Spring Days | Page 9

now getting as much as fifteen per cent.
for money invested."
Willy had been to Oxford, and the arrogance and pomposity of this
purse-proud man shocked his sense of decorum. Berkins's vulgarity
was more offensive than that of Mr. Brookes. Mr. Brookes was a
simple, middle-class man, who had made money straightforwardly and
honestly, and he had cultivated his natural taste for pictures to the limit
of his capacities and opportunities. Berkins, however, had been born a
gentleman, but had had to shift for himself, even when a lad, and he
had caught at all chances; he was more sophisticated, he was a
gentleman in a state of retrograde, and was in all points inferior to him
whom he crossed in his descent. Berkins had bought a small place, a
villa with some hundred acres attached to it, on the other side of
Preston Park. There he had erected glass houses, and bred a few
pheasants in the corner of a field, and it surprised him to find that the
county families took no notice of him. Mr. Brookes had sympathised,
but the young people laughed at him and Willy had told a story how he
had been to shoot at ----, and when a partridge got up right in front of
his gun, Berkins turned round and shot it, exclaiming: "That's the way
to bring them down!"
And now whenever his name was mentioned, Willy thought of this
incident, so very typical did it seem to him of the man, and he liked to
twit his father with it. But Mr. Brookes could not be brought to see the
joke, and he fell back on the plausible and insidious argument that,
notwithstanding his manners, Berkins was worth eight thousand a year.
"And very few girls get the chance of catching eight thousand a year;
and she'll miss it, she'll miss it if she doesn't take care."
"You talk of it as if it were an absolute certainty; you don't know that
Berkins wants to marry Grace; he hasn't been here for the last month."
"Mr. Berkins is not like the young good-for-nothings your sisters waste

their time with, he is a man of means, of eight thousand a year; you
don't expect him to come round here every evening to tea, and to play
tennis, and to walk in the moonlight and talk nonsense. Berkins is a
man of means, he is a man who can make a settlement."
"Has he spoken to you on the subject, then?"
"No, Mr. Berkins is a man of tact, however you may laugh at him for
having shot your partridge. He spoke to your Aunt Mary, or rather she
spoke to him. Ah, clever woman, your Aunt Mary, wonderful manner,
wonderful will, when she wants a thing done it must be done. Your
poor mother--I mean no disparagement--but I must say she couldn't
compare with her for determination; Sally reminds me of her, but
Sally's determination is misdirected, deplorably misdirected; it is
directed against me, entirely against me. She must be made submissive;
when I spoke to Aunt Mary about her, she said her spirit must be
broken; and if she were here she'd break it. If she were here things
would be very different, your sisters wouldn't be flirting with all the
little clerks in the Southdown Road; but I am alone. I have no one to
turn to."
"You were telling me that Berkins had spoken to Aunt Mary about
Grace."
"Your Aunt Mary spoke to Berkins about Grace; she told him he ought
to be thinking of marrying; that he wanted a wife. Then the
conversation turned on my daughters, and Mary no doubt mentioned
that at my death they would all have large fortunes."
"Ah, so it is the money that Berkins is after."
"Money comes first. If a man can make a settlement he will naturally
demand a--that is to say he will naturally look forward, he will consider
what her prospects are; not her immediate prospects, that would be
mercenary, but her future prospects."
Willy smiled. "And what did Berkins say?"

"He said he wanted to marry, and he spoke of Grace; he said he
admired her. I shouldn't be surprised if we saw him at church to-day."
"Are you going to ask him to lunch?"
"Certainly, if he's there." Then, after a long silence, Mr. Brookes said:
"He'll come in here to smoke. Of course you'll leave us alone. Do you
mind leaving out your cigars?"
"I have only half a box left; I think really you might keep some in the
house to supply your own guests with. You always object if I interfere
with your things."
"I am out of my best cigars--it is so hard to remember. He won't smoke
more than one."
"I'll