“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.”
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