Leonora | Page 5

he could open a door for a lady, and was noted for his neatness in compliment.
It was his ambition always to be calm, oracular, weighty; always to be sure of himself; but his temperament was incurably nervous, restless, and impulsive. He could not be still, he could not wait. Instinct drove him to action for the sake of action, instinct made him seek continually for notice, prominence, comment. These fundamental appetites had urged him into public life--to the Borough Council and the Committee of the Wedgwood Institution. He often affected to be buried in cogitation upon municipal and private business affairs, when in fact his attention was disengaged and watchful. Leonora knew that this was so to-night. The idea of his duplicity took possession of her mind. Deeps yawned before her, deeps that swallowed up the solid and charming house and the comfortable family existence, as she glanced at that face at once strange and familiar to her. 'Is it all right?' she kept thinking. 'Is John all that he seems? I wonder whether he has ever committed murder.' Yes, even this absurd thought, which she knew to be absurd, crossed her mind.
'Where's Rose?' he demanded suddenly in the depressing silence of the tea-table, as if he had just discovered the absence of his second daughter.
'She's been working in her room all day,' said Leonora.
'That's no reason why she should be late for tea.'
At that moment Rose entered. She was very tall and pale, her dress was a little dowdy. Like her father and Millicent, she carried her head forward and had a tendency to look downwards, and her spine seemed flaccid. Ethel was beautiful, or about to be beautiful; Millicent was pretty; Rose plain. Rose was deficient in style. She despised style, and regarded her sisters as frivolous ninnies and gadabouts. She was the serious member of the family, and for two years had been studying for the Matriculation of London University.
'Late again!' said her father. 'I shall stop all this exam work.'
Rose said nothing, but looked resentful.
When the hot dishes had been partaken of, Bessie was dismissed, and Leonora waited for the bursting of the storm. It was Millicent who drew it down.
'I think I shall go down to Burgesses, after all, mamma. It's quite light,' she said with audacious pertness.
Her father looked at her.
'What were you doing this afternoon, Milly?'
'I went out for a walk, pa.'
'Who with?'
'No one.'
'Didn't I see you on the canal-side with young Ryley?'
'Yes, father. He was going back to the works after dinner, and he just happened to overtake me.'
Milly and Ethel exchanged a swift glance.
'Happened to overtake you! I saw you as I was driving past, over the canal bridge. You little thought that I saw you.'
'Well, father, I couldn't help him overtaking me. Besides----'
'Besides!' he took her up. 'You had your hand on his shoulder. How do you explain that?'
Millicent was silent.
'I'm ashamed of you, regularly ashamed ... You with your hand on his shoulder in full sight of the works! And on your mother's birthday too!'
Leonora involuntarily stirred. For more than twenty years it had been his custom to give her a kiss and a ten-pound note before breakfast on her birthday, but this year he had so far made no mention whatever of the anniversary.
'I'm going to put my foot down,' he continued with grieved majesty. 'I don't want to, but you force me to it. I'll have no goings-on with Fred Ryley. Understand that. And I'll have no more idling about. You girls--at least you two--are bone-idle. Ethel shall begin to go to the works next Monday. I want a clerk. And you, Milly, must take up the housekeeping. Mother, you'll see to that.'
Leonora reflected that whereas Ethel showed a marked gift for housekeeping, Milly was instinctively averse to everything merely domestic. But with her acquired fatalism she accepted the ukase.
'You understand,' said John to his pert youngest.
'Yes, papa.'
'No more carrying-on with Fred Ryley--or any one else.'
'No, papa.'
'I've got quite enough to worry me without being bothered by you girls.'
Rose left the table, consciously innocent both of sloth and of light behaviour.
'What are you going to do now, Rose?' He could not let her off scot-free.
'Read my chemistry, father.'
'You'll do no such thing.'
'I must, if I'm to pass at Christmas,' she said firmly. 'It's my weakest subject.'
'Christmas or no Christmas,' he replied, 'I'm not going to let you kill yourself. Look at your face! I wonder your mother----'
'Run into the garden for a while, my dear,' said Leonora softly, and the girl moved to obey.
'Rose,' he called her back sharply as his exasperation became fidgetty. 'Don't be in such a hurry. Open the window--an inch.'
* * * * *
Ethel and Millicent disappeared after the manner of young fox-terriers; they did not visibly depart; they were there, one looked