Mrs. Day's Daughters Part 36

"What's wrong with Brockenham?" Reggie asked, who had a great admiration for his native town. "Any one been gossiping about me again?"

"No one has mentioned you to me. But Ada was hearing an interesting piece of news about you, yesterday."

"Ada's as bad as the other old women."

"Nonsense. You had better go, Reggie. I mean it."

Reggie pa.s.sed a ringed hand over his smooth, fair hair, felt his moustache, opening his mouth beneath the caressing fingers as he did so.

"The engagements you mention are negligible ones?"

Reggie nodded, gazing at his brother, busy with the corners of the moustache, making up his mind for a plunge. "Fact is," he got out, "I'm thinking of settling down."

Sir Francis left his position on the hearthrug, walked across to the table, to arrange more symmetrically some papers which lay there; returning, took up his place on the hearth again. "Getting married, you mean?" he asked.

Reggie nodded, still holding his mouth open, the more satisfactorily to handle the moustache.

"My dear fellow, that intention need not deter you. You have held it so often before. Go away for twelve months, at least. Get engaged, if you are still so inclined, when you come home."

"Perhaps," amended Reggie artlessly, "if I were to put off going for a month, or even a couple of months, we might get married, and she could go too."

"Who is the lady at the present moment, may I ask?"

"I expect you've formed a pretty good guess," said Reggie, bold as a lion.

"You saw me there yesterday."

"A daughter of Mrs. Day, at the grocer's shop; widow of----? But we needn't go into that."

"It doesn't seem necessary. Her daughter."

"Well--!" said Sir Francis slowly. "You have given me one reason more, my dear boy, and that a supreme one, for hastening your departure. Take my advice--you will never regret it--and go to-morrow."

"No," Reggie said, and then both were silent.

When the elder again began, he had changed his easy, almost indifferent tone for one firmer and less indulgent.

"What you propose is impossible," he said.

"I don't see it."

"Have you thought what you would be marrying? The grocer's shop, the debts, the helpless mother, the disreputable private soldier of a brother (he enlisted, I am told, to save himself from prison, as the father killed himself for the same purpose). A charming family with which to ally yourself, truly!"

"I don't intend to marry the family. I should allow the mother--not a bad sort at all. I'm fond of her--a hundred a year, to shut the shop up. I should--"

"Nonsense! The idea is ridiculous; monstrous. Get married if you must, but take a girl of your own position in life. Easy enough to find--"

"I don't care a hang about position!"

"Then, more fool you. But if you don't, at least marry a woman that has honest blood in her veins--for your children's sake."

Reggie turned away his head sulkily. "The Days were good enough for me before they fell into trouble," he said.

His brother lifted his head and squared his shoulders, standing up tall and imposing before the empty grate. "William Day was never good enough for me," he said.

"I don't see that a girl is to be made to suffer all her life because her father was not good enough for you," Reggie said sulkily.

"Try not to be an a.s.s, my dear fellow. You don't suppose you can be allowed to do a mad thing like this without my telling you what I think of it. You know, I have never had much opinion of your judgment--except, perhaps, in the matter of horses; but in your admiration for this Miss Day your taste is to my thinking astoundingly bad. I call her a commonplace, almost vulgar young woman."

"Vulgar? _Vulgar!_"

"She is pretentious, she is affected, she is gus.h.i.+ng--what is that but to be vulgar? She is not even pretty--"

"Not pretty!" Reggie cried, and started up from his chair. "Not pretty!

Deleah Day!"

"Deleah! The young one?"

"I've been telling you so, all along, haven't I? Who did you think it was?"

"It was the other, when we spoke of the Days before," Sir Francis reminded him, but flatly, and his face had fallen.

Here was more serious matter. Not that flaunting extravagant queen, not Bessie with her plump prettiness, her cheap wiles, her nets that were spread in the sight of man; but Deleah, the dainty, charmingly pretty child. The marriage would be none the less hideously undesirable on the social side, and from the point of view of the family; but it would be infinitely more difficult to stop. Sir Francis, in his widowed estate, with twenty years more of experience on his head, was yet not so old but that he could picture how deeply, how dangerously in love a young man of his brother's age could imagine himself with Deleah Day.

Reggie was recalling attention to himself by a loud snort of contempt.

"I'm not very likely to have thought of Bessie when Deleah was on the spot," he said.

"Except that the younger sister has a more attractive appearance, all the objections remain the same in either case."

"The Days are down-pins, I admit," Reggie said dispa.s.sionately; "and the father and brother were rotten; but no one'll think of those things when they look at Deleah. I'm not afraid."

Sir Francis contemplated his young brother meditatively. "Let us know precisely how we stand, Reggie. Are you actually engaged to this girl?"

"Oh, yes! I'm engaged to her, right enough."

"What does being 'engaged right enough' mean exactly?" There had been a something indicating a want of confidence in Reggie's tone.

"There's no doubt about me. I'm running straight."

"But the girl? What has she to say to it?"

"The fact is, she's afraid of Bessie. She can't get over it that I was once considered to be Bessie's property--by Bessie. I never was; but Bessie chose to lay claim to me."

"So, although you are engaged to Miss Deleah Day, Miss Deleah Day, so far as I understand the matter, is not engaged to you?"

"That's about how we stand at present, I suppose."

"I see," Sir Francis said.