Had she ever been in love? Yes, she supposed she had; but it was all over now. The last words sounded, and died away in a great abyss of soul.
Parts of the path were marked “Dangerous.” The earth had given way, creating fearful chasms, over which trees leaned dangerously or hung out fantastically by a few roots. In the dell below there stood a small green painted table, and the young people leaning on the protecting railing wondered at this mysterious piece of furniture. There was in them and about them an illusive sense of death and the beauty of life. One slight push would hurl them headlong hundreds of feet down to the painted table.
The silver of the river sparkled through silence and the foliage of June, and the songs of the boatmen came and went like voices in a dream.
The days of youth are long, and in tender idleness the hours lingered, their charm unbroken in the rattle of London; and happy with love and tired with the great air of the river and its leafy scenery, Frank fell asleep that night.
One of the French artists he had met in Rome wrote to him from Paris. Why should he not go there? There was nothing for him to do in London; Lizzie Baker had disappeared, and in the year and a half that he spent in Paris learning to draw he forgot her and his friends in Southwick. Nor did he remember them when he returned to London; not until one evening, strolling down Regent Street, he came upon Willy Brookes suddenly.
“How do you do, my dear Willy? I haven't seen you for—for—how long?”
“I should think it must be now, let me see, I have got it down somewhere; when I get home I'll look it up.”
“Hang the looking up; better come and look me up.”
The young men laughed.
“It must be nearly a year and a half.”
“I should think it must. Where are you staying? I am staying at Morley's Hotel, Trafalgar Square. Come and dine with me to-night.”
Willy reflected. He stroked his moustache reflectively.
“No,” he said, “I am afraid I can't. I have something to do.”
“Nonsense! I don't believe you. What have you to do?”
“I have some cheques to write.”
“That won't take you a moment. You can do that at my place.”
“I couldn't, I assure you. I must have my books and my own pen. I wouldn't write a cheque in that way for worlds.”
“Why not? We'll go to a music-hall afterwards.”
“I am very sorry, but I really couldn't—not to-night.”
“You never go in for amusing yourself.”
“Yes, I do; but what amuses you doesn't amuse me. I assure you I would sooner stay at home, write my cheques, and enter them carefully, than go to a music-hall.”
Frank looked at Willy for a moment in mute amazement. Then he said: “But what's that you have under your arm in that brown paper parcel?”
Willy laughed. “A leg of mutton; I have just been to the stores.”
“You mean to say you buy legs of mutton at the stores, and carry them home? Supposing you met some one, if we were to—”
“Not very likely, a foggy night like this. I have a small house in Notting Hill. I take the 'bus at the Circus. I shall be very glad if you will come with me; so will the missus.”
“I forgot to ask about her, how is she?”
“Very well. Come and see for yourself. Come and dine with us to-morrow. I can't give you one of your restaurant dinners, but if leg of mutton will suit, all I can say is that I shall be very happy.”
“I'll come whenever you like.”
“Can you come to-morrow?”
“Yes. We might go to the theatre afterwards.”
“We might. Be at my place at half-past six, that will give us plenty of time.”
“What a queer fish he is,” thought Frank, as he walked down Regent Street, looking at the women. “Can't come and dine with me because he has two or three cheques to write, must have all his books out to make entries—what a clerk for the Government—an ideal clerk! What a genius for red tape!”
Willy was standing on the steps of the little house, and he commented on his friend's extravagances as he welcomed him.
“You might have come here for ninepence, third class. You paid that cabman three shillings, and you took, I don't mind betting, half an hour longer. Now, don't make a mess, do wipe your feet; we don't keep a servant, and it gives the missus a lot of trouble cleaning up.”
Not a book nor a picture nor a single flower, and every worn carpet suggested the bare necessaries of life. There was the drawing-room, kept for show, never entered, barren and blank; there was the room—a little more alive—where Willy smoked his pipe and kept his accounts, but there the crumbs, three or four, seemed to speak of the dry, bread-like days that wore themselves away; life there was too obviously dry and bare, joyless and mean.
Had Frank's mind been philosophic and deep-seeing, he would have mused on the admirable patience of the woman who lived here, seeing no one, making entire sacrifice of her life; he would have contrasted the humbleness, nay, the meanness, of this unknown house with the reception rooms of the Manor House; one life wasting in darkness and poverty, another burning out in light and riches; timeworn truths float on the surface of this little pool of life, and so modernised are they that they appear for a moment “new and original.” But further than a regret that there were no flowers in the window, and a sense of the horrible when his eyes fell on a piece of Swiss scenery, his thoughts did not wander; they soon were fixed and absorbed in the consideration of the happiness that Willy had attained by “doing the right thing by the woman.” He was hers, she was his. Dreams of things marital, the endearments of husband and wife, are the essence of the being of some men and women, and are to them a perennial delight. Frank was such a one.
He had brought Cissy a doll, and the child came and sat on his knees, and put her arms round his neck. He kissed the long face, hollow-eyed, and stroked the beautiful gold ringlets that cloaked the shoulders.
They went to the theatre in a 'bus. Frank carried Cissy, and he called indignantly to the crowd not to press him. “Did they not see that he was carrying a child?” He did not think that his friends might recognise him, nor would he have felt any shame had he caught sight of some face in the stalls he knew. He would not have put Cissy aside; nor would he have pretended that he was not with the pale, worn, shabbily-dressed woman by his side. He was wholly filled with his friends, their interests and concerns; so complete was the investment of himself that Lizzie Baker did not snatch a fugitive thought from them; and it was not until he sat smoking with Willy in the back parlour that he said:
“I wonder what has become of her? She was a nice girl.”
“You mean Lizzie Baker? You lost sight of her all of a sudden, didn't you? Do you think she went off to live with some one?”
“No, I don't think she was a girl who would do that. By Jove, she was a pretty girl! Once I took her up the river, up to Reading. We had such a jolly day in the woods and on the water—amid the water-lilies and bulrushes, or the shade of the cedars. I wonder you never go up the river.”
“I have no time. Besides, I hate the water. I never go on the water if I can help it—I am too nervous.”
“How odd! Oh, we had a jolly day!”
“But I never understood how it was you lost sight of her. You said in your letter that she had left the bar; but she must have gone somewhere. I am sure you didn't make sufficient enquiries. You are too impatient.”
“I did all I could. One girl told me that a lot of them—Lizzie among the number—had suddenly been transferred to Liverpool Street. That was true, for I saw at Liverpool Street several girls I had known previously at the 'Gaiety.' Those poor bar girls, how pitiful they look! all over London they stand behind their bars! Breathing for hours tobacco smoke, fumes of whisky and beer, listening to abominable jokes, the subjects of hideous flirtations; and then the little comedy, the effort to appear as virtuous young ladies—'young ladies of the bar.' It is very pitiful. In such circumstances how do you expect a girl to keep straight? I do not think it is the men who do the harm. There are, of course, a few blackguards who crack filthy jokes over the counter, but if a girl likes she needn't listen—a girl can always keep a man in his place. Then if a man flirts with a girl he always loves her, likes her, if you think 'like' a better word; but you must admit that in the most beery flirtation there must be a certain amount of liking. There is, therefore, something to save a girl. I feel sure that it is girls, not men, who lead innocent girls astray. Those poor bar girls are quite unprotected; they have a sitting-room into which they may not bring a friend—a man, I mean. In the bedrooms there is always a lot of illicit talking and drinking going on. A girl who has gone wrong herself is never content until she has persuaded another girl to go wrong; a girl is so mean! I feel very much on this subject. I am thinking of writing a book on the subject. Did I ever tell you about the novel I intended to write?”
“You told me once in Brighton about a novel you intended to write. I forget what it was about, but you said you were going to call it 'Her Saviour.'”
“Oh, that is another book. I was thinking of writing the story of a woman who is led into vice. They get her to throw over the man who loves her; he follows her, never loses sight of her until at last, determined to save her, and although he knows that he is wrecking his own life, he marries her. What do you think?”
Being pressed for an answer, Willy stroked his moustache with great gravity. “I really can't say, my dear fellow; you know I never like giving opinions on questions I do not understand.”
The conversation came to a pause, and Willy began to whistle.
“Just a little flat—quarter of a note wrong there and there!”
“Do you whistle it? Oh, yes, that's it! I can hear the difference! I wish you had your violin. I should like to hear you play it.”
“What, with the missus overhead?”
“She doesn't know anything about it. How prettilysheused to sing it; a pretty tune, isn't it? Good old days they were! Do you remember when you used to come to the Princess's with me? Didn't she look pretty?”
“You never told me why you didn't marry her; I never heard the end of that story.”
“There is nothing to tell. It's all over now. Do you remember how I used to dress myself up to go to the theatre? We used to go to supper at Scott's afterwards. I did not mind what I ate in those days.”
“You hardly ever go to the theatre now, do you?”
“Hardly ever. I shouldn't have gone to-night if it had not been for you. I don't know how it is, but I don't seem to enjoy myself as I used to.”
The men ceased talking. Presently Frank broke the silence.
“I hope you are getting on all right on the Stock Exchange. You haven't mentioned the subject.”
“I don't know that there is much to say. Times are very bad just now. I don't think any one is doing much good.”
“But you are with a very good firm. Nothing is going wrong, I hope.”
“I don't think any one is making money. We have all been hard hit lately—war scares. But I daresay it will all come right.”
“I never understood what you ever wanted to go into the business for. What do you, with your handsome place at Southwick, and your father with his thousands and thousands, want to turn yourself into a city clerk for?”
“You see, you don't care about making money; I do—it was bred in me. Besides, I am an unselfish fellow. I never think of myself; I like to think of others. If I were to make a good thing out of this, I should be able to leave the missus independent.” Then, after a slight pause, Willy said: “But, by the way, I was forgetting. I got a letter this morning saying that if I met you in London I was to tell you that you were to come to Southwick for a ball.”
“What ball?”
“A subscription ball at Henfield—a county ball. Will you come?”
“Yes, I don't mind. It should be rather fun. Are you going?”
“Yes, I must go, worse luck, to chaperon my sisters.”
“How do you go? Will the governor let you have the horses?”
“Not he! We generally have a large 'bus. I am going down to-morrow by the twelve o'clock train. Will that be too early for you?”
“Not if I go home now and pack up.”
“You won't like that. You had better sleep here and get up early in the morning; your room is all ready.”
“I couldn't manage it. I never could get back to the Temple, pack up, and meet you at twelve at London Bridge.”
“It will be rather a cold walk for you; you are too late for the train, and the last 'bus, I am afraid, has gone.”
“I shall have a hansom. The only thing that worries me is not being able to say good-bye to the missus.”
“She's fast asleep. She won't mind—I'll make that all right.”
“Then, at twelve o'clock at London Bridge!”
Sally rushed down to meet him, and she took him off for a walk in the garden.
“What a time it is since we have seen you. What have you been doing—amusing yourself a great deal, I suppose?”
“I have been the whole time in Paris. I have been studying very hard. I only returned home about two months ago.”
“I don't believe about the studying.”
“I have been working at my painting. I worked morning and afternoon in the studio from the nude. Last summer I had a delightful time. I took a little place on the Seine—a little house near Bas Meudon. I had a garden; I used to breakfast every morning in the garden—fresh eggs, new bread, an omelette, such as only a Frenchwoman can make, a cutlet, or a piece of chicken. The wine, too, so fresh and generous. I don't know how it is, but Burgundy here is not the same as Burgundy on the banks of the Seine. I worked all day in my garden, or down by the river. I was painting a large picture. I haven't finished it yet. I must go back there in the summer to finish it.”
“Why can't you finish it here? Haven't you got it here?”
“Yes, but the Seine is not here.”
“Wouldn't the Adour do? The river at Shoreham?”
“No; but the Thames might. My picture is really more English than French. There were a lot of willow trees there, and my picture represents a girl lying in a hammock, foot hanging over, showing such a pretty piece of black stocking. There are two men there, they are both swinging the hammock, but while one is looking at her ankle the other only sees her face.”
Sally laughed coarsely and evasively.
“What are you laughing at?” he asked, feeling a little nettled.
“Don't you think people will think it rather improper?”
“Not at all. Why should they? The idea I wish to convey is that one man loves her truly for herself alone, the other only loves her because she is a pretty girl. I have composed some triolets for the picture, which will be printed in the catalogue—
“In a hammock I swing,My feet hanging over;'Neath Love's bright wing,In a hammock I swing,Loves come and they bringA truth to discover,In a hammock I swing,My feet hanging over.
“That is the first stanza. There are six, and they tell the story of the picture. I will copy them into your album, if you like.”
“Will you? That will be so nice, if you will. The only thing is, I haven't an album.”
“Haven't you? I'll get you one. I'll send you one from London.”
Sally asked him to explain the triolets, and very loyally she strove to understand.
“Ah, I see a thing when I am told, but I never can understand poetry or pictures until they are explained to me.”
Mollified, Frank thought of going upstairs to fetch the copy book in which he wrote such things, but speaking out of an unperceived association of ideas, he said: “What a clever girl your sister is. I had once a long talk with her about pictures and poetry, and I was surprised to find how well she talked. She understands everything.”
“Maggie is a clever girl; I know she is far cleverer than I am; but if you knew her as well as I do, you would find she did not understand all you think she understands.”
“How do you mean?”
“Maggie's cleverness lies in being able to pretend she understands what she knows nothing about; I have often caught her out.”
“Really; but how do you get on together now?”
“Pretty well! I don't think there is much love lost on either side. I don't know why—I never could understand Maggie. You have no idea of the reports she spreads about me all over the place—the stories she tells the Grahams, the Prestons, the Wells. She told Mrs. Wells that I fell in love with every young man that came to Southwick. She said awful things about me. As for that story about telling cook to put father's dinner back, I don't think I ever shall hear the last of it. What made father so angry was because he thought it was to talk to Jimmy in the slonk.”
“You told me the last time I was here that you wanted to finish a conversation with him in the slonk.”
“I may have told you that it was to speak to him about his sister Fanny,” Sally replied evasively. “I would not care if I never saw him again; but I couldn't get on if I weren't allowed to see Fanny. Father wanted me to promise never to enter the house again!”
“But you have flirted with him?”
“I don't know that I have; certainly not more than Maggie. Last summer she was hanging round his neck every evening under the sycamores. I caught them twice.”
“I don't see any harm in going under the sycamores. I daresay Maggie has allowed him to kiss her; so have you!”
“That I assure you I haven't.”
“You mean to say a man never kissed you?”
“I didn't say that. I haven't kissed any one for years.”
“Who did kiss you?”
“You don't know him. I was only eighteen. He was a married man; it was very wrong of me.”
“I wish I had been he.”
“Do you? I hate him; he was a beast for doing it.”
Sally often indulged in these half confessions; one of her aunts used to call them her “side lights.” By their aid she succeeded in interesting Frank. “How candid she is to tell me—to confide in me!” Sally was handsome now; the evening suited her dark skin and coal black eyes, and her strong figure was rich and not ungraceful in a dress of ruby velvet. Should he kiss her? What would she say? He threwhis arm about her.
“I am surprised. Certainly not!”
“I don't see any harm.” Then, with a sensation of saying something foolish, he said: “You told me you kissed a married man.”
“That was ages ago—I was very silly. I shouldn't think of doing sonow.”
In the silence which followed Frank wondered why he had tried to kiss her. Decidedly he liked the other better.
Now every evening Maggie went to the writing-table, and all knew what it meant. Mr. Brookes occasionally lamented in a minor key, but without having recourse to his handkerchief. Willy said nothing; his losses on the Stock Exchange had been heavy; and owing to a conversation Frank had drawn him into during dinner the other day, his digestion, he feared, was not quite up to the mark. So on the night of the ball he only answered with an occasional monosyllable the splendid young man of the embroidered waistcoats who related his pleasures in a deep bass; nor did he pretend to take any interest in the crude militia officer who sometimes broke the silence by a declaration that he did not care for politics or poetry, that he liked history better. The young ladies listened devoutly to all that the young men said; Mr. Brookes carved valiantly at the head of the table and appeared resigned. Bouquets were fixed in button-holes in the billiard-room and the 'bus was announced. A greasy oil-lamp hung from the roof. Sometimes Sally rubbed the windows and said she could tell by the bushes where they were, and the embroidered waistcoat continued to drone out the measure of his amusements. He would have to run up to London, then he must have a shy attrente et quaranteat Monte Carlo, then he must get back for the spring meeting at Newmarket. Frank asked him if he didn't think he could manage to amuse himself without talking it all out beforehand. But undaunted and unchecked he wandered from Homburg to Paris, and from Paris to Ross-shire, until the 'bus drew up among a small crowd of people.
The ball was a failure. When they entered the rooms there were scarcely twenty people present. It was very cold, and the men said; “How can the women bear it with their naked shoulders?”
“We shall never get near this fire,” said Sally, looking in dismay on the circle of damsels who stood warming themselves, their dresses relieved upon the masses of laurel with which the room was decorated; “there is a beautiful fire in one of those little rooms at the end.”
“Very well, let us come and sit there; or shall we dance this waltz first?”
“Let's dance it.”
They danced, and Frank shuddered in his evening clothes as he danced.
“Did you notice,” said Sally, as they hurried to the retiring room, “how upset father seemed at dinner? I thought he was going to cry, but he bore up to the end better than I expected.”
“So he did, but I don't see what there was particularly to upset him this time. Meason is away at sea, and you have promised not to see him any more.”
“Oh, I wasn't thinking about the Measons—but haven't you heard? I only heard it through a friend, but I know for a fact that Willy has lost nearly all his money on the Stock Exchange.”
“You don't say so; I am so sorry.”
“Father hasn't heard it all yet; if he had he wouldn't have come down to dinner. I don't fancy he knows more than that things have not been going well, and that Willy has been a loser.”
“But how can he have lost? I thought he was junior partner in an old established business.”
“So he is. I can't tell you how the mischief was done, but I know he has lost all his money.”
“What do you mean by all his money?”
“All the money—three thousand—that father let him draw out of the distillery.”
“This is very sad.”
“Yes, isn't it? And particularly for a fellow who has so few amusements, and only cares about making money. Just look at him now; he wanders about speaking to no one. Come, let's dance this dance—are you engaged?”
“No!”
This news about Willy fixed the Harfield ball in Frank's thoughts, and he remembered the pretty girl in white of whom he could make nothing, of the raw just-brought-out girl who had bored him, of the communicative girl who had amused him by her accounts of her dogs and horses; he remembered, too, how he had seen Maggie disappearing down the ends of certain passages with a young man whose name he did not catch, and whose face he had not noticed. He had danced twice with her, only twice; she was distracted, she did not look at him, her eyes wandered all over the room, she answered his questions indifferently. Sally, on the contrary, had devoted herself to him, and on several occasions he thought that her blunt straightforward manner was better than the other's slyness. The 'bus came with its draughts, its sickly lamp and its doleful jolting. Sally was too tired to rub the windows and declare how far they were from home, and the dancers endured their discomforts almost in silence; even the embroidered waistcoat occasionally ceased to talk about Homburg; and in all the extreme bitterness and greyness of a March morning they pulled up before the door of the Manor House.
“I beg of you not to make a noise. If you wake up father he will never let us go to a ball again. Is there a fire in the billiard-room, Gardner?”
“Yes, miss, there's a lovely fire; the decanters are on the table and the kettle is on the hob.”
“I think you would all like a glass of something hot,” said Maggie.
“Rather!”
“But don't make a noise, please.”
They stole along the passages to the billiard-room shivering, their feet aching, feeling very uncomfortable indeed. The waistcoat was now considering if it would be good form to come forward in the Conservative interest at the next election; but every one was too tired, they could not laugh, and amid a few general remarks the young ladies drank their gin and water, casting sheep's eyes at the young men, and then, glad and yet loth to part, all retired limping to their rooms.
Breakfast was a pleasant meal—full of laughter and anecdotes of the ball, and, laden with Gladstone bags, the young men departed in ones and twos. Frank was going with Willy to London, and when they disappeared among the laurels Sally and Maggie turned indoors, conscious of reaction, and wondering what they should do with the long day that stretched before them. Maggie walked upstairs; she lingered, undecided, and then went down the passage to Frank's room. He had forgotten a shirt stud; on the chest of drawers there was a crumpled white tie and a soiled pair of white gloves. “How careless he is!” she thought, “I must send him this,” and she put the stud in her pocket. She straightened out the gloves and determined to send the necktie to the wash. Next time he came down she would have it to give him, nice, clean, and white—she must see that it was beautifully made up. Then she found his ball programme. He had danced four times with Sally—only twice with her—what a fool she had been; she had wasted her whole evening with that other fellow. It did make her feel so angry. Then the housemaid entered and turned the bed down.
“What a lot of washing there will be this week, Gardner.”
“There will indeed, miss. Three pairs of sheets, and only slept in once.”
“Yes, isn't it a pity? It seems absurd to send these sheets to the wash, doesn't it?”
“It do, indeed, miss.”
“Absurd!” said Sally, who had just come in. “I want a pair of fresh sheets for my bed. I'll have these.”
“No you won't—I was going to take them.”
“I should like to know what right you have to them more than I.”
“You promised not to interfere with me, and you have done nothing else. You did nothing at the ball but ask him for dances.”
“That's a lie! I didn't ask him for a dance. You went off to hide; no one saw anything of you all the evening.”
“You mean to say you didn't promise?”
“I never promised anything; if I did I should keep my promise. I am not like you. I want a pair of sheets, and I mean to have these.”
“They are too big for your bed.”
Sally seized the sheet and strove to drag it from Maggie, who, although the weaker, held her own bravely for some time. Finding her strength failing her, she loosed her hold, letting her sister fall against the wall, and taking up the pillow she launched it with her full force. “If you want what he slept in, you can have it all.”
“I'll give it to you, my lady,” cried the bully, making a rush round the bed, but Maggie fled through the dressing-room, shutting the door behind her, and locked herself into her room.
As Willy would not pay the extra fare, Frank had to travel second class. He was telling his friend of the Stock Exchange, and his losses—nearly four thousand pounds. He had suspected that the firm of which he was junior partner had not played fair with him. Anyhow, he was going to get out of the business, having something better in view—a shop in Brighton. Yes, a shop in Brighton, a greengrocer's shop. No one had any idea, until they went into the calculation, of the amount of profit that was made on vegetables. Lord This and Lord That, every one who had a handsome place with large gardens, counted on being able to pay his gardener's wages by the sale of the surplus carrots, artichokes, potatoes, parsley, onions, tomatoes, especially tomatoes—every one nowadays ate tomatoes. He had it all down in figures, and was perfectly astonished at the sums of money that could be made. Grapes had been overdone, that was true; but a profit could be made out of everything else. Flowers, especially gardenias, were sold in the London market at two shillings apiece. Now, there was he within five miles of a large town like Brighton; the rent of a shop in the Western Road would not come to more than seventy or eighty pounds a year; the missus he would put in as shopwoman, and, there was no doubt of it, she would make as good a shopwoman as you could find, after a little practice; the child could run on errands, so it should be all profit. “I shall have none of the expenses that other people have to contend with. In the garden at the Manor House about three times as much stuff is grown as required. I shall buy all the fruit, vegetables, and flowers from my father at cost price, or a little over, and shall sell in my shop at retail price, that is, twenty or thirty per cent more. There is, therefore, no reason why the shop should not bring in from three to four hundred a year. And—would you believe it?—my father, who will be benefited by my scheme, if not more, quite as much as I shall be, is opposed to it; he will get a fair price for a lot of things for which he now gets nothing. But no. He cannot, or will not, see it. I never saw any one like my father. He will not help himself and you can do nothing to help him. The distillery business is going very badly. He had a bad year last year. I know for a fact that he did not make five per cent on his capital. Putting these things together, I should have thought that he would have been glad to make a little money to retrench; but no! he prefers to go on in the old way. He made money in the old way, and he doesn't see why he shouldn't make money again in the old way. Odd man my father is, isn't he?”
It appeared to Frank that Mr. Brookes had managed to help himself very liberally indeed to all the good things in life; but with his false, facile, Celtic nature, he had no difficulty in re-adjusting his ideas and adopting a view of Mr. Brookes more in harmony with Willy's. He was, as usual, enthusiastic about his friends, and was effervescing with love and goodwill. He saw nothing of their faults—they were the best and truest people he had ever known, and he could not love them too much. Indeed he was angry, and regretted the limitations that nature has set on the human heart, and would if he could have lost himself in one immense and eternal love of the Brookeses.
When he bade Willy good-bye at London Bridge, and wished him well with his shop, these sentiments ceased to be active forces in him, and they lay latent in his life of restaurants and bar rooms until the summer returned, and he received an invitation from the Manor House to come down for a garden party at Mrs. Berkins's. When he opened the letter he basked in thoughts of them—of Maggie and her fascinating subtleties, of Sally's blunt speech and sturdy good looks, of Willy, and all the quiet talks they would have together. He counted the tunnels, and, striving to recall the landscape, guessed extravagantly the number of miles that separated him from them. He walked up the drive with a beating heart, looking for the girls between the laurel bushes. He found them, and their habits which endeared them to him, unchanged; and to slip back into the old ways without experiencing the slightest difficulty or jar was like waking from a dream and entering again on a pleasant reality. There was the excellent dinner and the usual complaints about the Southdown Road, the cigars in the billiard-room, conversation about pictures and investments, gin and water, and then a long yarn with Willy in his bedroom. Life moved at the Manor House without any spring creaking, without jolt or jar, and it was this beautiful regularity that made Frank feel so healthily and so unexpectedly happy. He loved the desolation of Ireland. This was the stronger sense, but there was another sense, a half stifled sense, that found an echo in these southern downs interwoven with suburban life—in other words, a faint resurrection of the original English mind in him. He enjoyed and he grew akin to this Saxon prosperity; he learned to recognise it as manifested in the various prospects of the weald and the wold, and he loved this medley of contradictory aspects—the spires of the village churches, the porches of the villas, the rich farmhouses and their elm trees, the orchards jammed between masses of chalk, the shepherds seen against the sky of the Downs. It is true that he felt that this country was alien to him, but he was not individually conscious that his love of suburban Sussex was a morbid affection, opposed to the normal and indissoluble bonds of inherited aspirations and prejudices, and the forms and colours that had filled his eyes in childhood. Consciousness in Frank Escott was always slow, and always so governed and coloured by the sentiment of the moment that his comprehension of things were always deformed or incomplete. In his mind the phenomenon of life was ever in nebulae, and though very often one thought would define itself, no group of thoughts, or part of a group, ever became clear, so there was no abiding principle, nothing that he might know and steer by. He was, of course, aware that the Brookes were not equal to him in rank, but he did not know, or, rather, he would not know, that they were vulgar; nor did he think that Mount Rorke might marry again, if he were to marry Maggie or Sally. All that was really alive and distinct in him was love of them; and this love thrived in a sensation of class which he would not acknowledge, even to himself, had any existence. The glass-houses, and swards, and laurels had a meaning and fascination for him that he could not account for or describe, and he found these feelings, which were mainly class feelings of an unusual kind, not only in the aspect of the country but in the accent and speech of his friends, in the expression of their eyes and very hands. The English servants pleased him, and he strove to detect qualities in the carriage and horses, and he compared them to their advantage with Mount Rorke's. He loved to wrap the rug about the young ladies' knees, and they seemed to him quite perfect and delightful as they lay back in their carriage, driving beneath a sky full of blue, and through the changing views of the Downs, all distinct with light and shade. Sally and Maggie made much of him, covered him up, and addressed to him pleasant speeches. His eyes and ears were open and eager for new impressions, and his heart panted with readiness to admire and praise all he saw. He was ready to think that he had never seen anything so lovely as the laurels and the numerous glass-houses; and he wondered why he had ever thought so little of Berkins, and he listened with interest to that gentleman's explanation of the superiority of his possessions over everybody else's possessions. He even allowed himself to be persuaded that there was no pheasant shooting in the kingdom—for its size—equal to that in the little wood. Sally, who did not attempt to conceal her dislike of her brother-in-law, whispered: “That's the way to bring them down,” and Frank was obliged to laugh. Then she and Maggie disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them for several hours. The Grenadier Guards played on the lawn, and Frank was introduced to ladies of all ages and sizes; and as these bored him, he began to see that the place was vulgar and the people shoddy, and he wondered what Mount Rorke would say if he were to come suddenly across him. Grace was the subject of much concern, and obviouslyenceinte,she passed through the different groups. She had introduced Frank as Lord Mount Rorke's son, then as his nephew, then as his heir, and, fearing she might succumb to the temptation of introducing him as Mount Rorke himself, Frank escaped from her, and joined a party that Berkins was personally conducting through the grounds.
The stables had been built by So-and-so on the most approved principles. There were no stables like them in Sussex—the fittings of the harness-room alone had cost him three hundred. The horses he had bought at the Duke's sale, the Duke would not have thought of parting with them had he known how they would turn out. He had driven them along the Brighton road at the rate of fifteen miles an hour; he would back them to do fifteen miles in the hour. There was not a pair of horses in England equal to them. That was Mrs. Berkins's riding horse—was it possible to imagine a more perfect cob? He could get a hundred for him any day, he did not know of anything like him. “Did any of you gentleman ever see anything like him?” They went to the kennels. A brace of Irish setters were declared to be the finest dogs that Ireland had ever produced, they had taken two prizes, one in Dublin and another in Brighton—and the little fox terrier was the gamest dog in Sussex. She would go into any hole after a fox, and never leave him till she brought him out. You couldn't find her equal. Then the glass-houses were perfect. They contained all the latest improvements, and all these were fully explained. “Berkins is excelling himself to-day,” thought Frank.
Presently they came upon a basket of peaches.
“These peaches were, of course, grown under glass, but I think I am right in saying, Jackson, that they were produced without artificial heat.”
“Yes, sir, quite right, sir. It couldn't be done nowhere else, sir, but all the sun in Sussex seems to come down here—a regular little sun trap, I think that's what you called it the other day, sir, when you were speaking to me about them there peaches.”
“Yes, I did. If you move nearer the sea you get fogs and cold winds, further inland you lose the sun, but just here the climate is equal to the south of Europe! I ask you to look at these peaches, it seems impossible—does it not?—to have peaches like these at the end of May, and without any heat, merely glass.”
“It seems to me quite impossible,” declared a little fat man with flaxen hair. “I am devoted to peach-growing, and I confess I am quite at a loss. Gardener, did you say that those peaches were grown entirely without artificial heat?”
The gardener pretended not to hear, and tried to slip away, but the little man, who had been taken on his hobby, was not to be baulked, and he pursued the wretched horticulturist.
“You mean to say that these peaches ripened without any artificial heat, any?”
“You have no idea what a sun we get here, sir. I have never seen anything like it. In my last situation, when I was living with Lord ——, we couldn't get our fruit forward, use whatever heat he might, and Houghton is not more than fifty miles from here—the difference of climate is positively wonderful.”
Jackson had reckoned that Mr. Berkins would move on, and that the inquisitive little man would find himself obliged to follow, but chance was against him, for Berkins, with his guests around him, stood listening to the discussion.
“You mean to say that these peaches were grown without heat. I wouldn't mind giving you five-and-twenty pounds for the recipe for doing it.”
“You must take a small place down here, sir, and then you will be able to do it.”
This raised a laugh, but the little man was not to be beaten, and he said: “I should like to see some of those peaches of yours on the trees. You haven't plucked them all; let me see them.”
“Yes, Jackson, show us the trees. Some will not believe without seeing; let us see the peaches on the trees.”
Jackson appeared to be a little disconcerted; he murmured excuses, and strove to escape. Driven to bay he brought them into a glass-house where there were hot water-pipes, and when his tormentor pointed triumphantly to the pipes he attempted a faint explanation—he had meant to say that heat had only been used within the last three weeks.
“So you see, Berkins,” exclaimed little flaxen-haired fatty, “your south of Europe is no better than my south of Europe, or anybody else's south of Europe.”
“Jackson, you have told me many deliberate falsehoods about these peaches. I keep no one in my employment whose word cannot be depended upon. You take your warning.”
“Falsehoods! What do you want a man to do, if you will have everything better than anybody else's?”
Berkins turned suddenly on his heel, he drew himself up to his full height, and stood speechless with indignation. Never, not even on the most important Board meetings, did his friends wait to hear him speak with more anxiety; but at that moment a crash of flower pots was heard, and Sally and a young man were discovered hiding in the potting shed; and to make matters worse, in the very next house they visited, they suddenly came upon Maggie sitting with another young man in strangely compromising circumstances. Explanations were attempted, and some stupid remarks were made. Berkins was seriously annoyed, and he took the first opportunity of taking Mr. Brookes's arm and leading him away to a quiet path. Frank saw the men pass through the laurels, and ten minutes after he saw them return. Evidently Berkins had read Mr. Brookes an exhaustive lecture on the conduct of his daughters.
“Now, Mr. Brookes, now Mr. Brookes, I must beg of you—calm yourself. What would my guests think if they found you in tears? What would they think I had been saying to reduce you to such a condition? It is veryunfortunate that Sally and Maggie should act as they do, particularly at my place; but really you must not give way.”
“Since the death of their poor mother I am all alone. My position is a very trying one.” Then, with a sudden burst of laughter, “However, I suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence!”