Mrs Days Daughters | Page 8

at me in such a horrible manner?"
"You know what your father is, Bessie. So often irritable at home when
things have gone wrong at the office. Go to your room till your tears
are dry; I will see your father and find out if there is anything to tell
you."
Mr. Day was in the room they called the breakfast-room. Looking upon
it with the housewife's desire for neatness Mrs. Day often spoke of it as
the Pig-sty, but it was the room they all of them loved best in the house.
It was here the children learned their lessons for school, the ladies
worked, Franky played. It was spacious and cheerful, and held nothing
that rough usage would spoil. All the most comfortable chairs in the
house were pulled up to the hearth, upon which Franky's cats were
allowed to lie, and Bernard's dog. A canary, Deleah's especial protégée,
hung in the window.
Mr. Day had pulled a chair too small for his huge bulk in front of the
fire, and sat, looking huddled and uncomfortable, his feet drawn up
beneath his chair, his knees dropped, staring at the bars.

"Is anything the matter, William?" his wife asked. "Aren't you going
out again, this evening?"
Every night of his life, except the Sunday night, when on no account
would he have missed going to church with his family, he went to a
club in the town where whist and three-card loo were played--for
higher stakes, it was whispered, than most of its members could spare.
"You have taken off your boots, William: aren't you going to your
club?"
"No; I'm not going to my club."
"In heaven's name why?"
"Because my club's seen the last of me."
She looked at him aghast, hearing the news with real dismay. She never
would have admitted, even to herself, being a kind woman and a dutiful
wife, that she preferred her husband out of her presence rather than in
it--her children would not have whispered such a disloyalty; yet if he
was going to pass his evenings in the bosom of his family, for the
future, each of them would know in his or her heart that the
peacefullest and most enjoyable hours of the day would be spoilt.
"Have you had any unpleasantness over cards, William?"
He turned savagely upon her where she stood by the corner of the
mantelpiece. "What the devil did you send me on that fool's errand to
Francis Forcus for?" he asked.
"I send you, William?"
"I went because of the lying report you brought me."
"William, I--!"
"You led me to believe Bessie and young Forcus were engaged. Now
did you or did you not lead me to believe it? Speak the truth if you can.

Did you or did you not?"
"I only--"
"Did you lead me to believe it?"
"Yes, then; if you will have it so."
"And made me look a fool! I thought it was too good to be true--only
you stuck to it. You were so d--d sure. You would have it so. Nothing
would turn you."
"William, you must remember I advised you not to go."
"Did I ask your advice? Did I ever stoop to ask for it? I acted on
information which you gave me. Went--and got kicked out."
"Kicked out? William!"
"Practically. I don't mean to say the man actually used his boot. If he
had he couldn't have expressed plainer what he meant. Francis Forcus
never had a civil word to fling at me in all his life. But for your infernal,
silly cackle I'd as soon have gone to the devil as to him. If I'd only had
myself and my own feeling to think about--Bessie or no Bessie--I'd
have hanged myself sooner than have gone to him. But I'd got more
than that."
His voice had fallen from its bullying key to a toneless melancholy.
Mrs. Day, who had been standing hitherto, seated herself in the chair by
the chimney corner, and looked at her husband's blunt profile as he sat
before the fire with a sick feeling of impending disaster, and a
dismayed inquiry in her dark eyes.
"I'd got you and the children to think about," the man added.
"What could Sir Francis have said to you, William?"
Her husband turned savagely upon her. "Say? He said there was no
engagement between his brother--his 'young brother'--and my daughter.

That such an engagement would never receive his sanction. That he
was not aware his 'young brother'--he's always sticking the word down
your throat; the sanctimonious prig--I longed to kick him!--was on
terms of intimacy with any one in my family."
"William!" Mrs. Day, cut to the quick, called protestingly upon her
husband's name. "I hope you answered him there. I hope you did!"
"I