch, unconsciously avoiding the too +critical looks of those at the far corner table; nor did they suspect, +as they descended the hill and got into their boat and rowed away, that +they were still the subject of conversation. + +“She is no doubt a very pretty girl. He seems very fond of her. I hope +he won't make a fool of himself.” + +“I think he is 'mashed.' We saw him the other night in the bar. He +was paying her a great deal of attention--the night we saw you at the +theatre.” + +Lady Seveley's face slightly altered. Harding noticed the change of +expression, and he said: “She is called the belle of the bar. Hers +is the kind of prettiness that appeals to a young man, for somehow, I +cannot explain, it is a thing you must feel; she epitomises as it were +the beauty of the English girl; she is the typical pretty English girl; +all that English girls have of charm, she has; and the co-ordination is +an irresistible force against some young men; their natures demand the +freshness the spontaneity, the innocence of--” + +“Of the Gaiety bar! I have never been there, but from what you tell me +of it, it is the last place to find innocence and freshness.” + +“That may be or not be. We find a rose blooming in very out-of-the-way +places; but, as a matter of fact, I made no accusation of virtue; vice +does not rob a youth of its spontaneity. You may rouge the cheeks of May +and blacken her eyes, but she is May nevertheless. I say that the lover +of the young girl cannot love the woman of thirty. Her charms touch him +not at all; but there are others who may love only the woman of thirty, +and, strange to say, they are only loved by the woman of thirty. The +universal Don Juan is a myth, and does not exist out of literature. +There is the Don Juan who plays havoc among the women of thirty, there +is the Don Juan who plays havoc among young girls, but--” + +“And you think our friend Frank Escott belongs to the latter class?” + +“No, I don't. He is good-looking; he is to all appearance a young man +that any woman would like, but I don't think you'd find this to be so if +it were given to you to see into his life. Every man of the world must +have noticed that there are times when, speaking generally, every +second woman will run after him--ladies of rank, prostitutes, +maid-servants--when he may pick and choose his mistresses, and change +his mind as often as he pleases; there are other times when he finds +himself womanless, when none will look at him, when in fact without an +allusion to rings, and sometimes a very direct allusion is required, he +will not be able to persuade a chorus girl to come out to supper with +him. He thinks he is getting old, he looks in the glass with fear.” + +“You mean to say there are men who look in the glass with fear?” + +“Of course, after five-and-thirty the glass whispers as awful truths to +the man as to the woman--worse, for woman's youth is longer than man's. +The contrary is the received opinion, but, like all popular opinions, +it is wrong; a woman is frequently loved after forty, a man never. I was +saying that a man often thinks he is getting old because the chorus +girl took an early opportunity of speaking of rings, because the lady +of fashion begged of the old gentleman who had taken up his hat to go +to stay a little while longer, because the chamber-maid did not look +lusciously round the corner when he passed her in the passage. He looks +in the glass and imagines all kinds of monstrous changes in his person. +His fears have no foundation in fact--or should I say in the flesh? A +year after the duchess makes overtures, the chorus girl threatens to +throw up her engagement for him, and the chambermaid pesters him with +unnecessary questions concerning baths and towels. These facts tend +to show, indeed I think they prove, that love is a magnetism, which +sometimes we possess in almost irresistible strength, and which +sometimes fades away into powerless and apparent extinction.” + +“Then you think that good looks have nothing to do with the faculty of +making oneself beloved?” said Fletcher. + +“The phenomenon of love has hitherto eluded our most eager +investigation; when we have traced each desire to its source, and +classified--” + +“We women will have ceased to take any interest in the matter. What a +humbug you are, Mr. Harding; one never knows when you are serious. But +what has all this to do with that poor boy who has gone off with his +barmaid?” + +“This: he is unquestionably good-looking, but I don't think he possesses +at all the magnetism, the power--call it what you will--that I have been +speaking of. He will never influence either men or women, he will never +make friends; that is to say, he will never make use of his friends. He +will, I should think, always remain a little outside of success. It will +never quite come to him; he will be one of those muddled, dissatisfied +creatures who rail against luck and bad treatment. I cannot see him +really successful in anything; yes I can, though, I believe he would +make an excellent husband. I have spoken a great deal to him. He has +told me a lot about himself, and I can see that he asks and desires +nothing but leave to devote himself to a woman, to pander to her +caprices. All that violent exterior will wear off, and he will yield +to and love to be led by a woman. He writes a little, and he paints. I +don't know if he has any talent; but he never will be able to work until +he is obliged to work for a woman.” + +“Then you think he will marry that barmaid?” + +“Most probably. He will struggle against it; but unless chance +intervenes--she may die, she may run away with some one to-morrow, for +she does not care for him--he will be sucked into the gulf.” + +“He is Lord Mount Rorke's heir; he will have twenty thousand a year one +of these days.” + +“Mount Rorke will never forgive him a bad match. I know Mount Rorke,” + said Lady Seveley, “and you do, too, Mr. Fletcher.” + +“Yes, a little.” + +Unfearing prophecy and oracle launched from the windows of the hotel, +the young people rowed, lost to all but each other, amazed at the +loveliness of the river. They floated amid the bulrushes. Cries and +regret when Frank's oar crushed the desired blossom. Never before were +lilies as desirable as those that were gathered that day--that bud, it +must be possessed, that blown flower must not be left behind. Lizzie +dipped her arm to the elbow, and rejoiced in the soft flowing water. The +river rose up into what beautiful views and prospects. The locks, the +sensation of the boat sinking among the slimy piles with Frank erect +holding her off with the boat-hook, or the slow rising till the banks +were overflowed, and the wonderful wooden gates opened, disclosing a +placid stream with overhanging boughs and a barge. And the charming +discoveries they made in this water world, the moorhen's indolence, and +the watchful rat swimming for its hole; each bend was a new picture. +How beautifully expressive of the work of the field were the comfortable +barns. If life is never very fair, a vision of life may be fair indeed, +and once the tears came to the bar girl's eyes, for she, too, suddenly +remembered her life of tobacco and whisky; long weary hours of standing, +politeness, washing glasses, and listening to filthy jokes. Would +there be no change? If she might live her life here! She thought of the +morning light, and the home occupations of the morning, and then the +languid and lazy afternoons in this boat, amid the enchantment of these +river lands. + +Frank laid by his oars, and as regardless as a shopboy of observers, he +took her hand and begged of her to confide in him. He thought, too, of +seeing her daily, hourly, of her presence in his daily life; he saw her +amid his painting and poetry, and this pleasant scenery. Then the vision +vanished like the shine upon the stream, she withdrew her hands, a +shadow had fallen. + +They passed a summer-house where three girls were sitting; one sat on +the edge of a table and sang the ballad of “Biddy Malone.” There was a +house so red, and so full of gables and narrow windows, that Frank said +it was a perfect specimen of Elizabethan architecture; and he treated +Lizzie to all he could pretend to know on the subject, and he condemned +the owner for the glaringly modern garden benches with which the swards +were interspersed. The sun was setting, there was lassitude in every +passing boat, the girls leaned upon the arms of the young men, and the +woods stood up tall and contemplative, as beautiful in the deep blue +river as upon the pale sky. + +They landed at Pangbourne Woods by the wide grassy path between the +reedy river and the spreading beeches. There a man was boiling a kettle. +He spoke to them; he instructed them in the life of camping out, and +he invited them to tea. Lizzie went into the tent and got out the +tea-things. Two men came up, jolly fellows enough; and such little +adventures endeared and memorised the day. + +They climbed, oh! what a climb it was, Lizzie's ankles and courage +giving way alternately; but at last they reached a pathway, and they +walked at ease into the green solitudes of the wood. It seemed endless, +so soft and so still. He spoke to Lizzie, whom he now called Liz, of +her past, of the reasons that had led her to leave home and “go +to business.” Her brother, she said, was a painter, a celebrated +bird-painter. + +“Then we should know each other, I am a painter.” He told her of his +ideas and projects, of how he had been to France; he might go there +again, unless something happened to keep him in England. He wrote +a little too, in the papers, and he might do something to help her +brother--a paragraph in _Fashion_, he could get one in. For fear of +wounding her he did not ask if her brother was a decorative painter, +employed by a firm, or an artist who exhibited pictures. Her father had +married again. She did not like her stepmother, and that had determined +her to go into business. + +Had she ever been in love? Yes, she supposed she had; but it was all +over now. The last words sounded, and died away in a great abyss of +soul. + +Parts of the path were marked “Dangerous.” The earth had given way, +creating fearful chasms, over which trees leaned dangerously or hung +out fantastically by a few roots. In the dell below there stood a small +green painted table, and the young people leaning on the protecting +railing wondered at this mysterious piece of furniture. There was in +them and about them an illusive sense of death and the beauty of life. +One slight push would hurl them headlong hundreds of feet down to the +painted table. + +The silver of the river sparkled through silence and the foliage of +June, and the songs of the boatmen came and went like voices in a dream. + +The days of youth are long, and in tender idleness the hours lingered, +their charm unbroken in the rattle of London; and happy with love and +tired with the great air of the river and its leafy scenery, Frank fell +asleep that night. + + + + +VII + + + +One of the French artists he had met in Rome wrote to him from Paris. +Why should he not go there? There was nothing for him to do in London; +Lizzie Baker had disappeared, and in the year and a half that he spent +in Paris learning to draw he forgot her and his friends in Southwick. +Nor did he remember them when he returned to London; not until one +evening, strolling down Regent Street, he came upon Willy Brookes +suddenly. + +“How do you do, my dear Willy? I haven't seen you for--for--how long?” + +“I should think it must be now, let me see, I have got it down +somewhere; when I get home I'll look it up.” + +“Hang the looking up; better come and look me up.” + +The young men laughed. + +“It must be nearly a year and a half.” + +“I should think it must. Where are you staying? I am staying at Morley's +Hotel, Trafalgar Square. Come and dine with me to-night.” + +Willy reflected. He stroked his moustache reflectively. + +“No,” he said, “I am afraid I can't. I have something to do.” + +“Nonsense! I don't believe you. What have you to do?” + +“I have some cheques to write.” + +“That won't take you a moment. You can do that at my place.” + +“I couldn't, I assure you. I must have my books and my own pen. I +wouldn't write a cheque in that way for worlds.” + +“Why not? We'll go to a music-hall afterwards.” + +“I am very sorry, but I really couldn't--not to-night.” + +“You never go in for amusing yourself.” + +“Yes, I do; but what amuses you doesn't amuse me. I assure you I would +sooner stay at home, write my cheques, and enter them carefully, than go +to a music-hall.” + +Frank looked at Willy for a moment in mute amazement. Then he said: “But +what's that you have under your arm in that brown paper parcel?” + +Willy laughed. “A leg of mutton; I have just been to the stores.” + +“You mean to say you buy legs of mutton at the stores, and carry them +home? Supposing you met some one, if we were to--” + +“Not very likely, a foggy night like this. I have a small house in +Notting Hill. I take the 'bus at the Circus. I shall be very glad if you +will come with me; so will the missus.” + +“I forgot to ask about her, how is she?” + +“Very well. Come and see for yourself. Come and dine with us to-morrow. +I can't give you one of your restaurant dinners, but if leg of mutton +will suit, all I can say is that I shall be very happy.” + +“I'll come whenever you like.” + +“Can you come to-morrow?” + +“Yes. We might go to the theatre afterwards.” + +“We might. Be at my place at half-past six, that will give us plenty of +time.” + +“What a queer fish he is,” thought Frank, as he walked down Regent +Street, looking at the women. “Can't come and dine with me because he +has two or three cheques to write, must have all his books out to make +entries--what a clerk for the Government--an ideal clerk! What a genius +for red tape!” + +Willy was standing on the steps of the little house, and he commented on +his friend's extravagances as he welcomed him. + +“You might have come here for ninepence, third class. You paid that +cabman three shillings, and you took, I don't mind betting, half an +hour longer. Now, don't make a mess, do wipe your feet; we don't keep a +servant, and it gives the missus a lot of trouble cleaning up.” + +Not a book nor a picture nor a single flower, and every worn carpet +suggested the bare necessaries of life. There was the drawing-room, kept +for show, never entered, barren and blank; there was the room--a little +more alive--where Willy smoked his pipe and kept his accounts, but there +the crumbs, three or four, seemed to speak of the dry, bread-like days +that wore themselves away; life there was too obviously dry and bare, +joyless and mean. + +Had Frank's mind been philosophic and deep-seeing, he would have mused +on the admirable patience of the woman who lived here, seeing no one, +making entire sacrifice of her life; he would have contrasted the +humbleness, nay, the meanness, of this unknown house with the reception +rooms of the Manor House; one life wasting in darkness and poverty, +another burning out in light and riches; timeworn truths float on the +surface of this little pool of life, and so modernised are they that +they appear for a moment “new and original.” But further than a regret +that there were no flowers in the window, and a sense of the horrible +when his eyes fell on a piece of Swiss scenery, his thoughts did not +wander; they soon were fixed and absorbed in the consideration of the +happiness that Willy had attained by “doing the right thing by the +woman.” He was hers, she was his. Dreams of things marital, the +endearments of husband and wife, are the essence of the being of some +men and women, and are to them a perennial delight. Frank was such a +one. + +He had brought Cissy a doll, and the child came and sat on his knees, +and put her arms round his neck. He kissed the long face, hollow-eyed, +and stroked the beautiful gold ringlets that cloaked the shoulders. + +They went to the theatre in a 'bus. Frank carried Cissy, and he called +indignantly to the crowd not to press him. “Did they not see that he +was carrying a child?” He did not think that his friends might recognise +him, nor would he have felt any shame had he caught sight of some face +in the stalls he knew. He would not have put Cissy aside; nor would he +have pretended that he was not with the pale, worn, shabbily-dressed +woman by his side. He was wholly filled with his friends, their +interests and concerns; so complete was the investment of himself that +Lizzie Baker did not snatch a fugitive thought from them; and it was not +until he sat smoking with Willy in the back parlour that he said: + +“I wonder what has become of her? She was a nice girl.” + +“You mean Lizzie Baker? You lost sight of her all of a sudden, didn't +you? Do you think she went off to live with some one?” + +“No, I don't think she was a girl who would do that. By Jove, she was a +pretty girl! Once I took her up the river, up to Reading. We had such +a jolly day in the woods and on the water--amid the water-lilies and +bulrushes, or the shade of the cedars. I wonder you never go up the +river.” + +“I have no time. Besides, I hate the water. I never go on the water if I +can help it--I am too nervous.” + +“How odd! Oh, we had a jolly day!” + +“But I never understood how it was you lost sight of her. You said in +your letter that she had left the bar; but she must have gone somewhere. +I am sure you didn't make sufficient enquiries. You are too impatient.” + +“I did all I could. One girl told me that a lot of them--Lizzie among +the number--had suddenly been transferred to Liverpool Street. That was +true, for I saw at Liverpool Street several girls I had known previously +at the 'Gaiety.' Those poor bar girls, how pitiful they look! all over +London they stand behind their bars! Breathing for hours tobacco smoke, +fumes of whisky and beer, listening to abominable jokes, the subjects of +hideous flirtations; and then the little comedy, the effort to appear as +virtuous young ladies--'young ladies of the bar.' It is very pitiful. In +such circumstances how do you expect a girl to keep straight? I do +not think it is the men who do the harm. There are, of course, a few +blackguards who crack filthy jokes over the counter, but if a girl likes +she needn't listen--a girl can always keep a man in his place. Then if +a man flirts with a girl he always loves her, likes her, if you +think 'like' a better word; but you must admit that in the most +beery flirtation there must be a certain amount of liking. There is, +therefore, something to save a girl. I feel sure that it is girls, not +men, who lead innocent girls astray. Those poor bar girls are quite +unprotected; they have a sitting-room into which they may not bring a +friend--a man, I mean. In the bedrooms there is always a lot of illicit +talking and drinking going on. A girl who has gone wrong herself is +never content until she has persuaded another girl to go wrong; a girl +is so mean! I feel very much on this subject. I am thinking of writing +a book on the subject. Did I ever tell you about the novel I intended to +write?” + +“You told me once in Brighton about a novel you intended to write. I +forget what it was about, but you said you were going to call it 'Her +Saviour.'” + +“Oh, that is another book. I was thinking of writing the story of a +woman who is led into vice. They get her to throw over the man who loves +her; he follows her, never loses sight of her until at last, determined +to save her, and although he knows that he is wrecking his own life, he +marries her. What do you think?” + +Being pressed for an answer, Willy stroked his moustache with great +gravity. “I really can't say, my dear fellow; you know I never like +giving opinions on questions I do not understand.” + +The conversation came to a pause, and Willy began to whistle. + +“Just a little flat--quarter of a note wrong there and there!” + +“Do you whistle it? Oh, yes, that's it! I can hear the difference! I +wish you had your violin. I should like to hear you play it.” + +“What, with the missus overhead?” + +“She doesn't know anything about it. How prettily _she_ used to sing it; +a pretty tune, isn't it? Good old days they were! Do you remember when +you used to come to the Princess's with me? Didn't she look pretty?” + +“You never told me why you didn't marry her; I never heard the end of +that story.” + +“There is nothing to tell. It's all over now. Do you remember how I +used to dress myself up to go to the theatre? We used to go to supper at +Scott's afterwards. I did not mind what I ate in those days.” + +“You hardly ever go to the theatre now, do you?” + +“Hardly ever. I shouldn't have gone to-night if it had not been for you. +I don't know how it is, but I don't seem to enjoy myself as I used to.” + +The men ceased talking. Presently Frank broke the silence. + +“I hope you are getting on all right on the Stock Exchange. You haven't +mentioned the subject.” + +“I don't know that there is much to say. Times are very bad just now. I +don't think any one is doing much good.” + +“But you are with a very good firm. Nothing is going wrong, I hope.” + +“I don't think any one is making money. We have all been hard hit +lately--war scares. But I daresay it will all come right.” + +“I never understood what you ever wanted to go into the business for. +What do you, with your handsome place at Southwick, and your father with +his thousands and thousands, want to turn yourself into a city clerk +for?” + +“You see, you don't care about making money; I do--it was bred in me. +Besides, I am an unselfish fellow. I never think of myself; I like to +think of others. If I were to make a good thing out of this, I should be +able to leave the missus independent.” Then, after a slight pause, Willy +said: “But, by the way, I was forgetting. I got a letter this morning +saying that if I met you in London I was to tell you that you were to +come to Southwick for a ball.” + +“What ball?” + +“A subscription ball at Henfield--a county ball. Will you come?” + +“Yes, I don't mind. It should be rather fun. Are you going?” + +“Yes, I must go, worse luck, to chaperon my sisters.” + +“How do you go? Will the governor let you have the horses?” + +“Not he! We generally have a large 'bus. I am going down to-morrow by +the twelve o'clock train. Will that be too early for you?” + +“Not if I go home now and pack up.” + +“You won't like that. You had better sleep here and get up early in the +morning; your room is all ready.” + +“I couldn't manage it. I never could get back to the Temple, pack up, +and meet you at twelve at London Bridge.” + +“It will be rather a cold walk for you; you are too late for the train, +and the last 'bus, I am afraid, has gone.” + +“I shall have a hansom. The only thing that worries me is not being able +to say good-bye to the missus.” + +“She's fast asleep. She won't mind--I'll make that all right.” + +“Then, at twelve o'clock at London Bridge!” + + + + +VIII + + + +Sally rushed down to meet him, and she took him off for a walk in the +garden. + +“What a time it is since we have seen you. What have you been +doing--amusing yourself a great deal, I suppose?” + +“I have been the whole time in Paris. I have been studying very hard. I +only returned home about two months ago.” + +“I don't believe about the studying.” + +“I have been working at my painting. I worked morning and afternoon in +the studio from the nude. Last summer I had a delightful time. I took +a little place on the Seine--a little house near Bas Meudon. I had a +garden; I used to breakfast every morning in the garden--fresh eggs, new +bread, an omelette, such as only a Frenchwoman can make, a cutlet, or a +piece of chicken. The wine, too, so fresh and generous. I don't know how +it is, but Burgundy here is not the same as Burgundy on the banks of +the Seine. I worked all day in my garden, or down by the river. I was +painting a large picture. I haven't finished it yet. I must go back +there in the summer to finish it.” + +“Why can't you finish it here? Haven't you got it here?” + +“Yes, but the Seine is not here.” + +“Wouldn't the Adour do? The river at Shoreham?” + +“No; but the Thames might. My picture is really more English than +French. There were a lot of willow trees there, and my picture +represents a girl lying in a hammock, foot hanging over, showing such a +pretty piece of black stocking. There are two men there, they are both +swinging the hammock, but while one is looking at her ankle the other +only sees her face.” + +Sally laughed coarsely and evasively. + +“What are you laughing at?” he asked, feeling a little nettled. + +“Don't you think people will think it rather improper?” + +“Not at all. Why should they? The idea I wish to convey is that one man +loves her truly for herself alone, the other only loves her because she +is a pretty girl. I have composed some triolets for the picture, which +will be printed in the catalogue-- + + “In a hammock I swing, + My feet hanging over; + 'Neath Love's bright wing, + In a hammock I swing, + Loves come and they bring + A truth to discover, + In a hammock I swing, + My feet hanging over. + +“That is the first stanza. There are six, and they tell the story of the +picture. I will copy them into your album, if you like.” + +“Will you? That will be so nice, if you will. The only thing is, I +haven't an album.” + +“Haven't you? I'll get you one. I'll send you one from London.” + +Sally asked him to explain the triolets, and very loyally she strove to +understand. + +“Ah, I see a thing when I am told, but I never can understand poetry or +pictures until they are explained to me.” + +Mollified, Frank thought of going upstairs to fetch the copy book +in which he wrote such things, but speaking out of an unperceived +association of ideas, he said: “What a clever girl your sister is. I had +once a long talk with her about pictures and poetry, and I was surprised +to find how well she talked. She understands everything.” + +“Maggie is a clever girl; I know she is far cleverer than I am; but if +you knew her as well as I do, you would find she did not understand all +you think she understands.” + +“How do you mean?” + +“Maggie's cleverness lies in being able to pretend she understands what +she knows nothing about; I have often caught her out.” + +“Really; but how do you get on together now?” + +“Pretty well! I don't think there is much love lost on either side. I +don't know why--I never could understand Maggie. You have no idea of the +reports she spreads about me all over the place--the stories she tells +the Grahams, the Prestons, the Wells. She told Mrs. Wells that I fell in +love with every young man that came to Southwick. She said awful things +about me. As for that story about telling cook to put father's dinner +back, I don't think I ever shall hear the last of it. What made father +so angry was because he thought it was to talk to Jimmy in the slonk.” + +“You told me the last time I was here that you wanted to finish a +conversation with him in the slonk.” + +“I may have told you that it was to speak to him about his sister +Fanny,” Sally replied evasively. “I would not care if I never saw him +again; but I couldn't get on if I weren't allowed to see Fanny. Father +wanted me to promise never to enter the house again!” + +“But you have flirted with him?” + +“I don't know that I have; certainly not more than Maggie. Last summer +she was hanging round his neck every evening under the sycamores. I +caught them twice.” + +“I don't see any harm in going under the sycamores. I daresay Maggie has +allowed him to kiss her; so have you!” + +“That I assure you I haven't.” + +“You mean to say a man never kissed you?” + +“I didn't say that. I haven't kissed any one for years.” + +“Who did kiss you?” + +“You don't know him. I was only eighteen. He was a married man; it was +very wrong of me.” + +“I wish I had been he.” + +“Do you? I hate him; he was a beast for doing it.” + +Sally often indulged in these half confessions; one of her aunts used to +call them her “side lights.” By their aid she succeeded in interesting +Frank. “How candid she is to tell me--to confide in me!” Sally was +handsome now; the evening suited her dark skin and coal black eyes, and +her strong figure was rich and not ungraceful in a dress of ruby velvet. +Should he kiss her? What would she say? He threwhis arm about her. + +“I am surprised. Certainly not!” + +“I don't see any harm.” Then, with a sensation of saying something +foolish, he said: “You told me you kissed a married man.” + +“That was ages ago--I was very silly. I shouldn't think of doing sonow.” + +In the silence which followed Frank wondered why he had tried to kiss +her. Decidedly he liked the other better. + +Now every evening Maggie went to the writing-table, and all knew what +it meant. Mr. Brookes occasionally lamented in a minor key, but without +having recourse to his handkerchief. Willy said nothing; his losses on +the Stock Exchange had been heavy; and owing to a conversation Frank had +drawn him into during dinner the other day, his digestion, he feared, +was not quite up to the mark. So on the night of the ball he only +answered with an occasional monosyllable the splendid young man of the +embroidered waistcoats who related his pleasures in a deep bass; nor +did he pretend to take any interest in the crude militia officer who +sometimes broke the silence by a declaration that he did not care for +politics or poetry, that he liked history better. The young ladies +listened devoutly to all that the young men said; Mr. Brookes carved +valiantly at the head of the table and appeared resigned. Bouquets were +fixed in button-holes in the billiard-room and the 'bus was announced. +A greasy oil-lamp hung from the roof. Sometimes Sally rubbed the +windows and said she could tell by the bushes where they were, and +the embroidered waistcoat continued to drone out the measure of his +amusements. He would have to run up to London, then he must have a shy +at _trente et quarante_ at Monte Carlo, then he must get back for the +spring meeting at Newmarket. Frank asked him if he didn't think he +could manage to amuse himself without talking it all out beforehand. +But undaunted and unchecked he wandered from Homburg to Paris, and +from Paris to Ross-shire, until the 'bus drew up among a small crowd of +people. + +The ball was a failure. When they entered the rooms there were scarcely +twenty people present. It was very cold, and the men said; “How can the +women bear it with their naked shoulders?” + +“We shall never get near this fire,” said Sally, looking in dismay +on the circle of damsels who stood warming themselves, their dresses +relieved upon the masses of laurel with which the room was decorated; +“there is a beautiful fire in one of those little rooms at the end.” + +“Very well, let us come and sit there; or shall we dance this waltz +first?” + +“Let's dance it.” + +They danced, and Frank shuddered in his evening clothes as he danced. + +“Did you notice,” said Sally, as they hurried to the retiring room, “how +upset father seemed at dinner? I thought he was going to cry, but he +bore up to the end better than I expected.” + +“So he did, but I don't see what there was particularly to upset him +this time. Meason is away at sea, and you have promised not to see him +any more.” + +“Oh, I wasn't thinking about the Measons--but haven't you heard? I only +heard it through a friend, but I know for a fact that Willy has lost +nearly all his money on the Stock Exchange.” + +“You don't say so; I am so sorry.” + +“Father hasn't heard it all yet; if he had he wouldn't have come down to +dinner. I don't fancy he knows more than that things have not been going +well, and that Willy has been a loser.” + +“But how can he have lost? I thought he was junior partner in an old +established business.” + +“So he is. I can't tell you how the mischief was done, but I know he has +lost all his money.” + +“What do you mean by all his money?” + +“All the money--three thousand--that father let him draw out of the +distillery.” + +“This is very sad.” + +“Yes, isn't it? And particularly for a fellow who has so few amusements, +and only cares about making money. Just look at him now; he wanders +about speaking to no one. Come, let's dance this dance--are you +engaged?” + +“No!” + +This news about Willy fixed the Harfield ball in Frank's thoughts, and +he remembered the pretty girl in white of whom he could make nothing, +of the raw just-brought-out girl who had bored him, of the communicative +girl who had amused him by her accounts of her dogs and horses; he +remembered, too, how he had seen Maggie disappearing down the ends of +certain passages with a young man whose name he did not catch, and whose +face he had not noticed. He had danced twice with her, only twice; she +was distracted, she did not look at him, her eyes wandered all over the +room, she answered his questions indifferently. Sally, on the contrary, +had devoted herself to him, and on several occasions he thought that her +blunt straightforward manner was better than the other's slyness. The +'bus came with its draughts, its sickly lamp and its doleful jolting. +Sally was too tired to rub the windows and declare how far they were +from home, and the dancers endured their discomforts almost in silence; +even the embroidered waistcoat occasionally ceased to talk about +Homburg; and in all the extreme bitterness and greyness of a March +morning they pulled up before the door of the Manor House. + +“I beg of you not to make a noise. If you wake up father he will +never let us go to a ball again. Is there a fire in the billiard-room, +Gardner?” + +“Yes, miss, there's a lovely fire; the decanters are on the table and +the kettle is on the hob.” + +“I think you would all like a glass of something hot,” said Maggie. + +“Rather!” + +“But don't make a noise, please.” + +They stole along the passages to the billiard-room shivering, their +feet aching, feeling very uncomfortable indeed. The waistcoat was now +considering if it would be good form to come forward in the Conservative +interest at the next election; but every one was too tired, they could +not laugh, and amid a few general remarks the young ladies drank their +gin and water, casting sheep's eyes at the young men, and then, glad and +yet loth to part, all retired limping to their rooms. + +Breakfast was a pleasant meal--full of laughter and anecdotes of the +ball, and, laden with Gladstone bags, the young men departed in ones and +twos. Frank was going with Willy to London, and when they disappeared +among the laurels Sally and Maggie turned indoors, conscious of +reaction, and wondering what they should do with the long day that +stretched before them. Maggie walked upstairs; she lingered, undecided, +and then went down the passage to Frank's room. He had forgotten a +shirt stud; on the chest of drawers there was a crumpled white tie and a +soiled pair of white gloves. “How careless he is!” she thought, “I must +send him this,” and she put the stud in her pocket. She straightened out +the gloves and determined to send the necktie to the wash. Next time +he came down she would have it to give him, nice, clean, and white--she +must see that it was beautifully made up. Then she found his ball +programme. He had danced four times with Sally--only twice with +her--what a fool she had been; she had wasted her whole evening with +that other fellow. It did make her feel so angry. Then the housemaid +entered and turned the bed down. + +“What a lot of washing there will be this week, Gardner.” + +“There will indeed, miss. Three pairs of sheets, and only slept in +once.” + +“Yes, isn't it a pity? It seems absurd to send these sheets to the wash, +doesn't it?” + +“It do, indeed, miss.” + +“Absurd!” said Sally, who had just come in. “I want a pair of fresh +sheets for my bed. I'll have these.” + +“No you won't--I was going to take them.” + +“I should like to know what right you have to them more than I.” + +“You promised not to interfere with me, and you have done nothing else. +You did nothing at the ball but ask him for dances.” + +“That's a lie! I didn't ask him for a dance. You went off to hide; no +one saw anything of you all the evening.” + +“You mean to say you didn't promise?” + +“I never promised anything; if I did I should keep my promise. I am not +like you. I want a pair of sheets, and I mean to have these.” + +“They are too big for your bed.” + +Sally seized the sheet and strove to drag it from Maggie, who, although +the weaker, held her own bravely for some time. Finding her strength +failing her, she loosed her hold, letting her sister fall against the +wall, and taking up the pillow she launched it with her full force. “If +you want what he slept in, you can have it all.” + +“I'll give it to you, my lady,” cried the bully, making a rush round the +bed, but Maggie fled through the dressing-room, shutting the door behind +her, and locked herself into her room. + + + + +IX + + + +As Willy would not pay the extra fare, Frank had to travel second class. +He was telling his friend of the Stock Exchange, and his losses--nearly +four thousand pounds. He had suspected that the firm of which he was +junior partner had not played fair with him. Anyhow, he was going to +get out of the business, having something better in view--a shop in +Brighton. Yes, a shop in Brighton, a greengrocer's shop. No one had any +idea, until they went into the calculation, of the amount of profit that +was made on vegetables. Lord This and Lord That, every one who had a +handsome place with large gardens, counted on being able to pay his +gardener's wages by the sale of the surplus carrots, artichokes, +potatoes, parsley, onions, tomatoes, especially tomatoes--every one +nowadays ate tomatoes. He had it all down in figures, and was perfectly +astonished at the sums of money that could be made. Grapes had been +overdone, that was true; but a profit could be made out of everything +else. Flowers, especially gardenias, were sold in the London market at +two shillings apiece. Now, there was he within five miles of a large +town like Brighton; the rent of a shop in the Western Road would not +come to more than seventy or eighty pounds a year; the missus he would +put in as shopwoman, and, there was no doubt of it, she would make as +good a shopwoman as you could find, after a little practice; the child +could run on errands, so it should be all profit. “I shall have none of +the expenses that other people have to contend with. In the garden at +the Manor House about three times as much stuff is grown as required. I +shall buy all the fruit, vegetables, and flowers from my father at cost +price, or a little over, and shall sell in my shop at retail price, that +is, twenty or thirty per cent more. There is, therefore, no reason +why the shop should not bring in from three to four hundred a year. +And--would you believe it?--my father, who will be benefited by my +scheme, if not more, quite as much as I shall be, is opposed to it; he +will get a fair price for a lot of things for which he now gets nothing. +But no. He cannot, or will not, see it. I never saw any one like my +father. He will not help himself and you can do nothing to help him. The +distillery business is going very badly. He had a bad year last year. +I know for a fact that he did not make five per cent on his capital. +Putting these things together, I should have thought that he would have +been glad to make a little money to retrench; but no! he prefers to go +on in the old way. He made money in the old way, and he doesn't see +why he shouldn't make money again in the old way. Odd man my father is, +isn't he?” + +It appeared to Frank that Mr. Brookes had managed to help himself very +liberally indeed to all the good things in life; but with his false, +facile, Celtic nature, he had no difficulty in re-adjusting his ideas +and adopting a view of Mr. Brookes more in harmony with Willy's. He was, +as usual, enthusiastic about his friends, and was effervescing with love +and goodwill. He saw nothing of their faults--they were the best and +truest people he had ever known, and he could not love them too much. +Indeed he was angry, and regretted the limitations that nature has +set on the human heart, and would if he could have lost himself in one +immense and eternal love of the Brookeses. + +When he bade Willy good-bye at London Bridge, and wished him well with +his shop, these sentiments ceased to be active forces in him, and they +lay latent in his life of restaurants and bar rooms until the summer +returned, and he received an invitation from the Manor House to come +down for a garden party at Mrs. Berkins's. When he opened the letter he +basked in thoughts of them--of Maggie and her fascinating subtleties, of +Sally's blunt speech and sturdy good looks, of Willy, and all the quiet +talks they would have together. He counted the tunnels, and, striving +to recall the landscape, guessed extravagantly the number of miles that +separated him from them. He walked up the drive with a beating heart, +looking for the girls between the laurel bushes. He found them, and +their habits which endeared them to him, unchanged; and to slip back +into the old ways without experiencing the slightest difficulty or jar +was like waking from a dream and entering again on a pleasant reality. +There was the excellent dinner and the usual complaints about the +Southdown Road, the cigars in the billiard-room, conversation about +pictures and investments, gin and water, and then a long yarn with +Willy in his bedroom. Life moved at the Manor House without any spring +creaking, without jolt or jar, and it was this beautiful regularity that +made Frank feel so healthily and so unexpectedly happy. He loved the +desolation of Ireland. This was the stronger sense, but there was +another sense, a half stifled sense, that found an echo in these +southern downs interwoven with suburban life--in other words, a faint +resurrection of the original English mind in him. He enjoyed and he grew +akin to this Saxon prosperity; he learned to recognise it as manifested +in the various prospects of the weald and the wold, and he loved this +medley of contradictory aspects--the spires of the village churches, +the porches of the villas, the rich farmhouses and their elm trees, the +orchards jammed between masses of chalk, the shepherds seen against the +sky of the Downs. It is true that he felt that this country was alien +to him, but he was not individually conscious that his love of suburban +Sussex was a morbid affection, opposed to the normal and indissoluble +bonds of inherited aspirations and prejudices, and the forms and colours +that had filled his eyes in childhood. Consciousness in Frank Escott was +always slow, and always so governed and coloured by the sentiment of +the moment that his comprehension of things were always deformed or +incomplete. In his mind the phenomenon of life was ever in nebulae, and +though very often one thought would define itself, no group of +thoughts, or part of a group, ever became clear, so there was no abiding +principle, nothing that he might know and steer by. He was, of course, +aware that the Brookes were not equal to him in rank, but he did not +know, or, rather, he would not know, that they were vulgar; nor did he +think that Mount Rorke might marry again, if he were to marry Maggie or +Sally. All that was really alive and distinct in him was love of +them; and this love thrived in a sensation of class which he would not +acknowledge, even to himself, had any existence. The glass-houses, and +swards, and laurels had a meaning and fascination for him that he could +not account for or describe, and he found these feelings, which were +mainly class feelings of an unusual kind, not only in the aspect of the +country but in the accent and speech of his friends, in the expression +of their eyes and very hands. The English servants pleased him, and he +strove to detect qualities in the carriage and horses, and he compared +them to their advantage with Mount Rorke's. He loved to wrap the rug +about the young ladies' knees, and they seemed to him quite perfect and +delightful as they lay back in their carriage, driving beneath a sky +full of blue, and through the changing views of the Downs, all distinct +with light and shade. Sally and Maggie made much of him, covered him up, +and addressed to him pleasant speeches. His eyes and ears were open and +eager for new impressions, and his heart panted with readiness to admire +and praise all he saw. He was ready to think that he had never seen +anything so lovely as the laurels and the numerous glass-houses; and he +wondered why he had ever thought so little of Berkins, and he listened +with interest to that gentleman's explanation of the superiority of his +possessions over everybody else's possessions. He even allowed himself +to be persuaded that there was no pheasant shooting in the kingdom--for +its size--equal to that in the little wood. Sally, who did not attempt +to conceal her dislike of her brother-in-law, whispered: “That's the way +to bring them down,” and Frank was obliged to laugh. Then she and Maggie +disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them for several hours. The +Grenadier Guards played on the lawn, and Frank was introduced to ladies +of all ages and sizes; and as these bored him, he began to see that the +place was vulgar and the people shoddy, and he wondered what Mount Rorke +would say if he were to come suddenly across him. Grace was the subject +of much concern, and obviously _enceinte,_ she passed through the +different groups. She had introduced Frank as Lord Mount Rorke's son, +then as his nephew, then as his heir, and, fearing she might succumb to +the temptation of introducing him as Mount Rorke himself, Frank escaped +from her, and joined a party that Berkins was personally conducting +through the grounds. + +The stables had been built by So-and-so on the most approved principles. +There were no stables like them in Sussex--the fittings of the +harness-room alone had cost him three hundred. The horses he had bought +at the Duke's sale, the Duke would not have thought of parting with +them had he known how they would turn out. He had driven them along the +Brighton road at the rate of fifteen miles an hour; he would back them +to do fifteen miles in the hour. There was not a pair of horses in +England equal to them. That was Mrs. Berkins's riding horse--was it +possible to imagine a more perfect cob? He could get a hundred for him +any day, he did not know of anything like him. “Did any of you gentleman +ever see anything like him?” They went to the kennels. A brace of +Irish setters were declared to be the finest dogs that Ireland had +ever produced, they had taken two prizes, one in Dublin and another in +Brighton--and the little fox terrier was the gamest dog in Sussex. She +would go into any hole after a fox, and never leave him till she +brought him out. You couldn't find her equal. Then the glass-houses were +perfect. They contained all the latest improvements, and all these were +fully explained. “Berkins is excelling himself to-day,” thought Frank. + +Presently they came upon a basket of peaches. + +“These peaches were, of course, grown under glass, but I think I am +right in saying, Jackson, that they were produced without artificial +heat.” + +“Yes, sir, quite right, sir. It couldn't be done nowhere else, sir, +but all the sun in Sussex seems to come down here--a regular little sun +trap, I think that's what you called it the other day, sir, when you +were speaking to me about them there peaches.” + +“Yes, I did. If you move nearer the sea you get fogs and cold winds, +further inland you lose the sun, but just here the climate is equal +to the south of Europe! I ask you to look at these peaches, it seems +impossible--does it not?--to have peaches like these at the end of May, +and without any heat, merely glass.” + +“It seems to me quite impossible,” declared a little fat man with flaxen +hair. “I am devoted to peach-growing, and I confess I am quite at a +loss. Gardener, did you say that those peaches were grown entirely +without artificial heat?” + +The gardener pretended not to hear, and tried to slip away, but the +little man, who had been taken on his hobby, was not to be baulked, and +he pursued the wretched horticulturist. + +“You mean to say that these peaches ripened without any artificial heat, +any?” + +“You have no idea what a sun we get here, sir. I have never seen +anything like it. In my last situation, when I was living with Lord +----, we couldn't get our fruit forward, use whatever heat he might, +and Houghton is not more than fifty miles from here--the difference of +climate is positively wonderful.” + +Jackson had reckoned that Mr. Berkins would move on, and that the +inquisitive little man would find himself obliged to follow, but +chance was against him, for Berkins, with his guests around him, stood +listening to the discussion. + +“You mean to say that these peaches were grown without heat. I wouldn't +mind giving you five-and-twenty pounds for the recipe for doing it.” + +“You must take a small place down here, sir, and then you will be able +to do it.” + +This raised a laugh, but the little man was not to be beaten, and he +said: “I should like to see some of those peaches of yours on the trees. +You haven't plucked them all; let me see them.” + +“Yes, Jackson, show us the trees. Some will not believe without seeing; +let us see the peaches on the trees.” + +Jackson appeared to be a little disconcerted; he murmured excuses, and +strove to escape. Driven to bay he brought them into a glass-house where +there were hot water-pipes, and when his tormentor pointed triumphantly +to the pipes he attempted a faint explanation--he had meant to say that +heat had only been used within the last three weeks. + +“So you see, Berkins,” exclaimed little flaxen-haired fatty, “your south +of Europe is no better than my south of Europe, or anybody else's south +of Europe.” + +“Jackson, you have told me many deliberate falsehoods about these +peaches. I keep no one in my employment whose word cannot be depended +upon. You take your warning.” + +“Falsehoods! What do you want a man to do, if you will have everything +better than anybody else's?” + +Berkins turned suddenly on his heel, he drew himself up to his full +height, and stood speechless with indignation. Never, not even on the +most important Board meetings, did his friends wait to hear him speak +with more anxiety; but at that moment a crash of flower pots was heard, +and Sally and a young man were discovered hiding in the potting shed; +and to make matters worse, in the very next house they visited, they +suddenly came upon Maggie sitting with another young man in strangely +compromising circumstances. Explanations were attempted, and some stupid +remarks were made. Berkins was seriously annoyed, and he took the first +opportunity of taking Mr. Brookes's arm and leading him away to a quiet +path. Frank saw the men pass through the laurels, and ten minutes after +he saw them return. Evidently Berkins had read Mr. Brookes an exhaustive +lecture on the conduct of his daughters. + +“Now, Mr. Brookes, now Mr. Brookes, I must beg of you--calm yourself. +What would my guests think if they found you in tears? What would +they think I had been saying to reduce you to such a condition? It +is veryunfortunate that Sally and Maggie should act as they do, +particularly at my place; but really you must not give way.” + +“Since the death of their poor mother I am all alone. My position is +a very trying one.” Then, with a sudden burst of laughter, “However, I +suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence!” + + + + +X + + + +The girls walked to the station with Escott. A fleecy evening, with the +clouds growing pale towards the sea, the sun like fire in the elms, and +the woods showing upon a purple tinge. + +“How delightful!” exclaimed Frank. “How charming this is--this old +English green, the horse pond at one end, the various houses, the inn, +the grocery business, the linen drying in that yard, the smith, and the +wheelwright. I don't like that modern Queen Anne school-house, and I +wish I could remove the dead level of the embankment and see the sea. +The green is better from this side with the view of the Downs--those +lines waving against the sky, where the gorse grows and the sheep feed, +and inclining to the road all the fields pale green and deep green. But +what game are those men playing--what game do you call that?” + +“Bat and trap.” + +“I have passed the green twenty times before, and I never really saw it +till now. It is charming--so thoroughly English. I should like to live +here for a month--for two months. How nice it would be to breakfast in +the morning looking out on the green, to see the cocks and hens and all +the children and all this English life! How different from Pump Court! +I am sick of Pump Court--dirt and smoke, a horrid servant, stale eggs. +I suppose you can always get fresh eggs and new bread here? I would give +anything to spend a month on the green.” + +“Well, you can!” cried Sally. “I wish you would, and you could come and +play tennis with us every afternoon. Mrs. Heald has some rooms to let; +why it was only last week I heard that she hadn't let her rooms this +season, and was most anxious to do so.” + +“There's no use my coming here until I begin to write my novel. I am +painting now, and I must see if I can get my picture finished for one of +the autumn exhibitions.” + +“I knew you would find some excuse.” + +“No, I assure you, but I can't do anything without a studio, and I'm not +likely to find a studio on Southwick Green.” + +“I don't suppose Mrs. Heald has a room large enough for a studio,” said +Maggie; “but I don't see why you shouldn't find a place where you can +paint.” + +“Where? Not in that eighteenth-century house where the two old ladies +are standing! Supposing I were to go and ask them if they would let +me have their drawing-room to paint in! That is the only house on the +green, all the rest are cottages.” + +“I suppose you are not very particular where you paint,” said Maggie +reflectively. “You don't mind appearances, I suppose? I wonder if you +could manage to fit up a farm building.” + +“There is the famous barn where Charles the First hid himself, I don't +suppose the authorities would allow me to turn that into a studio.” + +“No, probably not; but I think you might find a house that would do.” + +“What nonsense, Maggie,” said Sally, who began to grow jealous of her +sister. + +“Why is it nonsense? I see no reason why Frank shouldn't come to some +arrangement with the smith, and turn his house into a studio.” + +“Which is the smith's house? I'll tell you in a moment if it could be +turned into a studio.” + +“That house standing quite by itself in the corner of the green.” + +“That tall narrow house with the bit of broken wall and the elder +bushes?” + +“Yes.” + +“I daresay I could rig up a very nice studio out of that place, indeed +it looks quite picturesque amid its elder bushes. There is the stile, +and there is the cornfield. But I couldn't live there.” + +“No, you would live at Mrs. Heald's, and you could walk over every +morning to the studio.” + +“Yes, I could do that. I prefer to live with my work. There is nothing +like walking from the breakfast table across the room to the easel.” + +“Of course you can find fault with everything; nothing is perfect.” + +“There goes the train!” cried Sally. “No use in running now, you've +missed it.” + +“How very provoking; the next isn't till half-past seven--just an hour +to wait.” + +“Well,” said Maggie, “if you have missed the train we may as well go at +once and ask Mrs. Heald if she has let her rooms.” + +They walked towards a block of cottages--at one end the “Cricketer's +Arms,” at the other the grocery business; and the cottage that joined +the grocery business was remarkable for a bit of green paling and wooden +balcony, now covered with Virginia creeper. Frank thought at once +of new-laid eggs, and the sunlight glancing through a great mass of +greenery, and he resolved if a sacrifice were necessary to live at +Southwick, he would put his picture aside and begin his novel. The +people in the house pleased him, and he ran on in his way thinking how +English and trustworthy they seemed, liking the green parrot that rubbed +its head affectionately against the grey ringlets of a very ladylike old +person; and Mrs. Heald, brisk as a bee, notwithstanding her lame leg, +who led the way up the ladder-like cottage staircase. + +“How nice and clean everything is; books and engravings along the +passages. How unlike Ireland!” + +But the sitting-room was full of horsehair sofas and chairs. These +displeased Frank, but some handsome china--an entire tea service in +Crown Derby--reconciled him to the room. In the bedroom they found +a huge four-poster of old time, with a lengthy bolster and imposing +pillows, and they were shown into another and a similar room. One looked +out on the green, the other on the fields that lay between the green and +the Manor House. + +“If that elm were cut down you could see my window,” said Sally. + +“Which room do you like the best?” said Maggie. + +“It is hard to say. The other room looks on the green, but here there +is a nice large wardrobe, and I don't see how I can get on without a +wardrobe.” + +“If you like the other room best, sir, I can turn out the chest of +drawers.” + +“Oh, that would be very nice if you can manage it, the room will do very +well. I can have a bath every morning?” + +“Yes, sir; there will be no difficulty about that.” + +Maggie had taken off her hat and was settling her hair before the glass. +Sally opened the wardrobe, revealing various petticoats and skirts, but +she thought of it as full of Frank's light overcoats, the scarves he +wore round his throat when he went out in evening clothes, the patent +leather shoes in the corner. Suddenly the conversation dropped, and +after a pause Frank said: “I think these rooms suit me very well, but I +can do nothing; it is impossible for me to say if I can take them until +I find out if there is any place in the immediate neighbourhood that I +could convert into a studio. Do you know of any such place?” + +“No, I do not, sir.” + +“Mr. Escott was thinking of seeing the smith about his house. I wonder +if Town would let it to Mr. Escott for a consideration,” said Maggie. + +“Of course, I should have to get leave to make what alterations I +pleased.” + +“I don't suppose the house belongs to Town, sir; I don't think he is +more than a weekly tenant.” + +“If that's the case, we must see the landlord. Do you know who is the +landlord?” + +“I can't say I do, sir.” + +“Well, Mrs. Heald, I will let you know in a day or two if I can take +your rooms--you can give me a day or two?” + +“Yes, sir, but I should like to know as soon as possible; several people +have been asking after my rooms.” + +“I'll let you know in a day or two.” + +“If Town is only a weekly tenant, you'll be able to get his house by +paying a little more for it,” said Maggie, as they walked down the green +towards the smith's forge. + +“That would be hardly fair; I should like to act squarely by the smith. +What is his name?” + +“Town.” + +Town was cutting out the hoof of a shaggy grey cart horse when his +visitors entered the cindery blackness. + +“Town, this gentleman would like to speak to you,” said Maggie, raising +her voice above the wheezy bellows. He threw the hoof out of his apron, +and, drawing his blackened arm across his forehead, he came forward. + +“Town, I am anxious to find a place on the green that I could convert +into a studio; I think your house would suit my purpose very well. Do +you think we could come to some arrangement? Of course I would give you +a reasonable compensation.” + +“Well, I really hardly know, sir; I dunno that I hardly understand. You +want my house to turn into a--” + +“A studio--a place where I can paint pictures.” + +“I don't see how I can do without my 'ouse.” + +“But I will compensate you--make it worth your while.” + +“You see it is so near my work. Was I to go and live at Ada Terrace, +I should, you see, be out of the way. If people want a job done they +always knows where to find me.” + +“Yes, but if I compensate you?” + +Seeing that Frank was exciting the smith with too wild hopes of wealth, +Sally thought fit to interpose. “Mr. Escott would require permission +to make any alterations in the building he thought proper--you couldn't +give him permission; he would in any case have to see your landlord. Who +is your landlord?” + +“I don't see how I can give up my 'ouse to be turned into a painting +place; it wouldn't suit me at all.” + +“If I make you sufficient compensation--” + +Again the smith was reduced to silence. He scratched his head, and Frank +watched the sparks fly, and heard the rhythmical sledge. “I wish he +wouldn't talk so much about compensation,” thought Sally. “I don't know +what the man won't be asking if Frank doesn't shut up.” + +“Do you think we shall be able to come to an understanding? I want to +know.” + +“Well, you see, sir, my wife is delicate, and I'm that afraid she +wouldn't like to give up her 'ome. But I'll speak to 'er if you like +to-night, sir.” + +“Mr. Escott will have to see your landlord; he will have to arrange with +him about the alterations.” + +“There will be no difficulty about the alterations.” + +“Very probably; but you are only a weekly tenant. It is a question +your landlord must decide. If he agrees to allow Mr. Escott to make the +alterations, Mr. Escott will no doubt compensate you for disturbance.” + +“It is all very well to talk about compensation. How do I know what your +compensation will be? How do I know you will make it worth my while? I +don't want no compensation. I want my 'ouse. Cheek I calls it, to come +down here wanting to muck me out of my house.” + +“Now, sir, we want no impertinence. I shall do exactly as I please in +the matter. Your landlord is the person I should have spoken to.” + +“Spoken to! Who are you, I should like to know, coming round here +interfering in my business?” + +All Frank's discussions ended in angry words, and he never came to terms +with any one without threatening blows. Town returned to the forge; +Frank and the young ladies made their way across the green. At the +corner of Southdown Road they found the General, the schoolmaster, and a +retired farmer ardently gossiping; Mrs. Horlock, prim in her black gown +and poke bonnet, waited with admirable patience, and Angel, the blind +pug, in horrible corpulence, waddled and sniffed the grass. The story +of Town's impertinence was told. The General was shocked--it was +surprising. What are we coming to? The retired farmer said that Town was +a hot-tempered man, but not a bad sort when you knew how to take him, +and all, except Mrs. Horlock, agreed that the landlord was the person +who should be consulted. + +“I really don't see why you should turn the poor man out of his house if +he doesn't want to go. How would you like some one to come and turn you +out of your house?” she said, turning to her husband. + +The General laughed. “My dear Lucy, whatever you say must be right. +So you are coming to live at Southwick. Very glad to hear it. You know +where to find us, the gate's always open; lunch at half-past one, dinner +at eight--old Indians, you know; come in when you like. Pretty place +I have here, everything I want--stables and horses, and (the General +looked to see if Lucy was out of hearing) plenty of dogs, you know--a +few too many; but my wife, you know--” The rest was lost in a burst of +good-natured laughter. + +They bade the Horlocks good-night and walked up the Southdown Road, +looking with its line of trees along the pavement like a little mock +boulevard. Frank was particularly severe in his remarks on the trim +privet hedges and the little bronze sphinxes standing before the portico +of yellow glass; he declared that a man must be born to put up such +things, and he clearly thought this sneer a very happy one, for he +repeated it, fearing that Sally had not understood. The grocer who had +placed a bas-relief of himself over his door was greatly wondered at, +and Sally told an amusing anecdote regarding the invitations he sent +out for the first dinner party. The conversation turned on the Measons. +Jack's ship had gone to China, and he was not expected back much before +Christmas. + +“That's very sad, Sally. How will you be able to live through so many +months?” + +“I don't care for him. I don't care if I never saw him again--it was +Fanny who was my friend. Some nice people have come to live in that +corner house--a young man, who is learning farming. Mr. Berkins insists +on father not allowing us to visit any one in the Southdown Road, and +Mr. Berkins can turn father round his finger, he is so much richer. I'm +not allowed to see Fanny at the Manor House. As for Jack, I daresay you +won't believe me, but I shouldn't care if I never saw him again.” + +Maggie shrugged her shoulders. The gesture exasperated Sally, and she +turned on her sister. + +“You needn't shrug your shoulders at me, miss; I never flirted with him; +you did, and then you set father against me.” + +“Well, for goodness' sake don't quarrel; what does it matter? The idea +of Berkins telling your father whom he should visit; and the idea of +your father permitting it merely because he makes two or three thousand +a year more! He surely doesn't object to your visiting Mrs. Horlock?” + +“No, he couldn't do that.” + +Still engaged in discussion, they entered the gates of the Manor House, +and Mr. Brookes was told that Frank would stay at Southwick a few days +longer, so that he might arrange about a studio. The news was not +at first wholly pleasing to the old gentleman, but he remembered the +anecdotes he should hear concerning his favourite painters, and was +consoled. The evening passed away in the security and calm of habit, +sweetened by the intimacy of familiar thoughts and customs. There was +the usual expensive dinner; Mr. Brookes lit a cigar, handed the box to +Frank, and said, puffing lustily, “That's a good picture, paid a lot of +money for it, too much money, mustn't do it again. You were a pupil of +Bouguereau; great painter; you have seen him paint; you would know his +touch amid a thousand, I suppose?” + +About ten o'clock steps in the passage, then the squeak-squeak of the +cork; then the goggle-guggle of the water, and the young ladies came in +with their grog. They kissed their father and brother, shook hands with +Frank, and went to bed. Further anecdotes concerning the painters were +told; further condemnations of the Southdown Road were pronounced; the +house was locked up; Mr. Brookes retired, and the young men continued +the conversation in their rooms. Willy told Frank all about his shop, +Frank told Willy all about his studio, and they went to sleep delighted +with each other and at peace with the world. + +Mr. Brookes had gone when the young men came down next morning. Willy +was down first, and when Frank finished breakfast he found him busy in +the garden making purchases for his shop. + +“How much am I to charge for these peaches, sir?” said the gardener. + +“I intend to pay the market price for everything. I don't know what +peaches are selling at in Covent Garden. I will look it up and let you +know. I am taking two dozen.” + +“Yes, sir, there are only very few more ripe.” + +“It is a pity I can't have them all,” Willy whispered to Frank. “There +is a tremendous profit to be made on peaches. Now, I want some new +potatoes. How many can you let me have?” + +“Really, sir, we are very short; you see it is so early in the year. We +have only a few, none too many for the house.” + +“I must have some, if it is only a sample. How much are potatoes selling +at now?” + +“Well, sir, I hardly know. Last year we bought some off Hooper at--” + +“These are the things I have to contend with. How am I to keep my books +right if I don't know exactly the price things are selling for? I may be +paying more for his potatoes than they are selling in Brighton for. My +father gets more out of the shop than any one, and he isn't satisfied.” + +The woes of this suburban Lear amused Frank. No sooner was the arch +enemy Meason on the high seas, and the Southdown Road had quieted down, +than another demon had risen up against him; his garden was ravished of +its fairest fruits and vegetables, his carriages were turned into market +carts, and all, as he said, for the sake of practising an elaborate +system of book-keeping. Maggie, who had finished her house-keeping, came +into the garden, and she went with Frank down the town in search of the +landlord of the tall house amid the elder bushes. For a small increase +in the rent, and a promise to undo all alterations before leaving, +putting the house back in the same arrangement of rooms as it at present +stood, the landlord agreed to allow Frank to do his will with the place. +For twenty pounds the smith was silenced, and Frank explained to the +local builder that the house was to be thrown into one room, and the +ceilings of the upper rooms were to be removed. He had thought of having +the rafters painted, but at the builder's suggestion he decided to have +them lined with fresh timber and stained. This would look very handsome. +A large window, some six feet by eight, would have to be put in the +north wall. Of course, all the doors, windows, etc., would have to be +taken away and replaced by new. He would have a book-case in stained +wood. An estimate was drawn up. It came to a good deal more than he had +intended to lay out, and Frank dreaded the expense. But he must live +somewhere, he was sick of Pump Court, and his friends and this little +south-coast village were now ardent in his mind; why not live here? True +that the country was in no way beautiful and offered no temptations to a +landscape painter, but he seldom painted landscapes, and if he wanted a +bit of woodland he would find it over the Downs. Then there was the sea, +and that was always interesting. Perhaps Mount Rorke would let him have +the money. The old fellow had never refused him an extra hundred when he +asked for it. Yes, he would risk it. So the order was given, and all +the delays and broken promises of a builder began to be experienced and +endured. Frank, who now lodged at Mrs. Heald's, hung around the workmen, +counting each brick, and commenting on every piece of woodwork. He at +once took to grumbling at their slowness, and he soon declared that all +hopes of his being able to finish his picture for the Academy were at +an end, and he paraded his misfortunes at the Manor House, at Mrs. +Horlock's, and, indeed, at all the houses he went to for tea or tennis +parties. The painters especially annoyed him, and he even went so far as +to threaten them with an action. + +Long before they had finished his pictures had arrived from London, and +several pieces of furniture from Brighton. The ideas of this young +man were now in full revolt against oriental draperies and things from +Japan. The furniture was, therefore, to consist of large cane sofas with +pillows covered with a yellow chintz pattern which pleased him much. +The selection of a carpet was a matter of great moment. He received with +scornful smiles his upholsterer's suggestions of Persian rugs. Turkey, +Smyrna, and Axminster were proposed and rejected, he even thought of +an Aubusson--no one knew anything about Aubusson at Southwick, and the +vivid blues and yellows and symmetrical design would have at least the +merit of disturbing if not of wrecking the artistic opinions of +his friends. He discovered one of these carpets in a back street in +Brighton, and with some cleaning and mending he felt sure it could be +made to look quite well. But no, if you have an Aubusson carpet you must +have Louis XIV. furniture in the room, and Louis XIV. in Southwick would +be too absurd. Clearly the Aubusson scheme must be abandoned--he would +have a rich grey carpet, soft and woolly, and there should be a round +table covered with a dark blue cloth, set off with a yellow margin, and +the chairs drawn about the table should be covered with dark blue and +painted yellow. A grand piano was indispensable in Frank's surroundings, +both for its appearance in the studio and the relaxation it afforded in +the various interludes. Several journeys to London were made before the +lamps to be used were determined on (a modern design was essential), and +the brass fittings to hang candles from the rafters required still more +delicate and cautious consideration; at last it was decided to have +none. + +All this while Willy was busy with his shop. He had taken a whole house, +and at first he had thought of letting a room, but for many reasons this +scheme had to be abandoned. He did not know who might take the room. +“Who knows--perhaps one of my own friends, a member of my club, for +instance?” Then it would give the missus a lot of bother and worry, and +she had all she could do in looking after the shop. To make a thing a +success you must think of nothing else. It was a pity, but it wasn't to +be thought of. Otherwise he seemed fairly well satisfied. There was +a back door leading on to a back lane, in turn leading on to a back +street, so with his latch-key he could pop in and out unobserved. All +his books and papers in the drawing-room, the ledger, the day-book, +the cash-book all ready, all to hand, so that after dinner, when he had +smoked his pipe, he could go to work. Frank alone was in the secret. +And how the young men enjoyed going to Brighton together. Frank worried +Willy, who ran up and down stairs collecting his brown paper parcels, +calling upon him to make haste. They set forth, Willy firm and +methodical, his shoulders set well back: Frank loose and swaggering, +over-dressed. How to get to the shop was a matter of anxious +consideration. Willy was fearful of detection, and all sorts of +stratagems were resorted to. Sometimes they would walk down to the Old +Steyne, and suddenly double and get back through a medley of obscure +streets, or else they would publicly walk up and down the King's +Road, and when they thought no one was looking, hurry up one of the +by-streets, and so gain their haven, the lane. Once they were in the +lane they slackened speed, all danger was then over, and they laughed +consumedly at their escapes, and delighted in telling each other how +So-and-so and his daughter had been successfully avoided. Willy always +had his latch-key ready; in a moment they were inside, and Frank would +rush upstairs and throw himself into the armchair, crying: “Here we +are!” One day they were at the window, when, to their amazement, the +Manor House carriage pulled up before the shop, and they had only just +time to dodge behind the curtain and escape Sally's eyes. Never before +had the carriage arrived later than five o'clock, and now it was nearly +six. What could be the meaning of this? Begging of Frank not to move, +Willy went out on the landing and listened to his sisters talking to his +wife. The girls--who were, of course, ignorant of their relationship to +the shop-woman--liked Mrs. Brookes very much, and were fond of a chat +with her; and, looking through the blinds, Frank saw the footman in +all the splendour of six feet and grey livery carrying a small pot of +flowers worth sixpence from the carriage to the shop. + +On ordinary days the shop was shut at eight, but when Willy and Frank +dined there it was closed an hour earlier. Frank enjoyed his evenings +there; he enjoyed it all--the homeliness and the quiet. He enjoyed +seeing Willy nurse the missus after dinner, and he found no difficulty +in pretending a certain interest in the book-keeping, and an admiration +for the lines of figures all carefully formed, and the beautifully ruled +lines. Cissy adored him. He took her on his knee, and she leaned her +hollow cheek against his handsome face. She would have probably rushed +to death to serve him. His height, his brightness, his rings, his +spotted neckties--all seemed so perfect, so beautiful, to her; and when +he brought his fiddle she would sit and look at him, her little hands +clasped with an intensity of love that was strange and pitiful. Swaying +from side to side, he ran on from tune to tune--waltzes, reminiscences +from operas, fragments of overtures, delightful snatches from Schubert; +and when he introduced Willy to one tune--a tune in which all his +_might-have-been_ was bound--the dry man seemed to grow drier: perhaps +it brought a glow of pleasure to his heart: but be this as it may, he +only sat and puffed more emphatically at his pipe. + + + + +XI + + + +For Frank this pleasant English village was now a happy _fete_ of summer +joys and occupations. Oh! the hill prospects and the shady gardens +around the coasts. And when he went inland he would return by choice +across the Downs, and in the patriarchal valleys where nothing is heard +but the bell-wether he would stand in the great, lonely darkness, +and see the lights of Brighton brighten the sky above the ridges, and +climbing up the ridges, he gazed on the vague sea, and the long string +of coast towns were like a golden necklace. + +His days went like dreams. The morning hours--bachelor hours--were full +of intimacy and joy. The joy of waking alone with a strange and secret +self that, like a shy bird, is all the day chased out of sight and +hearing, but is with you when you awake in sweet health in the morning; +that of waking alone with the sunlight in the curtains, that of being +alone with your body as well as your mind, and no presence to jar the +communion. There is a dear privacy in morning hours of single life. + +But although the desire to exchange these for the joys of wedlock was +germinating in Frank, although it was inherent in him to understand the +husband's happiness when he puts his arm round a dear wife's neck and +draws her to him with marital kisses and affectionate words, he was +certainly conscious that each hour seemed to bring its special pleasure. +His room was airy and pleasant, the window full of the colour of the +green and its aspects; the little water-course with its brick bridge, +the trees along the embankment, the rigging of the ships in the harbour, +the linen drying in the yard. Of these views Frank seemed never to grow +tired; he noted them as he brushed his brown curls over his forehead, +and when he sat at breakfast eating fresh eggs and marmalade. After +breakfast he lay on the sofa, and read society papers and smoked +cigarettes. He could not drag himself to the studio. “A man should live +at his studio, impossible to settle down to work, if he doesn't,” he +thought, and he watched Mrs. Horlock coming up the green accompanied by +the chemist's wife and the pugs. + +“Dear old lady, how nice she looks in her black dress and poke bonnet! +And there goes the General--he is giving all his coppers to the +children.” + +Frank took up a volume of Browning, turned over the leaves, and laid the +book down to watch a drove of horses that had suddenly been turned +out on the green to feed, and he laughed to see the children throwing +stones, making them gallop frantically. Very often the thunder of the +hoofs alarmed Triss, and he stood on his hind legs and barked. “What is +it, old dog? What is it? Like to have a go at the horses? Shall we go +out and play with the pugs?” At the mention of going out Triss cocked +his ears and barked. “I suppose I must make a move. I wonder what +the time is--half-past eleven. Good Heavens! The post will be here at +twelve. I had better wait for it.” On waking his first thoughts were for +his letters, and almost before he had finished reading them he had begun +to think of what the mid-day delivery would bring him. To see the boy +pass and so have ocular proof that there was nothing for him seemed to +lighten his disappointment. He saw him waste his time with the doctor's +horse and then with the maid-servant, and if the old ladies were not +about he would stand talking many minutes with their servants. Then he +visited the short line of cottages, passed sometimes round the yard or +open space at the back of the wheelwright's, where the linen hung on +poles between the elms, and once Frank saw the provoking boy hide behind +the cricketers' tent and remain watching the match. For half an hour the +question--letters or no letters--hung in suspense, and when the loiterer +came, stopping every minute to see where the ball was hit to, the +joy, heightened by anticipation, was great in receiving a packet of +newspapers and various correspondence. Frank often went to meet him. +True, he might have nothing for him, he might be going to deliver at the +grocer's shop, or at the “Cricketer's Arms.” + +“Any letters for me, to-day?” + +“Yes, sir, two postcards and a newspaper.” + +It was disappointing not to get a letter--postcards meant nothing. +He only exchanged a few words with Mrs. Horlock, and passed on to the +General, who, at the corner of the Southdown Road where the gossipers +met, was discussing a local candidature. + +“So you are off to paint. You must come and see the model my wife has +done of a horse I once had. I mustn't say much about him, though--it is +a sore subject. After winning over a thousand with him I lost it all, +and five hundred with it. She never would paint his picture for me; but +yesterday was my birthday--I suppose she thought she would give me a +treat, she began to model him from memory--wonderful likeness--she knows +every bone and sinew in a horse--clever woman, never seen any one like +her. Come in to-night, dinner always at eight--old Indians. She'll show +it to you.” + +“Thanks, not to-night, General; to-morrow night, if you like.” + +“Very well, to-morrow night at eight. What a terrible dog that is of +yours! You need fear nobody while you have him with you. You must ask +my wife to paint him for you, but I forgot, I beg your pardon--you are a +painter; you should paint him yourself.” + +“I don't paint animals. I shall be very glad if Mrs. Horlock will paint +him; there is some beautiful drawing about him--those fore-legs.” + +Probably attracted by the dog, Mrs. Horlock came walking towards them. +Triss went sidling after Rose, and when Mrs. Horlock called him, he +growled. + +“I beg of you, Mrs. Horlock, do not touch him; he isn't safe, I assure +you. He once bit a man's nose off who was trying to train him to do +something or other. I will not be answerable.” + +“All nonsense! No dog ever bit me, they know I love them. 'Come to me, +sir.' No dog ever bit me but once, and he was a poor mongrel that had +been hunted by a lot of horrid men. I was dressing to go to a ball at +the Government House, and I heard him under my bed. He had taken refuge +under my bed, poor thing. He was frightened to death; he couldn't see +me, and he bit me through the wrist. I went to the ball all the same. +A dog died of hydrophobia in my arms. He died like a child, licking my +hands and face. 'Come here, sir. Come to me.'” + +“I wish you wouldn't do it, Mrs. Horlock. I am afraid to call him, for +fear he should think I intended to set him at you.” + +Triss showed a terrible set of teeth, and his nose seemed to curl back +almost into his eyes; but stooping down Mrs. Horlock extended her hands +to him. She looked so like herself in the poke bonnet and the black +dress, and the kind, intelligent eyes softened the dog's humour, and he +came to her. + +“You see--what did I tell you? Dogs know so well those that love them. +No animal ever did bite me except that poor frightened creature, and +he didn't mean it. We kept him for ten years after that, and how he did +love me!” + +“Wonderful woman, my wife; she can do what she likes with animals. I was +telling Mr. Escott that he must come in and see the model you are making +of Snap-dragon.” + +“Only an amateur, I never had a lesson in my life. Mr. Escott would +think nothing of it, I am sure. But I wish he'd come in and dine with +us.” + +“He promised to come to-morrow, Lucy; but stay, isn't that the day we +are going to have the Bath people in to dine?” + +“Never mind--Mr. Escott won't mind, I'm sure. They are very nice, good +people, indeed. I'm sure you'll think so. They are all snobs about this +place. I never heard of such snobbery in my life. Mrs. So-and-so--over +there--once said to me, 'I believe you know all the people who live in +those little houses.' She said she wouldn't allow her children even to +walk across the green. Did you ever hear of such snobbery?” + +“Well, Mrs. Horlock, as I have always said, your position is made; +you have your friends who will like you and value you just the same no +matter whom you may walk about the green with. Every Viceroy that ever +went to India called on you; your position is made.” + +“There are a lot of snobs about here; but I mustn't keep Angel waiting, +he is never well unless he gets a little exercise. We shall see you then +at eight.” + +“The cleverest woman I ever knew. I don't say the cleverest that you +ever knew. But we have got too many animals; I often wish I could get +rid of the brutes,” and the General laughed as he stumped along. “Five +horses when two would be sufficient--five horses eating their heads +off; then the Circassian goats that the neighbours complain of, and the +parrots and the squirrels. There are a few too many, there's no doubt. +But once an animal comes into the place she will cherish it for ever. I +try to keep Prince out of the drawing-room as much as possible, she says +she can't smell him. If that little beast Angel would only die!” + +“Why don't you poison him?” + +“I would if I dared; but just think, if my wife heard of it she would go +out of her mind. I don't think she'd have me in the house.” The General +laughed. + +“We all have our troubles, General. Good-bye, I'm off to work.” + +“Lucky man to have something to do. If I had a little something--just a +little something to bring me out, I should be perfectly happy. Then at +eight. Good-bye.” + +“Half-past twelve! Half the day gone, I really must make an effort to +get to the studio earlier. It is, as I said, useless to hope to get +through work unless you wake up where your work is. A man doesn't get a +chance. I wonder if I could build a bedroom out at the back? I have let +Mount Rorke in for three hundred extra this year; he would turn rusty if +I spent any more. I must give him a rest; besides, I don't want to have +the workmen in again. I wish I could get ivy to grow over those walls, +they do look precious shabby.” + +He looked at the tall dilapidated walls showing above the dark green of +the elder bushes, and lingered, for it was a soft blue summer's day with +just a breeze stirring, and the corn waved yellow, and the dim expanses +of the Downs extended in faint lines and dim tints. + +When he entered his studio his colour scheme pleased him, and looking +at the rafters he thought that the stained wood was handsome and +appropriate. The grey carpet was soft under foot, and the lustre and +form of a grand piano suggested Chopin and Schubert. His studio seemed +to him a symbol of his own refinement, and being moved, perhaps, by +the silence and the quiet of the north light, he took his violin, and +turning from time to time to look on himself on the glass or his picture +on the easel, he played Stradella's “Chanson d'Eglise.” + +Then seeing, or rather thinking he saw, how he could improve his +landscape, he took up his palette, and in a desultory and uncertain +fashion he painted till five o'clock. “It is no use,” he thought, “I can +do nothing with it until I get a model, but the devil of it is, there +are no models in Brighton--at least, I don't know where to go and look +for one, and it is no use asking Sally or Maggie to sit. They'll sit for +five minutes, and then say they have some work to do at home, and must +be off. You must have a professional model, a girl you pay a shilling +an hour--I might sling the hammock from there to here--I wonder where I +could get a girl who would do. I can't have a girl off the street; she +must be more or less respectable--I wonder whom I can get. That girl in +the bar-room at the station would do.” Putting his palette away with +a lazy gesture, he thought for a few minutes of Lizzie Baker. What had +become of her? And why had she disappeared? + +It was nearly a year and a half ago now. What a jolly day up the river! +All the beauty of the flowing water, the crowning woods and whispering +rushes filled his mind, and yielding to the moment's emotion he took +some verses out of an escritoire and altered several lines. Another +abandoning the search for a suitable rhyme he turned to a portrait of +Maggie which he had begun a few days before. She stood in a pose that +was habitual to her--her hands linked behind her, the head leaned on one +side, the little black eyes--but not ugly eyes--fixed in a sweet subtle +and enquiring look. The thinness, and, indeed, the angularity of her +figure was almost powerfully indicated with broad lines of paint and +charcoal. It was Frank's most successful effort. He knew this, and he +said to himself, “Not half bad, very like her, quite the character; the +drawing is right, if I could only go on with it; if I could only model +the face. I see very well where I shall get into trouble--that shadow +about the neck, the jawbone, the cheekbone, and then all that rich +colour about the eyes.” Then he thought he would walk over to the Manor +House, and he must hasten, for it was half-past five, and tea was always +ready in the verandah. + +He stayed for dinner; he talked to Mr. Brookes about painters in the +billiard-room; he strayed through the shadows and the perfumes of leaves +and flowers through the gentle moonlight with his arms about the girls. +And as they walked it seemed to Frank that his life was so mingled with +theirs that he could not think of one sister apart from the other. The +dusk gathered; the sky became a decoration in blue and gold; the scent +of the sea came over the embankment, filling the garden. Day followed +day, without anything happening to stay or check the gentle tide of +their mutual affections; neither was jealous of her sister, for their +desires were set upon others. Frank was but an ideal, a repose, a pious +aspiration which joined their hands and hearts leaving them free of any +stress of passion, Maggie claiming him a little more than Sally, and +Sally yielding her claim to her without knowing that she was yielding +it. + +It is only natures that are never gross--calm and tepid livers--that are +really incapable of ideality, of real and adequate aspiration; nature +works by flux and reflux; and if we waive the rough temper and the +coarse edge of passion due to youth, it will not be impossible to +conceive another picture of these girls. Sally, good-hearted and true, +full of sturdy, homely sense, willing to take care of a man's money, and +make him a straightforward wife; Maggie, gentle and sinuating--always +a little false, but always attractive, the enchantment of a man's home. +Frank, notwithstanding his genuine admiration of all that was young and +sweet and pure, was of poor and separating fibre, and it is clear that +it will take all the strength of society to support him and save him +from sinking of his own weight. + +One day, as he was coming through the station from the post-office, he +met Maggie with a young man. He was introduced, and they returned to the +Manor House to play tennis. Instead of playing they talked, and the set +fell through, and after tea they disappeared, and Sally proposed not to +disturb them, for they had gone, she said, to sit in the shade at the +end of the garden. The marked mystery of the new flirtation piqued +Frank's curiosity, and, striving to veil his question, he asked Sally +who the young man was, and if her father knew he was coming to the Manor +House. + +“He! Don't you know? That's the fellow we often speak of--the only +fellow Maggie ever really cared for. He has just come back from America. +He is going to begin business in London.” + +A sickening pain rose from his heart to his eyes, and he longed to place +his hand on his heart. + +“So that is the man she is engaged to,” he said, after a pause. “I +remember, now, you have spoken to me of him.” + +“She is not exactly engaged to him. Father would never hear of it; he +hasn't a cent, and I believe he lost the little he had in America--now +mind you must take care not to let out to father that he has been here; +there would be the deuce of a row, and I promised Maggie not to tell any +one; she has been nice to me lately, and I want to play fair with her if +she will play fair with me.” + +“Oh, I won't tell any one; I won't even let Maggie know that I know it +was he.” + +“It doesn't matter about Maggie, she will tell you herself, no doubt; +she doesn't mind your knowing. What do you think of him? Isn't he +nice-looking?” + +“I confess I should never have thought of calling him handsome--would +you? And do you think he is quite a gentleman?” + +“He seems to me to be all right.” + +“All right, yes, but isn't there a something? You can see he is in +trade--all the trading people look alike, at least so I think.” + +“But we are in trade, and I think he is quite as good as we are. But you +seem quite put out. Would you like to take his place? I didn't know you +were in love with Maggie.” + +“I don't know that I am in love with her. I like her very much; but, +love or no love, I don't think it is right for her to walk round the +garden alone with that fellow the whole afternoon. I don't think it is +very polite to me, and she knows her father does not like--” + +“But you mustn't say anything to father; mind you have promised me.” + +“Oh, I shan't say anything about it.” + +Frank longed to get up from the tea-table and rush after Maggie. His +heart ached to see her. He trembled lest she loved the man she was +with, and rejoiced and took courage from the knowledge that she had not +formally pledged herself to him. Frank was the romantic husband, not +the lover; he found neither charm nor excitement in change; his heart +demanded one single, avowed, and binding faith. He could take a woman +who had sinned to his heart, and admit her to all his trust, for stolen +kisses and illicit love were unfelt and imperfectly understood by him, +and were considered as shadows and thin fancies, and not as facts full +of mental consequences. He answered Sally in monosyllables, and on +the first opportunity he pleaded letters to write, and withdrew. The +gladness he felt that Maggie was truly not engaged to this fellow +quickened and dominated his regret that the girls were inclined to +behave so indiscreetly. The moment Mr. Brookes turned his back it +began--that perpetual going and coming of men--it really wasn't right. +Sally was a coarser nature, but Maggie! He might speak to Mr. Brookes; +no, that wouldn't do. He might speak to Willy; but Willy didn't care--he +was absorbed in his wife and his speculations. + +His little dinner at Mrs. Heald's passed in irritation and discomfort, +and after dinner he stood at the window, his brain full of Maggie--her +graces, her fascinating cunning, and all her picturesqueness. He knew +nothing yet of his passion, nor did he think he could not bear to lose +her until he went from the stuffy cottage towards his studio thinking +of his portrait of her. He wanted to muse on the little eyes as he had +rendered them. He saw the faults in the drawing hardly at all, and his +pain softened and almost ceased when he took up the violin, but when he +put it down the flow of subjective emotion ceased, and he stared on the +concrete and realistic image of his thought--Maggie passing through the +shade with the young stranger. + +Who was he? By whose authority was he there? Was he one of those men +whose only pleasure is to tempt girls, to corrupt them? Had he thought +of this before his duty would have been to interpose; and he saw himself +striding down the garden and telling Maggie that he insisted on her +coming back to the verandah to her sister. It did not matter if he had +no right, he was prepared to answer for his conduct to her father and +brother. Did that man look like one of those men who are always sitting +with girls in far corners out of sight? Ah, if he were sure that he +was one of those dastardly ruffians he would seek him out, force him to +speak his intentions. If a girl's father and brother will not look after +her, a friend must say “I will.” Yes, he would have to thrash him, kill +him, if it were necessary. She might hate him for it at first, but in +the end she would recognise him as her saviour. + +It was too late now, the man was in Brighton. To-morrow? Elated with +what he deemed “duty,” with what he deemed “for the sake of the girl,” + he strode about, thinking of “the ruffian”; no thought came to him of +how much of the sin, if sin there was, had originated in Maggie; he saw +her merely as a poor little thing, led like a lamb. Following the idea +of saving came the idea of possession. When she clung to the husband she +would tremble at the danger she had escaped. Their home, their +table, their fireside; protection from evil, now all wild winds +might rage--they would be safe. The vision was constitutional and +characteristic of his soul. He was out of thought of all but himself, +his dream evolved in pure idea, removed from and independent of all +limitations--out of concern of the world's favour--Mount Rorke, Mr. +Brookes, or even the girl's grace. As this temper passed, as reality +again interposed, and as he saw the garden with Maggie leaving him for +another, he viewed her conduct suddenly in relation to himself. What +did she mean by treating him so, and for whom? One day he would be Lord +Mount Rorke! The Brookes knew nobody. He had only met a lot of cads at +their house; they did not know any one but cads. The Brookes were cads! +The father was a vulgar old City man, who talked about money and bought +ridiculous pictures. The girls, too, were vulgar and coarse. God only +knew how many lovers they had not had. Willy was the best of the bunch, +but he was a fool. His miserliness and his vegetable shop--hateful! The +whole place was hateful; he wished he had never come there; since he had +been there he had never been treated even as a gentleman. The Brookes +had treated him shamefully. + +The skeleton of Frank's soul is easy to trace in this mental crisis--his +quixotism, his wish to sally forth and save women, his yearning for +a pretty little wife, who would sit on his knee and kiss him, saying, +“Poor old boy, you are tired now;” therefore an emotional and distorted +apprehension of things, a tendency to think himself a wronged and +persecuted person, and under much bravado and swagger the cringe that is +so inveterate in the Celt. + +Next morning he thought of her lightly, without bitterness and almost +without desire; but after breakfast his heart began to ache again. He +strove to read, he went to his studio, he went to Brighton; but he saw +Maggie in all things. She was with him--a sort of vague pain that kept +him strangely conscious of life. + +Once convinced he was a lover he became the man with a mission; his +heart swelled with mysterious promptings, and felt the spur of duty. No +longer was delay admissible. A day, an hour might involve the loss +of all. Should he go round to the Manor House and tell Maggie of the +message he had received to love her and save her? She would now be +watering her flowers in the green-houses. But that other fellow might +be there--he had heard something about an appointment. No, he had better +write. If he wrote at once, absolutely at once, he would be in time for +the six o'clock delivery. Snatching a sheet of paper he wrote:-- + +“DEAREST MAGGIE,--I have loved you a long while, I remember many things +that make me think that I have always loved you; but to-day I have +learnt that you are the one great and absorbing influence--that without +you my life would be stupid and meaningless, whereas with you it shall +be a joy, an achievement. + +“I have frittered away much time; my efforts in painting and poetry +have been lacking in strength and persistency. I have vacillated and +wandered, and I did not know why; but now I know why--because you were +not by me to encourage me, to help me by your presence and beauty. I +will not speak of the position I offer you--I know it is unworthy of +you. I would like to give you a throne; but, alas, I can but promise you +a coronet.” + +His hand stopped and he raised his eyes from the paper. He recollected +the day he saw her a child, the day they went blackberrying over the +hills. He saw her again, she was older and prettier, and she wore a +tailor-cut cloth dress. How pretty she looked that day, and also +when she wore that summer dress, those blue ribbons. All the colour, +innocence, and mirth of his childhood came upon him sweetly, like an +odour that passes and recalls. He sighed, and he murmured, “She is mine +by right, all this could not have been if she were not for me.” Ah! how +he longed to sit with her, even at her feet, and tell her how his life +would be but worship of her. He regretted that he was not poor, for to +unite himself more closely to her he would have liked to win her clothes +and food by his labour; and hearing himself speaking of love and seeing +her as a maiden with the May time about her, his dreams drifted until +the ticking of the clock forced him to remember that he could tell her +nothing now of all his romance, so with pain and despair at heart he +wrote, + +“Never before did I so ardently feel the necessity of seeing you, of +sharing my soul with you, and yet now is the moment when I say, I must +end. But let this end be the beginning of our life of love, devotion, +and trust. I will come to-night to see you; I will not go into the +billiard-room, but will walk straight to the drawing-room. Do be there. +Dearest Maggie, I am yours and yours only.” + +He seized his hat and rushed to the post. He was in time, and now +that the step had been taken, he walked back looking more than usually +handsome and tall, pleased to see the children run out of school and +roll on the grass, pleased to linger with the General. + +“Where are you going, sir?” said the old man. + +“I'm going to my studio to play the fiddle. Will you come? I'll give you +a glass of sherry, and--” + +“Never touch anything, except at meals. I used to when I was as young as +you, but not now. But I will go and hear a little music.” + +Glad to have a companion, Frank took out the violin, and he played all +the melodies he knew; and his mind ran chiefly on Schubert and Gounod. +The “Soir,” the “Printemps,” and “La Chanson du Printemps” carried his +soul away, nor could he forbear to sing when he came to the phrase, “La +Neige des Pommiers.” When musical emotion ran dry he tried painting, but +with poor result. During dinner he grew fevered and eager to see Maggie, +and mad to tell her that he loved her, and could love none but her. At +half-past eight the torture of suspense was more than he could endure, +and he decided that he would go to the Manor House. He passed round the +block of cottages, and got into the path that between the palings led +through the meadows. It was a soft summer evening--moonlight and sunset +played in gentle antagonism, and in a garden hat he saw Maggie coming +towards him. He noticed the pink shawl about her shoulders, and the +thought struck him, “had she come to ask him to elope.” She stopped, and +she hesitated as if she were going to turn back again. + +“Oh, I am so sorry,” she said, speaking with difficulty, “but I wanted +you to get this before nine.” + +“Never mind, darling,” he answered, smiling; “you can tell me all about +it--it will be sweeter to hear you talk. Which way shall we go?” + +“I really don't think I can now; father doesn't know I am out. This +letter will--” + +“No, no; I cannot bear to part with you. How pretty you look in that +hat! Come.” + +“No, Frank, I cannot now, and you had better leave me. I cannot walk +with you to-night. Read this letter.” + +“Then am I--is it really so?” said Frank, growing suddenly pale. “You +will not have me?” + +“You must read this letter, it will tell you all. I am truly sorry, but +I did not know you cared for me--at least not like that. I don't think +I could, I really don't. But I don't know what I am saying. How +unfortunate it was meeting you. I but thought to run round and leave the +letter, it would have explained all better than I could. We have known +you so long. You will forgive me?” + +She stood with the letter in her hand. He snatched it a little +theatrically and tore it open. She watched, striving to read the +effect of her words in his face. They dealt in regrets. There was +an exasperating allusion to engaged affections. There was a long and +neatly-worded conclusion suggesting friendship. She had taken a great +deal of trouble with the composition, and was very fearful as to the +result. She felt she could not marry him--at least, not just at present, +she didn't know why. Altogether Frank's proposal had puzzled and +distressed her. She felt she must see her flirtation out with Charlie, +but at the same time she did not want to utterly lose Frank, or worse +still, perhaps, to hand him over to Sally. She was determined that Sally +should not be Lady Mount Rorke, and she thrilled a little when she saw +he would not give her up easily, and her heart sank when she thought +of the difficulty of continuing her intrigue without prejudicing her +future. If Frank would only leave Southwick for a little while. + +“Is this all? The meaning is clear enough; it means that you love the +man I saw yesterday at the Manor House. But he shall not have you; I +will save you from him. Listen to me--I swear he shall not have you; +I will strive to outwit him by every means in my power. If I don't get +you, none shall. I will shoot the man rather than he should get you.” + +“O Frank, you wouldn't commit murder!” + +“I would, for you; but it will not be necessary. I can challenge him to +fight a duel, and if he is cowardly enough to refuse, I will horsewhip +him before your face, and I don't suppose you will marry him after +that.” + +Maggie struggled with feelings of laughter, fear, and delight; delight +overpowered laughter, for Frank was young and handsome, and full of what +he said. It was quite romantic to be talked to like that. She would like +to see the men threaten each other. But then--the scandal--father might +never get over it. And if he married again? Speaking slowly, and in an +undertone so as not to betray herself, she said: “O Frank, I'm sure you +would not do anything that would injure me.” + +“My darling, I love you better than the whole world. My whole life, if +you will, shall be spent in striving to make you happy.” + +“You are very good.” She took his hand and squeezed it; he returned the +pressure with rapturous look and motion. She drew from him a little, for +there were some people coming towards them, and she said: “Take care.” + When the fisher folk had passed, she looked at him stealthily. She had +always liked him in that necktie, and those cloth shoes were perfect. +Had she never known Charlie, or if she had not gone so far with +him!--There was something in Frank that was very nice--she could like +the two. What a pity the two were not one! “If he were always as nice +as he is now, and not lecture me!” Then she remembered she must return +home. “I must really go home; I can't go any farther--” + +“No, no, I cannot leave you. I must see and hear you now. If you knew +what I have endured waiting for you, you would not be so cruel. Come and +let us sit on the beach.” + +“I couldn't. I must go back; father will miss me. Besides, what have +we to say? If I were only free and could tell you that I loved you, it +would be different.” + +“Free! then you regret; if a woman wills it she can always free +herself.” + +“No, it is harder than you think for a girl to get out of an engagement +she has entered into, even if no absolute promise has been given.” + +“What do you mean? If you have entered into no formal engagement you are +surely free.” + +“I don't know. Do you think so? I am afraid men think that a promise may +be broken after marriage as well as before.” + +“You are wrong. Women who are jealous, who are old, tell girls that men +are always unfaithful, but I'm sure that if I loved a girl I could never +think of another. Do you really think I could think of any girl but +you?” + +“I don't know. I wonder if all you say is true.” + +“Do you think me different from other men?” + +“Yes, but I cannot go on the beach; some other evening I will walk there +with you.” + +“No, now, now--I want to tell you how and when I began to love. Do you +remember when I used to spend part of my holidays at the Manor House +when I was only so high, and you were all in short frocks? Come, there +is much I want to say to you; I cannot part with you. Come, and let us +sit on the shingle. Oh, the beautiful evening!” + +She could love him a little when she looked at him, but when he talked +she lost interest in him. She had allowed him to take her hand, he had +bent towards her, and she had let him kiss her; and then they talked of +love--she of its bitterness and disappointments; he of its aspirations, +and gradually their souls approached like shadows in the twilight, +paused for a few vague moments, seemed as if lost in dreams. + +“I shall never forget this night! O my love, tell me one day you will be +mine!” + +“I cannot promise, you must not ask me.” + +“We are meant for each other. It was not blind fate that cast us +together. Does no voice tell you this? I hear it in my heart.” + +The abandonment, the mystery of the gathering dusk, touched Maggie's +fancy. They were alone in the twilight, and it was full of the romance +of a rising tide. + +“Never did I know such happiness; I am supremely happy, alone with you +beneath this sky, listening to the vague, wild voice of the sea. It +would be bitter sweet to die in such a triumphant hour. Supposing wewere +to lie here and allow the sea to take us away.” + +“No, I don't want to die. I want to live and enjoy my life.” + +The answer fell a little chillingly on Frank's rapture. Then after +a pause, Maggie said: “I think I have read of that somewhere--in +anovel--lovers caught by the tide.” + +“Yes, I daresay you have. I was thinking of two lovers who were so +overcome with happiness that they decided that they would not trust +themselves again to the waves and storms of life, but would let the +calm, slow tide of death take them away with all their happiness +unassoiled.” + +Maggie did not answer. The double fear had come upon her--first, +that the tide might rise higher than usual and cut off their retreat. +Secondly, that Frank--he was a poet--might insist on remaining there and +being drowned. Getting up, she said: “I do not know what father will say +when I get home, really it is quite dark. Come, Frank.” + +“Death is better than a life of abomination--loss of innocence, and of +delight in simple things. I ask you,” he said, stopping her suddenly. + +“Yes, no doubt it is so; but I want to get home. Do go on, Frank.” + +“I will save you from a life of abomination--in other words I will save +you from him; he shall not get you. I have sworn it; you did notknow +that when you were lying down on the beach--you had ceased speaking, and +in the silence my life seemed stirred to its very essence; and I knew +that I must struggle against him, and conquer. I want to know this: +Have you ever thought of what your life would be with him? Have you ever +thought what he is?” + +“But you don't know him, Frank. You have never spoken to him. I am sure +you misjudge him.” + +“Do you think I cannot see what he is? He is one of those men whose one +ambition is to make themselves friendly in a house where there are women +to wheedle. If the wife is young he will strive to wheedle her, +and though he may not succeed he must degrade her. Or, if she have +daughters, he will never cease to appeal to, to work upon, to excite +latent feelings which, had it not been for him, would never have been +developed into base and abnormal desire. I know what the foul-minded +beast is. Such men as he ought to be killed; we don't want them in our +society. I want to save you, I want to give you a noble, a pure life, +full of the charms of a husband's influence, a home where there would be +love of natural things. You are capable of all this, Maggie, your nature +is a pure one, but your life is unwholesome and devoid of purity.” + +“Frank, how can you speak so? You have no right to say such things about +us. I am sure you have always been well treated--” + +“You do not understand me, I will explain what I mean. Your life is rich +and luxurious, but you are not happy, no one is happy in idleness; above +all no woman is happy without love. A woman's mission in life is to +love, she must have her home, her husband, and her children. These are +the things that make a woman happy; and these are the things I want to +give you--that I will give you; for, listen to me, I swear you shall not +have that adventurer. He would degrade you with pleasure at first, and +afterwards with neglect. You are too good for this, Maggie--it must +not be, it shall not be. As I said before, death would be better.” They +stood in front of the canal locks and Maggie looked with a beating heart +on the deep water that a ray from a crescent moon faintly indicated. +“A woman is helpless until she finds her lord, he who shall save, the +saviour who shall bring her home safe to the fold. He exists! and all +are in danger till they find him. Some miss him--they wander into misery +and ruin; those that find him are led to happiness and content. I +am yours. I would tell you how I became convinced that I am the one +appointed by God to lead you to Him.” + +“I thought you didn't believe in God.” + +“Not as we have been taught to understand Him but I believe in a +presiding power--call it luck, fate, or destiny that--that exists and +wills; that is to say, watches over--rules out that this man is for that +woman, and ordains that he shall protect her from danger, shall save her +from those that seek her destruction. Much has happened to prove that I +was intended for you. We have known each other since we were children. +Do you not remember when I kissed you in the verandah as I was going to +school? I was the first man who kissed you; you were the first woman who +kissed me--have you never felt that we were for each other? Nor can I +forget that when I thought we had drifted for ever apart, that I was +brought back. Do you think it was accident--blind chance? I don't. Now +I see this man striving to win you, and whether it be for your money, +whether it be for yourself, or for both, it is my duty to say: No, this +must not be.” + +“I think you are mistaken about Charlie. I admit that a man is often +a better judge than a girl; and as for you, Frank, I am sure I am very +fond of you. It is very good of you to take such interest in me--but we +must get home. I don't know what father will think.” + +“No, before you go a step further you must promise me not to see that +man again. I cannot tell you how, but I know no good can come of it. He +is one of those creatures who cannot love, and only care for women for +the excitement they afford. I know what sort of brute he is. It is more +depraving to walk alone with him, than to be the mistress of a man who +loved you.” + +“He is leaving Brighton in a few days.” + +“So much the better for all of us. But you must promise me. I would +sooner see you lying drowned in that lock than his wife.” + +Maggie trembled. It was ridiculous to think of such a thing. Surely he +did not mean to drown her if she refused to promise. Charlie was going +to London in a few days; he would be away for three or four months. +Heaven only knows what would happen in that time. She didn't see what +right Frank had to bully her--to extort promises from her by night on +the edge of a dangerous lock. But a promise wasn't much, and a promise +given in such circumstances was not a promise at all. + +“If you are really in earnest--if you think it is for my good, I'll +promise you not to see him again.” + +“O Maggie, if you only knew what a load of trouble you have taken off +my mind! Thank you--give me your hand, and let me thank you. I know I am +right. And now, tell me, can you love me? Will you marry me?” + +“I will promise nothing more to-night; we shall see how you behave +yourself,” the girl replied winningly. “And now go on, sir, we have been +here quite long enough.” + +He crossed the gate mechanically, she followed eagerly, and when she +reached the other side her heart beat with pride at her pretty triumph. +Now I'll twit him, she thought, as they ascended the shore and entered +the town. + +“I wonder why you think Charlie so wicked; I think if you knew him you +would change your opinion.” + +“I am very thankful indeed that I do not know him.” + +The conversation dropped, but a moment after he gave her the chance she +wanted. + +“Mind you have promised me not to see him again. I trust you.” + +“But suppose he calls and if I should be in the drawing-room, I cannot +walk out of the room without speaking to him.” + +“I think you had better write and say you do not wish to see him.” + +“I couldn't do that; we have known him a long time, and father has +always said that we must be rude to no one. Besides, what reason could I +give?” + +“You need not give a reason. But let that pass. I can't see why you +should meet; you can surely tell your servant to say 'Not at home,' when +he calls.” + +“I might be in the garden--Sally would not allow it. If John said 'Not +at home,' she would run down and let him in.” + +“I see you are raising difficulties--I see you do not intend to keep +your promise.” + +“You have been quite rude enough for one evening. You have kept me out +on the beach by force till nearly ten o'clock at night, and you said +that my life at the Manor House was not a pure one--I don't know what +you mean. No man ever spoke to me like that before.” + +“You misunderstood me. If you knew how I loved you, you would not twit +me with my own words. Heaven knows I would sooner go back and drown +myself in the lock than do anything or say anything that would offend +you. Remember also that I asked you to be my wife.” + +“You are not the first. I daresay it may appear strange to you, but +others have asked me the same question before.” + +“It does not seem strange to me, it only seems strange to me that every +one doesn't love you, but I daresay they do. O Maggie, remember that you +gave me hope, you said that you might--” + +“Did I? Well, it's too late to talk any more. Goodnight. I suppose +you're not coming in?” + +She left him in a cruel dispersal of hope. He avoided, and then he +tenderly solicited a regret that he had not thrown her into the lock. To +end on that hour by the sea would have been better than the trivial and +wretched conclusion of a broken promise, and everything, even murder, +were better than that a brute should have her woman's innocence to sully +and destroy. His love of the woman disappeared in his desire to save, +the idea which she represented at that moment; and lost in sentiment +he stood watching the white sickle of the moon over against the dim +village. The leaves of some pollarded willows whitened when the breeze +shot them up to the light, and a moment after became quite distinct in +the glare and the steam of an approaching engine. He might go and tell +Willy all about it; he would ask him to interfere-could he catch that +train? If he ran for it, yes. He ran full tilt across the green under +the archway up the high stone steps. He just did it. + +It was the last train; he would sleep in Brighton. His plan, so far as +he had a definite plan, was to ask Willy to come with him and tell “that +brute” that his visits to the Manor House must end, and request him to +pay his sister no further attentions. His other plans were--Willy must +speak to Maggie and tell her all he knew of the man; Willy must speak to +his father; Mr. Brookes must not be kept in ignorance. But of course +the right thing to do would be for Willy and him to call at the brute's +hotel, tell him what they thought, and give him a licking. The train +jogged on, and Frank made plan after plan. It was now past eleven, and +he would not be at East Street before twelve o'clock. As he hurried +along the streets he doubted more than ever how Willy would receive him. +He might just as well have waited till morning. However, it was too late +now to think of going back, there was no train, and he rapped at first +timidly and then noisily at the shop door. He had to wait some time, and +then he heard a voice asking from the top windows who was there. + +“'Tis I, Frank; awfully sorry, but must see you--particular business.” + +There was no answer; he heard the voice grumbling, and more than ever +doubtful of the cordiality of his reception, he listened. The door +opened. + +“Who is it?” he said. + +“'Tis I, Cissy; but I'm in my nightdress.” + +“I won't look at you, Cissy, if that's what you mean. But won't yougive +me a kiss?” + +“Stoop down, then.” + +“I am sorry for waking you up, Cissy.” + +“Never mind, I'd get up at any hour to see you.” + +“There, run upstairs, and take care you don't catch cold, or I shall +never hear the end of it.” + +“Father is in bed with mother. He says you are to go up, for if he were +to get out of bed it might give him cold. You know his room?” + +“Yes, here it is, now run along.” + +“Come in.” + +Frank was a little shocked, and he waited stupidly on the threshold. He +could see a fragment of Mrs. Brookes's profile, and beneath the clothes +the outline of Willy's bony body. + +“Come in, come in,” he said, “don't stand there filling the room with +cold air. Now, what is it? Why the deuce do you come here waking us up +at this ungodly hour? What has happened?” + +“I have proposed to your sister Maggie.” + +“I am sure I am delighted to hear it, old chap; but I can't help +thinking that I could have congratulated you equally as well, if not +better, in the morning.” Then, noticing the distressed look in Frank's +face, he said: “I hope she has not refused you.” + +“No; she asked me to wait, she said it would depend--” + +“Then you may depend it is all right; now go away and let me go to +sleep, we'll talk about it in the morning. You can't get back to-night. +You are sleeping in Brighton, I suppose? You'll come and breakfast +here?” + +“Yes, with pleasure, but it wasn't exactly to tell that I had proposed +to Maggie that I came here to-night; there is something more than that. +You know that fellow she calls Charlie? I don't know his other name.” + +“Stracey?” + +“I dare say. I mean the man you said you hated more than any man alive; +I hate him, too.” + +“You don't mean to say she is still thinking of that fellow. Has he come +back?” + +“He was at the Manor House all day yesterday.” + +“If she marries that fellow I'll never speak to her again, it will be +dead cuts.” + +“It is only natural that I should love Maggie. You remember the first +day I came down to the Manor House? How young I was then--how young we +all were; there are no days like the old days! There is a beautiful poem +by Wordsworth; I only remember one line now-- + + “'When every day was long + As twenty days are now'-- + +Do you remember the poem?” Willy did not answer, and noticing that his +eyes were blinking, Frank hastily returned to more recent events.” I +wrote to her this afternoon telling her how much I loved her, and I said +that I would call about nine in the evening at the Manor House, and +that I hoped to find her in the drawing-room where we could talk without +being disturbed. However, I was too excited, and could not hold out till +nine; I thought I had better hear my fate at once, and as I was walking +across the field--you know, at the back of Mrs. Heald's--I met her half +way. She had a letter in her hand, which she said she was going to leave +at Mrs. Heald's for me--She admitted that the letter was in point of +fact a refusal, and when I questioned her she admitted that she was +obliged to refuse me because she had half promised Charlie. We went for +a walk on the beach; we sat on the beach and watched the sunset, and +I told her all. I spoke to her about the past, how we had grown up +together--how we had been, as it were, from the first fated for each +other; for you must admit, Willy, that it is very curious--I don't know +if you ever think of it, but I do--how we have met again even when the +chances of life seemed to have put us for ever apart. “Here a slight +sound warned Frank that the present moment was one as equally unfitted +for psychological analysis as for poetry, and he hurried to his story, +hoping that the incident of the lock would secure him attention. “Willy, +I think I convinced her that I liked her better than that other fellow. +We were standing by the lock--Willy, I really do think you might +listen.” + +“My dear fellow, I am listening. You were both looking at the sunset.” + +“It really is too bad. Of course, if you don't want to hear, and would +prefer to go to sleep, you have only to say so.” + +“My dear fellow, I assure you I wasn't asleep. I only closed my +eyes because I can't bear the glare of that candle. I know where you +were--you were looking at the sunset.” + +“No, we weren't.” + +“Weren't they, Jessie? Are you asleep?” + +“No, I am not asleep. Do hold your tongue, Willy, I want to hear the +story. You were standing by the lock, Mr. Escott.” + +“Ah, yes, so they were.” + +“I felt it was my duty, so I told her that I felt it was my mission to +save--to save her from that man, and I made her promise me not to see +him again.” + +“Then it is all right. Nobody can be more glad than I am. I hate the +fellow.” + +“She will not keep her promise. Of course she may only have done it to +tease me; but as we were going home she said she could not walk out of +the room if she happened to be there when he called, nor could she leave +word with the servants to say that they were not at home. She made a lot +of excuses. What are you laughing at, Mrs. Brookes?” + +“I am really very sorry, Mr. Escott, but I couldn't help wondering if +she would change her mind again if you were to go back to the lock.” + +Frank took up the candle and turned to go. + +“Don't go,” Willy murmured faintly. + +“I am very sorry, Mr. Escott--if circumstances permitted, I would do all +I could to help you.” + +This was delicate ground, and Willy woke up. + +“What do you want me to do? Have you anything to suggest?” + +“Yes, it struck me that we might both go round to the fellow's +hotel--Stracey, you call him, I think--and you might tell him that his +visits must cease at the Manor House, and that he must not speak to your +sister if he should happen to meet her. That should bring the matter +to an end. He is in Brighton--he is staying at the 'Grand.' We might go +round there to-morrow morning.” + +“He might kick us out.” + +“I only hope he may try. I would give him such a hammering. But you need +not be afraid of that. It wouldn't do to have Maggie's name mentioned in +connection with a vulgar brawl--people are not too charitable. My idea +is that this business should be conducted in the quietest and most +gentlemanly manner possible.” + +“I think I had better speak to father first.” + +“No necessity; he will be only too glad to get rid of the penniless +brute. Don't you think so, Mrs. Brookes?” + +“I do.” + +They then spoke of other things--of the shop, the profit they had +made on tomatoes, and the losses that had resulted from over-stocking +themselves with flour. At last a loud snore brought the conversation to +a full stop, and Frank hurriedly bade them good-night. + +“Cissy will let you out,” said Willy, with a sigh of relief. + +The little girl had pulled on her stockings and tied a petticoat round +her waist. “So you are going to be married.” + +“O Cissy, you have been listening!” + +“Is she very nice? She must be very nice for you to marry her. I should +like to marry you.” + +“Would you, Cissy, and why?” + +“Oh, because you are so very handsome. But you will come and see us all +the same, and let me sit on your knee?” + +“Of course I will, Cissy, and now good-night.” + +Next morning Willy declared himself ready to go and see Mr. Charles +Stracey, and to tell him that he was not to call any more at the Manor +House, or speak to Miss Brookes if he should happen to meet her. Frank +wondered if this decision was owing to Mrs. Brookes's influence. + +“I slept last night at the 'Grand' It seemed odd sleeping in the same +house--perhaps within a few doors of him. If you only knew how I love +her, if I could only tell you, you would pity me. You ought to know what +I feel--the anxiety, the heart-ache. I know you have gone through it +all.” + +“Yes, I think I know what it is,” Willy replied thoughtfully. + +“Mr. Stracey is staying here?” + +“Will you enquire at the office, sir?” + +While the books were being searched the young men consulted together. +Frank said: “Send up your card, and say you will be glad to speak to +him on a matter of importance. Of course he will see you, but before you +speak about Maggie you must apologise for my presence; you must say that +I am a very particular friend, and that you thought it better that the +interview should take place in the presence of a witness.” + +“I wish it were all over. I wouldn't do what I am doing for any one +else, I can tell you, Frank.” + +“Mr. Stracey is in the hotel, sir.” + +“Will you give him my card, and say I should be glad to speak to him on +a matter of importance?” + +“Very good, sir.” + +(In an undertone to Frank), “Was that right?” + +“Quite right.” + +“Oh, one thing I had forgotten to ask you--am I to shake hands with +him?” + +“You mean if he offers you his hand?” + +“Yes.” + +“It is impossible to settle everything beforehand. One must act +according as the occasion requires.” + +“That's all very well for you, but I am a slow man, and am lost if I +don't arrange beforehand.” + +“Pretend not to see his hand, and apologise for my presence; he will +then see that we mean business.” + +“The waiting is the worst part.” + +“Will you walk this way, sir?” said the page boy. “Mr. Stracey is not +out of bed yet, but he said if you wouldn't mind, sir.” + +They shrank from their enterprise instinctively, but the door was thrown +open, and they saw a bath, and a sponge, and a towel, and Mr. Stracey +lying on his back reading _The Sporting Times_. He extended a long +brawny arm. The strength of the arm fixed itself on Willy's mind, and he +doubted if he had not better take the proffered hand. + +“I brought my friend Mr. Escott with me, for I thought a witness--I +mean, that this interview should be conducted in the presence of a third +party.” + +At this speech Charlie opened his eyes and dropped his paper. Willy +leaned over the rail of the bed; Frank looked into the bath, but +remembering himself suddenly, he examined the chest of drawers. + +“I have come to speak to you about my sister.” + +Charlie changed countenance, and both men noticed the change. + +“I mean to say I have come to tell you that you must discontinue your +visits to the Manor House, and I must beg of you not to address my +sisters should you meet them.” + +“May I ask if you are your father's representative, if you speak with +his authority?” + +“I do not. I--” + +“Then I should like to know on what authority you forbid me a house that +doesn't belong to you, and I should like to know, if your father doesn't +disapprove of my knowing your sisters, why you should? I shall speak to +Miss Brookes as long as she cares to speak to me. The very idea of a man +like you coming here to bully me! You have got my answer.” + +“If, after this warning,” said Frank, who, seeing that things were +going against them, thought he had better interfere, “you speak to Miss +Brookes, you will do so at your peril.” + +“Peril! What do you mean?” + +“I mean that you must be prepared to take the consequences.” + +“Who are you? I should like to know what you have to do in this matter?” + +“I speak as Miss Brookes's future husband.” + +“Future husband be damned! She'll never marry you,” said Charlie, +springing out of bed. + +Frank threw himself on his guard, and they would have struck each other +if Willy had not cried out: “Frank, remember you promised me there must +be no scandal.” + +“I had almost forgotten. For Miss Brookes's sake, I refrain. Do you +also, for her sake, cease to provoke me.” + +Charlie hesitated for a moment, then rushing to the door, he said: “I, +too, for Miss Brookes's sake, refrain, and I give you three seconds to +clear out.” + +In attempting to carry out the injunction Willy nearly fell in the bath. +Frank had to bite his lip to avoid a smile, and he stalked out of the +room assuming his most arrogant air. + +“I think, on the whole, we got the best of it,” he said as they went +down stairs. + +“Do you? He turned us out of his room!” + +“That's the worst of tackling a man in his own room--if he tells you to +go, and you don't go, he can ring for the servants.” + +“I was as nearly as possible going into the bath.” + +“Yes, a touch more and down you'd have gone.” Frank laughed, and Willy +laughed, “and that fellow in his nightshirt fishing you out!” + +“Oh, don't, don't--” + +Frank asked Willy to lunch with him at Mutton's, and he ordered a bottle +of champagne in honour of the day. + +“I say, just fancy pulling you out of the bath, and wiping you with a +towel. I can see you dripping!” + +“Don't set me off again. Let me enjoy my cutlets.” + +“By Jove! there's something I hadn't thought of.” + +“What's that?” + +“We must be off. We must tell Maggie what has happened before he has +time to communicate with her. What is the next train to Southwick?” + +“There's one at half-past one.” + +“It was after twelve when we saw him, he won't have time to catch that. +We must be off. Waiter, the bill, and be quick. Look sharp, Willy, +finish the bottle, pity to waste it.” + +“What a nuisance women are, to be sure. Just as I was enjoying my +cutlet! I can't walk fast in this weather, I should make myself ill.” + +“We must take a cab.” + +“What a fellow you are, you never think of the expense. I don't know +where I should be if I were as reckless as you are.” + +“Supposing he were at the station. It would be rather a sell if we went +down by the same train! What should we do? He would surely never attempt +to force his way in!” + +“I don't think he would attempt that. If he did, we should have to send +for the police.” + +The young men strove to decide how the news should be broken to Maggie. +But they had arranged nothing before they arrived at Southwick, and +Frank stopped Willy time after time by the footpath, until at last in +despair the latter said: “We must make haste; there's another train in +twenty minutes.” + +“By Jove! I had not thought of that; we must get on. Well, then, it is +all arranged. You must tell her that you thought it your duty. Put +it all down to duty, and it was your duty to do what you did--putting +entirely out of the question the service you did me.” + +“I can tell you what, Frank, I am very sorry I ever meddled in the +matter. Had I known the vexation and annoyance it would have caused--and +mark my words, and see if they don't come true, we are only commencing +the annoyances that the affair will cause us. Ah, had I only foreseen! +What a fool I was; I ought to have known better; I have had nothing but +bad luck all my life. It is perfectly wonderful the bad luck I have had; +no matter what I did, nothing seemed to go right. I dare say if you had +gone to see that fellow without me it would have turned out differently. +But I don't see how I am to tell my sister point blank that I have +forbidden him the house. What will she say? She may fly at me. Women +have queer tempers, particularly when you interfere with their young +men. My sisters have the very worst of tempers; you don't know them as I +do. Fortunately it is not Sally. I assure you I wouldn't face Sally with +such news for all the money you could give me.” + +“I am very sorry, old chap, but we must now go through it. You must +forbid her to communicate with him.” + +“She won't heed what I say. It will only excite her. She will fly at me, +and call me names, and burst into tears. I should not be surprised if +she went off her head--she has been very strange once before. I don't +mean to say she was ever wrong in her head, but she is a nervous, +excitable girl--most excitable; my sisters are the most excitable girls +I have ever known.” + +It was surprisingly soon over. Willy had not spoken a dozen words, when +he was interrupted. + +“You mean to say you have been to call on him?” + +“Yes; and we told him he was never to speak to you again.” + + +Frank expected her eyes to flash fire, but he only noticed a slight +change in her face, a movement of the muscles of the lower jaw. + +“Then I will speak to neither of you again!” and she walked out of the +room, and in dismay they listened to her going upstairs. + +“She didn't fly at me,” said Willy; and, looking a little terrified, he +stroked his moustache softly. “I told you she would give no heed to what +we said; nor do I see how we can prevent her seeing that fellow if she +chooses. He cannot come into the house, it is true, but she can go out +when she pleases.” + +“We must follow her.” + +Conscious of defeat, Willy desired compromise. He could not be +induced to take a share of watching and following which Frank declared +essential; and, dreading an encounter with Stracey, whose brawny arm it +was impossible to forget, he shut himself up in the shop, and devoted +himself to drawing up a most elaborate balance-sheet, showing how he +would stand if he were obliged to close the business to-morrow, whereas +Frank loitered about the roads, till Mrs. Horlock came along with her +dogs, and engaged him in conversation; and no matter at what corner he +stationed himself, he found he was not free from observation. A few days +after he could not bring himself to return to his post, and contented +himself with looking out of his window, and taking an occasional stroll +by the embankment, when he saw a train signalled. + +A great weight seemed lifted from his shoulder the day he heard that +his rival's holiday had come to an end, and that he had been forced to +return to his counting-house in London. True it is that Mr. Brookes +had in a certain measure approved of Willy's action in forbidding young +Stracey the Manor House, and therefore of his, Frank Escott's, suit, +but neither of these gains compensated him for the crowning loss of not +being able to see his beloved, for although the Manor House was still +theoretically open to him, practically it was closed. The sisters, +although at variance on all subjects, had united in condemning him and +Willy, and during one dinner, the misery of which he declared he could +never forget, they had sat whispering together, refusing to address him +either by look or word. Willy took all this calmly. It is an ill wind +that blows no good, and the silence enabled him to thoroughly masticate +his food. Mr. Brookes wept a little and laughed a little, and reminded +them of the oblivion that awaited all their little quarrels. + +All this, like much else in life, was ridiculous enough; but because +we are ridiculous, it does not follow that we do not suffer, and Frank +suffered. He was five-and-twenty, and light love had him fairly by the +throat; he winced, and he cried out, but very soon his dignity gave way, +and he craved forgiveness. But Maggie passed without heeding him. For +more than a week she resisted all his appeals, and it was not until she +saw that she was taking the neighbourhood into her confidence, and to +feel that if she did not relent a little he might leave Southwick, and +not return, she answered him with a monosyllable. With what bliss did he +hear that first “no,” and how passionately he pleaded for a few words; +it did not seem to matter what they were, so long as he heard her speak +one whole sentence to him. Feeling her power, she was shy of yielding, +and with every concession she drew him further into the meshes of love. +He dined now nearly every day at the Manor House, and he spent an hour, +sometimes two, with her in the morning or afternoon; he followed her +from greenhouse to greenhouse, but all his efforts were in vain, and he +failed not only to obtain her promise to marry him, but even a renewal +of the feeble and partial hopes which she had given him that night on +the beach. He prayed, he wept, he implored pity, he openly spoke of +suicide, and he hinted at murder. But Maggie passed him, pushing him out +of the way with the watering-pot, threatening to water him too, until +one day he drew a revolver. She screamed, and the revolver was put away, +but on the next occasion a stiletto that he had brought from Italy was +produced, and with a great deal of earnestness life was declared to be +a miserable thing. It was absurd, no doubt, but at the same time it was +not a little pathetic; he was so good-looking, and so sincere. Maggie +put down the watering-pot, and she would probably have allowed him to +take her hand and kiss her, if he had not spoken roughly about Charlie, +and called her conduct into question. So she told him she would not +speak to him again, and she continued watering the flowers in silence. +Amid vague remembrances of murders she had read of, Frank's words and +behaviour remained present in her mind, and that evening when Willy, who +rarely took the trouble to speak, much less to advise his sisters, told +her that she might never get such a chance again, she said: “I am not +going to marry a madman to please your vanity.” + +“Marry a madman! What do you mean?” + +“Well, I call a man that who comes regularly to see a girl with a +revolver in one pocket and a stiletto in the other, and threatens to +leave himself wallowing in a pool of blood at her feet--” + +“You mean to say he does that? You are clearly determined to drive the +poor fellow out of his mind with your infernal coquetry. Well, women +are the most troublesome, and I believe in many cases, the wickedest +creatures on the face of God's earth.” + +“You shut up. Men who don't get on with women always abuse them; you are +soured since Miss ----, the actress, jilted you.” + +“If you ever dare mention that subject, I will never speak to you again. +You know I don't break my word.” + +“Why do you interfere in my affairs? You don't think of me when you go +down to browbeat Charlie Stracey; you don't think of what would have +been said of me had Frank hit him, and it had all come out in the +papers.” Maggie said no more; she saw she had gone too far. Willy sat +puffing at his pipe; but when her father spoke of a certain investment +that had not turned out as well as he had anticipated, he joined in the +conversation, and she hoped her cruelty was forgotten. + + + + +XII + + + +Frank uttered a cry of surprise when he opened the studio door to his +friend. It was his favourite complaint that Willy never came to see him. + +“At last, at last! This is the second time you have been in the place +since it was finished, faithless friend!” + +“My dear fellow, you know it is not my fault. I have been very busy +lately trying to get on with my accounts. There's not a room in the +Manor House where I can work in; my sisters' things are everywhere, and +they must not be interfered with--their ball-dresses, their birds, their +work. My sisters think of nothing but pleasure.” + +“Triss, go back, go to your chair, sir; I'll get the whip.” + +Showing his fangs, the bull-dog retired; then with a hideous growl +sprang upon his chair, and sat eyeing Willy's calves. + +“I cannot think what pleasure it can give you to keep such a brute. Even +if I had my accounts finished, I don't think I should care to come here +much. It isn't safe.” + +“You are quite mistaken. There's not a better-tempered dog alive than +Triss; he wouldn't bite any one unless he attacked me. Give me a slap, +and you'll see--I won't let him come near you.” + +“Thank you, I'd rather not. But he sometimes growls even at you, and +shows his teeth, too.” + +“That's only a way of his, and when he does it I kick him. Come here, +Triss--come here, sir!” The dog approached slowly; he sat down and gave +his paw to his master, but he did not cease to growl. “There! We have +had enough of you, go back to your chair. What will you take--a glass of +Chartreuse--a cigarette?” + +“Thanks, both if you will let me. I see you like pretty things,” he +said, admiring the tall legs of the table--early English--and the quaint +glasses into which Frank poured the liqueur. “You've got the place to +look very nice.” + +“Very different from what is was when the smith and his boisterous brood +were here,” and as if he intended an apt illustration of his words, he +stretched his leg out on the white fur rug and surveyed his calf and red +silk stocking. “Just look at that dog, isn't he a beauty? I always think +he looks well in that attitude, leaning his head over the rail. I began +a picture of him the other day in a pose somewhat like that. I'll show +it you.” Frank propped his sketch against the leg of the sofa, and +returned to his place on the sofa. “What do you think of it? Your father +said it was very like.” + +“It is like him, but I can see no merit in it. I'm afraid of the brute. +I can't help hating him, for he always looks as if he were going for my +legs. What else have you been painting? Any pretty women about? I should +admire them more.” + +“I haven't been painting lately,” he said, sighing a little +melodramatically, as was his wont, “I think I have been playing the +piano more than anything else. I have composed something too, I don't +think it bad, I'll play it to you: a dialogue between a gentleman and a +lady. He speaks first, then she answers, then I blend the two motives, +and that is what they both say.” + +Willy sat enwrapped in his own thoughts, not having heard a note. Though +he knew that Willy was incapable of judging of music, it disappointed +him that his dialogue had passed unperceived. Then smiling, he struck +a few notes, and Willy awoke. “You haven't been listening,” he said, +reproachfully. “You don't care for any music, except that little tune.” + +“Yes, I do; I heard what you played, and I think it very pretty.” + +“Willy, I am the most miserable man in the world. Every hour, every +minute of my life is a pain to me. I never knew before what you must +have suffered, but I know now; it is a sickening feeling, it takes you +by the throat, it rises in the throat, and you are almost suffocated. +Last night I lay awake hour after hour thinking. I could see Maggie +as plainly as I can see you--she looked down upon me out of space with +strange, steadfast eyes, and my whole soul went out to her, and I cried +to her that I loved her beyond all things; and we seemed to be so near +each other; it seemed such an intimate and perfect communion of spirit +and sense that I seemed, as it were, lifted out of actual life; I seemed +to myself holier, purer, better than I had ever been before; I seemed to +loose all that is gross and material in me, and to gain in all that +is best and worthiest in man. Did you feel like that when you were in +love?” + +“I don't know that I felt exactly like that. But never mind how I felt; +you are too fond of alluding to that subject, it is a very painful one +to me; you will make me regret that I ever told you anything about it.” + +“I am sorry I mentioned it. It is strange, but when one suffers one +likes to speak of and to compare with one's own the suffering that +another has endured. Your sister treats me most cruelly. She has +forgiven me that miserable business, but she refuses to hold out any +hope that she will ever be my wife. I don't understand--I am utterly at +sea. I don't believe for a moment that she cares for that horrid brute; +he is gone away. She tells me she never cared for him. If so, I should +like to learn your explanation of her conduct.” + +Willy stroked his moustache, apparently declining the responsibility of +apologist; but his manner showed he had something on his mind, and Frank +sought more eagerly than ever to enlist his sympathy and support. + +“I have done everything I could to win her. I don't know why she should +be so difficult to please. I am not bad looking, I am at least as good +looking as that damned brute” (here he paused to glance at himself in +the glass and smooth the curls above his forehead). “I am certainly +quite as clever” (here he thought of his painting, and his eye sought +one of his pictures), “and my position--I will not speak of that, it +would be snobbish. Women have cared for me. I have told Maggie hundreds +of times that I never could care for any but her. Fate seems to have +specially marked us for each other. You must admit that there is +something very remarkable in the way we have been brought together over +and over again. I have told her that my life is worthless without her. +The day before yesterday, when I was speaking to her, I burst into +tears. That a man should cry, no doubt, seems to you very ridiculous but +if you knew how I suffer you would pity me. I often think I shall commit +suicide.” Frank took the stiletto from his pocket. “I don't mind telling +you, when you knocked at the door I was lying on the sofa thinking it +over. One stab just here and I should be at peace for ever. I told her +so yesterday.” + +“I'm not fond of giving advice, as you know--I have quite enough to do +to think about my own affairs--but as you have often spoken to me on +this matter, and as you have asked me for my opinion and my help, I had +better tell you that I differ entirely from you concerning the wisdom of +the course you are pursuing.” + +“How's that?” said Frank, at first surprised and then delighted at +Willy's breaking from his reserve. + +“What I mean is, that I think you would be more successful if you +would lay aside daggers and revolvers, and try to win her affection by +patience and gentleness. Maggie was talking to me about it no later than +last night, and I could see clearly that you frighten her with bluster. +I am sure there are times when she dreads you; it must be a positive +terror to her to sit with you alone--so it would be to any girl.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Maggie is a very delicate and nervous girl, and it wouldn't surprise +me if your threats to commit suicide seriously affected her health; you +come with a revolver and a stiletto, and you ask her to marry you, and +if she doesn't at once say yes, you abuse her, declaring all the time +that you'll stab yourself with the revolver and shoot yourself with the +stiletto--I beg your pardon, I mean--” + +“Of course, if you've come here only to turn me into ridicule--” + +“I assure you I didn't mean it--a slip of the tongue,” and as their eyes +met at that moment, neither could refrain from laughter. + +“Admit that there is something in what I say. If you will behave a +little more quietly--if you will talk to her nicely; leave off assuring +her of your love, she knows all that already; have some patience and +forbearance; you will see if before long she doesn't change towards +you.” + +His interest in the matter was a desire that his sister should not miss +this chance of marrying the future Lord Mount Rorke. But Maggie felt +too sure of Frank to resist the temptation to tantalise him; besides +her moods were naturally various, and the first relapse into her former +coldness was answered by a sudden reversion to threats of murder and +suicide, and one summer evening about six o'clock, when Mrs. Horlock +took her dogs out and stood at the corner waiting for Angel, a rumour +was abroad that Mr. Escott had stabbed himself to the heart, and had +fallen weltering in his blood at Miss Brookes's feet. + +Dr Dickinson walked across the green, watched with palpitating anxiety +from the corner of the Southdown Road. The General spoke to the farmer, +and the farmer's pupil nudged the general dealer. Mrs. Horlock spoke to +the grocers, and the owners of the baths declared they had just heard +from their servant that the young man was not dead, but mortally +wounded. + +There was, therefore, no doubt that Dr Dickinson was going to Mrs. +Heald's, and would not turn to the right and walk to the station for the +quarter-to-seven train; and expectation on this point ceasing, the +group expressed its sympathy for the young man. Poor young man--and +so good-looking too--what will she do if he should die?--and he +must die--there was no doubt of it. Maria had met Mary--that was the +housemaid at the Manor House--it was Mary who had mopped up the blood. +She said there was a great pool right in the middle of the new carpet +under the window--they were sitting there on the ottoman when he said +suddenly, “I have come to ask you to marry me; if you won't I must die.” + Notwithstanding this she continued to play with him--the cruel little +minx! He could stand it no longer, and he pulled out a dagger he had +brought from the East, and stabbed himself twice close to the heart. +What will she do?--she is his murderer--to all intents and purposes she +is his murderer--she will have to go into a convent--she won't go into +a convent--she'll brazen it out. No one thinks much of those girls--the +way Sally carried on with young Meason--it was disgraceful--they say she +used to steal her father's money and give it to him--Dr Dickinson could +tell fine tales. + +Then gossip ceased, and they were in doubt if they might intercept the +doctor and obtain news of his patient when he left Mrs. Heald's. Some +strolled about the green, pretending to be taking the air. Mrs. Horlock, +however, had no scruples, and picking up Angel and calling to Rose and +Flora, she walked straight to Mrs. Heald's, and was seen to go in. Some +five minutes after she came out with the doctor. Frank was not dead, nor +mortally wounded, nor even dangerously wounded, but he had had a very +narrow escape. + +“I said to him, 'You have had a very narrow escape.' The fact is--(I, of +course, examined the weapon)--a small part of the point had been broken +away; it was this that saved him. The first blow scarcely pierced his +clothes; the second was more effective, it entered the flesh just above +the heart, and I have no doubt if the steel had penetrated a quarter of +an inch deeper that he would have killed himself. But so far as I can +see at present, he will get over it without much difficulty.” + +“When did it occur?” + +“About an hour ago, at the Manor House. It appears that he has gone +there every day for the last three weeks to ask Miss Brookes to marry +him; she, however, would not give him any definite answer--” + +“Horrid girl!” + +“I never liked her; most deceitful; no doubt she flirted with him +outrageously.” + +“I can't say. I hear that he often threatened to kill himself, and +to-day, to conclude, he pulled out his stiletto.” + +“I thought it was a dagger he had brought from the East?” + +“No, the weapon they showed me was an Italian stiletto.” + +The grocer's daughter shuddered, her mother murmured, “And for that +girl.” + +“We didn't know him. The Brookes never allow their friends to know any +one in Southwick, but I have heard that he is an exceedingly nice--” + +“He will be Lord Mount Rorke, if his uncle doesn't marry again.” + +“He must have been desperately in love; no one ever heard of such a +thing before. It sounds like the Middle Ages--a stiletto!” + +“But what could he see in her? That's what I can't make out; can you?” + +“Ah! there I can't assist you. I hope to be able to cure him of the +stiletto wound, but Cupid's arrows are beyond me. They did not fly +so thickly or strike so hard in my time.” And, laughing, the doctor +withdrew. + +“I suppose that after this she will marry him; she never intended to +let him slip through her fingers. I can see her face when she heard that +another quarter of an inch and her chance of being Lady Mount Rorke was +gone for ever.” + +“I daresay he won't marry her now. It would serve her right. I should be +so glad.” + +And so pouring their gall out upon the unfortunate Maggie, the +tradespeople returned to their homes. The stiletto was so utterly +unprecedented, and so complete a reversal of all conception of +the chances of life at Southwick, that every one felt puzzled and +dissatisfied, even when gossip had brought to light every circumstantial +detail of the romantic story. Had the deed been done with a knife, with +anything but a stiletto; had he hanged himself, or cut his throat with +a razor, or shot himself with his revolver, the wonder of the +Southwickians would not have been so excited. But a stiletto! And for +a week an Italy of brigands and bravoes, and stealthy surprises haunted +shadows of picturesque archways, an Italy of chromo-lithographed skies +and draperies in the Southdown Road. Maggie was spoken of with alternate +fear and hate; her wickedness seemed more than natural, and had the +Southdown Road known anything of Italian opera, there is little doubt +that Miss Brookes would have been compared to Lucretia Borgia. The young +women looked out of their windows at night, and wondered how they'd feel +if a troubadour were suddenly to sing to them from behind the privet +hedges. The young men were even more impressed than their womenfolk; +they cursed their place of birth and habitation, knowing that it +incapacitated them from knowing her; they wasted their mothers' candles +sitting up till two in the morning writing odes to cruel women with +raven hair; and all gazed sadly on the old ship in the harbour, and the +Spanish main seemed nearer, and those gallant days more realisable than +they had ever been before. + +The direct cause of this revival of romance lived, however, unconscious +of it. She was genuinely frightened. She said her prayers with great +fervour, begging God that He might save Frank, and that she might not +be a murderess. She made him soups, she sent him wine, she brought him +books, and she sat with him for hours. She thought he had never looked +so nice as now--so pale, so aristocratic, so elegantly weak, his head +laid upon a cushion, which she had brought him, and when he took her +hand and said, “Will you, darling?” and she murmured, “Yes,” then it +seemed that the happiness of his life was upon his face. + +Three days after Frank was sitting at his table writing to Mount Rorke, +and on the following Sunday he walked to the Manor House to tell Mr. +Brookes that he was engaged to his daughter, and to ask his consent. He +did not think of his folly, he was too happy; he seemed like one in a +quiet dulcet dream; he walked slowly, leaning from time to time against +the wooden paling, for he wished to prolong this meditative moment; he +saw everything vaguely, and loved all with a quiet fulness of heart; +he took in the sense of this village and its life as he had never done +before. He compared it with Ireland; Mount Rorke, with its towers, and +lakes, and woods arose, and he was grateful that Maggie was going there, +yet he was sure that he could not live without sometimes seeing this +village where he had found so much happiness. + +His wound had sucked away his strength, the sunlight dazzled him, and +feeling a little overcome, and not equal, without pause, to the long +interview that awaited him, he stayed awhile in a shady laurel corner, +and leaning against a piece of iron railing, watched Mr. Brookes and +Mr. Berkins as they paced the tennis lawn to and fro. The old gentleman +frequently stopped in his walk to point at the glass houses. + +“My dear Berkins, I wish you would try to get Willy some appointment; +he would, I am sure, take anything over two hundred and fifty a year. He +would do marvellously well in an office--he loves it. I assure you his +eyes twinkle when one speaks of how books are kept, or alludes in any +way to the routine of office work. You should see his accounts and his +letter books, they would make the best clerk you ever had feel ashamed +of himself; but left to himself I am afraid he will do no good; he has +all the method, but nothing else. He lost money in Bond Street; I am +afraid to tell you how much he dropped on the Stock Exchange, but that +was not entirely his fault--the firm went bankrupt; nobody could have +foreseen it, it was quite unheard of.” + +“I have always noticed that successful men do not buy partnerships in +firms that go bankrupt.” + +“Very true, Berkins; I wish I had asked your advice on the subject.” + +“I wish you had, Mr. Brookes. You are no doubt a very clever man, but on +one or two points you are liable to make mistakes; you are, if I may so +speak, a little weak. You should come and live with me for a few months, +I would put you right.” + +“This is really too much,” thought Mr. Brookes; and had it not been for +the certain knowledge that Berkins had lately increased his income by +a couple of thousands a year, he would have answered him tartly enough; +but as this fact admitted of no doubt he bridled his anger and said: “If +you could put my boy right it would be more to the point. He has all +the method of the best clerk in London; he loves the work, he would do +honour to any office, but on his own hook I am afraid he will never do +anything but lose his money.” + +“Your money, you mean.” + +“Well, my money if you like. You are very provoking, Berkins. I don't +know if you do it with the express purpose of annoying me. I was saying, +when you interrupted me, that Nature had evidently intended my son for +a clerk rather than for a speculator. I fear he is doing very badly +with his shop in Brighton. The rents are very high in East Street, and I +don't think he sells anything. He takes enough away from here, though. I +don't remember if I ever told you that I was foolish enough to agree +to his taking away, buying from me at the market price he calls it, the +surplus produce of my garden and greenhouses. I dare say I shall get +the money one of these days, but at present I see no sign of it. He is +always making up the accounts, and, so far as we have gone, the result +of this arrangement is that, when I complain that there is neither fruit +nor vegetables on my table, I am told that everything went to Brighton. +I am forced, I assure you, to send my carriage and my horses, that I +paid two hundred guineas for, to fetch potatoes, and he, too, uses my +carriage to take his vegetables to the shop. He gets his sisters to +bring them when they go out driving, nor can I even buy my fruit and +vegetables off him at cost price; he says that would interfere with his +book-keeping, and so I am obliged to buy everything from Hutton, and you +know what his prices are. I assure you, it is most annoying.” + +“Mr. Brookes, your fortune will not bear this constant drain; you must +remember that we are living in very bad times--times that are not what +they were. I have heard that your distillery--” + +“Yes, times are very bad. I have never known them worse, and no doubt +you find them so too. They ought to affect you even more than they do +me. My income is, as you know, all invested money, whereas yours is all +in your business.” + +“Of course, I am affected by the times; had they remained what they +were, even what they were towards the end of the seventies, I should be +making now something over ten thousand pounds a year. But, thank God! I +have not to complain. Next year I hope to invest another five thousand +pounds. The worst of it is, that there is no price for money in +legitimate securities.” + +“Everything is very bad; you never will invest your money as I did mine +ten years ago. My business is not, of course, what it used to be, but I +don't complain; if it weren't for troubles nearer home I should get on +very well.” + +“I hope that Sally has commenced no new flirtation in the Southdown +Road. I thought she had promised you--since she gave up Meason--that she +would for the future know no one that lived there.” + +“I was thinking for the moment of Willy, not of Sally; she has not been +so troublesome lately. But no sooner are we out of one trouble than we +are in another. It is, of course, very regrettable that young Escott +should have stabbed himself, and in my garden too. I, who hate scandals, +seem always plunged in one. I hear they are talking of it in the clubs +in Brighton. I hope Lord Mount Rorke will not hear of it; if he did, do +you think it would prejudice him against the match?” + +“Then you're prepared to give your consent?” + +“Why not? Surely! I really don't see--Lord Mount Rorke is a very rich +man.” + +“Possibly, but Irish peers are not always as rich as they would like us +to believe they are. The connection is, of course, desirable, but I hope +your anxiety to secure it will not lead you into making foolish, I will +say reprehensible, monetary concessions. What I mean is this. I am a +straightforward man, Mr. Brookes, brought up in a hard school, and I +always come straight to the point. You are a rich man, Mr. Brookes--you +have the reputation of being a richer man than you are--and it is +possible, I don't say it is probable, that Lord Mount Rorke will expect +you to make a large settlement. He will possibly--mind you, I do not say +probably--taking the coronet into consideration--those people think as +much of their titles as we do of our money--ask you to settle a thousand +a year, may be fifteen hundred a year, upon your daughter.” + +“Settle a thousand--maybe fifteen hundred--a year on my daughter!” cried +the horror-stricken Brookes. + +“He may even ask for two thousand a year. Remember, you are a +distiller--he is a peer of the realm. And now I say,” continued Berkins, +growing more emphatic as he reached the close of his declamation, “that +in my wife's interest I will oppose any and all attempts to purchase a +coronet for Maggie at her sister's expense.” + +Mr. Brookes stood for a moment stupefied--as if some great calamity +had befallen him. The housekeeping bills, the loss of his fruit and +vegetables, even the Southdown Road seemed as nothing in the face of +this new misfortune. Troublesome as his daughters were, he preferred +an occasional recrudescence of flirtation in his garden to settling the +money that he had made himself and letting them go; no pen can describe +the anguish that the surrendering of the ten thousand pounds which +he had settled on Grace had caused him; but to be told now that the +alliance with a lord which he so greedily coveted, and which had been so +agreeably tickling him for the last few days, would cost him perhaps two +thousand a year, was more than he could bear. He had avoided as much +as possible even thinking of the money question. One hundred--two +hundred--the shadow of three hundred had fallen for a moment on his +mind, but he had successfully chastened these unpleasantnesses by +thoughts of the liberality, the generosity of the aristocracy, and +he had encouraged a hope that Mount Rorke would let him off with a +statement of how much Maggie would have at his death. And now to hear +these terrible prognostications, and from his own son-in-law, too. It +was too bad--it was too cruel. “You don't know what you are talking +about, Berkins. If it were business I would listen to you, but really +when it comes to discussing the aristocracy it is more than I can stand. +What do you know about the aristocracy--not that,” cried Mr. Brookes, +snapping his fingers. “You were brought up in an office--what should you +know? You were a clerk once at thirty shillings a week--what should +you know? Lord Mount Rorke would never think of making such ridiculous +proposals to me. You judge him by yourself, Berkins, that's it, that's +it! I dare say he has heard of me in the City--many of your great lords +do business in the City. I dare say he has heard of me, and if he has +he'll not try any nonsense with me. Twist him round my finger, twist him +round my finger.” + +Berkins liked a lord, but Berkins liked lords without thinking himself +one jot their inferior, and he was sure that his horse and his dog and +his house and everything belonging to him were better than theirs; and +secure in the fact that his grandfather had been a field officer, he did +not think it amiss to brag that he had begun life with thirty shillings +a week, so he only smiled at his father-in-law's wrath, feeling now +easy in his mind that Grace's future fortune would not be prejudiced for +Maggie's glorification. + +The discussion had fallen, and Mr. Brookes went to meet the young man +whom he caught sight of coming across the sward. + +“Most imprudent of you to come out to-day,” he said, scanning the white +face. + +“Oh, I am very well now, thanks. The sun is a little overpowering, that +is all. I want to speak to you, Mr. Brookes.” + +“Speak to me? Yes. Will you go into the billiard-room, my boy? I can see +the heat has upset you. Take my arm.” + +Frank took the offered arm. He was feeling very faint, but the cool and +dim colour of the billiard-room revived him, and when he had had some +claret and water, he said that he felt quite strong, and listened +patiently to Mr. Brookes. + +“Well, I never! No, I never heard of such a thing. A stiletto, too. You +brought it from Italy? It makes me feel quite young again. Ah! 'tis hard +to say what we won't do for a girl when Miss Right comes along. I was +just the same--pretty keen on it, I can tell you, when I was your age; +and I don't know, even now,--but a man with grown-up daughters must be +careful. Still when I see a little waist, high heels, plump--you know, +that's the way I used to like them when I used to go to the oyster +shops; there was one at the top of the Haymarket. Ah! I was young then, +young as you are; I was keen on it--Aunt Mary will tell you that--there +was nothing I wouldn't do; I never went as far as stabbing--walking +about at night, tears, torments as much as you like, but I never went so +far as stabbing. Wonderful what love will make a man do! Supposing you +had killed yourself; in my garden, too--awful! What would people say? I +hear they are talking of it in the clubs--hope it won't go any further. +Should Mount Rorke hear of it! Eh? Might set him against us; might not +give his consent--eh? We should be up a tree, then.” + +“I don't think there is much danger of that. I came to-day, Mr. Brookes, +to ask for your consent; am I to understand that you give it?” + +“Well, my dear Frank, I don't see why I should refuse it; I have known +you since you were quite a small boy. I don't want to flatter you. I +don't know that I care much about young men as a rule, but you, I +have always found you--well, just what you should be. Of course the +connection is very flattering. You will one day be Lord Mount Rorke, and +to see my darling Maggie sharing your honours will be--that is to say if +I live to see it--a great, a very gre--great hon--our.” + +Feeling much embarrassed Frank begged of him not to mention it. “I shall +be writing to-morrow or next day to my uncle; shall I say that you have +given your consent to my marriage with your daughter? I may say that I +have already written to him on the subject.” + +“By all means, my dear boy. I think I can say you have my consent--that +is to say, you have my consent if the money's all right. All is, of +course, subject to that. Now you are for love in a cottage, bread and +cheese romance; a man who will use a stiletto can't be expected to know +much about money, but I am a father, my stiletto days are over, and +I couldn't give my daughter without a settlement. You will, no doubt, +be--of course you will be--Lord Mount Rorke one of these days; but in +the meantime there must be a proper settlement. My daughter must be +properly provided for; it is my duty to look after her interests, so you +may as well tell your uncle that I shall be pleased to meet him and talk +the matter over with him. I will meet him in London, when it suits his +convenience; I need hardly say that if he should choose to come down +here that I shall be pleased to see him. And now tell me--of course +he will be prepared to act handsomely; I have no doubt he will, the +aristocracy always do act handsomely, no one is so liberal as your +aristocrat. I hope he will settle a good round sum on my daughter--money +invested in first-class securities, not what Berkins would call +first-class, but what I should call first-class securities; and should +your uncle prove the liberal man that I have no doubt he is, I don't say +that I won't behave handsomely. Of course you know that my dear children +will have all my money at my death. I shall never marry again, that is +a settled thing; but in the meantime I will do something. When Grace +was married I behaved very generously--too generously--a lot of +money--mustn't do it again, times are not what they were. But at my +death I shall make no difference, all three will share and share alike.” + +Frank hoped when Brookes and Mount Rorke met, that the former would +modify his demands, and what was still more important, his mode of +expressing them. But why should Mr. Brookes appear to him in such a +sudden glow of vulgarity? He had never thought of him as a refined and +cultivated gentleman, but was unprepared for this latest manifestation. + +“Lord Mount Rorke allows me a certain annual income, he will no doubt +double this income upon my marriage; I daresay he would--since he has +recognised me as his heir--make this income legally mine by deed, I +could then settle a certain sum on Maggie, in case of my death; but then +further settlements would be required when I succeed to the title and +the property. I had thought--and indeed I think still--that if my uncle +makes me a sufficient allowance, that we might avoid touching on this +matter at all. Lord Mount Rorke is an irritable man, and I am sure that +if you were to speak to him as you--” + +“Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! nonsense! You don't suppose I am going to give +my daughter to a man unless he can settle a sufficient sum of money upon +her? Berkins wouldn't hear of it. He was only telling me just now--” + +“But I don't think you understand me, Mr. Brookes. I do not propose that +you should give me any money with your daughter. Let what you give her +be settled upon her, and let it be tied up as strictly as the law can +tie it.” + +“Pooh! pooh! the man that marries my daughter must settle a sum of money +at least equal to what I settle upon her; and it must be money invested +in first-class security, otherwise I couldn't think of giving her one +penny.” + +“I am sorry, Mr. Brookes, that you are so determined on this point. +These matters generally arrange themselves if people incline to meet +each other half way, and I am sure that my uncle will resent it if you +insist on pounds, shillings, and pence as you propose doing. He is not +accustomed to strict business--marriages in our family were never made +on such principles; my happiness is bound up in Maggie. I hope you will +consider what you are risking.” + +“I would do more for you than any one else, Frank, but business is +business, and the man who has my daughter must settle a sum of money +equivalent to what I settle.” + +“I am afraid I have talked too much, I am not very strong, yet with +your permission we will adjourn this discussion to another day--in the +meantime I will write to my uncle.” + +Mr. Brookes did not offer the assistance of his arm, and had he, Frank +would certainly not have accepted it. Holding the door, the old man +waited for his visitor to pass out. “Southdown Road or the heir to a +peerage: it is all the same, my money is what is wanted--the money I had +made myself,” thought Mr. Brookes. “Dreadful old man, he would sell his +daughter for a settlement of a few hundred pounds a year. I never knew +he was so bad, my eyes are opened,” thought Frank. Both were equally +angry, and without secrecy or subterfuge they sought consolation in +different parts of the garden. Mr. Brookes resumed his walk on the +tennis ground with Berkins, and stopping frequently to point to his +glass-houses, he described his misfortunes with profuse waves of his +stick. Frank had found Maggie, and they now walked together in the shade +and silence of the sycamores--he, vehement and despairing of the future; +she, subtle and strangely confident that things would happen as she +wished them. + +Having once yielded and felt the pang of possession she was wholly his, +in all ramifications of spirit and flesh, both in her brain and blood, +and the utmost ends of her sense mingled with him. But to him, she was +the symbol of the desire of which he was enamoured, the desire which +held together his nature and gave it individuality--love of _the_ young +girl. + +“Oh! my darling, if he should speak so to Mount Rorke, we should be +parted for ever--no, that could never be--nothing in heaven or earth +would induce me to give you up, be true to me and I will be true to you; +but our happiness--no, not our happiness, that is in ourselves--but all +our prospects in life will be wrecked if he will not give way. Should he +and Mount Rorke meet--” + +“But they won't meet; have patience--I know how to manage father. He +doesn't like to part with his money, and I can understand it, he made it +all himself; but he will get used to the idea in time, leave him to me; +put your trust in me.” + +She extended her hand, he took it, pressed it to his lips; he took her +in his arms and kissed her, and the leaves of the sycamores were filled +with the sunset. + +“DEAR SIR,--I received a letter this morning from my nephew, apprising +me of his engagement to your daughter. He has apparently obtained your +consent, and he asks for mine, and he also asks from me not only an +increase of income to meet the requirements of altered circumstances, +but he tells me that you will expect me to settle some seven, eight, or +ten thousand pounds upon your daughter. + +“I do not propose to discuss the reasonableness of his or your demands, +but it seems that a statement of his prospects is owing to you. + +“Having never married when I was a young man, many have assumed--I among +the number--that I never would marry; and I admit that I have allowed my +nephew to grow up in the belief that he is my heir and the successor to +the title of Mount Rorke; but beyond a general assumption existing in my +mind, his mind, and the minds of those who know us, there is no reason +to suppose that I shall not marry, or that I shall leave him a single +sixpence, and I willingly make use of this opportunity to say that I +have no faintest intention of entering intoany engagement either verbal +or written with him upon this matter.--Yours very truly, MOUNT RORKE.” + +“MY DEAR FRANK,--The enclosed is a copy of the letter which I send by +this post to Mr. Brookes. And I make no disguise of the fact that it +was written with the full intention of rendering your marriage an +impossibility. It will no doubt appear to you a harsh and cruel letter; +it will no doubt grieve you, madden you--in your rage you may call me +a brute. The epithet will be unjust; but knowing very well indeed what +love is at twenty-five, I will forgive it. And now to the point. I know +something about old Brookes, and I remember the lean boy you used +to bring here, and judging from some slight traces that Eton had not +succeeded in effacing, I think I can guess what the rest of the family +is like; indeed, the old gentleman's preposterous demand that I should +settle ten thousand pounds on his daughter throws a sufficient light on +his character, and in some measure reveals what sort of manner of man he +is. But let all this be waived. I admit that with some show of reason, +you may say it is unjust, nay more, it is ridiculous, to pronounce +judgment on people I have never seen, and it is cruelty worthy of a +Roman Emperor to wreck the lifelong happiness of two young people for +the sake of a prejudice that the trouble of a journey to Brighton will +most certainly extinguish. I will not irritate you by assuring you that +the world is full of desirable women-women that will appeal to you two +years hence precisely as Miss Brookes appeals to you now. Were I to +whisper that it is unwise to give up all women for one woman, you could +not fail, in your present mood, to see in my philosophy only the nasty +wisdom of a cynical old reprobate. Therefore I will not weary you with +advice--what I have said must be considered not as advice, but rather +as an expression of personal experience in the love passion, serving as +illustration of the attitude of my mind towards you. I will limit myself +to merely asking you--no, not to think again of Miss Brookes--that would +be impossible, but to leave Southwick for London or Paris, the latter +for preference. I will give you a letter of introduction to a charming +lady (ah! were I thirty years younger). Put yourself in her hands, and I +have no doubt in the world but that she will send you back cured in six +months, as my bank-book will abundantly prove. + +“If you cannot do this--if so drastic a remedy should be too repugnant +to your present feelings, I would remember, were I in your place, that +my uncle had never refused me anything; that I could draw upon him for +what money I liked--that is to say, for all pleasures and satisfaction +save one. I would remember that at his death I was to inherit ten +thousand a year and a title; and I would weigh (first examining each +weight carefully, to see if it were true weight) all these present and +future advantages against the gratification of possessing a woman I +loved when I was twenty-five for a period of time extending perhaps +over half a century; I would think--at least I think and hope I should +hesitate--before I refused to obey one of whose affection I was sure, +and I feel certain it would go hard with me before I refused to gratify +the whim--call it a whim if you like--of one who had often given but +never asked before. + +“Somehow I think you owe me this sacrifice; I have done much for you and +am prepared to do more, and to speak quite candidly, I want something in +return; I do not mean that I am desirous of striking a bargain with you, +but we all expect to receive--of course not directly, but in some remote +way--something for what we give, and I confess that I look forward to +your companionship to assist me through the last course of life. I do +not want you now--for the next few years I want you to see the world, to +educate yourself; I want you to improve your taste in art and letters, +and later on, if possible, to turn yourself to some public account. +Besides other work, I am now working at my memoirs; they are to be +published after my death, as I have arranged, under your supervision. +I regard these memoirs as being of the first importance, and it is +advisable that you should be in full possession of all my intentions +respecting them. Hitherto I have always looked after everything myself, +but the time will come when I shall not be able to do this, and shall +require you to relieve me of the burden of business. Then I wish you to +live here, so that you may learn to love Mount Rorke. I am very busy now +with improvements, and I would wish you to be with me so that you might +adequately enter into my views and ideas. To conclude, I do not marry +for your sake; do you not marry for mine, at least do not marry for +the present. I do not say that if I knew and liked the girl of your +choice--if she were in your own set--that I could not be won over, but +on the whole I would sooner you didn't marry. But I could not really +endure a lot of new acquaintances--people who had never dined in a +lord's house, and would all want to be asked--no, I could not endure it. +I am an old man, and now I want to enjoy myself in my own way, and my +desire is to get through the last years of my life with you. + +“You can do what you please, ask here whomever you please, give me a +few hours of your time when I am particularly busy with my memoirs, and, +above all, let us be alone sometimes after dinner, so that we can turn +our chairs round to the fire and talk at our ease.--Your affectionate +uncle, MOUNT RORKE.” + +“So he won't pay for a secretary, and wants me to do the work; that's +about the meaning of that letter.” Frank re-read the letter sentence for +sentence, and as he read new sneers and new expressions of scorn rose +in his brain in tremulous ebullition. There was scarcely a plan for +the chastisement of his uncle that he did not for some fleeting moment +entertain, and one most ironical letter he committed to paper; but +Maggie would not hear of its being sent, and he was surprised and glad +to see that she was not depressed and disheartened at the turn affairs +had taken. + +“I can do what I like with father; Sally can't, but I can. You leave it +me.” + +“What's the good of that? You can't get round Mount Rorke.” + +“Never mind; we don't want to get married yet awhile. We'll be +engaged, it is nearly the same thing. We shall be able to go anywhere +together--up to town, if we only come back the same day. Write a nice +letter to your uncle, saying you'll do nothing without his consent; that +it is true your affections are very much engaged, but that your first +thought is of him--” + +“Oh! but my darling, I want to make you mine.” + +“So you shall--we shall be engaged; father won't consent to our being +married, but he can't prevent us being engaged. You'll see, I'll get +round father sooner or later; he'll give in.” + +“But you won't get round Mount Rorke; if he would only come here and see +you.” + +“He won't do that; but one of these days he'll be in London. I suppose +he goes to the Park sometimes; we'll go too, you'll introduce me--a +little impromptu, and I'll see if I can't get him to like me.” + +“How clever you are!” + +“I understand father.” + +Still it required all Maggie's adroitness to even partially reconcile +Mr. Brookes to Lord Mount Rorke's letter. She accepted without argument +that marriage in the present circumstances was out of the question. She +even went so far as to cordially assent that a man would be a fool to +give his daughter to a man who could not settle a substantial sum +of money upon her, and she only ventured to suggest that it would be +foolish not to give Lord Mount Rorke the opportunity of changing his +mind. She spoke of his immense fortune, and exaggerated it until she +made even Berkins seem a paltry creature in the old man's eyes. + +Frank was anxious to propitiate Sally. He returned from London with +presents for her, and he always spoke to her, looking at her admiringly. + +He showed much anxiety, and, fearing that she found it dull at his +studio, when the sisters came to tea he begged her to give him Meason's +address. Sally tossed her head; she had had enough of Meason, and her +manner left no doubt as to her sincerity. But happening to meet Meason +a few days after in the train, Frank slipped easily into asking him +to come and see him; and in the easy atmosphere of the studio the +acquaintanceship soon ripened into intimacy, and after a preliminary +ruffling of plumage, Sally restored her old sweetheart to all the rights +of wrong. Life went well amid incessant secrets, letter-writing, and tea +parties. Grace came to the studio to lunch sometimes, and she had been +betrayed into a promise not to say a word about Meason. It was never +ascertained whether, in the indiscretion of the marital night, she had +betrayed this trust, or whether some jealous enemy had spoken or written +to Mr. Brookes on the subject; but certain it is that one joyful day +when Meason, Sally, and Maggie were eating oysters, and Frank was +twisting the corkscrew into a bottle of Chablis, there came an ominous +ringing at the door. + +“I wonder who that can be. Shut up, Triss.” + +“Perhaps it is father.” + +“He is in London.” + +“I'm not so sure about that.” + +“No matter--we don't want to see them.” + +“Rather not! They wouldn't have known we were here had it not been for +that dog.” + +“I must go and see who it is. Come here, sir; come here, you brute.” + +“Supposing it is father?” + +“Get behind that piece of tapestry. I'll say that Meason and I were +having some oysters.” + +“Come here, sir. I'd better tie up that dog--I wonder who it is?” + +“Open the door.” + +“Oh! Mr. Brookes, quite an unexpected pleasure.” + +“I have come, sir, for my daughters.” + +“Your daughters? Your daughters are not here. Mr. Brookes.” + +“I have reason to know they are here, and I will not leave without +them.” + +“You will do well to let us in, Mr. Escott; we are determined--” + +“Who are you? What business is it of yours?” + +“Should you refuse us admission we are resolved to wait here till +evening, till midnight if necessary!” exclaimed Berkins. “I say again +you will do well to admit us, and so avoid a scandal on the green.” + +“You can come in if you like.” + +“Will you kindly chain up that dog of yours?” + +“Well, this is coming it too strong; this is a little too 'steep.' If +Mr. Brookes refuses to believe my word that his daughters are not here +he may come in and look for them, and to facilitate his search I will +tie up the dog--(the dog is tied up). But you, what brings you here? +What the devil, I should like to know, brings you here, poking your nose +into other people's business?” + +“Mr. Brookes, will you answer him?” + +“I must decline your offer to admit me unaccompanied by my son-in-law. +We shall not stay long.” + +“All this seems to me very extraordinary, but since you wish it, Mr. +Brookes, pray enter.” + +“Is that dog tied up quite securely?” + +“Quite. I think you know Mr. Meason?” + +“Mr. Meason knows very well that I do not wish to know him.” + +“If you only come here to insult my guest, the sooner you go out the +better. Had I known that you intended to behave in this fashion I should +have left you standing outside till morning. I'll not have--” + +“Never mind, Escott; I'm off. Mr. Brookes and I are no longer on +speaking terms, that's all! I'll see you later on.” + +“Don't go, pray.” + +“I think I must.” + +“I am surprised, Frank,” said Mr. Brookes, when Meason was gone, “that +you should seek your friends among the enemies of my family.” + +“We will not discuss that question now. I never heard of such +conduct--you force your way into my studio, and apparently for no +purpose but to insult my guest. You see your daughters are not here.” + +“I am by no means satisfied with that,” said Berkins, opening a door. “I +must see behind that piece of tapestry.” + +“No, you shall not. I have had just about enough of this. How dare you? +God's truth--” and as Berkins seemed determined to continue his search, +Frank caught him by the collar. + +But Berkins was tall and strong, and showed no intention of allowing +himself to be thrown out. His long legs were soon extended here and +there; his body was sometimes bent back by Frank's weight, once he had +succeeded in nearly throwing Frank over on the sofa. Mr. Brookes had +fled to the door, which, in his excitement, he failed to open, and +the struggle was continued until at last, maddened by a most tight and +tempting aspect of Berkin's thigh, Triss broke his collar, and in a +couple of bounds, reached and fixed his teeth deep in the flesh. + +“Triss, you brute, leave go.” But Triss clung to the long-desired thigh. +“I'll twist his tail, it will make him leave go.” + +With a savage yelp of pain the dog turned on his master and was hauled +instantly off Berkins's thigh. + +“I need hardly say that so far as the dog is concerned, I regret, and I +am truly sorry for what has occurred.” + +“Sir, do you not see what a state I am in; do not stand there making +excuses, but lend me your handkerchief. I shall bleed to death if you +don't.” + +“Shall I tie it up for you?” + +“If those girls there would only fetch a doctor.” + +Mr. Brookes could not refrain from foolish laughter, and in a moment of +wretched despair he declared that it would be all the same in a hundred +years time--a remark which would not have failed to irritate Berkins if +he had not fainted. + + + + +XIII + + + +Next day Willy called at the studio, and Frank told him what had +occurred. + +“But I don't see why you shouldn't come to the Manor House,” said Willy. +“If you will only say something about the Measons, I think it can be +made all right.” + +“No, I'm not going to turn against Meason; I have always found him a +good fellow. I know nothing about his flirtation with Sally.” + +“No more do I; I think it has been exaggerated, but, as you know, I +never interfere. I wish you would come in to dinner one night.” + +“Supposing I were to meet Berkins?” + +Willy stroked his moustache. + +“No, it is quite impossible that I could return to the Manor House. Your +father behaved in a way--well, I will not say what I think of it.” + +“Berkins hasn't been to the City since. Grace was over here yesterday, +she says he limps about the garden. He'll never forgive you; he says +that you didn't call the dog off at once.” + +“That's a lie; and I said, 'So far as the incident with the dog is +concerned, I am very sorry.'” + +“I think that made him more angry than anything else; he thought you +were laughing at him.” + +“I was not. It was most unfortunate. I shall not give Maggie up. I am +writing to-morrow or next day to Mount Rorke.” + +All were agreed that things must come right sooner or later. Maggie +fought for her lover, and emphatically asserted her engagement. She +yielded on one point only--not to visit the studio; but she maintained +her right in theory and in practice to go where she liked with him in +train or in cart, to walk with him on the cliff, to lunch with him +at Mutton's. They found pleasure in thus affirming their love, and +it pleased them to see they were observed, and to hear that they were +spoken about. Nevertheless the string that sung their happiness had +slipped a little, and the note was now not quite so clear or true. Frank +could not go to the Manor House; Maggie could not go to the studio. +Whether Mount Rorke would consent to their marriage perplexed them as it +had not done before. + +The summer fades, the hills grow grey, and a salt wind blew up from +the sea, blackening the trees, and the beauty of autumn was done. Frank +thought of Ireland, and what personal intercession might achieve. She +begged of him to go, and he promised to write to her every day. + +“Every day, darling, or I shall be miserable.” + +“Every day.” + +“Arrived safe after a very rough passage. Every one was ill, I most of +all.” + +She received a post-card:--“It was raining cats and dogs when I got out +of the train. Mount Rorke sent a car to meet me; the result is that I +am in bed with a bad cold. The house is full of company--people I have +known, or known of, since I was a boy; we shall begin pheasant-shooting +in a few days. When I am out of bed I shall write a long letter. Do you +write to me; I shall be awfully disappointed if I do not get a letter +to-morrow morning.” + +Extract from a letter:-- + +“Mount Rorke is considered to be a handsome place, but as I have known +it from childhood, as my earliest memories are of it, I cannot see it +with the eyes of a professed scenery hunter. I have loved it always, but +I do not think I ever loved it more than now, for now I think that one +day I shall give it to you. Should that day come--and it will come--what +happiness it will be to walk with you under the old trees, made lovelier +by your presence, to pass down the glades to the river, watching your +shadow on the grass and your image in the stream. We will roam together +through the old castle, and I will show you the little bed I used to +sleep in, the school-room where I learned my lessons. When I entered +the old room I saw in imagination--and oh, how clearly!--the face of +my governess; and how easily I see her in the corridor she used to walk +down to get to her room. + +“Poor, dear, old thing, I wonder what has become of her! + +“I saw again the pictures that stirred my childish fancy, and whose +meaning I once vainly strove to decipher. + +“I came to live here when I was four, immediately after my father's +death. I can just remember coming here. I remember Mount Rorke taking +me up in his arms and kissing me. I will not say there is no place like +home--I do not believe that; but certainly no place seems so real. Every +spot of ground has its own particular recollections. Every bend of the +avenue evokes some incident of childish life (in Ireland we call any +road leading to a house an avenue, even if it is absolutely bare of +trees; we also speak of rooks as crows, and these two provincialisms +jarred on my ear after my long stay in Sussex). Mount Rorke is covered +with trees--great woods of beech and fir--and at the end of every vista +you see a piece of blue mountain. A river passes behind the castle, +winding through the park; there are bridges, and swans float about the +sedges, and there are deer in the glades. The garden,--I do not know if +you would like the garden; it is old-fashioned--full of old-fashioned +flowers--convolvuluses, Michaelmas daisies, marigolds; hedges clipped +into all sorts of strange and close shapes. There is a beautiful avenue +behind the garden (an avenue in the English sense of the word) where you +may pace to and fro and feel an exquisite sense of solitude; for when +the castle had passed out of the hands of Irish princes--that is to say, +brigands--it was turned into a monastery, and I often think, as I look +on the mossy trees--the progeny of those under whose leafage the monks +told their beads--that all happened that I might throw my arm about you +some beautiful day, and whisper, 'My wife, this is yours.'” + +“How beautifully he writes,” said Sally reflectively. + +“You never had a lover who wrote to you like that. Do you remember how +Jimmy used to write?” + +“I don't know how he wrote to you, but his letters to me, I will say +that, were quite as nice as anything Frank could write. You needn't toss +your head, you are not Lady Mount Rorke yet.” + +Sally refused to hear, but presently, seeing a cloud on her sister's +face, and thinking the letter contained some piece of unpleasantness, +she relented, and pressed her to continue. + +“The house is full of people--people whom I have known all my life--and +they make a great deal of me. I have to tell them about Italy, and they +ask me absurd questions about Michael Angelo or Titian, Leonardo or +Watteau.... The house party is a large one, and we have people to dinner +every day; and in the evening the drawing-room, with its grim oak and +escutcheons and rich modern furniture, is a pretty sight indeed. There +is a lady here whom I knew in London, Lady Seveley; and I have had +suspicions that Mount Rorke would like me to marry her. But she has +the reputation of being rather fast, so perhaps the old gentleman is +allowing his thoughts to wander where they should not. I hope not for +his sake, for I hear she is devoted to a young Irishman, a Mr. Fletcher, +a journalist in London. I met them at Reading once in most suspicious +circumstances. He is the son of a large grazier, one of my uncle's +tenants, and she is, I suppose, so infatuated that she could not resist +the temptation of calling on his family. She was careful not to speak +of her intentions to anybody, but waited until she got a favourable +opportunity and slipped off to pay her visit. The Fletchers live about +half a mile from the castle. I was riding that way, and met her coming +out of their house. I got off my horse and walked back together. I hope +Mount Rorke will not hear of her ladyship's escapade; he would be very +angry, for the Fletchers are people who would be asked to have something +to eat in the housekeeper's room if they called at the Castle. In London +one knows everybody, but in the country we are more conservative.” + + “I hope she won't cut you out,” said Sally. “It would be a sell for +you if she did. Go on.” + +“No, I shan't, you are too insulting.” + +“Who began it? You told me that I didn't get such nice letters as you. +Pray go on.” + +“I do not know if you would think her handsome. I don't. She is, +however, an excellent musician; we play duets together every evening, to +Mount Rorke's intense delight. You know my dialogue between a lady and a +gentleman? She has written it down for me and corrected a few mistakes; +I think I shall publish it. Darling, I love you better than any one in +the world; you are all the world to me; try to love me a little--you +will never find any one to love you as I do.” + +“Well, you can't find anything peculiarly disagreeable to say about +that, I think.” + +Extract from another letter:-- + +“All the visitors have gone; Mount Rorke and I are quite alone. He is +kindness itself, and does not bother me about his memoirs; but from what +I hear that book will make one of the biggest sensations ever made in +the literary world. I want him to publish it now, but he only smiles and +shakes his head. He says: 'What is the use of setting the world talking +about you when you are alive; as long as I am alive I can see those +I want to see, and be with them far more personally than I could by +placing in their hands three volumes in 8vo; the 8vos are only useful +when you have passed into darkness, and are not yet reconciled to dying +quite out of the minds of men. I do not desire to be remembered by those +who will live three hundred years hence, but I confess that I should +like to modulate the pace of forgetfulness according to my fancy, and be +remembered, let us say, for the next sixty or seventy years. I find +no fault with death but its abruptness, and that I hope to be able to +correct. The vulgar and most usual plan is children, but children are no +anodyne to oblivion, whereas a good book in a certain measure is.' + +“These are almost the words Mount Rorke used, and I quote them as +exactly as possible, so that you may see what kind of man he is. We +pulled our chairs round to the fire and had a real good talk. I know +no better company than Mount Rorke. He has seen everything, read +everything, and known everybody worth knowing; he is a mine of +information, and, what is far better, he is a complete man of the world; +and long contact with the world has left him a little cynical, otherwise +he is perfect. I told him the story about Berkins, and he laughed; +I never saw him laugh so before; and when I told him that I had told +Berkins, as he was tying up his leg, that so far as the incident with +the dog was concerned, I regretted deeply what had occurred, he could +not contain himself. He rang the bell, and we had old Triss up. He asked +a great deal about you; I leave you to imagine what I said. How did he +expect me to describe my darling? I told him of your subtle, fascinating +ways, of your picturesque attitudes, and your exquisite little black +eyes. 'I think I see her,' he said; 'little eyes that light up are +infinitely more interesting than those big, limpid, silly eyes that +everybody admires.' I am now doing a water-colour sketch from the +photograph--the one in which you stand with your hands behind your back +and your head on one side--for him. I am getting on with it pretty well. +Ah! if only I had you here for an hour (I should like to have you here +for ever, of course; but now I am speaking artistically, not humanly), +I think I could get it really like you; there are one or two things +that the photo does not give me. I shall send the sketch to Dublin to be +framed; it will be a nice present for Mount Rorke. + +“My darling, you must not be anxious; all will come right in time--have +a little patience. He is already much more reconciled to the match than +he was when I arrived, and if your father will refrain from speaking too +much about that hateful question, I am sure that all difficulties can be +surmounted.” + +She wrote to him three or four times a week, and on beautiful hand-made +paper, delicately scented. + +Extract from a letter:-- + +“We went up to town yesterday by the ten o'clock train West Brighton; +and so that we might have more money to spend, we went third class. +Father doesn't like us going third class, but I don't think it matters +if you get in with nice people. We were very jolly. The Shaws went with +us. They are very nice girls. They had to leave us at Victoria, and +I and my cousin, Agnes Keating, went shopping together. We met the +Harrisons at Russell & Allen's. We saw there some lovely dresses--I wish +you had been with us, for I have confidence in your taste, and when I +choose a thing myself I am never sure that I like it. The assistant was +so polite; she told me to ask for Miss ----; she said she would like +to fit me. Sally was coming up with us, but she changed her mind and +remained at home, I was very glad, for she is wretchedly cross, and +not looking at all well. You would not admire her in the least; she is +growing very yellow. But I don't mean to be ill-natured, so we'll let +Sally bide, as we say in Sussex. After Russell & Allen's we went to +Blanchard's, and had a nice lunch. Grace was in town; she chaperoned us, +and paid for everything; it was very kind of her. Then we went to the +theatre, and saw a play which we did not care about much. There was +a very stupid 'tart' in it. I do like 'gadding,' don't I? But, oh, my +darling Frank, gadding is not really gadding without you. How I miss +you, how we all miss you, but I especially. The Keatings came over +to tea to-day, and they asked about you. Blanche wants you to write +something in her album, and she admired immensely the drawing you gave +me. She is very artistic in her tastes; I think you would like her. + +“But I have a bit of news that I think will amuse you. You remember Mrs. +Horlock's old dog--not the blind Angel; he's old too. But I mean +the real old dog,--the one twenty years old, that once belonged to a +butcher. He never smelt very sweet, as you know, but latterly he was +unbearable, and the General resolved on a silent and secret destruction. +He purchased in Brighton a bottle of chloroform. It was the dead of +the night and pitch dark. However, he reached the end of the passage +in safety; but suddenly he uttered a fearful shriek and dropped the +chloroform. He thought he had seen a ghost; but it was only Mrs. +Horlock, who was going her rounds, letting down the mouse-traps and +supplying the little creatures with food. The General blurted out +various excuses. He said that he had come to relieve the cock parrot's +tooth-ache--that he feared the Circassian goat was suffering from spinal +complaint and the squirrels from neuralgia. But his protestations proved +unavailing, and now he eats his meals in silence. And to make matters +worse, the old dog did die a few days after--the General says from old +age, but Mrs. Horlock avows that his death resulted from fright. 'He +was a sweet, cunning old thing, and no doubt knew all about that plan to +destroy him.' I think this would make an excellent subject for a comic +sketch; I wish you would do one--the General dropping the bottle; Mrs. +Horlock, surrounded by closed mouse-traps and crumbs, sternly upbraiding +him. + +“I see lots of Emily Pierce. Every Sunday I have tea with her, and +sometimes lunch; but she doesn't come here. I am afraid I couldn't get +on at all without her; we do everything together, and we hit it off so +well. + +“Sally has been staying in Kent. I do not know what's up, but she seems +to see everything _couleur de rose_; everything in Kent is better in +her estimation than anywhere else. The men dance so much better for one +thing. I am glad she is so happy, and I wish she would get married and +stay there. Father says he has a cough that tears him to pieces, but I +haven't heard it yet.” + +The elementary notion of a woman in love is to surround, to envelop the +man she loves, with her individuality, and to draw him from all +other influences. And the woman in love strives to accomplish this by +ceaseless reiteration of herself or himself seen through herself. So +Maggie with her nervous, highly-strung, febrile temperament could not +refrain from constantly striking the lyre of love. Her hands were for +ever on the chords. Letters and notes of all kinds; impetuous +messages asking him when he would return; letters apologising for her +selfishness--he had better remain with Mount Rorke until his consent +had been obtained; resolutions and irresolutions, ardours, lassitudes, +forgetfulness followed fast in strange and incomprehensible +contradiction. And Frank was asked daily to perform some small task. +There was always something; and Frank undertook all he was asked to do, +for he loved to be as much as possible in that circle of life in which +his sweetheart lived, and to feel her presence about him. + +Extract from a letter:-- + +“Mount Rorke and I had a long and serious talk about you last night. He +is against the marriage, but then he is against marriage in general. He +said with his quiet, cynical laugh, 'I daresay she is a pretty girl--I +can read the truth through your romantic descriptions. I am convinced +that she is very charming. But are you quite sure that you will never +meet another equally charming girl? Remember the world is a very big +place, and the stock of women is large; are you sure that you will be +able to enjoy the charm which now rules and enchants you for thirty, +forty years without wearying of it? These are the questions you have to +consider, which marriage entails.' I need hardly tell you what answer I +made, and how I tried to convince him that your charms are those that +a man capable of appreciating them could not weary of. Indeed I think I +made him rather a neat answer--I said there are books in one volume, +in two volumes, in three volumes, and there are books that you can take +down and read at any time. He laughed; it rather tickled his fancy. And +he said, 'Quite true, there are some books and some women that one never +tires of--that is to say, that some people never tire of. I haven't been +so fortunate or unfortunate, but that by the way. I admit such cases may +occur. I will go further--I will admit that a man's life may be made +or marred by his taking to himself a wife; and if Miss Brookes were a +really nice girl--if she were the one girl in a million, and if I were +sure that your passion for each other has its root in deeper and +more lasting sympathies than those of the skin (these were his exact +words)--believe me, my dear Frank, I should not think of opposing +the marriage. I shall be in London during the season, and no doubt an +occasion will arise, of which I promise you to avail myself, of making +this model young lady's acquaintance. I will tell you what I think of +her; she won't deceive me, let her try how she will. There is only one +thing I bar--one thing must not be, one thing I will not tolerate--a bad +marriage.' I lost my temper for a moment, but Mount Rorke did not lose +his, and I soon came round. It is annoying to be spoken to in that way; +but I remembered that he had not seen you, and I consoled myself by +thinking of how great his conversion will be when he does. My only fear +is that he'll want to marry you himself. So, you see, my own darling, my +uncle is on the 'give,' and we shall win soon and easily. The only real +obstacle is your father's pig-headedness on all matters in which money +enters. I think with terror of his meeting with Mount Rorke. If he +speaks to Mount Rorke as he spoke to me, my uncle will take up his hat +and wish him good-morning. Do you exert all your influence. Do leave no +stone unturned. All depends upon you.” + +Extract from another letter:-- + +“I am weary of this place, and I long to see you. My longing is such +that I can resist it no longer. Besides, nothing would be gained by +remaining here. Mount Rorke will not say more than he has said. In a +few days--think of that--I shall be with you. With what eagerness I look +forward. How gladly I shall see the train leave the dreary bogs and the +blue mountains of the West and pass into the pasture lands of Meath; how +gladly I shall hail the brown, slobber-faced city of Dublin; with what +delight I shall step on board the packet--I shall not think of sea +sickness--and watch the line of the low coast disappear, then the +Welsh mountains and castles, looking so like an illustrated history of +England. I must spend two days in London, alas! I must order some +new clothes. Victoria Station, with all its doors and cab stands, and +book-stalls, the Sussex scenery, the woodlands, the Downs, the plunging +through tunnels, and then you. Darling, I cannot believe that such +happiness is in store for me.” + +All happened as he had anticipated. At Victoria the usual difficulties +had arisen about the dog. Triss was growling, the guard was cringing, +and, with reference to no stoppage before we come to Redhill, the +necessity of a muzzle was being argued. + +“I am certain it is she,” and he followed with his eyes the tall, +swinging figure in the black cloth dress. Then he saw the clear plump +profile, so white, of Lizzie Baker. + +“Here, give me the chain, I'll tie the dog up.” + +“But the muzzle, sir.” + +A muzzle was procured, and Frank ran to the third class carriage where +he had seen Lizzie enter. + +“Lizzie! Lizzie!” + +“Oh, Mr. Escott, who would have thought of seeing you! It is such a +time--” + +“Yes, isn't it; how long? But are you going to Brighton?” + +“Yes.” + +“So am I; but--let me get you a first-class ticket. Guard, have I time +to change my ticket?” + +“No, sir, the train is going to start; get in.” + +“Do you get out, Lizzie; I'll pay the difference at Brighton.” + +“No time for changing now, sir; are you getting into this carriage?” + +He could not forego the pleasure of being with Lizzie. An old woman with +a provision basket on her lap drew her skirts aside and made way for +him; there were three dirtily dressed girls--probably shop girls; they +sat whispering together, a little troubled by the publicity; there were +two youths, shabbily dressed, their worn boots and trousers covered with +London mud. He was surprised, and he did not for a moment understand +or realise his company. Frank had never been in a third-class carriage +before. + +“I'm afraid you won't be comfortable here.” + +“Oh, yes, I shall; I'd just as soon travel in one class as another--much +sooner when it means being with you.” + +“None of your nonsense; I see you haven't changed. Well, who'd have +thought it? Just fancy meeting you, and after all this time.” + +“How long is it? It must be nearly two years. I haven't seen you +sincethat day we went up the river.” + +“Yes, you have.” + +“No; where did I see you since?” + +“At the bar; I didn't leave the 'Gaiety' for several days after.” + +“No more you did; I remember now. But why did you leave without letting +me know where you were going?” + +“I didn't know I was leaving till the morning, and I left in the +afternoon. A lot of us were changed suddenly. The firm couldn't get +enough young ladies to do the work at the Exhibition.” + +“But you didn't leave an address.” + +“Yes, I did.” + +“No, you didn't; I asked the manager, and he told me you had left no +address. They didn't know where you had gone.” + +“Did he say so? You mean Mr. Fairlie, I suppose--now I come to think of +it, it is the rule of the firm not to give information about the young +ladies. I am sorry.” + +“Are you?” + +“I am, really. We had a very pleasant day up the river--Reading; you +took me to Reading.” + +“Yes; but you would never come again.” + +“Wouldn't I? I suppose I couldn't find time--I did enjoy myself. What a +lovely day it was.” + +“Yes; and do you remember how like a beautiful smile the river lay? And +do you remember the bulrushes? I rowed you in among the rushes; you wet +the sleeve of your dress plunging your arm in. I remember it, that white +plump arm.” + +“Get along with you.” + +“I wanted to make a sketch of you leaning over the boatside with your +lapful of water-lilies; I wish I had.” + +“I wish you had, too; you wrote a little poem instead. It was very +pretty, but I should have liked the picture better. You gave me the poem +next day when you came in to lunch. You had lunch at the bar, and I was +so cross with you because you said I hadn't wiped the glass. It was all +done to annoy me because I had been talking to that tall, rather stout +young man, with the dark moustache, whom you were so jealous of. Don't +you remember?” + +“Yes, I remember; and I believe it was that fellow who prevented you +from coming out with me again.” + +“No, it wasn't; but don't speak so loud, all these people are listening +to you.” + +Frank met the round stare of the girls; and, turning from the dormant +curiosity of the old woman, he said-- + +“Do you remember the locks, how frightened you were; you had never been +through a lock before; and the beautiful old red brick house showing +upon the lofty woods; and coming back in the calm of the evening, +passing the different boats, the one where the girls lay back in the +arms of the young men, the flapping sail, and the dreamy influences of +the woods where we climbed and looked into space over the railing?” + +“At the green-table--don't you remember?” + +“Yes, I remember every hour of that day; we had lunch at the 'Roebuck.'” + +“You haven't spoken of the lady we saw there. Lady Something--I forget +what you said her name was; you said she had been making up to you.” + +“I dined with her one night, and we went to the theatre.” + +“You may do that without it being said that you are making up to a +gentleman.” + +“Of course; I should never think of saying you made up to me.” + +“I should hope not, indeed.” + +“I should never think of accusing you of having made up to me; you have +always treated me very badly.” + +Lizzie did not answer. He looked at her, puzzled and perplexed, and he +hoped that neither the girls nor the old lady had understood. + +“I am sorry; I really didn't mean to offend you. All I meant to say +was that the lady we saw at the 'Roebuck' had been rather civil to me; +had--well I don't know how to put it--shown an inclination to flirt with +me--will that suit you?--and that I had not availed myself of my chances +because I was in love with you.” + +Encouraged by a sunny smile, Frank continued: “You wouldn't listen to +me; you were very cruel.” + +“I am sure I didn't mean to be cruel; I went out on the river with you, +and we had a very pleasant day. You didn't say then I was cruel.” + +“No, you were very nice that day; it was the happiest day of my life. +I was in love with you; I shall never care for any one as I cared for +you.” + +“I don't believe you.” + +“I swear it is true. When you left the 'Gaiety' I searched London for +you. If you had only cared for me we might have been very happy. As sure +as a fellow loves a woman, so sure is she to like some other chap. Tell +me, why did you go away and leave no address?” + +“I did leave an address.” + +“Well, we won't discuss that. Why didn't you write to me? You knew my +address. It's no use saying you didn't.” + +“Well, I suppose I was in love with some one else.” + +“Were you? You always denied it. Ah! so you were in love with some one +else? I knew it--I knew it was that thick-set fellow with the black +moustache. I wonder how you could like him--the amount of whisky and +water he used to drink.” + +“Yes, usen't he? I have served him with as many as six whiskies in an +afternoon--Irish, he always drank Irish.” + +“How could you like a man who drank?” + +“But it wasn't he--I assure you; I give you my word of honour. It really +wasn't. I'd tell you if it was.” + +“Well, who was it, then? It couldn't be the old man with the beard and +white teeth?” + +“No.” + +“Was it that great tall fellow, clean shaven?” + +“No, it wasn't; you'll never guess; There's no use trying. However, it +is all over now.” + +“Why? Did he treat you badly? Whose fault was it?” + +“His. And the chances I threw away. He behaved like a beast. I had to +give up keeping company with him.” + +“Why?” + +“Oh, I don't know. He changed very much towards me lately; he went +messing about after other girls, and we had words, and I left.” + +“You will make it up. Perhaps you are mistaken.” + +“Mistaken--no; I found their letters in his pocket.” + +“There are always rows between sweethearts; and then they kiss and make +it up, and love each other the more.” + +“No, I shall not see him again. We were going to be married; no, it is +all over. It was a little hard at first, but I am all right now.” + +“I am sorry. Do you think there is no chance of making it up?” + +“I should have thought that you would be glad; men are so selfish they +never think of any one but themselves.” + +“How do you mean? Why should I be glad that your marriage was broken +off?” + +“You said just now that you liked me very much, I thought--” + +“So I do like you very much. Once I was in love with you--that day when +we walked up the steep woods together.” + +“And you don't care for me any longer?” + +“I don't say that; but I am engaged to be married.” + +“Oh!” + +“Had you not snubbed me so I might have been married to you.” + +“Who are you going to be married to--to the lady we saw that day?” + +“Oh, no, not to her.” + +“I don't believe you. You mean to say you haven't been to see her +since.” + +“I assure you---” + +“You mean to say you haven't seen her?” + +“I don't say that. I've just come from Ireland. I've been staying with +my uncle. She spent a week with us; that's all I have seen of her. I am +going now to see the young lady whom I am engaged to.” + +“And when will you be married?” + +“I don't know; there are a great many difficulties in the way. Perhaps I +shall never marry her.” + +“Nonsense. I know better. You think it will take me in. I'll never be +taken in again, not if I know it.” + +“I don't want to take you in.” + +“I don't know so much about that. Is she very pretty? I suppose you are +very much in love with her?” + +“Yes, I love her very much. Dark, not like you a bit--just the +opposite.” + +“And you met her since you saw me?” + +“No.” + +“Ah, I thought as much, and yet you told me the day we went up the river +together that you never had and couldn't care for any one elsebut me. +Men are all alike--they never tell the truth.” + +“Wait a minute; wait a minute. I knew her long before I knew you; I have +known her since I was a boy, but that doesn't mean that I have been in +love with her since I was a boy. I never thought of her until you threw +me over, until long after; it was last summer I fell in love with her.” + +Lizzie's eyes were full upon him, and it seemed to them that each could +see and taste the essence of the other's thought. + +“What have you been doing ever since? You have told me nothing about +yourself.” + +“Well, after trying vainly to find you--having searched, as I thought, +all Speirs and Pond's establishments in London, I tried to resign myself +to my fate. I assure you, I was dreadfully cut up--could do nothing. +My life was a burden to me. You have been in love, and you know what an +ache it is; it used to catch me about the heart. There was no hope; you +were gone--gone as if the earth had swallowed you. I got sick of going +to the 'Gaiety' and asking those girls if they knew anything about you; +so to cure myself I went to France, and I worked hard at my painting. In +such circumstances there is only one thing--work.” + +“You are right.” + +“Yes; nothing does you any good but work. I worked in the +_atelier_--that's the French for studio--all the morning, and in the +afternoon I painted from the nude in a public studio. I had such a +nice studio--such a jolly little place. I was up every morning at +eight o'clock, my model arrived at nine, and I worked without stopping +(barring the ten or twelve minutes' rest at the end of every hour) till +twelve. Then I went to the cafe to have breakfast--how I used to enjoy +those breakfasts--fried eggs all swimming in butter, a cutlet, after, +nice bread and butter, then cock your legs up, drink your coffee, and +smoke your cigarette till one.” + +“Did you like the French cafe better than the 'Gaiety'?” + +“It is impossible to compare them. I made a great deal of progress. I +began one picture of a woman in a hammock, a recollection of you. +You remember when we passed under those cedar branches, close to the +'Roebuck,' we saw a hammock hung by the water's edge, and I said I would +like to see you in it, and stand by and rock you. I had intended to send +it to the Academy, but I never could finish it, the French model was not +what I wanted--I wanted you; and I was obliged to leave France, and I +could get no one in Southwick. Once a fellow changes his model he is +done for; he never can find his idea again.” + +“Where's Southwick?” + +“A village outside Brighton, three or four miles, not more. I have a +studio there; you must come and see it.” + +“You must paint me. But what would your lady love say if she found me in +your studio? She'd have me out of it pretty quick. Tell me about her; I +want to hear how you fell in love.” + +“It happened in the most curious, quite providential way. I have told +you that I knew them since I was a boy. Maggie has often sat on my +knee.” + +“Maggie is her name, then?” + +“Yes, don't you like the name? I do. Her brother was a school-fellow of +mine. We were at Eton together, and one time when Mount Rorke was away +travelling they asked me to spend my holidays at Southwick. That's how I +got to know them. One day Maggie and Sally were at my studio; Sally has +a sweetheart--” + +The sentence was cut short by a sudden roar. The train had entered a +tunnel, and the speakers made pause, seeing each other vaguely in the +dim light, and when they emerged into the cold April twilight Frank told +the story of Triss and Berkins, Mr. Brookes struggling with the door, +and the girls rushing screaming from their hiding-place; and Frank's +imitation of Berkin's pomposity amused Lizzie, and she laughed till she +cried. He continued till the joke was worn bare; then, fearing he had +been talking too much of himself, he said: “Now, I have been very candid +with you, tell me about yourself.” + +“There is nothing to tell; I think I have told you all.” Then she +said, slipping, as she spoke, into minute confidences: “When I left the +'Gaiety' I went for a few days to the Exhibition, but _he_ wanted to +leave London, so I applied to the firm to remove me to Liverpool (not +Liverpool Street; the girl--I suppose it was Miss Clarke, for I wrote to +her--made a mistake, or you misunderstood her). We remained in Liverpool +a year, and then we came back to London, and I went to the 'Criterion,' +but I couldn't stop there long; he was so awfully jealous of me; he +used to catechise me every evening--who had I spoken to? How long I +had spoken to this man? Once I slapped a man's face in fun because he +squeezed my hand when I handed him the change across the counter. There +was such a row about it. I don't know how _he_ heard of it. I think he +must have got some one to watch me. I often suspected the porter--the +bigger one of the two; but you don't know the 'Criterion.' You used to +go to the 'Gaiety.'” + +“Perhaps he saw you himself. I suppose he used to come to the bar?” + +“No, not unless--no, not very often. He banged me about.” + +“Banged you about, the brute! Good heavens! How could you like a man +who would strike a woman? Who was he? Was he a gentleman--I mean, was he +supposed to be a gentleman? Of course he wasn't really a gentleman, or +he wouldn't have struck you.” + +“He was in a passion, he was very sorry for it afterwards. Then I left +the firm and went to live in lodgings; he allowed me so much a week.” + +“He was a man of some means?” + +“No, but it didn't cost him much, he knew the people. We were going to +be married, but he got ill, and we thought we had better wait; and I +went to the 'Gaiety' again. I was a fool, of course, to think so much +about him, for I had plenty of chances. One man who used to lunch there +three times a week wanted me to marry him, and take me right away. I +think he was in the printing business--a man who was making good money; +but I could not give Harry up.” + +“Harry is his name, then?” + +“Yes; but it all began over again. It was just the same at the 'Gaiety' +as it was at the 'Criterion.' He would never leave me alone, but kept +on accusing me of flirting with the gentlemen that came to the bar. +Now, you know as well as I do what the bar is. You must be polite to the +gentlemen you serve. There are certain gentlemen who always come to me, +and don't care to be served by any one else, and if I didn't speak to +them they wouldn't come to the bar. The manager is very sharp, and would +be sure to mention it.” + +“Whom do you mean? That fellow with the yellow moustache that walks +about with his frock-coat all open--a sort of apotheosis of sherry and +bitters?” + +“That's what you called him once before. You see I remember. He is very +fond of sherry and bitters. But I was saying that Harry would keep on +interfering with me, pulling me over the coals. We had such dreadful +rows. He accused me of having gone with gentlemen to their rooms--a +thing I never did. I could stand it no longer, and we agreed to part.” + +“How long is that ago?” + +“About three weeks. I could stand it no longer, I couldn't remain at the +'Gaiety,' so I resolved to leave.” + +“Why couldn't you remain at the 'Gaiety,' the manager didn't know +anything about it?” + +“No, he knew nothing about it, it wouldn't have mattered if he had, but +after a break up like that you can't remain among people you know--you +want to get right away; there's nothing like a change. Besides I +mightn't get such a good chance again; I had the offer of a very good +place in Brighton, and I took it--a new restaurant, they open to-morrow. +I get thirty pounds a year and my food.” + +“And lodging?” + +“No, they are very short of accommodation, and I have taken a room in +one of the streets close by--Preston Street. Do you know it?” + +“Perfectly, off the Western Road.” + +“The lady who has the house knew my poor mother--a very nice woman--will +let me have a bedroom for five shillings a week, and I shall be allowed +to use her sitting-room when I want it, which, of course, won't be very +often, for I shall be at business all day.” + +The train rolled along the platform; Frank asked the porter when there +would be a train for Southwick, and was told he would have half an hour +to wait. + +“I shall have time to drive you to Preston Street.” + +“Oh, no, please don't! She will be waiting for you--you will miss your +train.” + + + + +XIV + + + +About four in the afternoon he left off painting, and went to Brighton +for a couple of hours. The little journey broke up the day, he bought +the evening papers, and it was pleasant to glance from the news to those +who passed, and to look upon the sunny and hazy sea. He liked to go to +Mutton's, and regretted Lizzie was not there, instead of behind a +bar serving whisky and beer. But he went to the bar. It was a German +establishment, decorated with the mythological art of Munich, and +enlivened with a discordant band. The different rooms were fitted with +bars of various importance. Lizzie was engaged at the largest--that +nearest the entrance. At half-past five this bar was thronged with all +classes. Beer and whisky were drunk hurriedly, with a look of trains on +the face. The quietest time was from half-past three to half-past four, +during these hours the dining-room was alone in the presence of the +awful goddesses and a couple of drowsy waiters. Most of the girls were +out, some two or three read faded novels in the sloppy twilight; a group +of four or five men who had lingered from half-hour to half-hour turned +their backs, and talked among themselves; sometimes a couple would +condescendingly address Lizzie, and tease her with rude remarks; or else +Frank found her having a little private chat with an old gentleman, a +youth, or, may be, the waiter. + +Lizzie had her bar manners and her town manners, and she slipped on the +former as she would an article of clothing when she lifted the slab and +passed behind. They consisted principally of cordial smiles, personal +observations, and a look of vacancy which she assumed when +the conversation became coarse. From behind the bar she spoke +authoritatively, she was secure, it was different--it was behind the +bar; and she spoke with a cheek and a raciness that at other times were +quite foreign to her. “I will not sleep with you to-night if you don't +behave yourself,” so Frank once heard her answer a swaggering young man. +She spoke out loud, evidently regarding her words merely in the light +of gentle repartee. What she heard and said in the bar remained not +a moment on her mind, she appeared to accept it all as part of the +business of the place, and when Frank was annoyed she only laughed. + +“Men will talk improper--what does it matter? One doesn't pay attention +to their nonsense, and it is only in the bar. Never mind all that, tell +me what you have been doing. You didn't come into Brighton yesterday, I +suppose?” + +“No, I had to go to the Manor House.” + +“And how is she--the only one? Are you as much in love with her as +ever?” + +“I suppose I am; I have begun a portrait of her.” + +“What, another! You never finish anything. I shan't have that when I +come and sit for you. I shall make you finish my portrait.” + +“Ah, yes; when you come and sit. But, joking apart, when will you come? +I should so like to show you my studio. It really looks very nice now. +When will you come?” + +“I have no time.” + +“Why not come next Sunday; it is your Sunday off.” + +“What would Maggie say if she found me there? She'd have my eyes out.” + +“If she did find it out she'd know you came to sit; but as a matter +of fact she'd know nothing about it. You come and lunch with me about +twelve--they're all in church about that time.” + +“And you never go to church, you wicked boy. I don't know that I dare +trust myself with you.” + +A scruple jarred the even strain of his desire to paint Lizzie's +portrait, but his scruple vanished in one of her sweet sunny smiles, and +he gave her all information about the train she would have to take to +reach Southwick by twelve o'clock. + +He ordered some delicacies in the way of potted meats, and there was a +bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice when she arrived. + +“Do you keep your champagne in ice? We never do in the bar. When the +gentlemen want it they have a piece to put in their wine.” + +“I wish you'd try to forget your gentlemen when you come here.” + +Lizzie began to cry, and it was hard to console her; she said that Frank +had spoilt her lunch for her. + +“It is because you are so much superior to the men I see you speaking +to. How can I help feeling annoyed that you should be serving drinks?” + +“But I've got to get my living. You don't suppose I serve in a bar +because I like it?” + +“No, of course not; but don't let us talk any more about it. You're +going to sit to me, and I want to do as pretty a portrait of you as I +can. All that beautiful brown hair, and that hat! Let me take it from +your head!” Frank had bought this hat for her and had handed it to her +over the counter, thereby bringing censure upon her from the manager. +“Let's forget what I said. The hat suits you. There, now against the +light, just a three-quarter face.” + +At the end of half an hour he said she was a very good sitter and this +pleased her, and she tried to keep the pose till the clock struck, but +at the end of fifty minutes she said: “I must get up,” and she came +round to see what he was doing. + +“Now you mustn't criticise it,” he said. “It's only a beginning. You've +forgiven me my remarks about the bar?” + +“Don't remind me of it again.” + +But he could not get it out of his head that he had annoyed her, and +was unable to apply himself to his painting; perhaps for this reason his +drawing went wrong, and his colour became muddy, and the thought struck +him that if Maggie were to find this portrait about the studio she would +certainly ask him whose portrait it was. + +“I can't paint to-day,” he said, getting up from his easel. + +“And why can't you paint?” The question seemed to him at first a stupid +one, and then she showed a perception that surprised him. “Are you +afraid the young lady you're engaged to might come and catch me sitting +to you?” + +The fear that this might happen had been floating in the back of his +mind for the last half hour; he had kept Lizzie too long in the studio, +and it was not improbable that the girls might knock at his door at any +moment, and if they did it would be impossible for him not to answer. +Triss would bark. + +“Well,” she said, “I won't keep you any longer.” + +“No, I assure you,” he said aloud, and within himself, “I'd give a +sovereign if I could get her to the station without being seen.” + +And he thought he had done so as he returned half an hour afterwards +across the green. Maggie was waiting for him. “Come to ask me to dine at +the Manor House,” he thought; but she told him that she knew all about +his visitor, and, despite all Frank's efforts to pacify her she grew +more violent, more excited until at last she told him she didn't want to +see him any more, that he was to go away, that she gave him his liberty. + +“What an excitable girl she is! I'll go there this evening and try to +coax her out of her anger. I must try to explain to her that a painter +must have models. If we were married we shouldn't have more than a +thousand a year to live on at the outside--that is to say, if Mount +Rorke and Brookes come to terms, which is not very likely, they might +make up a thousand a year between them, that would not be enough for +two, and I should have to work; and I couldn't work without a model. +The thing is absurd! She'll have to learn that a model is absolutely +necessary; we were bound to have a row over that model question, so it +might as well come off now as later on, and we shall understand each +other better when this has blown over. There is nothing, and never has +been anything, between me and Lizzie--my conscience is clear on that +score. How pretty she looked to-day--that pale brown hair, so soft +and so full of colour. To-day was an unlucky day; I began by being +unfortunate with my painting; I never made a worse drawing in my life, +and the worst of it was that I did not see that my drawing was wrong +until I had begun to paint.” + +A remembrance of Maggie's gracefulness came dazzling and straining his +imagination, and in sharp revulsion of desire he assailed Lizzie with +angry and contemptuous memory. She was always in low company--was never +happy out of it; it was part of her. How this man liked six dashes of +bitters in his sherry, and the other would not drink whisky except in a +thin glass. + +As he was leaving the studio he received a letter from Maggie, and +when he thought of the circumstances in which it was written, he grew +genuinely alarmed, for there was no forgetting the seriousness of the +letter, and she stated her reasons for the step she was taking without +undue emphasis. In its severity and quiet determination the letter did +not seem like her, and he suspected forgery, sisterly advice, paternal +influence--a family conspiracy. There was but one thing to do. He looked +through the various furniture for his hat; and with his head full of +citations from the lives of artists illustrative of their conduct, he +went to her. But Maggie would not see him. + +“Miss Brookes,” the servant said, “is in her room and cannot see you, +sir.” + +“She will never be mine, she will never be mine,” he muttered as he +passed into the town. “But why do I think she'll never be mine?” And +looking at the grey sea with only a trace of the sunset left in the grey +sky he asked himself if the thought that had crossed his mind were a +conviction, a fore-telling or merely a passing fancy created by the +difficulty of the moment. He asked himself if he had heard himself +saying, “She'll never be mine” and mistaken his own voice for the voice +of Fate. Over the shingle bank the sea faded, a thin illusion, dim and +promiseful of peace, and as the darkness and the sea filled Frank's soul +he, the lightest and most life-loving of men, was filled for once with +a sense of failure of life, and as his sorrowing thoughts drifted on he +remembered that he had stood with her in hearing of the rising tide, and +all his pleading and passion came back to him. + +“What are you doing here?” + +It was Willy. + +“I don't know. Maggie has broken off her engagement; she will never +speak to me again, she hopes we may never meet.” + +“I don't understand. When did she break off her engagement?” + +Frank told his story, and they walked across the green towards the +studio. + +“Oh, you don't care. I don't believe you are listening to me.” + +“I am listening. You never think any one understands what is said to +them if they do not instantly jump and call the stars to witness.” + +“I suppose I am like that--excitable--the difference between the Celt +and the Saxon; and yet I don't know, your sisters are quite as excitable +as I am.” + +“They take after their mother; I am more like my father.” + +“It wouldn't be a bad character for a play--a man who never would +believe what you said, unless you threw up your arms and called on the +stars.” + +“He can't be very bad if he can think about plays,” thought Willy. + +“Tell me, Willy, you won't offend me; tell me exactly what you think, +did I do anything wrong? I swear to you there is nothing between me and +Lizzie--I believe she is over head and ears in love with some fellow who +has treated her very badly. She never would tell me who he was. In fact, +she told me she had left London so that she might get over it. There +would be no use my humbugging you, and I swear there is not, and never +was, anything between me and Lizzie Baker. I never expected to see her +again. It is very strange how people meet. I have told you all about it. +When I go to Brighton I must go somewhere to get a drink, and I really +don't see there is any harm in going to the 'Tivoli'; it didn't occur +to me to think I should avoid the place merely because she was serving +there. I have often been there, I don't deny it. Do you see there is any +harm in my going there?” + +“I don't like giving an opinion unless I am fully acquainted with the +facts; but it seems to me that you might have gone to the 'Tivoli' to +have a drink without asking her to your studio.” + +“Stay a bit, we'll speak of that presently. I am now telling you how +I see Lizzie when I go to Brighton. I often go to Brighton by the four +o'clock train, I often go to the 'Tivoli,' and when she is not talking +to some one else I talk to her about things in general; but I swear I +have never been out with her, that I never saw her except in the bar, +and yet Maggie accuses me of keeping a woman in Brighton, and won't hear +what I have to say in my defence. This is what she says: 'I have it on +unquestionable authority that you have been keeping this woman since you +returned from Ireland, perhaps before, and that you go in by the four +o'clock train almost daily to see her.' Now I ask you if it is fair to +make such accusations--such utterly false and baseless accusations--and +then to refuse to hear what a fellow has to say in his defence? By Jove! +if I caught the fellow who has been telling lies about me, I'd let him +have it. Some of those Southdown Road people have been writing to her, +that's about the long and short of it. + +“As for having asked her to come to the studio, I assure you my +intentions were quite innocent. Perhaps you won't understand what +I mean; you don't care for painting, but very often an artist has a +longing to paint a certain face, and the desire completely masters him. +Well, I had a longing of this kind to paint Lizzie; hers is just the +kind of head that suits me--she offered to give me a sitting, Idid +not see much harm in accepting, and as I could not paint her in the +bar-room, I asked her to the studio. But as for making out there was +anything wrong--I assure you she is not that sort of girl. If we were +married (I mean Maggie and I) I would have to have models; we'll have to +come to an understanding on that point. Now what I want you to do is to +explain to Maggie that there is nothing wrong between me and Lizzie, you +can tell her there is nothing--I swear there is nothing; and then you +had better explain that an artist must have models to work from.” + +“Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't ask me. I make a rule never to +interfere in my sisters' affairs. I did once, you remember, and I +thought I should never hear the end of it.” + +“I think you might do this for me.” + +“Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't, my dear fellow. I am an exceedingly +nervous chap, and I have had nothing but bad luck all my life.” + +“You think of nothing but yourself. You certainly are the most selfish +fellow I ever met. You take no interest in any affairs but your own.” + +Willy made no answer. He sat stroking his moustache softly with slow +crumpled hand. After a long silence, he said: “Tell me, Frank, are you +really in love with my sister, or is it only imagination? I know people +often think they are in love when their fancy is only a little excited. +Very little will pass for being in love, but the real thing is very +different from such fancies.” + +“I assure you I never loved any one like Maggie. Yes, I am sure I love +her.” + +“You may be in love, I don't say you aren't; but I am sure there's +no more common mistake than to fancy one's self in love because one's +imagination is a bit excited. When you do fall in love, you find out +your mistake.” + +“You think no one was ever in love but yourself. Do you remember when +you took me to see her, when we heard her sing 'Love was false as he was +fair, and I loved him far too well'?” + +Frank knew no more of the story than that: Willy had loved this actress +vainly. On occasions Willy had alluded to her, but he had never shown +signs of wishing to confide. + +“Yes, I remember. How I loved that woman, and what a wreck it has made +of my life. I daresay you often think me dull; I can quite understand +your thinking me narrow-minded, selfish, and incapable of taking +interest in other people's affairs: losing her took the soul out of my +life. Now nothing really amuses me--now nothing really interests me. I +often think if I were to die, it would be a happy release.” + +“You never told me anything about it before; wouldn't she marry you?” + +“I never knew her. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her, +and my love swallowed up everything else. Then I wasn't wrapped up in +account-books, although I was always a precise and methodical sort of +chap; I was young enough then, now I am an older man than my father. +Some fellows have all the luck; everything succeeds with them, every one +loves them, men and women, they get all they ask for and more, others +get nothing. No matter what I tried to do, something went wrong and +I was baulked. I set my heart on that girl, she was the one thing I +wanted. I saw her play the same piece fifty times. I knew my passion +was hopeless, but I couldn't resist it. Had I known her I might have won +her, but there were no means; I never saw her but once off the stage, +and that was but a moment. I often sent her presents, sometimes +jewellery, sometimes fans or flowers, anything and everything I thought +she would like. I sent her a beautiful locket; I paid fifty pounds for +it.” + +“Did she accept your presents?” + +“I sent them anonymously.” + +“Why did you not try to make her acquaintance?” + +“I knew nobody in the theatrical world. I was not good at making +acquaintances. You might have done it. I am a timid man.” + +“Did you make no attempt? You might have written.” + +“At last I did write.” + +“What did you write?” + +“I tried to tell her the exact truth. I told her that I had refrained +from writing to her for three years. That I quite understood the folly +and the presumption of the effort; but I felt now, as drowning men that +clutch at straws, that I must make my condition known to her. I told +her I loved her truly and honourably, that my position and fortune would +have entitled me to aspire to her hand if fate had been kind enough to +allow me to know her. It was a very difficult letter to write, and +I just tried to make myself clear. I told her I knew no one in the +theatrical world, and that waiting and hoping for some chanceto bring +us together would only result in misery long drawn out; that I had some +faint hope that this letter might lead her to consider that there might +be an exception to the rule that a young lady should not stop to speak +to a young man she didn't know. I remember I said 'when men are in +deadly earnest, truth seems to shine between the lines they write. I +know I am in earnest, and may say that all I hold dear and precious in +life is set in the hope that this letter may not appear to you in the +light of one of those foolish and wicked letters which I believe men +often write to actresses, and of which I suppose you have been the +recipient.' Then I said that I would be at the stage door on the +following night, and that I hoped she would allow me to speak a few +words to her.” + +“And did she?” + +“I could not speak to her; I lost all courage in that moment. She walked +close by me.” + +“You mean to say you did not speak to her after writing that letter?” + +“Call me a fool, an idiot, what you will; I could not do it. I can +only compare my feeling to what Livingstone says he felt when he found +himself face to face with a lion. He stood staring in the lion's eyes, +unable to move.” + +“She must have thought your letter a practical joke. I wonder what she +did think.” + +“I wrote explaining the unfortunate circumstances as well as I could, +and telling her I would come the following night.” + +“Did you go?” + +“Yes.” + +“Did you speak to her?” + +“Yes.” + +“And she wouldn't speak?” + +“She passed on with her maid, but I didn't lose hope until she married. +It was always a sort of sad pleasure to go to the theatre to see her. +I used to live at the Manor House for two or three months at a time, +saving up my money so as to be able to make her some nice present. I +wished her to remember me, although she would not speak to me. No one +came to the Manor House; there was nothing to do except to read the +paper and smoke my pipe. I was sick of my life, and I counted the days +that would have to pass till I saw her again--only thirty more days, +only nineteen days, only one more week--so I used to count, marking off +each day in an almanac, until one day I read the announcement of her +marriage; then I knew all hope was at an end. I went mad that night +and rushed out of the house, and I should have drowned myself had I not +fainted. When I came to, I was weak and delirious, and wandered along +the beach, not knowing where I was going. Some fishermen brought me +home. My sisters were at school at the time. I believe I was very near +dying. I fainted three times one afternoon. I used to lie on the sofa +and cry for hours. She married a stockbroker. I believe she didn't care +for him at all. Then she died. She was buried in Kensal Green. Whenever +I am in London I go and see her grave.” + +“This is awfully sad.” + +“Yes; it ruined my life. I never had any luck. Things always went wrong +with me.” + +“I should like to see those letters.” + +“I haven't got copies. I didn't keep a letter-book in those days. Let's +talk of something else. I have some news. I am going in for breeding +race-horses.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“What I say. I have calculated it all out, and I find I shall make from +fifteen to twenty per cent, on my money.” + +“By breeding race-horses! And where are you going to breed them?” + +“You know those stables on the Portslade Road where the veterinary +surgeon used to live? I am going to take that place. The rent is three +hundred pounds a year; there are fifty acres of pasture, and stabling +for thirty horses. The dwelling-house is not a very aristocratic-looking +place, but it will do for the present; when I begin to make money I +shall go in for alterations. You can't do everything at once.” + +“You do astonish me. And where are you going to get the money to do all +this? You will require at least twenty thousand pounds capital.” + +“More than that. You would not be able to work a place like that under +twenty-five thousand pounds,” Willy replied sententiously. “I have got +about eight thousand left of my own, and I came in for a legacy of three +thousand at the beginning of this year--an aunt of mine left me the +money; and my father has agreed to let me have fourteen thousand on +condition of my abandoning all further claim upon him. The bulk of his +fortune will now be divided among my sisters. Berkins advised him to +accept my offer.” + +“I should think so indeed; your father is worth ten thousand a year.” + +“No, nothing like that. His business has been going down for years past. +Last year he lost heavily again; if it weren't for his investments he +wouldn't be able to go on with it. The business is done for; I knew +that long ago. My father and I could never agree about how the accounts +should be kept. That head clerk of his is an awful duffer.” + +“Yes, but what are you going to do with the shop?” + +“The shop was the origin of it all. If it hadn't been for the shop I +dare say I never should have thought of the race-horses. My father and +I could never work together. I offered to buy his surplus fruit and +vegetables, and, without absolutely binding myself to deal with no +one else, I had assured him of my chief custom. Naturally I expected +something in return--I expected him to let me have peaches in April and +strawberries in March. You cannot do this without using a good deal of +heating power. I spoke to the gardener several times. Often when I went +into the houses I found the pipes nearly cold. I got tired of this, and +I paid a man out of my own pocket to keep the furnaces properly +stoked, and--would you believe it?--my father actually raised +objections--objected to my paying a man to look after his glass-houses +as they should be looked after. He said he would not order in any more +coke, that I'd have to get along with what there was in the garden; he +said he wished the shop at the devil. I saw it was hopeless. You cannot +help my father, and he won't help himself, so I threw the whole thing +up.” + +“And when are you going to start the new scheme?” + +“Immediately. One of my reasons for accepting fourteen thousand pounds +down as a settlement in full was because I was beginning to fear that +he might get wind of my marriage. From one or two things I have heard +lately, I have reason to suspect that the secret is beginning to ooze +out, and I thought it might be as well to take time by the forelock.” + +“And you told him? What did he say?” + +“What people usually say when they criticise other people's lives +without knowing anything of their temptations and sufferings. But I want +to tell you about my scheme. I have bought Blue Mantle, the winner of +the Czarewitch, and only beaten by a length for the Cambridgeshire, a +three-year-old, with eight stone on his back; a most unlucky horse--if +he had been in the Leger or Derby he would have won one or both. He +broke down when he was four years old. By King Tom out of Merry Agnes, +by Newminster out of Molly Bawn.” + +“I didn't know you knew so much about racing.” + +“I know more than you think. I don't let out all I know.” + +“And how much did you pay for Blue Mantle?” + +“Dirt cheap. I can imagine myself two years hence, when my first batch +of yearlings is put up for sale--500, 650, 800, 1000, knocked down +for 1000 guineas, brown colt by Blue Mantle out of Wild Rose, bred by +William Brookes, Esq.” + +“I don't think money will come in quite so fast as that.” + +“Perhaps not; but can't you let a fellow enjoy himself? I never knew any +one like you for throwing cold water. I believe you are jealous.” + +“What nonsense!” + +“Well, never mind. I shall be the deuce of a dog, see if I shan't. I +always like to kill two birds with one stone if I can, and my +business will bring me into connection with the very best in the land. +Unfortunately! my people don't care about getting on; now I do. I like +to know people who are better than myself--at all events, who are no +worse. I shouldn't be surprised if I were dining at Goodwood and Arundel +before long. When I go up to town I shall be calling on Lady This and +Lady That, and later on I might get in somewhere in the Conservative +interest.” + +“How long you may know a man, and then find you are mistaken in his +character,” thought Frank. “So vanity is at the bottom of all these +efforts to make money.” + +“When are you coming to the Manor House?” + +“Impossible. You know I can't go there so long as your father--” + +“Come in one afternoon; he'll ask you to stay to dinner. He has +forgotten all about it.” + +“I cannot come to the Manor House until my engagement to your sister is +sanctioned by him.” + +“The way to get that is to come to the Manor House and talk him into +it. For my part, I think, even from his point of view, that it would +be better that he should recognise the engagement; nothing can be more +damaging than these clandestine meetings.” + +“What can I do? I will not give her up.” + +“I never interfere. I have quite enough worries of my own. I must be +getting home. It is very late. Good-bye.” + +The green was as bright as day in the moonlight and Frank watched Willy +walking, his shoulders thrown back. He sighed; an undefinable, but +haunting melancholy hung about Willy; he often impressed Frank as an old +book--a book whose text is trite--which no one will read, and which yet +continues to make its mute appeal; a something that has always missed +its way, that can hardly be said to be an adequate thing to offer for +any man's money, that will soon disappear somehow out of all sight and +reckoning. + + + + +XV + + + +A few days after he got a letter from Lizzie, saying she was alone +and ill, and asking him to come and see her. He took the next train to +Brighton. The land-lady's daughter, a girl of about twelve, opened the +door to him. + +“How is Miss Baker? Is she any better?” + +“Please, sir, she is not at all well, she has cold shivers; and mother +went away yesterday.” + +“And who looks after Miss Baker?” + +“Please, sir, I do.” + +“You do! Is there no one else in the house?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Is Miss Baker in bed?” + +“No, sir. She said she would get up a little while this afternoon, +'cause she said she thought you was coming.” + +“Go and tell her I am here.” + +“Please, sir, she said you was to go upstairs--the back room on the +second floor, please.” + +“Come in.” + +“I am so sorry you are ill, Lizzie. What is the matter?” + +“I don't know; I think I caught a severe chill. I stayed out very late +on the beach.” + +“But why are you crying? Do tell me. Can I do anything?” + +“No no. What does it matter whether I laugh or cry? Nothing matters now. +I don't care what becomes of me.” + +“A pretty girl like you; nonsense! Some one rich and grand will fall in +love with you, and give you everything you want.” + +“I don't want any one to fall in love with me; I am done for--don't care +what becomes of me.” + +“Do tell me about it. Have you heard anything further about him? Do tell +me; don't cry like that.” + +“No, no, leave me, leave me! I am so miserable. I don't know why I wrote +to you. I hope I shall die.” + +“It is very lucky you did write to me, for you are clearly very ill. +What is the matter?” + +“I don't know; I can't get warm. This room is very cold--don't you think +so?” + +“Cold? No.” + +“I feel cold; my throat is very bad--perhaps I shall be better in the +morning.” + +“You must see a doctor.” + +“Oh, no! I don't want to see a doctor.” + +“You must see a doctor.” + +“No, no, I beg of you. I only wrote to you because I was feeling so +miserable.” + +Lizzie stood between him and the door, imploring him not to fetch a +doctor, but to go away at once, and to tell no one she had written +to him, or that he had been to see her. “Nothing matters now--I am +ruined--I don't care what becomes of me.” He marvelled; but soon all +considerations were swept away in anxiety for her bodily health; and +having extorted a promise from her that she would not leave the room +until he came back, he rushed to the nearest chemist and hence to the +doctor. + +“I want you to come at once, if possible, and see a young lady who, +I fear, is dangerously ill. She has not been in Brighton long. She is +quite alone. She sent for me. I live at Southwick. I came out at once. +I have known her a long time. I may say she is a great friend of mine. +I found her very ill--I must say her condition seems to me alarming. I +should like her to see a doctor at once. Can you come at once?” + +“I am just finishing dinner. I will come in about ten minutes' time. +What is the address?” + +“20 Preston Street.--I hope he does not think there is anything wrong,” + thought Frank. “He look's as if he did,” and with a view of removing +suspicion, he said: “She is a young lady whom I have known for some +years. We had lost sight of each other until we travelled down in the +train together. I say this because I do not wish you to think there is +anything wrong.” + +“My good sir, I should not allow myself to have any opinions on the +matter. I am summoned to attend a patient, and I give the best advice in +my power.” + +“Yes, but one can't help forming opinions--a beautiful young girl living +alone in lodgings, and having apparently for sole protector a young man, +are circumstances that might be easily misconstrued, and as I am engaged +to be married, I think it right to tell you exactly how I stand in +relation to this young woman.” + +The doctor bowed. + +“Do you not think I did well in making this explanation?” + +“It can do no harm; we medical men see so much that we take no notice +of anything but our patient. But tell me something of this young lady's +suffering. Can you describe the symptoms?” + +“She has a racking headache--she is shivering all over--she sits by the +fire and cannot get warm. It looks to me as if it were fever.” + +“Does she complain of her throat?” + +“Yes; she cannot swallow.” + +“Probably an attack of quinsy.” + +“Is that dangerous?” + +“No; but it is infectious.” + +“I don't mind about that--she is alone. I will see her through it.” + +“I will go round to Preston Street immediately I have finished +dinner--in about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.” + +When the doctor had seen Lizzie, he said to Frank, who accompanied him +downstairs: “Just as I expected--quinsy. She will take from eight to ten +days to get well. We have taken it in time, that's one good thing. The +throat is very bad. She must have a linseed poultice, and she must use +the gargle. Is there any one in the house who can attend to her?” + +“I am afraid not; the landlady went away this morning, leaving no one in +the house but that child. She will, I hope, be home to-morrow.” + +“In that case you had better have a nurse in; I will give you the +address of one.” + +When Frank returned he found her lying on the bed weeping. As before, +she refused to tell him the cause of her grief. She would make no other +answer than that nothing mattered now, that she didn't care what became +of her; and when he spoke of going to fetch a nurse, she waved her hands +excitedly, declaring she would on no consideration stop in the house +with a woman she didn't know. And, hardly able to decide what course he +should take, he promised not to leave her; she clung about him, and he +was forced to send the child (whose name he now found to be Emma) to +the chemist for the linseed, and he wrote a note asking for explicit +directions how it should be used. Then he had to persuade Lizzie to go +to bed. She resisted him, and it was with great difficulty that he got +her boots and stockings off; then she collected her strength, unbuttoned +her dress, and took off her stays. Then she said: “Go out of the room +for a moment.” + +He found his way into the kitchen, and guessing that hot water would +be required, he lit a fire. But there was no muslin, and he had to send +Emma for some. Lizzie smiled faintly when they entered--Frank with a +basin, Emma with a kettle and a parcel of linen. Frank poured some rum +into a glass, and beat an egg up with it. + +“What is that?” she asked; and her voice was so faint and hoarse that he +turned, quite startled. + +“Something that will do your throat good and keep your strength up. +Possibly you will not be able to eat much to-morrow.” He held the +tumbler to her lips, and at length succeeded in getting her to drink it. +“Emma, is the kettle boiling?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You had better go downstairs and get some coals, and if you can't find +any nightlights you must go out and buy a box. Have you got any money +over?” + +“Yes, sir, sixpence.” + +“Now, Lizzie, let me put this on your throat. Throw your head well back. +There, it isn't too hot?” + +And all that night he sat by her bedside. Often she could not get her +breath, and he had to lift her and prop her up with pillows; and four +times he lit the candle, and, with tired eyes, mixed the meal and placed +it on her throat. The firelight played upon the ceiling, the kettle sang +softly, the sufferer moaned, the light brought the rumble of a cart, +and they awoke from shallow sleeps that blurred but did not extinguish +consciousness of the actual present. “You must not uncover yourself; you +will catch cold. Let me pin this shawl about you.” About eight o'clock +Emma knocked at the door. Frank asked her to make him a cup of tea. +The morning dragged along amid many anxieties, for he could see she was +worse than she had been over night. + +“The disease must take its course,” said the doctor; “we shall be +fortunate if by poulticing we can stop it; if we can't, it will come to +a head in about eight or nine days' time, and then it will break. Did +you see the nurse last night? Couldn't she come?” + +“She,” said Frank, pointing to the sufferer, “wouldn't allow me to send +for her; she said she would not stay in the house with a strange woman. +She was very excited; I fancy she has had some great mental trouble--a +sweetheart, I suppose. I did not like to cross her. I thought I could +nurse her; I did my best. Was the poultice all right?” + +“Quite right. But you will have to sit up with her to-night. You will be +very tired; you had better get in a nurse.” + +“I think I shall be able to manage. The landlady is expected home this +evening or to-morrow morning. What had she better have to eat?” + +“She won't be able to eat anything for some days. Try to get her to take +an egg beat up in a wine-glass of rum.” + +Hourly she grew worse, and on the following day Frank stood by her bed +momentarily fearing that she would suffocate; once her face blackened +and he had to seize and lift her out of bed, and place her in a chair. +When she seemed a little easier he called Emma, and they made the bed +and cleaned up the room together. Then he ate a sausage and drank a +glass of beer that had been brought from the public-house. + +The first night had seemed long and weary, but now the hours passed +quickly; he had forgotten all but the suffering woman, and in the +interest of inducing her to swallow some beef-tea, in the pride of such +successes another and then another day fled lightly. Nor did he feel +tired as he had done, and now a nap in an arm-chair seemed all that +he required. So the landlady came as an unwelcome interruption of an +absorbing occupation. Haggard and unshaven, he returned to Southwick, +where he found a note on his table from General Horlock, asking him to +dinner that evening. + +“I know the meaning of this: Maggie will be there--a reconciliation! Can +I?” He turned his ear quickly from his conscience; he was frightened of +the voice that would tell him that Maggie was nothing to him, never had +been, never could be; that he had been born for Lizzie Baker, as the +soldier is for the sword or the bullet that kills him; others had passed +him, had been heard sharply, had gleamed dangerously in his eyes. They +were but signs and omens meant for others, not for him, and they had +passed. But this one had remained, though often lost, as that remains +which is to be, and she was now no less for him than before, though +now seemingly lost irrevocably to another; and in all the seeming of +irrevocable loss was drawing nearer--not with the victory and destiny of +old in her eyes, but with no less victory and destiny inherent in her. +Though far from him, she had been for long a disintegrated influence, +but what had been distant was now near, and all was yielding like a ship +in the attraction of the fabulous loadstone mountain. That room!--the +wash-hand-stand, the dirty panes of glass, the iron bed-there his fate +had been sealed. That body which he had lifted out of bed still lay +heavy in his arms. He still breathed the odour of the hair he had +gathered from the pillow and striven to pin up; those eyes of limpid +blue, pale as water where isles are sleeping, burned deep and livid in +his soul; the touch and sight of that flesh, the sound of that voice, +those tears, the solicitude and anxiety of those hours of night and day +conspired against him, and his life was big with incipient overthrow. + +Lizzie was with him at all times. He saw her eyes, then her teeth, and +the perfume and touch of her hair was often about him; and yet he was +hardly conscious that a revolution of feeling was in progress within +him; and when the time came for him to go to Horlock's he went there +avoiding all thoughts of Maggie, although he knew he would be called +upon that night to take a decisive step. He saw little of her before +dinner, and during dinner the General's allusions to the quarrels of +lovers being the renewal of love vexed him, and he thought, “Confound +it! If I want to make it up I will; but I am not going to be bullied +into it.” When the ladies left the room he found it difficult to pretend +to the kind-hearted old soldier that he did not believe that Maggie +would forgive him. “Forgive me for what? I have done nothing.” + +“To get on with women you must always admit you are in the wrong--ha, +ha, ha!” laughed the General; “now I have it from my wife--women know +everything--ha, ha, ha!” laughed the General. “Have another glass of +sherry?” + +“No, thanks; couldn't take any more.” + +“I took I won't tell you how many glasses before I proposed to my wife, +and then I was afraid; enough to make me--a clever woman like Mrs. +Horlock, I believe you wouldn't find a woman in England like +Mrs. Horlock. Look round; all that's her work. Look at that white +Arab--exactly like him. I won five hundred pounds with that horse; but I +wouldn't be satisfied, and I ran him again the following day and lost +it all and five hundred more with it. I had another horse. My wife +is modelling him in wax; she will show it to you in the next room. +Marvellous woman!” + +Passing Maggie by who was sitting in the window, Frank inveigled Mrs. +Horlock into an anatomical discussion. The General stretched out +his feet, put on his spectacles, and took up the _St James's_. +The conversation dropped, and, full of apprehension and expecting +reconciliation, Frank went to Maggie and talked to her of the tennis +parties he was going to, of the people he had seen--of indifferent +things. The time was tense with the fate of their lives. Once she turned +her head and sighed. Time slipped by, and still they talked of their +friends--of things they knew perfectly. Maggie said: “I hope you are not +angry; I hope we shall remain friends.” Frank replied: “I hope so,” + and again the conversation paused. The General denounced Gladstone, and +praised his wife's sculpture. Ten o'clock! Angel was lifted out of his +basket. If Maggie had been Helen and Southwick Troy, he would not be +kept waiting; the dogs had to be taken out; Willy came to fetch Maggie; +hands were tendered, lips said good-bye, and, with a sense of parting, +they parted. + +Feeling adrift and strangely alone, he walked to his lodging. His future +loomed up in his mind as vague and as illusive as the village that now +glared through the mist, white and phantasmal. He did not regret--we can +hardly regret the impossible. Then, falling back on a piece of prose, +he said: “Where was the good? Mount Rorke would never have given his +consent. Poor Lizzie; I hope she is better. I hope it has broken. She +won't get any relief until it does.” + +And next day, towards evening, he went to Brighton. He found her +shrinking over the fire, wrapped in a woollen shawl. + +“How are you to-day? You look a little better. I did not expect to find +you out of bed.” + +“I am better, thank you; it broke yesterday, and I feel relieved. You +are very good. I think I should have died if it had not been for you. +Think of that landlady leaving me in the way she did.” + +“What was the reason? Why did she rush off in that way?” + +“She went to town to see her sister, and she says she was taken ill. She +drinks.” + +“Does she? I hope she looked after you yesterday?” + +“Oh, yes.” + +“As well as I did?” + +“I don't know about that; you are a very good nurse. It was very good of +you; no one else would have done it.” + +“What, not even _he_?” + +“You were with me for four days, and you never even went to bed--never +took your clothes off.” + +“Never even washed myself. By George! I was glad to get home and have a +good wash. I was a sorry-looking object--haggard and unshaven.” + +“Where did you say you had been to?” + +“Nobody asked me.” + +“Not Maggie?” + +“No; I didn't tell you our engagement is broken off.” + +“No; you didn't say nothing about it.” + +“On account of you. She discovered that you had been to my studio, and +she said I was keeping a woman in Brighton.” + +“Keeping a woman in Brighton--she thinks you are keeping me! I will +write to her and tell her that it is not true. What right has she to say +such things about me?” + +“She doesn't say it about you. She says a woman.” + +“She means me.” + +“No, she doesn't; she doesn't know anything about you. Some one told her +I went into Brighton every day by the four o'clock train, and she put +two and two or rather two and three together, and said it was six.” + +“But I will write to her. I will not be the cause of any one's marriage +being broken off.” + +“You need not trouble. I saw her last night, and I could have made it +all right had I chosen--she was quite willing.” + +“You can't care for her!” + +“I suppose not. I don't think I ever really loved her. I thought I did. +I was mistaken.” + +“You are very changeable.” + +“No, I don't think I am--at least not so far as you are concerned. I was +mistaken. I was in love with some one else--with you.” + +“With me?” + +“Yes, with you. I was in love with you when we went to Reading, and +never got over it. I thought I had, but when love is real we never get +over it. I always loved you, and those four days I spent nursing you +have brought it all out. I shall never love any one else. I know you +don't care for me; you said once you couldn't care for me.” + +“I! I am too miserable to care for any one. I wish you had let me die; +but that is ungrateful. You must excuse me, I am so miserable. Why speak +of loving me? I can love no one. I don't care what becomes of me. I am +ruined; nothing matters now.” + +“I wish you would confide in me; you can trust me. Has he forsaken you? +Can you not make it up?” + +“No, never now; I shall never see him again.” + +“Has anything happened lately, since you came to Brighton?” + +Lizzie nodded. + +“Don't cry like that; tell me about it.” + +“What's the use? Nothing matters now.” + +“Has he been here?” + +Lizzie nodded, and Frank folded the shawl about her, and wiped her tears +away with his pocket handkerchief. “Since you were ill?” + +“No, before I was ill; he was down here watching me. He found out I had +gone to your studio, and he said the most dreadful things--that he would +break your head, and that I had never been true to him, and that I was +not fit to be the wife of an honest man.” + +“But I will tell him that you came to my studio to sit for your +portrait.” + +“No, you mustn't write; it would only make matters worse. No use; he +says he will never see me again.” + +“Where can I see him? Has he gone back to London? I will follow him and +tell him he is mistaken.” + +“No, please don't, and please don't go to the 'Gaiety'; he is a violent- +tempered man; something dreadful might occur. Please, promise me.” + +“Not go to the 'Gaiety'? He doesn't know me.” + +“Yes, he does.” + +“Have I seen him? Do tell me; you know you can trust me. I am your +friend. Tell me--” + +“You have seen him in the 'Gaiety,' in the grill-room--the waiter, +number two, the good-looking tall man.” + +“Oh!” + +“He wasn't always a waiter; his people are very superior. He has been +unfortunate.” + +“And it was he you loved this long while?” + +“I never cared for another man.” + +“I must write and tell him he is committing an act of injustice. I will +make this matter right for you, Lizzie.” + +“Do you think you can?” + +“I am sure of it.” + +He rang for the landlady, and asked for writing materials. She +apologised for the penny bottle of ink, and spoke of getting a table +from the next room, but he said he could write very well on the +chimney-piece. “I suppose I had better begin, 'Sir'?” + +“Don't people generally begin, 'Dear Sir'?” + +“Not when they don't know the people they are writing to.” + +“But you do know him a little. He always said you were very haughty. You +used to sit at his table.” + +“I think I had better begin the letter with 'Sir.'” + +“Very well. You know best. He was always very jealous.” + + + + +XVI + + + +“SIR,--I hear from Miss Baker that you were in Brighton last week, and, +drawing the inference from the fact that she came to my studio to sit +for her portrait, you accuse her of very grievous impropriety. I beg to +assure you that this is not so. At my urgent request, Miss Baker, whom +I had better say I have known for some years, consented to give me a +sitting. My intentions were purely artistic; hers were confined to a +wish to oblige an old friend, and I deeply regret that they should have +been misinterpreted, and I fear much unhappiness caused thereby.” + +“Do you think that will do?” + +“Yes, it is a beautiful letter.” + +“Do you think so--do you really think so? Do you think I have said all?” + +“You might say something--that I never even kissed you; and that you +respected me too much.” + +“I will if you like, but don't you think that is implied?” + +“Perhaps so; but you see he does not read many books. He hasn't time +for much reading, and you put things in a difficult way. They sound +beautiful, but I--” + +“Show me.” + +“Well, this 'grievous impropriety.' I know what you mean, but I couldn't +explain it.” + +“Shall I say 'serious impropriety'? but grievous is the right word. You +say a grievous sin for a mortal sin. If we had done any wrong it would +have been a grievous sin; but I'll change the word if you like.” + +“No, don't change it on my account; but I think he would understand an +easier word better.” + +“A 'heinous impropriety'? No, that won't do. A 'serious impropriety.' +That will do. Is there anything else you would like me to alter?” + +“No, I don't think there is.” + +“You think this letter will convince him that there was nothing wrong?” + +“I hope so; but he is a very suspicious man.” + +“I will post it when I go out.” Then after a long silence: “Do you know +what time it is? It must be getting late.” + +“It must be getting on for nine.” + +“Then I must say good-bye; but I forgot, I want to ask you--you must be +hard up, and want some money--do you? If you do, I assure you I shall be +only too glad.” + +“Well, I am rather hard up, for you know that this illness has +prevented my doing anything; and I am afraid I have lost my place at the +'Tivoli.'” + +“What do you intend to do?” + +“I should like to go back to London. I shall see him there, and if the +letter makes it right we may be married. I will write to you.” + +“You will?--Do. Here is five pounds. I have no more about me, but if +anything should occur, you know where to write to.” + +“You are very good; I don't deserve it. I don't know why you take so +much trouble about me. If he doesn't marry me I'll try to get another +place; I shall go back to the firm.” + +“When do you intend to leave?” + +“As soon as I am well enough, in a day or two; but you will not come +here again.” + + +“I had thought that I might.” + +“I know; but if he were to hear that you had been here, it would be +worse than ever. You don't mind, do you? You aren't angry, are you?” + +“No; good-bye, Lizzie. Write to me when you are married.” Frank walked +into the street. There was neither rage nor will in him. He was a +sorrowing creature in a bitter world. The sea was cruelly blue in the +coming night; the sky was also blue, only deeper, a red streak like +a red bar of iron stretched across the embaying land, relieving into +picturesque detail the outlines of coast-towns and villages. His eyes +rested on and drew grief from this dim distance so illusive; and for +jarring contrast, the pier hung with gaudy and gross decoration in the +blue night, and a brass band replied to the waves. + +Then the clouds lifted, and when he returned to Southwick the moon was +shining and some boys pursued the resounding ball through the shadows. +He undressed with an effort, and he lay down hoping never to rise again. +Next morning he went to his studio full of resolve. His picture must +be finished for one of the winter exhibitions. He did not take up his +palette, nor did he sit at his piano for more than a few minutes; and +when he met Willy he raged against Lizzie, jeered at her vulgarity, +heaped ridicule upon her lover, the waiter; he spoke of writing a novel +on the subject; he set out her character at length; and was alarmed when +told that Maggie was ill. He must win her. She must be his wife. So he +told Willy, so he assured himself that she would. He knew that Lizzie +was nothing to him. She had left Brighton, thank God! He went to sleep, +certain he had torn this page out of his life, and he awoke to find it +still there; and day after day he continued to brood upon, and still +unable to understand its meaning, he longed to turn it over and read, +for there were other pages; but they were sealed, and he might only read +this one page. + +“I'm afraid that our old friend Brookes is having a hard time of it,” + said the General, taking the spectacles from his nose, and laying down +the _St James's_, “they are all at him tooth and nail,” and the General +laughed gleefully. “You are the young man who has upset them. The young +lady won't dress herself.” + +“My dear Reggie, you shouldn't talk like that. I do hate to hear +scandal; you'll repent it,” said Mrs. Horlock, and she adroitly smoothed +the wax on the horse's quarters. + +“I assure you, Mrs. Horlock, I never repeat what I hear; the guiding +principle of my life is not to repeat conversations. Particularly in +a village like Southwick, it is most essential that none of us should +repeat conversations; I have always said that.” + +“Do tell me about Maggie; I hear she is very ill. What is the matter +with her? What did you say--the young lady won't dress herself?” + +“My dear Reggie, I will not stay here and listen to scandal. Not a word +of it is true, Mr. Escott.” + +“What is not true, Mrs. Horlock?” + +“What he told you about her walking about the house with her hair down.” + +“I don't think the General said anything about walking about the house +with her hair down; he said some one wouldn't dress herself. I suppose +he meant Maggie. I am sure I am sorry--I am most sorry--to hear she +is ill, but it is unjust to assume that I had anything to do with her +illness. We can speak freely among ourselves, you know. You know the +circumstances; no one is more capable of understanding the case than +you, for you are an artist. Maggie heard that I had had a model, that's +what it amounts to, and she broke off the engagement; nothing could be +more unjust, nothing could be more unwarranted.” + +“It could be brought on again, I know that,” said Mrs. Horlock, and she +turned the shoulders of her horse to the light. + +“We will not go into that question, Mrs. Horlock. I confine myself to +what has happened, and I say I was treated unjustly, most shamefully; +and when I have been cast aside like an old hat, I hear indirectly that +it can be made up again. I have borne quite enough, and will bear no +more. Old Brookes came down to my studio with that cad Berkins, and +forced his way in, and then forbade me the house because my dog bit +Berkins's thigh. I couldn't help it. What did he attack me for? He +didn't suppose a bull-dog would be still while his master was being +knocked on the head.” + +“What should a common City man know about dogs? He wouldn't sign +the petition when I asked him, to Sir Charles Warren, to cancel the +regulations about muzzling.” + +“And then they set a report going that I had set the dog on, and if I +hadn't set it on, that I hadn't called him off. As if I could! You know +what a bull-dog is, Mrs. Horlock? Is a highly-bred dog likely to let go +when he has fixed his teeth in the fleshy part of a thigh? The Brookes +are old friends of mine, and I wouldn't say a word against them for the +world; but of course it is as obvious to you as it is to me that +they are not quite the thing. I mean--you know--I would not think of +comparing them with the Southdown Road; but there is a little something. +City people are not the Peerage; there's no use saying they are. Mount +Rorke was upset; but I would not give in, and I think I should have won +his consent in the long run. After all I have borne for her sake I think +I might expect better treatment than to be thrown over, as I have said, +like an old hat; and I don't mind telling you that I do not intend to be +made a fool of in this matter; I shall turn a very deaf ear to stories +of a broken heart and failing health. I shall not cease to think of +Maggie. I loved her once very deeply, and I should have loved her always +if--But tell me, General. You know I will not repeat anything.” + +“I advise you to say no more, Reggie. I will not be mixed up in any +scandal. I shall leave the room. Sally is dining here to-night; she is +only too anxious to talk of her sister. If Mr. Escott will stay and take +pot-luck with us, he will no doubt hear everything there is to hear in +the course of the evening.” + +“What have we got for dinner, Ethel? I know we have got a leg of mutton, +and there is some curry.” + +“Your dinners are always excellent, Mrs. Horlock. I shall be delighted +to stay. Here is Sally. Oh, how do you do, Sally? We were talking of +you.” + +“I'm afraid every one is talking of me, now,” she whispered, and the big +girl passed over to Mrs. Horlock and kissed her. “How is it that no one +has seen anything of you lately?” she said, taking the seat next him. +“What have you been doing?” + +“Nothing in particular. But I want to ask you about Maggie. I hear she +is very ill.” + +Perceiving that his tone did not bespeak a loving mood, Sally's face +brightened, and she became at once voluble and confidential. + +“Oh, we have been having no end of a time at home. Father has been +speaking of selling the place and leaving Southwick.” + +“Speaking of selling the place and leaving Southwick! And where does he +think of going to live, and what is the reason of this?” + +“Oh, the reason! I suppose he would say I was the reason; and where heis +going to live, that is not settled yet--probably one of the big London +hotels. He says everybody is laughing at him, and that when he meets +the young men at the station he can see them laughing at him over their +newspapers, for, according to father, they have all flirted with us. +Maggie has been saying all kinds of things against me, and I am afraid +that the Southdown Road people have been writing him anonymous letters +again. Some one--I don't know who it is--I wish I did--has been telling +him the most shocking things about Jimmy Meason and me; things in which +I assure you there is not a word of truth. You know yourself that we +have hardly spoken for nearly two years; last year, it is true, we made +it up a bit in your studio, but it didn't last long. I don't think I saw +him twice afterwards, and never alone--and now to have everything that +happened two years ago raked up and thrown in my face! I don't say +I haven't--I don't know what you'd call it, I suppose you'd call it +spooning. I admit I infinitely preferred walking about the garden with +a young man to sitting in the drawing-room and doing woolwork. I was a +silly little fool then, but I do think it hard that all this should +be raked up now. I don't know what will happen. Maggie pretends to be +frightened at me; 'tis only her nonsense to set father against me. She +won't dress herself, and she walks about with her hair down her back, +wringing her hands.” + +“But what does she say? This is very bewildering. I don't understand--I +am quite lost.” + +“The fact is that Maggie doesn't know what she is saying, so I suppose I +oughtn't to blame her. She is a little off her head, that's the truth +of it; but you mustn't say I said so, it will get me into worse trouble +than I am already in. She was like that once before, and had to be put +in the charge of a lady who was in the habit of dealing with excitable +people. I don't mean lunatics, don't run away with that notion. I don't +know what would happen if it got about that I was putting that about. +Maggie is very excitable, and she has been exciting herself a great deal +lately--you were the principal cause. She did all she could to get you +to make it up when you met her here at dinner--the dinner was given +for that--but you said nothing about it, and she came home in an awful +state, accusing every one of combining to ruin her. She said I was +jealous of her, that I was wild with fear that she would one day be +Lady Mount Rorke. She said father had done everything to break off her +marriage, because he did not like parting with his money. She had set +her heart on being married, and it was a terrible disappointment. She +has been disappointed two or three times. Father doesn't know what to +do. Her thoughts seem to run on that one subject. She walks about the +garden saying the most extraordinary things.” + +“But tell me about the illness.” + +“I don't know if I ought to tell you.” + +“Oh, do!” + +“I don't know how to say it. She used to say she longed to become a +mother.” + +“Longed to become a mother? Well, that is the last thing--” + +“You know what I mean.” + +“But tell me about the illness.” + +“I should call it more than being a little excited, but of course she +isn't mad. She has, however, the most curious notions. She is always a +little too imaginative at the best of times; at least, I find her so, +but now her delusions are really too absurd, and, as I have said, the +worst of it is that her thoughts run on that one thing; it really is +most unfortunate. Poor father.” + +“But what are her delusions?” + +“Well, I scarcely know how to tell you.” + +“Try; anything can be told. It depends how it is told.” + +“She thinks that the coachman has spread it all over Southwick--how +shall I say it? I don't know that I ought to tell you. Well, that +she has gone wrong with you and Berkins. I thought I should die of +laughing--the idea of Berkins was too funny for words.” + +“But your father doesn't believe it?” + +“Of course not.” + +“He doesn't suspect me, I hope?” + +“No; I am sure he doesn't. He knows Maggie doesn't know what she is +saying. But he was dreadfully put out about Berkins; he is frightened +out of his wits lest he should hear of it. But for goodness' sake don't +mention that I said anything to you about it; I am in trouble enough as +it is. Father says he can stand it no longer. I am very much afraid that +he will leave Southwick. It depends on what Aunt Mary says. He has sent +for her; she will be here to-morrow.” + +These family councils were held in the billiard-room, and when Aunt Mary +and Aunt Hester had had their tea they came along the passage, Aunt Mary +of course in front, Aunt Hester timid and freckled and with her usual +air of tracts. Uncle James stood with his back to the fire waiting +for them. Willy caught at his hair, but an expression of resignation +overspread his face, he packed his diary and accounts in brown paper and +lit a pipe. + +“Now, James, let us hear about these new troubles. Something must be +done, that is clear.” + +“Yes, something must be done, Mary, and I can think of nothing for it +but to leave this place. It is no longer a place for me to live in. The +Southdown Road has proved too strong for me, it has conquered me.” + +“Don't speak like that, James. We must try to bear our burdens, if not +for our own sakes, for the sake of Him who died for us. He bore a very +heavy cross for us.” + +“There's no use in talking to me like that, Hester, you only provoke me. +You forget what a cross two daughters are, and the Southdown Road has +become intolerable. It is more than any man can bear; I will bear it no +longer. I have borne it long enough, and am determined to get rid of it. +I am afraid there's nothing for it but to sell the place and go and live +in London.” + +Aunt Hester cast her eyes into her satchel, afraid even to think that +her brother had intentionally misinterpreted her words; but Aunt Mary +laughed at the idea of the slonk-hill, as a latter-day Golgotha, with +poor Uncle James staggering beneath the weight of the Southdown Road, +young men and all, upon him. It was very irreverent. He burst into +tears, Hester moved to leave the room, but was restrained by her sister. + +“My position is a most unfortunate one; since the death of poor Julia I +have had no one to turn to, there has been no restraining influence in +this house. Here am I working all day long in the City for those girls, +and when I come home in the evening I find my house full of people I +don't know. I assure you, Mary, I don't know any of the people who come +to my house. I am consulted in nothing. It is not fair--I say it is +not fair; and at my death those girls will have thirty thousand pounds +a-piece.” + +“I knew you had the money, James, I knew you had,” exclaimed Aunt Mary, +and even Aunt Hester could not help casting a look of admiration on her +weeping brother. + +“I say it is not fair; a man of my money should have a comfortable +home to return to. Even the Southdown Road people have that; but no +consideration is shown to me. My dinner is put back so that Sally may +continue her flirtation with Meason in the slonk. Did any one ever hear +of such a thing? A man's dinner put back so that--that--that--” + +“Yes, we know all about the dinner being put back; that was three years +ago.” + +“Why,” Mr. Brookes asked himself, “had he invited his sisters to his +help?” He was only adding bitterness to his bitter cup. “You have no +sympathy, Mary,” he went on; “you cannot understand the difficulties +of my position--these two girls are for ever quarrelling and fighting; +sometimes they are not even on speaking terms, but I think I prefer +their sullen looks to their violence. Sally threatened to knock her +sister down if she interfered with her young men.” + +“What, again?” + +“Oh, I don't know if she has threatened to beat her lately. I don't +remember when was the last time. Their various rows are all jumbled up +in my head. All I know is that Maggie says she cannot live in the house +with Sally. Maggie is very ill, she is in a very excited state, as she +was once before, when I would not consent to her marriage with--I have +forgotten his name, but it doesn't matter. Now she won't dress herself, +and she walks about the house with her hair hanging down. I know there +is nothing for it but to send her away under the charge of some lady who +has had experience in such matters. She can't remain here. She has the +strangest delusions. Among other things, she fancies the coachman has +spread it all over Southwick that she has gone wrong with Berkins +and that fellow Escott. Just fancy if Berkins--a ten thousand a year +man--should hear of it! I don't know what he would say. He would peg +into me; he is at times very hard indeed upon me. I don't say he is +not a first-rate man of business, I know he has made several excellent +investments; but for all that I do not and cannot think him competent +to advise me on all my affairs, and that's what he is always doing. He +talks of putting down that Southdown Road. I should like to see how he +would set about doing it.” + +“James, Maggie must go away; she is very highly organised, very +sensitive, and if she were to remain here, Sally might have a real +effect on her mind. It is clear the sisters don't get on together; have +you had medical advice? I told you before that you should have medical +advice about those girls; I told you to spare no expense, but to go to +a first-rate London physician and take his opinion. I said before, and I +say it again, that no girls in good health could carry on as dear Sally, +and I will include dear Maggie; for although she does not defy you to +the same extent, there is no doubt that she is too fast, too fond of +young men; her thoughts run too much in that way, and now she is ill, of +course she has delusions. You ought to have medical advice.” + +“Mary, dear, the body is not everything; to cure the flesh you must +first cure the soul. I believe our dear nieces rarely, if ever, attend +church, rarely, if ever, remember that this life is not eternal and that +there is a hereafter.” + +The conversation came to a pause. Presently Aunt Mary asked Willy, who +sat resigned to his fate, calm and solemn as a Buddha, his hands clasped +over his rotund stomach, if he thought that Maggie's state was one +to cause immediate anxiety, to which he replied: “My sisters think of +nothing but pleasure. The trouble girls are in a house is more than any +one would believe. Here I am, I can do nothing; every night it is +the same thing, over and over again.” And the lean man lapsed into +contemplation. + +“But to come to the point, James, I want to hear about Sally. You said +in your letter that a great deal had come to light, and that you now +find that her conduct has been worse than you had ever imagined it, +even in your moments of deepest dejection. Now, I want to hear about all +this. What has she done? Let's have it in plain English. What has she +done?” + +“To put it plainly, Mary,” said Mr. Brookes, wiping his tears away, +and turning his back upon his Goodall, “I don't know what she hasn't +done--everything. She is at the present moment the talk of Southwick. +The doctor here has seen her in the field at the back here with Meason +at nine o'clock at night.” + +“Why did you allow her to leave the house at that hour? No young girl--” + +“She always takes her dogs out in the evening; I cannot prevent her +doing that. It appears, too, that she has had Meason up in her bedroom.” + +“O James, you do not mean to say that my dear niece had a man in her +bedroom!” + +“Hester, dear, you have lived in a rectory and know nothing of the +world. She says it isn't a bedroom. She pushes the bed away in the +daytime, and covers it up to make it look like a couch. Besides, she +keeps birds in her room, and Flossy had her puppies there. I am not +excusing her conduct, pray do not think that, I am only telling you what +she says.” + +“This is very serious. Are you quite sure? Perhaps she only meant to +show the young man her birds or puppies. Her spirit must be broken, I +can clearly see that.” + +“I allow them, as you know, one hundred pounds a year apiece. Maggie +keeps none, but Sally always keeps accurate accounts of what she spends. +I asked to see those accounts, for I had heard she had been giving her +money to Meason, and she refused to let me see them. There is a sum of +twenty pounds for which she can give no explanation. Then it is well +known she gave a set of diamond studs to that fellow, and that he +pledged them for five pounds in Brighton. He boasted he had done so, +and said he intended to get plenty of money out of me before he had done +with me. After that I ask you, how can I live in this place? When I go +to the station in the morning I see these young fellows laughing at me +over the tops of their newspapers. When I come home of an evening after +a hard day's work, I find that my dinner--” + +“Her spirit must be broken,” said Aunt Mary, drawing her shawl about +her, and crossing her hands. “Her spirit must be broken; she cannot be +allowed to remain here to drive dear Maggie into a lunatic asylum. I am +with you in that, James, but I cannot think you did well to let Frank +Escott slip through your fingers. Had you not talked so much about money +your daughter might have been Lady Mount Rorke.” + +“Talked too much about my money? Who would talk about it, I should like +to know, if I didn't? I made it all myself. What do I care for that +lot--a stuck-up lot, pooh, pooh! twist them all round my finger. I am +not going to give my daughter to a man who cannot make a settlement upon +her.” + +Seeing he was not to be moved in anything that concerned his pocket, +Aunt Mary returned to the consideration of what was to be done with +Sally. “From what you tell me it is clear that Sally must not remain in +Southwick a day longer than can be helped. I will take her with me to +Woburn; and I think she had better go abroad as soon as we can hear +of some one in whose charge we can place her. But it must not be a sea +voyage--there is nothing more dangerous than to be on board a ship for +a young girl who is at all inclined to be fast. All are thrown so much +together. The cabins open out one into the other, and there is always +a looking for something--a handkerchief, a bunch of keys, a lot of +stooping and playing, twiddling of moustaches,” said Aunt Mary, with a +peal of laughter. + +“Mary, dear, we should not speak lightly of wickedness.” + +“It was so that all the mischief was done when Emily Evans was sent out +to the Cape--it was all done on board a ship. You remember the Evanses, +James?--you ought to, you used to flirt pretty desperately with Lucy, +the younger sister.” And then Aunt Mary rattled off into interminable +tales concerning the attachment contracted on board a ship in +particular, its unfortunate consequences, how it brought about a divorce +later on by sowing the seeds of passion (Aunt Mary always pronounced +the word “passion” in her narratives with strong emphasis), in the young +girl's heart; and at various stages of her discourse she introduced +fragments of the family history of the Evanses; she followed the +wanderings of the different sisters from Homburg to Paris, from Paris +to Scotland, from Scotland to the Punjab, explaining their different +temperaments by heredity, which led her back into the obscure and +remote times of grandfathers and grandmothers, and, having finally lost +herself, she said: “What was I talking about? You have been listening to +me, James, what was I talking about?” + +Till the end of a week the discussion was continued. Aunt Mary tried +hard to reconcile all parties to their different lots, and, as is usual +in such cases, without attaining any result. And yet Aunt Mary went with +her sister to see Frank in his studio. Willy accompanied them, and when +they left he complained bitterly of how his time was wasted. “Regularly +every evening, just as I am sitting down to work, I hear them coming +along the passage. First of all they go to get their grog--squeak, +squeak, pop. I know it all so well. Then they come in with their +tumblers, and they sit down on the sofa, and they begin.--I don't know +what is to be done with dear Sally, unless we can send her abroad in the +care of some relation. How is dear Maggie to-day? I hope I shall be able +to induce her to put on her frock to-morrow, and come for a drive with +me in the carriage. What a trouble young girls are in the house, to be +sure. Then father begins to groan, and pulls out his handkerchief; he +is quite alone, he has no one he can depend upon, then he laughs, 'Well, +well, I suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence.' So it +goes on night after night. Here am I starting a big business, and I +haven't a room to work in. Just as I am adding up a long column of +figures, perhaps when I am within three of the top, Aunt Mary asks me +a question, and it has to be gone over again. It is most provoking, +there's no denying that it is most provoking.” Frank agreed that nothing +could be more provoking than to be interrupted when you were within +three of the top of a long column of figures. On the following day he +heard that the aunts had left, taking Sally with them. They had promised +their brother to find a lady who would take dear Maggie under her +care--one who would soon wean her from dressing-gowns and delusions, and +restore her to staid remarks and stays; and hopes were entertained that +the Manor House would not have to be sold after all. + +But many days had not sped when an event occurred that precipitated +the five acres into the jaws of the builders. Meason had sailed for +Melbourne, and his sister, thinking that some of Sally's letters might +be of use to Mr. Brookes, offered to surrender them upon the receipt +of a cheque for one hundred pounds--a very modest sum, she urged, +considering the character of the letters, most of which concerned +artfully laid plans to meet in the train going or coming from London. +Mr. Brookes called on the shade of dear Julia, but he was not a man to +be blackmailed--he had made all his money himself, and on that point +was immovable. He prepared to leave Southwick. He looked fondly on his +glass-houses, and despairingly on his Friths, Goodalls, and Bouguereaus, +and he wondered if they would look as well in the new rooms as in the +old, and what sum they would realise if he were to include them in the +auction; for an auction was necessary. Mr. Brookes did not thus decide +to abandon his acres without many a sob, nor is it certain that the +final step would have been taken if the gentle builder had not gilded +his insidious hand, and if certain rumours were not about that the +villas in the Southdown Road were not letting, and that Southwick would +never be anything but what it was, a dirty little village--half suburb, +half village. + + + + +XVII + + + +Frank was grieved and troubled at the sad accounts that came to him of +Maggie's health; he was perplexed, too, for he knew himself to be the +cause, and he longed to relieve and to cure her. It seemed to him that +he would give his life to go to her, and comfort her with love, and yet +he was impotent to make the least effort to attain the end he desired. +He lay in the sad and cruel memory of Lizzie, his mind filled with +ignoble visions of her life with the waiter, or with delicate fancies +of her beauty amid the summer of the Thames. He mused on her gracious +figure and face, illuminated by reflections from the water, set off by +the bulrushes and floating blossoms which she so eagerly coveted, and +varied by the movements of the waist and shoulders, the round white arm, +the trailing scarf, and all the wistful charm of the slumbering evening. +He thought of the country light, the sound and smell of cows, of the +sparrows in the vine, the cottage looking so cosy amid the foliage, the +bit of garden full of old-fashioned flowers, tall lilies, convolvuluses, +and marigolds, and the sitting-room full of things belonging to her--her +flowers, her books, her music, and he thought of this until his life was +sick with desire, and there grew a burning pain about his heart. + +A man's struggles in the web of a vile love are as pitiful as those of +a fly in the meshes of the spider; he crawls to the edge, but only to +ensnare himself more completely; he takes pleasure in ridiculing her, +but whether he praises or blames, she remains mistress of his life; all +threads are equally fatal, and each that should have served to bear him +out of the trap only goes to bind him faster. A man in love suggests the +spider's web, and when he is seeking to escape from a woman that will +degrade his life, the cruelty which is added completes and perfects the +comparison. A man's love for a common woman is as a fire in his vitals; +sometimes it seems quenched, sometimes it is torn out by angry hands, +but always some spark remains; it contrives to unite about its victim, +and in the end has its way. It is a cancerous disease, but it cannot be +cut out like a cancer. It is more deadly; it is inexplicable. All good +things, wealth and honour, are forfeited for it; long years of toil, +trouble, privation of all kinds, are willingly accepted; on one side all +the sweetness of the world, on the other nothing of worth, often vice, +meanness, ill-temper, all that go to make life a madness and a terror; +twenty, thirty, forty, perhaps fifty years lie a head of him and her, +but the years and their burdens are not for his eyes any more than the +flowers he elects to disdain. Love is blind, but sometimes there is no +love. How then shall we explain this inexplicable mystery; wonderful +riddle that none shall explain and that every generation propounds? + +Frank lingered in Southwick, for he had promised Willy to stay with him +when he went to live at the stables on the Portslade Road. Summer was +nearly over, hunting would soon commence, and he could keep a couple +of hunters--Willy had calculated it out--for two and twenty shillings a +week. He had ceased to paint, and when he went to the studio it was +to play the piano or the violin. None knew of Lizzie, and all knew of +Maggie. It was thought a little strange that he would not forgive her, +but the obscurity of the story of this point and the delight felt in her +misfortune helped to intensify and idealise Frank in the popular mind, +and when he played Gounod in the still evenings the young ladies would +steal from the villas and wander sentimentally through the shadows about +the green. He got up late in the morning, he lingered over breakfast, +and until it was time to go to Brighton he lay on the sofa watching the +cricketers and the children playing, shaping resolutions, and striving +with himself and deceiving himself. A dozen times, a hundred times, he +had concluded he must see Maggie; he had decided he would write to +Lord Mount Rorke, that he would go to Mr. Brookes and settle the matter +off-hand. But, somehow, he did nothing. His mind was absorbed in a +novel, which he narrated when Willy came to see him. It concerned the +accident that led a man not to marry the woman he loved, and was in the +main an incoherent version of his own life at Southwick. + +“I don't think I told you,” said Willy, “that they are removing the +furniture to-day.” + +“You don't say so--to-day? And where is your father?” + +“He is in London, at the 'Metropole.'” + +The young men walked on slowly in silence, and when they came to the +lodge gate, standing wide open, and saw the curtainless windows and +the flowerless greenhouses, Willy said: “It is very sad to see all the +things you have known since you were a child sold by auction.” + +“Oh, yes, it is. Look at the swards. Do they not look sad already? Those +beautiful elms, under whose shade we have sat, will be cut down, and +stucco work and glass porticoes take their places. Oh, it is very sad.” + +“My father never had any feeling, he never cared for the place. Had I +been in his place I should have invested my money in land and gone in +for the county families.” + +“How old was I when I came down to see you for the first time--fourteen, +I think? How well I remember everything. It was there, look, through +that glade, that I saw your sisters coming to meet me, they were then +only ten or eleven years old. I can see them in my mind's eye, quite +distinctly, walking towards me, Grace leading the way, and now she is a +mother; and they were all so dark. I remember thinking I had never seen +girls so dark, they were like foreigners. And do you remember how your +father scolded Sally for carrying me round the garden on her back, and +she used to wake me up in the mornings by rolling croquet balls along +the floor into my room. Oh, what good, dear days those were, and to +think they are dead and gone, and that the house is going to be pulled +down; and the garden--oh! the moonlights in that garden, where I walked +with the girls, with scarves round their shoulders, through the dreamy +light and shade. We have sung songs, and talked of all manner of things. +You don't feel as I feel.” + +“Yes I do, my dear fellow, I think I feel a great deal more, only I +don't talk so much about it.” + +“I know it is infinitely sad. This dear old wall! There is Maggie's +window: how often have I looked up to that window for her winsome face, +and I shall never look again.” + +“You are as bad as my father. Cheer up; I suppose it will be all the +same a hundred years hence.” + +“No, no, it won't be the same. Why should all I feel and love be +forgotten. I suppose it will be all the same. There goes Berkins. I hate +that man.” + +“So do I.” + +“If time takes away pleasant things it takes unpleasant things too, +and those who live a hundred years hence will not be troubled with +that fool. True, there will be other Berkinses, and there will be other +gardens, and other girls, but that doesn't make it the least less sad to +see this garden pass into bricks and mortar.” + +Two footmen approached Mr. Berkins, and with all solemnity helped him to +take off his overcoat. He said a few words to Willy, and was soon loudly +ordering the workmen who were taking the Goodalls and the Friths from +the walls. + +“Take care, there! Hi, you! get on the ladder and take hold of this end +of the picture. There, that's better! That's the way to do it!” + +“That's what he said when he shot my bird,” Willy whispered; and they +tried to laugh as they went upstairs. But their footsteps sounded +hollow, and the wardrobes, where they had so often put their clothes, +stood wide open, desolately empty. They looked out of the windows, and +heard the voices of the work-people. + +“How very sad it is,” said Frank; then, after a long silence: “How +beautiful a scene like this would be in a book--a young girl leaving +her home, straying through the different rooms musing on the different +pieces of furniture, all of which recall the past. I think I shall write +it. I wish you would tell me what you feel; I mean, I wish you would +tell me what impresses itself most on your mind, and, as it were, +epitomises the whole. You have known all this since you were a child. +You have played in these passages; some spot, some piece of furniture, +your toys--I suppose they are gone long ago; but something must stand +out and assert itself amid conflicting thoughts. Do tell me.” + +Willy stroked his moustache. “Of course it is very sad, but it is +difficult to put one's feelings into words. I should have to think about +it; I don't think I could say off-hand.” + +At that moment there came a great crash. + +“What the devil is that?” cried Frank. + +“I hope they haven't broken the statue of Flora,” said Willy, and a look +of alarm overspread his face. Frank felt that if such were the case +he should feel no great sorrow. They ran down the echoing stairs. The +workmen had got drunk in the cellars and in removing the statue they +had let it fall, and it strewed the floor--an arm here, a fragment of +drapery there. + +“I knew what would happen. I told Mr. Brookes so. All my statues are in +marble.” + +“Come away, I can't listen to that cad. I wouldn't have had Flora broken +for a hundred pounds. When I was a child I used to stand and look at +her. I never could make out how she was made, and I always wanted to +look inside. If you'd like to know what I feel most sorry for, it is +Flora. She has stood amid the flowers in the bow window as long as I can +remember.” + +They followed the high road by Windmill Inn, where they struck across +the Downs, and when they reached the first crest they could see the +paddocks and enclosures situated along the road in the valley, and +the private house so trim and middle-class. “Splendid paddocks and +first-rate stabling. The house is not much. When I am making fifteen per +cent. on my money I shall go in for a little architecture. If I had a +glass I could show you Blue Mantle's stable. Do you see two horses in +the paddock, right away on the left, in the far corner--Apple Blossom +and Astarte? Apple Blossom is by See-saw out of Melody, by Stockwell out +of Fairy Queen. Is that good enough for you? Astarte is by Blue Gown out +of Merry Maid, by Beadsman out of Aurora. What do you say to that?” + +“I see you have been looking up the Stud Book.” + +“Business, sir, business. And if I were to go in for owning a racer or +two, just look and see what a magnificent training ground; miles upon +miles of downland. Did you ever see a handsomer view? You must paint me +some landscapes for my dining-room.” + + + + +XVIII + + + +“The pain is always here--just over the heart. You know what I mean? +Suddenly, when I am thinking of other things, the sound of her voice and +the sight of her face comes upon me, and then a dead, weary ache. I know +I cannot have her, perhaps if I did I shouldn't be wholly glad; but glad +or sorry, good fortune or ill, I cannot forget her. My life will not be +complete. You have felt all this.” + +“Never mind how I felt, you know I don't like talking about it. I am +sorry for you. We all have our troubles, I've had nothing else; I often +think that if I were to die to-morrow it would be a happy release.” + +“If I had never seen her, or if I had married Maggie; if your father had +not put obstacles in the way; if he had not raised the wretched +money question, which you know as well as I do was dragged in quite +unnecessarily, I should not be suffering now. For, once married, I +should think of no one but my wife. I am sure I should make a good +husband. I know I could make a woman happy; she'll never find a husband +better than she'd have found in me, I don't believe if they were to be +made that you could make a better husband than I should be--I feel it.” + +“I have always said that my father brings all his troubles on himself. +He never went in for the country people; he never would have people +at the Manor House. You can't shut up young girls as if they were in a +convent, and if they don't get the right people they'll have the +wrong people. My father thinks of nothing but his money, and he can't +understand that he might go for an equivalent. How could he have +expected it to have turned in your case but as it did? Lord Mount +Rorke was not going to come over to Southwick to haggle over pounds, +shillings, and pence with him--not likely. My sisters might have married +very well if he had gone the right way to work, and he would have been +saved a deal of worry and bother. I always say that my father brings all +his troubles on himself.” + +“So far as I was concerned he certainly acted very stupidly. Ah, if I +had married Maggie last summer, how different my life would be now.” + +“But you couldn't have really loved her; if you had you would never--” + +“Yes, I did love her.” + +“I heard from my father to-day. Maggie is better. This is, of course, a +very delicate question, but we have been friends so long--would you like +me to see if--if this matter could be arranged? I don't like, as you +know, to meddle in other people's affairs, I have quite enough to do to +look after my own; but if you would like--You, of course, do not think +of marrying Lizzie Baker?” + +“Of course not.” + +“Then you would like me to speak to my father? Are you willing? Would +you like to marry Maggie?” + +“Yes, of course I should.” + +“I don't say so because she is my sister, but I think it is the best +thing you could do.” + +They had traversed the paddock, and were close to the stables. Picking +a few carrots out of a heap, they opened the door of Blue Mantle's box. +The horse came towards them, his large eyes glancing, his beautiful +crest arched. His coat shone like satin, his legs were as fine as steel, +and with exquisite relish he drew the carrots from their hands. + +The perspective of the hills was prolonged upon fading tints, and in the +pale blueness the mares feeding in the paddocks grew strangely solitary +and distinct; the trees about the coast towns were blended in shadow, +and out of the first stars fell a quiet peace. + +Their dinner awaited them--a little dinner, simple and humble. After +dinner, when the lamp was brought in, Willy nursed the missus with +affection and sincerity. Cissy sat on Frank's knee, and he told her +stories and stroked her hair. This household retired at eleven. At +ten every morning Willy was busy with his letters, his cheques, his +accounts, and in the afternoon the young men walked about the fields +talking of possible successes of the forthcoming breeding season, and so +the days went. But the secret forces were busy about Frank's life. There +were mines and counter-mines. Every fort of prejudice, every citadel of +reason rested now upon foundations that quaked, and would fall at the +first shock. Doom was about him. As the silence rustles in the deadly +hush of the storm that brings winter upon the forest, he waited +unconscious as a leaf in the imminence of the autumn moment; and in +such a stillness, awaiting a change of soul, he received a letter from +Lizzie. It dropped from his hand, and such desire to go as comes on +swallow and cuckoo came on him; he struggled for a moment, and was +sucked down in his passion. + +The little village--a summary of English life and custom, a symbol of +the Saxon, the church steeple pointing through the elm trees, the villas +with their various embellishment in the line of glass porticos +and privet hedges, the General, Mrs. Horlick, Messrs Brookes and +Berkins--how complete it seemed, how individual and how synthetical--his +eyes filled with tears of unpremeditated grief. The leaves were falling, +the hills were shrouded in wreaths of floating mist. Some trees had been +cut down and scaffolding had been reared about the Manor House, some of +the walls had already fallen revealing the wall paper, the pattern of +which he could almost distinguish. He was going to the woman he loved, +but he was leaving his youth behind, and those whom he had known as +children, as girls, as women; he remembered all the gossip, all the +quarrels, all the to-do about nothing; and now, looking on the beautiful +garden where he had played and passioned in all varying moments of grief +and glee, he re-lived the past; and leaning out of the carriage window +he gazed fondly, and cried out: “Alas, those were Spring Days.” + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Spring Days, by George Moore + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING DAYS *** + +***** This file should be named 6029-0.txt or 6029-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/2/6029/ + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Spring Days + +Author: George Moore + + +Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6029] +This file was first posted on December 10, 2002 +Last Updated: March 16, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING DAYS *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + SPRING DAYS + </h1> + <h2> + By George Moore + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> XIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> XV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> XVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> XVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> XVIII </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + 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 <i>The Academy</i>, which I did not + see, but of which I was notified by a friend in the Strand at the corner + of Wellington Street. + </p> + <p> + “Was the article a long one?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + I left my friend, hoping that the number of <i>The Academy</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “You were kind enough to dedicate your novel—-” + </p> + <p> + “'Spring Days'?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, 'Spring Days.' I know that you wished to pay me a compliment, and if + I didn't write before it was because——” + </p> + <p> + “Was it so very bad?” + </p> + <p> + A butty little man raised Oriental eyes and square hands in protest. + </p> + <p> + “You have written other books,” he said, and proposed that we should go + out together and walk in the Strand. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “R—— always says, 'I like “Spring Days”.'” + </p> + <p> + “Insolent little ass,” I answered, “I'll cut him dead when we meet again.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Edward gave it to you?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he answered, “I haven't seen him for many months.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + A. E. did not seem to think the book unworthy of me, and pressed me to + read it. + </p> + <p> + “I'll lend you my copy.” + </p> + <p> + I received it next day, but returned it to him unread, my courage having + failed me at the last moment. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “By the way,” he said, “I came across an old novel of yours—'Spring + Days.'” + </p> + <p> + “You didn't like it?” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “She liked it?” + </p> + <p> + “Come home with me, and she'll tell you how it struck her.” + </p> + <p> + “I will, on one condition, that you don't mention that you spoke to me + about the book.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “The matter is important. Sooner or later I shall have to think about a + collected edition. Is it to be included?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Are you at home, sir, to Mr.—?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <h3> + G. M. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + “Miss, I'll have his blood; I will, miss, I will.” + </p> + <p> + “For goodness' sake, cook, go back to your kitchen; put that dreadful pair + of boots under your apron.” + </p> + <p> + “No, miss; I'll be revenged. He has insulted me.” + </p> + <p> + “You can't be revenged now, cook; you see he has shut himself in; you had + better go back to your kitchen.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Put those boots under your apron, cook; go back to your kitchen, do as I + tell you.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Go back to your kitchen, cook; do as I tell you.” + </p> + <p> + With muttered threats cook entered the house, and commanded the + kitchenmaid to interfere no more with the oven, but to attend to her + saucepans. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + At that moment quick steps were heard coming down the corridor, and Sally + entered. + </p> + <p> + “Cook, cook, I want you to put back the dinner half an hour. I have to go + down the town.” + </p> + <p> + “O Sally, I beg of you, what will father say?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you want to go down the town for?” + </p> + <p> + “Never you mind. I don't ask you what you do.” + </p> + <p> + “You want to go down the slonk,” whispered Maggie. + </p> + <p> + The cook stopped stirring the saucepan, and the kitchenmaid stood + listening greedily. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Cook, I forbid you. I'm mistress here.” + </p> + <p> + “How dare you insult me before the servants! Grace is mistress here, if it + comes to that.” + </p> + <p> + “Grace has given me over the housekeeping. I am mistress when she is too + unwell to attend to it.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know when the dinner will be ready, and I don't care.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “John, I really can't listen to any more stories about cook. Has the + quarter-to-seven come in yet?” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't seen it pass, miss, but I saw Mr. Willy coming up the drive a + minute ago.” + </p> + <p> + Willy entered, and she turned to him and said: “Where have you been to, + Willy?” + </p> + <p> + “Brighton. Has father come in yet?” + </p> + <p> + “No. You came by the tramcar?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Did you notice if the quarter-to-seven has been signalled?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but don't keep on worrying; the train is coming along the + embankment.” + </p> + <p> + “Then there will be a row to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Sally told cook to keep the dinner back; she has gone down the slonk to + speak to Meason.” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn't you tell cook that she must take her orders from you and no + one else?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter with Grace? Where is she?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “If she refuses Berkins, father'll never get over it. I wish you would + speak to her.” + </p> + <p> + “No, don't ask me. I never meddle in other people's affairs. I've had + trouble enough. Now I want to dress.” + </p> + <p> + When Maggie went downstairs, she found her father in the drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + “The train was a little late to-night. Has Willy come back from Brighton?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, father.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “She's in her room.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't give you any trouble, father.” + </p> + <p> + “You are the best, Maggie, but you encourage your sister Sally. I hear + that you, too, were seen walking with young Meason.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Where is Sally?” + </p> + <p> + “She went out a few minutes ago.” + </p> + <p> + “Didn't she know the time? She ought to be dressing for dinner. Do you + know where she's gone?” + </p> + <p> + “I think she went down the slonk.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “The Measons are quite as good as we are, father. They may be poor, but as + far as family goes—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “It was the Horlocks who told them to call.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Every Viceroy in India called upon her. She was the only woman whom every + Viceroy did call upon.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “She feeds the mice, she won't let them be destroyed, she lets the traps + down at night.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Sally told the cook to put the dinner back half an hour.” + </p> + <p> + “Sally told the cook to put my dinner back half an hour!” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Don't cry, father, don't cry. Sally is thoughtless; she didn't mean it.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Maggie didn't tell you that last week she met him on the sea road, and + walked with him into Portslade.” + </p> + <p> + “Father, father, I beg of you, now, don't cry; think of the servants.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + After dinner Mr. Brookes and his son retired to the billiard-room to + smoke. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “My sisters are fitted for nothing but pleasure,” Willy replied severely. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “That's a smack at the shop,” thought Willy, as he placed his full stop. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.'” + </p> + <p> + “What did she say to that?” + </p> + <p> + “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 <i>Times</i>, + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “So I should think; a purse-proud ass!” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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!” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Has he spoken to you on the subject, then?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You were telling me that Berkins had spoken to Aunt Mary about Grace.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, so it is the money that Berkins is after.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + Willy smiled. “And what did Berkins say?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you going to ask him to lunch?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I am out of my best cigars—it is so hard to remember. He won't + smoke more than one.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll put one in the cigar case then.” + </p> + <p> + “You had better fill it; it will look so bad if there is only one; he + won't take it.” + </p> + <p> + “He'll take all he can get; he took my bird, I know that!” + </p> + <p> + “This is a matter of great importance.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you. Now what time is it? Half-past ten. By Jove! we must be + thinking of starting; I suppose you aren't coming?” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid I've too much to do this morning.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “I hope she won't begin to cry,” whispered Sally, who had followed Maggie + to the sideboard. + </p> + <p> + “Father looks as if he were going to cry,” replied Maggie, moving the + decanters and pretending to look for a glass. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + At last Mr. Brookes said: “I daresay you would like a cigar, Berkins—will + you come into the billiard-room?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Will you try one of these?” said Mr. Brookes, offering a box of choice + havannas. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Brookes expressed thanks for the amiable offer, and both men smoked on + in silence. + </p> + <p> + “Do you play billiards?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Do you?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, they were kind enough to ask me. Very nice shooting they have, too.” + </p> + <p> + “I hear that you have gone in for rearing pheasants.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; we shot a hundred brace last year.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You are a single man?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I can readily sympathise with you; one doesn't make money to keep idle + young fellows in the luxuries of life.” + </p> + <p> + “That is what I say.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you find the county people very standoffish over Preston Park way?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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!” + </p> + <p> + “How was that? I suppose the temperance societies affect you; they must + have had a great effect on the sale of liquor.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What then?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought he was in the distillery with you.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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!” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Taking your words into due consideration, I think I had better wish you + good-morning, Mr. Brookes.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “But in the meantime, what do you propose to settle on her?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, in that case I shall settle the same.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “To what you settle on her.” + </p> + <p> + “To her position, to her expectations,” replied Mr. Brookes, growing more + and more angry. + </p> + <p> + “But I don't know what her expectations are; you may marry again.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not intend to marry again.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Well, let us say two hundred and fifty, that is my last word.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, Mr. Brookes, I will not take your daughter.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + “Willy, make haste, I beg of you; I shall miss my train. It is now exactly + half-past nine.” + </p> + <p> + “You had better go without me; I cannot start now. I haven't nearly got my + things together.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, very well.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Did father tell you nothing when Berkins left? They had a row, hadn't + they? It isn't off, is it?” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would not speak so loud, Sally; you can be heard all over the + house.” + </p> + <p> + “Do tell us.” + </p> + <p> + “But I don't know. Father was very much upset. I couldn't speak to him + about my own business, I know that.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I suppose we shall hear about it to-night. You are going to meet + Frank in Brighton, aren't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; he is coming to lunch with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't keep him all day; send him on here, we might have a game of + tennis.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 <i>fete</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Oh! men of inferior aspect and speech, often in you a true heart abides; + you, and you only, are faithful to the end. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Is the London train come in?” Willy asked when he arrived in Brighton. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “You don't seem to go in for dress now as you used to.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't the money to spend on it; but tell me, don't you like this + suit?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, pretty well; whose is it? Did Walpole make it? Do you deal with him + still?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it is one of Walpole's, but I have had it turned.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “The women aren't worn out and faded if all one hears is true,” said + Willy, with a short laugh. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “But which way are we going? I must go to Truefitt's to have my hair cut.” + </p> + <p> + “You haven't forgotten the old place, I see. Do you still keep up your + subscription?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't subscribed lately. There used to be such a pretty girl at the + counter. Do you remember?” + </p> + <p> + “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 <i>Punch</i> 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it does make one feel jollier, doesn't it?” + </p> + <p> + “How jolly it is here; not too warm, just nice. What shall we do? Sit down + on that bench in front of the pier?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm agreeable. How jolly it is. Just look at those boats! One could make + a picture of that.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “He looks a ferocious brute.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “I really don't care to sit here with that ferocious brute.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would tie him up—to oblige me.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “How horribly out of tune you do whistle—you go into a different + key; this is more like it.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What has become of her? One never hears of her.” + </p> + <p> + “She died soon after.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry I spoke of her; I didn't know.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it doesn't matter.” Then after a long silence, Willy said: “I hear + your engagement is broken off.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “But why was it broken off?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “If she was willing to brave her father in that way, why was your + engagement broken off?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “But I thought you didn't believe in it yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “It is really difficult for me to say; I never like giving an opinion on a + subject I don't understand.” + </p> + <p> + “I know; but what do you think?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't see what pleasure you can find in a brute like that.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I think we were talking about the ladies. Have you seen anything nice + lately? What's the present Mrs. Escott like, dark or fair?” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “That you would pull it off?” + </p> + <p> + 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 <i>entr'acte</i> 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?” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't an idea—actresses?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Bar girls?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Some of those bar girls are very pretty; rather dangerous, though, I + should think.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “I daresay it is.” + </p> + <p> + “Where shall we go? Do you know of a good place? What about that + restaurant opposite the pier?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know you had an office—an office for what?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What business?” + </p> + <p> + “The distillery.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Child! Missis! I know nothing of this.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “But the child?” + </p> + <p> + “The child isn't mine. She had the child before I knew her.” + </p> + <p> + “And what is the matter with it?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “To whom?” + </p> + <p> + “To the lady whom you will see at lunch, Cissy's mother.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I am very fond of her; she is a very good sort.” + </p> + <p> + Frank was implacable. “Do you love her like the other one?” The question + wounded, but Frank was absorbed in his own special sentimentalities. + </p> + <p> + “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!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I am three-and-twenty—you don't look thirty.” + </p> + <p> + “I feel it, though; few fellows have had so much trouble as I have. Your + life has been all pleasure.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You are quite mistaken. I am sure that when you see the missis—” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you won't try to convert my sisters.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Come back to what we were talking about.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I have said that if you love her I believe you are quite right to + marry her. But do you love her?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do; how many times more do you want me to say I do?” + </p> + <p> + “Of <i>course</i> if you are going to be rude—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Then why did you consult me?” he said, for he came to the point sharply + when his brain was not muddled with sentiment. + </p> + <p> + “I am not heir to an entailed estate, like you.” + </p> + <p> + “I am not heir to an entailed estate. Mount Rorke might marry to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “If that is so, why marry? You are not in love with her—at least not + what I should call being in love.” + </p> + <p> + “But can't you understand—” + </p> + <p> + “No, I can't, unless you mean that you are down with marriage fever.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And when shall I tell her all this?” + </p> + <p> + “Now. We are going to have lunch at my offices, she'll be there. We'll + talk the matter over after lunch.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, let's start. Come along, Triss.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “But tell me: how do you manage to have so many people to lunch in your + office; your premises must be pretty extensive?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Where's your mother, Cissy?” + </p> + <p> + “In the back room cooking herrings, uncle.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Brookes was a homely, honest-eyed woman, with dingy yellow hair. + </p> + <p> + “Let me introduce you. This is my friend, Mr. Escott, you have often heard + me speak of him.” + </p> + <p> + “You must excuse my shaking hands with you, sir, I have been cooking.” + </p> + <p> + “She is an excellent cook, too. Just you wait and see. What have we got?” + </p> + <p> + “Some herrings and a piece of steak.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that good enough for you?” + </p> + <p> + “I love herrings.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + Cissy begged to be allowed to fetch the cheese and beer. + </p> + <p> + “No, dear, I am afraid you aren't well enough.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “We'll see when the time comes.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, let me go with Billy and fetch the cheese.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you can't go now, dear, there are too many people about; this is not + like London.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “You are a dear old thing,” he said, squeezing and planting a vigorous + kiss on her neck. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll say we sat on the beach.” + </p> + <p> + “That's it. Good-bye. I shall be home the day after to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Electricity,” said Maggie, with a low, subtle laugh, and her thread + cracked through the straw of the hat. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “It is just when you meet a man's eyes—a man you like, but haven't + seen much of.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think liking has anything to do with it. I hate it; don't you?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, miss! I don't think I understand,” and she glanced at her aunt over + the hem she was running. + </p> + <p> + “Now, come, tell the truth. You mean to say you never felt electricity?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think I ever did, miss.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe you. Not when that nice young man you were telling us + about looked at you? Come, now, tell the truth.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, miss, I don't know—I thought it was very revolting.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “No, never.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I hope Berkins will,” said Sally, with a coarse laugh. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “What about Frank?” Sally asked, and Susan looked up curious to hear + Maggie's answer. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Maggie, staring at the window, “Frank is very good-looking, + but I don't think that he electrifies one... he did once.” + </p> + <p> + “And when was that?” said Sally. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And Jimmy?” + </p> + <p> + “I never liked Jimmy.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And what about meeting him in London?” + </p> + <p> + Maggie coloured a little, and repudiated the accusation. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I never said any such thing.” + </p> + <p> + “I have it from his own lips.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't true; I will ask him to your face if he ever said such a thing; + I will tell father that.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “It is better to like a dozen young men than one old one.” + </p> + <p> + “I shan't marry Mr. Berkins, no matter what you say. However, you can't + accuse me of interfering in your affairs.” + </p> + <p> + “No, <i>you</i> don't.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “It is not certain that he is going to stay the night in London.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody asked you. All you have to do is to return the keys to Maggie that + you took from her.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “He'll have to do without them; if he wants peaches, he had better bring + some down from Covent Garden.” + </p> + <p> + A knock was heard at the door. “Please Miss, Mr. Escott is in the + drawing-room.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell him I will be downstairs in a moment,” cried Maggie. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “He won't hurt you; 'tis only his way of talking.” + </p> + <p> + Maggie laughed, and they walked out on the green sward. “I suppose you've + been to a great many balls this season?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What kind of buildings do you have in Ireland?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And do you find nothing nice in the present?” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Who said I was engaged?” + </p> + <p> + “Ha, ha, you see I hear everything. What is his name—Alfred?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose Sally told you.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And what did your father say?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “She said, at least, the person who told me said, that you would never + care for any one else.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Grace is waving her parasol to us. Lunch must be ready.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you live here all the year?” + </p> + <p> + “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 <i>Morning + Post</i> every morning, and I have the <i>St James's</i> 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “He doesn't look quite a gentleman, does he? He is a ship's mate, isn't + he?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “We were all sitting close together.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “But she never would go too far.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't think so; I am sure Sally wouldn't do anything that was + really wrong, but she is very imprudent.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know that I ought to tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “I promise not to tell any one—you know you can trust me.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, she brings people up to her room.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't mean to her bedroom?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “He has no money, and father would never hear of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Never hear of it! If I loved a girl, nothing in the world would prevent + my marrying her.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if that's true,” said Maggie, and she let go the bough and stood + facing him, her hands clasped behind her back. + </p> + <p> + “Of course it is. What is life for if it isn't to get the woman we love?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot understand any one thinking so. If it were so, the whole charm + would be lost.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Tie him up to this tree,” said Maggie. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, better take him to the house,” said Frank; “it would make him + savage to tie him up.” + </p> + <p> + When the ninth bottle of champagne had been opened, and the supper table + was noisy, Frank whispered to Maggie, “Did you ever see <i>Macbeth</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but why?” + </p> + <p> + “Because I can't help thinking what a splendid occasion it would be for + Banquo's ghost to appear.” + </p> + <p> + Maggie pressed his hand and laughed. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Not a bad idea. You are always up to some cunning dodge. What's the + time?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Father never says anything to you either; you tell him a lot of lies, and + leave him to understand that I do everything.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Manage him, indeed! that's what I can't bear in you, you're always trying + to manage some one; I hate the word.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What did she say?” said Sally, when Maggie returned. + </p> + <p> + “'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.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you said there was no counting on what answers I might make to + father?” + </p> + <p> + This was exactly what Maggie had said. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “Nine o'clock.” + </p> + <p> + “Another half-hour. I suppose he won't start before the half-hour.” + </p> + <p> + “Miss,” said the maid, knocking at the door, “Mr. Brookes wants to know if + you are coming down to breakfast.” + </p> + <p> + “Say that we are not nearly ready; that there's no use waiting for us.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I had better go back to my room,” said Sally. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “That I am sure she didn't. Flossie is the cleanest dog in the world.” + </p> + <p> + “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!” + </p> + <p> + Sally caught up her dog, and marched out of the room, slamming the door + after her. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “He said his children were persecuting him, that he had not had an hour's + peace since their poor mother died.” + </p> + <p> + “Fudge! Mother knew how to keep him in order. Do you remember when she + threw the carving knife?” + </p> + <p> + “Sally, for shame! How can you speak of poor mother so?” + </p> + <p> + “You know it is true, Hypocrisy. There is no harm in coming to the point.” + </p> + <p> + “It was very nearly coming to the point,” said Maggie, giggling. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what else did he say?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he say nothing more?” asked Maggie, who determined to know how + matters stood. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn't you ask him?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Didn't he speak of the party?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + Sally sprang from her place and raised her fist. Maggie rushed from the + room, or, more correctly speaking, into the arms of Willy. + </p> + <p> + “What the deuce are you up to?” cried this staid young man, who had been + twisted round and thrown against the wall. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “So, father, you may be able to keep your money.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “You are most unsympathetic, I never knew one so unsympathetic; you were + always so, you'll never change.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, if my afflictions are only a subject for laughter—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And their salvation,” murmured Aunt Hester. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.' + </p> + <p> + “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.'” + </p> + <p> + “No, indeed, this life is but a moment,” sighed Aunt Hester. “I wish you + had had one of these books to give her.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.'” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I am alone since poor Julia—” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Mary and Aunt Hester looked at each other, and they wondered if the + terrors of the carving knife were completely forgotten. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I am never home before seven.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Not two hundred pounds invested—no, nor yet a hundred.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “A lot of penniless young jackanapeses. Every morning I see them at the + station watching me over the tops of their newspapers.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “About a dozen, the others had gone.” + </p> + <p> + “Feasting, drinking his champagne—his very best.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Then why don't you fix the day and the settlements?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “The fact is,” said Aunt Mary, “Sally ought to have been a man; had she + been a man, it would have been all right.” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Hester, who had spent her life in a vicarage, glanced uneasily at her + sister, and fidgeted with the papers in her satchel. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence.” + </p> + <p> + “No, James, it will not,” replied Aunt Hester, with unusual determination. + </p> + <p> + The conversation dropped, and the speakers stared at each other at a loss + how to proceed. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “No, not dear Maggie.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Her spirit must be broken, she must be subdued,” interjected Aunt Mary. + </p> + <p> + “Christ is the real healer, prayer is the true medicine, and by it alone + is the troubled spirit soothed.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Mary, Mary, I beg of you to remember Mr. Berkins is a man of eight + thousand a-year.” + </p> + <p> + “He may make eight thousand a-year, but he has very little money + invested,” said Aunt Mary. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “My dear James, is this marriage to be or not to be? That is what I want + to know.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Upset by Sally, what do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I told you that Sally tries to turn Berkins into ridicule, laughs at his + beard among other things.” + </p> + <p> + “I must see Grace about this,” said Aunt Mary; “you must excuse my + laughing, but Sally is often very droll.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “The Southdown Road you mean,” interrupted Mr. Brookes, “and very + properly, too.” + </p> + <p> + “And father and he cannot agree upon money matters, and I don't like a + beard—” + </p> + <p> + “You never objected to a beard until Sally put you against it.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I did, father; I always told you—” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind the beard, tell me about the money matters that your father + and Mr. Berkins can't agree upon.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Is this so, James?” asked Aunt Mary. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “What was I talking about, James; you have been listening to me—what + was I talking about?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “Her ladyship is at home, but she is not at all well, sir. She is, I + think, in her room lying down, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but did she not expect me? I was to have dined here to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “I heard nothing about it, sir; but I'd better ask. Will you come in, + sir?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Lady Seveley will be down in a moment, sir,” said the maid. A few minutes + after the door opened. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you are better now.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, when I have had some champagne I shall be quite well. Now tell me + something; talk to me.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “So you like Maggie the best?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + Helen laughed. “A sort of comic King Lear.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And you haven't seen them for a long time?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And you say they are beautiful girls and will have large fortunes.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Dinner is on the table, my lady.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you said in your letter that you were going to have two young + girls staying with you.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + “You have not answered me—would you like to go to the Gaiety?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “My neuralgia is almost all gone. There's nothing like champagne for it. + Hardwick, Mr. Escott will take some more champagne.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Are you fond of music?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; there is nothing I like more than fiddling at the piano.” + </p> + <p> + “Then do play something.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you play the violin?” + </p> + <p> + “I can't call it playing, I was never taught.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What shall I play?” + </p> + <p> + “Anything you like.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “What did you break off like that for? Was I playing so badly?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “But it is so religious.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, that is just it; no sen—no; well, there is no other word; no + sensuality is so terrible as religious sensuality.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps not to a hymn, although—but 'La Chanson d'Eglise' is not a + hymn.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't much mind, just as you like. I heard that the new burlesque was + very amusing.” + </p> + <p> + “Then let us go.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Were you ever in love?” Helen asked, and she leaned back behind the + curtain of the box out of sight of the audience. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I have been in love; but why do you ask?” + </p> + <p> + “It just occurred to me.” + </p> + <p> + “I have never been in love with a ballet girl, if you mean that.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know; I have heard of such things, but I never could understand.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Fair. She used to wear a Gainsborough hat.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you like those great hats?” + </p> + <p> + “I did on her.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose she was tall, then.” + </p> + <p> + “No, she was short.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I don't see how she would wear a Gainsborough hat.” + </p> + <p> + “She did, and looked exquisite in it too.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you were very much in love with her?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; we were engaged, and going to be married.” + </p> + <p> + “Why was it broken off?” + </p> + <p> + “Her father was a brute.” + </p> + <p> + “Fathers generally are brutes on such occasions, and there are generally + excellent reasons for their brutality.” + </p> + <p> + “Husbands, too, are brutes, and if all I have heard is correct, there are + excellent reasons for their brutality.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, did you fall in love with her the first time you saw her?” + </p> + <p> + “I think so.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me all about it. When did you see her for the first time?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you always afraid of offending people?” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, never mind, that is forgiven; tell me about her.” + </p> + <p> + A little perplexed, he continued: “She was dressed in white, and her face + was like a flower under the great hat.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “You were both going to the same house?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I was.” + </p> + <p> + “With your husband?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Forgive me, don't say any more about that.” + </p> + <p> + “We had rows, it is true; he said horrible things about my mother, and I + wouldn't stand that, of course.” + </p> + <p> + “What things?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “I know Fletcher—or, rather, I know of him. His father was a + shopkeeper in Gort, the nearest town to Mount Rorke Castle.” + </p> + <p> + “He is a journalist, isn't he? I hear he is doing pretty well.” + </p> + <p> + “In London, I know, you associate with that class, but in Ireland we + wouldn't think of knowing them.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you were more liberal-minded than that. If they come up here, + what shall I do? I mustn't introduce you?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't mind being introduced. I should like to know Harding.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't introduce you to Harding and not to his friend.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “He has the most lovely hands and teeth.” + </p> + <p> + “I see; perhaps you are in love with him?” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of this piece?” Fletcher asked Escott, in a hesitating + and conciliatory manner. + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid he will not be able to tell you; he hasn't ceased talking + since we came into the theatre.” + </p> + <p> + “I should have done the same had I been in his place.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “How are you this evening? Come to see the piece again?” + </p> + <p> + “Come to see you.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + A few moments after the bell rang, and Frank went upstairs annoyed. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Isn't it funny; isn't it delightfully funny?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it is funny.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid, I am sorry I can't; I must get home early to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “You have a key, you surely can get in at any hour.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but I am afraid—the fact is I am dreadfully tired.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, just as you like.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “No, not very, they went away just before you came. There is Mr. Harding. + How did you like the piece, Mr. Harding?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you like music-halls? I have always heard they were so vulgar.” + </p> + <p> + “Vulgarity is surely preferable to popularity. The theatre is merely + popular.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + He pushed open the swinging doors with violence, nearly upsetting the fat + porter. The bar was nearly empty, and he found Lizzie disengaged. + </p> + <p> + “You look very vexed. Has any one been pinching you?” + </p> + <p> + “I am not vexed.” + </p> + <p> + “What will you have to put you straight?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Have half milk.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Three of Irish, miss.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, didn't he know her?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “He might have knocked you down.” + </p> + <p> + “A glass of bitter, miss.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! what a rage we are in.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Get along, don't you tell me.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! I never do that.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “They are no worse than the others. Besides, in our business we have to be + polite to every one.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “How very impatient you are,” she said, handing him the box. + </p> + <p> + “You were talking to me, and you go away to talk to those cads.” + </p> + <p> + “I must serve the customers, you naughty man. You can't have me all to + yourself. I believe you would like to.” + </p> + <p> + “That I should. I wish you would come out with me. I wish you would come + to dinner.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “We are off duty for so many hours every day; but we must be in at a + certain time.” + </p> + <p> + “But you have got Sundays.” + </p> + <p> + “We get Sunday in our turn.” + </p> + <p> + “When will your turn come?” + </p> + <p> + “I am going out next Sunday.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would come with me; I would take you up the river. You know + the river?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't know even what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say you have never been up the river, not even so far as + Twickenham?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I love it. I haven't been in a boat since I left Wales.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I should like it immensely; I don't know if I could manage it.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you say you will come, do.” + </p> + <p> + Lizzie stood hesitating, her finger on her lip. A girl entered the bar and + whispered something to her as she passed. + </p> + <p> + “I must go away now, I'm off duty.” + </p> + <p> + “Say you will come.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't say yet; I shall see you again.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “What will you have?” said Harding. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing, thanks, I could not drink anything more.” + </p> + <p> + “Have a cigarette.” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks, I will; I cannot smoke this beastly cigar. I do not know why I + asked for it.” + </p> + <p> + “Sit down.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; is she not? I think she is one of the prettiest girls I ever saw in + my life.” + </p> + <p> + “Far better looking than Lady Seveley.” + </p> + <p> + “I should rather think so; Lady Seveley is over thirty.” + </p> + <p> + “The choice would be a nice test of a young man's moral character.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you write that this morning, or are you going to write it to-morrow + morning?” + </p> + <p> + “You have not told me which, when you do—” + </p> + <p> + “I see you are not in a hurry to bring your book out.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + He lunched every day at the Gaiety, and he at length succeeded in + persuading Lizzie to come to Reading with him. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, were you going?” + </p> + <p> + “No, but the train is. We have three minutes. I'll run and get the + tickets. How is it that you are so late?” + </p> + <p> + “I just missed the train.” + </p> + <p> + “What train?” + </p> + <p> + “The Metropolitan.” + </p> + <p> + “The Metropolitan? What nonsense! Why didn't you take a cab?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “So you thought I wouldn't come, you naughty boy?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I should have been so disappointed. I don't know what I should have + done.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “What kind of town is Reading?” said Lizzie, springing from the carriage. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, we deal with them.” + </p> + <p> + “Catch hold of this rug while I get the tickets out. Shall we walk or + drive?” + </p> + <p> + “Let's walk.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “You got my telegram? My boat is ready?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir, we got her out this morning.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose a lot of people wanted to have her, they all went for her, I'll + bet.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir, a good many gentlemen asked if they could have her.” + </p> + <p> + It seemed to please Frank that he had caused so many to be disappointed. + “Well, get her out, we have no time to lose.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “I should like to know what is the use of my sending you telegrams if I am + delayed in this way?” + </p> + <p> + “My man will be here in a second, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, then, do be quick, stir yourself, I don't want to stand about here + all day.” + </p> + <p> + The assistant scratched his head. Finally it transpired that that party + down the river—that party just gone away—must have had the + boat. He didn't know anything about it, it wasn't his fault. They said + they had engaged that boat over-night. + </p> + <p> + “My boat let out for hire! How dare you do this? I never heard of such a + thing; I shall write to the papers.” + </p> + <p> + “I will give you just as good a boat, sir—” + </p> + <p> + “As good a boat! You haven't a boat like it. How do I know you don't let + my boat out for hire every day?” + </p> + <p> + “No danger of that, sir; I will give you another boat, one that you will + be pleased with.” + </p> + <p> + “My boat knocked about by some cad! He won't be back till nine o'clock + to-night, perhaps. I never heard of such a thing. Which is it?” + </p> + <p> + “That one with the lady in the stern—the red parasol.” + </p> + <p> + “He must be caught up, he must. Have you got an outrigger?” Assuring + Lizzie that he would be back in less than half an hour, Frank bent to his + work. + </p> + <p> + “If he rows like that he will run down some one,” muttered the boatman. + “Confound him and his boat!” + </p> + <p> + The outrigger shot through the water; the various craft paused, surprised + at such furious rowing. Lizzie watched the race, asking the boatman if + there was danger. + </p> + <p> + “Danger? No; but he'd better not say too much to that gent when he does + catch him up, or there'll be a row, I expect. He's going round the bend; + if he doesn't run into something, he'll catch them,” said the boatman. + “Would you like to look through my glass, miss? They'll be coming back + presently.” + </p> + <p> + Angry language was indulged in, but the apologies of the boatmen saved the + young men the unpleasantness of blows, and, elated at his success, Frank + handed Lizzie into the truant boat and paddled out into the stream. When + he had got out of earshot and out of the notice of the boat-house he + rested on his oars. “Did you see me overhaul them?” + </p> + <p> + “No, you passed out of sight round the bend.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, by George! I had a good pull for it. There are a lot of red parasols + up higher, and I had to look out for my boat. What did they say about my + rowing?” + </p> + <p> + “They said you'd catch them if you didn't run into something.” + </p> + <p> + “Did they? I was wild; and—would you believe it?—when I did + catch them up the fellow began to object; he didn't want to come back, if + you please. He said he had hired the boat, that he did not know the boat + was mine—no proof. I said, 'I will give you proof,' and so I would + have.” + </p> + <p> + “I was afraid. I began to regret that I had come out with you.” + </p> + <p> + “What nonsense! Done the fellow good if I had punched his head. Well, it + has taken it out of me a bit. I had to put on a bit of a spurt to catch + them; they had such a start, and they were going along a pretty fair pace, + too. It has made me feel a bit peckish, a pull like that on an empty + stomach; it must be close on twelve o'clock. What do you say, are you + beginning to feel that it is lunch time?” + </p> + <p> + “I am not very hungry, and you forgot the luncheon basket. I ought to have + reminded you to get some sandwiches at the railway station.” + </p> + <p> + “Sandwiches! I don't want sandwiches; I want something more substantial + than sandwiches. I'll paddle on; we aren't more than a tenminutes' paddle + from the 'Roebuck,' a ripping nice hotel, I can tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Couldn't we have something to eat without going to an hotel?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think so. I want a bottle of fizz, and the fizz there is + excellent; one of the best hotels on the river; splendid gardens and + tennis grounds, a great room overlooking the river; the best people go + there; sometimes one can't get a table.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think I am well dressed enough.” + </p> + <p> + “You look charming, a cotton dress and a parasol is all one wants for the + river.” + </p> + <p> + “You are not ashamed of me, then; you'll take me as I am?” + </p> + <p> + “Ashamed of you! Steer straight for that post—that's it, bravo!” + Frank shipped the oars, and when he felt the girl's arm laid on his as he + helped her to land, it seemed to him that all the world was happiness. The + spirit of the river, the fields and sky, leaped to his eyes. He assisted + her to ascend the steps cut in the hillside. She laughed and laughed + again, and stopped to rest. At last they stood on the railway line. It + swept round another hill all overshadowed and dark with cedars. + </p> + <p> + “Here comes a train, let's wait. I must see it go round the curve.” + </p> + <p> + “You should see the Bath express come along the broad gauge at the rate of + sixty miles an hour.” + </p> + <p> + “This is not an express?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + The luggage train came with an interminable rumble and jingle, and Lizzie + waited till the last truck passed under the branches. Then they went to an + hotel full of daylight and stained wood, with glimpses of barmaids far + away, and waiters running about; the rooms glistened with table linen; the + waiters carved at a sideboard covered with pies, sirloins, hams, tongues. + Only one table was occupied, and the waiters were lavishing all attention + upon it. Lady Seveley leaned back smoking a cigarette. Fletcher sat next + to her, alternately affecting indifference and fixing her with his eyes. + Harding was voluble and observant. There was about them an air of thirty + and the dissipations of thirty. And, not in the least ashamed of Lizzie, + Frank bowed to Lady Seveley; she returned his bow by a slight nod; and + Lizzie, very much embarrassed, nodded to the men; they smiled in return. + </p> + <p> + “Who is that lady you saluted?” + </p> + <p> + “Lady Seveley; the lady I told you about, who I went to the theatre with + the other night.” + </p> + <p> + “Fancy a lady like that smoking a cigarette!” + </p> + <p> + A waiter approached with the bill of fare. “We had better not have + anything hot, we shall lose the whole day. What do you say?” + </p> + <p> + “Cold sirloin of beef is excellent, sir; pigeon pie is also very good—young + birds.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall we try the pigeon pie? Get me the wine list. Take off your hat, + Lizzie, do.” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid my hair will come down.” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind, so much the better.” + </p> + <p> + With some difficulty she extracted her hat from the hairpins, and the + bright hair hung loose about her white plump face. Frank drank a glass of + champagne; he was proud of her beauty. + </p> + <p> + “By Jove, how this does pick one up! not half bad tipple, is it?” + </p> + <p> + They hastened through their lunch, unconsciously avoiding the too critical + looks of those at the far corner table; nor did they suspect, as they + descended the hill and got into their boat and rowed away, that they were + still the subject of conversation. + </p> + <p> + “She is no doubt a very pretty girl. He seems very fond of her. I hope he + won't make a fool of himself.” + </p> + <p> + “I think he is 'mashed.' We saw him the other night in the bar. He was + paying her a great deal of attention—the night we saw you at the + theatre.” + </p> + <p> + Lady Seveley's face slightly altered. Harding noticed the change of + expression, and he said: “She is called the belle of the bar. Hers is the + kind of prettiness that appeals to a young man, for somehow, I cannot + explain, it is a thing you must feel; she epitomises as it were the beauty + of the English girl; she is the typical pretty English girl; all that + English girls have of charm, she has; and the co-ordination is an + irresistible force against some young men; their natures demand the + freshness the spontaneity, the innocence of—” + </p> + <p> + “Of the Gaiety bar! I have never been there, but from what you tell me of + it, it is the last place to find innocence and freshness.” + </p> + <p> + “That may be or not be. We find a rose blooming in very out-of-the-way + places; but, as a matter of fact, I made no accusation of virtue; vice + does not rob a youth of its spontaneity. You may rouge the cheeks of May + and blacken her eyes, but she is May nevertheless. I say that the lover of + the young girl cannot love the woman of thirty. Her charms touch him not + at all; but there are others who may love only the woman of thirty, and, + strange to say, they are only loved by the woman of thirty. The universal + Don Juan is a myth, and does not exist out of literature. There is the Don + Juan who plays havoc among the women of thirty, there is the Don Juan who + plays havoc among young girls, but—” + </p> + <p> + “And you think our friend Frank Escott belongs to the latter class?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't. He is good-looking; he is to all appearance a young man that + any woman would like, but I don't think you'd find this to be so if it + were given to you to see into his life. Every man of the world must have + noticed that there are times when, speaking generally, every second woman + will run after him—ladies of rank, prostitutes, maid-servants—when + he may pick and choose his mistresses, and change his mind as often as he + pleases; there are other times when he finds himself womanless, when none + will look at him, when in fact without an allusion to rings, and sometimes + a very direct allusion is required, he will not be able to persuade a + chorus girl to come out to supper with him. He thinks he is getting old, + he looks in the glass with fear.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say there are men who look in the glass with fear?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, after five-and-thirty the glass whispers as awful truths to + the man as to the woman—worse, for woman's youth is longer than + man's. The contrary is the received opinion, but, like all popular + opinions, it is wrong; a woman is frequently loved after forty, a man + never. I was saying that a man often thinks he is getting old because the + chorus girl took an early opportunity of speaking of rings, because the + lady of fashion begged of the old gentleman who had taken up his hat to go + to stay a little while longer, because the chamber-maid did not look + lusciously round the corner when he passed her in the passage. He looks in + the glass and imagines all kinds of monstrous changes in his person. His + fears have no foundation in fact—or should I say in the flesh? A + year after the duchess makes overtures, the chorus girl threatens to throw + up her engagement for him, and the chambermaid pesters him with + unnecessary questions concerning baths and towels. These facts tend to + show, indeed I think they prove, that love is a magnetism, which sometimes + we possess in almost irresistible strength, and which sometimes fades away + into powerless and apparent extinction.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you think that good looks have nothing to do with the faculty of + making oneself beloved?” said Fletcher. + </p> + <p> + “The phenomenon of love has hitherto eluded our most eager investigation; + when we have traced each desire to its source, and classified—” + </p> + <p> + “We women will have ceased to take any interest in the matter. What a + humbug you are, Mr. Harding; one never knows when you are serious. But + what has all this to do with that poor boy who has gone off with his + barmaid?” + </p> + <p> + “This: he is unquestionably good-looking, but I don't think he possesses + at all the magnetism, the power—call it what you will—that I + have been speaking of. He will never influence either men or women, he + will never make friends; that is to say, he will never make use of his + friends. He will, I should think, always remain a little outside of + success. It will never quite come to him; he will be one of those muddled, + dissatisfied creatures who rail against luck and bad treatment. I cannot + see him really successful in anything; yes I can, though, I believe he + would make an excellent husband. I have spoken a great deal to him. He has + told me a lot about himself, and I can see that he asks and desires + nothing but leave to devote himself to a woman, to pander to her caprices. + All that violent exterior will wear off, and he will yield to and love to + be led by a woman. He writes a little, and he paints. I don't know if he + has any talent; but he never will be able to work until he is obliged to + work for a woman.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you think he will marry that barmaid?” + </p> + <p> + “Most probably. He will struggle against it; but unless chance intervenes—she + may die, she may run away with some one to-morrow, for she does not care + for him—he will be sucked into the gulf.” + </p> + <p> + “He is Lord Mount Rorke's heir; he will have twenty thousand a year one of + these days.” + </p> + <p> + “Mount Rorke will never forgive him a bad match. I know Mount Rorke,” said + Lady Seveley, “and you do, too, Mr. Fletcher.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, a little.” + </p> + <p> + Unfearing prophecy and oracle launched from the windows of the hotel, the + young people rowed, lost to all but each other, amazed at the loveliness + of the river. They floated amid the bulrushes. Cries and regret when + Frank's oar crushed the desired blossom. Never before were lilies as + desirable as those that were gathered that day—that bud, it must be + possessed, that blown flower must not be left behind. Lizzie dipped her + arm to the elbow, and rejoiced in the soft flowing water. The river rose + up into what beautiful views and prospects. The locks, the sensation of + the boat sinking among the slimy piles with Frank erect holding her off + with the boat-hook, or the slow rising till the banks were overflowed, and + the wonderful wooden gates opened, disclosing a placid stream with + overhanging boughs and a barge. And the charming discoveries they made in + this water world, the moorhen's indolence, and the watchful rat swimming + for its hole; each bend was a new picture. How beautifully expressive of + the work of the field were the comfortable barns. If life is never very + fair, a vision of life may be fair indeed, and once the tears came to the + bar girl's eyes, for she, too, suddenly remembered her life of tobacco and + whisky; long weary hours of standing, politeness, washing glasses, and + listening to filthy jokes. Would there be no change? If she might live her + life here! She thought of the morning light, and the home occupations of + the morning, and then the languid and lazy afternoons in this boat, amid + the enchantment of these river lands. + </p> + <p> + Frank laid by his oars, and as regardless as a shopboy of observers, he + took her hand and begged of her to confide in him. He thought, too, of + seeing her daily, hourly, of her presence in his daily life; he saw her + amid his painting and poetry, and this pleasant scenery. Then the vision + vanished like the shine upon the stream, she withdrew her hands, a shadow + had fallen. + </p> + <p> + They passed a summer-house where three girls were sitting; one sat on the + edge of a table and sang the ballad of “Biddy Malone.” There was a house + so red, and so full of gables and narrow windows, that Frank said it was a + perfect specimen of Elizabethan architecture; and he treated Lizzie to all + he could pretend to know on the subject, and he condemned the owner for + the glaringly modern garden benches with which the swards were + interspersed. The sun was setting, there was lassitude in every passing + boat, the girls leaned upon the arms of the young men, and the woods stood + up tall and contemplative, as beautiful in the deep blue river as upon the + pale sky. + </p> + <p> + They landed at Pangbourne Woods by the wide grassy path between the reedy + river and the spreading beeches. There a man was boiling a kettle. He + spoke to them; he instructed them in the life of camping out, and he + invited them to tea. Lizzie went into the tent and got out the tea-things. + Two men came up, jolly fellows enough; and such little adventures endeared + and memorised the day. + </p> + <p> + They climbed, oh! what a climb it was, Lizzie's ankles and courage giving + way alternately; but at last they reached a pathway, and they walked at + ease into the green solitudes of the wood. It seemed endless, so soft and + so still. He spoke to Lizzie, whom he now called Liz, of her past, of the + reasons that had led her to leave home and “go to business.” Her brother, + she said, was a painter, a celebrated bird-painter. + </p> + <p> + “Then we should know each other, I am a painter.” He told her of his ideas + and projects, of how he had been to France; he might go there again, + unless something happened to keep him in England. He wrote a little too, + in the papers, and he might do something to help her brother—a + paragraph in <i>Fashion</i>, he could get one in. For fear of wounding her + he did not ask if her brother was a decorative painter, employed by a + firm, or an artist who exhibited pictures. Her father had married again. + She did not like her stepmother, and that had determined her to go into + business. + </p> + <p> + Had she ever been in love? Yes, she supposed she had; but it was all over + now. The last words sounded, and died away in a great abyss of soul. + </p> + <p> + Parts of the path were marked “Dangerous.” The earth had given way, + creating fearful chasms, over which trees leaned dangerously or hung out + fantastically by a few roots. In the dell below there stood a small green + painted table, and the young people leaning on the protecting railing + wondered at this mysterious piece of furniture. There was in them and + about them an illusive sense of death and the beauty of life. One slight + push would hurl them headlong hundreds of feet down to the painted table. + </p> + <p> + The silver of the river sparkled through silence and the foliage of June, + and the songs of the boatmen came and went like voices in a dream. + </p> + <p> + The days of youth are long, and in tender idleness the hours lingered, + their charm unbroken in the rattle of London; and happy with love and + tired with the great air of the river and its leafy scenery, Frank fell + asleep that night. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + One of the French artists he had met in Rome wrote to him from Paris. Why + should he not go there? There was nothing for him to do in London; Lizzie + Baker had disappeared, and in the year and a half that he spent in Paris + learning to draw he forgot her and his friends in Southwick. Nor did he + remember them when he returned to London; not until one evening, strolling + down Regent Street, he came upon Willy Brookes suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “How do you do, my dear Willy? I haven't seen you for—for—how + long?” + </p> + <p> + “I should think it must be now, let me see, I have got it down somewhere; + when I get home I'll look it up.” + </p> + <p> + “Hang the looking up; better come and look me up.” + </p> + <p> + The young men laughed. + </p> + <p> + “It must be nearly a year and a half.” + </p> + <p> + “I should think it must. Where are you staying? I am staying at Morley's + Hotel, Trafalgar Square. Come and dine with me to-night.” + </p> + <p> + Willy reflected. He stroked his moustache reflectively. + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said, “I am afraid I can't. I have something to do.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense! I don't believe you. What have you to do?” + </p> + <p> + “I have some cheques to write.” + </p> + <p> + “That won't take you a moment. You can do that at my place.” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't, I assure you. I must have my books and my own pen. I wouldn't + write a cheque in that way for worlds.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not? We'll go to a music-hall afterwards.” + </p> + <p> + “I am very sorry, but I really couldn't—not to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “You never go in for amusing yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do; but what amuses you doesn't amuse me. I assure you I would + sooner stay at home, write my cheques, and enter them carefully, than go + to a music-hall.” + </p> + <p> + Frank looked at Willy for a moment in mute amazement. Then he said: “But + what's that you have under your arm in that brown paper parcel?” + </p> + <p> + Willy laughed. “A leg of mutton; I have just been to the stores.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say you buy legs of mutton at the stores, and carry them + home? Supposing you met some one, if we were to—” + </p> + <p> + “Not very likely, a foggy night like this. I have a small house in Notting + Hill. I take the 'bus at the Circus. I shall be very glad if you will come + with me; so will the missus.” + </p> + <p> + “I forgot to ask about her, how is she?” + </p> + <p> + “Very well. Come and see for yourself. Come and dine with us to-morrow. I + can't give you one of your restaurant dinners, but if leg of mutton will + suit, all I can say is that I shall be very happy.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll come whenever you like.” + </p> + <p> + “Can you come to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. We might go to the theatre afterwards.” + </p> + <p> + “We might. Be at my place at half-past six, that will give us plenty of + time.” + </p> + <p> + “What a queer fish he is,” thought Frank, as he walked down Regent Street, + looking at the women. “Can't come and dine with me because he has two or + three cheques to write, must have all his books out to make entries—what + a clerk for the Government—an ideal clerk! What a genius for red + tape!” + </p> + <p> + Willy was standing on the steps of the little house, and he commented on + his friend's extravagances as he welcomed him. + </p> + <p> + “You might have come here for ninepence, third class. You paid that cabman + three shillings, and you took, I don't mind betting, half an hour longer. + Now, don't make a mess, do wipe your feet; we don't keep a servant, and it + gives the missus a lot of trouble cleaning up.” + </p> + <p> + Not a book nor a picture nor a single flower, and every worn carpet + suggested the bare necessaries of life. There was the drawing-room, kept + for show, never entered, barren and blank; there was the room—a + little more alive—where Willy smoked his pipe and kept his accounts, + but there the crumbs, three or four, seemed to speak of the dry, + bread-like days that wore themselves away; life there was too obviously + dry and bare, joyless and mean. + </p> + <p> + Had Frank's mind been philosophic and deep-seeing, he would have mused on + the admirable patience of the woman who lived here, seeing no one, making + entire sacrifice of her life; he would have contrasted the humbleness, + nay, the meanness, of this unknown house with the reception rooms of the + Manor House; one life wasting in darkness and poverty, another burning out + in light and riches; timeworn truths float on the surface of this little + pool of life, and so modernised are they that they appear for a moment + “new and original.” But further than a regret that there were no flowers + in the window, and a sense of the horrible when his eyes fell on a piece + of Swiss scenery, his thoughts did not wander; they soon were fixed and + absorbed in the consideration of the happiness that Willy had attained by + “doing the right thing by the woman.” He was hers, she was his. Dreams of + things marital, the endearments of husband and wife, are the essence of + the being of some men and women, and are to them a perennial delight. + Frank was such a one. + </p> + <p> + He had brought Cissy a doll, and the child came and sat on his knees, and + put her arms round his neck. He kissed the long face, hollow-eyed, and + stroked the beautiful gold ringlets that cloaked the shoulders. + </p> + <p> + They went to the theatre in a 'bus. Frank carried Cissy, and he called + indignantly to the crowd not to press him. “Did they not see that he was + carrying a child?” He did not think that his friends might recognise him, + nor would he have felt any shame had he caught sight of some face in the + stalls he knew. He would not have put Cissy aside; nor would he have + pretended that he was not with the pale, worn, shabbily-dressed woman by + his side. He was wholly filled with his friends, their interests and + concerns; so complete was the investment of himself that Lizzie Baker did + not snatch a fugitive thought from them; and it was not until he sat + smoking with Willy in the back parlour that he said: + </p> + <p> + “I wonder what has become of her? She was a nice girl.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean Lizzie Baker? You lost sight of her all of a sudden, didn't you? + Do you think she went off to live with some one?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't think she was a girl who would do that. By Jove, she was a + pretty girl! Once I took her up the river, up to Reading. We had such a + jolly day in the woods and on the water—amid the water-lilies and + bulrushes, or the shade of the cedars. I wonder you never go up the + river.” + </p> + <p> + “I have no time. Besides, I hate the water. I never go on the water if I + can help it—I am too nervous.” + </p> + <p> + “How odd! Oh, we had a jolly day!” + </p> + <p> + “But I never understood how it was you lost sight of her. You said in your + letter that she had left the bar; but she must have gone somewhere. I am + sure you didn't make sufficient enquiries. You are too impatient.” + </p> + <p> + “I did all I could. One girl told me that a lot of them—Lizzie among + the number—had suddenly been transferred to Liverpool Street. That + was true, for I saw at Liverpool Street several girls I had known + previously at the 'Gaiety.' Those poor bar girls, how pitiful they look! + all over London they stand behind their bars! Breathing for hours tobacco + smoke, fumes of whisky and beer, listening to abominable jokes, the + subjects of hideous flirtations; and then the little comedy, the effort to + appear as virtuous young ladies—'young ladies of the bar.' It is + very pitiful. In such circumstances how do you expect a girl to keep + straight? I do not think it is the men who do the harm. There are, of + course, a few blackguards who crack filthy jokes over the counter, but if + a girl likes she needn't listen—a girl can always keep a man in his + place. Then if a man flirts with a girl he always loves her, likes her, if + you think 'like' a better word; but you must admit that in the most beery + flirtation there must be a certain amount of liking. There is, therefore, + something to save a girl. I feel sure that it is girls, not men, who lead + innocent girls astray. Those poor bar girls are quite unprotected; they + have a sitting-room into which they may not bring a friend—a man, I + mean. In the bedrooms there is always a lot of illicit talking and + drinking going on. A girl who has gone wrong herself is never content + until she has persuaded another girl to go wrong; a girl is so mean! I + feel very much on this subject. I am thinking of writing a book on the + subject. Did I ever tell you about the novel I intended to write?” + </p> + <p> + “You told me once in Brighton about a novel you intended to write. I + forget what it was about, but you said you were going to call it 'Her + Saviour.'” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that is another book. I was thinking of writing the story of a woman + who is led into vice. They get her to throw over the man who loves her; he + follows her, never loses sight of her until at last, determined to save + her, and although he knows that he is wrecking his own life, he marries + her. What do you think?” + </p> + <p> + Being pressed for an answer, Willy stroked his moustache with great + gravity. “I really can't say, my dear fellow; you know I never like giving + opinions on questions I do not understand.” + </p> + <p> + The conversation came to a pause, and Willy began to whistle. + </p> + <p> + “Just a little flat—quarter of a note wrong there and there!” + </p> + <p> + “Do you whistle it? Oh, yes, that's it! I can hear the difference! I wish + you had your violin. I should like to hear you play it.” + </p> + <p> + “What, with the missus overhead?” + </p> + <p> + “She doesn't know anything about it. How prettily <i>she</i> used to sing + it; a pretty tune, isn't it? Good old days they were! Do you remember when + you used to come to the Princess's with me? Didn't she look pretty?” + </p> + <p> + “You never told me why you didn't marry her; I never heard the end of that + story.” + </p> + <p> + “There is nothing to tell. It's all over now. Do you remember how I used + to dress myself up to go to the theatre? We used to go to supper at + Scott's afterwards. I did not mind what I ate in those days.” + </p> + <p> + “You hardly ever go to the theatre now, do you?” + </p> + <p> + “Hardly ever. I shouldn't have gone to-night if it had not been for you. I + don't know how it is, but I don't seem to enjoy myself as I used to.” + </p> + <p> + The men ceased talking. Presently Frank broke the silence. + </p> + <p> + “I hope you are getting on all right on the Stock Exchange. You haven't + mentioned the subject.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know that there is much to say. Times are very bad just now. I + don't think any one is doing much good.” + </p> + <p> + “But you are with a very good firm. Nothing is going wrong, I hope.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think any one is making money. We have all been hard hit lately—war + scares. But I daresay it will all come right.” + </p> + <p> + “I never understood what you ever wanted to go into the business for. What + do you, with your handsome place at Southwick, and your father with his + thousands and thousands, want to turn yourself into a city clerk for?” + </p> + <p> + “You see, you don't care about making money; I do—it was bred in me. + Besides, I am an unselfish fellow. I never think of myself; I like to + think of others. If I were to make a good thing out of this, I should be + able to leave the missus independent.” Then, after a slight pause, Willy + said: “But, by the way, I was forgetting. I got a letter this morning + saying that if I met you in London I was to tell you that you were to come + to Southwick for a ball.” + </p> + <p> + “What ball?” + </p> + <p> + “A subscription ball at Henfield—a county ball. Will you come?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I don't mind. It should be rather fun. Are you going?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I must go, worse luck, to chaperon my sisters.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you go? Will the governor let you have the horses?” + </p> + <p> + “Not he! We generally have a large 'bus. I am going down to-morrow by the + twelve o'clock train. Will that be too early for you?” + </p> + <p> + “Not if I go home now and pack up.” + </p> + <p> + “You won't like that. You had better sleep here and get up early in the + morning; your room is all ready.” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't manage it. I never could get back to the Temple, pack up, and + meet you at twelve at London Bridge.” + </p> + <p> + “It will be rather a cold walk for you; you are too late for the train, + and the last 'bus, I am afraid, has gone.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall have a hansom. The only thing that worries me is not being able + to say good-bye to the missus.” + </p> + <p> + “She's fast asleep. She won't mind—I'll make that all right.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, at twelve o'clock at London Bridge!” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII + </h2> + <p> + Sally rushed down to meet him, and she took him off for a walk in the + garden. + </p> + <p> + “What a time it is since we have seen you. What have you been doing—amusing + yourself a great deal, I suppose?” + </p> + <p> + “I have been the whole time in Paris. I have been studying very hard. I + only returned home about two months ago.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe about the studying.” + </p> + <p> + “I have been working at my painting. I worked morning and afternoon in the + studio from the nude. Last summer I had a delightful time. I took a little + place on the Seine—a little house near Bas Meudon. I had a garden; I + used to breakfast every morning in the garden—fresh eggs, new bread, + an omelette, such as only a Frenchwoman can make, a cutlet, or a piece of + chicken. The wine, too, so fresh and generous. I don't know how it is, but + Burgundy here is not the same as Burgundy on the banks of the Seine. I + worked all day in my garden, or down by the river. I was painting a large + picture. I haven't finished it yet. I must go back there in the summer to + finish it.” + </p> + <p> + “Why can't you finish it here? Haven't you got it here?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but the Seine is not here.” + </p> + <p> + “Wouldn't the Adour do? The river at Shoreham?” + </p> + <p> + “No; but the Thames might. My picture is really more English than French. + There were a lot of willow trees there, and my picture represents a girl + lying in a hammock, foot hanging over, showing such a pretty piece of + black stocking. There are two men there, they are both swinging the + hammock, but while one is looking at her ankle the other only sees her + face.” + </p> + <p> + Sally laughed coarsely and evasively. + </p> + <p> + “What are you laughing at?” he asked, feeling a little nettled. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you think people will think it rather improper?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all. Why should they? The idea I wish to convey is that one man + loves her truly for herself alone, the other only loves her because she is + a pretty girl. I have composed some triolets for the picture, which will + be printed in the catalogue— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “In a hammock I swing, + My feet hanging over; + 'Neath Love's bright wing, + In a hammock I swing, + Loves come and they bring + A truth to discover, + In a hammock I swing, + My feet hanging over. +</pre> + <p> + “That is the first stanza. There are six, and they tell the story of the + picture. I will copy them into your album, if you like.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you? That will be so nice, if you will. The only thing is, I haven't + an album.” + </p> + <p> + “Haven't you? I'll get you one. I'll send you one from London.” + </p> + <p> + Sally asked him to explain the triolets, and very loyally she strove to + understand. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, I see a thing when I am told, but I never can understand poetry or + pictures until they are explained to me.” + </p> + <p> + Mollified, Frank thought of going upstairs to fetch the copy book in which + he wrote such things, but speaking out of an unperceived association of + ideas, he said: “What a clever girl your sister is. I had once a long talk + with her about pictures and poetry, and I was surprised to find how well + she talked. She understands everything.” + </p> + <p> + “Maggie is a clever girl; I know she is far cleverer than I am; but if you + knew her as well as I do, you would find she did not understand all you + think she understands.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Maggie's cleverness lies in being able to pretend she understands what + she knows nothing about; I have often caught her out.” + </p> + <p> + “Really; but how do you get on together now?” + </p> + <p> + “Pretty well! I don't think there is much love lost on either side. I + don't know why—I never could understand Maggie. You have no idea of + the reports she spreads about me all over the place—the stories she + tells the Grahams, the Prestons, the Wells. She told Mrs. Wells that I + fell in love with every young man that came to Southwick. She said awful + things about me. As for that story about telling cook to put father's + dinner back, I don't think I ever shall hear the last of it. What made + father so angry was because he thought it was to talk to Jimmy in the + slonk.” + </p> + <p> + “You told me the last time I was here that you wanted to finish a + conversation with him in the slonk.” + </p> + <p> + “I may have told you that it was to speak to him about his sister Fanny,” + Sally replied evasively. “I would not care if I never saw him again; but I + couldn't get on if I weren't allowed to see Fanny. Father wanted me to + promise never to enter the house again!” + </p> + <p> + “But you have flirted with him?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know that I have; certainly not more than Maggie. Last summer she + was hanging round his neck every evening under the sycamores. I caught + them twice.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't see any harm in going under the sycamores. I daresay Maggie has + allowed him to kiss her; so have you!” + </p> + <p> + “That I assure you I haven't.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say a man never kissed you?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't say that. I haven't kissed any one for years.” + </p> + <p> + “Who did kiss you?” + </p> + <p> + “You don't know him. I was only eighteen. He was a married man; it was + very wrong of me.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish I had been he.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you? I hate him; he was a beast for doing it.” + </p> + <p> + Sally often indulged in these half confessions; one of her aunts used to + call them her “side lights.” By their aid she succeeded in interesting + Frank. “How candid she is to tell me—to confide in me!” Sally was + handsome now; the evening suited her dark skin and coal black eyes, and + her strong figure was rich and not ungraceful in a dress of ruby velvet. + Should he kiss her? What would she say? He threwhis arm about her. + </p> + <p> + “I am surprised. Certainly not!” + </p> + <p> + “I don't see any harm.” Then, with a sensation of saying something + foolish, he said: “You told me you kissed a married man.” + </p> + <p> + “That was ages ago—I was very silly. I shouldn't think of doing + sonow.” + </p> + <p> + In the silence which followed Frank wondered why he had tried to kiss her. + Decidedly he liked the other better. + </p> + <p> + Now every evening Maggie went to the writing-table, and all knew what it + meant. Mr. Brookes occasionally lamented in a minor key, but without + having recourse to his handkerchief. Willy said nothing; his losses on the + Stock Exchange had been heavy; and owing to a conversation Frank had drawn + him into during dinner the other day, his digestion, he feared, was not + quite up to the mark. So on the night of the ball he only answered with an + occasional monosyllable the splendid young man of the embroidered + waistcoats who related his pleasures in a deep bass; nor did he pretend to + take any interest in the crude militia officer who sometimes broke the + silence by a declaration that he did not care for politics or poetry, that + he liked history better. The young ladies listened devoutly to all that + the young men said; Mr. Brookes carved valiantly at the head of the table + and appeared resigned. Bouquets were fixed in button-holes in the + billiard-room and the 'bus was announced. A greasy oil-lamp hung from the + roof. Sometimes Sally rubbed the windows and said she could tell by the + bushes where they were, and the embroidered waistcoat continued to drone + out the measure of his amusements. He would have to run up to London, then + he must have a shy at <i>trente et quarante</i> at Monte Carlo, then he + must get back for the spring meeting at Newmarket. Frank asked him if he + didn't think he could manage to amuse himself without talking it all out + beforehand. But undaunted and unchecked he wandered from Homburg to Paris, + and from Paris to Ross-shire, until the 'bus drew up among a small crowd + of people. + </p> + <p> + The ball was a failure. When they entered the rooms there were scarcely + twenty people present. It was very cold, and the men said; “How can the + women bear it with their naked shoulders?” + </p> + <p> + “We shall never get near this fire,” said Sally, looking in dismay on the + circle of damsels who stood warming themselves, their dresses relieved + upon the masses of laurel with which the room was decorated; “there is a + beautiful fire in one of those little rooms at the end.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, let us come and sit there; or shall we dance this waltz + first?” + </p> + <p> + “Let's dance it.” + </p> + <p> + They danced, and Frank shuddered in his evening clothes as he danced. + </p> + <p> + “Did you notice,” said Sally, as they hurried to the retiring room, “how + upset father seemed at dinner? I thought he was going to cry, but he bore + up to the end better than I expected.” + </p> + <p> + “So he did, but I don't see what there was particularly to upset him this + time. Meason is away at sea, and you have promised not to see him any + more.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I wasn't thinking about the Measons—but haven't you heard? I + only heard it through a friend, but I know for a fact that Willy has lost + nearly all his money on the Stock Exchange.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't say so; I am so sorry.” + </p> + <p> + “Father hasn't heard it all yet; if he had he wouldn't have come down to + dinner. I don't fancy he knows more than that things have not been going + well, and that Willy has been a loser.” + </p> + <p> + “But how can he have lost? I thought he was junior partner in an old + established business.” + </p> + <p> + “So he is. I can't tell you how the mischief was done, but I know he has + lost all his money.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean by all his money?” + </p> + <p> + “All the money—three thousand—that father let him draw out of + the distillery.” + </p> + <p> + “This is very sad.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, isn't it? And particularly for a fellow who has so few amusements, + and only cares about making money. Just look at him now; he wanders about + speaking to no one. Come, let's dance this dance—are you engaged?” + </p> + <p> + “No!” + </p> + <p> + This news about Willy fixed the Harfield ball in Frank's thoughts, and he + remembered the pretty girl in white of whom he could make nothing, of the + raw just-brought-out girl who had bored him, of the communicative girl who + had amused him by her accounts of her dogs and horses; he remembered, too, + how he had seen Maggie disappearing down the ends of certain passages with + a young man whose name he did not catch, and whose face he had not + noticed. He had danced twice with her, only twice; she was distracted, she + did not look at him, her eyes wandered all over the room, she answered his + questions indifferently. Sally, on the contrary, had devoted herself to + him, and on several occasions he thought that her blunt straightforward + manner was better than the other's slyness. The 'bus came with its + draughts, its sickly lamp and its doleful jolting. Sally was too tired to + rub the windows and declare how far they were from home, and the dancers + endured their discomforts almost in silence; even the embroidered + waistcoat occasionally ceased to talk about Homburg; and in all the + extreme bitterness and greyness of a March morning they pulled up before + the door of the Manor House. + </p> + <p> + “I beg of you not to make a noise. If you wake up father he will never let + us go to a ball again. Is there a fire in the billiard-room, Gardner?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, miss, there's a lovely fire; the decanters are on the table and the + kettle is on the hob.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you would all like a glass of something hot,” said Maggie. + </p> + <p> + “Rather!” + </p> + <p> + “But don't make a noise, please.” + </p> + <p> + They stole along the passages to the billiard-room shivering, their feet + aching, feeling very uncomfortable indeed. The waistcoat was now + considering if it would be good form to come forward in the Conservative + interest at the next election; but every one was too tired, they could not + laugh, and amid a few general remarks the young ladies drank their gin and + water, casting sheep's eyes at the young men, and then, glad and yet loth + to part, all retired limping to their rooms. + </p> + <p> + Breakfast was a pleasant meal—full of laughter and anecdotes of the + ball, and, laden with Gladstone bags, the young men departed in ones and + twos. Frank was going with Willy to London, and when they disappeared + among the laurels Sally and Maggie turned indoors, conscious of reaction, + and wondering what they should do with the long day that stretched before + them. Maggie walked upstairs; she lingered, undecided, and then went down + the passage to Frank's room. He had forgotten a shirt stud; on the chest + of drawers there was a crumpled white tie and a soiled pair of white + gloves. “How careless he is!” she thought, “I must send him this,” and she + put the stud in her pocket. She straightened out the gloves and determined + to send the necktie to the wash. Next time he came down she would have it + to give him, nice, clean, and white—she must see that it was + beautifully made up. Then she found his ball programme. He had danced four + times with Sally—only twice with her—what a fool she had been; + she had wasted her whole evening with that other fellow. It did make her + feel so angry. Then the housemaid entered and turned the bed down. + </p> + <p> + “What a lot of washing there will be this week, Gardner.” + </p> + <p> + “There will indeed, miss. Three pairs of sheets, and only slept in once.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, isn't it a pity? It seems absurd to send these sheets to the wash, + doesn't it?” + </p> + <p> + “It do, indeed, miss.” + </p> + <p> + “Absurd!” said Sally, who had just come in. “I want a pair of fresh sheets + for my bed. I'll have these.” + </p> + <p> + “No you won't—I was going to take them.” + </p> + <p> + “I should like to know what right you have to them more than I.” + </p> + <p> + “You promised not to interfere with me, and you have done nothing else. + You did nothing at the ball but ask him for dances.” + </p> + <p> + “That's a lie! I didn't ask him for a dance. You went off to hide; no one + saw anything of you all the evening.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say you didn't promise?” + </p> + <p> + “I never promised anything; if I did I should keep my promise. I am not + like you. I want a pair of sheets, and I mean to have these.” + </p> + <p> + “They are too big for your bed.” + </p> + <p> + Sally seized the sheet and strove to drag it from Maggie, who, although + the weaker, held her own bravely for some time. Finding her strength + failing her, she loosed her hold, letting her sister fall against the + wall, and taking up the pillow she launched it with her full force. “If + you want what he slept in, you can have it all.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll give it to you, my lady,” cried the bully, making a rush round the + bed, but Maggie fled through the dressing-room, shutting the door behind + her, and locked herself into her room. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX + </h2> + <p> + As Willy would not pay the extra fare, Frank had to travel second class. + He was telling his friend of the Stock Exchange, and his losses—nearly + four thousand pounds. He had suspected that the firm of which he was + junior partner had not played fair with him. Anyhow, he was going to get + out of the business, having something better in view—a shop in + Brighton. Yes, a shop in Brighton, a greengrocer's shop. No one had any + idea, until they went into the calculation, of the amount of profit that + was made on vegetables. Lord This and Lord That, every one who had a + handsome place with large gardens, counted on being able to pay his + gardener's wages by the sale of the surplus carrots, artichokes, potatoes, + parsley, onions, tomatoes, especially tomatoes—every one nowadays + ate tomatoes. He had it all down in figures, and was perfectly astonished + at the sums of money that could be made. Grapes had been overdone, that + was true; but a profit could be made out of everything else. Flowers, + especially gardenias, were sold in the London market at two shillings + apiece. Now, there was he within five miles of a large town like Brighton; + the rent of a shop in the Western Road would not come to more than seventy + or eighty pounds a year; the missus he would put in as shopwoman, and, + there was no doubt of it, she would make as good a shopwoman as you could + find, after a little practice; the child could run on errands, so it + should be all profit. “I shall have none of the expenses that other people + have to contend with. In the garden at the Manor House about three times + as much stuff is grown as required. I shall buy all the fruit, vegetables, + and flowers from my father at cost price, or a little over, and shall sell + in my shop at retail price, that is, twenty or thirty per cent more. There + is, therefore, no reason why the shop should not bring in from three to + four hundred a year. And—would you believe it?—my father, who + will be benefited by my scheme, if not more, quite as much as I shall be, + is opposed to it; he will get a fair price for a lot of things for which + he now gets nothing. But no. He cannot, or will not, see it. I never saw + any one like my father. He will not help himself and you can do nothing to + help him. The distillery business is going very badly. He had a bad year + last year. I know for a fact that he did not make five per cent on his + capital. Putting these things together, I should have thought that he + would have been glad to make a little money to retrench; but no! he + prefers to go on in the old way. He made money in the old way, and he + doesn't see why he shouldn't make money again in the old way. Odd man my + father is, isn't he?” + </p> + <p> + It appeared to Frank that Mr. Brookes had managed to help himself very + liberally indeed to all the good things in life; but with his false, + facile, Celtic nature, he had no difficulty in re-adjusting his ideas and + adopting a view of Mr. Brookes more in harmony with Willy's. He was, as + usual, enthusiastic about his friends, and was effervescing with love and + goodwill. He saw nothing of their faults—they were the best and + truest people he had ever known, and he could not love them too much. + Indeed he was angry, and regretted the limitations that nature has set on + the human heart, and would if he could have lost himself in one immense + and eternal love of the Brookeses. + </p> + <p> + When he bade Willy good-bye at London Bridge, and wished him well with his + shop, these sentiments ceased to be active forces in him, and they lay + latent in his life of restaurants and bar rooms until the summer returned, + and he received an invitation from the Manor House to come down for a + garden party at Mrs. Berkins's. When he opened the letter he basked in + thoughts of them—of Maggie and her fascinating subtleties, of + Sally's blunt speech and sturdy good looks, of Willy, and all the quiet + talks they would have together. He counted the tunnels, and, striving to + recall the landscape, guessed extravagantly the number of miles that + separated him from them. He walked up the drive with a beating heart, + looking for the girls between the laurel bushes. He found them, and their + habits which endeared them to him, unchanged; and to slip back into the + old ways without experiencing the slightest difficulty or jar was like + waking from a dream and entering again on a pleasant reality. There was + the excellent dinner and the usual complaints about the Southdown Road, + the cigars in the billiard-room, conversation about pictures and + investments, gin and water, and then a long yarn with Willy in his + bedroom. Life moved at the Manor House without any spring creaking, + without jolt or jar, and it was this beautiful regularity that made Frank + feel so healthily and so unexpectedly happy. He loved the desolation of + Ireland. This was the stronger sense, but there was another sense, a half + stifled sense, that found an echo in these southern downs interwoven with + suburban life—in other words, a faint resurrection of the original + English mind in him. He enjoyed and he grew akin to this Saxon prosperity; + he learned to recognise it as manifested in the various prospects of the + weald and the wold, and he loved this medley of contradictory aspects—the + spires of the village churches, the porches of the villas, the rich + farmhouses and their elm trees, the orchards jammed between masses of + chalk, the shepherds seen against the sky of the Downs. It is true that he + felt that this country was alien to him, but he was not individually + conscious that his love of suburban Sussex was a morbid affection, opposed + to the normal and indissoluble bonds of inherited aspirations and + prejudices, and the forms and colours that had filled his eyes in + childhood. Consciousness in Frank Escott was always slow, and always so + governed and coloured by the sentiment of the moment that his + comprehension of things were always deformed or incomplete. In his mind + the phenomenon of life was ever in nebulae, and though very often one + thought would define itself, no group of thoughts, or part of a group, + ever became clear, so there was no abiding principle, nothing that he + might know and steer by. He was, of course, aware that the Brookes were + not equal to him in rank, but he did not know, or, rather, he would not + know, that they were vulgar; nor did he think that Mount Rorke might marry + again, if he were to marry Maggie or Sally. All that was really alive and + distinct in him was love of them; and this love thrived in a sensation of + class which he would not acknowledge, even to himself, had any existence. + The glass-houses, and swards, and laurels had a meaning and fascination + for him that he could not account for or describe, and he found these + feelings, which were mainly class feelings of an unusual kind, not only in + the aspect of the country but in the accent and speech of his friends, in + the expression of their eyes and very hands. The English servants pleased + him, and he strove to detect qualities in the carriage and horses, and he + compared them to their advantage with Mount Rorke's. He loved to wrap the + rug about the young ladies' knees, and they seemed to him quite perfect + and delightful as they lay back in their carriage, driving beneath a sky + full of blue, and through the changing views of the Downs, all distinct + with light and shade. Sally and Maggie made much of him, covered him up, + and addressed to him pleasant speeches. His eyes and ears were open and + eager for new impressions, and his heart panted with readiness to admire + and praise all he saw. He was ready to think that he had never seen + anything so lovely as the laurels and the numerous glass-houses; and he + wondered why he had ever thought so little of Berkins, and he listened + with interest to that gentleman's explanation of the superiority of his + possessions over everybody else's possessions. He even allowed himself to + be persuaded that there was no pheasant shooting in the kingdom—for + its size—equal to that in the little wood. Sally, who did not + attempt to conceal her dislike of her brother-in-law, whispered: “That's + the way to bring them down,” and Frank was obliged to laugh. Then she and + Maggie disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them for several hours. + The Grenadier Guards played on the lawn, and Frank was introduced to + ladies of all ages and sizes; and as these bored him, he began to see that + the place was vulgar and the people shoddy, and he wondered what Mount + Rorke would say if he were to come suddenly across him. Grace was the + subject of much concern, and obviously <i>enceinte,</i> she passed through + the different groups. She had introduced Frank as Lord Mount Rorke's son, + then as his nephew, then as his heir, and, fearing she might succumb to + the temptation of introducing him as Mount Rorke himself, Frank escaped + from her, and joined a party that Berkins was personally conducting + through the grounds. + </p> + <p> + The stables had been built by So-and-so on the most approved principles. + There were no stables like them in Sussex—the fittings of the + harness-room alone had cost him three hundred. The horses he had bought at + the Duke's sale, the Duke would not have thought of parting with them had + he known how they would turn out. He had driven them along the Brighton + road at the rate of fifteen miles an hour; he would back them to do + fifteen miles in the hour. There was not a pair of horses in England equal + to them. That was Mrs. Berkins's riding horse—was it possible to + imagine a more perfect cob? He could get a hundred for him any day, he did + not know of anything like him. “Did any of you gentleman ever see anything + like him?” They went to the kennels. A brace of Irish setters were + declared to be the finest dogs that Ireland had ever produced, they had + taken two prizes, one in Dublin and another in Brighton—and the + little fox terrier was the gamest dog in Sussex. She would go into any + hole after a fox, and never leave him till she brought him out. You + couldn't find her equal. Then the glass-houses were perfect. They + contained all the latest improvements, and all these were fully explained. + “Berkins is excelling himself to-day,” thought Frank. + </p> + <p> + Presently they came upon a basket of peaches. + </p> + <p> + “These peaches were, of course, grown under glass, but I think I am right + in saying, Jackson, that they were produced without artificial heat.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir, quite right, sir. It couldn't be done nowhere else, sir, but + all the sun in Sussex seems to come down here—a regular little sun + trap, I think that's what you called it the other day, sir, when you were + speaking to me about them there peaches.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I did. If you move nearer the sea you get fogs and cold winds, + further inland you lose the sun, but just here the climate is equal to the + south of Europe! I ask you to look at these peaches, it seems impossible—does + it not?—to have peaches like these at the end of May, and without + any heat, merely glass.” + </p> + <p> + “It seems to me quite impossible,” declared a little fat man with flaxen + hair. “I am devoted to peach-growing, and I confess I am quite at a loss. + Gardener, did you say that those peaches were grown entirely without + artificial heat?” + </p> + <p> + The gardener pretended not to hear, and tried to slip away, but the little + man, who had been taken on his hobby, was not to be baulked, and he + pursued the wretched horticulturist. + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say that these peaches ripened without any artificial heat, + any?” + </p> + <p> + “You have no idea what a sun we get here, sir. I have never seen anything + like it. In my last situation, when I was living with Lord ——, + we couldn't get our fruit forward, use whatever heat he might, and + Houghton is not more than fifty miles from here—the difference of + climate is positively wonderful.” + </p> + <p> + Jackson had reckoned that Mr. Berkins would move on, and that the + inquisitive little man would find himself obliged to follow, but chance + was against him, for Berkins, with his guests around him, stood listening + to the discussion. + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say that these peaches were grown without heat. I wouldn't + mind giving you five-and-twenty pounds for the recipe for doing it.” + </p> + <p> + “You must take a small place down here, sir, and then you will be able to + do it.” + </p> + <p> + This raised a laugh, but the little man was not to be beaten, and he said: + “I should like to see some of those peaches of yours on the trees. You + haven't plucked them all; let me see them.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Jackson, show us the trees. Some will not believe without seeing; + let us see the peaches on the trees.” + </p> + <p> + Jackson appeared to be a little disconcerted; he murmured excuses, and + strove to escape. Driven to bay he brought them into a glass-house where + there were hot water-pipes, and when his tormentor pointed triumphantly to + the pipes he attempted a faint explanation—he had meant to say that + heat had only been used within the last three weeks. + </p> + <p> + “So you see, Berkins,” exclaimed little flaxen-haired fatty, “your south + of Europe is no better than my south of Europe, or anybody else's south of + Europe.” + </p> + <p> + “Jackson, you have told me many deliberate falsehoods about these peaches. + I keep no one in my employment whose word cannot be depended upon. You + take your warning.” + </p> + <p> + “Falsehoods! What do you want a man to do, if you will have everything + better than anybody else's?” + </p> + <p> + Berkins turned suddenly on his heel, he drew himself up to his full + height, and stood speechless with indignation. Never, not even on the most + important Board meetings, did his friends wait to hear him speak with more + anxiety; but at that moment a crash of flower pots was heard, and Sally + and a young man were discovered hiding in the potting shed; and to make + matters worse, in the very next house they visited, they suddenly came + upon Maggie sitting with another young man in strangely compromising + circumstances. Explanations were attempted, and some stupid remarks were + made. Berkins was seriously annoyed, and he took the first opportunity of + taking Mr. Brookes's arm and leading him away to a quiet path. Frank saw + the men pass through the laurels, and ten minutes after he saw them + return. Evidently Berkins had read Mr. Brookes an exhaustive lecture on + the conduct of his daughters. + </p> + <p> + “Now, Mr. Brookes, now Mr. Brookes, I must beg of you—calm yourself. + What would my guests think if they found you in tears? What would they + think I had been saying to reduce you to such a condition? It is + veryunfortunate that Sally and Maggie should act as they do, particularly + at my place; but really you must not give way.” + </p> + <p> + “Since the death of their poor mother I am all alone. My position is a + very trying one.” Then, with a sudden burst of laughter, “However, I + suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence!” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X + </h2> + <p> + The girls walked to the station with Escott. A fleecy evening, with the + clouds growing pale towards the sea, the sun like fire in the elms, and + the woods showing upon a purple tinge. + </p> + <p> + “How delightful!” exclaimed Frank. “How charming this is—this old + English green, the horse pond at one end, the various houses, the inn, the + grocery business, the linen drying in that yard, the smith, and the + wheelwright. I don't like that modern Queen Anne school-house, and I wish + I could remove the dead level of the embankment and see the sea. The green + is better from this side with the view of the Downs—those lines + waving against the sky, where the gorse grows and the sheep feed, and + inclining to the road all the fields pale green and deep green. But what + game are those men playing—what game do you call that?” + </p> + <p> + “Bat and trap.” + </p> + <p> + “I have passed the green twenty times before, and I never really saw it + till now. It is charming—so thoroughly English. I should like to + live here for a month—for two months. How nice it would be to + breakfast in the morning looking out on the green, to see the cocks and + hens and all the children and all this English life! How different from + Pump Court! I am sick of Pump Court—dirt and smoke, a horrid + servant, stale eggs. I suppose you can always get fresh eggs and new bread + here? I would give anything to spend a month on the green.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you can!” cried Sally. “I wish you would, and you could come and + play tennis with us every afternoon. Mrs. Heald has some rooms to let; why + it was only last week I heard that she hadn't let her rooms this season, + and was most anxious to do so.” + </p> + <p> + “There's no use my coming here until I begin to write my novel. I am + painting now, and I must see if I can get my picture finished for one of + the autumn exhibitions.” + </p> + <p> + “I knew you would find some excuse.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I assure you, but I can't do anything without a studio, and I'm not + likely to find a studio on Southwick Green.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't suppose Mrs. Heald has a room large enough for a studio,” said + Maggie; “but I don't see why you shouldn't find a place where you can + paint.” + </p> + <p> + “Where? Not in that eighteenth-century house where the two old ladies are + standing! Supposing I were to go and ask them if they would let me have + their drawing-room to paint in! That is the only house on the green, all + the rest are cottages.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you are not very particular where you paint,” said Maggie + reflectively. “You don't mind appearances, I suppose? I wonder if you + could manage to fit up a farm building.” + </p> + <p> + “There is the famous barn where Charles the First hid himself, I don't + suppose the authorities would allow me to turn that into a studio.” + </p> + <p> + “No, probably not; but I think you might find a house that would do.” + </p> + <p> + “What nonsense, Maggie,” said Sally, who began to grow jealous of her + sister. + </p> + <p> + “Why is it nonsense? I see no reason why Frank shouldn't come to some + arrangement with the smith, and turn his house into a studio.” + </p> + <p> + “Which is the smith's house? I'll tell you in a moment if it could be + turned into a studio.” + </p> + <p> + “That house standing quite by itself in the corner of the green.” + </p> + <p> + “That tall narrow house with the bit of broken wall and the elder bushes?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “I daresay I could rig up a very nice studio out of that place, indeed it + looks quite picturesque amid its elder bushes. There is the stile, and + there is the cornfield. But I couldn't live there.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you would live at Mrs. Heald's, and you could walk over every morning + to the studio.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I could do that. I prefer to live with my work. There is nothing + like walking from the breakfast table across the room to the easel.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course you can find fault with everything; nothing is perfect.” + </p> + <p> + “There goes the train!” cried Sally. “No use in running now, you've missed + it.” + </p> + <p> + “How very provoking; the next isn't till half-past seven—just an + hour to wait.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Maggie, “if you have missed the train we may as well go at + once and ask Mrs. Heald if she has let her rooms.” + </p> + <p> + They walked towards a block of cottages—at one end the “Cricketer's + Arms,” at the other the grocery business; and the cottage that joined the + grocery business was remarkable for a bit of green paling and wooden + balcony, now covered with Virginia creeper. Frank thought at once of + new-laid eggs, and the sunlight glancing through a great mass of greenery, + and he resolved if a sacrifice were necessary to live at Southwick, he + would put his picture aside and begin his novel. The people in the house + pleased him, and he ran on in his way thinking how English and trustworthy + they seemed, liking the green parrot that rubbed its head affectionately + against the grey ringlets of a very ladylike old person; and Mrs. Heald, + brisk as a bee, notwithstanding her lame leg, who led the way up the + ladder-like cottage staircase. + </p> + <p> + “How nice and clean everything is; books and engravings along the + passages. How unlike Ireland!” + </p> + <p> + But the sitting-room was full of horsehair sofas and chairs. These + displeased Frank, but some handsome china—an entire tea service in + Crown Derby—reconciled him to the room. In the bedroom they found a + huge four-poster of old time, with a lengthy bolster and imposing pillows, + and they were shown into another and a similar room. One looked out on the + green, the other on the fields that lay between the green and the Manor + House. + </p> + <p> + “If that elm were cut down you could see my window,” said Sally. + </p> + <p> + “Which room do you like the best?” said Maggie. + </p> + <p> + “It is hard to say. The other room looks on the green, but here there is a + nice large wardrobe, and I don't see how I can get on without a wardrobe.” + </p> + <p> + “If you like the other room best, sir, I can turn out the chest of + drawers.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that would be very nice if you can manage it, the room will do very + well. I can have a bath every morning?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir; there will be no difficulty about that.” + </p> + <p> + Maggie had taken off her hat and was settling her hair before the glass. + Sally opened the wardrobe, revealing various petticoats and skirts, but + she thought of it as full of Frank's light overcoats, the scarves he wore + round his throat when he went out in evening clothes, the patent leather + shoes in the corner. Suddenly the conversation dropped, and after a pause + Frank said: “I think these rooms suit me very well, but I can do nothing; + it is impossible for me to say if I can take them until I find out if + there is any place in the immediate neighbourhood that I could convert + into a studio. Do you know of any such place?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I do not, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Escott was thinking of seeing the smith about his house. I wonder if + Town would let it to Mr. Escott for a consideration,” said Maggie. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, I should have to get leave to make what alterations I + pleased.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't suppose the house belongs to Town, sir; I don't think he is more + than a weekly tenant.” + </p> + <p> + “If that's the case, we must see the landlord. Do you know who is the + landlord?” + </p> + <p> + “I can't say I do, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, Mrs. Heald, I will let you know in a day or two if I can take your + rooms—you can give me a day or two?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir, but I should like to know as soon as possible; several people + have been asking after my rooms.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll let you know in a day or two.” + </p> + <p> + “If Town is only a weekly tenant, you'll be able to get his house by + paying a little more for it,” said Maggie, as they walked down the green + towards the smith's forge. + </p> + <p> + “That would be hardly fair; I should like to act squarely by the smith. + What is his name?” + </p> + <p> + “Town.” + </p> + <p> + Town was cutting out the hoof of a shaggy grey cart horse when his + visitors entered the cindery blackness. + </p> + <p> + “Town, this gentleman would like to speak to you,” said Maggie, raising + her voice above the wheezy bellows. He threw the hoof out of his apron, + and, drawing his blackened arm across his forehead, he came forward. + </p> + <p> + “Town, I am anxious to find a place on the green that I could convert into + a studio; I think your house would suit my purpose very well. Do you think + we could come to some arrangement? Of course I would give you a reasonable + compensation.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I really hardly know, sir; I dunno that I hardly understand. You + want my house to turn into a—” + </p> + <p> + “A studio—a place where I can paint pictures.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't see how I can do without my 'ouse.” + </p> + <p> + “But I will compensate you—make it worth your while.” + </p> + <p> + “You see it is so near my work. Was I to go and live at Ada Terrace, I + should, you see, be out of the way. If people want a job done they always + knows where to find me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but if I compensate you?” + </p> + <p> + Seeing that Frank was exciting the smith with too wild hopes of wealth, + Sally thought fit to interpose. “Mr. Escott would require permission to + make any alterations in the building he thought proper—you couldn't + give him permission; he would in any case have to see your landlord. Who + is your landlord?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't see how I can give up my 'ouse to be turned into a painting + place; it wouldn't suit me at all.” + </p> + <p> + “If I make you sufficient compensation—” + </p> + <p> + Again the smith was reduced to silence. He scratched his head, and Frank + watched the sparks fly, and heard the rhythmical sledge. “I wish he + wouldn't talk so much about compensation,” thought Sally. “I don't know + what the man won't be asking if Frank doesn't shut up.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think we shall be able to come to an understanding? I want to + know.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you see, sir, my wife is delicate, and I'm that afraid she wouldn't + like to give up her 'ome. But I'll speak to 'er if you like to-night, + sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Escott will have to see your landlord; he will have to arrange with + him about the alterations.” + </p> + <p> + “There will be no difficulty about the alterations.” + </p> + <p> + “Very probably; but you are only a weekly tenant. It is a question your + landlord must decide. If he agrees to allow Mr. Escott to make the + alterations, Mr. Escott will no doubt compensate you for disturbance.” + </p> + <p> + “It is all very well to talk about compensation. How do I know what your + compensation will be? How do I know you will make it worth my while? I + don't want no compensation. I want my 'ouse. Cheek I calls it, to come + down here wanting to muck me out of my house.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, sir, we want no impertinence. I shall do exactly as I please in the + matter. Your landlord is the person I should have spoken to.” + </p> + <p> + “Spoken to! Who are you, I should like to know, coming round here + interfering in my business?” + </p> + <p> + All Frank's discussions ended in angry words, and he never came to terms + with any one without threatening blows. Town returned to the forge; Frank + and the young ladies made their way across the green. At the corner of + Southdown Road they found the General, the schoolmaster, and a retired + farmer ardently gossiping; Mrs. Horlock, prim in her black gown and poke + bonnet, waited with admirable patience, and Angel, the blind pug, in + horrible corpulence, waddled and sniffed the grass. The story of Town's + impertinence was told. The General was shocked—it was surprising. + What are we coming to? The retired farmer said that Town was a + hot-tempered man, but not a bad sort when you knew how to take him, and + all, except Mrs. Horlock, agreed that the landlord was the person who + should be consulted. + </p> + <p> + “I really don't see why you should turn the poor man out of his house if + he doesn't want to go. How would you like some one to come and turn you + out of your house?” she said, turning to her husband. + </p> + <p> + The General laughed. “My dear Lucy, whatever you say must be right. So you + are coming to live at Southwick. Very glad to hear it. You know where to + find us, the gate's always open; lunch at half-past one, dinner at eight—old + Indians, you know; come in when you like. Pretty place I have here, + everything I want—stables and horses, and (the General looked to see + if Lucy was out of hearing) plenty of dogs, you know—a few too many; + but my wife, you know—” The rest was lost in a burst of good-natured + laughter. + </p> + <p> + They bade the Horlocks good-night and walked up the Southdown Road, + looking with its line of trees along the pavement like a little mock + boulevard. Frank was particularly severe in his remarks on the trim privet + hedges and the little bronze sphinxes standing before the portico of + yellow glass; he declared that a man must be born to put up such things, + and he clearly thought this sneer a very happy one, for he repeated it, + fearing that Sally had not understood. The grocer who had placed a + bas-relief of himself over his door was greatly wondered at, and Sally + told an amusing anecdote regarding the invitations he sent out for the + first dinner party. The conversation turned on the Measons. Jack's ship + had gone to China, and he was not expected back much before Christmas. + </p> + <p> + “That's very sad, Sally. How will you be able to live through so many + months?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't care for him. I don't care if I never saw him again—it was + Fanny who was my friend. Some nice people have come to live in that corner + house—a young man, who is learning farming. Mr. Berkins insists on + father not allowing us to visit any one in the Southdown Road, and Mr. + Berkins can turn father round his finger, he is so much richer. I'm not + allowed to see Fanny at the Manor House. As for Jack, I daresay you won't + believe me, but I shouldn't care if I never saw him again.” + </p> + <p> + Maggie shrugged her shoulders. The gesture exasperated Sally, and she + turned on her sister. + </p> + <p> + “You needn't shrug your shoulders at me, miss; I never flirted with him; + you did, and then you set father against me.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, for goodness' sake don't quarrel; what does it matter? The idea of + Berkins telling your father whom he should visit; and the idea of your + father permitting it merely because he makes two or three thousand a year + more! He surely doesn't object to your visiting Mrs. Horlock?” + </p> + <p> + “No, he couldn't do that.” + </p> + <p> + Still engaged in discussion, they entered the gates of the Manor House, + and Mr. Brookes was told that Frank would stay at Southwick a few days + longer, so that he might arrange about a studio. The news was not at first + wholly pleasing to the old gentleman, but he remembered the anecdotes he + should hear concerning his favourite painters, and was consoled. The + evening passed away in the security and calm of habit, sweetened by the + intimacy of familiar thoughts and customs. There was the usual expensive + dinner; Mr. Brookes lit a cigar, handed the box to Frank, and said, + puffing lustily, “That's a good picture, paid a lot of money for it, too + much money, mustn't do it again. You were a pupil of Bouguereau; great + painter; you have seen him paint; you would know his touch amid a + thousand, I suppose?” + </p> + <p> + About ten o'clock steps in the passage, then the squeak-squeak of the + cork; then the goggle-guggle of the water, and the young ladies came in + with their grog. They kissed their father and brother, shook hands with + Frank, and went to bed. Further anecdotes concerning the painters were + told; further condemnations of the Southdown Road were pronounced; the + house was locked up; Mr. Brookes retired, and the young men continued the + conversation in their rooms. Willy told Frank all about his shop, Frank + told Willy all about his studio, and they went to sleep delighted with + each other and at peace with the world. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Brookes had gone when the young men came down next morning. Willy was + down first, and when Frank finished breakfast he found him busy in the + garden making purchases for his shop. + </p> + <p> + “How much am I to charge for these peaches, sir?” said the gardener. + </p> + <p> + “I intend to pay the market price for everything. I don't know what + peaches are selling at in Covent Garden. I will look it up and let you + know. I am taking two dozen.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir, there are only very few more ripe.” + </p> + <p> + “It is a pity I can't have them all,” Willy whispered to Frank. “There is + a tremendous profit to be made on peaches. Now, I want some new potatoes. + How many can you let me have?” + </p> + <p> + “Really, sir, we are very short; you see it is so early in the year. We + have only a few, none too many for the house.” + </p> + <p> + “I must have some, if it is only a sample. How much are potatoes selling + at now?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, I hardly know. Last year we bought some off Hooper at—” + </p> + <p> + “These are the things I have to contend with. How am I to keep my books + right if I don't know exactly the price things are selling for? I may be + paying more for his potatoes than they are selling in Brighton for. My + father gets more out of the shop than any one, and he isn't satisfied.” + </p> + <p> + The woes of this suburban Lear amused Frank. No sooner was the arch enemy + Meason on the high seas, and the Southdown Road had quieted down, than + another demon had risen up against him; his garden was ravished of its + fairest fruits and vegetables, his carriages were turned into market + carts, and all, as he said, for the sake of practising an elaborate system + of book-keeping. Maggie, who had finished her house-keeping, came into the + garden, and she went with Frank down the town in search of the landlord of + the tall house amid the elder bushes. For a small increase in the rent, + and a promise to undo all alterations before leaving, putting the house + back in the same arrangement of rooms as it at present stood, the landlord + agreed to allow Frank to do his will with the place. For twenty pounds the + smith was silenced, and Frank explained to the local builder that the + house was to be thrown into one room, and the ceilings of the upper rooms + were to be removed. He had thought of having the rafters painted, but at + the builder's suggestion he decided to have them lined with fresh timber + and stained. This would look very handsome. A large window, some six feet + by eight, would have to be put in the north wall. Of course, all the + doors, windows, etc., would have to be taken away and replaced by new. He + would have a book-case in stained wood. An estimate was drawn up. It came + to a good deal more than he had intended to lay out, and Frank dreaded the + expense. But he must live somewhere, he was sick of Pump Court, and his + friends and this little south-coast village were now ardent in his mind; + why not live here? True that the country was in no way beautiful and + offered no temptations to a landscape painter, but he seldom painted + landscapes, and if he wanted a bit of woodland he would find it over the + Downs. Then there was the sea, and that was always interesting. Perhaps + Mount Rorke would let him have the money. The old fellow had never refused + him an extra hundred when he asked for it. Yes, he would risk it. So the + order was given, and all the delays and broken promises of a builder began + to be experienced and endured. Frank, who now lodged at Mrs. Heald's, hung + around the workmen, counting each brick, and commenting on every piece of + woodwork. He at once took to grumbling at their slowness, and he soon + declared that all hopes of his being able to finish his picture for the + Academy were at an end, and he paraded his misfortunes at the Manor House, + at Mrs. Horlock's, and, indeed, at all the houses he went to for tea or + tennis parties. The painters especially annoyed him, and he even went so + far as to threaten them with an action. + </p> + <p> + Long before they had finished his pictures had arrived from London, and + several pieces of furniture from Brighton. The ideas of this young man + were now in full revolt against oriental draperies and things from Japan. + The furniture was, therefore, to consist of large cane sofas with pillows + covered with a yellow chintz pattern which pleased him much. The selection + of a carpet was a matter of great moment. He received with scornful smiles + his upholsterer's suggestions of Persian rugs. Turkey, Smyrna, and + Axminster were proposed and rejected, he even thought of an Aubusson—no + one knew anything about Aubusson at Southwick, and the vivid blues and + yellows and symmetrical design would have at least the merit of disturbing + if not of wrecking the artistic opinions of his friends. He discovered one + of these carpets in a back street in Brighton, and with some cleaning and + mending he felt sure it could be made to look quite well. But no, if you + have an Aubusson carpet you must have Louis XIV. furniture in the room, + and Louis XIV. in Southwick would be too absurd. Clearly the Aubusson + scheme must be abandoned—he would have a rich grey carpet, soft and + woolly, and there should be a round table covered with a dark blue cloth, + set off with a yellow margin, and the chairs drawn about the table should + be covered with dark blue and painted yellow. A grand piano was + indispensable in Frank's surroundings, both for its appearance in the + studio and the relaxation it afforded in the various interludes. Several + journeys to London were made before the lamps to be used were determined + on (a modern design was essential), and the brass fittings to hang candles + from the rafters required still more delicate and cautious consideration; + at last it was decided to have none. + </p> + <p> + All this while Willy was busy with his shop. He had taken a whole house, + and at first he had thought of letting a room, but for many reasons this + scheme had to be abandoned. He did not know who might take the room. “Who + knows—perhaps one of my own friends, a member of my club, for + instance?” Then it would give the missus a lot of bother and worry, and + she had all she could do in looking after the shop. To make a thing a + success you must think of nothing else. It was a pity, but it wasn't to be + thought of. Otherwise he seemed fairly well satisfied. There was a back + door leading on to a back lane, in turn leading on to a back street, so + with his latch-key he could pop in and out unobserved. All his books and + papers in the drawing-room, the ledger, the day-book, the cash-book all + ready, all to hand, so that after dinner, when he had smoked his pipe, he + could go to work. Frank alone was in the secret. And how the young men + enjoyed going to Brighton together. Frank worried Willy, who ran up and + down stairs collecting his brown paper parcels, calling upon him to make + haste. They set forth, Willy firm and methodical, his shoulders set well + back: Frank loose and swaggering, over-dressed. How to get to the shop was + a matter of anxious consideration. Willy was fearful of detection, and all + sorts of stratagems were resorted to. Sometimes they would walk down to + the Old Steyne, and suddenly double and get back through a medley of + obscure streets, or else they would publicly walk up and down the King's + Road, and when they thought no one was looking, hurry up one of the + by-streets, and so gain their haven, the lane. Once they were in the lane + they slackened speed, all danger was then over, and they laughed + consumedly at their escapes, and delighted in telling each other how + So-and-so and his daughter had been successfully avoided. Willy always had + his latch-key ready; in a moment they were inside, and Frank would rush + upstairs and throw himself into the armchair, crying: “Here we are!” One + day they were at the window, when, to their amazement, the Manor House + carriage pulled up before the shop, and they had only just time to dodge + behind the curtain and escape Sally's eyes. Never before had the carriage + arrived later than five o'clock, and now it was nearly six. What could be + the meaning of this? Begging of Frank not to move, Willy went out on the + landing and listened to his sisters talking to his wife. The girls—who + were, of course, ignorant of their relationship to the shop-woman—liked + Mrs. Brookes very much, and were fond of a chat with her; and, looking + through the blinds, Frank saw the footman in all the splendour of six feet + and grey livery carrying a small pot of flowers worth sixpence from the + carriage to the shop. + </p> + <p> + On ordinary days the shop was shut at eight, but when Willy and Frank + dined there it was closed an hour earlier. Frank enjoyed his evenings + there; he enjoyed it all—the homeliness and the quiet. He enjoyed + seeing Willy nurse the missus after dinner, and he found no difficulty in + pretending a certain interest in the book-keeping, and an admiration for + the lines of figures all carefully formed, and the beautifully ruled + lines. Cissy adored him. He took her on his knee, and she leaned her + hollow cheek against his handsome face. She would have probably rushed to + death to serve him. His height, his brightness, his rings, his spotted + neckties—all seemed so perfect, so beautiful, to her; and when he + brought his fiddle she would sit and look at him, her little hands clasped + with an intensity of love that was strange and pitiful. Swaying from side + to side, he ran on from tune to tune—waltzes, reminiscences from + operas, fragments of overtures, delightful snatches from Schubert; and + when he introduced Willy to one tune—a tune in which all his <i>might-have-been</i> + was bound—the dry man seemed to grow drier: perhaps it brought a + glow of pleasure to his heart: but be this as it may, he only sat and + puffed more emphatically at his pipe. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI + </h2> + <p> + For Frank this pleasant English village was now a happy <i>fete</i> of + summer joys and occupations. Oh! the hill prospects and the shady gardens + around the coasts. And when he went inland he would return by choice + across the Downs, and in the patriarchal valleys where nothing is heard + but the bell-wether he would stand in the great, lonely darkness, and see + the lights of Brighton brighten the sky above the ridges, and climbing up + the ridges, he gazed on the vague sea, and the long string of coast towns + were like a golden necklace. + </p> + <p> + His days went like dreams. The morning hours—bachelor hours—were + full of intimacy and joy. The joy of waking alone with a strange and + secret self that, like a shy bird, is all the day chased out of sight and + hearing, but is with you when you awake in sweet health in the morning; + that of waking alone with the sunlight in the curtains, that of being + alone with your body as well as your mind, and no presence to jar the + communion. There is a dear privacy in morning hours of single life. + </p> + <p> + But although the desire to exchange these for the joys of wedlock was + germinating in Frank, although it was inherent in him to understand the + husband's happiness when he puts his arm round a dear wife's neck and + draws her to him with marital kisses and affectionate words, he was + certainly conscious that each hour seemed to bring its special pleasure. + His room was airy and pleasant, the window full of the colour of the green + and its aspects; the little water-course with its brick bridge, the trees + along the embankment, the rigging of the ships in the harbour, the linen + drying in the yard. Of these views Frank seemed never to grow tired; he + noted them as he brushed his brown curls over his forehead, and when he + sat at breakfast eating fresh eggs and marmalade. After breakfast he lay + on the sofa, and read society papers and smoked cigarettes. He could not + drag himself to the studio. “A man should live at his studio, impossible + to settle down to work, if he doesn't,” he thought, and he watched Mrs. + Horlock coming up the green accompanied by the chemist's wife and the + pugs. + </p> + <p> + “Dear old lady, how nice she looks in her black dress and poke bonnet! And + there goes the General—he is giving all his coppers to the + children.” + </p> + <p> + Frank took up a volume of Browning, turned over the leaves, and laid the + book down to watch a drove of horses that had suddenly been turned out on + the green to feed, and he laughed to see the children throwing stones, + making them gallop frantically. Very often the thunder of the hoofs + alarmed Triss, and he stood on his hind legs and barked. “What is it, old + dog? What is it? Like to have a go at the horses? Shall we go out and play + with the pugs?” At the mention of going out Triss cocked his ears and + barked. “I suppose I must make a move. I wonder what the time is—half-past + eleven. Good Heavens! The post will be here at twelve. I had better wait + for it.” On waking his first thoughts were for his letters, and almost + before he had finished reading them he had begun to think of what the + mid-day delivery would bring him. To see the boy pass and so have ocular + proof that there was nothing for him seemed to lighten his disappointment. + He saw him waste his time with the doctor's horse and then with the + maid-servant, and if the old ladies were not about he would stand talking + many minutes with their servants. Then he visited the short line of + cottages, passed sometimes round the yard or open space at the back of the + wheelwright's, where the linen hung on poles between the elms, and once + Frank saw the provoking boy hide behind the cricketers' tent and remain + watching the match. For half an hour the question—letters or no + letters—hung in suspense, and when the loiterer came, stopping every + minute to see where the ball was hit to, the joy, heightened by + anticipation, was great in receiving a packet of newspapers and various + correspondence. Frank often went to meet him. True, he might have nothing + for him, he might be going to deliver at the grocer's shop, or at the + “Cricketer's Arms.” + </p> + <p> + “Any letters for me, to-day?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir, two postcards and a newspaper.” + </p> + <p> + It was disappointing not to get a letter—postcards meant nothing. He + only exchanged a few words with Mrs. Horlock, and passed on to the + General, who, at the corner of the Southdown Road where the gossipers met, + was discussing a local candidature. + </p> + <p> + “So you are off to paint. You must come and see the model my wife has done + of a horse I once had. I mustn't say much about him, though—it is a + sore subject. After winning over a thousand with him I lost it all, and + five hundred with it. She never would paint his picture for me; but + yesterday was my birthday—I suppose she thought she would give me a + treat, she began to model him from memory—wonderful likeness—she + knows every bone and sinew in a horse—clever woman, never seen any + one like her. Come in to-night, dinner always at eight—old Indians. + She'll show it to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks, not to-night, General; to-morrow night, if you like.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, to-morrow night at eight. What a terrible dog that is of + yours! You need fear nobody while you have him with you. You must ask my + wife to paint him for you, but I forgot, I beg your pardon—you are a + painter; you should paint him yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't paint animals. I shall be very glad if Mrs. Horlock will paint + him; there is some beautiful drawing about him—those fore-legs.” + </p> + <p> + Probably attracted by the dog, Mrs. Horlock came walking towards them. + Triss went sidling after Rose, and when Mrs. Horlock called him, he + growled. + </p> + <p> + “I beg of you, Mrs. Horlock, do not touch him; he isn't safe, I assure + you. He once bit a man's nose off who was trying to train him to do + something or other. I will not be answerable.” + </p> + <p> + “All nonsense! No dog ever bit me, they know I love them. 'Come to me, + sir.' No dog ever bit me but once, and he was a poor mongrel that had been + hunted by a lot of horrid men. I was dressing to go to a ball at the + Government House, and I heard him under my bed. He had taken refuge under + my bed, poor thing. He was frightened to death; he couldn't see me, and he + bit me through the wrist. I went to the ball all the same. A dog died of + hydrophobia in my arms. He died like a child, licking my hands and face. + 'Come here, sir. Come to me.'” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you wouldn't do it, Mrs. Horlock. I am afraid to call him, for + fear he should think I intended to set him at you.” + </p> + <p> + Triss showed a terrible set of teeth, and his nose seemed to curl back + almost into his eyes; but stooping down Mrs. Horlock extended her hands to + him. She looked so like herself in the poke bonnet and the black dress, + and the kind, intelligent eyes softened the dog's humour, and he came to + her. + </p> + <p> + “You see—what did I tell you? Dogs know so well those that love + them. No animal ever did bite me except that poor frightened creature, and + he didn't mean it. We kept him for ten years after that, and how he did + love me!” + </p> + <p> + “Wonderful woman, my wife; she can do what she likes with animals. I was + telling Mr. Escott that he must come in and see the model you are making + of Snap-dragon.” + </p> + <p> + “Only an amateur, I never had a lesson in my life. Mr. Escott would think + nothing of it, I am sure. But I wish he'd come in and dine with us.” + </p> + <p> + “He promised to come to-morrow, Lucy; but stay, isn't that the day we are + going to have the Bath people in to dine?” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind—Mr. Escott won't mind, I'm sure. They are very nice, + good people, indeed. I'm sure you'll think so. They are all snobs about + this place. I never heard of such snobbery in my life. Mrs. So-and-so—over + there—once said to me, 'I believe you know all the people who live + in those little houses.' She said she wouldn't allow her children even to + walk across the green. Did you ever hear of such snobbery?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, Mrs. Horlock, as I have always said, your position is made; you + have your friends who will like you and value you just the same no matter + whom you may walk about the green with. Every Viceroy that ever went to + India called on you; your position is made.” + </p> + <p> + “There are a lot of snobs about here; but I mustn't keep Angel waiting, he + is never well unless he gets a little exercise. We shall see you then at + eight.” + </p> + <p> + “The cleverest woman I ever knew. I don't say the cleverest that you ever + knew. But we have got too many animals; I often wish I could get rid of + the brutes,” and the General laughed as he stumped along. “Five horses + when two would be sufficient—five horses eating their heads off; + then the Circassian goats that the neighbours complain of, and the parrots + and the squirrels. There are a few too many, there's no doubt. But once an + animal comes into the place she will cherish it for ever. I try to keep + Prince out of the drawing-room as much as possible, she says she can't + smell him. If that little beast Angel would only die!” + </p> + <p> + “Why don't you poison him?” + </p> + <p> + “I would if I dared; but just think, if my wife heard of it she would go + out of her mind. I don't think she'd have me in the house.” The General + laughed. + </p> + <p> + “We all have our troubles, General. Good-bye, I'm off to work.” + </p> + <p> + “Lucky man to have something to do. If I had a little something—just + a little something to bring me out, I should be perfectly happy. Then at + eight. Good-bye.” + </p> + <p> + “Half-past twelve! Half the day gone, I really must make an effort to get + to the studio earlier. It is, as I said, useless to hope to get through + work unless you wake up where your work is. A man doesn't get a chance. I + wonder if I could build a bedroom out at the back? I have let Mount Rorke + in for three hundred extra this year; he would turn rusty if I spent any + more. I must give him a rest; besides, I don't want to have the workmen in + again. I wish I could get ivy to grow over those walls, they do look + precious shabby.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at the tall dilapidated walls showing above the dark green of + the elder bushes, and lingered, for it was a soft blue summer's day with + just a breeze stirring, and the corn waved yellow, and the dim expanses of + the Downs extended in faint lines and dim tints. + </p> + <p> + When he entered his studio his colour scheme pleased him, and looking at + the rafters he thought that the stained wood was handsome and appropriate. + The grey carpet was soft under foot, and the lustre and form of a grand + piano suggested Chopin and Schubert. His studio seemed to him a symbol of + his own refinement, and being moved, perhaps, by the silence and the quiet + of the north light, he took his violin, and turning from time to time to + look on himself on the glass or his picture on the easel, he played + Stradella's “Chanson d'Eglise.” + </p> + <p> + Then seeing, or rather thinking he saw, how he could improve his + landscape, he took up his palette, and in a desultory and uncertain + fashion he painted till five o'clock. “It is no use,” he thought, “I can + do nothing with it until I get a model, but the devil of it is, there are + no models in Brighton—at least, I don't know where to go and look + for one, and it is no use asking Sally or Maggie to sit. They'll sit for + five minutes, and then say they have some work to do at home, and must be + off. You must have a professional model, a girl you pay a shilling an hour—I + might sling the hammock from there to here—I wonder where I could + get a girl who would do. I can't have a girl off the street; she must be + more or less respectable—I wonder whom I can get. That girl in the + bar-room at the station would do.” Putting his palette away with a lazy + gesture, he thought for a few minutes of Lizzie Baker. What had become of + her? And why had she disappeared? + </p> + <p> + It was nearly a year and a half ago now. What a jolly day up the river! + All the beauty of the flowing water, the crowning woods and whispering + rushes filled his mind, and yielding to the moment's emotion he took some + verses out of an escritoire and altered several lines. Another abandoning + the search for a suitable rhyme he turned to a portrait of Maggie which he + had begun a few days before. She stood in a pose that was habitual to her—her + hands linked behind her, the head leaned on one side, the little black + eyes—but not ugly eyes—fixed in a sweet subtle and enquiring + look. The thinness, and, indeed, the angularity of her figure was almost + powerfully indicated with broad lines of paint and charcoal. It was + Frank's most successful effort. He knew this, and he said to himself, “Not + half bad, very like her, quite the character; the drawing is right, if I + could only go on with it; if I could only model the face. I see very well + where I shall get into trouble—that shadow about the neck, the + jawbone, the cheekbone, and then all that rich colour about the eyes.” + Then he thought he would walk over to the Manor House, and he must hasten, + for it was half-past five, and tea was always ready in the verandah. + </p> + <p> + He stayed for dinner; he talked to Mr. Brookes about painters in the + billiard-room; he strayed through the shadows and the perfumes of leaves + and flowers through the gentle moonlight with his arms about the girls. + And as they walked it seemed to Frank that his life was so mingled with + theirs that he could not think of one sister apart from the other. The + dusk gathered; the sky became a decoration in blue and gold; the scent of + the sea came over the embankment, filling the garden. Day followed day, + without anything happening to stay or check the gentle tide of their + mutual affections; neither was jealous of her sister, for their desires + were set upon others. Frank was but an ideal, a repose, a pious aspiration + which joined their hands and hearts leaving them free of any stress of + passion, Maggie claiming him a little more than Sally, and Sally yielding + her claim to her without knowing that she was yielding it. + </p> + <p> + It is only natures that are never gross—calm and tepid livers—that + are really incapable of ideality, of real and adequate aspiration; nature + works by flux and reflux; and if we waive the rough temper and the coarse + edge of passion due to youth, it will not be impossible to conceive + another picture of these girls. Sally, good-hearted and true, full of + sturdy, homely sense, willing to take care of a man's money, and make him + a straightforward wife; Maggie, gentle and sinuating—always a little + false, but always attractive, the enchantment of a man's home. Frank, + notwithstanding his genuine admiration of all that was young and sweet and + pure, was of poor and separating fibre, and it is clear that it will take + all the strength of society to support him and save him from sinking of + his own weight. + </p> + <p> + One day, as he was coming through the station from the post-office, he met + Maggie with a young man. He was introduced, and they returned to the Manor + House to play tennis. Instead of playing they talked, and the set fell + through, and after tea they disappeared, and Sally proposed not to disturb + them, for they had gone, she said, to sit in the shade at the end of the + garden. The marked mystery of the new flirtation piqued Frank's curiosity, + and, striving to veil his question, he asked Sally who the young man was, + and if her father knew he was coming to the Manor House. + </p> + <p> + “He! Don't you know? That's the fellow we often speak of—the only + fellow Maggie ever really cared for. He has just come back from America. + He is going to begin business in London.” + </p> + <p> + A sickening pain rose from his heart to his eyes, and he longed to place + his hand on his heart. + </p> + <p> + “So that is the man she is engaged to,” he said, after a pause. “I + remember, now, you have spoken to me of him.” + </p> + <p> + “She is not exactly engaged to him. Father would never hear of it; he + hasn't a cent, and I believe he lost the little he had in America—now + mind you must take care not to let out to father that he has been here; + there would be the deuce of a row, and I promised Maggie not to tell any + one; she has been nice to me lately, and I want to play fair with her if + she will play fair with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I won't tell any one; I won't even let Maggie know that I know it was + he.” + </p> + <p> + “It doesn't matter about Maggie, she will tell you herself, no doubt; she + doesn't mind your knowing. What do you think of him? Isn't he + nice-looking?” + </p> + <p> + “I confess I should never have thought of calling him handsome—would + you? And do you think he is quite a gentleman?” + </p> + <p> + “He seems to me to be all right.” + </p> + <p> + “All right, yes, but isn't there a something? You can see he is in trade—all + the trading people look alike, at least so I think.” + </p> + <p> + “But we are in trade, and I think he is quite as good as we are. But you + seem quite put out. Would you like to take his place? I didn't know you + were in love with Maggie.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know that I am in love with her. I like her very much; but, love + or no love, I don't think it is right for her to walk round the garden + alone with that fellow the whole afternoon. I don't think it is very + polite to me, and she knows her father does not like—” + </p> + <p> + “But you mustn't say anything to father; mind you have promised me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I shan't say anything about it.” + </p> + <p> + Frank longed to get up from the tea-table and rush after Maggie. His heart + ached to see her. He trembled lest she loved the man she was with, and + rejoiced and took courage from the knowledge that she had not formally + pledged herself to him. Frank was the romantic husband, not the lover; he + found neither charm nor excitement in change; his heart demanded one + single, avowed, and binding faith. He could take a woman who had sinned to + his heart, and admit her to all his trust, for stolen kisses and illicit + love were unfelt and imperfectly understood by him, and were considered as + shadows and thin fancies, and not as facts full of mental consequences. He + answered Sally in monosyllables, and on the first opportunity he pleaded + letters to write, and withdrew. The gladness he felt that Maggie was truly + not engaged to this fellow quickened and dominated his regret that the + girls were inclined to behave so indiscreetly. The moment Mr. Brookes + turned his back it began—that perpetual going and coming of men—it + really wasn't right. Sally was a coarser nature, but Maggie! He might + speak to Mr. Brookes; no, that wouldn't do. He might speak to Willy; but + Willy didn't care—he was absorbed in his wife and his speculations. + </p> + <p> + His little dinner at Mrs. Heald's passed in irritation and discomfort, and + after dinner he stood at the window, his brain full of Maggie—her + graces, her fascinating cunning, and all her picturesqueness. He knew + nothing yet of his passion, nor did he think he could not bear to lose her + until he went from the stuffy cottage towards his studio thinking of his + portrait of her. He wanted to muse on the little eyes as he had rendered + them. He saw the faults in the drawing hardly at all, and his pain + softened and almost ceased when he took up the violin, but when he put it + down the flow of subjective emotion ceased, and he stared on the concrete + and realistic image of his thought—Maggie passing through the shade + with the young stranger. + </p> + <p> + Who was he? By whose authority was he there? Was he one of those men whose + only pleasure is to tempt girls, to corrupt them? Had he thought of this + before his duty would have been to interpose; and he saw himself striding + down the garden and telling Maggie that he insisted on her coming back to + the verandah to her sister. It did not matter if he had no right, he was + prepared to answer for his conduct to her father and brother. Did that man + look like one of those men who are always sitting with girls in far + corners out of sight? Ah, if he were sure that he was one of those + dastardly ruffians he would seek him out, force him to speak his + intentions. If a girl's father and brother will not look after her, a + friend must say “I will.” Yes, he would have to thrash him, kill him, if + it were necessary. She might hate him for it at first, but in the end she + would recognise him as her saviour. + </p> + <p> + It was too late now, the man was in Brighton. To-morrow? Elated with what + he deemed “duty,” with what he deemed “for the sake of the girl,” he + strode about, thinking of “the ruffian”; no thought came to him of how + much of the sin, if sin there was, had originated in Maggie; he saw her + merely as a poor little thing, led like a lamb. Following the idea of + saving came the idea of possession. When she clung to the husband she + would tremble at the danger she had escaped. Their home, their table, + their fireside; protection from evil, now all wild winds might rage—they + would be safe. The vision was constitutional and characteristic of his + soul. He was out of thought of all but himself, his dream evolved in pure + idea, removed from and independent of all limitations—out of concern + of the world's favour—Mount Rorke, Mr. Brookes, or even the girl's + grace. As this temper passed, as reality again interposed, and as he saw + the garden with Maggie leaving him for another, he viewed her conduct + suddenly in relation to himself. What did she mean by treating him so, and + for whom? One day he would be Lord Mount Rorke! The Brookes knew nobody. + He had only met a lot of cads at their house; they did not know any one + but cads. The Brookes were cads! The father was a vulgar old City man, who + talked about money and bought ridiculous pictures. The girls, too, were + vulgar and coarse. God only knew how many lovers they had not had. Willy + was the best of the bunch, but he was a fool. His miserliness and his + vegetable shop—hateful! The whole place was hateful; he wished he + had never come there; since he had been there he had never been treated + even as a gentleman. The Brookes had treated him shamefully. + </p> + <p> + The skeleton of Frank's soul is easy to trace in this mental crisis—his + quixotism, his wish to sally forth and save women, his yearning for a + pretty little wife, who would sit on his knee and kiss him, saying, “Poor + old boy, you are tired now;” therefore an emotional and distorted + apprehension of things, a tendency to think himself a wronged and + persecuted person, and under much bravado and swagger the cringe that is + so inveterate in the Celt. + </p> + <p> + Next morning he thought of her lightly, without bitterness and almost + without desire; but after breakfast his heart began to ache again. He + strove to read, he went to his studio, he went to Brighton; but he saw + Maggie in all things. She was with him—a sort of vague pain that + kept him strangely conscious of life. + </p> + <p> + Once convinced he was a lover he became the man with a mission; his heart + swelled with mysterious promptings, and felt the spur of duty. No longer + was delay admissible. A day, an hour might involve the loss of all. Should + he go round to the Manor House and tell Maggie of the message he had + received to love her and save her? She would now be watering her flowers + in the green-houses. But that other fellow might be there—he had + heard something about an appointment. No, he had better write. If he wrote + at once, absolutely at once, he would be in time for the six o'clock + delivery. Snatching a sheet of paper he wrote:— + </p> + <p> + “DEAREST MAGGIE,—I have loved you a long while, I remember many + things that make me think that I have always loved you; but to-day I have + learnt that you are the one great and absorbing influence—that + without you my life would be stupid and meaningless, whereas with you it + shall be a joy, an achievement. + </p> + <p> + “I have frittered away much time; my efforts in painting and poetry have + been lacking in strength and persistency. I have vacillated and wandered, + and I did not know why; but now I know why—because you were not by + me to encourage me, to help me by your presence and beauty. I will not + speak of the position I offer you—I know it is unworthy of you. I + would like to give you a throne; but, alas, I can but promise you a + coronet.” + </p> + <p> + His hand stopped and he raised his eyes from the paper. He recollected the + day he saw her a child, the day they went blackberrying over the hills. He + saw her again, she was older and prettier, and she wore a tailor-cut cloth + dress. How pretty she looked that day, and also when she wore that summer + dress, those blue ribbons. All the colour, innocence, and mirth of his + childhood came upon him sweetly, like an odour that passes and recalls. He + sighed, and he murmured, “She is mine by right, all this could not have + been if she were not for me.” Ah! how he longed to sit with her, even at + her feet, and tell her how his life would be but worship of her. He + regretted that he was not poor, for to unite himself more closely to her + he would have liked to win her clothes and food by his labour; and hearing + himself speaking of love and seeing her as a maiden with the May time + about her, his dreams drifted until the ticking of the clock forced him to + remember that he could tell her nothing now of all his romance, so with + pain and despair at heart he wrote, + </p> + <p> + “Never before did I so ardently feel the necessity of seeing you, of + sharing my soul with you, and yet now is the moment when I say, I must + end. But let this end be the beginning of our life of love, devotion, and + trust. I will come to-night to see you; I will not go into the + billiard-room, but will walk straight to the drawing-room. Do be there. + Dearest Maggie, I am yours and yours only.” + </p> + <p> + He seized his hat and rushed to the post. He was in time, and now that the + step had been taken, he walked back looking more than usually handsome and + tall, pleased to see the children run out of school and roll on the grass, + pleased to linger with the General. + </p> + <p> + “Where are you going, sir?” said the old man. + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to my studio to play the fiddle. Will you come? I'll give you a + glass of sherry, and—” + </p> + <p> + “Never touch anything, except at meals. I used to when I was as young as + you, but not now. But I will go and hear a little music.” + </p> + <p> + Glad to have a companion, Frank took out the violin, and he played all the + melodies he knew; and his mind ran chiefly on Schubert and Gounod. The + “Soir,” the “Printemps,” and “La Chanson du Printemps” carried his soul + away, nor could he forbear to sing when he came to the phrase, “La Neige + des Pommiers.” When musical emotion ran dry he tried painting, but with + poor result. During dinner he grew fevered and eager to see Maggie, and + mad to tell her that he loved her, and could love none but her. At + half-past eight the torture of suspense was more than he could endure, and + he decided that he would go to the Manor House. He passed round the block + of cottages, and got into the path that between the palings led through + the meadows. It was a soft summer evening—moonlight and sunset + played in gentle antagonism, and in a garden hat he saw Maggie coming + towards him. He noticed the pink shawl about her shoulders, and the + thought struck him, “had she come to ask him to elope.” She stopped, and + she hesitated as if she were going to turn back again. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I am so sorry,” she said, speaking with difficulty, “but I wanted you + to get this before nine.” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind, darling,” he answered, smiling; “you can tell me all about it—it + will be sweeter to hear you talk. Which way shall we go?” + </p> + <p> + “I really don't think I can now; father doesn't know I am out. This letter + will—” + </p> + <p> + “No, no; I cannot bear to part with you. How pretty you look in that hat! + Come.” + </p> + <p> + “No, Frank, I cannot now, and you had better leave me. I cannot walk with + you to-night. Read this letter.” + </p> + <p> + “Then am I—is it really so?” said Frank, growing suddenly pale. “You + will not have me?” + </p> + <p> + “You must read this letter, it will tell you all. I am truly sorry, but I + did not know you cared for me—at least not like that. I don't think + I could, I really don't. But I don't know what I am saying. How + unfortunate it was meeting you. I but thought to run round and leave the + letter, it would have explained all better than I could. We have known you + so long. You will forgive me?” + </p> + <p> + She stood with the letter in her hand. He snatched it a little + theatrically and tore it open. She watched, striving to read the effect of + her words in his face. They dealt in regrets. There was an exasperating + allusion to engaged affections. There was a long and neatly-worded + conclusion suggesting friendship. She had taken a great deal of trouble + with the composition, and was very fearful as to the result. She felt she + could not marry him—at least, not just at present, she didn't know + why. Altogether Frank's proposal had puzzled and distressed her. She felt + she must see her flirtation out with Charlie, but at the same time she did + not want to utterly lose Frank, or worse still, perhaps, to hand him over + to Sally. She was determined that Sally should not be Lady Mount Rorke, + and she thrilled a little when she saw he would not give her up easily, + and her heart sank when she thought of the difficulty of continuing her + intrigue without prejudicing her future. If Frank would only leave + Southwick for a little while. + </p> + <p> + “Is this all? The meaning is clear enough; it means that you love the man + I saw yesterday at the Manor House. But he shall not have you; I will save + you from him. Listen to me—I swear he shall not have you; I will + strive to outwit him by every means in my power. If I don't get you, none + shall. I will shoot the man rather than he should get you.” + </p> + <p> + “O Frank, you wouldn't commit murder!” + </p> + <p> + “I would, for you; but it will not be necessary. I can challenge him to + fight a duel, and if he is cowardly enough to refuse, I will horsewhip him + before your face, and I don't suppose you will marry him after that.” + </p> + <p> + Maggie struggled with feelings of laughter, fear, and delight; delight + overpowered laughter, for Frank was young and handsome, and full of what + he said. It was quite romantic to be talked to like that. She would like + to see the men threaten each other. But then—the scandal—father + might never get over it. And if he married again? Speaking slowly, and in + an undertone so as not to betray herself, she said: “O Frank, I'm sure you + would not do anything that would injure me.” + </p> + <p> + “My darling, I love you better than the whole world. My whole life, if you + will, shall be spent in striving to make you happy.” + </p> + <p> + “You are very good.” She took his hand and squeezed it; he returned the + pressure with rapturous look and motion. She drew from him a little, for + there were some people coming towards them, and she said: “Take care.” + When the fisher folk had passed, she looked at him stealthily. She had + always liked him in that necktie, and those cloth shoes were perfect. Had + she never known Charlie, or if she had not gone so far with him!—There + was something in Frank that was very nice—she could like the two. + What a pity the two were not one! “If he were always as nice as he is now, + and not lecture me!” Then she remembered she must return home. “I must + really go home; I can't go any farther—” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, I cannot leave you. I must see and hear you now. If you knew what + I have endured waiting for you, you would not be so cruel. Come and let us + sit on the beach.” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't. I must go back; father will miss me. Besides, what have we to + say? If I were only free and could tell you that I loved you, it would be + different.” + </p> + <p> + “Free! then you regret; if a woman wills it she can always free herself.” + </p> + <p> + “No, it is harder than you think for a girl to get out of an engagement + she has entered into, even if no absolute promise has been given.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean? If you have entered into no formal engagement you are + surely free.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. Do you think so? I am afraid men think that a promise may + be broken after marriage as well as before.” + </p> + <p> + “You are wrong. Women who are jealous, who are old, tell girls that men + are always unfaithful, but I'm sure that if I loved a girl I could never + think of another. Do you really think I could think of any girl but you?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. I wonder if all you say is true.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think me different from other men?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but I cannot go on the beach; some other evening I will walk there + with you.” + </p> + <p> + “No, now, now—I want to tell you how and when I began to love. Do + you remember when I used to spend part of my holidays at the Manor House + when I was only so high, and you were all in short frocks? Come, there is + much I want to say to you; I cannot part with you. Come, and let us sit on + the shingle. Oh, the beautiful evening!” + </p> + <p> + She could love him a little when she looked at him, but when he talked she + lost interest in him. She had allowed him to take her hand, he had bent + towards her, and she had let him kiss her; and then they talked of love—she + of its bitterness and disappointments; he of its aspirations, and + gradually their souls approached like shadows in the twilight, paused for + a few vague moments, seemed as if lost in dreams. + </p> + <p> + “I shall never forget this night! O my love, tell me one day you will be + mine!” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot promise, you must not ask me.” + </p> + <p> + “We are meant for each other. It was not blind fate that cast us together. + Does no voice tell you this? I hear it in my heart.” + </p> + <p> + The abandonment, the mystery of the gathering dusk, touched Maggie's + fancy. They were alone in the twilight, and it was full of the romance of + a rising tide. + </p> + <p> + “Never did I know such happiness; I am supremely happy, alone with you + beneath this sky, listening to the vague, wild voice of the sea. It would + be bitter sweet to die in such a triumphant hour. Supposing wewere to lie + here and allow the sea to take us away.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't want to die. I want to live and enjoy my life.” + </p> + <p> + The answer fell a little chillingly on Frank's rapture. Then after a + pause, Maggie said: “I think I have read of that somewhere—in anovel—lovers + caught by the tide.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I daresay you have. I was thinking of two lovers who were so + overcome with happiness that they decided that they would not trust + themselves again to the waves and storms of life, but would let the calm, + slow tide of death take them away with all their happiness unassoiled.” + </p> + <p> + Maggie did not answer. The double fear had come upon her—first, that + the tide might rise higher than usual and cut off their retreat. Secondly, + that Frank—he was a poet—might insist on remaining there and + being drowned. Getting up, she said: “I do not know what father will say + when I get home, really it is quite dark. Come, Frank.” + </p> + <p> + “Death is better than a life of abomination—loss of innocence, and + of delight in simple things. I ask you,” he said, stopping her suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, no doubt it is so; but I want to get home. Do go on, Frank.” + </p> + <p> + “I will save you from a life of abomination—in other words I will + save you from him; he shall not get you. I have sworn it; you did notknow + that when you were lying down on the beach—you had ceased speaking, + and in the silence my life seemed stirred to its very essence; and I knew + that I must struggle against him, and conquer. I want to know this: Have + you ever thought of what your life would be with him? Have you ever + thought what he is?” + </p> + <p> + “But you don't know him, Frank. You have never spoken to him. I am sure + you misjudge him.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think I cannot see what he is? He is one of those men whose one + ambition is to make themselves friendly in a house where there are women + to wheedle. If the wife is young he will strive to wheedle her, and though + he may not succeed he must degrade her. Or, if she have daughters, he will + never cease to appeal to, to work upon, to excite latent feelings which, + had it not been for him, would never have been developed into base and + abnormal desire. I know what the foul-minded beast is. Such men as he + ought to be killed; we don't want them in our society. I want to save you, + I want to give you a noble, a pure life, full of the charms of a husband's + influence, a home where there would be love of natural things. You are + capable of all this, Maggie, your nature is a pure one, but your life is + unwholesome and devoid of purity.” + </p> + <p> + “Frank, how can you speak so? You have no right to say such things about + us. I am sure you have always been well treated—” + </p> + <p> + “You do not understand me, I will explain what I mean. Your life is rich + and luxurious, but you are not happy, no one is happy in idleness; above + all no woman is happy without love. A woman's mission in life is to love, + she must have her home, her husband, and her children. These are the + things that make a woman happy; and these are the things I want to give + you—that I will give you; for, listen to me, I swear you shall not + have that adventurer. He would degrade you with pleasure at first, and + afterwards with neglect. You are too good for this, Maggie—it must + not be, it shall not be. As I said before, death would be better.” They + stood in front of the canal locks and Maggie looked with a beating heart + on the deep water that a ray from a crescent moon faintly indicated. “A + woman is helpless until she finds her lord, he who shall save, the saviour + who shall bring her home safe to the fold. He exists! and all are in + danger till they find him. Some miss him—they wander into misery and + ruin; those that find him are led to happiness and content. I am yours. I + would tell you how I became convinced that I am the one appointed by God + to lead you to Him.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you didn't believe in God.” + </p> + <p> + “Not as we have been taught to understand Him but I believe in a presiding + power—call it luck, fate, or destiny that—that exists and + wills; that is to say, watches over—rules out that this man is for + that woman, and ordains that he shall protect her from danger, shall save + her from those that seek her destruction. Much has happened to prove that + I was intended for you. We have known each other since we were children. + Do you not remember when I kissed you in the verandah as I was going to + school? I was the first man who kissed you; you were the first woman who + kissed me—have you never felt that we were for each other? Nor can I + forget that when I thought we had drifted for ever apart, that I was + brought back. Do you think it was accident—blind chance? I don't. + Now I see this man striving to win you, and whether it be for your money, + whether it be for yourself, or for both, it is my duty to say: No, this + must not be.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you are mistaken about Charlie. I admit that a man is often a + better judge than a girl; and as for you, Frank, I am sure I am very fond + of you. It is very good of you to take such interest in me—but we + must get home. I don't know what father will think.” + </p> + <p> + “No, before you go a step further you must promise me not to see that man + again. I cannot tell you how, but I know no good can come of it. He is one + of those creatures who cannot love, and only care for women for the + excitement they afford. I know what sort of brute he is. It is more + depraving to walk alone with him, than to be the mistress of a man who + loved you.” + </p> + <p> + “He is leaving Brighton in a few days.” + </p> + <p> + “So much the better for all of us. But you must promise me. I would sooner + see you lying drowned in that lock than his wife.” + </p> + <p> + Maggie trembled. It was ridiculous to think of such a thing. Surely he did + not mean to drown her if she refused to promise. Charlie was going to + London in a few days; he would be away for three or four months. Heaven + only knows what would happen in that time. She didn't see what right Frank + had to bully her—to extort promises from her by night on the edge of + a dangerous lock. But a promise wasn't much, and a promise given in such + circumstances was not a promise at all. + </p> + <p> + “If you are really in earnest—if you think it is for my good, I'll + promise you not to see him again.” + </p> + <p> + “O Maggie, if you only knew what a load of trouble you have taken off my + mind! Thank you—give me your hand, and let me thank you. I know I am + right. And now, tell me, can you love me? Will you marry me?” + </p> + <p> + “I will promise nothing more to-night; we shall see how you behave + yourself,” the girl replied winningly. “And now go on, sir, we have been + here quite long enough.” + </p> + <p> + He crossed the gate mechanically, she followed eagerly, and when she + reached the other side her heart beat with pride at her pretty triumph. + Now I'll twit him, she thought, as they ascended the shore and entered the + town. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder why you think Charlie so wicked; I think if you knew him you + would change your opinion.” + </p> + <p> + “I am very thankful indeed that I do not know him.” + </p> + <p> + The conversation dropped, but a moment after he gave her the chance she + wanted. + </p> + <p> + “Mind you have promised me not to see him again. I trust you.” + </p> + <p> + “But suppose he calls and if I should be in the drawing-room, I cannot + walk out of the room without speaking to him.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you had better write and say you do not wish to see him.” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't do that; we have known him a long time, and father has always + said that we must be rude to no one. Besides, what reason could I give?” + </p> + <p> + “You need not give a reason. But let that pass. I can't see why you should + meet; you can surely tell your servant to say 'Not at home,' when he + calls.” + </p> + <p> + “I might be in the garden—Sally would not allow it. If John said + 'Not at home,' she would run down and let him in.” + </p> + <p> + “I see you are raising difficulties—I see you do not intend to keep + your promise.” + </p> + <p> + “You have been quite rude enough for one evening. You have kept me out on + the beach by force till nearly ten o'clock at night, and you said that my + life at the Manor House was not a pure one—I don't know what you + mean. No man ever spoke to me like that before.” + </p> + <p> + “You misunderstood me. If you knew how I loved you, you would not twit me + with my own words. Heaven knows I would sooner go back and drown myself in + the lock than do anything or say anything that would offend you. Remember + also that I asked you to be my wife.” + </p> + <p> + “You are not the first. I daresay it may appear strange to you, but others + have asked me the same question before.” + </p> + <p> + “It does not seem strange to me, it only seems strange to me that every + one doesn't love you, but I daresay they do. O Maggie, remember that you + gave me hope, you said that you might—” + </p> + <p> + “Did I? Well, it's too late to talk any more. Goodnight. I suppose you're + not coming in?” + </p> + <p> + She left him in a cruel dispersal of hope. He avoided, and then he + tenderly solicited a regret that he had not thrown her into the lock. To + end on that hour by the sea would have been better than the trivial and + wretched conclusion of a broken promise, and everything, even murder, were + better than that a brute should have her woman's innocence to sully and + destroy. His love of the woman disappeared in his desire to save, the idea + which she represented at that moment; and lost in sentiment he stood + watching the white sickle of the moon over against the dim village. The + leaves of some pollarded willows whitened when the breeze shot them up to + the light, and a moment after became quite distinct in the glare and the + steam of an approaching engine. He might go and tell Willy all about it; + he would ask him to interfere-could he catch that train? If he ran for it, + yes. He ran full tilt across the green under the archway up the high stone + steps. He just did it. + </p> + <p> + It was the last train; he would sleep in Brighton. His plan, so far as he + had a definite plan, was to ask Willy to come with him and tell “that + brute” that his visits to the Manor House must end, and request him to pay + his sister no further attentions. His other plans were—Willy must + speak to Maggie and tell her all he knew of the man; Willy must speak to + his father; Mr. Brookes must not be kept in ignorance. But of course the + right thing to do would be for Willy and him to call at the brute's hotel, + tell him what they thought, and give him a licking. The train jogged on, + and Frank made plan after plan. It was now past eleven, and he would not + be at East Street before twelve o'clock. As he hurried along the streets + he doubted more than ever how Willy would receive him. He might just as + well have waited till morning. However, it was too late now to think of + going back, there was no train, and he rapped at first timidly and then + noisily at the shop door. He had to wait some time, and then he heard a + voice asking from the top windows who was there. + </p> + <p> + “'Tis I, Frank; awfully sorry, but must see you—particular + business.” + </p> + <p> + There was no answer; he heard the voice grumbling, and more than ever + doubtful of the cordiality of his reception, he listened. The door opened. + </p> + <p> + “Who is it?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “'Tis I, Cissy; but I'm in my nightdress.” + </p> + <p> + “I won't look at you, Cissy, if that's what you mean. But won't yougive me + a kiss?” + </p> + <p> + “Stoop down, then.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry for waking you up, Cissy.” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind, I'd get up at any hour to see you.” + </p> + <p> + “There, run upstairs, and take care you don't catch cold, or I shall never + hear the end of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Father is in bed with mother. He says you are to go up, for if he were to + get out of bed it might give him cold. You know his room?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, here it is, now run along.” + </p> + <p> + “Come in.” + </p> + <p> + Frank was a little shocked, and he waited stupidly on the threshold. He + could see a fragment of Mrs. Brookes's profile, and beneath the clothes + the outline of Willy's bony body. + </p> + <p> + “Come in, come in,” he said, “don't stand there filling the room with cold + air. Now, what is it? Why the deuce do you come here waking us up at this + ungodly hour? What has happened?” + </p> + <p> + “I have proposed to your sister Maggie.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sure I am delighted to hear it, old chap; but I can't help thinking + that I could have congratulated you equally as well, if not better, in the + morning.” Then, noticing the distressed look in Frank's face, he said: “I + hope she has not refused you.” + </p> + <p> + “No; she asked me to wait, she said it would depend—” + </p> + <p> + “Then you may depend it is all right; now go away and let me go to sleep, + we'll talk about it in the morning. You can't get back to-night. You are + sleeping in Brighton, I suppose? You'll come and breakfast here?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, with pleasure, but it wasn't exactly to tell that I had proposed to + Maggie that I came here to-night; there is something more than that. You + know that fellow she calls Charlie? I don't know his other name.” + </p> + <p> + “Stracey?” + </p> + <p> + “I dare say. I mean the man you said you hated more than any man alive; I + hate him, too.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't mean to say she is still thinking of that fellow. Has he come + back?” + </p> + <p> + “He was at the Manor House all day yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “If she marries that fellow I'll never speak to her again, it will be dead + cuts.” + </p> + <p> + “It is only natural that I should love Maggie. You remember the first day + I came down to the Manor House? How young I was then—how young we + all were; there are no days like the old days! There is a beautiful poem + by Wordsworth; I only remember one line now— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'When every day was long + As twenty days are now'— +</pre> + <p> + Do you remember the poem?” Willy did not answer, and noticing that his + eyes were blinking, Frank hastily returned to more recent events.” I wrote + to her this afternoon telling her how much I loved her, and I said that I + would call about nine in the evening at the Manor House, and that I hoped + to find her in the drawing-room where we could talk without being + disturbed. However, I was too excited, and could not hold out till nine; I + thought I had better hear my fate at once, and as I was walking across the + field—you know, at the back of Mrs. Heald's—I met her half + way. She had a letter in her hand, which she said she was going to leave + at Mrs. Heald's for me—She admitted that the letter was in point of + fact a refusal, and when I questioned her she admitted that she was + obliged to refuse me because she had half promised Charlie. We went for a + walk on the beach; we sat on the beach and watched the sunset, and I told + her all. I spoke to her about the past, how we had grown up together—how + we had been, as it were, from the first fated for each other; for you must + admit, Willy, that it is very curious—I don't know if you ever think + of it, but I do—how we have met again even when the chances of life + seemed to have put us for ever apart. “Here a slight sound warned Frank + that the present moment was one as equally unfitted for psychological + analysis as for poetry, and he hurried to his story, hoping that the + incident of the lock would secure him attention. “Willy, I think I + convinced her that I liked her better than that other fellow. We were + standing by the lock—Willy, I really do think you might listen.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear fellow, I am listening. You were both looking at the sunset.” + </p> + <p> + “It really is too bad. Of course, if you don't want to hear, and would + prefer to go to sleep, you have only to say so.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear fellow, I assure you I wasn't asleep. I only closed my eyes + because I can't bear the glare of that candle. I know where you were—you + were looking at the sunset.” + </p> + <p> + “No, we weren't.” + </p> + <p> + “Weren't they, Jessie? Are you asleep?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I am not asleep. Do hold your tongue, Willy, I want to hear the + story. You were standing by the lock, Mr. Escott.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes, so they were.” + </p> + <p> + “I felt it was my duty, so I told her that I felt it was my mission to + save—to save her from that man, and I made her promise me not to see + him again.” + </p> + <p> + “Then it is all right. Nobody can be more glad than I am. I hate the + fellow.” + </p> + <p> + “She will not keep her promise. Of course she may only have done it to + tease me; but as we were going home she said she could not walk out of the + room if she happened to be there when he called, nor could she leave word + with the servants to say that they were not at home. She made a lot of + excuses. What are you laughing at, Mrs. Brookes?” + </p> + <p> + “I am really very sorry, Mr. Escott, but I couldn't help wondering if she + would change her mind again if you were to go back to the lock.” + </p> + <p> + Frank took up the candle and turned to go. + </p> + <p> + “Don't go,” Willy murmured faintly. + </p> + <p> + “I am very sorry, Mr. Escott—if circumstances permitted, I would do + all I could to help you.” + </p> + <p> + This was delicate ground, and Willy woke up. + </p> + <p> + “What do you want me to do? Have you anything to suggest?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it struck me that we might both go round to the fellow's hotel—Stracey, + you call him, I think—and you might tell him that his visits must + cease at the Manor House, and that he must not speak to your sister if he + should happen to meet her. That should bring the matter to an end. He is + in Brighton—he is staying at the 'Grand.' We might go round there + to-morrow morning.” + </p> + <p> + “He might kick us out.” + </p> + <p> + “I only hope he may try. I would give him such a hammering. But you need + not be afraid of that. It wouldn't do to have Maggie's name mentioned in + connection with a vulgar brawl—people are not too charitable. My + idea is that this business should be conducted in the quietest and most + gentlemanly manner possible.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I had better speak to father first.” + </p> + <p> + “No necessity; he will be only too glad to get rid of the penniless brute. + Don't you think so, Mrs. Brookes?” + </p> + <p> + “I do.” + </p> + <p> + They then spoke of other things—of the shop, the profit they had + made on tomatoes, and the losses that had resulted from over-stocking + themselves with flour. At last a loud snore brought the conversation to a + full stop, and Frank hurriedly bade them good-night. + </p> + <p> + “Cissy will let you out,” said Willy, with a sigh of relief. + </p> + <p> + The little girl had pulled on her stockings and tied a petticoat round her + waist. “So you are going to be married.” + </p> + <p> + “O Cissy, you have been listening!” + </p> + <p> + “Is she very nice? She must be very nice for you to marry her. I should + like to marry you.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you, Cissy, and why?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, because you are so very handsome. But you will come and see us all + the same, and let me sit on your knee?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I will, Cissy, and now good-night.” + </p> + <p> + Next morning Willy declared himself ready to go and see Mr. Charles + Stracey, and to tell him that he was not to call any more at the Manor + House, or speak to Miss Brookes if he should happen to meet her. Frank + wondered if this decision was owing to Mrs. Brookes's influence. + </p> + <p> + “I slept last night at the 'Grand' It seemed odd sleeping in the same + house—perhaps within a few doors of him. If you only knew how I love + her, if I could only tell you, you would pity me. You ought to know what I + feel—the anxiety, the heart-ache. I know you have gone through it + all.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I think I know what it is,” Willy replied thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Stracey is staying here?” + </p> + <p> + “Will you enquire at the office, sir?” + </p> + <p> + While the books were being searched the young men consulted together. + Frank said: “Send up your card, and say you will be glad to speak to him + on a matter of importance. Of course he will see you, but before you speak + about Maggie you must apologise for my presence; you must say that I am a + very particular friend, and that you thought it better that the interview + should take place in the presence of a witness.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish it were all over. I wouldn't do what I am doing for any one else, + I can tell you, Frank.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Stracey is in the hotel, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you give him my card, and say I should be glad to speak to him on a + matter of importance?” + </p> + <p> + “Very good, sir.” + </p> + <p> + (In an undertone to Frank), “Was that right?” + </p> + <p> + “Quite right.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, one thing I had forgotten to ask you—am I to shake hands with + him?” + </p> + <p> + “You mean if he offers you his hand?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “It is impossible to settle everything beforehand. One must act according + as the occasion requires.” + </p> + <p> + “That's all very well for you, but I am a slow man, and am lost if I don't + arrange beforehand.” + </p> + <p> + “Pretend not to see his hand, and apologise for my presence; he will then + see that we mean business.” + </p> + <p> + “The waiting is the worst part.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you walk this way, sir?” said the page boy. “Mr. Stracey is not out + of bed yet, but he said if you wouldn't mind, sir.” + </p> + <p> + They shrank from their enterprise instinctively, but the door was thrown + open, and they saw a bath, and a sponge, and a towel, and Mr. Stracey + lying on his back reading <i>The Sporting Times</i>. He extended a long + brawny arm. The strength of the arm fixed itself on Willy's mind, and he + doubted if he had not better take the proffered hand. + </p> + <p> + “I brought my friend Mr. Escott with me, for I thought a witness—I + mean, that this interview should be conducted in the presence of a third + party.” + </p> + <p> + At this speech Charlie opened his eyes and dropped his paper. Willy leaned + over the rail of the bed; Frank looked into the bath, but remembering + himself suddenly, he examined the chest of drawers. + </p> + <p> + “I have come to speak to you about my sister.” + </p> + <p> + Charlie changed countenance, and both men noticed the change. + </p> + <p> + “I mean to say I have come to tell you that you must discontinue your + visits to the Manor House, and I must beg of you not to address my sisters + should you meet them.” + </p> + <p> + “May I ask if you are your father's representative, if you speak with his + authority?” + </p> + <p> + “I do not. I—” + </p> + <p> + “Then I should like to know on what authority you forbid me a house that + doesn't belong to you, and I should like to know, if your father doesn't + disapprove of my knowing your sisters, why you should? I shall speak to + Miss Brookes as long as she cares to speak to me. The very idea of a man + like you coming here to bully me! You have got my answer.” + </p> + <p> + “If, after this warning,” said Frank, who, seeing that things were going + against them, thought he had better interfere, “you speak to Miss Brookes, + you will do so at your peril.” + </p> + <p> + “Peril! What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I mean that you must be prepared to take the consequences.” + </p> + <p> + “Who are you? I should like to know what you have to do in this matter?” + </p> + <p> + “I speak as Miss Brookes's future husband.” + </p> + <p> + “Future husband be damned! She'll never marry you,” said Charlie, + springing out of bed. + </p> + <p> + Frank threw himself on his guard, and they would have struck each other if + Willy had not cried out: “Frank, remember you promised me there must be no + scandal.” + </p> + <p> + “I had almost forgotten. For Miss Brookes's sake, I refrain. Do you also, + for her sake, cease to provoke me.” + </p> + <p> + Charlie hesitated for a moment, then rushing to the door, he said: “I, + too, for Miss Brookes's sake, refrain, and I give you three seconds to + clear out.” + </p> + <p> + In attempting to carry out the injunction Willy nearly fell in the bath. + Frank had to bite his lip to avoid a smile, and he stalked out of the room + assuming his most arrogant air. + </p> + <p> + “I think, on the whole, we got the best of it,” he said as they went down + stairs. + </p> + <p> + “Do you? He turned us out of his room!” + </p> + <p> + “That's the worst of tackling a man in his own room—if he tells you + to go, and you don't go, he can ring for the servants.” + </p> + <p> + “I was as nearly as possible going into the bath.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, a touch more and down you'd have gone.” Frank laughed, and Willy + laughed, “and that fellow in his nightshirt fishing you out!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don't, don't—” + </p> + <p> + Frank asked Willy to lunch with him at Mutton's, and he ordered a bottle + of champagne in honour of the day. + </p> + <p> + “I say, just fancy pulling you out of the bath, and wiping you with a + towel. I can see you dripping!” + </p> + <p> + “Don't set me off again. Let me enjoy my cutlets.” + </p> + <p> + “By Jove! there's something I hadn't thought of.” + </p> + <p> + “What's that?” + </p> + <p> + “We must be off. We must tell Maggie what has happened before he has time + to communicate with her. What is the next train to Southwick?” + </p> + <p> + “There's one at half-past one.” + </p> + <p> + “It was after twelve when we saw him, he won't have time to catch that. We + must be off. Waiter, the bill, and be quick. Look sharp, Willy, finish the + bottle, pity to waste it.” + </p> + <p> + “What a nuisance women are, to be sure. Just as I was enjoying my cutlet! + I can't walk fast in this weather, I should make myself ill.” + </p> + <p> + “We must take a cab.” + </p> + <p> + “What a fellow you are, you never think of the expense. I don't know where + I should be if I were as reckless as you are.” + </p> + <p> + “Supposing he were at the station. It would be rather a sell if we went + down by the same train! What should we do? He would surely never attempt + to force his way in!” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think he would attempt that. If he did, we should have to send + for the police.” + </p> + <p> + The young men strove to decide how the news should be broken to Maggie. + But they had arranged nothing before they arrived at Southwick, and Frank + stopped Willy time after time by the footpath, until at last in despair + the latter said: “We must make haste; there's another train in twenty + minutes.” + </p> + <p> + “By Jove! I had not thought of that; we must get on. Well, then, it is all + arranged. You must tell her that you thought it your duty. Put it all down + to duty, and it was your duty to do what you did—putting entirely + out of the question the service you did me.” + </p> + <p> + “I can tell you what, Frank, I am very sorry I ever meddled in the matter. + Had I known the vexation and annoyance it would have caused—and mark + my words, and see if they don't come true, we are only commencing the + annoyances that the affair will cause us. Ah, had I only foreseen! What a + fool I was; I ought to have known better; I have had nothing but bad luck + all my life. It is perfectly wonderful the bad luck I have had; no matter + what I did, nothing seemed to go right. I dare say if you had gone to see + that fellow without me it would have turned out differently. But I don't + see how I am to tell my sister point blank that I have forbidden him the + house. What will she say? She may fly at me. Women have queer tempers, + particularly when you interfere with their young men. My sisters have the + very worst of tempers; you don't know them as I do. Fortunately it is not + Sally. I assure you I wouldn't face Sally with such news for all the money + you could give me.” + </p> + <p> + “I am very sorry, old chap, but we must now go through it. You must forbid + her to communicate with him.” + </p> + <p> + “She won't heed what I say. It will only excite her. She will fly at me, + and call me names, and burst into tears. I should not be surprised if she + went off her head—she has been very strange once before. I don't + mean to say she was ever wrong in her head, but she is a nervous, + excitable girl—most excitable; my sisters are the most excitable + girls I have ever known.” + </p> + <p> + It was surprisingly soon over. Willy had not spoken a dozen words, when he + was interrupted. + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say you have been to call on him?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; and we told him he was never to speak to you again.” + </p> + <p> + Frank expected her eyes to flash fire, but he only noticed a slight change + in her face, a movement of the muscles of the lower jaw. + </p> + <p> + “Then I will speak to neither of you again!” and she walked out of the + room, and in dismay they listened to her going upstairs. + </p> + <p> + “She didn't fly at me,” said Willy; and, looking a little terrified, he + stroked his moustache softly. “I told you she would give no heed to what + we said; nor do I see how we can prevent her seeing that fellow if she + chooses. He cannot come into the house, it is true, but she can go out + when she pleases.” + </p> + <p> + “We must follow her.” + </p> + <p> + Conscious of defeat, Willy desired compromise. He could not be induced to + take a share of watching and following which Frank declared essential; + and, dreading an encounter with Stracey, whose brawny arm it was + impossible to forget, he shut himself up in the shop, and devoted himself + to drawing up a most elaborate balance-sheet, showing how he would stand + if he were obliged to close the business to-morrow, whereas Frank loitered + about the roads, till Mrs. Horlock came along with her dogs, and engaged + him in conversation; and no matter at what corner he stationed himself, he + found he was not free from observation. A few days after he could not + bring himself to return to his post, and contented himself with looking + out of his window, and taking an occasional stroll by the embankment, when + he saw a train signalled. + </p> + <p> + A great weight seemed lifted from his shoulder the day he heard that his + rival's holiday had come to an end, and that he had been forced to return + to his counting-house in London. True it is that Mr. Brookes had in a + certain measure approved of Willy's action in forbidding young Stracey the + Manor House, and therefore of his, Frank Escott's, suit, but neither of + these gains compensated him for the crowning loss of not being able to see + his beloved, for although the Manor House was still theoretically open to + him, practically it was closed. The sisters, although at variance on all + subjects, had united in condemning him and Willy, and during one dinner, + the misery of which he declared he could never forget, they had sat + whispering together, refusing to address him either by look or word. Willy + took all this calmly. It is an ill wind that blows no good, and the + silence enabled him to thoroughly masticate his food. Mr. Brookes wept a + little and laughed a little, and reminded them of the oblivion that + awaited all their little quarrels. + </p> + <p> + All this, like much else in life, was ridiculous enough; but because we + are ridiculous, it does not follow that we do not suffer, and Frank + suffered. He was five-and-twenty, and light love had him fairly by the + throat; he winced, and he cried out, but very soon his dignity gave way, + and he craved forgiveness. But Maggie passed without heeding him. For more + than a week she resisted all his appeals, and it was not until she saw + that she was taking the neighbourhood into her confidence, and to feel + that if she did not relent a little he might leave Southwick, and not + return, she answered him with a monosyllable. With what bliss did he hear + that first “no,” and how passionately he pleaded for a few words; it did + not seem to matter what they were, so long as he heard her speak one whole + sentence to him. Feeling her power, she was shy of yielding, and with + every concession she drew him further into the meshes of love. He dined + now nearly every day at the Manor House, and he spent an hour, sometimes + two, with her in the morning or afternoon; he followed her from greenhouse + to greenhouse, but all his efforts were in vain, and he failed not only to + obtain her promise to marry him, but even a renewal of the feeble and + partial hopes which she had given him that night on the beach. He prayed, + he wept, he implored pity, he openly spoke of suicide, and he hinted at + murder. But Maggie passed him, pushing him out of the way with the + watering-pot, threatening to water him too, until one day he drew a + revolver. She screamed, and the revolver was put away, but on the next + occasion a stiletto that he had brought from Italy was produced, and with + a great deal of earnestness life was declared to be a miserable thing. It + was absurd, no doubt, but at the same time it was not a little pathetic; + he was so good-looking, and so sincere. Maggie put down the watering-pot, + and she would probably have allowed him to take her hand and kiss her, if + he had not spoken roughly about Charlie, and called her conduct into + question. So she told him she would not speak to him again, and she + continued watering the flowers in silence. Amid vague remembrances of + murders she had read of, Frank's words and behaviour remained present in + her mind, and that evening when Willy, who rarely took the trouble to + speak, much less to advise his sisters, told her that she might never get + such a chance again, she said: “I am not going to marry a madman to please + your vanity.” + </p> + <p> + “Marry a madman! What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I call a man that who comes regularly to see a girl with a revolver + in one pocket and a stiletto in the other, and threatens to leave himself + wallowing in a pool of blood at her feet—” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say he does that? You are clearly determined to drive the + poor fellow out of his mind with your infernal coquetry. Well, women are + the most troublesome, and I believe in many cases, the wickedest creatures + on the face of God's earth.” + </p> + <p> + “You shut up. Men who don't get on with women always abuse them; you are + soured since Miss ——, the actress, jilted you.” + </p> + <p> + “If you ever dare mention that subject, I will never speak to you again. + You know I don't break my word.” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you interfere in my affairs? You don't think of me when you go + down to browbeat Charlie Stracey; you don't think of what would have been + said of me had Frank hit him, and it had all come out in the papers.” + Maggie said no more; she saw she had gone too far. Willy sat puffing at + his pipe; but when her father spoke of a certain investment that had not + turned out as well as he had anticipated, he joined in the conversation, + and she hoped her cruelty was forgotten. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII + </h2> + <p> + Frank uttered a cry of surprise when he opened the studio door to his + friend. It was his favourite complaint that Willy never came to see him. + </p> + <p> + “At last, at last! This is the second time you have been in the place + since it was finished, faithless friend!” + </p> + <p> + “My dear fellow, you know it is not my fault. I have been very busy lately + trying to get on with my accounts. There's not a room in the Manor House + where I can work in; my sisters' things are everywhere, and they must not + be interfered with—their ball-dresses, their birds, their work. My + sisters think of nothing but pleasure.” + </p> + <p> + “Triss, go back, go to your chair, sir; I'll get the whip.” + </p> + <p> + Showing his fangs, the bull-dog retired; then with a hideous growl sprang + upon his chair, and sat eyeing Willy's calves. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot think what pleasure it can give you to keep such a brute. Even + if I had my accounts finished, I don't think I should care to come here + much. It isn't safe.” + </p> + <p> + “You are quite mistaken. There's not a better-tempered dog alive than + Triss; he wouldn't bite any one unless he attacked me. Give me a slap, and + you'll see—I won't let him come near you.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, I'd rather not. But he sometimes growls even at you, and shows + his teeth, too.” + </p> + <p> + “That's only a way of his, and when he does it I kick him. Come here, + Triss—come here, sir!” The dog approached slowly; he sat down and + gave his paw to his master, but he did not cease to growl. “There! We have + had enough of you, go back to your chair. What will you take—a glass + of Chartreuse—a cigarette?” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks, both if you will let me. I see you like pretty things,” he said, + admiring the tall legs of the table—early English—and the + quaint glasses into which Frank poured the liqueur. “You've got the place + to look very nice.” + </p> + <p> + “Very different from what is was when the smith and his boisterous brood + were here,” and as if he intended an apt illustration of his words, he + stretched his leg out on the white fur rug and surveyed his calf and red + silk stocking. “Just look at that dog, isn't he a beauty? I always think + he looks well in that attitude, leaning his head over the rail. I began a + picture of him the other day in a pose somewhat like that. I'll show it + you.” Frank propped his sketch against the leg of the sofa, and returned + to his place on the sofa. “What do you think of it? Your father said it + was very like.” + </p> + <p> + “It is like him, but I can see no merit in it. I'm afraid of the brute. I + can't help hating him, for he always looks as if he were going for my + legs. What else have you been painting? Any pretty women about? I should + admire them more.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't been painting lately,” he said, sighing a little + melodramatically, as was his wont, “I think I have been playing the piano + more than anything else. I have composed something too, I don't think it + bad, I'll play it to you: a dialogue between a gentleman and a lady. He + speaks first, then she answers, then I blend the two motives, and that is + what they both say.” + </p> + <p> + Willy sat enwrapped in his own thoughts, not having heard a note. Though + he knew that Willy was incapable of judging of music, it disappointed him + that his dialogue had passed unperceived. Then smiling, he struck a few + notes, and Willy awoke. “You haven't been listening,” he said, + reproachfully. “You don't care for any music, except that little tune.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do; I heard what you played, and I think it very pretty.” + </p> + <p> + “Willy, I am the most miserable man in the world. Every hour, every minute + of my life is a pain to me. I never knew before what you must have + suffered, but I know now; it is a sickening feeling, it takes you by the + throat, it rises in the throat, and you are almost suffocated. Last night + I lay awake hour after hour thinking. I could see Maggie as plainly as I + can see you—she looked down upon me out of space with strange, + steadfast eyes, and my whole soul went out to her, and I cried to her that + I loved her beyond all things; and we seemed to be so near each other; it + seemed such an intimate and perfect communion of spirit and sense that I + seemed, as it were, lifted out of actual life; I seemed to myself holier, + purer, better than I had ever been before; I seemed to loose all that is + gross and material in me, and to gain in all that is best and worthiest in + man. Did you feel like that when you were in love?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know that I felt exactly like that. But never mind how I felt; + you are too fond of alluding to that subject, it is a very painful one to + me; you will make me regret that I ever told you anything about it.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry I mentioned it. It is strange, but when one suffers one likes + to speak of and to compare with one's own the suffering that another has + endured. Your sister treats me most cruelly. She has forgiven me that + miserable business, but she refuses to hold out any hope that she will + ever be my wife. I don't understand—I am utterly at sea. I don't + believe for a moment that she cares for that horrid brute; he is gone + away. She tells me she never cared for him. If so, I should like to learn + your explanation of her conduct.” + </p> + <p> + Willy stroked his moustache, apparently declining the responsibility of + apologist; but his manner showed he had something on his mind, and Frank + sought more eagerly than ever to enlist his sympathy and support. + </p> + <p> + “I have done everything I could to win her. I don't know why she should be + so difficult to please. I am not bad looking, I am at least as good + looking as that damned brute” (here he paused to glance at himself in the + glass and smooth the curls above his forehead). “I am certainly quite as + clever” (here he thought of his painting, and his eye sought one of his + pictures), “and my position—I will not speak of that, it would be + snobbish. Women have cared for me. I have told Maggie hundreds of times + that I never could care for any but her. Fate seems to have specially + marked us for each other. You must admit that there is something very + remarkable in the way we have been brought together over and over again. I + have told her that my life is worthless without her. The day before + yesterday, when I was speaking to her, I burst into tears. That a man + should cry, no doubt, seems to you very ridiculous but if you knew how I + suffer you would pity me. I often think I shall commit suicide.” Frank + took the stiletto from his pocket. “I don't mind telling you, when you + knocked at the door I was lying on the sofa thinking it over. One stab + just here and I should be at peace for ever. I told her so yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not fond of giving advice, as you know—I have quite enough to + do to think about my own affairs—but as you have often spoken to me + on this matter, and as you have asked me for my opinion and my help, I had + better tell you that I differ entirely from you concerning the wisdom of + the course you are pursuing.” + </p> + <p> + “How's that?” said Frank, at first surprised and then delighted at Willy's + breaking from his reserve. + </p> + <p> + “What I mean is, that I think you would be more successful if you would + lay aside daggers and revolvers, and try to win her affection by patience + and gentleness. Maggie was talking to me about it no later than last + night, and I could see clearly that you frighten her with bluster. I am + sure there are times when she dreads you; it must be a positive terror to + her to sit with you alone—so it would be to any girl.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Maggie is a very delicate and nervous girl, and it wouldn't surprise me + if your threats to commit suicide seriously affected her health; you come + with a revolver and a stiletto, and you ask her to marry you, and if she + doesn't at once say yes, you abuse her, declaring all the time that you'll + stab yourself with the revolver and shoot yourself with the stiletto—I + beg your pardon, I mean—” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, if you've come here only to turn me into ridicule—” + </p> + <p> + “I assure you I didn't mean it—a slip of the tongue,” and as their + eyes met at that moment, neither could refrain from laughter. + </p> + <p> + “Admit that there is something in what I say. If you will behave a little + more quietly—if you will talk to her nicely; leave off assuring her + of your love, she knows all that already; have some patience and + forbearance; you will see if before long she doesn't change towards you.” + </p> + <p> + His interest in the matter was a desire that his sister should not miss + this chance of marrying the future Lord Mount Rorke. But Maggie felt too + sure of Frank to resist the temptation to tantalise him; besides her moods + were naturally various, and the first relapse into her former coldness was + answered by a sudden reversion to threats of murder and suicide, and one + summer evening about six o'clock, when Mrs. Horlock took her dogs out and + stood at the corner waiting for Angel, a rumour was abroad that Mr. Escott + had stabbed himself to the heart, and had fallen weltering in his blood at + Miss Brookes's feet. + </p> + <p> + Dr Dickinson walked across the green, watched with palpitating anxiety + from the corner of the Southdown Road. The General spoke to the farmer, + and the farmer's pupil nudged the general dealer. Mrs. Horlock spoke to + the grocers, and the owners of the baths declared they had just heard from + their servant that the young man was not dead, but mortally wounded. + </p> + <p> + There was, therefore, no doubt that Dr Dickinson was going to Mrs. + Heald's, and would not turn to the right and walk to the station for the + quarter-to-seven train; and expectation on this point ceasing, the group + expressed its sympathy for the young man. Poor young man—and so + good-looking too—what will she do if he should die?—and he + must die—there was no doubt of it. Maria had met Mary—that was + the housemaid at the Manor House—it was Mary who had mopped up the + blood. She said there was a great pool right in the middle of the new + carpet under the window—they were sitting there on the ottoman when + he said suddenly, “I have come to ask you to marry me; if you won't I must + die.” Notwithstanding this she continued to play with him—the cruel + little minx! He could stand it no longer, and he pulled out a dagger he + had brought from the East, and stabbed himself twice close to the heart. + What will she do?—she is his murderer—to all intents and + purposes she is his murderer—she will have to go into a convent—she + won't go into a convent—she'll brazen it out. No one thinks much of + those girls—the way Sally carried on with young Meason—it was + disgraceful—they say she used to steal her father's money and give + it to him—Dr Dickinson could tell fine tales. + </p> + <p> + Then gossip ceased, and they were in doubt if they might intercept the + doctor and obtain news of his patient when he left Mrs. Heald's. Some + strolled about the green, pretending to be taking the air. Mrs. Horlock, + however, had no scruples, and picking up Angel and calling to Rose and + Flora, she walked straight to Mrs. Heald's, and was seen to go in. Some + five minutes after she came out with the doctor. Frank was not dead, nor + mortally wounded, nor even dangerously wounded, but he had had a very + narrow escape. + </p> + <p> + “I said to him, 'You have had a very narrow escape.' The fact is—(I, + of course, examined the weapon)—a small part of the point had been + broken away; it was this that saved him. The first blow scarcely pierced + his clothes; the second was more effective, it entered the flesh just + above the heart, and I have no doubt if the steel had penetrated a quarter + of an inch deeper that he would have killed himself. But so far as I can + see at present, he will get over it without much difficulty.” + </p> + <p> + “When did it occur?” + </p> + <p> + “About an hour ago, at the Manor House. It appears that he has gone there + every day for the last three weeks to ask Miss Brookes to marry him; she, + however, would not give him any definite answer—” + </p> + <p> + “Horrid girl!” + </p> + <p> + “I never liked her; most deceitful; no doubt she flirted with him + outrageously.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't say. I hear that he often threatened to kill himself, and to-day, + to conclude, he pulled out his stiletto.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought it was a dagger he had brought from the East?” + </p> + <p> + “No, the weapon they showed me was an Italian stiletto.” + </p> + <p> + The grocer's daughter shuddered, her mother murmured, “And for that girl.” + </p> + <p> + “We didn't know him. The Brookes never allow their friends to know any one + in Southwick, but I have heard that he is an exceedingly nice—” + </p> + <p> + “He will be Lord Mount Rorke, if his uncle doesn't marry again.” + </p> + <p> + “He must have been desperately in love; no one ever heard of such a thing + before. It sounds like the Middle Ages—a stiletto!” + </p> + <p> + “But what could he see in her? That's what I can't make out; can you?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! there I can't assist you. I hope to be able to cure him of the + stiletto wound, but Cupid's arrows are beyond me. They did not fly so + thickly or strike so hard in my time.” And, laughing, the doctor withdrew. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose that after this she will marry him; she never intended to let + him slip through her fingers. I can see her face when she heard that + another quarter of an inch and her chance of being Lady Mount Rorke was + gone for ever.” + </p> + <p> + “I daresay he won't marry her now. It would serve her right. I should be + so glad.” + </p> + <p> + And so pouring their gall out upon the unfortunate Maggie, the + tradespeople returned to their homes. The stiletto was so utterly + unprecedented, and so complete a reversal of all conception of the chances + of life at Southwick, that every one felt puzzled and dissatisfied, even + when gossip had brought to light every circumstantial detail of the + romantic story. Had the deed been done with a knife, with anything but a + stiletto; had he hanged himself, or cut his throat with a razor, or shot + himself with his revolver, the wonder of the Southwickians would not have + been so excited. But a stiletto! And for a week an Italy of brigands and + bravoes, and stealthy surprises haunted shadows of picturesque archways, + an Italy of chromo-lithographed skies and draperies in the Southdown Road. + Maggie was spoken of with alternate fear and hate; her wickedness seemed + more than natural, and had the Southdown Road known anything of Italian + opera, there is little doubt that Miss Brookes would have been compared to + Lucretia Borgia. The young women looked out of their windows at night, and + wondered how they'd feel if a troubadour were suddenly to sing to them + from behind the privet hedges. The young men were even more impressed than + their womenfolk; they cursed their place of birth and habitation, knowing + that it incapacitated them from knowing her; they wasted their mothers' + candles sitting up till two in the morning writing odes to cruel women + with raven hair; and all gazed sadly on the old ship in the harbour, and + the Spanish main seemed nearer, and those gallant days more realisable + than they had ever been before. + </p> + <p> + The direct cause of this revival of romance lived, however, unconscious of + it. She was genuinely frightened. She said her prayers with great fervour, + begging God that He might save Frank, and that she might not be a + murderess. She made him soups, she sent him wine, she brought him books, + and she sat with him for hours. She thought he had never looked so nice as + now—so pale, so aristocratic, so elegantly weak, his head laid upon + a cushion, which she had brought him, and when he took her hand and said, + “Will you, darling?” and she murmured, “Yes,” then it seemed that the + happiness of his life was upon his face. + </p> + <p> + Three days after Frank was sitting at his table writing to Mount Rorke, + and on the following Sunday he walked to the Manor House to tell Mr. + Brookes that he was engaged to his daughter, and to ask his consent. He + did not think of his folly, he was too happy; he seemed like one in a + quiet dulcet dream; he walked slowly, leaning from time to time against + the wooden paling, for he wished to prolong this meditative moment; he saw + everything vaguely, and loved all with a quiet fulness of heart; he took + in the sense of this village and its life as he had never done before. He + compared it with Ireland; Mount Rorke, with its towers, and lakes, and + woods arose, and he was grateful that Maggie was going there, yet he was + sure that he could not live without sometimes seeing this village where he + had found so much happiness. + </p> + <p> + His wound had sucked away his strength, the sunlight dazzled him, and + feeling a little overcome, and not equal, without pause, to the long + interview that awaited him, he stayed awhile in a shady laurel corner, and + leaning against a piece of iron railing, watched Mr. Brookes and Mr. + Berkins as they paced the tennis lawn to and fro. The old gentleman + frequently stopped in his walk to point at the glass houses. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Berkins, I wish you would try to get Willy some appointment; he + would, I am sure, take anything over two hundred and fifty a year. He + would do marvellously well in an office—he loves it. I assure you + his eyes twinkle when one speaks of how books are kept, or alludes in any + way to the routine of office work. You should see his accounts and his + letter books, they would make the best clerk you ever had feel ashamed of + himself; but left to himself I am afraid he will do no good; he has all + the method, but nothing else. He lost money in Bond Street; I am afraid to + tell you how much he dropped on the Stock Exchange, but that was not + entirely his fault—the firm went bankrupt; nobody could have + foreseen it, it was quite unheard of.” + </p> + <p> + “I have always noticed that successful men do not buy partnerships in + firms that go bankrupt.” + </p> + <p> + “Very true, Berkins; I wish I had asked your advice on the subject.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you had, Mr. Brookes. You are no doubt a very clever man, but on + one or two points you are liable to make mistakes; you are, if I may so + speak, a little weak. You should come and live with me for a few months, I + would put you right.” + </p> + <p> + “This is really too much,” thought Mr. Brookes; and had it not been for + the certain knowledge that Berkins had lately increased his income by a + couple of thousands a year, he would have answered him tartly enough; but + as this fact admitted of no doubt he bridled his anger and said: “If you + could put my boy right it would be more to the point. He has all the + method of the best clerk in London; he loves the work, he would do honour + to any office, but on his own hook I am afraid he will never do anything + but lose his money.” + </p> + <p> + “Your money, you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, my money if you like. You are very provoking, Berkins. I don't know + if you do it with the express purpose of annoying me. I was saying, when + you interrupted me, that Nature had evidently intended my son for a clerk + rather than for a speculator. I fear he is doing very badly with his shop + in Brighton. The rents are very high in East Street, and I don't think he + sells anything. He takes enough away from here, though. I don't remember + if I ever told you that I was foolish enough to agree to his taking away, + buying from me at the market price he calls it, the surplus produce of my + garden and greenhouses. I dare say I shall get the money one of these + days, but at present I see no sign of it. He is always making up the + accounts, and, so far as we have gone, the result of this arrangement is + that, when I complain that there is neither fruit nor vegetables on my + table, I am told that everything went to Brighton. I am forced, I assure + you, to send my carriage and my horses, that I paid two hundred guineas + for, to fetch potatoes, and he, too, uses my carriage to take his + vegetables to the shop. He gets his sisters to bring them when they go out + driving, nor can I even buy my fruit and vegetables off him at cost price; + he says that would interfere with his book-keeping, and so I am obliged to + buy everything from Hutton, and you know what his prices are. I assure + you, it is most annoying.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Brookes, your fortune will not bear this constant drain; you must + remember that we are living in very bad times—times that are not + what they were. I have heard that your distillery—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, times are very bad. I have never known them worse, and no doubt you + find them so too. They ought to affect you even more than they do me. My + income is, as you know, all invested money, whereas yours is all in your + business.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, I am affected by the times; had they remained what they were, + even what they were towards the end of the seventies, I should be making + now something over ten thousand pounds a year. But, thank God! I have not + to complain. Next year I hope to invest another five thousand pounds. The + worst of it is, that there is no price for money in legitimate + securities.” + </p> + <p> + “Everything is very bad; you never will invest your money as I did mine + ten years ago. My business is not, of course, what it used to be, but I + don't complain; if it weren't for troubles nearer home I should get on + very well.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope that Sally has commenced no new flirtation in the Southdown Road. + I thought she had promised you—since she gave up Meason—that + she would for the future know no one that lived there.” + </p> + <p> + “I was thinking for the moment of Willy, not of Sally; she has not been so + troublesome lately. But no sooner are we out of one trouble than we are in + another. It is, of course, very regrettable that young Escott should have + stabbed himself, and in my garden too. I, who hate scandals, seem always + plunged in one. I hear they are talking of it in the clubs in Brighton. I + hope Lord Mount Rorke will not hear of it; if he did, do you think it + would prejudice him against the match?” + </p> + <p> + “Then you're prepared to give your consent?” + </p> + <p> + “Why not? Surely! I really don't see—Lord Mount Rorke is a very rich + man.” + </p> + <p> + “Possibly, but Irish peers are not always as rich as they would like us to + believe they are. The connection is, of course, desirable, but I hope your + anxiety to secure it will not lead you into making foolish, I will say + reprehensible, monetary concessions. What I mean is this. I am a + straightforward man, Mr. Brookes, brought up in a hard school, and I + always come straight to the point. You are a rich man, Mr. Brookes—you + have the reputation of being a richer man than you are—and it is + possible, I don't say it is probable, that Lord Mount Rorke will expect + you to make a large settlement. He will possibly—mind you, I do not + say probably—taking the coronet into consideration—those + people think as much of their titles as we do of our money—ask you + to settle a thousand a year, may be fifteen hundred a year, upon your + daughter.” + </p> + <p> + “Settle a thousand—maybe fifteen hundred—a year on my + daughter!” cried the horror-stricken Brookes. + </p> + <p> + “He may even ask for two thousand a year. Remember, you are a distiller—he + is a peer of the realm. And now I say,” continued Berkins, growing more + emphatic as he reached the close of his declamation, “that in my wife's + interest I will oppose any and all attempts to purchase a coronet for + Maggie at her sister's expense.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Brookes stood for a moment stupefied—as if some great calamity + had befallen him. The housekeeping bills, the loss of his fruit and + vegetables, even the Southdown Road seemed as nothing in the face of this + new misfortune. Troublesome as his daughters were, he preferred an + occasional recrudescence of flirtation in his garden to settling the money + that he had made himself and letting them go; no pen can describe the + anguish that the surrendering of the ten thousand pounds which he had + settled on Grace had caused him; but to be told now that the alliance with + a lord which he so greedily coveted, and which had been so agreeably + tickling him for the last few days, would cost him perhaps two thousand a + year, was more than he could bear. He had avoided as much as possible even + thinking of the money question. One hundred—two hundred—the + shadow of three hundred had fallen for a moment on his mind, but he had + successfully chastened these unpleasantnesses by thoughts of the + liberality, the generosity of the aristocracy, and he had encouraged a + hope that Mount Rorke would let him off with a statement of how much + Maggie would have at his death. And now to hear these terrible + prognostications, and from his own son-in-law, too. It was too bad—it + was too cruel. “You don't know what you are talking about, Berkins. If it + were business I would listen to you, but really when it comes to + discussing the aristocracy it is more than I can stand. What do you know + about the aristocracy—not that,” cried Mr. Brookes, snapping his + fingers. “You were brought up in an office—what should you know? You + were a clerk once at thirty shillings a week—what should you know? + Lord Mount Rorke would never think of making such ridiculous proposals to + me. You judge him by yourself, Berkins, that's it, that's it! I dare say + he has heard of me in the City—many of your great lords do business + in the City. I dare say he has heard of me, and if he has he'll not try + any nonsense with me. Twist him round my finger, twist him round my + finger.” + </p> + <p> + Berkins liked a lord, but Berkins liked lords without thinking himself one + jot their inferior, and he was sure that his horse and his dog and his + house and everything belonging to him were better than theirs; and secure + in the fact that his grandfather had been a field officer, he did not + think it amiss to brag that he had begun life with thirty shillings a + week, so he only smiled at his father-in-law's wrath, feeling now easy in + his mind that Grace's future fortune would not be prejudiced for Maggie's + glorification. + </p> + <p> + The discussion had fallen, and Mr. Brookes went to meet the young man whom + he caught sight of coming across the sward. + </p> + <p> + “Most imprudent of you to come out to-day,” he said, scanning the white + face. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I am very well now, thanks. The sun is a little overpowering, that is + all. I want to speak to you, Mr. Brookes.” + </p> + <p> + “Speak to me? Yes. Will you go into the billiard-room, my boy? I can see + the heat has upset you. Take my arm.” + </p> + <p> + Frank took the offered arm. He was feeling very faint, but the cool and + dim colour of the billiard-room revived him, and when he had had some + claret and water, he said that he felt quite strong, and listened + patiently to Mr. Brookes. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I never! No, I never heard of such a thing. A stiletto, too. You + brought it from Italy? It makes me feel quite young again. Ah! 'tis hard + to say what we won't do for a girl when Miss Right comes along. I was just + the same—pretty keen on it, I can tell you, when I was your age; and + I don't know, even now,—but a man with grown-up daughters must be + careful. Still when I see a little waist, high heels, plump—you + know, that's the way I used to like them when I used to go to the oyster + shops; there was one at the top of the Haymarket. Ah! I was young then, + young as you are; I was keen on it—Aunt Mary will tell you that—there + was nothing I wouldn't do; I never went as far as stabbing—walking + about at night, tears, torments as much as you like, but I never went so + far as stabbing. Wonderful what love will make a man do! Supposing you had + killed yourself; in my garden, too—awful! What would people say? I + hear they are talking of it in the clubs—hope it won't go any + further. Should Mount Rorke hear of it! Eh? Might set him against us; + might not give his consent—eh? We should be up a tree, then.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think there is much danger of that. I came to-day, Mr. Brookes, + to ask for your consent; am I to understand that you give it?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, my dear Frank, I don't see why I should refuse it; I have known you + since you were quite a small boy. I don't want to flatter you. I don't + know that I care much about young men as a rule, but you, I have always + found you—well, just what you should be. Of course the connection is + very flattering. You will one day be Lord Mount Rorke, and to see my + darling Maggie sharing your honours will be—that is to say if I live + to see it—a great, a very gre—great hon—our.” + </p> + <p> + Feeling much embarrassed Frank begged of him not to mention it. “I shall + be writing to-morrow or next day to my uncle; shall I say that you have + given your consent to my marriage with your daughter? I may say that I + have already written to him on the subject.” + </p> + <p> + “By all means, my dear boy. I think I can say you have my consent—that + is to say, you have my consent if the money's all right. All is, of + course, subject to that. Now you are for love in a cottage, bread and + cheese romance; a man who will use a stiletto can't be expected to know + much about money, but I am a father, my stiletto days are over, and I + couldn't give my daughter without a settlement. You will, no doubt, be—of + course you will be—Lord Mount Rorke one of these days; but in the + meantime there must be a proper settlement. My daughter must be properly + provided for; it is my duty to look after her interests, so you may as + well tell your uncle that I shall be pleased to meet him and talk the + matter over with him. I will meet him in London, when it suits his + convenience; I need hardly say that if he should choose to come down here + that I shall be pleased to see him. And now tell me—of course he + will be prepared to act handsomely; I have no doubt he will, the + aristocracy always do act handsomely, no one is so liberal as your + aristocrat. I hope he will settle a good round sum on my daughter—money + invested in first-class securities, not what Berkins would call + first-class, but what I should call first-class securities; and should + your uncle prove the liberal man that I have no doubt he is, I don't say + that I won't behave handsomely. Of course you know that my dear children + will have all my money at my death. I shall never marry again, that is a + settled thing; but in the meantime I will do something. When Grace was + married I behaved very generously—too generously—a lot of + money—mustn't do it again, times are not what they were. But at my + death I shall make no difference, all three will share and share alike.” + </p> + <p> + Frank hoped when Brookes and Mount Rorke met, that the former would modify + his demands, and what was still more important, his mode of expressing + them. But why should Mr. Brookes appear to him in such a sudden glow of + vulgarity? He had never thought of him as a refined and cultivated + gentleman, but was unprepared for this latest manifestation. + </p> + <p> + “Lord Mount Rorke allows me a certain annual income, he will no doubt + double this income upon my marriage; I daresay he would—since he has + recognised me as his heir—make this income legally mine by deed, I + could then settle a certain sum on Maggie, in case of my death; but then + further settlements would be required when I succeed to the title and the + property. I had thought—and indeed I think still—that if my + uncle makes me a sufficient allowance, that we might avoid touching on + this matter at all. Lord Mount Rorke is an irritable man, and I am sure + that if you were to speak to him as you—” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! nonsense! You don't suppose I am going to give my + daughter to a man unless he can settle a sufficient sum of money upon her? + Berkins wouldn't hear of it. He was only telling me just now—” + </p> + <p> + “But I don't think you understand me, Mr. Brookes. I do not propose that + you should give me any money with your daughter. Let what you give her be + settled upon her, and let it be tied up as strictly as the law can tie + it.” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh! pooh! the man that marries my daughter must settle a sum of money + at least equal to what I settle upon her; and it must be money invested in + first-class security, otherwise I couldn't think of giving her one penny.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry, Mr. Brookes, that you are so determined on this point. These + matters generally arrange themselves if people incline to meet each other + half way, and I am sure that my uncle will resent it if you insist on + pounds, shillings, and pence as you propose doing. He is not accustomed to + strict business—marriages in our family were never made on such + principles; my happiness is bound up in Maggie. I hope you will consider + what you are risking.” + </p> + <p> + “I would do more for you than any one else, Frank, but business is + business, and the man who has my daughter must settle a sum of money + equivalent to what I settle.” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid I have talked too much, I am not very strong, yet with your + permission we will adjourn this discussion to another day—in the + meantime I will write to my uncle.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Brookes did not offer the assistance of his arm, and had he, Frank + would certainly not have accepted it. Holding the door, the old man waited + for his visitor to pass out. “Southdown Road or the heir to a peerage: it + is all the same, my money is what is wanted—the money I had made + myself,” thought Mr. Brookes. “Dreadful old man, he would sell his + daughter for a settlement of a few hundred pounds a year. I never knew he + was so bad, my eyes are opened,” thought Frank. Both were equally angry, + and without secrecy or subterfuge they sought consolation in different + parts of the garden. Mr. Brookes resumed his walk on the tennis ground + with Berkins, and stopping frequently to point to his glass-houses, he + described his misfortunes with profuse waves of his stick. Frank had found + Maggie, and they now walked together in the shade and silence of the + sycamores—he, vehement and despairing of the future; she, subtle and + strangely confident that things would happen as she wished them. + </p> + <p> + Having once yielded and felt the pang of possession she was wholly his, in + all ramifications of spirit and flesh, both in her brain and blood, and + the utmost ends of her sense mingled with him. But to him, she was the + symbol of the desire of which he was enamoured, the desire which held + together his nature and gave it individuality—love of <i>the</i> + young girl. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! my darling, if he should speak so to Mount Rorke, we should be parted + for ever—no, that could never be—nothing in heaven or earth + would induce me to give you up, be true to me and I will be true to you; + but our happiness—no, not our happiness, that is in ourselves—but + all our prospects in life will be wrecked if he will not give way. Should + he and Mount Rorke meet—” + </p> + <p> + “But they won't meet; have patience—I know how to manage father. He + doesn't like to part with his money, and I can understand it, he made it + all himself; but he will get used to the idea in time, leave him to me; + put your trust in me.” + </p> + <p> + She extended her hand, he took it, pressed it to his lips; he took her in + his arms and kissed her, and the leaves of the sycamores were filled with + the sunset. + </p> + <p> + “DEAR SIR,—I received a letter this morning from my nephew, + apprising me of his engagement to your daughter. He has apparently + obtained your consent, and he asks for mine, and he also asks from me not + only an increase of income to meet the requirements of altered + circumstances, but he tells me that you will expect me to settle some + seven, eight, or ten thousand pounds upon your daughter. + </p> + <p> + “I do not propose to discuss the reasonableness of his or your demands, + but it seems that a statement of his prospects is owing to you. + </p> + <p> + “Having never married when I was a young man, many have assumed—I + among the number—that I never would marry; and I admit that I have + allowed my nephew to grow up in the belief that he is my heir and the + successor to the title of Mount Rorke; but beyond a general assumption + existing in my mind, his mind, and the minds of those who know us, there + is no reason to suppose that I shall not marry, or that I shall leave him + a single sixpence, and I willingly make use of this opportunity to say + that I have no faintest intention of entering intoany engagement either + verbal or written with him upon this matter.—Yours very truly, MOUNT + RORKE.” + </p> + <p> + “MY DEAR FRANK,—The enclosed is a copy of the letter which I send by + this post to Mr. Brookes. And I make no disguise of the fact that it was + written with the full intention of rendering your marriage an + impossibility. It will no doubt appear to you a harsh and cruel letter; it + will no doubt grieve you, madden you—in your rage you may call me a + brute. The epithet will be unjust; but knowing very well indeed what love + is at twenty-five, I will forgive it. And now to the point. I know + something about old Brookes, and I remember the lean boy you used to bring + here, and judging from some slight traces that Eton had not succeeded in + effacing, I think I can guess what the rest of the family is like; indeed, + the old gentleman's preposterous demand that I should settle ten thousand + pounds on his daughter throws a sufficient light on his character, and in + some measure reveals what sort of manner of man he is. But let all this be + waived. I admit that with some show of reason, you may say it is unjust, + nay more, it is ridiculous, to pronounce judgment on people I have never + seen, and it is cruelty worthy of a Roman Emperor to wreck the lifelong + happiness of two young people for the sake of a prejudice that the trouble + of a journey to Brighton will most certainly extinguish. I will not + irritate you by assuring you that the world is full of desirable + women-women that will appeal to you two years hence precisely as Miss + Brookes appeals to you now. Were I to whisper that it is unwise to give up + all women for one woman, you could not fail, in your present mood, to see + in my philosophy only the nasty wisdom of a cynical old reprobate. + Therefore I will not weary you with advice—what I have said must be + considered not as advice, but rather as an expression of personal + experience in the love passion, serving as illustration of the attitude of + my mind towards you. I will limit myself to merely asking you—no, + not to think again of Miss Brookes—that would be impossible, but to + leave Southwick for London or Paris, the latter for preference. I will + give you a letter of introduction to a charming lady (ah! were I thirty + years younger). Put yourself in her hands, and I have no doubt in the + world but that she will send you back cured in six months, as my bank-book + will abundantly prove. + </p> + <p> + “If you cannot do this—if so drastic a remedy should be too + repugnant to your present feelings, I would remember, were I in your + place, that my uncle had never refused me anything; that I could draw upon + him for what money I liked—that is to say, for all pleasures and + satisfaction save one. I would remember that at his death I was to inherit + ten thousand a year and a title; and I would weigh (first examining each + weight carefully, to see if it were true weight) all these present and + future advantages against the gratification of possessing a woman I loved + when I was twenty-five for a period of time extending perhaps over half a + century; I would think—at least I think and hope I should hesitate—before + I refused to obey one of whose affection I was sure, and I feel certain it + would go hard with me before I refused to gratify the whim—call it a + whim if you like—of one who had often given but never asked before. + </p> + <p> + “Somehow I think you owe me this sacrifice; I have done much for you and + am prepared to do more, and to speak quite candidly, I want something in + return; I do not mean that I am desirous of striking a bargain with you, + but we all expect to receive—of course not directly, but in some + remote way—something for what we give, and I confess that I look + forward to your companionship to assist me through the last course of + life. I do not want you now—for the next few years I want you to see + the world, to educate yourself; I want you to improve your taste in art + and letters, and later on, if possible, to turn yourself to some public + account. Besides other work, I am now working at my memoirs; they are to + be published after my death, as I have arranged, under your supervision. I + regard these memoirs as being of the first importance, and it is advisable + that you should be in full possession of all my intentions respecting + them. Hitherto I have always looked after everything myself, but the time + will come when I shall not be able to do this, and shall require you to + relieve me of the burden of business. Then I wish you to live here, so + that you may learn to love Mount Rorke. I am very busy now with + improvements, and I would wish you to be with me so that you might + adequately enter into my views and ideas. To conclude, I do not marry for + your sake; do you not marry for mine, at least do not marry for the + present. I do not say that if I knew and liked the girl of your choice—if + she were in your own set—that I could not be won over, but on the + whole I would sooner you didn't marry. But I could not really endure a lot + of new acquaintances—people who had never dined in a lord's house, + and would all want to be asked—no, I could not endure it. I am an + old man, and now I want to enjoy myself in my own way, and my desire is to + get through the last years of my life with you. + </p> + <p> + “You can do what you please, ask here whomever you please, give me a few + hours of your time when I am particularly busy with my memoirs, and, above + all, let us be alone sometimes after dinner, so that we can turn our + chairs round to the fire and talk at our ease.—Your affectionate + uncle, MOUNT RORKE.” + </p> + <p> + “So he won't pay for a secretary, and wants me to do the work; that's + about the meaning of that letter.” Frank re-read the letter sentence for + sentence, and as he read new sneers and new expressions of scorn rose in + his brain in tremulous ebullition. There was scarcely a plan for the + chastisement of his uncle that he did not for some fleeting moment + entertain, and one most ironical letter he committed to paper; but Maggie + would not hear of its being sent, and he was surprised and glad to see + that she was not depressed and disheartened at the turn affairs had taken. + </p> + <p> + “I can do what I like with father; Sally can't, but I can. You leave it + me.” + </p> + <p> + “What's the good of that? You can't get round Mount Rorke.” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind; we don't want to get married yet awhile. We'll be engaged, it + is nearly the same thing. We shall be able to go anywhere together—up + to town, if we only come back the same day. Write a nice letter to your + uncle, saying you'll do nothing without his consent; that it is true your + affections are very much engaged, but that your first thought is of him—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! but my darling, I want to make you mine.” + </p> + <p> + “So you shall—we shall be engaged; father won't consent to our being + married, but he can't prevent us being engaged. You'll see, I'll get round + father sooner or later; he'll give in.” + </p> + <p> + “But you won't get round Mount Rorke; if he would only come here and see + you.” + </p> + <p> + “He won't do that; but one of these days he'll be in London. I suppose he + goes to the Park sometimes; we'll go too, you'll introduce me—a + little impromptu, and I'll see if I can't get him to like me.” + </p> + <p> + “How clever you are!” + </p> + <p> + “I understand father.” + </p> + <p> + Still it required all Maggie's adroitness to even partially reconcile Mr. + Brookes to Lord Mount Rorke's letter. She accepted without argument that + marriage in the present circumstances was out of the question. She even + went so far as to cordially assent that a man would be a fool to give his + daughter to a man who could not settle a substantial sum of money upon + her, and she only ventured to suggest that it would be foolish not to give + Lord Mount Rorke the opportunity of changing his mind. She spoke of his + immense fortune, and exaggerated it until she made even Berkins seem a + paltry creature in the old man's eyes. + </p> + <p> + Frank was anxious to propitiate Sally. He returned from London with + presents for her, and he always spoke to her, looking at her admiringly. + </p> + <p> + He showed much anxiety, and, fearing that she found it dull at his studio, + when the sisters came to tea he begged her to give him Meason's address. + Sally tossed her head; she had had enough of Meason, and her manner left + no doubt as to her sincerity. But happening to meet Meason a few days + after in the train, Frank slipped easily into asking him to come and see + him; and in the easy atmosphere of the studio the acquaintanceship soon + ripened into intimacy, and after a preliminary ruffling of plumage, Sally + restored her old sweetheart to all the rights of wrong. Life went well + amid incessant secrets, letter-writing, and tea parties. Grace came to the + studio to lunch sometimes, and she had been betrayed into a promise not to + say a word about Meason. It was never ascertained whether, in the + indiscretion of the marital night, she had betrayed this trust, or whether + some jealous enemy had spoken or written to Mr. Brookes on the subject; + but certain it is that one joyful day when Meason, Sally, and Maggie were + eating oysters, and Frank was twisting the corkscrew into a bottle of + Chablis, there came an ominous ringing at the door. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder who that can be. Shut up, Triss.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps it is father.” + </p> + <p> + “He is in London.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not so sure about that.” + </p> + <p> + “No matter—we don't want to see them.” + </p> + <p> + “Rather not! They wouldn't have known we were here had it not been for + that dog.” + </p> + <p> + “I must go and see who it is. Come here, sir; come here, you brute.” + </p> + <p> + “Supposing it is father?” + </p> + <p> + “Get behind that piece of tapestry. I'll say that Meason and I were having + some oysters.” + </p> + <p> + “Come here, sir. I'd better tie up that dog—I wonder who it is?” + </p> + <p> + “Open the door.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Mr. Brookes, quite an unexpected pleasure.” + </p> + <p> + “I have come, sir, for my daughters.” + </p> + <p> + “Your daughters? Your daughters are not here. Mr. Brookes.” + </p> + <p> + “I have reason to know they are here, and I will not leave without them.” + </p> + <p> + “You will do well to let us in, Mr. Escott; we are determined—” + </p> + <p> + “Who are you? What business is it of yours?” + </p> + <p> + “Should you refuse us admission we are resolved to wait here till evening, + till midnight if necessary!” exclaimed Berkins. “I say again you will do + well to admit us, and so avoid a scandal on the green.” + </p> + <p> + “You can come in if you like.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you kindly chain up that dog of yours?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, this is coming it too strong; this is a little too 'steep.' If Mr. + Brookes refuses to believe my word that his daughters are not here he may + come in and look for them, and to facilitate his search I will tie up the + dog—(the dog is tied up). But you, what brings you here? What the + devil, I should like to know, brings you here, poking your nose into other + people's business?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Brookes, will you answer him?” + </p> + <p> + “I must decline your offer to admit me unaccompanied by my son-in-law. We + shall not stay long.” + </p> + <p> + “All this seems to me very extraordinary, but since you wish it, Mr. + Brookes, pray enter.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that dog tied up quite securely?” + </p> + <p> + “Quite. I think you know Mr. Meason?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Meason knows very well that I do not wish to know him.” + </p> + <p> + “If you only come here to insult my guest, the sooner you go out the + better. Had I known that you intended to behave in this fashion I should + have left you standing outside till morning. I'll not have—” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind, Escott; I'm off. Mr. Brookes and I are no longer on speaking + terms, that's all! I'll see you later on.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't go, pray.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I must.” + </p> + <p> + “I am surprised, Frank,” said Mr. Brookes, when Meason was gone, “that you + should seek your friends among the enemies of my family.” + </p> + <p> + “We will not discuss that question now. I never heard of such conduct—you + force your way into my studio, and apparently for no purpose but to insult + my guest. You see your daughters are not here.” + </p> + <p> + “I am by no means satisfied with that,” said Berkins, opening a door. “I + must see behind that piece of tapestry.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you shall not. I have had just about enough of this. How dare you? + God's truth—” and as Berkins seemed determined to continue his + search, Frank caught him by the collar. + </p> + <p> + But Berkins was tall and strong, and showed no intention of allowing + himself to be thrown out. His long legs were soon extended here and there; + his body was sometimes bent back by Frank's weight, once he had succeeded + in nearly throwing Frank over on the sofa. Mr. Brookes had fled to the + door, which, in his excitement, he failed to open, and the struggle was + continued until at last, maddened by a most tight and tempting aspect of + Berkin's thigh, Triss broke his collar, and in a couple of bounds, reached + and fixed his teeth deep in the flesh. + </p> + <p> + “Triss, you brute, leave go.” But Triss clung to the long-desired thigh. + “I'll twist his tail, it will make him leave go.” + </p> + <p> + With a savage yelp of pain the dog turned on his master and was hauled + instantly off Berkins's thigh. + </p> + <p> + “I need hardly say that so far as the dog is concerned, I regret, and I am + truly sorry for what has occurred.” + </p> + <p> + “Sir, do you not see what a state I am in; do not stand there making + excuses, but lend me your handkerchief. I shall bleed to death if you + don't.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall I tie it up for you?” + </p> + <p> + “If those girls there would only fetch a doctor.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Brookes could not refrain from foolish laughter, and in a moment of + wretched despair he declared that it would be all the same in a hundred + years time—a remark which would not have failed to irritate Berkins + if he had not fainted. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII + </h2> + <p> + Next day Willy called at the studio, and Frank told him what had occurred. + </p> + <p> + “But I don't see why you shouldn't come to the Manor House,” said Willy. + “If you will only say something about the Measons, I think it can be made + all right.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I'm not going to turn against Meason; I have always found him a good + fellow. I know nothing about his flirtation with Sally.” + </p> + <p> + “No more do I; I think it has been exaggerated, but, as you know, I never + interfere. I wish you would come in to dinner one night.” + </p> + <p> + “Supposing I were to meet Berkins?” + </p> + <p> + Willy stroked his moustache. + </p> + <p> + “No, it is quite impossible that I could return to the Manor House. Your + father behaved in a way—well, I will not say what I think of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Berkins hasn't been to the City since. Grace was over here yesterday, she + says he limps about the garden. He'll never forgive you; he says that you + didn't call the dog off at once.” + </p> + <p> + “That's a lie; and I said, 'So far as the incident with the dog is + concerned, I am very sorry.'” + </p> + <p> + “I think that made him more angry than anything else; he thought you were + laughing at him.” + </p> + <p> + “I was not. It was most unfortunate. I shall not give Maggie up. I am + writing to-morrow or next day to Mount Rorke.” + </p> + <p> + All were agreed that things must come right sooner or later. Maggie fought + for her lover, and emphatically asserted her engagement. She yielded on + one point only—not to visit the studio; but she maintained her right + in theory and in practice to go where she liked with him in train or in + cart, to walk with him on the cliff, to lunch with him at Mutton's. They + found pleasure in thus affirming their love, and it pleased them to see + they were observed, and to hear that they were spoken about. Nevertheless + the string that sung their happiness had slipped a little, and the note + was now not quite so clear or true. Frank could not go to the Manor House; + Maggie could not go to the studio. Whether Mount Rorke would consent to + their marriage perplexed them as it had not done before. + </p> + <p> + The summer fades, the hills grow grey, and a salt wind blew up from the + sea, blackening the trees, and the beauty of autumn was done. Frank + thought of Ireland, and what personal intercession might achieve. She + begged of him to go, and he promised to write to her every day. + </p> + <p> + “Every day, darling, or I shall be miserable.” + </p> + <p> + “Every day.” + </p> + <p> + “Arrived safe after a very rough passage. Every one was ill, I most of + all.” + </p> + <p> + She received a post-card:—“It was raining cats and dogs when I got + out of the train. Mount Rorke sent a car to meet me; the result is that I + am in bed with a bad cold. The house is full of company—people I + have known, or known of, since I was a boy; we shall begin + pheasant-shooting in a few days. When I am out of bed I shall write a long + letter. Do you write to me; I shall be awfully disappointed if I do not + get a letter to-morrow morning.” + </p> + <p> + Extract from a letter:— + </p> + <p> + “Mount Rorke is considered to be a handsome place, but as I have known it + from childhood, as my earliest memories are of it, I cannot see it with + the eyes of a professed scenery hunter. I have loved it always, but I do + not think I ever loved it more than now, for now I think that one day I + shall give it to you. Should that day come—and it will come—what + happiness it will be to walk with you under the old trees, made lovelier + by your presence, to pass down the glades to the river, watching your + shadow on the grass and your image in the stream. We will roam together + through the old castle, and I will show you the little bed I used to sleep + in, the school-room where I learned my lessons. When I entered the old + room I saw in imagination—and oh, how clearly!—the face of my + governess; and how easily I see her in the corridor she used to walk down + to get to her room. + </p> + <p> + “Poor, dear, old thing, I wonder what has become of her! + </p> + <p> + “I saw again the pictures that stirred my childish fancy, and whose + meaning I once vainly strove to decipher. + </p> + <p> + “I came to live here when I was four, immediately after my father's death. + I can just remember coming here. I remember Mount Rorke taking me up in + his arms and kissing me. I will not say there is no place like home—I + do not believe that; but certainly no place seems so real. Every spot of + ground has its own particular recollections. Every bend of the avenue + evokes some incident of childish life (in Ireland we call any road leading + to a house an avenue, even if it is absolutely bare of trees; we also + speak of rooks as crows, and these two provincialisms jarred on my ear + after my long stay in Sussex). Mount Rorke is covered with trees—great + woods of beech and fir—and at the end of every vista you see a piece + of blue mountain. A river passes behind the castle, winding through the + park; there are bridges, and swans float about the sedges, and there are + deer in the glades. The garden,—I do not know if you would like the + garden; it is old-fashioned—full of old-fashioned flowers—convolvuluses, + Michaelmas daisies, marigolds; hedges clipped into all sorts of strange + and close shapes. There is a beautiful avenue behind the garden (an avenue + in the English sense of the word) where you may pace to and fro and feel + an exquisite sense of solitude; for when the castle had passed out of the + hands of Irish princes—that is to say, brigands—it was turned + into a monastery, and I often think, as I look on the mossy trees—the + progeny of those under whose leafage the monks told their beads—that + all happened that I might throw my arm about you some beautiful day, and + whisper, 'My wife, this is yours.'” + </p> + <p> + “How beautifully he writes,” said Sally reflectively. + </p> + <p> + “You never had a lover who wrote to you like that. Do you remember how + Jimmy used to write?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know how he wrote to you, but his letters to me, I will say that, + were quite as nice as anything Frank could write. You needn't toss your + head, you are not Lady Mount Rorke yet.” + </p> + <p> + Sally refused to hear, but presently, seeing a cloud on her sister's face, + and thinking the letter contained some piece of unpleasantness, she + relented, and pressed her to continue. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +“The house is full of people—people whom I have known all my life—and +they make a great deal of me. I have to tell them about Italy, and they +ask me absurd questions about Michael Angelo or Titian, Leonardo or +Watteau.... The house party is a large one, and we have people to dinner +every day; and in the evening the drawing-room, with its grim oak and +escutcheons and rich modern furniture, is a pretty sight indeed. There +is a lady here whom I knew in London, Lady Seveley; and I have had +suspicions that Mount Rorke would like me to marry her. But she has +the reputation of being rather fast, so perhaps the old gentleman is +allowing his thoughts to wander where they should not. I hope not for +his sake, for I hear she is devoted to a young Irishman, a Mr. Fletcher, +a journalist in London. I met them at Reading once in most suspicious +circumstances. He is the son of a large grazier, one of my uncle's +tenants, and she is, I suppose, so infatuated that she could not resist +the temptation of calling on his family. She was careful not to speak +of her intentions to anybody, but waited until she got a favourable +opportunity and slipped off to pay her visit. The Fletchers live about +half a mile from the castle. I was riding that way, and met her coming +out of their house. I got off my horse and walked back together. I hope +Mount Rorke will not hear of her ladyship's escapade; he would be very +angry, for the Fletchers are people who would be asked to have something +to eat in the housekeeper's room if they called at the Castle. In London +one knows everybody, but in the country we are more conservative.” + + “I hope she won't cut you out,” said Sally. “It would be a sell for +you if she did. Go on.” + </pre> + <p> + “No, I shan't, you are too insulting.” + </p> + <p> + “Who began it? You told me that I didn't get such nice letters as you. + Pray go on.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not know if you would think her handsome. I don't. She is, however, + an excellent musician; we play duets together every evening, to Mount + Rorke's intense delight. You know my dialogue between a lady and a + gentleman? She has written it down for me and corrected a few mistakes; I + think I shall publish it. Darling, I love you better than any one in the + world; you are all the world to me; try to love me a little—you will + never find any one to love you as I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you can't find anything peculiarly disagreeable to say about that, + I think.” + </p> + <p> + Extract from another letter:— + </p> + <p> + “All the visitors have gone; Mount Rorke and I are quite alone. He is + kindness itself, and does not bother me about his memoirs; but from what I + hear that book will make one of the biggest sensations ever made in the + literary world. I want him to publish it now, but he only smiles and + shakes his head. He says: 'What is the use of setting the world talking + about you when you are alive; as long as I am alive I can see those I want + to see, and be with them far more personally than I could by placing in + their hands three volumes in 8vo; the 8vos are only useful when you have + passed into darkness, and are not yet reconciled to dying quite out of the + minds of men. I do not desire to be remembered by those who will live + three hundred years hence, but I confess that I should like to modulate + the pace of forgetfulness according to my fancy, and be remembered, let us + say, for the next sixty or seventy years. I find no fault with death but + its abruptness, and that I hope to be able to correct. The vulgar and most + usual plan is children, but children are no anodyne to oblivion, whereas a + good book in a certain measure is.' + </p> + <p> + “These are almost the words Mount Rorke used, and I quote them as exactly + as possible, so that you may see what kind of man he is. We pulled our + chairs round to the fire and had a real good talk. I know no better + company than Mount Rorke. He has seen everything, read everything, and + known everybody worth knowing; he is a mine of information, and, what is + far better, he is a complete man of the world; and long contact with the + world has left him a little cynical, otherwise he is perfect. I told him + the story about Berkins, and he laughed; I never saw him laugh so before; + and when I told him that I had told Berkins, as he was tying up his leg, + that so far as the incident with the dog was concerned, I regretted deeply + what had occurred, he could not contain himself. He rang the bell, and we + had old Triss up. He asked a great deal about you; I leave you to imagine + what I said. How did he expect me to describe my darling? I told him of + your subtle, fascinating ways, of your picturesque attitudes, and your + exquisite little black eyes. 'I think I see her,' he said; 'little eyes + that light up are infinitely more interesting than those big, limpid, + silly eyes that everybody admires.' I am now doing a water-colour sketch + from the photograph—the one in which you stand with your hands + behind your back and your head on one side—for him. I am getting on + with it pretty well. Ah! if only I had you here for an hour (I should like + to have you here for ever, of course; but now I am speaking artistically, + not humanly), I think I could get it really like you; there are one or two + things that the photo does not give me. I shall send the sketch to Dublin + to be framed; it will be a nice present for Mount Rorke. + </p> + <p> + “My darling, you must not be anxious; all will come right in time—have + a little patience. He is already much more reconciled to the match than he + was when I arrived, and if your father will refrain from speaking too much + about that hateful question, I am sure that all difficulties can be + surmounted.” + </p> + <p> + She wrote to him three or four times a week, and on beautiful hand-made + paper, delicately scented. + </p> + <p> + Extract from a letter:— + </p> + <p> + “We went up to town yesterday by the ten o'clock train West Brighton; and + so that we might have more money to spend, we went third class. Father + doesn't like us going third class, but I don't think it matters if you get + in with nice people. We were very jolly. The Shaws went with us. They are + very nice girls. They had to leave us at Victoria, and I and my cousin, + Agnes Keating, went shopping together. We met the Harrisons at Russell + & Allen's. We saw there some lovely dresses—I wish you had been + with us, for I have confidence in your taste, and when I choose a thing + myself I am never sure that I like it. The assistant was so polite; she + told me to ask for Miss ——; she said she would like to fit me. + Sally was coming up with us, but she changed her mind and remained at + home, I was very glad, for she is wretchedly cross, and not looking at all + well. You would not admire her in the least; she is growing very yellow. + But I don't mean to be ill-natured, so we'll let Sally bide, as we say in + Sussex. After Russell & Allen's we went to Blanchard's, and had a nice + lunch. Grace was in town; she chaperoned us, and paid for everything; it + was very kind of her. Then we went to the theatre, and saw a play which we + did not care about much. There was a very stupid 'tart' in it. I do like + 'gadding,' don't I? But, oh, my darling Frank, gadding is not really + gadding without you. How I miss you, how we all miss you, but I + especially. The Keatings came over to tea to-day, and they asked about + you. Blanche wants you to write something in her album, and she admired + immensely the drawing you gave me. She is very artistic in her tastes; I + think you would like her. + </p> + <p> + “But I have a bit of news that I think will amuse you. You remember Mrs. + Horlock's old dog—not the blind Angel; he's old too. But I mean the + real old dog,—the one twenty years old, that once belonged to a + butcher. He never smelt very sweet, as you know, but latterly he was + unbearable, and the General resolved on a silent and secret destruction. + He purchased in Brighton a bottle of chloroform. It was the dead of the + night and pitch dark. However, he reached the end of the passage in + safety; but suddenly he uttered a fearful shriek and dropped the + chloroform. He thought he had seen a ghost; but it was only Mrs. Horlock, + who was going her rounds, letting down the mouse-traps and supplying the + little creatures with food. The General blurted out various excuses. He + said that he had come to relieve the cock parrot's tooth-ache—that + he feared the Circassian goat was suffering from spinal complaint and the + squirrels from neuralgia. But his protestations proved unavailing, and now + he eats his meals in silence. And to make matters worse, the old dog did + die a few days after—the General says from old age, but Mrs. Horlock + avows that his death resulted from fright. 'He was a sweet, cunning old + thing, and no doubt knew all about that plan to destroy him.' I think this + would make an excellent subject for a comic sketch; I wish you would do + one—the General dropping the bottle; Mrs. Horlock, surrounded by + closed mouse-traps and crumbs, sternly upbraiding him. + </p> + <p> + “I see lots of Emily Pierce. Every Sunday I have tea with her, and + sometimes lunch; but she doesn't come here. I am afraid I couldn't get on + at all without her; we do everything together, and we hit it off so well. + </p> + <p> + “Sally has been staying in Kent. I do not know what's up, but she seems to + see everything <i>couleur de rose</i>; everything in Kent is better in her + estimation than anywhere else. The men dance so much better for one thing. + I am glad she is so happy, and I wish she would get married and stay + there. Father says he has a cough that tears him to pieces, but I haven't + heard it yet.” + </p> + <p> + The elementary notion of a woman in love is to surround, to envelop the + man she loves, with her individuality, and to draw him from all other + influences. And the woman in love strives to accomplish this by ceaseless + reiteration of herself or himself seen through herself. So Maggie with her + nervous, highly-strung, febrile temperament could not refrain from + constantly striking the lyre of love. Her hands were for ever on the + chords. Letters and notes of all kinds; impetuous messages asking him when + he would return; letters apologising for her selfishness—he had + better remain with Mount Rorke until his consent had been obtained; + resolutions and irresolutions, ardours, lassitudes, forgetfulness followed + fast in strange and incomprehensible contradiction. And Frank was asked + daily to perform some small task. There was always something; and Frank + undertook all he was asked to do, for he loved to be as much as possible + in that circle of life in which his sweetheart lived, and to feel her + presence about him. + </p> + <p> + Extract from a letter:— + </p> + <p> + “Mount Rorke and I had a long and serious talk about you last night. He is + against the marriage, but then he is against marriage in general. He said + with his quiet, cynical laugh, 'I daresay she is a pretty girl—I can + read the truth through your romantic descriptions. I am convinced that she + is very charming. But are you quite sure that you will never meet another + equally charming girl? Remember the world is a very big place, and the + stock of women is large; are you sure that you will be able to enjoy the + charm which now rules and enchants you for thirty, forty years without + wearying of it? These are the questions you have to consider, which + marriage entails.' I need hardly tell you what answer I made, and how I + tried to convince him that your charms are those that a man capable of + appreciating them could not weary of. Indeed I think I made him rather a + neat answer—I said there are books in one volume, in two volumes, in + three volumes, and there are books that you can take down and read at any + time. He laughed; it rather tickled his fancy. And he said, 'Quite true, + there are some books and some women that one never tires of—that is + to say, that some people never tire of. I haven't been so fortunate or + unfortunate, but that by the way. I admit such cases may occur. I will go + further—I will admit that a man's life may be made or marred by his + taking to himself a wife; and if Miss Brookes were a really nice girl—if + she were the one girl in a million, and if I were sure that your passion + for each other has its root in deeper and more lasting sympathies than + those of the skin (these were his exact words)—believe me, my dear + Frank, I should not think of opposing the marriage. I shall be in London + during the season, and no doubt an occasion will arise, of which I promise + you to avail myself, of making this model young lady's acquaintance. I + will tell you what I think of her; she won't deceive me, let her try how + she will. There is only one thing I bar—one thing must not be, one + thing I will not tolerate—a bad marriage.' I lost my temper for a + moment, but Mount Rorke did not lose his, and I soon came round. It is + annoying to be spoken to in that way; but I remembered that he had not + seen you, and I consoled myself by thinking of how great his conversion + will be when he does. My only fear is that he'll want to marry you + himself. So, you see, my own darling, my uncle is on the 'give,' and we + shall win soon and easily. The only real obstacle is your father's + pig-headedness on all matters in which money enters. I think with terror + of his meeting with Mount Rorke. If he speaks to Mount Rorke as he spoke + to me, my uncle will take up his hat and wish him good-morning. Do you + exert all your influence. Do leave no stone unturned. All depends upon + you.” + </p> + <p> + Extract from another letter:— + </p> + <p> + “I am weary of this place, and I long to see you. My longing is such that + I can resist it no longer. Besides, nothing would be gained by remaining + here. Mount Rorke will not say more than he has said. In a few days—think + of that—I shall be with you. With what eagerness I look forward. How + gladly I shall see the train leave the dreary bogs and the blue mountains + of the West and pass into the pasture lands of Meath; how gladly I shall + hail the brown, slobber-faced city of Dublin; with what delight I shall + step on board the packet—I shall not think of sea sickness—and + watch the line of the low coast disappear, then the Welsh mountains and + castles, looking so like an illustrated history of England. I must spend + two days in London, alas! I must order some new clothes. Victoria Station, + with all its doors and cab stands, and book-stalls, the Sussex scenery, + the woodlands, the Downs, the plunging through tunnels, and then you. + Darling, I cannot believe that such happiness is in store for me.” + </p> + <p> + All happened as he had anticipated. At Victoria the usual difficulties had + arisen about the dog. Triss was growling, the guard was cringing, and, + with reference to no stoppage before we come to Redhill, the necessity of + a muzzle was being argued. + </p> + <p> + “I am certain it is she,” and he followed with his eyes the tall, swinging + figure in the black cloth dress. Then he saw the clear plump profile, so + white, of Lizzie Baker. + </p> + <p> + “Here, give me the chain, I'll tie the dog up.” + </p> + <p> + “But the muzzle, sir.” + </p> + <p> + A muzzle was procured, and Frank ran to the third class carriage where he + had seen Lizzie enter. + </p> + <p> + “Lizzie! Lizzie!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mr. Escott, who would have thought of seeing you! It is such a time—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, isn't it; how long? But are you going to Brighton?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “So am I; but—let me get you a first-class ticket. Guard, have I + time to change my ticket?” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir, the train is going to start; get in.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you get out, Lizzie; I'll pay the difference at Brighton.” + </p> + <p> + “No time for changing now, sir; are you getting into this carriage?” + </p> + <p> + He could not forego the pleasure of being with Lizzie. An old woman with a + provision basket on her lap drew her skirts aside and made way for him; + there were three dirtily dressed girls—probably shop girls; they sat + whispering together, a little troubled by the publicity; there were two + youths, shabbily dressed, their worn boots and trousers covered with + London mud. He was surprised, and he did not for a moment understand or + realise his company. Frank had never been in a third-class carriage + before. + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid you won't be comfortable here.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, I shall; I'd just as soon travel in one class as another—much + sooner when it means being with you.” + </p> + <p> + “None of your nonsense; I see you haven't changed. Well, who'd have + thought it? Just fancy meeting you, and after all this time.” + </p> + <p> + “How long is it? It must be nearly two years. I haven't seen you sincethat + day we went up the river.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, you have.” + </p> + <p> + “No; where did I see you since?” + </p> + <p> + “At the bar; I didn't leave the 'Gaiety' for several days after.” + </p> + <p> + “No more you did; I remember now. But why did you leave without letting me + know where you were going?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know I was leaving till the morning, and I left in the + afternoon. A lot of us were changed suddenly. The firm couldn't get enough + young ladies to do the work at the Exhibition.” + </p> + <p> + “But you didn't leave an address.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I did.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you didn't; I asked the manager, and he told me you had left no + address. They didn't know where you had gone.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he say so? You mean Mr. Fairlie, I suppose—now I come to think + of it, it is the rule of the firm not to give information about the young + ladies. I am sorry.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you?” + </p> + <p> + “I am, really. We had a very pleasant day up the river—Reading; you + took me to Reading.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; but you would never come again.” + </p> + <p> + “Wouldn't I? I suppose I couldn't find time—I did enjoy myself. What + a lovely day it was.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; and do you remember how like a beautiful smile the river lay? And do + you remember the bulrushes? I rowed you in among the rushes; you wet the + sleeve of your dress plunging your arm in. I remember it, that white plump + arm.” + </p> + <p> + “Get along with you.” + </p> + <p> + “I wanted to make a sketch of you leaning over the boatside with your + lapful of water-lilies; I wish I had.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you had, too; you wrote a little poem instead. It was very pretty, + but I should have liked the picture better. You gave me the poem next day + when you came in to lunch. You had lunch at the bar, and I was so cross + with you because you said I hadn't wiped the glass. It was all done to + annoy me because I had been talking to that tall, rather stout young man, + with the dark moustache, whom you were so jealous of. Don't you remember?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I remember; and I believe it was that fellow who prevented you from + coming out with me again.” + </p> + <p> + “No, it wasn't; but don't speak so loud, all these people are listening to + you.” + </p> + <p> + Frank met the round stare of the girls; and, turning from the dormant + curiosity of the old woman, he said— + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember the locks, how frightened you were; you had never been + through a lock before; and the beautiful old red brick house showing upon + the lofty woods; and coming back in the calm of the evening, passing the + different boats, the one where the girls lay back in the arms of the young + men, the flapping sail, and the dreamy influences of the woods where we + climbed and looked into space over the railing?” + </p> + <p> + “At the green-table—don't you remember?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I remember every hour of that day; we had lunch at the 'Roebuck.'” + </p> + <p> + “You haven't spoken of the lady we saw there. Lady Something—I + forget what you said her name was; you said she had been making up to + you.” + </p> + <p> + “I dined with her one night, and we went to the theatre.” + </p> + <p> + “You may do that without it being said that you are making up to a + gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course; I should never think of saying you made up to me.” + </p> + <p> + “I should hope not, indeed.” + </p> + <p> + “I should never think of accusing you of having made up to me; you have + always treated me very badly.” + </p> + <p> + Lizzie did not answer. He looked at her, puzzled and perplexed, and he + hoped that neither the girls nor the old lady had understood. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry; I really didn't mean to offend you. All I meant to say was + that the lady we saw at the 'Roebuck' had been rather civil to me; had—well + I don't know how to put it—shown an inclination to flirt with me—will + that suit you?—and that I had not availed myself of my chances + because I was in love with you.” + </p> + <p> + Encouraged by a sunny smile, Frank continued: “You wouldn't listen to me; + you were very cruel.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sure I didn't mean to be cruel; I went out on the river with you, + and we had a very pleasant day. You didn't say then I was cruel.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you were very nice that day; it was the happiest day of my life. I + was in love with you; I shall never care for any one as I cared for you.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe you.” + </p> + <p> + “I swear it is true. When you left the 'Gaiety' I searched London for you. + If you had only cared for me we might have been very happy. As sure as a + fellow loves a woman, so sure is she to like some other chap. Tell me, why + did you go away and leave no address?” + </p> + <p> + “I did leave an address.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, we won't discuss that. Why didn't you write to me? You knew my + address. It's no use saying you didn't.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I suppose I was in love with some one else.” + </p> + <p> + “Were you? You always denied it. Ah! so you were in love with some one + else? I knew it—I knew it was that thick-set fellow with the black + moustache. I wonder how you could like him—the amount of whisky and + water he used to drink.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, usen't he? I have served him with as many as six whiskies in an + afternoon—Irish, he always drank Irish.” + </p> + <p> + “How could you like a man who drank?” + </p> + <p> + “But it wasn't he—I assure you; I give you my word of honour. It + really wasn't. I'd tell you if it was.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, who was it, then? It couldn't be the old man with the beard and + white teeth?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Was it that great tall fellow, clean shaven?” + </p> + <p> + “No, it wasn't; you'll never guess; There's no use trying. However, it is + all over now.” + </p> + <p> + “Why? Did he treat you badly? Whose fault was it?” + </p> + <p> + “His. And the chances I threw away. He behaved like a beast. I had to give + up keeping company with him.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don't know. He changed very much towards me lately; he went messing + about after other girls, and we had words, and I left.” + </p> + <p> + “You will make it up. Perhaps you are mistaken.” + </p> + <p> + “Mistaken—no; I found their letters in his pocket.” + </p> + <p> + “There are always rows between sweethearts; and then they kiss and make it + up, and love each other the more.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I shall not see him again. We were going to be married; no, it is all + over. It was a little hard at first, but I am all right now.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry. Do you think there is no chance of making it up?” + </p> + <p> + “I should have thought that you would be glad; men are so selfish they + never think of any one but themselves.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you mean? Why should I be glad that your marriage was broken off?” + </p> + <p> + “You said just now that you liked me very much, I thought—” + </p> + <p> + “So I do like you very much. Once I was in love with you—that day + when we walked up the steep woods together.” + </p> + <p> + “And you don't care for me any longer?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't say that; but I am engaged to be married.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” + </p> + <p> + “Had you not snubbed me so I might have been married to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Who are you going to be married to—to the lady we saw that day?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, not to her.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe you. You mean to say you haven't been to see her since.” + </p> + <p> + “I assure you—-” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say you haven't seen her?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't say that. I've just come from Ireland. I've been staying with my + uncle. She spent a week with us; that's all I have seen of her. I am going + now to see the young lady whom I am engaged to.” + </p> + <p> + “And when will you be married?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know; there are a great many difficulties in the way. Perhaps I + shall never marry her.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense. I know better. You think it will take me in. I'll never be + taken in again, not if I know it.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't want to take you in.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know so much about that. Is she very pretty? I suppose you are + very much in love with her?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I love her very much. Dark, not like you a bit—just the + opposite.” + </p> + <p> + “And you met her since you saw me?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, I thought as much, and yet you told me the day we went up the river + together that you never had and couldn't care for any one elsebut me. Men + are all alike—they never tell the truth.” + </p> + <p> + “Wait a minute; wait a minute. I knew her long before I knew you; I have + known her since I was a boy, but that doesn't mean that I have been in + love with her since I was a boy. I never thought of her until you threw me + over, until long after; it was last summer I fell in love with her.” + </p> + <p> + Lizzie's eyes were full upon him, and it seemed to them that each could + see and taste the essence of the other's thought. + </p> + <p> + “What have you been doing ever since? You have told me nothing about + yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, after trying vainly to find you—having searched, as I + thought, all Speirs and Pond's establishments in London, I tried to resign + myself to my fate. I assure you, I was dreadfully cut up—could do + nothing. My life was a burden to me. You have been in love, and you know + what an ache it is; it used to catch me about the heart. There was no + hope; you were gone—gone as if the earth had swallowed you. I got + sick of going to the 'Gaiety' and asking those girls if they knew anything + about you; so to cure myself I went to France, and I worked hard at my + painting. In such circumstances there is only one thing—work.” + </p> + <p> + “You are right.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; nothing does you any good but work. I worked in the <i>atelier</i>—that's + the French for studio—all the morning, and in the afternoon I + painted from the nude in a public studio. I had such a nice studio—such + a jolly little place. I was up every morning at eight o'clock, my model + arrived at nine, and I worked without stopping (barring the ten or twelve + minutes' rest at the end of every hour) till twelve. Then I went to the + cafe to have breakfast—how I used to enjoy those breakfasts—fried + eggs all swimming in butter, a cutlet, after, nice bread and butter, then + cock your legs up, drink your coffee, and smoke your cigarette till one.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you like the French cafe better than the 'Gaiety'?” + </p> + <p> + “It is impossible to compare them. I made a great deal of progress. I + began one picture of a woman in a hammock, a recollection of you. You + remember when we passed under those cedar branches, close to the + 'Roebuck,' we saw a hammock hung by the water's edge, and I said I would + like to see you in it, and stand by and rock you. I had intended to send + it to the Academy, but I never could finish it, the French model was not + what I wanted—I wanted you; and I was obliged to leave France, and I + could get no one in Southwick. Once a fellow changes his model he is done + for; he never can find his idea again.” + </p> + <p> + “Where's Southwick?” + </p> + <p> + “A village outside Brighton, three or four miles, not more. I have a + studio there; you must come and see it.” + </p> + <p> + “You must paint me. But what would your lady love say if she found me in + your studio? She'd have me out of it pretty quick. Tell me about her; I + want to hear how you fell in love.” + </p> + <p> + “It happened in the most curious, quite providential way. I have told you + that I knew them since I was a boy. Maggie has often sat on my knee.” + </p> + <p> + “Maggie is her name, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, don't you like the name? I do. Her brother was a school-fellow of + mine. We were at Eton together, and one time when Mount Rorke was away + travelling they asked me to spend my holidays at Southwick. That's how I + got to know them. One day Maggie and Sally were at my studio; Sally has a + sweetheart—” + </p> + <p> + The sentence was cut short by a sudden roar. The train had entered a + tunnel, and the speakers made pause, seeing each other vaguely in the dim + light, and when they emerged into the cold April twilight Frank told the + story of Triss and Berkins, Mr. Brookes struggling with the door, and the + girls rushing screaming from their hiding-place; and Frank's imitation of + Berkin's pomposity amused Lizzie, and she laughed till she cried. He + continued till the joke was worn bare; then, fearing he had been talking + too much of himself, he said: “Now, I have been very candid with you, tell + me about yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “There is nothing to tell; I think I have told you all.” Then she said, + slipping, as she spoke, into minute confidences: “When I left the 'Gaiety' + I went for a few days to the Exhibition, but <i>he</i> wanted to leave + London, so I applied to the firm to remove me to Liverpool (not Liverpool + Street; the girl—I suppose it was Miss Clarke, for I wrote to her—made + a mistake, or you misunderstood her). We remained in Liverpool a year, and + then we came back to London, and I went to the 'Criterion,' but I couldn't + stop there long; he was so awfully jealous of me; he used to catechise me + every evening—who had I spoken to? How long I had spoken to this + man? Once I slapped a man's face in fun because he squeezed my hand when I + handed him the change across the counter. There was such a row about it. I + don't know how <i>he</i> heard of it. I think he must have got some one to + watch me. I often suspected the porter—the bigger one of the two; + but you don't know the 'Criterion.' You used to go to the 'Gaiety.'” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps he saw you himself. I suppose he used to come to the bar?” + </p> + <p> + “No, not unless—no, not very often. He banged me about.” + </p> + <p> + “Banged you about, the brute! Good heavens! How could you like a man who + would strike a woman? Who was he? Was he a gentleman—I mean, was he + supposed to be a gentleman? Of course he wasn't really a gentleman, or he + wouldn't have struck you.” + </p> + <p> + “He was in a passion, he was very sorry for it afterwards. Then I left the + firm and went to live in lodgings; he allowed me so much a week.” + </p> + <p> + “He was a man of some means?” + </p> + <p> + “No, but it didn't cost him much, he knew the people. We were going to be + married, but he got ill, and we thought we had better wait; and I went to + the 'Gaiety' again. I was a fool, of course, to think so much about him, + for I had plenty of chances. One man who used to lunch there three times a + week wanted me to marry him, and take me right away. I think he was in the + printing business—a man who was making good money; but I could not + give Harry up.” + </p> + <p> + “Harry is his name, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; but it all began over again. It was just the same at the 'Gaiety' as + it was at the 'Criterion.' He would never leave me alone, but kept on + accusing me of flirting with the gentlemen that came to the bar. Now, you + know as well as I do what the bar is. You must be polite to the gentlemen + you serve. There are certain gentlemen who always come to me, and don't + care to be served by any one else, and if I didn't speak to them they + wouldn't come to the bar. The manager is very sharp, and would be sure to + mention it.” + </p> + <p> + “Whom do you mean? That fellow with the yellow moustache that walks about + with his frock-coat all open—a sort of apotheosis of sherry and + bitters?” + </p> + <p> + “That's what you called him once before. You see I remember. He is very + fond of sherry and bitters. But I was saying that Harry would keep on + interfering with me, pulling me over the coals. We had such dreadful rows. + He accused me of having gone with gentlemen to their rooms—a thing I + never did. I could stand it no longer, and we agreed to part.” + </p> + <p> + “How long is that ago?” + </p> + <p> + “About three weeks. I could stand it no longer, I couldn't remain at the + 'Gaiety,' so I resolved to leave.” + </p> + <p> + “Why couldn't you remain at the 'Gaiety,' the manager didn't know anything + about it?” + </p> + <p> + “No, he knew nothing about it, it wouldn't have mattered if he had, but + after a break up like that you can't remain among people you know—you + want to get right away; there's nothing like a change. Besides I mightn't + get such a good chance again; I had the offer of a very good place in + Brighton, and I took it—a new restaurant, they open to-morrow. I get + thirty pounds a year and my food.” + </p> + <p> + “And lodging?” + </p> + <p> + “No, they are very short of accommodation, and I have taken a room in one + of the streets close by—Preston Street. Do you know it?” + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly, off the Western Road.” + </p> + <p> + “The lady who has the house knew my poor mother—a very nice woman—will + let me have a bedroom for five shillings a week, and I shall be allowed to + use her sitting-room when I want it, which, of course, won't be very + often, for I shall be at business all day.” + </p> + <p> + The train rolled along the platform; Frank asked the porter when there + would be a train for Southwick, and was told he would have half an hour to + wait. + </p> + <p> + “I shall have time to drive you to Preston Street.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, please don't! She will be waiting for you—you will miss + your train.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV + </h2> + <p> + About four in the afternoon he left off painting, and went to Brighton for + a couple of hours. The little journey broke up the day, he bought the + evening papers, and it was pleasant to glance from the news to those who + passed, and to look upon the sunny and hazy sea. He liked to go to + Mutton's, and regretted Lizzie was not there, instead of behind a bar + serving whisky and beer. But he went to the bar. It was a German + establishment, decorated with the mythological art of Munich, and + enlivened with a discordant band. The different rooms were fitted with + bars of various importance. Lizzie was engaged at the largest—that + nearest the entrance. At half-past five this bar was thronged with all + classes. Beer and whisky were drunk hurriedly, with a look of trains on + the face. The quietest time was from half-past three to half-past four, + during these hours the dining-room was alone in the presence of the awful + goddesses and a couple of drowsy waiters. Most of the girls were out, some + two or three read faded novels in the sloppy twilight; a group of four or + five men who had lingered from half-hour to half-hour turned their backs, + and talked among themselves; sometimes a couple would condescendingly + address Lizzie, and tease her with rude remarks; or else Frank found her + having a little private chat with an old gentleman, a youth, or, may be, + the waiter. + </p> + <p> + Lizzie had her bar manners and her town manners, and she slipped on the + former as she would an article of clothing when she lifted the slab and + passed behind. They consisted principally of cordial smiles, personal + observations, and a look of vacancy which she assumed when the + conversation became coarse. From behind the bar she spoke authoritatively, + she was secure, it was different—it was behind the bar; and she + spoke with a cheek and a raciness that at other times were quite foreign + to her. “I will not sleep with you to-night if you don't behave yourself,” + so Frank once heard her answer a swaggering young man. She spoke out loud, + evidently regarding her words merely in the light of gentle repartee. What + she heard and said in the bar remained not a moment on her mind, she + appeared to accept it all as part of the business of the place, and when + Frank was annoyed she only laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Men will talk improper—what does it matter? One doesn't pay + attention to their nonsense, and it is only in the bar. Never mind all + that, tell me what you have been doing. You didn't come into Brighton + yesterday, I suppose?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I had to go to the Manor House.” + </p> + <p> + “And how is she—the only one? Are you as much in love with her as + ever?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I am; I have begun a portrait of her.” + </p> + <p> + “What, another! You never finish anything. I shan't have that when I come + and sit for you. I shall make you finish my portrait.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes; when you come and sit. But, joking apart, when will you come? I + should so like to show you my studio. It really looks very nice now. When + will you come?” + </p> + <p> + “I have no time.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not come next Sunday; it is your Sunday off.” + </p> + <p> + “What would Maggie say if she found me there? She'd have my eyes out.” + </p> + <p> + “If she did find it out she'd know you came to sit; but as a matter of + fact she'd know nothing about it. You come and lunch with me about twelve—they're + all in church about that time.” + </p> + <p> + “And you never go to church, you wicked boy. I don't know that I dare + trust myself with you.” + </p> + <p> + A scruple jarred the even strain of his desire to paint Lizzie's portrait, + but his scruple vanished in one of her sweet sunny smiles, and he gave her + all information about the train she would have to take to reach Southwick + by twelve o'clock. + </p> + <p> + He ordered some delicacies in the way of potted meats, and there was a + bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice when she arrived. + </p> + <p> + “Do you keep your champagne in ice? We never do in the bar. When the + gentlemen want it they have a piece to put in their wine.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you'd try to forget your gentlemen when you come here.” + </p> + <p> + Lizzie began to cry, and it was hard to console her; she said that Frank + had spoilt her lunch for her. + </p> + <p> + “It is because you are so much superior to the men I see you speaking to. + How can I help feeling annoyed that you should be serving drinks?” + </p> + <p> + “But I've got to get my living. You don't suppose I serve in a bar because + I like it?” + </p> + <p> + “No, of course not; but don't let us talk any more about it. You're going + to sit to me, and I want to do as pretty a portrait of you as I can. All + that beautiful brown hair, and that hat! Let me take it from your head!” + Frank had bought this hat for her and had handed it to her over the + counter, thereby bringing censure upon her from the manager. “Let's forget + what I said. The hat suits you. There, now against the light, just a + three-quarter face.” + </p> + <p> + At the end of half an hour he said she was a very good sitter and this + pleased her, and she tried to keep the pose till the clock struck, but at + the end of fifty minutes she said: “I must get up,” and she came round to + see what he was doing. + </p> + <p> + “Now you mustn't criticise it,” he said. “It's only a beginning. You've + forgiven me my remarks about the bar?” + </p> + <p> + “Don't remind me of it again.” + </p> + <p> + But he could not get it out of his head that he had annoyed her, and was + unable to apply himself to his painting; perhaps for this reason his + drawing went wrong, and his colour became muddy, and the thought struck + him that if Maggie were to find this portrait about the studio she would + certainly ask him whose portrait it was. + </p> + <p> + “I can't paint to-day,” he said, getting up from his easel. + </p> + <p> + “And why can't you paint?” The question seemed to him at first a stupid + one, and then she showed a perception that surprised him. “Are you afraid + the young lady you're engaged to might come and catch me sitting to you?” + </p> + <p> + The fear that this might happen had been floating in the back of his mind + for the last half hour; he had kept Lizzie too long in the studio, and it + was not improbable that the girls might knock at his door at any moment, + and if they did it would be impossible for him not to answer. Triss would + bark. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” she said, “I won't keep you any longer.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I assure you,” he said aloud, and within himself, “I'd give a + sovereign if I could get her to the station without being seen.” + </p> + <p> + And he thought he had done so as he returned half an hour afterwards + across the green. Maggie was waiting for him. “Come to ask me to dine at + the Manor House,” he thought; but she told him that she knew all about his + visitor, and, despite all Frank's efforts to pacify her she grew more + violent, more excited until at last she told him she didn't want to see + him any more, that he was to go away, that she gave him his liberty. + </p> + <p> + “What an excitable girl she is! I'll go there this evening and try to coax + her out of her anger. I must try to explain to her that a painter must + have models. If we were married we shouldn't have more than a thousand a + year to live on at the outside—that is to say, if Mount Rorke and + Brookes come to terms, which is not very likely, they might make up a + thousand a year between them, that would not be enough for two, and I + should have to work; and I couldn't work without a model. The thing is + absurd! She'll have to learn that a model is absolutely necessary; we were + bound to have a row over that model question, so it might as well come off + now as later on, and we shall understand each other better when this has + blown over. There is nothing, and never has been anything, between me and + Lizzie—my conscience is clear on that score. How pretty she looked + to-day—that pale brown hair, so soft and so full of colour. To-day + was an unlucky day; I began by being unfortunate with my painting; I never + made a worse drawing in my life, and the worst of it was that I did not + see that my drawing was wrong until I had begun to paint.” + </p> + <p> + A remembrance of Maggie's gracefulness came dazzling and straining his + imagination, and in sharp revulsion of desire he assailed Lizzie with + angry and contemptuous memory. She was always in low company—was + never happy out of it; it was part of her. How this man liked six dashes + of bitters in his sherry, and the other would not drink whisky except in a + thin glass. + </p> + <p> + As he was leaving the studio he received a letter from Maggie, and when he + thought of the circumstances in which it was written, he grew genuinely + alarmed, for there was no forgetting the seriousness of the letter, and + she stated her reasons for the step she was taking without undue emphasis. + In its severity and quiet determination the letter did not seem like her, + and he suspected forgery, sisterly advice, paternal influence—a + family conspiracy. There was but one thing to do. He looked through the + various furniture for his hat; and with his head full of citations from + the lives of artists illustrative of their conduct, he went to her. But + Maggie would not see him. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Brookes,” the servant said, “is in her room and cannot see you, + sir.” + </p> + <p> + “She will never be mine, she will never be mine,” he muttered as he passed + into the town. “But why do I think she'll never be mine?” And looking at + the grey sea with only a trace of the sunset left in the grey sky he asked + himself if the thought that had crossed his mind were a conviction, a + fore-telling or merely a passing fancy created by the difficulty of the + moment. He asked himself if he had heard himself saying, “She'll never be + mine” and mistaken his own voice for the voice of Fate. Over the shingle + bank the sea faded, a thin illusion, dim and promiseful of peace, and as + the darkness and the sea filled Frank's soul he, the lightest and most + life-loving of men, was filled for once with a sense of failure of life, + and as his sorrowing thoughts drifted on he remembered that he had stood + with her in hearing of the rising tide, and all his pleading and passion + came back to him. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing here?” + </p> + <p> + It was Willy. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. Maggie has broken off her engagement; she will never speak + to me again, she hopes we may never meet.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand. When did she break off her engagement?” + </p> + <p> + Frank told his story, and they walked across the green towards the studio. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you don't care. I don't believe you are listening to me.” + </p> + <p> + “I am listening. You never think any one understands what is said to them + if they do not instantly jump and call the stars to witness.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I am like that—excitable—the difference between the + Celt and the Saxon; and yet I don't know, your sisters are quite as + excitable as I am.” + </p> + <p> + “They take after their mother; I am more like my father.” + </p> + <p> + “It wouldn't be a bad character for a play—a man who never would + believe what you said, unless you threw up your arms and called on the + stars.” + </p> + <p> + “He can't be very bad if he can think about plays,” thought Willy. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, Willy, you won't offend me; tell me exactly what you think, did + I do anything wrong? I swear to you there is nothing between me and Lizzie—I + believe she is over head and ears in love with some fellow who has treated + her very badly. She never would tell me who he was. In fact, she told me + she had left London so that she might get over it. There would be no use + my humbugging you, and I swear there is not, and never was, anything + between me and Lizzie Baker. I never expected to see her again. It is very + strange how people meet. I have told you all about it. When I go to + Brighton I must go somewhere to get a drink, and I really don't see there + is any harm in going to the 'Tivoli'; it didn't occur to me to think I + should avoid the place merely because she was serving there. I have often + been there, I don't deny it. Do you see there is any harm in my going + there?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't like giving an opinion unless I am fully acquainted with the + facts; but it seems to me that you might have gone to the 'Tivoli' to have + a drink without asking her to your studio.” + </p> + <p> + “Stay a bit, we'll speak of that presently. I am now telling you how I see + Lizzie when I go to Brighton. I often go to Brighton by the four o'clock + train, I often go to the 'Tivoli,' and when she is not talking to some one + else I talk to her about things in general; but I swear I have never been + out with her, that I never saw her except in the bar, and yet Maggie + accuses me of keeping a woman in Brighton, and won't hear what I have to + say in my defence. This is what she says: 'I have it on unquestionable + authority that you have been keeping this woman since you returned from + Ireland, perhaps before, and that you go in by the four o'clock train + almost daily to see her.' Now I ask you if it is fair to make such + accusations—such utterly false and baseless accusations—and + then to refuse to hear what a fellow has to say in his defence? By Jove! + if I caught the fellow who has been telling lies about me, I'd let him + have it. Some of those Southdown Road people have been writing to her, + that's about the long and short of it. + </p> + <p> + “As for having asked her to come to the studio, I assure you my intentions + were quite innocent. Perhaps you won't understand what I mean; you don't + care for painting, but very often an artist has a longing to paint a + certain face, and the desire completely masters him. Well, I had a longing + of this kind to paint Lizzie; hers is just the kind of head that suits me—she + offered to give me a sitting, Idid not see much harm in accepting, and as + I could not paint her in the bar-room, I asked her to the studio. But as + for making out there was anything wrong—I assure you she is not that + sort of girl. If we were married (I mean Maggie and I) I would have to + have models; we'll have to come to an understanding on that point. Now + what I want you to do is to explain to Maggie that there is nothing wrong + between me and Lizzie, you can tell her there is nothing—I swear + there is nothing; and then you had better explain that an artist must have + models to work from.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't ask me. I make a rule never to + interfere in my sisters' affairs. I did once, you remember, and I thought + I should never hear the end of it.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you might do this for me.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't, my dear fellow. I am an exceedingly + nervous chap, and I have had nothing but bad luck all my life.” + </p> + <p> + “You think of nothing but yourself. You certainly are the most selfish + fellow I ever met. You take no interest in any affairs but your own.” + </p> + <p> + Willy made no answer. He sat stroking his moustache softly with slow + crumpled hand. After a long silence, he said: “Tell me, Frank, are you + really in love with my sister, or is it only imagination? I know people + often think they are in love when their fancy is only a little excited. + Very little will pass for being in love, but the real thing is very + different from such fancies.” + </p> + <p> + “I assure you I never loved any one like Maggie. Yes, I am sure I love + her.” + </p> + <p> + “You may be in love, I don't say you aren't; but I am sure there's no more + common mistake than to fancy one's self in love because one's imagination + is a bit excited. When you do fall in love, you find out your mistake.” + </p> + <p> + “You think no one was ever in love but yourself. Do you remember when you + took me to see her, when we heard her sing 'Love was false as he was fair, + and I loved him far too well'?” + </p> + <p> + Frank knew no more of the story than that: Willy had loved this actress + vainly. On occasions Willy had alluded to her, but he had never shown + signs of wishing to confide. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I remember. How I loved that woman, and what a wreck it has made of + my life. I daresay you often think me dull; I can quite understand your + thinking me narrow-minded, selfish, and incapable of taking interest in + other people's affairs: losing her took the soul out of my life. Now + nothing really amuses me—now nothing really interests me. I often + think if I were to die, it would be a happy release.” + </p> + <p> + “You never told me anything about it before; wouldn't she marry you?” + </p> + <p> + “I never knew her. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her, and + my love swallowed up everything else. Then I wasn't wrapped up in + account-books, although I was always a precise and methodical sort of + chap; I was young enough then, now I am an older man than my father. Some + fellows have all the luck; everything succeeds with them, every one loves + them, men and women, they get all they ask for and more, others get + nothing. No matter what I tried to do, something went wrong and I was + baulked. I set my heart on that girl, she was the one thing I wanted. I + saw her play the same piece fifty times. I knew my passion was hopeless, + but I couldn't resist it. Had I known her I might have won her, but there + were no means; I never saw her but once off the stage, and that was but a + moment. I often sent her presents, sometimes jewellery, sometimes fans or + flowers, anything and everything I thought she would like. I sent her a + beautiful locket; I paid fifty pounds for it.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she accept your presents?” + </p> + <p> + “I sent them anonymously.” + </p> + <p> + “Why did you not try to make her acquaintance?” + </p> + <p> + “I knew nobody in the theatrical world. I was not good at making + acquaintances. You might have done it. I am a timid man.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you make no attempt? You might have written.” + </p> + <p> + “At last I did write.” + </p> + <p> + “What did you write?” + </p> + <p> + “I tried to tell her the exact truth. I told her that I had refrained from + writing to her for three years. That I quite understood the folly and the + presumption of the effort; but I felt now, as drowning men that clutch at + straws, that I must make my condition known to her. I told her I loved her + truly and honourably, that my position and fortune would have entitled me + to aspire to her hand if fate had been kind enough to allow me to know + her. It was a very difficult letter to write, and I just tried to make + myself clear. I told her I knew no one in the theatrical world, and that + waiting and hoping for some chanceto bring us together would only result + in misery long drawn out; that I had some faint hope that this letter + might lead her to consider that there might be an exception to the rule + that a young lady should not stop to speak to a young man she didn't know. + I remember I said 'when men are in deadly earnest, truth seems to shine + between the lines they write. I know I am in earnest, and may say that all + I hold dear and precious in life is set in the hope that this letter may + not appear to you in the light of one of those foolish and wicked letters + which I believe men often write to actresses, and of which I suppose you + have been the recipient.' Then I said that I would be at the stage door on + the following night, and that I hoped she would allow me to speak a few + words to her.” + </p> + <p> + “And did she?” + </p> + <p> + “I could not speak to her; I lost all courage in that moment. She walked + close by me.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say you did not speak to her after writing that letter?” + </p> + <p> + “Call me a fool, an idiot, what you will; I could not do it. I can only + compare my feeling to what Livingstone says he felt when he found himself + face to face with a lion. He stood staring in the lion's eyes, unable to + move.” + </p> + <p> + “She must have thought your letter a practical joke. I wonder what she did + think.” + </p> + <p> + “I wrote explaining the unfortunate circumstances as well as I could, and + telling her I would come the following night.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you go?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you speak to her?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “And she wouldn't speak?” + </p> + <p> + “She passed on with her maid, but I didn't lose hope until she married. It + was always a sort of sad pleasure to go to the theatre to see her. I used + to live at the Manor House for two or three months at a time, saving up my + money so as to be able to make her some nice present. I wished her to + remember me, although she would not speak to me. No one came to the Manor + House; there was nothing to do except to read the paper and smoke my pipe. + I was sick of my life, and I counted the days that would have to pass till + I saw her again—only thirty more days, only nineteen days, only one + more week—so I used to count, marking off each day in an almanac, + until one day I read the announcement of her marriage; then I knew all + hope was at an end. I went mad that night and rushed out of the house, and + I should have drowned myself had I not fainted. When I came to, I was weak + and delirious, and wandered along the beach, not knowing where I was + going. Some fishermen brought me home. My sisters were at school at the + time. I believe I was very near dying. I fainted three times one + afternoon. I used to lie on the sofa and cry for hours. She married a + stockbroker. I believe she didn't care for him at all. Then she died. She + was buried in Kensal Green. Whenever I am in London I go and see her + grave.” + </p> + <p> + “This is awfully sad.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; it ruined my life. I never had any luck. Things always went wrong + with me.” + </p> + <p> + “I should like to see those letters.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't got copies. I didn't keep a letter-book in those days. Let's + talk of something else. I have some news. I am going in for breeding + race-horses.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “What I say. I have calculated it all out, and I find I shall make from + fifteen to twenty per cent, on my money.” + </p> + <p> + “By breeding race-horses! And where are you going to breed them?” + </p> + <p> + “You know those stables on the Portslade Road where the veterinary surgeon + used to live? I am going to take that place. The rent is three hundred + pounds a year; there are fifty acres of pasture, and stabling for thirty + horses. The dwelling-house is not a very aristocratic-looking place, but + it will do for the present; when I begin to make money I shall go in for + alterations. You can't do everything at once.” + </p> + <p> + “You do astonish me. And where are you going to get the money to do all + this? You will require at least twenty thousand pounds capital.” + </p> + <p> + “More than that. You would not be able to work a place like that under + twenty-five thousand pounds,” Willy replied sententiously. “I have got + about eight thousand left of my own, and I came in for a legacy of three + thousand at the beginning of this year—an aunt of mine left me the + money; and my father has agreed to let me have fourteen thousand on + condition of my abandoning all further claim upon him. The bulk of his + fortune will now be divided among my sisters. Berkins advised him to + accept my offer.” + </p> + <p> + “I should think so indeed; your father is worth ten thousand a year.” + </p> + <p> + “No, nothing like that. His business has been going down for years past. + Last year he lost heavily again; if it weren't for his investments he + wouldn't be able to go on with it. The business is done for; I knew that + long ago. My father and I could never agree about how the accounts should + be kept. That head clerk of his is an awful duffer.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but what are you going to do with the shop?” + </p> + <p> + “The shop was the origin of it all. If it hadn't been for the shop I dare + say I never should have thought of the race-horses. My father and I could + never work together. I offered to buy his surplus fruit and vegetables, + and, without absolutely binding myself to deal with no one else, I had + assured him of my chief custom. Naturally I expected something in return—I + expected him to let me have peaches in April and strawberries in March. + You cannot do this without using a good deal of heating power. I spoke to + the gardener several times. Often when I went into the houses I found the + pipes nearly cold. I got tired of this, and I paid a man out of my own + pocket to keep the furnaces properly stoked, and—would you believe + it?—my father actually raised objections—objected to my paying + a man to look after his glass-houses as they should be looked after. He + said he would not order in any more coke, that I'd have to get along with + what there was in the garden; he said he wished the shop at the devil. I + saw it was hopeless. You cannot help my father, and he won't help himself, + so I threw the whole thing up.” + </p> + <p> + “And when are you going to start the new scheme?” + </p> + <p> + “Immediately. One of my reasons for accepting fourteen thousand pounds + down as a settlement in full was because I was beginning to fear that he + might get wind of my marriage. From one or two things I have heard lately, + I have reason to suspect that the secret is beginning to ooze out, and I + thought it might be as well to take time by the forelock.” + </p> + <p> + “And you told him? What did he say?” + </p> + <p> + “What people usually say when they criticise other people's lives without + knowing anything of their temptations and sufferings. But I want to tell + you about my scheme. I have bought Blue Mantle, the winner of the + Czarewitch, and only beaten by a length for the Cambridgeshire, a + three-year-old, with eight stone on his back; a most unlucky horse—if + he had been in the Leger or Derby he would have won one or both. He broke + down when he was four years old. By King Tom out of Merry Agnes, by + Newminster out of Molly Bawn.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know you knew so much about racing.” + </p> + <p> + “I know more than you think. I don't let out all I know.” + </p> + <p> + “And how much did you pay for Blue Mantle?” + </p> + <p> + “Dirt cheap. I can imagine myself two years hence, when my first batch of + yearlings is put up for sale—500, 650, 800, 1000, knocked down for + 1000 guineas, brown colt by Blue Mantle out of Wild Rose, bred by William + Brookes, Esq.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think money will come in quite so fast as that.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps not; but can't you let a fellow enjoy himself? I never knew any + one like you for throwing cold water. I believe you are jealous.” + </p> + <p> + “What nonsense!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, never mind. I shall be the deuce of a dog, see if I shan't. I + always like to kill two birds with one stone if I can, and my business + will bring me into connection with the very best in the land. + Unfortunately! my people don't care about getting on; now I do. I like to + know people who are better than myself—at all events, who are no + worse. I shouldn't be surprised if I were dining at Goodwood and Arundel + before long. When I go up to town I shall be calling on Lady This and Lady + That, and later on I might get in somewhere in the Conservative interest.” + </p> + <p> + “How long you may know a man, and then find you are mistaken in his + character,” thought Frank. “So vanity is at the bottom of all these + efforts to make money.” + </p> + <p> + “When are you coming to the Manor House?” + </p> + <p> + “Impossible. You know I can't go there so long as your father—” + </p> + <p> + “Come in one afternoon; he'll ask you to stay to dinner. He has forgotten + all about it.” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot come to the Manor House until my engagement to your sister is + sanctioned by him.” + </p> + <p> + “The way to get that is to come to the Manor House and talk him into it. + For my part, I think, even from his point of view, that it would be better + that he should recognise the engagement; nothing can be more damaging than + these clandestine meetings.” + </p> + <p> + “What can I do? I will not give her up.” + </p> + <p> + “I never interfere. I have quite enough worries of my own. I must be + getting home. It is very late. Good-bye.” + </p> + <p> + The green was as bright as day in the moonlight and Frank watched Willy + walking, his shoulders thrown back. He sighed; an undefinable, but + haunting melancholy hung about Willy; he often impressed Frank as an old + book—a book whose text is trite—which no one will read, and + which yet continues to make its mute appeal; a something that has always + missed its way, that can hardly be said to be an adequate thing to offer + for any man's money, that will soon disappear somehow out of all sight and + reckoning. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XV + </h2> + <p> + A few days after he got a letter from Lizzie, saying she was alone and + ill, and asking him to come and see her. He took the next train to + Brighton. The land-lady's daughter, a girl of about twelve, opened the + door to him. + </p> + <p> + “How is Miss Baker? Is she any better?” + </p> + <p> + “Please, sir, she is not at all well, she has cold shivers; and mother + went away yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “And who looks after Miss Baker?” + </p> + <p> + “Please, sir, I do.” + </p> + <p> + “You do! Is there no one else in the house?” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Is Miss Baker in bed?” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir. She said she would get up a little while this afternoon, 'cause + she said she thought you was coming.” + </p> + <p> + “Go and tell her I am here.” + </p> + <p> + “Please, sir, she said you was to go upstairs—the back room on the + second floor, please.” + </p> + <p> + “Come in.” + </p> + <p> + “I am so sorry you are ill, Lizzie. What is the matter?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know; I think I caught a severe chill. I stayed out very late on + the beach.” + </p> + <p> + “But why are you crying? Do tell me. Can I do anything?” + </p> + <p> + “No no. What does it matter whether I laugh or cry? Nothing matters now. I + don't care what becomes of me.” + </p> + <p> + “A pretty girl like you; nonsense! Some one rich and grand will fall in + love with you, and give you everything you want.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't want any one to fall in love with me; I am done for—don't + care what becomes of me.” + </p> + <p> + “Do tell me about it. Have you heard anything further about him? Do tell + me; don't cry like that.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, leave me, leave me! I am so miserable. I don't know why I wrote + to you. I hope I shall die.” + </p> + <p> + “It is very lucky you did write to me, for you are clearly very ill. What + is the matter?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know; I can't get warm. This room is very cold—don't you + think so?” + </p> + <p> + “Cold? No.” + </p> + <p> + “I feel cold; my throat is very bad—perhaps I shall be better in the + morning.” + </p> + <p> + “You must see a doctor.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no! I don't want to see a doctor.” + </p> + <p> + “You must see a doctor.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, I beg of you. I only wrote to you because I was feeling so + miserable.” + </p> + <p> + Lizzie stood between him and the door, imploring him not to fetch a + doctor, but to go away at once, and to tell no one she had written to him, + or that he had been to see her. “Nothing matters now—I am ruined—I + don't care what becomes of me.” He marvelled; but soon all considerations + were swept away in anxiety for her bodily health; and having extorted a + promise from her that she would not leave the room until he came back, he + rushed to the nearest chemist and hence to the doctor. + </p> + <p> + “I want you to come at once, if possible, and see a young lady who, I + fear, is dangerously ill. She has not been in Brighton long. She is quite + alone. She sent for me. I live at Southwick. I came out at once. I have + known her a long time. I may say she is a great friend of mine. I found + her very ill—I must say her condition seems to me alarming. I should + like her to see a doctor at once. Can you come at once?” + </p> + <p> + “I am just finishing dinner. I will come in about ten minutes' time. What + is the address?” + </p> + <p> + “20 Preston Street.—I hope he does not think there is anything + wrong,” thought Frank. “He look's as if he did,” and with a view of + removing suspicion, he said: “She is a young lady whom I have known for + some years. We had lost sight of each other until we travelled down in the + train together. I say this because I do not wish you to think there is + anything wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “My good sir, I should not allow myself to have any opinions on the + matter. I am summoned to attend a patient, and I give the best advice in + my power.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but one can't help forming opinions—a beautiful young girl + living alone in lodgings, and having apparently for sole protector a young + man, are circumstances that might be easily misconstrued, and as I am + engaged to be married, I think it right to tell you exactly how I stand in + relation to this young woman.” + </p> + <p> + The doctor bowed. + </p> + <p> + “Do you not think I did well in making this explanation?” + </p> + <p> + “It can do no harm; we medical men see so much that we take no notice of + anything but our patient. But tell me something of this young lady's + suffering. Can you describe the symptoms?” + </p> + <p> + “She has a racking headache—she is shivering all over—she sits + by the fire and cannot get warm. It looks to me as if it were fever.” + </p> + <p> + “Does she complain of her throat?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; she cannot swallow.” + </p> + <p> + “Probably an attack of quinsy.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that dangerous?” + </p> + <p> + “No; but it is infectious.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't mind about that—she is alone. I will see her through it.” + </p> + <p> + “I will go round to Preston Street immediately I have finished dinner—in + about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.” + </p> + <p> + When the doctor had seen Lizzie, he said to Frank, who accompanied him + downstairs: “Just as I expected—quinsy. She will take from eight to + ten days to get well. We have taken it in time, that's one good thing. The + throat is very bad. She must have a linseed poultice, and she must use the + gargle. Is there any one in the house who can attend to her?” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid not; the landlady went away this morning, leaving no one in + the house but that child. She will, I hope, be home to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “In that case you had better have a nurse in; I will give you the address + of one.” + </p> + <p> + When Frank returned he found her lying on the bed weeping. As before, she + refused to tell him the cause of her grief. She would make no other answer + than that nothing mattered now, that she didn't care what became of her; + and when he spoke of going to fetch a nurse, she waved her hands + excitedly, declaring she would on no consideration stop in the house with + a woman she didn't know. And, hardly able to decide what course he should + take, he promised not to leave her; she clung about him, and he was forced + to send the child (whose name he now found to be Emma) to the chemist for + the linseed, and he wrote a note asking for explicit directions how it + should be used. Then he had to persuade Lizzie to go to bed. She resisted + him, and it was with great difficulty that he got her boots and stockings + off; then she collected her strength, unbuttoned her dress, and took off + her stays. Then she said: “Go out of the room for a moment.” + </p> + <p> + He found his way into the kitchen, and guessing that hot water would be + required, he lit a fire. But there was no muslin, and he had to send Emma + for some. Lizzie smiled faintly when they entered—Frank with a + basin, Emma with a kettle and a parcel of linen. Frank poured some rum + into a glass, and beat an egg up with it. + </p> + <p> + “What is that?” she asked; and her voice was so faint and hoarse that he + turned, quite startled. + </p> + <p> + “Something that will do your throat good and keep your strength up. + Possibly you will not be able to eat much to-morrow.” He held the tumbler + to her lips, and at length succeeded in getting her to drink it. “Emma, is + the kettle boiling?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “You had better go downstairs and get some coals, and if you can't find + any nightlights you must go out and buy a box. Have you got any money + over?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir, sixpence.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, Lizzie, let me put this on your throat. Throw your head well back. + There, it isn't too hot?” + </p> + <p> + And all that night he sat by her bedside. Often she could not get her + breath, and he had to lift her and prop her up with pillows; and four + times he lit the candle, and, with tired eyes, mixed the meal and placed + it on her throat. The firelight played upon the ceiling, the kettle sang + softly, the sufferer moaned, the light brought the rumble of a cart, and + they awoke from shallow sleeps that blurred but did not extinguish + consciousness of the actual present. “You must not uncover yourself; you + will catch cold. Let me pin this shawl about you.” About eight o'clock + Emma knocked at the door. Frank asked her to make him a cup of tea. The + morning dragged along amid many anxieties, for he could see she was worse + than she had been over night. + </p> + <p> + “The disease must take its course,” said the doctor; “we shall be + fortunate if by poulticing we can stop it; if we can't, it will come to a + head in about eight or nine days' time, and then it will break. Did you + see the nurse last night? Couldn't she come?” + </p> + <p> + “She,” said Frank, pointing to the sufferer, “wouldn't allow me to send + for her; she said she would not stay in the house with a strange woman. + She was very excited; I fancy she has had some great mental trouble—a + sweetheart, I suppose. I did not like to cross her. I thought I could + nurse her; I did my best. Was the poultice all right?” + </p> + <p> + “Quite right. But you will have to sit up with her to-night. You will be + very tired; you had better get in a nurse.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I shall be able to manage. The landlady is expected home this + evening or to-morrow morning. What had she better have to eat?” + </p> + <p> + “She won't be able to eat anything for some days. Try to get her to take + an egg beat up in a wine-glass of rum.” + </p> + <p> + Hourly she grew worse, and on the following day Frank stood by her bed + momentarily fearing that she would suffocate; once her face blackened and + he had to seize and lift her out of bed, and place her in a chair. When + she seemed a little easier he called Emma, and they made the bed and + cleaned up the room together. Then he ate a sausage and drank a glass of + beer that had been brought from the public-house. + </p> + <p> + The first night had seemed long and weary, but now the hours passed + quickly; he had forgotten all but the suffering woman, and in the interest + of inducing her to swallow some beef-tea, in the pride of such successes + another and then another day fled lightly. Nor did he feel tired as he had + done, and now a nap in an arm-chair seemed all that he required. So the + landlady came as an unwelcome interruption of an absorbing occupation. + Haggard and unshaven, he returned to Southwick, where he found a note on + his table from General Horlock, asking him to dinner that evening. + </p> + <p> + “I know the meaning of this: Maggie will be there—a reconciliation! + Can I?” He turned his ear quickly from his conscience; he was frightened + of the voice that would tell him that Maggie was nothing to him, never had + been, never could be; that he had been born for Lizzie Baker, as the + soldier is for the sword or the bullet that kills him; others had passed + him, had been heard sharply, had gleamed dangerously in his eyes. They + were but signs and omens meant for others, not for him, and they had + passed. But this one had remained, though often lost, as that remains + which is to be, and she was now no less for him than before, though now + seemingly lost irrevocably to another; and in all the seeming of + irrevocable loss was drawing nearer—not with the victory and destiny + of old in her eyes, but with no less victory and destiny inherent in her. + Though far from him, she had been for long a disintegrated influence, but + what had been distant was now near, and all was yielding like a ship in + the attraction of the fabulous loadstone mountain. That room!—the + wash-hand-stand, the dirty panes of glass, the iron bed-there his fate had + been sealed. That body which he had lifted out of bed still lay heavy in + his arms. He still breathed the odour of the hair he had gathered from the + pillow and striven to pin up; those eyes of limpid blue, pale as water + where isles are sleeping, burned deep and livid in his soul; the touch and + sight of that flesh, the sound of that voice, those tears, the solicitude + and anxiety of those hours of night and day conspired against him, and his + life was big with incipient overthrow. + </p> + <p> + Lizzie was with him at all times. He saw her eyes, then her teeth, and the + perfume and touch of her hair was often about him; and yet he was hardly + conscious that a revolution of feeling was in progress within him; and + when the time came for him to go to Horlock's he went there avoiding all + thoughts of Maggie, although he knew he would be called upon that night to + take a decisive step. He saw little of her before dinner, and during + dinner the General's allusions to the quarrels of lovers being the renewal + of love vexed him, and he thought, “Confound it! If I want to make it up I + will; but I am not going to be bullied into it.” When the ladies left the + room he found it difficult to pretend to the kind-hearted old soldier that + he did not believe that Maggie would forgive him. “Forgive me for what? I + have done nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “To get on with women you must always admit you are in the wrong—ha, + ha, ha!” laughed the General; “now I have it from my wife—women know + everything—ha, ha, ha!” laughed the General. “Have another glass of + sherry?” + </p> + <p> + “No, thanks; couldn't take any more.” + </p> + <p> + “I took I won't tell you how many glasses before I proposed to my wife, + and then I was afraid; enough to make me—a clever woman like Mrs. + Horlock, I believe you wouldn't find a woman in England like Mrs. Horlock. + Look round; all that's her work. Look at that white Arab—exactly + like him. I won five hundred pounds with that horse; but I wouldn't be + satisfied, and I ran him again the following day and lost it all and five + hundred more with it. I had another horse. My wife is modelling him in + wax; she will show it to you in the next room. Marvellous woman!” + </p> + <p> + Passing Maggie by who was sitting in the window, Frank inveigled Mrs. + Horlock into an anatomical discussion. The General stretched out his feet, + put on his spectacles, and took up the <i>St James's</i>. The conversation + dropped, and, full of apprehension and expecting reconciliation, Frank + went to Maggie and talked to her of the tennis parties he was going to, of + the people he had seen—of indifferent things. The time was tense + with the fate of their lives. Once she turned her head and sighed. Time + slipped by, and still they talked of their friends—of things they + knew perfectly. Maggie said: “I hope you are not angry; I hope we shall + remain friends.” Frank replied: “I hope so,” and again the conversation + paused. The General denounced Gladstone, and praised his wife's sculpture. + Ten o'clock! Angel was lifted out of his basket. If Maggie had been Helen + and Southwick Troy, he would not be kept waiting; the dogs had to be taken + out; Willy came to fetch Maggie; hands were tendered, lips said good-bye, + and, with a sense of parting, they parted. + </p> + <p> + Feeling adrift and strangely alone, he walked to his lodging. His future + loomed up in his mind as vague and as illusive as the village that now + glared through the mist, white and phantasmal. He did not regret—we + can hardly regret the impossible. Then, falling back on a piece of prose, + he said: “Where was the good? Mount Rorke would never have given his + consent. Poor Lizzie; I hope she is better. I hope it has broken. She + won't get any relief until it does.” + </p> + <p> + And next day, towards evening, he went to Brighton. He found her shrinking + over the fire, wrapped in a woollen shawl. + </p> + <p> + “How are you to-day? You look a little better. I did not expect to find + you out of bed.” + </p> + <p> + “I am better, thank you; it broke yesterday, and I feel relieved. You are + very good. I think I should have died if it had not been for you. Think of + that landlady leaving me in the way she did.” + </p> + <p> + “What was the reason? Why did she rush off in that way?” + </p> + <p> + “She went to town to see her sister, and she says she was taken ill. She + drinks.” + </p> + <p> + “Does she? I hope she looked after you yesterday?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes.” + </p> + <p> + “As well as I did?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know about that; you are a very good nurse. It was very good of + you; no one else would have done it.” + </p> + <p> + “What, not even <i>he</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “You were with me for four days, and you never even went to bed—never + took your clothes off.” + </p> + <p> + “Never even washed myself. By George! I was glad to get home and have a + good wash. I was a sorry-looking object—haggard and unshaven.” + </p> + <p> + “Where did you say you had been to?” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody asked me.” + </p> + <p> + “Not Maggie?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I didn't tell you our engagement is broken off.” + </p> + <p> + “No; you didn't say nothing about it.” + </p> + <p> + “On account of you. She discovered that you had been to my studio, and she + said I was keeping a woman in Brighton.” + </p> + <p> + “Keeping a woman in Brighton—she thinks you are keeping me! I will + write to her and tell her that it is not true. What right has she to say + such things about me?” + </p> + <p> + “She doesn't say it about you. She says a woman.” + </p> + <p> + “She means me.” + </p> + <p> + “No, she doesn't; she doesn't know anything about you. Some one told her I + went into Brighton every day by the four o'clock train, and she put two + and two or rather two and three together, and said it was six.” + </p> + <p> + “But I will write to her. I will not be the cause of any one's marriage + being broken off.” + </p> + <p> + “You need not trouble. I saw her last night, and I could have made it all + right had I chosen—she was quite willing.” + </p> + <p> + “You can't care for her!” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose not. I don't think I ever really loved her. I thought I did. I + was mistaken.” + </p> + <p> + “You are very changeable.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't think I am—at least not so far as you are concerned. I + was mistaken. I was in love with some one else—with you.” + </p> + <p> + “With me?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, with you. I was in love with you when we went to Reading, and never + got over it. I thought I had, but when love is real we never get over it. + I always loved you, and those four days I spent nursing you have brought + it all out. I shall never love any one else. I know you don't care for me; + you said once you couldn't care for me.” + </p> + <p> + “I! I am too miserable to care for any one. I wish you had let me die; but + that is ungrateful. You must excuse me, I am so miserable. Why speak of + loving me? I can love no one. I don't care what becomes of me. I am + ruined; nothing matters now.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would confide in me; you can trust me. Has he forsaken you? + Can you not make it up?” + </p> + <p> + “No, never now; I shall never see him again.” + </p> + <p> + “Has anything happened lately, since you came to Brighton?” + </p> + <p> + Lizzie nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Don't cry like that; tell me about it.” + </p> + <p> + “What's the use? Nothing matters now.” + </p> + <p> + “Has he been here?” + </p> + <p> + Lizzie nodded, and Frank folded the shawl about her, and wiped her tears + away with his pocket handkerchief. “Since you were ill?” + </p> + <p> + “No, before I was ill; he was down here watching me. He found out I had + gone to your studio, and he said the most dreadful things—that he + would break your head, and that I had never been true to him, and that I + was not fit to be the wife of an honest man.” + </p> + <p> + “But I will tell him that you came to my studio to sit for your portrait.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you mustn't write; it would only make matters worse. No use; he says + he will never see me again.” + </p> + <p> + “Where can I see him? Has he gone back to London? I will follow him and + tell him he is mistaken.” + </p> + <p> + “No, please don't, and please don't go to the 'Gaiety'; he is a violent- + tempered man; something dreadful might occur. Please, promise me.” + </p> + <p> + “Not go to the 'Gaiety'? He doesn't know me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he does.” + </p> + <p> + “Have I seen him? Do tell me; you know you can trust me. I am your friend. + Tell me—” + </p> + <p> + “You have seen him in the 'Gaiety,' in the grill-room—the waiter, + number two, the good-looking tall man.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” + </p> + <p> + “He wasn't always a waiter; his people are very superior. He has been + unfortunate.” + </p> + <p> + “And it was he you loved this long while?” + </p> + <p> + “I never cared for another man.” + </p> + <p> + “I must write and tell him he is committing an act of injustice. I will + make this matter right for you, Lizzie.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think you can?” + </p> + <p> + “I am sure of it.” + </p> + <p> + He rang for the landlady, and asked for writing materials. She apologised + for the penny bottle of ink, and spoke of getting a table from the next + room, but he said he could write very well on the chimney-piece. “I + suppose I had better begin, 'Sir'?” + </p> + <p> + “Don't people generally begin, 'Dear Sir'?” + </p> + <p> + “Not when they don't know the people they are writing to.” + </p> + <p> + “But you do know him a little. He always said you were very haughty. You + used to sit at his table.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I had better begin the letter with 'Sir.'” + </p> + <p> + “Very well. You know best. He was always very jealous.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVI + </h2> + <p> + “SIR,—I hear from Miss Baker that you were in Brighton last week, + and, drawing the inference from the fact that she came to my studio to sit + for her portrait, you accuse her of very grievous impropriety. I beg to + assure you that this is not so. At my urgent request, Miss Baker, whom I + had better say I have known for some years, consented to give me a + sitting. My intentions were purely artistic; hers were confined to a wish + to oblige an old friend, and I deeply regret that they should have been + misinterpreted, and I fear much unhappiness caused thereby.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think that will do?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it is a beautiful letter.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think so—do you really think so? Do you think I have said + all?” + </p> + <p> + “You might say something—that I never even kissed you; and that you + respected me too much.” + </p> + <p> + “I will if you like, but don't you think that is implied?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps so; but you see he does not read many books. He hasn't time for + much reading, and you put things in a difficult way. They sound beautiful, + but I—” + </p> + <p> + “Show me.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, this 'grievous impropriety.' I know what you mean, but I couldn't + explain it.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall I say 'serious impropriety'? but grievous is the right word. You + say a grievous sin for a mortal sin. If we had done any wrong it would + have been a grievous sin; but I'll change the word if you like.” + </p> + <p> + “No, don't change it on my account; but I think he would understand an + easier word better.” + </p> + <p> + “A 'heinous impropriety'? No, that won't do. A 'serious impropriety.' That + will do. Is there anything else you would like me to alter?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't think there is.” + </p> + <p> + “You think this letter will convince him that there was nothing wrong?” + </p> + <p> + “I hope so; but he is a very suspicious man.” + </p> + <p> + “I will post it when I go out.” Then after a long silence: “Do you know + what time it is? It must be getting late.” + </p> + <p> + “It must be getting on for nine.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I must say good-bye; but I forgot, I want to ask you—you must + be hard up, and want some money—do you? If you do, I assure you I + shall be only too glad.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I am rather hard up, for you know that this illness has prevented + my doing anything; and I am afraid I have lost my place at the 'Tivoli.'” + </p> + <p> + “What do you intend to do?” + </p> + <p> + “I should like to go back to London. I shall see him there, and if the + letter makes it right we may be married. I will write to you.” + </p> + <p> + “You will?—Do. Here is five pounds. I have no more about me, but if + anything should occur, you know where to write to.” + </p> + <p> + “You are very good; I don't deserve it. I don't know why you take so much + trouble about me. If he doesn't marry me I'll try to get another place; I + shall go back to the firm.” + </p> + <p> + “When do you intend to leave?” + </p> + <p> + “As soon as I am well enough, in a day or two; but you will not come here + again.” + </p> + <p> + “I had thought that I might.” + </p> + <p> + “I know; but if he were to hear that you had been here, it would be worse + than ever. You don't mind, do you? You aren't angry, are you?” + </p> + <p> + “No; good-bye, Lizzie. Write to me when you are married.” Frank walked + into the street. There was neither rage nor will in him. He was a + sorrowing creature in a bitter world. The sea was cruelly blue in the + coming night; the sky was also blue, only deeper, a red streak like a red + bar of iron stretched across the embaying land, relieving into picturesque + detail the outlines of coast-towns and villages. His eyes rested on and + drew grief from this dim distance so illusive; and for jarring contrast, + the pier hung with gaudy and gross decoration in the blue night, and a + brass band replied to the waves. + </p> + <p> + Then the clouds lifted, and when he returned to Southwick the moon was + shining and some boys pursued the resounding ball through the shadows. He + undressed with an effort, and he lay down hoping never to rise again. Next + morning he went to his studio full of resolve. His picture must be + finished for one of the winter exhibitions. He did not take up his + palette, nor did he sit at his piano for more than a few minutes; and when + he met Willy he raged against Lizzie, jeered at her vulgarity, heaped + ridicule upon her lover, the waiter; he spoke of writing a novel on the + subject; he set out her character at length; and was alarmed when told + that Maggie was ill. He must win her. She must be his wife. So he told + Willy, so he assured himself that she would. He knew that Lizzie was + nothing to him. She had left Brighton, thank God! He went to sleep, + certain he had torn this page out of his life, and he awoke to find it + still there; and day after day he continued to brood upon, and still + unable to understand its meaning, he longed to turn it over and read, for + there were other pages; but they were sealed, and he might only read this + one page. + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid that our old friend Brookes is having a hard time of it,” said + the General, taking the spectacles from his nose, and laying down the <i>St + James's</i>, “they are all at him tooth and nail,” and the General laughed + gleefully. “You are the young man who has upset them. The young lady won't + dress herself.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Reggie, you shouldn't talk like that. I do hate to hear scandal; + you'll repent it,” said Mrs. Horlock, and she adroitly smoothed the wax on + the horse's quarters. + </p> + <p> + “I assure you, Mrs. Horlock, I never repeat what I hear; the guiding + principle of my life is not to repeat conversations. Particularly in a + village like Southwick, it is most essential that none of us should repeat + conversations; I have always said that.” + </p> + <p> + “Do tell me about Maggie; I hear she is very ill. What is the matter with + her? What did you say—the young lady won't dress herself?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Reggie, I will not stay here and listen to scandal. Not a word of + it is true, Mr. Escott.” + </p> + <p> + “What is not true, Mrs. Horlock?” + </p> + <p> + “What he told you about her walking about the house with her hair down.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think the General said anything about walking about the house + with her hair down; he said some one wouldn't dress herself. I suppose he + meant Maggie. I am sure I am sorry—I am most sorry—to hear she + is ill, but it is unjust to assume that I had anything to do with her + illness. We can speak freely among ourselves, you know. You know the + circumstances; no one is more capable of understanding the case than you, + for you are an artist. Maggie heard that I had had a model, that's what it + amounts to, and she broke off the engagement; nothing could be more + unjust, nothing could be more unwarranted.” + </p> + <p> + “It could be brought on again, I know that,” said Mrs. Horlock, and she + turned the shoulders of her horse to the light. + </p> + <p> + “We will not go into that question, Mrs. Horlock. I confine myself to what + has happened, and I say I was treated unjustly, most shamefully; and when + I have been cast aside like an old hat, I hear indirectly that it can be + made up again. I have borne quite enough, and will bear no more. Old + Brookes came down to my studio with that cad Berkins, and forced his way + in, and then forbade me the house because my dog bit Berkins's thigh. I + couldn't help it. What did he attack me for? He didn't suppose a bull-dog + would be still while his master was being knocked on the head.” + </p> + <p> + “What should a common City man know about dogs? He wouldn't sign the + petition when I asked him, to Sir Charles Warren, to cancel the + regulations about muzzling.” + </p> + <p> + “And then they set a report going that I had set the dog on, and if I + hadn't set it on, that I hadn't called him off. As if I could! You know + what a bull-dog is, Mrs. Horlock? Is a highly-bred dog likely to let go + when he has fixed his teeth in the fleshy part of a thigh? The Brookes are + old friends of mine, and I wouldn't say a word against them for the world; + but of course it is as obvious to you as it is to me that they are not + quite the thing. I mean—you know—I would not think of + comparing them with the Southdown Road; but there is a little something. + City people are not the Peerage; there's no use saying they are. Mount + Rorke was upset; but I would not give in, and I think I should have won + his consent in the long run. After all I have borne for her sake I think I + might expect better treatment than to be thrown over, as I have said, like + an old hat; and I don't mind telling you that I do not intend to be made a + fool of in this matter; I shall turn a very deaf ear to stories of a + broken heart and failing health. I shall not cease to think of Maggie. I + loved her once very deeply, and I should have loved her always if—But + tell me, General. You know I will not repeat anything.” + </p> + <p> + “I advise you to say no more, Reggie. I will not be mixed up in any + scandal. I shall leave the room. Sally is dining here to-night; she is + only too anxious to talk of her sister. If Mr. Escott will stay and take + pot-luck with us, he will no doubt hear everything there is to hear in the + course of the evening.” + </p> + <p> + “What have we got for dinner, Ethel? I know we have got a leg of mutton, + and there is some curry.” + </p> + <p> + “Your dinners are always excellent, Mrs. Horlock. I shall be delighted to + stay. Here is Sally. Oh, how do you do, Sally? We were talking of you.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid every one is talking of me, now,” she whispered, and the big + girl passed over to Mrs. Horlock and kissed her. “How is it that no one + has seen anything of you lately?” she said, taking the seat next him. + “What have you been doing?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing in particular. But I want to ask you about Maggie. I hear she is + very ill.” + </p> + <p> + Perceiving that his tone did not bespeak a loving mood, Sally's face + brightened, and she became at once voluble and confidential. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we have been having no end of a time at home. Father has been + speaking of selling the place and leaving Southwick.” + </p> + <p> + “Speaking of selling the place and leaving Southwick! And where does he + think of going to live, and what is the reason of this?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the reason! I suppose he would say I was the reason; and where heis + going to live, that is not settled yet—probably one of the big + London hotels. He says everybody is laughing at him, and that when he + meets the young men at the station he can see them laughing at him over + their newspapers, for, according to father, they have all flirted with us. + Maggie has been saying all kinds of things against me, and I am afraid + that the Southdown Road people have been writing him anonymous letters + again. Some one—I don't know who it is—I wish I did—has + been telling him the most shocking things about Jimmy Meason and me; + things in which I assure you there is not a word of truth. You know + yourself that we have hardly spoken for nearly two years; last year, it is + true, we made it up a bit in your studio, but it didn't last long. I don't + think I saw him twice afterwards, and never alone—and now to have + everything that happened two years ago raked up and thrown in my face! I + don't say I haven't—I don't know what you'd call it, I suppose you'd + call it spooning. I admit I infinitely preferred walking about the garden + with a young man to sitting in the drawing-room and doing woolwork. I was + a silly little fool then, but I do think it hard that all this should be + raked up now. I don't know what will happen. Maggie pretends to be + frightened at me; 'tis only her nonsense to set father against me. She + won't dress herself, and she walks about with her hair down her back, + wringing her hands.” + </p> + <p> + “But what does she say? This is very bewildering. I don't understand—I + am quite lost.” + </p> + <p> + “The fact is that Maggie doesn't know what she is saying, so I suppose I + oughtn't to blame her. She is a little off her head, that's the truth of + it; but you mustn't say I said so, it will get me into worse trouble than + I am already in. She was like that once before, and had to be put in the + charge of a lady who was in the habit of dealing with excitable people. I + don't mean lunatics, don't run away with that notion. I don't know what + would happen if it got about that I was putting that about. Maggie is very + excitable, and she has been exciting herself a great deal lately—you + were the principal cause. She did all she could to get you to make it up + when you met her here at dinner—the dinner was given for that—but + you said nothing about it, and she came home in an awful state, accusing + every one of combining to ruin her. She said I was jealous of her, that I + was wild with fear that she would one day be Lady Mount Rorke. She said + father had done everything to break off her marriage, because he did not + like parting with his money. She had set her heart on being married, and + it was a terrible disappointment. She has been disappointed two or three + times. Father doesn't know what to do. Her thoughts seem to run on that + one subject. She walks about the garden saying the most extraordinary + things.” + </p> + <p> + “But tell me about the illness.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know if I ought to tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do!” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know how to say it. She used to say she longed to become a + mother.” + </p> + <p> + “Longed to become a mother? Well, that is the last thing—” + </p> + <p> + “You know what I mean.” + </p> + <p> + “But tell me about the illness.” + </p> + <p> + “I should call it more than being a little excited, but of course she + isn't mad. She has, however, the most curious notions. She is always a + little too imaginative at the best of times; at least, I find her so, but + now her delusions are really too absurd, and, as I have said, the worst of + it is that her thoughts run on that one thing; it really is most + unfortunate. Poor father.” + </p> + <p> + “But what are her delusions?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I scarcely know how to tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Try; anything can be told. It depends how it is told.” + </p> + <p> + “She thinks that the coachman has spread it all over Southwick—how + shall I say it? I don't know that I ought to tell you. Well, that she has + gone wrong with you and Berkins. I thought I should die of laughing—the + idea of Berkins was too funny for words.” + </p> + <p> + “But your father doesn't believe it?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course not.” + </p> + <p> + “He doesn't suspect me, I hope?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I am sure he doesn't. He knows Maggie doesn't know what she is + saying. But he was dreadfully put out about Berkins; he is frightened out + of his wits lest he should hear of it. But for goodness' sake don't + mention that I said anything to you about it; I am in trouble enough as it + is. Father says he can stand it no longer. I am very much afraid that he + will leave Southwick. It depends on what Aunt Mary says. He has sent for + her; she will be here to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + These family councils were held in the billiard-room, and when Aunt Mary + and Aunt Hester had had their tea they came along the passage, Aunt Mary + of course in front, Aunt Hester timid and freckled and with her usual air + of tracts. Uncle James stood with his back to the fire waiting for them. + Willy caught at his hair, but an expression of resignation overspread his + face, he packed his diary and accounts in brown paper and lit a pipe. + </p> + <p> + “Now, James, let us hear about these new troubles. Something must be done, + that is clear.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, something must be done, Mary, and I can think of nothing for it but + to leave this place. It is no longer a place for me to live in. The + Southdown Road has proved too strong for me, it has conquered me.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't speak like that, James. We must try to bear our burdens, if not for + our own sakes, for the sake of Him who died for us. He bore a very heavy + cross for us.” + </p> + <p> + “There's no use in talking to me like that, Hester, you only provoke me. + You forget what a cross two daughters are, and the Southdown Road has + become intolerable. It is more than any man can bear; I will bear it no + longer. I have borne it long enough, and am determined to get rid of it. I + am afraid there's nothing for it but to sell the place and go and live in + London.” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Hester cast her eyes into her satchel, afraid even to think that her + brother had intentionally misinterpreted her words; but Aunt Mary laughed + at the idea of the slonk-hill, as a latter-day Golgotha, with poor Uncle + James staggering beneath the weight of the Southdown Road, young men and + all, upon him. It was very irreverent. He burst into tears, Hester moved + to leave the room, but was restrained by her sister. + </p> + <p> + “My position is a most unfortunate one; since the death of poor Julia I + have had no one to turn to, there has been no restraining influence in + this house. Here am I working all day long in the City for those girls, + and when I come home in the evening I find my house full of people I don't + know. I assure you, Mary, I don't know any of the people who come to my + house. I am consulted in nothing. It is not fair—I say it is not + fair; and at my death those girls will have thirty thousand pounds + a-piece.” + </p> + <p> + “I knew you had the money, James, I knew you had,” exclaimed Aunt Mary, + and even Aunt Hester could not help casting a look of admiration on her + weeping brother. + </p> + <p> + “I say it is not fair; a man of my money should have a comfortable home to + return to. Even the Southdown Road people have that; but no consideration + is shown to me. My dinner is put back so that Sally may continue her + flirtation with Meason in the slonk. Did any one ever hear of such a + thing? A man's dinner put back so that—that—that—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, we know all about the dinner being put back; that was three years + ago.” + </p> + <p> + “Why,” Mr. Brookes asked himself, “had he invited his sisters to his + help?” He was only adding bitterness to his bitter cup. “You have no + sympathy, Mary,” he went on; “you cannot understand the difficulties of my + position—these two girls are for ever quarrelling and fighting; + sometimes they are not even on speaking terms, but I think I prefer their + sullen looks to their violence. Sally threatened to knock her sister down + if she interfered with her young men.” + </p> + <p> + “What, again?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don't know if she has threatened to beat her lately. I don't + remember when was the last time. Their various rows are all jumbled up in + my head. All I know is that Maggie says she cannot live in the house with + Sally. Maggie is very ill, she is in a very excited state, as she was once + before, when I would not consent to her marriage with—I have + forgotten his name, but it doesn't matter. Now she won't dress herself, + and she walks about the house with her hair hanging down. I know there is + nothing for it but to send her away under the charge of some lady who has + had experience in such matters. She can't remain here. She has the + strangest delusions. Among other things, she fancies the coachman has + spread it all over Southwick that she has gone wrong with Berkins and that + fellow Escott. Just fancy if Berkins—a ten thousand a year man—should + hear of it! I don't know what he would say. He would peg into me; he is at + times very hard indeed upon me. I don't say he is not a first-rate man of + business, I know he has made several excellent investments; but for all + that I do not and cannot think him competent to advise me on all my + affairs, and that's what he is always doing. He talks of putting down that + Southdown Road. I should like to see how he would set about doing it.” + </p> + <p> + “James, Maggie must go away; she is very highly organised, very sensitive, + and if she were to remain here, Sally might have a real effect on her + mind. It is clear the sisters don't get on together; have you had medical + advice? I told you before that you should have medical advice about those + girls; I told you to spare no expense, but to go to a first-rate London + physician and take his opinion. I said before, and I say it again, that no + girls in good health could carry on as dear Sally, and I will include dear + Maggie; for although she does not defy you to the same extent, there is no + doubt that she is too fast, too fond of young men; her thoughts run too + much in that way, and now she is ill, of course she has delusions. You + ought to have medical advice.” + </p> + <p> + “Mary, dear, the body is not everything; to cure the flesh you must first + cure the soul. I believe our dear nieces rarely, if ever, attend church, + rarely, if ever, remember that this life is not eternal and that there is + a hereafter.” + </p> + <p> + The conversation came to a pause. Presently Aunt Mary asked Willy, who sat + resigned to his fate, calm and solemn as a Buddha, his hands clasped over + his rotund stomach, if he thought that Maggie's state was one to cause + immediate anxiety, to which he replied: “My sisters think of nothing but + pleasure. The trouble girls are in a house is more than any one would + believe. Here I am, I can do nothing; every night it is the same thing, + over and over again.” And the lean man lapsed into contemplation. + </p> + <p> + “But to come to the point, James, I want to hear about Sally. You said in + your letter that a great deal had come to light, and that you now find + that her conduct has been worse than you had ever imagined it, even in + your moments of deepest dejection. Now, I want to hear about all this. + What has she done? Let's have it in plain English. What has she done?” + </p> + <p> + “To put it plainly, Mary,” said Mr. Brookes, wiping his tears away, and + turning his back upon his Goodall, “I don't know what she hasn't done—everything. + She is at the present moment the talk of Southwick. The doctor here has + seen her in the field at the back here with Meason at nine o'clock at + night.” + </p> + <p> + “Why did you allow her to leave the house at that hour? No young girl—” + </p> + <p> + “She always takes her dogs out in the evening; I cannot prevent her doing + that. It appears, too, that she has had Meason up in her bedroom.” + </p> + <p> + “O James, you do not mean to say that my dear niece had a man in her + bedroom!” + </p> + <p> + “Hester, dear, you have lived in a rectory and know nothing of the world. + She says it isn't a bedroom. She pushes the bed away in the daytime, and + covers it up to make it look like a couch. Besides, she keeps birds in her + room, and Flossy had her puppies there. I am not excusing her conduct, + pray do not think that, I am only telling you what she says.” + </p> + <p> + “This is very serious. Are you quite sure? Perhaps she only meant to show + the young man her birds or puppies. Her spirit must be broken, I can + clearly see that.” + </p> + <p> + “I allow them, as you know, one hundred pounds a year apiece. Maggie keeps + none, but Sally always keeps accurate accounts of what she spends. I asked + to see those accounts, for I had heard she had been giving her money to + Meason, and she refused to let me see them. There is a sum of twenty + pounds for which she can give no explanation. Then it is well known she + gave a set of diamond studs to that fellow, and that he pledged them for + five pounds in Brighton. He boasted he had done so, and said he intended + to get plenty of money out of me before he had done with me. After that I + ask you, how can I live in this place? When I go to the station in the + morning I see these young fellows laughing at me over the tops of their + newspapers. When I come home of an evening after a hard day's work, I find + that my dinner—” + </p> + <p> + “Her spirit must be broken,” said Aunt Mary, drawing her shawl about her, + and crossing her hands. “Her spirit must be broken; she cannot be allowed + to remain here to drive dear Maggie into a lunatic asylum. I am with you + in that, James, but I cannot think you did well to let Frank Escott slip + through your fingers. Had you not talked so much about money your daughter + might have been Lady Mount Rorke.” + </p> + <p> + “Talked too much about my money? Who would talk about it, I should like to + know, if I didn't? I made it all myself. What do I care for that lot—a + stuck-up lot, pooh, pooh! twist them all round my finger. I am not going + to give my daughter to a man who cannot make a settlement upon her.” + </p> + <p> + Seeing he was not to be moved in anything that concerned his pocket, Aunt + Mary returned to the consideration of what was to be done with Sally. + “From what you tell me it is clear that Sally must not remain in Southwick + a day longer than can be helped. I will take her with me to Woburn; and I + think she had better go abroad as soon as we can hear of some one in whose + charge we can place her. But it must not be a sea voyage—there is + nothing more dangerous than to be on board a ship for a young girl who is + at all inclined to be fast. All are thrown so much together. The cabins + open out one into the other, and there is always a looking for something—a + handkerchief, a bunch of keys, a lot of stooping and playing, twiddling of + moustaches,” said Aunt Mary, with a peal of laughter. + </p> + <p> + “Mary, dear, we should not speak lightly of wickedness.” + </p> + <p> + “It was so that all the mischief was done when Emily Evans was sent out to + the Cape—it was all done on board a ship. You remember the Evanses, + James?—you ought to, you used to flirt pretty desperately with Lucy, + the younger sister.” And then Aunt Mary rattled off into interminable + tales concerning the attachment contracted on board a ship in particular, + its unfortunate consequences, how it brought about a divorce later on by + sowing the seeds of passion (Aunt Mary always pronounced the word + “passion” in her narratives with strong emphasis), in the young girl's + heart; and at various stages of her discourse she introduced fragments of + the family history of the Evanses; she followed the wanderings of the + different sisters from Homburg to Paris, from Paris to Scotland, from + Scotland to the Punjab, explaining their different temperaments by + heredity, which led her back into the obscure and remote times of + grandfathers and grandmothers, and, having finally lost herself, she said: + “What was I talking about? You have been listening to me, James, what was + I talking about?” + </p> + <p> + Till the end of a week the discussion was continued. Aunt Mary tried hard + to reconcile all parties to their different lots, and, as is usual in such + cases, without attaining any result. And yet Aunt Mary went with her + sister to see Frank in his studio. Willy accompanied them, and when they + left he complained bitterly of how his time was wasted. “Regularly every + evening, just as I am sitting down to work, I hear them coming along the + passage. First of all they go to get their grog—squeak, squeak, pop. + I know it all so well. Then they come in with their tumblers, and they sit + down on the sofa, and they begin.—I don't know what is to be done + with dear Sally, unless we can send her abroad in the care of some + relation. How is dear Maggie to-day? I hope I shall be able to induce her + to put on her frock to-morrow, and come for a drive with me in the + carriage. What a trouble young girls are in the house, to be sure. Then + father begins to groan, and pulls out his handkerchief; he is quite alone, + he has no one he can depend upon, then he laughs, 'Well, well, I suppose + it will be all the same a hundred years hence.' So it goes on night after + night. Here am I starting a big business, and I haven't a room to work in. + Just as I am adding up a long column of figures, perhaps when I am within + three of the top, Aunt Mary asks me a question, and it has to be gone over + again. It is most provoking, there's no denying that it is most + provoking.” Frank agreed that nothing could be more provoking than to be + interrupted when you were within three of the top of a long column of + figures. On the following day he heard that the aunts had left, taking + Sally with them. They had promised their brother to find a lady who would + take dear Maggie under her care—one who would soon wean her from + dressing-gowns and delusions, and restore her to staid remarks and stays; + and hopes were entertained that the Manor House would not have to be sold + after all. + </p> + <p> + But many days had not sped when an event occurred that precipitated the + five acres into the jaws of the builders. Meason had sailed for Melbourne, + and his sister, thinking that some of Sally's letters might be of use to + Mr. Brookes, offered to surrender them upon the receipt of a cheque for + one hundred pounds—a very modest sum, she urged, considering the + character of the letters, most of which concerned artfully laid plans to + meet in the train going or coming from London. Mr. Brookes called on the + shade of dear Julia, but he was not a man to be blackmailed—he had + made all his money himself, and on that point was immovable. He prepared + to leave Southwick. He looked fondly on his glass-houses, and despairingly + on his Friths, Goodalls, and Bouguereaus, and he wondered if they would + look as well in the new rooms as in the old, and what sum they would + realise if he were to include them in the auction; for an auction was + necessary. Mr. Brookes did not thus decide to abandon his acres without + many a sob, nor is it certain that the final step would have been taken if + the gentle builder had not gilded his insidious hand, and if certain + rumours were not about that the villas in the Southdown Road were not + letting, and that Southwick would never be anything but what it was, a + dirty little village—half suburb, half village. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVII + </h2> + <p> + Frank was grieved and troubled at the sad accounts that came to him of + Maggie's health; he was perplexed, too, for he knew himself to be the + cause, and he longed to relieve and to cure her. It seemed to him that he + would give his life to go to her, and comfort her with love, and yet he + was impotent to make the least effort to attain the end he desired. He lay + in the sad and cruel memory of Lizzie, his mind filled with ignoble + visions of her life with the waiter, or with delicate fancies of her + beauty amid the summer of the Thames. He mused on her gracious figure and + face, illuminated by reflections from the water, set off by the bulrushes + and floating blossoms which she so eagerly coveted, and varied by the + movements of the waist and shoulders, the round white arm, the trailing + scarf, and all the wistful charm of the slumbering evening. He thought of + the country light, the sound and smell of cows, of the sparrows in the + vine, the cottage looking so cosy amid the foliage, the bit of garden full + of old-fashioned flowers, tall lilies, convolvuluses, and marigolds, and + the sitting-room full of things belonging to her—her flowers, her + books, her music, and he thought of this until his life was sick with + desire, and there grew a burning pain about his heart. + </p> + <p> + A man's struggles in the web of a vile love are as pitiful as those of a + fly in the meshes of the spider; he crawls to the edge, but only to + ensnare himself more completely; he takes pleasure in ridiculing her, but + whether he praises or blames, she remains mistress of his life; all + threads are equally fatal, and each that should have served to bear him + out of the trap only goes to bind him faster. A man in love suggests the + spider's web, and when he is seeking to escape from a woman that will + degrade his life, the cruelty which is added completes and perfects the + comparison. A man's love for a common woman is as a fire in his vitals; + sometimes it seems quenched, sometimes it is torn out by angry hands, but + always some spark remains; it contrives to unite about its victim, and in + the end has its way. It is a cancerous disease, but it cannot be cut out + like a cancer. It is more deadly; it is inexplicable. All good things, + wealth and honour, are forfeited for it; long years of toil, trouble, + privation of all kinds, are willingly accepted; on one side all the + sweetness of the world, on the other nothing of worth, often vice, + meanness, ill-temper, all that go to make life a madness and a terror; + twenty, thirty, forty, perhaps fifty years lie a head of him and her, but + the years and their burdens are not for his eyes any more than the flowers + he elects to disdain. Love is blind, but sometimes there is no love. How + then shall we explain this inexplicable mystery; wonderful riddle that + none shall explain and that every generation propounds? + </p> + <p> + Frank lingered in Southwick, for he had promised Willy to stay with him + when he went to live at the stables on the Portslade Road. Summer was + nearly over, hunting would soon commence, and he could keep a couple of + hunters—Willy had calculated it out—for two and twenty + shillings a week. He had ceased to paint, and when he went to the studio + it was to play the piano or the violin. None knew of Lizzie, and all knew + of Maggie. It was thought a little strange that he would not forgive her, + but the obscurity of the story of this point and the delight felt in her + misfortune helped to intensify and idealise Frank in the popular mind, and + when he played Gounod in the still evenings the young ladies would steal + from the villas and wander sentimentally through the shadows about the + green. He got up late in the morning, he lingered over breakfast, and + until it was time to go to Brighton he lay on the sofa watching the + cricketers and the children playing, shaping resolutions, and striving + with himself and deceiving himself. A dozen times, a hundred times, he had + concluded he must see Maggie; he had decided he would write to Lord Mount + Rorke, that he would go to Mr. Brookes and settle the matter off-hand. + But, somehow, he did nothing. His mind was absorbed in a novel, which he + narrated when Willy came to see him. It concerned the accident that led a + man not to marry the woman he loved, and was in the main an incoherent + version of his own life at Southwick. + </p> + <p> + “I don't think I told you,” said Willy, “that they are removing the + furniture to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't say so—to-day? And where is your father?” + </p> + <p> + “He is in London, at the 'Metropole.'” + </p> + <p> + The young men walked on slowly in silence, and when they came to the lodge + gate, standing wide open, and saw the curtainless windows and the + flowerless greenhouses, Willy said: “It is very sad to see all the things + you have known since you were a child sold by auction.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, it is. Look at the swards. Do they not look sad already? Those + beautiful elms, under whose shade we have sat, will be cut down, and + stucco work and glass porticoes take their places. Oh, it is very sad.” + </p> + <p> + “My father never had any feeling, he never cared for the place. Had I been + in his place I should have invested my money in land and gone in for the + county families.” + </p> + <p> + “How old was I when I came down to see you for the first time—fourteen, + I think? How well I remember everything. It was there, look, through that + glade, that I saw your sisters coming to meet me, they were then only ten + or eleven years old. I can see them in my mind's eye, quite distinctly, + walking towards me, Grace leading the way, and now she is a mother; and + they were all so dark. I remember thinking I had never seen girls so dark, + they were like foreigners. And do you remember how your father scolded + Sally for carrying me round the garden on her back, and she used to wake + me up in the mornings by rolling croquet balls along the floor into my + room. Oh, what good, dear days those were, and to think they are dead and + gone, and that the house is going to be pulled down; and the garden—oh! + the moonlights in that garden, where I walked with the girls, with scarves + round their shoulders, through the dreamy light and shade. We have sung + songs, and talked of all manner of things. You don't feel as I feel.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes I do, my dear fellow, I think I feel a great deal more, only I don't + talk so much about it.” + </p> + <p> + “I know it is infinitely sad. This dear old wall! There is Maggie's + window: how often have I looked up to that window for her winsome face, + and I shall never look again.” + </p> + <p> + “You are as bad as my father. Cheer up; I suppose it will be all the same + a hundred years hence.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, it won't be the same. Why should all I feel and love be + forgotten. I suppose it will be all the same. There goes Berkins. I hate + that man.” + </p> + <p> + “So do I.” + </p> + <p> + “If time takes away pleasant things it takes unpleasant things too, and + those who live a hundred years hence will not be troubled with that fool. + True, there will be other Berkinses, and there will be other gardens, and + other girls, but that doesn't make it the least less sad to see this + garden pass into bricks and mortar.” + </p> + <p> + Two footmen approached Mr. Berkins, and with all solemnity helped him to + take off his overcoat. He said a few words to Willy, and was soon loudly + ordering the workmen who were taking the Goodalls and the Friths from the + walls. + </p> + <p> + “Take care, there! Hi, you! get on the ladder and take hold of this end of + the picture. There, that's better! That's the way to do it!” + </p> + <p> + “That's what he said when he shot my bird,” Willy whispered; and they + tried to laugh as they went upstairs. But their footsteps sounded hollow, + and the wardrobes, where they had so often put their clothes, stood wide + open, desolately empty. They looked out of the windows, and heard the + voices of the work-people. + </p> + <p> + “How very sad it is,” said Frank; then, after a long silence: “How + beautiful a scene like this would be in a book—a young girl leaving + her home, straying through the different rooms musing on the different + pieces of furniture, all of which recall the past. I think I shall write + it. I wish you would tell me what you feel; I mean, I wish you would tell + me what impresses itself most on your mind, and, as it were, epitomises + the whole. You have known all this since you were a child. You have played + in these passages; some spot, some piece of furniture, your toys—I + suppose they are gone long ago; but something must stand out and assert + itself amid conflicting thoughts. Do tell me.” + </p> + <p> + Willy stroked his moustache. “Of course it is very sad, but it is + difficult to put one's feelings into words. I should have to think about + it; I don't think I could say off-hand.” + </p> + <p> + At that moment there came a great crash. + </p> + <p> + “What the devil is that?” cried Frank. + </p> + <p> + “I hope they haven't broken the statue of Flora,” said Willy, and a look + of alarm overspread his face. Frank felt that if such were the case he + should feel no great sorrow. They ran down the echoing stairs. The workmen + had got drunk in the cellars and in removing the statue they had let it + fall, and it strewed the floor—an arm here, a fragment of drapery + there. + </p> + <p> + “I knew what would happen. I told Mr. Brookes so. All my statues are in + marble.” + </p> + <p> + “Come away, I can't listen to that cad. I wouldn't have had Flora broken + for a hundred pounds. When I was a child I used to stand and look at her. + I never could make out how she was made, and I always wanted to look + inside. If you'd like to know what I feel most sorry for, it is Flora. She + has stood amid the flowers in the bow window as long as I can remember.” + </p> + <p> + They followed the high road by Windmill Inn, where they struck across the + Downs, and when they reached the first crest they could see the paddocks + and enclosures situated along the road in the valley, and the private + house so trim and middle-class. “Splendid paddocks and first-rate + stabling. The house is not much. When I am making fifteen per cent. on my + money I shall go in for a little architecture. If I had a glass I could + show you Blue Mantle's stable. Do you see two horses in the paddock, right + away on the left, in the far corner—Apple Blossom and Astarte? Apple + Blossom is by See-saw out of Melody, by Stockwell out of Fairy Queen. Is + that good enough for you? Astarte is by Blue Gown out of Merry Maid, by + Beadsman out of Aurora. What do you say to that?” + </p> + <p> + “I see you have been looking up the Stud Book.” + </p> + <p> + “Business, sir, business. And if I were to go in for owning a racer or + two, just look and see what a magnificent training ground; miles upon + miles of downland. Did you ever see a handsomer view? You must paint me + some landscapes for my dining-room.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVIII + </h2> + <p> + “The pain is always here—just over the heart. You know what I mean? + Suddenly, when I am thinking of other things, the sound of her voice and + the sight of her face comes upon me, and then a dead, weary ache. I know I + cannot have her, perhaps if I did I shouldn't be wholly glad; but glad or + sorry, good fortune or ill, I cannot forget her. My life will not be + complete. You have felt all this.” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind how I felt, you know I don't like talking about it. I am sorry + for you. We all have our troubles, I've had nothing else; I often think + that if I were to die to-morrow it would be a happy release.” + </p> + <p> + “If I had never seen her, or if I had married Maggie; if your father had + not put obstacles in the way; if he had not raised the wretched money + question, which you know as well as I do was dragged in quite + unnecessarily, I should not be suffering now. For, once married, I should + think of no one but my wife. I am sure I should make a good husband. I + know I could make a woman happy; she'll never find a husband better than + she'd have found in me, I don't believe if they were to be made that you + could make a better husband than I should be—I feel it.” + </p> + <p> + “I have always said that my father brings all his troubles on himself. He + never went in for the country people; he never would have people at the + Manor House. You can't shut up young girls as if they were in a convent, + and if they don't get the right people they'll have the wrong people. My + father thinks of nothing but his money, and he can't understand that he + might go for an equivalent. How could he have expected it to have turned + in your case but as it did? Lord Mount Rorke was not going to come over to + Southwick to haggle over pounds, shillings, and pence with him—not + likely. My sisters might have married very well if he had gone the right + way to work, and he would have been saved a deal of worry and bother. I + always say that my father brings all his troubles on himself.” + </p> + <p> + “So far as I was concerned he certainly acted very stupidly. Ah, if I had + married Maggie last summer, how different my life would be now.” + </p> + <p> + “But you couldn't have really loved her; if you had you would never—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I did love her.” + </p> + <p> + “I heard from my father to-day. Maggie is better. This is, of course, a + very delicate question, but we have been friends so long—would you + like me to see if—if this matter could be arranged? I don't like, as + you know, to meddle in other people's affairs, I have quite enough to do + to look after my own; but if you would like—You, of course, do not + think of marrying Lizzie Baker?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course not.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you would like me to speak to my father? Are you willing? Would you + like to marry Maggie?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, of course I should.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't say so because she is my sister, but I think it is the best thing + you could do.” + </p> + <p> + They had traversed the paddock, and were close to the stables. Picking a + few carrots out of a heap, they opened the door of Blue Mantle's box. The + horse came towards them, his large eyes glancing, his beautiful crest + arched. His coat shone like satin, his legs were as fine as steel, and + with exquisite relish he drew the carrots from their hands. + </p> + <p> + The perspective of the hills was prolonged upon fading tints, and in the + pale blueness the mares feeding in the paddocks grew strangely solitary + and distinct; the trees about the coast towns were blended in shadow, and + out of the first stars fell a quiet peace. + </p> + <p> + Their dinner awaited them—a little dinner, simple and humble. After + dinner, when the lamp was brought in, Willy nursed the missus with + affection and sincerity. Cissy sat on Frank's knee, and he told her + stories and stroked her hair. This household retired at eleven. At ten + every morning Willy was busy with his letters, his cheques, his accounts, + and in the afternoon the young men walked about the fields talking of + possible successes of the forthcoming breeding season, and so the days + went. But the secret forces were busy about Frank's life. There were mines + and counter-mines. Every fort of prejudice, every citadel of reason rested + now upon foundations that quaked, and would fall at the first shock. Doom + was about him. As the silence rustles in the deadly hush of the storm that + brings winter upon the forest, he waited unconscious as a leaf in the + imminence of the autumn moment; and in such a stillness, awaiting a change + of soul, he received a letter from Lizzie. It dropped from his hand, and + such desire to go as comes on swallow and cuckoo came on him; he struggled + for a moment, and was sucked down in his passion. + </p> + <p> + The little village—a summary of English life and custom, a symbol of + the Saxon, the church steeple pointing through the elm trees, the villas + with their various embellishment in the line of glass porticos and privet + hedges, the General, Mrs. Horlick, Messrs Brookes and Berkins—how + complete it seemed, how individual and how synthetical—his eyes + filled with tears of unpremeditated grief. The leaves were falling, the + hills were shrouded in wreaths of floating mist. Some trees had been cut + down and scaffolding had been reared about the Manor House, some of the + walls had already fallen revealing the wall paper, the pattern of which he + could almost distinguish. He was going to the woman he loved, but he was + leaving his youth behind, and those whom he had known as children, as + girls, as women; he remembered all the gossip, all the quarrels, all the + to-do about nothing; and now, looking on the beautiful garden where he had + played and passioned in all varying moments of grief and glee, he re-lived + the past; and leaning out of the carriage window he gazed fondly, and + cried out: “Alas, those were Spring Days.” + </p> + <h3> + THE END + </h3> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Spring Days, by George Moore + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING DAYS *** + +***** This file should be named 6029-h.htm or 6029-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/2/6029/ + + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Spring Days + +Author: George Moore + + +Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6029] +This file was first posted on December 10, 2002 +Last Updated: July 3, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS 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 his head. Finally it transpired that that party +down the river--that party just gone away--must have had the boat. He +didn't know anything about it, it wasn't his fault. They said they had +engaged that boat over-night. + +"My boat let out for hire! How dare you do this? I never heard of such a +thing; I shall write to the papers." + +"I will give you just as good a boat, sir--" + +"As good a boat! You haven't a boat like it. How do I know you don't let +my boat out for hire every day?" + +"No danger of that, sir; I will give you another boat, one that you will +be pleased with." + +"My boat knocked about by some cad! He won't be back till nine o'clock +to-night, perhaps. I never heard of such a thing. Which is it?" + +"That one with the lady in the stern--the red parasol." + +"He must be caught up, he must. Have you got an outrigger?" Assuring +Lizzie that he would be back in less than half an hour, Frank bent to +his work. + +"If he rows like that he will run down some one," muttered the boatman. +"Confound him and his boat!" + +The outrigger shot through the water; the various craft paused, +surprised at such furious rowing. Lizzie watched the race, asking the +boatman if there was danger. + +"Danger? No; but he'd better not say too much to that gent when he does +catch him up, or there'll be a row, I expect. He's going round the bend; +if he doesn't run into something, he'll catch them," said the boatman. +"Would you like to look through my glass, miss? They'll be coming back +presently." + +Angry language was indulged in, but the apologies of the boatmen saved +the young men the unpleasantness of blows, and, elated at his success, +Frank handed Lizzie into the truant boat and paddled out into the +stream. When he had got out of earshot and out of the notice of the +boat-house he rested on his oars. "Did you see me overhaul them?" + +"No, you passed out of sight round the bend." + +"Yes, by George! I had a good pull for it. There are a lot of red +parasols up higher, and I had to look out for my boat. What did they say +about my rowing?" + +"They said you'd catch them if you didn't run into something." + +"Did they? I was wild; and--would you believe it?--when I did catch +them up the fellow began to object; he didn't want to come back, if you +please. He said he had hired the boat, that he did not know the boat was +mine--no proof. I said, 'I will give you proof,' and so I would have." + +"I was afraid. I began to regret that I had come out with you." + +"What nonsense! Done the fellow good if I had punched his head. Well, it +has taken it out of me a bit. I had to put on a bit of a spurt to catch +them; they had such a start, and they were going along a pretty fair +pace, too. It has made me feel a bit peckish, a pull like that on an +empty stomach; it must be close on twelve o'clock. What do you say, are +you beginning to feel that it is lunch time?" + +"I am not very hungry, and you forgot the luncheon basket. I ought to +have reminded you to get some sandwiches at the railway station." + +"Sandwiches! I don't want sandwiches; I want something more substantial +than sandwiches. I'll paddle on; we aren't more than a tenminutes' +paddle from the 'Roebuck,' a ripping nice hotel, I can tell you." + +"Couldn't we have something to eat without going to an hotel?" + +"I don't think so. I want a bottle of fizz, and the fizz there is +excellent; one of the best hotels on the river; splendid gardens and +tennis grounds, a great room overlooking the river; the best people go +there; sometimes one can't get a table." + +"I don't think I am well dressed enough." + +"You look charming, a cotton dress and a parasol is all one wants for +the river." + +"You are not ashamed of me, then; you'll take me as I am?" + +"Ashamed of you! Steer straight for that post--that's it, bravo!" Frank +shipped the oars, and when he felt the girl's arm laid on his as he +helped her to land, it seemed to him that all the world was happiness. +The spirit of the river, the fields and sky, leaped to his eyes. He +assisted her to ascend the steps cut in the hillside. She laughed and +laughed again, and stopped to rest. At last they stood on the railway +line. It swept round another hill all overshadowed and dark with cedars. + +"Here comes a train, let's wait. I must see it go round the curve." + +"You should see the Bath express come along the broad gauge at the rate +of sixty miles an hour." + +"This is not an express?" + +"No." + +The luggage train came with an interminable rumble and jingle, and +Lizzie waited till the last truck passed under the branches. Then they +went to an hotel full of daylight and stained wood, with glimpses of +barmaids far away, and waiters running about; the rooms glistened +with table linen; the waiters carved at a sideboard covered with pies, +sirloins, hams, tongues. Only one table was occupied, and the waiters +were lavishing all attention upon it. Lady Seveley leaned back smoking a +cigarette. Fletcher sat next to her, alternately affecting indifference +and fixing her with his eyes. Harding was voluble and observant. There +was about them an air of thirty and the dissipations of thirty. And, +not in the least ashamed of Lizzie, Frank bowed to Lady Seveley; she +returned his bow by a slight nod; and Lizzie, very much embarrassed, +nodded to the men; they smiled in return. + +"Who is that lady you saluted?" + +"Lady Seveley; the lady I told you about, who I went to the theatre with +the other night." + +"Fancy a lady like that smoking a cigarette!" + +A waiter approached with the bill of fare. "We had better not have +anything hot, we shall lose the whole day. What do you say?" + +"Cold sirloin of beef is excellent, sir; pigeon pie is also very +good--young birds." + +"Shall we try the pigeon pie? Get me the wine list. Take off your hat, +Lizzie, do." + +"I am afraid my hair will come down." + +"Never mind, so much the better." + +With some difficulty she extracted her hat from the hairpins, and the +bright hair hung loose about her white plump face. Frank drank a glass +of champagne; he was proud of her beauty. + +"By Jove, how this does pick one up! not half bad tipple, is it?" + +They hastened through their lunch, unconsciously avoiding the too +critical looks of those at the far corner table; nor did they suspect, +as they descended the hill and got into their boat and rowed away, that +they were still the subject of conversation. + +"She is no doubt a very pretty girl. He seems very fond of her. I hope +he won't make a fool of himself." + +"I think he is 'mashed.' We saw him the other night in the bar. He +was paying her a great deal of attention--the night we saw you at the +theatre." + +Lady Seveley's face slightly altered. Harding noticed the change of +expression, and he said: "She is called the belle of the bar. Hers +is the kind of prettiness that appeals to a young man, for somehow, I +cannot explain, it is a thing you must feel; she epitomises as it were +the beauty of the English girl; she is the typical pretty English girl; +all that English girls have of charm, she has; and the co-ordination is +an irresistible force against some young men; their natures demand the +freshness the spontaneity, the innocence of--" + +"Of the Gaiety bar! I have never been there, but from what you tell me +of it, it is the last place to find innocence and freshness." + +"That may be or not be. We find a rose blooming in very out-of-the-way +places; but, as a matter of fact, I made no accusation of virtue; vice +does not rob a youth of its spontaneity. You may rouge the cheeks of May +and blacken her eyes, but she is May nevertheless. I say that the lover +of the young girl cannot love the woman of thirty. Her charms touch him +not at all; but there are others who may love only the woman of thirty, +and, strange to say, they are only loved by the woman of thirty. The +universal Don Juan is a myth, and does not exist out of literature. +There is the Don Juan who plays havoc among the women of thirty, there +is the Don Juan who plays havoc among young girls, but--" + +"And you think our friend Frank Escott belongs to the latter class?" + +"No, I don't. He is good-looking; he is to all appearance a young man +that any woman would like, but I don't think you'd find this to be so if +it were given to you to see into his life. Every man of the world must +have noticed that there are times when, speaking generally, every +second woman will run after him--ladies of rank, prostitutes, +maid-servants--when he may pick and choose his mistresses, and change +his mind as often as he pleases; there are other times when he finds +himself womanless, when none will look at him, when in fact without an +allusion to rings, and sometimes a very direct allusion is required, he +will not be able to persuade a chorus girl to come out to supper with +him. He thinks he is getting old, he looks in the glass with fear." + +"You mean to say there are men who look in the glass with fear?" + +"Of course, after five-and-thirty the glass whispers as awful truths to +the man as to the woman--worse, for woman's youth is longer than man's. +The contrary is the received opinion, but, like all popular opinions, +it is wrong; a woman is frequently loved after forty, a man never. I was +saying that a man often thinks he is getting old because the chorus +girl took an early opportunity of speaking of rings, because the lady +of fashion begged of the old gentleman who had taken up his hat to go +to stay a little while longer, because the chamber-maid did not look +lusciously round the corner when he passed her in the passage. He looks +in the glass and imagines all kinds of monstrous changes in his person. +His fears have no foundation in fact--or should I say in the flesh? A +year after the duchess makes overtures, the chorus girl threatens to +throw up her engagement for him, and the chambermaid pesters him with +unnecessary questions concerning baths and towels. These facts tend +to show, indeed I think they prove, that love is a magnetism, which +sometimes we possess in almost irresistible strength, and which +sometimes fades away into powerless and apparent extinction." + +"Then you think that good looks have nothing to do with the faculty of +making oneself beloved?" said Fletcher. + +"The phenomenon of love has hitherto eluded our most eager +investigation; when we have traced each desire to its source, and +classified--" + +"We women will have ceased to take any interest in the matter. What a +humbug you are, Mr. Harding; one never knows when you are serious. But +what has all this to do with that poor boy who has gone off with his +barmaid?" + +"This: he is unquestionably good-looking, but I don't think he possesses +at all the magnetism, the power--call it what you will--that I have been +speaking of. He will never influence either men or women, he will never +make friends; that is to say, he will never make use of his friends. He +will, I should think, always remain a little outside of success. It will +never quite come to him; he will be one of those muddled, dissatisfied +creatures who rail against luck and bad treatment. I cannot see him +really successful in anything; yes I can, though, I believe he would +make an excellent husband. I have spoken a great deal to him. He has +told me a lot about himself, and I can see that he asks and desires +nothing but leave to devote himself to a woman, to pander to her +caprices. All that violent exterior will wear off, and he will yield +to and love to be led by a woman. He writes a little, and he paints. I +don't know if he has any talent; but he never will be able to work until +he is obliged to work for a woman." + +"Then you think he will marry that barmaid?" + +"Most probably. He will struggle against it; but unless chance +intervenes--she may die, she may run away with some one to-morrow, for +she does not care for him--he will be sucked into the gulf." + +"He is Lord Mount Rorke's heir; he will have twenty thousand a year one +of these days." + +"Mount Rorke will never forgive him a bad match. I know Mount Rorke," +said Lady Seveley, "and you do, too, Mr. Fletcher." + +"Yes, a little." + +Unfearing prophecy and oracle launched from the windows of the hotel, +the young people rowed, lost to all but each other, amazed at the +loveliness of the river. They floated amid the bulrushes. Cries and +regret when Frank's oar crushed the desired blossom. Never before were +lilies as desirable as those that were gathered that day--that bud, it +must be possessed, that blown flower must not be left behind. Lizzie +dipped her arm to the elbow, and rejoiced in the soft flowing water. The +river rose up into what beautiful views and prospects. The locks, the +sensation of the boat sinking among the slimy piles with Frank erect +holding her off with the boat-hook, or the slow rising till the banks +were overflowed, and the wonderful wooden gates opened, disclosing a +placid stream with overhanging boughs and a barge. And the charming +discoveries they made in this water world, the moorhen's indolence, and +the watchful rat swimming for its hole; each bend was a new picture. +How beautifully expressive of the work of the field were the comfortable +barns. If life is never very fair, a vision of life may be fair indeed, +and once the tears came to the bar girl's eyes, for she, too, suddenly +remembered her life of tobacco and whisky; long weary hours of standing, +politeness, washing glasses, and listening to filthy jokes. Would +there be no change? If she might live her life here! She thought of the +morning light, and the home occupations of the morning, and then the +languid and lazy afternoons in this boat, amid the enchantment of these +river lands. + +Frank laid by his oars, and as regardless as a shopboy of observers, he +took her hand and begged of her to confide in him. He thought, too, of +seeing her daily, hourly, of her presence in his daily life; he saw her +amid his painting and poetry, and this pleasant scenery. Then the vision +vanished like the shine upon the stream, she withdrew her hands, a +shadow had fallen. + +They passed a summer-house where three girls were sitting; one sat on +the edge of a table and sang the ballad of "Biddy Malone." There was a +house so red, and so full of gables and narrow windows, that Frank said +it was a perfect specimen of Elizabethan architecture; and he treated +Lizzie to all he could pretend to know on the subject, and he condemned +the owner for the glaringly modern garden benches with which the swards +were interspersed. The sun was setting, there was lassitude in every +passing boat, the girls leaned upon the arms of the young men, and the +woods stood up tall and contemplative, as beautiful in the deep blue +river as upon the pale sky. + +They landed at Pangbourne Woods by the wide grassy path between the +reedy river and the spreading beeches. There a man was boiling a kettle. +He spoke to them; he instructed them in the life of camping out, and +he invited them to tea. Lizzie went into the tent and got out the +tea-things. Two men came up, jolly fellows enough; and such little +adventures endeared and memorised the day. + +They climbed, oh! what a climb it was, Lizzie's ankles and courage +giving way alternately; but at last they reached a pathway, and they +walked at ease into the green solitudes of the wood. It seemed endless, +so soft and so still. He spoke to Lizzie, whom he now called Liz, of +her past, of the reasons that had led her to leave home and "go +to business." Her brother, she said, was a painter, a celebrated +bird-painter. + +"Then we should know each other, I am a painter." He told her of his +ideas and projects, of how he had been to France; he might go there +again, unless something happened to keep him in England. He wrote +a little too, in the papers, and he might do something to help her +brother--a paragraph in _Fashion_, he could get one in. For fear of +wounding her he did not ask if her brother was a decorative painter, +employed by a firm, or an artist who exhibited pictures. Her father had +married again. She did not like her stepmother, and that had determined +her to go into business. + +Had she ever been in love? Yes, she supposed she had; but it was all +over now. The last words sounded, and died away in a great abyss of +soul. + +Parts of the path were marked "Dangerous." The earth had given way, +creating fearful chasms, over which trees leaned dangerously or hung +out fantastically by a few roots. In the dell below there stood a small +green painted table, and the young people leaning on the protecting +railing wondered at this mysterious piece of furniture. There was in +them and about them an illusive sense of death and the beauty of life. +One slight push would hurl them headlong hundreds of feet down to the +painted table. + +The silver of the river sparkled through silence and the foliage of +June, and the songs of the boatmen came and went like voices in a dream. + +The days of youth are long, and in tender idleness the hours lingered, +their charm unbroken in the rattle of London; and happy with love and +tired with the great air of the river and its leafy scenery, Frank fell +asleep that night. + + + + +VII + + + +One of the French artists he had met in Rome wrote to him from Paris. +Why should he not go there? There was nothing for him to do in London; +Lizzie Baker had disappeared, and in the year and a half that he spent +in Paris learning to draw he forgot her and his friends in Southwick. +Nor did he remember them when he returned to London; not until one +evening, strolling down Regent Street, he came upon Willy Brookes +suddenly. + +"How do you do, my dear Willy? I haven't seen you for--for--how long?" + +"I should think it must be now, let me see, I have got it down +somewhere; when I get home I'll look it up." + +"Hang the looking up; better come and look me up." + +The young men laughed. + +"It must be nearly a year and a half." + +"I should think it must. Where are you staying? I am staying at Morley's +Hotel, Trafalgar Square. Come and dine with me to-night." + +Willy reflected. He stroked his moustache reflectively. + +"No," he said, "I am afraid I can't. I have something to do." + +"Nonsense! I don't believe you. What have you to do?" + +"I have some cheques to write." + +"That won't take you a moment. You can do that at my place." + +"I couldn't, I assure you. I must have my books and my own pen. I +wouldn't write a cheque in that way for worlds." + +"Why not? We'll go to a music-hall afterwards." + +"I am very sorry, but I really couldn't--not to-night." + +"You never go in for amusing yourself." + +"Yes, I do; but what amuses you doesn't amuse me. I assure you I would +sooner stay at home, write my cheques, and enter them carefully, than go +to a music-hall." + +Frank looked at Willy for a moment in mute amazement. Then he said: "But +what's that you have under your arm in that brown paper parcel?" + +Willy laughed. "A leg of mutton; I have just been to the stores." + +"You mean to say you buy legs of mutton at the stores, and carry them +home? Supposing you met some one, if we were to--" + +"Not very likely, a foggy night like this. I have a small house in +Notting Hill. I take the 'bus at the Circus. I shall be very glad if you +will come with me; so will the missus." + +"I forgot to ask about her, how is she?" + +"Very well. Come and see for yourself. Come and dine with us to-morrow. +I can't give you one of your restaurant dinners, but if leg of mutton +will suit, all I can say is that I shall be very happy." + +"I'll come whenever you like." + +"Can you come to-morrow?" + +"Yes. We might go to the theatre afterwards." + +"We might. Be at my place at half-past six, that will give us plenty of +time." + +"What a queer fish he is," thought Frank, as he walked down Regent +Street, looking at the women. "Can't come and dine with me because he +has two or three cheques to write, must have all his books out to make +entries--what a clerk for the Government--an ideal clerk! What a genius +for red tape!" + +Willy was standing on the steps of the little house, and he commented on +his friend's extravagances as he welcomed him. + +"You might have come here for ninepence, third class. You paid that +cabman three shillings, and you took, I don't mind betting, half an +hour longer. Now, don't make a mess, do wipe your feet; we don't keep a +servant, and it gives the missus a lot of trouble cleaning up." + +Not a book nor a picture nor a single flower, and every worn carpet +suggested the bare necessaries of life. There was the drawing-room, kept +for show, never entered, barren and blank; there was the room--a little +more alive--where Willy smoked his pipe and kept his accounts, but there +the crumbs, three or four, seemed to speak of the dry, bread-like days +that wore themselves away; life there was too obviously dry and bare, +joyless and mean. + +Had Frank's mind been philosophic and deep-seeing, he would have mused +on the admirable patience of the woman who lived here, seeing no one, +making entire sacrifice of her life; he would have contrasted the +humbleness, nay, the meanness, of this unknown house with the reception +rooms of the Manor House; one life wasting in darkness and poverty, +another burning out in light and riches; timeworn truths float on the +surface of this little pool of life, and so modernised are they that +they appear for a moment "new and original." But further than a regret +that there were no flowers in the window, and a sense of the horrible +when his eyes fell on a piece of Swiss scenery, his thoughts did not +wander; they soon were fixed and absorbed in the consideration of the +happiness that Willy had attained by "doing the right thing by the +woman." He was hers, she was his. Dreams of things marital, the +endearments of husband and wife, are the essence of the being of some +men and women, and are to them a perennial delight. Frank was such a +one. + +He had brought Cissy a doll, and the child came and sat on his knees, +and put her arms round his neck. He kissed the long face, hollow-eyed, +and stroked the beautiful gold ringlets that cloaked the shoulders. + +They went to the theatre in a 'bus. Frank carried Cissy, and he called +indignantly to the crowd not to press him. "Did they not see that he +was carrying a child?" He did not think that his friends might recognise +him, nor would he have felt any shame had he caught sight of some face +in the stalls he knew. He would not have put Cissy aside; nor would he +have pretended that he was not with the pale, worn, shabbily-dressed +woman by his side. He was wholly filled with his friends, their +interests and concerns; so complete was the investment of himself that +Lizzie Baker did not snatch a fugitive thought from them; and it was not +until he sat smoking with Willy in the back parlour that he said: + +"I wonder what has become of her? She was a nice girl." + +"You mean Lizzie Baker? You lost sight of her all of a sudden, didn't +you? Do you think she went off to live with some one?" + +"No, I don't think she was a girl who would do that. By Jove, she was a +pretty girl! Once I took her up the river, up to Reading. We had such +a jolly day in the woods and on the water--amid the water-lilies and +bulrushes, or the shade of the cedars. I wonder you never go up the +river." + +"I have no time. Besides, I hate the water. I never go on the water if I +can help it--I am too nervous." + +"How odd! Oh, we had a jolly day!" + +"But I never understood how it was you lost sight of her. You said in +your letter that she had left the bar; but she must have gone somewhere. +I am sure you didn't make sufficient enquiries. You are too impatient." + +"I did all I could. One girl told me that a lot of them--Lizzie among +the number--had suddenly been transferred to Liverpool Street. That was +true, for I saw at Liverpool Street several girls I had known previously +at the 'Gaiety.' Those poor bar girls, how pitiful they look! all over +London they stand behind their bars! Breathing for hours tobacco smoke, +fumes of whisky and beer, listening to abominable jokes, the subjects of +hideous flirtations; and then the little comedy, the effort to appear as +virtuous young ladies--'young ladies of the bar.' It is very pitiful. In +such circumstances how do you expect a girl to keep straight? I do +not think it is the men who do the harm. There are, of course, a few +blackguards who crack filthy jokes over the counter, but if a girl likes +she needn't listen--a girl can always keep a man in his place. Then if +a man flirts with a girl he always loves her, likes her, if you +think 'like' a better word; but you must admit that in the most +beery flirtation there must be a certain amount of liking. There is, +therefore, something to save a girl. I feel sure that it is girls, not +men, who lead innocent girls astray. Those poor bar girls are quite +unprotected; they have a sitting-room into which they may not bring a +friend--a man, I mean. In the bedrooms there is always a lot of illicit +talking and drinking going on. A girl who has gone wrong herself is +never content until she has persuaded another girl to go wrong; a girl +is so mean! I feel very much on this subject. I am thinking of writing +a book on the subject. Did I ever tell you about the novel I intended to +write?" + +"You told me once in Brighton about a novel you intended to write. I +forget what it was about, but you said you were going to call it 'Her +Saviour.'" + +"Oh, that is another book. I was thinking of writing the story of a +woman who is led into vice. They get her to throw over the man who loves +her; he follows her, never loses sight of her until at last, determined +to save her, and although he knows that he is wrecking his own life, he +marries her. What do you think?" + +Being pressed for an answer, Willy stroked his moustache with great +gravity. "I really can't say, my dear fellow; you know I never like +giving opinions on questions I do not understand." + +The conversation came to a pause, and Willy began to whistle. + +"Just a little flat--quarter of a note wrong there and there!" + +"Do you whistle it? Oh, yes, that's it! I can hear the difference! I +wish you had your violin. I should like to hear you play it." + +"What, with the missus overhead?" + +"She doesn't know anything about it. How prettily _she_ used to sing it; +a pretty tune, isn't it? Good old days they were! Do you remember when +you used to come to the Princess's with me? Didn't she look pretty?" + +"You never told me why you didn't marry her; I never heard the end of +that story." + +"There is nothing to tell. It's all over now. Do you remember how I +used to dress myself up to go to the theatre? We used to go to supper at +Scott's afterwards. I did not mind what I ate in those days." + +"You hardly ever go to the theatre now, do you?" + +"Hardly ever. I shouldn't have gone to-night if it had not been for you. +I don't know how it is, but I don't seem to enjoy myself as I used to." + +The men ceased talking. Presently Frank broke the silence. + +"I hope you are getting on all right on the Stock Exchange. You haven't +mentioned the subject." + +"I don't know that there is much to say. Times are very bad just now. I +don't think any one is doing much good." + +"But you are with a very good firm. Nothing is going wrong, I hope." + +"I don't think any one is making money. We have all been hard hit +lately--war scares. But I daresay it will all come right." + +"I never understood what you ever wanted to go into the business for. +What do you, with your handsome place at Southwick, and your father with +his thousands and thousands, want to turn yourself into a city clerk +for?" + +"You see, you don't care about making money; I do--it was bred in me. +Besides, I am an unselfish fellow. I never think of myself; I like to +think of others. If I were to make a good thing out of this, I should be +able to leave the missus independent." Then, after a slight pause, Willy +said: "But, by the way, I was forgetting. I got a letter this morning +saying that if I met you in London I was to tell you that you were to +come to Southwick for a ball." + +"What ball?" + +"A subscription ball at Henfield--a county ball. Will you come?" + +"Yes, I don't mind. It should be rather fun. Are you going?" + +"Yes, I must go, worse luck, to chaperon my sisters." + +"How do you go? Will the governor let you have the horses?" + +"Not he! We generally have a large 'bus. I am going down to-morrow by +the twelve o'clock train. Will that be too early for you?" + +"Not if I go home now and pack up." + +"You won't like that. You had better sleep here and get up early in the +morning; your room is all ready." + +"I couldn't manage it. I never could get back to the Temple, pack up, +and meet you at twelve at London Bridge." + +"It will be rather a cold walk for you; you are too late for the train, +and the last 'bus, I am afraid, has gone." + +"I shall have a hansom. The only thing that worries me is not being able +to say good-bye to the missus." + +"She's fast asleep. She won't mind--I'll make that all right." + +"Then, at twelve o'clock at London Bridge!" + + + + +VIII + + + +Sally rushed down to meet him, and she took him off for a walk in the +garden. + +"What a time it is since we have seen you. What have you been +doing--amusing yourself a great deal, I suppose?" + +"I have been the whole time in Paris. I have been studying very hard. I +only returned home about two months ago." + +"I don't believe about the studying." + +"I have been working at my painting. I worked morning and afternoon in +the studio from the nude. Last summer I had a delightful time. I took +a little place on the Seine--a little house near Bas Meudon. I had a +garden; I used to breakfast every morning in the garden--fresh eggs, new +bread, an omelette, such as only a Frenchwoman can make, a cutlet, or a +piece of chicken. The wine, too, so fresh and generous. I don't know how +it is, but Burgundy here is not the same as Burgundy on the banks of +the Seine. I worked all day in my garden, or down by the river. I was +painting a large picture. I haven't finished it yet. I must go back +there in the summer to finish it." + +"Why can't you finish it here? Haven't you got it here?" + +"Yes, but the Seine is not here." + +"Wouldn't the Adour do? The river at Shoreham?" + +"No; but the Thames might. My picture is really more English than +French. There were a lot of willow trees there, and my picture +represents a girl lying in a hammock, foot hanging over, showing such a +pretty piece of black stocking. There are two men there, they are both +swinging the hammock, but while one is looking at her ankle the other +only sees her face." + +Sally laughed coarsely and evasively. + +"What are you laughing at?" he asked, feeling a little nettled. + +"Don't you think people will think it rather improper?" + +"Not at all. Why should they? The idea I wish to convey is that one man +loves her truly for herself alone, the other only loves her because she +is a pretty girl. I have composed some triolets for the picture, which +will be printed in the catalogue-- + + "In a hammock I swing, + My feet hanging over; + 'Neath Love's bright wing, + In a hammock I swing, + Loves come and they bring + A truth to discover, + In a hammock I swing, + My feet hanging over. + +"That is the first stanza. There are six, and they tell the story of the +picture. I will copy them into your album, if you like." + +"Will you? That will be so nice, if you will. The only thing is, I +haven't an album." + +"Haven't you? I'll get you one. I'll send you one from London." + +Sally asked him to explain the triolets, and very loyally she strove to +understand. + +"Ah, I see a thing when I am told, but I never can understand poetry or +pictures until they are explained to me." + +Mollified, Frank thought of going upstairs to fetch the copy book +in which he wrote such things, but speaking out of an unperceived +association of ideas, he said: "What a clever girl your sister is. I had +once a long talk with her about pictures and poetry, and I was surprised +to find how well she talked. She understands everything." + +"Maggie is a clever girl; I know she is far cleverer than I am; but if +you knew her as well as I do, you would find she did not understand all +you think she understands." + +"How do you mean?" + +"Maggie's cleverness lies in being able to pretend she understands what +she knows nothing about; I have often caught her out." + +"Really; but how do you get on together now?" + +"Pretty well! I don't think there is much love lost on either side. I +don't know why--I never could understand Maggie. You have no idea of the +reports she spreads about me all over the place--the stories she tells +the Grahams, the Prestons, the Wells. She told Mrs. Wells that I fell in +love with every young man that came to Southwick. She said awful things +about me. As for that story about telling cook to put father's dinner +back, I don't think I ever shall hear the last of it. What made father +so angry was because he thought it was to talk to Jimmy in the slonk." + +"You told me the last time I was here that you wanted to finish a +conversation with him in the slonk." + +"I may have told you that it was to speak to him about his sister +Fanny," Sally replied evasively. "I would not care if I never saw him +again; but I couldn't get on if I weren't allowed to see Fanny. Father +wanted me to promise never to enter the house again!" + +"But you have flirted with him?" + +"I don't know that I have; certainly not more than Maggie. Last summer +she was hanging round his neck every evening under the sycamores. I +caught them twice." + +"I don't see any harm in going under the sycamores. I daresay Maggie has +allowed him to kiss her; so have you!" + +"That I assure you I haven't." + +"You mean to say a man never kissed you?" + +"I didn't say that. I haven't kissed any one for years." + +"Who did kiss you?" + +"You don't know him. I was only eighteen. He was a married man; it was +very wrong of me." + +"I wish I had been he." + +"Do you? I hate him; he was a beast for doing it." + +Sally often indulged in these half confessions; one of her aunts used to +call them her "side lights." By their aid she succeeded in interesting +Frank. "How candid she is to tell me--to confide in me!" Sally was +handsome now; the evening suited her dark skin and coal black eyes, and +her strong figure was rich and not ungraceful in a dress of ruby velvet. +Should he kiss her? What would she say? He threwhis arm about her. + +"I am surprised. Certainly not!" + +"I don't see any harm." Then, with a sensation of saying something +foolish, he said: "You told me you kissed a married man." + +"That was ages ago--I was very silly. I shouldn't think of doing sonow." + +In the silence which followed Frank wondered why he had tried to kiss +her. Decidedly he liked the other better. + +Now every evening Maggie went to the writing-table, and all knew what +it meant. Mr. Brookes occasionally lamented in a minor key, but without +having recourse to his handkerchief. Willy said nothing; his losses on +the Stock Exchange had been heavy; and owing to a conversation Frank had +drawn him into during dinner the other day, his digestion, he feared, +was not quite up to the mark. So on the night of the ball he only +answered with an occasional monosyllable the splendid young man of the +embroidered waistcoats who related his pleasures in a deep bass; nor +did he pretend to take any interest in the crude militia officer who +sometimes broke the silence by a declaration that he did not care for +politics or poetry, that he liked history better. The young ladies +listened devoutly to all that the young men said; Mr. Brookes carved +valiantly at the head of the table and appeared resigned. Bouquets were +fixed in button-holes in the billiard-room and the 'bus was announced. +A greasy oil-lamp hung from the roof. Sometimes Sally rubbed the +windows and said she could tell by the bushes where they were, and +the embroidered waistcoat continued to drone out the measure of his +amusements. He would have to run up to London, then he must have a shy +at _trente et quarante_ at Monte Carlo, then he must get back for the +spring meeting at Newmarket. Frank asked him if he didn't think he +could manage to amuse himself without talking it all out beforehand. +But undaunted and unchecked he wandered from Homburg to Paris, and +from Paris to Ross-shire, until the 'bus drew up among a small crowd of +people. + +The ball was a failure. When they entered the rooms there were scarcely +twenty people present. It was very cold, and the men said; "How can the +women bear it with their naked shoulders?" + +"We shall never get near this fire," said Sally, looking in dismay +on the circle of damsels who stood warming themselves, their dresses +relieved upon the masses of laurel with which the room was decorated; +"there is a beautiful fire in one of those little rooms at the end." + +"Very well, let us come and sit there; or shall we dance this waltz +first?" + +"Let's dance it." + +They danced, and Frank shuddered in his evening clothes as he danced. + +"Did you notice," said Sally, as they hurried to the retiring room, "how +upset father seemed at dinner? I thought he was going to cry, but he +bore up to the end better than I expected." + +"So he did, but I don't see what there was particularly to upset him +this time. Meason is away at sea, and you have promised not to see him +any more." + +"Oh, I wasn't thinking about the Measons--but haven't you heard? I only +heard it through a friend, but I know for a fact that Willy has lost +nearly all his money on the Stock Exchange." + +"You don't say so; I am so sorry." + +"Father hasn't heard it all yet; if he had he wouldn't have come down to +dinner. I don't fancy he knows more than that things have not been going +well, and that Willy has been a loser." + +"But how can he have lost? I thought he was junior partner in an old +established business." + +"So he is. I can't tell you how the mischief was done, but I know he has +lost all his money." + +"What do you mean by all his money?" + +"All the money--three thousand--that father let him draw out of the +distillery." + +"This is very sad." + +"Yes, isn't it? And particularly for a fellow who has so few amusements, +and only cares about making money. Just look at him now; he wanders +about speaking to no one. Come, let's dance this dance--are you +engaged?" + +"No!" + +This news about Willy fixed the Harfield ball in Frank's thoughts, and +he remembered the pretty girl in white of whom he could make nothing, +of the raw just-brought-out girl who had bored him, of the communicative +girl who had amused him by her accounts of her dogs and horses; he +remembered, too, how he had seen Maggie disappearing down the ends of +certain passages with a young man whose name he did not catch, and whose +face he had not noticed. He had danced twice with her, only twice; she +was distracted, she did not look at him, her eyes wandered all over the +room, she answered his questions indifferently. Sally, on the contrary, +had devoted herself to him, and on several occasions he thought that her +blunt straightforward manner was better than the other's slyness. The +'bus came with its draughts, its sickly lamp and its doleful jolting. +Sally was too tired to rub the windows and declare how far they were +from home, and the dancers endured their discomforts almost in silence; +even the embroidered waistcoat occasionally ceased to talk about +Homburg; and in all the extreme bitterness and greyness of a March +morning they pulled up before the door of the Manor House. + +"I beg of you not to make a noise. If you wake up father he will +never let us go to a ball again. Is there a fire in the billiard-room, +Gardner?" + +"Yes, miss, there's a lovely fire; the decanters are on the table and +the kettle is on the hob." + +"I think you would all like a glass of something hot," said Maggie. + +"Rather!" + +"But don't make a noise, please." + +They stole along the passages to the billiard-room shivering, their +feet aching, feeling very uncomfortable indeed. The waistcoat was now +considering if it would be good form to come forward in the Conservative +interest at the next election; but every one was too tired, they could +not laugh, and amid a few general remarks the young ladies drank their +gin and water, casting sheep's eyes at the young men, and then, glad and +yet loth to part, all retired limping to their rooms. + +Breakfast was a pleasant meal--full of laughter and anecdotes of the +ball, and, laden with Gladstone bags, the young men departed in ones and +twos. Frank was going with Willy to London, and when they disappeared +among the laurels Sally and Maggie turned indoors, conscious of +reaction, and wondering what they should do with the long day that +stretched before them. Maggie walked upstairs; she lingered, undecided, +and then went down the passage to Frank's room. He had forgotten a +shirt stud; on the chest of drawers there was a crumpled white tie and a +soiled pair of white gloves. "How careless he is!" she thought, "I must +send him this," and she put the stud in her pocket. She straightened out +the gloves and determined to send the necktie to the wash. Next time +he came down she would have it to give him, nice, clean, and white--she +must see that it was beautifully made up. Then she found his ball +programme. He had danced four times with Sally--only twice with +her--what a fool she had been; she had wasted her whole evening with +that other fellow. It did make her feel so angry. Then the housemaid +entered and turned the bed down. + +"What a lot of washing there will be this week, Gardner." + +"There will indeed, miss. Three pairs of sheets, and only slept in +once." + +"Yes, isn't it a pity? It seems absurd to send these sheets to the wash, +doesn't it?" + +"It do, indeed, miss." + +"Absurd!" said Sally, who had just come in. "I want a pair of fresh +sheets for my bed. I'll have these." + +"No you won't--I was going to take them." + +"I should like to know what right you have to them more than I." + +"You promised not to interfere with me, and you have done nothing else. +You did nothing at the ball but ask him for dances." + +"That's a lie! I didn't ask him for a dance. You went off to hide; no +one saw anything of you all the evening." + +"You mean to say you didn't promise?" + +"I never promised anything; if I did I should keep my promise. I am not +like you. I want a pair of sheets, and I mean to have these." + +"They are too big for your bed." + +Sally seized the sheet and strove to drag it from Maggie, who, although +the weaker, held her own bravely for some time. Finding her strength +failing her, she loosed her hold, letting her sister fall against the +wall, and taking up the pillow she launched it with her full force. "If +you want what he slept in, you can have it all." + +"I'll give it to you, my lady," cried the bully, making a rush round the +bed, but Maggie fled through the dressing-room, shutting the door behind +her, and locked herself into her room. + + + + +IX + + + +As Willy would not pay the extra fare, Frank had to travel second class. +He was telling his friend of the Stock Exchange, and his losses--nearly +four thousand pounds. He had suspected that the firm of which he was +junior partner had not played fair with him. Anyhow, he was going to +get out of the business, having something better in view--a shop in +Brighton. Yes, a shop in Brighton, a greengrocer's shop. No one had any +idea, until they went into the calculation, of the amount of profit that +was made on vegetables. Lord This and Lord That, every one who had a +handsome place with large gardens, counted on being able to pay his +gardener's wages by the sale of the surplus carrots, artichokes, +potatoes, parsley, onions, tomatoes, especially tomatoes--every one +nowadays ate tomatoes. He had it all down in figures, and was perfectly +astonished at the sums of money that could be made. Grapes had been +overdone, that was true; but a profit could be made out of everything +else. Flowers, especially gardenias, were sold in the London market at +two shillings apiece. Now, there was he within five miles of a large +town like Brighton; the rent of a shop in the Western Road would not +come to more than seventy or eighty pounds a year; the missus he would +put in as shopwoman, and, there was no doubt of it, she would make as +good a shopwoman as you could find, after a little practice; the child +could run on errands, so it should be all profit. "I shall have none of +the expenses that other people have to contend with. In the garden at +the Manor House about three times as much stuff is grown as required. I +shall buy all the fruit, vegetables, and flowers from my father at cost +price, or a little over, and shall sell in my shop at retail price, that +is, twenty or thirty per cent more. There is, therefore, no reason +why the shop should not bring in from three to four hundred a year. +And--would you believe it?--my father, who will be benefited by my +scheme, if not more, quite as much as I shall be, is opposed to it; he +will get a fair price for a lot of things for which he now gets nothing. +But no. He cannot, or will not, see it. I never saw any one like my +father. He will not help himself and you can do nothing to help him. The +distillery business is going very badly. He had a bad year last year. +I know for a fact that he did not make five per cent on his capital. +Putting these things together, I should have thought that he would have +been glad to make a little money to retrench; but no! he prefers to go +on in the old way. He made money in the old way, and he doesn't see +why he shouldn't make money again in the old way. Odd man my father is, +isn't he?" + +It appeared to Frank that Mr. Brookes had managed to help himself very +liberally indeed to all the good things in life; but with his false, +facile, Celtic nature, he had no difficulty in re-adjusting his ideas +and adopting a view of Mr. Brookes more in harmony with Willy's. He was, +as usual, enthusiastic about his friends, and was effervescing with love +and goodwill. He saw nothing of their faults--they were the best and +truest people he had ever known, and he could not love them too much. +Indeed he was angry, and regretted the limitations that nature has +set on the human heart, and would if he could have lost himself in one +immense and eternal love of the Brookeses. + +When he bade Willy good-bye at London Bridge, and wished him well with +his shop, these sentiments ceased to be active forces in him, and they +lay latent in his life of restaurants and bar rooms until the summer +returned, and he received an invitation from the Manor House to come +down for a garden party at Mrs. Berkins's. When he opened the letter he +basked in thoughts of them--of Maggie and her fascinating subtleties, of +Sally's blunt speech and sturdy good looks, of Willy, and all the quiet +talks they would have together. He counted the tunnels, and, striving +to recall the landscape, guessed extravagantly the number of miles that +separated him from them. He walked up the drive with a beating heart, +looking for the girls between the laurel bushes. He found them, and +their habits which endeared them to him, unchanged; and to slip back +into the old ways without experiencing the slightest difficulty or jar +was like waking from a dream and entering again on a pleasant reality. +There was the excellent dinner and the usual complaints about the +Southdown Road, the cigars in the billiard-room, conversation about +pictures and investments, gin and water, and then a long yarn with +Willy in his bedroom. Life moved at the Manor House without any spring +creaking, without jolt or jar, and it was this beautiful regularity that +made Frank feel so healthily and so unexpectedly happy. He loved the +desolation of Ireland. This was the stronger sense, but there was +another sense, a half stifled sense, that found an echo in these +southern downs interwoven with suburban life--in other words, a faint +resurrection of the original English mind in him. He enjoyed and he grew +akin to this Saxon prosperity; he learned to recognise it as manifested +in the various prospects of the weald and the wold, and he loved this +medley of contradictory aspects--the spires of the village churches, +the porches of the villas, the rich farmhouses and their elm trees, the +orchards jammed between masses of chalk, the shepherds seen against the +sky of the Downs. It is true that he felt that this country was alien +to him, but he was not individually conscious that his love of suburban +Sussex was a morbid affection, opposed to the normal and indissoluble +bonds of inherited aspirations and prejudices, and the forms and colours +that had filled his eyes in childhood. Consciousness in Frank Escott was +always slow, and always so governed and coloured by the sentiment of +the moment that his comprehension of things were always deformed or +incomplete. In his mind the phenomenon of life was ever in nebulae, and +though very often one thought would define itself, no group of +thoughts, or part of a group, ever became clear, so there was no abiding +principle, nothing that he might know and steer by. He was, of course, +aware that the Brookes were not equal to him in rank, but he did not +know, or, rather, he would not know, that they were vulgar; nor did he +think that Mount Rorke might marry again, if he were to marry Maggie or +Sally. All that was really alive and distinct in him was love of +them; and this love thrived in a sensation of class which he would not +acknowledge, even to himself, had any existence. The glass-houses, and +swards, and laurels had a meaning and fascination for him that he could +not account for or describe, and he found these feelings, which were +mainly class feelings of an unusual kind, not only in the aspect of the +country but in the accent and speech of his friends, in the expression +of their eyes and very hands. The English servants pleased him, and he +strove to detect qualities in the carriage and horses, and he compared +them to their advantage with Mount Rorke's. He loved to wrap the rug +about the young ladies' knees, and they seemed to him quite perfect and +delightful as they lay back in their carriage, driving beneath a sky +full of blue, and through the changing views of the Downs, all distinct +with light and shade. Sally and Maggie made much of him, covered him up, +and addressed to him pleasant speeches. His eyes and ears were open and +eager for new impressions, and his heart panted with readiness to admire +and praise all he saw. He was ready to think that he had never seen +anything so lovely as the laurels and the numerous glass-houses; and he +wondered why he had ever thought so little of Berkins, and he listened +with interest to that gentleman's explanation of the superiority of his +possessions over everybody else's possessions. He even allowed himself +to be persuaded that there was no pheasant shooting in the kingdom--for +its size--equal to that in the little wood. Sally, who did not attempt +to conceal her dislike of her brother-in-law, whispered: "That's the way +to bring them down," and Frank was obliged to laugh. Then she and Maggie +disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them for several hours. The +Grenadier Guards played on the lawn, and Frank was introduced to ladies +of all ages and sizes; and as these bored him, he began to see that the +place was vulgar and the people shoddy, and he wondered what Mount Rorke +would say if he were to come suddenly across him. Grace was the subject +of much concern, and obviously _enceinte,_ she passed through the +different groups. She had introduced Frank as Lord Mount Rorke's son, +then as his nephew, then as his heir, and, fearing she might succumb to +the temptation of introducing him as Mount Rorke himself, Frank escaped +from her, and joined a party that Berkins was personally conducting +through the grounds. + +The stables had been built by So-and-so on the most approved principles. +There were no stables like them in Sussex--the fittings of the +harness-room alone had cost him three hundred. The horses he had bought +at the Duke's sale, the Duke would not have thought of parting with +them had he known how they would turn out. He had driven them along the +Brighton road at the rate of fifteen miles an hour; he would back them +to do fifteen miles in the hour. There was not a pair of horses in +England equal to them. That was Mrs. Berkins's riding horse--was it +possible to imagine a more perfect cob? He could get a hundred for him +any day, he did not know of anything like him. "Did any of you gentleman +ever see anything like him?" They went to the kennels. A brace of +Irish setters were declared to be the finest dogs that Ireland had +ever produced, they had taken two prizes, one in Dublin and another in +Brighton--and the little fox terrier was the gamest dog in Sussex. She +would go into any hole after a fox, and never leave him till she +brought him out. You couldn't find her equal. Then the glass-houses were +perfect. They contained all the latest improvements, and all these were +fully explained. "Berkins is excelling himself to-day," thought Frank. + +Presently they came upon a basket of peaches. + +"These peaches were, of course, grown under glass, but I think I am +right in saying, Jackson, that they were produced without artificial +heat." + +"Yes, sir, quite right, sir. It couldn't be done nowhere else, sir, +but all the sun in Sussex seems to come down here--a regular little sun +trap, I think that's what you called it the other day, sir, when you +were speaking to me about them there peaches." + +"Yes, I did. If you move nearer the sea you get fogs and cold winds, +further inland you lose the sun, but just here the climate is equal +to the south of Europe! I ask you to look at these peaches, it seems +impossible--does it not?--to have peaches like these at the end of May, +and without any heat, merely glass." + +"It seems to me quite impossible," declared a little fat man with flaxen +hair. "I am devoted to peach-growing, and I confess I am quite at a +loss. Gardener, did you say that those peaches were grown entirely +without artificial heat?" + +The gardener pretended not to hear, and tried to slip away, but the +little man, who had been taken on his hobby, was not to be baulked, and +he pursued the wretched horticulturist. + +"You mean to say that these peaches ripened without any artificial heat, +any?" + +"You have no idea what a sun we get here, sir. I have never seen +anything like it. In my last situation, when I was living with Lord +----, we couldn't get our fruit forward, use whatever heat he might, +and Houghton is not more than fifty miles from here--the difference of +climate is positively wonderful." + +Jackson had reckoned that Mr. Berkins would move on, and that the +inquisitive little man would find himself obliged to follow, but +chance was against him, for Berkins, with his guests around him, stood +listening to the discussion. + +"You mean to say that these peaches were grown without heat. I wouldn't +mind giving you five-and-twenty pounds for the recipe for doing it." + +"You must take a small place down here, sir, and then you will be able +to do it." + +This raised a laugh, but the little man was not to be beaten, and he +said: "I should like to see some of those peaches of yours on the trees. +You haven't plucked them all; let me see them." + +"Yes, Jackson, show us the trees. Some will not believe without seeing; +let us see the peaches on the trees." + +Jackson appeared to be a little disconcerted; he murmured excuses, and +strove to escape. Driven to bay he brought them into a glass-house where +there were hot water-pipes, and when his tormentor pointed triumphantly +to the pipes he attempted a faint explanation--he had meant to say that +heat had only been used within the last three weeks. + +"So you see, Berkins," exclaimed little flaxen-haired fatty, "your south +of Europe is no better than my south of Europe, or anybody else's south +of Europe." + +"Jackson, you have told me many deliberate falsehoods about these +peaches. I keep no one in my employment whose word cannot be depended +upon. You take your warning." + +"Falsehoods! What do you want a man to do, if you will have everything +better than anybody else's?" + +Berkins turned suddenly on his heel, he drew himself up to his full +height, and stood speechless with indignation. Never, not even on the +most important Board meetings, did his friends wait to hear him speak +with more anxiety; but at that moment a crash of flower pots was heard, +and Sally and a young man were discovered hiding in the potting shed; +and to make matters worse, in the very next house they visited, they +suddenly came upon Maggie sitting with another young man in strangely +compromising circumstances. Explanations were attempted, and some stupid +remarks were made. Berkins was seriously annoyed, and he took the first +opportunity of taking Mr. Brookes's arm and leading him away to a quiet +path. Frank saw the men pass through the laurels, and ten minutes after +he saw them return. Evidently Berkins had read Mr. Brookes an exhaustive +lecture on the conduct of his daughters. + +"Now, Mr. Brookes, now Mr. Brookes, I must beg of you--calm yourself. +What would my guests think if they found you in tears? What would +they think I had been saying to reduce you to such a condition? It +is veryunfortunate that Sally and Maggie should act as they do, +particularly at my place; but really you must not give way." + +"Since the death of their poor mother I am all alone. My position is +a very trying one." Then, with a sudden burst of laughter, "However, I +suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence!" + + + + +X + + + +The girls walked to the station with Escott. A fleecy evening, with the +clouds growing pale towards the sea, the sun like fire in the elms, and +the woods showing upon a purple tinge. + +"How delightful!" exclaimed Frank. "How charming this is--this old +English green, the horse pond at one end, the various houses, the inn, +the grocery business, the linen drying in that yard, the smith, and the +wheelwright. I don't like that modern Queen Anne school-house, and I +wish I could remove the dead level of the embankment and see the sea. +The green is better from this side with the view of the Downs--those +lines waving against the sky, where the gorse grows and the sheep feed, +and inclining to the road all the fields pale green and deep green. But +what game are those men playing--what game do you call that?" + +"Bat and trap." + +"I have passed the green twenty times before, and I never really saw it +till now. It is charming--so thoroughly English. I should like to live +here for a month--for two months. How nice it would be to breakfast in +the morning looking out on the green, to see the cocks and hens and all +the children and all this English life! How different from Pump Court! +I am sick of Pump Court--dirt and smoke, a horrid servant, stale eggs. +I suppose you can always get fresh eggs and new bread here? I would give +anything to spend a month on the green." + +"Well, you can!" cried Sally. "I wish you would, and you could come and +play tennis with us every afternoon. Mrs. Heald has some rooms to let; +why it was only last week I heard that she hadn't let her rooms this +season, and was most anxious to do so." + +"There's no use my coming here until I begin to write my novel. I am +painting now, and I must see if I can get my picture finished for one of +the autumn exhibitions." + +"I knew you would find some excuse." + +"No, I assure you, but I can't do anything without a studio, and I'm not +likely to find a studio on Southwick Green." + +"I don't suppose Mrs. Heald has a room large enough for a studio," said +Maggie; "but I don't see why you shouldn't find a place where you can +paint." + +"Where? Not in that eighteenth-century house where the two old ladies +are standing! Supposing I were to go and ask them if they would let +me have their drawing-room to paint in! That is the only house on the +green, all the rest are cottages." + +"I suppose you are not very particular where you paint," said Maggie +reflectively. "You don't mind appearances, I suppose? I wonder if you +could manage to fit up a farm building." + +"There is the famous barn where Charles the First hid himself, I don't +suppose the authorities would allow me to turn that into a studio." + +"No, probably not; but I think you might find a house that would do." + +"What nonsense, Maggie," said Sally, who began to grow jealous of her +sister. + +"Why is it nonsense? I see no reason why Frank shouldn't come to some +arrangement with the smith, and turn his house into a studio." + +"Which is the smith's house? I'll tell you in a moment if it could be +turned into a studio." + +"That house standing quite by itself in the corner of the green." + +"That tall narrow house with the bit of broken wall and the elder +bushes?" + +"Yes." + +"I daresay I could rig up a very nice studio out of that place, indeed +it looks quite picturesque amid its elder bushes. There is the stile, +and there is the cornfield. But I couldn't live there." + +"No, you would live at Mrs. Heald's, and you could walk over every +morning to the studio." + +"Yes, I could do that. I prefer to live with my work. There is nothing +like walking from the breakfast table across the room to the easel." + +"Of course you can find fault with everything; nothing is perfect." + +"There goes the train!" cried Sally. "No use in running now, you've +missed it." + +"How very provoking; the next isn't till half-past seven--just an hour +to wait." + +"Well," said Maggie, "if you have missed the train we may as well go at +once and ask Mrs. Heald if she has let her rooms." + +They walked towards a block of cottages--at one end the "Cricketer's +Arms," at the other the grocery business; and the cottage that joined +the grocery business was remarkable for a bit of green paling and wooden +balcony, now covered with Virginia creeper. Frank thought at once +of new-laid eggs, and the sunlight glancing through a great mass of +greenery, and he resolved if a sacrifice were necessary to live at +Southwick, he would put his picture aside and begin his novel. The +people in the house pleased him, and he ran on in his way thinking how +English and trustworthy they seemed, liking the green parrot that rubbed +its head affectionately against the grey ringlets of a very ladylike old +person; and Mrs. Heald, brisk as a bee, notwithstanding her lame leg, +who led the way up the ladder-like cottage staircase. + +"How nice and clean everything is; books and engravings along the +passages. How unlike Ireland!" + +But the sitting-room was full of horsehair sofas and chairs. These +displeased Frank, but some handsome china--an entire tea service in +Crown Derby--reconciled him to the room. In the bedroom they found +a huge four-poster of old time, with a lengthy bolster and imposing +pillows, and they were shown into another and a similar room. One looked +out on the green, the other on the fields that lay between the green and +the Manor House. + +"If that elm were cut down you could see my window," said Sally. + +"Which room do you like the best?" said Maggie. + +"It is hard to say. The other room looks on the green, but here there +is a nice large wardrobe, and I don't see how I can get on without a +wardrobe." + +"If you like the other room best, sir, I can turn out the chest of +drawers." + +"Oh, that would be very nice if you can manage it, the room will do very +well. I can have a bath every morning?" + +"Yes, sir; there will be no difficulty about that." + +Maggie had taken off her hat and was settling her hair before the glass. +Sally opened the wardrobe, revealing various petticoats and skirts, but +she thought of it as full of Frank's light overcoats, the scarves he +wore round his throat when he went out in evening clothes, the patent +leather shoes in the corner. Suddenly the conversation dropped, and +after a pause Frank said: "I think these rooms suit me very well, but I +can do nothing; it is impossible for me to say if I can take them until +I find out if there is any place in the immediate neighbourhood that I +could convert into a studio. Do you know of any such place?" + +"No, I do not, sir." + +"Mr. Escott was thinking of seeing the smith about his house. I wonder +if Town would let it to Mr. Escott for a consideration," said Maggie. + +"Of course, I should have to get leave to make what alterations I +pleased." + +"I don't suppose the house belongs to Town, sir; I don't think he is +more than a weekly tenant." + +"If that's the case, we must see the landlord. Do you know who is the +landlord?" + +"I can't say I do, sir." + +"Well, Mrs. Heald, I will let you know in a day or two if I can take +your rooms--you can give me a day or two?" + +"Yes, sir, but I should like to know as soon as possible; several people +have been asking after my rooms." + +"I'll let you know in a day or two." + +"If Town is only a weekly tenant, you'll be able to get his house by +paying a little more for it," said Maggie, as they walked down the green +towards the smith's forge. + +"That would be hardly fair; I should like to act squarely by the smith. +What is his name?" + +"Town." + +Town was cutting out the hoof of a shaggy grey cart horse when his +visitors entered the cindery blackness. + +"Town, this gentleman would like to speak to you," said Maggie, raising +her voice above the wheezy bellows. He threw the hoof out of his apron, +and, drawing his blackened arm across his forehead, he came forward. + +"Town, I am anxious to find a place on the green that I could convert +into a studio; I think your house would suit my purpose very well. Do +you think we could come to some arrangement? Of course I would give you +a reasonable compensation." + +"Well, I really hardly know, sir; I dunno that I hardly understand. You +want my house to turn into a--" + +"A studio--a place where I can paint pictures." + +"I don't see how I can do without my 'ouse." + +"But I will compensate you--make it worth your while." + +"You see it is so near my work. Was I to go and live at Ada Terrace, +I should, you see, be out of the way. If people want a job done they +always knows where to find me." + +"Yes, but if I compensate you?" + +Seeing that Frank was exciting the smith with too wild hopes of wealth, +Sally thought fit to interpose. "Mr. Escott would require permission +to make any alterations in the building he thought proper--you couldn't +give him permission; he would in any case have to see your landlord. Who +is your landlord?" + +"I don't see how I can give up my 'ouse to be turned into a painting +place; it wouldn't suit me at all." + +"If I make you sufficient compensation--" + +Again the smith was reduced to silence. He scratched his head, and Frank +watched the sparks fly, and heard the rhythmical sledge. "I wish he +wouldn't talk so much about compensation," thought Sally. "I don't know +what the man won't be asking if Frank doesn't shut up." + +"Do you think we shall be able to come to an understanding? I want to +know." + +"Well, you see, sir, my wife is delicate, and I'm that afraid she +wouldn't like to give up her 'ome. But I'll speak to 'er if you like +to-night, sir." + +"Mr. Escott will have to see your landlord; he will have to arrange with +him about the alterations." + +"There will be no difficulty about the alterations." + +"Very probably; but you are only a weekly tenant. It is a question +your landlord must decide. If he agrees to allow Mr. Escott to make the +alterations, Mr. Escott will no doubt compensate you for disturbance." + +"It is all very well to talk about compensation. How do I know what your +compensation will be? How do I know you will make it worth my while? I +don't want no compensation. I want my 'ouse. Cheek I calls it, to come +down here wanting to muck me out of my house." + +"Now, sir, we want no impertinence. I shall do exactly as I please in +the matter. Your landlord is the person I should have spoken to." + +"Spoken to! Who are you, I should like to know, coming round here +interfering in my business?" + +All Frank's discussions ended in angry words, and he never came to terms +with any one without threatening blows. Town returned to the forge; +Frank and the young ladies made their way across the green. At the +corner of Southdown Road they found the General, the schoolmaster, and a +retired farmer ardently gossiping; Mrs. Horlock, prim in her black gown +and poke bonnet, waited with admirable patience, and Angel, the blind +pug, in horrible corpulence, waddled and sniffed the grass. The story +of Town's impertinence was told. The General was shocked--it was +surprising. What are we coming to? The retired farmer said that Town was +a hot-tempered man, but not a bad sort when you knew how to take him, +and all, except Mrs. Horlock, agreed that the landlord was the person +who should be consulted. + +"I really don't see why you should turn the poor man out of his house if +he doesn't want to go. How would you like some one to come and turn you +out of your house?" she said, turning to her husband. + +The General laughed. "My dear Lucy, whatever you say must be right. +So you are coming to live at Southwick. Very glad to hear it. You know +where to find us, the gate's always open; lunch at half-past one, dinner +at eight--old Indians, you know; come in when you like. Pretty place +I have here, everything I want--stables and horses, and (the General +looked to see if Lucy was out of hearing) plenty of dogs, you know--a +few too many; but my wife, you know--" The rest was lost in a burst of +good-natured laughter. + +They bade the Horlocks good-night and walked up the Southdown Road, +looking with its line of trees along the pavement like a little mock +boulevard. Frank was particularly severe in his remarks on the trim +privet hedges and the little bronze sphinxes standing before the portico +of yellow glass; he declared that a man must be born to put up such +things, and he clearly thought this sneer a very happy one, for he +repeated it, fearing that Sally had not understood. The grocer who had +placed a bas-relief of himself over his door was greatly wondered at, +and Sally told an amusing anecdote regarding the invitations he sent +out for the first dinner party. The conversation turned on the Measons. +Jack's ship had gone to China, and he was not expected back much before +Christmas. + +"That's very sad, Sally. How will you be able to live through so many +months?" + +"I don't care for him. I don't care if I never saw him again--it was +Fanny who was my friend. Some nice people have come to live in that +corner house--a young man, who is learning farming. Mr. Berkins insists +on father not allowing us to visit any one in the Southdown Road, and +Mr. Berkins can turn father round his finger, he is so much richer. I'm +not allowed to see Fanny at the Manor House. As for Jack, I daresay you +won't believe me, but I shouldn't care if I never saw him again." + +Maggie shrugged her shoulders. The gesture exasperated Sally, and she +turned on her sister. + +"You needn't shrug your shoulders at me, miss; I never flirted with him; +you did, and then you set father against me." + +"Well, for goodness' sake don't quarrel; what does it matter? The idea +of Berkins telling your father whom he should visit; and the idea of +your father permitting it merely because he makes two or three thousand +a year more! He surely doesn't object to your visiting Mrs. Horlock?" + +"No, he couldn't do that." + +Still engaged in discussion, they entered the gates of the Manor House, +and Mr. Brookes was told that Frank would stay at Southwick a few days +longer, so that he might arrange about a studio. The news was not +at first wholly pleasing to the old gentleman, but he remembered the +anecdotes he should hear concerning his favourite painters, and was +consoled. The evening passed away in the security and calm of habit, +sweetened by the intimacy of familiar thoughts and customs. There was +the usual expensive dinner; Mr. Brookes lit a cigar, handed the box to +Frank, and said, puffing lustily, "That's a good picture, paid a lot of +money for it, too much money, mustn't do it again. You were a pupil of +Bouguereau; great painter; you have seen him paint; you would know his +touch amid a thousand, I suppose?" + +About ten o'clock steps in the passage, then the squeak-squeak of the +cork; then the goggle-guggle of the water, and the young ladies came in +with their grog. They kissed their father and brother, shook hands with +Frank, and went to bed. Further anecdotes concerning the painters were +told; further condemnations of the Southdown Road were pronounced; the +house was locked up; Mr. Brookes retired, and the young men continued +the conversation in their rooms. Willy told Frank all about his shop, +Frank told Willy all about his studio, and they went to sleep delighted +with each other and at peace with the world. + +Mr. Brookes had gone when the young men came down next morning. Willy +was down first, and when Frank finished breakfast he found him busy in +the garden making purchases for his shop. + +"How much am I to charge for these peaches, sir?" said the gardener. + +"I intend to pay the market price for everything. I don't know what +peaches are selling at in Covent Garden. I will look it up and let you +know. I am taking two dozen." + +"Yes, sir, there are only very few more ripe." + +"It is a pity I can't have them all," Willy whispered to Frank. "There +is a tremendous profit to be made on peaches. Now, I want some new +potatoes. How many can you let me have?" + +"Really, sir, we are very short; you see it is so early in the year. We +have only a few, none too many for the house." + +"I must have some, if it is only a sample. How much are potatoes selling +at now?" + +"Well, sir, I hardly know. Last year we bought some off Hooper at--" + +"These are the things I have to contend with. How am I to keep my books +right if I don't know exactly the price things are selling for? I may be +paying more for his potatoes than they are selling in Brighton for. My +father gets more out of the shop than any one, and he isn't satisfied." + +The woes of this suburban Lear amused Frank. No sooner was the arch +enemy Meason on the high seas, and the Southdown Road had quieted down, +than another demon had risen up against him; his garden was ravished of +its fairest fruits and vegetables, his carriages were turned into market +carts, and all, as he said, for the sake of practising an elaborate +system of book-keeping. Maggie, who had finished her house-keeping, came +into the garden, and she went with Frank down the town in search of the +landlord of the tall house amid the elder bushes. For a small increase +in the rent, and a promise to undo all alterations before leaving, +putting the house back in the same arrangement of rooms as it at present +stood, the landlord agreed to allow Frank to do his will with the place. +For twenty pounds the smith was silenced, and Frank explained to the +local builder that the house was to be thrown into one room, and the +ceilings of the upper rooms were to be removed. He had thought of having +the rafters painted, but at the builder's suggestion he decided to have +them lined with fresh timber and stained. This would look very handsome. +A large window, some six feet by eight, would have to be put in the +north wall. Of course, all the doors, windows, etc., would have to be +taken away and replaced by new. He would have a book-case in stained +wood. An estimate was drawn up. It came to a good deal more than he had +intended to lay out, and Frank dreaded the expense. But he must live +somewhere, he was sick of Pump Court, and his friends and this little +south-coast village were now ardent in his mind; why not live here? True +that the country was in no way beautiful and offered no temptations to a +landscape painter, but he seldom painted landscapes, and if he wanted a +bit of woodland he would find it over the Downs. Then there was the sea, +and that was always interesting. Perhaps Mount Rorke would let him have +the money. The old fellow had never refused him an extra hundred when he +asked for it. Yes, he would risk it. So the order was given, and all +the delays and broken promises of a builder began to be experienced and +endured. Frank, who now lodged at Mrs. Heald's, hung around the workmen, +counting each brick, and commenting on every piece of woodwork. He at +once took to grumbling at their slowness, and he soon declared that all +hopes of his being able to finish his picture for the Academy were at +an end, and he paraded his misfortunes at the Manor House, at Mrs. +Horlock's, and, indeed, at all the houses he went to for tea or tennis +parties. The painters especially annoyed him, and he even went so far as +to threaten them with an action. + +Long before they had finished his pictures had arrived from London, and +several pieces of furniture from Brighton. The ideas of this young +man were now in full revolt against oriental draperies and things from +Japan. The furniture was, therefore, to consist of large cane sofas with +pillows covered with a yellow chintz pattern which pleased him much. +The selection of a carpet was a matter of great moment. He received with +scornful smiles his upholsterer's suggestions of Persian rugs. Turkey, +Smyrna, and Axminster were proposed and rejected, he even thought of +an Aubusson--no one knew anything about Aubusson at Southwick, and the +vivid blues and yellows and symmetrical design would have at least the +merit of disturbing if not of wrecking the artistic opinions of +his friends. He discovered one of these carpets in a back street in +Brighton, and with some cleaning and mending he felt sure it could be +made to look quite well. But no, if you have an Aubusson carpet you must +have Louis XIV. furniture in the room, and Louis XIV. in Southwick would +be too absurd. Clearly the Aubusson scheme must be abandoned--he would +have a rich grey carpet, soft and woolly, and there should be a round +table covered with a dark blue cloth, set off with a yellow margin, and +the chairs drawn about the table should be covered with dark blue and +painted yellow. A grand piano was indispensable in Frank's surroundings, +both for its appearance in the studio and the relaxation it afforded in +the various interludes. Several journeys to London were made before the +lamps to be used were determined on (a modern design was essential), and +the brass fittings to hang candles from the rafters required still more +delicate and cautious consideration; at last it was decided to have +none. + +All this while Willy was busy with his shop. He had taken a whole house, +and at first he had thought of letting a room, but for many reasons this +scheme had to be abandoned. He did not know who might take the room. +"Who knows--perhaps one of my own friends, a member of my club, for +instance?" Then it would give the missus a lot of bother and worry, and +she had all she could do in looking after the shop. To make a thing a +success you must think of nothing else. It was a pity, but it wasn't to +be thought of. Otherwise he seemed fairly well satisfied. There was +a back door leading on to a back lane, in turn leading on to a back +street, so with his latch-key he could pop in and out unobserved. All +his books and papers in the drawing-room, the ledger, the day-book, +the cash-book all ready, all to hand, so that after dinner, when he had +smoked his pipe, he could go to work. Frank alone was in the secret. +And how the young men enjoyed going to Brighton together. Frank worried +Willy, who ran up and down stairs collecting his brown paper parcels, +calling upon him to make haste. They set forth, Willy firm and +methodical, his shoulders set well back: Frank loose and swaggering, +over-dressed. How to get to the shop was a matter of anxious +consideration. Willy was fearful of detection, and all sorts of +stratagems were resorted to. Sometimes they would walk down to the Old +Steyne, and suddenly double and get back through a medley of obscure +streets, or else they would publicly walk up and down the King's +Road, and when they thought no one was looking, hurry up one of the +by-streets, and so gain their haven, the lane. Once they were in the +lane they slackened speed, all danger was then over, and they laughed +consumedly at their escapes, and delighted in telling each other how +So-and-so and his daughter had been successfully avoided. Willy always +had his latch-key ready; in a moment they were inside, and Frank would +rush upstairs and throw himself into the armchair, crying: "Here we +are!" One day they were at the window, when, to their amazement, the +Manor House carriage pulled up before the shop, and they had only just +time to dodge behind the curtain and escape Sally's eyes. Never before +had the carriage arrived later than five o'clock, and now it was nearly +six. What could be the meaning of this? Begging of Frank not to move, +Willy went out on the landing and listened to his sisters talking to his +wife. The girls--who were, of course, ignorant of their relationship to +the shop-woman--liked Mrs. Brookes very much, and were fond of a chat +with her; and, looking through the blinds, Frank saw the footman in +all the splendour of six feet and grey livery carrying a small pot of +flowers worth sixpence from the carriage to the shop. + +On ordinary days the shop was shut at eight, but when Willy and Frank +dined there it was closed an hour earlier. Frank enjoyed his evenings +there; he enjoyed it all--the homeliness and the quiet. He enjoyed +seeing Willy nurse the missus after dinner, and he found no difficulty +in pretending a certain interest in the book-keeping, and an admiration +for the lines of figures all carefully formed, and the beautifully ruled +lines. Cissy adored him. He took her on his knee, and she leaned her +hollow cheek against his handsome face. She would have probably rushed +to death to serve him. His height, his brightness, his rings, his +spotted neckties--all seemed so perfect, so beautiful, to her; and when +he brought his fiddle she would sit and look at him, her little hands +clasped with an intensity of love that was strange and pitiful. Swaying +from side to side, he ran on from tune to tune--waltzes, reminiscences +from operas, fragments of overtures, delightful snatches from Schubert; +and when he introduced Willy to one tune--a tune in which all his +_might-have-been_ was bound--the dry man seemed to grow drier: perhaps +it brought a glow of pleasure to his heart: but be this as it may, he +only sat and puffed more emphatically at his pipe. + + + + +XI + + + +For Frank this pleasant English village was now a happy _fete_ of summer +joys and occupations. Oh! the hill prospects and the shady gardens +around the coasts. And when he went inland he would return by choice +across the Downs, and in the patriarchal valleys where nothing is heard +but the bell-wether he would stand in the great, lonely darkness, +and see the lights of Brighton brighten the sky above the ridges, and +climbing up the ridges, he gazed on the vague sea, and the long string +of coast towns were like a golden necklace. + +His days went like dreams. The morning hours--bachelor hours--were full +of intimacy and joy. The joy of waking alone with a strange and secret +self that, like a shy bird, is all the day chased out of sight and +hearing, but is with you when you awake in sweet health in the morning; +that of waking alone with the sunlight in the curtains, that of being +alone with your body as well as your mind, and no presence to jar the +communion. There is a dear privacy in morning hours of single life. + +But although the desire to exchange these for the joys of wedlock was +germinating in Frank, although it was inherent in him to understand the +husband's happiness when he puts his arm round a dear wife's neck and +draws her to him with marital kisses and affectionate words, he was +certainly conscious that each hour seemed to bring its special pleasure. +His room was airy and pleasant, the window full of the colour of the +green and its aspects; the little water-course with its brick bridge, +the trees along the embankment, the rigging of the ships in the harbour, +the linen drying in the yard. Of these views Frank seemed never to grow +tired; he noted them as he brushed his brown curls over his forehead, +and when he sat at breakfast eating fresh eggs and marmalade. After +breakfast he lay on the sofa, and read society papers and smoked +cigarettes. He could not drag himself to the studio. "A man should live +at his studio, impossible to settle down to work, if he doesn't," he +thought, and he watched Mrs. Horlock coming up the green accompanied by +the chemist's wife and the pugs. + +"Dear old lady, how nice she looks in her black dress and poke bonnet! +And there goes the General--he is giving all his coppers to the +children." + +Frank took up a volume of Browning, turned over the leaves, and laid the +book down to watch a drove of horses that had suddenly been turned +out on the green to feed, and he laughed to see the children throwing +stones, making them gallop frantically. Very often the thunder of the +hoofs alarmed Triss, and he stood on his hind legs and barked. "What is +it, old dog? What is it? Like to have a go at the horses? Shall we go +out and play with the pugs?" At the mention of going out Triss cocked +his ears and barked. "I suppose I must make a move. I wonder what +the time is--half-past eleven. Good Heavens! The post will be here at +twelve. I had better wait for it." On waking his first thoughts were for +his letters, and almost before he had finished reading them he had begun +to think of what the mid-day delivery would bring him. To see the boy +pass and so have ocular proof that there was nothing for him seemed to +lighten his disappointment. He saw him waste his time with the doctor's +horse and then with the maid-servant, and if the old ladies were not +about he would stand talking many minutes with their servants. Then he +visited the short line of cottages, passed sometimes round the yard or +open space at the back of the wheelwright's, where the linen hung on +poles between the elms, and once Frank saw the provoking boy hide behind +the cricketers' tent and remain watching the match. For half an hour the +question--letters or no letters--hung in suspense, and when the loiterer +came, stopping every minute to see where the ball was hit to, the +joy, heightened by anticipation, was great in receiving a packet of +newspapers and various correspondence. Frank often went to meet him. +True, he might have nothing for him, he might be going to deliver at the +grocer's shop, or at the "Cricketer's Arms." + +"Any letters for me, to-day?" + +"Yes, sir, two postcards and a newspaper." + +It was disappointing not to get a letter--postcards meant nothing. +He only exchanged a few words with Mrs. Horlock, and passed on to the +General, who, at the corner of the Southdown Road where the gossipers +met, was discussing a local candidature. + +"So you are off to paint. You must come and see the model my wife has +done of a horse I once had. I mustn't say much about him, though--it is +a sore subject. After winning over a thousand with him I lost it all, +and five hundred with it. She never would paint his picture for me; but +yesterday was my birthday--I suppose she thought she would give me a +treat, she began to model him from memory--wonderful likeness--she knows +every bone and sinew in a horse--clever woman, never seen any one like +her. Come in to-night, dinner always at eight--old Indians. She'll show +it to you." + +"Thanks, not to-night, General; to-morrow night, if you like." + +"Very well, to-morrow night at eight. What a terrible dog that is of +yours! You need fear nobody while you have him with you. You must ask +my wife to paint him for you, but I forgot, I beg your pardon--you are a +painter; you should paint him yourself." + +"I don't paint animals. I shall be very glad if Mrs. Horlock will paint +him; there is some beautiful drawing about him--those fore-legs." + +Probably attracted by the dog, Mrs. Horlock came walking towards them. +Triss went sidling after Rose, and when Mrs. Horlock called him, he +growled. + +"I beg of you, Mrs. Horlock, do not touch him; he isn't safe, I assure +you. He once bit a man's nose off who was trying to train him to do +something or other. I will not be answerable." + +"All nonsense! No dog ever bit me, they know I love them. 'Come to me, +sir.' No dog ever bit me but once, and he was a poor mongrel that had +been hunted by a lot of horrid men. I was dressing to go to a ball at +the Government House, and I heard him under my bed. He had taken refuge +under my bed, poor thing. He was frightened to death; he couldn't see +me, and he bit me through the wrist. I went to the ball all the same. +A dog died of hydrophobia in my arms. He died like a child, licking my +hands and face. 'Come here, sir. Come to me.'" + +"I wish you wouldn't do it, Mrs. Horlock. I am afraid to call him, for +fear he should think I intended to set him at you." + +Triss showed a terrible set of teeth, and his nose seemed to curl back +almost into his eyes; but stooping down Mrs. Horlock extended her hands +to him. She looked so like herself in the poke bonnet and the black +dress, and the kind, intelligent eyes softened the dog's humour, and he +came to her. + +"You see--what did I tell you? Dogs know so well those that love them. +No animal ever did bite me except that poor frightened creature, and +he didn't mean it. We kept him for ten years after that, and how he did +love me!" + +"Wonderful woman, my wife; she can do what she likes with animals. I was +telling Mr. Escott that he must come in and see the model you are making +of Snap-dragon." + +"Only an amateur, I never had a lesson in my life. Mr. Escott would +think nothing of it, I am sure. But I wish he'd come in and dine with +us." + +"He promised to come to-morrow, Lucy; but stay, isn't that the day we +are going to have the Bath people in to dine?" + +"Never mind--Mr. Escott won't mind, I'm sure. They are very nice, good +people, indeed. I'm sure you'll think so. They are all snobs about this +place. I never heard of such snobbery in my life. Mrs. So-and-so--over +there--once said to me, 'I believe you know all the people who live in +those little houses.' She said she wouldn't allow her children even to +walk across the green. Did you ever hear of such snobbery?" + +"Well, Mrs. Horlock, as I have always said, your position is made; +you have your friends who will like you and value you just the same no +matter whom you may walk about the green with. Every Viceroy that ever +went to India called on you; your position is made." + +"There are a lot of snobs about here; but I mustn't keep Angel waiting, +he is never well unless he gets a little exercise. We shall see you then +at eight." + +"The cleverest woman I ever knew. I don't say the cleverest that you +ever knew. But we have got too many animals; I often wish I could get +rid of the brutes," and the General laughed as he stumped along. "Five +horses when two would be sufficient--five horses eating their heads +off; then the Circassian goats that the neighbours complain of, and the +parrots and the squirrels. There are a few too many, there's no doubt. +But once an animal comes into the place she will cherish it for ever. I +try to keep Prince out of the drawing-room as much as possible, she says +she can't smell him. If that little beast Angel would only die!" + +"Why don't you poison him?" + +"I would if I dared; but just think, if my wife heard of it she would go +out of her mind. I don't think she'd have me in the house." The General +laughed. + +"We all have our troubles, General. Good-bye, I'm off to work." + +"Lucky man to have something to do. If I had a little something--just a +little something to bring me out, I should be perfectly happy. Then at +eight. Good-bye." + +"Half-past twelve! Half the day gone, I really must make an effort to +get to the studio earlier. It is, as I said, useless to hope to get +through work unless you wake up where your work is. A man doesn't get a +chance. I wonder if I could build a bedroom out at the back? I have let +Mount Rorke in for three hundred extra this year; he would turn rusty if +I spent any more. I must give him a rest; besides, I don't want to have +the workmen in again. I wish I could get ivy to grow over those walls, +they do look precious shabby." + +He looked at the tall dilapidated walls showing above the dark green of +the elder bushes, and lingered, for it was a soft blue summer's day with +just a breeze stirring, and the corn waved yellow, and the dim expanses +of the Downs extended in faint lines and dim tints. + +When he entered his studio his colour scheme pleased him, and looking +at the rafters he thought that the stained wood was handsome and +appropriate. The grey carpet was soft under foot, and the lustre and +form of a grand piano suggested Chopin and Schubert. His studio seemed +to him a symbol of his own refinement, and being moved, perhaps, by +the silence and the quiet of the north light, he took his violin, and +turning from time to time to look on himself on the glass or his picture +on the easel, he played Stradella's "Chanson d'Eglise." + +Then seeing, or rather thinking he saw, how he could improve his +landscape, he took up his palette, and in a desultory and uncertain +fashion he painted till five o'clock. "It is no use," he thought, "I can +do nothing with it until I get a model, but the devil of it is, there +are no models in Brighton--at least, I don't know where to go and look +for one, and it is no use asking Sally or Maggie to sit. They'll sit for +five minutes, and then say they have some work to do at home, and must +be off. You must have a professional model, a girl you pay a shilling +an hour--I might sling the hammock from there to here--I wonder where I +could get a girl who would do. I can't have a girl off the street; she +must be more or less respectable--I wonder whom I can get. That girl in +the bar-room at the station would do." Putting his palette away with +a lazy gesture, he thought for a few minutes of Lizzie Baker. What had +become of her? And why had she disappeared? + +It was nearly a year and a half ago now. What a jolly day up the river! +All the beauty of the flowing water, the crowning woods and whispering +rushes filled his mind, and yielding to the moment's emotion he took +some verses out of an escritoire and altered several lines. Another +abandoning the search for a suitable rhyme he turned to a portrait of +Maggie which he had begun a few days before. She stood in a pose that +was habitual to her--her hands linked behind her, the head leaned on one +side, the little black eyes--but not ugly eyes--fixed in a sweet subtle +and enquiring look. The thinness, and, indeed, the angularity of her +figure was almost powerfully indicated with broad lines of paint and +charcoal. It was Frank's most successful effort. He knew this, and he +said to himself, "Not half bad, very like her, quite the character; the +drawing is right, if I could only go on with it; if I could only model +the face. I see very well where I shall get into trouble--that shadow +about the neck, the jawbone, the cheekbone, and then all that rich +colour about the eyes." Then he thought he would walk over to the Manor +House, and he must hasten, for it was half-past five, and tea was always +ready in the verandah. + +He stayed for dinner; he talked to Mr. Brookes about painters in the +billiard-room; he strayed through the shadows and the perfumes of leaves +and flowers through the gentle moonlight with his arms about the girls. +And as they walked it seemed to Frank that his life was so mingled with +theirs that he could not think of one sister apart from the other. The +dusk gathered; the sky became a decoration in blue and gold; the scent +of the sea came over the embankment, filling the garden. Day followed +day, without anything happening to stay or check the gentle tide of +their mutual affections; neither was jealous of her sister, for their +desires were set upon others. Frank was but an ideal, a repose, a pious +aspiration which joined their hands and hearts leaving them free of any +stress of passion, Maggie claiming him a little more than Sally, and +Sally yielding her claim to her without knowing that she was yielding +it. + +It is only natures that are never gross--calm and tepid livers--that are +really incapable of ideality, of real and adequate aspiration; nature +works by flux and reflux; and if we waive the rough temper and the +coarse edge of passion due to youth, it will not be impossible to +conceive another picture of these girls. Sally, good-hearted and true, +full of sturdy, homely sense, willing to take care of a man's money, and +make him a straightforward wife; Maggie, gentle and sinuating--always +a little false, but always attractive, the enchantment of a man's home. +Frank, notwithstanding his genuine admiration of all that was young and +sweet and pure, was of poor and separating fibre, and it is clear that +it will take all the strength of society to support him and save him +from sinking of his own weight. + +One day, as he was coming through the station from the post-office, he +met Maggie with a young man. He was introduced, and they returned to the +Manor House to play tennis. Instead of playing they talked, and the set +fell through, and after tea they disappeared, and Sally proposed not to +disturb them, for they had gone, she said, to sit in the shade at the +end of the garden. The marked mystery of the new flirtation piqued +Frank's curiosity, and, striving to veil his question, he asked Sally +who the young man was, and if her father knew he was coming to the Manor +House. + +"He! Don't you know? That's the fellow we often speak of--the only +fellow Maggie ever really cared for. He has just come back from America. +He is going to begin business in London." + +A sickening pain rose from his heart to his eyes, and he longed to place +his hand on his heart. + +"So that is the man she is engaged to," he said, after a pause. "I +remember, now, you have spoken to me of him." + +"She is not exactly engaged to him. Father would never hear of it; he +hasn't a cent, and I believe he lost the little he had in America--now +mind you must take care not to let out to father that he has been here; +there would be the deuce of a row, and I promised Maggie not to tell any +one; she has been nice to me lately, and I want to play fair with her if +she will play fair with me." + +"Oh, I won't tell any one; I won't even let Maggie know that I know it +was he." + +"It doesn't matter about Maggie, she will tell you herself, no doubt; +she doesn't mind your knowing. What do you think of him? Isn't he +nice-looking?" + +"I confess I should never have thought of calling him handsome--would +you? And do you think he is quite a gentleman?" + +"He seems to me to be all right." + +"All right, yes, but isn't there a something? You can see he is in +trade--all the trading people look alike, at least so I think." + +"But we are in trade, and I think he is quite as good as we are. But you +seem quite put out. Would you like to take his place? I didn't know you +were in love with Maggie." + +"I don't know that I am in love with her. I like her very much; but, +love or no love, I don't think it is right for her to walk round the +garden alone with that fellow the whole afternoon. I don't think it is +very polite to me, and she knows her father does not like--" + +"But you mustn't say anything to father; mind you have promised me." + +"Oh, I shan't say anything about it." + +Frank longed to get up from the tea-table and rush after Maggie. His +heart ached to see her. He trembled lest she loved the man she was +with, and rejoiced and took courage from the knowledge that she had not +formally pledged herself to him. Frank was the romantic husband, not +the lover; he found neither charm nor excitement in change; his heart +demanded one single, avowed, and binding faith. He could take a woman +who had sinned to his heart, and admit her to all his trust, for stolen +kisses and illicit love were unfelt and imperfectly understood by him, +and were considered as shadows and thin fancies, and not as facts full +of mental consequences. He answered Sally in monosyllables, and on +the first opportunity he pleaded letters to write, and withdrew. The +gladness he felt that Maggie was truly not engaged to this fellow +quickened and dominated his regret that the girls were inclined to +behave so indiscreetly. The moment Mr. Brookes turned his back it +began--that perpetual going and coming of men--it really wasn't right. +Sally was a coarser nature, but Maggie! He might speak to Mr. Brookes; +no, that wouldn't do. He might speak to Willy; but Willy didn't care--he +was absorbed in his wife and his speculations. + +His little dinner at Mrs. Heald's passed in irritation and discomfort, +and after dinner he stood at the window, his brain full of Maggie--her +graces, her fascinating cunning, and all her picturesqueness. He knew +nothing yet of his passion, nor did he think he could not bear to lose +her until he went from the stuffy cottage towards his studio thinking +of his portrait of her. He wanted to muse on the little eyes as he had +rendered them. He saw the faults in the drawing hardly at all, and his +pain softened and almost ceased when he took up the violin, but when he +put it down the flow of subjective emotion ceased, and he stared on the +concrete and realistic image of his thought--Maggie passing through the +shade with the young stranger. + +Who was he? By whose authority was he there? Was he one of those men +whose only pleasure is to tempt girls, to corrupt them? Had he thought +of this before his duty would have been to interpose; and he saw himself +striding down the garden and telling Maggie that he insisted on her +coming back to the verandah to her sister. It did not matter if he had +no right, he was prepared to answer for his conduct to her father and +brother. Did that man look like one of those men who are always sitting +with girls in far corners out of sight? Ah, if he were sure that he +was one of those dastardly ruffians he would seek him out, force him to +speak his intentions. If a girl's father and brother will not look after +her, a friend must say "I will." Yes, he would have to thrash him, kill +him, if it were necessary. She might hate him for it at first, but in +the end she would recognise him as her saviour. + +It was too late now, the man was in Brighton. To-morrow? Elated with +what he deemed "duty," with what he deemed "for the sake of the girl," +he strode about, thinking of "the ruffian"; no thought came to him of +how much of the sin, if sin there was, had originated in Maggie; he saw +her merely as a poor little thing, led like a lamb. Following the idea +of saving came the idea of possession. When she clung to the husband she +would tremble at the danger she had escaped. Their home, their +table, their fireside; protection from evil, now all wild winds +might rage--they would be safe. The vision was constitutional and +characteristic of his soul. He was out of thought of all but himself, +his dream evolved in pure idea, removed from and independent of all +limitations--out of concern of the world's favour--Mount Rorke, Mr. +Brookes, or even the girl's grace. As this temper passed, as reality +again interposed, and as he saw the garden with Maggie leaving him for +another, he viewed her conduct suddenly in relation to himself. What +did she mean by treating him so, and for whom? One day he would be Lord +Mount Rorke! The Brookes knew nobody. He had only met a lot of cads at +their house; they did not know any one but cads. The Brookes were cads! +The father was a vulgar old City man, who talked about money and bought +ridiculous pictures. The girls, too, were vulgar and coarse. God only +knew how many lovers they had not had. Willy was the best of the bunch, +but he was a fool. His miserliness and his vegetable shop--hateful! The +whole place was hateful; he wished he had never come there; since he had +been there he had never been treated even as a gentleman. The Brookes +had treated him shamefully. + +The skeleton of Frank's soul is easy to trace in this mental crisis--his +quixotism, his wish to sally forth and save women, his yearning for +a pretty little wife, who would sit on his knee and kiss him, saying, +"Poor old boy, you are tired now;" therefore an emotional and distorted +apprehension of things, a tendency to think himself a wronged and +persecuted person, and under much bravado and swagger the cringe that is +so inveterate in the Celt. + +Next morning he thought of her lightly, without bitterness and almost +without desire; but after breakfast his heart began to ache again. He +strove to read, he went to his studio, he went to Brighton; but he saw +Maggie in all things. She was with him--a sort of vague pain that kept +him strangely conscious of life. + +Once convinced he was a lover he became the man with a mission; his +heart swelled with mysterious promptings, and felt the spur of duty. No +longer was delay admissible. A day, an hour might involve the loss +of all. Should he go round to the Manor House and tell Maggie of the +message he had received to love her and save her? She would now be +watering her flowers in the green-houses. But that other fellow might +be there--he had heard something about an appointment. No, he had better +write. If he wrote at once, absolutely at once, he would be in time for +the six o'clock delivery. Snatching a sheet of paper he wrote:-- + +"DEAREST MAGGIE,--I have loved you a long while, I remember many things +that make me think that I have always loved you; but to-day I have +learnt that you are the one great and absorbing influence--that without +you my life would be stupid and meaningless, whereas with you it shall +be a joy, an achievement. + +"I have frittered away much time; my efforts in painting and poetry +have been lacking in strength and persistency. I have vacillated and +wandered, and I did not know why; but now I know why--because you were +not by me to encourage me, to help me by your presence and beauty. I +will not speak of the position I offer you--I know it is unworthy of +you. I would like to give you a throne; but, alas, I can but promise you +a coronet." + +His hand stopped and he raised his eyes from the paper. He recollected +the day he saw her a child, the day they went blackberrying over the +hills. He saw her again, she was older and prettier, and she wore a +tailor-cut cloth dress. How pretty she looked that day, and also +when she wore that summer dress, those blue ribbons. All the colour, +innocence, and mirth of his childhood came upon him sweetly, like an +odour that passes and recalls. He sighed, and he murmured, "She is mine +by right, all this could not have been if she were not for me." Ah! how +he longed to sit with her, even at her feet, and tell her how his life +would be but worship of her. He regretted that he was not poor, for to +unite himself more closely to her he would have liked to win her clothes +and food by his labour; and hearing himself speaking of love and seeing +her as a maiden with the May time about her, his dreams drifted until +the ticking of the clock forced him to remember that he could tell her +nothing now of all his romance, so with pain and despair at heart he +wrote, + +"Never before did I so ardently feel the necessity of seeing you, of +sharing my soul with you, and yet now is the moment when I say, I must +end. But let this end be the beginning of our life of love, devotion, +and trust. I will come to-night to see you; I will not go into the +billiard-room, but will walk straight to the drawing-room. Do be there. +Dearest Maggie, I am yours and yours only." + +He seized his hat and rushed to the post. He was in time, and now +that the step had been taken, he walked back looking more than usually +handsome and tall, pleased to see the children run out of school and +roll on the grass, pleased to linger with the General. + +"Where are you going, sir?" said the old man. + +"I'm going to my studio to play the fiddle. Will you come? I'll give you +a glass of sherry, and--" + +"Never touch anything, except at meals. I used to when I was as young as +you, but not now. But I will go and hear a little music." + +Glad to have a companion, Frank took out the violin, and he played all +the melodies he knew; and his mind ran chiefly on Schubert and Gounod. +The "Soir," the "Printemps," and "La Chanson du Printemps" carried his +soul away, nor could he forbear to sing when he came to the phrase, "La +Neige des Pommiers." When musical emotion ran dry he tried painting, but +with poor result. During dinner he grew fevered and eager to see Maggie, +and mad to tell her that he loved her, and could love none but her. At +half-past eight the torture of suspense was more than he could endure, +and he decided that he would go to the Manor House. He passed round the +block of cottages, and got into the path that between the palings led +through the meadows. It was a soft summer evening--moonlight and sunset +played in gentle antagonism, and in a garden hat he saw Maggie coming +towards him. He noticed the pink shawl about her shoulders, and the +thought struck him, "had she come to ask him to elope." She stopped, and +she hesitated as if she were going to turn back again. + +"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, speaking with difficulty, "but I wanted +you to get this before nine." + +"Never mind, darling," he answered, smiling; "you can tell me all about +it--it will be sweeter to hear you talk. Which way shall we go?" + +"I really don't think I can now; father doesn't know I am out. This +letter will--" + +"No, no; I cannot bear to part with you. How pretty you look in that +hat! Come." + +"No, Frank, I cannot now, and you had better leave me. I cannot walk +with you to-night. Read this letter." + +"Then am I--is it really so?" said Frank, growing suddenly pale. "You +will not have me?" + +"You must read this letter, it will tell you all. I am truly sorry, but +I did not know you cared for me--at least not like that. I don't think +I could, I really don't. But I don't know what I am saying. How +unfortunate it was meeting you. I but thought to run round and leave the +letter, it would have explained all better than I could. We have known +you so long. You will forgive me?" + +She stood with the letter in her hand. He snatched it a little +theatrically and tore it open. She watched, striving to read the +effect of her words in his face. They dealt in regrets. There was +an exasperating allusion to engaged affections. There was a long and +neatly-worded conclusion suggesting friendship. She had taken a great +deal of trouble with the composition, and was very fearful as to the +result. She felt she could not marry him--at least, not just at present, +she didn't know why. Altogether Frank's proposal had puzzled and +distressed her. She felt she must see her flirtation out with Charlie, +but at the same time she did not want to utterly lose Frank, or worse +still, perhaps, to hand him over to Sally. She was determined that Sally +should not be Lady Mount Rorke, and she thrilled a little when she saw +he would not give her up easily, and her heart sank when she thought +of the difficulty of continuing her intrigue without prejudicing her +future. If Frank would only leave Southwick for a little while. + +"Is this all? The meaning is clear enough; it means that you love the +man I saw yesterday at the Manor House. But he shall not have you; I +will save you from him. Listen to me--I swear he shall not have you; +I will strive to outwit him by every means in my power. If I don't get +you, none shall. I will shoot the man rather than he should get you." + +"O Frank, you wouldn't commit murder!" + +"I would, for you; but it will not be necessary. I can challenge him to +fight a duel, and if he is cowardly enough to refuse, I will horsewhip +him before your face, and I don't suppose you will marry him after +that." + +Maggie struggled with feelings of laughter, fear, and delight; delight +overpowered laughter, for Frank was young and handsome, and full of what +he said. It was quite romantic to be talked to like that. She would like +to see the men threaten each other. But then--the scandal--father might +never get over it. And if he married again? Speaking slowly, and in an +undertone so as not to betray herself, she said: "O Frank, I'm sure you +would not do anything that would injure me." + +"My darling, I love you better than the whole world. My whole life, if +you will, shall be spent in striving to make you happy." + +"You are very good." She took his hand and squeezed it; he returned the +pressure with rapturous look and motion. She drew from him a little, for +there were some people coming towards them, and she said: "Take care." +When the fisher folk had passed, she looked at him stealthily. She had +always liked him in that necktie, and those cloth shoes were perfect. +Had she never known Charlie, or if she had not gone so far with +him!--There was something in Frank that was very nice--she could like +the two. What a pity the two were not one! "If he were always as nice +as he is now, and not lecture me!" Then she remembered she must return +home. "I must really go home; I can't go any farther--" + +"No, no, I cannot leave you. I must see and hear you now. If you knew +what I have endured waiting for you, you would not be so cruel. Come and +let us sit on the beach." + +"I couldn't. I must go back; father will miss me. Besides, what have +we to say? If I were only free and could tell you that I loved you, it +would be different." + +"Free! then you regret; if a woman wills it she can always free +herself." + +"No, it is harder than you think for a girl to get out of an engagement +she has entered into, even if no absolute promise has been given." + +"What do you mean? If you have entered into no formal engagement you are +surely free." + +"I don't know. Do you think so? I am afraid men think that a promise may +be broken after marriage as well as before." + +"You are wrong. Women who are jealous, who are old, tell girls that men +are always unfaithful, but I'm sure that if I loved a girl I could never +think of another. Do you really think I could think of any girl but +you?" + +"I don't know. I wonder if all you say is true." + +"Do you think me different from other men?" + +"Yes, but I cannot go on the beach; some other evening I will walk there +with you." + +"No, now, now--I want to tell you how and when I began to love. Do you +remember when I used to spend part of my holidays at the Manor House +when I was only so high, and you were all in short frocks? Come, there +is much I want to say to you; I cannot part with you. Come, and let us +sit on the shingle. Oh, the beautiful evening!" + +She could love him a little when she looked at him, but when he talked +she lost interest in him. She had allowed him to take her hand, he had +bent towards her, and she had let him kiss her; and then they talked of +love--she of its bitterness and disappointments; he of its aspirations, +and gradually their souls approached like shadows in the twilight, +paused for a few vague moments, seemed as if lost in dreams. + +"I shall never forget this night! O my love, tell me one day you will be +mine!" + +"I cannot promise, you must not ask me." + +"We are meant for each other. It was not blind fate that cast us +together. Does no voice tell you this? I hear it in my heart." + +The abandonment, the mystery of the gathering dusk, touched Maggie's +fancy. They were alone in the twilight, and it was full of the romance +of a rising tide. + +"Never did I know such happiness; I am supremely happy, alone with you +beneath this sky, listening to the vague, wild voice of the sea. It +would be bitter sweet to die in such a triumphant hour. Supposing wewere +to lie here and allow the sea to take us away." + +"No, I don't want to die. I want to live and enjoy my life." + +The answer fell a little chillingly on Frank's rapture. Then after +a pause, Maggie said: "I think I have read of that somewhere--in +anovel--lovers caught by the tide." + +"Yes, I daresay you have. I was thinking of two lovers who were so +overcome with happiness that they decided that they would not trust +themselves again to the waves and storms of life, but would let the +calm, slow tide of death take them away with all their happiness +unassoiled." + +Maggie did not answer. The double fear had come upon her--first, +that the tide might rise higher than usual and cut off their retreat. +Secondly, that Frank--he was a poet--might insist on remaining there and +being drowned. Getting up, she said: "I do not know what father will say +when I get home, really it is quite dark. Come, Frank." + +"Death is better than a life of abomination--loss of innocence, and of +delight in simple things. I ask you," he said, stopping her suddenly. + +"Yes, no doubt it is so; but I want to get home. Do go on, Frank." + +"I will save you from a life of abomination--in other words I will save +you from him; he shall not get you. I have sworn it; you did notknow +that when you were lying down on the beach--you had ceased speaking, and +in the silence my life seemed stirred to its very essence; and I knew +that I must struggle against him, and conquer. I want to know this: +Have you ever thought of what your life would be with him? Have you ever +thought what he is?" + +"But you don't know him, Frank. You have never spoken to him. I am sure +you misjudge him." + +"Do you think I cannot see what he is? He is one of those men whose one +ambition is to make themselves friendly in a house where there are women +to wheedle. If the wife is young he will strive to wheedle her, +and though he may not succeed he must degrade her. Or, if she have +daughters, he will never cease to appeal to, to work upon, to excite +latent feelings which, had it not been for him, would never have been +developed into base and abnormal desire. I know what the foul-minded +beast is. Such men as he ought to be killed; we don't want them in our +society. I want to save you, I want to give you a noble, a pure life, +full of the charms of a husband's influence, a home where there would be +love of natural things. You are capable of all this, Maggie, your nature +is a pure one, but your life is unwholesome and devoid of purity." + +"Frank, how can you speak so? You have no right to say such things about +us. I am sure you have always been well treated--" + +"You do not understand me, I will explain what I mean. Your life is rich +and luxurious, but you are not happy, no one is happy in idleness; above +all no woman is happy without love. A woman's mission in life is to +love, she must have her home, her husband, and her children. These are +the things that make a woman happy; and these are the things I want to +give you--that I will give you; for, listen to me, I swear you shall not +have that adventurer. He would degrade you with pleasure at first, and +afterwards with neglect. You are too good for this, Maggie--it must +not be, it shall not be. As I said before, death would be better." They +stood in front of the canal locks and Maggie looked with a beating heart +on the deep water that a ray from a crescent moon faintly indicated. +"A woman is helpless until she finds her lord, he who shall save, the +saviour who shall bring her home safe to the fold. He exists! and all +are in danger till they find him. Some miss him--they wander into misery +and ruin; those that find him are led to happiness and content. I +am yours. I would tell you how I became convinced that I am the one +appointed by God to lead you to Him." + +"I thought you didn't believe in God." + +"Not as we have been taught to understand Him but I believe in a +presiding power--call it luck, fate, or destiny that--that exists and +wills; that is to say, watches over--rules out that this man is for that +woman, and ordains that he shall protect her from danger, shall save her +from those that seek her destruction. Much has happened to prove that I +was intended for you. We have known each other since we were children. +Do you not remember when I kissed you in the verandah as I was going to +school? I was the first man who kissed you; you were the first woman who +kissed me--have you never felt that we were for each other? Nor can I +forget that when I thought we had drifted for ever apart, that I was +brought back. Do you think it was accident--blind chance? I don't. Now +I see this man striving to win you, and whether it be for your money, +whether it be for yourself, or for both, it is my duty to say: No, this +must not be." + +"I think you are mistaken about Charlie. I admit that a man is often +a better judge than a girl; and as for you, Frank, I am sure I am very +fond of you. It is very good of you to take such interest in me--but we +must get home. I don't know what father will think." + +"No, before you go a step further you must promise me not to see that +man again. I cannot tell you how, but I know no good can come of it. He +is one of those creatures who cannot love, and only care for women for +the excitement they afford. I know what sort of brute he is. It is more +depraving to walk alone with him, than to be the mistress of a man who +loved you." + +"He is leaving Brighton in a few days." + +"So much the better for all of us. But you must promise me. I would +sooner see you lying drowned in that lock than his wife." + +Maggie trembled. It was ridiculous to think of such a thing. Surely he +did not mean to drown her if she refused to promise. Charlie was going +to London in a few days; he would be away for three or four months. +Heaven only knows what would happen in that time. She didn't see what +right Frank had to bully her--to extort promises from her by night on +the edge of a dangerous lock. But a promise wasn't much, and a promise +given in such circumstances was not a promise at all. + +"If you are really in earnest--if you think it is for my good, I'll +promise you not to see him again." + +"O Maggie, if you only knew what a load of trouble you have taken off +my mind! Thank you--give me your hand, and let me thank you. I know I am +right. And now, tell me, can you love me? Will you marry me?" + +"I will promise nothing more to-night; we shall see how you behave +yourself," the girl replied winningly. "And now go on, sir, we have been +here quite long enough." + +He crossed the gate mechanically, she followed eagerly, and when she +reached the other side her heart beat with pride at her pretty triumph. +Now I'll twit him, she thought, as they ascended the shore and entered +the town. + +"I wonder why you think Charlie so wicked; I think if you knew him you +would change your opinion." + +"I am very thankful indeed that I do not know him." + +The conversation dropped, but a moment after he gave her the chance she +wanted. + +"Mind you have promised me not to see him again. I trust you." + +"But suppose he calls and if I should be in the drawing-room, I cannot +walk out of the room without speaking to him." + +"I think you had better write and say you do not wish to see him." + +"I couldn't do that; we have known him a long time, and father has +always said that we must be rude to no one. Besides, what reason could I +give?" + +"You need not give a reason. But let that pass. I can't see why you +should meet; you can surely tell your servant to say 'Not at home,' when +he calls." + +"I might be in the garden--Sally would not allow it. If John said 'Not +at home,' she would run down and let him in." + +"I see you are raising difficulties--I see you do not intend to keep +your promise." + +"You have been quite rude enough for one evening. You have kept me out +on the beach by force till nearly ten o'clock at night, and you said +that my life at the Manor House was not a pure one--I don't know what +you mean. No man ever spoke to me like that before." + +"You misunderstood me. If you knew how I loved you, you would not twit +me with my own words. Heaven knows I would sooner go back and drown +myself in the lock than do anything or say anything that would offend +you. Remember also that I asked you to be my wife." + +"You are not the first. I daresay it may appear strange to you, but +others have asked me the same question before." + +"It does not seem strange to me, it only seems strange to me that every +one doesn't love you, but I daresay they do. O Maggie, remember that you +gave me hope, you said that you might--" + +"Did I? Well, it's too late to talk any more. Goodnight. I suppose +you're not coming in?" + +She left him in a cruel dispersal of hope. He avoided, and then he +tenderly solicited a regret that he had not thrown her into the lock. To +end on that hour by the sea would have been better than the trivial and +wretched conclusion of a broken promise, and everything, even murder, +were better than that a brute should have her woman's innocence to sully +and destroy. His love of the woman disappeared in his desire to save, +the idea which she represented at that moment; and lost in sentiment +he stood watching the white sickle of the moon over against the dim +village. The leaves of some pollarded willows whitened when the breeze +shot them up to the light, and a moment after became quite distinct in +the glare and the steam of an approaching engine. He might go and tell +Willy all about it; he would ask him to interfere-could he catch that +train? If he ran for it, yes. He ran full tilt across the green under +the archway up the high stone steps. He just did it. + +It was the last train; he would sleep in Brighton. His plan, so far as +he had a definite plan, was to ask Willy to come with him and tell "that +brute" that his visits to the Manor House must end, and request him to +pay his sister no further attentions. His other plans were--Willy must +speak to Maggie and tell her all he knew of the man; Willy must speak to +his father; Mr. Brookes must not be kept in ignorance. But of course +the right thing to do would be for Willy and him to call at the brute's +hotel, tell him what they thought, and give him a licking. The train +jogged on, and Frank made plan after plan. It was now past eleven, and +he would not be at East Street before twelve o'clock. As he hurried +along the streets he doubted more than ever how Willy would receive him. +He might just as well have waited till morning. However, it was too late +now to think of going back, there was no train, and he rapped at first +timidly and then noisily at the shop door. He had to wait some time, and +then he heard a voice asking from the top windows who was there. + +"'Tis I, Frank; awfully sorry, but must see you--particular business." + +There was no answer; he heard the voice grumbling, and more than ever +doubtful of the cordiality of his reception, he listened. The door +opened. + +"Who is it?" he said. + +"'Tis I, Cissy; but I'm in my nightdress." + +"I won't look at you, Cissy, if that's what you mean. But won't yougive +me a kiss?" + +"Stoop down, then." + +"I am sorry for waking you up, Cissy." + +"Never mind, I'd get up at any hour to see you." + +"There, run upstairs, and take care you don't catch cold, or I shall +never hear the end of it." + +"Father is in bed with mother. He says you are to go up, for if he were +to get out of bed it might give him cold. You know his room?" + +"Yes, here it is, now run along." + +"Come in." + +Frank was a little shocked, and he waited stupidly on the threshold. He +could see a fragment of Mrs. Brookes's profile, and beneath the clothes +the outline of Willy's bony body. + +"Come in, come in," he said, "don't stand there filling the room with +cold air. Now, what is it? Why the deuce do you come here waking us up +at this ungodly hour? What has happened?" + +"I have proposed to your sister Maggie." + +"I am sure I am delighted to hear it, old chap; but I can't help +thinking that I could have congratulated you equally as well, if not +better, in the morning." Then, noticing the distressed look in Frank's +face, he said: "I hope she has not refused you." + +"No; she asked me to wait, she said it would depend--" + +"Then you may depend it is all right; now go away and let me go to +sleep, we'll talk about it in the morning. You can't get back to-night. +You are sleeping in Brighton, I suppose? You'll come and breakfast +here?" + +"Yes, with pleasure, but it wasn't exactly to tell that I had proposed +to Maggie that I came here to-night; there is something more than that. +You know that fellow she calls Charlie? I don't know his other name." + +"Stracey?" + +"I dare say. I mean the man you said you hated more than any man alive; +I hate him, too." + +"You don't mean to say she is still thinking of that fellow. Has he come +back?" + +"He was at the Manor House all day yesterday." + +"If she marries that fellow I'll never speak to her again, it will be +dead cuts." + +"It is only natural that I should love Maggie. You remember the first +day I came down to the Manor House? How young I was then--how young we +all were; there are no days like the old days! There is a beautiful poem +by Wordsworth; I only remember one line now-- + + "'When every day was long + As twenty days are now'-- + +Do you remember the poem?" Willy did not answer, and noticing that his +eyes were blinking, Frank hastily returned to more recent events." I +wrote to her this afternoon telling her how much I loved her, and I said +that I would call about nine in the evening at the Manor House, and +that I hoped to find her in the drawing-room where we could talk without +being disturbed. However, I was too excited, and could not hold out till +nine; I thought I had better hear my fate at once, and as I was walking +across the field--you know, at the back of Mrs. Heald's--I met her half +way. She had a letter in her hand, which she said she was going to leave +at Mrs. Heald's for me--She admitted that the letter was in point of +fact a refusal, and when I questioned her she admitted that she was +obliged to refuse me because she had half promised Charlie. We went for +a walk on the beach; we sat on the beach and watched the sunset, and +I told her all. I spoke to her about the past, how we had grown up +together--how we had been, as it were, from the first fated for each +other; for you must admit, Willy, that it is very curious--I don't know +if you ever think of it, but I do--how we have met again even when the +chances of life seemed to have put us for ever apart. "Here a slight +sound warned Frank that the present moment was one as equally unfitted +for psychological analysis as for poetry, and he hurried to his story, +hoping that the incident of the lock would secure him attention. "Willy, +I think I convinced her that I liked her better than that other fellow. +We were standing by the lock--Willy, I really do think you might +listen." + +"My dear fellow, I am listening. You were both looking at the sunset." + +"It really is too bad. Of course, if you don't want to hear, and would +prefer to go to sleep, you have only to say so." + +"My dear fellow, I assure you I wasn't asleep. I only closed my +eyes because I can't bear the glare of that candle. I know where you +were--you were looking at the sunset." + +"No, we weren't." + +"Weren't they, Jessie? Are you asleep?" + +"No, I am not asleep. Do hold your tongue, Willy, I want to hear the +story. You were standing by the lock, Mr. Escott." + +"Ah, yes, so they were." + +"I felt it was my duty, so I told her that I felt it was my mission to +save--to save her from that man, and I made her promise me not to see +him again." + +"Then it is all right. Nobody can be more glad than I am. I hate the +fellow." + +"She will not keep her promise. Of course she may only have done it to +tease me; but as we were going home she said she could not walk out of +the room if she happened to be there when he called, nor could she leave +word with the servants to say that they were not at home. She made a lot +of excuses. What are you laughing at, Mrs. Brookes?" + +"I am really very sorry, Mr. Escott, but I couldn't help wondering if +she would change her mind again if you were to go back to the lock." + +Frank took up the candle and turned to go. + +"Don't go," Willy murmured faintly. + +"I am very sorry, Mr. Escott--if circumstances permitted, I would do all +I could to help you." + +This was delicate ground, and Willy woke up. + +"What do you want me to do? Have you anything to suggest?" + +"Yes, it struck me that we might both go round to the fellow's +hotel--Stracey, you call him, I think--and you might tell him that his +visits must cease at the Manor House, and that he must not speak to your +sister if he should happen to meet her. That should bring the matter +to an end. He is in Brighton--he is staying at the 'Grand.' We might go +round there to-morrow morning." + +"He might kick us out." + +"I only hope he may try. I would give him such a hammering. But you need +not be afraid of that. It wouldn't do to have Maggie's name mentioned in +connection with a vulgar brawl--people are not too charitable. My idea +is that this business should be conducted in the quietest and most +gentlemanly manner possible." + +"I think I had better speak to father first." + +"No necessity; he will be only too glad to get rid of the penniless +brute. Don't you think so, Mrs. Brookes?" + +"I do." + +They then spoke of other things--of the shop, the profit they had +made on tomatoes, and the losses that had resulted from over-stocking +themselves with flour. At last a loud snore brought the conversation to +a full stop, and Frank hurriedly bade them good-night. + +"Cissy will let you out," said Willy, with a sigh of relief. + +The little girl had pulled on her stockings and tied a petticoat round +her waist. "So you are going to be married." + +"O Cissy, you have been listening!" + +"Is she very nice? She must be very nice for you to marry her. I should +like to marry you." + +"Would you, Cissy, and why?" + +"Oh, because you are so very handsome. But you will come and see us all +the same, and let me sit on your knee?" + +"Of course I will, Cissy, and now good-night." + +Next morning Willy declared himself ready to go and see Mr. Charles +Stracey, and to tell him that he was not to call any more at the Manor +House, or speak to Miss Brookes if he should happen to meet her. Frank +wondered if this decision was owing to Mrs. Brookes's influence. + +"I slept last night at the 'Grand' It seemed odd sleeping in the same +house--perhaps within a few doors of him. If you only knew how I love +her, if I could only tell you, you would pity me. You ought to know what +I feel--the anxiety, the heart-ache. I know you have gone through it +all." + +"Yes, I think I know what it is," Willy replied thoughtfully. + +"Mr. Stracey is staying here?" + +"Will you enquire at the office, sir?" + +While the books were being searched the young men consulted together. +Frank said: "Send up your card, and say you will be glad to speak to +him on a matter of importance. Of course he will see you, but before you +speak about Maggie you must apologise for my presence; you must say that +I am a very particular friend, and that you thought it better that the +interview should take place in the presence of a witness." + +"I wish it were all over. I wouldn't do what I am doing for any one +else, I can tell you, Frank." + +"Mr. Stracey is in the hotel, sir." + +"Will you give him my card, and say I should be glad to speak to him on +a matter of importance?" + +"Very good, sir." + +(In an undertone to Frank), "Was that right?" + +"Quite right." + +"Oh, one thing I had forgotten to ask you--am I to shake hands with +him?" + +"You mean if he offers you his hand?" + +"Yes." + +"It is impossible to settle everything beforehand. One must act +according as the occasion requires." + +"That's all very well for you, but I am a slow man, and am lost if I +don't arrange beforehand." + +"Pretend not to see his hand, and apologise for my presence; he will +then see that we mean business." + +"The waiting is the worst part." + +"Will you walk this way, sir?" said the page boy. "Mr. Stracey is not +out of bed yet, but he said if you wouldn't mind, sir." + +They shrank from their enterprise instinctively, but the door was thrown +open, and they saw a bath, and a sponge, and a towel, and Mr. Stracey +lying on his back reading _The Sporting Times_. He extended a long +brawny arm. The strength of the arm fixed itself on Willy's mind, and he +doubted if he had not better take the proffered hand. + +"I brought my friend Mr. Escott with me, for I thought a witness--I +mean, that this interview should be conducted in the presence of a third +party." + +At this speech Charlie opened his eyes and dropped his paper. Willy +leaned over the rail of the bed; Frank looked into the bath, but +remembering himself suddenly, he examined the chest of drawers. + +"I have come to speak to you about my sister." + +Charlie changed countenance, and both men noticed the change. + +"I mean to say I have come to tell you that you must discontinue your +visits to the Manor House, and I must beg of you not to address my +sisters should you meet them." + +"May I ask if you are your father's representative, if you speak with +his authority?" + +"I do not. I--" + +"Then I should like to know on what authority you forbid me a house that +doesn't belong to you, and I should like to know, if your father doesn't +disapprove of my knowing your sisters, why you should? I shall speak to +Miss Brookes as long as she cares to speak to me. The very idea of a man +like you coming here to bully me! You have got my answer." + +"If, after this warning," said Frank, who, seeing that things were +going against them, thought he had better interfere, "you speak to Miss +Brookes, you will do so at your peril." + +"Peril! What do you mean?" + +"I mean that you must be prepared to take the consequences." + +"Who are you? I should like to know what you have to do in this matter?" + +"I speak as Miss Brookes's future husband." + +"Future husband be damned! She'll never marry you," said Charlie, +springing out of bed. + +Frank threw himself on his guard, and they would have struck each other +if Willy had not cried out: "Frank, remember you promised me there must +be no scandal." + +"I had almost forgotten. For Miss Brookes's sake, I refrain. Do you +also, for her sake, cease to provoke me." + +Charlie hesitated for a moment, then rushing to the door, he said: "I, +too, for Miss Brookes's sake, refrain, and I give you three seconds to +clear out." + +In attempting to carry out the injunction Willy nearly fell in the bath. +Frank had to bite his lip to avoid a smile, and he stalked out of the +room assuming his most arrogant air. + +"I think, on the whole, we got the best of it," he said as they went +down stairs. + +"Do you? He turned us out of his room!" + +"That's the worst of tackling a man in his own room--if he tells you to +go, and you don't go, he can ring for the servants." + +"I was as nearly as possible going into the bath." + +"Yes, a touch more and down you'd have gone." Frank laughed, and Willy +laughed, "and that fellow in his nightshirt fishing you out!" + +"Oh, don't, don't--" + +Frank asked Willy to lunch with him at Mutton's, and he ordered a bottle +of champagne in honour of the day. + +"I say, just fancy pulling you out of the bath, and wiping you with a +towel. I can see you dripping!" + +"Don't set me off again. Let me enjoy my cutlets." + +"By Jove! there's something I hadn't thought of." + +"What's that?" + +"We must be off. We must tell Maggie what has happened before he has +time to communicate with her. What is the next train to Southwick?" + +"There's one at half-past one." + +"It was after twelve when we saw him, he won't have time to catch that. +We must be off. Waiter, the bill, and be quick. Look sharp, Willy, +finish the bottle, pity to waste it." + +"What a nuisance women are, to be sure. Just as I was enjoying my +cutlet! I can't walk fast in this weather, I should make myself ill." + +"We must take a cab." + +"What a fellow you are, you never think of the expense. I don't know +where I should be if I were as reckless as you are." + +"Supposing he were at the station. It would be rather a sell if we went +down by the same train! What should we do? He would surely never attempt +to force his way in!" + +"I don't think he would attempt that. If he did, we should have to send +for the police." + +The young men strove to decide how the news should be broken to Maggie. +But they had arranged nothing before they arrived at Southwick, and +Frank stopped Willy time after time by the footpath, until at last in +despair the latter said: "We must make haste; there's another train in +twenty minutes." + +"By Jove! I had not thought of that; we must get on. Well, then, it is +all arranged. You must tell her that you thought it your duty. Put +it all down to duty, and it was your duty to do what you did--putting +entirely out of the question the service you did me." + +"I can tell you what, Frank, I am very sorry I ever meddled in the +matter. Had I known the vexation and annoyance it would have caused--and +mark my words, and see if they don't come true, we are only commencing +the annoyances that the affair will cause us. Ah, had I only foreseen! +What a fool I was; I ought to have known better; I have had nothing but +bad luck all my life. It is perfectly wonderful the bad luck I have had; +no matter what I did, nothing seemed to go right. I dare say if you had +gone to see that fellow without me it would have turned out differently. +But I don't see how I am to tell my sister point blank that I have +forbidden him the house. What will she say? She may fly at me. Women +have queer tempers, particularly when you interfere with their young +men. My sisters have the very worst of tempers; you don't know them as I +do. Fortunately it is not Sally. I assure you I wouldn't face Sally with +such news for all the money you could give me." + +"I am very sorry, old chap, but we must now go through it. You must +forbid her to communicate with him." + +"She won't heed what I say. It will only excite her. She will fly at me, +and call me names, and burst into tears. I should not be surprised if +she went off her head--she has been very strange once before. I don't +mean to say she was ever wrong in her head, but she is a nervous, +excitable girl--most excitable; my sisters are the most excitable girls +I have ever known." + +It was surprisingly soon over. Willy had not spoken a dozen words, when +he was interrupted. + +"You mean to say you have been to call on him?" + +"Yes; and we told him he was never to speak to you again." + + +Frank expected her eyes to flash fire, but he only noticed a slight +change in her face, a movement of the muscles of the lower jaw. + +"Then I will speak to neither of you again!" and she walked out of the +room, and in dismay they listened to her going upstairs. + +"She didn't fly at me," said Willy; and, looking a little terrified, he +stroked his moustache softly. "I told you she would give no heed to what +we said; nor do I see how we can prevent her seeing that fellow if she +chooses. He cannot come into the house, it is true, but she can go out +when she pleases." + +"We must follow her." + +Conscious of defeat, Willy desired compromise. He could not be +induced to take a share of watching and following which Frank declared +essential; and, dreading an encounter with Stracey, whose brawny arm it +was impossible to forget, he shut himself up in the shop, and devoted +himself to drawing up a most elaborate balance-sheet, showing how he +would stand if he were obliged to close the business to-morrow, whereas +Frank loitered about the roads, till Mrs. Horlock came along with her +dogs, and engaged him in conversation; and no matter at what corner he +stationed himself, he found he was not free from observation. A few days +after he could not bring himself to return to his post, and contented +himself with looking out of his window, and taking an occasional stroll +by the embankment, when he saw a train signalled. + +A great weight seemed lifted from his shoulder the day he heard that +his rival's holiday had come to an end, and that he had been forced to +return to his counting-house in London. True it is that Mr. Brookes +had in a certain measure approved of Willy's action in forbidding young +Stracey the Manor House, and therefore of his, Frank Escott's, suit, +but neither of these gains compensated him for the crowning loss of not +being able to see his beloved, for although the Manor House was still +theoretically open to him, practically it was closed. The sisters, +although at variance on all subjects, had united in condemning him and +Willy, and during one dinner, the misery of which he declared he could +never forget, they had sat whispering together, refusing to address him +either by look or word. Willy took all this calmly. It is an ill wind +that blows no good, and the silence enabled him to thoroughly masticate +his food. Mr. Brookes wept a little and laughed a little, and reminded +them of the oblivion that awaited all their little quarrels. + +All this, like much else in life, was ridiculous enough; but because +we are ridiculous, it does not follow that we do not suffer, and Frank +suffered. He was five-and-twenty, and light love had him fairly by the +throat; he winced, and he cried out, but very soon his dignity gave way, +and he craved forgiveness. But Maggie passed without heeding him. For +more than a week she resisted all his appeals, and it was not until she +saw that she was taking the neighbourhood into her confidence, and to +feel that if she did not relent a little he might leave Southwick, and +not return, she answered him with a monosyllable. With what bliss did he +hear that first "no," and how passionately he pleaded for a few words; +it did not seem to matter what they were, so long as he heard her speak +one whole sentence to him. Feeling her power, she was shy of yielding, +and with every concession she drew him further into the meshes of love. +He dined now nearly every day at the Manor House, and he spent an hour, +sometimes two, with her in the morning or afternoon; he followed her +from greenhouse to greenhouse, but all his efforts were in vain, and he +failed not only to obtain her promise to marry him, but even a renewal +of the feeble and partial hopes which she had given him that night on +the beach. He prayed, he wept, he implored pity, he openly spoke of +suicide, and he hinted at murder. But Maggie passed him, pushing him out +of the way with the watering-pot, threatening to water him too, until +one day he drew a revolver. She screamed, and the revolver was put away, +but on the next occasion a stiletto that he had brought from Italy was +produced, and with a great deal of earnestness life was declared to be +a miserable thing. It was absurd, no doubt, but at the same time it was +not a little pathetic; he was so good-looking, and so sincere. Maggie +put down the watering-pot, and she would probably have allowed him to +take her hand and kiss her, if he had not spoken roughly about Charlie, +and called her conduct into question. So she told him she would not +speak to him again, and she continued watering the flowers in silence. +Amid vague remembrances of murders she had read of, Frank's words and +behaviour remained present in her mind, and that evening when Willy, who +rarely took the trouble to speak, much less to advise his sisters, told +her that she might never get such a chance again, she said: "I am not +going to marry a madman to please your vanity." + +"Marry a madman! What do you mean?" + +"Well, I call a man that who comes regularly to see a girl with a +revolver in one pocket and a stiletto in the other, and threatens to +leave himself wallowing in a pool of blood at her feet--" + +"You mean to say he does that? You are clearly determined to drive the +poor fellow out of his mind with your infernal coquetry. Well, women +are the most troublesome, and I believe in many cases, the wickedest +creatures on the face of God's earth." + +"You shut up. Men who don't get on with women always abuse them; you are +soured since Miss ----, the actress, jilted you." + +"If you ever dare mention that subject, I will never speak to you again. +You know I don't break my word." + +"Why do you interfere in my affairs? You don't think of me when you go +down to browbeat Charlie Stracey; you don't think of what would have +been said of me had Frank hit him, and it had all come out in the +papers." Maggie said no more; she saw she had gone too far. Willy sat +puffing at his pipe; but when her father spoke of a certain investment +that had not turned out as well as he had anticipated, he joined in the +conversation, and she hoped her cruelty was forgotten. + + + + +XII + + + +Frank uttered a cry of surprise when he opened the studio door to his +friend. It was his favourite complaint that Willy never came to see him. + +"At last, at last! This is the second time you have been in the place +since it was finished, faithless friend!" + +"My dear fellow, you know it is not my fault. I have been very busy +lately trying to get on with my accounts. There's not a room in the +Manor House where I can work in; my sisters' things are everywhere, and +they must not be interfered with--their ball-dresses, their birds, their +work. My sisters think of nothing but pleasure." + +"Triss, go back, go to your chair, sir; I'll get the whip." + +Showing his fangs, the bull-dog retired; then with a hideous growl +sprang upon his chair, and sat eyeing Willy's calves. + +"I cannot think what pleasure it can give you to keep such a brute. Even +if I had my accounts finished, I don't think I should care to come here +much. It isn't safe." + +"You are quite mistaken. There's not a better-tempered dog alive than +Triss; he wouldn't bite any one unless he attacked me. Give me a slap, +and you'll see--I won't let him come near you." + +"Thank you, I'd rather not. But he sometimes growls even at you, and +shows his teeth, too." + +"That's only a way of his, and when he does it I kick him. Come here, +Triss--come here, sir!" The dog approached slowly; he sat down and gave +his paw to his master, but he did not cease to growl. "There! We have +had enough of you, go back to your chair. What will you take--a glass of +Chartreuse--a cigarette?" + +"Thanks, both if you will let me. I see you like pretty things," he +said, admiring the tall legs of the table--early English--and the quaint +glasses into which Frank poured the liqueur. "You've got the place to +look very nice." + +"Very different from what is was when the smith and his boisterous brood +were here," and as if he intended an apt illustration of his words, he +stretched his leg out on the white fur rug and surveyed his calf and red +silk stocking. "Just look at that dog, isn't he a beauty? I always think +he looks well in that attitude, leaning his head over the rail. I began +a picture of him the other day in a pose somewhat like that. I'll show +it you." Frank propped his sketch against the leg of the sofa, and +returned to his place on the sofa. "What do you think of it? Your father +said it was very like." + +"It is like him, but I can see no merit in it. I'm afraid of the brute. +I can't help hating him, for he always looks as if he were going for my +legs. What else have you been painting? Any pretty women about? I should +admire them more." + +"I haven't been painting lately," he said, sighing a little +melodramatically, as was his wont, "I think I have been playing the +piano more than anything else. I have composed something too, I don't +think it bad, I'll play it to you: a dialogue between a gentleman and a +lady. He speaks first, then she answers, then I blend the two motives, +and that is what they both say." + +Willy sat enwrapped in his own thoughts, not having heard a note. Though +he knew that Willy was incapable of judging of music, it disappointed +him that his dialogue had passed unperceived. Then smiling, he struck +a few notes, and Willy awoke. "You haven't been listening," he said, +reproachfully. "You don't care for any music, except that little tune." + +"Yes, I do; I heard what you played, and I think it very pretty." + +"Willy, I am the most miserable man in the world. Every hour, every +minute of my life is a pain to me. I never knew before what you must +have suffered, but I know now; it is a sickening feeling, it takes you +by the throat, it rises in the throat, and you are almost suffocated. +Last night I lay awake hour after hour thinking. I could see Maggie +as plainly as I can see you--she looked down upon me out of space with +strange, steadfast eyes, and my whole soul went out to her, and I cried +to her that I loved her beyond all things; and we seemed to be so near +each other; it seemed such an intimate and perfect communion of spirit +and sense that I seemed, as it were, lifted out of actual life; I seemed +to myself holier, purer, better than I had ever been before; I seemed to +loose all that is gross and material in me, and to gain in all that +is best and worthiest in man. Did you feel like that when you were in +love?" + +"I don't know that I felt exactly like that. But never mind how I felt; +you are too fond of alluding to that subject, it is a very painful one +to me; you will make me regret that I ever told you anything about it." + +"I am sorry I mentioned it. It is strange, but when one suffers one +likes to speak of and to compare with one's own the suffering that +another has endured. Your sister treats me most cruelly. She has +forgiven me that miserable business, but she refuses to hold out any +hope that she will ever be my wife. I don't understand--I am utterly at +sea. I don't believe for a moment that she cares for that horrid brute; +he is gone away. She tells me she never cared for him. If so, I should +like to learn your explanation of her conduct." + +Willy stroked his moustache, apparently declining the responsibility of +apologist; but his manner showed he had something on his mind, and Frank +sought more eagerly than ever to enlist his sympathy and support. + +"I have done everything I could to win her. I don't know why she should +be so difficult to please. I am not bad looking, I am at least as good +looking as that damned brute" (here he paused to glance at himself in +the glass and smooth the curls above his forehead). "I am certainly +quite as clever" (here he thought of his painting, and his eye sought +one of his pictures), "and my position--I will not speak of that, it +would be snobbish. Women have cared for me. I have told Maggie hundreds +of times that I never could care for any but her. Fate seems to have +specially marked us for each other. You must admit that there is +something very remarkable in the way we have been brought together over +and over again. I have told her that my life is worthless without her. +The day before yesterday, when I was speaking to her, I burst into +tears. That a man should cry, no doubt, seems to you very ridiculous but +if you knew how I suffer you would pity me. I often think I shall commit +suicide." Frank took the stiletto from his pocket. "I don't mind telling +you, when you knocked at the door I was lying on the sofa thinking it +over. One stab just here and I should be at peace for ever. I told her +so yesterday." + +"I'm not fond of giving advice, as you know--I have quite enough to do +to think about my own affairs--but as you have often spoken to me on +this matter, and as you have asked me for my opinion and my help, I had +better tell you that I differ entirely from you concerning the wisdom of +the course you are pursuing." + +"How's that?" said Frank, at first surprised and then delighted at +Willy's breaking from his reserve. + +"What I mean is, that I think you would be more successful if you +would lay aside daggers and revolvers, and try to win her affection by +patience and gentleness. Maggie was talking to me about it no later than +last night, and I could see clearly that you frighten her with bluster. +I am sure there are times when she dreads you; it must be a positive +terror to her to sit with you alone--so it would be to any girl." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Maggie is a very delicate and nervous girl, and it wouldn't surprise +me if your threats to commit suicide seriously affected her health; you +come with a revolver and a stiletto, and you ask her to marry you, and +if she doesn't at once say yes, you abuse her, declaring all the time +that you'll stab yourself with the revolver and shoot yourself with the +stiletto--I beg your pardon, I mean--" + +"Of course, if you've come here only to turn me into ridicule--" + +"I assure you I didn't mean it--a slip of the tongue," and as their eyes +met at that moment, neither could refrain from laughter. + +"Admit that there is something in what I say. If you will behave a +little more quietly--if you will talk to her nicely; leave off assuring +her of your love, she knows all that already; have some patience and +forbearance; you will see if before long she doesn't change towards +you." + +His interest in the matter was a desire that his sister should not miss +this chance of marrying the future Lord Mount Rorke. But Maggie felt +too sure of Frank to resist the temptation to tantalise him; besides +her moods were naturally various, and the first relapse into her former +coldness was answered by a sudden reversion to threats of murder and +suicide, and one summer evening about six o'clock, when Mrs. Horlock +took her dogs out and stood at the corner waiting for Angel, a rumour +was abroad that Mr. Escott had stabbed himself to the heart, and had +fallen weltering in his blood at Miss Brookes's feet. + +Dr Dickinson walked across the green, watched with palpitating anxiety +from the corner of the Southdown Road. The General spoke to the farmer, +and the farmer's pupil nudged the general dealer. Mrs. Horlock spoke to +the grocers, and the owners of the baths declared they had just heard +from their servant that the young man was not dead, but mortally +wounded. + +There was, therefore, no doubt that Dr Dickinson was going to Mrs. +Heald's, and would not turn to the right and walk to the station for the +quarter-to-seven train; and expectation on this point ceasing, the +group expressed its sympathy for the young man. Poor young man--and +so good-looking too--what will she do if he should die?--and he +must die--there was no doubt of it. Maria had met Mary--that was the +housemaid at the Manor House--it was Mary who had mopped up the blood. +She said there was a great pool right in the middle of the new carpet +under the window--they were sitting there on the ottoman when he said +suddenly, "I have come to ask you to marry me; if you won't I must die." +Notwithstanding this she continued to play with him--the cruel little +minx! He could stand it no longer, and he pulled out a dagger he had +brought from the East, and stabbed himself twice close to the heart. +What will she do?--she is his murderer--to all intents and purposes she +is his murderer--she will have to go into a convent--she won't go into +a convent--she'll brazen it out. No one thinks much of those girls--the +way Sally carried on with young Meason--it was disgraceful--they say she +used to steal her father's money and give it to him--Dr Dickinson could +tell fine tales. + +Then gossip ceased, and they were in doubt if they might intercept the +doctor and obtain news of his patient when he left Mrs. Heald's. Some +strolled about the green, pretending to be taking the air. Mrs. Horlock, +however, had no scruples, and picking up Angel and calling to Rose and +Flora, she walked straight to Mrs. Heald's, and was seen to go in. Some +five minutes after she came out with the doctor. Frank was not dead, nor +mortally wounded, nor even dangerously wounded, but he had had a very +narrow escape. + +"I said to him, 'You have had a very narrow escape.' The fact is--(I, of +course, examined the weapon)--a small part of the point had been broken +away; it was this that saved him. The first blow scarcely pierced his +clothes; the second was more effective, it entered the flesh just above +the heart, and I have no doubt if the steel had penetrated a quarter of +an inch deeper that he would have killed himself. But so far as I can +see at present, he will get over it without much difficulty." + +"When did it occur?" + +"About an hour ago, at the Manor House. It appears that he has gone +there every day for the last three weeks to ask Miss Brookes to marry +him; she, however, would not give him any definite answer--" + +"Horrid girl!" + +"I never liked her; most deceitful; no doubt she flirted with him +outrageously." + +"I can't say. I hear that he often threatened to kill himself, and +to-day, to conclude, he pulled out his stiletto." + +"I thought it was a dagger he had brought from the East?" + +"No, the weapon they showed me was an Italian stiletto." + +The grocer's daughter shuddered, her mother murmured, "And for that +girl." + +"We didn't know him. The Brookes never allow their friends to know any +one in Southwick, but I have heard that he is an exceedingly nice--" + +"He will be Lord Mount Rorke, if his uncle doesn't marry again." + +"He must have been desperately in love; no one ever heard of such a +thing before. It sounds like the Middle Ages--a stiletto!" + +"But what could he see in her? That's what I can't make out; can you?" + +"Ah! there I can't assist you. I hope to be able to cure him of the +stiletto wound, but Cupid's arrows are beyond me. They did not fly +so thickly or strike so hard in my time." And, laughing, the doctor +withdrew. + +"I suppose that after this she will marry him; she never intended to +let him slip through her fingers. I can see her face when she heard that +another quarter of an inch and her chance of being Lady Mount Rorke was +gone for ever." + +"I daresay he won't marry her now. It would serve her right. I should be +so glad." + +And so pouring their gall out upon the unfortunate Maggie, the +tradespeople returned to their homes. The stiletto was so utterly +unprecedented, and so complete a reversal of all conception of +the chances of life at Southwick, that every one felt puzzled and +dissatisfied, even when gossip had brought to light every circumstantial +detail of the romantic story. Had the deed been done with a knife, with +anything but a stiletto; had he hanged himself, or cut his throat with +a razor, or shot himself with his revolver, the wonder of the +Southwickians would not have been so excited. But a stiletto! And for +a week an Italy of brigands and bravoes, and stealthy surprises haunted +shadows of picturesque archways, an Italy of chromo-lithographed skies +and draperies in the Southdown Road. Maggie was spoken of with alternate +fear and hate; her wickedness seemed more than natural, and had the +Southdown Road known anything of Italian opera, there is little doubt +that Miss Brookes would have been compared to Lucretia Borgia. The young +women looked out of their windows at night, and wondered how they'd feel +if a troubadour were suddenly to sing to them from behind the privet +hedges. The young men were even more impressed than their womenfolk; +they cursed their place of birth and habitation, knowing that it +incapacitated them from knowing her; they wasted their mothers' candles +sitting up till two in the morning writing odes to cruel women with +raven hair; and all gazed sadly on the old ship in the harbour, and the +Spanish main seemed nearer, and those gallant days more realisable than +they had ever been before. + +The direct cause of this revival of romance lived, however, unconscious +of it. She was genuinely frightened. She said her prayers with great +fervour, begging God that He might save Frank, and that she might not +be a murderess. She made him soups, she sent him wine, she brought him +books, and she sat with him for hours. She thought he had never looked +so nice as now--so pale, so aristocratic, so elegantly weak, his head +laid upon a cushion, which she had brought him, and when he took her +hand and said, "Will you, darling?" and she murmured, "Yes," then it +seemed that the happiness of his life was upon his face. + +Three days after Frank was sitting at his table writing to Mount Rorke, +and on the following Sunday he walked to the Manor House to tell Mr. +Brookes that he was engaged to his daughter, and to ask his consent. He +did not think of his folly, he was too happy; he seemed like one in a +quiet dulcet dream; he walked slowly, leaning from time to time against +the wooden paling, for he wished to prolong this meditative moment; he +saw everything vaguely, and loved all with a quiet fulness of heart; +he took in the sense of this village and its life as he had never done +before. He compared it with Ireland; Mount Rorke, with its towers, and +lakes, and woods arose, and he was grateful that Maggie was going there, +yet he was sure that he could not live without sometimes seeing this +village where he had found so much happiness. + +His wound had sucked away his strength, the sunlight dazzled him, and +feeling a little overcome, and not equal, without pause, to the long +interview that awaited him, he stayed awhile in a shady laurel corner, +and leaning against a piece of iron railing, watched Mr. Brookes and +Mr. Berkins as they paced the tennis lawn to and fro. The old gentleman +frequently stopped in his walk to point at the glass houses. + +"My dear Berkins, I wish you would try to get Willy some appointment; +he would, I am sure, take anything over two hundred and fifty a year. He +would do marvellously well in an office--he loves it. I assure you his +eyes twinkle when one speaks of how books are kept, or alludes in any +way to the routine of office work. You should see his accounts and his +letter books, they would make the best clerk you ever had feel ashamed +of himself; but left to himself I am afraid he will do no good; he has +all the method, but nothing else. He lost money in Bond Street; I am +afraid to tell you how much he dropped on the Stock Exchange, but that +was not entirely his fault--the firm went bankrupt; nobody could have +foreseen it, it was quite unheard of." + +"I have always noticed that successful men do not buy partnerships in +firms that go bankrupt." + +"Very true, Berkins; I wish I had asked your advice on the subject." + +"I wish you had, Mr. Brookes. You are no doubt a very clever man, but on +one or two points you are liable to make mistakes; you are, if I may so +speak, a little weak. You should come and live with me for a few months, +I would put you right." + +"This is really too much," thought Mr. Brookes; and had it not been for +the certain knowledge that Berkins had lately increased his income by +a couple of thousands a year, he would have answered him tartly enough; +but as this fact admitted of no doubt he bridled his anger and said: "If +you could put my boy right it would be more to the point. He has all +the method of the best clerk in London; he loves the work, he would do +honour to any office, but on his own hook I am afraid he will never do +anything but lose his money." + +"Your money, you mean." + +"Well, my money if you like. You are very provoking, Berkins. I don't +know if you do it with the express purpose of annoying me. I was saying, +when you interrupted me, that Nature had evidently intended my son for +a clerk rather than for a speculator. I fear he is doing very badly +with his shop in Brighton. The rents are very high in East Street, and I +don't think he sells anything. He takes enough away from here, though. I +don't remember if I ever told you that I was foolish enough to agree +to his taking away, buying from me at the market price he calls it, the +surplus produce of my garden and greenhouses. I dare say I shall get +the money one of these days, but at present I see no sign of it. He is +always making up the accounts, and, so far as we have gone, the result +of this arrangement is that, when I complain that there is neither fruit +nor vegetables on my table, I am told that everything went to Brighton. +I am forced, I assure you, to send my carriage and my horses, that I +paid two hundred guineas for, to fetch potatoes, and he, too, uses my +carriage to take his vegetables to the shop. He gets his sisters to +bring them when they go out driving, nor can I even buy my fruit and +vegetables off him at cost price; he says that would interfere with his +book-keeping, and so I am obliged to buy everything from Hutton, and you +know what his prices are. I assure you, it is most annoying." + +"Mr. Brookes, your fortune will not bear this constant drain; you must +remember that we are living in very bad times--times that are not what +they were. I have heard that your distillery--" + +"Yes, times are very bad. I have never known them worse, and no doubt +you find them so too. They ought to affect you even more than they do +me. My income is, as you know, all invested money, whereas yours is all +in your business." + +"Of course, I am affected by the times; had they remained what they +were, even what they were towards the end of the seventies, I should be +making now something over ten thousand pounds a year. But, thank God! I +have not to complain. Next year I hope to invest another five thousand +pounds. The worst of it is, that there is no price for money in +legitimate securities." + +"Everything is very bad; you never will invest your money as I did mine +ten years ago. My business is not, of course, what it used to be, but I +don't complain; if it weren't for troubles nearer home I should get on +very well." + +"I hope that Sally has commenced no new flirtation in the Southdown +Road. I thought she had promised you--since she gave up Meason--that she +would for the future know no one that lived there." + +"I was thinking for the moment of Willy, not of Sally; she has not been +so troublesome lately. But no sooner are we out of one trouble than we +are in another. It is, of course, very regrettable that young Escott +should have stabbed himself, and in my garden too. I, who hate scandals, +seem always plunged in one. I hear they are talking of it in the clubs +in Brighton. I hope Lord Mount Rorke will not hear of it; if he did, do +you think it would prejudice him against the match?" + +"Then you're prepared to give your consent?" + +"Why not? Surely! I really don't see--Lord Mount Rorke is a very rich +man." + +"Possibly, but Irish peers are not always as rich as they would like us +to believe they are. The connection is, of course, desirable, but I hope +your anxiety to secure it will not lead you into making foolish, I will +say reprehensible, monetary concessions. What I mean is this. I am a +straightforward man, Mr. Brookes, brought up in a hard school, and I +always come straight to the point. You are a rich man, Mr. Brookes--you +have the reputation of being a richer man than you are--and it is +possible, I don't say it is probable, that Lord Mount Rorke will expect +you to make a large settlement. He will possibly--mind you, I do not say +probably--taking the coronet into consideration--those people think as +much of their titles as we do of our money--ask you to settle a thousand +a year, may be fifteen hundred a year, upon your daughter." + +"Settle a thousand--maybe fifteen hundred--a year on my daughter!" cried +the horror-stricken Brookes. + +"He may even ask for two thousand a year. Remember, you are a +distiller--he is a peer of the realm. And now I say," continued Berkins, +growing more emphatic as he reached the close of his declamation, "that +in my wife's interest I will oppose any and all attempts to purchase a +coronet for Maggie at her sister's expense." + +Mr. Brookes stood for a moment stupefied--as if some great calamity +had befallen him. The housekeeping bills, the loss of his fruit and +vegetables, even the Southdown Road seemed as nothing in the face of +this new misfortune. Troublesome as his daughters were, he preferred +an occasional recrudescence of flirtation in his garden to settling the +money that he had made himself and letting them go; no pen can describe +the anguish that the surrendering of the ten thousand pounds which +he had settled on Grace had caused him; but to be told now that the +alliance with a lord which he so greedily coveted, and which had been so +agreeably tickling him for the last few days, would cost him perhaps two +thousand a year, was more than he could bear. He had avoided as much +as possible even thinking of the money question. One hundred--two +hundred--the shadow of three hundred had fallen for a moment on his +mind, but he had successfully chastened these unpleasantnesses by +thoughts of the liberality, the generosity of the aristocracy, and +he had encouraged a hope that Mount Rorke would let him off with a +statement of how much Maggie would have at his death. And now to hear +these terrible prognostications, and from his own son-in-law, too. It +was too bad--it was too cruel. "You don't know what you are talking +about, Berkins. If it were business I would listen to you, but really +when it comes to discussing the aristocracy it is more than I can stand. +What do you know about the aristocracy--not that," cried Mr. Brookes, +snapping his fingers. "You were brought up in an office--what should you +know? You were a clerk once at thirty shillings a week--what should +you know? Lord Mount Rorke would never think of making such ridiculous +proposals to me. You judge him by yourself, Berkins, that's it, that's +it! I dare say he has heard of me in the City--many of your great lords +do business in the City. I dare say he has heard of me, and if he has +he'll not try any nonsense with me. Twist him round my finger, twist him +round my finger." + +Berkins liked a lord, but Berkins liked lords without thinking himself +one jot their inferior, and he was sure that his horse and his dog and +his house and everything belonging to him were better than theirs; and +secure in the fact that his grandfather had been a field officer, he did +not think it amiss to brag that he had begun life with thirty shillings +a week, so he only smiled at his father-in-law's wrath, feeling now +easy in his mind that Grace's future fortune would not be prejudiced for +Maggie's glorification. + +The discussion had fallen, and Mr. Brookes went to meet the young man +whom he caught sight of coming across the sward. + +"Most imprudent of you to come out to-day," he said, scanning the white +face. + +"Oh, I am very well now, thanks. The sun is a little overpowering, that +is all. I want to speak to you, Mr. Brookes." + +"Speak to me? Yes. Will you go into the billiard-room, my boy? I can see +the heat has upset you. Take my arm." + +Frank took the offered arm. He was feeling very faint, but the cool and +dim colour of the billiard-room revived him, and when he had had some +claret and water, he said that he felt quite strong, and listened +patiently to Mr. Brookes. + +"Well, I never! No, I never heard of such a thing. A stiletto, too. You +brought it from Italy? It makes me feel quite young again. Ah! 'tis hard +to say what we won't do for a girl when Miss Right comes along. I was +just the same--pretty keen on it, I can tell you, when I was your age; +and I don't know, even now,--but a man with grown-up daughters must be +careful. Still when I see a little waist, high heels, plump--you know, +that's the way I used to like them when I used to go to the oyster +shops; there was one at the top of the Haymarket. Ah! I was young then, +young as you are; I was keen on it--Aunt Mary will tell you that--there +was nothing I wouldn't do; I never went as far as stabbing--walking +about at night, tears, torments as much as you like, but I never went so +far as stabbing. Wonderful what love will make a man do! Supposing you +had killed yourself; in my garden, too--awful! What would people say? I +hear they are talking of it in the clubs--hope it won't go any further. +Should Mount Rorke hear of it! Eh? Might set him against us; might not +give his consent--eh? We should be up a tree, then." + +"I don't think there is much danger of that. I came to-day, Mr. Brookes, +to ask for your consent; am I to understand that you give it?" + +"Well, my dear Frank, I don't see why I should refuse it; I have known +you since you were quite a small boy. I don't want to flatter you. I +don't know that I care much about young men as a rule, but you, I +have always found you--well, just what you should be. Of course the +connection is very flattering. You will one day be Lord Mount Rorke, and +to see my darling Maggie sharing your honours will be--that is to say if +I live to see it--a great, a very gre--great hon--our." + +Feeling much embarrassed Frank begged of him not to mention it. "I shall +be writing to-morrow or next day to my uncle; shall I say that you have +given your consent to my marriage with your daughter? I may say that I +have already written to him on the subject." + +"By all means, my dear boy. I think I can say you have my consent--that +is to say, you have my consent if the money's all right. All is, of +course, subject to that. Now you are for love in a cottage, bread and +cheese romance; a man who will use a stiletto can't be expected to know +much about money, but I am a father, my stiletto days are over, and +I couldn't give my daughter without a settlement. You will, no doubt, +be--of course you will be--Lord Mount Rorke one of these days; but in +the meantime there must be a proper settlement. My daughter must be +properly provided for; it is my duty to look after her interests, so you +may as well tell your uncle that I shall be pleased to meet him and talk +the matter over with him. I will meet him in London, when it suits his +convenience; I need hardly say that if he should choose to come down +here that I shall be pleased to see him. And now tell me--of course +he will be prepared to act handsomely; I have no doubt he will, the +aristocracy always do act handsomely, no one is so liberal as your +aristocrat. I hope he will settle a good round sum on my daughter--money +invested in first-class securities, not what Berkins would call +first-class, but what I should call first-class securities; and should +your uncle prove the liberal man that I have no doubt he is, I don't say +that I won't behave handsomely. Of course you know that my dear children +will have all my money at my death. I shall never marry again, that is +a settled thing; but in the meantime I will do something. When Grace +was married I behaved very generously--too generously--a lot of +money--mustn't do it again, times are not what they were. But at my +death I shall make no difference, all three will share and share alike." + +Frank hoped when Brookes and Mount Rorke met, that the former would +modify his demands, and what was still more important, his mode of +expressing them. But why should Mr. Brookes appear to him in such a +sudden glow of vulgarity? He had never thought of him as a refined and +cultivated gentleman, but was unprepared for this latest manifestation. + +"Lord Mount Rorke allows me a certain annual income, he will no doubt +double this income upon my marriage; I daresay he would--since he has +recognised me as his heir--make this income legally mine by deed, I +could then settle a certain sum on Maggie, in case of my death; but then +further settlements would be required when I succeed to the title and +the property. I had thought--and indeed I think still--that if my uncle +makes me a sufficient allowance, that we might avoid touching on this +matter at all. Lord Mount Rorke is an irritable man, and I am sure that +if you were to speak to him as you--" + +"Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! nonsense! You don't suppose I am going to give +my daughter to a man unless he can settle a sufficient sum of money upon +her? Berkins wouldn't hear of it. He was only telling me just now--" + +"But I don't think you understand me, Mr. Brookes. I do not propose that +you should give me any money with your daughter. Let what you give her +be settled upon her, and let it be tied up as strictly as the law can +tie it." + +"Pooh! pooh! the man that marries my daughter must settle a sum of money +at least equal to what I settle upon her; and it must be money invested +in first-class security, otherwise I couldn't think of giving her one +penny." + +"I am sorry, Mr. Brookes, that you are so determined on this point. +These matters generally arrange themselves if people incline to meet +each other half way, and I am sure that my uncle will resent it if you +insist on pounds, shillings, and pence as you propose doing. He is not +accustomed to strict business--marriages in our family were never made +on such principles; my happiness is bound up in Maggie. I hope you will +consider what you are risking." + +"I would do more for you than any one else, Frank, but business is +business, and the man who has my daughter must settle a sum of money +equivalent to what I settle." + +"I am afraid I have talked too much, I am not very strong, yet with +your permission we will adjourn this discussion to another day--in the +meantime I will write to my uncle." + +Mr. Brookes did not offer the assistance of his arm, and had he, Frank +would certainly not have accepted it. Holding the door, the old man +waited for his visitor to pass out. "Southdown Road or the heir to a +peerage: it is all the same, my money is what is wanted--the money I had +made myself," thought Mr. Brookes. "Dreadful old man, he would sell his +daughter for a settlement of a few hundred pounds a year. I never knew +he was so bad, my eyes are opened," thought Frank. Both were equally +angry, and without secrecy or subterfuge they sought consolation in +different parts of the garden. Mr. Brookes resumed his walk on the +tennis ground with Berkins, and stopping frequently to point to his +glass-houses, he described his misfortunes with profuse waves of his +stick. Frank had found Maggie, and they now walked together in the shade +and silence of the sycamores--he, vehement and despairing of the future; +she, subtle and strangely confident that things would happen as she +wished them. + +Having once yielded and felt the pang of possession she was wholly his, +in all ramifications of spirit and flesh, both in her brain and blood, +and the utmost ends of her sense mingled with him. But to him, she was +the symbol of the desire of which he was enamoured, the desire which +held together his nature and gave it individuality--love of _the_ young +girl. + +"Oh! my darling, if he should speak so to Mount Rorke, we should be +parted for ever--no, that could never be--nothing in heaven or earth +would induce me to give you up, be true to me and I will be true to you; +but our happiness--no, not our happiness, that is in ourselves--but all +our prospects in life will be wrecked if he will not give way. Should he +and Mount Rorke meet--" + +"But they won't meet; have patience--I know how to manage father. He +doesn't like to part with his money, and I can understand it, he made it +all himself; but he will get used to the idea in time, leave him to me; +put your trust in me." + +She extended her hand, he took it, pressed it to his lips; he took her +in his arms and kissed her, and the leaves of the sycamores were filled +with the sunset. + +"DEAR SIR,--I received a letter this morning from my nephew, apprising +me of his engagement to your daughter. He has apparently obtained your +consent, and he asks for mine, and he also asks from me not only an +increase of income to meet the requirements of altered circumstances, +but he tells me that you will expect me to settle some seven, eight, or +ten thousand pounds upon your daughter. + +"I do not propose to discuss the reasonableness of his or your demands, +but it seems that a statement of his prospects is owing to you. + +"Having never married when I was a young man, many have assumed--I among +the number--that I never would marry; and I admit that I have allowed my +nephew to grow up in the belief that he is my heir and the successor to +the title of Mount Rorke; but beyond a general assumption existing in my +mind, his mind, and the minds of those who know us, there is no reason +to suppose that I shall not marry, or that I shall leave him a single +sixpence, and I willingly make use of this opportunity to say that I +have no faintest intention of entering intoany engagement either verbal +or written with him upon this matter.--Yours very truly, MOUNT RORKE." + +"MY DEAR FRANK,--The enclosed is a copy of the letter which I send by +this post to Mr. Brookes. And I make no disguise of the fact that it +was written with the full intention of rendering your marriage an +impossibility. It will no doubt appear to you a harsh and cruel letter; +it will no doubt grieve you, madden you--in your rage you may call me +a brute. The epithet will be unjust; but knowing very well indeed what +love is at twenty-five, I will forgive it. And now to the point. I know +something about old Brookes, and I remember the lean boy you used +to bring here, and judging from some slight traces that Eton had not +succeeded in effacing, I think I can guess what the rest of the family +is like; indeed, the old gentleman's preposterous demand that I should +settle ten thousand pounds on his daughter throws a sufficient light on +his character, and in some measure reveals what sort of manner of man he +is. But let all this be waived. I admit that with some show of reason, +you may say it is unjust, nay more, it is ridiculous, to pronounce +judgment on people I have never seen, and it is cruelty worthy of a +Roman Emperor to wreck the lifelong happiness of two young people for +the sake of a prejudice that the trouble of a journey to Brighton will +most certainly extinguish. I will not irritate you by assuring you that +the world is full of desirable women-women that will appeal to you two +years hence precisely as Miss Brookes appeals to you now. Were I to +whisper that it is unwise to give up all women for one woman, you could +not fail, in your present mood, to see in my philosophy only the nasty +wisdom of a cynical old reprobate. Therefore I will not weary you with +advice--what I have said must be considered not as advice, but rather +as an expression of personal experience in the love passion, serving as +illustration of the attitude of my mind towards you. I will limit myself +to merely asking you--no, not to think again of Miss Brookes--that would +be impossible, but to leave Southwick for London or Paris, the latter +for preference. I will give you a letter of introduction to a charming +lady (ah! were I thirty years younger). Put yourself in her hands, and I +have no doubt in the world but that she will send you back cured in six +months, as my bank-book will abundantly prove. + +"If you cannot do this--if so drastic a remedy should be too repugnant +to your present feelings, I would remember, were I in your place, that +my uncle had never refused me anything; that I could draw upon him for +what money I liked--that is to say, for all pleasures and satisfaction +save one. I would remember that at his death I was to inherit ten +thousand a year and a title; and I would weigh (first examining each +weight carefully, to see if it were true weight) all these present and +future advantages against the gratification of possessing a woman I +loved when I was twenty-five for a period of time extending perhaps +over half a century; I would think--at least I think and hope I should +hesitate--before I refused to obey one of whose affection I was sure, +and I feel certain it would go hard with me before I refused to gratify +the whim--call it a whim if you like--of one who had often given but +never asked before. + +"Somehow I think you owe me this sacrifice; I have done much for you and +am prepared to do more, and to speak quite candidly, I want something in +return; I do not mean that I am desirous of striking a bargain with you, +but we all expect to receive--of course not directly, but in some remote +way--something for what we give, and I confess that I look forward to +your companionship to assist me through the last course of life. I do +not want you now--for the next few years I want you to see the world, to +educate yourself; I want you to improve your taste in art and letters, +and later on, if possible, to turn yourself to some public account. +Besides other work, I am now working at my memoirs; they are to be +published after my death, as I have arranged, under your supervision. +I regard these memoirs as being of the first importance, and it is +advisable that you should be in full possession of all my intentions +respecting them. Hitherto I have always looked after everything myself, +but the time will come when I shall not be able to do this, and shall +require you to relieve me of the burden of business. Then I wish you to +live here, so that you may learn to love Mount Rorke. I am very busy now +with improvements, and I would wish you to be with me so that you might +adequately enter into my views and ideas. To conclude, I do not marry +for your sake; do you not marry for mine, at least do not marry for +the present. I do not say that if I knew and liked the girl of your +choice--if she were in your own set--that I could not be won over, but +on the whole I would sooner you didn't marry. But I could not really +endure a lot of new acquaintances--people who had never dined in a +lord's house, and would all want to be asked--no, I could not endure it. +I am an old man, and now I want to enjoy myself in my own way, and my +desire is to get through the last years of my life with you. + +"You can do what you please, ask here whomever you please, give me a +few hours of your time when I am particularly busy with my memoirs, and, +above all, let us be alone sometimes after dinner, so that we can turn +our chairs round to the fire and talk at our ease.--Your affectionate +uncle, MOUNT RORKE." + +"So he won't pay for a secretary, and wants me to do the work; that's +about the meaning of that letter." Frank re-read the letter sentence for +sentence, and as he read new sneers and new expressions of scorn rose +in his brain in tremulous ebullition. There was scarcely a plan for +the chastisement of his uncle that he did not for some fleeting moment +entertain, and one most ironical letter he committed to paper; but +Maggie would not hear of its being sent, and he was surprised and glad +to see that she was not depressed and disheartened at the turn affairs +had taken. + +"I can do what I like with father; Sally can't, but I can. You leave it +me." + +"What's the good of that? You can't get round Mount Rorke." + +"Never mind; we don't want to get married yet awhile. We'll be +engaged, it is nearly the same thing. We shall be able to go anywhere +together--up to town, if we only come back the same day. Write a nice +letter to your uncle, saying you'll do nothing without his consent; that +it is true your affections are very much engaged, but that your first +thought is of him--" + +"Oh! but my darling, I want to make you mine." + +"So you shall--we shall be engaged; father won't consent to our being +married, but he can't prevent us being engaged. You'll see, I'll get +round father sooner or later; he'll give in." + +"But you won't get round Mount Rorke; if he would only come here and see +you." + +"He won't do that; but one of these days he'll be in London. I suppose +he goes to the Park sometimes; we'll go too, you'll introduce me--a +little impromptu, and I'll see if I can't get him to like me." + +"How clever you are!" + +"I understand father." + +Still it required all Maggie's adroitness to even partially reconcile +Mr. Brookes to Lord Mount Rorke's letter. She accepted without argument +that marriage in the present circumstances was out of the question. She +even went so far as to cordially assent that a man would be a fool to +give his daughter to a man who could not settle a substantial sum +of money upon her, and she only ventured to suggest that it would be +foolish not to give Lord Mount Rorke the opportunity of changing his +mind. She spoke of his immense fortune, and exaggerated it until she +made even Berkins seem a paltry creature in the old man's eyes. + +Frank was anxious to propitiate Sally. He returned from London with +presents for her, and he always spoke to her, looking at her admiringly. + +He showed much anxiety, and, fearing that she found it dull at his +studio, when the sisters came to tea he begged her to give him Meason's +address. Sally tossed her head; she had had enough of Meason, and her +manner left no doubt as to her sincerity. But happening to meet Meason +a few days after in the train, Frank slipped easily into asking him +to come and see him; and in the easy atmosphere of the studio the +acquaintanceship soon ripened into intimacy, and after a preliminary +ruffling of plumage, Sally restored her old sweetheart to all the rights +of wrong. Life went well amid incessant secrets, letter-writing, and tea +parties. Grace came to the studio to lunch sometimes, and she had been +betrayed into a promise not to say a word about Meason. It was never +ascertained whether, in the indiscretion of the marital night, she had +betrayed this trust, or whether some jealous enemy had spoken or written +to Mr. Brookes on the subject; but certain it is that one joyful day +when Meason, Sally, and Maggie were eating oysters, and Frank was +twisting the corkscrew into a bottle of Chablis, there came an ominous +ringing at the door. + +"I wonder who that can be. Shut up, Triss." + +"Perhaps it is father." + +"He is in London." + +"I'm not so sure about that." + +"No matter--we don't want to see them." + +"Rather not! They wouldn't have known we were here had it not been for +that dog." + +"I must go and see who it is. Come here, sir; come here, you brute." + +"Supposing it is father?" + +"Get behind that piece of tapestry. I'll say that Meason and I were +having some oysters." + +"Come here, sir. I'd better tie up that dog--I wonder who it is?" + +"Open the door." + +"Oh! Mr. Brookes, quite an unexpected pleasure." + +"I have come, sir, for my daughters." + +"Your daughters? Your daughters are not here. Mr. Brookes." + +"I have reason to know they are here, and I will not leave without +them." + +"You will do well to let us in, Mr. Escott; we are determined--" + +"Who are you? What business is it of yours?" + +"Should you refuse us admission we are resolved to wait here till +evening, till midnight if necessary!" exclaimed Berkins. "I say again +you will do well to admit us, and so avoid a scandal on the green." + +"You can come in if you like." + +"Will you kindly chain up that dog of yours?" + +"Well, this is coming it too strong; this is a little too 'steep.' If +Mr. Brookes refuses to believe my word that his daughters are not here +he may come in and look for them, and to facilitate his search I will +tie up the dog--(the dog is tied up). But you, what brings you here? +What the devil, I should like to know, brings you here, poking your nose +into other people's business?" + +"Mr. Brookes, will you answer him?" + +"I must decline your offer to admit me unaccompanied by my son-in-law. +We shall not stay long." + +"All this seems to me very extraordinary, but since you wish it, Mr. +Brookes, pray enter." + +"Is that dog tied up quite securely?" + +"Quite. I think you know Mr. Meason?" + +"Mr. Meason knows very well that I do not wish to know him." + +"If you only come here to insult my guest, the sooner you go out the +better. Had I known that you intended to behave in this fashion I should +have left you standing outside till morning. I'll not have--" + +"Never mind, Escott; I'm off. Mr. Brookes and I are no longer on +speaking terms, that's all! I'll see you later on." + +"Don't go, pray." + +"I think I must." + +"I am surprised, Frank," said Mr. Brookes, when Meason was gone, "that +you should seek your friends among the enemies of my family." + +"We will not discuss that question now. I never heard of such +conduct--you force your way into my studio, and apparently for no +purpose but to insult my guest. You see your daughters are not here." + +"I am by no means satisfied with that," said Berkins, opening a door. "I +must see behind that piece of tapestry." + +"No, you shall not. I have had just about enough of this. How dare you? +God's truth--" and as Berkins seemed determined to continue his search, +Frank caught him by the collar. + +But Berkins was tall and strong, and showed no intention of allowing +himself to be thrown out. His long legs were soon extended here and +there; his body was sometimes bent back by Frank's weight, once he had +succeeded in nearly throwing Frank over on the sofa. Mr. Brookes had +fled to the door, which, in his excitement, he failed to open, and +the struggle was continued until at last, maddened by a most tight and +tempting aspect of Berkin's thigh, Triss broke his collar, and in a +couple of bounds, reached and fixed his teeth deep in the flesh. + +"Triss, you brute, leave go." But Triss clung to the long-desired thigh. +"I'll twist his tail, it will make him leave go." + +With a savage yelp of pain the dog turned on his master and was hauled +instantly off Berkins's thigh. + +"I need hardly say that so far as the dog is concerned, I regret, and I +am truly sorry for what has occurred." + +"Sir, do you not see what a state I am in; do not stand there making +excuses, but lend me your handkerchief. I shall bleed to death if you +don't." + +"Shall I tie it up for you?" + +"If those girls there would only fetch a doctor." + +Mr. Brookes could not refrain from foolish laughter, and in a moment of +wretched despair he declared that it would be all the same in a hundred +years time--a remark which would not have failed to irritate Berkins if +he had not fainted. + + + + +XIII + + + +Next day Willy called at the studio, and Frank told him what had +occurred. + +"But I don't see why you shouldn't come to the Manor House," said Willy. +"If you will only say something about the Measons, I think it can be +made all right." + +"No, I'm not going to turn against Meason; I have always found him a +good fellow. I know nothing about his flirtation with Sally." + +"No more do I; I think it has been exaggerated, but, as you know, I +never interfere. I wish you would come in to dinner one night." + +"Supposing I were to meet Berkins?" + +Willy stroked his moustache. + +"No, it is quite impossible that I could return to the Manor House. Your +father behaved in a way--well, I will not say what I think of it." + +"Berkins hasn't been to the City since. Grace was over here yesterday, +she says he limps about the garden. He'll never forgive you; he says +that you didn't call the dog off at once." + +"That's a lie; and I said, 'So far as the incident with the dog is +concerned, I am very sorry.'" + +"I think that made him more angry than anything else; he thought you +were laughing at him." + +"I was not. It was most unfortunate. I shall not give Maggie up. I am +writing to-morrow or next day to Mount Rorke." + +All were agreed that things must come right sooner or later. Maggie +fought for her lover, and emphatically asserted her engagement. She +yielded on one point only--not to visit the studio; but she maintained +her right in theory and in practice to go where she liked with him in +train or in cart, to walk with him on the cliff, to lunch with him +at Mutton's. They found pleasure in thus affirming their love, and +it pleased them to see they were observed, and to hear that they were +spoken about. Nevertheless the string that sung their happiness had +slipped a little, and the note was now not quite so clear or true. Frank +could not go to the Manor House; Maggie could not go to the studio. +Whether Mount Rorke would consent to their marriage perplexed them as it +had not done before. + +The summer fades, the hills grow grey, and a salt wind blew up from +the sea, blackening the trees, and the beauty of autumn was done. Frank +thought of Ireland, and what personal intercession might achieve. She +begged of him to go, and he promised to write to her every day. + +"Every day, darling, or I shall be miserable." + +"Every day." + +"Arrived safe after a very rough passage. Every one was ill, I most of +all." + +She received a post-card:--"It was raining cats and dogs when I got out +of the train. Mount Rorke sent a car to meet me; the result is that I +am in bed with a bad cold. The house is full of company--people I have +known, or known of, since I was a boy; we shall begin pheasant-shooting +in a few days. When I am out of bed I shall write a long letter. Do you +write to me; I shall be awfully disappointed if I do not get a letter +to-morrow morning." + +Extract from a letter:-- + +"Mount Rorke is considered to be a handsome place, but as I have known +it from childhood, as my earliest memories are of it, I cannot see it +with the eyes of a professed scenery hunter. I have loved it always, but +I do not think I ever loved it more than now, for now I think that one +day I shall give it to you. Should that day come--and it will come--what +happiness it will be to walk with you under the old trees, made lovelier +by your presence, to pass down the glades to the river, watching your +shadow on the grass and your image in the stream. We will roam together +through the old castle, and I will show you the little bed I used to +sleep in, the school-room where I learned my lessons. When I entered +the old room I saw in imagination--and oh, how clearly!--the face of +my governess; and how easily I see her in the corridor she used to walk +down to get to her room. + +"Poor, dear, old thing, I wonder what has become of her! + +"I saw again the pictures that stirred my childish fancy, and whose +meaning I once vainly strove to decipher. + +"I came to live here when I was four, immediately after my father's +death. I can just remember coming here. I remember Mount Rorke taking +me up in his arms and kissing me. I will not say there is no place like +home--I do not believe that; but certainly no place seems so real. Every +spot of ground has its own particular recollections. Every bend of the +avenue evokes some incident of childish life (in Ireland we call any +road leading to a house an avenue, even if it is absolutely bare of +trees; we also speak of rooks as crows, and these two provincialisms +jarred on my ear after my long stay in Sussex). Mount Rorke is covered +with trees--great woods of beech and fir--and at the end of every vista +you see a piece of blue mountain. A river passes behind the castle, +winding through the park; there are bridges, and swans float about the +sedges, and there are deer in the glades. The garden,--I do not know if +you would like the garden; it is old-fashioned--full of old-fashioned +flowers--convolvuluses, Michaelmas daisies, marigolds; hedges clipped +into all sorts of strange and close shapes. There is a beautiful avenue +behind the garden (an avenue in the English sense of the word) where you +may pace to and fro and feel an exquisite sense of solitude; for when +the castle had passed out of the hands of Irish princes--that is to say, +brigands--it was turned into a monastery, and I often think, as I look +on the mossy trees--the progeny of those under whose leafage the monks +told their beads--that all happened that I might throw my arm about you +some beautiful day, and whisper, 'My wife, this is yours.'" + +"How beautifully he writes," said Sally reflectively. + +"You never had a lover who wrote to you like that. Do you remember how +Jimmy used to write?" + +"I don't know how he wrote to you, but his letters to me, I will say +that, were quite as nice as anything Frank could write. You needn't toss +your head, you are not Lady Mount Rorke yet." + +Sally refused to hear, but presently, seeing a cloud on her sister's +face, and thinking the letter contained some piece of unpleasantness, +she relented, and pressed her to continue. + +"The house is full of people--people whom I have known all my life--and +they make a great deal of me. I have to tell them about Italy, and they +ask me absurd questions about Michael Angelo or Titian, Leonardo or +Watteau.... The house party is a large one, and we have people to dinner +every day; and in the evening the drawing-room, with its grim oak and +escutcheons and rich modern furniture, is a pretty sight indeed. There +is a lady here whom I knew in London, Lady Seveley; and I have had +suspicions that Mount Rorke would like me to marry her. But she has +the reputation of being rather fast, so perhaps the old gentleman is +allowing his thoughts to wander where they should not. I hope not for +his sake, for I hear she is devoted to a young Irishman, a Mr. Fletcher, +a journalist in London. I met them at Reading once in most suspicious +circumstances. He is the son of a large grazier, one of my uncle's +tenants, and she is, I suppose, so infatuated that she could not resist +the temptation of calling on his family. She was careful not to speak +of her intentions to anybody, but waited until she got a favourable +opportunity and slipped off to pay her visit. The Fletchers live about +half a mile from the castle. I was riding that way, and met her coming +out of their house. I got off my horse and walked back together. I hope +Mount Rorke will not hear of her ladyship's escapade; he would be very +angry, for the Fletchers are people who would be asked to have something +to eat in the housekeeper's room if they called at the Castle. In London +one knows everybody, but in the country we are more conservative." + + "I hope she won't cut you out," said Sally. "It would be a sell for +you if she did. Go on." + +"No, I shan't, you are too insulting." + +"Who began it? You told me that I didn't get such nice letters as you. +Pray go on." + +"I do not know if you would think her handsome. I don't. She is, +however, an excellent musician; we play duets together every evening, to +Mount Rorke's intense delight. You know my dialogue between a lady and a +gentleman? She has written it down for me and corrected a few mistakes; +I think I shall publish it. Darling, I love you better than any one in +the world; you are all the world to me; try to love me a little--you +will never find any one to love you as I do." + +"Well, you can't find anything peculiarly disagreeable to say about +that, I think." + +Extract from another letter:-- + +"All the visitors have gone; Mount Rorke and I are quite alone. He is +kindness itself, and does not bother me about his memoirs; but from what +I hear that book will make one of the biggest sensations ever made in +the literary world. I want him to publish it now, but he only smiles and +shakes his head. He says: 'What is the use of setting the world talking +about you when you are alive; as long as I am alive I can see those +I want to see, and be with them far more personally than I could by +placing in their hands three volumes in 8vo; the 8vos are only useful +when you have passed into darkness, and are not yet reconciled to dying +quite out of the minds of men. I do not desire to be remembered by those +who will live three hundred years hence, but I confess that I should +like to modulate the pace of forgetfulness according to my fancy, and be +remembered, let us say, for the next sixty or seventy years. I find +no fault with death but its abruptness, and that I hope to be able to +correct. The vulgar and most usual plan is children, but children are no +anodyne to oblivion, whereas a good book in a certain measure is.' + +"These are almost the words Mount Rorke used, and I quote them as +exactly as possible, so that you may see what kind of man he is. We +pulled our chairs round to the fire and had a real good talk. I know +no better company than Mount Rorke. He has seen everything, read +everything, and known everybody worth knowing; he is a mine of +information, and, what is far better, he is a complete man of the world; +and long contact with the world has left him a little cynical, otherwise +he is perfect. I told him the story about Berkins, and he laughed; +I never saw him laugh so before; and when I told him that I had told +Berkins, as he was tying up his leg, that so far as the incident with +the dog was concerned, I regretted deeply what had occurred, he could +not contain himself. He rang the bell, and we had old Triss up. He asked +a great deal about you; I leave you to imagine what I said. How did he +expect me to describe my darling? I told him of your subtle, fascinating +ways, of your picturesque attitudes, and your exquisite little black +eyes. 'I think I see her,' he said; 'little eyes that light up are +infinitely more interesting than those big, limpid, silly eyes that +everybody admires.' I am now doing a water-colour sketch from the +photograph--the one in which you stand with your hands behind your back +and your head on one side--for him. I am getting on with it pretty well. +Ah! if only I had you here for an hour (I should like to have you here +for ever, of course; but now I am speaking artistically, not humanly), +I think I could get it really like you; there are one or two things +that the photo does not give me. I shall send the sketch to Dublin to be +framed; it will be a nice present for Mount Rorke. + +"My darling, you must not be anxious; all will come right in time--have +a little patience. He is already much more reconciled to the match than +he was when I arrived, and if your father will refrain from speaking too +much about that hateful question, I am sure that all difficulties can be +surmounted." + +She wrote to him three or four times a week, and on beautiful hand-made +paper, delicately scented. + +Extract from a letter:-- + +"We went up to town yesterday by the ten o'clock train West Brighton; +and so that we might have more money to spend, we went third class. +Father doesn't like us going third class, but I don't think it matters +if you get in with nice people. We were very jolly. The Shaws went with +us. They are very nice girls. They had to leave us at Victoria, and +I and my cousin, Agnes Keating, went shopping together. We met the +Harrisons at Russell & Allen's. We saw there some lovely dresses--I wish +you had been with us, for I have confidence in your taste, and when I +choose a thing myself I am never sure that I like it. The assistant was +so polite; she told me to ask for Miss ----; she said she would like +to fit me. Sally was coming up with us, but she changed her mind and +remained at home, I was very glad, for she is wretchedly cross, and +not looking at all well. You would not admire her in the least; she is +growing very yellow. But I don't mean to be ill-natured, so we'll let +Sally bide, as we say in Sussex. After Russell & Allen's we went to +Blanchard's, and had a nice lunch. Grace was in town; she chaperoned us, +and paid for everything; it was very kind of her. Then we went to the +theatre, and saw a play which we did not care about much. There was +a very stupid 'tart' in it. I do like 'gadding,' don't I? But, oh, my +darling Frank, gadding is not really gadding without you. How I miss +you, how we all miss you, but I especially. The Keatings came over +to tea to-day, and they asked about you. Blanche wants you to write +something in her album, and she admired immensely the drawing you gave +me. She is very artistic in her tastes; I think you would like her. + +"But I have a bit of news that I think will amuse you. You remember Mrs. +Horlock's old dog--not the blind Angel; he's old too. But I mean +the real old dog,--the one twenty years old, that once belonged to a +butcher. He never smelt very sweet, as you know, but latterly he was +unbearable, and the General resolved on a silent and secret destruction. +He purchased in Brighton a bottle of chloroform. It was the dead of +the night and pitch dark. However, he reached the end of the passage +in safety; but suddenly he uttered a fearful shriek and dropped the +chloroform. He thought he had seen a ghost; but it was only Mrs. +Horlock, who was going her rounds, letting down the mouse-traps and +supplying the little creatures with food. The General blurted out +various excuses. He said that he had come to relieve the cock parrot's +tooth-ache--that he feared the Circassian goat was suffering from spinal +complaint and the squirrels from neuralgia. But his protestations proved +unavailing, and now he eats his meals in silence. And to make matters +worse, the old dog did die a few days after--the General says from old +age, but Mrs. Horlock avows that his death resulted from fright. 'He +was a sweet, cunning old thing, and no doubt knew all about that plan to +destroy him.' I think this would make an excellent subject for a comic +sketch; I wish you would do one--the General dropping the bottle; Mrs. +Horlock, surrounded by closed mouse-traps and crumbs, sternly upbraiding +him. + +"I see lots of Emily Pierce. Every Sunday I have tea with her, and +sometimes lunch; but she doesn't come here. I am afraid I couldn't get +on at all without her; we do everything together, and we hit it off so +well. + +"Sally has been staying in Kent. I do not know what's up, but she seems +to see everything _couleur de rose_; everything in Kent is better in +her estimation than anywhere else. The men dance so much better for one +thing. I am glad she is so happy, and I wish she would get married and +stay there. Father says he has a cough that tears him to pieces, but I +haven't heard it yet." + +The elementary notion of a woman in love is to surround, to envelop the +man she loves, with her individuality, and to draw him from all +other influences. And the woman in love strives to accomplish this by +ceaseless reiteration of herself or himself seen through herself. So +Maggie with her nervous, highly-strung, febrile temperament could not +refrain from constantly striking the lyre of love. Her hands were for +ever on the chords. Letters and notes of all kinds; impetuous +messages asking him when he would return; letters apologising for her +selfishness--he had better remain with Mount Rorke until his consent +had been obtained; resolutions and irresolutions, ardours, lassitudes, +forgetfulness followed fast in strange and incomprehensible +contradiction. And Frank was asked daily to perform some small task. +There was always something; and Frank undertook all he was asked to do, +for he loved to be as much as possible in that circle of life in which +his sweetheart lived, and to feel her presence about him. + +Extract from a letter:-- + +"Mount Rorke and I had a long and serious talk about you last night. He +is against the marriage, but then he is against marriage in general. He +said with his quiet, cynical laugh, 'I daresay she is a pretty girl--I +can read the truth through your romantic descriptions. I am convinced +that she is very charming. But are you quite sure that you will never +meet another equally charming girl? Remember the world is a very big +place, and the stock of women is large; are you sure that you will be +able to enjoy the charm which now rules and enchants you for thirty, +forty years without wearying of it? These are the questions you have to +consider, which marriage entails.' I need hardly tell you what answer I +made, and how I tried to convince him that your charms are those that +a man capable of appreciating them could not weary of. Indeed I think I +made him rather a neat answer--I said there are books in one volume, +in two volumes, in three volumes, and there are books that you can take +down and read at any time. He laughed; it rather tickled his fancy. And +he said, 'Quite true, there are some books and some women that one never +tires of--that is to say, that some people never tire of. I haven't been +so fortunate or unfortunate, but that by the way. I admit such cases may +occur. I will go further--I will admit that a man's life may be made +or marred by his taking to himself a wife; and if Miss Brookes were a +really nice girl--if she were the one girl in a million, and if I were +sure that your passion for each other has its root in deeper and +more lasting sympathies than those of the skin (these were his exact +words)--believe me, my dear Frank, I should not think of opposing +the marriage. I shall be in London during the season, and no doubt an +occasion will arise, of which I promise you to avail myself, of making +this model young lady's acquaintance. I will tell you what I think of +her; she won't deceive me, let her try how she will. There is only one +thing I bar--one thing must not be, one thing I will not tolerate--a bad +marriage.' I lost my temper for a moment, but Mount Rorke did not lose +his, and I soon came round. It is annoying to be spoken to in that way; +but I remembered that he had not seen you, and I consoled myself by +thinking of how great his conversion will be when he does. My only fear +is that he'll want to marry you himself. So, you see, my own darling, my +uncle is on the 'give,' and we shall win soon and easily. The only real +obstacle is your father's pig-headedness on all matters in which money +enters. I think with terror of his meeting with Mount Rorke. If he +speaks to Mount Rorke as he spoke to me, my uncle will take up his hat +and wish him good-morning. Do you exert all your influence. Do leave no +stone unturned. All depends upon you." + +Extract from another letter:-- + +"I am weary of this place, and I long to see you. My longing is such +that I can resist it no longer. Besides, nothing would be gained by +remaining here. Mount Rorke will not say more than he has said. In a +few days--think of that--I shall be with you. With what eagerness I look +forward. How gladly I shall see the train leave the dreary bogs and the +blue mountains of the West and pass into the pasture lands of Meath; how +gladly I shall hail the brown, slobber-faced city of Dublin; with what +delight I shall step on board the packet--I shall not think of sea +sickness--and watch the line of the low coast disappear, then the +Welsh mountains and castles, looking so like an illustrated history of +England. I must spend two days in London, alas! I must order some +new clothes. Victoria Station, with all its doors and cab stands, and +book-stalls, the Sussex scenery, the woodlands, the Downs, the plunging +through tunnels, and then you. Darling, I cannot believe that such +happiness is in store for me." + +All happened as he had anticipated. At Victoria the usual difficulties +had arisen about the dog. Triss was growling, the guard was cringing, +and, with reference to no stoppage before we come to Redhill, the +necessity of a muzzle was being argued. + +"I am certain it is she," and he followed with his eyes the tall, +swinging figure in the black cloth dress. Then he saw the clear plump +profile, so white, of Lizzie Baker. + +"Here, give me the chain, I'll tie the dog up." + +"But the muzzle, sir." + +A muzzle was procured, and Frank ran to the third class carriage where +he had seen Lizzie enter. + +"Lizzie! Lizzie!" + +"Oh, Mr. Escott, who would have thought of seeing you! It is such a +time--" + +"Yes, isn't it; how long? But are you going to Brighton?" + +"Yes." + +"So am I; but--let me get you a first-class ticket. Guard, have I time +to change my ticket?" + +"No, sir, the train is going to start; get in." + +"Do you get out, Lizzie; I'll pay the difference at Brighton." + +"No time for changing now, sir; are you getting into this carriage?" + +He could not forego the pleasure of being with Lizzie. An old woman with +a provision basket on her lap drew her skirts aside and made way for +him; there were three dirtily dressed girls--probably shop girls; they +sat whispering together, a little troubled by the publicity; there were +two youths, shabbily dressed, their worn boots and trousers covered with +London mud. He was surprised, and he did not for a moment understand +or realise his company. Frank had never been in a third-class carriage +before. + +"I'm afraid you won't be comfortable here." + +"Oh, yes, I shall; I'd just as soon travel in one class as another--much +sooner when it means being with you." + +"None of your nonsense; I see you haven't changed. Well, who'd have +thought it? Just fancy meeting you, and after all this time." + +"How long is it? It must be nearly two years. I haven't seen you +sincethat day we went up the river." + +"Yes, you have." + +"No; where did I see you since?" + +"At the bar; I didn't leave the 'Gaiety' for several days after." + +"No more you did; I remember now. But why did you leave without letting +me know where you were going?" + +"I didn't know I was leaving till the morning, and I left in the +afternoon. A lot of us were changed suddenly. The firm couldn't get +enough young ladies to do the work at the Exhibition." + +"But you didn't leave an address." + +"Yes, I did." + +"No, you didn't; I asked the manager, and he told me you had left no +address. They didn't know where you had gone." + +"Did he say so? You mean Mr. Fairlie, I suppose--now I come to think of +it, it is the rule of the firm not to give information about the young +ladies. I am sorry." + +"Are you?" + +"I am, really. We had a very pleasant day up the river--Reading; you +took me to Reading." + +"Yes; but you would never come again." + +"Wouldn't I? I suppose I couldn't find time--I did enjoy myself. What a +lovely day it was." + +"Yes; and do you remember how like a beautiful smile the river lay? And +do you remember the bulrushes? I rowed you in among the rushes; you wet +the sleeve of your dress plunging your arm in. I remember it, that white +plump arm." + +"Get along with you." + +"I wanted to make a sketch of you leaning over the boatside with your +lapful of water-lilies; I wish I had." + +"I wish you had, too; you wrote a little poem instead. It was very +pretty, but I should have liked the picture better. You gave me the poem +next day when you came in to lunch. You had lunch at the bar, and I was +so cross with you because you said I hadn't wiped the glass. It was all +done to annoy me because I had been talking to that tall, rather stout +young man, with the dark moustache, whom you were so jealous of. Don't +you remember?" + +"Yes, I remember; and I believe it was that fellow who prevented you +from coming out with me again." + +"No, it wasn't; but don't speak so loud, all these people are listening +to you." + +Frank met the round stare of the girls; and, turning from the dormant +curiosity of the old woman, he said-- + +"Do you remember the locks, how frightened you were; you had never been +through a lock before; and the beautiful old red brick house showing +upon the lofty woods; and coming back in the calm of the evening, +passing the different boats, the one where the girls lay back in the +arms of the young men, the flapping sail, and the dreamy influences of +the woods where we climbed and looked into space over the railing?" + +"At the green-table--don't you remember?" + +"Yes, I remember every hour of that day; we had lunch at the 'Roebuck.'" + +"You haven't spoken of the lady we saw there. Lady Something--I forget +what you said her name was; you said she had been making up to you." + +"I dined with her one night, and we went to the theatre." + +"You may do that without it being said that you are making up to a +gentleman." + +"Of course; I should never think of saying you made up to me." + +"I should hope not, indeed." + +"I should never think of accusing you of having made up to me; you have +always treated me very badly." + +Lizzie did not answer. He looked at her, puzzled and perplexed, and he +hoped that neither the girls nor the old lady had understood. + +"I am sorry; I really didn't mean to offend you. All I meant to say +was that the lady we saw at the 'Roebuck' had been rather civil to me; +had--well I don't know how to put it--shown an inclination to flirt with +me--will that suit you?--and that I had not availed myself of my chances +because I was in love with you." + +Encouraged by a sunny smile, Frank continued: "You wouldn't listen to +me; you were very cruel." + +"I am sure I didn't mean to be cruel; I went out on the river with you, +and we had a very pleasant day. You didn't say then I was cruel." + +"No, you were very nice that day; it was the happiest day of my life. +I was in love with you; I shall never care for any one as I cared for +you." + +"I don't believe you." + +"I swear it is true. When you left the 'Gaiety' I searched London for +you. If you had only cared for me we might have been very happy. As sure +as a fellow loves a woman, so sure is she to like some other chap. Tell +me, why did you go away and leave no address?" + +"I did leave an address." + +"Well, we won't discuss that. Why didn't you write to me? You knew my +address. It's no use saying you didn't." + +"Well, I suppose I was in love with some one else." + +"Were you? You always denied it. Ah! so you were in love with some one +else? I knew it--I knew it was that thick-set fellow with the black +moustache. I wonder how you could like him--the amount of whisky and +water he used to drink." + +"Yes, usen't he? I have served him with as many as six whiskies in an +afternoon--Irish, he always drank Irish." + +"How could you like a man who drank?" + +"But it wasn't he--I assure you; I give you my word of honour. It really +wasn't. I'd tell you if it was." + +"Well, who was it, then? It couldn't be the old man with the beard and +white teeth?" + +"No." + +"Was it that great tall fellow, clean shaven?" + +"No, it wasn't; you'll never guess; There's no use trying. However, it +is all over now." + +"Why? Did he treat you badly? Whose fault was it?" + +"His. And the chances I threw away. He behaved like a beast. I had to +give up keeping company with him." + +"Why?" + +"Oh, I don't know. He changed very much towards me lately; he went +messing about after other girls, and we had words, and I left." + +"You will make it up. Perhaps you are mistaken." + +"Mistaken--no; I found their letters in his pocket." + +"There are always rows between sweethearts; and then they kiss and make +it up, and love each other the more." + +"No, I shall not see him again. We were going to be married; no, it is +all over. It was a little hard at first, but I am all right now." + +"I am sorry. Do you think there is no chance of making it up?" + +"I should have thought that you would be glad; men are so selfish they +never think of any one but themselves." + +"How do you mean? Why should I be glad that your marriage was broken +off?" + +"You said just now that you liked me very much, I thought--" + +"So I do like you very much. Once I was in love with you--that day when +we walked up the steep woods together." + +"And you don't care for me any longer?" + +"I don't say that; but I am engaged to be married." + +"Oh!" + +"Had you not snubbed me so I might have been married to you." + +"Who are you going to be married to--to the lady we saw that day?" + +"Oh, no, not to her." + +"I don't believe you. You mean to say you haven't been to see her +since." + +"I assure you---" + +"You mean to say you haven't seen her?" + +"I don't say that. I've just come from Ireland. I've been staying with +my uncle. She spent a week with us; that's all I have seen of her. I am +going now to see the young lady whom I am engaged to." + +"And when will you be married?" + +"I don't know; there are a great many difficulties in the way. Perhaps I +shall never marry her." + +"Nonsense. I know better. You think it will take me in. I'll never be +taken in again, not if I know it." + +"I don't want to take you in." + +"I don't know so much about that. Is she very pretty? I suppose you are +very much in love with her?" + +"Yes, I love her very much. Dark, not like you a bit--just the +opposite." + +"And you met her since you saw me?" + +"No." + +"Ah, I thought as much, and yet you told me the day we went up the river +together that you never had and couldn't care for any one elsebut me. +Men are all alike--they never tell the truth." + +"Wait a minute; wait a minute. I knew her long before I knew you; I have +known her since I was a boy, but that doesn't mean that I have been in +love with her since I was a boy. I never thought of her until you threw +me over, until long after; it was last summer I fell in love with her." + +Lizzie's eyes were full upon him, and it seemed to them that each could +see and taste the essence of the other's thought. + +"What have you been doing ever since? You have told me nothing about +yourself." + +"Well, after trying vainly to find you--having searched, as I thought, +all Speirs and Pond's establishments in London, I tried to resign myself +to my fate. I assure you, I was dreadfully cut up--could do nothing. +My life was a burden to me. You have been in love, and you know what an +ache it is; it used to catch me about the heart. There was no hope; you +were gone--gone as if the earth had swallowed you. I got sick of going +to the 'Gaiety' and asking those girls if they knew anything about you; +so to cure myself I went to France, and I worked hard at my painting. In +such circumstances there is only one thing--work." + +"You are right." + +"Yes; nothing does you any good but work. I worked in the +_atelier_--that's the French for studio--all the morning, and in the +afternoon I painted from the nude in a public studio. I had such a +nice studio--such a jolly little place. I was up every morning at +eight o'clock, my model arrived at nine, and I worked without stopping +(barring the ten or twelve minutes' rest at the end of every hour) till +twelve. Then I went to the cafe to have breakfast--how I used to enjoy +those breakfasts--fried eggs all swimming in butter, a cutlet, after, +nice bread and butter, then cock your legs up, drink your coffee, and +smoke your cigarette till one." + +"Did you like the French cafe better than the 'Gaiety'?" + +"It is impossible to compare them. I made a great deal of progress. I +began one picture of a woman in a hammock, a recollection of you. +You remember when we passed under those cedar branches, close to the +'Roebuck,' we saw a hammock hung by the water's edge, and I said I would +like to see you in it, and stand by and rock you. I had intended to send +it to the Academy, but I never could finish it, the French model was not +what I wanted--I wanted you; and I was obliged to leave France, and I +could get no one in Southwick. Once a fellow changes his model he is +done for; he never can find his idea again." + +"Where's Southwick?" + +"A village outside Brighton, three or four miles, not more. I have a +studio there; you must come and see it." + +"You must paint me. But what would your lady love say if she found me in +your studio? She'd have me out of it pretty quick. Tell me about her; I +want to hear how you fell in love." + +"It happened in the most curious, quite providential way. I have told +you that I knew them since I was a boy. Maggie has often sat on my +knee." + +"Maggie is her name, then?" + +"Yes, don't you like the name? I do. Her brother was a school-fellow of +mine. We were at Eton together, and one time when Mount Rorke was away +travelling they asked me to spend my holidays at Southwick. That's how I +got to know them. One day Maggie and Sally were at my studio; Sally has +a sweetheart--" + +The sentence was cut short by a sudden roar. The train had entered a +tunnel, and the speakers made pause, seeing each other vaguely in the +dim light, and when they emerged into the cold April twilight Frank told +the story of Triss and Berkins, Mr. Brookes struggling with the door, +and the girls rushing screaming from their hiding-place; and Frank's +imitation of Berkin's pomposity amused Lizzie, and she laughed till she +cried. He continued till the joke was worn bare; then, fearing he had +been talking too much of himself, he said: "Now, I have been very candid +with you, tell me about yourself." + +"There is nothing to tell; I think I have told you all." Then she +said, slipping, as she spoke, into minute confidences: "When I left the +'Gaiety' I went for a few days to the Exhibition, but _he_ wanted to +leave London, so I applied to the firm to remove me to Liverpool (not +Liverpool Street; the girl--I suppose it was Miss Clarke, for I wrote to +her--made a mistake, or you misunderstood her). We remained in Liverpool +a year, and then we came back to London, and I went to the 'Criterion,' +but I couldn't stop there long; he was so awfully jealous of me; he +used to catechise me every evening--who had I spoken to? How long I +had spoken to this man? Once I slapped a man's face in fun because he +squeezed my hand when I handed him the change across the counter. There +was such a row about it. I don't know how _he_ heard of it. I think he +must have got some one to watch me. I often suspected the porter--the +bigger one of the two; but you don't know the 'Criterion.' You used to +go to the 'Gaiety.'" + +"Perhaps he saw you himself. I suppose he used to come to the bar?" + +"No, not unless--no, not very often. He banged me about." + +"Banged you about, the brute! Good heavens! How could you like a man +who would strike a woman? Who was he? Was he a gentleman--I mean, was he +supposed to be a gentleman? Of course he wasn't really a gentleman, or +he wouldn't have struck you." + +"He was in a passion, he was very sorry for it afterwards. Then I left +the firm and went to live in lodgings; he allowed me so much a week." + +"He was a man of some means?" + +"No, but it didn't cost him much, he knew the people. We were going to +be married, but he got ill, and we thought we had better wait; and I +went to the 'Gaiety' again. I was a fool, of course, to think so much +about him, for I had plenty of chances. One man who used to lunch there +three times a week wanted me to marry him, and take me right away. I +think he was in the printing business--a man who was making good money; +but I could not give Harry up." + +"Harry is his name, then?" + +"Yes; but it all began over again. It was just the same at the 'Gaiety' +as it was at the 'Criterion.' He would never leave me alone, but kept +on accusing me of flirting with the gentlemen that came to the bar. +Now, you know as well as I do what the bar is. You must be polite to the +gentlemen you serve. There are certain gentlemen who always come to me, +and don't care to be served by any one else, and if I didn't speak to +them they wouldn't come to the bar. The manager is very sharp, and would +be sure to mention it." + +"Whom do you mean? That fellow with the yellow moustache that walks +about with his frock-coat all open--a sort of apotheosis of sherry and +bitters?" + +"That's what you called him once before. You see I remember. He is very +fond of sherry and bitters. But I was saying that Harry would keep on +interfering with me, pulling me over the coals. We had such dreadful +rows. He accused me of having gone with gentlemen to their rooms--a +thing I never did. I could stand it no longer, and we agreed to part." + +"How long is that ago?" + +"About three weeks. I could stand it no longer, I couldn't remain at the +'Gaiety,' so I resolved to leave." + +"Why couldn't you remain at the 'Gaiety,' the manager didn't know +anything about it?" + +"No, he knew nothing about it, it wouldn't have mattered if he had, but +after a break up like that you can't remain among people you know--you +want to get right away; there's nothing like a change. Besides I +mightn't get such a good chance again; I had the offer of a very good +place in Brighton, and I took it--a new restaurant, they open to-morrow. +I get thirty pounds a year and my food." + +"And lodging?" + +"No, they are very short of accommodation, and I have taken a room in +one of the streets close by--Preston Street. Do you know it?" + +"Perfectly, off the Western Road." + +"The lady who has the house knew my poor mother--a very nice woman--will +let me have a bedroom for five shillings a week, and I shall be allowed +to use her sitting-room when I want it, which, of course, won't be very +often, for I shall be at business all day." + +The train rolled along the platform; Frank asked the porter when there +would be a train for Southwick, and was told he would have half an hour +to wait. + +"I shall have time to drive you to Preston Street." + +"Oh, no, please don't! She will be waiting for you--you will miss your +train." + + + + +XIV + + + +About four in the afternoon he left off painting, and went to Brighton +for a couple of hours. The little journey broke up the day, he bought +the evening papers, and it was pleasant to glance from the news to those +who passed, and to look upon the sunny and hazy sea. He liked to go to +Mutton's, and regretted Lizzie was not there, instead of behind a +bar serving whisky and beer. But he went to the bar. It was a German +establishment, decorated with the mythological art of Munich, and +enlivened with a discordant band. The different rooms were fitted with +bars of various importance. Lizzie was engaged at the largest--that +nearest the entrance. At half-past five this bar was thronged with all +classes. Beer and whisky were drunk hurriedly, with a look of trains on +the face. The quietest time was from half-past three to half-past four, +during these hours the dining-room was alone in the presence of the +awful goddesses and a couple of drowsy waiters. Most of the girls were +out, some two or three read faded novels in the sloppy twilight; a group +of four or five men who had lingered from half-hour to half-hour turned +their backs, and talked among themselves; sometimes a couple would +condescendingly address Lizzie, and tease her with rude remarks; or else +Frank found her having a little private chat with an old gentleman, a +youth, or, may be, the waiter. + +Lizzie had her bar manners and her town manners, and she slipped on the +former as she would an article of clothing when she lifted the slab and +passed behind. They consisted principally of cordial smiles, personal +observations, and a look of vacancy which she assumed when +the conversation became coarse. From behind the bar she spoke +authoritatively, she was secure, it was different--it was behind the +bar; and she spoke with a cheek and a raciness that at other times were +quite foreign to her. "I will not sleep with you to-night if you don't +behave yourself," so Frank once heard her answer a swaggering young man. +She spoke out loud, evidently regarding her words merely in the light +of gentle repartee. What she heard and said in the bar remained not +a moment on her mind, she appeared to accept it all as part of the +business of the place, and when Frank was annoyed she only laughed. + +"Men will talk improper--what does it matter? One doesn't pay attention +to their nonsense, and it is only in the bar. Never mind all that, tell +me what you have been doing. You didn't come into Brighton yesterday, I +suppose?" + +"No, I had to go to the Manor House." + +"And how is she--the only one? Are you as much in love with her as +ever?" + +"I suppose I am; I have begun a portrait of her." + +"What, another! You never finish anything. I shan't have that when I +come and sit for you. I shall make you finish my portrait." + +"Ah, yes; when you come and sit. But, joking apart, when will you come? +I should so like to show you my studio. It really looks very nice now. +When will you come?" + +"I have no time." + +"Why not come next Sunday; it is your Sunday off." + +"What would Maggie say if she found me there? She'd have my eyes out." + +"If she did find it out she'd know you came to sit; but as a matter +of fact she'd know nothing about it. You come and lunch with me about +twelve--they're all in church about that time." + +"And you never go to church, you wicked boy. I don't know that I dare +trust myself with you." + +A scruple jarred the even strain of his desire to paint Lizzie's +portrait, but his scruple vanished in one of her sweet sunny smiles, and +he gave her all information about the train she would have to take to +reach Southwick by twelve o'clock. + +He ordered some delicacies in the way of potted meats, and there was a +bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice when she arrived. + +"Do you keep your champagne in ice? We never do in the bar. When the +gentlemen want it they have a piece to put in their wine." + +"I wish you'd try to forget your gentlemen when you come here." + +Lizzie began to cry, and it was hard to console her; she said that Frank +had spoilt her lunch for her. + +"It is because you are so much superior to the men I see you speaking +to. How can I help feeling annoyed that you should be serving drinks?" + +"But I've got to get my living. You don't suppose I serve in a bar +because I like it?" + +"No, of course not; but don't let us talk any more about it. You're +going to sit to me, and I want to do as pretty a portrait of you as I +can. All that beautiful brown hair, and that hat! Let me take it from +your head!" Frank had bought this hat for her and had handed it to her +over the counter, thereby bringing censure upon her from the manager. +"Let's forget what I said. The hat suits you. There, now against the +light, just a three-quarter face." + +At the end of half an hour he said she was a very good sitter and this +pleased her, and she tried to keep the pose till the clock struck, but +at the end of fifty minutes she said: "I must get up," and she came +round to see what he was doing. + +"Now you mustn't criticise it," he said. "It's only a beginning. You've +forgiven me my remarks about the bar?" + +"Don't remind me of it again." + +But he could not get it out of his head that he had annoyed her, and +was unable to apply himself to his painting; perhaps for this reason his +drawing went wrong, and his colour became muddy, and the thought struck +him that if Maggie were to find this portrait about the studio she would +certainly ask him whose portrait it was. + +"I can't paint to-day," he said, getting up from his easel. + +"And why can't you paint?" The question seemed to him at first a stupid +one, and then she showed a perception that surprised him. "Are you +afraid the young lady you're engaged to might come and catch me sitting +to you?" + +The fear that this might happen had been floating in the back of his +mind for the last half hour; he had kept Lizzie too long in the studio, +and it was not improbable that the girls might knock at his door at any +moment, and if they did it would be impossible for him not to answer. +Triss would bark. + +"Well," she said, "I won't keep you any longer." + +"No, I assure you," he said aloud, and within himself, "I'd give a +sovereign if I could get her to the station without being seen." + +And he thought he had done so as he returned half an hour afterwards +across the green. Maggie was waiting for him. "Come to ask me to dine at +the Manor House," he thought; but she told him that she knew all about +his visitor, and, despite all Frank's efforts to pacify her she grew +more violent, more excited until at last she told him she didn't want to +see him any more, that he was to go away, that she gave him his liberty. + +"What an excitable girl she is! I'll go there this evening and try to +coax her out of her anger. I must try to explain to her that a painter +must have models. If we were married we shouldn't have more than a +thousand a year to live on at the outside--that is to say, if Mount +Rorke and Brookes come to terms, which is not very likely, they might +make up a thousand a year between them, that would not be enough for +two, and I should have to work; and I couldn't work without a model. +The thing is absurd! She'll have to learn that a model is absolutely +necessary; we were bound to have a row over that model question, so it +might as well come off now as later on, and we shall understand each +other better when this has blown over. There is nothing, and never has +been anything, between me and Lizzie--my conscience is clear on that +score. How pretty she looked to-day--that pale brown hair, so soft +and so full of colour. To-day was an unlucky day; I began by being +unfortunate with my painting; I never made a worse drawing in my life, +and the worst of it was that I did not see that my drawing was wrong +until I had begun to paint." + +A remembrance of Maggie's gracefulness came dazzling and straining his +imagination, and in sharp revulsion of desire he assailed Lizzie with +angry and contemptuous memory. She was always in low company--was never +happy out of it; it was part of her. How this man liked six dashes of +bitters in his sherry, and the other would not drink whisky except in a +thin glass. + +As he was leaving the studio he received a letter from Maggie, and +when he thought of the circumstances in which it was written, he grew +genuinely alarmed, for there was no forgetting the seriousness of the +letter, and she stated her reasons for the step she was taking without +undue emphasis. In its severity and quiet determination the letter did +not seem like her, and he suspected forgery, sisterly advice, paternal +influence--a family conspiracy. There was but one thing to do. He looked +through the various furniture for his hat; and with his head full of +citations from the lives of artists illustrative of their conduct, he +went to her. But Maggie would not see him. + +"Miss Brookes," the servant said, "is in her room and cannot see you, +sir." + +"She will never be mine, she will never be mine," he muttered as he +passed into the town. "But why do I think she'll never be mine?" And +looking at the grey sea with only a trace of the sunset left in the grey +sky he asked himself if the thought that had crossed his mind were a +conviction, a fore-telling or merely a passing fancy created by the +difficulty of the moment. He asked himself if he had heard himself +saying, "She'll never be mine" and mistaken his own voice for the voice +of Fate. Over the shingle bank the sea faded, a thin illusion, dim and +promiseful of peace, and as the darkness and the sea filled Frank's soul +he, the lightest and most life-loving of men, was filled for once with +a sense of failure of life, and as his sorrowing thoughts drifted on he +remembered that he had stood with her in hearing of the rising tide, and +all his pleading and passion came back to him. + +"What are you doing here?" + +It was Willy. + +"I don't know. Maggie has broken off her engagement; she will never +speak to me again, she hopes we may never meet." + +"I don't understand. When did she break off her engagement?" + +Frank told his story, and they walked across the green towards the +studio. + +"Oh, you don't care. I don't believe you are listening to me." + +"I am listening. You never think any one understands what is said to +them if they do not instantly jump and call the stars to witness." + +"I suppose I am like that--excitable--the difference between the Celt +and the Saxon; and yet I don't know, your sisters are quite as excitable +as I am." + +"They take after their mother; I am more like my father." + +"It wouldn't be a bad character for a play--a man who never would +believe what you said, unless you threw up your arms and called on the +stars." + +"He can't be very bad if he can think about plays," thought Willy. + +"Tell me, Willy, you won't offend me; tell me exactly what you think, +did I do anything wrong? I swear to you there is nothing between me and +Lizzie--I believe she is over head and ears in love with some fellow who +has treated her very badly. She never would tell me who he was. In fact, +she told me she had left London so that she might get over it. There +would be no use my humbugging you, and I swear there is not, and never +was, anything between me and Lizzie Baker. I never expected to see her +again. It is very strange how people meet. I have told you all about it. +When I go to Brighton I must go somewhere to get a drink, and I really +don't see there is any harm in going to the 'Tivoli'; it didn't occur +to me to think I should avoid the place merely because she was serving +there. I have often been there, I don't deny it. Do you see there is any +harm in my going there?" + +"I don't like giving an opinion unless I am fully acquainted with the +facts; but it seems to me that you might have gone to the 'Tivoli' to +have a drink without asking her to your studio." + +"Stay a bit, we'll speak of that presently. I am now telling you how +I see Lizzie when I go to Brighton. I often go to Brighton by the four +o'clock train, I often go to the 'Tivoli,' and when she is not talking +to some one else I talk to her about things in general; but I swear I +have never been out with her, that I never saw her except in the bar, +and yet Maggie accuses me of keeping a woman in Brighton, and won't hear +what I have to say in my defence. This is what she says: 'I have it on +unquestionable authority that you have been keeping this woman since you +returned from Ireland, perhaps before, and that you go in by the four +o'clock train almost daily to see her.' Now I ask you if it is fair to +make such accusations--such utterly false and baseless accusations--and +then to refuse to hear what a fellow has to say in his defence? By Jove! +if I caught the fellow who has been telling lies about me, I'd let him +have it. Some of those Southdown Road people have been writing to her, +that's about the long and short of it. + +"As for having asked her to come to the studio, I assure you my +intentions were quite innocent. Perhaps you won't understand what +I mean; you don't care for painting, but very often an artist has a +longing to paint a certain face, and the desire completely masters him. +Well, I had a longing of this kind to paint Lizzie; hers is just the +kind of head that suits me--she offered to give me a sitting, Idid +not see much harm in accepting, and as I could not paint her in the +bar-room, I asked her to the studio. But as for making out there was +anything wrong--I assure you she is not that sort of girl. If we were +married (I mean Maggie and I) I would have to have models; we'll have to +come to an understanding on that point. Now what I want you to do is to +explain to Maggie that there is nothing wrong between me and Lizzie, you +can tell her there is nothing--I swear there is nothing; and then you +had better explain that an artist must have models to work from." + +"Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't ask me. I make a rule never to +interfere in my sisters' affairs. I did once, you remember, and I +thought I should never hear the end of it." + +"I think you might do this for me." + +"Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't, my dear fellow. I am an exceedingly +nervous chap, and I have had nothing but bad luck all my life." + +"You think of nothing but yourself. You certainly are the most selfish +fellow I ever met. You take no interest in any affairs but your own." + +Willy made no answer. He sat stroking his moustache softly with slow +crumpled hand. After a long silence, he said: "Tell me, Frank, are you +really in love with my sister, or is it only imagination? I know people +often think they are in love when their fancy is only a little excited. +Very little will pass for being in love, but the real thing is very +different from such fancies." + +"I assure you I never loved any one like Maggie. Yes, I am sure I love +her." + +"You may be in love, I don't say you aren't; but I am sure there's +no more common mistake than to fancy one's self in love because one's +imagination is a bit excited. When you do fall in love, you find out +your mistake." + +"You think no one was ever in love but yourself. Do you remember when +you took me to see her, when we heard her sing 'Love was false as he was +fair, and I loved him far too well'?" + +Frank knew no more of the story than that: Willy had loved this actress +vainly. On occasions Willy had alluded to her, but he had never shown +signs of wishing to confide. + +"Yes, I remember. How I loved that woman, and what a wreck it has made +of my life. I daresay you often think me dull; I can quite understand +your thinking me narrow-minded, selfish, and incapable of taking +interest in other people's affairs: losing her took the soul out of my +life. Now nothing really amuses me--now nothing really interests me. I +often think if I were to die, it would be a happy release." + +"You never told me anything about it before; wouldn't she marry you?" + +"I never knew her. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her, +and my love swallowed up everything else. Then I wasn't wrapped up in +account-books, although I was always a precise and methodical sort of +chap; I was young enough then, now I am an older man than my father. +Some fellows have all the luck; everything succeeds with them, every one +loves them, men and women, they get all they ask for and more, others +get nothing. No matter what I tried to do, something went wrong and +I was baulked. I set my heart on that girl, she was the one thing I +wanted. I saw her play the same piece fifty times. I knew my passion +was hopeless, but I couldn't resist it. Had I known her I might have won +her, but there were no means; I never saw her but once off the stage, +and that was but a moment. I often sent her presents, sometimes +jewellery, sometimes fans or flowers, anything and everything I thought +she would like. I sent her a beautiful locket; I paid fifty pounds for +it." + +"Did she accept your presents?" + +"I sent them anonymously." + +"Why did you not try to make her acquaintance?" + +"I knew nobody in the theatrical world. I was not good at making +acquaintances. You might have done it. I am a timid man." + +"Did you make no attempt? You might have written." + +"At last I did write." + +"What did you write?" + +"I tried to tell her the exact truth. I told her that I had refrained +from writing to her for three years. That I quite understood the folly +and the presumption of the effort; but I felt now, as drowning men that +clutch at straws, that I must make my condition known to her. I told +her I loved her truly and honourably, that my position and fortune would +have entitled me to aspire to her hand if fate had been kind enough to +allow me to know her. It was a very difficult letter to write, and +I just tried to make myself clear. I told her I knew no one in the +theatrical world, and that waiting and hoping for some chanceto bring +us together would only result in misery long drawn out; that I had some +faint hope that this letter might lead her to consider that there might +be an exception to the rule that a young lady should not stop to speak +to a young man she didn't know. I remember I said 'when men are in +deadly earnest, truth seems to shine between the lines they write. I +know I am in earnest, and may say that all I hold dear and precious in +life is set in the hope that this letter may not appear to you in the +light of one of those foolish and wicked letters which I believe men +often write to actresses, and of which I suppose you have been the +recipient.' Then I said that I would be at the stage door on the +following night, and that I hoped she would allow me to speak a few +words to her." + +"And did she?" + +"I could not speak to her; I lost all courage in that moment. She walked +close by me." + +"You mean to say you did not speak to her after writing that letter?" + +"Call me a fool, an idiot, what you will; I could not do it. I can +only compare my feeling to what Livingstone says he felt when he found +himself face to face with a lion. He stood staring in the lion's eyes, +unable to move." + +"She must have thought your letter a practical joke. I wonder what she +did think." + +"I wrote explaining the unfortunate circumstances as well as I could, +and telling her I would come the following night." + +"Did you go?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you speak to her?" + +"Yes." + +"And she wouldn't speak?" + +"She passed on with her maid, but I didn't lose hope until she married. +It was always a sort of sad pleasure to go to the theatre to see her. +I used to live at the Manor House for two or three months at a time, +saving up my money so as to be able to make her some nice present. I +wished her to remember me, although she would not speak to me. No one +came to the Manor House; there was nothing to do except to read the +paper and smoke my pipe. I was sick of my life, and I counted the days +that would have to pass till I saw her again--only thirty more days, +only nineteen days, only one more week--so I used to count, marking off +each day in an almanac, until one day I read the announcement of her +marriage; then I knew all hope was at an end. I went mad that night +and rushed out of the house, and I should have drowned myself had I not +fainted. When I came to, I was weak and delirious, and wandered along +the beach, not knowing where I was going. Some fishermen brought me +home. My sisters were at school at the time. I believe I was very near +dying. I fainted three times one afternoon. I used to lie on the sofa +and cry for hours. She married a stockbroker. I believe she didn't care +for him at all. Then she died. She was buried in Kensal Green. Whenever +I am in London I go and see her grave." + +"This is awfully sad." + +"Yes; it ruined my life. I never had any luck. Things always went wrong +with me." + +"I should like to see those letters." + +"I haven't got copies. I didn't keep a letter-book in those days. Let's +talk of something else. I have some news. I am going in for breeding +race-horses." + +"What do you mean?" + +"What I say. I have calculated it all out, and I find I shall make from +fifteen to twenty per cent, on my money." + +"By breeding race-horses! And where are you going to breed them?" + +"You know those stables on the Portslade Road where the veterinary +surgeon used to live? I am going to take that place. The rent is three +hundred pounds a year; there are fifty acres of pasture, and stabling +for thirty horses. The dwelling-house is not a very aristocratic-looking +place, but it will do for the present; when I begin to make money I +shall go in for alterations. You can't do everything at once." + +"You do astonish me. And where are you going to get the money to do all +this? You will require at least twenty thousand pounds capital." + +"More than that. You would not be able to work a place like that under +twenty-five thousand pounds," Willy replied sententiously. "I have got +about eight thousand left of my own, and I came in for a legacy of three +thousand at the beginning of this year--an aunt of mine left me the +money; and my father has agreed to let me have fourteen thousand on +condition of my abandoning all further claim upon him. The bulk of his +fortune will now be divided among my sisters. Berkins advised him to +accept my offer." + +"I should think so indeed; your father is worth ten thousand a year." + +"No, nothing like that. His business has been going down for years past. +Last year he lost heavily again; if it weren't for his investments he +wouldn't be able to go on with it. The business is done for; I knew +that long ago. My father and I could never agree about how the accounts +should be kept. That head clerk of his is an awful duffer." + +"Yes, but what are you going to do with the shop?" + +"The shop was the origin of it all. If it hadn't been for the shop I +dare say I never should have thought of the race-horses. My father and +I could never work together. I offered to buy his surplus fruit and +vegetables, and, without absolutely binding myself to deal with no +one else, I had assured him of my chief custom. Naturally I expected +something in return--I expected him to let me have peaches in April and +strawberries in March. You cannot do this without using a good deal of +heating power. I spoke to the gardener several times. Often when I went +into the houses I found the pipes nearly cold. I got tired of this, and +I paid a man out of my own pocket to keep the furnaces properly +stoked, and--would you believe it?--my father actually raised +objections--objected to my paying a man to look after his glass-houses +as they should be looked after. He said he would not order in any more +coke, that I'd have to get along with what there was in the garden; he +said he wished the shop at the devil. I saw it was hopeless. You cannot +help my father, and he won't help himself, so I threw the whole thing +up." + +"And when are you going to start the new scheme?" + +"Immediately. One of my reasons for accepting fourteen thousand pounds +down as a settlement in full was because I was beginning to fear that +he might get wind of my marriage. From one or two things I have heard +lately, I have reason to suspect that the secret is beginning to ooze +out, and I thought it might be as well to take time by the forelock." + +"And you told him? What did he say?" + +"What people usually say when they criticise other people's lives +without knowing anything of their temptations and sufferings. But I want +to tell you about my scheme. I have bought Blue Mantle, the winner of +the Czarewitch, and only beaten by a length for the Cambridgeshire, a +three-year-old, with eight stone on his back; a most unlucky horse--if +he had been in the Leger or Derby he would have won one or both. He +broke down when he was four years old. By King Tom out of Merry Agnes, +by Newminster out of Molly Bawn." + +"I didn't know you knew so much about racing." + +"I know more than you think. I don't let out all I know." + +"And how much did you pay for Blue Mantle?" + +"Dirt cheap. I can imagine myself two years hence, when my first batch +of yearlings is put up for sale--500, 650, 800, 1000, knocked down +for 1000 guineas, brown colt by Blue Mantle out of Wild Rose, bred by +William Brookes, Esq." + +"I don't think money will come in quite so fast as that." + +"Perhaps not; but can't you let a fellow enjoy himself? I never knew any +one like you for throwing cold water. I believe you are jealous." + +"What nonsense!" + +"Well, never mind. I shall be the deuce of a dog, see if I shan't. I +always like to kill two birds with one stone if I can, and my +business will bring me into connection with the very best in the land. +Unfortunately! my people don't care about getting on; now I do. I like +to know people who are better than myself--at all events, who are no +worse. I shouldn't be surprised if I were dining at Goodwood and Arundel +before long. When I go up to town I shall be calling on Lady This and +Lady That, and later on I might get in somewhere in the Conservative +interest." + +"How long you may know a man, and then find you are mistaken in his +character," thought Frank. "So vanity is at the bottom of all these +efforts to make money." + +"When are you coming to the Manor House?" + +"Impossible. You know I can't go there so long as your father--" + +"Come in one afternoon; he'll ask you to stay to dinner. He has +forgotten all about it." + +"I cannot come to the Manor House until my engagement to your sister is +sanctioned by him." + +"The way to get that is to come to the Manor House and talk him into +it. For my part, I think, even from his point of view, that it would +be better that he should recognise the engagement; nothing can be more +damaging than these clandestine meetings." + +"What can I do? I will not give her up." + +"I never interfere. I have quite enough worries of my own. I must be +getting home. It is very late. Good-bye." + +The green was as bright as day in the moonlight and Frank watched Willy +walking, his shoulders thrown back. He sighed; an undefinable, but +haunting melancholy hung about Willy; he often impressed Frank as an old +book--a book whose text is trite--which no one will read, and which yet +continues to make its mute appeal; a something that has always missed +its way, that can hardly be said to be an adequate thing to offer for +any man's money, that will soon disappear somehow out of all sight and +reckoning. + + + + +XV + + + +A few days after he got a letter from Lizzie, saying she was alone +and ill, and asking him to come and see her. He took the next train to +Brighton. The land-lady's daughter, a girl of about twelve, opened the +door to him. + +"How is Miss Baker? Is she any better?" + +"Please, sir, she is not at all well, she has cold shivers; and mother +went away yesterday." + +"And who looks after Miss Baker?" + +"Please, sir, I do." + +"You do! Is there no one else in the house?" + +"No, sir." + +"Is Miss Baker in bed?" + +"No, sir. She said she would get up a little while this afternoon, +'cause she said she thought you was coming." + +"Go and tell her I am here." + +"Please, sir, she said you was to go upstairs--the back room on the +second floor, please." + +"Come in." + +"I am so sorry you are ill, Lizzie. What is the matter?" + +"I don't know; I think I caught a severe chill. I stayed out very late +on the beach." + +"But why are you crying? Do tell me. Can I do anything?" + +"No no. What does it matter whether I laugh or cry? Nothing matters now. +I don't care what becomes of me." + +"A pretty girl like you; nonsense! Some one rich and grand will fall in +love with you, and give you everything you want." + +"I don't want any one to fall in love with me; I am done for--don't care +what becomes of me." + +"Do tell me about it. Have you heard anything further about him? Do tell +me; don't cry like that." + +"No, no, leave me, leave me! I am so miserable. I don't know why I wrote +to you. I hope I shall die." + +"It is very lucky you did write to me, for you are clearly very ill. +What is the matter?" + +"I don't know; I can't get warm. This room is very cold--don't you think +so?" + +"Cold? No." + +"I feel cold; my throat is very bad--perhaps I shall be better in the +morning." + +"You must see a doctor." + +"Oh, no! I don't want to see a doctor." + +"You must see a doctor." + +"No, no, I beg of you. I only wrote to you because I was feeling so +miserable." + +Lizzie stood between him and the door, imploring him not to fetch a +doctor, but to go away at once, and to tell no one she had written +to him, or that he had been to see her. "Nothing matters now--I am +ruined--I don't care what becomes of me." He marvelled; but soon all +considerations were swept away in anxiety for her bodily health; and +having extorted a promise from her that she would not leave the room +until he came back, he rushed to the nearest chemist and hence to the +doctor. + +"I want you to come at once, if possible, and see a young lady who, +I fear, is dangerously ill. She has not been in Brighton long. She is +quite alone. She sent for me. I live at Southwick. I came out at once. +I have known her a long time. I may say she is a great friend of mine. +I found her very ill--I must say her condition seems to me alarming. I +should like her to see a doctor at once. Can you come at once?" + +"I am just finishing dinner. I will come in about ten minutes' time. +What is the address?" + +"20 Preston Street.--I hope he does not think there is anything wrong," +thought Frank. "He look's as if he did," and with a view of removing +suspicion, he said: "She is a young lady whom I have known for some +years. We had lost sight of each other until we travelled down in the +train together. I say this because I do not wish you to think there is +anything wrong." + +"My good sir, I should not allow myself to have any opinions on the +matter. I am summoned to attend a patient, and I give the best advice in +my power." + +"Yes, but one can't help forming opinions--a beautiful young girl living +alone in lodgings, and having apparently for sole protector a young man, +are circumstances that might be easily misconstrued, and as I am engaged +to be married, I think it right to tell you exactly how I stand in +relation to this young woman." + +The doctor bowed. + +"Do you not think I did well in making this explanation?" + +"It can do no harm; we medical men see so much that we take no notice +of anything but our patient. But tell me something of this young lady's +suffering. Can you describe the symptoms?" + +"She has a racking headache--she is shivering all over--she sits by the +fire and cannot get warm. It looks to me as if it were fever." + +"Does she complain of her throat?" + +"Yes; she cannot swallow." + +"Probably an attack of quinsy." + +"Is that dangerous?" + +"No; but it is infectious." + +"I don't mind about that--she is alone. I will see her through it." + +"I will go round to Preston Street immediately I have finished +dinner--in about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour." + +When the doctor had seen Lizzie, he said to Frank, who accompanied him +downstairs: "Just as I expected--quinsy. She will take from eight to ten +days to get well. We have taken it in time, that's one good thing. The +throat is very bad. She must have a linseed poultice, and she must use +the gargle. Is there any one in the house who can attend to her?" + +"I am afraid not; the landlady went away this morning, leaving no one in +the house but that child. She will, I hope, be home to-morrow." + +"In that case you had better have a nurse in; I will give you the +address of one." + +When Frank returned he found her lying on the bed weeping. As before, +she refused to tell him the cause of her grief. She would make no other +answer than that nothing mattered now, that she didn't care what became +of her; and when he spoke of going to fetch a nurse, she waved her hands +excitedly, declaring she would on no consideration stop in the house +with a woman she didn't know. And, hardly able to decide what course he +should take, he promised not to leave her; she clung about him, and he +was forced to send the child (whose name he now found to be Emma) to +the chemist for the linseed, and he wrote a note asking for explicit +directions how it should be used. Then he had to persuade Lizzie to go +to bed. She resisted him, and it was with great difficulty that he got +her boots and stockings off; then she collected her strength, unbuttoned +her dress, and took off her stays. Then she said: "Go out of the room +for a moment." + +He found his way into the kitchen, and guessing that hot water would +be required, he lit a fire. But there was no muslin, and he had to send +Emma for some. Lizzie smiled faintly when they entered--Frank with a +basin, Emma with a kettle and a parcel of linen. Frank poured some rum +into a glass, and beat an egg up with it. + +"What is that?" she asked; and her voice was so faint and hoarse that he +turned, quite startled. + +"Something that will do your throat good and keep your strength up. +Possibly you will not be able to eat much to-morrow." He held the +tumbler to her lips, and at length succeeded in getting her to drink it. +"Emma, is the kettle boiling?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"You had better go downstairs and get some coals, and if you can't find +any nightlights you must go out and buy a box. Have you got any money +over?" + +"Yes, sir, sixpence." + +"Now, Lizzie, let me put this on your throat. Throw your head well back. +There, it isn't too hot?" + +And all that night he sat by her bedside. Often she could not get her +breath, and he had to lift her and prop her up with pillows; and four +times he lit the candle, and, with tired eyes, mixed the meal and placed +it on her throat. The firelight played upon the ceiling, the kettle sang +softly, the sufferer moaned, the light brought the rumble of a cart, +and they awoke from shallow sleeps that blurred but did not extinguish +consciousness of the actual present. "You must not uncover yourself; you +will catch cold. Let me pin this shawl about you." About eight o'clock +Emma knocked at the door. Frank asked her to make him a cup of tea. +The morning dragged along amid many anxieties, for he could see she was +worse than she had been over night. + +"The disease must take its course," said the doctor; "we shall be +fortunate if by poulticing we can stop it; if we can't, it will come to +a head in about eight or nine days' time, and then it will break. Did +you see the nurse last night? Couldn't she come?" + +"She," said Frank, pointing to the sufferer, "wouldn't allow me to send +for her; she said she would not stay in the house with a strange woman. +She was very excited; I fancy she has had some great mental trouble--a +sweetheart, I suppose. I did not like to cross her. I thought I could +nurse her; I did my best. Was the poultice all right?" + +"Quite right. But you will have to sit up with her to-night. You will be +very tired; you had better get in a nurse." + +"I think I shall be able to manage. The landlady is expected home this +evening or to-morrow morning. What had she better have to eat?" + +"She won't be able to eat anything for some days. Try to get her to take +an egg beat up in a wine-glass of rum." + +Hourly she grew worse, and on the following day Frank stood by her bed +momentarily fearing that she would suffocate; once her face blackened +and he had to seize and lift her out of bed, and place her in a chair. +When she seemed a little easier he called Emma, and they made the bed +and cleaned up the room together. Then he ate a sausage and drank a +glass of beer that had been brought from the public-house. + +The first night had seemed long and weary, but now the hours passed +quickly; he had forgotten all but the suffering woman, and in the +interest of inducing her to swallow some beef-tea, in the pride of such +successes another and then another day fled lightly. Nor did he feel +tired as he had done, and now a nap in an arm-chair seemed all that +he required. So the landlady came as an unwelcome interruption of an +absorbing occupation. Haggard and unshaven, he returned to Southwick, +where he found a note on his table from General Horlock, asking him to +dinner that evening. + +"I know the meaning of this: Maggie will be there--a reconciliation! Can +I?" He turned his ear quickly from his conscience; he was frightened of +the voice that would tell him that Maggie was nothing to him, never had +been, never could be; that he had been born for Lizzie Baker, as the +soldier is for the sword or the bullet that kills him; others had passed +him, had been heard sharply, had gleamed dangerously in his eyes. They +were but signs and omens meant for others, not for him, and they had +passed. But this one had remained, though often lost, as that remains +which is to be, and she was now no less for him than before, though +now seemingly lost irrevocably to another; and in all the seeming of +irrevocable loss was drawing nearer--not with the victory and destiny of +old in her eyes, but with no less victory and destiny inherent in her. +Though far from him, she had been for long a disintegrated influence, +but what had been distant was now near, and all was yielding like a ship +in the attraction of the fabulous loadstone mountain. That room!--the +wash-hand-stand, the dirty panes of glass, the iron bed-there his fate +had been sealed. That body which he had lifted out of bed still lay +heavy in his arms. He still breathed the odour of the hair he had +gathered from the pillow and striven to pin up; those eyes of limpid +blue, pale as water where isles are sleeping, burned deep and livid in +his soul; the touch and sight of that flesh, the sound of that voice, +those tears, the solicitude and anxiety of those hours of night and day +conspired against him, and his life was big with incipient overthrow. + +Lizzie was with him at all times. He saw her eyes, then her teeth, and +the perfume and touch of her hair was often about him; and yet he was +hardly conscious that a revolution of feeling was in progress within +him; and when the time came for him to go to Horlock's he went there +avoiding all thoughts of Maggie, although he knew he would be called +upon that night to take a decisive step. He saw little of her before +dinner, and during dinner the General's allusions to the quarrels of +lovers being the renewal of love vexed him, and he thought, "Confound +it! If I want to make it up I will; but I am not going to be bullied +into it." When the ladies left the room he found it difficult to pretend +to the kind-hearted old soldier that he did not believe that Maggie +would forgive him. "Forgive me for what? I have done nothing." + +"To get on with women you must always admit you are in the wrong--ha, +ha, ha!" laughed the General; "now I have it from my wife--women know +everything--ha, ha, ha!" laughed the General. "Have another glass of +sherry?" + +"No, thanks; couldn't take any more." + +"I took I won't tell you how many glasses before I proposed to my wife, +and then I was afraid; enough to make me--a clever woman like Mrs. +Horlock, I believe you wouldn't find a woman in England like +Mrs. Horlock. Look round; all that's her work. Look at that white +Arab--exactly like him. I won five hundred pounds with that horse; but I +wouldn't be satisfied, and I ran him again the following day and lost +it all and five hundred more with it. I had another horse. My wife +is modelling him in wax; she will show it to you in the next room. +Marvellous woman!" + +Passing Maggie by who was sitting in the window, Frank inveigled Mrs. +Horlock into an anatomical discussion. The General stretched out +his feet, put on his spectacles, and took up the _St James's_. +The conversation dropped, and, full of apprehension and expecting +reconciliation, Frank went to Maggie and talked to her of the tennis +parties he was going to, of the people he had seen--of indifferent +things. The time was tense with the fate of their lives. Once she turned +her head and sighed. Time slipped by, and still they talked of their +friends--of things they knew perfectly. Maggie said: "I hope you are not +angry; I hope we shall remain friends." Frank replied: "I hope so," +and again the conversation paused. The General denounced Gladstone, and +praised his wife's sculpture. Ten o'clock! Angel was lifted out of his +basket. If Maggie had been Helen and Southwick Troy, he would not be +kept waiting; the dogs had to be taken out; Willy came to fetch Maggie; +hands were tendered, lips said good-bye, and, with a sense of parting, +they parted. + +Feeling adrift and strangely alone, he walked to his lodging. His future +loomed up in his mind as vague and as illusive as the village that now +glared through the mist, white and phantasmal. He did not regret--we can +hardly regret the impossible. Then, falling back on a piece of prose, +he said: "Where was the good? Mount Rorke would never have given his +consent. Poor Lizzie; I hope she is better. I hope it has broken. She +won't get any relief until it does." + +And next day, towards evening, he went to Brighton. He found her +shrinking over the fire, wrapped in a woollen shawl. + +"How are you to-day? You look a little better. I did not expect to find +you out of bed." + +"I am better, thank you; it broke yesterday, and I feel relieved. You +are very good. I think I should have died if it had not been for you. +Think of that landlady leaving me in the way she did." + +"What was the reason? Why did she rush off in that way?" + +"She went to town to see her sister, and she says she was taken ill. She +drinks." + +"Does she? I hope she looked after you yesterday?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"As well as I did?" + +"I don't know about that; you are a very good nurse. It was very good of +you; no one else would have done it." + +"What, not even _he_?" + +"You were with me for four days, and you never even went to bed--never +took your clothes off." + +"Never even washed myself. By George! I was glad to get home and have a +good wash. I was a sorry-looking object--haggard and unshaven." + +"Where did you say you had been to?" + +"Nobody asked me." + +"Not Maggie?" + +"No; I didn't tell you our engagement is broken off." + +"No; you didn't say nothing about it." + +"On account of you. She discovered that you had been to my studio, and +she said I was keeping a woman in Brighton." + +"Keeping a woman in Brighton--she thinks you are keeping me! I will +write to her and tell her that it is not true. What right has she to say +such things about me?" + +"She doesn't say it about you. She says a woman." + +"She means me." + +"No, she doesn't; she doesn't know anything about you. Some one told her +I went into Brighton every day by the four o'clock train, and she put +two and two or rather two and three together, and said it was six." + +"But I will write to her. I will not be the cause of any one's marriage +being broken off." + +"You need not trouble. I saw her last night, and I could have made it +all right had I chosen--she was quite willing." + +"You can't care for her!" + +"I suppose not. I don't think I ever really loved her. I thought I did. +I was mistaken." + +"You are very changeable." + +"No, I don't think I am--at least not so far as you are concerned. I was +mistaken. I was in love with some one else--with you." + +"With me?" + +"Yes, with you. I was in love with you when we went to Reading, and +never got over it. I thought I had, but when love is real we never get +over it. I always loved you, and those four days I spent nursing you +have brought it all out. I shall never love any one else. I know you +don't care for me; you said once you couldn't care for me." + +"I! I am too miserable to care for any one. I wish you had let me die; +but that is ungrateful. You must excuse me, I am so miserable. Why speak +of loving me? I can love no one. I don't care what becomes of me. I am +ruined; nothing matters now." + +"I wish you would confide in me; you can trust me. Has he forsaken you? +Can you not make it up?" + +"No, never now; I shall never see him again." + +"Has anything happened lately, since you came to Brighton?" + +Lizzie nodded. + +"Don't cry like that; tell me about it." + +"What's the use? Nothing matters now." + +"Has he been here?" + +Lizzie nodded, and Frank folded the shawl about her, and wiped her tears +away with his pocket handkerchief. "Since you were ill?" + +"No, before I was ill; he was down here watching me. He found out I had +gone to your studio, and he said the most dreadful things--that he would +break your head, and that I had never been true to him, and that I was +not fit to be the wife of an honest man." + +"But I will tell him that you came to my studio to sit for your +portrait." + +"No, you mustn't write; it would only make matters worse. No use; he +says he will never see me again." + +"Where can I see him? Has he gone back to London? I will follow him and +tell him he is mistaken." + +"No, please don't, and please don't go to the 'Gaiety'; he is a violent- +tempered man; something dreadful might occur. Please, promise me." + +"Not go to the 'Gaiety'? He doesn't know me." + +"Yes, he does." + +"Have I seen him? Do tell me; you know you can trust me. I am your +friend. Tell me--" + +"You have seen him in the 'Gaiety,' in the grill-room--the waiter, +number two, the good-looking tall man." + +"Oh!" + +"He wasn't always a waiter; his people are very superior. He has been +unfortunate." + +"And it was he you loved this long while?" + +"I never cared for another man." + +"I must write and tell him he is committing an act of injustice. I will +make this matter right for you, Lizzie." + +"Do you think you can?" + +"I am sure of it." + +He rang for the landlady, and asked for writing materials. She +apologised for the penny bottle of ink, and spoke of getting a table +from the next room, but he said he could write very well on the +chimney-piece. "I suppose I had better begin, 'Sir'?" + +"Don't people generally begin, 'Dear Sir'?" + +"Not when they don't know the people they are writing to." + +"But you do know him a little. He always said you were very haughty. You +used to sit at his table." + +"I think I had better begin the letter with 'Sir.'" + +"Very well. You know best. He was always very jealous." + + + + +XVI + + + +"SIR,--I hear from Miss Baker that you were in Brighton last week, and, +drawing the inference from the fact that she came to my studio to sit +for her portrait, you accuse her of very grievous impropriety. I beg to +assure you that this is not so. At my urgent request, Miss Baker, whom +I had better say I have known for some years, consented to give me a +sitting. My intentions were purely artistic; hers were confined to a +wish to oblige an old friend, and I deeply regret that they should have +been misinterpreted, and I fear much unhappiness caused thereby." + +"Do you think that will do?" + +"Yes, it is a beautiful letter." + +"Do you think so--do you really think so? Do you think I have said all?" + +"You might say something--that I never even kissed you; and that you +respected me too much." + +"I will if you like, but don't you think that is implied?" + +"Perhaps so; but you see he does not read many books. He hasn't time +for much reading, and you put things in a difficult way. They sound +beautiful, but I--" + +"Show me." + +"Well, this 'grievous impropriety.' I know what you mean, but I couldn't +explain it." + +"Shall I say 'serious impropriety'? but grievous is the right word. You +say a grievous sin for a mortal sin. If we had done any wrong it would +have been a grievous sin; but I'll change the word if you like." + +"No, don't change it on my account; but I think he would understand an +easier word better." + +"A 'heinous impropriety'? No, that won't do. A 'serious impropriety.' +That will do. Is there anything else you would like me to alter?" + +"No, I don't think there is." + +"You think this letter will convince him that there was nothing wrong?" + +"I hope so; but he is a very suspicious man." + +"I will post it when I go out." Then after a long silence: "Do you know +what time it is? It must be getting late." + +"It must be getting on for nine." + +"Then I must say good-bye; but I forgot, I want to ask you--you must be +hard up, and want some money--do you? If you do, I assure you I shall be +only too glad." + +"Well, I am rather hard up, for you know that this illness has +prevented my doing anything; and I am afraid I have lost my place at the +'Tivoli.'" + +"What do you intend to do?" + +"I should like to go back to London. I shall see him there, and if the +letter makes it right we may be married. I will write to you." + +"You will?--Do. Here is five pounds. I have no more about me, but if +anything should occur, you know where to write to." + +"You are very good; I don't deserve it. I don't know why you take so +much trouble about me. If he doesn't marry me I'll try to get another +place; I shall go back to the firm." + +"When do you intend to leave?" + +"As soon as I am well enough, in a day or two; but you will not come +here again." + + +"I had thought that I might." + +"I know; but if he were to hear that you had been here, it would be +worse than ever. You don't mind, do you? You aren't angry, are you?" + +"No; good-bye, Lizzie. Write to me when you are married." Frank walked +into the street. There was neither rage nor will in him. He was a +sorrowing creature in a bitter world. The sea was cruelly blue in the +coming night; the sky was also blue, only deeper, a red streak like +a red bar of iron stretched across the embaying land, relieving into +picturesque detail the outlines of coast-towns and villages. His eyes +rested on and drew grief from this dim distance so illusive; and for +jarring contrast, the pier hung with gaudy and gross decoration in the +blue night, and a brass band replied to the waves. + +Then the clouds lifted, and when he returned to Southwick the moon was +shining and some boys pursued the resounding ball through the shadows. +He undressed with an effort, and he lay down hoping never to rise again. +Next morning he went to his studio full of resolve. His picture must +be finished for one of the winter exhibitions. He did not take up his +palette, nor did he sit at his piano for more than a few minutes; and +when he met Willy he raged against Lizzie, jeered at her vulgarity, +heaped ridicule upon her lover, the waiter; he spoke of writing a novel +on the subject; he set out her character at length; and was alarmed when +told that Maggie was ill. He must win her. She must be his wife. So he +told Willy, so he assured himself that she would. He knew that Lizzie +was nothing to him. She had left Brighton, thank God! He went to sleep, +certain he had torn this page out of his life, and he awoke to find it +still there; and day after day he continued to brood upon, and still +unable to understand its meaning, he longed to turn it over and read, +for there were other pages; but they were sealed, and he might only read +this one page. + +"I'm afraid that our old friend Brookes is having a hard time of it," +said the General, taking the spectacles from his nose, and laying down +the _St James's_, "they are all at him tooth and nail," and the General +laughed gleefully. "You are the young man who has upset them. The young +lady won't dress herself." + +"My dear Reggie, you shouldn't talk like that. I do hate to hear +scandal; you'll repent it," said Mrs. Horlock, and she adroitly smoothed +the wax on the horse's quarters. + +"I assure you, Mrs. Horlock, I never repeat what I hear; the guiding +principle of my life is not to repeat conversations. Particularly in +a village like Southwick, it is most essential that none of us should +repeat conversations; I have always said that." + +"Do tell me about Maggie; I hear she is very ill. What is the matter +with her? What did you say--the young lady won't dress herself?" + +"My dear Reggie, I will not stay here and listen to scandal. Not a word +of it is true, Mr. Escott." + +"What is not true, Mrs. Horlock?" + +"What he told you about her walking about the house with her hair down." + +"I don't think the General said anything about walking about the house +with her hair down; he said some one wouldn't dress herself. I suppose +he meant Maggie. I am sure I am sorry--I am most sorry--to hear she +is ill, but it is unjust to assume that I had anything to do with her +illness. We can speak freely among ourselves, you know. You know the +circumstances; no one is more capable of understanding the case than +you, for you are an artist. Maggie heard that I had had a model, that's +what it amounts to, and she broke off the engagement; nothing could be +more unjust, nothing could be more unwarranted." + +"It could be brought on again, I know that," said Mrs. Horlock, and she +turned the shoulders of her horse to the light. + +"We will not go into that question, Mrs. Horlock. I confine myself to +what has happened, and I say I was treated unjustly, most shamefully; +and when I have been cast aside like an old hat, I hear indirectly that +it can be made up again. I have borne quite enough, and will bear no +more. Old Brookes came down to my studio with that cad Berkins, and +forced his way in, and then forbade me the house because my dog bit +Berkins's thigh. I couldn't help it. What did he attack me for? He +didn't suppose a bull-dog would be still while his master was being +knocked on the head." + +"What should a common City man know about dogs? He wouldn't sign +the petition when I asked him, to Sir Charles Warren, to cancel the +regulations about muzzling." + +"And then they set a report going that I had set the dog on, and if I +hadn't set it on, that I hadn't called him off. As if I could! You know +what a bull-dog is, Mrs. Horlock? Is a highly-bred dog likely to let go +when he has fixed his teeth in the fleshy part of a thigh? The Brookes +are old friends of mine, and I wouldn't say a word against them for the +world; but of course it is as obvious to you as it is to me that +they are not quite the thing. I mean--you know--I would not think of +comparing them with the Southdown Road; but there is a little something. +City people are not the Peerage; there's no use saying they are. Mount +Rorke was upset; but I would not give in, and I think I should have won +his consent in the long run. After all I have borne for her sake I think +I might expect better treatment than to be thrown over, as I have said, +like an old hat; and I don't mind telling you that I do not intend to be +made a fool of in this matter; I shall turn a very deaf ear to stories +of a broken heart and failing health. I shall not cease to think of +Maggie. I loved her once very deeply, and I should have loved her always +if--But tell me, General. You know I will not repeat anything." + +"I advise you to say no more, Reggie. I will not be mixed up in any +scandal. I shall leave the room. Sally is dining here to-night; she is +only too anxious to talk of her sister. If Mr. Escott will stay and take +pot-luck with us, he will no doubt hear everything there is to hear in +the course of the evening." + +"What have we got for dinner, Ethel? I know we have got a leg of mutton, +and there is some curry." + +"Your dinners are always excellent, Mrs. Horlock. I shall be delighted +to stay. Here is Sally. Oh, how do you do, Sally? We were talking of +you." + +"I'm afraid every one is talking of me, now," she whispered, and the big +girl passed over to Mrs. Horlock and kissed her. "How is it that no one +has seen anything of you lately?" she said, taking the seat next him. +"What have you been doing?" + +"Nothing in particular. But I want to ask you about Maggie. I hear she +is very ill." + +Perceiving that his tone did not bespeak a loving mood, Sally's face +brightened, and she became at once voluble and confidential. + +"Oh, we have been having no end of a time at home. Father has been +speaking of selling the place and leaving Southwick." + +"Speaking of selling the place and leaving Southwick! And where does he +think of going to live, and what is the reason of this?" + +"Oh, the reason! I suppose he would say I was the reason; and where heis +going to live, that is not settled yet--probably one of the big London +hotels. He says everybody is laughing at him, and that when he meets +the young men at the station he can see them laughing at him over their +newspapers, for, according to father, they have all flirted with us. +Maggie has been saying all kinds of things against me, and I am afraid +that the Southdown Road people have been writing him anonymous letters +again. Some one--I don't know who it is--I wish I did--has been telling +him the most shocking things about Jimmy Meason and me; things in which +I assure you there is not a word of truth. You know yourself that we +have hardly spoken for nearly two years; last year, it is true, we made +it up a bit in your studio, but it didn't last long. I don't think I saw +him twice afterwards, and never alone--and now to have everything that +happened two years ago raked up and thrown in my face! I don't say +I haven't--I don't know what you'd call it, I suppose you'd call it +spooning. I admit I infinitely preferred walking about the garden with +a young man to sitting in the drawing-room and doing woolwork. I was a +silly little fool then, but I do think it hard that all this should +be raked up now. I don't know what will happen. Maggie pretends to be +frightened at me; 'tis only her nonsense to set father against me. She +won't dress herself, and she walks about with her hair down her back, +wringing her hands." + +"But what does she say? This is very bewildering. I don't understand--I +am quite lost." + +"The fact is that Maggie doesn't know what she is saying, so I suppose I +oughtn't to blame her. She is a little off her head, that's the truth +of it; but you mustn't say I said so, it will get me into worse trouble +than I am already in. She was like that once before, and had to be put +in the charge of a lady who was in the habit of dealing with excitable +people. I don't mean lunatics, don't run away with that notion. I don't +know what would happen if it got about that I was putting that about. +Maggie is very excitable, and she has been exciting herself a great deal +lately--you were the principal cause. She did all she could to get you +to make it up when you met her here at dinner--the dinner was given +for that--but you said nothing about it, and she came home in an awful +state, accusing every one of combining to ruin her. She said I was +jealous of her, that I was wild with fear that she would one day be +Lady Mount Rorke. She said father had done everything to break off her +marriage, because he did not like parting with his money. She had set +her heart on being married, and it was a terrible disappointment. She +has been disappointed two or three times. Father doesn't know what to +do. Her thoughts seem to run on that one subject. She walks about the +garden saying the most extraordinary things." + +"But tell me about the illness." + +"I don't know if I ought to tell you." + +"Oh, do!" + +"I don't know how to say it. She used to say she longed to become a +mother." + +"Longed to become a mother? Well, that is the last thing--" + +"You know what I mean." + +"But tell me about the illness." + +"I should call it more than being a little excited, but of course she +isn't mad. She has, however, the most curious notions. She is always a +little too imaginative at the best of times; at least, I find her so, +but now her delusions are really too absurd, and, as I have said, the +worst of it is that her thoughts run on that one thing; it really is +most unfortunate. Poor father." + +"But what are her delusions?" + +"Well, I scarcely know how to tell you." + +"Try; anything can be told. It depends how it is told." + +"She thinks that the coachman has spread it all over Southwick--how +shall I say it? I don't know that I ought to tell you. Well, that +she has gone wrong with you and Berkins. I thought I should die of +laughing--the idea of Berkins was too funny for words." + +"But your father doesn't believe it?" + +"Of course not." + +"He doesn't suspect me, I hope?" + +"No; I am sure he doesn't. He knows Maggie doesn't know what she is +saying. But he was dreadfully put out about Berkins; he is frightened +out of his wits lest he should hear of it. But for goodness' sake don't +mention that I said anything to you about it; I am in trouble enough as +it is. Father says he can stand it no longer. I am very much afraid that +he will leave Southwick. It depends on what Aunt Mary says. He has sent +for her; she will be here to-morrow." + +These family councils were held in the billiard-room, and when Aunt Mary +and Aunt Hester had had their tea they came along the passage, Aunt Mary +of course in front, Aunt Hester timid and freckled and with her usual +air of tracts. Uncle James stood with his back to the fire waiting +for them. Willy caught at his hair, but an expression of resignation +overspread his face, he packed his diary and accounts in brown paper and +lit a pipe. + +"Now, James, let us hear about these new troubles. Something must be +done, that is clear." + +"Yes, something must be done, Mary, and I can think of nothing for it +but to leave this place. It is no longer a place for me to live in. The +Southdown Road has proved too strong for me, it has conquered me." + +"Don't speak like that, James. We must try to bear our burdens, if not +for our own sakes, for the sake of Him who died for us. He bore a very +heavy cross for us." + +"There's no use in talking to me like that, Hester, you only provoke me. +You forget what a cross two daughters are, and the Southdown Road has +become intolerable. It is more than any man can bear; I will bear it no +longer. I have borne it long enough, and am determined to get rid of it. +I am afraid there's nothing for it but to sell the place and go and live +in London." + +Aunt Hester cast her eyes into her satchel, afraid even to think that +her brother had intentionally misinterpreted her words; but Aunt Mary +laughed at the idea of the slonk-hill, as a latter-day Golgotha, with +poor Uncle James staggering beneath the weight of the Southdown Road, +young men and all, upon him. It was very irreverent. He burst into +tears, Hester moved to leave the room, but was restrained by her sister. + +"My position is a most unfortunate one; since the death of poor Julia I +have had no one to turn to, there has been no restraining influence in +this house. Here am I working all day long in the City for those girls, +and when I come home in the evening I find my house full of people I +don't know. I assure you, Mary, I don't know any of the people who come +to my house. I am consulted in nothing. It is not fair--I say it is +not fair; and at my death those girls will have thirty thousand pounds +a-piece." + +"I knew you had the money, James, I knew you had," exclaimed Aunt Mary, +and even Aunt Hester could not help casting a look of admiration on her +weeping brother. + +"I say it is not fair; a man of my money should have a comfortable +home to return to. Even the Southdown Road people have that; but no +consideration is shown to me. My dinner is put back so that Sally may +continue her flirtation with Meason in the slonk. Did any one ever hear +of such a thing? A man's dinner put back so that--that--that--" + +"Yes, we know all about the dinner being put back; that was three years +ago." + +"Why," Mr. Brookes asked himself, "had he invited his sisters to his +help?" He was only adding bitterness to his bitter cup. "You have no +sympathy, Mary," he went on; "you cannot understand the difficulties +of my position--these two girls are for ever quarrelling and fighting; +sometimes they are not even on speaking terms, but I think I prefer +their sullen looks to their violence. Sally threatened to knock her +sister down if she interfered with her young men." + +"What, again?" + +"Oh, I don't know if she has threatened to beat her lately. I don't +remember when was the last time. Their various rows are all jumbled up +in my head. All I know is that Maggie says she cannot live in the house +with Sally. Maggie is very ill, she is in a very excited state, as she +was once before, when I would not consent to her marriage with--I have +forgotten his name, but it doesn't matter. Now she won't dress herself, +and she walks about the house with her hair hanging down. I know there +is nothing for it but to send her away under the charge of some lady who +has had experience in such matters. She can't remain here. She has the +strangest delusions. Among other things, she fancies the coachman has +spread it all over Southwick that she has gone wrong with Berkins +and that fellow Escott. Just fancy if Berkins--a ten thousand a year +man--should hear of it! I don't know what he would say. He would peg +into me; he is at times very hard indeed upon me. I don't say he is +not a first-rate man of business, I know he has made several excellent +investments; but for all that I do not and cannot think him competent +to advise me on all my affairs, and that's what he is always doing. He +talks of putting down that Southdown Road. I should like to see how he +would set about doing it." + +"James, Maggie must go away; she is very highly organised, very +sensitive, and if she were to remain here, Sally might have a real +effect on her mind. It is clear the sisters don't get on together; have +you had medical advice? I told you before that you should have medical +advice about those girls; I told you to spare no expense, but to go to +a first-rate London physician and take his opinion. I said before, and I +say it again, that no girls in good health could carry on as dear Sally, +and I will include dear Maggie; for although she does not defy you to +the same extent, there is no doubt that she is too fast, too fond of +young men; her thoughts run too much in that way, and now she is ill, of +course she has delusions. You ought to have medical advice." + +"Mary, dear, the body is not everything; to cure the flesh you must +first cure the soul. I believe our dear nieces rarely, if ever, attend +church, rarely, if ever, remember that this life is not eternal and that +there is a hereafter." + +The conversation came to a pause. Presently Aunt Mary asked Willy, who +sat resigned to his fate, calm and solemn as a Buddha, his hands clasped +over his rotund stomach, if he thought that Maggie's state was one +to cause immediate anxiety, to which he replied: "My sisters think of +nothing but pleasure. The trouble girls are in a house is more than any +one would believe. Here I am, I can do nothing; every night it is +the same thing, over and over again." And the lean man lapsed into +contemplation. + +"But to come to the point, James, I want to hear about Sally. You said +in your letter that a great deal had come to light, and that you now +find that her conduct has been worse than you had ever imagined it, +even in your moments of deepest dejection. Now, I want to hear about all +this. What has she done? Let's have it in plain English. What has she +done?" + +"To put it plainly, Mary," said Mr. Brookes, wiping his tears away, +and turning his back upon his Goodall, "I don't know what she hasn't +done--everything. She is at the present moment the talk of Southwick. +The doctor here has seen her in the field at the back here with Meason +at nine o'clock at night." + +"Why did you allow her to leave the house at that hour? No young girl--" + +"She always takes her dogs out in the evening; I cannot prevent her +doing that. It appears, too, that she has had Meason up in her bedroom." + +"O James, you do not mean to say that my dear niece had a man in her +bedroom!" + +"Hester, dear, you have lived in a rectory and know nothing of the +world. She says it isn't a bedroom. She pushes the bed away in the +daytime, and covers it up to make it look like a couch. Besides, she +keeps birds in her room, and Flossy had her puppies there. I am not +excusing her conduct, pray do not think that, I am only telling you what +she says." + +"This is very serious. Are you quite sure? Perhaps she only meant to +show the young man her birds or puppies. Her spirit must be broken, I +can clearly see that." + +"I allow them, as you know, one hundred pounds a year apiece. Maggie +keeps none, but Sally always keeps accurate accounts of what she spends. +I asked to see those accounts, for I had heard she had been giving her +money to Meason, and she refused to let me see them. There is a sum of +twenty pounds for which she can give no explanation. Then it is well +known she gave a set of diamond studs to that fellow, and that he +pledged them for five pounds in Brighton. He boasted he had done so, +and said he intended to get plenty of money out of me before he had done +with me. After that I ask you, how can I live in this place? When I go +to the station in the morning I see these young fellows laughing at me +over the tops of their newspapers. When I come home of an evening after +a hard day's work, I find that my dinner--" + +"Her spirit must be broken," said Aunt Mary, drawing her shawl about +her, and crossing her hands. "Her spirit must be broken; she cannot be +allowed to remain here to drive dear Maggie into a lunatic asylum. I am +with you in that, James, but I cannot think you did well to let Frank +Escott slip through your fingers. Had you not talked so much about money +your daughter might have been Lady Mount Rorke." + +"Talked too much about my money? Who would talk about it, I should like +to know, if I didn't? I made it all myself. What do I care for that +lot--a stuck-up lot, pooh, pooh! twist them all round my finger. I am +not going to give my daughter to a man who cannot make a settlement upon +her." + +Seeing he was not to be moved in anything that concerned his pocket, +Aunt Mary returned to the consideration of what was to be done with +Sally. "From what you tell me it is clear that Sally must not remain in +Southwick a day longer than can be helped. I will take her with me to +Woburn; and I think she had better go abroad as soon as we can hear +of some one in whose charge we can place her. But it must not be a sea +voyage--there is nothing more dangerous than to be on board a ship for +a young girl who is at all inclined to be fast. All are thrown so much +together. The cabins open out one into the other, and there is always +a looking for something--a handkerchief, a bunch of keys, a lot of +stooping and playing, twiddling of moustaches," said Aunt Mary, with a +peal of laughter. + +"Mary, dear, we should not speak lightly of wickedness." + +"It was so that all the mischief was done when Emily Evans was sent out +to the Cape--it was all done on board a ship. You remember the Evanses, +James?--you ought to, you used to flirt pretty desperately with Lucy, +the younger sister." And then Aunt Mary rattled off into interminable +tales concerning the attachment contracted on board a ship in +particular, its unfortunate consequences, how it brought about a divorce +later on by sowing the seeds of passion (Aunt Mary always pronounced +the word "passion" in her narratives with strong emphasis), in the young +girl's heart; and at various stages of her discourse she introduced +fragments of the family history of the Evanses; she followed the +wanderings of the different sisters from Homburg to Paris, from Paris +to Scotland, from Scotland to the Punjab, explaining their different +temperaments by heredity, which led her back into the obscure and +remote times of grandfathers and grandmothers, and, having finally lost +herself, she said: "What was I talking about? You have been listening to +me, James, what was I talking about?" + +Till the end of a week the discussion was continued. Aunt Mary tried +hard to reconcile all parties to their different lots, and, as is usual +in such cases, without attaining any result. And yet Aunt Mary went with +her sister to see Frank in his studio. Willy accompanied them, and when +they left he complained bitterly of how his time was wasted. "Regularly +every evening, just as I am sitting down to work, I hear them coming +along the passage. First of all they go to get their grog--squeak, +squeak, pop. I know it all so well. Then they come in with their +tumblers, and they sit down on the sofa, and they begin.--I don't know +what is to be done with dear Sally, unless we can send her abroad in the +care of some relation. How is dear Maggie to-day? I hope I shall be able +to induce her to put on her frock to-morrow, and come for a drive with +me in the carriage. What a trouble young girls are in the house, to be +sure. Then father begins to groan, and pulls out his handkerchief; he +is quite alone, he has no one he can depend upon, then he laughs, 'Well, +well, I suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence.' So it +goes on night after night. Here am I starting a big business, and I +haven't a room to work in. Just as I am adding up a long column of +figures, perhaps when I am within three of the top, Aunt Mary asks me +a question, and it has to be gone over again. It is most provoking, +there's no denying that it is most provoking." Frank agreed that nothing +could be more provoking than to be interrupted when you were within +three of the top of a long column of figures. On the following day he +heard that the aunts had left, taking Sally with them. They had promised +their brother to find a lady who would take dear Maggie under her +care--one who would soon wean her from dressing-gowns and delusions, and +restore her to staid remarks and stays; and hopes were entertained that +the Manor House would not have to be sold after all. + +But many days had not sped when an event occurred that precipitated +the five acres into the jaws of the builders. Meason had sailed for +Melbourne, and his sister, thinking that some of Sally's letters might +be of use to Mr. Brookes, offered to surrender them upon the receipt +of a cheque for one hundred pounds--a very modest sum, she urged, +considering the character of the letters, most of which concerned +artfully laid plans to meet in the train going or coming from London. +Mr. Brookes called on the shade of dear Julia, but he was not a man to +be blackmailed--he had made all his money himself, and on that point +was immovable. He prepared to leave Southwick. He looked fondly on his +glass-houses, and despairingly on his Friths, Goodalls, and Bouguereaus, +and he wondered if they would look as well in the new rooms as in the +old, and what sum they would realise if he were to include them in the +auction; for an auction was necessary. Mr. Brookes did not thus decide +to abandon his acres without many a sob, nor is it certain that the +final step would have been taken if the gentle builder had not gilded +his insidious hand, and if certain rumours were not about that the +villas in the Southdown Road were not letting, and that Southwick would +never be anything but what it was, a dirty little village--half suburb, +half village. + + + + +XVII + + + +Frank was grieved and troubled at the sad accounts that came to him of +Maggie's health; he was perplexed, too, for he knew himself to be the +cause, and he longed to relieve and to cure her. It seemed to him that +he would give his life to go to her, and comfort her with love, and yet +he was impotent to make the least effort to attain the end he desired. +He lay in the sad and cruel memory of Lizzie, his mind filled with +ignoble visions of her life with the waiter, or with delicate fancies +of her beauty amid the summer of the Thames. He mused on her gracious +figure and face, illuminated by reflections from the water, set off by +the bulrushes and floating blossoms which she so eagerly coveted, and +varied by the movements of the waist and shoulders, the round white arm, +the trailing scarf, and all the wistful charm of the slumbering evening. +He thought of the country light, the sound and smell of cows, of the +sparrows in the vine, the cottage looking so cosy amid the foliage, the +bit of garden full of old-fashioned flowers, tall lilies, convolvuluses, +and marigolds, and the sitting-room full of things belonging to her--her +flowers, her books, her music, and he thought of this until his life was +sick with desire, and there grew a burning pain about his heart. + +A man's struggles in the web of a vile love are as pitiful as those of +a fly in the meshes of the spider; he crawls to the edge, but only to +ensnare himself more completely; he takes pleasure in ridiculing her, +but whether he praises or blames, she remains mistress of his life; all +threads are equally fatal, and each that should have served to bear him +out of the trap only goes to bind him faster. A man in love suggests the +spider's web, and when he is seeking to escape from a woman that will +degrade his life, the cruelty which is added completes and perfects the +comparison. A man's love for a common woman is as a fire in his vitals; +sometimes it seems quenched, sometimes it is torn out by angry hands, +but always some spark remains; it contrives to unite about its victim, +and in the end has its way. It is a cancerous disease, but it cannot be +cut out like a cancer. It is more deadly; it is inexplicable. All good +things, wealth and honour, are forfeited for it; long years of toil, +trouble, privation of all kinds, are willingly accepted; on one side all +the sweetness of the world, on the other nothing of worth, often vice, +meanness, ill-temper, all that go to make life a madness and a terror; +twenty, thirty, forty, perhaps fifty years lie a head of him and her, +but the years and their burdens are not for his eyes any more than the +flowers he elects to disdain. Love is blind, but sometimes there is no +love. How then shall we explain this inexplicable mystery; wonderful +riddle that none shall explain and that every generation propounds? + +Frank lingered in Southwick, for he had promised Willy to stay with him +when he went to live at the stables on the Portslade Road. Summer was +nearly over, hunting would soon commence, and he could keep a couple +of hunters--Willy had calculated it out--for two and twenty shillings a +week. He had ceased to paint, and when he went to the studio it was +to play the piano or the violin. None knew of Lizzie, and all knew of +Maggie. It was thought a little strange that he would not forgive her, +but the obscurity of the story of this point and the delight felt in her +misfortune helped to intensify and idealise Frank in the popular mind, +and when he played Gounod in the still evenings the young ladies would +steal from the villas and wander sentimentally through the shadows about +the green. He got up late in the morning, he lingered over breakfast, +and until it was time to go to Brighton he lay on the sofa watching the +cricketers and the children playing, shaping resolutions, and striving +with himself and deceiving himself. A dozen times, a hundred times, he +had concluded he must see Maggie; he had decided he would write to +Lord Mount Rorke, that he would go to Mr. Brookes and settle the matter +off-hand. But, somehow, he did nothing. His mind was absorbed in a +novel, which he narrated when Willy came to see him. It concerned the +accident that led a man not to marry the woman he loved, and was in the +main an incoherent version of his own life at Southwick. + +"I don't think I told you," said Willy, "that they are removing the +furniture to-day." + +"You don't say so--to-day? And where is your father?" + +"He is in London, at the 'Metropole.'" + +The young men walked on slowly in silence, and when they came to the +lodge gate, standing wide open, and saw the curtainless windows and +the flowerless greenhouses, Willy said: "It is very sad to see all the +things you have known since you were a child sold by auction." + +"Oh, yes, it is. Look at the swards. Do they not look sad already? Those +beautiful elms, under whose shade we have sat, will be cut down, and +stucco work and glass porticoes take their places. Oh, it is very sad." + +"My father never had any feeling, he never cared for the place. Had I +been in his place I should have invested my money in land and gone in +for the county families." + +"How old was I when I came down to see you for the first time--fourteen, +I think? How well I remember everything. It was there, look, through +that glade, that I saw your sisters coming to meet me, they were then +only ten or eleven years old. I can see them in my mind's eye, quite +distinctly, walking towards me, Grace leading the way, and now she is a +mother; and they were all so dark. I remember thinking I had never seen +girls so dark, they were like foreigners. And do you remember how your +father scolded Sally for carrying me round the garden on her back, and +she used to wake me up in the mornings by rolling croquet balls along +the floor into my room. Oh, what good, dear days those were, and to +think they are dead and gone, and that the house is going to be pulled +down; and the garden--oh! the moonlights in that garden, where I walked +with the girls, with scarves round their shoulders, through the dreamy +light and shade. We have sung songs, and talked of all manner of things. +You don't feel as I feel." + +"Yes I do, my dear fellow, I think I feel a great deal more, only I +don't talk so much about it." + +"I know it is infinitely sad. This dear old wall! There is Maggie's +window: how often have I looked up to that window for her winsome face, +and I shall never look again." + +"You are as bad as my father. Cheer up; I suppose it will be all the +same a hundred years hence." + +"No, no, it won't be the same. Why should all I feel and love be +forgotten. I suppose it will be all the same. There goes Berkins. I hate +that man." + +"So do I." + +"If time takes away pleasant things it takes unpleasant things too, +and those who live a hundred years hence will not be troubled with +that fool. True, there will be other Berkinses, and there will be other +gardens, and other girls, but that doesn't make it the least less sad to +see this garden pass into bricks and mortar." + +Two footmen approached Mr. Berkins, and with all solemnity helped him to +take off his overcoat. He said a few words to Willy, and was soon loudly +ordering the workmen who were taking the Goodalls and the Friths from +the walls. + +"Take care, there! Hi, you! get on the ladder and take hold of this end +of the picture. There, that's better! That's the way to do it!" + +"That's what he said when he shot my bird," Willy whispered; and they +tried to laugh as they went upstairs. But their footsteps sounded +hollow, and the wardrobes, where they had so often put their clothes, +stood wide open, desolately empty. They looked out of the windows, and +heard the voices of the work-people. + +"How very sad it is," said Frank; then, after a long silence: "How +beautiful a scene like this would be in a book--a young girl leaving +her home, straying through the different rooms musing on the different +pieces of furniture, all of which recall the past. I think I shall write +it. I wish you would tell me what you feel; I mean, I wish you would +tell me what impresses itself most on your mind, and, as it were, +epitomises the whole. You have known all this since you were a child. +You have played in these passages; some spot, some piece of furniture, +your toys--I suppose they are gone long ago; but something must stand +out and assert itself amid conflicting thoughts. Do tell me." + +Willy stroked his moustache. "Of course it is very sad, but it is +difficult to put one's feelings into words. I should have to think about +it; I don't think I could say off-hand." + +At that moment there came a great crash. + +"What the devil is that?" cried Frank. + +"I hope they haven't broken the statue of Flora," said Willy, and a look +of alarm overspread his face. Frank felt that if such were the case +he should feel no great sorrow. They ran down the echoing stairs. The +workmen had got drunk in the cellars and in removing the statue they +had let it fall, and it strewed the floor--an arm here, a fragment of +drapery there. + +"I knew what would happen. I told Mr. Brookes so. All my statues are in +marble." + +"Come away, I can't listen to that cad. I wouldn't have had Flora broken +for a hundred pounds. When I was a child I used to stand and look at +her. I never could make out how she was made, and I always wanted to +look inside. If you'd like to know what I feel most sorry for, it is +Flora. She has stood amid the flowers in the bow window as long as I can +remember." + +They followed the high road by Windmill Inn, where they struck across +the Downs, and when they reached the first crest they could see the +paddocks and enclosures situated along the road in the valley, and +the private house so trim and middle-class. "Splendid paddocks and +first-rate stabling. The house is not much. When I am making fifteen per +cent. on my money I shall go in for a little architecture. If I had a +glass I could show you Blue Mantle's stable. Do you see two horses in +the paddock, right away on the left, in the far corner--Apple Blossom +and Astarte? Apple Blossom is by See-saw out of Melody, by Stockwell out +of Fairy Queen. Is that good enough for you? Astarte is by Blue Gown out +of Merry Maid, by Beadsman out of Aurora. What do you say to that?" + +"I see you have been looking up the Stud Book." + +"Business, sir, business. And if I were to go in for owning a racer or +two, just look and see what a magnificent training ground; miles upon +miles of downland. Did you ever see a handsomer view? You must paint me +some landscapes for my dining-room." + + + + +XVIII + + + +"The pain is always here--just over the heart. You know what I mean? +Suddenly, when I am thinking of other things, the sound of her voice and +the sight of her face comes upon me, and then a dead, weary ache. I know +I cannot have her, perhaps if I did I shouldn't be wholly glad; but glad +or sorry, good fortune or ill, I cannot forget her. My life will not be +complete. You have felt all this." + +"Never mind how I felt, you know I don't like talking about it. I am +sorry for you. We all have our troubles, I've had nothing else; I often +think that if I were to die to-morrow it would be a happy release." + +"If I had never seen her, or if I had married Maggie; if your father had +not put obstacles in the way; if he had not raised the wretched +money question, which you know as well as I do was dragged in quite +unnecessarily, I should not be suffering now. For, once married, I +should think of no one but my wife. I am sure I should make a good +husband. I know I could make a woman happy; she'll never find a husband +better than she'd have found in me, I don't believe if they were to be +made that you could make a better husband than I should be--I feel it." + +"I have always said that my father brings all his troubles on himself. +He never went in for the country people; he never would have people +at the Manor House. You can't shut up young girls as if they were in a +convent, and if they don't get the right people they'll have the +wrong people. My father thinks of nothing but his money, and he can't +understand that he might go for an equivalent. How could he have +expected it to have turned in your case but as it did? Lord Mount +Rorke was not going to come over to Southwick to haggle over pounds, +shillings, and pence with him--not likely. My sisters might have married +very well if he had gone the right way to work, and he would have been +saved a deal of worry and bother. I always say that my father brings all +his troubles on himself." + +"So far as I was concerned he certainly acted very stupidly. Ah, if I +had married Maggie last summer, how different my life would be now." + +"But you couldn't have really loved her; if you had you would never--" + +"Yes, I did love her." + +"I heard from my father to-day. Maggie is better. This is, of course, a +very delicate question, but we have been friends so long--would you like +me to see if--if this matter could be arranged? I don't like, as you +know, to meddle in other people's affairs, I have quite enough to do to +look after my own; but if you would like--You, of course, do not think +of marrying Lizzie Baker?" + +"Of course not." + +"Then you would like me to speak to my father? Are you willing? Would +you like to marry Maggie?" + +"Yes, of course I should." + +"I don't say so because she is my sister, but I think it is the best +thing you could do." + +They had traversed the paddock, and were close to the stables. Picking +a few carrots out of a heap, they opened the door of Blue Mantle's box. +The horse came towards them, his large eyes glancing, his beautiful +crest arched. His coat shone like satin, his legs were as fine as steel, +and with exquisite relish he drew the carrots from their hands. + +The perspective of the hills was prolonged upon fading tints, and in the +pale blueness the mares feeding in the paddocks grew strangely solitary +and distinct; the trees about the coast towns were blended in shadow, +and out of the first stars fell a quiet peace. + +Their dinner awaited them--a little dinner, simple and humble. After +dinner, when the lamp was brought in, Willy nursed the missus with +affection and sincerity. Cissy sat on Frank's knee, and he told her +stories and stroked her hair. This household retired at eleven. At +ten every morning Willy was busy with his letters, his cheques, his +accounts, and in the afternoon the young men walked about the fields +talking of possible successes of the forthcoming breeding season, and so +the days went. But the secret forces were busy about Frank's life. There +were mines and counter-mines. Every fort of prejudice, every citadel of +reason rested now upon foundations that quaked, and would fall at the +first shock. Doom was about him. As the silence rustles in the deadly +hush of the storm that brings winter upon the forest, he waited +unconscious as a leaf in the imminence of the autumn moment; and in +such a stillness, awaiting a change of soul, he received a letter from +Lizzie. It dropped from his hand, and such desire to go as comes on +swallow and cuckoo came on him; he struggled for a moment, and was +sucked down in his passion. + +The little village--a summary of English life and custom, a symbol of +the Saxon, the church steeple pointing through the elm trees, the villas +with their various embellishment in the line of glass porticos +and privet hedges, the General, Mrs. Horlick, Messrs Brookes and +Berkins--how complete it seemed, how individual and how synthetical--his +eyes filled with tears of unpremeditated grief. The leaves were falling, +the hills were shrouded in wreaths of floating mist. Some trees had been +cut down and scaffolding had been reared about the Manor House, some of +the walls had already fallen revealing the wall paper, the pattern of +which he could almost distinguish. He was going to the woman he loved, +but he was leaving his youth behind, and those whom he had known as +children, as girls, as women; he remembered all the gossip, all the +quarrels, all the to-do about nothing; and now, looking on the beautiful +garden where he had played and passioned in all varying moments of grief +and glee, he re-lived the past; and leaning out of the carriage window +he gazed fondly, and cried out: "Alas, those were Spring Days." + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Spring Days, by George Moore + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPRING DAYS *** + +***** This file should be named 6029.txt or 6029.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/2/6029/ + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Spring Days + +Author: George Moore + +Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6029] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on December 10, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SPRING DAYS *** + + + + +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 his head. Finally it transpired that that +party down the river--that party just gone away--must have had the +boat. He didn't know anything about it, it wasn't his fault. They said +they had engaged that boat over-night. + +"My boat let out for hire! How dare you do this? I never heard of such +a thing; I shall write to the papers." + +"I will give you just as good a boat, sir--" + +"As good a boat! You haven't a boat like it. How do I know you don't +let my boat out for hire every day?" + +"No danger of that, sir; I will give you another boat, one that you +will be pleased with." + +"My boat knocked about by some cad! He won't be back till nine o'clock +to-night, perhaps. I never heard of such a thing. Which is it?" + +"That one with the lady in the stern--the red parasol." + +"He must be caught up, he must. Have you got an outrigger?" Assuring +Lizzie that he would be back in less than half an hour, Frank bent to +his work. + +"If he rows like that he will run down some one," muttered the +boatman. "Confound him and his boat!" + +The outrigger shot through the water; the various craft paused, +surprised at such furious rowing. Lizzie watched the race, asking the +boatman if there was danger. + +"Danger? No; but he'd better not say too much to that gent when he +does catch him up, or there'll be a row, I expect. He's going round +the bend; if he doesn't run into something, he'll catch them," said +the boatman. "Would you like to look through my glass, miss? They'll +be coming back presently." + +Angry language was indulged in, but the apologies of the boatmen saved +the young men the unpleasantness of blows, and, elated at his success, +Frank handed Lizzie into the truant boat and paddled out into the +stream. When he had got out of earshot and out of the notice of the +boat-house he rested on his oars. "Did you see me overhaul them?" + +"No, you passed out of sight round the bend." + +"Yes, by George! I had a good pull for it. There are a lot of red +parasols up higher, and I had to look out for my boat. What did they +say about my rowing?" + +"They said you'd catch them if you didn't run into something." + +"Did they? I was wild; and--would you believe it?--when I did catch +them up the fellow began to object; he didn't want to come back, if +you please. He said he had hired the boat, that he did not know the +boat was mine--no proof. I said, 'I will give you proof,' and so I +would have." + +"I was afraid. I began to regret that I had come out with you." + +"What nonsense! Done the fellow good if I had punched his head. Well, +it has taken it out of me a bit. I had to put on a bit of a spurt to +catch them; they had such a start, and they were going along a pretty +fair pace, too. It has made me feel a bit peckish, a pull like that on +an empty stomach; it must be close on twelve o'clock. What do you say, +are you beginning to feel that it is lunch time?" + +"I am not very hungry, and you forgot the luncheon basket. I ought to +have reminded you to get some sandwiches at the railway station." + +"Sandwiches! I don't want sandwiches; I want something more +substantial than sandwiches. I'll paddle on; we aren't more than a +tenminutes' paddle from the 'Roebuck,' a ripping nice hotel, I can tell +you." + +"Couldn't we have something to eat without going to an hotel?" + +"I don't think so. I want a bottle of fizz, and the fizz there is +excellent; one of the best hotels on the river; splendid gardens and +tennis grounds, a great room overlooking the river; the best people go +there; sometimes one can't get a table." + +"I don't think I am well dressed enough." + +"You look charming, a cotton dress and a parasol is all one wants for +the river." + +"You are not ashamed of me, then; you'll take me as I am?" + +"Ashamed of you! Steer straight for that post--that's it, bravo!" +Frank shipped the oars, and when he felt the girl's arm laid on his as +he helped her to land, it seemed to him that all the world was +happiness. The spirit of the river, the fields and sky, leaped to his +eyes. He assisted her to ascend the steps cut in the hillside. She +laughed and laughed again, and stopped to rest. At last they stood on +the railway line. It swept round another hill all overshadowed and +dark with cedars. + +"Here comes a train, let's wait. I must see it go round the curve." + +"You should see the Bath express come along the broad gauge at the +rate of sixty miles an hour." + +"This is not an express?" + +"No." + +The luggage train came with an interminable rumble and jingle, and +Lizzie waited till the last truck passed under the branches. Then they +went to an hotel full of daylight and stained wood, with glimpses of +barmaids far away, and waiters running about; the rooms glistened with +table linen; the waiters carved at a sideboard covered with pies, +sirloins, hams, tongues. Only one table was occupied, and the waiters +were lavishing all attention upon it. Lady Seveley leaned back smoking +a cigarette. Fletcher sat next to her, alternately affecting +indifference and fixing her with his eyes. Harding was voluble and +observant. There was about them an air of thirty and the dissipations +of thirty. And, not in the least ashamed of Lizzie, Frank bowed to +Lady Seveley; she returned his bow by a slight nod; and Lizzie, very +much embarrassed, nodded to the men; they smiled in return. + +"Who is that lady you saluted?" + +"Lady Seveley; the lady I told you about, who I went to the theatre +with the other night." + +"Fancy a lady like that smoking a cigarette!" + +A waiter approached with the bill of fare. "We had better not have +anything hot, we shall lose the whole day. What do you say?" + +"Cold sirloin of beef is excellent, sir; pigeon pie is also very good +--young birds." + +"Shall we try the pigeon pie? Get me the wine list. Take off your hat, +Lizzie, do." + +"I am afraid my hair will come down." + +"Never mind, so much the better." + +With some difficulty she extracted her hat from the hairpins, and the +bright hair hung loose about her white plump face. Frank drank a glass +of champagne; he was proud of her beauty. + +"By Jove, how this does pick one up! not half bad tipple, is it?" + +They hastened through their lunch, unconsciously avoiding the too +critical looks of those at the far corner table; nor did they suspect, +as they descended the hill and got into their boat and rowed away, +that they were still the subject of conversation. + +"She is no doubt a very pretty girl. He seems very fond of her. I hope +he won't make a fool of himself." + +"I think he is 'mashed.' We saw him the other night in the bar. He was +paying her a great deal of attention--the night we saw you at the +theatre." + +Lady Seveley's face slightly altered. Harding noticed the change of +expression, and he said: "She is called the belle of the bar. Hers is +the kind of prettiness that appeals to a young man, for somehow, I +cannot explain, it is a thing you must feel; she epitomises as it were +the beauty of the English girl; she is the typical pretty English +girl; all that English girls have of charm, she has; and the co- +ordination is an irresistible force against some young men; their +natures demand the freshness the spontaneity, the innocence of--" + +"Of the Gaiety bar! I have never been there, but from what you tell me +of it, it is the last place to find innocence and freshness." + +"That may be or not be. We find a rose blooming in very out-of-the-way +places; but, as a matter of fact, I made no accusation of virtue; vice +does not rob a youth of its spontaneity. You may rouge the cheeks of +May and blacken her eyes, but she is May nevertheless. I say that the +lover of the young girl cannot love the woman of thirty. Her charms +touch him not at all; but there are others who may love only the woman +of thirty, and, strange to say, they are only loved by the woman of +thirty. The universal Don Juan is a myth, and does not exist out of +literature. There is the Don Juan who plays havoc among the women of +thirty, there is the Don Juan who plays havoc among young girls, but-- +" + +"And you think our friend Frank Escott belongs to the latter class?" + +"No, I don't. He is good-looking; he is to all appearance a young man +that any woman would like, but I don't think you'd find this to be so +if it were given to you to see into his life. Every man of the world +must have noticed that there are times when, speaking generally, every +second woman will run after him--ladies of rank, prostitutes, maid- +servants--when he may pick and choose his mistresses, and change his +mind as often as he pleases; there are other times when he finds +himself womanless, when none will look at him, when in fact without an +allusion to rings, and sometimes a very direct allusion is required, +he will not be able to persuade a chorus girl to come out to supper +with him. He thinks he is getting old, he looks in the glass with +fear." + +"You mean to say there are men who look in the glass with fear?" + +"Of course, after five-and-thirty the glass whispers as awful truths +to the man as to the woman--worse, for woman's youth is longer than +man's. The contrary is the received opinion, but, like all popular +opinions, it is wrong; a woman is frequently loved after forty, a man +never. I was saying that a man often thinks he is getting old because +the chorus girl took an early opportunity of speaking of rings, +because the lady of fashion begged of the old gentleman who had taken +up his hat to go to stay a little while longer, because the chamber- +maid did not look lusciously round the corner when he passed her in +the passage. He looks in the glass and imagines all kinds of monstrous +changes in his person. His fears have no foundation in fact--or should +I say in the flesh? A year after the duchess makes overtures, the +chorus girl threatens to throw up her engagement for him, and the +chambermaid pesters him with unnecessary questions concerning baths +and towels. These facts tend to show, indeed I think they prove, that +love is a magnetism, which sometimes we possess in almost irresistible +strength, and which sometimes fades away into powerless and apparent +extinction." + +"Then you think that good looks have nothing to do with the faculty of +making oneself beloved?" said Fletcher. + +"The phenomenon of love has hitherto eluded our most eager +investigation; when we have traced each desire to its source, and +classified--" + +"We women will have ceased to take any interest in the matter. What a +humbug you are, Mr. Harding; one never knows when you are serious. But +what has all this to do with that poor boy who has gone off with his +barmaid?" + +"This: he is unquestionably good-looking, but I don't think he +possesses at all the magnetism, the power--call it what you will--that +I have been speaking of. He will never influence either men or women, +he will never make friends; that is to say, he will never make use of +his friends. He will, I should think, always remain a little outside +of success. It will never quite come to him; he will be one of those +muddled, dissatisfied creatures who rail against luck and bad +treatment. I cannot see him really successful in anything; yes I can, +though, I believe he would make an excellent husband. I have spoken a +great deal to him. He has told me a lot about himself, and I can see +that he asks and desires nothing but leave to devote himself to a +woman, to pander to her caprices. All that violent exterior will wear +off, and he will yield to and love to be led by a woman. He writes a +little, and he paints. I don't know if he has any talent; but he never +will be able to work until he is obliged to work for a woman." + +"Then you think he will marry that barmaid?" + +"Most probably. He will struggle against it; but unless chance +intervenes--she may die, she may run away with some one to-morrow, for +she does not care for him--he will be sucked into the gulf." + +"He is Lord Mount Rorke's heir; he will have twenty thousand a year +one of these days." + +"Mount Rorke will never forgive him a bad match. I know Mount Rorke," +said Lady Seveley, "and you do, too, Mr. Fletcher." + +"Yes, a little." + +Unfearing prophecy and oracle launched from the windows of the hotel, +the young people rowed, lost to all but each other, amazed at the +loveliness of the river. They floated amid the bulrushes. Cries and +regret when Frank's oar crushed the desired blossom. Never before were +lilies as desirable as those that were gathered that day--that bud, it +must be possessed, that blown flower must not be left behind. Lizzie +dipped her arm to the elbow, and rejoiced in the soft flowing water. +The river rose up into what beautiful views and prospects. The locks, +the sensation of the boat sinking among the slimy piles with Frank +erect holding her off with the boat-hook, or the slow rising till the +banks were overflowed, and the wonderful wooden gates opened, +disclosing a placid stream with overhanging boughs and a barge. And +the charming discoveries they made in this water world, the moorhen's +indolence, and the watchful rat swimming for its hole; each bend was a +new picture. How beautifully expressive of the work of the field were +the comfortable barns. If life is never very fair, a vision of life +may be fair indeed, and once the tears came to the bar girl's eyes, +for she, too, suddenly remembered her life of tobacco and whisky; long +weary hours of standing, politeness, washing glasses, and listening to +filthy jokes. Would there be no change? If she might live her life +here! She thought of the morning light, and the home occupations of +the morning, and then the languid and lazy afternoons in this boat, +amid the enchantment of these river lands. + +Frank laid by his oars, and as regardless as a shopboy of observers, +he took her hand and begged of her to confide in him. He thought, too, +of seeing her daily, hourly, of her presence in his daily life; he saw +her amid his painting and poetry, and this pleasant scenery. Then the +vision vanished like the shine upon the stream, she withdrew her +hands, a shadow had fallen. + +They passed a summer-house where three girls were sitting; one sat on +the edge of a table and sang the ballad of "Biddy Malone." There was a +house so red, and so full of gables and narrow windows, that Frank +said it was a perfect specimen of Elizabethan architecture; and he +treated Lizzie to all he could pretend to know on the subject, and he +condemned the owner for the glaringly modern garden benches with which +the swards were interspersed. The sun was setting, there was lassitude +in every passing boat, the girls leaned upon the arms of the young +men, and the woods stood up tall and contemplative, as beautiful in +the deep blue river as upon the pale sky. + +They landed at Pangbourne Woods by the wide grassy path between the +reedy river and the spreading beeches. There a man was boiling a +kettle. He spoke to them; he instructed them in the life of camping +out, and he invited them to tea. Lizzie went into the tent and got out +the tea-things. Two men came up, jolly fellows enough; and such little +adventures endeared and memorised the day. + +They climbed, oh! what a climb it was, Lizzie's ankles and courage +giving way alternately; but at last they reached a pathway, and they +walked at ease into the green solitudes of the wood. It seemed +endless, so soft and so still. He spoke to Lizzie, whom he now called +Liz, of her past, of the reasons that had led her to leave home and +"go to business." Her brother, she said, was a painter, a celebrated +bird-painter. + +"Then we should know each other, I am a painter." He told her of his +ideas and projects, of how he had been to France; he might go there +again, unless something happened to keep him in England. He wrote a +little too, in the papers, and he might do something to help her +brother--a paragraph in _Fashion_, he could get one in. For fear of +wounding her he did not ask if her brother was a decorative painter, +employed by a firm, or an artist who exhibited pictures. Her father had +married again. She did not like her stepmother, and that had determined +her to go into business. + +Had she ever been in love? Yes, she supposed she had; but it was all +over now. The last words sounded, and died away in a great abyss of +soul. + +Parts of the path were marked "Dangerous." The earth had given way, +creating fearful chasms, over which trees leaned dangerously or hung +out fantastically by a few roots. In the dell below there stood a +small green painted table, and the young people leaning on the +protecting railing wondered at this mysterious piece of furniture. +There was in them and about them an illusive sense of death and the +beauty of life. One slight push would hurl them headlong hundreds of +feet down to the painted table. + +The silver of the river sparkled through silence and the foliage of +June, and the songs of the boatmen came and went like voices in a +dream. + +The days of youth are long, and in tender idleness the hours lingered, +their charm unbroken in the rattle of London; and happy with love and +tired with the great air of the river and its leafy scenery, Frank +fell asleep that night. + + + + +VII + + + +One of the French artists he had met in Rome wrote to him from Paris. +Why should he not go there? There was nothing for him to do in London; +Lizzie Baker had disappeared, and in the year and a half that he spent +in Paris learning to draw he forgot her and his friends in Southwick. +Nor did he remember them when he returned to London; not until one +evening, strolling down Regent Street, he came upon Willy Brookes +suddenly. + +"How do you do, my dear Willy? I haven't seen you for--for--how long?" + +"I should think it must be now, let me see, I have got it down +somewhere; when I get home I'll look it up." + +"Hang the looking up; better come and look me up." + +The young men laughed. + +"It must be nearly a year and a half." + +"I should think it must. Where are you staying? I am staying at +Morley's Hotel, Trafalgar Square. Come and dine with me to-night." + +Willy reflected. He stroked his moustache reflectively. + +"No," he said, "I am afraid I can't. I have something to do." + +"Nonsense! I don't believe you. What have you to do?" + +"I have some cheques to write." + +"That won't take you a moment. You can do that at my place." + +"I couldn't, I assure you. I must have my books and my own pen. I +wouldn't write a cheque in that way for worlds." + +"Why not? We'll go to a music-hall afterwards." + +"I am very sorry, but I really couldn't--not to-night." + +"You never go in for amusing yourself." + +"Yes, I do; but what amuses you doesn't amuse me. I assure you I would +sooner stay at home, write my cheques, and enter them carefully, than +go to a music-hall." + +Frank looked at Willy for a moment in mute amazement. Then he said: +"But what's that you have under your arm in that brown paper parcel?" + +Willy laughed. "A leg of mutton; I have just been to the stores." + +"You mean to say you buy legs of mutton at the stores, and carry them +home? Supposing you met some one, if we were to--" + +"Not very likely, a foggy night like this. I have a small house in +Notting Hill. I take the 'bus at the Circus. I shall be very glad if +you will come with me; so will the missus." + +"I forgot to ask about her, how is she?" + +"Very well. Come and see for yourself. Come and dine with us to- +morrow. I can't give you one of your restaurant dinners, but if leg of +mutton will suit, all I can say is that I shall be very happy." + +"I'll come whenever you like." + +"Can you come to-morrow?" + +"Yes. We might go to the theatre afterwards." + +"We might. Be at my place at half-past six, that will give us plenty +of time." + +"What a queer fish he is," thought Frank, as he walked down Regent +Street, looking at the women. "Can't come and dine with me because he +has two or three cheques to write, must have all his books out to make +entries--what a clerk for the Government--an ideal clerk! What a +genius for red tape!" + +Willy was standing on the steps of the little house, and he commented +on his friend's extravagances as he welcomed him. + +"You might have come here for ninepence, third class. You paid that +cabman three shillings, and you took, I don't mind betting, half an +hour longer. Now, don't make a mess, do wipe your feet; we don't keep +a servant, and it gives the missus a lot of trouble cleaning up." + +Not a book nor a picture nor a single flower, and every worn carpet +suggested the bare necessaries of life. There was the drawing-room, +kept for show, never entered, barren and blank; there was the room--a +little more alive--where Willy smoked his pipe and kept his accounts, +but there the crumbs, three or four, seemed to speak of the dry, +bread-like days that wore themselves away; life there was too +obviously dry and bare, joyless and mean. + +Had Frank's mind been philosophic and deep-seeing, he would have mused +on the admirable patience of the woman who lived here, seeing no one, +making entire sacrifice of her life; he would have contrasted the +humbleness, nay, the meanness, of this unknown house with the +reception rooms of the Manor House; one life wasting in darkness and +poverty, another burning out in light and riches; timeworn truths +float on the surface of this little pool of life, and so modernised +are they that they appear for a moment "new and original." But further +than a regret that there were no flowers in the window, and a sense of +the horrible when his eyes fell on a piece of Swiss scenery, his +thoughts did not wander; they soon were fixed and absorbed in the +consideration of the happiness that Willy had attained by "doing the +right thing by the woman." He was hers, she was his. Dreams of things +marital, the endearments of husband and wife, are the essence of the +being of some men and women, and are to them a perennial delight. +Frank was such a one. + +He had brought Cissy a doll, and the child came and sat on his knees, +and put her arms round his neck. He kissed the long face, hollow-eyed, +and stroked the beautiful gold ringlets that cloaked the shoulders. + +They went to the theatre in a 'bus. Frank carried Cissy, and he called +indignantly to the crowd not to press him. "Did they not see that he +was carrying a child?" He did not think that his friends might +recognise him, nor would he have felt any shame had he caught sight of +some face in the stalls he knew. He would not have put Cissy aside; +nor would he have pretended that he was not with the pale, worn, +shabbily-dressed woman by his side. He was wholly filled with his +friends, their interests and concerns; so complete was the investment +of himself that Lizzie Baker did not snatch a fugitive thought from +them; and it was not until he sat smoking with Willy in the back +parlour that he said: + +"I wonder what has become of her? She was a nice girl." + +"You mean Lizzie Baker? You lost sight of her all of a sudden, didn't +you? Do you think she went off to live with some one?" + +"No, I don't think she was a girl who would do that. By Jove, she was +a pretty girl! Once I took her up the river, up to Reading. We had +such a jolly day in the woods and on the water--amid the water-lilies +and bulrushes, or the shade of the cedars. I wonder you never go up +the river." + +"I have no time. Besides, I hate the water. I never go on the water if +I can help it--I am too nervous." + +"How odd! Oh, we had a jolly day!" + +"But I never understood how it was you lost sight of her. You said in +your letter that she had left the bar; but she must have gone +somewhere. I am sure you didn't make sufficient enquiries. You are too +impatient." + +"I did all I could. One girl told me that a lot of them--Lizzie among +the number--had suddenly been transferred to Liverpool Street. That +was true, for I saw at Liverpool Street several girls I had known +previously at the 'Gaiety.' Those poor bar girls, how pitiful they +look! all over London they stand behind their bars! Breathing for +hours tobacco smoke, fumes of whisky and beer, listening to abominable +jokes, the subjects of hideous flirtations; and then the little +comedy, the effort to appear as virtuous young ladies--'young ladies +of the bar.' It is very pitiful. In such circumstances how do you +expect a girl to keep straight? I do not think it is the men who do +the harm. There are, of course, a few blackguards who crack filthy +jokes over the counter, but if a girl likes she needn't listen--a girl +can always keep a man in his place. Then if a man flirts with a girl +he always loves her, likes her, if you think 'like' a better word; but +you must admit that in the most beery flirtation there must be a +certain amount of liking. There is, therefore, something to save a +girl. I feel sure that it is girls, not men, who lead innocent girls +astray. Those poor bar girls are quite unprotected; they have a +sitting-room into which they may not bring a friend--a man, I mean. In +the bedrooms there is always a lot of illicit talking and drinking +going an. A girl who has gone wrong herself is never content until she +has persuaded another girl to go wrong; a girl is so mean! I feel very +much on this subject. I am thinking of writing a book on the subject. +Did I ever tell you about the novel I intended to write?" + +"You told me once in Brighton about a novel you intended to write. I +forget what it was about, but you said you were going to call it 'Her +Saviour.'" + +"Oh, that is another book. I was thinking of writing the story of a +woman who is led into vice. They get her to throw over the man who +loves her; he follows her, never loses sight of her until at last, +determined to save her, and although he knows that he is wrecking his +own life, he marries her. What do you think?" + +Being pressed for an answer, Willy stroked his moustache with great +gravity. "I really can't say, my dear fellow; you know I never like +giving opinions on questions I do not understand." + +The conversation came to a pause, and Willy began to whistle. + +"Just a little flat--quarter of a note wrong there and there!" + +"Do you whistle it? Oh, yes, that's it! I can hear the difference! I +wish you had your violin. I should like to hear you play it." + +"What, with the missus overhead?" + +"She doesn't know anything about it. How prettily _she_ used to sing +it; a pretty tune, isn't it? Good old days they were! Do you remember +when you used to come to the Princess's with me? Didn't she look +pretty?" + +"You never told me why you didn't marry her; I never heard the end of +that story." + +"There is nothing to tell. It's all over now. Do you remember how I +used to dress myself up to go to the theatre? We used to go to supper +at Scott's afterwards. I did not mind what I ate in those days." + +"You hardly ever go to the theatre now, do you?" + +"Hardly ever. I shouldn't have gone to-night if it had not been for +you. I don't know how it is, but I don't seem to enjoy myself as I +used to." + +The men ceased talking. Presently Frank broke the silence. + +"I hope you are getting on all right on the Stock Exchange. You +haven't mentioned the subject." + +"I don't know that there is much to say. Times are very bad just now. +I don't think any one is doing much good." + +"But you are with a very good firm. Nothing is going wrong, I hope." + +"I don't think any one is making money. We have all been hard hit +lately--war scares. But I daresay it will all come right." + +"I never understood what you ever wanted to go into the business for. +What do you, with your handsome place at Southwick, and your father +with his thousands and thousands, want to turn yourself into a city +clerk for?" + +"You see, you don't care about making money; I do--it was bred in me. +Besides, I am an unselfish fellow. I never think of myself; I like to +think of others. If I were to make a good thing out of this, I should +be able to leave the missus independent." Then, after a slight pause, +Willy said: "But, by the way, I was forgetting. I got a letter this +morning saying that if I met you in London I was to tell you that you +were to come to Southwick for a ball." + +"What ball?" + +"A subscription ball at Henfield--a county ball. Will you come?" + +"Yes, I don't mind. It should be rather fun. Are you going?" + +"Yes, I must go, worse luck, to chaperon my sisters." + +"How do you go? Will the governor let you have the horses?" + +"Not he! We generally have a large 'bus. I am going down to-morrow by +the twelve o'clock train. Will that be too early for you?" + +"Not if I go home now and pack up." + +"You won't like that. You had better sleep here and get up early in +the morning; your room is all ready." + +"I couldn't manage it. I never could get back to the Temple, pack up, +and meet you at twelve at London Bridge." + +"It will be rather a cold walk for you; you are too late for the +train, and the last 'bus, I am afraid, has gone." + +"I shall have a hansom. The only thing that worries me is not being +able to say good-bye to the missus." + +"She's fast asleep. She won't mind--I'll make that all right." + +"Then, at twelve o'clock at London Bridge!" + + + + +VIII + + + +Sally rushed down to meet him, and she took him off for a walk in the +garden. + +"What a time it is since we have seen you. What have you been doing-- +amusing yourself a great deal, I suppose?" + +"I have been the whole time in Paris. I have been studying very hard. +I only returned home about two months ago." + +"I don't believe about the studying." + +"I have been working at my painting. I worked morning and afternoon in +the studio from the nude. Last summer I had a delightful time. I took +a little place on the Seine--a little house near Bas Meudon. I had a +garden; I used to breakfast every morning in the garden--fresh eggs, +new bread, an omelette, such as only a Frenchwoman can make, a cutlet, +or a piece of chicken. The wine, too, so fresh and generous. I don't +know how it is, but Burgundy here is not the same as Burgundy on the +banks of the Seine. I worked all day in my garden, or down by the +river. I was painting a large picture. I haven't finished it yet. I +must go back there in the summer to finish it." + +"Why can't you finish it here? Haven't you got it here?" + +"Yes, but the Seine is not here." + +"Wouldn't the Adour do? The river at Shoreham?" + +"No; but the Thames might. My picture is really more English than +French. There were a lot of willow trees there, and my picture +represents a girl lying in a hammock, foot hanging over, showing such +a pretty piece of black stocking. There are two men there, they are +both swinging the hammock, but while one is looking at her ankle the +other only sees her face." + +Sally laughed coarsely and evasively. + +"What are you laughing at?" he asked, feeling a little nettled. + +"Don't you think people will think it rather improper?" + +"Not at all. Why should they? The idea I wish to convey is that one +man loves her truly for herself alone, the other only loves her +because she is a pretty girl. I have composed some triolets for the +picture, which will be printed in the catalogue-- + + "In a hammock I swing, + My feet hanging over; + 'Neath Love's bright wing, + In a hammock I swing, + Loves come and they bring + A truth to discover, + In a hammock I swing, + My feet hanging over. + +"That is the first stanza. There are six, and they tell the story of +the picture. I will copy them into your album, if you like." + +"Will you? That will be so nice, if you will. The only thing is, I +haven't an album." + +"Haven't you? I'll get you one. I'll send you one from London." + +Sally asked him to explain the triolets, and very loyally she strove +to understand. + +"Ah, I see a thing when I am told, but I never can understand poetry +or pictures until they are explained to me." + +Mollified, Frank thought of going upstairs to fetch the copy book in +which he wrote such things, but speaking out of an unperceived +association of ideas, he said: "What a clever girl your sister is. I +had once a long talk with her about pictures and poetry, and I was +surprised to find how well she talked. She understands everything." + +"Maggie is a clever girl; I know she is far cleverer than I am; but if +you knew her as well as I do, you would find she did not understand +all you think she understands." + +"How do you mean?" + +"Maggie's cleverness lies in being able to pretend she understands +what she knows nothing about; I have often caught her out." + +"Really; but how do you get on together now?" + +"Pretty well! I don't think there is much love lost on either side. I +don't know why--I never could understand Maggie. You have no idea of +the reports she spreads about me all over the place--the stories she +tells the Grahams, the Prestons, the Wells. She told Mrs. Wells that I +fell in love with every young man that came to Southwick. She said +awful things about me. As for that story about telling cook to put +father's dinner back, I don't think I ever shall hear the last of it. +What made father so angry was because he thought it was to talk to +Jimmy in the slonk." + +"You told me the last time I was here that you wanted to finish a +conversation with him in the slonk." + +"I may have told you that it was to speak to him about his sister +Fanny," Sally replied evasively. "I would not care if I never saw him +again; but I couldn't get on if I weren't allowed to see Fanny. Father +wanted me to promise never to enter the house again!" + +"But you have flirted with him?" + +"I don't know that I have; certainly not more than Maggie. Last summer +she was hanging round his neck every evening under the sycamores. I +caught them twice." + +"I don't see any harm in going under the sycamores. I daresay Maggie +has allowed him to kiss her; so have you!" + +"That I assure you I haven't." + +"You mean to say a man never kissed you?" + +"I didn't say that. I haven't kissed any one for years." + +"Who did kiss you?" + +"You don't know him. I was only eighteen. He was a married man; it was +very wrong of me." + +"I wish I had been he." + +"Do you? I hate him; he was a beast for doing it." + +Sally often indulged in these half confessions; one of her aunts used +to call them her "side lights." By their aid she succeeded in +interesting Frank. "How candid she is to tell me--to confide in me!" +Sally was handsome now; the evening suited her dark skin and coal +black eyes, and her strong figure was rich and not ungraceful in a +dress of ruby velvet. Should he kiss her? What would she say? He +threwhis arm about her. + +"I am surprised. Certainly not!" + +"I don't see any harm." Then, with a sensation of saying something +foolish, he said: "You told me you kissed a married man." + +"That was ages ago--I was very silly. I shouldn't think of doing +sonow." + +In the silence which followed Frank wondered why he had tried to kiss +her. Decidedly he liked the other better. + +Now every evening Maggie went to the writing-table, and all knew what +it meant. Mr. Brookes occasionally lamented in a minor key, but +without having recourse to his handkerchief. Willy said nothing; his +losses on the Stock Exchange had been heavy; and owing to a +conversation Frank had drawn him into during dinner the other day, his +digestion, he feared, was not quite up to the mark. So on the night of +the ball he only answered with an occasional monosyllable the splendid +young man of the embroidered waistcoats who related his pleasures in a +deep bass; nor did he pretend to take any interest in the crude +militia officer who sometimes broke the silence by a declaration that +he did not care for politics or poetry, that he liked history better. +The young ladies listened devoutly to all that the young men said; Mr. +Brookes carved valiantly at the head of the table and appeared +resigned. Bouquets were fixed in button-holes in the billiard-room and +the 'bus was announced. A greasy oil-lamp hung from the roof. +Sometimes Sally rubbed the windows and said she could tell by the +bushes where they were, and the embroidered waistcoat continued to +drone out the measure of his amusements. He would have to run up to +London, then he must have a shy at _trente et quarante_ at Monte Carlo, +then he must get back for the spring meeting at Newmarket. Frank asked +him if he didn't think he could manage to amuse himself without talking +it all out beforehand. But undaunted and unchecked he wandered from +Homburg to Paris, and from Paris to Ross-shire, until the 'bus drew up +among a small crowd of people. + +The ball was a failure. When they entered the rooms there were +scarcely twenty people present. It was very cold, and the men said; +"How can the women bear it with their naked shoulders?" + +"We shall never get near this fire," said Sally, looking in dismay on +the circle of damsels who stood warming themselves, their dresses +relieved upon the masses of laurel with which the room was decorated; +"there is a beautiful fire in one of those little rooms at the end." + +"Very well, let us come and sit there; or shall we dance this waltz +first?" + +"Let's dance it." + +They danced, and Frank shuddered in his evening clothes as he danced. + +"Did you notice," said Sally, as they hurried to the retiring room, +"how upset father seemed at dinner? I thought he was going to cry, but +he bore up to the end better than I expected." + +"So he did, but I don't see what there was particularly to upset him +this time. Meason is away at sea, and you have promised not to see him +any more." + +"Oh, I wasn't thinking about the Measons--but haven't you heard? I +only heard it through a friend, but I know for a fact that Willy has +lost nearly all his money on the Stock Exchange." + +"You don't say so; I am so sorry." + +"Father hasn't heard it all yet; if he had he wouldn't have come down +to dinner. I don't fancy he knows more than that things have not been +going well, and that Willy has been a loser." + +"But how can he have lost? I thought he was junior partner in an old +established business." + +"So he is. I can't tell you how the mischief was done, but I know he +has lost all his money." + +"What do you mean by all his money?" + +"All the money--three thousand--that father let him draw out of the +distillery." + +"This is very sad." + +"Yes, isn't it? And particularly for a fellow who has so few +amusements, and only cares about making money. Just look at him now; +he wanders about speaking to no one. Come, let's dance this dance--are +you engaged?" + +"No!" + +This news about Willy fixed the Harfield ball in Frank's thoughts, and +he remembered the pretty girl in white of whom he could make nothing, +of the raw just-brought-out girl who had bored him, of the +communicative girl who had amused him by her accounts of her dogs and +horses; he remembered, too, how he had seen Maggie disappearing down +the ends of certain passages with a young man whose name he did not +catch, and whose face he had not noticed. He had danced twice with +her, only twice; she was distracted, she did not look at him, her eyes +wandered all over the room, she answered his questions indifferently. +Sally, on the contrary, had devoted herself to him, and on several +occasions he thought that her blunt straightforward manner was better +than the other's slyness. The 'bus came with its draughts, its sickly +lamp and its doleful jolting. Sally was too tired to rub the windows +and declare how far they were from home, and the dancers endured their +discomforts almost in silence; even the embroidered waistcoat +occasionally ceased to talk about Homburg; and in all the extreme +bitterness and greyness of a March morning they pulled up before the +door of the Manor House. + +"I beg of you not to make a noise. If you wake up father he will never +let us go to a ball again. Is there a fire in the billiard-room, +Gardner?" + +"Yes, miss, there's a lovely fire; the decanters are on the table and +the kettle is on the hob." + +"I think you would all like a glass of something hot," said Maggie. + +"Rather!" + +"But don't make a noise, please." + +They stole along the passages to the billiard-room shivering, their +feet aching, feeling very uncomfortable indeed. The waistcoat was now +considering if it would be good form to come forward in the +Conservative interest at the next election; but every one was too +tired, they could not laugh, and amid a few general remarks the young +ladies drank their gin and water, casting sheep's eyes at the young +men, and then, glad and yet loth to part, all retired limping to their +rooms. + +Breakfast was a pleasant meal--full of laughter and anecdotes of the +ball, and, laden with Gladstone bags, the young men departed in ones +and twos. Frank was going with Willy to London, and when they +disappeared among the laurels Sally and Maggie turned indoors, +conscious of reaction, and wondering what they should do with the long +day that stretched before them. Maggie walked upstairs; she lingered, +undecided, and then went down the passage to Frank's room. He had +forgotten a shirt stud; on the chest of drawers there was a crumpled +white tie and a soiled pair of white gloves. "How careless he is!" she +thought, "I must send him this," and she put the stud in her pocket. +She straightened out the gloves and determined to send the necktie to +the wash. Next time he came down she would have it to give him, nice, +clean, and white--she must see that it was beautifully made up. Then +she found his ball programme. He had danced four times with Sally-- +only twice with her--what a fool she had been; she had wasted her +whole evening with that other fellow. It did make her feel so angry. +Then the housemaid entered and turned the bed down. + +"What a lot of washing there will be this week, Gardner." + +"There will indeed, miss. Three pairs of sheets, and only slept in +once." + +"Yes, isn't it a pity? It seems absurd to send these sheets to the +wash, doesn't it?" + +"It do, indeed, miss." + +"Absurd!" said Sally, who had just come in. "I want a pair of fresh +sheets for my bed. I'll have these." + +"No you won't--I was going to take them." + +"I should like to know what right you have to them more than I." + +"You promised not to interfere with me, and you have done nothing +else. You did nothing at the ball but ask him for dances." + +"That's a lie! I didn't ask him for a dance. You went off to hide; no +one saw anything of you all the evening." + +"You mean to say you didn't promise?" + +"I never promised anything; if I did I should keep my promise. I am +not like you. I want a pair of sheets, and I mean to have these." + +"They are too big for your bed." + +Sally seized the sheet and strove to drag it from Maggie, who, +although the weaker, held her own bravely for some time. Finding her +strength failing her, she loosed her hold, letting her sister fall +against the wall, and taking up the pillow she launched it with her +full force. "If you want what he slept in, you can have it all." + +"I'll give it to you, my lady," cried the bully, making a rush round +the bed, but Maggie fled through the dressing-room, shutting the door +behind her, and locked herself into her room. + + + + +IX + + + +As Willy would not pay the extra fare, Frank had to travel second +class. He was telling his friend of the Stock Exchange, and his +losses--nearly four thousand pounds. He had suspected that the firm of +which he was junior partner had not played fair with him. Anyhow, he +was going to get out of the business, having something better in view +--a shop in Brighton. Yes, a shop in Brighton, a greengrocer's shop. No +one had any idea, until they went into the calculation, of the amount +of profit that was made on vegetables. Lord This and Lord That, every +one who had a handsome place with large gardens, counted on being able +to pay his gardener's wages by the sale of the surplus carrots, +artichokes, potatoes, parsley, onions, tomatoes, especially tomatoes-- +every one nowadays ate tomatoes. He had it all down in figures, and +was perfectly astonished at the sums of money that could be made. +Grapes had been overdone, that was true; but a profit could be made +out of everything else. Flowers, especially gardenias, were sold in +the London market at two shillings apiece. Now, there was he within +five miles of a large town like Brighton; the rent of a shop in the +Western Road would not come to more than seventy or eighty pounds a +year; the missus he would put in as shopwoman, and, there was no doubt +of it, she would make as good a shopwoman as you could find, after a +little practice; the child could run on errands, so it should be all +profit. "I shall have none of the expenses that other people have to +contend with. In the garden at the Manor House about three times as +much stuff is grown as required. I shall buy all the fruit, +vegetables, and flowers from my father at cost price, or a little +over, and shall sell in my shop at retail price, that is, twenty or +thirty per cent more. There is, therefore, no reason why the shop +should not bring in from three to four hundred a year. And--would you +believe it?--my father, who will be benefited by my scheme, if not +more, quite as much as I shall be, is opposed to it; he will get a +fair price for a lot of things for which he now gets nothing. But no. +He cannot, or will not, see it. I never saw any one like my father. He +will not help himself and you can do nothing to help him. The +distillery business is going very badly. He had a bad year last year. +I know for a fact that he did not make five per cent on his capital. +Putting these things together, I should have thought that he would +have been glad to make a little money to retrench; but no! he prefers +to go on in the old way. He made money in the old way, and he doesn't +see why he shouldn't make money again in the old way. Odd man my +father is, isn't he?" + +It appeared to Frank that Mr. Brookes had managed to help himself very +liberally indeed to all the good things in life; but with his false, +facile, Celtic nature, he had no difficulty in re-adjusting his ideas +and adopting a view of Mr. Brookes more in harmony with Willy's. He +was, as usual, enthusiastic about his friends, and was effervescing +with love and goodwill. He saw nothing of their faults--they were the +best and truest people he had ever known, and he could not love them +too much. Indeed he was angry, and regretted the limitations that +nature has set on the human heart, and would if he could have lost +himself in one immense and eternal love of the Brookeses. + +When he bade Willy good-bye at London Bridge, and wished him well with +his shop, these sentiments ceased to be active forces in him, and they +lay latent in his life of restaurants and bar rooms until the summer +returned, and he received an invitation from the Manor House to come +down for a garden party at Mrs. Berkins's. When he opened the letter +he basked in thoughts of them--of Maggie and her fascinating +subtleties, of Sally's blunt speech and sturdy good looks, of Willy, +and all the quiet talks they would have together. He counted the +tunnels, and, striving to recall the landscape, guessed extravagantly +the number of miles that separated him from them. He walked up the +drive with a beating heart, looking for the girls between the laurel +bushes. He found them, and their habits which endeared them to him, +unchanged; and to slip back into the old ways without experiencing the +slightest difficulty or jar was like waking from a dream and entering +again on a pleasant reality. There was the excellent dinner and the +usual complaints about the Southdown Road, the cigars in the billiard- +room, conversation about pictures and investments, gin and water, and +then a long yarn with Willy in his bedroom. Life moved at the Manor +House without any spring creaking, without jolt or jar, and it was +this beautiful regularity that made Frank feel so healthily and so +unexpectedly happy. He loved the desolation of Ireland. This was the +stronger sense, but there was another sense, a half stifled sense, +that found an echo in these southern downs interwoven with suburban +life--in other words, a faint resurrection of the original English +mind in him. He enjoyed and he grew akin to this Saxon prosperity; he +learned to recognise it as manifested in the various prospects of the +weald and the wold, and he loved this medley of contradictory aspects +--the spires of the village churches, the porches of the villas, the +rich farmhouses and their elm trees, the orchards jammed between +masses of chalk, the shepherds seen against the sky of the Downs. It +is true that he felt that this country was alien to him, but he was +not individually conscious that his love of suburban Sussex was a +morbid affection, opposed to the normal and indissoluble bonds of +inherited aspirations and prejudices, and the forms and colours that +had filled his eyes in childhood. Consciousness in Frank Escott was +always slow, and always so governed and coloured by the sentiment of +the moment that his comprehension of things were always deformed or +incomplete. In his mind the phenomenon of life was ever in nebulae, +and though very often one thought would define itself, no group of +thoughts, or part of a group, ever became clear, so there was no +abiding principle, nothing that he might know and steer by. He was, of +course, aware that the Brookes were not equal to him in rank, but he +did not know, or, rather, he would not know, that they were vulgar; +nor did he think that Mount Rorke might marry again, if he were to +marry Maggie or Sally. All that was really alive and distinct in him +was love of them; and this love thrived in a sensation of class which +he would not acknowledge, even to himself, had any existence. The +glass-houses, and swards, and laurels had a meaning and fascination +for him that he could not account for or describe, and he found these +feelings, which were mainly class feelings of an unusual kind, not +only in the aspect of the country but in the accent and speech of his +friends, in the expression of their eyes and very hands. The English +servants pleased him, and he strove to detect qualities in the +carriage and horses, and he compared them to their advantage with +Mount Rorke's. He loved to wrap the rug about the young ladies' knees, +and they seemed to him quite perfect and delightful as they lay back +in their carriage, driving beneath a sky full of blue, and through the +changing views of the Downs, all distinct with light and shade. Sally +and Maggie made much of him, covered him up, and addressed to him +pleasant speeches. His eyes and ears were open and eager for new +impressions, and his heart panted with readiness to admire and praise +all he saw. He was ready to think that he had never seen anything so +lovely as the laurels and the numerous glass-houses; and he wondered +why he had ever thought so little of Berkins, and he listened with +interest to that gentleman's explanation of the superiority of his +possessions over everybody else's possessions. He even allowed himself +to be persuaded that there was no pheasant shooting in the kingdom-- +for its size--equal to that in the little wood. Sally, who did not +attempt to conceal her dislike of her brother-in-law, whispered: +"That's the way to bring them down," and Frank was obliged to laugh. +Then she and Maggie disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them for +several hours. The Grenadier Guards played on the lawn, and Frank was +introduced to ladies of all ages and sizes; and as these bored him, he +began to see that the place was vulgar and the people shoddy, and he +wondered what Mount Rorke would say if he were to come suddenly across +him. Grace was the subject of much concern, and obviously _enceinte,_ +she passed through the different groups. She had introduced Frank as +Lord Mount Rorke's son, then as his nephew, then as his heir, and, +fearing she might succumb to the temptation of introducing him as Mount +Rorke himself, Frank escaped from her, and joined a party that Berkins +was personally conducting through the grounds. + +The stables had been built by So-and-so on the most approved +principles. There were no stables like them in Sussex--the fittings of +the harness-room alone had cost him three hundred. The horses he had +bought at the Duke's sale, the Duke would not have thought of parting +with them had he known how they would turn out. He had driven them +along the Brighton road at the rate of fifteen miles an hour; he would +back them to do fifteen miles in the hour. There was not a pair of +horses in England equal to them. That was Mrs. Berkins's riding horse +--was it possible to imagine a more perfect cob? He could get a hundred +for him any day, he did not know of anything like him. "Did any of you +gentleman ever see anything like him?" They went to the kennels. A +brace of Irish setters were declared to be the finest dogs that +Ireland had ever produced, they had taken two prizes, one in Dublin +and another in Brighton--and the little fox terrier was the gamest dog +in Sussex. She would go into any hole after a fox, and never leave him +till she brought him out. You couldn't find her equal. Then the glass- +houses were perfect. They contained all the latest improvements, and +all these were fully explained. "Berkins is excelling himself to-day," +thought Frank. + +Presently they came upon a basket of peaches. + +"These peaches were, of course, grown under glass, but I think I am +right in saying, Jackson, that they were produced without artificial +heat." + +"Yes, sir, quite right, sir. It couldn't be done nowhere else, sir, +but all the sun in Sussex seems to come down here--a regular little +sun trap, I think that's what you called it the other day, sir, when +you were speaking to me about them there peaches." + +"Yes, I did. If you move nearer the sea you get fogs and cold winds, +further inland you lose the sun, but just here the climate is equal to +the south of Europe! I ask you to look at these peaches, it seems +impossible--does it not?--to have peaches like these at the end of +May, and without any heat, merely glass." + +"It seems to me quite impossible," declared a little fat man with +flaxen hair. "I am devoted to peach-growing, and I confess I am quite +at a loss. Gardener, did you say that those peaches were grown +entirely without artificial heat?" + +The gardener pretended not to hear, and tried to slip away, but the +little man, who had been taken on his hobby, was not to be baulked, +and he pursued the wretched horticulturist. + +"You mean to say that these peaches ripened without any artificial +heat, any?" + +"You have no idea what a sun we get here, sir. I have never seen +anything like it. In my last situation, when I was living with +Lord ---, we couldn't get our fruit forward, use whatever heat he +might, and Houghton is not more than fifty miles from here--the +difference of climate is positively wonderful." + +Jackson had reckoned that Mr. Berkins would move on, and that the +inquisitive little man would find himself obliged to follow, but +chance was against him, for Berkins, with his guests around him, stood +listening to the discussion. + +"You mean to say that these peaches were grown without heat. I +wouldn't mind giving you five-and-twenty pounds for the recipe for +doing it." + +"You must take a small place down here, sir, and then you will be able +to do it." + +This raised a laugh, but the little man was not to be beaten, and he +said: "I should like to see some of those peaches of yours on the +trees. You haven't plucked them all; let me see them." + +"Yes, Jackson, show us the trees. Some will not believe without +seeing; let us see the peaches on the trees." + +Jackson appeared to be a little disconcerted; he murmured excuses, and +strove to escape. Driven to bay he brought them into a glass-house +where there were hot water-pipes, and when his tormentor pointed +triumphantly to the pipes he attempted a faint explanation--he had +meant to say that heat had only been used within the last three weeks. + +"So you see, Berkins," exclaimed little flaxen-haired fatty, "your +south of Europe is no better than my south of Europe, or anybody +else's south of Europe." + +"Jackson, you have told me many deliberate falsehoods about these +peaches. I keep no one in my employment whose word cannot be depended +upon. You take your warning." + +"Falsehoods! What do you want a man to do, if you will have everything +better than anybody else's?" + +Berkins turned suddenly on his heel, he drew himself up to his full +height, and stood speechless with indignation. Never, not even on the +most important Board meetings, did his friends wait to hear him speak +with more anxiety; but at that moment a crash of flower pots was +heard, and Sally and a young man were discovered hiding in the potting +shed; and to make matters worse, in the very next house they visited, +they suddenly came upon Maggie sitting with another young man in +strangely compromising circumstances. Explanations were attempted, and +some stupid remarks were made. Berkins was seriously annoyed, and he +took the first opportunity of taking Mr. Brookes's arm and leading him +away to a quiet path. Frank saw the men pass through the laurels, and +ten minutes after he saw them return. Evidently Berkins had read Mr. +Brookes an exhaustive lecture on the conduct of his daughters. + +"Now, Mr. Brookes, now Mr. Brookes, I must beg of you--calm yourself. +What would my guests think if they found you in tears? What would they +think I had been saying to reduce you to such a condition? It is +veryunfortunate that Sally and Maggie should act as they do, +particularly at my place; but really you must not give way." + +"Since the death of their poor mother I am all alone. My position is a +very trying one." Then, with a sudden burst of laughter, "However, I +suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence!" + + + + +X + + + +The girls walked to the station with Escott. A fleecy evening, with +the clouds growing pale towards the sea, the sun like fire in the +elms, and the woods showing upon a purple tinge. + +"How delightful!" exclaimed Frank. "How charming this is--this old +English green, the horse pond at one end, the various houses, the inn, +the grocery business, the linen drying in that yard, the smith, and +the wheelwright. I don't like that modern Queen Anne school-house, and +I wish I could remove the dead level of the embankment and see the +sea. The green is better from this side with the view of the Downs-- +those lines waving against the sky, where the gorse grows and the +sheep feed, and inclining to the road all the fields pale green and +deep green. But what game are those men playing--what game do you call +that?" + +"Bat and trap." + +"I have passed the green twenty times before, and I never really saw +it till now. It is charming--so thoroughly English. I should like to +live here for a month--for two months. How nice it would be to +breakfast in the morning looking out on the green, to see the cocks +and hens and all the children and all this English life! How different +from Pump Court! I am sick of Pump Court--dirt and smoke, a horrid +servant, stale eggs. I suppose you can always get fresh eggs and new +bread here? I would give anything to spend a month on the green." + +"Well, you can!" cried Sally. "I wish you would, and you could come +and play tennis with us every afternoon. Mrs. Heald has some rooms to +let; why it was only last week I heard that she hadn't let her rooms +this season, and was most anxious to do so." + +"There's no use my coming here until I begin to write my novel. I am +painting now, and I must see if I can get my picture finished for one +of the autumn exhibitions." + +"I knew you would find some excuse." + +"No, I assure you, but I can't do anything without a studio, and I'm +not likely to find a studio on Southwick Green." + +"I don't suppose Mrs. Heald has a room large enough for a studio," +said Maggie; "but I don't see why you shouldn't find a place where you +can paint." + +"Where? Not in that eighteenth-century house where the two old ladies +are standing! Supposing I were to go and ask them if they would let me +have their drawing-room to paint in! That is the only house on the +green, all the rest are cottages." + +"I suppose you are not very particular where you paint," said Maggie +reflectively. "You don't mind appearances, I suppose? I wonder if you +could manage to fit up a farm building." + +"There is the famous barn where Charles the First hid himself, I don't +suppose the authorities would allow me to turn that into a studio." + +"No, probably not; but I think you might find a house that would do." + +"What nonsense, Maggie," said Sally, who began to grow jealous of her +sister. + +"Why is it nonsense? I see no reason why Frank shouldn't come to some +arrangement with the smith, and turn his house into a studio." + +"Which is the smith's house? I'll tell you in a moment if it could be +turned into a studio." + +"That house standing quite by itself in the corner of the green." + +"That tall narrow house with the bit of broken wall and the elder +bushes?" + +"Yes." + +"I daresay I could rig up a very nice studio out of that place, indeed +it looks quite picturesque amid its elder bushes. There is the stile, +and there is the cornfield. But I couldn't live there." + +"No, you would live at Mrs. Heald's, and you could walk over every +morning to the studio." + +"Yes, I could do that. I prefer to live with my work. There is nothing +like walking from the breakfast table across the room to the easel." + +"Of course you can find fault with everything; nothing is perfect." + +"There goes the train!" cried Sally. "No use in running now, you've +missed it." + +"How very provoking; the next isn't till half-past seven--just an hour +to wait." + +"Well," said Maggie, "if you have missed the train we may as well go +at once and ask Mrs. Heald if she has let her rooms." + +They walked towards a block of cottages--at one end the "Cricketer's +Arms," at the other the grocery business; and the cottage that joined +the grocery business was remarkable for a bit of green paling and +wooden balcony, now covered with Virginia creeper. Frank thought at +once of new-laid eggs, and the sunlight glancing through a great mass +of greenery, and he resolved if a sacrifice were necessary to live at +Southwick, he would put his picture aside and begin his novel. The +people in the house pleased him, and he ran on in his way thinking how +English and trustworthy they seemed, liking the green parrot that +rubbed its head affectionately against the grey ringlets of a very +ladylike old person; and Mrs. Heald, brisk as a bee, notwithstanding +her lame leg, who led the way up the ladder-like cottage staircase. + +"How nice and clean everything is; books and engravings along the +passages. How unlike Ireland!" + +But the sitting-room was full of horsehair sofas and chairs. These +displeased Frank, but some handsome china--an entire tea service in +Crown Derby--reconciled him to the room. In the bedroom they found a +huge four-poster of old time, with a lengthy bolster and imposing +pillows, and they were shown into another and a similar room. One +looked out on the green, the other on the fields that lay between the +green and the Manor House. + +"If that elm were cut down you could see my window," said Sally. + +"Which room do you like the best?" said Maggie. + +"It is hard to say. The other room looks on the green, but here there +is a nice large wardrobe, and I don't see how I can get on without a +wardrobe." + +"If you like the other room best, sir, I can turn out the chest of +drawers." + +"Oh, that would be very nice if you can manage it, the room will do +very well. I can have a bath every morning?" + +"Yes, sir; there will be no difficulty about that." + +Maggie had taken off her hat and was settling her hair before the +glass. Sally opened the wardrobe, revealing various petticoats and +skirts, but she thought of it as full of Frank's light overcoats, the +scarves he wore round his throat when he went out in evening clothes, +the patent leather shoes in the corner. Suddenly the conversation +dropped, and after a pause Frank said: "I think these rooms suit me +very well, but I can do nothing; it is impossible for me to say if I +can take them until I find out if there is any place in the immediate +neighbourhood that I could convert into a studio. Do you know of any +such place?" + +"No, I do not, sir." + +"Mr. Escott was thinking of seeing the smith about his house. I wonder +if Town would let it to Mr. Escott for a consideration," said Maggie. + +"Of course, I should have to get leave to make what alterations I +pleased." + +"I don't suppose the house belongs to Town, sir; I don't think he is +more than a weekly tenant." + +"If that's the case, we must see the landlord. Do you know who is the +landlord?" + +"I can't say I do, sir." + +"Well, Mrs. Heald, I will let you know in a day or two if I can take +your rooms--you can give me a day or two?" + +"Yes, sir, but I should like to know as soon as possible; several +people have been asking after my rooms." + +"I'll let you know in a day or two." + +"If Town is only a weekly tenant, you'll be able to get his house by +paying a little more for it," said Maggie, as they walked down the +green towards the smith's forge. + +"That would be hardly fair; I should like to act squarely by the +smith. What is his name?" + +"Town." + +Town was cutting out the hoof of a shaggy grey cart horse when his +visitors entered the cindery blackness. + +"Town, this gentleman would like to speak to you," said Maggie, +raising her voice above the wheezy bellows. He threw the hoof out of +his apron, and, drawing his blackened arm across his forehead, he came +forward. + +"Town, I am anxious to find a place on the green that I could convert +into a studio; I think your house would suit my purpose very well. Do +you think we could come to some arrangement? Of course I would give +you a reasonable compensation." + +"Well, I really hardly know, sir; I dunno that I hardly understand. +You want my house to turn into a--" + +"A studio--a place where I can paint pictures." + +"I don't see how I can do without my 'ouse." + +"But I will compensate you--make it worth your while." + +"You see it is so near my work. Was I to go and live at Ada Terrace, I +should, you see, be out of the way. If people want a job done they +always knows where to find me." + +"Yes, but if I compensate you?" + +Seeing that Frank was exciting the smith with too wild hopes of +wealth, Sally thought fit to interpose. "Mr. Escott would require +permission to make any alterations in the building he thought proper-- +you couldn't give him permission; he would in any case have to see +your landlord. Who is your landlord?" + +"I don't see how I can give up my 'ouse to be turned into a painting +place; it wouldn't suit me at all." + +"If I make you sufficient compensation--" + +Again the smith was reduced to silence. He scratched his head, and +Frank watched the sparks fly, and heard the rhythmical sledge. "I wish +he wouldn't talk so much about compensation," thought Sally. "I don't +know what the man won't be asking if Frank doesn't shut up." + +"Do you think we shall be able to come to an understanding? I want to +know." + +"Well, you see, sir, my wife is delicate, and I'm that afraid she +wouldn't like to give up her 'ome. But I'll speak to 'er if you like +to-night, sir." + +"Mr. Escott will have to see your landlord; he will have to arrange +with him about the alterations." + +"There will be no difficulty about the alterations." + +"Very probably; but you are only a weekly tenant. It is a question +your landlord must decide. If he agrees to allow Mr. Escott to make +the alterations, Mr. Escott will no doubt compensate you for +disturbance." + +"It is all very well to talk about compensation. How do I know what +your compensation will be? How do I know you will make it worth my +while? I don't want no compensation. I want my 'ouse. Cheek I calls +it, to come down here wanting to muck me out of my house." + +"Now, sir, we want no impertinence. I shall do exactly as I please in +the matter. Your landlord is the person I should have spoken to." + +"Spoken to! Who are you, I should like to know, coming round here +interfering in my business?" + +All Frank's discussions ended in angry words, and he never came to +terms with any one without threatening blows. Town returned to the +forge; Frank and the young ladies made their way across the green. At +the corner of Southdown Road they found the General, the schoolmaster, +and a retired farmer ardently gossiping; Mrs. Horlock, prim in her +black gown and poke bonnet, waited with admirable patience, and Angel, +the blind pug, in horrible corpulence, waddled and sniffed the grass. +The story of Town's impertinence was told. The General was shocked--it +was surprising. What are we coming to? The retired farmer said that +Town was a hot-tempered man, but not a bad sort when you knew how to +take him, and all, except Mrs. Horlock, agreed that the landlord was +the person who should be consulted. + +"I really don't see why you should turn the poor man out of his house +if he doesn't want to go. How would you like some one to come and turn +you out of your house?" she said, turning to her husband. + +The General laughed. "My dear Lucy, whatever you say must be right. So +you are coming to live at Southwick. Very glad to hear it. You know +where to find us, the gate's always open; lunch at half-past one, +dinner at eight--old Indians, you know; come in when you like. Pretty +place I have here, everything I want--stables and horses, and (the +General looked to see if Lucy was out of hearing) plenty of dogs, you +know--a few too many; but my wife, you know--" The rest was lost in a +burst of good-natured laughter. + +They bade the Horlocks good-night and walked up the Southdown Road, +looking with its line of trees along the pavement like a little mock +boulevard. Frank was particularly severe in his remarks on the trim +privet hedges and the little bronze sphinxes standing before the +portico of yellow glass; he declared that a man must be born to put up +such things, and he clearly thought this sneer a very happy one, for +he repeated it, fearing that Sally had not understood. The grocer who +had placed a bas-relief of himself over his door was greatly wondered +at, and Sally told an amusing anecdote regarding the invitations he +sent out for the first dinner party. The conversation turned on the +Measons. Jack's ship had gone to China, and he was not expected back +much before Christmas. + +"That's very sad, Sally. How will you be able to live through so many +months?" + +"I don't care for him. I don't care if I never saw him again--it was +Fanny who was my friend. Some nice people have come to live in that +corner house--a young man, who is learning farming. Mr. Berkins +insists on father not allowing us to visit any one in the Southdown +Road, and Mr. Berkins can turn father round his finger, he is so much +richer. I'm not allowed to see Fanny at the Manor House. As for Jack, +I daresay you won't believe me, but I shouldn't care if I never saw +him again." + +Maggie shrugged her shoulders. The gesture exasperated Sally, and she +turned on her sister. + +"You needn't shrug your shoulders at me, miss; I never flirted with +him; you did, and then you set father against me." + +"Well, for goodness' sake don't quarrel; what does it matter? The idea +of Berkins telling your father whom he should visit; and the idea of +your father permitting it merely because he makes two or three +thousand a year more! He surely doesn't object to your visiting Mrs. +Horlock?" + +"No, he couldn't do that." + +Still engaged in discussion, they entered the gates of the Manor +House, and Mr. Brookes was told that Frank would stay at Southwick a +few days longer, so that he might arrange about a studio. The news was +not at first wholly pleasing to the old gentleman, but he remembered +the anecdotes he should hear concerning his favourite painters, and +was consoled. The evening passed away in the security and calm of +habit, sweetened by the intimacy of familiar thoughts and customs. +There was the usual expensive dinner; Mr. Brookes lit a cigar, handed +the box to Frank, and said, puffing lustily, "That's a good picture, +paid a lot of money for it, too much money, mustn't do it again. You +were a pupil of Bouguereau; great painter; you have seen him paint; +you would know his touch amid a thousand, I suppose?" + +About ten o'clock steps in the passage, then the squeak-squeak of the +cork; then the goggle-guggle of the water, and the young ladies came +in with their grog. They kissed their father and brother, shook hands +with Frank, and went to bed. Further anecdotes concerning the painters +were told; further condemnations of the Southdown Road were +pronounced; the house was locked up; Mr. Brookes retired, and the +young men continued the conversation in their rooms. Willy told Frank +all about his shop, Frank told Willy all about his studio, and they +went to sleep delighted with each other and at peace with the world. + +Mr. Brookes had gone when the young men came down next morning. Willy +was down first, and when Frank finished breakfast he found him busy in +the garden making purchases for his shop. + +"How much am I to charge for these peaches, sir?" said the gardener. + +"I intend to pay the market price for everything. I don't know what +peaches are selling at in Covent Garden. I will look it up and let you +know. I am taking two dozen." + +"Yes, sir, there are only very few more ripe." + +"It is a pity I can't have them all," Willy whispered to Frank. "There +is a tremendous profit to be made on peaches. Now, I want some new +potatoes. How many can you let me have?" + +"Really, sir, we are very short; you see it is so early in the year. +We have only a few, none too many for the house." + +"I must have some, if it is only a sample. How much are potatoes +selling at now?" + +"Well, sir, I hardly know. Last year we bought some off Hooper at--" + +"These are the things I have to contend with. How am I to keep my +books right if I don't know exactly the price things are selling for? +I may be paying more for his potatoes than they are selling in +Brighton for. My father gets more out of the shop than any one, and he +isn't satisfied." + +The woes of this suburban Lear amused Frank. No sooner was the arch +enemy Meason on the high seas, and the Southdown Road had quieted +down, than another demon had risen up against him; his garden was +ravished of its fairest fruits and vegetables, his carriages were +turned into market carts, and all, as he said, for the sake of +practising an elaborate system of book-keeping. Maggie, who had +finished her house-keeping, came into the garden, and she went with +Frank down the town in search of the landlord of the tall house amid +the elder bushes. For a small increase in the rent, and a promise to +undo all alterations before leaving, putting the house back in the +same arrangement of rooms as it at present stood, the landlord agreed +to allow Frank to do his will with the place. For twenty pounds the +smith was silenced, and Frank explained to the local builder that the +house was to be thrown into one room, and the ceilings of the upper +rooms were to be removed. He had thought of having the rafters +painted, but at the builder's suggestion he decided to have them lined +with fresh timber and stained. This would look very handsome. A large +window, some six feet by eight, would have to be put in the north +wall. Of course, all the doors, windows, etc., would have to be taken +away and replaced by new. He would have a book-case in stained wood. +An estimate was drawn up. It came to a good deal more than he had +intended to lay out, and Frank dreaded the expense. But he must live +somewhere, he was sick of Pump Court, and his friends and this little +south-coast village were now ardent in his mind; why not live here? +True that the country was in no way beautiful and offered no +temptations to a landscape painter, but he seldom painted landscapes, +and if he wanted a bit of woodland he would find it over the Downs. +Then there was the sea, and that was always interesting. Perhaps Mount +Rorke would let him have the money. The old fellow had never refused +him an extra hundred when he asked for it. Yes, he would risk it. So +the order was given, and all the delays and broken promises of a +builder began to be experienced and endured. Frank, who now lodged at +Mrs. Heald's, hung around the workmen, counting each brick, and +commenting on every piece of woodwork. He at once took to grumbling at +their slowness, and he soon declared that all hopes of his being able +to finish his picture for the Academy were at an end, and he paraded +his misfortunes at the Manor House, at Mrs. Horlock's, and, indeed, at +all the houses he went to for tea or tennis parties. The painters +especially annoyed him, and he even went so far as to threaten them +with an action. + +Long before they had finished his pictures had arrived from London, +and several pieces of furniture from Brighton. The ideas of this young +man were now in full revolt against oriental draperies and things from +Japan. The furniture was, therefore, to consist of large cane sofas +with pillows covered with a yellow chintz pattern which pleased him +much. The selection of a carpet was a matter of great moment. He +received with scornful smiles his upholsterer's suggestions of Persian +rugs. Turkey, Smyrna, and Axminster were proposed and rejected, he +even thought of an Aubusson--no one knew anything about Aubusson at +Southwick, and the vivid blues and yellows and symmetrical design +would have at least the merit of disturbing if not of wrecking the +artistic opinions of his friends. He discovered one of these carpets +in a back street in Brighton, and with some cleaning and mending he +felt sure it could be made to look quite well. But no, if you have an +Aubusson carpet you must have Louis XIV. furniture in the room, and +Louis XIV. in Southwick would be too absurd. Clearly the Aubusson +scheme must be abandoned--he would have a rich grey carpet, soft and +woolly, and there should be a round table covered with a dark blue +cloth, set off with a yellow margin, and the chairs drawn about the +table should be covered with dark blue and painted yellow. A grand +piano was indispensable in Frank's surroundings, both for its +appearance in the studio and the relaxation it afforded in the various +interludes. Several journeys to London were made before the lamps to +be used were determined on (a modern design was essential), and the +brass fittings to hang candles from the rafters required still more +delicate and cautious consideration; at last it was decided to have +none. + +All this while Willy was busy with his shop. He had taken a whole +house, and at first he had thought of letting a room, but for many +reasons this scheme had to be abandoned. He did not know who might +take the room. "Who knows--perhaps one of my own friends, a member of +my club, for instance?" Then it would give the missus a lot of bother +and worry, and she had all she could do in looking after the shop. To +make a thing a success you must think of nothing else. It was a pity, +but it wasn't to be thought of. Otherwise he seemed fairly well +satisfied. There was a back door leading on to a back lane, in turn +leading on to a back street, so with his latch-key he could pop in and +out unobserved. All his books and papers in the drawing-room, the +ledger, the day-book, the cash-book all ready, all to hand, so that +after dinner, when he had smoked his pipe, he could go to work. Frank +alone was in the secret. And how the young men enjoyed going to +Brighton together. Frank worried Willy, who ran up and down stairs +collecting his brown paper parcels, calling upon him to make haste. +They set forth, Willy firm and methodical, his shoulders set well +back: Frank loose and swaggering, over-dressed. How to get to the shop +was a matter of anxious consideration. Willy was fearful of detection, +and all sorts of stratagems were resorted to. Sometimes they would +walk down to the Old Steyne, and suddenly double and get back through +a medley of obscure streets, or else they would publicly walk up and +down the King's Road, and when they thought no one was looking, hurry +up one of the by-streets, and so gain their haven, the lane. Once they +were in the lane they slackened speed, all danger was then over, and +they laughed consumedly at their escapes, and delighted in telling +each other how So-and-so and his daughter had been successfully +avoided. Willy always had his latch-key ready; in a moment they were +inside, and Frank would rush upstairs and throw himself into the +armchair, crying: "Here we are!" One day they were at the window, +when, to their amazement, the Manor House carriage pulled up before +the shop, and they had only just time to dodge behind the curtain and +escape Sally's eyes. Never before had the carriage arrived later than +five o'clock, and now it was nearly six. What could be the meaning of +this? Begging of Frank not to move, Willy went out on the landing and +listened to his sisters talking to his wife. The girls--who were, of +course, ignorant of their relationship to the shop-woman--liked Mrs. +Brookes very much, and were fond of a chat with her; and, looking +through the blinds, Frank saw the footman in all the splendour of six +feet and grey livery carrying a small pot of flowers worth sixpence +from the carriage to the shop. + +On ordinary days the shop was shut at eight, but when Willy and Frank +dined there it was closed an hour earlier. Frank enjoyed his evenings +there; he enjoyed it all--the homeliness and the quiet. He enjoyed +seeing Willy nurse the missus after dinner, and he found no difficulty +in pretending a certain interest in the book-keeping, and an +admiration for the lines of figures all carefully formed, and the +beautifully ruled lines. Cissy adored him. He took her on his knee, +and she leaned her hollow cheek against his handsome face. She would +have probably rushed to death to serve him. His height, his +brightness, his rings, his spotted neckties--all seemed so perfect, so +beautiful, to her; and when he brought his fiddle she would sit and +look at him, her little hands clasped with an intensity of love that +was strange and pitiful. Swaying from side to side, he ran on from +tune to tune--waltzes, reminiscences from operas, fragments of +overtures, delightful snatches from Schubert; and when he introduced +Willy to one tune--a tune in which all his _might-have-been_ was bound +--the dry man seemed to grow drier: perhaps it brought a glow of +pleasure to his heart: but be this as it may, he only sat and puffed +more emphatically at his pipe. + + + + +XI + + + +For Frank this pleasant English village was now a happy _fete_ of +summer joys and occupations. Oh! the hill prospects and the shady +gardens around the coasts. And when he went inland he would return by +choice across the Downs, and in the patriarchal valleys where nothing +is heard but the bell-wether he would stand in the great, lonely +darkness, and see the lights of Brighton brighten the sky above the +ridges, and climbing up the ridges, he gazed on the vague sea, and the +long string of coast towns were like a golden necklace. + +His days went like dreams. The morning hours--bachelor hours--were +full of intimacy and joy. The joy of waking alone with a strange and +secret self that, like a shy bird, is all the day chased out of sight +and hearing, but is with you when you awake in sweet health in the +morning; that of waking alone with the sunlight in the curtains, that +of being alone with your body as well as your mind, and no presence to +jar the communion. There is a dear privacy in morning hours of single +life. + +But although the desire to exchange these for the joys of wedlock was +germinating in Frank, although it was inherent in him to understand +the husband's happiness when he puts his arm round a dear wife's neck +and draws her to him with marital kisses and affectionate words, he +was certainly conscious that each hour seemed to bring its special +pleasure. His room was airy and pleasant, the window full of the +colour of the green and its aspects; the little water-course with its +brick bridge, the trees along the embankment, the rigging of the ships +in the harbour, the linen drying in the yard. Of these views Frank +seemed never to grow tired; he noted them as he brushed his brown +curls over his forehead, and when he sat at breakfast eating fresh +eggs and marmalade. After breakfast he lay on the sofa, and read +society papers and smoked cigarettes. He could not drag himself to the +studio. "A man should live at his studio, impossible to settle down to +work, if he doesn't," he thought, and he watched Mrs. Horlock coming +up the green accompanied by the chemist's wife and the pugs. + +"Dear old lady, how nice she looks in her black dress and poke bonnet! +And there goes the General--he is giving all his coppers to the +children." + +Frank took up a volume of Browning, turned over the leaves, and laid +the book down to watch a drove of horses that had suddenly been turned +out on the green to feed, and he laughed to see the children throwing +stones, making them gallop frantically. Very often the thunder of the +hoofs alarmed Triss, and he stood on his hind legs and barked. "What +is it, old dog? What is it? Like to have a go at the horses? Shall we +go out and play with the pugs?" At the mention of going out Triss +cocked his ears and barked. "I suppose I must make a move. I wonder +what the time is--half-past eleven. Good Heavens! The post will be +here at twelve. I had better wait for it." On waking his first +thoughts were for his letters, and almost before he had finished +reading them he had begun to think of what the mid-day delivery would +bring him. To see the boy pass and so have ocular proof that there was +nothing for him seemed to lighten his disappointment. He saw him waste +his time with the doctor's horse and then with the maid-servant, and +if the old ladies were not about he would stand talking many minutes +with their servants. Then he visited the short line of cottages, +passed sometimes round the yard or open space at the back of the +wheelwright's, where the linen hung on poles between the elms, and +once Frank saw the provoking boy hide behind the cricketers' tent and +remain watching the match. For half an hour the question--letters or +no letters--hung in suspense, and when the loiterer came, stopping +every minute to see where the ball was hit to, the joy, heightened by +anticipation, was great in receiving a packet of newspapers and +various correspondence. Frank often went to meet him. True, he might +have nothing for him, he might be going to deliver at the grocer's +shop, or at the "Cricketer's Arms." + +"Any letters for me, to-day?" + +"Yes, sir, two postcards and a newspaper." + +It was disappointing not to get a letter--postcards meant nothing. He +only exchanged a few words with Mrs. Horlock, and passed on to the +General, who, at the corner of the Southdown Road where the gossipers +met, was discussing a local candidature. + +"So you are off to paint. You must come and see the model my wife has +done of a horse I once had. I mustn't say much about him, though--it +is a sore subject. After winning over a thousand with him I lost it +all, and five hundred with it. She never would paint his picture for +me; but yesterday was my birthday--I suppose she thought she would +give me a treat, she began to model him from memory--wonderful +likeness--she knows every bone and sinew in a horse--clever woman, +never seen any one like her. Come in to-night, dinner always at eight +--old Indians. She'll show it to you." + +"Thanks, not to-night, General; to-morrow night, if you like." + +"Very well, to-morrow night at eight. What a terrible dog that is of +yours! You need fear nobody while you have him with you. You must ask +my wife to paint him for you, but I forgot, I beg your pardon--you are +a painter; you should paint him yourself." + +"I don't paint animals. I shall be very glad if Mrs. Horlock will +paint him; there is some beautiful drawing about him--those fore- +legs." + +Probably attracted by the dog, Mrs. Horlock came walking towards them. +Triss went sidling after Rose, and when Mrs. Horlock called him, he +growled. + +"I beg of you, Mrs. Horlock, do not touch him; he isn't safe, I assure +you. He once bit a man's nose off who was trying to train him to do +something or other. I will not be answerable." + +"All nonsense! No dog ever bit me, they know I love them. 'Come to me, +sir.' No dog ever bit me but once, and he was a poor mongrel that had +been hunted by a lot of horrid men. I was dressing to go to a ball at +the Government House, and I heard him under my bed. He had taken +refuge under my bed, poor thing. He was frightened to death; he +couldn't see me, and he bit me through the wrist. I went to the ball +all the same. A dog died of hydrophobia in my arms. He died like a +child, licking my hands and face. 'Come here, sir. Come to me.'" + +"I wish you wouldn't do it, Mrs. Horlock. I am afraid to call him, for +fear he should think I intended to set him at you." + +Triss showed a terrible set of teeth, and his nose seemed to curl back +almost into his eyes; but stooping down Mrs. Horlock extended her +hands to him. She looked so like herself in the poke bonnet and the +black dress, and the kind, intelligent eyes softened the dog's humour, +and he came to her. + +"You see--what did I tell you? Dogs know so well those that love them. +No animal ever did bite me except that poor frightened creature, and +he didn't mean it. We kept him for ten years after that, and how he +did love me!" + +"Wonderful woman, my wife; she can do what she likes with animals. I +was telling Mr. Escott that he must come in and see the model you are +making of Snap-dragon." + +"Only an amateur, I never had a lesson in my life. Mr. Escott would +think nothing of it, I am sure. But I wish he'd come in and dine with +us." + +"He promised to come to-morrow, Lucy; but stay, isn't that the day we +are going to have the Bath people in to dine?" + +"Never mind--Mr. Escott won't mind, I'm sure. They are very nice, good +people, indeed. I'm sure you'll think so. They are all snobs about +this place. I never heard of such snobbery in my life. Mrs. So-and-so +--over there--once said to me, 'I believe you know all the people who +live in those little houses.' She said she wouldn't allow her children +even to walk across the green. Did you ever hear of such snobbery?" + +"Well, Mrs. Horlock, as I have always said, your position is made; you +have your friends who will like you and value you just the same no +matter whom you may walk about the green with. Every Viceroy that ever +went to India called on you; your position is made." + +"There are a lot of snobs about here; but I mustn't keep Angel +waiting, he is never well unless he gets a little exercise. We shall +see you then at eight." + +"The cleverest woman I ever knew. I don't say the cleverest that you +ever knew. But we have got too many animals; I often wish I could get +rid of the brutes," and the General laughed as he stumped along. "Five +horses when two would be sufficient--five horses eating their heads +off; then the Circassian goats that the neighbours complain of, and +the parrots and the squirrels. There are a few too many, there's no +doubt. But once an animal comes into the place she will cherish it for +ever. I try to keep Prince out of the drawing-room as much as +possible, she says she can't smell him. If that little beast Angel +would only die!" + +"Why don't you poison him?" + +"I would if I dared; but just think, if my wife heard of it she would +go out of her mind. I don't think she'd have me in the house." The +General laughed. + +"We all have our troubles, General. Good-bye, I'm off to work." + +"Lucky man to have something to do. If I had a little something--just +a little something to bring me out, I should be perfectly happy. Then +at eight. Good-bye." + +"Half-past twelve! Half the day gone, I really must make an effort to +get to the studio earlier. It is, as I said, useless to hope to get +through work unless you wake up where your work is. A man doesn't get +a chance. I wonder if I could build a bedroom out at the back? I have +let Mount Rorke in for three hundred extra this year; he would turn +rusty if I spent any more. I must give him a rest; besides, I don't +want to have the workmen in again. I wish I could get ivy to grow over +those walls, they do look precious shabby." + +He looked at the tall dilapidated walls showing above the dark green +of the elder bushes, and lingered, for it was a soft blue summer's day +with just a breeze stirring, and the corn waved yellow, and the dim +expanses of the Downs extended in faint lines and dim tints. + +When he entered his studio his colour scheme pleased him, and looking +at the rafters he thought that the stained wood was handsome and +appropriate. The grey carpet was soft under foot, and the lustre and +form of a grand piano suggested Chopin and Schubert. His studio seemed +to him a symbol of his own refinement, and being moved, perhaps, by +the silence and the quiet of the north light, he took his violin, and +turning from time to time to look on himself on the glass or his +picture on the easel, he played Stradella's "Chanson d'Eglise." + +Then seeing, or rather thinking he saw, how he could improve his +landscape, he took up his palette, and in a desultory and uncertain +fashion he painted till five o'clock. "It is no use," he thought, "I +can do nothing with it until I get a model, but the devil of it is, +there are no models in Brighton--at least, I don't know where to go +and look for one, and it is no use asking Sally or Maggie to sit. +They'll sit for five minutes, and then say they have some work to do +at home, and must be off. You must have a professional model, a girl +you pay a shilling an hour--I might sling the hammock from there to +here--I wonder where I could get a girl who would do. I can't have a +girl off the street; she must be more or less respectable--I wonder +whom I can get. That girl in the bar-room at the station would do." +Putting his palette away with a lazy gesture, he thought for a few +minutes of Lizzie Baker. What had become of her? And why had she +disappeared? + +It was nearly a year and a half ago now. What a jolly day up the +river! All the beauty of the flowing water, the crowning woods and +whispering rushes filled his mind, and yielding to the moment's +emotion he took some verses out of an escritoire and altered several +lines. Another abandoning the search for a suitable rhyme he turned to +a portrait of Maggie which he had begun a few days before. She stood +in a pose that was habitual to her--her hands linked behind her, the +head leaned on one side, the little black eyes--but not ugly eyes-- +fixed in a sweet subtle and enquiring look. The thinness, and, indeed, +the angularity of her figure was almost powerfully indicated with +broad lines of paint and charcoal. It was Frank's most successful +effort. He knew this, and he said to himself, "Not half bad, very like +her, quite the character; the drawing is right, if I could only go on +with it; if I could only model the face. I see very well where I shall +get into trouble--that shadow about the neck, the jawbone, the +cheekbone, and then all that rich colour about the eyes." Then he +thought he would walk over to the Manor House, and he must hasten, for +it was half-past five, and tea was always ready in the verandah. + +He stayed for dinner; he talked to Mr. Brookes about painters in the +billiard-room; he strayed through the shadows and the perfumes of +leaves and flowers through the gentle moonlight with his arms about +the girls. And as they walked it seemed to Frank that his life was so +mingled with theirs that he could not think of one sister apart from +the other. The dusk gathered; the sky became a decoration in blue and +gold; the scent of the sea came over the embankment, filling the +garden. Day followed day, without anything happening to stay or check +the gentle tide of their mutual affections; neither was jealous of her +sister, for their desires were set upon others. Frank was but an +ideal, a repose, a pious aspiration which joined their hands and +hearts leaving them free of any stress of passion, Maggie claiming him +a little more than Sally, and Sally yielding her claim to her without +knowing that she was yielding it. + +It is only natures that are never gross--calm and tepid livers--that +are really incapable of ideality, of real and adequate aspiration; +nature works by flux and reflux; and if we waive the rough temper and +the coarse edge of passion due to youth, it will not be impossible to +conceive another picture of these girls. Sally, good-hearted and true, +full of sturdy, homely sense, willing to take care of a man's money, +and make him a straightforward wife; Maggie, gentle and sinuating-- +always a little false, but always attractive, the enchantment of a +man's home. Frank, notwithstanding his genuine admiration of all that +was young and sweet and pure, was of poor and separating fibre, and it +is clear that it will take all the strength of society to support him +and save him from sinking of his own weight. + +One day, as he was coming through the station from the post-office, he +met Maggie with a young man. He was introduced, and they returned to +the Manor House to play tennis. Instead of playing they talked, and +the set fell through, and after tea they disappeared, and Sally +proposed not to disturb them, for they had gone, she said, to sit in +the shade at the end of the garden. The marked mystery of the new +flirtation piqued Frank's curiosity, and, striving to veil his +question, he asked Sally who the young man was, and if her father knew +he was coming to the Manor House. + +"He! Don't you know? That's the fellow we often speak of--the only +fellow Maggie ever really cared for. He has just come back from +America. He is going to begin business in London." + +A sickening pain rose from his heart to his eyes, and he longed to +place his hand on his heart. + +"So that is the man she is engaged to," he said, after a pause. "I +remember, now, you have spoken to me of him." + +"She is not exactly engaged to him. Father would never hear of it; he +hasn't a cent, and I believe he lost the little he had in America--now +mind you must take care not to let out to father that he has been +here; there would be the deuce of a row, and I promised Maggie not to +tell any one; she has been nice to me lately, and I want to play fair +with her if she will play fair with me." + +"Oh, I won't tell any one; I won't even let Maggie know that I know it +was he." + +"It doesn't matter about Maggie, she will tell you herself, no doubt; +she doesn't mind your knowing. What do you think of him? Isn't he +nice-looking?" + +"I confess I should never have thought of calling him handsome--would +you? And do you think he is quite a gentleman?" + +"He seems to me to be all right." + +"All right, yes, but isn't there a something? You can see he is in +trade--all the trading people look alike, at least so I think." + +"But we are in trade, and I think he is quite as good as we are. But +you seem quite put out. Would you like to take his place? I didn't +know you were in love with Maggie." + +"I don't know that I am in love with her. I like her very much; but, +love or no love, I don't think it is right for her to walk round the +garden alone with that fellow the whole afternoon. I don't think it is +very polite to me, and she knows her father does not like--" + +"But you mustn't say anything to father; mind you have promised me." + +"Oh, I shan't say anything about it." + +Frank longed to get up from the tea-table and rush after Maggie. His +heart ached to see her. He trembled lest she loved the man she was +with, and rejoiced and took courage from the knowledge that she had +not formally pledged herself to him. Frank was the romantic husband, +not the lover; he found neither charm nor excitement in change; his +heart demanded one single, avowed, and binding faith. He could take a +woman who had sinned to his heart, and admit her to all his trust, for +stolen kisses and illicit love were unfelt and imperfectly understood +by him, and were considered as shadows and thin fancies, and not as +facts full of mental consequences. He answered Sally in monosyllables, +and on the first opportunity he pleaded letters to write, and +withdrew. The gladness he felt that Maggie was truly not engaged to +this fellow quickened and dominated his regret that the girls were +inclined to behave so indiscreetly. The moment Mr. Brookes turned his +back it began--that perpetual going and coming of men--it really +wasn't right. Sally was a coarser nature, but Maggie! He might speak +to Mr. Brookes; no, that wouldn't do. He might speak to Willy; but +Willy didn't care--he was absorbed in his wife and his speculations. + +His little dinner at Mrs. Heald's passed in irritation and discomfort, +and after dinner he stood at the window, his brain full of Maggie--her +graces, her fascinating cunning, and all her picturesqueness. He knew +nothing yet of his passion, nor did he think he could not bear to lose +her until he went from the stuffy cottage towards his studio thinking +of his portrait of her. He wanted to muse on the little eyes as he had +rendered them. He saw the faults in the drawing hardly at all, and his +pain softened and almost ceased when he took up the violin, but when +he put it down the flow of subjective emotion ceased, and he stared on +the concrete and realistic image of his thought--Maggie passing +through the shade with the young stranger. + +Who was he? By whose authority was he there? Was he one of those men +whose only pleasure is to tempt girls, to corrupt them? Had he thought +of this before his duty would have been to interpose; and he saw +himself striding down the garden and telling Maggie that he insisted +on her coming back to the verandah to her sister. It did not matter if +he had no right, he was prepared to answer for his conduct to her +father and brother. Did that man look like one of those men who are +always sitting with girls in far corners out of sight? Ah, if he were +sure that he was one of those dastardly ruffians he would seek him +out, force him to speak his intentions. If a girl's father and brother +will not look after her, a friend must say "I will." Yes, he would +have to thrash him, kill him, if it were necessary. She might hate him +for it at first, but in the end she would recognise him as her +saviour. + +It was too late now, the man was in Brighton. To-morrow? Elated with +what he deemed "duty," with what he deemed "for the sake of the girl," +he strode about, thinking of "the ruffian"; no thought came to him of +how much of the sin, if sin there was, had originated in Maggie; he +saw her merely as a poor little thing, led like a lamb. Following the +idea of saving came the idea of possession. When she clung to the +husband she would tremble at the danger she had escaped. Their home, +their table, their fireside; protection from evil, now all wild winds +might rage--they would be safe. The vision was constitutional and +characteristic of his soul. He was out of thought of all but himself, +his dream evolved in pure idea, removed from and independent of all +limitations--out of concern of the world's favour--Mount Rorke, Mr. +Brookes, or even the girl's grace. As this temper passed, as reality +again interposed, and as he saw the garden with Maggie leaving him for +another, he viewed her conduct suddenly in relation to himself. What +did she mean by treating him so, and for whom? One day he would be +Lord Mount Rorke! The Brookes knew nobody. He had only met a lot of +cads at their house; they did not know any one but cads. The Brookes +were cads! The father was a vulgar old City man, who talked about +money and bought ridiculous pictures. The girls, too, were vulgar and +coarse. God only knew how many lovers they had not had. Willy was the +best of the bunch, but he was a fool. His miserliness and his +vegetable shop--hateful! The whole place was hateful; he wished he had +never come there; since he had been there he had never been treated +even as a gentleman. The Brookes had treated him shamefully. + +The skeleton of Frank's soul is easy to trace in this mental crisis-- +his quixotism, his wish to sally forth and save women, his yearning +for a pretty little wife, who would sit on his knee and kiss him, +saying, "Poor old boy, you are tired now;" therefore an emotional and +distorted apprehension of things, a tendency to think himself a +wronged and persecuted person, and under much bravado and swagger the +cringe that is so inveterate in the Celt. + +Next morning he thought of her lightly, without bitterness and almost +without desire; but after breakfast his heart began to ache again. He +strove to read, he went to his studio, he went to Brighton; but he saw +Maggie in all things. She was with him--a sort of vague pain that kept +him strangely conscious of life. + +Once convinced he was a lover he became the man with a mission; his +heart swelled with mysterious promptings, and felt the spur of duty. +No longer was delay admissible. A day, an hour might involve the loss +of all. Should he go round to the Manor House and tell Maggie of the +message he had received to love her and save her? She would now be +watering her flowers in the green-houses. But that other fellow might +be there--he had heard something about an appointment. No, he had +better write. If he wrote at once, absolutely at once, he would be in +time for the six o'clock delivery. Snatching a sheet of paper he +wrote:-- + +"DEAREST MAGGIE,--I have loved you a long while, I remember many +things that make me think that I have always loved you; but to-day I +have learnt that you are the one great and absorbing influence--that +without you my life would be stupid and meaningless, whereas with you +it shall be a joy, an achievement. + +"I have frittered away much time; my efforts in painting and poetry +have been lacking in strength and persistency. I have vacillated and +wandered, and I did not know why; but now I know why--because you were +not by me to encourage me, to help me by your presence and beauty. I +will not speak of the position I offer you--I know it is unworthy of +you. I would like to give you a throne; but, alas, I can but promise +you a coronet." + +His hand stopped and he raised his eyes from the paper. He recollected +the day he saw her a child, the day they went blackberrying over the +hills. He saw her again, she was older and prettier, and she wore a +tailor-cut cloth dress. How pretty she looked that day, and also when +she wore that summer dress, those blue ribbons. All the colour, +innocence, and mirth of his childhood came upon him sweetly, like an +odour that passes and recalls. He sighed, and he murmured, "She is +mine by right, all this could not have been if she were not for me." +Ah! how he longed to sit with her, even at her feet, and tell her how +his life would be but worship of her. He regretted that he was not +poor, for to unite himself more closely to her he would have liked to +win her clothes and food by his labour; and hearing himself speaking +of love and seeing her as a maiden with the May time about her, his +dreams drifted until the ticking of the clock forced him to remember +that he could tell her nothing now of all his romance, so with pain +and despair at heart he wrote, + +"Never before did I so ardently feel the necessity of seeing you, of +sharing my soul with you, and yet now is the moment when I say, I must +end. But let this end be the beginning of our life of love, devotion, +and trust. I will come to-night to see you; I will not go into the +billiard-room, but will walk straight to the drawing-room. Do be +there. Dearest Maggie, I am yours and yours only." + +He seized his hat and rushed to the post. He was in time, and now that +the step had been taken, he walked back looking more than usually +handsome and tall, pleased to see the children run out of school and +roll on the grass, pleased to linger with the General. + +"Where are you going, sir?" said the old man. + +"I'm going to my studio to play the fiddle. Will you come? I'll give +you a glass of sherry, and--" + +"Never touch anything, except at meals. I used to when I was as young +as you, but not now. But I will go and hear a little music." + +Glad to have a companion, Frank took out the violin, and he played all +the melodies he knew; and his mind ran chiefly on Schubert and Gounod. +The "Soir," the "Printemps," and "La Chanson du Printemps" carried his +soul away, nor could he forbear to sing when he came to the phrase, +"La Neige des Pommiers." When musical emotion ran dry he tried +painting, but with poor result. During dinner he grew fevered and +eager to see Maggie, and mad to tell her that he loved her, and could +love none but her. At half-past eight the torture of suspense was more +than he could endure, and he decided that he would go to the Manor +House. He passed round the block of cottages, and got into the path +that between the palings led through the meadows. It was a soft summer +evening--moonlight and sunset played in gentle antagonism, and in a +garden hat he saw Maggie coming towards him. He noticed the pink shawl +about her shoulders, and the thought struck him, "had she come to ask +him to elope." She stopped, and she hesitated as if she were going to +turn back again. + +"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, speaking with difficulty, "but I wanted +you to get this before nine." + +"Never mind, darling," he answered, smiling; "you can tell me all +about it--it will be sweeter to hear you talk. Which way shall we go?" + +"I really don't think I can now; father doesn't know I am out. This +letter will--" + +"No, no; I cannot bear to part with you. How pretty you look in that +hat! Come." + +"No, Frank, I cannot now, and you had better leave me. I cannot walk +with you to-night. Read this letter." + +"Then am I--is it really so?" said Frank, growing suddenly pale. "You +will not have me?" + +"You must read this letter, it will tell you all. I am truly sorry, +but I did not know you cared for me--at least not like that. I don't +think I could, I really don't. But I don't know what I am saying. How +unfortunate it was meeting you. I but thought to run round and leave +the letter, it would have explained all better than I could. We have +known you so long. You will forgive me?" + +She stood with the letter in her hand. He snatched it a little +theatrically and tore it open. She watched, striving to read the +effect of her words in his face. They dealt in regrets. There was an +exasperating allusion to engaged affections. There was a long and +neatly-worded conclusion suggesting friendship. She had taken a great +deal of trouble with the composition, and was very fearful as to the +result. She felt she could not marry him--at least, not just at +present, she didn't know why. Altogether Frank's proposal had puzzled +and distressed her. She felt she must see her flirtation out with +Charlie, but at the same time she did not want to utterly lose Frank, +or worse still, perhaps, to hand him over to Sally. She was determined +that Sally should not be Lady Mount Rorke, and she thrilled a little +when she saw he would not give her up easily, and her heart sank when +she thought of the difficulty of continuing her intrigue without +prejudicing her future. If Frank would only leave Southwick for a +little while. + +"Is this all? The meaning is clear enough; it means that you love the +man I saw yesterday at the Manor House. But he shall not have you; I +will save you from him. Listen to me--I swear he shall not have you; I +will strive to outwit him by every means in my power. If I don't get +you, none shall. I will shoot the man rather than he should get you." + +"O Frank, you wouldn't commit murder!" + +"I would, for you; but it will not be necessary. I can challenge him +to fight a duel, and if he is cowardly enough to refuse, I will +horsewhip him before your face, and I don't suppose you will marry him +after that." + +Maggie struggled with feelings of laughter, fear, and delight; delight +overpowered laughter, for Frank was young and handsome, and full of +what he said. It was quite romantic to be talked to like that. She +would like to see the men threaten each other. But then--the scandal-- +father might never get over it. And if he married again? Speaking +slowly, and in an undertone so as not to betray herself, she said: "O +Frank, I'm sure you would not do anything that would injure me." + +"My darling, I love you better than the whole world. My whole life, if +you will, shall be spent in striving to make you happy." + +"You are very good." She took his hand and squeezed it; he returned +the pressure with rapturous look and motion. She drew from him a +little, for there were some people coming towards them, and she said: +"Take care." When the fisher folk had passed, she looked at him +stealthily. She had always liked him in that necktie, and those cloth +shoes were perfect. Had she never known Charlie, or if she had not +gone so far with him!--There was something in Frank that was very +nice--she could like the two. What a pity the two were not one! "If he +were always as nice as he is now, and not lecture me!" Then she +remembered she must return home. "I must really go home; I can't go +any farther--" + +"No, no, I cannot leave you. I must see and hear you now. If you knew +what I have endured waiting for you, you would not be so cruel. Come +and let us sit on the beach." + +"I couldn't. I must go back; father will miss me. Besides, what have +we to say? If I were only free and could tell you that I loved you, it +would be different." + +"Free! then you regret; if a woman wills it she can always free +herself." + +"No, it is harder than you think for a girl to get out of an +engagement she has entered into, even if no absolute promise has been +given." + +"What do you mean? If you have entered into no formal engagement you +are surely free." + +"I don't know. Do you think so? I am afraid men think that a promise +may be broken after marriage as well as before." + +"You are wrong. Women who are jealous, who are old, tell girls that +men are always unfaithful, but I'm sure that if I loved a girl I could +never think of another. Do you really think I could think of any girl +but you?" + +"I don't know. I wonder if all you say is true." + +"Do you think me different from other men?" + +"Yes, but I cannot go on the beach; some other evening I will walk +there with you." + +"No, now, now--I want to tell you how and when I began to love. Do you +remember when I used to spend part of my holidays at the Manor House +when I was only so high, and you were all in short frocks? Come, there +is much I want to say to you; I cannot part with you. Come, and let us +sit on the shingle. Oh, the beautiful evening!" + +She could love him a little when she looked at him, but when he talked +she lost interest in him. She had allowed him to take her hand, he had +bent towards her, and she had let him kiss her; and then they talked +of love--she of its bitterness and disappointments; he of its +aspirations, and gradually their souls approached like shadows in the +twilight, paused for a few vague moments, seemed as if lost in dreams. + +"I shall never forget this night! O my love, tell me one day you will +be mine!" + +"I cannot promise, you must not ask me." + +"We are meant for each other. It was not blind fate that cast us +together. Does no voice tell you this? I hear it in my heart." + +The abandonment, the mystery of the gathering dusk, touched Maggie's +fancy. They were alone in the twilight, and it was full of the romance +of a rising tide. + +"Never did I know such happiness; I am supremely happy, alone with you +beneath this sky, listening to the vague, wild voice of the sea. It +would be bitter sweet to die in such a triumphant hour. Supposing +wewere to lie here and allow the sea to take us away." + +"No, I don't want to die. I want to live and enjoy my life." + +The answer fell a little chillingly on Frank's rapture. Then after a +pause, Maggie said: "I think I have read of that somewhere--in anovel-- +lovers caught by the tide." + +"Yes, I daresay you have. I was thinking of two lovers who were so +overcome with happiness that they decided that they would not trust +themselves again to the waves and storms of life, but would let the +calm, slow tide of death take them away with all their happiness +unassoiled." + +Maggie did not answer. The double fear had come upon her--first, that +the tide might rise higher than usual and cut off their retreat. +Secondly, that Frank--he was a poet--might insist on remaining there +and being drowned. Getting up, she said: "I do not know what father +will say when I get home, really it is quite dark. Come, Frank." + +"Death is better than a life of abomination--loss of innocence, and of +delight in simple things. I ask you," he said, stopping her suddenly. + +"Yes, no doubt it is so; but I want to get home. Do go on, Frank." + +"I will save you from a life of abomination--in other words I will +save you from him; he shall not get you. I have sworn it; you did +notknow that when you were lying down on the beach--you had ceased +speaking, and in the silence my life seemed stirred to its very +essence; and I knew that I must struggle against him, and conquer. I +want to know this: Have you ever thought of what your life would be +with him? Have you ever thought what he is?" + +"But you don't know him, Frank. You have never spoken to him. I am +sure you misjudge him." + +"Do you think I cannot see what he is? He is one of those men whose +one ambition is to make themselves friendly in a house where there are +women to wheedle. If the wife is young he will strive to wheedle her, +and though he may not succeed he must degrade her. Or, if she have +daughters, he will never cease to appeal to, to work upon, to excite +latent feelings which, had it not been for him, would never have been +developed into base and abnormal desire. I know what the foul-minded +beast is. Such men as he ought to be killed; we don't want them in our +society. I want to save you, I want to give you a noble, a pure life, +full of the charms of a husband's influence, a home where there would +be love of natural things. You are capable of all this, Maggie, your +nature is a pure one, but your life is unwholesome and devoid of +purity." + +"Frank, how can you speak so? You have no right to say such things +about us. I am sure you have always been well treated--" + +"You do not understand me, I will explain what I mean. Your life is +rich and luxurious, but you are not happy, no one is happy in +idleness; above all no woman is happy without love. A woman's mission +in life is to love, she must have her home, her husband, and her +children. These are the things that make a woman happy; and these are +the things I want to give you--that I will give you; for, listen to +me, I swear you shall not have that adventurer. He would degrade you +with pleasure at first, and afterwards with neglect. You are too good +for this, Maggie--it must not be, it shall not be. As I said before, +death would be better." They stood in front of the canal locks and +Maggie looked with a beating heart on the deep water that a ray from a +crescent moon faintly indicated. "A woman is helpless until she finds +her lord, he who shall save, the saviour who shall bring her home safe +to the fold. He exists! and all are in danger till they find him. Some +miss him--they wander into misery and ruin; those that find him are +led to happiness and content. I am yours. I would tell you how I +became convinced that I am the one appointed by God to lead you to +Him." + +"I thought you didn't believe in God." + +"Not as we have been taught to understand Him but I believe in a +presiding power--call it luck, fate, or destiny that--that exists and +wills; that is to say, watches over--rules out that this man is for +that woman, and ordains that he shall protect her from danger, shall +save her from those that seek her destruction. Much has happened to +prove that I was intended for you. We have known each other since we +were children. Do you not remember when I kissed you in the verandah +as I was going to school? I was the first man who kissed you; you were +the first woman who kissed me--have you never felt that we were for +each other? Nor can I forget that when I thought we had drifted for +ever apart, that I was brought back. Do you think it was accident-- +blind chance? I don't. Now I see this man striving to win you, and +whether it be for your money, whether it be for yourself, or for both, +it is my duty to say: No, this must not be." + +"I think you are mistaken about Charlie. I admit that a man is often a +better judge than a girl; and as for you, Frank, I am sure I am very +fond of you. It is very good of you to take such interest in me--but +we must get home. I don't know what father will think." + +"No, before you go a step further you must promise me not to see that +man again. I cannot tell you how, but I know no good can come of it. +He is one of those creatures who cannot love, and only care for women +for the excitement they afford. I know what sort of brute he is. It is +more depraving to walk alone with him, than to be the mistress of a +man who loved you." + +"He is leaving Brighton in a few days." + +"So much the better for all of us. But you must promise me. I would +sooner see you lying drowned in that lock than his wife." + +Maggie trembled. It was ridiculous to think of such a thing. Surely he +did not mean to drown her if she refused to promise. Charlie was going +to London in a few days; he would be away for three or four months. +Heaven only knows what would happen in that time. She didn't see what +right Frank had to bully her--to extort promises from her by night on +the edge of a dangerous lock. But a promise wasn't much, and a promise +given in such circumstances was not a promise at all. + +"If you are really in earnest--if you think it is for my good, I'll +promise you not to see him again." + +"O Maggie, if you only knew what a load of trouble you have taken off +my mind! Thank you--give me your hand, and let me thank you. I know I +am right. And now, tell me, can you love me? Will you marry me?" + +"I will promise nothing more to-night; we shall see how you behave +yourself," the girl replied winningly. "And now go on, sir, we have +been here quite long enough." + +He crossed the gate mechanically, she followed eagerly, and when she +reached the other side her heart beat with pride at her pretty +triumph. Now I'll twit him, she thought, as they ascended the shore +and entered the town. + +"I wonder why you think Charlie so wicked; I think if you knew him you +would change your opinion." + +"I am very thankful indeed that I do not know him." + +The conversation dropped, but a moment after he gave her the chance +she wanted. + +"Mind you have promised me not to see him again. I trust you." + +"But suppose he calls and if I should be in the drawing-room, I cannot +walk out of the room without speaking to him." + +"I think you had better write and say you do not wish to see him." + +"I couldn't do that; we have known him a long time, and father has +always said that we must be rude to no one. Besides, what reason could +I give?" + +"You need not give a reason. But let that pass. I can't see why you +should meet; you can surely tell your servant to say 'Not at home,' +when he calls." + +"I might be in the garden--Sally would not allow it. If John said 'Not +at home,' she would run down and let him in." + +"I see you are raising difficulties--I see you do not intend to keep +your promise." + +"You have been quite rude enough for one evening. You have kept me out +on the beach by force till nearly ten o'clock at night, and you said +that my life at the Manor House was not a pure one--I don't know what +you mean. No man ever spoke to me like that before." + +"You misunderstood me. If you knew how I loved you, you would not twit +me with my own words. Heaven knows I would sooner go back and drown +myself in the lock than do anything or say anything that would offend +you. Remember also that I asked you to be my wife." + +"You are not the first. I daresay it may appear strange to you, but +others have asked me the same question before." + +"It does not seem strange to me, it only seems strange to me that +every one doesn't love you, but I daresay they do. O Maggie, remember +that you gave me hope, you said that you might--" + +"Did I? Well, it's too late to talk any more. Goodnight. I suppose +you're not coming in?" + +She left him in a cruel dispersal of hope. He avoided, and then he +tenderly solicited a regret that he had not thrown her into the lock. +To end on that hour by the sea would have been better than the trivial +and wretched conclusion of a broken promise, and everything, even +murder, were better than that a brute should have her woman's +innocence to sully and destroy. His love of the woman disappeared in +his desire to save, the idea which she represented at that moment; and +lost in sentiment he stood watching the white sickle of the moon over +against the dim village. The leaves of some pollarded willows whitened +when the breeze shot them up to the light, and a moment after became +quite distinct in the glare and the steam of an approaching engine. He +might go and tell Willy all about it; he would ask him to interfere- +could he catch that train? If he ran for it, yes. He ran full tilt +across the green under the archway up the high stone steps. He just +did it. + +It was the last train; he would sleep in Brighton. His plan, so far as +he had a definite plan, was to ask Willy to come with him and tell +"that brute" that his visits to the Manor House must end, and request +him to pay his sister no further attentions. His other plans were-- +Willy must speak to Maggie and tell her all he knew of the man; Willy +must speak to his father; Mr. Brookes must not be kept in ignorance. +But of course the right thing to do would be for Willy and him to call +at the brute's hotel, tell him what they thought, and give him a +licking. The train jogged on, and Frank made plan after plan. It was +now past eleven, and he would not be at East Street before twelve +o'clock. As he hurried along the streets he doubted more than ever how +Willy would receive him. He might just as well have waited till +morning. However, it was too late now to think of going back, there +was no train, and he rapped at first timidly and then noisily at the +shop door. He had to wait some time, and then he heard a voice asking +from the top windows who was there. + +"'Tis I, Frank; awfully sorry, but must see you--particular business." + +There was no answer; he heard the voice grumbling, and more than ever +doubtful of the cordiality of his reception, he listened. The door +opened. + +"Who is it?" he said. + +"'Tis I, Cissy; but I'm in my nightdress." + +"I won't look at you, Cissy, if that's what you mean. But won't yougive +me a kiss?" + +"Stoop down, then." + +"I am sorry for waking you up, Cissy." + +"Never mind, I'd get up at any hour to see you." + +"There, run upstairs, and take care you don't catch cold, or I shall +never hear the end of it." + +"Father is in bed with mother. He says you are to go up, for if he +were to get out of bed it might give him cold. You know his room?" + +"Yes, here it is, now run along." + +"Come in." + +Frank was a little shocked, and he waited stupidly on the threshold. +He could see a fragment of Mrs. Brookes's profile, and beneath the +clothes the outline of Willy's bony body. + +"Come in, come in," he said, "don't stand there filling the room with +cold air. Now, what is it? Why the deuce do you come here waking us up +at this ungodly hour? What has happened?" + +"I have proposed to your sister Maggie." + +"I am sure I am delighted to hear it, old chap; but I can't help +thinking that I could have congratulated you equally as well, if not +better, in the morning." Then, noticing the distressed look in Frank's +face, he said: "I hope she has not refused you." + +"No; she asked me to wait, she said it would depend--" + +"Then you may depend it is all right; now go away and let me go to +sleep, we'll talk about it in the morning. You can't get back to- +night. You are sleeping in Brighton, I suppose? You'll come and +breakfast here?" + +"Yes, with pleasure, but it wasn't exactly to tell that I had proposed +to Maggie that I came here to-night; there is something more than +that. You know that fellow she calls Charlie? I don't know his other +name." + +"Stracey?" + +"I dare say. I mean the man you said you hated more than any man +alive; I hate him, too." + +"You don't mean to say she is still thinking of that fellow. Has he +come back?" + +"He was at the Manor House all day yesterday." + +"If she marries that fellow I'll never speak to her again, it will be +dead cuts." + +"It is only natural that I should love Maggie. You remember the first +day I came down to the Manor House? How young I was then--how young we +all were; there are no days like the old days! There is a beautiful +poem by Wordsworth; I only remember one line now-- + + "'When every day was long + As twenty days are now'-- + +Do you remember the poem?" Willy did not answer, and noticing that his +eyes were blinking, Frank hastily returned to more recent events." I +wrote to her this afternoon telling her how much I loved her, and I +said that I would call about nine in the evening at the Manor House, +and that I hoped to find her in the drawing-room where we could talk +without being disturbed. However, I was too excited, and could not +hold out till nine; I thought I had better hear my fate at once, and +as I was walking across the field--you know, at the back of Mrs. +Heald's--I met her half way. She had a letter in her hand, which she +said she was going to leave at Mrs. Heald's for me--She admitted that +the letter was in point of fact a refusal, and when I questioned her +she admitted that she was obliged to refuse me because she had half +promised Charlie. We went for a walk on the beach; we sat on the beach +and watched the sunset, and I told her all. I spoke to her about the +past, how we had grown up together--how we had been, as it were, from +the first fated for each other; for you must admit, Willy, that it is +very curious--I don't know if you ever think of it, but I do--how we +have met again even when the chances of life seemed to have put us for +ever apart. "Here a slight sound warned Frank that the present moment +was one as equally unfitted for psychological analysis as for poetry, +and he hurried to his story, hoping that the incident of the lock +would secure him attention. "Willy, I think I convinced her that I +liked her better than that other fellow. We were standing by the lock +--Willy, I really do think you might listen." + +"My dear fellow, I am listening. You were both looking at the sunset." + +"It really is too bad. Of course, if you don't want to hear, and would +prefer to go to sleep, you have only to say so." + +"My dear fellow, I assure you I wasn't asleep. I only closed my eyes +because I can't bear the glare of that candle. I know where you were-- +you were looking at the sunset." + +"No, we weren't." + +"Weren't they, Jessie? Are you asleep?" + +"No, I am not asleep. Do hold your tongue, Willy, I want to hear the +story. You were standing by the lock, Mr. Escott." + +"Ah, yes, so they were." + +"I felt it was my duty, so I told her that I felt it was my mission to +save--to save her from that man, and I made her promise me not to see +him again." + +"Then it is all right. Nobody can be more glad than I am. I hate the +fellow." + +"She will not keep her promise. Of course she may only have done it to +tease me; but as we were going home she said she could not walk out of +the room if she happened to be there when he called, nor could she +leave word with the servants to say that they were not at home. She +made a lot of excuses. What are you laughing at, Mrs. Brookes?" + +"I am really very sorry, Mr. Escott, but I couldn't help wondering if +she would change her mind again if you were to go back to the lock." + +Frank took up the candle and turned to go. + +"Don't go," Willy murmured faintly. + +"I am very sorry, Mr. Escott--if circumstances permitted, I would do +all I could to help you." + +This was delicate ground, and Willy woke up. + +"What do you want me to do? Have you anything to suggest?" + +"Yes, it struck me that we might both go round to the fellow's hotel-- +Stracey, you call him, I think--and you might tell him that his visits +must cease at the Manor House, and that he must not speak to your +sister if he should happen to meet her. That should bring the matter +to an end. He is in Brighton--he is staying at the 'Grand.' We might +go round there to-morrow morning." + +"He might kick us out." + +"I only hope he may try. I would give him such a hammering. But you +need not be afraid of that. It wouldn't do to have Maggie's name +mentioned in connection with a vulgar brawl--people are not too +charitable. My idea is that this business should be conducted in the +quietest and most gentlemanly manner possible." + +"I think I had better speak to father first." + +"No necessity; he will be only too glad to get rid of the penniless +brute. Don't you think so, Mrs. Brookes?" + +"I do." + +They then spoke of other things--of the shop, the profit they had made +on tomatoes, and the losses that had resulted from over-stocking +themselves with flour. At last a loud snore brought the conversation +to a full stop, and Frank hurriedly bade them good-night. + +"Cissy will let you out," said Willy, with a sigh of relief. + +The little girl had pulled on her stockings and tied a petticoat round +her waist. "So you are going to be married." + +"O Cissy, you have been listening!" + +"Is she very nice? She must be very nice for you to marry her. I +should like to marry you." + +"Would you, Cissy, and why?" + +"Oh, because you are so very handsome. But you will come and see us +all the same, and let me sit on your knee?" + +"Of course I will, Cissy, and now good-night." + +Next morning Willy declared himself ready to go and see Mr. Charles +Stracey, and to tell him that he was not to call any more at the Manor +House, or speak to Miss Brookes if he should happen to meet her. Frank +wondered if this decision was owing to Mrs. Brookes's influence. + +"I slept last night at the 'Grand' It seemed odd sleeping in the +same house--perhaps within a few doors of him. If you only knew how I +love her, if I could only tell you, you would pity me. You ought to +know what I feel--the anxiety, the heart-ache. I know you have gone +through it all." + +"Yes, I think I know what it is," Willy replied thoughtfully. + +"Mr. Stracey is staying here?" + +"Will you enquire at the office, sir?" + +While the books were being searched the young men consulted together. +Frank said: "Send up your card, and say you will be glad to speak to +him on a matter of importance. Of course he will see you, but before +you speak about Maggie you must apologise for my presence; you must +say that I am a very particular friend, and that you thought it better +that the interview should take place in the presence of a witness." + +"I wish it were all over. I wouldn't do what I am doing for any one +else, I can tell you, Frank." + +"Mr. Stracey is in the hotel, sir." + +"Will you give him my card, and say I should be glad to speak to him +on a matter of importance?" + +"Very good, sir." + +(In an undertone to Frank), "Was that right?" + +"Quite right." + +"Oh, one thing I had forgotten to ask you--am I to shake hands with +him?" + +"You mean if he offers you his hand?" + +"Yes." + +"It is impossible to settle everything beforehand. One must act +according as the occasion requires." "That's all very well for you, +but I am a slow man, and am lost if I don't arrange beforehand." + +"Pretend not to see his hand, and apologise for my presence; he will +then see that we mean business." + +"The waiting is the worst part." + +"Will you walk this way, sir?" said the page boy. "Mr. Stracey is not +out of bed yet, but he said if you wouldn't mind, sir." + +They shrank from their enterprise instinctively, but the door was +thrown open, and they saw a bath, and a sponge, and a towel, and Mr. +Stracey lying on his back reading _The Sporting Times_. He extended a +long brawny arm. The strength of the arm fixed itself on Willy's mind, +and he doubted if he had not better take the proffered hand. + +"I brought my friend Mr. Escott with me, for I thought a witness--I +mean, that this interview should be conducted in the presence of a +third party." + +At this speech Charlie opened his eyes and dropped his paper. Willy +leaned over the rail of the bed; Frank looked into the bath, but +remembering himself suddenly, he examined the chest of drawers. + +"I have come to speak to you about my sister." + +Charlie changed countenance, and both men noticed the change. + +"I mean to say I have come to tell you that you must discontinue your +visits to the Manor House, and I must beg of you not to address my +sisters should you meet them." + +"May I ask if you are your father's representative, if you speak with +his authority?" + +"I do not. I--" + +"Then I should like to know on what authority you forbid me a house +that doesn't belong to you, and I should like to know, if your father +doesn't disapprove of my knowing your sisters, why you should? I shall +speak to Miss Brookes as long as she cares to speak to me. The very +idea of a man like you coming here to bully me! You have got my +answer." + +"If, after this warning," said Frank, who, seeing that things were +going against them, thought he had better interfere, "you speak to +Miss Brookes, you will do so at your peril." + +"Peril! What do you mean?" + +"I mean that you must be prepared to take the consequences." + +"Who are you? I should like to know what you have to do in this +matter?" + +"I speak as Miss Brookes's future husband." + +"Future husband be damned! She'll never marry you," said Charlie, +springing out of bed. + +Frank threw himself on his guard, and they would have struck each +other if Willy had not cried out: "Frank, remember you promised me +there must be no scandal." + +"I had almost forgotten. For Miss Brookes's sake, I refrain. Do you +also, for her sake, cease to provoke me." + +Charlie hesitated for a moment, then rushing to the door, he said: "I, +too, for Miss Brookes's sake, refrain, and I give you three seconds to +clear out." + +In attempting to carry out the injunction Willy nearly fell in the +bath. Frank had to bite his lip to avoid a smile, and he stalked out +of the room assuming his most arrogant air. + +"I think, on the whole, we got the best of it," he said as they went +down stairs. + +"Do you? He turned us out of his room!" + +"That's the worst of tackling a man in his own room--if he tells you +to go, and you don't go, he can ring for the servants." + +"I was as nearly as possible going into the bath." + +"Yes, a touch more and down you'd have gone." Frank laughed, and Willy +laughed, "and that fellow in his nightshirt fishing you out!" + +"Oh, don't, don't--" + +Frank asked Willy to lunch with him at Mutton's, and he ordered a +bottle of champagne in honour of the day. + +"I say, just fancy pulling you out of the bath, and wiping you with a +towel. I can see you dripping!" + +"Don't set me off again. Let me enjoy my cutlets." + +"By Jove! there's something I hadn't thought of." + +"What's that?" + +"We must be off. We must tell Maggie what has happened before he has +time to communicate with her. What is the next train to Southwick?" + +"There's one at half-past one." + +"It was after twelve when we saw him, he won't have time to catch +that. We must be off. Waiter, the bill, and be quick. Look sharp, +Willy, finish the bottle, pity to waste it." + +"What a nuisance women are, to be sure. Just as I was enjoying my +cutlet! I can't walk fast in this weather, I should make myself ill." + +"We must take a cab." + +"What a fellow you are, you never think of the expense. I don't know +where I should be if I were as reckless as you are." + +"Supposing he were at the station. It would be rather a sell if we +went down by the same train! What should we do? He would surely never +attempt to force his way in!" + +"I don't think he would attempt that. If he did, we should have to +send for the police." + +The young men strove to decide how the news should be broken to +Maggie. But they had arranged nothing before they arrived at +Southwick, and Frank stopped Willy time after time by the footpath, +until at last in despair the latter said: "We must make haste; there's +another train in twenty minutes." + +"By Jove! I had not thought of that; we must get on. Well, then, it is +all arranged. You must tell her that you thought it your duty. Put it +all down to duty, and it was your duty to do what you did--putting +entirely out of the question the service you did me." + +"I can tell you what, Frank, I am very sorry I ever meddled in the +matter. Had I known the vexation and annoyance it would have caused-- +and mark my words, and see if they don't come true, we are only +commencing the annoyances that the affair will cause us. Ah, had I +only foreseen! What a fool I was; I ought to have known better; I have +had nothing but bad luck all my life. It is perfectly wonderful the +bad luck I have had; no matter what I did, nothing seemed to go right. +I dare say if you had gone to see that fellow without me it would have +turned out differently. But I don't see how I am to tell my sister +point blank that I have forbidden him the house. What will she say? +She may fly at me. Women have queer tempers, particularly when you +interfere with their young men. My sisters have the very worst of +tempers; you don't know them as I do. Fortunately it is not Sally. I +assure you I wouldn't face Sally with such news for all the money you +could give me." + +"I am very sorry, old chap, but we must now go through it. You must +forbid her to communicate with him." + +"She won't heed what I say. It will only excite her. She will fly at +me, and call me names, and burst into tears. I should not be surprised +if she went off her head--she has been very strange once before. I +don't mean to say she was ever wrong in her head, but she is a +nervous, excitable girl--most excitable; my sisters are the most +excitable girls I have ever known." + +It was surprisingly soon over. Willy had not spoken a dozen words, +when he was interrupted. + +"You mean to say you have been to call on him?" + +"Yes; and we told him he was never to speak to you again." + + +Frank expected her eyes to flash fire, but he only noticed a slight +change in her face, a movement of the muscles of the lower jaw. + +"Then I will speak to neither of you again!" and she walked out of the +room, and in dismay they listened to her going upstairs. + +"She didn't fly at me," said Willy; and, looking a little terrified, +he stroked his moustache softly. "I told you she would give no heed to +what we said; nor do I see how we can prevent her seeing that fellow +if she chooses. He cannot come into the house, it is true, but she can +go out when she pleases." + +"We must follow her." + +Conscious of defeat, Willy desired compromise. He could not be induced +to take a share of watching and following which Frank declared +essential; and, dreading an encounter with Stracey, whose brawny arm +it was impossible to forget, he shut himself up in the shop, and +devoted himself to drawing up a most elaborate balance-sheet, showing +how he would stand if he were obliged to close the business to-morrow, +whereas Frank loitered about the roads, till Mrs. Horlock came along +with her dogs, and engaged him in conversation; and no matter at what +corner he stationed himself, he found he was not free from +observation. A few days after he could not bring himself to return to +his post, and contented himself with looking out of his window, and +taking an occasional stroll by the embankment, when he saw a train +signalled. + +A great weight seemed lifted from his shoulder the day he heard that +his rival's holiday had come to an end, and that he had been forced to +return to his counting-house in London. True it is that Mr. Brookes +had in a certain measure approved of Willy's action in forbidding +young Stracey the Manor House, and therefore of his, Frank Escott's, +suit, but neither of these gains compensated him for the crowning loss +of not being able to see his beloved, for although the Manor House was +still theoretically open to him, practically it was closed. The +sisters, although at variance on all subjects, had united in +condemning him and Willy, and during one dinner, the misery of which +he declared he could never forget, they had sat whispering together, +refusing to address him either by look or word. Willy took all this +calmly. It is an ill wind that blows no good, and the silence enabled +him to thoroughly masticate his food. Mr. Brookes wept a little and +laughed a little, and reminded them of the oblivion that awaited all +their little quarrels. + +All this, like much else in life, was ridiculous enough; but because +we are ridiculous, it does not follow that we do not suffer, and Frank +suffered. He was five-and-twenty, and light love had him fairly by the +throat; he winced, and he cried out, but very soon his dignity gave +way, and he craved forgiveness. But Maggie passed without heeding him. +For more than a week she resisted all his appeals, and it was not +until she saw that she was taking the neighbourhood into her +confidence, and to feel that if she did not relent a little he might +leave Southwick, and not return, she answered him with a monosyllable. +With what bliss did he hear that first "no," and how passionately he +pleaded for a few words; it did not seem to matter what they were, so +long as he heard her speak one whole sentence to him. Feeling her +power, she was shy of yielding, and with every concession she drew him +further into the meshes of love. He dined now nearly every day at the +Manor House, and he spent an hour, sometimes two, with her in the +morning or afternoon; he followed her from greenhouse to greenhouse, +but all his efforts were in vain, and he failed not only to obtain her +promise to marry him, but even a renewal of the feeble and partial +hopes which she had given him that night on the beach. He prayed, he +wept, he implored pity, he openly spoke of suicide, and he hinted at +murder. But Maggie passed him, pushing him out of the way with the +watering-pot, threatening to water him too, until one day he drew a +revolver. She screamed, and the revolver was put away, but on the next +occasion a stiletto that he had brought from Italy was produced, and +with a great deal of earnestness life was declared to be a miserable +thing. It was absurd, no doubt, but at the same time it was not a +little pathetic; he was so good-looking, and so sincere. Maggie put +down the watering-pot, and she would probably have allowed him to take +her hand and kiss her, if he had not spoken roughly about Charlie, and +called her conduct into question. So she told him she would not speak +to him again, and she continued watering the flowers in silence. Amid +vague remembrances of murders she had read of, Frank's words and +behaviour remained present in her mind, and that evening when Willy, +who rarely took the trouble to speak, much less to advise his sisters, +told her that she might never get such a chance again, she said: "I am +not going to marry a madman to please your vanity." + +"Marry a madman! What do you mean?" + +"Well, I call a man that who comes regularly to see a girl with a +revolver in one pocket and a stiletto in the other, and threatens to +leave himself wallowing in a pool of blood at her feet--" + +"You mean to say he does that? You are clearly determined to drive the +poor fellow out of his mind with your infernal coquetry. Well, women +are the most troublesome, and I believe in many cases, the wickedest +creatures on the face of God's earth." + +"You shut up. Men who don't get on with women always abuse them; you +are soured since Miss ----, the actress, jilted you." + +"If you ever dare mention that subject, I will never speak to you +again. You know I don't break my word." + +"Why do you interfere in my affairs? You don't think of me when you go +down to browbeat Charlie Stracey; you don't think of what would have +been said of me had Frank hit him, and it had all come out in the +papers." Maggie said no more; she saw she had gone too far. Willy sat +puffing at his pipe; but when her father spoke of a certain investment +that had not turned out as well as he had anticipated, he joined in +the conversation, and she hoped her cruelty was forgotten. + + + + +XII + + + +Frank uttered a cry of surprise when he opened the studio door to his +friend. It was his favourite complaint that Willy never came to see +him. + +"At last, at last! This is the second time you have been in the place +since it was finished, faithless friend!" + +"My dear fellow, you know it is not my fault. I have been very busy +lately trying to get on with my accounts. There's not a room in the +Manor House where I can work in; my sisters' things are everywhere, +and they must not be interfered with--their ball-dresses, their birds, +their work. My sisters think of nothing but pleasure." + +"Triss, go back, go to your chair, sir; I'll get the whip." + +Showing his fangs, the bull-dog retired; then with a hideous growl +sprang upon his chair, and sat eyeing Willy's calves. + +"I cannot think what pleasure it can give you to keep such a brute. +Even if I had my accounts finished, I don't think I should care to +come here much. It isn't safe." + +"You are quite mistaken. There's not a better-tempered dog alive than +Triss; he wouldn't bite any one unless he attacked me. Give me a slap, +and you'll see--I won't let him come near you." + +"Thank you, I'd rather not. But he sometimes growls even at you, and +shows his teeth, too." + +"That's only a way of his, and when he does it I kick him. Come here, +Triss--come here, sir!" The dog approached slowly; he sat down and +gave his paw to his master, but he did not cease to growl. "There! We +have had enough of you, go back to your chair. What will you take--a +glass of Chartreuse--a cigarette?" + +"Thanks, both if you will let me. I see you like pretty things," he +said, admiring the tall legs of the table--early English--and the +quaint glasses into which Frank poured the liqueur. "You've got the +place to look very nice." + +"Very different from what is was when the smith and his boisterous +brood were here," and as if he intended an apt illustration of his +words, he stretched his leg out on the white fur rug and surveyed his +calf and red silk stocking. "Just look at that dog, isn't he a beauty? +I always think he looks well in that attitude, leaning his head over +the rail. I began a picture of him the other day in a pose somewhat +like that. I'll show it you." Frank propped his sketch against the leg +of the sofa, and returned to his place on the sofa. "What do you think +of it? Your father said it was very like." + +"It is like him, but I can see no merit in it. I'm afraid of the +brute. I can't help hating him, for he always looks as if he were +going for my legs. What else have you been painting? Any pretty women +about? I should admire them more." + +"I haven't been painting lately," he said, sighing a little +melodramatically, as was his wont, "I think I have been playing the +piano more than anything else. I have composed something too, I don't +think it bad, I'll play it to you: a dialogue between a gentleman and +a lady. He speaks first, then she answers, then I blend the two +motives, and that is what they both say." + +Willy sat enwrapped in his own thoughts, not having heard a note. +Though he knew that Willy was incapable of judging of music, it +disappointed him that his dialogue had passed unperceived. Then +smiling, he struck a few notes, and Willy awoke. "You haven't been +listening," he said, reproachfully. "You don't care for any music, +except that little tune." + +"Yes, I do; I heard what you played, and I think it very pretty." + +"Willy, I am the most miserable man in the world. Every hour, every +minute of my life is a pain to me. I never knew before what you must +have suffered, but I know now; it is a sickening feeling, it takes you +by the throat, it rises in the throat, and you are almost suffocated. +Last night I lay awake hour after hour thinking. I could see Maggie as +plainly as I can see you--she looked down upon me out of space with +strange, steadfast eyes, and my whole soul went out to her, and I +cried to her that I loved her beyond all things; and we seemed to be +so near each other; it seemed such an intimate and perfect communion +of spirit and sense that I seemed, as it were, lifted out of actual +life; I seemed to myself holier, purer, better than I had ever been +before; I seemed to loose all that is gross and material in me, and to +gain in all that is best and worthiest in man. Did you feel like that +when you were in love?" + +"I don't know that I felt exactly like that. But never mind how I +felt; you are too fond of alluding to that subject, it is a very +painful one to me; you will make me regret that I ever told you +anything about it." + +"I am sorry I mentioned it. It is strange, but when one suffers one +likes to speak of and to compare with one's own the suffering that +another has endured. Your sister treats me most cruelly. She has +forgiven me that miserable business, but she refuses to hold out any +hope that she will ever be my wife. I don't understand--I am utterly +at sea. I don't believe for a moment that she cares for that horrid +brute; he is gone away. She tells me she never cared for him. If so, I +should like to learn your explanation of her conduct." + +Willy stroked his moustache, apparently declining the responsibility +of apologist; but his manner showed he had something on his mind, and +Frank sought more eagerly than ever to enlist his sympathy and +support. + +"I have done everything I could to win her. I don't know why she +should be so difficult to please. I am not bad looking, I am at least +as good looking as that damned brute" (here he paused to glance at +himself in the glass and smooth the curls above his forehead). "I am +certainly quite as clever" (here he thought of his painting, and his +eye sought one of his pictures), "and my position--I will not speak of +that, it would be snobbish. Women have cared for me. I have told +Maggie hundreds of times that I never could care for any but her. Fate +seems to have specially marked us for each other. You must admit that +there is something very remarkable in the way we have been brought +together over and over again. I have told her that my life is +worthless without her. The day before yesterday, when I was speaking +to her, I burst into tears. That a man should cry, no doubt, seems to +you very ridiculous but if you knew how I suffer you would pity me. I +often think I shall commit suicide." Frank took the stiletto from his +pocket. "I don't mind telling you, when you knocked at the door I was +lying on the sofa thinking it over. One stab just here and I should be +at peace for ever. I told her so yesterday." + +"I'm not fond of giving advice, as you know--I have quite enough to do +to think about my own affairs--but as you have often spoken to me on +this matter, and as you have asked me for my opinion and my help, I +had better tell you that I differ entirely from you concerning the +wisdom of the course you are pursuing." + +"How's that?" said Frank, at first surprised and then delighted at +Willy's breaking from his reserve. + +"What I mean is, that I think you would be more successful if you +would lay aside daggers and revolvers, and try to win her affection by +patience and gentleness. Maggie was talking to me about it no later +than last night, and I could see clearly that you frighten her with +bluster. I am sure there are times when she dreads you; it must be a +positive terror to her to sit with you alone--so it would be to any +girl." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Maggie is a very delicate and nervous girl, and it wouldn't surprise +me if your threats to commit suicide seriously affected her health; +you come with a revolver and a stiletto, and you ask her to marry you, +and if she doesn't at once say yes, you abuse her, declaring all the +time that you'll stab yourself with the revolver and shoot yourself +with the stiletto--I beg your pardon, I mean--" + +"Of course, if you've come here only to turn me into ridicule--" + +"I assure you I didn't mean it--a slip of the tongue," and as their +eyes met at that moment, neither could refrain from laughter. + +"Admit that there is something in what I say. If you will behave a +little more quietly--if you will talk to her nicely; leave off +assuring her of your love, she knows all that already; have some +patience and forbearance; you will see if before long she doesn't +change towards you." + +His interest in the matter was a desire that his sister should not +miss this chance of marrying the future Lord Mount Rorke. But Maggie +felt too sure of Frank to resist the temptation to tantalise him; +besides her moods were naturally various, and the first relapse into +her former coldness was answered by a sudden reversion to threats of +murder and suicide, and one summer evening about six o'clock, when +Mrs. Horlock took her dogs out and stood at the corner waiting for +Angel, a rumour was abroad that Mr. Escott had stabbed himself to the +heart, and had fallen weltering in his blood at Miss Brookes's feet. + +Dr Dickinson walked across the green, watched with palpitating anxiety +from the corner of the Southdown Road. The General spoke to the +farmer, and the farmer's pupil nudged the general dealer. Mrs. Horlock +spoke to the grocers, and the owners of the baths declared they had +just heard from their servant that the young man was not dead, but +mortally wounded. + +There was, therefore, no doubt that Dr Dickinson was going to Mrs. +Heald's, and would not turn to the right and walk to the station for +the quarter-to-seven train; and expectation on this point ceasing, the +group expressed its sympathy for the young man. Poor young man--and so +good-looking too--what will she do if he should die?--and he must die +--there was no doubt of it. Maria had met Mary--that was the housemaid +at the Manor House--it was Mary who had mopped up the blood. She said +there was a great pool right in the middle of the new carpet under the +window--they were sitting there on the ottoman when he said suddenly, +"I have come to ask you to marry me; if you won't I must die." +Notwithstanding this she continued to play with him--the cruel little +minx! He could stand it no longer, and he pulled out a dagger he had +brought from the East, and stabbed himself twice close to the heart. +What will she do?--she is his murderer--to all intents and purposes +she is his murderer--she will have to go into a convent--she won't go +into a convent--she'll brazen it out. No one thinks much of those +girls--the way Sally carried on with young Meason--it was disgraceful +--they say she used to steal her father's money and give it to him--Dr +Dickinson could tell fine tales. + +Then gossip ceased, and they were in doubt if they might intercept the +doctor and obtain news of his patient when he left Mrs. Heald's. Some +strolled about the green, pretending to be taking the air. Mrs. +Horlock, however, had no scruples, and picking up Angel and calling to +Rose and Flora, she walked straight to Mrs. Heald's, and was seen to +go in. Some five minutes after she came out with the doctor. Frank was +not dead, nor mortally wounded, nor even dangerously wounded, but he +had had a very narrow escape. + +"I said to him, 'You have had a very narrow escape.' The fact is--(I, +of course, examined the weapon)--a small part of the point had been +broken away; it was this that saved him. The first blow scarcely +pierced his clothes; the second was more effective, it entered the +flesh just above the heart, and I have no doubt if the steel had +penetrated a quarter of an inch deeper that he would have killed +himself. But so far as I can see at present, he will get over it +without much difficulty." + +"When did it occur?" + +"About an hour ago, at the Manor House. It appears that he has gone +there every day for the last three weeks to ask Miss Brookes to marry +him; she, however, would not give him any definite answer--" + +"Horrid girl!" + +"I never liked her; most deceitful; no doubt she flirted with him +outrageously." + +"I can't say. I hear that he often threatened to kill himself, and to- +day, to conclude, he pulled out his stiletto." + +"I thought it was a dagger he had brought from the East?" + +"No, the weapon they showed me was an Italian stiletto." + +The grocer's daughter shuddered, her mother murmured, "And for that +girl." + +"We didn't know him. The Brookes never allow their friends to know any +one in Southwick, but I have heard that he is an exceedingly nice--" + +"He will be Lord Mount Rorke, if his uncle doesn't marry again." + +"He must have been desperately in love; no one ever heard of such a +thing before. It sounds like the Middle Ages--a stiletto!" + +"But what could he see in her? That's what I can't make out; can you?" + +"Ah! there I can't assist you. I hope to be able to cure him of the +stiletto wound, but Cupid's arrows are beyond me. They did not fly so +thickly or strike so hard in my time." And, laughing, the doctor +withdrew. + +"I suppose that after this she will marry him; she never intended to +let him slip through her fingers. I can see her face when she heard +that another quarter of an inch and her chance of being Lady Mount +Rorke was gone for ever." + +"I daresay he won't marry her now. It would serve her right. I should +be so glad." + +And so pouring their gall out upon the unfortunate Maggie, the +tradespeople returned to their homes. The stiletto was so utterly +unprecedented, and so complete a reversal of all conception of the +chances of life at Southwick, that every one felt puzzled and +dissatisfied, even when gossip had brought to light every +circumstantial detail of the romantic story. Had the deed been done +with a knife, with anything but a stiletto; had he hanged himself, or +cut his throat with a razor, or shot himself with his revolver, the +wonder of the Southwickians would not have been so excited. But a +stiletto! And for a week an Italy of brigands and bravoes, and +stealthy surprises haunted shadows of picturesque archways, an Italy +of chromo-lithographed skies and draperies in the Southdown Road. +Maggie was spoken of with alternate fear and hate; her wickedness +seemed more than natural, and had the Southdown Road known anything of +Italian opera, there is little doubt that Miss Brookes would have been +compared to Lucretia Borgia. The young women looked out of their +windows at night, and wondered how they'd feel if a troubadour were +suddenly to sing to them from behind the privet hedges. The young men +were even more impressed than their womenfolk; they cursed their place +of birth and habitation, knowing that it incapacitated them from +knowing her; they wasted their mothers' candles sitting up till two in +the morning writing odes to cruel women with raven hair; and all gazed +sadly on the old ship in the harbour, and the Spanish main seemed +nearer, and those gallant days more realisable than they had ever been +before. + +The direct cause of this revival of romance lived, however, +unconscious of it. She was genuinely frightened. She said her prayers +with great fervour, begging God that He might save Frank, and that she +might not be a murderess. She made him soups, she sent him wine, she +brought him books, and she sat with him for hours. She thought he had +never looked so nice as now--so pale, so aristocratic, so elegantly +weak, his head laid upon a cushion, which she had brought him, and +when he took her hand and said, "Will you, darling?" and she murmured, +"Yes," then it seemed that the happiness of his life was upon his +face. + +Three days after Frank was sitting at his table writing to Mount +Rorke, and on the following Sunday he walked to the Manor House to +tell Mr. Brookes that he was engaged to his daughter, and to ask his +consent. He did not think of his folly, he was too happy; he seemed +like one in a quiet dulcet dream; he walked slowly, leaning from time +to time against the wooden paling, for he wished to prolong this +meditative moment; he saw everything vaguely, and loved all with a +quiet fulness of heart; he took in the sense of this village and its +life as he had never done before. He compared it with Ireland; Mount +Rorke, with its towers, and lakes, and woods arose, and he was +grateful that Maggie was going there, yet he was sure that he could +not live without sometimes seeing this village where he had found so +much happiness. + +His wound had sucked away his strength, the sunlight dazzled him, and +feeling a little overcome, and not equal, without pause, to the long +interview that awaited him, he stayed awhile in a shady laurel corner, +and leaning against a piece of iron railing, watched Mr. Brookes and +Mr. Berkins as they paced the tennis lawn to and fro. The old +gentleman frequently stopped in his walk to point at the glass houses. + +"My dear Berkins, I wish you would try to get Willy some appointment; +he would, I am sure, take anything over two hundred and fifty a year. +He would do marvellously well in an office--he loves it. I assure you +his eyes twinkle when one speaks of how books are kept, or alludes in +any way to the routine of office work. You should see his accounts and +his letter books, they would make the best clerk you ever had feel +ashamed of himself; but left to himself I am afraid he will do no +good; he has all the method, but nothing else. He lost money in Bond +Street; I am afraid to tell you how much he dropped on the Stock +Exchange, but that was not entirely his fault--the firm went bankrupt; +nobody could have foreseen it, it was quite unheard of." + +"I have always noticed that successful men do not buy partnerships in +firms that go bankrupt." + +"Very true, Berkins; I wish I had asked your advice on the subject." + +"I wish you had, Mr. Brookes. You are no doubt a very clever man, but +on one or two points you are liable to make mistakes; you are, if I +may so speak, a little weak. You should come and live with me for a +few months, I would put you right." + +"This is really too much," thought Mr. Brookes; and had it not been +for the certain knowledge that Berkins had lately increased his income +by a couple of thousands a year, he would have answered him tartly +enough; but as this fact admitted of no doubt he bridled his anger and +said: "If you could put my boy right it would be more to the point. He +has all the method of the best clerk in London; he loves the work, he +would do honour to any office, but on his own hook I am afraid he will +never do anything but lose his money." + +"Your money, you mean." + +"Well, my money if you like. You are very provoking, Berkins. I don't +know if you do it with the express purpose of annoying me. I was +saying, when you interrupted me, that Nature had evidently intended my +son for a clerk rather than for a speculator. I fear he is doing very +badly with his shop in Brighton. The rents are very high in East +Street, and I don't think he sells anything. He takes enough away from +here, though. I don't remember if I ever told you that I was foolish +enough to agree to his taking away, buying from me at the market price +he calls it, the surplus produce of my garden and greenhouses. I dare +say I shall get the money one of these days, but at present I see no +sign of it. He is always making up the accounts, and, so far as we +have gone, the result of this arrangement is that, when I complain +that there is neither fruit nor vegetables on my table, I am told that +everything went to Brighton. I am forced, I assure you, to send my +carriage and my horses, that I paid two hundred guineas for, to fetch +potatoes, and he, too, uses my carriage to take his vegetables to the +shop. He gets his sisters to bring them when they go out driving, nor +can I even buy my fruit and vegetables off him at cost price; he says +that would interfere with his book-keeping, and so I am obliged to buy +everything from Hutton, and you know what his prices are. I assure +you, it is most annoying." + +"Mr. Brookes, your fortune will not bear this constant drain; you must +remember that we are living in very bad times--times that are not what +they were. I have heard that your distillery--" + +"Yes, times are very bad. I have never known them worse, and no doubt +you find them so too. They ought to affect you even more than they do +me. My income is, as you know, all invested money, whereas yours is +all in your business." + +"Of course, I am affected by the times; had they remained what they +were, even what they were towards the end of the seventies, I should +be making now something over ten thousand pounds a year. But, thank +God! I have not to complain. Next year I hope to invest another five +thousand pounds. The worst of it is, that there is no price for money +in legitimate securities." + +"Everything is very bad; you never will invest your money as I did +mine ten years ago. My business is not, of course, what it used to be, +but I don't complain; if it weren't for troubles nearer home I should +get on very well." + +"I hope that Sally has commenced no new flirtation in the Southdown +Road. I thought she had promised you--since she gave up Meason--that +she would for the future know no one that lived there." + +"I was thinking for the moment of Willy, not of Sally; she has not +been so troublesome lately. But no sooner are we out of one trouble +than we are in another. It is, of course, very regrettable that young +Escott should have stabbed himself, and in my garden too. I, who hate +scandals, seem always plunged in one. I hear they are talking of it in +the clubs in Brighton. I hope Lord Mount Rorke will not hear of it; if +he did, do you think it would prejudice him against the match?" + +"Then you're prepared to give your consent?" + +"Why not? Surely! I really don't see--Lord Mount Rorke is a very rich +man." + +"Possibly, but Irish peers are not always as rich as they would like +us to believe they are. The connection is, of course, desirable, but I +hope your anxiety to secure it will not lead you into making foolish, +I will say reprehensible, monetary concessions. What I mean is this. I +am a straightforward man, Mr. Brookes, brought up in a hard school, +and I always come straight to the point. You are a rich man, Mr. +Brookes--you have the reputation of being a richer man than you are-- +and it is possible, I don't say it is probable, that Lord Mount Rorke +will expect you to make a large settlement. He will possibly--mind +you, I do not say probably--taking the coronet into consideration-- +those people think as much of their titles as we do of our money--ask +you to settle a thousand a year, may be fifteen hundred a year, upon +your daughter." + +"Settle a thousand--maybe fifteen hundred--a year on my daughter!" +cried the horror-stricken Brookes. + +"He may even ask for two thousand a year. Remember, you are a +distiller--he is a peer of the realm. And now I say," continued +Berkins, growing more emphatic as he reached the close of his +declamation, "that in my wife's interest I will oppose any and all +attempts to purchase a coronet for Maggie at her sister's expense." + +Mr. Brookes stood for a moment stupefied--as if some great calamity +had befallen him. The housekeeping bills, the loss of his fruit and +vegetables, even the Southdown Road seemed as nothing in the face of +this new misfortune. Troublesome as his daughters were, he preferred +an occasional recrudescence of flirtation in his garden to settling +the money that he had made himself and letting them go; no pen can +describe the anguish that the surrendering of the ten thousand pounds +which he had settled on Grace had caused him; but to be told now that +the alliance with a lord which he so greedily coveted, and which had +been so agreeably tickling him for the last few days, would cost him +perhaps two thousand a year, was more than he could bear. He had +avoided as much as possible even thinking of the money question. One +hundred--two hundred--the shadow of three hundred had fallen for a +moment on his mind, but he had successfully chastened these +unpleasantnesses by thoughts of the liberality, the generosity of the +aristocracy, and he had encouraged a hope that Mount Rorke would let +him off with a statement of how much Maggie would have at his death. +And now to hear these terrible prognostications, and from his own son- +in-law, too. It was too bad--it was too cruel. "You don't know what +you are talking about, Berkins. If it were business I would listen to +you, but really when it comes to discussing the aristocracy it is more +than I can stand. What do you know about the aristocracy--not that," +cried Mr. Brookes, snapping his fingers. "You were brought up in an +office--what should you know? You were a clerk once at thirty +shillings a week--what should you know? Lord Mount Rorke would never +think of making such ridiculous proposals to me. You judge him by +yourself, Berkins, that's it, that's it! I dare say he has heard of me +in the City--many of your great lords do business in the City. I dare +say he has heard of me, and if he has he'll not try any nonsense with +me. Twist him round my finger, twist him round my finger." + +Berkins liked a lord, but Berkins liked lords without thinking himself +one jot their inferior, and he was sure that his horse and his dog and +his house and everything belonging to him were better than theirs; and +secure in the fact that his grandfather had been a field officer, he +did not think it amiss to brag that he had begun life with thirty +shillings a week, so he only smiled at his father-in-law's wrath, +feeling now easy in his mind that Grace's future fortune would not be +prejudiced for Maggie's glorification. + +The discussion had fallen, and Mr. Brookes went to meet the young man +whom he caught sight of coming across the sward. + +"Most imprudent of you to come out to-day," he said, scanning the +white face. + +"Oh, I am very well now, thanks. The sun is a little overpowering, +that is all. I want to speak to you, Mr. Brookes." + +"Speak to me? Yes. Will you go into the billiard-room, my boy? I can +see the heat has upset you. Take my arm." + +Frank took the offered arm. He was feeling very faint, but the cool +and dim colour of the billiard-room revived him, and when he had had +some claret and water, he said that he felt quite strong, and listened +patiently to Mr. Brookes. + +"Well, I never! No, I never heard of such a thing. A stiletto, too. +You brought it from Italy? It makes me feel quite young again. Ah! +'tis hard to say what we won't do for a girl when Miss Right comes +along. I was just the same--pretty keen on it, I can tell you, when I +was your age; and I don't know, even now,--but a man with grown-up +daughters must be careful. Still when I see a little waist, high +heels, plump--you know, that's the way I used to like them when I used +to go to the oyster shops; there was one at the top of the Haymarket. +Ah! I was young then, young as you are; I was keen on it--Aunt Mary +will tell you that--there was nothing I wouldn't do; I never went as +far as stabbing--walking about at night, tears, torments as much as +you like, but I never went so far as stabbing. Wonderful what love +will make a man do! Supposing you had killed yourself; in my garden, +too--awful! What would people say? I hear they are talking of it in +the clubs--hope it won't go any further. Should Mount Rorke hear of +it! Eh? Might set him against us; might not give his consent--eh? We +should be up a tree, then." + +"I don't think there is much danger of that. I came to-day, Mr. +Brookes, to ask for your consent; am I to understand that you give +it?" + +"Well, my dear Frank, I don't see why I should refuse it; I have known +you since you were quite a small boy. I don't want to flatter you. I +don't know that I care much about young men as a rule, but you, I have +always found you--well, just what you should be. Of course the +connection is very flattering. You will one day be Lord Mount Rorke, +and to see my darling Maggie sharing your honours will be--that is to +say if I live to see it--a great, a very gre--great hon--our." + +Feeling much embarrassed Frank begged of him not to mention it. "I +shall be writing to-morrow or next day to my uncle; shall I say that +you have given your consent to my marriage with your daughter? I may +say that I have already written to him on the subject." + +"By all means, my dear boy. I think I can say you have my consent-- +that is to say, you have my consent if the money's all right. All is, +of course, subject to that. Now you are for love in a cottage, bread +and cheese romance; a man who will use a stiletto can't be expected to +know much about money, but I am a father, my stiletto days are over, +and I couldn't give my daughter without a settlement. You will, no +doubt, be--of course you will be--Lord Mount Rorke one of these days; +but in the meantime there must be a proper settlement. My daughter +must be properly provided for; it is my duty to look after her +interests, so you may as well tell your uncle that I shall be pleased +to meet him and talk the matter over with him. I will meet him in +London, when it suits his convenience; I need hardly say that if he +should choose to come down here that I shall be pleased to see him. +And now tell me--of course he will be prepared to act handsomely; I +have no doubt he will, the aristocracy always do act handsomely, no +one is so liberal as your aristocrat. I hope he will settle a good +round sum on my daughter--money invested in first-class securities, +not what Berkins would call first-class, but what I should call first- +class securities; and should your uncle prove the liberal man that I +have no doubt he is, I don't say that I won't behave handsomely. Of +course you know that my dear children will have all my money at my +death. I shall never marry again, that is a settled thing; but in the +meantime I will do something. When Grace was married I behaved very +generously--too generously--a lot of money--mustn't do it again, times +are not what they were. But at my death I shall make no difference, +all three will share and share alike." + +Frank hoped when Brookes and Mount Rorke met, that the former would +modify his demands, and what was still more important, his mode of +expressing them. But why should Mr. Brookes appear to him in such a +sudden glow of vulgarity? He had never thought of him as a refined and +cultivated gentleman, but was unprepared for this latest +manifestation. + +"Lord Mount Rorke allows me a certain annual income, he will no doubt +double this income upon my marriage; I daresay he would--since he has +recognised me as his heir--make this income legally mine by deed, I +could then settle a certain sum on Maggie, in case of my death; but +then further settlements would be required when I succeed to the title +and the property. I had thought--and indeed I think still--that if my +uncle makes me a sufficient allowance, that we might avoid touching on +this matter at all. Lord Mount Rorke is an irritable man, and I am +sure that if you were to speak to him as you--" + +"Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! nonsense! You don't suppose I am going to give +my daughter to a man unless he can settle a sufficient sum of money +upon her? Berkins wouldn't hear of it. He was only telling me just +now--" + +"But I don't think you understand me, Mr. Brookes. I do not propose +that you should give me any money with your daughter. Let what you +give her be settled upon her, and let it be tied up as strictly as the +law can tie it." + +"Pooh! pooh! the man that marries my daughter must settle a sum of +money at least equal to what I settle upon her; and it must be money +invested in first-class security, otherwise I couldn't think of giving +her one penny." + +"I am sorry, Mr. Brookes, that you are so determined on this point. +These matters generally arrange themselves if people incline to meet +each other half way, and I am sure that my uncle will resent it if you +insist on pounds, shillings, and pence as you propose doing. He is not +accustomed to strict business--marriages in our family were never made +on such principles; my happiness is bound up in Maggie. I hope you +will consider what you are risking." + +"I would do more for you than any one else, Frank, but business is +business, and the man who has my daughter must settle a sum of money +equivalent to what I settle." + +"I am afraid I have talked too much, I am not very strong, yet with +your permission we will adjourn this discussion to another day--in the +meantime I will write to my uncle." + +Mr. Brookes did not offer the assistance of his arm, and had he, Frank +would certainly not have accepted it. Holding the door, the old man +waited for his visitor to pass out. "Southdown Road or the heir to a +peerage: it is all the same, my money is what is wanted--the money I +had made myself," thought Mr. Brookes. "Dreadful old man, he would +sell his daughter for a settlement of a few hundred pounds a year. I +never knew he was so bad, my eyes are opened," thought Frank. Both +were equally angry, and without secrecy or subterfuge they sought +consolation in different parts of the garden. Mr. Brookes resumed his +walk on the tennis ground with Berkins, and stopping frequently to +point to his glass-houses, he described his misfortunes with profuse +waves of his stick. Frank had found Maggie, and they now walked +together in the shade and silence of the sycamores--he, vehement and +despairing of the future; she, subtle and strangely confident that +things would happen as she wished them. + +Having once yielded and felt the pang of possession she was wholly +his, in all ramifications of spirit and flesh, both in her brain and +blood, and the utmost ends of her sense mingled with him. But to him, +she was the symbol of the desire of which he was enamoured, the desire +which held together his nature and gave it individuality--love of +_the_ young girl. + +"Oh! my darling, if he should speak so to Mount Rorke, we should be +parted for ever--no, that could never be--nothing in heaven or earth +would induce me to give you up, be true to me and I will be true to +you; but our happiness--no, not our happiness, that is in ourselves-- +but all our prospects in life will be wrecked if he will not give way. +Should he and Mount Rorke meet--" + +"But they won't meet; have patience--I know how to manage father. He +doesn't like to part with his money, and I can understand it, he made +it all himself; but he will get used to the idea in time, leave him to +me; put your trust in me." + +She extended her hand, he took it, pressed it to his lips; he took her +in his arms and kissed her, and the leaves of the sycamores were +filled with the sunset. + +"DEAR SIR,--I received a letter this morning from my nephew, apprising +me of his engagement to your daughter. He has apparently obtained your +consent, and he asks for mine, and he also asks from me not only an +increase of income to meet the requirements of altered circumstances, +but he tells me that you will expect me to settle some seven, eight, +or ten thousand pounds upon your daughter. + +"I do not propose to discuss the reasonableness of his or your +demands, but it seems that a statement of his prospects is owing to +you. + +"Having never married when I was a young man, many have assumed--I +among the number--that I never would marry; and I admit that I have +allowed my nephew to grow up in the belief that he is my heir and the +successor to the title of Mount Rorke; but beyond a general assumption +existing in my mind, his mind, and the minds of those who know us, +there is no reason to suppose that I shall not marry, or that I shall +leave him a single sixpence, and I willingly make use of this +opportunity to say that I have no faintest intention of entering +intoany engagement either verbal or written with him upon this matter.-- +Yours very truly, MOUNT RORKE." + +"MY DEAR FRANK,--The enclosed is a copy of the letter which I send by +this post to Mr. Brookes. And I make no disguise of the fact that it +was written with the full intention of rendering your marriage an +impossibility. It will no doubt appear to you a harsh and cruel +letter; it will no doubt grieve you, madden you--in your rage you may +call me a brute. The epithet will be unjust; but knowing very well +indeed what love is at twenty-five, I will forgive it. And now to the +point. I know something about old Brookes, and I remember the lean boy +you used to bring here, and judging from some slight traces that Eton +had not succeeded in effacing, I think I can guess what the rest of +the family is like; indeed, the old gentleman's preposterous demand +that I should settle ten thousand pounds on his daughter throws a +sufficient light on his character, and in some measure reveals what +sort of manner of man he is. But let all this be waived. I admit that +with some show of reason, you may say it is unjust, nay more, it is +ridiculous, to pronounce judgment on people I have never seen, and it +is cruelty worthy of a Roman Emperor to wreck the lifelong happiness +of two young people for the sake of a prejudice that the trouble of a +journey to Brighton will most certainly extinguish. I will not +irritate you by assuring you that the world is full of desirable +women-women that will appeal to you two years hence precisely as Miss +Brookes appeals to you now. Were I to whisper that it is unwise to +give up all women for one woman, you could not fail, in your present +mood, to see in my philosophy only the nasty wisdom of a cynical old +reprobate. Therefore I will not weary you with advice--what I have +said must be considered not as advice, but rather as an expression of +personal experience in the love passion, serving as illustration of +the attitude of my mind towards you. I will limit myself to merely +asking you--no, not to think again of Miss Brookes--that would be +impossible, but to leave Southwick for London or Paris, the latter for +preference. I will give you a letter of introduction to a charming +lady (ah! were I thirty years younger). Put yourself in her hands, and +I have no doubt in the world but that she will send you back cured in +six months, as my bank-book will abundantly prove. + +"If you cannot do this--if so drastic a remedy should be too repugnant +to your present feelings, I would remember, were I in your place, that +my uncle had never refused me anything; that I could draw upon him for +what money I liked--that is to say, for all pleasures and satisfaction +save one. I would remember that at his death I was to inherit ten +thousand a year and a title; and I would weigh (first examining each +weight carefully, to see if it were true weight) all these present and +future advantages against the gratification of possessing a woman I +loved when I was twenty-five for a period of time extending perhaps +over half a century; I would think--at least I think and hope I should +hesitate--before I refused to obey one of whose affection I was sure, +and I feel certain it would go hard with me before I refused to +gratify the whim--call it a whim if you like--of one who had often +given but never asked before. + +"Somehow I think you owe me this sacrifice; I have done much for you +and am prepared to do more, and to speak quite candidly, I want +something in return; I do not mean that I am desirous of striking a +bargain with you, but we all expect to receive--of course not +directly, but in some remote way--something for what we give, and I +confess that I look forward to your companionship to assist me through +the last course of life. I do not want you now--for the next few years +I want you to see the world, to educate yourself; I want you to +improve your taste in art and letters, and later on, if possible, to +turn yourself to some public account. Besides other work, I am now +working at my memoirs; they are to be published after my death, as I +have arranged, under your supervision. I regard these memoirs as being +of the first importance, and it is advisable that you should be in +full possession of all my intentions respecting them. Hitherto I have +always looked after everything myself, but the time will come when I +shall not be able to do this, and shall require you to relieve me of +the burden of business. Then I wish you to live here, so that you may +learn to love Mount Rorke. I am very busy now with improvements, and I +would wish you to be with me so that you might adequately enter into +my views and ideas. To conclude, I do not marry for your sake; do you +not marry for mine, at least do not marry for the present. I do not +say that if I knew and liked the girl of your choice--if she were in +your own set--that I could not be won over, but on the whole I would +sooner you didn't marry. But I could not really endure a lot of new +acquaintances--people who had never dined in a lord's house, and would +all want to be asked--no, I could not endure it. I am an old man, and +now I want to enjoy myself in my own way, and my desire is to get +through the last years of my life with you. + +"You can do what you please, ask here whomever you please, give me a +few hours of your time when I am particularly busy with my memoirs, +and, above all, let us be alone sometimes after dinner, so that we can +turn our chairs round to the fire and talk at our ease.--Your +affectionate uncle, MOUNT RORKE." + +"So he won't pay for a secretary, and wants me to do the work; that's +about the meaning of that letter." Frank re-read the letter sentence +for sentence, and as he read new sneers and new expressions of scorn +rose in his brain in tremulous ebullition. There was scarcely a plan +for the chastisement of his uncle that he did not for some fleeting +moment entertain, and one most ironical letter he committed to paper; +but Maggie would not hear of its being sent, and he was surprised and +glad to see that she was not depressed and disheartened at the turn +affairs had taken. + +"I can do what I like with father; Sally can't, but I can. You leave +it me." + +"What's the good of that? You can't get round Mount Rorke." + +"Never mind; we don't want to get married yet awhile. We'll be +engaged, it is nearly the same thing. We shall be able to go anywhere +together--up to town, if we only come back the same day. Write a nice +letter to your uncle, saying you'll do nothing without his consent; +that it is true your affections are very much engaged, but that your +first thought is of him--" + +"Oh! but my darling, I want to make you mine." + +"So you shall--we shall be engaged; father won't consent to our being +married, but he can't prevent us being engaged. You'll see, I'll get +round father sooner or later; he'll give in." + +"But you won't get round Mount Rorke; if he would only come here and +see you." + +"He won't do that; but one of these days he'll be in London. I suppose +he goes to the Park sometimes; we'll go too, you'll introduce me--a +little impromptu, and I'll see if I can't get him to like me." + +"How clever you are!" + +"I understand father." + +Still it required all Maggie's adroitness to even partially reconcile +Mr. Brookes to Lord Mount Rorke's letter. She accepted without +argument that marriage in the present circumstances was out of the +question. She even went so far as to cordially assent that a man would +be a fool to give his daughter to a man who could not settle a +substantial sum of money upon her, and she only ventured to suggest +that it would be foolish not to give Lord Mount Rorke the opportunity +of changing his mind. She spoke of his immense fortune, and +exaggerated it until she made even Berkins seem a paltry creature in +the old man's eyes. + +Frank was anxious to propitiate Sally. He returned from London with +presents for her, and he always spoke to her, looking at her +admiringly. + +He showed much anxiety, and, fearing that she found it dull at his +studio, when the sisters came to tea he begged her to give him +Meason's address. Sally tossed her head; she had had enough of Meason, +and her manner left no doubt as to her sincerity. But happening to +meet Meason a few days after in the train, Frank slipped easily into +asking him to come and see him; and in the easy atmosphere of the +studio the acquaintanceship soon ripened into intimacy, and after a +preliminary ruffling of plumage, Sally restored her old sweetheart to +all the rights of wrong. Life went well amid incessant secrets, +letter-writing, and tea parties. Grace came to the studio to lunch +sometimes, and she had been betrayed into a promise not to say a word +about Meason. It was never ascertained whether, in the indiscretion of +the marital night, she had betrayed this trust, or whether some +jealous enemy had spoken or written to Mr. Brookes on the subject; but +certain it is that one joyful day when Meason, Sally, and Maggie were +eating oysters, and Frank was twisting the corkscrew into a bottle of +Chablis, there came an ominous ringing at the door. + +"I wonder who that can be. Shut up, Triss." + +"Perhaps it is father." + +"He is in London." + +"I'm not so sure about that." + +"No matter--we don't want to see them." + +"Rather not! They wouldn't have known we were here had it not been for +that dog." + +"I must go and see who it is. Come here, sir; come here, you brute." + +"Supposing it is father?" + +"Get behind that piece of tapestry. I'll say that Meason and I were +having some oysters." + +"Come here, sir. I'd better tie up that dog--I wonder who it is?" + +"Open the door." + +"Oh! Mr. Brookes, quite an unexpected pleasure." + +"I have come, sir, for my daughters." + +"Your daughters? Your daughters are not here. Mr. Brookes." + +"I have reason to know they are here, and I will not leave without +them." + +"You will do well to let us in, Mr. Escott; we are determined--" + +"Who are you? What business is it of yours?" + +"Should you refuse us admission we are resolved to wait here till +evening, till midnight if necessary!" exclaimed Berkins. "I say again +you will do well to admit us, and so avoid a scandal on the green." + +"You can come in if you like." + +"Will you kindly chain up that dog of yours?" + +"Well, this is coming it too strong; this is a little too 'steep.' If +Mr. Brookes refuses to believe my word that his daughters are not here +he may come in and look for them, and to facilitate his search I will +tie up the dog--(the dog is tied up). But you, what brings you here? +What the devil, I should like to know, brings you here, poking your +nose into other people's business?" + +"Mr. Brookes, will you answer him?" + +"I must decline your offer to admit me unaccompanied by my son-in-law. +We shall not stay long." + +"All this seems to me very extraordinary, but since you wish it, Mr. +Brookes, pray enter." + +"Is that dog tied up quite securely?" + +"Quite. I think you know Mr. Meason?" + +"Mr. Meason knows very well that I do not wish to know him." + +"If you only come here to insult my guest, the sooner you go out the +better. Had I known that you intended to behave in this fashion I +should have left you standing outside till morning. I'll not have--" + +"Never mind, Escott; I'm off. Mr. Brookes and I are no longer on +speaking terms, that's all! I'll see you later on." + +"Don't go, pray." + +"I think I must." + +"I am surprised, Frank," said Mr. Brookes, when Meason was gone, "that +you should seek your friends among the enemies of my family." + +"We will not discuss that question now. I never heard of such conduct +--you force your way into my studio, and apparently for no purpose but +to insult my guest. You see your daughters are not here." + +"I am by no means satisfied with that," said Berkins, opening a door. +"I must see behind that piece of tapestry." + +"No, you shall not. I have had just about enough of this. How dare +you? God's truth--" and as Berkins seemed determined to continue his +search, Frank caught him by the collar. + +But Berkins was tall and strong, and showed no intention of allowing +himself to be thrown out. His long legs were soon extended here and +there; his body was sometimes bent back by Frank's weight, once he had +succeeded in nearly throwing Frank over on the sofa. Mr. Brookes had +fled to the door, which, in his excitement, he failed to open, and the +struggle was continued until at last, maddened by a most tight and +tempting aspect of Berkin's thigh, Triss broke his collar, and in a +couple of bounds, reached and fixed his teeth deep in the flesh. + +"Triss, you brute, leave go." But Triss clung to the long-desired +thigh. "I'll twist his tail, it will make him leave go." + +With a savage yelp of pain the dog turned on his master and was hauled +instantly off Berkins's thigh. + +"I need hardly say that so far as the dog is concerned, I regret, and +I am truly sorry for what has occurred." + +"Sir, do you not see what a state I am in; do not stand there making +excuses, but lend me your handkerchief. I shall bleed to death if you +don't." + +"Shall I tie it up for you?" + +"If those girls there would only fetch a doctor." + +Mr. Brookes could not refrain from foolish laughter, and in a moment +of wretched despair he declared that it would be all the same in a +hundred years time--a remark which would not have failed to irritate +Berkins if he had not fainted. + + + + +XIII + + + +Next day Willy called at the studio, and Frank told him what had +occurred. + +"But I don't see why you shouldn't come to the Manor House," said +Willy. "If you will only say something about the Measons, I think it +can be made all right." + +"No, I'm not going to turn against Meason; I have always found him a +good fellow. I know nothing about his flirtation with Sally." + +"No more do I; I think it has been exaggerated, but, as you know, I +never interfere. I wish you would come in to dinner one night." + +"Supposing I were to meet Berkins?" + +Willy stroked his moustache. + +"No, it is quite impossible that I could return to the Manor House. +Your father behaved in a way--well, I will not say what I think of +it." + +"Berkins hasn't been to the City since. Grace was over here yesterday, +she says he limps about the garden. He'll never forgive you; he says +that you didn't call the dog off at once." + +"That's a lie; and I said, 'So far as the incident with the dog is +concerned, I am very sorry.'" + +"I think that made him more angry than anything else; he thought you +were laughing at him." + +"I was not. It was most unfortunate. I shall not give Maggie up. I am +writing to-morrow or next day to Mount Rorke." + +All were agreed that things must come right sooner or later. Maggie +fought for her lover, and emphatically asserted her engagement. She +yielded on one point only--not to visit the studio; but she maintained +her right in theory and in practice to go where she liked with him in +train or in cart, to walk with him on the cliff, to lunch with him at +Mutton's. They found pleasure in thus affirming their love, and it +pleased them to see they were observed, and to hear that they were +spoken about. Nevertheless the string that sung their happiness had +slipped a little, and the note was now not quite so clear or true. +Frank could not go to the Manor House; Maggie could not go to the +studio. Whether Mount Rorke would consent to their marriage perplexed +them as it had not done before. + +The summer fades, the hills grow grey, and a salt wind blew up from +the sea, blackening the trees, and the beauty of autumn was done. +Frank thought of Ireland, and what personal intercession might +achieve. She begged of him to go, and he promised to write to her +every day. + +"Every day, darling, or I shall be miserable." + +"Every day." + +"Arrived safe after a very rough passage. Every one was ill, I most of +all." + +She received a post-card:-- +"It was raining cats and dogs when I got out of the train. Mount Rorke +sent a car to meet me; the result is that I am in bed with a bad cold. +The house is full of company--people I have known, or known of, since +I was a boy; we shall begin pheasant-shooting in a few days. When I am +out of bed I shall write a long letter. Do you write to me; I shall be +awfully disappointed if I do not get a letter to-morrow morning." + +Extract from a letter:-- + +"Mount Rorke is considered to be a handsome place, but as I have known +it from childhood, as my earliest memories are of it, I cannot see it +with the eyes of a professed scenery hunter. I have loved it always, +but I do not think I ever loved it more than now, for now I think that +one day I shall give it to you. Should that day come--and it will +come--what happiness it will be to walk with you under the old trees, +made lovelier by your presence, to pass down the glades to the river, +watching your shadow on the grass and your image in the stream. We +will roam together through the old castle, and I will show you the +little bed I used to sleep in, the school-room where I learned my +lessons. When I entered the old room I saw in imagination--and oh, how +clearly!--the face of my governess; and how easily I see her in the +corridor she used to walk down to get to her room. + +"Poor, dear, old thing, I wonder what has become of her! + +"I saw again the pictures that stirred my childish fancy, and whose +meaning I once vainly strove to decipher. + +"I came to live here when I was four, immediately after my father's +death. I can just remember coming here. I remember Mount Rorke taking +me up in his arms and kissing me. I will not say there is no place +like home--I do not believe that; but certainly no place seems so +real. Every spot of ground has its own particular recollections. Every +bend of the avenue evokes some incident of childish life (in Ireland +we call any road leading to a house an avenue, even if it is +absolutely bare of trees; we also speak of rooks as crows, and these +two provincialisms jarred on my ear after my long stay in Sussex). +Mount Rorke is covered with trees--great woods of beech and fir--and +at the end of every vista you see a piece of blue mountain. A river +passes behind the castle, winding through the park; there are bridges, +and swans float about the sedges, and there are deer in the glades. +The garden,--I do not know if you would like the garden; it is old- +fashioned--full of old-fashioned flowers--convolvuluses, Michaelmas +daisies, marigolds; hedges clipped into all sorts of strange and close +shapes. There is a beautiful avenue behind the garden (an avenue in +the English sense of the word) where you may pace to and fro and feel +an exquisite sense of solitude; for when the castle had passed out of +the hands of Irish princes--that is to say, brigands--it was turned +into a monastery, and I often think, as I look on the mossy trees--the +progeny of those under whose leafage the monks told their beads--that +all happened that I might throw my arm about you some beautiful day, +and whisper, 'My wife, this is yours.'" + +"How beautifully he writes," said Sally reflectively. + +"You never had a lover who wrote to you like that. Do you remember how +Jimmy used to write?" + +"I don't know how he wrote to you, but his letters to me, I will say +that, were quite as nice as anything Frank could write. You needn't +toss your head, you are not Lady Mount Rorke yet." + +Sally refused to hear, but presently, seeing a cloud on her sister's +face, and thinking the letter contained some piece of unpleasantness, +she relented, and pressed her to continue. + +"The house is full of people--people whom I have known all my life-- +and they make a great deal of me. I have to tell them about Italy, and +they ask me absurd questions about Michael Angelo or Titian, Leonardo +or Watteau.... The house party is a large one, and we have people to +dinner every day; and in the evening the drawing-room, with its grim +oak and escutcheons and rich modern furniture, is a pretty sight +indeed. There is a lady here whom I knew in London, Lady Seveley; and +I have had suspicions that Mount Rorke would like me to marry her. But +she has the reputation of being rather fast, so perhaps the old +gentleman is allowing his thoughts to wander where they should not. I +hope not for his sake, for I hear she is devoted to a young Irishman, +a Mr. Fletcher, a journalist in London. I met them at Reading once in +most suspicious circumstances. He is the son of a large grazier, one +of my uncle's tenants, and she is, I suppose, so infatuated that she +could not resist the temptation of calling on his family. She was +careful not to speak of her intentions to anybody, but waited until +she got a favourable opportunity and slipped off to pay her visit. The +Fletchers live about half a mile from the castle. I was riding that +way, and met her coming out of their house. I got off my horse and +walked back together. I hope Mount Rorke will not hear of her +ladyship's escapade; he would be very angry, for the Fletchers are +people who would be asked to have something to eat in the +housekeeper's room if they called at the Castle. In London one knows +everybody, but in the country we are more conservative." + + "I hope she won't cut you out," said Sally. "It would be a sell for +you if she did. Go on." + +"No, I shan't, you are too insulting." + +"Who began it? You told me that I didn't get such nice letters as you. +Pray go on." + +"I do not know if you would think her handsome. I don't. She is, +however, an excellent musician; we play duets together every evening, +to Mount Rorke's intense delight. You know my dialogue between a lady +and a gentleman? She has written it down for me and corrected a few +mistakes; I think I shall publish it. Darling, I love you better than +any one in the world; you are all the world to me; try to love me a +little--you will never find any one to love you as I do." + +"Well, you can't find anything peculiarly disagreeable to say about +that, I think." + +Extract from another letter:-- + +"All the visitors have gone; Mount Rorke and I are quite alone. He is +kindness itself, and does not bother me about his memoirs; but from +what I hear that book will make one of the biggest sensations ever +made in the literary world. I want him to publish it now, but he only +smiles and shakes his head. He says: 'What is the use of setting the +world talking about you when you are alive; as long as I am alive I +can see those I want to see, and be with them far more personally than +I could by placing in their hands three volumes in 8vo; the 8vos are +only useful when you have passed into darkness, and are not yet +reconciled to dying quite out of the minds of men. I do not desire to +be remembered by those who will live three hundred years hence, but I +confess that I should like to modulate the pace of forgetfulness +according to my fancy, and be remembered, let us say, for the next +sixty or seventy years. I find no fault with death but its abruptness, +and that I hope to be able to correct. The vulgar and most usual plan +is children, but children are no anodyne to oblivion, whereas a good +book in a certain measure is.' + +"These are almost the words Mount Rorke used, and I quote them as +exactly as possible, so that you may see what kind of man he is. We +pulled our chairs round to the fire and had a real good talk. I know +no better company than Mount Rorke. He has seen everything, read +everything, and known everybody worth knowing; he is a mine of +information, and, what is far better, he is a complete man of the +world; and long contact with the world has left him a little cynical, +otherwise he is perfect. I told him the story about Berkins, and he +laughed; I never saw him laugh so before; and when I told him that I +had told Berkins, as he was tying up his leg, that so far as the +incident with the dog was concerned, I regretted deeply what had +occurred, he could not contain himself. He rang the bell, and we had +old Triss up. He asked a great deal about you; I leave you to imagine +what I said. How did he expect me to describe my darling? I told him +of your subtle, fascinating ways, of your picturesque attitudes, and +your exquisite little black eyes. 'I think I see her,' he said; +'little eyes that light up are infinitely more interesting than those +big, limpid, silly eyes that everybody admires.' I am now doing a +water-colour sketch from the photograph--the one in which you stand +with your hands behind your back and your head on one side--for him. I +am getting on with it pretty well. Ah! if only I had you here for an +hour (I should like to have you here for ever, of course; but now I am +speaking artistically, not humanly), I think I could get it really +like you; there are one or two things that the photo does not give me. +I shall send the sketch to Dublin to be framed; it will be a nice +present for Mount Rorke. + +"My darling, you must not be anxious; all will come right in time-- +have a little patience. He is already much more reconciled to the +match than he was when I arrived, and if your father will refrain from +speaking too much about that hateful question, I am sure that all +difficulties can be surmounted." + +She wrote to him three or four times a week, and on beautiful hand- +made paper, delicately scented. + +Extract from a letter:-- + +"We went up to town yesterday by the ten o'clock train West Brighton; +and so that we might have more money to spend, we went third class. +Father doesn't like us going third class, but I don't think it matters +if you get in with nice people. We were very jolly. The Shaws went +with us. They are very nice girls. They had to leave us at Victoria, +and I and my cousin, Agnes Keating, went shopping together. We met the +Harrisons at Russell & Allen's. We saw there some lovely dresses--I +wish you had been with us, for I have confidence in your taste, and +when I choose a thing myself I am never sure that I like it. The +assistant was so polite; she told me to ask for Miss ---; she said she +would like to fit me. Sally was coming up with us, but she changed her +mind and remained at home, I was very glad, for she is wretchedly +cross, and not looking at all well. You would not admire her in the +least; she is growing very yellow. But I don't mean to be ill-natured, +so we'll let Sally bide, as we say in Sussex. After Russell & Allen's +we went to Blanchard's, and had a nice lunch. Grace was in town; she +chaperoned us, and paid for everything; it was very kind of her. Then +we went to the theatre, and saw a play which we did not care about +much. There was a very stupid 'tart' in it. I do like 'gadding,' don't +I? But, oh, my darling Frank, gadding is not really gadding without +you. How I miss you, how we all miss you, but I especially. The +Keatings came over to tea to-day, and they asked about you. Blanche +wants you to write something in her album, and she admired immensely +the drawing you gave me. She is very artistic in her tastes; I think +you would like her. + +"But I have a bit of news that I think will amuse you. You remember +Mrs. Horlock's old dog--not the blind Angel; he's old too. But I mean +the real old dog,--the one twenty years old, that once belonged to a +butcher. He never smelt very sweet, as you know, but latterly he was +unbearable, and the General resolved on a silent and secret +destruction. He purchased in Brighton a bottle of chloroform. It was +the dead of the night and pitch dark. However, he reached the end of +the passage in safety; but suddenly he uttered a fearful shriek and +dropped the chloroform. He thought he had seen a ghost; but it was +only Mrs. Horlock, who was going her rounds, letting down the mouse- +traps and supplying the little creatures with food. The General +blurted out various excuses. He said that he had come to relieve the +cock parrot's tooth-ache--that he feared the Circassian goat was +suffering from spinal complaint and the squirrels from neuralgia. But +his protestations proved unavailing, and now he eats his meals in +silence. And to make matters worse, the old dog did die a few days +after--the General says from old age, but Mrs. Horlock avows that his +death resulted from fright. 'He was a sweet, cunning old thing, and no +doubt knew all about that plan to destroy him.' I think this would +make an excellent subject for a comic sketch; I wish you would do one +--the General dropping the bottle; Mrs. Horlock, surrounded by closed +mouse-traps and crumbs, sternly upbraiding him. + +"I see lots of Emily Pierce. Every Sunday I have tea with her, and +sometimes lunch; but she doesn't come here. I am afraid I couldn't get +on at all without her; we do everything together, and we hit it off so +well. + +"Sally has been staying in Kent. I do not know what's up, but she seems +to see everything _couleur de rose_; everything in Kent is better in +her estimation than anywhere else. The men dance so much better for one +thing. I am glad she is so happy, and I wish she would get married and +stay there. Father says he has a cough that tears him to pieces, but I +haven't heard it yet." + +The elementary notion of a woman in love is to surround, to envelop +the man she loves, with her individuality, and to draw him from all +other influences. And the woman in love strives to accomplish this by +ceaseless reiteration of herself or himself seen through herself. So +Maggie with her nervous, highly-strung, febrile temperament could not +refrain from constantly striking the lyre of love. Her hands were for +ever on the chords. Letters and notes of all kinds; impetuous messages +asking him when he would return; letters apologising for her +selfishness--he had better remain with Mount Rorke until his consent +had been obtained; resolutions and irresolutions, ardours, lassitudes, +forgetfulness followed fast in strange and incomprehensible +contradiction. And Frank was asked daily to perform some small task. +There was always something; and Frank undertook all he was asked to +do, for he loved to be as much as possible in that circle of life in +which his sweetheart lived, and to feel her presence about him. + +Extract from a letter:-- + +"Mount Rorke and I had a long and serious talk about you last night. +He is against the marriage, but then he is against marriage in +general. He said with his quiet, cynical laugh, 'I daresay she is a +pretty girl--I can read the truth through your romantic descriptions. +I am convinced that she is very charming. But are you quite sure that +you will never meet another equally charming girl? Remember the world +is a very big place, and the stock of women is large; are you sure +that you will be able to enjoy the charm which now rules and enchants +you for thirty, forty years without wearying of it? These are the +questions you have to consider, which marriage entails.' I need hardly +tell you what answer I made, and how I tried to convince him that your +charms are those that a man capable of appreciating them could not +weary of. Indeed I think I made him rather a neat answer--I said there +are books in one volume, in two volumes, in three volumes, and there +are books that you can take down and read at any time. He laughed; it +rather tickled his fancy. And he said, 'Quite true, there are some +books and some women that one never tires of--that is to say, that +some people never tire of. I haven't been so fortunate or unfortunate, +but that by the way. I admit such cases may occur. I will go further-- +I will admit that a man's life may be made or marred by his taking to +himself a wife; and if Miss Brookes were a really nice girl--if she +were the one girl in a million, and if I were sure that your passion +for each other has its root in deeper and more lasting sympathies than +those of the skin (these were his exact words)--believe me, my dear +Frank, I should not think of opposing the marriage. I shall be in +London during the season, and no doubt an occasion will arise, of +which I promise you to avail myself, of making this model young lady's +acquaintance. I will tell you what I think of her; she won't deceive +me, let her try how she will. There is only one thing I bar--one thing +must not be, one thing I will not tolerate--a bad marriage.' I lost my +temper for a moment, but Mount Rorke did not lose his, and I soon came +round. It is annoying to be spoken to in that way; but I remembered +that he had not seen you, and I consoled myself by thinking of how +great his conversion will be when he does. My only fear is that he'll +want to marry you himself. So, you see, my own darling, my uncle is on +the 'give,' and we shall win soon and easily. The only real obstacle +is your father's pig-headedness on all matters in which money enters. +I think with terror of his meeting with Mount Rorke. If he speaks to +Mount Rorke as he spoke to me, my uncle will take up his hat and wish +him good-morning. Do you exert all your influence. Do leave no stone +unturned. All depends upon you." + +Extract from another letter:-- + +"I am weary of this place, and I long to see you. My longing is such +that I can resist it no longer. Besides, nothing would be gained by +remaining here. Mount Rorke will not say more than he has said. In a +few days--think of that--I shall be with you. With what eagerness I +look forward. How gladly I shall see the train leave the dreary bogs +and the blue mountains of the West and pass into the pasture lands of +Meath; how gladly I shall hail the brown, slobber-faced city of +Dublin; with what delight I shall step on board the packet--I shall +not think of sea sickness--and watch the line of the low coast +disappear, then the Welsh mountains and castles, looking so like an +illustrated history of England. I must spend two days in London, alas! +I must order some new clothes. Victoria Station, with all its doors +and cab stands, and book-stalls, the Sussex scenery, the woodlands, +the Downs, the plunging through tunnels, and then you. Darling, I +cannot believe that such happiness is in store for me." + +All happened as he had anticipated. At Victoria the usual difficulties +had arisen about the dog. Triss was growling, the guard was cringing, +and, with reference to no stoppage before we come to Redhill, the +necessity of a muzzle was being argued. + +"I am certain it is she," and he followed with his eyes the tall, +swinging figure in the black cloth dress. Then he saw the clear plump +profile, so white, of Lizzie Baker. + +"Here, give me the chain, I'll tie the dog up." + +"But the muzzle, sir." + +A muzzle was procured, and Frank ran to the third class carriage where +he had seen Lizzie enter. + +"Lizzie! Lizzie!" + +"Oh, Mr. Escott, who would have thought of seeing you! It is such a +time--" + +"Yes, isn't it; how long? But are you going to Brighton?" + +"Yes." + +"So am I; but--let me get you a first-class ticket. Guard, have I time +to change my ticket?" + +"No, sir, the train is going to start; get in." +"Do you get out, Lizzie; I'll pay the difference at Brighton." + +"No time for changing now, sir; are you getting into this carriage?" + +He could not forego the pleasure of being with Lizzie. An old woman +with a provision basket on her lap drew her skirts aside and made way +for him; there were three dirtily dressed girls--probably shop girls; +they sat whispering together, a little troubled by the publicity; +there were two youths, shabbily dressed, their worn boots and trousers +covered with London mud. He was surprised, and he did not for a moment +understand or realise his company. Frank had never been in a third- +class carriage before. + +"I'm afraid you won't be comfortable here." + +"Oh, yes, I shall; I'd just as soon travel in one class as another-- +much sooner when it means being with you." + +"None of your nonsense; I see you haven't changed. Well, who'd have +thought it? Just fancy meeting you, and after all this time." + +"How long is it? It must be nearly two years. I haven't seen you +sincethat day we went up the river." + +"Yes, you have." + +"No; where did I see you since?" + +"At the bar; I didn't leave the 'Gaiety' for several days after." + +"No more you did; I remember now. But why did you leave without +letting me know where you were going?" + +"I didn't know I was leaving till the morning, and I left in the +afternoon. A lot of us were changed suddenly. The firm couldn't get +enough young ladies to do the work at the Exhibition." + +"But you didn't leave an address." + +"Yes, I did." + +"No, you didn't; I asked the manager, and he told me you had left no +address. They didn't know where you had gone." + +"Did he say so? You mean Mr. Fairlie, I suppose--now I come to think +of it, it is the rule of the firm not to give information about the +young ladies. I am sorry." + +"Are you?" + +"I am, really. We had a very pleasant day up the river--Reading; you +took me to Reading." + +"Yes; but you would never come again." + +"Wouldn't I? I suppose I couldn't find time--I did enjoy myself. What +a lovely day it was." + +"Yes; and do you remember how like a beautiful smile the river lay? +And do you remember the bulrushes? I rowed you in among the rushes; +you wet the sleeve of your dress plunging your arm in. I remember it, +that white plump arm." + +"Get along with you." + +"I wanted to make a sketch of you leaning over the boatside with your +lapful of water-lilies; I wish I had." + +"I wish you had, too; you wrote a little poem instead. It was very +pretty, but I should have liked the picture better. You gave me the +poem next day when you came in to lunch. You had lunch at the bar, and +I was so cross with you because you said I hadn't wiped the glass. It +was all done to annoy me because I had been talking to that tall, +rather stout young man, with the dark moustache, whom you were so +jealous of. Don't you remember?" + +"Yes, I remember; and I believe it was that fellow who prevented you +from coming out with me again." + +"No, it wasn't; but don't speak so loud, all these people are +listening to you." + +Frank met the round stare of the girls; and, turning from the dormant +curiosity of the old woman, he said-- + +"Do you remember the locks, how frightened you were; you had never +been through a lock before; and the beautiful old red brick house +showing upon the lofty woods; and coming back in the calm of the +evening, passing the different boats, the one where the girls lay back +in the arms of the young men, the flapping sail, and the dreamy +influences of the woods where we climbed and looked into space over +the railing?" + +"At the green-table--don't you remember?" + +"Yes, I remember every hour of that day; we had lunch at the +'Roebuck.'" + +"You haven't spoken of the lady we saw there. Lady Something--I forget +what you said her name was; you said she had been making up to you." + +"I dined with her one night, and we went to the theatre." + +"You may do that without it being said that you are making up to a +gentleman." + +"Of course; I should never think of saying you made up to me." + +"I should hope not, indeed." + +"I should never think of accusing you of having made up to me; you +have always treated me very badly." + +Lizzie did not answer. He looked at her, puzzled and perplexed, and he +hoped that neither the girls nor the old lady had understood. + +"I am sorry; I really didn't mean to offend you. All I meant to say +was that the lady we saw at the 'Roebuck' had been rather civil to me; +had--well I don't know how to put it--shown an inclination to flirt +with me--will that suit you?--and that I had not availed myself of my +chances because I was in love with you." + +Encouraged by a sunny smile, Frank continued: "You wouldn't listen to +me; you were very cruel." + +"I am sure I didn't mean to be cruel; I went out on the river with +you, and we had a very pleasant day. You didn't say then I was cruel." + +"No, you were very nice that day; it was the happiest day of my life. +I was in love with you; I shall never care for any one as I cared for +you." + +"I don't believe you." + +"I swear it is true. When you left the 'Gaiety' I searched London for +you. If you had only cared for me we might have been very happy. As +sure as a fellow loves a woman, so sure is she to like some other +chap. Tell me, why did you go away and leave no address?" + +"I did leave an address." + +"Well, we won't discuss that. Why didn't you write to me? You knew my +address. It's no use saying you didn't." + +"Well, I suppose I was in love with some one else." + +"Were you? You always denied it. Ah! so you were in love with some one +else? I knew it--I knew it was that thick-set fellow with the black +moustache. I wonder how you could like him--the amount of whisky and +water he used to drink." + +"Yes, usen't he? I have served him with as many as six whiskies in an +afternoon--Irish, he always drank Irish." + +"How could you like a man who drank?" + +"But it wasn't he--I assure you; I give you my word of honour. It +really wasn't. I'd tell you if it was." + +"Well, who was it, then? It couldn't be the old man with the beard and +white teeth?" + +"No." + +"Was it that great tall fellow, clean shaven?" + +"No, it wasn't; you'll never guess; There's no use trying. However, it +is all over now." + +"Why? Did he treat you badly? Whose fault was it?" + +"His. And the chances I threw away. He behaved like a beast. I had to +give up keeping company with him." + +"Why?" + +"Oh, I don't know. He changed very much towards me lately; he went +messing about after other girls, and we had words, and I left." + +"You will make it up. Perhaps you are mistaken." + +"Mistaken--no; I found their letters in his pocket." + +"There are always rows between sweethearts; and then they kiss and +make it up, and love each other the more." + +"No, I shall not see him again. We were going to be married; no, it is +all over. It was a little hard at first, but I am all right now." + +"I am sorry. Do you think there is no chance of making it up?" + +"I should have thought that you would be glad; men are so selfish they +never think of any one but themselves." + +"How do you mean? Why should I be glad that your marriage was broken +off?" + +"You said just now that you liked me very much, I thought--" + +"So I do like you very much. Once I was in love with you--that day +when we walked up the steep woods together." + +"And you don't care for me any longer?" + +"I don't say that; but I am engaged to be married." + +"Oh!" + +"Had you not snubbed me so I might have been married to you." + +"Who are you going to be married to--to the lady we saw that day?" + +"Oh, no, not to her." + +"I don't believe you. You mean to say you haven't been to see her +since." + +"I assure you---" + +"You mean to say you haven't seen her?" + +"I don't say that. I've just come from Ireland. I've been staying with +my uncle. She spent a week with us; that's all I have seen of her. I +am going now to see the young lady whom I am engaged to." + +"And when will you be married?" + +"I don't know; there are a great many difficulties in the way. Perhaps +I shall never marry her." + +"Nonsense. I know better. You think it will take me in. I'll never be +taken in again, not if I know it." + +"I don't want to take you in." + +"I don't know so much about that. Is she very pretty? I suppose you +are very much in love with her?" + +"Yes, I love her very much. Dark, not like you a bit--just the +opposite." + +"And you met her since you saw me?" + +"No." + +"Ah, I thought as much, and yet you told me the day we went up the +river together that you never had and couldn't care for any one elsebut +me. Men are all alike--they never tell the truth." + +"Wait a minute; wait a minute. I knew her long before I knew you; I +have known her since I was a boy, but that doesn't mean that I have +been in love with her since I was a boy. I never thought of her until +you threw me over, until long after; it was last summer I fell in love +with her." + +Lizzie's eyes were full upon him, and it seemed to them that each +could see and taste the essence of the other's thought. + +"What have you been doing ever since? You have told me nothing about +yourself." + +"Well, after trying vainly to find you--having searched, as I thought, +all Speirs and Pond's establishments in London, I tried to resign +myself to my fate. I assure you, I was dreadfully cut up--could do +nothing. My life was a burden to me. You have been in love, and you +know what an ache it is; it used to catch me about the heart. There +was no hope; you were gone--gone as if the earth had swallowed you. I +got sick of going to the 'Gaiety' and asking those girls if they knew +anything about you; so to cure myself I went to France, and I worked +hard at my painting. In such circumstances there is only one thing-- +work." + +"You are right." + +"Yes; nothing does you any good but work. I worked in the _atelier_-- +that's the French for studio--all the morning, and in the afternoon I +painted from the nude in a public studio. I had such a nice studio-- +such a jolly little place. I was up every morning at eight o'clock, my +model arrived at nine, and I worked without stopping (barring the ten +or twelve minutes' rest at the end of every hour) till twelve. Then I +went to the cafe to have breakfast--how I used to enjoy those +breakfasts--fried eggs all swimming in butter, a cutlet, after, nice +bread and butter, then cock your legs up, drink your coffee, and smoke +your cigarette till one." + +"Did you like the French cafe better than the 'Gaiety'?" + +"It is impossible to compare them. I made a great deal of progress. I +began one picture of a woman in a hammock, a recollection of you. You +remember when we passed under those cedar branches, close to the +'Roebuck,' we saw a hammock hung by the water's edge, and I said I +would like to see you in it, and stand by and rock you. I had intended +to send it to the Academy, but I never could finish it, the French +model was not what I wanted--I wanted you; and I was obliged to leave +France, and I could get no one in Southwick. Once a fellow changes his +model he is done for; he never can find his idea again." +"Where's Southwick?" + +"A village outside Brighton, three or four miles, not more. I have a +studio there; you must come and see it." + +"You must paint me. But what would your lady love say if she found me +in your studio? She'd have me out of it pretty quick. Tell me about +her; I want to hear how you fell in love." + +"It happened in the most curious, quite providential way. I have told +you that I knew them since I was a boy. Maggie has often sat on my +knee." + +"Maggie is her name, then?" + +"Yes, don't you like the name? I do. Her brother was a school-fellow +of mine. We were at Eton together, and one time when Mount Rorke was +away travelling they asked me to spend my holidays at Southwick. +That's how I got to know them. One day Maggie and Sally were at my +studio; Sally has a sweetheart--" + +The sentence was cut short by a sudden roar. The train had entered a +tunnel, and the speakers made pause, seeing each other vaguely in the +dim light, and when they emerged into the cold April twilight Frank +told the story of Triss and Berkins, Mr. Brookes struggling with the +door, and the girls rushing screaming from their hiding-place; and +Frank's imitation of Berkin's pomposity amused Lizzie, and she laughed +till she cried. He continued till the joke was worn bare; then, +fearing he had been talking too much of himself, he said: "Now, I have +been very candid with you, tell me about yourself." + +"There is nothing to tell; I think I have told you all." Then she +said, slipping, as she spoke, into minute confidences: "When I left +the 'Gaiety' I went for a few days to the Exhibition, but _he_ wanted +to leave London, so I applied to the firm to remove me to Liverpool +(not Liverpool Street; the girl--I suppose it was Miss Clarke, for I +wrote to her--made a mistake, or you misunderstood her). We remained in +Liverpool a year, and then we came back to London, and I went to the +'Criterion,' but I couldn't stop there long; he was so awfully jealous +of me; he used to catechise me every evening--who had I spoken to? How +long I had spoken to this man? Once I slapped a man's face in fun +because he squeezed my hand when I handed him the change across the +counter. There was such a row about it. I don't know how _he_ heard of +it. I think he must have got some one to watch me. I often suspected +the porter--the bigger one of the two; but you don't know the +'Criterion.' You used to go to the 'Gaiety.'" + +"Perhaps he saw you himself. I suppose he used to come to the bar?" + +"No, not unless--no, not very often. He banged me about." + +"Banged you about, the brute! Good heavens! How could you like a man +who would strike a woman? Who was he? Was he a gentleman--I mean, was +he supposed to be a gentleman? Of course he wasn't really a gentleman, +or he wouldn't have struck you." + +"He was in a passion, he was very sorry for it afterwards. Then I left +the firm and went to live in lodgings; he allowed me so much a week." + +"He was a man of some means?" + +"No, but it didn't cost him much, he knew the people. We were going to +be married, but he got ill, and we thought we had better wait; and I +went to the 'Gaiety' again. I was a fool, of course, to think so much +about him, for I had plenty of chances. One man who used to lunch +there three times a week wanted me to marry him, and take me right +away. I think he was in the printing business--a man who was making +good money; but I could not give Harry up." + +"Harry is his name, then?" + +"Yes; but it all began over again. It was just the same at the +'Gaiety' as it was at the 'Criterion.' He would never leave me alone, +but kept on accusing me of flirting with the gentlemen that came to +the bar. Now, you know as well as I do what the bar is. You must be +polite to the gentlemen you serve. There are certain gentlemen who +always come to me, and don't care to be served by any one else, and if +I didn't speak to them they wouldn't come to the bar. The manager is +very sharp, and would be sure to mention it." + +"Whom do you mean? That fellow with the yellow moustache that walks +about with his frock-coat all open--a sort of apotheosis of sherry and +bitters?" + +"That's what you called him once before. You see I remember. He is +very fond of sherry and bitters. But I was saying that Harry would +keep on interfering with me, pulling me over the coals. We had such +dreadful rows. He accused me of having gone with gentlemen to their +rooms--a thing I never did. I could stand it no longer, and we agreed +to part." + +"How long is that ago?" + +"About three weeks. I could stand it no longer, I couldn't remain at +the 'Gaiety,' so I resolved to leave." + +"Why couldn't you remain at the 'Gaiety,' the manager didn't know +anything about it?" + +"No, he knew nothing about it, it wouldn't have mattered if he had, +but after a break up like that you can't remain among people you know +--you want to get right away; there's nothing like a change. Besides I +mightn't get such a good chance again; I had the offer of a very good +place in Brighton, and I took it--a new restaurant, they open to- +morrow. I get thirty pounds a year and my food." + +"And lodging?" + +"No, they are very short of accommodation, and I have taken a room in +one of the streets close by--Preston Street. Do you know it?" + +"Perfectly, off the Western Road." + +"The lady who has the house knew my poor mother--a very nice woman-- +will let me have a bedroom for five shillings a week, and I shall be +allowed to use her sitting-room when I want it, which, of course, +won't be very often, for I shall be at business all day." + +The train rolled along the platform; Frank asked the porter when there +would be a train for Southwick, and was told he would have half an +hour to wait. + +"I shall have time to drive you to Preston Street." + +"Oh, no, please don't! She will be waiting for you--you will miss your +train." + + + + +XIV + + + +About four in the afternoon he left off painting, and went to Brighton +for a couple of hours. The little journey broke up the day, he bought +the evening papers, and it was pleasant to glance from the news to +those who passed, and to look upon the sunny and hazy sea. He liked to +go to Mutton's, and regretted Lizzie was not there, instead of behind +a bar serving whisky and beer. But he went to the bar. It was a German +establishment, decorated with the mythological art of Munich, and +enlivened with a discordant band. The different rooms were fitted with +bars of various importance. Lizzie was engaged at the largest--that +nearest the entrance. At half-past five this bar was thronged with all +classes. Beer and whisky were drunk hurriedly, with a look of trains +on the face. The quietest time was from half-past three to half-past +four, during these hours the dining-room was alone in the presence of +the awful goddesses and a couple of drowsy waiters. Most of the girls +were out, some two or three read faded novels in the sloppy twilight; +a group of four or five men who had lingered from half-hour to half- +hour turned their backs, and talked among themselves; sometimes a +couple would condescendingly address Lizzie, and tease her with rude +remarks; or else Frank found her having a little private chat with an +old gentleman, a youth, or, may be, the waiter. + +Lizzie had her bar manners and her town manners, and she slipped on +the former as she would an article of clothing when she lifted the +slab and passed behind. They consisted principally of cordial smiles, +personal observations, and a look of vacancy which she assumed when +the conversation became coarse. From behind the bar she spoke +authoritatively, she was secure, it was different--it was behind the +bar; and she spoke with a cheek and a raciness that at other times +were quite foreign to her. "I will not sleep with you to-night if you +don't behave yourself," so Frank once heard her answer a swaggering +young man. She spoke out loud, evidently regarding her words merely in +the light of gentle repartee. What she heard and said in the bar +remained not a moment on her mind, she appeared to accept it all as +part of the business of the place, and when Frank was annoyed she only +laughed. + +"Men will talk improper--what does it matter? One doesn't pay +attention to their nonsense, and it is only in the bar. Never mind all +that, tell me what you have been doing. You didn't come into Brighton +yesterday, I suppose?" + +"No, I had to go to the Manor House." + +"And how is she--the only one? Are you as much in love with her as +ever?" + +"I suppose I am; I have begun a portrait of her." + +"What, another! You never finish anything. I shan't have that when I +come and sit for you. I shall make you finish my portrait." + +"Ah, yes; when you come and sit. But, joking apart, when will you +come? I should so like to show you my studio. It really looks very +nice now. When will you come?" + +"I have no time." + +"Why not come next Sunday; it is your Sunday off." + +"What would Maggie say if she found me there? She'd have my eyes out." + +"If she did find it out she'd know you came to sit; but as a matter of +fact she'd know nothing about it. You come and lunch with me about +twelve--they're all in church about that time." + +"And you never go to church, you wicked boy. I don't know that I dare +trust myself with you." + +A scruple jarred the even strain of his desire to paint Lizzie's +portrait, but his scruple vanished in one of her sweet sunny smiles, +and he gave her all information about the train she would have to take +to reach Southwick by twelve o'clock. + +He ordered some delicacies in the way of potted meats, and there was a +bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice when she arrived. + +"Do you keep your champagne in ice? We never do in the bar. When the +gentlemen want it they have a piece to put in their wine." + +"I wish you'd try to forget your gentlemen when you come here." + +Lizzie began to cry, and it was hard to console her; she said that +Frank had spoilt her lunch for her. + +"It is because you are so much superior to the men I see you speaking +to. How can I help feeling annoyed that you should be serving drinks?" + +"But I've got to get my living. You don't suppose I serve in a bar +because I like it?" + +"No, of course not; but don't let us talk any more about it. You're +going to sit to me, and I want to do as pretty a portrait of you as I +can. All that beautiful brown hair, and that hat! Let me take it from +your head!" Frank had bought this hat for her and had handed it to her +over the counter, thereby bringing censure upon her from the manager. +"Let's forget what I said. The hat suits you. There, now against the +light, just a three-quarter face." + +At the end of half an hour he said she was a very good sitter and this +pleased her, and she tried to keep the pose till the clock struck, but +at the end of fifty minutes she said: "I must get up," and she came +round to see what he was doing. + +"Now you mustn't criticise it," he said. "It's only a beginning. +You've forgiven me my remarks about the bar?" + +"Don't remind me of it again." + +But he could not get it out of his head that he had annoyed her, and +was unable to apply himself to his painting; perhaps for this reason +his drawing went wrong, and his colour became muddy, and the thought +struck him that if Maggie were to find this portrait about the studio +she would certainly ask him whose portrait it was, + +"I can't paint to-day," he said, getting up from his easel. + +"And why can't you paint?" The question seemed to him at first a +stupid one, and then she showed a perception that surprised him. "Are +you afraid the young lady you're engaged to might come and catch me +sitting to you?" + +The fear that this might happen had been floating in the back of his +mind for the last half hour; he had kept Lizzie too long in the +studio, and it was not improbable that the girls might knock at his +door at any moment, and if they did it would be impossible for him not +to answer. Triss would bark. + +"Well," she said, "I won't keep you any longer." + +"No, I assure you," he said aloud, and within himself, "I'd give a +sovereign if I could get her to the station without being seen." + +And he thought he had done so as he returned half an hour afterwards +across the green. Maggie was waiting for him. "Come to ask me to dine +at the Manor House," he thought; but she told him that she knew all +about his visitor, and, despite all Frank's efforts to pacify her she +grew more violent, more excited until at last she told him she didn't +want to see him any more, that he was to go away, that she gave him +his liberty. + +"What an excitable girl she is! I'll go there this evening and try to +coax her out of her anger. I must try to explain to her that a painter +must have models. If we were married we shouldn't have more than a +thousand a year to live on at the outside--that is to say, if Mount +Rorke and Brookes come to terms, which is not very likely, they might +make up a thousand a year between them, that would not be enough for +two, and I should have to work; and I couldn't work without a model. +The thing is absurd! She'll have to learn that a model is absolutely +necessary; we were bound to have a row over that model question, so it +might as well come off now as later on, and we shall understand each +other better when this has blown over. There is nothing, and never has +been anything, between me and Lizzie--my conscience is clear on that +score. How pretty she looked to-day--that pale brown hair, so soft and +so full of colour. To-day was an unlucky day; I began by being +unfortunate with my painting; I never made a worse drawing in my life, +and the worst of it was that I did not see that my drawing was wrong +until I had begun to paint." + +A remembrance of Maggie's gracefulness came dazzling and straining his +imagination, and in sharp revulsion of desire he assailed Lizzie with +angry and contemptuous memory. She was always in low company--was +never happy out of it; it was part of her. How this man liked six +dashes of bitters in his sherry, and the other would not drink whisky +except in a thin glass. + +As he was leaving the studio he received a letter from Maggie, and +when he thought of the circumstances in which it was written, he grew +genuinely alarmed, for there was no forgetting the seriousness of the +letter, and she stated her reasons for the step she was taking without +undue emphasis. In its severity and quiet determination the letter did +not seem like her, and he suspected forgery, sisterly advice, paternal +influence--a family conspiracy. There was but one thing to do. He +looked through the various furniture for his hat; and with his head +full of citations from the lives of artists illustrative of their +conduct, he went to her. But Maggie would not see him. + +"Miss Brookes," the servant said, "is in her room and cannot see you, +sir." + +"She will never be mine, she will never be mine," he muttered as he +passed into the town. "But why do I think she'll never be mine?" And +looking at the grey sea with only a trace of the sunset left in the +grey sky he asked himself if the thought that had crossed his mind +were a conviction, a fore-telling or merely a passing fancy created by +the difficulty of the moment. He asked himself if he had heard himself +saying, "She'll never be mine" and mistaken his own voice for the +voice of Fate. Over the shingle bank the sea faded, a thin illusion, +dim and promiseful of peace, and as the darkness and the sea filled +Frank's soul he, the lightest and most life-loving of men, was filled +for once with a sense of failure of life, and as his sorrowing +thoughts drifted on he remembered that he had stood with her in +hearing of the rising tide, and all his pleading and passion came back +to him. + +"What are you doing here?" + +It was Willy. + +"I don't know. Maggie has broken off her engagement; she will never +speak to me again, she hopes we may never meet." + +"I don't understand. When did she break off her engagement?" + +Frank told his story, and they walked across the green towards the +studio. + +"Oh, you don't care. I don't believe you are listening to me." + +"I am listening. You never think any one understands what is said to +them if they do not instantly jump and call the stars to witness." + +"I suppose I am like that--excitable--the difference between the Celt +and the Saxon; and yet I don't know, your sisters are quite as +excitable as I am." + +"They take after their mother; I am more like my father." + +"It wouldn't be a bad character for a play--a man who never would +believe what you said, unless you threw up your arms and called on the +stars." + +"He can't be very bad if he can think about plays," thought Willy. + +"Tell me, Willy, you won't offend me; tell me exactly what you think, +did I do anything wrong? I swear to you there is nothing between me +and Lizzie--I believe she is over head and ears in love with some +fellow who has treated her very badly. She never would tell me who he +was. In fact, she told me she had left London so that she might get +over it. There would be no use my humbugging you, and I swear there is +not, and never was, anything between me and Lizzie Baker. I never +expected to see her again. It is very strange how people meet. I have +told you all about it. When I go to Brighton I must go somewhere to +get a drink, and I really don't see there is any harm in going to the +'Tivoli'; it didn't occur to me to think I should avoid the place +merely because she was serving there. I have often been there, I don't +deny it. Do you see there is any harm in my going there?" + +"I don't like giving an opinion unless I am fully acquainted with the +facts; but it seems to me that you might have gone to the 'Tivoli' to +have a drink without asking her to your studio." + +"Stay a bit, we'll speak of that presently. I am now telling you how I +see Lizzie when I go to Brighton. I often go to Brighton by the four +o'clock train, I often go to the 'Tivoli,' and when she is not talking +to some one else I talk to her about things in general; but I swear I +have never been out with her, that I never saw her except in the bar, +and yet Maggie accuses me of keeping a woman in Brighton, and won't +hear what I have to say in my defence. This is what she says: 'I have +it on unquestionable authority that you have been keeping this woman +since you returned from Ireland, perhaps before, and that you go in by +the four o'clock train almost daily to see her.' Now I ask you if it +is fair to make such accusations--such utterly false and baseless +accusations--and then to refuse to hear what a fellow has to say in +his defence? By Jove! if I caught the fellow who has been telling lies +about me, I'd let him have it. Some of those Southdown Road people +have been writing to her, that's about the long and short of it. + +"As for having asked her to come to the studio, I assure you my +intentions were quite innocent. Perhaps you won't understand what I +mean; you don't care for painting, but very often an artist has a +longing to paint a certain face, and the desire completely masters +him. Well, I had a longing of this kind to paint Lizzie; hers is just +the kind of head that suits me--she offered to give me a sitting, Idid +not see much harm in accepting, and as I could not paint her in +the bar-room, I asked her to the studio. But as for making out there +was anything wrong--I assure you she is not that sort of girl. If we +were married (I mean Maggie and I) I would have to have models; we'll +have to come to an understanding on that point. Now what I want you to +do is to explain to Maggie that there is nothing wrong between me and +Lizzie, you can tell her there is nothing--I swear there is nothing; +and then you had better explain that an artist must have models to +work from." + +"Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't ask me. I make a rule never to +interfere in my sisters' affairs. I did once, you remember, and I +thought I should never hear the end of it." + +"I think you might do this for me." + +"Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't, my dear fellow. I am an +exceedingly nervous chap, and I have had nothing but bad luck all my +life." + +"You think of nothing but yourself. You certainly are the most selfish +fellow I ever met. You take no interest in any affairs but your own." + +Willy made no answer. He sat stroking his moustache softly with slow +crumpled hand. After a long silence, he said: "Tell me, Frank, are you +really in love with my sister, or is it only imagination? I know +people often think they are in love when their fancy is only a little +excited. Very little will pass for being in love, but the real thing +is very different from such fancies." + +"I assure you I never loved any one like Maggie. Yes, I am sure I love +her." + +"You may be in love, I don't say you aren't; but I am sure there's no +more common mistake than to fancy one's self in love because one's +imagination is a bit excited. When you do fall in love, you find out +your mistake." + +"You think no one was ever in love but yourself. Do you remember when +you took me to see her, when we heard her sing 'Love was false as he +was fair, and I loved him far too well'?" + +Frank knew no more of the story than that: Willy had loved this +actress vainly. On occasions Willy had alluded to her, but he had +never shown signs of wishing to confide. + +"Yes, I remember. How I loved that woman, and what a wreck it has made +of my life. I daresay you often think me dull; I can quite understand +your thinking me narrow-minded, selfish, and incapable of taking +interest in other people's affairs: losing her took the soul out of my +life. Now nothing really amuses me--now nothing really interests me. I +often think if I were to die, it would be a happy release." + +"You never told me anything about it before; wouldn't she marry you?" + +"I never knew her. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her, +and my love swallowed up everything else. Then I wasn't wrapped up in +account-books, although I was always a precise and methodical sort of +chap; I was young enough then, now I am an older man than my father. +Some fellows have all the luck; everything succeeds with them, every +one loves them, men and women, they get all they ask for and more, +others get nothing. No matter what I tried to do, something went wrong +and I was baulked. I set my heart on that girl, she was the one thing +I wanted. I saw her play the same piece fifty times. I knew my passion +was hopeless, but I couldn't resist it. Had I known her I might have +won her, but there were no means; I never saw her but once off the +stage, and that was but a moment. I often sent her presents, sometimes +jewellery, sometimes fans or flowers, anything and everything I +thought she would like. I sent her a beautiful locket; I paid fifty +pounds for it." + +"Did she accept your presents?" + +"I sent them anonymously." + +"Why did you not try to make her acquaintance?" + +"I knew nobody in the theatrical world. I was not good at making +acquaintances. You might have done it. I am a timid man." + +"Did you make no attempt? You might have written." + +"At last I did write." + +"What did you write?" + +"I tried to tell her the exact truth. I told her that I had refrained +from writing to her for three years. That I quite understood the folly +and the presumption of the effort; but I felt now, as drowning men +that clutch at straws, that I must make my condition known to her. I +told her I loved her truly and honourably, that my position and +fortune would have entitled me to aspire to her hand if fate had been +kind enough to allow me to know her. It was a very difficult letter to +write, and I just tried to make myself clear. I told her I knew no one +in the theatrical world, and that waiting and hoping for some chanceto +bring us together would only result in misery long drawn out; that +I had some faint hope that this letter might lead her to consider that +there might be an exception to the rule that a young lady should not +stop to speak to a young man she didn't know. I remember I said 'when +men are in deadly earnest, truth seems to shine between the lines they +write. I know I am in earnest, and may say that all I hold dear and +precious in life is set in the hope that this letter may not appear to +you in the light of one of those foolish and wicked letters which I +believe men often write to actresses, and of which I suppose you have +been the recipient.' Then I said that I would be at the stage door on +the following night, and that I hoped she would allow me to speak a +few words to her." + +"And did she?" + +"I could not speak to her; I lost all courage in that moment. She +walked close by me." + +"You mean to say you did not speak to her after writing that letter?" + +"Call me a fool, an idiot, what you will; I could not do it. I can +only compare my feeling to what Livingstone says he felt when he found +himself face to face with a lion. He stood staring in the lion's eyes, +unable to move." + +"She must have thought your letter a practical joke. I wonder what she +did think." + +"I wrote explaining the unfortunate circumstances as well as I could, +and telling her I would come the following night." + +"Did you go?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you speak to her?" + +"Yes." + +"And she wouldn't speak?" + +"She passed on with her maid, but I didn't lose hope until she +married. It was always a sort of sad pleasure to go to the theatre to +see her. I used to live at the Manor House for two or three months at +a time, saving up my money so as to be able to make her some nice +present. I wished her to remember me, although she would not speak to +me. No one came to the Manor House; there was nothing to do except to +read the paper and smoke my pipe. I was sick of my life, and I counted +the days that would have to pass till I saw her again--only thirty +more days, only nineteen days, only one more week--so I used to count, +marking off each day in an almanac, until one day I read the +announcement of her marriage; then I knew all hope was at an end. I +went mad that night and rushed out of the house, and I should have +drowned myself had I not fainted. When I came to, I was weak and +delirious, and wandered along the beach, not knowing where I was +going. Some fishermen brought me home. My sisters were at school at +the time. I believe I was very near dying. I fainted three times one +afternoon. I used to lie on the sofa and cry for hours. She married a +stockbroker. I believe she didn't care for him at all. Then she died. +She was buried in Kensal Green. Whenever I am in London I go and see +her grave." + +"This is awfully sad." + +"Yes; it ruined my life. I never had any luck. Things always went +wrong with me." + +"I should like to see those letters." + +"I haven't got copies. I didn't keep a letter-book in those days. +Let's talk of something else. I have some news. I am going in for +breeding race-horses." + +"What do you mean?" + +"What I say. I have calculated it all out, and I find I shall make +from fifteen to twenty per cent, on my money." + +"By breeding race-horses! And where are you going to breed them?" + +"You know those stables on the Portslade Road where the veterinary +surgeon used to live? I am going to take that place. The rent is three +hundred pounds a year; there are fifty acres of pasture, and stabling +for thirty horses. The dwelling-house is not a very aristocratic- +looking place, but it will do for the present; when I begin to make +money I shall go in for alterations. You can't do everything at once." + +"You do astonish me. And where are you going to get the money to do +all this? You will require at least twenty thousand pounds capital." + +"More than that. You would not be able to work a place like that under +twenty-five thousand pounds," Willy replied sententiously. "I have got +about eight thousand left of my own, and I came in for a legacy of +three thousand at the beginning of this year--an aunt of mine left me +the money; and my father has agreed to let me have fourteen thousand +on condition of my abandoning all further claim upon him. The bulk of +his fortune will now be divided among my sisters. Berkins advised him +to accept my offer." + +"I should think so indeed; your father is worth ten thousand a year." + +"No, nothing like that. His business has been going down for years +past. Last year he lost heavily again; if it weren't for his +investments he wouldn't be able to go on with it. The business is done +for; I knew that long ago. My father and I could never agree about how +the accounts should be kept. That head clerk of his is an awful +duffer." + +"Yes, but what are you going to do with the shop?" + +"The shop was the origin of it all. If it hadn't been for the shop I +dare say I never should have thought of the race-horses. My father and +I could never work together. I offered to buy his surplus fruit and +vegetables, and, without absolutely binding myself to deal with no one +else, I had assured him of my chief custom. Naturally I expected +something in return--I expected him to let me have peaches in April +and strawberries in March. You cannot do this without using a good +deal of heating power. I spoke to the gardener several times. Often +when I went into the houses I found the pipes nearly cold. I got tired +of this, and I paid a man out of my own pocket to keep the furnaces +properly stoked, and--would you believe it?--my father actually raised +objections--objected to my paying a man to look after his glass-houses +as they should be looked after. He said he would not order in any more +coke, that I'd have to get along with what there was in the garden; he +said he wished the shop at the devil. I saw it was hopeless. You +cannot help my father, and he won't help himself, so I threw the whole +thing up." + +"And when are you going to start the new scheme?" + +"Immediately. One of my reasons for accepting fourteen thousand pounds +down as a settlement in full was because I was beginning to fear that +he might get wind of my marriage. From one or two things I have heard +lately, I have reason to suspect that the secret is beginning to ooze +out, and I thought it might be as well to take time by the forelock." + +"And you told him? What did he say?" + +"What people usually say when they criticise other people's lives +without knowing anything of their temptations and sufferings. But I +want to tell you about my scheme. I have bought Blue Mantle, the +winner of the Czarewitch, and only beaten by a length for the +Cambridgeshire, a three-year-old, with eight stone on his back; a most +unlucky horse--if he had been in the Leger or Derby he would have won +one or both. He broke down when he was four years old. By King Tom out +of Merry Agnes, by Newminster out of Molly Bawn." + +"I didn't know you knew so much about racing." + +"I know more than you think. I don't let out all I know." + +"And how much did you pay for Blue Mantle?" + +"Dirt cheap. I can imagine myself two years hence, when my first batch +of yearlings is put up for sale--500, 650, 800, 1000, knocked down for +1000 guineas, brown colt by Blue Mantle out of Wild Rose, bred by +William Brookes, Esq." + +"I don't think money will come in quite so fast as that." + +"Perhaps not; but can't you let a fellow enjoy himself? I never knew +any one like you for throwing cold water. I believe you are jealous." + +"What nonsense!" + +"Well, never mind. I shall be the deuce of a dog, see if I shan't. I +always like to kill two birds with one stone if I can, and my business +will bring me into connection with the very best in the land. +Unfortunately! my people don't care about getting on; now I do. I like +to know people who are better than myself--at all events, who are no +worse. I shouldn't be surprised if I were dining at Goodwood and +Arundel before long. When I go up to town I shall be calling on Lady +This and Lady That, and later on I might get in somewhere in the +Conservative interest." + +"How long you may know a man, and then find you are mistaken in his +character," thought Frank. "So vanity is at the bottom of all these +efforts to make money." + +"When are you coming to the Manor House?" + +"Impossible. You know I can't go there so long as your father--" + +"Come in one afternoon; he'll ask you to stay to dinner. He has +forgotten all about it." + +"I cannot come to the Manor House until my engagement to your sister +is sanctioned by him." + +"The way to get that is to come to the Manor House and talk him into +it. For my part, I think, even from his point of view, that it would +be better that he should recognise the engagement; nothing can be more +damaging than these clandestine meetings." + +"What can I do? I will not give her up." + +"I never interfere. I have quite enough worries of my own. I must be +getting home. It is very late. Good-bye." + +The green was as bright as day in the moonlight and Frank watched +Willy walking, his shoulders thrown back. He sighed; an undefinable, +but haunting melancholy hung about Willy; he often impressed Frank as +an old book--a book whose text is trite--which no one will read, and +which yet continues to make its mute appeal; a something that has +always missed its way, that can hardly be said to be an adequate thing +to offer for any man's money, that will soon disappear somehow out of +all sight and reckoning. + + + + +XV + + + +A few days after he got a letter from Lizzie, saying she was alone and +ill, and asking him to come and see her. He took the next train to +Brighton. The land-lady's daughter, a girl of about twelve, opened the +door to him. + +"How is Miss Baker? Is she any better?" + +"Please, sir, she is not at all well, she has cold shivers; and mother +went away yesterday." + +"And who looks after Miss Baker?" + +"Please, sir, I do." + +"You do! Is there no one else in the house?" + +"No, sir." + +"Is Miss Baker in bed?" + +"No, sir. She said she would get up a little while this afternoon, +'cause she said she thought you was coming." + +"Go and tell her I am here." + +"Please, sir, she said you was to go upstairs--the back room on the +second floor, please." + +"Come in." + +"I am so sorry you are ill, Lizzie. What is the matter?" + +"I don't know; I think I caught a severe chill. I stayed out very late +on the beach." + +"But why are you crying? Do tell me. Can I do anything?" + +"No no. What does it matter whether I laugh or cry? Nothing matters +now. I don't care what becomes of me." + +"A pretty girl like you; nonsense! Some one rich and grand will fall +in love with you, and give you everything you want." + +"I don't want any one to fall in love with me; I am done for--don't +care what becomes of me." + +"Do tell me about it. Have you heard anything further about him? Do +tell me; don't cry like that." + +"No, no, leave me, leave me! I am so miserable. I don't know why I +wrote to you. I hope I shall die." + +"It is very lucky you did write to me, for you are clearly very ill. +What is the matter?" + +"I don't know; I can't get warm. This room is very cold--don't you +think so?" + +"Cold? No." + +"I feel cold; my throat is very bad--perhaps I shall be better in the +morning." + +"You must see a doctor." + +"Oh, no! I don't want to see a doctor." + +"You must see a doctor." + +"No, no, I beg of you. I only wrote to you because I was feeling so +miserable." + +Lizzie stood between him and the door, imploring him not to fetch a +doctor, but to go away at once, and to tell no one she had written to +him, or that he had been to see her. "Nothing matters now--I am +ruined--I don't care what becomes of me." He marvelled; but soon all +considerations were swept away in anxiety for her bodily health; and +having extorted a promise from her that she would not leave the room +until he came back, he rushed to the nearest chemist and hence to the +doctor. + +"I want you to come at once, if possible, and see a young lady who, I +fear, is dangerously ill. She has not been in Brighton long. She is +quite alone. She sent for me. I live at Southwick. I came out at once. +I have known her a long time. I may say she is a great friend of mine. +I found her very ill--I must say her condition seems to me alarming. I +should like her to see a doctor at once. Can you come at once?" + +"I am just finishing dinner. I will come in about ten minutes' time. +What is the address?" + +"20 Preston Street.--I hope he does not think there is anything +wrong," thought Frank. "He look's as if he did," and with a view of +removing suspicion, he said: "She is a young lady whom I have known +for some years. We had lost sight of each other until we travelled +down in the train together. I say this because I do not wish you to +think there is anything wrong." + +"My good sir, I should not allow myself to have any opinions on the +matter. I am summoned to attend a patient, and I give the best advice +in my power." + +"Yes, but one can't help forming opinions--a beautiful young girl +living alone in lodgings, and having apparently for sole protector a +young man, are circumstances that might be easily misconstrued, and as +I am engaged to be married, I think it right to tell you exactly how I +stand in relation to this young woman." + +The doctor bowed. + +"Do you not think I did well in making this explanation?" + +"It can do no harm; we medical men see so much that we take no notice +of anything but our patient. But tell me something of this young +lady's suffering. Can you describe the symptoms?" + +"She has a racking headache--she is shivering all over--she sits by +the fire and cannot get warm. It looks to me as if it were fever." + +"Does she complain of her throat?" + +"Yes; she cannot swallow." + +"Probably an attack of quinsy." + +"Is that dangerous?" + +"No; but it is infectious." + +"I don't mind about that--she is alone. I will see her through it." + +"I will go round to Preston Street immediately I have finished dinner +--in about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour." + +When the doctor had seen Lizzie, he said to Frank, who accompanied him +downstairs: "Just as I expected--quinsy. She will take from eight to +ten days to get well. We have taken it in time, that's one good thing. +The throat is very bad. She must have a linseed poultice, and she must +use the gargle. Is there any one in the house who can attend to her?" + +"I am afraid not; the landlady went away this morning, leaving no one +in the house but that child. She will, I hope, be home to-morrow." + +"In that case you had better have a nurse in; I will give you the +address of one." + +When Frank returned he found her lying on the bed weeping. As before, +she refused to tell him the cause of her grief. She would make no +other answer than that nothing mattered now, that she didn't care what +became of her; and when he spoke of going to fetch a nurse, she waved +her hands excitedly, declaring she would on no consideration stop in +the house with a woman she didn't know. And, hardly able to decide +what course he should take, he promised not to leave her; she clung +about him, and he was forced to send the child (whose name he now +found to be Emma) to the chemist for the linseed, and he wrote a note +asking for explicit directions how it should be used. Then he had to +persuade Lizzie to go to bed. She resisted him, and it was with great +difficulty that he got her boots and stockings off; then she collected +her strength, unbuttoned her dress, and took off her stays. Then she +said: "Go out of the room for a moment." + +He found his way into the kitchen, and guessing that hot water would +be required, he lit a fire. But there was no muslin, and he had to +send Emma for some. Lizzie smiled faintly when they entered--Frank +with a basin, Emma with a kettle and a parcel of linen. Frank poured +some rum into a glass, and beat an egg up with it. + +"What is that?" she asked; and her voice was so faint and hoarse that +he turned, quite startled. + +"Something that will do your throat good and keep your strength up. +Possibly you will not be able to eat much to-morrow." He held the +tumbler to her lips, and at length succeeded in getting her to drink +it. "Emma, is the kettle boiling?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"You had better go downstairs and get some coals, and if you can't +find any nightlights you must go out and buy a box. Have you got any +money over?" + +"Yes, sir, sixpence." + +"Now, Lizzie, let me put this on your throat. Throw your head well +back. There, it isn't too hot?" + +And all that night he sat by her bedside. Often she could not get her +breath, and he had to lift her and prop her up with pillows; and four +times he lit the candle, and, with tired eyes, mixed the meal and +placed it on her throat. The firelight played upon the ceiling, the +kettle sang softly, the sufferer moaned, the light brought the rumble +of a cart, and they awoke from shallow sleeps that blurred but did not +extinguish consciousness of the actual present. "You must not uncover +yourself; you will catch cold. Let me pin this shawl about you." About +eight o'clock Emma knocked at the door. Frank asked her to make him a +cup of tea. The morning dragged along amid many anxieties, for he +could see she was worse than she had been over night. + +"The disease must take its course," said the doctor; "we shall be +fortunate if by poulticing we can stop it; if we can't, it will come +to a head in about eight or nine days' time, and then it will break. +Did you see the nurse last night? Couldn't she come?" + +"She," said Frank, pointing to the sufferer, "wouldn't allow me to +send for her; she said she would not stay in the house with a strange +woman. She was very excited; I fancy she has had some great mental +trouble--a sweetheart, I suppose. I did not like to cross her. I +thought I could nurse her; I did my best. Was the poultice all right?" + +"Quite right. But you will have to sit up with her to-night. You will +be very tired; you had better get in a nurse." + +"I think I shall be able to manage. The landlady is expected home this +evening or to-morrow morning. What had she better have to eat?" + +"She won't be able to eat anything for some days. Try to get her to +take an egg beat up in a wine-glass of rum." + +Hourly she grew worse, and on the following day Frank stood by her bed +momentarily fearing that she would suffocate; once her face blackened +and he had to seize and lift her out of bed, and place her in a chair. +When she seemed a little easier he called Emma, and they made the bed +and cleaned up the room together. Then he ate a sausage and drank a +glass of beer that had been brought from the public-house. + +The first night had seemed long and weary, but now the hours passed +quickly; he had forgotten all but the suffering woman, and in the +interest of inducing her to swallow some beef-tea, in the pride of +such successes another and then another day fled lightly. Nor did he +feel tired as he had done, and now a nap in an arm-chair seemed all +that he required. So the landlady came as an unwelcome interruption of +an absorbing occupation. Haggard and unshaven, he returned to +Southwick, where he found a note on his table from General Horlock, +asking him to dinner that evening. + +"I know the meaning of this: Maggie will be there--a reconciliation! +Can I?" He turned his ear quickly from his conscience; he was +frightened of the voice that would tell him that Maggie was nothing to +him, never had been, never could be; that he had been born for Lizzie +Baker, as the soldier is for the sword or the bullet that kills him; +others had passed him, had been heard sharply, had gleamed dangerously +in his eyes. They were but signs and omens meant for others, not for +him, and they had passed. But this one had remained, though often +lost, as that remains which is to be, and she was now no less for him +than before, though now seemingly lost irrevocably to another; and in +all the seeming of irrevocable loss was drawing nearer--not with the +victory and destiny of old in her eyes, but with no less victory and +destiny inherent in her. Though far from him, she had been for long a +disintegrated influence, but what had been distant was now near, and +all was yielding like a ship in the attraction of the fabulous +loadstone mountain. That room!--the wash-hand-stand, the dirty panes +of glass, the iron bed-there his fate had been sealed. That body which +he had lifted out of bed still lay heavy in his arms. He still +breathed the odour of the hair he had gathered from the pillow and +striven to pin up; those eyes of limpid blue, pale as water where +isles are sleeping, burned deep and livid in his soul; the touch and +sight of that flesh, the sound of that voice, those tears, the +solicitude and anxiety of those hours of night and day conspired +against him, and his life was big with incipient overthrow. + +Lizzie was with him at all times. He saw her eyes, then her teeth, and +the perfume and touch of her hair was often about him; and yet he was +hardly conscious that a revolution of feeling was in progress within +him; and when the time came for him to go to Horlock's he went there +avoiding all thoughts of Maggie, although he knew he would be called +upon that night to take a decisive step. He saw little of her before +dinner, and during dinner the General's allusions to the quarrels of +lovers being the renewal of love vexed him, and he thought, "Confound +it! If I want to make it up I will; but I am not going to be bullied +into it." When the ladies left the room he found it difficult to +pretend to the kind-hearted old soldier that he did not believe that +Maggie would forgive him. "Forgive me for what? I have done nothing." + +"To get on with women you must always admit you are in the wrong--ha, +ha, ha!" laughed the General; "now I have it from my wife--women know +everything--ha, ha, ha!" laughed the General. "Have another glass of +sherry?" + +"No, thanks; couldn't take any more." + +"I took I won't tell you how many glasses before I proposed to my +wife, and then I was afraid; enough to make me--a clever woman like +Mrs. Horlock, I believe you wouldn't find a woman in England like Mrs. +Horlock. Look round; all that's her work. Look at that white Arab-- +exactly like him. I won five hundred pounds with that horse; but I +wouldn't be satisfied, and I ran him again the following day and lost +it all and five hundred more with it. I had another horse. My wife is +modelling him in wax; she will show it to you in the next room. +Marvellous woman!" + +Passing Maggie by who was sitting in the window, Frank inveigled Mrs. +Horlock into an anatomical discussion. The General stretched out his +feet, put on his spectacles, and took up the _St James's_. The +conversation dropped, and, full of apprehension and expecting +reconciliation, Frank went to Maggie and talked to her of the tennis +parties he was going to, of the people he had seen--of indifferent +things. The time was tense with the fate of their lives. Once she +turned her head and sighed. Time slipped by, and still they talked of +their friends--of things they knew perfectly. Maggie said: "I hope you +are not angry; I hope we shall remain friends." Frank replied: "I hope +so," and again the conversation paused. The General denounced +Gladstone, and praised his wife's sculpture. Ten o'clock! Angel was +lifted out of his basket. If Maggie had been Helen and Southwick Troy, +he would not be kept waiting; the dogs had to be taken out; Willy came +to fetch Maggie; hands were tendered, lips said good-bye, and, with a +sense of parting, they parted. + +Feeling adrift and strangely alone, he walked to his lodging. His +future loomed up in his mind as vague and as illusive as the village +that now glared through the mist, white and phantasmal. He did not +regret--we can hardly regret the impossible. Then, falling back on a +piece of prose, he said: "Where was the good? Mount Rorke would never +have given his consent. Poor Lizzie; I hope she is better. I hope it +has broken. She won't get any relief until it does." + +And next day, towards evening, he went to Brighton. He found her +shrinking over the fire, wrapped in a woollen shawl. + +"How are you to-day? You look a little better. I did not expect to +find you out of bed." + +"I am better, thank you; it broke yesterday, and I feel relieved. You +are very good. I think I should have died if it had not been for you. +Think of that landlady leaving me in the way she did." + +"What was the reason? Why did she rush off in that way?" + +"She went to town to see her sister, and she says she was taken ill. +She drinks." + +"Does she? I hope she looked after you yesterday?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"As well as I did?" + +"I don't know about that; you are a very good nurse. It was very good +of you; no one else would have done it." + +"What, not even _he_?" + +"You were with me for four days, and you never even went to bed--never +took your clothes off." + +"Never even washed myself. By George! I was glad to get home and have +a good wash. I was a sorry-looking object--haggard and unshaven." + +"Where did you say you had been to?" + +"Nobody asked me." + +"Not Maggie?" + +"No; I didn't tell you our engagement is broken off." + +"No; you didn't say nothing about it." + +"On account of you. She discovered that you had been to my studio, and +she said I was keeping a woman in Brighton." + +"Keeping a woman in Brighton--she thinks you are keeping me! I will +write to her and tell her that it is not true. What right has she to +say such things about me?" + +"She doesn't say it about you. She says a woman." + +"She means me." + +"No, she doesn't; she doesn't know anything about you. Some one told +her I went into Brighton every day by the four o'clock train, and she +put two and two or rather two and three together, and said it was +six." + +"But I will write to her. I will not be the cause of any one's +marriage being broken off." + +"You need not trouble. I saw her last night, and I could have made it +all right had I chosen--she was quite willing." + +"You can't care for her!" + +"I suppose not. I don't think I ever really loved her. I thought I +did. I was mistaken." + +"You are very changeable." + +"No, I don't think I am--at least not so far as you are concerned. I +was mistaken. I was in love with some one else--with you." + +"With me?" + +"Yes, with you. I was in love with you when we went to Reading, and +never got over it. I thought I had, but when love is real we never get +over it. I always loved you, and those four days I spent nursing you +have brought it all out. I shall never love any one else. I know you +don't care for me; you said once you couldn't care for me." + +"I! I am too miserable to care for any one. I wish you had let me die; +but that is ungrateful. You must excuse me, I am so miserable. Why +speak of loving me? I can love no one. I don't care what becomes of +me. I am ruined; nothing matters now." + +"I wish you would confide in me; you can trust me. Has he forsaken +you? Can you not make it up?" + +"No, never now; I shall never see him again." + +"Has anything happened lately, since you came to Brighton?" + +Lizzie nodded. + +"Don't cry like that; tell me about it." + +"What's the use? Nothing matters now." + +"Has he been here?" + +Lizzie nodded, and Frank folded the shawl about her, and wiped her +tears away with his pocket handkerchief. "Since you were ill?" + +"No, before I was ill; he was down here watching me. He found out I +had gone to your studio, and he said the most dreadful things--that he +would break your head, and that I had never been true to him, and that +I was not fit to be the wife of an honest man." + +"But I will tell him that you came to my studio to sit for your +portrait." + +"No, you mustn't write; it would only make matters worse. No use; he +says he will never see me again." + +"Where can I see him? Has he gone back to London? I will follow him +and tell him he is mistaken." "No, please don't, and please don't go +to the 'Gaiety'; he is a violent-tempered man; something dreadful +might occur. Please, promise me." + +"Not go to the 'Gaiety'? He doesn't know me." + +"Yes, he does." + +"Have I seen him? Do tell me; you know you can trust me. I am your +friend. Tell me--" + +"You have seen him in the 'Gaiety,' in the grill-room--the waiter, +number two, the good-looking tall man." + +"Oh!" + +"He wasn't always a waiter; his people are very superior. He has been +unfortunate." + +"And it was he you loved this long while?" + +"I never cared for another man." + +"I must write and tell him he is committing an act of injustice. I +will make this matter right for you, Lizzie." + +"Do you think you can?" + +"I am sure of it." + +He rang for the landlady, and asked for writing materials. She +apologised for the penny bottle of ink, and spoke of getting a table +from the next room, but he said he could write very well on the +chimney-piece. "I suppose I had better begin, 'Sir'?" + +"Don't people generally begin, 'Dear Sir'?" + +"Not when they don't know the people they are writing to." + +"But you do know him a little. He always said you were very haughty. +You used to sit at his table." + +"I think I had better begin the letter with 'Sir.'" + +"Very well. You know best. He was always very jealous." + + + + +XVI + + + +"SIR,--I hear from Miss Baker that you were in Brighton last week, +and, drawing the inference from the fact that she came to my studio to +sit for her portrait, you accuse her of very grievous impropriety. I +beg to assure you that this is not so. At my urgent request, Miss +Baker, whom I had better say I have known for some years, consented to +give me a sitting. My intentions were purely artistic; hers were +confined to a wish to oblige an old friend, and I deeply regret that +they should have been misinterpreted, and I fear much unhappiness +caused thereby." + +"Do you think that will do?" + +"Yes, it is a beautiful letter." + +"Do you think so--do you really think so? Do you think I have said +all?" + +"You might say something--that I never even kissed you; and that you +respected me too much." + +"I will if you like, but don't you think that is implied?" + +"Perhaps so; but you see he does not read many books. He hasn't time +for much reading, and you put things in a difficult way. They sound +beautiful, but I--" + +"Show me." + +"Well, this 'grievous impropriety.' I know what you mean, but I +couldn't explain it." + +"Shall I say 'serious impropriety'? but grievous is the right word. +You say a grievous sin for a mortal sin. If we had done any wrong it +would have been a grievous sin; but I'll change the word if you like." + +"No, don't change it on my account; but I think he would understand an +easier word better." + +"A 'heinous impropriety'? No, that won't do. A 'serious impropriety.' +That will do. Is there anything else you would like me to alter?" + +"No, I don't think there is." + +"You think this letter will convince him that there was nothing +wrong?" + +"I hope so; but he is a very suspicious man." + +"I will post it when I go out." Then after a long silence: "Do you +know what time it is? It must be getting late." + +"It must be getting on for nine." + +"Then I must say good-bye; but I forgot, I want to ask you--you must +be hard up, and want some money--do you? If you do, I assure you I +shall be only too glad." + +"Well, I am rather hard up, for you know that this illness has +prevented my doing anything; and I am afraid I have lost my place at +the 'Tivoli.'" + +"What do you intend to do?" + +"I should like to go back to London. I shall see him there, and if the +letter makes it right we may be married. I will write to you." + +"You will?--Do. Here is five pounds. I have no more about me, but if +anything should occur, you know where to write to." + +"You are very good; I don't deserve it. I don't know why you take so +much trouble about me. If he doesn't marry me I'll try to get another +place; I shall go back to the firm." + +"When do you intend to leave?" + +"As soon as I am well enough, in a day or two; but you will not come +here again." + + +"I had thought that I might." + +"I know; but if he were to hear that you had been here, it would be +worse than ever. You don't mind, do you? You aren't angry, are you?" + +"No; good-bye, Lizzie. Write to me when you are married." Frank walked +into the street. There was neither rage nor will in him. He was a +sorrowing creature in a bitter world. The sea was cruelly blue in the +coming night; the sky was also blue, only deeper, a red streak like a +red bar of iron stretched across the embaying land, relieving into +picturesque detail the outlines of coast-towns and villages. His eyes +rested on and drew grief from this dim distance so illusive; and for +jarring contrast, the pier hung with gaudy and gross decoration in the +blue night, and a brass band replied to the waves. + +Then the clouds lifted, and when he returned to Southwick the moon was +shining and some boys pursued the resounding ball through the shadows. +He undressed with an effort, and he lay down hoping never to rise +again. Next morning he went to his studio full of resolve. His picture +must be finished for one of the winter exhibitions. He did not take up +his palette, nor did he sit at his piano for more than a few minutes; +and when he met Willy he raged against Lizzie, jeered at her +vulgarity, heaped ridicule upon her lover, the waiter; he spoke of +writing a novel on the subject; he set out her character at length; +and was alarmed when told that Maggie was ill. He must win her. She +must be his wife. So he told Willy, so he assured himself that she +would. He knew that Lizzie was nothing to him. She had left Brighton, +thank God! He went to sleep, certain he had torn this page out of his +life, and he awoke to find it still there; and day after day he +continued to brood upon, and still unable to understand its meaning, +he longed to turn it over and read, for there were other pages; but +they were sealed, and he might only read this one page. + +"I'm afraid that our old friend Brookes is having a hard time of it," +said the General, taking the spectacles from his nose, and laying down +the _St James's_, "they are all at him tooth and nail," and the General +laughed gleefully. "You are the young man who has upset them. The young +lady won't dress herself." + +"My dear Reggie, you shouldn't talk like that. I do hate to hear +scandal; you'll repent it," said Mrs. Horlock, and she adroitly +smoothed the wax on the horse's quarters. + +"I assure you, Mrs. Horlock, I never repeat what I hear; the guiding +principle of my life is not to repeat conversations. Particularly in a +village like Southwick, it is most essential that none of us should +repeat conversations; I have always said that." + +"Do tell me about Maggie; I hear she is very ill. What is the matter +with her? What did you say--the young lady won't dress herself?" + +"My dear Reggie, I will not stay here and listen to scandal. Not a +word of it is true, Mr. Escott." + +"What is not true, Mrs. Horlock?" + +"What he told you about her walking about the house with her hair +down." + +"I don't think the General said anything about walking about the house +with her hair down; he said some one wouldn't dress herself. I suppose +he meant Maggie. I am sure I am sorry--I am most sorry--to hear she is +ill, but it is unjust to assume that I had anything to do with her +illness. We can speak freely among ourselves, you know. You know the +circumstances; no one is more capable of understanding the case than +you, for you are an artist. Maggie heard that I had had a model, +that's what it amounts to, and she broke off the engagement; nothing +could be more unjust, nothing could be more unwarranted." + +"It could be brought on again, I know that," said Mrs. Horlock, and +she turned the shoulders of her horse to the light. + +"We will not go into that question, Mrs. Horlock. I confine myself to +what has happened, and I say I was treated unjustly, most shamefully; +and when I have been cast aside like an old hat, I hear indirectly +that it can be made up again. I have borne quite enough, and will bear +no more. Old Brookes came down to my studio with that cad Berkins, and +forced his way in, and then forbade me the house because my dog bit +Berkins's thigh. I couldn't help it. What did he attack me for? He +didn't suppose a bull-dog would be still while his master was being +knocked on the head." + +"What should a common City man know about dogs? He wouldn't sign the +petition when I asked him, to Sir Charles Warren, to cancel the +regulations about muzzling." + +"And then they set a report going that I had set the dog on, and if I +hadn't set it on, that I hadn't called him off. As if I could! You +know what a bull-dog is, Mrs. Horlock? Is a highly-bred dog likely to +let go when he has fixed his teeth in the fleshy part of a thigh? The +Brookes are old friends of mine, and I wouldn't say a word against +them for the world; but of course it is as obvious to you as it is to +me that they are not quite the thing. I mean--you know--I would not +think of comparing them with the Southdown Road; but there is a little +something. City people are not the Peerage; there's no use saying they +are. Mount Rorke was upset; but I would not give in, and I think I +should have won his consent in the long run. After all I have borne +for her sake I think I might expect better treatment than to be thrown +over, as I have said, like an old hat; and I don't mind telling you +that I do not intend to be made a fool of in this matter; I shall turn +a very deaf ear to stories of a broken heart and failing health. I +shall not cease to think of Maggie. I loved her once very deeply, and +I should have loved her always if--But tell me, General. You know I +will not repeat anything." + +"I advise you to say no more, Reggie. I will not be mixed up in any +scandal. I shall leave the room. Sally is dining here to-night; she is +only too anxious to talk of her sister. If Mr. Escott will stay and +take pot-luck with us, he will no doubt hear everything there is to +hear in the course of the evening." + +"What have we got for dinner, Ethel? I know we have got a leg of +mutton, and there is some curry." + +"Your dinners are always excellent, Mrs. Horlock. I shall be delighted +to stay. Here is Sally. Oh, how do you do, Sally? We were talking of +you." + +"I'm afraid every one is talking of me, now," she whispered, and the +big girl passed over to Mrs. Horlock and kissed her. "How is it that +no one has seen anything of you lately?" she said, taking the seat +next him. "What have you been doing?" + +"Nothing in particular. But I want to ask you about Maggie. I hear she +is very ill." + +Perceiving that his tone did not bespeak a loving mood, Sally's face +brightened, and she became at once voluble and confidential. + +"Oh, we have been having no end of a time at home. Father has been +speaking of selling the place and leaving Southwick." + +"Speaking of selling the place and leaving Southwick! And where does +he think of going to live, and what is the reason of this?" + +"Oh, the reason! I suppose he would say I was the reason; and where +heis going to live, that is not settled yet--probably one of the big +London hotels. He says everybody is laughing at him, and that when he +meets the young men at the station he can see them laughing at him +over their newspapers, for, according to father, they have all flirted +with us. Maggie has been saying all kinds of things against me, and I +am afraid that the Southdown Road people have been writing him +anonymous letters again. Some one--I don't know who it is--I wish I +did--has been telling him the most shocking things about Jimmy Meason +and me; things in which I assure you there is not a word of truth. You +know yourself that we have hardly spoken for nearly two years; last +year, it is true, we made it up a bit in your studio, but it didn't +last long. I don't think I saw him twice afterwards, and never alone-- +and now to have everything that happened two years ago raked up and +thrown in my face! I don't say I haven't--I don't know what you'd call +it, I suppose you'd call it spooning. I admit I infinitely preferred +walking about the garden with a young man to sitting in the drawing- +room and doing woolwork. I was a silly little fool then, but I do +think it hard that all this should be raked up now. I don't know what +will happen. Maggie pretends to be frightened at me; 'tis only her +nonsense to set father against me. She won't dress herself, and she +walks about with her hair down her back, wringing her hands." + +"But what does she say? This is very bewildering. I don't understand-- +I am quite lost." + +"The fact is that Maggie doesn't know what she is saying, so I suppose +I oughtn't to blame her. She is a little off her head, that's the +truth of it; but you mustn't say I said so, it will get me into worse +trouble than I am already in. She was like that once before, and had +to be put in the charge of a lady who was in the habit of dealing with +excitable people. I don't mean lunatics, don't run away with that +notion. I don't know what would happen if it got about that I was +putting that about. Maggie is very excitable, and she has been +exciting herself a great deal lately--you were the principal cause. +She did all she could to get you to make it up when you met her here +at dinner--the dinner was given for that--but you said nothing about +it, and she came home in an awful state, accusing every one of +combining to ruin her. She said I was jealous of her, that I was wild +with fear that she would one day be Lady Mount Rorke. She said father +had done everything to break off her marriage, because he did not like +parting with his money. She had set her heart on being married, and it +was a terrible disappointment. She has been disappointed two or three +times. Father doesn't know what to do. Her thoughts seem to run on +that one subject. She walks about the garden saying the most +extraordinary things." + +"But tell me about the illness." + +"I don't know if I ought to tell you." + +"Oh, do!" + +"I don't know how to say it. She used to say she longed to become a +mother." + +"Longed to become a mother? Well, that is the last thing--" + +"You know what I mean." + +"But tell me about the illness." + +"I should call it more than being a little excited, but of course she +isn't mad. She has, however, the most curious notions. She is always a +little too imaginative at the best of times; at least, I find her so, +but now her delusions are really too absurd, and, as I have said, the +worst of it is that her thoughts run on that one thing; it really is +most unfortunate. Poor father." + +"But what are her delusions?" + +"Well, I scarcely know how to tell you." + +"Try; anything can be told. It depends how it is told." + +"She thinks that the coachman has spread it all over Southwick--how +shall I say it? I don't know that I ought to tell you. Well, that she +has gone wrong with you and Berkins. I thought I should die of +laughing--the idea of Berkins was too funny for words." + +"But your father doesn't believe it?" + +"Of course not." + +"He doesn't suspect me, I hope?" + +"No; I am sure he doesn't. He knows Maggie doesn't know what she is +saying. But he was dreadfully put out about Berkins; he is frightened +out of his wits lest he should hear of it. But for goodness' sake +don't mention that I said anything to you about it; I am in trouble +enough as it is. Father says he can stand it no longer. I am very much +afraid that he will leave Southwick. It depends on what Aunt Mary +says. He has sent for her; she will be here to-morrow." + +These family councils were held in the billiard-room, and when Aunt +Mary and Aunt Hester had had their tea they came along the passage, +Aunt Mary of course in front, Aunt Hester timid and freckled and with +her usual air of tracts. Uncle James stood with his back to the fire +waiting for them. Willy caught at his hair, but an expression of +resignation overspread his face, he packed his diary and accounts in +brown paper and lit a pipe. + +"Now, James, let us hear about these new troubles. Something must be +done, that is clear." + +"Yes, something must be done, Mary, and I can think of nothing for it +but to leave this place. It is no longer a place for me to live in. +The Southdown Road has proved too strong for me, it has conquered me." + +"Don't speak like that, James. We must try to bear our burdens, if not +for our own sakes, for the sake of Him who died for us. He bore a very +heavy cross for us." + +"There's no use in talking to me like that, Hester, you only provoke +me. You forget what a cross two daughters are, and the Southdown Road +has become intolerable. It is more than any man can bear; I will bear +it no longer. I have borne it long enough, and am determined to get +rid of it. I am afraid there's nothing for it but to sell the place +and go and live in London." + +Aunt Hester cast her eyes into her satchel, afraid even to think that +her brother had intentionally misinterpreted her words; but Aunt Mary +laughed at the idea of the slonk-hill, as a latter-day Golgotha, with +poor Uncle James staggering beneath the weight of the Southdown Road, +young men and all, upon him. It was very irreverent. He burst into +tears, Hester moved to leave the room, but was restrained by her +sister. + +"My position is a most unfortunate one; since the death of poor Julia +I have had no one to turn to, there has been no restraining influence +in this house. Here am I working all day long in the City for those +girls, and when I come home in the evening I find my house full of +people I don't know. I assure you, Mary, I don't know any of the +people who come to my house. I am consulted in nothing. It is not +fair--I say it is not fair; and at my death those girls will have +thirty thousand pounds a-piece." + +"I knew you had the money, James, I knew you had," exclaimed Aunt +Mary, and even Aunt Hester could not help casting a look of admiration +on her weeping brother. + +"I say it is not fair; a man of my money should have a comfortable +home to return to. Even the Southdown Road people have that; but no +consideration is shown to me. My dinner is put back so that Sally may +continue her flirtation with Meason in the slonk. Did any one ever +hear of such a thing? A man's dinner put back so that--that--that--" + +"Yes, we know all about the dinner being put back; that was three +years ago." + +"Why," Mr. Brookes asked himself, "had he invited his sisters to his +help?" He was only adding bitterness to his bitter cup. "You have no +sympathy, Mary," he went on; "you cannot understand the difficulties +of my position--these two girls are for ever quarrelling and fighting; +sometimes they are not even on speaking terms, but I think I prefer +their sullen looks to their violence. Sally threatened to knock her +sister down if she interfered with her young men." + +"What, again?" + +"Oh, I don't know if she has threatened to beat her lately. I don't +remember when was the last time. Their various rows are all jumbled up +in my head. All I know is that Maggie says she cannot live in the +house with Sally. Maggie is very ill, she is in a very excited state, +as she was once before, when I would not consent to her marriage with +--I have forgotten his name, but it doesn't matter. Now she won't dress +herself, and she walks about the house with her hair hanging down. I +know there is nothing for it but to send her away under the charge of +some lady who has had experience in such matters. She can't remain +here. She has the strangest delusions. Among other things, she fancies +the coachman has spread it all over Southwick that she has gone wrong +with Berkins and that fellow Escott. Just fancy if Berkins--a ten +thousand a year man--should hear of it! I don't know what he would +say. He would peg into me; he is at times very hard indeed upon me. I +don't say he is not a first-rate man of business, I know he has made +several excellent investments; but for all that I do not and cannot +think him competent to advise me on all my affairs, and that's what he +is always doing. He talks of putting down that Southdown Road. I +should like to see how he would set about doing it." + +"James, Maggie must go away; she is very highly organised, very +sensitive, and if she were to remain here, Sally might have a real +effect on her mind. It is clear the sisters don't get on together; +have you had medical advice? I told you before that you should have +medical advice about those girls; I told you to spare no expense, but +to go to a first-rate London physician and take his opinion. I said +before, and I say it again, that no girls in good health could carry +on as dear Sally, and I will include dear Maggie; for although she +does not defy you to the same extent, there is no doubt that she is +too fast, too fond of young men; her thoughts run too much in that +way, and now she is ill, of course she has delusions. You ought to +have medical advice." + +"Mary, dear, the body is not everything; to cure the flesh you must +first cure the soul. I believe our dear nieces rarely, if ever, attend +church, rarely, if ever, remember that this life is not eternal and +that there is a hereafter." + +The conversation came to a pause. Presently Aunt Mary asked Willy, who +sat resigned to his fate, calm and solemn as a Buddha, his hands +clasped over his rotund stomach, if he thought that Maggie's state was +one to cause immediate anxiety, to which he replied: "My sisters think +of nothing but pleasure. The trouble girls are in a house is more than +any one would believe. Here I am, I can do nothing; every night it is +the same thing, over and over again." And the lean man lapsed into +contemplation. + +"But to come to the point, James, I want to hear about Sally. You said +in your letter that a great deal had come to light, and that you now +find that her conduct has been worse than you had ever imagined it, +even in your moments of deepest dejection. Now, I want to hear about +all this. What has she done? Let's have it in plain English. What has +she done?" + +"To put it plainly, Mary," said Mr. Brookes, wiping his tears away, +and turning his back upon his Goodall, "I don't know what she hasn't +done--everything. She is at the present moment the talk of Southwick. +The doctor here has seen her in the field at the back here with Meason +at nine o'clock at night." + +"Why did you allow her to leave the house at that hour? No young girl-- +" + +"She always takes her dogs out in the evening; I cannot prevent her +doing that. It appears, too, that she has had Meason up in her +bedroom." + +"O James, you do not mean to say that my dear niece had a man in her +bedroom!" + +"Hester, dear, you have lived in a rectory and know nothing of the +world. She says it isn't a bedroom. She pushes the bed away in the +daytime, and covers it up to make it look like a couch. Besides, she +keeps birds in her room, and Flossy had her puppies there. I am not +excusing her conduct, pray do not think that, I am only telling you +what she says." + +"This is very serious. Are you quite sure? Perhaps she only meant to +show the young man her birds or puppies. Her spirit must be broken, I +can clearly see that." + +"I allow them, as you know, one hundred pounds a year apiece. Maggie +keeps none, but Sally always keeps accurate accounts of what she +spends. I asked to see those accounts, for I had heard she had been +giving her money to Meason, and she refused to let me see them. There +is a sum of twenty pounds for which she can give no explanation. Then +it is well known she gave a set of diamond studs to that fellow, and +that he pledged them for five pounds in Brighton. He boasted he had +done so, and said he intended to get plenty of money out of me before +he had done with me. After that I ask you, how can I live in this +place? When I go to the station in the morning I see these young +fellows laughing at me over the tops of their newspapers. When I come +home of an evening after a hard day's work, I find that my dinner--" + +"Her spirit must be broken," said Aunt Mary, drawing her shawl about +her, and crossing her hands. "Her spirit must be broken; she cannot be +allowed to remain here to drive dear Maggie into a lunatic asylum. I +am with you in that, James, but I cannot think you did well to let +Frank Escott slip through your fingers. Had you not talked so much +about money your daughter might have been Lady Mount Rorke." + +"Talked too much about my money? Who would talk about it, I should +like to know, if I didn't? I made it all myself. What do I care for +that lot--a stuck-up lot, pooh, pooh! twist them all round my finger. +I am not going to give my daughter to a man who cannot make a +settlement upon her." + +Seeing he was not to be moved in anything that concerned his pocket, +Aunt Mary returned to the consideration of what was to be done with +Sally. "From what you tell me it is clear that Sally must not remain +in Southwick a day longer than can be helped. I will take her with me +to Woburn; and I think she had better go abroad as soon as we can hear +of some one in whose charge we can place her. But it must not be a sea +voyage--there is nothing more dangerous than to be on board a ship for +a young girl who is at all inclined to be fast. All are thrown so much +together. The cabins open out one into the other, and there is always +a looking for something--a handkerchief, a bunch of keys, a lot of +stooping and playing, twiddling of moustaches," said Aunt Mary, with a +peal of laughter. + +"Mary, dear, we should not speak lightly of wickedness." + +"It was so that all the mischief was done when Emily Evans was sent +out to the Cape--it was all done on board a ship. You remember the +Evanses, James?--you ought to, you used to flirt pretty desperately +with Lucy, the younger sister." And then Aunt Mary rattled off into +interminable tales concerning the attachment contracted on board a +ship in particular, its unfortunate consequences, how it brought about +a divorce later on by sowing the seeds of passion (Aunt Mary always +pronounced the word "passion" in her narratives with strong emphasis), +in the young girl's heart; and at various stages of her discourse she +introduced fragments of the family history of the Evanses; she +followed the wanderings of the different sisters from Homburg to +Paris, from Paris to Scotland, from Scotland to the Punjab, explaining +their different temperaments by heredity, which led her back into the +obscure and remote times of grandfathers and grandmothers, and, having +finally lost herself, she said: "What was I talking about? You have +been listening to me, James, what was I talking about?" + +Till the end of a week the discussion was continued. Aunt Mary tried +hard to reconcile all parties to their different lots, and, as is +usual in such cases, without attaining any result. And yet Aunt Mary +went with her sister to see Frank in his studio. Willy accompanied +them, and when they left he complained bitterly of how his time was +wasted. "Regularly every evening, just as I am sitting down to work, I +hear them coming along the passage. First of all they go to get their +grog--squeak, squeak, pop. I know it all so well. Then they come in +with their tumblers, and they sit down on the sofa, and they begin.--I +don't know what is to be done with dear Sally, unless we can send her +abroad in the care of some relation. How is dear Maggie to-day? I hope +I shall be able to induce her to put on her frock to-morrow, and come +for a drive with me in the carriage. What a trouble young girls are in +the house, to be sure. Then father begins to groan, and pulls out his +handkerchief; he is quite alone, he has no one he can depend upon, +then he laughs, 'Well, well, I suppose it will be all the same a +hundred years hence.' So it goes on night after night. Here am I +starting a big business, and I haven't a room to work in. Just as I am +adding up a long column of figures, perhaps when I am within three of +the top, Aunt Mary asks me a question, and it has to be gone over +again. It is most provoking, there's no denying that it is most +provoking." Frank agreed that nothing could be more provoking than to +be interrupted when you were within three of the top of a long column +of figures. On the following day he heard that the aunts had left, +taking Sally with them. They had promised their brother to find a lady +who would take dear Maggie under her care--one who would soon wean her +from dressing-gowns and delusions, and restore her to staid remarks +and stays; and hopes were entertained that the Manor House would not +have to be sold after all. + +But many days had not sped when an event occurred that precipitated +the five acres into the jaws of the builders. Meason had sailed for +Melbourne, and his sister, thinking that some of Sally's letters might +be of use to Mr. Brookes, offered to surrender them upon the receipt +of a cheque for one hundred pounds--a very modest sum, she urged, +considering the character of the letters, most of which concerned +artfully laid plans to meet in the train going or coming from London. +Mr. Brookes called on the shade of dear Julia, but he was not a man to +be blackmailed--he had made all his money himself, and on that point +was immovable. He prepared to leave Southwick. He looked fondly on his +glass-houses, and despairingly on his Friths, Goodalls, and +Bouguereaus, and he wondered if they would look as well in the new +rooms as in the old, and what sum they would realise if he were to +include them in the auction; for an auction was necessary. Mr. Brookes +did not thus decide to abandon his acres without many a sob, nor is it +certain that the final step would have been taken if the gentle +builder had not gilded his insidious hand, and if certain rumours were +not about that the villas in the Southdown Road were not letting, and +that Southwick would never be anything but what it was, a dirty little +village--half suburb, half village. + + + + +XVII + + + +Frank was grieved and troubled at the sad accounts that came to him of +Maggie's health; he was perplexed, too, for he knew himself to be the +cause, and he longed to relieve and to cure her. It seemed to him that +he would give his life to go to her, and comfort her with love, and +yet he was impotent to make the least effort to attain the end he +desired. He lay in the sad and cruel memory of Lizzie, his mind filled +with ignoble visions of her life with the waiter, or with delicate +fancies of her beauty amid the summer of the Thames. He mused on her +gracious figure and face, illuminated by reflections from the water, +set off by the bulrushes and floating blossoms which she so eagerly +coveted, and varied by the movements of the waist and shoulders, the +round white arm, the trailing scarf, and all the wistful charm of the +slumbering evening. He thought of the country light, the sound and +smell of cows, of the sparrows in the vine, the cottage looking so +cosy amid the foliage, the bit of garden full of old-fashioned +flowers, tall lilies, convolvuluses, and marigolds, and the sitting- +room full of things belonging to her--her flowers, her books, her +music, and he thought of this until his life was sick with desire, and +there grew a burning pain about his heart. + +A man's struggles in the web of a vile love are as pitiful as those of +a fly in the meshes of the spider; he crawls to the edge, but only to +ensnare himself more completely; he takes pleasure in ridiculing her, +but whether he praises or blames, she remains mistress of his life; +all threads are equally fatal, and each that should have served to +bear him out of the trap only goes to bind him faster. A man in love +suggests the spider's web, and when he is seeking to escape from a +woman that will degrade his life, the cruelty which is added completes +and perfects the comparison. A man's love for a common woman is as a +fire in his vitals; sometimes it seems quenched, sometimes it is torn +out by angry hands, but always some spark remains; it contrives to +unite about its victim, and in the end has its way. It is a cancerous +disease, but it cannot be cut out like a cancer. It is more deadly; it +is inexplicable. All good things, wealth and honour, are forfeited for +it; long years of toil, trouble, privation of all kinds, are willingly +accepted; on one side all the sweetness of the world, on the other +nothing of worth, often vice, meanness, ill-temper, all that go to +make life a madness and a terror; twenty, thirty, forty, perhaps fifty +years lie a head of him and her, but the years and their burdens are +not for his eyes any more than the flowers he elects to disdain. Love +is blind, but sometimes there is no love. How then shall we explain +this inexplicable mystery; wonderful riddle that none shall explain +and that every generation propounds? + +Frank lingered in Southwick, for he had promised Willy to stay with +him when he went to live at the stables on the Portslade Road. Summer +was nearly over, hunting would soon commence, and he could keep a +couple of hunters--Willy had calculated it out--for two and twenty +shillings a week. He had ceased to paint, and when he went to the +studio it was to play the piano or the violin. None knew of Lizzie, +and all knew of Maggie. It was thought a little strange that he would +not forgive her, but the obscurity of the story of this point and the +delight felt in her misfortune helped to intensify and idealise Frank +in the popular mind, and when he played Gounod in the still evenings +the young ladies would steal from the villas and wander sentimentally +through the shadows about the green. He got up late in the morning, he +lingered over breakfast, and until it was time to go to Brighton he +lay on the sofa watching the cricketers and the children playing, +shaping resolutions, and striving with himself and deceiving himself. +A dozen times, a hundred times, he had concluded he must see Maggie; +he had decided he would write to Lord Mount Rorke, that he would go to +Mr. Brookes and settle the matter off-hand. But, somehow, he did +nothing. His mind was absorbed in a novel, which he narrated when +Willy came to see him. It concerned the accident that led a man not to +marry the woman he loved, and was in the main an incoherent version of +his own life at Southwick. + +"I don't think I told you," said Willy, "that they are removing the +furniture to-day." + +"You don't say so--to-day? And where is your father?" + +"He is in London, at the 'Metropole.'" + +The young men walked on slowly in silence, and when they came to the +lodge gate, standing wide open, and saw the curtainless windows and +the flowerless greenhouses, Willy said: "It is very sad to see all the +things you have known since you were a child sold by auction." + +"Oh, yes, it is. Look at the swards. Do they not look sad already? +Those beautiful elms, under whose shade we have sat, will be cut down, +and stucco work and glass porticoes take their places. Oh, it is very +sad." + +"My father never had any feeling, he never cared for the place. Had I +been in his place I should have invested my money in land and gone in +for the county families." + +"How old was I when I came down to see you for the first time-- +fourteen, I think? How well I remember everything. It was there, look, +through that glade, that I saw your sisters coming to meet me, they +were then only ten or eleven years old. I can see them in my mind's +eye, quite distinctly, walking towards me, Grace leading the way, and +now she is a mother; and they were all so dark. I remember thinking I +had never seen girls so dark, they were like foreigners. And do you +remember how your father scolded Sally for carrying me round the +garden on her back, and she used to wake me up in the mornings by +rolling croquet balls along the floor into my room. Oh, what good, +dear days those were, and to think they are dead and gone, and that +the house is going to be pulled down; and the garden--oh! the +moonlights in that garden, where I walked with the girls, with scarves +round their shoulders, through the dreamy light and shade. We have +sung songs, and talked of all manner of things. You don't feel as I +feel." + +"Yes I do, my dear fellow, I think I feel a great deal more, only I +don't talk so much about it." + +"I know it is infinitely sad. This dear old wall! There is Maggie's +window: how often have I looked up to that window for her winsome +face, and I shall never look again." + +"You are as bad as my father. Cheer up; I suppose it will be all the +same a hundred years hence." + +"No, no, it won't be the same. Why should all I feel and love be +forgotten. I suppose it will be all the same. There goes Berkins. I +hate that man." + +"So do I." + +"If time takes away pleasant things it takes unpleasant things too, +and those who live a hundred years hence will not be troubled with +that fool. True, there will be other Berkinses, and there will be +other gardens, and other girls, but that doesn't make it the least +less sad to see this garden pass into bricks and mortar." + +Two footmen approached Mr. Berkins, and with all solemnity helped him +to take off his overcoat. He said a few words to Willy, and was soon +loudly ordering the workmen who were taking the Goodalls and the +Friths from the walls. + +"Take care, there! Hi, you! get on the ladder and take hold of this +end of the picture. There, that's better! That's the way to do it!" + +"That's what he said when he shot my bird," Willy whispered; and they +tried to laugh as they went upstairs. But their footsteps sounded +hollow, and the wardrobes, where they had so often put their clothes, +stood wide open, desolately empty. They looked out of the windows, and +heard the voices of the work-people. + +"How very sad it is," said Frank; then, after a long silence: "How +beautiful a scene like this would be in a book--a young girl leaving +her home, straying through the different rooms musing on the different +pieces of furniture, all of which recall the past. I think I shall +write it. I wish you would tell me what you feel; I mean, I wish you +would tell me what impresses itself most on your mind, and, as it +were, epitomises the whole. You have known all this since you were a +child. You have played in these passages; some spot, some piece of +furniture, your toys--I suppose they are gone long ago; but something +must stand out and assert itself amid conflicting thoughts. Do tell +me." + +Willy stroked his moustache. "Of course it is very sad, but it is +difficult to put one's feelings into words. I should have to think +about it; I don't think I could say off-hand." + +At that moment there came a great crash. + +"What the devil is that?" cried Frank. + +"I hope they haven't broken the statue of Flora," said Willy, and a +look of alarm overspread his face. Frank felt that if such were the +case he should feel no great sorrow. They ran down the echoing stairs. +The workmen had got drunk in the cellars and in removing the statue +they had let it fall, and it strewed the floor--an arm here, a +fragment of drapery there. + +"I knew what would happen. I told Mr. Brookes so. All my statues are +in marble." + +"Come away, I can't listen to that cad. I wouldn't have had Flora +broken for a hundred pounds. When I was a child I used to stand and +look at her. I never could make out how she was made, and I always +wanted to look inside. If you'd like to know what I feel most sorry +for, it is Flora. She has stood amid the flowers in the bow window as +long as I can remember." + +They followed the high road by Windmill Inn, where they struck across +the Downs, and when they reached the first crest they could see the +paddocks and enclosures situated along the road in the valley, and the +private house so trim and middle-class. "Splendid paddocks and first- +rate stabling. The house is not much. When I am making fifteen per +cent. on my money I shall go in for a little architecture. If I had a +glass I could show you Blue Mantle's stable. Do you see two horses in +the paddock, right away on the left, in the far corner--Apple Blossom +and Astarte? Apple Blossom is by See-saw out of Melody, by Stockwell +out of Fairy Queen. Is that good enough for you? Astarte is by Blue +Gown out of Merry Maid, by Beadsman out of Aurora. What do you say to +that?" + +"I see you have been looking up the Stud Book." + +"Business, sir, business. And if I were to go in for owning a racer or +two, just look and see what a magnificent training ground; miles upon +miles of downland. Did you ever see a handsomer view? You must paint +me some landscapes for my dining-room." + + + + +XVIII + + + +"The pain is always here--just over the heart. You know what I mean? +Suddenly, when I am thinking of other things, the sound of her voice +and the sight of her face comes upon me, and then a dead, weary ache. +I know I cannot have her, perhaps if I did I shouldn't be wholly glad; +but glad or sorry, good fortune or ill, I cannot forget her. My life +will not be complete. You have felt all this." + +"Never mind how I felt, you know I don't like talking about it. I am +sorry for you. We all have our troubles, I've had nothing else; I +often think that if I were to die to-morrow it would be a happy +release." + +"If I had never seen her, or if I had married Maggie; if your father +had not put obstacles in the way; if he had not raised the wretched +money question, which you know as well as I do was dragged in quite +unnecessarily, I should not be suffering now. For, once married, I +should think of no one but my wife. I am sure I should make a good +husband. I know I could make a woman happy; she'll never find a +husband better than she'd have found in me, I don't believe if they +were to be made that you could make a better husband than I should be +--I feel it." + +"I have always said that my father brings all his troubles on himself. +He never went in for the country people; he never would have people at +the Manor House. You can't shut up young girls as if they were in a +convent, and if they don't get the right people they'll have the wrong +people. My father thinks of nothing but his money, and he can't +understand that he might go for an equivalent. How could he have +expected it to have turned in your case but as it did? Lord Mount +Rorke was not going to come over to Southwick to haggle over pounds, +shillings, and pence with him--not likely. My sisters might have +married very well if he had gone the right way to work, and he would +have been saved a deal of worry and bother. I always say that my +father brings all his troubles on himself." + +"So far as I was concerned he certainly acted very stupidly. Ah, if I +had married Maggie last summer, how different my life would be now." + +"But you couldn't have really loved her; if you had you would never--" + +"Yes, I did love her." + +"I heard from my father to-day. Maggie is better. This is, of course, +a very delicate question, but we have been friends so long--would you +like me to see if--if this matter could be arranged? I don't like, as +you know, to meddle in other people's affairs, I have quite enough to +do to look after my own; but if you would like--You, of course, do not +think of marrying Lizzie Baker?" + +"Of course not." + +"Then you would like me to speak to my father? Are you willing? Would +you like to marry Maggie?" + +"Yes, of course I should." + +"I don't say so because she is my sister, but I think it is the best +thing you could do." + +They had traversed the paddock, and were close to the stables. Picking +a few carrots out of a heap, they opened the door of Blue Mantle's +box. The horse came towards them, his large eyes glancing, his +beautiful crest arched. His coat shone like satin, his legs were as +fine as steel, and with exquisite relish he drew the carrots from +their hands. + +The perspective of the hills was prolonged upon fading tints, and in +the pale blueness the mares feeding in the paddocks grew strangely +solitary and distinct; the trees about the coast towns were blended in +shadow, and out of the first stars fell a quiet peace. + +Their dinner awaited them--a little dinner, simple and humble. After +dinner, when the lamp was brought in, Willy nursed the missus with +affection and sincerity. Cissy sat on Frank's knee, and he told her +stories and stroked her hair. This household retired at eleven. At ten +every morning Willy was busy with his letters, his cheques, his +accounts, and in the afternoon the young men walked about the fields +talking of possible successes of the forthcoming breeding season, and +so the days went. But the secret forces were busy about Frank's life. +There were mines and counter-mines. Every fort of prejudice, every +citadel of reason rested now upon foundations that quaked, and would +fall at the first shock. Doom was about him. As the silence rustles in +the deadly hush of the storm that brings winter upon the forest, he +waited unconscious as a leaf in the imminence of the autumn moment; +and in such a stillness, awaiting a change of soul, he received a +letter from Lizzie. It dropped from his hand, and such desire to go as +comes on swallow and cuckoo came on him; he struggled for a moment, +and was sucked down in his passion. + +The little village--a summary of English life and custom, a symbol of +the Saxon, the church steeple pointing through the elm trees, the +villas with their various embellishment in the line of glass porticos +and privet hedges, the General, Mrs. Horlick, Messrs Brookes and +Berkins--how complete it seemed, how individual and how synthetical-- +his eyes filled with tears of unpremeditated grief. The leaves were +falling, the hills were shrouded in wreaths of floating mist. Some +trees had been cut down and scaffolding had been reared about the +Manor House, some of the walls had already fallen revealing the wall +paper, the pattern of which he could almost distinguish. He was going +to the woman he loved, but he was leaving his youth behind, and those +whom he had known as children, as girls, as women; he remembered all +the gossip, all the quarrels, all the to-do about nothing; and now, +looking on the beautiful garden where he had played and passioned in +all varying moments of grief and glee, he re-lived the past; and +leaning out of the carriage window he gazed fondly, and cried out: +"Alas, those were Spring Days." + +THE END + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SPRING DAYS *** + +This file should be named sprng10.txt or sprng10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, sprng11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, sprng10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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