To Make Reparation
"Of course we must do something for them," Sir Francis said. "The
difficulty is to decide what."
He and his sister had followed in their carriage the funeral of Franky
Day. Sir Francis had wished, seeing that he must appear there, to appear
unobtrusively, but Ada had thought that she also--painful as it was--must
be present, and Ada could not go afoot. The Forcus carriage, therefore,
had been conspicuous in the meagre procession following the little coffin
to the cemetery.
"We must remember that the poor things have seen better days, and be
careful how we offer," Miss Forcus said. "I have no doubt we shall find
they would rather starve than touch our money."
"I hope they know Reggie has gone away; otherwise it might have looked
heartless his not being there to-day."
"They will understand. And Reggie could not have stood it. It was painful
enough as it was," Sir Francis said.
It had been very painful. He thought of the figure of the poor mother,
tearless, looking down into the little grave; of the poor weeping girls
clinging to her. Franky's common little school had attended, and stood,
marshalled by the meagre young master in charge, at a distance, but the
small son of the once despised cutler had advanced, pushed forwards
encouragingly by his comrades, and dropped upon the coffin a bunch of
flowers gathered from the garden on the road, where Franky and he had
loved to play. No other flowers were there. It was before the day of
floral memorial displays.
"If they would let us bear the funeral expenses, or put up a little
monument in the cemetery, or a window in their church?" 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.
The man, of course, did not cry, but he too appeared for the time
overwhelmed with the shadow of what had befallen.
"I spoke to their old servant to-day," he said. "It seems the child was
called back; Reggie wouldn't listen; drove off with him."
"I am horribly sorry for Reggie. But oh, I can't forget how _little_ the
coffin looked. Francis, what a handsome family they are! I couldn't help
noticing that, even when they cried, the girls were pretty."
It was more than could have been said of Ada; and she knew it, but cried
all the same.
"The younger girl is extremely good-looking," the brother said, "and she
is a conscientious and good girl, besides."
He thought how certainly, if she had so wished it, she might have been
going to be his sister-in-law, and the reflection again quickened the
perception of the fact that something was due from the family of Forcus to
that of Day.
"I will go and see George Boult to-morrow," he said.
"The draper, do you mean? Why?"
"He is their adviser. Put the poor woman into that wretched shop. He will
know what can be done for them."
Sir Francis, however, did not find himself greatly helped in his
benevolent project by Mr. George Boult, a circumstance surprising the man
to whom the character of the successful draper was not unknown. That he
would have accepted on the widow's behalf without scruple anything that
could be got, was what was expected of him; instead of which he received
all the rich man's propositions coldly, and did not even faintly encourage
his charitable intentions.
Through his brother--however blameless in the matter--a heavy sorrow had
come upon these poor people. It would be a great relief to Sir Francis and
his family if he could be allowed in any way to be of use to them. His
name need not appear. Mr. Boult could arrange the transaction. He had
heard that the grocer's business was not successful--?
The shop must be given up. George Boult admitted the fact. The woman was
too timid for trade. All women were. No blame to her, specially. She had
been industrious, and careful. She was standing behind her counter that
very morning. He had seen her there. But what customers would care to go
to buy soap and candles of a woman half dead with grief?
"She must not be allowed to remain there," Sir Francis said. "I can easily
put in a man who will take entire charge and set Mrs. Day at liberty. I
will send a man in, to-morrow."
"I am putting one in to-day," George Boult said, who had decided to do so
on the moment only. He swelled out his chest, settled his shoulders, shook
his head in his low collar, and put on an important air. "No doubt it is
common knowledge that Mrs. Day and her family have looked to me for advice
and assistance, hitherto," he said.
"I promised William Day I would look after them. I have kept my promise,
and mean to keep it. I am obliged to you all the same."
"My offer to help in any way possible holds good, you will remember," Sir
Francis said. He would not give up his benevolent intention without a
struggle. "Is there anything which could be done for the girls?" he asked.
"The younger is teacher at a school, I believe?"
"Got the sack!" said Mr. Boult easily; and then, seeing no reason why he
should not do so, went on to explain that it was through the attentions of
Mr. Reginald Forcus that misfortune had come about. "So Miss Bessie tells
me," he finished, and inquired with the glance of a glistening eye at Sir
Francis if he had the pleasure of Miss Bessie's acquaintance. "A
remarkably fine-looking young lady is Miss Bessie," he pronounced.
He nodded a familiar farewell to his visitor when, uncomfortable and
crestfallen, the latter withdrew. The Forcuses were not even customers.
Sir Francis and he sat on the magistrates' bench together. "We are on a
par, about, now," he said to himself; and he reminded himself he also was
now entitled to put a cockade on the frowsy hat of his coachman in the
mildewed livery.
Let the high and mighty brewer put up a widow of his own to play
Providence to, and leave the especial property of George Boult alone!
Sir Francis, for his part, was more troubled in mind than ever when he
emerged from that interview. The girl dismissed from her school too! It
seemed that all the misfortunes of the poor Days must be laid at his door.
He, who hated to owe to any man, could not ease himself of that heavy
debt.
"I will go to see them," Ada said when he told the ill-success of his
mission.
"They will hate to see you."
"I shall go. I am sure they are people of nice feeling."
Of that visit, too, no very satisfactory account could be given. It had
been very painful. Mrs. Day had not been present. She had sent a message
thanking Miss Forcus for calling, and asking to be excused. There had been
only the girls. She might say only the one girl, for the elder had started
wildly crying at the appearance of Miss Forcus, and had not recovered when
she left.
"The poor little boy seems to have been their idol," Ada said with a sigh,
miserably oppressed.
The younger girl had pleased the lady very much by her demeanour; so
composed, so unselfish, so evidently aware of the trying ordeal it was for
the visitor, so sweetly striving to be gracious.
Sir Francis nodded. "I have always liked the manner of that younger girl."
"And she is quite lovely, Francis."
He did not know about the loveliness, the brother said, but he believed
her to be simple and conscientious and good. He looked at his sister's
plain face: "Every woman who is that is lovely," he announced.
"I am going there again," Ada said.
"It won't seem an intrusion?"
"I will risk it. They appear to have no friends."
After the second visit she had something more definite to relate. "I hope
you will approve, but if you don't it can't be helped," she said, "for the
thing is arranged. That younger girl, Deleah, is coming here."
"Here? On a visit, you mean?"
"She is coming to be my companion. It is the only way I can discover in
which we can be of use to them. The poor child has been receiving fifteen
pounds a year. I can give her fifty--"
"You haven't forgotten how that young fool, Reggie, made a bigger fool of
himself over this girl. Would have married her, I suppose, but for the
extraordinarily decent way the young woman behaved about it."
"Luckily Reggie is away," Ada comforted herself. "He'll have been in love
a dozen times over before he comes back again."
"But what are you going to do with the girl? Won't it bore you to have her
always about? You have never wanted a companion before."
"How do you know I have not?" his sister asked him laughing. "I didn't
know it myself, but I expect I've wanted one all the time. At last I'm
going to have one."
There was in Ada Forcus that ineradicable love of gaiety which some women
carry to the grave. Since, at the death of his wife, she had gone to keep
house for her brother small indulgence had been shown to this passion. In
the grave of his wife, not only all Sir Francis's heart had been buried,
but apparently the love of all that made for the brightness of life. By
the time the poignancy of his sorrow had worn off, to be solemn and sad of
demeanour, to shun the disturbing effects of social distraction, had
become second nature to him. By no wish of his own, but naturally and
irresistibly, that habit of melancholy which had fallen on its master
seemed to enshroud his home. He liked his brother to be with him in the
home in which he had been born, but he would not welcome his brother's
friends. He was greatly attached to the sister, who was half a dozen years
older than himself, but the idea that she could desire any other company
than his own, had not apparently presented itself.
"There are some things a man can never learn," the mid-Victorian Ada said
to herself, when Sir Francis prophesied that she would find a companion a
bore. "And one is that a woman, however happily situated in a man's house,
must have another woman easy of access to talk with, to sew with, to
whisper to."