“What, again?”
“Oh, I don't know if she has threatened to beat her lately. I don't remember when was the last time. Their various rows are all jumbled up in my head. All I know is that Maggie says she cannot live in the house with Sally. Maggie is very ill, she is in a very excited state, as she was once before, when I would not consent to her marriage with—I have forgotten his name, but it doesn't matter. Now she won't dress herself, and she walks about the house with her hair hanging down. I know there is nothing for it but to send her away under the charge of some lady who has had experience in such matters. She can't remain here. She has the strangest delusions. Among other things, she fancies the coachman has spread it all over Southwick that she has gone wrong with Berkins and that fellow Escott. Just fancy if Berkins—a ten thousand a year man—should hear of it! I don't know what he would say. He would peg into me; he is at times very hard indeed upon me. I don't say he is not a first-rate man of business, I know he has made several excellent investments; but for all that I do not and cannot think him competent to advise me on all my affairs, and that's what he is always doing. He talks of putting down that Southdown Road. I should like to see how he would set about doing it.”
“James, Maggie must go away; she is very highly organised, very sensitive, and if she were to remain here, Sally might have a real effect on her mind. It is clear the sisters don't get on together; have you had medical advice? I told you before that you should have medical advice about those girls; I told you to spare no expense, but to go to a first-rate London physician and take his opinion. I said before, and I say it again, that no girls in good health could carry on as dear Sally, and I will include dear Maggie; for although she does not defy you to the same extent, there is no doubt that she is too fast, too fond of young men; her thoughts run too much in that way, and now she is ill, of course she has delusions. You ought to have medical advice.”
“Mary, dear, the body is not everything; to cure the flesh you must first cure the soul. I believe our dear nieces rarely, if ever, attend church, rarely, if ever, remember that this life is not eternal and that there is a hereafter.”
The conversation came to a pause. Presently Aunt Mary asked Willy, who sat resigned to his fate, calm and solemn as a Buddha, his hands clasped over his rotund stomach, if he thought that Maggie's state was one to cause immediate anxiety, to which he replied: “My sisters think of nothing but pleasure. The trouble girls are in a house is more than any one would believe. Here I am, I can do nothing; every night it is the same thing, over and over again.” And the lean man lapsed into contemplation.
“But to come to the point, James, I want to hear about Sally. You said in your letter that a great deal had come to light, and that you now find that her conduct has been worse than you had ever imagined it, even in your moments of deepest dejection. Now, I want to hear about all this. What has she done? Let's have it in plain English. What has she done?”
“To put it plainly, Mary,” said Mr. Brookes, wiping his tears away, and turning his back upon his Goodall, “I don't know what she hasn't done—everything. She is at the present moment the talk of Southwick. The doctor here has seen her in the field at the back here with Meason at nine o'clock at night.”
“Why did you allow her to leave the house at that hour? No young girl—”
“She always takes her dogs out in the evening; I cannot prevent her doing that. It appears, too, that she has had Meason up in her bedroom.”
“O James, you do not mean to say that my dear niece had a man in her bedroom!”