A Tea-Party In Bridge Street
His time being so fully occupied in his own business during the week, and
those hours he had been wont to pass with his friend William Day being
still unfilled, Mr. George Boult had fallen into the evil habit of coming
to hold a business consultation with the widow on the Sunday afternoons.
The Day family complained bitterly of this custom. The poor grocer-woman's
one blessed day was no longer hers, to be passed from morn to eve in the
midst of her children, in rest and peace and forgetfulness of business
worries.
She was too tired for church, she always pleaded; but it was not fatigue
alone which kept her from public worship. She was accustomed to her place
behind the counter now, and in the work-days of the week was too busy for
regret, too anxious to sell her goods to feel any shame in the occupation.
But on that day when the rest of the world of women went forth with
husbands and children to take their places, dressed in their best, in
family pews, she felt that she lacked the courage to show her face. She
who had queened it with the best of them; she who was the widow of a man
who had killed himself to escape from prison! She for whom "sympathisers"
and "well-wishers" had collected their sixpenny-pieces that she and hers
might be saved from starving.
So she sent the girls to church with Franky, on the Sunday morning, while
she, prayer-book in hand, would sit in Deleah's favourite window-seat,
beneath the canary's cage, to watch the smart and prosperous Sabbath
people airing their newest clothes on the opposite pavement of the street.
Presently Emily, her preparations for dinner made, would come to stand
beside her mistress's chair, to turn a critical eye upon the passers-by
beneath. Emily knew the names of most of the people of any consideration
who passed; knew, and could at length relate the history of themselves and
their domestic economies.
"There's Mrs. Hamley, m'm. I haven't never seen her in that black lace
shawl before."
"Perhaps she's laid it by from last summer," Mrs. Day would suggest.
"Not she!" Here Emily would lean over the back of her mistress's chair and
crane her neck to get a better view of the raiment in question. "Bran'
new, I'll lay a guinea! And her still fifteen pound in your debt!"
"Here come the Briggses! Look out, m'm!" presently she would cry. "Well,
and ain't they figged out! The whole four of the girls--and every one of
'em in a new bonnet! And them buyin' a pound-and-a-half of butter a week
for the whole fam'ly! Tha's what I always say, m'm; the Briggses is a
fam'ly that save out of their insides to put it on their bids. Now, here
come the best-lookin' young ladies and young gentleman we have set eyes on
yet." And then Mrs. Day's own daughters, with Franky clinging to Deleah's
arm, would be seen to approach.
"We think so, don't we, Emily? It's because they're our own, you know,"
the mistress would say, with her deprecating smile. "It's because they're
ours, that they seem to look so nice."
But in her heart she heartily agreed with Emily that hers was indeed a
charming family.
In the evening Bessie would go off to church again, escorted by Emily, but
Deleah would stay with her mother. They would sit together in peaceful,
delicious idleness over the winter fire, or, it being summer, they would
go forth, escaping by backways and narrow lanes of the old town from the
crowded pavements to the quiet roads with their formal rows of trees,
their flower-packed gardens and trim hedges. Slowly they would pace along,
enjoying the sweeter air of the suburbs, or, gardenless themselves, would
stand to peep through garden-gates at the well-ordered array of geranium,
calceolaria, verbena; sniffing the fragrance from the serried rows of
stocks, the patches of mignonette, or the blossoming lime-trees overhead.
When on that scented Sabbath peacefulness the warm dark would begin to
descend, it sometimes happened that the boarder, Charles Gibbon, who also
loved the scent of flower and of shrub, and enjoyed the soft air of
evening upon his cheek, would meet or overtake Mrs. Day and her daughter
as they sauntered homewards; and in a very friendly and pleasant way the
three would finish their walk together.
But about the Sunday afternoons there was a less agreeable tale to tell.
The young ladies retired with their books to their bedrooms, on those
occasions; Franky took refuge with Emily in the kitchen, a store of
oranges and nuts having been laid in by that faithful retainer for his
entertainment there. The Manchester man saw more than enough of his
employer on week-days, and would have preferred to pass a Sabbath
afternoon in the cellar with the coals, to spending that portion of his
precious holiday with his employer. Poor Mrs. Day was compelled therefore
to receive her taskmaster and benefactor alone.
Then had her books to be produced, her order-sheet criticised; then was
comparison made between this week's takings and those of the corresponding
week last year. If, as too often happened, alas! the sales had been less,
the poor apologetic tradeswoman had to suffer for it.
"You are losing custom. You must not lose it," the tradesman would
bluster. Or "Your expenses are too much. You are eaten up with expenses,"
he would insist. "You don't see how you can reduce them? Do with less
help, my good lady. What do people do who can't afford help? Go without
it, and do the work themselves. It's what you must do. It is indeed, I do
assure you. Cut down your expenses. Cut them down! Cut them down!"
"It is easier to say that than to do it," poor Mrs. Day would demur. "We
have nothing superfluous."
"You will be surprised how much you can do without if you really make the
effort. Get rid of your assistant in the shop. Get rid of your servant. A
servant is a very pleasant possession, but if we can't afford to keep one,
we can't. What is Miss Bessie doing all day long?"
"Bessie is useful in the house. Bessie is not strong," Bessie's mother
would plead; and George Boult would snort the suggestion to scorn.
"A little extra work would be the best physic for Miss Bessie." She had
put on a good stone of flesh since he had seen her last, he would declare.
Work never killed half the women that idleness killed.
On a Sunday afternoon soon after that concert to which the girls had been
escorted by the lodger, George Boult, his business exhortation finished,
sprang on the poor mother the news that her son at the branch shop at
Ingleby was not giving satisfaction.
A complaint of incivility to a customer had come to the ear of the local
manager, who had reported to the Head at Brockenham, delivering himself of
the opinion at the same time that the young man played billiards at the
Rose and Crown more than was consistent with his means, or the devotion he
should have shown to his employer's interests.
Lydia Day listened, her dark, handsome face of a lead white, while the man
seated at the table opposite to her condemned her son utterly as one who
was flinging away a fine chance. He, George Boult, had been thrown, at
Bernard's age, on his own resources. Never that he could recall had a
helping hand been held to him. (Men of the stamp of George Boult never
recognise the helping hand.) Work had been his pleasure. Had he played
billiards? Had he shown temper before a customer? No! Or thought of his
own pleasure before his employer's advantage? Never!
Very eloquent he was on the strenuous period of his own youth, recounting
the virtues he had displayed and the vices he had shunned, holding up his
shining example before the dimmed eyes of the poor mother, listening with
sick politeness, her heart so heavy in her breast. The excuses she made
for her Bernard to herself she dared not put forward. The fact that he was
his father's son; the contrast between the life he had known and that he
was called on to live; his youth; his exile from home and home influences;
his empty pockets; his tastes which had been formed when money seemed
plentiful.
"I implore you to be patient with the boy," was about all she thought it
wise to say; that and the promise she made to write at once to Bernard to
beg of him to consider his circumstances and Mr. Boult's goodness, and to
change what was amiss.
Bernard, her darling, handsome son! While she said it she saw him in a
thousand pictures stored in her mother's heart. All that was desirable he
had seemed to her; she had never thought of wishing him to change!
"Let him know he is on his trial," George Boult said.
"He is being carefully watched and reported on. Do not tell him this, but
tell him the impression he has made on Adams" (Adams was the manager at
Ingleby) "is not a satisfactory one; and Adams is a man whose opinions I
hold very high. Tell him he is having the chance of his life; warn him not
to abuse it."
He was still trampling the poor woman's heart beneath the prancings of his
own eloquence, when the ringing of the street-door bell created a
diversion.
Downstairs went Miss Bessie, her fair hair ruffled, her cheek flushed from
its pressure upon her pillow, to take in, as she imagined, in the absence
of Emily, the afternoon's milk.
It was not the anticipated milk, however, that Bessie found upon the
doorstep, but no less a delightful surprise than the exquisite person of
Mr. Reginald Forcus.
"Ah, how do, Bessie? I thought I'd give you a look. I hope I am not _de
trop?_" he asked. He pronounced the last words as they are spelt, not
because he did not know better, but because he liked to be amusing, and
the mispronunciation of words was the kind of fun he appreciated.
With effusion, Bessie bade him enter; but in her mind were distracting
thoughts of the condition of her chignon, and the present occupancy of the
only sitting-room.
"There's some one upstairs with mama," she told him, anxiously smiling
upon him, her grey-green eyes glinting with pleasure. "The Mr. Boult, you
know, who helps her with her books and things when she'll let him. You
won't mind?"
"Happy, I'm sure. You're all alone, week-days," he said as he mounted the
stairs behind her--stairs very dark and very steep, starting from the
almost unmitigated blackness of the hall upon which the front door opened.
"I thought if I looked in on the Sunday afternoons I should find the
others as well, perhaps."
"You'll find mama," Bessie said, wondering a little at his concern for the
proprieties. "Here is Reggie, mama," she said. And Mrs. Day, her heart
full of her own unhappy boy, went forward with a weary step, and
smilelessly held out a welcoming hand.
"You are very kind to come, Reggie," she said. "This is our good friend,
Mr. George Boult; Mr. Reginald Forcus."
"I take it young Mr. Forcus and I don't need any introduction," the draper
said.
The Forcus family did not deal at his shop; the deference therefore which
the draper never failed to pay his customers was not needed here. He shook
poor Reggie's hand mercilessly, and inquired after Sir Francis. Mr. George
Boult had recently been made a magistrate; Sir Francis and he sat on the
same bench.
"You are extremely well known to me by sight," he went on, still
exercising the visitor's hand. "I should say there are few people in
Brockenham better known to me by sight."
"I go past your place pretty often," Reggie admitted.
"You'd see me four or five times a day if you were looking out."
"Oh, I'm not always behind my own shop window," Mr. Boult said, not too
well pleased. When he was not talking to a customer why should he be
reminded of the shop? Since he had been able to write J.P. after his name,
he had more than once been secretly desirous of temporarily forgetting the
successful drapery establishment.
He was always disposed to lose himself in wonder at his own marvellous
achievements. Time was when the members of the great brewery firm were as
far above his head as the stars of heaven above the pebbles of the street.
Yet here he was now, to all intents and purposes on a par with them. Where
was the difference? A successful business man, he was--what more were
they? Still, since Sir Francis had taken to addressing him as "Boult"
without any prefix to the name, when they met in the magisterial room, the
desire to ingratiate himself with any member of the Forcus family was very
warm within him.
"Whenever I do see you, I am struck with the handsomeness of the animal
you ride, Mr. Forcus," he was saying presently. "I think this young
gentleman rides the handsomest animal in the town, Miss Bessie. I'm a
great admirer of handsome animals, Mr. Forcus."
"Is that so? Really?" said Reggie, supremely indifferent. He had no
objection whatever to make the acquaintance of old Boult, the
linen-draper--although, of course, that difference between a successful
draper and a successful brewer which Mr. Boult was incapable of discerning
was quite clear to him--but he was not in the least interested in him; and
what should the old fellow know about a horse?
"Isn't Deleah at home to-day? I thought I should have caught Deleah. That
is why I dropped in on the Sunday."
Deleah was out walking with Franky, Mrs. Day told him, thankful that
Bessie, who had slipped away with a view to the adjustment of the
disarranged chignon, was not present to hear that explanation.
"I meet Deleah sometimes as she comes home from school," the young man
artlessly continued. "I dare say she's told you I sometimes meet her?"
No, Mrs. Day did not remember hearing Deleah mention that interesting
fact.
"No harm in that, I suppose, Mrs. Day? You don't object, if Deleah
doesn't?"
"Harm?" repeated Mrs. Day, only half conscious of what was said, thinking
of Bernard going wretchedly about his hated work with a "sharp watch" set
on his doings.
"I mean I wouldn't do anything to annoy you or Deleah--"
It was a relief that at that moment Bessie descended, her hair in order, a
look of pleasant excitement on her plump face. No one need half-heartedly
try to carry on a conversation with Reggie when once Bessie was present to
monopolise him.
And then Deleah and Franky, their cheeks rosy from exercise, appeared.
Franky went to his mother and climbed on her lap, and Deleah sat close to
her side, a little too apparently, perhaps, leaving the young man and
Bessie to carry on their sparkling conversation uninterrupted.
When Emily came in, to lay the tea-table, the two men got up to go. "Mama,
Reggie will stay if you ask him," Bessie said. How triumphant she felt,
how her eyes sparkled when Reggie said at once he should like to--rather!
"And Mr. Boult will stay to tea too, mama," Deleah said quickly. She did
not need the heavy silence which fell to tell she had offended; not
Bessie's warning scowl, nor her mother's piteous look of appeal. As no one
seconded the invitation, "Do stay," Deleah said. And he gracefully
yielded.
"Since you are so polite, I don't mind if I do," he said. He really felt
honoured by the invitation, the first he had ever received in that house.
The long low-ceilinged sitting-room above the grocer's shop was tenanted
by ladies of whom in days gone by he had felt a certain awe. Down in the
world as they were now, he never forgot that ancient attitude of theirs.
Even when he bullied Mrs. Day, and advised her daughters to do the work of
servants, he had not forgotten. Perhaps at such times he remembered it
more than ever.
His wife, dead for the last seven years, had been of a different make from
these women. Finding nothing in himself to debar him from being an
ornament in any society, he saw very well that the late Mrs. George Boult
had been, as he put it, "of another kidney." He had been fairly content
with her while he had her; she had been a good housekeeper; and had not
crossed him in his wish to save money; but looking back upon the poor
woman, he saw plainly that she had not the appearance of these ladies, nor
had she spoken like them, nor possessed the ways of them. She had been all
very well for his then condition, but times had changed for him; and here
he was, well pleased to be sitting at the board of people who would not at
one time have received the late Mrs. Boult under their roof, on terms of
equality with Sir Francis Forcus's brother!
He was a rich man himself, and going, he would see to it, to be richer,
but the income of the Forcuses he knew was perhaps seven times as much as
his own; and he was one of that large body of good sort of people who love
to be in the society of men richer than themselves.
"We so much enjoyed the concert, Mr. Boult," Deleah said to him.
"The concert?" Mr. Boult repeated. He wished to talk to Bessie, having it
on his conscience to advise her to do without a servant, and he did not
feel called upon to exert himself "to do the polite," as he phrased it, to
the younger girl.
"Some kind friend sent us stalls for the concert," explained Deleah,
flushing. "It was so kind of the unknown person, and such a delightful
treat."
"Stalls? The half-guinea places, do you mean?" There was astonished
disapproval in eyes and voice.
"Wasn't it sweet of Someone?" Deleah went on, bent on expressing her
gratitude to the shy donor. "It was the same Someone, I suppose, who sent
the lilies-of-the-valley, yesterday, and my darling canary; look! It is
Someone to whom we can never be grateful enough!"
"Better keep your gratitude for the more substantial benefits you have all
received." He was thinking, Mrs. Day knew, of the fifty pounds which had
headed the subscription-list. "Lilies were sixpence the bunch in the
market yesterday."
"But it isn't the cost," Deleah explained; her face was rose-red with her
effort to say that which she had determined should be said to the man they
all disliked, but who was showing himself by the thoughtful little
attentions to which she alluded, in his true colours. "It isn't the cost
alone, it is the kind thought for which we are so grateful."
"Oh, come, Deleah!" Reggie interrupted. "I offered you tickets, you
remember, and you weren't a bit grateful for the kind thought. And as for
the lilies, I dare say I could send you flowers every morning from the
conservatories at home, if you'd care for them."
"I should not in the least care for them from your conservatories. Don't
send them, Reggie, or we should have to send them back."
"Why, pray? Speak for yourself, please," Bessie cried. "If you've any
flowers going begging I'm not above taking them, Reggie, remember."
"The flowers aren't mine," Reggie reminded her at once. "They grow
there--tons of them--and no one to look at them now, but Francis and Ada.
Yet, if I want to send a few to a girl there's questions asked, and a
sickening fuss made. I order them from the nurseryman rather than have the
fag of it."
"Well--?"
"Oh, all right. I'll order some for you, Bessie."
Then, when tea was all but finished, a step was heard upon the stairs, and
presently Mr. Gibbon came in. At the sight of the other two men his face
fell perceptibly. To him also the Sabbath was a precious time. The hour,
especially, which brought the meal over which they need not hurry for any
evening work; in the room made sweet with flowers; in the company of the
three charming ladies; on the table the extra delicacies Emily always
provided for the occasion.
Boult! Forcus! The two men whom, least on earth, he desired to see there.
"Hallo, Gibbon!" his chief said; and the man addressed felt in his bones
that the tone was unmistakably that of the employer to the employed. "Been
getting forward for to-morrow, I suppose?"
No, Gibbon said, he had not; and he spoke curtly, and kept his heavy head
up, and drew his brows together, and was somewhat offensive in manner, in
the effort to show he was not subservient. He bowed sulkily to Mr.
Reginald Forcus, when Mrs. Day murmured that gentleman's name. The fact
that the young man when he came of an age to take the third share which
was to be his in the brewery would be rolling in money, was nothing to
him, and he wished to show to all present it was not! At the concert he,
who was ugly, and short, and poor, and of no account in the world, had had
the best of the elegant young man with his fortune and the name which was
one to conjure with in Brockenham. He had wrested Deleah from him, and
pushed him on one side. He did not propose to smile amiably at him across
the tea-table after that.
He was going to Lancashire to buy goods for his department to-morrow--he
was absent there for four or five days every three weeks. This was his
last evening of Paradise for a while; and the Serpent had entered there!
"You are late," Bessie rebuked him sweetly. "And you must wait for more
tea to be made. Where have you been, pray? Give an account of yourself."
He had walked out five miles, he told her, to the garden of a friend who
had a small conservatory. He had hoped to be rewarded with some flowers to
return with, but had only been accorded the three roses he held in his
hand.
"Very sweet of you to bring them for me, all the same," Bessie said,
smiling graciously.
Gibbon was, however, shy or sullen this evening, for he seemed by no means
anxious to relinquish the flowers; and when he did so he laid them between
his plate and Deleah's, who promptly put them into Bessie's extended hand.
When pinned in the bosom of her grey frock the flowers had a charming
effect, to which she called the attention of all present.
"Aren't they sweet, mama! Mr. Boult, Reggie, aren't they simply sweet! And
poor Mr. Gibbon to have walked so many miles for them!"
And so, at cross purposes, with heart-burnings and some bitterness of
spirit, they got through their Sunday tea.
"It would have been delightful if you had not invited your old Scrooge,"
Bessie, who, at any rate, had thoroughly enjoyed herself, flung at her
sister.