What is Brisket to me, or what is your daughter? What is anything?"

"But, George--"

"Is there no honesty left in the world, Mr. Brown? That there is no love I had already learned. Ah me, what an age is this in which we live! Deceit, deceit, deceit;--it is all deceit!"

"The heart of a man is very deceitful," said Mr. Brown. "And a woman's especially."

"Delilah would have been a true wife now-a-days. But never mind. That man is still there, and he must be answered. I have no hundred pounds to give him."

"No, George; no; we're sure of that."

"When this business is broken up, as broken up it soon will be--"

"Oh, George, don't say so."

"Ay, but it will. Then I shall walk out from Magenta House with empty pockets and with clean hands."

"But think of me, George. I had four thousand pounds when we began.

Hadn't I, now?"

"I do think of you, and I forgive you. Now go up to Brisket, for he will want his answer. I can a.s.sist you no further. My name is still left to me, and of that you may avail yourself. But as for money, George Robinson has none."

About half an hour after that, Mr. Brisket again descended the stairs with his usual ponderous and slow step, and went forth into the street, shaking the dust from his feet as he did so. He was sore offended, and vowed in his heart that he would never enter that house again. He had pressed Mr. Brown home about the money; and that gentleman had suggested to him, first, that it should be given to him on the day after the marriage, and then that it should be included in the bill. "You offered to take it all in one bill before, you know,"

said Mr. Brown. Hereupon Brisket began to think that he did not see his way at all, and finally left the house in great anger.

He went direct from thence to Mrs. Poppins' lodgings, where he knew that he would find Miss Brown. Poppins himself was, of course, at his work, and the two ladies were together.

"I've come to wish you good-by," he said, as he walked into the room.

"Laws, Mr. Brisket!" exclaimed Mrs. Poppins.

"It's all up about this marriage, and so I thought it right to come and tell you. I began straightforward, and I mean to end straightforward."

"You mean to say you're not going to have her," said Mrs. Poppins.

"Polly, don't make a fool of yourself," said Maryanne. "Do you think I want the man. Let him go." And then he did go, and Miss Brown was left without a suitor.

CHAPTER XXI.

MR. BROWN IS TAKEN ILL.

Brisket kept his word, and never entered Magenta House again, nor, as far as George Robinson is aware, has he seen any of the Brown family from that day on which he gave up his intended marriage to this present. For awhile Maryanne Brown protested that she was well satisfied that this should be so. She declared to Mrs. Poppins that the man was mercenary, senseless, uninteresting, heavy, and brutal;--and though in the bosom of her own family she did not speak out with equal freedom, yet from time to time she dropped words to show that she was not breaking her heart for William Brisket.

But this mood did not last long. Before winter had come round the bitterness of gall had risen within her heart, and when Christmas was there her frame of mind was comfortable neither to herself nor to her unfortunate father.

During this time the house still went on. Set a business going, and it is astonishing how long it will continue to move by the force of mere daily routine. People flocked in for shirts and stockings, and young women came there to seek their gloves and ribbons, although but little was done to attract them, either in the way of advertis.e.m.e.nt or of excellence of supply. Throughout this wretched month or two Robinson knew that failure was inevitable, and with this knowledge it was almost impossible that he should actively engage himself in his own peculiar branch of business. There was no confidence between the partners. Jones was conscious of what was coming and was more eager than ever to feather his own nest. But in these days Mr. Brown displayed a terrible activity. He was constantly in the shop, and though it was evident to all eyes that care and sorrow were heaping upon his shoulders a burden which he could hardly bear, he watched his son-in-law with the eyes of an Argus. It was terrible to see him, and terrible, alas, to hear him;--for at this time he had no reserve before the men and women engaged behind the counters. At first there had been a pretence of great love and confidence, but this was now all over. It was known to all the staff that Mr. Brown watched his son-in-law, and known also that the youngest partner had been treated with injustice by them both.

They in the shop, and even Jones himself, knew little of what in these days was going on upstairs. But Robinson knew, for his room was close to that in which Mr. Brown and his daughter lived; and, moreover, in spite of the ill-feeling which could not but exist between him and Miss Brown, he pa.s.sed many hours in that room with her father. The bitterness of gall had now risen within her breast, and she had begun to realize that truth which must be so terrible for a woman, that she had fallen to the ground between two stools. It is a truth terrible to a woman. There is no position in a man's life of the same aspect. A man may fail in business, and feel that no further chance of any real success can ever come in his way; or he may fail in love, and in the soreness of his heart may know that the pleasant rippling waters of that fountain are for him dried for ever. But with a woman the two things are joined together. Her battle must be fought all in one. Her success in life and her romance must go together, hand in hand. She is called upon to marry for love, and if she marry not for love, she disobeys the ordinance of nature and must pay the penalty. But at the same time all her material fortune depends upon the nature of that love. An industrious man may marry a silly fretful woman, and may be triumphant in his counting-house though he be bankrupt in his drawing-room. But a woman has but the one chance.

She must choose her life's companion because she loves him; but she knows how great is the ruin of loving one who cannot win for her that worldly success which all in the world desire to win.

With Maryanne Brown these considerations had become frightfully momentous. She had in her way felt the desire for some romance in life, but she had felt more strongly still how needful it was that she should attain by her feminine charms a position which would put her above want. "As long as I have a morsel, you shall have half of it," her father had said to her more than once. And she had answered him with terrible harshness, "But what am I to do when you have no longer a morsel to share with me? When you are ruined, or dead, where must I then look for support and shelter?" The words were harsh, and she was a very Regan to utter them. But, nevertheless, they were natural. It was manifest enough that her father would not provide for her, and for her there was nothing but Eve's lot of finding an Adam who would dig for her support. She was hard, coa.r.s.e,--almost heartless; but it may perhaps be urged in her favour, that she was not wilfully dishonest. She had been promised to one man, and though she did not love him she would have married him, intending to do her duty. But to this he would not consent, except under certain money circ.u.mstances which she could not command. Then she learned to love another man, and him she would have married; but prudence told her that she should not do so until he had a home in which to place her.

And thus she fell to the ground between two stools, and, falling, perceived that there was nothing before her on which her eye could rest with satisfaction.

There are women, very many women, who could bear this, if with sadness, still without bitterness. It is a lot which many women have to bear; but Maryanne Brown was one within whose bosom all feelings were turned to gall by the prospect of such a destiny. What had she done to deserve such degradation and misfortune? She would have been an honest wife to either husband! That it could be her own fault in any degree she did not for a moment admit. It was the fault of those around her, and she was not the woman to allow such a fault to pa.s.s unavenged.

"Father," she would say, "you will be in the workhouse before this new year is ended."

"I hope not, my child."

"Hope! What's the good of hoping? You will. And where am I to go then? Mother left a handsome fortune behind her, and this is what you've brought us to."

"I've done everything for the best, Maryanne."

"Why didn't you give that man the money when you had it? You'd have had a home then when you'd ruined yourself. Now you'll have no home; neither shall I."

All this was very hard to be borne. "She nags at me that dreadful, George," he once said, as he sat in his old arm-chair, with his head hanging wearily on his chest, "that I don't know where I am or what I'm doing. As for the workhouse, I almost wish I was there."

She would go also to Poppins' lodgings, and there quarrel with her old friend Polly. It may be that at this time she did not receive all the respect that had been paid to her some months back, and this reverse was, to her proud spirit, unendurable. "Polly," she said, "if you wish to turn your back upon me, you can do so. But I won't put up with your airs."

"There's n.o.body turning their back upon you, only yourself,"

Polly replied; "but it's frightful to hear the way you're always a-grumbling;--as if other people hadn't had their ups and downs besides you."

Robinson also was taught by the manner of his friend Poppins that he could not now expect to receive that high deference which was paid to him about the time that Johnson of Manchester had been in the ascendant. Those had been the halcyon days of the firm, and Robinson had then been happy. Men at that time would point him out as he pa.s.sed, as one worthy of notice; his companions felt proud when he would join them; and they would hint to him, with a mysterious reverence that was very gratifying, their a.s.surance that he was so deeply occupied as to make it impossible that he should give his time to the ordinary slow courtesies of life. All this was over now, and he felt that he was pulled down with rough hands from the high place which he had occupied.

"It's all very well," Poppins would say to him, "but the fact is, you're a-doing of nothing."

"If fourteen hours a day--" began Robinson. But Poppins instantly stopped him.

"Fourteen hours' work a day is nothing, if you don't do anything. A man may sweat hard digging holes and filling them up again. But what I say is, he does not do any good. You've been making out all these long stories about things that never existed, but what's the world the better for it;--that's what I want to know. When a man makes a pair of shoes--." And so he went on. Coming from such a man as Poppins, this was hard to be borne. But nevertheless Robinson did bear it. Men at the "Goose and Gridiron" also would shoulder him now-a-days, rather than make way for him. Geese whose names had never been heard beyond the walls of that room would presume to occupy his place. And on one occasion, when he rose to address the chamber, the Grand omitted the courtesy that had ever been paid to him, and forgot to lay down his pipe. This also he bore without flinching.

It was about the middle of February when a catastrophe happened which was the immediate forerunner of the fall of the house. Robinson had been at his desk early in the morning,--for, though his efforts were now useless, he was always there; and had been struck with dismay by the loudness of Maryanne's tone as she rebuked her father. Then Mrs.

Jones had joined them, and the battle had raged still more furiously.

The voice of the old man, too, was heard from time to time. When roused by suffering to anger he would forget to speak in his usual falsetto treble, and break out in a few natural words of rough impa.s.sioned wrath. At about ten, Mr. Brown came down into Robinson's room, and, seating himself on a low chair, remained there for awhile without moving, and almost without speaking. "Is she gone, George?"

he asked at last. "Which of them?" said Robinson.

"Sarah Jane. I'm not so used to her, and it's very bad." Then Robinson looked out and said that Mrs. Jones was gone. Whereupon Mr.

Brown returned to his own room.

Again and again throughout the day Robinson heard the voices; but he did not go up to the room. He never did go there now, unless specially called upon to do so by business. At about noon, however, there came a sudden silence,--a silence so sudden that he noticed it.

And then he heard a quick step across the floor. It was nothing to him, and he did not move from his seat; but still he kept his ears open, and sat thoughtless of other matters, as though he expected that something was about to happen. The room above was perfectly still, and for a minute or two nothing was done. But then there came the fall of a quicker step across the room, and the door was opened, and Maryanne, descending the four stairs which led to his own closet, was with him in an instant. "George," she said, forgetting all propriety of demeanour, "father's in a fit!"

It is not necessary that the scene which followed should be described with minuteness in these pages. Robinson, of course, went up to Mr.

Brown's room, and a doctor was soon there in attendance upon the sick man. He had been struck by paralysis, and thus for a time had been put beyond the reach of his daughters' anger. Sarah Jane was very soon there, but the wretched state in which the old man was lying quieted even her tongue. She did not dare to carry on the combat as she looked on the contorted features and motionless limbs of the poor wretch as he lay on his bed. On her mind came the conviction that this was partly her work, and that if she now spoke above her breath, those around her would accuse her of her cruelty. So she slunk about into corners, whispering now and again with her husband, and quickly took herself off, leaving the task of nursing the old man to the higher courage of her sister.

And Maryanne's courage sufficed for the work. Now that she had a task before her she did it;--as she would have done her household tasks had she become the wife of Brisket or of Robinson. To the former she would have been a good wife, for he would have required no softness. She would have been true to him, tending him and his children;--scolding them from morning to night, and laying not unfrequently a rough hand upon them. But for this Brisket would not have cared. He would have been satisfied, and all would have been well. It is a thousand pities that, in that matter, Brisket could not have seen his way.