Sir Francis Forcus was standing with his back to the empty fireplace in his private room at the Brewery, a copy of the local daily newspaper in his hand. It was a pleasant room, although the view from the two open windows was only of the tall black wharves and warehouses across the way. You must lean from the window to catch sight of the black river flowing beneath, upon which the Brewery was built; of the great wherries and barges unloading below; to see the canoes and pleasure boats, escaping from the polluted waters, the bricks and mortars of the locality, to the sunlit stream flowing between fair gardens and green pastures of the country, a half-mile farther on.
From a window in one of the black, ill-looking wharves across the way an imprisoned lark was singing, rewarding man for his cruel treatment with the best he had to give, after the manner of the brute creation, whose avenging is not yet. A ray of sunlight straggling in—in more open, more favoured localities, the sun lay broadly over all on that spring morning—touched the face of Sir Francis, which wore a by no means well-pleased expression. In the paper he was reading, wet from the press, was an account of a steeplechase in which his brother's name had largely figured. He had not won the race, nor distinguished himself in any way, except by the number and severity of his falls, and the fact that he had killed his horse; but the Brockenham Star was, to a large extent, the property of the firm of big brewers, and had therefore made the most of the young man's exploits.
"The boy will break his neck yet," the reader said to himself. He was not largely in his brother's confidence. The death of the horse was news to him; he had not even known there was a steeplechase.
"What good is he doing with all this?" Sir Francis asked of himself, sternly looking off the paper. "He takes no interest in the Brewery. He is a man in years, and has never done a half-hour's work in his life."
Sir Francis's own half-hours of work would not have totalled up to much, but he had business ability, nevertheless. At certain hours of the day he was always to be found, as now, at his post, and what he did not do himself he took care that those he paid should do efficiently.
Above the mantelpiece hung the portrait of the founder of the Brewery, or rather of the man who had worked up the business already founded into a phenomenally successful one. Often as the elder partner looked upon the sensible, kindly, handsome-featured face, he reminded himself how very dear to his father in his old age had been this unbusiness-like, pleasure-loving, steeplechase-riding younger son, who had been but a boy at school when the old man had died. Very frequently it was necessary for him to remind himself of the fact; for between the duty-loving, serious-minded, middle-aged, sorrowing widower and his half-brother was very little in common.
A clerk opening the door announced that a lady had called who was waiting to see Sir Francis.
"A lady? My sister—Miss Forcus?"
"A young lady. She didn't give her name."
"Ask it, please."
Back came the clerk with a slip of paper on which was written a name Sir Francis read to himself, and then aloud, looking questioningly upon the clerk, "Miss Deleah Day. Miss Deleah Day?"
The clerk, having no information to give or suggestion to offer, continued to look respectfully at his employer's boots.
"Show her in, please," Sir Francis said; and in a minute the door was opened and Deleah appeared.
Sir Francis, the Brockenham Star depending from his left hand, bowed in his solemn fashion to the girl, and going forward turned a chair round from the writing-table, in which be indicated his desire that she should sit. How white and frightened she looked; what a young, little, extraordinary pretty thing! Full well he remembered the last occasion of her presence in his room. What had sent her to him now? What did she want? He recalled how Reggie, whose name, it seemed to him, was always being mentioned in some undesirable connection or other, had got himself mixed up with this girl's objectionable family. Reggie, he wondered? Or was it that the mother's wretched grocery business had failed, as he had always expected it to do, and he was to be asked for another contribution towards setting her going again?
With those thoughts passing through his mind, he went back to his old position by the fireplace, standing up stiff and straight and tall, upon the hearth, to survey his visitor from there.
"You were so kind once," Deleah said, and he heard that she had a difficulty in keeping her voice steady, and saw that her lips shook "—so very kind when I came to you before, that I have come again."
Too apprehensive of what her errand might be to say that he was glad to see her, he bowed his head in sign of courteous attention, and waited.
As she had come on her hateful errand, she had thought of how she would prepare the ground, in some way leading up to the petition she had to make, but speech was too difficult, and she could barely deliver herself of the necessary words: "I have come to ask you to give me fifty pounds," she said.
Sir Francis's eyes opened largely upon her, but he did not speak. To say at once that he would give the poor child—the tool no doubt of her family, sent by them to work upon him because she was so pretty and young and appealing—fifty pounds without further explanation would be simply silly: to say that he would not did not enter his head.
She had waited for an encouraging word; none coming; painfully she laboured on: "I say 'give' because I am not sure I could ever pay you—I earn so very little money. But if I ever can pay you, you may trust me that I shall."
"I am sure you will," the rich man said, and waited for her to go on with her story. But she sat in an embarrassed silence before him, her head drooping, frightened and ashamed.
"We will call it 'lent,' shall we?" presently he said. "You will feel happier so. And there will be no hurry. No hurry, at all."
"Oh thank you! I do thank you so much. I want to tell you—"
"No, no," he said and held up a hand to check the words upon her lips. It was ridiculous to give away money in such a fashion, but he had a feeling that if he knew its destination he should give it with more reluctance.
"But I must tell you, please. I wanted to tell you before, but—" Her eyes avoided his face and wandered distressedly round the room. How well she remembered it! It was here she had come to beg this man—this stranger!—to keep her father out of prison. And now her brother—now Bernard! Was there any girl in all the world so overwhelmed with shame as she! "It is my brother—" she got out. "He—I have brought his letter."
She found her pocket, and brought forth the letter which had come to her by the morning post, ravaging her heart, turning the sunshine black, making the song of the imprisoned lark opposite into a dirge, plunging her back into the woe which had been hers at the time of her father's disgrace. She drew the miserable letter from its envelope and held it to Sir Francis in trembling fingers.
"No," he said, and waved it away. "It is perhaps something that your brother would rather not have known. Something which can remain between you and him. And this—this fifty pounds"—he had gone to his writing-table, pulled a cheque-book from a drawer, was writing within it as he spoke—"this also is between you and me. No one, besides, needs ever to know a word of it."
The chair he had arranged for her to sit in was by the writing-table; he, sitting on the opposite side of it, lifted his eyes to her face without lifting his head: "You wish this made out to your brother or yourself?"
"To my brother."
"Will you tell me his name?"
"Bernard William."
She watched his strong white hand move over the paper, writing so easily the words that were of such moment to her. How the great ruby in the ring he wore on the hand which held the pen seemed to glow and burn in the sunlight. On the little finger of his other hand was a plain small circlet she knew to be from the finger of his dead wife. She noticed in the strong light from the window how the smooth black hair had grown grey about the ears, how lines which had not been there before had graved themselves in the handsome, impassive face. Was he very unhappy too, Deleah wondered, in the midst of her own trouble? Did he still mourn, as they said he had done, so heavily, for the lost wife?
He pushed the cheque across the table to her. "There!" he said.
He had caught her gaze fixed with its sorrowful questioning upon his face, and he put away from him his doubt, his annoyance, and in spite of himself smiled encouragement into her pleading, beautiful, innocently worshipping eyes.
"Do not be unhappy," he said. "This will put things right, we will hope; and set your brother on his feet again. You must not look so sad."
At the words—he had been wrong to speak so kindly—the clear hazel of her eyes was suffused with tears. The eyes were doubly beautiful so.
"'I'll not believe but Desdemona's honest'" he found himself replying to that annoying little voice which kept whispering, "Have they put her on to me?"
Deleah kept her wet eyes strained upon him, lest in lowering them the tears should overflow. "I don't know what you can think of me," she said falteringly. "I don't know how I had courage to come. I only had Bernard's letter this morning; he said—it—must be done to-day. My mother must not know: there is no one else: I had no one to ask. You had been so good to me once—I thought of you."
"I quite understand. Quite. Quite."
"I was a child then," she laboured on, forcing herself to try to express what she felt ought to be said; "and although I had no right to trouble you, to a child things may be forgiven. But now—but now—!"
"But now," he repeated, and smiled his faint smile again. To him she was but a child still, and his tone conveyed that message.
"I am very much ashamed," she said. "And so—so grateful."
She folded the cheque, put it in her cheap, little-used purse, and stood up. So humiliated she felt, she hesitated to put out her hand, lest he should think it presumptuous on her part to expect him to shake hands with her.
"Where is this brother of yours? What is he doing?" he asked.
"He is at Ingleby. Mr. George Boult put him into one of his shops in the country."
"Oh! George Boult?"
Something in tone depreciatory of the man caused Deleah to say quickly, "He has been very good to us. He helped mama about the grocer's shop; and advises her."
"So I have heard." He was thinking to himself if the unsatisfactory brother had to look for mercy for any misdoings to George Boult he would be in a sorry case.
"He is very young—my poor brother," Deleah put in. "And I suppose he has made bad friends. He never has a holiday. He can never come home to mama and us—"
"Ah, that is bad. And can't you go over to him? I am sure that you could do him good." For the thought came to him, as he looked down upon the sorrowful girl in her neat, cheap frock, standing so shyly before him, that he had never seen goodness written so legibly on the face of any human being as on that of this daughter of a thief and sister of a never-do-well.
"Railway travelling is expensive, and we are obliged to live very carefully," Deleah said. "Poor mama has made one or two bad debts lately. And so many people, who pay in the end, are so very slow to do so." Deleah shook her head slowly and sorrowfully over these sluggards. "Also, I am occupied, of course, all day long."
"May I know in what way?"
"I teach," Deleah said, and lifted her head with a kind of pride in the avowal which was very pretty. "I am second English governess at Miss Chaplin's school for young ladies. I earn enough there to buy my own clothes and Franky's."
Her courage was coming back to her; instead of the difficulty she had experienced in dragging out the words necessary to explain and condone her errand, she now had the impulse to tell him things, to make him confidences.
"And who is Franky?"
"He is my little brother. Very much younger than the rest, and the pet with all of us. Mama says, but for Franky, she thinks she could never have survived the troubles she has had. I think we all felt that. We could not be always crying and melancholy in the company of a little boy who does not understand, and who wants so much to enjoy himself. For Franky's sake we have to be cheerful. He is only nine. Only seven when—all that—happened to papa."
"Franky must not go into one of George Boult's shops," Sir Francis said. "When Franky is old enough to leave school—to begin to earn his living—come and tell me, will you?"
Her face lit, till it was lovely as a sun-kissed flower. "Oh, I will! Oh, thank you," she said; and then she did put out her hand, and for an instant her fingers closed with all their soft strength round the hand he gave her. "Oh, thank you!" she said again.
Then he opened the door for her, and she went.
Deleah, when she had sent off the cheque, whose receipt must have surprised him exceedingly, to her brother, felt herself to be almost bursting with the desire to confide in some one the history of her visit to the rich brewer. She longed to descant on his looks, to repeat his words, above all to tell of the heavenly promise contained in that last divine sentence concerning Franky. No one must be told; but Deleah was over young to be burdened with a secret; it made her restless. She could not sit with Bessie, to hear her discuss the pattern of the sleeve she was cutting out for a new Sunday frock. She ran down to the shop, for the relief of being near her mother.
Mrs. Day glanced at her with welcoming eyes and turned at once again attentively upon her customer, a good lady difficult to please in the matter of candles.
"A tallow candle will do very well for the servants to gutter down, in the kitchen," she was irritably declaring. "But neither my daughter nor me can abide the smell of tallow; and your wax ones are a cruel price. Cruel, Mrs. Day! I suppose you could not make a reduction by my taking two packets?"
Mrs. Day shook a patient head. "We really get almost nothing out of them, as it is," she sadly protested. "These candles—called composite—ladies are beginning to buy them for servants' use as well as their own. I sell more composites now than either wax or tallow."
"You couldn't oblige me with one or two to try?—Oh, good afternoon, Miss Day. So you are not above coming into the shop sometimes, to bear your mama company?"
"Above it!" said Deleah; and because she had to be as sweet as sugar to her mother's customers, she smiled upon Mrs. Potter, who turned from the counter to engage her in talk.
"What for you, my dear?" Mrs. Day's next customer was a very shabby, very small boy, his grimy, eager face appearing just above the counter.
"A ha'p'r' o' acids, like th' last." He held up the coin in his fist to assure her of the good faith of the transaction.
"You give me more 'n that, last time, for a ha'p'ny. You ha'n't weighed 'em," the customer grumbled.
"Lucky for you I have not! Here! Take your ha'penny and be off."
Many customers of that unremunerative order had the widow. When the ragged little ones happened to be about the age of Franky they were sure of bouncing weight, and of getting their money returned. She smiled upon the scaramouch now, who was watched from the door by half a dozen confederates. The ha'penny was common property apparently, for each was presently clamouring for his share.
These screws of sweets and quarter pounds of broken biscuits given to the children of the very poor afforded her the only pleasure Mrs. Day got out of her long hours behind the grocery counter. For, in spite of the greed and selfishness of human nature, perhaps the most keenly felt deprivations of the one who has been rich and now is poor is the inability to put the hand lightly in the pocket, and with no thought if it can be afforded or no, to give to those who ask.
While Mrs. Day had been attending to her own customers with one ear, she had been hearing with the other a discussion going on at the opposite corner as to the price and the quality of the butter.
"Ours is from the best dairy," young—very young!—Mr. Pretty was assuring the poor, respectable woman who was hanging back from putting his assertion to the test. "Fresh in, every day, mum. Like to put a bit on your tongue to try it?"
The woman did so, tasting the morsel with an anxious look. "But I can't afford to give you one-and-two the pound, if I can buy it a penny less, only a little way down the street."
"You don't get butter there like this, ma'am;" and young Mr. Pretty, who should have been Master Pretty surely, by rights, conveyed a piece of butter to his own tongue, and tasted it loudly, looking very wise.
"'Best quality, one and a penny.' I see it ticketed up as I come by Coman's." She turned round to the mistress of the shop. "I have always dealt along of you for butter, ma'am," she said. "I haven't no wish to leave you, but where I buy my butter—stand to reason I must buy the rest of my grosheries."
"If Coman is down to that; you shall have it for the same sum;" Mrs. Day promised. Her butter had already been "dropped" twice before, that day, in order to keep pace with the passion for underselling of the new grocer, who had, for the undoing of the widow and the orphan, opened a shop lower down the street. Our poor retailer was selling her sugars, too, for less than she gave for them.
"You must do so for a time," George Boult had informed her. "Coman can't go on like this for ever. He'll get tired of the game soon—if I know anything of trade and tradesmen—then you can stick it on to your goods again."
While the subject of the butter was being debated, the child Franky came in from afternoon school. He was day-boarder at a cheap academy to which other small tradesmen's sons were sent—a school very inferior to that to which Bernard had gone. Companionship with rough, common children had not improved the manners of Franky, nor his habit of speech. He dashed in, with no thought of the deference due to customers, pushed out of his way the lady just deciding to let Mrs. Day try to procure in the town a candle more to her taste, rushed round the counter to his mother.
"C'n I go in to tea with Willy Spratt? Willy Spratt's ma says I may go to tea with 'm. I wish to, very much. C'n I go?"
"No, my dear. We like you to have tea with us. We can't spare you."
"C'n I go, ma? C'n I go? Willy Spratt's waitin' outside."
Willy Spratt was the son of the cutler and his wife, across the way. Very good customers of Mrs. Day, very good people; but—
"You haven't spoken to Mrs. Potter, Franky," Deleah said to divert the child's mind. "You know Mrs. Potter, sir. Where are your manners?"
"Quite 'ell, I thank ye," said Franky without a glance in the direction of the good lady in question, who had not the intention to inquire for his health. "C'n I go, ma? Willy's waitin' outside; and c'n I go?"
"Oh go!" his poor mother said. "Go! But, Franky dear, don't pull your cap in that hideous fashion over your eyes."
But Franky had ducked his head from beneath his mother's hand, dashed round the counter, and was away to the society of the expectant Willy.
In an interregnum of peace between the going and coming of customers Mrs. Day moaned to Deleah over the grievous subject of Franky's deterioration. "He even brushes his hair, and wears his cap, in the fashion of that dreadful Willy Spratt. Being so young he does not stand a chance. He must grow into just a common little boy."
"Never, mama!" Deleah, the unfailing comforter, declared. "Why, Franky looks like a creature of a different mould from Willy Spratt. Franky, with that dear little nose of his, is distinctly aristocratic. Don't laugh! He is indeed. You and he are, you know; and any one can see it."
"Nonsense, my dear," the mother said, but smiled and was comforted on that score. "It is inevitable, I suppose," she went on, "that we fall into the way of speech of those around us. But it vexes me. Have you noticed that even Bessie habitually speaks of Mr. Gibbon now without the 'Mr.'? 'Gibbon' said this or 'Gibbon' did that. I don't like to mention it to her, but it offends my ear."
"I wouldn't say anything," Deleah counselled. "We know that Bessie is—so very easily upset."
"Poor Bessie!" the mother said. Both of them had a vision of Bessie drumming her heels on the floor in the hysterics into which a few thwarting words would throw her. "What about Bessie's love affairs?" Mrs. Day presently asked. "I should be so thankful to see Bessie with a home of her own. She would be so happy, married. But—?"
She paused questioningly upon the "but," knowing it to be a very large one.
"I don't think Reggie means anything, mama."
"No," acquiesced Mrs. Day, sadly shaking her head. "I can't think how Bessie can be so blind. Yet, if it were otherwise, what an escape out of Bridge Street it would be for her."
Deleah was silent.
"Or for you?"
Deleah laughed with her colour high: "I would not marry Reggie Forcus if he were stuffed with gold, mama."
Mrs. Day turned away to wait upon the untidy little servant girl from over the way whose family had suddenly "run out of vinegar."
Her eyes had been sharp enough to see on which of her daughters' faces it was that Reginald Forcus's gaze dwelt; she had divined the attraction which drew the pleasure-loving, much sought young man to sit patiently for hours in the evening, watching the girls at their work. She looked, drearily, the vinegar being measured and the customer gone, between the intervening biscuit tins and pickle jars into the street. She had begun to cherish a dream that if not Bessie it might be her pretty Deleah who, through Reggie, should find a way out.
"Supposing he really wanted to marry either of us you would not surely like it, would you, mama?"
And Mrs. Day was obliged to admit with a kind of shame that she would.
"That silly, irresponsible, baby of a young man; without two ideas in his head!"
But the mother knew if his head was empty, his pocket was not. He might not be clever, or have much stability of character, but oh, how many things which made life pleasant he possessed! She who had had them, and had lost them, was not one to underrate the value of worldly goods.
"I suppose the end will be Bessie must marry Mr. Gibbon," she said, with an effort at resignation and putting away from her unwillingly the golden dream. "I should not blame Bessie," she went on judicially. "He is a good and steady-going man, although so very quiet. Have you noticed, my dear, how very quiet Mr. Gibbon has become?"
"Yes, mama."
"I suppose it is love which makes him so quiet."
She supposed so, Deleah said. That he had been quieter still would have pleased her better. She could have spared his fierce "I love you," whispered behind the tablecloth when he and she had stooped simultaneously to pick up a knife which had fallen yesterday; his impassioned "Only look at me!" fiercely breathed last night over the candlestick he put into her hand. Both Bessie and her mother looked on the Honourable Charles as Bessie's property. Deleah was frightened at, and ashamed of, these irregular demonstrations.
"He is a commonplace, uninteresting looking man—but for something there in his eyes. I don't know if you have noticed what I mean, Deleah?—Yet he will make a safe husband, with no thought in his head but for Bessie; and I suppose we must make up our minds to the sacrifice."
