THE OLD LOVE
"Now hate rules a heart which in love's easy chains
Once passion's tumultuous blandishments knew;
Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins,
He ponders in frenzy o'er love's last adieu."—Byron.
A week later Mrs. Mynors stood before her mirror at a much earlier hour than was her wont. She was arranging her veil with a hand that shook, and eyes full of a curious mixture of anxiety and triumph. The anxiety was because she was bound upon an errand of enormous strategic importance; the triumph because her imagination ran on ahead and pictured things that she would have blushed to own.
Her old lover had assented to her proposal for a meeting. He was to be this morning at twelve o'clock at the Sportswoman—that smartest and most go-ahead of county ladies' clubs in London.
Virginia stood near. She held in her hand a dainty handbag, embroidered in steel beads and lined with pale violet. Into this she was putting a purse, a powder-puff, a wisp of old lace that was supposed to be a handkerchief, and so on. The aroma of the expensive perfume was over everything.
Mrs. Mynors' costume was a subtle scheme of faint half-mourning. It was most becoming.
"What time do you think you shall be back?" asked Virginia.
"My child, how can I say? You must expect me when you see me. It depends so much upon what I accomplish. If Osbert Gaunt proves disagreeable, I must just get a bit of lunch at the club and come straight home. If he is hospitably inclined, why, you see, it might be later."
"I only wanted to know how much money you are likely to spend."
"Don't trouble about that, dear one. I have plenty of money for my modest needs."
She stepped back, surveyed the general effect of her appearance, and sighed a little. Then, opening one of the small jewel drawers in her toilet table, she took out a ring-case, extracted the ring it contained, and slipped it upon her finger. It was a large tourmalin, set in small brilliants—a lovely blue, like the eyes of its wearer.
"What a pretty ring! I never saw it before," said Virginia, with interest. She loved pretty things. That trait she had inherited from her mother.
"His engagement ring," said the widow pensively. "He would not take it back. He said it would bring a curse upon any woman who wore it. He shall see that I have kept it."
Virginia's heart surged up within her until she almost broke into weeping. Her own mother, the widow of Bernard Mynors, the widow of the most-beloved, the dearest, the best, the handsomest—she was setting out gaily to fascinate an old lover, wearing on her finger the ring he had bestowed in the days when she had never seen her husband.
"How she can!" thought Virgie to herself. Her mother was a continual puzzle to her. In her intense simplicity the girl took her usually at her own value. She believed devoutly that it was at great personal cost that Mrs. Mynors was going to town that day. She judged her feelings by her own. And yet, and yet——
The sound of wheels on the road outside caused her to look from the window. "Why, here is an empty fly stopping at the door," said she in a tone of surprise.
"I ordered it, Virgie," replied her mother, a little embarrassed. "I have so little strength, especially of a morning, I felt that, on an errand like this, I should want all my force, all my coolness. This heat is so unnerving."
She smiled deprecatingly. "My poor little fly is the sprat to catch a whale," she laughed. Then impetuously she flung her arms about her daughter's neck. "Wish me luck! Oh, wish me luck!" she cried.
Virginia's warm heart leapt at the cry. She embraced her mother with all the fervour she dare employ without crushing the delicate toilette. They went downstairs together, the lady stepped into the shabby fly with a look of disdainful fortitude, her sunshade was given her, and with a wave of the hand to the girl at the gate she started off upon her great mission. Virgie went slowly into the kitchen, sat down wearily, and poured out her tepid tea. After eating and drinking a few mouthfuls listlessly, she roused herself to prepare fresh tea for Pansy and to carry her breakfast upstairs.
"Good morning, precious! How have you slept?" she cried cheerily, as she set down the tray, drew up the blind, and came to the bedside. Pansy lay there smiling, perfectly flat on her back, with Ermyntrude, the new doll, at her side.
"Slept booful. Not one pain all night. But I'm fearfully hungry, Virgie!"
"I don't wonder; I am dreadfully late! I had to get mother off, you see. She has just started," replied Virginia, trying to keep the sorrow out of her trembling voice. She stooped, touched a handle below the bed, and with incredible care and delicacy wound the little cripple up into a posture just enough tilted to enable her to feed herself.
"Gone to see a gentleman she used to know before she knew dad," remarked Pansy, pondering. "He'll think she's every bit as pretty as she was then. Don't you think so?"
"Yes, I am sure he must think so."
"Oh, Virgie!"—after a long pause—"suppose he was to ask her again?"
Her sister winced as this dark idea was thus frankly expressed in words. She had, however, been more or less prepared for it.
"I don't think it very likely, Pansy," she replied slowly, "but if he did, and if mother thought it was her duty to say 'Yes,' we must not make it hard for her."
"How could it be her duty to say 'Yes'?" demanded Pansy argumentatively. "She loved dad, and it would be beastly to have a step-father."
"It would be beastlier still not have enough to eat," was the thought in Virgie's heart. She did not express it, however. The child knew nothing of the terrible state of things, and must not know unless it was inevitable. "We'll hope for the best, darling. He may not ask her," she softly told the child. "And now eat your breakfast, while I go and clear away downstairs."
*****
From Euston one must positively take a taxi in order to arrive at Dover Street. Mrs. Mynors instructed the driver to throw back the hood; and reclined, her sunshade between her delicate face and the June sun, enjoying a few minutes of the kind of pleasure in which she revelled.
Ah! the joy of it. The gay streets, the well-dressed crowds, the enticing shops, the loaded flower-baskets, at the street corners, the window-boxes in the tall houses, the flashing cars, the bustle and movement of London in the season. Here, she felt, was her native element. To this she belonged—she whom a cruel fate had treated so ill as to cause the whole structure of her pleasure to crumble to nothing at the very time of life when a woman begins to feel that she needs comforts and luxury.
For forty years she had enjoyed that empire which any beautiful woman may enjoy if she chooses. Her beauty had prevented every one who came near her from realising the truth about her. Had you told her that she was a monster of selfishness, that she had never loved anybody but herself, that she had jilted a poor man to marry a rich one, and that she had loved neither the one nor the other, she would simply have wondered how your mind could have become so warped as to cause you to utter such slanders.
Now that she had the twofold weapons of beauty and misfortune, surely none could resist.
Not for long years had her heart so throbbed, her blood run so swiftly, as this morning, as the taxi turned out of Bond Street, slid along Grafton Street into Dover Street, and stopped at the doors of the club.
Since her husband's death she had never entered it. Now she wondered how she had kept away so long, and admired with fervour her own Spartan heroism. How meekly she had bowed under undeserved adversity!
She strolled into the dressing-room, put down her sun-shade, and contemplated herself in a mirror. The things she had seen in the shops that morning, and the costumes in the streets, had put her somewhat out of conceit of her own appearance. The mirror, however, restored all her self-confidence. She was looking lovely, with a bloom in her cheeks that the fagged-looking London women could not hope to emulate.
She used her powder with judgment and restraint, adjusted her veil, and went out into the hall.
"I am going into the chintz parlour," said she to the page-boy, "and I am expecting a gentleman by appointment. Bring him to me there—Mrs. Mynors."
She went upstairs, outwardly quite tranquil, though inwardly she was shaken with a storm of excitement which she could not wholly understand. In old days she had feared Osbert Gaunt. She remembered that, though she did not own it to herself. Devoted slave as he had been, she had had perhaps some faint instinctive premonition that he was in reality her master. He had been subject to bursts of passion, to fits of sullen rage. It had been exciting, but exhausting, to be loved by him.
All that was twenty years ago. What was he now?
She surveyed the pretty little parlour, furnished in a clever imitation of the Georgian era. From among the chairs she selected two. Then, changing her mind, she chose a small couch, with room for two to sit upon it. She brought forward a little table, put some magazines upon it, opened one and became so absorbed in the sketch of a Paris gown which it contained that she started annoyingly at the voice of the page-boy announcing her visitor.
Osbert Gaunt walked in. Her first thought was that, changed though he was, she should have known him anywhere. Certainly his was a personality not easy to forget. He was dark complexioned by nature, and, as he lived in the open air, he was also much tanned. His coal-black hair was slightly softened with grey at the temples, but his moustache was raven black, and it altered his appearance to something curiously unlike her memory of the keen young boyish face. He walked with the limp which she remembered well, and as they shook hands his glance swept over her from head to foot, appraising and, as it seemed, condemning, for his lip curled into a sneer.
He was perfectly self-possessed. The lady was genuinely agitated.
"I trust that I am punctual to your appointment, madam," he said drily.
They were alone in the room. She noticed that with thankfulness, even while she realised how entirely the man had the advantage over her. To her, this interview meant everything. To him, apparently, very little. She was so much affected that she sat down at once, making a little appealing movement with her hand that he should sit beside her, as she murmured: "Oh, Osbert, you are good to come ... and you are so little changed."
He replied, with indifference that amounted to discourtesy: "I came to suit my own convenience; and I have changed completely."
With this preliminary amenity he looked around, chose a chair, brought it forward, and sat down facing her. His rudeness was so disconcerting that she forgot her part, and spoke confusedly:
"Oh no, indeed, you have not changed; you always used to contradict. That was part of your temperament."
"Pardon me, I am not here to discuss my temperament. I have come on business."
She made a little deprecating sound, as though he had hurt her. "Oh, Osbert, this is dreadful! Dreadful! If I had expected this, I would not have appealed to you. How could I dream that you would have remained unforgiving all these years?"
She drew out the tiny handkerchief, redolent of lily of the valley. In old days a tear from her had driven him mad.
"You surprise me," was his answer. "I understood that you desired to discuss a mortgage. If you will allow me to say so, I must confess that any allusion from you to our past relations seems to me to be in the worst of taste."
"Osbert! Oh, Osbert! That you can speak so to me! It is useless—quite useless to go farther. Had I been rich and prosperous, I could understand your desire to taunt me.... I never could have believed that you would stoop to it when you know quite well the straits to which we are reduced—that I and mine are starving!"
Again his look swept over her, as if mocking at her general aspect of subdued luxury.
"Madam, it seems to me that the unfortunate tradesmen whom you employ are more likely to starve than you are," he said emphatically. "But, as regards your financial position, that is, I suppose, part of the subject which we are here to discuss. I gather that my foreclosing of this mortgage embarrasses you seriously?"
She kept her face turned from him, allowing one crystal tear to lie undried upon her soft cheek, as she answered in low, grief-broken tones:
"We were almost beggars before. This is the final straw."
He took the chance she gave him to look full at her. Her aspect of humiliation and discouragement seemed to please him.
"Good!" said he. "Then we come to something definite. What do you suggest that I should do in this matter? I am a little puzzled, because you cannot, I think, have supposed that I should be likely to strain any point in your favour—rather perhaps the reverse. Eh?"
She paused, as it were for breath. What could she do? She had thought of him in many ways, but had foreseen nothing like this. Even her impervious vanity was forced to the conclusion that the sight of her in her scarcely impaired beauty moved him no more than if she had been a hairdresser's block. Not even the ashes of passion remained. He was pleased that she should be humiliated. He liked to have her at his feet. Oh, why had she not guessed that a nature like his—warped, distorted, embittered—would rejoice at seeing the woman who had injured him brought low? His foot was on her neck! She felt inclined to spring up and rush from the room—or to snatch his hands and make some wild appeal! Why, this was the man who had trembled at her touch—who had thrashed the son of a peer for saying that she was a flirt! This was the man who had been made happy with a smile, desperate with a frown. Yet now....
In fierce longing to bring him once more into subjection, she stifled down her resentment, resisted her impulse to give way. As his insulting words stung her, she winced, like one enduring an unworthy blow.
"I made a mistake," said she in low tones. "I must own it. I actually did, as you suggest, hope that you would strain a point in my favour. All that I remember of you is noble. I fancied that the fact—which I admit—that I once injured you, so far from being against me, would constrain you the more to serve me, if you could."
"Indeed! So that was what you thought! It was rather clever of you, but not quite clever enough. I have to own that I don't at all consider that your having successfully hoodwinked me twenty years ago gives you a right to do it again. But let that pass. It is the mortgage which we must keep in mind. I think it not impossible that we may come to terms, that I may be able to afford you some relief—on conditions"—he held up his hand hastily as she turned impulsively on her seat—"on conditions, I say—you had better wait to hear me."
For the first time she let her eyes meet his. The cruelty, the ironic sense of mastery conveyed to her from beneath those half-shut lids, made her shudder involuntarily. So might an Inquisitor survey the victim brought bound into his presence. Still she kept up the pose—the only one that occurred to her scared wits—the pose of relying upon his nobility.
"I knew—I knew you could not mean to be merciless," she faltered.
"Don't go too fast," he replied coldly. "There is much to consider before thanks can appropriately be offered. In the first place, a few questions are necessary. To begin. Have you a daughter bearing a remarkable resemblance to yourself? And was she in London a week or two ago with some friends who have a motor-car—a young man and a young woman?"
Mrs. Mynors sat a moment speechless, considering this new turn of the incredible conversation. "Yes," she faltered at last, "that is quite true. Virginia was in town with our friends, the Rosenbergs."
His lip curled. "Virginia! You named her after yourself!"
"It was my husband's wish," she stammered. "She is the dearest, the best girl in the world!"
"Madam"—with mock reverence—"that is an unnecessary statement; she is your daughter—and she is, I feel sure, in all respects worthy of you. I saw her in a picture-gallery not long ago. Interested by the astonishing likeness, I took pains to overhear some of her conversation. The second Virginia is a replica of the first—which is saying a great deal. You are attached to her, madam."
"Attached to her? Attached to my darling daughter? Are you mad, Osbert?"
"I don't think so. I am still a bachelor, you know, and the proposal which I put before you is this: If your daughter will undertake the position which her mother declined, we will cry quits, you and I."
She had almost screamed in the extremity of her surprise and mortification. Had he struck her with a horsewhip she could not have felt more outraged. Fury, resentment, a wild, combative resistance which she could not recognise as jealousy, deprived her for a while of speech. She was choking, inarticulate with the force of blind feeling which shook her as a tempest shakes a tree.
"You are atrocious!" she ejaculated at last. "Simply atrocious! What can you mean? Virgie won't have you."
"In that case there will be no need of further discussion," was his answer. "In your place, I think I should at least place the offer before her. Should she accept it, I will make you an allowance of three hundred pounds a year for life, besides undertaking the cost of your son's education. Are there other children?"
She was staring at him as one may gaze, fascinated, upon a cobra about to strike. "One other," she hurriedly replied. "A little girl—she is lame."
"Ha!" A dull flush rose to his face. "Cripples seem to haunt your footsteps. Well—in the event of the acceptance of my offer, it shall be my care to see that she has the proper treatment and the best advice."
"Good gracious me!" slowly said the bewildered woman. "Am I dreaming? Osbert, you must be mad!"
"Madam, I think you will find that I am considered remarkably sane by most people. Anyway, you have my offer—make what you can of it. I will put it in writing, if you like. Your daughter won't find many husbands who would be willing to marry and provide for the entire family. Yet, you see, such is my devotion, that I am ready to do even this for her charming sake."
"Devotion? You have no devotion!" she cried wildly. "You are taking advantage of my helplessness to torture me! You would torture Virgie! How can you feel any devotion for a girl you have only set eyes upon once?"
"Well, we will say it is not devotion that inspires me, but a desire to get a bit of my own back," said he, with a most unpleasant smile. "She will be the Andromeda, sacrificed for the rest of you—offered to the Beast—myself. You flinched from such a fate. If she now undertakes to brave it, will not that be poetic justice?"
Mrs. Mynors swallowed once or twice, blinked, tried to visualise the impression this speech gave. Since his entrance, nothing that Gaunt said had sounded real. There had been a sarcasm, a jeering cadence; he had been playing with her all the time. But these words had a different ring. He was in earnest. It seemed as if the last sentence revealed to her something of his inner state of mind. It was like coming, in the dusk, upon the sudden mouth of a black pit. She had said, "You would torture Virginia!" and something in his reply suggested that her random words were true.
She sat staring, confronting the set mask of his face. The old fear of him came back, after twenty years, racing up across the vistas of memory as the Brittany tide races over the St. Malo sands. In this man there was something perverted, something evil, something with which she must hold no traffic, make no bargain. She knew that she ought to end this preposterous interview; to speak a few dignified reproachful words and leave the tempter and his monstrous proposal.
"Virginia," she managed at last to say, "shall never even know of your horrible suggestion."
He took his watch from his pocket, glanced at it, replaced it, and spoke.
"Then you reject this offer unconditionally?"
"As you foresaw that I should!" she cried, with a burst of tears hastily choked back.
"Oh, pardon me, I foresaw nothing of the kind. You forget that in old times I knew you rather well; and I never thought you a fool."
"But you are impossible—outrageous!" she expostulated. "Why should you want to marry Virginia?"
"I am old enough to know my own mind, I suppose. My reasons—pardon me—are not your concern. My terms are before you, and I am somewhat pressed for time. If you refuse tout court, there is nothing further to be said. I will take my leave. But it seems to me that you might submit the case to the judgment of Miss Mynors. Tell her that I have an estate in Derbyshire, and can settle five thousand pounds upon her, in addition to what I propose doing for her family. If she has anything like her mother's eye to the main chance, she will think twice before turning me down."
Part of the rage which surged in the woman's heart as she glared at him was sheer jealousy—jealousy of her young, fresh daughter. They had met, those two. He had seen Virginia in a picture-gallery. He, a man of past forty, wanted to marry this girl of twenty! Oh, what a fool! What a fool! When she, the suitable age, the suitable partner, the old, lost love in almost all her old charm, sat there before him!
"Osbert," she murmured faintly, "don't jeer at me! For pity's sake be yourself, your old self, for five minutes! Tell me the meaning of this unkind jest."
"Once more, madam, let me assure you that I am in earnest. I mean what I say. I am aware that my proposal does sound quixotic; but I will have it all legally embodied and made certain. If Miss Mynors will marry me, I will do for you what I have said. If she will not, then I regret to be unable to offer you any assistance."
He took up his hat and rose. "May I know whether you will undertake to convey my offer to your daughter?" he asked. "If you decline, I leave London to-day. I farm my own land, and we are busy at Omberleigh just now. If you decide to tell her, I will await the first post here in London the day after to-morrow; and, in the event of her being favourably inclined, I shall come down to Wayhurst that afternoon."
Mrs. Mynors clenched her small, ineffectual fists. There he stood, pitiless. Her presence meant nothing to him. It left him utterly unmoved. How he had changed from the days of his emotional youth!
He was master of the situation. If she arose in her offended majesty, marched off and left him—to what must she return? To absolute pauperism. She had no relatives of her own, and her husband's few distant cousins had been far more frequently appealed to than her daughter knew, and were tired of helping. By promising to let Virginia know his terms, she committed herself to nothing. If there had been an alternative.... But there really was not!
She, too, rose. "I—I suppose I must tell Virginia," she said sullenly; "but I shall forbid her to accept your preposterous suggestion."
"Oh, no, you won't," he replied, again with that odious smile. "Too much hangs upon it for you. We part, then, with at least a sporting chance of meeting again. I hope I shall prove a dutiful son-in-law. Good morning."
He bowed, seeming not to notice her appealing hands, outstretched in one last attempt to pierce his armour.
He was gone. Thus ended her mission—the last throw of the dice, upon which she had staked so much!
Nothing now between her and beggary but the remains of the cheque for twenty pounds, sent to her by Mr. Rosenberg.