"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 d.a.m.ned brute" (here he paused to glance at himself in the gla.s.s 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 sn.o.bbish. 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 w.i.l.l.y'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 bl.u.s.ter. 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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.suring 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 d.i.c.kinson 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 d.i.c.kinson 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 d.i.c.kinson 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 a.s.sist 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 circ.u.mstantial 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 G.o.d 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 gla.s.s houses.

"My dear Berkins, I wish you would try to get w.i.l.l.y 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 a.s.sure 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; n.o.body 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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.sure 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 G.o.d! 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 w.i.l.l.y, 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?"