Mrs. Day's Daughters Part 23

"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 s.h.i.+ning 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 circ.u.mstances 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 p.r.o.nounced the last words as they are spelt, not because he did not know better, but because he liked to be amusing, and the misp.r.o.nunciation 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 att.i.tude 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, flus.h.i.+ng. "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 grat.i.tude 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 grat.i.tude 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."