The Importunate Mr. Gibbon
The news that the addresses of young Mr. Forcus were being paid not to her
but to her younger sister could not altogether have come as a surprise to
Bessie. She must have noticed the direction of the young man's admiring
glances; she must have known why, when alone with her, he watched the
street till Deleah came in; she must in a measure have been prepared for
the fact that he had now declared himself Deleah's lover, and had even
sought the approval of Mrs. Day on his suit.
But Bessie had no dignity. She gave herself away without reserve whenever
occasion offered. She abused Deleah, she scolded her mother, she wept
noisily over her wrongs. She declared that there was positive indecency on
Deleah's part in encouraging the love-making of a young man who had once,
however long ago it was, made love to her.
"I don't think Deleah did encourage him, Bessie."
"Would he have done it without? You remember what Reggie was in those
days, mama, and how he _wanted_ encouragement--"
"My dear, Deleah has far too much self-respect--"
"There you go! Always Deleah. I suppose if Deleah took up a dinner-knife
and stabbed me to the heart you would make excuses for her!"
"Oh, Bessie, do not be unjust."
"It is you that are unjust. It is you that have spoilt Deleah, with
petting and praising and telling her how pretty she is--"
"My dear Bessie!"
"You don't say it in so many words, but you are always _looking it_ at
her. You are, mama! I see you doing it. And when Deda comes home I shall
tell her what I think of the way she has behaved to me--the sneaky way; I
shan't spare her. She shall hear it all. And then if we live together for
twenty years I won't speak to Deleah again. I won't, mama! I won't! I
won't!"
Poor Mrs. Day hurried away, carrying her harassed face and all her
maternal cares into the even more perplexing area of business worries; but
Emily having heard the raised voice of her young mistress--Bessie was
always shrill when unhinged--went at once to her assistance.
Bessie had taken to the sofa--that mid-Victorian sanctuary for the
afflicted fair--and encouraged by the sympathy of the faithful servant,
must begin to cry, must begin to laugh, must go on to screaming and
pommelling the horsehair with her heels, as was her custom when moved.
Emily, postponing for the purpose the washing up of her dinner-things, sat
beside the sofa till Bessie grew calm enough to become attentive, when,
she sympathetically listened, and flattered, and soothed.
"There's others as is ready to die for you, and ask no better, if Deleah
have snatched away this one," Emily declared. "There's one of 'em, that to
my mind, for real affection and stiddiness, is worth a dozen of your
Forcuses." And Bessie, listening greedily, knew that the family boarder,
George Boult's Manchester man, was indicated. "There's him to your hand.
You can have him for the taking," Emily promised; and Bessie quieted down,
meditating.
"You've treated this one cruel, Miss Bessie. You have that! And him
sittin' by, his heart fit to fly out at you, sayin' nothin'; while this
other young chap, his flower in his button-hole, his horse a-pawin' up the
stones in the street down below, is a-carryin' on."
"I have neglected the poor Honourable Charles lately, I admit," said
Bessie with a remorseful sigh.
"And him that patient--that faithful! Well, now, Miss Bessie, you listen
to me. Turn your back on Reggie--give him the cold shoulder--see how he'll
like it! And you pay your addresses to our young man. The mistress was
a-telling me how he's made a partner with Mr. Boult an'll be rich as him,
if not richer, some day. You'd drive your kerridge, my dear; and Reggie
hisself couldn't give you more."
Bessie stretched herself complacently, and feigned a yawn, to indicate
that the subject was rather beneath her notice: "I dare say I might do
worse," she admitted.
By such judicious means was the injured Bessie restored to something of
her former calm.
Mrs. Day, running up presently to see how her daughter was bearing up,
found her sitting up on the sofa, drinking tea, her plump cheeks flushed,
the light of excitement in her eyes.
"Mama," she said, "there is something I have been wanting to ask you.
Should you object very much if I and the Honourable Charles made a match
of it, after all?"
Mrs. Day looked doubtfully at the girl without answering. She had her own
ideas on the subject of the Honourable Charles's intentions.
"I mean should you think I am marrying beneath me, and that kind of
thing?"
"No, my dear. I should certainly not make any objection on that score. Has
something occurred, then, to put the idea into your head, to-day?"
"I suppose you can understand, mama, that I do not wish to see my younger
sister married before me? If Deleah thinks she is going to put that kind
of slight on me she's mistaken. It's what I won't put up with from her,
and so I tell her; and so I tell you. It's--it's--"
"Yes, yes, my dear. Pray don't excite yourself again, Bessie."
"So, if Deleah persists in taking Reggie--and she'll richly deserve all
she'll get with him--I shall make up my mind to Gibbon."
"_Mr._ Gibbon, Bessie."
"Mr. Gibbon, then. I don't think he's a man to be ashamed of, do you?"
"Certainly not. I believe he is quite a steady and honourable young man. A
little moody, perhaps--"
"There's a cause for that. And if Deleah, when she's Mrs. Forcus, is
ashamed of him it won't matter to me, because I'm ashamed of Deleah, and
so I mean to tell her when she comes home."
"And you think that Mr. Gibbon _means_--?"
Bessie gave a scornful laugh: "If you haven't eyes in your head to see,
mama, ask Emily!"
Ah, if these things might be! Mrs. Day thought as she descended again to
her duties behind the counter. If only her girls could find homes for
themselves, how thankful she would be. For the business was doing badly;
all the customers who were worth keeping had fallen away; the little
capital she had had in hand had dwindled, disappeared. In that morning's
paper she had read that the regiment in which Bernard had enlisted was
ordered to India. Too late now to buy him off, even if she had been
permitted to do so. If she had not been compelled to show a calm face
above her counter she would have passed the day in tears at the thought of
the privations and sufferings before her boy. Her poor young Bernard.
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. She would
then, she thought, go to bed and to sleep, and would sleep and sleep, and
never get up again. Orthodox Christian as she was, in her anxious,
worried, and wearied existence the joys of Heaven did not tempt her so
much as the possibility of enjoying a long, uninterrupted sleep.
She was kept late in the shop that night, and when at length she went
upstairs she found only a glum family party already at the supper-table
awaiting her.
Franky, who generally talked, whoever else was silent, was conspicuous by
his absence, he having been ordered out of the room by his sister Bessie
because his clothes smelt.
This was a constant source of grievance and friction between the eldest
and youngest hope of the house. The poor boy had not many changes of
raiment, and he being of an age to dabble in any mess that came handy
without reference to his sister's olfactory nerves, there was no denying
the fact that his little brown tunic, his worn little trousers had
acquired a very _boyey_ smell. Unless under the protection of his mother's
presence, therefore, he was often exiled to the kitchen to get his meals
with Emily. He never went without protest and tears and often kicks, on
his own part, and fisticuffs on Bessie's, who remained behind, after such
encounters, flustered by victory, and ready to quarrel with any one on the
spot.
To-night, however, ignoring the presence of Deleah, she had intended to be
very gracious to the boarder, who as ill-luck would have it did not come
in to his supper at all. Under the discouraging influence of Bessie's
silence conversation fell flat between Deleah and her mother. The meal
over, Mrs. Day, more than, usually tired, announced her intention of going
to bed, an example quickly followed by Bessie, who wished to avoid at that
moment a _tête-à-tête_ with Deleah.
It happened to-night, that as soon as mother and sister had gone, and
before Deleah had finished clearing away the books and work and Franky's
painting things, which had been in use earlier in the evening, the boarder
came in.
It was extraordinarily seldom that the Honourable Charles found himself
alone with the younger daughter of the house--whether by chance, her
management, or the management of others, he could not tell.
Deleah Day, in her cotton frock of white with tiny black spots, a wide,
embroidered collar tied with black ribbon at her throat, her black,
thickly waving hair brushed behind her ears and gathered at the back of
her small head, was an agreeable figure at the hearth to greet any poor
worker on his return to rest and fireside.
He did not want any supper, would have none. His appetite was poor of
late, he came down in the mornings looking as if he had not slept all
night. Business, now that his interest in it had increased, seemed to be
making too great demands on his time and health.
"You must smoke," Deleah said, and put the tobacco jar at his elbow. She
always touched it with lingering fingers: it was that out of which William
Day had been wont to fill his evening pipe. She placed by him the little
decanter of whisky from which the boarder, by the admixture of lemon and
hot water, would brew himself a nightcap. He appeared to ignore these
preparations for his comfort.
"I was just clearing away, before going to bed," she told him.
She did wish to go--ardently. But the more desirous she was to avoid a
_tête-à-tête_, the more she knew in her kind heart that she must not show
her anxiety. So she sat down at the corner of the table opposite to him,
and began hurriedly to show how perfectly at ease she was by telling him
of mama's headache; and how she believed it was due to the fact that poor
mama was worried about business; which, since the horrid Coman had opened
opposite for the express purpose, it seemed, of underselling Mrs. Day, had
been so unsatisfactory.
The Manchester man had nothing encouraging to say on that theme. Indeed,
his utterances on any subject they had all found to be irritatingly
constrained and limited of late.
He made use to-night of an oft-repeated phrase of his when talk had been
made of Mrs. Day's difficulties. "I know nothing of the grocery line. It's
altogether distinct from the drapery, of course."
"I wish you'd gone in for grocery, Mr. Gibbon. Then you could have helped
us."
"You've heard, I suppose, I've fixed it up with the Governor, the way I
spoke to you about? You've heard I'm to be taken into partnership at
Michaelmas?"
"I am very glad."
"I wonder if you are?"
"Why not? Of course."
"You remember what you said about the fine house I was to live in?"
"When are you going to take it, Mr. Gibbon?"
"When will you come to live in it, Miss Deleah?"
She was sitting in a low chair and leaning negligently upon the table, her
cheek in her hand, her fingers lost in the masses of her black waving
hair, her eyes turned with polite interest upon his face. She dropped them
now, and looked at the tablecloth without speaking.
"When?" he repeated, and was breathless again in the horrible way she
remembered.
"I told you: I am not going to live in it at all, Mr. Gibbon."
He leaned towards her, throwing himself forward on his arms that were
folded upon the table; she felt his eyes glowering upon her down-bent
face: "Oh, yes, Miss Deleah!" he implored.
"I told you before," she said; and then distressedly like a child wearied
by importunities, "Oh I wish you--I wish every one would leave me alone!"
It was all very well to be pretty and admired, but not much gratification,
thanks to Bessie's jealousy, and untoward circumstances, had Deleah
experienced so far from looks or lovers.
There was a young assistant music-master, coming twice a week to Miss
Chaplin's, who had taken to blushing and paling when Deleah spoke to him.
To her great embarrassment a rosebud or a spray of forget-me-not would be
found deposited on the chair in which she sat to play propriety when the
pupils took their lessons. On the days when with great difficulty she
managed to elude Reggie, a lout of a grammar-school sixth-form boy, whose
name even she did not know, would watch her exit from the school, and
stalk at her heels, keeping sentinel over her, in a way that she felt was
making her ridiculous, to her own door. She had caught Mr. Pretty peeping
between the biscuit tins to watch her down the street. He would leave any
customer he was serving to rush forward with hateful assiduousness with a
stool for her to sit on, as soon as she entered the shop. He would entice
Franky, who had a great admiration for Mr. Pretty, to sit in the cellar
with him of evenings to talk about the younger sister. There was Reggie
always pestering; and now here again were the unwelcome attentions of the
Honourable Charles.
"I do so much wish you would all leave me alone!"
"How can I leave you alone when I so much love you, Deleah."
"Oh!" said Deleah, impatiently sighing.
She knew how young ladies comported themselves under such circumstances in
the delightful books of her dear Anthony Trollope; but she was neither
angry, nor frightened, nor particularly shy; nor did she feel the
inclination to throw herself into any man's arms, and to rest her head on
his shoulder. She was uncomfortable under these declarations of love, and
felt that she was being made ludicrous; that was all.
"You know it, don't you, Deleah?"
"Yes. I know it; since you tell me so."
"And believe in it? Believe in my desperate love?"
"I am sure you don't tell stories, Mr. Gibbon."
"Well?"
"I think it is a pity."
"Why?"
"I think you might love some one else."
"No! I want you."
"You can't have me," said Deleah, pettishly, and feeling more hopelessly
inadequate than ever.
"I can," Gibbon said, and he said it quite fiercely. "I can! I can! I can!
Do you hear?"
"I think I will go to bed." Deleah sprang up; she so longed for flight;
she looked anxiously to the closed door which was on his side of the
table.
Gibbon also rose to his feet. "Look at me, Deleah," he said. She looked,
and saw the paleness of his face. It made her sick as well as sorry to see
how pale the man had become. "Does this mean Mr. Reginald Forcus?"
"Certainly not!"
"You are not engaged to him?"
"Certainly not!"
"Look at me; keep on looking." His eyes held hers, she was compelled to
look. "Do you like him better than me? He is the best chance, out and out;
but for all that he mayn't be the best man. Do you like him the best?"
"I don't know that I do."
"Now. I've something else to ask you."
"No! I think you are too bad. I am very tired. Let me go to bed, Mr.
Gibbon."
"Answer me first. How about the other one?"
"The _other_ one! I don't know what you mean."
"Sir Francis--that gave you the fifty pound. How about him?"
Deleah's eyes, staring into his, dilated, her face grew whiter than his
own. "I don't know what you can mean," she said. "Sir Francis Forcus and
me? Me! _Me!_ Deleah Day!" She whispered the words in a kind of awe.
Almost there seemed sacrilege in them.
"Why not? Why not?"
"I think you must be mad, Mr. Gibbon."
"I am. I often am. Quite mad. Mad with love of you."
"Oh!"
"Why do you sigh like that?"
"I so much wish you wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?"
"Be so ridiculous."
"Is that all you have to say to me?"
"That--and good-night."
"I did not think you could be so cruel."
"I am not cruel," Deleah said; and then, quite unexpected by her, a sob
rose in her throat, and it was all that she could do to keep the tears of
self-pity back. "I am not cruel, but you so torment me. I want to be kind
to you, but I do not want to hear about all this--which sounds so
ridiculous to me. You are older than I am--you should know better. You
should know how silly it is to talk to a girl like me such nonsense. And I
want to go to bed, Mr. Gibbon. Will you please stand away and let me go to
bed?"
He put his hand on the door-knob as if to open it for her, but held it
there. "This isn't the end," he said.
"Oh, no!" she sighed with dreary prescience.
"I am working for you from morning till night--only for you--so that I can
put you in a nice house, and make a lady of you. Only for you! And all
night long I can't rest for thinking of you. Mine'll be an awful night,
to-night."
"Oh, Mr. Gibbon, I'm so dreadfully sorry!"
"Then, can't you say a word to me before you go? Can't you say you'll
think of it?"
"Of course I shall think of it; I can't help thinking of it. But I don't
wish to talk of it any more. Let me go now, will you? Let me go to bed!
Good-night, Mr. Gibbon."
"Say 'Good-night, Charlie.' They call me 'Charlie' at home."
There was no help for it if she wished to escape. "Good-night, Charlie,"
she mumbled, and rushed away to her own room, in a condition between
laughing and crying which recalled Bessie's attacks.
"It is all so ridiculous!" she kept saying to herself as she undressed.
"'Good-night, Charlie!' Imagine my having called him 'Charlie.' Charlie,
indeed!" She set her teeth at the remembrance. "I would rather have hit
him than called him Charlie!"
But as she undressed herself the more serious side of the position
presented itself for consideration. Her mother wanted her to get
married--she had owned as much, and she had an absolute faith in her
mother's wisdom. Did girls marry men feeling about them as she felt about
this man and Reggie Forcus, she wondered? It was indisputable that men,
"horrider than they," as she phrased it to herself, found quite nice girls
to marry them. Ought she to take one or the other? She did not wish
to--but ought she?
She got into her night-dress, brushed her hair, even said her prayers--the
self-same prayers in the identical words she had said by her bedside in
Queen Anne Street on the night of the New Year's party, long ago; she had
not even left her father's name out of her petitions--debating these
things. She slept in a tiny bedroom through Mrs. Day's, and when she got
up from her knees she took her candle and went into her mother's room. "I
will hear what mama has to say about it," she told herself.
Mrs. Day was lying awake in the darkness, thinking of Bernard and the
dangers of India.
"Mama," Deleah said, holding the candle aloft to peer at her mother. Its
light fell on her own charming face half hidden in the loose waves of
curling black hair. "You aren't asleep, are you? Of course you aren't! I
believe you lie there all night, staring into the shadows and thinking of
miserable things! I wonder if it would really make things better, if you
would like it very much, that she also has made up her mind to marry Mr.
Gibbon!"
Deleah stared for a minute, and then she laughed; and Mrs. Day saw that
she laughed whole-heartedly. "Bessie takes all my young men!" she said.
"You see, mama, with the best will in the world to please you, I can't get
married; so there's an end of it; and I may as well go to bed."
"Come and kiss me, dear."
Mrs. Day put a detaining arm round the girl's shoulders. "Nothing of this
makes you unhappy, Deleah?"
"It only makes me want to laugh," Deleah said.