Mary E. Mann

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ He liked little Deleah—what young man with eyes in his head did not like her!—she was so pretty; far and away prettier than Bessie, who had in Francis's word tried to grab him. She was the jolliest little thing to laugh with and to dance with; light as a feather—you could sweep her off her feet and dance on with her, never feeling her weight upon your arm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mr. Boult had stayed his hand from dealing summarily with the young man, as it had been his instinct to do. After all, he was William Day's son; the son of the one friend whom, in all his life, he had made. The son of the widow of Bridge Street, also; and he, George Boult, had been the arbiter of her destiny, of the destiny of her children, and was proud of the fact. The result had not been altogether satisfactory. No amount of teaching or of bullying would ever make a business woman of the mother; but then he knew that he had enjoyed the teaching and bullying. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ 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!" ”

“ Every movement of hers was made, every posture taken, with ease and grace. It happened, for Deleah's fortune, to be the day of the small woman; the day when she of inches was pronounced a gawk, and she of five feet and a little—slim of waist, of foot, of hand, of ankle—slid with ease and naturalness into a man's heart.
"Thank you for that," said the Manchester man again, with a kind of hoarse fervour in his voice. "You are always kind. I don't think the angels in heaven are kinder than you."
A statement at which Deleah among the tea-cups laughed light-heartedly. ”

“ She never would have admitted, even to herself, being a kind woman and a dutiful wife, that she preferred her husband out of her presence rather than in it—her children would not have whispered such a disloyalty; yet if he was going to pass his evenings in the bosom of his family, for the future, each of them would know in his or her heart that the peacefullest and most enjoyable hours of the day would be spoilt.
"Have you had any unpleasantness over cards, William?"
He turned savagely upon her where she stood by the corner of the mantelpiece. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”