Mrs. Day's Daughters. Mary E. Mann
stood to him in place of a father since his own father had died when he was a boy at school, but he lectured him as little as possible, and very rarely thwarted him. "Get over it as quick as you can, Francis," was all he said.
"Did you meet Mr. Day going away as you came in?"
"Mr. Day? No."
"He has just left me. He came to tell me that you," he looked during a moment's pause in Reggie's wide eyes, "were engaged to be married to his daughter."
"Well! Come! That's a good 'un!" Reggie was surprised, his brother saw, but not so satisfactorily taken aback as he had hoped.
"Is it so?"
"No."
"Then, what did the man mean by daring to say it to me?"
Reggie maintained an instant's quite undisconcerted silence; then, "You see, she says it too," he said.
"She?"
"Bessie."
"Day's daughter? She must be stopped saying it."
"Oh, I don't know. Girls do say that sort of thing."
"I think not. Unless they are privileged to say it. Miss Day, you say, has nothing to go upon?"
"Oh, well, you know!" Reggie sat back from the table, putting his hands in his pockets, leaning in his chair at his ease, with the air of talking as one man of the world to another.
"But I do not know. I am waiting for you to tell me."
"You don't want me to go into detail, I suppose?"
"You mean you have indulged in a flirtation with this girl, and she has tried to grab you?"
Reggie gave the subject a moment's thought. "I won't quite admit that," he said conscientiously. "She, somehow, seems to think I've gone further than I have gone. She said something to me last night about my speaking to her father."
"Instead of which her father is sent to speak to me. Now, look here, Reggie, you and I have never, so far, had any unpleasantness—have we? Do not let us have it over this. A daughter of William Day's is about the last person on earth it would be desirable for you to marry."
"I'm not thinking of marrying any one yet, Francis."
"I should hope not! Were you going to meet Miss Day on the ice?"
"Well, she said she'd be there. A whole lot of them were going."
"Stay away, will you? To oblige me?"
"If you put it that way—"
"Thank you. I don't want our name"—he was as proud of the brewery as if it had been a dukedom; he said "our name" as though he spoke of a sacred thing—"mixed up with the name of Mr. William Day."
"He's a nice, good-natured old fellow. You should have heard him banging away with his tambourine, last night."
"I'm going to tell you something in confidence. On the strength of your engagement to his daughter—wait! I know you are not engaged to her—Mr. William Day came here to borrow five hundred pounds of me."
"Good-night!"
"I refused him the loan, of course. Wait a minute! What I was going to say is this: I happen to know why he wanted that money. Why it was important for him to get it at once. It was to pacify a certain client of his who is pressing him. She authorised him to sell some shares, which he did; but she can't get a settlement."
"I say! That's pretty bad, isn't it?"
"And it's the one case of which I happen to know the history. There are others, I am told, and more flagrant than this."
"Will he have to smash up?"
"I hope it will be no worse. I hope—well, we shall see. I have told you
this to show you how specially distasteful to me was what the man said to
me to-day. You understand, don't you?"
Reggie said he understood. "It was quite premature," he declared. "Quite!"
But he looked very thoughtful.
"You will keep clear of them, remember."
"I think I'm best out of their way for the present."
"Instead of skating this morning I wish you'd go over to Runnydale and have a look at that thorough-bred Candy is breaking for me."
Sir Francis knew his man. If Bessie Day had held for him ten times her attraction an errand which had a horse for its objective would have proved more attractive still to Reginald Forcus. With hardly a pang he assented.
The young man spent a happy and profitable day at Runnydale with old Candy, a horse-dealer, much affected by the well-to-do youth of the neighbourhood, he having a racy tongue, and a fund of anecdote, and a pleasant, joking, familiar way of transferring money from their pockets to his own. He returned in time for dinner at Cashelthorpe, his brother's country-house a few miles out of Brockenham, which the younger man also made his home. The two dined alone, as was usual of late, the delicate health of Lady Forcus compelling her often to keep her room.
"You remember what I told you about Day's affairs this morning?" Sir Francis asked, looking across the table at his brother as they sat down to their soup.
Of course Reggie remembered.
"Where do you suppose Mr. William Day is spending his evening?"
Reggie paused with his spoon on its way to his mouth to say he hoped in the bosom of Mr. William Day's family.
"He is spending it in prison."
The spoon fell back into its plate, and Reggie's face grew white. "It can't be true! I'll never believe it!"
"What did you expect, after what I told you? Unless he had made a bolt of it."
"Oh, poor old fellow! But what's the poor old fellow done, then?"
"Done? Fraudulently appropriated his clients' money and adapted it to his own uses."
"Poor old Day! Oh, poor old devil!"
"Well, get your dinner, my dear boy."
"He was slapping me on the shoulder, and I was drinking his champagne, last night!"
The younger Forcus recovered sufficiently to eat the fish, but his soup had to be removed untasted. He sat, with both hands gripping his table-napkin as it lay across his knees, his eyes on the table-cloth, seeing the pretty Deleah and her fat but agile father dancing down the gay ball-room. In prison! Some one he had known, and touched hands with! Prison!
"I wonder of what the poor old fellow was thinking as he banged away at his tambourine last night!" Reggie said.
CHAPTER IV
Disaster
Shortly after Mrs. Day had left her husband sitting in his stocking-feet over the breakfast-room fire, she, in the midst of her children at their several occupations but attentive to what went on beyond, heard his heavy step in the hall, heard the front door open and close.
"Your father has gone to the club, after all," she said, and gave a sigh of relief as she worked away at her embroidery, making holes in a strip of muslin and stitching round them, for the adornment of the elder daughter's petticoat. She was a timid woman, in spite of her fine and handsome appearance, with a great fear of the unusual. It was her husband's habit to go out. The thought of him sitting alone and idle in the other room had been weighing on her mind.
The children paid no attention; they were all a little tired and languid and disinclined for their usual amusements after the excitement of last night's dance and the exertion of their morning on the ice.