“There is no harm in walking round the garden with a man, but I should like to know what father would say if he knew that you brought Jimmy up to your bed-room.”
“My bed-room isn't a bed-room. How dare you make such accusations, how dare you? I should not be surprised if you were at the bottom of all this. I know you are mad with jealousy. Do you think I don't know how you flirted with Jimmy? Do you think I didn't see how you shifted Frank on to me so that you might walk with Jimmy to the station? But I'll tell you what, I'll not stand it, and if you try to come between me and him I'll knock you down.”
Sally sprang from her place and raised her fist. Maggie rushed from the room, or, more correctly speaking, into the arms of Willy.
“What the deuce are you up to?” cried this staid young man, who had been twisted round and thrown against the wall.
“Oh, save me! Sally says she'll knock me down,” cried the girl, clinging for a moment to her brother's shoulder, but as if conscious of the dubiousness of his protection, she loosed him and fled upstairs to her room.
“What damned nonsense this is! The trouble young girls are in a house!—Nothing but pleasure; from one year's end to another, it is nothing but pleasure. I am sick of it.”
Having by such unusual emphasis of manner reduced his sisters to silence, Willy sat down, and chewed with gravity and deliberation. Grace and Sally watched him. After a long and elaborate silence he put some brief questions, and appeared to devote to them the small part of his attention not already engaged in the judicious breaking of his bread. He did not answer nor did he comment; and when he had finished eating he commenced packing up his diary and letters in a brown paper parcel, and for three-quarters of an hour he walked up and down stairs collecting and forgetting; finally he left the house with many parcels.
As some days are sweet and fugitive, others are obtuse, complex, and tortuous as nightmares—difficult to understand and well-nigh impossible to relate. And the day after the tennis party was such a day in the Brookes household, nor did its tumult cease when the lights were turned out in the billiard-room. It was revived with fierce gusts of passion and despair during several succeeding days.
In the afternoon both Sally and Maggie wanted to go out in the cart. The wrangle was a long one, but the argument of the fist eventually brought it to a close, and Maggie was obliged again to shut herself into her room. Thence Grace's solicitations could not move her, and she remained there until she saw her father coming up the drive; then she ran down to meet him, and made a frank accusation of Sally's treatment of her. But he was enthralled by his own woes, and without even promising her protection and immunity, at least from her sister's right arm, the old gentleman launched forth into more than usual lamentations.
He had had a stormy interview with Berkins going up in the train, and Berkins had so upset him that he had not been able to get through any business in the City. Berkins admitted of no equivocation. He had told him that he would not allow the young lady that was going to be his wife to spend her days feasting and skylarking with a lot of vulgar and penniless young men from the Southdown Road. He had declared that it was time to settle definitely the terms and the day of the marriage. He had been engaged now more than two months, and was prepared to do his share; Mr. Brookes must be prepared to do his, viz., to settle four hundred a year on his daughter.