Mary E. Mann

“ Franky, having pulled his mother's face down to his own, was whispering, "What is it, mama? What is the matter with Bessie, now? Does she feel sick?" To feel sick was Franky's idea of the greatest earthly misery.
Having wiped her eyes on Deleah's handkerchief Bessie rolled it into a ball and flung it across the table, with greater force of will than directness of aim, at Bernard's face. "You beast!" she choked. "Mama, Bernard's laughing at me. Oughtn't Bernard to know how to behave better? Because I'm so unhappy isn't a reason I should be laughed at." ”

“ I could not return to witness the innocent happiness of Daphne, and I spent the rest of the afternoon in trying to soothe the agitation of Daphne's mother; listening to her tirades against her suddenly masterful son, hearing her protestations of faith in the rectitude of Jack Marston, alternating with her outbursts of anger and grief at his hitherto unsuspected villainy.
"Hugh will see him when he arrives, will confront him with the story," I told her. "I don't suppose he can utterly deny, but he can palliate. There will be nothing told to Daphne which she can't forgive. ”

“ He should not think so, Gibbon said. "What is she but a servant there? She was a far greater lady, to my thinking, when she sat in the room over her mother's shop."
"It's Bessie that should ride in her carriage," Mr. Boult declared.
"Perhaps she will," said Gibbon, and looked at his partner, who met the other's eyes hardily.
"If she does," he said with sudden bluster, "the fool that owns the carriage is a ruined man. Mark my words. Extravagant, idle young woman. Die in the workhouse—that's what Bessie Day will do. Look here, Gibbon; you know how things are; you know all I've done for them. ”

“ Now, although the house was so big, there was allotted to it only a small square of garden; a garden exquisitely kept and fostered; a garden to smell the roses in, blushing on their neat rows of standards; to walk in, holding father's or mother's hand; even, wondrous treat! to take our tea in, sometimes, sitting demurely, we two, with a couple of dolls and a few lead soldiers from Willy's last new box for company, at the little round table whose root was buried deep in the ground beneath the red may-tree. A garden for such mild pleasures, but not for play. ”

“ Not that flaunting extravagant queen, not Bessie with her plump prettiness, her cheap wiles, her nets that were spread in the sight of man; but Deleah, the dainty, charmingly pretty child. The marriage would be none the less hideously undesirable on the social side, and from the point of view of the family; but it would be infinitely more difficult to stop. Sir Francis, in his widowed estate, with twenty years more of experience on his head, was yet not so old but that he could picture how deeply, how dangerously in love a young man of his brother's age could imagine himself with Deleah Day. ”

“ His own handsome, well-grown lad, with his fair, frank face and proudly carried head, and the poor little city clerk—the pallor of ill-health and confinement on the dusky face; the meagre figure; the head, over-heavy with its brown curls, thrust forwards, as if in eagerness to reach the goal before his feet could carry him there.
"Ah, happiness is found in unexpected places, and is a matter of temperament only, and not of circumstance at all," the doctor told himself, when Clomayne's clerk and the girl he called Cicely, passed the door of his first-class carriage, their destination reached. ”

“ She smiled as she sighed, thinking of Bessie and her love affair, about which she had many doubts; of Bernard, who, in spite of prayers and chidings, would smoke in bed, and had once set fire to his bedclothes; of Deleah, even, who, schoolgirl as she was, had, and held to, her own ideas, and was not so easy to manage as she had been. If a mother could always keep her children about her, to be no older, no more difficult to make happy than Franky! ”

“ Deleah as she walked homeward that afternoon (for she had overstayed her allotted time in Bridge Street, and the carriage which was to have picked her up at a certain point had gone on without her) determined that she must leave Cashelthorpe. The words sounded in her own ears as if she were sentencing herself to leave heaven.
Her mother could not be allowed to marry George Boult; she could not remain in the shop. How were she and Bessie to live? With the vanity of youth, which always sees itself in the foreground, Deleah thought she perceived that it was she who must get a living for them all. ”

“ The doctor had attended her almost daily. For years her husband had been warned her heart was in such a condition that she might die suddenly, at any moment. She had so died. Except that it was a happy release for herself, and for her husband—that over-tired, good, and patient man—one of Heaven's mercies, there was nothing to be said. Unless Kilbourne himself, in remembrance of other days, and in the tenderness of his heart, shed a tear for her, there was not a soul to weep for drunken Julia Kilbourne. ”

“ About the wife whom Sir Francis had loved and lost, who had lived for two years in this beautiful home, sitting to read, and eat, and sew, in her husband's company, walking the gardens by his side, cared for and tended and watched over by him, Deleah had dreamed many dreams. Beautiful as an angel she had pictured her, and with an angel's nature, to be so loved, so inexpressibly mourned by him. ”

“ I thought of the tales Daphne's mother had told me of his extraordinary passion for the girl with whom he had fallen in love at first sight. Women love love. No woman is too old to thrill at the story of a lover's ardour. The man was a sinner, no doubt; to Hugh he seemed a scoundrel; but—
I caught up with Hugh as he was going—very slowly going, poor boy—round the last turning to his sister's room.
"Hughie," I gasped, breathless with my haste. "You are right—but don't be brutal. Don't kill the child. Listen. Instead of writing to Jack Marston, let him come. Let him tell her himself. ”

“ Her eyes had been sharp enough to see on which of her daughters' faces it was that Reginald Forcus's gaze dwelt; she had divined the attraction which drew the pleasure-loving, much sought young man to sit patiently for hours in the evening, watching the girls at their work. She looked, drearily, the vinegar being measured and the customer gone, between the intervening biscuit tins and pickle jars into the street. She had begun to cherish a dream that if not Bessie it might be her pretty Deleah who, through Reggie, should find a way out. ”

“ The bread-and-butter handed to her with her tea was thick, the tea had not been creamed; but if food and drink had been fit for the entertainment of the gods, she did not think she could have swallowed. She lifted the bread-and-butter to her lips, then laid it, untasted, down again, she stirred her tea, and glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece. For how long must she sit and talk inanities with this mother whose only child was lying fathoms deep beneath the sea? ”

“ So tired she was of it all: of smiling, with tears raining upon her heart, of listening to the complaints of customers, the grievance of poor Bessie upstairs—poor unreasonable, self-centred Bessie, whom yet she so loved—when she was herself like to drown in trouble. If only the girls could find homes—Deleah she knew would provide for Franky—she would shut up the hateful shop, would give up the humiliating struggle—she being an earthen vessel—to swim with the hateful Coman who was of iron. ”

“ Isn't Luce an angel?" She smiled at him, showing all her teeth, stretching back her head on the pillow to bring her full, round throat into prominence, shutting her eyes. "Oh, it is good to be here!" she said.
It was good to see her there, he murmured, but not without a little embarrassment. For, it is one thing for a man to make love to another man's wife during a half-hour's call at her house, and another to do the same when she has taken up a permanent position in his own wife's drawing-room.
"I'm to stay here till Fred comes back," Vera told him, opening her eyes upon him. ”

“ Then she turned from him to her mother.
"Why do you think it impossible, mama? Because Mr. Boult can't say agreeable things is no reason he cannot do them. Don't you know that there are poor shut-up souls who want to be nice, who long to be loved—who have to speak in the dumb language because they can't articulate?"
"Miss Deleah is right. That is so. That is so!" Mr. Gibbon eagerly affirmed.
"Well, then, Mr. Boult isn't blessed with a tongue to say smooth things; but the bird in the cage, the basket of sweets, the rose-pink azalea—they are his kind and polite speeches." ”

“ And Sister Marion, looking down upon him to see the effect, thrilled to find eyes, usually cold and preoccupied, fixed in a rapture of adoration upon her face.
"No woman in the world has such a tender touch as you," he said. "My mother used to kiss my hurts to make them well. Will you do that too for me?"
Then the woman with murder in her heart stooped and kissed him tenderly as a mother upon his brow, knelt for an instant before him, and kissed his hand.
"Good-bye," she said, "Good-bye;" and without another word left him and went upon her business to the private ward. ”

“ Then she dressed herself in the widow's bonnet she still wore, the shabby silk mantle with its deep border of crape, the black gloves so much the worse for wear, and saying no further word to Bessie went out.
"Of course I know where she's gone," said Bessie to Emily, her unfailing confidante. "To Franky's grave. It isn't the place to make her a lively companion when she comes back again; and it isn't very cheerful for me to have to sit at home and think of her there."
"'Tis mother-like, Miss Bessie." Franky's grave held attraction for Emily also, who visited it every Sunday of her life. ”

“ Lucilla told her husband, running down to him, her own eyes wet with tears. "Isn't it a mercy he loves her so?"
"There's nothing whatever the matter with her, you know," Everard said. "The doctor's just been telling me. Nothing whatever."
"I knew that all along," Lucilla told him.
He took her hand and looked in her face, and his own grew red. "Confession is good for the soul, and you and I should have no secrets, Luce," he said. "That little woman upstairs—you'll think me an awful ass. ”

“ A man knows his own mind at my age, I suppose—?"
"You thought you knew it a year ago when all the town was talking of you and Harriet Hart. You thought you knew it two—or was it three years before that?—when you said you were in love with Bessie."
"Parcel of silly rot, Deleah! They tell you anything, my dear. Don't you believe it. I've never been in love—not head over ears, as I am now—in all my life before. You may believe it."
"I don't wish to believe it. Let us forget it. Do, Reggie!" ”

“ It was inevitable that in these days the memory of her husband should more fully occupy the young widow's mind. He had died of heart disease; his child, it was now discovered, had a certain weakness of the heart. A superstitious feeling that she had not remembered him enough, and that this was her punishment, took possession of Mrs Eddington's brain. She remembered with remorse what had been occurring at the moment her child had fallen insensible among the primroses. On the very anniversary of her poor Harry's death she had forgotten him so far! Never would she forget him again. ”

“ She who had wept so often in this latest sorrow could shed no tears.
Deleah cried, wetting the pillow nightly with her tears. When talking of matters quite unconnected with the lost child the tears would come welling up, drowning the beautiful hazel eyes; would tremble, as she tried to go on talking, on the thick black lashes; would roll, she pretending not to notice, down her cheeks.
Bessie cried—howled, even, lying with her face buried in the sofa cushion, calling in a smothered voice upon Franky's name. ”

“ In the bow-windowed front room of Horace Kilbourne's house his wife was lying on the sofa—semi-paralysed, a drunkard.
"That you, Horry dear?" she said, as, with a gloomy, hopeless face he looked in upon the unlovely sight.
She raised a frowsy head from its pillow, put a dirty hand to her eyes to shade them from the sun entering the darkened room by the open door, smiled fatuously upon her husband.
"Come and haul wifey up, and make me comfy, and give me a cup of tea," she invited him.
One side of her was helpless. She was a tall and broadly-made woman, enormously fat. ”

“ Emily, determined that no item of the ritual proper to such ceremonies should be omitted, promptly threw a handful of rice in his face. It stung, half blinded him, but had the effect of driving him from his position, so that Bessie for one minute could appear. The poor face in the white tulle and forget-me-nots looked anxious, frightened, appealing; and as the train, rushing on, carried it from them the women left on the platform looked at each other through eyes blinded with tears.
"Poor Bessie! She is such a child always," Deleah said. ”

“ A policeman wasn't a man to be afraid of when you knew him; why wouldn't I come and see this one? He—Willy, quite a hero that morning—would take care of me.
Then away, with excited face and flying feet, downstairs again. And presently, a quieter step upon the stairs—a step I knew well then, hear often in the lonely silence now, shall surely know amid the sound of all the myriad feet that tread the golden floor when I hear it again—and my mother was in the room.
"Where is my little girl, and what is she hiding away for? And what have you got in your lap, and why are you crying, Polly?" ”

“ In the sitting-room over the shop was no attraction for Charles Gibbon, Deleah's light figure and darling face being absent from it. He could afford a house very well now. Not the grand house of which Deleah had spoken, but one which would suffice to his modest wants. A house with a big garden beyond, where, supposing a lady ever came to live there who was fond of flowers, roses might be grown, honeysuckle, jessamine trained. A garden where a bower could be constructed large enough for two who could eat their strawberries there, in season, or drink a glass of wine there, on a Sunday afternoon. ”

“ Boy Billy struggled down from the paternal shoulder, ran across the room as fast as his fat legs would take him, and with a delighted cry of "mummy! mummy!" hurled himself upon the lady on the sofa. To fly back to his father, with outflung arms and a scream of terror, when, instead of the fair, blooming face of his mother with the auburn waves of hair, the sallow cheeks, the tossed black hair, the great dark eyes of Mrs Butt met his infantile gaze. ”

“ That Bernard was in prison had been what she dreaded to hear. "Oh, mama, if that is all, it is not so terrible."
Then there came a knock at the door and Charles Gibbon came in. Deleah turned upon him: "You should not have told them; you should have told me," she reproached him.
"I don't think so," he said bluntly. "Why should you bear the brunt of everything?"
Mrs. Day was incapable of speech, her poor lips shaking, the hands twitching which lay helpless on her lap.
Bessie looked at her. "Poor mama! Poor mama!" she moaned. "This will kill mama! The disgrace will kill her!" ”

“ She watched him, standing at the foot of his bed, and could smile as she watched.
"You are afraid to die," she said; "I knew you would be. You were always a coward."
He cursed her then. His voice was feeble now; it had lost the strength of delirium. There was something awful in the sound of such words in such trembling, exhausted tones; yet Marion, listening, smiled on.
"I will not be nursed by you!" he cried. "I won't have you near me, glaring at me with your Gorgon stare. Send another nurse to me—send the doctor. Get out of my sight, Gorgon! Don't look at me. Go away!" ”

“ George Boult said. He felt helpless in the presence of such surprising helplessness. He looked at the heaving shoulders of the youth with an astonished distaste. What was to be done with material so soft as this! "I am sorry I have been the bearer of such ill news, but there is no good in my stopping now. I'll drop in, tell your mother, when you're all more used to it. Wonderful how quickly people do get used to things! Meantime, remember, I'll stand bail for your father if you can find another. And there's no time to lose. You must shake yourself together and set about it at once." ”

“ Flora Macmichel said, and put the slice again to her lips, and again placed it unbitten in the saucer.
"There is," said the clergyman's wife in a lowered tone, "something awful—I mean in the sense of being full of awe—in being entrusted by God with only one child. Don't you think that much more will be required of us, and of them—our dear children?"
Mrs Macmichel had not thought of it in that light.
"You see, we have no others to share our devotion, to distract our attention. Our only one should be, as near as a mother can make him so, perfect." ”

“ Ada suggested.
"If we could do something to help them to make a living," Sir Francis said.
The day of Franky's funeral had been the first to bring home the fact that summer was gone. The chapel had been cold and bleak, and while they stood around the grave it began to rain. In the drawing-room at Cashelthorpe the fire had been lit, and tea awaited the brother and sister. Consoling as these comforts were they could not dispel the sadness which oppressed the kind heart of Ada Forcus.
"I shall never forget those poor things, to-day. Never!" she said, and cried unashamedly into her tea-cup. ”

“ But her overtired brain, refusing to work as she willed, presented only before her feverish eyes a picture of the young doctor coming in the spring sunshine down the hospital ward, a bunch of violets in his coat. How clean, and strong, and helpful he looked! And his voice—was it not indeed one to obey? It must be her fancy only that of late it had taken on a softer tone for her.
Her fancy! Her vain, mad fancy!
She flung over upon her bed and forced herself to contemplate what it was she had to do: To get away from the man who lay in the private ward ”

“ He was no prince in disguise as it would have been so pleasant to discover him to be—this short, thickly-made, middle-aged man, with the prominent, bright, dark eyes, the large dark head, the knobbly red forehead, whose parents had kept a small draper's shop in a small market-town in the county.
What could a man so born and nurtured have to give Bessie in return for the stories of the high life to which she had been accustomed? ”

“ But everything that happens to us is bad," said Deleah, with uncharacteristic despondency.
"Bad?" echoed Bessie. "That depends on how you look at it."
"Bankruptcy? To owe more than we can pay? I should have thought that there was only one way of looking at it."
Bessie swung round to her mother. "You haven't told Deda!" she cried accusingly. "She hasn't told you! Mama is going to marry Mr. Boult, Deleah."
"To marry him!" Deleah cried, as if she might have cried "to murder him!" and sprang from her chair to stand before her mother. "Mama! Mama!" ”

“ And presently the father had drawn a chair by the side of his little son's, and was showing him how to mix his colours, and admonishing him not to suck his paintbrushes, as on the happy winter evenings before the crash.
It was a landscape with mill and marshland and water, the child had chosen, and there was a large space to be occupied with the sunset at which his parent excelled, and much scraping and mixing of carmine and yellow ochre and cobalt blues. So that Franky's bed-time was here before the picture was finished. He was sent off as usual, protesting and in tears. ”

“ Day, who did not grumble, but who nevertheless knew herself to be a martyr, would rise from her delicious rest in her chair over the fire, accompanied by Deleah to hold the candle, would descend to the cellar to cut the cheese—both the women were terrified of the cellar, the unilluminated caves and corners, the beetles, the rats. ”

“ What's the good of anything else? Have we finished clearing away the tea-things, Miss Deleah? Anything more that I can help you with?"
She shook her head, looking at him with eyes which implored him not to be bitter or unhappy. And as she looked, seeing the familiar red face and squat strong figure of him in a new light an idea struck her.
"Mr. Gibbon," she said, "it was you who sent the concert tickets, and all the flowers and fruit, and the canary in its lovely cage. It was you—you!"
"No, no! Mr. Boult, of course, Miss Deleah. You found out who it was, long ago. Kind, generous Mr. Boult!" ”