"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 ca.n.a.l 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 w.i.l.l.y.

"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 d.a.m.ned 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, w.i.l.l.y 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.suaged 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 w.i.l.l.y 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 antic.i.p.ated, 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 w.i.l.l.y 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sure 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--"