The Daughter Pays - Mrs. Baillie Reynolds

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other news—the most extraordinary thing—the most unlikely coincidence—that you ever heard! Do you want me to tell you about it, or are you too ill to pay any attention?"

      Virgie made an effort and sat up. "I'm so sorry, mother. It was very sudden, you know, and it is all so horrible—like falling over a precipice. I felt as if I could not grasp it. I am better now."

      She slipped off the bed and tottered to the window, leaning out into the air. "Please tell me—everything," she begged.

      Mrs. Mynors leaned forward, and a little, mischievous smile showed her dimple, as she said, playing nervously with the articles in her manicure set: "Did you ever hear me speak of the man I was once engaged to—the man I jilted to marry your father—Mr. Gaunt?"

      "I believe I have," replied Virginia, knitting her brows.

      "It was a tiresome affair," went on the lady, with a sigh. "He was very young and impetuous; perhaps that is putting it too mildly; he had a shocking temper, and he didn't take his jilting at all peaceably. I know I was in fault, but what is a girl to do? He was a mere boy. When I promised to marry him I had never seen your father; and you know, Virgie darling, how irresistible he was."

      "Yes. I know," said Virginia, telling herself that, after all, her mother must have loved the dead man better than had appeared. Yet why, if she loved him so much, had there always been so many others? Virginia recalled the familiar figures—Colonel Duke, and Major Gibson, the M.F.H., and Sir Edmund Hobbs. Certainly, for the last two years of his life Bernard Mynors had been unable to escort his wife himself. If she hunted, it must be with others. It had, in fact, been with others.

      The dainty lips curved into a yet broader smile. "Poor Gaunt! It seems that he has never married," went on the musical voice. "He was too madly in love, I suppose, for any transfer of his affections to be possible. But the point of it all is this. I have this morning heard that it is he who holds the mortgage on our property. Lissendean belongs to him!"

      Virginia's big, woful eyes opened very wide.

      "I heard this morning from the lawyers that he is in London for a week or two, and wants to get the business finished off. I have made my little plan. I mean to go up to town and see him, Virgie."

      The words brought Virginia to her feet. "To go and see him?"

      "Yes. I must, for my children's sake, make an appeal to his kindness of heart. The pain I caused him must long ago have been forgotten, and if I can only procure an interview with him, I feel very little doubt of being able to persuade him to allow us more time."

      Virginia considered. "Do you think he will see you? It might be very painful for him. Have you heard nothing of him since your marriage?"

      "Nothing. He lives in the country now, it seems. He must have inherited the place that belonged to his old great-aunts. He always used to tell me that there was not much chance of his coming into it. He was a fine fellow in his way, only difficult—so jealous, for one thing. However, it would be most interesting to meet him. I wonder"—coquettishly—"if he will know me again. I don't fancy that I have changed much."

      "Very little, I should think," said Virgie; "the miniature that father had done of you the first year you were married is still just like you."

      Mrs. Mynors smiled brightly. She was beginning to recover her good humour. "Unless he has altered strangely, he will not be cruel to the widow and the fatherless," she murmured pensively. "Cheer up, Virgie, all is not yet lost. Try to be a little hopeful, dear child."

      Virginia sat, twisting her hands together, turning the matter over in her mind. Her mother's creditor was her mother's old lover. Her mother was going to seize this fact, and make the most of it. Something in Virginia revolted from the idea; but she could not urge her objections. She fixed her purple-grey eyes upon the gay face in the mirror. It might have been that of a woman without a care. Every instinct in her mother was kindled at the idea of once more encountering, and most probably conquering, what had been hers once, and would turn to her again.

      A step-father! That was an idea to make one wince. With all the ingrained fidelity of her simple nature, the girl hated the thought. Yet, after all, what was the alternative?

      She felt that the family fortunes had passed beyond her own power to adjust or alter. As long as a foothold of dry ground remained she had, as it were, protected these dear ones from the raging flood. Now that the tide had swept them away, and they were all tossing on the waters, could she object to her mother's seizing a rope—any rope—that might be flung to them?

      "I suppose he knows," she said, after a long pause, "he knows that it is you?"

      "I suppose so. These coincidences are very curious. I have never seen him, never even heard of him, since our rupture." She reflected, her chin on her hand. "Strange that he should have inherited money," she observed. "He was not at all well off when I knew him, though he was very ambitious. He wrote—essays and so on for the Press. He was certainly clever. Twenty-two years since I last saw him! How strange it seems! I used to be afraid at first that he might try to kill me or your father. He was so violent. At our wedding we had special police arrangements. But nothing happened. Nothing at all." She spoke as if the fact were slightly disappointing.

      "It is a chance," sighed out Virginia at length. "If you can bear it, mother—if it is not asking too much of you to go and beg a favour from a man you once treated badly, then I think you had better try."

      Mrs. Mynors' mouth drooped at the corners, and her face took on the sweetest look of resignation. "Virgie, dearest, you can fancy—you can understand something of what it will cost me. But for my children's sakes I must put my own feelings aside. I must go and see what I can do. Let me see! Where—how could I meet him? A solicitor's office does not lend itself. Oh, Virgie, I have it! What a comfort, what a piece of good luck, that I became a life-member of the 'Sportswoman' three years ago! I will ask him to meet me there! I will write a note, to be given to him direct; and I don't think he will refuse. If he does, I will just go to London and take him by storm. I vow I'll see him somehow! Leave it to me, Virgie! You shall see what I can do. When my children's bread is at stake, no effort shall be too great, no sacrifice too difficult."

      *****

      Later on, when Virginia had done her hair to perfection, and gone away to do the house-work, Mrs. Mynors took a chair, mounted it, and unlocked a small drawer at the top of her tall-boy. There were several bundles of letters and papers in the drawer, and a small jewel-case containing a ring. She searched among the papers for one loose envelope, addressed in a forcible, small but not cramped handwriting.

      She sat down, with this letter and the ring-box upon her knee, and read:

      You make a mistake. It is not the transfer of your affections from myself to Mynors of which I complain, for this has not taken place. What has happened is simply that you have bartered yourself for his money and position. If I had been cursed with a few hundreds a year more than he has, you would not have forsaken me. You never loved me; but for a whole year you have succeeded in deceiving me—in making me believe that you did. This is the thing I find unpardonable. Men have killed women for such treachery as yours. Were I to kill you, it would save poor Mynors a good many years of misery. But the code of civilised morals forbids so satisfactory a solution. You must live, and destroy his illusions one by one. I ought to thank you for my freedom, but that I cannot do, being human. As a man in worse plight than mine once said: "My love hath wrought into my life so far that my doom is, I love thee still." There lies the humiliation and the sting.

      The woman's lips curved into a smile of foreseen triumph. The insult of the first part of the letter was nothing to her. There was his written confession. In spite of her betrayal, he loved her still.

      After the lapse of all these years the lava-torrent of his boyish fury had no doubt cooled. The love might well remain.

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