“Father's just gone downstairs. I think we had better wait a minute or two. In that way we shall escape a scolding. Father won't miss the ten o'clock.”
“Not a bad idea. You are always up to some cunning dodge. What's the time?”
“Twenty minutes to nine. I'll slip down the passage and tell Grace to go down and give him his breakfast. He won't say anything to her; he knows well that since Fatty went to India she wouldn't see a soul if she could help it.”
“Father never says anything to you either; you tell him a lot of lies, and leave him to understand that I do everything.”
“That's not true; I never speak against you to father; but at the same time I must say that if it weren't for you we could do as we liked. You don't try to manage father.”
“Manage him, indeed! that's what I can't bear in you, you're always trying to manage some one; I hate the word.”
“You got out of bed the wrong side this morning. However, I must go and tell Grace to go down at once, or father will be ringing for us.”
“What did she say?” said Sally, when Maggie returned.
“'Tis all right; I got her to go, and she said she was always being made a cat's-paw of. I assure you it wasn't easy to persuade her to go down to father, but I told her she might be the means of averting a very serious row.”
“I suppose you said there was no counting on what answers I might make to father?”
This was exactly what Maggie had said.
“Very well; you are always objecting to what I do, and the way I do it. I wish you would go and do things yourself. You think of nothing but yourself, or some young man you are after. I wouldn't do what you did yesterday. I wouldn't go sneaking round the garden with a young man I had never seen before.”
Maggie shrugged her shoulders and went on dressing. Sally, who had taken a seat on the bed, watched her. She thought how she might best pursue the quarrel, but her stomach called her thoughts from her sister, and she said: “I don't know how you feel, but I am dying of hunger. What time is it now?”
“Nine o'clock.”
“Another half-hour. I suppose he won't start before the half-hour.”
“Miss,” said the maid, knocking at the door, “Mr. Brookes wants to know if you are coming down to breakfast.”
“Say that we are not nearly ready; that there's no use waiting for us.”
“I think I had better go back to my room,” said Sally.
“I think you had. I wish you wouldn't bring that horrid little dog into my room. She made a mess here the other day.”
“That I am sure she didn't. Flossie is the cleanest dog in the world.”
“Clean or unclean, I would rather not have her in my room. There she is trying to drink out of my jug. Get away, you little beast!”
Sally caught up her dog, and marched out of the room, slamming the door after her.
“At last I have got rid of her,” thought Maggie, and she rolled and pinned up the last plait of her black hair, but she did not go down to breakfast until the wheels grated on the gravel and the carriage was heard moving away. Then she begged Grace to tell her what her father had said.
“He said his children were persecuting him, that he had not had an hour's peace since their poor mother died.”
“Fudge! Mother knew how to keep him in order. Do you remember when she threw the carving knife?”
“Sally, for shame! How can you speak of poor mother so?”
“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 canal 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 Willy.
“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 damned 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, Willy 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 passion 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 assuaged 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 Willy 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 anticipated, 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 Willy 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 passed 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 assure 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—”
“Quite so, Hester; of course. But at the same time a stop must be put to all this nonsense; it cannot be allowed. I have only to look round to take it all in. They are worrying their father into his grave. His position is a very trying one. He has no one whom he can depend on—no one.”
“I am alone since poor Julia—”
Aunt Mary and Aunt Hester looked at each other, and they wondered if the terrors of the carving knife were completely forgotten.
“Poor James,” said Aunt Mary, recrossing her hands, “is obliged to go to London every morning, from ten till, I may say, half-past six.”
“I am never home before seven.”
“These girls are their own mistresses; they go out when they like, they order the carriage whenever they like, and they invite here every one it pleases their fancy to invite without consulting their father. I believe he doesn't even—”
“I know none of the young men who come to my house. All I know of them is that they come from the Southdown Road.”
“Don't be so silly, James, put up that handkerchief. Of course, the Southdown Road is one of the great disadvantages of the place. Those villa residences have brought into Southwick a host of people that a man living in a big place like the Manor House cannot know—little people who have—”
“Not two hundred pounds invested—no, nor yet a hundred.”
“Well, I don't wish to offend them, I'll say small incomes. They are all devoured with envy, and all they think of is what goes on at the Manor House.”
“A lot of penniless young jackanapeses. Every morning I see them at the station watching me over the tops of their newspapers.”
“You must understand, Hester, poor James up in London, toiling, not knowing what is going on in his own home; feasting and pleasure going on morning, noon, and, I may say, night, for when James returned home unexpectedly about ten o'clock at night, he found them—how many were there?”
“About a dozen, the others had gone.”
“Feasting, drinking his champagne—his very best.”
“The last few bottles of '34 port were drunk; the peaches, that the gardener has been forcing so carefully for months past, were all eaten. I returned home unexpectedly; I had intended to spend the night in London—you know I went there to see about starting Willy on the Stock Exchange; he has drawn three thousand more out of the distillery; I hope he won't lose it. Well, I met Berkins in Pall Mall, and he said if I would return by the late train that he would spend the night here, and we would go up to town together in the morning. I suspected nothing; I went into my dining-room, and there I found them all at supper. Had it not been for Berkins it wouldn't have mattered. He was indignant when he saw one of those jackanapeses with his arm round the back of Grace's chair; he says that such company is not fit for the lady that is going to be his wife; and he now insists on fixing the day, the settlements, and everything, or of breaking off the match.”
“Then why don't you fix the day and the settlements?”
“Grace is not willing; she is quite undecided. She says she doesn't know whether she will have him or not. Sally tries to set her against him; she laughs at him, says he is pompous, and imitates him. Of course, it is quite true that he thinks everything he has is betterthan anybody else's. She says he is old, and says that kissing him would be like rubbing your face in a mattress.”
“The fact is,” said Aunt Mary, “Sally ought to have been a man; had she been a man, it would have been all right.”
Aunt Hester, who had spent her life in a vicarage, glanced uneasily at her sister, and fidgeted with the papers in her satchel.
“I suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence.”
“No, James, it will not,” replied Aunt Hester, with unusual determination.
The conversation dropped, and the speakers stared at each other at a loss how to proceed.
“She is a very difficult girl to manage. If it were not for her we could get on very well; it is she who upsets everything. She can't agree with Maggie; they are always quarrelling. The day after the party she threatened to knock her down if she interfered with her young man.”
“Is it possible! Did she say that? Well, when it comes to young ladies knocking each other down! Young ladies were very different in my young days. It only proves what I said about Sally—she ought to have been a man, she really ought to have been a man. I see it all; I have only to give one look round to take it all in one glance. When she came to meet me in Brighton I understood it all at once; I saw she could not restrain herself, no powers of self-restraint. Her eyes fixed on every man as if she couldn't see enough of him; her black eyes flashing. I wanted no telling—I saw it all; the moment a young man went by her eyes flashed. Here she was—'Aunt Mary, Aunt Mary, there's Meason, there's Meason, Aunt Mary, Meason, Meason, Aunt Mary.' It is not right, it can't be right; and to my thinking Maggie is just as bad—a little more sly perhaps.”
“No, not dear Maggie.”
“I say it is not right; girls in good health could not go on like that. If I were you, James, I would take them up to a first-rate London physician, the very best that can be had for money. Those girls are highly organised, highly sensitive; their nerves are highly strung. They want something to bring them down,” said Aunt Mary; but catching at that moment sight of her sister's face, she laughed consumedly, and, speaking through her laughter, said, “So-and-so, a first-rate man, I can't think of his name—he will give you the very best advice.”
“I think if our dear nieces could be brought to understand the sinfulness of their disobedience. I have here one or two little books which I think it would be advisable for them to read.”
“Later on, my dear Hester; the best thing that James can do is to see to their health. No girls in good health could act as they do; it is radically impossible.”
“I suppose that is what I must do; I don't know if I shall succeed, but I will try to get them to come up to London and have medical advice. Since the death of poor Julia I have been all alone; my position is a very hard one. I have no one to talk to, to assist me, to take my place in any way. I am obliged to go to London every day, and I assure you my heart is all of a flutter in the morning when I take the train, for I don't know what may happen before I return. The girls can do what they like; they are mistresses of this big house, they take the carriage into Brighton when they like, Sally takes the cart. I have thought of getting rid of that cart.”
Although passionately fond of talking, Aunt Mary would with patience, and even with pleasure, cross her hands and settle herself down to listen to one of Uncle James's interminable lamentations, but Aunt Hester, a nervous and timid creature who talked but little, not only declared that she could not bear to hear the same stories over and over again, but interrupted her brother with firmness and determination. Indeed, it was only on occasion of Uncle James's soliloquies that she had ever shown any strength of will.
“We know very well, James, that your position is a trying one—that since the death of poor Julia you have no one whom you can look to. There is no use in telling us this over again; it is mere waste of time. What we have to do now is by all means in our power to convince dear Sally of the sinfulness of her conduct, and so strive to bring her back to a state of grace.”
“Her spirit must be broken, she must be subdued,” interjected Aunt Mary.
“Christ is the real healer, prayer is the true medicine, and by it alone is the troubled spirit soothed.”
It being impossible to contravene these opinions, the conversation came to a pause, which was at length interrupted by Mr. Brookes, who through the folds of his handkerchief declared again that it would be all the same a hundred years hence. Even Aunt Mary's realism did not offend Aunt Hester as did this un-Christian philosophy; she gathered her strength for a grave reproof, but was cut short by her sister's laughter. All the teeth were glittering now, and peal after peal of laughter came. Aunt Hester's courage died, and her long, freckled face drooped like a sad flower.
“Now let us hear something about Grace. What about this marriage? Is Berkins as amorous as ever? That man does amuse me—his waistcoat buttons are better than any other man's.”
“Mary, Mary, I beg of you to remember Mr. Berkins is a man of eight thousand a-year.”
“He may make eight thousand a-year, but he has very little money invested,” said Aunt Mary.
“That is true,” Mr. Brookes replied reflectively, and he was about to rush off into a long financial statement when his sister, who already regretted her joke, checked him with an abrupt question.
“My dear James, is this marriage to be or not to be? That is what I want to know.”
“I really can't say, Mary; Sally has contrived to upset her sister; she would have been, I feel sure, glad to marry Mr. Berkins if she had not been upset by Sally.”
“Upset by Sally, what do you mean?”
“I told you that Sally tries to turn Berkins into ridicule, laughs at his beard among other things.”
“I must see Grace about this,” said Aunt Mary; “you must excuse my laughing, but Sally is often very droll.”
Choosing the first occasion when Maggie and Sally were absent from the room, Aunt Mary said, “Come, Gracie, dear, tell me about this marriage. I hear that your mind is not made up—that you are not at all decided. This is not acting fairly towards your father. You are placing him in a very false position.”
“I don't think so, aunty. No one, so far as I can make out, is either decided or satisfied. Mr. Berkins is not satisfied with the society we see.”
“The Southdown Road you mean,” interrupted Mr. Brookes, “and very properly, too.”
“And father and he cannot agree upon money matters, and I don't like a beard—”
“You never objected to a beard until Sally put you against it.”
“Yes, I did, father; I always told you—”
“Never mind the beard, tell me about the money matters that your father and Mr. Berkins can't agree upon.”
“Mr. Berkins has offered to settle twelve thousand pounds upon me if father will settle the same amount. But father won't agree to this; he wants Mr. Berkins to settle twelve, but does not want to settle more than seven himself upon me.”
“Is this so, James?” asked Aunt Mary.
Mr. Brookes avoided answering the question, and entered into a long and garrulous statement concerning himself and his money: he had made it all himself! he spoke of his investments with pride, and pathetically declared that he would not marry again because he would not deprive his dear children of anything. Aunt Mary crossed her hands over her shawl, and set herself to listen to the old gentleman's rigmarole. Aunt Hester tried several times to cut him short, but this time he would not be silenced.
Then Aunt Mary started the story of a girl whom she had known intimately in early life, which she no doubt thought would help Grace to a better comprehension of her difficulties; but the dear lady lost herself in the domestic entanglement of many families, on the subject of which she contributed much curious information, without, however, elucidating the matter in hand. She wandered so far that at length all hope of return became impossible, and she was obliged to pull up suddenly and ask what she had been talking about.
“What was I talking about, James; you have been listening to me—what was I talking about?”
Mr. Brookes made no attempt to give the information necessary for the blending of her many narratives, and she was forced to seek unaided for the lost thread. Soon after the girls came in with their gin and water. They drank their grog, kissed their relations, and retired to bed.
And the next evening, and the next, and the next, so long as Aunt Mary and Aunt Hester remained at the Manor House, the evenings passed in a similar fashion; and, notwithstanding the doleful faces they occasionally assumed, they found pleasure in lamenting the follies of the young people. The same stories were told, almost the same words were uttered. The only malcontent was Willy. He had no interest in his sisters, and the hours after dinner in the billiard-room when his sisters were in the drawing-room were those he devoted to looking through his letters and filling up his diary; so gnashed his teeth.
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