"I don't know why not--now," a miserable Reggie admitted.

"Then go at once and tell him you are ready."

For her word's sake to his brother she wrung a reluctant a.s.sent from him, and left him. But an hour later Emily bringing in the tea announced that a gentleman had called to see Miss Deleah.

"You can guess who 'tis," Emily said, as she spread the cloth. "He's in his dog-cart at the door, and his horse that resty, he says he can't come in; but he won't keep Miss Deleah a minute."

Bessie kneeling on the window-seat, was looking down into the street: "It's Reggie, of course," she said. Then she turned round to her sister.

"Deleah," she said, "don't be silly; _take_ Reggie. Don't be put off by that stuck-up, conceited old brother; don't trouble any more about me, and things I've said. It's a real chance. The best you'll ever get. _Take it_."

She had to call the last words over the bal.u.s.ters, for Deleah, paying no heed to her exhortation, was running down the stairs.

Beside Reginald Forcus in his smart dog-cart little Franky Day, to his own delight and surprise, was sitting. He had come running down the street to his tea, when Reggie had accosted him with the agreeable attention of a whip-lash curved round his calves.

"Hullo, youngster!" Reggie had greeted him.

"Quite 'ell, I thank ye," Franky had responded.

"Coming for a spin with me?"

No further invitation had Franky required, but had clambered at once, great eyes sparkling, little heart beating high, into the vacant seat beside the driver. The exceeding honour was his to hold the reins, the groom standing at Black Michael's head, while Reggie got down to speak to Deleah at the door.

"Deleah," he said, "I've come to tell you I've done all you asked of me.

I've seen Francis, and I go away next week."

"Good Reggie!"

"I've done it because you asked me; and now I want you to do just one thing for me. I know it's all over, and there's no hope for me, and after to-night I shan't see you any more. I want you to come for a spin with me to-night."

"No, Reggie."

"Yes, Deleah. I've got to go to Runnydale, to tell old Candy I shan't want that little mare. Franky is coming. Franky can sit up between us, Deleah--"

He was very proud of himself for his forethought in securing Franky.

Deleah, chaperoned by Franky, could have no excuse.

She refused him very gently, because of his subdued demeanour, and because, absurd as it was of him, his voice had faltered when he made his appeal, and his eyes had grown moist. "But you must not take Franky, Reggie," she said, and called on the child to descend, and come in to his tea.

"Le'me go, Deda! Le'me go!" Franky pleaded.

"Oh, Deleah, just to please me--this last time ever I shall see you--you come too!" the young man tried her again. When again she refused, he flung away from her in a rage, and mounted to his seat; the groom, leaving the tossing head of Black Michael, sprang up behind. She called again to Franky, but they were off without reply. Deleah, looking after them for a minute, could see the child's excited little face beaming with delight turned up with admiration to the young man beside him.

Then she went back into the black little entry which did duty for hall, and mounted the steep, narrow stairs with a lagging step. How brightly the afternoon sun had shone on Reggie, his fair, smooth hair, vivid necktie, the flower in his coat. How the bra.s.s harness had glittered, and Black Michael's satin coat had shone; how spick and span was Odgers, the groom, in his green and buff livery; what an air of wealth and well-being about every appointment.

Deleah would have liked very well to have sat behind the spirited horse by kind Reggie's side; to have dashed forth into the sweet-smelling country--away from cheese and coffee and their mingled odours, away from Bessie and her complaining over the chance Deleah had thrown away; away from the society of the boarder who looked at her with such burning eyes, beneath a penthouse of hand, watching her every movement, who whispered his recklessly fierce "I love you" when the least excuse could bring his head near to hers. Away from the thought of Miss Chaplin, and the necessity to set about finding a fresh situation.

She had not wished to marry Reggie, but now that he was lost to her past recall, a value which for her he had not before possessed seemed to attach to him. How easy life would have been with him! Every day Franky might have gone for a drive; her mother could have turned her back on the grocer's shop--

From the time she set her foot on the lower stair till she reached the landing Deleah almost allowed herself to believe she would call the young man, and all that he stood for to her and hers, back again. But before she had opened the door of the sitting-room, she had remembered Sir Francis, and his scorn of her and hers, and her face had burnt with shame.

"Well?" questioned Bessie, as she entered, her eyes glittering with eagerness.

"He wanted me to go for a drive. I would not go. He has taken Franky."

"Franky, in his old school suit, and without having his collar changed?"

Emily, lurking around, to hear the result of this short interview on the doorstep, was also horrified to think of the disgrace brought on the family by the condition of Franky. "His nails is that black when he come home from school, and often as not his face smudged. What a sight to set in front of Odgers."

"Odgers has got his back to him."

"For all that I'd have liked to sc.r.a.pe the top of the dirt off him. And he've got on the knickers with the patch at the back!"

Mrs. Day, having been up for her tea and retired again to the shop, took her place behind the counter, and dispatched Mr. Pretty to his meal.

No customers came in. She turned her sad and patient eyes upon the street, thinking--not of the cutler's over the way, with whose son Franky had formed such an undesirable friendship, nor of the pa.s.sers by on the narrow pavement, nor of the tradesmen's carts rattling over the cobble stones; thinking of Bernard on his way to India and untold danger and privations, of Deleah and her dismissal from the school. Her pretty, good child, to have received such shabby treatment! Deleah, who if she had chosen might have queened it over them all. Of her steadily declining business, too, she thought, and of how impossible it was for her to cope with Coman's, down the street. To-morrow was the seventh, the day set apart in each month by Mr. Boult for going into her affairs; looking through her books, catechising her, cross-questioning her, giving her advice in his tyrannical, bullying way. From this her thoughts glanced off to the subject Bessie had held forth upon in her irritating, worrying fashion, through tea.

"It is a pity the child did not have his face washed, certainly," she said.

At last a customer! No, only the cutler's little boy, Franky's chum, from across the way.

The cutler hired a strip of garden on one of the roads, and when tea was over, in the summer evenings, Franky and the cutler's son ran off together to their garden to get into what childish mischief was possible in the restricted s.p.a.ce.

"Franky isn't in, this evening," Mrs. Day told the boy. "He's gone for a drive with Mr. Forcus." She gave him a screw of acid-drops for himself, and the boy ran off.

"All ri', thenk ye. Tell Franky I looked in," he called.

The next comer was the fat little maid-of-all-work from the butcher's, near by. She was red-haired, with a large goitre over which her afternoon black frock would not quite b.u.t.ton. She was hardly worked from early morning, to late evening, and Mrs. Day, ever full of compa.s.sion for the weak and oppressed, was kind and gentle to her.

She was generally breathless with hurry and the trouble of the goitre, and Mrs. Day took no special notice of her panting condition now.

"What for you to-night, Alice?" she asked her.

"It's soap," Alice gasped. "Soap, and matches, and six eggs for the morning's breakfast, and I was to tell you, if you please, as you was to put in seven, steads of six, for one in the last lot was stale. And have you heard, please, there's been an accident with that there Mr. Forcus's tricky horse?"

Mrs. Day's dark eyes gazed at the girl out of a face blanched to the pallor of the dead.

"There have, then! Master, he jus' come in and said so. His horse is kilt; and the groom, he's cut about the face; and your little boy, what he took a ridin' with him, have got his neck broke."

CHAPTER XXV

To Make Reparation