Spring Days | Page 5

He was the fair one of the family, and his hair was always closely cut in military fashion, and he wore a long flowing military moustache with a tinge of red in it. His father and he were built on the same lines--long, spare bodies, short necks and legs, and short, spare arms, and if the father's white hair were dyed the years that separated him from his son would disappear, for although the son had only just turned thirty, he was middle-aged in face and feeling.
Sally and Grace were both thickly built, the latter a little inclined to fat. Maggie was thin and elegantly angular, and often stood in picturesque attitudes; she stood in one now, with her hands linked behind her back, and she watched her father, and her look was subtle and insinuating.
"When I came here," he said, speaking rapidly, and as if he were speaking to himself, "the place was well enough; there was nothing but those wretched cottages facing the sea, the green, and a few cottages about it; but since those villas have been put up, Southwick has become unbearable. All my troubles," he murmured, "originated in the Southdown Road."
Maggie turned aside, smiled, and bit her lip; she did not speak, however, for she knew her father did not care to be interrupted in his musings.
"A hateful place--glass porticoes, and oleographs on the walls." Here Mr. Brookes stopped in his walk to admire one of his favourite Friths. "Those ridiculous haberdashers, with a bas-relief of the founder of their house over the doorway. The proprietors of the baths, the Measons, poor as church mice, the son a mate of a merchant vessel-- these are not proper associates for my daughters. I will not know them; I will not have them in my house."
"The Measons are quite as good as we are, father. They may be poor, but as far as family goes--"
"You are just the same as the others, Maggie; once there is a young man to flirt with, you don't care what he is or where he comes from. When there are no young men, you will snub the old ladies fast enough; and as for Sally, she is downright rude. I didn't want to see the haberdashers, but while they were in my house I was polite to them."
"It was the Horlocks who told them to call."
"I know it was. If Mrs. Horlock likes to know these people, let her know them; but what does she want to force them upon us for? That's what I want to know. We might never have known any one in the Southdown Road; I mean we never should, we never could have known any one in the Southdown Road if Mrs. Horlock hadn't come to live there. We had to call upon her."
"Every Viceroy in India called upon her. She was the only woman whom every Viceroy did call upon."
"I know she was. Of course we had to call upon her. Most interesting woman; the General is very nice, too. I like them exceedingly. I often go to see them, although the smell of that mastiff is more than I can bear in the hot weather, especially if lilies or strong smelling flowers are in the room."
"She feeds the mice, she won't let them be destroyed, she lets the traps down at night."
"Don't let us go into the animal question. The constant smell of dogs is unpleasant, but I could put up with it--what I can't stand are her acquaintances in the Southdown Road, and when I think that we should not have known any of them if it hadn't been for her! Indirectly--I do not say directly--she is the cause of all my difficulties. It was at her house Sally met young Meason; it was at her house Grace met that young officer for whom she is crying her eyes out; and it was at her house--yes, I hadn't thought of it before--it was at her house that Willy met that swindler who induced him to put two thousand pounds into the Bond Street shop. The Southdown Road might have remained here for the next five hundred years, and we should have known nothing of it had it not been for Mrs. Horlock; if she likes to know these people let her know them, but why force them upon us? It was only the other day she was talking to me about calling on some new friends of hers who have come to live there. I dare say it is the custom to call on every one at Calcutta, but I say that Calcutta etiquette is not Southwick etiquette, and I don't care how many Viceroys called upon her, I will not know the Southdown Road."
The enunciation of this last sentence was deliberate and