Spring Days | Page 6

who induced him to put two thousand pounds into the
Bond Street shop. The Southdown Road might have remained here for
the next five hundred years, and we should have known nothing of it
had it not been for Mrs. Horlock; if she likes to know these people let
her know them, but why force them upon us? It was only the other day
she was talking to me about calling on some new friends of hers who
have come to live there. I dare say it is the custom to call on every one
at Calcutta, but I say that Calcutta etiquette is not Southwick etiquette,
and I don't care how many Viceroys called upon her, I will not know

the Southdown Road."
The enunciation of this last sentence was deliberate and impassioned.
Mr. Brookes walked twice across the room; then he stood, his hands
crossed behind his back, looking at his admired Goodall. His anger
melted, and he mused on the price he had paid, and the price he thought
it was now worth. Fearing he would return to the Southdown Road
trouble, Maggie said: "I am afraid we shall be obliged to get rid of the
new cook. She is Irish. Just before you came in I found her in the
stable-yard threatening to break Holt's head with a pair of dreadful old
boots."
"I don't want to hear about the cook. The money you spend in
housekeeping is enormous. Since your poor mother died I haven't had a
day's peace. If it isn't one thing it is another. You are fit for nothing but
pleasure and flirtation; there isn't a young man in the place or within
ten miles you haven't flirted with. I am often ashamed to look them in
the face at the station. It is past seven; why isn't dinner ready?"
"Sally told the cook to put the dinner back half an hour."
"Sally told the cook to put my dinner back half an hour!"
Mr. Brookes's face grew livid. The end of all things was at hand; his
dinner had been put back half an hour! This was a climax in the affairs
of his life, which for the moment he failed to grasp or estimate. Was a
father ever cursed with such daughters as his? He had been in the City
all day working for them; he did not marry because he wished to leave
them his money, and this was the return they made to him. His dinner
had been put back half an hour! Passion sustained him for a while; but
he gave way, and, pulling out a silk handkerchief, he sank into a chair.
"Don't cry, father, don't cry. Sally is thoughtless; she didn't mean it."
Mr. Brookes wept for a few minutes; Maggie strove to soothe him; he
waved her away, he wiped his eyes and in a voice broken with anguish,
"Ah, well," he said, "I suppose it will be all the same a hundred years
hence." In moments of extreme trouble he sought refuge in such

philosophy, but now it seemed inadequate and superficial, and Maggie
had begun to fear the violence of the storm she had brewed. She did not
mind stimulating ill-feeling, but she did not wish Sally to provoke her
father recklessly.
The possibility of his marrying again and having a second family was
the one restraining influence Mr. Brookes still retained over his
daughters, so Maggie, who was always keenly alive to the remotest
consequences of her actions, took care that his home never became
quite unbearable to him; and when Sally entered the room, dark and
brilliant in red velvet, and in no way disposed to admit she had been
guilty of heinous wrong in countermanding the dinner, Maggie
attempted a gentle pouring of oil on the waters. But waving aside her
sister's gentle interposition, she said: "You mustn't think of yourself
only, father. I admit I told the cook to put back the dinner a few
minutes. What then?"
"You did it that you might finish your conversation with young
Meason," said Mr. Brookes, but his words were weak, it being doubtful
if even Meason could add to the original offence, so culminating and
final did it seem to him.
"Maggie didn't tell you that last week she met him on the sea road, and
walked with him into Portslade."
"Father, father, I beg of you, now, don't cry; think of the servants."
And it was in such unity of mind and feeling that this family sat down
to dinner in the great dining-room, rich with all comforts and adorned
with pictures by Frith and Goodall. Sally, who unfortunately knew no
fear, talked defiantly; she addressed herself principally to her brother,
and she questioned him persistently, although the replies she received