Chapter 16

“I assure you I didn't mean it--a slip of the tongue,” and as their eyes met at that moment, neither could refrain from laughter.

“Admit that there is something in what I say. If you will behave a little more quietly--if you will talk to her nicely; leave off assuring her of your love, she knows all that already; have some patience and forbearance; you will see if before long she doesn't change towards you.”

His interest in the matter was a desire that his sister should not miss this chance of marrying the future Lord Mount Rorke. But Maggie felt too sure of Frank to resist the temptation to tantalise him; besides her moods were naturally various, and the first relapse into her former coldness was answered by a sudden reversion to threats of murder and suicide, and one summer evening about six o'clock, when Mrs. Horlock took her dogs out and stood at the corner waiting for Angel, a rumour was abroad that Mr. Escott had stabbed himself to the heart, and had fallen weltering in his blood at Miss Brookes's feet.

Dr Dickinson walked across the green, watched with palpitating anxiety from the corner of the Southdown Road. The General spoke to the farmer, and the farmer's pupil nudged the general dealer. Mrs. Horlock spoke to the grocers, and the owners of the baths declared they had just heard from their servant that the young man was not dead, but mortally wounded.

There was, therefore, no doubt that Dr Dickinson was going to Mrs. Heald's, and would not turn to the right and walk to the station for the quarter-to-seven train; and expectation on this point ceasing, the group expressed its sympathy for the young man. Poor young man--and so good-looking too--what will she do if he should die?--and he must die--there was no doubt of it. Maria had met Mary--that was the housemaid at the Manor House--it was Mary who had mopped up the blood. She said there was a great pool right in the middle of the new carpet under the window--they were sitting there on the ottoman when he said suddenly, “I have come to ask you to marry me; if you won't I must die.” Notwithstanding this she continued to play with him--the cruel little minx! He could stand it no longer, and he pulled out a dagger he had brought from the East, and stabbed himself twice close to the heart. What will she do?--she is his murderer--to all intents and purposes she is his murderer--she will have to go into a convent--she won't go into a convent--she'll brazen it out. No one thinks much of those girls--the way Sally carried on with young Meason--it was disgraceful--they say she used to steal her father's money and give it to him--Dr Dickinson could tell fine tales.

Then gossip ceased, and they were in doubt if they might intercept the doctor and obtain news of his patient when he left Mrs. Heald's. Some strolled about the green, pretending to be taking the air. Mrs. Horlock, however, had no scruples, and picking up Angel and calling to Rose and Flora, she walked straight to Mrs. Heald's, and was seen to go in. Some five minutes after she came out with the doctor. Frank was not dead, nor mortally wounded, nor even dangerously wounded, but he had had a very narrow escape.

“I said to him, 'You have had a very narrow escape.' The fact is--(I, of course, examined the weapon)--a small part of the point had been broken away; it was this that saved him. The first blow scarcely pierced his clothes; the second was more effective, it entered the flesh just above the heart, and I have no doubt if the steel had penetrated a quarter of an inch deeper that he would have killed himself. But so far as I can see at present, he will get over it without much difficulty.”

“When did it occur?”

“About an hour ago, at the Manor House. It appears that he has gone there every day for the last three weeks to ask Miss Brookes to marry him; she, however, would not give him any definite answer--”

“Horrid girl!”

“I never liked her; most deceitful; no doubt she flirted with him outrageously.”

“I can't say. I hear that he often threatened to kill himself, and to-day, to conclude, he pulled out his stiletto.”

“I thought it was a dagger he had brought from the East?”

“No, the weapon they showed me was an Italian stiletto.”

The grocer's daughter shuddered, her mother murmured, “And for that girl.”

“We didn't know him. The Brookes never allow their friends to know any one in Southwick, but I have heard that he is an exceedingly nice--”

“He will be Lord Mount Rorke, if his uncle doesn't marry again.”

“He must have been desperately in love; no one ever heard of such a thing before. It sounds like the Middle Ages--a stiletto!”

“But what could he see in her? That's what I can't make out; can you?”

“Ah! there I can't assist you. I hope to be able to cure him of the stiletto wound, but Cupid's arrows are beyond me. They did not fly so thickly or strike so hard in my time.” And, laughing, the doctor withdrew.

“I suppose that after this she will marry him; she never intended to let him slip through her fingers. I can see her face when she heard that another quarter of an inch and her chance of being Lady Mount Rorke was gone for ever.”

“I daresay he won't marry her now. It would serve her right. I should be so glad.”

And so pouring their gall out upon the unfortunate Maggie, the tradespeople returned to their homes. The stiletto was so utterly unprecedented, and so complete a reversal of all conception of the chances of life at Southwick, that every one felt puzzled and dissatisfied, even when gossip had brought to light every circumstantial detail of the romantic story. Had the deed been done with a knife, with anything but a stiletto; had he hanged himself, or cut his throat with a razor, or shot himself with his revolver, the wonder of the Southwickians would not have been so excited. But a stiletto! And for a week an Italy of brigands and bravoes, and stealthy surprises haunted shadows of picturesque archways, an Italy of chromo-lithographed skies and draperies in the Southdown Road. Maggie was spoken of with alternate fear and hate; her wickedness seemed more than natural, and had the Southdown Road known anything of Italian opera, there is little doubt that Miss Brookes would have been compared to Lucretia Borgia. The young women looked out of their windows at night, and wondered how they'd feel if a troubadour were suddenly to sing to them from behind the privet hedges. The young men were even more impressed than their womenfolk; they cursed their place of birth and habitation, knowing that it incapacitated them from knowing her; they wasted their mothers' candles sitting up till two in the morning writing odes to cruel women with raven hair; and all gazed sadly on the old ship in the harbour, and the Spanish main seemed nearer, and those gallant days more realisable than they had ever been before.

The direct cause of this revival of romance lived, however, unconscious of it. She was genuinely frightened. She said her prayers with great fervour, begging God that He might save Frank, and that she might not be a murderess. She made him soups, she sent him wine, she brought him books, and she sat with him for hours. She thought he had never looked so nice as now--so pale, so aristocratic, so elegantly weak, his head laid upon a cushion, which she had brought him, and when he took her hand and said, “Will you, darling?” and she murmured, “Yes,” then it seemed that the happiness of his life was upon his face.

Three days after Frank was sitting at his table writing to Mount Rorke, and on the following Sunday he walked to the Manor House to tell Mr. Brookes that he was engaged to his daughter, and to ask his consent. He did not think of his folly, he was too happy; he seemed like one in a quiet dulcet dream; he walked slowly, leaning from time to time against the wooden paling, for he wished to prolong this meditative moment; he saw everything vaguely, and loved all with a quiet fulness of heart; he took in the sense of this village and its life as he had never done before. He compared it with Ireland; Mount Rorke, with its towers, and lakes, and woods arose, and he was grateful that Maggie was going there, yet he was sure that he could not live without sometimes seeing this village where he had found so much happiness.

His wound had sucked away his strength, the sunlight dazzled him, and feeling a little overcome, and not equal, without pause, to the long interview that awaited him, he stayed awhile in a shady laurel corner, and leaning against a piece of iron railing, watched Mr. Brookes and Mr. Berkins as they paced the tennis lawn to and fro. The old gentleman frequently stopped in his walk to point at the glass houses.

“My dear Berkins, I wish you would try to get Willy some appointment; he would, I am sure, take anything over two hundred and fifty a year. He would do marvellously well in an office--he loves it. I assure you his eyes twinkle when one speaks of how books are kept, or alludes in any way to the routine of office work. You should see his accounts and his letter books, they would make the best clerk you ever had feel ashamed of himself; but left to himself I am afraid he will do no good; he has all the method, but nothing else. He lost money in Bond Street; I am afraid to tell you how much he dropped on the Stock Exchange, but that was not entirely his fault--the firm went bankrupt; nobody could have foreseen it, it was quite unheard of.”

“I have always noticed that successful men do not buy partnerships in firms that go bankrupt.”

“Very true, Berkins; I wish I had asked your advice on the subject.”

“I wish you had, Mr. Brookes. You are no doubt a very clever man, but on one or two points you are liable to make mistakes; you are, if I may so speak, a little weak. You should come and live with me for a few months, I would put you right.”

“This is really too much,” thought Mr. Brookes; and had it not been for the certain knowledge that Berkins had lately increased his income by a couple of thousands a year, he would have answered him tartly enough; but as this fact admitted of no doubt he bridled his anger and said: “If you could put my boy right it would be more to the point. He has all the method of the best clerk in London; he loves the work, he would do honour to any office, but on his own hook I am afraid he will never do anything but lose his money.”

“Your money, you mean.”

“Well, my money if you like. You are very provoking, Berkins. I don't know if you do it with the express purpose of annoying me. I was saying, when you interrupted me, that Nature had evidently intended my son for a clerk rather than for a speculator. I fear he is doing very badly with his shop in Brighton. The rents are very high in East Street, and I don't think he sells anything. He takes enough away from here, though. I don't remember if I ever told you that I was foolish enough to agree to his taking away, buying from me at the market price he calls it, the surplus produce of my garden and greenhouses. I dare say I shall get the money one of these days, but at present I see no sign of it. He is always making up the accounts, and, so far as we have gone, the result of this arrangement is that, when I complain that there is neither fruit nor vegetables on my table, I am told that everything went to Brighton. I am forced, I assure you, to send my carriage and my horses, that I paid two hundred guineas for, to fetch potatoes, and he, too, uses my carriage to take his vegetables to the shop. He gets his sisters to bring them when they go out driving, nor can I even buy my fruit and vegetables off him at cost price; he says that would interfere with his book-keeping, and so I am obliged to buy everything from Hutton, and you know what his prices are. I assure you, it is most annoying.”

“Mr. Brookes, your fortune will not bear this constant drain; you must remember that we are living in very bad times--times that are not what they were. I have heard that your distillery--”

“Yes, times are very bad. I have never known them worse, and no doubt you find them so too. They ought to affect you even more than they do me. My income is, as you know, all invested money, whereas yours is all in your business.”

“Of course, I am affected by the times; had they remained what they were, even what they were towards the end of the seventies, I should be making now something over ten thousand pounds a year. But, thank God! I have not to complain. Next year I hope to invest another five thousand pounds. The worst of it is, that there is no price for money in legitimate securities.”

“Everything is very bad; you never will invest your money as I did mine ten years ago. My business is not, of course, what it used to be, but I don't complain; if it weren't for troubles nearer home I should get on very well.”

“I hope that Sally has commenced no new flirtation in the Southdown Road. I thought she had promised you--since she gave up Meason--that she would for the future know no one that lived there.”

“I was thinking for the moment of Willy, not of Sally; she has not been so troublesome lately. But no sooner are we out of one trouble than we are in another. It is, of course, very regrettable that young Escott should have stabbed himself, and in my garden too. I, who hate scandals, seem always plunged in one. I hear they are talking of it in the clubs in Brighton. I hope Lord Mount Rorke will not hear of it; if he did, do you think it would prejudice him against the match?”

“Then you're prepared to give your consent?”

“Why not? Surely! I really don't see--Lord Mount Rorke is a very rich man.”

“Possibly, but Irish peers are not always as rich as they would like us to believe they are. The connection is, of course, desirable, but I hope your anxiety to secure it will not lead you into making foolish, I will say reprehensible, monetary concessions. What I mean is this. I am a straightforward man, Mr. Brookes, brought up in a hard school, and I always come straight to the point. You are a rich man, Mr. Brookes--you have the reputation of being a richer man than you are--and it is possible, I don't say it is probable, that Lord Mount Rorke will expect you to make a large settlement. He will possibly--mind you, I do not say probably--taking the coronet into consideration--those people think as much of their titles as we do of our money--ask you to settle a thousand a year, may be fifteen hundred a year, upon your daughter.”

“Settle a thousand--maybe fifteen hundred--a year on my daughter!” cried the horror-stricken Brookes.

“He may even ask for two thousand a year. Remember, you are a distiller--he is a peer of the realm. And now I say,” continued Berkins, growing more emphatic as he reached the close of his declamation, “that in my wife's interest I will oppose any and all attempts to purchase a coronet for Maggie at her sister's expense.”

Mr. Brookes stood for a moment stupefied--as if some great calamity had befallen him. The housekeeping bills, the loss of his fruit and vegetables, even the Southdown Road seemed as nothing in the face of this new misfortune. Troublesome as his daughters were, he preferred an occasional recrudescence of flirtation in his garden to settling the money that he had made himself and letting them go; no pen can describe the anguish that the surrendering of the ten thousand pounds which he had settled on Grace had caused him; but to be told now that the alliance with a lord which he so greedily coveted, and which had been so agreeably tickling him for the last few days, would cost him perhaps two thousand a year, was more than he could bear. He had avoided as much as possible even thinking of the money question. One hundred--two hundred--the shadow of three hundred had fallen for a moment on his mind, but he had successfully chastened these unpleasantnesses by thoughts of the liberality, the generosity of the aristocracy, and he had encouraged a hope that Mount Rorke would let him off with a statement of how much Maggie would have at his death. And now to hear these terrible prognostications, and from his own son-in-law, too. It was too bad--it was too cruel. “You don't know what you are talking about, Berkins. If it were business I would listen to you, but really when it comes to discussing the aristocracy it is more than I can stand. What do you know about the aristocracy--not that,” cried Mr. Brookes, snapping his fingers. “You were brought up in an office--what should you know? You were a clerk once at thirty shillings a week--what should you know? Lord Mount Rorke would never think of making such ridiculous proposals to me. You judge him by yourself, Berkins, that's it, that's it! I dare say he has heard of me in the City--many of your great lords do business in the City. I dare say he has heard of me, and if he has he'll not try any nonsense with me. Twist him round my finger, twist him round my finger.”

Berkins liked a lord, but Berkins liked lords without thinking himself one jot their inferior, and he was sure that his horse and his dog and his house and everything belonging to him were better than theirs; and secure in the fact that his grandfather had been a field officer, he did not think it amiss to brag that he had begun life with thirty shillings a week, so he only smiled at his father-in-law's wrath, feeling now easy in his mind that Grace's future fortune would not be prejudiced for Maggie's glorification.

The discussion had fallen, and Mr. Brookes went to meet the young man whom he caught sight of coming across the sward.

“Most imprudent of you to come out to-day,” he said, scanning the white face.

“Oh, I am very well now, thanks. The sun is a little overpowering, that is all. I want to speak to you, Mr. Brookes.”

“Speak to me? Yes. Will you go into the billiard-room, my boy? I can see the heat has upset you. Take my arm.”

Frank took the offered arm. He was feeling very faint, but the cool and dim colour of the billiard-room revived him, and when he had had some claret and water, he said that he felt quite strong, and listened patiently to Mr. Brookes.

“Well, I never! No, I never heard of such a thing. A stiletto, too. You brought it from Italy? It makes me feel quite young again. Ah! 'tis hard to say what we won't do for a girl when Miss Right comes along. I was just the same--pretty keen on it, I can tell you, when I was your age; and I don't know, even now,--but a man with grown-up daughters must be careful. Still when I see a little waist, high heels, plump--you know, that's the way I used to like them when I used to go to the oyster shops; there was one at the top of the Haymarket. Ah! I was young then, young as you are; I was keen on it--Aunt Mary will tell you that--there was nothing I wouldn't do; I never went as far as stabbing--walking about at night, tears, torments as much as you like, but I never went so far as stabbing. Wonderful what love will make a man do! Supposing you had killed yourself; in my garden, too--awful! What would people say? I hear they are talking of it in the clubs--hope it won't go any further. Should Mount Rorke hear of it! Eh? Might set him against us; might not give his consent--eh? We should be up a tree, then.”

“I don't think there is much danger of that. I came to-day, Mr. Brookes, to ask for your consent; am I to understand that you give it?”

“Well, my dear Frank, I don't see why I should refuse it; I have known you since you were quite a small boy. I don't want to flatter you. I don't know that I care much about young men as a rule, but you, I have always found you--well, just what you should be. Of course the connection is very flattering. You will one day be Lord Mount Rorke, and to see my darling Maggie sharing your honours will be--that is to say if I live to see it--a great, a very gre--great hon--our.”

Feeling much embarrassed Frank begged of him not to mention it. “I shall be writing to-morrow or next day to my uncle; shall I say that you have given your consent to my marriage with your daughter? I may say that I have already written to him on the subject.”

“By all means, my dear boy. I think I can say you have my consent--that is to say, you have my consent if the money's all right. All is, of course, subject to that. Now you are for love in a cottage, bread and cheese romance; a man who will use a stiletto can't be expected to know much about money, but I am a father, my stiletto days are over, and I couldn't give my daughter without a settlement. You will, no doubt, be--of course you will be--Lord Mount Rorke one of these days; but in the meantime there must be a proper settlement. My daughter must be properly provided for; it is my duty to look after her interests, so you may as well tell your uncle that I shall be pleased to meet him and talk the matter over with him. I will meet him in London, when it suits his convenience; I need hardly say that if he should choose to come down here that I shall be pleased to see him. And now tell me--of course he will be prepared to act handsomely; I have no doubt he will, the aristocracy always do act handsomely, no one is so liberal as your aristocrat. I hope he will settle a good round sum on my daughter--money invested in first-class securities, not what Berkins would call first-class, but what I should call first-class securities; and should your uncle prove the liberal man that I have no doubt he is, I don't say that I won't behave handsomely. Of course you know that my dear children will have all my money at my death. I shall never marry again, that is a settled thing; but in the meantime I will do something. When Grace was married I behaved very generously--too generously--a lot of money--mustn't do it again, times are not what they were. But at my death I shall make no difference, all three will share and share alike.”

Frank hoped when Brookes and Mount Rorke met, that the former would modify his demands, and what was still more important, his mode of expressing them. But why should Mr. Brookes appear to him in such a sudden glow of vulgarity? He had never thought of him as a refined and cultivated gentleman, but was unprepared for this latest manifestation.

“Lord Mount Rorke allows me a certain annual income, he will no doubt double this income upon my marriage; I daresay he would--since he has recognised me as his heir--make this income legally mine by deed, I could then settle a certain sum on Maggie, in case of my death; but then further settlements would be required when I succeed to the title and the property. I had thought--and indeed I think still--that if my uncle makes me a sufficient allowance, that we might avoid touching on this matter at all. Lord Mount Rorke is an irritable man, and I am sure that if you were to speak to him as you--”

“Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! nonsense! You don't suppose I am going to give my daughter to a man unless he can settle a sufficient sum of money upon her? Berkins wouldn't hear of it. He was only telling me just now--”

“But I don't think you understand me, Mr. Brookes. I do not propose that you should give me any money with your daughter. Let what you give her be settled upon her, and let it be tied up as strictly as the law can tie it.”

“Pooh! pooh! the man that marries my daughter must settle a sum of money at least equal to what I settle upon her; and it must be money invested in first-class security, otherwise I couldn't think of giving her one penny.”

“I am sorry, Mr. Brookes, that you are so determined on this point. These matters generally arrange themselves if people incline to meet each other half way, and I am sure that my uncle will resent it if you insist on pounds, shillings, and pence as you propose doing. He is not accustomed to strict business--marriages in our family were never made on such principles; my happiness is bound up in Maggie. I hope you will consider what you are risking.”