Spring Days | Page 5

hear
that you, too, were seen walking with young Meason."
"It is not true, I assure you, father. I met him as I was going to the
post-office. I said, 'How do you do?' and I passed on."
"Where is Sally?"
"She went out a few minutes ago."
"Didn't she know the time? She ought to be dressing for dinner. Do you
know where she's gone?"
"I think she went down the slonk."
His children had inherited his straight, sharp features and his small,
black, vivid eyes. Their hair was of various hues of black. Maggie's
was raven black and glossy; Sally's was coarse and of a hue like
black-lead; Grace's was abundant and relieved with sooty shades;
Willy's hair was brown. He was the fair one of the family, and his hair
was always closely cut in military fashion, and he wore a long flowing
military moustache with a tinge of red in it. His father and he were built

on the same lines--long, spare bodies, short necks and legs, and short,
spare arms, and if the father's white hair were dyed the years that
separated him from his son would disappear, for although the son had
only just turned thirty, he was middle-aged in face and feeling.
Sally and Grace were both thickly built, the latter a little inclined to fat.
Maggie was thin and elegantly angular, and often stood in picturesque
attitudes; she stood in one now, with her hands linked behind her back,
and she watched her father, and her look was subtle and insinuating.
"When I came here," he said, speaking rapidly, and as if he were
speaking to himself, "the place was well enough; there was nothing but
those wretched cottages facing the sea, the green, and a few cottages
about it; but since those villas have been put up, Southwick has become
unbearable. All my troubles," he murmured, "originated in the
Southdown Road."
Maggie turned aside, smiled, and bit her lip; she did not speak,
however, for she knew her father did not care to be interrupted in his
musings.
"A hateful place--glass porticoes, and oleographs on the walls." Here
Mr. Brookes stopped in his walk to admire one of his favourite Friths.
"Those ridiculous haberdashers, with a bas-relief of the founder of their
house over the doorway. The proprietors of the baths, the Measons,
poor as church mice, the son a mate of a merchant vessel-- these are not
proper associates for my daughters. I will not know them; I will not
have them in my house."
"The Measons are quite as good as we are, father. They may be poor,
but as far as family goes--"
"You are just the same as the others, Maggie; once there is a young
man to flirt with, you don't care what he is or where he comes from.
When there are no young men, you will snub the old ladies fast enough;
and as for Sally, she is downright rude. I didn't want to see the
haberdashers, but while they were in my house I was polite to them."

"It was the Horlocks who told them to call."
"I know it was. If Mrs. Horlock likes to know these people, let her
know them; but what does she want to force them upon us for? That's
what I want to know. We might never have known any one in the
Southdown Road; I mean we never should, we never could have known
any one in the Southdown Road if Mrs. Horlock hadn't come to live
there. We had to call upon her."
"Every Viceroy in India called upon her. She was the only woman
whom every Viceroy did call upon."
"I know she was. Of course we had to call upon her. Most interesting
woman; the General is very nice, too. I like them exceedingly. I often
go to see them, although the smell of that mastiff is more than I can
bear in the hot weather, especially if lilies or strong smelling flowers
are in the room."
"She feeds the mice, she won't let them be destroyed, she lets the traps
down at night."
"Don't let us go into the animal question. The constant smell of dogs is
unpleasant, but I could put up with it--what I can't stand are her
acquaintances in the Southdown Road, and when I think that we should
not have known any of them if it hadn't been for her! Indirectly--I do
not say directly--she is the cause of all my difficulties. It was at her
house Sally met young Meason; it was at her house Grace met that
young officer for whom she is crying her eyes out; and it was at her
house--yes, I hadn't thought of it before--it was at her house that Willy
met that swindler