I
“Miss, I'll have his blood; I will, miss, I will.”
“For goodness' sake, cook, go back to your kitchen; put that dreadful
pair of boots under your apron.”
“No, miss; I'll be revenged. He has insulted me.”
“You can't be revenged now, cook; you see he has shut himself in; you
had better go back to your kitchen.”
The groom, who was washing the carriage, stood, mop in hand, grinning,
appreciating the discomfiture of the coachman, who was paying the
penalty of his joke.
“Cook, if you don't go back to your kitchen instantly, I'll give you
notice. It is shameful--think what a scandal you are making in the
stable-yard. Go back to your kitchen--I order you. It is half-past six,
go and attend to your master's dinner.”
“He has insulted me, he has insulted me. I'll have your blood!” she
cried, battering at the door. The rattling of chains was heard as the
horses turned their heads.
“Put those boots under your apron, cook; go back to your kitchen, do as
I tell you.”
The woman retreated, Maggie following. At intervals there were
stoppages, and cook re-stated her desire to have the coachman's blood.
Maggie did not attempt to argue with her, but sternly repeated her order
to go back to her kitchen, and to conceal the old boots under her apron.
“What business had he to rummage in my box, interfering with my things;
he put them all along the kitchen table; he did it because I told you,
miss, that he was carrying on with the kitchenmaid. He goes with her
every evening into the wood shed, and a married man, too! I wouldn't be
his poor wife.”
“Go back to your kitchen, cook; do as I tell you.”
With muttered threats cook entered the house, and commanded the
kitchenmaid to interfere no more with the oven, but to attend to her
saucepans.
“What a violent woman,” thought Maggie, “horrid woman. I am sure she's
Irish. I'll get rid of her as soon as I can. The place is filthy, but I
daren't speak to her now. She's stirring the saucepan with her finger.”
At that moment quick steps were heard coming down the corridor, and
Sally entered.
“Cook, cook, I want you to put back the dinner half an hour. I have to
go down the town.”
“O Sally, I beg of you, what will father say?”
“Father isn't everybody. I daresay the train will be a little late; it
often is. He won't know anything about it, that is if you don't tell
him.”
“What do you want to go down the town for?”
“Never you mind. I don't ask you what you do.”
“You want to go down the slonk,” whispered Maggie.
The cook stopped stirring the saucepan, and the kitchenmaid stood
listening greedily.
“Nothing of the kind,” Sally answered defiantly. “You're always trying
to get up something against me. Cook, will you keep back the dinner
twenty minutes?”
“Cook, I forbid you. I'm mistress here.”
“How dare you insult me before the servants! Grace is mistress here, if
it comes to that.”
“Grace has given me over the housekeeping. I am mistress when she is too
unwell to attend to it.”
“Nothing of the sort. Grace is the eldest, I would give way to her, but
I'm not going to give way to you. Cook, the dinner won't be ready for
another half hour, will it?”
“I don't know when the dinner will be ready, and I don't care.”
“It is a quarter to seven now, dinner won't be ready before seven, will
it, cook? Keep it back a bit. Now I must be off.”
And, as Maggie expected, Sally ran past the glass houses and the pear
and apple trees, for there was at the end of the vegetable garden a
door in the brick wall that enclosed the manor house. It was used by the
gardeners, and it communicated with a path leading through some corn and
grass land to the high road. There were five acres of land attached
to the manor house, tennis lawn, shady walks, flower garden, kitchen
garden, stables, and coach house at the back, and all this spoke in
somewhat glaring fashion the wealth and ease of a rich city merchant.
“There she goes,” thought Maggie, flaunting her head. “What a fool she
is to bully father instead of humouring him. We shall never hear the
end of this. His dinner put back so that she may continue her flirtation
with Meason! I shall have to tell the truth. Why should I tell a lie?”
“Please, miss,” said the butler as Maggie passed through the baize door,
“I think it right to tell you about cook. We find it very hard to put
up with her in the servants' hall. She is a very violent-tempered woman;
nor can I say much for her in other respects. Last week she sold twenty
pounds of dripping, and it wasn't all dripping, miss, it was for the
most part butter.”
“John, I really can't listen to any more stories about cook. Has the
quarter-to-seven come in yet?”
“I haven't seen it pass, miss, but I saw Mr. Willy coming up the drive a
minute ago.”
Willy entered, and she turned to him and said: “Where have you been to,
Willy?”
“Brighton. Has father come in yet?”
“No. You came by the tramcar?”
“Yes.”
With shoulders set well back and toes turned out, Willy came along the
passage. His manner was full of deliberation, and he carried a small
brown paper parcel under his arm as if it were a sword of state. Maggie
followed him up the steep and vulgarly carpeted staircase that branched
into the various passages forming the upper part of the house. Willy's
room was precise and grave, and there everything was held under lock and
key. He put the brown paper parcel on the table; he took off his coat
and laid it on the bed, heaving, at the same time, a sigh.
“Did you notice if the quarter-to-seven has been signalled?”
“Yes, but don't keep on worrying; the train is coming along the
embankment.”
“Then there will be a row to-night.”
“Why?”
“Sally told cook to keep the dinner back; she has gone down the slonk to
speak to Meason.”
“Why didn't you tell cook that she must take her orders from you and no
one else?”
“So I did, but Sally said I was no more mistress here than she was. I
said Grace had given me charge of the house, when she could not attend
to it; but Sally will listen to no one, she'll drive father out of his
mind. There's no one he hates like the Measons.”
“What is the matter with Grace? Where is she?”
“She's in her room, lying on the bed crying. She says she wants to die;
she says that she doesn't care what becomes of her. She'll never care
for another man, and father will not give his consent. What's-his-name
has nothing--only a small allowance; he'll never have any more, he isn't
a working man. I know father, he'll never hear of any one who is not a
working man. I wish you'd speak to her.”
“I've quite enough to do with my own affairs; I've had bad luck enough
as it is, without running into new difficulties of my own accord.”
“If she refuses Berkins, father'll never get over it. I wish you would
speak to her.”
“No, don't ask me. I never meddle in other people's affairs. I've had
trouble enough. Now I want to dress.”
When Maggie went downstairs, she found her father in the drawing-room.
“The train was a little late to-night. Has Willy come back from
Brighton?”
“Yes, father.”
“I've been looking over his accounts and I find he has lost nearly two
thousand pounds in Bond Street, and I don't think he is doing any good
with that agency in Brighton. I never approved of one or the other. I
approve of nothing but legitimate city business. Shops in the West End!
mere gambling. Where is Grace?”
“She's in her room.”
“In her room? I suppose she hasn't left it all day? This is very
terrible. I don't know what to do with you. Since your poor mother died
my life has been nothing but trouble and vexation. I can't manage you,
you are too strong for me. So she hasn't left her room; crying her eyes
out, because I won't consent to her marrying a penniless young officer!
But I will not squander my money. I made it all myself, by my own
industry, and I refuse to keep young fellows in idleness.”
“I don't give you any trouble, father.”
“You are the best, Maggie, but you encourage your sister Sally. I hear
that you, too, were seen walking with young Meason.”
“It is not true, I assure you, father. I met him as I was going to the
post-office. I said, 'How do you do?' and I passed on.”
“Where is Sally?”
“She went out a few minutes ago.”
“Didn't she know the time? She ought to be dressing for dinner. Do you
know where she's gone?”
“I think she went down the slonk.”
His children had inherited his straight, sharp features and his small,
black, vivid eyes. Their hair was of various hues of black. Maggie's was
raven black and glossy; Sally's was coarse and of a hue like black-lead;
Grace's was abundant and relieved with sooty shades; Willy's hair
was brown. He was the fair one of the family, and his hair was always
closely cut in military fashion, and he wore a long flowing military
moustache with a tinge of red in it. His father and he were built on the
same lines--long, spare bodies, short necks and legs, and short, spare
arms, and if the father's white hair were dyed the years that separated
him from his son would disappear, for although the son had only just
turned thirty, he was middle-aged in face and feeling.
Sally and Grace were both thickly built, the latter a little inclined
to fat. Maggie was thin and elegantly angular, and often stood in
picturesque attitudes; she stood in one now, with her hands linked
behind her back, and she watched her father, and her look was subtle and
insinuating.
“When I came here,” he said, speaking rapidly, and as if he were
speaking to himself, “the place was well enough; there was nothing but
those wretched cottages facing the sea, the green, and a few cottages
about it; but since those villas have been put up, Southwick has become
unbearable. All my troubles,” he murmured, “originated in the Southdown
Road.”
Maggie turned aside, smiled, and bit her lip; she did not speak,
however, for she knew her father did not care to be interrupted in his
musings.
“A hateful place--glass porticoes, and oleographs on the walls.” Here
Mr. Brookes stopped in his walk to admire one of his favourite Friths.
“Those ridiculous haberdashers, with a bas-relief of the founder of
their house over the doorway. The proprietors of the baths, the Measons,
poor as church mice, the son a mate of a merchant vessel--these are not
proper associates for my daughters. I will not know them; I will not
have them in my house.”
“The Measons are quite as good as we are, father. They may be poor, but
as far as family goes--”
“You are just the same as the others, Maggie; once there is a young man
to flirt with, you don't care what he is or where he comes from. When
there are no young men, you will snub the old ladies fast enough; and as
for Sally, she is downright rude. I didn't want to see the haberdashers,
but while they were in my house I was polite to them.”
“It was the Horlocks who told them to call.”
“I know it was. If Mrs. Horlock likes to know these people, let her know
them; but what does she want to force them upon us for? That's what I
want to know. We might never have known any one in the Southdown Road; I
mean we never should, we never could have known any one in the Southdown
Road if Mrs. Horlock hadn't come to live there. We had to call upon
her.”
“Every Viceroy in India called upon her. She was the only woman whom
every Viceroy did call upon.”
“I know she was. Of course we had to call upon her. Most interesting
woman; the General is very nice, too. I like them exceedingly. I often
go to see them, although the smell of that mastiff is more than I can
bear in the hot weather, especially if lilies or strong smelling flowers
are in the room.”
“She feeds the mice, she won't let them be destroyed, she lets the traps
down at night.”
“Don't let us go into the animal question. The constant smell of dogs
is unpleasant, but I could put up with it--what I can't stand are her
acquaintances in the Southdown Road, and when I think that we should not
have known any of them if it hadn't been for her! Indirectly--I do not
say directly--she is the cause of all my difficulties. It was at her
house Sally met young Meason; it was at her house Grace met that
young officer for whom she is crying her eyes out; and it was at her
house--yes, I hadn't thought of it before--it was at her house that
Willy met that swindler who induced him to put two thousand pounds into
the Bond Street shop. The Southdown Road might have remained here for
the next five hundred years, and we should have known nothing of it had
it not been for Mrs. Horlock; if she likes to know these people let her
know them, but why force them upon us? It was only the other day she was
talking to me about calling on some new friends of hers who have come
to live there. I dare say it is the custom to call on every one at
Calcutta, but I say that Calcutta etiquette is not Southwick etiquette,
and I don't care how many Viceroys called upon her, I will not know the
Southdown Road.”
The enunciation of this last sentence was deliberate and impassioned.
Mr. Brookes walked twice across the room; then he stood, his hands
crossed behind his back, looking at his admired Goodall. His anger
melted, and he mused on the price he had paid, and the price he thought
it was now worth. Fearing he would return to the Southdown Road trouble,
Maggie said: “I am afraid we shall be obliged to get rid of the
new cook. She is Irish. Just before you came in I found her in the
stable-yard threatening to break Holt's head with a pair of dreadful old
boots.”
“I don't want to hear about the cook. The money you spend in
housekeeping is enormous. Since your poor mother died I haven't had
a day's peace. If it isn't one thing it is another. You are fit for
nothing but pleasure and flirtation; there isn't a young man in the
place or within ten miles you haven't flirted with. I am often ashamed
to look them in the face at the station. It is past seven; why isn't
dinner ready?”
“Sally told the cook to put the dinner back half an hour.”
“Sally told the cook to put my dinner back half an hour!”
Mr. Brookes's face grew livid. The end of all things was at hand; his
dinner had been put back half an hour! This was a climax in the affairs
of his life, which for the moment he failed to grasp or estimate. Was a
father ever cursed with such daughters as his? He had been in the City
all day working for them; he did not marry because he wished to leave
them his money, and this was the return they made to him. His dinner had
been put back half an hour! Passion sustained him for a while; but he
gave way, and, pulling out a silk handkerchief, he sank into a chair.
“Don't cry, father, don't cry. Sally is thoughtless; she didn't mean
it.”
Mr. Brookes wept for a few minutes; Maggie strove to soothe him; he
waved her away, he wiped his eyes and in a voice broken with anguish,
“Ah, well,” he said, “I suppose it will be all the same a hundred
years hence.” In moments of extreme trouble he sought refuge in such
philosophy, but now it seemed inadequate and superficial, and Maggie had
begun to fear the violence of the storm she had brewed. She did not
mind stimulating ill-feeling, but she did not wish Sally to provoke her
father recklessly.
The possibility of his marrying again and having a second family was the
one restraining influence Mr. Brookes still retained over his daughters,
so Maggie, who was always keenly alive to the remotest consequences of
her actions, took care that his home never became quite unbearable to
him; and when Sally entered the room, dark and brilliant in red velvet,
and in no way disposed to admit she had been guilty of heinous wrong in
countermanding the dinner, Maggie attempted a gentle pouring of oil
on the waters. But waving aside her sister's gentle interposition, she
said: “You mustn't think of yourself only, father. I admit I told the
cook to put back the dinner a few minutes. What then?”
“You did it that you might finish your conversation with young Meason,”
said Mr. Brookes, but his words were weak, it being doubtful if even
Meason could add to the original offence, so culminating and final did
it seem to him.
“Maggie didn't tell you that last week she met him on the sea road, and
walked with him into Portslade.”
“Father, father, I beg of you, now, don't cry; think of the servants.”
And it was in such unity of mind and feeling that this family sat down
to dinner in the great dining-room, rich with all comforts and adorned
with pictures by Frith and Goodall. Sally, who unfortunately knew
no fear, talked defiantly; she addressed herself principally to her
brother, and she questioned him persistently, although the replies
she received were generally monosyllabic. As he chewed his meat
with reflection and precaution, broke his bread with deliberate and
well-defined movements, and filled his mouth with carefully chosen
pieces, he gradually ventured to decide that he would not speak to his
father that evening of the scheme he had been hatching for some months.
It was one of his strictest rules not to think while eating, so it may
be said that it was against his will that he arrived at this conclusion.
Willy suffered from indigestion, and he knew that any exercise of the
brain was most prejudicial at meal times.
After dinner Mr. Brookes and his son retired to the billiard-room to
smoke.
“Your sisters are a great trouble to me--a very great anxiety. Since
your poor mother died I've had no peace, none whatever. Poor Julia,
she's gone; I shall never see her again.”
Willy made no answer. He was debating; he was still uncertain whether
the present time could be considered a favourable one to introduce his
scheme to his father's notice, and he had made up his mind that it was,
when he was interrupted by Mr. Brookes, who had again lapsed into one of
his semi-soliloquies.
“Your sisters give me a great deal of trouble, a very great deal of
anxiety. I am all alone. I have no one to help me since the death of
your poor mother.”
“My sisters are fitted for nothing but pleasure,” Willy replied
severely.