Spring Days — Chapter 4

London: Vizetelly & Co.,1 August 1888, pages 65-92, 8,011 words

CHAPTER IV

When the young ladies at the Manor House did not get their dresses from London, a dressmaker came from Brighton to help them, and all together they sat sewing and chattering in the work-room. Maggie would take a bow or a flower, and moving it quickly, guided by the instinct of a bird building its nest, would find the place where it decorated the hat or bonnet best. Neither Sally nor Grace could do this, nor could they drape a skirt or fit a bodice, but they could work well, and they enjoyed their work. But what they enjoyed more was the opportunity these working days afforded for gossip. Mrs Wood had the Brighton scandal at her tongue’s tip, and what she would not tell, her niece told them when her aunt left the room. Secrecy was enjoined, but sometimes they forgot, and in Mrs Wood’s presence alluded too pointedly to stories that had not yet found their way beyond the precincts of the servants’ hall, and then the dressmaker raised her mild eyes, and looked through large spectacles at Susan, who sat biting her lips. Susan told the young ladies of her love affairs; they told Susan of theirs; and the different codes of etiquette gave added zest to the anecdotes, in themselves interesting. The story of the young man who had said, "I am afraid that parcel is too heavy for you, miss," and had been promised a walk in the twilight on the cliff, evoked visions of liberty, and the story of the officer at the Henfield ball, with whom Sally had discovered a room that none knew of, did not fail to impress the little dressmaker. They talked a great deal about Frank. His face and manner called up the name, and after a few hesitations they used his Christian name as they did when he came to see them years ago.

"He is a very good fellow — I don’t say he isn’t. No one could say he wasn’t nice-looking, but somehow he doesn’t make you feel — you know, right down, you know, through and through.”

“Electricity," said Maggie, with a low subtle laugh, and her thread cracked through the straw of the hat.

"Yes," cried Sally, boisterously. "Electricity, I never heard it called that before; but it isn’t a bad name for it; it is like electricity. When a man looks at you — you know, in a peculiar way, it goes right down your back from the very crown of your head.”

"No, not down my back; I feel it down my chest, just like forked lightning. Isn’t it horrid; you know that it is coming and you can’t help it. Some men fix their eyes on you.”

"It is just when you meet a man’s eyes. A man you like, but haven’t seen much of.”

“I don’t think liking has anything to do with it. I hate it; don’t you?”

“No, I don’t know that I do. I can’t see anything so disagreeable as that in it. ’Tis rather a shock, a sort of pang.”

Mrs Wood raised her mild face and looked surprised through her thick spectacles; the merry niece bit her lips, and strove to stay her laughter. Then Maggie said,

"Sue, have you ever felt electricity?”

"Oh, miss! I don’t think I understand," and she glanced at her aunt over the hem she was running.

"Now, come, tell the truth. You mean to say you never felt electricity?”

“I don’t think I ever did, miss.”

"I don’t believe you. Not when that nice young man you were telling us about looked at you? Come now, tell the truth.”

“Well, miss, I don’t know — I thought it was very revolting.”

Mrs Wood said nothing; with her hand in suspended gesture and her spectacles a-glimmer with round surprise, she sat looking at Miss Maggie. Her reveries, however, were soon cut short, for Sally not only asked her if she had ever experienced the doubtful pleasure of electricity, but advised her when she returned home to try if her husband’s looks could thrill her.

"I don’t think the conversation at all nice," said Grace, who had up to the present taken no part either by looks, or words, or laughter.

"Who cares what you think. You used to be fond enough of sitting’ out dances with him. You mean to say he never gave you electricity?”

"No, never.”

“Then I hope Berkins will," said Sally, with a coarse laugh.

The association of Berkins with electricity proved so generally ludicrous that Mrs Wood, conscious of the respect she owed Miss Brookes, pretended to look for her handkerchief, and it was for a moment doubtful if the spectacles would preserve their gravity. The tears started to Grace’s eyes, and, striving to master them, she rose and left the room.

✱ ✱ ✱

One of the most notable defects in Frank’s character was an impotence to divine or judge the consequences of a decisive action. He was conscious of things, not at all of the consequence of things. Seeing that his friend was unhappy in his present state, he had abetted his marriage. He was blind to the manifold daily anxieties that must grow out of this action, and the linking dangers that it involved in the future were hidden from him. This blindness was obvious to the least observant, and tempted the least thoughtful to think; and all who knew him strove vainly to understand why at one moment he appeared to them so entirely selfish, and at another so impulsive and generous. For this reason he had, although possessing many admirable qualities, failed to make friends: those whom he was with were his all, the rest of the world was to him as nothing. He would snub a duchess to continue talking to an insignificant girl to whom he had been introduced in the beginning of the evening, nor had he any notion of holding his friends together by an occasional visit or letter. He was not deceitful, but he could deceive himself fluently. He hated Frith and Faed, but he liked Brookes, and as he was now fairly flown with facile enthusiasm for the whole of the family, he found no difficulty in seeing the work of these painters with eyes that were not habitually his. He passed over the tawdriness of Bouguereau’s peasant girls, and was impressed by the certainty of the drawing and the fluency of the modelling. He had met many of this painter’s pupils in Italy, and was full of anecdotes of the studio — how a picture had been composed, how a leg had been painted, the beauty of a girl — how a fellow had brought his saloon picture to the studio the day of sending in — a wretched thing, a badly-drawn nymph, a background that did not keep its place, and an absurd dog — with two brushes, one filled with flesh tint, and the other with background, the master altered the entire drawing of the nymph; a half tint to get a little modelling; the dog was put right with a touch or two, with a mixture of terre-verte and yellow ochre the crudeness was taken out of the landscape; it went back, kept its place — it was like conjuring. Of course the picture was accepted. The girls said, "How father does seem to enjoy those talks with Frank. The old gentleman jumped from his chair, and hurrying Frank round the billiard table he planted himself before a picture. "A good picture that, a real good picture; I gave a lot of money for it; a lot of money. Very foolish of me; I mustn’t do it again." And when Frank returned to London and a fortnight had elapsed, one evening when the silence was sepulchral in the billiard-room, Mr Brookes asked his daughters when young Escott was coming down again.

"Don’t know, father.”

"Didn’t you ask him?”

"No, father.”

"And why not?”

“Well, father, you know that you object to having any young men coming to the Manor House. We have had rows enough on that subject. Of course we can’t know whom you will receive with politeness, so we don’t ask any one.”

"Pooh, pooh! that is not true; you only say that to annoy me, Sally. You know very well, indeed, that I never objected to proper young men being invited here. I am not going to be made a laughing stock of. I who was always so respected in the place — I am not going to have all the bank clerks and ship’s mates in Brighton eating and drinking, and flirting with my daughters; but a young man of good family I am only too happy to receive in my house.”

"Good family! I never heard you talk of good family before. I always thought that nothing mattered so long as a man could settle so much upon us — a man like Berkins.”

At the mention of the name Grace’s face contracted, and Willy, who was making notes for his diary, caught at his short-cropped hair as if he would pull his head off in his despair. "Here it begins again," he thought. "I never saw such a house as this for work. There isn’t a room where you can be quiet. Here it begins all over again; the Southdown Road, the harm it has done to the place, how unwise it is of Mrs Horlock to walk about with the chemist’s wife. Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, oh, Lord, how sick I am of it.”

"You only like Frank because he talks about pictures to you; I believe he hates Bouguereau, he only tells you so to please you.”

“Sally, I will not be spoken to in this matter. If I object to Mr Meason it is because — ”

"Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, here it is, Meason again, we are in for a good couple of hours of it," thought Willy, and he clutched frantically at his hair. Then, with a despairing effort as if to save himself from what he believed to be inevitable, he said, "If you want to know anything about Frank, perhaps it will interest you to learn that I have asked him to come down on Saturday.”

And every time Frank came to Southwick he received the same impressions, a sense of calm and regularity. There was always the large garden, five acres full of trees and sward; the trains fled along the high embankment, and sometimes on sultry evenings, when the tide was rising, the smell of boats and nets invaded the verandah. Through the vista the sky grew paler and paler, and the slight stars twinkled, then in the garden the shadows thickened until the moon, a gold circle, appeared, and the sward grew quite white, and the darkness ran back till it was night in the thickness of the trees. The girls walked about the white and dark ways, their arms about each other’s waists, and sometimes the young man would steal between them, and overcome by the charm of the twilight, they allowed him to weave his arms around them, and so they would stroll about for hours watching the vanishing ribbons of light as the trains fled along the dark embankment, or, hanging over the edge of a flower-vase, they lifted the drooping roses. It was not love nor anything but the natural joy of youth, and even Grace — staid and sorrowful Grace — sometimes forgot her sorrow, and Frank’s arm passed through hers. Willy and their father left them to themselves, and the days came with sunshine, and the evenings with beauty; tenderness and wistfulness overflowed the heart, a joy weak and sweet. It was a heavenly night, and there was some of the heaven’s tenderness in the girls’ souls. They were sitting on the bank, Frank was lying at their feet, the dresses were white, and there were scarves about their shoulders. Frank was talking of music, of a song. "I heard a line end with ‘fixed you’, difficult to rhyme to, and quite the reverse of characteristic, of the ordinary song-writer, and listening for the rhyme words, I caught the line with the breath of heaven betwixt you. No one but a poet could have written that line. The tune went like this. I wish I had my guitar, I would sing it." And lifting his knee as if to rest the instrument against it he hummed.

"I think the words are by Mrs. Browning," said Maggie.

"Are they? So they should be, betwixt you, with fixed, you, how like her. Do you know them? Oh, tell them me.”

Slowly, line by line, Maggie recalled the poem. Frank followed her, singing softly, striking imaginary chords. The conversation fell, and the gold moon rose higher until it stood with only a few leaves upon its roundness. Then the girls drew their scarves about their shoulders and walked towards the house. And afterwards in the shadowy drawing-room, where there was nothing but dresses and girls’ hands, Frank sat playing aimlessly, letting his fingers stray from tune to tune.

Triss, who loved to retire early, had paddled up-stairs to bed, Flossy, Sally’s beautiful little King Charles, lay asleep in her arms. They kissed their father, who sat smoking in his arm-chair, and Willy, who sat tying up large bundles of letters or making long and elaborate entries in his diary. They shook hands with Frank, who watched them as they went out of the room. Till one, till two, till half-past, until they grew stupid with sleep, the young men talked in their bed-rooms, happy in each other’s company, suspicious of the hours that separated them. Frank spoke of Italy, of girls and boats and streams, of his poetry, his painting, his music; Willy spoke of his marriage, the agency in Brighton he was going to give up, and his prospects on the Stock Exchange — for his father had finally agreed to allow him .£3,000 of his capital invested in the distillery. They listened to each other with patience and admiration, Frank, with his more pliable nature, throwing a little more personal interest into Willy’s affairs than Willy could into Frank’s. They were as different in idea as a Buddha and a Greek god — upon such picturesque differences, the deepest sympathies are found. A donkey and a pony — what perfect companions they are — grazing together in a field. Willy was somewhat stolid and reserved, and this stolidity served as a sort of breakwater whereon Frank’s rasping humours might spend and wear themselves away. So it was that he had found a permanent friendship in this family; none he had met had suited him so well. He closed his eyes to the fact that the old gentleman, with his pictures and investments, was a vulgarity that Lord Mount Rorke would shudder at. But the first suspicions of vulgarity that may have arisen in Frank’s mind, as he contrasted the brick wall and the garden hedges with the stately Tipperary Park, its river, its woods, and blue mountains, were eclipsed; the suburban quiet and comfort appealed to him strongly, and his heart thrilled with singular satisfaction when, after some short absence, he walked up the little drive in the radiant summer morning, and directed his steps to the greenhouses, where he knew he would find the young ladies attending their flowers.

For since his return from Italy, Frank had been to the Manor House several times. Although London was now overflowing with balls and dinner parties, at homes, and amusements of every kind, he would often leave dissipation behind, and slip away at the end of the week to the ugly little village on the South Coast which had grown dear and akin to him. He would stay there two days. Willy pressed him to remain, and chaffed him vainly about the lady at the Gaiety bar. Frank assured him he had not seen her, that he had completely lost sight of her.

It was in the beginning of June that he received a letter from Maggie, asking him if he would come down for a tennis party. The letter went on to say that this tennis party was a dead secret, and the fact that anything special had taken place on the day mentioned must be carefully concealed. “It is our own idea. Father is going up to town with Willy to see about the Stock Exchange, and will not return till the next day at the usual time. We, therefore, cannot ask you to sleep here, but you might take a room in an hotel in Brighton. Pray come in time for lunch, and mind and bring your racquet and shoes. We shall not have a regular dinner, but we shall have supper about eight. There is a train at a quarter to ten, which will take you to Brighton. If the servants tell father, we are going to say that you all came, and we could not turn you out, and didn’t see the harm of asking you, I mean all those who are coming, to stay and have some tennis.”

Frank turned the letter over in his fingers, and Maggie in his mind. She was undoubtedly a pretty girl. He admired her thinness, her brownness. "What was graceful and strange in her, was square and unexpected in Sally. Grace was a dumpty little fool, who would have to marry Berkins, and forget the officer — what was his name? No one seemed to know. Frank remembered how Maggie had sat listening to him in the drawing-room, her elbows on her knees, her knees a little apart, her head set on one side. She would have a lot of money when her father died. Was she really engaged to that fellow Alfred — Alfred what? He couldn’t remember. Sally had told him something about it — a desperate flirtation two years ago; she had not seen him for a year; she had promised to wait; he couldn’t make it out, Sally was always so vague. Then he remembered Lizzie Baker. He saw her tall and white, her face plump, and almost quite white, her fair hair full of softness, and where it was drawn back above the ears, yellow tinted. He saw the beautiful colour of her teeth, the eye teeth, so visible, and then in a sudden evocation the perfect mould of all her body. He closed his eyes and hid his face for a moment in the pillow.

"Shall I ’ot your water, sir?”

"My shaving water, certainly; and bring me up my bath water at once.”

"And what will you have for breakfast, sir?”

"Coffee and a chop.”

Under the steps of the old woman the tortuous stairs of the inn creaked. Then came the sound of splashing water in the court-yard. Frank found his breakfast laid on a very soiled table-cloth.

"Is there no other cloth, Southwell?”

"No, sir, the other’s at the wash, you have only two, sir."

“Can’t have everything on five hundred a year," he thought, as he lifted the tin cover and gazed on a fat chop with an appetite growing momentarily more doubtful. "Some fellows spend all they have on their rooms. That to my mind is false policy. I prefer infinitely to have three sovereigns to spend in a restaurant, than to eat a bit of cold meat at home with a lot of nice furniture about me. When I want nice furniture I go to the Kensington Museum and have a look round. If you live amongst beautiful things, you can’t think of them, and I prefer to think of them to seeing them," he added, smiling; and he looked round his humble abode, and drew his chair to the table. The carpet was a worn out piece of Brussels that some former tenant had left behind. There was an easel with an unfinished head of a woman on it; the face was passably drawn, but the straw hat and the river scenery were crude and weak. The bookcase was full of books of poetry. After breakfast, Frank lit a cigarette and considered how he might soften and throw back the reeds and the distant rushes. He took down a volume of Browning, and began a poem, grew tired of it, looked out for a quotation that would suit his picture, then, more convinced than ever that Browning was the greatest poet of modern times, he thought of Lizzie Baker. What had become of her? It was very strange. "The last time I asked after her at the Gaiety bar, they told me that she had gone for her fortnight’s holiday. That’s six weeks ago! She must be ill. I’ll lunch there and inquire. What a lovely morning." The barristers’ clerics hurried through the courts and archways, and now a figure in wig and gown came up the wide steps that swept about the old dining hall; and opposite were the windows of the young men’s chambers, relieved by masses of Virginia creeper; and the tall elm trees rose above the parapets and mullioned windows around the broken fountain, where old men sat with their hands crossed in the shade that flowed in pleasing patterns over the pavement. Frank’s heart thrilled, and he thought of the colour and quietness of the old place, intending to get in some of its life in a picture, or perhaps in a sonnet, and the epithets of colour and the rhymes he must choose, chimed in his ears as he passed through the gateway into the modern street.

The cabmen were mealing in their shelter, the cab horses were feeding in their nose-bags, the pigeons strutted and gorged, and rose on lazy wing, perching on the turrets of the Law Courts. Frank loved these aspects of London life, and his eyes feasted on the dirty, but overhanging windows, on the grimy plaster rotten with the rain of centuries, on the great beams. He was happy when he perceived a quaint old sign in Holywell-street, a frolicsome face carved upon a half moon; and he contrasted the decay above with the animation below; for he always noticed that the frock coats and tall hats lost some of their modernness in this old street, in the early morning when the gables were relieved upon clouds and blue sky, and the sun brought the shopmen out on the pavement assorting their wares; and when an itinerant vendor stood gabbling with a crowd pressing upon them, he could almost hear the ’prentices of old time crying, "What do you lack, what do you lack?" Nor did the old street ever fail to resuscitate such feelings in him, and it was therefore his way to the Strand, even when it was the least direct. Also the spectacle of the sandwich men resting under the walls of the church impressed him with a feeling of shame and pity; these poor creatures, — who are all day, “Epps’ Cocoa," and “Pears’ Soap," resume for an hour what remains of their ragged individualities, and as they lie under the great black walls, the city that has crushed them stares them insolently in the face, and their boards — now mere boards — are heaped together.

He walked along the Strand rapidly, amused by and noting all its matutinal aspects. The actresses going to rehearsal, their gold hair and slatternly appearance, the actors — that one looking like a priest, that one like a cab-driver, and all looking exactly like actors. He could tell the journalists, — he was accustomed to their superficial faces. He nodded to one or two as they passed, and he thought, “even if she has not returned, I shall meet some one to talk to! we’ll lunch together and have a long talk." The bar was full. Some men talked to the bar girls, others turned their backs and talked in groups, their glasses in their hands. One group, more blatant than the rest, recalled the racecourse; further away, the editor of a society paper held forth to admirers and parasitical admirers. Overdressed and conspicuous with his rings, gloves, and patent leather shoes, Frank walked past with a long swinging step expressive of much contempt for all present. He looked for an open space and a barmaid who was not engaged with a young man. "Give me a glass of sherry." Not caring for his tone of voice or manner, the girl handed the wino and took the money without speaking. Then, after a pause, Frank said:

"Well, I have not seen you for some time. How often have you fallen in love across the counter?”

"I don’t see what it has to do with you how often I fall in love, or with whom.”

"What, not if you fall across the counter?"he said; but there was nothing conciliatory in his laugh, and notwithstanding his good looks the girl resented him and turned away. She told him she knew nothing of Miss Baker, and he was obliged to move up the counter, and question the girl next to her. Miss Baker had gone away for her holidays, and as she had not returned when they were legitimately over, another “young lady" had taken her place. Perhaps Miss Baker had been removed to another bar, no one could give him information on that point but the superintendent. As he stood, uncertain whether he should take this step, he heard some one call him. He went over and ordered lunch.

“Well, how are you?" said the journalist, and Frank saw with alarm that the man had by his side a copy of the society paper to which he contributed. On the day of publication he always lunched in the bar-room. "Have you seen my article on the stage? I do give them fits. Read that; it is all like that, in the Swiftian vein.”

"Pray tell me," said Frank, without deigning to look at the paper, "do you often write in the Swiftian vein? ”

The conversation worked into the usual ways — the best means of working up a circulation, the danger of strong articles, and the necessity of pandering to the advertisers; this man’s last novel, and the other man’s paragraphs, were argued as passionately as if they had never been argued before. Many young men came to the table and had drinks and cigars, and at three o’clock Frank paid the waiter several shillings. He paid a call in Kensington, and went to a ball in Mayfair; and varied by a club dinner and a picture gallery, the next day and the next were spent similarly. On Friday he drove to London Bridge to catch the Brighton express. Triss sat between his legs growling and barking, thus defining his opinions of van-drivers and barrow-wheelers.

"Pullman car, sir?”

"Yes, yes; the dog must go in the van, I suppose.”

"I can’t take that dog in my van unless he is muzzled, sir.”

“What nonsense, you must take the dog, I haven’t a muzzle.”

"I don’t think I can take him, it wouldn’t be safe, sir, just look at him.”

“Come back, sir, lie down. There isn’t the slightest danger. If you refuse I shall have to report you.”

"We don’t stop till we get to Redhill, sir; I really don’t think I can take him in the van without a muzzle.”

After a long wrangle the muzzle was adjusted, and Frank opened the last society paper published, and having satisfied himself that the literary matter was futile, and the general look of the paper detestable, he lay back in his seat, and let his thoughts wander. They were merely repetitions of what he had thought many times before, notably when he read Maggie’s letter in bed, and his present musings differed only from those, in that no image of Lizzie Baker now jarred his vision of the girls and their suburban garden. Now their life and all they did seemed to him perfection, and he was wholly theirs. While he thought of them they were talking of him.

"If you don’t like him, why trouble about him," said Maggie.

“You always take good care to trouble about my men," Sally replied, in her usually defiant manner. "You tried all you could to get Jimmy away from me, — and yet you pretend to father that you never flirted with him.”

"I never did flirt with him; once a young man looks at you you think no one must speak to him. Pool’ man, I pity him. If young Meason asks me to dance with him, I cannot refuse; I am not going to make myself ridiculous though you were to look all the daggers in the world at me, — but as for flirting with him, I never cared enough about him.”

"And what about meeting him in London?”

Maggie coloured a little, and repudiated the accusation.

"You told him you were going to London, and you asked him if he was going, and what he was doing that day, and if he was in St James’s Park in the afternoon. I don’t know what more you could say.”

"I never said any such thing.”

"I have it from his own lips.”

"It is not true; I will ask him to your face if he ever said such a thing; I will tell father that.”

“Well, there’s no use in quarrelling," said Grace, “and would not advise you to worry father about it, you know he can’t stand the name of the Measons. It seems to me that neither of you care much whom you flirt with, you like so many young men.”

"It is better to like a dozen young men than one old one.”

"I shall not marry Mr Berkins, no matter what you say. However, you cannot accuse me of interfering in your affairs.”

“No, you don’t.”

"No more do I. If you want Frank, take him, only don’t come sneaking after Charley. I don’t want Frank; I don’t care twopence about him. If you want to see it out with him, I sha’n’t interfere; only don’t you come interfering with me and Jimmy, or Charley either.”

Maggie did not like the idea of Sally getting two to her one. She would have liked to have introduced a proviso about Alfred, but the title Mount Rorke slipped between her thoughts, and she refrained. She knew the present treaty secured her immunity from Sally only so long as the affections and attentions of Jimmy and Charley showed no signs of declension, and she was aware that her promise would only hold good so long as Frank interested and Charley remained away in London.

The canary that had been twittering, now burst forth into long and prolonged shrillings. Grace folded up her work along her knees. Then holding it in her hand like a roll of music, she said,

“We shall never hear the end of this tennis party.”

"I don’t see why father should ever know anything about it, he has taken that horrid old Joseph with him, he never says more than a few words to the footman, and he never sees the cook or housemaid. We have all to-morrow to get the house straight.”

"It is not certain that he is going to stay the night in London.”

"Yes it is. Don’t fidget. Have you got the wine out? We should have a dozen of champagne. Mind you make no mistake; ’80, that is the 'wine you must get. Jimmy is most particular what he drinks, and Alfred has the most frightful headaches if he drinks anything but the very best. I hope he’ll find the ’80 all right."

"That’s father’s favourite wine; you mean to say that he won’t miss it? Then the port and Burgundy and cherry brandy — I won’t take the responsibility.”

"Nobody asked you. All you have to do is to return the keys to Maggie that you took from her.”

"I don’t think father will be as angry as you think, Grace; besides, there’s no drawing back now the invitations are out. I think it would be better to tell him that we had a few friends in for tennis. We need not tell him who was there — we will suppress the name of the South- down Road people; and we can take the bottles out from the back. The wine won’t be missed for a long time, and we will invent some better excuse before then. We will say that two bottles were drunk at this party and three at that; and further than that, we can’t remember.”

"And what about the peaches? There are only a few ripe, and Sally says she’ll want them all. Father has been looking forward to them for weeks and weeks.”

"He’ll have to do without them; if he wants peaches, he had better bring some down from Covent Garden.”

A knock was heard at the door. "Please Miss, Mr Escott is in the drawing-room.”

"Tell him I will be downstairs in a moment," cried Maggie.

"Now off you go, my Lady Mount Rorke," said Sally, who had already begun to regret her promises, and to consider if she had not better break them.

Maggie asked him what train he came down by, then she called the dog; "Come here, my beautiful boy, come and kiss me." The bull-dog growled and wagged his tail.

"He won’t hurt you; ’tis only his way of talking." Then he launched into the story of the guard’s cowardice, and his intention to have him dismissed. Maggie laughed, and they walked out on the green sward.

“I suppose you have been to a great many balls this season?”

"I don’t know that I have; a few, perhaps. I am glad to get away from town. I like no place like this. I don’t know if it is the place or the associations.”

“You are used to much finer places. I can fancy Mount Rorke — the lakes and the mountains; somehow I think I can see it. Is it not strange, there are certain things and places you can realise so much better than others, and for no very understandable reason?”

“Yes, that is so," said Frank, obviously pleased by the remark. Then, after a pause, "Mount Rorke is a pretty place, and I don’t think I could live long away from it. After a time I always find myself sighing for the bleakness and barrenness of the West. The hedgerows of England are pretty enough; but the brick buildings, I hate them.”

"What kind of buildings do you have in Ireland? ”

"Everything is built of grey stone, a cold grey tint on a background of green pasture lands and blue mountains. I daresay you wouldn’t like it. It would recall nothing to you, but when I think of it, much less see it, I re-live my childhood all over again. I am a great person for old times. That is the reason I like coming down here. I knew you all so long ago; how well I can remember you — three dark little things. You used to sit on my knee.”

"And do you find nothing nice in the present?”

"Of course I do; it is nice to walk in the garden with you, but it seems to me you have all moved away from me a little. Grace is engaged, you are engaged — "

"Who said I was engaged?”

"Ha, ha, you see I hear everything. What is his name, Alfred?”

“I suppose Sally told you.”

"I won’t tell you who told me, I never betray secrets. You had a desperate flirtation two years ago, and the man had to go away, and you promised to wait for him.”

"I don’t mind telling you — I did meet a man about two years ago whom I rather liked; I used to see a great deal of him at tennis parties and balls; he used to ask me to marry him. I knew father would never consent, and I told him so; he wanted me to engage myself to him, and I told him it would be much better to wait and see what father would say.”

"And what did your father say?”

"Father, he never knew anything about it. You may as well tell me, I know it was Sally. I suppose she told you I was very much in love with him?”

“She said, at least the person who told me said, that you would never care for any one else.”

Maggie vowed vengeance on Sally. Her thoughts itched to tell him she didn’t care for Alfred, but she didn’t dare, and her mind was so perturbed that she could make no reply. The conversation fell. She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. Indeed, his beauty made direct appeal to her senses, the face slightly long, so very aristocratic, the wavy hair, the long legs, so straight, with trousers sweeping over the instep. The trees waved abundantly above them; young men and women passed by laurels and tall flowers towards Grace, who stood receiving her guests. Sally and Meason were talking earnestly; her eyes followed all his movements, dwelling on the wrist distended as he leaned forward boring holes in the turf with his cane. Frank noticed a floridly-dressed woman who looked like an actress, and there was a little girl whose starched frock and white stockings evoked vaguely the “Pickwick Papers." There was also a young man, richly attired, bland and good-looking as a shop walker in a millinery business. At lunch the conversation was disturbed by the depth and gravity of his voice, and he continued to intone the pleasures he intended to undergo.

Maggie and Grace had calculated that if they could limit the champagne to half-a-dozen bottles they would be able to hide the deficit from their father’s scrutiny. But the fourth bottle had just been opened, and the servants seemed always tilling the glasses of the Southdown Road people. Grace seemed a little frightened. Maggie looked from the pile of peaches to Sally. Lost in love and talk she sat close to Jimmy, her head wagging as she talked; and they looked as if they were exchanging napkins or rings beneath the table.

The servant handed a letter on a salver to Maggie, saying, “From Mrs Horlock; the servant is waiting an answer, miss." Grace trembled, Sally whispered to Jimmy, "What can she want?" In a reassuring voice Maggie said, "She has heard that we are having a few people in to tennis, and she wants to know if she may send us round a young man; she will come round herself with the General some time during the afternoon." At the mention of a young man many eyes gleamed, and Sally said, "You had better go at once and write a note and say that we shall be delighted." When they went into the verandah coffee was handed round, and Maggie, as the gentlemen lit their cigarettes, said to Grace, “Nothing could have happened better; father is sure to hear of this, we couldn’t have kept it from him: now we can say Mrs Horlock was our chaperon. None will know when she came, or when she went away." Then turning to her company Maggie said, “Now gentlemen, as soon as you have finished your cigarettes we will begin.”

Sally not only insisted on playing, but on playing with Jimmy; and Grace, who was striving to struggle into the position of Miss Brookes, could do nothing but set the girl in the florid dress and the man who stood next her to play against them. Then the garden seemed to absorb the girls, and Maggie disappeared in the sycamore boughs with Mrs Horlock’s friend. Mrs Horlock was sixty, her figure was like a girl’s; but she led a blind pug in a complicated loading apparatus, and several other pugs in various stages of fat and decrepitude followed her. It was not long before she raised a discussion on hydrophobia, and she defended the disease from all the charges of horror and contagion that had been urged against it; and she vehemently narrated how a mad dog had died in her arms licking her hands and face. The General denounced muzzling, but when the mangy mastiff came near him he whispered to Frank, "I wish they were all shot. You must come and see us; you must come and see us; I have a pretty little place in the Southdown Road (dreadful place to mention here, they don’t like it; of course the people there aren’t all quite the thing, but what are yon to do, you know?) Lunch at two, dinner at eight — old Indians, you know. I have everything I want. Too many animals, perhaps, but that can’t be helped.”

"Do you live here all the year?”

“Yes, all the year round. We don’t go away much. We have everything here — coach-houses, horses, you’ll see when you come. The only thing I want is a little occupation, a little something to bring me out, you know. I read the Morning Post every morning, and I have the St James’s in the evening; but then there is the middle of the day," and, with laughter full of genial kindness and goodwill, the General repeated this phrase: "I want a little something to bring me out, you know.”

Forty years of Indian sun! Balls in the Government House in Calcutta? Viceroys, tigers, horse-racing, elephants, jealousies, flirtations, deaths, all now forgotten, and if not forgotten, at rest; and now glad to watch life unfolding itself again in an English village, this old couple sat in the calm sunlight of an English garden, relics of another generation, emblems of an England drawing to a close.

At five o’clock Grace was busy at the tea-table; dripping with perspiration Sally threw herself into a cane chair. Maggie, who had suddenly appeared upon the scene, arranged some fresh sets in which she and Frank did not take part — she having promised to walk with him; and they went towards the shade of the sycamores. She had neglected him nearly the whole day, and he was vexed with her. But she excused herself volubly, accusing Sally of indifference to all things except her own pleasures, and impressed upon him that it was her duty to show some politeness to Mrs Horlock’s friend.

"Sally would play tennis, she played two sets, three if I am not  mistaken, and she never left Jimmy’s side. She took no notice of anyone; for that reason I hate having people to the house when she is here; everything devolves upon Grace and me. It is really too bad. Father wouldn’t mind our giving this party at all, if it weren’t for him. If he hears that he was here, well, I don’t know what would happen.”

"He doesn’t look quite a gentleman, does he? He is a ship’s mate, isn’t he?”

"Yes, but it isn’t that; father cannot bear those Southdown Road people. A lot of young men live there — quite as good as ourselves, no doubt, but they are all so poor, and father thinks of nothing but money. And Sally meets them. When she goes out driving in the cart she picks them up, and they go off together. Father doesn’t know any of them, and he says they laugh at him when he goes to the station in the morning. ’Tisn’t true, ’tis only his imagination; but I can quite well understand his feelings. You know Sally won’t give way in anything. Once she ran into the kitchen, and told cook to put back the dinner, so that she might run down the slonk to finish her conversation with him. Of course father was mad at that, coming home tired from the City, and finding that his dinner had been put back. You saw the way they went on at lunch, sitting close together.”

"We were all sitting close together.”

“Yes, but not like they were. And all that nonsense with their napkins under the table. If you didn’t see it, so much the better. I thought everybody saw it. I wish Sally wouldn’t do it. Father, as you know, has a lot of money to leave, and if she did really go too far, I fear he would cut her off.”

"But she never would go too far.”

“No, I don’t think so, I am sure Sally wouldn’t do anything that was really wrong, but she is very imprudent.”

"I hope not; I am sure Sally would not do anything that was really wrong, but she is very imprudent. How do you mean?

"I don’t know that I ought to tell you.”

"I promise not to tell anyone, — you know you can trust me.”

"Well, she brings people up to her room.”

“You don’t mean to her bedroom?”

"She says you can’t call it a bedroom, but she sleeps there for all that. She covers up the bed and makes it look like a couch; she keeps birds and dogs there; Flossie had her puppies there. That’s her room," said Maggie, lifting one of the boughs. "I should not be surprised if Jimmy were there with her now.”

The foliage glinted with the sunset, and as Maggie stood pointing, still holding the bough, the picture flashed upon Frank, and he said, "Oh, how pretty you are now. How I should like to paint that?" And a moment after he said, interested, solely interested in sentimental affection, "Sally’s ideas of love seem to me very funny; if she really loves Meason, why doesn’t she marry him?”

"He has no money, and father would never hear of it.”

“Never hear of it? If I loved a girl, nothing in the world would prevent my marrying her.”

"I wonder if that’s true," said Maggie, and she let go of the bough and stood facing him, her hands clasped behind her back.

"Of course it is. What is life for if it isn’t to get the woman we love?”

“It is nice to hear you say so; but I am afraid very few young men think like you nowadays. One woman is the same as another to them.”

"I cannot understand any one thinking so. If it were so, the whole charm would be lost.”

So the young people talked, and lost in the charm of each thrilling minute, they walked through the shadows and darkening leaves. The soft garden echoed with the sound of a girl’s voice crying, "Cuckoo, cuckoo," and the flying feet of girls passed over the sward, and the young men ran with them, and met them with laughter and stretched arms.

They were playing hide and seek; excited beyond endurance, Triss barked loudly, and forms were seen flying precipitately.

"Tie him up to this tree," said Maggie.

“No, no, better take him to the house," said Frank, “it would make him savage to tie him up.”

When the ninth bottle of champagne had been opened, and the supper table was noisy, Frank whispered to Maggie, "Did you ever see Macbeth?”

"Yes, but why?”

."Because I can’t help thinking what a splendid occasion it would be for Banquo’s ghost to appear." Maggie pressed his hand and laughed.

Soon after the sound of wheels was heard. Grace turned pale, Sally said, "Who would have thought it?" A moment after Mr Brookes, with Berkins and Willy behind him, entered. He stood amazed, and seeing that the tears were mounting to his eyes, Maggie said, "Father, how tired and faint you look. We thought you would not be coming home to-night. Do sit down and have a glass of wine." But neither winning words nor ways could soothe this storm, and, in reply to a question from Berkins, Mr Brookes declared passionately that he knew none of the young men who came to his house.